Make Blog

What I Understood

strictlytits — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:44:57 +0000

When I was a child I understood everything

about, for example, futility. Standing for hours

on the hot asphalt outfield, trudging for balls

I’d ask myself, how many times will I have to perform

this pointless task, and all the others? I knew

about snobbery, too, and cruelty—for children

are snobbish and cruel—and loneliness: in restaurants

the dignity and shame of solitary diners

disabled me, and when my grandmother

screamed at me, “Someday you’ll know what it’s like!”

I knew she was right, the way I knew

about the single rooms my teachers went home to,

the pictures on the dresser, the hoard of chocolates,

and that there was no God, and that I would die.

All this I understood, no one needed to tell me.

the only thing I didn’t understand

was how in a world whose predominant characteristics

are futility, cruelty, loneliness, disappointment

people are saved every day

by a sparrow, a foghorn, a grassblade, a tablecloth.

This year I’ll be

thirty-nine, and I still don’t understand it.

-Katha Pollitt

Fireflies

strictlytits — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:41:33 +0000

And these are my vices:

impatience, bad temper, wine,

the more than occasional cigarette,

an almost unquenchable thirst to be kissed,

a hunger that isn’t hunger

but something like fear, a staunching of dread

and a taste for bitter gossip

of those who’ve wronged me—for bitterness—

and flirting with strangers and saying sweetheart

to children whose names I don’t even know

and driving too fast and not being Buddhist

enough to let insects live in my house

or those cute little toylike mice

whose soft grey bodies in sticky traps

I carry, lifeless, out to the trash

and that I sometimes prefer the company of a book

to a human being, and humming

and living inside my head

and how as a girl I trailed a slow-hipped aunt

at twilight across the lawn

and learned to catch fireflies in my hands,

to smear their sticky, still-pulsing flickering

onto my fingers and earlobes like jewels.

And these are my vices:

impatience, bad temper, wine,

the more than occasional cigarette,

an almost unquenchable thirst to be kissed,

a hunger that isn’t hunger

but something like fear, a staunching of dread

and a taste for bitter gossip

of those who’ve wronged me—for bitterness—

and flirting with strangers and saying sweetheart

to children whose names I don’t even know

and driving too fast and not being Buddhist

enough to let insects live in my house

or those cute little toylike mice

whose soft grey bodies in sticky traps

I carry, lifeless, out to the trash

and that I sometimes prefer the company of a book

to a human being, and humming

and living inside my head

and how as a girl I trailed a slow-hipped aunt

at twilight across the lawn

and learned to catch fireflies in my hands,

to smear their sticky, still-pulsing flickering

onto my fingers and earlobes like jewels.

-Cecilia Woloch

88. Sleep 8 hours a night for 1 week

strictlytits — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:11:20 +0000

In January I was sure this item would be the hardest to accomplish. Of course, back then I was still commuting to and from my boyfriend’s house across town, sleeping in a different place every night with almost no control over my own bedtime. Ever since Ben and I moved in together, I’ve gained a little more consistency in my sleep habits, but it wasn’t until last Sunday that I realized I might be ready to tackle this one. I fell asleep at 9:30 and felt so good the next day I wondered if I might not be able to make this a habit.

It surprised me how easy it was to go to sleep early. All I had to do was tell whoever I was hanging out with that I wanted to get 8 hours before the next morning, and though I got teased for leaving a party at 9:30 in favor of an 11pm bedtime and my pillows, no one could really say anything. Maybe I always had more control over my bedtime than I thought.

Now I’m something of a born-again sleeper, talking people’s ears off about how wonderful it is to get the full 8 hour, irritating Ben with my cheeriness in the morning. I don’t care. If there’s one change I recommend making to your life, it would be this. Even a week of this habit has made me a tangibly happier, more resilient, sharper person.

17. Cook a steak

strictlytits — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:12:32 +0000

Maybe it wasn’t a traditional, face-sized slab of meat on a grill, but I prepped it and seared it and broiled it and it’s BEEF so I think it counts.

For a link to the recipe I used, including ingredient lists for Mojo Marinade (TM) and a pretty damn good pico de gallo, click here.

Couldn’t find any skirt or flank steak at the store (what’s that about, SuperFresh?) so I used sirloin instead and it turned out just fine.

54. Dip a toe in both oceans (Atlantic version)

strictlytits — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:09:23 +0000

52. Go white water rafting/kayaking

strictlytits — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:58:06 +0000

I just realized that I accomplished this one! There are even pictures to prove it:

That’s meeee!!

Miracle of Bubbles

strictlytits — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:38:51 +0000

A woman drives to the video store
to rent a movie. It is Saturday night,
she is thinking of nothing in particular,
perhaps of how later she will pop popcorn
or hold hands with her husband and pretend
they are still in high school. On the way home
a plane drops from the sky, the wing shearing
her roof of her car, killing her instantly.
Here is a death, it could happen to any of us.
Her husband will struggle the rest of his days
to give shape to an event that does not mean
to be understood. Since memory cannot operate
without plot, he chooses the romantic — how young
she was, her lovely waist, or the ironic — if only
she had lost her keys, stopped for pizza.

At the precise moment the plane spiraled
out of control, he was lathering shampoo
into his daughter’s hair, blond and fine
as cornsilk, in love with his life, his
daughter, the earth (for “cornsilk” is how
he thought of her hair), in love with the miracle
of bubbles, how they rise in a slow dance,
swell and shimmer in the steamy air, then
dissolve as though they never were.

-Barbara Goldberg

Delinquent

strictlytits — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:29:12 +0000

Know I’ve been delinquent on updating this blog but I’m doing too much stuff to have time to worry. I’m tracking my 1001 things progress on my own, and that’s working just fine for right now. As a brief update, however, some things that are keeping me busy:

1. Creating and performing a play about Amelia Earhart for the Philly Fringe

2. Cardboard and paper crafts

3. Brewing my birthday beer (and hosting two beer parties)

4. Modeling for a photo shoot!

5. Buying tickets to Hawaii for my birthday

6. Reading all I can about Kaua’i, Kamehameha, Pele and Captain Cook

7. Playing Muramasa obsessively

8. Frying up beignets for breakfast

None of these things is on my list. All of them make me happy.

Rapture

strictlytits — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:42:42 +0000

In the desert, a traveler
returning to his family
is surprised
by a wild beast.

To save himself
from the fierce animal,
he leaps into a deep well
empty of water.

But at the bottom
is a dragon, waiting
with open mouth
to devour him.

The unhappy man,
not daring to go out
lest he should be
the prey of the beast,

not daring to jump
to the bottom
lest he should be
devoured by the dragon,

clings to the branch
of a bush growing
in the cracks of the well.
Hanging upon the bough,

he feels his hands
weaken, yet still
he clings, afraid
of his certain fate.

Then he sees two mice,
one white, the other black,
moving about the bush,
gnawing the roots.

The traveler sees this
and knows that he must
inevitably perish, that he will
never see his sons again.

But while thus hanging
he looks about and sees
on the leaves of the bush
some drops of honey.

These leaves
he reaches with his tongue
and licks the honey off,
with rapture.

- Richard Jones

Sorry about the tardiness of June’s poem, y’all. July’s will be a good one, I promise…

Update: June

strictlytits — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:02:19 +0000

By my reckoning, I’m about six months into this almost three-year experiment, and I thought I should update everyone on how it’s going.

When I started on my list, I was super gung-ho about every item. In fact, I was pretty sure I could accomplish all of them in a few weeks. That is, besides the writing a novel or traveling internationally, of course.

Now, I’m not so sure. Firstly, I haven’t accomplished nearly as many items as I’d planned. And there are some goals that I’ll never be able to complete. I’ve already fallen behind on things like my diary entries. And updating this blog every time I finish something? Ha! I think we all know that one hasn’t gotten done.

More than laziness or tardiness, however, is the fact that I no longer feel quite so passionate about all my goals. Why did I think I wanted to make badges, for example? I can’t remember. And you know what? I’m fine with that. This list, in some ways, is a time capsule of who I was when I made it. I’m a different person now. I’d rather marvel at who I was then than berate myself for not having the same interests now, or trying to force myself to care about things I obviously don’t.

As for the items I have completed, their impact on my life has been different than I imagined. Growing something edible was kind of an afterthought for me. Writing it, I didn’t know that six months later my garden would be one of the most important things in my life, a place I find solace every day, something I marvel and fret over, something like a child. Meanwhile, other achievements haven’t been quite as life-altering as I’d planned. Making my bed for thirty days in a row didn’t create a habit of bed-making. It’s still as messy as ever.

A lot of the best and most rewarding things I ‘ve done in the last six months have been things I couldn’t have expected when I made this list. Things I never knew I wanted to do. Things that just popped up. I brewed beer, for example, something that made me much happier and more proud than cooking that fish, which was a little anticlimactic. I learned to knit. I took a walking tour of my city. I became a Dungeonmaster.

Still and all, despite these surprises, writing out my goals was hugely important for me, more important than achieving any individual goal. When I wrote this list, I felt lost in my life. I didn’t know who I was, or who I wanted to be. These goals were meant to serve as a road map between here and there. And while I haven’t followed the map to the letter, just making it helped me take that first step. It created the inertia I needed to go forth. Knowing that I could create, that I could accomplish, was much more important for me to learn as a general principle than the ability to achieve any specific goals. It’ll also last me a lot longer.

I’ve also learned the reason behind all these projects. The reason I do these things is not, as I may have assumed in the past, to impress people. No one I know is going to care about me more or less because they know I can sew, or cook, or grow things. No. These projects are for me and me alone. At the end of the day, I’m the only one who will be impressed by, or care about, or learn from these projects. I do them because I want to, because they interest me, because I can’t not. Any other reason, like doing them because I want other people to like me more, is no reason at all.