Malicious Postmodernism

Life is Swell

ashley.stubblefield — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:58:11 +0000

You tell me what my life is missing and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong.

astubblefield — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:31:51 +0000

What an odd few days. Joe was in town, and it was the first time we’d seen each other in over a year, and I took my first real vacation time all year, and we went on a massive bender, all sightsee-y and booze-y, often both in combination. :) It’s all kind of a blur, but we def passed an awesome night at Pacific Standard with one of These Bastards in attendance. We also did the big red bus tour thing and the Mets game thing and the sweet sweet bliss of the McCarren Pool Party thing. Did I mention teh drinking? Ohhh, my head.

And yesterday he was off to B-mo and two more brits popped over, some troublemakers who I work with from SBME offices in London. Egads! And then, to top it all off I had another conf call today with The Lightyears about their trip over. Sooooo if I start with the awful fake accent, blame that lot, not me.

In other news, I’ve had two wonderfully absurd compliments today. Jamal called me “the shiznit bombdiggy”. Which is true. I’m trying to figure out how to have my name legally changed to that. I wonder if it’s already taken…

And then, someone complimented my outfit, saying I look very “Pippi Longstocking chic”. I’m glad he recognized this, as it’s likely going to be the main theme for my fall fashion decisions. I mean, if you’ve got it, use it, and I’ve got some freakin awesome freckles. Mayhap a clothing like will come out of this, or maybe i’ll just wear braids more often. It’s still up in the air.

Also, Kneesocks Nick during a fast and furious absurdity of a conversation had me convinced (for a few minutes there) that Utah did not exist. I googled it. Still there. Utah - totally a state.

i don’t care what it does to me…

astubblefield — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:15:34 +0000

take these tattered boxes, they used to hold your clothes, break them down, build them back up with your bones…

being alone in a crowd is an overused cliche. and how. but for once, i was upset, i was a wreck, and I have no idea how people thought the smile I was giving was the same one I always give. but people don’t notice. they dont care. i make a point to pay attention, to try and be there if someone I know is having an off day. I might be wrong. I might be radiohead. I might be fucking off-base about how things happen, but jesus, even that one person closest blood to me had no inkling that all i wanted was a hug and question or two. here i thought i was transparent, but i’m just actually a great actress. or something. or other.

I know I’m selfish most of the time, but if anyone else was ignored by me on the kind of day that I’m having, i’m so insanely sorry, in more ways than you know. thank god for Clem else i would have screamed and thrown things. cra cra crazy. that’s me.

tears are an unneccarsy byproduct of an unbalanced person whose emotions are without proper control. obviously.

friend is such a weird word. such a lie.

lovemiss, loveempty, hesitantaccomplished

astubblefield — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:29:52 +0000

I have button in my kitchen, above the greenboard, whiteboard… bored… boared… gored… all this to say that eraseable thing that hangs in my kitchen and taunts me with lists actualized, in that facinating way that to-do and i-wish lists and are never completed, never done, but tantlizing in the way they write your own never ending story.

so the button. it makes me happy. i have a button and a friend who stays. I have a half-written letter whose contents are anticipated well before they are finished, much less sent. i have a scarf yet knit, a buatifull looming pile of books to be read, a clateing clakety head full of books yet to be written.

I am a pile of cliches a disappointment a hope of things better a stout three-setting fan. I am a clutter of scraps and and half-finished thoughts and an amalgam of all these moments: spinning flips on the swingset of cream and mauve we dismantled who know how long ago, the lingering insults of a sixth gradge sweet-heart, an abondoned highway in spain, a trip to state college, a front porch swing, a face dented by the divedivingdove board gone awry, a treehouse, a lost friend, a firstlove drummer who spun me in the yard past curfew. some days these scraps of me organize, they are my plumage, brilliant and striking as i set out to conquer the world. some days they are windswept, a funnel cloud obscuring that tenuous line of reality I follow.

oh how how how this is supposed to make sense i can only gesture at weakly as if to say, if you know, you know, yaknowwhatimean. (and when you know, you know, which brings so so much more pain in the loss than the vagarities of indecision.)

the thing i have been trying to explanation i have been trying to pinpoint, has escaped my aching explanation like the damned unwilling quarry it is. I have all that which i never really grasped for, that which others would trade heart and soul for. but those things I do not tell you, those things I scoff at and eschew, even often to myself i deny I want (but can you really ever deny to yourself what you want most?) these things lie ever at the tips of my fingers, at the soft mist of my memory’s edge, dangled and denied, often even in my dreams.

Perhaps to explain to myself is futile enough, but to hope that you have had some glimpse or glimmer of what I even now can’t quite hit upon, is enough to make me abandon the writing nonsense of it to hope my dreaming sleepiness will humor me with a bite of the carrot for once.

(tomorrow is a big day. likely i will have changed my mind about all of this in the morning.)

gales and galas: (the day i wore heels)

ashley.stubblefield — Wed, 14 May 2008 04:47:28 +0000

again again again with the sprung thing. thinking you’re settling, thinking you’re anything simply leads life to pull the purple shag rug out from under you once once once more.

and me and the tree agree that life in limbo is the only norm. I’ve got offers and dates and rainfall in broken boots. I’ve lack of stability and lack of normalcy and fear of intimacy and all those fun things. To what! To woot! To say that i will again and again and again kiss you. I like kissing this and that of you, and eyes big love crumbs… wait. no no no, that wasn’t me that was my dear darling e.e.

So what if I don’t know. So what if all the wrong foreign boys want to know. so what so what so what if this rug has been pulled … ya know, this wool has been pulled too many times to understand reality as anything other than a moment of boredom, a book unfinished, an offer withheld. something promised, something gained. something made up to pass the time.

and it’s been a (maybe) year. (year? eternity? same thing.) a year since i was told, since i adventured, since he she it opened the heavens and said, “LOVE, godamnit.” and it is gone, it is home, it is away and away and away

and never (never?) never to return

am i the better for it?

beer on the wings

astubblefield — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:59:15 +0000

My dad told me this story once, about how when he was stationed in Thailand, they used to strap cases of beer to the wings of the airplane, so after they got back from a flight, it would be perfectly cold and crisp, no refrigeration necessary. I’ve remembered this story for years, and when I asked him about it later, he never knew exactly what I was talking about. So maybe I made it up, but I love the idea of even being in a far land, distant from home and love, there was still fun to be had. And I would say distant from family, but I’ve always thought that family is what you make of it. Family are those people who love you unconditionally blood relation or no. It’s having a safety net, whether you choose to use it or not, it still is the only perspective on how high you’ve climbed or the low sink you still have to learn to climb out of.

Whether you make it up or are still sitting at the bottom contemplating the long climb, there is life to be snared in. Ambition is relative. Love is absolute.

A year ago I would not have imagined myself here, settled in the city. I have friends and work and a future that’s so brilliantly bright that thinking about it sometimes feels like I’m trying to look in the sun. But home is still an elusive turn of phrase. I know tons of people in the city, but the fingers on one hand number those who I’d consider family, who I’d call when I’m feeling obscure in the hopes that they would understand. Does over exposure make life lose charm? When I understand completely the boredom which fuels your need for success, does that boredom, and that drive, become mine?

I’ve been offered a new job. A realization of a dream. It’s wondrous and beautiful and I’m so so excited. But with this and the other dozen uncertainties in my life at the moment, I wonder why I feel hesitancy instead of the vibrant gusto that I’ve hurtled into everything else with at this point. I’ve still got my safety net, so why now does it seem so much further away?

I suppose under all dire straits and circumstances, there’s still a creative way to have a cold beer at the end of a long day.

at least he recycles…

astubblefield — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:52:33 +0000

… what can we say about you?

boxing? no. not so much.

perhaps perhaps perhaps

yoga? yes, please.

and then I wondered.

rollercoaster. camping. coke can and chocolate bar.

when is alone alone and when are walls supposed to come down?

alas! alack!

go penguins!

life is blooming

astubblefield — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:02:43 +0000

The other morning I woke up in a good mood. Maybe it was the spring weather, maybe it was the anticipation of my birthday, or maybe it was this odd feeling I had that someone had whispered to me, in the bright grey between dreams and awake, “you’re going to do great things. You’re going to be great.” And as I lifted out of sleep, it stuck with me, lightly in the back of my head for days.

Yesterday was great (birthday!) and today was great (lunch!) and I’m so so so looking forward to tomorrow. (In both the literal and the metaphorical sense.)

made of bricks

astubblefield — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:55:11 +0000

i wish life always sounded like irish punk rock and less like traffic. meh.

my bones are made out of ivory and my blood is full of ocean waves, and somebody stole my wallet, but I’m feeling mighty lucky today.

i can’t decide if it’s being listless, lazy, resting, recuperating, shy, contemplative, meditative, theoretical, wistful, establishing a monastic lifestyle or what, but I’ve been in hiding all week. today i even got home and was thinking that I’d go out and see one of my favorite bands, but instead i fell asleep on the couch halfway through calling people to see if they want to go. And then I woke up and it was too late. so I watched a movie and spent an hour or seven on youtube watching vlogs. wtf… what made me decide that having internet at home would be useful?

my office has smelled like feet most of the week. really? really.

I have realized that my apartment is very much a treehouse-ish hideout. Lofted bed, window seats, brick wall, mini kitchen… I spent a good hour today thinking possibilities of what’s behind the brick wall (secret passage to somewhere? magical other world? love letters? stash of pirate gold? skeletons!?) and all the various incarnations of those possibilities. Which of course made me think, “what would be the most likely way that i would access what-it-is behind the bricks (secret latch on the molding? riddle? specific brick to press? musical trigger? secret carving? miniature door? tapping the right rhythm?). However it works, it’s going to require a thorough search to unlock the secrets…

Don’t look at me like that. There’s a bricked up fireplace, for goodness sake! It just screams “Solve me! I’m a freaking mystery!”

I’m gonna go find a sledgehammer.

omg my head’s gonna ’splode…

astubblefield — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:39:09 +0000

So here I am at work. Workity workity work work. Plan that conference! Invoice this! Schedule that! And of course first day in ages that I come in massively hung over is the day I have to move furniture. Are you kidding me? Seriously!!? Brilliant. Good thing I’m wearing tights and boots and this highly impractical skirt. ZOMG!!!1!

Update: It turns out we cannot assemble the furniture because they didn’t send the table top. Right. So. It’s a table with no table. Good job. Uggh. And I’m hungry and I have a new old crush and there is BASKETBALL to be watched.

Update: Seriously. Whoever invented this whole interwebby thing is my hero (Al Gore, iloveyou and your evironmentally friendly nature). Live streams of KU games while I’m at work? Yes yes yes yes.

What should I order for lunch? Mhhh, Thai…

Update: I ordered Macaroni and Cheese. It was awesome. That is all.