a day just like any other

08.10.2010
visingsö

the sun finally came out and it woke me up around five this morning. i still haven't been sleeping well which is making each day increasingly difficult. i really want to go home at this point - i'm just beat and these long, sleepless nights aren't alleviating any of this growing unease. anna and jorgen from the jönköping museum went out with myself, tina and mike, though jorgen didn't arrive until a little bit later in the day. this morning really t is making my sook it out of me and my left arm is hurting a little - i think my lethargy is making my sampling technique sloppy and i've hurt myself as a result. grilled cheese and a granny smith apple for lunch and i'm starting true blood season two. i finished reading the private patient around 11:15 last night and i don't know what i will move on to tonight - i really don't know if i can make myself do work knowing all of the work that will be facing me on the first day of class, two weeks from today. working in the department, layout editing for the purple and white, teaching assistant for greek two, greek and latin tutor, french 1000, latin 4000, greek 4000, methods and statistics, working in the keck lab for the albanian project and writing my reu paper/doing the mass spec and research on the pottery sherds i will be bringing back. oh, and grad school applications, study and take the gre, get my homer paper up to conference presentation level, and visit schools. maybe this is where the unease is stemming from.

this morning we worked near the east coast and there was the incentive to finish each row to see the coast. such a breath of fresh air, such a relief.

in the afternoon, tina and i split off and went to work in a cloverfield near the theosophist's tempelgården. never before have i seen a greco-roman temple (or an attempt at one) with a swedish flag flying over it - that is probably a once in a lifetime kind of deal.

the field was awful and almost as unforgiving as pasture, so the afternoon was arduous to say the least. at least tina and i were afforded two brief respites under tree cover in some small forested patches on the land.

i was glad to have the sun shining, though - heat, sweat, and all. had some tea and a small bowl of special k red berries and watched a bit of the third season of true blood (trying to catch up) before heading out for a ride at about five - i was hoping the number of tourists would dwindle as the afternoon wore on so i could enjoy my ride in peace. they were out in droves when we brought anna back to her car at the harbor and i wanted a little peace while i was out. the wait made a big difference. rode to the coop nara and dropped off my postcards, round two, then headed all the way down to kumlaby. it is amazing how my stamina is building up  so quickly. stopped a dozen or so times to get photos of some of my favorite passenger-side drive-by haunts.

took a detour through rökinge and by the russokyrkagården (the russian graveyard) where we saw the gpr demonstration earlier on - i don't know when exactly that was anymore, to be honest. i listened to everything in transit on the way out, but by the time i got to the graveyard i hadn't realized i was already on the last track. switched over to the glass passenger, coasting home over the last refrain of the chorus in what gets you off.

shower, painted my toenails, and then headed downstairs to get started on dinner (hands were washed between those last two activities, i assure you). made pasta - broccoli, garlic, mushrooms, and slices of veggie dogs in a red sauce, wheat penne. i was ravenous but wasn't really satisfied once i started eating, even though it was delicious - i felt like i was eating just to eat. maybe it is partly jess' hyper-awareness of food rubbing off on me, but i'm thinking about what i'm eating now more than ever. now i'm off to sort through my photos over some lavender tea, then skype date with my fella. nothing all that proud, nothing all that new - but still, today was a good day.

a note of pessimists

last night was not exactly what i would call a sound night's rest. i woke up around four in the morning and my middle finger was completely locked in place. i tore my tendon during a hiking in albania about seven weeks ago and reinjured it when i was at home in austin between my two trips. when it got cold four days ago, it started to get a little stiff but the only problem was bending it if i was trying to clench or form a fist, little things of that nature. in the middle of the night, however, it just decided to lock and keep me awake and fill my dreams with images of injuries and flashes of pain. i woke up at 8:20, like normal, and tried to go about my routine, but as soon as i went to open my dresser, the pain brought tears to my eyes. starting to cry, i hurried down our precarious stairs to down some ibuprofen and use katie's homeopathic ointment. my finger was twice the size of my others and the was radiating throughout my palm. i couldn't straighten it out at all. katie helped me fumble through breakfast despite my insistence that i could manage, then she chimed in, "well, the good news is, it doesn't look like we will be soil sampling today." i hadn't even thought twice about it, but as soon as i looked outside i saw the mud-soaked ground and the persistent beating of sheets of rain against the pond. no e-mails from tina or gisela to support our theory, but the rain was torrential, and as we learned on our walk over, bitingly cold. got to the house, drenched and hand aching to see everyone sitting around, warm and cozy, insisting that they could have come to pick us up. too late. a month of backlogged phosphate data and some of tom's lectures and powerpoints filled the rest of our day. tina gave me a heating pack which helped with the pain, but not the swelling. the data entry numbed my mind enough to at least forget about my finger during the process. a couple of depressing but enlightening conversations about gre testing, admissions, and grad schools later, coupled with the zombie-inducing repetition of our work, my mood was left in a state not to be desired. all of these archaeologists make me doubt myself! they make it seem like i have no future, but i just need to stand up on my own two feet and ignore the dissenters. i can do it. it may kick my ass, but this is what i'm supposed to be doing - i can't let these little hiccups discourage me. some of these people only dwell on the negative and as pessimistic as i can be, there is no reason to bring others down and fixate on the weaknesses of others. maybe i'm judging too harshly, but i don't like contagious pessimists (only the introspective ones). i just need to buckle down and kick some ass. spinach and cheese tortellini with garlic bread for dinner served with a side of strange conversations at the big house, followed by hours of boredom dulled with a glass of straight whiskey, some beck and some ben folds. it looks like the weather is going to prevent bjorn and rachel from making it to jönköping tomorrow, but if nothing else, katie and i will have a change of scenery! let's hope it isn't a rain-filled excursion.

so long, farewell...

addio

αντίο

adieu

---

i leave for italy in the morning, then i'm off to greece. my bags are packed - empty journal, moleskines, and memory cards to keep me company. that and a pocket italian phrasebook.

i won't be updating on here, only on paper, until i get back on june 7th...but i would love to hear from all of you. it would be nice to hear a friendly "voice" halfway across the globe whenever i find the time to sit down in an internet cafe.

so, email me - bucklbm@millsaps.edu

oh, and this my three hundredth post (though you, the general viewing public, can't see all of them...sorry). funny how landmarks sometimes coincide.

a beginning

so, i have to start writing this before my memory fades. when i get too caught up in a moment, i have a hard time recording it. this blog was meant for me to catalog and admit my faults, my feats, my successes...but if i skim over the high and low points, i am not really succeeding.

i tried to start 2009 off better than 2008. there were way too many horrible things weighing on my chest that i really had to step away. writing them down is very cathartic, or at least trying to come to terms with them. i realized that the greatest fault was my own, and that letting this anxiety build was only compounding itself further and further.

right now, my life lacks continuity. i'm too afraid, or too disinterested, to really follow through with anything. i have options, i always do...but i don't feel like my life affords me the same opportunities. it is speckled with all of these strange, absurd, surreal experiences, but nothing that really makes it cohesive. it is this lack of continuity...this absence of cohesiveness...that really causes me to sink further. i want something to hold it together - im too scattered to ever do it myself - and i want a companion or a purpose to push me from one moment into the next. thats all i need...a companion. there are all these arcane, useless expectations on relationships and i really don't want or need any of them. all i want is someone i am interested in, who is equally interested in me - not more or less so- who can be there by my side. that can experience things with me and understand the beauty i see in certain moments, whether or not they find them to be as beautiful.

this understanding of transience is so important to me...and i know there are other people out there who agree - i have met them. now all i need is for one of them to be on a journey (which they tend to be on, which i consider myself to be on) that can coincide with my own, or one that wont lead them away from me. ive tried to establish a relationship with people i wasnt invested in...and it just doesnt work. it is so ironic that nick just called me in the middle of typing this out...your intentions are great, but i just don't like you the same way you like me. i can't like you that way...you could never fill this role for me. tom, on the other hand, would be a perfect companion, but he is somewhere near tulum today, and who knows where he will be tomorrow, a week, a month, a year. it is great that he doesnt have to worry about that kind of thing, and i wish i had that kind of carelessness....but i don't. i need some kind of underlying structure to my madness, or else it all falls apart in vain.

i was walking back from lunch and i ran into phoebe. we talked about mgmt, bonnaroo, memphis in may, the avett brothers at sxsw...the typical musical common ground we share. it is so silly (and now this sounds vain for me to relay what she said...but it is important to the story) but she said that she was "jealous of me" and that i had such a "cool life." far from it. my response is always something like "i wouldn't wish my life on anyone..." but people don't understand. yes, i saw the avett brothers...but i stood alone by myself, waiting for their set...building up the nerve to even get out of bed and face the day myself. yes, i talk to andrew. but that doesn't mean he can ever be a shoulder for me to cry on. yes, i am going to bonnaroo with my best friend, but that means that i will have to spend countless nights at work, anxious as hell about how customers and my coworkers will view me. yes, i know of people who work at memphis in may and who organize it...but no, that doesn't mean that i would ever want to be in their shoes or even want to talk to them right now, or establish those connections.

these stories or great, but they don't replace the fact that i live an empty life, mostly alone, horribly miserable. just because i enjoy these things for a moment or people envy the experience...that doesn't make it worthwhile. all i want is to not be alone, or to have someone to share this with. to sit on my bed next to me and watch tv with me while we read. someone that can span the distance between who i am and who i want to be...and be there with me. not permanently, not long term...but someone to be that for me.

---

it is storming outside now. all i want is to be in the arms of someone else at a moment like this.

---

updates on south by southwest, coming soon.

don't pretend you'll ever forget 'bout me

i'm so dejected right now. that's my watchword. i'm very lonely, but yesterday was a good day, for the most part. i don't know, it was great, but the little bad bits kind of outweigh it all, i think. i wish the negative didn't have so much weight in my life. that's the problem, not the reality, but the burden. i have a lot to write, but for now i need to sleep. i kept my memo pad in hand yesterday, though, so i scribbled a few thoughts on the drive back in the early hours of the day.

for the time being

no more blog. i can only update from my phone, going to the library, or hijacking sam's computer, which is what i'm doing at the moment...under the facade of working on my roman legacy take-home essay.

what's going on in my life right now?

i reached my lowest point since birmingham, if not lower, yesterday. i started making plans. then i made myself come back and sit in the room with sam, read some c.s. lewis, and took a couple of lexapro to calm my nerves. i woke up later, and it was a little better.

today has been a good day.

i quit my job, which sounds like a bad thing, but it isn't because i couldn't do it...but because it was unneeded stress, and that is something i don't need in my life.

i sent off my laptop today. it stopped recognizing my power supply, so it ran off batteries for 45 minutes, then promptly died and can't be turned back on. this has happened once before, so luckily it is still covered under warranty...i just have to pay the $75 there and back to cover the shipping. damn.

i think i'm going to apply to be a ford fellow for next year. i think it would be a really good thing.

i'm going to birmingham on thursday. i'm so excited for the drive, and the show, but still a bit hazy about the people. i think it should be okay, though.

i love c.s. lewis. he gives my life center, and helps me find my own. i need to read more of his work.

getting past eggers was a really good thing. no more depressing literature for a while, at least in my free time.

my greek test kicked my ass today, and so did my latin class.

i need to raise my grade in archaeology dramatically.

i'm actually okay with having a few Bs on my midterm grades. it doesn't really bother me.

well, time to get down to business. the business of roman virtues, that is! i'm actually kind of excited about this paper...so why do i keep putting it off?

on location

there is something about jackson that is so stagnant. i think that is why i get pulled down so much when i'm here...it feels like a ghost town. at least when i'm in austin, or cedar park for that matter, there is always something happening...i'm always on the verge of something. here, i'm on the verge of nothing, and if i'm moving forward, it is only the result of a perpetual cycle that never changes or moves ahead. this city does horrible things to me, and all the baggage here aside...i can't stay here. i love the people, but most of the ones i love see this town the same, whether or not they want to admit it. not admitting it is bad, but all of you who are implicated in this with me, aware of the depressing, fixed nature of things in this god awful town, yet decide to stay...it is infinitely worse.

bring focus back to the breath

we feel temporary here

i am done, finally. it ended better, and more bitter, than i was expecting. at least i can say that i accomplished one thing today, besides feeling sorry for myself and hating my life.

-----

. . .the trees calligraphic

we were quiet. there was nothing left of anything.

my laboratory, my depository. into it i can stuff the books i choose, the television shows, the movies, my opinion about elected officials, historical events, neighbors, passerby. . .my captive audience, forced to ingest everything i deem worthwhile.
we cannot be stopped from looking with pity upon all the world's sorry inhabitants, they unblessed by our charms, unchallenged by our trials, unscarred and thus weak, gelatinous.

i look through their windshields for the faces of those coming at us, for a sign, for their understanding, fro their trust, and i find their trust and they go by. our car thrums loudly and iturn up the radio because i can.

or rather, it was not at all perfect, but was far less imperfect than anything else we'd seen

'a few years ago' has a comfortable distance. the blood is dry, the scabs hardened, peeled. early on was different. . .at that the haircutting woman stopped, went through the antique saloon0style doors to the back room and stayed there for a while. she came back red-eyed. he felt terrible. he is always feeling terrible, when the innocent, benign questions of unsuspecting strangers yield the bizare answer he must provide.

this is just a caricature, this, the skeleton of experience

i want to save everything and preserve all this but also want it all gone- can't decide what's more romantic, preservation or decay.

i mean, you can't always suffer. it's hard to suffer all the time. but i suffer enough. i suffer sometimes.

why do you want to share your suffering?
by sharing it i will dilute it.

i can tell from their clothes, their walks, their hair and hands, i know all the bad things that they've done. i know how they've failed and how they will fail and how miserable they are.
oh please. what would a brain do if not these sorts of exercise? i have no idea how people function without near-constant internal chaos. i'd lose my mind.

i give you all of the best things i have, and while these things are things that i like, memories that i treasure, good or bad, like the pictures of my family on my walls i can show them to you without diminishing them. i can afford to give you everything.
these things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. what does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin? he leaves it where he molts.

dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning french or collecting scarves. and it's fleeting and incredibly mercurial. and subjective. so fuck it.
it was like that in a way, a heightened sense of terror born of doubt, a lack of predictability in his behavior

this is fiction now, it's fucking fiction.
so instead of lamenting the end of unmediated experience, i will celebrate it, revel in the simultaneous living of an experience and its dozen or so echoes in art and media, the echoes making the experience not cheaper but richer, aha!
i'll be plowing through the fog of all these echoes, plowing through mixed metaphors, noise, and will try to show the core, which is still there, as a core, and is valid, despite the fog. the core is the core is the core. there is always the core, that can't be articulated.

the drunkenness, i guessed, would add to the whole endeavor a haze of mystery, not to mention a romantic fluidity that i could not otherwise count on. i should be desperate, raggedy, semi-coherent, stumbling from place to place. it seemed much more fitting than being calculating and sober, would strip things to their core, would eliminate a layer or two of self-conscious white noise, would allow me to do more asinine things.

i hang up, blow hot air into my hands. i'm a moron. someone will see me here, back in town for the first time since i left, using the phone outside the train station. no one uses this phone. then again, no one will be surprised. they wlil have expected something like this, from me - they know what happened, will assume that i've finally hit bottom, that i'm homeless and on crack. did i ever belong in this town?
they know i am not them. i am something else. i am deformed, am a hundred years old.

we would all be feeling vibrations from it all, or they were all inside us, too, moving elliptically, or through our blood and there would be music, ELO maybe, Xanadu maybe, did she really like ir or just tolerate it for our sake?

but we both knew it was over, and the great, oddly wonderful thing was that neither of us really cared anymore - oh we cared, yes, but we were ready.

finally, the strange comfort of knowing the end, its parameters and terms.

when you're all sleeping so many sleeping i am somewhere on some stupid tickety scaffolding and i'm trying to get your stupid fucking attention i've been trying to show you this, just been trying to show you this - what the fuck does it take to show you motherfuckers, what does it fucking take what do you want how much do you want because i am willing and i'll stand before you and i'll raise my arms and give you my chest and throat and wait, and i've been so old for so long, for you, for you, i want it fast and right through me - oh do it, do it, you motherfuckers, do it do it you fuckers, finally, finally, finally.

on identity

“The truth is I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t.”

— Marilyn Monroe (via littlemiss)

lately

it's hard to disconnect i just want something real .... or something like that. or maybe it's too real. or i'm can't connect. i don't know. i need something, though.

we see no shadows

i'm beyond depressed.

i woke up this morning at 8, ready to leave for class. made coffee, got dressed, did my hair, and as i was thinking about sitting in the caf, surrounded by people...even just the thought of food or maybe failing in class, making a silly translation error....i promptly took my vans back off and went back to bed. at least when i sleep i don't consciously think about how bad i'm fucking up my life.

woke back up with time to go to class, but didn't go. more sleep. mindless surfing on the internet, no music - i didn't even care enough to turn anything on. more sleep, then i woke up for lunch. i don't want to eat, the thought of food makes me sick, and i don't want to see people. i don't think i even have the energy to walk across campus to just grab kava and come back...and if i did, i wouldn't be able to stomach the food.

i have so much to do. reading responses that i still haven't turned it, part of a paper, endless translations...i need to start seeing this new doctor. i'm still training at a job i think i'm going to fail miserably at...and i panic every time i go in. i need to plan europe, so that i can apply for my loans and i can book my flight and get things squared away. right now, i would rather not be here and rather not be than actually work out those details. i have a scholarship i still need to apply for, but why put in the effort when i know i won't get it? i'm not extraordinary anymore, and i don't have the will to try.

i am stuck in the middle of a million situations trying to be passive in the affairs of my friends, but i end up getting pulled onto one side or another regardless of how passive i try to be. i try to please everyone, and as a result a end up pleasing no one.

i don't have a camera to go look around and try to capture something beautiful and ephemeral when i can't find the beauty in my own life. i have this large hole in my lip where my ring used to be which is a reminder of this past and this part of me that is gone, trying to heal but still present. my hands are shaking and i can't come down...or, rather, can't find which was is up.

maybe i should just go get coffee. what good is that going to do though? i know exactly what i would want, but the thought of it makes me slightly ill...i don't think i can keep anything down right now. and what if i do keep it down? it will just add countless unneeded calories, which i don't need. i've gained so much weight, my clothes don't fit right, and i'm not comfortable in my own skin...even more uncomfortable than i always am.

i don't see an end, and i don't see the light. i'm not strong, and everyone that tells me that is full of shit. i'm a hopeless mess with no future and a past that is far from respectable, and i don't know that i want to face the idea of a present any longer.

fading

i'm so depressed about losing all my pictures. the more i think about it, the more upset i am.

just simple things, like the wind chime against the sky at the pecan street festival. or my last night out in austin. or shows all across the south. i want them back :(

say anything, but say what you mean

cause i'm caught in suspension.

so, i just had a wonderfully productive afternoon, only to be cut short by a huge disappointment. i am about to walk to reuben's to meet up with april and martha, but let's see what kind of a diatribe i can pump out in five minutes.

basically, i reapplied for the RA position, and i just found out that i did not get it. my interview went very well, and i asked if they wanted any other information from me, and they didn't. i didn't go through the formal process since i was not here in the fall, but since i was going to be one of the seven RHDs, it seemed absolutely absurd that i would not be at least an RA if i returned to millsaps. getting RA would be a step down from the position i would have been holding this semester, but i didn't even get that. imagine being the manager of something, leaving, coming back, and not even getting a part-time position doing the same thing.

i was doing more, and you gave it to me. i have come back, proven that i am back and ready, and you still don't get it to me. i know that there were a ton of positions available, like 13, so it's not like it was even as competitive as when i got it the first time - when i was one of five new girls let onto the staff. this is ridiculous. i am so, so, so upset. i needed this job. i love this job. i needed the money, and i liked doing it. i had the best hall on freshman side, best attendance, least room transfers, least violations, best involvement, and somehow that isn't good enough? i actually did all my programs, unlike many people, always did paperwork on time, was always there when i was on duty and most times even when i was not, and still, this. i am horribly disappointed and upset. now, something that should have been close to a set deal has turned into an ordeal, and i'm not even completely settled into a routine and i'm being thrown into the ring, trying to figure out what i will do for next year.

i guess that was all i could get out in five minutes. more later, i'm sure.