the souls of pyramids

"The pyramids were built as pedestals that the souls of the truly alive and the truly in love could stand upon and bark at the moon. And I believe that our souls, yours and mine, will stand together atop the pyramids forever." -Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

I just finished the book from which the above quote was taken. What an amazing...thing? Story? Jaunt? Experience? It wasn't just the story, but the indescribably witty and perfect prose. I'd never read Tom Robbins before, and wasn't sure what type of guy he was......and as I was reading it, I felt layers of Vonnegut seeping in, and Burroughs maybe, Hemingway definitely; Pynchon, perhaps John Berger who I've never read? Anyway, other writers are beside the point. The point is, I started feeling like it was a certain "type" of novel but by the end, I didn't feel that way at all. It's not just a witty philosophical poo-smudge metaphor for life, but a genuine love story in the only bearable way imaginable. It lazed its way into a fantasyland of pyramids and UFOs and solitary confinement, yet became the most real and identifiable love story I've read in a long while, if ever. You start to think it's going off the deep end and then realize that every part of that world is within Leigh-Cheri's or Bernard Mickey Wrangle's mind; you start to realize that it's hidden deep within your own mind, too. Have I ever really looked at the package of Camel cigarettes? Why didn't I notice there were pyramids? Haven't I always felt there's a way to escape the present world and fall head-first into the imagined world of an object that envelops me? If we can animate inanimate objects with our own brains, then perhaps those objects aren't so inanimate after all. And at the heart of it all, you of course have the impossible love story, impossible in the sense that probably neither lover would have survived the dynamite explosion in the heart of a pyramid. Or would have run into each other in the way that they did, more than once. But I didn't feel like I was suspending disbelief, either....more that I just entered a world where certain things happened and you accept it. Like creating a whole new consciousness out of a Camel pack. During the scenes of Leigh-Cheri's self-imposed confinement, I would alternately wonder to myself whether she was crazy and self-destructive or smart and enviable. At times I wanted to experience that same raw unflattering but organic selfness that she discovered in the attic; other times I couldn't bear the idea of leaving my loved ones like that, of disappointing those who have faith in me, of throwing away the potential of the moment. Everything about those two characters is so extreme, yet in the end so commonplace too. How is it that we're satisfied with such an ending, in which the two impossible lovers just melt back into the blackberry house, live happily ever after, and such? I think perhaps it's because there's something more than just the love story going on. There's the philosophical exploration of the MYSTERY that is so enthralling about real love. What Tom Robbins says at the very end, in longhand because he's fed up with his fancy typewriter, is that (1) Everything is part of that mystery; and (2) It's never too late to have a happy childhood. I liked how the plot wasn't all that was going on, and the prose wasn't all that was going on. The plot and prose danced together to create this enthralling painting of the world as it is perceived by the perceptive.

(I won't let drunk college kids ruin it, either. Even though they're stupidly belting off-key notes at the tops of their lungs next door, SOMEDAY they'll see the light and wise up. If they don't, it's their loss for missing out on the more nuanced joys of life.)

Celebrity apprentice? Donald Trump is still around? I don't even know what that means. Go away, TV.

"Life is too short for us to be deprived of any one of its joys by the sad, sick androids who control laws and economics." (page 260)

I would like to spend time in the deep core of a pyramid, in all its perfection and cosmic energy. It's funny because doing that would be the ultimate solitary confinement from human society, yet it would take place in a structure that could only be built by humans, that derives its energy from our collective souls.

Why the B.O., buddy?

I think I realized that every time I sit down to write anything here, I also happen to be in quite a good mood/state of mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm in a great mood much more often than I post here.

I don't usually know how to express my thoughts about this "economic recession" or "global financial crisis" or what have you. Many people I talk to have been affected, but I personally have not. My bookstore is booming, so ours is a vibrant untarnished atmosphere of raises, new hires, bonuses, etc. Plus, let's face it, I have nothing to lose anyway. But when I mention this observation to most others, I feel like they don't appreciate it because their situations are much more dire. So, that's how the economic crisis has affected me. Woo! Well, not so. I suppose my 401K has suffered mildly. Well shoot, guess I'll have to wait awhile to retire.

Maybe job security's all I can ask for these days, but for some reason I'm not impressed with myself about it. Working at this bookstore? I'm kind of over it. Not in the sense that I'm miserable or hate everything about it or feel I'm compromising my values or anything like that. It's just...I can see the possible trajectories for that job, and it bores me. Some people have the disposition to do the same thing every day and try to care about ways to make the place better, but any dent I make in that endeavor is instantly nailed back in place by the lame corporate-ness of the company. What a joke. A chain used bookstore? Come on now. If you're going to be a chain used bookstore, at least allow for adaptation and quit being so outdated and sloppy all the time, so that you can truly grow!

So, if that can't happen, I'll just have to grow myself. That's why next week I'll start training to work at my chiropractor's office two and a half mornings a week - perfect! While everyone else is losing their job, I'll have two. Extra dollars, experience, nice vibe, refreshing change, step in the right direction, networking possibilities, free adjustments! So there's that, plus I'm finishing up psychology and statistics; more plans ensue but that's not the point. I've got my next little while figured out, in a way that's interesting and still pretty unknown in some ways, which is how I like it.

Also just finished Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which makes me want to be a "locavore" and have a 5-acre personal garden. Maybe someday. I do my best by going to farmers' markets, keeping the biggest garden I can muster, always buying local produce and not eating processed foods (except gummy worms, mmm!). One of the better "nonfiction" books I've read in a long time - many have been disappointing, just trail off into boring repetition.

By the way, I don't have anything to say related to my post's title. So just deal with it.

"My" cat Fiona. She's snoring softly in the reclining chair next to me, half watching the TV screen. OK, she's not technically my cat. She has a collar with a phone number on it and she just appeared in our window one day long ago, and we like her company a lot. We leave the window open so she can come in, go to her other home, play in the yard, munch on food, etc. She likes to follow us around the house and sprawl out on the bed during the day. I so, so wish she was MY cat, forever. She's fat and squishy and loves to stretch and play with hairbands and howl at my landlord's cat and crouch really low in the yard as though the grass is hiding her existence. (It's not.)

Title!

Goodness. It's been a YEAR? Already? Almost. Feels like more, and less. Cliche, yes, but "whirring sentimentality..." yeah. It's what you signed up for.

It seems like every time I post here, some major change has come about. Well, no exception today...just when I think things are settled for a good long while, like it seemed in my last post, things change monumentally. Of course, I am still working at that bookstore -- and by the way, it's so strange and interesting to look back on my own initial reflections on a new job, a love interest, etc. and realize how much I've changed in just that tiny droplet of time.

Anyway, I guess I don't sit back and realize that I've encountered one whole year here, in northern California, on my own. Enoch and I finally broke up, last April, which was quite overdue. I've started seeing someone new, and these kinds of things always seem to come up so unexpectedly, but it's working out better than anything ever has. I'd say it's the healthiest relationship of my life. I like that. But Jesus CHRIST am I laying on the sap here. What happened to my nuanced tone? I guess one year also means one year farther away from that college place. Depressing. But, going back to school! Starting classes in september! Well, it's not so simple. It's all part of my grand plan, to go to chiropractic college out here, at an amazing school, and then work in the bay area for a while, then maybe travel the world doing chiropractic...? It's not unheard of, I swear. In fact, it's totally doable. Well, we'll see.

In the meantime, I work to improve the layout of my garden, discover new bike paths around town, explore the monumental hills of san francisco, pine for my own piano, count lots and lots of cash at work and shelve a few books. Oh, I'm just so helpful! Maybe someday I'll be helpful in a real, useful, dare I say helpful, sort of way. That's about as much as I can ask.

I guess I'm doing everything I set out to do.

I just biked home from work, and am now listening to my new Feist album and looking out the open window onto my breezy new street. I say breezy because really, even though that doesn't describe just my street in particular, that's the overall feeling of this neighborhood. So far in Berkeley it's been consistently 75 degrees, perfectly sunny, and breezy, ever since I got here. The biking is pleasant and somewhat hilly, which makes for a blood-pumping ride to work and an exhilarating, easy ride home.

I work at a used bookstore six blocks from home, as of yesterday. The people are chill and even the customers are a different breed from most retail - that is, bay area californians in a really cheap used bookstore two blocks from the uc-berkeley campus. I feel really, really in control of everything I'm doing lately. At least compared to my last job(s) working for the PIRGs. Never again. Now I'm doing yoga every day (one block from home!), working 8 hours a day instead of 17. Biking instead of driving. Dipping my toes into San Francisco every so often. Ducking into thrift stores every few blocks as I meander down Telegraph Avenue toward campus. Loving it.

One thing that does tug at me is the familiarity of Minneapolis, of course, like trekking to the Triple Rock to see friends play in a rock concert and run into old buddies and drink a beer or two, milling around with friends. I guess that will happen here eventually, and in fact even more so after a time, since the people here just seem more chill and open to random conversation. It'll be interesting.

I AM DONE WITH COLLEGE.

I just finished the last sentence of the last page of my last paper in my last week of college! HA! What a breathless feeling. I'm just sitting quietly in the library, too, and because it's only the Sunday before finals week it would be rude to *really* celebrate without making people mad. I can't believe it! At this point last week I was slightly freaking out with all the work left to do, but turned out not to be bad at all. Now I get to spend the week going out to lunch and picnics, playing in the sun, galavanting to Iowa City, cooking, and anything I like. SO WEIRD. I kind of miss doing work already, and it's only been five minutes. I, um, kind of, uhh, can't wait to go to grad school. This is both a good and a bad thing. But taking a break from academics will be good for me, I think. Maybe. Or maybe I'll go to law school in a couple years and just not know how to work anymore...

Whatever, I am done and I just needed to reflect on that for a moment. This is so so so so crazy. Ahhhhhhhh.

thunderstorms and enfleshed materialism

How unfortunate, to be "distracted" by thunderstorms, jazz, and coffee. This scene just feels so picturesque I couldn't resist thinking about it for a minute; besides, I'm nineteen pages into my philosophy paper, which is admirable enough for now. It's flowing pretty well. Like the inscriptive corporeal flows of enfleshed nomadic subjectivity, as my paper's overall synthesis would say.

Anyway, listening to Kings of Convenience, made all the more meaningful by the fact that it's wafting through Saint's Rest speakers just by chance. It's perfect rainstorm music. As ready as I am to get out of here, I really am going to miss the subtleties of Grinnell on days like this one; wherever you go you know you'll see friends, and you know which restaurants serve the best drinks and who will give you a discount at what time. A scone will always cost $1.25 because it's only available in one place. The town library, post office, and church are all across the street from both my apartment and the coffeeshop. With my bike, nothing is more than five minutes away. But maybe all of these things will be the case in Berkeley...who knows?

fog's rolling in...

Things are looking up. I'm looking up, actually, out through the skylight in the middle of the room, watching the rain. It's such a nice sound. I'm listening to Simon & Garfunkel, and I've finished my two big seminar presentations for the week. I talked to my mom, my sister, and Enoch. I just got a really good grade on an english paper, finally. And I just ate a cinnamon-raisin bagel, warm and gooey, soft and chewy. I've got about twenty-five things to worry about at the moment, but I don't have that sinking feeling I had a week or two ago, like I couldn't even imagine finishing everything. And, tonight I might get a good night's sleep, wake up with my homework done, and go running.

I suppose satisfaction and content is boring fodder for a post, but I don't mind. It's remarkable how much my attitude has changed in the last few months--I just don't really care about going to bed on time, wearing matching shades, putting myself out there in class even if my thought isn't totally formulated. It's working out quite well. And now I finally have a bike again, complete with a milk crate strapped to the back and a fancy headlight and new tires and a portable bike pump. Now I'm all set to be a faux-biker vegetable-eater campaign-organizer ocean-ogler washed-up californian. Yup. I'm ready to get out of here.