"dear god, don't let me fall apart. . . i have turned away and searched for answers i can't understand"

- Jars of Clay

Alright my loves, I guess I will soon be posting from Orvieto. Apparently there is a pizzeria, Charlie's, which has a good deal on wireless internet, so I won't be completely out of touch, I am pleased to say. And of course there is always the usual postage service, which takes a week or so to deliver, but is fun and just like being from the 18th century.

Alright then. Don't let any kind of anything bite. = )

"i'm tired of being ordinary - don't care if there's people staring"

Today I took a page out of Katie Ness's book and did a lot of Orvieto dancing. There are a few steps you absolutely have to follow when organizing an Orvieto dance: first, you have to shout "ORVIETO DANCE!" and second, you have to dance like your life depended on it. Preferably there is an audience to this, because otherwise it becomes much less amusing. Music doesn't hurt, but is certainly not necessary.

I guess technically it is Thursday, so technically tomorrow I leave for Orvieto. It is tres crazy. I am wildly excited. I have one suitcase packed, so I think that is a good place to be in. It would be better if I had everything, but I discovered that I really like to discuss my packing with someone as I go along, so I may drag Mom into my room to keep me company and discuss as I finish. Then I'll be able to whittle my clothing choices down a bit more, I think. Also, I am breaking out the old classic BBC version of Pride and Prejudice to watch as I pack (somehow that became tradition when I first went off to college). Today I made it through the first half, so maybe tomorrow I will see the second half and pack the second suitcase.

A ton of props and points to the First Bible Sunday school class... they are pretty much the most hospitable people ever. I guess I'm thinking specifically of Joseph, Jon Tucker, Jon, and Alicia. I got to hang out with the guys at least tonight, and it was rockin'. Even if they do like science and understand things like weapons, they are uber-cool. Also, tonight they told me that they really liked my praying style, so I am all filled with endorphins.

Actually, you know, I'm just filled with endorphins in general. Because of everything. The world is heck of awesome. There are about five people I need to call tomorrow and I need to go to the bank and I need to do art and English lessons with Avery and I need to clean up my room and finish packing and I need to get everyone's addresses ... so tomorrow will be heck of busy. But you know? I am looking forward to it with a smile. And way much energy.

"around the ceiling of the heart is where we find the things that send us away, to where the blind can see the stars"

- Jars of Clay

I am the proud new consumer of antibiotics. Hopefully they will aid me in my battle against my arch nemesis, The Sickness. I've been sick three times since I got home at Christmas, so I suppose it's no surprise that this time it turned into a sinus infection. I cannot wait to be all better. = (

On a good note, I feel like after a week I'm beginning to be become comfortable with using the "we" voice. After all these years I thought I was done learning English, but apparently there are always new bits of grammar to learn. Like the subjunctive. I have no idea what the subjunctive is. Or having to say "I wish I were" instead of "I wish I was"? Yeah, that's pretty weird.

I'm leaving on Friday. I'm leaving on Friday! There's only four more days until I go to Italy! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

"while i lay, i'd dream we're better, scales were gone and faces lighter."

- Jars of Clay

I think it's become an informal tradition for me to post a poem on a Sunday. It's certainly not one that I mind, at least not for now. We will see if I continue posting poems post-Orvieto, or, I suppose, even whether I continue blogging post-Orvieto. I love Louise Gluck a lot; she was one of the first poets I ever really found. I say that, but I certainly haven't finished the finding process yet. In re-reading her book The Wild Iris last semester (a full year and a half after I was first introduced to it), I found out that all of my favorite poems are also, among other things, pretty blatantly related to sex. So I'm a little self-conscious posting them now (as much because of my failure to realize that particular dimension for so long as anything else I suppose). But I think "Vespers" is a fairly safe poem, and a very good one for a Sunday:

Vespers

I don't wonder where you are anymore.
You're in the garden; you're where John is,
in the dirt, abstracted, holding his green trowel.
This is how he gardens: fifteen minutes of intense effort,
fifteen minutes of ecstatic contemplation. Sometimes
I work beside him, doing the shade chores,
weeding, thinning the lettuces; sometimes I watch
from the porch near the upper garden until twilight makes
lamps of the first lilies: all this time,
peace never leaves him. But it rushes through me,
not as sustenance the flower holds,
but like bright light through the bare tree.

"speaking the condition of somebody else's mouth."

- Theodore Roethke

Alternate title: "No 'Amen,' because I am not done praying."
(Last Sunday my class asked me to pray - and then laughed hysterically because I forgot and instead of saying "amen," I said "OK, God, I'll talk to you later.")

Today I got a pair of stripey teal underwear (why is irrelevant, so don't ask me). I know that isn't the sort of thing you're supposed to announce to the world, but I just had to, because it has a funny sequel. Apparently, there's an absurdly-colored-underwear dance (says a friend who probably wants her name to remain unassociated with this conversation). When you (or a really really close friend) acquires a pair of silly underpants, you are supposed to do a dance (wow, if I'd left out that parenthetical phrase, that would be in iambs. Catchy first line for a kids poem, don't you think?). How does it happen that I've gone through twenty years of life and no one ever told me about the absurdly-colored-underwear dance before? I feel like my eyes have been opened to something new and wonderful (and so very, very odd).

Someday, I swear, I'll act completely like a grown-up and not get quite so tickled at the thought of things like absurdly-colored-underwear dances, or kids' books, or ridiculous rhymes. Just not quite yet. I hope that's OK with everyone. Right now I'm going to avoid responsibility with all my might, like if I could avoid the responsibility of packing I could avoid the absolute terror of leaving for Italy next Friday. I know it will be great, and I know that once I get there I will love it, and I know that somewhere inside I am also terribly excited, but I am primarily just shaking in my boots.

Good thing I got new boots and I look darn attractive in them.

"I'm trying to use humor to help me face adversity. You know that famous photo of the Chinese protestor standing in front of that column of tanks? I bet he was making silly faces at them."

"yes! i fried you in the right embrace: the close kiss of why not."

- Theodore Roethke

Today I read Theodore Roethke's "On the Poet and His Craft," and it was actually very interesting. There are only a few of Roethke's poems that I really connect with, but his prose, particularly when he's ranting or exhorting his students, is totally engaging. Probably I would have hated him as a person or as a professor - by all accounts he was blustering and didn't give praise lightly, but to read his prose is fun. He has some interesting advice to poetry instructors.

Here are a few more fragments I enjoyed immensely:

"strange little women full of ticks and ethics; existentialists with wet hands"

"ah, sweetlings, a sleep in your fat, if you don't once in a while, at least look outside, the angels will be forever angry."

"That block you're always talking about - are you sure it doesn't fill your entire head? You don't like paint and are afraid of it? Try drawing with chalk in your navel. I mean: be true to your own constrictions. Get down where your obsessions are. Live with the desperate and you'll survive."

"stamping a tiny foot against God."

"I taught you as I should; not what I know but what I do not know. I cut you down, and left you singing in your best bones."

So, today I suppose I don't have many thoughts of my own - but with Theodore Roethke, I would wish you ("dear darling provocatives"), "the swoops of many fish. May your search for the abiding be forever furious."

Scusi, dov'e piazza san marco per favori? e li? Gratzie.
Si, io vore mangare quelcose.
[spellings almost completely made up]

Eight days until Italy, not counting today, which is almost over.

P.S. I found this great quote: “I drink a lot about my thinking problem.”

"i'm either going to be a good writer or a poor fool."

- Roethke

Apparently my cold has decided that being cured is not an option. I am not getting better, I am getting worse. But! I am not letting that stop me from being in a good mood.

This weekend is looking like it will be tres fun. I mean, I'm kind of trying to see everyone one last time before I head off to Italy, so I'm going to see a couple of movies, do some crafty stuff with Abbi, go to church, all that jazz. Also, I suppose I need to pack and finish all those little project-type things I swore I would finish before I leave. I should, in all honesty, being doing that right now.

But I am tired, and sick, so I think it's my prerogative to take a small nap.

Also, today we had a small freak snow flurry. I took a mini-movie of it with Aaron's camera in case you don't believe me. If I knew how to post that up on my blog, I would, because it's heck of pretty.

Happy Valentine's day to all of you -

"if our decision making was a robot and indecision was a sneaky political super-villain we would totally pwn him"

- Greg

So apparently when I checked the library catalogue online, I checked the wrong library. So I didn't get the books I wanted at the library. That, however, was not enough to dampen my good mood. Especially since I found a Madeleine L'engle book that I haven't read before. I don't know how to spell her name, but Madeleine L'engle is pretty amazing.

I loathe taxes and fafsas with a passion rivaling the heat of forty suns. But hopefully I will be able to take care of them before I leave for Italy. I might as well, since I'm at home, I suppose.

Informal poll: Should I hand control of my blog to my family and ask them to post my letters online? or just hold out for more infrequent posts that I write myself from Italy? Either one would work, I guess. Actually, I'm not sure that my letters will be any more frequent than my internet access, although they'd probably be more complete. Anyway. Anyone who's gone abroad - your experience?

[Imagine me with a big smiley face. And a runny nose. That's my status.]

11 days until Italy.

an ascension of larks

So I have a little cold. And I only got about six hours of sleep last night (I accidentally took way too much cold medicine, and so I was kept up for a lot of the night. Let this be a reminder to you: always check the dosage information on cold medicine before you take more). But I am actually very happy. The cold is, unfortunately, interfering with my search for words other than "very happy." But at least you get some picture of my condition.

Yes, good things happened today. Like a phone call.

Now I think I'm headed early to bed so that I can fight back against the evil minions of cold.

12 days until Italy.

glurg.

I feel kind of ill today. So instead of blogging, I'm just going to give you another Sunday poem. Too bad if you don't like poems. You can just not read it. It'll be Rilke again, I think, just because I finished The Book of Hours yesterday, and I'm starting back through, trying to really digest it. Rilke is a little cerebral for me to love, but I think the last two lines of this particular poem thorougly redeem it.

I find you there in all these things
I care for like a brother.
A seed, you nestle in the smallest of them,
and in the huge ones spread yourself hugely.

Such is the amazing play of the powers:
they give themselves so willingly,
swelling in the roots, thinning as the trunks rise,
and in the high branches, resurrection.

cessation, susurration

Alternate title: "Come and Share my Plenty." Or "The Zen Vacuum." Or "Is This the Strange Feeling of You?" Or "I'll Take the Blows." Or "So Drop These Scales and Take a Look." Or "And I'm Curious if They Imagine Me."

(Do you feel like you're in an eighteenth century novel yet, with all of those subtitles? Also, it is becoming clear that I am newly obsessed with Caedmon's Call. Over half of those titles come from their 40 Acres CD. I hope that's not absurdly dorky of me. But really I guess I don't care that much, because clearly I am not censoring myself in this instance.)

Today I had lots of words, which always feels like a godsend. And I'm not using that as a cliche figure of speech. It really does just feel like God reached down and handed me a present. Unfortunately, they are not the words I'm waiting for. But then, who's to say they aren't better than the words I think I need?

Also, I have figured out the reason my blog is so angsty when I am not at school. The inner life keeps going, but it is untempered by the actions or events of the outer life, so you get a few more unadulterated thoughts. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but I'm gonna go with, "Whatever."

Lots of love from Hartselle, Alabama,
t34 k3nz13

P.S. I wonder if it's creepy for me to sign my blog posts with love when theoretically there could be strangers reading it? I'm gonna say that, theoretically at least, I should love everyone. So it's probably alright.

"i might have the mind to make a daring daylight escape"

What would happen if you were in a car going the speed of light and you turned your lights on?

These are the kind of questions that the internet poses. That one, in my opinion, is a darned good question. What would happen? Would it just stay dark? Wouldn't it be funny if we discovered that you gained enough mass at light speed to be impaled by light molecules?

Fifteen days until Italy. When I am in Italy, it will be great, because I can tell a ton of people to "get thee to a nunnery," and they will! It will be Shakespeare, and it will be good.

"the part of me that breathes when you breathe is losing time."

Ciao my loves!

Io desiderano vedere voi.

I think that translates into: "I desire to see you (plural)." But I'm not positive. My grammar still leaves something to be desired. Speaking of which, I should not be listening to Jars of Clay or laughing at the Flaming Lips, I should be listening to the Italian CDs I got from the library. In other Italy news, I am practically ready to go. I have some euros, my passport, my visa, and my airplane ticket. And all the clothes I need,

My writing is still stalled. But I am just trying to be patient. If I'm not writing well at this story, maybe there is something else I'm supposed to be writing. Or maybe I am missing something and if I take the time to listen carefully to what is happening I will find the answers.

Maybe, and this is the thought that haunts me, the problem is that my plot is more full of holes than swiss cheese on a shooting range. I like my characters an awful lot, but as I'm writing, I wonder, "why the heck are they doing this?" And some of the pieces of character or place have developed more importance than the actual plot points, so it's all lopsided. The story I'm writing, in other words, is not the story that wants to be written. Does that make sense? It sounds absurdly zen, but the gist of it is that I need to start re-thinking from the ground up.

But anyway, thank you for the mental hugs.

Sixteen days until Italy

"not a knife throw from here you can hear the night train passing "

I dunno about you, but I like getting phone calls. It's pretty much great. It's weird to think that in Italy I will be cut off from this most basic tenet of American life. But sending letters could be way more fun than e-mail, so who knows? We'll see. I refuse to fret.

The dragon lady rewrite is not going well. Not at all. I read over what I wrote the day before (or the week before, or the month before) and realize that it's crap. And not only is it crap, I am not sure what it needs in order to be amazing. And then I get stir-crazy and unable to sit still and focus on the story for more than five minutes. So it's a mess. I was all set to send some of it off, and then I thought, what's the point? They'll only have to tell me that it's terrible. So it's still sitting in my computer. Anybody got a spare flash of genius lying around? Anyone? Or at least a spare mental hug?

"dear darkening ground,"

- Rilke

A blond, a brunette, and a redhead were running from the police. The police, being excellent at hot pursuit, were catching up to them. So the blond, the brunette, and the redhead needed a place to hide. They come upon three gunny sacks, and climb inside. The police come along to the sacks, and decide to find out what's in them. So they kick the first sack, and the brunette says, "Woof!" "Some dog," the police say, and kick the next sack. The redhead says, "Miao," and the police say "Some cat." So the police kick the third sack, and the blond says, "Potatoes potatoes potatoes!"

[joke courtesty of Prairie Home Companion joke episode on Saturday night and Dad for repeating it tonight so I could write it down for you]

Yesterday was a fun day. I went to church, and then had lunch with the sunday school, which was fun. And then I came back and took a nap (also fun, and warm for once - I'm freezing all the time these days), and then watched some Poirot with Mom, and then got a call from the sunday school again. So I went to hang out with them and watch Casablanca and funny youtube movies (Chad Vader is pretty amazing. . . . and I finally saw the numa numa video too). Casablanca was a good movie. Also, I found it fun that the guys were secure enough to express their enjoyment of the movie (and actually? it was like the third time some of them had seen it. In a row).

Dad: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."

rilke's book of hours

today, a Sunday poem, from Rilke's Book of Hours:

Because once someone dared
to want you,
I know that we, too, may want you.

When gold is in the mountain
and we've ravaged the depths
till we've given up digging,

it will be brought forth into day
by the river that mines
the silences of stone.

Even when we don't desire it,
God is ripening.

"there's a dyslexic man who sold his soul to santa..."

- Garrison Keiller

I confess to nothing except being in a good mood today.

Sorry my posts have been so long lately. And also they've been angsty. But today is just a brief note. And what is it a note to say, you may ask? Well. First off, Matt had a birthday! He did, in fact, live to be 21. Did he get wasted? I have no idea. Call him up and ask him, in totally indignant tones (and be as loud as possible, just in case he did, in fact, get drunk, and you can be the first person to intentionally aggravate his first hangover).

I said "first," so there should also be a "second," but I forgot what it was going to be.

Oh! Happy J-term Break.

Trentadue giorno to l'Italia

"A veterinarian's and a taxidermist's. . . either way, you'll get your dog back."
- Garrison Keiller

"i'm a twilight princess"

- Aaron

Alternate title: "They are radiant angels, they are earthly slaves. They are predators moving in their endless days." (Guess where it comes from! Bruce Cockburn? How did you know?)

Today I started my dragon lady rewrite. It took, thank goodness, less time than I thought it would to create my outline. Hopefully I will be able to stop being such a slacker slash idiot, and write a really good story [crosses fingers]. Any volunteers for critique, if I have something to send you in the next couple of weeks? I'm considering changing my modus operandi. I think I might try writing a "chapter" and revising it directly afterward, until it meets my requirements, rather than rewrite the whole thing and then slog through the whole thing for yet another rewrite. Is that something anyone has tried? Does it work for you? (This leads me to a humorous thought. I write kind of like I cook - by consensus. "What goes in chilli? Does anyone know?" And then I don't follow anyone's directions in particular, not even when I have a cookbook.)

And here's the question: Can I do this? I mean, if this book turns out to be as bad as Christopher Paolini, will someone please tell me? I'm just a little worried that because I get good grades in my writing classes is no reason, really, that I should be good at writing books. Or poetry. Or, frankly, anything that's important. It only means I happen to be good at writing essays at a college level. And I continue to think that what matters in college is not necessarily what matters to real people in real life. . . .

I had a really bad nightmare last night: I came to visit a friend at Messiah, who seemed happy that I was coming, but when I got there was definitely not happy to see me, and ignored me, and ate breakfast with someone else, and then made fun of the fact that I like books so much. You're laughing that that's my nightmare? Well, Mom did too, so maybe I should have expected it. Probably serves me right for ranting. (I guess that's my method of transitioning into being apologetic for ranting? Only I'm sort of not.)

Also, here's a question: people laugh when I pray (not, I think, intending to be mean? Avery said tonight that he wanted to record my prayers. A "Mackenzie's night to pray podcast," was Aaron's idea. Truth is, there's only so far the 'right' phrases will take you, and I got tired of dealing with them somewhere along the line). But here's the question: Is my vernacular, then, one which is unsuited to serious things like books? Or is it OK if people end up chuckling a little at my narrative? I mean, which is worth more? To be taken seriously, or to have people enjoy the style of the book as a quirky representation of the way I actually tell a story? Would you read a book that went sort of like I pray?

Italian numbers, thank heaven, are logical, and don't require you to add or subtract (like roman numerals and French).

Trentatre giorni to Italy