Blog Plug:

http://victualsense.wordpress.com/

My friend started a food blog. She's a creative writing grad from Rhodes and her writing about food definitely contains a little bit of wit. And, she's Southern, but definitely not the Paula Dean type.

But, most importantly, she also cooks me dinner. Living alone causes me to live like a bachelor.

Take a look!

Catch that phrase! Gramma-ah freaa-kay.

 The following conversation aptly describes my new found unemployment. Luckily, I have friends who speak the same text speak and are currently without a  j-o-b. Now, I have a new found appreciation for text communication and lack-of-grammar. Remind me to thank Texas for that one.

Here is a conversation that ensued between him and I, bringing on my new favorite phrase of the summer,  "finding them sexies"

-
"Yo yo- what you doin tonight?"

"Beasting through my book. I know, I know-  I'm a regular par-tay animal."

"Ok well, we hangin later this week"


"chey-ah. Can we have  have foodstamp potlucks? And then dance it off?"

"Yeah, I'd be down. To eat. And dance." 


"Legit! You, sir, have a deal."

"And, you know, finding them sexies."


"I'd be down for finding myself one of them sexies...haha"

"Deal. Food. Dance. Finding them sexies."

Aside from the horrible grammar and spelling phonetics, I couldn't help but laugh and secretly hope this phrase catches on.

Sidenote: The last time I went dancing at this place they played footage of the KKK while playing soul music. Sober, and stunned, I had my first cigarette in a year, and discussed weaves and the proper jargon for San Antonio, which, apparently,  is Say-town, or San Antone. Weaves, are another story.

Animated Art.

The NY Times blogger/author Jeff Scher did a great Op/Ed piece that included animated art about his son Buster. The film is has a contrasting dichotomy of displaying parental POV, but also very childlike in it's quality and aesthetic. 

You Might Remember This
I think its a shining example of the digital medium and artistic production, with fractured small fragments composing the whole memory.

"I will remember them all, having now engraved them in memory with crayon, paint and pencil."


I am continuously fascinated by the idea of truth, representation of subjective reality and the evolution of memories over time. I think this follow-up piece is wonderfully composed, a view of a child's life through a father's eyes. Also, Happy Father's Day. Now, maybe, you should call your father...

BOom Boom.

Summer Reads
Or It Already Feels like July...

Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex

Thomas Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow 

Michel Foucault This is Not a Pipe

My airplane read:


Sara Gruen Water for Elephants


And my "re-reads"


Herman Hesse Steppenwolf


Mark Z. Danielewski House of Leaves




Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet






Maybe possible unemployment and living alone has a bright side...
  

Restored Working Habits.

Having spent the last two years working in the public sector, mainly the public school system (ranging from Elementary to University), is, by far the most challenging thing I have ever done. College was a sweet summer breeze in comparison to the long hours, little pay, the disproportionate number of students:me, demands of a collapsing school system, undocumented students politic, and well, working in a strange melting pot of race where I continually am too hyper-aware of my own race, my own racial baggage as a white female going into a school composed almost entirely of Hispanics and African-Americans.

It is one thing to read about the system, it is another thing entirely to experience it.

However, one of my students gave me a card, and inside, there was a scribbled letter that read,

"I've had an amazing time with you this year. I can't tell you how thankful I am to have met you. I needed the 'realist' point of view you have given me. I really have loved connecting with you these past couple months. I know we will always talk through my college years. I hope to always keep in touch.


"ps. I will never forget you because you have truly made a great impact on my life"


I guess, I would say, working in the public sector sucks, for a lack of a better term.  It's not a lucrative career for someone in their mid-twenties trying to get their feet on the ground monetarily, have a life outside of work, try and maintain a social network.  And with recent budget cuts, the jobs are slim pickings and incredibly competitive.

Regardless, I love my job, which is something that I know most people my age cannot say. I work hard, and I deal with an incredible firing of stressors. However, at the end of the day, it's all worth it and it feels good.

As I leave this industry, I have no idea how to operate in a regular job that doesn't serve the public or work on youth advocacy. I don't know how I am going to sit in a cubicle, make copies, merge excel spreadsheets, answer phones...or just have a job that pays me, just because it pays me. It all just seems so selfish and hollow. I wish everyone post-graduate could of had a two years of rewarding and internally fulfilling job. And, I know this sounds, but the experience in itself alters the way you view wage labor, worker's rights, public funding, large governmental systems and becomes a shining example  of all that 'crazy' social theory you spent four years learning.

I love Texas

but Texas will never be home.

As the weather already starts to reach the upper 90's and I prepare myself for four straight months of hot, humid sticky days, I can't help but start to miss Washington.

For the following reason:

Lake Roosevelt 

 I spent every summer on this lake up until this point and this will be the first summer since I was 10 that I won't go boating here. As it heats up, I can already tell I will be yearning for mid-80's pleasant temperatures, pristine blue water to ski on. 

The Art of Things

I moved across the country with my car full of nothing but the essentials. No trailer, no truck, just a  a gray Ford Taurus with the trunk full to the brim, backseat packed and a bike rack. 2,300 miles of open road and nothing but the belongings in my car.

I'm moving again, (my fourth move in three years) and this time, I don't want a lot of stuff. Suffice to say, I have not had the opportunity to gain a lot of material things. My job only allows for me to live on the bare essentials, but it's been a positive life change.

But, as I'm packing going through all my old belongings, I am throwing them away.

Elizabeth Bishop, in her very famous poem, wrote about the ease of losing important things. As I'm losing important material possessions, I like to think I'm gaining new experience through some sort of minimalist living.

I don't need a lot, I desire excess, but I suppose that is the American mindset. Still, I will only have 10 boxes of things, and for that, I am really happy.