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11 July 2008 : Fruition.
Getting lost in the most basic way can be simple enough, but the kind of getting lost I've been involved in recently is both an art and a science. It's a good thing I have so much education.
There is a lot going on, and my time is hurtling past so quickly I tend to miss it, but I find myself dumbfounded at the other end of every day, wondering how I managed to get nothing accomplished.
Again. There is nothing going on.
It's closing in on a year, and I repeatedly find myself wondering what happened to my bright future. Ideas are bandied about: medical school, which means Doctors Without Borders, or the International Relations program at the University of Indianapolis, to which I will absolutely apply once I win the lottery. The Peace Corps will not take me and my genetic abnormality.
Still, they're only ideas. I go to work in a kitchen, carry grease to and fro, get lost in the art of perfecting the reuben, my ankle swells and I panic. Or I go to work in an office, get lost in the art of perfecting the no-mouse data entry sequence, my ankle swells and I panic.
But I'm tired of panic, I'm tired of moaning and lamenting. I'm tired of dreaming up far fetched schemes to get me somewhere beyond this hand to mouth existence that I am pretty sure I won't survive much longer.
On Tuesday night, Amanda and I went out for a beer and food tasting at the pub where I am no longer employed (angels, swelling music, plucking harps), and we met a nice couple who were new in town(and half of whose names escape me). After hearing some of our conversation, they turned to me and said, "So corporate life not what you were hoping for, huh?"
As it turns out, I wasn't hoping for much more out of corporate life than a moderately fatter paycheck so, hey, mission accomplished. But I explained to them that it just wasn't where I had planned to be at this point in my life (matter of fact: I had actually planned to, at this very specific moment-to-moment point of my life, be in Zambia studying livelihood strategies among internal refugees).
The next question was: "So, do you have a dream job, then?"
There was no hesitation. I was a few beers up, a few inhibitions down. My hand hit the table, making the cheese platter rock slightly. "I want to be an anthropologist."
Say true, sister, say true.
I'll stay on the path, until the very moment that I hear that it is actually, physically IMPOSSIBLE for me to continue. I bet there's an area of the world where I can study immigrant livelihood strategies adjacent to a hospital modern enough to perform a simple prothrombin time. And hell, should all go to plan, by the time international travel becomes necessary I will be below the recommended weight level for women with my particular issue, and will have eliminated all risk factors other than genetics.
I have options. If the rumors about the IUPUI graduate program prove to be unfounded (I sent the email to my undergrad advisor today: is it true?! CAN IT BE SO?!) there are options. Commuting to Purdue would be, in two words, a bitch - but I could do it. Or maybe in a year's time, or two years' time, I won't be such a pussy and I'll be capable of relocating without dying (literally, too).
In the last five years, every time I've been really content it's been because I was on this path. So I lace my shoes back up and step into it again.
Move forward, move forward.
posted by lindsay at 20:20 :: 1 comments
24 March 2007 : better than mine.
the weekend and a phone call have me thinking about final destinations.
this is because i read too much fiction, i watch too much drama. because i don't hear his voice often enough from thousands of miles away. because i've been steady for so long.
the places you go and the places you end up, they're never the same.
i have plans, you see. but my plans keep getting in the way of my plans.
there are a couple of things that i want very badly. they're so improbable. the only way i can see to have them is in that starting over way. in that, this is the end and here's where i landed way, because everything else between then and now has failed.
i keep saying stupid things, letting my guard down.
so maybe i'll fail, at something. i failed at about ten things last night. i failed at about seventy last weekend. i'll keep doing it if i keep making impossible rules for myself. stick to it, stick to it. because what's integrity if not making sure you force yourself to see things through, even if you realize before the end how destructive they are?
(four things: i'm very tired, a little hungover, slightly panicked in an existential way, and sarcasm doesn't translate well into internet)
now i'm in this weird place where i kind of want to fail. i'm afraid i decided to go to school because i panicked. i'm afraid i decided to go to school because i just didn't know what the hell i was going to do otherwise. i've been in school for nineteen years; what's eight more? it's easier than living a different life.
unfortunately, i have other ideas. ideas about hiking on saturdays, ideas about big farmhouses with bigger gardens and canning in the fall. ideas about finally getting to see cera whenever i want, and ideas about slow breezes and something a little southern but still indiana. ideas about sweetly awkward kisses and just, for once, having no real responsibilities. ideas about a life that's built around me and nothing else.
i can't just say no. i can't just change my mind. can i?
here's the thing: i want to end up someplace other than where i'm headed.
it's just that right now, i'm not sure which is which.
posted by lindsay at 16:46 :: 3 comments
02 February 2007 : but what will you wear?
i waited longer than i wanted for this post, but i wanted to make sure that all the important people got the information firsthand. and in all fairness, i wasn't expecting to know for several more weeks, so you all are getting the news earlier than anyone could have dreamed, despite my self imposed delay.
what i'm saying is, i found a letter on the dining room table this morning. i don't know how long it had been there, but it's been at least a day, since we don't get our mail until early evening.
it was small, and that frightened me a little, but like i said, i wasn't expecting the news just yet, so i thought it perhaps pertained to something else.
but when i opened it, it said, essentially:
dear lindsay,
we love you, too. please come and play with us next fall.
love,
the university of kentucky
so there you have it, folks. in six months, i'm moving to lexington. and approximately 6 - 8 years after that, i'm going to be dr. lindsay.
cheers.
posted by lindsay at 20:18 :: 3 comments
15 January 2007 : come on night
we have an unfortunate tendency to view change retrospectively.
we get used to that. we take it home and cuddle with it, make it our special banana smoothie in the morning. it's too many movies and too many books - when did we start expecting happy endings? when did it become necessary to tie up every possible loose end? a transition with a finish line so impossibly tight leaves no room for movement.
we've changed ourselves out of change, because we want those blue skies, that reconciliatory kiss. we want to look back on the last six months and say, "yeah, that was pretty dark - but look where we are now. it was all worth it."
i get that.
but don't you ever look up from a sentence or your teacup and think, HOLY CRAP. I'M IN TRANSITION AND I HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT BEFORE ITS TOO LATE TO INFLUENCE ITS COURSE.
it's tough, honestly. transition, like most things, doesn't rely on the individual, but on the individual plus friends, family, coworkers, environment and climate. you can bear down as hard as you want and it doesn't mean you're going to be able to turn that wheel to the right. i've lived so much of my life carefully at 10 and 2 and i've still been left speechless with the violation shaking in my hand, unable to decipher its meaning.
and right now, well, right now i am looking forward. things are going to change, but they haven't yet. they haven't even started to change yet. but every morning i open my eyes, i know its going to happen. in six weeks, i leave the happiest home i've been able to make since leaving mom's at age 16. i didn't choose that - it was handed to me. four months after that, my gas tank inevitably marked full, i will head as far south as i've ever dared. i didn't choose that, either - it kind of chose me.
i know its coming. which gives me the time to sit back and think about how good its going to be. how bad its going to be. i can do anything. no-one knows me in lexington, kentucky. i could be new, different, british! i could jog a mile every morning, or cook myself balanced meals, or paint my living room bright red. i could suck up all my timidity and be friendly, frenzied, manic. i could be successful, i could take chances.
but i don't know what's going to happen. and i'm frustrated by sitting here in january, not knowing what february will bring. i do not like all of these things i've had to let fall from my hands. i do not like that i am making plans based on maybe. and i do not like that all of these decisions: where will i live, who will i see, what will i study? are being made by people who are not me.
because i think we can, and we should, choose. how things are going to go. who we are going to be. what we are going to love, and why. i've been doing a lot of that lately. i said, i'll be strong, and confident, i'll be wise and i'll be brave and i'll be ready. i had to fake it for a while, but it's getting easier. i started slow, with a boy, and decided to work my way up from there.
it's not always working out the way i hope - the most i've gotten was a couple of dizzy kisses on a dirty old couch that left me feeling simultaneously innocent, sixteen, brazen and busted.
but there are other situations to be diffused. and i'm done with looking forward worst case. maybe its just that i'm in the world's tiniest, most adorable coffeeshop right now, in a town in southern indiana that leaves no room for wondering. just another place i could make a life.
i like knowing that. here? lexington, memphis, tucson, birmingham? i could be new, i could be different. hell, i could be british.
so i'm just gonna stop waiting.
posted by lindsay at 13:38 :: 3 comments
29 November 2006 : warm heart, cold hands.
this is maybe the best offer i've ever recieved, in regard to anything:
Lindsay. Come to AZ with me. I know you can go to school free other places but I think that is just shit and doesn't matter because I'm not in those other places and I desperately need your presence. We could find lots of Indians and Mexican immigrants and refugees and give them all our possessions and support and we could live off of cacti nutrients and knit clothing with the needles from the cacti and maybe we could see some of those rolly things that always bounce between two people having a shoot-out in Western movies. Think about it. Picture it. Us, slow motion, walking through Phoenix....tumbleweeds blowing all over. An image I HARDLY think anyone could resist. Fuck, woman. I'm begging you to come with me. I love you and need you. Come on. Who else could give such a damn good argument?
going to australia? one of the best decisions i ever made. there are so many people in this world i want to keep; i'm glad you're one of those who wants to keep me back.
posted by lindsay at 09:58 :: 2 comments
22 November 2006 : this has GOT to stop.
so apparently, arturo escobar teaches at the university of north carolina chapel hill.
and NO ONE really thought that this was worth mentioning to me, even given all the hours i've logged recently searching for the perfect grad school. and all the hours i've logged following my favorite professors around saying, "where should i go to grad school? what do you think of the university of kentucky? is it going to hurt me that the department chair has a Ph.D. from IU and there's that whole institutional snobbery towards IUPUI thing? where should i go to grad school? what's a good program? where should i go to grad school? what's a personal statement?"
out of all of that, i got - the university of memphis (to which i am applying, if for no other reason than southern accent + jacob grace) and indiana university.
arturo escobar (who is the only anthropologist whose work i've read regularly and eagerly and consistently when assigned it and also when not) aside, unc chapel hill has a really freaking cool graduate program, about which reading sort of made my heart hitch. in the good way. in the six days of stubble and flared jeans way. in the qdoba nachos and cold beer way. in the colonial gardens way.
and no-one said a word. it might be nice to live within driving distance of an ocean again. which got me thinking (and just thinking) about how i've been limiting my possibilities. so i started over again, with a broader scope of imagination. i may be getting a little big for my britches, but...brown! columbia! nyu! holy FREAKING CRAP, MAN. these programs all look amazing.
everything is so good! i've actually been breathing in excited little bursts of hot air, like i'm running a marathon or watching porn!
i can't wait to email arturo freaking escobar!
and this is what it comes to, partly because the ivy league has never impressed me just for being ivy league or vice versa: it doesn't really matter what the school is or where it's located, as long as i'm happy and successful and studying the one thing about which i've maintained a passion longer than six months. the university of kentucky and the university of memphis (and yes, maybe...just maybe unc chapel hill) are eagerly awaiting the remainder of my application materials, and i eagerly await the end of this year.
anthropology! it's gold!
(p.s. i don't actually watch porn, dr. escobar. if you googled your name and somehow stumbled upon this, i mean all of this in the most sincere, mature and flattering way possible. do you need a new research assistant?)
posted by lindsay at 15:31 :: 4 comments
30 October 2006 : break (down) time.
i love/hate the idea that everything is relative.
you remember everything imperfectly, but so perfectly are you situated that you can't quite comprehend your misinterpretation.
how does anyone compare versions of suffering? culturization, socialization, these things ensure that what makes you suffer won't make everyone else suffer and vice versa.
i think that's what bothers the most.
i liked the feel of your hands cupped around mine lighting a cigarette in the wind, but that just makes you another sunny afternoon. something else tall and dark and warm that i can see without having.
western notions of certainty and entitlement baffle the rest of the world but to me are just more causes of insomnia. i don't even know where to start.
for the record, i don't have the time to worry about these things and i don't want to have the time to worry about these things. i want to drink cold water and read my books, write more papers and sleep solid for eight hours a night. i want to walk assured into rooms full of the unknown. that's what i've focused on this past year or so, and i was doing very well until i lost my focus a few months ago.
i think things are back on track, but precariously may hit hiatus status for a while simply because writing what's worth posting is not currently in the cards.
the plans for now include marathon library sessions, carefully worded emails to professors who've never heard of me, studying for the gre, developing a moderately not-pathetic curriculum vitae, learning about burma and trying to find a pair of shoes to wear through the winter.
i am not suffering but wanting. and that's what i've always done best. i'm only just now figuring out that it's only the wanting that depends on no one but me that's worth my time and effort.
everything else is just decoration.
posted by lindsay at 23:06 :: 0 comments
21 May 2006 : for to carry me home.
there are many, many things a girl must fit into her carryon when packing for a trip like the one i'm about to take. a few examples:
- insect repellent with 40% deet (because insect life in australia is large and aggressive)
- sunscreen spf 45 (because pink-cheeked white girls need help surviving the desert)
- a water bottle that holds 32 fluid ounces
- a couple of books for easy reading
- a list of postcard addressees (send me an email if you want one)
and about a million other things (about 100$ worth at your friendly local discount store, truth be told).
but what is truly elemental to the sucess of an outing such as this one is bravery - and that's something wal-mart can't squeeze out of a producer in south america for 2.98 a bottle.
in with the nervous making, because this is my first chance to dig my fingers in. this is my first chance to do ethnographic research, to put to use those things i've been learning with the purpose of dedicating the rest of my life to something. my first chance to make or break.
i could falter. i've been known to lose my words when i am put on the spot. any eloquence i may posess decides to take a personal day every time it's imperative i put it to use. people intimidate me if i want to impress them. i shake and my face burns, i have trouble breathing and i start saying "uhm," about every third word.
there's some major intimidation factor at work here, see. peter garrett, who we will meet with on our second day in country, already has me quaking in my rugged offroad trainers. How am I supposed to be hip, rock and roll, beautiful, confident, eloquent and brilliant all at the same time? most days i have the energy for about one of those things. Lunch with dr. peter read of australian national university? i have to do all those things and eat while i'm doing it!
beyond that, walking up to a stranger and introducing myself is something i've never done in the united states, let alone in a country where responses to my presence may include assumptions about fat, rich americans and their exaggerated sense of entitlement and presumption. color me excited (i am actually, just terrified at the same time).
and what's most important, really, is the idea that this is where i put my feet in the water and figure out if i've really got what it takes to dedicate myself to this work. the rest of my life is a very long time and academia is oh-so-fickle. perhaps i can't make the cut; maybe my insecurities will force me back to the shelter of a university where i will teach and publish and teach and publish and cry for boredom on my lunch hour every day.
then again, this entire entry is about me - and that atlas complex, well, it's got sharp fingernails and they've dug themselves deep into my palms. because if i really care to do something about anything, if i really want to make a difference to someone (anyone), if i really want to embrace this bleeding heart i've got fueling those warm-fuzzy feelings toward humanity as a whole, then i'll suck it the fuck up and do what has to be done. because it doesn't have anything to do with me. it has to do with other people - entire populations of them - who have no choice, no representation, no rights and no options.
that's why i think i'll succeed.
well. that, a bottle of red wine, a conversation with lisa, and my deeply rooted belief that i am better than everyone at everything and can do pretty much anything should i deign to give it a bit of effort.
my flight leaves at 6pm on monday. i'll be there with boots on.
posted by lindsay at 01:59 :: 3 comments
17 May 2006 : red rose blooming on another man's vine.
so many things could have been said. to paraphrase someone i love, there were riots in my head. uncertainty has an almost pleasant flavor of familiarity, as do most less enjoyable emotions once you've spent several long, romantic evenings with them.
i tend to lose the big picture, this i know. details attach themselves to me, worrying. i hate to rely on the dog and the bone, but cliche is cliche for a reason. compounded, those details work themselves into a single, nerve-raw mass of pure energy. there's a sore spot, a specific one, and though it moves and varies in size and intensity, it never quite heals. when it gets hit, i'm down for the count.
there are a few things i rely on; the words in my head which these days get so rarely written down, fictional love affairs on deserted islands and the excitement of burgeoning friendships. to-do lists and etymolgies can sometimes comfort me. my plans, i wear them like armor. one of these days i'll fly out of here with only the things i can carry, and mimic the motions of the puppy with her unspent energy. these are the most important. i'll scrape my skin against the bare earth wherever i can find it and rub my muzzle against every available surface. if i'm lucky, somewhere along the line there will be sand in which to dig my wandering toes. no matter because in this respect the journey is not the destination but only just the journey, and i'll come out the end red and new and sensitive, scoured free of the sticky residue of privelege, the unbearable stink of entitlement.
that's not to say i do not struggle, because i do - mostly existentially as my life to date has been almost unfairly (and unfortunately) simple, free of many tensions with which most of the rest of the world must grapple. there are behaviors i can't break open, attachments i hate but fear relinquishing. socializations it could take lifetimes to bury. someone once told me i needed reprogramming, and he was right but for all the wrong reasons - those were selfish months, when neither of us could have cared less about anything but the two of us.
the point is that i know wanting something does not mean it will happen, and talking about it does not hurry it along. waiting is elemental - and luckily, something i for which i have a talent. i tend to look at change in terms of "eye of the tiger" on the boombox and a flippy ponytail with really cute workout clothes that never get sweatstains. i think that progress has been made, progress continues - in the past few months i've done some pretty brave things that i would have never believed possible.
what i wonder is, how many times can we choke it back? how many things have one of us wanted to say but didn't, for whatever reason? proximity is dangerous i know, and we hardly wear our hearts where they can be seen. but i know that with this tenuous stability, at least i am sometimes holding back enough to clog things up - having to shape my words around something in the back of my throat sticky and dense, like chocolate with too much cocoa. it won't quite melt and it won't quite move, and it has accented everything i say with timidity and a little taste of shame.
so tonight i am thankful for my friends, who are so beautiful, kind, thoughtful, patient and most every other positive adjective the infrastructure could bear. i spent most of yesterday near tears, winning fights in my head and trying hard to breathe normally. you follow them because you have the privelege, and luck is when you're loved back.
anger fades, as does insecurity. sometimes all you need is an evening.
posted by lindsay at 22:39 :: 1 comments
Getting lost in the most basic way can be simple enough, but the kind of getting lost I've been involved in recently is both an art and a science. It's a good thing I have so much education.
There is a lot going on, and my time is hurtling past so quickly I tend to miss it, but I find myself dumbfounded at the other end of every day, wondering how I managed to get nothing accomplished.
Again. There is nothing going on.
It's closing in on a year, and I repeatedly find myself wondering what happened to my bright future. Ideas are bandied about: medical school, which means Doctors Without Borders, or the International Relations program at the University of Indianapolis, to which I will absolutely apply once I win the lottery. The Peace Corps will not take me and my genetic abnormality.
Still, they're only ideas. I go to work in a kitchen, carry grease to and fro, get lost in the art of perfecting the reuben, my ankle swells and I panic. Or I go to work in an office, get lost in the art of perfecting the no-mouse data entry sequence, my ankle swells and I panic.
But I'm tired of panic, I'm tired of moaning and lamenting. I'm tired of dreaming up far fetched schemes to get me somewhere beyond this hand to mouth existence that I am pretty sure I won't survive much longer.
On Tuesday night, Amanda and I went out for a beer and food tasting at the pub where I am no longer employed (angels, swelling music, plucking harps), and we met a nice couple who were new in town(and half of whose names escape me). After hearing some of our conversation, they turned to me and said, "So corporate life not what you were hoping for, huh?"
As it turns out, I wasn't hoping for much more out of corporate life than a moderately fatter paycheck so, hey, mission accomplished. But I explained to them that it just wasn't where I had planned to be at this point in my life (matter of fact: I had actually planned to, at this very specific moment-to-moment point of my life, be in Zambia studying livelihood strategies among internal refugees).
The next question was: "So, do you have a dream job, then?"
There was no hesitation. I was a few beers up, a few inhibitions down. My hand hit the table, making the cheese platter rock slightly. "I want to be an anthropologist."
Say true, sister, say true.
I'll stay on the path, until the very moment that I hear that it is actually, physically IMPOSSIBLE for me to continue. I bet there's an area of the world where I can study immigrant livelihood strategies adjacent to a hospital modern enough to perform a simple prothrombin time. And hell, should all go to plan, by the time international travel becomes necessary I will be below the recommended weight level for women with my particular issue, and will have eliminated all risk factors other than genetics.
I have options. If the rumors about the IUPUI graduate program prove to be unfounded (I sent the email to my undergrad advisor today: is it true?! CAN IT BE SO?!) there are options. Commuting to Purdue would be, in two words, a bitch - but I could do it. Or maybe in a year's time, or two years' time, I won't be such a pussy and I'll be capable of relocating without dying (literally, too).
In the last five years, every time I've been really content it's been because I was on this path. So I lace my shoes back up and step into it again.
Move forward, move forward.
Labels: When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 20:20 :: 1 comments
24 March 2007 : better than mine.
the weekend and a phone call have me thinking about final destinations.
this is because i read too much fiction, i watch too much drama. because i don't hear his voice often enough from thousands of miles away. because i've been steady for so long.
the places you go and the places you end up, they're never the same.
i have plans, you see. but my plans keep getting in the way of my plans.
there are a couple of things that i want very badly. they're so improbable. the only way i can see to have them is in that starting over way. in that, this is the end and here's where i landed way, because everything else between then and now has failed.
i keep saying stupid things, letting my guard down.
so maybe i'll fail, at something. i failed at about ten things last night. i failed at about seventy last weekend. i'll keep doing it if i keep making impossible rules for myself. stick to it, stick to it. because what's integrity if not making sure you force yourself to see things through, even if you realize before the end how destructive they are?
(four things: i'm very tired, a little hungover, slightly panicked in an existential way, and sarcasm doesn't translate well into internet)
now i'm in this weird place where i kind of want to fail. i'm afraid i decided to go to school because i panicked. i'm afraid i decided to go to school because i just didn't know what the hell i was going to do otherwise. i've been in school for nineteen years; what's eight more? it's easier than living a different life.
unfortunately, i have other ideas. ideas about hiking on saturdays, ideas about big farmhouses with bigger gardens and canning in the fall. ideas about finally getting to see cera whenever i want, and ideas about slow breezes and something a little southern but still indiana. ideas about sweetly awkward kisses and just, for once, having no real responsibilities. ideas about a life that's built around me and nothing else.
i can't just say no. i can't just change my mind. can i?
here's the thing: i want to end up someplace other than where i'm headed.
it's just that right now, i'm not sure which is which.
Labels: When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 16:46 :: 3 comments
02 February 2007 : but what will you wear?
i waited longer than i wanted for this post, but i wanted to make sure that all the important people got the information firsthand. and in all fairness, i wasn't expecting to know for several more weeks, so you all are getting the news earlier than anyone could have dreamed, despite my self imposed delay.
what i'm saying is, i found a letter on the dining room table this morning. i don't know how long it had been there, but it's been at least a day, since we don't get our mail until early evening.
it was small, and that frightened me a little, but like i said, i wasn't expecting the news just yet, so i thought it perhaps pertained to something else.
but when i opened it, it said, essentially:
dear lindsay,
we love you, too. please come and play with us next fall.
love,
the university of kentucky
so there you have it, folks. in six months, i'm moving to lexington. and approximately 6 - 8 years after that, i'm going to be dr. lindsay.
cheers.
Labels: When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 20:18 :: 3 comments
15 January 2007 : come on night
we have an unfortunate tendency to view change retrospectively.
we get used to that. we take it home and cuddle with it, make it our special banana smoothie in the morning. it's too many movies and too many books - when did we start expecting happy endings? when did it become necessary to tie up every possible loose end? a transition with a finish line so impossibly tight leaves no room for movement.
we've changed ourselves out of change, because we want those blue skies, that reconciliatory kiss. we want to look back on the last six months and say, "yeah, that was pretty dark - but look where we are now. it was all worth it."
i get that.
but don't you ever look up from a sentence or your teacup and think, HOLY CRAP. I'M IN TRANSITION AND I HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT BEFORE ITS TOO LATE TO INFLUENCE ITS COURSE.
it's tough, honestly. transition, like most things, doesn't rely on the individual, but on the individual plus friends, family, coworkers, environment and climate. you can bear down as hard as you want and it doesn't mean you're going to be able to turn that wheel to the right. i've lived so much of my life carefully at 10 and 2 and i've still been left speechless with the violation shaking in my hand, unable to decipher its meaning.
and right now, well, right now i am looking forward. things are going to change, but they haven't yet. they haven't even started to change yet. but every morning i open my eyes, i know its going to happen. in six weeks, i leave the happiest home i've been able to make since leaving mom's at age 16. i didn't choose that - it was handed to me. four months after that, my gas tank inevitably marked full, i will head as far south as i've ever dared. i didn't choose that, either - it kind of chose me.
i know its coming. which gives me the time to sit back and think about how good its going to be. how bad its going to be. i can do anything. no-one knows me in lexington, kentucky. i could be new, different, british! i could jog a mile every morning, or cook myself balanced meals, or paint my living room bright red. i could suck up all my timidity and be friendly, frenzied, manic. i could be successful, i could take chances.
but i don't know what's going to happen. and i'm frustrated by sitting here in january, not knowing what february will bring. i do not like all of these things i've had to let fall from my hands. i do not like that i am making plans based on maybe. and i do not like that all of these decisions: where will i live, who will i see, what will i study? are being made by people who are not me.
because i think we can, and we should, choose. how things are going to go. who we are going to be. what we are going to love, and why. i've been doing a lot of that lately. i said, i'll be strong, and confident, i'll be wise and i'll be brave and i'll be ready. i had to fake it for a while, but it's getting easier. i started slow, with a boy, and decided to work my way up from there.
it's not always working out the way i hope - the most i've gotten was a couple of dizzy kisses on a dirty old couch that left me feeling simultaneously innocent, sixteen, brazen and busted.
but there are other situations to be diffused. and i'm done with looking forward worst case. maybe its just that i'm in the world's tiniest, most adorable coffeeshop right now, in a town in southern indiana that leaves no room for wondering. just another place i could make a life.
i like knowing that. here? lexington, memphis, tucson, birmingham? i could be new, i could be different. hell, i could be british.
so i'm just gonna stop waiting.
Labels: Two steps forward, When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 13:38 :: 3 comments
29 November 2006 : warm heart, cold hands.
this is maybe the best offer i've ever recieved, in regard to anything:
Lindsay. Come to AZ with me. I know you can go to school free other places but I think that is just shit and doesn't matter because I'm not in those other places and I desperately need your presence. We could find lots of Indians and Mexican immigrants and refugees and give them all our possessions and support and we could live off of cacti nutrients and knit clothing with the needles from the cacti and maybe we could see some of those rolly things that always bounce between two people having a shoot-out in Western movies. Think about it. Picture it. Us, slow motion, walking through Phoenix....tumbleweeds blowing all over. An image I HARDLY think anyone could resist. Fuck, woman. I'm begging you to come with me. I love you and need you. Come on. Who else could give such a damn good argument?
going to australia? one of the best decisions i ever made. there are so many people in this world i want to keep; i'm glad you're one of those who wants to keep me back.
Labels: Australia, When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 09:58 :: 2 comments
22 November 2006 : this has GOT to stop.
so apparently, arturo escobar teaches at the university of north carolina chapel hill.
and NO ONE really thought that this was worth mentioning to me, even given all the hours i've logged recently searching for the perfect grad school. and all the hours i've logged following my favorite professors around saying, "where should i go to grad school? what do you think of the university of kentucky? is it going to hurt me that the department chair has a Ph.D. from IU and there's that whole institutional snobbery towards IUPUI thing? where should i go to grad school? what's a good program? where should i go to grad school? what's a personal statement?"
out of all of that, i got - the university of memphis (to which i am applying, if for no other reason than southern accent + jacob grace) and indiana university.
arturo escobar (who is the only anthropologist whose work i've read regularly and eagerly and consistently when assigned it and also when not) aside, unc chapel hill has a really freaking cool graduate program, about which reading sort of made my heart hitch. in the good way. in the six days of stubble and flared jeans way. in the qdoba nachos and cold beer way. in the colonial gardens way.
and no-one said a word. it might be nice to live within driving distance of an ocean again. which got me thinking (and just thinking) about how i've been limiting my possibilities. so i started over again, with a broader scope of imagination. i may be getting a little big for my britches, but...brown! columbia! nyu! holy FREAKING CRAP, MAN. these programs all look amazing.
everything is so good! i've actually been breathing in excited little bursts of hot air, like i'm running a marathon or watching porn!
i can't wait to email arturo freaking escobar!
and this is what it comes to, partly because the ivy league has never impressed me just for being ivy league or vice versa: it doesn't really matter what the school is or where it's located, as long as i'm happy and successful and studying the one thing about which i've maintained a passion longer than six months. the university of kentucky and the university of memphis (and yes, maybe...just maybe unc chapel hill) are eagerly awaiting the remainder of my application materials, and i eagerly await the end of this year.
anthropology! it's gold!
(p.s. i don't actually watch porn, dr. escobar. if you googled your name and somehow stumbled upon this, i mean all of this in the most sincere, mature and flattering way possible. do you need a new research assistant?)
Labels: When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 15:31 :: 4 comments
30 October 2006 : break (down) time.
i love/hate the idea that everything is relative.
you remember everything imperfectly, but so perfectly are you situated that you can't quite comprehend your misinterpretation.
how does anyone compare versions of suffering? culturization, socialization, these things ensure that what makes you suffer won't make everyone else suffer and vice versa.
i think that's what bothers the most.
i liked the feel of your hands cupped around mine lighting a cigarette in the wind, but that just makes you another sunny afternoon. something else tall and dark and warm that i can see without having.
western notions of certainty and entitlement baffle the rest of the world but to me are just more causes of insomnia. i don't even know where to start.
for the record, i don't have the time to worry about these things and i don't want to have the time to worry about these things. i want to drink cold water and read my books, write more papers and sleep solid for eight hours a night. i want to walk assured into rooms full of the unknown. that's what i've focused on this past year or so, and i was doing very well until i lost my focus a few months ago.
i think things are back on track, but precariously may hit hiatus status for a while simply because writing what's worth posting is not currently in the cards.
the plans for now include marathon library sessions, carefully worded emails to professors who've never heard of me, studying for the gre, developing a moderately not-pathetic curriculum vitae, learning about burma and trying to find a pair of shoes to wear through the winter.
i am not suffering but wanting. and that's what i've always done best. i'm only just now figuring out that it's only the wanting that depends on no one but me that's worth my time and effort.
everything else is just decoration.
Labels: Blog vomit, When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 23:06 :: 0 comments
21 May 2006 : for to carry me home.
there are many, many things a girl must fit into her carryon when packing for a trip like the one i'm about to take. a few examples:
- insect repellent with 40% deet (because insect life in australia is large and aggressive)
- sunscreen spf 45 (because pink-cheeked white girls need help surviving the desert)
- a water bottle that holds 32 fluid ounces
- a couple of books for easy reading
- a list of postcard addressees (send me an email if you want one)
and about a million other things (about 100$ worth at your friendly local discount store, truth be told).
but what is truly elemental to the sucess of an outing such as this one is bravery - and that's something wal-mart can't squeeze out of a producer in south america for 2.98 a bottle.
in with the nervous making, because this is my first chance to dig my fingers in. this is my first chance to do ethnographic research, to put to use those things i've been learning with the purpose of dedicating the rest of my life to something. my first chance to make or break.
i could falter. i've been known to lose my words when i am put on the spot. any eloquence i may posess decides to take a personal day every time it's imperative i put it to use. people intimidate me if i want to impress them. i shake and my face burns, i have trouble breathing and i start saying "uhm," about every third word.
there's some major intimidation factor at work here, see. peter garrett, who we will meet with on our second day in country, already has me quaking in my rugged offroad trainers. How am I supposed to be hip, rock and roll, beautiful, confident, eloquent and brilliant all at the same time? most days i have the energy for about one of those things. Lunch with dr. peter read of australian national university? i have to do all those things and eat while i'm doing it!
beyond that, walking up to a stranger and introducing myself is something i've never done in the united states, let alone in a country where responses to my presence may include assumptions about fat, rich americans and their exaggerated sense of entitlement and presumption. color me excited (i am actually, just terrified at the same time).
and what's most important, really, is the idea that this is where i put my feet in the water and figure out if i've really got what it takes to dedicate myself to this work. the rest of my life is a very long time and academia is oh-so-fickle. perhaps i can't make the cut; maybe my insecurities will force me back to the shelter of a university where i will teach and publish and teach and publish and cry for boredom on my lunch hour every day.
then again, this entire entry is about me - and that atlas complex, well, it's got sharp fingernails and they've dug themselves deep into my palms. because if i really care to do something about anything, if i really want to make a difference to someone (anyone), if i really want to embrace this bleeding heart i've got fueling those warm-fuzzy feelings toward humanity as a whole, then i'll suck it the fuck up and do what has to be done. because it doesn't have anything to do with me. it has to do with other people - entire populations of them - who have no choice, no representation, no rights and no options.
that's why i think i'll succeed.
well. that, a bottle of red wine, a conversation with lisa, and my deeply rooted belief that i am better than everyone at everything and can do pretty much anything should i deign to give it a bit of effort.
my flight leaves at 6pm on monday. i'll be there with boots on.
Labels: Australia, When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 01:59 :: 3 comments
17 May 2006 : red rose blooming on another man's vine.
so many things could have been said. to paraphrase someone i love, there were riots in my head. uncertainty has an almost pleasant flavor of familiarity, as do most less enjoyable emotions once you've spent several long, romantic evenings with them.
i tend to lose the big picture, this i know. details attach themselves to me, worrying. i hate to rely on the dog and the bone, but cliche is cliche for a reason. compounded, those details work themselves into a single, nerve-raw mass of pure energy. there's a sore spot, a specific one, and though it moves and varies in size and intensity, it never quite heals. when it gets hit, i'm down for the count.
there are a few things i rely on; the words in my head which these days get so rarely written down, fictional love affairs on deserted islands and the excitement of burgeoning friendships. to-do lists and etymolgies can sometimes comfort me. my plans, i wear them like armor. one of these days i'll fly out of here with only the things i can carry, and mimic the motions of the puppy with her unspent energy. these are the most important. i'll scrape my skin against the bare earth wherever i can find it and rub my muzzle against every available surface. if i'm lucky, somewhere along the line there will be sand in which to dig my wandering toes. no matter because in this respect the journey is not the destination but only just the journey, and i'll come out the end red and new and sensitive, scoured free of the sticky residue of privelege, the unbearable stink of entitlement.
that's not to say i do not struggle, because i do - mostly existentially as my life to date has been almost unfairly (and unfortunately) simple, free of many tensions with which most of the rest of the world must grapple. there are behaviors i can't break open, attachments i hate but fear relinquishing. socializations it could take lifetimes to bury. someone once told me i needed reprogramming, and he was right but for all the wrong reasons - those were selfish months, when neither of us could have cared less about anything but the two of us.
the point is that i know wanting something does not mean it will happen, and talking about it does not hurry it along. waiting is elemental - and luckily, something i for which i have a talent. i tend to look at change in terms of "eye of the tiger" on the boombox and a flippy ponytail with really cute workout clothes that never get sweatstains. i think that progress has been made, progress continues - in the past few months i've done some pretty brave things that i would have never believed possible.
what i wonder is, how many times can we choke it back? how many things have one of us wanted to say but didn't, for whatever reason? proximity is dangerous i know, and we hardly wear our hearts where they can be seen. but i know that with this tenuous stability, at least i am sometimes holding back enough to clog things up - having to shape my words around something in the back of my throat sticky and dense, like chocolate with too much cocoa. it won't quite melt and it won't quite move, and it has accented everything i say with timidity and a little taste of shame.
so tonight i am thankful for my friends, who are so beautiful, kind, thoughtful, patient and most every other positive adjective the infrastructure could bear. i spent most of yesterday near tears, winning fights in my head and trying hard to breathe normally. you follow them because you have the privelege, and luck is when you're loved back.
anger fades, as does insecurity. sometimes all you need is an evening.
Labels: When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 22:39 :: 1 comments