Playing house
I just found a shopping list of kyle’s while looking for a pen so i could enhance my studying. I miss my boyfriend soooo much.
In the last chapter of the first volume
Today was my cousin’s baby’s birthday so my mom and dad and I trucked it to Rossville to spend some time at the party. Any loyal follower knows one thing about me… I love my family especially in all of its extended wonderfulness. I love it which means that I’m pretty damn excited to get to spend some time with them. It’s also awesome now that there’s little kids around. I think the last three holidays I haven’t put little Nate down. And today, I was bummed that he’s walk/scooting around so he gets fussy when he’s held for too long. But he’s at a cute age where he likes to play with trucks and other badass toys for little boys that my cousin uses to force hegemonic masculinity on him and his brother 🙂 right. So there’s all kinds of cute stories I could relay… like the “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” faked laughs of a one year old on his birthday, or how he clapped for every gift that he liked and how he clapped through the cake eating after stuffing his mouth with a huge piece of cake, it was simply adorable… but this is more about a realization that I had about this being basically the last random holiday that i’ll be around for.
It’s weird and sort of sad that next year I might not even make it home for Thanksgiving and certainly not for a second birthday. It’s strange to watch all of these chapters in my life come slowly to a close and me left completely unsure of what the next chapter will hold.. or even what the setting is. This is like a choose-your-own-adventure book where the control I have over the plot only seems to be of my choosing. Really, I’m antsy because i want to know where I’ll get into grad school, where I’ll get money, and where Kyle and I will end up in a year. So frustrating not to know. I’m going to be the weird academic in my family who moved away, the one who waited to start a family, the one with a doctorate. i’ve always been fairly different from these people but i mean, you can tell that they’re just a little weirded out by what i plan to do. ahh. it’s strange. I’m excited to go wherever my plans take me this time though. Unlike this same process in high school, I’m so happy that my life is going to go somewhere awesome. I’m excited for the next step. And I’m not even paralyzingly afraid of change.
That that don't kill me
I’m done with the protected posts for at least another few hours. Everything is fine, I just needed to rant a little bit over that thing where Kyle doesn’t like to talk on the phone (a truth that only emerges when he’s been bad about talking on the phone). Then, I needed to post a follow up which involves about the sweeteset e-mail I’ve gotten in a while. Now, I’m mentally reflecting on whether or not a “And they lived happily ever after” at the end of Romantic Comedies might teach boys that we really mean for them to act like our knight in shining armor even after they get some play. But everytime I try to word it, it hurts the feminist in me. I guess, I just think that the funeral for romance is the harbringer of death in a relationship. I know that things get hard… and I’m fine with that, I think it makes the romance more sweet. I just also know that everyone observing it from the outside knows Joe and I broke up because there was no romance between us. On either side. And I don’t want that to happen with Kyle. He’s about the most like my dad that I’ve ever met. And I know for a fact that my mom still gets flowers just because sometimes and that my dad still tells her she’s beautiful and all of these other things. I made the decision a year ago that I wasn’t going to settle for a friendship in the form of a relationship.
I want a million roses and a marching band.
Distance has no way of making love understandable
I hate being this far away from Kyle. We’ve both been really busy this week, or mostly since Wednesday, he’s been really busy this week and I feel like I hardly get to speak to him. The worst part is that because we live seven hours away that whole talking-on-the-phone thing is extremely important to keeping our relationship well-oiled. I hate being lonely when I have a boyfriend. So that’s my opinion on that, basically. Just that I wish that we could just make regular time for each other, so I’d have something to look forward to instead of having to go out to fill the time in which we would usually be talking to each other. Our relationship has also hit that point where it’s now a little bit hard.
On the phone the other night we had a very tense discussion about a lot of things including travel and finances. It’s frustrating for me because I wasn’t planning on having to plan my life around someone else at age 21. But, I love him, and I love him now, so it’s alright that I have to. There’s things that I’ve ruled out because of him as far as moving away goes and there’s certainly a disadvantage to trying to live by ourselves next year because it’s going to be so expensive no matter where we’re going. He says a lot that it’ll be really expensive to move these places and I know that he’s right but I don’t think he understands how discouraging that is for me. My parents said that to me over and over during my undergraduate school-picking process and as a result I ended up at Washburn on the promise to myself that I’d put whatever money I needed to into my graduate degree. And I’m really afraid that he’s going to talk me out of it because of money. Mostly, when he brings it up, I just get really bizarrely defensive about it because I want to go where I can get the best degree or the best major professor or whatever. I want the best education I can, and I’m not willing to let someone come in the way of that but I know how I feel about him and I know that my heart really would let him come in the way of that. I guess I just leave the ball in his court and hope that he won’t pull that card.
It’s also difficult cos I’m not willing to be away from him for another year. Especially if I move somewhere really far away like Boston. I’m not opposed to the idea of taking a year off so that one or more of us can work and I can live in Kansas City for a while and maybe we could save up and have a wedding… but that’s sort of a bad option for him cos what would he end up doing after that, plus I’d lose my mom and dad’s insurance so it would sort of force a wedding, assuming he had insurance at whatever job he got if i didn’t at mine.
When it comes down to it, I’m so excited to have him to take with me. It’s just hard to adjust to this having some reason to not be selfish about major life decisions. I think that’s the kind of selfishness that we’re allowed… we go where’s best for us in hopes of finding other people who have the same interests as us and hopefully they’ll be whats best for us. But I already know he’s best for me. I already know that even though its hard now and we fight a little more when we’re together because we want it to be easier to be apart that I want it to be hard with him only. Cos it would be hard with anyone, right? And there’s just not a single other person in the world that compares to how he treats me. I believe that. I feel like I’ve grown up a lot in the last year, and realistically, I have. But I’m pretty sure we’re also still twenty-one and invincible.
Ring-around-the-rosé
Add Faruk Akin to the list of awesome ring designers. I like the universe one best.
in the realms of the unreal
New layout, obviously. it’s based on the art of henry darger. i need to make a credits section in the pages.
One of the things I like about myself is that I have a really consistent bubbly tone that I write in when I’m in a good mood. I’m excitable like a little child. It’s adorable.
a prayer, i promise
God sat in my living room,
postured like a childhood
drawing of a family friend
with hair too red and a mustache
too thick, but strangely familiar;
of course, i paid no attention
as i was mired by your permanence
watching you walk
from the bedroom to the bathroom
and perching myself in a chair
where i could see you on your walk
in return, a queen’s majesty
coiled beneath the weight of a towel
cos you, dear, are a carbon-copy
of man in the image of perfection
and every curled tress from your scalp
separates you from those i’ve loved
before and after you; so i watch,
your eyes as they catch the new skin
stretching around your hips
and your fingers as they reach for your bones,
exploring the curvature
which signals your womb
as a fertile bed of life
as much as it signals insecurity
which haunts every glance in the mirror
you asked me once to draw you
and i promised too, but only
in two stages of this moment
the haphazard movement of your thighs,
and arms and head and hands
winding illogically through your towel
like the interstate circumscribing downtown
and the slow trickle of blood from your vulva
dissipating along the inside of your thigh
and reminding us all you are alive.
glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
as it was, is now, and ever shall be.
amen.
From the stupor of our hangovers
Lilia tagged me in this typical blog thing where the writer is supposed to post eight things about themselves. I’ve decided that since I’m due for a blog anyway, I like revealing things, and I’ve been meaning to have lots of deep conversations with the world I should respond with a new entry that follows the rules. Also, I’ve decided that I should keep a serious tone about it as opposed to the unserious tones I’ve used in the past.
There are “rules”- Post the rules before you give the facts. Post eight random facts about yourself. At the end of your blog post, you need to tag eight people and list their names. Leave the people you tagged a comment on their blog, letting them know that they’ve been tagged.
1. I ring shop, almost every day. (Figured I’d start with a shocker). The thing is, I don’t even know why I do this. I guess because Kyle’s nervous about having to buy one is how it started cos I don’t want a diamond and I don’t even actually want a stone. And I do want something weird and that means knowing my taste. And if I have a band for one thing I can’t have a band for the other and I don’t see why I need an engagement ring at all but Kyle’s convinced (correctly, I might add) that most girls lie about what they want in their engagement ring and he’s worried (incorrectly, I might add) that I’m one of them. So one day, innocently enough, I looked at rings. That’s when I realized that my “I don’t want a diamond or really even a stone” demands were practically just cruel. Slash. I realized that virtually everyone in this country is an unoriginal diamond craver. And while some of my anti-diamond attitude stems from my finding it odd that i’m going to get a Ph.D. in African History while wearing a diamond. Looking for someone to help me feel like less of a statistic, I sought out another opinion on the matter. Finding nothing worthwhile, I gave in to the Slate.com link on google. And I was somewhat impressed by this article by Megan O’Rourke called “The Trouble with Engagement Rings.” She raises several good points… including that I’m pretty much justified and original in not wanting a ring with a diamond. Another that I’m going to get a lot of rolled eyes when people ask to see the ring and all they get to coo over is a band. So that means I have to have confidence that Kyle will overcome this great shortage of pretty rings without diamonds. Basically, I still don’t think there’s anything better than a simple band. But it looks weird to wear two bands. So the wedding ring would have to be different. Or I’m going to have to come up with some other idea for the engagement ring. I like these websites: greenKarat has some neat ones that are kind of traditional and the carrot box has a sweet blog with lots of awesome untraditional ideas. I also like this one… cos seriously… concrete rules. As for the band thing and then a fancied up wedding ring.. rumor is that Loving Anvil will stamp HUSBAND and WIFE in a Courier Typesetting. Bad. Ass.
2. Sometimes, I hate being an historian. I feel jaded and like I’ve lost my ideals. I think this is why I write outside of my field a lot, or try to. Because I just feel like I’m not doing anything other than reporting what happened without anything other than academic bias. Is it Mitchell who critiques debate because of spectatorship (and then later recants saying its good for education?) Well, I feel like history breeds spectatorship. I get frustrated that history rarely amounts to more than “a dialogue among historians” because I’ve always wanted to do more than that. I quell this hatred by thinking that maybe someday I’ll get to sit on panels. Maybe someday I’ll escape to the realm of think tanks where at least I’ll be trying to speak to someone else and they’ll just not be listening. Maybe someday I’ll jump into the NGO sector. But then, I decided to get a Ph.D. in history because I wanted to write about human interaction with great ape populations from as early as i could to as late as i could. Because I want to write for the Great Apes Project because I think they lack and could benefit from an historical analysis of these interactions. So I think about this and I realize that I just have to stay committed to what I want to do. So Boston or Minnesota… here we come.
3. I resent the clothing industry for making me think I look hotter naked. Lilia’s number one was about how she’s considering breast lifts after she has her next kid and about how her body just doesn’t fit together correctly after she was pregnant. Without having given birth to a child, I can relate. I’ve gained weight. Things look different. My hips curve differently. And despite all of those jokes that Joe made about how I’d gotten fat or the rumors that go around about how I’m pregnant or something now… I think I look good. It hurts my feelings because it’s supposed to that I now wear an XL in Mossimo (this is actually just completely fucking ridiculous. What do girls who are actually an XL wear? Misses? Cos that’s also completely ridiculous.) and sometimes I hate how my clothes were cut for these perfect mannequin bodies or something. But I’m happy with how I look when i take my clothes off. I think I look like Titian’s Venus of Urbino and I’m into that. I like my curves. So dear Old Navy, American Eagle, Target and all the other stores that advertise to me… please start making dressmakers dummies that are shaped more realistically.
4. I regret with the deepest sincerity every action that got me removed from the debate squad. But that does not justify a coach calling me a whore. And anyone who knew me the way that Kevin and Jim should have known me after that amount of time… especially as I’d had a conversation about what I was going through and they claimed to understand… should have been more understanding and approached things differently than they did. I realized at the time that a break from the debate squad would probably do both me and the squad some good. They could have just talked to me about it. I’ve left that relationship completely distrustful of most of the people who were on the squad at the time and really unsure of what sense I should make of the stories I’ve heard about who said what to get me removed from the squad. I’d go back in a heartbeat, but I’m not going to ask.
5. I feel like I’m breaking a promise to myself because Madeline and I aren’t that good of friends (or not really friends at all?) anymore. And I can’t help believing her that she’s better off without me in her life. Plus, i feel like we’re at a standstill. I mean, really. I just don’t know what outcome between us is good for both of us. I can say that I liked it that she seemd to approve of Kyle this summer and I liked that we could get along and talk because in the end she does know me better than most anyone and I do desire her confidences, and I like to know what’s happening in her life and I like to be there for her, but I just can’t justify myself to her when she asks me to. I don’t feel like that’s my job to do. And it trudges up memories of all those phone calls I spent crying on a floor somewhere trying to talk her into believing in my love for her. So this is all that’s left… a long series of poems that could be strung together if someone were capable of writing transitions between the styles of my youth and the styles of right now. Or if someone could sort through everything which has faded into meaninglessness and somehow assign it a value that glimmers. And I’ve stopped being cryptic because I’m now afraid that no one will be able to read between the lines.
6. When I leave Topeka, there are some people I will miss very much. I know that I’ve spoken before about how I feel like this last year in Topeka would be written as a single sentence in the novel of my life. But, the truth is, lots of really awesome things are happening and I’m excited to be around.
7. I’m happy with my schedule for work and school. My work life is back to good again. I’m getting just enough hours at the family video to make it worth employment (the opposite was the case through most of september) and not too many hours such that i end up really stressed out with no time to do anything (such was the case last week) and it’s nice to have the money to pay the bills. It’s also pretty nice because I’m actually economically sufficient. Tim needs me to pay some bills I owe him this month and I’ll be able to do it and still make rent. That feels awesome. I like feeling like I am not going to fail.
8. I’m the kind of person that struggled for five things which people don’t know. I like being open about my life.
I’m supposed to tag some more people, but I don’t really know anyone who actually blogs. So Justin, you should let us in on a little bit more of your life. Otherwise, if someone feels inspired to take on the task of writing eight things… let us know via comment.