soulsmiles

I'm giving these books away to anyone who wants them. Yes, even to you folks I've never met, or went to high school with. I'll mail them to you on my dime. The last time I did this I posted pics with the books, but that takes too long. So if you want more info or to see the cover click on the link. Drop me an email with your mailing address at caseynmiles(at)gmail(dot)com.

1000 Extra/Ordinary Objects - amazon link

A Raisin in the Sun, a play by Lorraine Hansberry - wikipedia link

A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body: Tales From a Life of Cringe by Lauren Weedman - amazon link

Best American Sports Writing 2003 - amazon link

Borzoi Book of Short Fiction - librarything link

Burning Rainbow Farm by Dean Kuipiers - author's website

The Classic Hundred Poems - google books link

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen - wikipedia link

Longman Master's of Short Fiction - amazon link

Murder in the Collective by Barbara Wilson - amazon link

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nifisi - wikipedia link

Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times by Amy Goodman & David Goodman - google books link

The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones - google books link

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - wikipedia link

Writer's Handbook 2005 - amazon link

Writer's Market 2003 - amazon link

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig - wikipedia link

Suspension

We entered silence
Before the clock struck

Red wine is caught between the crystal
And your fingers
The air solidifys around your mouth.
Once-wind has sucked the curtains in
Like fright, against the evening wall
Prepared for the storm     Before the room
Exhales    Your lips unfold.
Within their sudden opening
I hear the clock
Begin to speak again.

I remember now, with the filled crystal
Shattered, the wind-whipped curtains
Bound, and the cold storm
Finally broken,
How the room felt
When your word was spoken -
Warm
As the center of your palms
And as unfree.

Audre Lorde
from The First Cities, 1968.

This is a complicated issue for me. On the one hand I believe with every fiber of my being that those who commit violence against another person (usually women) should face stiff penalties (locked up and let the government figure out what to do with them). However, using the term "sexually dangerous" is way too ambiguous.

The current popularization of the word "queer" is a reclaiming of a slur attached to people deemed perverted and dangerous to society - homosexuals, dykes, faggots, queens, hermaphrodites, transvestites. Fifty years ago "queer" marked a person "sexually dangerous."

Why did the justices choose the word "dangerous"? Especially considering "danger" is a sexualized and vilified identity - the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks; the bad girl who'll fuck you, dump you, then make you beg for more. Why not "sexually violent"?

There's something not right about their choice of language. Something not right at all.

My back pain was caused by a kidney infection. A fucking kidney infection. Good goddess almighty!

After 2 weeks of cry-my-eyes-out pain I finally got some relief today. I was starting to panic, starting to think my MS was flaring up. I went to an urgent care last Sunday and they gave me muscle relaxants and a narco pain med, neither of which provided any relief. I was in a fucking haze AND in pain. This week I put a call in to my neuro just in case, and made an appt at the campus clinic.

The urgent care place didn't even check for a kidney infection, but the clinic did. Turns out I got some stuff floating around in my pee that indicated an infection. The PA that saw me was awesome. I really want her to be a dyke. She was chubby and matter of fact, and had facial hair and orthopedic shoes. I took to her right away. She hooked me up with antibiotics (and some diflucan), more muscle relaxants to take before bed, prescription ibuprofen, and an order for physical therapy. She was like, "WHY did they give you ultram? That doesn't make any sense. WHY didn't they test for a kidney infection?" And I was all "I dunno..."

My back is ALREADY feeling better after 1 freakin' ibuprofen horse pill. ONE! What a fucking ordeal. I can't believe I wrote a final paper feeling like this.

Where to start? I've been in terrible back pain since Monday (it's Saturday). I shat a final paper between then and now, turned it in last night. I was hoping the back tension would just magically disappear. It hasn't. Which has brought me here to complain about it and reflect on how fucking hard this semester has been.

This has been one of the lightest workloads I've had since I started in Fall 2008, minus a few crunching deadlines. But what a fucking emotional hellhole. If I wasn't crying I was having anxiety attacks or oversleeping or procrastinating or just really mad. But I keep a pretty calm exterior, which I'm coming to learn is a gift.

What's next...I got a summer job in The Writing Center at MSU, which I'm actually extremely nervous about. And I'll continue working for CCC Online. I have intentions of exploring more this summer - going new places, taking long drives, hiking. Now if my back tension would just RELEASE.

My walk is more like a shuffle.
You can describe me as slow and deliberate.
Mistake maker. Day shaper.
Enemy of tomorrow, foe of yesterday,
friend of right now.
But, really, simply hopeless.
Dream reader. Map folder.

april 21, 2010

meaning_making and flavoredcat have been posting recently, which has inspired me to do the same. I miss this big open text box. I've gotten so used to Facebook status updates and Twitter's 140 characters. What if I have more to say than that?

I have about 3 weeks left in the semester and my 2nd year of this master's degree will be over. For some reason this has been a really difficult semester - emotionally and mentally. I've been doing some really hard work on myself, and it shows itself through depression, lack of focus and motivation, headaches, and apparently anxiety attacks. But I feel good about the life work I'm doing.

Speaking of work, I have a channel on Vimeo.com of my work on The Gender Project, which is a series of short documentaries about the lived experience of gender. This project is ongoing and will hopefully keep growing in the next few years. I've been presenting it at conferences and am in the very beginning of a major marketing push to get the project in people's minds, classrooms, and workshops. My next stop is the Computers & Writing conference at the end of May. I'll be displaying The Gender Project as an installation that will be up throughout the conference.

layers, from the bottom: bread, butter, balsamic vinegar, tomato, chopped basil, mozzarella.

toasted in the toaster oven till the cheese browned a bit, just a bit.



( One more, close-up )

So I've got some books I'd like to give away before I donate them in mass. See something you want email me your address and I'll mail it to you.

Crank by Ellen Hopkins (young adult poetry story about meth)

What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn (novel about dead end jobs and a missing girl)


( more under the cut )