greywooltrousers

hot to trot

Sat, 20 May 2006 01:14:30 GMT

Hm.

I recently met a person who I like and who appears to like me. This would be less disorienting if this person was not male and if I was not straight.

I don't know what's with me-- here I was, actively answering ads on Craigslist and keeping my eye rigorously trained on cute boys in my vicinity, but now that the possibility of actually _relating_ to someone has arisen I am shocked SHOCKED that this has occured.

But it's also really cool and I feel-- get this-- I feel like a sixteen year old kid. One might even say-- I feel-- like a virgin?

only a God can save me now

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 01:30:41 GMT

Yes, only a God can save me now.

Preferably a God with a really awesome phallus, a trim waist, broad shoulders, shaggy hair, and some artful tatoos.

Um.

I have been reading Derrida since 11:00 am today, with a break to read some Heidegger.

At first it was exciting. And then my mind started to turn to mush. At one point, while making a snack, I started to sing a song about eating grilled cheese and building, dwelling, thinking. I think it could be a big hit on the pop charts in Europe if only I get the right God to play the guitar/phallus. What are those lads from Oasis doing these days?

To make it WORSE, I now want to take a break and Rebecca is still working. I understand that it's important for her to maintain her trusteeship in the International Society for the Advancement of Lames, but nevertheless, I find myself full of objections. I should probably try to finish my rhetoric paper, but I cannot do that. There is no unique name, and Heideggerean hope is only the flip side of nostalgia for a foundational presence-- Thus Spaketh Jacques Derrida! I could affirm that with Nietzschean joy, or I could drive over to my parent's house and sit on the couch and watch trashy television with my mom. Hm. That sounds really good right now. Because my mama don't care if I can't always remember the difference between sign and signifier or understand why the word differance is a non-word.

She loves me anyway.

Madness Graduates from High School

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 03:22:21 GMT

Madness Graduates from High School

Madness spoke out
of itself and was
remarkably ineffectual:
it remained slapping
the thighs of its cousin,
taking hearty breaths
of the mountain air
and asking all the guests
to excuse the rapt effort
contributed to the punch
of reason, which sat,
pink and placid,
in a broad crystal
bowl, filled with ice cubes
shaped as hearts,
presided over by a stiff
matron with daisies on her collar
and a ladle made of silver glazed with
Cogito, a ladle made to pour
by the very making of the thing itself.

The guests were most
forgiving & the I felt
the evening ended well,
only paused to wonder
where the superlative of the Child
had gone, that little creature,
so fascinating, so
forbidden to masturbate,
with its small hands covered in
the waxen blood of berries
that grow on blue bushes outside
the house of the Grandfather,
with its small hands converting boredom to sex.
The Grandfather made
the placid punch of reason
and spiked it, but we
know not with what liquor.
However, when we have the answer
deduced it will mean great things and--
possibly! Another party.

I don't remember how to write a paper

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 16:29:23 GMT

I have two more papers to write. Two. That shouldn't be so bad. I have a month to do it. But right now it is very alarming because, you see:

I have forgotten how to write a paper.

I was just recently in correspondence with two of my professors. I wrote to them the best ideas I had. Got back responses which indicate I have a lot more thinking and a lot more work to do.

No! I already thought! I already worked! I don't want to learn any more for now!

This is getting to be excruciatingly humbling. Last semester I just bullied through. Maybe I just had a better state of mind, thrilled to have gotten into the program and whatnot. Now, I don't know how I did that. I feel like I don't know how to make an argument. Logic? What's that? I'm in English because I could never grasp that logic shit anyway. I just like seeing the connections in things. I don't know why I have to argue about these connections all the time. Can't I just say, "Look, it's there!" That's all I want to say right now.

What's more, I got a particular response from a particular professor indicating that I am thinking too "personally" about my work. I think this person is right, but I'm also enraged by that remark. How am I not supposed to think of it personally? Isn't it _my_ process of intellectual inquiry? Why the hell should I be doing any of this if not to answer questions that bother me? I don't understand how I'm supposed to be passionate and original and creative and at the same time not personal. I'm pretty sure there's some highly respected feminist theorists who would back me up on this point. Where are those girls now? Why aren't they with me as I walk into class? I need a gang of feminist theorists to walk around with me and watch my back. bell hooks as a body guard.

My professors gave me some helpful comments, though. I do need to learn better the decorum of publishable academic discourse and what sort of sources I need to back up what kind of claims I want to make. I'm just so frustrated right now because I feel this decorum is unspoken and changeable, it's not outlined anywhere. How can I conform to something that keeps slipping out of my hands?

Also, right now I'm angry at one of my oldest friends. I think the anger is contributing to the sense of panic and melt down. Must figure out someway to make it go away.

Where is my finesse? I think I must have shed it somewhere. I would like it back. It's worse than losing a favorite sweater.

holy hell

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 17:14:29 GMT

Last night I didn't get to sleep until 8 am. After the GSO party, I went to a party with a bunch of my dear friends from high school. There was a revelation that rocked my world and revised my whole notions of everything that transpired in my sixteen year old life. Old friends, new sentiments. I half-way want to roll around laughing and half-way want to scream about it. But damn, I still love those kids -- the three people who were in my senior poetry class with me are still stellar people-- how strange and good it is to be connected for many years. Middle-aged and old people must enjoy this feeling a lot-- the pleasure of seeing faces that you've seen over many years, pass through different phases, get cooler or get weirder. It is immensely comforting and pleasurable.

good times

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 04:09:05 GMT

Tonight I got dressed up in a sexy camisole, lipstick, and an angora sweater in order to sit in the coffeeshop and read Heidegger alone. Why would one do such a thing? Only if one has a more intimate relationship with quasi-Nazi phenomenologists than one does with real live boys that are capable of going on real live dates. But I can't really complain. Heidegger knows what the ladies like: he's polite, listens, and takes advice. Plus he can lay the pipe. Word to the fourfold, ya'll. Holla.

progeny

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:58:17 GMT

I want a little son. I will name him Henry. Henry will be an astonishing, precocious, and active lad. One third of our interaction will consist of me lacing up his ice skates and buttoning his coat while he squirms, and also me wiping chocolate off his chin with my spit-wet thumb. Another third of our time together we will spend walking hand-in-hand on city streets and through gardens and museums. In the remaining third, we will curl together on a sofa and read books about Egyptians. Sometimes I will hand Henry off to his father, or to his old and fat British nanny, and I will read or walk by myself. But mostly I enjoy young Henry's company, he really is a remarkable fellow-- not too polished in his manners, yet a real gentleman at heart.

uh-oh

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:31:19 GMT

I was not with Rebecca during her actual birthday occurence yesterday. I was with my friend Andy who was visiting from New Mexico. It was great to see Andy, but now I am sad that I was not with Rebecca. Why could not I split into two Carolyns? Will Rebecca ever forgive me? She probably will, but oh, how awful, awful, awful. I wish I could make her understand that if I had a ton of money, I'd spend it all on her. I'm sure she would find this just another cheap flattery from me, but really I would. I'd buy piles of antiquities and art works and five hundred dollar one ounce bottles of perfume, and I'd have a whole endangered species of soft silky fluffy things wiped out just to make her a complete bedroom set of fur-covered whatnots. Why would I do this? Because I'm sure that almost no one I know can appreciate sensual beauty as much as Rebecca. At least no one else registers the appreciation on their faces as nicely as she does. Happy Belated Birthday, Darling.

I cannot talk

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:48:30 GMT

My throat was sore last night, but still I decided to chat it up with Loring and Sarah and the Phd recruit. Not just chat. Discourse, monologue, talk over loud music at the Brillo Box. As a result, today, I cannot talk. It makes me reflect on the gift of speech. What is it, really, to speak? Why the endless jabbering? Why not just convey everything with my eyes?

I read some Walter Benjamin today. I should try to think of something intelligent to say about all of that. What struck me was how much his essay on the art of translation sounded like Heidegger. I guess this struck Hannah Arendt, too, because she commented on it in her introduction to the book and therefore deprived me of astounding the world with my amazing powers of observation and reading of German dudes. Geeze, Hannah, didn't you have enough astounding observations? Couldn't you have left one to me? This is how I perpetually feel when I realize that someone already made a connection that I believed for a second I made orginally and invidually. Sigh. Le sigh.

I have not really read much of Theron Ware. OR Erasmus. I have not started writing a single one of my term papers. More and more, I feel that Susan Smith is not going to be able to obtain the kind of literary historical essay she wants from me, or even the kind of essay that I wish I was able to write for her. (I do so love to please people). She is going to receive a thoughtful polemic on why we cannot use literature as a means to the end of understanding a culture of a particular time. Or something like that. I'm a really mixed up kid. I think I have some problems with cultural materialism, Ohmann, Gramsci, Marxism, and whatnot. I think I really object to the way in which they regard history and the past. And I got my man Friedrich to back me up, yo, you'll all see.

good God

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:34:12 GMT

I just realized that two of my previous journal entries mention my celibacy. It must be weighing on my mind more heavily than I like to let myself believe. Also, I've been drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes like a motherfucker. Or rather, like someone who is not fucking anyone's mother and wishes she was, and is using nicotine and caffeine as a pleasure substitute. Christ.

Meredith's Bachelorette Party Changed My Life

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:29:51 GMT

I have never made out with so many hot people in such a short period of time. Well, at least not since I frequented the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Beehive as a fourteen year old. And actually, those people were not altogether hot. We played Spin the Bottle to great effect. It occurred to me that Spin the Bottle could really be morphed into an adventurous form of speed-dating. Something that I most loved about the evening was that I got to make out with people I had just met (in addition to my dearest friends). Making out with my dearest friends was awesome, but theoretically something that I could have accomplished on any given rainy evening with enough initiative and sweet talk. Making out with relative strangers is something rarer for a chick like me who lives a respectable bourgeois student life and never goes to bars. But it is something that I _need_ more in my life. Conversation on dates gets in the way of the making-out. For example, I may not find your mind to be fascinating, and you might be emotionally retarded, but your lips could be HOT HOT HOT. If I meet you and spend an hour talking to you, I might never get to the lips because the mind and heart might by that time put me off. Maybe you use polysyllabic words improperly and are still obsessed with your ex-girlfriend and carry the card of the Libertarian party. All this eventually interferes with my sexual desire, but it doesn't have to! The trouble could be remedied by Spin the Bottle Speed Dating. Just get a bunch of people together and make out with all of them without any more preliminaries than, "Hi, my name is Carolyn, doesn't our mutual friend Meredith look radiant tonight?" (If the person is savvy enough to answer, "Hi, my name is So and So, and yes she certainly does look lovely" then they are worthy of at least a little tongue). So then after making out with the lot of them, you choose whose lips have the most Hotness, and go home with that one. Theoretically I could have done this the other night at the party, but I decided to go home to my own bed. I attribute this momentary lack of pluck to an absence of familiarity with Spin the Bottle Speed dating and lingering bourgeoisness. I feel given another chance, I would fully utilize my opportunities. If only I had some way to guarantee that my chosen bits of Hotness would not try talking to me. Maybe duct tape?

Also, I _need_ more opportunities for friendly exhibitionism and voyeurism. I've been trying to create such opportunities for myself since seventh grade, usually with paltry success. Pittsburgh just is not a swinging town. I'm sure I could find some yellow-toothed yinzers in the South Hills who would be glad to engage me in their pony play and S&M with toys bought at Spencers, but I hold out for something a little more elegant than that, and I end up celibate. Well. C'est la vie.

quitting

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:06:22 GMT

I quit caffeine and cigarettes this week for health reasons. But today I realized I'm addicted to sugar. I ate a lot of cookies in the morning. By 5'o'clock I was crashing and bitchy with Rebecca. Now. Sigh. Now, I think I have to give up, or lessen significantly, my sugar consumption. Why is everything delicious forbidden me? All I have left is sex, or the possibility thereof, seeing as I am currently as celibate as Lily Bart.

wherein I digress without having anything from which to digress

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 18:55:24 GMT

Thoughts on my mind.

So, William James "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings." The exaltation of the present in American self-help, pop psychology, and New Age religious studies starting with the venerable Mr. James (and Mr. Emerson?) and continuing up through the likes of Lavinia Hart, Ram Dass, Joseph Campbell, Eckhardt Tolle, Cheri Huber, and Alan Watts. The philosophy of non-critical present-moment awareness is one I'm particulary partial to, one that's been a great help to me in my life. Yet I wonder if it doesn't run contrary to the whole project of criticism. I'm thinking now of criticism as it is practiced by the likes of our friends Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater, which is I think a mode that certainly has its present-day incarnations. Even criticism as a "negative critique" or a "speaking truth to power" as it is practiced by Said and the likes. How does William James and the Anglo philosophy of presence connect up with or contrast to our continental friends Nietszche, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, Foucault, and Freud?

The exaltation of the present and the end of criticism.

Does the inducement of non-critical (compassionate?) present moment-awareness advocated by James and the others listed beg for an end to criticism, an end to historical (genealogical) awareness? William James' praise of Whitman and Tolstoy certainly emphasizes a scale of values much different from Pater's praise of Renaissance artists, suggests a disinterestedness in hierarchy of works, but at the same time, a will to select and point to certain literary texts which encourage/praise/describe present-awareness.

In his autobiography, Edward Said describes waking every morning and feeling like a failture, as if he had not accomplished anything in his life and must start anew always. Sounds like a terrible state. Is it not the consequence of his critical-historical-awareness? For all his academic prowess, Said seemed to lack the kind of knowledge that could make him happy.

Is it possible to be a critic and be happy? Is criticism antithetical to the kind of spiritual condition that I pursue? To joy, serenity, compassion? What is the value of negative critique? What is more desirable, thought or thoughtlessness? Thinking? Is the function of imaginative literature to induce thoughtlessness?

Is the function of literature to induce altered states of consciousness? Is it possible that some literatures point to (or produce) a state of mind transcendent of both Eros and Thanatos? Isn't that what I most like to find when I read, isn't that the sublime? Or what is the delight I get out of reading something erotic and brilliant like Ada?

What good is reading at all? Shouldn't I just directly experience nature or meditation? Yet these people who advocate such things, James, Emerson, Ram Dass, Joseph Campbell, Cheri Huber.... write books! Obviously books/texts are seen as modes of encouraging, persuading, or inducing such states of meditative awareness. There's some curious stuff especially in Tolle's book "The Power of Now" about the text, the words,the reading of the words being capable of inducing present-awareness. Such books carry out a project that is not really suited to TV, to movies, to pictures. It is a specifically textual, reading-based thing. Presencing-- Heidegger? The words of the poem calling into presence the vision of Holderlin (Poetry, Language, Thought).

A personal belief, "Nothing new can arise without total acceptance of what already exists." I believe this acceptance stuff. So why do I want to be a critic? If I am interested in the surrender of judgement, in the release of categories and boundaries... why try a profession that is traditionally so linked to the projects of judgement, discernment, hierarchy?

What do I want to describe? An Art of Reading for presencing, a list of books that effect this?

What do I value in literature? The way that texts can work on my perception over time and make the world seem strange and new, at least for awhile-- the uncanniness of Sir Gawain and the Green Kinght. The joy in Ode to a Lemon. The arousal produced by the crossing of taboo in the Olympia Reader ('My Mother Taught Me" "City of Flesh"). I guess some movies have this power, too, but books have performed it in me the most effectively in my life-- and the experience is cheaper, classic books can be got for 25 cents at thrift stores. Books have been... I have used them as... not mere entertainment or information but as alchemy...

I instinctively treated my mind as a discursive something-or-other capable of being influenced, altered, rewritten, shaped, by encounters with various texts, the stranger the better-- to what ends? Consumer desires, sometimes, as when I read fashion magazines in earnest as a teenager. But more after this notion of the strange. A desire to internalize the possiblities of existence, to make these vast possibilities live in me-- erotic, emotional, spiritual possibilities-- and why do I write? As a return favor, to extend the miraculous weirdness, the weirdness which contradicts so many dominant assertions in the media, in politics--- and makes a critical practice possible! Yet I don't experience the awareness as an exile ala Said or Auerbach so much as an initiation.

I am interested in the power of the written (printed) word to change consciousness (Sartre: What is Writing? Heidegger: What are Poets for?), to change the structure of awareness, the structure of the self. This starts to sound a shade scientific, but I have no idea how science would prove it. Crude images of brains lighting up like pinball machines while reading Madame Bovary. I feel my own consciousness is infinitely different than in might have been had I not read and read viciously, repeatedly, forcefully, the books that I have read, if I had contented myself with watching "Unsolved Mysteries" on the couch with my mom and reading "Women's World" hot from the shopping market check-out isle.

Is that why I want to be a critic? To encourage more poeple to undertake the textual-alchemical experiment I have wrought on myself? Because it's so damn awesome? To teach folks how make their minds into a monstrous archive like mine? Yeah, sure. Can't think of anything I'd rather do. Meditation and nature and serving others is nice and all, but after a time I get bored and long for a soft couch and a hard book. Decadent me.