Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m sorry for my continued absence, Brendan.
There’s a lot going on in the life of IGR right now, a lot of small things that add up. But instead of telling you about them, I’m going to let Bill Hicok (Bob Hicok? the internet is not clear) do it for me.
I can’t prove you’re a good person, but I suspect you’re a good person.
A History of Origami
two women in three days
cried on the green bench in the park
where i found a dollar
folded into a boat.
i thought it was the crying bench and cried
on the crying bench
when it became available.
i cried
by thinking of all the people
who’ve never broken a shop window, not the baker’s
window, the bead-seller’s,
who sells beads for purposes
i find hard to list: necklaces,
the hanging of strings of beads
in doorways, the owning of beads
just in case.
breaking a shop window with a piece of shale
the size of my heart, a piece of shale
on which i’ve drawn my heart, not my actual heart
but my feelings of my heart,
since i’ve never seen my heart,
would set something free.
i don’t know what that something is
but it would be free.
and my heart would have survived its travels
through glass, its jagged voyage
through my reflection.
you see now why i cried: none of this is real.
until i can answer yes to the cop who asks, is this your heart
among the ruins of your reflection?
i won’t be a man, despite what my anatomy
insists.
it insists
that i overcome a sense of resistance when i move,
that i move
as long as i am able to move, and when i am unable
to move, that i stop.
it would be free and look like a bird, an actual bird
or a dollar folded into a bird, a dollar bird
in a dollar boat.
which is to say
i believe origami arrives
when we need it most.
i can’t prove this but i can’t prove
you’re a good person though i suspect
you’re a good person.
you who opened the door.
you who tipped your hat.
you who ran into the fire and carried
the fire safely out.
The line between therapeutic and self-indulgent is often fuzzy. For example: I got the new Chuck Klosterman book for Christmas (ostensibly from my little brother, although I suspect he’d be hard-pressed to tell me the title), which is neurotic enough to make me feel not alone and not crazy, but at the same time prevents me from moving on to higher planes of thinking. I.e., not gazing at my own or someone else’s navel. By the same token: even if the Avett Brothers express exactly the sort of cranky anguish that I have returned to, intermittently, for the past few months and longer, is it really necessary for me to listen to such music when introspection might be the last thing I need? Shouldn’t I be listening to, I don’t know, Os Mutantes or something?
Unbelievably, it appears that I have failed to write on this blog about my favorite New Year’s song ever, Dan Wilson’s “What a Year for a New Year”; I feel like I have, so what probably happened is that I wrote about it on my old/current secret blog, likely multiple times. Yes, Dan Wilson is the guy from Semisonic (hi Brendan). I’ve been listening to it on or around December 31 since, I don’t know, probably high school – the Maybe This Christmas compilation came out in 2002, so that would be about right. Every year it feels more applicable than ever before, even if that’s not true. It probably was true, last year, which was spent more or less in a holding pattern. This year it probably feels like it fits solely because of the last two or three months, but to be fair, I have changed houses and jobs multiple times and gotten into and out of the realest relationship I’ve ever had, as well as, you know, paid bills and stuff. So maybe it qualifies.
I made a mind map and subsequent chart (using Curio, natch) of my resolutions and goals for the year. It’s a big chart, mostly because I have broken them into obstacles, solutions, next steps, etc. This both does and does not represent progress for me: the use of productivity tools shows that I am both wanting to and getting a better grasp on my life, but the extensiveness of what I’ve done shows that I retain the false belief that anything can be done with a plan, no matter how impossible it actually is. The summary of it all is that it’s probably going to be another year of changes; God willing, I’ll be going back to school, probably moving, definitely not getting married (unlike most of my high school and college classmates), etc. Having to shift from adult paradigm to student paradigm – which, in some ways, it feels like I’ve never left anyway. I guess the most important takeaway is how necessary it is for me to start being okay on my own: which means a) maintaining the relationships that contribute so greatly to my life, and b) doing things that make me happy – in which “happy” is not to be conflated with “I am depressed and this habit makes me feel less bad.” That is how people stay in bed until it is time to get ready for work. Which is fine, as long as your work doesn’t start at 11 AM, like mine does. Dwelling on the past essentially has the same effect as doing that – it feels okay for a while, but you’re not getting anything done, and it’s getting things done that makes you feel good. Where “you” is “me.”
I guess, in that sense, listening on repeat to Dan Wilson qualifies as self-indulgence, at least a little bit. It would be better for me to find something new, to quit dwelling on the idea that this new year has to be better PLEASE GOD and not giving thanks, because that’s the same idea I’ve had for the better part of this past decade. And yet I keep returning to him. I guess this is part of the human condition, this perpetual trying and having mixed feelings about it all?
What a year for a new year
We need it like we needed life I guess
Last one left us lying in a mess
What a year for a new year
What a night for a sunrise
And we thought the dark would never end
Reaching out to try to find a friend
What a night for a sunrise
Sunrise
What a day for new day
And our star shines like a miracle
And our world is almost beautiful again
What a day for a new day
New day
What a year for a new year
What a night for a sunrise
And we thought the dark would never end
Reaching out to try to find a friend
What a night for a sunrise
Sunrise
Soon we’ll be lying in our beds
And new dreams will fill our heads
And the old ones will be ended
Hope we’ll forget about this place
Let it go without a trace
Wipe the teardrops from our faces
Oh! What a year for a new year!
Filed under: actual transcripts
Dispatches from the Twitterverse.
- #in2010 Ima Stop Txting People Nd Im Only Gonna Email Or Fax..Or Might EVen Page U!
- #in2010 I will play Heavy Rain, Gran Turismo 5, God of War 3, and Final Fantasy 13
- …He got 10mins till I cut him off #in2010
- I need to #getalife #in2010 because the one I had in 2009 kinda blew
- #in2010 I’ll be more nice for sure XD
- if you wear baggy pants or skinny jeans n you not a teen, #getalife . how about #growup n get sum fitted clothing#in2010 . #grownManStatus
- #in2010 God will make my best wishes come true! Crossing my fingers!!
- #in2010 @satanlovesyouu and I are going to free animals from brookfield zoo…
- #in2010 I am going to be on your mind
- #In2010 I will take a trapeze class.
- #in2010 any negativity will receive a big “fuck you” from the door
- #in2010 i know love will set me free
- #in2010 im watching one show all the way thru – all episodes
- #in2010 that geek boy Better let me copy the hw!
- #in2010 I will do no more cussin!
- #in2010 I’m going to get my 2nd tattoo. Hey it’s been 8 years
- #in2010 Bret “Hitman” Hart makes his return to the WWE on January 4th. The first time he will have been seen in the WWE in over 12 years!!
- #in2010 Ima try ta get ova my fear of dogs!
- #in2010 I plan on being a slightly lesser bitch. But no promises.
Intrepid Girl Reporter 