okay, so i am in nebraska. and i work in a plant science lab building. but is that really enough reason for there to be signs above the drinking fountains that say "please do not spit tobacco down the drain?"
i have to get out of here
posted by renee 10:17 AM
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
my responsibilities at work today include ecommerce sale sleuthing, fruit smoothie consumption, chair-warming and increasing the university's budget deficit by approximately $7 every hour. oh yeah, and keeping stevie ray company on his happy loop. i have been browsing the internet thinking that there are many cool things i could do to this site, but i probably won't. i am also trying to needle my way into the decision making committee of my new house which currently only includes two of the six residents. sigh... and an unfortunate neighbor.
i wonder if my foolish talk of love will find out its own hollowness soon. my mind drifts further and further though my heart hasn't listened yet. but i realize the complexity of my plight is related far more to effort than to time. people tell me all the time that things like this work themselves out. not if you ignore them, they don't. but endless late night discussions also prove to be supremely ineffective as any real meat has long ago been overexplicated. when it comes right down to it, it comes right down to a hundred things. recently troubling has been the oft renewed conclusion that i want deeply to be loved for my soul first, my brain second, and my body last, but not necessarily least. however, my body has been in the best shape of any of them throughout the nearly two years that i have spent in dating relationships. in fact, this summer has seen the most abysmal spiritual trench of my life and i am still frantically struggling to get out of it before school bogs me down with other worries. as far as my mind.... now I'M the spinning top, unable to keep my focus in one direction long enough to get a clear picture of what's happening. i have actively made what i want impossible, or perhaps i have made the impossible what i want. regardless of order, this is a very stuffy place to sit still for very long and i am in desperate need of escape, in whatever form. minnesota, i return to you soon... one birthday, one vacation and some boyfriend/best friend homecomings and my summer will be once again over.
posted by renee 2:03 PM
I'll never get sick of reality shows. I watch them whenever I am allowed. I get to see more of them at my dad's house than my mom's because my stepmom is addicted to them too."
ivanna cone and fire escapes and girlfriends make up for the lack of boy
wondering if it's true that boys want a girl "who laughs for no one else"
seems likely to me... that's probably not a gender specific selfishness
to feel like you were the spark that brought someone alive would be a nice feeling indeed
um... dave is right, these times are unnervingly typical
and supposedly everyone hates their life in college
that should be comforting but isn't
i wonder if the reason people become more content after school is because they stop thinking and resolve themselves to the mess
i hope i don't do that
i'd rather be disillusioned than allow a rose colored world to fool me
also: clockwork orange is frightening - why are all famous books written by lunatics? ha... because the rest of the folks are cretins, fools and morons.
I AM AN ALPHA PLUS IN A WORLD OF EPSILON SEMI-MORONS
not really... but somehow ochuk's philosophical questions that unavoidably present themselves into our lives are easily avoided by "the masses"
sometimes in the middle of a conversation i'll realize i'm talking to someone who fits in that group and i simultaneously am afraid and feel guilty about my elitism
red and black antennae waving, they all do it the same
except for the one up on the hill looking down and crying for the sheer uniformity of it all
posted by renee 9:10 AM
Sunday, July 27, 2003
my favorite boy has run away until next monday
the other day, while i was detasseling in the nasty 98 degree/50% humidity day,
he left me one of his band's shirts and a nice letter on my bed
i am disappointed that it smells more like new shirt than his house
i hate detasseling and am never doing it again. EVER.
but it's interesting none the less
my morning was nice - breeze and cornfield - what more could a girl ask for?
i remembered how much i like seeing sunrises and being wide awake at 7 am
but then 11 o clock hit and so did the heat wave
and i remembered why i quit and wondered how i got talked into subbing...
but the moment of standing all alone, with no other people for at least a half mile
and staring over the rolling green hills... of more corn... well, it was worth it
oh yeah, and the $157.50 paycheck helps, too
my thought of my detasseling day was about leadership
i always felt a little uncomfortable being in charge of kids who were actually better at detasseling than me
like i should be the best one on the bus in order to deserve my position and my pay
but leadership requires different qualities than simply being the best at the job
usually, but not always
that's a funny thing
i complain way way way too much
but i hope this week flies by.... come home, my m, come home...
posted by renee 11:32 PM
Thursday, July 24, 2003
i almost forgot... the only evidence i have seen in a long time of the blessing of obedience. about a year ago, my mom was struggling with a decision. our neighbor across the street had just separated from her husband and my mom felt a burdon to share the book the power of a praying wife with her. she argued with God about it for awhile because she felt like it was maybe too bold, maybe not her role in the situation. but she finally obeyed. just the other day she was talking to vickie about their vacation and found out that kevin, her ex-husband is going along. she asked if things were going better between them (they had been pretty much at odds for awhile) and found out that not only are things going better, but he's moving back in and they're going to get married and both of them joined a church and vickie had just gotten back from working at the royal family kids camp, a christian camp for abused kids run by my friend joe's dad.... whew.... and she said "it's all because of that book you gave me. i didn't read it for a long time, but i got home one night and read the whole thing from cover to cover and decided 'this is for me.'"
makes you wonder what you're telling God 'no' about
posted by renee 12:51 PM
baby bunnies!!!!!!! quigley, sherman, esther and lucy and an unnamed sibling were found huddled in a corner by a heavily peopled sidewalk at 8:00 am and were seen again at 5:00 pm. they were therefore removed from the premesis and are currently residing in a cardboard box in abby's back yard. hee hee... there's a free concert of a jazz sextet on the downtown campus of UNL but my mother is gone with the car, my brother went with some other friends and my boyfriend is sleeping
i like days when i don't work.
posted by renee 12:10 PM
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
i have no concept whatsoever of how i appear to the world. as in the rest of my infantile existance, my opinions on myself tend to the extremes. for example: i have known people (particularly of the female persuasion) who create intimidating walls around themselves with their intellectual positions. i am painfully aware that i suffer the same unattractive problem on occasion, but i am unsure with what frequency... the word of the summer for me has been abrasive... i hope i am that only rarely. sigh.
question: instincts?
they are funny things. i was thinking about what separates humans from other animals, and wondered if it has something to do with the ability to deny our natural impulses. the complexity behind our reasoning in these areas is perhaps suspect. maybe we are reduced to instinctual beings more often than our vanity would like to admit. a recent discussion about whether or not having children is a good choice brought this up yet again. could it be that marriage and reproduction, even in their most detached, unspiritual form, are important and even GOOD simply because they are instinctual? it seems that most basic instincts are critical for us to follow, at least in a controlled fashion. our bodies tell us that we need to breathe and eat and be in the sunshine. even deeper instincts that lead us to desire close personal attachment to other humans deserve attention. of course these can be twisted into idols of obsession, but at their core, they are our instincts because they are necessary... i guess a more convincing reason to bring children into this mess of a world would be that lots of unprepared people have children and raise them to be just as inept... the people who recognize the importance and challenge of parenting are exactly the people who SHOULD have children.
i am tired and sniffly. i am spending the summer with a soulmate and a heartmate. that is wonderful. carmen 03 will be returning shortly. that is even more wonderful. i love sophie hughes. she is the cutest dog ever and i like getting attention when we run around downtown with her. she makes me feel popular. i might just have to get one of my own.... i almost forget i'm a cat person sometimes. i am going to nap on my very comfortable lab chair now. i can't believe i'm getting paid for this.
posted by renee 11:05 AM
renee is cozy with george
renee is currently in a testing phase
renee is one of the most perceptive people i've ever had contact with online
renee is a prolific writer
renee is all class
renee is perceptive
renee is showing no signs of slowing down
renee is a friend of mine who has a very wide variance in personality
renee is so cute
renee is jewish and from brooklyn
renee is an album of subtle charms and obvious pleasures
ethan is weird
ethan is not an idiot
ethan is bigger than me
ethan is a hunk
ethan is able to perceive the pattern in a series of "accidental" deaths
ethan is like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow
ethan is crippled
ethan is a very powerful telepath
ethan is becoming a nordic jumper
ethan is even wearing his little preemie outfit
ethan is awfully young to look this frumpy
ethan is determined to make the family boatbuilding business a success
ethan is not a crane
micah is for real
micah is improving
micah is a 9 year old boy with mixed spastic dystonic quadriplegia cerebral palsy
micah is often thought to be acting older than he is
micah is superman
micah is often at the computer sharpening his skills
micah is invincible
micah is often seen as the heir apparent to the pfoo throne
micah is proud of this fact
micah is an accomplished musician
micah is a quiet taciturn man who feels totally confused about what is happening
micah is an adorable filly with a lovely temperament and tremendous personality
jim is tired and formulaic
jim is all confused
jim is cool
jim is alive and well
jim is dead
jim is no republican
jim is more than just ok
jim is imprisoned in ecuador
jim is also a geophysist
jim is making a comeback and this time he's doing his usual array of mad and funky moves on the game boy advance
jim is a dim bulb
jim is on larry king live tonite
jim is cooking? sniff
jim is available for stud service
abby is sick
abby is bored
abby is bright
abby is a brat
abby is a dark tortoiseshell and half her face is black
abby is a young teenager striving to make things work out right
abby is riddled with offensive racial stereotypes
abby is not unattractive
abby is in the house and kidnaps a woman from the settlement as an exchange hostage
abby is a goddess who has chosen to grace this meager planet with her presence
abby is a 5' 1" brunette
abby is a very alert baby
abby is really nice
abby is a congo african grey parrot
time to go home.....
don't forget, though.....
joe is the hottest man alive
the sky last night was staggeringly lovely. the sun sunk deep behind its cloudy blanket and the filter of cotton let loose an arsenal of rays, streaming across the otherwise menacing shroud of darkness above us. earlier we had discussed this exact scene and artists' attempts to capture the sky's power to steal attention and breath. their inevitable failure is hinged on the perfection they are trying to imitate. we hardly can believe our eyes when we see those skyscapes in nature; how could we possibly trust a secondhand rendering? in fact, the countless portrayals of "perfect" beauty extract some of the strength from the original. we've "seen it all before" too many times. micah decided that the only response to take to this thought is to begin purposefully recreating ugliness. perhaps...
posted by renee 3:57 PM
Sunday, July 20, 2003
sokol underground... a refuge for the uglies, the tv generation's anarchist rock stars, the fashion rebels. a haven for the basement guitarist, the internet junkie and that kid on the subway with the expensive headphones. a hub for the indie conspiritors, the black market potheads, and the ones who refuse to take their prescription mood medicine... it's a beautiful thing. where to conform is the ultimate evil and to create is the ultimate good. an impotent recreation of the political ferver of the 60s. sigh.... sokol....
on a completely unrelated note, umberto eco says that there are four kinds of people in this world:
cretins
fools
morons
lunatics
i can only hope i am a cretin the least....
posted by renee 10:47 AM
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
last night i rollerbladed through a neighborhood about as close to a ghetto as lincoln gets. compared to the brand spanking new rows of picture perfect coordinating houses in the south, it definitely qualifies. i must say that i have never felt so much like a prostitute in my life. not that i have ever felt much like a prostitute, but seriously. it seemed like every '87 prizm that drove past was full of either teenage or middle-age men either yelling something at me, whistling or at least staring. and it's not because i looked good. it's because i was a young white female in the wrong place at the wrong time. one 15 year old shouted something about taking me home... i just wonder sometimes what it's like to be in the head of a male. granted, i believe most men aren't that crude, but i wonder if i underestimate how many of those same thoughts go through their heads, but remain unspoken or acted on because they know better. it's all very disturbing. no, you cannot take me home, you disgusting, uneducated pig. i am a big snob sometimes. i can't truly empathize with disadvantaged people. i know how my schoolwork suffers when i have complecated things going on in my personal life, so i guess i understand the people who never graduate from high school because their personal problems are on a much more catastrophic level than mine ever are. and i have parents who encouraged me to learn and to do something that matters with my life..... this is rambling... my thought process has turned to a scatter lately. bouncing around from point to point with no particular direction in mind. sigh. i need to write a new song. i really do.
posted by renee 1:57 PM
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
and he looked up from his cheesecake to the view of the full moon from our fire escape and asked "did you plan that, too?"
i smiled, took a sip of jones from my goblet and answered "of course."
posted by renee 9:30 AM
Monday, July 14, 2003
the moment has come
break out the hand cuffs and the duct tape,
it's birthday time...
posted by renee 3:13 PM
Sunday, July 13, 2003
also, two of my lifelong girlfriends are sisters and we used to do plays together, or act out stories we made up. stephanie, the youngest, was always the pretty princess, whether wearing an old nightgown as cinderella at the ball, or a yellow bedsheet on her head to make her the lovely rapunzel. she is currently smiling at her fiancee while her carat diamond sparkles in the sunshine. sarah, her older sister, was always the charming prince. she is currently dating a guy who is even tougher than her. i was always the witch. sigh.
posted by renee 6:05 PM
i worked in the three year olds' class at my church and they played "bear hunt"
it's this cute game where you make motions and sound effects of walking through mud and grass, swimming, climbing trees, etc
then when they "see the bear" after "looking in a cave" you're supposed to do all the motions again, backwards, and quickly as you "run away"
one little boy didn't do any of the running away motions
when the teacher asked him if he had stayed back to talk to the bear he confidently said, "no. i shot him."
is it wrong to be concerned?
posted by renee 6:01 PM
Saturday, July 12, 2003
mmm... mazatlan is run by the mexican mafia and they cook GOOD FOOD
and i eat it
i am wearing a crazy pink and black floral patchwork dress that goes all the way to the floor and makes breathing slightly difficult. it is even louder than i am. it was my mother's in the seventies and now it is back in fashion (at least according to me). our style turnaround rate seems to be increasing and now has come back to a mere generation per cycle. the eighties are coming back, man. the italians are wearing patterned tights and leg warmers and YOU WILL TOO... it is useless to resist the force. bwah ha ha ha ha ha
posted by renee 8:59 PM
i like my life most when it is full of people
i experienced a brief period of introversion last fall, but it was a short lived dillusion
so here i am again, sad to sleep in an empty house and then sit around in it all day...
now who should i call?
or maybe i've become afraid of silence
i hope not
posted by renee 1:36 PM
Friday, July 11, 2003
i don't want to fall asleep with a boy until i get married. i know a lot of people would say that's silly and that it really doesn't mean anything. but i think that's the thing i'm looking forward to most about married life. and i don't want to take all the intimacy out of it by acting like it doesn't matter to me. it does matter to me. and really, i think it's sad how casually people let it go. waking up next to the person you love should be a big deal. and someday i will... but not for a very long time...
posted by renee 2:26 PM
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
i entered a contest on the internet where if you win they give you a thousand dollars.
i probably won't win, though.
if i did win, i'd just have a thousand dollars and i'd waste it on something stupid.
but i probably won't win.
for abby's birthday we drove to wahoo to go to the wigwam for lunch. it was closed. so we went to runza instead. that was sort of silly. then we wrote a song about burning down hooters. it was terrible. then steak at my house. then cookies delivered to swimming pool staff. then climbing to a roof and smoking birthday cigarettes... ha... i don't get why people get addicted to that. um... i am tired. i need some caffine. i DO get why people get addicted to that.
if someone has $50 lying around that they aren't sure what to do with, please purchase me a gift certificate to some massage therepy place somewhere so my body can stop hating me for sleeping on a hard mattress. i don't wake up to my alarm anymore.
also, sometimes it seems like in order to make a relationship work, you have to stop being what you naturally are. but that makes sense because we are naturally selfish. two selfish people trying to make things work will always be difficult. i think.
this was the worst post i have ever made. i am sorry i wasted your time.
posted by renee 10:03 AM
Monday, July 07, 2003
stream of consiousness
i might as well move to omaha. thursday found me taking in shakespeare on the green at UNO, saturday was french impressionism at the joslyn and last night bright eyes bored me and pedro the lion was asked "why do you guys rock so much?" conor oberst himself stamped my hand upon my entrance to sokol auditorium and my "brush with greatness" was... well... disappointingly unexhilarating. my arms are still peeling from the canoe trip. christian gets to go to italy tomorrow and i am jealous. oh, and i have this problem. and it is the snowball on a hill type: as soon as it starts rolling, it starts gaining mass and the increasing ability to smash anything standing in its path. i have always been a little insecure about my uncontrolled passion. partly because of how it is manifested: in loud arguments and unnecessarily solid opinions and a certain reddening of the eyes as if in preparation for battle. so if i am expressing some sort of thought and there is the smallest indication that my listener thinks i am making something of nothing and would be better off being quiet... well, there's trouble. i feel my momentum gaining and suddenly will go to any length to prove that my opinion is indeed valid and how dare they question it. in the end i always realize that things got out of hand, but deep down, i remain wounded because an already deep-seated insecurity has been drudged still further into a nearly unbridgeable canyon. so half of me is on one side hating the other and neither will ever stand down. i am stuck with myself.
posted by renee 11:29 AM
Sunday, July 06, 2003
today in church i sat next to a recently affianced couple, the female half of which is several months younger than me. i spent nearly a third of the service attempting to arrange my hair on the side of my face so it obscured the disturbing spectacle unfolding to my left.... her ring sparkled, big and conspicuous and she played with it on her left hand for nearly the entire time. her other hand was busy not just holding, but caressing his. and if that weren't enough, she was wearing quite a short skirt, and his remaining hand spent the majority of the time exploring this fact. needless to say, i was completely distracted and disgusted and then i noticed that the girl sitting in front of me was excessively, unnaturally skinny... uh oh....
sometimes i wish i could go back to that whole "childlike faith" thing. less judgements, less comparisons, less self-righteous preoccupation with the people around me. and if it weren't for my timely realization of what i was doing, i would have had to skip communion for the second month in a row. someone slap me now.....
"it's the tragedy of our married life," she says finally. and i have heard these words so many times before. "my tragedy," she corrects herself. "i'm sure he doesn't even realize it, but since i gained weight, he never takes me out anymore. we've almost stopped entertaining. we lead completely separate lives." here she makes a nervous gesture with her hand, as if to wipe all this away. "every day, when he leaves for work, he says to me: 'stay in the sun and keep to your diet.' "
the woman who whispers this confession to me speaks with a voice that is common to our culture. thus, another woman, who is not at all fat, says: "whenever we argue, when the fighting is getting really vicious and mean, he says to me: 'i can't stand your fat ass. if i had to pick one thing to hate about you, believe me, that's it.' " and another woman, who is not fat, says: "i know he's ashamed of me; he used to pick me up at work and come to wait for me out side my office. now he sits in the car, holding a newspaper over his face, as if he doesn't want anyone to see who it is waiting for this woman who's become so fat. i ask him about it and he denies it. but then, the minute we start to fight, he sure lets me know." and another woman, who ie exceptionally beautiful, says: "since i gained weight, he doesn't want to make love with me." another woman, "he tells everyone who's meeting me for the first time that i've been under stress and have recently gained weight, that i'm going back on my diet soon. and he always tells them how thin i was when he first met me. if anyone comes to our house he takes out the photograph album and shows them the way i used to look. but i was seventeen years old then, not a mother of three children. i can't look like that all my life." and another woman says, "i'm not kidding. my husband left me because i ganied ten pounds. he always had a horror of fat women." and another woman, who is not fat, says: "he always hated his mother. now he says i look just like her. since i gained weight, he never comes home for dinner anymore. i think he's started to have affairs."
even in the emotionally sterile environment of my dirt lab, i almost cried when i read that.
it's not fair. it's really not fair. another disturbing letter from a man to dear abby went like this....
dear abby:
i've composed this letter hundreds of times in my mind. i don't know where else to turn. my wife gained 15 pounds while pregnant with our son 11 years ago. she has never been able to lose that weight despite many dieting attempts. instead she has gradually gained additional weight until now she has a very conspicuous pot belly. in addition, she gets very little exercise, so she tends to doze off about 8 p.m. every evening. i weigh the same as when i graduated from college. i have tried every method i can think of to encourage her to lose weight-incentives, insults, praise, punishments, joint exercise, and threats. we even separated over this a few years ago. otherwise she is a great wife and wonderful mother. i do love her, and have no desire to see our marriage end. however, i cannot accept her as she is no matter how hard i try. neither can i understand her lack of pride concerning her physical appearance. this problem is continually on my mind, and i am afraid that a permanent separation will eventually be the result. am i being selfish and unreasonable? - depressed
dear depressed,
yes. if you love your wife and are sincere when you say you have no desire to see your marriage end, you will see a therapist to find out why you can't accept her as she is. you could have a problem that is more serious than hers.
sometimes it just seems like the world is a crazy mess and it's hardly worth worrying about because we're too far gone to fight for anymore. thus hundreds of thousands of women try to solve the problems in their lives and marriages by joining weight watchers or starving themselves or throwing up every night. it's all really the same thing: an unhealthy preoccupation with our shape, or a complete alienation from it. as many explanations as i hear, i really don't understand how we got so confused.
posted by renee 2:43 PM
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
i spent my workday buried deep in yet another book about weight obsession. it took me in circles... for a minute, i almost felt guilty about feeling guilty about what i eat sometimes. i seriously don't take care of myself at all. i think it's HEALTHY for me to feel sort of bad about drinking three sodas in one day... it's just not good for you. i can get totally self-righteous about smoking cigarettes because there's really no redeeming quality in them. if you smoke, you generally smoke to look cool or because you used to smoke to look cool and now you're just addicted. but what's my excuse for drinking those ever-so-tempting soft drinks so often? well, my body needs caffine to function....... sick sick sick.
anyway, so my whole day was spent in a cloud because of my deepening sense of my layeredness... it's like i'm an onion who thought she was an apple. take away the outside peel and... oh... what's this? more layers? oh no! i wasn't prepared to deal with this....
this particular author's take on eating problems stresses the importance of realizing that your "appetites" are natural and therefore acceptable. you can hunger for pretty much anything in life. but it takes it to the point where it seems like reining in impulses and desires is always an unhealthy, inhuman thing to do. this is not a new concept to me. i remember struggling through huxley's point counter point one summer and being irreperably frustrated at his concepts about living as a full human. i have lived my whole life believing that "denying the flesh" is necessary. i cannot let my instinctual behavior be the ruler of my conscious thought. but maybe it's true that i'm pushing it too far to the opposite extreme. i have allowed so much of my consious thought to take over that i am simply resigning myself to a partial existance and am really lacking a good portion of what life could offer me. my pastor used a half filled glass this week to illustrate our perspectives on our spiritual lives. there are a lot of people who look at themselves and see only the suffering they have had to endure in order to reach the ultimate glory. he was encouraging us, instead, to take the optimistic-half-full approach to life. the whole time i kept thinking, why's the glass only half full? i thought our cup was supposed to be overflowing. i want a full to bursting existance..... this is not enough. it's not nearly enough....
posted by renee 11:40 PM
on sunday i met with a girl i knew in high school who i hadn't talked to in a couple of years. she was in foster care the whole time i knew her after a wild childhood. she became a Christian in the home she was staying in and the girl i knew was very different than the one she recounted from her past. our senior year of high school she started working a lot and quit coming to church. after awhile, i lost touch with her completely. but she's back in town now, two months pregnant and living with a bunch of partiers who seem to want nothing more than to keep her drinking and smoking pot with them despite the new life that she's responsible for. oh yeah, and the father's a jerk. she can't really afford baby stuff or even anything new for her. i don't know how she's going to do the maturnity thing... it just seems all to crazy to me. this morning i woke up, looked in the mirror, and got the sneaking suspicion that this has all happened to me before. on and on, day after day. same issues, same conversations... blah blah blah...
in other news...
what do you tell a woman with two black eyes?
posted by renee 9:44 AM
