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Mon | September 26, 2005

computer files from the past

today I made a CD-R backup of all these floppy disks that I had from college, and through the end of the year I graduated from college. I have sort of been in denial that they exist and hadn't looked at them, ever. And I only opened one or two today.

It appears that as early as October 2000 (and probably earlier, but I did not open anything else) I was trying to figure out why so-and-so doesn't call. Different guy, same question. for maybe four years. Sometime last year I figured out the answer to that question, after that book He's Just Not That Into You came out (and the answer is NOT "he's just not that into you.").

But perhaps I'm delusional, and I think I know, but I totally don't. which is what I think whenever I read my past journal entries. Like that entry from Oct 2000. Apparently I used to talk to people on the subway. I was so crazy and distorted. And I didn't open the files, but there was one floppy disk where the files had been named after animals. squirrel, hummingbird, lemmings. What was I thinking? Other cryptic document names were newwords, bodylanguage, and mm.

I also learned that as early as fall junior year I had an avatar.

And I forgot at what period these were--I think sometime after I graduated? a set of documents named letterto___ (insert name of persons in blank). there were several of these, each to a different person.

journal | Posted by Lily at 08:13 PM | comment

Sat | September 24, 2005

my night with movable type

I just spent three hours tweaking my movable type templates for invisible cube and asian writing club. The result-- footers at the bottom of every page, and the entry titles are links to the entry. Yeaayyyy. I don't know why it takes so long. You tell yourself you're just going to do this little thing while you eat dinner. Half hour, an hour, tops. You change the template, and then you have to change the style sheet, and then you have to change all the other templates to match, and rebuild everything, and then it doesn't work and it's all messed up and you're like noooooo why did I make all those changes at once? Then you go back and change everything again, until you get what you want. And I made a lot of other tweaks at the asian writing blog as well, though I don't even remember what they were at this point.

What's really sad is that this is the only noticeable progress I've made all day. I had SAT class in the morning and then I had to pick up some stuff for the GRE class starting tomorrow (even though I had already been there earlier in the week-- ahhh! DC was like, three new people signed up, pick up their cards) and then lunch, and then I literally sat on my bed and thought and dozed for three hours. I sat on my bed to think of what I wanted to do. No matter how many times I learn that you shouldn't sit or lie down on your bed "to think," I forget and do it again. And once you're in that state of mind you wake up intermittently but you're all drowsy so you just go back to sleep.

I had two invitations of things-to-do tonight, and didn't take either of them up. I don't think I went out last weekend either. It was Lynn's b-day. And I didn't go to her fashion show on Thurs. I don't know why. I think I get caught in a rut, of unproductivity, and have a hard time breaking out of it. I'm in it now still. But I will be out all day tomorrow.

Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 08:47 PM | comment

Thu | September 22, 2005

benefits of writing class

I am in the library again. I am sitting by the window and getting a tan. or aging the skin on my face?

This guy in a green shirt keeps walking to his car in the parking lot across the street. It took me a good hour to realize he is the manager at Arminios.

I am trying to figure out how to manage and structure my time. It helps to be in a class because there's this external check-in point every week. It's the externalization that helps me. Nothing was said that I couldn't have come up with on my own-- and yet it helped to hear someone else say it.

I think I was one of the most dedicated people in the class. Or maybe I was the only one who had nothing better to do every Saturday for ten weeks. Attendance went down in the last few weeks of the course, probably because no one could hear her. She kind of talked to herself, in her own head, a bit.

Écriture | Posted by Lily at 05:04 PM | comment

Wed | September 21, 2005

writing

so I think I have finally stopped panicking over the amount of "work" that I feel I have to do, like read every book in the english language, "systematically," and write a million words (because your first million words' worth of stories, is apparently, inescapably, junk). and then "pick up one or two other languages and read the literature in those languages as well." yeah... whatever. as I said before, it all appeals to this work ethic that I just don't have. the idea of having a lifetime of work ahead of me doesn't inspire me. it just, as these past couple of weeks has demonstrated, makes me overwhelmed and ineffective and unproductive. and unhappy. But I have thought about it and there is a way out. That is: it's not "work," because I like it (I must remember that, and be motivated from there) and the only thing I didn't like about it was having it all dumped on me at once. So I will read, but at whatever snail's pace I feel like, and likewise with writing, and if I never get to be [insert name of contemporary author I want to be like, but do not know whom, as I haven't read them all yet] then whatever, I am sure I do not care. I will def go further this way than if I scamper hither and tither in a state of confusion and near-panic for the rest of my life, which is what I will def do if I think in terms of this enormous workload. I get more done when I just focus on the next thing.

and tomorrow I will go to anthropologie, because I want to.

and the "system" I will use to read books will be, "whatever I have on my bookshelf or find in the library or online, or what my friends tell me to read."

journal | Posted by Lily at 10:43 PM | comment

Tue | September 20, 2005

journal

yay, new banner. the font is called radiohead. and someone besides me posted at the awc blog. other than that things are bleh. I am at the library and these people are talking. I wish I was at a university library with more efficient people. ~~actually I just went into the stacks and discovered that there are a few desks/ spots by the window. that is another place I can go. and there are the three individual rooms, and the larger conference room. the library has improved a lot with its recent renovation.

journal | Posted by Lily at 06:32 PM | comment

Sun | September 18, 2005

friendster

I'm logged onto friendster (I only allow myself to log on once a month, a somewhat arbitrarily imposted restriction... with many exceptions) and there is this weird-cool new feature where it makes a web diagram of how you're connected to people. Anyhow I think friendster is kind of dead and over and they're bringing out all these new features too much too late, though it does look a lot better than it did before and is less buggy. or boggy. quicker linking.

Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 06:37 PM | comment

Fri | September 16, 2005

literary/ intellectual magazines

It's suddenly Friday and I don't know how I got here. Earlier in the week I read an article called "Among the Believers" in the New York Times. It profiled a group of young intellectuals who recently published a magazine called n+1. I found it suffocating. Knowing that some guy named Benjamin Kunkel has already written a novel with a character very much like the ones I was working on in 'sonic' does nothing but fuel a low-level background state of panic.

But at least,
1. It took me out of the state of mind I had been in the previous week, of reviewing and replaying in my mind everything that ___ has ever said or done in my presence,
2. Their website sucks, so they can't really be that smart.

Or so I must tell myself, for things to remain achievable.

Yesterday I picked up the paris review and hyperventilated over the magazine section at Coliseum books. According to LS I am supposed to get to know these magazines and perceive some pattern as to what types of things they are publishing, so that I know where my story belongs when I attempt to publish it. So far I haven't made much sense of it.

journal | Posted by Lily at 02:35 PM | comment

Wed | September 14, 2005

bah

I will note this, and then stop talking about So You Think YCD. Ryan Conferido was just eliminated from the show. It just confirms my cynicism. That was so rigged, because that guy was by far the most popular. If the producers can't see that and insist on making their decisions in other ways, in the face of overwhelming facts to the contrary... it just puts me in a rotten mood. I feel like the whole thing is already mapped out and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. There's no room for exceptions to their rules. So I turned it off, right after they eliminated him, I didn't see his last dance after the commercial break. Ah well. I guess I will play a game of chess, which I haven't done in a very long time, as a little evening entertainment instead. I am just in a funk now and don't feel like doing much of anything.

Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 08:10 PM | comment

rabbits in the yard

	I thought I'd post some pictures of these baby rabbits that were in our front yard last week. (Yard... is that a regional word for 'lawn'?) They were only as tall as a blade of grass. So cute.
	There were three of them in this nest. My father found them when he was raking the leaves and sticks off the lawn. Now they're gone. They were there another few days but I haven't seen them recently.

journal | Posted by Lily at 11:43 AM | comment

Mon | September 12, 2005

journal

new yorker, harper's, zoetrope, atlantic monthly

list of magazines I must read sometime
soon, when I'm in a bookstore

but not too much pressure, or I won't do anything at all.

I feel as if I should have been reading these my entire life.

oh well.

better late than never.

journal | Posted by Lily at 11:24 AM | comment

Thu | September 08, 2005

Ryan Conferido

so Ryan Conferido's on the chopping block again this week at So You Think You Can Dance. I think both Ryan and Melody will make it next week but it doesn't make so much sense given the little that I've seen of American Idol. Anyway that is who I'm rooting for ^_^

I suppose the others are good dancers but no one has the star quality of Ryan Conferido. There is just something inherently interesting about him that makes me like whatever he does. And even if the judges say some of the other dances are so much better all that really says is that they've had a lot more training and experience. It doesn't change the fact that they are boring and vanilla-flavored compared to Ryan. It's like, there's some guy, and then some other guy, and then there's Ryan Conferido. I am glad they seem to be having a lot of fun on the show but they really need to take a turn on the chopping block.

Ryan, I think, is from this group called Sickstep.

Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 11:52 AM | comment

Andi said on Feb 6, 07 03:15 PM:

Ryan is hot.especialy his hair lol.I am learning his moves.

Christina said on Feb 6, 07 03:15 PM:

Ryan's humble, quiet-type personality makes him so likeable. I was rooting for him, too, and even if he didn't make it, to me he will always be a star.

Wed | September 07, 2005

aye-ya

"AYE-ya" is kind of like, 'oh shit' in mandarin. But it's not a swear. It's more like, "oh, no" with the weight of "oh, shit" without being a bad word. Actually "AYE-ya" is heavier than "oh, no" but not quite as bad as "oh shit." If one needed to lend more weight to "AYE-ya" one could say, "aye-YO," or most extremely, "AYE-yo-WAY-ah!"

I swear all this is true.

I forgot to go to ___, a few hours ago, to my horror. I have never done that, for two and a half years, have never forgotten. In this way I was jolted out of my reverie. I have been thinking about __ all day.

finished Fathers and Sons (by Turgenev). next, I will read a James novel. Whatever is in the library.

"sonic" is beyond me. I looked at my notes today and was like, "no."

I am in love with Henry James even though I have only read two of his books. Is it wrong to call him my favorite, if I have not read all his books? I think it is ok.

journal | Posted by Lily at 06:44 PM | comment

Mon | September 05, 2005

the end of the weekend

it was pretty good, in that I finished this short story, strangers at the station, that I started while not moving forward on this other story (working title, sonic, which means nothing, except a reminder to myself that it's going to be heavily reliant on dialogue) but at least now I have something that I can turn in on Saturday, if sonic doesn't work out. Which it probably won't. No, think positive... a lot of other stuff happened this weekend, and yet nothing happened. it was good. I am happy about the stuff that didn't happen as well as the stuff that did happen. The stuff I avoided. What would really cap it all off, would be, if I had someone to go get a drink with right now. I will have to settle for these brownies I just baked. and some music and email ^_^

I am worried about what will happen to me after these last two weeks of class. I don't know what I'll do after it's over. Probably drift off and lose track of time. There is something about being in a class, even one where people are vary widely in commitment, participation, skill, intelligence, background, etc. --there's just something about going to a place at the end of every week where you talk about writing, at any level, that keeps me afloat. My writing club is stepping it up so I think that can compensate a little. But it only meets once a month and I have to deal with organizing it, and one can't really direct and act at the same time, so to speak. But we will see what happens. I feel like this class was a lot more helpful than the class I took at the beginning of this year, and so I may be able to do more on my own. I will probably do what I can by myself for a few months and take another class in the winter.

journal | Posted by Lily at 08:47 PM | comment

Fri | September 02, 2005

the hours

I watched The Hours, in which everyone walks around with a distant look in their eyes for the length of the film. Which is 114 minutes. The length of the story-- is much longer. It appears that these women spend their entire lifetimes like this. One in 1941, another in 1951 and another in 2001. It is three parallel stories. I liked the opening scenes with the matches on action between women. It reminded me of film school. Not that the scene seemed overly constructed, just that it reminded me of what film can do-- the kinds of cuts you can make that you could not do with words. If you were to describe the opening of the door in one place and then the opening of a door in another, in text, it would not have the same effect as seeing it in that instant on the screen. The instantaneousness of the cut is the magic of film and of the match on action. Of course words can have their own instantaneous associations. There are things you can do with words that are not so easily done on film. I wouldn't know what those things are, since I have never been in a class that gave names to the kinds of cuts you make in text. But perhaps someone has and I should look for it. Or identify and name them myself. Anyway Nicole Kidman really does look different in the film. It is a complete transformation. Like Johnny Depp in Charlie and the chocolate Factory. Except good. Nicole Kidman sheds herself completely (unlike other films in which you never forget that that is Julia Roberts) and everyone walks around with a distant look. And everyone is a lesbian and everyone is depressed.

David Thomson (who wrote The Whole Equation, a book about film that I read earlier this year) was right when he says that The Hours misses the playful side of writing. That he doesn't think virginia woolf was constantly like the way kidman is in this movie. I am not sure if that is exactly what he said actually but I'm not about to go look it up. I think people would like to believe that authors sit around all day being serious and thoughtful but if that were true then that writer would produce very dead literature. you need a few people to be silly with. Anyway I'm glad that David Thomson admits that he's not like that either. Because sometimes I think people get caught up trying to act like a writer or think like a writer, to be like this or that, and they just get very involved with themselves being writers, acting writerly, instead of just writing, and being whatever and however they happen to be.

anyway I liked the movie, even though everyone was depressed and suicidal the entire time. I guess you could say the movie was very focused on showing one thing. the dialogue was at times too deliberate. so precise and meaningful as to be unreal. I guess you could say it was tightly woven, with all the extraneous things cut out. modern hollywood is so lean.

the movie is so well put together that you believe everything it says. it i had a negative criticism of the movie (I don't think the movie needs to show her happy at any time, I think it's ok the way it is) I would say there is something wrong with perpetuating this capitalist idea that one person's loss is another's gain. these characters who are only happy because someone else is sad, there is this sad person holding them up. and there is this notion that someone has to die so that the others can live. it's completely preposterous. and why does it have to be the poet? perhaps there are so many idiots in this world because the poets keep writing their own deaths. anyway I have to go. this movie should be R-rated for its lesbian kissing scenes. and that fifties woman played by julianne moore, why the hell was she so depressed? it seems unmotivated. I guess it's just life that's killing her. but you're kind of like, just deal with it, what the hell is your problem. the movie relies on these convenient beliefs like women who feel closed in by their roles and the suburbs as this oppressively empty place.

Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 02:08 PM | comment