jacqueline

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 09:50:44 GMT

i will soon abandon this lj for another one: mavieordinaire

just because i've had this one too long.
goodnight.

bicycles

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 21:22:20 GMT

today's discovery: a few minutes bike ride from my house leads to... kansas countryside, essentially. it's not so much a "discovery" since i already knew this, but a "realization" since i had never taken advantage of it before. and if you take fifteenth street back into town, you get the added bonus of being able to bike through the lawrence memorial cemetary.

nikki & i did this today... the air was just cool enough, the sun just warm enough, the light just orange enough. the trees all changing and the fields still golden. these are the things i can't believe i didn't take advantage of until now.

sto male

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 04:59:39 GMT

sleepy, draining, sore Friday night colds are a good time to feel generally miserable about everything, i suppose.

Marnie recently posted:
"how do you choose how to live your life?
any decision acknowledges how short it all is."

i'm sure that i'm not unique in being overwhelmed by this. not that one decision must be permanent, but that everything is, essentially, a series of Choices. in doing one thing we are actively chosing not to do another. and it's all done within a rather limited and unpredictable time frame. thank god for things like good friends, good music, good food. modigliani, paper cranes, warm lighting, wine, nabokov, swimming pools, orange roses, vegetable gardens, bicycles, joanna newsom, stories.

and what to do after the next year and a half? start over, start somewhere else. what i'm most afraid of? the inherent Loneliness of not being ready to stay in one place, of simply not knowing. of wasting my time. Putting all your faith in the idea that one day you might have something worthwhile to say and be able to say it is mildly daunting. not to mention if it matters whether or not you do.

...

anyhow. sorry to be so "serious." i'm just lying around feeling sick and being depressed so you know how it goes ;)

until again.

sometimes, it's just easier to make lists

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 20:12:37 GMT

bonnes choses:

milton's breakfast
nikki's dad's stories
bruschetta
the new lorenz/evanhoe/victor crew
october birthdays, of which there are pas mal
nikki gibson
8 new (used) records
wellness pills
being CHILLY
indian weddings
unexpected parties where everyone actually gets along
my kitchen table
wine. bottles and bottles of.
walking into bars and actually appreciating the music
our blue whistling teakettle
pictures of food
the speedy roadside service of AAA

mauvaises choses:

unability to get any work done before sunday
locking my keys in the car
while it's running
and in drive

voyeurism

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 21:33:29 GMT

well i still need to resize most of these & put names with them perhaps, but for now... pictures on a website!

http://photobucket.com/albums/a110/jacqvictor/

uh

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 08:25:54 GMT

so i was looking for the actual biblical source of a reference made in Heptameron, and I found this on a website entitled "Bible verses for your WEDDING":

Matthew - Chapter 5:27-28
You have heard that it was said, "Do not commit adultery." But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

ha!
a little foreboding for a wedding it seems.
one could be a little less, um, ominous, and just read some gibran or something.

mon dieu.

Truth revealed.

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:52:09 GMT

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Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com</td>

i suppose that nobel literature winners have, in general, well-written speeches

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 07:40:45 GMT

"Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about." - faulkner

...

today:
it was nice to sit and chat with bruce for the first time in awhile.
i was told, by a dutch rocker after he addressed me in his native language, "oh, i thought you were dutch."
his band's name was ZZZ
they were all very nice, my fellow netherlandaners
"whiskey shoes" and "cadillac hat" hosted a fancy party
i danced blisters into my feet

note: it is now the first of october, and the lawrence air is just right.

in hiding

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 07:09:05 GMT

my god, i cannot get OFF THE INTERNET. what is wrong with me?

total avoidance. it's really not good. i feel like i'm the middle of some social/academic/mental/general tangled ball of knots looping in and out and everywhere around me. i'm in one of those "i need to sort my own shit out right now before i can be part of your life or be responsible for anything else" stages. i hope it gets worked out soon.

blah. time for reading.

honeysuckle

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 21:08:49 GMT

allora.

something is just not feeling quite right about me today. it's pretty strange & distant & mildly scary.

anyhow, everytime i re-read parts of the sound and the fury i am simply re-astounded by it. quentin's mental process during his section is just impressive and so confusingly beautiful.

i'm trying to think of what to write my next story on. it takes such a strange amount of emotional and mental energy to write when there's no particular idea presenting itself to you. kind of the same feeling as having to act in some sort of emotionally charged scene, or any scene really, when you are feeling the exact opposite of what you're trying to portray. or just don't have the energy to be yourself, not to mention someone else. plus there's no script. and yet it's some sort of a necessity to keep doing it. strange, yes?

nikki, emily & i went to see carmen at the kc lyric last night. audrey was there too. i thought the voices were pretty great & the whole experience was just kind of giddy and beautiful overall. it did bother me though hearing the actors/singers who obviously didn't speak french trying to speak it on stage. not.too.convincing. i guess it's something you wouldn't really notice unless you actually speak the language, but with the exception of about three characters it was pretty frustrating to listen to. that's just me though; it was a good opera. we looked fabulous too, and had a lovely time walking around before the show in the midst of just-beginning-to-be-fall evening time in downtown kansas city. and the whole city was covered in fog when we got out, obscuring the old brick buildings and causing lights to float disconnected from the tops of skyscrapers and neon signs and the tips of invisible lampposts. we'll definitely be attending the entire season. seriously, only $10 for student rush tickets, you just have to make sure you get there an hour before hand so they don't sell out.

well, time to finish a paper. finally. i hope. nikki's put me in seclusion until i get it done. my whole mind is so weird and disconnected and headache-y today though, so i don't know. we'll see.

and this is where i projectile vomit words

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 04:50:56 GMT

i have somehow made it through life with very few enemies, but i think the 2Villains may have a new arch nemesis. i'm mildly excited about this.

what else. lately i've been feeling the kate lorenz comment that "i love reading and writing!" i had at some point in time stopped reading much, having developed this insatiable need to be more involved in real-life-happening-around-me, almost a violent breaking away from the fiction that i had come to define everything by, and now that i've successfully embraced that (ha) it's been really fulfulling to just read again.

other news: i love my housemates. i love veggie lunch. i love that megan is coming to visit. i love that today's the first day of fall, but i do not love that it doesn't feel like the first day of fall. i am an adult and i talk about the weather. i think i told someone to shoot me if i ever turned into this. i hope they don't remember. oh, i lost my cellphone, so if i haven't called you back this week, that's why. actually it's not lost, i just haven't been able to get it back yet. so it goes.

onto struggling through heptameron and studying for italian. why i am just starting these things right now, i don't know. but i did have a lovely afternoon with nikki :) iced coffee and lemon cake while sitting in the window at milton's is quite a plaisir.

<3

liste automatique

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 04:44:51 GMT

oh, what the hell. this seems a little self-indulgent, but then so is livejournal. :)

bicycles:
i wish that mine hadn't been stolen & that my new one worked better. but plans to head to a kc lady-run bicycle shop/store have been made (http://www.acmebicyclecompany.com/). i really wish we had a bicycle-based local transportation system. except in the winter.

dance:
[see previous post]. i believe that people who don't dance are missing some essential part of being human.

food:
one of the finest things in life. and thankfully, also a necessity. i'm a big fan of the slow-food movement. http://www.slowfood.com/

le petit prince:
"People where you live," the little prince said, "grow five thousand roses in one garden... yet they don't find what they're looking for..."

nabokov:
my favourite writer. absolutely astounding and hilarious. read pale fire, and maybe you will understand.

plays:
performing, watching, and reading. i wish good theatre would become the most popular entertainment medium again.

spaghetti westerns:
the good the bad and the ugly. exactly.

taking pictures:
especially in the autumn for some reason. something i wish i had developed more throughout my life, but then there's still time, yes?

train travel:
of course. we could really use a good train system in the united states. oh wait, we're destroying it.

vinyls:
i don't want to debate it. it's tangible music.

Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.

Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:37:45 GMT

um so i feel really ridiculous because apparently i cry whenever i see even brief moments of ballet? i watched some french documentary on ballet dancers today and tears were a streamin' down my face. embarassing.

blah in other news i need to start drawing/painting/oilpastelling/photographing again soon. also i feel like i'm wasting my time with a lot of things. prof. hayes has kind of slapped us the in face lately with questions about what we're doing and why we're doing and why so many people lack passion and curiosity today. what is it in your life that you get out of bed for in the morning?! is there anything?! he demanded, fervently waving his arms and wiping sweat from his forehead as he stood in front of our class. so: assuming there's only limited time (a good assumption i suppose), and assuming we can do a lot of things but not everything, and assuming one thing we do takes away from one other thing we could do, and that there are payoffs on both ends, and supposing we sleep away most of our lives (i do), and buy into, even a little bit, the safety net of society, and live without either passion (although i hate to use that word... necessity, lust?) or dedication to some greater ideal or idea or human responsibility one to the other... how can i look at myself and say that i'm doing anything genuine or worthwhile? sometimes it just rises up in my stomach until i scream complacency out of myself.

other realization: i'm terrible with phones, and with being available to people in general. i know it must be very frustrating, based on how much shit i take for it every day. i apologize.

...

aside from all other thoughts, it's beautiful today, cool & sunny and audrey says that pumpkin ale has made its yearly appearance on liquor store shelves. the italian table was actually fun yesterday, though i don't speak much italian yet. and the aristocrats is indeed worth seeing. it will make you uncomfortably aware of our human fascination with the crass, vulgar, and scandalous.

i'm totally scattered right now & will probably be more coherent later when i'm not drowning somewhere between having days upon days of studying and reading and writing to do, and a currently insatiable desire to, well, read, study, write, and create things completely separate from what i'm supposed to be doing. mais c'est normal ca.

bring your monocle!

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 17:13:07 GMT

at-the-door student rush tickets at the kansas city lyric opera: $10

who wants to try for the full season? carmen, the turn of the screw, Lucia di Lammermoor, and the merry widow.

nikki's in.

roses, packages, strings, and such.

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 03:18:24 GMT

current favouritest things:

npr
brigitte bardot
joanna newsom
riding the bus
harper's
my housemates
our house
sea creatures
spaghetti westerns
six feet under
vegetable gardens
composting
contemporary short fiction
dinner parties
first fridays
fresh ground coffee
gatherin' in the streets
GIS lab & ArcMap (yes, i love maps)
faraway travel plans & conversation

....
oh, and here:
http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/animal_environ/hurricanes/
our government's response to this has been fucking ridiculous, as i'm sure everyone knows.

also, Solidarity has a website now!
http://www.lawrencesolidarity.net/

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:27:49 GMT

I wish wish wish I had something interesting to say, because I really want to write something, I do. fiction writing class makes me nervous, my GIS prof is a peach (w!), one of my high school english teachers (ms stucky!) emailed me a few days ago, the little dollhouse on new york street where i now live is wonderful (we have named it the new york street bordello, because apparently that's technically what it's classified as in the state of kansas?), and overall life is hot and sticky as a veggie heaven curry bun. which now that i think about it, isn't terribly sticky. i guess it'd be more like a momoko pot sticker.

in GIS class today, the prof asked us to tell him our "most favourite" places, and then we found them on the special GIS map. i couldn't think of one that i could choose over all others, so we just skipped me, and after class i made friends with the only other guy in the class who was equally as hard-pressed to make such a difficult decision, in front of strangers nonetheless. sometimes, especially when i have just gotten back from some sort of travel adventure or am listening to friends recount theirs, it starts to strike me as odd that i live in kansas. kind of one of those "of all places" feelings. but i'm strangely glad i do, for the moment anyhow. i can't wait for autumn. the first case of pumpkin ale i see, i'm buying it.

true story

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 21:06:32 GMT

across the room, by the window, a mother and her twenty-something son sit down together for a cup of coffee. john having been adopted, one can only imagine the phone call that brought them both here. together, their first meeting in twenty-something years.

they are filling the room.

...

7 am

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 13:23:35 GMT

For so rarely allowing myself to pause still and awake in it, I love this time of morning. The squinty-eyed, bright coolness of sun, soft-voiced, stark 7 am when, if you have nowhere to be just quite yet, it's as if you've accidentally stolen into someone else's beginning-hour and must willingly take your place to the side. Feet pad with unforced softness across the room, the click and gurgle of the coffeepot offsetting and wildly anticipatory. He will need: a lunch, a thermos of coffee, steel-toed boots, a hat. Two pieces of toast into slick dark double-mouths, my usual white Presbyterian-social-function mug already filled with coffee. Smiles always steal unexpectedly soft and open into the quiet. I smile back, we sit, he's late, feel better love, I already do, he's out the door. Repose.

It's with a certain haphazard determination that early-off-to-work cars slide down the street below the window. Muted rumbling. There are few greater pleasures than having nowhere in particular to be at 7am. It's extra-time, time-worth-having, impossible to waste, easy to spend, filling its own space, stealthily brighter and louder with each awkward tick of the hand, always pausing and sliding in its own glorious secret very-existence. 7 am. Only his cat Sofya notices me at this time of morning, content I've finally decided to wake up at a decent hour. Blanket from the bed, knees curled into the chair, low grumble of Sofya's pleasure and my asthmatic lungs. He'll have been at the factory for about an hour now, playing with wall glue and labels and cardboard boxes and dog food and calendars and paper pallets and repetition repetetion and all other such details he individually loves so to collectively hate. Can't blame him, anyone would. Only one week after this I say, forced optimism. I hope no one finds out I'm a philospher he says. Mon petit philosophe. I decided not to complain to him that today, again, I want to skip philosophy class. 7 am speaks for itself, and all words that cut through its stark silence seem over-stated. I'm glad for this hour, for his static impression-negative of dishes on the counter, the nearly empty coffeepot, the bed made with what i can only assume to have been quick festivity; for knowing that soon Glen will be awake and stumble tall and mostly asleep into the room to the exuberant tune of "Les Papillons," for Sofya lurking and sliding comfortably through 7 am as she must always do between nuzzling our still-sleeping and sweet-dreaming heads, just to let us know, out of politeness or love or impatience, that we're missing it. Roll over, go back to sleep. Time of early-birds and lazy corner-spiders and blinking-eyes into which today, somehow, I've accidentally awoken to fold up and keep for my own (if I could), a pocket-morning that belongs to the blunt determination of drivers rolling muted below the window and to the sharp crescendo hum of conveyor belts just starting up far enough from my ear to be a fairy tale of the working day that I'll listen to later half-sleepy with sun and too familiar with how those numbers on the evening clock like to follow each other so very close. 7 am, time of pause and waking stillness for strangers to its hour.

le hip-hop francais en evolution

Tue, 10 May 2005 18:52:54 GMT

final french paper due at midnight. 1.5 of 8-10 pages currently finished. haha. sometimes i do wish i had a better school-work ethic.

i had a dream about making documentaries in senegal last night. i can't really say that it's a dream-revelation, because i'm pretty sure i just dreamed about it because i had been thinking about doing that recently, but it made the whole plan a little stronger in my mind. i'm really exicted about making films. ;)

i'm wondering if it's worth leaving the wonderful work-space perch i have found at the library to get some food right now. maybe just a little more writing...

sometimes i write the most pointless things.

cookie monster heaven

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 01:44:22 GMT

my friend peter told me about one of the most wonderful places in the world, which exists in minnesota (which is strange because my only other friend peter lives in minnesota). this most wonderful place is what he called a cookie house... no, it is not a house with lots of cookies to buy, or a house made of cookies, but rather a house for making cookies. it is the former house of an old woman who stipulated in her will that the house could be lived in by other people (free of rent, maybe?) after her death, as long as they kept the kitchen constantly stocked with all the ingredients necessary to make cookies, so that now anyone in the community can come in at any time and just make themselves some cookies. why doesn't every town have one of these places? i think we should all take a minute to think about what a happy place a cookie making house must be.

sunday afternoon (soarings of the mind)

Sun, 24 Apr 2005 21:06:25 GMT

i have been suddenly and unexpectedly falling into fits of giddy excitement lately thinking about the gingerbread house on new york street that will soon know the footsteps of me, audrey, em, and nikki. i am determined that there will be a lemon tree and flower boxes, dinners regularly cooked and eaten together, and a blanket that spends most of its time on the roof. i am excited about lawrence this summer, about long lazy days and bicycles and endless heat and even summer school and work. i am excited about receiving postcards from abroad and about trekking the rainforest with my family. i am excited about journaling and reading and taking pictures and playing violin. i need to learn to view life as an extension of the summertime, as a low-key infinity of possibility with work lending to it nothing less than a greater structure around which everything else gains clarity. cultivate your garden. these strange idyllic visions of the next few months will obviously be offset by what will actually transpire, by the fact that things are never what you think they will be but they are fine, even more beautiful sometiems, nonetheless. maybe my challenge will be not to stop dreaming, but to become conscious that i am already deeply involved in another sort of dream?

anyhow

i am still looking for a job. if anyone knows of something, let me know.

come what may, i think life will be okay as long as i have a garden, a record player, a place to stay warm, and a bicycle.

okay well it's time for me to brave the treacherous road from here to kansas city. and later to hopefully get some work done on papers and presentations. i'm actually motivated to produce good work right now. imaginez!

oh and happy birthday anne, i had the most wonderful debaucherous time. there was a moment at the gaslight when i just looked out at everyone sitting around drinking redstripe listening to music, smiling and talking, dressed in drag, and i realized how happy i was to be there at that moment :)

until next time.

i have an unhealthy obsession with making lists

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 17:06:56 GMT

x best things recently x

old foreign films (les parapluies de cherbourg, la strada, ikiru...)
signing up to take italian next semester
jason's & adam's affectionate ramblings
unexpected street corner meetings
spring trees covered in flowers (except that those pear ones smell like fish)
plans to build a bicycle this week
nights that aren't terrible cold
le tigre & this bike is a pipebomb
short wave radio (the conet project)

x worst things recently x

being called out on how unreliable & uncommunicable i am
not finishing things for school on time (quelle suprise)
the adventurous departures of various friends

x best grocery store purchases yesterday x

goat cheese
cucumber & dill hummus
herb feta cheese
tomatoes-still-on-the-vine that smell like a garden
ciabatta
plums
soymilk
green tea ice cream

sunshine love-affair

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 08:14:13 GMT

i have a new plan B (which is always better than plan A) to work in a bicycle repair shop in France. Maybe I'll see you there.

...

"i just think it's so amusing that someone who appears to be so socially well-adjusted can actually be so bat-crazy."
-zach, on why he always laughs at me
...

Listen-- I want to run all my life, screaming at the top of
my lungs. Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd
greeting the gladiator.
Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream, exhale,
release life's rapture. Everything is blooming. Everything is
flying. Everything is screaming, choking on its screams.
Laughter. Running. Let-down hair. That is all there is to life.
They are leading camels along the street, on the way from
the circus to the zoo. Their plump humps list and sway. Their
long, gentle faces are turned up a little, dreamily. How can
death exist when they lead camels along a springtime street?

-nabokov, from gods

for a friend

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 04:17:46 GMT

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.

-rilke

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 04:02:29 GMT

I just read one of the most beautiful short stories...

"Sounds" by Nabokov.

I recommend it. Brad Hill of Oklahoma and Whitney Jardine of Austin, this means you.

<3