It's been a long time since these old feet of mine
walked through Sudbury Town
It's been a long day since I wandered away...
Spent this past weekend with the glorious and marvelous Christopher Ashworth and his fiancee. I love seeing old friends. I love the feeling of coming together and settling into a pattern so full of nostalgia and familiarity. In Mali, they didn't have the verb "to miss" someone. You simply said that you "had nostalgia" for someone. It was said "Christopher nyanafin be la" or "Muso nyanafin be la" or "Dereck nyanafin be la" Awo, Mali nyanafin be la. I miss the way the language rolls off my tongue.
So I spent hours in a car with Laura, who is the most pleasant road trip companion to have ever. She deejays excellent music and has a scrumptious sense of on-the-road devourables (its a word now, shut the hell up). We both discovered that neither of us are our fathers, and therefore we were able to stop along the roadside whenever we wanted, be it to eat at "The Meal Barn" (a sub-par roadside establishment who's food reminded me of eating in my third grade cafeteria), The Stonewall Jackson Shrine (which Laura had wanted to see every time she'd ever driven past, but ended up being a lonely house in the middle of nowhere with a sunset through gold trees), or "The Deal Barn" (which was next to "The Meal Barn.").
Laura continually amazes me with her breadth of knowlege, and incredible insight into almost every topic. I am always learning something around her. It makes me feel like I am become a more aware contributing individual simply hanging out with her, which, when one has spent the past months answering emails from people who should never EVER become doctors (their inability to operate a website should speak for SOMETHING), is an uncommonly good thing.
It was a good weekend; the three of us spent half our time engaged in meaning less conversation, and the other half talking about the very foundations of humanity as a social being. What could be better? Why are my friends so smart?
I had an interview for the Explo job last night, and things went really well. I'll know friday where they are in the hiring process, so hopefully by the middle of the month they'll let me know whether or not I've got the position. in the meantime, I'm still writing cover lettters to schools and I've got a hiring conference on Saturday.
My mind has wandered from where it started. What I wanted to get out, what I got out in my post on caucus, was this idea of education... My own, particularly. I feel as though I have a real responsibility to understand the world I live in, the people and its places. I've spent this year reading in a way that I haven't before. My time in college reading was fairly superficial. Is it just now that I'm out of the Carleton Bubble, I can see the importance of DATA and amassing a collection of raw FACTS? Perhaps, but I do know that to understand my place in this world, to understand what I want to contribute to, I want a thorough understandings of the problems and challenges to be met, and how solutions have ben proposed in the past.
I have been asking for help. The furthering of my own education cannot be left to one person alone. (I'm referring to Laura, who, although she doesn't know it, has been the source of my continuing education this year).
I guess, then, I'm asking for help.
I posted this on my caucus topic too, but some of you out there don't have access to it. I'm reading more. So, name something. A book that changed your life, perhaps. Tell me why you love it, not what its about, and how it changed you. I'll read them in due time. But don't worry. I'm making a list.
Does anyone else find it bizarre and thrilling that the woman above (often know as my mother *SHHHHH!*) has assumed an online personality known as The Momma, that talks in third person constantly and threatens ultimate wisdom. Does this seem familiar to anyone else? Ernie, I'm looking at you.
Let's be honest. It's true, isn't it. The Momma has actually started wrestling with the WWE.
That said, I'm feeling better. We all have those little momentary lapses of faith and trust in the world and this was mine for the month. Hopefully for two. I know there's nothing I can do about this economic climate (Except vote for Kerry) and there's nothing I can do to get folks to hire me (Except apply for jobs mercilessly). Frankly, the worst, WORST thing that could happen would be that I'd have to move home for a few months while I looked for jobs in Chicago. This, frankly, sounds like welcome relief. And I don't thnk The Momma would be too upset either. Maybe we'll start our own school, dammit.
Thank you, all, both, whatever, for your support, spoken and unspoken. Its glorious and today is new with new poetry in it. I'll try to find some.
In the meantime, I'm going to fill out my unpaid wages claim, and get me some money. That's right, Curious Apple! That's right, Stephen Swain! Show Me THE MONEY!!!! Even if it is TEN CENTS ON THE DOLLAR!!!
So I'm applying for this stinking job.
I'm perfect for it. with the company I work with during the summer. doing admin, as well as traveling a bit and talking college students into teaching for us.
my old, lovely boss just told me that there are ten applicants for the position, one with a graduate degree, and several with post-graduation teaching experience. all of them have a history with the company.
i am so, so tired of not being able to find a job. i am so so sick of feeling like i cannot find any sense of financial stability. i am pissed off that there are so many talented, intelligent people my age that can't get jobs because this economy is so worthless, and it keeps trying to blame it on the quality of the applicants. or at least i take that to heart.
and don't get me wrong. i know i shouldn't take it to heart. i know it has no reflection on me as a human being whether or not i get this job, or any job, for that matter.
but dammit, it does scare the hell out of me, and here i am, still temping after nine bloody months, feeling the life seeping out of these legs and thinking about how imperative and yet HOW WORTHLESS it all seems to be! it is getting to the point where having a bachelor's isn't just a pre-req to getting a decent job, but a MASTER's?! who can afford that shit?
i'm angry. i'm angry and hurt by this whole world, and feeling like maybe the game is finally up. maybe the liberal arts kids will love me, and tell me i'm smart, and able to do good things in this world, but when it comes down to the world, i'm just another schmuck from white-trash Illinois who can't do much else that look at another person and try to talk to them. Who hasn't retained any facts from college. and who's gonna burst into tears right here in her twelve dollar an hour cubicle.
i'm not sorry about this rant. i'm not sorry about losing it right here at the bloody AAMC. i am sorry you all had to witness it.
just met up with a woman i used to teach with at Explo.
She hates her job too.
But she dances in a company every night for six hours a night.
this gives me hope.
of what?
that art can survive in conjunction with life.
that there is a path to salvation.
myown that is.
that my life is waiting for me.
gah. applied for a cool job the other day. things seem more possible one minute than the next.
i will see my best friend in a week. reconnect. reforge a connection not lost yet.
feeling hopeful today.
Laura Koenig has started a new campaign. Its three simple steps:
1. Get a jar. Any jar/tin/rubbermaid will do. Place it in a prominent location in your home/office. Get several if you like, just so they're always nearby. Particularly near a television or radio or newspaper source.
2. Wait for Bush or his administration to say really stupid things that piss you off. When he does, put a quarter in the jar.
3. Send the money to John Kerry.
its a nice way to feel like you're doing something, instead of just bitching about it.
i am starting off this post not knowing what it is i want to write.
i have this feeling far too often.
dereck wrote a bit about this in a post on his blog. why do we have these things? are they exhibitionist, attention-seeking ramblings, designed to inspire admiration for our depth of character and thought? are they a way to keep tabs on people, to keep up our lives, the kind of friendship that wants to be more that merely information, but never revives itself into time spent and shared, where there is no pressure to have "meaningful" interaction?
i feel that i cannot deny that there is an element of those in my posts. i am an exhibitionist, and far too often i can't keep things to myself.
and there is this desire, every few months, to contact all those meaningful people threaded through the cloth of my life and tell them how much they mean to me.
i have met so many people, and been affected by all of them. my mind is more malleable than i ever thought good for myself, and so i never thought myself strong or noble, because my opinions were always being revised upon the receipt of new information. those people hold places in my mind, pieces of information, emotional, spiritual inspired and sacred. there are too many to name, and sometimes, i think to myself, how shall i ever keep track of them all? how shall i ever pay homage to the peole that they are, and how they shaped the person i have become?
and i have come to believe that the way we touch each other's lives is not only determined by the spacetime we share together. there are those i spent years with, and barely learned a thing, but some that in only weeks (or days (or hours)) still ring in my brain, as true, as real, as now i wonderwheretheyare and howdoIgoback so that i might reconnect brain to brain, heart to heart, in a real way? but...
you can't.
moments passed and all your life, you cannot
go back. these people are not lost to me in memory, but in the now, we can only go over the new developments in our lives, and ache to find that same connection, but never quite get there.
unless we revise. revisit. reinvent.
commit. to the rebuilding of a startling effecting relationship.
we cannot add on to the house of the past.
but simply build on its foundation. and start the structure anew, with a different
architecture,
a different interaction of
light and dark.
but this blog is not read by those whowereonceclose but are nolonger.
it is read by those i love. still in my life.
with palpable time on their hands.
so why do i write?
i believe it is to feel that i am doing some thinking in my life.
i miss school. i miss the feeling of tired brain thinking, too confused to stop.
i miss processing. i miss journals that feel thick in my fingers, guilty that i'm so busy wrapped up in the thoughts of myself.
when i was traveling, i felt like there was a new thought every day, a new struggle, along with the old of homesickness.
but now, it feels like one long series of the same issues: the dissappointment in my work, a feeling of mediocrity and laziness towards art, the debilitating feeling of being broke, the miss of my love.
i hate for this to all sound so negative.
but i realize:
i am struggling to survive in more than one way.
searching for rent.
yearning for love.
screaming for my brain to start working again.
maybe i should make myself write essays on the books that i read. perhaps i'd read them more concientiously. perhaps i should read them twice.
perhaps, if these are the things that i love, i should either be an artist or a scholar?
i've gotta go back to school.
so my blog. a thinking woman's record of the attempt to think.
I was sitting on my couch last night. waiting for the fierni to set.
fierni is cardamom pudding.
i was sitting on my couch.
my boyfriend was playing cyndi lauper on the guitar.
zsa, laura, and i were singing "Time After Time" at the top of our lungs
(beautifully, of course)
i realized how happy i was.
spent the day in the park with friends and my love, a dog, backpack, cookies.
my heart hurts.
i know jen knows. she knows perhaps better than i do, how it is to mourn the loss of someone who you know is coming back to your life. its sweet pain. just hard to take. less sad and more frustrated than a permanent loss. because it feels like if you wanted to, you could really do something about it.
and lets' be honest: i could.
but we won't.
that's the root of my frustration. feeling like i'm betraying love and honoring too much pragmatism. but liking the illusion that i'm in control, that i can hold back this torrent.
at work. not so bad, really. its a help desk position. i'm reminded vaguely of the Help Desk game we used to play in harriers; the help-desk person was the straight man, and the customers were all insane.
its not so different really. how are our nation's medical professionals unable to follow the simple steps to the online link to "Forgot your password?"?!?!
i miss him. you. (yes, you)
i'm moving, slowly, again.
having supper with IMSAFolk tonight. Getting back to looking for jobs. Reading "Everything Is Illuminated."
Hoping against hope the title will take me home.
dammit.
i remember a time, not too long ago, when i was thinking.
daily.
i was inspecting. exploring. and wondering why i thought how i thought.
i miss this.
so, some thoughts....
i'm thinking on a racial level. trying to compare my thoughts now to thoughts in mali to thoughts in college. i live in a primarily black neighborhood. and i feel the weird pressure that comes from being a minority in any neighborhood. but so SO many impulses are trained into my head, that are constantly exercised...
why is it, when i walk by a black man in my neighborhood, something inside me flip-flops a bit... many people, I'll smile to and greet... but that little flip-flop is coming from a long time of social training and no personal experience... but all i know is when i pass a white guy of the same age/size on the street in my neighborhood, i don't feel that.
its strange. traveling in mali, i remember that feeling of being watched wherever i went. i feel it in my neighborhood, and i have to confess, in a sick selfish way, i like it. i like the extra bit of attention. i feel myself wanting to impress people by telling them that i live in THIS neighborhood, yes, me, a white girl, is hip enough and good enough and socially aware enough to live in a neighborhood where she is often the only white person she sees all day...
i'm vaguely sickened by all this.
where does this sense of superiority come from? how can it still hold so firmly in my heart after all these years of aching humility and constant introspection?
how can i feel so superior (or want to feel so), and yet be so down on myself, all at the same time? judgemental and self-deprecating, that's me...
don't get me wrong. its not an "I hate Megan" day. its just, i'm spending too much time at my desk not using my time in any constructive way. and all i want is to be honest. i hoping that from there, i might have a chance at becoming a better person. not better, more righteous. but better. wiser. more caring. compassionate.
good days here.
full of sun and other earthly things.
oh, heat on my shoulders in clouded march weather.
i met last night with this woman from my dance class; she has a piece opening this weekend. we spoke about beginning points for a piece we could do together. we got to the Watson topic and she wanted to hear; i realized then that I might be ready to revisit all that stuff and try to process it in a more open, performance-oriented way... as we were leaving the deli that we had supper in, she suddenly exclaimed:
"What about HAIR!?!?"
I thought, is she mad?
we'd be talking about her own, since she'd chopped it all off from a length of 10 inches to about 1/4 on the sides and 2 inches on top. I'd asked if she liked it and she'd said she felt liberated... we got to thinking about all this female hair identification, like this stuff that grows on our heads is almost as important to us as careers or children... it tied in with issues of women aging, that we'd talked about adressing, about specific women cancers, that we'd also considered doing a piece on...
you know those moments when you're collaborating and suddenly something strikes someone and you go from there and suddenly it becomes the most important tenet in the whole piece?
it seemed like that...
it was nice. lovely. inspiring, even. those moments have been too few and far between this year.
i made a list of goals a couple of weeks ago that were set to be completed within the next three months. one of them was to perform in washington ONCE before i moved out onto the next metropolitan malaise.
i find in my life, i am constantly making lists of things i think i'll never do, and then surprising myself by doing them. this is a nice thought to consider when i find myself dwelling on what i HAVEN'T done yet... which is a lot. but give me some time.
have you all read this yet?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/google.html
yes, jen, i'm still thinking about it.
even more so, since i've been spending all my time online.
applied for a job at IMSA. getting worried about finding silly job for the fall. worse comes to worse, i'll be in chicago.
guitar playing is getting better; don't get me wrong, i'm still exquisitely pathetic. but its the one thing I hold on to as an achievement this year, so its important.
i joined a gym. yeowch! lifted for the first time in two years. i can still barely move my arms, but soon i shall be buff Buff BUFF!! its a relief to lift heavy things after one has been sitting all day. huzzah!
its is now beautiful here. i rode to work in SHORTS!! i'm hoping the weather will stay like this for a while.... you know, until June.
you know, i just don't think i would have survived this year, found any amount of pleasure, if it weren't for zdanna and laura. they're amazing ladies, actually, particularly just in their concern and compassion for one another. the women and man (darling, yes, its you) i've found myself able to surround myself with have made this year not only tolerable, but joyous. playful. Full.
there is a joy in our lives that i think, is easily lost.
when we dance at the contra, i have never felt less inhibited (which for those of you who know me, its saying a lot)... i don't mean in a drama queen sort of way, which, though receding in recent years, still holds a heavy place in my mind. i mean, i can be GLEEful... full of glee. and know that i am surrounded by people who either don't mind or rather enjoy it. i wish that for people. and i find that i am not one who does that on her own. i mean, now i can, but when my tender personality was forming, it took surrounding myself with people who CAN do that to bring me to it.
so here, then, are my thank you's.
thank you to carrie, who first set me on the path of wackiness.
thank you to the less than human club, gone but not forgotten.
thank you to a capella music, the dorque-y, glorious vocal music i got involved in.
thank you to michael, for making me stay in harriers and learn so much about myself.
thank you to christopher, for midnight frisbee, playground scoldings, and sidewalks running with pineapple juice.
thank you to laura and zdanna, who enable my habits today, with such fervor and prowess, i have to stay on my toes to keep up.
thank you to dereck, who is better at it than i am, but who is willing to help me improve.
speaking of dereck.
who's better than this guy?
Nobody.
miss you too, my dear.
oh go ahead you all, vomit if you must.