"When you look into an abyss, the abyss looks into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche

big pimpin
around the way girl
daddy's little girl
flavor of the month
summertime
move bitch

great songs, all, representing different moments, different places, and different people who have come in and out of my life. some still in, some out...

there's always that tension, i guess. the moment of release/liberation becomes the moment of ________________________. (fill in the blank.)

i felt something the other day in the gym. at the same time that i was feeling happy, i was so sad for this woman and the rest of her community.

these past few days have been a trip...while i would like to blame the dissertation (another deadline approaches), something else is brewing. i'm sure of it.

it's 1:46am, and i'm blogging about this.

view and discuss...

and at times, i don't know if i'm coming or going. i get into a groove and think i'm doing something. then, i'll read over a revised section and be like "wtf?" but, the writing is coming, thank goodness.

i bought two bunches of carnations that other day: one white, the other yellow. and they're opening up. i sit on my couch and stare at them...a lot. i've never really paid that much attention to carnations before. i mean, there's the carnation/rose lady who makes her rounds thru the club, but i never really paid attention to her collection of flowers and sometimes little red teddy bears probably because no one has every bought me a flower in the club. the vases are sitting on the top row of my dvd collection. they are just so beautiful and so simple--it's amazing to me, and the white and yellow carnations are bringing me much joy these days. i'm glad that i bought them.

one time, someone very dear to me bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers. instead of truly appreciating their beauty, i complained about my stupid allergies. i wish that i had been more thankful and had spent more time absorbing their beauty. and i wish that i had been more appreciative of her...for the flowers and everything else.

my fav flowers: gerber daisies.
but white and yellow carnations are close behind.

"yes, i am."

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.

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

"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.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God

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.

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

not enough time...

to write, to respond to student papers, to clean my house, to finish reading their eyes were watching God, to go to the gym, to listen to my music, to play my PS2 and gamecube, to sleep, to talk on the phone, to enjoy the company of good friends, to avoid stupid people who talk out of their asses, to talk to my family, to sit still, to watch a godzilla movie from start to finish, to try out my new make-up, to go to the Philippines, to people watch at the mall, to play with my dog, to enjoy sushi, to grieve, to pluck my eyebrows, to research, to stop hating, to stop the haters, to go to a play, to really go shopping, to breathe, and to write.

time won't give me time.

but i, too, believe in miracles.

go, golden state.

aside from feeling totally conflicted about watchin these types of shows, they certainly have caused me to think more and more about the availability of the visual, our ability--thru technology (dash cams, camcorders, etc.)--to witness horrific images from the comfort of our homes...or at least, in my case, the comfort of my office...

by this time, i've seen at least three people jump from the bridge. what has that done for me? to me? just because technology is such that we can capture these images and then distribute them, should we? and how complicit am i when i decide to watch? and yet, i'm transfixed...the actually suicide is difficult, but i think that i'm most moved by the pain, the suffering that of these folks endured. the similarity among all the narratives = mental illness and depression...feelings of desparation...i've had one dear friend who suffered from depression. it was painful to see him when he was at his low points...when he was like that, it was like i didn't know him. what was most scary was that when he was like that, he had not control...he would cry or become so angry that i thought that he would shiver himself to pieces. we no longer speak, and i miss him very much.

and now the documentary is over, and i'm watchin the golden state/utah game. there's something disconcerting about the ability to flip the channel and flip the reality. (i hope golden state wins...)

quote of the day

"i just wanna be normal again...but i never will be."
kevin hines

and the word became flesh...i've been thinking a lot about that in the context of sunday school, my diss prospectus, my family, and the rest of the world. to make something real thru the utterance of my (are they really mine?) words. i'm trying to make something real with this diss project, i know. that's the goal, and i guess that's the frustration and the pressure. i've been advised to just write the damn thing and "stop trippin" and i've been trying to do a bit here and a bit there. and now it's time to get on it...making the word flesh.

when i visit my grandparents, i feel at home and alienated simultaneously. my family is very conventional and conservative, and i am neither. but we don't have any of those ugly family scenes where we're arguing about politics, religion, or any thing like that over rice pudding (which was the bomb) and chittlins (also the bomb). the closest we came was a heated discussion with my uncle about whether or not racial profiling was fair. i'm so different and often wonder how did i get here? where did i come from? but i'm here, and they love me. they don't get me, but they love me nevertheless. actually, let me take that back. they get that i'm me, and that's all-right.

Christmas Eve service was just wanted i needed. i didn't even mind Christmas Morning service @ 6am--meaning we had to be at church @ 6am, not getting up @ 6am. i was determined to get to church on time on Christmas Morning because we were late for sunday school, and my grandfather did make mention of that fact during service. i won't try and write how and what i felt during service. i'm not that great of a writer just yet. i can say that my soul was satisfied.

my cousin sang a solo on sunday. now before service, i was just thinking about this song and how i would like to hear it. my best friend, when we used to live together, would sing this song in the shower whenever she was feeling down. i would sit and listen by the bathroom door and feel better. when i heard the first note, i started crying and kept crying until he was done. i'm not sure of the artist, but here are the lyrics...

why should i feel discouraged
and why should the shadows come
and why should my heart be lonely
lone for my heavenly home
when Jesus is my portion
a constant friend is He
His eye is on the sparrow
and i know He watches me

i sing because i'm happy
i sing because i'm free
His eye is on the sparrow
and i know He watches me

blessed and happy holidays and a safe and peaceful new year to all...

strips of brown flesh hang
from stainless steel hooks
left in the sun to toughen like leather straps
her exposed tissue succulent and soft
as she had always been, mostly vulnerable

but she hadn’t asked for any of it
and had grown tired of her brown flesh
peeled away from its frame
by policies and protocols
designed for soul-less bodies who do not cast shadows

she had been filleted well before that summer night
his knife slid swiftly through her muscles—she died on a city street
countless rains can never wash blood off sidewalks
off his, their, our hands

she tried to untether from the machine
her fingers tender from hook pricks
for every hook loosened, another dug deeper
until her pain became an after thought
that she was only reminded of it when she walked in the sun or cried salty tears

the machine is always there
and it drove down the street that night
and it looked for violations
and it found her
and pulled tightly on the line

if you've listened to any of billie holiday's original recordings (and i hope that you have...), then you have heard lester young and his tenor sax...

lester young died penniless. he was drafted into the army and was not assigned to tours of duty that allowed him to continue with his music...unlike glen miller or artie shaw. after his time in the army, drugs and alcohol became a constant. it was said that he was never the same...

he died in march '59. billie died four months later.

quote of the day
Toni Morrison
Jazz

But there is nothing to beat what the City can make of a nightsky. It can empty itself of surface, and more like the ocean than the ocean itself, go deep, starless. Close up on the tops of buildings, near, nearer than the cap you were wearing, such a citysky presses and retreats, presses and retreats, making me think of the free but illegal love of sweethearts before they are discovered. Looking at it, this nightsky booming over a glittering city, it's possible for me to avoid dreaming of what I know is in the ocean, and the bays and tributaries it feeds: the two-seat aeroplanes, nose down in the muck, pilot and passenger staring at schools of passing bluefish; money, soaked and salty in canvas bags, or waving their edges gently from metal bands made to hold them forever. They are down there, along with yellow flowers that eat water beetles and eggs floating away from thrashing fins; along with the children who made a mistake in the parents they chose; along with slabs of Carrara pried from unfashionable buildings. There are bottles, too, made of glass beautiful enough to rival stars I cannot see above me because the citysky has hidden them. Otherwise, if it wanted to, it could show me stars cut from the lamé gowns of chorus girls, or mirrored in the eyes of sweethearts furtive and happy under the pressure of a deep, touchable sky.