Dostoevsky

This is the first draft of a poem I wrote this morning while reading Anthropology homework and thinking about why I act the way I do. Post comments and tell me what you think (and what you think needs changing).

working title:
Approaching whole mind

from my mother, the gift of candid speech
of laying one’s heart at the feet of another
and trusting that they will pick it up, hold it, and hand it back
rather than step on it and squish it to oblivion.

from my father, the gift of rhetoric
of building an argument
of clarity of logic, thought expressed eloquently
of the ability to turn heads with words.

I married them: the heart and the head
And I use the tools of each one (of each hemisphere)
I build towers of logic and gardens of feeling
With my mother’s purity and my father’s strength.

In the words I speak, and in the ones I write
I look for the hem of the line, the body callosum
Where the fabric of feeling and the fabric of reason
Are met, and marry and intertwine.

Ireland, ourstyle

The following pictures are:
Thomas and me at the Clonakilty Post Office, which is inside a former church. The people of Clonakilty are pretty sure that theirs is the only post office in the world that is housed in a former church. It's quite interesting; a beautiful old church building, which on the inside has a queue and plexiglass with tellers behind it, and a drop box!





Thomas with a bust of Barry McGovern as Vladimir from Waiting for Godot, taken on our visit to the Dublin Writers Museum.







Us with Nick Harper! Holy Cheese. We gave him a present, which he wore the night he played with his dad. We felt very honoured. The gift was a T-shirt with an Alex Ross painting on it of George Bush as a vampire, sucking the neck of the Statue of Liberty. tee hee. (pictured here)







.

Glocality

I'm feeling very technologically interconnected at the moment. I'm sitting in locally owned Sunergos Coffee on Preston (full o' people right now, by the way--cheers to college kids and Christians, the principal occupants of said shop!). It's 10:15 in the ayem, and I'm using my trusty little Apple iBook, mooching Sunergos' electricity to power the thing, sipping Guatemalan blend coffee, listening to someone else's music library on iTunes--someone who must also be in the coffeeshop. There is a band in their collection called the Appleseed Cast, and they are pretty supercool. (Like, I think I'll buy an album kind of cool.) Meantime, I'm reading Elizabeth's blog all the way from Boston and simultaneously chatting with folks on campus and around the country through Gmail and Facebook.

How glocal! (as in global and local at the same time.... It's an anthropology/economics term I learned. Doesn't roll off the tongue well, but it's linguistically interesting).

It all seemed so 21st century to me... and I mean that in a futuristic sense. Sometimes the feeling of living in the future now comes upon me with overwhelming clarity. Timelines, notions of "progress" and "civilization," fold and compress before me, around me, and I get a glimpse of what it must have been like to be Philip K. Dick. In the book VALIS he posits that time actually ended in 79 AD and that this 'modern' world is laid over it, and obscures that reality. I don't subscribe to that particular manifestation of the notion that time is illusory, but I do believe in that general idea. Time as an external, measured and measurable reality is a false notion. Time exists insofar as we create it and then observe (and obey) our creation, but it doesn't exist in some Platonic, empirical, objective, progressive kind of way. And all this intellectual theorizing is tangible for me when I have these moments of supreme surreality, when facets of what we in this culture, day and age call "reality" bends, shifts, or disappears completely, and one can see the pattern of all of it. I guess it sounds a bit like the Matrix, eh? But it is what I experience.

Sometimes I can look through this hazy distracting veil of habit and structure and have these peircing moments of true clarity, when I can see the world full-on, not sideways or peripherally. It's breathtaking, and exhiliarating, and terrible.

So, enough of that. I hope you're all keeping up with Elizabeth's blog, A Room Full of Books , because it is hilarious, and poignant, and insightful, and lovely. Please do yourselves a favor and read it.

And speaking of blogs, sorry I've not been 'round much. The semester is eating me from the outside in. I'm holding off the attacks for now, but it has been disheartening and frustrating and draining in many ways. In equally many ways it's been a grand and worthwhile adventure, full of new and fascinating people, places, ideas, experience and feelings. In all ways it has been taxing. I look forward to rest and press on to the next project.

P.S. I have asked Jimmy and Thomas if I may post pictures of them from the Ireland trip, and they are fine with it, so expect more Ireland pictures SOON! Love and learning to each of you.

Autumn becomes me

Hace casi un mes que no estoy aquí en la red, en la blog. I haven't been on my blog in almost one month. And what a month! I had some pretty desperate moments of wanting to drop out of school as I attempted to negotiate my time, balancing between three executive boards, classes, work, and home--what with Thomas being ill and all. But he's on the mend now, happy to say. It was a long six weeks, worrying about him and having the added stress of a sick husband. And I am quite enjoying my semester, although I often think I have more to do than is possible to do in 24 hour days. C'est la vie.

In any case, I didn't come on here tonight to write about any mundane goings-on; rather, I wanted to post a poem I wrote a few weeks back when I had been mentally railing against the ridiculous Louisville weather as I drove home on a particularly sticky evening. I watched the sky turn from bright blue to pink and orange, not able to enjoy the colours for the heat. The beauty of the sunset was pushed back from my consciousness, as if I were appreciating a painting through a periscope, though, and I suddenly realized as I felt the heat and all the people enjoying it, how futile it was for me to pretend that hot weather is a thing I enjoy. I also realized, in a moment, how silly it is, more generally, to consider the weather we have in Louisville between May and September to be the thing called "summer"; it is not. Furthermore, it is an implied lament that I don't leave in a place where September is more autumn than summer. To have the stifling heat of the summer survive into September... it's just not fair. This poem is an expressed feeling about what a Louisville autumn really is: a disgustingly unpleasant period of time, free from breezes, cool rains, pleasant smells, or shade. It's hot and oppressive and dangerous and exhausting. And silly. So here it is.

Kentucky's Ohio

and what is autumn
anyway
in this stygian pocket
of the river’s ridge
the heat and damp
swallowing the spine of
this twisted river body.
We’re tucked in:
Ken-tucked
in this Ohio Valley summer
where the moisture hangs
and the mosquitoes multiply.

Is it October yet?

Facebook innovates again

I wanted to see if this would work. It's a Facebook "badge." Not sure exactly how it will be useful to me, but I was curious to see what happened. Hmmm.... Curiouser and curiouser.

¡Qué maravilla el internet!

In other news, the first two days of school are enjoyable thus far. I've only had one actual class so far, but have been keeping quite busy with Honors Student Council. I am looking forward to posting more pics from Ireland, but in the meantime I am feeling more placid than last semester, trying to be more organized and hopeful. This plan is going well so far; for instance, I have planned out all the dinner meals for the week. Yesterday was pesto pasta, the day before was beef stew, and tonight will be polenta cakes. I have revoked my veganism and feel quite good about it. My body feels more grounded, in a good way. Nourished, not schizophrenic. We'll see how it goes.

Overseas and into the heart

I've just come back down after an exhiliarating (and sometimes tense) vacation. Ireland for a week was amazing. The absolute best vacation ever. It felt so good to travel with my husband, to brbing together my love of travel with my true love. We stayed mostly in County Cork, and a few days in Dublin. I'll hopefully post a more detailed account of the trip, but for now, here's a picture or two of some of my favourite things on the trip.


a pretty cottage on Clonakilty Bay, West Cork.











me, taking advantage of a photo op at the Clonakilty Model Railway Village.












Nick Harper, playing his show at deBarra's Folk Club in Clonakilty, August 2nd. It was a spiritual experience....












This is a sheela-na-gig on the side of a 16th century castle. Sheelas were pagan goddesses carved into the sides of churches and castles to protect them from invaders. These sheelas were hags, or wisewomen, with hideous faces, who exposed their genitals, the source of their protective power.
















:)

Swear Eternal Friendship to Beauty

"In each person I catch the fleeting suggestion of something beautiful and swear eternal friendship with that."

-- George Santayana

This is the way to always love people: to see the good in them and believe in that goodness. I love this quote because it is such a perfect crystallization of why and how I seem to enjoy almost everyone's company, and why it's possible to be an optimist. It's an interesting meditation, especially when one forces oneself to find and see the beauty in others normally considered anathemic to oneself. Such as George W. Bush.

But when one can look and see the beauty in any one person, one never wants for compliments, or hope, or allies, or friends.

JK (kidding, not Rowling)

This post was intended for my birthday, but I had some technical difficulties. Thanks for your patience with my spotty appearances, and I hope all is right with you and yours. And now, unfettered and unindulged, in its original text, my post from two days ago....

Hi again, Mouseketeers! July has flown by in a gust of productivity and contentment (and a certian measure of worry and stress, of course, I must admit). I've checked many things of the "I desire to do" list, such as: see the movie A Scanner Darkly, get stuff for Honors Student Council rolling, visit the Anthropology Department, attend the birth of the baby K (name omitted for privacy's sake), watch lots and lots of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and NYPD Blue, love on my husband, bake things (eg banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, birthday brownies, curried rice).

And so, although I've been absent here, I've been trying to be more present elsewhere. I feel that my attempts to attract the good and repel the bad are having tangible repercussions, the most disturbing of which is that as I feel the bad energy draining from me, I am pretty sure that I'm being attacked by dark energies from the outside. Odd things keep happening, namely the deaths of pets of my family (first, my sister-in-law's bunny, then my mom's loyal dog, then another bunny of my sister-in-law's). Then, my computer broke and was away being fixed for two weeks, in a bid to deter me from being efficient. Littler things, like inexplicable bruises and pains in my body, along with a flat tire, all sort of converged this month, communicating to me that the process of trying to think positively is an arduous and sometimes dangerous task. But I feel determined. I want to be a hopeful person again, a peaceful and understanding person. I want to stop being "right" and start being helpful. I'm sick of my beliefs and my judgments and biases. I want to clean my heart of resentment. This is difficult, but it is worth the effort, I think.

And today is my birthday, happy auspices already received. I turned on the radio this morning while making lunches, and the first song I heard was "Hounds of Love" by Kate Bush, one of my favourites of all time and on my birthday mix this year. Odd coincidence, eh? And then, when I got in the car to drive the kids to daycamp, "Funkytown" by Lipps, Inc. followed by Prince's "Kiss"--great songs to hear on one's birthday. As I've mentioned on the blog before, each year on my birthday, I make a compilation CD of important songs for me that year. Here is this year's list, which I will burn a bit later on today, and enjoy for time immemorial: (and with this list, I give my leave. Until soon!)

What's My Age Again? by Blink 182
Wild Witch Lady by Donovan
It's Not the Fall That Hurts by the Caesars
Never Been to Spain by Three Dog Night
Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads
Town Called Malice by the Jam
Down by Nothing Error
Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush
Hey Rose by Girlyman
Bilingual Girl by Yerba Buena
Everlasting Sea by Donovan
Treasure Island by Nick Harper
Maori by Girlyman
Roun' the Globe by Nappy Roots
You Have Killed Me by Morrissey
I Am Here to Break Your Heart by Nothing Error
You Show Me Yours (And I'll Show You Mine) by Kris Kristofferson
One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head
Frankly, Mr. Shankly by the Smiths
Cosmic Dancer by T.Rex

In with the new, out with the pink

I haven't been around much on my blog this summer, and for this I am sorry. Me lamento la falta de estar presente en la red. I've been occupied loving my husband and trying to foster closeness with him. I have also been working hard on stuff for Honors Student Council and BirthCare Network. And I have two birth clients whose due dates are about to collide with each other! (One is late in coming, and I have a feeling the other will come early....)

You might also notice that my blog looks different, and has a different name. This change is meant to reflect a turn in the road for me; I am reconceptualizing my creative space as a reflection of the process of reconceptualizing that I am doing in my life. Please let me know what you think. As a last note, this new template does not allow links, so here, inside the post, are links to my favourite sites:

• A Room Full of Books


• La Busqueda: Sarah Ruzic in Guatemala


• National Public Radio


• Word Reference: online dictionary


• BirthCare Network of Kentuckiana

Happy reading! May the road rise to meet you, etc.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ME! ...or not.

I am apparently Supergirl. Take this superhero quiz to find out who YOU are:

http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/superhero/

My results:
Your results:
You are Supergirl

Supergirl 85% Spider-Man 80% Wonder Woman 80% Iron Man 80% Superman 75% Hulk 75% Green Lantern 70% Batman 45% Robin 40% The Flash 40% Catwoman 40%

Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test


Link to my results:
http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/superhero/result.htm?a=75&b=80&c=45&d=85&e=80&f=40&g=75&h=40&i=70&j=40&k=80

Making Up For Lost Time... No te preocupas.

I have taken a proverbial page out of the blog of my good friend Elizabeth (see new link to the right) and have happened upon--albeit "sin querer" (unintentionally)--my own "FreeWill Astrology" horoscope o'the week. And Elizabeth certainly has a page to spare for me; her new blog is called "A Room Full of Books," and all I needed was the one page.... Elizabeth's blog is the absolute authority on all things literary. At least, in my world, it is. Elizabeth is my biblio-beacon, illuminating for me her opinions of her favourite tomes, and giving me ideas for great picks and must-have items. Go check out her blog. She is the most amazing rising Reference librarian EVER! She will someday rule the written wor(l)d!!!!

To get back to it, ahem, here is my horoscope from FreeWill:
"My life is about finding time to dream," M. Night Shyamalan has said. I urge you to make that your motto, Leo. The progress of your most practical ambitions later in 2006 will depend on whether or not you spend the next few weeks tapping into information that's available through fantasies, meditations, dreams and other altered states."

Now, to some who read this blog, perhaps my finding credence in astrology is akin to listening to demonic spirits. For me, however, I feel like it's affirmation from the cosmos that I'm heading in the right direction. For the past year or two even, I've been adrift in the metaphysical sea, with no dogma to guide my path--except the belief that belief systems as a rule are flawed and even deceptive and that the people who stand atop them and wave their banners are, at best, inconsistent but well-intentioned, and at worse, malevolent liars.

This belief in "no belief system" is the most dangerous kind of metaphysical existence. I have felt the lack of true and sincere belief in my heart very acutely for some time now. I have sought to fill that gap in all manner of ways (med school? smoking? partying? grade-consciousness? scholarship? agnosticism? money?), but what it's come down to is that I have to remove the impediments in the path to that lacking. I had blocked my open heart with rationalization, anger, disappointment, skepticism. Now I am trying to uncover those layers that have been blocking my ability to commune with the metaphysical part of myself.

(At least) one of my family members is worried that I am opening myself up to evil forces if I open myself up to "positive energy" of the random and unidentified variety. I understand what she means, because I saw her go through the same dark path for several years. But I feel like I've already been on that path; that when I stopped listening to my heart and started listening to my ego instead, I allowed those darker forces to wheedle their logic into me. I know what darkness feels like and looks like; I know well how I behave when in their sphere of influence. And what I'm trying to do now is push them back and out of me, and fill that part again with goodness and hope. But I'm not, at this point, ready to name the positive force to which I am praying, because I still feel like that inherently puts spirituality into a man-made box and creates more room for anxiety and anger to reign in me. Nevertheless, this force is, intuitively the same as that which I've always appealed to, but which at some point I decided was indifferent to me and possibly non-existent. It's easy to see now that this force never changed; only I did.

So I'm trying to change back. "...At this point a new story begins, the story of a [wo]man's gradual renewal, her gradual rebirth, her gradual transition from one world to another, of her growing acquaintance with a new...reality." (Dostoevsky, the second to last sentence in Crime & Punishment)

And the horoscope in LEO encourages me; that is all. And as far as its advice goes, I have been paying special attention to my dreams of late, as they seem to be imbued with transcendent meaning, full of vivid images and memorable phrases. I have begun writing poetry again (most of it, as yet, horrible--case in point in last entry); I am drawing a bit; I am trying to dig back into my memories, in order to remember the magic of children's thinking. I am looking for the divine instead of the man-made; I welcome the supernatural, the creative and the unifying.

We'll see how it goes.... !

Things Are Intense--but Good. (What Else Is New?)

This is flippin' ridiculous. It's been over two weeks since my last, pathetic post. Inexcusable!

And yet, I have some excuses. For example: I have been a busy bee! in such pursuits as Birth in the Bluegrass (still wrapping up the loose ends from that one), Freshman Orientation at UofL (ongoing), creating a myspace account (yes, I'm officially addicted to the internet), Facebooking, reading, having some intense interaction with my husband (not like that, you perv). I also just got hired as a Spanish and Italian tutor for REACH (free tutoring provided by UofL). Oh, yeah, and one other little detail:

I GOT A FULL TUITION "ETSCORN" SCHOLARSHIP FROM THE HONORS PROGRAM FOR THE 2006-07 SCHOOL YEAR!!!!

Bwahahahahaha. I am so very happy not to have money troubles for the foreseeable future. Aaahhhhh..... I also have started doing yoga in my backyard (weather permitting) which has made me feel better physically. Spiritually I seem to be going through some kind of passage.... the immateria and the holy are calling to me. I am beginning to seek to answer that call once more. I have started trying to meditate and pray (on purpose) again. I'm not sure who I'm praying to except that I want to channel the forces of peace and good and power bigger than myself. --I think I've been trying to rely too much on myself for answers, instead of just letting them fall upon me, as they used to. Too much seeking, not enough finding. I need more stillness to find, I think.

Anyhoo. As part of my re-invigorated "Slow down, you move too fast; you gotta make the moment last" mantra, I have written my first poem in more than two years, in an attempt to get the creative juices reciculating through my soul. I share it here with you now, simply to demonstrate that I am rusty, but I am trying to reconnect with that part of me. Here it is:

I never noticed, till now
how the clouds resemble bones
A front of sirrus whisps
lined up
like a column of crooked vertebrae
with good bone density
...no celestial kyphoplastys on this front.

There, after the spine,
a single, trailing hyoid circle
of a cloud
smeared by the wind
--Someone must've smashed the throat.

These cloud x-rays float beyond my roof
toward that gibbon of a moon:
waxing, the densest bit of bone mass in the evening sky.

Yeah, it's weird. Sorry. As an aside in case you're curious, a kyphoplasty is an outpatient surgery performed by a neurosurgeon or orthopoedic surgeon wherein a collapsed spinal vertebra has a needle inserted into it with a balloon on the end; the balloon is blown up to resotre the vertebra to its original height, and special cement is inserted to fill the balloon and recreate the density and structure of the vertebra to its original state. In addition, in case you are burning to know, the hyoid bone is the only bone in the body that is not articulated (does not connect) to any other bone. It's high in the throat and helps the tongue navigate its intricacies. It's cool to look at on an x-ray because it appears to be floating in the throat, different than the stacked architecture of the spine, shoulders, ribs, et al. Here's a representation of it in the body, relative to the cervical spine and skull:



Here is a short pictorial representation of the main parts of a kyphoplasty procedure:

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Spanish phrase o'the day: Amas de Casa Desesperadas (Desperate Housewives)

I have only the energy to post this quote, which Elizabeth so fortuitously sent me. It's sort of a snapshot summary of all my feelings about the nature of reality, and the constant and on-going thought process I have regarding the seeming reality that "truth is stranger than fiction." Here's the quote.

"Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the
laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress. It is wrong, then, to
chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences...but it is
right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life."
(Milan Kundera, from The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

One Night In Bangkok

THOSE IN LOUISVILLE:

Birth the Play at Actor's Theatre: Friday, June 2 and Saturday, June 3 at 8pm. tickets $15; $12 for students & seniors. (502) 584-1205 for more info.

4th annual "Birth in the Bluegrass" Childbirth Conference June 3 at Executive Inn West in Louisville KY, 10am - 2pm. This year's theme: "Achieving Balance in Childbirth." see link to Birth Care Network on the right side of this blog for more info. www.birthcarenetwork.com

PLEASE BE THERE! You are supporting choice in childbirth for birthing families!!!!!

Right. Sorry about the week gap in writing here, but I've been horribly productive doing other things. It's quite brilliant, actually. Although I've been pretty bitchy much of the week (either due to PMS, echoes of Mother's Day, or my husband's stress level, what with the end of the school year upon us and all), I have gotten lots done, for myself and for my satellite interests. For example, I've done loads of things to get ready for the Birth in the Bluegrass Conference week after next!!! I'm in charge of the Silent Auction, and have been colelcting plenty of lovely items and services to auction. I've also made calls to prospective vendors and have tied up other Birth Care Network loose ends. I even got myself a lovely massage on Wednesday and lunched with Andrew the Lovely Medievalist. We had a civilized chat over salads and soups about some viking named Something-wulf cleaving people in two. Quite civilized, I assure you. Especially the cleaving.

And my beautiful Elizabeth moves! She migrates north for the summer, and then back to MASS. Interestingly and by coincidence (as usual), this morning I was talking to one of my many bosses at the Honors House (Tony), who purports that all people from Boston are mean. I disagreed with him, saying that my experience in Boston had been quite lovely--especially the North Quarter--and he replied by saying, "they don't call them MASSholes for nothing." I thought that was pretty funny, although I disagreed, obviously. tee hee.

In other news, I've begun my summer job at school. I'm in training this week so that we can begin advising freshmen during orientation next week! Exciting times! My kids end school this week as well, and my sister's in town visiting, too! All kinds of things happening, and yet I'm a bit melancholy to be out of my routine of visiting friends from school. They've scattered to the four winds for summertime, understandably. And I've got plenty on the docket, what with the play and the conference and working and the end of school etc., but I still miss seeing my "peeps" (which I must always say with a bit of irony...).

PS. The title refers to the song I've been listening to incessantly for the past week. It's from a Tim Rice musical called "Chess."

How Do I Hate Mother's Day? Let Me Count The Ways

I am a doula. This means that I spend a considerable chunk of time with women who are seasoned mothers, women just preparing to be a mother, or women who are handling the new job of mothering. I love my mother; I love my mother-in-law. I love my sister--also a mother. I love all my colleagues at BirthCare Network, most of whom are mothers several times over. I love women and mothering and birth and uteri and vaginas and voluptuousness. I love the Goddess.

Nevertheless, I hate Mother's Day... a LOT.

Mother's Day is a sucky day for me, because I am confronted with a reality which normally I am able to keep on the fringes of my consciousness. But as I watch my husband make a present with the kids for his ex-wife, I naturally tend toward feelings not unlike that which chopped liver must feel. All in all, I feel pretty marginalized. ...I did get a cool present yesterday from my family, but it was given to me with the understanding that it was meant as a 'thanks for taking care of us' present. So, in short, I had mixed feelings about it. I love my stepkids, and I love my husband and his appreciation for the contribution I made to raising his kids. But on Mother's Day, it really hurts--a LOT--not to be a "real" mom. As a logical result, I was in a pretty bad mood all weekend, and now I'm just glad it's over.

Ironically, the blatant Mother's Day salutations I did receive were from my sister-in-law, my own mother and father, and from my husband's ex-wife. She gave me a very beautiful card expressing how much she appreciated the contribution I make to her children's lives. To receive this from her is somewhat bittersweet, you know, as I simultaneously appreciate the recognition while also resenting her for having had her own babies, while I probably will have none. It's a weird life, to be sure.

Questions and sentiments about being a parent, reproducing oneself, sharing one's life with another person and mutually raising and transmitting their culture together to this new being are much more momentous and primal than anyone can really accurately feel in youth. It is only with time that the import of these human rites becomes obvious. For myself, I don't think, now, that I'll be a happy woman at 60 if I have no children of my own to show for it. I don't have a sense that I'll ever make a baby myself, but I think adoption will be a necessary part of my future. I've got to have some kid to call my own. Sharing other people's children (whether my stepkids or those children whose families hire me during their gestation) can only go so far.

2 Years Late: Better Now Than Never

Although this album came out 2 years ago and I never tried to publish this review, perhaps I can persuade a few of you to buy/listen to the album. Here's the review.



All That We Let In CD Review

The Indigo Girls' newest CD, All That We Let In, is another set of beautiful, uplifting songs that speak to the truth of our hearts as Americans and as lovers of human nature. Amy Ray and Emily Saliers appeal to the best instincts in their listeners; this faith in their consumers is the chief reason for their success on this album and in previous years.
The most necessary song on this CD is “Perfect World,” the Indigo Girls’ simultaneous praise of the utopian aspects of America and admonishment of its underlying roots in injustice and excess. Case in point: “I’m okay if I don’t have to do the killing/or know what the killing is for..../And in this moment we are denying/what it costs.../for one perfect world/when we look the other way.” The song exhorts us to “learn to live another way,” and realize the price we must pay for the cost of the freedom and privilege we enjoy in the United States.
Another must-have song is “All That We Let In,” the CD’s title track. It is an anthem against apathy, an invitation to love the world unconditionally, despite loss and sadness. The poignant yet simple lyrics pull on one’s heartstrings with effective zeal, but never cross into that dreaded arena of “cotton candy” music: “You see those crosses on the side of the road/Or tied with ribbons in the median/They make me gratedul I can go this mile/Lay me down and wake me up again.” Typical of the Indigo Girls, Amy and Emily walk the fine line between gripping emotion and fetid melodrama, always steering clear of the mediocre.
Musically, the album has all the variety one would expect of these such seasoned musicians. Some tracks have a reflective tone, with velvety vocal harmonies and stripped-down instrumentals. There are, of course, upbeat, folksy songs, in signature Indigo Girls style. “Dairy Queen” is a dramatic country ballad with sophisticated and heartfelt lyrics, while “Heartache for Everyone” has a decidedly ska sound, with its organ and accordion instrumentals and hyper-reggae beat.
As an added bonus, the album art is drawn by the renowned comics artist Jaime Hernandez of Love and Rockets fame, and is worth the price of admission alone. So it’s the icing on the cake that All That We Let In will have you tapping your feet while also causing you to want to make the world a better place. It speaks to the most reverent place in the heart, and is a perfect album for any poetic soul. - Clare F. Gervasi

Old thoughts, with a comic

I started going through old journal entries this morning in an attempt to make sense of the vast folders and documents plugging up free space on my hard drive (eww, that sounds gross). Here's an excerpt I thought was worth sharing from February 23, 2004:

I am sitting here in the window of Day’s coffeeshop at the age of 21, writing, the same exact place I was 3 years ago. Writing--constipatedly, grudgingly--and no closer to holding a college degree or a tangible future.
I have just finished listening to a piece on NPR about twenty-somethings moving back in with their parents post-graduation because the job market is so prohibitive at the moment, due to recession. First, they said kids are moving back home because there is less stigma associated with it, and because “young people” want to save money. Then they begin in on how kids actually LIKE their parents. They get along with them in a way their parents could not with their own parents.
And I sit here by myself in this cold storefront window, staring at the slacker-filled abyss that is Bardstown Road Highlands, and I feel a note of discord strike my heart at the thought of what this guest on this radio show is saying. It dissettles me.
There is something extremely distasteful to me in the notions of this ex-hippie talking on the radio about how parents today “don’t want to separate themselves from young people. They listen to more of the ‘young people’s’ music; they wear more of the ‘young people’s’ fashions, and they are close to them in ways that World War II generation parents could not relate to their kids, to us.” A statement like this--and it is not a new assertion--really rubs me the wrong way. Well, it forces to the forefront of my consciousness all doubts about the veracity and genuineness of this statement, where they then ferret and furrow uncomfortably into and around the gyri and sulci of my brain. It is worthy to note that this parent and commentator who spoke about generational differences in the parent-child relationship NEVER ONCE referred to his own child. He referred to “young persons.”

In other news, I also found a comic strip I made for my lovely friend Elizabeth last year. Here it is:



And as Meigooni faithfully pointed out, not everyone who checks this blog reads Spanish! (duh, Clare. sheesh.) So, Here's the translation:
FRAME 1: My God, rooster! We're in Spanish! What're we going to do?
FRAME 2: I know... First, we have to get new clothes--STAT!
FRAME 3: Dave: Why? Rooster: Because, Latinos never wear ties, man. It looks stupid, you know?
FRAME 4: Oh, yeah, I get it: Don't be a gringo.
FRAME 5: So, how do you like our new duds?
FRAME 6: That's not funny, bitch! I'M not the gringo, motherf*er!
NOTE: For Elizabeth, my gringo bitch :)

Just Another Facebook

Spanish word of the day: Envenenada (adj): poisoned.

Well, I did it. I joined Facebook. I am officially a college student now, full and initiated. It was sort of scary, actually, to join the network, but I knew that I had to be a part of it. I think of myself as the kind of person who cares about being plugged into as many people as possible, and what better way to do that than the forum of Facebook? It's an amazing phenomenon, really. To connect so many people in such a social and personal way, completely using fiber optic cable and ethernet connections.... It's pretty cool. I think it's a further expression of the technological manifestation of the very sincere human desire to be aware of and concerned about and interested in each other. --So, despite my reservations about the collision between one's personal and professional life everyone keeps talking about, I'm a joiner. Go me!

I am reading Anthropologist on Mars right now, and at the very front of the book are two quotes which I would simply like to leave with you here, and then I'll go (busy as I am enjoying my free time, unencumbered by school!!!):

"The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, but queerer than we CAN imagine." - J.B.S. Haldane

"Ask not what disease a person has, but rather what person the disease has." - (attributed to) William Osler

Anchovies, Hamper.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY: enchufes. (en-choo'-fays) noun, literally, an electrical outlet. Slang, however, has them as powerful people that you know. People who can "hook you up," so to speak. For example: "How did you get box seats to the Derby?" "Enchufes, hombre. I serve coffee to Bob Bafford's dog's trainer's shrink."

This blog is such a nice cranny in which to hide. Much better than writing my two final papers for the semester. Bwahahahaha. I am working on campus today (getting paid, in other words, to sit here and listen to music and surf the net). I'm listening to a band called Nothing Error, headed by Doug Hill, of whom I know little but wish to know more. His band's got an EP out called I Am Here to Break Your Heart. His myspace website can be viewed here, for those of you interested in edgy yet not exhibitionist punk, full of feeling but little frustrated tire spinning, like so much "punk" music is these days:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=5297528.

At this particular moment, I'm listening to a track called "Down," the best line of which is "I'm not to blame\It's not my fault\That all your wounds\Filled up with salt." Probably not the kind of thing a Louie Prima lover such as Michael Jackman would enjoy, but perhaps Grant (of Reginald Meeks' fame...go publicly elected officials and their interns!) or Andy Bart (of recent birthday fame) would be into it.

Speaking of Michael Jackman, I pleasantly ran into him last week at Heine Bros on Chenoweth. I was there to meet a classmate to study for our Spanish final later in the week (hence the paucity of presence here on Barefoot and Married last week, sorry. Finals take precedence), and he happened to be there, for I'm not sure what reason. It can, I suppose, be chalked up to the fact that Jackman is ubiquitous in coffeeshops, as any good writer ought to be. Coffeeshops have everything the writer needs: a decent wifi connection, plenty o' caffeine, electrical outlets and interesting people to look at. I only got to speak to him for a moment, but he mentioned that he recently had a commentary published in LEO, which I was delighted to hear. It's a great one, and I got to hear the audio version live a few weeks ago, right after he'd written it, when we met for coffee (of course) at Highland. Go read it! http://www.leovia.com/?q=node/1237 ...Also, his own website is extremely well-maintained and interesting. His writing is incisive, honest, self-deprecating, and of course hilarious. Here's a link to his website: http://www.mjfreelancer.com/

I'll go now, I suppose. I must finish writing about invented tradition. I shall force myself. Argh! (That was me making my tough face at myself.)

PS WTF is up with Bush? Does he WANT hippie liberals to take up arms against him or what? see picture below.



PPS. The title for the blog entry today comes from the spellcheck on blogger.com. It wanted to change "Enchufes, hombre." To "Anchovies, hamper." It doesn't get better than that, now does it? Furthermore, it wanted to call Bob Bafford Bob byproduct. How unfortunate! Also, Blogger's spellcheck does not recognize "blog" as a word. --Ironic, ¿no?

A Series of Unfortunate Coincidences

As I was driving home last night in the rain from the Latin America Fiesta sponsored by Spanish Club, it occurred to me that I've made 3 extra trips between home and school this week. Generally, I'm exceedingly good at conserving and multitasking my goings out in my car so as to save fuel, but this week meetings etc fell in such a way as to make it quite impossible to waste less than 3 gallons of gas.

And, the unfortunate coincidence of it is that of course, all this extra driving has occurred in the same week as the highest gas price spike since Katrina. I really know how to plan these things, don't I? Grrr. Ah, well. Can't be helped. I had to go to the fiesta last night (which was so much fun, by the way) because they announced the winners of Spanish Club elections, for which I ran for secretary. I won (it was an uncontested race... go figure.).

Anyhoo, in other news, I was listening to NPR this morning, and they were interviewing Sergio Mendez and Wil IM of the Black Eyed Peas about his redux of classic Sergio bossa nova songs. It didn't make me want to buy the album--although I did enjoy the interview. Instead, I pulled out the original Austin Powers soundtrack which contains one famous Sergio Mendez song (the only one i have in my collection as yet), "Mas Que Nada." Now the CD has moved on to other songs, and at the moment the 'classic' "I Touch Myself" performed by the Divinyls is playing.

...Yeah. It's that kind of a day, I guess.

Still raining in Louisville, and I'm loving it. Can't get too much rain, I say. Quizás I ought to move to Seattle? No. I don't think I'm that big a fan. In any case, the rain has blown all the blossoms on our dogwoods, just as I acquired some new prayer flags to hang from them after my others were stolen in March. Go Republican Catholic neighborhood! I do so love religious hate crimes. But, as the Buddha would say, "Whatev. Stuff happens."

Hasta luego, y'all. ¡Diviértense! Los amo a todos de ellos. :)