a new world

spoon kindly offered dan and i tix to see "a new world" with her and josh last night. we drove over, had a lovely chat at applebee's, and met josh at the theater where spoon spends her money-making days. and nights. and weekends. (;

anyway, the movie was interesting. i had some trouble with it because the majority of the speaking roles were done in voiceover, or whispered tones, or a great amalgamation of the two: whispered voiceover.

so most of the movie was more of a picture set to music for me.

additionally, i felt the whole movie as if i were waiting for the movie to start. the intro music and shots were expansive and epic, just as an epic movie should be. but the intro music (which was screaming "fresh new world! fresh and sparkly waters! clean forests! natives coexisting with natures!" so on and so forth) anyway the intro music went on and on and on...until i was starting to feel like the whole soundtrack would just keep trying to be fresh and sparkling. perhaps it was the chords being played? dunno.

anyway, the reason i felt like i just kept waiting for the movie to start was because there was little to no dialogue. usually in movies you have the luxury, being that you're working in pictures, to display moments without language. given that space, it felt like the playwright ran with it--i don't know what the script looked like but i think it went something like this:

pocahontas dances through open field, smiling at john smith.
water rushes over river rocks.
trees are dappled with rainwater.
natives dance around fire, with john smith.
voiceover john smith: "is this all a dream?"

it really felt like one. my lack of hearing was a true detriment; it felt like i was back at cirque du soliel, where they speak this pidgin of italian and french, and you're not supposed to comprehend.

it was beautiful. spoon mentioned before we saw the movie that it felt like a long poem to her, and it really was. it showed off the beauty of the new world, unexplored and just as fresh and sparkling clean as the music portrayed it. it showcased a great performance by the girl playing pocahontas. but overall it was confusing and lacking narrative direction, and having a plot that seemed hastily scribbled on a recipe card. for a two hour movie, that's not much plot.

the story is well known; i'm not sure if terrance malick was relying on people to already be aware of the tale. ie, everyone knows the story of "little red riding hood" or the story of the first thanksgiving, no matter how flawed that memory might be. the plot seemed hastily scribbled on a recipe card. for a two hour movie, that's not much plot, regardless of what backstory i know.

i wasn't looking for an educational experience. perhaps that's one of those movies that you have to really be in the mood to watch. perhaps i was leaning more towards my usual direction in movies of action-adventure-romantic-comedy, or something with aliens landing and explosions and the saving of the planet by a scrappy and rag-taggle team of non-descript neighbors.

whatever the reasoning, and however lovely the movie was, with my lack of auditory nerves and attention span, by the end of the movie, i felt like i'd just watched a visual homage to the state of virginia, funded by the virginia tourism council.

but it was interesting. i enjoy seeing movies that expand my knowledge base and make me consider the art in general.

and on the movie subject:

dan pointed out that i was more willing to go see this movie than i was to see movies that he usually wants to see and that's a subject about which things are touchy between us. i think deep down, i'm so afraid of the movies he wants to view--usually horror movies--that the distaste within overwhelms any support i'd like to show.

which is sad, because i love watching the makeup and such. you don't get to see gouts of blood and flesh in things like "a new world." there's sores and scars that are well done. but horror movies are my type of fake wound.

the problem i have is that i'm an anxious person to begin with. jumpy music and creepy people onscreen add to that mix. and before you know it, i'm leaping out of my seat and pulling hamstrings.

my sister sara postulated that she doesn't mind watching horror movies, as long as she's at home. i think that's my problem, too.

the other thing i have a problem with is movies in the theater that i can't watch with subtitles. seeing a film with subtitles is like finally seeing the movie for the first time, for me. it's also a reminder for me that it is just a movie, something that i often have difficulties recalling, especially during horror movies, when i'm keyed up and nervous.

theaters have all these auditory things you can wear, but half the fun of seeing a movie in the theater is listening to the crowd, and you can't do that with headphones on.

what i would love is a pair of glasses that i could put on. perhaps some glasses that don't affect your vision or the screen, but that reveal (ala some kind of magic decoder from a cracker jack box) subtitles along the bottom.

i think i would have enjoyed "a new world" more if i'd understood what was being said. i think i would also be more at ease in horror movies, and viewing them, if i didn't get so terribly wound up by them.

i love movies, don't get me wrong. i love getting lost in the story, and seeing actors create characters, directors create a vision. i love seeing a movie that takes my breath away--whether that's from fear, laughter or sheer beauty.

i just have some control issues with when i see them, where i see them, and how they're able to be viewed.

perhaps three weeks from now when i'm in a poetic mood i'll watch "a new world" again, and find the gorgeous poem that spoon saw. perhaps i can find some way to be grounded during a horror movie, so that i can find the same enjoyment that dan does.

it's all based on perspective. i just have to keep remembering that it's all a new world. it's shiny, as kaylee says. (;

surveys and chemical reactions--POW!

dan had this over on his blog and i just had to fill in the blanks to this one. i pasted the idea behind each one in after i'd completed things. it certainly is interesting. i think i have lake bemidji state park on the brain. LOL

***

You're walking through the woods. What time of day is it? (The time of day is your outlook in life.)

answer: it's a bright and very, very cold winter afternoon.

analysis: like i said, i'm thinking of my fave state park, my fave season. i'm not sure if that is really what this question is looking for, but it's what's on my mind. i'm in the afternoon of my life? not the morning, the dawn? i'm not nearing retirement yet...am i?

As you're walking, you happen upon a cup. What kind of cup is it, what state is it in, and what do you do with it? (The cup, and your reaction to it, reflect your outlook on love. )

answer: it's probably a paper cup, tossed out the window by someone else. i pick it up and put it in the garbage when i see one, or let it go back to nature.

analysis: do i get the leftovers tossed from others? or am i just thinking of what's in the woods, the litter from careless hands?

You happen upon a body of water. What kind is it? What do you do with it? (The body of water is the size of your sexual desire and how you feel about sex. )

answer: it's frozen solid, an endless lake sprouting rivers. i walk out onto it.

analysis: does this mean my sex life is stagnant? i think if i'd been in a summer mood it would be different. in summer i think of water and i think about diving into it at dawn. the fact that the lake is frozen, in my mind, doesn't present much obstacle. it's just as exploratory frozen as it is when it's liquid.

You keep walking, and run into a wall. It extends to the left and the right as far as the eye can see. How high is it, and how do you get to the other side? (The wall is an obstacle, and how you react to it reflects how you tackle obstacles in your life.)

answer: it's so high i can't see the top. i have to find a ladder or a rope, or picks to climb over or through, or friends to help, or an airport...or i turn around and find something else to occupy my time, as obviously i don't need to get over the wall if i'm walking in the woods here.

analysis: apparently i'm still pretty apathetic about life if my last resort is just to live with the wall where it is. but i do like that i'm thinking of different ideas as to how to get past the wall before i just give up. LOL

***

so much of the above answers depend on what time of day it is when i'm responding, and what mood i'm in. like i said, another day, a brighter outlook, warmer weather, and i'd be saying that it was a clear dawn, i was diving into the clear water, picking up coffee mugs and finding out that five feet up, the rest of the wall is a visual illusion.

today, however, i'm thinking of my state park. of the snow crunching, the strident call of blue jays, squirrels chittering and shaking snow off fir boughs. and that's flavoring everything.

last night was spygame. YEEEEEEEE-HAW! i was ready for some explosions and such. time to roll dice, laugh with friends, and be intrigued by the complexity of dan's creation. (which he thinks of as simple...LOL)

yesterday was my first day on wellbutrin and the fuzzy headed feeling persisted, and was worse when i forgot to eat lunch. today so far has been fine. so hopefully, eventually, it will just go away.

i'm also on a new blood pressure tablet. all kinds of chemicals in such small tablets that make my body do strange things.

i was just reading the national geographic the other day. the front page article is on love, which they're looking into as a chemical reaction. there were all kinds of interesting points in it, things to consider. in the same issue, there's an article about switzerland and how only 17% of its land has been saved as national parks. everything else is ski and tourist area.

mapping the mind--does that detract from the mystery of love? of how it blossoms? should we leave areas unexplored?

i suppose in the mapping for one item, scientists often must come across another. "oh my, we were looking for parkinson's and we found humility!"

the writer of the love article reported of an test that was done involving a group of women. the women were given a t-shirts that men had worn, while sweating. they were asked to smell the shirts and pick out the one that was most appealing to them. invariably, the women picked shirts that matched men whose genomes were complete opposites of their own.

good-bye, e-harmony. hello, scent-a-mate.

perhaps that's why i always hear that you shouldn't pick up guys in bars. you're just looking, you're not able to smell their DNA.

i think about my own relationship, the wild pendulum on which we've ridden. dan is very different than me; aside from being male...LOL he's much taller, he's got brown eyes, he sees the world in a completely separate manner. but in the end, our brains are functioning very close to being the same: he's dg as bipolar, and i'm dg as adhd and depressed. not so different, when it comes to chemicals.

anyway, i think that the above little survey was skewed by my proclivities for walking in the woods, and my craving for it. perhaps a better survey would be to ask what your favorite smells are. perhaps that will tie me back to a better understanding of how i move through the world, and with whom i choose to connect.

warts and all

i should have a worry wart the size of texas or possibly the whole of canada stuck to my forehead.

i worry about friends, family, finances--almost in that order. but more scattered, i'm sure. kind of buckshot on the target.

randomly: i worry about dan. i worry about dan some more. i worry about filling my gas tank and not having my bottle of Heet to add, and how high gas prices will soar.

i worry about serena, and then i worry about WHY i'm worrying about serena, since she doesn't seem to worry about me.

i worry about eero, and my parents, and if the milk has gone bad in my refrigerator. i worry about alison, aka unrested, the girl whose blog i happened upon by pushing "next blog" but seems like serendipity that i did.

and then i worry about what, if anything, henry the cat might pee on next.

it's exhausting.

having identified that i have this problem, this anxiety overlapping anxiety, i need to find its edges and make it something that doesn't just creep over me and intensify slowly until the only thing filling my head is this worry.

the actual definition is: v., wor·ried (wûr'ed, wur'-), wor·ry·ing, wor·ries (wûr'ez, wur'-).

1. To feel uneasy or concerned about something; be troubled.
2. To pull or tear at something with or as if with the teeth.

word history: The ancestor of our word, Old English wyrgan, meant "to strangle." Its Middle English descendant, worien, kept this sense and developed the new sense "to grasp by the throat with the teeth and lacerate" or "to kill or injure by biting and shaking." This is the way wolves or dogs might attack sheep, for example. In the 16th century worry began to be used in the sense "to harass, as by rough treatment or attack," or "to assault verbally," and in the 17th century the word took on the sense "to bother, distress, or persecute." It was a small step from this sense to the main modern senses "to cause to feel anxious or distressed" and "to feel troubled or uneasy," first recorded in the 19th century.

course, the problem isn't that i shouldn't worry. it's the extent to which i take it. perhaps some people would classify their worry as kitten-sized, or lynx.

i'm a few classes above that. i can see my self in this arena--i'm the little pagan being torn to shreds by worry, wondertwin form of: giant slavering starving lionsand tigers and bears, oh my!

quite obviously, i need a lion tamer.

however, i can't depend on anyone to tame this fucker but me.

i wish someone else could sweep up the peices like i did when i was a janitor and cleaned up other people's crushed bags of potato chips.

***
worry eclipses hope. i don't hope for much of anything, except to wake up the next morning and not smell kitty piss. it's a big dream of mine. (;

often, universal signs surprise me--i think it's because i'm not hoping that i'm sent hope, in strange forms.

yesterday i was struck by a client's voicemail. there was the usual mumbo jumbo--hi, this is so and so, leave your message and phone number. and then just before the beep:

WHATEVER YOU ARE THINKING RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE PLANNING FOR LATER. IF YOU ARE WORRYING, YOU ARE PLANNING. IF YOU ARE JOYFUL, YOU ARE PLANNING. WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING?

i'm planning to worry. i wake up every morning, already worrying the lion by its tail. to me, it seems as if when i worry, i shave off some of the fear that is my own anxiety over situations, and then when the situation roars, i'm not so worried about it. i can be complacent.

what i know i'm doing, however, is worrying about things until they become insurmountable--i take the kitten and stretch it and pull it and tug it until it is a leopard. the sun doesn't shine, the sky doesn't rain--above me i've got the protective layer of rationalization, which just isn't healthy.

how do i stop? dan says i just have to leave it alone. but it's so very difficult to do so. if i focus--and i mean focus as in spend an hour working at it--i can alleviate some of the worry. but i'm just rationalizing. i'm telling myself i have nothing to worry about.

the kitten is still there, on the machine, being yanked into form. do i dismantle the machine, or find a way to remove the kitten?

take me for a ride in your car, car...

a number of things are leading to this post.

first of all, it was just friday the 13th, full moon. i think that's bringing out the crazy in me. not that it's an under-the-skin thing for me. i'm mixed nuts on a regular basis. it's the only consistent part of me.

perhaps i can lay blame on the non-caffeinated week and the consequent cupof joe i sucked down this morning.

or maybe, like lizzie borden, it's nearing that time of the month and i'm without my favorite axe.

*sigh deeply*

i'm nowhere near where i thought i'd be after three decades of use. (as in,body and/or mind and/or spirit, etc.) i guess as a kid i had this glamorous image of me, jet-setting across the universe in my own private lear, with perfect hair and a slender, toned, athletic bod, fifteen novels written and published, home in minnesota northlands, a cabin in the mountains and another in ireland, no bills, no worries, lots of dogs and cats and a loving, romantic husband, possibly a few offspring.

the image i saw while writing this at work at work (in an office-supplied mirror which says: smile! they can hear it in your voice!) is somewhat different. i'm a bit lumpier than the dream, the hair is frizzier despite cathy's best product and cari's best efforts, i don't write as often as i'd like, and i'm doing math. daily.

middle age is simply not all that it's cracked up to be.

i'm anxious. all the time, i'm anxious. sitting in the dr's yesterday morning, trying to explain the anxiety, i could feel it. in the sci fi show stargate they have these symbiotes that live inside people. for a minute, sitting there, i felt as if i had one, itching inside my head. the frantic scrabble of panic, rising up in my chest, a red balloon in a brown net. it fills me until my whole body is one big nest of worry. my skin feels like it's trying to squirm off my arms, off my chest. behind my eyes there's the scratching of nails on blackboard. and before i know it, it's spilled over and annexed my spinning stomach.

and five minutes later, i'm rolling down the hill again, falling slo-mo into the pit that's always waiting there for me.

i picture my depression as a venus fly trap--hungry, toothy, dark and moist.

i've always seen these things as things that live inside of me, separate from my self. always felt my emotions roll through me like the rain in spain, falling mainly on the plain.

sitting there with my blonde and polished and soft-spoken doctor, i finally i owned my mental box of chocolates. it was like signing your final papers that give you a car, or a house.

this is MY depression. this is MY anxiety. this is MY attention span, my high blood pressure. no one else's.

other people have different flavors of my condition. sometimes they overlap--and sometimes that's a relief. it's stopping to ask for directions and realizing that the seventeen year old behind the gas station counter has no more direction for you than you do, yourself.

go north, young woman. go north until the road slips off the earth and into arctic winter, stinging ice and bright wind. you won't find a goddamned thing up there that will give comfort--polar bears gnaw your arms, wolves run in fear, walrus bellowing.

but you'll have your warm self, the core of you, and what the hell else matters?

***

this work, this job of being my self, of taking ownership of my own body and mind--it's just not as easy as buying a house, or a car.

with my car, i test drove it. i picked out the model and the color and shape. i waited for six hours, signed some papers, and i drove it home.

unfortunately, your body's not a matter of a new paint job or a different seat cover. you own this thing, this thing you never asked to own. you're given this one soul--no instructions on when to wash it, fuel it, vacuum out the insides and replace spigots and gears.

it's taking it apart, piece by piece for some of us. realizing that you cannot replace all the parts and make it a new vehicle, or perhaps that it's not even the same model you always thought it was. "My God, I'm a FORD f-150 truck! I always thought I was a Dodge Viper! Argh!"

you can only limp along sometimes, until you can afford to replace the tires or have the oil drained off. you can wash the rusty parts and keep driving.

i was just driving around in someone else's car--i borrowed it, it was a shiny black Mercedes with a bad alternator, but it wasn't mine to fix. for months now i've been realizing slowly that i'm mine. i'm my parents' child, but i'm my own person. i'm not anyone else's keeper; i'm not kept by anyone. but i'm tied to all these people in ways that i never really inspected all that closely--because this wasn't my life, this was someone else's life, one in which i was simply an observer.

slide over. let me try taking the helm.

***

last year i was making phone calls at work. my intended subject answered the phone.

"hello?"

"oh, hello, this is just kim from adp."

there was a momentary pause, as i'm sure she put me in place. then:

"just kim? you're not "just" kim from adp. you're kim, don't sell yourself short."

can i grasp that? it seems too large to handle. i'm still having a hard time visualizing the idea itself--that i'm a cog in the wheel, but i'm also the whole vehicle. why is it so hard to care about your self?

perhaps because it's hard to look in the mirror. i'm my own worst critic, i know it. i can believe in others, but i don't know how to believe in my self. no one ever sat me down and said, this is how.

it's difficult to not ruminate and say, i've wasted all this time, all this life. hard to not say: i coulda been a contendah.

i still am a contender. i haven't wasted time. i've been sorting through the trunk of my life, tossing out old boots and some hubcaps that ended up there. but it's still my car. i can still get in and go...somewhere.

i just need to remember that i really don't need a map. i'm just here for the ride--but it's mine.

perhaps i'll pimp it out a bit. (;

things

this is from: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2006/01/02/#sunday

yes, it's early, but i started because it just spoke to me.

btw, you can listen to the writer's almanac, too. but this was just a reading that spoke to me in my head.

and if you think that's silly...well, you're reading the wrong blog. (;

***

Things by Fleur Adcock

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
there are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

***
and i have to add this quote; same web page origin.

Umberto Eco (author of The Name of the Rose, a fantastic novel!) wrote, "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."

cheers, folks (:

cells, roaming like feral raindrops

that's what my head feels like right now.

nothing coherent. just random baffling things that keep buffeting me in the manner of storm winds hitting your siding. itsy bitsy spider style, i navigate my world.

*sigh*

i decided to do dan's WoW download for him today. of course, i didn't get home from work until quite late, with every intention of just eating some lean cuisine thai chicken (which wasn't bad) and sitting down to beat crap up with my new character.

however, i started the download at 7. it's now 840 and i'm at...let's see...16%.

take that, pentiums of the world.

i keep telling myself that i should just lean back, flip on my machine and pay my bills. but i'm just not up to bill paying tonight. perhaps tomorrow night.

tonight i'm up to running a bath. but i need someone else to run the bath for me, because actually going upstairs, wiping out the tub, running a hot bath, finding bubbly liquid for the bath, and getting and out of the bath, are all apparently far, far, far too much to handle.

so.

i'm sitting here. blogging. because that's the only thing that i can safely accomplish whilst the hurricane in my head swirls onward. i'm hoping it'll hit mainland and die down sooner than later.

***

i had this weird feeling at work today. like i was suddenly not seeing myself but actually feeling my body in relation to the rest of the space around me. spatial awareness? meh. not sure. just standing there next to someone else's cube desk, i had this clarity of mind--this is how much room you take up. this is the area which you inhabit. this is the size and span of how others relate to the idea of kim.

i carry my territory with me.

it passed pretty quickly, thank heavens. because otherwise i'd have gotten no work done, just stood there understanding something that i'm sure can be explained by the theory of displacement.

***

i'm just feeling...aimless.

like i'm not leaving tracks behind my self, when i walk.

and if i am, when i turn around, it looks like i've been dragging the carcass of a moose with me, but it's really just me, flopping here and there. sometimes other people have reached out and grabbed for a limb, and pulled me along like a little red wagon, like the one i had as a kid, only missing a wheel or two, randomly.

i feel this pressure inside of me--anxiety, hope, wonder, curiosity, the feeling that i need to write something. it's like the feeling you get right before you puke, right before you know you're going to need to run to worship at the foot of the porcelain deity.

the lean cuisine is certainly not producing this feeling. i'm physically fine, at the moment.

but whatever the flutter is, it's causing a direct effect on my stomach--the same butterflies i had as a child, on the first day of school. i'm trying to think of it in terms of WHY AM I FEELING THIS WAY and/or IS IT GOOD OR BAD. it feels bad, right now. teetering on the edge of sanity. or perhaps i'm teetering on the edge of insanity; perhaps this is what sanity resembles, and i've just never explored this part of the map.

my sister's world map: they had that map for years before anyone noticed that there were two Indias on it--one on one side, one on the other. a matched set of the same country. and the map owners didn't even know it; it was just a part of the house, wall decoration.

***

i feel far away from the screen right now. the little window at the bottom bar says that the download is at 18% now, then 19.

i suppose that if a watched pot never boils, a prodded download never completes.

***

this year has been odd. i was just reading an author's blog, in which she says that she's just not a linear thinker, and she's come to terms with that. i'm not a linear thinker either, which is why i have trouble plotting and writing a book. hell, i have trouble planning a blog post.

or when to pay my bills.

or run a bath. you name it.

it's like everything is suddenly thrown into such detail and clarity that i'm frozen in place. i'm a deer, in the proverbial headlights. i have looked faced to face with a basilisk, and am turned to stone.

perhaps that is what i found in side my self? the one genetically italian cell, my very own evil eye? i can suddenly see all the imperfections and perfections of my surroundings, threads and nubs of carpet. the hair on the side of my face is bothering me, even though it is all pulled back. only a few hairs touch the nape of my neck, and yet that few is too many. if i concentrate, i can tell you that there are five hairs pressing onto my skin.

this doesn't happen all the time. usually my brain is well behaved. usually it riots rarely and is more organized. today it was fine until i got home. now that i am home, it's running in circles. i appear to be typing, but the gray matter's on a stationary bike, keeping pace with lance armstrong.

i feel restless. there are things to be done. i need only stand up and move, and they can be accomplished.

but to stand is to risk. and to risk is to fear. and to fear--for me, is to be paralyzed.

***

someone is shining a flashlight into my head. someone's poking around with a long stick. it's me, searching for the shadows and trying to poke them out, push them out of the insulated cave in which they reside, quite happily.

it's me, reaching in, pulling them out like the snarling moles they are.

i'm scared to do that. i don't have gloves. stretching my arm into the snake tank. i remember a poem i wrote about dangling your feet in a shark tank. i may have to find that and post it, at some point.

some point later. some point not tonight. tonight i am up to emptying the dishwasher and writing a blog.

i remember my uncle's mantra, as he recovers and learns the limits of his body after massive strokes: little by slow.

i can chart my self; find the limits and boundaries within which my countryside lies. even if today i am beset by some tempest and trapped by a rainstorm of my own creation, perhaps tomorrow the rain will let up and i can venture out once more.

***

the itsy bitsy spider
climbed up the water spout
down came the rain and
washed the spider out

out came the sun and
dried up all the rain
and the itsy bitsy spider
climbed up the spout again.

curious

i have to wonder
when Big Lake was named
who wandered lake's edge
long enough
to say
it was big?

i think of that same person
encountering lake superior
or the gray atlantic

who decides to take a boat
across space uncharted?
how else could this planet be
mapped
down to each peak and valley?
is there a spot
yet
among towering trees
and squat buildings
that has not met
humanity?

i think about the land
before me
the map of my life
as yet,
mostly blank.

little squiggly lines,
drawn by a five year old
with a red crayon--
that is as shaped as i have grown.

am i afraid to find that my life is a lake,
bordered round
rimmed with green banks?

or is it scarier to think of self
as wide as
ocean?