something to be thankful for...

NOT BEING ME!


as the whole world (except for the descendants of the Native Americans, for whom Thanksgiving - is probably one big F*** YOU in the face of their heritage and culture) enjoys the break to be with their families and friends, i am freaking the hell out about all manner of things future and looming.

I AM LOSING MY MIND. if hair were the physical extension of the mind, it's coming out in handfuls. i swear i am hallucinating, i don't feel alive most of the time, and even occasionally believe i am dead. (surely being the living dead counts...?) i've been having out-of-body experiences while riding my bike, when i had several close calls with cars that would certainly have killed me if dumb luck didn't intervene. example: i am riding my bike to the rec for my usual workout. i stop in the driveway of the arts center and look both ways for cars. seeing nothing, i prepare to cross the street. for some reason, i decide to hesitate for the briefest of moments, just as a white car comes zooming out from behind a row of parked cars. i feel the wake of its passing, the wind sweeping across my face. i can imagine its impact, as i ride into its negative space, imagining myself rolling out in front of it just as it was gaining speed, my neck breaking upon impact, my body broken as it's airborne to land in a lifeless thud on the pavement. i imagine blood and spit coming out of my mouth and eyes even while i ride my bike up to the rec and park it.

another time in the last week, i was almost side-swiped by a car on my way home from class, and as it passed by me, i imagined leaving my body behind in the spot where the impact would have occurred, and i imagined my self, the one still riding the bike, to be a ghost, or my imagination, disembodied, floating on in spite of death. (for about half an hour i wondered if perhaps i really was dead, and my existence was the result of brain flickers, a parallel existence that suddenly came awake to fill the void left by my bodied life...)

i'm losing what little self-assurance i had to begin with: i came home for the break to find out i got horrible GRE scores. even the analytical writing section, which i had hoped would be fine, turned out to be less than mediocre. there's no way i'm getting into grad school like this... and what's worse, i actually think grad school may be a better fit for me than Teach for America. how can i teach kids in poverty-stricken communities when i've never even lived in the real world myself? i'm still just a kid myself. and i'm not qualified to teach anything...

and they won't want me anyway, not given my recent failures in life in general and school in particular. even though senior project seems to be under way, it's just one thing in a slew of other things that are oppressing my life and freedoms. what's worse, this confluence of things has me paralyzed with fear, stunned with the inertia of having to begin against such weight, such sheer volume of things...

all this fear, this utter paralysis, of course gets me no where. and worse, it has me doing stupid things, such as sending this utterly pathetic email to my professor:


(the IAP referenced above is a project i was supposed to have already completed by now, but which i have yet to start, b/c it seems completely irrelevant and worse, time-consuming!)

all i want is to bind books and write things that make me (and others) happy. instead i feel half-alive but mostly dead...

blah blah blah enjoy your thanks giving
-stefan!e

this is the dream of Stephanie Lee

dear gentle readers,

it's been a mission of mine - one not so much chosen as thrust upon me by the coincidences of the universe and time - to see Jens Lekman perform, ever since i missed his Pitchfork performance to accompany my friend Dylan as he slowly ate his breakfast at the pancakes house - i ran 3 blocks to the festival from the train stop only to catch the last half of Black Cab - a moment that still makes my heart quiver with sadness and regret.

then i discovered his blog last summer and felt like i'd found a long-lost friend. you know how kids feel misunderstood, they just want someone to talk to, to not feel judged, to feel less alone? that's how i felt when i discovered Jens' music. our lives were coinciding and he was providing a soundtrack - i was unhappy with school and life which had become routine, Jens was sad in his neighborhood and thinking about moving out. i found a ditty kind of delight in his writing, felt less alone for it, and wanted to feel that way all the time. for a whole month maybe, the only thing i wanted to hear in the morning was Jens singing about Jehovah's witnesses and casanova sweaters. it put me in a swing-song kind of mood. it made Sweden seem like the happiest place on earth, if Jens was there.

so here we are now. a year and a half since that moment i ran gasping over the Union Park lawn to realize i was madly in love with the sound of Jens Lekman and his boppy pop band. and now, in a matter of mere days, i will be living in a dream: i was so close to having to give up, when i couldn't find a friend to drive with me to chicago for the weekend, and all the trains and buses from Cincinnati to Chicago were leaving either too early or too late, and very expensive. i was ready to book a 3 am train out of indiana on wednesday to make it to chicago. and then i had no where to stay! the hostels were booked, completely full, and none of my contacts in chicago got back to me. even then, i considered sleeping in parks and on benches, in dark alleys, sleeping in all my clothes and using my backpack as a pillow. the way i saw it, Jens is coming all the way from Sweden to play his songs, i just need to make it to chicago. i had to find a way.

i've had a series of happy coincidences fall upon me: i met with my thesis advisor on Monday morning and told him how i was stressed trying to get work done before i try to catch a 3 am train to chicago. and then he said he was also going to chicago with his wife that weekend and could give me a ride! wow, that's fantastic! i can go up on Thursday and come back with them on Sunday! wow and gee, a weekend in chicago!! this is amazing.

then, i go to try to find a place to stay. i check all the hostels - all full. i'm freaking out, where to go? i email the Western Alum listserv and a friend i know is working at the school of the art institute, and soon enough, i have 3 potential places to stay - with my friend Dave in the loop (that's prolly where i'll end up), my friend Eric who works for some law firm and treated me to heirloom beets when we first met 2 summers ago when i was working at the Field Museum, and then my friend Jason who teaches in Chicago and lives practically across the street from the venue where i'm seeing Jens (where i'll prolly crash on Friday night rather than try to take a train or bus back to the loop from Logan Square - that's how i got stranded in a really bad part of town at 3 am one night 2 summers ago and had to wait at the side of the street for the buses to start running again at 5 - not fun!)

i've been getting calls out of the blue from ppl in chicago looking for indymedia. it's been 2 years since i worked there and suddenly i get 2 calls from people in the last 3 days asking for help on audio podcasts. weird!

there's changes being made to the CTA this weekend, i'll be there right before they put the new fares into effect.

and the weather in chicago is looking beautiful this weekend.

and, i just discovered that both Broken Social Scene AND Sunset Rubdown are playing in chicago this weekend! what are the odds??!

the universe wants me to go to chicago this weekend.
-stef

the heart stops beating

i'm thinking my irregular heartbeats are a physiological manifestation of heartbreak. i exercised today, my heart is not getting any stronger.

"Every time you stop loving someone, your heart loses some of its blush. It vanishes. It's cancelled. & you wonder which of your feelings you'll no longer have the capacity to feel again. How much less am I, today, than I was yesterday?" - from here.

---

i think i'm going to build (or dig, rather) a spooning hole. yeah, that way when i say "i just wanna crawl in a hole..." i can actually follow thru. "say what you mean," you know? think of it as a watering hole, but for spooning. people need a daily dosage of spooning to stay healthy, i think. and this is the perfect way to ensure your daily quotient.

i'm imagining a large pod-like structure. doesn't have to be underground... something lined with soft, nice, gentle things. maybe childhood security blankets. worn out sweatshirts. soft alpaca mittens. purring cats and sleeping bear cubs. and lots of friends and cups of hot tea.

i wish i could crawl into a hole right now.
-stef
10.11.07

on hi-at-us

hey!

so, there's a lot going on! oh-so-much is going on! i can't believe i'm still a student sometimes, it's like i'm juggling 2 jobs and 5 obligations, and it just becomes too much to remember to do homework too!

well, there's SFS, which is taking loads of time, what with the living wage committee and research, funding meetings and negotiations, our weekly meetings, planning organizing retreats, applying for grants, and then having to build a homecoming float??!!

and then there's Campus Progress, for which i need to start becoming more available to help regional rep's with their projects, need to organize some projects of my own, and then there's 2 films or documentaries waiting for me to pick them up at the package center (and later screen!), that have been sitting there for weeks because they just keep coming and i don't have the time nor means to pick all of them up any more!! (there are 4 total boxes and packages for me. that's too many to carry on a bike or in my arms...)

oh, and then there's senior project, which fills me with self-loathing because i can't understand the intricate ways in which all these steps are supposed to help me write the paper i basically already wrote. wha??

and then i have to apply for Teach For America, before they won't accept me any more, and i haven't even begun thinking about my personal statement!

there's also my obligations to Talawanda High School every week as a volunteer in their Extra Time Extra Help program. soon the weather will be colder, making my bike rides to the school a little less pleasant. (but thank goodness for Autumn!)

and then, i'm teaching a class next semester! which requires a lot of planning and paperwork and all sorts of bureaucratic gymnastics, as i'm trying to draw a diverse group of students with institutional incentives and perks. and the fact that i'm teaching a 300-level undergraduate seminar makes me feel less and less like an undergrad each day. and as i'm spending so little time in a classroom these days, i am forgetting that, oh yeah, i am still a student, and i still have to graduate and figure out a future for myself.

which brings me to the fact that i'm taking the mother-effing GREs in less than 2 weeks and i have yet to understand what i'm getting myself into!

am i forgetting anything? i've been working early mornings at the radio station during the NPR fundraising drive, which is exciting and fun and a love fest, obviously, but also has me kinda exhausted.

put all these things in a blender, what do you get? one really frazzled undergrad who's had weird heart palpitations every five minutes for the last 1.5 days. at first i thought it was a happy thing, kinda like butterflies in the stomach, but like skipping in the heart. but then i realized that maybe it was a not-so-happy thing and maybe i should take 'er a little easy...

but as my friend Jens Lekman once wisely advised me [in an email about love and relationships more than heart tremors of the life-threatening or stress-induced kind]:

"if your heart is small and fragile then you need to start exercising. pump it up !"

tremors!
-stef