the antithetical nature of depression and grief...

"When one reacts to a loss with grief, the world seesm emptier for the absence of the person mourned; when one reacts with depression, the self feels dimished."

...Nancy McWilliams (1999) summarizing Freud's Mourning and Melancholia.

banjo envy...

Merchants of Cool...

a friend down the hall...let's call him shannon...clued me into this really good and intriguing documentary called The Merchants of Cool on pbs...now i know what you're thinking, 'nothing good's on pbs'...that's what i was thinking...well, i mean besides that wonderful show the mcclaughlin group, which just sounds like it will be packed with fun...oh and there's sesame street of course and everybody loved mr. rogers...i was all about mr. rogers when i was little...the trolley and daniel tiger...i will cut this tangent short right here...as soon as i go feed the fish... anywho...this documentary is worth the watch...it's as if, in a twisted way, marketing corporations make better parents than most parents. it's worth the watch if you have time, which we all have loads of as graduate students...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/

silence...

desiring the redemption of a relationship that has broken into pieces when the other is gone never to return hurts much deeper than the hounding desire to have everything back to the way it used to be...

what hit home just a bit deeper today...

...i learned a little more about how broken the world is...how the dignity within us is violated and crushed so deeply and how so many people are lost in their ruins...i felt the strong desire to detach from what i experienced today in class.

i learned a little more deeply that in grief we allow ourselves to feel loss...and we spend so much time denying the deep loss in our lives. The danger of relational isolation struck a little closer to home today and i felt a little more deeply that i am lonely...i wept just a bit in class...and a little more as i listened to Kite by patty griffin...

The Sunday after there was laughter in the air
Everybody had a kite
They were flying everywhere
And all the trouble went away
And it wasn't just a dream
All the trouble went away
And it wasn't just a dream

In the middle of the night
We try and try with all our mights
To light a little light down here
In the middle of the night
We dream of a million kites
Flying high abovethe sadness and the fear

Little sister just remember
as you wander through the blue
The little kite that you sent flying
on a sunday afternoon
Made of something light as nothing
Made of joy that matters too
How the little dreams we dream
Are all we can really do

In the middle of the night
The world turns with all of it's might
A little diamond colored blue
In the middle of the night
We keep sending little kites
Until a little light gets through

bustin' a sag...

so ever since the last time i made my way to portland i've had this growing suspicion that all my jeans are a bit out of style...namely they are old and baggy enough to fit two of me into. so, i've been on a search for jeans and it is turning into a bit of a saga really...well...mainly the saga entails i really need to go look for jeans and it just will not work out. But, that isn't completely true...you see...i could have gone by myself already and searched for jeans but then i would pick out the same 'out of the 90's' jeans that i still have in my closet. I seriously still regularly wear jeans from highschool...let's just say i haven't purchased jeans in a long time and leave it at that...

Anyway...so today another page of the saga continued. I was in school today (elementary school that is) wearing the only pair of jeans in my repertoire that has not been officially named as stylistically problematic...the short of it is that i like these jeans. So i'm wearing these jeans and a little second grader walks up to me and says, "mr. j, are you bustin' a sag?" I was completely stunned and all i could reply with was a, "what??" He continued, "you know...are you saggin' your pants?" well, all i could manage to do is look down and check out whether or not i was indeed bustin' a sag. I was hoping we could both come to a concensus on the issue but my little friend got sidetracked by the fact that i was wearing boxers when he indeed was sure that tighty whities were the way to go. so, we never came to a concensus on anything because how can you trust a 2nd graders choice of undergarments? i mean really...his parents buy his underwear...that totally hurts his argument. And now i am left to wonder...do i bust a sag???

portland.michael.eden.and.aluminum.foil.art

so the plan was to head home this weekend but that didn't happen...plane ticket compications... work complications...my inability to think ahead complications...etc. Instead I went to Portland with Michael and Eden this weekend...what a blast. We talked of moo moo's and hit up the Montage for dinner...it was so cool...they wrap up your leftovers in aluminum foil turned into art...michael's leftovers looked just like this...


...except for it was aluminum foil and filled with biscuits, sausage and gravy...other than that...identical. Cathy's leftovers were an alligator and my leftovers turned into this giant sword, which was pretty cool...i wanted to challenge the guy whose leftovers were transformed into a life size battle axe...i so would have kicked his butt.

One of many of the highlights of the weekend though...perhaps my favorite was that we listened to Eden Smith's new cd before it hit the press. It is beautiful...we spent hours of our car ride enjoying her music, asking questions and listening to her heart as she shared her songs with us...it was priceless...Rest and Beauty.