dylpickled

Within the past year, my dad has said these two things to me:

"Persephone? Noooo, no, no, you named that cat!" "No, I didn't want to name any, I remember I was afraid I was going to get attached!" "Okay, so you're telling me... Aubrey HEDRICK named a cat after a Greek myth." "Hey, her other cat was named after a cat in a book!" "She was?" "Yeah, Lillian was from a book, the character said something about Lillian the 'beautiful panther'. I dunno, Aubrey told me, I never read it." (Father gives me a look as if mind is totally blown. A, Aubrey naming animals after literary references? B, Aubrey reading books Jessica hasn't?) "Well... I don't know."

"Luke's fun to talk to." "You would think that." "What?" "Well, of course you enjoy talking to Luke, you're both extremely intelligent - and absolute bastards. I don't know what I did to deserve two of you..." (The context here is like, a friendly, casual dinner - not meant as malice, that's just the party line.)

The thing is, the first time I read Milan Kundera it was because I took it off my sister's bookshelf, and I am pretty sure I didn't name that kitten, because I was going to college the next year and couldn't keep one like every other sibling, and I really was too afraid of getting attached and then breaking my own heart. Binaries only work when you amputate all the inconvenient loose ends about people.

And that amputation, it's poison. I remember as teenagers, my sister shattering plates and spitting in the food and cutting people out of pictures, all suffocated rage under that "Breezy" name, and I remember being thrown out and then thrown back and then thrown out again, one big firestorm, and I never, ever, wanted anyone to see me as anything else, but the one time I actually literally fell apart, legs actually buckling so I dropped to the ground, the only one who saw was my sister. As I remember it, she said, "Jessica?" and I was not capable of speech, so she just sat there and watched me lose my shit until I was done. And then I wiped my eyes, said I was fine, and apologized for losing it, and after that we went to sleep. I felt guilty for years, for accidentally showing her that I wasn't, if an absolute bastard, also an absolute rock. But I also resented her, and everything she was, everything she GOT to be that I couldn't, how I couldn't even approach that side of myself without seeming to give up my own ground, my assigned corner, how even if I did I would be laughed at and put back into my place, and the ways she got treated that I didn't, the things she got that I didn't, until I was hardened about it, living up to my reputation, like if I was going to be cut to fit this mold then I was damn well going to excell at it. And I know she resented me, for probably the same reasons, and even now, when she has a knee-jerk contemptuous reaction to something intellectual, I think, ah, that's the mold talking, isn't it? But even when you know that, it's hard not to step right back into that assigned role, shut down that insult like the brilliant heartless bastard you are assumed to be... That poison, once there, just keeps working, and sure, you can doctor it, but that doesn't make it go away.

Anytime there's an either/or, both sides lose. Don't do it, don't sort people like that, yourself or anyone else, not on an ideology or a personality trait or a physical characteristic. If there are lines, they're there for playing with - think hopscotch court, not war zone. People always think if they go towards the other side they lose themselves, and it makes them terrified of each other. I think the die-hard liberals and conservatives, or the fundamentalists and the atheists, or pick your fronts, really, the idea of sitting down and, not having to listen, but listening, of their own free will, and thinking, this is a good, intelligent, well-meaning person who is basically like me but has gone in a different direction - I think they'd all rather jump off a cliff. If you have to cling that hard to a belief (or a non-belief, as the case may be) I think you're scared if you relaxed, you'd drop it. And you know what? Going towards the other side WILL change you. But having done it, I can say you won't lose yourself. You kind of can't lose yourself. There's a core person that you are, and reclaiming the amputated little bits doesn't change that - it fills in the cracks, makes you stronger and less afraid. The poison is still there. Probably always will be. But you can break the mold.

My book club does not fuck around. Our last three books were The Handmaid's Tale, Walden, and Northanger Abbey. We are now not meeting for a long time, but to make up for it are reading three books: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, Beowulf, and The Canterbury Tales. Yeah... See, we were going to read one "old" and one "new" book, and then I sort of jokingly said, well, if you really want OLD in English lit., Beowulf can't be beaten... And then it got taken seriously, but someone else said what about The Canterbury Tales, and we kind of ended up getting greedy and saying fine, whoever reads all three gets free drinks next time. But we specified that you can read modern translations - I was like, guys, listen, you can't just casually read Old English, it's basically a different language. Although, because this is the kind of smartass I am, I already have a copy of The Canterbury Tales but it's in Middle English (which I can read, actually), so I'm just gonna re-read that. I could use the refresher. I've read Beowulf but I'm gonna re-download it and read it again just because, I don't know, I'm a sucker for those legends, and then the modern book I'm also looking forward to, I usually like Swedish authors... oh I'm drinking for free next time. I'm worried about what versions of Beowulf people get though because I want to see how they feel about that alliterative style, so I hope they get ones that try to preserve that.

I've spent a lot of my life doing things on turf that isn't mine. I think it's good for anyone, like mental cross-training. But books in my native language? You hear those stories about athletes, oh they were such an athletic kid, always strong for their age, etc... I did a damn good impression of reading as a toddler, and figured it out myself by four. I'm a born reader. And like a runner probably looooved tag as a kid, and just kept unconsciously honing their natural skill, I loved books, and I have always read, like - I think minimum an hour a day. Cause I read while I brush my teeth and things.

And normally, most people don't really care, and some actively discourage you from talking about it. And I've never really gotten that, because like I said, I spend most of my life off my home turf, be it working in a second language or not being able to wrap my head around how much wattage this circuit can handle, and I don't have an emotional reaction to not being as good as other people. I was not, not even with years of experience, particularly good at technical stuff. That's a fact, so why get defensive? I still like it. I never really got why, but there have always been those people who are like - anti-intellectual when it comes to books. Either in the sense that they don't read or that they only read lightweight fluff, AND seek to make that the norm. I don't care what you do or don't read but I don't like being a freakshow just because I like the occasional fat tome, you know? They ask what you're reading, you answer, all innocence, and then you can't read anymore, because now you're having a conversation, not about the book, but inevitably, about the reasons why THEY can't or couldn't read it, or about how much they didn't understand/hated it, or about how much they in general hate reading. Like pulling somebody off a track to explain to them how slow you are.

Soooo... I really like the fact that I have a book club that tends to favor those books with a capital B, the ones that I usually, no joke, read on my Kindle so everyone leaves me alone. But now I can legitimately talk to people about the books I read, and not just "I liked it" or "I didn't get it", but conversations about the way the story's structured, or the historical background, or a comparison with the author's other work... Good stuff. It's the first time I've had running buddies, so to speak, in a long time, and I really, really like it.

This morning I went through my closet and sorted out old relic clothes I need to donate, and finished reading Northanger Abbey. I still feel really useless. URGH PMS GRUMP.

This is how you know I'm running on empty: I take an inordinate amount of pleasure in the smell of the things I keep in my shower. Right now I have this shower jelly stuff from Lush which is called Whoosh, and is sort of spicy-citrus, and it's awesome. I also have stuff I don't use all the time, a body scrub which is coconut-lime and again, freaking awesome, and a facial scrub (I have alligator skin, okay?) which smells like, I don't know how else to explain this, expensive mineral water. Usually I get happy every time I take a shower just from the shower jelly, and then add in the scrubs? That's awesome.

Except not today. I was like, whatever. :( I've also been cold enough to be actively shivering all day for no real reason. URGH.

Buuuut, I did re-dye the hair today and I haven't really looked at the result yet, so in a minute I'm going to go check it out in the mirror and if that doesn't make me feel awesome then I might as well just go to sleep now, it ain't getting any better today. Oh and I'm on a big spring cleaning kick and a little bit ago Michi randomly walked up and gave me a hug and said, "You've been busting your ass around here... thank you," which was sweet. :) So there, universe! Ha HA!

I have PMS and am grumpy, so I would like to remind myself of a few nice things recently.

Michi is trying to make an effort to read things. The last thing he finished was a book about the bin Laden mission, and today when I was grumpy, he quoted this motto in it to me: "the only easy day was yesterday" - and it ended up making me laugh, because how fucking weird. But seriously: being able to talk to Michi about something I read or wrote? So unspeakably hot. :) We're both kind of out of gas at the moment but still really making an effort to be good to each other, and it feels good. :)

I wrote something really sweet and I'm pretty happy with it.

And when we had that barbecue at Domi's recently while Michi and Oliver stayed talking around the fire I helped Domi clean everything up, which, obviously - but he surprised me by being really grateful and saying, "Jessica, you are a jewel," and that was super-sweet. Although at that point he might have had a buzz, cause we were talking about this documentary he thought I'd like and he texted me the name, and when I read the text later it had a smiley face in it. Still, Domi really is secretly a total marshmallow, so in vino veritas, right?

And our friend Harry sends out these music samplers fairly often. He's really getting into it lately, he's got a radio show and he DJs things and stuff. And there's about 80% overlap in our taste, so it's cool. I might actually going to this thing on Friday, I don't know what, some kind of CD release thing? Harry's down for the night and sleeping on our couch and invited us.

But anyway, I had been talking about starting to write things again and in the end Domi Harry and Konrad had said they "didn't know anything about writing, but would be interested in reading", so I sent them this little "sampler", three poems a philosophical thought and the first few pages of two longer stories. Konrad called me to tell me he'd read the poems and the thought with a dictionary under his hand (I picked the easy ones on purpose!), but he liked the poems well enough and the thought he really liked, and he hadn't read the story bits yet but I could send more if I wanted. So that made me feel pretty awesome.

I have my book club again this week and I'm excited about it.

And I had a dream where someone attacked me with scissors and I grabbed them, and for a minute I was tempted to slash back - but instead I slid them away across the floor and pinned them down with my knees, and it was (oh so typically) assumed to be me being aggressive, but when someone came over to split us up my opponent started trying to scratch them too, destroying her own credibility and vindicating me. I've had a lot of that kind of moralizing dream lately, like three a night. My subconscious obviously heartily approves of whatever I'm doing.

I was at this expat thing at my friend's house and we were calling our congressmen about immigration stuff and in between calls the version of me I keep for strangers slipped slowly away, and I made a joke at my own expense and this guy I'd never met snorted and pushed at my shoulder like we were suddenly friends, and then I was kind of brutally honest about something and made the room laugh, and then eventually we were telling stories of our misadventures and when it came around to me I just told about showing up in Vienna without at clue at nineteen, and later about deciding if I was getting paid, I could definitely translate a book in a month. And I kept getting these reactions that were either impressed or that I was crazy, or both. And we were all using our friend's phone, and when I finished and came back my new buddy said, "So... what did you say? How'd you say it?" and I was like, ah. I have once again given the impression of competence. And generally, I think I came off cool, and so I think someone's perceptions are wrong, and I think really, I am not cool and neither is anyone else, we're all riddled with weakness and rot and it doesn't make anyone any less beautiful.

And that's true. But just for tonight, I am not going to concentrate on the beauty in ugliness, and I am going to say, hey, I contain multitudes, some of them must be brave and interesting.

And I would say cute, but I don't feel particularly cute at the moment, actually. The color in my hair has faded and usually, if no one likes something I wear or do to my hair, I won't just go and change it, but it'll make me a little fidgety and self-conscious, kind of defiant. Not this hair. NO one likes this hair, but it makes me so happy I can't even be bothered to care. :) So now I won't feel happy with my appearance until I brighten up that color, and then I'll just love it.

Ugh, can I just say again, I really don't like The Great Gatsby. I'm really not overwhelmingly fond of Fitzgerald in the first place, but seriously, if that's an example of great American writing, I'd rather emulate the British. I don't understand how it can be so shallow and so moralizing at the same time. I don't think I would really hate it if it weren't for so many people being so over-the-top about it. It really just fails to evoke much of anything from me, but the "You just don't understand the GENIUS!" people push me over the edge. I just don't want that to be symbolic of American writing. Please no.

For my money, the most American writing out there, the writing at least of the American I want to be, is Walt Whitman's. Long, rambling, uncontrolled, bold, exuberant, transgressive, ever-changing, irreverent, reverent, sensual, independently driven (paid for the printing himself), observant, egotistical, paradoxical, weird and wonderful... You know, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes." That's us, or it should be.

But for me personally, as time goes by I am identifying more and more with Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov. It's the living in two linguistic worlds thing, I think. To me they seem similar. I don't know how to describe it exactly - when I'm reading their stuff I'm pulled into the world in a very powerful and hallucinatory way, and it's like being led through a strange dark room, pitch black, or being taken by the current in the middle of the ocean, it feels like you have no idea where you're going, but there's something powerful taking you there. I don't know if it's because their word choices are unusual or their rhythms are or if it's a structural thing, I really have no idea. Maybe it's just my own perception. But I wonder if part of it is to do with writing in your second language, because I've noticed that about it myself, that you're kind of hyper-aware of your words and also always kind of a little lost. I always think it's frustrating and so on my own time I still mostly write in English, but I've been thinking about switching, in prose anyway. I always have Michi proof my academic papers in German, and the last couple of ones he's changed like two noun genders in ten pages, and otherwise I'm set. And according to the people who've read them, you can't tell that I'm not a native speaker in my formulations. So that makes me think I could do it with fun writing too, if I wanted to put in the work. If it meant I sounded like Conrad and Nabokov, I definitely would.

(Oh, fun fact: Nabokov hated The Great Gatsby. :) )

I was extremely tired yesterday, so I didn't really do the old books justice. Here's what made that a cool "field trip": I'm not sure when, but archives decided that gloves were not helpful. Apparently the new theory is that the books made it through centuries being handled every day by hands just fine, but if you're clumsy in your gloves and rip a page, we're fucked. So when I say "saw" old books, I don't mean behind a display case or something, I mean a guy picking them up and riffling through them and telling us yeah, sure we can touch, just avoid the gold leaf. That makes them not relics, it makes them just things, things you can use, things (Latin Latin Latin!) I can even partially read. And that might seem like a step back - surely you're more overawed the other way? - but that's what makes them really amazing.

Because these days, an illuminated page isn't really all that impressive. We see more color on our computer screens in 30 seconds, and, real or not, we have enough of the shine of gold around us. We know, in the back of our heads, that someone did this by hand and it took a lot of time, but that doesn't really mean the same thing as it would have, back in the day. You tend to evaluate things by your society's standards of worth, and the truth is that we throw out advertisements that rival those manuscript pages in color and shine, and the fact that it was painstaking work for them just seems to make them seem poorer. The product itself, as an end product, is not worth more to us just because it was done by hand, or because it's old. Don't force yourself to feel respect for it. It's just a thing.

But at the same time, the fact that it's just an object, and a well-used one at that, is what makes it awe-inspiring. Books were made in big workshops, by lots of people working at specialized jobs - one guy responsible only for the red words in Bibles, etc. Yesterday we saw a portion of a manuscript that had been abandoned mid-illumination. There's a portion of page that was accidentally cut out, and you can see where, on the page before, someone had just made a single brushstroke of blue, and then his neighbor must have said, "Damn!" and they would have said, well, now we have to start over... They gathered up the front pages of the book-that-never-was and bound them as a sort of bonus at the front of a cheap little prayer book for the nuns at the associated nunnery, I guess not wanting to waste the work, and the nuns mended the page, sewing in a scrap of parchment and then embroidering the patch with threads that still shine. The beginning is mostly done, but towards the back are pages which saw no ink, just the sketchy strokes of pencil showing you the kinds of vines and flowers the artist had in mind. That book is older than most of us can fathom. It comes from a world so alien that the average modern person wouldn't even know how to get dressed. But the artist drew like people I've seen today, those same sketchy strokes before the ink goes down, the embroiderer ran out of a color at a corner and filled in another... How they worked, we don't necessarily remember, why they worked, we don't necessarily understand, but what they worked with, we have it. Fingers move the same way, eyes find the same things pleasing, hands still slip and screw up the work. THAT I can connect with, and the fact that I can, across all the distance between us? That's stunning.

Okay, I'm a nerdball, I know, but today my class took a "field trip"... to the special collections section of the university library. We saw a BUNCH of books from like 900. It was extremely cool.

Otherwise a shitty day, but that was really cool.

Originally, when I was a teenager, I had a door to the backyard in my room (a converted corner of the basement), but my father was adamant about boarding it up - more sense but more sarcasm made me the bad seed, and I resented his declaration that otherwise I'd be "totally uncontrollable". My stepmother sweetened the deal by putting in an a stained-glass window in its place, one salvaged from an abandoned church somewhere in rural North Carolina. It was a geometric pattern, and one of the panes had been mended, and was a different color of green from the others when the light hit it. I really don't think she knew I was partial to stained glass - she'd been doing a lot of those salvaging trips, because she wanted heart pine and those abandoned buildings had it, and she would bring all kinds of things back - and I'm absolutely certain she didn't know that my artistic tastes ran towards colorful geometry, and though I was fond of old things even then, history wasn't my major interest at the time. It was a happy accident, but she got it exactly right, and after that I didn't care about the door-that-was. It was my favorite part of my room. I never told her that, afraid that she'd destroy it in anger.

And that was the way, with my stepmother. We never loved each other, frankly, we never even liked each other. We were like if you split that Keats quote into two, as if she was the assertion "beauty is truth", and I the counter, "truth beauty", gilt leaf versus dead leaves, a royalist and an anarchist, the thought process of someone who judged anyone who didn't respond to "can I speak to x?" with "this is she" as classless, versus the thought process of someone who would tell you frankly that they would probably not remember your name. But the tail of a coin is awfully close to the head, and when she first met me I don't think I was old enough to tie my own shoes, and so every now and then there would be those moments of startling overlap, where she did something so exactly right that I'd be thrown into confusion, wondering if perhaps she percieved much more than I thought. But with the cunning born of years of experience, I kept it to myself, because in that life, everything I cared about was leverage, and I'd be damned if I'd budge. I lost things, but I never lost. And half the time, trapped in seething circles in that basement without a door, I wanted to smash that beautiful window myself.

When I'm reading something there's a particular feeling I like best, and it's rare. It's basically like - this might be a very generationally specific thing, but when I was a kid my teachers loved to take us on field trips to the Imax theater. I guess it's just about the easiest field trip you can have, you're basically just watching a movie but it's semi-educational. Anyway, we watched one about the rainforest one time which had tons of those shots where they're flying low above the treetops and then all of a sudden a canyon opens up, stuff like that, where your stomach does a lurch out of sympathy alone. Well, that's what I like when I'm reading, that shock and wonder and half-nausea.

A perfect example of this is the story Kaleidoscope, by Ray Bradbury, which is one of the pictures on The Illustrated Man. It's amazing. There are these astronauts in space, and their ship breaks up, and though some of them have managed to get into suits, they're just prolonging the inevitable, because they're now just floating away. They talk for a while through their radios. One is headed to the sun. He'll die before he gets there, but one day he'll be cremated... and so on, somehow the space is huge and claustrophobic at once, as they say their goodbyes and radios start to fall silent. Only one has been reclaimed by Earth's gravity. He'll burn up on re-entry. Now alone in his head, he thinks about his life and thinks, it was selfish, it was meaningless, and I wish it could have been worth something to someone else. And then he's moving faster and faster, starting to fall... And then, flick like a lightswitch, we're on earth, and a child is saying to their mother, look, a shooting star! And she says, "Make a wish."

Shock, wonder, nausea. Man, it never gets old.