Sunday, January 31, 2010

Re: And a fun task!

How to sing the song

Bundled up on the side of my head and messy from dancing and unfortunate midnight meeting with my friend’s couch
You, go and get me a sandwich
When I walk beside the road, I imagine sidestepping Converse-clad onto cracked asphalt and feel air like a wall as steel propels into my ribs, forward into femur, bones crumpling faster than the blaring of car horns
If you want home-style tofu, be nice to Mom and she’ll probably oblige
I walk as far to the right-side of the sidewalk, always. I focus on where I’m going.
“You just seem like you’re so organized, so on top of things.”
Obfuscate
Last night, I dreamed my friend gave a speech and started crying at the front of the room, which is so unlike her. Also that Twitter was actually medication for puppy urinary incontinence and had begun running cartoon ads.
Like throwing punches through molasses, no thrust and no recoil, just futile resistance against slumber and then plunging into the sweet, sweet dark
The girl said, Why didn’t you try the escape hatch? And the man said, I would have, but there were too many people in the cell
All I can see of my umbrella is the handle hooked over the side of the table.

January 25, 2010

Friday, January 29, 2010

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I LOVE HONEST CONVERSATIONS

And I love changing my surroundings, going home, and having MORE honest conversations!

Going from reflecting on true, biblical Christian community and being honest and vulnerable about sin to hearing about what it means to be a black student at university, underachieving, having standards being ostensibly set for you by your race, and what the heck is going on with schools in the U.S. and the education system (the latter with three students who also happen to be earning degrees in the School of Drama). I love it when people care and when people are coherent and open enough to voice their passions. And the conversation continues outside my door between women studying ECE and drama.

God, I love how you're at work here and how you work even when I don't know, even among situations that I don't see or relate to. I love how You're touching everything! You are beyond good.

Monday, January 25, 2010

The "Marriage Benefit Imbalance", among other things

"Hitched", a book review by Ariel Levy for the New Yorker

Comments?

And a fun task!

Here is the poetry assignment we had for today - I really want to read yours, so post it and I'll post mine later this week! We had some great ones in class.

NOTE: DO NOT PREMEDITATE, COMPLETE IN ONE SITTING. Just write what pops into your head and don't try to give it more finesse or style - no apologies, just write.

Without worrying about whether or not your poem "makes sense," compose it by following the steps below:

1. Name one thing you've obsessed about in the past week. Make this the title of your poem.
2. Make an immediate observation about your hair at this moment.
3. Give the reader of your poem an instruction.
4. Make a confession.
5. Give the shortest instructions for preparing your favorite home cooked meal.
6. Contradict what you said in #4.
7. Quote something your parent(s) or friend(s) want to believe about you.
8. Write a word you've never spoken.
9. What did you dream last night?
10. Use a simile to describe how you felt before you fell asleep.
11. Tell the punch line (only the punch line) of your favorite joke. If you don't have a favorite, make one up.
12. Without using a simile, describe a nearby object.


My favorites (when I listened to other people's) were #3, #4, #9 and #11 - I laughed at so many people's punch lines because I was trying to imagine the jokes that preceded them. I had such a hard time finding #8 because (I wrote this at 8 o'clock this morning) I was Googling "SAT words" and the browser kept closing and popping error messages!

At the end of class, our professor said to the everyone, I think this was your first poem. The first poem you wrote for this class.

Cool :)

Writing an angry poem

This is one I wrote in class this morning:

You need to leave
Get out
Or this smile you admire and your lips mimic with spite will be gone forever
Don't coddle me with "It's okay"s or
Tell me it was just a phase
I'm annoyed now, blood flowing like acid through my veins
And when blood boils, humor is the first to evaporate
I like you
And I thought I l
Well, I just lost my train of thought
in the sound of pianos talking and the crinkling of Valentine's Day cards.

I need to revise this into a 19-line poem, so it's not complete yet. The prompt was to write a list of things that you'd lost (see Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art") and then write a poem featuring 1) a dominant color, 2) a dominant motion, 3) no adjectives, 4) no adverbs, 5) direct address, and 6) a refrain. So that's interesting - on my list of lost things I wrote stuff like "erasers," "pencils," chapstick,

Well, I'll just write it out:

Many erasers, many pencils - so annoying
Chapstick
My place on a page
My train of thought
First chair of orchestra in 8th grade - lost it to Ha Eun Lee
Lost my life to Christ
Facsimiles of love, which were crushes taken too seriously
I lost my mind when I tried to take two classes held at the same time, and one of them was Intro to Chemical Engineering
Lost my sense of direction on a highway in Houston
Lost my voice

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Writing

This is what I ended up submitting in class this morning, but it doesn't feel finished.
I remember the sound of coffee before the smell.
More soft-spoken than its flavor
Erratic sifting through the filter
Beckoning through dust and dreams and from within my pillowcase
Good morning.
Stir awake and stir "hello"
I stir cubes of Domino and too much store-brand creamer into one chipped China mug
Concentrically intoning the icebreaker between me and this alarm clock that rivals rain
And this morning, She levels her gaze through ceramic, saying
Beware of artificial sweetness.
Because tastebuds and heartstrings are easily deceived,
not recognizing sweetness as a mask for something else
And unable to discern without first cultivating sophisticated tastes for things more bitter.
You wouldn’t trust your judgment without a double-take
Nor would you move forward claiming to be sure based only on a feeling
Would you?
Why then, upon first meeting, would you believe sweetness to be something’s actual taste?
In my time, I’ve learned to question the artifice of sugar and honey,
Who take advantage and presume the last laugh,
And iron woven threads of deceit like the fallacy of fondant to smooth over imperfections.

But I, who lauded “Disney princess” a life calling,
am desensitized by Gene Wilder’s flunkies who preach in choirs bearing technicolor monosaccharides,
cannot pronounce “aspartame” and confuse my Flinstone vitamins with other things high in high fructose corn syrup,
I, who won’t keep count of betrayals and misunderstandings, no matter the enticing or revelatory flavor,
Trust persistently and
Have nothing to fear of artificial
sweeteners
Late-night writer's block PLAYLIST (abridged)
circa 10th grade

David Gray, "Babylon"
David Gray, "This Year's Love"
John Mayer, "Split Screen Sadness"
*NSYNC, "This I Promise You"
Imogen Heap, "Goodnight and Go"
Five for Fighting, "Superman"
Train, "Drops of Jupiter"


-
Re:
Haha the video for "This I Promise You" - so much cheesy seriousness and slow-mo. And late 90's/early 00's garb.