mass --------

an hour into every media ethics class, i am always convinced that the world is coming to an end, in some twisted way. today i made a list. this is maybe vague at some points, but here's what i thought of in response to john latta's lecture tonight.

The world is coming to an end
on all sides
news will disappear
animals will disappear
no none will know about anything
the government will survey all the wasteland
no one will have jobs
no one will have money or food
white kids won't know black kids exist
nobody will know what it's like to be a _____.
the gap will widen.

meanwhile, i surround myself with all the stuff that we call life. sitting here at my desk, with computer directly in front of me, i also see:
a half eaten pizza, napkin
at least six vessels to hold liquid of my choice
lotion
camera batteries
various pens, markers, check books, mail
unused calender
unused date book, coffee-stained papers
movies
more lotion
orange peel, giant light bulb
notebook, cell phone
jewelry and a paystub

the cat is playing jungle gym in my bookcase and tearing one of my posters while i have piece by piece surrounded myself with various souveniers of my existence. if i think back, i can trace each item here, remember its story and how it got here. i see the one-use coffee mate creamer that i tried to give a guy last thursday in exchange for a backpack. it lies cradled in the drawer just where i probably emptied it out of my jacket pocket a few days ago. my mission tonight is to write, tomorrow i will learn more about web design and finish the gertrude stein book. i will continue to live this existence, one small goal at a time, until i graduate in may. but on the wall in front of my desk, just to the right side, always in my field of vision, is tacked a creased sheet of paper with the words written out:

{Bernice Washington}
750-0448
history of Tuscaloosa
& her role in it

this paper, you could say, i have been thinking about for three months. at times when i am swamped with school work, my eyes wander over to that white beacon and i tell myself to finish my work so i can call bernice washington. as soon as i get a few minutes, i tell myself, as soon as i finish the next three things on my to-do list, i will let myself call her. but i haven't called her, not since i found this bit of paper in a pile of stuff and tacked it onto my wall in january. i didn't want to lose it. but somehow i just can't get the motivation to finish the next three things on my to-do list. you could call it senioritis, you can call it whatever you want to.

on wednesday afternoon when for some unknown reason i suddenly feel like i have all the time in the world, or friday when i finally leave the house after taking completely too long to get out of bed and get dressed, i remember bernice washington. and i kick myself for seeing that folded paper so clearly in my mind, just not quite clearly enough to be able to read her phone number.

bernice has become a sort of fixture in my mind, someone who would be amazing to talk to, if only i could find the time, if only i could clear my schedule. i don't know what i would do if i finally met her, i've been thinking about her for so long. her and ruth, another old tuscaloosa lady who promised to tell me her stories if i'd call her.

these ladies, though, seem so far away and unreachable, compared with my reading for ethics or the research i should be doing in preparation for my rapidly approaching trip to france. everything seems inconsequential at times, and there are so many readily available distractions. they're piled around me on my desk. if they're not there, the distractions are easily found in my head, no prodding necessary. they flood onto my consciousness unprompted in the form of worries, assignments, happy memories, fears and future lives, just like any college student.

and just like any other college student, i am constantly bombarded with internet articles, various forms of chatting, weekend plans, impromptu lunches, class, unforseen delays and serendipity. it is easy enough to succumb to any and all of these, especially when they are each a valid form of procrastination. but there's a certain point where procrastination of school work becomes procrastination of meaningful, fulfilling work, like my someday calls to bernice and ruth.

plus, when the world is ending in every way imaginable, what with the current economy and job market, plus the end of journalism as we know it, where else are we to look than into our imaginations? how is my generation supposed to stop global warming, end the era of fossil fuels, reduce reuse and recycle everything and have a plan for after college while we are still worrying about our current overload of homework? and how do we conjure up even the framework of a plan when established professionals are being laid off and neswpapers will be outdated any day from now? depth reporting will be gone, or so john says, and then what means will we have to learn about other people, other cutures? the government will be the only ones who really know what the hell is going on, and the rest of us will sit on our asses and wonder what it was like when poor people actually had a chance in hell to get educated.

as american college students, we worship overload.

crazy bus driver chases yellow waterspouts

[lunch one day last spring]

last night i had the kind of mind-blowing god experience that i've only heard tale of in stories about acid trips. (is that how the saying goes?) mine, however, happened when i was 7/8 asleep.

i decided to watch the middle third of i heart huckabee's last night instead of reading for class. after all, julia cameron says i'm not supposed to be reading this week. that's what she meant, right? do something that requires next to no brain activity and absolutely no creativity. plus, i'm sick. another reason to be lazy.

as always, i fell asleep. (hence middle third instead of last 2 thirds.) my room has no tv but since it's cold downstairs, this winter i've been watching movies upstairs where it's warm. in my roommate's bed. (she's never home.)

when i awoke at 1:28 this morning, the audio track from the movie's menu was playing. easy assumption: it had been looping for at least an hour, while my mind had been hearing the same words over and over and over.

in my sleep-induced, huckabee stupor, i gathered my pillows and other belongings so i could go back to my own bed. somehow i thought the most nihilistic and logical 2 sentences that perhaps any person has ever thunk. by the time my pillows had hit my mattress, my divine revelation was gone. presumably, i will never never remember the bean curd of wisdom i recieved last night.

it probably influenced my subsequent psychadelic birch-tree dream greatly, though. a few girls and i caught butterflies in a painted swimming pool at the end. i can't tell the best parts. they're too good. with words, they would be ruined.[a ring around the moon, last feb. 21. this is how it really looked.. no camera tricks here.]