very self-absorbed

you know, i've been writing alot about my mother. here we go again.
i went home this past thanksgiving. the brother and sisters were great. the food was great. but, the house was a roiling wreck -- a puss-filled, boil-squelching mess. (how a house can be "puss-filled" i don't know, but it's the perfect description, so there.)
from this experience, i have re-realized the answer to the "why does joy have a horror of clutter?" question. it's because my mother never throws anything away. therefore, i have to throw everything away. i have to purge my home of the sins of trash.
recently, however, i've been going through my old files, and i realized that throwing away my papers in fits of anger, or selling books in other fits of misplaced rage, or throwing away old shoes for that matter...sometimes it's...not so good.
i threw away a damaged disk three days ago. it was damaged, after all. the files were irretrievable. i hadn't missed them. i wasn't going to spend money on retrieving them. i'd tried all the free methods. it was fine. it was good. it was trash. yesterday, i realized that on that damaged disk rested the clean copies of my best college writing.
it's not much, my writing. but i think scribblers have this odd attachment to the things they've scratched in notebooks or, these days, saved in badly named word files. i do. now, i have more or less stopped writing. ok, i've pretty much called it quits, but what i wrote at one point still matters to me, because i take my old papers as evidence that i have lived. i've had thoughts. i've had opinions on the thoughts of others.
it's getting harder to remember things, and i mean anything, these days, and when i lose my papers it's like losing the possibility of finding myself again. and i don't know why that's important, and i suspect it isn't actually important. but still.
all of this means that the applying to grad school thing is hard, because i'm having to look for old writing, and every file i open reveals something i've lost. and every file i've lost makes me feel lost in that little girl "who am i?" sense that i had hoped was left behind with my outgrown gym uniform. i'm fighting back the very real urge to throw up. after that, i have to revise my resume.
and yes, that was about my mother.

if i were to write a letter about my day, it would go something like...

hi.

i've always figured, if you don't know where to start a conversation, start in the middle.
i'm home in houston. my brother and sister are already cooking. my brother, in fact, is on his second pan of cornbread because his first pan of cornbread was over-peppered, and we just can't have that. my task in all of this seems to be...to just...be there. the conversations between me and my family members go something like:
(i leave the kitchen...to actually DO something)
alexa (the youngest sister...walks to where i'm sitting): joy, will you come?
me: come where? come to the kitchen?
alexa: yeeesssss
me: but what will i do?
alexa: just...just come!
me: um, ok.
alexa: (sigh of satisfaction)
(we walk back to the kitchen)
me: hey, gingersnaps
alexa: i want one.
me: i want one too.
alexa: great (opening the bag)
me: i love gingersnaps.
i do love gingersnaps. i can't think of a holiday without gingersnaps. but that is not the point. in fact, there is no point to this conversation, and no point to me being in the kitchen. after opening the bag of gingersnaps, i stood and watched alexa make gingersnap and pecan crust for the sweet potato pie and complimented her on how finely crushed the gingersnaps were and exclaimed over the smell of toasted pecans and then marveled at how much butter went into the pie crust...but i didn't do anything. i can't cook at all; that's all alexa and allen (the brother). but, they like it when i stand there.
it seems to be my lot in life. for example, while i'm the worst shopper in my family, my other sister (melodie), who is the hands-down best bargain hunter among us, cannot make simple purchases without my approval. she has called me while i am in a different state because she is in a shoe store and has to decide whether or not she needs black pumps for work, and she's describing them to me on the phone, how high the heel is, how comfortable they are, how the toe is shaped, while, again, i'm in a different state, and thinking to myself, "how ironic," before saying something along the lines of, "sounds good, mel. they sound pretty useful. do you like them?"
"yeah, i like them."
"then get them."
"ok."
and we hang up. and there we have it.
why am i telling you this? i'm not sure, besides, i guess, because i'm supposed to be starting in the middle. and i'm in the middle of my family at the moment. and i'm really glad, because i've missed them.
we're the type of family in which everyone seems just a little too big for their respective bodies. we're not tall. i'm the shortest, but my brother is still only 5' 8", and yet, we always seem to be crawling on top of each other. our conversations overlap; even our phone conversations are sort of community property.
it's awful. it's wonderful. it's a violation of privacy, but i wouldn't have it any other way. at least, not during thanksgiving.

joy

Melodie and her survey

My sister has asked me to do her survey. As I cannot concentrate on lesson planning, I am going to do...half of it now.

10 years ago: I was 14 years old. I was a freshman at Klein High School. I played the French Horn...I marched in the mighty KHS marching band...how bizarre...My mother let me accept a date to band banquet, but she wouldn’t let me ride in his car. He had to meet me there. Good times.

5 years ago: I was 19 years old. I was at Brigham Young University, starting my first year in the Chinese Language House. I was obsessed with modern dance. I was trying to learn Chinese. I had finally declared my major. When I told my mother I was an English major, she was so happy, because being an English major meant I had stopped trying to be a dance major...That summer I went to China for the first time. It rocked.

1 year ago: It was the first semester of the first year of Teach for America Houston. Around now, I was thinking of different ways to stop the pain. So much pain. I kept printing out applications for Borders or Whole Foods. I was eating a lot of ice cream. I remember being mad that Houston had no skinny-dipping venues. That was the one thing about Utah...

just now

JoieTang: i just had this lovely taiwanese lady come over and...this is the conversation...."joy! you've lost weight."
"no i've actually gained weight."
"but your face is thinner"
"that's stress. you always lose weight in the face and gain in other places"
"oh. well you're thinner than you were in taiwan. you were so fat in taiwan"
"i know"
"yeah, so fat."
"i hate taiwan"
"really? why?"
JoieTang: i'm so exceedingly pleasant, aren't i?
JoieTang: and i hate chinese people
Jowithani: ah
Jowithani: um
Jowithani: joy
Jowithani: are you allowed to hate chinese people?
JoieTang: yes
JoieTang: as i am chinese
JoieTang: absolutely

my life defined

audio austronomy: i'm going to start referring to your life as
audio austronomy: dance dance joyvolution

In which we discuss my stretch marks...

T is an old friend from college.

T says:
Still there? I've been thinking.
Joy says:
about?
T says:
stretch marks
T says:
Maybe because I've been reading sherlock holmes lately so I feel I am a dectctive of some sort...
T says:
but I have the impression that these marks are bothering you extremely.
T says:
yes?
T says:
Because I've been thinking...
Joy says:
i'm ready
T says:
First, am I right?
T says:
because if I'm wrong, I won't waste your time with something that i'm still trying to form in my mind
T says:
and I will say sorry first
T says:
and go.
Joy says:
um, you're right
Joy says:
they bug me
Joy says:
alot
Joy says:
i try not to look at them most of the time
Joy says:
i just haven't gotten dressed yet
T says:
are they readily visible.
Joy says:
extremely
T says:
ok.
T says:
Here's my thought...if you don't follow me, give me a second.
Trento says:
I don't quite know how to say it.
T says:
My wife's stretch marks are visible...to me only of course. but there is something that doesn't bother me about them. They testify to me of one thing.
T says:
She's real.
T says:
Now that may seem dumb, but it means a lot to me.
T says:
Of course her marks are from something completly different, from childbirth, but they are still there, so they are the same thing...
T says:
do you follow?
Joy says:
following
T says:
What I'm trying to say is that I'm glad you have stretch marks because they tell me that you are real too.
T says:
and I would rather have real any day
Joy says:
...
Joy says:
you give men a good name

in which i whine

i'm one who often doubts even my ability to know what i want. it's complicated, in that straight-forward kind of complicated way.
last night, i practically threw a male friend out the door, because i was feeling needy, and if he did not leave, right that instant, something was going to go down, and that something, would not have been about him. that something would have been (you guessed it) about me, my lack of security, my sadness, about validating me--body and mind.
which leads me to a question:
how can i be so sure of what i don't want but then come apart in confronting what i do, want?

i think that i want a graduate degree in folklore, with an emphasis on tradtional dance forms. lately, i have been doubting this. i've been lost in my doubt, really. it's obvious when i'm lost; my mind starts to reel and as it does, i'm tossed by its pitch and spin, begin to drown in its movement. it shuttles between questions that miss the crux of the issue, that mask what my issues are, even and especially from me. "If you apply to a different program, what happens to your writing?" it asks me.
"What writing?" I ask back. (Yes, this is why we worry. i asked back.)
"You know, your writing. That creative nonfiction stuff, those personal essays."
"I don't write anymore."
"But you do."
"You can't say I write if I haven't written anything, now can you?"
(Silence)
"And besides, I'm sick of my own voice."
Which also worries me, because is that some kind of metaphor? In any case, there's that writing question, which in reality is asking, "Are you just running away because you couldn't do this other thing..." and then questions about the wisdom of applying to a program when I know nothing about the program, because I only discovered the programs a few weeks ago, appear. And then there is the fact of there being only a month to research and apply to graduate school, and my mediocre GRE scores, but there isn't time to study for it again, because you know, there is still that teaching gig, and just by the way, while we're thinking about it, I've never actually done any work in folklore. What are my qualifications? How would I get in? What did I do, research-wise, while an undergrad? Nothing. And moreover, I don't dance. Not really. "You can learn," I argue.
"And did I mention my hips?" I retort. (Yes, retort. honestly.)
"They fit in your jeans?"
"Barely."
"Well..."
"They are not 18 anymore. They're heavy. They don't lift."
(Silence)
"You saw yourself yesterday."
I went to a salsa workshop yesterday. It was fun. I was horrific. And my reflection was horrifically large.

It's hard to argue against me; I'm so adamantly pro-failure.

In my head, all these doubts stack up against this single idea, and the let's-go-to-grad-school-and-really-do-some-version-of-that-dance-thing-you-always-wanted-to-do idea has very little to back it. There is no model for this in my life context, no beaten path, no example to follow, and no proof in my personal life that I can carry this off. What proof I have is proof that I over and over again ... fail myself... or that what I begin is something that I thought might be long term but is not, for one reason or another...because of health for the teaching thing, disillusionment for the English degree, lack of drive for the Chinese thing, etc. While some people see this as just "trying things out" or just "having a variety of interests at different stages of life," I suppose, as I go after everything I do with a certain over-intensity, I see that this smacks of inconsistency, and I feel worn out, worn thin, more accurately. I think I blame this on my mother.

And, should I convince myself that I actually have the ability to truly want anything, this graduate degree cannot be short term. You see, I do think I want to dance, or at least study it. I don't think that this choice negates all other possibilities (writing), or that I'm running away from my other failures. I don't even think that I should be viewing everything I've done as failure...but, that's another story. It's just that, how can I be sure?
I think I can't. Perhaps, one can't ever be sure.

Yeah, I totally blame this on my mother.