Alive

I'm alive. So is my brother. He is again in a jail. But he is living.

My apologies for my previous post.

F*&K

I spent the past few weeks feeling that I had gone beyond the edge...that I was sitting on a little mound of dirt sticking out of the rockface looking backward at the cliff I'd just fallen over.

Today, just as I look up at the edge to figure out how to climb back up, I found that there was never anything beneath me at all...I'd been falling...and now I see the ground rising hard and fast.

Sometimes the universe needs to test our limits.

Sometimes we fail the test.

Maybe writing this made it better.

But I don't think so.

New...

I love keeping up with the phases of the moon. It feels like some sort of connection to a past me, to the earth, to the ocean that I'm so far away from, to ... lots of things.

• Tonight is the new moon.
• I have some new clothes. I'm down to a size 8.
• I have some new concert tickets to see Bright Eyes at the Fox in May.
• I have a friend with a new found coolness. :)
• Tonight I cooked a new shrimp recipe that really rocked.
• I have a new movie in the DVD player waiting to start.
• C bought a new 80 gig ipod. (While I'm happy for him, I am slightly jealous).
• All my clothes are clean, and I cleaned out my closet too (all the size 12 and 14 clothes are to be donated).

All signs say that this cycle might be a good one.

Side effects

I've been trying to write posts daily, and trying to find less "bitchy"things to say. Some days that is easier than others.

Here's something between funny and bitchy.

I've been slowly losing weight since I changed my eating habits, and over the last 4 months, I've lost around twenty pounds. I still plan to loose more weight since I'm not within my "healthy" target weight just yet (but, I'm getting close!), and since it is almost effortless. But at this point, my clothes are all too big. So, I need to buy some new clothes -- immediately.

Sounds like fun, right?

Except, if I lose another twenty, I will have to buy new clothes again. Now, I have been known to spend a lot of money on clothes, but I have to admit that I am just frugal enough that I don't want spend double the amount -- especially when what I spend money on today will wind up on a thrift store shelf somewhere in another four months. In addition, I have all of these clothes that I really do like (don't forget that I said I've been known to spend a lot of money on clothes), and I can't wear them!

I know, I know. I should think of this as a fun transitional wardrobe. I should buy a few really trendy things that I won't care that I can't wear again next season. But I'm having a hard time with it. And in the mean time, I look like a hobo. The crotch on my pants is hanging to my knees.

I guess I'll go shopping tonight.

C says that this is a good problem to have.

He's totally right.

The beauties...

of adult education or one of the things I love about my job:

To hear things like

"Wow, I hope you stay like that the rest of the term." I asked, "Like what?" She answered, "Passionate."

and

"What other books are good to read?"

and

"Can I borrow your copy of To Kill a Mockingbird?"

Nomadic

We (C & I) like to think of ourselves as movable. We like to think that we could pick up and move to the next town without missing a beat.

But, I fear that we are fooling ourselves and that we have been fooling ourselves for quite some time (even while we moved from place to place).

I was thinking about Jebbo's post on roots, and it seems that we are like a strange breed of plant that only needs to touch the soil to survive, but as soon as we touch it, those roots dive downward, looking for nutrition.

And here's the disturbing part. We're so accomplished at getting by on so little, we fail to notice when the well is dry. We stay put and suck and suck, waiting for a miracle to happen. Meanwhile, the leaves are falling off and the stems are getting weak.

Springtime approaches. Once upon a time people moved to the places where their needs could be met. They rolled up their tents and moved to where the water was plentiful. (This explains why the desert southwest did not really develop until the 1960s). Today, we go where a job is. We forget that "water" is necessary.

I am looking at the fallen leaves around me.

I am wondering when I will learn.

A promise -- you are my witnesses

I vow that once they put a PhD behind my name, I'll buy one of those $275 tickets. I'll fly to Houston and enjoy some of those eating establishments Jebbo's been researching. Texas sure does have great food.

You are all my witnesses. I will go.

So, look for me this summer Jebbo, when it is so hot we will want to stay inside all day and drink lemonade or beer (well, I'll have to go for water and a martini or a shot). Not eating sugar or wheat cuts down on my drinking significantly.



However, until I walk across that stage, I'm afraid I can't think about it.

I'm just sayin' ... my brain is full.

Lily Allen

Lately I have found (I wonder why) that mindless pop music has its advantages. I love Gwen Stefani's new album, and my newest mind-numbing craze is Lily Allen's new record Alright, Still. It has been out in the UK for a while longer, so those of you with UK connections may already know it (eh Jebbo?)

Check it out.

And make sure NOT to buy the "clean" version. itunes offers both.

push 'em back, hold 'em back, way...

back.

Well, looks like my defense date is pushing back. Two weeks, in fact. That is nice for me today, but it means that once the defense is done, I have two weeks less to finish up the damn thing (which is about half of the time I thought I would have).

Scheduling has become a problem for my committee. Plus, my outside reader was in Africa for over week, and she needs a little more reading time.

Reasons are easy to find. Stress relief is not.

Tonight I begin one of the two new classes that I will be teaching for the next eight weeks. I start the other one on Thursday.

Did I mention masochism already?

Oh yea. I did. I know that purgatory is next, but hell is overwhelming right now.

Here we go...

Time Traveler's Wife

I took yesterday off from work -- it is my spring break after all. Instead of working on that diss, I read over half of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

I soon will take down What Comes of Coming, and the posts therein which make up what I finished of Miss. Here's why: Niffenegger wrote the story I was trying to write. Once one person writes it, every other person trying to write it should give up.

This is the best book I've read in years. I haven't finished it yet, but still I know that it is REALLY good. I recommend it. I REALLY recommend it. I will, however, warn you that you won't be able to put it down. Even if you have a 260 page document that must be finished in two weeks.

Anyway. What a cool world we live in when other people write what you wanted to write. My character, Ben, was a time traveler, but I didn't really know how to handle him because I was trying to write from the women's perspective. Niffenegger figured it out. What a cool book...

What a cool idea that the men we love are time travelers.

Music I once loved

I have several short posts to make. My life is hell (and I think this is the final level where I find myself in Satan's asshole: Dante was a real sadist) for the next month. Maybe this will be a nice escape.

Here's the first short post:

I was at O'Charley's (not a chain restaurant that I love) the other day and several of the songs playing in their rotation were by The Cure.

I just heard/saw a television commerical using a Nirvana song to advertise a video game.


I wonder what Robert Smith thinks? What would Kurt Cobain say? I guess Kurt gave up his right to speak. But what about Robert? Is he furious? Does he make money on this?

This must be what happened to our parents when the mainstream (us) started treating their music as elevator music. How does this happen?

A sort of fairy tale

As the moon approaches its first fullness of the new year, I have a little tale for you:

Once upon a time, a young woman dressed in a red hooded cloak started out on a journey through the wooded area behind her house. She packed a lunch: an apple, chicken salad, a bottle of water, and some potato crisps. The lunch was meant to keep her from being hungry, but not to add any additional weight to her journey either before she ate it or after. She laced up her most comfortable shoes, threw her lunch into a backpack with a couple of classic books, a purple velvet-covered journal, an ipod, a few gel pens, her computer, her library card, and her willpower. She started her journey skipping.

Once her lunch was eaten and the woods had reclaimed the heavy books and computer (these incidents, while seemingly fraught with disaster, were really small incidents when the young woman realized that she preferred a lighter load to the conveniences of the stated items), she walked through the dense foliage listening to her ipod and trying to make sense of the landscape. The moon appeared on the horizon.

So did the figure of a burly wolf. She wondered how a wolf could have made it to that part of the world, but quickly figured out that pondering the feasibility of his appearance would not help her survive him, so, armed only with a library card, a gel pen, and her willpower, she started the grueling process of outwitting the hairy creature. The moon was hardly two hours into the sky when she found that she had accomplished her task: wolves fancy themselves to be much more dangerous than they actually are, after all. Young women in red cloaks most often defeat them without the help of grandmothers, woodsmen, or even library cards.

Of course, hunger did come as the moon rose. The young woman decided that she had had her fill of forest romps and promptly left the woods forever. For it was in those woods, boys and girls, that the young woman found the many possible meanings of literary metaphors.

And, in leaving the very thing that had surrounded her for most of her life, she found something new. And new, after all, is worth pondering.

Happily ever after....? No way... Just a new story.