regardless, my iron is too low to give blood today. (CONFESSION: I AM RELIEVED)
posted by renee 1:24 PM
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
yesterday i woke up at sunrise. i did yoga in the back yard for an hour, ate scrambled eggs and hashbrowns, read a book on the front porch while drinking coffee from a homemade cup, and took a nice long shower, all before 7 am
today i overslept
that is so incredibly like me.
posted by renee 10:52 AM
Monday, June 26, 2006
it's been too long since i've been shaken up
i feel dull vaguely heartbroken directionless
consumed by lists of tasks phone calls to make checks to write appointments to keep habits to correct: make or break
and how i feel the looming sense that i could live my life like this
i long for that piercing reality the world in sharp relief attention piqued and ready razor awareness of all sensations
hurts: but you feel something
***i want to say ****if, one day, i'm just gone *****don't come looking ******i'll be better off
but i know that day won't come
hopefully something close (in terms of intensity) won't be long
posted by renee 10:48 AM
Thursday, June 22, 2006
the women at work, they believe in me. it has been a good morning for my self esteem.
AN ATTEMPT TO COMPILE
if you are reading this blog, please leave a comment with a fact about birds. do not look anything up. the birdfact must come from your own memory.
so far: hummingbirds are the only birds who can fly backwards the meadowlark is the state bird of nebraska in saint paul, in the last week, i have seen two birds fly not into windows because of the enticing reflection of the sky, but straight into walls. (resulting hypothesis: birds are getting dumber)
seriously. everyone must leave a comment. I MEAN YOU!
posted by renee 9:56 AM
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
i lay still in the lawn and imagine my skin full of chloroplasm soaking in the sun’s power deep and full growing down down down into the earth to pull up hidden bits of strength and all the time turning darker darker darker green i funnel my energy, large and complete, toward thickening growing taller growing fuller
and oh, when it rains
all that comes from the sky is nourishing the water and the heat and the rays of nutritious sun all gifts from one who loves me
and i imagine that i could stay forever and i’d turn into some lavish blossom decadent with color and scent or a tree tall and strong and seemingly permanent giving as so much has been given to me
posted by renee 10:32 AM
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
just because you know that a particular gap in a particular fence at a particular corner is the place where a particularly ferocious canine unleashes a barrage of particularly ferocious barking
every morning at about the same time
absolutely does not mean that you won't still jump
posted by renee 12:16 PM
Monday, June 19, 2006
hello my name is GIRL and, as it turns out, i don’t exist
it is this space between loved and unloved this anonymity between known and invisible where once i was valid i was a person i was understood and since, i have been erased washed off undone
your name is BOY and without you i don’t exist
because i put myself the dictionary definition in direct relationship to you MESHIP “the state of being loved by BOY”
remove the foundation the source of me as an object
1. there is a constant high pitched humming sound at my new office that they think might be coming from the ventilation.
2. i think i'll take a class this fall. microecon will be required wherever i go to grad school, most likely. or i could take an advanced stats class (since i had to take intro in two different departments, to my dismay).
but, in a fit of utter nerdiness, i really feel like taking calculus instead. I LIKE MATH.
3. yiling moved away yesterday and all i have left of her are some living green things (some of which are delicious in eggs) and a gre study manual that stares at me.
4. for dinner (instead of dinner?) yesterday i had six chocolate chip cookies and a popsicle. it's probably a good thing i don't make that a habit...
5. if you haven't come to my house and sat on my front portch yet, you better do it quick. i think there might be thunderstorms soon and i plan on boning up on my super mario bros skills on the front portch during them.
6. i think, if i practiced, that i could write short stories that are worth reading. but i also want to take calculus. i am turning into a female and much less cool version of nate burchell.
7. brett, was there someone i should have paid more attention to meeting at your party? did i miss it?
posted by renee 12:30 PM
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
sometimes, when i'm really honest, i wonder if something is really really wrong with me. the problem is that there is no way to be sure. i'd like it if there wasn't. if the disasters that seem to pile themselves around me and inside me were more environmental than internal. but sometimes, when i'm really honest, i wonder.
posted by renee 10:33 PM
i sat in a giant chair it dwarfed me my feet didn't even reach the edge of the seat and i had to reach my elbows up up up to find armrests and i was tiny itty bitty small miniature insignificant minute microscopic
i was little in a big chair and i didn't like it
note to self: the truth hurts. in the future, avoid acknowledging it for as long as possible.
posted by renee 8:15 AM
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
indeed. perhaps i am foolhardy, but at least i am not hard.
posted by renee 9:48 AM
Monday, June 12, 2006
sometimes, if your ipod's on random and you're not paying very close attention, and a godspeed song comes on, all of a sudden you might realize you're very afraid that something from the swamp, dripping with murderous intent, is directly behind you, about to slide its clammy fingers slowly, terrifyingly, around your scrawny neck.
but then, hopefully before your heart explodes, you'll realize what's going on, snap out of it and go home from the empty office for the evening.
umm... or maybe i just scare easily.
posted by renee 5:32 PM
Friday, June 09, 2006
i just feel and feel and feel and feel and feel. all day long i feel. and i think. i think and think and think and think and think. all day long i think.
SOMETIMES I WISH I COULD JUST TAKE A BREAK FROM FEELING AND THINKING FOR FIVE STINKING SECONDS.
the only answer is the woods, eggs for breakfast, sweatshirts/jeans/flip flops and several books.
but we'll see if that happens any time soon.
posted by renee 9:05 AM
Thursday, June 08, 2006
another uncomfortable increase in self-awareness
i am full of judgment. i suppose that is nothing new, and certainly not something that's gone completely unnoticed before, but recently i have been seeing a lot of harsh stereotypes popping up in my thoughts and speech without feeling motivated to check them. i.e. rich twenty-somethings and almost all parents of young children.
1.) woman on the bus coos to and pets her screaming child. i've known enough children to be able to tell the difference between noises that warrant a comforting response and noises that warrant punishment. a clue: this was not the former sort of noise.
2.) young men and women with absurdly rich parents discuss the hierarchy of luxury purses and their recent and impending posh international vacations. makes me want to vomit.
3.) woman with grocery bags. more than your recommended daily value of trans fats in every single item she has chosen to purchase. tiny kids trailing each with a whole bag of some new variation of skittles.
4.) another couple on the bus, father varying rapidly between yelling at, ignoring and paying positive attention to children who are all the while putting their mouths on various surfaces of the dirty dirty bus.
surprisingly (perhaps), i find myself much more willing to forgive those who are making choices dissimilar to what my own would be if they are poor.
spoiled white american suburbanites with manicures and $75 hair cuts who know that birken bag (which i have never heard of) is the best purse, i have no patience for whatsoever.
i have yet to figure out if my annoyance and lack of desire to find them more than shallow is something i need to work on. if you're poor, you have fewer choices. if you're rich, you don't have to be ostentatious and image-obsessed. and isn't how you spend your money a VALUE?
but no, different values are not a sufficient reason to write someone off..... at least not completely.
ah, what a mess of conflicting motivations we human beings are. i trust myself a little less every day.
posted by renee 8:32 AM
Monday, June 05, 2006
in an air conditioned room on a strange contraption of plastic and metal i stride stride stride stride and all of a sudden, i wonder with each drip of air conditioned sweat why am i doing this?
it could be just because someone once told me it would be a good idea or it could be because i think it will keep me healthy (and someone once told me that would be a good idea) or because i think it will keep me alive longer (and someone once told me that would be a good idea) it could be because i think it will make me beautiful (and someone once told me that would be a good idea) or because i think it will make a man want me (and someone once told me that would be a good idea)
but all of a sudden, it seems like nonsense all this striding and dripping
regardless i stride stride stride stride stride drip stride stride stride stride drip drip stride stride
posted by renee 11:43 AM
Thursday, June 01, 2006
i HEART my new house
and it is so great how my roommates are my family. and i found a job i really want, but it's in washington d.c. and i think there are probably other jobs like it here, if only i knew how to find them.
i just tried and failed again. i don't think i want to work at the university i just graduated from, particularly. i did, however, find another job i'd like in washington d.c. i think it makes sense to have organizations that do national social science research located in the MIDDLE of the country instead of off in one little corner. apparently not.
do you think, if i went to graduate school, that i would inevitably come out looking down my nose at people who haven't? i think one (of many) hidden motivations for getting an advanced degree is that i don't like it when people look down their noses at me. i wonder if that's a good reason or not.
JOA: it is time, my dear.
posted by renee 10:32 AM
