emancipated dissonance from the desk of renee ann

emancipated dissonance

Thursday, September 29, 2005

and out they come, saying: we are the arcade fire! and they keep coming. all eight of them, including napoleon dynamite and occasionally a strange french horn player with a tevye beard, saying: there are a lot of us and we all play six different instruments! and when we're not playing them normally, they double as drums!

at first, i don't believe them. none of them are cool. they are trailer trash. they are rejects. they could never make it in the real world. but when i look around, i realize something. we are all trailer trash and rejects and the kids who were too smart and picked our noses in elementary school. so we banded together, learned how to play music and elected a few to be our version of cool. so that the rest of us have something to aspire to that requires less polish and coif - things we find foreign and unattainable.

but by the end, when they had fought with each other and held each other up and bashed the last bit of life out of that poor cymbal that looks like crumpled aluminum foil around the edges, i believed it. and not just because i'm a reject too, but because they earned it.

halle-fricking-lujah
best nine days of music EVER

posted by renee 10:52 PM

more than anything today, i care about homeless children.
i will donate money.
i will look into ways of donating time.
i will consider doing something in my further education that has to do with homelessness of ex-convicts, the working poor, or children.

5,000 in the twin cities schools.

can you imagine being in elementary school and not having a house?
probably not.

i'm sick of feeling helpless, so i will do what i can to help.
it makes me so angry.....

posted by renee 9:41 AM

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

when it rains, the direction of the wind becomes visible.

that is either an observation of the weather this morning or a metaphor for something else. not quite sure which.

posted by renee 8:58 AM

Sunday, September 25, 2005

wishing there were words to explain sigur ros
it was like being alone with your thoughts and slowly caving in to them. letting fears about the end of the world or dying or being completely alone take over.
it was like drowning and then having your heart restarted with a defibrillator: pulse. pulse. pulse. pulse.
it made me feel closer to God and farther away from myself than i have for a long time.
and then, outside, it was raining.
just hard enough to feel good.

in other news: wondering if "feeling" is overrated and if there's a way to stop and if there was, if i'd want to.

posted by renee 1:07 PM

Saturday, September 24, 2005

it's saturday afternoon and i'm waiting for m & co to arrive or not arrive
and i turned on college football
and made corn cakes from scratch and sprinkled them with fresh chives
then i cleaned the house from last night's party
and sorted the recycling
and did laundry
all in sweatpants and a thin tee-shirt

and i realize that i'm trying to prove to myself something about my identity
like i'm creating myself as the perfect girlfriend
or what i think the perfect girlfriend would be like
or the perfect wife
and i don't have on any make up and i haven't brushed my hair
but i smell good and my toenails are painted

most of it means nothing
now i will go shopping for
a) a new corkscrew (grrr)
b) kahlua
c) a mattress pad?
d) a copy of "Knowing God" by Packer
e) garbage bags & paper towels
f) a velvet jacket
g) brown shoes

and i'm not going to brush my hair first

posted by renee 3:49 PM

Friday, September 23, 2005

walk past a young man and his father eating lunch. they have the same eyes. find the son a bit too young and the father intriguing but off limits. imagine that their matching eyes liked the look of you as you passed their table. smile impishly. go back to work.

posted by renee 4:14 PM

Thursday, September 22, 2005

my blood pressure is 98/61.
she said that it "couldn't be better."

that's nice.

posted by renee 10:52 AM

yummy pasta with y for dinner
soren is the best name
everybody's lonely

car ride

everybody's lonely
BUT j and rosie thomas
make you forget for awhile

plus: free gin and tonic and european singles
AND she gave me two (2) hugs and one (1) free cd

remember: i owe j five (5) dollars ($)

posted by renee 9:26 AM

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

HA!

and i ask myself: why is that green tiled bathroom so clean? and then i remember the month of june.

posted by renee 4:07 PM

wondering what i should be when i grow up. considering: investigative journalist, author, sociologist, lobbyist, professor, lawyer, stage actress, nutritionist, rock star, mechanic or president of the united states. just kidding about that last one. but i want to be in charge of people by the time i'm 30. and i want to publish something. i don't care if it's fiction or non-fiction, short or long. just something.

every morning, walking up fifth street, i see a building built in the 70s that has a massive, grotesque sculpture in the space above its front doors. it looks like a combination of giant metal spiders with blue bodies, an enormous pastry cutter and an abstracted jungle. i am glad that art like this is so obtrusive in so many downtowns across the country. it is a daily reminder that even if your idea is so good that someone will pay thousands of dollars to have it hanging from the outside of an office building, 30 years from now, everyone will think it's ugly. just puts a little perspective on our creativity.

posted by renee 9:35 AM

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

everyone else is profound today. i don't feel profound at all. i feel shallow. i always feel shallow when i straighten my hair, put on make up and jewelry and try on more than one shirt in the morning (note: happens about once every three or four weeks...) and it's all because there is a slight chance that i will have coffee later this afternoon with someone i knew quite awhile ago who happens to be a boy.

stupid.

posted by renee 9:30 AM

Monday, September 19, 2005

hooray! hilary got the job! now she will not be selling everything she owns and moving back to arizona. this makes us happy. (cross your fingers and she'll like it so much that she doesn't want to run away in june..)

also: i have a goal in the decoration of my newly painted room. one wall needs a very large painting. preferably done by me in oil on a 24" by 48" canvas. i've not seen much for canvases of these dimensions. would it be cheaper to stretch it myself? to gesso it myself or get a treated one? am i crazy to do something so big for my first oil? is this going to cost $300? should i just give it up and buy something instead? get a john bellushi "college" poster and put it up with multicolored push pins? no, i think i really want to paint something in oil. and use one of those little knife things to make it all texture-y.... anybody know anything about oil? anybody? (anybody in the t.c. who wants to take me shopping for stuff and lend me a staple gun?)

posted by renee 2:59 PM

my room is purple. well.. sort of purple. not like icky girl purple. not team spirit purple. sorta... earthy purple.

and every muscle in my upper body is sore.
plus, my brain feels funny due to an all-night-long inhalent binge.
also, i didn't wake up to my alarm this morning because there were two fans right by my ear.

joa has free tickets to rosie thomas on wednesday! yay!

posted by renee 8:53 AM

Friday, September 16, 2005

a clenching of muscles
on my insides
automatic response
to external stimuli out of my control
anger
uncertainty
frustration
despair
and succumbing to weariness

surrender to the absolute defeat
of confidence in absolutes

i own my guilt
my hunger
my pride
and my brittle bones
my thin skin
my atrophied muscles
reveal it
at least metaphorically

there is most certainly something
some truth
some answer
but it now escapes me
like bobbing for apples
where you can touch them
but not quite grab hold

and i doubt you if you're sure
in fact, the less sure you are
the more i trust you
because people become certain
in desperation for stability
(or because they're suckers)

all i know is
we all get lied to
and the sooner you make up your mind
the more likely you aren't getting it right

posted by renee 9:52 AM

Thursday, September 15, 2005

i really am short on patience. it's a good thing i don't know kevin sawyer in real life. i might punch him.

posted by renee 1:08 PM

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

i am LOSING my PATIENCE with LOUD PERSONAL PHONE CALLS

your life is NOT SO BAD.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

posted by renee 2:20 PM

three: a man somewhere just heard his phone ring and swivelled in his chair to reach for it. simultaneously, i heard my phone ring and swivelled in my chair to reach for mine. we both said hello. then, confused as to why we were talking, we shared a chuckle and wished each other well for the rest of our days. i wonder if maybe it was God playing a joke, just because we each needed a pick-me-up. fun.

two: i am eating a burrito for lunch, one of four that i made and froze last night (taking inspiration from bekah...) i am a little bit proud of myself for that.

one: last night, my roommate bought some of her favorite brew and on her way toward the cashier, a man approached her. he said "hello. my name is rodrigo. that is a very good beer and you look very pretty today." and that was all. this should happen more often. white men don't have a clue.

posted by renee 12:17 PM

Monday, September 12, 2005

i wrote a poem a long time ago. i read it again today and liked it. i hope it can be a song someday. on the bus from uptown on friday night, i was seized with an idea and a page of prose poured out of me onto the back of work i'd brought home for the weekend (oops...) i wonder how to foster the writer in me. reading helps. listening to music helps. but in some ways, i think it helps because i'm halfway stealing other people's ideas. friday's idea came straight from my own experience - of eavesdropping and getting caught or people-watching and being noticed. i made the story about the same thing happening to an old woman, to make it less embarassing.

here's the poem:

i rise above this city
and i am beautiful
and i am untouchable
and even if you're touching me
i keep you so so far away
there is no escape for you
i'll always be the queen

i look down on this city
and i am more than it
and i am bored with it
and even if i love someone
there's always an escape
i will not have a king

i am the sun
pulling planets close to me
and spinning spinning spinning

posted by renee 10:01 AM

Friday, September 09, 2005

"Heart disease claims the lives of more than one in three women in the United States each year."

terrible news. really terrible. it appears that the end of humankind is a mere three years away. but maybe this is like the "if i step half the distance from me to you, and then half the distance that's left, and then half of that distance, i can never actually get to you." although, if i recall correctly, the end of that quote, from one face right next to another one, was "well, then how did this happen?"

was tim robbins in that movie? he WAS!

posted by renee 11:39 AM

Thursday, September 08, 2005

i had a friend once who spent her afternoons trying to completely clear her conscious thoughts. she wanted to see what it would be like to have a blank mind, free from internal monologue and response to stimuli. she stopped practicing this after it occurred to her one day that if she succeeded, if she completely stopped thinking, she might not be able to tell herself to start again.

i think it's the same way with feelings.

posted by renee 9:44 PM

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

this is not a song of desperation
of love, heartbreak, war, or starvation
i know nothing of these.
it's just a made up need
for significant emotion

and where i'm from, life is easy
i can't claim to understand
bombs or famine or demonic possession
but sometimes i forget traffic laws
and feel like a fish out of water
helpless when it comes to survival
this is a cry from a dangerless life

what i know is
four way stops and when to wear white shoes and proper nutrition and life insurance
and i remember the skin on the back of your neck
it is my own kind of tragedy

----

today i talked to a man who's been through the fire, american style. and despite his continued plight, i respect him more than i might hope to be respected myself.

posted by renee 6:19 PM

Monday, September 05, 2005

it's labor day, so i am not going to make my bed.

posted by renee 12:51 PM

Friday, September 02, 2005

perhaps on the brink of some new level of self-discovery

that is sometimes a very uncomfortable place to be, especially for someone who has such a hard time accepting unconditional fault for things.

excuses don't cut it when you're just wrong. and my desperate search for one indicates an even deeper character flaw than a loose tongue.

humble and loved
humble and loved
not a hope to cure my imperfections
but it doesn't matter
because my imperfections are not the measure by which i am judged
this is the essence of my faith

but that i'm not judged by my imperfections does not keep them from cutting just as deeply into my confidence.

posted by renee 10:52 AM

Thursday, September 01, 2005

i wonder if a quart is called a quart because there are four of them in a gallon, or because there are four cups in each of them. is that a stupid question?

posted by renee 12:15 PM

the thing about working in the east, see, is you're always chasin' the sun. you're runnin after it in the morning as if you're tryin' to get it to rise just that much sooner and you're tearin back after it in the evenin like you're scared for it to go down.

posted by renee 8:27 AM

 

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Past

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my band(mates)
thomas built the wall
casey on the drums

other friends
joa jean
abby
matthew
colleen
weezy
nate t
nate b
anhie!
moe
the MAN i hate
my ex-neighbor
yiling
samantha
ochuk
brett
laura

some i wish were my friends
bobby
peter

music i listen to
band of horses
zoe keating
rilo kiley
(jenny lewis)
mr 1986
regina spektor
iron & wine
the new pornographers
radio on
the combo
emiliana torrini
bjork
sigur ros
radiohead
nickel creek
trampled by turtles
the hold steady
the decemberists
del the funky homosapien
death cab
tv on the radio
heatbox

the guys that review it
jason (in a kilt)
pitchfork
peter c

and the places to hear it
the fine line
varsity theater
the 400 bar
first avenue
bunkers

etc
found magazine
my pottery teacher
my favorite designer
aesthetic apparatus
threadless.com
the friendly stegosaurus





railroad illusions
we'll go sit on a coal car
bask in the soft light
and dream of a someday
simpler than this one

take a walk with me tonight, my dear
away from complications
away from fluorescent lights

we'll go lay on a rooftop
breathe in the sweet smoke
and talk of a place that’s
so far from this one

take a walk with me tonight, my dear
away from complications
away from conditioned air

we'll get lost under covers
smile at our trite words
and fall for a vision
so far from the truth

take a walk with me tonight, my dear
away from complications
away from the flightless facts


LEMUR is the answer!!