each gate will open another

I've got to start going to sleep early again. My reticence to go to bed at a normal hour is twofold: I *hate* lying awake, staring blindly into the dark waiting to fall asleep, and the internet is just so damn easy. All of a sudden, checking the news at one am seems like an essential part of my day.

I feel like I should be getting something done. And I'm going to be so tired in my 8am tomorrow.

Greg's memorial service was nice. Very Protestant, endless hymn verses and we sat down the whole time. There was an enormous flower arrangement right in the middle of the choir. Bradley said it best -- I'm uncomfortable with institutionalized religion. But it was okay, since I went for Faeryn, and Maya, and to watch Master Campbell be quietly awkward.

Someone asked me if my family was Quaker today. I just looked at him, and then I thought about what it might have been like, not to have been Catholic. Would I have been as intense, and would I still have extracted myself? And if I had, would I have been able to go back? I'm [finally] trying to square with Christianity, because holding it against the world is exhausting. I've been seeing it abused so often, though (and I don't just mean historically) -- too often for me to feel better than mildly-uneasy about organized religion.

reading: my email
listening to: tout doucement // feist

meditations on the economic recession.

Stimulus package passed the Senate today.

Now, while I am a self-respecting liberal lady who believes that the economic recession is the fault of stupid anti-progressive tax cuts and similarly shortsighted measures that fail to account for the poor, especially women and children of color, and emphasize benefits for the wealthy capitalists and white businessmen who already have money, this is bitchin' good news.

Here's why: I am edging close to damn broke. I owe my girlfriend three hundred dollars. I want to buy tack that will probably cost three times that. My car will very soon need repairs, gas prices aren't exactly on the decline, and I need to get outfitted with practice and steel weapons of all sorts in preparing for upcoming kendo advancements. I like to travel. I like Rhode Island, and Ausin, and Williamsburg, and *especially* I like Europe. Well, the idea of Europe, anyway.

Here's why else: purported advancements of tax refunds to come for the next few years, to arrive in May, on the order of a few hundred dollars. Granted, that may not mean much to someone who only makes a few thousand a year but anything is something.

Couple that with my respectable (read: three figure) refund from this fiscal year, the money my mother is refunding me for housing deposits, and the paychecks from work that should start rolling in within the next couple of weeks. Win.

So, don't hate me too much when I say that I hope this anti-recession stimulus package actually materializes. Likes me the ability to afford my lifestyle.

spelled out on a double word and triple letter score

I am slipping out of focus. Unfortunately, I don't have a f-stop or a shutter speed delay; I can't open a textedit file and reset my integer value and reshoot my evening. I'm not a rare manuscript, I'm just someone who has packet after packet of American Jewish History primary source readings.

Shakespeare and Amazing Grace took it out of me tonight. I recommend that you see the latter if you have any interest in the Atlantic slave trade and the British Empire. Or in laudanum.

I need to:
read Jessica's emails
pick up my umbrella, bank card, and Pepsi's papers*
finally catch up on Jewish History reading
go to the gym / running
brush up on my pagan current events; followed by ->
get over myself and have a real conversation with Keitly (sp?)
find out why Lenore isn't getting my messages (damn phones)

In that order.

Now I'm going to do a crossword puzzle, read international news, and prod my buddy list occasionally to see if anyone of interest surfaces. I love the internet.

listening to : my moon my man / feist
reading : lemonde.fr

this is the way that we love

I'm wandering away from my paper yet again, despite the fact that it's only two pages long and I have about three sentences to go.

School is so exhausting. Everyone in my history seminar spent the ten minutes before class started counting how many times they'd seen each other at some frat party last Saturday. Gag me with a rusty spoon. Since when is "sleeping until 4pm" a bragging point? If I'm going to be in bed all day, it had damn well better be for more than just passing out.

This is my way of saying that it's 11:30pm and I'm ready to fall over from tired. I didn't realize how mentally *taxing* it would be to talk about slavery as a global phenomenon for two and a half hours on Monday nights. It's especially taxing when you have to explain to the frat boy across from you what "the patriarchy" is ... and he STILL doesn't get it. Tabula rasa, baby. And not in a good way.

Paper finished, self put in bed. Seven hours of sleep and then we start over.

you'd better start wishing

I desperately need to connect with someone on an emotional level right now.

Where are those people I can look to for that? Busy, away, sleeping, missing in action. The downside to my evening caffeine kick that makes it possible for me to get work done is that I can't sleep afterwards.

Yesterday I had trouble focusing as I made phone calls and daydreamed about the electric shock of divulging secrets. I don't have many to speak of these days -- does openness speak for itself? It seems as though when things are in the past, it's not necessary to ever think about them again. The way I miss you shot down my spine again when I told Lauren how oddly she reminded me of you. I am so terribly wanting, wishing myself back into the past, but apathetic about the actuality that we're all moving into. Perhaps it's natural to always be a little in love with the first person who taught you about being a romantic partner, or perhaps I live in my memories too much, preserving the you that has faded on.

I need to get my head out of the past and start finding refuge in the present again. Things are too overwhelming for me and I close my eyes, pretend I'm fifteen and not eating again, pretend I'm seventeen and angry about it, pretend I'm eighteen and drinking myself awake. I open my eyes and realize I am nothing but the culmination of all these moments.

qu'est-ce que c'est que ca?

If I really want, I can go to Lyon.

If I apply in the next week, I can spend my whole third year there.

New decision: AFTER studying abroad, I want to do a J-term (in Ireland, Greece, or Italy -- the three places my family is from) my fourth year. To celebrate the almost-end of undergrad.

Love love love.

shy that way

i am smelly.

tristan prettyman keeps smooshing my head with her lyrics. especially the one about the story (you'll write the title and i'll write the chapters, you'll tell me what comes after). each song is haunting but in its own special way.

anyway, the point is i can't stop listening. (the memories come flooding back in a field of butterflies)

people are going somewhere. all of these girls that i used to know, intimately or just casually, are moving through and past the world and building their lives (the seasons changing in your heart).

i'm not sure i want to go to france anymore. the deadlines for a full academic year (08 09) are in less than two weeks and i am not ready to go anywhere. i need people to stop pushing me to leave.

what's the point
if i can't even dream up a dream
that's not worth the keep
what's the point in going
if i'm better off not knowing?