I can't sleep. I haven't been able to fall asleep in a long time. I've noticed this. I don't know why it's happening, but I suspect it has something to do with all of the things that I have to do in the coming days. I don't think about these things - at least not consciously - but they seem to occupy my mind on a fairly constant basis. @shortnsnappy and I were at Costco the other day. We rolled through the isles, picking up things as we went, and we marveled at the fact that despite buying a lot of new things (a turkey, for one. Neither of us is going home this year), our final receipt looked just like all the others. I told her we probably kept a tab subconsciously and knew when we should stop, even if we were buying thing we usually didn't buy. I figure it's the same with all the things I need to do. Grad school, work, a new job that I will need, my financial demise - all of these things are in my head. All the time.

Today I took a walk. I had planned to ride my bike, but I was struck with the idea of walking at the last moment. It was a good idea, because it was a wonderfully sunny and beautiful day in Oakland today. Truth be told, the only reason I walked was because - more than anything - I didn't want to take my bag where I was going, but I also didn't want to stick my book in my pocket and ruin it. Walking seemed reasonable. I got to where I was going, read about 100 pages of A Book of Common Prayer and did what I had to do. At 3 PM, I had my first meal in about 16 hours. It was pleasant. Then I slept.

In the following days, I'll have deadlines, headaches, phone calls home, and electrodes attached to my head. I'll be advised to deprive myself of sleep, a seemingly meaningless piece of advice since I'll already be getting no sleep at all. In the end, things will work out. Or they won't. I don't know. I choose to be realistic, which doesn't necessarily imply pessimism, but instead an understanding of the ups and downs of life - the kind of understanding that you don't think about; the kind that just is.

It's all happened before. And it'll be fine.

I'll be fine.

Will_I-Am

Somewhere up there, in the cosmos, in heaven, wherever the fuck the "maker," God, Jesus, the Easter Bunny, or whoever the fuck is in charge lives, someone is laughing. Someone is laughing at me, because I just got punked like no other. I spent countless hours preparing my NSF application, reading the fucking guidelines over and over, and bugging the shit out of everyone and anyone who could help me. Then, out of nowhere, one school, ONE FUCKING SCHOOL, fails to send my transcripts over. Then they give me attitude about it, leading me to march down there and ask for another copy (free of charge, because I would have gone off on them otherwise) and picking it up and mailing it myself, paying a total of $17.50 in overnight postage fees. MOTHERFUCKERS. Then, I get an e-mail from the NSF folks, reminding me that one of my transcripts is missing (No fucking shit). So I read this thing, only to find out that 1) They will allow me until November 30 to turn it in, and 2) they DO NOT need transcripts from transfer institutions. Okay, just give me a minute here...

SONOFABITCHMOTHERFUCK.

I read that fucking guide over and over and NOT ONCE did I come across that line. NOT ONCE, you hear me.

So, whoever you are up there, listen up. When I see you, I will kick you in your cosmic, glorious, and holier than thou nuts.

You've been warned.

Will_I-Am

Sometimes, when I'm in the middle of research, writing, or just thinking about something, I stand up, walk around, and eventually find my way to my bookshelf. I know it's not conducive to work or productivity (at least not directly), but I pause - sometimes I sit on the floor - and look through my books. I have too many books. I haven't read half of them, or at least I haven't read them in their entirety. But they're mine. They comfort me. Knowing that, no matter what happens, there is always something there for me to discover and explore is the most comforting thing to me; because even if I fail miserably at what I should be doing, I can always win when it comes to reading something new. I can count on that. When I was having trouble writing my thesis, finding my voice amid the many dry academics with whom I had to enter in dialogue, I headed over to my bookshelf. I read one book of fiction, parts of three ethnographies, and I stared at countless others. In the end, I wrote.

Today, I've sat for the better part of four hours in front of my computer, doing endless research on flamenco. It's fascinating research. But like clockwork, I made my way over to my bookshelf. I picked up Michiko Kakutani's The Poet at the Piano and read about Joan Didion, uncovering one of the most beautiful lines I have come across in a long time:

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, love sit so radically that he remakes it in his image.

When I had drawn the necessary inspiration from the portrait of Joan Didion, I sat down in front of my bookshelf, carefully considering my many books, moving from the top shelf (Social Science) to the middle shelf (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry). I picked up Niloufar Talebi's Belonging. I remember when I worked an event where she was speaking. She stood up there, this beautiful and strong Iranian woman, and recited some of the most beautiful and powerful poetry I had ever heard. Following her presentation, I introduced myself and bought her book. She took it and signed it.

William - For your love of translation and language - Keep this FIRE!

She scrawled something across the front page in what I can only assume is Farsi. She returned it to me. To this day, I still don't know what it means. It's one more thing that I can count on one day understanding. Until then, it sits on my bookshelf, comforting me from afar.

---

Sometimes I'm so down on myself for not being able to write or express myself in the way that I want to, and then I remember that it's okay; because I have those books from which I can draw inspiration. I seem to forget it sometimes, but I never fail to remember it at some point. And that's when magic happens, because I remember. I remember that there's so much I have yet to read and learn - so much left to experience. So much that will mold me as a writer and as a person. So I'm okay.

In all honesty, I think I don't finish books on purpose. Sometimes, not knowing what happens is more exciting that actually discovering that there is an end to something. Why must there be an end, anyway? Why can't I just live in the moment and cherish the narrative from within instead of finishing it and looking at it from the outside? At the very least, just let me hold onto it for as long as I can. I'll finish it one day, much like I finished 100 Years of Solitude after what was, undeniably, my own 100 years of solitude.

---

I leave you with a poem from Niloufar's book.

Book of Fears 27
by Jamshid Moshkani

When the salt of your blood gripped my teeth
I understood my buried pain

And I am the third line*, open...

Something wordless
Like snow after death

And I, who never feared the silent fall of all this death,
Shuddered upon seeing you.

---

Will_I-Am

N.B. To explain the reference to the third line:

*A quote by Shams-e Tabrizi, Rumi's spiritual teacher. English translation by Niloufar Talebi:

"... Oh scribe,
You wrote three lines:
One you called,He, and no other!
Another you called He and the Other!
The third you called neither He, nor the Other!
That third line is me!..."

Here it goes. I'm just going to write it out. Help me decipher it.

This morning, I had a dream where I was discussing poetry in class (my 10th grade English teacher was the teacher) with a Native American man. We were on some sort of bed, and I was reading the poem off a pillow case. At one point, I had to turn the pillow case inside out to continue. It was nothing but colored stripes, but I somehow could decipher it. When I was done, I talked about how it was about racism. Then the girl next to me talked about how it was about gender. The Native American man disagreed with her and began discussing it with her. At some point, someone pulled the blanket off the bed. All I remember is feeling uncomfortable because I was too close to the man's feet and I thought they smelled. Oh, and before we began the poetry stuff, our teacher told us we were watching one of two movies: (The Marriage of) Figaro or Mme. Butterfly. The latter was scrawled across the chalkboard in some odd language (definitely not Italian) and I somehow figured it out.

I'm confused.

Will_I-Am

The internet was made for porn. Go watch some. What are you doing reading this blog? It's not pornographic in the slightest. The creators of the internet would be sickened if they knew what you guys were doing with their creation. I mean, Mommy Bloggers, distraught law students, and oddly over-achieving Mexicans?

Seriously, kids.

Go watch porn!

Will_I-Am