tuesday february 13 2001    |    1:29 p.m.

i'm in the computer lab wishing i were in my room smoking a cigarette while typing this. but that would involve walking and an antediluvian (boo-ya!) computer complete with mood-swung netscape. and i do so like linking up silly things like this here location. (that's me, somwehere in the basement of the building, woohoo!)

oh stand back. i just discovered a virtual-tour-of-kenyon link!

yesterday i left my room sometime in the early afternoon and didn't return to it until eleven o'clock at night. i went to my office hours here and then i studied here. i bought a bagel for dinner here, and stayed to finish studying, in my favorite spot, a table tucked away by the poetry corner, new-book smell filling the space. it felt like going on vacation -- not quite the swiss alps, but hey. i'm hardly ever on the north side of campus, so i tend to forget how refreshing and almost breezy life is a half-mile away from the academic buildings. there's the whole freshman quad effervescence factor, and the memories of better times, and the friends i don't get to see or talk to or hang out with as much. and the quality studying didn't hurt. although the art history book made me get a little crazy -- i couldn't resist the suggestion of van goghs and rothkos and gauguins and goyas hiding towards the back, and for long periods of time the basilicas and sarcophagi and saints and icons were forgotten in a haze of color and brushstroke.

came home finally and had yet another wonderful recharging conversation with mom, and again i'm overcome by the inadequacy of the english language to convey things imagistically. have you ever read federico garcía lorca in english? and have you ever read him in spanish?

Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.

And now in translation:

Green. I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.

static. static. germanic. i see the translator struggling to move his mouth to sound out the round o's and the firm, open e's, open like arms that stay closed in english. ¡Verde! is the smell of grass in the heat and sheep herded a pastar in the morning, and the color of the mediterranean if you stand on the rocks in cala viñas looking down, and the color of steadfast eyes passing you on the way to catch the bus. the taste of olives on a dish at the bar, and while we're at it, of pan mallorquín which goes so well with them and with red wine or cold beer. que te quiero verde all the spark and the laughing, la gracia de la gente, gracia somewhere between grace and humor (it all gets lost in translation), lorca the most andalusian of poets, i ask you, how can wyoming read lorca?! (and can lorca read wyoming? he definitely has an interesting, very very very spanish take on nueva york)

la luna gitana, el gato garduño. not the gypsy moon and the prowling cat. it's dirtier and grittier and lovelier than just that. it's flamenco music and blood and the sound of one guitar. (and by the way, you can find this poem here.) it's the sound of me.

of course writing in english serves a completely different purpose in the brain, and just as worthy, why not. it is the language of creation, the language of composite words and ideas, the gummi language, the stretch armstrong language, the language of sturm und drang, of barbarian invaders and repressed victorian tensions and furrowed norse brows. it's a lot, and it's not fully mine. if i hear the word blue, as i was telling julie the other day, chances are i'm not going to give it much thought. but say the word "azul" and i get coastlines and salt on my tongue and airport chimes and poetry and blackberry brambles cutting my skin.

then again, i imagine the word "blue" would melt an english-speaking exile into convulsive sobs after years of being denied the language. i suppose it's all about association and history and culture. BUT. and that's a big BUT. there are semantic differences and aural differences and conceptual differences and psychological differences that cannot be ignored.

and this is complete rambling and disorganization, i'm not quite sure where it came from but i think it's the frustrated linguist in me coming out. yeah. something.

i'm definitely going through something right now.

but yes. back to the recounting of events. after the bookstore and talking to mom fritz and i smoked a couple of deceptively large bowls and talked comfortably and ate deliciously chi-chi soup and an orange. (sidenote: i am all about chi-chi sometimes. i harbor summer-retreat dreams furnished by the pottery barn.) there was a great quote. and finally bed.

and today i'm less in a hideout panic, although i'm still sort of on edge. i've had one, maybe two hours of sleep. i want to go home and smoke and read poetry and sleep. blah!

and maybe tomorrow we and the hooded-sweatshirt contingent and the angst-ridden friends will drink ourselves silly and celebrate our own damn holiday. yeah!

it's all about productive escapism.