When You're Not Looking

By Saturday, I'll have been in North Carolina for a month.

During this time, I have:

...kinda learned how to cook.
i made some pretty good lemon chicken last week...
...checked the mail 3 times...every day.
i'm pretty self conscious about it...i kinda sneak out to the mailbox...which is like 5 ft. from my door. though i don't know why i'm self conscious...no one's ever out there.
...painted 2 paintings.
i managed to get paint all over me as usual. i think i'm going to try again on both of the paintings. i'll just say that they need a little work.
...thought a lot...usually about things that don't matter.
i've been writing more and more on the education system and teaching, two completely different things...i'd really enjoy interviewing some high school teachers on the subject. other than that, it's the usual poetry and one-liners. one day, i'll make a book just full of one-liners...because i can never make it past that.
...started doing yoga.
i think i pushed myself too hard the first time. i spent the next day, wanting to curl up into a little fetus-ball. i never knew i had muscles in any of those places, and ignorance was bliss.
...handed in 15 applications.
i've been horribly choosy about where i get a job. i kind of have that luxury right now. i'm so done with the food industry. i've paid my dues.
...been here 5 or 6 times thinking about writing and obviously decided against it.
my last night in champaign...hilary and i talked about how it was easier to write in notebooks than in journals that you get from, say, barnes & nobles. you don't feel anxiety on post-it notes or in ratty notebooks. i feel almost the same way about here. and here, i can't doodle, and i do some of my best thinking when i'm doodling.

doodle? that's such a weird looking word. i've been doing that since i got here...seeing words in print...and being perplexed. is that really how you spell heart or yell? it's kind of like when you say a word over and over till it loses meaning or when you stare at your face in the mirror long enough till it isn't your face. the longer i looked and questioned the spelling, the estranged i felt from the word. i guess, words like that are so common we don't think about them...its like breathing and walking.

i really have become one of those word-lovers, prolly from all the philosophy books i've been reading. i'm sure there's a better word for it than that. meh. ironically, i wrote a paper last year, stating that rhetoric hindered true philosophic thought. do i still think so? absolutely, i still find words paltry. words are like using an axe for brain surgery. but they are pretty much our only tool. so, they'll have to do.

I finally have my dsl instead of going to the public library every day. I'll still prolly go to the library, just not every day. They have Montaigne's The Essays. And I'm not sure if I can get a library card...because I don't want to change my residency. I won't have established residency long enough to vote here if I did change. So, I'm definitely not changing until after the election. And then, maybe when someone says that I have to change my residency, I will. Till that time, I will happily stay true to Illinois.

posted by molly @ 4:26 PM