Bound

Frizzy
hair- awkward
twitches

Black, tender. Ripped white
pages
flopping

Blank
now colored-
black, colorful

Thinly united,
Red thread
bound.

Laugh

Small World In A Big One.

Arbeit:
Silky hands grasped mine, "You not look so good."
Bent on one knee before her, I lifted my head to meet her pensive gaze. One glance into her almond-shaped eyes and I lowered my head back down, "I know."
"You very busy."
I cringed and nodded my head.

Theater:
Melodrama- good v. evil, never ending plot (James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones), good one-liners: "May the force be with you" and "Luke, I am your father".

Tonight's motivational verse: "Be strong and do the work."

Weekend's Reading List:

• Ich habe Cane schon gelesen.
• Catch-22
• Lost In The Funhouse
  
• "Virutal Sex, Lies and Cyberspace"
• "The Holocaust"
• "Magic and AIDS: Presumed Innocent"
• "On AIDS"

Beten, Praise God.
Beten, God our Rock, our Fortress, our Deliverer,
bring our hearts into your presence.
Fix our eyes on Jesus, Jesus
Who has become our salvation.
remove gunk from us, renew our minds
with truth-
fix our eyes on you.
Beten, for all the Saints.
Beten, for all sinners.
Beten, at all times.

Why?

It's 10:30 p.m. I'm typing in a white box titled "new post". I just saved an old post that now sits dormant in the folder "Edit Posts". That post won't get edited. This post should, but it won't either.

In Analysis of Discourse we revise papers at least three times: write 5 pages- workshop it in class; extend paper to 10 pages- workshop it again; cut paper back to 6 pages and turn it in. After this process, I no longer enjoy hitting the bright orange square labeled "publish post" after typing out words into this blank box. Instead, I reluctantly move my cursor to the neighboring square and hit "save now".

But tonight is different.

Tonight I'm refusing to remain silenced by unfinished work. This post is incomplete and undeveloped, it's unedited and raw. It's all these things because my posts are not books and they aren't published articles, they are remnants of my fragmented thoughts. They record a process, my process of writing and living and thinking. So although this post is not a final product, it's something- it's something said, something I've said, and I'm publishing it.

Swirls

Coke parties began at 9:00 o'clock tonight. From what I've gathered, they'll have food like Betty Crocker Marianne's chocolate chip cookies and croissant-wrapped sausages and Heather's cheesecake-filled strawberries. And they'll have girls like the ones who swarmed our dorm halls all evening in their clacking, spiked heels and short, satin dresses. Other than that, I'm not sure what's there. Conversations, connections... It's all about Rush (joining a tribe-sorority), whatever that means.

However, I'm not blogging to talk about coke parties. I'm blogging to escape reality. A reality precisely described by Jib Fowles in his article Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals as, "swirling" (62). Actually, in the article, "swirling" describes the state of human beings unfulfilled urges that roam, "seeking resolution" (62). But self-centeredly, I'm applying the word to my own personal circumstances.

Swirls are loopy and curvaceous; lines are straight. Sometimes straight lines are all I desire in my swirling world: Instead of confusion, clarity; instead of detours, straight paths... Exhaustion arrests my thoughts. So although a specific example coupled with this abstract swirling, straight-line analogy would make this paragraph more clear, I'm ending this post here with Aunt Peggy's note (a comment especially comforting for crazy circumstances):

"One thing I can tell you emphatically, God is Good
even when all seems not so good..."

A Taste of Asia

I walked home from Carolita's apartment around 8:00 a.m. this morning. Marlee greeted me in the hall with her ecstatic morning voice, "Welcome home Roomie!". I walked into our room, plopped my backpack down beside my bed and found this can waiting for me on my dresser. The note underneath it written by my neighbor read, "To liz anne from Rita".

Faulkner and Potts

Thursday at lunch while I waited for my toasted hoagie, Dr. Potts appeared behind me and in a voice similar to his appearance he gruffly asked, "What's that?," gesturing to the pile of "Today's Special" sandwiches in front of me. I described what I saw, "Looks like bread, turkey, and lettuce." "Hmpf," he responded. Had the "Hmpf" concluded our encounter, it would have been pretty insignificant. However, as Potts made a plumb-line path towards the end of the deli line, he added, "Hey, I've got another poetry book for you to take a look at."

For the past 3 weeks, Potts' 20th Century American Literature class has disoriented me. No longer do I read for pleasure or write for leisure, reading and writing are my workout. Potts' class shows me how lazy I am intellectually. Reading the texts he assigns requires strength and writing analytical responses requires effort. Overcoming my intellectual laziness exhausts me. However, the literary world I discover by overcoming my intellectual laziness delights me.

I'm reading "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. I'm also writing my teaching philosophy for Professional Writing. A few moments ago I journaled about both:

"7:00 and I’m tired. Productivity has been minimal. Words come in, words flow out. Profound, well-written words flow in. Professional writer’s. Faulkner’s profound, well-written, mind-hurting, thought-stretching, cryptic writing style flows in, my shallow writing flows out. Why won’t this paper come out?"