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Today, in Intro to Buddhism, I stole a glance at some of the most stunning artwork I have ever seen.
In the margin of my neighbor's daily notes.
I may be totally insane, but I believe that museums around the world should explore the diverse and compelling world of Margin-Art. I want to see an exhibit composed of Calculus dragons, Econ robots, and English geometric figures. Sure, every student is guilty of Margin-Art at some point or another during their career, but some are very very good at it! What majesty lines the periodic table! What fearsome beasts creep from beneith Kepler's third law! I smell an avant-guard exposition in the future . . .
Maybe I could make it happen.
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Some has changed in me, this semester. Some aspect I fail to define has shifted, and I finally feel like I'm something more than a discarded hig-schooler, playing feebly at adulthood.
Before I left for college, everyone - Mom, Dad, teachers, friends who graduated years ago - told me that I would have "difficulty adjusting" to one of the greatest "transitions" of my life. I would have to "find myself," practice "time management," and "accept responsibility." Bah, said I. I already wash my own clothes and do my homework. Doing exactly what I do now, 1,000 miles from home, is no great matter.
And I humored countless lectures about how every big fish in a small pond suddenly finds himself out of water, and it's all sink or swim from here on out. And I'd better not go off the deep end, or next year, some zealous freshman academic will be living in my dorm room, thanking god every night for my $33,000 a year scholarship. Because Washington University knows that there are plenty of fish in the sea . . .
I never knew what they meant, until I was already over my head.
The details mean nothing now; I screwed up. First semester slipped between my listless fingers, and I scarcely had the strength to care. But winter break has replenished me. I return to my books calm, purified by familiar surroundings.
I've started afresh. There's something different about me that isn't entirely my bulging bookbag, ink-stained fingers, apathy towards cafeteria food, or increased alcohol tolerance. I think this time I'll get it right.
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Believe it or not, gentle readers, I was a member of the girlscouts of america for almost a decade. For several summers during my adolescence, I attended Trefoil Ranch - a beucollic little camp tucked away in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. I rode a lot of horses. I consumed potentially dangerous quantities of putrid institutional fare. I wallowed in calamine lotion in a futile attempt to slake the indidious slew of mosquito bites that populated my face, limbs, and torso.
And I loved every minute of it.
Two kinds of girls went to girlscout camp: those who shaved their legs, and those who didn't. The camp's shower facilities were, in a word, lacking. Heated water was a luxury that Trefoil Ranch simply couldn't afford. In fact, water in general seemed in constant short supply. The counselors restricted our bathing privilages to one 3 minute shower per week. As a result, many frivolous aspects of grooming went straight out the window. Down with exfoliation. Forget facial masks. Pedicures? Fugeddaboutit.
Strangely enough, one of the last lingering hold-overs of the old regime, so to speak , was shaving. Leg shaving, to be precise. I remember watching my troop divide into two groups. One half leapt exuberantly from the icy spray, liberated at last from the tyranny of beauty treatments. The other half rummaged through their bags for bottles of lotion and fondly remembered razors, and perched like storks with one leg on a weathered fence-post, sullenly scraping the quill-like stubble from their bleeding calves and thighs.
Bet you can't guess which group to which I belonged.
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It's that time again. Too early and too late for everyone except weirdos like yourself. But it's ok. You can handle it. You've been here before.
So you get out the paper and the crayons and the pens and the stickers and you create a polychromatic universe of your very own - a world where the sky is always green and the grass is always blue. Melting mushrooms and thornbushes spring from its loamy turf. An ocean of crimson playfully laps the chartruse shore. You populate your peacable kingdom with Abby the acid frog, Leroy lamprey, and Mr. Jinx, a lovable, rapidly-mutating retrovirus.
Why look at that! Mr. Jinx has snuck into the water supply, converted Leroy's cells into reproductive factories, and made 97 trillion ravenous copies of himself! Oh Mr. Jinx, you little scamp, will you ever stop turning your playmates into quivering piles of unstable organic material? What shall you do next, become airborne?
Oh . . . oh dear. Abby had better watch out!
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Well, they've done it. Those vampires, fiending for my lifeblood,have finally done it. They took my wisdom teeth. Here is a list of the top 10 things that suck about elective oral surgery . . .
10. OSHA (organization for health regulations) says that since my teeth are a biohazard, I am not allowed to keep them. They're my teeth goddamnit! If I want to slake my morbid curiousity by making a necklace out of objects that used to be imbedded in the bone of my jaw, then SO BE IT. It's not as if I can catch AIDS from my own body parts.
9. The dentist didn't give me enough pre-operative nitrous oxide to do SHIT for me. No giggles, no relaxation, no NOTHING. So I spent a good five minutes in abject terror while he prepared my IV; he even had the courtesy to chide me for squealing when he jabbed the barbaric steel needle into my arm. Aww, how kind.
8. Blood. Lots of blood. Usually, I don't have a problem with my own sanguinous fluids, but when I find myself choking on it, aspirating it, vomiting it up in gobby streams from my stomach, and wiping it constantly from my miserable, dripping nose, it gets to be a bit much.
7. What isn't wrong with this sentence: "Just keep this bag of frozen peas on your face and you won't turn into a chipmunk!"
6. No post-operative smoking, drinking, or making-out for a week.
5. Thai spice noodles + exposed jawbone = lisping stream of curse words.
4. Damn you, aching maw, for making me detest, via over-exposure, the confection for which I once clammored: TCBY frozen yogurt. DAMN YOU!
3. After that rubber jaw prop, my TMJ feels great. Lets me know I'm alive . . . because it's KILLIN' me.
2. At least the codine halucinations keep me on my toes. During my 50 minutes of restive sleep this morning, I dreamed that fig newtons were taking over the world. Alas, twas but a vision. Where is my sweet, sweet fig filling of deliverance?! YOU LIED TO ME, NEWTON! FIGGLY FALSIFIER!
1. No . . . more . . . jello . . . I beg of you . . . no . . . not the spoon. Not the spoon! Oh, green gobs of angst, how you slither down my throat . . .
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My morbid curiousity hasn't diminished as I grow older. In fact, it just becomes all the more overpowering with each passing year. For example, I spent a good 2 hours yesterday reading up on the case of a man with fibromyalgia whose spinal cord was infested with yeast fungus. The yeast would multiply within the column and send spores throughout his body via the lymphatic and circulatory systems. Once the spores settled in the soft tissue of his joints and implant their root-like rhyzomes, his immune system would launch an attack and cause him great pain. Invasion of the body snatchers . . . mwahahahaha!
Sometimes I stare at carrion. I am intrigued by the graceful drama of organic decomposition, it's surreptitious players, acts, and scenes.
And blood. Who can resist a lengthy gander at a festering wound?
by the way, these imbedded links have nothing to do with anything.
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You had to say it, didn't you. You had to hurl your two cents, senselessly, into the gaping wound that used to be called my self-concept. Nice one. The words have settled and bred in the fetid jetties of my memory; they form a clustered nebula, swirling fanatically about my flickering shame. I am ashamed. Shame on you. I lay the blame with you.
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Like the lazy whore that I am, I have decided to keep the updating habit in place with the perfect cop-out entry: a survey.
1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
Give antidepressants a serious try. As for their effectiveness, the jury's still out.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Most of my resolutions are very shallow goals, whose motivation springs from vanity. I did not achieve them, though I'm not proud to admit that i tried my best.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
A handful of significant minor characters faded from the script of my life
5. What countries did you visit?
Canada, a few places around the USA
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
focus, drive, and sanity
7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
the day that I found out that I had Multiple Personality Disorder
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting into Washington University and scoring a full scholarship
9. What was your biggest failure?
When my parents found out that I'd held a raucous bachanalia in my house while they were away on vacation
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
More than I care to really think about. Pneumonia was probably the most interesting bout. Yes . . . how poetic . . . your authress spitting blood into her hankerchief as she perishes of the wasting sickness.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
My tattoos, for sure
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My mother deserves a drasticly better lot than she ended up receiving. She's a saint.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
someone very close to me decided that after over a year of devotion, I wasn't worth 5 minutes of face time so he could hand me the pink slip for our relationship. Email. Pussy.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Who knows, eh?
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Reading one of my short stories on NPR
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Cirrus - Boomerang, or Beck - Everybody's gotta learn sometime
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
- happier or sadder? sadder
- richer or poorer? about the same
- thinner or fatter? Phat-er
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
starve myself; sleep; think about something more meaningful than the transient plane of superficial existance
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
cigarettes
20. How did you spend the holidays?
in a haze punctuated by satisfaction
21. Did you fall in love in 2004?
yes
22. How many one-night stands?
a gentlewoman never kisses and tells
23. What was your favorite TV program?
this wonderful new programme called READING
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Yes. Marc Anderson. I only loathed him before. Now I want to smother him to the point of asphixiation with a morbidly obese hillbilly's socks.
25. What was the best book you read?
Choke - chuck P.; Tonge First - Emily Jenkins
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Dresden Dolls, Conjure One, Benny Benassi
27. What did you want and get?
A taste of the real world
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Torremolinos 73 (Spanish independant art film); Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind; Hedwig and the angry inch (not made this year, but seen)
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I partied with some of my best friends at college
30. What one thing would've made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If I could be less naive and stop believing that people will always give you the best side of themselves
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
black, blue, cherry red, violet. wild stockings. indigo hair
32. What kept you sane?
vodka
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Bjork. But I've loved her for ages
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Gay marriage
35. Who did you miss?
The kids back in Texas. Jim. People who died. John. Zane. Mom and my sibs.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Tough call. Rishi Rattan, Alan poppalardo, stuart johnsen, mitch cooper, adam olansky, arthur ryan, greg grubs, jacob the tattoo artist (female), jim (saw him in the flesh for the first time), lauren skilkin, rebecca nagle, jason park, elizabeth weinstien, emily osborn, luke smith, Bernard, alan thomas, clayton shepard, david chang, maia, thomas suter, dov perminger, and a thousand other people i've suddenly gotten too tired to list.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
Oh yes, it is every bit as bad as you think. In fact, it's probably even worse than you can imagine
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Blood on her skin/Dripping with sin/Do it again/Living dead girl"
"What happens to a day for all those who raged against it?"
"Each day is one day less to live/I want you to be my sedative"
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