Adventures in Austin

Adventures In Austin

Yeah... I went the wrong way up the exit ramp onto the highway tonight. Good Luck evacuating people.

Photos

Photos!

One of many visible pictures of the never ending line for the Dalai Lama.

Our 'draw' tickets were in the last row of the highest stand.

The UT Symbol at the opening ceremony. Pretty good since this was all on a camera phone.

If I wrote this, I would probably be famous. But I didn't, and my chem teacher, who also happens to be the dean of chemistry, likes poetry and reads it every Tuesday. Usually angry white male, because he says he is one.


I Know How It Feels


My parakeet is trying to kill himself
He pops his head through the rungs of his ladder
and tries to twist off his head
Then he climbs to the top of the cage
hangs upside down, and lets go
He pops up, weaves on his feet, dazed
then inserts his head again in the ladder
like a soda bottle cap
and tries to flip off his head
Then he climbs to the roof of the cage
and hangs dutifully upside down
and falls and crashes
Then he climbs to his feet
and weaves around
as I watch all this from the sofa
wondering
if it's the thought of spending the rest
of his life with me in this little room
in the Lower Haight that is driving him
to such desperate lengths
Jeezuz, it could be, it could be ...
I know how it feels to wake up
in this room's sad furnishings
and realize that there's little more to do
today than dress, eat
and stare at the wall without a hope
of getting out of this s**t somehow
I mean, writing poetry on welfare
is a lousy occupation
And all you can write about
in the end is about writing
poetry on welfare


Sometimes it occurs to me that
as a favor to us both
I simply should reach in and snap his neck
I'm sure he would be grateful
It's so hard to kill yourself when you're a bird


Your wings are for flight, not suicide
It is sometimes necessary to act with
unforgivable cruelty
as the only way free of the illusion
that you are free
If I killed my bird, I would know
for once and all what
a complete a**hole I am
and what a relief that would be!
I could then head out
the door, unafraid to make the kind
of mistakes that make us laugh
The brand of mistake that gives us light in the dark
Such mistakes as ease our pain
through the long
uninterrupted
scream


I can't find the author, but if you google it, you might. Good night to all, and to all a good night.

Random Musings fro the Girl at 252

Random Musings from the Girl at 252

I realized today that world peace was just an allegory for laziness. Don't get me wrong, if peace was something that you could stick in your pocket, I would be on the street corner passing it out. It's just, I realized that if everyone was at peace, even the girls down the hall or the people fighting in Iraq or the teacher that's a jerk, then there would be no social conflict. I realized I only put myself to the test when there's a confrontation of some sorts. Otherwise, I guess I'd just go through life risk-free and happy bubbly and all that jazz. Even though this defiantly needs further investigation, I think that at least to me, peace is just my way of wanting to be a bum.


I watched Amelie the other day for the um-teen time and it made me feel happier. I don't know why it's my favorite movie, except maybe it's humankind's dream to care about someone and have them care about you and maybe the idea that someone who has nothing can still earn something. That people can change, even the odd ones have lives worth living and documenting, and maybe because darn it, I just like lawn gnomes.


Well, I'm about done, you've made it to the end of my random musings, although they seem more like rantings now that I'm through, toon in next time when we document the basic college student's day, or something equally entertaining. Post if you have ideas

Waiting for God....

Okay, technically, the Dalai Lama is not God, but you could have thought differently if you had gotten up at 6 in the morning, which is about 2 hours before life at this college, and trudged down dark ill-lit streets to discover 2360 people in line, most of them camping out, for Dalai Lama tickets. Zach surprisingly, was not crazy for camping out at 10:30 last night at the Union building. I ran into Sarah Lancaster about a hundred people down from him clutching a pillow. I had to jog all around campus and ended up about a half mile from the stupid building. While waiting 3 hours, I met some homies and newly converted homies, and got mistaken for Katrina Refugees going into the Fine Arts college. Which, I'd like to add, was in the opposite direction. Whatever. Someone offered to pay me $50 for my voucher ticket for my place in line, and someone else started a facebook club for it. People busted out the Twister and Clue games. There was singing and dancing, and a lot of peeved, mildewy students. The liberal arts major gave me a newspaper to read and I rejoiced. It was a fine, but anti-climatic, adventure. And that's the news from the UT capital. Where the Liberal Arts students are angry, the social life plenty, and the SAT grades...are below average.