Just talking to talk, I suppose. :) I'll try to keep it low-key, I promise!
The days at Dancehaven are very good -- long, in the slowness, but very good. I have cleaned the store enough times, and am now on to the neighboring store, Get Wet, which should take me a while longer... *grins* we'll see. But it is lovely...such a world unto itself! I walk in the doors, and immediately I am the mistress of a pretty little realm of definite grace. Perhaps the Cookie spoiled my head -- it's so nice to have a store of one's own, free from the mall-walkers! I am thoroughly enjoying Dancehaven.
The schedule is so nice, too...I'll have Monday and Tuesdays off nearly every week, which is decisive luxury, and rarely have to come in before ten. That's a significant amount of sleep right there...I am beginning to lose my insomniac superpowers anyhow, so it's a very good thing.
-- I feel like I'm not writing coherently at all. Bother. It has been a long day...not bad at all; once again, people are quite nice to me, even if the shoes are expensive, as long as I'm patient with them and fetch the twelfth pair cheerfully. People just make me tired. And sitting up all night writing gives me energy. Isn't that silly?
Oooh, but this is pointless. I need to either decide upon a subject, or go and do something Productive.
I can't flesh it out now, I'm not coherent enough, but I have been turning a problem about in my head over the past week...when my brain is caught on writing, and I analyze everything grammatically, my first reaction to many things is to want to write on them. Oh, and there is so much needing it in this world, putrid, gangrenous stuff that makes me crackling and angry. I sit quiet and white for a moment, and then I throw the magazine down and fly out of the room, and I will snap inside unless I do something about it. I scream to write it out -- words are my sharpest weapon by far; I turn to them first -- to ignite a hundred thousand eyes and brains against it, for surely they must not know; why else has it not been ground out? I could, too, I could...but then here is the wall, and my question, and if anyone would like to help me with it, I'd be grateful...it's something I must learn.
But how -- how does one present, draw attention to, illuminate something so evil? -- there is nothing less than what would be too graphic. Journalism can get by with certain things, but fiction -- no. Much less in a form that christian contemporary culture, which is rich, and increased with goods, and has need of nothing, carefully laundering its white gloves in the tears of ages past, would condescend to read! And yet without making it a Peretti thriller... (Remind me again why they sell Frank Peretti at the Vineyard? Argh...but that is another rant. :)) I've read one book that was close, Rivers' Atonement Child, but that was an easier subject...not a closed one, by any means, but less messy...
And what do I know, anyhow? How could I assume to write about something my life has been so far removed from? Will I ever know? -- could I stomach it? Oh, God...
Why did I have to get stuck on the hardest thing, eh? Silly Katharine...I should've gotten angry at the clumsy capitalist oil liners who spill yucky stuff all over the poor little penguins and make them cold. Highlights would buy my dear little stories, and I could have many pairs of white gloves. Oh, yes...silly Katharine.
*sigh* It's a different sort of melancholy, tonight. I hope it's alright...
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
muse-dust
I've been turning so many things around in my head over the past few days...we'll see how many of them I can remember.
Church made me intensely melancholy, this morning...things occurred to me that never quite have before, aspects of growing up and yet staying in town and next year and the years rolling afterward...I never before sat there and realized I will not be one of the new members on stage. I knew all this in the back of my head already, and gave it up long ago, but -- it never clicked quite like it did today.
And they are such dear people...Mrs. Schutte is all worried about my appointment on Tuesday, and offers advice with motherly, worried eyebrows. Mr. Moesner and I laugh over food service stories while I pat the barking, blond head of his three-year-old "puppy," Joseph. Eventually I abandon waiting for James, who promised to take me home early because the fever makes me wobbly -- he finally was able to carry off two-month-old Katie and now sits on the other side of the sanctuary, holding Katie and listening to her sister Eva prattle. The room is filled with noise, voices building and relaxing, baby laughter, murmured agreement. I am the only one alone, as I stand in the doorway, and that by choice. Such a happy family...I will miss them, I think.
We drive home, James and Joel and I, underneath pied clouds. The old station wagon, talking itself senile, muddles in and out of their shadows across the road. It's only three roads to take us all the way home. I've never been good with directions, but I know every foot of this bit of Evansville, counted the houses in the new subdivisions as they appeared and watched the farmers plow and seed their fields. The full moon is always low over the passenger's side on the way home at night, and when I was little I could talk myself into believing that it rode faster than we did. Today I ran much faster, faster than the clouds and the fields and all the city. Too fast. It's sinking in, I think.
I have been in such a rabid word-mood, lately...for nine months I haven't wanted to write, save what was necessary for school, and that grudgingly. But just in the last few weeks it's come back...I did get another volume of Fitzgerald at the library, but that was after the fit set in. *grins* (For the innocent souls whom the mad Katharine hasn't battered to pieces already, I am quite in awe of the way F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the English language. His story lines are not breathtaking, but his pen is more deft than any other I've met.) I suppose this would be an acceptable place to insert an apology to those who used to receive the bulk of my writing; without you, I barely have enough life to breathe on, much less throw to the winds. And chances are that I'll fall back into the languor after another few weeks, but for the moment -- oh, I do hope I can get everything down before then...
But not this afternoon. No, not this time...
Church made me intensely melancholy, this morning...things occurred to me that never quite have before, aspects of growing up and yet staying in town and next year and the years rolling afterward...I never before sat there and realized I will not be one of the new members on stage. I knew all this in the back of my head already, and gave it up long ago, but -- it never clicked quite like it did today.
And they are such dear people...Mrs. Schutte is all worried about my appointment on Tuesday, and offers advice with motherly, worried eyebrows. Mr. Moesner and I laugh over food service stories while I pat the barking, blond head of his three-year-old "puppy," Joseph. Eventually I abandon waiting for James, who promised to take me home early because the fever makes me wobbly -- he finally was able to carry off two-month-old Katie and now sits on the other side of the sanctuary, holding Katie and listening to her sister Eva prattle. The room is filled with noise, voices building and relaxing, baby laughter, murmured agreement. I am the only one alone, as I stand in the doorway, and that by choice. Such a happy family...I will miss them, I think.
We drive home, James and Joel and I, underneath pied clouds. The old station wagon, talking itself senile, muddles in and out of their shadows across the road. It's only three roads to take us all the way home. I've never been good with directions, but I know every foot of this bit of Evansville, counted the houses in the new subdivisions as they appeared and watched the farmers plow and seed their fields. The full moon is always low over the passenger's side on the way home at night, and when I was little I could talk myself into believing that it rode faster than we did. Today I ran much faster, faster than the clouds and the fields and all the city. Too fast. It's sinking in, I think.
I have been in such a rabid word-mood, lately...for nine months I haven't wanted to write, save what was necessary for school, and that grudgingly. But just in the last few weeks it's come back...I did get another volume of Fitzgerald at the library, but that was after the fit set in. *grins* (For the innocent souls whom the mad Katharine hasn't battered to pieces already, I am quite in awe of the way F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the English language. His story lines are not breathtaking, but his pen is more deft than any other I've met.) I suppose this would be an acceptable place to insert an apology to those who used to receive the bulk of my writing; without you, I barely have enough life to breathe on, much less throw to the winds. And chances are that I'll fall back into the languor after another few weeks, but for the moment -- oh, I do hope I can get everything down before then...
But not this afternoon. No, not this time...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Tuesday, twice
Why does no ever call and tell me these things? The house is dark, Joel is on the computer, and the kids are playing happily, noisily. I passed Mamacita on the road in.
...I hate not being here.
They're old. I know it isn't just me; so many things are, but the photographs will back me up on this one: my grandparents were young ten years ago, even five years ago, and Grandma wore her hair piled high and curly and Papaw did all their yard work and everyone else's and tinkered with the pontoon. He never finished it. But now Grandma doesn't dye her hair as often; it isn't nearly as red, but dark, rusty-dark, like a horse after a summer in the sun. And they look so tired, all the time. It isn't the new cynicism I've found this past year -- they are old.
And Papaw is in the ICU tonight, reasons undetermined or unexplainable over the hospital phone. I come home from a first day at Dancehaven - it's a lovely place, and Abby was a darling, but first weeks are always awkward and I'm not quite as rested up as I thought I was - and sit down on the couch and try to fall asleep. The phone rings. "St. Mary's," the caller ID claims; I have an appointment there on Thursday, and they always call for one last confirmation a day or two ahead, so I answer. "Katharine?" Yes, the voice is hushed to the proper degree for an office. Glad I was able to work the schedule out with Julie this morning, and don't have to cancel. "This is her." "It's Aunt Susan..." - oh - "is your mom there?" "No...I don't know where she is...what's up?" "And Gary isn't home yet?" "No..." Two beats. "What happened?" "Oh..." No one told you. Her voice gets even gentler. "Well, hon..."
No one really knows what's happening; it's all random and strange, and the doctors have been running tests since noon only to realize that they don't know. Papaw should have gone in yesterday, but they couldn't get him out of the house. But no news can be bad news, and they want to put him in the intensive care unit. Aunt Susan carefully explains that it isn't intensive intensive care; he won't necessarily be hooked up to every machine they have, they just want to keep a close eye on him. About five beats. "Katharine...are you alright?" "Oh...yes...yes. I'll try Mom's cell phone and let her know, okay?" "Alright..."
...I hate not knowing, being denied even that little semblance of control, unable to even turn the information about in one's hands and nod gravely and say that indeed, things will be best this way, and we just need to keep a stiff upper lip. I can't say it's alright, I'm okay with it, when I don't know what I'm handling.
Bad Katharine.
Bad Katharine...
Edit, 11:23 p.m.
Yes, bad Katharine. I have a letter to be writing, but I'm much too muddled and gray to be writing letters (poor blog!) but I must stay down here 'til Momma and Daddy get home from the hospital, which will be after 1, and I can't sleep on the couch...maybe I could. Bethy and I fell asleep on the couch last week, watching the fireplace with my head on her shoulder. But, again, I'm much too muddled and gray to drop off like that. Ugh, I say...
...blogging again is nice. Smack me if I begin to enjoy it too much and make it a stream-of-consciousness complaint. That's very easy to do, you know...
I've been beating my head into Psalm 78 all day...isn't verse 25 terrible? "the bread of the mighty"? And am I not that, though? - take just Ephesians 1 as the short list of everything I have in Christ, not angels' food but the mysteries they long to look into! - and here I am complaining about the cold, and the tired, and only getting to sit in the back of the room and watch. Oh, God, I know I have all that stuff, but I want human things! aren't we allowed to want human things?
- No.
I know all of these things in the back of my head, that it is sun vs. fireworks and He is Everything and I won't want anything else if I only let Him come rushing in...but I'm not so good at the waking up in the morning and narrowing my vision with said principles, or lying down at night and mollifying the cold with macroscopic truths. I frustrate myself, that way...I can wrap my head around anything, but to live it, well! - that's a new head game entirely. Some days I suspect everyone else is like that, too, but at 11:23 at night I feel like an anomaly of big head and little feet.
Hehe...there I go again...remind me why I'm writing this? if it's something I couldn't manage to say? Ugh...
...bad Katharine.
...I hate not being here.
They're old. I know it isn't just me; so many things are, but the photographs will back me up on this one: my grandparents were young ten years ago, even five years ago, and Grandma wore her hair piled high and curly and Papaw did all their yard work and everyone else's and tinkered with the pontoon. He never finished it. But now Grandma doesn't dye her hair as often; it isn't nearly as red, but dark, rusty-dark, like a horse after a summer in the sun. And they look so tired, all the time. It isn't the new cynicism I've found this past year -- they are old.
And Papaw is in the ICU tonight, reasons undetermined or unexplainable over the hospital phone. I come home from a first day at Dancehaven - it's a lovely place, and Abby was a darling, but first weeks are always awkward and I'm not quite as rested up as I thought I was - and sit down on the couch and try to fall asleep. The phone rings. "St. Mary's," the caller ID claims; I have an appointment there on Thursday, and they always call for one last confirmation a day or two ahead, so I answer. "Katharine?" Yes, the voice is hushed to the proper degree for an office. Glad I was able to work the schedule out with Julie this morning, and don't have to cancel. "This is her." "It's Aunt Susan..." - oh - "is your mom there?" "No...I don't know where she is...what's up?" "And Gary isn't home yet?" "No..." Two beats. "What happened?" "Oh..." No one told you. Her voice gets even gentler. "Well, hon..."
No one really knows what's happening; it's all random and strange, and the doctors have been running tests since noon only to realize that they don't know. Papaw should have gone in yesterday, but they couldn't get him out of the house. But no news can be bad news, and they want to put him in the intensive care unit. Aunt Susan carefully explains that it isn't intensive intensive care; he won't necessarily be hooked up to every machine they have, they just want to keep a close eye on him. About five beats. "Katharine...are you alright?" "Oh...yes...yes. I'll try Mom's cell phone and let her know, okay?" "Alright..."
...I hate not knowing, being denied even that little semblance of control, unable to even turn the information about in one's hands and nod gravely and say that indeed, things will be best this way, and we just need to keep a stiff upper lip. I can't say it's alright, I'm okay with it, when I don't know what I'm handling.
Bad Katharine.
Bad Katharine...
Edit, 11:23 p.m.
Yes, bad Katharine. I have a letter to be writing, but I'm much too muddled and gray to be writing letters (poor blog!) but I must stay down here 'til Momma and Daddy get home from the hospital, which will be after 1, and I can't sleep on the couch...maybe I could. Bethy and I fell asleep on the couch last week, watching the fireplace with my head on her shoulder. But, again, I'm much too muddled and gray to drop off like that. Ugh, I say...
...blogging again is nice. Smack me if I begin to enjoy it too much and make it a stream-of-consciousness complaint. That's very easy to do, you know...
I've been beating my head into Psalm 78 all day...isn't verse 25 terrible? "the bread of the mighty"? And am I not that, though? - take just Ephesians 1 as the short list of everything I have in Christ, not angels' food but the mysteries they long to look into! - and here I am complaining about the cold, and the tired, and only getting to sit in the back of the room and watch. Oh, God, I know I have all that stuff, but I want human things! aren't we allowed to want human things?
- No.
I know all of these things in the back of my head, that it is sun vs. fireworks and He is Everything and I won't want anything else if I only let Him come rushing in...but I'm not so good at the waking up in the morning and narrowing my vision with said principles, or lying down at night and mollifying the cold with macroscopic truths. I frustrate myself, that way...I can wrap my head around anything, but to live it, well! - that's a new head game entirely. Some days I suspect everyone else is like that, too, but at 11:23 at night I feel like an anomaly of big head and little feet.
Hehe...there I go again...remind me why I'm writing this? if it's something I couldn't manage to say? Ugh...
...bad Katharine.
Friday, February 13, 2009
pathetic...sorry...
Ugh.
That's what I say -- ugh.
Isn't it just the most frustrating? I hate having no control, waking up and sitting up and falling back again. Being wanted in three directions (needed, debatable, but still wanted -- they're lovely people) and sick in four, left to give only a running fling of effort to each. I would belong, but I have to belong to so many other things too. Oh, for this summer, when I had just one good thing to drain my life into, kill myself over -- I don't mind that at all, when something is actually accomplished by it. Just this bothers me, the multitude of things half-done.
I don't like being sick. And I don't like being a girl, to wake up crying because my subconscious registered the alarm clock and knows I'm going to make it get up now, even though it can't. I should think it much easier to be grouchy when tired than weepy. And I really don't like beginning to die slowly every month, getting weaker and whiter until suddenly the powers that be decide I may live for another few weeks, and I am whole for a little while longer. I really don't understand that. Bethy and I have decided that girls are completely illogical creatures, and ought to be locked away. That might be nice, actually. Ugh, I say.
Thankfully, I only run a fever like this once a year or so. Thankfully, because it always lasts for two weeks and I lose about fifteen pounds.
-- oh! college monies!! I just need to find a method for that, and then I can write a book and sell lots of copies to the diet-crazed American public. It's all-natural, guaranteed, and ever so easy -- will power is only required to force yourself to eat, and friends and family members are good at that. No obsessive psychological complexes or cultural manias necessary. Just one pain pill a day...
I'm sorry. I complain. It has been a lovely week, really it has -- I just long to be all here...
I can't live like this, not with the madness we plan. Oh, God, I'm so tired...I do want to run, You know I do, but You also know that I can't...but won't You drag me along behind You anyways? Don't untie the cords, please...I don't care if it hurts, whether I am a callus or a bruise, as Daddy says; I don't even care if I die -- it's the only way, God, and oh, how I want to get somewhere...
That's what I say -- ugh.
Isn't it just the most frustrating? I hate having no control, waking up and sitting up and falling back again. Being wanted in three directions (needed, debatable, but still wanted -- they're lovely people) and sick in four, left to give only a running fling of effort to each. I would belong, but I have to belong to so many other things too. Oh, for this summer, when I had just one good thing to drain my life into, kill myself over -- I don't mind that at all, when something is actually accomplished by it. Just this bothers me, the multitude of things half-done.
I don't like being sick. And I don't like being a girl, to wake up crying because my subconscious registered the alarm clock and knows I'm going to make it get up now, even though it can't. I should think it much easier to be grouchy when tired than weepy. And I really don't like beginning to die slowly every month, getting weaker and whiter until suddenly the powers that be decide I may live for another few weeks, and I am whole for a little while longer. I really don't understand that. Bethy and I have decided that girls are completely illogical creatures, and ought to be locked away. That might be nice, actually. Ugh, I say.
Thankfully, I only run a fever like this once a year or so. Thankfully, because it always lasts for two weeks and I lose about fifteen pounds.
-- oh! college monies!! I just need to find a method for that, and then I can write a book and sell lots of copies to the diet-crazed American public. It's all-natural, guaranteed, and ever so easy -- will power is only required to force yourself to eat, and friends and family members are good at that. No obsessive psychological complexes or cultural manias necessary. Just one pain pill a day...
I'm sorry. I complain. It has been a lovely week, really it has -- I just long to be all here...
I can't live like this, not with the madness we plan. Oh, God, I'm so tired...I do want to run, You know I do, but You also know that I can't...but won't You drag me along behind You anyways? Don't untie the cords, please...I don't care if it hurts, whether I am a callus or a bruise, as Daddy says; I don't even care if I die -- it's the only way, God, and oh, how I want to get somewhere...
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