These aren't secrets, but I haven't told anyone either.
I may sound bipolar but I mostly just write about really great things or really bad things. Extremes, right?
I promise my feelings are continuous over the real emotions.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

500

One more page view and it'll be at 500. It seems like a big number and a small number at the same time.
Oooh the exhilaration of strangers reading my secret thoughts on the internet!

Friday, January 25, 2013

A Story I lost

The Original Panic

As the tracks bent right, people sitting idly on a train saw death. It was bright blue tarps scattered along horizontal ladders of wood and steel. Blankets on a bed of gravel. Lay down and sleep.
Bankers looked up from their papers and small children pressed their noses against the window. Smears followed their curiosity along the pane. Who sat on the seats, who laid on the tracks?
The wind was feeling feisty. Fresh from France, a long journey across Lac Lemain. It licked at the edge of the woven blue plastic and lifted it up and over and back onto itself. Or it must have. I assume. No Swiss EMT would be so careless as to leave a hand uncovered. A hand and a bit of arm.
The first piece of tarp that we saw on the tracks next to us; the furthest from the point of impact; the station seemed half a mile away from that first tarp. A crumb trail of bright blue followed back to the platform. 
The hand was reaching for something. But it wasn't, because it was dead. But it was, because there were the fingers, and they were pulling. There was the palm and it was waiting. And who knows what the rest was doing, it was inexpertly concealed by a blue tarp. By failed protection. By broken promise to arrive always exactly on time and pretend you'd never been anywhere else.
The other day I was given the first confirmation that this wasn't all in my head. It wasn't something I had dreamed, or imagined. Because the last time I wrote this; the first time I thought objectively about the feeling; I invented. I made it Romantic. I drew police tape in words and it appeared in my head. There wasn't any yellow police tape. There was only bright blue. And I know that now, because all I remember was the hand. And I remember phrases from the first time I wrote it. But the last time the hand was male, and today it's female. Small things; it's all in my head.
My mother said these things: we had seen it, and there had been no mention of it in the paper, they pretended it didn't happen.
It's overwhelms me; unexpectedly; small seeings or hearings; triggered and haunted.
A surrealist pornographic essay about a disembodied hand. A CPR dummy in the middle of my classroom, wearing a bright blue shirt. A blue skirt on stage in a play; dead by plague; covered in a sheet; extremities lolling over the edges of the chair.
It means something.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

C2C Down the Road/Paidiea/Opera

Paideia. I've been micromanaging it for many months now and I am now faced with the frightening prospect of having to let it happen. That means I can't attend every class and fix every problem myself.  I have to trust the teachers. I have to trust the system. 
....just a brick in the wall...
It's hard yo. 
Perspective: Paideia is 9 days of student/staff/alum taught classes at Reed. Over 200 class sessions. $5000 dollar budget. And I did all of it. Not to brag, but I'm pretty proud.
And now it's happening. Hey. Whatever.

I'm obsessed with this song. I'm going to spin fire to it on Thursday. 

Another awesome thing: I guess the Portland Opera likes the reviews I've written for the Quest, because someone emailed me telling me that I could interview some of the singers. HOLY SHIT SO EXCITED. Tosca. Gotta research.
My life.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

"They love the feeling of being lost. It has been interpreted as a desire to reproduce the infinite."

Anais Nin. Her diary is inspiring. I read a paragraph and imagine the hours of conversation it could spark. I read the next and watch another sea of potential thought expand so ferociously that I can hardly tell what it actually makes me feel, only where it could take me. It's hard to slow down.
I agree with most of it. I have parallel experiences. I have parallel experiences and I am 19 years old. This makes me think that it might not be a true comparison. But beyond this reaction, I think it's that she breaks every experience down into it's basic personal content. Then it becomes every interaction with the similar components.

The piece that is jarring to me is that in almost every interaction with a male, she mentions a compliment that he pays her. It feels like she collects them as trophies of power. Most of the time, they run along the lines of "you are unlike all other women." Sometimes "you have understood me in a way no one else has," which comes with her psychoanalysis and literary work. In the place of being compared favorably against the rest of her sex, sometimes people see a peculiar spark or energy in her. Even then, it's easy to say "you above all others."
I should hunt down some textual evidence, but that does bother me. She seems alienated from women through her perceived superiority, a superiority that is upheld if not defined by her relationships with men.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

All Radicals Have Daddy Issues

Hanging out with three anarchists, I ended up feeling grouped in with them whenever our host said "you all" while talking about your political views. In my temporary introvert headspace, I didn't pipe up. I mostly just tried to keep all of the different political parties they were talking about in order. I didn't realize that the far left got so bloody fractured and complicated.
The boys ran off to buy some cheap wine, and it was just me and the girl. She has a huge knife with a bright orange handle at her waist, at all times.
So, we talked about pacifism.
It was interesting. When it was just her and me, we had a good exchange. She thought that pacifism could only come from a very privileged background. She kept trying to make it impossible by talking about the small instances of personal attacks. It helped me remember the main point of my pacifism:
Violence is not a tool for positive change.
She had good points too. There is a reality of violence that will not go away.
Then the rest of the crew came back and spoke their piece on the issue. I'll make my point some other time. I think that they were too used to my being silent for me to change tactics immediately.

On our walk, I  mentioned that I wasn't sure if I wanted to be just like my dad, or avoid that life completely. S responded "all radicals have daddy issues." The phrase was repeated several times during the weekend, so apparently it's a staple joke.
But the first time... Okay, another anecdote first. Another housemate of S's, who had been on leave last year, said that he thought it was totally natural for me to be part of their group, that he hadn't even thought twice when I had been at a meeting. I was there to interview them for the Quest, but hey. Apparently I fit in.
I don't know if I agree. It doesn't quite sit comfortably to be called a radical. I don't always sit comfortably in their company.

I don't know if I deserve it. I certainly haven't earned it.

But it's all fascinating and exhilarating and seems important. Maybe it will grow on me.
I always avoid groups like the plague.

A Midweek Weekend /Or/ True Vacation Day 1

I drove back to PDX on Tuesday for a meeting regarding Paideia. I'm planning the whole goshdarned event, and one of the few perks is an excuse to drive up to Portland. Other than that, I basically stare at a computer screen and try to fit over 200 class sessions into a week. At 3:45 in the afternoon, my responsibilities were over; Dr. Demento had a plane ticket to Portland and the school was ready for Paideia.
The boy (who I will henceforth refer to as S (why am I sometimes more comfortable using real names and sometimes totally not?)) worked till 4:30 ish. Killing time, I spun my fans in the overcast breeze as Ke$ha radio faded in and out of my new iPhone's reluctant wifi. After exercising out a little bit of the stress, I drove up to S's house. The first 20 minutes were a little awkward, as I was still recovering from 4 days of seclusion in 15 diagonal inches with 680p. Mostly I exhaled and tried to catch Edith's bunny.
Sarah, a girl who lived on Mac III last year with Justin, Eric, Andrew and S, drove us to Vietnamese sandwiches. We dined, and back at the house we drank some strange mead that S and Hugh had made. It tasted like liquefied cake. They think there's something wrong with it. S took some molly, and another housemate took some speed. Always gotta keep track of the evening's drug consumption, especially where Vietnamese sandwiches are concerned.
Then we went to a party at the Coconut Club, which maybe 1 out of the 8 of us had been invited to. I enjoyed it, mostly listening to conversations. S had his arm around Sarah for a while, which I took to mean that our finals fling wasn't a serious business sort of deal.
I took a break from the party, and walked out into the night. I've been listening to a lot of Mark Growden, and I'm adopting Delilah into my lone-strolls-in-the-darkness repertoire. It requires a certain amount of belting, especially towards the end, which is very exciting. I walked along 28th, Knapp, and finally onto Bybee and over the train tracks. I looked out at the city and sang to myself. Mostly Delilah and Pork Goulash by Jason Webley. I have the lyrics for that one down in another post.
Hell, these are the lyrics for Delilah:

You come at me with ropes and knives
But you can lay those things aside,
Believe me

All you need is your kiss your eyes,
Sing your siren's lullaby
To slay me.

Come slice me like the crescent moon,
Slices the sea
Delilah
Delilah

I built this wall of ten thousand stones
Just so you could break it down
I'm waiting

You've sent a hundred men to try
But none of them could
Take my life
Delilah
Delilah

I've built this ladder of 80 rungs
One for every star you've strung
Above me

At the top you'll find the shears
That in your hands can cut
me free
Delilah
Delilah

Please take me back to the tale of who
Fashioned me

Please take me back to the tale of who
Fashioned me

There are a lot of OOOhhooooohoohohohohs in between the lines. But I think it's kinda pretty and poetic and it sings well in the dark alone.

I sang on the bridge until 3 people, who may have been Reedies, walked by and I felt embarrassed because I hadn't stopped singing. Then I walked back. On the way, I ran into a lovely tree-suspended swing that I played on while singing Vois Sur Ton Chemin. I sang a bit of Ici Bas too. French. It's a great language.

Back at the party, I listened to an extrovert talk, which is always fun. A theme for this midweek weekend was a bout of introversion on my part. I was very quiet, during the party and the next day too. I blamed exhaustion, being hungover, and not having anything to say about the subject matter. In the end I think I actually just wanted to draw into myself a little more.

S started acting differently towards me. He sat next to me, said "dude, I kinda missed you." This passionate outburst prompted me to tell him about the two dreams I had about him. He touched my hand in a very roll-y way, digging at it with the pads of his fingers. I sank into him a bit. He said "My room is really messy. Do you still wanna sleep there?" I laughed and reminded him how gross mine was when he slept over. Easier than saying "of course."

We went outside so he could smoke. But there were tons of people smoking and it started fucking with my head. I stayed out a little longer than he did to clear me head. Still wasn't sure what to expect of the evening, apart from apparently getting laid.

I went back inside, and listened to him talk to the extrovert about the Fountainhead. The extrovert really liked it. S did not, for obvious reasons related both to being an anarchist and a french major. Sarah was leaving and offered us a ride back to the Hbizz.

Instead, we went for a walk. "Do you want to go for a long walk or a short walk?" he asked. "You choose," I replied. Having already gone on a walk and wearing clunky-ass cowboy boots, I didn't feel very objective on the matter.
"A long walk" he said.

We retraced my path, but went beyond the bridge and the train tracks. We walked into Sellwood, and followed the road that traced the Willamette River. It's covered in shops that look like they're out of a movie. All warm lamps and socks and tea.
Near the Sellwood Bridge, we turned off the road. I recognized where we were.

"I used to bike here on my way to OMSI," I said. "It's one of the reasons I don't think I'll be a good physics. I went five miles out of my way for a few weeks, because I knew the route. I got sick of it and found a more efficient way to go, but sometimes I just take a way of doing something and never trouble shoot it."
Our conversation tended to be along those lines. He spoke through a drug-locked jaw and hissed his stories. Family, future, philosophy, freedom, french. Our interests are alliterative. Or at least have consonance. I don't really know the subtleties of those terms, I'm not a french major. Anymore.

We walked along the Willamette a bit. He finally explained the meaning behind his tattoos. We arrived at a floating dock and walked to the end. Inches above the water, looking out at the city... It felt dirty, how much it reminded me of the time I went on the Midnight Mystery Ride and ended up in a similar position (see that post) or the times I had ended up like that with Graham: at the end of the adventure. Just us.
S said "Isn't it funny to think of all the people who have done this before?" Later, walking back, he'd ask why I had snuck out of my house as a teenager. "Basically to do this" I replied. "You mean this wasn't your first time?" He joked.
It's hard to feel original sometimes. It's hard not to feel cynical sometimes. I wish I had felt less cynical then.
We kissed. Who could have guessed where that was going? It was cold, but we braved it for a time. Then we started walking back.

He left to go buy cigarettes, and I drank some water at the house. It was 4:30 am.

He came back and we went to bed.



Saturday, January 5, 2013

Reddit and I

I am not a Redditor. But I have found two great things on Reddit: a thread asking for rapist's side of the rape story (fascinating, frightening, and a micro-example of how much understanding can be lost when people stop listening to each other for whatever reason) and also Snoop Lion's AMA. I discovered the latter during finals week and would try to read it to keep from breaking down. The difficulty was that I was in the library and therefore not aloud to laugh.
Apparently my suppressed laughter sounds like sobbing though, because once when I was reading shitmystudentswrite.tumblr.com an acquaintance texted me from accross the SU asking if he could give me a hug.
So people were probably not too surprised to hear it in the library.
Anyways, I spent the night rereading that AMA with a friend. Laughed so hard.
And we skimmed the other AMAs. Some people are just janitors, or have some weird pooping disorder. And I wondered what I would list as my "I am _______" if I were doing one.
I'll ruminate/ask my friends to solve my identity crisis, as per ushz.