VEE'S FOLLIES

i've moved this blog to veethemonsoon.wordpress.com.

posted by Vee @ 1/12/2006 0 comments

New Year's Resolutions, Belated (A Work In Progress)

1. to move only once
2. to have Jennifer Saunders' babies
3. to write/journal/document/analyze compulsively more- but not beyond the point of contributing to my growth as an individual to the point of being unhealthy, pathological, neurotic, etc.
4. to not once be more hungover than I was drunk
5. to continue my somewhat successful path to well-being
6. to be more aware of moments
7. to get out of my head more
8. to have more ritualized "quiet/'me"" moments
9. to understand better the effects of socialization on people (and on myself) thereby being more tolerant of them (and of myself)
10. to write creatively more and better
11. to redefine and resolidify my online presense
12. to be influenced and inspired by my surroundings/ to surround myself with influences and inspiration
13. to stay in touch with people better
14. to be more like Henry Rollins

posted by Vee @ 1/12/2006 0 comments

typical

homely (according to the Oxford University Press Dictionary)

British: 1. simple but comfortable; 2. unsophisticated
American: 1. unattractive

posted by Vee @ 1/11/2006 0 comments

recovering from surgery

I have since Friday been recovering from surgery: 4 wisdom teeth- 2 impacted- removed. The surgery itself went very well- better than I'd expected. As I sat alone, waiting to be injected with whatever's in that so-called "general anesthesia", I said to myself: "Whatever happens, remember feeling like this: normal. This was a normal and there will be again.
          I was injected and was out and back in like blinking. Only foggier. The nurse, when telling my escort, Kathy from the Dean Of Students office (apparently it's their job, this sort of thing, amazing), about "post-extraction care", told me not to worry too much about listening, because "you won't remember any of this later". Ha-ha, fooled you. Though after she said that I did stop trying to focus. I was lucid, though dazed- like trying to stay awake at night when you're a kid, I didn't realize how much I was trying till I stopped, and faded away into drugged comfort.
          I couldn't really talk and so when I got to the Keen's, Amanda, my caretaker for the day, gave me a pad and paper. "Yay" is circled because it was twice a reply to something she said. It also reads "They said something about ice-cream- if you're going out anyway or whatever I have $," and then "...chocolate..."
          It's now Tuesday night. I left for the first time today, not counting transporting myself. (Friday night I went to Rachel's, where I stayed 2 nights, then back home.) I went to the theatre, and kept getting dizzy and light-headed, which I hadn't before, just being in bed or on couch. Eating mostly ice-cream only gets you so far.
          My attempts at more food on Sunday afternoon led to migrainey nausea that lasted through Monday. It was so bad I couldn't watch the more visually chaotic of my DVDs- i.e., "The Young Ones" and "Bottom". So I watched "Law & Order: SVU" all day, and felt ill whenever someone smoked a cigarette. A result of the Vicodin I think. Evil, wonderful things. Cut down and bought AlkaSeltzer, but still too scared to try more food again.
          I think I'm in love. TheraFlu is magic. And my nails are now longer than they've been in ages, I can't chew on them. I'm still playing with them though- they're fascinating, disturbing. I feel a dreadful loss of control not being able to trim their edges with my teeth. I'm much more skilled with my teeth than with an emery board, after all.
          Someday I will eat and chew and frolic and stand without a ground-checking pause, someday... There was a normal and there will be again.

posted by Vee @ 1/10/2006 0 comments

that's my state!

ABC News: Rhode Island Legalizes Medical Marijuana

posted by Vee @ 1/05/2006 0 comments

the politics of laughter and "carnivalesque"

"Here I want to show that the carnival is not a trivial cultural anomaly, and not simply a sideshow to 'more serious' cultural practices. First we need to rethink the idea of cultural 'importance.'
          "Allon White has identified the misidentification of seriousness with importance as the most fundamental oppression practiced by modern cultural institutions. [...] Somehow, in the eighteenth-century divorce between mundane life and the carnival world, the former, which already had a monopoly on seriousness (something the carnival could care less about), was also given the custody of importance- as if seriousness implied the importance, while there is, in White's estimation, 'no intrinsic link at all' between them. The result is what White calls the 'social reproduction of seriousness.' This practice promotes the 'ruse of reason' that underlies the fiction that we cannot be in Oz and Kansas at the same time. This ruse is useful in creating a 'high culture' of arts and letters under the control of 'important' cultural institutions.
          "The purveyors of 'serious culture,' churches, museums, and universities, would allow the carnival midway a cultural place where nothing of importance can happen, a space for trivial play only. At best, they view it as a harmless waste of time; at worst, a nagging distraction from 'real culture.' I would respond that the American traveling carnival is connected to a long historical stream of cultural practices, practices older than any university, perhaps older than any current religion, practices tied to a cultural logic that can be called the 'carnivalesque.'
          "The carnivalesque is as much a mood as it is a moment. It is an itch, a tickle, a sly wink at the rest of life. Most forms of comedy tap directly into this pool of whimsy. [...] The Russian cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin claims that we have lost the medieval carnival spirit and with it, an entire other mode of life. [...] He also notes the oppressive power of authorized seriousness in modern times, and he looks for ways to reverse the arbitrary equation of importance with tragedy. Most of all, Bakhtin searches for a serious way of laughing."

"[In the Middle Ages,] the king of the carnival was also its clown, and this reversal of position was a large part of the joke. Putting laughter above seriousness, above the solemnity of religion and the dignity of royalty, upset all propriety. So, too, the carnival elevated the lowly. Women, the young, and the poor found arenas in which to challenge domination. Civic leaders might be required to dress as women for the day. The motley costumes of the clowns also signaled the collapse of class structure in a time when social privilege was marked by one's attire."

"The anthropologist Victor Turner made the observation that life gyrates between two frames of reference. The one in which we seem mostly stuck is the rational frame where the limits and consequences of everything we do constrain our actions and thoughts. The other frame is a space where joyfulness and wonder take over, and where we forget our limitations. In this space we find the means to imagine how we might change ourselves and our relationships with others, our society, and our future. We slip into a world of infinite possibility, for a day, or an hour, or the three-and-a-half minutes of a carnival ride. And when we get back to the ground, the ground is no longer the same, for we have glimpsed it differently. These are our moments of inspiration and innovation, and they are also part of the carnivalesque. [...]
          "Bakhtin likens the carnivalesque to a second life, one that is always with us, at the store, at the office, even at church. This second life doubles our experience in all circumstances, although it shows itself only on occasion. The unchained potential for laughter, a laughter that can overtake any trauma, gives us the strength to move beyond our fears. The power of real laughter is that it reveals the lightness of life even in times of sorrow. We can learn to use this laughter in different ways and times and places, but the younger we find its lesson, the better."

- -Bruce Caron, "Inside The Live Reptile Tent: The Twilight World Of The Carnival Midway"

posted by Vee @ 1/04/2006 0 comments