Oh Alicia, with your vaginments

I do not like assignments. No thank you. They stink. I prefer vaginments (pronounced like vigina, with the long i). This was a system I worked out with my best friend at the time Sean back in my senior year of high school. I was taking six AP classes, and I'm pretty sure I came (get it?) up with the term when the time was coming for the barrage of AP exams. Yes, I have had an eight-hour day of tests in the middle of a week of test taking. Hehe, testes taking. See where the high school comes in? Get it, comes in? Alright, enough of that.

The point is, I got so fed up with assignments that I had to create something new- vaginments. Vaginments are a lot like assignments, only they're a lot more fun, and you look forward to doing them. You give them all the time they need to reach fruition, and you don't get frustrated. You just let whatever will be, be. And become. This is actually how I've written some of my favorite stories and some of my favorite papers and projects. It's more right brain, it's more artsy. It's feminine, and it's evolved. People tend to rush assignments, but with vaginments, it's all about taking your time and enjoying the process.

So today I was facing a lot of assignments. And I was panicking and hyperventilating and debating dropping out of school. I mean, Omar's moving to Lebanon for a year. Not like that has anything to do with it, but I could... do something here. I could go be homeless and become a franciscan monk. I could be a zen master. I could give up all my worldly goods and walk the earth bare foot. I could do it. But then maybe I can just bring zen back into school. Maybe I can be okay with Bs, and maybe I can take things slow, count my breaths, be awake. Maybe I can embrace my inner feminine and do my vaginments with pride. Become one with my ideas. Believe in them. For once.

In zazen (meditation), you are sitting at a train station, and trains of thought are zooming past. If you board a train, you'll be way off course. You'll be lost, and you'll have to find your way back. But in the station you can watch the trains go past. You can acknowledge them and then let them go. So these fears, these anxieties, these feelings of failure and hopelessness and anger that have been plaguing my dreams- they don't have to consume me. I can let them pass. And maybe these vaginments won't be works of art. Maybe they won't get As. But maybe I'll discover something important while doing them. And maybe just doing them is enough.

Hey Alicia, what happened to "The Orange Tree"?

Oh, "The Orange Tree"? Yeah, that got published. Published in Waterways. Woot! I submitted to Waterways because a poet I like named Matt Dennison sent his poems there. I also saw Paul Tayyar's name on one of the issues, so I am superpsyched! Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream. My poetry's in the mainstream!

Wilderness

Again, please respond. See how you didn't for the last one? Here's your chance.

Wilderness
By Alicia Adams

Off an old dirt road that snakes
Through grass and trees
Lies an abandoned tractor
Covered in blossoms and vines.

Every year I come to visit, stepping
Through grass and metal bolts and screws,
Pulled away by weeds. Every year I take
A picture and flip through all my photos
Watching the vines grow at super speed,
Wrapping leaves and stems around
The rusted steel of the engine and open doors,
Pulling the tractor deeper into the earth.

Some nights I lie in bed and imagine
That I am in the woods instead, sprawled
Out beside the tractor, vines weaving through
My fingers and around my legs, holding me
Still as they cover me and pull me down,
Back into the earth and grass, back
Into the dark and loving arms
Of the forest.

Toc Fetch etc.- an update

Well, to catch up, the anniversary was good. We had a rough start at midnight (great, right?), but after sleeping and getting back together in the afternoon, everything was much better.

Role Models- a good movie. You wouldn't think so, but it was really funny. I was laughing most of the way through the movie. And it didn't rely on my-balls-are-stuck-in-my-zipper humor, which was nice. Also, while I'm at it,

Repo! Genetic Opera- Go see it. Go see it now.

Then there was the protest which was more of an assembly (boo!). It was really boring, and there were a lot of condescending people explaining what peace was and telling us to love everyone and to be nice to the cops, and it was awful. No thank you. I'd rather be angry, and I should be, thank you. Prop 8 = bad.

Then to Professor Peter Markman's house (which is amazing, it might as well have been a gallery itself). Then to the Obsolete Gallery which was showing the work of Harris Diamant. Go. If you haven't been to Obsolete in Venice, then you need to go. We met Diamant and Markman bought us books for him to sign. If you want to see his work, just ask me. It's amazing. It's 3D art made with metal and... glass, I don't know. A lot of found art. All made to make faces. But pieced together abstract faces. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. And the gallery itself is ridiculous. And there was free wine, and we all got a little... smashed.

Next, dinner at Chaya across the street. Super expensive and delicious. (Markman paid, woot!) Then back to the house to look at art and videos and art and art and art. And to be introduced to Toc Fetch. Go find Toc Fetch. He's pretty fucking amazing. The thing about blogging on art is that I have to show it to you. Come see. I have all the comics now. We had quite the benefactor.

I expected this to be a much better blog than it ended up being. I guess euphoria doesn't translate well.

Oh, and we're creating a chap book for Omar- "Sudden Fables." It's coming together really easily. We picked out the stories and pictures we want, and we found someone to help us print for practically free. Not quite free, though, so we'll be selling them for a dollar. Ha. The point in that is mostly to be able to write to publishing companies later and say something along the lines of "I [Omar] have sold 500 copies of my chapbook, 'Sudden Fables'" to show that there is a market for what he does, seeing as that might be called into question. And Toc Fetch is a perfect example of that. Anyway, we start printing on Wednesday, and we're pretty fucking excited to say the least. We are in good spirits (happily, finally), and things are going well.

The last thing is that I don't know what to write my Theory paper on. I have ideas, but I don't know how good or feasible they are. Ah well.

Why I'm awesome

Not to brag or anything. Just the truth. I am awesome. Through no doing of my own, Vulcan may become a press! =) And- an online journal. So send your stuff, yes yes. It will probably take us months to get back to you. We are overflowing with submissions. I feel like a cool cat, you see.

Anyway, I'm also a super awesome activist. I have made shirts if anyone would like to borrow one and march with me on Saturday. Long Beach City Hall is on Pine on Broadway, but you should probably get to it by way of Ocean.

Friday is my one year with Omar, Saturday is protest + dinner and gallery with THE Peter Markman (oh flay my God, young Aztec), and Sunday is an afternoon with my dad, who is becomming my favorite person of all time.

I have become Omar's manager, and in the process I am submitting both for him and for myself. I am looking into volunteering for the women's shelter, the orphanage, or juvenile hall. But most of all I need a job. Have you a job? A job??? I need one, please.

Tyler- if you want to read my stories, I'd be pleased to send them to you. =) smiley face.