Through the Back Door

Molestation

2006-11-30T00:11:00.000-05:00

from Jonathan Carroll's blog:

"Describe your perfect cup of coffee," she said. I thought she was kidding but she wasn't. I thought about it a while and then the writer in me, Mr. Word Expert, tried to verbalize it. When I was finished and had failed miserably she said, "It only gets worse when you go into it further. Try to describe what you think is the perfect cup of coffee, or the perfect girlfriend, meal, dog, car... whatever. You can only recognize perfection when you see it but you can't describe it even if it's sitting right in front of you. Trying to find the right vocabulary to describe the qualities of something perfect is like trying to hold water between your fingers."

while contemplating isolation

2006-11-29T23:55:00.000-05:00

A vast difference exists between criticism and judgment. Criticism can be used, judgment cannot. Criticism can be compassionate while judgment can only point a finger to where you fell down.

2006-11-29T23:46:00.000-05:00

I want to be a skinny bitch.

the beginning

2006-11-25T02:41:00.000-05:00

Even at 12, I knew Ken Thorp was a smart man. Equally being called crazy and genius, Ken was the man I babysat for, he was the person whose study was littered with books on shelves and piled on the floor, his yellow legal pads stacked just as high, with notes and ideas. He often scared me, I was intimidated by his intensity and his sharpness, but for the same reason I was drawn to him. I learned, however, that not everyone saw Ken the same way I did. Not everyone saw a man of passionate intellectualism. Many of his colleagues did not take him seriously blowing him off and often alienating him. Yet instead of becoming embittered by his reception, Ken embraced and used his alienation to fuel his passion.

2006-11-11T01:22:00.000-05:00

I am at this moment sitting in my best friend's borrowed pajama pants brushing my teeth. And I am very thankful I will be allowed to sleep-in in the morning.

So here is my thanks to the gods of sleep. Thank you.

massage and mocha

2006-11-08T18:26:00.000-05:00

I got a massage and then went to see an old professor today, driving all the way to Kalamazoo to have a cup o'mocha in a little ceramic mug while she drank tea. I basically blubbered at her all my worries and ideas for grad school, the application and the research I want to do next semester. It was relieving to get it out to someone who actually could give me good, sound advice. So I am encouraged and less overwhelmed then I was just yesterday, but still the GRE looms close.

And the gold sticker goes to me

2006-11-04T23:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight I cleaned the cat litter box and the bathroom floor.

a horrible stick in the worry

2006-11-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

I am starting to feel the gathering clouds of doom gathering over my head. Quickly my time ticks by in huge chunks of life, my life. . . I don't know what to do. Why is it in these situations I can never help but feel all of my lackings, wantings, and horrible faults seep from the very bowels of my psyche to poke me with a long knobby stick. The stick has not dulled with age. You'd seriously think that with time one would learn to not take the horrid jabs quite as seriously, but I do, I always do.

The only thing I've learned over the years is that horrid faults and all I have to keep going, one boot in front of the other, one worry at a time, they all come in their good time, they all come, tackle them one at a time, not a life times worth at once! That would just be stupid!

Enough said. Done, and goodnight.

Rocket my Dogs

2006-11-02T23:42:00.000-05:00

I am a proud new owner of a pair of black Dogs. They are black and the same Dogs I have in brown. I have gotten to the point where my feet can no longer take high heeled torture devices on the ends of my legs. Who decided that heels look good?

Vocabulary is killing me and I am finding out my boyfriend has a better capacity for words than I, myself, and my degree in Sociology posses. What a bummer. I have a plan of action however. I bought the snazzy book, Word Power, the other night at B & N and I'm now perusing its corse little pages, GRE BE WARNED! You stand no chance against me!!!

2006-11-01T10:04:00.000-05:00

There's something wonderful about good friends, something I don't think can be totally named, or I will ever be able to put finger on, just a feeling, and a good one.

What if?

2006-10-31T16:31:00.000-05:00

I hate horror movies, they disturb me so deeply my soul aches and retreats.

I am going with some friends tonight to see Saw 3, although I won't be watching it, I will be seeing another movie while they see Saw. While I was walking up the drive way after my run I was thinking about why horror movies upset me so much, and I realized it is because the characters never escape the fear that their tormenter inflicts, ever. Then I thought, what if I were to write a horror story where at some point the characters stop being afraid? What would happen then?

Just a thought I'm pondering. Carry on.

writing in the dark

2006-03-16T12:57:00.000-05:00

I wonder, seriously, what it takes to be creative, what speck or blob of whatness does one need to be creative....something.

Sometimes I feel I have it, yet my fear of failure holds me back. Or is it laziness, lack of motivation, carelessness? An artist, however fearful, enters the unknown shadows in the dusty corners, creeping through cracked walls and sifting through the strange and terrifying
to find something disturbingly real.

I want to find my dark corners and look in the shadows, I want to know what monsters lurk there!

writing bad stories

2006-02-22T12:46:00.000-05:00

I have made a discover and no, sadly it is not of the shinny kind. This discover is the desire that, well, I want to write, and I actually am writing.

I went to this little art supply store near the Roman Spanish Steps two days ago and bought myself another lovely little Moleskine for the sole purpose of filling it with horrible writings and crazy ideas. I write down all the weird and normal things that are Rome, trying to build up a good source of details. This is my thing now. My purpose in Rome. I finally feel I can live through my Roman experience as I now have a purpose, or something like that.

Last night I wrote this story about a woman who was sleeping with this guy who has bunions. Yes. Bunions. I don't know why, but that's what I wrote...and it makes me laugh everytime I think about it. So even though nothing will probably ever come of this story, I find it incredibly funny.

when I read, I read

2006-02-21T12:22:00.000-05:00

I read at least five books at one time. Adorno, Said, Gramsci, Livy, Machiavelli, all big names for such a little mind as mine. I get overwhelmed with so many big ideas that I read one book for a while and then when I need a rest to digest all I've read I switch to one of the other books I'm reading.

Recently, I've had the overwhelming desire to just talk to someone about the stuff I'm reading and yet I can't find a single soul in this school who actually has the ability to hold an intellectual conversation. Even my professors seem suprised and twitchy at my approach with a question or comment.

So I am forced to stalk old professors from other schools for any type of conversation.

Another one of my outlets of late, I bought another beautiful notebook today to write stories and other such scribbles in, hopefully it will help me vent this hightened sense of intellectual passion in a huge gust of ink!

a discourse: the library, Plato and Gramsci

2006-02-20T10:10:00.000-05:00

I go to the library to find a book on plato and end up with a book on platonic theology by Marsilio Ficino. What the heck!? I am an idiot, that's all there is too it.

Later, roaming through the library, I tried to find a place to sit myself but every table, chair and cranny was taken by some laptop toting JCU student! Thus I went into my favorite room (the philosophy and sociology section) and sat on this inch high ledge of a cold and shadowy window. I sat there for a minute or two, fuming at the horde of students in the other room, but was quickly distracted by my knee high companions. Books. Right in front of me stood a whole wonderful section of Gramsci. I was in heaven! The first book I picked up was a collection of his prison letters, which were most interesting and depressing at the same time. Interesting to see Gramsci writing in a more personal form yet still expressing his most powerful ideas and depressing because he was inprisoned for over ten years. The letters show how he struggled with his confinement and being cut off from the world, and as sad as it is, I actually felt I could relate.

Being here in Rome, a foreign language, foreign people and place, sometimes actually feels like being in prison as I have very limited contact with the world I know best. Of course it is silly of me to relate my life to the struggle of Gramsci, unlike him, I could leave and go home anytime I want too. In other words, my inprisonment is by choice, his was not.

And that my friends, is my discourse of the day. Ciao.

my morning

2006-02-20T06:39:00.000-05:00

Moleskine and caffelatte, what more do I need?

2005-04-10T21:35:00.000-04:00

When I think of ideology, I hear a low rumble of voices, like distant thunder moaning over geography. It is as if I'm ease-dropping on a whole continent of thoughts.

I wear a ribbon around my neck like a leash to my femininity

2005-04-06T03:24:00.000-04:00

bits of paper choke chunkily on my floor. crumbled up ideas while my tummy rumbles for food, carrots, avacado on my salad would be nice. i have books that would frighten the bravest of them, stacked precariously on the edge of my semester, how many more of these do I have to read? good thing I love them so.

I went snooping in a professor's office today asking, nay, begging him to let me do an independent study with him this summer. I want an excuse to read, like I need one. His British accent enchants me to no end, I lovingly listen to his "bloody hell"s and "utterly exhausted" comments, wishing I could speak such words with such inflections.

I've been seriously tempted away from studies by sun and warm air that flirts with my imagination making me naughty. See how late I'm up? A result of working 27 hours this week, sunshine and not enough time to study. Almost done. Countdown begins: 23 days to the end of my semester.

Oh! the good and the bad

2005-03-30T15:05:00.000-05:00

I feel like I'm in the garden of good and evil.

How I dislike being poor. Actually, its more than just being poor, all I ask for is enough, just enough.

But on a brighter note: While looking wholly unattractive and tired today, one of the guys I work with at the cafe came up to me as I was throwing huge bags of garbage into the trash can and making grimacing like faces, said, "I just wanted to let you know that I'm really glad you work here and I really like working with you, I'm just glad you're here, when you're here working...." he trailed off, "I don't know, its just nice." I seriously didn't know what to say, I gapped at him, a bag of garbage still dangling from my hand. I stuttered a thank you as he grinned and walked away. Genuine and real. It was seriously one of the nicest things anyone has said to me in a long time.

Also ran into my friend Jay yesterday and got a hug. Now that was awesome. See, its little things like that that make life bearable.

When the sun feels alien

2005-03-29T03:12:00.000-05:00

my room smells like sandalwood and I don't even have an incense burning.I have a book sitting on the desk in front of me that I still need to read 23 pages out of before I go to bed. Yes. 23. And it's after three in the morning.

It's Edward Said again. I love this man but why does he have to keep me up all hours of the night?

I saw both blue sky and sunshine for the first time in over a month. I was walking from class with Bekah and I said, "I feel like I'm on an alien planet with all the light! Everything looks so weird!" But all I can say is alien planet or not, it felt good all the way to my toes to have a bit of sunshine. My skin was screaming, "wow! Vitamin D!"

And here I am rambling when I should be reading. The moons out, starying through my window like a peeping tom. I best attend Said and then get some sleep before class. I hear tomorrow is suppose to be sunny again.

the oddities in my parking lot

2005-03-29T02:10:00.000-05:00

There are two guys below my window in the parking lot. One is attempting to ride a unicycle, the other is hopping around on a pogo stick while juggling tenis balls. Probably the most entertainment I've seen in a long while, I seriously want to go down and join them!

Due tomorrow : my life

2005-03-21T12:28:00.000-05:00

Writing makes my brain hurt in a good way. Said and Fromm are a good match and I'm comparing their ideas in the paper that's due tomorrow. Due tomorrow.

I drank a double mocha and am now offically wired.

with the intelligence of a stick

2005-03-08T15:25:00.000-05:00

I beat my thoughts out on paper.

I sat in a cafe today with books stacked like towers around me, yet for some reason they couldn't catch my drifting mind. I felt lost.

So I went to the bookstore and wandered between shelves above my head, full of ideas and thoughts that I can only brush with my finger tips. I sipped a mocha between cold fingers thinking how, yes, someday I'll have something to say, someday I'll write something worth reading.

My thoughts jump from here to there. My web page I'm working on for a class, Grudge, the move I watched last night that still scares me, and my Edward Said paper I have to start writing in the morning...

Yes. Said. Let me beat some of those thoughts out of my head. Those are the thoughts with a dealine. Beat away, just beat away.

and its a new beginning

2005-03-04T21:25:00.000-05:00

the snow came down like white fuzz on the most still of air and I caught it on my tongue tip.

This blog shall be revived and shall be my scribbling space for my academically inclined brain. Soon it shall have a new face as well. With links and interactive-ability galore. I shall use it as my dumping ground for all and nothing that is in my head and on my heart.

With that, I shall return to reading and obsessively twisting my hair.

Slowly I grow

2005-02-03T23:54:00.000-05:00

out of my skin.

Why don't I write more?

Coming soon to theatres everywhere

2004-12-23T12:48:00.000-05:00

"The Art of Being Imperfect"

It shall be my first book, and it shall be grand, and oh so imperfected.

turn off the radio in my head

2004-12-23T02:27:00.000-05:00

I hang up and I don't know what to think anymore. I wonder if I'm a bother or if I come off as some ranting girl. But I don't have the anwser and this saddens me. I don't even know if you like me, maybe you hate me? Who knows and I shouldn't care.

I wonder if I'm starting to define myself by what I think you think of me. I've never done this before and it scares me. I don't want to lose what I know of me or what I think is me to some shadow of a person that I can only try to be.

Someday you might see who I really am and you might be disappointed. I'll die that day I think, I can't take disappointment from other people. I don't want to let them down.

And its quiet in here. Everyone's gone for break. And I just get to sit here and listen to silence bounce off these white walls, much like the thoughs in my head.

you once told me...

2004-12-22T00:09:00.000-05:00

I was one of your favorite people. I still don't know what you meant by that.

if Medusa went to college

2004-10-05T13:51:00.000-04:00

Oh my. When I tumbled myself out of bed this morning my hair looks like Medusa, going every which way. I tried to get it under control, but I was afraid I'd be bitten!

Now I’m off for another day of textbook reading and note scribbling. I have the most unorthodox note-taking habits of anyone I’ve seen. I like to turn my paper sideways and put big arrows and circles in and around my scramble of random sentences. For some reason, it makes reading and taking notes that much more fun, as if I’m somehow being devious and breaking the rules!

Off I go now, to charm my hair and to hunt down something warm to eat and a good cup of coffee.

some expressions are priceless

2004-09-16T16:32:00.000-04:00

Standing on a slippery algee covered rock.

Silly me, what was I thinking. I think my face says it all, I was about to fall.

E-drinks

2004-09-13T23:17:00.000-04:00

Its just what you do. If you don't know what I'm talking about you are a thing of the past and should just roll over and let lie.

e-drink = to drink espresso online, to share in the savory taste of espresso with an online buddy, one who shares the same superior taste in espresso as yourself.

If you haven't had an e-drink yet, you should. All the cool cats are doing it.

My favorite book is a notebook

2004-09-11T17:08:00.000-04:00

I just walked into my office (okay so I'm a college student with an office) and there are still boxes of books to be lovingly stashed and papers to be crumpled and thrown away.

I never promised I'd be organized and I never promised I'd try.

Then I walked into my room and saw all the books I still have to read. I love all my books like children and feel oh so guilty when they don't receive all the loving attention they deserve.

So now what do I do?

I think I will write. The perfect solution to all my problems. I'll just hid away in some cafe corner and scrible down all the thoughts I can think of and all the thoughts I can't think of. That way nothing will be left undone.

Like the first bite of an apple

2004-09-11T11:37:00.000-04:00

Ahhhh, a beautiful new blog. All fresh, clean, and crunchy! Tastes so....I don't know, good? Yes yes!

I'm coming from Mindsay, a place I met a lot of cool people but that is sometimes a hard environment to write in. I plan on still hanging around in the Mindsay sphere, just cause I think I'd miss the people so much.