urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus Out of nowhere, out of my thoughts. bellarus 2009-11-20T17:23:28Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:43329 2009-11-20T17:23:28Z 2009-11-20T17:23:28Z Just recovered from the second worst hangover of my life and received this text from my 45 year old Filipino cousin: "Hola, ading what r u do'in now? Do you want to come here at home then will drink. What can u say, if Rachel is with u ask her f she want too. Call me f u want." urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:42673 2009-10-29T12:18:18Z 2009-10-29T12:18:18Z The reason I never do any writing assignments is that I'm embarrassed by my lack of&nbsp; profundity. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:42299 2009-10-08T16:49:16Z 2009-10-08T16:51:46Z Skipped classes today and read and wandered. Going to get drunk at the internet cafe I'm at right now, read a little bit, smoke a lot of cigarettes. I'm alternating between reading <em>The Bell Jar</em> and <em>The Rules of Attraction</em>, both of which I should've read when everyone else did when they were like fifteen but that's when I stopped doing anything in life ever. Anyway, they're making me ridiculous, so I guess the next time I go pick out books I'll get something wholesome and whimsy. This is what they gave me today at the tobacconist's shop for free, along with a lighter that doesn't work:<br /><br /><img alt="" src="http://x13.xanga.com/713f4a3b69532256319084/m203889274.jpg" /><br /><br />wtf? But I put my cigarettes in it all the same.<br /><br />I got my septum pierced and the ring&nbsp;I have to have for four months is so long that sometimes it reminds me of the mustache of a very sage Chinaman:<br /><br /><img alt="" src="http://xa6.xanga.com/791f573369533256319090/m203889280.jpg" /><br /><br />yeah oh well i'm in spain fuck everything<br /> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:42161 2009-10-05T21:55:43Z 2009-10-05T21:55:43Z i said really terrible things to my father and now all there is is silence. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:41935 2009-10-04T21:49:39Z 2009-10-04T21:49:39Z i really really really dislike my father urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:41662 2009-08-31T03:58:24Z 2009-08-31T03:58:52Z this summer i've twice fucked david and thrice watched <em>practical magic</em>. i don't know which i think is more sad, which is more true to myself.<br /> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:40349 2009-08-17T16:27:50Z 2009-08-18T04:38:02Z I'd been doing really well until&nbsp;I went to Chicago last weekend, which started this week of chain smoking and wine drinking. Last night I set out to buy a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of wine, but ended up buying raspberries and Naked Juice instead. I really want a cigarette right now but defiantly threw away my last two yesterday. I just brushed my teeth but think I'll eat a little bowl of raspberries and drink a little glass of Naked as a consolation. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:40016 2009-07-03T01:39:22Z 2009-07-05T11:14:37Z crema is thick<br />and syrupy<br />and sweet<br /><br />it is concentrated<br />and has more flavors and chemicals per volume than drip coffee<br /><br />when extracted for too long it becomes<br />watered down<br />and<br />bitter urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:39150 2009-06-02T17:02:13Z 2009-06-22T01:30:48Z I&nbsp;hate life because&nbsp;I used to like school and now I don't and because I used to be motivated and now I'm not. I&nbsp;used to be so smart, and now I'm dumb dumb dumb. <br /><br />I used to be good. I once took a picture that I like:<br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v41/thegetaway/IMG_1824_1.jpg" alt="" /><br />(March 2005. This is a picture of what it was like laying outside of [what was for only one more month] my grandma's house after going to church with my best friends, Wilson and Mary&mdash; not because we wanted to worship our Lord and Savior but because we thought Galen was really cute and because we still kind of liked to stalk boys&mdash; listening to &quot;Wagon Wheel&quot; on repeat, reading <em>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</em>, talking to Peter about how he went to a Rangers hockey game with his brother and how &quot;they are a different breed out there&quot;.)<br /> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:38594 2009-04-14T04:43:35Z 2009-04-14T04:45:25Z My hairs are growing. When they get real long and I want to throw them in a braid over my shoulder. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:37798 2008-12-27T17:28:28Z 2008-12-27T17:28:28Z This break I only read <em>Ignorance, The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor, One Hundred Years of Solitude,&nbsp;</em>and <em>The Picture of Dorian Gray; </em>but considering I've otherwise only read a handful of books for pleasure this year, I could've done worse. I didn't go to St. Louis, but then I've had a hard time even leaving my house, much less my city. I&nbsp;love this city. I almost finished a whole crossword puzzle yesterday by myself.<br /> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:36070 2008-07-17T07:44:11Z 2008-07-17T07:44:11Z "a wind has blown the rain away and blown<br />the sky away and all the leaves away,<br />and the trees stand.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I think i too have known<br />autumn too long<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; (and what have you to say,<br />wind wind wind --- did you love somebody<br />and have you the petal of somewhere in your heart<br />pinched from dumb summer?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; O crazy daddy<br />of death dance cruelly for us and start<br /><br />the last leaf whirling in the final brain<br />of air!) Let us as we have seen see<br />doom's integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a wind has blown the rain<br /><br />away and the leaves and the sky and the<br />trees stand:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; the trees stand.&nbsp;&nbsp; The trees,<br />suddenly wait against the moon's face." urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:33902 2008-05-24T08:04:33Z 2008-05-24T08:06:08Z David might usually fuck older women but he sure is immature. <br />And I'm just a baby. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:32135 2008-04-09T06:25:44Z 2008-04-09T06:30:42Z The Rolling Stones Davey's flesh is tattooed and soft and sometimes he smells like beer. He's awfully nice to me and I like it; I like that his hair is long and stringy; I like that he cooks for me. He's never told me that I'm pretty and I like that, too.<br /><br />I cannot wait to graduate. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:31312 2008-02-26T02:05:41Z 2008-02-26T06:13:44Z Japanese Gum/Her Space Holiday Perhaps I was wrong; this desire to be his Saving Grace stems from a deep-seated need to find salvation myself. Maybe he's not crazy, and I'm only projecting my own madness onto his serious demeanor, his tales of a troubled past. But the truth, naked of sugar coats or even sweaters, is that giving a guy a handjob in a dirty stairwell, stashed away from the witnesses who could verify your existence, absolutely does not mean you are or ever will be in a relationship. In fact, I would almost say it disqualifies said notion.<br /><br />Then again, this is only five days later. Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha hahaha.ha.ha. Ha. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:31049 2008-02-21T05:12:15Z 2008-02-21T13:06:31Z Tonight P. had about eight cigarettes and I came home smelling like smoke. He moves mechanically, twitches oddly; his eyes pop out like Prouty's. But he smiles like a human. I want to see past androidal actions and find the four-year-old boy within, if he exists, if he still enjoys coloring. <br /><br />(Yet perhaps he is only this character and nothing else. He said something like, "I have this theory:&nbsp; your mouth is [fairly] equidistant from your heart and from your brain, and this makes words their compromise." But in truth our mouths will never be as close to our hearts as they are to our brains, and perhaps his smiles are as calculated as his conversation.) urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:30943 2008-02-17T17:30:37Z 2008-02-17T17:33:49Z <a name="cutid1"></a><div class="ljcut" text="What is your favorite flower? Hers - but apart from that, all."><h2>The Infamous Proust Questionnaire</h2> <b>I</b>n the back pages of <b>Vanity Fair</b> each month, readers find <i>The Proust Questionnaire</i>, a series of questions posed to famous subjects about their lives, thoughts, values and experience. A regular reference to Proust in such a major publication struck me as remarkable, and it was only until I'd read <cite>Andre Maurois's</cite> <b>Proust: Portrait of a Genius</b> that I understood what this was all about.<p> <b>T</b>he young Marcel was asked to fill out questionnaires at two social events: one when he was 13, another when he was 20. Proust did not invent this party game; he is simply the most extraordinary person to respond to them. At the birthday party of Antoinette Felix-Faure, the 13-year-old Marcel was asked to answer the following questions in the birthday book, and here's what he said:<br /> <img vspace="2" hspace="10" align="right" src="http://www.chick.net/proust/pix/proust13.gif" alt="Marcel at age 13, 13kb gif" /></p><ul><li>What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?<br /> <ul>To be separated from Mama</ul> </li><li>Where would you like to live?<br /> <ul>In the country of the Ideal, or, rather, of my ideal</ul> </li><li>What is your idea of earthly happiness?<br /> <ul>To live in contact with those I love, with the beauties of nature, with a quantity of books and music, and to have, within easy distance, a French theater</ul> </li><li>To what faults do you feel most indulgent?<br /> <ul>To a life deprived of the works of genius</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?<br /> <ul>Those of romance and poetry, those who are the expression of an ideal rather than an imitation of the real</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite characters in history?<br /> <ul>A mixture of Socrates, Pericles, Mahomet, Pliny the Younger and Augustin Thierry</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite heroines in real life?<br /> <ul>A woman of genius leading an ordinary life</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?<br /> <ul>Those who are more than women without ceasing to be womanly; everything that is tender, poetic, pure and in every way beautiful</ul> </li><li>Your favorite painter?<br /> <ul>Meissonier</ul> </li><li>Your favorite musician?<br /> <ul>Mozart</ul> </li><li>The quality you most admire in a man?<br /> <ul>Intelligence, moral sense</ul> </li><li>The quality you most admire in a woman?<br /> <ul>Gentleness, naturalness, intelligence</ul> </li><li>Your favorite virtue?<br /> <ul>All virtues that are not limited to a sect: the universal virtues</ul> </li><li>Your favorite occupation?<br /> <ul>Reading, dreaming, and writing verse</ul> </li><li>Who would you have liked to be?<br /> <ul>Since the question does not arise, I prefer not to answer it. All the same, I should very much have liked to be Pliny the Younger.</ul> </li></ul><p> <b>T</b>his questionnaire tells us much about two things, the character of petiit Marcel, and the amusement of the young in the Belle Epoque. We see Marcel as a sweet and dreamy Mama's boy, brainy, aesthetic, a young citizen of the world with much sympathy for the feminine. What he sees in Pliny the Younger, famous only for speaking and writing letters, is hard to grasp.</p><p> <b>W</b>hat is fascinating about this questionnaire is that it was considered so great an amusement to very young people in Proust's time. It is hard to imagine a party of 13-year-olds in these times being quizzed about their favorite virtues, painters or characters of fiction and history. If the questionnaire were not to smack of exam, it would have to ask "what's your favorite TV show?" or "what's your favorite band?"</p><p> <b>S</b>even years after the first questionnaire, Proust was asked, at another social event, to fill out another; the questions are much the same, but the answers somewhat different, indicative of his traits at 20:<br /> <img vspace="2" hspace="10" align="right" src="http://www.chick.net/proust/pix/proust20.gif" alt="Marcel in his twenties, 12kb gif" /></p><ul><li>Your most marked characteristic?<br /> <ul>A craving to be loved, or, to be more precise, to be caressed and spoiled rather than to be admired</ul> </li><li>The quality you most like in a man?<br /> <ul>Feminine charm</ul> </li><li>The quality you most like in a woman?<br /> <ul>A man's virtues, and frankness in friendship</ul> </li><li>What do you most value in your friends?<br /> <ul>Tenderness - provided they possess a physical charm which makes their tenderness worth having</ul> </li><li>What is your principle defect?<br /> <ul>Lack of understanding; weakness of will</ul> </li><li>What is your favorite occupation?<br /> <ul>Loving</ul> </li><li>What is your dream of happiness?<br /> <ul>Not, I fear, a very elevated one. I really haven't the courage to say what it is, and if I did I should probably destroy it by the mere fact of putting it into words.</ul> </li><li>What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?<br /> <ul>Never to have known my mother or my grandmother</ul> </li><li>What would you like to be?<br /> <ul>Myself - as those whom I admire would like me to be</ul> </li><li>In what country would you like to live?<br /> <ul>One where certain things that I want would be realized - <u>and where feelings of tenderness would always be reciprocated</u>. <i>[Proust's underlining]</i></ul> </li><li>What is your favorite color?<br /> <ul>Beauty lies not in colors but in thier harmony</ul> </li><li>What is your favorite flower?<br /> <ul>Hers - but apart from that, all</ul> </li><li>What is your favorite bird?<br /> <ul>The swallow</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite prose writers?<br /> <ul>At the moment, Anatole France and Pierre Loti</ul> </li><li>Who are your favoite poets?<br /> <ul>Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny</ul> </li><li>Who is your favorite hero of fiction?<br /> <ul>Hamlet</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?<br /> <ul>Phedre (crossed out) Berenice</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite composers?<br /> <ul>Beethoven, Wagner, Shuhmann</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite painters?<br /> <ul>Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt</ul> </li><li>Who are your heroes in real life?<br /> <ul>Monsieur Darlu, Monsieur Boutroux (professors)</ul> </li><li>Who are your favorite heroines of history?<br /> <ul>Cleopatra</ul> </li><li>What are your favorite names? <ul>I only have one at a time</ul> </li><li>What is it you most dislike?<br /> <ul>My own worst qualities</ul> </li><li>What historical figures do you most despise?<br /> <ul>I am not sufficiently educated to say</ul> </li><li>What event in military history do you most admire?<br /> <ul>My own enlistment as a volunteer!</ul> </li><li>What reform do you most admire?<br /> <ul>(no response)</ul> </li><li>What natural gift would you most like to possess?<br /> <ul>Will power and irresistible charm</ul> </li><li>How would you like to die?<br /> <ul>A better man than I am, and much beloved</ul> </li><li>What is your present state of mind?<br /> <ul>Annoyance at having to think about myself in order to answer these questions</ul> </li><li>To what faults do you feel most indulgent?<br /> <ul>Those that I understand</ul> </li><li>What is your motto?<br /> <ul>I prefer not to say, for fear it might bring me bad luck.</ul> </li></ul><p> <b>T</b>he second set of questions and answers give us Proust as a young man, mad for conquest, drawn to love crossing conventional sexual lines, still fixated on Mama. His aesthetic sensibilities have grown more serious (I, however, would not give up Mozart for Schumann, with all his interminable faux endings.) In these responses are early threads of character found in the narrator of Remembrance.</p> </div> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:27725 2007-07-05T12:09:41Z 2007-07-05T12:09:41Z You, you and your life, you are just really, really, disgustingly sad. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:26703 2007-04-19T02:50:10Z 2007-06-12T03:19:47Z Oh, stagnant body!<br />You were once immobilized by burdensome love-feelings<br />and begged for more friction with less substance.<br />Look!, now healing has demoralized hungry heart,<br />has left holes in soles exploring cracks of stony flight.<br />Abandoned by a concept too tired to exist, who last exclaimed,<br />"Live on terrestrial plane!<br />Expel those breathing thinks!<br />Trade in wispy intimacy for a pair of concrete bones,"<br />you can, again, become of meat and skin. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:25851 2007-02-13T03:01:25Z 2007-02-13T16:54:48Z to focus velvet lips and brassy bones<br />led by moles aligned like cobble stones<br />leaves the worry all blurry<br />and your flesh is crisp urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:20359 2006-09-27T20:07:16Z 2006-09-27T20:11:46Z There's something ferocious in the way that you move; stalking the scenes, taking tiny bites out of each life. If Persephone gained an eternity of servitude with only eight pomegranate seeds, what will be your fate?, I ask.<br /><br />It's getting colder. I am Estlin's little leaf. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:10578 2006-02-23T04:13:12Z 2006-02-23T04:13:12Z <em>So much being known, it would appear natural that a part of it should be expressed.&nbsp; It is singular, however, how long a time often passes before words embody things; and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it.</em> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:4438 2005-11-04T04:23:37Z 2006-07-05T05:34:29Z my titian contrasting with your stark white breast<br />turns me into the yam<br />i really am. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:4102 2005-10-27T03:43:08Z 2005-10-27T03:43:41Z "since feeling is first <br>who pays any attention <br>to the syntax of things <br>will never wholly kiss you;" urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bellarus:2018 2005-07-22T05:57:36Z 2005-07-23T04:53:00Z I just sort of wanted to clarify.