Coincidences?

just yesterday i was listening to a dutch woman tell me how she and her three closest friends in philadelphia -- all dutch, too! -- all had birthdays in the latter half of march.

then i saw this on my facebook sidebar, under upcoming birthdays:
Amanda H***
Anna K*****
Alisha P****
Aude W******
Arshiya B***
Ameya N***

i like finding patterns in the most uncommon of places. i think that's why i like being a bibliographer so much -- there's patterns everywhere, and almost nothing is a coincidence (as long as you can find physical evidence for it, like binding threads or ink squash). it makes my librarian side inordinately happy.

happy birthday to all 6 august 4th a's!

Ignominy

gautam tambay, you are a shady bugger.

that is all :P

Good Thing I Like Apartment-Hunting

(and craigslist)

funny how life is.

moral of the story from this past 48 hours: no-one's really ever your friend for life. roommates? even less so. i suppose in a strange way it's my own fault.

Someone Make Me Stop Eating

i know, i know, working out makes you burn calories, and then you should eat more... but here's what i've consumed today, and it's a bit ridiculous:

8:20 am: 1 bowl rice krispies (with "real" strawberries) with whole milk
8:45 am: 1 banana
10:30 am: 1/2 a cheddar and spinach scone from starbucks (i blame rafael...)
1:20 pm: the other 1/2 of the cheddar and spinach scone
1:25 pm: most of a bowl of kim's tofu noodle soup
1:40 pm: 1 kashi go-lean chocolate-and-peanut flavoured energy bar
5:30 pm: 2 all-butter lemon shortbread cookies
6:30 pm: 3 grape leaf wraps with tzatziki sauce, several pita quarters with hummus, and 1/2 a veggie gyro with french fries wrapped into it (plus some steamed spinach and roasted peppers on the side)
7:45 pm: 1 glass of honeydew bubble tea (latte)

i feel like a walking trash can today. someone make it stop.

Summer Of Books

Fifty Book Exam List

I. Historical Period: Medieval
1. The Dream of the Rood (OE, MS 950-1000)
2. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain (Latin, 1136)
3. Song of Roland (1140-1170?)
4. Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances (“The Knight of the Cart”) (late 12th century)
5. Marie de France, Lais (“Lanval”, “Bisclavret”) (late 12th century)
6. Winner and Waster (c. 1350)
7. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1385)
8. St. Erkenwald (c. 1386)
9. Corpus Christi plays: York Creation and Fall of Lucifer, Chester Noah's Flood, Brome Abraham and Isaac, Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play, Wakefield Herod the Great, N-Town Woman Taken in Adultery, York Crucifixion, and Wakefield Last Judgment (c. 1375-1570s)
10. Geoffrey Chaucer, selections from Canterbury Tales (General Prologue, Knight, Miller, Reeve, Cook, Wife of Bath, Friar, Summoner, Clerk) (1390s)
11. Julian of Norwich, The Short Text of Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1393)
12. Selected Middle English lyrics: Luria and Hoffman ed. nos. 6 (“Foweles in the frith”), 77 (“I have a gentil cok”), 81 (“We ben chapmen light of fote”), 90 (“May no man slepe in youre halle”), 138 (“Maiden in the mor lay”), 178 (Geoffrey Chaucer, “Lak of Stedfastnesse”), 181 (“I sing of a maiden”), 182 (“Salve Regina”), 190 (“Now goth sonne under wod”), and 197 (“A God and yet a man?”)
13. The Alliterative Morte Arthure (c. 1400)
14. Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe (c. 1436)
15. ** Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory (criticism)
16. ** Tim William Machan, Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts (criticism)

II. Genre: Travels and Encounters
17. Heliodorus, Æthiopica (3rd century)
18. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (c. 1375)
19. Walter Raleigh, “Discovery of Guiana” (1596)
20. William Shakespeare, The Tempest (c. 1610)
21. Sir Thomas More, Utopia (1615)
22. Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine (1633)
23. Aphra Behn, Oroonoko or The Royal Slave (1688)
24. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726)
25. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
26. H.G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon (1901)
27. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)
28. Ama Ata Aidoo, Our Sister Killjoy (1977)
29. Edward Said, Orientalism (1979)
30. Amitav Ghosh, Shadow Lines (1988)
31. Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York (2003)
32. ** Peter Hulme, Colonial Encounters (criticism)

III. Theme/Theory: Form and the Material Text
33. William Langland, Piers Plowman A-Text Visio (1360s) (authorial revision)
34. William Langland, Piers Plowman B-Text Visio (Prologue-Passus 7) (1380s)
35. William Langland, Piers Plowman C-Text Visio (Prologue-Passus 9) (1380s)
36. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Q1) (1603) (printers/publishers/authors + editions)
37. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Q2) (1604)
38. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (F) (1623)
39. Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus A-Text (1604)
40. Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus B-Text (1616)
41. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1852) (serialization)
42. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, selected poems (1855 and 1891 editions): “A Boston Ballad” (1854), “Song of Myself” (1855), “The Sleepers” (1855), “Song of the Answerer” (1855), “Song of Myself” (1891), “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (1891), “A Boston Ballad” (1891), “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” (1891) as well as frontispiece portraits from both editions (authorial revision, self-publication, author portraits)
43. William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience (selections) (1789; 1794) (illustrations)
44. Emily Dickinson, selected published poems: “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers —”/”The Sleeping”; “Blazing in the Gold and quenching in Purple”/”Sunset”; “I taste a liquor never brewed —”; “Publication—is the Auction”; “This is my letter to the World”; “This was a Poet—it is That”; “‘Hope’ is a thing with feathers—”; “Because I could not stop for Death” (creation of the authorial corpus; order of component texts)
45. T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts including the Annotations of Ezra Pound (1971) (editorial process)
46. Alan Moore, V for Vendetta (1995) (graphic novel)
47. James McTeigue, V for Vendetta (2006) (translation into another medium)
48. ** Robert Darnton, “The Printed Word” (Section 3 of Kiss of Lamourette): “What is the History of Books?”, “The Forgotten Middlemen of Literature”, “First Steps Towards A History of Reading” (criticism)
49. ** G. Thomas Tanselle, A Rationale of Textual Criticism (criticism)
50. ** Jerome McGann, Part I of The Textual Condition (criticism)

¿Qué He Hecho Yo Para Merecer Esto?

it's not even 9 a.m., and already i'm having the most horrible day i've had in weeks.

i got just 4 hours of sleep last night, i dropped my toothbrush down the toilet (what is up with me and doing that with important objects?), summer latin is looking like a vanishing possibility, and a friend just called me crying to tell me that his partner of 3+ years has been cheating on him and wants to break up to be with someone else.

in addition, my hair needs shampooing, my eyebrows need tweezing, i haven't been swimming in 5 days, my throat itches, and it's cold.

whine whine whine.

Vestiges

five years ago, on this day -- a cold february evening in boston -- a boy called to break up with me. (yes, on the phone.) i cried about him, the first time in a long time i'd done such a thing. i was heartbroken, because i was really in love. (yes, even at 19.)

i stayed in touch with him, and attracted to him, for a few years thereafter. it was hard to get over him, and it finally took a triangular disaster to make me realize i needed him gone. but it took me more years than that to be able to get rid of the valentine's day gift i'd bought him in anticipation of valentine's day 2003: the cutest little stuffed bunny i've ever seen.

this year, february 7 is sunny and warm-ish, and i'm in a different city -- although boston continues to lure me back every so often -- at a different phase in my life. and i am happy now, and safe, and no longer in love with him... but i think about that friday evening more often than would seem necessary.

perhaps that day was meant to show me how things cannot always be planned. or perhaps its purpose was to teach me how well i heal, despite despair. but the fact is that no matter what the lesson, and no matter how far life carries us from our starting points, these things stay with us. i'm glad this one did with me. so much came after... but it all began with a phone call, all those years ago.

today will be a reflective day, i can just tell.

Request For Communal Expertise

if anyone's out there reading, i'd be grateful for:

(a) tips on what to do on a week-long trip to rome
(b) that-hallmark-holiday-in-february gift ideas for a gregarious, sporty, itinerant, preppy boy, from a girl who thinks the usual array of store-bought stuff (pens, ties, even hiking gear) for guys is totally boring. (if the boy in question is reading, and feels so inclined, he can make suggestions, too!)
(c) suggestions on how to file away stacks and stacks of printed-out articles/readings in an aesthetic yet useful fashion. i'd like to avoid filing cabinets, if at all possible, which is to say that hanging folders on a frame, magazine boxes, and the like would be much more up my alley.

email [simphonatic at gmail dot com] or leave comments.

Two Oversized Ironies Of Finals Week

i'm writing papers on madness and hell.

Nuclear Meltdown Alert

don't talk to me unless i talk to you.

seriously. just don't.

unless you are prepared for a barrage of some of the most disturbing and life-changing (yet profoundly eloquent, because i'm in graduate school after all) musings i've ever had.


(blog comments are still welcome.)

In...

. . . the closet: my imac box, an air mattress that doesn't inflate, and laundry that needs to be folded (stat).
. . . my travels: a trip to new castle, a trip to new york, a trip to old boston, and a wending of my way home.
. . . my piggy bank: numerous quarters, a couple of stray nickels and pennies, and three checks, each for a significant amount of money, from rare book school that (due to complications and logistical irresponsibility) i haven't banked yet.
. . . my bad books: mousies.
. . . my head: derri-damn-he-just-won't-go-away! (and barbara johnson, the "flippin' genius" who clarified some of his key terms for me in her brilliant introduction to dissemination.) god help me if i become a deconstructionist instead of a formal literary historian.
. . . my heart: sandy, my awesome cohort (raf, ash, tekla, dave, rachel, chris, kara, claire, katie, jon, phil, beth, lucia), and my brother.
. . . my bag: library books, wallet, ipod, water bottle, pens/pencils, readings, and part of one of the tines of the plastic fork with which i ate lunch today.
. . . bigtime trouble: if i don't get the reading done for tomorrow.

(expanded from koo's meme, at <http://chapatikid.blogspot.com/2007/10/in.html>)

Ever Get The Sense...

that this is the first day of the rest of your life?

today, i have that sense.

the sunrise was especially beautiful. i'm grateful i was up to see it, jetlag be damned. hello, philadelphia!

Preparing To Leave

is far more intense than leaving itself (which latter involves walking out the door, hugging rosy, letting the liftman handle your luggage, turning the music in the car way up, and not looking back).

this time around it has brought dinners, lunches, endless cab and bus rides, gmail chat and facebook and email ad infinitum, coffees, last-minute errands like new glasses and backing up data, switching phone lines in advance so that you're wired when you get there, constant to-do-listing, inevitable phone tag with people you want to talk to, a cough and cold of the deflating/debilitating sort you haven't had in years, not much reading, not much family time, not much rest. the constant checking of your ticket to make sure you're flying when you think you are. also: distancing yourself from the right people, and the unsettling feeling that whatever you're doing right now you're doing for the last time in a while.

in the more immediate sense, it means realizing you have way too much jewellery (and how the heck did you fit it all in when you came back last september?) because it takes 25 minutes to pack it all, and hunting frantically for the chess set you got for your birthday last year that sat on a shelf for months, boxed and waiting to be lovingly stared at again one day in good company, and now suddenly cannot be found.

i'll only sleep well on the plane now.

*ah-chhhhooo!!*

... Who's Roger?!

"welcome back to the game."

also, and more importantly: the cave, who's on first, integrals, arcade fire/bjork/crowded house, tiny bubbles, c&o, the ugliest sofa in the world, popped collars, hello mr. presumptuous, martin luther, photo booth...

someone owes me some quiche, too.

(if this reads like gibberish, it's because the whole damn thing doesn't make any sense. and yet... so good!)

A Cloud On The New York Skyline

well, actually, today there aren't any (literal clouds, that is) -- and i can attest to that authoritatively because i am sitting sealed in on the 32nd floor, capable of seeing over the roofs of pretty much every building for the next 10 or so blocks uptown and the next 5 or so cross-town.

but my new york landscape is changing more quickly than ever before, and it ain't never going to be the same again. see, mel-lo left years ago. luis and jackie have slowly faded into the background. xan i last saw after she broke up with dan (ancient history now, i imagine). but gaurang, kunal, udayan, diksha and gautam have left over the last year. soon bani and nishad will leave. rhea will presumably make a new home in the next six months. michael and tarini are here for the summer, but how long will that last? and amit and amrita, too, are in transition.

sure, caitlin might be here... but she's a part of my boston past now, i guess. tina and sushil are probably still here, but i haven't spoken to them in a long while. (sway will stay, as might devang -- but i hardly ever see them anyway!) and i still can't call jack.

but anoushka will move here in the fall. and lindsey, bethie and aditi will stay -- and i suspect they, along with daniel and the faithful LIRR and the suburbs (like stamford and paramus), will be fragmented consolation on increasingly-intermittent visits.

i will still love new york, but abhi, under the street but above the subway on 49th street, was right: life here is too damn fast.

Pieces Of Eight

the "eight random things about you" meme has been floating around for the last little while... and it makes sense that this round seems to be the province of book people, too; only librarians and other varieties of bibliophiles could conceivably concern themselves with digging up and digesting this degree of personal trivia.

well, here goes.

1. i've been a calligrapher for about 12 years now -- half my life. if you asked me what hand i most preferred, i'd vacillate between italic and gothic, but my heart really belongs to copperplate, for which my pumpkin nib is perfect but at which i'm not as proficient as i'd like to be.
2. my favourite kind of flower is the gerbera daisy.
3. countries i currently want to travel to: egypt, greece, turkey, italy, peru, australia, the maldives.
4. i have 10 piercings (7 in my right ear, 1 in my left, nose, navel). next up: a tattoo.
5. i am obsessed with the new york times's real estate and weddings sections. what can i say; all those heart-warming stories about people finding beautiful rent-controlled apartments (and equivalent soulmates) make for addictive reading! (i can't remember where i found the following website, but this couple's story, although not narrated in as much detail as i would have liked, mixes the two genres, and therefore takes the cake: <http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/9-month-cure/index>)
6. one of my guiltiest shopping pleasures (which i think proves that i am not really that high maintenance) is buying fruity-smelling shampoo. my sense of self depends on few things more than it depends on the way my hair smells when i randomly get whiffs of it on the wind while whipping busily around at work. for years i used generic crap by revlon (oh, right, it was called flex. ugh.) but then i finally invested in some orange-scented stuff by suave. i can't remember what came after that (it was junior/senior year of college, which is a total sensory haze)... until i discovered herbal essences. fruity goodness in all colours of the rainbow! w00t! and then, a few months ago, courtesy of royal chemists near liberty cinema, camellia, chamomile and hot tea. not so much fruity as... clean and classy, but clairol and therefore damn good. last week, though, came the pièce de résistance: i was poking around at the local on my way to my daily swim, and saw the curviest, prettiest pink snap-top bottles -- body envy volumizing shampoo and conditioner, with a fusion of white nectarine and pink coral flower. "do i want to feel uplifted?" hell yeah! (my only disappointment? yellow liquid in pink bottles. what the bleep is that?) (yes, i am a cross between a ditzy teenager and a stern anti-blatant-false-advertising biznatch. deal.) but whatevs, all is forgiven, for the glorious smell, and since they even come with trivia on the bottles for when i'm shampooing away earnestly and need on-the-fly reading material! yummy.
7. i prefer silver/platinum/titanium jewellery to gold/diamond bling.
8. i could totally subsist on noodles (maggi/ramen, flat rice noodles, udon, soba, glass noodles... not to mention dishes like mee goreng, hakka, pad thai...) and veggies. basically, if it has a slurp factor, and mushrooms, i can eat it.

i like how this list randomly ended up being all about the good things in life. i must be happy.

(last time it was five rather more intense things -- see <http://simran.nomadlife.org/2007/01/five-things-you-dont-know-about-me.aspx> for a total of 13 factoids!)

The New "It" Meme

everyone on facebook for some reason suddenly seems to be involved in finding out how, if he or she were a word, he or she would be defined in the dictionary.

so i, dutiful facebooker that i am, went to the quiz, at <http://www.quizgalaxy.com/quiz_83.html>, typed in my full name, and pressed the enticing, rather excited little "find out!" button.

it told me i am "a dance involving little to no clothing".

which sounded great, until i decided to experiment with the sanctity of the definition by pressing the back button and clicking "find out!" again.

this time i was "a person who falls into an outhouse and dies".

not so hot, because one of my friends has already been defined like that. it makes me sad to think that memes have finite sets of possible answers. i want a unique unnecessarily-sexed-up self-definition, thank you very much.

Lunar Clips

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?

Take the Test to Find Out.

Word Of The Day

dishabille (dɪsə'biːl, -'bɪl):

the state of being in undress. reflective of the fact that summer is here!


the un-word of the day, for udayan's etymological edification:

irregardless:

Chiefly N. Amer.

In non-standard or humorous use: regardless.

1912 in WENTWORTH Amer. Dial. Dict. 1923 Lit. Digest 17 Feb. 76 Is there such a word as irregardless in the English language? 1934 in WEBSTER (labelled Erron. or Humorous, U.S.). 1938 I. KUHN Assigned to Adventure xxx. 310, I made a grand entrance and suffered immediate and complete obliteration, except on the pay-roll, which functioned automatically to present me with a three-figure cheque every week, ‘irregardless’, as Hollywood says. 1939 C. MORLEY Kitty Foyle xxvii. 267 But she can take things in her stride, irregardless what's happened. 1955 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. XXIV. 19, I don't think like other people do and irregardless of how much or how little dope would cost me [etc.]. 1970 Current Trends in Linguistics X. 590 She tells the pastor that he should please quit using the word ‘irregardless’ in his sermons as there is no such word. 1971 M. MCSHANE Man who left Well Enough iv. 96 The sun poured down on Purity irregardless of the fact that it received no welcome.

the fact that it exists in the dictionary does not mean it's correct usage. get with the program.

CityLurve: New York (Redux)

you know, i already did a citylurve on new york (at <http://simran.nomadlife.org/2006/09/citylurve-new-york.aspx>), but somehow i can't imagine this sort of list -- courtesy weekend in new york and the NYT -- making sense if created with any other city in mind. so you'll have to forgive me the duplication.

anyone care to go on this hunt when i'm in nyc at the end of the month?

Point and Shoot for Bonus Points

ONE reason people visit New York is to catch a glimpse of things they’d never see in the average American city. Some such sights are mystifying, some charming, some jaw-dropping — and some are even legal.

Did you find the worst bagel spread combination? A bad parallel parking job? We want to see what you caught on film.

This week, Weekend in New York offers a photo scavenger hunt, in which you (working alone or in a group) seek out scenes and objects intrinsically New York and capture them with your camera. The hunt could be the centerpiece of your weekend, but also could serve as just a way to enhance your downtime as you wander from restaurant to park to museum, observing the natives in their natural habitat.

If competing against others, award two points to the team that does the best in each category, and one point to anyone coming in a reasonably close second. Or, if you’re playing alone, just award a whole bunch of points to your own team and declare yourself the winner.

FOOD

Biggest crowd waiting for a brunch table: Sociologists are unable to explain it, so why should you even try? New Yorkers like to wait — arms crossed and toes tapping, of course — as long as possible for their first meal on Sunday. To qualify, those waiting must be huddled on the sidewalk.

Worst bagel/cream cheese or spread combo: Blueberry bagel with olive tofu spread? You can do better (worse) than that. Either a photo of the offending sandwich or, if you don’t dare order it, separate photos of the elements qualify.

Most expensive pizza slice — cheese only: The price of a slice of plain old cheese pizza is always creeping up. What’s the highest you can find? (Hint: $2 probably won’t win.)

Most expensive slice, no toppings barred: Add chicken or basil or bacon or artichokes or gold leaf, and watch the price take off like a pickpocket being chased in the subway.

Most unusual-looking fruit or vegetable for sale: If it can get through customs, it’s somewhere in this city.

BUSINESS

The A.T.M. charging you the most outrageous amount for a withdrawal: $2 minimum.

Most newspaper/magazine dispensers on one street corner: They’re often chained together, and the ones with things you’d actually want to read are empty or require your pockets to be jingle-jangle-jingling with quarters.

Most out-of-town and/or foreign language newspapers at one newsstand: In some parts of town, you’d think fans of Le Monde and La Gazzetta dello Sport and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had never heard of the Internet.

Cheesiest Statue of Liberty-related tourist souvenir.

Multiple Starbucks in one picture: Two, certainly; three is a challenge.

TRANSPORTATION

Best parallel parking job: The city’s drivers know that if a parking space is an inch longer than their car, they can ooze in. Be sure to photograph both the front and back ends.

Vehicle with multiple parking tickets: The easy-to-spot orange envelopes should be on the windshield or clearly visible inside the car. Old tickets that truck drivers place to avoid reticketing are valid, as are tickets ripped apart in rage.

Most yellow cabs in one photo: No fair taking an aerial shot from the top of the Empire State Building.

LIVING CREATURES

Most unlikely companions: Some New York restaurants specialize in unusual wine and food pairings, but the entire city specializes in unusual people pairings. Is that fashionable babe really dating that pitiful slob? Is that silver-haired guy about three times that woman’s age? Is that a rabbi necking with a Senegalese hair stylist? (100 points for the last one.)

Best-dressed dog: And by that, we mean worst-dressed dog.

Most dogs with one human: In New York, money buys anything, including the guy or gal who comes to your house, picks up your dog and drags it and a bunch of others to the park. Absolute minimum: four dogs.

Pedestrian triple-tasking: Someone doing at least three things at once, one of which is walking down the street — plus eating and talking on cellphone; listening to iPod and reading magazine; or knitting and screaming at friend.

Pedestrian stupid-tasking. Someone who is text-messaging while crossing a hyper-busy street, something that could soon be illegal in New York City.

Picture of a celebrity on the street: Trick question! In New York you’re supposed to ignore celebrities. Minus 20 points.

Someone using a pay phone: Not too common these days; even less common, two people using adjacent pay phones (double points).

A traffic police officer smiling: It’s a tough life giving out tickets to the roughly seven million cars that are breaking parking laws at any one time. Subjected to nasty looks and verbal lashings, these officers don’t have much to smile about.

Anyone wearing George W. Bush paraphernalia (hat, T-shirt, full body tattoo): Manhattan voted 82 percent to 17 percent for John Kerry over Mr. Bush in 2004. The word on the street is that the president’s popularity has not increased.

NONEDIBLE INANIMATE OBJECTS

Public advertisements or notices in languages other than English: one point for each language. Spanish is a freebie, kind of like the space in the middle of a bingo card. (Starting clue: Check out the signs about being in one of the first five cars on the No. 1 train to South Ferry.)

Most amusing spelling or translation error: Combine immigrant store owners with immigrant sign makers and what do you get? An entrepreneurial spirit that keeps the city’s economic engine humming? Yeah, sure, but also errors terrible enough to drive language sticklers insane.

Most monstrous baby stroller: It’s not that strollers aren’t monstrous everywhere, but here the sidewalks, store aisles and bystander tolerance are narrower.

Most unusual piece of refuse: A city that collects the strangest things also discards the strangest things, and they don’t all fit in a trash bag.

Most intellectual book being read in public: O.K., or perhaps just used as a prop to attract a Ms. or Mr. Right prone to lugging around a copy of “Gravity’s Rainbow.” If you hear someone say, “Oh, you’re into Kierkegaard” — whirl, point and shoot.

Tick Tick Tick

by december 20 i shall be done with grad school applications. after which? worry, bite nails, travel to out-of-town weddings, party like it's 2007, attend in-town weddings, wait, relax, worry, enjoy life, worry a bit less, grow nails, see a bit of india, wait, get new passport, hopefully travel abroad, wait.

update, tuesday, december 05, 2006:

have reevaluated situation; estimated date of completion now december 15. w00t.

update 2, saturday, december 16, 2006:

upon re-reevaluation (and the need to get out of the house instead of atrophying in front of the computer), have adjusted submission date back to december 20. it's less inhuman. and anyway, all i have left is one online app (an SOP, a short diversity essay, and a 15-page writing sample), plus one paper packet with an 8-page paper and a 17-page paper (the latter of which is done except for proofing) and another paper packet with a 15-page paper (which is also done except for proofing). after that: par-tay.

On Keeping A Journal

some of susan sontag's stuff about self was just in the NYT, apparently my only source of good literature these days:

Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one’s private, secret thoughts — like a confidante who is deaf, dumb and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.

The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather — in many cases — offers an alternative to it.

There is often a contradiction between the meaning of our actions toward a person and what we say we feel toward that person in a journal. But this does not mean that what we do is shallow, and only what we confess to ourselves is deep. Confessions, I mean sincere confessions of course, can be more shallow than actions. I am thinking now of what I read today (when I went up to 122 Bd. St-G to check for her mail) in H’s journal about me — that curt, unfair, uncharitable assessment of me which concludes by her saying that she really doesn’t like me but my passion for her is acceptable and opportune. God knows it hurts, and I feel indignant and humiliated. We rarely do know what people think of us (or, rather, think they think of us)... Do I feel guilty about reading what was not intended for my eyes? No. One of the main (social) functions of a journal or diary is precisely to be read furtively by other people, the people (like parents + lovers) about whom one has been cruelly honest only in the journal. Will H. ever read this?

i enjoyed reading the diary of a young girl, zlata's diary, et al in my supposedly-angsty early teens. but i always wondered whether these girls -- and other diarists -- knew that what they were writing would someday become fodder for the masses. (and it is fodder -- look how people gobble up the unutterably dry prose of franz kafka, for instance, to find the rare gem! everyone's a voyeur.) how embarrassing it might have been for anne frank to find out that her nascent love affair with peter van pels was being discussed in umpteen sixth-standard classrooms... or how flattering. who knows? perhaps everyone's an exhibitionist -- else how could you explain the burgeoning autobiographical genre section in any self-respecting bookstore?

me, i always wanted my real thoughts (defined separately from random public blog entries, which are thoughtfully composed but never as significant) to be kept as intensely private as possible. i always let on that my diaries existed, and have even shared snippets of them with certain people. but noone gets the whole thing. some things i don't even write down!

are diaries really supposed to be read, though? (especially if they're on paper, in one of those little archies autographbooks/diaries/journals that come with a lock and key?) and by whom: just anyone or only those people who matter?

in fact, let's assume for a second that it's only you reading your own work. if so, then why say in writing what you can safely say to yourself in your head and never have found out by anyone else? or write -- and then destroy it! why the big need for florid philosophizing and dark revelations, if you know there might be people who want to read (and possibly publish) your innermost thoughts? god, even love letters get published, and sonnets that possibly reveal homoerotic tendencies in their famous authors... it's quite terrifying, even if some of these people are talented and their works a good addition to the english canon!

(i'll allow that you might want to re-read your words... but gosh, i hardly do; in fact, i mostly cringe when i go back to old writing!)

also, if you address yourself to a fictional reader, are you not supposing the presence of an "other" at the receiving end of all your ponderings? is it not you inflicting your mental wanderings on some inanimate object that's compelled to "listen" to your issues, even if without offering advice?

is there such a thing as totally private writing, just for the self?

(all this is not to deny that by purging your writing -- deleting email, tearing up a diary, erasing a word document -- or by not writing at all, you are erasing (or never creating) a most honest record of your thoughts, reactions, and feelings... it's just to consider that perhaps if you write at all, you inevitably risk being read. or perhaps you anticipate it. whatever happened to wanting privacy? hello, facebook "notes" and status updates and mini-feeds...)

i wonder what susan sontag would have had to say about blogs. essentially public journals that can be uncomfortably intimate -- often without meaning to be or knowing that they are, often with the precise intention of being so.

The coming of the orgasm has changed my life. I am liberated, but that’s not the way to say it. More important: it has narrowed me, it has closed off possibilities, it has made the alternatives clear and sharp. I am no longer unlimited, i.e. nothing.

Sexuality is the paradigm. Before, my sexuality was horizontal, an infinite line capable of being infinitely subdivided. Now it is vertical; it is up and over, or nothing.

. . .

The orgasm focuses. I lust to write. The coming of the orgasm is not the salvation but, more, the birth of my ego. I cannot write until I find my ego. The only kind of writer I could be is the kind who exposes himself.. . .To write is to spend oneself, to gamble oneself. But up to now I have not even liked the sound of my own name. To write, I must love my name. The writer is in love with himself. . .and makes his books out of that meeting and that violence.

uhmm. writing like creation of self. writing like exploring sexuality. interesting. personally, i continue to write, but i would like the satisfaction that i get to keep to myself all the things i really want to; for the rest... well, you can post in the comments section, so quite evidently you're privy to it!

Out Of The Closet

... and not sure what to say.

hello, world!