1. Bastienne Schmidt
2. Edward Hopper

there are things you refuse to think about
streets that are too raw for your perusal.
you wind through them like your feet are fingers through pages,
moist to the touch.
I cannot be that for you: the one who points the way.
who colours corners as you navigate shady sidewalks.
instead i am the compiler who thinks of witty retorts only after you are gone from me. i think, "what would you do if i opened my mouth against your collarbone, breathing there to warm you?"
you are always closed against my forceful unfurling.

Living and Lying

"The worst thing you do when you think is lie — you can make up reasons that are not true for the things that you did, and what you’re trying to do as a creative person is surprise yourself — find out who you really are, and try not to lie, try to tell the truth all the time. And the only way to do this is by being very active and very emotional, and get it out of yourself — making things that you hate and things that you love, you write about these then, intensely. When it’s over, then you can think about it; then you can look, it works or it doesn’t work, something is missing here. And, if something is missing, then you go back and reemotionalize that part, so it’s all of a piece.
But thinking is to be a corrective in our life — it’s not supposed to be a center of our life. Living is supposed to be the center of our life, being is supposed to be the center — with correctives around, which hold us like the skin holds our blood and our flesh in. But our skin is not a way of life — the way of living is the blood pumping through our veins, the ability to sense and to feel and to know. And the intellect doesn’t help you very much there — you should get on with the business of living."

- Ray Bradbury from here

The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.

— Fernando Pessoa

So, I found out a few days ago that a friend of mine killed himself. And I have been feeling horrible and sad and out of sorts since then. Each day involves waking up to my cat's urgent meows and head butts, rolling over to kiss my partner, basking in sun. And then comes the crushing realization that a friend is no longer here. A person who was so vibrant and fascinating and caring.
I am horrible at staying in touch with people, and this was one of those people. The last time we spoke was a few months ago, and I haven't seen him since last summer. And I have guilt about that, even though I feel that feeling guilt after someone's death is such a waste of time, a way of making this horrible event about me, focusing on my pain instead of paying tribute to that person.  So I am trying not to feel guilty and instead remember Carm in a way that he would have wanted.
The first time I met him he was running around campus with no shirt and a guitar. Doing somersaults in the arts building. He ran up to me and told me: "you are delicious." He would interrupt professors in our philosophy classes. He would sing. He would quote Nietzsche and talk to me about getting out of the hospital, pulling release papers out of a ragged copy of Spinoza's Ethics.
The last time I saw him, we meditated together for 40 minutes, then made a stir-fry out of tofu, fresh mushrooms, peppers, ginger and lemon grass from the farmer's market, sharing stories.
I will miss you, and I am sorry that I wasn't more present in your life. Goodbye, Carm. xo

Listening to a conversation between Neil Young and Patti Smith on the background, watching Tennant-era Doctor Who. My kitten Arie (no, not like the guy from Entourage, whom I wasn't aware of prior to naming my cat the Hebrew word for lion) is trying to sleep on the warm surface of my laptop but settles for my chest instead. I do not feel like a good academic. I am worried that I am not going to do enough. I can't stand academic writing anymore, either the obfuscated pretensions of theory or the simplifications of much of "cultural studies" - maybe my brain is just overloaded and I need a break, but I certainly don't feel adequate right now. I spent my holidays doing what I love to do, right now, which is knit, bake, craft, and read (for pleasure) and now I'm witnessing the obligatory facebook updates from colleagues informing everyone that they have prepared __ manuscripts for publication and in short, seem to have their shit together. I just want to read William Gibson and Jeff Vandermeer and stuff and not have to write papers.
I think I'm just overworked. First world problems.

Last night was good, though. We played Carcassonne and drank champagne and watched Arrested Development. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Also, things like this happen on a frequent basis:

 So, life's good. Just confused as usual.

I have become remarkably good at zoning out, at least when I am in dire need of a good head space. Thanksgiving is such a gong show. I love my sister's voice and her high-pitched laugh. Driving in the dark and the sheen of your hair in the lamp lights. My cold fingers burnt on a mug of lemon tea. The pattern of puddles on a country road.

I am reading Ulysses which is wonderful. My life is extremely busy. I have started by PhD work and it is so fun and fulfilling but overwhelming all at the same time. I work a lot during the day and the last few minutes before I fall asleep I read a few pages of Joyce, and the world clears up a little bit. Is it strange that I use Ulysses to clear my head? I will keep track of my favourite quotes and put them in a wallet so that on rainy days I can look at them and feel a little more peaceful.

Happy thanksgiving.

On my disillusionment with graduate school.

Things I have learned over my past two years in graduate school.

1. Many people in supposedly more "radical" academic circles (radical = haha) think of themselves as extra special and unique butterflies, but they are also very defensive about appearing as such, and will use little self-deprecating "asides" to off-set the utter pretentiousness of 90% of what comes out of their mouths and/or what they shit on their screens.
2. "Difference" is a theoretical buzzword rather than something actually appreciated in the very real goings-on of everyday life. This is a really interesting one. Because I can't count the amount of times I've witnessed 10 people in a graduate seminar lamenting the oppression of this or that marginalized group, who talk about Jean-Luc Nancy's "Experience of Freedom" or Derrida's democracy-to-come but then they will go out of their way to ostracize people who come from different theoretical, educational, or ideological backgrounds because they are not "smart enough." Oh, and they are usually too busy whining about shit and constructing delicate existential crises to actually engage in local politics of any kind.
3. Academics are only interested in hanging out with/discoursing with those who either a) affirm what they already think is a correct [ideological or theoretical] position or b) challenge them in such a way that only superficially (i.e. theoretically rather than practically) "performs" difference without actually challenging the existing intellectual paradigm within which everyone comfortably floats. In other words, they'll theorize about the oppression of the working class but will turn up their noses at the very thought of listening or engaging with the working class, and if they do have a working class friend or a meaningful discussion with a construction worker in a bar, they'll fetishize and romanticize that discussion/individual all starry-eyed like they just did something good for the world.

Of course not all academics/people are like this. I find this is mostly true of young-ish graduate students. I have been guilty of some of this behaviour myself, but am grateful to have a thoroughly unpretentious and down-to-earth and thoughtful partner and a small group of friends who keep me accountable.  But all I have to say is: Barf. Hopefully the next stage of my academic career is less depressing.

Thesis is finally done. In an attempt to ease back into blogging, I'm going to be doing posts like this every once and a while, where I can share things that have been occupying my imaginative and creative headspace. These are things that have inspired me in the last few days.

“Our work of love should be to reclaim masculinity and not allow it to be held hostage to patriarchal domination. There is a creative, life-sustaining, life-enhancing place for the masculine in a non-dominator culture. And those of us committed to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that does not make it synonymous with domination or the will to do violence."

- Bell Hooks from The Will to Change (really digging this lady recently)

“So yes
I will gladly take on your ocean
just to swim beneath you
so I can kiss the bends of your knees
in appreciation for the work they do
keeping your head above water”

- Mike McGee

 Cocoa Island Hotel.

 Iain Macarthur.

 Ideal writing/living/creating/sexing spot.

 Kikyz1313

Dazed and Confused Oct.11 Photographed by Matt Stone.

Does Feminism Have a Glass Ceiling?
Interesting, problematic.
The Gender Trap pt. 2.
(Gotta love the CBC. Its become a kind of tradition for myself and my partner when we're driving. We're basically like old people.)
Zoe Smith being a badass lady fighter.
I care not for the Olympics but think this lady is awesome.
The Thinking Housewife tries to tarnish the legacy of Sally Ride with a surrealy homophobic eulogy.
David Futrelle's usual brand of cutting critique. I love this man.

Oh and my pinterest is here if you have any desire to check it out/follow.

Writing a 120 page thesis takes the wind out of me. And the brain power. But this whole sometimes-tedious experience has also given me something. Mainly, more confidence. A better awareness of what it means (and doesn't mean) to be that fearful something called "AN ACADEMIC." I will never be an academic as much as I will be someone who needs theory and poetry and literature to live. I'll spend my life writing if it means I can do what I love.
But I also love working out, and feeling the muscles in my legs ache after a session. And I love cooking, the saturation of smells, the satisfaction in completing something in less than an hour (there is joy in that, given the tedious hours I spend writing) and fueling my body. I love making things. It is such a cliche, too, the philosopher who retreats into wood-working. I have discovered a new joy in being embodied, in feeling my body move, and in being outside of my mind. And if I am, in fact, an "academic," I am also a myriad of other things.
I have entered one of those spaces, again, of peaceful isolation. Realizing who matters and learning how to be okay with letting those others - those others that don't - go. Of course its melancholic. Of course its nostalgic. But the intensity I used to have and cherish so much, the intensity that, only a year or two ago, I realized was mostly artificial and contrived, has ebbed away so that a different type of intensity remains. I don't want or need to prove myself anymore. Letting that fierce girl go means letting go of the people who loved that, but never me. In the meantime I have discovered new relationships that matter more.
Why not blog? Why blog now? I suppose I am winding down. I hate blogging, even though I subscribe to about 300. After being slapped on the wrist with a little bit of hate-mail I realized the implications of writing about personal things on the internet. Blogging feels very self-indulgent. Guilty as charged, I guess. My creative drive - along with the depression and anxiety that fueled all that "poetic angst" - has been siphoned off into other pursuits. I feel the weight of being in my mid-20s. Not that my awareness is tinged with a fear of getting older, or of "aging" in any sense. Its more or less a startling new awareness of just how fast time goes, how much living matters.
I know sincerity tinged with sentimentalism isn't "cool" or common, especially in the blog world. I'm not sorry about it, though.
xo