letters

In the past year and a half, three close friends moved to San Francisco, Kansas, and Singapore. Add to that my graduating around the same time and no longer having an excuse to foray from the Eastside over to Seattle = stalking friends on Facebook for information on their quotidian pastimes.

I love writing letters. I've asked various friends for their home addresses in the hopes of maintaining pen pal relationships with at least a few that have minutes to spend jotting down their life on paper. And I received my first return from that small effort yesterday. My one friend from Kansas wrote me a beautiful note (her handwriting is sooo much better than mine) and expressed her hopes that we could become even better friends through writing. I definitely think we can, but I asked myself why is it easier to maintain a friendship for some with letters, some with emails? Being in the letter department, which seems to be fast dying, I'm especially curious.

Now, my friend and I are both writers/Engl majors, and we both tend to like the idea of writing in general. The connotations of some old (now dead) British dude writing a classic fable by the hearth side with quill pen and ink on parchment hold infinitely more novel appeal for us than email.

How about Facebook? Well, the layout doesn't seem especially conducive to long letters about personal feelings, aspirations, hopes and dreams. One would have to use up half the page to equal the size of a normal hand written letter. Plus, the Wall is public, and messages are (possibly) checked by moderators.

Yet this whole tech thing isn't going away. What space do letters occupy in the era where we have both Facebook and pen and paper? (It was via Facebook that I got my friend's address) Hopefully the novelty of the letter will keep a few devoted people pushing through hand cramps in honor of this form of communication.

Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love's despair
To flatter beauty's innocent ear.
All shuffle there; all cough in ink;
All wear the carpet with their shoes;
All think what other people think;
All know the man their neighbour knows.
Lord, what would they say
Did their Catullus walk that way?
In contrast is Barry Spacks' "Freshmen":
Full of certainties and reasons,
or uncertainties and reason,
full of reasons as a conch contains the sea,
they wait; for the term's first bell;
for another mismatched wrestle through the year;
for a teacher who's religious in his art,
a wizard of a sort, to call the role
and from mere names
cause people
to appear.
The best look like the swinging door
to the Opera just before
the Marx Brothers break through.
The worst -- debased,
on the back row,
as far as one can go
from speech --
are walls where childish scribbling's been erased;
are stones
to teach.
And I am paid to ask them questions:
Dare man proceed by need alone?
Did Esau like
his pottage?
Is any heart in order after Belsen?
And when one stops to think, I'll catch his heel,
put scissors to him, excavate his chest!
Watch, freshmen, for my words about the past
can make you turn your back. I wait to throw,
most foul, most foul, the future in your face.
~ William Butler Yeats

children's authors

So, I've been on a kick of rereading my old books from childhood, partially inspired by my sister hauling them all up from the basement. I realized that I threw some of them out in the folly of youth, writing them off as too boring or "little kid" for me. Imagine my shock to find that some of them have been out of print for years, and that the classics of my youth are being replaced by Harry Potter wannabes.

When I was younger, Pippi Longstocking, The Rescuers, and The Cricket in Times Square taught me that imagination is wonderful, mice are resourceful, and cats like singing along with Slim Whitman. Good, silly, fun. Now the kids section of Barnes and Noble is filled with book after book about vampires, werewolves, magicians, and sorcerers. Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, I loved the Dealing with Dragons series when I was younger. But seriously, does a twelve year old girl need to be fantasizing about falling in love with a vampire, or a vampire/werewolf? Or whatever combo the authors of today will come up with next to sell paper?

There was only one copy of The Cricket, squelched in between multiple copies of the latest fad series.

If the writing was actually palatable, I might be able to look at this differently. But flipping through a few of these 'novels' reveals a liberal dose of melodrama and sensuality/violence in place of good writing.

There is another disturbing trend of the grade school author, most likely jumpstarted by the success of Eragon. Do I think young people should be encouraged to explore, create, and write? Yes. Do I think it should be published and held up as a standard of writing? No. Part of the reason we are so encouraged to read as kids is because reading helps us with our own writing and overall comprehension of the world. Twelve year olds should not be looking to twelve year old writing, but beyond.

Keep your heart healthy.

I'm missing something. I've taken dance for most of my life. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it now. Am I just supposed to teach, treat it as a great job during grad school? I want to choreograph more, and now that I'm getting older I want to perform. I was blessed with getting to perform at such amazing venues as The Paramount/Moore Theatres when I was younger. Standing ovations at age fourteen are pretty awesome things. I need to find where I am supposed to go from here in this interim year, but I'm not sure where to start.

I have problems with anger. Not acting on it, no violence, but it's still there, simmering away in a stew of ressentiment. Now, another qualification, I've come a long ways in the last year. But it still comes out when I hear another student griping about how tough their life is, sometimes with good reason and sometimes not, and I realize that I'm thinking "But I've got it worse" or something similar. Which if you think about it, is really holding a grudge that I don't hold a grudge, which is kind of sick.

There were hints of this in childhood. Mom loves telling stories of how I'd push boys off the play sets if they gave me crap. I was a kid feminists would point to and label the future. I was a 2 yr old in bows and lace that could kick 4 yr old boys on their asses. I didn't need a man, or anyone else for that matter.

So, there were signs that I wasn't your average wilting flower, and I'm glad I still have some of that inner strength today. But I'm afraid that interior steel has been warped and twisted into one of those metal sculptures in front of an art museum that scare young children. I recognize that, and I am very glad that I recognize that, but it's still there. That thorn in my flesh is something that I will probably have to struggle with for years to come. Life has shaped me a certain way, and there's no point in bearing a chip on my shoulder because of it.

- turned 22 on Monday. I liked being 21, honestly. If I could have stopped there for a little longer I would have. Hopefully this year will bring twice the growth and depth that last year did.

Last night the moon was simply gorgeous

~

The moon is golden and full
Fringed with tufts of iron wool
Sliding down the muted cobalt sky

~

I find myself wondering if my Modernism professor would consider this to be presentational enough language to be considered modern. I might have to flesh it out to see if I can keep the imagery within the context of rhythm and rhyme.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

~ T. S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Don McLean's American Pie came on the radio as I was driving home tonight - haven't heard it in years.

I had goosebumps all the rest of the ride home.

memory

I remember the antique store where I found my copy of Franny and Zooey. There were three copies of the book scattered throughout the store. One was on a bookshelf downstairs, one in a pile of books upstairs, and one was tucked behind a teacup. A Surplus of Salinger.

~

I should make a list of books that I should read but I haven't because I've been scared away by various people's descriptions or horror stories of forced 10th grade reading.
The Grapes of Wrath
Finnegan's Wake
Moby Dick (read it when I was 8, but had absolutely no idea what the big deal was, except the whale seemed kind of scary and the captain seemed kind of nuts)
War and Peace

random pics

Nathan's sis Stephanie and I at her graduation! Pretty kitty.

Lovely man.

That was a fun tree.