Thursday, May 08, 2008

Thursday, May 08, 2008 Free! Current mood: amused I was just trawling through the free stuff ads on Craigslist and I not only found a free house (for anyone willing to dismantle and move it) but also two free bags of dog hair. Wow. 12:35 AM - 3 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Friday, March 16, 2007 Where you're from My family used to host great parties. My dad worked mostly with English people, so although geographically, we had moved to America, my family still existed within an essentially English community. As I became an older teenager, the cultural differences of how the English and the Americans view teenage drinking and experimentation became more apparent. From about the age of fifteen or so, I was allowed to drink at home. Drink, I say, not get drunk. There is a difference. My parents believed that it was better I learn to drink responsibly and under their watch than go off to college with no knowledge of how to handle the substance, or, another likely scenario, sneak-drink behind their backs and off their property and risk getting in trouble, hurting myself or someone else. This euro-centric attitude was compounded by Orla, my best friend who lived down the street, and her family, from Ireland. Her family joined the already large group of people my parents' age constantly hanging out at our house. We had parties on virtually every St. Patrick's day. At the first one, although I was too young to drink, I was still old enough to dance and sing. I remember staying up until the wee hours, dancing to the Dubliners and the Pogues, wildly spinning around the room, locking hands with anyone who would join in. My mother and I sang Irish rebel songs, and Orla's dad, Len, I remember distinctly singing in Irish before I passed out with exhaustion. In later years, I invited my friends. The second legendary St. Patrick's day occurred when I was sixteen. All my friends came, a couple from high school, but at this point I was mostly hanging out with college people I worked with (I also worked with a couple of friends who were at school with me) at the bookstore. This night was probably the first time I got drunk - not enough for a hangover, but enough to get silly. It seems that somehow that era has passed. The English people my parents worked with have all moved away because the company transferred and my parents stayed behind. Orla and her parents moved to Caliifornia, and no one is left of the old crowd. New friends and acquaintances creep in and out of my life, but I remember my parents' happiness in those days - a young dazzling couple with lots of friends, and I think about how much life changes. 3:41 PM - 4 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, February 25, 2007 Who is a writer? As I sit here fruitlessly trying to work on my thesis, I am tempted to say "not me." I always find that I spend more time procrastinating and worrying about what will eventually make its way onto the page than actually putting things down. I know, from everything I've read, that I should just write,write, write my brains out and worry about the consequences later. Then I should go back, weed through all the crap I've written and then fashion something perfect and beautiful from that first horrible try. Sometimes it doesn't work that way for me. I'm trying now to revise the lit review chapter of my thesis, so I'm not even confronted by the horror of the blank page, like I usually am, yet I still am afraid to get stuck in and get started. I know, from years of experience, that once I do start, I will be fine. I will write and it won't come out half bad. What is so terrifying about the act of writing that it takes me so long to actually get up the nerve to do it? I think it's like diving in a lukewarm pool. You know that the best way is just to dive in, get your whole body wet at once, and you know that the worst way is the sit on the edge of the pool all dry in your swimming costume tepidly dipping your toes in the dreaded water, but yet that's what you do. I'm supposed to be writing for a living. I'm supposed to like it and be relatively decent at it, but I still experience this sense of stagefright every time I have to write (or even revise, it seems) something important. Am I afraid that the muse will desert me and I will lose all grasp of the English language? Am I afraid that I'll write something so terrible that people will tell jokes about it five-hundred years from now? What is my problem? If anyone has this figured out, I would love to know! 10:18 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, November 12, 2006 How can I not talk politics? Yeah, I voted against Amendment 1. I'm one of the 19 percent. I'm just going to come out and say it. I have a friend who centers his class around politics, but I don't like to bring them into the classroom, at least I don't like to impose my views on anyone else in that particular setting. However, it is difficult for me sometimes to keep my mouth shut. I have specific reasonings for voting the way I did. I studied the constitution in middle school (when I first moved here - it was all new and fascinating to me then) and then in more detail in AP U.S. World History, with Ms. Bayrd, a phenomenal history teacher. I know it, inside and out, even now, because I recently had to study for the citizenship test. There's this thing in it called separation of church and state. It is one of the pillars, one might even say the keystone of the entire constitution. Someone said to me recently that the constitution was based upon Christianity. As much as I loathe to get into a religious argument, I can safely say that is not true. Most of the "founding fathers" were actually Deists, children of the Age of Enlightenment, who believed in God, but a non-interfering God, one who set the clock running and let it tick, leaving humans to maintain it for better or for worse. The principles of the constitution are based upon humanism - a new concept spawned during the Age of Reason, that man himself is responsible for his actions towards other men. Hence, the quote about your rights stop at my nose. Many of them had been victims of some type of religious persecution (or their families had) and they were not about to perpetuate that in the new country they set up. I kept this in mind when I voted. One day I would like to get married. I wouldn't like anyone to stop me. I wouldn't want anyone telling me I couldn't express my love for another human being in any way I see fit. My right to get married does not give me the right to deny this to anyone else. Because someone else gets married, my right to do the same is not affected. I don't care if gay people get married. It doesn't affect me. It just makes them happy. What right do I have to determine another person's happiness and fulfillment. Are we not ALL guaranteed that by the constitution? Does not the Declaration of Independence, the document declaring war on my home country, clearly state this - that EVERYONE has the right to "life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness" Folks (yeah I'm borrowing BUSHRHETORIC), I hate to tell you, that doesn't mean that CERTAIN people have that right and others don't. That means everyone, whether you agree with their morals or not. Sorry. To argue from a different direction, amendments taking people's rights away historically don't do very well anyway. It used to be illegal in much of the South for a black person to marry a white person, and God forbid they should go to the same school or sit on the same seats on the bus. Oh, and as for toilets! When people try to fight progressivism, I go back to Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis and their pictures of child labour in the late 19th and early 20th century. Who would condone that (in this country at least) now, but in that era, the idea that it was cruel to children was radical and progressive. Change happens. Deal with it. I go back again to the separation of church and state. There is a reason this exists. People here of all political bents like to give examples of theocracies run by dictators as evil enemies of democracy. If we are championing Christian principles only and using them as our defense in law, even if Christians are a majority, are we not doing the same? Should we all be required to wear crucifixes the same way many middle-eastern women are required to wear burkhas? I would like to remind you that only two of the ten commandments are against the law in every state and federally - murder and robbery. But in fact, I know of no religion that sanctions either of these things. That's as far as the Christian link goes. Yes, we do all want to be good people, but we have law to govern these things. Law is for all of us, religion is a CHOICE. And I don't appreciate people trying to make my choices for me. I am an adult. I can make them for myself. I'm sure my views might piss a great number of people off, but they are my views and I have a right to them - it's that pesky constitution again with its right to free speech and all. 9:06 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Tuesday, September 26, 2006 Good Friends - thanks! Sometimes I go through life focusing on the bad things. I don't think about anything that's going right in my life. I'm like a doctor doing a physical, looking for anything that could turn up wrong. But when I think about it, I have many very tangible things to be grateful for now. Life, for the past few years has been stressful, very stressful. Up until recently, those stresses seemed unproductive at best, but even those stresses lately have paid off. I spent years trying to hold other people together through what seemed like the worst of times, and now, those people, because of my efforts, have told me what that meant and how they are able to do it on their own now. This has meant more to me and my sense of self-worth than I could have imagined. A more concrete example is my experience in graduate school. I went back to school with no expectations whatsoever. I just took undergraduate classes. I wasn't looking to make any friends. I just wanted to find some direction in my life. I bought a house, worked for my dad part-time, and went to school. I had no intention of taking that any further. I had a wonderful teacher for 20th Century Lit. who inspired me, the numb, cynical me I had become, to try and be something more. Her skill in the classroom, her knowledge of the subject matter, and her way of inspiring a conversation rather than dictating the subject from on high inspired me to be like her (I hope someday I will). The thought started rumbling around in the depths of my stomach - maybe I should do this. This started around February of 2004, but I quashed it. I dismissed it because I had already screwed around so much in school that the thought of going back for another two years seemed so far-fetched. I kept taking English classes and almost every experience was a good one. Even the one that wasn't (18th Century and Restoration Lit.) turned out to be good because the teacher I had, although he wasn't a great transmitter of the knowledge he possessed, I later found out, had only good words to say for me, in an ultimately influencial way. I decided, kind of last minute, to apply for graduate school. I didn't know what else to do with myself at that point. I was enjoying school so much, I didn't want to leave. It had been a saviour for me in so many ways. The dean of graduate studies I had had a class with, so I knew her, and could personally talk about my application with her. I took the GRE and apparently aced it, although I didn't really expect that either. I got into graduate school and started in January. I took a couple of classes that radically changed my interests and in a sense paved the way for what I'm studying now. I didn't have an assistantship that semester, so I took three classes. The jump from undergraduate to graduate didn't seem that huge. I applied that spring for an assistantship. I didn't think I would get one, but the secretary in the dean's office kept trying to persuade me. "You won't regret it," she said. I took her word for it and applied. I didn't get one right away. I was put on the waiting list and during that time, I interviewed for other positions in other departments, including one in Developmental Writing. The news came through in April that I had an assistantship in the English Department. It seems it's always the way that good news comes with bad. My life in other areas was going terribly, but I knew the monumental nature of this, somehow. I didn't realise how much it would change my vision of what I do, and my life. My work in the writing center and the classes I took that first semester of my assistantship shaped what I wanted to get out of my graduate degree, and what I wanted to put into it. I had gone into it thinking I wanted to study the interaction between art and literature of the Lost Generation, but I quickly got drafted into the Composition and Rhetoric camp. I had taken Computers and Writing that first semester and didn't realise until later that I would ultimately fall under this division of composition and do my thesis in this area. Sometimes you make unconscious choices that you're not aware of the import of until later. The point I wanted to make is that yes, school has changed my life, but it's not just an academic journey. I didn't expect to make friends. I live in Nashville and I drive to Murfreesboro every day. I thought I would have work/school there and friends here. I thought you had to look for friends. I was mistaken. They sought me out. I have become very, very, very good friends with one of the people I met in my film studies class. We started talking because she reads tarot cards and happened to mention this to me while we were working in the writing center and she did my cards then. Yes, really good, close friendships can happen over such things. She has been through many upheavals since then and so have I, but I am grateful to have met her so unexpectedly and to have become such close friends. I have also made friends with many other people at school, people who I am drawn to, and them to me, for sometimes initially academic reasons, but whom I have come to rely on to survive day to day. Their friendship has seen me through. A couple of girls sought me out during orientation that year. They made a special effort to become friends with me and to invite me out whenever they were doing something, to include me in their group, outside of school. All of these girls have become, amongst other things, trusted and valued mentors to me, and have helped me navigate the sometimes tortuous roads of graduate school. Not only that, I have had the opportunity to get to know all of their idiosyncratic and wonderful ways. I say all of this because it was such a surprise to me initially. I honestly didn't go to graduate school for the social opportunities. Last year, I thought about this all the time, but as I've settled in, it's become second nature to see and talk to people every day. But I think about it tonight and realise it's something extremely special. I don't want to be that person who goes around thinking this and doesn't say it. I'm lucky. I know I am. I am graced with wonderful people in my life who have been my friends, both professionally and personally, and I just wanted to say how much this means to me. So all of you out there who read this, you know who you are: thanks. 11:01 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, September 24, 2006 Girl in the Cafe I've had this movie sitting in my house for about two months. I ordered it from Netflix because my mother kept bugging me to watch it. It's easier to just order these things when she tells me about them because if I don't watch them, she'll keep telling me about them until I know the whole plot and her critical analysis of it and it's not worth me even watching them. So I ordered it and forbade her to say a word until I watched it. If you've seen Love Actually, the guy who plays the aging rocker plays the main part. He's a finance minister for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He's older, sad, and overworked. He meets a young, very attractive girl in a cafe on his lunch break. She's Dianne from Trainspotting - you remember ("too young for what?"). They start a very strange, undefined relationship and he asks her to accompany him to Iceland, where he's going to participate in a global summit. Up until this part, the movie has the potential of being very dryly funny (in that classically British way), but after the players arrive in Iceland, it begins to take on a different quality. You laugh and you cringe and you don't know what to think. I'm still not sure what agenda this movie had, if it had any, but I am still thinking about it tonight. It's quirky in the way many British movies are - kind of an enigma - and I always enjoy that, even if I'm annoyed that a movie is making me think too much. Currently watching : The Girl in the Cafe Release date: 06 September, 2005 10:15 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Radio Free Claire All week, during my many hours spent in the car on Interstate 24, I have been listening to what I have dubbed Radio Free Claire. My ipod has a shuffle songs feature, which for someone like me, with my listening habits, forces me to listen to new music. I tend to find something I like and listen it to near death. I get obsessed, hopelessly attached. I suppose I am a music romantic, or at least a serial monogomist. I have over 2000 songs on my ipod. Some of the albums I have uploaded, I have listened to maybe one or two songs and never really given the rest of the album a chance. I have a habit of buying many many cds at once, especially if I go to Ireland, so it sometimes happens that I buy an album and never really listen to it. However, I have found that if I upload these albums and set my ipod to "shuffle songs," I am often surprised by what I find. It's kind of like listening to a radio station, but one that has a good chance of playing stuff I actually like. (I promise, one day I'll write the radio rant - it's bubbling up inside me, waiting to come out, simmering in a horrible cauldren). I've made a few musical discoveries this week, thanks to Radio Free Claire's rotation. I've discovered I like The Shins, for one thing, and also The Vines. Radio Free Claire also sometimes plays marathons. Today for example, it was All South, All the Time Day. That was fabulous and just what I was in the mood for. How on earth did they know? It's like those DJs at Radio Free Claire are reading my mind! Currently listening : Adventures in the Underground Journey to the Stars By South Release date: 04 April, 2006 2:13 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, September 17, 2006 I Hope I'm Not Going to Die Current mood: cynical I ate spinach yesterday, with macaroni and cheese and barbeque sauce. It might sound like a weird combination, but don't knock it 'til you've tried it, especially if you buy the Bob Evans Macaroni & Cheese that's currently on sale at Kroger. Earlier in the year, I reread Fast Food Nation and it convinced me to stop eating meat for about 7 or 8 months. Recently, the grossed-out effect has worn off and I've been eating meat again. One of the things that really put me off was the breakouts of e-coli that happen and are often hushed up by the meat packers (who are so minimally regulated that it's scary, very scary). But it seems that even vegetarians aren't safe, especially those who try to get their iron from plant-based sources. Spinach is an excellent source of iron, but it is currently being recalled because of an outbreak of e-coli. If you want to know where the e-coli virus comes from, it's shit. That's right, feces. Now you could drive yourself nuts thinking about how and when your food gets to you in this industrialized and depersonalized society, and at some point you have to let it go, but really, hasn't it gone too far when even innocent spinach isn't safe? 9:26 PM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, September 10, 2006 Fried Chicken I have to agree with Hillary, screw "Chicken Soup for the (insert whatever kind here) Soul," sometimes, your soul is in need of some fried chicken. I've been a little down in the dumps this weekend. It's stress and a myriad of various other causes, but I haven't really been feeling myself. I decided that the cure for my malaise, the only viable band-aid, was fried chicken. As luck would have it, I called Stephanie and asked if she wanted to join in assuaging my very specific combo fried-chicken-and-mashed-potatoes-and-gravy craving. As luck would have it, and as Stephanie luckily knew, Cracker Barrel has a fried chicken breast dinner night on Sundays. Then I knew it was meant to be. I thought I'd eat this plate of heartstopping grease and feel guilty, "oh, I've ruined my healthy eating plans, blah blah blah," but no, I feel one million times better. It was absolutely delicious and just what I needed. Sometimes there's no other way - fried chicken. 7:00 PM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, September 09, 2006 Little Miss Sunshine I saw Little Miss Sunshine tonight and I laughed and laughed and laughed. It's kind of an almost dark comedy - medium grey on the comedy colour scale. It's not black enough to make you feel bad for laughing; it's too heartfelt for that, but it does have some great cringe for the characters moments. Basically, you take a child beauty pagent contestant, her wacky philosphy loving teenage brother, a father obsessed with his get-rich-quick self-help idea, a biker-drug ingesting grandad, a gay suicidal uncle, and her non-stick-shift driving mother, add a VW Bus, and take them on a roadtrip. And yes, the thing with the horn is true - it does happen, a veteran VW driver can attest to it. People in the theatre, including me, clapped when it was over. I highly recommend getting out and seeing it, even if, like me, it takes an act of God to get you to the cinema. Currently listening : Little Miss Sunshine By Various Artists Release date: 11 July, 2006