music
i started listening to jazz at work and then the “revolution” by the beatles, and then “here comes the sun”, and “penny lane” and then prince when i heard him on the car radio. i was researching all the movies made in minnesota and purple rain popped up as one of them. i feel lucky. i think up themes for movies, but can’t find ones to fit them. today i wanted to watch one about a log cabin that didn’t involve something like deliverance. but i came up empty, so i just watched youtube interviews of the flaming lips from 2005, 7 and 8. i was supposed to start my book idea in InDesign at 11 but i did 50 minutes of yoga and then i looked at wayne coyne’s instagram pics of the Womb and watched more interviews of him at the HiLo Club singing Queen for his birthday, in Oklahoma City. i used to be more loyal to his twitter account. i used to check it everyday. i got used to waking up with michelle martin’s pictures of him drawing good morning greetings on the tops of banana peels.
outdated stuff
luckily for me, i don’t get great internet in my room. the time i’m awake in there is spent looking up pictures of timothy hutton and who he’s dated or more tweets from steven drozd. if i’m lucky, wifi is spotty and i have to read the book of poems by mary oliver that i keep next to my bed. it’s what i told tanya i’d read to stop me from flipping through people magazines. i got better at avoiding looking at those pics when i didn’t have my iphone. i feel like things i used to do for fun are outdated, and they didnt feel that long ago—hanging out in darkrooms and developing, going to the library to check out encyclopedias for research, buying books from borders, hunting through blockbuster for catherine keener indie’s.
alcohol pads
apparently i don’t have to blame myself for not being a lawyer or an organic chemist. that’s what tanya figures. my dad just has to start talking about the creative writing classes im taking and pause it when he interrupts about my brother’s pre-med classes. who cares about pre-med? henry’s going to school in wilmington and i never think about north carolina. i went through for four years of college and i never want to go back. and thinking of chemicals which are the opposite of my favorite word, and petri dishes and alcohol pads makes me think of hospitals which make me think of bruises.
bargaining for grades
the tfa’ers are putting knots in my stomach. when i see them i feel like i didn’t just cheer for field goals that my high school football team scored. but then i find the copy room, stick my head out the window into reality, and remember that there’s the ASCPA across the street if i want to work there. i don’t know how i got into teaching. i liked high school , but for the social part. i was an average student who was fine with B-‘s and who was fine with C’s in trigonometry and chemistry. i was fine with reading books i liked and not turning in problems that took up two pages to solve. i read in malcolm gladwell’s david and goliath how this movie director bargained and begged his way to get better grades, and i thought that was a great idea. of course i’d never let any of my students do it, but if i was in a regular setting back in the same spot, i’d totally go for that. it’s good practice in the long run.
oklahoma still has a middle class
i’ve been thinking about other things that i’d like to do with my life—like maybe being the curator at wayne coyne’s womb gallery. i think it’d be nice to take people on tours through his wavy gravy rooms. and each space gets more and more layers of ideas and blue paint and vext symbols. i could explain these and then chime in with my own take on what people have written. and then i could get coffee down the street in a neighborhood that still has a middle class
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