My Rocky Road to Washington

One, two, three, four, five

Hunt the hare and turn her

Down the rocky road

All the way to Washington

Wack-fol-lol-de-ra

I am painting a picture so large I can never see the whole thing at once. My nose is pressed into the minutia of the monumental undertaking and I cannot orchestrate between details. I get lost between tasks, among responsibilities, buried in this dream almost ten years in the making.

I have vague notions about how I want my life in Washington to look; a picture of generalities, cinematic-style scenes of me going about my business, half-baked ideas about where to take my life while I’m there, snippets of an imaginary identity not yet realized.

One, two, three, four, five

Hunt the hare and turn her

Down the rocky road

All the way to Washington

Wack-fol-lol-de-ra

It’s a leap of faith I cannot figure out how to take. I’ve painted a dream in Washington, but am hammering out a reality in Utah. I have two islands of identity I cannot figure out how to bridge. I’ve created scenario after scenario, option after option, Plan B after Plan A, but still cannot make the decisions on precisely when, or exactly how.

It’s a bittersweet issue to chew on. In some sick way I love the struggle, always have, but hate the, er- struggle of it all. Why does the picture have to be so damned big, so damned complex, so damned detailed and so damned personal? Why couldn’t I be content to grow roots in Utah? BWAHAHA! Yeah, right.

I am in limbo and in flux. Any number of things could change, need to change, for any number of other things in my life to sink into place. It’s a maddening game of dominos, Jenga and chess all rolled into one. It’s turned into an overwhelming gear-driven mechanism that cannot move without affecting all the other cogs.

One, two, three, four, five

Hunt the hare and turn her

Down the rocky road

All the way to Washington

Wack-fol-lol-de-ra

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

What We Drank

This weekend's beer was new: Labyrinth Black Ale by Unita Brewing company. It's an award-winner: overall A- rating and 2010 Imperial Stout champion.

Me and the dark beer are friends. Me and this dark beer looked good on paper, but failed to hit it off in person. It's a mighty-fine concoction: lots of chocolatey overtones, woody and bitter, think and viscous. It hit me in the gut as if it were whiskey. I should have known they may be a problem when it came packaged like champagne bottle (heavily corked and wired bottles make me nervous).

Perhaps we can go out on a second date and try it again.

Why I Always Trust My Piper Instincts

Piper sammich + stein of beer + Geeks Who Drink night ≠ brilliant English paper

But, apparently:

Piper sammich + stein of beer + Geeks Who Drink night = calling Fate’s bluff with fortuitous results

I arrived in English class today, without a paper, only to have my English Professor revise his paper model to allow for "journal response essays" to be turned in whenever.

Huzzah!

Mad, Small, World

While I procrastinate the Biology homework, there is a "Small World" story I must share:

The semester begins and I find myself in a Biology lecture. At some point I also find myself speaking with a gal that I know I've met before, but cannot place her name or face. Just before I ask, "Do I know you?" the lecture begins and I'm cut short.

After class this girl turns to me and says, "I was going to ask you, have we met before?" Ha! I knew it. Thus begins the exchange of class schedules- maybe we've had a class together?

I'm staring at her face trying to place a context around her familiarity. All of a sudden lightening (or the hand of God, who knows) strikes my brain and I burst out: "Do you know a Lisa?"

My question is met with squeals of recognition and lo and behold this girl is a friend of a friend who I've not seen in ten years. How in the hell I was able to divine her identity out of a fog of vague memories is beyond me. But I'm willing to accept the gold star for doing so.

Updates on the reunion with said friend to follow.

Caffeine Status

4 shots of espresso + Jimmy John's sammich = a lean, mean Biology homework machine.

Party on, Wayne

Party on, Garth

Weep Little Lion Man

Mumford & Sons has gripped the musically-obsessed side of my persona by its nose and lead it to indulge the "repeat" button, again and again.

These men are simply inspired.

Mumford & Sons is, most definitely, Wombat endorsed.

In The Time Between

Last night there was a stranger in my life. Intimately close, familiar only in proximity, and shockingly alien. Who are you?

His eyes were sky blue, crinkled around the edges. This is what I know of him. The rest is marginalia. I listened, and laughed (at myself, at us, at this), but remained immobile. I heard he was this and that, wanted such and such, and etcetera. But it was his eyes I knew. Depth too close, faux-inviting, teetering on the edge of wanting? to fall in.

There is last night and there is now. The Now is full of me and mine: schedules, appointments, workworkwork, and the noisey-yet-quiet only my apartment offers. It is full of plans, and tomorrow, and the hum of my rhythmic life. It is “The Me”. And The Now is punctuated with solicitous reminders of… well, whatever the hell that was. Scraps of evening I’m not sure I was quite present for.

Order is restored with the making of my bed.

What Do You Do With a BA in English?

I'm secretly, and increasingly, afraid that I am not smart enough for my English degree.

I'm actually not wholly convinced that this is what I should study (oh shit! confession made). It's only by process of elimination that I've arrived here. I know I'm not a chemist, I know I'm not a mathematician, a musician, an artist, a biologist, etc. etc, so on and so on until I reach the oh so logical conclusion that I therefore must be an English person.

Yes, I read (ad nasium). Yes, I take every opportunity to edit my cereal boxes' grammar. Yes, I could listen to my English professor go on and on about literature and theory all while wishing he was in a tweed jacket, but isn't there also supposed to be that inner knowing that yes, I AM a writer? Hm?

I surround myself with books, I listen to NPR, I sip coffee and read blogs. I'm more interested in unpacking a book's purpose than unpacking my purpose in doing so. I keep The List, ever-revised, ever-growing, of all the things I need to read before I can arrive as a credentialed academic. After all these habits are performed, after all my books are read, after I cough out some half-baked thought about authorial intention, diction, rhyme, meter, yaddah yaddah... what then?

I'm afraid that I'm just a dime-a-dozen English degree; a useless BA with no real talent or flare. I'm still hoping for my professors' approval, thinking them the gate-keepers to the discipline. And I'm therefore afraid that these gate-keepers will weed out the weak, the mediocre, the uninspired.

Maybe I'll just be a professional appreciator, instead.

Go Forth & Listen

I less than three NPR and RadioLab.

http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/

If I could accomplish something half as cool with my BAs I would consider myself content.