It seems appropriate to think about the relationships between art, nature, stillness, and impermanence this Monday morning.

These are clips from a documentary about artist Andy Goldsworthy, called Rivers and Tides,  which I plan to hunt down and watch in its entirety later today. I was linked to the first video by another blogger, and it resonated with me in a way that I can’t fully explain quite yet.

Until I have the time to create some art of my own, I’m just going to continue to savor this autumn and be thankful for this new seasonal awareness that I’ve never had before.

Crap, I am so tired and have so much work to do that there is no logical reason for me to be online at all, let alone writing. And yet…ta-da! Here I am. I’ll keep it brief with a list of random thoughts/updates:

- Applying to grad school is kicking my ass–so much so that I just wrote “quicking” instead of “kicking.” Seriously, there are not enough hours in the day to plan and prepare for everything I need to do and take a full course load that is so reading-intensive. But! This weekend I took the GRE (Graduate Record Exam) after a month of erratic preparation, and I didn’t do as bad as I thought I would. I got a 580/800 on verbal, and a 570/800 on quantitative (not sure on my analytical writing score yet), so I think I’m somewhere between the 80-90th percentiles. My math score is seriously amazing, because 1) I haven’t taken math in 5 years, am bad at it to begin with, and only starting studying for it a week before the test, and 2) I guessed on like, every single question. I’m disappointed in my verbal score, but I blame it on this other girl in the testing center who was seriously pounding on every fucking keyboard key like she was playing goddamn Whack-a-Mole. I lost 5 minutes of time because I literally could not read the questions because she was so distracting and infuriating. But at least I’m done with it.

- So, yeah, grad school! I’m applying mostly to Sociology Ph.D. programs, mostly ones that specialize in Gender and Sexuality. My number one choice is UC Santa Barbara, but I’m also applying to UC Santa Cruz and University of Washington (for Fall 2010, so I can take a year off/establish residency in WA). My back-up is San Diego State’s Women’s Studies MA program.

- My classes this quarter: Social Roles and Interaction, Intro to Criminology, Women, Politics, and Social Movements, and my favorite, Queer Studies and Movements. My professor from that class is seriously awesome, and she graduated from and taught in the UCSB program I’m in love with. But all my classes have crazy heavy reading, and some long-ass papers to write that are all due the same week. So yikes about that.

- In 9 minutes it’s officially my birthday and I’m 22! Yay for old age.

- True Blood is seriously fucking awesome. Go watch it now. It’s my new favorite show, and really the only one I am super-excited to see every week, other than It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Office. Dexter, Fringe, HIMYM. . . all very “eh” so far. Even Project Runway has blown this season.

- Oh, but I am also freaking in love with Keith Olbermann and (especially) Rachel Maddow. And I go to sleep listening to Thom Hartmann’s radio show. I’m a total election/economy junkie. At any given moment I have like, a progressive/liberal news needle hanging out of my arm. I’m about thisclose from starting some Facebook drama by calling out the few Republican friends I have; I just want someone to tell me why they don’t like Obama without using the words “threaten,” “freedom,” “Muslim,” or “terrorist.” For reals.

- So much more to say, but I desperately need some sleep. If anyone is curious as to what I’m to up on a daily basis, I’ve been Plurking regularly, and it’d be nice to see more of my friends over there (and if you’re reading this, I consider you a friend!).

“Spelled out your name and list the reasons.
Faint of heart, don’t call me back.
I imagine you and I was distant, not insistent.
I followed suit and laid out on my back,
Imagine that.
A million hours left to think of you and think of that.

- Tegan and Sara, “The Con”

I have so much to say, and so much to show. Not for the purposes of this post, though; right now I’m just going to wrap myself up in songs like I would a patchwork quilt, and try to get my feet back on the ground, balanced. But I’m alive.

After experiencing a few highly tumultuous weeks that completely restructured my life and left me emotionally and physically exhausted, my sleeping schedule was royally distorted. I was finding myself unable to sleep for lengths of 24+ hours, which would be followed by four-hour crashes at odd times of day. After I’d laid sleepless in my bed for hours, feeling generally tortured and frustrated by thoughts I couldn’t stop, I’d get up in the early hours of the morning and ride the exercise bike until I was too tired to be distracted by everything else that was going on. For the rest of the day I would cling to this accomplishment: nothing else was right, but I had done One Good Thing by exercising.

Eventually, I’ve come to establish a new rhythm. My day still isn’t conventional: I sleep about 4 hours a night, get up between 4 and 5 am, have a two-hour nap in the afternoon, and repeat. But the most important part of this rhythm isn’t the sleeping; it’s my Daily One Good Thing. Everyday, no matter how crappy and fragile I’m feeling, I do One Good Thing that contributes to my sense of worth and well-being. Some days that’s been turning in a bunch of assignments for my online classes; other days it’s riding 11 miles on the bike. Yesterday, it was successfully baking French bread from scratch and making a baked potato, both for the first time ever. They’re not huge accomplishments by most people’s standards, but they add up to my having a more positive attitude and lifestyle.

So everyday, as best as I can, I intend on updating this blog with something positive I did during the course of my day. These things will be relative, and might be boring/standard behavior for others, but they will always be good for me. I’ll tag this feature as The Daily Good.

Here’s to wasting no time before rebuilding after things have fallen apart.

I consider myself to be a connoisseur of procrastination. It’s astounding how many ways I can find to distract myself from what I should be doing. There are obvious and easy distractions–video games, knitting, television, etc. After I can no longer justify doing those things, and the ticking clock starts to exert its pressure, my shifty mind tries to trick me out of doing work by leading me on quests that I’ll be 2o minutes into before I wonder why the hell I’m doing them. I’ll start re-organizing my computer’s folder hierarchy, or decide that making sure every song on my iTunes has artwork CANNOT wait. This can go on for hours.

But tonight I found a whole new way to procrastinate. My English instructor is a TA, who mentioned in passing (as if TAs ever mention their accomplishments entirely in passing) that he’d had an essay in a book that one of our other essays was from. Curious (and procrastinating), I Googled the book and his name together to see what it was about. I found not just the title of his essay, but his personal/professional site, a literary journal/podcast he used to do, and several media blogs that he contributed to. I haven’t read or listened to any of this yet, because it’s 2 am and I need to write, oh, 5 more pages and figure out how to properly use footnotes, but I’m still astounded when I find the digital footprints of someone I know. It’s voyeuristic and intriguing, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever get used to the fact that people are so easily trackable online just through Google alone. But anyway, had I known he was such an awesome web geek before, I probably would have paid more attention in class.

Except when he was lecturing on Freud. Don’t even get me started on why English academics have such a hard-on for Freud (and yes, I realize how that sentence lends itself to Freudian interpretation).

I’m not quite sure why 3-4 am seems to be my magical writing time, but hey, whatever works, right?

I just needed to say that sometimes, nothing makes you feel better than a couple of good conversations. As an introverted person, I spend the majority of my time wrapped up in my own head and avoiding contact with other people. It’s easy for me to forget that talking to others doesn’t always result in being socially and emotionally exhausted–in fact, sometimes it’s just the opposite and I feel reinvigorated by the connections I’ve accidentally managed to form with some truly amazing people.

So thank you, Universe, for reminding me of the importance that other people play in my happiness and well-being.

Just when I think I’ve reached the pinnacle of frustration when it comes to America’s overly consumptive culture, I find that a new low has been hit.

They’re taking books now.

According to this article, product placement is quickly becoming common in teen and tween fiction, not only through casual references (which, incidentally, are in no shortage), but to whole series and characters being built around preexisting brand sponsorship. I think this quote from the article best sums up what’s at stake for literature:

In “Mackenzie Blue,” on the other hand, a new series aimed at 8- to 12-year-old girls from HarperCollins Children’s Books, product placement is very much a part of the plan. Tina Wells, chief executive of Buzz Marketing Group, which advises consumer product companies on how to sell to teenagers and preteenagers, will herself be the author of titles in the series filled with references to brands. She plans to offer the companies that make them the chance to sponsor the books.

Ms. Wells said she would not change a brand that she felt was at the core of a particular character’s identity merely to cement a marketing partnership. “Mackenzie loves Converse,” she said, referring to the series’s heroine and the popular sneaker brand she favors. “Does Converse want to work with us? I have no clue. But that doesn’t negate the fact that Mackenzie loves Converse.”

However, when asked what she would do if another sneaker company like Nike (one of her clients) wanted to sponsor the books, she said, “Maybe another character could become a Nike girl.”

I ask you, is nothing sacred? American culture is already so entrenched in advertising, marketing firms are searching for any way they can to capture the attention of unsuspecting consumers. In the midst of this commodity chaos, books have been the one safe haven when it comes to media and publications. But aside from the annoyance of being constantly inundated with brand names and not-so-subtle advertising–oh, and the death of real literature and the lingual arts–I’m more concerned with what it will do to the next generation that’s coming of age. At the risk of sounding old, it worries me that kids will grow up preoccupied with this rampant materialism, instead of looking to themselves and their relationships with the world around them for fulfillment.

Clearly, these issues have already been affecting us for years now. But now, when a child who looks to books for comfort and direction, as I did (and admittedly still do), will they find only vapidity and make-up brands where there were once morals and lessons? Instead of finding reassurance in literature, will they only find a reflection of themselves as consumers, existing only as potential customers? I can’t help but feel like our last refuge from commodity culture is at immediate risk.