archive: 20 September 2008: I got the job!

News today!
I got the job at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. I got the call this afternoon when I was on the other line, so he had to leave a voicemail first. I listened to it and immediately called him back. So Monday I will call him and figure out a starting date, which I am thinking should be the 6th or the 13th of October. I'll need to move out there the week before, get settled into a place, and then get started working! Amazing concept. :)

I am so excited and sad at the same time. I want adventure and change and I need work, but I have not wanted to leave Kentucky, much less Berea. But I will keep this thought that I will come back to stay one day, and I will.

Now, the planning and figuring out how to move out there. I think I will do that tomorrow and Sunday. I want to go back to the house, get the right threads for the journal book cover, and go to the bell hooks and Bill Turner reading tonight. Also go to MudPi's band practice, maybe. I've got to go to Pat's for Will's 1st birthday tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully there's something going on Saturday night with the music folks.

Wow, what a day. What a roller-coaster day.

archive: 30 August 2008: News

So the news... I decided not to wait until the first of September to email VA Tech to find out about the archivist positions I applied and interviewed for back in June. I had already from them in early August and at that time they said they were still deliberating over the last two positions and had hired one person for the third position. I would either hear something from them by phone (job offer) or by letter (rejection) soon. Well, "soon" stretched into three weeks and I decided I was impatient and tired of being strung along.

Today I emailed them and they emailed me back nearly immediately to let me know that VA Tech has "voided" the two positions. They'll review the two positions again in January. I can only assume that the university wasn't going to find them at this time, or some other budgetary matter came up. I am supposed to be getting a letter any day now, she said. SO... VA Tech is ruled out.

I have one possibility working for me right now and that is the interview at the Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City, OK, on September 15th.

Just an update. Bummed, yes, 'cause Blacksburg, VA, really appealed to me. But I am trying my damnedest to believe that whatever that happens will be the right one for me right now... I don't want to leave the mountains yet. But I'm open to whatever the world gives me... with a little patience and hope.

.........

I had the strangest but most comforting dream last night, if it could be called a dream at all. It was more like a sensation as I fell asleep and I was surprised to wake up with it again this morning. Its unexplainable, really. It was nice, sincerely felt to the core without me knowing the source, whether from within myself or from some other undefinable source.

archive: 29 August 2008: Love

I want to love you but...

...the highway disappears into the sunset every night and I cannot find my way, so I turn back and follow my footsteps home in the dark until sunrise, and begin again.

...the trees in the horizon are black and confuse me when they sway under the wind I cannot feel here as I stand at the window waiting.

...when I look up at the stars, the constellations have moved and I believe that star on which I sent a wish up for you has vanished from the sky.

...these songs that lyrically remind me of you also remind me of conversations, long walks, button-down plaid shirts, black leather, and train whistles.

...Yeats and Eliot have spoken to you and sent you on escapades of experience.

...the hurricane within you have spiraled you to another place, while I am a volcano awaiting my peak to erupt, shake the earth, and force the landscape to die and be reborn.

...I already told you in words I could muster one evening, and it seemed to hang in the air like humidity in Mississippi Summer, until I rambled on I knew that you felt I was just a friend. A close friend, you said.

...my wings have been clipped by the world, left to flutter in a cage until this song has been sung to my keeper's contentment.

...I've loved you all along.

archive: 25 August 2008: A True Story

A man walks up to two young women sitting outside a coffee shop. One has a laptop in her lap searching for an author's quote. The old man with a cane walks up to the young women and says, "You ain't watching porno, are ya?"

They laugh and the one with the laptop responds, "Nah, of course not!"

And as he continued to walk pass, he replied matter-of-factly, "Well, ya ought to be."

And the women laugh heartily.

---------------------

This is a true story. August 25, 2008

As Mitch Barrett says, "I ain't lyin. I'm tellin' you a story."

archive: 21 August 2008: when harry met sally

I just watched When Harry Met Sally... again. Its probably the only film I actually like Billy Crystal in, and I adore Meg Ryan's kooky character. In some ways I identify with her character Sally. I think that Sally's either a Virgo or Capricorn (maybe Taurus) and that Harry is definitely a Cancer or Scorpio. Very much earth and water.

Anyway... Just watching that again makes me a bit curious. How are things going to pan out? Will this continue on forever and forever simply as friends? Long-time writing friends, friends who call each other up occasionally to ramble on about this new writing project or work plans or... I don't know. We never had the obvious sexual tension that Harry and Sally have, but... there was definitely some tension floating between us. I wonder if I will ever know.

And will the people I will feel drawn to emotionally and become involved with... Will they end up being people who are distractions for a while until the time is right? Until things can be understood, realized, expressed?

I did just read that the original script did have Harry and Sally becoming just friends after everything afterall. But they changed that for the film's optimistic "happily ever after" effect and romantic comedy high sales benefit. Ah well.

Humans are interesting creatures. I have said it before, and I can say it again: There's hardly anyone I didn't found attractive even for a few moments, or few days, or weeks, or months... :) Mini-crushes or more intense ones. I guess it comes down to truly appreciating a person as they are.

I wonder though, if in fact, I will be stuck on this one person. Right now I might feel that way. And nothing's ever happened but hours long conversations and bourbon drinking, hugs, one movie-watching evening together (The Hours), running into each other during long walks, and hanging out with some of the greatest musical friends ever.... That's a lot of great times. And now my last memory is visiting in his hometown, standing in July's bright sun, last hug goodbye, hair golden brown, smile half-cocked sincere, and a good laugh. "See ya later, Ol' Cat," he says.

I had a dream the other day... A photo and a caption: "Miss." The comment, from him, would be, "I miss you, too." I'm a silly ol' gal, all right.

I can only post this here, and not on facebook.

archive: 12 August 2008: meteors and goodbye midnight

Last night I saw a deer. A young one walking very hesitantly in what is a field. The tall weeds (or had it been a corn field?) bush-hogged down and under distant street lamplight and high light of the half-moon, the deer perked its ears curious. I turned off my music and sat in stillness, silence. She came a little closer, nudged the ground, and made a few more steps. She was coming towards me timidly when a distant car backfired and she ran off in the direction of the road. I was afraid for her. I couldn't see into the darker shadows if she went into the road or back across the field into weeds not yet bush-hogged. But my evening was marked by her presence. A sweet hope welled inside. Patience.

A little later last night the stars fell across the sky, but I was reminded they are not for wish-makers but for astronomers to gaze upon. I laid on a blanket in the clearing near the grove of trees. If I could have I would have climbed one tree and watch the sky from the tallest limbs. If I could have I would have wished on stars, not planets. The constellations were forgotten by me; was that Scorpio? There's the Big Dipper, so is that the Southern Cross? And is that Capricorn? Or Virgo? Andromena?

On this blanket under stars and planets and meteors, the half-moon filtering through the far trees. Leonard Cohen in my ear. I heard him like I had never heard him before...

"I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,
walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme.
You know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye."

And...

"Baby I have been here before.
I know this room, I've walked this floor.
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch.
Love is not a victory march.
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah"
....
"I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch
I've told the truth: I didn't come all this way to fool you."

The deer had left. The moon was no longer behind a tree. I saw a few meteors streak the sky. Lightning bugs pretended to be meteors, setting off their light bulbs just above me. Mosquitoes bit my toes.

Midnight had come and gone.
It was now time to go
and time to say goodbye
to stars and wish-making.

archive: 09 August 2008: writing themes

Today's free-write was pretty good and I felt like something new is coming out of the writing. I seem to be moving into new ground for these characters. These will all still become poems, not prose or fiction, but for now the free-writes stand alone as is. Here's Wednesday's below and then today's below that.
------------------------------------------------
August 6, 2008

"big whispering sound all over. Geese by the thousands. They blacked out the moon."
"language older than the spoken word."
both attributed to Cormac McCarthy
------------

When the locusts came it was a great sound throughout the woods, a crowd gathered at the church waiting for the sermon to start, but gossiping and storytelling all the same. Their insect voices chanted and hummed and hem-hawed around the worries of the farm folk. The noise drifted in through open June windows as they dreamed in their beds, and frowns furrowed their faces, of tall weeds which blocked the sun and snakes striking ankles. Wake into the loud orchestra and sigh into the fear. They were incessant and insistent. What could Jake do with the land? Sell it? Farm it and hop next year's crop happens? Let it field rot and let the family sink into debt? And the locusts just kept singing their humdrum song.

One morning in August, after a fight that stormed the porch and left down the gravel road the night before, she swept the porch as she cried. When she had gathered it all into a blue bowl and set it down on the big table, she walked out into the field and plucked the petals of the black-eyed susans for the bowl.

When Jake came home, the house was empty save for the blue bowl of yellow petals. It smelled sweet but sharp -- under the petals he found the dead locusts. She must have swept them from the corners of the porch.

----------------------------------------------------------
August 9, 2008

love is memory. "...being earth and water of existence, memory." - Truman Capote
-------------

When Spring came with its rain, long Spring rains that brought in the morning light in silken colors, soft like the lamp light in a woman's room after her life has been spent traveling the world, traveling this field, searching for bits of self in the shadows where the moon had shone the night before. When Spring rain came, the field barely absorbed it. The dry earth became a muddy sludge that ran down to the house, under the porch, over the bottom steps. The longest storms made the house an island in a field lake.

But as she sat on the top step, the rain still coming down, and she looked out at the water, she could see him storming off down the gravel road and she felt the old run-away fear. She saw herself walking with barely anything -- She had buried all her belongings under the moonlight, everything in the house except the blue bowl. She took it all and buried it. If she could not have him alone, he could not have even the memory of her: the blankets, the skillet, the pillows, the dresses she had worn when they used to lay on the far side of the corn field looking up at the stars and moon, the overalls he wore on Saturdays when he came back from the bar... Everything buried and, she had hoped, forgotten.

But here she sat on the old porch, the windows broken, the shingles half gone, and stubborn weeds forcing themselves between the floorboards. No telling where he is now, gone. But all those memories resurfacing in the earth and water, all those things threaded and stained have turned in their shallow graves and sought sunlight as Spring flooded the top soil away year after year.

And that's when she remembered the apple tree. She raised herself from her top-step perch and walked out into the rain and field lake, the muddy water mid-calf, and walked to the far left side. The apple tree now full with limbs and beginning to green. The rain will bring the blossoms. The fence cornered the tree, the place where her mother had died now will bear fruit, apples yellow and spotted, but sweet and soft, and so many that the ground would be littered with the apples, and the earth would bury them, take its own back into the soil and give them back, reborn.

-----------------
Writing Prompts, August 9, 2008:

"...for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilac openings, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all the seasons, memory, yes, it being earth and water of existence, memory."

p. 141-142, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Truman Capote

"...there was always between us something muted, hushed; still our silence was not of a secret kind, for in itself it communicated that wonderful peace those who understand each other very well sometimes achieve..."

p. 143, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Truman Capote

"...this was not a hotel; indeed, had never been: this was the place where folks came when they went off the face of the earth, when they died but were not dead."

p. 118, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Truman Capote

archive: 08 August 2008: moods

Moody. Too much change going on around me. People coming and going and connections are too thin. And my standing threatens to toss me east or west but I have no clue which direction.

I went to Clifftop and had a great time, most of it. I think constantly being surrounded by people I didn't know and talent I didn't have but wanted to have played a toll on me by the time it was late Friday night. Cajun/Zydeco dancing tent, people, wallflowers, and a mass of other feelings. I had to retreat for a brief bit that evening. It could have been the New Moon. It could have been the amount of bourbon I drank. It could have been my insecurities I always ignore on the surface. It could have been biological. But I had to retreat. Rain. And then I was able to go again and avoid what hurt. I stayed up until 6 a.m. with some folks from Ohio and Toronto, and that brought around a good dawn. And then I slept until the storm came, a literal CRACK! of thunder and lightning around 7 a.m. Fear subsided back into sleep.

Stress of not hearing from a potential job opportunity. If I receive an offer, I have to say all this waiting and waiting and no communication is NOT the right foot to start on. But at the moment I would prefer VT over any other non-Appalachian opportunity. Ah well.

A friend drove up to NY sometime around Sunday or so and is looking forward to change and finding a place in Maine, etc. So I am glad I had the opportunity to get to see and visit with him in early July in his hometown. Someone I hope to always keep in touch with, good friendship and affection.

Another friend has met someone who makes him quite happy and he's just bubbling with that new feeling. And its good to know he's happy. I hope this becomes something good for them both and doesn't fizzle into something that'll make him bitter and skeptical.

Another recent friend is heading up to England as well. Like I said, just as folks come along, they also leave.

I'm tired. Sad. And ready to know what I think I ought to have heard by now. And wish I could say the things I have wanted to say. But what is done is done, and time moves forward, not backward.

I think tonight I am going to go for a long walk... I have not done a midnight walk in a long time, nor have I visited those train tracks in a few months. Or the grove. Ah well. Come what may.

---------
ADDITION: I have been sending out resumes now. I still have not heard from VT and it is 5:30pm on 08-08-08! I do, however, have a phone interview on Tuesday morning with the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, OK. Interesting. I sent a resume and application to Kean University in Union, NJ. Also one to the Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH. And sent one to Harvard as well.

Yesterday I applied for unemployment. I returned applications to Rite Aid and a gas station for part-time work in the meantime. A former co-worker convinced that is OKAY to file for unemployment insurance. I did online and according to it I won't get the first check of that until Aug. 20th. If VT will finally tell me some good news, I won't even need that.

I just want to KNOW now. I don't want to go through more interviews. I want what felt positive and hopeful and good and forward. I DID send an email today at 1:41 pm to the library human resources person at VT and I have not heard from her yet. This is disappointing.

Well, I don't know yet what I am doing tonight. Saturday night should be nice with meteor showers and friends. Sunday will be moving into the guest room at another friends' place out in the countryside, which will lead to walks in the field and by the small ponds out in the sun. It will probably help my latest theme in writing.

archive: 24 July 2008: last day

My last day of work at the ACA will be Monday, June 30th.

I am hoping and praying that one of the VA Tech positions come through for me. I am moving into Mary and Char's guest room at their place this weekend and giving away/selling some furniture and knick-knacks. Its kinda depressing. But its okay. Something is going to work out. Cats are going to Sarah's for a while, and if that doesn't work out, they will go to Erin's. And I will need to find a little work to hold me over through July, at least till I know more details. Forced vacation of a kind, maybe? Yeah, right, with lots of uncertain stress.

I need this kind of massive uncertain change, I guess. It is making me feel like I am caught in a hurricane, but I ain't drowning... yet. I know how to swim.

archive: 09 July 2008: mi familia

I love these people. I'm looking at photos of friends in a band (Carol, Robert, Glen, and John) and I am selecting some to include on their Myspace page, with Mark's permission since he was the photographer of these awesome pics. I'm looking at them, the great people with laughter and joy... And I love these people. Mi Familia.

I already know that whenever and where-ever I move for my next job, I will cry for days missing them. I was crying here looking at these pictures and I am still here! I haven't left yet! And I miss them already, knowing I will be moving someday soon...

This is why its hard to know I will be going out-of-town this weekend and missing a couple of their shows and being around them and the rest of the Berea family. I love each and every one of them dearly.

archive: 17 June 2008: VA Tech, interview, solutions

My interview at Virginia Tech felt pretty good, but I am also hesitant to put too much hope into how good I felt after the interview and how well I got along with people, and how I perceived their impressions of me. I felt great after Mars Hill but that fell through. I don't want to hope too much and find I am wrong, again.

Anyway, I need to send out more applications. I haven't heard from but two of the ones I sent information out to in mid-May. I just saw an announcement for a position at LSU (Baton Rouge, LA) and although the deadline was June 13, it looks like they are still accepting applications. It is not New Orleans, but its fairly close (an hour and a half away). I just don't know if I want to go back to the Deep South just yet, though I miss New Orleans.

According to the search committee at VA Tech, they won't be able to offer the positions to anyone until the end of July, mid-July at the earliest.

My position at ACA is/was supposed to conclude at the end of June. That's two weeks away. I cannot talk to anyone about making other arrangements to work through the end of July because one of those individuals is on vacation until next Monday and the other does not start work as the new President until July 1st. Is it possible? Maybe, but its unclear right now and that makes me feel unbalanced and nervous to know what's going to happen.

I have been thinking about my living arrangement. Thinking positively that I will get the job and will move to Blacksburg, VA, at the end of July/first week of August, I "could" stay in my apartment through the end of July, but that's $450 rent and other bills, too. That's money I will need for moving to VA (or elsewhere).

If I move out at the end of June, I will have June's paycheck and (if I work for ACA in July) July's paycheck. That would be enough to put down a month's rent and deposit and move my possessions to VA.

So... where would I move at the end of this month? Who do I know who have houses/apartments that could use an apartment/house-mate for a month? There's a couple of people I can ask... Its complicated. I need to catch up with them and see what possibilities there might be. One person I think I would feel most comfortable with but when their original housemate comes back and (thinking negatively) I don't get the job at VA Tech, then I still have to move again, somewhere.... If I share with another friend, relatively new to the area woman who's going through a lot of stuff, I might have more lee-way in how long I can stay. Plus, she's got a garden and I could put in some time helping with that, maybe?

I don't know who else I could ask... Of course, I wouldn't want to share without giving SOME rent (or barter gardening, housework, cooking, etc), just not the entire $450 I would have had to give at the apartment complex.

*sigh*

Uncertainty pulls at my veins and arteries and makes me feel like a stretched out rubber band, ready to snap in half because I'm weak or ready to split the air as I throw myself into motion. How can it be that I am both?

I trust that everything will fall into place.
My need to have control over it has to lessen in order for it all to work out.
Patience to hear back from the VA Tech search committee.
Patience to find a space for transition.
Patience to find the right work environment.
Patience for moving on from this place I don't yet want to give up, and
patience for settling into a new place in which I am unfamiliar and alien.

I trust that everything will fall into place.

archive: 22 May 2008: interview!

I just got a call and voicemail from the folks at Virginia Tech! They want to set up an in-person interview in early June with me. He explained that the interview would last a day and a half, and that I would arrive the night before. I'd need to provide a presentation in front of faculty and there would be several interview meetings with various groups or individuals over the day and next morning. What a long process, but at the end of it, possibility!

Wow. Now when to schedule it? The ACA Annual Meeting is June 7-8, which is a Saturday and Sunday and those days will result in me feeling exhausted. I don't really want to try to schedule it the first week of June because (1) Annual meeting preparation, and (2) I need time to properly create a presentation. I have the one that I used at Mars Hill, but I probably should tailor this one more for VA Tech. Besides, tomorrow I will find out if there are any specific questions they want answered in the presentation. So middle of the week after the Annual Meeting, June 10-12th? Probably best option. Or maybe I am just scared and should bite the bullet and settle for that first week chance. I am just afraid of not being prepared!

AH!!!

Oh! And I saw these job postings today:
Archivist/Assistant Librarian (2 Positions)
The University of Arizona Libraries, Special Collections, Tucson, AZ
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-2.asp

Archivist - Pictorial Collections
Hagley Museum & Library, Wilmington, DE
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-3.asp

Assistant Archivist/ Library Associate II
Iowa State University Library, Ames, IA
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-4.asp

Coordinator/Archivist
Albert Gore, Sr., Research Center
Middle TN State University, Murfreesboro, TN
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-5.asp

Project Archivist
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-8.asp

American Heritage Center
University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/051308-2.asp

And... I had applied to the positions back in mid-April. Notes next to them.
1. Assistant Archivist at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY - Received card that they received application but heard no word from them yet.
2. Assistant Archivist at Westchester County Archives and Records Center, Elmsford, NY - No word yet.
3. Project Archivist, Columbia University, NYC, NY - No word yet.
4. Assistant Archivist, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND - No word yet.
5. Assistant Curator for Special Collections, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ - No word yet.
6. Project Archivist for Special Collections, VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA - Interviewed by phone on May 20. In-Person interview in June!
7. Public Services Archivist, VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA - Interviewed by phone on May 20. In-Person interview in June!
8. Acquisitions and Processing Archivist, VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA - Interviewed by phone on May 20. In-Person interview in June!
9. And back in mid-March I sent an application to the National World War II Museum for an Archivist position, but I have not heard anything from them at all. I assume they already had an idea of a candidate when they received my application right on the deadline.

archive: 04 april 2008: sick

I hate being sick.
Sick sick sick
I’m going back to sleep. This is ridiculous. My voice is gone. I feel like my throat’s been ripped out of my body.
AGH!

archive: 04 april 2008: patience and creativity

Waiting... wait, wait. wait... Patience, dear.
I’m trying to distract myself with creating things, working on a new project, but I can’t seem to focus on it. I need some images anyway; no printer. I think I will paint/collage the cabinet doors (used ones I bought at a flea market; not the ones in the kitchen) with images/concepts about the Pleiades. I studied some about Alcyone last night and got some clear images and colors to use. I just need a good printout of a kingfisher to use. I can’t paint that kind of detail.... hrm. Wish I could, though.

I sent the poem, sent it on Thursday March 27 at 1:12am, after he and I had spent 3 or 4 hours talking and drinking a little bourbon... I haven’t heard anything, but I didn’t expect that I would either until sometime after he gets back. Waiting and patience. I understand, I can do this. I’m just afraid I untied the rope bridge and dropped it into the river. I won’t know if I did or not until Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday... Patience. It’ll be ok.

Going to go distract myself with more Buffy the Vampire Slayer, magazine clippings, and then sleep....

archive: 23 march 2008: knot on the tree trunk

Oh, I thought I was going to be able to do my laundry today at the same time as hanging out with a friend, so I never went to the laundry mat thinking what I thought would happen was going to happen. But no. And everything I have right now worth wearing is dirty. Especially underwear. Damnit.

And, it really steams me up when someone mentions a concert taking place in two days but straight up only looks at the person next to you (and they know you like this person very much) and make no impression to include me in the "you wanna go with us?" invite, no looking to see if I am interested in the same musical event, etc. Catty. Just makes me feel invisible. And I see no point in trying to play games, because I don’t do that at all. I’m not that way.

Its Easter. People are off seeing family and friends. I wasn’t invited to anything and no one called or emailed me anything. I spoke to the grand total of two people today: one person at Circle K and one person (who I only partially know) who was walking up the railroad tracks. I wanted to be a part of something or be social with a friend or two, but none of that happened... It was a very long boring and lonely holiday for me. Empty.

And earlier I went to someone’s profile and saw that my last comment was deleted. For whatever reason, I don’t know. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was on purpose. But it kinda hurt. It also makes me suspicious if something’s been told....

And this evening I watched the second DVD of a movie again. And when it was done, I laid down on the couch, and then started crying. At first I had no idea why. But then I figured out that I suddenly felt very alone, forgotten, unwanted. And that is why I was crying.

archive: 12 march 2008: train wind (revised)

I have worked and worked and worked on this one. I shared it with writing buddy Vicky. I can’t quite "let go of it" to show to someone else. I may do what she suggested and that is make a small chapbook with pictures for each of the poems. Might give that.

(deleted original entry and will not post poem here as I want to publish it at some point in the future. - LAH, 4/3/2011).

archive: 06 march 2008: wind of trains

I walked for a while Sunday evening and had a few experiences, a few moments of trains and wind and stars. I finally wrote it all down in snippets and pieces on Tuesday night, 12 pages from my little journal. Yesterday I worked on making it all something. I am not sure if I will let some people read this. It is personal and, for some, very clear.

(deleted original entry & will not post poem here - LAH, 4/3/2011)

archive: 27 February 2008: refreshing and reclaiming

I need to do laundry. Pack it up and take it somewhere. This is never fun but I am done to nothing clean. And then it snows, which makes me even more want to stay inside and not go anywhere to do something like Laundry.

AND... I just now have the opinion that I want to rearrange my apartment. I want to move all the furniture around downstairs, upstairs. I need to get RID of stuff.

archive: 26 february 2008: tagged

Once you have been tagged, you have to write a blog with 15 weird, random things, facts, habits, or goals about yourself.

You can't tag the person who tagged you. Since you can't tag me back, let me know when you've posted your blog so I can see your answers.

1. I grew up in Mississippi. I don't plan to move back there.
2. I prefer walking at night.
3. I am extremely nervous calling people. I didn't used to feel this way.
4. I don't know how to ride a bike.
5. I love wind.
6. I could watch leaves and tree limbs and moving clouds all day long.
7. I got rid of my TV in June 2006. I have not had once since then.
8. I do like anchovies every once in a while on a pizza.
9. I was scared to death of learning to drive because of the number of car accidents on the road. Now I can sometimes feel like a policewoman; I know the rules of the road.
10. I have an espresso machine and yet I still buy my cafe mochas at the coffeeshop (for the atmosphere and people).
11. I wish I could have a little house in the mountains, have my own garden, paint and write all day, have no debts, no work but my own.
12. I'm more sensitive than I let on. Sometimes I don't know how to express how disturbing or sad something really makes me feel, but I do feel it.
13. I am just now accepting me (personality/inner self) and all my little inconsistencies at age 31. I know this is a never-ending process.
14. When I go to sleep I pull the blankets in a pile next to me.
15. I have a fascination with numbers lately.

archive: 24 february 2008: strange dream

I had a strange dream on Saturday morning and day... I slept most of the day, trying to recover from a nasty cold, but I was also being lazy. The dream was like a movie in length, it seemed. It was set in the outskirts of a large city, and for some reason the characters in it made me think English in 1950s or 1960s. There were three children, two boys and a girl. During the day they could play outside, going up and down the neighborhood streets. They could go exploring, but they were always without parents or any kind of guardian. They lived in an apartment building, and the flat they lived in I remember had only white walls, and the furniture very indistinct. When the sun was beginning to set the children would race back home and close the door behind them, locking it. Then night would come. This is when the dream would get spooky. Someone would come knocking on the door. Sometimes it was a man's voice, sometimes a woman's voice, but the children knew that the person was always the same and that it was someone who would harm them. What made it difficult was that the woman's voice was someone they had once loved, but was dead. I couldn't ever tell if she had been their mother, or an aunt, or a nice neighbor. The person who would use her voice was trying to trick them into opening the door. The girl would cry when she heard the woman's voice 'cause she missed her and wanted to believe that it really was the woman come back to take them away. I never really saw the man, but I did see the woman, from the viewpoint of maybe a bird sitting in a window down the hall... The lady was wearing a blue dress, very formal and dated further back than the 1940s, possibly Victorian age. Her hair was blonde, swept upward, and pinned under a small hat. She was young, somewhere in her late 20s, early 30s. This dream went on and on like this: the children playing outside by day, and by night sleepless from someone knocking on the door. I never reached any kind of conclusion from the dream and I wonder what it might mean, if anything at all.

archive: 14 february 2008: i love mountains day

This has been a wildly amazing day. I don't know any other way to describe it. I had an exciting and busy time in Frankfort today with fellow Kentuckians, Bereans, members of KFTC, and other folks. I loved it. I felt riled up. I felt like I could do something.

I better get going though. I want to change clothes, eat, get some coffee, and then meet up with a friend to go to Lexington.

archive: 8 february 2008: love song for bobby long

I probably shouldn't write anything after the quiet night I have had, but I feel like filling some silence even if it won't be with my voice. Hrm...

I just finished having a couple glasses of wine. I practiced on my banjo a bit, thought about people some, and then watched "Love Song for Bobby Long" again. I forgot how good a movie it is. I forgot it was set in New Orleans! I miss 'Nawlins. I haven't been down there since maybe 2000, maybe 2003. Actually, I do rememebr going with Erin to the Howlin' Wolf for a burlesque show, and then another time I went with some friends to see Rasputina play. That might have been the last time, and it was night, very late, when we got back to Hattiesburg. I do want to visit New Orleans again. I miss the nightlife there. I have not been there in so long I know I would see the city in a completely different set of eyes than I had when I was 21. Ten years does make some difference, and yet it doesn't in some ways, in some circumstances. Ha... I'm Lawson in that film. In some ways, I am.


I need to sort through all my photographs. I just thought of a picture I took of Dad that I love. He's sitting in a chair outside the Cafe du Monde and I tooka very centered photo of him. His glasses are on, and the city and myself am reflected in the glasses. He's wearing a teal blue plaid short sleeved button-down. His beard is greying, he's actually smiling a little (I can tell when he does) and things are good, this moment. I like this picture, morning light. Every one, every memory is beautiful in morning light.

I wish I could take off and just go visit the city for a week or weekend. I do miss some parts of the South. I guess even parts of Mississippi I miss, even a few people. I know that coming back to a place you once knew is different after the memories have been buried under more recent memories. I'll look at things differently.

Oxford, Goodman, Hattiesburg, New Orleans... even parts of Jackson. Holmes County Park. Starkville. Rolling Fork, Vicksburg, Cary. Winona, West, Durant. Even Canton, some small tiny part, the courthouse square. I don't want to stay but I want to visit again, like a prodigal daughter returned after all her worldly travels.

I should sleep. It is 3:02 a.m. now. It is Friday. Damn this bed. Why don't I sleep on the twin one so it won't remind me? I guess I do like the space, but sometimes, just ocassionally, I would like that space filled. Ah well. Such is life. Such is the life I lead and it is good as it is, full and empty, good and sad, eager and anxious, loved and all.

archive: 6 february 2008: wind and rain -poem

So last night I met with a friend and he gave me a collection of his poems to read over so that I can provide any comment or suggestion. They're wonderful, and I've read through them once, a few poems twice. I'll have to distance myself to be unbiased when I make notes on them. But after reading them I had a bit of that "voice," the tone of his poetry, in my head still. So reading his poetry, laying down to sleep, leaving bedroom windows open during a storm and finding myself restless and not ready for sleep brings about a little piece. (caught the pun?) Maybe now I can sleep. I may extend it more later. Don't know why I thought about one particular past relationship... maybe it is I remember the wind on the lake. Maybe it is because the persons are similar.

(poem will not appear here; original entry deleted)

archive: 6 february 2008: saving bits of past me

I ought to go through this blog and print out the worthwhile blog entries and glue them into a journal. Otherwise, they might be lost. I wrote that poem last night not first on paper but in a Word doc. file on my computer. Why? Because I left my journal downstairs, I was comfortable in my bed, and the laptop was upstairs. I unplugged it, sat in my bed looking out the open windows, listened to the rain and typed up the poem. I had been laying down trying to sleep but the words were coming to me and I finally agreed with myself that if I finally did fall asleep I would lose the images, tone, phrases of lines coming to me. I think it took me nearly an hour to write it. I deleted a few things as I typed it. A line would come to me and then it just wouldn't fit; it was leading me in a direction I didn't want the poem to go.

Maybe I should stop going places for a while and work on typing these journal, printing the poems I have only written in myspace or facebook and tape them down into a journal, etc, etc. I need to work on me.

I also have some art project ideas. There's one I need to do first, a small collage I would then scan and try using as an image for the mudpi pages. I have a vague idea of what it should look like, but won't be sure of it until I start working on it. I think I can scan it at work, but that might be strictly black and white. Someone has a scanner somewhere.

archive: 6 february 2008: all the trees of the field will clap their hands part 2

Been loving this song by Sufjan Stevens titled "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" and someone, Jesse, told me it was a biblical reference so I looked it up just now. Yes, I like this.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed."

Isaiah 55:6-13

archive: 5 february 2008: child of europe

Feeling creative, hands on.
Visions bouncing 'round,
Need to stick fingers into
glue, paint, beads and ribbons,
trimmed images, mirror shards,
scattered about on a surface
to become a visceral compliment.

Today's inspiration for a future art project:
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/837.html

I was reading this earlier today and imagined 8 small collages, art project. I could see how each one would depict some aspect of each part of the poem. Why is it I think of collages only in series?

Damn impressive images in that poem... A returned friend has reminded me the importance of reading poetry again, and here I am reading Milosz wanting to make artwork instead of poetry. :) He'll be amused at this, I'm sure.

archive: 3 february 2008: i have a map

(wrote this yesterday but Myspace was not cooperating with blog posts)

In a mood. Contemplative. I feel as if I should have some things decided, know the path, know the place from which I feel and the place to which I am reaching. From the mind or from the heart. I think I know. And in knowing this I want to reach out and say something, but without saying.

The sky is blue this moment.

This song is playing over and over again. I hit the play button every 4 minutes and 10 seconds. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands." Can you see them?

Shall I walk or shall I drive tonight?

I don't find it easy to deal with uncertainty. Work. Place. People. Love. Family. Writing. Art. Music. I have a map but there's only pieces of it labeled with street names and landmarks: all of which I am familiar with and have already seen and visited. The streets disappear into sections with no labels, the arrows pointing into those unnamed lands. It seems to say this is where I should go. Do what I am normally reserved about doing? Say what I usually hold inside?

I used to say that I want to refute my character. To go without looking back. To take off with nothing but what I can fit in my car. To work with no care if I get a job dealing with degree, my "profession." My profession would have been writing and art if I could have made a living with it straight-away. I am not of such talent and these days are not conducive to such pipe dreams. But then again, if you don't care, you can.

What is important? What and who keeps me here? Where do I want to go? Where do I want to be? Why do I feel tied to this place? Am I bound here because of people or place? And if they leave and I stay, will I regret it? Will I resent it? Will I long to go somewhere else, anywhere else, but here, knowing they are not here, too? And if I stay, will it become a prison or will it feed my fire? Will I wonder or will I be satisfied? Will I wonder about those who I did not pursue? What could have happened or what damage done if I had spoken what I felt? And is what I am feeling true or misguided? I don't believe it is misguided. I think I am aware of my feelings enough to know that they are sincere ones. Complicated.

I am almost constantly feeling as though I should be redefining myself, not to others but to myself so that I may be able to understand myself. We're always changing. We are never the same at 7, 17, 37, 57, 87.... Blood, memory, experiences, vision, and of course love. Maybe I just need to allow time and space for growth and change, be patient, and learn. Or maybe just accept this as being now and ever only friendship. Will 5 or 10 years change this? Maybe. Maybe not.

I once messaged a friend and said something like this:
me: I am afraid of moving because I am afraid of losing the people I love here.
him: But remember, you don't have to lose anyone you don't want to.

But it is more than that.

....back to typing free-writing journals....

archive: 31 january 2008: all the trees of the field will clap their hands part 1

So I found something I can certainly learn on the banjo 'cause its just a methodical little bit, repeating throughout the whole song. And I can apply clawhammer style to it. I realized after studying over some other tabs that they were actually three-finger roll and I don't want to confuse myself by learning those and clawhammer at the same time. But this song I think I can learn.

After all my budgetary stuff is cleared away I might be able to start taking lessons. I know I need to before I get too frustrated with my lack of knowing what the hell I am doing with this banjo, but I have figured out some things, especially where reading tabs are concerned.

The tab I found:

Repeating
d|-------0------------0------------0-----------0---------------------------|
B|-------0h1----------0h1---------0h1---------0h1------------------------|
g|-----2-----0-----2------0-----2-----0----2------0----------------------|
D|---0----------2------------3-----------2---------------------------------|

Hear the song by selecting it from the song list:
http://www.myspace.com/sufjanstevens2012

archive: 26 january 2008: the hours

Quotes from "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham (novel) and David Hare (screenplay) and Stephen Daldry (director).

Richard Brown: "But I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that... "

Virginia Woolf: "You cannot find peace by avoiding life."

Virginia Woolf: "This is my right; it is the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the Capital, that is my choice. The meanest patient, yes, even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. Thereby she defines her humanity."

Virginia Woolf: "To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours."

Virginia Woolf: "A woman's whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life."

Laura Brown: "Oh, it's about this woman who's incredibly - well, she's a hostess and she's incredibly confident and she's going to give a party. And, maybe because she's confident, everyone thinks she's fine... but she isn't."

Richard Brown: "Oh, Mrs. Dalloway... Always giving parties to cover the silence."

Virginia Woolf: "Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more."

Angelica Bell: What happens when we die?
Virginia Woolf: What happens? [pause] We return to the place that we came from.
Angelica Bell: I don't remember where I came from.
Virginia Woolf: Nor do I.

Clarissa Vaughn: "I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then."

Richard Brown: "Would you be angry if I died? "

Clarissa Vaughn: "When I'm with him I feel... Yes, I am living. And when I'm not with him... Yes, everything does seem sort of silly."

Virginia Woolf: "Did it matter, then, she asked herself, walking toward Bond Street. Did it matter that she must inevitably cease, completely. All this must go on without her. Did she resent it? Or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? It is possible to die. It is possible to die."

archive: 24 january 2008: another prospect

Well, one door closes (AGAIN) and another one might just open. I sent an inquiring email just now about it. I received from someone an announcement for a Writer position for which I might be qualified. I am going to print out the job description and mull over it some more before absolutely seriously considering it. The position would be at one of several offices, one of which is located here in Berea.

Maybe my wish on someone's lucky cigarette come true? Maybe the tarot cards I have been pulling I have been misreading all along? Maybe none of this is accurate and it is all a bit more random? I wish I knew what to believe or have hope in.

archive: 20 january 2008: mary full of grace

So Saturday I got back my poetry collection from Michael with some commentary and suggestions for change. We sat for a few hours in Ground Effects that early afternoon going over each poem and some of his recommendations and what he liked from each of them. As a poet, I respect his opinion because I have read his work and I know how much to thoroughly studies poetic concepts, language, diction, and the minute symbols used to portray meaning in a poem... You could say I am in awe at times at his understanding of poetry and writing. As much as I am in awe of musicians who so easily learn a song after hearing it only a couple of times... The mystery of it...

Anyway, so I just got through rewriting the first poem in the series, Mary, and included parts of "Hail Mary, full of grace..." into it. Dropped a few lines here and there and found some shifts in tense that I sometimes overlook when writing. He caught that and more. Ah, I like it better now. I wonder what my other critique readers will suggest on these. Well, at least I am keeping copied of my drafts. Onward to the next poem.

No one ever said writing poetry was easy. But I like the work.

archive: 19 january 2008: windows and auden

I think January has hit me.
------

I had an image today and I am going to have to work on it more at some point but for now I am going to save these lines. I want to flesh it out, more instances about windows, the soul, eyes, intensity, and W. H. Auden. Has to include some reference to him. There needs to be windows and Auden. And eyes. Definitely eyes.
-----
brown-green eyes
reflected windows
speaking poetry
iris to pupil to iris
lined words marked
edged in light

archive: 11 january 2008: this rut in which I find myself

I'm in a rut. Simply put, a rut. An emotional, spiritual, physical rut.

Emotional for many reasons... I'm beginning to feel apathetic. Maybe that's just today, but... I feel as if I am leaning towards not caring about most anything at all, but no, that's not right either (I can name things and people I care about) but more specifically, I don't seem to care about what happens to me. I care about other people's goals, but I just had this thought: I won't get this job and I won't be that upset about it. Its sad to think that I won't care about not getting something that will improve certain aspects of my life (mostly finance/debt). True, I don't want to leave, but if I stay there are several who will be leaving in a few years.... What can I do? Emotional attachments and admiration. Homebody but social butterfly at the same time. How does this work? hmm. I am sentimental.

Spiritual.... I really don't know how to explain or define this. I guess I have been growing more and more skeptical or cynical. True, I believe in positive energy and the collective unconscious... I believe that the energy you send out is what you will receive. Smile at someone and they are more likely going to smile back.

Physical... ugh. Body image says it all. Tension and ache, muscle and bone, fat and skin. And again, apathy due to lack of motivation and lack of appreciation, lack of admiration and lack of affection. It shouldn't be rooted in how I perceive this body and how I perceive others see this body, but... it is.

I am trying to work on the presentation for next Wednesday. I am writing up my answers to their questions and I have yet to quite figure out how I am going to "present" this and myself on Wednesday.

Honestly, I may just be happy working the mailroom in the post office. I was thinking about the other day, something repetitive and yet interesting enough. Something many writers have done. Its just.... I hate money and yet right now it appears to be the bane of my existence.

archive: 9 january 2008: oh dear

Ok... Before the Christmas break I was told that I would be giving a brief presentation during the interview. Now I am given more specifics about it and it is supposed to be 40-45 minutes long.
*deep breath*
I can do this. I CAN do this. I can DO this. I can do THIS.

AGHHHHHHHH!

At least now I have been given some idea of what they would like to me explain during this presentation (with Q&A) afterwards, so.... yeah. I should be able to do this. Just I have never given a presentation this long before.

But there's always a time for FIRST TIME.

Why do archives matter?
What opportunities might archival holdings provide to small liberal arts colleges such as Mars Hill? What challenges might they present?
What are your thoughts about the particular opportunities and challenges before Mars Hill's Ramsey Center archives? How might you approach these opportunities and challenges?
How can archival repositories best serve their local communities? How can they best serve broader communities that may be interested?
What contemporary issues in archives management are likely to have resonance for the Ramsey Center archives? How might you address these issues if you were directing these archives?
What is your own philosophy of archiving? How would you describe the commitments and priorities you bring to archival work?

archive: 3 january 2008: poetry collection completion

So three of my four critical readers have a copy of my poetry manuscript in their possession. One of the readers is in Louisana with her husband this month, so I considering emailing her the manuscript. Gotta check first.

I still need to print out copies for a few friends who have volunteered to read it, too. These I don't expect any critical suggestions, but if they have them they are welcome to voice them. That's another 4 people. Plus one copy for my mom. She's not read a single one of them yet, but she's heard me talk about it plenty.

So sometime tomorrow or this weekend I will print them out and give them to those 4 people and ship one off to Mom. Winter reading indeed, because they are mostly sad stories, but there's that tiny bit of comfort in some of them. I hope they're not as terrible as I fear they might be! I gave them to Vicky, Normandi, and Michael yesterday thinking... oh these things might be pretty bad compared to these wonderful writers.

I just emailed one of the people at the University Press of Kentucky about the collection and inquired about the steps needed to submit a manuscript to them. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts so hopefully my description was interesting enough that she will be curious about the entire collection. We'll see, I suppose. I better email Shannon and tell him I am nearing completion and hopefully submission for publication. I hope. I hope. I hope!