What Happens Next

April 28th, 2007

The Emo Emu, The Pale Green Pants, and other Haunting Lives

4/28/07 11:44 pm

Mom said "I don't know why people are afraid of snakes"

Dad replied "99 percent of the population is afraid of snakes. It's just you."

Yep, you guessed it.

My parents landed on Hood campus today.
*Holds breath*
They ate to the far left of Coblentz Dining Hall, as I attempted to sequester them away. Dad ate six lemon bars, then absent-mindedly asked if he had eaten any lemon bars yet.

Mom brought back gifts for me that she bought in Australia. The first was a floral dress that looked like it was for Sunday school. That one didn't fit, so mom took it home to make it into a skirt. The next two gifts were shirts, one fancy that is mostly black with floral designs. It says "hand wash only" on the tag. The other shirt is a blue tank top that says "Bad girl." I wore that one today because it's comfortable. Would prefer it not to call me names, though.

Then she bought me lip glosses that you can't find in the states. These are large pots of flavored waxes. My favorite lip gloss was the one she gave me last year called Emu oil. I imagine an Emo Emu. I would decorate him with black eye liner and such, then let him loose.

That book called the Pale Green Pants with No One Inside Them. That book haunts me to this day.

Today I worked on the rough draft for my philosophy paper on Karl Marx and Henry David Thoreau. The paper compares the philosophy that we (or should I say 'man' as these authors use) are defined by our work. Marx explains alienation while Thoreau anxiously tries to avoid it, but he keeps getting caught up in Marxian (Marxist?) tension.

Maybe we should not speak. Ever again. Let us not use language because it catches us in the web between specific and general things... our eye as our eye is, our eye as it is defined by a host of different creatures' eyes... where is the existence in the collective idea of an eye or in the individual eye itself? If we never spoke, never thought anything, I would be gone, forever. No, I should live. I am frustrated.

But, free, yes, and very aware that I am here. There. There.

What do I think of sex?

Sex is also also.

April 8th, 2007

Morning's A Lot

4/8/07 09:05 am

When I woke up this morning, I felt a cloud, both heavy and light, race through me with its dropping self. And I was afraid to get up but I got up anyway and went straight for an apple juice out of the frig. I stumbled downstairs too to get water from the fountain.

I was sort of mad at myself for not doing any homework the last two days. I have two more days to make it up to myself by actually getting work done. I need to study for Biodiversity exam and finish the practice tests. And I need to work on a paper for Greek and Roman drama.

I had a dream last night. Abby was my roommate. And I was panicing because there were long, sticky worms every where. It started out there were only a few worms, but by the time I got to my bed, there were hundreds of worms. When I stepped on one, it stung me, so I ran out of the room in fear. Abby stayed behind saying not to worry. She wasn't even afraid of them.

I think the dream might have been about nothing. Or I could analyze it and say the dream had to do with Abby being calm and rational and me getting fearful and upset. I am a very rational person though, (as you can see from my last entry) but I struggle a lot because I see the connection between reason and emotion. I live between them. I live between in life. That's my lot. I'm not sure what lot means. Don't hold me to it like it's my lot, okay?

April 7th, 2007

So much for trying not to be deep, the Purpose of Life

4/7/07 05:40 pm

I am troubled by this life because I want to know the purpose. I don't expect to find the purpose because then I would have nothing to look for, having found the point of my quest. Nonetheless, I am open to understanding the purpose even if the reason for living is ambiguous or described as a process that we never fully achieve but develop.

I distinguish between the purpose of life and the purpose of my life by saying: If my life has a purpose that could not resonate with life in general, it would not suffice as personal purpose, for life completely divided between public and private spheres is no life at all.

I also distinguish between plural and singular pronouncement of purpose by saying: If a singular purpose arises, it cannot maintain singular identity without attachment to discursive character. Therefore, where I speak of one purpose or many, I may still refer to "purpose," singularly. I could only isolate singularity given complete destruction of meaning, and I do not wish nor seek to abolish meaning despite my priority—the question of purpose, leading many to think I would sooner have no purpose. Others dismiss purpose by herding "purpose" like any number of social and domesticated animals into a relative and practical multitude.

Singularity never defeats plurality. Singularity anticipates discursive properties. The one and the many are never in opposition. Instead, they are hybrids, tangles, and fluids.

I return to my original question—the purpose of life—having dispelled any question that a singular person could not pursue the issue at hand or that a singular answer could not be more than immediate.

By gathering a sample of attitudes, beliefs, and truth-supposing statements as well as searching the riddle of my mind, I have compiled a list of purposes that explain why we should continue living our lives.

1. I want to live because there are things and orders beyond my self that would exist whether or not I exist. By learning about such things, I tap into an order greater than myself and no less than myself. I absolve my tendency to do disservice to life (ending life) by occupying my energies with greater and similar existences.

2. I want to live because when I notice other people, especially in loving relationships with them, I realize that I want other people to want to live. I would not be okay with my best friend, school mate, family member or lover wanting to die. The people who I love expect me to want to live as well. Therefore, to maintain loving relationships, I must want to live. I want loving relationships, so I plan to want to live on the basis of maintaining them.

3. I want to live because God created me and I must live according to his plan. Suicide is a sin because it involves the evil act of killing me. Killing me is evil because the act is a privation that turns away from God's perfect creation. (There are many varieties of such religious thought)

4. I want to live because dude it's fun and death is scary.

5. I want to live because I want to know what happens next in life. I plan for the future, which implies that I expect to see the future become the present. If I do not want to live, then I must always be acting illogically because I keep wanting to prepare for something more to happen.

These are just a sampling of the most common reasons that explain why people want to continue living. The first two reasons are distinguishable by ideas and persons. The first reason to live is focused on highly significant or universal ideas. Connection with the universe to some degree encourages life energy. (Of course, for every connection there is a disconnection otherwise we would not experience connection in terms of space and time. We would not experience anything at all without space and time distinguishing things) The second reason is particularly concerned with the life of people. The second reason resembles the feminist care ethic that bases life's moral principles on interdependency. The second reason utilizes love in its various forms: friendly, romantic, familial.

The first two reasons for living are the halves of my heart. For some, the third reason, an example of a religious explanation, synthesizes ideas about God and what God says about our responsibility to people in an ethical society. I could list many more reasons but I find these reasons stand out because they are common in our current lives.

Now I explain why neither people nor ideas support life's purpose. The first reason states that things exist whether or not we exist. For instance, the truth of mathematics, logic, or metaphysics supports life by providing certain energies. Many reasonable people are truth-seekers. The process of seeking truth consumes and validates life.

I refute that I want to live on the basis of seeking truth, for if truth exists, it already exists in a form regardless of my embodiment of it. My life and death have no affect upon the truth. Truth-seeking is exhausting because the infinite possibilities weigh upon me with the pressure of silences. My life may affect perceptual truth but not truth itself in the existence that continues with or without an individual. The fact that things exist in true forms with or without me does not make life distinguishable from death.

I do believe in the care ethic because I do not want other people to die. When I think of others wanting to die, I am repulsed by their desire and cling to their life even if only in my mind. I can think of myself as a person other than myself. The other person should not want to die because I do not want her to die. I do not want her to die because I love her. As the other person, I am speaking about myself and self-love. I do not want to die because I never wish that others should die if I love them. I make myself the other, so I will not want to die. In making myself the other, my hand touches my leg only to realize that the hand and the leg feel like they are from separate bodies. I want to die because I feel dead in making myself the other. Yet, I made myself the other because I wanted to see if I could want to live.

There is a wood. It has burned down. The ground is covered with ashes. Naked people walk and crawl through the ashes. They smear the ashes over the bodies that become indistinguishable like the arms in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. The women's arms are each others. They are not even women instead of men. They are not even androgens. They call me to come close to them. I never come to a place that is near because I am already in the spot where they call me to come.

Sometimes I stare into a distant space that also surrounds me. Others beat into me these are the abstractions we cannot understand. For me, the abstractions are concrete and vivid reminders that reasons do not stand the test of contemplation. Even if the process of contemplation is the significance, there is still no reason to proceed with the process. It is at this moment of recognition that we openly cry, contain our grief, or feel nothing at all. Some are known to smirk.

March 31st, 2007

Grounded

3/31/07 08:15 pm

I returned from an all-day track meet in Virginia at Mary Washington University. I had forgotten that I had ever been there until I entered the bathroom. For some reason, I remember bathrooms even from years ago. The soap dispenser was broken so I had to squeeze the bag and grip a handful of scummy soap.

I ran my race, a 5K, which is a little over three miles. My legs were sore, and the tendentious in my knees isn't much better. This whole season I haven't felt well. I had a sinus infection flair up followed by a bad cold. Next, I had stomach troubles only to find out I might have a food allergy to artificial sweeteners. My stomach hurts right now too even though I stopped eating the artificial sugar. idk.

I decided to write the livejournal differently, more like my friends do and less abstract. I might add in some abstract thought every now and then, but I am going to try being more grounded. So this has been my first attempt.

Current Mood: crazy

July 17th, 2005

I love it!

7/17/05 03:00 pm

My friend Shannon was board one day and so she was able to write a poem in my honor:

I proudly present it now:

To April, the Fairest Grape

April, my fairest Grape, is beautiful.
So beautiful, alas, I am at a lack of words.
Perhaps I shall submit this poem to Wisteria,
If it could be called a poem,
I am not sure it could be called as such
Since to me all it is is just a bunch of lines broken up
To look vaguely like a poem from a distance
And I do not consider that poetry.

But then again, there are certain schools of thought
That would think this is like, woah,
The most poetic thing they've ever seen.
So perhaps I will submit it after all.
To see if I get published.
To see if April loves me after all.
Though I never asked her for her love,
Or indeed very much,
Apart from amusement which I derive from her
Company anyway without having to make any
Formal requests. Anyway,

April, the fairest of the Grapes,
You shall always have my comradeship
Providing you remain not psychologically normal
And slightly deranged in that ever so intriguing way.
For you are one of my favorite people to have
Philosophical like conversations with,
Oh my fellow INTJ,
I salute thee for putting up with me,
The one who is currently bored at her library job,
Counting down the minutes until she can leave
And drive home in this rainy weather.

Current Mood: cheerful

July 13th, 2005

A very very weird dream I had...

7/13/05 10:41 pm

Inside my head, I see a procession of naked people. I view them from atop the roof of my house.

The men urinate on trees (as dogs often do) while women who are fat and short pull flexible, cotton shirts up to the edge of their half-moon faces, tilted and delineating auto-sexual stares. They expose hanging pockets of plump breasts.

A drunken man falls into a deep ditch that has muddy banks. I watch him accidentally slide into the pit and then desperately try to grasp the collapsing walls of mud.

July 11th, 2005

Searching for a theoretical Middle Ground

7/11/05 08:58 am

I am telling myself a lie so repeatedly that I begin to play a fictional character described by her fabrications which are too many to count yet not infinite.

The lie is human as a bright face on glossy photograph, inescapably flat but alluding three-dimensions.

She encapsulates her repetitious tongue inside soap bubbles, unusually resistant to bursting before blowing around and particularly vulnerable to shooting at the sky as if dead space only floated below cloud line.

I am [we are] found meaning, regardless of disjointedness between the marks called words and the sensations they inspire.

Eluding the truth-lie complex, I have become the acting out of what schisms truth’s defining relationship with lie.

Current Mood: artistic

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May 22nd, 2005

Laundry

5/22/05 02:20 am

The washer beats clothes as it coughs up soap. The computer beside my bed drums quietly while it also moans loud and screeching electrical impulses. I see the languished self who carries an invisible hand around the outline of a man's chin, leading boldly to the forehead-- a billboard for deaf abstraction. He never speaks to other people because my conscience is his puppet. My body demands to know, by feeling beats that usurp the washer's presence, whether I am here, close to conviction of the deepest elation.
After the washer stops beating, it swallows and sucks out the water. Scaly clothes cling to the damp interior, resembling my empty mind, filled with ideas that do not know whether they later absorb thought or whether thought beats them senselessly.

May 16th, 2005

For Starters

5/16/05 12:04 am

I dedicate this journal to Holly-- one of the smartest and most inspirational people of my acquaintance.
I begin writing after my first year of college. Since January 2005, I kept a journal that I use to guide my own writing here. I plan to derive inspiration from the following reflections:

Do spots remember the past presence of people?

The apartment breaths warm air that lulls me to sleep… into a dark world of dreams where I always wait. The spot where I lie on my parent’s bed remembers Mom before she bounded down the steps. The spot remembers the act of sitting primarily because nothing forgets change. I see a line of wholly hats, a pile of stained bed sheets, a stack of book-jacket thin pillows, a dust eternally cleansing the vacuous minefield of human existence.
I cry a procession of tears while the toothy-grinning vent sighs longingly. Dreams sit propped up on Grandmother’s bureau, laden with mismatched socks and stacks of boxes that post missing photos of their former contents on the frilly trims of a prom dress I never wear.

Are feelings about themselves?

I did not cry because he died, but I cried when it happened. I cried because I felt guilty for not feeling guilty. My lack of feeling produced an emotional response. Are feelings, acting upon themselves, merely delusions?

Bugger Loves to Swing: That’s the reason for the nose ring.

I am convinced that people with extraordinarily large hoops dangling from their noses spoke to an insightful bugger that demanded to have a swing. After all, if I were a bugger, I would fear falling out of the nose. I would prefer to know a resting place, preferably where I can swing all day long.

Bodily Experience

When I experience a moment of spastic or neurotic irritation, rather than feeling chills, I notice strokes of heat in the shape of boomerangs searching up and down my spine for empty-nested birds.

Definition of an Introvert—
A person who finds a great difference between personal references and statements that she thinks she ought to rely upon.

Encounter with my body
My fantasy grows wild. Of all the wicked things, I have a body that proceeds without me. Why am I always bound to use the bathroom? The wicked toilet flushes too fast. It sprays water droplets that run down my calves. And so it seems I am nothing… I have nothing but a responsibility and an opportunity to find a toilet that flushes quietly.

Current Mood: artistic