so this is the new year?

Chad and Amy just sent out their new year's letter, and it made me smile really a lot. So grown up! Hah! Sending out for real holiday update letters? And being married for a whole year? Holy crap. Ain't nothin' more grown up than that. Well, except maybe procreating.

That word has always made me wonder -- is there such a thing as con-creating? And what, exactly, would that consist of?

I'll admit, I'm kind of bored today. I even went so far as to clean the kitchen today in a stir-crazy fit, and I hate cleaning. Sigh. If only I could be this relaxed at school, but still have my friends close by and my work close by. You know -- oh, you don't have to work on your woodblocks, but you want to? OK. Go for it--but be leisurely. And then I'd spend lots of time hanging out with my friends, talking, eating, and watching movies or something.

Instead I'm mostly just wasting my life on the internet. Which isn't all bad -- I don't mean to malign the internet! But. . . yes, I guess some of the family workaholism got passed down to me somehow. Is there AA for workaholics?

Happy new year! It's not time yet, but I probably won't check in before then, so I'm saying it in the interim. HAPPY NEW YEAR DON'T GET DRUNK OR HIT BY A CAR.

ah, nostalgia. . . .

I was undecided about whether I should write to you a post or not.

But then I was surfing through my photos and decided that I should share a few more than I did when I was in Italy (due to slow internet connections at the library, etc).

I'm finding that since last time I was home I was getting ready for Italy, I'm experiencing a weird sensation that I should be getting ready to go to Italy again. It's making me kind of homesick. I even pulled out everything from my closet to sort through eventually, just as if I was planning on moving.

My Christmas has been great, though -- 4 books in 2 days and counting. (Now I know I've arrived home.) Hopefully so has everyone else's!

c'e assurdo! ma non c'e problemo, certo! c'e super ganzissimo!

Well, I stepped off the plane and found out it was nearly 60 degrees. It's supposed to be colder for the rest of the week, but still the contrast between balmy Alabama and that epic journey to the Howe family Christmas couldn't be greater.

It hasn't been many times in my life when it's just been my family at home doing Christmas, not traveling somewhere else to visit massive amounts of family. I guess most of those times have been since we moved to Alabama, even. It's harder to think of Christmas when outside it might still be September.

I'm still excited, though.

Being home is really nice. I feel so relaxed, and there is literally nothing I have to get out and do before Wednesday. I mean, I probably will. . . like, go to church this morning. But everything else? There's literally no agenda. I'm confused, bewildered, and inordinately pleased.

I'll probably adopt some minor goals for myself: hit up the library, finish a book, maybe. Play a video game I haven't played in a while. Maybe write a little? Catch up on calling people? Since we have phenomenal long-distance here at the house an' all. Oh, things like wrapping presents, too. And of course make a kick-bum Italian meal for my family. Maybe catch up on watching the 6-hour version of Pride and Prejudice with my mother. I think tonight might be mystery night on TV, though, so we may just watch tons of Agatha Christie mysteries instead.

This is where it becomes an asset to me that I mostly just skipped ahead and read the ends of mystery books -- I'm entertained and surprised by the story just as much as anyone else when it's interpreted for the television. = D

I hope that everyone else made it home safely and is having a lovely relaxed beginning to your Christmas break.

Is it weird that at Christmas I have the urge to say "Christ is risen! -- he is risen indeed!"? I also have the urge to play Christmas music at Easter. I know, I know, laugh because Mackenzie is confused. But really, advent, lent, both 40 days, both celebrating occurrences in the physical incarnate life of Christ. . . .

Buon natale a tutti!

"and now good morrow to our waking souls"

Pennsylvanians are CRAZY. CRAZY HARDCORE.

This is a tale of Pennsylvanian Christmas Hardcore-ness.

Preface:
I spent Saturday night at Greg's house, with his family, because he invited me to the Howe Family Christmas on Sunday (his mom's side). On the way to Greg's house at about 9 p.m., it was sleeting and dark and freezing and unhappy -- the edges of his windshield were forming little ice patches as we drove. The salt trucks were out makin' the highways safe(r). People were driving stupidly. I was hoping Greg's new car would not suffer damage in such bad driving conditions (yes, he signed for a new car last week! Woah hardcore grown-up-ness!)

Act I:
Now, Mrs. Snader has massive amounts of siblings -- 7 I think -- so mere preparation for this event was way hardcore. Mrs. Snader cooked and carved 40 lbs of turkey the day before, and her sister cooked and carved 35 more. In case you can't add, that's SEVENTY-FIVE POUNDS of turkey.

I mean, holy crap, right?

I wake up Sunday morning to the usual Snader household apocalypse (I guess with 5 kids the definition of "inside voice" changes). [and no, Mom, I didn't let the noisy wake-up make me grumpy -- aren't you proud?] All six of us kids shower, breakfast, dress, caffeine, bundle up and venture outside. . . ready to go.

Act II:
The weather was not ready to let us go, however. We walk outside to a driveway sheathed in almost a quarter-inch of ice. Every individual blade of grass is iced over, and just shatters underfoot. Halos of ice surround every twig, branch, and tree trunk. The cars? Oh, the cars. Also sheathed in a solid quarter-inch of ice. We used the one ice scraper to chip at the ice around each door of the two cars; half an hour later we've broken in and are ready to pile in and leave. (the whole time we were trying to break the ice to get into the cars, Greg's youngest brother is hip-checking the side of the car to try and shatter the ice.)

Then three people remember things in the house they'd forgotten to get/do, so we wait a while longer.

Then Greg, Charlene, and I pile into his new car and leave to get gas -- the driveway was so slippery we don't want to follow close together. We drive with one tire in the grass. It is way hardcore. Greg cannot see out of either of his side mirrors because hey -- they're still covered in a quarter inch of ice.

Act III:
We get a phone call at the gas station -- after we've broken into the gas tank -- the windshield wipers on Chris' car are broken. So we go back, pick up the other three kids at the bottom of the driveway so we don't have to try an drive up the steep icy slope, break into the trunk without an ice scraper to deposit all our belongings, then cram six people into Greg's car.

Then we drive an hour. Loudly. And with much poking, arguing, yelling, teasing, smushing-one-another-around-curves, more sleet, and lots of rain. And lots of reminding ourselves why the heck we were leaving the house on a day like today, when the weather is utterly terrible. Seventy-five pounds of turkey. Just remember, we have to go eat 75 pounds of turkey.

Finally we arrive at the Howe reunion. We eat almost all of the turkey.

"no blinding light or tunnels to gates of white. . . . "

Well, my friends.
I hope I haven't lost too many readers with my long hiatus. But it is hard to think of something to say when you hate life. So now that things are looking up (knock on wood) I'm back.

I walked out of my dorm this morning and did a double-take -- the trees looked like they were in bloom. Then I realized they were just covered with tiny icicles that looked like buds and they were catching the morning light so that they looked pink like blooms. That bit of eye-trickiness was a delightful start to my morning. Surprising. Odd. Beautiful.

Finals week is next week -- my last paper is due tomorrow -- things are slowly winding down. It's quite exciting. I'm so ready for break that I can barely stand it. I'm sure you know what I mean. I'm very sad that the semester is ending so much later than normal. Last year Christmas break started December 15. Now I won't get home until the 21st.

Wish me good luck? And good luck to anyone else still dealing with finals.

"where the bullets get tired and fall, in the bright sky, bright sky"

I woke up this morning and thought to myself: "What's the point of all this again?" By which I mean, why am I waking up and going to chapel and class and all of that? Is there really a point?

So I didn't go.

I got up, actually took the time to make some breakfast, make a cappucino, put on some music, and do a lot of reading for my world views class. That way I wouldn't feel guilty for not doing anything all morning. It was actually good.

I didn't feel immediately better, but it payed off, I think.

And given also the fact that today was a beautiful day and I spent about four hours this afternoon in the studio with the window open and some music playing, I was able to get things done and still feel alright about life. Not as overwhelmed, not as burnt out, not as depressed. Almost like life is going to be alright, at some point, if I can hang in there long enough and not actually burn out but keep working.

And yesterday Greg got a job! It's a freelance sort of thing redesigning a homeschool math curriculum, and the project is expected to last about a year. He's already gotten started this morning, I think. How great is that? He was quite excited. That was the good part of yesterday. And our adventure grocery shopping at nearly midnight. And my roommate Katie's senior show proposal getting a great response in class.

Now? Now, dear readers, (I feel so 1800s when I call you "dear readers") I'm going in search of dinner before senior seminar class.

"But if I live I'll be coming back again
In the bright sky, bright sky."

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving: a tale of adventure. Traveling adventure. Culinary adventure. Gastrointestinal adventure.

I came, I ate, I got some kind of weird stomach flu, I left, I came back to school. (somehow not as cool as I can I saw I conquered.)

It was good to see my family again, both immediate and extended. Greg came with me, and I was surprised but pleased when it seemed fairly natural. I hope he felt more or less natural about it! = ) Never visit Lewistown Pennsylvania, avoid Ohio turnpikes in the rain, don't get the stomach flu, do get more of your reading done, and yet also do spend more time with your family. All at once, Mackenzie? Yes. All at once.

That's my advice for myself for next Thanksgiving break.

Funny thing about the stomach flu was, both of my brothers also came down with it. All of us were sick within an hour of one another on Friday night. And we hadn't even eaten any of the same things that day, so it must have been a virus of some kind.

Actually, though, coming back to school hasn't been so bad. Usually after a good break it's like pulling teeth to sit in classes again and think about how to get all my work done. But you know, today was all right. I meet with Professor Perrin on Mondays, so that's always a good start to the week. It leaves me feeling capable, encouraged, happy, like I can do this college thing, even if it is a lot of work. And then Tuesdays knock the stuffing out of me. Oh, well. Can't win 'em all.

Um. . . . yeah, so that's pretty much it. The end. Just to let you know I'm here and alive and kicking and back to work an' all that stuff. I won't be around this Saturday night, though, because I will actually be at another wedding. But I think we won't be having Pro Tempore anyway, because Lucy & Danielle will both be presenting papers at an undergraduate conference on medeival and renaissance studies.

Most rambling and pointless post ever? Yeah, I think so. But I guess I've been reading up on postmodernism for art seminar -- and postmodernism defies the Cartesian straightforwardness of purposed prose. So I'm on track. = D

"basically it's none of our business how somebody manages to grow, if only he does grow, if only we're on the trail of the law of our own growth."

-- Rilke

I like that quote of Rilke's so much.

I don't like this faith integration paper quite as much. It's difficult. So much of what I want to talk about is felt and not known, and so I'm having to search for some approximation of poetic language and form that will tell more than academic language, but will still be more accessible to my intended audience than my poetry would be.

I don't think Professor Prescott will like my paper much. I also think that this is an important paper for me to write, and I don't much care whether he likes it or not, because of what motivates Rilke's quote above.

Just two more days of school, and then it's Thanksgiving break, and then it's time to relax a little. Only if this paper gets under my skin I might be revising it all break instead. It might be worth it. It makes me laugh, though, to think that all, or almost all, my sources will be literary, and not visually artistic. And not academic in the least.

Mmmmm. . . . yes, basically, I wanted to share the Rilke quote. And then I think I'm done. Have a good break, if I don't talk to you before then!

"and though we had fallen into despair, you did not abandon us"

Today I thought I would share with you some of what I've been working on for my senior honors project. Not my own work -- but I am supposed to find an influence who will be the deep subterranean river under my understanding of poetry. For Elizabeth Bishop, that was George Herbert (you'll remember him, maybe, from Easter Wings fame).

Oddly enough, I am drawn to someone of a similar time period: John Donne. Maybe you'll remember me talking about how sketchy some of his sonnets are. Well, Donne is a fascinating character, because he does those extremely sketchy love sonnets (calling them sex sonnets would probably be more accurate)and then he does these extremely moving (but no less shocking) divine sonnets. He writes poems which exalt a woman as his angel and poems which deny the possibility that a woman could truly love. I'm trying to learn his idiom -- familiarize myself with it. Memorize a few poems. Take enough time with him to form an opinion of him which is entirely outside the academic understanding of his worth.

That means that you, gentle readers of this blog, may get dragged along a little bit for the ride. I'm still thinking liturgically from the alternate chapel this morning (remind me later to write in amazement at a clergyman who would come to Messiah every two weeks and lead a service and serve the host for just five or six students, and look as joyous as if he was serving an entire congregation of hundreds). That means that I am going to reproduce here two of his holy sonnets. I'll clean up the spelling a little as I go, where it doesn't affect the rhythm or sound. Ready? OK. Go.

I. Thou hast made me, And shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for mine end doth haste,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it t'wards hell doth weigh;
Onely thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
but our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour my self I can sustain;
Thy Grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like Adamant draw mine iron heart.

[You know what I like most about that one? It's incidental, but his spelling of only: "Onely." I didn't clean that one up because I feel like it's interesting. I feel so schizophrenic about God myself sometimes that I love the contrasting idea that he is one. Also, I love that the way he will be sustained is by an adamant blade plunging in and drawing out his iron heart. It's so against common sense. It's the same sense of paradox I get from the Bible itself, you know? In death is life. Draw my heart.]

XIV. Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

[This one makes me think of a baptism service I saw last Sunday. . . . Everyone had such different stories, different reasonings, except many of them said that they found God as a present help in times of trouble. Emmanuel, right? But I don't think anyone really understands the way that those those five minutes of anecdote and the promise of water dripped on the head, the slight commitment we are able to make, are taken and changed and lead us into strange places.]

OK. That's all. You're free to go, now. Maybe someday I will post my faith integration paper in installments, too. But don't count on it. I'm not such a huge fan of the academic mode of thought. What's more interesting to me is experience with something in which I do not feel mediated, for just one moment.

Thanksgiving? Oh yeah. It's only five days away. = D

what? mackenzie, actually academic?

OH MAN I KNOW I SHOULD NOT START TWO POSTS IN A ROW IN ALL CAPS BUT YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE IT! I WON A LIBRARY RESEARCH GRANT!

In conjunction with my English honors project, I applied for a research grant to go to Vassar College and see Elizabeth Bishop's poem manuscripts and travel journals. I wanted to study her patience in poem-writing, her revision methods, and see how she translated her travel experiences into poems by comparing her journals and the completed poems. And they actually liked the proposal and chose me as one of the two recipients of the grant money.

I mean, it's like, wow. I actually did something academic in my life. Academic and mildly competitive. Who knew?

"everyday she wears the same thing. i think she smokes pot. she's everything i want, she's everything i'm not."

THANKSGIVING IS ONLY EIGHT DAYS AWAY WOOHOO I AM SO EXCITED I CANNOT STAND IT WHEN IS BREAK GOING TO COME AND THEN CAN THE SEMESTER BE OVER WITHOUT ANY MORE HORRIBLE ASSIGNMENTS AT WHICH I FEEL LIKE I FAIL?

Hey, I think the coffee kicked in. That's good.

I have to say, there are a few things which are going very well. Work at the Office of Marketing and Public Relations swims forward like an unstoppable manatee-beast, king of the waters of all he surveys. My poetry project with Professor Perrin races forward apace of a great galloping gazelle. And, oddly enough, I am doing really well in and enjoying my lit class. Dr. Nisly keeps urging me to speak more in class, so I think I must not sound like an utter idiot. I always enjoy not-utter-idiocy.

I forgot to tell you that I posted over at the Jesus College blog last Friday, as per usual. I'm quite excited, because in the next issue of The Bridge, you will see my name! I will be published! By a press! In a magazine that real people read! Granted, I wrote very short pieces only. But still. I wrote short pieces in a magazine that's read by thousands of people. Wooh! Someday I will write longer pieces, too. It will be phenomenal. I will be a real writer when I grow up.

My roommates remain absolutely fabulous. And night-owls, but we still get along pretty good in spite of the fact that I pass out at midnight nearly every night, regular like clockwork. I am extremely happy that we decided to live together after Italy. I will be sad to see Katie graduate, and to not live with them any more (Elena will be around next year, but she will live with her contemporaries).

OK, loves. I will see you later. I will see some of you in eight days when it is Thanksgiving! DID I ALREADY SAY I AM MUCH EXCITED WOOH!

"i roll the window down and then begin to breathe in the darkest country road"

Hello. I forget what I was going to say, but I think it involved amazement at the huge box of candy that my mother sent me. Seriously, it weighs at least five pounds. Do you ever have the urge to spend pound with an ell? It confuses me. The abbreviation being lb., I mean, and the actual word being spelled pound.

Um, artistic influences? I'm not certain I have any, but I have to give a presentation tomorrow. Actually, I lied. I have plenty of artistic influences, and I have made sustained study of several artists. I am just afraid to explain why, and I am afraid that the influences I've adopted as my own are not the right influences -- whatever the heck it might mean to choose the right influences. As if there is some singular end goal.

I was talking to Professor Perrin, and I admitted quite frankly that I dislike literature, in part because I feel unequal to disputing with it. And so the canon in both literature and art makes it difficult for me to make things and claim my own place. But I'm supposed to hunt for some influences in any case, literarily, to be the subterranean stream under this year's poetry. She is very excited about my poems thus far, and I must say that I am also very excited through her excitement. Sometimes I feel that she is too nice, but I don't actually mind getting praise at all. I love getting praise, I admit. I am glad that one of my projects this semester is going so swimmingly. The rest are just barely completed or not getting done at all.

But at least I am still sleeping, and at least I am still having friends and at least my boyfriend is still my boyfriend and at least I still talk to my family even if it is not as often as it should be.

And Thanksgiving? Only 15 days away. I can make it. Yeah.

"all your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise"

Eighteen days until Thanksgiving break. Whee!

That's. . . that's just over two weeks! Whee!

I am so exhausted from NYC, and I'm going to have a busy day today and a busy week next week again. I have a presentation and two papers due at the beginning of the week, so I cannot slack off this weekend, but hopefully everything will be alright. I'm really tired and really ready for a break. I've been fantasizing about a real break from school since. . . uh. . . fall break? Yeah, that's the one. Fall break.

You know what time it is, ragazze (tu conosce la volta c'e). Oggi e venerdi! C'era una volta. . . once upon a time, c'era una nuova blog post per la Jesus College blog. Si! Non e uno gioco! Non schezzo! C'e una storia di mio viaggio in giro New York Citta dov'e le donne sono matte. C'e molto amusante (forze).

It was weird, because in NYC yesterday for some reason my Italian-speaking mode kicked in. I kept translating things in my head the way I did in Orvieto. Except I couldn't remember as many conjugations and words as I knew back then. But it was interesting to see how a city environment and the act of travelling caused me to rehearse my words in a different language just because of association with Italy.

I think a little bit of my head might be crazy.

P.S. Fun quotes from my world views class today, where Crystal Downing was the guest speaker:

"A friend said to me, 'the life well lived is the best revenge,' and oh my goodness it is so true." - Crystal Downing

"It's why I write so much. If I'm not analyzing literature and film, I'm analyzing all my friendships and my husband and it drives them crazy. So I have to write." - Crystal Downing

[Crystal Downing also related an anecdote about how no one in the secular world of graduate school meant to be insulting when they said, "oh, you're a Christian? I never would have guessed. You're so intelligent." I sort of wanted to jump up out of my seat and say, "Yeah, try being a home schooler! They don't mean to insult you when they say, 'oh, you're a home schooler? I never would have guessed. You're not actually mal-adjusted.' Gee, thanks. I love the compliment, there. Insult my family and my upbringing, but at least I'm not mal-adjusted."]

"blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly."

Ah, familiarity. By which I mean: Ah, the familiarity of being up way too late for my mental health working on papers and projects. In one way, this familiarity is actually reassuring, because I finally feel that I am doing my utmost at my work. I can apparently only last so long at subverting my perfectionistic impulses.

On the other hand, there is the pleasant unfamiliarity of having someone help me with my work. For my Advanced 2D Studies midterm, we had to prepare a piece we made this semester for presentation with some kind of shadowbox or frame. Since I'm working on a gigantic installation, it's kind of hard for me to frame something and just stick it up on the wall. But I printed into a shadow box and lined the back of the box with a nice cream paper. I wanted to spray paint the shadowbox black, but because of a 6-8 page paper also due today (which I only started last night), I didn't think I would have time.

Enter Greg, who paints the box black after multiple rounds of problem discovery and solution at the ungodly hour of somewhere past 1 a.m. (I forgot that the inside of the box would have to be painted black, too. But the ink from printing was still wet, so we couldn't lay newspaper inside and spray paint. But we had acrylic paints. But not at the Warehouse. So we went back to the apartment. Then I didn't have a pallette. But Katie had a pallette. The box got painted.)


He probably won't like me talking about it on my blog. But I just wanted to point out how much circumstance affects our vision of a piece. This midterm thing was ugly before it was painted, and much better afterwards. Still, all things considered, it's probably not the greatest midterm presentation ever. I'm just very attached to it because it means that sometimes people will help you out when you really need it (I was able to go to bed at 3 a.m., rather than spending another two hours working on this shadowbox thing or turning in something I strongly disliked).

Also, I am sorry I missed the Chicken Run viewing last night. I hope that it was fun and I wish that I could spend more time just plain hanging out. But apparently I'm sort of bad at time management (in Soviet Union, time manages you).

I'll close with these quotes for your amusement:

"Occular Dalliance"
-Lucy's interpretation of eye flirtation

"sexy chompers"
-an anonymous interpretation of teeth

"we float like two lovers in a painting by chagall"

Hey my loves,

Guess what! It's Friday, so that means another Jesus College blog post.

Also, I have a headache due to not enough sleep and too much late-night roommate fun designing halloween costumes -- I won't be able to make the art league party, but at least I get to design costumes and have fun with the preparation. I was even involved in deciding the big group theme for seniors this year, so I was very happy. It's so rare that I'm in the thick of things.

But last night, for once, I felt like I was in the right place at the right time. Maybe I needed more sleep. But I don't regret being up late. I have, apparently, an inability to be at peace with being where and when I am at any given time this year. But I'm trying to be better, and last night was a good occurrence. I do not normally feel so connected, so included, so accepted, so it was a VERY good occurrence.

I think I'm adjusting to being back in the U.S. and to college. At least, I am more happy on a regular basis than I have been since the end of summer. Maybe I'm hitting my stride and making peace with my choices of what to privilege and what to ignore? Or maybe I have just begun the hallucinatory phase of college life, where I believe that I am competent and capable and not as socially awkward as I've been led to believe.

'Kloveyoubuh-bye

P.S. Have you guys heard the Weepies? I feel like some of you might like them. . . I feel like Dad might actually like them. They are lyric and light music. Katie & Elena are obsessed, and while I never expected to like them, they are very much growing on me.

"the glove compartment is inaccurately named, and everybody knows it."

I will not post until I have a specific story to tell, I told myself. The other kind of general catching-up posts are heck of boring.

Well. I'm not sure I have a specific story to tell, but I will tell you something specific:

Sleeping is my favorite. I may not do as much of it for the rest of the semester.

Also, I think I could be a professor. I'm not sure I would be great at being relational with every single one of my students, but I think I could be an English professor. Dr. Dzaka asked me to present a paper for him in chapel this morning, and I wasn't even that scared, although I think I read too fast some of the time. So, not-fear. Good. I can do that in lectures someday. Also, I can write well and I feel like I could teach other people to write papers good (note intentional bad grammars in this sentence, as if to defy everything I'm saying). I could maybe get people to be enthusiastic about my subject.

So. . . not giving up on my professorial dream prematurely? Priceless.

Also, here's to hot chocolate and much caffeine to keep us awake on gray days. Hip hip hurray.

tabi ni yamite yume wa kare-no wo kakeme guru

- Basho
("Sick on a journey,
as for dream,
it wanders the withered fields")

Supposedly that is the last haiku that Basho ever wrote -- he dictated it to his assistant and then fell asleep and died. Or maybe I'm confusing him with Buson. When I am tired, all poets sort of seem to run together.

I highly recommend the book Art and Fear. I'm not a crazy nutcase when it comes to making things. The pull between needing to make and fear of making? Totally normal. The fear which manifests itself as fatalism about the outcome of the work or the quality of the work? Also totally normal.

I guess part of my problem this year (besides the creative process in general, which is, let's admit it, problematic) is that I'm approaching that place where no one can tell me if I'm doing a good job. That is, no one can tell me if I'm where I ought to be, because there's now something innerly rather than something outward which determines where I ought to be. Nobody else is going to know that. And really striking out on my own into that territory is quite frightening. Really. Nobody's made my art before, so nobody else but me can tell me if I'm making it or not.

Anyway. I'm feeling better, not about my abilities as an artist, but about my abilities to get things done in general, which is pretty good.

Did I tell you Jeff, from Orvieto, is coming to visit this weekend? Yep! He'll be arriving tomorrow night, and will be around until Sunday. Then I plunge into the week of doom, with 4 midterms and various and sundry other work, plus a wedding. But I'm really trying hard not to think too far beyond the end of this week.

'K. Night. Don't let the existentialist philosophies bite.
(Yep, we're studying existentialism and Nietsche in world views right now -- no wonder the world looks grim!)

"the time for sleep is now. it's nothing to cry about."

Hello loves. My blogging fell by the wayside over break. I do not regret it.

I do regret my lack of motivation.

I do not desire to do work, I desire sleep and fun. I do not feel that my work will ever make a difference. I do not believe that my work can touch another mind or provoke another's emotions the way these examples do, the examples held up by my teachers. I do not even think I can be as real as the people I saw in the diner this morning.

Before, I was tired, but I hardly ever doubted the worth of doing my work and doing it well. I still do not doubt the worth of doing work well -- but I most emphatically doubt the reason for doing work at all.

Maybe this is a symptom of just coming off of a break. Maybe this is a symptom of something else. Maybe Camus is right and the whole thing doesn't matter a bit.

Do you have any cures for burnout? I am so tired. I am so tired of thinking and of pushing myself and of following rules I don't agree with and of displaying the right attitudes towards learning and even of making things.

I ask myself, OK, so this situation is unlivable. What will you do to change it? What needs to happen so that it's livable? I can't answer.

This is probably really angsty. But I'm not. . . upset, so to speak. Although I guess I am just plain overwhelmed by remembering how I have not lived up to my expectations of myself, and of all the obstacles ahead in this week and semester and year. But I suppose those things are not important. What's important is now, this moment, the work that needs to be done by tomorrow, only these.

I hope.

And now I will show you the most excellent way:

"and the soles of your shoes are all worn down, the time for sleep is now --"

"Poetry should be as unconscious as possible."

"One of the few good qualities I think I have as a poet is patience. I have endless patience. Sometimes I feel I should be angry at myself for being willing to wait 20 years for a poem to get finished, but I don't think a good poet can afford to be in a rush."

-- Elizabeth Bishop

"Take off, take off your glasses. . . . Let me see your sightless eyes? I will be beautiful then."

-- Brigit Pegeen Kelly

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I realized something funny the other day. Daniel Finch reminds me very strongly of Robin Pettey, my violin teacher. They are both relentless in their demands of competence from their students, and in their demand for genuine effort. Both prized tenacity and persistence. They're both hardcore, which is an undefinable quality that you know when you see it -- it has to do with passion for their subject matter, and it has to do with their willingness to send you back to the fifth grade, so to speak, and tell you to start again if you've missed something along the way, but it also has nothing at all to do with either of those things. Realizing the similarities makes me suddenly understand a lot more about why I gravitated towards Daniel Finch as someone I would like to be my mentor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"It always seems impossible until it's done."
-- Nelson Mandela

That's a quote for Liz, who read it out of my day planner today in World Views.

I also understand, this week, the urge to send characters back into the valley for their happy endings. Do you know what I mean? The protagonist ventures into the wild hills, finds and fights evil, and returns to the valley where he began in order to complete his happiness. Why? Returning to the valley at least provides some semblence of order and control, some semblence of a circularity that the protagonist chose. The protagonist did, after all, defeat the evil. . . they are quite capable of going anywhere, but they return to teh valley, the safe place, the bounded, the familiar.

I have to read Nietzsche for my World Views class. Imagine my surprise -- Nietzsche is not what I thought at all. He is so vehement, passionate, vindictive, not giving up or giving in or reductionistic at all. In his mind, he seems to be fighting against reductionism -- he wants to get rid of all the head-fluff going through culture (particularly Christianity) and return to the vital, forceful, pervasive, complex & complete natural world. At least, that is what his first 30 premises tell me. We shall see more as we go along.

There is a peculiar kind of intelligence that I am just catching glimpses of in this, my senior year of college. It is the kind of intelligence that is self-aware -- how could one critique or present one's own work without a measure of self-awareness? -- And it is also the kind of intelligence that is framework-oriented. Let me explain that a little bit more. It is the kind of intelligence that, when presented with an argumment, could argue the points presented, but instead goes straight for the assumptions behind the points presented -- it questions the very framework on which arguments are based. I kind of like this intelligence, even though I lack it. It's the part of intelligence that asks "why?" to the complete degree, and it is the part of intelligence that is always seeing & seeking possibilities. I hadn't gotten much past recognition. But I think it would be fun if I could be that sort of smart someday.

at your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses and this fragile earth, our island home

"i'm the new chicken clucking open hearts and ears"

Do you know what I wish? I wish that healthy sexuality within marriage was a more widely discussed topic in the church. I wish that we, as young people, were provided with more models of what that looks like, because I think that determining dating boundaries would be much easier if we knew what the ideal end-goal looked like. You know? Is that an unreasonable idea?

It's difficult, I realize, because that's a highly private thing and possibly even highly-individualized (that is, each couple may have a different way of defining healthy sexuality). However, if such a thing is highly individualized, then it becomes more important that we have multiple examples of healthy sexuality. I mean, how are we supposed to achieve it, the way I assume we're supposed to, if we don't know what it looks like? Did your churches navigate this more successfully than my churches did?

Also, I disapprove of the idea that sex should be discussed as little as possible inter-generationally. That is, there is this perception within at least my age group that one does not discuss sex or sexuality or anything else beyond one's own peer group, and that one should never honestly discuss sex within a religious setting or with religious people. Well, if someone is seeking wisdom, that really doesn't help them much, and as a result I feel there is a lot of misinformation and strange attitudes towards sex being diseminated.

I understand the reluctance to talk about sexuality in a religious context, however misguided I think it is. I mean, heck, I am even nervous stating that I want people to be more open about that kind of thing sometimes, because I know that family members and rather religious individuals peruse my blog. And I'm not even TALKING about sex, I'm just talking about how we might talk about sex and sexuality more openly.

Let me give a concrete example of what I'm talking about: I was homeschooled. That means I got sex ed from my mother, and as awkward as that was at the time, I feel like it later set an attitude in my head that that is an open topic between us if I ever feel like I need wisdom (I haven't tested it, so this might in actuality be an erroneous perception). Why haven't I tested this hypothesis, though? Because talking to my mother about healthy sexuality in a marriage would be such a weird, counter-cultural thing. Sex is not discussed inter-generationally, and if I were ever to be like, "My MOM says," then I feel like I would immediately be ostracized.

OK, my peer group, it's time for you to speak up a little about what I'm sure is currently being perceived as an extremely awkward blog post. Do you feel the same strictures in talking about sex and sexuality that I do? Do you think that these are ridiculous rules? Do you think that they are ridiculous rules only sometimes?

Do you think there ought to be more inter-generational dialogue about this kind of thing? Anybody?

Does anyone think that I should never discuss healthy sexuality so openly on my blog ever again?

P.S. New Jesus College Post. Twice as much Mackenzie, every Friday!

"don't take it too bad, it's nothing you did--"

People have been commenting on my work blog lately. It kind of makes me nervous. Now I feel like I have to live up to the good posts. My hope, however, is that I will post enough that the bad posts will be evened out by the mediocre ones, and maybe the alright and excellent ones will erase the mediocre and bad ones. Do you think? Maybe?

Can I vent for a moment? Sometimes professors can be extremely inconsiderate. My art seminar professor assigned us reading over the weekend - OK, no problem. I expect to do reading for classes, much less my senior seminar class. So I did the reading. Today I get an e-mail from him giving us discussion questions prepare from the reading and giving us another assignment. Excuse me?

I'm carrying eighteen credits, I'm working two jobs, and I've been doing a darn good job of it thus far. But you know, getting all my work done (yes, I've even been doing all the reading so far. I've done every bit of work assigned in every single one of my classes) and keeping up with two jobs -- oh yeah, and maintaining some kind of social life AND getting enough sleep -- without going insane requires good time management and planning ahead. That means that when professors throw random assignments at me, my carefully-constructed plan of action is totally screwed up.

I simply don't have time to humor professors who don't plan out their classes in advance. If they expect us to be professional and do our work before the appointed class period, I expect THEM to be professional and give us a reasonable period in which to complete the work.

If that sounds bitter, vindictive, and extremely angry, that's because it is. I'm pissed off and only supreme self control is preventing me from dropping a few swear words.

In other, lighter, funner news, Elena's new boyfriend is currently setting his hand on fire in our kitchen.

That's an exaggeration. He is currently setting the air inside his hand on fire. Don't ask me how it works. It's freaky and strange. But also kind of hysterical.

oh, I don't know what to do about this dream and you

oh I hope it comes true.

I realized today that blogging greatly improved my writing life. Something about the relentless practice of writing is, maybe, paying off. At least, I am able to tell quite a difference in my writing competence now that I have been blogging nigh on three years. I sit down with a thought and suddenly there are five hundred or seven hundred or sometimes even close to a thousand words that don't sound too bad when I look back at them the next day or week.

Has anyone else noticed a difference in their writing due to their blogging practices?

Blogging also makes me realize this: I think by sheer persistence it is possible to find your own voice, because after a while there is nothing else to try on. You have followed every style there is to follow, borrowed from your contemporaries, tried to write like the poets you adore, decided to be e.e. cummings-like in your punctuation practices, but in the end, what's left except to write exactly like yourself. True hypothesis?

Does anyone else have the sense that the semester is starting to close in on them like those comic walls in dramatic movies? Any minute now, this creepy garbage-eating creature is going to start strangling me and then run away as the trash starts to compact. That leads me to my next observation: It is starting to dawn on me that I am ready to be graduated.

Also that I have watched too many Star Wars movies if that is the first image of closing-in walls that comes to my mind.

thing-moments

Hello my loves. I am in a writing mood, so I am writing to you again, even though it has only been a few days since my last post. Remember when I used to post a lot? Those were good times.

I had the most fascinating discussions recently with several people about poetry. Professor Perrin and I discussed Milosz's idea of poems as thing-moments -- devoted to and embodied in things, evoking, eternalizing, memorializing a certain moment in time. This, she says, is what I privilege and do naturally in my poems, and beyond my poems in my actual life. "It's a simple thing, but it's beautiful. Don't be afraid of that." Lately Professor Perrin has been encouraging me not to be afraid; I should lay claim to more things in my poems, be more declarative and less obscure.

At the end of last week I had decided that poetry and art are commitments to the concrete things, at base level, commitments to the concrete, detailed world. So now I am obsessed with the idea of art (any art) as a composite of thing-moments. Also at the end of last week, I decided in my head that when Dad said (who knows, once upon a time) that his art is about things that are right in nature, maybe he was talking about this love and awareness and commitment and devotion to the concrete physical world. I say that, but when I talk about love and devotion, I'm also talking about love and devotion to the numinous aspects or layers to the concrete. Like in my woodblock prints - by loving this physical world I am loving what it embodies, which may in fact be spiritual.

And last night, after dinner, Liz said "I like the physical because when I move it means something. It's not something symbolizing something else -- it's action." (Sorry, Liz, that is a paraphrase as best I can remember.) That struck me as absurdly powerful. Art should mean something as an action, not simply as a symbol or allegory or metaphor.

And then I'm looking at my wall, and I see this picture that Greg gave me for my birthday. It says "Like a moment so overly abundant that it spills from your mind, through your hand, to the page." And yes, that's poetry. Thing-moments. A moment overly abundant and spilling from things through your hand to the page.

Also, I learned something today. Apparently addressing the beloved, an apostrophe to the beloved, began the lyric poetry tradition. I find it strange that any poem of mine is addressing the beloved in any sense -- but I am pleased to find out that when my poems do address the beloved, Professor Perrin thinks that they are very strong.

This is what I love about critique: people tell me what I am doing, and then from there I can strengthen it to go where I want it to go. Otherwise I find it impossible to step outside my head and understand what is weak and what is strong. But I am learning, through critiques, to ask the questions that may tell me the answers when I am alone and trying to still work. What is at stake in this poem? That is my primary question, the one she is always asking me.

Well. I am not always sure, but I will do my best to find out. But now I kind of wonder. What is at stake in this blog?

Let me know if you find out.

and if I knew the answers, then i would tell you now

Why am I walking around with nail polish on only my left hand? You might also ask me: why is there writing all over your right arm? And I would not really have answers for you. "It is just something that happens," I say. "It is just part of being busy and an art major who is always thinking but does not always have a sketchbook and an English major who is always tasting words but does not always have a pen handy. It is part of making my work and words as lively and dynamic as my own body is."

It looks more and more like my senior show will be a giant sculpture in Climenhaga, hanging through that triangular hole in the first floor and dangling (I hope gracefully and dramatically) down in front of Aughinbaugh gallery. By "giant" I mean possibly 15 feet tall, and I mean layers and layers of glass fleshing out this imagined tree of mine. I do not have the expertise for this, but I am going to do my absolute best to make something work. "That's the rest of your life," Don Forsythe, art professor of the funny stories, "you get this idea and you find someone who can help you make it happen and you learn -" and you just go for it.

Is it funny if I declare I believe in this glass tree? Because I believe in it. I believe that it could be awesome. I believe that it could be dramatic and beautiful and provoking, if I can get past myself and actually serve the idea and birth the image in my head - the vision? - if you will allow me to use such a crazy word.

If I am a grown up, I suppose it is time for me to begin making grown-up work, isn't it? And as we all know, being an adult is all about problem-solving. Maybe now that I am 21, I will be able to kick every problem right in the face. = D

P.S. Can I tell you how amazing my roommates are? And also Greg. And of course the family, even though they are a long ways away. I haven't had such an amazing birthday in quite a while. . . .

P.P.S. my advisor and boss at work are having a baby. . . yes, they are married to each other, they are rocking, and they will be having a childrens!

P.P.P.S. My Jesus College Blog is once again updated. . . . This time I went on a bit of an art v. intellectualism rant, and a brief look at Chris Fennell's new sculpture on campus. If you are interested in those sorts of things, it is there to be read.

"this is my dream, i dreamt it. i dreamt that my hair was kept, then i dreamt that my true love unkempt it."

- Ogden Nash

Somehow Ogden Nash is just stuck in my head lately.

I have blogged, once again, over at not as good as an ice-cream cone. This time I talked about the incredible sense of well-being I get from entering a classroom where some of my closest friends are located.

Is it odd to say that I got struck by a sudden pang of homesickness for my college people today? Even though I am at college and seeing them. I don't want to think of this ending.

So. That is the end. 'Bye loves - have a lovely stormy friday afternoon!

“in the mouth of the worm who grammars these woods into this world whose song is"

Movie screenings with friends, rather than going to a silly for-class showing in Boyer? Heck of much better. When the friends are utterly snarky? Even better!

It is very late, so I won't say much tonight. Only I will mention that I am mapping out a reason for this poetry project - a motivation, an audience to address. I've felt the need to address someone directly in the poems since the second college summer. I felt a lack in the anecdotal poems I was writing, and the way to take care of that lack, I found, was the address a reader directly. In this case, however, I might narrow "the reader" down even more specifically, according to Professor Perrin's reaction to one of my poems - whether in it I address the reader or address the beloved.

In any case, apart from school things, I am quite excited about the weekend. = D

"ptolemy may have had a difficult name, but he was no dummy."

Yesterday in art seminar - keep in mind that this is the capstone course for senior art majors, where we work on integrating faith and art - I sat next to Brian Behm. Because of a certain thought in my head that went something like "if I use my whole body as my sketchbook, will that make my art more full of vitality? Will it, in fact, be more lively?", I was drawing on myself. Brian Behm noticed, read my ring finger that said "concrete space/action" and then asked to borrow my pen. I was like, "Sure," and he proceeded to scribble on the side of his finger. "Um. . . " I thought to myself, really confused. Then Brian Behm held up his finger under his nose, and I realized, "OMG, that's a mustache!"

It was phenomenal. Weird, but phenomenal.

Today in world views, I decided to be Brian Behm. Somehow it was cooler coming from him.

I had an epiphany yesterday, too. Or maybe it was Monday night. I'm not sure. The epiphany went something like this:

I rank serving the viewer or even communicating something concrete to the viewer very low on the scale of purposes for art. Sure, art can serve those purposes, but that has nothing really to do with why I make art. On the other hand, when it comes to words, I rank serving the reader and communicating something concrete to the reader as of first importance. So weird. Do you think that has anything to do with why I continually cling to my identity as an artist despite the fact that I display less skill in general in that area?

I'm having kind of a guilt complex about my blog lately. I feel guilty if I do not post, but I feel guilty if I do post, because then I am asking people to read it. And Lord knows that I do not always have anything interesting to say whatsoever. Sometimes, I have no doubt, my blog is myopic and narcissistic (I just hope not all the time). Sometimes it is trivial in the extreme.

But sometimes people respond really well - get into thinking about a topic I posted about, in the not-internet world. So maybe I will keep talking anyway. Yes? Maybe?

I find myself less afraid of table saws this week.

P.S. Daniel Finch says that he will kick me if I doubt my critical abilities and higher theory thinking. Despite disliking threats, that made me kind of happy.

P.P.S. "I was bitten by a radioactive dandelion! It happens!"
- Scarygoround.com

the possibility of portraits

I've never been interested in the human face much. But I am thinking that sometime I would like to do some woodblock portraits. Now that I have decided to do woodblock prints this semester, I find myself anxious to teach myself everything about them. I am going to make awesome and sophisticated blocks of wood if I have to read every book in the library, search every website on the internet, and even learn to like Ashton Kutcher movies.

Okay, maybe not that last one. = )

I am full of pressure to make something, but also really nervous. Now that I have approval from Daniel Finch over my idea, I am very afraid that what is in my head will not be good when it is out in the open. I am filling myself with as much knowledge as possible so that when I really start to make, I can be as confident as possible that I am as full of visual language as possible. . . that maybe I can work something good out.

I really do love a slower pace of life. It is sad that I cannot fully indulge in sanity while still enrolled in school. But somehow it will work out, yes? This is what I tell myself.

Oddly enough, I am reassured to find that life as a senior is nothing like I expected. Life continues to be vibrant and unusual. Not any easier - it is always harder, there is always something new to cope with - but always fun and strange. Maybe someday I will be able to tell you that with images or with carefully considered poems.

But for now you can use your imagination. Picture the volleyball nets at 1 a.m. behind my dorm, still covered in orange light from the parking lot and cheering students cramming fun in before exams start looming. Imagine my roommates crooning over a chick flick at 1:25, and how much I love cappucino and the teal mug filled with M&M's next to my computer.

"don't wake me, i plan on sleeping in."

Hello my loves! I do plan on sleeping in this weekend. Oh heck yes I do.

I've realized that maybe running is too much to realistically expect from my life this semester. So I'm going to try and get some exercise, but maybe not running, and not necessarily every day. or if I do make myself run, maybe I will only run two days a week or something. We will see. I will figure my life out eventually.

Dave, my art advisor, was really positive about grad school and the idea of taking a year off before I go there. He noted that I already seem kind of burnt out, and grad school is too good an opportunity to waste by it being just a horrific task of a year. Also, grad school is a trial by fire in many ways. The professors are not there to nurture you as a person, they are there to critique your work, and it can be very harsh. His first year in grad school he spent thinking, "why am I here? They clearly don't like my work." I know myself, and I know that I am just now starting to have confidence in my artistic abilities. I think a year off might be good for me. I will have to see, though, I guess. A lot can change in a year and a half. I would have to work for six months somewhere anyway, 'cause I'm graduating at a strange time in December.

I'm really grateful that as things are coming up this year I'm feeling strong enough to deal with them. Going abroad? I found enough strength for that. Coming back and combining social circles? I'm feeling strong enough for that, little by little. The workload of 18 credits? I'm finding strength for that one little step at a time. And I guess that's all I can really ask, you know? To feel capable and equal to the challenges I posed for myself by becoming a double major and part of the honors program. And to find the strength to be the person I decided to be in a community sense, too, to serve the people I love in whatever little ways that I can.

Tonight is muggy, but somehow my apartment is an icebox. And hour ago Elena set the thermostat for 95 degrees. . . I am still wearing my sweatshirt! The ironies of Jesus College and their environmental policy but still-they-don't-give-us-control-of-our-thermostats is sometimes palpable.

"therefore similitudes drawn from things farthest away from God form within us a truer estimate that god is above whatsoever we may say or think of hi

So wow. School started. It's been crazy. So much has happened that I am not sure what to say to you, or even what my blogging schedule will be like this semester. I will try to keep blogging, because I think that it has been such a beneficial thing to my writing life.

When you're stronger, they ask more of you. I think this is my conclusion. But maybe that is also just my personality - to always push myself until I hit the breaking point and have to back off. I couldn't have possibly handled eighteen credits before this, but hey presto, the moment I feel strong enough, there I am, taking the eighteen credits.

I feel this on many other levels, too, but that is the obvious one.

Being a senior is kind of like experiencing senility. Or maybe that is the study abroad experience. In any case, I feel that everything this year is new - I am like a clueless freshman all over again, I am in my second childhood.

Maybe I will resent chapel less if I think of it as participating in the liturgical life of the college. That seemed to work alright in convocation the other day.

Thoughts I reacted to in Thomas Aquinas:
"The one precise formality"
"God. . . knows both hiimself and his works."
"Dazzled by the clearest objects of nature; as the owl is dazzled by the light of the sun."
"the slenderest knowledge that may be obtained of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge of lesser things."
"the whole Christ. . . head and members."
"the ray of divine revelation is not extinguished by the sensible imagery wherewith it is veiled."

I don't really like Thomas Aquinas, but as my mother pointed out to me on the phone tonight, I am in the habit of getting things out of classes and making my own meaning where I refuse to adopt the meaning or value systems proposed by the people actually in charge of constructing the class.

Good night my loves. I could write you ten essays, but I am determined to get enough sleep tonight and run tomorrow morning. = )

"in one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, china has banned buddhist monks in tibet from reincarnating without government permission."

Susan Getty sent me an article from Newsweek with that as the first sentence - it made my day.

So yes, it is the weekend, and I am posting anyway. But it is because it is my choice, not because it is something I need to do, so I think that I am not breaking my weekend resolutions. Or my sabbath-day resolutions, for that matter.

Several things I like about the catholic mass I went to this morning:

(1) The people helping serve the host brought it out to those in the congregation who were old and unable to stand up in line to wait for communion, or who were in wheelchairs and unable to walk down.

(2) in catholic mass in general, the emphasis is on emmanuel -- God-with-us -- and sometimes I just need to be reminded that other people actually believe that. I mean, that's why we kneel when they're consecrating the eucharist (or whatever the proper terminology is). Because as the priest is blessing it, it really becomes the physical body of Christ in our midst. And who wouldn't kneel if you knew the king of heaven was present?

You know, I had many things to say, but as I'm sitting down to type I find that they are not important. I will try and adjust well to the school year and to having everyone back on campus and to all of our changed social circles and patterns. I will try and not be a dumb-ass. That's about all the more I can say about my life right now. Oddly enough, due to the craziness of this weekend on campus without everyone working, I am ready to be in classes so that some sort of routine starts.

On the other hand, I'm havin' fun just eating and bumming around. That's the way the weekend should be, in my mind. None of that homework stuff.

Alright loves. I will see all you college peoples around on campus from now on. Still mental hugs to the rest of you.

P.S. I updated my Jesus College blog again on Friday.

"see this film, it only had one scene. my recollection fades - it may just have been a dream."

Hi, my loves.

So I am a little bit obsessive lately about my professors. How did they get to be professors? I wonder. How come they're so good at what they do? How can I get into grad school and then be a rocking professor? Out of curiosity, last week (due to an attempt to link to a Daniel Finch website in my last Jesus College blog post), I googled all my art professors to see if they had websites. I learned all sorts of things, like which professors have the same names as dead British earls, and which professors have the same name as famous movie stars. I even found some of the websites I was looking for.

I get excited when professors (like Matt Roth) have facebook. Or, if any of them kept blogs, I would so be there. Barring that, an attractive, cleanly designed professorial website is pretty rocking too. The art faculty does a pretty good job, although some lack current work, and some didn't have a website at all.

Compared to the English faculty, their websites positively rock my world. Of course, with words it is a little different, because by posting them on the internet you are technically publishing them, and with creative work that can lead to lack of later paying publication. However, I still think English faculty should have websites. They could provide links to publications in which their work appears, particularly if it appears in an online journal or magazine. They could indubitably blog, perhaps about their creative process or as a form of sketching, and their blogs would indubitably be well-crafted. They could provide a photograph of themselves and their curriculum vitae. English professors, however, should not design websites themselves (or, as I sadly discovered, they end up horrendously ugly).

So, here, for your enjoyment if you are curious, are a few of my favorites among professorial websites I discovered (these are, actually, the ones not under massive construction or lacking current work. . . um, and of course, they exist):

Ted Prescott (my favorite in terms of color and layout)
Dave Kasparek (This site has its quirks. . . but I love the ability to select a project and simply scroll through images of it on the right, versus selecting thumbnail images. Also, the sheer quantity of his work displayed here dwarfs anyone else.)
and Don Forsythe (I wish that it contained new work. . . but it is a little bit under construction.)

I am. . . waiting. Yes, waiting is a good word. Waiting and trying to clear my life so that when this semester starts there will not be things hanging over my head.

"there's a movie - normally i'd call that a film - but it moved me. . . and that didn't rhyme with film."

Today is fall again, or close. Do you know those days when you can hardly sit still? When running would be a relief, even though I hate running, because at least if I ran I would be able to be out there, seeing and feeling the wind and listening to bugs (even though I hate bugs). Or do you know those days when every bit of sun that touches your skin delights, and every breath is a joy, and even tiredness and hunger feel great because you are suddenly feeling in tune with your body?

Do you ever wake up surprised? It isn't at anything particular. . . just surprise, welling up from the collar bone and into the eyes, so every sound and bit of light registering on your brain pathways elates.

That is the closest I can get to describing fall.

Last week, I wasn't ready for classes to start. This week. . . I am still not ready for classes to start. But I am kind of excited to be in the studio. I am excited to see all my friends again. I am excited to get feedback on my ideas from my professors. And I'm tired of waiting, you know? If it's going to be hard, I'd rather start it right now, while I am feeling capable.

This weekend exactly suited me. I disconnected from pretty much everything I didn't want to do (answer e-mails, blog, clean the apartment, run errands). I mapped out, at least in my own mind, the likely trouble points of the semester, and I am already making decisions about what is important to me; I know, at least in theory, which of my classes are priorities, which areas are likely to be problems in terms of maintaining my mental health, and what my goals are in terms of keeping my relationships healthy.

I'll tell you another thing that suited me about this weekend. I got white pine! I found a board whose dimensions and grain I really liked, and I started carving (thanks to Greg's table-saw skills). I'm relieved to find that Greg & I can be in the same space working at the same time without (at least on my end) a sense of conflict. And come to find out, when I get over myself and stop being afraid to discuss my ideas with Greg. . . well, I feel positive about the results. I hate to discuss my ideas with anyone before I have examples to show them (although I did change this habit a little bit in Orvieto from necessity), and I felt that discussing them in that infant stage with Greg would be particularly complicated. I'm not saying it will be OK every time. . . but. . . I'm keeping an open mind about bouncing ideas around with him in the future. Between the two of us, this idea refined to something I'd be quite excited to see in a gallery. And you know, not only would I be excited to see it in a gallery, it's something that I feel is me, authentic. I never had anything authentic to say with art before this past spring semester. Do you know how freeing it is for your voice to find you, and for it to sound loudly?

And even the end of the weekend, coming back late last night and walking into my deserted apartment. . . well, even that was good, because I wasn't afraid of it. (Italy really did help me in a lot of ways.)

So that was my weekend, loves. How was yours? Does anyone know their projected arrival times on campus yet? Or is that way too far in the future to bother with?

"i am an opera singer, i stand on painted tape. it tells me where i'm going, and where to throw my cape."

Once again it's Friday! That means you could, if you were so inclined, check here to see my latest Jesus College blog post. Y'know, just on an optional basis.

Talking to Professor Perrin and Daniel Finch got me thinking. Well, honestly, it got me panicking a little bit, in among tons of excitement and inability-to-sit-still-because-I-can't-wait-to-start-work-on-senior-ish-things. So you know what I did? I sat down and wrote a manifesto for myself. I taped it to the front of my sketchbook, and I'm also planning on posting one over my desk. I'm also posting it here (sorry that it sounds so PR-ish. . . a side-effect of my summer job!), so the rest of you can help hold me to it. . . .

Manifesto for 2006-2007:

1. To be transparent and open, challenging myself to understand, invent, and use my voice,
2. By the end of the year to make work that earns the respect of my peers and mentors,
3. To behave in a way in the studio and classroom which promotes communal creativity and earns the respect of my peers and mentors (aka. . . don't have breakdowns and cry in class. Don't feel threatened by how far behind everyone else I am. Just take every opportunity to learn and encourage, and take criticism with a willing heart),
4. To know myself and to not be afraid (to stand up for myself and claim the things I need in order to be a healthy and happy individual, like enough sleep, adequate meals, social time, and the right to reject suggestions that don't mesh with me as the person I want to be when I grow up),
5. To live as though I were full of faith, even when I am thoroughly in the dark,
6. To give voice to "the middle" - those things which bridge "high" cerebral & ultimate experiences/causes and the "low" mundane myopic details that refuse to catch the attention (these are the things I'm beginning to define as worth giving voice to).

Do I feel vaguely like a communist? Despite that I wrote a manifesto. . . no. But good try.

Yay the weekend! I will be spending it, once again, at Greg's house. So expect no posting. I'm gonna take advantage of this as the last really calm weekend I'm likely to have for the next three months. . . .

And today, for your viewing delight and as preparation for the weekend's joys, I give you many youtube linkages:

Andy Warhol Not Rolling a Joint

Like old cold war informational movies? I highly recommend Duck & Cover (brought to my attention by Andrew). It's almost 10 minutes long, but so worth every second. . . .

Also, since of course Duck & Cover is so ridiculous. . . there's Duck & Cover 2007 (A Parody).

Have a good weekend, loves. Can't wait to see you all again when you move in next weekend!

this is that old dream i told you about, twenty years ago

You know, yesterday an odd thing happened. I was sitting at work, working my way through a quote database, listening to Badly Drawn Boy - whom I really actually love, but maybe especially One Plus One is One - and I felt content. Really good things happened yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. The rain made me feel mopey for a while, but yesterday. . . I actually loved my physical surroundings for the first time since Italy, I felt that there was something authentically worth looking at.

This weather reconciles me.

And I'll tell you something about this soft-edged world: when it rains, when it is overcast and misty and gray, when only the ground immediately touching my feet feels solid, I wonder if I could reach far enough so that my own outlines start to blur and fade into that mystery, that other-dimension, the place this spark on the green leaves comes from, where rain kisses my skin into sudden live awareness. Everything is mutable here.

I talked to Jenn a couple of days ago, and suddenly realized why I'm so attracted to humorous or quirky pieces of art. Wasn't it Tolstoy in Anna Karenina who said "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"? Well, this is my thought (and it has almost nothing to do with his): everyone is serious in much the same ways, but everyone is funny in their own ways. So, wishing to develop my own little sort of brilliance so that I can be an artist someday, it's no wonder that I am attracted to humorous or quirky pieces of art, because humor is so individually dictated and brilliant in authentic, unexpected ways.

P.S. I saw Daniel Finch today! I love that man! I'm so excited he's teaching my advanced studies class. . . . Talking to him really is (as Susan Getty puts it) like drinking three cups of espresso.

I Am in Need of Music
Elizabeth Bishop

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream-flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Black Rook in Rainy Weather
Sylvia Plath

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain-
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical
Yet politic, ignorant

Of whatever angel any choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur.
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance
Miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,

For that rare, random descent.

everybody needs to know it's the year of the rat. every day we've got to hold on, 'cause if we hold on we could find some new energy

Alternate title: "what if I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall?"

Well. I'm here to announce that I am moderately well-adjusted after all. At least, I went to sleep alright last night all by myself and didn't cry or get freaked out or anything this time. Here's hoping that the rest of the week goes just as well. And by the rest of the week, I mean, "until Katie and Elena move in sometime near the beginning of September." Keep your fingers crossed for me, loves. I'm not so good at this, but I'm trying.

Can I just reiterate, one more time, that I loathe the female reproductive system whole-heartedly? With a passion rivaling the heat of forty suns. Maybe people who've actually made use of it and had sex/gotten pregnant (intentionally) like their reproductive systems, but honestly, the rest of us could do without them. The End.

And now, for something completely Ogden Nash:

Reflections on Ice-Breaking
Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

Samson Agonistes
I test my bath before I sit,
And I'm always moved to wonderment
That what chills the finger not a bit
Is so frigid upon the fundament.


My Dream
This is my dream,
It is my own dream,
I dreamt it.
I dreamt that my hair was kempt.
Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it

Good night my loves. Sleep well.

a gray sky, a bitter sting, a rain cloud, a crane on the wing - and I will hang my head, hang my head low

I like this thing where I don't blog over the weekend. It feels like a real break to me. And sometimes I then have fresh thoughts to bring to you. (Sometimes.)

It's fall. At least that's what my nose is telling me. Rain persisted almost all weekend, and today is drizzle-gray again. Normally I find rain quite restful and peaceful, but I admit, right now it just makes me feel dreary. And also pretty sleepy. I am having trouble thinking in general today; do you know that kind of operational fog that makes you feel fragile and detached from your body? So if this post does not quite make sense, I apologize. I am trying my best to make sense.

Walking to Eisenhower on my way to acquire caffeine or sweet, hot-chocolate-y goodness to alleviate this afternoon's dragging, I saw two funny sights. The first was a campus events worker watering the hanging baskets. These baskets are meant to beautify campus with their blooms (and they do a pretty good job). The way they watered them? With a giant hose-thing that sprayed with such force it spun the basket all the way around and knocked off a ton of flowers. Go figure. Beautify the campus, but in the process of upkeep, knock off half the blossoms. The second funny thing? A veritable army of campus events personnel marching past Boyer Hall with grim faces. Maaaaaaybe I'm just crazy, but I kind of started laughing.

Alternate title for this post: and when we sing i hear another devil dies

(You can't see me, but this thought is so important that I turned off my music, so that I can think clear-headedly about this idea and the words I'm using. That's how serious I am right now. Unfortunately, this post is going to sound religious. It's something I try to avoid, by and large, because I always end up sounding trite, but here goes anyway.)

I kind of always laughed when anyone started talking about "freedom in Christ," because I didn't have anything to be free from. (I think kids in general tend to think that they are already free.) I think now, though, that "freedom in Christ" might just be the freedom to change yourself, the freedom to change your mind, the freedom to be honestly who you want to be.

And by "freedom" I think I mean "reason." Christ provides the reason to change oneself, change one's mind, be honestly the person one wants to be. When you have motivation to change, you could say that you have freedom to change. Christ also, at least according to conventional wisdom, provides an aid to change oneself. (I don't know if that's the kind of aid that's all in your head, or if actual spiritual aid is somehow involved. The jury is still out, in my opinion, over how closely God involves himself with us.)

And I suppose that implicit in the idea of freedom, particularly freedom to change, is the overwhelming possibility of screwing up.

Anyway, I'll cut to the meat of the question: if the honest pursuit of freedom (and I guess I'm talking particularly about "freedom in Christ" here, freedom in the religious/moral/spiritual sense) necessarily implies mistakes, then as long as we don't get sidetracked from that pursuit, should mistakes be a big deal? Should we demand our redemption have angst and blood involved? Or can it be as soft and sudden as fall air coming through August?

This leads me to an odd question (it wasn't the point of this post, but I'm thinking now, so I'll keep going). Generally the church agrees that Christ forgives us moral mistakes. He forgives things like murder, even. But does God do professional forgiveness? Let me put it like this. If, as I think, art should be a place of freedom too, does that imply that Christ forgives us our artistic mistakes? For instance, I make a lousy stone sculpture. I have a hard time forgiving myself for creating something so hella ugly (it was a serious mistake). But can't that be forgiven just as easily as harboring a grudge against my neighbor, or lust, or something like that?

Um. . . I think I just trivialized freedom. But then again. . . if freedom doesn't apply to the little, trivial things. . . I'm not sure I'm really interested, seeing as my life is made up of little, trivial things.

Am I crazy? Is this whole idea stupid? Someone please let me know.

i was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere

Well! Today was an adventure. The photo shoot for the President's Report happened down in Climenhaga, in Miller Auditorium. I've never spent much time on stage down there, but today I did - documenting the documentation, mostly (Donovan Witmer did the photography, Christina Weber organized, and Dan Custer and I took video and photos of the whole photo shoot process). The cover design adopted, as its theme, a conglomeration of faculty, employees, and students ala Annie Leibovitz's Vanity Fair covers (except without the Hollywood stars).

I learned a lot, hanging out in the wings and running a video camera (or trying to slyly take notes in my sketchbook. Pretty sure I fail at slyness, though). Most of it was just little stuff - the tone of talking to large groups of people that you're photographing, what gets best results, how planned all that body language that seems so natural is. I learned how much equipment you need to get such a simple-looking effect, and how much knowledge successful people have imbibed through years of work, and they just whip it out instantaneously. Also, I learned that sometimes a photo shoot containing seven people involves just sheer blind luck to get the perfect photo.

What hit me in the face the hardest, though, during my day of aiding the photo shoot (basically as a gopher) is this: I am so little prepared to face the real world. I haven't got hardly any skills. Like, wow. Also, I lack social grace, which seems to always come in handy.

On the other hand, I felt an immense vitality going into this shoot - so many people with so many ideas and so much experience. You know how some people seem flat and dull, like they just never pay attention? And other people are vibrant and full of vitality, eyes wide open all the time? I want to be one of those vibrant people who's full of vitality, and I want to be out in the real world acquiring that vitality and vibrant experience.

Sure, I'm not ready to graduate in an actual "skills acquired" kind of way (I'm sure as heck not ready to face my senior show even!), but I'm ready to graduate in an I want to get out there and learn all this stuff and be kick-butt at what I do someday kind of way.

I guess I just need to be stubborn enough to keep working with what I like even when I feel totally inadequate. And. . . if there's any character trait I do have in abundance. . . it's sheer stubbornness.

The End.

P.S. Countdown to my apartment: 1 day. No more of the other countdown - this is my 600th post. I'd planned to do something special for it, but silly photographs are trumped by actual thought. Sorry.

that rock looks nothing like a bunny . . . neither does that one! what're the odds?

And now for something entirely different. Today my theme is wombats. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, wombats. Because wombats rock my socks off. Particularly



THE LOVE WOMBAT!!!!!

And now a poetic interlude:

The wombat lives across the seas,
Among the far Antipodes.
He may exist on nuts and berries,
Or then again, on missionaries;
His distant habitat precludes
Conclusive knowledge of his moods,
But I would not engage the wombat
In any form of mortal combat.
- Ogden Nash

Check out all the crazy wombat facts you can find!

Or, if scientific knowledge about wombats is not your style, check out a webcomic. = D

This is how I tell that Jesus College is gearing up to begin yet another academic year: a thousand mass mailings start hitting my inbox, a new one about every five minutes.

That is a gross exaggeration. But one which feels accurate. I'll have to start counting my e-mails again by "real people e-mail" and "mass e-mail." = )

what if charles darwin had access to sorcery?

If you have any websites of writing prompts which you like/think are good/use frequently/ignore vehemently, please send me the links, either via e-mail or via posting a comment.

Thank you. That is all.

Well, except for this. Go ahead. You'll laugh your pants off.

P. S. Apparently my roommate blows bubbles while she's on the phone with her boyfriend. . . weird? Yes. She's literally a bubble-blowing MK who says "No I miss you more." Of course, maybe I should not be so hard on her, because she is one of the few people I know who asks absolutely nothing from me, not even small talk. We're both sitting in the room today, listening to music and reading. It's fabulous. I don't feel obligated to talk one bit.

that weatherman is a liar, he said it'd be raining. but it's clear and blue as far as i can see.

Look! Messiah students have been frolicking for all of time! [Brought to you by the Absurd Photos from the BIC Archives Marathon]

I wrote a silly/banal poem for today, because my thoughts rhymed:

So often you just write long enough to get the junk out of the way
and discover the kernel of what you really want to say.

That's why writing and art take so freaking long, I think. Because so much of this is just sifting through the surface thoughts to find the real, authentic, interesting, worthwhile bit (and sometimes, to be honest, you can't find it at all). For instance, I wrote a whole eight paragraphs on my way to this blog post about church membership, when what it really boils down to, at base level, is this: people take church membership too lightly. Membership ought to be permanent, and you shouldn't leave just because of a few church leadership problems or because gossip or slander has become such a problem (honey, it's always been a problem, it always will be a problem, no matter what church you're in. Get over it. Do what you can, in your little sphere, to stop it and provide a good example, but get the hell over the idea that it's going to be better anywhere else. It won't be).

A few interesting tidbits:
Ever heard of an AltoidCam? [It's totally cool because it's unobtrusive, versus most pinhole cameras, and also because the focal length is so little, it's totally got this fish-eye effect that's cool and eerie when paired with the normal pinhole light-etchings.]

Would you like to see a few black and white photos? [I'm not sure why - but something about some of these photos I found interesting. Some are just kitschy and/or ridiculous, but there's some good kernels here in my opinion.]

Also, if you are a fan of Postsecret, check this out.

This Friday is going to rock. In addition to moving into my new apartment (where I can stay for a whole nine months), I will get paid, and I will get my new debit card. Rock on Friday.

Countdown: 5
Countdown to my apartment: 4 days

the dust has only just begun to fall, crop circles in the carpet

So. On Fridays I am going to be updating my blog for Messiah College. In consequence, I probably won't update this blog on Fridays, except to link you to my post over there. I hope that eventually this gets easier. I spent four hours this morning working on that post, and I don't even think it's very good.

Also, I guess I'm experiencing fundamental doubt that my voice is worth hearing or is interesting in any way, shape, or form. The alternative, though, not talking, is worse. If I can't be an artist or a writer because nobody cares about what I have to say, I'd rather find out now.

I wish that my template on blogger looked that amazing. Ten zillion points to anyone who can tell me how to make it so.

Alright. I'll talk to you later my loves. I'm going to Greg's house this weekend, so I probably will not access the interwebs.

[Yes, I know, the conversation I put in the MC post is pretty much fictional. But I needed a segue.]

spin me 'round again and rub my eyes

Messiah College is paying me to blog. Does that make me a professional blogger? If so, I would laugh hysterically. And then totally roll with it.

I gotta say, though, blogging is intimidating when you've got Devin Thomas to follow. He wrote a kick-ass first blog post. Frankly, I'm realizing, I have no idea how to make myself interesting. Oops. I do, however, have some (for me) innovations regarding post format which I'm excited to implement (heh, that was totally marketing-speak).

Dan Custer (my fellow work-study in the Office of Marketing and Public Relations) and I brain-stormed today for a title and subtitle for his blog. In the end we came up with: "Choose your own adventure: the art of risk at Jesus College." Along the way, he provided yet another example of why my co-workers rock:
Dan: "What if we used a different word for adventure? We need to find some cinnamons for adventure."

Tonight it is absolutely pouring. Just southwest of us there are severe thunderstorm warnings, and a girl walking down the hall is talking very loudly about the possibility of tornadoes. If it cools off, I would be pleased. Something about the colors when it rains is compelling. Maybe it's just that they seem deeper against a nearly charcoal-grey sky, or maybe it is that they are literally saturated (hah, bad pun. I win).

Maybe I should go stand in the rain. It usually makes me feel better.

Or maybe I will start work on all those ideas that keep hitting me as the most inopportune moments at work. Yes? Yes.

can i take this, really, can i finish this? these years and all these creatures

I have too much change in my life. I decided this last week, my satchel jingling merrily as I walked from Eisenhower to Old Main. I mean, I sound like Santa and all his reindeer! Some little kid is going to come running out of the Early Learning Center and give me his list!

My diabolically clever plan for dealing with the excess of round metal pieces in my life? Start using exact change. Exact. No matter how ridiculous it seems. Every time I buy a cup of coffee, I'm that dude standing in line shuffling through a handful of change. $.99 cup of coffee? $.99 exactly comes out of my wallet (this morning I handed nine dimes, a nickel, and four pennies to Matt, who looked properly impressed at my change-counting prowess).

I think that officially counts as a quirk.

I feel bad that I haven't been entertaining you lately. So, for your reading enjoyment, a few points about why I have awesome coworkers:

Dan: "Wouldn't it be nice if we could have the Matrix, and just plug in and learn everything that everyone's learned before us? It would make life seem like it had more of a point."
Me: "I took this class once where we talked a lot about collective consciousness and collective wisdom and the possibility that one day we'll be able to tap into this huge overmind thing."
Susan: "That would be wikipedia."

Dan: "Have you used any of these fine-tip sharpie markers recently? I love these things. If Jesus had to use a sharpie marker, I feel like he would use these."

Countdown: 7

Countdown to my apartment: 9

P.S. My favorite typos of the day:

". . . peace can be neutured."

". . . an increased sneeze of place . . . ."