just so you know

i made a blog

it is called brilliant and neat

it is for everyone

it is located at

http://brilliantandneat.typepad.com
uh-huh.

ps
that means no more blogging here. all blogging has moved.
to the new place.
called brilliant and neat.

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i'm not back

but i have something to post.

two years

two years ago today i drove from columbus to nashville, smoking my last cigarettes the whole way. on the 8th i started in buffalo, but i broke down just south of columbus. that night i had a root beer float for dinner and checked into a smoking room at the best western. i walked to the bp across the street and bought a pack of camel lights. then i rolled up my jeans and walked down to the pool. as i let my feet turn pruny, i thought about my car down at the garage/bait and tackle shop. my computer monitor was in the front seat, and everything else i could fit into a 1997 mercury tracer was crammed anywhere it would fit.

i went back to my room and chain-smoked and drank grape soda all night. i knew i was smoking my last. i knew i would change forever when i came to nashville. i could hear the page turning.

the morning of the 9th, i woke up and walked across the street to bob evans. i pushed eggs and pancakes around my plate, and devoured bacon and coffee. and coffee. and coffee. and then i got a cup of coffee to go and walked to the bait and tackle shop to pick up my new alternator. i got to know the cat while i waited for my credit card to go through, and i read every word on the racks of fishing lures to keep from talking to the proprietor.

it took me about 6 hours to get to nashville. i pulled in and katie's sister amanda helped me move my things from the car to my room. my room was light wood and white sheets and a pastel quilt. a window overlooking a little gully. loud birds. loud bass in the apartment below. loud, early-rising, elephant-footed children in the apartment above.

i cried a lot when i first came here. i cried in my car, i cried in church, i cried when i talked to katie, i cried when i did the dishes, i cried when i looked in the mirror. i was changing.

two years later, and i don't even know that girl.

i remember sitting down with all of my poems and stories and essays and watercolor paintings and charcoal drawings in that first apartment with katie and amanda and not knowing what to do. i couldn't paint. i couldn't write. nothing came. i was raw and terrified. i pulled out my three-inch stack of printouts and rip-outs and blue marker poems written to my old neighbor and i read. i read myself over and over again and i wanted me back. i thought i wouldn't ever create things again. i thought i was looking at the best of my life, and i had a bland future in store.

i had no idea.

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for now

well, dear readers (are there any? the world may never know.):

i don't have time to keep this looking recent

or even to try to write anything decent

and my nonsensical ramblings don't matter that much

and i keep touch with friends through email and such



summary:

i'm gone for now. i might come back when i'm not so consumed.

if you require my useless opinions, use the link at left to send me an email.

love and misses
amy

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a most unexpected discovery.

gray hair.

i thought i had more time.

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school

i realized yesterday that it's time to go back.

a friend came in my office and was noticing my pile of augustine books. i started telling her about jill robbins, and a class called "literature and the history of ideas." the class should have been called "augustine." i started telling her what an eager student i was. i snatched a book from the shelf and set it down in front of me, grabbed a pen and a pad of paper, and mimicked my old posture. hunched, pen near strangulation and scratching furiously, fingers of the left hand pointing to the pages of the book and occasionally holding the pad. eyes down, then up to the professor; half smile as i heard something completely new to my ears. furious penscratching as i connect what the professor says to the roaring train of thought that's in my head.

i love new ideas.
i love to learn, more than anything else i've ever done.

i miss writing in books, things like:

allegory of use/abuse of language?
vices=perverse imit. of god
??CAUSE OF EVIL
ALL THINGS GOOD!
EVIL DEFINED!
death
grace
Cain - enjoying the vehicle?
good w/o evil NOT evil w/o good
paradise
SATAN
nearer to nothingness
~LOVE~

and, I must have written a paper concerning vanity, and i think pride, because I had a few dog-eared pages with the word vanity scrawled there, as well as small post-its in all the books that said things like:

USE/ENTJ/TURN AWAY
PRIDE
CONVERSION
turn/dark abyss, nothgns (must stand for nothingness)
wickedness
EVIL
turning/wstld (must stand for wasteland)

the only textbooks i didn't sell for cash were the augustine volumes, the norton shakespeare, and the small poetry books from bernstein's class. i even sold the poetry anthologies and the milton book. after all scott stevens did for me, too.

i remember when i was nearing graduation, we were meeting in his office about a paper. he asked me if i'd considered graduate school. i had. but i was secretly petrified to take the GRE. so when he offered to counsel me through an application to harvard, and when he offered to type my application, and when he offered his extreme optimism at the potential of my acceptance, i put him off. i procrastinated.

now three years have passed. and i can't ignore it any longer. last night i bought my GRE test prep book. i took the diagnostic quiz online.

and i have a lot of work to do.

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props and links

first.
congratulations, Doctor Frankie. well done, my friend.

last.
i've recently stumbled across two websites that i enjoy immensely.

without hope or agenda, i present
delicious days
and
toothpaste for dinner (the "drawings" section provided me with hours of fun).

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it's like snow on a crowded street. i see everyone else with crisp blacks and grays and i'm not wearing a coat. i don't need one. truthfully, i'm not cold. i like the looks. and there is the white stuff. it's nothing more than a small distraction at this point but every so often it's a bit cold on my skin.

small little pricks of cold.

it's like my heart hanging out here on your line. i see everything you could be to me but i don't want to let go and drop down to your grasp. i like seeing you there. i know you're waiting. and there is the effort of resisting. it's nothing more than being a bit more tired at the end of each day at this point but at least i don't have to let go and hurl myself headlong into your grace.

small little aches and pains.

i'm lying. it's not like any of this.

it's like standing alone in a tunnel.
it's like waiting for the phone to ring on the fifth day.
it's like dreaming your face every night.
it's like being the last one to leave the coffeeshop.
it's like walking home alone when you don't want to.

it's like two hearts. apart.

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