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Archives for posts with tag: school
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i bought a mango

April 18, 07 //
3
Narratives, Photography
deepsicks, journeys, music, now + zen, school, vancouver

I feel no less than three posts backed up, five weeks deep, “I feel no more” for the symmetry, the sake of a bald lie. …Hi. It’s springtime and deceptive here, with the green grass that never left and the generally mild. I mean spring in the wheeeeee! sense, the no more school!!! on into the summer. UBC has delightfully short terms—I’ve been cut loose now careening on the what to do first. I’ve projects piled high and eager wiles ready to wrestle ‘em to the ground, with a dose of uncertainty to keep me edged, diamond. I have no idea what I’m doing this summer, scrambling for a co-op (Canadian-speak for an internship) and enrolled in a single six-week class I may or mayn’t drop, oh, and there’s the beach four blocks down. There’s a stack of books to read and write. A bicycle, a forest trail, a gallery of crows curious of the next move unknown. I want to visit home. See my family, see my friends. Keep on loving those who’ve made an enemy of me.

I regret not writing more, sooner, more often, still owning but not possessed by the scrawled notes in the weeks that have passed. Suffice to say, the semester was a lashing, homework every day of the week with the worst, the Sunday crashing. Caffeine queen unwashed for days, jitter grime and braindead buying the exact same groceries again and sniffing the joints of my clothes I can wear this can I wear this? getting holes and the muted tinge of whatever detergent’s on sale. I’d sit in the library six days a week (working the seventh), decline my dad’s Skype calls and stare out the window. It was more than being trapped inside. I was outside of outside, even when in it, fierce-paced passing the most marvelous things unless forcing a concentrated effort.

It’s been hard, but not hell. School is the reason for fatigue and time kill, but it’s also the reason I’m here, and right pique. I love it. But never-un-the-less, I am grateful it’s giving me back my ghost. There’s too much to be interested in, on this earth, I will never be bored.

I did manage to sneak away to Seattle for a day, St. Paddy’s weekend, to wish Nathan a merry 26th Birth Remembrance Day. He made the most fantastic salads and calzones and a magnificent cheese tray, smoked Gouda ohmygod and wine tasting, and gibe trading, and the never-ending sashay-parade of his friends I’d long heard of but never met, who informed me small-smiled-knowingly my own reputation proceeds. We danced at R Place, a mix of folk like I’d never seen, of style, of race, of gender, of scene, clique and cliché and stares and who cares, where everybody slaps everybody’s ass, and everyone’s the hottest, damnedest, sweetest thing.

A week later I bought a mango. I had never bought a mango before. Its tang was almost too much to bear, leaning on the lawn of grass, moss and mud watching the bees bang against the flowers. Today I bought a canadew. I thought I was being cultural ooooo mysterious Canadian fruit ball, smelling rind ripe with surprising weight and dripping with secrets. Melon in my belly, the internet tells me I just ate a Frankenstein cantaloupe honeydew. Doh.

Combined with a compulsion for new music, my hypergratuitous grittiness and glee has encouraged me to unrust my industrial roots. It’s been far too long since I stomped myself out of consciousness on a dancefloor, pretended I knew German better or tore my hair out over a breakbeat. As such I’ve been feeding Funker Vogt into last.fm and rocking out as far as my headphones allow. VNV at GZ or bust, baby! it’s a maybe, and I must remember, I am the executioner, not the dead. The thinker not the thought, dreamer not the fantasy. On a related note… sort of… I am the sad, knowing I will miss for the first time the Minneapolis Goth Prom, along with the persistent missing of my favorite body-convulsing dance-companion, the Annadroid, ex-flatmate and sculptress of non sequiturs turned PR hex bolt in the New York City not of her imagination. Siiiigh. I should like to visit, as every city should like to see our motion interpretation of George Michael’s Freeek.

And so, the future becomes the present I shake to guess the surprise. I’m inside! of inside and outside and everywhere. I have designs for obsessive silliness, self retreats and treats and for crying out loud you poor devil thing, patience is a virtuoso, upstart stopping. Falls without warnings. Here has been a dream, in a role of observation, warming up and hesitating, well, it’s time. To explore more? yes, but less, to leave here. Short termed or not or what, I moved here. It’s time to live here. To integrate identities. Reach as far deep as I can into the sand to touch the fault—the earthquake and the temporality. I have never been happier than now, and it’s always now, and it’s always temporary. And lovely.

Too often in the past few years, I’ve dug hands into my chest to beat my own heart. I thought it giving out, giving up, and it was, both illusory and choking real. I no longer beat it pulsing, or beat it bruising, either, and it doesn’t hurt itself. But it does move on its own. Time for hands to do other things.

3
 comments
 

happy birthday, d6!

March 10, 07 //
3
Photography, Shouts, Site News
dancing, internets, school, shows

This March marks the fifth year of deepsicks dot com! Five years old, baby honey! SOOOO BIG! I’d like to celebrate with more than mac n cheese (called Kraft Dinner here, all culture shockingly, commercial soundbite trashproud pearly whites), but five-year-olds like garish food with fridge-triage tomato and fake meat, yeah? I hope so, I could press no more, or imagine, I’ve taken to eating trainwrecks and gallons of caffeine. I’ve just over a month left this term, and it’s heading full on. I had a pile of fun projects lined up for spring break, but turned out schooling the whole time, so maybe this summer? Or, just, later? Or just, aw shucks, we’ll see.

I went dancing a couple weeks ago, hooking eyes and whoas at Bad Boy Bill and Alex Peace, down dirty Chicago house DJs pushing me closer to home than I’ve felt in a long time, thankyouverymuch, with a flighty, sweet crowd of smiles and hell yeahs. The brain forgets what the body remembers the mind forgives what I can’t won’t don’t you have to take it easy sometimes, hey? with the split down the middle, the duality, self expression possession you n mes. I have to take it easy.

Check out my new toy! His name is Gish, the Google Fish. I won him in my Information Retrieval class as top prize in the Google quiz, which had less to do with knowing about Google than understanding logic. He’s sooooo cute. He hides in my pocket but swims in my heart.

Lastly, if any y’all nerds are on Facebook, I finally got sedated, dragged kicking scowling. It’s kinda fun.

3
 comments
 

building a desert

February 3, 07 //
3
Narratives, Photography
school

Here in library school, the mantra goes, “The first semester is hard.” All new students take the same four classes together and it’s murderous then it’s over, and you can move on to courses no less hard but allegedly less intensive. …Was the refrain, almost a point of pride we survived, and kid, you’ll survive too. But the second verse is the same as the first, and of the same ambivalence-inducing character-caliber. I love what I’m doing, which is good, because I do it every day of the week, and if I take a break, sleep in an hour or steal an afternoon of Chinatown sidewalk gawking, I feel guilty for not working and anxious about falling behind, then berate myself for the guilt and hate myself for the doubletime demands to be made on another day.

I have to remind myself to remember: Take pictures. Slow down.

Half the bones in my wrists are fusing, the other half, disintegrating. My mom used to say and heaven knows, still does, “I’m so tired I could cry.”

I wish I had more time.

3
 comments
 

i am the trespassenger and i ride and i ride, and yes, roll the window down this cool night air is curious.

October 8, 06 //
3
Narratives, Photography
now + zen, school, vancouver, zombies

I’ve been here a month and some. It seems about that long.

So. Have I made loads of awesome new friends? Not really. Have I found the sickest clubs with the phattest beats? No. Did I dance in a park with a bunch of hippies, step over hypodermics, dodge the homeless, fight the post office, stare too long at trees and moss and ferns and waves and aerial wires and steep grades and skyscrape-condo city bright lights and not quite make it home a couple nights and accidentally buy as a birthday present regalia for the dead?

Well, yeah. I’ve been having a lot of fun, and it has been a lot of weeeird. External collision with internal incision, a whole lotta growth with identity deconstruction—a process begun long before Vancouver but now, without familiarity to ground me, with a mind and method of its own. Not that I’m out of mine, or make-believe I don’t make my decisions, following inertia’s lead to wide and winding so I don’t own responsibility for consequences thrown at me for being silly stupid curious rapt indifferent smirking deep. Not at all. But there has been a distinct out of < blank > experience. Crossed the border right out of mine. Choosing no choice with a gratingful smile. I got here and I cried a lot. Then I stopped.

These are vague things, I realize. These are good things, you must understand.

Threw on Underworld’s dubnobasswithmyheadman and man oh man oh man, hypnosis was instantaneous, burning some incense in the noon feeling good. I like my library science program a lot. We talk about authority control and naming and censorship and social informatics, blogging and tagging and wikis and the dubyou dubyou dubyou. I made a PowerPoint about ZOMBIKEN! How long will I beat the dead zombie horse you ask? Until saying “dead zombie horse” ceases to give me joy. My department is filled with way cool, way smart people from a wide array of walks and disciplines—and I fit right in.

It’s comforting (and by comforting I mean awesome) to know I made the right decision not only with coming to UBC but to the future-rattling realization that I want to be a librarian when I grow up, at least for the part that’s coming up. School is a tremendous amount of work and I’ve yet to settle into a lockstep academic study routine, but I’ve yet to feel overwhelmed much less doubt that I belong here. …And, slowly, Vancouver is becoming the new familiarity. Walking in my neighborhood, it is my neighborhood. Where do I live? I live on my street, and when I take the bus I own it. The needles on the sidewalk are my responsibility. The homeless I dodge reflect on me.

Last night I went for a run, just like the olden days through Fargo and Minneapolis dark with headphones and a quick step. Vancouver is perpetual sweater weather cool and now increasingly with fallen leaves I smash up in the gutter full tilt. I don’t ride my bike here as much as I’d like—to school is too far too early too uphill with too heavy too expensive cargo on my back. Forgoing this, I haven’t exercised much otherwise, and I am starting to tell. Anxious and softening while tight where I shouldn’t be. Running last night, my body forgives and tries to force promises, my head and spit filling with blood.

Trees are crazy. Moss grows on trees and ferns grow on trees and trees grow on trees and the upbeat just sad.

Last week I dreamed of two childhood friends lighting a field on fire one flick-dropped match stealth step at a time. It’s the most vivid thing I’ve seen since I’ve been here.

3
 comments
 
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