|
"Certain techniques are overused: mismatched lists, abrupt transitions, the reduction of a person's entire life to two or three scenes."
— Borges, in the preface to the first edition of his first book of stories
I turned 31. Many good things happened but it was not a good year, so I'm not going to write as fancy a birthday post as I have in prior years. This year I:
And in the coming year I hope to:
And this is what I'm listening to today: The Most Serene Republic - Present of Future End. Peevish. Time for Emily Dickinson.
My mind works in terms of scarcity; I'll play a song over and over till I've exhausted it. Right now it's this one.
A. woke up around 6am on Election Day with a strange and epic dream, so at 6:30 we headed to the polling place, a public school. The line was around the block, but moved quickly — I think I voted by 7am. Took lots of photos of standing in line, spent some time playing with an adorably yappy, yet submissive, Westie puppy. The line was thrumming with suppressed excitement. Devin Cohen was handing out election guides. We saw our downstairs neighbors as they left the building, and A. recognized another couple from down the block so we chatted with them for a bit. Inside the school, we were crammed into a small gymnasium. Lines for each district snaked around each other, it was humid and warm, but everyone seemed polite and happy. The booth had blue curtains and toggles to flip for each candidate. I voted a straight Democratic ticket except abstaining from Wooten — I had meant to abstain from Velasquez, but I screwed up! Anyway, felt the satisfying thunk of the foot-long lever painted bright red. All day the election was all anyone could talk about. I was in poetry class while the election results were trickling in, and on the subway to K. N.'s while Obama took Pennsylvania and Ohio. Emerged into dark empty streets, I felt so spooked walking to her place, especially given the recent crime wave — A. was waiting for me at the door to the apartment and he lifted me up in a huge victory hug. The party was winding down, but it was still wonderful — we stayed through McCain's concession speech, then headed back, and on the way back the streets were completely different: thronging with people wreathed in smiles. Cars sped down the streets honking, passengers leaning out of windows waving their arms. Strangers slapping each other high fives. Spontaneous cries of "Obama!" I've never seen anything like it. We got home in time to watch Obama's victory address. What can I say. Holy cow. We finally are awakening from our long national nightmare.
by Richard Deming: The survivors barricade a bay window with plywood, an old
armoire, an empty refrigerator and it is dark enough within to
read by candlelight. Through a crack you can see two eyes and
a mouth in shadow and a night filled with intent, glittering
teeth. What the image tells us — that the hunger of the zombie,
however slow, does not sleep, that the cottage and everyone in
it is surrounded by rage, and inside no one will admit the
possibility of cowardice aloud, even as the wine is decanted,
the cream sauce simmers, and Mendelssohn plays on a stereo
somewhere in the background. But maybe we have it wrong.
The dead do not hate the living; love hates the dead for being
dead and again and again summons them back because of this.
One day, and soon, the boards will come down and the
zombies will break in and devour everything in their path
and yet someone will raise a shotgun and shoot the beloved who is
no longer the beloved but something else, some other wanton
thing that wears a recognizable face and someone in the
audience will wonder if that is how we are meant to survive
our memories.
Awesome short story: The Lincolnshire Poacher, by David Auerbach.
Let's start that over again. I'm home and happy to be home. A. is really sweet to me. Last night we watched a French romantic comedy together. The movie turned out to be unromantic and really rather tragic, though. I kept on falling asleep on his lap and then fell asleep for good. I'm scared of starting school in January because I keep on framing it mentally as the start of my Poetry Career. I can't figure out how to manage all the things I don't want even my own friends to know about me (which is why I'm not on Facebook) and also, that tension between self-expression and shame. Feeling one minute like my cover's always being blown; the next, like a nobody. Which is part of why I've done a deliberately shitty job of publicizing this blog. And always hiding behind my maze of identities. But that's better than not writing at all? Hiding is part of a tradition: like an eighteenth-century pamphleteer or a Japanese artist with a go. Though maybe the sheer inability to stay in regular contact with even one's closest friends and family, maybe that's not a tradition so much. (The people on my class roster who have no web presence to speak of — I find that calming. Then I see other poets with fancy Flash-animated websites and information about their publishers and links to friends and "influences" and wonder if there's something wrong with me.) The current list of projects I'm behind on include: Paul's, and Peter P.. Also my job, but that's I think inevitable: the feeling of behind-ness is structured into our work. So that's okay. Maybe it's time to pick a fresh pen name . . . I have some ideas . . . I always have some ideas.
The stairwell is an unhinged jaw gleaming with teeth and I see things when walking down the street, yawning cavities hanging in the air and oddly, a pig in a pink wimple, when drifting out this far, which I haven't in a long time. Turn the music up again so it's more than a bit too loud. Grab onto the prongs of Isaac Brock's voice like the handlebars of a bicycle and vault into the space between the notes. Dive in as hard as you can.
geegaw.com is (Ↄ) 1999-2009 Miranda Gaw. Images created using designfruit brushes. Powered by Textpattern and Waggish. |
Wow, I guess it just goes to show that one should not leave one’s blog unattended. Um, for what it’s worth, based on the IP address information I think both of these characters are new readers (i.e. from the past couple years) that I don’t know personally. I’m closing comments for a few days to give everyone a chance to cool off. – Miranda
Certain diablogs are abused…
—rothko
Even Dr. Phil’s homespun wisdom may not be enough to crack open these nuts.
I think we’re talking Regis!
What is going on here? Is this personal war some new, undocumented geegaw feature? Did this site change format in the week since I last tuned in? Will Dr. Phil be called in?
I’m sorry you’re so unhappy, but I can’t live your life for you. I really don’t want to hurt you, but there’s no future in this. Why you would want to devote so much of your time and energy to nuturing feelings of hate and revenge is a mystery to me, but that’s your decision.
Take care. Don’t waste your life.
Says the person who spent that much time talking online to strangers and kept track of what I said in my (deleted) entries ?
That doesn’t contradict the fact that what you said in your previous post was racist, so that’s probably how you felt about me all along.Racism is hardly ever a ‘sudden feeling’.
Have you ever considered living your own life? And letting other people live theirs?
Maybe you just don’t have the guts.
Which is why you still have “lingering feelings” for me?
Why you “can’t even begin to describe how jealous” you are of any woman that speaks to me? Why you “would have given anything for him to fall for me”? Why you “wish I could just get him out of my head”? Why you “feel like talking to him all the time about the things that I learn and discover every day”? That kind of racist jerk?
I never doubted the fact that you were a racist jerk.And I don’t have an acne issue.
RSS / Atom Peter Parasol livejournal friendfeed++
|
