I've been in Guatemala now for just a few days, but it is as if I never left. On Sunday evening, I happened to run into Alvaro on the street outside my old favorite cafe. I got a bed at the house in Antigua where I lived for a month or so last week. And on Monday I went to work at the Archive. Monday night, I hung around the Outdoor Xcursions house with the other folks living here, taking stupid pictures and talking. There was also some good dance partying.

Tuesday was more of the same archival work and a trip to the grocery for food.

Wednesday, today, was the day when I remembered that I won't be here for as long as I was last year, and so I have to step up the pace of my work. So, I sent a bunch of emails to people about making appointments next week in the city even though I find the city a terribly stressful and isolating place to live. To make sure I make it happen, I've made some dates for meetings and things. It will be okay.

I also went to the market today and got some veg. Here's the cost breakdown:
+ 7 roma tomatoes = 2.50Q = $0.30
+ 3 onions = 3.50Q = $0.45
+ 3 jalpenos = 1Q = $0.13
+ 4 or 5 limes = 5Q = $0.63
+ 5 green apples = 10Q = $1.13

Seriously. I wanted some avocado, but it's not quite time for the harvest yet.

Tomorrow, Thursday, my good friend Chris returns to Antigua. He was my best friend last year and I am more than thrilled to see his silly face once more.

Here is what happens sometimes when you Google your exes to see what they're up to:

Maggie's Salsa

Extra Credit: the jacket I'm wearing in this icon photo is one she gave to me the day we met!

dear you,

what if i made a mistake? what if all of these past months were just an unfair fuck up on my part? there is so much i miss about what we were doing. things that i never wanted to change. and things which could have changed with a little commitment and maturity on my part.

i found a postcard from you today which reminded me of exactly how unfair i was. and i don't know what happens next. probably nothing. probably everything as it is right now. which is fine. it seems that you are doing something really great, and i think i am, too.

but i had to write something.

love,
dillon

...yeah, so, i've been pretty much absent from live journal.

life began to take off and i just stopped updating.

here's what i've been up to:
+ roller derby: skating on our "a" travel team and working really hard
+ thinking about food non-stop to accommodate said skating
+ traveling for derby - just played in louisville
+ dating this lady, margie
+ trying to fix dolly (the cat)'s bladder stones without surgery
+ finishing out my last semester of coursework
+ writing my qualifying exams book list

i guess i've been on l.j. vacation.

mostly cos i started rollerskating like crazy, we had tryouts for the travel team; and i got into this new relationship, which we all know is all consuming; and the semester started kicking my ass; and graduate conferences; and so on and on and on...

but things are good.

i went to kansas, camping, and grand rapids over spring break. it was good, but too much time spent in the car. kinda wish i'd gone to london instead. but it was good to see megan, the b.f.f. in kansas and to just hang out and pretend that i lived in lawrence for a few days.

three tattoo plans, but no new tattoos, yet.

freehand tiger by mudd on my forearm or leg
best friend hand shaped hearts with megan on calves
three ground cover flowers tribute tattoo for graddaddy john on right ankle

...i can actually get some shit done!

now if only i can stop myself from reflexively checking every 10 minutes or so to see if it is up and running once again...

p.s. the next week is going to be insane. i really really need to get better about budgeting my weekend work time.

p.p.s. these days i have a few new and really good friends and i love them. i am blessed.

...okay, so i've picked one.

tiger beat, number sweet 16.

and here, darlings, is the sort of aesthetic i hope to conjure...

the days are abnormally warm and you can just feel the humidity and tornadoes waiting in the wings. something of a sense of inevitability.

in a few days, i will drive back east to virginia/d.c./maryland. yep. i can't believe how much things have changed since i've been there - i mean when i went in october i wasn't in v.a. too much so it was hardly a trip there.

what will this trip, this sort of pilgrimate, hold?

off to skate laps now, yes, just circles and hopefully with some music in my ears.

caffeine jitters and i've been grading since 10a.m. and so don't care to sound cool or flippant or slangish here.

/ennui.

as the day has worn on, the puffiness has reduced a little and the big beautiful black eye, like glam-rock purple or black eye shadow, has risen to the surface.

i'm sure that my students will love it. so far, peeps are like, "dang dude you look tough as shit!" or "now what does this tell you about the importance of helmets?!!!!"

yes, i know. i will wear a helmet. as soon as i buy one.

this is what i did tonight.



( ouch! )

prince's jam is tonight's theme song.

uh, no. just kidding. that's gross.

it's the weekend! yeah! caffeinated, ready for what's next. feeling too ill to go to my professional organization's meeting, and so it's me and the internet and some grading and fucking off before skating tonight. excellent.

the weekend?

grading papers for af.am. women in history class, then grading the last batch of weekly reading responses for the black death, then coordinating a grad student job search breakfast, then working on my comparative dandy as a vision of modernity versus backward mexico city paper.

and wtf! why didn't i know that the national rollerskating museum was located in lincoln, nebraska? my granddad is a bad-ass skater and maybe that's how he got started - cos skating was really big in nebraska when he was a teenager!

finally! a hobby my grandparents will approve!

So, after a long long time of simply working and barely looking up, much less around, I've emerged from my nearly monastic existence in order to take up a new hobby: Roller Derby.

Seriously.

But not as some skirt-wearing lady skater (duh), but rather as a very handsome referee. I wasn't really that into derby since I caught just one bout at the end of last season and didn't know the rules beforehand, but then on a whim went skating with folks last Friday night.

It was so amazing and even better than I remembered from being a pre-teen in rural Nebraska. All I need now is to hear Joan Jett's, "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" during a couple skate and my youthful queer dreams will be complete. After Friday, I thought about it kinda of nonstop all week, then I went on Thursday for two hours, then Friday for three hours, then to a two-hour skills camp this morning. Never one to do things with moderation, obviously. After the sixth or seventh time I was asked to do derby and then told, "You will be a ref." I nodded and said, "Ok."

So, I've been skating four times in the last eight days to get my skills back and get some new ones. I haven't had so much fun in a real long time. I have a good deal of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) requirements done, then have some paperwork and all of those things (like a bad rugby-days flashback) where they absolve themselves of liability for your injury while playing. The requirements for a ref are a little different...

Sadistic fucking sport, I should say. Body checking, falling, all of this getting on your knees, pain, sweat, terms like "whip," and sweet body sweat stink. I haven't had this many beautiful bruises on my ass since... a long time.

Along with a whole new sport comes newly emerging muscles (my legs are becoming freakishly defined in really strange places), new expenses (skates, helmet, pads) and a new vocabulary. And new friends!

Friday nights are the best cos a bunch of derby grrls are there, but so too a bunch of Bloomington punks go and so all of these pals end up skating all together and it's kind of amazing...last night's weird Indiana-teen-induced homophobia notwithstanding... Next week, we must all wear shirts stating boldly:

FAGGOT
QUEER
DYKE

or something like that.

"An Opinion on the Question of Pornography"

There's nothing more debauched than thinking.
This sort of wantonness runs wild like a wind-born weed
on a plot laid out for daisies.

Nothing's sacred for those who think.
Calling things brazenly by name,
risque analyses, salacious syntheses,
frenzied, rakish chases after the bare facts,
the filthy fingering of touchy subjects,
discussion in heat--it's music to their ears.

In broad daylight or under cover of night
they form circles, triangles, or pairs.
The partners' age or sex are unimportant.
Their eyes glitter, their cheeks are flushed.
Friend leads friend astray.
Degenerate daughters corrupt their fathers.
A brother pimps for his little sister.

They prefer the fruits
from the forbidden tree of knowledge
to the pink buttocks found in glossy magazines--
all that ultimately simple-hearted smut.
The books they relish have no pictures.
What variety they have lies in certain phrases
marked with a thumbnail or crayon.

It's shocking, the positions,
the unchecked simplicity with which
one mind contrives to fertilize another!
Such positions the Karma Sutra itself doesn't know.

During these trysts of theirs, the only thing that's steamy is the tea.
People sit on their chairs and move their lips.

i cannot BELIEVE that the state of virginia never sent me my ballot. i made the deadlines and everything. but then i look in the mail today and no ballot.

wtf.

ftw.

not that i ever think that voting will change the world, but really... i would have liked to try, you know?

halloween pumpkin carving fun at corey's house (previously known as castle greyskull) with kristen, jessie, corrina, corey, crystal, and other random folks who happened to be about. good times. cute punkins. i made a star punkin with shadows and cut-outs after some cajoling, cos i was mostly interested in seed cleaning, flavoring and baking (like always).

other cute punkins include kristen's tree and treeswing, corey's cyclops bear, jessie's cute whale and corrina's tobey punkin. we set them all out on the steps with candles and they were real cute.

then, i went to a show with some cute queer bands. and mysterious japanese bands that got lost and then showed up after i left, like at 1 a.m. sheesh! but anyway, the cutest thing was at the end of the what the kids want set when hannah got her bass and she and the rest of the sissies played old tunes. i mean, not living in bloomington then, i didn't have the same sort of misty-eyed business that other dancing fools did (especially sparky and erin tobey and others) but it was still really great. i liked to look over at a little bopping j-town shock! to my left and an especially bouncy sparky to my right. somehow i ended up in the frontest of the front when someone left and that always makes me really shy, so i just danced and enjoyed it.

good show and then i rode with j-shock to get my bike, then bike home in the freezing fall wind gusts! a well-deserved cap to a work-my-ass-off weekend. yes.

today was nothing compared to yesterday, so, there it is.

Top 10 Things to Do Instead of Writing Your Grant Proposal
[a.k.a. the things i do to procrastinate, by d. vrana]

1. Google image search hot people whom you may someday meet and create unnecessary awkwardness and recognition when you finally meet them. Look at a number of photos, to determine what they must look like on a bad day.

Or, conversely, plan your own first Faculty Photograph. Cultivate a sense of indignation and interruption about it all.

2. Google image search yourself and find out that you are credited for authoring a book that you didn't know you'd get credit for co-authoring! See Quimby's Online Retail store and Zine Yearbook #9!

3. Perfect your Last.fm radio station, after all, it gets better the more you listen! Marvel at how Saves the Day somehow ended up on your Weakerthans radio station. Really. Suffer freshman year of undergrad flashbacks.

4. Crave coffee at midnight and weigh the pros and cons. Settle for water because it is like proto-coffee.

5. Think of all the fun everyone else is having rollerskating at Skate Land.

6. Plan your readings course, course schedule, lectures and syllabus for next semester.

7. Play the online bookseller historiography game!

8. Idle contemplation: how to better reach your students, a new hairstyle, things to fix on your bicycle, and the potential connection between the three.

9. Drink a lot of water and urinate excessively.

10. Procrastinate on writing in your blog by opening as many tabs as your browser will allow and fill them with useless shit.