I still haven't decided what I want this blog to be about. It's no longer my "diary," as I've moved that to another blog address. But it's hard to remember to write anything other than my diary.
I think that to keep this address going, I'll have to make it more routine-- maybe a post once a week will do the trick. Yes... that's it. From now on, I'll post here every Friday and that will be that.
In other news, I just got a "friendster" invitation from a girl with whom I went to high school. I haven't seen her in 10 years! I haven't decided if I want to be in contact with her again, or not.
Ugh. I've changed a lot since then.
Back to cleaning my house now.
later...
-h-
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Sisters
I think I take my sisters for granted.
I rarely ever think about how lucky I am to have them. My dad may not have accomplished much in his short and sad lifetime, but he did something amazing for the three of us. He gave us each a gift. Two sisters for me and me for them. A greater gift, I can't imagine. I'm lucky to have them around, to have them in my life, and to actually like them! I mean, I know most people love their families, but my sisters and I are actually friends. Luckier still, they are both with great guys who get along with each other and are like brothers to me. This will be the core of my family forever, as new babies and new marriages come and as my grandparents and parents go.
I have to say-- it's a great home base. I trust it completely.
Sometimes I feel strange because in some ways my sisters are more similar to each other than they are to me. I've always been the "sensitive one," the "dramatic one," and the "secretive one." I've always been the "weird-artistic one," the "intellectual one," the "self-destructive one" that no one could make head or tail of. And I know that whatever guy I end up with, he will probably not "fit in" with Bro-in-Law and JBC as perfectly as they fit with each other. But that's okay... Because it is. And it has to be. And it doesn't change a thing.
I was having a pretty awful day today. I went into famine/work mode (major Jekyll-mode!) from about 5:00 pm yesterday and so I forgot to eat. (B knows me so well! When I told him how much work I had to do, all he said to me was "Please, Hyde! Just don't forget you have a body, okay?") Well, I did forget. The only fuel I offered my body over a 24 hour period was a shitload of Jack Daniels, some diet coke, a can of (sugar-free) red bull and some water. This afternoon I was woozy from the lack of food, lack of sleep and all of the reading and grading when at around 3:30 pm I stumbled back into my office to post the first round of semester grades. But when I went to check my email, I was met with a treat-- my sisters had sent me two hysterical pictures from their cell phones.
They are both in Florida right now visiting my grandpa. I was supposed to go as well, but had too much work to take care of this week, having left it all only half-finished when I departed for Argentina. Anyway, it's hard to explain to anyone else why these particular pictures were so amusing. It's something that can only make sense to me and my sisters. But that's exactly why those pictures were so special... and funny. And it's why they prompted me to reflect upon how much I love those two... and my entire family.
In the first, both of my sisters are standing in my grandparents' kitchen in front of a hanging basket in the shape of a monkey. When we were babies, BigSis and I were terrified of that monkey. Then, when we were a little bit older we liked to laugh at it and would beg my aunt to chase us around the house, monkey-basket in hand. This afternoon, through a veil of exhaustion, anxiety and slight depression, there my sisters stood before me, smack in the middle of my computer screen, the monkey lurking and my sisters shaking in their boots, chewing their nails, fright in their faces, laughter in their eyes.
The second picture showed Bro-in-Law and JBC next to a table lamp. We used to play with the decorative metal on that lamp when we were little, driving my grandmother absolutely crazy. In this picture, the two boys have half-embarrassed mischievous expressions on their faces as they play with the lamp.
My grandmother is gone now and so are those annual trips to Florida with my sisters, my mother's sister and my two cousins. I sometimes wish I could travel time, just to visit those days, those feelings... even if only for the day. Of course that is impossible. But there my sisters were, taking some secret thought of mine-- an image, a memory, a part of my emotional vocabulary that no one in this huge anonymous city could ever find, and saying it out loud, making it tangible, giving it back to me again.
Seeing the boys reenact memories they never had themselves reminded me of the power of family and the power of choice. I want to be with someone who can be my family. I want to be with someone I can be silly with and share those things with. I want everything to stop being so heavy and so philosophic. I want to stop making crap of my life and settling for people with whom I have no real connection.
Those pictures made me laugh. And then they made me think twice about all of the drama in my personal life that I inflate to such monumental proportions. I love my sisters. And that drama? It's meaningless. It's stupid. It's unnecessary. And it's manufactured.
Things aren't really that bad.
I mean, how can they be?
I'll always have my sisters.
:)
h
I rarely ever think about how lucky I am to have them. My dad may not have accomplished much in his short and sad lifetime, but he did something amazing for the three of us. He gave us each a gift. Two sisters for me and me for them. A greater gift, I can't imagine. I'm lucky to have them around, to have them in my life, and to actually like them! I mean, I know most people love their families, but my sisters and I are actually friends. Luckier still, they are both with great guys who get along with each other and are like brothers to me. This will be the core of my family forever, as new babies and new marriages come and as my grandparents and parents go.
I have to say-- it's a great home base. I trust it completely.
Sometimes I feel strange because in some ways my sisters are more similar to each other than they are to me. I've always been the "sensitive one," the "dramatic one," and the "secretive one." I've always been the "weird-artistic one," the "intellectual one," the "self-destructive one" that no one could make head or tail of. And I know that whatever guy I end up with, he will probably not "fit in" with Bro-in-Law and JBC as perfectly as they fit with each other. But that's okay... Because it is. And it has to be. And it doesn't change a thing.
I was having a pretty awful day today. I went into famine/work mode (major Jekyll-mode!) from about 5:00 pm yesterday and so I forgot to eat. (B knows me so well! When I told him how much work I had to do, all he said to me was "Please, Hyde! Just don't forget you have a body, okay?") Well, I did forget. The only fuel I offered my body over a 24 hour period was a shitload of Jack Daniels, some diet coke, a can of (sugar-free) red bull and some water. This afternoon I was woozy from the lack of food, lack of sleep and all of the reading and grading when at around 3:30 pm I stumbled back into my office to post the first round of semester grades. But when I went to check my email, I was met with a treat-- my sisters had sent me two hysterical pictures from their cell phones.
They are both in Florida right now visiting my grandpa. I was supposed to go as well, but had too much work to take care of this week, having left it all only half-finished when I departed for Argentina. Anyway, it's hard to explain to anyone else why these particular pictures were so amusing. It's something that can only make sense to me and my sisters. But that's exactly why those pictures were so special... and funny. And it's why they prompted me to reflect upon how much I love those two... and my entire family.
In the first, both of my sisters are standing in my grandparents' kitchen in front of a hanging basket in the shape of a monkey. When we were babies, BigSis and I were terrified of that monkey. Then, when we were a little bit older we liked to laugh at it and would beg my aunt to chase us around the house, monkey-basket in hand. This afternoon, through a veil of exhaustion, anxiety and slight depression, there my sisters stood before me, smack in the middle of my computer screen, the monkey lurking and my sisters shaking in their boots, chewing their nails, fright in their faces, laughter in their eyes.
The second picture showed Bro-in-Law and JBC next to a table lamp. We used to play with the decorative metal on that lamp when we were little, driving my grandmother absolutely crazy. In this picture, the two boys have half-embarrassed mischievous expressions on their faces as they play with the lamp.
My grandmother is gone now and so are those annual trips to Florida with my sisters, my mother's sister and my two cousins. I sometimes wish I could travel time, just to visit those days, those feelings... even if only for the day. Of course that is impossible. But there my sisters were, taking some secret thought of mine-- an image, a memory, a part of my emotional vocabulary that no one in this huge anonymous city could ever find, and saying it out loud, making it tangible, giving it back to me again.
Seeing the boys reenact memories they never had themselves reminded me of the power of family and the power of choice. I want to be with someone who can be my family. I want to be with someone I can be silly with and share those things with. I want everything to stop being so heavy and so philosophic. I want to stop making crap of my life and settling for people with whom I have no real connection.
Those pictures made me laugh. And then they made me think twice about all of the drama in my personal life that I inflate to such monumental proportions. I love my sisters. And that drama? It's meaningless. It's stupid. It's unnecessary. And it's manufactured.
Things aren't really that bad.
I mean, how can they be?
I'll always have my sisters.
:)
h
Sunday, January 08, 2006
L'adieu
I love this song. It's Garou. You can listen for yourself if you want...
L'Adieu
Adieu
Aux arbres mouillés de septembre
À leur soleil de souvenir
À ces mots doux, à ces mots tendres
Que je t'ai entendu me dire
À la faveur d'un chemin creux
Ou d'une bougie allumée
Adieu à ce qui fut nous deux
À la passion du verbe aimer
L'adieu
Est une infinie diligence
Où les chevaux ont dû souffrir
Où les reflets de ton absence
Ont marqué l'ombre du plaisir
L'adieu est une lettre de toi
Que je garderai sur mon cœur
Une illusion de toi et moi
Une impression de vivre ailleurs
L'adieu
N'est que vérité devant Dieu
Tout le reste est lettre à écrire
À ceux qui se sont dit adieu
Quand il fallait se retenir
Tu ne peux plus baisser les yeux
Devant le rouge des cheminées
Nous avons connu d'autres feux
Qui nous ont si bien consumés
L'adieu
C'est nos deux corps qui se séparent
Sur la rivière du temps qui passe
Je ne sais pas pour qui tu pars
Et tu ne sais pas qui m'embrasse
Nous n'aurons plus de jalousies
Ni de paroles qui font souffrir
Aussi fort qu'on s'était choisi
Est fort le moment de partir
Oh l'adieu !
L'adieu
C'est le sanglot long des horloges
Et les trompettes de Waterloo
Dire à tous ceux qui s'interrogent
Que l'amour est tombé à l'eau
D'un bateau ivre de tristesse
Qui nous a rongé toi et moi
Les passagers sont en détresse
Et j'en connais deux qui se noient
Adieu
Aux arbres mouillés de septembre
À leur soleil de souvenir
À ces mots doux à ces mots tendres
Que je t'ai entendu me dire
À la faveur d'un chemin creux
Ou d'une bougie allumée
Adieu à ce qui fut nous deux
À la passion du verbe aimer
L'adieu
C'est le loup blanc dans sa montagne
Et les chasseurs dans la vallée
Le soleil qui nous accompagne
Est une lune bête à pleurer
L'adieu ressemble à ces marées
Qui viendront tout ensevelir
Les marins avec les mariées
Le passé avec l`avenir
Oh l'adieu !
Oh l'adieu !
Adieu
L'Adieu
Adieu
Aux arbres mouillés de septembre
À leur soleil de souvenir
À ces mots doux, à ces mots tendres
Que je t'ai entendu me dire
À la faveur d'un chemin creux
Ou d'une bougie allumée
Adieu à ce qui fut nous deux
À la passion du verbe aimer
L'adieu
Est une infinie diligence
Où les chevaux ont dû souffrir
Où les reflets de ton absence
Ont marqué l'ombre du plaisir
L'adieu est une lettre de toi
Que je garderai sur mon cœur
Une illusion de toi et moi
Une impression de vivre ailleurs
L'adieu
N'est que vérité devant Dieu
Tout le reste est lettre à écrire
À ceux qui se sont dit adieu
Quand il fallait se retenir
Tu ne peux plus baisser les yeux
Devant le rouge des cheminées
Nous avons connu d'autres feux
Qui nous ont si bien consumés
L'adieu
C'est nos deux corps qui se séparent
Sur la rivière du temps qui passe
Je ne sais pas pour qui tu pars
Et tu ne sais pas qui m'embrasse
Nous n'aurons plus de jalousies
Ni de paroles qui font souffrir
Aussi fort qu'on s'était choisi
Est fort le moment de partir
Oh l'adieu !
L'adieu
C'est le sanglot long des horloges
Et les trompettes de Waterloo
Dire à tous ceux qui s'interrogent
Que l'amour est tombé à l'eau
D'un bateau ivre de tristesse
Qui nous a rongé toi et moi
Les passagers sont en détresse
Et j'en connais deux qui se noient
Adieu
Aux arbres mouillés de septembre
À leur soleil de souvenir
À ces mots doux à ces mots tendres
Que je t'ai entendu me dire
À la faveur d'un chemin creux
Ou d'une bougie allumée
Adieu à ce qui fut nous deux
À la passion du verbe aimer
L'adieu
C'est le loup blanc dans sa montagne
Et les chasseurs dans la vallée
Le soleil qui nous accompagne
Est une lune bête à pleurer
L'adieu ressemble à ces marées
Qui viendront tout ensevelir
Les marins avec les mariées
Le passé avec l`avenir
Oh l'adieu !
Oh l'adieu !
Adieu
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Nostalgia
I find myself wanting to write something here, only I'm not quite sure what to write. I miss it here. But at the same time, I feel foolish having nostalgia for a mere "address." This place doesn't exist, and yet it has been my home for the better part of a year. For me, it was an uncommon luxury, as I rarely let myself feel "at home" anywhere.
On Tuesday night in Argentina, NDN and I quarreled. I got very drunk and lost my head. I had count to twenty as slowly as possible. It's funny what the brain will drag up to save itself. (This, reminiscent of the years in which I had panic attacks). NDN tells me that I kept saying I "wanted to call home."
"I don't think you wanted to call your mom," he laughed the next day.
No. I didn't want to call my mother. I wanted to call "home," although I've never quite had a firm sense of where that is.
When I was a little girl and I would cry, I would often cry that I wanted to "go home." I know that it always disturbed my mother.
"But you are home," she would say.
Somehow, I always felt a nostalgia for something never experienced. Something past-- much more in the past than any part of me. I've always had a very ancient memory. It's why I like to laugh that I've been a mermaid. It's the only image with which I can tap into that. A sign signifying the part of me that craves creative sublimation.
Creative sublimation? Just the idea of it tears at my brain. I'm not cut out for it! I don't have the stamina. Creativity is too lonely a prospect for me, and so I prefer love.
That's just it, isn't it? A sickness... It's a weak answer that I've come up with-- especially for a girl with infinite strength (as I believe I do have). What is this love? This generosity? This pity, sympathy, worship, craving in my heart? It's a religious impulse. A creative longing for annihilation in an other.
I feel so adolescent sometimes that I am embarrassed even of myself. But there it is-- I am fixed on the crucial conjunction of love and death in the most sophomoric way-- I am gloomy Schopenhauer, plagiarizing from the Buddhists so that I can savor the gothic and the sensual, making myself over into a melancholy German.
And what is it that I want out of life? The disintegration of the "phenomenal" into the "noumenal."
Even if it's a lie, Hyde?
Yes, I tell myself. Even if it's all in my head.
B and I used to joke all the time about wanting a Liebestod. Only I wasn't joking, and I think he knew it. Sometimes he laughs uncomfortably and says we are "too close."
"Don't you think it's bad if we're dependent on each other?" he asked me this afternoon.
"I'm not dependent on you," I said. "I love you. There's a big difference. And that's the least of my problems."
"Are you sure about that? Are you sure it's not at the root of your problems?"
"Yes, I'm sure." I replied. "I don't tell you the worst of what's in my heart anymore. We're not as close as you think."
(I closed my eyes. I'm not that close to anyone anymore.)
"Well, then... What is in your heart?" he asked.
"I've started to see the world through eyes not my own," I said. "Self-hatred."
"And?"
"And... Most of the time I agree with it all. I hate myself and I want to punish myself. And I do, don't I? With much success. But then, sometimes it clears. Sometimes I see. Only rarely do I remember myself--my true self and get angry at things for what they are."
(I know I sound cryptic here, but I can't bear to share with you any more of this strain of thought than just that.)
We didn't finish the conversation. It turned to some tears on my part and he wanted to change the subject. We stiffly discussed the souvenir I brought him from Argentina before making plans to meet at 4:00 tomorrow. We've got a date to go see Wozzeck at the Met, and I couldn't be more thrilled.
But I meant what I said to B. And I had such a moment of clarity this week. It was a true revelation. I sat on a balcony, my eyes fixed on the sea, the bitter taste of red wine in my throat and tears hot on my cheeks. It was then that I realized something very basic...something I had been complicating... romanticizing ad infinitum. And yet, there it went. Right before my mind, it crumbled into the mundane--into the repulsive... Somehow, my great project became something much more shallow and pitiless. And right then and there, a piece of me fell out of love. I've waited several days now for the change to reverse, but it has not.
I have amazing skill when it comes to not wanting to accept what is before me. For some reason, I keep thinking of that tattoo on my arm: "the signifier is the signified." Yes. That's what I've always believed. Similarly, didn't Foucault say somewhere that "the symptom is the disease"? (signs of sickness are signs of truth?)
But in this New Year, I'm beginning to doubt the infallibility of my readings. Signs are shadows and not light. (Thank you, Plato.) Signs can be misread if one is as romantically inclined as I. For after all, signs are just that--signs. They are, by definition, one step removed. They can not ever be enough to lead one to an annihilatory liebestod (however foolish a dream that might be).
And so, I stare the New Year in the eye, and long to cast off these veils, but I am terrified. Should I let go of my spirit, let go of my orientation and my vision, let go of my illusions, I will be unrecognizable even to myself. How can I live without my own mythology?
I force myself to pause. I must stop myself and ask, "What are you afraid of?"
In consolation, I remind myself of Tennyson's In Memoriam:
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone;
I care for nothing, all shall go."
-h-
PS: Sorry if this post took on sort of a strange tone. The old Hyde is still here. Just a little pensive these days... Perhaps a visit to Cheers tonight will remedy all that is off kilter.
On Tuesday night in Argentina, NDN and I quarreled. I got very drunk and lost my head. I had count to twenty as slowly as possible. It's funny what the brain will drag up to save itself. (This, reminiscent of the years in which I had panic attacks). NDN tells me that I kept saying I "wanted to call home."
"I don't think you wanted to call your mom," he laughed the next day.
No. I didn't want to call my mother. I wanted to call "home," although I've never quite had a firm sense of where that is.
When I was a little girl and I would cry, I would often cry that I wanted to "go home." I know that it always disturbed my mother.
"But you are home," she would say.
Somehow, I always felt a nostalgia for something never experienced. Something past-- much more in the past than any part of me. I've always had a very ancient memory. It's why I like to laugh that I've been a mermaid. It's the only image with which I can tap into that. A sign signifying the part of me that craves creative sublimation.
Creative sublimation? Just the idea of it tears at my brain. I'm not cut out for it! I don't have the stamina. Creativity is too lonely a prospect for me, and so I prefer love.
That's just it, isn't it? A sickness... It's a weak answer that I've come up with-- especially for a girl with infinite strength (as I believe I do have). What is this love? This generosity? This pity, sympathy, worship, craving in my heart? It's a religious impulse. A creative longing for annihilation in an other.
I feel so adolescent sometimes that I am embarrassed even of myself. But there it is-- I am fixed on the crucial conjunction of love and death in the most sophomoric way-- I am gloomy Schopenhauer, plagiarizing from the Buddhists so that I can savor the gothic and the sensual, making myself over into a melancholy German.
And what is it that I want out of life? The disintegration of the "phenomenal" into the "noumenal."
Even if it's a lie, Hyde?
Yes, I tell myself. Even if it's all in my head.
B and I used to joke all the time about wanting a Liebestod. Only I wasn't joking, and I think he knew it. Sometimes he laughs uncomfortably and says we are "too close."
"Don't you think it's bad if we're dependent on each other?" he asked me this afternoon.
"I'm not dependent on you," I said. "I love you. There's a big difference. And that's the least of my problems."
"Are you sure about that? Are you sure it's not at the root of your problems?"
"Yes, I'm sure." I replied. "I don't tell you the worst of what's in my heart anymore. We're not as close as you think."
(I closed my eyes. I'm not that close to anyone anymore.)
"Well, then... What is in your heart?" he asked.
"I've started to see the world through eyes not my own," I said. "Self-hatred."
"And?"
"And... Most of the time I agree with it all. I hate myself and I want to punish myself. And I do, don't I? With much success. But then, sometimes it clears. Sometimes I see. Only rarely do I remember myself--my true self and get angry at things for what they are."
(I know I sound cryptic here, but I can't bear to share with you any more of this strain of thought than just that.)
We didn't finish the conversation. It turned to some tears on my part and he wanted to change the subject. We stiffly discussed the souvenir I brought him from Argentina before making plans to meet at 4:00 tomorrow. We've got a date to go see Wozzeck at the Met, and I couldn't be more thrilled.
But I meant what I said to B. And I had such a moment of clarity this week. It was a true revelation. I sat on a balcony, my eyes fixed on the sea, the bitter taste of red wine in my throat and tears hot on my cheeks. It was then that I realized something very basic...something I had been complicating... romanticizing ad infinitum. And yet, there it went. Right before my mind, it crumbled into the mundane--into the repulsive... Somehow, my great project became something much more shallow and pitiless. And right then and there, a piece of me fell out of love. I've waited several days now for the change to reverse, but it has not.
I have amazing skill when it comes to not wanting to accept what is before me. For some reason, I keep thinking of that tattoo on my arm: "the signifier is the signified." Yes. That's what I've always believed. Similarly, didn't Foucault say somewhere that "the symptom is the disease"? (signs of sickness are signs of truth?)
But in this New Year, I'm beginning to doubt the infallibility of my readings. Signs are shadows and not light. (Thank you, Plato.) Signs can be misread if one is as romantically inclined as I. For after all, signs are just that--signs. They are, by definition, one step removed. They can not ever be enough to lead one to an annihilatory liebestod (however foolish a dream that might be).
And so, I stare the New Year in the eye, and long to cast off these veils, but I am terrified. Should I let go of my spirit, let go of my orientation and my vision, let go of my illusions, I will be unrecognizable even to myself. How can I live without my own mythology?
I force myself to pause. I must stop myself and ask, "What are you afraid of?"
In consolation, I remind myself of Tennyson's In Memoriam:
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone;
I care for nothing, all shall go."
-h-
PS: Sorry if this post took on sort of a strange tone. The old Hyde is still here. Just a little pensive these days... Perhaps a visit to Cheers tonight will remedy all that is off kilter.
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