Alle sind auf der Flucht.

Today I was workshopped in Poetry class for my memory poem, "Rioting".  The workshop went well and I agree with almost everything that was said.  I knew the problems when I was writing it, just didn't put in the time or the effort to fix them then.  

Rioting

“Wear three socks! Striped and thick and everything” and dance
then tomorrow we won’t be here pick a spot and jump
and watch the window for sticky snow watch the roads
and make sure you chant quickly on your tiny bed
glancing all the while for morning.

I danced. Gradual. Be quiet. Alright, but be quiet.
In a hospital you just lie. Light that stills, waiting, thinking
of everything. Nighttime dark of these rooms, old and sick
walls that stink of fight surrendered. But then I danced -
riot of a thin, happy body on a cold, tiny bed.

I am five, and the wind carries drafty perfumes
of someone’s distant cooking. Cherries have painted
my hands, while the luminous evening hooks colors like the sweet
branches of the summer trees. I am weak from memory and dancing,
and with an easy, “It’s late, come back in,” I’m inside again and leaping,
consumed by a bed still much too big for me.

Today I gave my group copies of my thing poem, "Advanced Songs for the Beginner", which, Dear Family Members, is not actually how I feel about the situation and is really a giant exaggeration, so don't worry.  But it's here.

Advanced Songs for the Beginner

Your darkened tones with fire-threaded wood
look fragile in the blindness of my room.
That casual lean, your every measured angle,
returns silence with silence, this cold inception.

Your spindled fingers stretch, long as your body.
You fret and frown, you loose your meager hair.
They say you sound sweetly if you sound at all,
dulce, so dulce, but a part is lost in translation.

He’s worked so hard, I’ve heard and it’s such a nice gift -
In recent days I’ve held a tougher violin.
It fits neatly between chin and shoulder,
and needs no coddling on any softened lap.

You’re a part of the man, I consider this over and over,
but the creeping weeds that overgrow my dreams
sing I could never play such an Appalachian
dulcimer, without sunrises and slow talks.

So I imagine an uncle, old and tired,
a carpenter creating soft music from yesterday.
To rise with the sun and conduct the purple mountains –
to honor family, they ask for strings of connection.

Poetry is so much harder than fiction.  I miss fiction.

Yesterday I kayaked for a few hours with my class, on a lake near Colgate.  About halfway through, I finally mastered going in a straight line.  It was a problem before.  I also mastered quick turning and finally figured out how to move the boat sideways.  And I'm getting better with leaning when turning to make the turn faster.  At the end we practiced wet exits, or getting out of the boat when capsized.  It sounds difficult, it's not.  But the moment before making myself roll over was intimidating though, thinking about being upside down under water strapped onto your boat because of gear is intimidating.  Removing said gear and pushing yourself out correctly is actually not difficult, but thinking about it is.  Anyway, I did it, even if I was the least graceful of the whole group.  Having long hair that is still too short for a ponytail doesn't help when your life-vest forces you immediately to the surface, and you wind up with a face full of hair and more disoriented than you were when you were upside down and stuck in your boat.  Andrew said something about, "Well, it wasn't pretty, but it was correct."  I think flailing awkwardly trying to get back into my boat (which actually is really difficult) and sort of falling onto his was more embarrassing.  But now I know I can do it, should I ever need to.  And I love kayaking, even if I was completely worn out by the end and not sure how I was going to make it back to the dock.  I am obsessed with boats, and being on your own in the middle of a body of water feels so free.

That being said, the Chinese boys in my class have absolutely no idea of what to do in a kayak and continue to crash into me and everything else.

Last weekend Hayley, Jenn and I toured the Saranac brewery in Utica.  It was similar to touring the Haller Lowenbräu one in Germany, except this one was more focused on history, like what happened during the prohibition era.  That was interesting, the Utica townies were interesting, and the two beers at the end were fun.  I had a Black and Tan, which is chocolatey and dark and I love, and an IPA from the "High Peaks" series, high percentage of alcohol and scary and not-pleasant tasting, at least at first.  

Acoustic Coffee House also happened, and a giant dance party broke out to the Ryan Montbleau band.  First, Ryan is incredible and performs my favorite styles of music wrapped into one, and second, it was basically my friends and I and half of Utica.  Apparently, he's very popular there, even though he's from Boston.  

This weekend I am hopefully going to a Rusted Root concert.  And in November I am definitely going to Jon Stewart's performance, no matter how early I may have to line up.

Hogwarts at Hamilton is officially cast.  The rest of the E-board and I stayed up late Sunday night casting all 51 people.  We are technically over the fire-safety limit (shh, don't tell campus safety), but I am so excited for such a big cast.  I can't wait for Divinations to be completely bizarre and hopefully hilarious again.

ELS got together on Friday and watched Clue, which is so much fun to watch with a lot of people who love it, and which I continue to find absolutely hysterical, no matter how many times I've seen it.  It's also rather genius, and I am still working out most of the explanations at the end.  After all, communism is just a red herring.

(And I am keeping my fingers crossed that choir actually gets to go abroad, and that Rob chooses China).

Ich fuehle mich wie ein Dino.

I am sitting here staring into my fan, not moving far from the aloe gel, and sunburnt all for Harry Potter.  I feel reptilian, not enough skin and weirdly stretched.  Today was the Activities Fair/every possible organization that no one really cares about gets a table out on Martin's Way to advertise to unsuspecting freshmen who will write their names down and receive unending emails.  It also happened to be the hottest day since I've been back, and I wasn't well prepared for being in the direct sun.  Jen Strater and I took the first two hours, bravely manning our table next to the College Democrats and the EMTs, trying to keep everything from blowing away with all the random, strong wind gusts.  We did manage to get a lot of people to sign up, though no male people, which continues to be a bit of a problem.  But I think more people will show up at our interest meeting on Sunday.  

When I finished frying myself, I repeated the first hour of my morning and yelled at my computer again for not connecting to the internet.  I realized how pathetically dependent I am on being able to go online, but that realization did not stop me from calling ITS three times and eventually taking my ailing computer to the Help Desk and just making them do it there.  Of course, only one thing had to be clicked, not that I had any idea what it was.  But it is healed now, yay.

All of that, Iron Man again, and my Witchcraft class built my day today.  Witchcraft might be my favorite class, because again, best professor ever, little work, and also it's about witchcraft.  We are always talking about the line between magic and religion.  BUT IS THERE ONE?  IS THERE?  And about how all these things got added the Judeo/Christian traditions and texts but now almost no one knows what they started out as.  Who knows the difference between Satan, Lucifer, Beezlebub, and Belial, hmmm?  (On another note, we are reading The Pilgrim's Progress in my Print Culture class and it features another pagan god that got rewritten as the devil, Apollyon, and this book is INSANE.  There's a board game of it.  Where is it?  Can I play it?)  

In other important news, Jon Stewart is performing at Hamilton on November 14.  He's the next in the Great Names series.  This is after the election so it is bound to be interesting anyway.  I'm so excited.

Last night I drove my friends to get sushi in another attempt to increase my awareness of where I am and how to travel like a normal person.  And we got to eat at a good Japanese restaurant too.  We returned, went to the Kooks concert for maybe 10 minutes, it was a billion degrees in there and gross, we left, went to the choir concert in the crazy Buffers suite, it was even more degrees and smelly, and we left again.  Somewhere in there was some time at the Pub.

Speaking of the Pub, three friends and I have officially formed a trivia team.  We did well last week.  Not well enough to place, but well above a lot of the other teams.  We are Here for the Beer, and I can say I proudly contributed the Stephen Colbert answer, the tuberculosis answer, and half of the failed 2004 conventions answer.  All we really want are the winners' t-shirts at the end.

Next Tuesday I start kayaking, but am a little worried now after my bizarre dream in which my instructor, Andrew Jillings, had actually been dead for many years and had been replaced by a British author who hated his life and the spotlight - a secret only a few friends and the officers of HOC knew about.  Weird.

Gute Nacht, bis spaeter.