additionally,

i thought about burns today because i read some passage in which TH denounced silent readers (and writers) as utilizing 1/3 of their resources on the effort, neglecting speech and hearing. and so i remembered the old man who taught a class on the romantics and the outrageous, perfect, blustering way he shouted out certain poems by burns, but this one was more of a quiet shout. all caps, small font.

(to a mouse, by robert burns)

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't.

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

to me, this is all sadness and warmth and sweetness and chill.

scots english is no picnic but it must be endured a few times until you feel all right about it and then begin to love it and want to cry about panicked breasties and self-reproaching e'es. translating just kills it.

like oh my god.

so, this class. i was sort of content to just halfass it as i do most of my education until i was called out by the kind of instructor who signs her emails (after week three) with "love you and want you to do well." OH FINE. i had to create a research plan outlining my attack methods regarding discovering the truth about a chosen dead ancestor who both proves researchable, yet a challenge.

any maternal ancestor is a challenge. much less detail in the census records, often missing maiden surnames, etc. i chose my great-grandmother. i never knew her. she did many things that were likely to leave a paper trail, but also was born in the nether-period when many american states were barely coming around to the idea of keeping vital records on file uniformly. after receiving a mild sassing from my instructor about using nothing but the free parts of ancestry.com, i began to actually research. county offices, little town libraries, state records.

well my grand plans of going to bed early in order to be less irritable and to stop resembling lydia deetz are fucked because i just checked out the federal bureau of land management and found two land patents registered in 1906 in south dakota to a pair of sisters...

fucking,

confirming (in outline) my grandmother's delightful old yarn about her 24 year old mother and aunt participating in a land rush (have you seen "far and away"?) by themselves on the wooly wilds of unoccupied south dakota. what! snakes, indians, strange men! now i am pounding my forehead trying to remember details of stories told to me in grade school about how the girls had to camp out alone on the claim until their brothers/father could get supplies enough out there to build the meager shanty that predated the still-meager but not quite woodshed-looking later family home. stories like two potato sacks filled with corn cobs for mattresses, and bedding down for the night only to find snakes in the mattresses.

my fierce affection for my grandmother bleeds onto my impressions of this woman, for in photos i feel i can see where and how my grandmother's personality took root. photos of her mother look like her. they dressed alike (ok, frumpy). she did things like keep plants and put up excessive holiday decor like my grandmother did, except i can see these in photos scrawled on the back with "christmas 1910." i feel that i can just tell that they were just like each other. that makes her very interesting to me. though she was not a mythological creature, she is to me, which makes the discovery of factual foundations to the oral history HIGHLY EXCITING.




a poor-quality photo of a photo, my grandmother with her mother.

it's hard being a giant baby bitch. i am able to deal semi-gracefully with many terrible things, yet minor inconveniences are 100% unacceptable to me. i have no patience for anything and this fucking weekend is going to really test my new resolution for

Fewer Tantrums in '10!

anyway, i appear to be stressed out. maybe it's school. who cares! all i know is it's manifesting in things like really strange dreams and a.d.d.-like behaviors. last week i dreamt (apparently; i felt convinced that it really happened, but, you know) that i inexplicably called out from my bed from a dead sleep in the middle of the night, which received a reply of, "what!" from the area of my kitchen. uh. it was a male voice, and just before "he" spoke, my cat darted away into the darkness in a panic. it was very scary at the time as i instantly assumed the source of the voice was some sort of evil spirit/demon/jilted former lover combination. a whole lot of things i don't want in my house.

other than that, i've been doing a lot of: trancelike staring, thinking aloud without realizing it, and generally blowing it.

very apathetic this week. that's why, in spite of the various issues of the day, i am interested only in thinking about shit like sacred trees atop ancient burial mounds, the lunar calendar, still bemoaning the sad and mysterious death of peter steele, and watching old videos like this that, again, make me wish it was still the 90s and that i was still 15 and irresponsible, dressing like a cartoon witch and not giving a shit.

all is temporary. right?

right.

earlier, it was raining while the sun shone bright and hot. witchy weather! now it's gray and the rain is coming down in fat, cold drops. i am listening to the mediaeval baebes because i have gone back to the 90s, never to return.

so i am taking this genealogy class which has caused me to go through some scans i made of various old and super-old family photos.

this guy looks so much like my dad that, as a child, i was convinced that he WAS my dad dressed up for one of those old west photo sets. it's actually my great-grandfather tom monaghan at work in the dakotas.

a curious stereoscopic. i can't tell who they are.

edwardian babe katherine monaghan with a younger sibling.

my grandma alyce, the most important person in my life now and ever.

will rogers, skeletor, and baby mary claire.

my grandmother's prized pink cadillac.

the 80s spared no one. look at those assholes smoking in my grandma's house. my aunt julie and my mom.

epic.

100% illumination

i am trying to be more measured with my reactions, and this is a good reminder. in fact i'm just going to hide out in my den and continue to be happy with small and simple, authentic experiences.

definitely need some more piscean advice. why evaluate everything? just make some art, fucking relax, hang out, write, watch let's scare jessica to death for the 4th time in a month and rewind/replay the raptly uncomfortable scene when emily's bony white hand caresses the trembling face of jessica, you know, do whatever.

close your eyes and watch

-

here is the oldest known surviving photo of the moon. there were earlier daguerreotypes, but they were sadly lost in separate house fires the century before last. so there's just this. samuel humphrey took nine exposures one night in september, 1849. so this is a 161 year old harvest moon. i hope it was a good month, because e.a.poe died that october.



of course things have never been the same.

fuckin a.


Ship's deadeye from 1780s wreck off Wattsness, Shetland

"Ship's deadeye (an object used in static rigging of a ship, dubbed 'deadeyes' because of their resemblance to skulls) washed up from a 1780s wreck off of Wattsness in Shetland, North Scotland. Made from wood and incredibly heavy, weighing around 5-7 kilos. The fact it has lasted so long into the 21st century, with only one small part of the object lost to time, is a real homage to the craftsmanship behind it; amazing to think that at somepoint in history someone meticulously designed this object with skills that are a rarity to witness in this day and age. A truly fascinating relic."

selling for £6.44 with 14 hours to go?

originally found by ms. graveyard dirt.

away

every time i come back into the hive, i forget how much i love the desert. outside of the city, everything feels more meaningful, momentous, and authentic. and it is! i'm changing my plans...again.

martanne's. oh my god. chilaquiles. the best green chili sauce on the planet. you line up outside the door which is propped open with a broken water pistol and simply have to stand there and wait as it is apparently always at capacity. i'm very disappointed that i'm not there right now, actually.

i hadn't been in the woods in a long time. it was cold and clean and the moonlight was very bright, and very white.

hey, baby.

this is one of my favorite songs ever.

i think i read somewhere that bruce channel's harmonica inspired lennon's harmonica in love me do.

after my parents divorced, my dad moved in with a friend, jonny. jonny was a tall, thin redhead with big hair and a boyish midwestern charm. as far as i knew then and know now, they were just friends, but i doubt that. jonny worked at a series of good old country bars, including the brass rail i think, or the hitching post. she lived in a large midcentury ranch style which she kept very cold, and very dark. she had a phone booth, a pool table, a pinball machine, and a jukebox, all of which were old. i was seven; to me it was a strange and sophisticated theme park for adults.


despairing at the jukebox selection (all old country! no new kids or paula abdul anywhere!*) i played the same songs by the only artists i knew - the beatles and elvis - until jonny tired of this and decided to school me in classic country and obscure 50s and 60s pop. thank god. "hey baby" was her favorite song and it soon became mine for the frequency of it all. after i got tired of inventing one-person pool table games and tilting the pinball machine, we'd dance around the living room to it.

it's still the best, every time.


*listen, it was 1989. i don't have to explain myself.