right about now.

Yesterday, I interviewed for my Dublin job and the interviewer also tried to convince me to move to Argentina. ... I just might do it. The most amazing thing about graduating in less than 5 months and getting the fuck out of this city is that even places I never thought I'd ever see are within my reach. The thing is, I can even get paid to live in these places, and perhaps that is the most fantastic thing about all of these new chances I am taking. The man said it was likely I could get either job in either city, so now it's up to me. Do I want to live with an Argentinian family and work at a school there and help re-build a library for children? Or do I want to live in an apartment in Dublin and work for a magazine and travel all over Europe? Both sound so exciting I can hardly contain myself.

On Wednesday, I rode my bike to school in the sunshine. On the way home (and this is totally unrelated), I decided that I will never settle for someone who is not curious about other lives they might have lived. And I mean so curious as to get the fuck off their asses and live them and not let me do all the living. I won't settle for someone who will settle for that. Besides, I don't think anyone less could handle being with me. Anyway, that was my moment of complete self-understanding, and I thought I would share.

I am heading back to Westhood tonight.

vitamins and minerals.

I have several unrelated and uninteresting things to say, mostly for my own remembrance's sake:

• The New York Times published an interesting story about Roberto Bolano and the possible elements of autobiography in his work. They also assert that Bolano was not actually there during the Pinochet coup. Interesting if you've read his books (which are amazing. and you should.): roaming groups of poets.
• I think I believe in fate to a point, and that at some certain point, free will takes over. The day after the election (or maybe it was a few days after, I don't remember the specifics), there was a huge gay rights protest in West L.A., which stopped all the buses. I had to walk the two miles home from school to Brentwood at about 7 PM. On Wilshire at the 405, a team of SWAT guys were sitting on the curb, and I turned around to try to cross the street. All the sudden, this guy almost bumped into me from behind. It was strange, running into a pedestrian on Wilshire. People don't walk on Wilshire, but the buses had poured pedestrians out onto the sidewalks. Anyway, so I started talking to this guy as we walked down Wilshire, we spoke about the protests and how long we'd been in LA. And it's not like it was a sudden realization, but I noticed he was a very attractive guy, with those deep brown eyes I always stupidly fall for and short chestnut hair, tall, very Jewish looking (sadly, this is my type). I shrugged it off, we both got calls on our cell phones, and we went our separate ways.
  
• Today at the bus stop, I caught the glance of the same guy. We both did double-takes like we almost knew each other, but then he kept walking and I kept sitting. When we got on the bus, he sat down next to me even though there were plenty of seats around me. But then, get this, he doesn't say a word. I started to think, maybe I should say something about our odd night on Wilshire, maybe not. Then by the time I figured how to say it in the least awkward way, I realized that the amount of time it had taken me to figure it out would have made it seem like I had been thinking about it the whole time he'd been sitting next to me with his arm brushing mine (which was true), and then that would be creepy. (Like this retelling of the events isn't.) Regardless, I looked down at my sweater and remembered I had been wearing the same one that night. And he was wearing the same striped sweatshirt he had been wearing that night too.
  
• Even if that isn't fated (obviously it isn't otherwise one of us would have said something), even though he only finally spoke to me as I was leaving the bus, I still just like that things like this can happen. It reminds me that there is some order to things, or at the very least affinities between people that last regardless of all the other clutter.
  
• My friends and I are road tripping for Spring Break. There is a winery made of caves up north, and I plan on getting trashed in one of them. :)
  

new developments.

I have reached page 55 of my thesis.

at some point.

We made potato dumplings to celebrate Germany.

And Rebecca and I made a cake, but then she got lost in it.

Suddenly, Nina turned into a vampire. We had to take John to the hospital.

snowy static.

Going to see some performance art tonight with Caroline. I told her I would go because it's free and Wolfgang Puck is catering. Then I'm going to a party that should be amaaazing. For some reason, this week has been absolutely wonderful. I cannot put into words, I am just doing very well.
--

Yesterday while I was on the bus, I watched the rain drops streak down the windows and make their slow descent to the pavement. When I was little, I would create identities for each rain drop. When one of the rain drops joined with another, I would imagine they were long lost friends or lovers who had been separated in their fall from the sky. When they were reunited, they would run off to heaven to be together indefinitely.

I realize how simple that is. I realize how complex all of my mental processes have now become. It says so much about how far I have come from my own original definition of happiness. To me, there are two very distinct kinds. There is the kind that I held onto when I was younger, before I had broken hearts and had my heart broken. It is based around the notion that everything will work out the way it is supposed to, that society just is and that your part in it need not be big. You only need to raise a family and continue the cycle, love others, be. Your job, your accomplishments would not define you, but rather how well you were able to perpetuate the cycle.

Yet I have unknowingly accepted a new definition of happiness. It is that happiness is equal to satisfaction. Americans remove satisfaction from happiness entirely. Satisfaction has to do with how well you have met the goals you have made for yourself: in relationships, in your work, in your life experiences. By this definition, my happiness depends on where I travel, the people I meet, the volunteering I do, the activism I take part in, my notoriety as an intellectual or editor or both, my awareness of contemporary poetry and prose, how well I love, the city where I finally throw all my shit down, the words I write.

I think, though, that the latter definition is far too restrictive. I do not think I can ever be satisfied if I am always chasing after some elusive adventure, some concept of the real (as if one version of reality could ever be more true than another). The problem with this definition is that it relies on self-determination. That means that not only is your own happiness in your own control, but that you are responsible for any sadness that you ever feel. The problem with the former is that you have almost no control at all, your life course is determined by what others choose is best for you.

I have no answer as to which is better for everyone. But I know that sometimes I put a little too much pressure on myself to determine my own happiness, and it's tiring, and it can be scary. So I have decided to take a few steps back and let myself believe in something new.

je n'aime pas beaucoup.

With my new job, with Westwind, with my friends, with my classes, with my thesis, with my writing, with French, everything is piling up again. Yet for some reason, even though I'm sitting here in the library across from a guy immersed in calculus notes, homework problems, and textbook pages, I cannot convince myself that I really need to start working before my meeting at 6. Not so good in the time management area right now.

Last night, I remembered why Leslie is one of the most amazing people I have ever known. She so immediately wants to care. She so immediately reminds you that you're being a retard. And that that's okay. This was before the episode of 30 Rock with Gerhardt Hapsburg and after we sang "If I Were a Boy" really loud in the living room.

Inauguration. Barack Obama. There, I acknowledged that too.

confessions.

One of my greatest fears in life is turning into Liz Lemon from 30 Rock. I also understand that Liz Lemon is one of the most amazing female characters on television, so life can't ever turn out that badly.

I was accepted to present my thesis on gender reconstruction and southern place at a conference in Wisconsin. Hello, introduction to graduate school career. I am quite nervous but also waaay excited to dork out with English majors from across America.

frank bidart, or my new obsession.

I went to see Frank Bidart read last week. When he read this poem, I could feel my chest tightening like it does when I read Faulkner or when I know that I have just had a small encounter with a work that knows my own condition better than I ever could.

It is called "Valentine" and here is a portion of it:

How those now dead used the word love bewildered
and disgusted the boy who resolved he

would not reassure the world he felt
love until he understood love

Resolve that too soon crumbled when he found
within his chest

something intolerable for which the word
because no other word was right

must be love
must be love

Love craved and despised and necessary
the Great American Songbook said explained our fate

my bereft grandmother bereft
father bereft mother their wild regret

How those now dead used love to explain
wild regret

in anticipation of a poetry reading at the Hammer.

"I'll seize the rose-buds in their perfumed bed,
The violet knots, like curious mazes spread
O'er all the garden, taste the ripen'd cherry,
The warm firm apple, tipp'd with coral berry :
Then will I visit with a wand'ring kiss
The vale of lilies and the bower of bliss ;
And where the beauteous region both divide
Into two milky ways, my lips shall slide
Down those smooth alleys, wearing as they go
A tract for lovers on the printed snow..."

Thomas Carew, 1640

painting streets.

As of today, I have two publishing job offers. Finally.

I spent all day lounging on the beach in Santa Monica with Leslie. We saw dolphins... in the ocean! Like, not in a zoo. That's the first time I have ever seen them in real life. Leslie said she was glad to be there for that.

It was about 85 degrees. It's January. I am wearing shorts and a tank top. What the hell?

So there is this newspaper job in a small town in Ireland that I am applying for. They hire American students for some reason. I think it would be hilarious to write news stories for a town smaller than Burlingame. Also, it would probably leave me enough free time to read a lot of contemporary Irish writers, study for the GRE's, learn another language, take art classes, go to pubs, and get a part-time job at a cafe to meet people my own age. Uh, yeah. That's my one-year plan. As of today.

The weekend plan: party in Westwood tomorrow, hang out Friday and try to breathe and write and do yoga and play tennis (that's my new hobby, so exciting!) and then go out to bars, shopping Saturday, club social Saturday night, and Sunday is catch up day.

Next week, I may be going to some sort of slam poetry night with people from the lit mag. I'm thinking of reading some poetry that I love (probably not my own unless I can write something before then). This quarter, I am all about putting myself in new situations to open myself up to brand new experiences. So that is new thing #43 I have done in 2009.

It's a good year for Carrie. :)

the future of things.

There are some days when

I feel so stupid for ever coming in second place
I feel alone, and that's okay
I feel alone, and it scares me
I read Milton and feel that my existence means nothing at all
I sit inside the library just to watch the sun set through the endless windows
I am angry at him for trying to replace me
I am angry at myself for letting him
I am relieved that all of it can just go away by erasing a phone number
I am reminded of what I used to have
I remember how I never wanted it in the first place, except when I was 15 and naive
I hear pieces of conversations that make me laugh
I skim short stories that make my chest tighten
I think of my father and all that another man will never be
I fall asleep with a smile
I wake up from bad dreams, scared that my thoughts led me back down the same rode I tried to erase when I erased that number, when I tried to forget
I forget about it
I wish for things beyond my reach and I know, I know it will take so long to get where I want to be
I hope that one day he looks at me and wishes, too
I know that he will look at me and wish because
I am certain that my life will be full of unwritten lines, dark alleyways, pens and pencils, ice cream, green

And I will say

It was all in vain. For everything we did only led me to someone else, only led me to a deeper realization of my true self.

And you will say

I never needed to change. I was all grown up the day we met.

And finally I will be able to shrug this off my shoulders.
I will know I made the right decision.

You are who are you, and since I don't like who you are, I will forget. It will be easy.

Then all of those days when I used to think those thoughts will disappear. That is my prediction.

mid-january.

that pretty much sums it up.

love does not begin and end the way we think it does.

Love did not mean anything to the women and men of medieval England. The verb "to love" in Old English was lufian, and the definition of lufian, "to love," is in quotation marks for a reason. There was no direct translation, though that is how the modern word was born. The word meant to cherish and to approve, and these are definitions that do not belong in quotations. There is a special word for "to love God" because religion defined these peoples' existence (after the whole Christianity cross-over thing). Faith, sin, honesty all determined human worth.

Linguistically, I believe that words are arbitrary. Most people would agree with me, though early philosophers would have not. They wanted so terribly to believe that words made sense. They wanted to believe words had derived from some ideal form that determined the shape of letters, the sound of syllables. I think otherwise. So, similarly, I believe that the value we place on words and concepts in our culture is arbitrary, each word with its long and serpentine history of change and refinement and reconstruction. Oftentimes, these histories derive from common literary themes, political climates, and, more recently, advertising and mass media influence.

And so I believe the same is true of love's dominance in the American psyche. Love is a quest? Love is a feeling? Love is an end-point? Love is a springtime rejuvenation, flowers sprouting, leaves shifting from brown to green? All of this language - which we hear so commonly in movies and television, derives ultimately from popular literature, the very heart of written language itself. Just as the media has created popular stances (opposition to Vietnam, preference for stick-thin women), literature has made love the dominant factor in determining human value.

Not much has changed, then, since the Anglo-Saxons dominated England. I mean, the foundations themselves haven't changed. We still rely on dominant cultural narratives to constitute our definition of human value. But if you look at progressive literature, alternatives emerge. Victorian novels like Villette, a book that dared to work against the era's popular narrative of "boy, girl, love, love, love, sexual tension suggested in looks and touches, marriage, happily ever after," love is something else entirely. Love does not even figure into the manifest plot. Instead, Bronte erases love as an easy alternative to self-definition. Lucy, the main character, must forge her own definition of human value, which she settles into a mixture of learning, profession, friendship, and independence.

Perhaps, then, there are a multitude of other ways to define yourself. Perhaps love is an antiquated life goal. Perhaps we should move toward something a little more sophisticated. Of course (and this is unfortunate), this applies mainly to women. Men have been taught since the very first bildungsroman (written by Goethe, in case you were wondering) and even before, that they have alternative life paths to follow, alternative ways to find value in their existences. I think many of them still choose to place love as number one, though. And I know many women who do the same without exception. They move from one man to the next, hoping one of them will complete the puzzle, put it all together, and say, "Look, we did it, it's all over now. Relax." This will never happen, and that's why love as a dominant value is inherently skewed.

I have decided for myself not to define human value in these terms. I have decided for myself to accept another literary perspective that Baldwin created: love is a growing up. The growing up is what is significant, not the love itself. Growing up is being mature enough to realize that love should not define your world, that compromise is necessary, and that, in the end, it's you yourself who decides if your decisions make you happy. You write your own narrative. You write your own ending.

fenetre.

Bonjour. Je m'appelle Carrie. Et vous?
Je suis de Burlingame.
Comment allez-vous? Tres bien, merci.
Qu'est-ce que c'est? C'est une fenetre.

I'm taking French. My Milton professor took pity on me and let me into his class. I'm learning about law and journalism.

This quarter is going to be amazing, I can already tell. This is echoed by my breakfast this morning: whole wheat cinnamon and oatmeal waffles from scratch. Made by moi, with my new waffle maker. I ate them along with a banana, a glass of soy milk, and a cup of English breakfast tea.

My dad is talking about starting a goat farm in Marin or Half Moon Bay. We'd make chevre and have chickens, too. If so, I think I know what I want to do with my life for a little while when I return from Europe.

In addition, I planned to go out to coffee with Amber this afternoon. But this turned into a 2-hour lunch and Westwood shopping session.

Los Feliz this weekend yayyyy.

close my eyes.

Books to read:

• The Namesake
• 2666
• Women and Place series
• Unaccustomed Earth
• The World Without Us

Tomorrow is my long trip back to Los Angeles. I'm actually looking forward to it this time around.

My kittens keep coming into my room, looking up at me, and meowing. Then they walk over to my packed bags and fall on them and look at me with big, wide eyes. I feel awful that they are probably one of the things I'll miss most about being here.

Realizing how close "the rest of my life" has become.

The doctors confirmed that I have pre-cancerous cells growing... in my body... right now. That those cells will change into cancer ("you have a long time. you are young," they say) within 10 years. I say this on my blog not to be sensational but to enlighten the series of entries that is sure to follow about how my entire perspective on life is changing. Has changed. Within the last 24 hours. A lot of things seem less important than they did a few days ago, including holding onto a relationship that was never worth my time in the first place.

I'm not sure when I will get to write again (because the quarter is starting, I'm reuniting with friends, making plans, going to be on the East side of LA for a little while), so I will just say now that I have re-defined what it is to have value as a human being. I will explain this in the future, but for now, I must sleep. Long day tomorrow.

making sense.

Los Angeles has been both wonderful and confusing for me this year, but at the end of the day, it's usually sunny. So I make do. Last night, watching the fireworks, I felt I wanted a change so badly that I know that the change itself will be tangible.

And so my resolutions are as follows:

• Graduate summa cum laude with college and departmental high honors (this one's a stretch)
  
• Run 2-3 times per week
• Walk to class from Brentwood each day
• Make more friends like Zach
• Plan a spring break trip
  
• Find a part-time job
• Have more friends to L.A. to visit
• Continue being honest with the people who matter
• Continue getting rid of those who don't
• Finish thesis and present/publish it
• Move to Europe and have a life worth writing a novel about
  

I am looking forward to break being over so I can start taking my French classes and get done with my thesis (which will happen this quarter!... in about 10 weeks)