killing or dying?

The death of the baby turtle has brought up memories of pet losses in my life. I've had several of them. I haven't and a non-furry pet since i was a kid. When I was a little girl I found a little turtle in the grass in front of the barn.



He was a cute fellow. I could not resist bringing him into my house to live with me. He was shy and scared to come out of his shell. One day he came out of his shell and stayed out and stayed out. In fact he didn't move at all. I got excited and showed my Mom. She said "robin, i think he's dead" but I said "no, he's just sleeping." That went on for three days or so until finally i had to admit to myself that the little turtle was dead. I must have known it all along it was just hard to admit because of the guilt. If I'd left the turtle in his natural environment perhaps he wouldn't have died so quickly.
I also raised tadpoles in a fish bowl once. That was fun to watch. the only problem was that once they became little frogs they jumped out of the fish bowl and I lost them. I remember months later when I was cleaning my room we moved my dresser and I came across a tiny frog skeleton. It was sad and beautiful at the same time.
I also accidental smothered a caterpillar in my palm when I was a very small tyke. That broke my little heart. I've always been fascinated with these creatures that go through such drastic transformations in their lives. At least the little frog got to transform before it died in my bedroom.


note to myself- look at putting the Kiah footage together with her on the TV screen and rocking horse vrs. real one. Then log her recent commentary on The Princess Bride.

My earliest memory about race is from the year 1986. I was a kindergarten student in a rural Georgia town. One day I asked my Mama "Why is Ben black"? Ben was one of my classmates. My Mama told me "because he's African, he's from Africa, a continent, it's a place, a location in the world." The next day I went to school and said to Ben "you're from Africa" and he laughed and laughed and replied "girl, I'm from Adairsville just like you." Then I felt upset because I could tell Ben wasn't lying, otherwise how could he have made me feel so stupid? That meant that my Mama was lying. I'm sure my Mama tried to explain later but at that time her words didn't make no damn sense.

Today in Steve's class he was talking about the black diaspora and how no matter where you come from if you're black you have a common bond with other black people. So that made me think of the Bob Marley lyrics "No matter where you come from as long as you're a black man you're an African." I've had time to reflect on that and it's brought up my childhood memory.

Why did I want to know why Ben was black? I probably had some type of race conception from my family but I don't think that's why I wanted to know. I think it was an innocent question, like asking "why is the sky blue? why is the grass green"? I remember asking my mother those questions and she got frustrated and said "robin, i don't know everything" so I told her "you do know you're just not telling me" and I believed that at the time.

I wonder why my Mama thought she knew why Ben was black when she didn't know why the sky was blue? I'm lucky I knew Ben because who knows how long I would have taken my Mother's word for truth if I never had that intercourse with him. I hope now that my words never hurt him or made him feel alienated, not that alienation is a bad thing. In this place alienation seems kind of necessary.

My sky/skin analogy seems short sighted, the color or shade of the sky is not a social construction. It's something that just is, right? Why can't people think in phenomenological terms? Race is a scary thing because it seems like it's somewhere in between being a social construction and something that just is. Every person is born with certain attributes that automatically place them within constraints because of a structure that was made up even before they were. Does that make sense?

I guess a good question is why didn't I ask my Mama "why am I white"?


ps. I can hear my upstairs neighbor fucking right now, sounds like he's into it. [bgcolor]#3b2212[/bgcolor]

this is the little thing I'm working on. I still have to shoot the end. I want to call it The Death of the Videomaker, to reference, The Death of the Author . The problem with that is I can't even remember what that bit of writing means. I'll try to read it and figure out. I'm pretty certain the essay has nothing to do with the themes of this video but I can create my own damn ideas. Why not?
Matthew you make me happy with your joy about the return of the little birds.










"it is always the principle of useful suffering and willing sacrifice which forms the most solid base for hierarchical power."
-Raoul Vaneigem The Revolution of Everyday Life

ever stayed in the Lenox Hotel?

ps. I'm looking for a creepy out of the way graveyard to do a shooting at, does anyone have suggestions?

I feel trapped and abandoned simultaneously. Then there is that little voice in my head that says "just borrow more more more, finish finish finish, I'm not sure if the voice is my own or that of my father. A 60 year old man who now blames his discontent with his life on his lack of patience with graduate school. He wrote to me saying" I have worked all my life at a job I did not like because I quit graduate school and it is no one's fault but mine."
I don't like any job I've had. Teaching young people how to edit video is not my goal in life, if fact it's a placid and dull activity even when both student and teacher put in excessive energy. Creativity lies outside of the institution, no matter how much recorded creativity a person brings in it's sucked dry by the shear wretchedness of the conditions of the life that civilized people live. What am I suggesting a back to nature philosophy?
Hell fucking no, I hate bug bites, I hate the elements, I hate being cold, I hate being hot, I hate the bright sunshine on the white snow blinding me when I drive, I hate reading by candlelight, I would really hate not being able to lock people out, but what I really hate is not being able in general, not being able to support myself, not being able to defend myself from not being able to better support myself.
I hate people, I hate everyone I know, especially those who I know the most, those who gave birth to me, those who guide me, those who love me, those who nurture me, when all the time they're really just looking out for there own damn self just like I am, every fucking day, I get angry because others are better at it than I am. I hate my life right now, I hate waiting for my loans to come so I can just spend them on my rent, my car insurance, my fucking electricity, my food, my energy, my power, spend my power.
I hate my fingernails how they fucking grow and grow and then I have to chop them so I can pull out my lenses that make me see like a normal person, that enable me to drive a car, that let me see the leaves on the tree, the creases in my neck, just another object to buy, my vision. Vision for fucking sale! [bgcolor]#730000[/bgcolor]