And I am sitting in my apartment, watching Ghostbusters and eating Maggie Moo's ice cream right out of the container. Life is good.
In case you were wondering, these last few weeks have been chock-full of revelations and relaxations. Below is a list of some of those moments.
1) I think Not-blogging/Blogging may really affect my writing. I have been reading lots (preparing for the book chapter and the conference paper), but I have not written a thing in weeks. If writing is dinner, then blogging is like a good, cold martini--gets the mouth and mind ready for the meal.
2) Vermont is everything it's cracked up to be.
3) Ordering a coffee and a sidecar really does make one feel like Auntie Mame.
4) I am looking forward to school starting in the fall--I will bring you a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils.
5) The hotdogs at Shea Stadium are better than the hotdogs at Yankee.
6) I seem to have misplaced my DVD of Eddie Izzard's "Dressed to Kill"--which is fucking tragic.
7) When somebody brings me flowers, my day always gets better.
8) Howard Frank Mosher, a guy who writes about the Kingdom (also known as the
northern part of VT--where my daddy is from), is awesome. I just read two of his books, "Marie Blythe" and "Northern Borders," and I cannot recommend them highly enough.
9) I think "When You are Engulfed in Flames" is my new favorite David Sedaris book. As a collection, it is pretty much stellar.
10) Wall-e is lovely. And I think it was the result of a drunken dare. Over sidecars and coffee on some Saturday night, some random said to the Pixar folks, "I'll bet you cannot make an adorable, touching, beautiful movie starring a robot. That doesn't speak. Whose sidekick is a cockroach. Seriously."
11) This is for E!: I've been thinking about your voicemail message the other day, and here's what I think. I think memory works in a reactive manner... Like, the same way that skin does--two functions:
a) Separation: in the process of creating a self, a collection of memories and recollections, memory works to separate things out from other things--creating and keeping the self intact and whole (most of the time). Which also might be why people with memory issues are so at-a-loss in the symbolic order.
b) Protection: the separation of self from other, through specific memories and (sometime) imaginative re-collecting, keeps the dangerous, self-splitting stuff out. Like skin, memory builds up around the soft, tender parts and becomes a kind of barrier--not completely impenetrable but better than being always-already-open--to the vicissitudes of world.
12) The view from the top of the Met is incomparable. You should see it. Call me, and I'll meet you there.
Showing posts with label Monuments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monuments. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
We all talk the same
I just got back from a trip to northern Virginia—where my cousin lives with his wife and their daughter. It was a super-fun vacation for several reasons, which I have listed (oh-so-thoughtfully) below.
1) This is my favorite cousin. He is smart and fast and sarcastic and wonderful. We are a year apart, age-wise, and we grew up being mistaken for twins (because we look similar, because we act similarly, because we talk the same, because we laugh at the same things). It was good to see him again, and it was good to be with an old friend who’s not afraid to remind me, periodically, that I am still the same ridiculous five year old I was back-in-the-day—official sounding degrees and titles notwithstanding.
2) GOT TO GO TO MANNASSAS. I am a historian in disguise, so seeing the field of Manasses (or, as we call it correctly in the South, Bull Run) was a marvelous treat. My cousin and his family live about 15 miles away from the battlefield park, and he was kind enough to drive me to the site so that I could geek out over the monuments and the stories. There was a pretty cool movie at the beginning, narrated by Richard Dreyfuss (mmmm, Stand By Me references). Also, the field is huge. Virginians, as you may or may not know, are very excited about being from Virginia, and you cannot swing a sneaker in Virginia without hitting a Civil War monument of some kind. That said, they are better at preserving old hysterical markers than a lot of other Southern places (for the being excited part, as well as the cashflow into those areas—but that’s another story entirely).
3) Got to read and hear a lot about Stonewall Jackson. Please see pictures below. Bull Run (or First Manasses, you Yankee freaks) was where he got his nickname—his actual name was Thomas Jonathan Jackson. This is kind of a big deal for me. I am from the South, and it is a very Southern thing to claim some sort of relation to one or another Southern general. In my family, it’s Stonewall (oh my god, thank you that it’s not Nathan Bedford Forrest, that fucknut bitch). We are, according to my dear and earnest mother, related to Stonewall’s niece or nephew or something. (He had a daughter, but she died as an infant. And he himself was killed by friendly fire outside of Chancellorsville in 1863—just fyi). Anyway—yea for close AND distant family!
This is the monument to Stonewall. It is very tall.
This is my dear cousin standing in front of the monument. He is not as excited about Stonewall as I am. Different sides of the family, you see...
And this is Me and Stonewall!!! It was very windy, but I did not mind.
4) Got to meet my new cousin. She will be two and a half this week, and she is fucking brilliant. Runs in the family.
5) Got to see my dear uncle and aunt that I never get to see. I was a surprise for them—and it was marvelous to laugh with them again.
6) Got to ride a train again… which is always awesome.
7) Got to see Undercover Brother—possibly my new favorite movie. Favorite excerpt:
Conspiracy Brother (played by Dave Chappelle): “Somebody get me a pillowcase—I’m joining the Klan.”
8) Got mistaken for a local: we went to walk around this cute little historical town called Middleburg (which I kept calling Middle Earth, much to my dear cousin’s chagrin). At one of the stores, the lady behind the counter mistook me.
Lady: Your face is familiar. You’ve been in here before, right?
Me: Well, actually, no. But I am related to some people that live here, and they have probably brought other members of my family in.
Lady: Oh, really? How nice.
Me: Yeah. We all kind of look alike. You know--big head, big teeth, kinda intense.
Lady: (noncommittal grunt)
1) This is my favorite cousin. He is smart and fast and sarcastic and wonderful. We are a year apart, age-wise, and we grew up being mistaken for twins (because we look similar, because we act similarly, because we talk the same, because we laugh at the same things). It was good to see him again, and it was good to be with an old friend who’s not afraid to remind me, periodically, that I am still the same ridiculous five year old I was back-in-the-day—official sounding degrees and titles notwithstanding.
2) GOT TO GO TO MANNASSAS. I am a historian in disguise, so seeing the field of Manasses (or, as we call it correctly in the South, Bull Run) was a marvelous treat. My cousin and his family live about 15 miles away from the battlefield park, and he was kind enough to drive me to the site so that I could geek out over the monuments and the stories. There was a pretty cool movie at the beginning, narrated by Richard Dreyfuss (mmmm, Stand By Me references). Also, the field is huge. Virginians, as you may or may not know, are very excited about being from Virginia, and you cannot swing a sneaker in Virginia without hitting a Civil War monument of some kind. That said, they are better at preserving old hysterical markers than a lot of other Southern places (for the being excited part, as well as the cashflow into those areas—but that’s another story entirely).
3) Got to read and hear a lot about Stonewall Jackson. Please see pictures below. Bull Run (or First Manasses, you Yankee freaks) was where he got his nickname—his actual name was Thomas Jonathan Jackson. This is kind of a big deal for me. I am from the South, and it is a very Southern thing to claim some sort of relation to one or another Southern general. In my family, it’s Stonewall (oh my god, thank you that it’s not Nathan Bedford Forrest, that fucknut bitch). We are, according to my dear and earnest mother, related to Stonewall’s niece or nephew or something. (He had a daughter, but she died as an infant. And he himself was killed by friendly fire outside of Chancellorsville in 1863—just fyi). Anyway—yea for close AND distant family!
This is the monument to Stonewall. It is very tall.
This is my dear cousin standing in front of the monument. He is not as excited about Stonewall as I am. Different sides of the family, you see...
And this is Me and Stonewall!!! It was very windy, but I did not mind.4) Got to meet my new cousin. She will be two and a half this week, and she is fucking brilliant. Runs in the family.
5) Got to see my dear uncle and aunt that I never get to see. I was a surprise for them—and it was marvelous to laugh with them again.
6) Got to ride a train again… which is always awesome.
7) Got to see Undercover Brother—possibly my new favorite movie. Favorite excerpt:
Conspiracy Brother (played by Dave Chappelle): “Somebody get me a pillowcase—I’m joining the Klan.”
8) Got mistaken for a local: we went to walk around this cute little historical town called Middleburg (which I kept calling Middle Earth, much to my dear cousin’s chagrin). At one of the stores, the lady behind the counter mistook me.
Lady: Your face is familiar. You’ve been in here before, right?
Me: Well, actually, no. But I am related to some people that live here, and they have probably brought other members of my family in.
Lady: Oh, really? How nice.
Me: Yeah. We all kind of look alike. You know--big head, big teeth, kinda intense.
Lady: (noncommittal grunt)
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