I go down to the creek again,

Just finished:



Rating: Three out of five stars.

An interesting look into the early life of a revolutionary. Despite his lack of literary experience his accounts are often succinct and poignant. His writing style is bare and honest. As for the content, his journey makes for an impressive story. However, it lost me a little in the middle. He goes into extremely long descriptions of churches and battlegrounds that don't fit with the fast paced narrative. I also thought the ending was abrupt. In one entry Alberto is right there with him and in the next he is gone. What? Did anyone else notice this?

As a side note, sometimes I felt like Che was stroking his own ego. He comments on how prolific his own speeches are. He laughs at his own writing. Anyway, it's worth reading.

Besides, Che was hot...I'd hit it.

 Let me tell you about my new apt. I'll post pictures from my laptop as soon as I get the place set up, but this will suffice for the moment. I have hardwood floors in the bedroom and a working fireplace in the living room. As you know, I have large open windows overlooking Roanoke. This place also has more doors than I've ever seen in my life. Two in the bedroom, three in the hall, and even my damn kitchen has a door. Nine total, I just counted. Nine. Who needs nine doors when they live by themselves? The cats paw at them. They can't stand the not knowing. I understand that. Often I will find I've accidentally locked one of them in there when I went to get a shirt or the dusting spray. Twenty min will go by before I hear their crying. What were they doing in there for twenty min? Cleaning, I hope. Past the backDOOR in the kitchen there is a sun room! I have a sun room! It's surrounded by a big tree and it overlooks the Appalachian Mountains. I look out my kitchen window and see Mountains. It's swell. I'm most excited about the yard. I have a lovely yard, have I told you? Lots of trees and birds. A weeping willow weeps in my backyard.  Maybe I will let it do the weeping for me from now on. I also happen to live in a classy neighborhood filled with rich people who decided to restore SW. I walk down the street and there is a park. During the day kids play on the swings, but at night gay men have sex and people deal. Neither of those things threaten me.  Be impressed. Be very impressed. Here is a picture of the living room before I loved in.

I am prone to making bad decisions.
This move provoked me to make a lot of them.
I can convince myself (and others) that really horrible ideas are, in fact, excellent ones.
Perfect example: I bought a couch BEFORE I moved. The logic behind this was solid. I would only have a U-haul for a few days so I should buy it while I had the means to move it. I had the room...so why not fill it up? How would I move the couch once my mom and Kyle left,  I didn't know anyone in Roanoke who could help me. I didn't know anyone period. See, I made all sorts of sense.
Anyway, I bought this lovely brownish couch for $400 and took it to Roanoke, only to realize that it would NOT FIT up the stairs. I live on the top floor of a historic house. The stairs take a terrible twist which makes it impossible to move anything large up them. How could I have known? I had never even seen my apt. before the day I arrived. As a last resort we put a sign out on the U-haul that read, "HELP MOVE COUCH $50" If not, we were going to have to cut our loses and sell it on the front porch. I would have to live out my Roanoke life couchless.

People are crazy here! One guy stopped and swore he could do it. He said he had been moving couches for over 35 years and he had never "lost one". He came up to my apt., poked around a little, and decided he would shove it through my upstairs window.  He backed the truck up to the porch. Some other man drove down the street on a lawnmower and offered his services. So Kyle, lawnmower man, and the expert couch mover shoved my couch ON TOP of the U-haul. Then couch man drove the U-haul at full speed (with my couch still on top) off the curb. My couch rose into flight, pillows lifting like fat brown birds, but somehow landed back on the truck. Without a pause he then backed it up to the edge of our roof and made Kyle open my living room window (Note: this is a huge window, apparently big enough to fit a couch) and go onto the roof to receive my couch. They hoisted the couch from the truck, to the roof,  and right through that damn window! The man only took $40. The cats seem to like it. What a sight. What a sight, indeed.

It's a nine hour drive from Evansville to Roanoke. It took me, my mother, the two cats, my car, and the U-haul almost 11 hours. Let me tell you something: Do not drive though the mountains with a U-haul pulling a car full of cats. Most of the time we couldn't make it over 45 mph. The hills were too steep! Too steep!

However, Lexington is a stunning town. It is all hills and black fences. The scenery is secretly a painting, I think. The cows looked like black stones in the green fields. Their reverent, docile faces only reinforced my belief in veganism.  I will vanish there some day.

I did steal that long awaited opportunity to listen to the "Breath Me" song from the ending scene of "Six Feet Under". It's strange to think I had waited for that moment for years. I was finally leaving. I watched my bother disappear in the rearview mirror as I drove away. I didn't try to take pictures, it was already gone.

I live in Roanoke Virginia.
I will attend Hollins Graduate school in the fall for my MFA in poetry.
Things are moving along at a steady pace.
I've got all sorts of adventures and mishaps I will catch up on later.

Until then,
Happy Trails

It was 64 degrees last time I checked, which is rare, but not unheard of here in the Midwest. But believe me, it is not going to last. As I write this, a massive storm system looms on the horizon. This cold pressure system, once it finally goes though, will cause temperatures to plummet. By next morning we should have snow. Crazy, right?

 Anyway, I started yoga classes at the Evansville Yoga Center. Yesterday is the first time I’ve done group yoga in over a year. I have been a total slug. Slug. Slug. Slug.

 
The perks include:

-Within walking distance from my house, this is a big plus in good ol’ Evansville.
-Forces me to push myself.
-Forces me to get my money’s worth.
-Gives me a sense of self worth
-Excellent for my heath and body.

 
Downside
-Bad hours for class time.
-60 bucks a mont
-People have to watch me fuck up.

 
I will let you know when I’m ripped.

 Lots of important things going on in life, but I’m not interested in writing about them right now. Instead, enjoy this picture of me having my book signed by poet Gary Gildner.

How can one possibly begin after being gone for so long.
After a long gap of not writing in my "real journal", I simply give up the lost time and continue on as if it were already recorded.
I sometimes fill in gaps. I suppose I can do the same here.
If anyone remembers me you are welcome to ask what happened with whatever it was I was writing about or working on.

Mostly, this is just to say I am back. I am writing again. I am reading your journals again.

Look for a post!

I have to say this book was a bit dry. Not that I expected an Auschwitz's survivors account of the holocaust to be light, but you get my drift.

This was Primo Levi's last book before his death in 1987. He lived most of his life in Italy, so this book was translated by Raymond Rosenthal.

He had written numerous books before this, so this was more of a Psychological analysis on the how's and whys of the Holocaust. Don't get my wrong, this book was well written and full of insightful information, but It was a long read.

I was ready for it to be over.
However, I was especially interested in a few of his idea's. Such as this, my favorite passage:

"It is no more than a supposition, indeed the shadow of a suspicion: that each man is his brother's Cain, that each one of us (but this time I say 'us' in a much vaster, indeed, universal sense) has usurped his neighbor's place and lived in his stead. It is a supposition, but it gnaws at us; it has nestled deeply like a woodworm; although unseen from the outside, it gnaws and rasps."

That's pretty heavy shit.

Just finished:

In case you are wondering where I've been, I just returned from a week in New Harmony Indiana.
This was my third year attending the Ropewalk Writers Retreat, sponsored by New Harmony and USI.
The only reason I can afford to go is my ability to win Scholarships because other writers at USI honestly suck.
Thankfully,  C is an excellent writer too, and he got a scholarship for fiction, while I got the one for poetry. It was so nice spending the week with him and books, and writers, and trees.

This retreat has surprisingly good faculty. This year included:

Jennifer S. Davis
Michael Waters
Kevin Mcllvoy
Bich Minh Nguyen
Marianne Brouch

My poetry workshop was lead by Michael Waters. I had listened to him read several years before and found myself blown away during the question and answer period. He has such an amazing wealth of knowledge and skillful handle on poetry, I wanted him to be my teacher. During his reading I wanted to close my eyes and not listen to the words he was saying, but instead, listen to the sounds he was making. He is a poet OBSESSED with sound.

The best thing that could have happened, happened that week. Michael was so impressed with my work he couldn't believe I was an undergrad. He not only offered to write me letter of recommendation, but make some calls as well! It was the god damn fucking happiest day of my life! I have been so stressed about grad school and my ability as a writer. If you haven't heard of him, this guy has the hook up. He knows everyone at the east coast school.

You can't even imagine, I feel so much better about everything.

So, I not only had a mentally production week, but an emotional one as well.
I feel like C and I got along really well. All the things I'm usually distressed about were absent. We seemed like a happy, full couple. We took bike rides (with the new bike he gave me!), walks, attended readings and receptions every night where we got drunk off free wine and stumbled home through the dense tress. We crammed ourselves into a small twin bed when we had other options in our room, but we wanted to cuddle.

New Harmony may be the home of failed Utopia's, but it works for me!

All I've been doing this week is toiling away at damn Check-n-Go. Counting driving time, I'm pulling 10 hour days. Part of me doesn't really mind right now because I'm restless anyway, but I also don't have time for other things I need to be doing.

Things I need to be doing:

1. Finishing my book organization project.
2. Baking vegan lemon poppy seed muffins.
3. Writing in my journal (real non-computer journal).
4. Writing more in general.
5. studying for my GRE.
6. taking mushrooms.
7. doing yoga
8. meditating

The good/bad thing about this job though, is the huge amount of down time. The day tends to drag on, but I have time to read or work on stuff. I worked on a poem yesterday, but It's not finished yet and I'm not even sure if it's very good.

I'm going to be late for work.