Hi-ya!

Ninja kicks. They're awesome. Here's what I'm talking about: I run a few steps, then jump into the air, left knee up, right leg straight down. Then I pull my left leg down straight as I bring my right knee up before I extend the right leg forward in a ferocious kick, just in time to land on my left foot. There's a moment in this maneuver, the moment when I'm letting my left leg drop and lifting my right, a moment that coincides with the apex of the jump, just before I left my right foot fly forward, where I feel like all coiled energy and everything slows down. It is one of the few times when I feel graceful, powerful. And it means I'm about to take down some uppity ninja.



feeling the slowness of time and ready energy of my body as i tuck into myself at the apex of a jump just before I drop a sweet kick: ****

Spring Break

So this Spring Break was the first time my ex and I saw each other after our breakup. We met up and decided to take a walk down to the park. I was a bit wary of her, not touching, making small talk and looking around. We sat down on some grass and kind of, I don't know, settled. I snaked my hand along the ground to rest between us, palm up, inviting. She reached out and took it, and began to cry. For me, it was an absolutely terrible moment, the kind of suffering that there is no value in and nothing to learn from.



watching my ex cry at our situation, feeling sad and powerless and just plain shitty:

300

OK, so. Today I saw 300, and it was just fantastic. My day was a perfect storm designed to put me in the mood to enjoy that film.

For the past week I've been stressing about midterms, working on essays and studying for exams. This morning I had my astro exam, (which I think I did very well on!), so that was exciting and put me in a triumphant mood. I then danced around in my room and listened to The Go! Team which was awesome. The day was nice and I was feeling really good. Then my roommate started playing guitar and that was awesome.

Everything was awesome! Life was awesome.

So, we all go see 300. AND IT IS SO BAD. I mean, I have no idea what the other people in the audience went in expecting. But me and my friend went in expecting two hours loaded with misguided hilarity, interspersed with moments of beauty. And full of bad dialogue. And we were right on the money. I had such a good time.



having a great day and feeling flush and full of life with great friends and then watching a fantastically bad yet beautiful movie and laughing at every line: *****

Fuck fuck FUCK

OVERSLEPT my astro review this morning. What the FUCK is wrong with me. SAW the damn clack (sic, bitches) say 9:40 and went right on lying there. GAAAAAAH.



zzzzzin' right through a review session that I need to not fail and become a janitor: *

Yearnings

So, I have this class. It happens once a week, at night, for three hours. It's about politics and ethics, and I love it. I love the readings, I love the discussions, I love walking out of my house in the dark and the rain and going to talk philosophy for hours. There are seven of us in the class, and I have a huge crush on the professor. Part of it is erotic (I think she's very sexy) and part of it is mental (she's very smart and has an excellent personality). I divide it like that because in this case, I am very aware of the separateness of each part. I mean, usually there is an attraction to both. But in this case each feels very separate from each other. Anywaya.

I also have a crush on a cute redhead in that class. So it is a time of yearnings for me. Neither of the crushes are very pressing (and obviously having a crush on a professor is problematic), so it's a pleasant sort of ache. The conversations are highly intellectual and I see sides of these ladies I wouldn't otherwise. I guess I find it pleasant because it lets me know it's there, that desire for connection with other people, a vast empty space I want to fill. Like, I just want to sit down and chat with them for a long time. Learn about them. And if there are kisses, well, bonus. It doesn't need to be romantic, though. I just don't know how to say: "you seem interesting, let's go for a walk sometime and chat" without sounding threatening or weird. So I'll go on yearning.



sitting and chatting about politics and philosophy for hours, sneaking glances at my professor and a cute redhead, wondering what they are like all opened up and laid out, and you can take that as sexually as you want: ****

New Music

Today was the release of the new Arcade Fire album, something I had been looking forward to since the release of their debut, Funeral, back in 2004. So this morning, early, like around 9, I downloaded it from emusic, my primary music source, transferred it to my MP3 player, and crawled back into bed for a dedicated listen.

It was hard to get comfortable (wearing earbuds and all), but I managed, my wonderful thick covers pulled up over me, staring half-focused at nothing, letting the music pour inside me. It's good stuff, nicely different from Funeral. And of course it was that one unique listen when each note and tremor is new, unexpected, sometimes surprising. A great way to start the day.



listening to an eagerly-awaited, damn fine album (arcade fire's neon bible) in the comfort of my own bed and for the first time: ***

Sleep

Here's the thing about sleep: I hate it. I hate lying in bed and trying not to think about my impending loss of consciousness, I hate losing a third of my life to the void, I hate the foul taste in my mouth when I wake up, I hate waking early in the morning only to fitfully masturbate and suffer hallucinations and exhausted.

But most of all, I hate needing to sleep more than I have to. Like today. I lost 3-5pm roiling about in my bed, hypnagogic, confused, slipping into and out of sleep, exciting the demons of the Sandman rather than placating them. Ugh. I'm gonna chug vallium from now on.



losing two hours of my life to an ill-fated nap that only made me more tired, and included a variety of confusing and uncomfortable hallucinations and half-remembered dreams: *

A Long Conversation

Last night I ended up staying awake until six in the morning, talking with a fellow housemate by the heater downstairs. What began as a simple exchange quickly ballooned into an intelligent, fascinating, and really quite funny discussion of life, the universe, and everything. The contents of the conversation revolved around dealing with the meaningless and arbitrary nature of life - the variety of chemical urges that force us to do things, the warping powers of society, the complete inability to truly communicate with another.

Life is a series of consumptions and productions: a taking in of ideas, of images and sounds and thoughts and sensations, matched in turn by expression through thought or art or interactions.

I consumed much that night, a rare and opulent feast, taking into me a whole worldview, conclusions and assumptions related to yet different from my own, new attitudes: a seismic moment, our continents colliding, the edges of worlds inside of us tangling with each other, each sharing its beasts and its fowl, its own weather patterns, the northern lights!

I can feel it within me, spreading, and I am excited to think of the productions this will stir in me, the grand new mountains to be thrown up by this buckling of earth.



chatting for like a million years with someone great about the fundamental nature of the universe and man's place in it, why we live and how we should die, about sex, hope, society, free will and freshmen: *****

Ready... FIGHT!

One of my friends is running for president of student government, and he organized a debate which took place tonight. I was in attendance.

There were four candidates, each one uniquely dressed to suit his style: a nice suit for the serious Politician, dumpy clothes for the Everyman, casual clothes for the laid-back Intellectual, and prep threads for the Frat boy.

Fratty was a particularly amusing spectacle; sidestepping questions, tacking "right?" onto the end of every sentence, ending each speech with an unbearable shit-eating grin. Ugh. The Everyman also provided some entertainment, looking wide-eyed and confused yet determined to make his message heard.

The Politician and the Intellectual I was very impressed by: both of them spoke well and had clear, intelligible platforms.

I went semi-dreading it, but I have to say I actually enjoyed it: entertained when Fratty and Everyman spoke, and engaged when Intellectual and Politician spoke. It was good times.



watching 50% of presidential debate participants act foolish while the other 50% carry on meaningful discussion: ***

Endings

Finishing a book is usually, for me, bittersweet; I am glad to have finished the thing and seen the story whole, but I am also sad to say goodbye forever to the characters, the newness, the barreling-along that reading a book is.

Today, I finished Little, Big John Crowley's fantasy masterpiece. I first saw it in Powell's: Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land, another book by Crowley, caught my eye, but I passed it over. I went on to check out other books, and the jacket blurb of one mentioned how it reminded him of Little, Big by John Crowley. Having just looked at a Crowley book I felt compelled to go back and see if they had this one. They did, a single copy. The cover is gorgeous, a sepia-toned photograph of a young woman holding a birdcage, standing on a path that leads to a monstrous house. It felt good in my hands. I held it and continued my book-hunt.

Ready to purchase, I had to decide between that and Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. Choosing the Gaiman book, I handed Little, Big to my then-girlfriend to reshelve and got in line for the register. I waited for a few moments and then something in me turned all the way around and I dashed out of the line, passing my now-ex on the stairs, giving her a look of ridiculous helplessness.

Finishing that book today, I was left breathless and tearful, considering my own life, how every moment is gone and never never happens again, which is a shame since some of it can be so goddamn beautiful, and decided to take a walk.

I went through a nearby park, reading the carved hearts on the trees, looking at everyone walking by. I was listening to music, the sun was setting, and I wanted to tell everyone that they were beautiful.

I felt Little, I felt Big.



finishing little, big and then taking a long walk through a beautiful landscape, reading devotions and watching the sun set, listening to music and thinking of my loves (past, present, and future), of my parents, my sister, of my friends and how our lives intersect, of how shit-they're-not-kidding, this is the only life i've got: *****

Flauntin' What My Momma Gave Me

So, I am giving a presentation at my college's undergraduate conference. Basically, I examine the ethics of genetic alteration using arguments from abortion philosophers, as well as some identity-rights guys. It's pretty cool.

Anywaya, I'm going to be part of a poster to showcase the event, which means they have to take my picture. So, today, they did. "They" in this case refers to my school's official photographer, a nice-seeming pregnant lady who is a master at hunting down every minority on campus and taking their picture.

So.

We met by a big ol' statue, one that looks like a woman's torso from one angle, and a penis from another. And I brought tools! I thought they could represent genetic alteration. So I was holding a hammer, in front of this statue, and she took pictures of me looking silly. We traded jokes, it was fun.



getting photographed by a fun pregnant lady for an undergraduate conference poster while wielding a hammer: ****

Dealing With an Excess

I like ice in my water. This is because I like my water cold. So after I finish a refreshing glass of H2O, I am often left with a tumble of ice in my glass. My dentist has bred in me a respectful fear of "microfissures" - small cracks in your teeth that allow another entry for hateful plaque. All together this means that after I am finished with a glass of water I have an amount of ice to deal with. If I am outside, or near to it, and especially at night, I like to launch the ice into the air (just jerk up the cup so it spits all the cubes out). The ice glitters prettily in the air, brief and falling stars, and the sound they make when they hit the ground is always rewarding.

Tonight, after watching a play, my friends and I went to the campus center to enjoy some ice cream and camaraderie. Finished with my glass of water, I walked to the edge of the patio and cast the ice into the air.



launching ice from my water glass during a night out with my friends and watching the cubes roll and shine in the air and hearing their muffled smacks on the grassy lawn: ***