dreary like the rain

i just had my comp lit exam (3h timed dissertation; 8 am!) and, well. the topic was relatively easy but it was difficult to streamline my thoughts and language productively. then i also had to make an effort to mold my thoughts into the french dissertation format. and then, a conscious effort to write transitions (and i know i didn't in some places. and which is something i don't really do very well in english either). thoughts like: i need an idea to open up in my conclusion. (oh, so. traditionally their conclusions end with an ouverture. a new idea a bit outside of the domain of the specific subject, a problem that could be presented, a knot, to show that the thought process hasn't terminated; mine: if you consider balzac's representation of province as a new literary object, explaining both the banality, simplicity, ridiculousness and the complexity, valorisation--is this a word?, how does that correspond with balzac's perception of his work as thoroughly scientific, etc etc) that it was a necessity, a requirement. this certain format. that i was writing in a way i would never write in english. using the third person impersonnal ("one"-though in my defense it's much more frequent in french) and boring boring transition phrases ("first of all" and the like--practically unavoidable)

also we only had to fully write out the introduction, one part and the conclusion. and for the other two parts she wanted a detailed outline, becaues we have one hour less than we'll have for the final. and come to think of it i probably should have parsed the part that i wrote out better, it was basically just a big block of thought/example, thought/example, especially towards the end when i realized i wasn't going to be able to take my time writing.

and we couldn't use the books(!) hm. this is balzac, by the way. have i even told you about this course? it's centered around the literary representation of province and we're reading balzac, zola, and sartre. jessica, a foreigner studying this specific thing and placement/relationship of province in france, as opposed to paris. newness in many ways.

have i told you about how nearly all french students carry around multiple colored pens/pencils for note-taking? and they always use a ruler to underline things. my handwriting is atrocious in comparison.

do you remember that day with the timed painting and the "linear!", the black lines and your artistic vision? it was a bit like that, i suppose. having to fit my flailing, wandering thoughts/comments into a specific form, the time, mostly the wanting to produce something good. when i handed everything in to her i wanted to say, well i hope you at least have fun reading it. i was talking to an italian girl i've befriended in the class... in italy all their exams are oral.

i'm going to see a play tonight. i miss emily dickinson. i got a wonderful package from will the other day. my philosophy course is definitely the hardest for me, idea-wise. all the moreso because it's like taking two classes, split between ancient and more modern philosophers. modern section of said philosophy class cancelled tomorrow. going to normandie this weekend. it's gotten cold here, unfortunately. i would love some lasagna now.

no transitions no transitions no transitions

more:
this is the longest entry i've ever written, i think. i don't know, i've been thinking more about the exam and what a different kind of experience it was, how little of me was in it! i meander when i think, jessica, when i write. wander! and now the need for a direction is so much more present. the difference between a thought given to you and a thought developped by you. so little were things that i had stumbled upon on my own... the only thing i'd be able to call my own is the organisation. the tites for the outline sections! which. is that valuable? also valuable? organisation that alters content, changes meaning, etc.

the way dissertation subjects seem to function in france: be vague, impossible to answer definitively, touch on huge important capitalized concepts--Life, Beauty, Fatigue, Society, etc. be of the order: without beauy would one talk of art? should one tolerate intolerance? does fatigue have a place in society? then! to respond: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. and, i don't know. it's valuable, i think, in its way. but once you have this format that instructs you how to think about things... isn't the way you think about things as important as the content? you know, form and concept. content. old hat. and then for the synthesis it seems like it suffices to reframe, to relevel the question. put a metaphysical question into the historical context of the authors. examine the authorial process of something that claims authority.

let's think about homeless thoughts

i don't know why i'm writing so much here. i don't know if any of this is interesting, but it's just a good way to write to both you and will.

By the rules of war

listening to: keane's 'somewhere only we know,' which i am admitting with a certain reluctance. somehow it's harder for me to say i like this song, or, you know, maroon 5, than to reveal the taste for justin, jc, etc. i think it might be because i can't pass it off as ironic?

you say, we need feminists as we need (i just typed 'ween'!) doctors or policemen. people to fix us, or things. to take on the cause, fulfill the role, yes. yes.

dan would be reading emily dickinson if it had been assigned in comp lit. not that this means one thing or another.

this afternoon it's been raining, w/ thunder, lightning. i opened the window in my room, and sat in my pink chair, my feet on the edge of the bed. i'm embroidering this page i tore out of vogue: a girl with an old-fashioned hairdo, a black polka dot dress. so far i've only given her a pink-red hairline. women must be beautiful, and women must be good at housework. mending with curlers in her hair. in class we'd talk about how i could expand on this project. how the work functions, which would be much easier for me to talk to you about than when you ask me, say, how does beauty itself function. at least, it's a more accessible starting point.

i've also been waiting for my laundry to be done, and my lasagna.

what i'm searching for / a way in

you paraphrasing me: we need feminists like we need doctors and policemen, or, you paraphrasing me: we need feminists to be doctors and policepeople? because i definitely don't think one has to be feminist to be a doctor or a police.woman. at any rate, what i mean is simply that, like in all other domains, we need some people to be unhappy and to feel repressed and to say very very loudly, this needs to be changed and explain to the rest of us why. because the rest of us are often more or less happy with how life works. sure, we have our complaints and our passing convictions and it's not like we're against progress or anything.... we just have other things on our mind? but we need feminists like we need. well, i was going to say like we needed martin luther king jr., but maybe that's a bit extreme. i'm just saying, we need people to be unhappy with the world but still attached enough to it to want to incite change. i just. don't really want to be one of them. not in such a way that it defines me.

but, okay. what does it mean to believe in humanity jessica? does it simply mean that there's one overarching thing that makes us human, besides the scientific categorization? well, i don't believe that god created us. i believe that we're mostly good, but not necessarily all born good. i guess i'm thinking of things in probability. and things that go beyond that... that we have emotions? --but do animals? that we have an ethical code? --but isn't this just an emergent quality of society life? that we have a unique form of communication? --yeah, maybe. but that's sort of a depressing definition of humanity and probably not at all what you mean. if i were to change it, say, a reaching out for others. maybe that would match better. i don't know. i'll think about this, jess.

what book was this? sigh. i guess we did find the boys we were pining for in high school. though, this is interesting: we were pining for the same boy, weren't we? the same idea of a boy, at least. and we found such different ones, but still right. at the end of last semester i found a newly bought emily dickinson book on will's shelf.

sigh sigh sigh. and my esthetics paper is not going well.

the title is from a margaret atwood poem, but. misquoted i think.

I'd believe anything she told me

Curtis Sittenfeld finally published her book. I loved the things she wrote in Seventeen, you remember, and then later, she appeared again writing, for, what, Salon, wasn't it? I can't remember. But I just bought her book, Prep, and it's so perfect, Vicki. It's about us. I think this girl is us. We can wax on about this feminist stuff--you say we Need feminists like doctors or policemen--but we're still such girls.

"I imagined that if I left South Bend, I would meet a melancholy, athletic boy who liked to read as much as I did and on overcast Sundays we would take walks together wearing wool sweaters."

Oh gosh, Vicki, that was part of what we wanted wasn't it. We were pining for the boys we'd meet in college, and now it's mostly worked out, hasn't it? Hm.

'a demand pushed to suffocation' is nice, good. A strange image. Being suffocated, a suffocating room, a feeling that suffocates. Lack of air, but also lack of room to think. This thing pushing against your whole body, or just your throat, mouth.

You don't believe in God, and now, you don't believe in humanity either?

"In fact, I had never talked about Cross with anyone. I had not even said his name aloud since surprise holiday. But I had thought of him so often that sometimes when I saw him, it was weird--real Cross, moving-around Cross, Cross talking to his friends. He was the person I always thought of?"

When the boy and I were first talking, I think it was two Christmases (Christmas's, Christmas'?) ago, I recommended a book for him to read, and he went to the library the next day, and actually checked it out. I remember that was when I was sure he was interested: because he was reading a book I liked.

the sun is too bright, too white

is it clear what feminists are going for, exactly? now that the legal stuff is mostly accomplished and now what's left are piles and piles of mental notions and social norms?

is it backwards (feminist movement-wise) for a person to be against abortion? if a working woman decides to stop working to stay at home and raise children? why is it wrong for a woman to want to be beautiful? if the aim isn't that men and women be treated the same in every respect, what is it. or is that the goal? because it's a bit ridiculous. undermining the difference. no, i think we need feminists, but i wouldn't want to be one.

that we have the same anger in us? the same complexity? do you think that women are more complex than men? because of the expanse and contradiction of demands placed on them? (now that we live in a world where a range of stereotypes is present) i doubt that modern women are being pushed to a psychic edge (post 50's, for example), but i do feel that there's a confusion. but maybe things are good like that. more productive, more helpful, more thought-inspiring. i don't know.

jessica, i have a confession to make: i still think everybody is interesting. or, would be interesting. if you tapped into the right bits. perhaps i should correct myself and say, the majority. but i don't want to. saying everybody is nicer for me to think about, even if it may not be truer.

yes, i think you can make art in which feminity is at work but is not its sole meaning. (does anything have a single meaning) mm. and not only because it's the response i have to give. you're talking about living in the world, aren't you? picking at the issue. slicing, piecing. can you make something about just one thing if you yourself are so many things. a feminist work which interests men. and why shouldn't that be the case, when the feminist movement was just a specific manifestation of a general sentiment, a demand pushed to suffocation, etc.

i've been looking at birds differently. and more. is everything this interesting if you just look for it? or at, or into, or.

i keep forgetting that i don't really believe that all all humans have to have certain ideals in common, or what have you. meaning: overarching idea of beauty, common ethical code, or, i don't know. i guess what i'm saying is i don't really believe in humanity as such. which sounds depressing, honestly.

we are done hibernating?

Vicki, dear, whatever became of our blog?

We could be having our art/aesthetics/beauty conversations here, and then everyone would know how thoughtful we are--full of thoughts, that is.

This sewing project has made me fall in love with fabric. My mom has been taking me to different fabric stores (we're bonding over this shared love), and I have seen many things I would like to buy. For no intended project, just to have, to inspire a new project. I must find a way to incorporate fabric into things I do for art class. Tie it, perhaps, to femininity, crafts, decoration, but outside of what was said/done in the 70s.

I made a list like the bird one around this topic, but includes,
dainty, birds, eat like a bird, nesting, empty nest, homemaking, crafting

Do you think the feminist movement failed, Vicki?

Why do the feminists at school sort of annoy me? Why am I surprised when a woman does something smart? When I'm a woman, I'm smart. Can I make art about being a woman, or with the slant of femininity, and still be interesting on other levels?

Martha Stewart: crafty, yet aggressive. Any feminist art would have to be contradictory like that. Wallhangings that were huge. Wallhangings of gruesome scenes, with real delicate embroidery. Comforting, soft, warm but also claustrobic.