stealing greek

feeling the need to ramble a bit today......

let me tell you about two new words i learned this week. they aren't actually new. they're a few thousand years old really. and they aren't english, they're greek. but they are new to me, and i'm excited about them.

word #1: kalon -- abstract beauty, the recognition of beauty without desire, without the need to possess. something like zen-aestheticism, appreciating beauty in and of itself.

i think this is a fascinating idea...mostly because, for me, it is almost incomprehensible. as an artist, the only thing i want to do is capture beauty, or create it, or somehow leave my mark on it. as an artist, i only appreciate beauty in terms of possessing it, in whatever way i can. inspiration is the attempt to acquire beauty, to consume the beautiful so that one may produce the beautiful; sandwiched between that beauty, perhaps one can become beautiful oneself. i don't know. i am not sure that the concept of the kalon is possible, in reality -- i don't know if one can grasp what beauty is apart from grasping after it. but i like entertaining the idea that it is possible, or that as a term it might be able to describe something so magnificently beautiful that the mere existence of it is possession enough. i like that it might be able to describe something transcendantly beautiful, beyond perfection, boiling over with its own ineffable, blindingly endless existence; like God on the top of a mountain.

i have felt some moments where the world and life and its plan were jarred into beauty -- like a re-set bone -- and that beauty had been enough, to know it was there was sufficient for me, and to know that i had a place in it was a comfort. so perhaps i understand the idea of kalon, to a degree. it is a holy beauty, a beauty so sacred that it consumes you, consumes the self...you become a part of it; it is too big to become a part of you.

i concieve of the word kalon, or beauty that is kalonic, as being opposed to beauty that is 'hellenic.' Hellen's was the face that launched a thousand ships. if her beauty had been transcendant, those armies would have turned back, satisfied with the slightest glance at her, and happy to know that somewhere in the world there existed something so beautiful, and for her to be in the world was enough. hellenic beauty inspires lust, desire, war...inspires men to die; kalonic beauty inspires them to live.

word #2 akrasia -- the breakdown of human reason which results in irrational choice...usually due to the contamination by human will.

i didn't know there was a word to describe why i've made most of the decisions i have in life. what it comes down to is that sometimes the reasons for a decision aren't always reasonable; they aren't predictable, they aren't decipherable or very well explicable. and sometimes you choose something just to enact your will, to know that you are still you and you can decide something even when the world seems to spin out of control........eating disorders, anyone? not to mention any number of less obvious manifestations that derive from a similar kind of neuroses...

if you've ever read any of the "reasons not to have a girlfriend" posts, you'll perhaps be somewhat familiar with my personal conflict with the self -- i do and have done things that just don't make sense, a victim of my own compulsions. i have done dangerous things, committed potentially life altering acts, all the while just looking at myself, thinking "what the hell are you doing? you idiot..." everything i do is a choice, because right alongside the reasonable, the sensable, and the safe there shuffles the impulse to do the opposite, the appetite for the edge of self-destruction. and i won't deny that sometimes you've gotta run up to the edge, and walk that line and find out what you're made of...sometimes, you have to know the answer to the question "what if...?"

and sometimes the floor falls out from under you and the wisdom of your decision is apparent to no-one. on the way down, you think "why did i do that," and if the fall is long enough you remember: akrasia. or "a-crazy-a." because, sometimes, we're all a little nuts.

"can't do it max..."

i used to be a good student. i mean, after i was a bad student for awhile, and i barely graduated high school, and flunked out of Canisius College...i took three years off, and then started going to Buff State, and started pulling A's and the occasional B. and then this year happened. last semester i attended so few classes i had an unofficial withdrawal from three of my courses. my grades in the classes i did attend were...not failing, but nowhere near what i'm used to getting.

so this semester i decided that i'm going to bring my grades back up.

and i just can't do it.

granted, i've been sick three times this year with what appears to have been strep, and have had my share of...troubles...with the amherst town courts. and i had move into a new apartment again.

but honestly, if my head had really been in the game, it wouldn't have mattered, and i wouldn't be in the mess that i am now.

as the end of the semester nears, and the missed classes and make-up work pile up, now, more that ever, i am frantically trying to figure out what's missing from my academic focus so i can get it back and at least not throw away another semester.

i used to love school. now i'm afraid i'll be stuck in the same sort of limbo i was using school to avoid -- doing nothing, learning nothing, being nothing.

i can't wait for summer. i've got that itch. i feel guilty. other people can do this. other people take more classes than i am taking, and work full time, and don't sleep, and they can make it happen. why the hell can't i?

i don't understand the lethargy, but i have a few theories:

1. too much fun -- i used to not have friends. now, i have friends. i could not have them, i suppose. but then i wouldn't have any friends. the unrelenting need to have people like me makes me want to hang out instead of do my work. and i have really only ever operated in extremes in this arena. hang out, every chance i get. or hang out with no one, ever.

2. no girlfriend -- usually, when i have a girlfriend, she is my social life. so i don't need or usually have friends of my own when i'm dating someone. i'd like for that to change next time around, but i am just accustomed to the ol' ball and chain. it made being social easy; just find one person you're comfortable with, and hang out with them. and then ignore them when you have to do something. it takes the focus off of being social, and realigns it on the task of the day. that was really easy. i know it sounds horrible. but sometimes i wish i had a girlfriend again, just so i could get some work done.

3. writing -- since i've decided to own the creative factor of my life as its defining feature, i have little patience for anything else. granted, at this stage, i'd probably be bad at writing for 8 hours a day like a real live writer does; i think that's something you've got to work up to. and so i'm not wishing that i had nothing else in my life to do. but it seems that the times i've felt the most creative are always the times when things like school are my biggest obstacle to creativity. and that is a pain in the ass. don't they have programs for people like me? (anyone says "12 step", and i'll kill you...)

4. lack of wellbutrin -- i was on this drug for awhile, when i first started back to school. i don't really remember it making me feel any different. it was supposed to make me feel motivated and, well, less bi-polar, i guess. but the only reason i took it was to keep the people who bugged me about it off of my back. it made other people happy, but i don't remember it making me happy. i was against the idea of taking a drug to fix something i felt like went deeper than a medical issue. i still am. but at this point, i'm willing to try anything. i had stopped taking it, and things kept moving pretty smoothly. i attributed that to fact that my life actually had purpose and direction, i was paving a path of A's and B's towards a certain goal, and that was good for my spirits. my focus is a little hazy, now. maybe its time to give the ol' doc a call...

5. bad health -- they say that health of body affects health of mind. they also say that strep can stay in your system (which it has in mine, evidently) and swirl around your body and go to your HEART. no wonder i felt like i was going to die when i was sick. i don't think it got as bad as infecting other parts of my body...but who knows? maybe it went to my head, and ate away my brain. i do feel like i have a headful of scrambled eggs. at any rate, i have some health issues i need to take care of; strep was one, so i've got one down. i still need to get my wisdom teeth out. and i still need new contacts. i am so gross. i just want to feel better.

there we go, Buff State. top five reasons why i've sucked at school all semester. can't you just...let me float by....for old times sake?

Journal Entry, 4/17/06, 12:30 am

i get panicky when i haven't written.

i am panicky.
because i feel like i can see meaning and purpose and greatness receding out of my life, and i will become an empty vessel, useless; a dried up potsherd.

when i decided what to do with my life, all the fear left me. i became fearless. my worst fears, my dreamt fears were no threat to me any longer. i was no longer paranoid. i did not even fear the yellow-eyed monster man in the bushes that i made up. i could face him, bear his attack, run out to meet it, collide with him, and, win or lose, i could know that i would be ok. i had no fear...guns, knives, fists, nails, teeth held no real danger. i had a better weapon. i had words by the hilt, that were carving up and creating my life. i had a sword that could kill and give life, that could make and unmake. a sword of spirit.

and i knew, also, that the yellow-eyed monster man was me, and that meant i could take him. i had the power to look him in his terrible face and scowl back. i had a weapon that could tame and kill him, a weapon whose handle, when within reach, is salvation. it is a sword i can live by.

it is all of and the only power i have.

the longer i keep away from it, the weaker i become. the life i lead becomes less clear to me, the path obscured, overgrown with bushes, where my fear awaits me, with yellow eyes, poised to steal my life, and able to do so.

sorry for hiatus

sorry folks.
i've been sick again.
last time, i promise.
and i'll return soon with some new material too.

i know you've all been worried.

its not April yet, but you can smell it from here...

it. is. bea. utiful. outside

i would love to be posting something clever for you to read, but the sun is shining, and its warm out at the same time. and all in buffalo, too.

it is clothes-shedding warm out, the kind that sneaks up on you when you're wearing a few layers. i love it.

now that its here, i'm going to go sniff spring.

catch you on the flipside.

Sir Gawain

yesterday was the first day of spring.

usually its today, but this year it was yesterday. something about the mathematical imperfections of the earth's revolution around the sun, i don't really know, but voila -- spring comes a day early.

i was born the day after spring, so i suppose its appropriate that my Gram called me today to wish me a happy birthday. by the numbers, it doesn't come until tomorrow.

but then, i've always looked at the 21st as my honorary birthday anyway. it is the equinox, you know; the day the sun starts to his journey out of the ditches of the underworld to reclaim the sky. it is also the beginning of the Attic rites in ancient Greece, where they 'sacrifice' victims who are then brought back to life, symbols of the sun, of returned vitality. i was born on this day.

it is fitting that i just got over another throat infection; that the worst of winter should be bookended with my illnesses (and recoveries) as if to say "you made it, but don't forget how close you came..." winter, illness, death; white throat, white snow, white skin. all the while i have been wearing green, like a banner, to remind myself of spring and that yes, indeed, it is eventually coming; green for st. patrick's day, green for the equinox, green for my birthday.

i wear green; a green p-coat, a green bandana, a green fleece. it makes my eyes bloom, changes them from brown to hazel in the sun. i won green out of the hollow parts of the year, the parts that challenged me, that brought me down to die, i thought. i go out of the barrow of that year with my life, and a kink in my neck, wearing green like a garter.

out of the hollow, on a horse, and into the sun; it has come back to greet me, and i go to meet it.

a day early, the day before and the day after spring, my first day of the year, the first day of my life, of the rest of my life, and of every year; a day early, but the day after spring, thank you Gram;

happy birthday to me.

i fought the law...

i don't really feel like making too big a post about it right now, but for those of you who are curious:

i got off incredibly light with nothing but a $380 fine, a 90 day suspension, and a special class.


and that is unheard of.

i can finally breathe half a sigh of relief.

off to do midterm work.

blogging about blogging...part II...

...mostly as a way to avoid doing real work or solving problems in my life...

so, anyhoo....thanks to girish, for checking out TokyoBlog and coming back and letting me know about it...glad to see someone taking a chance...

well, i promised to address the rest of the sidebar, and as a man of my word (mostly), so i shall:

Dead Blogs with Good Writing:

OnceInoticedIwasonfireIdecidedtorelaxandenjoythefall --
not only is it a dead blog, it no longer exists on the web. which is a shame. the gentlemen to whom that blog belonged to was a gifted thinker, who writes essays now for some kind of online journal or magazine. i forget his name, and i forget what the journal was, and i am too lazy to look it up right now. i will find out for you and make an update, even though i'm pretty sure you won't care by then anyway.

Belle du Jour --
the online diary of a call-girl in the UK. her blog is still up, though barely running, as she is writing now for some newspaper in the UK and is also working on her second book. she is a charming, witty writer...rather frank, as you would expect someone in the sex-trade would be...but she can take the most shocking scenes, words, and situations and make them into poetry. there is one post that is gross on a bodily fluids level that she makes seem almost...sweet......weird. but worth checking out.

BellaNovel --
oh my god, just read this lady's writing. just pick anywhere in the novel and read a few paragraphs. words that lock and unlock and dance and stand up on end, and balance and shatter and crush like an incoming tide. its beautiful. who is this woman? where did she learn to write like this? its not human.

Guys Whose Blogs I visit Whom I Haven't Seen in Person for Quite Some Time:

Brian Emerson's "Mystablogy" --
bri was my best friend in highschool. he was Catholic, and i was Evangelical...so i brought him to REAL church and cleansed him of his evil Catholic ways. he went MIA for awhile, and turned up married and an adult, and living in Cleveland with his own house and his own wife. and he's reconverted to Catholocism in the meantime. which i am proud of him for. and he writes about that on Mystablogy; and about So. Euclid, his new hometown, and how he wants it to be a better place. and about his house. and other things of a religious/philosophical nature. he is the kind of person who are my favorite kinds of people, both high-minded and salt-of-the-earth. think of him as your blue-collar priest.

FredSchrock --
easily one of the driest witted fellows i have ever met. he is a guy from my Canisius days...for those of you who don't know, that was my first and failed attempt at college...at which i was more interested in hanging out with a fun-ass crew than getting schoolwork done. and could you blame me? check out some of the funny on Fred's blog, and see what the hype is all about. Fred isn't just funny, he's got a special cortex in his brain devoted to humour, which is wired like a mental reflex. also: check out his newly revived radio show, now in podcast format, with this next blogger...

(yes, the) Joe Ferguson --
Joe Ferguson. long lost joey. i can't even count how many times this kid moved away and came back to buffalo...mostly because i count it as severe childhood trauma and it pains me to relive those memories. eventually joe came back, and he and Fred and Bri and i went to make up part of what was affectionately called the "Nerd Herd"...and he has grown up to become a virtuouso science guy/musician, and a presence more valuable than diamonds, apparently. i believe it. go check out his blog...and the link to his album "Take It from Me"...independant music at its finest...

Ed Snyder, the BMOC --
"B-, B-M-O-C, is driving me/quite carefully (consciencsiously!)"
Ed Snyder is the BMOC...to you knaves, that's Big Man On Campus. but you'll address him as BMOC, because he will whip out German on your ass, and you will bleed and cry, and run home to your mother and she'll tell you that you should've known better.

and that's where the blog links end, and thus, so doth mine rant.

i'll check in again this week with some news.

blogging about blogging

somehow, between my excessive whining about girls, writing an e-mail, and trying to work on philosophy paper that is due tomorrow, i've found time to make a bit of a blog post; either that or i'm just an idiot.

yeah, i'm an idiot.

anyways, i was just looking at my sidebar there, the one with the links to blogs that have readers and whatnot, and was thinking that i should highlight why they're there. if there's one thing i like more than enjoying something all by my lonesome self, its showing it to other people, so they can get excited about it too.

here goes:

blog heroes?
should be self explanatory. heroes. who blog. or bloggers who've become my heroes. you get the idea.

Neil Gaiman -- haven't yet read Anansi Boys, but i'm sure i will one day, when orchards bloom, and the air is soft, like a baby's blanket, and time for pleasure-reading is abundant like wild berries in summer. as for now, i take Gaiman's writing in pill-form; not quite the luxuriant breakfast that they show on the side of cerial boxes, but still a good way to get your eight essential vitamins, when that's all you have time for...

girish -- excellent, excellent writer. friend from real life, too. mostly a movie blog these days, with some MP3 audioblogging thrown in for good measure: always a good read, and always an educational experience. but, more than anything, and excellent, inspiring, solid writer. girish fits words together like chain links, and his sentances are jointed, angular and strong. check out his dialogues (my personal favorites: conversations with my mom). girish, as far as i know, is one of the first people on the net to institute synchroblogging. it all started with the ten year anniversary of the release of Showgirls. go figure. :)

Overheard Lines -- "Things actual people actually said, captured by an eavesdropping playwright in San Francisco named Tim (or his spying friends)." this description modestly leaves out one other thing: pure genius. Tim's are usually the best, and what makes them so funny is the one-two punch of quote, coupled with it's title. some say the best way to read them is to read the quote first, and the title second; i think you should go there and find out for yourself.

A Softer World -- a three panel photopoem, really, and not so much a blog. i didn't figure that out exactly until after i'd linked to it, and i'm too lazy to change it now. sometimes hysterically funny, sometimes strikingly something else. they've really got a range of things going on here. it is like watching someone sneak up and tear off the bedsheets of a lovemaking couple, mid-coitus.

Progressive Ruin -- a comic book blog, from Mike Sterling. yeah, i don't know who Mike Sterling is either; but he works at a comic-shop, runs a blog, and is funny as hell.

dooce.com -- cliche, you say? the widest read blog on the web, you say? yes, cliche. like Shakespeare is cliche. and if you think Shakespeare is cliche, you're a dolt. that is how i feel about Heather. she's got it all: moving, funny, gross, crude, beautiful, naked. she's a great writer. she's often at her best when she's writing either about her daughter, Leta, or poop. my hand to God. imagine how great it is when the two topics come together for a cosmically amazing post? it does not get any better.

Paul Dini, the King of Breakfast -- i'm not sure why he's the King of Breakfast, but seriously, this guy could be the King of whatever-the-hell-he-wants in my book. things he has worked on, for which he gets mad props: He-Man, and the Masters of the Universe. Batman: the Animated Series (anyone ever seen the episode "Almost Got 'em"?......the best 22 minutes of cartoon you may ever watch), the oversized Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Justice League comic books, painted by Alex Ross. just to name a few things. oh, yeah -- he was also a co-writer for "Lost".......

Broken Glass Makes Me Laugh -- yes, it makes me laugh too. sometimes a comic blog, sometimes pop-culture reflection, sometimes just musings on life chocolate coated with good ol' fashioned north-of-the-border wit that us folks in the states just eat up. Davinder always brings it.

the first rule of blogging... -- if you're curious about what that rule is, go visit Keest's blog. i will give you a hint though: i am breaking that rule right now. what can i say about keest? her phrasecraft is top-shelf scotch; i can't get enough. like the dearly departed John Spencer, as Leo McGarry, once said about alcholism: how can you not want to feel like this all the time? which is why i get the shakes when keest neglects her blog...still....her writing is fragrant with wit and talent, and its got teeth. go check her out. as a favor to me. you won't be disappointed.

Hellboy Animated -- how often do you get an inside look at something this cool? i know i may be the only cartoon guy in the vicinity, but this promises to good stuff; sci-fi, animation, and suspense all at its best. and you get to watch it all come together, before your very eyes. it is a gift from Tetragrammaton Jehovah, as far as i'm concerned.

TokyoBlog -- oh my GOD. such a great idea, so wonderfully executed. just take a look, it is outrageously charming and good. a new favourite of mine. read it. so neat.


ok, you go read those, and lemme know what you think. i'll write about the next set while you're gone.

white barracuda

in case you hadn't noticed, there was a flurry of flaming blow-out postings attached to my last blog entry. if you're looking for action, i'll furnish the spot; even when the heat is on, its never too hot. its good for a laugh, its a good time, and vicious writing is fun to read. so read it; its me at my meanest, in case you're interested in what that looks like.

my gutless, faceless, nameless friend raises this point: i should either be proud of my self-absorbed singleness, or do something about it [instead of whining].

ok. yes, agreed, the one or the other is an ultimate end. but do i really need to qualify the difficulty of achieving that ultimate end? it mystifies me, that i should have to.

i'm not going to actually; for people who've never felt a tug of indecision, there is no explanation that will make sense. for those who have never felt divided over anything, there is no sufficient reasoning that they can follow. how do you explain the desire for what you know you should not have? how do you explain the conflict with one's own self?
you can't, really.
you get it or you don't.
so i'm not going to try.
but here is a story:
i had a dream last night, about my highschool crush, and i don't know why. and with dreams, there is always and only the "why." at its edges, the dream is scrubbed out and faded. i remember running into her, meeting her again -- my presently charming self fending off the darkness of awkward conversation like a road flare -- all the brightness of smiles were between us, and there was none of the discomfort of the last time i had seen her in person: a group of Amherst grads collected themselves at the Cozumel, and though it would have never happened in school, the way things change after time, i found myself insinuated into a shared social circle. i felt my face go white when i saw her there; it took a half hour and a few bourbons before i could work up the courage to face my fear of her. i managed to wrangle her attention for an awkward ten minutes of clunky conversation. i didn't handle it well, but i made it out the other side. i tried to look normal, to be normal. i felt bad that she had to talk to me, that i had used her awakwardly to face my own demons, that i had attached demons to her in the first place. she'd never done anything to me except look beautiful. i should not have really spoken to her, but it was one of those things you just had to do. medicine, you know. tastes like shit; you have to drink it. afterwards, drunkenly, i was proud of myself. if nothing else, i got to make her a little more human.

last night i met her again, in a hallway, and there was no dark cloud of pubescent clumsiness. it was a school hallway, and i saw her and she saw me and did not dread my approach. there was only smiling, and lightheartedness, and she was wearing an iPod and a backpack. i talked to her about music, and she told me about fake obscure bands with dream names that played music i didn't think a jazz saxophonist would be interested in, in real life. she asked me if i had heard of any of them and i smiled, as we crouched at the seam of the wall and the floor, between two doorways, and i told her that i would check them out. she asked me if i had ever heard of White Barracuda, and i shook my head no. and later, our conversation was done and we parted happily and the only sadness was the wish that real life could be something like this.

she is engaged, now. and would be horrified to know that i still (or ever have) thought, dreamt, or wrote about her; i wouldn't blame her, really.

you can't make an Idol of someone; it isn't fair. but i have made one of her, and the ultimate proof is that i still dream about her. she is a symbol, and not a person -- a symbol of unrequited affection, of unfulfilled desire -- a symbol, ultimately, of my own shortcomings. i was not socially adept in highschool; i was not cool, i was not athletic, i was not attractive. i was a loner. part of that was my own fear of entering the bizarre social world of highschool -- i did not try to make friends or attempt to join in. i excluded myself. but i also never felt good enough -- i did not merit the attention of my crush; thus, i never had the attention of my crush.

i never had a girlfriend, or a first kiss, until i was eighteen. i never really had anything mutual with any girl until then. unless you count the girl down the street when i was three.

this is how women become notches in a man's bedpost -- to be able to "have" with ease something that you were never before considered worthy of having -- it is a rush of power, of pride. there is a world of women at my feet; marriagable, datable. fuckable. a complete spectrum, ultra-violet to infra-red, whose interest in me only goes to illumine my ego, to feed it; to prop the crumbling edifice of my self-esteem.

it is natural, to want to be with somebody, to want a someone to belong to. it is a beautiful thing to see someone find it.

it is also natural to use people to feel better about yourself...but it is also wrong. and its a terrible basis for a relationship. you can't build your self esteem on a relationship, however deep or shallow, and you can't build a relationship on your own self esteem. you can't use people to massage your ego. you can't get anyone else to untie the knots of your own heart. its a disservice to their love. its a disservice to yourself. and i want to stop ruining the people who love me, and try to figure out how to be better.

i am better when i'm single. i can handle being single. but i am not proud of being single, i am not proud of my self-absorption.

there is a girl that i want to be mine, but i know i should not be allowed to have her. not until something in me changes -- changes for good, for me and no one else. i can do something about it then.

until then, i'm going to keep denying myself, trying to convince myself. i am going to keep finding reasons not to have a girlfriend.

i am going to keep whining.
deal with it.

reasons not to have a girlfriend: reason #5

its (st.) valentine's day...what better way to celebrate than with yet another reason why i should not have a girlfriend?

was it last night? was it this morning? i don't remember...it may have been while i was shaving...you know, those innocuous moments when barbed thoughts come creeping on their elbows, commando style...and the thought is sometimes overpowering enough to be all that you remember of the moment...time and place disappear....

anyway, it was one of those moments, and again, this thought came sneaking in: if i had money, i would probably be married by now. and yes, i know i've hashed out money as a reason not to have a girlfriend in a previous post, but money isn't always as simple a subject as we'd like to make it sometimes.

i'd be in a relationship at least, if i had money, and this is why: it would be easier. money greases wheels. money gives you the option of being generous. money does all of those things i think i've already put more eloquently before and won't bore you with repeating now. at any rate, its no secret: i wish i had money, because of all of the things i would be able to give.

nice thought.

and what load of bullshit. even as it rings just a little bit true -- financial stability is obviously a nice thing -- it is the biggest cop-out-crock of shit.
the real problem is that i love me too much; i am selfish with me. i am my number one. and having money would make it easier to care for someone else, because i wouldn't have to put as much time or thought into it.

the real problem is reason #5 why i can't have a girlfriend:
i want to give what i don't have because i am incapable of giving what i do have.

i'm not here, this isn't happening

sorry, folks, if you don't hear from me for awhile. if you know why, you know why. if you don't: e-mail me.

til next time.

reasons not to have a girlfriend: reason #4

If you could see the lover in me

And we could join our hands together

If you could see how good it could be

We'll sing these stupid songs forever

Can you feel it?

Love is here

It has never been so clear

You can't love what you have not

So hold on to what you've got

Is Judy really smiling for me?

I'd change my name in case she found me

Trembling I can't believe

I've got to leave the girl behind me

Can you feel it?

Love is here

It has never been so clear

You can't love what you have not

So hold on to what you've got

If you could see the aching in me

I'd change my name in case you lost me

Trembling down to my knees

I've got to leave the world behind me

Can you feel it?

Love is here

It has never been so clear

You can't love what you have not

So hold on to what you've got

whoa--oo--whoooa--o

-- Starsailor, Love Is Here (emphases mine)

reason #4:

i've got to leave the girl behind me...

i've got to leave the world behind me...

forgive me, blogger, for i have sinned...

...its been four days since my last confession.

i have a pretty heavy reading load this semester. it could be because i am taking four english courses, a philosophy course, with a chocolate covered fourth semester latin course for dessert.

i would like to get back to some posting, as being in school always has my head bursting with new ideas, but i've got some work to do -- its the second week of school and my grip is about to slip already. so that means head in the game, feet on the ground, and fingers out of the blogosphere for the next few (units of time measurement).

no, no....not a hiatus. this is just a warning that posts will be sporadic, and unpredictable in length....as well as depth.

i will say this much:
Lolita is a fucked-up, fantastic book...and Nabokov is a fascinating writer.

did you know he met Joyce?

confessions

i feel compelled, in the interest of full disclosure, to admit that my previous book-count for both African American Literature until 1940 and 20th Century Drama were mistaken. they are only about eight books each. which isn't as bad as 15. i think i must have added them together. well, about nine for AfrAm -- one of them still hasn't come into the bookstore yet. still. that's twice the bookload of AfrAm after 1940.

when you're carrying them, they feel like 15...

day one

today was the first day of school.
this semester i will be wrestling with Descartes, and Kant (among others) in my philosophy class, and i am more than a little bit scared. i've taken all sorts of philosophy before, but those classes are flakey, buttered breakfast pastries compared to this stuff.

also i will be taking on Dante, Boccaccio, Rabelais, Villon, Voltaire and three authors so monumentally bad-ass that they all go by the mysterious nom-de-plume Anonymous, i.e., the authors of the Mabinogion, Tristan and Yseult, and the Carmina Burana.

i will also be making a full frontal assault (notice how i'm into the phrase "full-frontal" coupled with a word you expect to be nudity but ends up being something else? its so delicious) on Latin 202. i haven't taken latin in...almost two years. luckily we are using the same book i used back then, and i don't think i've forgotten as much as i was afraid i had. still, it is latin, and as for being the great grandad of all western languages, it is nothing to be trifled with. seriously. latin don't take no for an answer, and it don't take shit from nobody. it don't mess around, and pussyfooting will not be tolerated.

not to be outdone, though, today, certainly unattended, is African American Literature Until 1940. there are what feel like a hundred books for this class, though in reality there are only about 15. yes. that's right. ONLY 15 books. i took this class because i knew and liked the professor from AfrAm Lit Since 1940. i got an "A" in the class. there were only five books. which is about what you'd expect for an English class...even a bit light. apparently one of two things happened: the number of African American writers since 1940 either a) decreased exponentially, leaving us with only five African American authors in the last 50 years, or b) exploded since 1940, thus limiting the number of books and authors we were able to consider. my guess is it is most likely the latter explanation at work here, which makes me wonder: are we reading every book written by a black author before 1940?

seriously though. not every book, but damn well near every author at least.
i guess over the span of 200 years, that's not a lot of books to consider...but over the span of 10 weeks it is.

and that's just on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes are as follows, though still yet to be experienced:

20th Century Drama (also damn near 15 books)
and
Lit theory and criticism


anticipate many future detailed posts about reading related headaches.

reasons not to have a girlfriend: reason #3

"i feel this need
to be self
deprecating, to
lower your
expectations on
impact...becaus
e if you are
going to be a
person who
knows me it
means full
frontal
honesty...not
just what i think
you can handle,
not just
everything but
my dark and
treasured
secrets...i want
to get
disappoinment
out of the way. i
want my own
deconstruction,
and i want you to
be there when
the smoke
clears, and how
else will i know
unless i destroy
pleasant
falsehood now,
before your very eyes?"


reason not to have a girlfriend, number three:

i am a pleasant falsehood that i can't bear to destroy

shower, shave, and shake it off

with all this nice weather, and all these nice anti-biotics in my bloodstream, i think i can pull my self out of this year end grave. its about time. turns out i will have enough money to pay for both my car, and my rent, and still have some left over so that i might be able to pay rent again very very soon.

now all i have to do is knock my sleep cycle back into place, get some teeth pulled, and get some new contact lenses. and i'll be in perfect shape.

school starts on tuesday. i can't wait. my books are going to cost almost $400...thank God for deferrments. i am going to have loads of reading this semester...but that's the reason i became an english major: to become well-read.

sometimes life sucks, and sometimes life works out too.

i'll be back to actual posting soon. at any rate, here are three haiku...s...es that i wrote last night after a couple beers,a couple shots, and a late walk up on my roof.


the stars do flicker;
the waning moon a lozenge
in the mouth of night

this haiku: a lie
i wrote it about a truth
when it was not true

this haiku: a truth
it is more true than truth is
because it transcends

and those are my haikuses.
i've been working on a perseus/pygmalion and gorgon/galatea poem for awhile now...i don't know if i'll ever finish it or if it will ever be good when i do....the ideas have been swarming my head for a few months, but i can't seem to get them out right. perhaps i should apply more alcohol to the affected area, and see what comes out.

here are two stanzas that i may or may not keep (they go near the end of the poem):

you have looked into my heart
see now, what a peach pit
you leave behind
an ore of a fallen star
its fiery pulp
eaten

i have flown away on the horses
of your blood;
i have wrapped your
writhing memory in a bag of
forgetfulness
and dropped it into
the sea
-------------------
i wrote these to go write next to eachother, but now that i read (and type) them, i'm not sure if they fit together that way. i suppose i should try writing the rest of the poem to figure out where they would fit better, huh? it would be a start.
------------------
i was thinking today, that if i had enough poetry that i could scrape together and not completely hate, i'd like to publish a small chapbook...at first, when this was a project for my poetry class at school, i thought of entitling it something pretensious like @delphi. but now that i unofficially withdrew from that course and am thinking of doing my own chapbook for fun and profit (ha!) rather than an actual grade, i'm thinking of dropping the pretense and entitling it something like VALIDATE. i think as a title it explains a lot -- about the reason i would even think of self-publishing at all, about my insecurities as a thinker and writer and person in general...and about the reasons i find myself writing sometimes. but that's all contingent on whether or not i can scrape together enough decent poetry, like i said......which, in my case, may take some time.

what i feel has come and gone before...

for the last approximately ten days i've had a sore throat which has only increased in soreness each day i've had it. most of the rest of me feels fine, except for this damned throat.

and also my eyes. my eyes bother me constantly, because i have been working off the same pair of contacts for longer than i care to publicly admit.

and my teeth. my wisdom teeth actually; they need to be pulled. i have two of them. they've both come all the way in. i've had them for years. one has a cavity. the other one bleeds...i think because i tried to pull it out myself a couple times. but i just didn't have the nerve.

and worst of all: my glands are swollen.

lately i've been on a 12 hour sleep cycle that starts at around 4 am, and -- you guessed it -- ends at around 4 pm. i'm highly unmotivated. i feel like crap. i need a reason to get up earlier. i need to feel productive.

also, my vocabulary is too small for a writer. i need to learn some new words.
and my car is going to cost me $600 to get it out of the shop...not to mention it needs plates and, oh yeah, insurance.

and i've been living at my parents house. i've stayed a total of...two nights? at my own apartment since before christmas. its driving me crazy.

at least i finally finished "The Sorrows of Young Werther." it was fantastic.
it is older than the United States of America, by like nine years, and i somehow managed to feel connected to it. but then again, i shouldn't be surprised.......Beowulf is a thousand years old, the Metamorphases is two thousand years old.....and i read them and i feel like they could have been written yesterday.

i'm off to mope, shower, drive with my sister somewhere, maybe go to starbucks, write some meandering and senseless words, and try to get to sleep at a reasonable hour so i can get up and go to work tomorrow.

wish me luck.

new years, cruel months

"last year at this time we were crushed by a snowstorm; the streets were swollen with snow for days, but it was ok, no one was really going anywhere anyway.

right now we're having a bit of a thaw..."

its january. its january, 2006, in buffalo -- and it looks like spring. the forty-degree air has eaten away at the wayward curbside mounds of lingering snow, now dirty and scorched by the hot breath of wet street traffic. all around, matted grass seems to be struggling for life, reaching for the promise of the cottony grey skies overhead. it is like the opening of the Canterbury Tales, and of The Wasteland...

it is a tease, of course. we still have the rest of winter to ride out. which is why the comparison to The Wasteland is appropriate. yet i can't help but think: the sun is returning now, and while winter has only officially been with us for twelve days, why couldn't this thaw just continue into official spring, and why can it not officially introduce us to summer? for meterological reasons that i officially don't understand for one. that's ok. i know better than to hold the fickle weather to a promise it never kept, and i don't need doppler radar to tell me we've still got at least one or two big snows left before winter truly breaks. but an early start for spring would be nice, not just for the fact that we could all avoid a wind chill factor that is so excruciating that it is 99% effective as a birth control and 100% effective as a means of suicide.

it would be nice, simply because it would be appropriate: this is the new year. i want spring now. i want to grab the new year by green and growing things, to wrap them around me, to bath in such liquour as the rain, to mix the dried tubers with my bare hands: i want the blessing of green and growing life for my pilgrimage through this next year. an early start to spring would be nice because i just cannot wait out the length of four months without it and everything it represents. i need that life. i need it now. what better time to have it?

i can't help but thinking of this new year's as tidying several seasonal and calendrical milestones together: it is, of course, the new year, the time for new beginings. it is also the uncanny spring, a time for growth and renewal, a time for anticipating regeneration, resurrection. and, as i think about the death of the old year, and looking forward, clutching to the hope that the symbols of spring and the new year offer us, it is a Groundhog Day, a Candlemas of sorts...and while all my life i have abhored any acknowledgement that the rodent in punxatawney was my namesake, i can't help but see significance in the tradition of Groundhog Day and how it is appropriate here...

as a kid i was confounded by the tradition: the groundhog seeing his shadow in the sun just never added up to six more weeks of winter for me (and yes, i know that there is always six weeks of winter left by the time we get to february 2nd, but still...) -- shouldn't the sun be an indication that spring was hurrying on its way? what was always more significant to me about Groundhog Day was that when the world is enshrouded with darkness and winter, everything is in shadow.

Candlemas lore holds that the groundhog, being afraid of his shadow, scurries back into his hole to wait out the next six weeks. i am waiting for the groundhog who can confront his shadow, who can grab the untimely sun by its rays and pull us into spring. to go back in the hole is to go back to winter, back to the dead year, back to the tomb of old Kronos. somewhere there's got to be a hero groundhog who isn't afraid of the new year, of spring, of neither sun nor shadow, who can march headlong into it and bring it back for the rest of us. maybe then i wouldn't mind sharing my name with such creature.

the cruelty of april is the cowardice of february, is the fear and trepidation of the new year. and right now is the new year -- and right now i am looking ahead to a time of greener pastures -- and right now i am grabbing spring by its teasing vernal shoots. i have too much to lose to let winter linger.

as much as i hate that much of my writing on this blog seems to be getting more and more inspirational, i just as equally can't help it. i want big things to happen with my life; i need to have them happen in my life...and writing is the only way i can get there. still, the dry and sterile thunderclouds only lasted for so long...and in the end the thunder spoke, so i suppose i shouldn't feel so bad.