It's Raining, It's Pouring...

Yesterday I stepped out of the library to meet a goose-drownder of a downpour. And like every other student caught without an umbrella, I greeted it with an exasperated sigh or two. Why did I choose today to leave my umbrella at home? Why did it have to start raining now? I stood at the edge of the covered walkway, grumbling and bracing myself to make a run for it. But even as I contemplated the falling sheets with rising resentment, I came to a mildly horrifying realization: I was being a boring, stuffy old grown-up.

I love storms and rain and wind. I always have. And not just looking out through the window--I was out in the damn stuff all the time, splashing in the puddles and catching drops on my tongue and generally making my mom certain I'd catch my death of a cold. What the hell did I care if my natty ponytail or my beat-up cut-offs got a little damp? Maybe the world has taught me to grow up a little too well. I watched poor souls skitter across the open square; hunched and miserable, they were only trying to get to the next shelter as quickly as possible.

Screw that.

And so I walked--no, I sauntered out into the rain. I admired the marbled grey sky and appreciated the cool patter of water on my arms and face. When I was certain no one was watching, I did a little pirouette. And of course, I managed to get at least one excellent puddle splash in. By the time I made it home, my clothes were sodden and my glasses nearly useless. But damn if that wans't the best walk home I'd had in quite a while.

This is testing my will power already

So, last Monday (the 24th) marked a double-beginning, as it were. A new year of my life (age-wise and such) and a new year of school. Neither got off to a particularly fortuitous start, but everything seems to be shaping up. Hurrah!

Now, since I've heard that "real" people have these things called "goals," and since it's an intriguing concept, I've decided to try it out.


Things To (Maybe Possibly Hopefully?) Do This Semester:

-Write (and finish) at least 2 short stories

-Read On the Road

-Socialize more, dammit! I have friends that live within walking distance from me--why do I not see them more than once a year? My hermit complex needs to be scaled back...lots.

-On that note, make some new friends. Nothing too drastic, just one or two would be fine.

-Failing that, at least get out more.

-Save up as much money as possible. Well, as much as I can without too much inconvenience.

-Win at NaNoWriMo!

-Exercise at least once a week. You know, or so.

-Start eating (and actually enjoying) once new kind of vegetable.


Now, I'd say that's a respectable list of potential undertakings.We'll just see how all this business pans out.

My View of LSU, Part 1

Louisiana State University has Always Been There, hanging over my head throughout the course of my life. A large percentage of the population of Baton Rouge will bleed purple and gold if given the least opportunity, and such rabid fanaticism did not endear me to the institution. I swore up and down that come time for college, I was getting as far away from LSU (and the entire city and state) as opportunity would take me.

Turns out, that wasn't very far.

So yes, I ended up at LSU. But being stuck here... well, I haven't found it nearly as disagreeable as I thought I would. In fact, I've ended up with my optimal lifestyle (at this point, at least). I share an incredibly convenient and rather charming apartment with my wonderful boyfriend; my social circle consists almost entirely of super-awesome people; they pay me to go to school, for chrissakes. And though I've lived near it all my life, it's just in the past year that I've been able to look past the miasma of football and "GEAUX TIGERS" and see the place for itself.

The point I'm meandering around to is that I recently "bought" (in exchange for paying the electricity bill) a very nice camera off my boyfriend, and I've taken it with my on a couple of walks around campus and surrounding areas. Here are a few of the photos I snapped; it's no detailed photojournal, but I got to play with my new camera and document a glimpse of my current setting to boot! These should be worth a handful of words, at least. [It was impressively difficult to coax all of this into anything even resembling a workable format, so Parts 2+ may be a while in coming...]



<-The stairwell of my apartment building. A combination of creepy and charming!









Interesting and slightly shady everyday things.

















Some shots of the clocktower. Who doesn't like a good, old-fashioned phallic symbol?



















































Around campus, etc.

State Street, where the magic begins.

Nightly Apocalypse

Every night just outside my window, a battle is fought. I’m not exactly sure of the nature of this fight, but night after night of involuntary research has led me to believe that it is a hellbeast, a sign of the coming apocalypse, venturing up from its unholy den to hunt. The hour of this battle is variable, but it is inevitably timed to happen only moments before I drift off to sleep--a nightly trial of the soul. To the thing outside my window, this is probably a bonus.

The first sign is a faint, ominous snarl, life the rumblings of thunder from a distant storm. As it crescendos into a grumbling roar, my body involuntarily tenses and I grind my teeth in anticipation of the coming trial. After it reaches its peak, the roar subsides into a thoughtful purr as the two sides ready for battle. Here the approaching beast usually lets out its battle cry, a shrill, repeated scream that sends my head burrowing into the pillow. The idle growling swells back to a roar as the beast charges. It meets its prey in an unholy crash, the crack of doom aurally silhouetted by the grinding screech of the attacker, a sound like the screams of the damned—not those placid souls resigned to their fate, but the ones who are royally Pissed Off about the way things are going for them. Every night I pray for a swift victory, for though the beast always wins in the end, its opposition puts up a hell of a fight sometimes. Some nights the scuffle is mercifully quick. Other nights the cacophony of bangs and crashes, rumblings and shrieks goes on for ages, echoing off the walls of buildings and the inside of my skull.

Finally, the beast, satiated at last, throws the carcass of its prey to the ground, where it lands with a hollow crash. It trumpets its cry again, this time in smug victory. It is an arrogant, ostentatious thing, this beast. With one last, contented roar, the thing rumbles laboriously off, its belly full, and I allow myself a small shudder of relief. It is only after all of this that I am able to attempt again my quest for sleep.

Oh, wait, I believe I hear the beast approaching now. I’m afraid I have to go; I have front-row seats for tonight’s apocalypse.

An Offering of Poetry-- How Delightfully Droll!

Dredged up some more poems, one a couple of years old and the other a couple of months. In my more recent affairs with poetry, I've taken a different direction, experimenting more with enjambment, etcetera. Possibly some more of these to come, and I'm working on some actual new stuff to post. Fingers crossed!

----------------

Infidelity

I can see where her head lay
A strand of hair where mine should be
My voice is silent in this house
An accusation of his infidelity

But I shall take, I shall shake, I shall break
These walls until they say
What harlot has usurped my vows
A week and a half from my wedding day



The Edge

The raindrops drip
as smoke on the sill
And the air thrums
with the words and the rhythms and the riffs
Of the human experience

And we breathe the
smoke and the liquor and the hour
As we shout our souls
into that thick air
In hopes that some other’s
will turn to ours (for what?)

And again we reel
With our cosmic clichés
into our philosophic armchairs
As we discuss lives
laid bare
(not ours of course)
by forsaking the world

But for all our eighty years
(some more
some less)
We have drunk but a
fourth of our cup

And so we lapse into
the words of the heads on our mantelpieces
Still shouting desperately
Grasping at explanation
Or meaning
Not seeking the edge
but the delineation of its silhouette
In the hopes that someday
If we see it if we sense
its dark smirk
looming on the horizon

We Will Know.

Overlooking the Abyss

Not quite sure what this is, so we're going to go with prose poetry. I didn't realize it when I first had the idea, but this more or less describes my experience with writing. Just a little dribble from my mind, but it's far better than nothing, which is what said mind has been producing recently.

-------

Last night I dreamt before I slept that an ivory maiden led me through an ivory tower perched on the edge of a cliff. It was high, the tower, overlooking an abyss, and from it bridges sprouted, many of them. They arched across the wide gulf, a spiderweb of safe passage. I told the maiden I wanted to stand on the highest point of the highest bridge, to straddle the abyss and watch its two edges meet eternally at a point just short of infinity. She smiled the smile of a lady saint and led me up staircases and down hallways. I thought at first we were walking in circles but realized we were walking in spheres; the maiden assured me this was the right way. The light was the light of a grey early morning—itself indistinct, everything else painfully clear. Often our shadows ran too far ahead and had to wait for us to catch them. I could not decide if the tower was one room or thousands. And finally we emerged at the tip of a spire, at the point where the bridge must begin. But instead of a path, the abyss bloomed before me, fading into a depth farther than I could fall. No walkways spanned it, nothing tethered its edges, and there was no sign that anything had tried. And so I balanced between waking and sleeping, calling out to the maiden who was no longer there.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Blog...

This post was going to be an episode of me whinging and wringing my hands about how I haven't posted since February. There were going to be excuses, rationalizations, and a rather self-deprecating rant about my fear of writing. I decided to forgo all that-- it really wasn't worth my time or anyone else's--and instead make this a simple announcement: This Blog is Still Active. What's more, flying in the face of my laziness and self-criticism, I intend to update (gasp) frequently.

Well, at least more frequently than once every six months.

So I guess it's time to clear the rust and dust and rats' nests out of the old brain-motor, and actually get things rolling. I can't guarantee anything groundbreaking, but I can guarantee something, at least.

(Probably) Forthcoming:
-The first bits of a character sketch/story I'm working on
-Musings on David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
-A first attempt at prose poetry (??)

Now all I need to do is hire someone to stand behind me with a menacing look and make sure I update regularly. Any takers?