Death of a Lady’s Man

Not to be confused with Leonard Cohen’s album, Death of a Ladies’ Man. It turns out I didn’t need to read the entire book, just the selections present in Stranger Music. Oh, well.

This book doesn’t fall under the general headings of writing, between poetry and prose. At the beginning of the unit, the professor was saying how there’s several Cohen books that are published as poetry by one publisher and then published as prose by another. There’s no black and white. It’s all gray. Not only is there a mix of poetry, prose, and prose-poetry, but each piece includes a commentary on it.

Today in class we were discussing writer’s aiming to please their audience or just themselves. I feel as though Death of a Lady’s Man could be both. It’s difficult to say what Cohen’s feelings are on the matter, but he was certainly writing for himself in Beautiful Losers, and there’s just enough of that in Death of a Lady’s Man to take it off the beaten path. On the other hand, there’s enough of Let Us Compare Mythologies and The Spice-Box of Earth for the general readership to enjoy it.

There is one writing at the beginning of the book which really stuck with me. It’s “The News You Really Hate.” The first sentence is jarring, reminiscent of Beautiful Losers. “You fucking whore.” The use of second-person point of view really directs it toward the reader, as if they are being specifically addressed. It resonated with me. I identified with several of the lines and I found myself getting defensive. Reasoning out my explanations of my behavior in my head. “No. I was interested in the music. Really. I still listen every so often. The music was one of my favorite parts. Didn’t you know? Sure, I never said as much, but now you’re declaring war on me? Forever and ever? That’s not really fair. Life isn’t fair, I know. I am sorry…. And I’m not a whore.”

A running commentary within my mind in relation to the writing.

Don’t tell me you don’t do the same. See yourself in an author’s writings. See eerie resemblances to events in your own life. Besides, isn’t it the mark of a great writer when you can relate to their characters?

“The Mouth of the Cave” intrigued me just for the first line. “Rachel and Raymond in Montreal cruising the socialist meetings.” Hey. My name’s Rachel and I have a friend named Raymond. But I’m certain we would never go to socialist meetings. Especially not in Montreal. Especially considering he’s in Texas. And it’s his birthday today!

I’m almost done Stranger Music, too. So perhaps, expect that entry up tonight.

 

This has been a post

So, I’m working on a review sheet for History of Jazz. Even though the exam isn’t for another two weeks. I’m super on top of things apparently. Anyway, the professor makes a list of points on the board that he’s going to go over during the class.

Here I am, elaborating on each of the points, typing along merrily. Happily flipping through my binder.

New Orleans.

Really? I’m supposed to summarize New Orleans and its relation to jazz succinctly? Really?

 

Times of Yore (Part Two)

Alright, I’ll give TJB this one as a pretty happy memory. We went to Disney World a week after I graduated high school. His parents were there too and I paid my own way (save a meal at Crystal Palace, which was their graduation gift to me). But, you know, getting to spend a week in the “happiest place on earth” with someone you care about? I’m not going to complain.

There was a mishap on the first full day there. I was 18 and a half years old at the time, so TJB’s parents felt the two of us could adventure around the park on our own and get back to the hotel with no problems. TJB had been to Disney World before, and I hadn’t. Between the two of us, we could manage.

Only that wasn’t the case. We got on the wrong bus. Completely wrong bus. Not even the same bus line. We ended up outside of Orlando. Actually, we weren’t even in the same county. I was pretty chill. So, we were misplaced in another state. It’s not like we couldn’t get back to the hotel. We knew the name and general location. TJB was flipping out. I tried to calm him by making jokes and keeping light-hearted. No. He was having none of that. He had failed his manly duty of taking care of me and that was not acceptable. My suggestion, “Hmm, well, why don’t we get off at this hotel and call a taxi from the front desk” was not used until we got to the end of the line, the last hotel. By the time we got back to the hotel, TJB was so worked up he was barely even speaking to me. He and his father went off together so that TJB would calm down. His mom and I were just like “Hm, well… Let’s go get ice cream!” And so we did.

The rest of the week was a typical trip to Disney. Lots of fun and laughing and smiling. Trying on silly hats (trying on hats is a bit of a trademark of mine). As a first-timer to Disney, it was a lot to take in.

Oh, jeesh. I forgot about the midnight fire alarm at the hotel!

 

It was all just a…

Curse the day I read Freud’s Dreamwork.

Curse the day I was reminded of it while watching Lie to Me.

Curse the night in which I had a dream immediately following the previous day listed.

Curse my subsequent analysis using Freud’s theories.

Given the above list, it should be obvious that I had a dream last night. Or, according to popular theory, I had several dreams last night, but I only remembered one of them.

As is common with dreams, I only remember vague details. Snippets here and there. Fading slowly, like the blue day as night approaches. A chicken that stays just out of reach when you go to catch it.

Chickens? Really? What are we doing? Are we gaining experience in The Legend of Zelda?

Any-whoodles. In the dream, there was much tension between me and house-mate, Whiskey Kid. I was frustrated and angry with him. I lit into him. Enraged, detailing every trespass against me.

Freud might divine: Clearly a case for a dream caused by recent events. No, no. Not anger toward Whiskey Kid. You have no real cause for anger toward him. You find him amusing. This cigar is not merely a cigar. No, for once I’m not saying your dream is a phallic symbol. What I mean is, it’s displacement. Whiskey Kid is a stand in for another person. Dreams are a wish-fulfillment, but the censor won’t let your dream be direct and straight-forward. Thus explains Whiskey Kid.

Of course, Freud’s theories were largely disproved.

 

From Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future:

The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?

 

Let’s just switch topics, okay?

If it wasn’t for the snow and subsequent snow day, I was to meet with my thesis adviser this morning. It turns out that I am quite thankful this meeting was cancelled. I know, it sets things back by a couple of days, but I still have plenty of other writing to do.

One portion of the meeting didn’t bother me. We were to go over my revision to “Red Butte Beauty.” It’s pretty tight, so it’s almost to where it needs to be. Yay! But we’ve been talking about this piece for months. No big deal.

Prose fiction has always been my focus within the heading of Creative Writing. I used to scorn poetry, but I have dabbled a little bit. The other portion of the cancelled meeting was to go over three villanelles I wrote. All three are very personal and emotional. Two of them I wrote this past summer and edited this fall, so there is enough distance between the events I was writing about, when they were written, and now. The third is an exception.

I wrote it and edited this past fall and the events it concerns are still at the front of my mind. For a while I was handling them well and getting over them. I was getting better. Something pulled the trip-line and I found I had to work through it all over again.

That’s why I’m glad my meeting was cancelled. I think if I had to discuss with my adviser the details of the poem, it wouldn’t have ended well. He may have had to retract his statement from the end of last semester: “You are not a fuck-up.”

Side-story: My thesis is a two semester course, so advisers can chose to do two 3-credit grades for each semester or do one 6-credit grade at the end of the process. At the end of last semester I asked my professor which he was planning on doing. He told me the 6-credit grade and then said “Don’t worry, you are not a fuck-up.” Uh, thanks, but that’s not what I was wondering about.

It’s like when you’re a kid and there’s a steep incline. You could walk round-about and find a gentler slope to go up. No, you decide to run straight up the hill. Almost, you almost reach the top. For a moment, you’re there, suspended in time, momentarily at your goal. Gravity brings you back down to the bottom and you have to build that momentum up again.

I’m at the bottom of the hill, trying to get my way back to the top. Now with the scrapes and bruises from the rocks I hit on my slide down. It’s painful, but I’ll get back up there.

 

From “Are You Listenin’?”, Roi Ottley on Don Redman

Speech comes from the scholarly looking Redman slowly and precisely as he blows clouds of circles from a strong cigar, which he smokes with an insistent devotion, contrary to all “No Smoking” signs. Don says he is not superstitious, therefore doesn’t believe in signs.

 

From Neil Gaiman:

I came to the conclusion that Lord of the Rings was, most probably, the best book that ever could be written, which put me in something of a quandary. I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. (That’s not true: I wanted to be a writer then.) And I wanted to write The Lord of the Rings. The problem was that it had already been written.

 

From “A Boy Named Sue,” Johnny Cash

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen.

 

Peace. Love. Vaginas.

Yesterday I had to write my cast bio for The Vagina Monologues program. The directors made a list of a few suggestions, but we weren’t to by bound by them. There was the usual: name, major, year in school, how many years of participating in The Vagina Monologues. Within the play, there is a skit called “The List.” What do you know? It’s a list! But not just any list. Eve Ensler, the writer of the Monologues, went and asked women what their vaginas would wear and what their vaginas would say. “The List” is comprised of these answers. The directors of UMaine’s production of The Vagina Monologues suggested we answer these questions ourselves, if we were feeling bold.

So, what would my vagina wear?

As a whole, normal clothes. Sort of the same style I have. Jeans frequently. Nice blouses and sweaters. Dresses ever so often. The main difference is, my vagina would wear a classy, black and white, Kentucky Derby hat with a red lily tucked into the band. Fashion at the Ketucky Derby is about embodying the Southern belle. In other words: poise, class, charm, and a requirement of respect. While attributing some of those qualities to an anatomical feature, my vagina (and my entire person) deserves respect.

What would my vagina say?

Alis volat propriis. It is a Latin phrase translated to “She flies with her own wings.” It’s a quote I’ve embraced for about a year now. My secret motto, if you will. I’m not necessarily a normal person. I deviate from the standard. Some might even say insane. When it comes down to it, I am my own person. Especially now, I don’t live to serve and please other people. There comes a time in our lives, we have to do what makes us happy. I’m not saying not to do nice thins for other people, but you can’t spend all your time thinking about other’s needs when you have plenty of your own. To me, alis volat propriis is about individuality. My vagina can stand behind that. After all, no two vaginas are the same. I’m speaking from a strictly biological view, not experience. Self-reliance is another facet I see in the quote. Sure, there are other people in life that will help you along your way, but I’ve found the only person I can rely on 100% of the time is myself. Maybe my vagina is a bit of a cynic.

My cast bio was much shorter than this. They were only looking for a few sentences after all. Aside from the usual, I only mentioned what my vagina would wear. What it would say would take too much of an explanation.

There are only a couple more weeks until the performance!

!!!

Rehearsals are going well. I have my part mostly memorized, though the cues still elude me somewhat. I know what to say, just not exactly when to say it. Not being a person who speaks in groups (I’m more on an individual basis), I’ve found that I am starting to have a bit of a voice. I don’t feel ostracized and people listen when I speak. Yeah, a lot of what I have to say is just my lines for the skit (I’m in a skit, not a monologue), but still! Progress!

And I have finally found a place where I can just say “vagina.” My mother thinks it’s horrendous that I say “vagina” instead of some euphemism. Euphemisms are generally not my style. Lance and I talked about this once. I told him “I wouldn’t know what else to call it besides vagina!” He rattled off a whole list. And I just shook my head. Slang terms are not for me.

Anyway, I think this is enough about vaginas for now. Have to pace myself, you know? You can’t just go all in at once. To quote one of the monologues: “That’s what foreplay’s about.”

 

Times of yore (Part One)

In one of my last posts, I brought up a message from one of my exes, in which he made a list of good memories. I snickered at this list. Not because they weren’t good memories, but more that they had some parts to them that weren’t that good.

The first on this list was prom.

My high school was so small that prom wasn’t limited to the juniors and seniors. However, lack of interest prevented me from going all four years. But in my senior year, I had a boyfriend and I thought “Oh, alright.”

Somehow, I was responsible for much of the planning. My dress, of course, and a boutineer. But I got to pick out TJB’s tuxedo and design my own corsage. Not gonna lie, it was pretty fun. He wanted a bow-tie and he is not at all a bow-tie type of guy. But it’s so James Bond that he wanted one. Uh-uh. Beside the bow-tie discrepancy, the tuxedo came together really well. As did my corsage. Not to brag.

There was a glitch in the planning, which lead to us (me, TJB, my friend Anita and her boyfriend, who I call Sunshine) rolling up in a mini-van.

I think Olive Garden is conspiring against me. Of the few times I’ve eaten there, I never feel well after. One of these occasions was right before I left for my freshman year of college. A group of us went out to dinner for one final hurrah, TJB included. I ended up expelling the contents of my stomach on his front lawn. Prom was another such occasion, sans vomit. About halfway through my stomach was really bothering me.

That was one of the reasons when I read prom as one of TJB’s good memories, I thought “What the hell?” and laughed. Another involved some dramatics and calling a person a slut. Not one of my finer moments. That’s why in the Class Will, I bequeathed an olive branch to this person. We had many verbal spars and very poor interactions that reflect badly on the pair of us.

Sure, now I think fondly of prom, but at the time, it had fractions of time that weren’t very good.

Anita, Sunshine, TJB, myself

 

Myself and TJB

My parents were like, "Rachel, go stand in front of Spartan in your dress!"

 

Simple things that make me happy (a continued list)

• well aligned tires
• “until one of us dies”
• a bed with clean sheets
• having my own lab goggles
• flashcards
• loose-leaf tea
• chocolate coins
• finding a poem that fits my mood
• silly texts from my mother