Accumulating Paper

"Hey, ____. How do you feel about me borrowing that play?" And my professor Indy blinked and awkwardly turned aside and answered a different question, but I stood patiently awaiting my response. The reading is due Wednesday. This was last Wednesday. He would have to part with his copy for a week. A little dinko copy. He lined up his stack of papers intently with his left hand. "Are you asking if you can actually borrow my copy?" He winced. So, I said, "Oh, it's okay," and started walking out of class. He asked, "Did you not...it was in the bookstore. There were copies in the bookstore." But I didn't go to the bookstore. I just bought all the big anthologies online.

Books, I love them, but also they're so annoying. You can't throw out a book. It doesn't seem kind. But, there are books I don't need. I try to tie off the pouch early. I borrow when I can. I e-read. I don't want to amass the paper piles. Or cardboard piles from Amazon. Or money piles transferred to Barnes and Nobles' shareholders.

I left class feeling...icky. Yes, just icky. I'm sure no harm was meant, but I guess it never feels good to be denied? What am I going to do? Dip the play in peanut butter? Is it just common policy, or is it just me? And to turn it back on me. Like how could I even consider asking when I should be spending my incredibly teensy stipend on Wally Shawn plays from the 90s? My nerve!

Furthermore, I just checked the e-mailed list of books Indy sent pre-school. Turns out I DID order them all, and this play was left off. Really now. Of course, I would sound insane to mention such a petty detail, which is why I am writing about it on my blog.

Existentialism via Book Sale

November 2011.

Any day could be! So, love, work, enjoy, rejoice.

Bossy Pants

Trelly wrote our group of summer camp lady pals about how she is reading Tina Fey's Bossy Pants and can't stop hearing my voice. This is a blessing and a curse. What a compliment! But, also...how annoying. People frequently tell me how I remind them of Tina. I lamented back to my pals: You guys! What if I want to write a book someday, but my sense of humor just comes across as Fey-wannabe! When really it's always been me! Heck, I even look like her!

And so this is what Wizzy responded:

"yeah palice, but, actually, you're nothing like her.

i mean, u're ten times funnier. and I know YOU personally. also you look nothing alike. this is what she looks like:



and this is what you look like:



see? nothing alike."

<3 Wizzy <3

Changing Minds

eggs, vegan sausage, and corn-cakes in Portland


Reading Eating Animals makes me feel kind of empowered, guilty, and silly all at the same time.

Empowered because the meat industry in the US is horrifying, and I don't support it. Boo-yah.
Guilty because I'm not a vegan yet, nor do I think I ever will be...more on this later.
Silly because I know my choices and good rationale. Do I really need to spend my time reading more about it? People keep seeing the bright green cover and excitedly asking "Whatcha reading?" And, then, the mood is killed, I appear judgmental, and seem unwilling to research outside the few social issues I stick up for.

But, I've got good reasons for reading.

-The creative/informational non-fiction style of Foer is fab and worth learning from.
-This is the first book of this kind I have ever actually read. Real facts, real chapters...more than my bits and pieces of knowledge from articles and biology classes.
-It was a gift from Kay.

HERE IS WHAT IS TROUBLING TO ME:
I was imagining giving this book to a meat-lovin' friend and having it blow their world open. But, then, I couldn't imagine anyone in my life such a situation would pertain to. Either he wouldn't read it. Period. Or, he would concede to the facts, but figure it wasn't a just cause. And, the whole point of the book is to say "Hey...this isn't a left wing issue anymore folks, this is common sense. Cut it out." So, that bugged me, but that's not the main trouble. The main trouble is when I think about myself. When it comes to the big issues I believe in--would even the most well-crafted text change my mind? Of course, my first instinct is to say "No, because my opinions are right." Um, and clearly therein lies the problem with issues and opinions...

Personal Censorship

Paris 2009

So...The Bell Jar. Should I read it? I've known its appeal to me for years. But, I always figure it will be too truthful and depressing for me. Don't get me wrong. I love drama. I love depressed characters, but I think it's good for my mental health to see healing, overcoming, etc.

I believe in censorship. Seriously I do. I don't believe in anyone BEING censored, but I think just because we all have the ability to see whatever we want, we shouldn't. I don't think we should have laws banning pornography, but I think it is poison in a million ways, and we should all stop watching it.

My sister found that she enjoyed Nick Hornby books immensely, but they left her feeling like settling is a good life choice. So, she has stopped reading him. On principle. I keep trying to stop seeing crappy romance flicks where the girl loses her identity on principle, but sometimes the urge is too strong.

Sylvia Plath is a whole new issue. I know it is great literature...I SHOULD get familiar. I KNOW I am interested...but what is good for me? Hmm?

Thursday in Portland

We started the day right with meatless sausage and avocado in our eggs and fresh jam on our toast. We ate outside in the sunshine and proceeded to hoof it all the way downtown to Powell's singing Everclear all the while.

I will buy you a garden where your flowers will bloom.
I will buy you a new car--perfect shiny and new.
I will buy you a new house way up in the west hills.


I got lost in the massive bookstore for hours. The best, of course, were the rows and rows of plays. So, so enthralled to be surrounded by great theatre. I made several important purchases the most exciting of which is The Pillowman because I could not wait until I even left the store to begin revisiting it after seeing it last October.

Before exiting downtown we got dinner and the rest of the night was mine while Clara studied for her final final.

Pages

Blanche and I enjoying short stories by Anton Chekhov on a Sunday morning last October.

In the lib with my sissy. Checkin' out books for break. Right now I have Cannery Row, Writing in Restaurants, Player Piano, The Bell Jar, and two monologue collections for capstone inspiration.

Already packed and ready are Jonathan Safron Foer's newest book, a book on playwrighting by Jeffrey Hatcher, and The Interpreter of Maladies.

I am ridiculously excited. So many books I have been dying to read. Not that I haven't enjoyed reading for school this quarter...it's just nice to pick sometimes. I finished the last required reading of the quarter and started reading Fun Home as a little treat to myself in between finals studying...I could not focus on my final papers until I had finished the book. That's the trouble with majoring in English--always reading, never picking. Hopefully, I will not read everything I bring because I hope to be too busy prancing about with Clara. But, one can never be too prepared with her books.

Portland, here I come!