5 words (that keep) breaking my heart:

"This is simply too much"

-My thesis adviser.

(I keep visualizing this like that scene in Babes In Toyland where the one turns to the other and say "so close and yet so far," to which his friend replies, "it wasn't so far," haha).

this is my "you can do it" theme song:

My prospective reading lists

are getting out of control.

to read academic:

1. Borderlands (La Frontera): The New Mestiza; Gloria Andaldúa
2. Strangers to Ourselves; Julia Kristeva
3. Of Hospitality; Jacques Derrida
4. Dialogue and Difference: Feminisms Challenge Globalization; ed. Margerite Waller and Sylvia Marcos
5. Just Advocacy?: Women's Human Rights, Transnational Feminisms, and the Politics of Representation; ed. Wendy S. Hesford, Wendy Kozol
6. Out Of Egypt: A Memoir; Andre Aicman
7. El fuego y la palabra: una historia del movimiento Zapatista; Gloria Muñoz Ramíre
8. Arrow of Chaos: Romanticism and Postmodernity; Ira Livingston
9. A People's History of the United States; Howard Zinn (I've read excerpts, but the entirety deserves my attention)
10. Democracy Matters; Cornel West
11. Race Matters; Cornel West
12. The American Evasion of Philosophy; Cornel West
13. Where We Stand: Class Matters; Bell Hooks
14. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics; Bell Hooks
15. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology; Slavoj Zizek
16. The History of a Literary Radical and Other Essays; Randolph Bourne
17. War and the Intellectuals, essays 1915-1919; Randolph Bourne
18. The Radical Will; Randolph Bourne (esp. the essay "The Undergraduate")

to read for fun (not that academic isn't fun; I actually put many texts on the academic list myself, for fun; but oh, you know-- this is still a different list)

1. Breath Eyes Memory; Edwidge Danticat
2. Krik? Krak!; Edwidge Danticat
3. Crescent; Diana Abu-Jaber
4. Arabian Jazz; Diana Abu-Jaber (I started but never finished)
5. The Unaccustomed Earth; Jumpa Lahiri (ditto)
   
6. Drown; Junot Díaz
7. Negocios; Junot Díaz
8. Marina; Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Gary- if you're reading; I promise to get it back to you soon!)
   
9. ¡Ya Basta!; Subcomandante Marcos
10. Off The Map
11. The Spell of the Sensuous; David Abram
12. The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World; Michael Pollan
13. The Three Sisters; Anton Chekhov
14. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business; Neil Postman
15. An Unnatural Order: The Roots of our Destruction of Nature; Jim Mason
16. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat; Oliver Sacks
17. Awakenings; Oliver Sacks
18. The Mind's Eye; Oliver Sacks
19. The Color Purple; Alice Walker
20. Picture of Dorian Gray; Oscar Wilde
21. War and Peace; Leo Tolstoy
22. Thoughts in Solitude; Thomas Merton
23. The Seven Story Mountain; Thomas Merton
24. Sula; Toni Morrison

-----
(I'd still welcome all your suggestions).

do your waters run deep, my darlin

where they don't run wide?

I used to feel lonely amongst the root systems, but now I see that even (some) root systems feel lonely amongst the (other) root systems.

...And what good are isolating mental matrices when this is what's happening in the world?
(How am I supposed to concentrate on school, or on my internal wheels when The Global makes me feel so sad/small?)
why am I here? why am I here? what am I doing?

suspended (in the visceral).

"In Speak, Memory, Mabokov makes the poetic, or the playful speculation that Russian children before the Revolution--and his exile--were blessed with a surfeit of sensual impressions to compensate them for what was to come. Of course, fate doesn't play such premonitory games, but memory can perform retrospective maneuvers to compensate for fate. Loss is a magical preservative" (emphasis mine).

FROM Lost In Translation: A life in a New Language (1989)

via: Hoffman, Eva. "The New Nomads." Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss. ed. André Aciman. New York: The New Press, 1999.

Thesis work isn't so grueling

When the light-bulb hits and you realize all you really need is more theory on the feminization of Chaos.

And when your thesis adviser points you to exactly the perfect text for said theory.

And when you are sitting outside, reading on College Green for the first time since fall.

This sundress may be too short for such a breezy day, but the warm wind on my legs feels so good that I don't care.

Winter was a grumpy introspective tunnel, and this is the light: 2 applications for post-graduation programs in this week, a completed annotated bibliography and research proposal, a preparedness to finally make-manifest some of my ideas in writing, and some Vitamin D that isn't coming from a dietary supplement.

Welcome, spring.

vibrations.

Am I going manic?
Have I been manic?

Flip-book flashes:
Exile, liminal suspension, permanent transience.
And I'm hanging to André Aciman's "compulsive retrospection" like it's: involuntary, irregular, inevitable (?), and BODILY.
Signifying lack of agency, even in memory.

And I wish I spoke French, just so I could read Michel Foucault, untranslated. Because I'm self-surveiling and contemplating madness.
And I wish I could channel all these whirling thoughts.
(I swear, I'm on the brink again//oh, have I gone backwards?//oh to be on the brink, on the brink, on the brink again--)
Flash: the-absent-I, Flash: language is laughing, Flash: corporations as "generational voices" and ah, postmodern-disenchantment Flashing like: having answers is the wrong answer.

Been drinking dark roast, straight and black, for the past week. And I swear a collection of recent situational occurrences have some undecipherable interconnection. Like the world is screaming, but the words are mute, and all I sense are vibrations.
vibrations.
vibrations.

(What the hell is up with me?)

vibrations. by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

I am here (and have temporarily abandoned abstractions).

I have been up at or before 8:00, since I've returned to Athens. It doesn't seem to matter what time I go to sleep. I wouldn't call it insomnia, really; I'm not laying, exhausted; I'm alert and energized. If anything, my mind's restless, but it's the good kind of restless that just needs the right creative channel.

Call it artistic inspiration? But I'm no longer daunted.

I've got some leads on programs for a year (or two) of service. And I know it's what I need. I'm appreciative of academia, in a way; despite my distaste for some of the bureaucratic roadblocks and elitist behaviors of this institution, I really am grateful to OU. I say all the time how grateful I am for Athens and for Appalachia and how I really couldn't give two cents about the university, but that's not entirely accurate. It has provided the venue. It has led me to a handful of really inspiring professors--Dr. Marciniak, Dr. Bloomfield, and Dr. Duschinski--who have radically transformed the way I approach knowledge (I have nothing but unwavering respect and admiration for those three women), like it has led me to the theories and texts that have becomes "ins" to my own, independent research. And so: I reject being the "poster child" of academia, but I do not reject academia. I know I'll spend a lifetime monitoring and curbing my own privilege, but I can't keep running from something inevitable (that I'm meant to be in academia, that I thrive in it, that I'll be involved in it--in some way or another--all my life), just because I'm disenchanted with the large-scale structural inequalities that have given me this path in the first place. I can't run Into The Wild. Not because I'm incapable of discarding possessions, of living a simple lifestyle... but because I really think I'll make a bigger difference if I work with, and not against, the existing institutions, if I change them from the inside.

But not now. Not yet. I refuse to go through motions. I'm not ready for an MA and I'm not ready for a PHD and I'm not ready for a Law degree. I can't enter those realms of learning the same person I am now. No, it's essential to take a break--and what better way to do that than a year or two of service? There's an innate selfishness that accompanies being a student; it's a time where one's time and energy is focused, primary, in the development of self. And that's not necessarily wrong; that self development facilitates later ability to give more, to do more, to contribute more to society--
but right now, for me, I find it isolating. And I'm ready to integrate myself back into a world I can feel, one that I know I'm not the center of. So there you have it: a few years of service. That's what comes next. I'm sticking to it.

And all this excess, "restless" energy? It's going to get me through this final stretch healthily.

Here's my (immediate) plate:
1. Thesis.
2. Capstone--on sexual violence against women (I am not really excited about that).
3. One last English class--on Keats, by a Keats PHD, so it'll be angsty, but beautiful. (I am excited about that).
4. Program statements of purpose/applications.
5. Internship with Adam Baker, Attorney and Counselor at Law
6. GRE in Spring (so I don't have to take it later).
7. A year of service abroad--right now, I'm leaning toward a program in Ecuador.
8. = improving my Spanish skills, which are, at this moment, quite rusty (but still there).
9. LSAT studying while in Ecuador.
10. Then a year in DC, doing service in my own country.
11. Then a MA, a degree in Human Rights Law, or both--depending on what the aforementioned experiences lead me to.

And here are my intentions:
1. To be a better listener.
2. To maintain better communication with my brother, and with all my loved ones who are not in close, physical proximity.
3. To balance my Pitta with lifestyle and diet changes--beginning with a detox/cleanse.
4. To further my yoga practice, which, like my Spanish, is quite rusty (but still there).
5. To practice more humility.
6. To remain thankful.
7. And to, despite all the sad things in this world, find enough to hope for to keep going.

steady. strong. unwavering.


I am here by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

sound to touch like music to feel.

I'm just going to go ahead and project that Arcade Fire made last.fm's #1 most played for 2010. Either way, they're my #1.

Hearing Arcade Fire for the first time was like learning what music could be for the first time. It was my Freshman year in high school (so sometime '04-'05?). Dale was home (either already on OU's big holiday break, or for a weekend or something), and he, Frances, and I were driving his beat-up white Geo down Rt. 736, playing Neighborhood #2 (Laika). I think I owe my fascination with Régine Chassagne to Adam Torres (Adam, I don't know I ever told you that?), who likely introduced Dale to Arcade Fire in the first place. Hell, Adam, I think you introduced Dale to Southeast Engine, Joanna Newsom, and Neutral Milk Hotel, too-- who were all passed down to me through him around the same time. In a weird way, those 4 artists + oddly enough, Roman Catholicism, were what kept me strong for some of the hardest things I've faced to-date (all of which sort of compounded in those early years).

Funny--I've watched my musical tastes refine subtly each year--in high school I was jamming out to a lot more Brit-pop and a lot less banjo--but those 4 artists (plus a few others--Ryan Adams, Modest Mouse, & the old-folkys I inherited from my folks) have remained constants for a really long time...

Drew and I had a conversation about music the other day, and about "staying on top of the scene" so-to-speak, and I've gotta say: as much as I love discovering new music (it's a hell of a feeling), part of me doesn't mind humbly playing and re-playing the same familiar artists I've been in love with forever. Music isn't an image. It shouldn't be exploited to project some status of "hip-ness." Music is a feeling. It's always been a feeling.

Actually I listened to an old Radiolab the other day on Musical Language (which--side note--did a fascinating re-visit of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring), and in the episode this psychologist, Anne Fernald, describes sound as touch. Science confirms it: hearing is the act of sound vibrations touching our ears in different places, at different frequencies. I guess, internally, I took it a step further (the podcast doesn't go here, but it could, I think):
If touch is the action that gives the result of feeling (like looking is the action that results in sight, for example)-- and if sound is touch...
wouldn't music be the feeling that results from the action of touching (sound)?

It doesn't really work when you analyze it, I guess. That's the funny part. Feelings shouldn't be deconstructed by literary devises or critical theory--

(oh, this is a head/heart thing, isn't it?)

sound to touch by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

"sleeping with the enemy"

I couldn't sleep last night (a combination of the coffee-milkshake I drank with my Panera dinner--a bad idea that left me jived--, the looming "wherethehelldoIgofromhere" anxiety that I've been effectively--or maybe last night proved not-so-effectively--avoiding, and, at the risk of hyperbole, some "emotional turmoil" from supposedly caring too damn much). Is that even possible? To care too damn much, I mean? It's like being in some lonely camp all by myself: the caring corner. And it just feels like no one else gives a damn and they all just look at me and say, "give it up, Les," but how can I? Why are there not more people caring? And why are the apathetic always making me feel like an isolationist?

[I'm not usually this sinister, but being stuck in Central Ohio is making me go loony (no pun intended this time)]. And I don't want to live a mental separatism. So what do I do? I write about it. But inevitably my writing becomes all cryptic and abstract until it, too, becomes its own separatism--my own linguistic world that no one else can fully reside in, that no one can truly enter. A defense mechanism, maybe. And a subconscious one, at that. I'm not one for dishonesty. I couldn't live a double life if I tried (though I'd never try). And yet I feel torn between two wholly contrasting feelings separating my being. I love people. I do. I love them. And I love being with people. And I love serving people. And am shocked and shocked again by the number of people who have reciprocally blessed my life. It's humbling, really-- the number of people who care. (look how contradictory I'm being). But there's this side of me that feels totally alone, even when I'm in a room full of people who love me. Because my mind is somewhere else--some unreachable place--and because, despite my rationality, I'm ultimately moved by feeling over logic every time--and I cannot fully understand or articulate these feelings or the flashes in my mind (usually not even complete sentences) and consequently lose my ability to share (despite my hopeless earnestness) the fundamental-most part of me.

"I am the cat who walks by [her]self..."

My mind's been flashing with: gender binaries, and parasites, and lions, and "Eating from the Outside" vs "Eating from the Inside," and the social construction of "enemy camps", and how complicated they are, and Eichmann, and institutional compliance, which quickly becomes complacency, and the conjunctive relationship between interior and exterior threats-to-being, and rats, and bodies, and violence against said bodies--sometimes using rats, and bullying, and the way the new Sufjan song made me feel all angsty like the sleigh-bells were saying "consumerismconsumerismconsumerism," and my own inability to let go...

All-the-while flashing with: my parents' good natures, and The Christopher Spirit, and milk-crates, and this Pitchfork interview with Jeff Mangum, and the farm, and community, and collective identity, and the way it can be a positive thing with conscious participation, and Cornel West, and language, and what that really means, and whether or not art really can be the ultimate revolution, and knowing that love really does exist, and...

And this is all occurring while my white middle class privilege comfortably manifests: in my friend's apartment, eating chocolate chip cookies, drinking orange juice, and watching The Office (season 3). If this were satire, I could appreciate the irony like a good ugly sweater party. And maybe this is satire after all. Maybe I've got you (and myself) fooled, and I'm living "Behind Enemy Lines." Maybe I'm taking myself too seriously. And maybe I'm becoming an ego-maniac. Maybe I'm not.

"sleeping with the enemy" by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.