go ahead.

This made my day:
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/asmussen/

I've been really depressed and tired since I left home. I hate L.A. and I hate being reminded of that. If I just stay here for long enough, I get used to being satisfied with smog and traffic. Then I see other places and realize I'm totally wasting my time. Just three weeks to go. I can't count down fast enough.

i should really be asleep.

I'm kind of obsessed with this Bangers & Cash song, "B.O.O.T.A.Y."

B.O.O.T.A.Y
You ain't got no alibi
You ugly
Yeah, yeah
Bitch, fuck me
Yeah, yeah

Look at that bootay.

I should definitely be asleep. I have to be awake in 4 hours for a 7 am flight. But, instead, I am up working on my huge thesis proposal due tomorrow morning. Actually, fuck this. I'm going to skip class tomorrow and do this instead. Ugh, so tired. I don't want to go back to L.A........

is like this.

I am at home. Content here, as always. I have tons of work to do, so that sucks. But worse things have happened to people. My parents keep cooking me vegan food, and even though they seem a bit disapproving, they're being very supportive. My cat is being ridiculously cute, except she was sitting in the laundry basket wheezing earlier.

In other news, my brother just brought his new girlfriend home and they're sleeping in the same room. What a fucked up double standard from my parents. Fucking fuck that. Whatever.

I am also realizing that I love little kids. I used to hate them.

The other day I was in line at Border's on Westwood Blvd. and in front of me this little kid was speaking in French to his mom. Then this little girl got in line behind me. She was about his age, very cute, with long brown curly hair. She tugged on her dad's arm and said "Daddy, I'm going to go jogging." The boy peered around me to see her. He just stared and smiled and shifted his weight from his left to his right foot and back again. Then the girl took off and ran around the bookcases, disappearing. So the little French boy turns to his mom and grabs her hand. "Mommy, is... is... jogging-?" Then he stops. "What, sweetie?" He just shakes his head and looks at his feet. He blushes a little and looks in the girl's dad's direction. "Is jogging faster than galloping?"

that's on page 25.

Stripper puppy: Just tryin' to make some cash to support his brothers and sisters. His mother left the pack alone when they were 3 months old, and now they're all toughing it out in the real world. Poor little guy.

I'd also like to throw in here (on the sly perhaps) that honesty is an amazing thing to have with the people you love. That's all. Totally unrelated.

tired and stuff.

I'm flying home this weekend, which I am totally excited about. Memorial Day weekends never really make much sense for me to take considering that I will be finishing school in 3.5 weeks. I just need to see my Sammy and pet my kitty and relax for a while. It'll be nice. Oh, and boba. I almost forgot boba. How could I?

april to may.

Oh, I'm so at peace with the world. It's like I just jumped into that freezing cold pool in Berkeley only it's 95 degrees outside.

purposiveness without a purpose.

I feel like shit and... I hate my life and... I really just don't want to be stuck in my hot apartment all by myself, but... I need this. Unfortunately.

I want to go home so badly. The homesickness has been building for quite some time. But now I just want my house and all of that familiarity and comfort so so badly. I want to be reminded of where I came from and where I can come back to. It makes me so sad I can't breathe for short intervals of time. Yes, I'm a baby.

On Mother's Day, I decided to go run errands. I ended up at Trader Joe's buying groceries. As I was standing in line, I saw a girl who I recognized from the Daily Bruin. She was standing next to her mother while the grocery checker scanned all of their items. She picked up an organic chocolate bar and asked her mom if they could split it. Her mom smiled and put it on the counter. I just felt numb and then I felt my eyes start to sting with tears. Later that day, Leslie returned home from brunch with her family. The door swung open, and I immediately asked her, "Hey, how was your Mother's Day?" I didn't even wait for her to answer. I just burst into tears and started laughing at the same time. "I miss my mom!" And then we both laughed and cried a bit together, talking about how much we loved our mothers.

Anyway, my point is that I try not to think about home too often. Most of the time it has no effect on me. I'm in a sort of denial about how close I am with my family. I try to play it off like I don't care because it makes life much easier to deal with. But, all the sudden, I acknowledged it. All the sudden, I decided to admit how much I lack here. And realizing that you've spent 3 years lacking something, that you still have one more year to go, that you have no way of reconciling that gap? Well, that just feels like shit.

So here I am. I'm stuck on the edge of something and nothing. But, like I said... I need this. Unfortunately.

picnic tables in that schoolyard.

Had the day off because my job no longer exists. Went to the library and hid in the reading room for several hours. Almost finished a whole book. Not quite. Though I am feeling fairly well-versed in photography theory. Stopped by the office. Had hour-long talk with Amber, Rashmi, and several other people sitting around. Subletting cheerleader is an inconsiderate bitch, so she is no longer subletting cheerleader, just dumb cheerleader. Hoping this girl from New York comes through. Went to professor's office hours, but the professor was not in attendance. I consider that rude. "The height of rudeness." Sick of school. Sick of LA. Sick of not seeing Evan, Marie, Charley, Brandon, Mo, Nika, Sammy, Saleh/Adam, Ryan, Greg, Jen, Colin, Travis. Even sick of not seeing Brian. Especially sick of not seeing my parents. And, last but not least, sick of being poor.

Have, however, realized that I am inherently (though in denial about being) a social person and that I can't wait to start my career in publishing and go to Book Expo and meet lots of interesting people.

come and go.

I've been doing a lot of thinking this weekend, and I've decided to be proud of myself.

• I got an advisor for my thesis.
• I had my last day of my internship today, which means I'll be wandering around museums and holing myself in the special collections section of the research library every Monday and Wednesday until the quarter ends. My boss teared up as I left and it made me incredibly sad.
  
• I will be getting paid to take names at an industry event in June.
• Book Expo is coming up. Yay! Free conference, free books, I'm totally going to meet: John Hodgman(!!!) and Thomas Friedman from the New York Times
• I'm going home soon to visit Sammy and see my friends
• My internship is coming up (so so so excited)
• I'm thinking seriously about taking that year off, getting a work visa, and moving to Europe, then going to Columbia's publishing program the summer of 2010 (yeah, right... like I could get in/afford that). I just know I kind of am sick of my own country right now.
  
• One more day until I find out about my scholarship *crosses fingers*
• Every day, I think about how much time I have left to accomplish new things
• Yes, there are shortcomings, but I will cut them off soon
  

melodies.

I lose some sales and my boss won't be happy
But I can't stop listening to the sound
Of two soft voices blended in perfection
From the reels of this record that I found
Everyday there's a boy in the mirror
Asking me what are you doing here
Finding all my previous motives
Growing increasingly unclear

I’ve traveled far and I’ve burned all the bridges
I believed as soon as I hit land
All the other options held before me
Will wither in the light of my plan

So I lose some sales and my boss won't be happy
But there’s only one thing on my mind
Searching boxes underneath the counter
On a chance that on a tape I’d find
A song for
Someone who needs somewhere
To long for

Homesick
Cause I no longer know
Where home is.

me too.

"i've never loved anybody like i did you. you were real. forever. and in the long term.i hope he's worth it.

whoever it is and ends up being.

or i hope it is.

i really really really hope so.

b/c i'm not missing a girlfriend.

i'm missing you.

goodbye."

And then up and down and up again we moved and back and forth and side to side. And the hypotaxis it's killing me. And maybe I'll realize one day that I can't simply change certain things about the people I care about. And maybe I've noticed that Faulkner doesn't know everything. And maybe I already know I lost everything in a muddy pathway in a green country near the ocean. No, no, I lost it much before then, when I lost track of myself. It's all about situations, not about people. I could have been someone else. I still can be. These decisions are mine, every decision is mine. I'm still making bad decisions. I'm still throwing myself as far from caring as possible. But some things you can't take back. Maybe I know that. Maybe there's nothing sadder than that in all of everything. I don't want to be sad anymore. Decisions. Fragments. Distortions. The end.

thesis topic panic.

Thinking about my thesis makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

I have these random bursts of thought that I always regret later. Here are a few examples so you can see how absurd my thought process is. I think it's kind of funny. Not really, though. Because it's my life I'm dealing with here. It's the cumulation of my undergraduate education, perhaps my formal education in general.

The first day, about three weeks ago at 3pm, rational but uninspired, patient:

The southern writer in the postmodern world
The tragic sense of southernism – made for better literature
I’m more concerned with backwoods, Appalachian writers
Assertion that southern writer doesn’t experiment? Wha? James Agee???
Tradition and modernity – the new south
Self-reflexivity and the failure of language (why there are photos)– representing humans, those who are not traditionally represented? Loss of human connection?
Identification in Southern narratives – feel the pain, feel the consciousness -- an attempt to escape from lack of connection
Writing after Faulkner! What happens?

Two weeks ago, middle of the night, nervous, cold sweat:

Language as a construct of the Southern experience – attempts to Represent a Region
The search for the self – very modernist – through language
Loss of self and connection to industrialization – a uniquely southern problem
The south wrote to work out the conflict between strict regionalism and close community connections with their desire to become part of the modern world.
Some instances: disruptions in: time, narrative voice, consciousness,
James Agee – inability of human connection – industrialization impeding on religious, cultural, and, finally, human connection.
Mark McGurl
"Understanding Iowa: Flannery O'Connor B.A., M.F.A."
Advisor adviser dialogue

Sunday night, 1am

I would like to talk about the disconnect between language and experience in James Agee’s work and this disconnect in photo-texts in general during the Great Depression. This disconnection attempts to signal the death of the written word and it therefore reflects the hopelessness and disconnection of the modern period. However, it is a uniquely southern phenomenon. There is no such thing as a “Northern” literature, yet there is always an attempt to define a “Southern” literature. James Agee’s work addresses the constant need to define the South and the complete absurdity of such a suggestion. From Matthew Brady’s photographs of the Civil War to Evans’ photographs of the poor whites in the Great Depression to Eudora Welty’s photographs of blacks in the South, the region holds fast to the modern idea that region is indefinable, that culture is fragmented, that human experience is impossible to translate clearly from one person to another. Southern writers are constantly burdened with the representation of their region. No Northern writer of this time set out to prove the viability of Boston or New York. But the South had to attempt to define itself – a wholly absurd ritual in Southern writing. Therefore, while these photo-texts seem to attempt to augment the power of the written word with the “realism” of photographs, Agee posits that both of these representations fragment experience and that language – be it written or in images – can never capture human experience. It is a hopeless and cynical perspective, and one that survives in many contemporary novels by writers from the South.

8pm, today, desperate, please someone tell me what to write about, grammar and coherency falling apart:

Agee’s novel is an invasion of the home space, a violation of what so many northerners have called “southern hospitality.” The great southern photo-texts of the documentary era attempt to define home space through words and pictures. But the ultimately exoticize the notions of comfort, making everything about the south wholly foreign. Thus, while Evans’ still-lives of the south attempt to augment the power of Agee’s written word, both distance the reader further from the experience. Agee’s project, in effect, truly is larger than him.

Where does this leave representation of the south? Does it leave any room for understanding a region that has been cast as foreign, out of our world?

Just right now, I really want to go to sleep and wake up and have this all figured out:
Photo-texts as exhibitions of the Platonic idea of pharmakon. Should literature be banished from the republic? From the south? Does it dilute our experience of the world? What about photography? What about my own idiocy?

running through the groves, etc.

It is two o'clock in the morning and the lights are out. I want to shout, but my eyes are closed, my mouth is shut, my ears are ringing. Block after block, the cement fades away.

In front of Hollywood High School, I open my eyes. A large billboard flickers "AP Testing May 5-16." I remember those days, when my mind was preoccupied with other things, other people, other smiles, other plans. Calculus and biology, economics and government. Not English. Not modern loss of meaning and the fragmentation of our culture. Maybe I want to be that innocent.

Maybe I meant to open that old letter. No, I think it was an accident. It was before the days of complicated half-truths and new friends and before I made big decisions that were "best for both of us." Couldn't wait to not miss me anymore. Couldn't wait to smooth my hair and be the one. Nothing in me ever could have realized that those feelings were pure. I envy myself back then. I am jealous because she could have become something - and someone - else. My rock. My purely positive. My you make me feel empty every time we kiss.

Sometimes it's best to let go and run. Or that's what the girl said who isn't sure of anything at all.

and then we were young.

I want to go to Savannah. Eat at a crabshack. Walk in the sunshine. Eat taffy. Be anywhere but Los Angeles on a smoggy day.