Meaning Sense Clarity

Quote of the moment:

"When things are at their worst I find something always happens."
-W. Somerset Maugham

Jan. 1st, 2009 @ 03:36 pm Tradition

So as you can tell, I don't really write in my livejournal anymore. I thought this day would never ever come. But it did. BUT I STILL READ YOURS, y'all, so do not remove me from your friends lists or I will be sad.

But I've done this survey every year for five or six at this point, and like Tevye I'm just so attached to tradition.

( On the other hand, there is no other hand. )

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Nov. 4th, 2008 @ 11:28 am (no subject)

Current Music: The National (ENGAGEMENT IN POLITICS, THAT IS).

Hello Livejournal! Like everyone else, I'm crawling out of a hole to tell you to vote today. In case you'd forgotten. And what a feat that would be.

Also, I'm crawling out of a hole to tell you about my new passion. Because, today, it is relevant.

Yes, that's me dressed up as a suffragette for Halloween. Those suffragettes, man. Y'all know I've been what you'd call a feminist for a while now, but this year with my study abroad and my history class and my history-teacher boyfriend I've become more and more interested in the history of women, and the history of the oppression of women, and in the history of those bad-ass women (and there were a lot of them) who subverted and busted through that oppression. And those suffragettes, man.

Let it not be forgotten that the first people to picket the White House were white, middle-class women (like me!). And that what they were picketing for, and protesting for, and going to prison for, was the right of citizens to political engagement. Were some of those women racist, classist motherfuckers? Hells yes. And do I have problems with some of their rhetoric and their methods? Also hells yes. But what they represent is incredibly important. As Emmeline Pankhurst, the English radical, said, "Why should I obey the laws I had no hand in choosing?". And this all happened less than a hundred years ago! Women in England and in America were, like, bombing MP's houses and chaining themselves to gates and getting run over by horses and so much more besides! And they got us the Goddamn vote! And now I'm going to use that vote! For Obama! Exclamation points!

Of course we have to live in the moment. Right now it's a great moment to be living. But what I'm learning, and feeling so strongly I feel that I might barf, is that we cannot live in this moment fully without understanding how we got here. Today I can't help but think about Susie B, Alice Paul, Emmeline Pankhurst, and all the rest. THANK YOU, suffragettes, for bringing me to this moment with this I VOTED sticker on my shirt.

P.S. URGH URGH URGH Why can't I get this picture to display correctly?! Why can't you help me with THIS, suffragettes?!

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Jun. 16th, 2008 @ 11:49 pm (no subject)

Is it an inevitability of 21st century life to become instantly obsessed with a macro lens once one realizes its capabilities? I just bought a digital camera (Canon Powershot A590, for the curious) and cannot stop taking pictures of, like, pistils and stamens and all that. I love how the camera stops at 4x zoom and is like "Are you sure you want to do this?" and then you are like "YES. SHOW ME THE STAMEN." and keep on a-zoomin'. The macro lens makes me feel like I have a modicum of artistic talent. And that is a feeling I sorely need.

If you didn't see on Facebook, I'm planning on sending out a semi-regular newsletter when I'm in London (I'm leaving on June 27, for the curious). It will be hopefully well-structured and will probably include a couple pictures of me in various touristy locations, and then some faux-artsy shots of the pavement (taken with my macro, natuerlich). If you're interested, let me know and give me your contact e-mail.

My growing excitement for London is expressing itself in a desire to consume all media even tangentially related to the city. Right now I'm reading a novel about Swinging Sixties London by Doris Lessing, listening to a lot of Morrissey (my dorm is in Camden! Of "Come Back to. . ." fame!), and watching the Billie Piper show "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" (set in London). I am happy.

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Jun. 8th, 2008 @ 11:26 pm (no subject)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, there are benefits to being an adult.

(Questionably an adult, anyway, at least out of the teens and into the twenties)

I'm discovering them slowly one by one (and expect to discover more when I turn 21 in December - like happy hour!), and today I found one more. I went to a public pool with friends and it was a totally chilled-out experience! I was not self-conscious about my bathing suit at all! I was not self-conscious about my friends' bathing suits! We got to stay in the pool at adult swim! It was awesome.

". . .in the triumph and the jungle and the strange high singing over some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June." I'm starting a list on my white board of things that I need to do before I go to England: Money belt, Camera, Copy passport, Guidebook, Shorts. I think I'm adding Mrs. Dalloway to that, and because I am a shamefully lazy and impractical human being, it's heading to the top.

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May. 20th, 2008 @ 11:44 pm This entry runs on emotional time

You know, if all the events I went to were the kind where you can find a lot of scrawny 20-something men with scruffy beards and plaid shirts, I think I could deal with that.

Especially if those events involve incredible music, like the ones I attended on Saturday night and tonight. Saturday night was a house show at Michigan House, a co-op right next door to where I'll be living next year. The first act was a guy with a guitar who sang awesome, poignant, laid-back songs about being yourself and letting the past go and composting and wonderful things like that, and it was way better than it sounds. The second act was a girl with whom I have fallen very deeply in love. Her name is Charlene, and she has a fashion forward bob. She sings, writes (music and lyrics), and plays the guitar and keyboards. Her song are a blend of rock and pop and jazz and salsa and many other things, and in one she referenced Clement Greenberg and she is amazing. Her encore was a one girl, one guitar version of That Thing You Do. At the ensuing bonfire I handed her a marshmallow. That was as much as I could do.

(These artists both have Myspace pages: Chris Dorman and Charlene Kaye and the Charlenes. I would highly recommend checking either or both out.)

And now, a question: how can one person, much less two, posses the ability to not only sing, play guitar, and foot-pedal a high hat, but also write songs that range from hilarious to heartbreaking? And how could that person grow a ridiculously awesome beard, have adorable dimples, and thrash around on stage for three very energetic hours and three very energetic encores? I don't know, but the Avett Brothers do all of that and more. Their show was seriously one of the best - the best - I have ever been to. I bought the T-shirt. Their band is all strings and they know when to twang and when not to, and a lot of their songs are about them being bad men who can't settle down but who really, really love the women they mistreat, which of course made me want to run to them ("you run to the wolf in me"). And overall it was great, and an unspeakably memorable experience, and if they ever come to your town (especially if you live in Portland and they're playing the Crystal), GO!

And then I also went to Motor City ComicCon and talked to Margot Kidder and Walter Koenig (the original Lois Lane and Pavel Chekhov from the original Star Trek). I bought a couple of comics and goggled at some weird/cool costumes and ate at Panera Bread for the first time and it was generally really fun.

And then! I went to the opening of a robot store and watching small Ann Arbor kids dressed in foil-covered trash cans dance.

And then I made some Boca Burgers that were really darn good, finished Jane Eyre (wondrous book that it is, and a narrator after my own heart), wrote some stuff that might actually be worth something, and dragged myself out of bed early to run.

My ears are ringing and I am exhilarated! Life is good!

ETA: I also read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and now it is quite comfortably wormed into my heart.

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May. 7th, 2008 @ 04:19 pm (no subject)

Maybe someday soon the pleasure of domesticity will wear off. Or maybe it'll take until next fall when I come home from a long day of class and realize I still have to make dinner, wash dishes, and do homework. But right now I get a thrill every time I unlock the door to my apartment or tell Jessie I'll see her at our apartment or ask a friend to come over and see the apartment. Jessie's been cooking these past few nights and doing a wonderful job, so I should be sharing the load over the next few days. To that end, I've been looking up dairy-free vegetarian recipes (because I'm lactose intolerant now), and food blogs inevitably led me to dessert blogs, and that inevitably led me to making a batch of peanut butter cookies. I tell you, I had no control over this. Anyway, my apartment now smells delicious and there's Greek salad in the fridge for a dinner party tonight and it's raining and I'm listening to Al Green and it's all just really nice. I'm becoming quite alarming domestic. And I'm addicted to knitting dishcloths.

We live quite near to the People's Food Co-Op, which is just as Ann Arbor as it sounds, so we've been making a lot of small trips to buy fresh vegetables and small amounts of herbs and suchlike, which I think is a good way of going about things. Our kitchen is so small that we can't store very much, and anyway why buy more than you need? I feel super healthy and happy, what with all these deliciously fresh homecooked meals and walking everywhere and running again.

The apartment is in a basement. It's nice and cool and has a weird random wall made out of rocks, by which I am sitting at this very moment. It also has a storage room and access to the boiler room of the apartment, which for whatever reason has four locks on it. What are they keeping out, or in?! OooOOOooooOOoooh. I'm sleeping on a borrowed futon that closes up on me every time I lay down on it and gives me some bizarre dreams. Our coffee table is made out of a storage box with planks duct-taped to it. But it's home, and it's definitely big enough for two people, and Jessie and I have succeeded in not killing each other.

This spring is shaping up to be a wonderful idyll with a 28-hour workweek and lots of social time with friends. I love Portland and I know most of the reasons I was unhappy last summer were unrelated, but I'm glad I decided to stay in Ann Arbor this year. But, for all you Portland people, I will be in town for almost the entire month of August, so let's make sure we look each other up then.

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Apr. 22nd, 2008 @ 07:20 pm (no subject)

So, here I am at the end of the semester, sitting in a dorm room that looks like it has exploded, about to make three to four major moves over the course of the next five months, and I'm tired as hell. I don't like this impermanence! On Saturday I fly to Portland. The Thursday after that I fly back to Ann Arbor, where I will happily work 36 or so hours a week and live in a tiny, unfurnished basement for two months. And then I'll go to London and live in a dorm there and learn about British feminism and then I'll go to Portland for three weeks and then back to Ann Arbor to move into a Real Grownup Apartment. Urgh urgh urgh! It's all good and exciting stuff, but the sheer amount of packing tape involved disgusts and horrifies me. Disgust and horror!

Speaking of, I am completely addicted to that show Gossip Girl. And I am not ashamed.

For the forseeable future, I'm going to try to not take songs like "No One Will Ever Love You" and "Lonely for So Long" too much to heart. Because. . .I should not. But then I think about my relationship history and it's like, man, look at this tangle of thorns! (Which I'm considering as my next tattoo.) Oh vell.

No matter how many times my German professor gently corrects me, I'm going to insist on calling my major "Frauen Studieren". I know it's incorrect in so many ways, but hell is it fun to say.

Expedia Reviews of the Bates Motel: Okay. Got a weird vibe*.

Why think or write linearly when nothing in the universe is linear, man? Right, man? Man?

Next semester I'm taking a class called The Writing of Poetry and I've already started with the anxiety dreams.

*This hilarity courtesy Jessie.

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Mar. 29th, 2008 @ 12:22 am Brag, brag, brag

Hey, Joey B, do you remember one time senior year after French we were walking out the doors down junior hall and I was telling you about the grammar of the tattoo I wanted to get?

( Well, here it is. )

I think the worst part of getting it was dealing with the people at the tattoo parlor - who were really nice and everything, don't get me wrong, but heavily tattooed and very cool and nerdy little me had a hard time with the whole thing. The actual tattoo didn't really hurt, surprisingly. I guess I have a higher tolerance than I thought. You know what did hurt, though? Washing it for the first time with antibacterial soap. Hoooooooly God that was a sting.

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Feb. 21st, 2008 @ 10:42 pm (no subject)

Hey, virtual friends, long time no see. It's that time again - essay procrastination. In this case, it's the one thing standing between me and my spring break - a four page paper on Thomas Aquinas and Edward Hopper. And I will do it. I will do it. But first I will update my Livejournal.

Most exciting news first: TRAVEL. Now, I'm not a big traveler. I don't have itchy feet. I could probably stay within a ten mile radius for much longer than your average bear (insert witty comment about vagility [yes, this is a word and the correct one to use in this situation, look it up if you don't believe me] of bears here). But I have two very exciting travel opportunities coming up.

One: For reasons I cannot explain, there's some part of me wants to see Graceland. So we're going. Leaving early Saturday morning, driving eleven hours in Jared's grey Camry, staying in a Days Inn in Memphis, seeing the Civil Rights Museum and Stax Records and, of course, the house itself. I am making mix CDs and packing shorts.

Two: LONDON. On a Wednesday in June, Clarissa Dalloway walked through the park and Septimus Warren Smith killed himself. On Wednesdays in July, I will be studying British feminism, seeing plays and shows, and living in a dormitory in central London. I know. It's too good to be true. It really is. I can't believe it. Fuckin' LONDON. Where it all went down! Everything! The Globe! Big Ben! Buckingham Palace! The Battle of Canary Wharf! LONDON! I fully expect to meet a bespectacled time traveler there.

In academic news, German has finally started kicking my ass. But that's okay. I love it, as a language, so I'm willing to take kind of a beating. I'm in a great class about heroines in 20th century literature, in which I've read a whole host of English and American literature about women: House of Mirth, The Awakening, To The Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, The Hours, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and it will continue. I'm also in a weirdo interdisciplinary RC class about critical approaches to literature, which has introduced me to the aforementioned Hopper and Aquinas, as well as Mark Rothko, Sylvia Plath, and Clement Greenberg. It's just crazy enough that it works. And then writing. And who ever knows how that's going.

Socially, everything's going smoothly, after a few minor bumps at the beginning of the road. I knit myself a pink pullover, and I've just started a blue cardigan. My dad and my dog sent me a dozen red roses on Valentine's Day. Oh, and Jared visited me over Christmas and my birthday and it was, honestly speaking, the best Christmas I've ever had. As a final note, I am right now in the process of proving that more you want someone to like you, the less likely it is that they will, because the more likely it is that you will act like a socially neurotic weirdo. But eh. The problem with being awkward but not shy is that you know what you want and you know how to get it and you want to get it, but forcing yourself to do it is like walking through a rubber sheet. But I soldier on! Nervously and frizzily!

Hope all is well for you too.

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Dec. 17th, 2007 @ 11:50 pm (no subject)

So you haven't heard from me in weeks! Weeks! And even then it was spotty and kind of smug! I bet I have lost my slavish following (a ha, a ha, a ha, ha ha ha). I did get a trollish comment just the other day, though, telling me that I read too much into things. Do I? Do I really? Again: A ha, a ha, a ha, ha ha ha.

I'm procrastinating on writing an essay, which is actually not all that hard and quite enjoyable as essays go, but you know how it is. I decided that I would do the End of the Year survey, as a time waster and maybe as a five minute catchup on the State of the Amy. A note before I begin, though: I break 2007 into three four-month segments. The first was good. Largely uneventful, but also nothing to complain about in the slightest. The second segment saw me at indubitably the lowest point of my life to date. Oh, heartbreak! You level us all, mice and men. Fortunately, the third part has brought nothing but intense happiness, contentment, new opportunities, and personal fulfillment, proving to me that in many ways the only way out is through and the light at the end of the tunnel is often not a train. So if, in this survey, I seem to spout a strange mix of self-pity and self-congratulation, that is why.

( With that said! )

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Nov. 13th, 2007 @ 07:58 pm (no subject)

I think everyone might need to have a phase where they think that no one will ever understand them as completely as Joni Mitchell does, and I'm smack in the middle of mine. This woman. She knows.

Anyway, let me tell y'all that a break will be very welcome. I spent this whole semester being busy and (arguably) fabulous and for the first time I'm feeling really, really burned out. I want to put on my pajamas and watch Battlestar Galactica and stuff myself with butternut squash. Fortunately, Thanksgiving is coming up!

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Oct. 27th, 2007 @ 06:13 pm (no subject)

I was just saying to Jessie that I think this past month has seen me at the happiest I've ever been. I'm satisfied (mostly) with myself, and completely satisfied with my friends, classes, etc. I've been doing a lot of stuff that I think trying to describe would be very difficult, so if I may:

( Some pictures. They are mostly silly group shots. )

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Oct. 17th, 2007 @ 11:36 pm (no subject)

When we came back together at the beginning of this year, Jessie told me often that I looked hot. "I know I keep saying that," she said, "but it's just - weight loss! and confidence! And I keep expecting you to put on a hooded sweatshirt and not wash your hair."

Well, a month and a half later it's midterm time and here I am. Never let it be said I can't give the people what they want. Tomorrow? Two midterms. One is in Sexuality in Western Culture, which I can very easily BS, and the other is in Physics. See, this is my problem with science. Am I bad at math? No. Definitely not. Am I incapable of understanding the concepts behind the theories? No! Not at all! I am fascinated and generally can grasp even complicated concepts with enough hand-holding. But where I fail abysmally is putting the two together - applying the math to the concepts. And isn't that what Physics is at its core? All of this goes to say that I am, in a word, fucked. I can hear my mom's voice in my head saying that just because I'm not naturally good at something doesn't mean I can give up on it, but damn it I want to. But I will not! I will persevere.

Last year I would often feel and act tired and frazzled. But that was because I wasn't particularly busy and didn't manage my time well. My fatigue and stress now? Totally genuine. Started my new job at the Hands-On Museum today, and I think it will all turn out okay. I'm taking a $1.50 pay cut to work a job across town that is not at all convenient to my life, which may seem insane, which is because it is insane. But I gotta do what I gotta do.

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Oct. 10th, 2007 @ 02:26 am (no subject)

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter. - Carol Bishop Hipps

Someday my peers will discover that I am not well-read or articulate or intelligent. I just read The Quote Garden all the time.

Today my new friend Jared Greenberg told me he's self-conscious talking around me because I'm so good at it. Talking, that is. I kind of see where he's coming from with that, because in a serious conversation with me every other phrase will inevitably be "I can't think of the right word" or "I'm not saying this very well" or "Are you getting what I'm saying?". I think this obsession with word choice and clarity is completely transparent and understandable, but it's getting worse as I get older. For each of my stories and essays now I've taken to going through them two or three times taking out every word I see as unnecessary. Sometimes it's even ridiculous things like nouns and verbs. Nouns and verbs, Amy? Seriously? It's become a compulsion, and it's feasible and some would argue even good to do in writing but in speaking sometimes I should probably just let it go. I'm not the great communicator I used to be, apparently.

(But I know what it means when I hear screams!)

Jared also told me about his pet theory: The Age of Irony. Self-awareness and meta-humor and cynicism and satire, and all that. I think my obsession with precision in speaking is a product of my being a product of such an age, as are The O.C. and The Colbert Report, and many other media texts. I see it but I can't dislike it because I do believe the Daily Show is what we have to do to get by. We had a talk about reconciling Jens Lekman and The Shirelles with the age of irony, and it was good. Been having a lot of those lately. Oh hey, train. Toot toot!

Today Jessie and I talked about how busy we are and how good it is to be so busy. I'm feeling involved with the campus, finally doing some feminist activism and boy does it feel amazing. I'm glad I waited out my freshman year to join the feminist club on campus, because now my analysis is more sophisticated and I have a better handle on what kind of feminist I am. We're making an unbelievable amount of friends, like isn't the supply of compatible people going to run out someday? Apparently, no, and our social circle keeps growing and growing and intersecting and now we have friends coming out our ears and among other things it reminds me that there's so much to live for and so much to do that relates not at all to the person who dumped me. Crass. True.

Can I turn the world on with my smile? Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Oct. 7th, 2007 @ 05:31 pm (no subject)

So for years people have been telling me I look like the daughter from Roseanne. I had no idea how to take that, and if anything thought it might have been some kind of a backhanded compliment. Being bored, tired, deeply unhappy, stressed, and in pain, I thought I'd turn to YouTube to pass some time, so I looked up clips.

The daughter from Roseanne? Totally awesome and completely attractive. I like how she's so wry and smart and cool. . .and what she does with her eyebrows when she talks. . .and anyway, the upshot of this is that the next time the one guy at the copy store tells me I look like Darlene, I will smile proudly and say, "What a nice compliment. Thank you."

In other news, I have too much to deal with and not enough to deal with it with. I think I have a job at the science museum here, and I know that I have a lot of homework and laundry to be taking care of.

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Sep. 17th, 2007 @ 05:22 pm (no subject)

Since I have not much time, I will base this entry around an e-mail I received from my dad this morning.

You do go to class in between concerts, starting a knitting circle, and watching Doctor Who, right?

Class: Indeed, I do, and a lot of it. You know your enthusiasm about feminism is getting bad when you can stop a discussion with it - in a Women's Studies class. I just keep getting more and more excited and pushing and pushing and forgetting that not all of my classmates have read every issue of Bitch for the past three years including the anthology, you know what I'm saying? That's understandable. It's understandable that they want to talk about how they felt when Jagged Little Pill came out instead of contrasting Alanis Morrissette with Kathleen Hanna or Peaches. I just have to be patient. But it is so hard.

I do a heck of a lot of reading about sex, but it's all very interesting. Both my Women's Studies classes have had a good amount of theoretical stuff - Foucault, Chodorow, Lacan, etc. - and that's great and cool and different from the way in which I normally think about things. Sometime remind me to elaborate on my feelings about object-based sexuality, because they are strong.

Warren Hecht, my writing teacher, is possibly the best writing teacher rusty sensitive me could have asked for. He gives good criticism in a gentle way that doesn't come off as false or saccharine and pokes my ego in a loving way. Warren Hecht wants me to succeed, man! He's a weirdo shaped like a bear full of honey and he wears cowboy boots and speaks in a Brooklyn accent. I wrote my first story about a coin collector and found out today that he used to collect coins. He showed me pictures.

I also work and run. I work in the cafeteria wearing a dorky hat that squishes my hair and restricts my qi. I run when I can, which is as often as could be expected. I read before I go to bed and at meals. I knit while I'm doing my reading for school. Basically, I'm hecka busy and I like it this way.

Concerts: My Dear Disco, a soi-disant 'dance-think' band that knocked my freaking socks off. Seriously Dionysiac frenzy of communion with a higher power through music and dance.

Knitting circle: Success! So nice to talk about knitting with people who actually care, sweet and understanding as all my friends have been. Taught some people, learned from some other people, expect a bigger turnout next week when we're not playing Notre Dame (thank God we won).

Doctor Who: Haven't watched further than Blink so don't spoil me but man was Blink awesome.

After a summer of sloth, I'm whipping myself into fighting academic shape again. I'm a lean meaning learning machine! You know this because I called something soi-disant. Accept it.

ETA: This entry is now passe, but I'd just like to inform everybody that David Sedaris knew what he was talking about when he said "When shit gets you down, just say fuck it and eat some motherfucking candy". I've said it before and I'll say it again, but it's truer than true. This Watermelon Dum-Dum is doing wonders!

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Sep. 11th, 2007 @ 09:47 pm (no subject)

The difference between writing when you feel like it and writing when you have to is the difference between an angel on your shoulder and a ton of bricks on your head. I'm late to the party on this one. I realize. But I just "finished" my first story for my creative writing class, and what astounds me is the sheer amount of effort it took to produce something so incredibly crappy. It's a story about nothing. It has no point. The dialog is soggy and the narration is dry. The ending is weak, there's no emotional weight behind any of the proceedings, the characters are completely unlovable and unrealistic. As a story, it makes a good paper towel. I wrote it though, on time, and maybe someday it will be something good and maybe someday it won't, and either of those would be okay.

It's really easy to buy into the romance and the mystique of being a Writer, and of the torturous self-doubt, jealousy, and immaturity that often involves. I fully admit that I have done it. But. . .there is nothing romantic or mystical about this. I've never had to write regularly before without prompts, but that is what writers do. If I can do this, no matter how crappy what I write is, I can be a writer. The pain and the anxiety will, I suspect, be good friends of mine, but maybe sometime there'll be some fulfillment maybe and I'll tell the stories I want to tell. I have to write, and I have to believe that whatever I write is okay to have written, and I have to believe that my style will be a good one if I stick with it.

This is good. This is wanting to go to the moon and then getting grunt-level training at NASA. This is wanting to be a ballerina and then putting on the toe shoes that make you bleed.

Meaning Sense Clarity

Smitsocrocken

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