Bodies

So I feel like I'm a pretty good communicator. Not, like, in the healthy relationship sense necessarily, where I'm able to be open about my emotions with another person, but I feel really comfortable expressing myself verbally. I've always kind of taken this for granted, maybe. The more I read, though, and meet different people the more I realize that being able to say what I mean is really valuable and not universal. And I remembered the other night what it's like to want to express something and not to be able to.
I was walking up Center St late. It was like 11 on the 4th and cars were still lined up trying to get home from the Stadium of Fire. Someone was playing something hiphop-y and beat-driven really loud and I wanted to bust a move. Real bad. I wanted to dance at them that I felt young and alive and beautiful and I was so glad we all got to share that gorgeous evening. But I couldn't. I felt inarticulate and clumsy and kind of repressed.
Or sometimes the only thing my soul wants is to scream its way through a wild 10 mile run. Run until I'm squeezed dry, until it stops aching or trembling or whatever. And though I'm a pretty good runner, I can't always run until it's time to stop. I half-deal with the problem, then my body gives out and I'm left unresolved.

The running I'm working on.

I took a modern dance class once trying to teach my body the vocabulary of grace. It was mostly mortifying. Our final was a solo that we choreographed: I tried to express the liberation of expansive skies and the open road. I got an A- which seemed pretty generous to me.

This blows my mind.

And not just because it's in Spanish. Crazy hot and dusty and their flinging bodies. AMAZING. When I do approach this kind of ecstasy? And release? So gorgeous and perfect.

I'm a writer not a dancer?

Independence Day

I.

I worked today. In order to make this seem like it was less of a bad idea I ate lots of crap. Except for the pink lemonade snow cone this backfired completely (in that it made me feel much worse and not better at all). I think there's a lesson here about freedom from addiction? Like wouldn't it be great if I stopped eating salt and vinegar Lays (we need to discuss vinegar because I love it) before I wanted to hurl? Or could just have a little coke. If it's there I'll eat it. If I'm feeling down I'll go and get it. Diet Coke is alternately the best thing ever invented and kind of disgusting.

II.
Dear John*,

Please stop telling me how to do my job.

Love, ke.

III.
*John is my boss. So basically he's paid to tell me how to do my job. In moments of clarity I realize this briefly. Yesterday we were shovelling dirt in the blazing afternoon sun (I learned at Fort Laramie that a military punishment for public drunkenness was digging holes just to fill them in again. Granted, they had to do it wearing a barrel and a sign that said DRUNK, but this has been our project this week) while John sat in the shade or in his truck. He corrected my rock-moving method. I snapped something probably unnecessary. He's nice.
Also, those of you who knew this but knew better than to say anything (because when's the last time I took advice?): I am too old for this job. It has its lovely bits, certainly, but what am I doing taking orders from 19 year olds?

IV.
I am too old to be cynical about the 4th of July. I say take the day to celebrate. Enjoy the screaming and the too much meat and the traffic and the fireworks. Fireworks are beautiful and everyone looks up in unison and awe and they're loud and bright and I love them. These 19 year old boys I work with are soo over the 4th and I want to shake them and order them not to waste this beautiful night. That there are only so many holidays like this. That the summer is almost over and we need to make something of it before it fades and dies. (The Armenian word for celebrate or commemorate is the same as mark, like to mark on a calendar. Mark this day, friends.) (Also, coming to terms with my own disappearing life. My nephew, who was born when I was in high school--I remember getting out of class to go and see him, I remember like it happened last week--is starting 6th grade this year. Which I also remember like it happened a minute ago. I went into the MTC 5 years ago last week. WTF. This may have something to do with my impatience with these kids--turns out they're not lying when they say it's going to fly.)

V.
Boston, July 4, 2000 (ish). I was there for FCCLA Nationals. We were sitting on a long curb, the 30 or so of us from Provo High. We couldn't see the stage, but there were huge monitors everywhere blasting the Boston Pops. We wandered under the trees and bought frozen lemonades and flirted and played and ran amok. When the sun set we watched fireworks to music. The last number was Imagine which is weird I think but the song is so evocative and there were thousands and thousands of people and their faces were lit up and they were all looking the same way and I was overwhelmed with awe and connection. My favorite 4th of July.

VI.
In an interview with David McCullough on RadioWest he was talking about how hard times build patriotism, and not in a "chest-thumping" kind of way, but real patriotism: love of country. I love this country. I love the people and kinds of people the US produces--the cynical ones and the smart ones and the sweet ones and the rash ones. I love the land, the open skies, the mountains and forests and the wild open stretches of nothing at all. I love the art we make--clean lines and bright colors; gruff, broken protagonists, all of it still wide-eyed with possiblity and overwhelmed with beauty.
We're weird and arrogant and pushy and rude and all of that. We make decisions that confuse and frustrate me. We say things I wish we didn't.

I love it.

So. Life plans.

I don't know how much I wrote about praying and fasting and agonizing over what to do. And how I found some peace with my decision to teach and go to school both. Life was going to be hectic, but also happy. Well. Scheduling got in the way and I had to choose. So I'm dedicating my next couple of years to studying only. Weird because I thought I was decided and thought I was right. Cool because the life of a student sounds soooo appealing right now. I will have to ween myself off of Banana Republic (Gerard knows me by sight. I think he'd remember my name if I went in this weekend. He's fantastic), but I think that not waking up at 6 every morning sounds delicious. And I might have time to run? Yummy.

There's is something to be said about learning how to make good decisions. Bad decision: living in a house with a newlywed couple and no living room because a garden party would be beautiful and I like having a contract signed. (I need to get out of this still, but can and will.) I know this is a bad decision. I'm going to make it right. Bad decision: trying to split myself 17 ways with school and teaching and teaching. I know that I want to teach, but I can wait for a minute, get a little experience, and go back to it. Dedicate myself completely (and most of my sanity) to the project. Bad decision: cinnamon bears+fudge+pretzels+diet coke+meat loaf "sandwich"+13 hours in the car. This is not easy stuff. But. I can choose well and choose happiness.

Also: when I'm making bad decisions, or am undecided, I find myself unable to write. Weird? There's this silent panic in me. Like my soul is constipated maybe. So here I am again. Getting my life in order. Feels great.

America's Best Idea

Final count: 3 days, 6 states, 1850 miles. :)

Acid

Today I was listening to a short story called "Emergency" by Denis Johnson. The storyline basically is that an orderly and friend find some LSD (thanks) in a cabinet of the 1973 hospital in which they work, drop it, and mostly imagined hilarity ensues. The story was entertaining and well written, and the commentary before the reading spoke of incongruous events, but about halfway through I started getting dizzy and feeling frantic and sick, and I had to turn it off. My day had been productive, but that kind of multivalent productive--lots of computer work, to and from my car, looking at apartments, etc--where 10:00 felt a lot like 1:00. Dizzy, sick, I had to turn it off.

Shortly after he died, I was reading a collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace. I got to "The Girl With Curious Hair" (also the name of the collection), got halfway through, and the same thing: dizzy, naseated. Had to put the thing down.

The ride home from Scanner Darkly was really similar, a friend talking me down. And I stopped Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which I now own and have still never finished) midstream--I was dozing, sleep-deprived--and had to leave my apartment and walk around the block.


I think I can imagine the appeal of taking acid. Something about getting outside of your brain, about creativity and maybe about giving up control and that being really enlightening. And I think the physiology of drugs is fascinating--it was my favorite unit in Psych, and one of my favorite convo topics when I hung around more with people with experience. I don't know, maybe I would really enjoy a good trip, but the idea of losing control, losing track of time and reality for any period of time terrifies me. Sort of irrationally I think.


I write and want to teach writing. A lot of what I teach is how to pull a reader along an argument--striving toward some kind of logical linearity. A means B means C (or whatever). I know that this is sort of a naive and formalistic understanding of argumentation, but I think that at the level I teach, it works. It feels like I'm teaching fundamentals. But I like finding relationships between facts and arguments. I like putting these things in order.


I had a discussion with a friend (and later with my sisters) about plans. I like plans. I like to know plans. If there's not a plan but there should be I stress out. I don't have to plan, but I need to know there is one or that there doesn't need to be one. I like to print out maps so I don't have to rely on someone else's directions (which I may forget or not be able to conceptualize--you know? when they've listed the fourth turn and "you should turn north along Miller and follow it down the hill" and everything jumbles and you have no idea where you should be? And everyone's waiting for you? Eeeckh), I like to know what other people are wearing (or turn up in torn jeans and feel uncomfortable all night?) or bringing or going to eat. Not because I need people to do what I say, I just feel better if I know there's some sort of defining logic.


So. Does anyone else get jittery around acid? Is this totally neurotic? There's probably something more here...

The things I'll do

for a free t-shirt.

Dear Loose Ends: (disclosure)

So I thought I could get away with avoiding you all forever. Or that the loose-endiness would just disappear or I'd grow up or something. Turns out I was wrong and we're going to have to interact. I'm going to have to deal with the all of you. And I'm no more prepared to do it than I was when I ran away the first time.

Instead of, like, living in awkwardness, or confronting each other, what do you say we fight? KE+loose ends cage match? You can all take me on at once, if you'd like, just as long as we can get over this and so my stomach doesn't shrivel and dance every time I see your names?

As far as I can tell, this may be our only shot at normalcy.

You're lovely, all. ke



The less/more cryptic issue is this: isn't it weird the way that we are forced back into situations? I find myself in this weird repeat cycle. Like. I work with 19 year old boys. They're nice and lovely, but I keep doing ridiculous awkward things and then flashing back into the MTC: me+4 elders and all the weird competition and feelings of incompetence and marginalization come flooding back. I still admire those kids, but it sucked a lot. And I didn't know what to do or how to act and I hated it.

And BYU. I thought I'd left all the drama behind because I left. But no. It's there still. Waiting for me.
And knowing that it's all in my head doesn't really help, actually. It would be better if everyone knew because at least then my inexplicable behavior would make sense and everyone could be awkward together and realize that it's not that I'm socially inept (entirely) but just that there's weirdness and the weirdness is chasing us and threatening to eat out our innards while we watch, screaming. Maybe I should make t-shirts or something:
There is Residual Weirdness.
For No Good Reason I Haven't Forgiven You.
What is Your Problem?

Aaach. In all honesty I feel trapped by all these emotions that I hate and am not sure how to overcome.

Too much honesty probably. Mom: you don't need to worry, I'm just venting. Loose Ends: I'll figure it out, no worries.