you can walk around with your sexy tank of oxygen

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away I found myself in a magical land called North Carolina Governor's School. (Don't worry, this isn't going to be a GSW ode.) The first Friday there, sitting in the auditorium waiting for our que to start my first dance performance of the summer, my Area II teacher read a poem. Since that singular moment, it has been my favorite poem. I think the reasons why will be self-evident. Enjoy. ♥

I wish I could claim that I’m clumsy
because I’m intelligent,
riptide lightning surging through
my synapses as I correlate & codify
the infinite set of cross-references
the world is to itself,
so that my blood remains in
my swollen brain, leaving
the rest of my body faint,
my fingers chilled & numb,
unable to hold onto the
objects assigned them.

I wish I could claim that I’m clumsy
because I’m innocent,
like the fairytale stepdaughter
whose body continually cooked
rubies, sapphires, & Fabregé eggs,
so that with every word,
jewel showers spewed from her mouth,
no doubt occasionally tripping her,
as loose precious & semi-precious stones
rolling around, by, between, &
in front of one’s feet
tend to do.

I wish I could claim that I’m clumsy
because I’m holy,
like St. Catherine of Sienna
who begged Jesus to exchange
His heart for hers,
& though He did, in fact,
remove her heart,
He waited three days
before replacing it with His own,
during which time she no doubt
bumped into a chair or two as the
fist-sized vacancy pulsed
in her ribcage, throwing her
slightly off-balance.

But I’m neither brilliant, innocent, nor holy.
My clumsiness is not derivative,
which doesn’t mean, of course,
that is serves no purpose;
if that’s true that the main trick
of the highly successful
individual is to make life seem
easy, maybe I’m here to
demonstrate its difficulty－

difficult to get from one room
to another with the floor
pitching & plunging as it does;
difficult to pour a glass of milk
when the very nature of milk
is to spurt away, defying gravity;
difficult to move
from afternoon into evening
when my feet can’t help
entangling each other in the
selves of my former shadows,
bruising them cruelly
through not vindictively.

Maybe I’m here
to dispel the illusion
that life proceeds smoothly
as long as one pays attention;
for the clumsy person,
the closer, the more minute,
the most exacting the concentration,
the more extravagant the disaster,
no only in the physical realm,
but the mental realm as well－
everyone knows that thoughts
possess declivities, gaps, &
edges of their own,
not smooth but jagged,
splintered, serrated,
& not just painful thoughts, but
gratifying ones, too－
it isn’t any easier navigating
the inner life than it is the outer,

though despite all this
complaining, I must in
fairness admit there’s
a kind of pleasure in
any kind of stumbling;
it’s like hitting the gas
in a jeep with no shocks
when you go over
a speed bump－not just the
lift but the delay, not just the
delay but the suspension, not just the
suspension but the vertical drop
as the soul slams back
into the body or
the body slams back
into the soul, the brief,
swift thrill of Honey, I’m home,
like Dick Van Dyke or rather
Rob Petrie simultaneously
waving to Laura & tripping
over the footstool,

which is why I wouldn’t
trade my awkwardness for the gift
of flight belonging to the tabloid baby
born with a pair of wings, or for the
“trick-shot” accuracy demonstrated by
Amy Blackburn of Pigeon Forge, TN,
seven-year-old sharshooter reputed to be
the reincarnation of Annie Oakley
able to “pulverize an aspirin
into powder with the pill standing
sideways on edge.” The flying infant,
still heaven-intoxicated, had simply
forgotten to retract its wings
as previously directed,
& the little Annie Oakley avatar lives in a
rarified state of perpetual hyperclarity,
as drunk on the idea of accuracy
as any Pythagoras or Spinoza－
but to be a klutz, an oaf, a dolt,
forever inept, maladroit, bungling,
blundering, graceless, & lubberly
without becoming apologetic,
sarcastic, recriminatory, or morose－

in other words, to remain
in a state of metaphysically
pure clumsiness, a wholly self-
sustaining clumsiness
without cause or cure, credit or blame,
& to achieve all this while remaining
perfectly sober－
THAT is what our pre-pre-pre-
ancestors must have aspired to when they
crawled out of the oceans onto
the warm sand, &,
over long epochs with largely
unpronounceable names, sprouted
arms & legs, lifting their heads,
moving into a crouch,
a stoop, an alarmingly vertiginous
upright stance as
slowly, ever perhaps sadly,
but with unprecedented determination,
they worked their way up
toward the right to
trip & fall.

It's called "Clumsy," and it's by Claire Bateman.

xoxo & cheers,
D

I like Sunday mornings when video streaming works in Nido.

I find it really strange that you can edit your friends. I went through and deleted connections with about 20 people today. Most of them I should never have became friends with in the first place. Some I had only met once in passing (a cute boy that I wanted to stalk on), some were girls that only heightened my sense of insecurity - girls mutually stalk each other, looking at the failures always makes someone feel better. I don't need that. It's highly immature, so it's deleted. And I would like to think I have too much pride to go back and request to renew a friendship that was only a cyber title.

On a lighter note, The Princess and the Frog is excellent, and it's another sunshine day in Londontown. Even the most ridiculous NYU in London/American University Student in London hang out spot wasn't too bad last night (though I did apparently miss "Blah Blah Blah" each time Mr. DJ Mark played it).

Here's to be not only productive *COMMA* - that's for emphasis, always - BUT ALSO proactive. And here's to Indian Lit. readings/paper I'm about to dive back into.

xoxo & cheers,
D

Yeah, he's been creeping since August.

In one week two of my favorite people will be crossing the pond to see me. Words cannot express my exciting. Looming over this joyous event, though, is a 2000 word postcolonial Indian literature paper. . . that's what I'm dedicating my life to now.

Note: Skype interviews are strange.

xoxo & cheers,
D

So I'm very angry BBC iPlayer won't let me download Becoming Jane.

Today was a successful day. I woke up early to catch up on Greek and finish the first season of the Vampire Diaries (best trash TV out there), got a new Loyalty Card at Coffee-to-Go, and managed and add a comment in class discussion that my professor replied to with "brilliant."

Now I'm boiling Tesco pasta before I do laundry and spend the evening with a man named Wilkie Collins, I'm sure all the usuals will show up too (i.e. Ghandi, Shakespeare, etc.) I haven't checked the weather for tomorrow yet, but I'm sure it's going to be a great day to spend in the Senate House stacks.

Here's to productivity & relaxing juxtaposed, and as one my dearest friends often quoted on Thursday evenings freshman year, "everything in moderate, including moderation."

xoxo, cheers and love,
D

So I sort of know someone in the Royal Shakespeare Company.

My beautiful orientation tour guide was in the play I saw tonight. CHECK IT! Dunsinane was the play - it's a quasi-sequel too/work inspired by MacBeth; it's amazing.

My mailbox also featured NOT ONLY a card from my amazing NY Eta sisters *COMMA* BUT ALSO, (I don't think I need to repeat the negation phrase for emphasis, capslock will do) a box from my even more amazing mom. It featured Cherry Lemon Sundrop, 2 bags of Starburst Jellybeans (aka CRACK!), Rolos, Hersey Kisses with Almonds, ALMOND CLUSTERS (aka heroine), a Scrabble card game, Cheerios, TWIZZLERS (any Schrader/friend of the Schraders know a bag of Twizzlers, once opened, lasts for 10 minutes maximum), 100 Calorie packs, and of course my bank statement! (I love you & miss you mom! Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!)

Looks like my work filled weekend is going to be calorically satisfied as well. :))

xoxo & cheers,
D

It was the perfect day.

The Lady Antebellum album remains in my head.

I have a couple amendments to make regarding my York post.
#1: Casey Talbot has other interests besides LOTR. She is a multifaceted and lovely individual, not a dork.
#2: York features a pub of the same chain as The Angel. Although we were introduced to some lovely knights, we decided not to go in because we didn't want to go to a chain. This was a mistake. Breakfast there (a sure, cheap and easy bet at full English breakfast) proved it to be THE gathering place in York. Basically, while consuming huge plates of food, our small two-person table was surrounded by beautiful 20-something men. Not kidding, the ratio was about 20:2 (1:10 if you simplify it).

Today I got to wear my sunglasses again and only a blazer and scarf. I don't have a paper due for a week (drafting tomorrow). It's another party on-excellent kind of day.

xoxo & cheers,
D

Upside down, bouncing off the ceiling. . .

Today felt like a spring day.

The sun was shining (a rare & special thing) and my coat didn't have to be buttoned. Quite frankly, if I had been returning home before 8pm, I could have gotten away with leaving my dorm at 1 in a blazer and scarf. I even got the opportunity (an even rarer & more special things) of wearing my most favorite sunglasses - circa Blues Brothers, Risky Business, and another of my most favorites, Bob.

I certainly appreciated the sun shining on my back in the stacks. I can't begin to express how much more preferable that is to the sound of wind howling.

Not to mention, I finally got my free coffee latte and croissant from Coffee-to-Go. Talk about a party time-excellent kind of day.

Spent the evening with one of my many men, William Shakespeare, and now its a little after a quarter after one, I'm not all alone, and I need sleep now. (I pushed that pop culture reference, I know. The song's stuck in my head, though.)

xoxo, peace & please,
D