poetry e motion

Someone once told me that the use of imagery and symbolic language is the refuge of the compositionally incompetent. I shrugged it this aphorism off as the creation of a mind all too fond of order and precise or careful descriptions. However, I recently came to a series of realizations: This blog, a sort of public journal, easier to keep up with because I have an audience other than myself for my immense wit, is also different from a journal: because I know that occasionally other people read it, it's sort of like facebook -- a social interaction without the bother of interacting with anyone socially. It is a refuge for my social incompetence, or laziness. Poetry, on the other hand, is the medum to which I turn when I do not wish to articulate my feelings in precise prose. I tell myself that I am trying to avoid diminishing complex feelings, feelings that are not capturable by normative grammar. Perhaps, though, poetry is simply my refuge when I do not wish to confront my feelings, to encapsulate them in overly didactic or scientifically objective language, when I would rather paint them into a beautiful or dark or fanciful image, veiling myself in the mystery I so angstily aspire to and the angst I so annoyedly reject.

In other news, I watched Pride and Prejudice this evening. The new one, with Kira Knightley. I didn't think anyone could top the BBC version which I love like a crotchety old man. But while less true to the original Jane Austin, it is a beautiful piece of cinematography.

Too bad I'm not a film student. Perhaps I would abandon poetry for a much more, er, accessible art.

PS. poetry: from the French poème, from Old French, from Latin poema, from Greek poima, from poiein, to create.

That's me. A creator. Or a creatress?

three pairs of sandals for my birthday

South Africa, here I come, unemployed or not. I have had no job offers as yet, and I am declaring myself going to South Africa anyway, if I have to beg, borrow, or, well give up Christmas presents. Actually, that's not quite true. No, I am giving up Christmas presents, but I have had some interesting quasi-job offers. I have an interview on D-Day to sell shoes at Macy's. What better place to employ a person with a shoe fetish? I have an offer from a fellow I could swear was Hilo stock except that he's a transplant from East Oakland, to clean rooms at the Wild Ginger Inn in Hilo (not its finest tourist accommodations), beginning June 28th, if I haven't found anything else by then. He says, however, ("Not to be racist or sexist or anything...") that I am too pretty to be a maid. I think that's a compliment. I may also be painting some things. This is the most solid offer yet.

So just to clarify for you, in order to have the opportunity to help feed the hungry, heal the sick, and free the oppressed half way around the world, I am going to be spending a summer either doing manual labor or selling shoes to tourists. I really am not sure which would be more ironic at this point.

I really hope I get a call from Borders. A book fetish is so much more respectable than a shoe fetish.

edible is not equal to reedible

So it is my opinion that no person should be required to contract an influenza virus more than once every two years or so, once a year if for some reason fate decrees it. My relationship with fate must be particularly bad; this is my second flu in almost exactly five weeks. Friday evening, when I belatedly celebrated my birthday with my parents, over Pizza Hut's tasty (meat-free) pizza and my mother's deliciously home made chocolate cream pie, I began to feel a sore throat, which turned into a sore all-over-my-body, which about four Saturday morning turned into vomiting. For those of you who are connoisseurs of vomit, cancer patients and the like, note: if you think you may be going to retaste it, do not eat bell peppers. They do not improve the second time around.

Thus I explain my failure as a nightly blogger. The other parts of my Friday were fairly good. I spent much of the day wandering around Hilo, prostrating myself before anyone who might hire me, and then returned home to be turned away at the door because my mother was wrapping presents. That's okay, I've been turned away at the door because they were having sex; this reason was more beneficial to me. Anyway, I had my dad bring me a bottle of water and went to Kolekole. The surf was up, and I thought of my surfer friends. There were some high school kids who had the day off and were cooking something that smelled marvelous on a bonfire, and I wished both that I ate meat and that I weren't still vaguely afraid of locals. I installed myself among some slightly damp (as everything in Hamakua) tree trunks and read Isabel Allende's latest, Zorro, smelling the smells and watching the waves crash upon the rocks, and listening to the cars trundling across the bridge overhead, hoping it was sturdier than it sounded.

Then I drove home, ate pizza, peppers, and pie, and about nine hours later threw them up. I spent most of Saturday in bed, but I took it as a good sign that by evening food sounded like a good idea.

I had pie for lunch today. I didn't throw it up.

annhilism

I have taken to writing these entries while watching TV. Perhaps I am like those kids in movies who have such big brains that they watch eight channels and play four video games all at once. TV is emotionally drawing, but insufficiently interesting to occupy whatever part of my brain controls my hands. So I sew, bead, write, blog. Blog. It's such an icky word. It sounds like an acronym for a medical procedure that removes nasal polyps or something.

So with all this pointless television watching, and accordingly the realization that my life, for the moment, is kind of purposeless, I have taken to exploring nihilism. Anbd realized that nihilists, like a fair few existentialists, and some philosophers in general, are self-absorbed shitholes. I like philosophy well enough. And I well understand the reasoning for nihilism. Sometimes the world feels like a great wad of nothingness. I get that. Insofar as one's own douchiness keeps one from realizing that there are other people around you, even if you don't feel you have a purpose.

So, I like the X-Men. FX has been showing the first and second ones the past couple of nights. I don't know why I like action movies so. Perhaps because I have given up romance movies. Actually, comedies are my favorite, but oddly enough I don't own any. I just find that they are less worth watching over and over again than, say, I Robot or other sci-fi inspired "earnest" movies as my dad calls them. I also own ridiculous romances, and nineteenth century literature movies like Little Women.

Perhaps because I am one. Ha.

More likely Prided and Prejudiced.

hugh grant is the devil

I have come to a realization. I hate romance movies. Somehow I have reverted to that elementary school state where watching people kiss makes my shoulders try to crawl off my arms. In person, in public, in movies, whatever, I kind of want to go, "Ew. Icky. Get a room." I don't want to watch Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant fall in love. Clearly, something is very very wrong.

Today, I did the domestic thing. I cleaned things. I removed clothes and stuffed animals and a tupperware full of a sticky goo that, until it reached the Hilo climate, was a large pile of Jolly Ranchers that I received for my sixteenth birthday. I cleared my closet of things that I hope that I will continue not to want for awhile. Then, I cooked things. I made muffins for breakfast, both chocolate chip and raisin bran. For lunch I made veggie burgers with English muffin buns, broccoli, and oranges. A perfect iron-vitamin c combination. For dinner my dad bought a roasted chicken, and I made mashed potatoes, roast carrots, and sauteed vegetables, and a pretending-to-be-chicken patty for myself.

I combat boredom by cooking things. I don't know if this is healthy, but clearly, I am a domestic goddess.

a female player

My mother is perplexed and disturbed by my description of a male friend as a slut. In her understanding of the universe, sluts are women. My mother is not a prude; in fact, she wishes she were a sex therapist. She would enjoy nothing more than to teach women that sex is supposed to be enjoyable for them (she still imagines that they [we] need this instruction). But still, somehow, a slut, someone who enjoys sex too much and has it with too many people, is only a woman. Such a condition is not possible for men; apparently they can only be described in the more recently developed term of player, as in one who plays on another's emotions by fooling around with her and someone else at (or approximately) the same time. She asks, "What constitutes a male slut?" I answer, "The same thing that constitutes a female slut. Only with a penis." This just doesn't, as it were, fit her frame.

Really now.

So today I spent most of my afternoon hunting through online classifieds for a job that doesn't require driving to the hospitality-industry-soaked Kona side of the island every day. I spent hours altering and reformatting and printing and sending my resume all over the island. It got me to thinking, there are two jobs that I just don't think would require such a rigorous application process.

1) Hawaii requires no bartending license. All I have to do is be 18 (which I exceed by a year and four days) and prove my knowledge of mixed drinks. Surely my awareness that tequila and Fresca go really well together will satisfy that requirement.

2) Just about anywhere in the world, if there is a minimum requirement to be a stripper, it's to be 18. As mentioned, I qualify. Now I just need to learn to pole dance.

And take off my clothes in public. That will be harder.

I'll let you know how it goes.