many things have been occupying my time and my space lately. many of these things seem to not relate at all to each other, but that's often when the greatest synthesis seems to start to develop. in this case, perhaps not. i have been encountered with, and encountering: kansas wildlife, certain poets, true crime, mummies. these ideas seem to have been constantly bouncing off of each other in my head for days now, to the point where one thing reminds me of the other, even though they've nothing really at all to do with the other.
so, if you think this entry is disjointed, try living like this.
it's been raining a lot in kansas. i didn't take this photo, as i am not yet used to the midwestern rain enough to be out in it... and, though the camera chord has been located (in a basement in SLC), it is only just now on its way. original photography will resume here and on tomatosugar once it arrives. until now, a patchwork of borroweds.
i taught in jeans one day, and a fellow teacher friend of mine looked me up and down after and said "wow, jeans, bold, i can't do that yet." needless to say, i haven't done it again. well, maybe once, but always with an anthropologie top, blazer, and stern expression. the next day (post-jeans-encounter) i wore a pencil skirt, tshirt, and cardigan, and flats, but looked VERY teacher-y. it poured my entire walk to school. the same way it doesn't rain in the west like it does here, you don't get rained ON like you do here-- umbrellas somehow don't work. it's strange. so... i dressed up, and you coulda wrung me out. such a sad story...
i've managed to persuade judd to take me on an evening walk almost every night of the week since we arrived (weather permitting). on weekends we often go in the bright sunshine. this labor day weekend we set out for a used bookstore, and not moments from our door we encountered this:
a giant wasp. the female one (far right). it was fighting, and winning, and killing, a cicada. i struggled to find my cell phone to send a picture to hallie, all the while stepping gently near it, and suddenly it charged (never dropping the cicada, mind you) toward me. fast. it chased us away. we scampered off toward our bookstore.
oh, and when i say big:
i mean, rather quite f.ing large. this thing was huge. i looked it up, and they are called cicada killing wasps, or cicada killer wasps, or something of the sort (damn internet). the females sting and stun (often killing, but not always?) cicadas, then fly off with them to their nests (burrowed in dry grasses), and slice into them, and lay eggs in their abdomen so that when they hatch they have something to eat. charming.action shot!
oh the terrors the midwest can bring.or, as gertrude stein might say:
"There is no Mid. This west will not hold. Fold the center. Forget the fountain. Asparagus trees. Burn the temporary doors."
i actually have no idea what she would say, but i've been reading and rereading Tender Buttons and am growing a little obsessed with her...
and when i'm not reading Stein... or criticism on Stein (one of my classes = Modernist Women Poets)... and when I'm not making lesson plans....to be honest, i've grown a bit obsessed with this whole garrido-dugard case. i mean... there is a pretty intense crime. not only is it horrific in all the ways a kidnapping/rape/manipulation/brainwashing/etc could possibly be, it also goes against the standard "rules" for almost every crime the case committed. First of all, the biggest one, was that the child wasn't found within the first 48 hours-- or, 48 days-- and was found. the next was that it was a stranger abduction, and the victim wasn't killed. the other thing i know i'm going to be watching for as this case progresses is the treatment of the wife: she sought out p.garrido while he was in prison for kidnapping/sexual assault. if i could make a prediction (what's the word for prediction for something that already happened-- like a reverse prediction?) it would be that he enlisted her to commit this crime, or a similar one, very early on in their relationship, and my second prediction (an actual prediction) is that she's going to play the gender/victim card to get out of any sort of conviction or accountability, or to get both drastically reduced. we seem to let that happen a lot-- women seem to not be so much convicted of crimes that they've committed so much of the time (look @ sexual assault of minor cases). but, lest we forget gertrude baniszewski, and her crime (for which she was convicted, but i'm using her to illustrate female capability of horrific acts). actually, i want to forget her. but anyway... that's been taking up a lot of my time...
what else.
ah yes, mummies.
this may require a brief explanation. i took a class as an undergrad pursuing my bachelors degree in anthropology called DEATH RITUALS AND MUMMIFICATION. it is probably my favorite class. while judd and i were on a road trip through utah i started talking about mummies, and realized that if i were to get a masters or phd in anthropology (which, at one point, i thought was possible), my focus would probably be on mummies. now that i'm getting a masters in poetry, i'm not sure i still can't focus that much less on mummies... time will tell though, what ends up happening with that.
so, at said bookstore (the evil wasps sped us along), i found 2 books. i can't really afford to buy anything except food right now, but these were pretty cool... the first book is called FACES OF THE PHARAOHS, and it outlines each major (and some very minor-- fetus, for example) mummies found in egypt, and shows not only details of the mummy, but also of the many sarcophagi associated with them, and a write up on who they were/may have been, and what was found with them, where they were found, their dates, etc. very lovely.
but ancient egypt, contrary to popular belief, is not where it is at with mummies. i really like the bog people of denmark. these people somehow ended up in peat bogs-- whether through accident, human sacrifice, or execution. when they first started turning up they were so well-preserved people began reporting murders to the proper authorities... but these bodies were thousands of years old... i bought a book on them too.
now, for some reason, i am very very drawn to the SIBERIAN ICE MAIDEN. this is a discovery from the pazyryk mountains, and i really like her because she was found in an elaborate warriors coffin designed with elk and other emblems, and buried with her bow and arrow. as you can see from this famous photo, she is covered in tattoos. women warriors in this tribe would cut off a breast to better draw back the arrow.
mummies can be found, whether naturally or artificially, or a combination, on almost every continent. the mummies of guanajuato, mexico, and the chinchorro mummies of south america are also worth obsessing over. for years. just about now i would give anything for my DEATH RITUALS text book... but alas, to no avail. they were notes copied by my professor, and apparently it cannot be located by anyone in the department, and i don't have them anymore, and no one else in the history of the world who took the class seems to have them anymore.
in conclusion... i'm not sure if i should be worried about how things are colliding in my head, or excited, but... it's exhausting. i've also been narrating my own life to judd in high-pitched song.
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