Duende

Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame has a new gig called Gayngs. In their jam 'spanish platinum' a disembodied voice sings I keep my wings taped down/ and my heart in a jar. I've been thinking that over. When college ends and the bubble bursts am I going to tape my wings down and put my heart, my true desires, on the shelf? Or am I going to be bold? I have a cozy little nest egg and starry eyed resolutions but what am I going to do with myself? My one true passion is writing; I'm excited each morning to cook my half-baked revelations. I want to express myself in cataclysmic, spontaneous, eloquent mode, and I'm eager to move into new vistas. I want immortality through creativity. Someone is rolling their eyes right now and guess what, I see you! Look, ok, I know I'm a dreamer. The future is uncertain and the economy is unkind but with this unrelenting optimism, I feel like maybe it will all work itself out. Last August I saw a church sign proclaiming "the grace and hope mission" and that's what I'm all about. I'm hopeful though never graceful. But maybe words will get me there- to that place where wings fall open and cut the sky.

The Hanging TV

The bathing continues- this is a short scene I just cooked up.

[A girl lays in a bathtub. The bathtub is antique with golden claws. She is on the verge of a mental break down and speaks to no one in particular.]

I've read the Bible and tasted fresh mango but I'm uninspired. I've scrubbed myself with sea salts and loofah sponges and I've combed my hair but I'm unclean. I've stretched my legs and polished the windows and kissed his lips but I'm loveless. I used to think I could improve. I made gravity bongs and hollowed out encyclopedias, saving the facts for a rainy day. I lay in cotton sheets, just thinking for days, until I couldn't stand my own smell, until the last drop of water had escaped down the pipes. I enjoy myself in this bathtub but I'm rotting from the inside out. I'm hoping this here tub will catch my insides. Porcelain is durable, right? It's clean. I could be clean. I think I could be clean. No. I take that back. I've done everything. I've gone to yoga and given up dessert. I've held babies and fed the masses. I used to think I could be a martyr. I thought I could be a queen with curling hair and a heart dripping gold. I saw men falling before my feet, tasting the dry dust as they surrendered to inevitable passions. I was going to be something. Now, I'm not so sure.

Fuck it. I'll be a queen. I'll cut my own grass and grow vegetables, mindless of the world outside. I'll rot in a greenhouse of my own design as twilight falls. I'll give up books and art and television. No, not television. I'll hang a TV from a glass ceiling and watch the flickering blue light. I'll watch it from down below. I don't need his dusty kiss or a way out. I just need this here porcelain.

Future Fotos

Sometimes I find myself prematurely nostalgic. I'll pull myself out of a moment to relish it, preserve it, turn it over in my mind's eye before it vanishes, leaps, changes. Lately, this has taken the form of future fotos. Last Sunday I saw myself in a future foto: draped over the lap of a friend, hair falling into my eyes, laughing in vacant, cool air. I saw a hypothetical moment in the plastic of a polaroid. It was the strangest thing. Photos are, of course, a means of encapsulation. Their beauty is in their summation and precision. But of course, a photo can never properly summarize a moment (can any art form appropriately capture the majesty of one perfect minute?) so why am I pushing and shrinking the present into a future and inert replica? I have no idea. I only know that of late, photography is speaking to me. The click of the camera, the weight of the body in my hands- it's immediate. I guess immediacy and grace are the two things I'm lusting for. Tomorrow is my 22nd birthday (and by tomorrow I mean in 14 minutes). I hope to have the sort of day/ night/ revelatory sequence that keeps me satiated all the way through---> the type of day that includes no future fotos. Do you know what I mean?

Technologic

A certain tobacco-toothed teacher informed me that my generation is the most empowered ever. It's the Information Age! he proclaimed. You're empowered by the knowledge circulating in the air! You can learn anything and everything! Go go go! I suddenly felt guilty. It's year four of college and what do I have to show for it? Let's see. I'm versed in hang-over remedies (coconut water), moving swiftly through BWI airport security (shoes with no laces), and speed reading. My interest has been piqued here and there but, in truth, I'm not sure that I'm a smarter girl than when I arrived at Johnny Hop three autumns ago. Maybe I'm being hard on myself. Maybe I'm having a half-baked existential crisis brought on by too much coffee and too much Pinter. I think not. As I approach graduation, my relentless optimism and interest in all things magical needs to wed itself to practical knowledge and know how. In the spirit of this, I skipped through the library and checked out all of the volumes that interested me. It was the Summer of Yes--> now onto the Autumn of Ideas. If I want to be more culturally savvy, more informed, a better cocktail party compatriot, I need to step up my game. It's now or never.

Jalapeno Popper

I was sitting in a certain frigid classroom today, plotting my escape. I won't say which classroom I was in or which Professor was speaking, only that I was cold and the heat outside was beckoning to me. It's the first week of senior year and I'm ready to put my head down and soak up my last few months of ACADEMIA before the REAL WORLD comes clamoring forth to steal me away (FYI I shivered when I read that last sentence) but I'm lacking in inspiration. What do I mean? Well, over the years I've tried to pepper my course requirements with the random cleverly titled anthropology/ sociology/ english classes. I've studied Moby Dick and Messianic cultures and the inception of Hip Hop in America. Thus far, none of my classes this fall are proving to be of that variety. Sure, they will be informative and rigorous and undoubtedly my brain will swell to the size of a cantaloupe during finals time. And yet, when I look at my weekly schedule, my blood refuses to boil and my heart does not race with anticipation. I think it's time to throw in one of those jalapeno popper classes, the kind that turns your level headed friend's attention and makes them say "what the fuck? what do you even DO in that?" When the Apocalypse comes, I want to be armed with thorough knowledge of the eclectic and taste for adventure.