de jour

One quote of the day that I really enjoyed:

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. - George Eliot

Testing... I think I got it to copy right this time, from the "cartoon of the day" service.

New Yorker Cartoon

by Henry Martin

peace, man.

Today I've been working on letting go of things that have bothered me.
First I tried a meditation ritual.
Then I burned some things-- but not my or anyone else's property.
Then I went to get fresh vegetables, in the rain.

I wonder if it is possible to let go of everything that has ever bothered one in one's life.

Generally, I try to be pretty peaceful. The only thing I've ever owned that might qualify as a weapon was a swiss army knife with my name emblazoned on it, so if I did anything with it, everyone would know who it belonged to. Well, they confiscated it at the airport one time and now I have nothing which would qualify as a weapon. I was a bit resentful of airport security at the time, but got over it, I think.

On a whim, I visited an astrologer I had a free visitation card for the other day. She first did my rising and moon signs, aquarius and pisces, and then told me I was holding onto grudges because I'm a scorpio and that I just needed to let things go. I was like, "na, und?" (but in English). That is pretty clear to me already.

I've also decided to spend less time on the computer in general, with a 12pm computer curfew.

Onwards onto a more peaceful existence.

Persepolis & Iran

Yesterday read the entirety of Persepolis in the bathtub. Before when I heard the name, I thought of the Assyrians and a bunch of ruins. I've had the pleasure of standing in a lot of ruins of things in Turkey, but would be interested to travel to Iran sometime. Anyway, I thought the book was terrific-- major life themes combined with some education about the historical and present situation in Iran, as well as the debates surrounding veils. When it comes to veils or any sort of gagging, I think it should be a personal choice. It really helped to put some things into perspective to read, and relates well to the current issues of lesbians and gay men who seek asylum from Iran elsewhere-- sometimes asylum is granted, sometimes it's really a fight to achieve-- the recent story about Iranians seeking asylum in the UK demonstrates this. Also, it made me think again about the film, Another Skin, which is about a lesbian from Iran who tries to escape, is unable to, and ends up living in Frankfurt illegally, risking deportation at any moment; her previous girlfriend was killed, I believe. The film's in German.

Love can be sinful indeed; on that scale, I have to confess to being interested in international queer rights. Anyway, it was very interesting to see what happened in Iran and shocking as well, esp. on the anniversary of 9/11. I had a relative too who was imprisoned, he was a prisoner in Moscow during WWII, was there for years, and when he returned to Germany, never talked about his experiences, though from what I understand they were pretty horrific. Some things are really worth fighting for, others not so much. Nothing like being falsely and ridiculously accused of some things to make one giggle, as though I'm some sort of ueber-former-student or something on whom one can blame all one's issues-- almost wish I could take credit for a lot of things, though any attempt at research would reveal I can't, though maybe someone has been impersonating me. There are strong cases, and then there are cases which really have no legs to stand on-- one has to pity people who need to beat up on others who are less powerful in some ways in order to feel better about themselves or their relationship, persuade others to do all their dirty work by pulling pity acts, and never take rudimentary steps of discussion, confrontation, or mediation when they have a problem. Fortunately, living in the US, I do have a right to freedom of speech, among other things. I guess one thing I might be accused of is sometimes needing fashion police... anyway, here's how the fashion police work in Persepolis, as a group of thugs who look like nuns:

There's also a film, which I haven't found in English yet, but here's a clip:

On the matter of clothing... if one is prohibited from contact in "any fashion," it seems like everyone would have to be naked to have a talk.

reading material

Oh how I love iGoogle. I've been able to subscribe to the New Yorker, and get a new cartoon in my box every day. Some I wish I could share, but they're copy-and-paste-proof, it seems. I can also subscribe to EMMA and Perlentaucher online, as well as Spiegel & the Economist. Too much fun. All of this, however, makes me think of my roomie again in the bathroom with his magazines. If almost everything is available electronically, will someone start putting computer screens in bathrooms, so they're not just advertised as "bathroom, w/bath & shower" but "wireless bathroom w/waterproof pentium pc in porcelan"? I have seen waterproof computers advertised that can be taken into the bath, swimming pool, or sauna.



I also get some interesting quotes each day:

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. - Thomas Mann

Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone. - Gertrude Stein

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult. - Rita Rudner

scrabble/scramble

Two job interviews, one of which I'm not at liberty to discuss at all. The latter has, however, forced me to ask myself what sort of patriot I truly am. Hmph.

Temping sort of sucked yesterday. They actually sent me home to change my clothing; the agency had told me business casual, but when I arrived there, everyone was in business formal. Like anyone could even find me if they tried, tucked back away in a cubicle filing things I was not given enough dividers to do while everyone else watched Oprah. The other jobs have all been interesting in their own ways, but the experience such as yesterday's have made me anxious to accelerate my jobhunt.

I haven't read anything interesting aside from the news today, because I discovered on-line scrabble-- my favorite game of all time-- and some college pals and I have been at it and now I'm sucked into the online scrabble world.

I feel like in leaving grad school, I'm emerging from an entirely different galaxy in which my mind, my thoughts, my feelings, my work, and even my body and my needs, had become my own worst enemy; they could not protect me and were actually the cause of being hurt. At least I'm not having as many nightmares these days, guess I feel more safe.

bathroom reading

Not going to try to relate this one to Stifter.

Oh, I will miss my roomie. Phew, but still.

At some point, he started leaving all sorts of magazines in the bathroom to read while taking care of business. Sports Illustrated, his alum magazine, etc. etc. Sometimes I had the urge to take them out so that he would not take so long in there. But then I worried about what would happen if we one day ran out of toilet paper, and decided that I would put some things in there too. My alumnae magazine. Then I decided to put in some short reading material that I wouldn't mind if I dropped in water to read while taking a bath. So I put in Imre Kertesz's Kaddish for a Child Unborn, close to the time when I was leaving my program, thinking it was good reading for letting go of the diss idea for the time being. There are some worlds where one should be careful with one's nascent ideas. So a pal came to visit, and was like, "I'm so sorry, I hope it didn't hurt too much." I was like "what?" It turned out they'd thought I'd had an abortion, like a real one rather than a theoretical one. All because of that book. I guess my roomie grew up keeping only the most important and holy literature in the bathroom. I didn't realize how implicating literature can be, and so when posting pics of my place for a new roomie, was careful not to show many titles.

That's what I've been busy with for the last week, and finally resorted to some new means of advertising, some of ideas of which came from my temp work with real estate people. Which was fun-- they had me looking up wineries in the state and so on.

turkey: collage & slideshow

Nothing to do with Stifter.

a collage of my voyage to Turkey, have finally made a web album. check, check, check off of my to-do list. a few other places up next... in the meantime, here's the slideshow-- still working on labels & the map, but the basic pics, below. I visited, in this order: Antalya, Olympia, Cappadoccia, Istanbul, Troy (with a view of Lesbos further down the coast), Selcuk, Pergamum and the Aescleipon, Ephesus, and the beach and treehouses southwest of Antalya.