thursday february 22 2001    |    2:13 p.m.

yummy. brainiac + camel special lights + sleep dep = breakfast of rockstars.

the poetry presentation went horribly. one good thing that came from this: i went over to matt's last night (what did we used to call him? bob or something? librarymatt? something along those lines...) to talk about the michael palmer poems. he presented the first half of notes for echo lake on tuesday, which i skipped, and since i was presenting on the second half of the book, i figured i should compare notes. we smoked the rest of my pot, every last bit of it, listened to jeff buckley, and picked apart the poems -- in a good way. people who think poetry shouldn't be analyzed are the same people who don't believe poetry can be understood, and that sucks. anyway, i'd never gotten stoned and talked about poetry before, and it was so much better than i expected. we were lucid and inspired. i don't think i've ever seen him that excited about anything. we would make connections and find patterns in the language and the pieces would click together and he would suddenly look up from the book and throw back his head and laugh and laugh, like a little boy, it was delightful. bright shining eyes and flushed face. i think it's the first time i've seen him not-scowling in a long long time. all of this while his various roommates and a friend of simon's and some other girl passed around bowls and beers and half-listened to, half-chuckled at us. it was the most fun i've had in a while. and i was ready to go. . .

until this morning. i thought it would go fine, and it was fine at first, and then my brain decided it was time to shut down, albeit prematurely. so i'm halfway through the poem and wondering whether i should try to remember whatever train of thought i'd been following or whether i should launch into platonic forms or echo and narcissus or-- and then it was too late. the ums and awkward pauses went on a beat too long, and the class picked up for me. it was painful. it was embarrassing. there was the poem, there were my millions of notes scrawled every which way in pencil on the page, and suddenly, ironically, appropriately perhaps, the michael palmer breakdown of meaning happened in my head. the words were empty shells. they didn't mean anything. ten minutes till the end of class. and i just gave up.

sigh. i'm trying not to place the blame on things i do and habits i hold. i'm trying to chalk it up to stage fright. i'm really trying.

but now it's finally over. i just have to get through office hours and my radio show today. no class tomorrow, early start to the weekend. which will likely be spent writing a poetry paper and/or a dante paper and working on comps. because there's really nothing else to do, and nothing i can think of that i'd rather be doing anyway. not that i'm too psyched about devoting this weekend to work. but what else is there?

this has been my longest bitter-stretch in a while.

and to add insult to injury, it snowed again in ohio last night and this morning. at least in my neck of the woods. it's cold and flaky and white. i hate it. i want to throw my winter clothes up skyward and watch them burn in the heat. august in miami sounds like heaven to me right now. although march in miami will do quite nicely. one week, one week. . . cabin fever, cabin fever. . .

i believe he might actually be she. there i go, jumping to conclusions again.

i can see nick and phil through my window, dawdling outside of higley, shooting the shit thursday-afternoon style. i might run out and join them if it weren't so darn cold and snowy. i want to continue last night, sit around a table and talk and talk, quality talking, placing meaning everywhere and taking it away and replacing it again. nobody will talk about books with me. nobody will Talk about Things That Matter with me. i'm wilting.

and i'm lonely in the way that you can be lonely in a crowd of people. laughing chatting people, and you stuck somewhere in the middle making out the patterns on the wall -- "nothing could be clearer than what you see on this wall." wishing you were anywhere else. knowing you can't be. leaving the crowd for the stillness of your room and the echoing of thoughts. must we give each one a name / is it true they all have names