All You Want

I'm working. All day today since Semiotics was cancelled due to my professor's being ill. So I'm working on my semiotics paper. Suture in the literary analysis of Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour." Now, I know this story very well from writing two papers on it in Intro to Literary Theory (is that what it was called?) two years ago. I loved it, thought it was masterful. Others didn't. (wink, wink, Brian.) So here I am working with it again only on a completely different level. Not in terms of its symbols but in terms of the subject intering into the Symbolic order. Abstractness, I know. Don't hate me when it turns out to be a revolutionary study. A revolutionary study of suture in literary analysis in five days. I'm sighing right now if you didn't already know that from the hint of warmth that just landed on your neck.

Then there's my study of William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. A creative piece, thank goodness. Once I get a handle on both of them, it should be fun. Like my creative Emily Dickinson essay was last year. But, once again, I'm juggling two of these freaking papers at once. Plus, my poetry portfolio (my own poetry) is due on the same day as this Williams-Stevens thing. Plus, I'm giving a reading at Henry's this Sunday of my own poetry for the first time ever. Plus, Jedsen's birthday is next Tuesday, and how am I going to see him? Plus, Beth is having her baby on Monday. Plus, our treasured book gets auctioned at Christie's on Monday. Plus, I tend to get anxiety from time to time about things like these.

Ties

I don't regret. But I don't forget.
Those old homes, sandstone,
sink in their bedrock underbellies
under my grown years.

Wherever I am, wherever the sills
collect my dust, I curl and claim
for the moment, but, so.

That rectangle of a childhood home,
stranger, rots. The dirt decades old
in the dandelion shag was dragged in
by someone else. My brother and I
never left our picture under the loose
carpet by the door; we figured it would decay
before another name could blame the floor.
I don't see myself in the blue walls
of a bedroom now labeled a closet, the blue
of a girl in love with the sky. I don't
need its stiff windows. Even the light
can't breathe.

And then there, that nook in a box
with too many beetles, even though
it was mine (no mice called Mom)
I don't need it. I never wrote my name
on the closet door or baked
sugar cookie into the oven bottom.
It's not mine.

Here, my philodendron in the corner, my
Poe on the shelf, my flats near the bed,
I know. When I go, whenever I go, this place
won't hold my name. I won't need it.
I am not tied to shag or picture
windows or certain hills. I would go
to Austria and make it mine. Or a farm
in Kansas. Or a square
in Melbourne. Only windows,
only windows.

--Kari Jackson, 2008

Definition

An eyeless trout searching for a reef.
The fray of an unraveling hem.
A distant moon, orbitless.
A cat without her tongue.
An unsigned cheque to humanity.
A loose shoelace on a morning run.
A capless marker left to dry in the box.
A First Edition missing its spine.
The shot of pain before the toothache.
A glassless picture frame on your wall.
One move short of checkmate.
The interruption to your favorite song.
Eight fingers with a gun.
A calendar forever on April.
A surname with no first.

--Kari Jackson, 2007

Dust in the Wind

This is a semester for the ages. My first semester of grad school. Well, the last three or four weeks, in particular.

My computer crashed a week ago. Lost everything. All that wasn't saved on discs or jump drives or just so happened to be printed out or archived on websites. But now I have a new hard drive, thanks to my wonderful uncle Bruce, the computer prodigy.

The three-week transcript saga (one I don't wish to rehash again) is finally over. And, it seems, needed not happen in the first place (well, of course it shouldn't have happened, but I mean the transcript request nightmare might have been averted). Universities are terrible communicators. Have you noticed? The refuse to bother to look up your phone number. Instead, the wait for you to call wondering what the problem is. Or they just mail the form back to you unfilled. Or the mail just doesn't arrive. I love KU. I really do.

An another note, I'm trying to narrow down my paper topics. It's hard, let me tell you, but I'm so glad I have direction. And I just need to have the intense motivation. Which I'll for sure have once I get the topics down. 40 pages in 18 days. Painful. But I'm going to try to make it fun. Yes, try to make it fun. Creative.

Speaking of, it's back to it. Thursday night. My night when I normally do nothing because tomorrow's Friday, and I don't have classes. Can't spare too many moments these days. Thanksgiving will be only the day of. In Manhattan with my lovely family. Minus my grandpa for the first time; he was sick, hunched over on the couch, last year at this time, coughing, sleeping. He's in a better place now, and so is Grandma. She gets a big Thanksgiving in a big house with lots of family that love her.

We Never Change

I am addicted to Sour Cream & Onion Lays.
I just chopped 5 inches off my hair.
I want to live in a wooden house.
I have a boring wardrobe.
I have a stinky kitty.
I listen to iTunes lots.
I just came up with a great website idea...and then found that someone had it first.
I ate a Bacon Turkey Bravo from Panera Bread today. Tastiness.
I have been studying Lacan.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I want to write poems.
I need to write poems.
I need to write.
I am writing...in a way.
I have wet hair.
I enjoyed my extra hour today.
I spent an hour at Borders this morning in their cafe but didn't buy anything. $3.50 for a mocha? I don't think so.
I am listening to Coldplay. Play on.