Done is Done

And I'm done baby. Two of three final copies delivered.

I've got a stack of CDs to mail to friends who haven't heard from me in weeks, months, and sad to say, years. Let me know if you want one. I'm passing these out like free condoms! Insomnia? This thing's probably better than sleep aids.

But I'm proud. And I'm done.

And thank god. Free at last.

And you think...

You have it all under control. A little here, a little there. An hour here, an hour there. Many, many nightmares in between...

And then it's the last night. Everything goes swimmingly. You put in the hard work needed. You run the numbers. You run them again. You correct here and there and here.

You go to print with shaking fingers.

You haven't bought the right paper. You can't convert the thing to PDF.

You're fucked.

But cheerful because, well, shit. The hard part is over.

You Can't Have It All (Poem) by Barbara Ras

You Can't Have It All
by Barbara Ras
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love, though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys until you realize foam's twin is blood. You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs, so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind, glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness, never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you all roads narrow at the border. You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead, but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts, for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream, the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand. You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise. You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards, until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you, you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's, it will always whisper, you can't have it all, but there is this.
From Bite Every Sorrow by Barbara Ras, published by Louisiana State University Press, 1998. Copyright © 1997 by Barbara Ras. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Success -- She's a Master!

I have to say, I'm really proud of myself.

I'm a perfectionist and an overachiever, so I don't say those words lightly or often.

I really accomplished something, and it feels damn good.

The thesis defense went off without a hitch. I had several old friends and schoolmates who were there to cheer me on, not to mention my mother and 92 year old grandfather (nose dripping and everything).

The committee asked hard questions, but I answered them all -- maybe not well or elegantly, but I at least had something to say to each. Their questions lasted for 45 minutes, and then the audience asked another 20 minutes worth. It was a lively discussion for sure.




























All in all, this degree has been in some sense 6 years in the making. 2 years in Chicago and 4 here in ABQ. When it came down to it, I was able to sustain the effort. Grueling and panic-inducing as it was.

So now? Stay tuned for what I dream up next. This weekend is for poetry -- writing a code of conduct for the poetry community -- no kidding -- and an introduction for an anthology of poems from Route Words, Albuquerque's version of Seattle's Poetry on the Bus program.

Thanks for playing, all you supporters!

This girl did you proud.

The Seventh Day

i.
cleaning up after boys
the folding
tucking

finding places again
for all that spilled
onto ticking sheets

this pile of words
fabrics washed fresh
bleached surfaces

so now I rest
easy
clean as the day

he made me
now I make me
beyond re-approach

ii.
Debussy
candles
plants watered

me thirsty
trying not to drink
the desert being safer

for solitary camels
in winter
not thinking of oasis

the coming sun
carrying loneliness
in two humps

the moon slipping romance
over sleeping volcanoes
to the east

tucking one more dream
beyond one more distant
horizon

Bitter

Today I'm bitter about love. Maybe I have time to think about it now.

There's this repeating image of the man who wants/respects/adores/admires me who just can't choose me, for whatever reason. I'm sick of it.

To indulge this little pity-party moment, a selection of past poems of love and bile:

Strength

Ice fault lines shift with starlight winds

you shivering with fear that is not cold

me stroking shed skin

realizing suddenly

I have always been alone.

What was it you saw in my face

peering down darkness

edged with dashboard lights?

Could you have taken the thread

to unhem my patched-up life

left the pattern

sewn up a future

like trousseau

in the folds of myself?

Strength is smiling into half-dead eyes

feeling the air rushing past

falling into unlined pit

knowing if I get there

no one will help me land

jumping in anyway

again and again and again and again.

Fall 2002

Resolve

She couldn’t see past the feel of disappointment

that heard her lying to herself

and rebelled.

He couldn’t smell the rotten parts

atrophying in the narrowed sites

of his once-straight desire.

In all the wrong ways

they were together

apart

the solution

to all the problems

their love began.

He croaked and she twittered

but the bird and the frog

both grounded

hunkered down and unfeeling

larger

smaller

wetter

than the rigid noose solution

of their falling-apart love.

June 2004

All Work and No Play Make Mikaela Spiritually Bereft

Time to return to the flock. Which one? See here.

The bestest ever reverend has blogs now! (She's on sabbatical.)
Check out: http://www.sabbaticalblogging.blogspot.com/
and http://www.doubterpsalms.blogspot.com/

And me? Who am I as a Unitarian Universalist?

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: The Machine Gun of Courteous Debate.
Get yours.

Birthings

Birthings and birth things.

Let's start with the time. Please note: 1:44 am.

Once again, I'm at work printing. Deep into the morning. Coffee cold and worn off.

But it's as done as it's going to be. For now.

364 pages later, and you know what I've learned? A thesis is like a black hole. The closer you get to it, the more energy it sucks. The more energy you give, the bigger and suckier it gets.

So now it sucks, trust me.

Six chapters. 93 Figures. 20 Tables. Well over 100 sources. Not sure how many footnotes. Around 50.

A long labor, to be sure.

Other announcements: an old and dear friend just became a father. It's complicated, but he sounds blissful, and it's good to hear him happy.

It's strange to me -- and not subtle -- that one of the only things I've ever been really clear about is wanting to have kids. And having kids or not having kids has been one reason propelling me out of relationships. Yet many of the men I've dated now how children. Hmmm... Try not to take that one personally! It does and it doesn't have anything to do with me. Like most things.

It's also strange to be at the end of such a long process with nothing but paper to show for it. Lots of paper. Lots of paper that takes fucking FOREVER to print.

I never really thought I would finish. Something about perfectionism made easier when you don't actually finish anything you might be able to judge imperfect.

But poking and prodding and cajoling and supporting by multiple friends has gotten me here: the other side.

Is it myself I've labored to pull through?

A new future come to light?

What light through yonder window breaks? It comes from the east. It has stories.

I'm listening.

Heading toward you

Part II

Flying to Australia
you slipped
across blue
to blow green dreams
in my sister’s ear.

Your time-capsule words
forming ice crystals –
free and glistening
on the table
between two stories –
once swallowed
melt my frozen mouth
long set in the shape of solitude.



It may not be your fault
but the fault lines wave real
from sea to c-shape
of my shell-echo ear
waving interference esses
into my crumbling castle of sand.




Although at first
all the words
you could spring
from bed
to my impassive face
was goodbye
with another sun
set and risen
you swam up
murky Scottish loch waters
with my key
to an open door
between us:

Thanks for coming, honey.
Love you so much.

Once dead
our connection
turns solid to water
exciting heat
with each new thing I learn.






Soon we will be
as close as I know how –
you crossing the threshold
of my dreams
to tell me in person
all the stones you’ve found.




Between us
we agree
not to throw pebbles
unless they can skip as easily
as lives off ice
across a frozen sea.

Heading toward you

In memorium, Lavena Fay Gober, February 17, 2006

Heading toward you
for our last goodbye
I don’t know what to say –
I never knew what to say to you
never knew who I was in your house –
non-favored daughter of your non-favored son.

You were always gnarled
surrounded by the blue of your veins –
your hands knotted around everything but my life.

I never thought that malformity would be me
but lately my feet
have taken the first steps
toward the shape of yours.

I have your feet
but never walked in your shoes.

And now, what am I to tell you,
as you turn from the grandmother
I hid from
to the ancestor I never knew –
who never understood or claimed me?

Your legacy of silent favoritism
a barrier I could never cross
built before I was born
and shored up with each of my mistakes
and years of my absent regrets.

Now the space between us flutters sheet-thin
and white like surrender.
Your breath and mine coming fast,
shallow, meeting somewhere past
where your stories end
and mine begin.

The overlap lies invisible
like our connection
like your influence
pulling me now to the right side of the bed
where you struggle for peace
and I reach for words to reach you.

Unable to hold your past
or our futures,
I will grasp your strong hands
soft if bony,
twisted like our familial love.

What will I say to you,
formidable, dismissive matriarch,
when my whole life
has been a silent, prolonged apology
buried in goodbye?

2/12/06

A Planner's Thoughts During a Planning Meeting

I've forgotten
my chapstick.

I am sweaty
zitty
unpretty
fat
with goldfish
packed
around
golden
teeth.

2005 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Reminded today to look for this year's start of a bad novel contest winner.

I wasn't impressed with the top prize, but I sure got a grin out of the winner for best Western:

As soon as Sherriff Russell heard Bradshaw say, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us," he inadvertantly visualized a tiny chalk-line circle with a town sign that said 'population 1,' and the two of them both trying to stand inside of it rather ineffectively, leaning this way and that, trying to keep their balance without stepping outside of the line, and that was why he was smiling when Bradshaw shot him."

Keriann Noble
Murray, UT

Update and Next Steps

Sorry to be silent. Got some bad news on Friday. Had hoped to defend on the 17th of Feb, but it looks like I've got some substantial changes to make, so now I'm looking at March 10. It's going to be fine. The changes will make the monster better for sure. Just tired. Hard to keep going. It's like mile 20 of the marathon. Come so far, but still have 6 miles to go. Ugh.

What's interesting me lately is that as I finish the thesis, I'm realizing how much this project mirrors an interest I've had for years and years -- since heading to school in Chicago, actually. Back then, I wanted to look at a particular intersection (no, I hadn't noticed that particular similarity until just now) north of Albuquerque. It's actually a freeway exit from I-25. If you head west, you pass through the town of Bernalillo, then Rio Rancho on your left, Santa Ana pueblo on your right. If you head east, you reach Placitas -- a quickly gentrifying area. The land immediately east of the freeway exit is U.S. Forest land. In other words, within a 2-mile radius, you've got jurisdictions that range from town to city to federal to Indian sovereign nation.

What do you do with the intersection? How do you mark such contested territory? Originally, my interest was in how all of these players could coordinate and plan together for the development of place.

Hmmm.... sound familiar?

And underneath that question is the more theoretical -- but more and more vital -- question the more I think about it: how do cultures assert themselves in space? In a multicultural world, how do you create multicultural spaces that value all, work for all, and make visible all?

This has been a slow surfacing realization. The more I realize I don't know, the more fascinated I get. I just headed back to the library and got 10 more books about ethnicity in space, particularly in cities, but really, this goes anywhere.

When you look at the most dangerous example in the world right now -- the deadly contest between Israel and Palestine -- the assumption seems to be either/or. Only one culture should exist in a space at one time. That's sovereignty, isn't it? It's the purest form of segregation, yet there is legitimacy to wanting and valuing the places where a group can exert power and control and be able to "regroup" and recharge its members and practice its own traditions.

bell hooks talks about the peace and rejuvenation of black folks in the South having their own communities where they don't constantly have to be in opposition to others. There is a necessity in speaking among ourselves, if only in certain places we control.

Yet the world is not big enough for us each to separate ourselves in this way, and global capitalism takes away this separatist option, anyway. And isn't there value in interacting with otherness, as well? Seeing ourselves anew because of outside perspectives? Don't we learn tolerance from having neighbors? Being neighbors?

I've always had an instinctual attraction to the concept of connection, but the more I learn, the more I see the need for us to explore the concept from all angles. Not just place but economics. Not just economics but linguistics. Communication. Architecture. Politics. International relations.

The New York Times featured an interview with linguist Deborah Tannen, first famous in the early 1990s for her book about the interaction of men and women called, You Just Don't Understand. She's just come out with a book about mothers and daughters.

When asked about the theme connecting all her books, here's what she has to say:

There's certainly a thread. My writing is about connecting ways of talking to human relationships. My purpose is to show that linguistics has something to offer in understanding and improving relationships.

There are many situations where problems arise between people because conversational styles vary with ethnic, regional, age, class and gender differences.

What can seem offensive to one group isn't to another. I've long believed that if you understand how conversational styles work, you can make adjustments in conversations to get what you want in your relationships.

What's true here of conversation is also true of place. The same considerations should be applied to place-making, whether approached through politics or planning or urban design or architecture.

So much to think about. So much to understand. So much work to be done before we can all live together and assert our culture in space and create shared places where we all belong.

Distraction

I'm so close that I'm already casting about for other things to focus on -- the classic diversion sabotage.

I have two more weekends of intensity, and it's all I can do to sit still and plug holes.

So I'm starting to see movies, starting to exercise, starting to see family and friends -- all when I should keep my blinders on and just FINISH.

I'm irritable and grumpy and soooooooooooooooo in avoidance mode that any reminder makes me irate. Yes, I know I should be working! Go AWAY!

And the news doesn't help. I want good news. Does anyone have good news? I feel isolated and vulnerable. And tired. And defenseless.

It all seems so difficult -- this life thing. This "making more of your life" thing. Can't it just be simple and beautiful and easy? When does that happen?

I need time off or a trip or ... okay. I just need to finish. I know. I know! But dammit, I'm sick of the whole thing. Why do I have to make everything so hard?

Digging in the Past

Paseo del Vulcan and the Double Eagle Airport

Between desert and sand
stripped down to mesa dust
we lie plane bathing
droning our sins in silence
erupting from sacred mountains
of long-dead fire.

from Bill Hocker, photographer

Him clouded uncertainty
clad in perfection
reserved for the shallow or lost
me pulsated yearning
like ants marching across Mexican weave
toward home.

The two of us salt-lick borders
where skin to skin our touch buzzes
frequency unmapped
connection unchartered
but richless
destined to fly away home.

He says you will burn.
I say brown is better.
We shade ourselves
with all we cannot say
fan ourselves with the flame
of our burning-out love.

2003

Albuquerque March 17

Albuquerque, March 17, 2003

By midnight
the streets were clear and quiet
rain softly drumming on tear-gas canisters
tapping on placards now wilting in the bushes
dissolving horseshit piled up in the streets.

The echo of flashing lights
remained glowing in the puddles
but the sirens now warn of the coming new order
in other corners of the city
to other crooks for other crimes.

One barrette lay open and glistening
in the intersection
between opposite lanes of traffic
at the base of a light
now free to turn green.

She will ask for it at police custody
her release the only thing they can hand her
in the absence of peace
apologies not yet forced from the mayor
by the headlines

her arrest still signaling
just their job
just another protest
just one more voice
shoved face-down to asphalt and rain.

Lobocraspis griseifu

Lobocraspis griseifusa

This is the tiny moth who lives on tears,
who drinks like a deer at the gleaming pool
at the edge of the sleeper’s eye, the touch
of its mouth as light as a cloud’s reflection.

In your dream, a moonlight figure appears
at your bedside and touches your face.
He asks if he might share the poor bread
of your sorrow.  You show him the table.

The two of you talk long into the night,
but by morning the words are forgotten.
You awaken serene, in a sunny room,
rubbing the dust of his wings from your eyes.

-- Ted Kooser, Delights & Shadows

Close but not close ENOUGH.

I'm exhausted.

Finished one 40 page chapter, and it's all I can do to breathe!

But I have to turn around and write another one Saturday! Argh. Not sure I have it in me, but I don't know that I have it in me to stretch this out any more than it already has, either.

Rock. Me. Hard Place.

How did Odysseus get out of that one again? Trickery? Perseverance? Or did Athena sweep in with the wisdom he needed to change the situation to his advantage?

Like I said. Exhausted.

The good news is that it's 4/5 done. That's 80%. The bad news is that it will take considerable effort to finish the last 20%.

In the meantime, life is GOOD. Friends GOOD. Feeling balanced and adult and pretty damn happy. I'm working hard, so that's half the battle where I'm concerned. Too much free time, and I spiral into life-thoughts and hence, depression.

So looking forward to exercise! And friends! I can feel myself itching for social time with people I haven't seen in over a year. So bad.

Soon enough.

Soon. Enough.

Back into the breach, dear fellows. Pray for me.

Favorite NY Views

Roofline in Harlem.

Check out the reflection in the windows, not to mention the sexy fire escapes. My god! So beautiful...

Adorning a post below the famous shirtwaist factory building, site of a historic turning point in the labor movement after the death of 141 women when a fire broke out. The building is now owned by NYU, where students now learn to be activists!

Favorite Brooklyn Views

Loved the graffiti. Check out the uzi!

Industrial aesthic. Ooo...

Reminds me of the Santa Fe shot. Industrial detritus. Mmmm...

Creative housepainting. With graphiti. Yes!

The door to the Hitchhiker's Galaxy. This time...PANIC!