You gave me hyacinths first a year ago. They called me the hyacinth girl.

currently listening to: "bats in the belfry" by dispatch

1. i am halfway through anna karenina, which i was hoping to be by the time classes began. very pleased.

2. the visit to mark's was tempestuous. he was not quite in any form of host-mode and even in terms of his own needs and desires he was distracted and evasive until he had a handful of tiny breakdowns. he realized he is not all right, not just having a rough summer but that he is not responding to good or bad anything in a well-way and wants help now. after he came to that it was excellent - the entire visit was excellent except i could tell he was just not happy. but we saw "inglourious basterds" twice (alone and with his parents) and "whatever works" and both were spectacular. we saw "whatever works" at a wee gorgeous art theatre. we walked an amazingly beautiful trail along the river and i obtained the complete claudine by colette from an independent bookseller. we spent lots of time talking and trysting and had a long, torturous time of parting. but! then! as soon as he arrived back home (after driving me to school), he got a call back and now he has a JOB. it's at a hospital, with benefits and where he is paid unfathomable amounts (to me, that is) per week. dazzling!

3. my roommate mary's parents are unspeakably precious. and so is mary. i am so far thrilled out of my eyeballs about living with her.

4. today was the first day of workshop. besides myself, gretchen, scott, caitie and emily there are five lower-levels, three boys and two girls. the one boy, chase, submitted to the student literary journal last year and he's pretty tremendous, the other boy, jason, has a great voice, and the other one, colby, is wiley. the girls, melody (a different one, henceforth referred to as melody j) and meagan sound exactly like caitie and emily, which is humorous but disorienting. the professor was his standard authoritarian and gloomy right away, condemning literary academia and any approach to writing that is not his specifically. his, however, is a good approach, literary academia's shortcomings are a responsible topic for impending graduates, and i am not quite as sensitive to his burliness as i once was, for which i'm grateful.

5. i thought i was fucking finished with mark twain but how wrong was i - we are reading huck finn in american lit and we are reading the whole thing in a very short amount of time. i am glad we aren't spending eons on it but holing up with huck finn and pounding away at page after page is bringing on the grandma of all acid flashbacks to high school, being abysmal at english, my present GPA, that professor's decided dislike of me, ugh and etc.

6. i agreed to perform a favor for the president of the english society (of which i am secretary). she is not a person i fancy exactly. the school is putting on a big something-or-other for clubs, each club must send two representatives, there will be breakfast, lunch, brainstorming and conflict management, etc, and it is designed for presidents and vice presidents. neither of them want to go, and so the president informed a member (at least one i am friendly with - a coworker from the small press) and he went and found me and told me she wants me to go too. when i saw the president yesterday, then, she ran up and - not being this kind of girl - hugged me and thanked me profusely. so i am feeling a centimeter better about my decision. it is still from nine to two on a saturday.

7. the first book we're reading for the novel is a clockwork orange, which i haven't read since high school, which i loved and missed and didn't remember how firm in my heart it is. i am so happy. next is going after cacciato, then love in the time of cholera, the hours, the beetle leg, rabbit, run and the "mysterious seventh text". if i were to nominate ones i love it would be lolita (especially), catcher in the rye, berlin stories (i don't know if that counts, though - maybe just the "notebook" section? or is "mr. norris" a better representation of the form?) or maybe nightwood but i would rather it be something new - i was very looking forward to under the volcano. maybe the master and margarita. i am excited to see.

8. i went to investigate the status of my computer today. the woman at the desk noted that i was "oh yes, [you're] on my to-call list" - and she instructed me feebly to wait to speak to the head of ITS. i say "feebly" because i asked where to wait - there isn't much room - and she got very flustered and just went to the office to let me in. the head man, of whom i am not a fan, informed me that they were unable to make my computer fit for the network and if i would please make an appointment i could come in, supervise its back-up and allow it to be disassembled and rebuilt. this would render me computer-less for a quite unknowable stretch of time. meanwhile, it works dandy, the only issue is the internet, which is only an issue in terms of the school's network. hence, i can do what they said, be fully reliant on the library's very few computers for my daily assignments while i wait for them to not even call me when they're completed with their work on my machine, or i can have my computer, do my homework, and access the public ones only to print (which i've always done) and use the internet when appropriate. that will work out pretty excellent, i believe.

9. melody (melody melody), once she deduced that i was back in town, asked if i'd like to hang out and even extended an invitation to spend the night in her apartment. after her very acidic comment, which was followed by two weeks of my ignoring her - she panicked at the prospect of losing my friendship. i am that sucker. i will see her. i know myself well enough.

10. also attempted to read barry paris' louise brooks (i'm halfway through) and sylvia plath's journals (this i will allow to take as much time as it wants, it is all ready a great companion). i feel myself needing to fucking cool it. i will have time again to readreadread into oblivion and have to shift now seriously to work completely. fucking finish huck finn write my five pages (it is now five instead of three, and i only have to read twice per story? that was my understanding - i am so spoiled by small classes) and go to bed around nine. i have been going to bed at eleven and i'm waking up exhausted. nonsense.

if anybody should ask i'm going to a seminar
pieces of the moon
JOBJOBJOB
interviewinterviewinterview
sensitive heart, you're doomed from the start
(& etc)