Octopus's Garden

Well, I'm on "Fall Break." Though, the only break about it for me is that I don't have poetry writing tomorrow afternoon. Of course, my favorite class is the one abandoned. I still have to work and write a semiotics paper for Monday. Semiotics is so confusing. Yet so fascinating. How do I write a paper using semiotics to examine a poem? Hopefully the next few days will tell me. The poem at the end is the one I chose to write about. Think about it.

Today I started getting pre-cat nerves. How is it going to be? Will the cat leave messes? Will she be happy? I'm still set on it, though. Everyone I've told has just been so encouraging about the health and general life benefits of having a pet. I'm sold. I'm going to call PetSmart tomorrow and see if Snickers is still there. If she is, I'll go over there tomorrow or Friday afternoon to get her. It's like bringing home a baby! (only not really)

I was just looking up graduate schools with MFA programs in creative writing for Jedsen. Didn't I just do that for myself? Yep. One year ago I was doing this. Only I made mistakes. I'm trying to guide Jedsen away from mistakes. It sucks that he's not even considering KU. I don't want him to go somewhere just because I'm there, but I want him to give it a chance. If he hates Lawrence (like he does), then he could just commute from Topeka. No, he says. So, he may be going to Colorado or Iowa or Nebraska or Arkansas or anywhere. Well, at least we will have had one year living "close" to each other before it gets even more long-distance than ever before, right? That's the nature of our relationship. Who knows if we'll ever live in the same city. Let me tell you, we've been doing long-distance for nearly three years now. We actually got closer when we moved farther apart because we were forced to communicate all the time. Weekends work for us because we're so busy during the week, but that's not the life I want forever. It would be nice to experience having a boyfriend who lived across town and not down a stretch of I-70.

It's finally feeling like fall here in Kansas, and that makes me happy. I'm tired of sweating all the way up Mount Oread every day. However, it's a little distressing, seeing as I have a very small cool-weather wardrobe. Not that it's ever been more, but every year it seems to be a little more pathetic. Please, please, please help me, "What Not to Wear!" Yes, it's my dream to have them tell me what will look good on this 5' frame. And what hairstyle will work best on my head (since I've never found it on my own). And what make-up suits me (since I'm kind of stuck). It would help if I were in shape. Then I would feel better in my clothes. Just go to the gym, Kari. Just go. I know how good it feels to work out, but it's the going there that's hard. I need to check out KU's fancy, big rec center, and I need to use what I'm paying for with my student fees.

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Protocols
(Birkenau, Odessa; the children speak alternately)

We went there on the train. They had big barges that they towed.
We stood up, there were so many I was squashed.
There was a smoke-stack, then they made me wash.
It was a factory, I think. My mother held me up
And I could see the ship that made the smoke.

When I was tired my mother carried me.
She said, "Don't be afraid." But I was only tired.
Where we went there is no more Odessa.
They had water in a pipe--like rain, but hot;
The water there is deeper than the world.

And I was tired and fell in in my sleep
And the water drank me. That is what I think.
And I said to my mother, "Now I'm washed and dried,"
My mother hugged me and it smelled like hay
And that is how you die. And that is how you die.

--Randall Jarrell