The Twentieth: My God Only Hours Left

1.5 to be exact. I need to also stop and have lunch, and write the rest of my paper. Never fear, I believe the workshop style class that I was confused about earlier is a time and place for busting ass to pass get my drift? In a room lined with computers and nothing to do but work I think that might be the teacher's intent. OK, well, time to resort to some of the tricks I have hiding under my sleeve.

Cool Quotes from Dead People*

• We are born with two incurable diseases; life, from which we die, and hope, which says maybe death isn't the end. - Andrew Greeley
• Even the most horrible, catastrophic ending to something beautiful can't erase the beauty that has already occurred. - E.W.
• Where does beauty begin? Where does it end? Where it ends is where the artist begins. - John Cage
• The end is inherent in the means. - Gandhi
• I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. - Douglas Adams
• It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. - Ursula LeGuin
• Our greatest fear should be not that our lives will some day come to an end, but rather, that they may never begin. - Somebody
• The end is never as satisfying as the journey. To have achieved everything but to have done so without integrity and excitement is to have achieved nothing. - Somebody

That last one was spot on wasn't it?! I think so for definitely. More?! Yes.

• In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - MLK Jr.
• Whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss. - God
• A morning sun and a wine-bred child and a Latin-bred woman seldom end well. - George Herbert
• The end crowns all. - Dutch People
• All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown. Whate'er the course, the end is the renown. - William Shakespeare
• The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it. - William Shakespeare

That was nice. I think we've all learned a lot.

*Might not actually be dead. Don't believe the reports! Have hope.

The Fifteenth: Frustration

YOu eveil ACC I don't even enjoy giving you gobs of money!! grrr *brood**brood*
Thats the truth, this awful evil, take-advantage of my confusion establishment is doing agian. Please ecuse my aingry typing.
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OK I'm better. It's just so terrible the way nothing seems to work over there yet they set up shit to give the students free pizza and berritos and s'mores fore chrissake but can't spend a dime to make sure their technology is working propperly I could fucking strangle the computerized bitch on the automated help line shit If only I
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Better? Maybe. I just would like to be able to register for some classes, pay on time, get my shit together and be done with it.
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Did I mention I want to change my major? Yeah, but not to theatre or some other dumb useless shit like that. No, I want to study PHILOSOPHY!
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Sigh, ok I'm better for reals. Still I think philosophy might not be such a foul course of action as everyone makes it out to be. Besides, I've decided to tweak what my aim in life is anyway. Perhaps I leave that starting a business shit for when the economy is better, or worse, or when the idea doesn't make my skin crawl anymore. I could retire that thought of powering my way through college in just a few years also. I have more than a few years. Probably. And even if I didn't I know sure as anything I wouldn't want to spend them in class worrying about papers and midterms and whether that guy's ass really does look better when he's not talking.

Oh! That reminds me of a cool exercise my mother told me about. See post Sixteen for the juicy details.

The Twelfth: Walden

FOX

59 pages so far of this book and its been less than 24 hours since I cracked it's cover. I've read many many Thoreau quotes, which I've been know to whip out in conversation like an intellectual assassin's throwing star, with out ever having read the source material. Being that now I'm in college, and learning is my prime directive, it might now be wise to work on filling the space between my ears with something other than articles in the fucking news paper and hit or miss science fiction stories. Well, I have read more than that, and used to on a regular basis but as of late getting my fingers on a computer for anything other than class work is a terrible trouble. Until recently, I had all but forgotten the Library. Yes that so sturdy and dependable though grossly underfunded branch of the U.S. government was had been nearly wiped from my mind in the past few years. See, the twig of the branch by my house was being renovated from 2005 to 2008 much to my dismay... brief dismay. When the Internet is available in abundance everything is at your fingertips.

[Editor's Note: I would like to inform you at this piont that if you are about to or have ever considered the act of eating Trappey's Canned Okra and Tomatoes, just please stop now. It will only end in heart ache and a lingering vinegar smell, which is disturbing as the ingredients do not list vinegar]

Today the library is open, media is again at my fingertips, though in a wholly physical way now, and the world is right again. Last night I checked out a 1999 hardback printing of the book. Due to a literary academic thing I attended, reading was postponed til late that evening when I managed to devour a whole 7 pages while keeping my eyes open and my head propped up against a pillow. The eye crossing was a problem and soon overcame me. The book wasn't picked up again until that morning. I have hardly put it down since, although due to it's antiquated language and thought provoking monsterparagraphs the eye crossing was still a problem, leading to about four naps of a very contemplative nature.

So far in my reading I've come to quite a few conclusions, some of which I see time ruining, some the course of the book disproving, others unclear in their reasoning may fall under their very weight. However its been fun to think these things, and it seems Thoreau felt the same way. He wished to be a wise man living a simple life, the only respite from the toil of survival being the enriching of the mind. Pretty fucking hot to a philosophy nerd such as myself I must say. Really, if I was a young farmers daughter in Concord during the 1840s I'm sure my prying visits would have been the foremost of Henry's troubles.

Reading the first chapter I can't help but be reminded of the story of Alexander Supertramp (AKA Chris Mccandless) which shook my life so violently last spring. In the chapter titled "Economy" Thoreau gives the reasons for why he set out in the wilderness, none much unlike the reasons Chris is thought to have had. There ends were much the same in theory, although Alex seemed to put into practice the wandering freedom Thoreau praises but hardly seems to experience himself. This may be in part due to age, Thoreau being thirty and well through his 'gotta see the world' years. Or maybe this difference did lie in the divergence of philosophies... Alex went to the woods to breathe, Henry to think. To my dismay I'll never know, these secrets and more are locked behind the lips of dead men.

These two fallen sojourners are my heroes, if one can truly find a hero in a man they haven't met. As is the brave and rightheaded author Voltairine de Cleyre. The idea of a hero disturbs me (more than anything produced by Trappey's)because what does it mean? What does it imply to recognize one with the title? Simply that, on par with a pat on the back or an entire temple complex. Well, I'm not sure. It's past my bed time. Even with all the sleep I've gotten the blankets still pull me with a great power... also I'd like to read some more of this book here. What's he getting on about cooperation? Society vs Man? I must know!

Anyway, even if I wont apply the term hero to these individuals, still I intend with all my cells and particles to follow their lead, or plot my own course very near theirs. For they have spelled out a life unlike the ones around me, more true and pure in every way that to ignore their examples would be to ignore a part of myself and I'd soon rather die than resign to such a fate.

[Editor's Note: I've been reading far far to many stirring old bits of literature, its starting to take over my own style. I apologize, unless you are as riled as I am and moved to emotions you haven't felt in weeks, then carry on]

The Eleventh: Slightly More Awake

So I'm sittin here eatin dried cranberries, which are delicious by the way, but at 36 cents an Oz. are way out of my price range. Seriously, do you know how small an Oz. can be with dried food stuffs?! So I'm sittin here with some tea abrewin slowly wakin up from my morning coma to find its really fuckin late. I might very well fail this Comp class.

The blog per day ratio has shot up dramatically in the past few days due to not meeting expected quotas on Sunday and Monday. There are two papers I really must have done by the fourth, that are as of yet simply good ideas and fragile outlines. The acceptance system is very strange to me. Her Mistress the Professor will only accept one paper at a time... but what is a time? Could I turn one in during class, then rush home an email her another? This will soon be tested as there are not nearly enough days left to be meek. I don't care to inherit the earth - I need to pass!

Honestly I had this class in the bag a few months ago. It was fun. I was living the high life, turning papers in early, getting them returned with minimal revisions, actually enjoying the assignments as they came to us. Fucking wonderful. This college thing was shaping up to be a fucking piece of cake.

...Until the Bacchae and pulling out my hair, and getting into character, and not having a clue what I was doing, and dating when I shouldn't be, and being a professional, and not having enough sex, and getting good reviews, but not any sleep... Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming all this on the big bad college theatre machine that chews up hard working young girls and spits out nudey-modelin, drug-takin divas. Not in the slightest. The Manson Girls were completely in the wrong, but wasn't Manson himself a little bit responsible too?

At this point I should digress, but never fear dear readers I wont. And another thing: What the hell is this workshop style class shit? I welcome the idea in theory, but in principle all I really want is two more hours in my pajamas. Like a baby. Hmm I must sound awfully immature and childlike at this point. It's ok you can be honest with me. I might cry and throw something at the computer screen, but that's ok... Really it is... I'm gonna go take another nap.

The Fourth: Self Lovin'

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, was quite a party. Pies, puddings, casseroles, mashes, 'n' salads all graced my plate ...many times! The family graced my home, music graced our ears, and even a (very) little bit of whiskey graced my lips. For ten hours I lived it up with the people I cherish most in the world but see more seldom than the postman. A strange experience to say the least.
Today, Black Friday, was a time to sit, to be quiet, and to read. There is a history test Monday on the Civil War and, until this morning, a thick layer of dust on my textbook. Weary-eyed, tired and filled with pounds of food I was not a pretty sight to behold. So I turned to my new favorite remedy...
Let me start by saying my father is a chemist. I grew up watching him mix substances I wasn't allowed to touch with names I couldn't pronounce. I remember sneaking off to the kitchen, getting out anything I could reach from the cabinets and reproducing all those experiments on my own. It's stuck with me and to this day few things are comparable to the joy of mixing up strange potions with stuff in the fridge.
A few spoons of Malt-O-Meal, an equal amount of granulated sugar, a spoonful of coffee grounds a dash of milk and swish of vanilla extract - TaDa! A body scrub that smells like a latte and feels expensive. I heard once that a dip in the sea is good for the skin. In goes a cup of salt to my bath. Somewhere I read a palm full of olive oil does hair good; I do that too and when I'm out I use the left over sour cream for the salad dressing to slather on my face!
Pampering yourself is divine. Really I try to meditate while scrubbing off dead layers of skin and getting the dirt from my toenails. Your body is your temple, your center, the one thing you can't take off. If you loose your mind body connection everything else suffers. In the past few months I've gained a new respect for taking time out to reconnect with yourself through your body. The Bacchae no doubt is the reason for this shift in perspective. I'm not one to be religious; I haven't been in years and years. To fulfil the demands of the role I absolutely had to find the spiritual side of my life, and there it be. Respect for one's mind is a thinking thing, naturally, but respect for one's body requires an abandonment of the sensible and a surrender to the sensual, much like religion. [wow what a convoluted sentence...] All of that is probably really simple for spiritual people to understand. It's in the definition of spiritual. I'm getting there...
I'm glad to have had the opportunity to feel these things and to find a fun way to get there. My hair smells awesome.

The First

Let's get this straight, I'm only doing this because I have to. I've tried journaling before with hopes of relieving my internal monologue, to find it only encourages it. If I could get away with faking this project maybe I would. Now, on to the grueling self-indulgence...

Everyday is a new day. You can tell yourself that, but to what affect? Will you rise earlier and make pancakes in honor of this fresh dawn, or rush off to chores left undone by the end of the last "new day"? Will you skip class to walk by the river, pick flowers, make eyes at an interesting stranger, or what have you? Perhaps, you'll simply go to class and focus really fucking hard.
As this new day closes I worry I've made the wrong choices. I rose early from disturbing dreams to curse my mother and the cold. I made breakfast slow and patiently. Moving from the TV to the kitchen to the TV eating as I went. I watched Saturday morning cartoons, sipped coffee in the garden, drove to rehearsal and nearly wrecked several times. I meditated, played, forgot my lines, and wore myself out. When I cried the tears weren't of me, but came from me. It was the fear of failure seeping out to settle just a little farther away. I drug myself to the car, came home, and made dinner slow and patiently. I moved from the TV to the kitchen to the TV to the computer eating as I went, listlessly. I came to rest here three and a half hours left and counting. Exciting? No.
I shouldn't punish myself at so soon a juncture for I do not know how I live, nor how I should be living. The frame of reference is as of yet too small to make comparisons. Answers lie in the future, and I eagerly await a brand new day.

[Edt. Is this enough? Fingers crossed!]