Going on a Dig (And Other Oddments)

Dear Simone–

Things That I Wrote Recently (ALL STILL IN PROGRESS):

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Welcome to the froth and destruction of springtime, when buds burst all sun-greedy and palpishly pink from the ends of the all-withstanding branches of the young trees. This is the time when things that squirm are called from their earthy havens, when hordes of eager canker worms crawl over the bodies of their dead compatriots to reach the live-giving boughs of the victim oak.
(Words to use as work continues on this piece: unfurling, green, renewal, devoured, twigish)

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she wrote in blue because
she insisted
blue was the color of dreaming things
things submerged, things surfacing
from the drown-out chaos of the mind

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Sit Spitting seeds into the grass
Like spitting dry dirt into clay
Weathered, brown and chewed with time
Now fresh and firm, yet bound
To burst, cracking along invisible lines

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Hello, babe. So this week has been a roller coaster. After a loaded day for exams (Monday was brutal) I basically was out of commission for the rest of the week until today, when it all kicked back into high gear. I played several hours of DDR on Monday night because I couldn't bear the thought of thinking. Mercifully for me (but not so good for him) my Islam and Modernity professor had a sinus infection that caused him to cancel class on Tuesday (it must have been serious if he canceled class–his dedication to giving us the education we should be demanding is one of the reasons I respect Professor Safi so much aside from his brilliance and wonderfully snarky sense of humor). So instead I caught the 11:00 NU bus with Duncan to go and get our friend Kelsey's car. To sum up Kelsey: she keeps a real, functioning sword in her trunk, and I mean a battle-ready sword, not some delicate little fencing foil. From there the three of us went up to Carrboro and (two outdoors shops, one hardware store, one Co-Op, one grocery store and one restaurant lunch later, with a swing through an ornithology store for kicks and giggles) returned to campus with the rest of the gear we had to pick up for our upcoming paleontology trip. The pick axes were probably the greatest source of the strange stares we received. I spent most of the rest of my day ferrying some things to Kate's house for safe-keeping over spring break. Fortunately for ease of transit, I'd found Sienna a few days earlier out by the Student Union (Sienna is my darling Trek bike who I have had since I was ten and who I had recently loaned to a friend). I did so little this week–much sleep was had and focus scarcely showed its face in most of my classes. I didn't really do much adventuring this week, though in a haze of studying madness and with my own solid belief in the goodness of regular purges/destruction of useless/too-well-loved-and-not-sufficiently-deserving things, I deleted my fBook account. You know how to reach me if you need to, and I'm now checking my emails as often as I checked fBook, only without the extra (inevitable) distractions that fBook surrounds you with every time you sign on. Thanks to Apple's Mail program, I can check my school, fun, and alter-ego emails all in one go. It's pretty great. :)

Today was a little different–exams behind me and only one class on the horizon, today was spent walking around campus (so beautiful) and preparing for the paleontology dig that I'm leaving for tomorrow (a little in-dorm improvisational dancing may have fallen in there somewhere too). We are going to leave at 2 in the afternoon and after going up to Kentucky for a little digging, we are carrying on up to Indiana. Tuesday will be dominated by a drive from mid-Indiana to south Florida! Yay? :) We will finish off with a site that we will have to paddle the Alabama River to reach. And then we will return to Chapel Hill, where we will do one final dig on Saturday (I think). I'm super excited, and I'm also proud of how lightly I have been able to pack. One book bag with my clothes and books/smaller equipment cannily slotted in, one sleeping bag, one pillow, one pick axe, and one week of camping fun? Yes, please. Also here's a fun image: I'm borrowing Duncan's hiking boots (since the professor only told us two days ago that we actually would need to have them to get into two of the quarries–this after a semester of writing hiking boots off as non-required). His feet are several sizes larger than my own pointe-shoe-victims, so I'll be wearing thick socks with them and will either look like a total nerd or a bad ass video game character. It'll be great. :D

I took a whole bunch of my artwork and covered a big blank space on my wall with it. I am quite pleased with the effect.

Speaking of artwork, one of my friends (Jack) is starting a campaign similar to my Blue Sharpie campaign around UNC Charlotte's campus. He has left an introductory post in the UNCC library, one that nodded its head to a post of mine. My original read: " 'Coffee' will always mean snogging with you in Freedom Park, after hours, just for the hell of it," but Jack's rendition was a little different. He has yet to create an email to go with his version of the project, and he's still hammering out the details of his identity, but he is totally going through with it. It's flattering, and it gives me hope that such acts really do make a difference in the world. My faith in the high value of reaching out to strangers with all the absurdity and surreality one can muster has always been strong (c.f. my adoration for the movie Amélie), but recently I've been struggling with a lot of things, including (so very sadly) that belief. Jack fills me with the kind of hope that stops sad, weary, and desperate people from doing heartbreaking things. I have wonderful friends.

Speaking of friends, my dear friend George might have a gal pal shortly. I am excited for him. He's been saying that nothing brings him emotion recently, but there is a spark for this girl and it seems to be returned. Fingers crossed.

One more thing I wrote, which I wrote when inspiration struck me this morning in response to recent events. I'm quite please with how it turned out, though there is a possible edge of bitterness that I would love to get completely out (since that is not the tone which I meant to put into this piece):

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When you see the bird that I drew
Do you think of her?
The one who tiptoes about
Flitting lightly as I
Used to do
Back in the days when I was a dancer.

Does it make you think
of her? The arching neck, curving gracefully
as the long necks of birds do
bringing her lips closer to your own
shoulder, her nose touching
your neck. She studies them
while you laugh
In delight over her shoulder,
Your nose and breath on her
warm human neck,
At things that you know little
And would think little about
Were it not for her love
Fueling an increased
And increasing fascination.

How many oddities
And things have you learned
From the girls you once loved?
The ice skater
The puppeteer
The dancer
And all those flickering interests
In between?
And how many of those learned things,
With your nose and your tickling
spearmint breath,
Did you once whisper into my ear?

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Today's coffee count? 6 cups within two or three hours of the afternoon. Biology homework flew by in a blur of unnaturally fast reading aloud.

So now, since it is going to be a while before I get to post again (not for another week at least!):

LINKS OF THE DAY (WEEK. WHATEVER.) :)

Songs that have been stuck in my head and on my play lists recently. And a few more recent favorites.

Another song I love, as well as a clip from a youth company based in the Midwest U.S. that I am totally obsessed with (you should check out more of their stuff–here's are my two other favorite pieces, both of which are also set to songs that I have come to adore).

An artist that I like a lot. He does large scale works (sometimes up to 9x9 feet) and tries to capture a sort of terrifying but beautiful quality in today's large-scale urban wastes. My favorites among his work are mostly in his ship breaking project (such stark landscapes, oddly colorful). You can watch a documentary about him too if you want–that's how I found him, through a film class I took in high school with my favorite teacher ever.

Like birds? Here are some geese. And many ducks to spare.

Russian street artists? The story surrounding this is actually pretty cool as a whole.

Did you know that I am addicted to sudoku? Or was. Until college hit. Stupid work ethic. ;)

A video that is almost impossible to not watch. The site that sells the beer boot (Vat 19) has some other entertaining ads if you feel like poking around and this sense of humor appeals to you. They have a variety of different styles of commercial, and their products are total oddities.

This pleases me. I like a museum that can roll with life's little absurdities.

How many of your childhood artworks do you have lying around? What do they do for you that makes them worth keeping (as opposed to, say, taking a quick trip to the bin de recyclage)?

A serious topic, but one that won't be unfamiliar to you. I liked this interview that we listened to for my basic biology class, so here it is. It takes about half an hour if you want to sit through the recording, but you can probably read the transcript faster if you are so inclined. I am definitely pro-stem cell research, for the record.

A poem that a friend recently gave me, saying that it reminded him of me (a thought that disconcerts me). As it happens, one of my all-time favorite poems was also written by John Ashbery. I actually recorded a song that I am passably proud of on the GarageBand program on my laptop which makes use of the text of "The Ecclesiast" as a background to other sounds. Very postmodern music (ha, whatever that means).

Back to Russian people: they're insane. Roofing is something that I can understand, but this takes it to a whole extra level. Still, given the opportunity to do this, I would probably be able to get myself to say yes (and I would certainly be itching to try it, if primal fear weren't in the way).

I follow several web comics, so I will start sending a few your way. Tell me what you think, because I follow a variety of them with different doses of reality, highly variable plot lines, and each their own sense of humor. This one is called Skin Horse and updates (mercifully without fail) every day. If you go to the archive you can start from the beginning. As with all web comics, the art improves as it goes.

I have a snippet of French to do and then some sleep to catch. It is 3 AM and tomorrow's gonna be one helluva busy day. Biology, a speaker on slang in the English language and preparation/departure for the dig await. Tomorrow night: Kentucky!

I will write when I get back home! (To the Hill, that is.) Love you, babe!

Enthusiastically yours,
moi