sisters discuss drugs and science writing

me: I am such a bad writer

Elizabeth: I'm sorry

Elizabeth: maybe you should take some cocaine*.
it helped lewis carroll

me: I'd probably be a better writer if I had a smidge of LSD
"yes the third chapter of my thesis is narrarated by a talking mushroom WHAT OF IT?"

Elizabeth: hahahaha
that would be so happy
there is not nearly enough batshit crazy imagery in science writing
also, use cocaine when you meet with XL to discuss this.
science writing is the coolest



* she means LSD. We come from a small town and are also the only two children to ever be influenced enough by the DARE program to be completely terrified and ignorant of drugs well into our twenties. I am a completely lame person. My friends and I went to a concert (Matchbox20 and Train, rock and roll!) when we were seventeen and vaguely considered trying to find some alcohol, decided we had no idea how to do that(note to my teenaged self: all you need to do to get get alcohol when you are a busty seventeen year old at a concert is walk your jailbait self to the nearest pack of college-aged guys where you will promptly be offered alcohol), responsibly remembered that we had to drive home (we carpooled. only one person had to drive home) and split a giant cup of diet pepsi. lame, I tell you.

I like:

1. This list, a crowd-sourced compendium of the best of magazine writing. I think magazine pieces are the perfect form for non-fiction for me. I really like learning new things, but rarely have the patience to sit through a whole book of facts.

2. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I am two years behind the cool kids on this one, but the YYYs have really grown o me. They struck me as a little weird at first (kinda shouty, they're headlined by a tiny korean girl who looks like Johnny Weir and styles herself like Michael Jackson), but I am loving their music the more I listen to it.


3. Blood Bank by Bon Iver. I'm in awe of this guy's ability to write lyrics-they're so strange and sweet and evocative.


4. fresh sweet cherries, candied in whiskey and a little vanilla and a dash of cardamom, about to go over ice cream while I watch mad men:)

Accomplishment a lot.

1. Yesterday I vomited in three different airports.*
2.  Today I tripped over my own feet, resulting in a fist sized scrape on my knee, a tear on the hem of my dress, lilttle pieces of gravel i my palms, and most impressively, a 4-inch streak of bruises and petichiae ON MY NECK. It looks like a giant hickey. Fail.





*also got offered an awesome job!

Speaking of betty draper

I mad-menned myself!

I always think of myself as Joan, but that is mostly because of my ultracurviness.  When I think about it, I am ambitious, kindof insecure, a little obnoxious, tragically uncool, and I really want to be Joan. yep, I am  Peggy Olsen.

probably should both sleep and eat more

I feel like betty draper on quaaludes today. It is so hot, and I am so tired and listless.  I just want to lay on my fainting couch/futon and stare wistfully through the window and watch the rain start.

weather.com now informs me that there will be no rain. So.

Book club update:

Today we decided that, at least according to Milton in Paradise Lost, God is a real douchebag

Having issues with rage today

Hmmm

A month went by and no blogging.  Naturally, I am spurred back to writing by the opportunity to change the way the old blog looks rather than any specific desire to express myself.  At any rate, a hail of bullets...

• My wistful last Alabama spring has melted into my miserable last alabama summer. I have spent considerable time lying on my floor in front of the air conditioner and lamenting ever moving to this terrible land. I will remember these days and bring them to mind come december when I start getting sad about leaving. 
• For Sister Book Club we are currently reading Paradise Lost. It is difficult. Good, and we have a lot of really good discussions about it, but hard. 
• I have not cooked anything remotely interesting in a month. I don't know if I've turned the stove on in a month. It is summer, who needs to eat when you can sustain yourself off whining about the heat. 
• My future seems to be shaping up-I'm almost certain to defend in October. After that, I'll finish up some stuff in the lab and then head off to a postdoc, most likely in either rhode island or dallas. Very different places. Maybe more thoughts on that later. 

Sister is funny

Elizabeth: Hey, guess the top two ways that I am more Minnesotan today?

me: hmmm

i give up

Elizabeth: 1.

I got my driver's license today

2.

It is too too terribly hot I just want to die from the hotness.

me: haahahahahahah

how hot?

Elizabeth: 92.

in MAY!

I want to go find the old church ladies in Hibbing

that are all, "Gosh gee, Al Gore can come to minnesota if he thinks the world is warming up!"

and Say, "Dammit! This is what happens when you fuck with Al Gore!"

More Polish Poets

Another Favorite, by Adam Zagajewski.

Little Waltz
The days are so vivid, so bright
that even the slim, sparse palms
are covered in the white dust of neglect.
Serpents in the vineyards slither softly,
but the evening sea grows dark and,
suspended overhead like punctuation
in the highest script, the seagulls barely stir.
A drop of wine’s inscribed upon your lips.
The limestone hills slowly melt
on the horizon and a star appears.
At night on the square an orchestra of sailors
dressed in spotless white
plays a little waltz by Shostakovich; small children
cry as if they’d guessed
what the merry music’s really saying.
We’ve been locked in the world’s box,
love sets us free, time kills us.


In my head, when I think of this poem, I always invert the last line to be "Time kills us, love sets us free". Like that, it is hopeful but a little trite. When I read it from a book I'm always a little suprised at the beautiful, abrupt bleakness of the last sentence, and urgentness it conveys.