i resent the way you make me like myself part II

so, shortly after my mom dies, my world falls apart, and i feel more alone than ever because i didn't get to see my mom, i didn't get to see her respond, and my best friend on the other side of the country and i have a falling out and i feel alone on all fronts. He gets into a great school and i feel stupid.

yesterday we had a meeting with all of the grad students in our department with the grad student coordinator.  our boss.  she asked if we had any complaints or issues that we would like to bring up.  i did.  i asked about getting some feedback from professors.  i have taken at least four classes in my Ph.D. where i received no feedback on my presentations in class, or my final paper.  at the end of my first year i had to take a qualifying exam, i received general feedback on the exam and my progress in the program.  it seems that the general consensus among the professors was that my ideas are brilliant, they were very happy with me in class, my comments and participation, but that i can't write for shit.  that's okay, i can learn how to write, right?  the ideas, well that the hard part.  so i was told to talk to professors and get feedback so that i could improve.  well that rarely happened.  my thesis director would miss meetings, cancel meetings, show up to meetings and say that she misplaced my final paper.  i was frustrated but continued to make appointments, send emails, and do what i could.  i have to say that not all of the professors are like this, some of them gave me great feedback and were happy to discuss my work with me.  i switched dissertation directors and now have someone who is very willing and ready to work.  the problem now is me... again, long story short.  in this meeting, when I asked about getting better feedback from professors, we were told that we shouldn't expect feedback from our professors, that they couldn't force professors to do anything, and that she was sorry but i needed to get over it, that my first two years in the program had been a waste and that i just needed to start over where i am now.  well, i feel like i have done that and didn't appreciate being told that i just had some bad luck, get over it, move on.

so, between feeling like i'm worthless because i don't cheat, lie, plagiarize, and still can't get in to the best schools when others can, and that the grad coordinator feels like the first two years of my education here were worthless, i'm not feeling particularly academic at the moment.  i am trying to write a proposal, i have be trying for over a month now and have very little, next to nothing and a director who would like to see what i have. and what i don't have right now are the good ideas and intelligent comments.

so really what i'm trying to say and what i really want to get at it that its been some 520 days since my mom died and all i really want is to be haunted...

i swear i'd like to drink the fuel straight from your lighter, it's all inside the wrist, it's all inside the way you time it. i resent the way you make me like myself part I

My mother died september 24, 2011.  the following year was the worst year of my  life.  they told me my mom was sick when i was eleven.  since then, there was always a new prognosis because, really, no one has ever known what to do with my mom.  She was something else.  She always promised us (my siblings and me) that she was going to haunt us after she died... i knew when i went away to school that she would die before i made it home. but this happened quick. she wasn't feeling well, so my dad took her to the hospital to see her team of experts, the immediately admitted her to the hospital and she crashed that night.  they put a tube in her, and with her disease the chances of that ever coming out, of her ever breathing on her own again was, well slim to none.  she never wanted that. a tube down your throat makes it hard to talk apparently.  I had talked to my mom the saturday before, about a speeding ticket that a friend got in my car.  You see, here in DC they take your picture when you're speeding, or run a red light.  i was at a crab festival when she called, so i didn't talk long. i said that i would call later, but i didn't. my mom never talked to me again.  because i was stupid i didn't get home in time to see her before she was dead.  I would talk on the phone with her while she was in the hospital, or at least i would talk on a phone that i was told was put to her ear so that she could hear what i said.  faith has always been a problem for me. the day they turned off the machines, i was told to say goodbye to my mom. i was at school, waiting for a guest lecturer to give a presentation.  i don't remember what he talked about. the last thing that i said to my mom before she died was that i would be waiting to see her in my house, you know, the haunting.  well, the only paranormal visitation that i have had since september 24, 2011, was a dream.  i don't remember my dreams very often, and when i do, they are usually very bad and i remember them for a long time.  there was the one about the devil, the one where i killed my little brother, and there's this one.  my mom.  she told me that she hated me, and that she had always hated me.  she said it with her angry voice, the one that didn't come out very often.  it was a rare character for her. but it was the voice that lowered an octave, and shook, because it would make her shake, she would shake her head and and her hands and say ohhh ohhh before she could get the words out.  i went home for the funeral where my older brother pointed out that my mothers only regret was most likely the time she wasted reading the entire Twilight series.  he's probably right.  then i went home for christmas.

it was an interesting christmas.  no one was happy that my mom was dead.  she had loved christmas when we were kids.  it was always such a big deal to her.  and even after she had stopped caring, my dad was trying to make up for all the years he didn't care and made sure it was still a big deal for her.  we would put the inflatable nylon snowman in the front yard.  she loved/collected snowmen.  i'm not sure what the appeal was, but she loved them. a few things happened over this break.  one, my father got remarried.  and two, my best friend from school took his Ph.D. comprehensive exams.  this exam process is a little different for everyone, so ours goes something like this. three reading lists with three professors.  Area of specialization, two minor areas.  week one, monday morning you receive question one, you write 30-40 pages based on your reading list to answer said question.  you turn in your "of publishable quality" essay on thursday by 5 o'clock.  you then have the weekend to stress about the next question that you will get on the following monday, and week two begins.  Weeks two and three follow the same format.  later, you have an oral defense where you present your dissertation proposal and answer any questions that your committee would like to pose.  it's a long and miserable process.

my friends exams started right after new years.  He would call me a few times everyday and we would talk, well he would talk and I would listen and ask an occasional question or mention that he needed to make sure that he said this or that.  but i would listen while he worked through his ideas and wrote his essays.  he would send me what he had written and i would proof read it for him.  point out incomplete sentences or when his ideas didn't make sense so that he could clean it up.  these conversations happened a lot, and mostly at night.  he was more of a late to bed late to get up kind of guy.  exam one came and went.  not without a few hiccups, but that's to be somewhat expected.  then exam two happened.  during exam two there was some kind of short.  to make an already long post not as long, we'll skip details of exam one, the time before two, and focus on exam two.  things were not going well.  on day two i was asked to write part of the exam.  one of the texts was a play by Elena Garro, who i happen to love, and happen to have read several times.  friend knew this.  i was asked on several occasions to write a portion of the exam.. I said not, but that i would send him my notes of a presentation on the play so that he wouldn't have to reread the entire play and my notes could help him remember what he wanted to say.  i was told that we were all going to be professors, we would be working in collaboration in our careers in the future, and that we should be working on this exam the same way.  i couldn't do it.  i love my friend, i really do.  it was one of the hardest things i've ever done to not write something explicitly for his exam.  i left to go to my father's wedding.  i was called several times by my friend who was struggling with the weight of the exam, the deadline, life... i was at a wedding, i didn't answer my phone.  several times i didn't answer my phone.  when i did, i was asked why i had abandoned my friend.  how could i abandon my friend.  that hurt.  i felt sick to my stomach.  nauseous.  i'm not many things, at least good things, and there is plenty that i'm not proud of.  But i've always tried to be loyal.  i feel like i had sacrificed my own wants and needs many time for this person.  he got help form other people.  and turned in exam two.  exam three had some problems, but he turned it in as well.

friend did not pass his exams.  he didn't tell me this, i found out on my own.  he told me it was his decision to leave. we didn't talk for a long time.  when we did, all he wanted to talk about were my character flaws.  how judgmental i am, how hard it is to talk to me.  he was given a master's degree, and left the program.  he reapplied to Ph.D. programs for this fall.  he was accepted into a rather prestigious program in Latin American literature studies.  A program with much more fame, clout, and honestly better that where i am, where he got kicked out of.  i've been having a hard time not taking this somewhat personally.  there is no way that i would have ever been accepted into this program.  never.  he's in.  i want to be happy for him, but i'm just not.  i feel like his attitude and his acceptance into a better school cheapens what i have done, the effort that i put into passing my comprehensive exams and into the profession of being a professor.  it makes me feel insignificant, and unqualified.  it has been making it difficult for me to take my work seriously, at a time when i really need to be working and i just can't seem to figure anything out..

well i've been thinkin' about and i've been breakin' it down without an answer, or, teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming tongues above.

So, the last blog post that i wrote here was May 19, 2010.  i originally started writing here at a time when i had hit quite the wall and didn't seem to have anything to say and no way to say it.  well, i got over that.  i'm now starting year 2.5 in my PhD. program and have written at least 500 pages (really its more than that, but then i couldn't put in a link and make you listen to a song that i guarantee you sang along to, and are probably still singing, admit it...) over these 2.5 years.  The last couple of months have definitely seen an upswing for me, year 2 of the two point five was without a doubt, unequivocally, the worst year of my life.  maybe more on that some other time, suffice it to say my mother died.  which, alone would have been enough to make it the worst year of my life, but honestly it was just the capstone to an otherwise awful year.  but the Xmas break was surprisingly great, with none of the hostility and problems that i had foreseen, so, cheers! here's to 2013.  so the sudden resurgence in my presence in the internets is due to the fact that I am once again not writing... this comes a a time when writing has never been so essential to me, my life, and what i am doing.  it's dissertation time. i was supposed to send of my proposal today to my adviser. Needless to say, that didn't happen. so, in hopes that i will once again find inspiration and put pen to my voice and internal thoughts, i have accosted the internets once again. begging your pardon.           

i know i'm thinking out loud but if you're lost and around...

you don't know just how much i miss you, yah my stomach aches in your absence. i don't know what i'd do without you cause i'd have no one to follow

Sitting in the library again, been here since ten this morning, i was late getting up, worked late last night. i didn't get my usual seat today, i was late getting up this morning, but i seem to be getting more done so maybe the change was good. the change was good, i have been sitting in the same place roughly 10 hours a day for the last three weeks, i finally convinced myself that if i hadn't read it by now, i didn't need to...we'll see. i had to pick a seat with power access, to keep the ol' laptop goin, this power source just happens to have a window by it. so right now instead of working on the parallel revisionism and my critique of history (i'll never believe cultural history again) i am staring out the window and righting here. out the window it stars out green (i'm looking at rock canyon for anyone who knows it) on the right in typical rolling hill fashion, then the rich houses, then more green. to the left its the the brown rock that eventually fades to dark grey and juts up and out to one prominent feature. the two form a perfect little valley ravine, and in the V slot between them you can see the dark cobalt grey of the jagged mountain behind it, every angle of which points to its snow covered peak. put i can't see the peak today, its buried in fast moving clouds. they start out white and fluffy right around the peak, and then slowly turn darker and darker as they radiate out and away from the mountain tops. every once in a while you get a bright blue patch that floats by. its funny how dark the shadow is that the clouds slowly drip down onto everything, and yet at the same time seems so inviting, even enticing. I'm looking forward to maryland, especially the trees, and i'm even hoping to learn how to sail, but i'll miss my mountains, yeah my mountains, god gave them to me.

200,000 (in counterfeit 50 dollar bills)

Looking for a pocket for his 50 dollar bills
Looking for a thruway to his thrills
On the train ride back to Baltimore

so i'm gonna be on a train ride back to baltimore here pretty quick.

jornadas internacionales de teatro, and being a bluetick coonhound sounds kind of fun after being a cougar for so many years...

I always did like turtles. and razorback turtles (anyone else remember TMNT II?), cool...

well here we go again, you've found yourself a friend that knows you well, but no matter what you do you'll always feel as though you tripped and fell

so one old friend is going to cuba, one ex is in a relationship with someone new and i stay the same, one relative is out of the hospital and another is being moved into a care facility, mom is gone again, sister has moved on to the next attempt to define herself by the relationship she is in, one inspiration is questioning her occupational choices, one childhood best friend finally found a job in his chosen field almost a year after graduating with his masters degree and now has to find a new place to live, one childhood best friends wife just got laid off, the same day he started his new job. one pair of black and red boots i wore this week, one rejection letter, one day of kayaking in howard's hole on the jordan river, one conversation about why i'm not married, one conversation about why i'm not marrying the girl i spend more time with than anyone else in my life right now, one weigh-in with a physical trainer to learn i've lost 9 pounds, 4% body fat, and taken 4 inches of of my waist in the last 5 weeks, one pile of papers i was supposed to grade but lost so i gave all of my students full points to not have to admit that i screwed up, one shower in the last 4 days, one time i actually looked up what i have to do to join the peace corps and get the hell out of the country, one album downloaded (new citizen cope the rainwater lp, highly recommend it), una olla de caldo de res homemade just like lidia buenfil used to make, one balanced checkbook (easy when it's zero), one load of laundry left to do after not doing laundry for three weeks and trying to get clean cloths to wear, one new station created on pandora that i can't get enough of, one time i thought about calling a friend this weekend and didn't, one churrasco palta i plan on eating this wednesday, one more time that i looked down and missed having OPI finger nail polish on, one more time that i wanted to explain what has been going on in my life over the last few months.

when you have completed what you thought you had to do and your bloods depleted to the point of stable glue then you'll get along. steady as she goes, are you steady now?

there's a man holding a megaphone he must have been the voice of god

there is a full moon outside tonight. It's november 3rd and an outstanding 64 degrees outside. there's something about standing outside in the fall, looking up at a full moon and being completely comfortable for a second in your surroundings that just makes me melt into myself. it's that split second where i just don't care about anything else, and don't care that i don't care about anything. i usually feel so bad when i don't feel the way that i should, when i don't believe what i am told, when i question the ones i respect, but the moon, the full moon makes it okay for me to be...just be for a second. when i sit in the perfection of the full moon light its okay that i'm not so...perfect, that i don't know, that i don't believe, that i just can't seem to get a grip on anything. the moon is great, and the fall moon when its full is one of the greatest things.

is there so much hate for the ones who love?

so i haven't posted anything since i left home for the summer to go, well, home, i guess. i've been coming up to idaho for 9 years now, it's hard for me to remember a time when i didn't and there have been some great times and some horrible times for me. others have loved that i leave or some have never understood why i keep coming back and hate it.

it's funny that i always think that i "know" people, or that i can 'read" them and people always seem to think the same about me, i'm pretty easy to read i guess, but this summer has really pointed out to me how often we impose our idea of the other on them. i think that i know someone and act accordingly just to find out that i was wrong all along. i had someone announce to everyone the other day "what i was thinking" in a situation. he was really wrong. i could understand why he would think that i would think that way and could even see myself thinking that, but at that moment i didn't. my feeling were quite different.

i love my friends and family and am sorry for the times that i impose my own feelings and ideas on you or act in a way that you don't understand at all and i seem to think that you should understand perfectly. i hope that you love me for who i am and not who people think that i am and that i can love you for who you are and not some idea that floats around in my head with all of my insecurities and preconceived notions about life and people.

oh, and this is a little glimpse of why i come to idaho for the summers...no lies, just love

so i just got back from my tromp in seattle and all though i have much to say about the voyage i felt like you would all rather see it than read about it from me.  sufice it to say that i could very happily live in the pacific northwest for the rest of my life, and i haven't even tried the kayaking yet.

enjoy, 

these are a few of my favorite things

so i just got back from washington where i spent a few amazing days trouncing around. i am sure that i will have more to say about it later, but for now sufice it to say that i could live very comfortably for the rest of my life in the pacific northwest. allow me to show you why

the rain shall come, and corpses become roses, there's a hidden beauty finding it's way out of everything

so there's a hidden beauty finding it's way out of everything. i wish that i could be the kind of person that saw that beauty. i tend to lean to the negative side of things, i don't know why and i try and change and be positive but my initial response is always the negative. There is a trip going out this weekend to a river that only runs three times a year, i'm not going. i want to but there are things that i need to do, not want to do...have you ever noticed how the snow glows even in the shadows when it's copulating with the mountain side? i am waiting for the hidden beauty to find it's way out of me, or don't i classify as part of everything?

and for present thoughts on the past the song is katie come true by son, Ambulance. now there is some hidden beauty

whatever you need to make you feel like you've been the one behind the wheel the sunrise is just over that hill the worst is over

fate: 4 me: 0

the worst is over

whatever i said to make you think
that loves the religion of the weak
this morning we love like weaklings
the worst is over
Do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do
the worst is over
(lyrics by cursive, i can't take credit for them)

i've been misunderstood for all of my life but what they're saying girl it cuts like a knife "the boy's no good"

10 minutes of anxiety induced nausea

9 colors of opi nail polish that i have personally tried on and can attest to

8, eight i forget what eight was for

7 hours of kayaking last week

6 tamales, that's how many i ate after me and some of my best friends spent a few hours slow roasting pork, seasoning chicken, and forming blobs of masa into moist corn husks after making our own salsa last monday. we called it the tamalazo!

5 boxes of chocolate bought after valentines day at a 75% discount. if nothing else the day after the day of love and friendship allows me to buy some okay chocolate at a cheap price.

4 hours spent watching the movies Grease and Grease 2 this week. i don't think i have ever heard so much double sentido in my life

3 number of times i made dinner last week. homemade marinara sauce, it was divine with the handmade meatballs of my friend, garlic chipotle marinaded pork with potatoes and stuffing, and shepherds pie.

2 days that my mom was out of the hospital before she had to leave to be with my grandpa after surgery. so much for getting to relax and spend some time at home huh ma...

1 rejection letter

and really if you made it this far the real point of this post is to send everyone here so that they can experience their own quixotic moment in the cave of montesinos. please click on the link here, even though i am sure that most of you who are looking at this are already visiting the cave on a regular basis, i just want to point out how much i really enjoyed today's post and the one third one back. i truly would like to know what a mahnamahna is and where can i get some of those invisible strings???

please come to boston for the springtime i'm stayin' on with some friends

they've got lots of room you can sell your paintings on the sidewalk by a cafe where i hope to be workin soon. Please come to boston.

She said no, boy you come home to me.

so here we go,

one day of making tamales with friends while one of the best of them let his girls run around and make me smile.

four days of kayaking with my brothers, not of blood but water, doesn't get much better than that

one day of my mom coming home from the hospital and then going to see her dad in the hospital.

one dinner of tacos and reminiscing about merida yucatan

one letter of rejection

the beginning of one week of reunion with my best friend from my youth while he interns with an architecture firm.

one blog post that made me laugh out loud. look

the drunk kids, the catholics they're all about the same. they're waiting for something hoping to be saved

so i have this idea to solve for world peace, okay well peace here in the good ol' U.S. of A. anyway. so here's what we'll do, and i need to give venom some credit here, she really helped me develop this thought, i actually think that it might have been her's originally, but i have decided to write about it. so here's what we'll do, the democrats are going to leave the whole gun thing alone, people are going to be able to own any gun they want, any ammo they want, however many they want, i know, i know just stick with me here for a second, i promise this will work out. next, the republicans are going to be so happy with their guns that they will agree to stop infringing upon our fourth amendment rights and i can stop worrying if they are listening to my phone conversations, searching my emails, getting upset when i talk to my friends about how much i want to go to cuba, i won't have to worry about someone getting pulled over and arrested for a having a "single seed" of "yerbabuena" somewhere in the car with them. i think that we would all get along so much more if i could have all of the guns i wanted and know that my right to be protected from unlawful search and seizure was respected, we would all be happy and voila, national peace.

don't you like how i used as many commas as i could

(i did that to throw off anyone who might be sneaking around my blog looking for threats to our national security,,,,,)

hey, i've got commentary without much to say

so as i left campus this afternoon at approximately 3:37 in the p.m. i was struck but the amazing scene of a storm rolling in. campus sits at the base of some little mountains (read little rocky style mountains, so real mountains, not hills) and the grey ominous clouds dropped down over the mountain tops and began to fill the space in between the foothills and the university grounds rather quickly. soon the taller buildings started to disappear underneath the cobalt grey mass and the breeze started pushing harder against my exposed cheeks. i stood at the light and found that i didn't care so much about crossing anymore. the living, breathing, feeding monster rushed overhead and the cloud covered blue disappeared into a devouring mass of dark. the frozen rain started hitting me in the face, and i still couldn't move, or at least i didn't want to. with the snow my field of vision was reduced to the small circumference that my aura projected around me. it is beauty and organically colorful moments like this that make it hard for me to remember the daunting and looming power of a storm and the risks inherent in it to the exposed individual. everyone seemed to run around me while the clouds slowed down just for me. i love being outside, i remember a storm in the uinta mountains with members of my bloodline when i was younger where the lightning was so close you could feel the electrical charge and smell the thunder. I often look for these moments and opportunities to bond with, never confront, a storm and they form the greater part of my positive memories in my outdoor life. for a few minutes today i remembered who i am, what i believe, why i believe, and who i want to be and what i want to believe. my mom is in the hospital, they want to give her someone elses lungs, she doesn't know if she wants them, and it doesn't matter what i want. since i was about ten years old they have been telling me that my mom was going to die, three years would be a miracle, lets give you some new medicine, but this doesn't change anything, there is no cure, the same things that make the storms so beautiful make us all unique, and they decided to make my mom different. i don't like this storm nearly as much as the one i saw this afternoon, and don't think that i can handle it when it really hits.

it's like a book elegantly bound, but in a language you can't read, just yet

you gotta spend some time love you gotta spend some time on me

i guess my point is i've learned, i've changed, i've improved, and i have fallen behind this past year. i have never failed in my life, i never make resolutions because they don't motivate me, when I want to do something i set out and do it. if something comes up along the way i change my mind and do something else, but ultimately i have decided, in one way or another to be who i am, i am blessed to have people who support me in being me and inspire me to be better so starting this year i want to thank those of you who are true friends, i love you, i miss you, i am excited for you, and i am sorry for your plights.

que dios les bendiga

by your good book's standards, i've sinned like a champion

dear preacher, thanks for making time for me today, hope you don't mind if i hide behind the curtain

so it has been one month since my last post. for those of you who cared, i am sorry, i never meant to go that long. things have been up and things have been down. passed my prospectus defense, was sick during the holiday break, had to tell my little sister stuff she didn't want to hear, got proof i was right and then completely disregarded everything i said for something shiny. went kayaking to celebrate the new year, started teaching for the semester, and got snowed in on my mom's birthday. i am finishing up the last of the PhD. applications and wondering why? and i have it narrowed done to two boats to replace my cracked kayak. i got gift card to various bookstores for christmas and am looking forward to trying to decide which ones i need the most. and i went to the cave of montesinos and remembered just how adorable his little girls are. i have fallen back into that "i can't write" slump, i will try and do better. you guys and this little remembrance project helped before, maybe we can do it again