thursday january 18 2000    |    around 2:00 p.m.

i am currently taking big huge drags off my cigarette. i think this is self-preservation: trying to keep myself awake.

"if it's not love, then it's the bong, the bong, the bong, the bong, the bong, the bong, the bong that will bring us together." this is what i hear coming out of morrissey's mouth this fine afternoon. ahem. resolutions. my only weakness is... well, never mind, never mind.

quote du jour, courtesy of prof. hamilton:

"if you're ever feeling lost, just go to your stereo."

so i had my first contemporary american poets class this morning. yes, the same one i stupidly missed on tuesday. and it was wonderful. within the first half hour, references to u2, radiohead, pavement. a knowing look. i mean, don't get me wrong, i knew the class would be good, but this is ridiculous. i will be quoting extensively, i'm afraid. i haven't been able to think about and discuss language and the options and loopholes and intricacies of language in this much depth since... well, since jimmy's brit lit class i suppose. he the metaphysical poet. saskia is altogether different. if poetry is about getting at the innermost layer of truth -- and i believe that it is -- then i think she is the arrow that pierces rather than the roundabout path that hints. if that makes any sense. forgive me, i'm on two hours of sleep and two cups of coffee and piled-up anxiety. still scrambling for classes. outlook brighter. we shall see.

morrissey always puts me in the backseat of denise's car, smoky and perfumed, leather and make-up, late-night avenues, adjusting knee-high boots, heading clubward. a good, a very good association.

to my punkrock marmota dear, truckloads of luck and good karma on her first day of assistant teaching. and nb, more reason to go chat with mr. yerke, who is also a teacher-person, and a damn inspired one at that. good luck to him, too, in his new adopted city.

so i think i might sleep rather than check out this native american culture class with fritz. it's so full that stragglers are left deskless and unsteady on swivel chairs. this is not particularly encouraging. i think maybe i'll end up taking art of christian europe instead, what the heck. and i'm banking on this chinese film and culture class to come through after all. i wish i could remember how to sound out the chinese word for "connections," jules told me what it was last night, and she says by virtue of this i'll get in. i hope i hope. although the people in that class are kinda scary... but i just have to overcome my irrational fear of hippies. i think i was scarred by hanging out entirely too often with the peeps (o' kenyon) freshman year.

i have some supertramp lyrics i wouldn't mind putting up here, as they've been especially resonant of late, but i think at this point it might be overkill. as we sift through the morrisseys and enlightened nick hornby-esque quotes.

speaking of nick hornby, indirectly that is, high fidelity the movie was shown at school last night. and i resolved to overcome my blind hatred of this chicago/lisa bonet adaptation and go check it out. but then i picked up my poetry syllabus and considerable unexpected homework, and decided i'd be much happier reading robert hass and george oppen in my room and calling the loverboy than i would be clenching teeth at the nemesis-movie. but the thought was there. and maybe one day i'll really, actually watch it, but don't count on it. i mean, john cusack? cute and all, but i'll take london fog and eddie izzard over that poop anyday. now if it had been me producing that movie... i will, however, rent fever pitch one day and watch it, because it is british and i am biased.

lots of emphasis points in the entry today.

six weeks six weeks six weeks.

the weather is awful and the academic situation less than resolved and the financial situation pitiful, but i'm making do, and jules is a huge part of that, and erick, and these great emails i've been getting from people i love.

and i am taking a poet to lunch on tuesday. she is a candidate for the kenyon poetry chair next year, and the english department has asked the creative writing kids to help out in the selection process. this means a reading and good conversation (presumably) over bad food, and an evaluation. i'm pretty happy about this.

so now i think i'll take that much-needed nap and probably not go to the tentative class, since i haven't heard back from the prof. ah well. this means less commitment for the time being, and i can definitely deal with that. yeah.

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later. 5:45 p.m.

just came back from a little trip to the bookstore, which, as these things do, turned into a two-hour hangout session with the girls and natalie, hammy, and stephanie, outside of farr hall. (cold stone benches and all.)

and while i was at it, i got the new outkast album. which is making my jaw drop and my butt shake. wow. forget "ms. jackson" and "b.o.b.," the whole thing kicks arse.

anno domini, anything goes
be what you wanna be as long as you know
consequences are given for living