From His Coy Mistress

Sorry

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:26:49 +0000

If you had been wearing reflective tape
Maybe I would not have hit you
With my car.

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 03:41:21 +0000

That nude woman from Le déjeuner sur l’herbe–she betrays everything. What is happening here? She took off her clothes before the basket was set down; she couldn’t even wait that long.

There’s nothing in my soul but solitary carrots.

Idée Fixe

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:14:27 +0000

Music cascading from above. I am not sure how much I care, and we are careful not to mention it. Really I can only think about hunger and about my thesis. Obsession is becoming my obsession. I will finish Obsession today, and two Lacan essays. If there were enough hours, I would also read Monomania. Sadly, no. Lacan is destroying my brain via a simultaneous expansion from within and a relentless bashing from outside. I suppose if these forces were equal, like the air pressure in and outside a balloon, I’d be fine. They must not be. There must be some imbalance–I am not eating the right foods and, consequently, I have an excess of black bile. Metonymy, metaphor. Displacement, condensation. Verschiebung, verdichtung. Parallel construction will never die.

Summertime Plans

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Wed, 11 May 2011 05:29:11 +0000

I finished writing my monster Ulysses paper on Sunday. That was my last assignment for the school year, and so begins my summertime boredom. I am very pleased to have nothing to do, mostly. I miss school terribly though. I need distractions from myself. And so, as always, my list of summertime plans (subject to change):

Learn German.
Begin to possibly maybe think about that Honors thesis.
Write poetry every day.
Read!
Build an Esty shop.
Do lots of crafty things.
Teach my cat to use the toilet.

I haven’t really put much thought into these things . . .

This Summer In Retrospect

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:00:52 +0000

Musical things I went to:

Land of Talk, May 31st in Portland
The National, June 2nd in Boston
Bear in Heaven, June 24th in Portland
Arcade Fire, August 1st in Boston
The KahBang Festival [The Gay Blades, OKGo and others], August 13th & 14th in Bangor

# of miles put on the car: 2629+

# of trips to Funtown: 2

# of times trapped in Portland in the middle of the night: 2

# of trips to Ellsworth: EIGHT

# of rainbows seen: 3

Movies I saw at the cinema:

Vincere
City of Your Final Destination [Me Omar!]
No One Knows About Persian Cats
Greenburg
Cyrus
Dinner for Shmucks
The Red Riding Trilogy

It’s so difficult to remember things.

Oh yes, # of wisdom teeth taken out of my mouth: 4

Hehe.

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:51:17 +0000

Made by me. <3

Letters

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:29:32 +0000

I found a letter in my mailbox. No postage, no return address. Only my name in sinewy handwriting in the center. I thought, “Is this from God?” and I opened it and I realized it was not from God. The letter reproduced:

Dear Sir,

We are two very similar people. To clarify, I’ve been observing, and I’ve noticed that we have many common interests. It is as if neither of us are individuals while the other lives.

Have a wonderful day,
Clyde

I looked all around for Clyde, but the street was empty. I folded the letter, replaced it in its envelope, put the envelope in my pocket and ran into the house.
A few weeks passed, and I forgot about the mysterious letter until another one came to me in the exact same fashion. The letter reproduced:

Dear Sir,

I didn’t hear from you after my first correspondence. I wonder if you got your letter. No, that is a lie. Forgive me; I saw you open it and read it right there by the mailbox. I know you got your letter. I am only hurt because you did not write back.

Have a marvelous day,
Clyde

As, kind reader, you may expect, as soon as I saw the particular format of the envelope, I recognized it and I sprinted for the house again. I read it in the parlor room instead of in the street, standing there, out in the open, without defense and in my bath robe, (knotted once in the very center and pulled into a floppy bow).
I was not sure what to do, so I did nothing.
The third letter came two days later:

Dear Sir,

I am displeased. Perhaps you do not understand the nature of the situation. Please forgive me once more. This is my fault. All my fault. I should have explained thoroughly.

Thoreau, postcards, old photographs, post-apocalyptic literature, sweaters, day trips, The Smiths. You like these things, yes? So do I. I don’t think we are the same person, but I am not sure. I am sure of one thing: if we are the same person, one of us will win out, and one of us will not.

Clyde

I scorned this man. He made me feel less of one, first because he claimed I was his copy, and then because he forced scorn onto me. I scorned him.
I received the fourth letter yesterday.

Dear Sir,

I have taken up a lover. Never mind about all that other stuff.

Have a superb day,
Clyde

I haven’t gotten any more letters.

Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:13:21 +0000

Inexplicably sad today. I started thinking about the end of things on the drive home. “Free Four” came on the radio during my thinking, which ironically helped a little because it was so coincidental and funny to me.

The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime.
You shuffle in gloom of the sickroom
And talk to yourself as you die.

Life is a short, warm moment
And death is a long cold rest.
You get your chance to try in the twinkling of an eye:
Eighty years, with luck, or even less.

The universe is talking to me, but it is doing so in a joke. “How silly you are being, Sarah!” In retrospect, I should have laughed out loud.

I am 20 and I feel very, very old. Everything I do is a waste of time. What isn’t a waste of time? There must be something, but I don’t know what.

God save the directionless.

Where is Michael Gambon when I need him?

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:57:43 +0000

Michael Gambon is not my imaginary counselor, but I must have one, because he just handed me this list printed in neat, upright cursive on a piece of paper torn from a notebook:

Junior Year:

Decorate your room to your extreme satisfaction.
Don’t drink as much Coca-Cola as you normally do while at school.
Don’t count calories.
Stop treating yourself like shite.
Go to the gym.
Retire by midnight on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Get plenty of sleep.
Keep up with your studies.
Put less thought into whether or not you look okay.
Keep room neat enough to be functional.
Protect the downtrodden and defenseless.
Read more.
Play more video games.

Private Conversations with the Universe

Sarah Katherine Lingo — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:42:42 +0000

will be the name of my novella, maybe. The universe is talking to me again, and I don’t want to share with anyone. I will anyway. Life has seams, and you can see them if you look closely enough. When I find a seam, I realize reality isn’t real. Everything around me is a copy of a copy of a copy, and that’s okay, because if that is the case, then life has a blueprint. An outline. You find a seam, you’ve got a small piece of the whole. Foreshadowing and symbolism and irony are artificial, yes, but they occur outside stories; they occur artificially naturally. They are instilled by some greater being, and thus are real. I don’t believe in God. I believe in a sentient universe.