So You Think You Don't Like Poetry

This week's selection by Richard Hugo is depressing, yes, but also very powerful. I love the authority in the voice of the poem -- it grabs you right away. This poem is often anthologized because, well, it's damn good. Also good: Hugo's advice to poets, which is to "never write a poem about anything that ought to have a poem written about it."

Degrees of Gray at Philipsburg

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned seventy this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done.

The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
the Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can't wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs--
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won't fall finally down.

Isn't this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn't this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don't empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn enough to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I'll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You're talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it's mined, is silver
and the girl who serves you food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

Higher Education

Inevitably, once I get to know someone in a work or school setting, they ask me where I went to college. Sometimes my answer of "Yale" elicits a nonchalant nod or "Oh." But more often than not, I get something more along the lines of "Whoa" or "Wow," which makes me feel a little proud but also nervous because people tend to associate going to Yale with not just being smart, but also being a rich snob. I'm definitely not rich and I do my best not to be a snob (though I have pondered the question).

But let me assure you, you should not be intimidated by my alma mater. There were plenty of absolutely ABSURD classes offered at Yale, classes with arguably little to no scholarly merit. Here is a sampling:

Science Fiction, Science Fact? (Physics)
This class examined the actual "science" behind stuff from Star Trek and other sci-fi pop culture gems. Like, how would a Holodeck actually work and is beaming even theoretically possible? Most of my friends took this class pass/fail and, I kid you not, came very close to failing. Turns out, there was actual math and science involved.

Mass Media and Mass Culture (Sociology)
All I know about this class was that those who took it got to go on a field trip to Chicago to attend a taping of The Ricki Lake Show. The topic that day: "I Can't Live Without My Weave."

Computers and the Modern Intellectual Agenda (Computer Science)
I was dumb enough to attempt this one, only after I was assured that no actual computer programming would be happening and that my shaky understanding of how the internet works would not be a problem (tubes underground? magic?) Joke was on me, though -- the professor, who was missing one hand because the Unibomber sent him a bomb in the mail, hated me. Maybe because I never did the reading or went to class. And that, boys and girls, is how Katie got her one and only C in college.

Local Flora (Biology)
Some schools have "Rocks for Jocks"; we had Local Flora, a.k.a. nature walks for stoners. The class consisted of long walks through New Haven's less urban areas and then...discussions about those walks.

Heterosexuality (Women's and Gender Studies)
When I told my mother about the existence of this course, she began to seriously question the monetary investment in my Ivy League education. My freshman year boyfriend signed up because he saw in the syllabus that he'd get to read a lot of Maxim. You know, to understand how his heterosexuality was socially constructed.

Camp as a Genre (???)
As opposed to an childhood summertime institution. Can't remember which department offered this, but every gay man on campus tried to take it. The coursework included screenings of John Waters films and Oscar Wilde's Salome. My roommate Laura wrote a research paper on Showgirls. I truly regret not signing up for this class.

Doomed Love in the Western World (English)
This was a legit seminar, with an awesome reading list (Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, House of Mirth etc). What made it funny/tragic, however, was the fact that it was taught/created by a member of the faculty going through a messy divorce with another faculty member. Whom she did her best not to trash talk, even though the entire campus knew he'd been caught cheating on her with a grad student. Despite her middle age, the professor started to coming to class in leather pants and occasionally let personal details about her new single life slip (like the fact that she was sleeping with the young Italian guy she hired to paint her new apartment).

So you see, my undergraduate education had its questionable moments. I'd love to hear what ridiculous courses you readers may have encountered in your pursuits of higher education. Oh, and speaking of higher education, my junior year I took a class called The High Modern Novel. And on 4/20, as you can guess, it became the Really High Modern Novel.

Finally, let me settle this once and for all -- Yale is nothing like this:

Dashing in... Anthrolopogie news

Okay... I've been waiting for this for almost 4 years! Having been into one in New York... you can imagine the wait was dire...

but.

Anthropologie now SHIPS TO AUSTRALIA!!

Be still my heart (and trigger happy finger-clicking mouse!)!!!

Personally...

I am sorry for the lack of posts. My husband's grandmother passed away last weekend so we've been bogged down with arrangements and I have been busy finishing my powerpoint tribute and designing the order of service for her.

We loved this minute 92 year old lady with a wit and love for writing, despite only finishing primary school! Her grasp and use of the English language is amazing. We're grateful that now she is truly at peace.

I have some things to share with you from my home soon... so stay in tuned :)

And so my 30th year of life begins....

Guess what? I turned 29 yesterday!

I had a hangover approximately the size of Montana since the celebrating started the night before, after my first full-length concert with vocal band, Funkin' A! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name). Or more accurately, the celebrating started during the concert when during an extended instrumental break of one of my solos (Michael Jackson's "Working Day and Night"), I did a shot at the bar. Because I'm just that gangsta. We performed with more established (but less visually stylish) groups Overboard and Similar Jones. Fun times.

Then we went to my former place of work, the Hong Kong, for some karaoke. My brother (visiting from NYC) serenaded the pretty bartender with an amazing version of Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me." My memory starts to get a little fuzzy around the point where my old boss started buying rounds of shots. Hence, the Monday hangover.

But I pulled it together in time for a lovely birthday dinner at Cuchi Cuchi, where I reserved the Chico Chica Boom Table, New England's first interactive LED (light-emitting diode) table.

It was a great night, with great company. I am a lucky girl. And like a French Bordeaux, I'm only getting better with age. I'm confident that my 30s will be filled with less folly than my 20s, a.k.a. "my salad days/ when I was green in judgment" (Antony and Cleopatra, Act I).

Green in judgment, indeed. That's putting it mildly.

God knows my needs

For the woman, her home is her domain, her security. If something in her home is not right, the woman is not right.
(With men, their work affects their equilibrium.)

Our tiny 40.5m2 (440 sq.f) home is taking shape. We still have a 30m2 storage space to store our "don't needs" but our essentials are here. (Thanks to another trip yesterday carting a last portarobe of my clothes!)

My brother in law purpose built the kitchen in the studio-space around the few wall cabinets they had on the wall. Now that they've moved out, they've taken those cabinets with them, leaving us with just this:

See the unusable-because-it's-overcrowded-bench-tops-and-there's-no-more-space-under-counter?

I've been scouring eBay daily (and nightly) for some kitchen shelves, after losing out on what was the perfect shelving solution to my kitchen needs:

It sold for a very affordable $80, boo-hoo but it was interstate and it would be a nightmare getting it home.

The hunt continued. And prayer stepped up that God would provide me with an affordable, preferably vintage, solution. After all, He knows my heart!

Last weekend, it rained all day so garage sale-ing with MIL was postponed. Instead we spent some time pottering around our homes, cleaning, gardening... But at 3pm, the urgency to hit two tiny vintage/antique stores 10 mins from us grew to an uncomfortable ache. (Don't ask me to explain it.)

MIL was more than happy to accompany me in an attempt to salvage the day. The first little store was an affordable treasure trove of pretty things and a few choice vintage furniture. I walked away with my MIL's birthday gift to me, a lovely old Japanese made plate with the cutest bluebirds and cherry blossoms, $22.50:



And I picked out the most gorgeous childfren's book, with beautiful illustrations for $6.50.





But it was at the next little store that God answered my constant prayers. Whimsical Notions is an antique-y store in Warrimoo, NSW. The front of the store was the unaffordable stuff, like an art deco lady lamp for $1,150. The back however, was the more junky part... and behind some dusty washstands, cabinets and bookcases, I spied what looked like the top part of a kitchen dresser...

Upon closer inspection, it was a stand alone stained pine (yuck) kitchen shelving!!! Had I found it???

The width and height of the shelves I needed were very specific and limited and I wanted something as big and high as possible to fit as much as possible... would this do??

It DID! Thank you God!

This is it cleaned (and upside down for some reason.)

And hung!



Thank you God. Now I get to open my packed treasures and fill these shelves.

(And wait for the walls to be painted white!)

On the road again

I recently joined Zipcar. Because like Rain Man, I am an excellent driver. And while I claimed during my five-year stint living in New York that I didn't miss driving, it was a big lie.

I was not always a good driver and I'll also amend my statement to say that I am an excellent driver....when no one else is in the car. I get kind of nervous and distracted when other people are present. But on my own? I'm focused and pretty awesome behind the wheel.

My early driving days, however, were not so impressive. The same day that I got my license, in fact, I got into an accident. Not with another car -- with the garage attached to my parents' house. We had a tricky driveway/garage angle and because I had scored a 96 on my driving test, I totally thought I had it in the bag. But it was nighttime and as previously discussed on this blog, spatial relationships are not my forte. I managed to wedge my dad's Toyota Camry into the side of the garage and since he was already in bed, I had to wake him up and have him unwedge it. Not the best first day of driving.

But hey, I've never gotten a speeding ticket. I did once get a ticket for making an illegal turn, but that's my only moving violation (unless you count the time I totaled my Dodge Neon...but that was only half my fault). In college, I successfully drove a 16-person van from New Haven to Washington, D.C., which I think is kind of gangsta.

But honestly, it's not so much the driving that excites me about becoming a Zipcar member -- it's the freedom. Already, I feel like my life has been infused with possibility. I can go anywhere, at a moment's notice. On Sunday, I drove to Connecticut to have dinner with a friend. Just...because I could. My next trip, I think, will be to Amherst to visit Emily Dickinson's homestead. And who knows where I'll go after that. Life is a highway and I'm gonna drive it all night long.