Reason Breeds Insanity

I just turned in my students’ grades and got all three of my papers back from my professors. Apparently, I am doing new and original work, but my writing still sucks. Okay, in all fairness, it isn’t nearly as suck-tacular as it was three or four years ago. I just wish I would have known as a nineteen year-old that I wanted to do English for a living. I could have had the advantages of my peers, since most of them were English undergrads and had the benefit of having someone nurture them through this writing process. The good thing is that my profs at least want to help me try to rewrite my papers from this semester to turn them into publishable articles. I really have four papers now that I have been encouraged to do that with, so I plan to spend part of this summer doing just that. I have three British literature essay and one American literature essay. I frequently wonder if I should be in British lit instead! I love American lit, though so there I stay.

I am looking forward to doing a bunch of stuff this summer that I never get to do, although, I can honestly say that I could easily lost in this freedom, and end up doing nothing meaningful. I guess I should just consider whatever I do meaningful, because it all shapes who I am. I am hoping to have a chance to read some things for fun, to do some art, and to make some clothes. I am hoping to be able to stop shopping at retail stores by fall. I am sick to death of retail- raping the world to clothe Americans. I figure I can help by making my own clothes, but now the trick will be to find material that isn’t just as bad as the clothes in stores. Oh, and I also need to learn how to sew.

EDIT:
Stuff from my other, old, defunct blog. Cinco de Mayo!

So I walked the mini-marathon on Saturday, spent the day lounging around on Sunday, and feel fine today. It took Bec and I nearly four hours to finish the race, and I know she could have finished it way faster than we did, but it was fun because we did it together. I am hoping that next year I can finish it quicker than this year, and I think if I walk everyday I will be able to. Also, I will probably lose some weight walking everyday, so it should make walking easier. I am all about being proud to be a fat kid, but when I can’t walk 13.1 miles without nearly dying, it’s time to get healthier! And healthier I will get.

I think this summer needs to be the healthy turning point in my life: meditation, walking, veganism, low-stress, and Sabbath. The hair growing is all just desire. A friend of mine asked me what it has to do with the rest of the healthy living, etc. I told her it has nothing to do with it, but I think I have changed my mind. Some religions believe that hair holds memories. I tend to agree. I want my memories to be measured out in dread locked, sustained and twisted over time. Hair is a great metaphor for life.

At any rate, I have tons to do this summer, but none of it too serious.

After John Donne’s “To His Mistress Going to Bed”
by Lisa Russ Spaar

What might she send — a wet sleeve,
or platter of brine-latticed bluefish

dusky with capers, lemons, wine;
a briar for your thumb, a mouth,

lunatic, to suck the blood:
a signal that one too often

inside & now beside herself with thoughts
of you wonders how she might woo

and through dew-whetted keyhole
pursue & sing & win? She is marvelous

with waiting. Come. Hunt here.
Relieve with hands and tongue her heavy hour.

Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed
by John Donne

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,

Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,

Is tired with standing though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,

That th'eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime

Tells me from you that now it is bed time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,

As when from flowery meads th'hills shadow steals.

Off with your wiry coronet and show

The hairy diadem which on you doth grow:

Now off with those shoes: and then safely tread

In this love's hallowed temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes heaven's angels used to be

Received by men; thou, Angel, bring'st with thee

A heaven like Mahomet's Paradise; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know

By this these Angels from an evil sprite:

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

License my roving hands, and let them go

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O my America! my new-found-land,

My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,

My mine of precious stones, my empery,

How blest am I in this discovering thee!

To enter in these bonds is to be free;

Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,

As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be,

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

Are as Atlanta's balls, cast in men's views,

That when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,

His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them:

Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made

For lay-men, are all women thus arrayed.

Themselves are mystic books, which only we

(Whom their imputed grace will dignify)

Must see revealed. Then, since that I may know,

As liberally as to a midwife, show

Thyself: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,

There is no penance due to innocence:

To teach thee, I am naked first; why than,

What need'st thou have more covering than a man?

A Windmill Makes a Statement
by Cate Marvin

You think I like to stand all day, all night,
all any kind of light, to be subject only
to wind? You are right. If seasons undo
me, you are my season. And you are the light
making off with its reflection as my stainless
steel fins spin.

On lawns, on lawns we stand,
we windmills make a statement. We turn air,
churn air, turning always on waiting for your
season. There is no lover more lover than the air.
You care, you care as you twist my arms
round, till my songs become popsicle

and I wing out radiants of light all across
suburban lawns. You are right, the churning
is for you, for you are right, no one but you
I spin for all night, all day, restless for your

sight to pass across the lawn, tease grasses,
because I so like how you lay above me,
how I hovered beneath you, and we learned
some other way to say: There you are.

You strip the cut, splice it to strips, you mill
the wind, you scissor the air into ecstasy until
all lawns shimmer with your bluest energy.