excoriate

So, I am still alive. If you want to call it that. College is a wonderful thing, but I often feel like there's not time to construct a life: instead, it's a feeling rather like when you trip, and begin to fall headlong-- if you run, you might keep your feet just a little longer, but that pavement is gonna meet your face in quite a serious way, and there's not a lot you can do about it. Instead, life is little snatched moments between the string of things pressing for attention... this morning, sitting in a tiny patch of wood and smelling burning pine-needles, for instance.

Things left to do this evening: study for a test, clean my room, do some laundry, do rather a lot of dishes, call home, update the listserve and maybe even write a case study and work on a paper (I really should).

My education will be the death of me, truly.

Hey guys,

The Students for a Democratic Society chapter here at Austin Peay is trying to find some rides and/or a place to stay in Washington, DC Oct. 18-21, as we protest IMF and the World Bank (http://octoberrebellion.org/). There won't be more than five of us and probably only two (my own fine self and a friend).

If you know anyone who is going to this protest, would be willing to put us up for a night or two, OR if you are Quaker and have the contact information for any of the local Meeting Houses and/or members of such, would you please drop me a line at ekurtz14@apsu.edu

ESPECIALLY Nashville people-- we would love to carpool if anyone from ze Nashville meeting is going to this.

We really want to go to this. Come on, Quaker network, work me some magic baby!

Back at school, finally. It's funny how much I wanted to be here during the summer, and now that I am here, I barely think about it. I guess I'm just too adaptable to really be grateful. In some respects, once I return to a place or condition, I never left it at all. My classes are interesting and I am already very busy, but not unpleasantly so.

Do you ever have one of those times when it is totally, utterly obscure to you what you really want? I'm having that right now. My own wishes and desires are, at the moment, completely inconstant and alien to me. I don't know anything about what I want with people, or my studies (besides a general desire to learn), or anything else, and everywhere I turn this deep-rooted, subtle feeling of grief. There seems to be a turning point approaching, a big one, one that covers most aspects of my life, and I don't know whether to hold on or let go. Some clarity would be nice, but I'm fairly sure that's not going to happen any time soon. These are not decisions that must or should be made quickly, but the inevitability is in many ways worse.

Until then, I'll try to stay informed, to feed my head and heart, and "hold the tension of two ideas".

I wuz tagged!

The way it works: comment and I'll assign you a random letter. Then, go post your favorite ten songs that begin with that letter. Then tell me why you like them In my case, the letter was "t", and these aren't so much my all-time favorites that begin with "t" so much as they are the first ten that popped into my head.

1. "Thank You (Fer Lettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", Sly and the Family Stone
So funky, it hurts. Additional bonus for funny/nonsensical title.

2. "The Big Sky", Kate Bush
Something about this song instantly cheers me up. It's incredibly pleasant and charming, like watching cloud shapes twist and change.

3. "Train in Vain (Stand by Your Man)", The Clash
London Calling is probably my favorite album of all time, and this is a great note to end it on-- catchy, not overly serious, they sound like they got together and decided to bitch about wimmin whilst having a good time.

4. "Tainted Love", Soft Cell
YEAH CATCHY NEW WAVE FUTURIST POP, BABY. I think my ideal job would be something along the lines of being the keyboardist in a "Tainted Love"-only cover band, just so I could keep playing that cool little organ riff indefinitely.

5. "The Boy with the Arab Strap", Belle and Sebastian
<3.

6. "The Tower of Song"/"The Guests", Leonard Cohen
Couldn't choose between these two. Cohen is great because he is like the best story you've ever heard only wrapped up in a pretty musical package. Sometimes he doesn't make a lot of sense, but my God, does he make sense. If that makes sense.

7. "The Dreaming", Kate Bush
Two Kate Bushes, I know. This one is like the prototypical Kate Bush song-- multi-layered, dark, weird, and will probably make you trip if you listen to it for long enough.

8. "Time", Pink Floyd
Not only is this a fabulous song, but I have very good associations to go along with it, because it used to be our alarm clock back in my high-school youth group.

9. "Two-Headed Boy", Neutral Milk Hotel
Go ye forth and listen to this, right now.

10. "Truce", The Dresden Dolls
I think this is the most unabashedly vicious song I've ever heard. It's... it's.... If someone wrote this about me I think I would drive off a cliff. It's a damning indictment of everything that can go wrong in a relationship, on both sides.

Metro Pulse: "Make no mistake, Knoxville's own 1220 are the real deal, mean and hungry young New Avatars of bad-boy hedonism who come on with all of the cocksure authority and leering, reckless abandon of a young Mötley Crue. These kids have more true rawk spirit in the pinky fingers of their fretting hands than Hinder and Nickelback and any other five pretty-boy X-treme radio cock rock dingbats you'd care to name off the top of your head. Hear for yourself when 1220 appear with Nashville's H-Beam at the Corner Lounge on Friday, Aug. 10 at 9 p.m..."

That's my brother, bitches! *beams*

So, here are the contents of my MP3 player for my road trip (squee!) to Clarksville tomorrow:

Regina Spektor- Begin to Hope
The Monks- Black Monk Time
The Cure- Pornography
Elliott Smith- From a Basement on the Hill
Miles Davis- Kind of Blue
David Bowie- Pinups
Neutral Milk Hotel- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Sly and the Family Stone- There's a Riot Goin' On
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead- So Divided
Aberdeen City- The Freezing Atlantic
Nine Inch Nails- Pretty Hate Machine
The Silver Jews- The Natural Bridge
Electric Six- Switzerland

Awesome? Awesome. The only thing I didn't have room for was Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak", but it copied to my hard drive as .ogg files for some bizarre reason anyway.

Also, I got a haircut. The glasses are reading glasses only, but I don't even care, because rhinestones.

Occasionally, I get this strange urge to blog. It's not terribly often, but once every few weeks, usually after I've been reading someone else's and have been struck by how interesting and glamorous it makes them sound, a little switch will flick in my head and I'll go, "Hey, I want to do that too!" Unfortunately these urges come most often at times when nothing very much has been happening to me, thereby rendering them useless and my dreams of making myself out to be a fascinating person with a full and busy life impossible. I think the appeal of blogging is also the appeal of everyday life: I never really stop and think about how everyday occurrences like that bowl I broke tripping over the cat or whatever are worth considering until I read about someone else doing something similar. It's a modern Brief Lives, with less aldermen.

At some point last week I went out and saw Paris, je t'aime, a collection of eighteen five-minute shorts, each done by a different director and actors, and each concerned with a different neighborhood of Paris. Each short was remarkably different; some of them were only so-so, and some of them were excellent. There were a few usages of unreliable narrative that I liked quite well, especially in "Faubourg Saint-Denis". Then last night I finally got around to watching Howl's Moving Castle, which... well. Studio Ghibli and Diana Wynne Jones, so how could they go wrong? It was charming and, naturally, absolutely gorgeous. I am now determined to read the book, because any novel with a hero who pitches hissyfits over his hair is one that I will adore. Tonight I rewatched Blade Runner with my parents: my mom loathed (but respected) it; my father was ambivalent; and I, as always, loved it. The scenery and mood was such a trend-setter for nearly all sci-fi after: some of the shots look like they could be lifted directly from Firefly. And, of course, it's the perfect English major movie: the end scene with the white dove; the chess game based on the Immortal Game; the Blake and Biblical quotations.

I'm currently reading A.S. Byatt's Possession. I'm not very far in, but thus far I'm not entirely convinced... has anyone else read this? Did you like it? It's reminding me a good deal of John Fowles' The Magus, which I never finished (gasp!), simply because he played games with the characters and the reader for too damn long. I like mysteries, but only ones that make sense. (After formulating this thought, I perused the reviews, and The French Lieutenant's Woman is mentioned, so clearly I'm not the only one thinking Fowles.) Which is also my complaint against Umberto Eco. Die, Eco and your smarmy intellectual superiority and characters who cannot possibly be that intelligent, die! Dunnett could take you in a cage-match any day.

Strolled downtown with my brother and Pasquale on Wednesday to hit up the Downtown Grill and Brewery and hear a local bluegrass band, Medford's Black Record Collection, then went The Squirrel Nut Zippers Sunday night. They were, of course, fabulous, but Katharine Whalen really, really looked like she didn't want to be there, so that took the edge off it a bit. I'm firmly convinced that concerts are only as fun for the audience as they are for the performer. Still worth that $20 bucks, though, especially since The Old Ceremony opened. Also, t-shirt! And then my brother's band, 1220, opened for Zoso at Blue Cat's Friday night... and, in my opinion, blew Zoso off the stage, in large part (again) because Zoso did not appear to be enjoying themselves at all. Egads, people, if you don't want to be there get off the stage, I'm sure others would like a go.

Speaking of intellectual snobbery, I've been listening to Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, and it is weird and wonderful-- a sort of operatic, male Kate Bush, as far as I can tell. doctor_seward, you would like this.

And now, off to do other, mundane things, which are probably not worth blogging about unless they go spectacularly wrong ("How I Almost Died Whilst Brushing the Dog and Other Dangers of Household Life" would be a good title for that entry). I live in hope of my life suddenly discovering new and untapped wells of intrigue and interest and other words that begin with "i" (like "inebriation" or "indecency"... that would be nice), but at the moment I will have to content myself with indolence.

I am full of "d"s today: depressed, discouraged and disconnected. I feel a bit like I'm retreating into myself, and also as though that's where I need to be, so it's not necessarily a bad thing, but right now I want to be intensely private and I just wish people would stop poking at me. Things are how they are and that's how it is. There doesn't always need to be a reason for it. Quit trying to butt in and make me analyze myself, world. I'm not interested. I don't about the why, I'm all how. It is of course tremendously hypocritical of me to declare a need for privacy in such a public form, but sometimes I think humanity is defined by its hypocrisies.

On the plus side, I took a lovely swim and saw part of Airplane (hilarious) today, Le Peuple De L'herbe's record, Cube, is amazing on a blue summer day, and I am in the perfect mood for curling up with some Kate Bush and a book. So I am going to knock back the last of this tasty beer and then that's what I'm going to do. Disturb at your own peril.

It has been a day of cleaning and watching Torchwood and taking care of business. I love days off-- I like to be productive, honestly I do, but I like to do it on my own time and on my own schedule and with a giant glass of tea beside me. Also, with Soft Cell's "Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret" blaring from the speakers (buy it, people, it's a fantastic record, bizarre and sleazy and, in some odd way, incisively critical of many aspects of modern life.)

I cut my hair. It's short now-- so short, in fact, that I can fauxhawk it, which is the best thing ever. I plan on attending many important events this upcoming year with a fauxhawk. Also a pompadour. It looks good, but it's weird to have it short for the first time since I was about four and Mom gave me that godawful accidental Rod Stewart cut (no, there are no pictures, thank Christ.) I am getting my ears repierced, too. I miss earrings. Did I mention the part about the fauxhawk?

And now, off to file my FAFSA, do some laundry, see about that $100 I put in a bank account six years ago and then forgot about, and generally feel pleased and accomplished. That's plan, anyway. In reality my Ultimate Collector's Edition Doom torrent will probably finish, and I will spend the rest of the day screaming wildly and shooting bad pixelated monsters. Ah well. That's cool too.

Back home again, after finals, which were surprisingly unstressful, and a week in South Carolina, which was even less stressful than finals. I can't believe my 19th birthday fast approaches... where did that year go? I realize it's just sort of a random number, but it seems momentous, somehow. I'd better hurry up and get away with as much as I can while I'm still a teenager. Once the big 2-0 hits I won't have an excuse anymore. Hey, at least I dyed my hair-- it's a shade darker now, with the most gorgeous burgundy and chestnut streaks in it. (misfit_artist is a great amateur stylist, y'all.)

Right now I am utterly in love with the Aberdeen City song, "God is Going to Get Sick of Me". Like, putting-it-on-repeat-in-love, which I haven't done with a song for some time, but the lyrics are clever and the beat is good. Things to do today: finish unpacking (no, really this time... I've been saying that for the better part of a week), fix my internet connection (does anyone know why it might be giving me a "limited or no connectivity"?), and go out to dinner with my big sis and nephew.

I've been reflecting on what I've returned with from college. The first and foremost seems to be an even more ridiculously hardcore music addiction, which is far from a bad thing, and the second is a dangerous, romantic affair with coffee.

If someone wants to buy me one of these for my birthday, that's be cool, too.

Today was the last day of class. I'm sort of glad... I'll miss my friends, but I'm ready to take a break from school and being around people all the time. I miss books. I thought I'd have more spare time once the one-acts were finished, but it seems destined not to be. I'm pretty sure I punched my Spanish final in the face today. Almost forgot an astronomy assignment at the last minute, but remembered in time to print it off and sprint to the library for a stapler. Turned it in to my slightly bemused professor; apparently I was one of the few who got it in on time.

Classes for next semester include: Leadership Development; Ethics and Leadership; Introduction to Mass Communications; Spanish 2010- Intermediate I; Art 1010- Two-Dimensional Design; American History I (Honors), and piano lessons. Should be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Hung out with a bunch of Honors kids after Alpha Lambda Delta inductions and acquired random candy from an RA. Ryan's asleep on my bed after pulling an all-nighter and now I have coffee and a bagel with schmear. Running to Wal-Mart for hair dye in a bit. I wrote a nonsense poem in Spanish during my astronomy lecture. It doesn't make any sense, but I liked the rhythm of it-- rumpity tumpity tum. Tonight, Cabaret and The City of Lost Children and other fun movies, and reading John Berendt's The City of Falling Angels. Tomorrow night, the Rawlins Student Film Festival.

Yo soy la hija de la pescadería
Me gusta dudar la verdad del mar
Me padre me dice que yo soy estupida
Pero yo sé como los perros buscan por carne.
Venid! Todo están salir.
Miro como los chicos caminan en las calles.

Today was nice. Got up, put on laundry, finished The Exorcist (suspenseful, but not scary-- although my friend Ryan now says I must see the movie, which will doubtless Freak Me Out) whilst enjoying the beautiful weather, had breakfast with maybe six of the usual suspects, came back to the room, read a good chunk of Gore Vidal's Creation (exposition-tastic. But interesting), realized I was incredibly tired, took the most incredibly decadent four hour nap EVAR, woke up to realize it had turned damp and drizzly, retrieved my laundry, put it away while watching Father Ted (... bwahahahaha!), straightened up. Dinner was pleasant, too-- I got a to-go box from the cafeteria, since all my friends are either working or busy, and ate sitting in a deep, arched brick doorway, warm and dry, and watching the splish of raindrops on pavement. If I stretched my legs all the way out, the rain tickled my toes.

Plans for the evening include reading Elizabeth Spencer's Light in the Piazza for English on Tuesday, working on my virtual astronomy report, calling my awesome mother, watching The Exorcist and falling asleep whilst cuddling (after I calm down and cease thinking I'm about to be eaten by demons, obviously.)

If there is a better, perfectly ordinary day, please do let me know, so I can hunt it down and kill it.

So I realize that I never, ever update, but I've finally got a reasonable excuse: the internet to my computer is cut off for some mysterious reason no one can seem to tell me. The flimsy quality of this particular dodge is revealed when I add that my roommate, the wonderful misfit_artist, has a computer and lets me use it, but shhhh, you didn't hear that.

So many things have happened since I was last on here I'm not even going to try to list them all. The most interesting bits and pieces of news I have to report are probably...

-Going to the State Capitol to exhibit a research poster for the Honors Posters on the Capitol (what a tremendously creative name!) event, and meeting a whole bunch of politicians, and sitting in on a House session, and nearly killing myself of despair over our political system. (Politician in action, seriously, are like caricatures of themselves.)
-Going back home, briefly, for the UT Knoxville-hosted Honors Conference, which was a bunch of student-presented research panels. Ours was on Joseph Campbell's concept of bliss, and it was made doubly interesting by the fact that our presentation was supposed to have five people, and was, at the last minute, cut down to only my friend Wesley and I. Also, we changed the entire thing the night before, and then we changed it again half an hour before. And then, as we began to prepare to give our presentation, the Powerpoint that was, in fact, the entirety of our presentation, refused to open. So we winged it. But it was, apparently, quite okay, and not for a grade, so I don't really care. (Although it was pretty funny when the Powerpoint finally did its thing... in time for the "Conclusion" slide. Thank you so much, computer.)
-Auditioning for and getting some roles in the one-acts the senior directing class have to stage. Currently I'm in a thesis project one that has never been performed on stage before, which is cool, and Lysistrata. The only thing cooler than being in Lysistrata is having your director decide that it's going to be present-day and set in a sex toy shop. With sex toys on stage. That we will get to gesture with and handle. And she's taking us on a field-trip to Hustler Hollywood, and we get to rehearse in the store. How awesome is that? (The correct answer is, "Why Widget, that's very, very awesome!")

Ah, college. How you eat my time, but how I love thee. I'd originally planned to enter a few pieces in the Student Art show, but there's no way I'm going to have time, particularly since I need to go ahead and plan my schedule for next semester already.

And now, I feed!

Oh. Ha. Ha. We're in a Mercury retrograde, aren't we? Would you look at that?

That does explain it.

Ignore the previous post.

As my friend Stephanie says, "I can't brain today-- I've got the dumb."

A long time ago, before winter break and about halfway through the fall semester, I started feeling worried and anxious for no reason at all. It was like something nagging at me constantly; like a homework assignment I'd forgotten but knew in the back of my head was due next week. The semester ended, break crawled by in an orgy of retail work and catching up on sleep, and I returned to school, feeling (mostly) better.

But it's starting to creep back, crawling up my spine and oozing into my ears and sliming down to my toes: something's coming. I don't know what, or who, but I'm worried about every little thing for what seems to be no reason at all, and when I'm worried, there's always a reason, whether I know it or not. I'm worried about my friends, I'm worried about myself, I'm especially worried about a certain individual. It's not the way anyone's behaving, in particular-- no one's more self-destructive or foolhardy than usual. I'm just.... anxious. Maybe it's because the group isn't as closely-knit as it used to be, and I think we're going to need each other to get through this. Ever since the fall, I've had a sneaking suspicion that it, whatever it is, is coming with the turn of the weather: the snowmelt and the flocks of cedar waxwings are its ushers; the greening grass both beautiful and ominous.

The snow is turning to slush. The first of the cedar waxwings have arrived. Something is just around the corner, and it truly feels like someone I can't see is standing just behind me, about to lay a knifeblade against my throat.

So, my friends, I ask your advice: how do you prepare for something when you don't know what it is? I'm desperate for any suggestion, be it laying open the entrails of chickens to find out what's going on or some way to calm myself down. I know there's nothing I can do, not really, and that the whatever-it-is will take its course, but I can't help feeling that if I'm ready, it will soften the blow.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?