Tom-Tom #4

Is out.

soup-fed

Today I am working on my cape and a new poem.

I spent the last three days going through my drawers and cupboards again, and I have left myself with very few things. I've left myself with notebooks, a laptop, ice cream bowls, a microscope, a pair of jeans, headphones, the cloth for my cape, a sewing machine, books of poetry, a french press, a pile of sweaters, a saw, a tube of rare earth magnets, two towels, a baking pan, a box of tea, two boxes of envelopes - one for zines, one for business letters, The Book Thief, my pocket knife, the pod, my violin and music, a duvet, the secret compartment pillow, borosilicate glass cups, two lamps, a couch, a desk, a fountain pen, twenty ballpoint pens, two sketchbooks, two plates, my library card and my banking card, Jukebox by Cat Power, math books, thousands of dollars, one bra, one bookbag, one writerly dress, matches, a bird shaped cookie cutter, The Joy of Cooking.

I have no junk. I have a pile of library books. I will have great fun buying what more I need to set up house on my own.

Home is So Sad

Home is so sad.
It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back.
Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase

-Philip Larkin

I will possibly never look this pretty again.

I have found a truly fantastic present.

Thoughts on BBC documentaries

I find the ability and freedom to work wonderful. It seems incredibly lucky and good that I do not have to spend most of my day securing food and shelter or caring for hoards of offspring like most other creatures, and instead can concentrate on learning things, and producing things strictly for intellectual and emotional pleasure. In my case, producing poems.

More News

I like practicing.

I'm going to be published again.

I bought some food.

I have another math test today.

I found a neat present.

I still rather miss Tim.

I'd like to make a quilt.

News

I am trying very hard not to succumb to any more unreasonable panic attacks. Things are improving slightly since the horrible week-after-Christmas from which I am still not quite recovered. I want to sleep too much, too often, but I resisted it tonight and finished my first article for a publication I don't produce. I got my first ever math exam back today, with an 89. I quit Starbucks. I would like to see Tim. An empty house to myself for a few days would also be wonderful. If you all convince me that you want to get your hands on it, a new issue of Tom-Tom will be started this or next week. I have plans to make borscht. I find buying presents stressful. Other people in general are stressful. I wish I didn't have to go to school tomorrow. I wish air was less conductive so tea would stay hot longer. Soon I will make a major announcement. I have lots of borrowed books to read, and want one more by Ian McEwan. I am extremely stressed. I stayed awake for 46 hours this week. I haven't been eating too well. I am usually cold. I got to explain a percentage difference formula to one of my classmates yesterday, which I liked doing.

White Night

I haven't locked the door,
Nor lit the candles,
You don't know, don't care,
That tired I haven't the strength
To decide to go to bed.
Seeing the fields fade in
The sunset murk of pine-needles,
And to know all is lost,

That life is a cursed hell:
I've got drunk
On your voice in the doorway.
I was sure you'd come back.


Anna Akhmatova

She is a genious

I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . .
"Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?"
-- Because I have made my loved one drunk
with an astringent sadness.

I'll never forget. He went out, reeling;
his mouth was twisted, desolate. . .
I ran downstairs, not touching the banisters,
and followed him as far as the gate.

And shouted, choking: "I meant it all
in fun. Don't leave me, or I'll die of pain.
"He smiled at me -- oh so calmly, terribly --
and said: "Why don't you get out of the rain?"

-Anna Akhmatova

Lap top!



4 GB

320 GB

Intel Centrino processor

15.4 inches

School!

By 'reason' I mean both the process of coming to logical conclusions from given premises, and the correct conclusions logically drawn from the true premises of reality.

People claim that because un consciously-worked-out intuitions are often surprisingly correct, reason is insufficient to explain everything. They decide that there is something mysterious above reason. As if reason was a fanciful human invention and not the way things are.

But the very physical connections made in human [and animal] brains must obey the laws of physics, which can be expressed entirely using mathematics, the most logical and reasonable discipline to exist. Furthermore, since a lack of reason [substitute logic, order] results in chaos not condusive to life but only to entropy, it makes sense that natural selection favors the survival of creatures whose intuitions and unconscious brain activity are reasonable. This seems painfully obvious. If the brain stopped sending logical messages to the heart, or the heart stopped reading messages logically, the brain and the heart would both destruct in very short order.

Much closer to the level of conscious deductive reasoning than the activity of internal organs, the intuitive conclusions that humans often jump to are similarly helpful to the survival of the human when correct, and just as likely to have evolved to follow logical rules, by which they would be most certain to be usually correct.

[I admit that this is not a original idea, but it is one I came up with in a rough form quite a long time ago, I think when I was about ten, and I am very happy to be able to finally explain it.]

News Items

I read Animal Farm this morning. It was terrifying.

Math class starts on Tuesday!

My mother has quit her job. This is awful news. It means that she will be home every day. Though I am mostly excited to practice and learn more math, it is part of the reason I am so excited about school.

I need to go to the library and the post office and to buy a new notebook.