12.1.09

Just now. Not a poem. Maybe soon:

Summer, and you protect your ears

Against the lawnmower's roar

With music.

Your iPod skips a song,

Landing on one you downloaded

Long ago. And have not

Listened to since.

And in that instant, you are

What you claim you can never be:

Two places at once.

As the music pours in,

As sweat pours out,

You are in your car.

Parked, in the snow.

The song playing

For your ears,

The very first time:

You need to go in.

You need to finish.

It is very cold.

It is getting late.

But you stay to write

But you stay to hear

Down that line you liked.

The chorus one last time

In both worlds, the music is
So clear.  Though it's hard
To discern which smell it is
That permeates the air:

The fresh-cut grass

Or, the snow.

Death is a doorknob made of flesh.

Only once at LMC did I leave my office keys at home.  As such luck works, of course, no one was around to unlock the door, so I had to go back.  That's the only reason why I caught "The Writer's Almanac" on NPR.

Listening with half an ear, I was passing Lowe's headed quickly back to the school when Garrison Keillor read Jim Harrison's poem "Larson's Holstein Bull" -

Death waits inside us for a door to open.

Death is patient as a dead cat.

Death is a doorknob made of flesh.

Death is that angelic farm girl

gored by the bull on her way home

from school, crossing the pasture

for a shortcut.  In the seventh grade

she couldn't read or write.  She wasn't a virgin.

She was "simpleminded," we all said.

It was May, a time of lilacs and shooting stars.

She's lived in my memory for sixty years.

Death steals everything except our stories.

It was a delayed reaction, but I rolled the third line over and over in my head for a few seconds until I physically shuddered.  I knew what Harrison meant: I could anticipate what a "doorknob made of flesh" would feel like in my hand - reaching out, expecting cold metal and instead finding warm (slightly warm?) skin, thin skin, covering harder bone underneath.  Same way it feels to touch someone's hand, or elbow, or jawline, minus the positive emotional component.

There's much more to the poem, but I never forgot that line.  I searched out the poem and wrote it down in my print journal - my handwriting on that third line even scratchier than normal.  Occasionally, in my head, I'll hear Keillor read it - his voice matter-of-fact, like an everyday experience.  It always invokes a shudder.

For me, the impact lies not just with imagining the grotesque description, but also in the symbolism regarding death.  You reach out, expecting something normal, and instead experiencing something terrifying.  Such is the reminder that life goes on.  It's difficult to realize that when you die, life will continue.  Just as difficult a realization is that life continues even when you're living.  The difference being that when you're alive, and everything seems regular, it might not be.  Life presses onward and onward, and if you expect normality - the standard, everyday brass doorknob - sometimes you grab hold of something else altogether.

More proof my primary education didn't prepare me for academia

Back in grade school, we called the act of someone pulling someone else's pants down in public "shanking."  I thought that was the typical slang until I went on to college or watched a movie and heard the term "pantsing" for the first time.  (Seriously, I was at least 18 before I heard it called that.)  And I then learned that a "shank" was synonymous with shiv - a weapon fashioned in a prison, and getting "shanked" meant you got stabbed with said shiv.

Though actually, we weren't misusing term too terribly.  Prisoners get shanked in the lunch line...and that's where kids would often get, well, "shanked" at Westside Elementary.

I'm beginning to think grade school wasn't meant to prepare me for upper-level education.  I think it was meant to prepare me for five-to-ten.  My grades back then would probably testify to the fact.

Hazy Shade of Winter

I love the cold.

It’s strange, because most people I know dislike winter. They’re summer people. I guess living in TN you have to be, because once summer hits, it’s HOT and you’d better be ready. But I hate the heat the way most people dislike the cold.

There’s this thing called seasonal affective disorder, where you get depressed (either slightly or majorly) in the winter. Less sunlight, less time spent outside…it psychologically gets to people. Some people it affects more than others, but I know plenty of folks who are just happier in the summer than winter.

But there’s a SAD for summer as well. Not depression, but you sleep less, eat less, even suffer from anxiety in extreme cases. Basically, it’s restlessness. I feel that, and once the cold months move in, it just feels like things slow down. And I relax.

I was always this way. When I was a kid, I went outside just as much during the winter as I did in the summer. Maybe more. I loved the cold, snow or no snow (and in south east TN, it was usually “no snow”).

And it’s still the same now. Take Monday evening, for example: I left work and it felt just like winter. It was cold, but the wind wasn’t blowing. Snow was falling, gently, adding to the blanket already on the ground. The sky was grey, and the sun was already setting behind the clouds. Everything was quiet and still. No one was out. Those days feel like the world is wrapped in a blanket, like time is standing still. I left my gloves in my bag so I could feel the cold on my skin. I breathed in the chilly air, filling my lungs, and sighed, content. Being in love with winter is like being part of a secret not everyone understands.

Maybe that’s what I like best about it.

Google This.

The moment I switched my search engine preferences was well after Google became a verb.  I heard it on a movie—Maid in Manhattan, I think it was: “You can Google it when you get to school.”  I hadn’t heard Google used like that before, and I loved it, so I made the decision to stop using Yahoo! and start using Google for my online researching needs.

Yes, this online-life change came about because the noun had become a verb.  But it’s not the whole “sounding like a hipster” appeal that attracted me; I just always like it when nouns become verbs.  I try and use a noun as a verb on a daily basis—like, “facebook” : “Facebook me tomorrow, Josh, because I’ll be at work.”   That one’s become pretty standard, so sometimes I like to come up with my own.  Take, for instance, the word “crockpot”: “You wanna come over for dinner tomorrow?  I’ll crockpot a chicken.”

The grammarian in me knows using a noun like a verb isn't the best decision (unless someone else is doing it online), but I can’t stop.  I love it.  Essentially, you’re taking power away from what was the noun and giving it to yourself.  It’s not the crockpot that’s doing to work; it’s you, because you’re the one crockpoting.  Same thing with “Googling.”  You don’t “Yahoo” or “Webcrawler,” and even though it contains a verb, “AskJeeves” just doesn’t have the same effect. 

So Google it was, and Google it has been for six years or so.

Thanks to Google, I've been able to slack off in online researching.  Not only will it search the site without me having to actually GO to the site, but it'll fill in the question for me. Now, I used to search by noun phrases, using AND or NOT and quotation marks to get really specific.  Now I just write out the question, as informal as possible, and wait for Google to fill in the rest.  For some reason, this is fascinating--I love typing stuff into the search bar to see if anyone else has asked the same thing.

After Sarah Palin made the comment about being able to see Russian from Alaska, I started wondering if it really WAS possible.  In my defense, it was late and I'm pretty sure I had had a few beers.  The sane and sober part of me knew it wasn't true, but the drunk part just wanted to check.  So I went to Google and typed in "Can you see Russia..." and it was immediately filled in with "...from Alaska."  I was thrilled.  Not only did I find out the answer (no, you can't), but it was satisfying to know that other people were wondering the same thing, that we were all out there Googling together.

Adulthood and stuff.

I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my lunch the other day--well, it would have been a PB&J if I had any jelly.  Which I did not.

I scavenged through my cupboards to find something to go with the PB and came up with a container of honey.  Mmmmm, peanut butter and honey...so I'm standing in my kitchen, , drizzling honey over the bread, and I start to wonder about how much sugar is in the honey.  Then I realize it's replacing jam--and not just any jam, this is jam my grandmother made herself, so you know it's nice and sugary.  But still, one of them had to be higher up on the chain of "unhealthy."

And that's when I realized I am an adult.  You can go for years getting degrees and jobs, and you can sign paperwork that gives some of your money to the government, and you can get health insurance and pay back loans and vote and donate money to public radio.  You can start running for health, you can buy whole-grain bread instead of white, and 1% milk instead of whole, and you can even start drinking light beer.  You can do all of this, and still retain some youth.

But the moment you think to yourself "I wonder if I'm getting too much sugar in my diet" is the moment you're an honest-to-god adult.

I think I heard my knees crack as I walked out of the kitchen.

Anyway.   Here's some stuff I wrote on Friday of last week (fall break):

Lines Written in a Subaru Car Dealership in Boone, NC.

Yesterday I almost got lost in Elizabethton.  Getting lost in Elizabethton, Tennessee, would’ve been the most embarrassing thing to happen to me in a while, and you have to keep in mind that the day before fall break, one of my classes decided they should “set me up” with one of their instructors (long story, but it came about during a student’s informational speech on the new golf coach.  Er, thanks, guys).

But what happened was, there’s a country road on the outskirts of Hampton that bypasses Elizabethton.  After somebody showed it to me a year or so ago, I started using it a lot any time I had to cut around the city (usually to get to Banner Elk so I could night-ski).  It’s a pretty effective time-saver, unless you realize that the road is closed.  But no worries—there was a detour sign.  So I turn down the road I’ve never been on, assuming it’ll eventually intersect with the original road, or at least get me back to the main highway.  But no.

The first problem is, there’s only one detour sign.  I realized after a minute or so, there should’ve been another sign or two, just letting me know I was going the right way.  I guess TDOT assumed anyone on that road actually knew their way around and wasn’t just, y’know, using a country road to avoid traffic.

Typically when you get that sense of “something’s not right,” you reassess the situation.  In this case, “reassessing the situation” means “turning around, getting back to the main road, biting the bullet, and driving through town”  But I’m persistent, and I kept thinking “there’s no way I can get too far off-track, and I’ve gone too far to turn around now.”  That’s a little mantra that I’m sure will one day get me arrested, killed, or married: “I’ve gone too far to turn around now.”

This day, it all worked out for the better, and it’s all thanks to the fact that last summer I wanted to earn some extra cash.  The road I was on eventually ended at a fork, and at this fork was a church.  The church looked familiar, and sure enough, I realized I’d been on this road before, just facing the opposite direction.  It’s the same road I took to get to my boss’ parents’ house, where I did some yard work last summer.  I checked beyond the church and sure enough, there were the laurels, and there was the park, and suddenly I knew my place in the world, if at least for thirty seconds.

Had I not driven out there a few times before, I would’ve been screwed.  It’s not a straight-shot back to town, and while it’s on the same side of town as the highway, it’s at a different angle.  That’s why I’d rather get lost in the city than t he country.  Finding your way in the middle of nowhere is frighteningly more difficult than it should be.  You almost have to revert to some basic method of navigation, like looking at the sun (or the stars, if you’re so unfortunate as to get lost at night).   When I get lost in the city, I just pick a really big building and drive towards it, because the most important thing in a big city is finding a place to park, and there’s usually decent parking around really big buildings

And yet again, another philosophy which might one day end badly...

Goin' whichever way the wind blows

I spent the past 10 days elsewhere. It was temporary but fantastic, which just reiterates the fact that my four years are up and it’s time to move on. If I really belonged somewhere, I would miss it when I was gone. But I didn’t, so I don’t. So…another year (or less!) and it’ll be time to go somewhere else. I don’t know where. I have no idea what’s there, or who will be there, or what I’ll do.

And honestly, I don’t really care.

I like Johnson City. There are definitely things I’ll miss about it. There are things I am happy I came here, stayed here, was here for…and some things I wish had happened differently or maybe not at all.  Such is life. I have roughly another year to finish up whatever I haven’t done yet—hiking, mainly—and things I want to do one more time—local concerts and one more season of snowboarding. Another year of editing and teaching and hopefully going to some conferences. Another year where Sevierville is the “halfway meeting point” between me and my family on birthdays, etc.

But for now it’s early summer. There are still days to go before anything can change. Here’s to making the last 365 count. If you want in on any part of any of it...let's keep some days clear.

The stone-cold, honest-to-god, absolute, slightly ineffable truth.

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

---J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Diet Advice

I work for a medical journal; therefore, I find it necessary to post medical advice occasionally. Like medical advice that comes from an email forward. That doesn't make it any less credible, especially that part about the alcohol or the calculating one's BMI...

Diet Questions Answered

Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?
A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it. Don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, which means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain = Good!

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?
A: Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?
A: Are you crazy? Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?
A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?
A: 'Round' is a shape.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at an iPod

I

Among two teenage siblings

The only speaking thing

Was the sound of the iPod.

II

I was of three minds,

Like an iPod

In which there are three playlists.

III

The iPod whirled in the washing machine.

It was part of the small tragedy.

IV

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and an iPod

Are one and a half.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of bass

Or the beauty of treble,

The iPod whistling

Both just right.

VI

Icicles filled the long windows

Of my apartment.

The shadow of the iPod

Crossed them, quickly.

My mood

Traced in the shadow

Of having dropped it again.

VII

O fat men of RIAA,

Why do you imagine golden royalties?

Do you not see how the iPod

Holds the bootlegs

Of the pirates around you?

VIII

I know noble ballads

And brash, inescapable powerchords;

But I know, too,

That the iPod is involved

In what I hear.

IX

When the iPod was out of sight

It marked the moment

Of actual solitude.

X

At the sight of an iPod

Glowing a pale light,

The lovers of euphony

Stop their cries.

XI

He rode over Connecticut

In a station wagon with his parents.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he realized

The battery was low

On his iPod.

XII

His mouth is moving.

My iPod must be playing.

XIII

It was day all night

It was a party

And there would be a party.

The iPod sat

In its docking station.

They know I'm something to be caught

I go out at night on this motorcycle I bought about 6 weeks ago, on my 25th birthday. I love this bike. We seemed to be made for one another. Even the license plate (which has long since expired) says "1983"--the year I was born. I don't believe in fate, but at times I wonder.

In order to legally ride the bike, I need 1) current tags and 2) a motorcycle license. I have neither. I have the title, and about 30 minutes of my time and $75 of my money would get me cleared for tags. The license comes from taking a written/driving test, or taking a 2-day class. I plan on doing this. I will eventually go to the courthouse and get the tags, and I'll take the test, and I'll be completely legal.

But for now, I sneak out at night and ride up and down neighborhoods. Not for any purpose other than clearing my head, keeping the engine running, and wasting gas (hard to waste gas on something that gets 70+ mpg, thankfully). The weather is warm, and there's little traffic, so I practice changing gears and hand signals, all the while warding away any cops with a Jedi-like mantra in my head: "You don't see my tags have expired. No. You don't want to pull me over." Seems to work.

I live where the streets are named after presidents. But there's this bigger neighborhood where I go to ride. All of the streets are named after Robin Hood: characters, location, etc. Where I lived as an undergrad, I used to pass this street called "Cinderella Drive." Now I drive through Sherwood Forest. It's like I moved from one Disney movie to another, but at least none of the animals are singing to me. Yet.

I go slowly up and down each street. I try not to go too fast, because the bike can get loud. At the same time, I don't want to go too slowly and appear to be casing the joint. I pass by people and nod; they usually return the gesture. The other day, I saw a guy getting on his motorcycle. We shared a glance of mutual understanding, sort of like we shared some secret. Though, "secret" is not an appropriate description, because our "secret" was the metallic beasts we rode...which anyone could see.

I like to ride through this area because it's really beautiful. The houses are older, and they're probably not what people would think of as "incredibly nice" nowadays--what, with McMansions popping up on every undeveloped property imaginable--but they're old-school nice. Big yards, gardens, colorful trees and plants. You can pass through at night and smell the life: woodsmoke and fresh cut grass in their respective seasons, homecooked dinners, and of course, the flowers.

When I say it's beautiful, it's not because I aspire to live somewhere like that. Nice as it is...it's still a neighborhood. The yards are big, but not big enough. There are fences. Everything is trapped. Some trees are enclosed in brick circles--like they're these massive plants that someone decided to grow in their front yard. It's all too close, and it's all too restrictive. A little ironic, I suppose, that it would all be named after a hero and his crew who lived away from that type of life.

Still, the visuals are intoxicating: it's like driving through a painting. You're not a part of it--you can't stop and touch it--but it's a nice experience to be connected to something and still very much separate from it.

Postmodern Faulkner

Maybe I've been out of school for too long, or maybe I've been watching too much TV, but I'm almost through season 2 of Arrested Development and I'm thinking you can make direct parallels between the show/story/characters and The Sound and the Fury.

Check it: the decay of a prominent family. Three sons, one daughter...youngest is completely dependant, one son is selfish and self-centered, daughter's sexuality is a big theme, and one son is trying to press onward & survive. Affairs. Hints of incest. Death. Put the Compsons in modern-day southern CA, give them a real estate company, and make the downfall funny instead of...well...not so funny. Then tell me it's not the same.

My former self and me

I lost my jump drive last year, which sucked. It had virtually everything on it--many years' worth of papers, lesson plans, ramblings, articles, etc. Fortunately, I am not entirely stupid: I backed it up sometime in December of 2006. Yeah, I lost stuff from my final semester of grad school (including my thesis, and I can't think of that too long or I feel sick). But at least I had the files of papers of which I most likely didn't have a hard copy.

So right now, I go back and forth between what I was able to save and what I have printed. For instance, I wrote a paper for a class in fall of '06, but I've since made the paper somewhat better and presented it at a conference. The updted file is lost, but I still have the printed paper. So every now and then, I have to sit down and find 1) the file, and 2) the updated print version, so I can 3) merge them together. It's a slow process.

Today I was checking the back-up jump drive and came across my folder entitled "GRAD." I put this folder together when I was researching grad schools a while back. I opened it up and found my working statement of purpose. The last time I accessed it was December of 2004 (at one a.m.). I didn't send this in with my applications, but at the time, it was funny. Hell, it's still funny to me, but mainly because of all of the inaccuracies: I never mention going to ETSU (mainly because I hadn't applied, and wouldn't do so until April); I wound up graduating in August '05, not May; and I never got a creative writing concentration. Thank god I didn't, because I obviously wouldn't be eating balanced and regular meals.

Anyway:

“Where will you be attending school next year?”

At the end of the winter term, no question is more dreaded to the ears of a senior. They begin to sweat and stammer nervously, stalling until they can come up with some ambiguous answer to satisfy the lobbyist, usually a peer. “Well, you see I’m—as I haven’t graduated yet, and finals are coming up…I suppose I’ll be applying at—that is to say…rather, where are YOU attending school next year?” Momentarily, the attention is shifted. If freshman psychology taught us nothing else, we learn and apply transference as a defense mechanism.

Fortunately online, I can conceal the awkward pauses and perspiration, even using it to my benefit in a rather lengthy—albeit conversational—introduction. That being said, next calendar year (January 1, 2005) I will begin and complete the spring semester of my senior year at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. Upon my graduation in August of 2005, I plan to attend one of my three graduate school choices: Vanderbilt (Nashville, TN), University of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN) or Tennessee Technological University (Cookeville, TN—just so I can keep my apartment lease). At one of these three schools I’ll pursue my masters: English with a creative writing concentration. My anticipated graduation date will be spring of 2007. From there, I understand I’m supposed to state that I’ll write the next Great American Novel, but let’s be serious: I went to a tech school for my undergraduate work. I know I won’t be building the next Great American Bridge, but so long as I’m not flipping the Great American Burger, I’ll consider myself successful and my studies worthwhile.