reservations

07.20.2010

visingsö, sweden

today was the first day of work! it is a little difficult for me to use the sample because of my height and weight. if i hadn't lost weight in albania and during my backpacking trip, i would at least have more cushion to insulate the blows of throwing my body to force the sampler into the ground, but unfortunately that is not the case. i ahve bruised on my ribs and hands, but i think that the more i get the hang of it, the better it will be. i had a hard time the firs tfew samples, but after two or three katie and i just picked it up and it clicked. i worked with tina after lunch, which was nice - i get along with her really well. she is really into music and actually used to bartend at cbgb's! (i had to resist being all ''oh my god, it was one of my life goals to visit there before it closed! ahhh!!") dinner had a few tense moments over at the main house, but lunch at our house with just katie was awesome - fresh swiss cheese and tomato paninis with a pot of coffee. after dinner we went for bike rides on the busted bikes they have at the main house which was so pleasant. i want to bring my bike back to campus, i think. not to use on campus, but maybe to go around belhaven, but at the same time, it might get stolen...i don't know if it is worth the risk for occassional use. oh! katie and i looked at graduate programs for classics and classical archaeology and i feel a bit better - i know much more than i give myself credit for. i need to study and register for the gre, but there are still tons of open seats at the jackson testing center. i'm thinking mid-october, but i need to decide (officially) which programs i will apply for to know what the deadline is to receive gre scores - apparently they take a while to actually reach the schools. all of this nonsense is just staring to sound like high school again, but at the same time, i couldn't be more excited about it. i'm ready to move to the next phase of my life, i think. i look forward to my future now i have at least a vague sense of direction and my motivation is at an all-time high. on a related note - lauren and mike came over for drinks again tonight and we started talking about ub and their undergrad/grad programs....and it is so different. i think the page requirements for one of my courses in one semester is more than their's for their entire year and entire courseload. fifteen page honors theses? are you kidding? i could churn out four of those in a week. automatic as and t.a. graded homework assignments and tests...it is just crazy millsaps still isn't challenging enough for me, but at least it is more of a challenge than that. at millsaps, the only thing that really can internet with on-time graduation and proper advisement is apathy, indecisiveness or procrastination, while at ub, even the most diligent people (such as katie) get screwed because advisors don't care or don't even know what is necessary. she works so hard (relatively) and has made it so far, ut it is the professors apathy that has set her up for disappointment with graduate school. i'm really glad i, as a younger, more naive version of myself knew that at the very least a liberal arts degree would be a bit more fulfilling. i mean, in my core ten paper i say that millsaps is what you make of it - but really, it is so much better than the majority of schools. after mike and lauren left, i skyped with billy and it was much better than yesterday. i almost forgot that he was leaving for general assembly this week and i don't look forward to going a few days without talking again. i got so paranoid about pitchfork - i wish i had been there so bad. sometimes i wish that i hadn't billy the ticket so that he couldn't go without me, but that is just stupid and childish. i'm just so jealous that he had the most fun of his life and i wasn't there - but more than that, i enabled him to have that experience without me. it is kind of heartbreaking. i worry about how much he is concerned about dyer's business...it has been ten months since they broke up, nine months since we have been together. i just really need him to move on for my own sanity. i hate that he is going to think back about his favorite weekend of his life and dyer will be there, not me. i love him so much, i just want to make him as happy as he makes me...that's all. amo te.

on early mornings

i haven't blogged in a while and i'm currently doing everything in my power to stay awake, so now is as good a time as ever, right? well, honestly i'm a little wired at the moment, but i know i'm going to crash soon. hospital coffee will only last me so long before i start getting sick to my stomach. i woke up this morning really nauseous and even more unwilling to pry myself out of bed. luckily this trip to the hospital isn't because of me, but rather for billy's mom. this trip has been everything but what i expected, and i know the next 48 hours are going to be the hardest yet because my departure is imminent and the time i have with billy will be even less than the last few days.

i can't possibly have enough time with this boy, my fella, my love. he makes me say the most outrageous things and i mean every one of them, which scares me half to death. i mean, i love this boy enough to wake up an hour before sunrise to make small talk with his mom and spend the day at the hospital with her. the anthropologist in me just keeps screaming "affines, affines!" but i'm biting my tongue. i really want to like her, and she's great, but i have my moments while my misanthropic side still gets the best of me. my mind has no tolerance for redundancy, inflexibility, or illogical actions, but i'm doing my best. its hard to believe that his mom is closer in age to my grandparents than to my parents and reminding myself of that definitely makes me more fond of her. she really is a great lady but the circumstances under which im being forced to get to know her are far from ideal. here's to the worst preceding the best. i hope.

last night has left me giddy. something about being around him rejuvenates me and energizes me like no other. i was exhausted and half-asleep driving to pick him up from work, but the moment i was back in his arms, looking in his eyes, there isn't a thing in the world that can keep me from him. i'm sure as time goes on, some of the impractical aspects will fade away (i can't stay up until 3 or 4 or 5 every night and remain a functioning member of society for much longer) but i know my love for him is not fading. impossibly, it is growing stronger and i'm so glad there is no expiration date. oh, i guess that leads me to my good news. two things, one related to this train of thought and one not. i guess i'll follow the logical path first.

news bulletin! there is nothing standing in the way of my happiness any longer (at least until june). no surgery in my imminent future and biopsies that are miraculously clean. yesterday morning was the best morning i can remember and i know that waking up isn't a chore knowing that the (potentially bad) news isn't looming over me. this is the first good news about my health i have received in three years, post-surgery excluded, and it couldn't have come at a better time. no more obstacles, no more hurdles. just me, my fella, and a future brighter than my dizziest daydream. let's be honest, there weren't even daydreams. or hopes. or a future. all these delusional conceptions of dying young and never growing old seem silly now that i have him in my life. he gives me hope and meaning and a reason for a future. he is my future, and all of hesitance and misgivings that i may have seem meaningless and trivial in the shadow of the light he has brought into my life. three cheers to good health, good love, good mornings.

other good news! i managed to get a set of perfectly balanced grades. B+, B+, A-, A, A in my classes. high Bs in my translation courses are better than i could ask for, A- in faulkner (slightly disappointing, but probably deserved) and two As otherwise. never again will i deal with this silly 20 hour nonsense. two more semesters until i'm free from millsaps myself. i'm sure what exactly my future holds, but i know teaching and school will define and shape my path. all i know is that my path no longer has an end in sight and i will have someone with me every step of the way. there is nothing more a girl could ask for.

...okay, i don't really want to end my blog with a line like that. it makes me sound silly and antiquated. i never thought i would be that girl. i'm so unequivocally his, however, i don't really care how silly and demeaning it sounds. for now it is time for more coffee and (seemingly) endless hours of waiting. until next time

on adoration

there is something about picking up a new book, spine still completely intact. unbent, undamaged, unexplored. a page yet to be turned, only the slightest inclination of what is yet to come, the first utterances still unknown. there is something inexplicably comforting about starting anew, fresh hopes with preconceived expectations neither of which are ever reconciled.

then a few days pass, a few weeks if you're diligent, and before you know it the charm is gone. the corners are bent, some pages catch a little differently and the cover isn't all that it used to be. by this point you have already forgotten what it was like to lovingly open the pages and begin to explore, desperately searching for something you can never quite pinpoint, something of which you cannot preemptively conceive. this early notion of what was to come was more shaped by your own transference of expectation than of the reality of what you were to face.

one day, likewise, you are going to start to see my creases, the lines left from reckless days come and gone which may have been flattened out under the pressure of something greater, graver... but whose mark is still impossible to miss, ever present like a scar on the character of who i am, corrupting what might have at first appeared ideal. the novelty will fade and the discordant nature of these two conceptions, what was and what will be, unequivocally and diametrically opposed, will tear whatever semblance of cohesion that may be remaining apart. the deference will be gone, the object pushed from the foreground into an uneasy, forgettable backdrop of a memory, condemned to a bookshelf of skeletons and unstable spines, slowly coming apart at the seams. despite the wear of the impeding drop in interest, the tear of ever-growing distance, gaps and disconnects, let this be the one i don't forget. the one i don't have to shelve. let your hands turn the pages with care again and again until they become a part of your touch, always opening back up to those passages you treasure.

at the moment

and then there is you.

she held the world upon a string

the district sleeps alone tonight

i think i could stay in dc forever. there is way too much to possibly ever take in, nonetheless in three days. here is what i've done thus far

yesterday

waited in line for silly tourist tickets and time slots for the next three sites

washington monument

holocaust museum

bureau of engraving and printing

smithsonian castle

museum of african art

freer gallery

sackler gallery

hirshhorn museum and sculpture garden

world war II memorial

nighttime driving tour of dc and virginia with my cousin

today

library of congress (this includes getting my reader card!)

capitol (but i didn't actually tour it)

postal museum

union station

botanical gardens

vietnam memorial

world war I memorial

white house (again, didn't tour)

jefferson memorial

national art gallery east - complete

national art gallery west - didn't finish bottom floor

national art gallery sculpture gardens

national archives

all of the art....i don't even have words. stella, mondrian, giacometti, liechtenstein, de kooning, frankenthaler, o'keefe, rothko, pollock, warhol, rembrandt, monet, manet, matisse, picasso, leyster, rubens, renoir, cezanne...the list goes on and on. just seeing lavendar mist made my life. i don't know how many times i was coming up an escalator or turned a corner just to have my breath taken away.

i love walking into a room and instantly, like star-crossed lovers, coming eye to eye with a piece and knowing it is something unmistakably liechtenstein (or insert any of the above names here). being on that level (though i have so so so much to learn, and there is so much i do not know about art) and just...feeling the art on a spiritual level. like i said, there aren't words.

well, off to bed for me. another long day ahead of me tomorrow, what with trying to squeeze the rest of dc into one day!

pulling me into another dream, a lucid dream

mean everything to nothing

"i try to write through a lens rather than on top of a soapbox. "
- andy hull, manchester orchestra

so true. here are the three videos ive posted from this album so far (again)... i know the links are dead in the old posts, but this should work for all of them. i can't wait for the other eight :)

GOOD NEWS

that's right, i used all caps. for those of you who know me or read this regularly, you should already know that i don't capitalize anything (including things that should be capitalized...such as god, i, chris, sam, etc.), so if something is worthy of all caps, it must be pretty damn exciting. AND IT IS!

the jackson rescue event had been canceled, but have no fear! there are people putting together an event at mississippi college and guess what - YOU SHOULD ALL BE THERE. they are meeting tonight to get together more details, but i am going and so should you. it is this saturday and it will be amazing! for those of you who don't know what the rescue is, it is the big invisible children event for the year and it is a great way for your voice to be heard in the community. if you remember the displace me event, this is the equivalent for 2009!

if you are going, or if not, do this! contact people, get individuals motivated and be a part of the change. get up, enact the ideals you stand for, and make a difference! this is such a huge deal, and even if there aren't a lot of people at the event (which you can change by coming, too!) you are still a part of this simultaneous event that is happening all over the country and all over the world! don't believe me? go to facebook, search the rescue and filter by events. there are hundreds of people rsvped to events (561 in melbourne, australia...617 in salt lake city....1496 in chicago...1134 in boston...and countless others. austin has 825! and these are just the people with facebooks you guys!) and YOU can be a part of it!

here is an instructional video, and be sure to check back here for more information about the event once i hear back from the wonderful individuals at MC. also, if you want to see some fun examples of the youtube shout out videos, i have one a couple of entries back. get excited people :) make a difference, enact change in yourself, your peers, and the world. fight apathy and get out for this.

The Rescue Instructional Video from Jason Russell on Vimeo.

and, as a last thought, i will leave you with some parting words from a man i love dearly, bryce avary, the singer of this great band the rocket summer.

i'm thinking 'bout other things i heard about today
all this week and tomorrow
and how these hands can create some better things for bettering. . .
do you feel
the weight of the world singing sorrow
or to you is it just not real
cause you got your own things
yeah we all have our things i guess

i guess my mind wanders off
from time to time
sometimes i convince myself
that all is fine in the world
it's not mine
why should i
have to try
to fix things i didn't create or contrive
. . . can you feel the souls behind what's going on

and for good measure, since i love TRS so much, here is a cool in-studio version of so much love

one day equals

one day can change the course of history.

http://www.onedayequals.com/