smile on, little buddha, smile on

just_teegan @ 2009-11-30T11:34:00

2009-11-30T16:34:26Z

not my usual bill of fare, but in an effort to be an educated consumer...

i love my little mac. this computer has been with me four and a half years with no trouble save for the need for a new battery a year ago and a new power cord six weeks ago.
but he's starting to slow down. processing power is not what it used to be. the fan runs much more often than it once did.
not to mention the fact that the b key is broken. he won't play certain movies or do some other online things because he's just too old and outdated.

i have documents, pictures, and music saved on elsewhere in case this one goes on me before i'm ready.

but i'm looking into something new.
i don't game.
i don't create movies or graphic art.
i don't run multiple complicated programs.

i listen to music on itunes (about 25 gigs).
i type documents.
i save pictures (though not a lot. really. minimal, judging by what i've seen from others. not even close to 1 gig worth.).
i browse the internet.
i would like to occasionally view the watch-it-now movies on netflix (mine doesn't have the ability to do so at present), and i do watch dvd's, though less so now that i live in a place with a dvd player and television.

that's about it.

because i don't need something miraculous that will also walk my dog and make my lattes and such, i really would prefer not to spend a fortune, given that i don't have one. under $400 would be best.

after a little searching, what's looking like top pick for a new laptop is an asus eee 1005ha. small. inexpensive. well-reviewed considering my needs.
do you know anything about these?
do you know of something better?
what do you have? do you like it?

i've loved my ibook g4 to pieces. the ibm thinkpad i had before was the devil (constant freezing up and random shut-downs, losing my saved things, etc).
i'm not super-thrilled about the idea of windows, but i'm flexible.
you can buy the asus without an operating system, so (and here's where my computer illiteracy truly reveals itself) is it possible to buy apple's snow leopard and put it on there?

any advice at all would be lovely.

just_teegan @ 2009-11-23T23:19:00

2009-11-24T04:19:44Z

i feel like lately (for ages?) i've been living in a state of waiting: waiting to start at wildacres, waiting for my vacation i took in july, waiting to see mark on the weekends, waiting to move to greenville, waiting for holidays, waiting waiting waiting.
waiting for a time when i feel like i live in a place that's beautiful, that fits. not an apartment, not a run-down, ex-garage cottage with indoor/outdoor carpeting, not someone else's house, but mine. a place with hardwood floors and color on the walls, with a [convenient] place for all of my kitchen things, my books, my yarn and fabric collections, my desk, with a yard and a garden. a kitchen in which i feel like i can linger, look out the windows, sip my coffee. a porch from which i see green.
waiting for a job that seems like more than just this year's lifelesson+paycheck. i've loved all of my jobs, but due to the jobs themselves or other circumstance in my life (well, mostly the latter), none have ever been allowed to feel permanent.
(sorry for all of this. the urge to settle and nest is one that overwhelms me at least once or twice a year)

when do i allow myself to be?

dad and i have been watching the ken burns national parks documentary he recorded a few months back. john muir is my new kindred spirit. one of the people interviewed said that muir didn't go to the woods to explore - he went there to live. and the idea that he would 'unconditional[ly] surrender] himself to nature. that's what i want. that's why the idea of going for a hike for an afternoon or a day or two is uncomfortable to me - it's a conditional surrender. it's a daytrip. it's a tourist stop. i want to live there for a few weeks. i want to have time to see the changes and the constants, to learn the locals and the migrants. i want that.
i still want to walk across nc. even if i'm eighty years old before it happens, it will happen. i ask that you all keep an eye out for anyone who might be willing to come along as companion beginning at the outer banks in march or april of 2010 and continuing through may or june.

and i want to feel like i'm not just 'getting back into ____' (writing, running, yoga, etc). my willpower is weak. and so is my confidence, at least with the writing. the glow from my published pieces this past summer has faded, partially because they were not very big or well known or established journals, and partially because i sent out a new batch of stories and poems at the end of september and have heard no response (though in writing land, i shouldn't be expecting responses 'til next month at least anyway), and partially because i know that while publishing stories in the world is an important step in making a name for myself and earning an agent and eventually a publisher, it's more important for me to be writing, for me to be writing new stories (i've only written three since this summer, and two of those ended up being part of the new novel that's growing making them therefore unpublishable, to me, in story form), for me to be working on this novel - doing the historical research, developing the interweaving plotlines, trying to create a form, and maintaining a level of language of which i can be proud. and you know what? i'd take any writing that would cut back on my dreams. when i stopped writing pretty much at all about two months back, i started having super-vivid, super-emotional dreams that leave me feeling unrested and out of sorts, and it's time for those to end, thanks.
i read the blogs of women who live as craftspeople, who create designs of quilting, knitting, jewelry, embroidery, painting, felting, food. as often as i tell myself that those who make an income have worked for years and years to get to that point, i still envy them that feel of professionalism. i envy the fact that with the right tools, a new product, a new creation, can move from idea to tangible thing in a day or two or three, a thing that can be sold or at least displayed with what looks like immediacy from the point of view of a writer.

in general, good writers make terrible bloggers. or, if they're anything like me, they do. writing about writing (which i've done to you more than a few times) feels as ridiculous as can be. and writing about anything else feels like a waste of time and language, a procrastination. and when one doesn't waste language, one's writing is terrible, especially when compared to a piece in which every syllable has been carefully tested time and again.
i think i only every found one blog by a full-time professional writer that i've liked, and he wrote plays. and he'd also quit blogging by the time i found his.

(as a disclaimer, yes, on here, i've read and do read blogs by magnificent writers, but not by anyone who makes a living from it. )

so that's my head tonight.

just_teegan @ 2009-11-12T20:04:00

2009-11-13T01:04:17Z

i've been waiting for this for so many weeks that it's strange to finally be here.

today, i finished moving out of the cottage. i worked my last shift at wildacres. i turned off the cottage power, grabbed the mail, and drove to south carolina, where i'll be living (for the most part) 'til after the first of the year.

is it strange? yes. had you asked me six months ago if i'd ever move to south carolina, i would have said "are you kidding?"
but here i am, moved in and living with mark, whom i've been dating for four months as of today. i live in an apartment building just outside of greenville with the same white walls (albeit not cinderblock) and off-white carpet that my last apartment had. would i have said six months ago that i'd be living in an apartment any time soon? probably not.

but i'm happy. happy to be with mark full time, instead of splitting our lives into weekend days and weekdays. happy to be in a place free of mice and unexpected power- and phone outages and leaks. happy to not be working for the first time in just under a year. happy to have time for scribbling and a little knitting. happy to have someone to enjoy my cooking, to cook with and for me. happy to be looking forward to thanksgiving in massachusetts (CRIPPLE, did i tell you this? will you be around the saturday after the holiday? i'll be out near plymouth, but i was going to come to the city on the 28th if you or buro will be around), christmas at home (cripple, again, and anyone else - thinking of an old-fashioned shindig at my place some time during the break. will you or anyone you know be around and free some time between our birthdays and the first week in january?), and a nearly epic journey in the new year. happy to have a chunk of change in the bank.

and though i will miss the mountains more than perhaps even i realize, i've noted the beauty of the south carolina sky every time i've come here. i love that i now get sun not just for a few hours in the middle of the day but from dawn onward. i love that i get two or three more weeks of autumn, a season that has all but ended in the hills. i love that i've gained not just mark in my decision to be with him, but a crowd of friends and family and interesting, creative, welcoming people.

been a bit out of sorts lately, but finding goodness and support in surprising places. a friend was playing a show in boone last saturday, so i half-decided to drag mark up there (only an hour from the cottage) which turned into a beautiful hike at linville gorge (and seeing an old s&m admin with his family), lunch on a parkway overlook, coffee in a coffee&bead shop with my sister (and seeing an old friend from girl scouts), dinner at a fantastic place, then a great show in a little record store and beer in a crowded boone restaurant that made all of us who went to wcu and wofford grateful that we hadn't gone to asu, finished off with a 2 am parkway overlook stop on the way home, where we saw shooting stars, and lots of deer and possums and raccoons and foxes on the roadsides thanks to the bright moon.

so life is in transition. here we go...

just_teegan @ 2009-10-21T11:17:00

2009-10-21T15:37:24Z

quiet, quiet.

the weather has turned cold - snow flurries this past weekend, frost on the ground every morning, the temperature in my little cottage hovering in the mid-fifties - and with it comes my strange moods.

i love the cold. i love the crisp. i love the look of frosted plants and fallen leaves. i love the feeling of a tingling nose. i do not love rousing myself out of a warm bed into a cold room before there's hardly a smidgen of light in the sky just so i have time to get ready for work.

i do love having the ability to see mark every weekend without fail. i do not love feeling like my weeks are split in two - three or four days with mark here or in south carolina, lounging and cooking and reading and guitar and movies and walks, then three or four days at wildacres working or trying to find something to do and reading a bit and knitting a bit and generally feeling all closed up.

i do not love the power cord to my laptop being broken, but i do love the discovery of an old boombox in the cottage attic, and the subsequent reacquiantance with wncw in the evening and npr in the morning.

i do not love losing my wallet and cell phone, but i do love figuring out that they were in my peacoat pocket the whole time; i had just worn dana's peacoat home and not realized it.

i do love reading 'david copperfield,' and i'm glad no one tried to force dickens upon me at some other time, because i fear i may not have liked it.

i do love the possibilities that lie in the next nine months, between greenville, san diego, and boston. i do not love the little anxiety that crawls around within me and whispers that i won't choose something worthwhile, and that i'll waste it, spending too much of the next seven months waiting for boston, then not know what to do when i get there. i do love the prospects of learning west coast and new england environments. i know i will miss my mountains here.

i do not love crying over something that wasn't worthy of the tears i gave it. i do love the feeling afterward when i'm all cried out and mark sits quietly with his arms around me.

i do not yet know if i love my new haircut.

i do love the warm, slanting october light.
i do love hot coffee with almond milk, and green tea with lemon and ginger.
i do love day trips to ashville with friends and a beautiful little girl.
i do love toasted homemade oat bread.
i do love making socks and quilting.

i miss scribbling (i haven't really been moved to do so lately. it's strange...)
i miss mail, letters, postcards. i suppose i should send some to receive some.
(for the next two weeks or so, if you're so inclined, you can use
823 crabtree road/spruce pine, north carolina 28777.
after that, it may be better to send it on to south carolina...)

i think that's all for now...

just_teegan @ 2009-09-30T15:22:00

2009-09-30T19:22:54Z

thought: the problem with being isolated along with one other person for too long is not the 'isolated' aspect, but in fact the state of being so close to the solitude that most all of us need at one time or another, but being unable to achieve it completely.

disclaimer: that's not the product of any current state of my life, just a response to reading a bit of kerouac's 'desolation angels.'

in other news: sending out a handful of stories today and tomorrow. always more exhausting than it ought to be to get everything formatted the way each individual journal and review and contest specifies, but i feel better when they're out in the world.
the rain is gone. the weather is windy and clear and chilly and beautiful. homemade bread & homemade soup weather. oatmeal weather. tea weather. sweaters and layers and fuzzy socks weather. fire in the fireplace weather. it's good.

that's all. wind and stories and watching the autumn.

just_teegan @ 2009-09-17T16:38:00

2009-09-17T21:02:50Z

a rough time for people, it seems, judging by friends' entries and general conversation.

of all of the months about which people can writer beautiful romantic words, positive or negative, september never seems to be included on the list. january is bare and cold and singular. june is true summer, deep and hot and welcome and slow. october is changing leaves and the thrill of the first cold winds. other months have magic. september has... well, thirty days of waiting for another month, it seems. be patient. two weeks more and october will save us.

i've been in a bit of a frenzy lately. i talked it through with mark and realized the cycle i follow - the weeks of intense living in the world, the weeks of quiet, seeming inactivity in which i process, and the weeks of response, creation, change, which tumble into new ways of living in the world.

there was late july and early august in which i ran around and met people and saw new things and reacquinted myself with the old, and then during the second half of august everything quieted. i read some. i felt curled up. separate. and now, in the past two weeks or so, it's geared up once more: i taught myself to knit socks, and made my first pair (i'm absurdly proud of this, by the way). i've been making plans to make the coffee cup sleeves we did at shot in the dark so that i can peddle them to coffeeshops between here and greenwood, sc. i'm thinking of opening an etsy account so that i can offer these things, plus quilted bags and things - who knows? i want my own writing website. i want to be able to send people chapbooks of stories or poems i've done. bits and pieces of the new novel have been coming at me more and more frequently, and i'm trying to keep it all in my mind.

last night, i finally decorated the walls of the cottage with all of my postcards and art prints and quotations and clippings. they've not been up since i moved out of the apartment 16 months ago. i missed them. and then this morning, a full cleaning of the cottage, wiping down every surface, organizing piles of things, vacuuming, straightening.

it's ambition mode. i want (when i settle down a bit) to start a sort of knitting/sewing circle, but Not Your Momma's Sewing Circle - a place where the talk is not about our cats or our grandkids, but about the books we're reading and the things we're doing in the world, a group in which we can teach each other how to create or compose certain things. renaissance women.

and i know that this drive will ebb and flow. i know i'll pull back on it, then drive forward with it again. but it's good to take advantage of it while it's in full force.

things with mark are lovely. just... perfect. off to see the avett brothers tomorrow night. then a quiet weekend - hiking if the weather allows, the greenville art museum if it doesn't. a few crazy homecooked meals. the usual.

c'est ma vie.

just_teegan @ 2009-08-25T14:34:00

2009-08-25T18:35:16Z

anna, i got your email and realized that i really haven't been in the internet world much lately. too many other things going on. well, not so much too many other things, but -

work during the week, but there are fewer than twelve weeks remaining in the season, which means that the mood around here is one of 'almost there, almost there' for everyone, especially chris & dana & aine, who are moving to black mountain in november, and for me, because i feel like i've learned what i can from this place and this experience (i think i'm getting better at that awareness, too - knowing which experiences are good in themselves and which are good for acquiring certain skills then moving on). there's so much that i want to do, even in just the next nine months.

i want to spend thanksgiving with mark's family in massachusetts, and christmas at home with my own. i want to spend a few months in california with stephe. i want to see canada and the northwest by train. i want to walk across north carolina. and between all of those things, i want to live in mark's funny little apartment and sit out on his balcony and cook with him in his kitchen and go out with his friends and hike the foothills of the carolinas beside him. he and i are... perfect. astoundingly perfect. ridiculously perfect. everything we've hesitated to tell each other, to admit, to reveal, has been countered perfectly with an equal sort of confession that's too much to be coincidence. before we were sure we were a couple, we were the slightly sickening couple who could finish each other's sentences. it's been unbelievable. i love his friends. i love the person he is with them. last friday, i found myself smoking cigars with two english majors, then drinking and singing with six or eight other people and three guitars all moving together. i've followed a disc golf game, eaten japanese fast food, scoured the tables of greenville's largest annual used book sale. i've shared a peanut butter and banana sandwich in a park and watched a great chapel hill band play in a greenville hair salon. i've been nearly picked up at a bar by a couple interested in, um, additional company. and i've spent hours and hours just with him, just us, good food (oh, vegetarian happiness. black bean + veggie omelet, rice + beans, grilled cheese, always water and wine around, and chocolate at the end) and books and the words he writes and the words i write and us.

right now, the first subtle hints of autumn are coming to the mountains, the blackberries and tomatoes and kale and cucumbers all at their ripest on the mountain, many plants going to seed, the first rebel leaves beginning to change. hurricane season is starting out beyond the coast. my sister is back at appalachian (i'll go see her soon). and i'm paying attention. i am. i love this place. but i love the prospects of all my future plans. be they carolina, california, or, next summer, maybe boston? with mark?

trying not to count my chickens with him, but, oh, i can see all of it in my head. the present and the future. and i can still be me. i can still go wandering and contemplate grad school where i wish and think about going to denmark or india. it doesn't feel limiting at all. it's as though everything is expanding.

he even reads my scribbling, or i read it aloud to him, and i read his. we critique each other's work. the poetry series he's working on is stark and drives deep into a reader, and he understands what i'm trying to do in my most recent stories. he gets what i'm writing. he's looking over the novel now, and we're going to decide whether i can make it something i can be proud of (publishing-wise), or something to learn from and move on. and i'm newly excited about the novel i thought of last december, the one that tugs at my sleeve every few weeks with more words for the page.

so that's late-august life.

just_teegan @ 2009-08-01T13:28:00

2009-08-01T17:45:35Z

on the road for ten days and counting now, a drive to asheville, flight to atlanta, to boston. old friends and new meetings and 'back to the future' in a room full of mit kids and swimming in walden pond. walking and riding the t and good chocolate ice cream late at night and sleeping late on a soft purple couch in a room with long pastel paneled curtains with boston just beyond the glass. reading on the roof of a brownstone and yoga with strangers and finding used books that are as rich and bittersweet as slices of the most perfect dark chocolate cake.

manomet massachusetts. meeting his step-father and seeing his mother again. the most amazing italian food i've ever eaten and wondering if my life is real and listening to stories that are becoming part of the lore of a family i feel myself slipping into. the water. the water. the wind and the salt and the water. and a single night with him after two weeks without him and preceding this week without him, though text messages and phone calls and emails are ceaseless. the beautiful half of a golden hurt.

the train, the train! across massachusetts, new york through sunset and the start of the night, reading and munching on chocolate covered espresso beans and watching the scenery change - i love the east coast - then sleeping across ohio, waking up in indiana, the fields and the unfamiliar grasses of all heights and colors, the queen anne's lace, the little towns.

chicago with the family. the utterly overwhelming art institute and the navy pier full of tourists, statues and skyscrapers and the el, herbie hancock from lawn seats at dusk with a belly full of chicago pizza, walking and talking with mum, art galleries, seeing cubs stadium, watching the white sox barely beat the yankees, traffic and a hotel by the airport.

now west of the city for my grandfather's family's reunion. lots of food, lots to drink, cousins who are suddenly getting old, the kids becoming teenagers, the teenagers becoming adults - when did this happen? - but family nonetheless. our ridiculous cast of contrasting characters. a long ride on a pontoon boat passing not many houses and a good number of corn and soybean fields. the flatness here. the distance one can see. the clouds.

rain today. not much to do besides visit a house ronald reagan lived for a child's hand-ful of years. so i'm vacationing - swimming and reading and vegging out.

what else?

i chopped off my hair. it barely covers the back of my neck. the bangs curl and slope across my forehead. it's been two weeks and i'm just now beginning to recognize myself in the mirror. i almost want it shorter. maybe soon. my skin is freckled. my toes are cold in the hotel air conditioning.

i want to drown in words. i want to write a new mythology. and i want to pursue this new relationship, this new person. even though the fact that things with goose moved too quickly and we were in too deep before i knew what was happening and i keep holding myself back because of that, i know i ought not to. i know that he is not goose. but it's me i worry about. naive and stubborn and often put up on a pedastel. i want to make sure he knows what he's getting into.

his name is mark.

he is very good to me.

just_teegan @ 2009-07-04T15:26:00

2009-07-04T19:26:25Z

it's the week of the writers workshop here at wildacres, the week for which i've been half holding my breath for nearly two months. ranging in age from 20 to, well, 'significantly advanced in years,' there are over one hundred poets and novelists and essayists and story writers and documentarians and lyricists wandering around, cocktails in hand more often than not, complimenting works and picking one another's brains and catching up on the year or years since last they met. the reins have been loosed this week for me, and i've the opportunity to audit most any class i like, to attend readings, to wander amidst the crowd. and new people to meet, to talk to, to learn from. i'm soaking it all in.
i wrote a story on thursday, the first complete piece in months. it fell out of me that morning, streaming across the lines, eroding the blank spaces. i read the first half of it before the group, and i've gotten nothing but compliments, which means at least that it wasn't too disliked. it doesn't have a title, but i'll find one. i like seeing myself improve, piece by piece. i like having confidence that i didn't do all of my best writing three or five or seven years ago.
outside of these past three days, there have been cherries and kale and snap peas to harvest, and the first tiny green swells of new tomatoes on my tomato plant. the wind has been wild; temperatures at night hover around fifty, the wind chill dragging it lower, and i incessantly need to remind myself that it is in fact july, summertime.
it's been and continues to be a season of becoming reacquainted with aspects of myself i'd forgotten, and beyond that meeting new aspects, new characteristics, new facets that i'd never before been aware of. physical, emotional, academic, etc, etc. learning to relax. learning where my boundaries are, as opposed to those imposed upon me. only archetypes can be archetypes, and i cannot endlessly be the healer, the helper, the hostess, the young maiden of the story. at the same time, i am allowed my leanings, my crooked borders.

flora sightings: black eyes susans, queen anne's lace, mountain laurel.
fauna: bats, more lizards, more rabbits, strange spiders, a raccoon, squirrels, wild turkeys, hummingbirds, luna moths.
listening to: the mountain goats, eddie vedder, jack johnson. also: birds in the day and the night wind in the trees.

just_teegan @ 2009-06-24T21:11:00

2009-06-25T01:29:47Z

sorry i've been quiet here...

i've been out of most old loops.

i'm enjoying my solitude here in the hills. i've limited my world to the 2 1/2 miles between my little cottage at the meeting of the creeks and the retreat, plus occasional trips beyond. today, i went with chris and dana and the beautiful 9 month old aine to mountain farm where we picked blueberries and listened to goats bleat and smelled the fresh lavender growing. the women working there were amazing - very pregnant anna and very kind, quiet roberta. dana and i have been trading baked goods, and chris and i have been trading music, and we've dismissed the trouble of how to pay me for babysitting by agreeing that i'm working toward earning some of their old camping gear that they no longer need (their tent, which would be too small for three, and a rental of dana's backpack if/when i traverse nc on foot). i've been reading like a crazy kid and quilting and walking and learning greek and studying butterflies and dancing and making freckles and drinking wine, etc, etc.

i like this life. i like paying attention to butterflies, lizards, moths (including a luna that flew in the other day), watching a daddy longlegs carry off an ant and a dragonfly munching on a moth, keeping an eye out for rabbits and turkeys and bears and snakes, noticing the change in which wildflowers are blooming and which are done.

i look forward to chicago (and mayeb boston?) at the end of july, to san diego and sun and avacadoes and ocean in november and beyond. i look forward to the time after that, whatever that will bring.

but i'm happy in the now.

email if you like - teegan(dot)d(at)gmail(dot)com - or send letters (823 crabtree rd / spruce pine, nc 28777).

i wish you well..

just_teegan @ 2009-05-10T01:31:00

2009-05-10T05:47:48Z

and yes we live in desperate times
with faded words and shaking rhymes
[the avett brothers]

feeling like life in cullowhee was a flower picked in the early morning and, by the end, lay faded, limp, a little crumpled. we wore ourselves out, in a way.

now at home for mother's day. realizing how much in the past year i've developed a true need for the mountains.

i wanted to say that i've become a mountain girl, but i was born in these mountains, even if i was half a dozen states north of nc. i just spent a long while away, and needed to reacquaint myself.

i've noticed that when i know i'll have the summer there, i let myself take root so much more deeply during the spring. i've been hyperaware of the world outside the windows and walls, the green that now crowds the trees and the earth, the smells, the change of the moon, the change in temperature. we've had days and days and days of rain since mid-march, and that coupled with the bit of sun recently has done astounding things to the hills.

southern pines feels flat and humid in comparison.

but i'll be back there early next week. not only back, but in a new place, a higher elevation, a more isolated home, closer to the wild. my landlady said she saw bears in the yard last year. quiet. no internet at the house. no cell reception - just a landline. time to clear out my head.

these past weeks have been overwhelming, and i feel more disoriented than i allowed myself to realize. i'm looking forward to cutting back a bit. clearing away.

indeed.

there are details i could give. the cop who pulled us over when stephe & i were going to atlanta who thought our mason jar of water was moonshine, and who wished us luck driving in the city. drunken headstands at the teahouse with men nearly twice our age who are dangerously fascinating and intelligent. star trek & cheez-its with nick. reading nature essays of the south out on the porch with the avett brothers playing softly and the rain drizzling forever. afternoon tomato & cucumber salad & late night fried eggs. walks in the sun. walks under clouds. finding the new poet with whom i feel such a strange vibrant connection. driving with the windows down. disagreements. misunderstandings. miscommunications. too much lust and not enough love. too many accusations and not enough apologies. the sound of the crickets on caney fork. the scent of honeysuckle as i drove through mocksville. on and on.

love to you all.

just_teegan @ 2009-04-27T09:34:00

2009-04-27T13:44:00Z

after an indecisive spring of more cold than usual, the summer has finally begun to make promises. we've had warm sunny days and my freckles are out and there's a constant pitcher of iced tea around. stephe and i had avocado+tomato+cucumber sandwiches for dinner yesterday, sitting outside at a picnic table with strawberries and mason jars of ice water. i've been running around in skirts and dresses and building up calluses on my feet. two weeks 'til i relocate, but so many things to do before then.
work is good.
life is good.

i hesitate to say that anything is permanent or even too deep-seated, but there's a calm within me that's somewhat new. i don't get as riled up as i have in the past over little things, and when i do it fades more quickly. i'm not stressed about social faux pas in the ways that i have been. i'm realizing more and more how often people overreact. relax, i want to say. it's only an issue if you make it an issue. but people will fret regardless.

stephe and i have grand dreams of starting a salon/commune where people can come and stay with us and talk and work/read/create/recharge and then move on as they wish. we want to be muses. alice toklas and gertrude stein. sylvia beach. enablers of dreams. sages. listeners. patrons. this is our dream.

we made pico de gallo and cheesy bread and blackberry chocolate cake and mint juleps with honey-sweet tea instead of sugar water for the party last friday, and i almost believe we had more fun preparing than we did at the gathering, though that's usually the way we function.

indeed.

it's time to read wolfe and whitman, to run around outside, to drink in the sun. oh, how i love the warmer months.

just_teegan @ 2009-04-14T18:25:00

2009-04-14T23:03:42Z

under clouds, an hour and a half of interstate driving followed by half an hour of one of those minor back highways that has a tendency to slide slowly through certain small towns. a turnoff, and seven miles curving, climbing mountain road. the clouds have fallen low at this point, and everything is fog, the bones of the trees in hazy outline, the beautiful view you know to be so close completely imperceptible. then a turn onto a gravel road and still up, up, up the curves another two miles. finally, a sign and a driveway. the retreat.
most buildings older than anyone who now sets foot there, many remodeled in recent years to allow more light, better acoustics, better use of space. cozy furnished rooms with pairs of beds, meeting rooms, a sort of auditorium, an entrance lobby, a library, a dining hall, studios for making jewelry, pottery, paintings, prints, all walled in warm wood, all practical, comfortable. a barn full of wood and tools, each with its place, half-finished adirondack chairs and metal being worked.
and, beside the barn, the present group using the space, men who build fireplaces and ovens and stoves of brick and sotne and mortar, men (and a very few women) mostly from northern states and canada who gather yearly for business (financial meetings and elections) and pleasure (they built four pizza ovens this year with cementless-mortar so that tonight they could make pizza for all. on the last day, they'll deconstruct them and pile the bricks in a given space to be used next year).
and the staff, the manager and his wife, practical, aware, involved; a few older men and an older woman, a young man who works in the barn, a young couple with an adorable 4 month-old girl, all interested and interesting. soon to be my coworkers and teachers as i learn from them how to grow vegetables, how to cook for dozens and dozens, how to build things, how to maintain things, how the housekeeping works, since i'm to serve as a subsitute, filling in wherever needed, no job for more than three days.
i get to sit in on classes and conferences held there - everyone from musicians to writers to scientists to artists to religious groups. there are acres and acres of trails. i can look out on a day without today's mystic fog and see mt mitchell, tallest mountain in the eastern u.s..
good pay. good people. no two days exactly the same. may through the first week of november.

it's going to be amazing.

just_teegan @ 2009-04-10T23:20:00

2009-04-11T03:50:13Z

so, yes, i've disappeared from this place. or at least, i've seemed to, though it's really more a case of multiple factors converging to create that impression.
i've been reading what's posted by friends.
but for a while i was near a minor sort of depression when i was becoming aware of how much i had neglected myself in those last months with the goose, allowing myself to feel all of the hurts i'd pushed away.
and in the past two weeks, i've been at the opposite extreme, healing, watching the spring come, talking with friends and running most days, going on late-night waffle house runs or drinking wine with stephe 'til nearly dawn, kisses and cuddles and yoga, reigniting old friendships and meeting new people and eating fresh fruit. rusti was in town, so i got to see him, to see how well he's doing. he's off to colorado again for at least the duration off the summer, then elsewhere. i have been spending time with nick, trying to make sure our footing is firm and wondering how people who've shared some sort of close romantic relationship could ever get to a point, and remain at the point, where they never want to see or speak with one another again.
there have been snowflakes with falling blossoms and blue skies with grey, a full moon being caught and released by the clouds, heavy rains with thunder. there have been freckles and goosebumps. tea and coffee and a streak of hangover hash brown mornings, hippie slaw and grilled cheese and french onion soup. it's been go go go for nearly the entire two weeks.
i'm so excited about spending the summer in the mountains and swimming and hiking and keeping up with friends. i'm even more excited about san diego in the fall with stephe.
but i'm happy where i am.

just_teegan @ 2009-03-28T18:58:00

2009-03-28T22:59:00Z

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

[mary oliver]

just_teegan @ 2009-03-13T12:19:00

2009-03-13T16:28:21Z

classic blog angst: so much to say with the nagging suspicion that people care not for any of it.

crawling into my writing and going through old pieces word by word. ron recommended reading it line by line, but backward, so that one isn't hypnotized by one's own language or story. it's working. i'm finding more typos, repeated words, awkward sentences in the novel. and the short story i wrote last month has been critiqued by so many that i think it's becoming (one of) my best piece(s) ever.

working on something new, too.

reading joyce and the odyssey (again). coffeeshop-ing.

saw a documentary last night called 'random lunacy: videos from the road less traveled.' i very much recommend it to you all. it tells of the adventures of 'papa neutrino' and his family, including time in a mexican circus, a ride across the atlantic on a raft made of nyc refuse, etc etc.

contemplating the summer. in love with the idea of the nc mountains-to-sea trail, which starts at the southwest corner of the state, runs northeast along the blue ridge parkway, across the state, southeast through the coastal plain, and up the outer banks. 935 miles of nc. now requesting companions for the journey.
but also the prospect of interning/working at a retreat an hour or so from here. a professor can put in a good word for me, and i can only imagine the conversations i'd have in a place utilized from week to week by geologists, writers, potters, musicians, etc, etc.

waiting for spring proper. enjoying the days with walks and runs down unfamiliar hills. impatient for the days we can drive up to wolf lake and skinny dip in the dusk once more.

love love love to you.

just_teegan @ 2009-03-03T13:20:00

2009-03-03T18:30:21Z

tried diary of virginia woolf - dull as old english porridge. she's a lovely writer, but her journal is valuable much more for its historical sort of information than for inspiration.
reading diary of - somebody truitt (anne?), an artist. lovely and different, all color and form and still the struggle.
and now sylvia plath's diary, richer and more detailed and more emotional than anyone else's, more familiar, better than her 'bell jar,' i think, which was too simplified.

wanting to try another round of sending in stories. needing a printer, or a typewriter and the time to re-type a couple of 6-12 page stories + cover letters. but wanting to send things out. wanting to keep trying. wanting to get better.

snow for most on sunday. everyone else faced disaster; our little road had hours of snow, but nothing that stuck: ideal, when i needed to drive to work at six the next morning.

contemplating some james joyce. working in the mornings. sleeping funnily - restless and insufficient one night, too heavy the next. luxuriating in hot baths at night. lots of tea. toast + blackberry preserves. rice + beans. veggie messes. thinking about future opportunities...

indeed.

just_teegan @ 2009-02-27T10:14:00

2009-02-27T15:16:06Z

strike that last entry.
not engaged
and
not dating each other
and
so very relieved.

we're much better off this way;
we've both agreed as much.

we have way too much living/learning/adventuring/traveling left to do.

we'll still probably hang out for the occasional ramen noodles & star trek marathon.

aiiiiiii.

been listening to cake lately. oh, how i missed it.

life is good.

just_teegan @ 2009-02-24T23:32:00

2009-02-25T04:34:20Z

no longer engaged or cohabitating -

just dating. starting over.

everything feels a bit fragile and unsteady.

living with two female friends in a funny little house,

and reprioritizing.

new bed. new work schedule.

lent starts tomorrow, and brings the spring.

just_teegan @ 2009-02-23T14:21:00

2009-02-23T19:21:32Z

i love being home.

just_teegan @ 2009-02-13T13:25:00

2009-02-13T18:28:08Z

searching through old notebooks, typing scribbles that are worth keeping around, so i can box up the notebooks and send them home 'til i've settled in some way.
so much, especially in ncssm-era parts, consists more of a journal-like dialogue with myself than actual writing.
and i have improved in my writing. i have. i have. i must keep reminding myself. i have improved. i do improve.
remembering, though, who i was, what i wanted, what i loved, what made me sing. i've lost some of it, lost sight of some of it. is it because i'm no longer seventeen, or is it something that can be helped?
i wonder.

just_teegan @ 2009-02-11T09:56:00

2009-02-11T15:02:55Z

went running this morning for the first time in too many months. perfect temperature after weeks of cold. perfect breeze. we live on a beautiful road.
working on a story for class. i don't like it yet. it hasn't come together. that's what workshopping will be for, i suppose.
the goose has mono, and mostly feels like he wants to die. we're stocked up on soup and juice and popsicles, and all of his professors have been super-understanding.
had a lovely talk with my boss yesterday. i will never forget how lucky i was to find this job. ever.
reading virginia woolf and dostoevsky and others. a time for classics, for long monologues and characters so strange and vibrant, but so familiar, too (compared to modern literature, where they're all strange and vibrant and utterly foreign).
currently loving mushrooms and onions sauteed in a little vermouth, and continuing to explore the amazing things one can do with ramen. craving tart green apples. drinking lots of tea.
listening to 'the books.'
absorbing.
awaiting the spring restlessness i know to be on the way.

just_teegan @ 2009-02-01T19:19:00

2009-02-02T00:20:02Z

one should always be drunk
[baudelaire]

just_teegan @ 2009-01-27T11:21:00

2009-01-27T16:27:36Z

i went home this past weekend: to see parents and friends, to lend a helping hand, and to serve as a sort of pick-up service for unwanted goods. save for the fact that i missed him, i'm almost happy nick had to stay home, as my passenger seat held an end table and a sewing box, while in back, my little sentra carried three chairs, a maple desk, linens, two lamps, and all sorts of other things. i returned to find that nick, too, had gotten a little help from family members, chair and table and lamps and kitchen supplies, and now our living is beginning to be a place in which we can live, instead of the home of the only phone jack and therefore our wireless router and phone.
i sorted through all of my old writings, disposed of half, organized the rest. set up my desk facing the window, east, toward the sunrise.
in addition, nick signed the lease for us while i was gone, and mentioned to our landlord that the oven had been burning the bottoms of my cookies while leaving the tops like goo. he took a look at it, figured out the problem, and came to the conclusion that it would be simpler to get us a new stove (the old one was a toasted mustard color, the window to the oven burned black, the stove parts corroded away), so yesterday morning we were given a new oven.
it does feel homey now. another day or two, and i'll be able to stop worrying about finding places for everything and start enjoying it. i've taken to waking up and reading in the mornings, watching the sun come up. steinbeck, lately. i'd forgotten just how good he is at what he does.

love to you all. love and miles davis and the smell of peanut butter cookies baking, since that's my life right now.

just_teegan @ 2009-01-17T11:48:00

2009-01-17T16:58:40Z

relaxing.
most everything is in the house (save bookshelves and nick's desk, which we'll get this weekend some time).
haven't had time to clean, so haven't had time to unpack. little boxes and bags everywhere. the kitchen is begging to be put in order, since we've already used a third of my kitchen things in making ramen, scrambled eggs with onions, coffee, tea, etc. maybe this evening?
no hot water (someone said this is a sign of a frozen pipe - but we still have cold water? we think maybe the water heater simply isn't on). no internet 'til the 20th. we do have a phone line - but no phone. oops. (i get cell phone reception - sort of - in the driveway. nick can get it if he stands in the corner of the living room.
but it's cold, cold. we keep a space heater in the bedroom and snuggle close under a mountain of blankets at night. is it cold everywhere? it was down in single digits the past two nights. ice floating in the rivers. frost on the windows.
tonight, garlicky white beans that are stewing the crockpot while we're both at work, and star trek.
tomorrow, while he works, lucy (my boss) and i are going to asheville for whole foods (rices and beans and lentils in bulk! organic and fair trade and vegetarian things that are all tasty and wonderful!), best buy (i've a christmas-gift dvd to be returned by the first of february), thrift store (i need a desk! and some other things...), etc.
oh, there was so much down time and now it's busy busy. nick has a gig this tuesday. he's recording this weekend while i novel-edit. homework and work-work and this house and baking for the coffeeshop.

p.s. and the house! sunlight in our bedroom window in the morning. built-in bookshelf in the hall. happy little details everywhere. a porch that will be lovely in warmer weather. our little mustard-yellow stove works. inexpensive. isolated. the stars! i've never ever lived in a house from which i could see so many stars. the river just down the hill - we can hear it rushing and splashing. i love our road, the way the world becomes steadily more rural between work (on main street of town) and home (a handful of miles up a winding mountain road).

yay...