- being a kept woman:
When I worry about who I am and what I'm doing with my life and all that nonsense, Andrew used to tell me that I could live with him and be a kept woman. That made me smile.
That's what I seem to be these days. How else could I explain it? I'm no breadwinner, I just sometimes make the sandwiches. I am here not for anything I can do, but just who I am. It's sometimes difficult to wrap my brain around this delightful notion. - contradictions:
My ink-stained teenage soul realized one day that it seemed to be composed entirely of contradictions. It probably thought it was unique. Teenage souls usually do. But it's not, certainly not in this respect.
I like that everyone's a walking pile of contradictions. Some seem more obviously so than others, but I think most people have the opposites of their familiar or favoured traits lurking somewhere; I am not the only introverted extrovert, the only sentimental cynic, the only warily reckless person in the world. - displacement activity:
I've been thinking about this one a lot in recent weeks. By now I would've certainly spontaneously combusted if it weren't for displacement activities.
It's gotten so I can almost feel my brain struggling to float away when real life bears down too hard and I don't know what to do.
Usually it floats to books or other people and my real or imagined interactions with them. - freedom:
It has certainly become interesting, especially in the past few years, to see if we really will give up liberty for a little temporary security.
I've been told that those who do that deserve neither liberty or security, and I'm inclined to agree.
It's especially disappointing when the security sought is not even really granted by giving up civil l liberties; it seems more likely that relinquishing them only makes us all the more insecure. - lake wobegon:
Oh, Lake Wobegon. It's my hometown as much as it's Garrison Keillor's, you know. I know it well: the absurdity, the nostalgia, the indiscretions, the monotony, everything under the magnifying glass of a small town where everybody always knows everything...
His stories about the place make me smile ruefully (or giggle) in wistful recognition as well as cringe in horror and thankfulness that I've managed to escape. More or less. - manchester:
And, on the other end of the spectrum...
Manchester got its original name (Mamucium) because the Romans built it on a hill that, they thought, looked breast-shaped.
Manchester has famously good curries.
Manchester's Pride festival is one of the biggest in the world.
Andrew makes a point of telling me everything that was invented here, from computers to Vimto.
He downplays most of the music, though, and if you, say, happen to be from the same state as Prince, you can fight back by shouting things like "The Smiths! And Oasis!" at him. - old english:
One of those things I never would've imagined I'd take a class in until I did, Old English fascinated me as part of my Grammar & Language class, which was taught by someone who specializes in (and obviously adores) Anglo-Saxon England.
Our slight exposure to it there--I had to recite the Lord's Prayer in Old English ... and I can still do it!--was enough to convince me that I really did want to take the class she was offering on the subject the next semester.
I had a great time with it--translating the poetry, the hagiographies, learning how to decipher scribes' handwriting, savouring the puns and riddles--and was just getting into the swing of this linguistics thing when suddenly my life fell apart and I dropped out of college.
I still wish I knew more about this sort of lovely academic nonsense, though. - record shops:
Not the chain ones, of course, if I can help it. I much prefer the secondhand type, a certain kind of ragged charm you can find in handwritten signs, albums that may be organised by genre or alphabetical order but then again may not be, music blaring through the speakers because it's someone's favourite new thing rather than because it's corporately mandated...
I like music with personality, and when possible I like to get it someplace that has a little personality of its own. - snail mail:
The more electronic communication makes it obsolete, the more some people fetishize it, and I fear I may be one of those.
Everything there is to be said about this, though, has already been said--how nice it is to see an envelope with the recognisable handwriting of a friend, to know that someone sat for a little bit with pen and paper and thought of you and wanted you to know it, to greedily examine the inside of the envelope to see about the possibility of some trinket, some photo or cartoon clipped from the newspaper or page from a coloring book colored for you or rose petals or whatever it is you might get away with expecting.
Everything has been said, by better wordsmiths than me, so I'll just leave it at that. - waxing froo-froo:
A phrase purloined fromriddley_walker, who comes up with many phrases worth stealing (but who also makes the me think he's the sort of person who'd advocate playing with the language for yourself rather than stealing someone else's turn of phrase.
But something about it, maybe the combination of waxing--which customarily finds itself attached to words like poetic or eloquent--and froo froo delights me, and seems kinda like how I write too, at times, so I wanted to make note of this and not forget it.
Sep. 20th, 2005
neun.zwanzig
Sep. 20th, 2005 04:44 pmI've managed to retain my idleness, not graduating at all so I'm even more unemployable than my friends with masters degrees and still no job. As if that isn't enough, I ran away to another country--not to study or work, not with the student or work visas that would make this possible.
Now I can sit back and relax in the knowledge that I'm not just lazy, I'm not allowed to work. And isn't that silly and unfair and aren't governments just the nastiest little buggers?
Well, they are. But still.
I can give people deep meaningful looks about how much I'd love to have a job because that's safely untestable. I'm secretly glad I don't have to try, don't have to go through the disappointment and rejection that seems to prey upon some of my friends. I can hoard my idleness.
I've spent whole strings of days doing nothing at all really. Not reading or writing or thinking or tidying or sleeping or anything. I just don't know what happens to the hours sometimes. Doing nothing always seems like such a good idea at the time, but I end up going to bed too late and feeling dissatisfied.
I wake up thinking I should write a letter to... and Jeez, when was the last time I did laundry? and being all energetic and hopeful for the day, but then I just sit on the couch and do Absolutely Nothing, and then I'm all sad again, and that makes it even harder to do anything.
The last couple of days have been really bad. Oh, here I am at my front door, I suppose I should get out my keys. I don't want to listen to this playlist; can I be bothered clicking the mouse a few times? Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway, I don't know what kind of music I want to listen to. I'm not in the mood for anything.
I'm not in the mood for anything.
Be patient, I tell myself. It'll go away. Things will get better. You know it. And quite quickly, really. Everything will be different.
Yeah, I know. But still.
I'm stressed, of course. I'm still freaked out at the impending end of September and my lack of plane fare (though some of my friends have been lovely about offering to help, I'm still broke for the moment and still miserable about it). I don't know how anything is going to work out, and it scares me.
And the thing about being stressed and worried is that doing nothing is no good; it just gives you time to stress and worry. Yet trying to do things--things I should be doing--or even thinking about them just exhausts me and today I want to curl up in to a ball and ... and I don't know what. Not die or anything like that, of course, but ... I don't know.
Live, maybe. I want to be more alive. I know there's more. Life is not just figuring out what you can procrastinate and put off. Figuring out how to get away with doing as little as possible is such a booby prize.
Now I can sit back and relax in the knowledge that I'm not just lazy, I'm not allowed to work. And isn't that silly and unfair and aren't governments just the nastiest little buggers?
Well, they are. But still.
I can give people deep meaningful looks about how much I'd love to have a job because that's safely untestable. I'm secretly glad I don't have to try, don't have to go through the disappointment and rejection that seems to prey upon some of my friends. I can hoard my idleness.
I've spent whole strings of days doing nothing at all really. Not reading or writing or thinking or tidying or sleeping or anything. I just don't know what happens to the hours sometimes. Doing nothing always seems like such a good idea at the time, but I end up going to bed too late and feeling dissatisfied.
I wake up thinking I should write a letter to... and Jeez, when was the last time I did laundry? and being all energetic and hopeful for the day, but then I just sit on the couch and do Absolutely Nothing, and then I'm all sad again, and that makes it even harder to do anything.
The last couple of days have been really bad. Oh, here I am at my front door, I suppose I should get out my keys. I don't want to listen to this playlist; can I be bothered clicking the mouse a few times? Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway, I don't know what kind of music I want to listen to. I'm not in the mood for anything.
I'm not in the mood for anything.
Be patient, I tell myself. It'll go away. Things will get better. You know it. And quite quickly, really. Everything will be different.
Yeah, I know. But still.
I'm stressed, of course. I'm still freaked out at the impending end of September and my lack of plane fare (though some of my friends have been lovely about offering to help, I'm still broke for the moment and still miserable about it). I don't know how anything is going to work out, and it scares me.
And the thing about being stressed and worried is that doing nothing is no good; it just gives you time to stress and worry. Yet trying to do things--things I should be doing--or even thinking about them just exhausts me and today I want to curl up in to a ball and ... and I don't know what. Not die or anything like that, of course, but ... I don't know.
Live, maybe. I want to be more alive. I know there's more. Life is not just figuring out what you can procrastinate and put off. Figuring out how to get away with doing as little as possible is such a booby prize.