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wBillieupool |
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Hi.
My name is Kate.
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wFriday, March 22, 2002 |
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Learning more and more every day about what my trip to Oxford will entail. It's really not settled yet. I still have to go through an application process even though I'm the only one I know who's interested in going. (Why? WHY? I don't ask these questions. I just politely thank god for obscure chances). Apparently there has been only enough money secured this year to send one person, though in the past they've always sent two, so if the stars align right I'll be on my own in Oxford the last week of July and then on my own in a seperately funded side trip to London for the first week of August. Sounds wonderfully, deliciously, frighteningly fun, and I get more and more excited every day. This application process is going to be a pain in the ass, however. I have to jump through the requisite hoops of fire to secure money that isn't mine. I'm quite sure it will all be worth it ultimately, though.
Last night Miranda and I went out walking in the warm/cool night. A sudden rainstorm caught us off guard, but we walked on. I like rain on my skin. It makes me feel amphibious. It also makes me feel silly and brave all at once. I know it's only rain, but it gets such a bad rap sometimes. I like to remind it that it's not so big or bad, and it likes to remind me that I should be silly more often and jump through as many mud puddles as good sense would merit (and a few others it wouldn't).
Tomorrow I'll be in Mobile with the family. I'll be glad to take a trip with them, especially to the city of ancient trees and blazing azaleas. Unfortunately, I'll miss Nikki Giovani speaking at TSUM Friday night. Heart is breaking now...
posted by
Kate at 2:51 AM
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wWednesday, March 20, 2002 |
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Can't hear out of my hears. Sinus pressure, taut as the air behind a baloon. I've fallen behind on my reading - my first Faulkner ever, As I Lay Dying. It's as rich as I expected it to be, but as a result I've been more languid in my reading habits than usual, savoring each ridiculously complex sentence like an exotic entree.
My room's a mess. A gross mess. I'm just gonna let it stay this way. Spring break is next week, anyway, and I'll have time then to worry or sleep or write papers or clean or do a bit of it all.
posted by
Kate at 12:50 AM
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wMonday, March 18, 2002 |
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Spent the weekend languidly self-absorbed, reading Faulkner in the 80 degree sun, one leg dangled over the chair on our back porch. I knew a head cold was imminent. I could feel it in my throat, in the pressure behind my eyes, in the peculiar lightness of my head.
180 degrees. I'm sitting in the harsh flourescent lit room where all 3 of my English classes are held this semester, and I'm taking my British Lit. test. It's 8:00 a.m. I can't seem to form one cohesive thought. So I link together a few broken ones. My brain feels like a large pot of oatmeal. I think I must be very dumb. I'm the last person left taking the test. My professor practically snatches it from my hands when I'm finished. She's out the door before I've even put my backpack on.
6:00 p.m. I wake up. I think I have a fever.
posted by
Kate at 6:25 PM
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wSunday, March 17, 2002 |
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Someone is sobbing, absolutely wailing in the hall, and I wonder about the nature of pain - what hurts so badly that you are at once reduced to primal reactions?
Primal. Like going back to him even though I knew the chances of him wanting me were beyond pathetically minimal, just because I was tired, tired, tired and I wanted to be held. Primal. Like being accepted, drawn in, his hands touching me again for just a moment before... Primal. Like skulking away, not even bothering to wrap a bandage around the wound, bleeding a trail of worthlessness back toward home.
posted by
Kate at 8:35 PM
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wThursday, March 14, 2002 |
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So I'm being sent to Oxford by the English Speaking Union (Troy sector, I presume) to engage in a week long conference about Britain and its role in international community. The only expense I have to provide is airfare, which will be hefty, hefty, but...wow, what a wonderful oppurtunity! I've never been out of the country before. Hell, I've never been on a commercial jet before. I get to own a passport! Surely, this is a mistake, albeit a benevolent one. Don't know yet what kind of summer job I'll be getting in order to pay for this.
So today in verse writing, a certain someone someone brought a song with him. It was actually very lovely. A bit haunting in the way it illuminated our (often) self-induced tendency toward isolation. The basic premise is this: He's on a train and while passing another one he sees in the window a girl with "straw colored hair and eyes that make [him] warm." He speculates on whether he should attempt to get on her train to actually meet her, but ultimately he decides his is a journey going somewhere else. "Life is more than her" and "There are always other faces." It's tempting to say he wrote the song with me in mind, but that's just because I do, indeed, have straw colored hair (which is so much more nicely put than "dirty blonde" by the way), and also it flatters my vanity to think I've inspired the creative process. BUT...that's really quite irrelevent because I identify with the girl on the train anyway. Mine is a face easy to pass by. That is in part because I hardly ever allow it to become more than a face. Substance breeds vunerability in my opinion, and though I can see myself stifling any chance for romantic happiness I chugg on through a life of solitairy train rides, paranoid that the passing faces could taint me, masochistically fascinated with my own solitude. I don't look at people and automatically see all the wonderful things they could give me just by relinquishing friendship, I see strangers whom I'll never really know. It's exactly the fault I accused Richie of having.
No time to think of this. It's like beating a dead horse except worse because I'm allergic to horses, and I'd just sneeze a lot. I'm actually going out tonight, doing the normal college kid thing. I fully intend on having as a good a time as possible, so I'm *gasp* dressing up and everything...only to unravel in a (hopefully not too) drunken mess of supple, clumsy limbs...relaxation and non self-awareness for one night. It's only a small price to pay for airing the moth balls out of my social reclusiveness.
posted by
Kate at 8:56 PM
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wMonday, March 11, 2002 |
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I lost today in a dream. People moved like shadows. I hate it when I get so thoroughly inwardly trapped, when trying to escape myself is like pulling booted feet up from sucking mud, one leg at a time.
One of the virgins just flitted by the computer screen. I'll have a private room next year.
posted by
Kate at 10:54 PM
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wSunday, March 10, 2002 |
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Many things:
My roommate loosed 3 beady-eyed virgin fruit flies in the room this afternoon by way of a tragic test tube accident. As we live in only one room you can imagine my consternation. I am fairly tolerant of bugs, and these are of the most harmless sort, but still, the thought of them winging around like buzzy little ghosts in the shadows of my bedroom is, well, creepy.
Also:
Absolutely gorgeous sunset. It rained all day, and just as the sun was melting into the west the clouds parted, and suddenly everything was ablaze with the purest lighted gold, and to the east a half rainbow materialized from the misty gray blue clouds. Bonnie and I had just stepped out of Saga (where they, thank god, finally had some decent food) and we lit off like 2 dillusional children whooping and hollering all the while something about leperachauns and gold and the ends of rainbows.
Also:
Back in Miranda's room we watched an old faux Disney documentery on the foibles of a lovably doofy linx and his faithful Irish Setter guardian and the bumbling Ranger Joel who adopts him. For some reason this corny old 60's feel good show magnified every single emotion I've ever had - from sadness when the adorable linx kitten is abandoned by his mother, to fear when he almost gets hit by a camper, to amusement when the old dog mothers him, to more sadness when Ranger Joel attempts to abandon him in the forest, to relief when the linx finds his way home, to howling laughter when Ranger Joel drops his towel by trying to stop the linx from antagonizing the sled dogs, to...well, you understand now.
Felt good, all that laughter. The fear felt good too. Jesus. I won't shed a tear for the newest gripping drama, but give me animal movies or a marathon of the Lifetime Channel and suddenly I'm spouting like a geiser. Oh yeah, and I cried like a baby when Sarah Hughes ended her long program for the Winter Olympics. Grueling persistance in the face of almost certain defeat: that one gets me every time.
posted by
Kate at 2:32 AM
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wFriday, March 08, 2002 |
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Wow. So I finally made myself sit down and try to better figure out how this whole weblog process works. The result: I managed to write links and a short biography into my template. It's a small step, but I'm very proud of myself, especially since working with computers, for me, is like trying to breath water. Anyway, I linked to the blogs I like to read regularly. These guys are all amazing in one way or another, but one constant remains: the quality of writing is excellent. Enjoy. I know I do.
posted by
Kate at 11:17 PM
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Last night I called Scott, and Josh answered the phone. Before I was quite aware of him he was prattling through the phone against my ear just as if he'd seen me the day before, not two months before. I told him to can it, that I'd be over in a minute. Fifteen minutes later and I'm sitting in Scott's room, trying to act as normal as possible, failing miserably. Thirty minutes after that I'm somehow in the social room with a drink in one hand and cards in the other. I go through wild mood swings: first utter reservation, then a bout of rigorous flirting with Josh (all the sweeter for its complete innocence), then sadness for being forced to socialize with a certain him for the first time in ages, then a bleary withdrawal, then a muted acceptance. Leaving is difficult. I'd refused eye contact with aforementioned old flame all night, and in a drunken abandonment of inhibition he attempts to give me a hug. His smell washes over me for a moment, and I'm back to simpler times. Then I'm in Josh's car; we're sitting in the parking lot of my dorm and he's saying the same things he always says to me. The world spins, more from tiredness than Bacardi, and I hug him and stumble up to my room.
2 hours of restless sleep and dreams that are more haunting than most anything my conscious mind could devise later, and I'm awake and going to classes in a world that seems mostly underwater. After dinner at Saga, Miranda and I take a walk beneath the treelined golf course road. The air is spring perfect, and the breeze feels like water flowing through my hair. Just the feeling of wind in my hair again is quite amazing. It's finally getting longer...
Tired. Tuesdays and Thursdays always provide ample fodder for quirky, absent minded writer to writer interaction. Poems come and go. Current crushing interest tells me I get a sensation on my face much like pain after I read my poems aloud in class. They come and go: the poems and the pain. My verse writing teacher is going to publish me in the Alabama Literary Review. I know I'm going to leave good stuff behind...but will I ever do anything else with my life?
posted by
Kate at 8:25 PM
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