[insert a clever title here]

I caved and reactivated my facebook last night. Here's the deal: I figured my time at Southeastern is coming to a close, and there are some people I'd like to keep in touch with... even if its only in the paltry, electronic mode of human interaction. So why not? I never did achieve that goal that I had set for myself when I deleted it in the first place; vigorously attempting to revive the lost art of letter writing (I wrote about two hand-written letters to friends and then gave it up... perhaps I'll try that out again...) Within five minutes of reactivating my account I received two wall posts, and was instantly reminded of how facebook is truly a world of its own, and I found myself very estranged from this universe. All my old information was saved, so it was as if facebook never really expected me to leave for real; knew I would come back, like some kind of sick parental relationship where they keep your room just as it was until you're thirty... but this room that was kept for me wasn't really mine anymore. I had to go through and delete so much... for various reasons... not the least of which being that most of the photographs on there came from a time when I wasnt single... awkward... so I ditched all that. Now I'm going through the somewhat-arduous process of digitally befriending all the people I have befriended since my former facebook days. On the plus side it gives me time to sit and listen to some new tunes.

This is a stupid and boring post. Sorry. Maybe I'll make up for it later.

ps - I started typing "anything by..." under my book interests, and apparantly there is some kind of auto-complete function on facebook now, and I'm gussing it works by most frequently used entries... and the first result was "Anything by Nicholas Sparks"
That cracked me up... I don't know why.

grow my own, my own seed shall be sown...

I received a text from Carter this morning, who moved to NYC last week. It read: "It's snowing here... I love this place!!!"

My heart aches.

ps

I had to go to Walmart at midnight just for this. I'll be curled up in bed for the rest of the evening enjoying this little guy immensely.

something about love, then big liz

The seemingly simple act of loving others is not nearly as simple as it seems. This is something I am realizing lately (or, something I've known, but is resonating lately). It's so easy to get discouraged by the absence of love in the world, and I'm finding that it's also then so easy to capitulate to the norm - perhaps I'm incorrect in assuming that the norm is deficient in love... I'd like to believe I am, actually, but... I don't know - at any rate, I'm guilty of capitulating at times. And when it happens it tears at something in my consciousness; I no longer feel like me. Sometimes I recover quickly, but other times I do not...

At church this week there was an announcement concerning a Christmas gift-drive for local poverty-stricken areas, but instead of donating toys for children, we will be collecting gifts geared for adults, and then selling them cheaply (like.. for pennies) to local kids to give their parents as Christmas presents. And I love the idea. I think it's so awesome, because, they'll be able to bless others, and that's the best part about Christmas. These kids will get to experience the joy of loving on people.

I have been finding myself needing to rediscover that joy lately, in order to recover.

"The gift of love is the gift of the power and the capacity to love, and therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So, love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received."

"It is clear, then, that to love others well we must first love the truth. And since love is a matter of practical and concrete human relations, the truth we must love when we love our brothers [and sisters] is not mere abstract speculation: it is the moral truth that is to be embodied and given life in our own destiny and theirs. This truth is more than the cold perception of an obligation, flowing from moral precepts. The truth we must love in loving our brothers [and sisters] is the concrete destiny and sanctity that are willed for them by the love of God."

-Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

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Elizabeth P. wanted to finish my blog. Here it is:


anywayz this is big liz.
anyway. tonight i worked at lake miriam. it was pretty cool. it was pretty fun.
i met this girl named dana. a little bit fat but kinda sweet.
pretty messy, pretty sticky time.
now i am going to apple bees. some of the people there are my friends.
talk to the hand cuz the face ain't listnen
me and my sis rock.

it's not that we're scared, it's just that it's delicate

Young

A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling under me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
-Anne Sexton

In our discussion of Anne Sexton's poetry today, I made a suggestion that was fairly quickly dismissed. I posed an argument that the poem (transcribed above) is laden with sexual undertones. Before this the discussion was mainly centering on some vague feeling of loss that the poem conveyed, that it is a reflection on a time lost, peaceful, serene. The discussion was less a discussion and more a popcorn machine popping sporadic comments, but purity was mentioned, innocence, childhood. Given that it seemed established that this was a lament on some loss of innocence, I really didn't think it was a giant leap to my reading: that the poem is a reflection on the moment before losing her virginity, and how that changed things. I mentioned something about the language; how she was laying on her back, the stars "bedding" over her, her new body "not a woman's yet," "heat," "elbows, knees" etc. which was received with some hearty, but probably mostly nervous laughter. Cotton just said "well, I've been around the block, but I don't see that."

Eh. So I probably seem like some kind of pervert to my fellow classmates who don't know me, but I swear it's in there. I'm not crazy.

I got the feeling that my line of discussion was so quickly dismissed because we had some visitors in the class. A prospective student and her parents, who got up and left before our discussion of the next selection. We also neglected to discuss "Housewife" I think for the very same reason (there's no getting around the undertones (overtones) in that one. Actually, maybe there is, because a few of my small group members really thought she was talking about a house). I think we would have discussed it had they not been there, which was disconcerting to me, because, if that was the case, then we're sacrificing honesty and truth to gain... what? Why should we pacify prospective student's parents when they come to visit, making our University look like a resort of some kind; what is that? It's academia, not Club Med. We're also lying to the student, I think. And do we really even want a student body that is unwilling to roll up their sleeves and address some stuff that isn't comfortable? (I hope this doesn't come off like I'm senselessly bashing Southeastern, because I really do like my school. And it's really annoying how much people complain about it.)

I understand the need to be delicate when it comes to questionable literature, but we also need to be real. This is a constant problem in the English department here; where to draw the line.

My sentiment is that the line is unimportant, that closing your eyes to something does not make it go away, that truth is more important than anyone's sensibilities, and that we should be "wise as serpents, and gentle as doves."

goodbye blue monday

"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things

What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Someone in class tonight said that Romeo and Juliet is the worst story ever told. It made me think of this passage. It also disgusted me.

What will follow this page break is a bit of narcissistic rambling that need not be read by anyone. Don't say I didn't warn you.

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I'm feeling melancholic lately. I need to get out of my head. I need to stop thinking about it. I've been trying to stop thinking about it. I need some perspective. I need to let go. I need to hold on. I need to try. I need to give up. I've been trying to give up. I need to stop thinking that I'm being overly analytical. I need to stop being overly analytical. Being overly analytical is killing me. I need to be confident. I need to believe that this could be something. I need to stop believing that this could be something. I need to stop confusing what I need and what I want. I want to know. I need to know. I'll probably never know. This is supposed to go away, not supposed to last this long. That means something. That means that I'm an idiot. I have no reason to dream but I dream anyway. These dreams are killing me. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep... Ah me! How sweet is love itself possess'd, when but love's shadows are so rich in joy.

dream job/life

I am building a future workspace in my mind: a small room with hardwood floors, on whose off-white walls are frantically pinned items of inspiration - a few torn-out pages of Dostoevsky over here, some Salinger over there... would it be sacrilegious to tear pages out of the Bible and pin them on a wall? Hmm. Perhaps some of my favorite poems transcribed harshly, directly on the walls themselves with black sharpie. Dali's Girl with Curls, maybe some Van Gogh. Photographs of people I love.

There will be a small table and chair in the center of the room, littered with empty cups, napkins, or receipts, or other small pieces of paper inked with nonsense, a Macbook (or whatever they might call it in the years to come), and a small, very low-light lamp, maybe with a black shade.

Perhaps one wall will be reserved for a projection screen on which to view films. Over in the corner will be a wooden crate holding some of the films that mean the most to me, easily at hand to watch that one scene that causes something to rise in the spirit or sink in the heart.

One big window, thin, stretching nearly the entire height of the wall, broken into panels by wood covered in cracked paint. It would be several stories above the ground and look out over Central Park, and would open outward, hinges on each side and a latch in the center. There would always be a breeze, cool, occasionally freezing, but mostly refreshing. At night the window would creak and softly bang with the brief gusts of wind.

There would be no other furniture in the room except the table and chair in the center so that there would be plenty of room for pacing around, feeling the hardwood on bare feet. The chair wouldn't be a comfortable one, because the room is not designed for lounging, but for working, and the pacing around will be working, and the looking at the photographs on the wall of people I love will be working, and the staring out the window for hours at night will be working.

But my favorite part of the room is the photograph framed on the desk, and the fact that its subject is not far away, proving to be the greatest inspiration. Perhaps she's staring out the window of the room she has built for the very same purpose, just down the hall.

And when we're both done working maybe I'll cook some dinner. And we'll watch an old movie on our big, soft couch, our fingers glad to be done tapping away at keyboards; resting, intertwined, spelling out a word that can never be captured in four small letters.