Synopsis: Hate job. Feel like crying, don't know why. Also feel like hitting things. Probably more likely to hit things. Starving. Grabbing lunch, and then heading to class to once again flaunt my poetic genius (<-- facetious).
More on this later.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Um, I don't have much to say. Today is better. However, I'm broke and need gas for the scooter. Yes - I'm so broke that I don't even have the three dollars required to fill my tank. Plus I have to run home before class and print off some homework, which I have yet to do still. But which I'll probably do once I get back to work.
And for my notorious SPF, I would just like to say, you have not been a jerk. I have been rather jerkish. Not just to you, but to every aspect of my life in general. And I know it's not PMS, because that was two weeks ago.
I think I'm being devoured by my writer, and when she roars into such prominence, I withdraw and lash out. For that, I am sorry.
It is hard. So much hardness, so many rocks I seem to notice in all the wide open paths. I had forgotten the difficulty of these things in longs months of misty nostalgia. In regret, and disappointment.
It is worth it. But it is a hard thing.
My problem is that I seem to do so well at running when things get hard. And I don't want to run, but it just seems to happen.
Hold me, even when I say I don't want you to. I need you so much, to keep me here. To help me see.
And for my notorious SPF, I would just like to say, you have not been a jerk. I have been rather jerkish. Not just to you, but to every aspect of my life in general. And I know it's not PMS, because that was two weeks ago.
I think I'm being devoured by my writer, and when she roars into such prominence, I withdraw and lash out. For that, I am sorry.
It is hard. So much hardness, so many rocks I seem to notice in all the wide open paths. I had forgotten the difficulty of these things in longs months of misty nostalgia. In regret, and disappointment.
It is worth it. But it is a hard thing.
My problem is that I seem to do so well at running when things get hard. And I don't want to run, but it just seems to happen.
Hold me, even when I say I don't want you to. I need you so much, to keep me here. To help me see.
Monday, May 22, 2006
It Won't Hold No Milk
Sigh.
It's one of those days, you know. Been one of those weeks, actually. The sense of settling into contentment with some aspect or other of your life that really, you shouldn't be content with. At least, not content with leaving it as it is, instead of elbowing it into some semblance of progression.
I spent the weekend baking cookies for sad friends, beating Republic Commando for the umpteenth time. Scrubbing a bathroom that my sister had supposedly cleaned all last month, but sure didn't seem that way.
Then yesterday, I had to give an impromptu Sunday school lesson, because I thought that we split lessons by odd/even numbers, but apparently it's split on the every-other-Sunday basis. So... last week's lesson was an even number, which is what I usually teach, and it was Mother's day, so no one was in the singles' ward, because we all went to church with our families. And I just figured that I got to skip a week, which was fine by me, but it turns out I was wrong.
And what was I supposed to teach about? Judges. From the Old Testament. However, apparently I'm a marvelous teacher because the lesson turned out fabulous, and I am a genius. No, not really. Well, I just felt like I was standing up front babbling, and wondering to myself why I was talking, and confessing to any number of heinous stories from my past... but at the end of the lesson, this guy, Irving, who doesn't come to Sunday school much, came up to the front while I was erasing the board and he gave me a hug and said that he was so glad that I taught today and that I had said some things that he really needed to hear.
Can I just tell you how satisfying it is, as a teacher, to find out that what you're doing actually touches people? I love my calling. I love teaching Gospel Doctrine, even though we're covering the Old Testament this year, and it's usually a bugger to help people understand or motivate them to read. However, not only am I an exceptional teacher, I happen to be a master chef, and for all intents and purposes, I could get them to memorize War & Peace for my cookies if I wanted to. So who says that God doesn't utilize ALL of our talents? Hah.
So, at least the spiritual aspects of my life are doing spiffy. They'd probably do better if I could curb my swearing, but at least I don't swear when I'm teaching. And I've done a good job the past couple of weeks of keeping the words in my head, instead of streaming out of my mouth. Which means I'm pretty much screaming obscenities constantly in my brain, but at least no one can hear them.
This past week really sucked. I mean, honestly, it did. And I don't really know why, because it wasn't like some great, traumatic crap happened. I think it was just a whole jumble of little grievances that by Saturday turned out to be one big hairy Ball o' Grief. Do you ever feel like you have so much you'd like to talk about, but you don't know how to word it, or who to tell it to? That's how I feel. I feel all... knotty inside. And I can't untangle it because I don't have long enough fingernails, or a fork handy, and all the people who keep trying to help me are just making the knot tighter and bigger and more frustrating.
I feel like I'm missing some crucial person in my life at the moment... the problem with that being the fact I don't know who the hell it is.
There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza. A hole.
It's one of those days, you know. Been one of those weeks, actually. The sense of settling into contentment with some aspect or other of your life that really, you shouldn't be content with. At least, not content with leaving it as it is, instead of elbowing it into some semblance of progression.
I spent the weekend baking cookies for sad friends, beating Republic Commando for the umpteenth time. Scrubbing a bathroom that my sister had supposedly cleaned all last month, but sure didn't seem that way.
Then yesterday, I had to give an impromptu Sunday school lesson, because I thought that we split lessons by odd/even numbers, but apparently it's split on the every-other-Sunday basis. So... last week's lesson was an even number, which is what I usually teach, and it was Mother's day, so no one was in the singles' ward, because we all went to church with our families. And I just figured that I got to skip a week, which was fine by me, but it turns out I was wrong.
And what was I supposed to teach about? Judges. From the Old Testament. However, apparently I'm a marvelous teacher because the lesson turned out fabulous, and I am a genius. No, not really. Well, I just felt like I was standing up front babbling, and wondering to myself why I was talking, and confessing to any number of heinous stories from my past... but at the end of the lesson, this guy, Irving, who doesn't come to Sunday school much, came up to the front while I was erasing the board and he gave me a hug and said that he was so glad that I taught today and that I had said some things that he really needed to hear.
Can I just tell you how satisfying it is, as a teacher, to find out that what you're doing actually touches people? I love my calling. I love teaching Gospel Doctrine, even though we're covering the Old Testament this year, and it's usually a bugger to help people understand or motivate them to read. However, not only am I an exceptional teacher, I happen to be a master chef, and for all intents and purposes, I could get them to memorize War & Peace for my cookies if I wanted to. So who says that God doesn't utilize ALL of our talents? Hah.
So, at least the spiritual aspects of my life are doing spiffy. They'd probably do better if I could curb my swearing, but at least I don't swear when I'm teaching. And I've done a good job the past couple of weeks of keeping the words in my head, instead of streaming out of my mouth. Which means I'm pretty much screaming obscenities constantly in my brain, but at least no one can hear them.
This past week really sucked. I mean, honestly, it did. And I don't really know why, because it wasn't like some great, traumatic crap happened. I think it was just a whole jumble of little grievances that by Saturday turned out to be one big hairy Ball o' Grief. Do you ever feel like you have so much you'd like to talk about, but you don't know how to word it, or who to tell it to? That's how I feel. I feel all... knotty inside. And I can't untangle it because I don't have long enough fingernails, or a fork handy, and all the people who keep trying to help me are just making the knot tighter and bigger and more frustrating.
I feel like I'm missing some crucial person in my life at the moment... the problem with that being the fact I don't know who the hell it is.
There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza. A hole.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
No Ideas But In Things
This week, I've been pondering somewhat extensively the poetry of William Carlos Williams, one of my most favorite poets. I want to share with you the pieces that my attention has been focused on the most:
A Sort of Song
Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless
-- through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
The parenthetical aside in A Sort of Song: "No ideas but in things" is the part of Williams's writing style that gets me the most. That makes the most sense to me, and it's evidenced in the poem The Red Wheelbarrow. Because The Red Wheelbarrow is not about the wheelbarrow, or the rain, or the chickens, per se. It's about the first two lines. The opening line makes you peel open the layers of rain and paint and feathers to find out just what is being depended on. Wiliams believed in the straightforward conveyance of imagery to tell meaning without actually telling the meaning. I remember a quote by May Swenson, a poet from Logan, Utah, which talked about symbolism in poetry, and how it's crucial to explain your symbol explicitly, but to never tell the meaning. You can hint, but you cannot tell. I will have to search for that one, it was a great quote, and I hardly do it justice.
I have found, for me, that I prefer to convey the meaning of metaphorical images, instead of actual images. Instead of finding the meaning in the small rock on my windowsill that says "compliment" in black letters on it, I come up with metaphors for possible meanings, and compile them. I am fascinated by imagery, but I am equally fascinated by metaphor.
For me, the beauty of poetry lies in its ability to communicate things depending on the reader's perception. In a very real way, almost like scripture, you get out of a poem the things you bring to it. The wonderful thing about poetry is that it waits for you. Novels don't; characters change, but a poem will always wait. I love poetry because it's rereadable, because it's vague. Because you can empty your pathos into its cup, and only those who identify with it can drink it in its entirety. But then, poetry is things you communicate to be related to. We write to know we are not alone, just as we read to know we are not alone, and love to know we are not alone. Poetry it not about loneliness, it's about solitude. It reminds me of one of my very favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes:
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intelligent life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know your duty better than you know it. It is easy, in the world, to live after the world's opinion; it is easy, in solitude, to live after our own; but the great person is the one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
For me, poetry is exactly that: the independence of solitude kept in perfect sweetness. Though, admittedly, my poetry is not always sweet, it is, in a vitally real way, truth of feeling. I write what I feel. I write how I feel, things that make me feel. Poetry is about relate-able feelings. About communicating the unique perspective that you, and you alone have. I share my poetry to connect with to people, and to have people understand and relate to me. Poetry casts light on things we keep hidden. It whispers our inner screams to the passersby.
Yehuda Amichai once said, "Our despair is domesticated and gives us peace. Only the hopes have remained. Wild hopes, their screams shatter the night and rip up the day."
No ideas but in things. The challenge: be an observer. Look for the meaning in things. Only by setting down the very fundamentalness of things can we truly split them apart in detail and understand them.
And now for something completely different:
It's been a long week, and it's only Tuesday.
Yesterday I got The Office (BBC version) on DVD and watched the first season. But it was only on the first episode of the second season that I realized Dan is Garreth. They even have the same freaking haircut. (Nearly) It was the rendition of the Muppets' Mahnamanah song that made me finally realize it. Because Dan comes into work every day and sings that song. It freaked me OUT, dude. Pleh. Posers.
Today I feel...blah. My poem is being critiqued in workshop today, and I'm feeling rather trepidatious. Also, I'm wearing a shirt that says, "Don't Make Me Get My Wookie" on it. And I decided that it's a good thing I'm wearing a jacket.
It's so nice outside. I want to go outside and play. I want to go up the canyon by the water storage tank and roll down the huge grassy hills. Or throw rocks at the tank, because it's makes the coolest ping-y Star Wars™ blaster-fire noise ever.
There are some days when I really miss being a kid. I miss only having to worry about penmanship homework and complaining about bedtime and vegetables. I miss playing red rover. My cousin and her husband just had a baby recently, and he's the tiniest, perfectest thing I've seen in a long time. So much dark hair and dark eyes and he's just gorgeous. It made me sad. Sometimes I really, really want one of my own. And lately I've been wanting that a lot. I suppose it comes from being the oldest of 6 kids. I've been a "parent" since I was ten. And now that the youngest is turning 5, I miss having a baby around the house. I dunno what it is.
All my friends are getting married. It's getting really annoying. I think that inadvertently, I've surrounded myself with an inner circle of friends who are all pretty much bound and determined to remain single - mostly because they all love each other and it's a mess. It frustrates me. People in general have been frustrating to me. I don't seem to be able to relate to anyone around me.
A Sort of Song
Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless
-- through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
The parenthetical aside in A Sort of Song: "No ideas but in things" is the part of Williams's writing style that gets me the most. That makes the most sense to me, and it's evidenced in the poem The Red Wheelbarrow. Because The Red Wheelbarrow is not about the wheelbarrow, or the rain, or the chickens, per se. It's about the first two lines. The opening line makes you peel open the layers of rain and paint and feathers to find out just what is being depended on. Wiliams believed in the straightforward conveyance of imagery to tell meaning without actually telling the meaning. I remember a quote by May Swenson, a poet from Logan, Utah, which talked about symbolism in poetry, and how it's crucial to explain your symbol explicitly, but to never tell the meaning. You can hint, but you cannot tell. I will have to search for that one, it was a great quote, and I hardly do it justice.
I have found, for me, that I prefer to convey the meaning of metaphorical images, instead of actual images. Instead of finding the meaning in the small rock on my windowsill that says "compliment" in black letters on it, I come up with metaphors for possible meanings, and compile them. I am fascinated by imagery, but I am equally fascinated by metaphor.
For me, the beauty of poetry lies in its ability to communicate things depending on the reader's perception. In a very real way, almost like scripture, you get out of a poem the things you bring to it. The wonderful thing about poetry is that it waits for you. Novels don't; characters change, but a poem will always wait. I love poetry because it's rereadable, because it's vague. Because you can empty your pathos into its cup, and only those who identify with it can drink it in its entirety. But then, poetry is things you communicate to be related to. We write to know we are not alone, just as we read to know we are not alone, and love to know we are not alone. Poetry it not about loneliness, it's about solitude. It reminds me of one of my very favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes:
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intelligent life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know your duty better than you know it. It is easy, in the world, to live after the world's opinion; it is easy, in solitude, to live after our own; but the great person is the one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
For me, poetry is exactly that: the independence of solitude kept in perfect sweetness. Though, admittedly, my poetry is not always sweet, it is, in a vitally real way, truth of feeling. I write what I feel. I write how I feel, things that make me feel. Poetry is about relate-able feelings. About communicating the unique perspective that you, and you alone have. I share my poetry to connect with to people, and to have people understand and relate to me. Poetry casts light on things we keep hidden. It whispers our inner screams to the passersby.
Yehuda Amichai once said, "Our despair is domesticated and gives us peace. Only the hopes have remained. Wild hopes, their screams shatter the night and rip up the day."
No ideas but in things. The challenge: be an observer. Look for the meaning in things. Only by setting down the very fundamentalness of things can we truly split them apart in detail and understand them.
And now for something completely different:
It's been a long week, and it's only Tuesday.
Yesterday I got The Office (BBC version) on DVD and watched the first season. But it was only on the first episode of the second season that I realized Dan is Garreth. They even have the same freaking haircut. (Nearly) It was the rendition of the Muppets' Mahnamanah song that made me finally realize it. Because Dan comes into work every day and sings that song. It freaked me OUT, dude. Pleh. Posers.
Today I feel...blah. My poem is being critiqued in workshop today, and I'm feeling rather trepidatious. Also, I'm wearing a shirt that says, "Don't Make Me Get My Wookie" on it. And I decided that it's a good thing I'm wearing a jacket.
It's so nice outside. I want to go outside and play. I want to go up the canyon by the water storage tank and roll down the huge grassy hills. Or throw rocks at the tank, because it's makes the coolest ping-y Star Wars™ blaster-fire noise ever.
There are some days when I really miss being a kid. I miss only having to worry about penmanship homework and complaining about bedtime and vegetables. I miss playing red rover. My cousin and her husband just had a baby recently, and he's the tiniest, perfectest thing I've seen in a long time. So much dark hair and dark eyes and he's just gorgeous. It made me sad. Sometimes I really, really want one of my own. And lately I've been wanting that a lot. I suppose it comes from being the oldest of 6 kids. I've been a "parent" since I was ten. And now that the youngest is turning 5, I miss having a baby around the house. I dunno what it is.
All my friends are getting married. It's getting really annoying. I think that inadvertently, I've surrounded myself with an inner circle of friends who are all pretty much bound and determined to remain single - mostly because they all love each other and it's a mess. It frustrates me. People in general have been frustrating to me. I don't seem to be able to relate to anyone around me.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Okay, so what really frustrates me is that because neither of them can relate to me completely, they'll totally misread anything I do. Anything I did. And I want to punch them. In the face. Until they're not alive anymore. I loathe the way they'll fondle their damn egos with the thought that I even care like that.
That is the most frustrating thing. A misinterpretation of sincerity into some grotesque parody of my intentions.
Oh well, if anything, they deserve each other. The more I've gotten to know them, the more I've realized that they don't have friends, they have toys. People are good, as long as they're usable. Once they don't know what to do with you anymore, you're made to walk the figurative plank at knifepoint.
It's all just....so painfully funny. Watching them insist time and time again that real, genuine feelings matter sooooo much, and they turn around and EVERYTHING they do screams the opposite.
It's disgusting to me, to watch these things, these people, these one-time friends dissolve themselves into something so shallow. However, it's a morbidly fascinating kind of disgusting...to watch them using each other. Because that's what it is. That's all it will be. Is it wrong to hope he knocks her up so they both get a faceful of reality? Because I do. In the maliciousness of my occasionally angry constantly-broken heart.
They like each other because they're dangerous, that's all. Eventually their interactions will dissolve into resentment and loathing, and I will sit quietly in the dark and resent the fact that I'm usually right and never listened to.
She's like fire. Like a raging prairie fire, and I am one of the many things she's burned. And just like fire, it's her everyone rushes to, to control, to put out. And I am left behind. I feel so...tossed aside. Even my friends, my real friends, my BEST girlfriend - has spent more time at her side than mine in all of this. Supporting her. And...I resent it. It breaks my heart. I can't stop crying about it.
Said best friend dragged me to lunch with her today, and surprise-surprise, Su and Dan are there too. I hate the way they all act like nothing has happened. Like my feelings, because I don't like to make them so readily available appearance-wise, must not mean anything. That because Chelsea always has to joke about everything, if we joke about all of it, then we can have a good laugh while she's bleeding to death under the table.
In all of it, I think I resent Dan the most, but I'm taking out my frustration on Su, because she's the one who weasels her way into every relationship, every friendship, every interaction between people. I hate Dan for the way every girl is the same to him. I hate him for making me feel so easily replaced. I feel cheap. I feel, betrayed. I feel so unspeakably mad at myself for the way I was suckered into thinking all his schmoozy talk actually meant something at the end of the day. That his fluffy ideals actually played some small part in his actions and real life. I hate the way I finally trusted someone, and he took the opening (the state of willing openness that he had no IDEA how long it took me to achieve) I gave him, and flayed me alive with it.
Can I explain? I have no words for this hurting. I have watched un-anesthetized as my worst fear was gouged into me. Cut me to pieces. To finally give all of me, just me, completely open and honest to someone who I was sure, was SURE would appreciate it. Who would love me, even just as a friend, and finally understand. But he didn't. Doesn't. And I have been so wrong.
It's not that I love him - I don't. Not like that. Not the way that everyone is assuming I do. That somehow I feel so upset because Su has "stolen" him away from me. It's not that at all. I resent Su because she was how Dan proved to me that he was nothing I thought he was. That neither of them were the friends I thought they were.
The hard thing is knowing and caring more than they do. Is knowing that for all of my love, support, understanding, and genuine concern, I get the teaspoonful, while gallon after gallon is poured over the people who don't know it enough to appreciate what it is. What they have. It's a lack of desire for understanding, that makes me break so completely the relationship in my hands. I was willing to be there for you, but you will not use me.
This is the only thing I require.
"Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it." - Anne
The hardest part is trying to find the courage, the faith, to pick up each re-shattered piece and begin again.
That is the most frustrating thing. A misinterpretation of sincerity into some grotesque parody of my intentions.
Oh well, if anything, they deserve each other. The more I've gotten to know them, the more I've realized that they don't have friends, they have toys. People are good, as long as they're usable. Once they don't know what to do with you anymore, you're made to walk the figurative plank at knifepoint.
It's all just....so painfully funny. Watching them insist time and time again that real, genuine feelings matter sooooo much, and they turn around and EVERYTHING they do screams the opposite.
It's disgusting to me, to watch these things, these people, these one-time friends dissolve themselves into something so shallow. However, it's a morbidly fascinating kind of disgusting...to watch them using each other. Because that's what it is. That's all it will be. Is it wrong to hope he knocks her up so they both get a faceful of reality? Because I do. In the maliciousness of my occasionally angry constantly-broken heart.
They like each other because they're dangerous, that's all. Eventually their interactions will dissolve into resentment and loathing, and I will sit quietly in the dark and resent the fact that I'm usually right and never listened to.
She's like fire. Like a raging prairie fire, and I am one of the many things she's burned. And just like fire, it's her everyone rushes to, to control, to put out. And I am left behind. I feel so...tossed aside. Even my friends, my real friends, my BEST girlfriend - has spent more time at her side than mine in all of this. Supporting her. And...I resent it. It breaks my heart. I can't stop crying about it.
Said best friend dragged me to lunch with her today, and surprise-surprise, Su and Dan are there too. I hate the way they all act like nothing has happened. Like my feelings, because I don't like to make them so readily available appearance-wise, must not mean anything. That because Chelsea always has to joke about everything, if we joke about all of it, then we can have a good laugh while she's bleeding to death under the table.
In all of it, I think I resent Dan the most, but I'm taking out my frustration on Su, because she's the one who weasels her way into every relationship, every friendship, every interaction between people. I hate Dan for the way every girl is the same to him. I hate him for making me feel so easily replaced. I feel cheap. I feel, betrayed. I feel so unspeakably mad at myself for the way I was suckered into thinking all his schmoozy talk actually meant something at the end of the day. That his fluffy ideals actually played some small part in his actions and real life. I hate the way I finally trusted someone, and he took the opening (the state of willing openness that he had no IDEA how long it took me to achieve) I gave him, and flayed me alive with it.
Can I explain? I have no words for this hurting. I have watched un-anesthetized as my worst fear was gouged into me. Cut me to pieces. To finally give all of me, just me, completely open and honest to someone who I was sure, was SURE would appreciate it. Who would love me, even just as a friend, and finally understand. But he didn't. Doesn't. And I have been so wrong.
It's not that I love him - I don't. Not like that. Not the way that everyone is assuming I do. That somehow I feel so upset because Su has "stolen" him away from me. It's not that at all. I resent Su because she was how Dan proved to me that he was nothing I thought he was. That neither of them were the friends I thought they were.
The hard thing is knowing and caring more than they do. Is knowing that for all of my love, support, understanding, and genuine concern, I get the teaspoonful, while gallon after gallon is poured over the people who don't know it enough to appreciate what it is. What they have. It's a lack of desire for understanding, that makes me break so completely the relationship in my hands. I was willing to be there for you, but you will not use me.
This is the only thing I require.
"Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it." - Anne
The hardest part is trying to find the courage, the faith, to pick up each re-shattered piece and begin again.
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