My update before writing. I'm too tired at this second to write what I want....should come...perhaps after that first cup of coffee? I need to start sleeping again...remembering that my body is not twenty-0ne anymore. My weeks have been interesting. New friends to hang out with, drinking, talking, laughing, listening to music. The precious hours spent with H whose regularly scheduled work takes him away from me more than I prefer. And trying to work but feeling so unmotivated towards it. Trying to be excited about academia when really I just want a break....
Today I'd like to just lounge. Spring is peeking her lovely face at us after shrouding herself in cold, gray rain. Yesterday we saw the sun, hung outside, despite a ferocious wind just because we saw the sun. But today will be good. J.Z. Smith is speaking at our school, and I can my inner fan girl getting excited. I may even get to do a faculty dinner...even though I'm kind of not really faculty yet.
I am falling in love with Allen Ginsberg...again. A few nights ago, with H's head in my lap, I read "Howl." And then last night, we spent some precious moments with his poems. Moments which should have been spent doing work but instead got lost in the poetry, and then sent us spiraling. No sleep for poetry is a sacrifice that might actually give one a greater portion not just the accursed share. Although perhaps it is a poverty. A poverty to sink into the golden language, to feel one's very body licked, beaten, and thrown to the wind, only to have to emerge to the same old shit.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Pleasure
In the dim light, her hips curve up, shining pale. I can see my hand moving over her thighs, almost detached due to the shadows that shrouded bits of the room. Her body is like mine but not like mine. There are planes and valleys that do not feel familiar to my hand or my tongue. When I cup her breasts, bringing her nipple to my mouth, sucking it into myself. I like the way her nipple hardens as my roll it around over my tongue, grazing with my teeth. But it is not my breast. I feel the shape as so similar but the difference--both the sameness and the alien excite me. When I push her down, my body holding her against the bed, our breasts touching, our legs entwine, it is all smooth skin and silk. The two bodies seem to know each other in ways beyond when my body touches a male body.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Almost Done
I NAILED my presentation on Monday. I thought once I got past the initial horrible moments of the beginning, I'd ease into it and be okay. Nope. I was nervous the whole time. And I got grilled as I knew I would. Most people are just not into theory in my department but surprisingly it wasn't necessarily the theory that got people going. I got good questions about it from who I expected and was able to answer them. But what got people was how I was approaching the memoir. One woman accused me of ignoring the politics and history of memoirs which pissed me off. I know the past scholarship on the religious memoirs, and had made a point of not doing what they did. Looking back I wish I had said "Okay you're right. These stories are often used for the purposes of some forms of power BUT did the people who wrote them also have a story to tell." I did point out that I saw my thesis as very politically involved. Any kind of definition of the self involves a politics.
Still it's done, and I got some nice compliments (as well as a free dinner). Our department head was very proud, and told me he was proud to have me teaching for the department.
Done! Just need to officially submit. It feels good.
Not the best pic. but me with the famous awesome adviser and the head of our graduate department along with my beasties who came with H to congratulate me!
Still it's done, and I got some nice compliments (as well as a free dinner). Our department head was very proud, and told me he was proud to have me teaching for the department.
Done! Just need to officially submit. It feels good.
Not the best pic. but me with the famous awesome adviser and the head of our graduate department along with my beasties who came with H to congratulate me!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Sacrifice
Midway through the semester, and attempts at defining sacrifice still seem half formulated. I find no answers, really, in the scholarly works we have read. Perhaps I ask too much of this academic life. Is it possible to find a way to understand the tangles of human life in these written pages?
Sacrifice so far is always about that moment of violence when an animal is killed. But what about the daily sacrifices? Is this really the same thing? What do we mean when we say we sacrifice something? Are we just trying to furtively grab at something, latching onto a word and asking that word to bear too much meaning?
Lately, I feel that words fail. I have not found hope in the pages like I used to. Even poetry does not offer me answers. Nothing with language seems to help. And each time I read about sacrifice I still try to find into those theoretical texts something that will offer light.
What is sacrifice? Is it really about death? I don't know any longer. I know it is a violence. And before today, I wanted that violence to be some kind of beautiful gasp. But it is not. The violence of sacrifice is violent because really it is not about death. It is about losing something vital. And the violence comes in that the negation of that vitality does not kill you. Instead, you are left with something missing. A hole that really does not ever go away. Sacrifice does not replenish what you have lost. That piece, that vitality is left smouldering in the ashes.
Sacrifice so far is always about that moment of violence when an animal is killed. But what about the daily sacrifices? Is this really the same thing? What do we mean when we say we sacrifice something? Are we just trying to furtively grab at something, latching onto a word and asking that word to bear too much meaning?
Lately, I feel that words fail. I have not found hope in the pages like I used to. Even poetry does not offer me answers. Nothing with language seems to help. And each time I read about sacrifice I still try to find into those theoretical texts something that will offer light.
What is sacrifice? Is it really about death? I don't know any longer. I know it is a violence. And before today, I wanted that violence to be some kind of beautiful gasp. But it is not. The violence of sacrifice is violent because really it is not about death. It is about losing something vital. And the violence comes in that the negation of that vitality does not kill you. Instead, you are left with something missing. A hole that really does not ever go away. Sacrifice does not replenish what you have lost. That piece, that vitality is left smouldering in the ashes.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Midafternoon
Reading Bataille had an immediate effect on her.
"In this gathering place, where violence is rife, at the boundary of that which escapes cohesion, he who reflects within cohesion realizes there is no longer any room for him."
She read him at first on the couch.
"A philosophy is never a house; it is a construction site. But its incompletion is not that of science."
But eventually the way the words washed over her body, drove her to read him in bed.
"The sacred is that prodigious effervescence of life that, for the sake of duration, the order of things holds in check and that this holding changes into a breaking loose, that is, into violence."
The problem was that it left her wanting to be touched. She didn't really want sex but rather to feel someone hands on her body while she read. Initially she pushed the desire back but found that the desire kept intruding onto the text.
"It constantly threatens to break the dikes, to confront productive activity with the precipitate and contagious movement of a purely glorious consumption."
There was no around in the afternoons to touch her. She was alone. Touching herself was not going to fulfill the desire; not to mention the mechanical problems faced when attempting to touch oneself while reading a book. She spent nights laying awake attempting to figure out a solution.
"Sovereignty designates the movement of free and internally wrenching violence that animates the whole, dissolves into tears, into ecstasy and into burst of laughter, and reveals the impossible in laughter, ecstasy, or tears."
Her husband would not do. He was gone in the afternoons. Tired when he got home, and no doubt would find her desire perverse. Thus the only solution was to find someone else. She found him at the cafe which was a block from her home. He was very young, almost too young to be really handsome. He was a student, always looking for more money, and her offer, while strange to him, gave him extra money for little work.
"The destruction of the subject as an individual is in fact implied in the destruction of the object as such, but war is not the inevitable form of the destruction: at any rate, it is not the conscious form."
She gave him a key. At one, she would strip her clothes off, lay down with her book and wait, trembling. She would hear the key turn in the lock, and then his quiet footsteps. She refused to look at him as he entered the room. He would take off his clothes, and lay beside her. Only then would she open the book and began to read.
"The swelling to the bursting point, the malice that breaks out with clenched teeth and weeps; the sinking feeling that doesn't know where it comes from or what it's about; the fear that sings its head off in the dark; the white-eyed pallor, the sweet sadness, the rage and the vomiting...are so many evasions."
As she read the words, he would run his hands over her back down over her ass to her legs. At first, his touches were shy but with each day, he grew bolder and rougher. As she read, his hands would penetrate her vagina, squeeze her nipples. She would feel him thrusting against her leg. He was not allowed to penetrate her so he would rub ferociously against her body. His breathing would come in short pants but never loud enough to drown out her reading. In the end, he would come into the small of her back. And then he would get up, put on his clothes and leave. She would close the book, put it on the stand beside her bed, and shower.
"TO WHOM LIFE IS AN EXPERIENCE TO BE CARRIED AS FAR AS POSSIBLE...
I have not meant to express my thought but to help you clarify what you yourself think...
You are not anymore different from me than your right leg is from your left, but what joins us is THE SLEEP OF REASON--WHICH PRODUCES MONSTERS."
"In this gathering place, where violence is rife, at the boundary of that which escapes cohesion, he who reflects within cohesion realizes there is no longer any room for him."
She read him at first on the couch.
"A philosophy is never a house; it is a construction site. But its incompletion is not that of science."
But eventually the way the words washed over her body, drove her to read him in bed.
"The sacred is that prodigious effervescence of life that, for the sake of duration, the order of things holds in check and that this holding changes into a breaking loose, that is, into violence."
The problem was that it left her wanting to be touched. She didn't really want sex but rather to feel someone hands on her body while she read. Initially she pushed the desire back but found that the desire kept intruding onto the text.
"It constantly threatens to break the dikes, to confront productive activity with the precipitate and contagious movement of a purely glorious consumption."
There was no around in the afternoons to touch her. She was alone. Touching herself was not going to fulfill the desire; not to mention the mechanical problems faced when attempting to touch oneself while reading a book. She spent nights laying awake attempting to figure out a solution.
"Sovereignty designates the movement of free and internally wrenching violence that animates the whole, dissolves into tears, into ecstasy and into burst of laughter, and reveals the impossible in laughter, ecstasy, or tears."
Her husband would not do. He was gone in the afternoons. Tired when he got home, and no doubt would find her desire perverse. Thus the only solution was to find someone else. She found him at the cafe which was a block from her home. He was very young, almost too young to be really handsome. He was a student, always looking for more money, and her offer, while strange to him, gave him extra money for little work.
"The destruction of the subject as an individual is in fact implied in the destruction of the object as such, but war is not the inevitable form of the destruction: at any rate, it is not the conscious form."
She gave him a key. At one, she would strip her clothes off, lay down with her book and wait, trembling. She would hear the key turn in the lock, and then his quiet footsteps. She refused to look at him as he entered the room. He would take off his clothes, and lay beside her. Only then would she open the book and began to read.
"The swelling to the bursting point, the malice that breaks out with clenched teeth and weeps; the sinking feeling that doesn't know where it comes from or what it's about; the fear that sings its head off in the dark; the white-eyed pallor, the sweet sadness, the rage and the vomiting...are so many evasions."
As she read the words, he would run his hands over her back down over her ass to her legs. At first, his touches were shy but with each day, he grew bolder and rougher. As she read, his hands would penetrate her vagina, squeeze her nipples. She would feel him thrusting against her leg. He was not allowed to penetrate her so he would rub ferociously against her body. His breathing would come in short pants but never loud enough to drown out her reading. In the end, he would come into the small of her back. And then he would get up, put on his clothes and leave. She would close the book, put it on the stand beside her bed, and shower.
"TO WHOM LIFE IS AN EXPERIENCE TO BE CARRIED AS FAR AS POSSIBLE...
I have not meant to express my thought but to help you clarify what you yourself think...
You are not anymore different from me than your right leg is from your left, but what joins us is THE SLEEP OF REASON--WHICH PRODUCES MONSTERS."
Saturday, March 07, 2009
More on the Hair Saga
Anyone who reads my blog with any familiarity knows I'm just a tad nuts about my hair. Okay downright vain. This makes find a stylist rather nightmarish. I found a good one last year, and she moved to Atlanta. I was eh to the say the least about the last two stylists so I knew it was time to move to a new salon. I HATE this in the same kind of way I hate dating. And let's face it finding a good stylist is rather like finding a mate.
Anyway, one of my new friends A got her hair done, and it was a great cut. I finally got an appointment with the stylist. Name is Mark. He is awesome. He sat with me, and discussed my hair. Love. And the picked out the colors I wanted combined with what he thought would look good. End result is hair better than what I had imagined. It's trendy but not too trendy. The color is so awesome, I am getting stopped by strangers. I told Mark, he was not allowed to move for at least a year and after that he should consider moving with me to where ever I do my Ph.D. Love at first cut:P
Not sure hot with make up but hey look at the color!!!!
Anyway, one of my new friends A got her hair done, and it was a great cut. I finally got an appointment with the stylist. Name is Mark. He is awesome. He sat with me, and discussed my hair. Love. And the picked out the colors I wanted combined with what he thought would look good. End result is hair better than what I had imagined. It's trendy but not too trendy. The color is so awesome, I am getting stopped by strangers. I told Mark, he was not allowed to move for at least a year and after that he should consider moving with me to where ever I do my Ph.D. Love at first cut:P
Not sure hot with make up but hey look at the color!!!!
Friday, March 06, 2009
Peace Before More
I think I, and perhaps my readers, need a break from the stories. The ones coming are all about J, and about S & M. Ultimately also about love, closure, and pain. I don't think I can read about sacrifice or erotic and not have these stories come to the surface. H and I talked some last night about pain, and he wanted to know if tooth pain was sexy to me. This came after my decision to redo my nipple piercing because really I just need a pain fix. When I said "No," we both began to think about the nature of pain, and how it functions in different ways. H thinks pain may be a useless word because it can not cover the range but I think most language is like this. For me, I S & M is really about the ritualized aspect of sex. Sex in this manner is a production, a stage, and yes, a ritual. The pain only works, for me at least, on this stage. To me there was always something utterly beautiful about these moments.Thus as I read more Bastille, I think, I will have to write these tales out. At least you are forewarned. Funny but good theory makes me write.In other mundane happens, I need to just state that I HATE mornings. I hate being tired, hating getting out of my comfy bed, unwrapping myself from the little limbs, and trudging about getting things ready. Dreadful. Even with coffee mornings suck.
My adviser and another professor nominated me for a teaching award. I almost said no as it involved me having to come up with all kinds of stuff in quite a short period. But in the end, I did it. Now I have to drop beasties at school, run to school, get material to graduate office, and then drop Piper off with my friend Bob so I can get my hair done.
Vacation week. I have much organizing to do. If I can talk H into spending money, I want to redo the house. Create a guest room. Fix up the kids' room. Buy more book shelves (!!!!). I also get to see Morrissey on Monday night (!!!!!), and All the Saints on Thursday (!!!!). I have friends coming over this Saturday, and get to be the cool friend next Saturday. I love this business. Spring is in the air in the South.
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