A New Chapter

I can’t believe I did what I did.  I got a significant amount of my hair cut off today.  A few months ago I’d started an essay called Ivy.  The essay is about the ivy that was given to me at my father’s funeral in 2006 and my hair.  In the summer of ’06 my father had mentioned to my mother that he missed my long hair.  So, I decided to grow it out for Christmas to make him happy.  He died the day after Thanksgiving so he was never able to see my hair long after so many years of it being short.  Since then I have never been able to cut it past getting a trim.  Every time I go into the hair salon with the intention of cutting it Bonnie (my stylist) asks, “What do you want to do?”  And I chicken out and say, “Just a trim.”  It’s always “just a trim” until today.

I sat in the chair and asked her if she’d seen Grey’s Anatomy and she said yes.  I told her I wanted to get my hair cut like Callie’s.  “Oh…My…Gawd!” was her reply.  After that we went through the pros and cons and although I didn’t walkout with Callie’s cut (it just wouldn’t have looked right with my face shape) I did walk out with my hair stopping between my shoulder blades rather than the middle of my back. 

Although, I don’t feel the guilt that I thought I would feel about chopping my hair off I also don’t feel the good about the decision.  I feel overwhelmed.  I let go of something that I had to let go of in order to continue to heal.  I’ve held onto this last bit of who I was before my father died, lingered out of loss, grief and fear of life without him. 

It’s time to close this chapter.  This is not to say I’m forgetting my father because he is part of what makes up my book of life.  What I’m saying is it’s time to write more chapters, influenced by him but not about him, not about his life or death.

It’s time to stop mourning his loss and start celebrating his life.    

Celebrating his life means making the most of the life he helped give me.  I’m graduating in August with a Masters in English, creative non-fiction.  I want to try to get published for my writing.  I want to look into applying for a PhD in writing.  I couldn’t have done any of these things without his gift to me.        

Just Maybe the White Rabbit is Late

So, tonight I was hanging out at my friend Steph's place.  We watchyed the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland.  As a kid, this movie and the Pink Elephants on Parade scene from Dumbo use to freak me out.  Now I'm mostly just annoyed...unless it's the Pink Elephants..that's just creepy, but that's for another blog. 

Anyway, about two years ago we took a class called Dream Visions.  We studied dream-like scenarios in Literature.  We read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  Steph holds the belief that Lewis Carroll was a pervert and Wonderland is the evidence.  She's written two papers on the subject and gotten A's on both.  This doesn't make her correct but it does give her some authority.  I will admit that if it's read through a sexual lens there is tons of stuff to suggest that Wonderland is Carroll's imaginary world where he gets to de-virginize a ten year old Alice.

Some of these ideas include the hole Alice tumbles down symobolizing her going through a birth canal to be born a woman.  "Eat me/Drink me" do hold sexual connotations.  Although, I'd like to know how far back that connotation goes.  If it's before or during Carrol's time then it's acceptable to believe that's what Carroll might have meant.  However, if it's a term used after his time then it's us taking our present day ideas of the phrase on the past which you can't do.  Anyway, the flower garden pushing her out of the patch suggests that she's lost her blossom.  She's a weed because she's lost her virtue..  The white roses being painted red symbolizes the actual loss of her virginity.  I'm sure there are more but I think everyone gets the idea.     

However, part of me really believes that maybe the white rabbit really is late for an important date and that's it.  Just late, nothing else.  Just maybe the cards, frightened by the tyrannical Queen, attempted to hide the fact that white roses were planted by painting the roses red.  Maybe it's just a story afterall.      

Under Pressure

It's hard to juggle working forty hours a week and classes.  I look back at the past three years and I still wonder how I managed to get through it.  There are a lot of times when I don't really remember what exactly I read or learned in the classes I've taken which bothers me. 

I'm also working on research for my American Lit., course.  I feel like I'm being pulled in different directions and not giving enough time to any of my projects. 
 
So, about two weeks ago I talked with my thesis director and we came up with a deadline of Finals week which is in mid-May.  I don't have to have a polished thesis written by then but I do have to have a completed rough draft.  Needless, to say this is really stressing me out.  I'm not one to write well under pressure.  I also have a one track mind which makes it difficult for me to write more than one thing at a time.  It's one of the reasons why I'm having trouble blogging more than once a week. 

Right now I'm on the final leg of an essay I've been laboring on for about three weeks.  I'm glad because I'm starting to lose interest in the piece.  I did write out the bare bones of another essay onto a legal pad a few days ago so I'm anxious to get on that one.  After that I'm not sure where I'll go.  I just hope I can get enough written by mid-May.

I need to get done with this so I can get back to working on an abstract due on Tuesday. 

A Weekly Recap

So, it occurred to me as I was driving home from watching Chris play a local show that I haven't written a blog this week.  I'm trying to, at least, write once a week until my thesis is done and I have more time to dedicate to my blog.  Since I'm doing this last minute I don't have anything brilliant to say  and it's also 1:15 a.m. I decided a recap would have to suffice for today.

Monday, I met with my thesis director and I was given a deadline of mid-May for, at least, a rough draft of my thesis.  That freaked me out a little because I've only got about fifty pages written and it needs to be, at least, one hundred fifty.  However, after a mini-breakdown I got up and started writing. 

Tuesday, I wrote about 1 page on my current essay, which is temporarily called The Tits Poem.  It's framed around a poem I wrote for my poetry class about a year ago.  I talk about coming to terms with my body and learning to love myself.  It's a good piece and I'm glad the suggested was made that I expand the poem out into an essay. 

Wednesday I mended a proverbial b,ridge which made me very happy.  I can't say too much because it would be giving away private confidences.  Sorry.

Thursday, is a blank.  I don't think I did anything at all. 

Friday was probably my best day.  It was extremely slow at work so I spent a good portion of the day working on one of the essays for my thesis.  In the 8 hours give or take that I was at work I managed to get about four pages written and I got another idea for an essay that I want to get started on but I really want to get further with my current writing project first.  In the evening I met my friends Josh and Rachel for some drinks.  I called Chris's friend, now mine, Jeromy to meet us.  He came out and introduced me to his friend Melanie.  She's a really great person.  She's very real which is something I deeply appreciate in people.  I think she and I are going to end up really great friends.  Chris called Jeromy and invited us to his place.  So, we headed over.  We sat out in his front yard sipping some drinks and listing to Chris play a couple of his tunes including my favorite Highway Shoes.  Rachel told me today that she and Josh were really impressed by his guitar playing.   



Chris playing Highway Shoes



Saturday, I went over to Chris's place and hung out with him for a few hours.  It was really nice to spend some time with him.  It seems that we've both been busy and when we do hang out it's in a crowd of people so we don't really get to really talk in depth about our respective crafts.  It's been a while since we had a "heart to heart" so it was really nice.  We headed over to his gig and had some AMAZING barbecue before he took the stage and played.  He was just as AMAZING as the barbecue and he didn't even need sauce. 

So, that was my week.  I didn't really have any epiphanies but I got to spend some time with Rachel.  Since I started the Grad program three years ago I don't get to spend nearly enough time with her.  I really miss it. 

P.S.  I apologize for any spelling, punctuation or grammatical issues.  As I wrote earlier it's 1 a..m.  I'm not really paying much attention. 

Good Week

If you’re like me you’ve probably heard people tell tale of having a really horrific week and the following week being so fucking awesome words can’t describe it.  Until recently I’d never experienced this phenomenon.  I figured anyone who had been privy to this kind of turnaround were just making it up or their bad week really wasn’t as bad as they thought.  Maybe the later is true but I think I understand the occurrence much better than I did before.

Last week was an awful experience.  I had to deal with heartbreak, anger, confusion, resentment, resignation and stress just to mention a few of the things.  I won’t go into full details but I can say based on all the emotional roller coaster rides I’ve taken, and I’ve taken quite a few, this one ranks in the top 13. 

So I started this week expecting the world to come to an end earlier than the Mayan calendar predicted.  Instead it’s been a wonderful week perhaps it’s only been wonderful because I’m comparing it to the shit storm that was last week but in the scheme of things I guess it doesn’t matter. 

What does matter is that majority of the fortune that has made this week so much better hasn’t really been mine.  I was given one compliment when I was asked to do a minor report that would normally have been done by my supervisor.  However, he’s out of town at a conference so they asked me, a mere secretary to do it.  Sure it was a minor report but the person who asked me to do it had enough confidence in me to ask me.  Ordinarily, they would have just called my supervisor at the conference and asked him to make the time to do it.  So that’s a pretty awesome compliment.  

But the BIG things that have made this week so wonderful aren’t mine. 

First, my best friend Chris was asked to be on a television show and his new CD has been sent off to be pressed which has been a very long time coming.  I’m overwhelmed with such pride and happiness for him.  His success has filled with me with such pure joy I can’t explain it. 

Second, one of the college students/friends Jenifer I work with has decided that she might just try and go overseas in order to help others.  She’s working to become a Social Worker and she wants so much to make a difference.  I’m so amazingly proud of how much she’s grown in the four years since I first met her.  My pride and admiration for her fills me with such joy that I find myself getting misty eyed.  At her age I was so afraid of my own shadow and to see her taking the risks I was too afraid to take makes me so proud. 

 

So maybe this week has been magnified by last week or maybe the past, even as recent as the week before, doesn’t matter.  I can’t help but feel that I would still be overjoyed with the success of my friends.