I like to get all tied up and rescue myself, then it's off to the park and a scoop of icecream for my hero

So does it count as REALLY dumb to change one's topic of one's final research paper due in two weeks if one hasn't done any real research on said first topic?

Ha ha, yes children. I only write in third person when life is reaaaaaly interesting. But what can I say, I'm kind of burnt out on writting about the complexities of Russian social structure for a while. Me thinks transnational indigenous organizing and this wicked cool Siletz grandmother whom I met this summer would be, well, less brainfull-tiring. And just, way cool.

Check it: http://www.grandmotherscouncil.com/

And if you need me until December 13 (which is, like, way soon) I'll be at Papacinno's/PSU Library/Starbucks/Watzek. Pretty much, not my house. 'Cause the only way my house is livable, is in my bed.

Curtain Call

Oh band. I'm so...high right now, like back in the old days when the stage still meant something and putting on concert black was like prancing about in a tutu and tiara, just, totally casting a spell and stepping into another world. And music still holds that mysterious power to make me forget, for just a little while, and be totally immersed in my task. I've been fighting off a cold and just, lack of caffeine induced utter exhaustion all week, but as soon as I look up and there is music going on around me, magically my nose isn't running and my body isn't aching, and it always seems to be such a ---revelation.

I wanted to say we killed tonight, but not quite. The truth is, at points I was honestly expecting the director to stop and start again, it was that bad. But the main thing is we were so on, had such the connection to the 20 or 30 people in the audience, that everything seemed to line up, and pull in just the right times and places. You could feel it too, once we got a couple of pieces into what is for my totally non-music oriented school a pretty heady program, and everyone slowly sat a little straighter, and played a little brighter.

It was almost epic, I have to say, in that moment in time with the rain dripping in the background. I held my breath a little, thinking back through every other curtain call, every other barage of applause, every other gut wrenching first entrance. I looked out over the band, and they joined every other ensemble of which I've ever been a part in my mind's eye, in a transparent mesh of song and moments.

I am wondering where a year and a half from now will have me be, and what role the pulsing of sounds and banging of beats will have.

And mostly, I'm wondering how I'm going to write a three page analysis of Juan Ramon Jimenez tonight, en espanol por supuesto. But for now I really want to just go frolic in the rain in my tutu and tiara, and not break the spell quite yet.

Life is too short for people behind desks and people behind masks...

I've been looking back a lot lately, and discovering the phenomenal differences between looking back fondly, and looking over your shoulder, paranoid that life might be going to catch up with you. I can't describe how strange and surreal it is, to have woken up in a new world. Like my life of easily the past 4 years was this beautiful and horrifying dream, that as hard as I tried, I couldn't quite wake completely from. I look back on my own desperation, intrigue, even curiosity, and it seems like I'm sifting through a sitcom I'd watched loyally in high school. I can't describe how totally bizarre it is, and completely disconcerting to be...OK. Good even. The sheer euphoria of being alive and engaged and interested, still is a little novel. I cant keep from questioning the boundaries around me, and how I'd managed to dupe everyone for so long. The thing I keep coming back to though, in mulling over everything that's happened to me and with me and around me, is that in some sense I feel like I've traded in my poet's eye.

I know, geez Peggy, here we go again.

But really, hear me out.

In regaining some realistic emotional stamina, it seems as if life somehow means differently. I was going to say less, which is kind of true, but definitely not all encompassing. What I mean to say is everything I do, every minute interaction, every small relationship I stumble on in passing, is weighed differently. I think in the past while being so wrapped up in my mind, every experience I found myself in was somehow the end of the world. I've kind of always felt like life effected me differently, like in some ways everything just meant more to me, like I had the world on my shoulders. Then again, I am the girl who would will herself to stay awake because she thought those who needed her would some how know, and be comforted, by her presence. I look back to the days before life swallowed me whole, and I envy that Peggy a little bit, for living so fully and loving so freely. The trade off for gaining a new perspective is exactly that--a new perspective. I miss (and I can't believe I'm even writing this) everything meaning so much. I miss drama, because that meant that life was happening with me in hand. I love it that I've finally learned to look in the right directions for my strengths and salvations, but in a small way I feel like I'm missing a lot, just by giving up the right to feel and experience everything. I miss being possessed so fully and completely. I miss having passionate crushes on boys. I miss having secrets, and hidden dreams. In coming into myself, I've learned to spread all my cards in front of me, and look the dealer in the eye. I miss having a poker face.

The thing they don't tell you about listening so intently to the winds back when the world was new is that eventually you get tired, and then you go deaf. And then maybe, if you're lucky, you remember that you have been gifted with smell, sight, touch, and taste. I think thats what happened to me, that life got so overwhelming and blew so hard that eventually I just couldn't hear anymore. And only now can I really look around again, and hopefully with time, trust enough to open my ears.

I'm ok, really. For the first time in a while, I'm not saying that just to put people of my trail. I am so, intrigued by the world right now, that I really just don't know what to do with myself. Thats it, really. I don't know how to not be depressed and exhausted and confused and trapped. I have never learned the skill of being just human. I don't know how to not be so effected by life that it tears me apart. But I am doing my damnedest, and having a damn good time learning.

Life tonight, almost makes sense. School is hellish, but the change is radical now that I'm totally hooked on Sociology. Everything fits together so miraculously, I confuse which paper goes for which class, because they're all so interrelated. I was asked lately what made staying this year, not heading to Chile and living blissfully as a perpetual exchangee, worth it. I don't have the words to explain how I betrayed myself when I decided to stick it out here in Portland. The best I could say was that traveling lets me be the best parts of myself, and in staying here, even though leaving would have been much easier and fulfilling in mind and body, I wanted to learn how to be that girl regardless of situation. I want to harness the freedom and lucidity and adventurousness and confidence and gregariousness that I so revel in when I am abroad, and be that person regardless of passport stamp. I'm...getting there, slowly.

I accept things falling into place, however warily (theres that looking over my shoulder again). I somehow managed to con the LC registrar into paying me to take Russian at PSU next semester, which is so more than sweet. I've missed it, I really have. I'm so sickly looking forward to spending a good deal of winter break reverting back to Zen grammar workshop, the act of beating grammar patterns to death. I love the exhilaration of properly placing my thoughts into the mold of the Russian linguistic frame. Spanish has never come so freely to me, its always seemed a good deal more nebulous, without the grounding of the case system. That and I hate myself a little bit everytime spanish comes out of my mouth, just because I know I have never devoted enough of myself to mastering the language, and that the words spilling from my mouth in a thick russian accent are thus inferior. Dork? Yes. Next semester I am totally stoked, in addition to the Russian I'm hoping to do some volunteer work for the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Portland. This will hopefully involve doing more of my home visits from the summer, hanging out with some crazy foreign kids, and throwing my weight around where it really matters. I haven't really planned the project all the way through yet, still working on finding a So/An prof to back me up for practicuum credit in the department. I'm applying this summer for student/faculty research money, to work with my Russian advisor on an ethnographic survey of the ruskogovorjashix of Portland. She wants to investigate the Russian-ish community of Portland, and how they've faired in the past fifteen years since the raspad of the USSR. All of the information on the subject (albeit quite sparse) is pretty ancient, or totally irrelevant, so the work that we could be doing is really exciting. That is, contingent on me applying and getting funding from the college, otherwise all is for naught.

Overall, if I could sum up everything that I've learned about life (Thank you Frost) in three words or less of course, it would be this. It goes on. I'd say that you owe it to yourself to be comfortable, and to keep fighting until you get there.

So color me...pensive.

Oh, hippies.

I'd just like to take this moment, huddled in the cyber cafe with 9 other strangers peering intently at the 530 news, that its moments like this that I love my school. Its election night, pitch dark and pouring outside, and professors and students alike are milling around amazed by the double presence of both Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert on NBC news. I love it that LC kids are pumped for government and life and well, engaged. I love it that LC kids have been milling around impatiently at all TVs and computers all afternoon, waiting for the first signs of poll returns. I love it that one professor this afternoon said he'd excuse anybody from the remainder of class who needed to drive down to the ballot box and vote. For all the crap that I give them, on rare days that everyone comes together in the pursuit of passions, and intellectualism, and civic involvement, well, I wouldn't trade Portland for anywhere else in the world.

I hope you don't mind that I put down in words...

Cuando me enamoré por primera vez tenía 12 años y estaba en el octavo grado. Él era mi mejor amigo, nosotros nos conocíamos de todos los grupos de música de la escuela, ya hacía más de dos años que conocíamos. Él estaba ya en el noveno grado, (no importaba que fuera más joven que yo por un mes) y yo tenía muchísimo miedo de que alguien se enterara de que salíamos. Salimos por cuatro meses, un tiempo largo cuando eres un adolescente, en que pasamos todas las tardes juntos tocando el piano y cantando las canciones de la época de nuestros padres. Nos separamos en una manera muy dramática, en el centro de la calle en la lluvia. No podía soportar que le faltara la confianza, y me preocupaba demasiado que fuera a dañarse. Le dije que esperaba que el obtuviera ayuda con sus problemas, y él se enojó. Nos separamos y él no habló conmigo en más de un año.

La segunda vez, me enamoré otra vez de un músico, y otra vez en secreto. Era una estudiante de primer año del colegio, y él estaba en su año final, lo cual fue bastante escandaloso. Tocábamos percusión para el colegio, y por eso pasábamos mucho tiempo juntos. Salimos por un rato en mi primer año, y también una vez más cuando ya estaba en segundo año. Cuando salimos por la segunda vez, era mayor, y sabía en que entré. Creo que hay siempre una pequeña conexión entre los amores viejos, que dura mucho más después del tiempo en que están juntos, y así fue entre nosotros hasta que yo salí del país por un año. Tomamos una copa cuando volví a casa para una visita pequeña, y pasamos la noche charlando y riéndonos de todo lo que había sucedido en esos años. Me he dado cuenta que somos muy diferentes, y me pregunté cómo era posible que fuéramos íntimos por tanto tiempo.

Cuando yo volví de mi intercambio, conocí a un chico nuevo en mi escuela secundaria, a quién por supuesto le interesaba también la música. Él ya conocía mi grupo de amigos, pero yo lo odiaba por tener una novia por dos años. Durante la temporada de la banda había tiempo para conocernos mejor. No fue hasta que yo partí para la universidad, que me di cuenta de lo que lo extrañaba. Hablábamos dos o tres veces por semana, y pasábamos todo el tiempo que yo estaba en casa juntos. Dejé el país una vez más para mi semestre en Rusia, y el me escribió casi cada día. Escribía sobre su vida en la universidad en Minnesota donde asistía, y de cuánto él me extrañaba. Estábamos tan lejos el uno de la otra que no sabía qué hacer. Regresé a Pórtland después de viajar, y él vino a visitarme durante sus vacaciones, cuando por fin pudimos discutir lo todo. No fue ni bonito, ni limpio, ni muy sano, pero en mi opinión es siempre mejor saber la verdad y los sentimientos que se influyan en la situación. Desgraciadamente, él tuvo que volver a su universidad, pero afortunadamente hemos podido quedarnos amigos.

Creo que la sociedad nos enseña a adorar a otros por unas razones equivocadas. Nos enamoramos porque pensamos que con otra podemos completarnos. Queremos buscar a otro porque tenemos miedo de estar solos. Es importante que uno sepa estar solo consigo mismo antes de poder estar con otro. Pero yo sé que todos deben aprender este hecho ellos mismos también. Creo que ser adorado, y adorar son las metas más importantes de la humanidad, pero también necesitamos estar listos para cualquier cosa que vaya a pasar.