Subtle Vitality

[for Mihir—this is transcribed (and expanded) from an IM conversation two years ago, and since finals are looming, I thought the sentiment was particularly fitting.]

The Michigan Difference.

8:35pm. the night before.

this paper on historiographic metafiction and its role in Moby Dick

is strangling me. 

I look to a friend for a screenname to whine on

a sympathetic keyboard

but find nothing.

Instead, he calls me on my bullshit.

we take the tough subjects,

he says,

we take the classes we’re not the best in

even if they’re hard

we turn in the work even if it doesn’t matter

We

Are

The

Best

of

the

BEST

it’s not about your grades

it’s about how much effort you put into the things you don’t want to do.

So i stretch out my academically inclined hands

and top off my metabolically superfluous caffeine drip

and get to work.

#3/30

—Here we go, guys, bear with me. My nail polish is chipping today, and since I am so terribly present and aware of ordinariness, my muse decided to speak through the Wet N’ Wild tonight. We’ll see if I can be sufficiently clever whilst discussing my phalanges.—

I have never had perfect nails.

Polish always chipping, cuticles always ripped,

ends never shaping quite right.

I’ve always wanted piano-player hands:

long fingers, slender like timid April branches,

every nail shaped in perfect rounded rectangles

like ten little dominos lacquered to fit my mood.

I’ve always wanted to be rid of the pesky mid-digital hair

that biologically plagues the women of my family

Downy-soft model hands to trace down a man’s bicep

as he calls me a cab

or hook through ankle straps on a pair of high heels

when we forgo the cab in favor of a moonlit walk in the sand.

Perfect nails have always been a sign of a perfect woman—

a model, so to speak, of manicured behavior…

and I have never been that woman.

My polish is chipped because I pick at it in moments of inspiration handicap,

as if divesting my nails cleanly of their color will reveal, in neatly printed letters,

the perfect ten-word thesis stretching across my fingers.

These fingers are meant to be used,

not looked at,

and sometimes, when nail meets keyboard,

the machine doesn’t always win.

#2/30

I’ve been feeling very self-conscious about my writing lately. I’m stressed and busy and my personal writing has been taking a hit, so I’m going to try my best to push myself through 30/30. It might be hard, what with finals and all that jazz, but bear with me, ok?

i’ve always hated writer’s block poems

you know the ones—

“staring at the page, the sheer blankness enveloping me

and chasing away any possible inspiration”…

shit.

when i write something,

i want it to MEAN something

to someone

not just an emulation of college high-flown idiocy.

#1/30

<3

lately, i’ve been feeling a little let down by my writing. I didn’t get into Honors last year, I’ve never been published in Xylem and I’ve been so stressed I’m turning in shit papers at the last second. I’m letting down U-Club (and I feel a little burned, even though I know it’s not Grand Slam’s fault…it still hurt) I’m letting down my schoolwork and I’m letting down myself by being so out of tune with my writing. I’m always writing to a deadline lately, and most of the time it’s an uncomfortable one. i never have time to write for myself, or even to make the writing for school feel like it’s for myself. I might need to cut down on extracurriculars and focus on my homework for a while…but I dread making that call. But I don’t wanna be involved in something if it feels like work, if I feel guilty or responsible just because no one else is. I’m really feeling lost right now, and i can’t seem to find my roadmap again.

fuckyeahkatdenningsdaily:

Actress Kat Dennings became an indie “it” girl in ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ before setting small screens on fire with her role on ‘2 Broke Girls.’ Here, she reveals why she loves talking dirty, hates being sexy, and enjoys doing laundry

BY LISA BUTTERWORTH

PHOTOGRAPHED BY SHERYL NIELDS 

KAT DENNINGS IS a hugger. I know this because it’s the first thing she does when we meet at Le Pain Quotidien on a typically mild evening in Studio City, Los Angeles, right before she apologizes for being late. “I’ve been at a photo shoot all day, and don’t be scared, I still have crazy makeup on,” she says before lifting her Ray-Ban sunglasses to reveal her mesmerizing blue eyes, dramatically ringed in sparkly black liner and shadow. They’re a wild contrast to her ultra-casual look-jeans, T-shirt, scarf, headphones—-and demeanor as she drops her bags and slumps into the chair across from me. As it turns out, I’m lucky she made it to our interview at all. “I don’t have any gas in my car. The little orange dot came on last night on my way home,” she says. “[But I was like] fuck it. It’s two in the morning. I’m going home. ‘You better not die.’ I’m always talking to my car when there’s no one on the road, like, ‘Hold on, you asshole! Fucking hold on! I gotta get home, I gotta go to sleep.’ That’s the state of me right now.”

Read More

I haven’t thought about it

since the day you told me

in the flat November sun

on our way to the grocery store.

At least,

not directly.

If I think around the edges

and pray around the corners

then maybe I can convince myself that

what you said isn’t true.

That your tears weren’t real

and our family is still as tight

as it always was.

But now there are cracks.

The day you desperately ran back to the car

to read the words “Separation Agreement”

across a nondescript piece of paper

stuck in your head with no context

or consolation—

That thought literally crossed your mind?? I asked,

incredulous that my brother, my rock, my soldier, my joker

could ever give rise to such a thought.

You haven’t been home, you said,

your face crumpling in a way I haven’t seen in years.

Not since you learned what death was.

See, our family has always been the strong one,

the one out of four that didn’t get a divorce

the one out of four whose parents still slept in the same bed

the one out of four who could still stand to be in the same room

with one another.

But now there are cracks.

Being here at college, two hours, 148 miles and a world away,

it takes the edge off things.

I only know what I am chosen to be told—I don’t see things

the way you do,

brother—

you’ve never been one for too much sharing,

but please

don’t leave me here in this suspended reality

don’t let these cracks swallow me whole

because I can’t live in this fear

or not fear, because my brain cannot wrap itself around

this news you bring me in an undertone,

steps quickening and throat closing—I

had to pull you to me

to make you stop.

I didn’t ask any questions because all I could think about

was making you stop crying,

was helping you out from under the compounded parental pressure

of the single-child-household microscope

but now…

now all these questions are coming back to haunt me

all the times Mom has called me and called me and called me

and I was too busy to pick up the damn phone

all the times Dad has not called me and—

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t write this anymore

every word put down is

a slice to my heart

an admission that what you said might be real

a sudden hatred for my funny shaped bedroom on Catherine St

because it takes me away from you

I haven’t thought about it since the day you told me

at least not directly

and not enough to finish

this poem.

Hey loyal followers! Didja miss me? I’m back in La Serena now, FINALLY on a desktop computer instead of typing miles of blogpost on my iPhone. My fingers are digging all the spreading-out room they have, and my thumbs get to take a break from doing the brunt of the typing ;]

So the Valley. We started our tour on Tuesday by taking a bus to Pisco Elqui and then walking (well, most of us walked) from Pisco Elqui all the way to the end of the road, Alcohuaz, where we were staying at a little refugio called La Frontera. If you kept going two miles past the refugio, the road ends abruptly in a chain-link fence saying, essentially, Do Not Pass Unless You Want To Be In Argentina. (So I paraphrased a little. Sue me.) That walk was a long one, nearly 13 kilometers, and I walked nearly the entire way, only calling it quits because my bad ankle was starting to twinge. That night we all made dinner at one of the cabañas (the 15 of us were spread out over three) and going on a star tour. Mako, our guide, showed us the now-familiar (sticker) Saturn before nonchalantly admitting that he owned the place. He’s 27! He’s not an astronomer, but by the end of the night I would’ve bet my money on him as soon as any professor, so deep was his knowledge. One of my favorites was a globular cluster, Omega Centauri, 18,600 light-years away from our planet. A globular cluster is a tight group of stars held together by gravity, is very dense and the stars inside are relatively old.

The next night was at the domos (the picture I posted earlier). Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy so we couldn’t have a star tour, but we instead spent the evening first brainstorming ideas for our final project, and then breaking up into smaller groups and relaxing over a bottle of pisco. A lot of us really gelled on this little excursion into the valley, especially those of us who bonded into the it’s-too-cold-to-take-my-clothes-off-so-I-won’t-shower-til-the-recinto group—myself included. I liked the three days of being away, not being connected or having to worry about silly things like makeup or dressing nicely. It was good for us to focus purely on our group and the beauty that is the Chilean sky.

Yesterday, we made our way down to our final stop, a little hotel a 20-minute walk past Pisco Elqui called Hotel Galpón. A small group of us dropped our stuff then headed further down the valley to Montegrande, the birthplace of Gabriela Mistral. We had lunch at a little place, I’m not even sure what it’s called, and I had the most amazing empanada napolitana: ham, cheese, and tomato. SO delicious. Our waiter was this adorable middle-aged Chilean man wearing a Canada Dry apron. As soon as he took our orders, he ambled over to the counter and plugged in his iPod to serenade us with some ambience. Every time he’d pick a song, he would glance over at our table, looking for smiles of approval. We heard everything from Usher to Juanes to Chilean salsa to Empire State of Mind to Train. We ordered jugo natural—one of the BEST things they have in Chile, fresh-squeezed juice mixed with just a little water and ice so it’s not overwhelming. I of course ordered orange and I saw our waiter walk outside for a moment, only to return with oranges still attached to the branches! He literally hand-picked the oranges for my juice, and it was awesome.

Today our only goal was to get back to La Serena by 6pm, which we accomplished with no problem. The only hitch we hit was that we missed our stop getting off at the feria, so we had to walk a little farther to get back. We just had a meeting to sort of solidify what our project is going to be and the timeline for the next 9 days of work. It’s hard to believe this trip is almost halfway over. My heart is so conflicted: I have come to love this country so much, love the cheeky slang tone in which they deliver their accent, but at the same time I cannot wait to be back home with all the people I love and have left behind.