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March 25, 2008
are you...
afraid of flying?" she asked.
"yes, i am."
Posted by emnorris at 02:32 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2008
she sits at her desk, shaking her head and wondering...
about it all. i'm so sad about eve carson. a random act of violence...no sense, no justification, no reason. i feel for her family and friends, the two young men, their families and friends, the unc community. all of us, everywhere.
i can feel the sadness in the center of me. and the fear. i'm afraid because of the random-ness. and sometimes, i feel like an overload is right around the corner.
i know that i've been particularly affected because i bought everyone in my family st. patrick's day cards. we don't celebrate st. paddy's day. never had. but i just wanted to let them know how much i love them all and that i was thinking about them. of course, i'm mailing the cards late, but it wouldn't be me if the cards arrived on time. i just love them so much and miss them a lot and wish that we were closer.
ungraded papers wait for me. and i wait for the inspiration to hit me, to make me want to grade them. i could easily sit here all nite and not grade paper the first. spring break 08 has come and gone, and i did a lot less than i planned or wanted or needed. i did have some fun this break. the break just wasn't long enough.
i didn't work any on the second chapter. i think that i'm struggling with how to start, but that was the case for the first chapter. i worked thru it, though, and submitted a draft of the first chapter, so i'm sure it'll come. wow. a draft of one chapter of my dissertation. i like it, i like it.
$150
burn her memory
and eat the ashes
ground them into her hands
to be left in the
folds of skin
that trace her life’s memory
she does not believe in past life
Posted by emnorris at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2008
in the muck
"they fought on. 'you done hurt mah heart, now you come wid uh lie tuh bruise mah ears! Turn go mah hands!'
"janie seethed. but tea cake never let go. they wrestled on until they were doped with their own fumes and emanations; till their clothes had been torn away; till he hurled her to the floor and held her there melting her resistance with the heat of his body, doing things with their bodies to express the inexpressible; kissed her until she arched her body to meet him and they fell asleep in sweet exhaustion.
"...you'se something tuh make uh man forgit tuh git old and forgit tuh die."
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God
Posted by emnorris at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2008
wednesday/thursday
i saw this young, white girl stealing mountain dew. i know that she was stealing mountain dew because she was using one of those clear cups. the ones that are for water and are clear so that you can’t sneak mountain dew. , of course, was pissed. but she did it, big as day. got her some soda and kept it moving.
what does it mean to have that kind of privilege? the privilege that allows you to think that it’s okay to take mountain dew without permission or without paying. maybe she isn’t aware of her privilege, which is what makes privilege all the more powerful and problematic. now, if i had taken some mountain dew, the swat team would have been alerted and rained down on me, guns drawn and everything.
news flash
“doctoral student was subdued at panera this afternoon after attempting to steal mountain dew. Patrons said that they felt uncomfortable with her presence and were not surprised at the attempted robbery. ‘I knew she was a thief,’ one patron reports.”
hyperbolic, perhaps. but not all that unbelievable.
perhaps that’s the difference between performance and performativity; the difference between the knowing and the doing; the “being” and the “becoming;” the difference between having a crush on a little boy...getting that little boy a valentine...having that same little boy shoot you in the back of the head in a computer cluster.
real time
across from me is a couple of its first date. she is interested, definitely. she leans in, cutting the space between the two. he, also feeling her but not wanting to show her just yet, raises his right eyebrow to show interest and sets his right hand on the table, hoping that she’ll brush it, gently, with her left hand. she takes another sip of the cold and stale coffee, laughs. he sits with his hands folded in his lap. i can’t hear the conversation, their voices are background noise to “bluehawk” by thelonious. i like this couple. she smells sweet, like a flowery bubble bath, maybe calgon. no, she smells like fabric softener, fresh laundry still warm in the basket. his spiky hair takes years off his face and makes me think that he probably has a Harley and likes to ride sans helmet in the summertime. i hope they have a second date.
it’s cold outside: everyone is rushing to and from their cars. running away from the cold wind that sneaks through gaps in coats, underneath caps, and through holes in gloves. gray, too. gray, almost always.
saturday
I went to the opening reception of “interrupted lives: incarcerated mothers in the us.”
i’m done for now.
"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches."
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God
Posted by emnorris at 01:43 AM | Comments (0)