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Apr. 20th, 2004 @ 08:07 pm
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This is one of those posts where you wonder... what is up with this dude.
I'm so frustrated with the depression around me. My wife is crying, the kids problems are boiling over into the house. My youngest has had a real attitude lately and I've had to come down on her with groundings. I hate doing that. I'm flunking out of school, and I have no one to blame but myself.
It doesn't take much to make me happy, but I don't know how to cut through all the misery around me. |
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I'm having a strange mood. I'm a bit down, maybe has something to do with how behind I am in school, how my putting things off is making things worse, how other factors are combining to making me feel bad about myself.
These things aren't without their useful edges however -- feeling bad about myself, despite the overwhelming negatives associatable, has useful qualities. But it makes the day long. |
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Yesterday, I felt like I had glimpses of the way I want to go. It's odd, this dance we're all doing -- I sometimes think I see something, but then its gone.
I've been memorizing Rilke. I'm sure that some of what I saw was in between the cracks of that activity.
Here are the two I've memorized. I'll try them without looking, but it won't show since I'll afterwards correct any mistakes I might make:
Lament
Everything is far
and long gone by.
I think that the star, glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road.
When did it start?...
I would like to step out of my heart and go out walking
beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished long ago
one still exists.
I think that I know which one it is.
Which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,
stands like a white city.
(I made lots of mistakes, but did it correctly finally! I must reinforce tomorrow.
Autumn Day
Lord: It is time. The huge summer gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows
and on the meadows, let the wind go free.
Command the fruit to swell on tree and vine,
Grant them a few more warm transparent days
Urge them on to fullfillment then, and
press the final sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the evening
and wander on the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.
only made one mistake (haven't concentrated on punctuation yet). |
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Venice
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Apr. 3rd, 2004 @ 07:25 am
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I made a yummy dinner last night of mussels and pasta. I could move to Italy forever. Venice I think. I love that film, "Bread and Tulips", where a woman vacationing in the south of Italy misses the bus and ends up not going home to Rome, but instead ends up in Venice, where she rents a flat and tastes a new life.
One of my daughters went to Venice last summer on a high-school junket. She fell in love with it, with the food, with the people. I could spend time in Florence, too, I think.
I need a cafe that has sun, where I can have coffee in the morning, strong medium roast with half and half, the way I drink it here at my house. I want to read an Italian newspaper (a good a way as any to work on language skills) and look at the people in the square. In the evening, I'll return and have a glass of wine or two or three. |
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Beauty
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Apr. 2nd, 2004 @ 07:29 am
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I've been thinking about being perceived. It's been a long problem I've had, worrying about what folks think. I've made progress, but right now, this is the state of things. It's not all bad... I care about people, many of them know that. But, the ability a random passerby has over me is both troubling and embarrassing. It's high time I got over it.
But it is interesting how things boil together. I had a pleasant conversation with Georgiana in school yesterday. She's this interesting, pixie kind of looking girl. She is counter-fashionable and I always get the feeling that she's comfortable in her skin. A long talk sitting on a bench in the sun revealed her desire to totally get past image, and get to what she referred to as the "pure", the "virtueous". Underlying this desire is the wish she had that she was able to pull off that barbie-beautiful look, that she wishes she had a "hot guy" who loved her.
I suggested that rather than eliminating the beautiful as an attribute of people, that she open it up, broaden it so that it is less exclusive, less determined by other sources. This idea seems to be something much less than she wanted. It's got to be all or nothing, since my model would still exclude people.
But what it interestingly points at, is how far I am from the norm. The only way I can be accepted by people is if beauty is considered "not a factor" as Georgiana declared hopefully. But, I believe that I am beautiful. This seems to be the difference. |
| » Slogans |
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these are the slogans I'm repeating
say no to the television, say no to the spending. Buy your books
from people, not from bookstores, otherwise read the books you've bought
spend you time involved in love, love the ones you're with, respect those paths you cross, have compassion for the angry and confused, let go of your own anger and confusion, love what is before you, including the mirror. Change anything you like.
Apr. 1st, 2004 @ 05:45 am
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| » The Real Core |
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It's a curious thing. Once you've been regularly blogging in one spot, where you have an audience, to opt for a completley new space, where no one knows you. Time to get back to basics, to make this more like a real journal, rather than as a political appeasment. I can't offend this person, or that person. Fuck em all, I love em, but I want to have free speech, and I don't particularly want to argue about it.
I had a pretty good day today. I am bowled over by the poetry of Sharon Olds. The thing that makes me happy, is this is language I can really relate to, language thatI I, given me developing, can use for my own poetry. I think that is the difference between this, and the overtly intellectual stuff like Paz, Eco, Rushdie and others.
I have a real core inside of me. I can tell you what it feels like, and you will be able to understand.
Mar. 31st, 2004 @ 03:55 pm
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| » In the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make |
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It's taken me some time to get the idea into my head that my body, not just my fatness, but my whole body-being, is a huge factor in how others are going to perceive me. And, for many, that body is factorial in rejection. Although sexual rejection is something quite different for a monogomous male, happily married middle-class male like myself, than it is for a young available male who would like to do it, if he only could. For me it amounts to a subtraction of the social graces, an imperviousness to my being, or a rejection or ignoring of it.
But when I run into someone who doesn't treat me that way, I find it so sweet. Again, there isn't anything but the sense of pleasure in my physical company. Maybe these people are merely putting up a facade of niceness that would be shattered should I advance my position, but I have no intention of proving that paranoid thesis. For now, I relish the smiles, I'll take the love any way I can get it.
Mar. 30th, 2004 @ 07:27 pm
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| » TV Drama |
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I was one of those kids who grew up watching television. My dad used to call me "the fourth stooge", a reference to my slack jawed thrill of watching my favorite television show as a child. I remember the extreme joy I felt when "Make Room for Daddy" came on, as I jumped up and down on the sofa in the den. During my teenage years it was "Star Trek" and a host of other shows. I was spellbound, I had to watch. During my early married years I watched regular weekly shows at night after work so religiously that I wasn't able to go anywhere or do anything on certain nights of the week. If you had planned something on say, Thursday night, when I was watching "Magnum, PI" or "Mission Impossible", or "NYPD Blue" you were shit outta luck. Or I was.
I don't know when it changed, but I remember when I crystalized on the idea that television was my enemy. In my early marriage tv caused a lot of strife: I was busy watching instead of doing other things. D. wasn't a big television watcher, and we bumped heads on the subject. One day I remember seeing the "Kill Your TV" bumper sticker, someplace in Salt Lake, in the avenues. My attitude was what? Oh, yeah, I get it! But it wasn't until I took a class at college and my professor offered a grade level bump for anyone that refused to watch TV all semester. I was doing well with the project until September 11 -- in the days following that event I spent my time horrifically glued to the television like anyone else. My teacher gave me an exemption, even though I continued to watch the news for a good week or so. I got the grade bump in principle, even though I already had earned an A in that class.
I think the thing that most disturbs me is the relentless advertising, the constant barrage to buy, buy buy. Combine that with the increased onslaught of advertisers in my home in other ways--telephone calls, internet ads, spam emails... I have developed an aversion to commercial anything. I'm a regular listener to KRCL, a locally publically supported radio station. The only beef I have is that in order to make it more real to people, the stations management makes their "public service" annoucments, and other spots just like advertising. I guess they figure america is lonely without being sold something, whether it's Sierra Club membership or the need to raise "radiothon" dollars.
This TV issue has really created a divide between me and my family, and my friends. D. watches only a little TV, stuff like "Friends" and lately a silly reality show. If I'm in the room, I often carp and make remarks. That gets old, you know? My dad watches a lot of tv, especially when he's feeling depressed. For him, it's stuff like "The Learning Channel" and "The History Channel". This brings me to another beef -- having television that you have to PAY to watch, and you still have to endure commercials. I hate regular bills, and having tv one of them seems wacky to me. This goes on and on. I regularly bash "reality tv" and I think I've lost dear, bright, articulate, and intellectual friends over it who see me as betraying elitist notions over the subject (I'm somehow better because I don't like tv is the accusation). I don't think they are completely wrong, though that isn't my general motivation.
I'm not saying I don't watch tv... I love "West Wing", even though it has grown insipid and is studded with commercials. If I'm having a bad night, I do go to bed and turn the tube on (my rabbit ears hardly ever giving us a descent signal on our aging tv set). Last night I watched a little PBS special, and snatches of stupid sit-coms out of sheer depressed boredom. I like to have tv on while I go to sleep.
I have no such animosity towards film. I either like or don't like a film, so I eithe watch or don't. I often watch old films, I've seen many times. The VCR and finally, reluctantly, the DVD player are my friends, even though, I'd often rather be doing something else.
What I like to do is cook and eat and drink with my family and friends. I like to make a fire on the deck and blab into the night, though I'm increasingly sleepy at night and want to go to bed early. I like to talk on the phone with family and friends or chat on the net with them. I like to read my livejournal friends list (the other account, where I have a lot of people I read).
TV has become a strange thing for me. I'm tired of offending my friends, but I'm more determined than ever to develop my opposition.
Mar. 30th, 2004 @ 06:40 am
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| » Raison d'etre |
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There is always a first. Elsewhere, I'll leave silence. Here: poems, photographs, pleasures -- no audience to please.
Yet, I love pleasure and I welcome sharing it with anyone who chooses to share it with me.
Mar. 29th, 2004 @ 07:42 am
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ntelechy's journal