my leg is finally healing!!!! the whole endeavor has been like one of those “tell me that you’re old without telling me that you’re old” memes. in other news, i’m going to london on wednesday, haven’t been since i was 18 (almost 30 years ago). that’s not THAT crazy — there are tons of places that i’ve NEVER been, but something about the “in almost 30 years” phrase is kind of chilling. also i was looking at my photos from that trip and even though i now have mad (depressing, suddenly v. intense?) wrinkles, i wouldn’t swap the now me for the me at 18 (a lovely person but definitely not totally formed) (chubby face, style in its larval stages), which was sort of nice to realize. that OG england trip was a UT trip centered around studying in oxford, and its catchphrase — “poets, plays, and pubs” — was what reeled me in. honestly the plays were AWESOME; the pubs so-so; the poets obviously great. and i made one life-long friend out of it! so obviously — 10 out of 10.
anyway. i didn’t turn in an assignment last tuesday, because i was just 100% cashed out and now i’m a bitter about this class — have an assignment due the day i return from london ????? three videos??? trying to do them now but some small meek part of me is like CAN I JUST CATCH MY BREATH FOR ONE DAMN SECOND?
also did i tell you that the couch we ordered last summer arrived and it is honestly heaven? and that i made ross go get me some ice cream (lemon bar by jeni’s) JUST BECAUSE I’M A BRAT? and also that “creep” by TLC remains an excellent song (everyone gonna take “waterfalls” but i’m right on this one).
foot/leg still a mess. I would post a picture but i am feeling too disgusting. well, i’ll post a photo from monday. it somehow seems to be getting worse? but is that even possible?
in other news, two essays down, working on the third and over it. which is why i’m looking up the brooklyn nets roster. are all rosters so cute. also seth curry is cute, but also funny to me that they put up this temp sixers jersey photo. can i talk about more boring stuff. yes, namely will my leg ever heal. i prayeth yes!
two more gross pictures of my leg, but when taking off my sock last night, discovered twin (faint) bruises on the anklebones! WHAT KIND OF TRIP WAS THIS. i mean what exactly happened that night. i’ll keep discussing this until the pain subsides, the brusies fade, and/or i’m done with these essays.
first, i’m OBSESSED with my leg bruise, which i acquired monday night when i hard tripped over a pothole. i immediately pressed on it (so it wouldn’t bruise?) but it still got swollen and now it’s a patchwork light-colored bruise that kind of looks like skin camo. here’s a gross picture of it because — i must.
ALSO i love basketball because you see all the problems that regular people struggle with (KIND OF) (stay with me) — james harden so good but not really able to capitalize; russell westbrook speaking out about disrespect (i think?), ben simmons angry about something, all these people with so much potential who are at the tops of their games and yet — still so human.
p.s. i watched i want you back the night before the test began and i really enjoyed it! it’s legit funny and sweet. why not try it.
we watched (most of) get back, peter jackson’s documentary about the beatles this weekend — largely it felt like a meditation on long relationships and creative partnerships and how they can unravel, even when everything is still good. also the beatles were so young at the time of filming, ranging from ages 26-29, which is just insane. also billy preston seems so sweet (ONLY 23!) (am i obsessed with age), and we laughed quite hard about kevin, the red-headed roadie, who has to hold the lyrics for john during their rooftop performance.
(image of beatles rooftop concert, january 30, 1969, via all dylan)
also i’m low-grade panicking about my end-of-grad-school exams, which start friday and go for a week, amid work and school and everything, and like oh god how do i do it, do i even know how to write a research paper? THREE research papers? actually do i know anything? to assuage this fear — blogging, of course.
“From an Atlas of the Difficult World” by Adrienne Rich (via Best Poems)
I know you are reading this poem late, before leaving your office of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven across the plains’ enormous spaces around you. I know you are reading this poem in a room where too much has happened for you to bear where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed and the open valise speaks of flight but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem as the underground train loses momentum and before running up the stairs toward a new kind of love your life has never allowed. I know you are reading this poem by the light of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide while you wait for the newscast from the intifada. I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers. I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out, count themselves out, at too early an age. I know you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on because even the alphabet is precious. I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your hand because life is short and you too are thirsty. I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language guessing at some words while others keep you reading and I want to know which words they are. I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn between bitterness and hope turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse. I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else left to read there where you have landed, stripped as you are.
i have thought about this article, “Redemption of a Lost Prodigy” by Alex Vadukul, since reading it. it’s about saul chandler, who was a child prodigy in violin, but gave it up. i can’t even find the exact part that gets me, but just the idea of losing oneself, starting over, letting go:
But when Mr. Chandler turned 16, the pressures of producing excellence consumed him, and he had a nervous breakdown that derailed his career. He estranged himself from classical music and in an act of reinvention legally changed his name. He would lead a circuitous life that has since involved running a seedy hotel in Times Square, a successful career in mathematics and dramatic voyages at sea. Thirty years ago he started building boats on City Island, where he found peace on its waters. “I don’t want to be remembered for who I was,” he said. “Because I ended up doing a lot of other great things in my life, too. People here know me for who I am now.”
