There are probably ghosts at my university. I don't believe in ghosts, per se, but the evidence stacks too highly in their ethereal favor for me not to at least make a note about it.
For one thing, Patrick Swayze dies of pancreatic cancer and then the same week Shwayze comes to Iowa City. Coincidence? Yeah, coincidence like "accidentally" renting both Ghost and Dirty Dancing on the same night.
There's also the fact that there's a bookstore called "The Haunted Bookstore" in Iowa City. In that phantom-friendly establishment, there's a desk with a drawer labeled "for ghost use only." There's also a piano. I played part of "Downtown" by Petula Clark on that piano. In one of my classes today, the professor played a clip from 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould that had the song "Downtown" in it. I told the guy I was sitting next to about how I can play "Downtown" on the piano. That guy interviewed Shwayze when they visited. I shit you not.
I can see what you're trying to pull, Universe, and I don't like it one bit.
But this shit gets realer. It gets eerie. It gets creepy as fuck.
Late at night, like when it starts approaching three, four in the morning, we've been hearing sounds. People running. They don't talk; they don't speak; they don't make a noise but that of feet connecting with floorboards. They just run. I thought I was imaging this. I thought I was probably making it up. I thought I was delusional but then my roommate asked me, nonchalantly, when we were both quietly hunched over computers at our respective desks in the study area:
"You know those people at night?" she asked.
"What?" I responded, taking off my headphones.
"Those people... what do you think they're running from?"
That was the first and only time my roommate has come close to truly astounding me. Ghosts can do that to a relationship.
23 September 2009
22 September 2009
an explanation
I had to do this thing for a class, where I wrote about whether I was a "reader" or a "writer." Apparently, no one else in the class has an intense, Theo Huxtable-comparable learning disability, and thus wrote a paragraph instead of, like me, a, well, essay.
But after writing the "discussion response," I decided, you know, if I want to write more often, then I just should. So I started this blog. And I've started trying to write more instead of just writing ideas for things that I should write. Who cares if it they turn out to be shit? If they're shit just don't post them on the internet.
(Also, I really need to stop listening to Queen, Supertramp, and Steely Dan, cos they are definitely not bands that inspire poetic thoughts.)
I tend to delude myself into allowing the word "writer" to define me. I used to be content, when at the doctor's and they'd have you fill out a little questionnaire during a check-up, and they had a little friendly section at the end for "hobbies," with just putting "reading." I was quite the voracious reader. I read all sorts of books, some of which were much too easy for me, and many of which were too impossibly adult. I would read in restaurants, and at the dinner table, and next to blaring stereos at loud barbeque parties, and late late at night, under the covers with "Mr. Lightman," so as not to wake my sister in the bunk below. I always thought my mother was a little embarrassed of this, of the lack of variation in my "hobby" response, as though, even being a fellow reader herself, she yearned for me to be a child who also did soccer or ballet or taekwondo or something else widely regarded as active.
Then in sixth grade I stopped playing with Playmobil and started writing short narrative fiction, and I became a "writer." Even though a passion for movies, and a tumultuous love affair with television, began two years later, it became very easy to classify myself as a "writer." It has this certain mystique. When you say you write people get this mental image of someone brooding and angsty, with a typewriter and a coffee cup (or at least I get a mental image of them imagining this). I can't say I particularly mind that stereotype all that much, though it does seem to often confuse acquaintances into believing I'm a composer of poetry, which I'm not (I'm more the "glaringly autobiographical" short stories/screenplays kind of writer). Calling yourself a "reader" — saying, "oh, I like reading" — has that connotation of a person who has no one to sit next to in the dining hall and so pulls out their companion-replacing, always-friendly novel. Which can make for a nice time, but still has that feeling of loneliness to it.
(Right now, I have checked out from the library, four nonfiction books about smelling, three biographical accounts of J.D. Salinger, and one CD/book set and one dictionary concerning the Swedish language that I really really would like to, but will in all probability never end up using before the due-date is up.
I don't "mostly read nonfiction" or anything, though. It would be more accurate to say I mostly don't read nonfiction. I mostly read fairly-popular, pretty well-acclaimed modern fiction works that somehow, though, the people at my job at a movie theater have never heard of, and never really like when I lend to them. Lately, though, I've been branching out with some literary graphic novels and absurdist plays. But that's hardly straying from home. The same directors direct and the same actors act in the cinematic adaptations of all of these print forms. It's still pretty safe territory for me. It's not like me reading poetry — I have very certain, very few moods in which I can truly appreciate poetry. I have to somehow (impossibly) rid myself of all my alternative-comedy pretentions while adopting some degree of Beatnik, snapping-instead-of-clapping snobbery. This is hard for me to do. Though admittedly, I do own more than one beret, and I have dressed up as "Judy Funny" for Halloween. Yet when reading nonfiction, I become almost surprised with the mood it puts me in, with the degree to which I realize I am a knowledge-hungry person, seeking not just acceptance into the land of the "informed," but just pure information itself. I get excited, by the facts I encounter. Nonfiction-excitement is very unlike its fiction counterpart, during which just the order of words can make me giggle to myself in this weird, almost surreal sort of happiness that causes all others in my near vicinity to shoot disapproving glares.)
Writing, though, it's so different from reading. Writing is such a self-obsessed yet self-loathing, incredibly arduous yet enjoyable task—this transcribing and then editing and re-editing what started as just a nothing sort of sentence, a nothing sort of idea you just thought of. Reading, though — you're presented with this giant something, and you sift through, trying to get the general gist, while at the same time scoping out those tiny little bits of nothing that you have to pause after, to give yourself a moment to absorb the fact that someone wrote that something; to give you a moment to smile softy to yourself. Reading is what makes writers feel guilty enough to write something themselves.
But just saying I'm a "writer," well... it's kind of a lie. It's kind of a fantasy. I'm more the kind of person who thinks about writing all the time, but really only does it sporadically, in little bursts of scribbles, always at the least opportune of times. I'm more the kind of person who has a file box full of terrible first drafts and illegibly scrawled ideas—nothing finished, nothing authored. I'm the kind of person who reads the blogs of people who actually get around to writing things, and thinks, reading those entries, "Wow, that is exactly how I think. That is exactly how I feel." I'm the sort of person who quietly falls in love with the people who take the time to write down the feelings and thoughts I never bother to transcribe. I'm a person who thinks, frequently enough for it in a way to have become a habit, about making my own blog, for others to read, and relate to, and quietly fall in love with the girl with glasses and soft, introspective demeanor who wrote it.
So I guess more so than a reader or a writer I'm a dreamer. I'm a hoper unfortunately holed up in the same mind as a pessimist and an extremely vast amount of logic. I think about things in terms of their statistical probability of happening, and that's kind of a bad environment for a writer to live in. I can't grapple with fantasy. I wish I could be much more writerly than I really am, but I'm stuck with being a reader, a reader who genuinely loves the kind of stuff she likes to read.
P.S. I totally finally figured out how to turn off "smart quotes" in Microsoft Word while posting that. And did anyone catch the oh-so-subtle Supertramp allusion? Anyone?
But after writing the "discussion response," I decided, you know, if I want to write more often, then I just should. So I started this blog. And I've started trying to write more instead of just writing ideas for things that I should write. Who cares if it they turn out to be shit? If they're shit just don't post them on the internet.
(Also, I really need to stop listening to Queen, Supertramp, and Steely Dan, cos they are definitely not bands that inspire poetic thoughts.)
I tend to delude myself into allowing the word "writer" to define me. I used to be content, when at the doctor's and they'd have you fill out a little questionnaire during a check-up, and they had a little friendly section at the end for "hobbies," with just putting "reading." I was quite the voracious reader. I read all sorts of books, some of which were much too easy for me, and many of which were too impossibly adult. I would read in restaurants, and at the dinner table, and next to blaring stereos at loud barbeque parties, and late late at night, under the covers with "Mr. Lightman," so as not to wake my sister in the bunk below. I always thought my mother was a little embarrassed of this, of the lack of variation in my "hobby" response, as though, even being a fellow reader herself, she yearned for me to be a child who also did soccer or ballet or taekwondo or something else widely regarded as active.
Then in sixth grade I stopped playing with Playmobil and started writing short narrative fiction, and I became a "writer." Even though a passion for movies, and a tumultuous love affair with television, began two years later, it became very easy to classify myself as a "writer." It has this certain mystique. When you say you write people get this mental image of someone brooding and angsty, with a typewriter and a coffee cup (or at least I get a mental image of them imagining this). I can't say I particularly mind that stereotype all that much, though it does seem to often confuse acquaintances into believing I'm a composer of poetry, which I'm not (I'm more the "glaringly autobiographical" short stories/screenplays kind of writer). Calling yourself a "reader" — saying, "oh, I like reading" — has that connotation of a person who has no one to sit next to in the dining hall and so pulls out their companion-replacing, always-friendly novel. Which can make for a nice time, but still has that feeling of loneliness to it.
(Right now, I have checked out from the library, four nonfiction books about smelling, three biographical accounts of J.D. Salinger, and one CD/book set and one dictionary concerning the Swedish language that I really really would like to, but will in all probability never end up using before the due-date is up.
I don't "mostly read nonfiction" or anything, though. It would be more accurate to say I mostly don't read nonfiction. I mostly read fairly-popular, pretty well-acclaimed modern fiction works that somehow, though, the people at my job at a movie theater have never heard of, and never really like when I lend to them. Lately, though, I've been branching out with some literary graphic novels and absurdist plays. But that's hardly straying from home. The same directors direct and the same actors act in the cinematic adaptations of all of these print forms. It's still pretty safe territory for me. It's not like me reading poetry — I have very certain, very few moods in which I can truly appreciate poetry. I have to somehow (impossibly) rid myself of all my alternative-comedy pretentions while adopting some degree of Beatnik, snapping-instead-of-clapping snobbery. This is hard for me to do. Though admittedly, I do own more than one beret, and I have dressed up as "Judy Funny" for Halloween. Yet when reading nonfiction, I become almost surprised with the mood it puts me in, with the degree to which I realize I am a knowledge-hungry person, seeking not just acceptance into the land of the "informed," but just pure information itself. I get excited, by the facts I encounter. Nonfiction-excitement is very unlike its fiction counterpart, during which just the order of words can make me giggle to myself in this weird, almost surreal sort of happiness that causes all others in my near vicinity to shoot disapproving glares.)
Writing, though, it's so different from reading. Writing is such a self-obsessed yet self-loathing, incredibly arduous yet enjoyable task—this transcribing and then editing and re-editing what started as just a nothing sort of sentence, a nothing sort of idea you just thought of. Reading, though — you're presented with this giant something, and you sift through, trying to get the general gist, while at the same time scoping out those tiny little bits of nothing that you have to pause after, to give yourself a moment to absorb the fact that someone wrote that something; to give you a moment to smile softy to yourself. Reading is what makes writers feel guilty enough to write something themselves.
But just saying I'm a "writer," well... it's kind of a lie. It's kind of a fantasy. I'm more the kind of person who thinks about writing all the time, but really only does it sporadically, in little bursts of scribbles, always at the least opportune of times. I'm more the kind of person who has a file box full of terrible first drafts and illegibly scrawled ideas—nothing finished, nothing authored. I'm the kind of person who reads the blogs of people who actually get around to writing things, and thinks, reading those entries, "Wow, that is exactly how I think. That is exactly how I feel." I'm the sort of person who quietly falls in love with the people who take the time to write down the feelings and thoughts I never bother to transcribe. I'm a person who thinks, frequently enough for it in a way to have become a habit, about making my own blog, for others to read, and relate to, and quietly fall in love with the girl with glasses and soft, introspective demeanor who wrote it.
So I guess more so than a reader or a writer I'm a dreamer. I'm a hoper unfortunately holed up in the same mind as a pessimist and an extremely vast amount of logic. I think about things in terms of their statistical probability of happening, and that's kind of a bad environment for a writer to live in. I can't grapple with fantasy. I wish I could be much more writerly than I really am, but I'm stuck with being a reader, a reader who genuinely loves the kind of stuff she likes to read.
P.S. I totally finally figured out how to turn off "smart quotes" in Microsoft Word while posting that. And did anyone catch the oh-so-subtle Supertramp allusion? Anyone?
18 September 2009
falling in love
I will probably fall in love with you if you are quiet, and don't say much, and seem to have a thousand thoughts that never make it out of your mouth.
Or if you're loud and make good jokes that make me laugh, even just the inside-kind.
I will probably fall in love with you if you listen to the same incredibly-obscure indie music, or watch the same nobody-rents but terribly-brilliant films, or if you read the same rambling and whiny kind of novels I'm always going on about. I will definitely fall in love with you if you watch the same television shows that I do; if you listen to their commentary tracks; if you fall in love with the same sort of fictional and nonfictional people that I always seem to be falling in love with.
If we've met, and you're a little bit pretentious, and a little bit funny, and a little bit sentimental, then I'm probably in love with you. (If we've never met and you fit those criteria, it is an absolute certainty that I am in love with you.) I will never let on to this love, though. If you ask I will deny it to the end. I will disconcertingly, obnoxiously, rudely list all the other scores of people I am in love with as if to say, Hah! Quite clearly this means I am not in love with you!
Don't listen to me, though. I'm obviously lying. But I'm quite a good liar, so you will probably believe me. You might even feel rather hurt, and embarrassed, looking back on the whole situation in retrospect. But imagine how I feel — I've just openly denied my love! I've just publicly betrayed my heart!
If you act at all interested in me, I'm probably not in love with you. I'm probably a bit frightened of you, honestly. I probably secretly think you're a rapist. I probably have imaged conversations in which I tell one of my myriad soul mates how much you scared me, how much you creeped me out, and they reassure me by doing something that somehow makes me fall even deeper in love with them.
If you have a soft voice, I'm probably in love with you.
If you wear mismatched socks, or have glasses or a beard, or if you sometimes forget to fix your hair before leaving the house, then I'm probably in love with you.
If you play an instrument, or have ever created something beautiful, or adorable, or just incredibly fantastic — if you work at a boring, mundane, everyday job that you absolutely hate — if you have ever wished that you were a different person than the person that you are now — then yes, you guessed it, the statistical odds do predict that it is highly likely that I am in love with you.
If I've made eye contact with you, then I'm probably in love with you.
If I've avoided eye contact with you, then I'm probably in love with you. Or I think you're a rapist.
Or if you're loud and make good jokes that make me laugh, even just the inside-kind.
I will probably fall in love with you if you listen to the same incredibly-obscure indie music, or watch the same nobody-rents but terribly-brilliant films, or if you read the same rambling and whiny kind of novels I'm always going on about. I will definitely fall in love with you if you watch the same television shows that I do; if you listen to their commentary tracks; if you fall in love with the same sort of fictional and nonfictional people that I always seem to be falling in love with.
If we've met, and you're a little bit pretentious, and a little bit funny, and a little bit sentimental, then I'm probably in love with you. (If we've never met and you fit those criteria, it is an absolute certainty that I am in love with you.) I will never let on to this love, though. If you ask I will deny it to the end. I will disconcertingly, obnoxiously, rudely list all the other scores of people I am in love with as if to say, Hah! Quite clearly this means I am not in love with you!
Don't listen to me, though. I'm obviously lying. But I'm quite a good liar, so you will probably believe me. You might even feel rather hurt, and embarrassed, looking back on the whole situation in retrospect. But imagine how I feel — I've just openly denied my love! I've just publicly betrayed my heart!
If you act at all interested in me, I'm probably not in love with you. I'm probably a bit frightened of you, honestly. I probably secretly think you're a rapist. I probably have imaged conversations in which I tell one of my myriad soul mates how much you scared me, how much you creeped me out, and they reassure me by doing something that somehow makes me fall even deeper in love with them.
If you have a soft voice, I'm probably in love with you.
If you wear mismatched socks, or have glasses or a beard, or if you sometimes forget to fix your hair before leaving the house, then I'm probably in love with you.
If you play an instrument, or have ever created something beautiful, or adorable, or just incredibly fantastic — if you work at a boring, mundane, everyday job that you absolutely hate — if you have ever wished that you were a different person than the person that you are now — then yes, you guessed it, the statistical odds do predict that it is highly likely that I am in love with you.
If I've made eye contact with you, then I'm probably in love with you.
If I've avoided eye contact with you, then I'm probably in love with you. Or I think you're a rapist.
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