want a delightfully depressing poem?

Here!

I have nothing left to translate
Into the figures of night
Or the pale geometry
Of the fire-birds.
If I once had a wagon of lights to ride in
The axle is broken
The horses are shot.

Thomas Merton

-

I thought about doing this meme a couple days ago, when I read the answers of a bunch of people I don't know, and then I saw another person's answers for the quiz just now, so I TAKE IT AS A SIGN TO POST. Plus it's a little interesting. Plus it's better than giving into my urge to talk about depressing things. Depressing things can come here some other time I suppose.

Four jobs I've had:
1. technical writing intern
2. instructional aide for kindergarten
3. barista
4. box office/concessions for independent movie theater

Four movies I can watch over & over:
1. The Third Man
2. Bringing Up Baby
3. The Royal Tenenbaums (Rushmore too, but more this one for me)
4. Um, this is tough. I'm narrowing it down, for now, to four movies, and I'm sorry that's the best I can do: Breaking Away, The Muppet Movie, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Paris, Texas.

Four places I've lived:
1. Littleton, Colorado
2. Bakersfield, California
3. San Diego
4. Salem, Oregon

Four TV shows I love:
1. Arrested Development (duh)
2. Project Runway
3. The Office (either, of course, but the US one is more on the brain lately)
4. Gilmore Girls (don't you dare make fun)

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Alexandria, Minnesota (often, believe it or not)
2. New York, New York (hell of a town)
3. Um. I haven't had that many "vacations," I guess. Not like one sees in the brochures. If we're not also counting places I've lived, then.....Yucca Valley, California.
4. Dude, this is sad. Um. Vacationed. What does that even mean? I've been through there on a vacation? I stayed there for more than 2 days? Let's say San Francisco and its surrounding areas. Ok.

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Quesadilla
2. Peanut butter and grape jelly TIED WITH peanut butter and honey toast. (I am such a gourmand)
3. Eggplant parmesan
4. something thai, though I am having problems picking. Pad Thai! Sure, ok.

Four sites I visit daily:
1. nytimes
2. bookslut
3. sadly, websudoku.com
4. i don't know, i use bloglines so i kind of visit 50 sites daily, and it's all a blur. gmail! yes. cheating? shush.

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. I guess NYC.
2. London!
3. Paris!
4. Tokyo!
Seriously, I don't know. I'm kind of not happy at this time, and I know place doesn't change that, and there's no person or thing I absolutely feel I need to be with at this time. It would be nice to see my doggies, but then I'd have to be in Bakersfield and that's no fun. It would be nice to be in those cities up there, but with money and....not alone, I think. But with who? Eh. I could go non-literal and say "in a place of fulfillment and joy".

Aw, damn, that was the last question.
I will make one up!

Four things I most want to buy at this exact moment but won't because it is cold and late and I have no money nor wherewithal:
1. some Deerhoof cd, maybe the most recent
2. eggplant parmesan
3. adult-sized, non-rusted umbrella--maybe one with the duck head. oh, i like those duck heads
4. a....passel of interesting cheap vinyl records to play with on my new record player. (see? see what i did there? totally not cheating)

I invite you now to play this game with me. Especially if you refused to play the Are You A Bigot game, you wet blanket.

if you are a light-skinned, gay arab muslim, i seem to prefer you to most other people.

I've only done three of these so far. I saw the link in a Slate article.

Though, of course, I shot for the "little to no preference" on all tests, I have yet to achieve it. Then again, I have felt sick all day (I had a 2 hour nap! It seems so long since my napping days), and it advises you not have outside distractions whereas I have a movie on the television and also vaguely had to pee through two of the tests. I got a "slightly prefers" for both Arab Muslims and light-skinned people, the last of which makes me want a do-over, but whatever we are all racist. I got a "moderately prefers" for the gay test though. And there are many more! But wow, are they confusing! And what if I find out I hate disabled Native Americans?

I stayed out of my apartment from 7 this morning to 9ish tonight. Wow! I should set that challenge for myself more often, how long I can stay out.

It is a commercial break from Project Runway. Daniel is so sweet, and so pretty.


I went to the school site, and then got out a bit early so decided to go shopping, because everything at all professional I have to wear is shabby and/or weird, well everything I have to wear period, and when that's all of one's clothing, one then looks like a freak at one's place of business. So I said to myself, fuck it, let's go to the gap and nordstrom's! I'm just so tired. I got some boring sweaters, only one of which was on sale. To hell with you, frugality, and you as well, eccentricity! Well not to hell, but to a vacation. One sweater was this color, because none of the interesting colors looked as pretty with my eyes. Sensible! And then after that I met a friend for coffee at a starbucks because I have a gift card. Frugality had a very short trip. Eccentricity maybe came back at the start of this entry. Then, I saw a movie at the Elsinore, with my dear Jean Arthur.

hair; cleo

Have a picture of the hair I cut from my head tonight!



Exciting!

I don't know how I can take that risk, time and again, yet not be able to muster the guts to risk a new hairdresser. Somehow I feel much better if my hair is felled by my own hand.
I almost did not say felled, but rather fucked, but on re-read that sounded confusingly disgusting. Try it, if you want to be confusingly disgusted!

I feel lame, so I thought the best thing would be to write a lame entry to spread the lameness of me. Yes, so clearly best. It was a bad day at school and I don't know why. Just because I am not at all suited to teaching? That is how it feels, sort of, but more specifically that I am not at all suited for MY LIFE OR ANYTHING I WANT. oooooooooo, angsssssssssssssttttttt. How it hisses inside of me, some days.
Here is a picture of my new hair, if you were worried back there, looking at the felled hair:



I am afraid to take a picture of the very back. I believe there is a peculiar hole, there, toward the bottom. But believing is not seeing, and as long as I refuse to see, my faith in the hole shall waiver.

I might post a bunch of songs as a mix for you all, though maybe 2 of you will download a handful, if even that. You louses. I won't do it today because I don't feel like it. Soon though, if at all.
Oh boy! Get ready! Or, not!

Here is the movie I got from netflix, when tired of Joseph Campbell and his mythpower talk:
Cleo From 5 to 7


A French New Wave film I only recently became aware existed! Wowee zowee! An alienated, pretty young woman! How fun! I will tell you how it is, later.

I might try to blog more frequently (?) so here

Today was kind of fun. We are finishing up our methods classes (random-activity classes that feel like a waste of time but are required for licensure) today and tomorrow, and that's kind of a pain in the ass, but today one of our activities was going to the Elsinore Theatre (which, as you might recall, I am somewhat familiar with), and oh my gosh you guys, it was so fun. For one thing, I just like being there, because it's so weird and pretty. But also, we got shown around the balcony sections (I don't usually go up there, and never sat up there), hallways I never knew existed, the stage (there's a magician escape! that's what it's called! a magician escape! it leads down to one of the dressing rooms!), and the dressing rooms themselves. And tomorrow night Bea Arthur is coming to the theatre, so that was mentioned several times, and I'm not sure how to explain what that added to the proceedings, but you guys I have been in Bea Arthur's dressing room. I also got to explain to someone that Bea Arthur is not a man. And the organ! The organ was played for us, and explained to us! Did you know, there are like a bazillion tons of organ pipe in the building! Seriously, tons! Some of it like up high in the walls or ceiling, I don't know! And I guess previously I'd been under the impression organs were faking their sounds somewhat, with the bellows and pipes, like the prototype of electric keyboards I guess, but duh no! THERE ARE REAL FUCKING INSTRUMENTS BEING PLAYED BY THE ORGAN, INSTRUMENTS UP HIGH ABOVE THE STAGE, LIKE IN THE CEILING! Drums, various drums, a harp, cymbals, A TAMBOURINE! And the piano, on the other side of the stage CAN BE PLAYED LIKE THERE'S A GHOST PIANIST, from the organ. And I was kind of hesitant to ask how they get to the instruments, because I thought I might be letting us in for a boring and unnecessarily complicated answer, but dude, it involves a trapdoor, with a ladder in it, 36 steps (like a hitchcock movie, minus 3 steps!) and getting through very tight spaces. I wish we could have seen those instruments. I can't even imagine how it works. My mind boggles. Boggles.

Then after that we had some science activities back at the school of education and that was ok, but tomorrow I have to do PE methods. Even still, years after my last PE class, the thought of PE fills me with disgust and anti-participatory spirit. And, somehow, I feel anti-American.

catfish; suckering; cringing

Sometimes I'm listening to a certain musician, or reading an author's work, and I'm loving nearly every single thing coming down the pike, you know, and I'm wondering how that happens, because a lot of things seem boring or only okay, but not this person's things! And so either the person's a genius, or I am being suckered by some formula they've figured, they put anything in and out comes something I'll love, and it's only my lack of sophistication keeping this person's work so entrancing.
This day's instance: Richard Brautigan's writing. I was looking for stuff for my next lit mix, and ended up marking waaaay too many things, before giving up on marking. But tell me, am I a sucker to love a poem like this?

Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by the pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."


------------------------------------------------

Also I am watching the golden globes pre-show, delighting in the horrible things isaac mizrahi says. Did you see that? He has asked every woman about her underwear, and some women, he asks even MORE provocative and offensive questions. He opens up their handbags. He touches their bosoms. He is a horrible, awkward, terrible man, and how it makes me laugh and laugh, and cringe.

a matter of tv-watching

Oooo