bildungsroman

thoughts on Richard Linklater's Boyhood:

1. the conspicuous role of music in creating atmosphere - like a diegetic time capsule (i'm sure i wasn't the only one in the theater last night who felt transported back to a certain time... for me it was college)
2. the hair! Patricia Arquette's hair in particular (gorgeous!). the film was such a tremendous feat, can you imagine planning a 12-year filming project, getting all the footage you need, planning ahead enough knowing there will be no going back as time marches ever onward? obviously the actors were playing characters within a story prepared for the film, but the mind-blowing thing about it for me is that over 12 years, there must have been some blurring of those lines. for instance, with the hair, i imagine Linklater had to allow the actors to change their appearance as needed, for personal and professional purposes, so i assume all hair choices were made totally independent of the film. so, that was "Ethan Hawke"'s goatee. and can you imagine playing a "character" for 12 years? i assume, at some point, you have to become your character/ your character is you. take, for instance, Samantha's character: aspects of her personality remained constant throughout the film, to the point that you have to believe you are seeing Lorelei Linklater on screen, and not just Samantha. (interesting tidbits learned from Manlius Art Cinema's owner Nat: US contract law prevented Linklater from having the actors contractually obligated to complete the 12-year project (US law stipulates a 7 year cap on contracts), so all filming was completed on nothing more than a handshake, basically. also, yes, that was Richard Linklater's daughter we saw growing up on screen... apparently she wanted her character killed off so she could walk away from it)
3. everyone enjoys laughing at Texas
4. Post-Bush and pre-Obama politics -- still funny to this day. three of my favorite jokes from the film: when Sam and Mason go canvassing for their dad and walk up to a house with a confederate flag hanging on the garage ("do i look like a guy who's gonna vote for Barack HUSSEIN Obama?! i'm entitled to shoot you for trespassing!"). they then go across the street to another house where an obnoxiously perky young mom explains she made her children t-shirts that say "my mama's for Obama." finally, Ethan Hawke using the story of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol as a teen pregnancy allegory for abstinence and contraception.
5. life has no plot. appropriately, Boyhood was as rambling and aimless and surprisingly delightful as life
6. biggest surprise: never expected to like Ethan Hawke so much
7. there is something to be said about the role of video games and the constant companionship of digital entertainment, but i will leave it to others to articulate.

all that glitters is gold

ever since a friend told me about golden birthdays, when we were probably 7 or 8 years old, i've been sorta latently anticipating it, slowly building it into this Moment that would like, validate my life. like, i kept telling myself by the time of my 26th birthday, my golden birthday, that i will have figured my life out.

because 26, to a 7 or 8-year-old, seemed so old. and i remember wondering at the time what kind of person i would be in what seemed like such a distant future (2011 sounded futuristic in the early 90s). would i be married? would i have kids by then? what would i be doing? how tall would i be? would i still have the same friends and enjoy the same books, where would i live? would i finally have pets by the age of 26?

as a kid, i figured by the time i became a 26-year-old, by the time of my golden birthday, i would have my shit figured out. i would have grown out of insecurities and achieved some dreams of mine, that surely by 26, life would be a little less rocky, i'd be a little more sure of myself, i'd be, you know, an adult.

another thing: the reason, i think, i put so much emphasis on my golden birthday as a kid was because earlier in my childhood, one of my teachers at the Montessori school told our entire class during circle time about the Hale-Bopp comet. apparently, this amazing astronomical event, this once-in-a-lifetime event, had just occurred the previous night and i had totally missed it. what was i doing!? this knowledge, that i would be dead the next time Hale-Bopp passed into visibility, was just too tragic and agonizing for me to handle as a small child. i think i cried thinking about myself dead in the ground while a magnificent meteor passed overhead and me without the eyes to see it, and then maybe possibly i threw up a little on the inside. henceforth i took to staring a lot at the sun, even though my teachers and parents told me to look away, and stood outside once in the winter with my dad observing a lunar eclipse - i had just taken a shower and it was so cold outside that my hair froze stiff in a rolled bun on top of my head.

basically, my golden birthday was my personal Hale-Bopp comet. i knew i was only going to get one chance at this in my lifetime, and i'd better get it right.

but you know what? i thought what i wanted on my birthday was luxurious, extravagant celebrations, a gilded cake, to be swaddled in gold lurex and lame and parade around like a Macy's day float. but what it turned out i needed most was to spend my birthday with my family and allow myself to be reminded how wonderful small moments can feel and how these moments can erase all the uncertainty i have about my life. every little day is a Hale-Bopp, you know? and i'd rather live my life appreciating the beauty of a million everyday stars than lament forever one shooting star.

book it!

it's National Read a Book Day! to celebrate, i finally finished reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. i love the feel of a finished book in my hands: soft and worn from so many intimate hours cradled in my hands or toted around in my bookbags and luggage, and the pleasure i get from fanning the pages of a book without fear of losing my place - that is the delight of an accomplishment made tangible.

"holidays" like these probably mean less to us as "adults" than they did as kids. it makes me nostalgic for "quiet reading" sessions in Montessori school, spending rainy weekends at home in my reading nook/fort tucked into a sleeping bag with my beverage of choice in a thermos and whatever Roald Dahl or Redwall book i was working on that week.

and remember Book It!? goodness knows i don't believe in incentivizing anything, but since i was such a voracious reader as a kid anyway, i never became dependent on free pizza to encourage my continued reading, and my parents probably appreciated that small window of time when my appetite for reading and pizza were similarly insatiable, and i could at least get free pizza out of the bargain.

so, drop your work, turn off the tv, build a fort and read in it! i'm going to pick up some books* at the library on my way home and do the same. i might even indulge in a little personal pan pizza, too, for old time's sake :-)

happy reading,
stef

*for those interested, the books i'm reading next are:
1, 2. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, both by David Sedaris (i'm seeing him in October (!!!) and wanted to catch up on what he's been writing)
3. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (highly recommended to me after my recent efforts to eat and understand my food better. for those of you without the time to read the whole book, i highly recommend and urge you to read the New Yorker's review of the book, which does such a thorough job outlining some of the key points, you'll get the gist and maybe consider vegetarianism/veganism! i myself made a note to pursue humane treatment of factory animals as a future policy pursuit.)
4. The Giver by Lois Lowry (never had the opportunity to read it in school and i think it's about time i did!)
5. Paradise Lost by John Milton (excited about this one because it will be a fine compliment to East of Eden, at least, i hope...)

"Mirrorings"

What does it mean to be a "me"? What is the "I" that speaks when I open my mouth and say things that "I" feel?

I am a baby in front of a mirror, watching the baby in front of me move her hands and feet when "my" brain tells hands and feet to move. Is this what it means to be a "me"? To know through observation what the self can do and observe its movements as if observing another person through a window? I learn what I look like by sitting in front of the mirror and tracing my movements through space and learning the way my face looks when it feels different ways.

=

I am a kid at my first sleepover. For the first time I observe the habits of other girls before they go to sleep. When you are alone in your "youness" for so long you take things for granted, assume they are that way for everyone. I wear nightgowns to bed and never brush my hair. Other girls wear long plaid shorts and spend a long time brushing their thick brown hair. They eat pancakes for breakfast with lots of syrup, and I'm used to eating rice cakes or porridge with my Mom and Dad and sneaking sips from their coffee. I start brushing my hair and wearing plaid shorts too. Later when all the girls start shaving their legs I ask my mom if I can start and she says she never shaved her legs a day of her life and why should I? I resent her at first but I think about my Mom and how beautiful she is and I used to look just like her, and she looked just like me when she was young, and I think I can wait and think about shaving. I grow out of it - 25 years old and I've never touched a razor to my body and I am glad I never will.

=

I ride in the car with my Aunt Peggy, who isn't related to me, but she's my Aunt's sister-in-law and I've been told to be nice. She looks me over, observes my tom boyish clothes, my sneakers and baggy t-shirt and my plain haircut and she's got a full face of makeup which seems strange to me because I've never seen my mother wear more than some perfume and blush even when she goes to a fancy restaurant. Aunt Peggy tells me I'm "white" because I grew up in Kentucky and my Chinese isn't great. I squirm in my seat a little and try not to let my face show how much I want to hate her right now.

=

In middle school, all the black kids in my general classes make fun of me and pull their eyelids tight and make horrible sounds at me. They throw trash at me when the teacher is turned around. In gym class we do fitness tests and I can run faster, longer and do more pushups than most of the boys, and my body fat index is only a 12%, and still the teachers and older white girls in class tell me it's only because I don't have any breasts and they make me feel small and powerless. In the locker room, I'm ashamed to change out of my gym clothes. I don't wear a bra yet because I don't need one and I feel ashamed. I wear my gym shirt under my uniform until the gym semester is over.

=

In high school some boy named Peter makes fun of me and calls me Su Ling, like he's so funny. I hate him in a way I can't articulate and can't do anything with because if I tried to do anything it would result in some kind of violence. So instead I bottle it up inside me and it hurts me more when it should be hurting him. He calls me Su Ling and pretends to speak Chinese at me. He asks me if I can shoot fireballs with my hands and when he finds out I am good at English, that I can write and read, he says I must be "half and half." I want to exact violence on him and think that if I knew how to shoot a fireball now would be the time to find out.

=

I have my mother's nose and my father's chin but my eyes are mine. I grow up thinking I am small and short and skinny and it isn't until I am an adult that I am told I'm pretty for the first time, that I'm "tall for a girl" that I'm "tall for an Asian" that I'm strong and fit and sexy. It's a new thing but I never get used to it, and never can get enough of it.

=

Some people say I look just like my father. Some people say I look like my mom when she was my age. Other people say I look like Anne Curry, or Mulan, or… I get mistaken for "someone I know" a lot. I wonder if there are only so many combinations of features and everyone's unique combination eventually gets repeated. It's inevitable.

=

I've been thinking about genetics a lot. I look at people and I wonder what pieces they got from their parents. I look at my parents and try to imagine if they knew when they got together what their babies would look like. I look at couples and wonder what the products of their coupling will look like.

=

I think back on childhood and adolescence and I think "I'm lucky I got out alive." So much self-hatred and uncertainty about who to be and how to be. So much judgment and scrutiny. When I was teaching middle school I observed my students with a certain level of curiosity. I never had an unattractive student. They all seemed perfect and cute and delightfully endearing. Do children realize how perfect they are, how needless of change? When I was a kid I sought to change everything about myself, the shape of my nose and eyes, the texture of my hair, my skin, my voice, the thickness of my eyebrows, the length of my arms, the size of my chest, the size of my lips. All I could see as a kid was flaws and how to change them. At some point that stopped and I grew into a confident woman who can see the individual beauty in each person, including herself. That is a remarkable thing. To look in the mirror and see flaws but embrace them, to observe them and know that they belong to you.

back when "Walkman" meant something

5 Seconds of Every #1 Billboard Hot 100 Hit From 1993-2011 [takes you to another webpage]

my friend Kathee pointed this out to me and it was just too good not to share.

this compendium of pop music is really super fantastic. i mean, you know, it might not be everyone’s bag, but for me, well, let’s just say i’m a sucker for all things nostalgic (that should be the name of a blog...) it reminds me of middle school bus rides, field trips, and track practice. really awkward middle school dances and driving in the car with my mom when she still listened to “adult contemporary” (Kiss FM and Delilah anyone!?) and hadn’t discovered NPR yet. it reminds me of playing in the orchestra in my ghetto middle school and playing the piano part in “All My Life” – the only recognizable section of the song in a really poorly arranged transcription. and it reminds me of joking around in the dorm with my college roommates, playing all the “hits” and making up dance moves like we were in an endless sleepover party, when we should have been writing term papers. *sigh* good times. it reminds me that once, popular music was a way to connect to a wider scene and to have things in common to jam to. as middle schoolers, we never intellectualized stuff ("man, the bump in that part was greeeaat." "shit, phenomenal use of autotune! cheeky!") but it was just about what was catchy, what got stuck in yr head, what was worth sitting by the radio, cassette player in hand, in order to record and keep. back when we didn't have ipods and digital music and the internet and music was made precious by the radio – back when some songs were worth sitting thru the commercial breaks for! and, i’ll admit, i still secretly jam to at least 80% of this list when i’m alone and in need of some cheer.

another really great thing about this is how easy it makes it to realize how absolutely super shitty popular music has gotten. right around 08:00-09:00 (that minute represents a mix of good and bad) things start taking a turn for the worse. but then at about 09:07, when Britney Spears comes into the mix, things are derailed completely and can never be righted again (“Wild Wild West”, “Genie in a Bottle”, “Baillamos”??!!!! these are songs i couldn’t stand even when they were “hits." oh good lord.) until right around where Outkast and Eminem emerge, things are dark and bleak and i think that maybe i should stop listening, but after a while it becomes acceptable again (eventually it gets to Lady Gaga).

i can see why i turned to indie/alt. music and never went back.

life imitates art

“But maybe all art is about just trying to live on for a bit. I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”

– Banksy

i feel lost. like in the last few months my spirit has cleaved in two, the rotten depressed and dark parts remaining here while the other bits floated away, too light and airy and dreamy to be bound to these desolate remains. "O... these fragments I have shored against my ruins." sometimes i feel like i can see the other half of me off in a distance, or i feel like i am that distant self looking back at the miserable remains and pitying her. it becomes hard to recognize myself in a mirror. how do i get those lost parts of me back?

as a kid i would lie awake in bed at night, imagining death and the unrelenting continuance of time without being able to participate in it, of lives without my presence. of being forgotten. i didn't want fame, but i didn't want to get lost in time and forgotten. i think this is the fear that underlies the pursuit of fame – a desire to never die.

the other night i lay in bed, sobbing because i could feel that sense of dying, could feel my loosening grip on my dreams, ambitions and aspirations from when i was a kid. i used to want to be something unusual, to be earth-shattering. i wanted to be destined for extraordinary things. and i felt, as i examined my life, considered the turn of recent events, and the availability of options before me, that my life had become rather extra ordinary. and as i thought of an image of myself as a child and the image of myself now, i began to cry. i never thought it would come to this, to being another unhappy adult stuck in a monotonous lifestyle with dreary rituals and nothing beautiful to celebrate. is this what happens? we grow old and comfortable and stuck in daily procedures and stop imagining different possibilities? i'm 25 and yet i feel old, weary, life-deprived, sick of the limited options (watch a movie, take a walk, read a book, work / be a mother, teacher, accountant, secretary). i don't want to be just another anything.

when i was young i wanted to be a writer, a dancer, a storybook illustrator. i wanted to be a wild animal. i wanted to make everlasting art.

and now all i make is dollar bills.

goodbye to an old friend

BBC News - Redwall author Brian Jacques dies aged 71

this is devastating. i spent a good part of my childhood reading the Redwall books, and i credit them with not only developing my literacy, but fostering in me an appreciation for nature and animals and good, hearty stories. my first ever email address (that i continued to use until probably the junior year of college) was named after my favorite character, Pikkle, a spritely mannered hare with a voracious appetite in the Salamandastron book (probably my favorite of the series).

when Twilight first started generating buzz and i got wind of its content, i lamented the lack of attention paid to writers such as Jacques and the heartiness of his story-telling. and i wondered why we could no longer live in a society where complex stories about virtuous characters undergoing harrowing journeys and epic battles to protect their home/ unravel ancient mysteries/ discover their identities/ defeat sinister adversaries all while singing songs and writing poems and eating decadent woodsy feasts could be appreciated.

i felt a twinge of sadness, something akin to guilt, when i stopped reading the books every year they came out (the last one i made any effort with was Marlfox). i felt horrible, like i had outgrown them or something, and i felt bad for losing interest in those characters and their stories. the way you feel bad about losing touch with your best friends from elementary school or high school.

anyway, this is doubly weird because not too long ago i was checking Wikipedia and reading his page and wondering if he was still writing books, found myself worrying about his age and hoping he'd live a long life and that one day i'd be able to write him a letter and thank him for writing. i guess this will have to do.

RIP, Mr. Jacques. and thank you for your stories. i hope my kids will one day enjoy reading your books as much as i did.

hatchlings

i do a pretty good job keeping a straight face, most of the time, even when encountered with the most bizarre and hilarious of irrational behaviors. what can i say, it's a skill you pick up quickly when teaching 6th graders. (in fact, i think it should be on a long list of criteria for people entering the teaching profession. following closely after charisma and passion.)

still, my kids find ways of surprising me. and in these certain moments, when my students surprise me with their kid-ness, i find it difficult to be cross and furrow my brow at them, and have to instead give in to chuckling a little bit, smiling largely, and trying to move past it as quickly as i can. it's fun for my kids to see Ms. Lee crack a smile or laugh along with them at something silly. i guess that they, and i, can forget that i'm human, so these little moments of honesty are welcome examples of our humility, which i think is why my students and i have felt so comfortable together and have managed to accomplish so much in our shared space.

three recent instances of what i'm talking about:

1) my student Bryan (hyperactive kid with a tendency to blurt out inappropriate things, get out of his seat, make rodent-like faces at my aide to freak her out, and make flatulent sounds any time anyone bends over to get something) comes to class (where we have a black and white uniform policy) wearing this shirt:

(found here, if you are interested in buying it)

2) my two smallest 7th graders Manuel and Luis are in my advisory class, but instead of quietly journaling, are exchanging sk8er pics they printed off a printer in some other class. this was delightfully endearing because of how small they are, and also how sweet of a gesture it seemed to be between the two friends (in their journals every week, they write to me about seeing each other over the weekend and spending saturday afternoons at the skate park). it was really cute watching these two little boys sharing a hobby with each other, even when they were supposed to be doing work in class.

3) my students are getting into Lady Gaga. coincidentally, so am i. every once in a while, one of my students will start singing the opening line to "Bad Romance," which amazingly has only proven to be amusing and strangely comforting (to know that we share some point of pop cultural coincidence) and has yet to be unnerving and annoying (YET!)

if "single ladies" were *really* a women's empowerment song, the way it was intended

i cried at the end of the Little Mermaid. and you know what? it wasn't because i was deeply touched by the love story or so happy for Ariel and Prince Eric or so relieved that Ursula was defeated. no, it was because i was absolutely TORN UP that Ariel had to transform into a human and leave her dad behind in the sea. that last frame right there, had me bawlin'.

even as a kid, i thot it was totally effed up for a girl to have to leave behind her family and change her identity to cozy up to some dude who was too stupid to tell the difference between two girls with the same voice.

ladies, amirite?

---

this probably explains why i was a tomboy my whole childhood and never dated anyone til i was 18. still, i feel like a winner.

memories and realizations

my father always came back from his business trips with presents for his kids. he would hide them somewhere in the house and it was up to us to find them. i got from this two things: 1) presents are all about presentation. the buildup of mystery and suspense was what made the presents interesting, not the presents itself. present = 1) a gift, 2) the now. a gift is always about something more than the physical material thing, it was always about the experience. 2) my success in finding things quickly, i decided, was due to my keen observation skills, which incidentally, might not have developed if they were not put to constant use. consequently, as a child, i always believed i would make a great detective, crime scene investigator, or bounty hunter. after writing, those were my dream occupations and the ones i felt best qualified for.

as i reflect on the way my father instilled excitement and mystery into my perception of the world, i decide that, sometime in the future when i become a parent myself, i will do the same for my son or daughter. hiding the box of cereal every morning before the bus ride to school. hiding the presents on christmas eve. hiding the clues that unveil a big family secret (your great-great aunt is german! your great-grandpa is a war hero! your great-aunt speaks to the dead!)

everyday would/should be a search for hidden treasures.

a tale of two cities

i miss the accessible smallness of my hometown, lexington, ky. los angeles is such a sprawling mess of tangled freeways and traffic that i can't make myself enjoy the immensity of the city because the moment i get in a car it's road rage stephanie, and she's no fun to be around.

today, lexington's smallness was most tangibly felt in the form of an exhilirating bike ride. i really miss the bike as a tenable form of transportation. growing up, the bike was an accessory for recreational neighborhood cruising. living in chicago changed that, the bike became a vehicle for daily revolution, a war horse for corking traffic. it is amazing how a city opens up before you when you have two wheels and yr feet to take you anywhere, unbound to the flow of traffic, easily taking yrself off the map and into walkable terrain, cutting between lines and breezing by waiting cars.

as i rode my bike to the ice cream store today, i felt young and vibrant like a kid again. being on the bike felt so good, i couldn't help smiling the whole time, up against traffic, wind in my face, singing "Thunder Road"* the whole way there, and "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" the whole way back.

i kept thinking, american history has got it all wrong. independence wasn't born on the wheels of the Model T, nor was it found in the cross-country voyages of bikers on Harley Davidsons. it was this, right here, a girl jumping on a bike and pedaling her way thru bluegrass, independent of petroleum and the help of her parents to deliver her to her destination.

when i get back to LA, i'm finding myself a bike. everything seems better from the saddle of a bike.

and behold! the wonderful glisten of post-biking sweat!

love and stuff,
s


*"...well the night's busting open, these two lanes'll take us anywhere! we got one last chance to make it real, to trade in these wings on some wheels. climb in back, heaven's waiting on down the tracks..."

behold, the beach!

it seems appropriate that the poetry books of my personal library are stacked together and held in place by a basket of seashells. adjacent, a pair of felt animal ears, the remnants of a 3rd grade informational performance about raccoons.

my two friends and i, as Montessori youth, had co-written and directed a 5-minute long presentation about raccoons for an autumnal pageant in the woods behind our principal's house in the country. each group of 8 year olds picked out one plot of woodland to do what they wanted.

i was the hip-hop raccoon. i rapped about our nocturnal lifestyle while wagging my tail and c-stepping.

dancing in the dark

i've said it before, and i'll continue to say it again: i love The Boss.


nothing encapsulates the complexity of being born in america in the 1980s like Springsteen and synthesizer, and i mean this in earnest. while the musical and cultural products of the '80s as a whole would seem to have tainted history's perception of the decade, what with the proliferation of horrible one-hit wonders and abusive overuse of the moog, The Boss remains the 80s' single greatest gift to American music. and what's more, he's the gift that keeps on giving (thank you!)

that's because there is a permanence to Springsteen's music that defied the limits of 1980s materialism and spectacle (the same values American Psycho critiques in this scene). while '80s hair bands and rock groups found short-lived success by cannibalizing tried and true guitar riffs and appealing to a brief moment's gaudy aesthetics and conventions, Springsteen wrote epic stories about human suffering and loneliness, about working night shifts in steel factories, driving thru abandoned city streets, love, desperation, the hunger and hope for a better life. in short, the american dream and the american way of life.

and though Springsteen's staunchly american aesthetic can be a deterrent to some (my boyfriend once described it as "jingoistic"), it is precisely the way in which he represents America that i find seductive. he sings of heroes doomed to Sysiphean fates, working low wage jobs and searching for escape. unlike the ass-kicking beer-swigging mythos of modern country music, Springsteen's music is complex, genuine, underscored with hardship and persistence. while the former are simulacra, Springsteen's America possesses a history of emotion and suffering. yet, there is a gloomy/gritty hopefulness – despite feeling so defeated, there remains release and splendor, in a midnight drive, in a passionate embrace, in that guitar, in that harmonica, in a dance in the dark.

this is an America i can identify with and feel proud of, one that struggles to overcome disillusionment, but struggles unflichingly.

---

to put it in other terms: i rediscovered the album Born in the USA this weekend, 2+ decades after its initial release. i was reluctant to listen to it, not knowing if the music would translate well over the expanse of time. i worried that the synthesizers would make me cringe. but this is perhaps a fitting example of the complexity i'm talking about, that the same music revisited not only revealed layers, but became more beautiful because of its history coupled with my experience. the synthesizers not only go unnoticed, but sound like organs. they're an artifact of the zeitgeist of the 80s, but not a distractor from the permanence of the music.

i used to listen to Bruce Springsteen in the car with my mom on the weekends. his music would come on the radio and i would sing along to words whose sentiments i didn't fully understand. back then, i only understood them as a widely experienced "happy" feeling, the same excitement as a surprise trip to get ice cream, or a snow day.

as a young girl growing up, watching the "Dancing in the Dark" video would make me so terribly happy that the only logical impulse was to dance uncontrollably in the living room of our suburban house, flailing arms and kicking my legs, pretending to snap, shaking my hair. to be honest, i still do that. Courteney Cox was a real-life hero as far as i was concerned, b/c she had the balls to get up on stage and dance with The Boss. i wanted to be her. i mean, who didn't?

Bruce Springsteen - Dancing In The Dark (1984)
by GMRedskins

but i feel even more elated watching this video today, myself now a grown woman, as i listen to the lyrics, which speak to me in ways i couldn't have understood them before:

I get up in the evening
and I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired
Man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

[...]

Message keeps getting clearer
radio's on and I'm moving 'round the place
I check my look in the mirror
I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face
Man I ain't getting nowhere
I'm just living in a dump like this
There's something happening somewhere
baby I just know that there is

[...]

You sit around getting older
there's a joke here somewhere and it's on me
I'll shake this world off my shoulders
come on baby this laugh's on me

Stay on the streets of this town
and they'll be carving you up alright
They say you gotta stay hungry
hey baby I'm just about starving tonight
I'm dying for some action
I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book
I need a love reaction
come on now baby gimme just one look

You can't start a fire sitting 'round crying over a broken heart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark
You can't start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark

--"Dancing in the Dark"

there's a restlessness i can identify with here, as i sit in my apartment in LA, wondering how i got so caught up with my job, feeling old, wondering where the excitement went in my life. i'm tired of sitting around getting older, trying to write this book, i'm tired of having nothing to say, and worrying about my little world falling apart. i ain't nothing but tired, i'm just tired and bored with myself. i'm dying for some action, i want to dance, i want a little spark.

and this is why i love Bruce Springsteen. there is endurance in his music that never fails to make me happy. i listen to his music now and understand, completely, why every man, woman and child growing up in america for the last few decades has been absolutely seduced by his dream of america.

-stephan!e

to help make my case:
"I'm On Fire" [mp3]
"Thunder Road" [mp3 - how can you not fall in love with that harmonica solo?]
"Thunder Road (Live in 1999)" [mp3]

+ a fellow blogger's analysis of Springsteen's music and a comparison to the Stones.

+ Bruce Springsteen's website, with lyrics and audio clips.

cheer tactic

1. find comfort music/ nostalgia music/ Arcade Fire, Funeral music.

2. turn up bass, turn up volume.

3. brush hair into face.

4. hop in place to music until a smile overtakes yr face.

5. repeat as needed.

hip

hop

hooray

some musings on the passage of time

i realize that in some form or another, this blog has largely been devoted to chronicling the passage of time: noticing the changes demarcating the stages of life, nostalgia, the seasons, the future, the past, memories.

but, if this blog is supposed to be a reflection of my most persistent thoughts, then that seems about right.

Time is an interesting phenomenon to behold, and thus my fascination. such an intangible thing, a deception, but relentless. 15 minutes goes unnoticed, but what about 5 years?

i can lament the sweet brevity of childhood, but feel tormented in the endlessness of a single day at work, fail to understand how short the days are while at the same time, counting down the days until the summer or my next vacation.

does it seem accurate to say a year is 365 days? somehow a year seems so long, but when i think about the days that comprise a year, it seems so swift. and how quickly a month passes! it's already march...

and yet, june can't come quickly enough...

some things you take for granted until you stop to think about them, and that's the trouble with Time. perhaps this is why nostalgia is such a poignant emotion; it is a form of concentrated regret for lost time. it is regret for our readiness for the future, our persistence in pressing onward and forward, regret we feel when we reflect on how far we've come and see the distance and extent of our own removal.

usually, we don't remember Time until we see its signs in the accumulation of little changes: the appearance of first wrinkles (laugh lines around the eyes), childhood clothing no longer being appropriately whimsical for the workplace, high school references no longer being recent enough to be relevant, "child" actors now in their 30s or 40s (sometimes it takes seeing someone else's aging to understand your own).

make believe

love is real-life magic. it is made of the same dreams and imagination that animates and personifies fictional characters in stories, or stuffed animals you talk to when you're young. it is the ability to communicate invisibly and share secrets no one else understands. but sometimes it can take on the appearance of being very lonely.

two long-distance lovers communicating via satellite from opposite sides of the world look the same to an outside observer as a child playing with a toy: as i slump over my laptop camera talking to my boyfriend, my face inches away from the screen, i completely forget that we are not actually in the same room, that we are not actually inches away from one another's faces, that we are not actually holding each other but using our laptops as proxies. i can immerse myself in conversation for hours like this, emerging only later to resume life in all its ordinary ways.

i think love is one of those neotenous traits overlooked by the majority of the population because of its mythification in popular culture. that is, we fail to see how the make-believe of child's play can bear any resemblance to true love because we see one as childhood whimsy, while the other is considered one of those sacred "truths" holding society together. really, we must learn to accept that they are mirrors of the same belief, that something beautiful and magical can, must, exist beyond this ordinary surface.

cherry blossom

i emerged from the shower this evening, and opened up a bottle of lotion: "cherry blossom."

the name is misleading, it causes me to think more of fruit than flowers, so the smell seems surprisingly, almost overwhelmingly florid, rosy, clean. it is feminine, a womanly fragrance.

the smell reminds me of my mother, and watching her get ready for dinner parties when i was a little girl, standing in the bathroom of my parents' bedroom in her bra, her hair recently blowdried and swept to the sides of her face and ears. she has not yet put on her glasses, and i can see her face clearly, she never applies makeup. i watch as she gently pats lotion on her face, her cheeks rosy and flushed from the steam of the shower. the only beauty modification my mother ever used was perfume: she would dab it gingerly on her wrists, her neck, the crook of her arm. the scent would waft from the bathroom to the bedroom, and follow her wherever she'd go. after my parents left the house, the smell of my mother would always remain in the air, a trail of fragrance up and down the stairs, hanging in the air by the kitchen, lingering by the door where she stepped into her shoes.

since i was a little girl, my mom would always offer her perfume to me to try, to smell, to dab on my hands. she loved to buy me little packs of perfume, or obtain miniature bottles from the department store as trinkets, as if for fun. i always refused them. it wasn't necessarily the smell itself i adored. it was that image of my mom, standing in the bathroom, clean and void of any pretense in her appearance, my first idea of female beauty, and what i thought beauty (and my mother) smelled like.

so tonight, as i was applying dollops of this cherry blossom lotion to my skin, i was reminded of all these things and had to put the lotion away in a drawer, because the smell was just too close to that distant smell i remember, that it made me too sad to use it, and reluctant to grow into womanhood myself.

ephemera

i spent the day slowly wrapping gifts. my lethargic fingers were miserable negotiating pesky scissors and tape.


it doesn't feel like christmas this year, and i wonder if/fear that my increasing inability to experience holidays with the excitement and anticipation of the g/olden days means i am getting old/ losing my childhood ways.

but, i think it's because i'm more grateful to be home than any other year, and that makes these entire 3 weeks feel like a gift, rather than just the one day.

with love,
stef

it must be fall...

back to showering in the late afternoon with the lights off, taking early evening naps with the music on, eating dinner alone in my room, shirking work to daydream constantly, and being helplessly and incurably nostalgic.

even with it being endless summer here, i can still feel my vestigial fall depression. like an invisible cord tying me back to the heartland. oh my old kentucky home...

---

[at the beginning of college, i couldn't stop listening to this song.
somehow, it's come to be connected to my first fall away from home.
listen: "Sparks" by Coldplay]

during my evening nap, the way i was lying on my stomach, the way my face pressed against the matress, the way i curled my arm under my head, the way i could distantly smell home, made me think, "this is what i must have felt as a baby." i could remember, somehow, lying in my crib at home, remember the softness of yellow fabric against my cheek, could imagine my now 22-year-old body as a 22-month-old baby, and felt saddened by the thought of all those years in-between. i have an image in my head now of how the movies depict the passing of time thru environmental changes – the furniture moving, the paint on the walls fading and cracking, the movement of cars and pedestrians outside, the leaves changing color and falling, growing green and spruce again – while the person of focus stands in the middle of a room, still, looking straight ahead and head on, changing only a little. i find this interesting. i'd like to measure my life in the movements my furniture makes.

---

that reminded me of a moment maybe two years ago. i was having dinner with a group of friends in the dining hall at school, and we'd been there for an hour, at least, a usual "family dinner" kind of affair. we'd all finished eating, but were just sitting there, enjoying one another's company. for some reason, i had pulled away from the conversation for a moment just to reflect. the weather outside was nice, it was just beginning to get warm out, and the sun was beginning to set. i was watching people walking to classes or returning to the dorms for the night. i was watching my friend Newman throw back his hair as he tried to eat a piece of toast with jelly. for some reason, something about the gesture – the look of unfettered glee on his face, his booming laughter, his awkward fumbling and negotiation of all that mess and hair – made me think that this was probably exactly how my friend looked as a kid, that this was someone's baby boy, that this was someone who had a mother who probably loved him very much, and probably loved to fix him peanut butter and jelly when he was a boy, would cut off the crusts and cut the sandwich diagonally, because he liked the shape of triangles better than rectangles. and now this boy, grown up and away at college, was eating that same favorite snack he loved as a kid, but probably thinking that it just wasn't the same as the one his mom would make him growing up. and i dunno why, but this brief moment, this smallest and most mundane of events made life seem very precious, and suddenly cruel. it reminded me that we were all kids once, and now, through great luck and perseverance, were growing up quite quickly into adults. i thought about the remaining year i had in college, and how terrified i was. i looked around the table at all my friends, and i imagined (or remembered) all of us as kids, imagined us small, helpless, scared, alone. and the idea both tickled and depressed me.

anyway, just things i'm remembering now that i feel fall is in my heart.

-stef

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UPDATE 10-22:

introduction

i can't stop listening to this song by Voxtrot. it fits my mood and the way i've been feeling lately, like flipping thru a stack of polaroids you found tucked away, all sepia tones and childhood memories, a feeling of loss and recovery – "i won't know how much i've lost until i've gone away."


i imagine all my childhood memories – raking leaves and jumping in the piles, taking bike rides to the park with my mom and dad, picking apples in the country on weekends, hanging Halloween decorations in the yard, the brisk chill of getting in the pool at the end of the summer – flashing thru a projector, reflecting off a screen and flashing on my face. there is jumping, there is running, there is dancing, and there is laughter.

it's getting colder as it slowly turns to autumn in LA, and i am having vestigial memories and longings for the changing leaves, cool breezes and indian summers, the look of grass (of bluegrass!) and the smell of my neighborhood at dusk, and the look of the sky, which somehow i remember seeming closer to earth and looking softer than it does here, where it is far away and tinged with gray, immense yet distant and always revealing itself to make me feel small and alone.

i listen to this and imagine driving home from school to surprise my parents, imagine stepping my foot in the door and seeing them emerge from the living room, running to hug me. or i imagine blasting this in my car late at night, as i drive thru the deserted streets in oxford, ohio, to meet a friend for drinks, to crash at someone's house for a sleepover, to go to my boyfriend's house and sit on the couch and talk. it's a rush to feel at home again.

this is music that makes my feet move. they want to hit the pavement, to start running, to put pedal to the metal and drive drive drive, to find endless roads and listen to this on repeat. as the music picks up, i get closer and closer to home.

-stef

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"Introduction" by Voxtrot
Open your eyes and stretch your hands
This house is clean but it is not my home
Did I make this bed
The two hands touch on two

Sometimes I think of some place colder
The sound of traffic and the way it's worn
When you feel yourself grow up inside of here

And you love me just like a stranger
But you love me just like I am

Remember we ran through lovely streets
We made our rules and then we broke them first
It felt like we were running all the time
When I wouldn't give one ugly moment
I'd wrap it up, I'd keep it in my sock
I can keep it, yeah, I know what's yours is mine

And you love me just like a stranger
But you love me when

I step into the sea, it let's me love some other day
We get bored of weakness all the time
Now I won't know how much I lost until I've gone away
Your sun sets when my sun starts to shine