A skittery, erratic attempt at a weblog. Rambles will be indulged and depths will be plumbed. Who knows what I'll come up with?
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| Fragments A skittery, erratic attempt at a weblog. Rambles will be indulged and depths will be plumbed. Who knows what I'll come up with? |
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005 Weather: pleasant one minute, freezing the next Listening to: right now, nothing, oddly enough Taking a break from: haha, my afternoon nap. Which was theoretically a break from organizing 3H03 Stealing stolen stuff According to Julie's blog from whence this came, and Cleolinda's before that, basically I pick 12 lines of movie dialogue from movies that are important to me/that I like, y'all guess them, I cross them off as you do, and when the game is all over, I explain why I picked all of the movies/lines. So...go to! '...except sex!'" 'You've been saying that since the fifth grade.'" 8. "You work so hard not to be seen as a sex object. Before long, you're not seen at all." from The Life of David Gale 11. "All I know is that it takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it." from An Ideal Husband Note: Hmm. I think some of these are harder than they should be. Oh well, let's see what happens... ~SQ note: I've removed the three already guessed and added an extra, just for fun. (It should have been on here the first time but I'm subject to strange lapses in memory about things I like, sometimes.) posted by susan | 5:50 PM Saturday, January 08, 2005 Weather: it's one of those weekends where I just hole up in my room and don't venture outdoors. Oh yeah. Listening to: Lindy, "Beautifully Undone" Taking a break from: science fiction reading The unprecedented has occurred I have actually reached the end -- the very last page -- of a journal. This is my sixth journal since I was 11 years old. Each of the other five was abandoned before its pages were completely filled. Some only had one or two pages left; some had upwards of 15. In one case, the journal is arrested mid-sentence -- a thought left hanging, and I'll be damned if I have any idea how I was planning to complete it. I would stop writing for quite awhile, months and months, and when I returned I realized that what I had to say now wouldn't fit properly with what I'd said before: there were great gaps in time and occurrences. Whatever ghostly figures I thought were reading my diary over my shoulder, I was concerned they'd be confused. And it would have taken too long to explain the interim. Nothing to do but start over.... It's not as silly as it sounds. The periods of journalling drought usually coincided with some period in which a great deal happened. It's a preposterous paradoxical situation, but I don't think it's unique to me -- I wrote less right when I should have been writing most, when everything was changing and turning upside down (or right side up, I guess, after being upside down for a long time). And when I went back to write in the old book, and flipped through the last few entries, I realized that I was as changed as my life. So, in my constant desire to create some volume that was actually representative of who I was, I'd reach for a clean slate. I made a conscious effort not to do that, this time. I'm too old to reinvent myself completely. I don't mean that I'll never change as a person again; I mean that I don't have the luxury of discarding what I changed from, anymore. I don't know what's different -- maybe this is what grown-up means -- but I know that this particular incarnation isn't disposable. It'll have to be worked into whatever I change to next. Is it dumb to think that I'm in this whole life thing for real, now, finally? Anyway. In celebration of the life of this particular blank book, I here present some random snippets drawn from it. They aren't representative. I can't quite wield Happiest Girl's coyness about editing, but most of it just isn't sharable. Nonetheless, I'd forgotten I wrote most of this: "When I'm 85 and rereading this, maybe I won't want to see myself as the collected rants of a crabby, psycho woman. But that's what this will read like when I'm done...." "Somewhere, there was love and I fell into it. And I got it everywhere." "I'm starting to think first love is a little like chicken pox -- most people get it as kids, and it's just something you get through -- but if you DON'T get it as a kid, and it hits you when you're older, watch out -- it's 20 times worse." "[re. first year ending:] It's one thing not to believe how much I've learned and how far I've come. It's another to know I didn't even realize I had anywhere to go at all." "I find myself afraid, and am irrationally astonished. I'm afraid of simple things with complicated repercussions. I fear using people and not knowing it. I fear not seeing until it is too late. I fear gradual degradation and slippery, slippery slopes -- fear them and yet find myself attracted to them, as if they offer truths the straight and narrow fails to reveal. I fear the revelation." "I should be executed for sheer pretense." "I think I need to get re-inspired. Like, NOW." "I want to go home, and wake up, and go to school for real again. I wish I was as smart as I used to be." "[stream of consciousness exercise, for some reason focused on favourite authors this day:] stoppard, with an indefatigable flame -- a spark, a torch, a crash of lightening, sparks off the foils of wordplay. the light of the dark. i wonder if you would have liked beckett. a windswept field, himself the solitary craggy peak, reluctant to even be so high. and then adams, abeam with a child's wonder and an almost precocious unselfconsciousness, sauntering as if the meaning itself was no effort at all. 42. you both would have hated him. and in comes coupland, the youngest -- less ruthless than beckett but stronger somehow, the same bleakness with a laugh. no saunter here, absolute deliberation, but buliding a tome from pieces of himself, not pieces of the world. (findley is way over here. the oracle. i half expect to see you again, angular shoulder blades, butterfly tattoo.)" "I'm in one of those lost moods, where I'll take in and believe as gospel ANYthing that comes my way with even the semblance of wisdom to it -- books, made-for-TV-movies, Sex and the City, sitcoms, my old diaries, a song on the radio. Anything." "I used to have a poetic temperament -- solitary, brooding, introverted -- always watching, observing, obsessing -- secretive, private. And then I got sick of myself and got friends." "There are precious few human beings you run across in a lifetime to whom you can open your mouth and not fear one single thing that's going to come out of it." "[stream of consciousness] I wish I could count stars, miles, and the looks on your face." "Compassion is wound up in the recognition of yourself in others -- the palpable knowledge that you could be in anyone else's place, at any time. The only way to make that real to yourself is to know just in how many places you have been, and how they felt. That's why this writing thing is an exercise in being better." Bring on the new blank page, I guess. ~SQ P.S. Happiest Girl -- I'm finally getting to the Paperchase journal you gave me, ages ago...:) posted by susan | 11:37 PM Friday, January 07, 2005 Weather: normal winter stuff -- funny how it's less charming once Christmas is over Listening to: some unknown singer, "Send In The Clowns" (ok, I have an occasional weakness for cheesy show tunes, so sue me) Taking a break from: getting back into the swing of things Resolving I generally wait until a few days into the new year to make New Year's Resolutions. I like to get a feel for how the year is going to get started before making a bunch of rash promises that I'll just get guilty over not keeping. I know this is probably backwards, but then again, so am I much of the time: eat breakfast/whine less about getting up/wear less makeup/go to the dance classes I pay for more regularly/write more fiction and poetry, maybe even post some of it for public consumption/explore thesis possibilities BEFORE it gets to be tight/look out the window more/be a big girl and do more laundry, dishes, and grocery shopping/read all the stuff on my English course syllabus/find more bright sides/read non-school-related material on a more regular basis/go more places on the bus, or on foot, instead of with my own personal chauffer/start adjusting to how weird next school year is going to be, early/move off-campus/embrace my inner artsiness/maintain blog activity/buy more CDs/go to the theatre more often/start med school applications in the summer/stop swearing, for fuck's sake/be more compassionate/figure out how to cook at least one real thing/bake more/bring peace and harmony to the Middle East/keep at least one thing on this list so I don't have to have the exact same list next year. Yup, that's about how it goes every year. I wonder if I'm ever going to figure out how to make resolutions have sticking power.... ~SQ posted by susan | 1:04 PM |
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