Hiatus

I always hate when my favorite webcomics/blogs/bands go on "hiatus." It's a detested word. It is never used to mean, "I'll be back soon." Instead, it is code for, "I have abandoned this creative pursuit forever, left it stagnant, incomplete, and frozen, and I won't be honest enough to admit it to myself or you." I didn't want to use that word when I stopped blogging last fall (effectively going "on hiatus"), but now that I face the last six months from a new living situation, I can see that my life and my writing suffered from a paralyzing stagnance. My home environment, something that affects my emotional state greatly, was cramped and hostile, crippling everything from social interactions (you can't have anyone over when your roommate lives in the living room and there's no room in your bedroom because two people are sardine-canned in) to creative pursuits (I only touched my banjo to dust it; I only wrote to fulfill assignments) to making food (I had to clean the entire kitchen before using it. Every time.) My whole life was on hiatus.

I don't know what to say here now that I'm back - and, my friends, I do plan to be back and to write often. This whole thing - the roommate situation - was a mistake I hope not to make again. I could rehash what has happened these past two months, but I doubt that that would be beneficial to anyone. The situation cost me a friend, a semester of productivity, and not a little sanity.

These last few weeks have been bittersweet. After two weeks of cleaning and rearranging, Ashley and I now have much-needed private space, room to stretch, and a clean living room and kitchen, but the spectre of guilt still tries to wheedle its way in. Neither of us is much into confrontation, drama, or putting ourselves before others, so the process of detaching ourselves from our roles as the enablers of our roommate and friend has been rather trying. The fact that it meant hardening ourselves enough to throw that same friend and roommate out on the street in order to save our sanity made the whole affair somewhat of an epic struggle. Ashley's the hero of this one; I was her silent sidekick, the go-between with a quiet agenda, the mole - the coward. I stayed quiet and let her take the fall for being "selfish" for casting Randi out into the cold, and for that I owe her an enormous apology.

At last, though, I have an environment in which I can work and be happy, a class and work schedule (15 credits and 11 hours of work) that leaves time for me and for what I want to do, and positive relationships to inspire me. Hiatus? Over.

You'll Be Given Love, But You'll Have to Trust It.

Joss Whedon just got a whole lot more awesome in my eyes. I found this via Sociological Images and Feministing (best logo ever), which give women and men reason after depressing reason to join Joss and others in the fight for equality.

This hits on something I've felt over the past three years, and especially in the last couple months: It's only by shithouse luck (if you'll excuse the expression) that, from the beginning of my college experience, I've fallen in among friends and family whose attitudes are progressive, inclusive, and inherently loving and empowering. It goes beyond just having heroes that represent the unrepresented. It's the implantation of an entire culture that thinks I'm important, not just another pair of tits stuck to a vagina. I shudder to think what might have become of me if I had not stumbled upon these treasures: people who were willing to be patient with me as I groped and faltered my way through the darkness; people who trusted me with their true selves, whether gay, bisexual, transgender, cisgender, or straight; people who will stand with me against the flood of hate.

Whether they know it or not, these people have given me a power that I have never had before.

An enormous part of that power is the comfort of knowing. For instance, I know I will never have to spend my life silently hating the men around me for the unequal way they treat me. I know I will never have to worry how my husband will react if our child turns out to be gay or transgendered. I know I know that the people around me act only to bring more good into the world. These are good things to know.

Another part of that power is getting to have a richer range of experiences as a human being. Unlike generations of women before me (and even, unfortunately, many of the women of my own generation), I will have the pleasure of washing dishes, doing laundry, visiting Planned Parenthood, vacuuming, making decisions, and living alongside my husband, not for him. I hope to be there when Sara and Aly welcome their baby into the world with all the love, pride, and happiness that anyone would on such a momentous occasion. Someday I hope to watch as my transman friend walks down the aisle with his beautiful bride and my dear gays join each other at the altar. Some of it is sad: I will never see the media the same way, and I will spend hours questioning the equality or inequality of each part of Ian's and my wedding ceremony. But let me tell you: I'd rather spend my time loving and being loved than hating, fearing, and discouraging love.

At the corner of Anxiety and Self-Loathing

I've been thinking a lot about my honors thesis lately. The little things - voice, organization, research, citation style, and even topics covered - are going to matter a lot in this thesis because of the subject matter: how sciences and arts are really more entwined than we give them credit for, and that it is important to learn both. I really want my thesis to be a reflection of their integration. A little while ago, I conceived of making it a many-faceted project rather than merely an extended essay. Now the budding thesis in my mind is a mixed-media extravaganza: poetry and stories, surely, but also socio-psychological studies, historiography, cross-genre metaphors (the only one I have so far is entitling a short essay "String Theory" and having it be about theoretical physics and music), political arguments... everything I can work in.

I still have many anxieties about this, though. For one, it's huge. Two, I will be sooo disappointed if it does not turn out the way I envision it. That's a big one. I don't deal well with turning in work (especially important works, like, ahem, an honors thesis) that I don't feel is the very best. I'm not entirely sure how this will work. Three, I'm a procrastinator. Four, I'm not sure how it'll go down when I show my parents. When I gave my mom the basic overview a few months ago, she said, "Hmm." Keely, Colleen, and I all know that "Hmm." It means disapproval, short and simple. Also, since I came up with the idea, my dad has, two or three times, offered his thoughts on arts and sciences, a sort of "how dare anyone call that a science! Science is the purest of the pure! Do not got contaminating the name of Science with [insert social science here]!". Yeah, I haven't told him what my thesis is about yet. But I sure am glad I didn't major in psychology.

I could probably easily eliminate all these problems if I just did what every English writing major does: write a few chapters of a novel or round up all the short stories and poems I've written over my college career and turn that in. I can't bring myself to do it. Remember what I said about not being able to turn in work I don't feel great about? I have an opportunity to turn in what is probably the easiest thesis in the world, but that would feel too much like cheating. I tried to get around this by trying to come up with a theme to write my poems and short stories to. I just couldn't find any to which I could commit. I tried to come up with an interesting technique I could experiment with. When I told one of my potential thesis readers that I was going to craft my thesis entirely of writing exercises and experiments, he demanded to know more before he would sign off on being my reader (I promptly got rid of him and found someone who was willing to sign a blank check for me. God knows I don't need more doubters than myself in on this.)

So I've dug my own grave. And my project for the next few months is to find the inspiration to keep digging that grave until I reach the China of thesis success. God help me.

I always fall in love with an open door

Here's Ra Ra Riot!, one of the bands that opened for Death Cab Friday night. The other was The Cold War Kids, who were okay, but not quite my style. This Ra Ra Riot song ("Ghost Under Rocks"), however, is quite deliciously awesome – these guys were very intense. I knew it would be a good set when I saw the electric cello and violin! Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of Ra Ra Riot! We were too scared that Security would come confiscate the camera because they had stopped us at the gates already - the Canon Rebel apparently looks too 'professional.' Are you professional? Well, no, Batman, I'm not.

After a while, though, we got more gutsy. I got a few shots of The Cold War Kids, whose bassist (center), without a doubt, was on drugs. My guess was coke, but who knows? Don't be fooled by his halo (full-size image if you click):


The CWK played a long (too long) set, then came the disgustingly long wait for Death Cab. After a few decades, they emerged. They played! Music! With instruments! And voices! We were waaay too far away for my taste, but that was okay. It was Death Cab For friggin' Cutie, and there's no complaining about that. I think this was the first time I'd ever even seen how they play live - I haven't ever watched any live videos of them, even. For me, DCFC falls into this strange category of being a band so perfect that they're possibly actually immortal. Before this, I only vaguely knew what they looked like because I felt that associating the music with faces and names would almost cheapen it; when I found out that one of the members of The Shins was abusive of his long-time girlfriend, it made me a little sick. I knew Ben by sight, and a little about his life, and that's about it. I don't even imagine him singing when I listen to the music. I'm not sure how to explain it. They have such perfect music that I can't associate it with actual people. So you can see how this concert was a bit surreal for me.

As a continuance of the surreality, Ben Gibbard (lead singer), the only person in the band I knew, was all skinny-like and had chin-length hair, which was weird, because the last pictures I had seen of him had been adorable Plans-era chubby Ben. Perhaps he is losing weight for his wedding to Zooey Deschanel? I love you Ian, but I have sooooooo much jealousy for Zooey. You do understand, I hope, that this is DCFC we're talking about. His voice was still nice, though, so I forgive him for the hair and the skinny.

And so, without further ado, the pictures:


Guitarist Chris Walla was the most popular subject of our photos for the express reason that he was closest. Also, the Martinez sisters (Angel and Amanda, our German-Mexican companions on the trip) really like him.


Soooooo far away.

The dudes:

Dead birds and then some.

When I first came to Helena, I saw at least three dead birds around town within about a one-month period. It struck me deep down. I don't think I had ever seen that many dead birds before in my life (outside of poultry, of course), but it was more than shock that affected me so deeply. I didn't – and don't – know what to think of it, but I knew it was important. Dead birds to me are perhaps the ultimate contradiction and the utmost tragedy. I once told my mother that a short life as a bird – flying, swooping, free in every way – would be better than a human lifespan filled with drudgery. She rejected this, and I've always regretted what she said a bit. Predators, she mentioned, and danger everywhere. "But they fly," I thought, and still think."But they fly."

My relationship with the night, and subsequently the moon, started out very differently. I can remember the first time I listened to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". He sang, "I see skies of blue, clouds of white; the bright blessed day," and I vividly remember expecting him to say something about the "dark, scary night." It is obvious now that I did not know Satchmo very well. Nor the night. "The dark, sacred night," he sang. It was a line that shook my world, and I've been growing to understand it little by little ever since.

.... Which (kinda) leads me to this poem. My Nature Writing professor Murphy let us out on Wednesday to enjoy the sunshine and write poetry, our first poetry assignment. He gave us the line "Atop this hill waiting for a glance" to use as our first line. I wrote no fewer than three different starts of poems with this, none of them satisfactory. I had all but given up until tonight, when, reading an article for some ridiculous assignment, I found that the planets had alligned. In short, I don't know what set me off, but I started scribbling on the back of the article, and this poem, for better or for worse, came into being. It may or may not be good, but at least I won't be empty-handed when Murphy comes to collect my poem.



Dead Birds

Atop this hill, waiting for a glance
a bird lies alone. During the day,
the sun beams down weakly; it tries
to heat the tiny, stagnant heart, sighing
not on my watch, dear God
not on my watch, not again.

From far away, the wind sweeps in
to say its goodbye, caressing every feather
holding each aloft just to watch it fall
again. It remembers them all, and murmurs
goodbye old friend, I understand
goodbye old friend, but we must part.

Then one silver eye glances, then gazes
into the bird’s milky one. The moon
looks silently upon her lover. She pulls
a dark veil over her face and smiles.
But he flew, she laughs.
But he flew.



Although it really deserves its very own post, "Repenti" by French crooner Renan Luce was on repeat the entire time I wrote this poem. Even if you don't understand the lyrics (I tell myself they improve my French, though I don't understand half of them), the video, though not high in quality, says it all. This song has been a favorite of mine from the first time I heard it. The repeated phrase "Repenti; j'ai trahi" means "I repent; I betrayed". I'd have embedded this baby so hard, but someone was a jerk and didn't let me.

Love, love is a verb.

And so this was Christmas, a fine event if there ever was one. A virgin, impregnated by the power of God (who'll apparently go to great lengths to avoid the "birds and the bees" conversation), rides into the overcrowded town with her newly-shotgun-wed husband to pay their taxes, when, after weeks on the back of some poor burro, the thirteen-year-old miraculously pops out her first baby in a spray of blessed afterbirth and only the most pious amounts of pain. And so, to commemorate the occasion of this supposed anniversary (the birth certificate got lost in the mail somewhere), we fret over buying one another just the right thing, the thing that will prove that we love them forever (until Mothers' Day or their birthday or Valentine's Day); we pretend for a few hours to care about the poor, cold, sick, and downtrodden, the huddled masses (as long as we can also pretend that they are all so adorable as Tiny Tim or as poignant as The Little Match Girl); and we play obnoxious nonsense songs the meaning of which few understand (leave belief out; no true beliefs can be built on ignorance).

I'm not trying to be glib or flippant about Jesus' birth. I guess I just have a hard time looking at religion without looking at the bare bones of it. I think rationality is something applied to religious beliefs far too little, both in the beliefs themselves and in the practices which accompany them. It's not what I set out to write about tonight, but I thought Christ's Mass deserved to be noted before it slipped away, and this is what came out. I suppose that it's the product of a rage that's been building for some time now. That anyone can profess to follow in the footsteps of the Lamb of God, The Prince of Peace, that great forgiver of all sins and lover of all sinners, and yet deem someone - anyone - unworthy of HIS love - oh, my friends, I become very upset. My minority, non-Christian friends lie back and take it, even expect it. I know, though, that the baby that shivered in the night those many years ago didn't care if the arms holding him were gay or Jewish or even if they belonged to the Pope himself.

What mattered was love.

Can YOU paint with all the colors of the wind?

I'm tired, I had to get up early, it's snowing, and I have a million things to do, but things are wonderful. Why? Because:

1) It finally looks like winter (the bright white kind, not the dreary gray kind), so I got to wear my beloved snow boots into the winter today.

2) As I left my class and stepped into the wild white world this morning, there was a guy singing "Paint with All the Colors of the Wind" and "Let it Snow" (loudly and very well, I might add) into a cell phone. His friends were laughing at him, but he just stepped outside the doors and kept singing into the phone.

3) My bonded pair of gays is incredibly adorable.

4) My African American Lit professor gives extensions.

5) I may have time to go get my haircut fix this weekend - it's something haircut junkies get excited about - and it will be just in time for me to...

6) Get to go see my older sister in a couple weeks!

Out of my mind.

This is mostly intentionally punctuation-light. I think I'll call it poetry. Feel free to put in line breaks and punctuation how you imagine one would. We could call it creative essay, perhaps. This is what listening to Tegan and Sara does to you. I'd listen to this song while reading in order to get the full effect. Boy, do those girls have a way with things.


I want you close to me like the music like when you turn up the volume louder and louder until it almost hurts and you’re cringing but that’s not enough so you press the headphones deeper into your ears until it almost hurts but this time not because it’s too loud but because it’s still not enough because you just want it inside you, inside your head, inside your heart in your belly in your hands in your feet Oh God, I can’t get close enough I can’t I can’t I can’t

But you go and I know you must, so I put my music on repeat and turn up my headphones.

I want to see you like when you read a book all about someone’s life and how they seemed to know just what to do at every turn or they didn’t but it doesn’t matter because isn’t it wonderful that somebody had a life and that they lived it, and if it’s gone now it doesn’t matter it’s just that they lived they loved and I want that I want to know that it all turns out okay that we hold hands peacefully when the sun explodes and I try to remember the future but can’t.

But you go and I know you must, so I plot out the rest of our days with a little room for secret plans.

I want to feel you like a painting when you look at the lines and the woman’s face and the colors how they mix and blur and you can’t touch it because the sign says and because you can’t; it was another time another place and maybe the artist made love with the model every afternoon, but he was bothered because he couldn’t paint the little lines in her eyes just right I’ve tried to draw you, your eyes your eyes, but I just couldn’t get it right and nobody would understand and I don’t think I do either

But you’re tired and want to sleep so I stare at your eyelids.

Back by popular demand.

Since all three of my readers have officially made me feel guilty about not writing anything for so long, I suppose I can make myself write a post or two.

But I have (or, as it were, had) so many good excuses for utterly forsaking this little patch of cyberspace. My computer's long-lobbied mutiny against me (I ask you, little iMac, was it all the cephalopod porn? Was it the blogging? The presence of Windows Office? Was I jamming your keyboard too hard? WHY OH WHY??!) was rather crippling. And I've been busy, I guess, though I'll often find myself alone in my room doing nothing in the middle of the day, which, as you know, is the perfect environment for hatching a blog post (note post time).

One factor is that I haven't had any homework from which to procrastinate. Believe you me, homework spurs a great many blog posts in this world. If I had to guess, I'd say that the imminent threat of actual work prompts about, oh, 98% of all clutter in the blagosphere. Livejournal, Blogger, Wordpress... all of these have been found under microscopic examination to be comprised almost entirely of a digitalized compound of laziness and fear of doing real things. Just look at the pixels on the page of any blog. You can see that they ooze with loathing for actual work. However, since I have had very little actual work that involved me sitting at a computer this summer, I have not been able to generate enough laziness and fear to excrete a blog.

See? Completely not my fault, and in a simple, explainable, concise form.




Frankly, I can't believe that, either. Really I've spent most of this summer, and really probably most of this year, being utterly terrified. It hasn't kept me up at night or anything, but I can't help but feel overwhelmed with my choice of college major. I love reading; literature gives me a jolt like few things can. I love writing; there is no joy quite like creating something that you know is good. The problem is where these two joys and my perfectionism intersect. I read great fiction by people such as Joey Comeau and Megan McCarron and wonder to myself how the hell I would EVER be able to come up with something witty, creative, and moving enough to even lick the shoes of a story like "Where Are You Off To Now?" or "The Flying Woman" or even projects such as 55 Words. My creative writing class ended with my miserable failure at creating a cohesive short story (for me, a favorite medium), and I find myself afraid now to even try - and, well, that doesn't leave a blog based mostly on writing in any kind of a good place, does it?

Maybe I'll buck up and get over it. Surely I'm not going to change my major based on this. I've let similar bouts of perfectionist paralysis mess up my schooling far too many times. So for now, my three dear readers, I shall do my best to overcome this. Bear with me, but don't be afraid to push me, either. And, over all, thanks for everything.

Art school inconsequential.

I’ve written about this previously, but sometimes things need reiteration. I have a fair number of pet peeves, and like the pet peeves of all people, they have little foundation in any sort of realistic expectations of how things should be. However, that does not stop me from selfishly wanting things to work the way I want them to. It’s in my nature, and I believe that these unrealistic wants in fact stem directly from one characteristic of my personality. I constantly evaluate my actions and myself – how I affect me, how I affect other people, how I view others who do this, how others may interpret this action – and regulate myself accordingly. Where I have a problem (and start to become exceptionally frustrated and annoyed) is where people refuse to look at themselves and their own behavior.

My last example was of people who are unable to deal with their own lack of proficiency enough to recognize it – or, if they even recognize it, to do something about it, whether it’s making up for their deficiency or by thanking me for helping them. Today, it’s a teenager who refuses to believe that she’s tone-deaf and not an art-school-quality artist of any kind. These people hurt themselves (and, often, others) by not paying attention to themselves and their relationships with the world around them. They rebuff the idea of regulating themselves, turn down every chance to be their best selves, and clash raucously with the reality that they can’t bear to face. Therein is the source of probably everything that annoys me. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that people be aware of themselves, is it?

At mile 33.

I pull abruptly to the edge of the highway, get out of the car, and slam the door before I realize that I have no idea why I stopped or why I shut the door so hard. It occurs to me just now that I have been asleep during the long drive and have only just awoken. I turn from the highway and begin climbing the rocky hill there, weaving among tiny evergreen saplings. I can smell the ocean, that is for sure; the smell of death and freedom is unmistakable.

I turn and look back at my little Volvo. It sits there, small, abandoned, and lonely, as trucks scream by. I can see the dent in the rear fender from here, and I am surprised; that day, with its miserly heat, maddening traffic, and flaring tempers, seems so far away that it seems impossible it ever existed. Maybe it didn’t. Like trees in forests, maybe melancholy in suburban cul-de-sacs doesn’t happen if nobody pays it any attention.

I reach the top of the hill, and, with my arms stretched insanely above my head, I wave at the huge expanse of blue stretched out before me like an endless embrace.

O, Abyss.

This poem was written as the second 15-liner for my Creative Writing Class. It could be seen as a companion to a much earlier (and more hopeful) composition about this same individual, whose sobriquet I chose far before I conceived of the subtext of this poem. Ophelia is a real person whose eyes really are silver bullets.


L’Inconnue

Ophelia wakes from a dream of drowning
and is perplexed to find that her skin has wrinkled –
was it true? Time and time again she forgets
Who and Where she is
between bed and breakfast, baffled
over How and When she metamorphosed –
What has she become? and Why,
she implores, must she leave the solace
of her room, her blue chair, her Chopin
and her towering portrait? Graced by the tempered
silver-bullet eyes of her now-tarnished youth,
the painted figure absently surveys itself, aged
and all but lost in the desolate
and exquisitely infinite depths
from which there will be no return.

May I have the courage to send it; may she have the courage to listen.

This letter has been coming for quite some time.

Dear Kathleen,

Honesty reigns today; this letter contains only truth. To me, a real friendship requires absolute honesty between two people. We have split because I was dishonest, and the state of our relationship has given me an interesting roller coaster. I have been angry, cried over it, dreamed about it, and declared myself done with it, but today, I face it. You were right that day in class. I was critical of your church. Although I denied it then, I admit it now. I hope that counts for something.

In continuation of my honesty, I must also admit that I see reason in the actions of your church. Sacraments are sacred, and are to be protected from those who would defile them. However, you and your church continue to cling to the millenia-old belief that you have the One Way, the only source of Truth, and that all other Christian faiths are merely imposters who have wandered and will someday return to the bosom of The Church. It is a logical fallacy, though, that old notions are wisest and that tradition keeps things as they should be; this idea killed thousands – millions – of people during the Inquisition, remember?

Wake up. Martin Luther was right, whether you like it or not, but your church would not listen to the voice of reason. Now other churches exist. They, too, believe in Him. They, too, share in His Sacraments. They, too, have the Light, though I think you would deny this if you told what was really on your mind. People outside of The Church now have relationships with Christ. People outside of The Church take part in the Eucharist. Without being Catholics. Without being confirmed Catholic. Without being baptized Catholic. Without being baptized at all. Does your god hate this, frown upon it, turn them away? Mine doesn’t. Mine loves. Mine accepts. Mine pulls His children to His bosom, just as He embraces Catholics.

But you really prefer others to be kept below your level, don’t you? You would rather be left to think that you have the Way, the Path, the Truth, inside yourself. If you hold yourself so high, others cannot criticize you, nor can they themselves measure up; they could never be as pious as you are, nor as chaste, nor as wise. You have the answer to everything; you know what everyone should and will do. How is that working for you? Do your friends fancy sticking around while you judge them and everything that they do, or do they prefer to listen to your criticisms from their answering machines? The fact is that you are insecure about who you are, what you have done, and what your place is in life. That’s okay, Kathleen. I think that we all are, really. What’s not okay is pretending that you are above reproach; by doing so, you hurt others. The duct tape job on your pedestal is unraveling. Was the Carpenter out when you made it? Did he refuse to make you a throne? Perhaps it’s because the Carpenter made one throne alone, and refuses to make another. You shouldn’t try.

There it is. I hope that I have not hurt you too much by being honest, and that you can grow from this, but if you are hurt, know that I, too, was hurt by you once, and that from that pain I have learned. I think that you are a good person, and I would like to be your friend, but I cannot face you without my mind being known. I wish you all the best, no matter the outcome.


In all sincerity,
Caitlin Carroll

Verses for Snow in Three Movements.

1. Machination.

peaceful snow Whispers –
falls, white,
down through dark Night.

growl, plow,
but you cannot agitate
that which is
Ancient
and Infinite.

for the snow mutely plummets
slowly, surely;
it knows its End,
each flake embraces the outcome.

you, plow, fight your end
and the Ultimate.

2. Celebrant.

the sacred snow falls tenderly,
blessing the altar of Nature
and of Her enemies
with each kiss.

3. Snow Secret.

I hung my head as if deflated;
my feet fell heavily.
You didn’t know
my shoes were pneumatic pumps
that impelled ethereal snow
to break free of the ground
once more.
A smile was on my face.

Look up, look down –
if you don’t look around,
you will die
before you stop breathing.

From the edge of Dreaming comes Inspiration.

The Glow of Life as Seen from Night's Darkness

darkness into light
seize the emerging brilliance
let go of shadows

Al fin.

For my faithful would-be readers, a poem that you cannot read. Irony abounds.


Las rosas marchitan.
Mi abuela los vigila;
Sabe marchitar.

<<La muerte de las rosas,>>
Está dejando.

Mi arrugita,
Reducida por silla
De las ruedas

Y lagrimas
Y edad
Y muerte

Al fin.



Translation:

The roses wither./ My grandmother watches over them;/ She knows how to wither.

"I hate to see/ the roses' death,"/ She is saying.

My little wrinkle,/Reduced to [or by] the chair/ of wheels

And tears/ And age/ And death

To the end [or "finally"; literally, "at the end"].

An Explanation of My Ignorance Intolerance.

Revelation time, kids - gather 'round.

So it turns out that, believe it or not, with me, it is truly better to be a friend who is okay with my teasing. If you allow me to tease you, I can confront you in a non-hostile manner about the things in our relationship that annoy me. Okay, actually just the things about YOU that annoy me, but I wasn't just going to come out and say it. If you are, however, one of the friends who is unable to take the heat of my ad hominem style of jest, I will just think ugly things at you.

Por ejemplo.

I have a pair of friends with whom I have class. It is a class in a subject that I understand and know pretty well. These two, however, have trouble. When we study together, I explain to them almost everything from the material (not to brag, but this is without reading much from the book). When we split up the study guide to help each other, the sections they cover are nearly always done very poorly and incoherently. I know that it's horrible, and unfair (one of them suffers from about every learning disability in existence), and rather un-friend-like.

But I realized tonight that maybe I am wired to look down on people that 1) don't realize their weaknesses and/or 2) don't/won't/can't admit them. I know that if I were to tease either of these people for any lack of proficiency, even if it were as simple as poor note-taking skills, they would not be able to take it. Therefore, I am reduced to taking out my frustration through silent judgement.

That sounds plausible, right?

Nephrology and The Old Testament Are More Linked Than You Might Think.

I've been to the restroom about thirteen times in the past three and a half hours. Why? I'm writing a paper, that's why. (The Murphy in me would like to add "and I'm on a deadline" to the sentence above.)

When I sit down to write a paper, I mostly drink water and cogitate. Even when not much cogitating happens, I still drink. Drink, think, drink, think, drink some more. I believe the water has begun to start shooting straight through me, as it no longer has any color. My kidneys love when I have essays, and my bladder loudly disagrees. But my discourse on the book of Job calls, and I must go. Glug, glug.

Channel 1 Suite.

The strangler dodges crafty laissez-faire investigators on channel 38, while on MTV, channel 23- such an odd number, I've always thought- a raisin-like rocker paints his face to cover the wrinkles of time. I wonder if an overdose on free love can cause one to shrivel. Casually, I flip between.

Somewhere in the middle, I stop. I like to watch bits of other shows- my thumb's pauses are enlightening. I peer into the programming as if the television were a series of windows onto others' living rooms and boudoirs, even as some part of me knows that behind the false walls on the sitcom sets hide writers and producers who could not know the truth.

If I were honest with myself, I would see that my sole motive for watching people is to fit their situations to my life. My view of the world is as if through a fish's eye; I try to fit more of the world into one space than is possible. It becomes distorted.

I can't write poetry because I always force the rhymes. If I read my psychology book, I'd never have friends.

I never thought Freud was worth much, but self-medicating with psychoanalysis is free.

There's Beauty In The Breakdown.

It was still daylight out when I escorted Ophelia to her room to put her to bed. As we entered, I glanced at the photograph posted outside her door to identify the room's occupant. It was a picture of two very different Ophelias: the current, eroded Ophelia standing before a portrait of her thirty-something self. Even her own likeness towered over her, its paint-daubed eyes gleaming with a fierceness that had long been gone from the eyes of the model that inspired them. A laminated sign bearing Ophelia's name was stapled to the wall to guide her to her dwelling, but for Ophelia, there was to be no finding her way back from the wilderness that had swallowed her lucidity.

My plan was to get her changed, toileted and into bed as quickly as possible, but she managed somehow to point her walker toward the living room lined with modern art paintings and classical records. Old people are quicker than you might think. I frustratedly followed her, as there was little chance in stopping her now that she had entered the room- it would simply take too long to explain to her why I wanted her to go to the bedroom.

As she spoke, though, seated in her blue rocking chair, her eyes glittered with a new light. Tonight there was a spark there that I had never seen in her. I tried to put her to bed, plying her with an occasional "Aren't you tired yet, Ophelia?", but my impudent interruptions became fewer as the tales of her life cast their spell on me. Years or moments transpired as she spoke- disjointedly, as dementia patients do, but with a wisdom and spirit that demands respect. I glanced up at the portrait of the young Ophelia hanging on the wall. The dusky, dust-soaked rays of day's last light fell on the painting, highlighting the sharp young woman peering back at me. I turned my attention back to the flesh-and-blood woman before me and though the walker stood a mere few feet away from her trembling, wrinkled figure, she suddenly was not a day older than her portrait.

I decided then that bedtime could wait.