Pompous and Circumstantial

graduate, v. :

1. To take a university degree

2. To divide into degrees; to mark out into portions according to a certain scale.


So.
I am graduated. In both of the above senses.

Well, alright, I don't have my diploma physically in hand, as I opted to drink mimosas in my backyard instead of sitting through an excruciatingly boring ceremony. But I did it, they have the paper.

And as much as I may make noise about college being a part of Real Life, etc., it has been forced on my attention in the last week especially that we are compelled to divide ourselves and our lives; we must make boundaries starting and ending points, everything packed neatly (or rather sloppily in some cases) into little boxes. We do this in all sorts of ways: with our chronologies, our personality, our friends. For those of us in the institutional educational system, it's especially easy at this point in life. Clump it into high school, then college, with each year given a neat little label-- FreshmanSohphomoreJuniorSenior. Or maybe by major--when I was a Bio major... when I studied music...Compared to most of life it's easy, neat.

I myself am especially prone to making such divisions. Always have been. I was supreme at compartmentalization (I'm still inclined towards it, but it used to be much more severe). I had multiple groups of friends, none of whom interacted with or knew much at all about the others. And each of them saw a different side of me, never seen by the others. In a failure/success of my system, as friend from group A happened to meet a friend from group B and shared a (true) anecdote about me. No one from group B believed it and it went down as a total lie.
Now, it's not that I was a superchameleon or completely fake--all of these sides I showed off were part of me, just drastically different parts that were easier to separate than to make coexist peacefully. And easy is good. Less muss, less fuss, less confrontation. I hate confrontation.

Time periods get the same treatment from me. High school was easy; each year of high school had a different feel, some tone or theme, almost like a season of a TV show.
I am not good with dealing with time, especially the past. Ok, the future's not so good either, but the creeping anxiety I feel when I think about the future is better than the crippling nostalgia that overwhelms me when the past wafts by. As in, nostalgia that is physically painful. Part of the compartmentalization process it putting everything specifically in place, which means it's very easy to find it again, exactly how it was. I can point to any one event and instantly say, "Oh, that was sophomore year," etc. And I can remember exactly the person I was then, almost become her in that moment. All of that gets packed up in the box.
Then it hits me that that will never happen again, never ever, and I will never, ever be that girl again. (Which admittedly in some, maybe most cases is a good thing, but the realization still gives me stomach cramps)

This epiphany was highlighted rather brutally recently, when one of my best high school friends and I decided to try and contact a someone who had been a rather prominent figure in our lives back in the day. Oh, all right, it was a mutual ex-boyfriend. We thought it'd be funny, which just goes to show how straight-thinking we were at the time. Of course, we ended up, if not regretting it, at least cringing a little--he was straight-up dismissive of us, and specifically of me. Admittedly, we hadn't ended on the best of notes, but there was closure. Even so, it was hard for me to believe that someone could just leave me behind like that. Put me so solidly in the past when we had once meant too much for each other. Shocking, I know, right? Especially because I had left him behind so long ago myself. That part of my life was so vivid, so important, that it never really occurred to me (in the important sense, not intellectually) that I couldn't just open that box whenever I wanted and go back to that.

When the past is gone, it's gone, no matter how many times you and old friends tell funny stories about it over drinks.

The danger of boxes is, they're tricky. They make it easy to think you're safe, think you've got it all taken care of. But too many boxes and you're in trouble. Maybe someone opens one they're not supposed to and you get screwed, or maybe you forget where you put something, or you're just too fond of going through them. In any case, it's going to mess you up. You can't live life so neat-like, to fool yourself into thinking it's easy and you're safe.


But still, it's hard to give them up completely. And what with everybody graduating or not graduating and getting jobs/more degrees and moving away (geographically or emotionally), I expect they're freaking out about how to pack up (or not pack up) their own little boxes. Both extremes are tempting: get a completely fresh start, throw everything away and sever all ties; or, cling for dear life to old friends and places and everything you already know.

Me? I'll admit, I'm more inclined to do the former. In a lot of ways, it's easier. And I know that there is a lot of stuff, and some people, I will have to let go of, like it or not. But I'm going to try like hell to give me life some continuity, to let it continue to flow instead of stagnating in the tiny compartments I force it into.

I'm a little bit better about my boxes now. I don't put away so much in them, with myself or with other people. I let things get a little messier, spill over into unexpected places. It's more fun that way.

I said-a done, done, doneity done,ah done done doneity done!

At 11:16 PM last night, I finished and sent my last paper ever as an undergraduate student. (In case anybody is interested, it's a pretty lame essay-esque deal forcing me to cram together random facets of existentialism we happened to study in the second semester. Not my best effort, but eh.) The sending of that paper was also the completion of my finals, and thus the end of my career as a practicing student (at least for the time being).

I've had an amazing time these past four years, possibly/probably the best of my life so far. I've met great people whom I appreciate more than I can say, and learned and experienced interesting, crazy, and sometimes pleasantly confusing things. I have started to come into myself as a "real person." So I must admit that I pretty much have to always treasure this era of my life. But:

This is the moment for which I have been waiting sixteen years.

Pretty stoked. After I hit the "Send" button, I was like:

And then I was immediately like:

(Yeah, I just figured out how that webcam works. I now possess a lot of pictures of me making ridiculous faces with that drink. No, that is not just orange juice.)

Seriously considered just throwing my notes/printouts/notebooks just freaking everywhere around the room. Promptly realized I would have to clean that up later, and settled for maniacal cackling instead.

Now for EPIC SUMMER. And then? The GAP YEAR.

Life planning and logistics come later, i.e. after the 18th (Graduation Day).

Until then? There are still several seasons of How I Met Your Mother left for me to watch on Netflix, and there is a neglected Nord warrior who demands my attention as well. Not to mention the hefty stack of books (poetry, mostly) I've collected throughout the year and have not yet had a chance to read. While I had my nose to the academic grindstone, that stack seemed to taunt me. Now it is like a big pile of literary glee waiting for me to roll around in it. So much time is almost viscerally unspooling in front of me. I cannot enjoy this feeling of potentiality enough; it has been far too long since I've felt this eager to embark on tomorrow.

Yeah, if anyone has any plans/ideas/schemes for summer adventures, just let me know!
(Also a job and/or an apartment in New Orleans would me nice if you've got either of those handy, too)

As it ends, so it begins.

It's Procrastination, So True...

So, I have finally, finally finished what seemed like it would be an endless succession of classes as an undergrad. My last week was kind of a strange one, especially psychologically; a constant justificatory bargain with some scholastic devil: Okay, seriously, what do I really have to go to? My last philosophy class is cancelled, so if I go to Dante on Tuesday, what difference is it really going to make if I don't show up on Thursday? (Yes, I did skip my last Dante class and yes, I do feel like a worse person for doing it. I did have my reasons, but they mostly involved me acting like a spoiled child/senior in her last week of school, so there.) But now? All over. Four years stressing over the chaotic balancing act of assignments, attendence records, papers, exams, and professorial approval(/disapproval), and after all that: no harm, no foul. Now all that's left is to hurl reams of paper with words on them at my professors until someone eventually hurls back another piece of paper that says I'm graduating. So close I can smell the ink on it already.

And no, I'm not walking in my graduation.
I've gotten mixed reactions to this statement from friends, family, and teachers. My mother, the only person whose opinion would really sway me on this one, is happy with my not walking as long as I'm happy with it (I am). She didn't walk in her college graduation, and I've been unsuccessfully trying to persuade her out of this whole walking thing for every graduation since kindergarten. Really, I can't overemphasize how little these things mean to me personally and how mind-shriekingly tedious they are to sit through. About half the people who hear I'm not walking reply with "Ohmigod why not?!" (to which I respond with the points laid out above). Some of my friends just shake their heads sadly and say, "Lucky." Some (along with several family and academic figures) try to persuade me to walk anyway: "It'll be fun and it's your day and you should be proud you've done so much!" And yes, I am proud. And I know that the people that mean the most to me certainly know what I have done and how hard I've worked to get here, and they are beyond proud of me. Most of the people in the PMAC don't know me or what I've done, and couldn't give less of a flying kazoo, because there are 5000 bajillion people to graduate in my college and all they want is a.) to see their whoever walk across the stage for 7.5 seconds and b.) to get the hell out of there. Not exactly the most appreciative of audiences.
Went on a bit of a rant there, but I've been inundated with this type of question lately, and I feel quite strongly about it. N.B.: I am not knocking anyone who decides to walk in his/her graduation. I am so proud of all of my friends who are graduating and I hope they all know that, and if I could stand to drown in LSU pomp and circumstance for one minute longer than I had to, I would be right there with them.

Anyway, all of this is just my way of continuing to be excited about exiting undergrad, along with (of course) putting off actually putting together my final philosophy paper and poetry portfolio.

Speaking of which, it is slightly harder than I anticipated to find literary journals/magazines to which I can submit right this second; all too many have either just closed their submissions or have gone on hiatus or aren't reading until fall or somethingsomething. So although I was going to post here a list of the journals to which I was thinking about sending poems... I'm not. Probably going to end up sending my stuff to Diagram, and though I love their journal, I would also love to have some backup options. I know I've mentioned all this, but have to start collecting those rejection slips sooner rather than later (I'm going to make a collage; pretty excited about it). Mayhaps I'll wade through all the fliers and slips I collected at AWP and see if any of them are still reading. Hm.

In any case, this procrastination attempt is going far better than attempting an outline on my philosophy paper/essay (two pagers of notes+quotes and counting!) so better go deal with that.

There's a very certain feeling that goes along with being able to mark freedom as a specific date on the calender. It's pretty great.

There seem to be gypsies playing trombone in my soul?

Hey! May Day! A giant nexus of socio-cultural spring traditions, plus some labor stuff--huzzah! Now, my plans do not (as of now) include dancing merrily with ribbons around a symbolic pole (I kind of tend to avoid most fertility-type rites, anyway), so instead I'm constructing a small mental(/virtual) checkpoint.

Why today can be construed as good:

• Sunny happy weather (okay, I generally prefer overcast days, and okay it's quite warm for my taste but it could be a whole hell of a sight worse)
• I went to Yogalates yesterday (what? I know! I feel like a better person for it) and did not wake up in excruciating pain today (yay stretching)
• I am eating delicious Greek yogurt (raspberry + some honey)
• I have amazing friends (literally, I am in amazement of stupefying, epic proportions when I think about how good they are to me and how lucky the world as a whole is to have them around)
• I have three days of classes left in my undergrad career

Biggest project on the horizon for finals week also happens to be the one most likely to be relevant to my life after finals week: my capstone poetry portfolio. We are being forced by the will of our esteemed professor (not being sarcastic here, Laura Mullen is great) to not only compile a final portfolio, but actually send the bastard thing out into the world, i.e., submit to a journal. So even though I've already done the bulk of the creative work for the portfolio (okay, there will be some tweaks and revisions that will probably drive me crazy in the end), it will almost certainly cause me the most mental anguish out of all of my finals. Better start getting those rejection slips now, so that by the time I move to a real city, I have enough to make a wall hanging.

Actually, I'm pretty excited about it.

Went to Festival International in Lafayette this weekend, and though we only got to be out there for a relatively few hours and only saw two bands play, I had a fantastic time. Slavic Soul Party is pretty much my new favorite music thing in the world. I might have guessed that a crazy Balkan-funk brass line would rock my world, but now I know for sure that that is the case. I mean, I couldn't help but dance. Literally. I was psycho-physically swayed by the music, and my face hurt from smiling so much. I am getting them to play at my hypothetical wedding.

Anyway, I'm going to wrap this post up with what I could not stop myself from repeating all that evening (it's great when you can end two blogposts in a row like this):

"I'm so happy."

Late Night Identity

What kind of person am I?

I am the kind of person who will sleep on the futon in the office with the cat box rather than waste the first night of sleeping on just-washed sheets by not being freshly showered.

I am the kind of person who while picking a documentary from Netflix will seriously ponder the question Do I or do I not know how the universe works? for several minutes before deciding that I indeed know quite enough about how the universe works, then pass up Stephen Hawking for Elmo.

I am the kind of person who will happily eat buttered pasta for four days in a row.

I am the kind of person who discusses Dostoevsky with her cats and ridicule their opinions.

I am the kind of person who has absolutely no business attempting to paint her own nails.

I am the kind of person who builds a semi-mannequin of herself then gets creeped out having it in the house.

I am the kind of person who spends an egregious amount of time arranging a growing collection of toy dinosaurs in front of a display of poetry.

I am the kind of person who stays up just a few minutes too late writing silly blog posts on one of her last school nights.

you have stripped me down to my tongue root (in a good way)

Oh man.

The release of Volume 54 of delta journal was nothing sort of gorgeous. The journal is beautiful. The party was beautiful. (The girls are beautiful! Even the orchestra...is beautiful!) So many people were involved in putting everything together on all fronts that there are not enough thank-yous in the word to get out, but I'm going to throw at least one out into the universe anyway: Thank You! to anyone and everyone who helped support me and/or any and all rest of the staff &c. while we were scrambling to make this journal (and it's killer debut into the world) possible. So pretty. I feel bad because for the last week I've been so exhausted and kind of disengaged; seriously, it's amazing the amount of crap I didn't give. So really I should have done more to help out with last night, but turns out it wasn't necessary. Because, as stated above, everything was/is awesome.

[Let me pause here for a moment to interject: I am up way earlier than I have any right to be (8 AM) given how hard I celebrated volume 54. Instead of falling back asleep [double interjection: then I did], I have found that I unexpectedly have bacon in the fridge. YES. Made myself the most beautiful plate of bacon eggs and toast. I love my life.]

Some stunningly creativetalented people went all out to make cross-media installations from pieces in the journal, and everything came together (as you may have guess from my above raving) positively beautifully. There was just so much texture going on everywhere. I would say I wanted to roll around in everything, but really not so much literally, as various projects had things like viciously pointed screws or a lot of dirt. A lot of the stuff was interactive, though, and I really have to admire those artists for it. I don't trust people with my work near enough to let them mess with it. But that's half the point, I guess. My installation turned out great for a project I whipped up mostly by saying, "Eh, this should work." (Pictures below.  Getting wrapped up in duct tape turned out to be the easy part; the hard part was haling a 40 lb. bag of pool salt (weight to use in the stand) through Wal-Mart and parking lot. My arms are complaining quite loudly today.)

We had a short section of readings by the Matt Clark prize winners (poetry and fiction) and next year's co-editors--the crowd was well pleased. I kind of forgot I was doing one and almost didn't print off my poems; then I got to the gallery and pretty much forgot again practically until they called me up to the mic. Seth and Rachel's readings were a hoot and got several laughs, which is good because apparently my readings are borderline creepily intense. My friend Jeri in the front row told me she was praying that when I looked up from the podium I didn't look at her--apparently I had some super-piercing eyeball action going on. I was unaware. Seemed to be really well-received though. My new rule: two glasses of wine, no more, no less, before I get up to read any of my stuff. It seems to make everything go most smoothly.

 I am so proud to be poetry editor of this year's wonderful delta, and additionally pleasantly surprised to be winner of this year's Matt Clark Prize for Poetry (for "stripped, she said"). That officially means I am getting paid money for my poetry. You doubters can go doubt yourselves. Seriously though, it's an honor. And, I might add, a great way to cap off a great semester ( / year / college career). It has been so crazyhectic at times and so & mind-blowingly full of words that I cannot even describe it (with words. Ha.). So many brilliant people have entered my life and come to mean a lot in the past few months...it's going to be hard to adjust to whatever new life is coming. Awh, now I'm getting all choked up. (I must admit, I very nearly teared up when Julia and Robert handed the reins off to new co-editors Seth and Rachel. But they are going to make next year awesome.)

I have used far too many superlative and gushy adjectives in this post, and done a rather pedantic job of describing what was in fact a night of magical beauty. ...Yeah, that phrase was worse. So now I'm going to post some pictures of the excellent creations I was thrilled to be a part of.

Making of the mannequin

Finished installation: "rewrap me"

Beautiful volume 54 (on my not so beautiful tabletop, but accompanied by survivors of Jeri's installation)

So. Happy.

You Can't Take the Sky from Me.

Oh, hi, Life. Didn't see you there.

So it turns out I am graduating in a month. Graduating from college. This tidbit is only now beginning to hit me/sink in, and, looking back over the past few months I'm realizing how determinedly I have been sticking my head in the sand to avoid the reality of it. Hell--the past four years, even. Up until about last week, I've been in the mindset of oh I have plenty of time, plenty plenty. Oops.

I mean, I have my "plan," i.e., the spiel I spit out at well-meaning adults (ugh I guess I'll have to be one of those too now) when they inevitably ask brightly, "So, what do you want to do?" It goes basically as follows:

Oh, you know, I was planning on moving down to New Orleans for a year or so and just live for a while...take some time off so I don't burn out...and I'll start looking at grad schools while I'm down there...oh, no, I'm not sure what I'd go for, that's part of the reason I'm taking time off, y'know, so I don't get stuck in the wrong thing. I dunno, an MFA or something in linguistics. Yeah, I like words...Also, I really want to go out of state for grad school or whatever, really get out of here. I was born and raised in Louisiana, but I feel like if, y'know, I'm acting like a "writer" then it would be a crime not to like in New Orleans for a while...I mean, it's such a dynamic place, and I feel like I'm at the right "dynamic" time in my life to really be there, y'know?
[If they press me on the grad school issue I usually laugh nervously and mumble something about Boulder or Chicago]

Not that the above isn't true. That is, in fact, the current plan. I just have A) no idea how to get from point here to point New Orleans or B) from point New Orleans to point grad school. I know that there are plenty of resources available to me, especially regarding the grad school thing, but actually beginning to confront the looming precipice of Real Life (ha) by actually thinking about jobs and apartments (I've been looking, but I mean for serious) and then actually looking at admissions for grad programs... the latter made me physically want to vomit. Everywhere. My mind was completely filled with a horrified crescendo of I am not ready for this. I should have been publishing things. Or at least writing things. And most especially, I should have been working harder. For the future.  Looking at the linguistics programs especially made me want to faint/disintegrate. So much is necessary. Always.

Tentative new plan: Two years in New Orleans (an additional one while I wait for Boy to graduate) building my portfolio etc, then MFA (two years), then Ph.D. in Linguistics (five+ years). That puts off Real Life for as long as possible, right?

Every time I start to panic about this (which is pretty much all of the times now), I try to take a step back and convince myself that I am not, in fact, crossing some giant, scary threshold into Real Life. Actually, I have been living for about twenty-one years now, so I should really have plenty of practice at the whole life thing. And I've been supporting myself (pretty damn well, I'd say) for the past four of those years. Dammit, I've been living this whole time!

If only I could make this realization stick.