Letter 8

Dear Josephine,

Okay, okay, stop hasseling me. For my birthday I would like to be credit card debit free. Aside from that, there is one dress I've been dreaming about for weeks:

click here!

In other news, there isn't much to report. I'm attempting to un-stick myself from the glue of placement, but that shouldn't be to difficult. So you know, I'm purposefully being vague.

I've been thinking about bodies and culture, and this quote from Michael Pitt skims the surface of a greater depth of "written" codes:

[On The Dreamers (2003)]: I was nervous for the sex scenes. It's tough for an American actor, because it can be looked upon very badly. It's a serious risk to take in your career. It's risky with the studios and with the American public. It's looked down upon in American culture at a serious level. It could be perceived not as work but as pornography. Every time I was nervous about it, I would remind myself that possibly I was going to be a part of something that was going to change those attitudes. I don't agree with those values at all. It's totally fine showing someone getting their head blown off in America and you can't show the human body. I think that shows something about the culture.

Of course he is right.

Last night I dreamed I was writing a thesis again. I miss those days. If only I could spend my life writing/reading/studying gender/race/literary theory, I think I would be happy. Isn't that always what we are trying to obtain? I've written to you about this before. Of course, paychecks are always part of the sum to survive. Here - broken record. Here - office attire. Here - internal monologues.

What is the sum?

yours,

laura

Letter 7

Dear Josephine,

Sometimes I think of you as my patron saint. Isn't writing a type of prayer? Tonight a tiny airplane carried me from New York City to Washington. It barreled through the sky as if to say, "yes, I am here, and no, I do not have time to talk I am in a hurry", and we cruised over a cloud landscape that resembled a hiker's snowy terrain and the mountainous volumes in Alaska; although I have never been to Alaska I know this analogy must be true. But the pilot moved the plane so quickly and without much grace and I clutched my seat and mentally stated everything for wish I am thankful. My reasoning was such: I do not want to die, so God (although I can't claim to be "a believer") here are the things in life I appreciate. Is appreciation and recognition a sign of admission? I ended, as perhaps I too often do, dramatically, with a homage to Pandora, for she left us with an allowance for hope. I am fearful of despair.

Going to London made me recognize the importance of expression, how we often forget to express ourselves, how we make routine expressive of our lives. "Today I decided to get a cappuccino instead of drip coffee," seems a rupture in the daily ho-hum, something note-worthy. For the past months I've fallen into this comfortable trap, I've lost the allure and hunger for creativity and a voice. In a London museum I found myself again. On a plane departing from England and destined for America, I dreamed of canvases and primary colors. I dreamed of the clicking of typing and the definition of words. How foolhardy of me to forget this necessity, this will to create.

There were no thorns in this discovery, Anne Sexton, but a finding. Thoreau is always right, it seems.

love,

your laura