Thursday, December 28, 2006
My older sister loaned me a novel about the fictional account of a boy whose father died at World on the Tower. I had presumed I would find it noxious, but the story really was quite good. Next I still need to finish an Umberto Eco novel begun several weeks ago, and a commentary on Tibullus' elegies. Then, overloading as usual, last night I started reading the English version of a work of classical scholarship written by a French author.
My throat hurts, for one of either April's father or niece or nephew spread some foul cold disease unto April and me. We took DayQuil in the morning before leaving for Austin to water April's plants and feed her fish. I had earlier expressed interest in visiting campus and the Capitol, but after walking around the University for a little bit, I felt moody and only wanted to nap. Later we went for margaritas at an outdoor restaurant with some of April's school friends, and I felt a little better.
Tomorrow April may take Katt (her cat) to the vet, so I may stay indoors and read.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 7:46 PM]
Amount Per Serving
Sunday, December 24, 2006
I went over to visit The Mongoloids, but could only remain a few minutes, as The Father insisted on monitoring us. I do not know why. He stood in the foyer as I hugged them each in turn. Nobody said anything in particular, so I handed the kids their gifts and had them open them up. We couldn't talk, though, and The Father stood there expecting me to leave as soon as possible.
So I left, fuming. What right has he to restrict my access to my own siblings? I just want to spend some time with them. I haven't seen them in two years! What did he presume- that I would send him out, so that I could then whisper, "Okay, kids- time to start hating Daddy and Terri!" They're smart enough and old enough to make their own decisions. They can all recognize a dousche when they see one.
Ashlea agreed to come over to casa Koury sometime tomorrow. Mayhaps I can have her mediate an exchange, where the five of us all go to the Museum of Fine Arts or a movie. I brought the idea up with the children, which is where The Father interjected with, "Well, we'll talk about it", "we" presumably meaning he and Terri. This is absolutely ridiculous. I should not need approval to see my siblings.
I haven't done anything wrong. I would like to be with my family once or twice a year, and I can't even have that, just because I don't conform to what Terri and The Father have decided a family should be, as though they are experts on the subject. They both need a severe shaking. Between the two of them, they have been thrice divorced (four, to include my mother). They are not infallible. Treating me like a prodigal is childish and irrational. I don't sell drugs and I am not a member of any underground political organization. I go to school, I go to work, I try to go to sleep in between. I am not radical about anything.
I want my family.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 2:37 PM]
Stuart Little Comes Alone- For Now
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Rebekah and I left Lubbock (stopping for breakfast at McDonald's- two sausage burritos for me, a McMuffin for her) between six-thirty and seven. We arrived at Brady shortly before eleven, where we consumed sandwiches at a Subway we've patronized before. My meatballs fell out. Rebekah ate a club sub, a less messy option. About eighty miles outside of Houston we stopped again for gas, urination, and McDonald's chocolate shakes.
The drive went well. We talked through most of the time before lunch, listening to various CDs until our arrival in Katy. Rebekah helped carry my stuff into casa Koury before departing.
I brought a gigantic duffel bag full of clothes (I shall remain in Katy two weeks), my backpack and a luggage bag full of presents for the Kourys and my siblings, my purse, and a heavy suitcase full of "work": a couple of notebooks, a pocket Latin dictionary, several library books, and a couple of leisure books I intend to read through (Nietzsche- Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Ovid's Ars Amatoria in translation). April brought up the idea of going to the library, which I agreed to eagerly, for I cannot concentrate at her house with all its distractions.
First I need to continue Tibullus' elegies for a day or two, copying some (or perhaps all, if I have time) of them for closer examination and practice in Latin translation. Then I should probably read through a few general books about Goethe I checked out from the library before I left town. Before Thanksgiving, I had begun reading Winckelmann, but finals and a research project required immediate attention; thusly, I must finish his essays auf Deutsch and then look them up online auf Englisch. The German edition I found is a book published from Germany, written by a German author with an extremely helpful accompanying commentary (the twenty-to-forty-percent of it I understand). All this research would be much facilitated if I actually spoke and read German fluently, but I am conducting this independent study project in part to build up to that level.
I also brought along some bibliography references from books I have read recently. I'll type those up and e-mail them to myself for later reference. But I can probably find most of the articles online now and print them off at a library here.
I love learning, when not being tested over it.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 4:54 PM]
That Only Comes This Time Of Year
Friday, December 22, 2006
I finally began reading the commentary to Tibullus' elegies yesterday, and this morning began reading the Latin texts themselves (straight, without looking up meanings) to familiarize myself with the metre. Despite a fondness for poetry, never having studied it, precisely, requires that I now make myself aware of everything I rarely pay attention to when I read Thomas Hardy or Ogden Nash. Dr. L'Amor and Avril will surely help me understand Latin elegy upon their return from break, but I must wait two weeks.
Lubbock becomes a ghost town with the obnoxious college students vanished to the various one-stoplight towns of their origins. Rebekah and I ourselves are most eager to be away, and intend to leave promptly around four tomorrow morning for the scenic drive through west Texas back to the K-hole. I will only miss being able to work out at the rec and read, undisturbed, at the coffee shop. Whilst at April's I've considered starting a morning and evening running routine, but I doubt I will follow through. I blame my double-D breasts, which always seem to get in the way.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 11:15 AM]
Schatten Hatten Eine Stelle
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
I agreed to fetch PJ's mail whilst he is away, for he suspects people are casing his house. After I do that this evening, I will continue reading at the coffee shop.
I do not like coffee, but I do like people-watching.
I enjoy not working.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 12:49 PM]
It Reminds Me Of The Places We Used To Go
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Grandpa Porchey sent Christmas moolah, which I promptly disbursed at the bookstore on the following items:
Greek HomosexualityI edited the list significantly to account for shipping. I considered purchasing one huge, expensive book from my wish lists, but realistically, it would be better to check that one out at the library when I need it.
two works by Aristotle
Before Sexuality
Combat Sports in the Ancient World
Literature and Religion at Rome
Greek Love Reconsidered
I attended a graduation lunch for Adrian/Mikki with her family this afternoon, but I skipped out on attending the three-hour graduation itself, after having endured Sharada's graduation last May. As her gift, I donated a coffee shop gift card and two pads of sticky-notes.
Yesterday and the day prior I spent most of the afternoon and early evening at the coffee shop to finish reading a book about fourth-century (BCE) Greek sculpture. I finished it last night, and need to write a list of bibliography sources from it before I turn it back in later. At the moment I am meeting PJ at the coffee shop to spend time with him before he leaves town next week. Then I may read more, or begin poring through Römische Elegien.
I should quit school. Then I would have time to read.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 12:45 PM]
Ich Weiß Wie Das Geht
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Over the week I read an older translation of sixty of Martial's epigrams, which reeked of British-isms (nicht gut) and hardly corresponded to the text (which was admitted freely enough in the introduction). For instance, where a clear usage of the word for "penis" appeared, the translation said something about the person having dropped his drawers, which simply lacks the fabulous effect of "penis" or its more direct euphemisms. Nevertheless, the book allowed me some initial familiarity with the Latin itself, some of which I would presumably study next semester with Dr. Larmour.
I took the Greek and Roman sculpture final this morning, disappointing myself with the lack of knowledge I displayed in my essay responses. I could have elaborated more, in retrospect, but lacked motivation, or energy, or the will to live. If I made a high "A" on the term paper, I should have made an "A-" or thereabouts for the course, unless I earned too few points with this exam. I should have studied more.
Dr. Borst sent an e-mail informing me I made a "B" in German, about which I am not surprised, considering I definitely put forth minimal effort this semester, for whatever reason. I felt motiveless and disconnected most of the time about all my classes. I think I have retained the mentality from high school that I might breeze through everything by sheer force of will and the virtue of being more well-read than everyone else. Unfortunately, I have less time than I used to for reading or thinking critically. My writing has stagnated, for certain. It distresses me, but I hardly have means to raise myself from the current situation. Oh, well.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 8:27 PM]
I Am A Hungry, Hungry Hippo
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Pa-Pa sent an envelope with a twenty-dollar bill inside to my address last week. I promptly went to Amazon for a couple of books: The Latin Sexual Vocabulary and Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People. They both arrived within the past couple of days, and I hope to consume them over the winter break, perhaps, between reading whatever Der Grair Bär recommends. I am to meet with him sometime this afternoon to discuss material I ought to read.
My Latin final will be a pizza party, for Adrian/Mikki volunteered to make the order. Greek I need to study for massively, but afterward I should do fine. Yesterday Dr. Reed showed the class precisely which images from the textbooks she would test over and explicitly gave the main points that we are to address. I translated most of the German texts and have only to type them up, print them out, and turn them in tomorrow. The end of this semester will be relatively painless.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 8:33 AM]
No More Cheese Sticks With Honey Mustard
Monday, December 04, 2006
I neglected to turn in a few homework assignments for German class, but, as Dr. Borst will kindly accept anything until the end of the semester, I went back through the textbook last night to complete a couple of old assignments, in addition to the material for the final. Tomorrow I must answer questions for a regular end-of-semester exam, but the translation assignments will not be due until Friday evening. Ausgezeichnet. The translations are short, one consisting of an advertisement for a beach resort, the other less than a column's length from a recent business newspaper article. Nichts zu schwer.
Tonight and tomorrow morning I must finalize the paper I am to have written about fifth-century BCE pediment sculpture. I already wrote eight pages, to which I am only required to add two. The last section discusses the Temple of Zeus at Olympia and the sculptures from the Parthenon in great detail, and I expect it will practically write itself, for scholarship on these subjects is vast and my notes were copious. The paper is due Wednesday morning.
Tomorrow I will bring five dollars to Latin class, so that Adrian can order pizza for our final Saturday afternoon. I have tired of The Aeneid. Next semester I am to translate sections of The Iliad (from Greek). Oi.
A few more people commented on my blue hair today. I am pleased that I look cool, because I paid a lot of money to achieve that effect specifically, and it would hardly do to be as indigent as I am without at least appearing as though I am well-put together. This month I also re-pierced my ears, rationalizing that expenditure with the notion that pierced ears make one appear more elegant and sophisticated, both of which adjectives should describe me aptly.
Now I am broke. But at least I look cool.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 6:27 PM]
Pink Is For Girls
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Before coming in to work this afternoon I sat at the table in my lair, agenda open to the first week of February to plan a hypothetical class/work schedule. Latin and Greek both meet only twice a week (Greek at eleven on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Latin at two Wednesdays and Fridays), and then I would also have a business communications section that only meets on Tuesday evenings (for three hours- oi weh). Around this I am scheduling five six-hour work shifts, to optimally have three over the weekend, so that I will not be a zombie during the week.
This semester I have closed every Tuesday night, with Dr. Reed's class beginning at ten the next morning. Consequently, every third entry of notes appears shorter and less cohesive than the rest, with loopy, illegible handwriting and ink trails every couple of lines, delineating the path of my pen tip as I lost/regained consciousness. I never fall asleep in my translation classes, though, since they are smaller and require active participation. Translating Homer with Avril (another of Dr. Lavigne's appellations) promises to be loathsome, but studying satires with Dr. L'Amour soll viel Spaß machen.
I resent the business communication class, which completes the oral communications graduation requirement. I would rather take a junior or senior-level communication course on rhetoric or almost anything more advanced, but none of them would be accepted for credit. The persuasion class I took at community college would not count, either. Schade.
Ich will ins Bett gehen, aber ich muß die Hausaufgabe machen.
Schade.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 6:28 PM]
Heavily Processed And Extremely Starchy
Saturday, December 02, 2006
April called this morning to inform me I am coming home for Christmas. I am to contact her when I have completed the logistics of this arrangement. I am pathetically broke at the moment, and realistically must work through the entire holiday, but I probably need to see la familia und die Freunden/innen more.
I only recently realized it has been two years since I last saw my siblings and most of my friends. Only within the past year have I resigned myself to the idea that Lubbock, Texas, the armpit of America, is going to be "home" until I receive my degrees. Friends and familiar faces I am not short of (at least one hundred fifty-three in the Lubbock region, according to Facebook, but nowhere am I afforded the wholly relaxed atmosphere I experience at April's or Sparky's or Sarah's house (or my own, before The Father kicked me out of the family because I won't call his new wife, "Mommy").
Relinquishing contact with The Father (he should not have my current phone number or address, and we haven't spoken in a year) has proven simple enough. Even when I lived in St. Louis or during my first year at Tech, I seem to recall he only initiated a call to me once, to notify me he had killed Bambi (the truck was fine). The occasions I called him, if only to chat, he behaved as though he had better things to do than talk to me. Later, he would claim to be hurt that we didn't "talk like we used to", even though 'twas he who excluded me (and probably anyone else), more especially after he met Terri and decided he would prioritize around her, to the exclusion of all others.
Being a melancholic-hypochondriac, I have expended an inordinate amount of time reflecting about the fact that The Father found me easily expendable. He lured me back to Texas, drove me ten hours through the barren west-Texas landscape, dumped me at Tech, drove back to his new home and his new family, and then bided his time for a year before telling me that he had done it all with the notion of getting rid of me. I remain unenlightened as to why he assured me he would help me through college (even asserting as much in front of Terri), then reverted his position to the claim that I was making impossible and arrogant demands. I merely expected that if The Father told me he would do something, then he would do it (though following logic, admittedly, has never been my forte).
When I asked him to co-sign on a loan to cover my schooling last year, he refused, ('Why should I?') claiming, among other things, that Terri would need a new minivan in a few years. Taking nineteen hours of classes, working a thirty-plus hour week, maintaining a 4.0 GPA, not getting knocked up, not abusing drugs or alcohol, remaining chaste and pure- demonstrating that I am responsible, reliable, and wholly dedicated to my education, to the exclusion of all other things- factored nowhere in his decision to claim I am not a worthy investment. He manipulated our family and grossly distorted my relationship to Terri, my siblings, and to him, simply because he suddenly realized that co-signing on loans to get me through school or on apartment leases would affect his credit negatively.
Again, bafflement arises: in the eighteen-year span between my birth and my graduation from high school, the notion of establishing savings accounts for me and my siblings never occurred to him. Depositing ten cents and nothing more would have spoken something for his priorities. Nor did alternative methods occur to his mind. And instead of simply stating, at some point (as in, when we were seven) something to the effect of, "Whelp, kids, if you want to go to college, you'd better find a comfortable coal mine to work in- start saving those nickels and dimes!" he left the problem unaddressed.
After he married again, The Father replaced his old F-150 with another, bigger one- with the biggest engine it could carry. Yet, he claimed he could not afford to make long-distance phone calls to me. When I stayed at The House of Usher, I was costing "the family" a gross amount of money, because I supposedly took too long in the shower and was supposedly washing my clothes too often (only as much as they required). "But Daddy drives a truck with a big huge engine, and I'm supposed to be proud."
Brooding makes me feel better sometimes, if only because it demonstrates how deeply The Father's irrational behavior affected me. That he loses no sleep over me I have little doubt, considering all he does is think of the person sleeping next to him, and the various means by which he has to "keep" her. Doubleplusungood, however, is the concomitant inability to function properly.
For instance, outbursts of crying- after my mother died, I never cried when I reflected on her or associated something to her, because death happens normally. Being shut out from The Father, however, has affected me entirely differently. One day this summer I sat eating a turkey wrap somewhere as I read a book of some kind (ostensibly- I really only ever go anywhere to people-watch over my books). A couple of men about The Father's age were having lunch together, on break from working in an office somewhere, most likely, and conversing about baseball and suchlike, the way I imagine The Father and his little work-buddies might. I teared up as I swirled a plastic spoon through the frozen custard I had been eating, wishing for nothing more than to be sitting at an Astros game with The Father again, listening to him bitch about how expensive the pretzels and soda pops are.
Over the summer I spent afternoons reading on the Flinstone benches upstairs in the foreign languages building. One week toward the end of the semester, I "missed" several days, and Dr. Grair, walking by on his way to his office and seeing me, mentioned I had been missed. After he was safely out of view I stood abruptly and hid in the bathroom for a couple of minutes to prevent anyone from seeing me sobbing. I am not a particularly "nice", "friendly", or "giving" person, and I find it hard to imagine that anyone might attach any sort of positive value to me. When someone does, it makes me nervous and anxious.
To work I must go. Thoughts interrupted.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 3:47 PM]