Undead

Best day I've had in a long time. 

Finally got to watch Zombieland. I was a skeptic, I'll admit. I wouldn't have even looked twice at the movie if Aymara hadn't brought it home. I had no idea that a zombie movie could be so . . . Heartwarming? And absolutely hilarious. I mean, it had Bill Murray, for heaven's sake! Bill Murray! 

I've never thought of zombies as particularly frightening. I mean, being undead and all, I assumed their reflexes would be slowed, and that the only way you were really in danger is if you were cornered by a whole horde. Not so. They're actually wicked fast and super mean, at least in this instance. Given, the Zombieland zombies aren't classic "back from the grave" beasties - they're actually just normal people who got infected by some sort of new strain of mad cow disease. Completely ordinary bleeding-from-the-eyes, black-bile-vomiting, human-flesh-shredding people.  That means that when you put 'em to sleep, they're going down for the first time, so they're easier to kill than the traditional zombie. And quicker kills means extra time for - you guessed it - more kills. Kind of gory, consequently, but the super-explicit parts were easy to see coming (and thus easy to avoid watching in their entirety).

All told, a fairly believable romance, a cute discovery of friendship, and one terrifying clown zombie that was almost too much for me (Coulrophobia, anyone?). Quite an enjoyable flick, on the whole.

Deathdream, you're next. 

Spitze!

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

Yes, and this along with it:

I really like this video. Jack White, I appreciate your brilliance. I bask in it. 

Itinerary

Saturday, February the 20th

1:15 am - Agree with roommate upon a 9:00 am departure time. To bed.

8:02 am - Wake up. Shower (without much appreciation for the miracles of hot running water). Dress. Load backpack, search for route. 

9:00 am - Notice that roommate has still not come out from her room. Eat a Nutrigrain. Feel GREAT. Contemplate having 500 babies. 

9:28 am - Give up on roommate. Depart alone.

10:40 am - Having made it through the first part of the canyon, become dismayed that the road is closed to cars. Decide that Three Forks Trailhead cannot be too far away, and begin walking.

12:00 pm - Arrive at trailhead. Realize that it is actually about 5 miles from road close location. Continue on trail.

12:28 pm - Arrive at hot springs. Find a lovely warm pool. Strip down to swimsuit (ask self if having a two-piece means sub-par mormon status; decide not to care, as two-pieces are much more sensible). Bask in the weightless sensation that the water provides. Consider skinny dipping. Decide against it. Daydream about old Chem labs and their similar sulfur smell. 

1:03 pm - Lunch: two handfuls of dry Apple Jacks. Mmm. Remember that work begins at 4:30. Towel off. Get dressed. Begin trek back.

1:15 pm - Think about Thoreau's Walden. Contemplate the problems associated with living in a 6' railroad box. Wonder if next pair of clothes ought to be handmade. Remember lack of equipment and knowhow. 

1:26 pm - Think about Whitman. Overcome desire to roll in mud. 

1:32 pm - Think about Margaret Fuller and all manners of Transcendentalism. Wonder about Heavenly Mother. Wonder about relationships. Wonder about intellectual communion. 

2:00 pm - Rejoice in the feeling of movement and use. Decide that the phrase, "loamy soil" is oddly sexy. 

2:15 pm - Try to discover the question to life, the universe, and everything. Agree with Arthur that it is probably, "How many roads must a man walk down?" Worry about the state of the world. Wonder how on earth a person can become so far removed from themselves that they can do violence to another. 

2:27 pm - Curse self for forgetting sunscreen. 

2:40 pm - Reunite with Claude. Realize that total hiking distance was an estimated 15 miles. Start drive home.

3:30 pm - Shower (with MUCH appreciation for hot running water)

3:50 pm - Pass out on bed. 

4:25 pm - Wake from fitful half-sleep to Paul McCartney mourning Eleanor Rigby. Stumble into clothes. To work.

5:00 pm - Angsty Footloose dancing. 

6:30 pm - Realize the intense hunger that is searing belly. Attempt to make a pizza, but find no time. 

7:17 pm - Advise Cam on the proper method of knife threatening; walk right into dirty-joke setup ("Here, it'll just be in and out, real quick." "That's what she said.").

8:00 pm - Rocky Horror Picture Show. Wish for rice to throw during wedding scene. Time Warp. 

9:07 pm - Finally make veggie pizza. Eat a quarter of said pizza. Remember why Rocky Horror Picture Show is not in movie collection. 

10:30 pm - Home at last. 

11:00 pm - Coin word "itinerize." Itinerize day.  Eat weird bean-paste ball offered by roommate. 

11:25 pm - Fear for aching legs and feet tomorrow morning. To bed.

Wayward

I postulate that we do naught but oscillate until we osculate. Or suffocate, I suppose. Whichever happens first. But 'til then, we keep walking the fine line between ins and exes. Our lives and interactions center on one choice: Sex or Sanity - that is, Love or Logic?

And somehow, paradoxically, one cannot exist without the other; not entirely. Without love of something, be it selves, sciences, spouses, souls, then what air has logic to breathe? And in the absence of logic, love knows not even itself.

So, the solution? To live continually in that marvelous moment of sweet-on-tongue ecstasy, in which the cake is more yours than ever it was on plate - at the very instant you eat. A continual existence at these moments is impossible; but to live always in them is feasible.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line - but life is not that short. We ebb and flow in emulation of that great ocean of Mother-tears and Mother-essence from whence we all came. We feel in sound as much as in silence, for silence, too, is a symbol. We rise and fall, but always with a brief respite at some intangible zero between our peak and our depression, holding momentarily to the everything and nothing of our memories. We stand here, in our grounded limbo, with dreams of our deepest depths, and hopes for our highest heights. In these sacred moments (or, for the wiser being, "In the mindset of these sacred moments,") is communion possible. The only thing left, then, is to seek out those willing and able to enter ethereality with us.

We mustn't forget that every being has the potential to commune with us - indeed, we are all extensions of divinity, living with a common core. We rose from dirt, from our Mother Earth. The makeup of our blood, our sweat, our spittle - it's all the same: Protons, Neutrons, Electrons - infinitely divisible if we but recollected the power. Thus is Hate the most irrational emotion; if there is anything in this world we love, the we can do nothing so logical as to love all. That which we claim to adore is built of the same stuff as what we detest. Hatred is merely a failure to remember this.

Then there are those that we remember more than others - those with whom we share heart-beat and heart-melody. Perhaps it is that a million years ago, one core particle of each of our respective beings dwelt together in one drop of angry animal blood. We remember the wild electricity in breaths of sensual oneirism. It takes no effort to recollect what we were, or might have been.

And so, as it has been for as long as the world can remember, we love to talk and long to touch. Ever will it be until the ultimate day when all transcend all and, uninhibited, we recognize our completion.

Cruelty

1 AM, and my sleep schedule is once again off. I feel like this particular moment would be one of those, "Oh eff," sort of moments, had not these moments become so frequent in the past few weeks that they've lost their effect. Woe, woe is me - but not to an extreme degree. Woe is unbecoming.

My brain has been going in hyper-speed lately. I don't know why. And even though my fingers tick across the keys as fast as possible, it seems only a ticking of seconds - time trickling away so much quicker and taking all semblances of reason along. So I'm left with tired fingers that can't dance anymore, and a page of breaths that sang yesterday and weep tonight.

Isn't it funny when the sky reflects your mood? Sickly hollow, and hollowing; I'm snakeskin and thistles.

But . . . The original purpose of this post . . . It's a song I love.

I love.

Huckabees

In my Writing About Literature class we've been discussing (though not in any great depth) Literary Theory. Our Theory book (Culler's Literary Theory, a Very Short Introduction) has focused on two particular Theorists thus far - Foucault and Derrida. Foucault has some interesting stuff to be sure, but Derrida's ideas really piqued my curiosity.

Derrida focused a decent part of his energy on examining the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau, in his novel The Confessions, puts forth an idea about signs: he accepts them, essentially, as substitutes. And, in accordance with traditional theory, the sign is supposed to make itself as transparent as possible to allow the most accurate view of the actual thing it's standing in for (Keats' "camelion" poet and Negative Capability sound familiar?). Rousseau makes his point by referring to the Freudian relationship he had with his caretaker; he thinks of nothing but this woman, and everything around him has some connection to her. Derrida points out a flaw in this method of thought, however, in referencing one particular instance when, in the presence of his "maman," the young Rousseau steals a bite of food that had been in her mouth. Thus, even when the alleged "being" is present, a sign is still necessary to access it. He goes on to say that even if Rousseau were to actually possess the woman, it would only be a possession of the act - another sign of her.

Derrida's conclusion is simply this: nothing has an actual identity. Or rather, the identity lies in the intermediates. All things are actualized by their signs, which, in turn, are merely signs for thought or feeling, which are signs for the being doing the thinking or feeling, which is a sign for the concept that someone else has of said being, usw.

So, if everything is nothing, and nothing can be anything, then everything can be anything, and you've got a start on Deconstructionism. I'm still undecided on how I feel about that. On the one hand, I love the idea that everything (on some level) can be the same, because we're all signs representing one another - or at least representing what someone else might be. It's very equalizing. But on the other hand, something in me screams out against such ambiguity. It might just be that ol' divine potential acting up again, but I find order a lot more appealing than chaos. [Note to self: post musings on ambiguity in self-concept, relationships &c].

I appreciate Derrida for offering some sort of identity concept, and definitely for providing a veritable Vegas-style buffet for thought, but if he's got it right (and I'm a little terrified that he might), the adjustment period is gonna be kinda rough.

Freude

Wie tanzt mein Herz? Wie ein Reh, das jung und wild ist. Es läuft, es springt, es rührt meine Seele.

Ich träume zwischen Sterne.

Komm, sei mit mir. Wir werden Geheimnisse flüstern und Schmetterlinge zähmen. Wasserfälle werden für uns singen. Die Bäume werden mit uns lachen.

Das ist meine Welt.

Kannst du sie sehen?

Number 9

I want a revolution.

Well, you know, we all wanna change the world.

Peace Corps!

Tengo que practicar el español.

Erin Brokovich = Love.

Mattress bouncing and sharing tie-dye blankets with Nate = also Love.

Gigantic sugar cookies are so cool.

Disco night at Classic Skating?

All told, this week has been fairly gear. Now I must away to "forests ancient as the hills, / Enfolding sunny spots of greenery."

Be well, all.

Love and Peace,

Tana