hello, i love you
01.31.05 @ 9:33 p.m.
Today was one of those rare and beautiful days where I feel like I'm in love with the entire world and nothing can bring me down. Truly loving every person I know and every thing I saw.
I got up and got myself to school, which meant catching the 8:38 bus--an accomplishment since I was up until about 3:40 last night working on a close reading of Shakespeare's sonnet 83. Histories and Tragedies, yes; sonnets and comedies, no thank you. But still, I was please with my paraphrase and I had something of a thesis. Not a great thesis, but a thesis.
Regardless. I finished it in the interval between Early Tudor England and Intro to the Major. I ran into Stephanie wandering around outside while I killed the rest of the interval and we had a fairly nice chat.
The thing that made my day wonderful and glorious, though, was the fact that the most fascinating, witty, and wonderful professor I've ever had gave the guest lecture in Intro. Fuck yeah. It's not even that I'm infatuated like I originally thought; I'm just... admiring. Not "You are so cute and I would like to marry you," but "You are so interesting and funny and insightful that I could listen to you all day." It doesn't sound that different, does it? It's just a kind of idolatry that I could feel for someone of either gender that I felt was smarter than me in exactly the ways I would like to be brilliant and scintillating and witty. It's the kind of wholehearted admiration that I'm glad to see in myself. I'm glad I can so genuinely like and love so many things, because it ultimately makes me a happier person.
The topic was the poetry of John Donne, which I have to admit I haven't read yet, except that which we read in class. Mmm, but that was good. Really good. We spent a lot of time on "The Flea" and Prof. S spoke a lot about seduction and egocentrism.
Why do I have this unstinting affection for totally egocentric males? Seriously. It's one of the reasons I love Milton: he's so full of his own sense of importance and destiny. S. made jokes about his own narcissim. I'm really attracted to what I read of Donne today, too. Should I worry about this, being as unassuming and shy as I am? Do I want to be consumed in someone else's brilliance?
I question myself too much.
I think I listened to the moon & antarctica at least four times today. Plus I just put it on because I wanted to listen to "paper thin walls" again. I listened while I worked on my close reading, to and from school, and twice this afternoon -- the weather is splended (terrible for farmers and snow pack and anyone who doesn't want to suffer drought this summer, of course), amazingly so, and I spent a good two hours sitting in my new deck chairs (brought down from Portland at the end of... last time I went home for the weekend, I guess) and reading through the bits of Milton that I've skipped so far (the second half of Book I and reread the beginning of Book II and into the part I hadn't yet read; I stopped with Satan poised on the edge of Chaos, just freed from Hell by his daughter and son/grandson, Death) (The whole Death/Sin passage -- EW, EW, EW, EW, EW.) I've still got a ways to go before class tomorrow, but I'm more than confident that I can get it done tonight and tomorrow morning. It was so nice, sitting out on the deck in the sun, listening to music through the screen door of my apartment. The best, most mellow feelings were listening to "the stars are projectors" while walking from the bus stop to my house.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
