After working through my deep depression about being a senior in college (i thought id be so much more enlightened by now) and an official twenty something (21 is the new 16), i finally decided to carpe diem a little more yada yada yada (youve never heard that before) and aim for a 91 on a test not a 102 (both get you that 4.0 baby) tempered with a more active life existing outside the pages of a book (its not the quality of experience its the quantity). didnt emerson say something about that in an american scholar? now would be an appropriate time for a quote but... i made a 91 on that test.

so here is a list of things i have been doing/found interest in while im not studying:

Twilight- The Book, The Movie, The Concept....
I must have an addictive personality because I am constantly finding new- strange- obsessions. This currently tops my list. Guys, I am an English Major, I take a lot of Film classes, I am a theatre major--- This movie Sucks. The screenplay- atrocious. Then again it comes straight from the book----the most poorly written (slash) structured (slash) portioned book i have ever read (get to the point stephanie meyers- we get it. shes clumsy). But honestly, after a Thoreau overdose and a little too much WB Yeats (the terrible beauty) I could not put it down (literally, i even read it during finals week, hell i read that book in the shower). Needing a little validation for my secretive and embarassing literary interests, I went to my playwriting teacher a man with the countenance and wisdom of professor dumbledore, in fact if he ever grew a three foot beard i would simply cheer. or perhaps like bella swan, just faint. (edward kisses bella: and meyers actually wrote this: "'You....made.....me.....faint.....'" gross me out) Yet i asked him

me: Professor Dumbl---I mean Jones, I need to entrust you with my deepest darkest secret that you in your great playwriting and theatrical wisdom might disect my escapist tendancies for bs pulp fiction when I could be reading FAUST!

Dumbledore- Yesssss

Me- WHY DO I LIKE TWILIGHT. IT SUCKS!

(And though it would be more interesting if he said something like, "well why do you belieeeeeve you like Twilight my young padawon" He said this which i will share with all the world:)

Dumble- becuase it is credible. because it is interesting.

Me- But it sucks! I am embarrassed! I may be mentally ill

Dumble- ahh Yes (in infinite wisdom) but what lesson does this reveal to you my little playwriting apprentice (whose play happens to be worse that stephanie meyers dreams but i would never tell you that)

Me- that form can never kill content!

Dumble- (infinately wise) Indeed.

Me- But i even read it in the shower! (no really)

Dum- just dont say that outloud


read it, you will love it , and when you feel stupid, just remember, dumbledore thinks youre okayu




My next odd obsession tomorrow

in response to fasha comment about not blinking- i believe i may have achieved that this past week.

the week behind me, is what we college students in the south preverbially refer to as (and please excuse my french) a shit storm. there is really no better phrase. after spending most of last weekend, including a dreary saturday night at the sorority house in front of my computer working on a paper and believing i should be wildly ahead for the week, due this tedious and heady sacrifiace. But i quickly discovered i was laboring under a grave misapprehension. I began not sleeping all week- in fact i believe i even stopped blinking! Sunday was given up to celebrate the three years mark of the relationship with the boyfriend. some call this an anniversary. i cant really utter the phrase yet- too formal.
the monday. studied like a mad fiend for a test only AFTER completing the research for my paper. library-time of departure 5:30 am.
tuesday- wrote like rabid dog. went to bed at 6:00 am. that is put my head on the pillow and worried about my paper.
wednesday 12:00 am. receive word that paper due at 2 pm has been POSTPONED two days. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?

well after all that i turned it in anyway.

and started studying for my thursday quiz.

what a shitstorm

well my boyfriend and I -- as of next monday- have been together for three years.

I am a senior in colloge.

In about three weeks i will be 22 years old.

twenty two.

now i realize this may not seem old if you are on the other side of 22 but i am having a major crisis! what happened, i feel like i was just 17 like.. an hour ago... like i am still 17 sometimes. like i couldnt wait to be in college and its zooming by me and all i have to say was- that was it? it was a breath a moment a night. it is literally a series of four 16 week sections- thats like 16 fridays and boom its christmas. thats like 66 friday nights of college. 66 weeks of tests. 66 weeks of making friends. 66 weeks of living in a dorm being care free not having to pay for anything getting to pretend like your carrie bradshaw without all the baggage of adulthood. but thats 3000 days. that sounds like it should be so long. but its not. its going by faster and faster now that i want to stop and slow down. I feel like i am standing in front of a movie real just watching it move and staying-- wait stop id really like to enjoy that moment--- wait stop i wanted to have accomplished so much more by october 15 2008. wait stop! i wanted to have spent way more time with people than with my books. wait wait wait. i dont want this to be over so quickly. if this was supposed to be the best time of my life- i dont even know what "life" is going to look like. I hope for me it at least, it is much slower than college. its just gone too fast.

jimmy buffet

i keep finding these inconsequential song lyrics to be more and more true:

be GOOD and you will be LONESOME

but be lonesome and you will be FREE

live a lie and you will live to regret it

thats what living is to me...



it just seems integrity is so out of style lately. and instead, people adhere to totally fake personalities. maybe its just here, where "society" and "who your daddy is" and "old money" are so important to so many. but its just hard to have a real conversation sometimes.

its lonely

but thanks jimmy. you remind me:

that its free

hello!
just updating for the sake of it, no big anecdotes or news. sitting in my room trying to think of everything i can do not to study for a colonial lit test. william bradford i have read you too many times to count.
i have decided to start doing yoga classes and find my inner chi

also! excited because a filmed version of rent the musical is coming to our movie theatres this weekend, and only for two weekends! so i am going to go see it.

and im fretting. m roomate is going to florence next semester and i dont know who i am going to live with! i am hoping its someone nice. i would hate to deal with roomate drama that last semester.

thats all, time to study

HELLO!!!
I have failed my newest resolution to update daily... embarrassing yes. My computer totally broke and crashed into a worthless pile of crap right before school started and i didnt have a computer for a few weeks, by the time i got a new one i was wayyy out of the habit!

but senior year of college has been quite a thrill thus far! this weekend has been particularly fun, one of my two very closest friends in all the world just graduated from UCLA and came home this weekend for her birthday. We went to a real hoppin place in downtown last night... 80's cover band, lots of journey lots of my favorite people ever. Sometimes i get a little sad at school because my closest, long time friends are people i met before college and therefore not here. but when we have really special nights like last night where everyone gathers in the same city for once, it is the most wonderful night ever. I just feel so gleeful to be around so many people i love at the same time! made more special by the rarity of the occasion. it was perfect.

and my friend turned 23! when did my friends start turning 23! 23 is OLD!

Also have developed an unusual obsession with a divine show called arrested development. hulu it. it is well worth your time.

for the benefit of those yankee members of the family

it is 107 degrees. i had to work outside for a blistering six hours. and all i can do is praise the Lord for airconditioning.
it was so hot today i felt---me a native southerner who believes that 70 degrees is reason to get out my sweater and has become proudly acclimated to the heat and my outdoor occupation--- felt physically ill today.
today, feeling ill from the heat, i cant imagine life without some relief. i cant imagine how inconvenient it would be during a time without airconditioners - machines i usually find obnoxious due to their ability to make a room SO DARN COLD! cousin EB put it so well--- everyone in the south likes to live in refridgerators.
its true
and for the first time ever--- thanks to the 107 degrees--- i am so thankful.

by the way, how the heck does one actually spell refridgerators... doesnt that look wrong??

mississississippissippi

my best friend and i spend a relaxing four day weekend in mississippi together! it was a lovely weekend filled with talking, driving, porchsitting, and plenty of "coffee of a mornin'" but as the typical american college students we are it was more like "coffee of an all day long."



we saw some pretty amazing period homes. of course they have many 30,000 freakin square foot "homes" that were perfectly period--the original furniture, beds, clothes, bedspreads, curtains you name it. it was interesting and haunting to walk into such a detailed picture of history.

but the most interesting homes didnt have that kind of story. one of the homes with a long, pretentious name was intended to be the picture of oppulence. intended to be a house like nothing else in the world. intended to be a pictoral manifestation of the millions of dollars rich southerners were making while standing on the backs of those toiling beneath them. but the war struck. they hastily finished the basement areas of their (literally) 30,000 square foot unfinished structure where they would wait out the "short" war with their 8 kids in their 6 room (10.000 ft) basement. oh what a sacrifice. though friendly with the union troups, their growing plantations were burned and the multimillionaire lost everything but the unfinished shell of a home. the bricks stand today-a skeleton of the quite monumental home. paintcans more than a hundred years old litter the temporary floor boards. hammers and other tools lie under a century of dust. the result is memorable. a tangible reminder--to me at least-- that pride comes before a fall. not only to mr. nutt the homeowner ( if you would call him that )but to an entire generation of people. a country getting too rich.



in florida i read about a plant that every 25 years is nearly devestated by the hurricanes (that become particularly devestating in 25 year cycles). but that the plants life cycle is about 25 years because it grows so big that nothing can grow beneath it. if it were not for the "devestating" hurricanes the plant would overwhelm the ecosystem and those growing beneath it would die. does God do this to his people? when we start to get a little too big for our britches that are bursting with our pride does he come to prune us? to me it seems that slavery is a symptom of people with too much pride and too much money. one would have to be tremendously proud to take another person and enslave him. to tell another man he is property no better than the dogs and horses. today our pride is manifested in different ways but will God need to move again shortly to remind us that we dont have it all under control?

to you

grief settles in the pit of my stomach like gravel,
grinding and burning.
my eyes sting with old tears
the salt of which has gone sour.
they fill with each mention of you
and every catch of your shadow
-the hole left where you should be
singing, loving---living.
the crackle of your laugh echoing
as your eyes squint with joy.
but there is only a shadow;
an empty seat on the red couch
next to the man you loved most.

were you there after your eyes went blank?
did you hear my last "i love you's"?
feel my lips on your cheek?
i hope today you do.
i hope today you know now
how much my child's heart did love you.
in ways too big for me to say.
today grief says it for me.
i miss you --
but i know you are dancing.

blog round two

hello internet world,
my new years resolution this august is to blog daily! i realized after numerous failed attempts to remember my password -and user name- that it would be easier...perhaps...to start afresh! and give me new incentive to update frequently.

and my dear, favorite family i am excited that we can stay in closer contact via the world wide web!

all for now,
k