Stuff in 2007: As if anyone cares.

I can't remember seeing any incredible movies in 2007. Yes they were there, but no, I didn't see them. The most fun I had at the movies this year was:

Knocked Up
Lars and the Real Girl

Other than that, I can't remember. Oh wait! I did see:

The Evening

and I enjoyed that. It didn't break a whole lot of new ground, but it was very watchable.

I also need to add The Darjeeling Limited. I can't seem to dislike anything Wes Anderson does. He's the Marc Jacobs of film, and they do indeed hang out. They and Sofia Coppola are like the holy trinity of cool.

Everything else, including Sweeny Todd, will have to wait for DVD. *Update -- I saw Sweeny Todd, and I really liked it. I didn't love it, I thought Depp was a little too all over the place, especially emotionally, and it didn't help that his look was so similar to Edward Scissorhands. I think that if Depp gets an award for this film, it will only be the replacement award for his role as Scissorhands, because the innocence he created with that role far outshines the brooding Todd, who doesn't really know what he wants. He wasn't evil enough for me, it seems. I haven't seen any other version of Todd, but it seems like Depp couldn't get a grasp on overwrought vs. blind rage. There were several funny moments, but I think the real star of this film, the real shiner, is Helena Bonham Carter. She fully embraces the role of...the meat pie maker, Mrs. Little? Or whatever her name is in the film. I usually love Depp, but he just didn't give it his all. There was something lacking, but it is hard to pinpoint. I think that he is just so sexy and enjoyable to watch that maybe Burton didn't catch the unevenness. It could also be an editing thing. I don't claim to be an expert. I'd like to see it again. Yes, it was bloody. But it was really fake, like 70s low budget horror.

I did see some good concerts in 2007, my favorite being:

Tori Amos: Back to back shows at the Grove in Anaheim and the Nokia theater reminded me that this is my favorite performer. For this tour Tori came out in different costumes representing different aspects of the female psyche, and for L.A. she showed up twice as the character Pip, who represents dark energy in the universe. I had my own dark experience on night one, when a small but agresive girl threw a full cup of beer on me, and then ran away, after I informed her and her large drunk boyfriend that I didn't appreciate them attempting to shove me out of the way 15 minutes into the set. That was probably a bad choice on my part, imagining that I was going to be able to reason with drunk people why their behavior irked me. So that boyfriend tried to get in my face, and I removed him from my immediate area with my hand around his throat. He eventually left, defeated and abandoned by his drink-tossing friend. So I like that this night has a story. The next night was superior, in that we had seats and were comfortable and not confronted by drunk rabble rousers. Tori Amos is a virtuoso, and when she takes the stage, my heart begins to hurt. It's a very intense experience.

Travis: I hadn't seen this band ever, although I have been a fan for a long time. I had a great time, and they were so fun!

KCRW's Evening Becomes Eclectic: This night was magical! Cold War Kids, The Shins, Lily Allen, Rodrigo y Gabriella...everyone was just great, and I really enjoyed this evening.

Me: hahahahahhhhahahaha.

Morrissey: He didn't disappoint. The whining was fabulous, as was Jack the Ripper, the Loop, Disappointed, The Queen is Dead, and other Smiths and Morrissey classics.

So it wasn't the most packed year, but there were some great ones in there. There wasn't a lot of new music that I thought was mind blowing, but I did like:

Band of Horses -- Cease to Begin
Ryan Adams -- Easy Tiger

I bought other music...but older.

This year was unusual. I had a "good" time, got hellishly sick, took a trip around America, went to Mexico, grew out my natural hair color (haven't seen it this grown out in..14 years!!!!), and almost got straight As, and bonded with Moby-Dick. Cheers to next year, and hope to see you there.

Spit it out. No wait...

So my one of my best friends had a baby in November, and Todd and I have been visiting her and her husband and the kids in Valley Center. Valley Center is out past Escondido, but before the animal park. Acres and acres of land that was mostly avacado groves is now mostly homes, and some trees remain. My friend opted to keep the trees on her property, and she has the best Hass avacados that never have brown spots or black flecks or those gross fibers. For the past couple of days I've been carrying her baby around, and I've been thrown up on several times. I'm not inclined to say "spit up," because babies can't spit, and it's not spit, it's milk, it's BREAST milk, and it's vomit. It's warm; it's sometimes a little coagulated; it's baby vomit. No, there's no heaving or blurghghghghgh noises, but it's not spit. I still like holding the baby, but babies need a little puke bucket around their necks or something.

While I was on my way down to their house I found out I got accepted at Cal State Dominguez Hills, so I was pretty excited about that. Now I have a definite future and not one obscured by admissions haze. Now to just get it right, and make sure I don't waste another semester. I'm revising my Moby-Dick essay, which is fun, but work. However, I should be able to go to the library on a real university campus now, which will help enormously.

I'm going to miss you people. I want to have a party, and I give really good fun parties, but it's after the holidays, and most people are partied out, at least I think, or holed-up with Oscar-worthy movies, or entertaining their conservative parents, or maybe playing Joseph at the local nativity, or maybe living down the street from me and I don't know what. Nah, Brandon is not old enough to play Joseph. Maybe he'll play a really pale Magi.

We'll try maybe for spring break. That way you'll have missed me some, and may be ready to down some cocktails during the mid-semester doldrums. I'll have stories to tell, from my Compton campus, I'm sure.

I'm tempted to start making 2007 lists, but somehow, it just doesn't seem right. This year ends with a whimper.

Pondering the Current State of American Fiction

On my trip to Cancun, I of course took along a couple of novels to catch up on some reading. I brought Snow Falling on Cedars, a bestseller, and The Sea, a novel by one of my favorite writers, John Banville. I started the American novel first, and for the second time (the first being The Time Traveler's Wife) I am underwhelmed and a little miffed. Snow was a best-seller; I remember a time when this book was all over the Barnes and Noble crowd's lips, and no one could get enough of it. I suppose several people were somewhat clueless about the Japanese concentration camps of WWII -- the camps that were in America, and this book served to tell a kind of story about the camps, although they weren't the focus of the story, and really didn't illuminate the experience.

It is not that I didn't like the book. Well, maybe I didn't like it. I can't think of anything I particularly liked about it, unless you count thinking of Ethan Hawke as the character Ishmael counts, because I did remember him playing a character in the film adaptation, and thinking of Ethan Hawke is enjoyable, for reasons I can't really relate. He's not my favorite actor, but I did rather enjoy the Sunrise/Sunset movies, and I liked Gattaca and Great Expectations, although I think it is that I relate to him, more than admire him. But back to the book. The romantic lead was named Ishmael, and he was missing a limb, an arm. A homosexual relationship was flirted with, but not state explicitly, and I would venture that such was not good writing or suggestive writing, as other sexuality was stated with matter of fact openness. All of the women in the novel were mysterious, and difficult to fathom. Fishing was the main source of income, and death occurs on boat. Moby-Dick was brought up in the book outrageously, trying to force irony on to a blatently derivative plot and character layout. Other classical works of literature were referenced, either directly or indirectly, and the last words of the book were in effect a direct rip off of the qoute that has been on Blythe's myspace forever, "The heart of another is dark forest always," or something like that; the end of Snow saying something like,"the heart of the ones we love are as mysterious as dark forests..." I hate reading something and then wanting to repossess all the time spent reading.

So I'm back to David Foster Wallace; I'm' going to read Infinite Jest again, ro reclaim my sanity and see what I can get out of it after not reading it for about ten years.

Then, we'll talk about reclaiming American Fiction.

La mala oveja vuelve de Cacun.

I know that a vacation to Cancun, the snake nest, the strip of resorts and hotels, only different from a one sided Las Vegas because gambling is not legal in QROO, doesn't sound especially cool, or even all that relaxing, yet, I had a good time. I like seeing the ruins, and this time we journeyed to Talum, the blue walled Mayan village/city on the cliff, where the elite of the population lived within walls, quite fresh for oh so long ago. These people were incredible. That much has been documented. And as much as I sort of dislike having to ride in a bus on a tour, I do love to get to see this kind of stuff. It's nice. The Caribbean ocean is so beautiful, and snorkeling is so fun. At one of the Palace Resorts we visited there were animal sanctuaries, and we saw some monkeys and cats, as well as some deer and turtles, and even crocodiles. Monkeys are so silly. A friend in our large extended family group casually mentioned that monkeys can rape you, and for the rest of the trip he couldn't distance himself from constant harassment concerning his ape-rape phobia, as we would creep up behind him and make monkey noises, because nothing is funnier than a man afraid of rape by monkey. The trip was good: no puking, no blackouts, no fighting, and no major injuries. Just an almost death by bad buffet food, but we made it home in time.

This little trip was over far too fast, and it's back to end of semester business right away. I hope everyone is getting their grading in, and that their semesters were okay. I know Blythe was put off by her drop rate, and I hope everyone makes up for it in the Spring. It's still iffy where I'm headed, so I plan to get that figured out next week.

In other news, back to back Tori Amos shows this weekend! I'm very excited and can't wait to see her again. She's my favorite. This will be something like my twentieth time seeing her perform. She is so talented. It should be a blast.

You better think twice, you better do right by me.

As the lights from landing and embarking aeroplanes wink at me from sixteen floors, I imagine that it is always nice to be either beginning or ending some sort of journey, and how physical and metaphysical jaunts are similar. Tyler Durden is about to commit suicide (or the other guy murder; depends on how you look at it), in the beginning of Fight Club, and probably scores of other stories begin with the ending and/or vice versa.

I have wanted to do something wonderful for my beloved instructors before transfer, and I think it is a good idea, this having a celebration of both the beginning and the end, with those that have not only facilitated my education, but also done that extraordinary thing: believed in me;f had faith in that which I was not aware existed. I thank you, and will hopefully get to share with you a roasted chicken, of which I am most fond of making, and hopefully you are fond of eating, or something.

I think I'm gonna be sad, I think it's today, yeh. The girl that driving me mad, is going away, yeh. She's got a ticket to ride, and she don't care.

So I've decided to write about Moby Dick.

Daunting. Overwhelming. Infuriating. Fascinating.

Concerning writing the paper there are several challenges I think I am sure I will face. This kind of thinking is along the lines of there are things I know, things I don't know, and things I don't know I don't know.

Among the things I know is, this is a long book, and almost every morsel of it is useful for an argument. I hope I allow myself enough time to write a paper I can really stand by. This is a research paper, and I borrowed five books from the library to help. So far, so good. Although when you read essays at a graduate and post graduate level, terms sometimes sound confusing and pretentious and confounding and intended to confuse. Malicious, I suppose. But if I keep google handy I will probably be okay.

Tangents. I love to go on tangents. Focus. I know the structure of an essay, but with literary criticism it's so easy to want to expound on some aspect of the text that is so juicy, and with Moby Dick, that seems far too easy a trap to fall into. I've got to really use my noodle on this one. Really push the limits of what I'm able to wrap my mind around and tell you about. I've got to go on my own sort of journey in writing about this book.

I hope it ends well. I cannot give up, and just write about slavery. I won't do it! I'll write about desire, and hopefully come up with a thesis that inspires warm fuzzy feelings in the hearts of my readers. The book is so tricky; it dares the reader to come up with a thesis, but once that is accomplished, the evidence is ample.

Movie Break

I think the next three movies that are in my que are John Huston movies. I'm leaning toward him as my favorite American Director. He's slightly ahead of Wes Anderson, who loses simply because he hasn't filmed as many movies as Huston; on a side note it is of note that Anderson uses Angelica Huston in his movies. The Darjeeling Limited was great. I feel almost as good about it as the Royal Tenenbaums. Well, that might be pushing it. But I do want to see it again. I also love Sofia Coppola's work, but she too has yet to put even five films under her belt. I really loved Marie Antionette. But when I browse through Huston's titles, I can't believe I never made the connection.

The African Queen
Chinatown
The Maltese Falcon
The Misfits
The Man Who Would Be King
Moby Dick
The Night of the Igauna

I really like what Houston was able to pull from Bogart, Ava Gardener, and Gregory Peck. I never thought I could get emotional about anything that Clark Gable does, but his performance in The Misfits disturbed me for days. Although many may feel that Bogart's performance in Casablanca was his finest, but I really remember his best for African Queen. I dont think that I'm an expert -- I just love movies, and the image of a cranky Bogie floating down a river, love-hating Katherine Hepburn sticks. I think the emotion in that movie seriously rivals that of Rick in Casablanca. The first time I saw Iguana I couldn't believe the issues that were raised in this film -- until I realised that it was a Willams play. This of course leads me to a conclusion I came to a while ago, that I also love Elia Kazan, who is responsible for:

Streetcar Named Desire
On the Waterfront
East of Eden
Baby Doll
The Last Tycoon

I mean THAT is a list.

I think Hitchcock's list is also overwhelming. I love North By Northwest.

I found out that you can get a package on Netflix where you get like, 40 movies at a time. Hmm. Anything to get out of writing this novel. I was so enthused for National Novel Writing Month, and now I'm afraid I'm out of steam. Maybe watching some John Huston will inspire me to squeeze out some paragraphs.

Spermcetti -- With Meatballs, Please

Actually, I'm not sure if Melville ever gets to whale meatballs, either as a dish or location. It is interesting, though, that the sperm whale is called such becuase of the vast amounts of spermaceti in its head, and they called it spermaceti, that is, sperm of the whale, because it was originally thought that it was whale sperm, or whale spawn, that is, eggs.

My point? Ha. Well, I have to say that Melville's work reads as a thoroughly provacative work discussing and laboring over male sexuality. I couldn't possibly be the first to have this reation, but the work does scream phallocentrism to me in the worst way. I don't know that Melville knows what his argument is. I know the interaction and descriptions of the interaction between Ishamel and Queequeg are so giggle worthy, but I don't think the whole reason for their closeness is to reveal male sexuality as played out between males so much as the capacity for males to have a closeness, but the dread or the threat of homosexuality that it arouses in the reader is Melville's trap -- like, see! I knew you would go there with your judgemental mind! It's hard to me to make sense of what I feel is an impression that Melville constantly sets you up to reveal how your reaction to the novel is precisely what is wrong with society. I don't know if I think that Ishmael and Queequeg's relationship is supposed to expose the sexual nature of men in a ranked order, free from the immediate influence of women, or if it's to show that Queequeg is someone to revere, not to abhor, for his "savage" nature. But the depictions of the whale hunt, and the conversations about the whale, and there seem to be so many phallic references, that the work becomes a sort of portrait of a man struggling with desire. I have only read Bartleby and only skimmed Benito Serino (sorry Blythe), and of course, per our drawn out banter about Bartleby, I think that where Hawthorne was obsessed with the outward manifestations and restrictions on desire, Melville appears to be drowning in desire, shaken by its very existence within himself. Perhaps Melville feared that his penis was the very matirix of his desire, and all subsequent actions were controlled by it. Ahab is maimed, and although it is a leg, we, okay, me, suggested that he lost his OTHER leg as well. The loss of his member has resulted in a quashed lust for life, he only thinks of the whale, his ability to enjoy life at all lost with his penis. The knowledge of this, and the search for meaning either within this notion or outside of this notion, makes Ishmael an outcast, and causes him existential pain.

It's the most sense I can make out of the novel as a whole.

The Beginning of the End

Today I looked at the deadlines for Cal States, and the deadline for application for Cal State Long Beach was August 31. So. I applied at Cal State Dominguez Hills. I know I've been a little ambivalent about going to University, and it's true, I'm not really concerned where I get my Bachelor's from, truth be told, I really don't care. At least, if I wanted to go to Long Beach, it's not the end of things if I go to Dominguez Hills. At least they are accepting applications. I mean, should I really be more concerned with this? Isn't a BA kind of general thing to get? I can't afford to go a private University, simply because I can afford to, and I won't shell out all this money to learn the same material, just so the visiting speaker can be someone like the President of Iran and I get a ticket. I mean, if I really cared about things like that, I wouldn't be at Fullerton, right? And look what I would have missed. I would have missed out on all you fabulous people. Plus, I might be able to get my other degree there, African American studies, or they might call it Afro-Ethnic studies, at the same time. That would be great. And I may see if I can apply for the Fall 2008 term at Long Beach, and only go for one semester at Dominguez Hills. I'm not sure how that works, but I figure it might because it's all the same Cal State system.

So I applied. It's exciting, but scary. Since every semester at Fullerton got better and better, with this being my favorite so far, I'm sad to go. Of course I'll KIT, but there will be a closeness, an intamacy, that is lost. I've loved being a part of your lives, in moments so fleeting but ever meaningful. I've been one of thousands of faces for you, but you are part of a select few that I will remember forever.

Lars and the Real Girl

Ryan Gosling is kind of getting the Edward Norton treatment. "The best actor of our time..." "Plays sociopaths with great ease and delicate care..." I feel so bad for actors, good actors, when they get this kind of treatment from lazy journalists. The article I read most recently about Gosling was in GQ, and I almost gagged while reading it. I don't know what's happened to journalism and/or men's magazines. The article was crap: a drug out bio padded with flattery and meaningless details about the setting of the interview itself. The only part of the interview that was interesting was this fable Gosling wove about his ascent to success which invovled a "Move," a dance move which he started performing at seven which was highly sexual and hurtled him toward stardom. It was amusing, and played a great joke on his success, especially with The Notebook, which had/has women from all over creation dreaming about his sad eyes and true love, and probably wanting a piece of that action that had his love interest blurt after sex -- that was what I was missing this whole time? It was a nice movie, and I bawled like a baby, I admit, but that is all. Gosling's story about his overtly sexual "Move" was a slap in the face to this journalist who was drooling all over him as a wunderkind, giving him all sorts of inappropriate attention and acceptance. Yes, Gosling's done really well. I haven't seen The Believer yet, but it appears that Gosling did it justice. His turn in Half Nelson was really good. I recommend that movie to anyone who wants to make a difference in the world but feels trapped, not only by the mob of inactive and unthinking people in this country, but also by our own inadequacies and compulsions to both self-comfort and self-destruct. A pretty time worn idea for a film, but Gosling translates the script in a refreshingly modern way. But that's it. He's not a god. He's not finished with his body of work, so any reference to him being the best actor of our time is premature and stupid. This journalist was going along with everything Gosling was saying, everything about authenticity and how the media machine is not really desireable, and how rediculous celebrity is, while titalating the reader with what Gosling eats, how he eats it, what he says to the waitress, his angelic face, and how Gosling and the journalist hung out after the interview and sped off into the night together. I could have barfed, really.

But I'm not really sure what I want from an actor. What do I want him to talk about? The characters, I guess. The experience of acting. An analysis of character and film. But they aren't really experts, are they? They aren't analysts, they're actors. I'm still so dissatisfied with the interview. Maybe it's because I adore what Larry King said about interviewing -- that the interviewer should never say "I" at any point. The interview is NOT about the interviewer. Now with that said, I don't want to know what Gosling eats, unless it's relevant to a character or a film, or unless Gosling for some strange reason wants me to know. I don't want extensive commentary on where they eat, because I don't really care. I don't want this journalists impression of Gosling or the interview -- I just want the facts. I don't want a thick filter on what happened. And I don't want to know about some hack journalist and how he got to hang out with the celebrity. Aside from the facts about Gosling's life, the reader could have inserted any other young actor out there into this piece. That makes it really crappy journalism, if you ask me.

With that rant out of the way, I saw Lars and the Real Girl, which stars Ryan Gosling as an emotionally repressed young man unable to relate to people around him, even when he wants to do so. He buys a Real Doll, a silcone mold of a woman that is anatomically correct, and proceeds to present her to the world around him, his family and small town, as a living woman from Brazil, who is an orphan missionary, bound to a wheelchair. Of course some expected antics ensue, but basically after the town psychologist decides that Lars' delusion is harmless, everyone who cares for him goes along with it.

This film was really great. Gosling was superb. He wasn't charming or romantic or cute. He was tragic, and hopeful, and effective. The supporting cast worked. But Gosling's performance was the most moving and relateable.

There are moments in the film that were so wonderfully painful. In a scene where Lars takes Bianca to an office party, he ends up dancing with her (as many of the characters at the party are already well acquainted with Bianca, and have brought her out on the dance floor). He looks comical at first as the camera pans to Lars on the floor, music blaring, people close to him -- he is sawying back and forth with one hand in a loose fist and held up in a dance fashion, eyes screwed shut, but as the camera stays with the image, with Bianca hinted upon in the far right corner, you realise that this is very painful for Lars. Lars doesn't like loud music, it hurts his ears. Lars doesn't like people close to him, and avoids contact, because it hurts his skin. Lars sits in the back of the church, avoiding most conversation -- dancing in a crowd would be emotionally painful for him. But he LOVES Bianca, and is so HAPPY to be dancing WITH HER. The happiness he is experiencing is so painful, but he doesn't run from the pain, he embraces it, and by paying that price, he earns happiness. After you are done smiling at his goofy dance, you realise that he is growing, and you see how his delusion, however uncomfortable it makes us, is his vehicle to happiness. But that is cliche, is it not? Isn't this an age-old tale? Sure. But Gosling is so poignant and so believeable, the tale is fresh and emotion is stirred anew. Feeling Lars' pain is pivotal to this movie working, and it is the actor's repsonsibility to provide that communication, which Gosling does well.

This does not make me want to eat dinner with Gosling, or be his friend, or have rainy, drippy sex with him in a restored antebellum mansion. It makes me want to see him act more, again, for a long time. I would have liked to hear him comment on the complexity of the character, how he arrived at the physical charateristics of Lars, as the character is largely physical, and must have taken immense discipline to create. I would like to hear him comment on the experience of translating pain through a characters personality. I would like a little humanity -- these journalists are such schmucks, mucking up opportunity to bring some of the actor's true essence to a piece.

So go see Lars and the Real Girl, and don't read GQ.

National Novel Writing Month

Last year, Brandon and I and quite a few others attempted to do this. We did it around February, but this time I think I will go with the Nation and write in November. I think you have to write like, three thousand words a day.

Last time, I didn't make the number, nor did I write a novel, per se. I wrote a lot, though, and I really cherish the pressure that the NaNoWriMo places upon my sensibilities. Who knows, at the end of this attempt I may have something to work with. I'm just such a reader. But this time I may also take someone else's idea and run with it. Not exactly original, but it's a start. It's not a truly original idea, anyway, so it's not that dishonest.

At the moment a magenta sun is setting into what looks like a grey dust sky. It's a little "The Morning After" looking. Fires are no good, but they are a fact of life. I always wonder, if I had three minutes to gather my things, what would I grab? Laptop, box of original writing, photos maybe. (this is after the cats, of course) But three minutes is not a lot of time. Losing your home in America is very serious. So much of our life is still so wrapped up in our homes, and even more so because we live in Southern California.

We start reading Moby Dick this week, children! I already read it half way, so I'm starting over with a pencil in hand. Plus, I'm drafting my paper for American Lit. Something about Dimmesdale and Chillingsworth being at least romantically if not sexually invollved with eachother, and this being why neither really wants Hester. I'm not sure what the arguement is yet, but I'm close.

Crispin Glover was such a cute Bartleby.

I really like the story. I do. Yet, I'm puzzled, as I was/am with Hawthorne. I don't know what the author is really saying. I know that Melville did try to put a lot of his own personal "code" in his work -- and I think Hawthorne was also feeling out the notion of a "code" in Letter and Goodman Brown and the Minister's Veil. I think Melville's characters are better -- more fleshed out, more interesting in their self torture, and infinitely easier to identify with.

With Bartleby, it seems like Melville is toying with us. Does Bartleby really exist? Is he a metaphor for depression? Of course, almost all literature for me is about depression or psychosis or suicide. But I can't imagine that Bartleby is supposed to be real. And by real, I mean a character on par with Turkey, Ginger-Nut, or Nipper. Nipper is almost my favorite character in the book! I loved the descriptions of him trying to get his desk right, and his sudden jostling of it out of nowhere. I could almost feel that character in my veins. And if we are supposed to identify with the narrator, what does that say about us? (At least that is what Blythe asks.) What would we do with a guy like Bartleby? What do we do with a guy like him. What do I do? Well, if a certain unnamed young girl in our class who enunciates like it's a paying gig, and is, apparently, a Nazarite (at least from the waist down), reminds of Bartleby, well then, I suppose I react by looking at her a little sideways and asking, can this actually be authentic? See, Bartleby was authentic, a real original. I almost like him. The girl? We're a long ways from like.

I have to go back to the part in Bartleby where the narrator goes through his strange employee's desk. The most interesting part is where he is reaching into the far recesses of the desk. This imagery really reminded me of reaching into the far corners of the mind, and not understanding what you come up against.

Bartleby is sort of a hero. He stands his ground. He won't back down. All else that we know about him is what is projected onto him by the narrator. Is Bartleby really lonely? Is he really tortured? Is he even hungry? He is really never believed, nor accepted for who he is. He is not exactly an outcast, but he stands outside of society. He fits in, almost too well, so then he stands out, when he renegs on what makes him fit in. What if all of us just pulled a Bartleby and reneged on everything that makes us keep the machine running? What's so great about Bartleby is that he doesn't take the opposite position, or pursue another course, he just ceases to do what is asked of him, what he is used to doing. There is a passage on passive resistance, and maybe this is really Melville's whole point, that if more people would pull a Bartleby the whole capitalist system would crumble, and that we have more power in saying no stoically than in saying no holding a machine gun, which is really just a new kind of yes. Bartleby wins, doesn't he? Doesn't he get what he wants? I envy Bart, really. I also wish I could stick to his diet.

The Scarlet Letter

Of all the anthologies that I have utilized as a student of literature, none of the peices have been so scribbled on as The Scarlet Letter. Every page read so far has underlining and notes. This work is like zooming in on earth from outer space, finidng a planet, then finding a land mass, then a country, then a county, then a city, then a neighborhood, then a house, then a room, then a person, then a face, then a cheek, then a cell, then a molecule in a cell, and then an atom within a molecule. It's that general to personal, and it's that layered. The work says lots of things about lots of things. I'm almost convinced that this novel is the Winchester mansion of literature, all hidden passages and stairs leading up to nowhere, disjointed wings, and, of course, ghosts.

One of Hawthore's arguments in Letter seems to be that of history repeating. When he begins the Letter with a depiction of the prison door, he likens the door to any medieval prison door you are likely to find in England. It probably suffices to say that there are several references to the Old World in the Letter, and that Hawthorne noticed that the ideals of the New World found in historical documents were a source of endless irony in lieu of their practical outcome. This failure to truly change the nature of society by picking it up and plopping it down across an ocean was a great vehicle for Hawthorne -- especially since he was invovled in the failure of a Trancendentalist commune. I mean, those were some people with some IDEAS on how to live, and then couldn't make it happen, for whatever reasons, I'm not sure. I am pretty sure that Hawthorne watched everyone in that commune like the eagle he so pitilessly describes in the opening of the Custom House, just waiting for an opportunity to thrust a talon into someone's bubble and burst it mercilessly.

I think a nice, broad, counry-like assumption about Hawthorne is that he feels mankind is not a trustworthy creature. Everyone in the novel so far can only be relied on to look out for themselves and do whatever it takes to further their own interests. Well, maybe not Pearl. But I haven't read the whole novel, yet. Even the narrator seems to be laughing at us reading the novel so carefully the whole time. Obviously man is a creature of secrets, storytellers included. Hawthorne is so obsessed with secrets I was sure that he was a Mason. And with the Di Vinci Code still lingering in the outer edges of my short term memory, I keep seeing these references to Pearl as a Rose, and the smbol of a Rose, and I can't help but associate this book with the Magdalene and the sacred feminine.

Also, sometimes I begin to think that the infamous badge Hester wears is not there at all. That it is simply a metaphor for how enforcing the concept of sin makes a human being feel and how it affects their role in society. What if the letter is not there at all, but this is how Hester sees herself, and perhaps she is hiding the child? The town may see her as an outsider, but all of the extreme ostracizing is a figment of her imagination. For this could very well be how witches were created out of ordinary women; preach such abandonment from the pulpit, then the women in the audience could tranform into creatures totally aliented from God with a thriving hatred for society.

Of course the big bad men in authority are truly sadistics. The depiction of the governor's house, and it's strict adherence to the Old World's standards of status, made me think that just as the architecture and the armor, and the other luxuries of the house were there to comfort these men in the New World, the sin which they have so decorously lavished upon Hester is a form of luxury taken with them from the Old World -- what they are doing to Hester is a luxury, a comfort, to their souls.
Speaking of these Governor's and Ministers, there is a passage that I just can't get over. It is concerning "good olf Minister Wilson." This is when he examines Pearl to see whether or not she is being brought up religiously.

"The old minister seated himself in an arm-chair, and made an effort to draw Pearl betwixt his knees. But the child...escaped."

Does this sound perhaps a bit sexual? It is far more sexual than when the child goes to over to Dimmesdale and lays her cheek on his hand, and he kisses her brow. I can't get over the old minister taking the child between his legs. I mean, what else is there for man to have between his legs but, you know? I think it's highly provacative. But I might be jaded from the priest scandals. Still, it's as if they want the child in order to molest it.

Well, that's as far as I am in the novel, so the rest will have to wait.

Summer dreams, make me feel fine...

I miss my summer road trip.

I shall return to Memphis and Rowan Oak.

I am happy.

I am ready to go to University.

Dig it.

Quoth the raven, "Nevermind."

I'm so glad to be better. A strange illness, this pneumonia was. I still have pain in my lungs when I take a very deep breath, and do you know, I still have some soreness where I got those shots. It really messes with you, on so many levels, too. You stay at home for a month, and you get cabin fever. You finally get to go out, and you're exhausted. You finally get back to a routine that you desperately missed, and then, bang! you miss not just having nothing to do but veg. It's defeating. But papers won't write themselves, much, and there's several good films to see. Life has to resume.

I'm still tired though, and I can't talk for very long without starting to sound like an eldery Italian man. That's a relief, I'm sure, to many.

Oh, and nightmares! I don't know anyone who dreams like I do. Anyone? I have, like, at least three lucid dreams a week. No wonder I'm tired.

Life: Yes! I'm still practicing the guitar. Eight Days a Week sounds nice! My fingers are cracking again, but it's good, so maybe it's like they're crackalacking!

And reading: Yes! Let's talk about Poe. I know what you're thinking, the girl who used to wear black lipstick is going to write about Poe...yawn. No! Well, yes, I did try to be a goth, but man, I really couldn't pull it off. I looked like an idiot, but who didn't -- the 90s were so who cares and no middle ground and cute is even not cute, and I just can't believe I thought I looked good. Thanks, Courtney Love.

Edgar Allen Poe appeals to me on all kinds of Gorey levels. I love his psuedo-mystic-ness. He's like the gypsy woman who is all smoke and mirrors and is really stealing your wallet while you're fascinated by visions of doom. Honestly, I can't follow much of his work. I've never read any Poe critics, but I can't imagine anyone can read his stories without mass confusion. But his poetry...ahhh. I love the madness and force of his poetry. The man has his way with image.

Let's do the Raven.

I love the beginning of this poem. He establishes such a repore with the audience -- comfy in a chair at night, reading, nodding off. Also -- the narrator is recalling this, like remembering a personal myth. Ohh, I like that -- Poe and the Personal Myth (MFA, please.)

Poe's poetry is so confessional. and the narrator of the raven is immediately your best friend. He (for the sake of continuity -- he) offers up a very personal piece of information -- that he is grieving -- and therefore leaves himself totally vulnerable. Plus, this character is wrought with anxiety -- he has to convince himself over and over that the tapping is real, and that the rustling of the curtains is ominous -- but that everything is okay, it's just a visitor. But, of course, it's not a visitor -- line 24 tells us that it is "darkness...and nothing more." Then he wispers "Lenore" and the whisper is echoed back somehow. Interestingly, "Lenore," the character that the narrator is presumably mourning, is only named this by angels, on earth, or "here," she has no name, "for evermore." I originally wondered at this, questioning whether or not the angels re-named her -- but after several rereads I imagine that the point is that it is only angels that converse with her, since she is is no longer in or of the earth. But what of this darkness? I wonder if, before this poem, the cliche of hearing a noise outside, then going to the door to investigate said noise, throwing open the door, and finding nothing but the night spread out before you, was even much of a concept? Poe doesn't say, "the night" though, does he. He says, the darkness. Way more sinister, way more villanesque, way more creepy.

What of the echo? This is a man who is waiting for a dead woman to come back to him. He is Heathcliff shouting "Haunt me!" although I think of Heathcliff as a big meanie, and Poe as a waif. Besides the point. The echo, I believe, is mental. I don't know about you good people, but the thought of hearing voices is probably one of the larger fears in my repertoire. So I have an idea of what hearing voices might be like, and I'm sure much of my idea stems from various episodes of the Twillight Zone, but whispers are right up there, and a murmur is quite terrifying. This is a grieving narrator who is really entertaining some schizophrenia -- but it is too indulged, the reader questions sanity, but so does the narrator, and someone, I tell you, is getting their wallet lifted.

And what is the falseness, the scam? It's lines like this, "fantastic terrors never felt before" and "dreams no mortal ever dared dream before." This is niave. He's trying to build up a tension so that we can prepare ourselves to see a bride-zombie, then be curiously surprised by a blackbird. Really? Really, E? So in comes this antcy raven, and he perches on a bust of Athena. So, who has a bust of Athena OVER their front door? (But that raises a question -- where is this room? if the door is opened, and there is only darkness, and the curtains (purple, no less) rustle oddly, where is this room? It could be anywhere, and there is at least a chair in it, and a fireplace, a door, a window, a bust, curtains, and books. I see it as this room that stands suspended in space, out of time.)

The sight of the raven almost kills the energy of the poem. Soon after the narrator acts all brought back down to earth, and jokes with the little birdie, asking its name. It's name is Nevermore. There's obviously a red flag when the narrator says that this word/Name has "little meaning...little relevancy." So many of Poe's characters are self-deceiving. They imagine they are doing no harm when they are committing atrocities, they see no consequence is behaving cruelly, and then they are confronted by some undeniable force that condemns them and seals their fate. Poe was quite a hopeless fellow. The narrator of The Raven is certainly punished for thinking that this bird's name is meaningless. Following his deduction of the raven and his quoth, the narrator expresses a backwards hope that the raven will take off, but the raven repeats, Nevermore. He imagines that the raven belongs to someone else -- some other tragic figure, but, sadly, no. The narrator finally decides that the raven is an oracle, but one who can only say Nevermore -- by coincidence or providence, so he asks the only questions that he doesn't have the answer to, if he shall ever be united with Lenore...and the raven tells him that he will
1. Never forget Lenore or be free of his memory of her.
2. Never be "cured".
3. Never reunite with Lenore.
plus, the raven adds that it will never leave the narrator. And there's doom in a nutshell. The narrator's soul is now permanently in residence inside the shadow of a hopeless (or just really slow moving and brainless parrotting) raven.

I think there is something pretty heavy going on here. The story is interesting enough. I think Blythe had us investiage Gnosticism and it's bearing on Poe and his poetry -- and there is something to the idea of merging male and female aspects of the psyche until they form a perfect union which results in a union with God. The raven can be seen as how the ego -- namely fear, inhibits one from ever experiencing such a union. So much of Poe's work is seen as the power of belief -- Ligeia, for example -- and how fear is the ultimate weakness and hinderance to enlightenment. Also the notion that the raven is lying is so Miltonian -- if the raven, overshadowing Athena, female wisdom, is Satan corrupting Eve, is the narrator going to give in to this deception? It doesn't look good. The raven is a great symbol for the corrupting domination of the sacred female. The narrator has succumbed to its influence, by giving up hope of Lenore. He wants to merge his spirit (sacred male) with Lenore's (sacred female) but since she isn't physically present, he has lost all hope.

Lest we all succumb to Nevermore! Dreadful!

Silver Lining Tarnished

So. I have been in my house for three weeks. Insistent on getting better, I haven't pushed things, haven't gone out of the house unneccesarily, and haven't even talked on the phone too much. I had a date with my friend to see a band last night that I was very excited about, and I figured I could afford the luxury of going out, because it was at a small venue and was very low key. But the night before last I started wheezing. I was up all night with awful wheezing and coughing that wouldn't let me sleep. Nyquil and codine let me sleep for about four hours, but that was it. I had a doctor's appointment on Friday, originally just a check up, and the man was so bummed at my status, "This just a check up! You supposed to be better! You have bronchial athsma, here, here are two shots in the behind and 5 more medicines." Inbetween gasping for air and coughing out crass little phleghem worms, I asked, "So this means that I can't go out tonight?" And he looked at me, "You already have tickets?" And I said yes, and he goes, "If you favorite band was playing tonight, I would say stay home." So that was that, and I tried not cry. Cabin fever is real, ya'll.

And those cortisone shots? Easy going in, plenty of cush, you know, but the medicine hurt like a beating. He also put me back on the massive antibiotic for ten more days, and a low dose of steroid, and serious(er?) cough medicine, and two inhalers. I feel like, I don't know, too many chemicals, chemical mouth.

Back to school Monday, which feels like getting to go to a Broadway show -- the lights! The people! The literature! I could have danced all night!

Thanks for being here through the illness. And while I don't recommend the pnemonia diet, I sure don't mind the extra pounds.

I will say it again, thanks, 2007. You make the medicine that makes the bad germs go away. Although if it wasn't 2007, I might have had to move to a more suppotive climate, like say, the French Rivera, a la Katherine Mansfield.

Isn't it annoying when...

You read a book, and you realise you've had this story in you -- but somehow this other person got a hold of characters and setting and details? I don't have this experience often, but recently I read the novel, The Time Traveler's Wife, and I kept thinking...I could have written this. Of course, I didn't write it, and haven't written anything like it in length and breadth, but I kept thinking, if only I wouldn't, gosh, I don't know, it's like I hover over myself, putting myself in the box like it's a punishment well deserved.

I think I should do the novel writing again in November, like we did last Feb(?). I get so frustrated, but I think it's good even to have an abundance of first draft writing to pull from. It's silly that I should fancy myself a writer, because I'm so easily overwhelmed. Writing gets so close to the nuttiestcase part of my being -- it's intimidating, of course, because I want to be only so very slightly a nutcase, not majorly nutcasey.

But I still have to try and try, because I can't keep reading these novels that were, seriously, in my head. I mean this novel didn't even try to deal with the science aspect of time travel -- it just flowed. I was a great novel, if a bit romantic. There were a lot of music references that I liked, and there were a lot of gender aspects that I liked analyzing. Anyway. They're making a movie.

In other news, my lungs feel better. I should be back at school next week, and I'll probably be very embaressed about the coughing. I just hope I don't fart.

Lady Sings the Blues

I normally hate it when people do this in blogs, but oh well.

Its quarter to three,
Theres no one in the place but you and me
So set em up joe
I got a little story I think you oughtta know

Were drinking my friend
To the end of a brief episode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

I know the routine
So put another nickel in the machine
Im feeling so bad
I hope you make the music dreary and sad

I could tell you a lot
But you gotta to be true to your code
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

Well, you'd never know it
But buddy Im a kind of poet
And Ive got a lot of things to say
And if Im gloomy, you just gotta listen to me
Till its all talked away

Well, thats how it goes
And joe I know youre gettin anxious to close
So thanks for the cheer
I hope you didnt mind
My bending your ear

But this torch that I found
Its gotta be drowned
Or it soon might explode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

I'm having them framed.

The xrays, that is. They look cool, and although you can sort of see my boobs, it's not as impressive as a good old bathing suit.

The man says that I am getting better. This Doc was SO proud that he was getting me better without going to the hospital. He was like, all eyebrows, and was like, yeah, yeah, you're getting better, you're coughing up more stuff, that's great! See you in a week.

So I may make it back to school next week. Maybe Wednesday.

I have some great ideas about new papers. Especially about Abram/Abraham. There is so much there. I'm ready to write that paper. I'll write the response paper, and see what Brandon thinks. I have a great paper in me about this -- but it's tough not to make it religious/theological. They're just characters. It's tough, but, I'll be okay.

And hey, how come there is no pneumonia awareness month with a ribbon? We should have a mucus green ribbon. Never forget the pneumonia!

Do you smoke? Have you been out of the country?

Man. I haven't been this sick since I was a teenager. When I get sick, I'm always a little thrown off, because I have a high tolerance for discomfort, so I'm like, well, I don't feel good, and my chest hurts, and I can't breathe...but I don't make a big deal, and I just want it to go away...but this time I really am sick. I had to buy this thing, called a Nebulizer, and I have to breathe in this medicine. It's kind of like smoking, I kind of feel like the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland when I use it. The Dr. (the second one so far, my regular guy Kaller sent me down the hall to this respitory specialist David) was asking me, do you smoke? And I'm like, No. And he's like, you don't smoke? And I'm like, No...sir? And then he felt my organs through my belly -- which is so strange. I mean, when someone feels your organs, someone that knows what they're doing -- it's an intense experience. It's like hey, that's my liver! Then, of course, while I'm waiting in the exam room, laying down on my paper pillow, I have to cough so hard that I fart! Todd looks at me, and I look at him, and then we just laugh. Being sick is funny sometimes.

Today, I woke up, took a shower, and went to the Dr, then went and got x rays, then went back to the doctor, then went to another Dr., then went to get blood drawn and other...specimens, plus a TB test, then went to Target to get my new prescriptions. I left home at about 9:30am, and didn't get home until 7pm. My poor, wonderful husband. He is an angel.

It's been a long time since I've heard a Doctor say, "If you feel worse, go to the emergency room immediately." Not since the days of mononucleosis have I even considered going to the hospital. Now listen, if I have tubercleosis, that is really going to suck. And also, I'm very grateful that I live in the 21st century and that I live in America, and that we have enough money to treat my pneumonia. I'm very lucky in my misfortune.

I don't know what I'm going to do about school. I can read and write, and email. There's hope!

It's Notta Tuma

But it is pneumonia. I go to the Dr. again tomorrow morning, and will prob need to get a blood scan. I wish they'd make that get well wand like in ST:The Next Generation, where Dr. Crusher would just lay you on the table and wave the wand over the affected area until all signs of infection dissapate. I'm feeling better, but I don't know if it's the Ibuprofen talking. I still have a fever -- so something's not going away.

You're Invited...

I'm sick, for the first time since we have lived in Long Beach. I overextended myself with entertaining family for the weekend, and in my weakened condition caught the illness that they were taking antiboitics for. My brothers family is often sick, and I'm not one of those people who "catch everything," so I wasn't worried. I should have been worried.

What day is it? Friday? Well, I started thinking clearly yesterday, as yesterday was the first day I didn't have a fever of 101 -- just 99. I lay for five nights with a fever that wouldn't quit. My fever simply wouldn't go down no matter if I took Tylenol or Motrin in thier highest strengths and doses -- I couldn't get it down from 102 to 100, but not below that. Then, because I have bronchitis, I was finding it really hard to breathe. So no sleep -- no relief with any kind of drugs, and that means I went to the doctor twice to get two different kinds of cough medicine that don't work, and an inhaler that seems to be giving me a sore throat, and an $80 antibiotic. All this and I still couldn't sleep. I finally took NyQuil at four o'clock this morning and guess what, I got a few hours in.

Of course, when I am sick things tend to fall apart around the house: laundry, vaccuuming, man-shoes pile up, of course my couchside table looks like a pharmacy...the maids forget to get called not to come, so they woke me up this morning -- no clean? Oh, no, not today, so sorry we didn't call...oh, is okay...and I feel like crap because they bring a lot of equipment all the way up the elevator, and that sucks, and my head feels like one of the worst hangovers, like a whiskey hangover, NO, like a Southern Comfort hangover, and this stupid illness has my nuerons all backwards and I feel like I have little ants on me and I look like a crazy person trying to find them.

Well, being as I'm sick, freaking stupid sick (oh and I had to go to the hospital to get an X-ray to make sure that I don't have pneumonia), I have been home watching movies On Demand when I can bring my self to want to pay attention. On Demand is a great, great service, and makes you a little scared to leave your house. So far, the most intersting movie I've watched is Waking Life, an animated movie about a boy who can't seem to wake up, but has continuing dream sequences in which he tries to become lucid, and other people talk about science and philosophy and the science of dreams and brain function and time and all these things that plague the big brains (and hearts, the little man cries!). It was well put together. Kind of gave me motion sickness though.

And let me tell you something that you don't know about yourself. When you say "siiiiiick," like it's a good thing -- I hate it. Because I am sick. And sick is awful and you are awful, you who say sick to mean you like it. What if you were just a honest person for once and said "I reeeeealllly liiiiiiike iiiiit." It would be a big step, wouldn't it? I know, those big-boy pants are so intimidating. I'll wait.

And my cats. Oy. They are in heaven, because I am home and can be slept with/on all day, but they're animals! I don't know, they're grossing me out right now.

I'm not in the best of spirits. But I don't have a bad spirit, like Saul! Are we up t Saul yet? No way! We haven't even read about Sampson yet. Are we going in chronological order? I miss school.

So, thanks for joining my pity party for a few minutes, I hope you had a nice laugh, and see you soon, and adopt my cats.

You're the Bestest

Well, my uncle told my mom that even though I was nervous, I handled myself well and, in his opinion, have "certainly, got it." He went on to explain that I never lost my presence, that I never lost the audience, and that their singing along, instead of talking amongst themselves, says a lot. I think he's half being nice 'cause he's my uncle, and maybe half right. I'm practicing Hey Jude for next year.

Meanwhile, the school year began! I'm taking Early American Literature with Mistress Blythe, and The Bible and Literature with Master Brandon, and I can't tell you how much fun it is. It's almost not like being in school at all, but getting to hang around these brilliant light bearers that speak of things which I am most fond.

In English 103, at 9:00am, two semesters ago, Brandon would walk in, kind of look at us like we were plotting his demise, and then lecture to us, and I'm not sure if it was the time of day, or unknown circumstances, but he was stressed, like we weren't going to get it, and his lack of faith was distressing, because there was nothing we could really do about it, but try our best to get it, and by our best I mean my best, and by try I mean talk a lot in class about nothing. But. This Bible as Literature Brandon has so much joy and faith and downright mirth oozing out of his soul for this subject that time whizzes by in this class, as if we were making things out of play dough, that's how fun it is. A beacon, no, a North Star of energy and happiness is this Brandon of Bible as Lit. Keep it up, brother, and you're going to have a regular congregation on your hands. (And I mean this as a great compliment, you are keeping it real, and steering us with a perfectly fluid fist of objectivity -- I'm just amazed at what a good teacher you are.)

Of course Blythe is a great, great teacher of literature. She has the most open mind of anyone I know. I start to feel like I've locked up all of my powers of reasoning when she lectures. I know so many are just staring there, blinking, like cartoons, but you make my mind bend. It's like, I actually feel my brain flexing. Then I think of Carrie and I hope I don't start moving desks around in your class with my mind. Okay, I hope I DO. But not really. So much power, so much responsibilty.

So thank you, oh excellent ones, for this semester of greatness. It's a great send off.

Not As Easy As It Seems

Well, I've been practicing my song, Stand By Me, for a few months now, and my worst fear concerning performing the song was that my chord changes would be sloppy and slow, but boy, was I in for a shock. The way the night goes, the showcase begins with mostly little kids. Some sing Twinkle Twinkle, some recite little ditties, some recite stuff they've actually created on their own. As the kids started taking their turns, and the moment of my performance grew imminent, I began to get nervous.

No sweat, I reasoned with myself. After a couple of adults went on, I figured it was now or never. So I stood up, and went to the stage. I think walking up to the stage I began to hold my breath. By the time I was sitting there, pretty much in the spotlight, where you can't see anyone, I was mentally a full blown nervous wreck. I tried to start things off by prefacing my performance with humorous information regarding my only having had a guitar for four months, and how it was certainly going to sound like it. Then I started playing, and it sounded okay, but my goodness, it sounded loud...and that meant that all mistakes were going to sound loud. That really put me into a panic. I started singing, and seriously, I must have sounded like a warbling anxiety mess. Here's how it looked:



I played on, my eyes were filling with tears, I was so nervous. My throat was closing up, which was making it sound like I was forgetting the words, but really, I knew if I sang, it would come out in a sob. I kept smiling, which is key. At one point, everyone started singing along, which is a GREAT feeling. I think the guitar playing must have been the best part, but several times my hand started feeling really wooden, like I couldn't strum with any sort of finesse.

I was so embaressed.



When I went back to my seat



I shed a couple of tears - the ones that had built up from my nervousness, and I couldn't really talk for about fifteen minutes. I have never been so nervous in my entire life. BIG UPS to anyone who performs. I don't know how they do it. Maybe if I was a natural -- but learning something, and not being 100% confident is...almost torturous.

The rest of the trip was good, but I'm exhausted.

Hitting the Road Again

We are going to drive to Vacaville today, to head to my mom's brother's house for the weekend. My uncle, Keith, has a big annual party with a talent showcase. He plays with a band, and this year they are featuring some CCR songs, as well as their usual 50's and 60's rock and roll staples. Several other people play their own or popular stuff. Since Todd got me the guitar last May, I have been practicing Stand By Me, and I think I'm going to go for it!

I have never played the guitar in front of a crowd. So. It's a pretty short song, and just for fun I'm trying to learn a Beatles song, too. The guitar playing is okay, but singing while playing is more difficult that I imagined. It's a start anyway. I'll post pics as they emerge.

Space, such a rip off.

Yeah, so. Billions of dollars so that we can do more stuff with outer space. Because putting money toward ending hunger, needless suffering due to treatable disease, and the slow but sure destruction of the environment can all take a smelly backseat to space. Doesn't anyone think the exploration of the solar system is a little overrated? I'm so annoyed at this.

Long Walks on the Beach...Gone Wrong

Long walks on the beach are so relatively good. I have some experience with walks on the beach. When I was fourteen, I was at the beach with a good friend, and we wanted our moms to take us down to the pier to see the KROQ van, which was there due to the OP Surf Competition, and our moms were like, no, we won't drive you down there. So we walked. It was quite far -- much farther than we had anticipated. So that was a long walk. Another time I went for a walk with the guy that another good friend had a major hard crush on, and this fellow and I ended up bonding and then going for a swim in the ocean at night with all of our clothes on, and then had to walk back, soaked. That was a long walk. (Subsequently, we became involved in a relationship that made the long walk, although originally a walk of shame, worth it.) So, my long walks on the beach have had a pattern, essentially ending up with me getting in some trouble or drama.

I can see how long walks could also be uncomfortable. There's hazzards like sand in shoes, rusty nails, glass, stinky smells, tsunami-ish waves engulfing pant legs, and sunburn. I do think that the ocean is a fascinating place to hang out. And Long Beach has...an ocean. Alas, the breakwater makes said ocean disgusting. There are several groups attempting to put plans into action that would remove the break water and bring back the surf to Long Beach. I am all for this...as it's not fun to live with an ocean in my backyard that I can't swim in. Plus, the beach is dirty. And, seriously, I'm not a germaphobe or even really that concerned about germs in general -- but Long Beach and even Belmont Shore is NASTY. There are so many homeless that the beach ends up being thier refuge. There are showers, bathrooms, and sand, if adjusted right, isn't too uncomfortable to sleep on, as it retains heat pretty well. Plus, it's rather inexplensive to go to the beach for recreation, so you have large lower class families flocking there for solace, and trash can be a problem. That smells bad. So it's a dirty place I don't visit as I normally would visit the beach.

Even though I'm not taking the plunge in the breakwaters anytime soon, I do use the cemented pedestrian path that runs alongside the shore for exercize. Today I was doing the three mile loop, and I passed one of the giant gutters that drains to the ocean, and I saw this seagull. It didn't look good, It's head feathers were all ruffed up, and it wasn't moving away from the bike path, like most birds would and it stopped me, mid-stride. I was like, oh seagull, what's wrong? And I noticed that there was a long piece of fishing line coming out of it's mouth...and my heart just dropped. It means that either the gull ate some bait, and swallowed a hook, or it just happened to swallow line; whatever the reason, it didn't look good.

It makes me so sad, to think that humankind causes the earth such suffering. And I know the bird wasn't thinking emotionally about the pain he was in, but I still can't help thinking that if mankind didn't exist in it's current state, then this seagull wouldn't be dying a slow, torturous death. Think of all the suffering humankind causes. It's almost immeasureable. That seagull's death and pain was so rediculous. I mean, is anyone really fishing out of the breakwaters because they are starving? Or are these simple hunting pastimes, meant to evoke a time when we really depended on our skills as food providers; in other words, when we really meant something on this planet.

I often think of trash and waste, and how awareness on this issue hasn't put enough of a dent in the problem. In this way, I'm kind of an anti-naturalist. I think that nature is the answer, not the problem. Of course, there are disasters that are soley nature's fault -- but so often it's where human's greed has placed people that is the problem. The Tsunami? Yes, it would have been tragic any way you look at it, but what about the aspects of tourism that made it such a grand disaster? You have thousands of locals working for pennies in one area so that the well off can relax and take advantage of the cheap labor and facilities, which are often exploitive. Katrina? Yes, hurricanes are unavoidably life threatening. But why where there leevees in the first place? I believe the Katrina disaster, with it's destruction on such a grand scale, to be the effects of greed. It's hard to prove, but terribly convincing.

Today's long walk wasn't romantic, but it stirred a lot of passion that I had forgotten about. I'm going down that same path tomorrow, and if the gull is still there, I may try to take it to the vet. What was that book Anne Lamont wrote? One Bird at a Time? We'll see.

You don't need a pyramid. Silly Government.

So. Lately, it's been all about food for me. I'm trying to sort of cut out rediculous thinking/obsessing from my life, and food has been taking the place of real happiness for me. It hasn't always been about food. At one time it was about boys, and at another it was about music, and at another it was about wearing black lipstick. So somethings I've outgrown, and it's kind of nice that I chose lipstick and not tattoo ink, because if I was sitting here as I speak with the lower back tattoo I desired as a teen, I would be depressed. Ugh. It's so rediculous, I can't even write it. Sigh.

But that's not the point. The point is, I, like, I imagine, several Americans, like to obsess about things, and things are really not the point, are they? I like to fixate. Okay. I admit it. I like to obsess over things. So.

Do you ever wonder, like when you're trying to do something positive in your life, if you're always just banging your head (and not in a good way, Blythe) against a wall? I often feel like a wind up toy that imagines it's getting somewhere. Spinning my wheels. Like, now, I'm on a 10 day cleanse. There's no food -- just drinks. And today, on day four of this cleanse, I began to have dramatic energy, and my vision almost seems better, and I'm a little hyper -- and I'm thinking, hey, this is really great. I like having energy! And I'm hyped about how our culture is all about food, and about how we really live our lives around food -- and I'm thinking, this is great! Not having to have to think about eating -- though it is very hard, very hard indeed. I'm missing tastes and chewing and everything -- but I feel strong! And then I begin to think. And I think: Obsessing over food vs. obsessing over the absence of food. And on one hand I think b wins, because b is kind of happy and almost feels high at the moment, and a is usually grumpy and weak.

So I'm glad I'm on the cleanse, and I'm hoping that it leads to better health overall -- and I'm afraid of sabatoging myself. I'm really good at that. But I will go to the beach this week. I will!

Thanks for being there. I know this must be the worst post ever. Thank you for being a friend.

Yes. Light in August. No "a," no "the."

Just wanted to correct my error.

Sigh.

I was looking over my research paper from Blythe's American Lit class (I'm really not good at research papers. My research always seems a little -- half witted? flimsy? rushed? random?) and I realize that even though I wrote that paper in May -- I read those poems totally differently now. I look at what I wrote, and I think -- geez, I was really only seeing one layer, wasn't I? And poetry...well, I write an awful lot of theraputic prose, none of which is a stone's throw away from barely lyrical journal entry type writing...and I've been kind of a coy kitten about really jumping into analyzing great poetry, because I don't feel immediately comfortable with poems -- who does? It's not even supposed to be comfortable -- but, because it's so immeasurable, I shy away, which is rediculous -- REDICULOUS! because when I read my research paper I realized that poems are such a personal written expression that they take some getting to know. I read the poems I had written on again, and it was like I read whole new meanings. It was like, what did you write your paper on, you shallow halfwit!

Morrissey writes -- "has the world changed or have I changed?" and it's haunting, really, because the words don't change -- but I read and understand differently, and end up changing my story. Maybe that is why I get so conflicted about writing. With writing, especially fiction, poetry, you are never right. You are always dealing with conjecture -- and that's the beauty, no? It's just when I go to write essays, it's like I tell my brain -- okay, you are writing this to society, so you better dumb it down. Not that you, my dear, cherished instructors are "society," but you know, I'm trying to write this so anyone actually interested in whatever I'm writing about can follow my line of thought. But I never get past the tip of the iceberg. I know the Hemingway thing, about only giving the tip -- but when it comes to essays, you are supposed to go to the bottom of the polar cap -- you know, like the cores that they drill in the artic? you are supposed to go UNDER that stuff! (I'm laughing out loud) you know, where the fish dont even have eyes anymore.

I think teaching literature must be the greatest job in the world. I mean just reading those poems again after studying them four months ago -- I have a whole fresh take on them. Sylvia Plath keeps amazing me with Lady Lazurus -- which may be my favorite poem by a woman. And Neruda's poems? I mean, yes, okay, romantic -- but so heartbreaking. Of course, I have a little thing for heartbreak -- who doesn't? Admit it.

And animals? Animals trip me out. I mean, my cats like to sleep with me. They like to curl up in the crook of my arm, RIGHT NEXT TO ME, and sleep. I mean, human, human, cat,cat. I'm a human? Don't they know this? When my male simese, Roman, was a kitten, he was so small, the runt of the litter, that he fit in the pocket of my cargo pants. If I tie one of my sarongs into a sling, he will stay in there, right next to me all day. Um. I didn't just admit to carrying around my cat in a sling, did I? What I'm saying here is that these are animals, man! What do animals dream about? How do beings function that don't have language? Just instict, feelings, and some memory. Todd's Uncle, UM, thinks that it must be peaceful in an animal's brain. Maybe.

And you know what? I didn't apply for facilitator. I was really entertaining the idea -- but the commute just didn't...the drive...the hours...but let me tell you, I am a nice girl to have in the class. I won't let you down as a student. I'lll always have something prepared. Bible as Lit -- I'll give you my best. Early American Lit -- I may be sleepy -- but if I have that triple Americano before class -- which I know I will, because I will have to leave my house stupid early to beat traffic, and will have time to stop -- I will have questions, comments, etc. I should have been a fasiclitator a year ago. Dang.

And you know, I really am sad to leave after next semester. I'll probably still ask you for help/thoughts. But the big school should have some instructors that ring true -- but it's like I tell Tamara -- you guys have something special at Fullerton College. You all get an honorable mention in my book.

Absalom Revisited

I tore through the last few pages of Absalom, not knowing where I left off, really, and have started it over again. I can take in more of the details now that I know the plot. For instance, Rosa is only 60 years old when she tells her story, and I know that 60 in the 1920s may not be too young, especially for anyone malnourished during a war, but I thought of her as much older the whole time, like, 90. It's a very difficult book to put down and pick up again. It's like pausing Gone With the Wind, and coming back to it a few days later. Huh?

My in-laws are in town for the weekend, and I spent over $200 dollars in booze at Trader Joes...but, hey, I was out of lots of things, like vodka, whiskey, and Grand Marnier. Keeping a well stocked bar is an investment, especially when you have lots of family around. My brother, who I just visisted, as noted in this blog, is here this weekend, so they may stop in for a cocktail tomorrow as well. He's my sweetheart brother. 100% trustworthy. I love him, and those kinds of people. Who doesn't?

Since he and his family are here, with the newest member of our family, we are going to take a family picture on Sat. Great. I gained four pounds on the trip and have a weird cold sore on my upper lip. And the family fashion palate is brown and khaki. Fabulous.

I missed Ryan Adams at the Wishire Theater tonight. You blink in this town, and every great act passes you by. Things will be better Monday.

A Light in August

I don't know if any of you other than Joe have read ALIA. I believe it to be the best beginning of any of his novels I have read thus far -- although that may not be true. The Sound and the Fury is pretty phenomonal, but I don't know if you can really compare Sound with his other works. Critics often hail it as his most important work, and I'm down with that. But if you are just talking plain old novel -- which ALIA

**wait. I've been listening to NPR this morning, and I just heard that China has an overpopulation of males -- something something due to ability to determine the sex with ultrasound. That doesn't sit right with me. Don't you have to be at least five months along to determine sex? Does that mean that after five months of pregnancy, women are aborting females? OK, maybe I'm out of the loop on this, and this may be nothing new -- but that makes me sad. It's like a grief for femininity. It hurts my heart.**

is, much like Sanctuary, then the beginning of ALIA is incredible. I almost don't feel like the standard make-up of story, rising action, climax, falling action, denoument, applies to Faulkner. Even in his most acceccible works, there is more of an inverse of this. I feel like it's a sinking action, a deepening, and then when you feel like you can't hold your breath any longer, he releases you, only to maybe actually, watch you drown before you get back to the surface. I feel like Faulkner plays upon my notions of conventional mystery -- some unthinkable twist, some suprise -- with most of the plot. There's villany, heartbreak, stereotypes are explored, but he always gives this explanation for the evil that occurs in his novels as simple intolerence. And when he does this, he makes you feel the fool for ascribing any romance to violence, or evil. The whole premise of ALIA is intolerence -- and he doesn't really hide this, but he really drives home how intolerence is the cause for most suffering, and even shows you how you have been able to bear the story due to your own intolerence. You read a story about a black man getting lynched. There are many stories with this action at the fore. But ALIA puts together all the reasons, all the possibilities that could lead up to a lynching, and the question of why this action is so ineviltable is never chalked up to chance -- but always blamed on ignorant intolerant white people, and the chaos that their blind hate creates. He deftly includes love, religion, spirituality, poverty, history, and ecomonics into the mix. There were moments in this book where I had to put the work down, and look out the window just bowled over by the great, great, writing.

Faulkner also does this thing. I will try to get some examples, but its like he writes a sentence, describing some scene, and he will insert a definition into the sentence, and this definition is totally unneccesary, the sentence doesn't need the definition, it's like a sage whispering into your ear -- this is what time means, this is what love means, this is what age means. It's almost like there is a second narrator, a lexicographer of sorts, who is telling you the meaning of life between commas.

I don't know what's next for me on the novel list this summer. I may try American Pastoral, oh! or finishing Moby Dick. Hope everyone's having a good time.

P.S. It's strange now not to post pictures.

Day 20 -- NM to CA

We made it home. We left pretty early -- Todd photographed how lovely I am in the morning, how excited I am to be up.

Here's me whittling away the time on the road, doing what I do best -- blabbing. I know, I'm not using hands-free. Hey, I was weaned on cell-phone driving. Sue me.

Here's the car -- we made it many thousands of miles, and I should probably end this here, before I start sounding like Willie Nelson. I loved this trip! I loved the south the best. I want to go back soon. Our next vacation is in December, Cancun -- I don't imagine it will be as interesting, but it will be fun. Thanks for the ride, America.

Day 19 -- OK to NM

Back in Albuquerque. It is beautiful desert night. Stunning. I got about four hours sleep from last night to now, and I'm worked. I'm excited to get home, and tomorrow we may just power home. I'm excited to get home to Southern California summer. I want to get started on a juice fast, start surfing, read all my books...etc. So these stops on the way home will probably be a little boring.

We did stop at the Caddilac Ranch in Amarillo. We found a 1960 Series 62 Blade Top in the mix, just like we had when we were dating and first married. I wrote on the Series 62 -- but they look like they get spray painted all the time. There were a lot of Marine Corps symbols on them.

Day 18 -- TN to OK

Back in Oklahoma. This morning, in Memphis, we stopped to get brunch at the Arcade, a famous ol' diner that has been in several feature films, including the compelling 21 Grams. It was just okay, if you ask me. No Ajax, that's for sure. My ham sandwich was not the freshest hog I've tasted, and the pear slices were a little thick. The sandwich, which had brie as well, didn't need to be that warm, either. Well. What can you do. As we spilt out of there we saw the celebrity pics on the counter, and I saw a pic with Jack White. Oh, if I'd a been there that day. I mighta cried. Writing postcards.

We made one last stop in Memphis -- Sun Records. Now, I wasn't too excited about Graceland, since it seems very amusement park-ish, and trust me, I like my Disneyland, but nothing about Graceland was very moving, I can't really tell you why not. Maybe because it seemed like an example of success, an effigy to having made it big -- a trophy, if you will. But. When we went to Sun records, I got nervous and jittery. Imagine! I saw the pictures of Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee and Johnny Cash and Rufus and Howlin' Wolf...and gosh. I just about lost it several times. You imagine teenage Elvis, unsure, stuttering, cute as a button, all ma'ams, constantly trying to get a break there, maybe a little broke. He was real then, a real artist, his eagerness pliable, malable, palpable. You imagine Cash and Lee the same way, although you feel a little superior to Lee, 'cause he seems like kind of a annoying punk, but you wipe that thought away anhow and remember that redheaded piano god of rock and roll and you dont care, you don't care about any of their shag carpet sins, because they recorded music that will probably always be played, and your children will know it, and theirs, probably, and this is art that didn't occur hundreds of years ago in a chapel in Rome, but right here, amidst the freakish nature of post-WWII America and post-Depression America and pre-Nixon America and pre-Vietnam America, there was this art recorded and it blew everyone over like a supernatural wind, like a switch that had been in everyone's soul, suddenly buzzing with heat and intenisty. And all of it, the fame the house, the cars, the jewlry, the clothes, it took the music away from him, the music, the music, the music. When you hear That's Alright, when you hear it, you change. You hear some trio singing There'll Be Peace in the Valley, and and it's quaint -- but you hear Alright -- and you change. Like you change when you see Michaelangelo's Moses. Charelton Heston was totally acceptable -- but then you see M's Moses and you change. I know, it's outrageous! Comparing invaluable Reniassance art to Elvis. What is the difference? Is it that many more people can agree that Moses is sacred than can consent to rock and roll being spiritual? I tend to think so. What else did Elvis sing? Gospel. And as was so gingerly brought to our attention in Ray!, what is rock and roll but secular Gospel? But you have to believe that it's spiritual. That's what I like about Tori Amos -- she has always admitted that music is a means to a spiritual experience. And it's not so much that one admits it, or, kind of like the Beatles, actually writes music about it, but has the awareness...I mean, when Elvis sings Gospel, it's...grand, it really is, but when he's just kid, and you hear him sing and play, and you see early Elvis playing and dancing -- its pure. He strove for spirituality for the rest of his life. But he had it. He had a channel.

So Sun Records was a great stop. I'm so grateful Todd pushed it.

We then took off for Oklahoma City and never looked back, except to get a sandwich at an odd roadside winery in Arkasas. We bought Todd's mom some Arkansas Muscat. Can't wait to taste it.

By the way -- the other night at a hotel I saw a good part of The Misfits. We need to talk about this movie. Absolutely mesmerizing.

Day 17 -- TN & MS

Today was Legend Day. (gong sounds)

It started late, because I had insomnia last night. We managed to make it to Ole Miss by noon, from Memphis, about an hour and half drive. We found Rowan Oak down a long gravel street, waiting patiently, silent in the imposing humidity. We have been ultra-fortunate to have gone this entire trip and only been rained on once, while driving. The weather was warm, humid, and when we pulled up on the Rowan Oak driveway, we opened the door to the unmistakeable sounds of the south -- insane bug sounds, sounds that sound intimidating and wild, sounds that make you check every itch for a massive alien bug that sounds like a giant toad.

We walked up the path to the Greek Revival style house, with a tree lined entrance, glancing curiously at the ruins of an antebellum circular maze garden, one that Faulkner never restored, and it is reported that he liked the Gothic look of it, overgrown and in ruins, so it remains untouched.

I spent a minute checking out the info in the foyer.

Inside the house is pretty well decorated, not overdone. I loved his writing room, with its door to the outside, and its little bed, and it's storyboards on the wall. I could see the kids in The Sound and the Fury coming in to kitchen, I could see Temple running through the brush, I could almost hear wagon wheels creaking, but to be honest, I felt more in tune with As I Lay Dying when I was in IN.

I loved seeing the grounds. (I just might be trying to steal a rock in this pic. I settled for an acorn) It is a very peaceful place. I would love to build a house like that, have land. To be in his house is strange, but okay. I felt rather odd -- I would never have known of him, had I not one day, in a little book store accross from where I cut hair in San Clemente, the book store that kept me sane, I would be sitting in my chair waiting for a client, reading War and Peace, and be asked, so what are you reading? War and Peace. Oh, just War and Peace. I was scanning the New Literature section when I saw this book, As I Lay Dying. Sheesh. I just figured it was short, and I liked things that were macbre -- so I went with it. The wife of the husband and wife team that owned the store, of which the husband was a huge Hemingway fan, looked at the book and said -- oh, I've been meaning to read this. I had no concept of college then, I actually was just beginning to think I might get my diploma. Being at Rowan Oak was fascinating for me in that way -- I find myself in a state of constant bewilderment at where I am, why I am there, how I made it there. And it's the same for everyone. I thought of Joe, growing up in the south, going to school at Miss, reading Faulkner, maybe knowing that he was destined for teaching all his life, maybe not. It's amazing how teaching connects your life with others, how a love of writing, and literature, makes up a subculture that, at least for me, connects me with others like a heart string that extends through my soul and catches on others, sometimes whether they like it or not. Kind of like the characters in Faulkner's books -- they had few choices, really. And although the ones that were great, the ones that you loved, Darl, Quentin, were doomed, were outcasts and endured madness...you loved them, and it's that love...that love...well. It's too much, really. Seeing the concrete -- the beds, the floorboards, the railing, the bricks, fired on the property since the 1840s, seeing these things that can be quantified and measured and remind that we live, we eat, we sleep, we walk through houses and stub our toes, we drink, some of us smoke, but ultimately, as his writing on the wall attests, we live in our minds. We live in a place of soul.

And speaking of soul, we went to the Oxford square, which originally burnt to the ground during the War Between the States, and ate at Ajax Diner. Dear Lord. I had the meatloaf, with cheese grits and sweet potato casserole. It wasn't just good, or really good. It was rediculous. The meatloaf was a bit moist, but it was full of garlic and crazy flavor, and had a mashed potato, or maybe it was roasted garlic, center, and the edges were crispy and to insanely delicious. The cheese grits were good. I had never had grits before, and the cheese used was really salty and sharp, so the creamyness of the grits was complimented perfectly. But nothing compared to the perfect sweet potato casserole. Sweet with brown sugar and dotted with melted marshmallows, studded with pralines, I was in heaven. Washed down with sweet tea, it might have been the best lunch ever. Here's Todd's catfish plate.

We walked around the square, stopping in at the old department store, and then Books on the Square, where I got a Flannery O'Connor short story collection, and A Light In August. Poor Moby Dick.

We then left in the direction of Graceland. We got in for THE last tour of the house. It was great because it wasn't crowded at all. Bling! I really like Elvis, but most often I find him such a tragic figure. I learned that he didn't name it Graceland, but the previous owner did, and Elvis kept the name. I liked that. I like that he was 22 when he bought the house, and that he would entertain his friends. I feel uttertly sorry for him -- and wonder how people with so much charisma can exist at all.

I would have liked to play cards with him. Faulkner, too.

We saw Elvis' house, stables, shooting range, '68 Special jumpsuit ('68 special Elvis is my favorite Elvis), tacky furnishings -- man the 70s were sucky for some people, grave, and cars and planes. It was fun. I got these cool Elvis window clings -- very campy.

We left Graceland and headed back to the hotel, still stuffed from lunch, and a little tired from touring. We've been doing laundry and I cut Todd's hair all off, and we're getting ready to head west. We'll be in Little Rock tomorrow.

Day 16 -- KY to TN

We made it through Nashville, and are currently in Memphis. I had the most delicious dinner, at the Rondezvous downtown.
We walked Beale St., a little over the top, but we saw Johnny's star/note, and there were these building fronts that were propped up by steel -- pretty neat. Tomorrow, Rowan Oak! I'm so happy. It should be so interesting.

Beale St. wasn't hardly as nice/clean/organized as either the Grove or Main St.; it was more like Fremont St. with a little dirty south thrown in. There was a lot of drinking and cockroaches and jazz. We liked walking through, but without a real guide to tell us what was what, we didn't stay long. It felt like the kind of place where you brush past a guy wrong and he pulls out a switch blade. You may not get killed, but who needs the trouble? Also, Todd got asked like three times for money the second we walked into the cordoned off area, so he was a little miffed. Here's the view at night.

We were recommended Rondevous for dining, by the Courtyard Marriott we are staying at, and for a while we couldn't find it, but when we finally did it was down a back alley, and seemed pretty authentic. We were told it was an hour wait, so we figured it couldn't be awful, not with an hour wait. But I started getting nervous, because it seemed like the place was teeming with white people, and I was like, on the street, one second ago, we were in a refreshingly diverse crowd, and now the only black people I see work here, and I'm not sure why this bothers me, and it bothers me that it bothers me, and I'm hoping it's good, and after a couple of beers I'm wondering if it's racist for me to think that white people wouldn't know good BBQ, but I don't wonder this out loud, because the civil war replica memorbilia is too close for comfort. It was so good. Dry rub ribs, hot mustard slaw, creamy baked beans, and rolls that you just know were shortened with Crisco -- seriously, if the transfat thing goes through, this restaurant will have to go underground, and I will, I tell you, break the law. You can have the ribs FedExed to you. I kid you not.

One of the things I have noticed on the trip, and it prevails everywhere that we go, is that there is just no industry. Especially concerning train yards. I saw the abandoned freight buildings way back in Albuquerque, but EVERYWHERE we have been there are similar massive warehouses and buildings near tracks that look like rotting corpses of the twentieth century. I makes me wonder -- how can we be so short-sighted? Driving through America, you see the most beautiful countryside ever, the most impressive mountains, lakes, rivers, trees, deserts, cacti, wildlife, livestock, and you think, what have we done? What have we done with THIS? You look at the carved-out slate that sometimes lines the passes, and you think -- we build our buildings out of plaster and plastic, and we couldn't care less if it gets pulled down in five years, or ten years, and look, look at this rock. Been here for millions of years, and will take millions more to change shape. That is if we don't just blast it all to hell. And gas stations. I can't wait until the bagillion gas stations that prevail throughout this country are obsolete, like all the freight houses. Then maybe the roads will be useless, too. We'll have scarred this land so badly...for what? To create a ghost country? It is inevitable? I really want to believe in the greater good of people, but the greater greed seems to super-dominate all hope. Well, truth and beauty. I'll just keep repeating it.

*Book Notes*

Reading Moby Dick -- feels like I've read it before, there are so many classic themes. I can't wait to discuss it in class.