It's lucky I can't see far with this leg!

I've missed Kira and Frantz, and I could not believe what a change a few months has brought to Kira. She likes me now. She never really liked me before. She tolerated me more than others, but that was the extent of her appreciation of all my hard work. But now, she's verbal, she's affectionate, she's interested in more than just her mother's boob. I'm all for extended breastfeeding, but it makes it hard on the babysitter. She's still nursing, but she can stand to be seperated for big chunks of time. I'm hoping to take her to the Poet's Walk tomorrow morning. But I have a meeting at 12:30, so I don't know how long I'll be able to stay. I was also going to try to give blood, but I might not have time unless I give really early in the morning.
I got paid yesterday, so I went and got a CD player and a new watch, and I signed up for an Itunes account, ordered 11 of the saddest country songs in the world, so now I never have to sit through country music radio waiting for one of these 11 songs to come on. They are all songs that make me cry.

1. The Georgia Rain--(Tricia Yearwood) beautiful melody and it reminds me of home
"...screen door flapping in the wind
same old house I grew up in..."

2. Concrete Angel (Martina McBride...childhood trauma song #1) About a little girl who get killed by her abusive father
"a statue stands in a shady place
an angel girl with an upturned face
a name is written on a polished rock
a broken heart that the world forgot"

3. Tears in the Floor of Heaven (somebody, I forgot...they're all the same) about all these people that die and look down on the people they love...VERY SAD
"Mama smiled, said "don't be sad, child...
grandma's watching you today
cuz their holes in the floor of heaven,
and her tears are falling down.."

4. 10000 miles (Mary Chapin Carpenter)...perhaps the most moving song I've ever heard...musically more than lyrically, from the credits of Fly Away Home.
"The rocks may melt and the sea's may burn
if I should not return
oh don't you see that lonesome dove
sitting on an ivy tree
she's weeping for her own true love
as I shall weep for mine."

5. Everything I own (Bread) This song reminds me of my childhood. I can't be certain but it sounds a lot like something Mama used to sing.
"I would give anything I own
give up my life, my heart, my home..."

6. Walk A Little Straighter (childhood trauma #2) about a boy with an alcholic father

walk a little straighter, daddy,
you're swaying side to side,
your footsteps make me dizzy,
and no matter how I try,
I keep tripping and stumbling,
if you looked down here you'd see,
walk a little straighter, daddy, you're leading me

7. I Love You This Much (childhood trauma #3) about a boy whose father never loved him, no matter how much he tried, who finds Jesus. I'm shameless.

"He said, 'damn you daddy', the day that he died
The man didn't blink, but the little boy cried
'I love you this much, and I'm waiting on you,
to make up your mind, do you love me too,
how ever long it takes, I'm never giving up,
no matter what, I love you this much'"

8. Whiskey Lullaby (Alison Krauss) unrequited love, self-destruction, Alison Krauss...deadly combination.
"He put that bottle to his head, and pulled the trigger
and finally drank away her memory.
Life is short, but this time it was bigger
than the strength he had to get up off his knees"

9. On the Backseat of a Greyhound Bus (Sara Evans) pregnant teen who gives birth on a greyhound
"on the backseat of a greyhound bus,
heart so full that it could bust,
staring at the rest of her life,
she never thought this would be the place
where she would find her saving grace
but she fell in love on the backseat of a greyhound bus"

10. Come Home Soon (SheDaisy) story about a woman waiting for her husband to come home from war...I really am awful. This has blatant patriotic undertones, and I still love it. It makes me wish we were doing the good, noble thing.
"I sleep alone
I cry alone
and it's so hard living here on my own"

11. Skin (Rascal Flatts) Oh my god, this song is sooooo sad. It's about a teenage girl who gets cancer and loses all her hair and her prom date shows up at the door with a shaved head so that they can look the same. SOB!
"Sarah Beth is scared to death
As she sits holding her mom
Cause it would be a mistake
For someone to take
A girl with no hair to the prom
For, just this morning right there on her pillow
Was the cruellest of any surprise
And she cried when she gathered it all in her hands
The proof that she couldn't deny"

and then later

It's quarter to seven
That boy's at the door
And her daddy ushers him in
And when he takes off his cap
They all start to cry
Cause this morning where his hair had been
Softly, she touches just skin

Avis Avian Aviate

I hope the bird flu doesn't come here. If I got it, I might die. Healthy people get sick, and peopel with compromised immune systems die. I'm not ready to die. I don't know if anyone is every ready, but I am definitely the antithesis of ready. I've been thinking about it all day, about if I got it. I wonder if I could will myself to live. Can you refuse to die. For some reason I have this idea that you can only die of sickness if you get tired of hanging on and let go. But that's not true. It can't be. You don't consiously breathe, so you can't stop yourself from not breathing either.

I knew chickens were disqusting. I'm not going to eat chicken anymore. What if the virus can be injested in chicken meat. Maybe I should just live in a bubble, or maybe move to some obscure island where nothing can get to me.

Modicum, Prosaic, Biliousness

There is something to be said about the emotional bliss after successfully completing a task at hand. I seem to suffer chronically from a desultory state of "unfinished". I have notes all over my room and in my bag, but a finished, complete thought is hard to come by. But today, I sat down and finished a book, and I mean the whole book, so that today I will be able to contribute whole-heartedly to a class discussion. I also finished the revision of my paper for Liz Frank, using a few of my newfound vocabulary words so that perhaps I may have some validation in my efforts, such as "Wow, Maura (she says Morah), that's an interesting verb you used there." Liz Frank, tangent here, has a tower of pills that she takes every morning at breakfast. I am endlessly impressed. I could have taken this thing to music class in elementary school and recieved an "E" for the nine weeks.
I've decided not to go to Washington this weekend, prefering to spend my time "not sleeping" in the NYPL. 10-6 no excuses. I took a look at some previous senior projects today, and got really excited about mine, and about how accomplished I will feel after finishing mine. I met with Geoff today, and we talked about structure and scope. My project is going to look like a wishbone. One leg will be literary visions of Pakeha identity in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the other Maori identity during the Maori renaissance of the 60s and 70s, and base will be the bicultural literary revisions of culture in the 80s, perhaps the only good thing going for the 80s, mine and Shosha's births excuded :) ...also an unfinished thought...alas

pejorative, milieu, cursory

My house smells. That's the long and short of it. There's a yeasty smell around my desk, like really really old flowers. And my kitchen is a mix of garbage stench and fly killer. The sink smells like mothballs. I would almost welcome a head cold these days (oh, I shouldn't have said that).
I can't seem to get my work done tonight. Maybe it's the dictionary I just bought...it looks menacing. I am going to improve my vocabulary if it kills me. Liz Frank said that my grammer and vocabulary were attrocious. Humph.