tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90686828746009793912024-03-14T00:56:42.339-07:00confessions of a little white wavejen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-2306065886304376132011-01-25T11:26:00.000-08:002011-01-25T11:27:04.223-08:00'We use words to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other.'-- José Saramagojen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-33109228116848332492011-01-20T20:17:00.000-08:002011-01-20T20:18:42.291-08:00Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion. <br />-James Joyce <br /><br /><br />yesyesyesexplainsmyhead.jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-54038010261543556912011-01-18T21:11:00.000-08:002011-01-18T21:17:53.322-08:00stephen fry"...it’s very embarrassing, but I’m assuming that <span style="font-weight:bold;">most people their first love when they’re teenaged that unbelievable hole that opens up inside them of longing and yearning, of pain, of joy, that huge great bundle of toxic emotions and allied to beauty and opening out into nature and to glory and suddenly connecting you with every love poet and every love song ever written that that explosion in my head and heart will never be matched. You can never hope to recapture the first fine careless rapture as the poet put it, but it stays with you like a good acid trip. You know you get a little flashback every now and again. It will never leave you and it teaches you to look at things differently and to feel things differently. It educates your soul if you like and all first love is unrequited ultimately because it’s so huge.It’s such an act of giving and it requires so much back that it can never be given back and in that you wouldn’t necessarily want to give them back. It’s just like a… It is like an atom bomb. It is like… It’s all the energy of who you are and who you want to be and what you love and what you hope to be explodes and it is impossible for a single human being to offer that back to you in a mutual way.<br /><br />It would be like matter meeting antimatter. </span> It’s sort of almost important that what you do is worship and yearn and long, but so that was to me of course the single most important thing in my life and occasionally I get dreams and I’m back there again and I’m still as trembly as every I was and I get… because I’ve written about it I get emails and Twitters, whatever from people in you know in adolescence who are going through the same thing and say, “Oh, I read your book and it was the same for me and it is the same for me and he’ll never look at me, she’ll never look at me.” “What can I do?” “I’ll make a fool of myself.” “Should I write them a poem?” And, “What if they reject me?” And, “oh my God.”<br /><br />And I read that and …<span style="font-weight:bold;"> You know these vast sagas, these romantic sagas that are played out in every school, in every village and every town and every country in the world. It’s going on. It’s all this massive emotional energy just spreading outwards and some of it is… and totally unhappily, so the only thing that saddens me is that the, I suppose the default community attitude of kids is to suppress it and to smother it and to pretend it isn’t there and to be ashamed of it, not because it’s transgressive or because it’s gay necessarily. It’s just as, just as, just as problematical if it’s straight. It’s nothing to do with that, but because the school yard attitude is that you don’t talk about these things. There is no… You know you feel all this emotion, but the language for it is forbidden really.</span> You just don’t do it, unless I think girls are probably better at it and maybe the online community helps with it.<br /><br />Chat rooms and things you can express yourself, but generally speaking boys of fifteen, sixteen are much more interested in sport or even if they’re not more interested in sport and their soul is yearning they’re not going to say it and if only they could it would be good. "jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-15273297420726493272010-12-27T17:03:00.000-08:002010-12-27T17:04:15.509-08:00“I wish I could find people who just would fight me and break through to me and hold me down and scream their life into my face."<br /><br /><br />this blog is just turning into me posting quotes that i like and hoping that someone else will read them and like them too and then promptly fall in love with me.jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-27531413416013424582010-12-26T01:13:00.000-08:002010-12-26T01:14:42.104-08:00socuteimayexplode“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”<br /><br><br />- Eskimo Proverbjen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-12792175597106448052010-12-06T14:59:00.001-08:002010-12-06T15:20:39.905-08:00Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, John AshburyAs Parmigianino did it, the right hand<br />Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer<br />And swerving easily away, as though to protect<br />What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams,<br />Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together<br />In a movement supporting the face, which swims<br />Toward and away like the hand<br />Except that it is in repose. It is what is<br />Sequestered. Vasari says, "Francesco one day set himself<br />To take his own portrait, looking at himself from that purpose<br />In a convex mirror, such as is used by barbers . . .<br />He accordingly caused a ball of wood to be made<br />By a turner, and having divided it in half and<br />Brought it to the size of the mirror, he set himself<br />With great art to copy all that he saw in the glass,"<br />Chiefly his reflection, of which the portrait<br />Is the reflection, of which the portrait<br />Is the reflection once removed.<br />The glass chose to reflect only what he saw<br />Which was enough for his purpose: his image<br />Glazed, embalmed, projected at a 180-degree angle.<br />The time of day or the density of the light<br />Adhering to the face keeps it<br />Lively and intact in a recurring wave<br />Of arrival. The soul establishes itself.<br />But how far can it swim out through the eyes<br />And still return safely to its nest? The surface<br />Of the mirror being convex, the distance increases<br />Significantly; that is, enough to make the point<br />That the soul is a captive, treated humanely, kept<br />In suspension, unable to advance much farther<br />Than your look as it intercepts the picture.<br />Pope Clement and his court were "stupefied"<br />By it, according to Vasari, and promised a commission<br />That never materialized. <span style="font-weight:bold;">The soul has to stay where it is,<br />Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane,<br />The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind,<br />Longing to be free, outside, but it must stay<br />Posing in this place. It must move<br />As little as possible. This is what the portrait says.<br />But there is in that gaze a combination<br />Of tenderness, amusement and regret, so powerful<br />In its restraint that one cannot look for long.</span><br />The secret is too plain. The pity of it smarts,<br />Makes hot tears spurt: that the soul is not a soul,<br />Has no secret, is small, and it fits<br />Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.<br />That is the tune but there are no words.<br />The words are only speculation<br />(From the Latin speculum, mirror):<br />They seek and cannot find the meaning of the music.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">We see only postures of the dream,<br /></span>Riders of the motion that swings the face<br />Into view under evening skies, with no<br />False disarray as proof of authenticity.<br />But it is life englobed.<br />One would like to stick one's hand<br />Out of the globe, but its dimension,<br />What carries it, will not allow it.<br />No doubt it is this, not the reflex<br />To hide something, which makes the hand loom large<br />As it retreats slightly. There is no way<br />To build it flat like a section of wall:<br />It must join the segment of a circle,<br />Roving back to the body of which it seems<br />So unlikely a part, to fence in and shore up the face<br />On which the effort of this condition reads<br />Like a pinpoint of a smile, a spark<br />Or star one is not sure of having seen<br />As darkness resumes. A perverse light whose<br />Imperative of subtlety dooms in advance its<br />Conceit to light up: unimportant but meant.<br />Francesco, your hand is big enough<br />To wreck the sphere, and too big,<br />One would think, to weave delicate meshes<br />That only argue its further detention.<br />(Big, but not coarse, merely on another scale,<br />Like a dozing whale on the sea bottom<br />In relation to the tiny, self-important ship<br />On the surface.) But your eyes proclaim<br />That everything is surface. The surface is what's there<br />And nothing can exist except what's there.<br />There are no recesses in the room, only alcoves,<br />And the window doesn't matter much, or that<br />Sliver of window or mirror on the right, even<br />As a gauge of the weather, which in French is<br />Le temps, the word for time, and which<br />Follows a course wherein changes are merely<br />Features of the whole. The whole is stable within<br />Instability, a globe like ours, resting<br />On a pedestal of vacuum, a ping-pong ball<br />Secure on its jet of water.<br />And just as there are no words for the surface, that is,<br />No words to say what it really is, that it is not<br />Superficial but a visible core, then there is<br />No way out of the problem of pathos vs. experience.<br />You will stay on, restive, serene in<br />Your gesture which is neither embrace nor warning<br />But which holds something of both in pure<br />Affirmation that doesn't affirm anything.<br /><br />The balloon pops, the attention<br />Turns dully away. Clouds<br />In the puddle stir up into sawtoothed fragments.<br />I think of the friends<br />Who came to see me, of what yesterday<br />Was like. A peculiar slant<br />Of memory that intrudes on the dreaming model<br />In the silence of the studio as he considers<br />Lifting the pencil to the self-portrait.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">How many people came and stayed a certain time,<br />Uttered light or dark speech that became part of you<br />Like light behind windblown fog and sand,<br />Filtered and influenced by it, until no part<br />Remains that is surely you.</span> Those voices in the dusk<br />Have told you all and still the tale goes on<br />In the form of memories deposited in irregular<br />Clumps of crystals. Whose curved hand controls,<br />Francesco, the turning seasons and the thoughts<br />That peel off and fly away at breathless speeds<br />Like the last stubborn leaves ripped<br />From wet branches? I see in this only the chaos<br />Of your round mirror which organizes everything<br />Around the polestar of your eyes which are empty,<br />Know nothing, dream but reveal nothing.<br />I feel the carousel starting slowly<br />And going faster and faster: desk, papers, books,<br />Photographs of friends, the window and the trees<br />Merging in one neutral band that surrounds<br />Me on all sides, everywhere I look.<br />And I cannot explain the action of leveling,<br />Why it should all boil down to one<br />Uniform substance, a magma of interiors.<br />My guide in these matters is your self,<br />Firm, oblique, accepting everything with the same<br />Wraith of a smile, and as time speeds up so that it is soon<br />Much later, I can know only the straight way out,<br />The distance between us. Long ago<br />The strewn evidence meant something,<br />The small accidents and pleasures<br />Of the day as it moved gracelessly on,<br />A housewife doing chores. Impossible now<br />To restore those properties in the silver blur that is<br />The record of what you accomplished by sitting down<br />"With great art to copy all that you saw in the glass"<br />So as to perfect and rule out the extraneous<br />Forever. In the circle of your intentions certain spars<br />Remain that perpetuate the enchantment of self with self:<br />Eyebeams, muslin, coral. It doesn't matter<br />Because these are things as they are today<br />Before one's shadow ever grew<br />Out of the field into thoughts of tomorrow.<br /><br />Tomorrow is easy, but today is uncharted,<br />Desolate, reluctant as any landscape<br />To yield what are laws of perspective<br />After all only to the painter's deep<br />Mistrust, a weak instrument though<br />Necessary. Of course some things<br />Are possible, it knows, but it doesn't know<br />Which ones. Some day we will try<br />To do as many things as are possible<br />And perhaps we shall succeed at a handful<br />Of them, but this will not have anything<br />To do with what is promised today, our<br />Landscape sweeping out from us to disappear<br />On the horizon. Today enough of a cover burnishes<br />To keep the supposition of promises together<br />In one piece of surface, letting one ramble<br />Back home from them so that these<br />Even stronger possibilities can remain<br />Whole without being tested. Actually<br />The skin of the bubble-chamber's as tough as<br />Reptile eggs; everything gets "programmed" there<br />In due course: more keeps getting included<br />Without adding to the sum, and just as one<br />Gets accustomed to a noise that<br />Kept one awake but now no longer does,<br />So the room contains this flow like an hourglass<br />Without varying in climate or quality<br />(Except perhaps to brighten bleakly and almost<br />Invisibly, in a focus sharpening toward death--more<br />Of this later). What should be the vacuum of a dream<br />Becomes continually replete as the source of dreams<br />Is being tapped so that this one dream<br />May wax, flourish like a cabbage rose,<br />Defying sumptuary laws, leaving us<br />To awake and try to begin living in what<br />Has now become a slum. Sydney Freedberg in his<br />Parmigianino says of it: <span style="font-weight:bold;">"Realism in this portrait<br />No longer produces and objective truth, but a bizarria . . . .<br />However its distortion does not create<br />A feeling of disharmony . . . . The forms retain<br />A strong measure of ideal beauty," because<br />Fed by our dreams, so inconsequential until one day<br />We notice the hole they left. Now their importance<br />If not their meaning is plain. They were to nourish<br />A dream which includes them all, as they are<br />Finally reversed in the accumulating mirror.<br />They seemed strange because we couldn't actually see them.<br />And we realize this only at a point where they lapse<br />Like a wave breaking on a rock, giving up</span><br />Its shape in a gesture which expresses that shape.<br />The forms retain a strong measure of ideal beauty<br />As they forage in secret on our idea of distortion.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Why be unhappy with this arrangement, since<br />Dreams prolong us as they are absorbed?<br />Something like living occurs, a movement<br />Out of the dream into its codification.</span><br /><br />As I start to forget it<br />It presents its stereotype again<br />But it is an unfamiliar stereotype, the face<br />Riding at anchor, issued from hazards, soon<br />To accost others, "rather angel than man" (Vasari).<br />Perhaps an angel looks like everything<br />We have forgotten, I mean forgotten<br />Things that don't seem familiar when<br />We meet them again, lost beyond telling,<br />Which were ours once. This would be the point<br />Of invading the privacy of this man who<br />"Dabbled in alchemy, but whose wish<br />Here was not to examine the subtleties of art<br />In a detached, scientific spirit: he wished through them<br />To impart the sense of novelty and amazement to the spectator"<br />(Freedberg). Later portraits such as the Uffizi<br />"Gentleman," the Borghese "Young Prelate" and<br />The Naples "Antea" issue from Mannerist<br />Tensions, but here, as Freedberg points out,<br />The surprise, <span style="font-weight:bold;">the tension are in the concept<br />Rather than its realization.</span><br />The consonance of the High Renaissance<br />Is present, though distorted by the mirror.<br />What is novel is the extreme care in rendering<br />The velleities of the rounded reflecting surface<br />(It is the first mirror portrait),<br />So that you could be fooled for a moment<br />Before you realize the reflection<br />Isn't yours. You feel then like one of those<br />Hoffmann characters who have been deprived<br />Of a reflection, except that the whole of me<br />Is seen to be supplanted by the strict<br />Otherness of the painter in his<br />Other room. We have surprised him<br />At work, but no, he has surprised us<br />As he works. The picture is almost finished,<br />The surprise almost over, as when one looks out,<br />Startled by a snowfall which even now is<br />Ending in specks and sparkles of snow.<br />It happened while you were inside, asleep,<br />And there is no reason why you should have<br />Been awake for it, except that the day<br />Is ending and it will be hard for you<br />To get to sleep tonight, at least until late.<br /><br />The shadow of the city injects its own<br />Urgency: Rome where Francesco<br />Was at work during the Sack: his inventions<br />Amazed the soldiers who burst in on him;<br />They decided to spare his life, but he left soon after;<br />Vienna where the painting is today, where<br />I saw it with Pierre in the summer of 1959; New York<br />Where I am now, which is a logarithm<br />Of other cities. Our landscape<br />Is alive with filiations, shuttlings;<br />Business is carried on by look, gesture,<br />Hearsay. It is another life to the city,<br />The backing of the looking glass of the<br />Unidentified but precisely sketched studio. It wants<br />To siphon off the life of the studio, deflate<br />Its mapped space to enactments, island it.<br />That operation has been temporarily stalled<br />But something new is on the way, a new preciosity<br />In the wind. Can you stand it,<br />Francesco? Are you strong enough for it?<br />This wind brings what it knows not, is<br />Self--propelled, blind, has no notion<br />Of itself. It is inertia that once<br />Acknowledged saps all activity, secret or public:<br />Whispers of the word that can't be understood<br />But can be felt, a chill, a blight<br />Moving outward along the capes and peninsulas<br />Of your nervures and so to the archipelagoes<br />And to the bathed, aired secrecy of the open sea.<br />This is its negative side. Its positive side is<br />Making you notice life and the stresses<br />That only seemed to go away, but now,<br />As this new mode questions, are seen to be<br />Hastening out of style. If they are to become classics<br />They must decide which side they are on.<br />Their reticence has undermined<br />The urban scenery, made its ambiguities<br />Look willful and tired, the games of an old man.<br />What we need now is this unlikely<br />Challenger pounding on the gates of an amazed<br />Castle. Your argument, Francesco,<br />Had begun to grow stale as no answer<br />Or answers were forthcoming. If it dissolves now<br />Into dust, that only means its time had come<br />Some time ago, but look now, and listen:<br />It may be that another life is stocked there<br />In recesses no one knew of; that it,<br />Not we, are the change; that we are in fact it<br />If we could get back to it, relive some of the way<br />It looked, turn our faces to the globe as it sets<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">And still be coming out all right:<br />Nerves normal, breath normal. Since it is a metaphor<br />Made to include us, we are a part of it and<br />Can live in it as in fact we have done,<br />Only leaving our minds bare for questioning<br />We now see will not take place at random<br />But in an orderly way that means to menace<br />Nobody--the normal way things are done,</span><br />Like the concentric growing up of days<br />Around a life: correctly, if you think about it.<br /><br />A breeze like the turning of a page<br />Brings back your face: the moment<br />Takes such a big bite out of the haze<br />Of pleasant intuition it comes after.<br />The locking into place is "death itself,"<br />As Berg said of a phrase in Mahler's Ninth;<br />Or, to quote Imogen in Cymbeline, "There cannot<br />Be a pinch in death more sharp than this," for,<br />Though only exercise or tactic, it carries<br />The momentum of a conviction that had been building.<br />Mere forgetfulness cannot remove it<br />Nor wishing bring it back, as long as it remains<br />The white precipitate of its dream<br />In the climate of sighs flung across our world,<br />A cloth over a birdcage. But it is certain that<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What is beautiful seems so only in relation to a specific<br />Life, experienced or not, channeled into some form<br />Steeped in the nostalgia of a collective past.</span><br />The light sinks today with an enthusiasm<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I have known elsewhere, and known why<br />It seemed meaningful, that others felt this way<br />Years ago. </span>I go on consulting<br />This mirror that is no longer mine<br />For as much brisk vacancy as is to be<br />My portion this time. And the vase is always full<br />Because there is only just so much room<br />And it accommodates everything. The sample<br />One sees is not to be taken as<br />Merely that, but as everything as it<br />May be imagined outside time--not as a gesture<br />But as all, in the refined, assimilable state.<br />But what is this universe the porch of<br />As it veers in and out, back and forth,<br />Refusing to surround us and still the only<br />Thing we can see? Love once<br />Tipped the scales but now is shadowed, invisible,<br />Though mysteriously present, around somewhere.<br />But we know it cannot be sandwiched<br />Between two adjacent moments, that its windings<br />Lead nowhere except to further tributaries<br />And that these empty themselves into a vague<br />Sense of something that can never be known<br />Even though it seems likely that each of us<br />Knows what it is and is capable of<br />Communicating it to the other. But the look<br />Some wear as a sign makes one want to<br />Push forward ignoring the apparent<br />NaÏveté of the attempt, not caring<br />That no one is listening, since the light<br />Has been lit once and for all in their eyes<br />And is present, unimpaired, a permanent anomaly,<br />Awake and silent. On the surface of it<br />There seems no special reason why that light<br />Should be focused by love, or why<br />The city falling with its beautiful suburbs<br />Into space always less clear, less defined,<br />Should read as the support of its progress,<br />The easel upon which the drama unfolded<br />To its own satisfaction and to the end<br />Of our dreaming, as we had never imagined<br />It would end, in worn daylight with the painted<br />Promise showing through as a gage, a bond.<br />This nondescript, never-to-be defined daytime is<br />The secret of where it takes place<br />And we can no longer return to the various<br />Conflicting statements gathered, lapses of memory<br />Of the principal witnesses. All we know<br />Is that we are a little early, that<br />Today has that special, lapidary<br />Todayness that the sunlight reproduces<br />Faithfully in casting twig-shadows on blithe<br />Sidewalks. No previous day would have been like this.<br />I used to think they were all alike,<br />That the present always looked the same to everybody<br />But this confusion drains away as one<br />Is always cresting into one's present.<br />Yet the "poetic," straw-colored space<br />Of the long corridor that leads back to the painting,<br />Its darkening opposite--is this<br />Some figment of "art," not to be imagined<br />As real, let alone special? Hasn't it too its lair<br />In the present we are always escaping from<br />And falling back into, as the waterwheel of days<br />Pursues its uneventful, even serene course?<br />I think it is trying to say it is today<br />And we must get out of it even as the public<br />Is pushing through the museum now so as to<br />Be out by closing time. You can't live there.<br />The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how:<br />Secrets of wash and finish that took a lifetime<br />To learn and are reduced to the status of<br />Black-and-white illustrations in a book where colorplates<br />Are rare. That is, all time<br />Reduces to no special time. <span style="font-weight:bold;">No one<br />Alludes to the change; to do so might<br />Involve calling attention to oneself<br />Which would augment the dread of not getting out<br />Before having seen the whole collection</span><br />(Except for the sculptures in the basement:<br />They are where they belong).<br />Our time gets to be veiled, compromised<br />By the portrait's will to endure. It hints at<br />Our own, which we were hoping to keep hidden.<br />We don't need paintings or<br />Doggerel written by mature poets when<br />The explosion is so precise, so fine.<br />Is there any point even in acknowledging<br />The existence of all that? Does it<br />Exist? Certainly the leisure to<br />Indulge stately pastimes doesn't,<br />Any more. Today has no margins, the event arrives<br />Flush with its edges, is of the same substance,<br />Indistinguishable. "Play" is something else;<br />It exists, in a society specifically<br />Organized as a demonstration of itself.<br />There is no other way, and those assholes<br />Who would confuse everything with their mirror games<br />Which seem to multiply stakes and possibilities, or<br />At least confuse issues by means of an investing<br />Aura that would corrode the architecture<br />Of the whole in a haze of suppressed mockery,<br />Are beside the point. They are out of the game,<br />Which doesn't exist until they are out of it.<br />It seems like a very hostile universe<br />But as the principle of each individual thing is<br />Hostile to, exists at the expense of all the others<br />As philosophers have often pointed out, at least<br />This thing, the mute, undivided present,<br />Has the justification of logic, which<br />In this instance isn't a bad thing<br />Or wouldn't be, if the way of telling<br />Didn't somehow intrude, twisting the end result<br />Into a caricature of itself. This always<br />Happens, as in the game where<br />A whispered phrase passed around the room<br />Ends up as something completely different.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">It is the principle that makes works of art so unlike<br />What the artist intended. Often he finds<br />He has omitted the thing he started out to say<br />In the first place. Seduced by flowers,<br />Explicit pleasures, he blames himself (though<br />Secretly satisfied with the result), imagining<br />He had a say in the matter and exercised<br />An option of which he was hardly conscious,<br />Unaware that necessity circumvents such resolutions.</span><br />So as to create something new<br />For itself, that there is no other way,<br />That the history of creation proceeds according to<br />Stringent laws, and that things<br />Do get done in this way, but never the things<br />We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately<br />To see come into being. Parmigianino<br />Must have realized this as he worked at his<br />Life-obstructing task. One is forced to read<br />The perfectly plausible accomplishment of a purpose<br />Into the smooth, perhaps even bland (but so<br />Enigmatic) finish. Is there anything<br />To be serious about beyond this otherness<br />That gets included in the most ordinary<br />Forms of daily activity, changing everything<br />Slightly and profoundly, and tearing the matter<br />Of creation, any creation, not just artistic creation<br />Out of our hands, to install it on some monstrous, near<br />Peak, too close to ignore, too far<br />For one to intervene? This otherness, this<br />"Not-being-us" is all there is to look at<br />In the mirror, though no one can say<br />How it came to be this way. A ship<br />Flying unknown colors has entered the harbor.<br />You are allowing extraneous matters<br />To break up your day, cloud the focus<br />Of the crystal ball. Its scene drifts away<br />Like vapor scattered on the wind. The fertile<br />Thought-associations that until now came<br />So easily, appear no more, or rarely. Their<br />Colorings are less intense, washed out<br />By autumn rains and winds, spoiled, muddied,<br />Given back to you because they are worthless.<br />Yet we are such creatures of habit that their<br />Implications are still around en permanence, confusing<br />Issues. To be serious only about sex<br />Is perhaps one way, but the sands are hissing<br />As they approach the beginning of the big slide<br />Into what happened. This past<br />Is now here: the painter's<br />Reflected face, in which we linger, receiving<br />Dreams and inspirations on an unassigned<br />Frequency, but the hues have turned metallic,<br />The curves and edges are not so rich. Each person<br />Has one big theory to explain the universe<br />But it doesn't tell the whole story<br />And in the end it is what is outside him<br />That matters, to him and especially to us<br />Who have been given no help whatever<br />In decoding our own man-size quotient and must rely<br />On second-hand knowledge. Yet I know<br />That no one else's taste is going to be<br />Any help, and might as well be ignored.<br />Once it seemed so perfect--gloss on the fine<br />Freckled skin, lips moistened as though about to part<br />Releasing speech, and the familiar look<br />Of clothes and furniture that one forgets.<br />This could have been our paradise: exotic<br />Refuge within an exhausted world, but that wasn't<br />In the cards, because it couldn't have been<br />The point. Aping naturalness may be the first step<br />Toward achieving an inner calm<br />But it is the first step only, and often<br />Remains a frozen gesture of welcome etched<br />On the air materializing behind it,<br />A convention. And we have really<br />No time for these, except to use them<br />For kindling. The sooner they are burnt up<br />The better for the roles we have to play.<br />Therefore I beseech you, withdraw that hand,<br />Offer it no longer as shield or greeting,<br />The shield of a greeting, Francesco:<br />There is room for one bullet in the chamber:<br />Our looking through the wrong end<br />Of the telescope as you fall back at a speed<br />Faster than that of light to flatten ultimately<br />Among the features of the room, an invitation<br />Never mailed, the "it was all a dream"<br />Syndrome, though the "all" tells tersely<br />Enough how it wasn't. Its existence<br />Was real, though troubled, and the ache<br />Of this waking dream can never drown out<br />The diagram still sketched on the wind,<br />Chosen, meant for me and materialized<br />In the disguising radiance of my room.<br />We have seen the city; it is the gibbous<br />Mirrored eye of an insect. All things happen<br />On its balcony and are resumed within,<br />But the action is the cold, syrupy flow<br />Of a pageant. One feels too confined,<br />Sifting the April sunlight for clues,<br />In the mere stillness of the ease of its<br />Parameter. The hand holds no chalk<br />And each part of the whole falls off<br />And cannot know it knew, except<br />Here and there, in cold pockets<br />Of remembrance, whispers out of time.jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-60117099056698733912010-12-05T22:21:00.000-08:002010-12-05T23:39:58.631-08:00i want to bombard you with leslie gore songs until you come to your senses.<br />'lovesick' is my baseline emotion.<br />h8 errything.<br /><br />if there were a god, he would play this in the background of every time you were sleeping with someone for the last time, just so you could make sure you were giving it your all. <br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkK8UXg1Qwc&feature=related<br />(kidding! not really.)jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-50857779606969021182010-11-30T11:57:00.000-08:002010-11-30T12:01:36.763-08:00ANGST, dispelled.jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-12806979083936628622010-11-30T02:18:00.000-08:002010-11-30T02:23:00.430-08:00i feel like i've just beaten a level-- a boss even?-- in some video game, or that i've been born again (minus the Christianity, obviously) and can face things with a fresh face or fresh mind or fresh whatever. this is strange, because i should feel terrible (because i don't really have anything), but for once i kind of want nothing, minus things that are kind of silly. i'm not craving anything, and though i am definitively without in certain areas of myself, i don't feel particularly absent in anything. i like so many people, and i don't really feel like a baby. i just feel kind of happy in how simple this feels.<br />i finally got everything out?jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-4535378380533190242010-11-19T09:02:00.000-08:002010-11-19T15:06:15.645-08:00i feel like there is a major and a minor arcana in terms of relationships, romantic and not. <br /><br />interesting thought: going to the mall is considered a fairly dumb/vacuous/valley girl thing to do, but the idea of the greecian agora (classic consultant: am i using the right word?) for shopping/social interaction is seen of as pretty nifty keen/something that most people i know would do if given the opportunity to go back in the day. soso, as 'going to the mall' is kind of culturally construed for shopping and people prowling, and the agora is seen as somewhat of the same, except with the addition of discussion, perhaps, where does the mallsRlame, but ancient greece is gr8 argument come from?<br />re: discussion, do we really have faith in ancient people have distinguished, enlightened, truth-seeking conversations all the time, or is it more likely they were just taking about who looked best in their togas?<br />this is inarticulate/dumb sounding, duh. but the thought is ill-formed/silly, though still curious.<br /><br />also, this is the only song i listen to anymore: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_bEWXs_FX4">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_bEWXs_FX4</a><br /><br /><br />roflrofl, <3jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-4160114678127249222010-11-14T02:51:00.001-08:002010-11-14T02:51:55.154-08:00i am afraid of myself.jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-30232992223320453442010-11-11T01:51:00.000-08:002010-11-11T02:47:23.752-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9GME1DfSSIFrGYvBU1iNXFcxumHhiGSWQczA7ohF8ZVDl9oPLRK_eWV_sOWqA1joyk4plIveVTVgxndYFA54iY1hIZLl7FAewgOMofRcmXQmJIFK7e-TXv-hFve1ykvk9GdSsdzB1uso/s1600/DSC_0418.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9GME1DfSSIFrGYvBU1iNXFcxumHhiGSWQczA7ohF8ZVDl9oPLRK_eWV_sOWqA1joyk4plIveVTVgxndYFA54iY1hIZLl7FAewgOMofRcmXQmJIFK7e-TXv-hFve1ykvk9GdSsdzB1uso/s200/DSC_0418.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538241817489203314" /></a><br />beautiful night with beautiful fog and a beautiful song playing on repeat (that describes really just what i want to hear, please, oh, please i am the craziest), and my head is spinning with catholic self-discovery and protestant women submitting then transcending and finding god in attempt to power their facade; i am being archaic, but i am speaking my mind, and my fingers are fluttering faster than my heart beat, which apparently can vary from 68-109 bmp, while sitting.<br />i want to get up and go, but i don't know who will come with me? should i be hoping for love, or should i just bring my cat, frightened and nervous and sneaky (and representative of me) as she is? i don't want to go alone because i don't want to be alone, and i don't want to be alone because i'm afraid that means that no one loves me-- but that is silly and melodramatic, and i am manic because i haven't slept, and i keep 'forgetting' to eat. <br />tonight, i had so many thoughts that, when i couldn't find someone to tell them to, (guess who!) i sat down, crying in the b staircase. i really think i'm going insane, but i'd rather be honest and understanding and convinced that i am learning than sane (though ideally, i'd be both). i hope this fog is inspiring everyone else because it is so perfect.<br />i'm going to go take pictures, lol.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfTRBiYcOXilb8Xmr131ym7Pio7LJd13dDOK9bER-eT2yEZch8EDhY4eFQ5zFjECzXSdYaxwRt-O6ycoMsq-rx1dwaJhcngdE1gCPI6NOnelI2QS4Jh-b1XbZ994rijdW3pq93vd2ftdw/s1600/DSC_0432.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfTRBiYcOXilb8Xmr131ym7Pio7LJd13dDOK9bER-eT2yEZch8EDhY4eFQ5zFjECzXSdYaxwRt-O6ycoMsq-rx1dwaJhcngdE1gCPI6NOnelI2QS4Jh-b1XbZ994rijdW3pq93vd2ftdw/s200/DSC_0432.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538237896440915186" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />i'm gonna take good photos one day, i swear!<br />(THIS REMINDS ME OF HIGH SCHOOL, BUT HOPEFULLY I'M MORE INTELLIGENT.)jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-25983777005530674962010-09-11T20:18:00.000-07:002010-09-11T20:23:47.684-07:00Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among spurious lives. <br />Vladimir Nabokovjen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-11101705206706530262010-09-05T03:08:00.001-07:002010-09-05T03:08:54.996-07:00it's scary to know the future's coming.jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-44836476723064818092010-08-28T19:29:00.000-07:002010-08-28T19:31:01.847-07:00my life sounds like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4ATYHU4uFw mashed up with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5biCmyJQtM<br />weird, right?<br /><br />(everyone should love frightened rabbit; that's the real reason i'm posting this. HAH)jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-43136033303764864912010-07-26T18:37:00.001-07:002010-07-26T18:46:19.914-07:00HEY GUYS.i have been writing 'poems' lately. i want to post them, but i don't know if i should! should i? i know SOMEONE is looking at this website, but i don't actually know who. tell me if i should! like via formspring or honesty box or pidgin or something, please pretty please.<div><br /></div><div>in other news, i ran 1.5 miles on concrete today barefoot, and now my feet are bleeding, kind of, but i don't have any band-aids and don't want to go to walgreens/move in general, so i don't know what to do! i've also crashed the pitchfork vip section, met one of my favorite 'bands' (got her to sign my copy of mrs. dalloway because i am a tool who didn't have anything else to write on), crashed a wedding, biked fifty miles in one day for the first time (and got caught in the rain and got asked out by a guy who, five minutes previous, justified rape!), also got hit on by a gang member who didn't stop after i told him i was sixteen, and learned latin, kind of. i freak out less and read and write more and sometimes pretend that i'm in a phil spector girl group, so for once i'm actually liking summer. whoo! but answer my question! should i type things up?</div><div>one day i'll stop looking for validation, i swear, but until then... humor me? :-P </div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-33963548733028695902010-07-11T20:57:00.001-07:002010-07-11T21:27:04.159-07:00best day ever.<div>reallyreally.</div><div>can't even articulate it right now because i rode my bike 50+ miles, and my legs are about to fall off. will update this when i can think straight with something hopefully interesting. yay!</div><div><br /></div><div>UNTIL THEN...</div><div>this song describes my love life, always.</div><div>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edUZnrMlThA</div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-5230137929827726172010-07-04T12:41:00.000-07:002010-07-04T12:52:28.187-07:00i think i'm going to start liking leslie goreAt the moment, all I really want is an overweight cat, my dad to move out to Portland, and a great books education at a not-great-books college. I've been spending my nighttimes studying Latin in the basement of a science library among books that smell like dust and listening to songs that I (resentfully) recognize would've 'defined me' six months ago; I really wish liking your taste was the same as liking you, and I wish I didn't feel so one dimensional. Also, why the hell do I keep dreaming that I'm dying? <div>But, heyhey, there are fireworks tonight, and I won't be doing any sort of psychedelic acrobatics, so let's hope I can keep my composure, especially since I lovelove Chicago. </div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-11729352167802873032010-06-21T22:12:00.000-07:002010-06-21T23:18:06.777-07:00kind of like tumblr!I've been looking up untranslatable words for the past half hour. These are interesting. <div><br /></div><br />"No single word in English renders all the shades of <b>toska</b>. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom."--Nabokov<div><br /></div>Mamihlapinatapai- "a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start."<div><br /></div> l'ésprit de l'éscalier- "thinking of a really good comeback after the moment has passed." (when you're half way down the stairs and thinking of the conversation you've just had in the drawing room)<br /><br />l'appelle d'vide - the urge to jump from high places, into a canyon, etc.. literally, "the call of the void."<br /><br />"Istories me arkoudes" (this is a phonetic. or "Greeklish" rendering for a phrase meaning "stories with bears"), to refer to narrated events that are so wild and crazy it seems that they can't possibly be true.<br /><br />shlemazl-- the sort of black cloud Eddie who asks after your mother just after she died, or parks in the exact spot where the piano's going to fall.<br /><br />Fernweh - a longing to be away, the desire to simply be somewhere far distant.<br /><br />duende (my favorite, i think)- http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/LorcaDuende.htm it kind of reminds me of the whole-body feeling of l'esprit (de cyrano!)<br /><br />mokita: the truth which no one speaks<br /><br />razbliuto: the feelings you have for someone you once loved, but now do not<br /><br />ocurrencia: sudden bright idea or witty remark<br /><br />Mana-- an indigenous word may be the concept of an impersonal force or quality that resides in people, animals, and inanimate objects. (sounds *kind of like* Weber's description of charisma, I think. The rest of the entry on 'mana' goes on to describe that it could be considered the pre-cursor to modernized religion, similar to Weber's 'charisma'? whoawhoawhoa.)<br /><br />Lagom-- Swedish word meaning 'just the right amount' or 'perfectly in balance'. Sort of similar to Aristotle's 'golden mean'.<br /><br />débrouiller- to improvise a solution to a problem, or to manage things on your own. A less polite synonym is 'se démmerder' (literally, to unshit yourself). A 'schéma directeur' is a kind of high-level strategy document that seems to have no other purpose than bureaucratic ass-covering.<br /><br />limerence- 'pre-love', or, my life. solidly accurate summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence<br /><br /><div>I'm not entirely sure why I posted all of these (most likely so I'll be able to re-find them and build my vocabulary when I'm less tired, whoo!) I'll probably write something about limerance and duende at some point. Yaaay. Now, I'm going to memorize declensions and kill myself. </div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-46025092098647778522010-06-20T23:58:00.000-07:002010-06-22T16:58:42.391-07:00and to top it off, i'm dirt poor!Empathy or, the subtle, arrogant, asserting feeling that you know people has been invading my personality and encroaching on your personal space, people of America. In this basement apartment with black furniture and a bookshelf of philosophy, one that my fifteen-year-old self would've gone simply <i>gaga</i> over, before she learned the cliche (I'll write you a letter, no! a note! a <i>note from the underground</i>! ha-ha), I've been thinking of myself and mourning the loss of 'good intentions' as an <s>explanation</s> excuse. See what I did there? (Good Lord, I sound like Mike Kramer.) It's really strange, seeing how the things that you've felt and seen most truly are the things that fit most perfectly into the stereotypes you always thought you were repelling (or that you thought you were better than or that you blahblahblah). I end up sitting in a strange place between questioning my own thoughts' validity and cozying into a ____-fueled realization that I am genuinely just <i>that</i> kind of person. Is it enough to like what you like, even if what you like falls line by line into an accepted definition, or do you have to be original-- perhaps by forsaking 'doing what you want'-- to be considered Something Unique or Validated or whatever my self-psychology tells me I'm 'looking for'? <div>This is dumb, <s>because</s> and I'm being honest, but who the hell is really reading? I'm sitting in a tiny room and listening to music that I thought was grrrrreat six months ago when I thought I was in love with a feline boy who I thought I knew, which brings me back to the beginning and the realization that, despite having good intention to blabber on and on about it, I did not, in fact, even scratch the surface. </div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-89303918153629560612010-06-18T17:15:00.000-07:002010-06-18T17:36:57.434-07:00double edged swordI spend my time trying to figure out the people who can't do it for themselves- or won't do it for themselves- because I don't understand how I've become my own self. Let me make you happy because you're just like me, and I'm not sure how this train-railing underbelly of a smile came whamming and slamming to my face on the top of an Alabama rooftop. I'll make my life an indie film, a French novella because I've been thinking that I'm the ubermensch or that silly girl you could write a book about, the one with all of the understanding but none of the confidence. Ironic, isn't it, our layers of insecurity and arrogance, piled one after the other, that we peel away to seduce or befriend or comfort others, claiming that 'oh no, I understand, I've been there before, and I know how to make it better' or 'don't judge me, I don't pretend know what I'm talking about, not with my racing thoughts and my expanding waist and my complete inability' to focus and step outside myself and be anything other than this stack of pages or peeling skin. I'm looking for validation in you and in everyone, even though I shouldn't be online when the sun is still out. I want to speak for our generation, make people feel like I've felt, alone at movie theatres, moved to sit alone and scribble and cross my fingers and hope for my life to be Important and Interesting one day.<div>I know I'm a cliche, but I mean it, I mean it, I really do mean it. Doesn't that count for something? Perhaps I sound like someone I tease, but I can't name five famous critics. </div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-39652370065244955332010-06-17T01:20:00.000-07:002010-06-17T01:21:10.481-07:00because we breathe in sound (opening lines)The smell of music pounded on the speakers. It was soft, like downy, and rocked Andrew into sleep. He began to hum a lullaby. Lullabies had always reminded him of grandma, though he could hardly recall more than her wrinkles and whispers; the murmurs and the songs about kings and plagues and bathtubs would cross his mind every so often, like her fingers would’ve crossed his brow and brushed his eyes closed before bedtime. Now her hands were replaced with cords and scents, ever since the memes became the mothers and the mothers became obsolete.<div>But his memories never lasted long at all.</div><div>Curry splayed through the sensors and marched into his nostrils, troops of red armies sent to wake him. They were strong. He was late. He was at least seven minutes late-- the intense seasonings didn’t start until exactly 8:36 am, and curry was always the second. The navy pin-striped suit sat ready, and showering was not an option as water could only be turned on before 8:34 and was shut off at 8:40. Tripping to the dresser, Andrew half buttoned his shirt and shrugged his pants on, grabbing a piece of automatic toast before hitching out the door.</div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-42234571307886508532010-06-10T02:03:00.000-07:002010-06-11T01:52:57.332-07:00excuses, excuses<div>It's a lot easier to write about things when you're miserable, so the last year has been literarily difficult. I'm going to start writing stories, one a week at least. They won't be very good. It's strange thinking of what to write about. Every idea has a flaw. </div><div>Examples, problems:</div><div>-'Write what you love!' I love people. Should I write about my friends? The multitudes of people I'm secretly (or not so secretly) attracted to? Strangers? I dated a boy once who had written a bunch of songs about girls at our tiny high school that he had once 'loved' (he was a drama queen), but he didn't want to play them at school because that'd be strange. Instead, he waited until college and released them (including an awful one about how much of a bitch I am-- see '<a href="http://www.myspace.com/bringprudence">Boar in the Woods'</a>. I'm sure posting this link doesn't help dissolve that reputation, but back to the sentence!), and some of my high school kids heard it, and everyone laughed. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but I laughed, and I am insecure enough with my composition abilities and embarrassingly open enough about my personal life to make writing about people seem like some sort of suicide.</div><div>Also, I totally love myself, but writing about 'neuroses' or whatever is <i>soooo</i> sophomore year.</div><div>-'Write about anything, but make it so cryptic that no one knows what you're talking about!' Self-indulgent/coy with annoying overtones. Maybe a good way to circumvent the problem of wanting to write about people.</div><div>-'Write creatively!' But what if I suck, and then people don't take me seriously? I am a critic to everyone, so I am due some mean karma, BUT I DON'T WANT IT.</div><div>-.....Grow up. See: BUT I DON'T WANT TO. Just kidding, but I am afraid of being artistically vulnerable because I probably suck lalala.</div><div><br /></div><div>Side note: Alejandro sucks.</div><div><br /></div><div>OKAY. So I'll write stories or something about an unknown subject-- and I'm mostly saying this because I can't think of anymore things to add to that list, and I also live for the airport in about two hours, so I don't want to think anymore. Hopefully, one story a week. Maybe someone will read them?! Unlikely, but I can hope, you know? Maybe I'll write poems, too, if I get my emotions back. (read: if I start crying all the time again!) We'll see, we'll see.</div><div><br /></div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9068682874600979391.post-43737038696742415942010-06-07T16:29:00.000-07:002010-06-07T17:43:07.620-07:00an explanation'jennifer' is a welsh, english, or celtic (but aren't they all kind of the same?) name meaning 'fair one' or 'white wave'. it's derived from guinevere, king arthur's floozy of a wife who falls in love with lancelot and leads to arthur's ruin; legend says that the king of england must have her at his side to be successful, but other legends contradict.<div> <div>i sometimes wonder how many of the mothers who named their daughters jennifer in the 70s (when the name was at its height of its popularity) knew the history behind the name. hell, i wonder if my mom did. i kind of doubt it. in fact, i'd be surprised to find out she even properly knew who arthur was. i wonder if any of the mothers would feel odd, having named their baby girls after one of the most prominent sluts in european history. (i guess i should clarify here that <i>i </i>don't have a problem with guinevere's romantic choices; in fact, i wish i had her exact same name, instead of this silly derivative.) in <i>the end of the affair</i>, bendrix hires a private detective who, i think, names his son lancelot after 'the man who found the holy grail'. bendrix corrects him, saying that galahad had found the grail, as lancelot wasn't able to touch the grail because he was an adulterer. after hear this, a look comes over the detective's face 'as though he had betrayed his son.' would any of the other jennifers' mothers care as much as this detective? would mine? i kind of doubt it.</div><div><br /></div><div>regardless, this is my blog, and that's where all of the 'white wave' business comes from. the 'confessions of a... widowed' is from lolita; i feel like i shouldn't have to explain that connexion. i'm not sure what i'll have to write about (and i think that problem is precisely why i'm starting this) because i doubt i'll care enough in three years to read about my god-awful haircut or how much glee i've been watching, but i do want to write something. writing used to be my 'thing'. the president of my high school would always compliment my newspaper articles, and i do have an almost-finished dystopian novel hiding somewhere in the crevices of my macbook. i ought to get back in practice-- short stories, poems, everything. we'll see what happens.</div><div><br /></div><div>i'll leave you with a picture of guinevere and lancelot. oddly enough, a few pictures of otters showed up in the search; i love otters.</div><img src="http://www.literateur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/guin.JPG" /></div>jen byershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08839112732687104661noreply@blogger.com0