Tuesday, December 29, 2009

i love a new planner. i love my new slingshot and its fresh cleanness.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

there are many things i could say. i will try to say a few of them.
the most important is that my cat is missing. he has been gone since wednesday and according to my parents' craigslist ad, it was a "very cold night." he has never wandered off for longer than a night before now. mom thinks someone thought he was beautiful and snatched him up because he didn't have any identification -- he has lost or destroyed every collar. somehow that doesn't seem very likely to me, and i am fearing the worst. although tomorrow i plan to go door to door with flyers, if i have time between preparing for england and spending time with friends, family, and my remaining cat (who seems to prefer willy's absence, not surprisingly).

listening to:

Friday, December 18, 2009

walking in a winter wonderland

A record snowfall of 6 inches was set at Asheville NC today. This
breaks the old record of 3.6 inches set in 1916. With additional
snowfall likely... the total for the day will increase. Another
statement will be issued after midnight with the updated total.
it snowed ALL DAY and it is STILL SNOWING. i have never experienced this before... i just want to hole up in my room like a cave and go to bed. but i have to drive home! in all this yuck! so many people today tried to leave and couldn't... my friend was stuck in traffic for about 6 hours coming back from the airport after her flight was canceled, and i watched a van trying to make it up a snowy hill, but it just kept sliding back. go back inside! to your little cave house! i wanted to say.
the stupid health center was closed, and i didn't know, so i walked all the way up there for nothing. i almost fell down on an icy bridge. then i fell down in the snow... i predict this will be the first of many this season.

well, today i rewrote the essay i lost. to be honest, this one might be better than the original because i wasn't delirious while writing it. but, i don't really care about the grade at all... i almost didn't rewrite it because i turned in the first essay and my professor just said "rewrite it by tomorrow if you have time" and that wasn't super motivational. i feel like i learned a lot in the class, and i guess it would be nice to get a grade that reflects that, even if my essay doesn't. ha! I'M JUST GLAD THIS STUPID SEMESTER IS OVER. it was probably my worst semester in turns of taking useless classes. and i will really be feeling it when i am taking so many important reqs next time. anyway, it hasn't really hit me yet that it done.

rum nog in my belly... mmmmmm. time to pack!!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

MY PAPER.

HAS BEEN EATEN.


THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.


!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?1?1!??!?1?!?! can anyone troubleshoot me oh my god

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

things just haven't been the same

ever since my mother joined facebook. she doesn't think i check my email anymore, so she is learning how to "chatter" and she's always leaving little messages on my wall, or sending me stuff like this:
you know, lots of peoples loves hoodies. like with bands on them. you can order a hoodie t-shirt sweatshirt with some weirdo on it, and people would loves it sooooo muches.
that's the entire message, by the way. i almost don't even believe that this came from my mother, but last night we were facebook chatting about my inability to get people decent presents.
i can't stop laughing.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

manifesto against paralyzed panic

calm down about this massive pile of work sitting in front of you. realize that most of it is not so important. it doesn't matter if you don't get all the details right. don't waste time on word choice and just say it. you have one week left of school; you should be happy. this energy would be better spent elsewhere. just get it done and go to sleep.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

holy shit

does this link work for yall?

i am speechless.

everybody's living like they should

someone pulled the fire alarm. AWESOME. i love sitting in the cold in my pajamas and no underwear FOR NO REASON.
i slept till 1pm today. i think i'm about caught up on my sleep and my sickness is almost gone. now to make up all that homework...
apparently i'm going to the winter formal tonight after all, despite all the fiasco. morgan needs me!! but what to wear?! [cue disasterpiece]
oh what the hell


listening to: tuscadero - mt pleasant

Thursday, December 10, 2009

it's a wonder we don't collide

i am not motivated enough to do homework. is it actually because i am sick, or am i just making excuses at this point?
i am eating sweet tarts from the bystander intervention pinata. gotta save the chocolate for last.
i just loaned my car to elliot! i really hope he doesn't crash it on the hill.
everything is so lonely. i better get used to it.

listening to: madeline - lit elephants

a chronicle of misery: the week before finals

dr. bradshaw and his wife lesley have two sons (see diagram), who will soon be home for the holidays. while preparing for their arrival, lesley fell down the stairs. i believe dr. bradshaw used the word "gruesome" to describe the event. in my head, there were christmas ornaments flying, tinsel trailing down the stairs, and blood everywhere. clearly i've never met her, and i've only seen things from the end of the old man. he appeared at the office only briefly on tuesday, hair unkempt and voice ragged. and he had the nerve to ask me how i am, how i'm feeling about my abroad trip! he won't let anyone help him, so i have been feeling utterly useless all week.
on monday night, eva was complaining of a sore throat, worrisome because it seems that she only just kicked the flu and its lingering symptoms. then at cowpie she went and COUGHED ON MY FOOD and it was mexican monday and i couldn't not eat it! mere moments (hours) later, my own throat started to feel a bit sore. morgan asked her biology professor for me, and HE said that someone coughing on your food can't give you a cold. but i beg to differ! i've gotten steadily more congested and disgusting-feeling as the week has gone on.
what's the best way to get better? SLEEP! comes the rousing reply from the chorus of everybody in the world. guess what my life is utterly lacking? monday night, i forget all your hazy details. my throat was sore, i started downing ungodly amounts of tea. i had had a panic moment in that afternoon's banjo class when i learned the set list for our concert, only two days away. instead of doing any of my *important* homework, i played banjo all night. why did i chomp off my fingernails and render myself useless for clawhammer?!?! oh yes, because one must destroy one's body while composing a 7-pager in 4 hours. thank you, body, for donating yourself to the cause once again. but why oh why won't you just do what you're supposed to do on these stupid strings? part of the problem was certainly the temperature; my room is a veritable ice box. the point is that i sat in morgan's room and strummed for hours until katherine and brett rang morgan's phone for our conference call. did we make any decisions? i don't know. but i felt pretty shitty afterwards. finally around 3am i lay my body down.... and tossed and turned and couldn't catch a wink until at least 6:30. also i forgot to ask morgan to wake me up and i had no alarm clock without a phone, so i slept straight till 10. my history teacher seemed understanding in her email. dr. b was absent, so grammar was a 15 minute q+a sesh with TA jenn, whom i have decided that i like a lot.
tuesday night is always a misery night because it is the night my study abroad group meets. this time, naomi from international programs came to talk to us about not drinking too much or doing drugs at all or leaving the group. i got all confused about money conversion stuff and what to pack and whether i made the right decision by deciding to go on this stupid trip. back in the land of doors, ben and i sat down to work on our astronomy lab reports when renee and eva appeared at the door and suddenly a mighty sound was heard throughout the land of doors: FIRE ALARM. beautiful. we threw on shoes and coats over our pajamas and tramped out into the rain storming night. every dorland resident huddled in the smoking hut not smoking for once. the fire truck arrived and RD kat said the locked mystery room in the basement was emitting smoke. possibly breakers or some such thing. we didn't want to wait around in the cold anymore, so we went to ben's room and ate his ancient candy and sat on his roommate's bed and poked at stuff. an hour later, the doors of dorland were still closed to us, so we trudged across the bridge to a worser place: sunderland. in fact, the worst place: sunderland BASEMENT. there, we were greeted by a quite nude ilinca who fed us water in huge kitchen jars and saltines with nutella and peanut butter. she even gave me a hello kitty thermos full of mint tea leftover from dinner... still sort of warm five hours later! we watched the episode of buffy where she tries out for the cheerleading squad but uh oh all the cheerleaders are losing various body parts! eva didn't know what was going on the whole time and either narrated to us what was happening, asked for clarification about what was happening, or said aloud what her brain told her. we finally made it back into dorland around 12:30, about 3 hours after we were displaced. there, i played banjo, had possible heart-to-heart with morgan, played banjo, felt sick, called brett, spoke without thinking, felt sad, felt sick, and got into bed at maybe 2ish. received text messages from tom, missed him terribly. and then, it happened again: i couldn't sleep. morgan says i probably slept a little without realizing it, but i know i was awake when the sun came up. had some weird dreams that i have forgotten now... i should get back into the habit of writing these things down, maybe. but there were moments when i couldn't tell if i was dreaming or if i was just inventing visions for myself as i lay there sleepless. anyway, i'm pretty sure i was awake or at least half-awake when my alarm went off, so i just stayed in bed all morning.
wednesday was another waste. i tried to work on my lab report, but i had already made up my mind to skip that class. instead of lunch or class, i went to the health center to get a sick note. this was sort of crazy because the health center has been temporarily relocated to some crazy cottage out past eco-dorm that i had to walk up this weird little woods path to find. here's the stupid part: i wore the new boots my mom ordered me from l.l. bean. in my sickness stupor, i didn't think about how disgustingly muddy it was gonna be on this walk or the fact that, wonder of wonders, the boots might not fit... which of course, they didn't, and now they are all muddy even though i tried to wash them off when i got home. i am gonna return them anyway. fuck some shoes. anyway, it doesn't say anything about mud on the return policy. the rest of the day was stupid but fine: corrected paper corrections at work, heard about a carbon monoxide leak in gladfelter, ate a very tiny but tasty dinner at cowpie, played my stupid banjo concert at which i couldn't even hear myself playing, called my parents and complained, and got in bed at about 11 without doing a lick of homework. this time, i KNOW i got some sleep, but i did not by any means have a good night's sleep. i kept waking up coughing or not being able to breathe through my nose. i don't think i had any dreams, i don't think i slept long enough at any moment.
my alarm went off at 8:30 this morning. i went straight to morgan's room to ask for her sage advice. thank god, she told me to stay home and rest. she even gave me her hot pot so i would have a steady supply of peppermint tea. i haven't left my room all day, not for anything. i have watched the world go light and dark through my window. i slept a lot, until 2:30 when i decided that if i napped anymore, i wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. i have been listening to music and poking at the internet since then. i need to figure out how long i have to turn in all the assignments i missed... i don't feel like doing any work at all, but next week, as i may have mentioned, is MISERY EXAM WEEK and i have lots lots lots to do. but, tonight might not be the night. morgan did bring me a bagel this morning, but other than that, i haven't eaten all day... except for gallons of tea and 1 (one) garlic pill. that's the real problem with sick days. so anyway, it's late now, and i better run to cowpie before it's too late. tonight they're having carmelized onion and squash pasta plus quinoa and black bean soup! i am excited for soup yumyum.
apologies if i have totally butchered the english language in this post. i blame congested fuzzy headedness.

listening to: the mountain goats - jaipur

Friday, December 04, 2009

i read it's lame to wish that you might not walk out on me

today, as usual, i am a terrible person. i wanted to slaughter everyone and/or go hide in a cave alone. and just read and not have to communicate. i think my feelings of total annoyance and utter insanity may have something to do with the fact that i missed almost a week of BC pills and had to double up for a few days... i didn't do that for long enough to make up for all 5 pills i missed because that seemed like overkill. but still.
yesterday my eye was blotchy red and leaking crust, but today it's normal again. i feel like i will never be well... is this just my every winter?
i am a failure as a grammar tutor. i told him the wrong meaning of progressive tense yesterday and we had a verb forms question on the quiz today, and i know we both missed it. i don't know how to make it up to him, this kid is so anxious already.
are we all just losing our minds, holed up in little rooms like cupboards? when we are all crammed in together, but don't see beyond the circle at our table, how can we not be feeling so alone?
everybody is desperate, i dont know if i can really blame the cold weather anymore. it's too late to think. i'm done.


listening to: xiu xiu - hello from eau claire

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

there's a short, dark day until the night takes back over

this morning i rolled my ankle and almost fell down the slippery hill in the cold rain. somehow i managed to right myself before actually falling... graceful or ungainly?
yesterday, dr. bradshaw took it up a notch. as i've said, i feel like he has been testing my strength as an ERA, particularly in front of my peers. grammar was the same as usual. he rambled about farther vs. further and hyphenating words, then he passed out the quiz. everything was hunky dory... until i got to question 8:
On Monday, the effusively generous Professor Bradshaw, scholar, gentleman, and statesman, gave to Alanna Stewart, writer, film maker, and aspiring grammarian, some pennies to use in the bubble gum machine; though Alanna cannot now recall what occasioned such largesse and finds herself confused because her name is being mentioned on a quiz.
1. i was not even in the office on monday. i stayed in my room all day long.
2. he has never given me pennies for the bubble gum machine, which is actually full of breast cancer m&m's.
3. i don't understand why he exaggerated about himself, but said truths about me... except aspiring grammarian, what is that.
4. i gave him an evil look when he came back from getting tea, but he just laughed at me.
5. he made a big to-do about that question, even asking me to give the answer, but i just sort of squirmed, so he answered it himself.
6. he went BACK to the problem again later, talking about how you could have hyphenated "bubble gum" or something.
7. now everybody thinks i am a teacher's pet. and i'm worried that it's true.
8. a prize to anyone who can find the error in the sentence! respond with a comment.
9. should i be honore or flattered?
10. my first grammar tutee just left the office. no idea if i helped him at all, but i tried. i just wish it hadn't been with the quiz that has my damn name on it. how embarrassing.

listening to: thanksgiving - (you belong to the) blood

Monday, November 23, 2009

high in the clean blue air

i've gotten used to the sound of geese approaching, although i always look up to see them pass overhead.
right now, i am hearing a ridiculous cacophony of geese, which sounds close but isn't getting any closer. i think a massive flock must have stopped at our pond! i want to go and find them, but the studious part of me is saying no, stay in your little room, drink your little cup of jasmine tea, and read these mary wollstonecraft essays. still, i'm craning my neck to look out the window, thinking i might get a glimpse of a wing. i know they're close, but all i see is still trees.

listening to: honk honking

today i set my sights on your heart

physical pain lingers after the dream is over. there is no fly fish prick fastened to my finger to test my ability for removal. now i'm typing, but the for first few minutes after i woke up, i was afraid to touch the spot. it still stings a little.
i dreamed that i went to school with brett. i dreamed that the stay-at-home girlfriends wept when the bus drove off. i dreamed of exploring in a field of nail-gun wheelbarrows and a rambling country road where we flew past huge dogs and oxen and a hundred other animals. then i dreamed of a pond, where we hijacked a boat and paddled around serenely until a couple of men threw some traps into the water, my hand was stuck, they said it was just a test and watched me wrestle with it, unable to concentrate because of the pain. i think it was the intensity of the sensation that finally caused me to wake up.
this is the typical tragic tale of monday. i don't want to get up when the alarm goes off, i don't feel like i need to get to work on time, i snooze a million times, and eventually tell myself that it's time to get up. but i don't.
today i woke up at 11:16 and my throat's still sore, so i decided to take the day off. i mean, i still have a ton of work to do for this huge paper that's due tomorrow, and i plan to spend my time doing that. maybe a little nap here and there... i already feel guilty because of an email from dr. bradshaw, asking me to make 21 key-hole-punched copies on light green paper (most likely the poetry class reading list) and to march them straight into his hands as he teaches class in the holden auditorium, all the way behind kitteridge. the past few weeks, he has had me doing this more and more, perhaps to test out how i operate as an English Research Assistant in front of peers. after all, i'll be in the Romanticism class next semester, and i won't be able to hide behind a TA like i do in grammar. which apparently is also part of my job next semester. dr. b had asked me to consider doing it, but jenn tells me that he has already informed her that i WANT to do it. well, i guess i knew i was gonna do it. he just figured it out first.
sorry for the work rant... i wonder if i should go down and eat eggplant sandwich and split pea soup at cowpie or that would just make me feel guilty. my dorm room options are... canned soup or zatarain's. i'm getting really hungry, i think i'll go anyway.

listening to: holly golightly - stain

Saturday, November 21, 2009

should i seek out someone i could keep?

i wish i had weapons.
i feel like smashing something, especially the thing that keeps BEEPBEEPBEEPing every couple of minutes. dorms essentially mean patterns, repetitive sounds, repeated behaviors, i want to smash it all. tonight is violent, not nice. maybe just me.
a dog barks like clock work, one time three times, maybe after cars go by.
i feel like scavenging, but i'm already feeling sick, and i know that will make it worse.
a pile of eleven fingernails collected next to my tea cup. i was doing so well, but i broke. my hands have reverted to their former selves and insist on doing meanness. do nailless pinches hurt worse? some say. say some: i want to know it all.
i came home intending to stay, knowing this was impossible. i think it's time to go.
all i wanted was a haircut.

listening to: the magnetic fields - i thought you were my boyfriend

Thursday, November 19, 2009

what.

while writing a paper on cocteau's la belle et la bete and thinking about fairy tales, i pulled up my old friend, Last Semester's Deliriously-Written Half-Finished Victorian Fairy Tales Paper That Should Have Been The Best But Wasn't, and i came across this little gem:
Fantasy and fairy tales have the subversive potentiality of no other genre because of their ability to twist reality through its images and symbols in order to create a new reality of their author’s devise that makes his or her point either subtly or directly in comparison to reality as we know it.
translations, please??

Friday, November 13, 2009

ready to explode

i slept all morning to, i guess, make up for the amount of sleep i haven't gotten over the last week. i wish i hadn't, though, because my service trip with my abroad class is tonight, and i'm afraid i'll be up all night, and then i won't want to wake up to garden.
speaking of my abroad class... i woke up to this email from my mom, who i had spoken with on the phone last night. she was planning to call somebody from international programs, but i suppose she couldn't find just one person and decided email was better. so she sends the following email addressed to the dean of students, the dean of work (one of my teachers), and two people in the international programs office... but she didn't use their individual emails and now i'm freaking out that a bunch of student workers are reading the following letter:

To all of you --- I wasn’t sure who to address and it has take longer than I like to find email addresses (does no one have individual e-mail?)

I have a number of concerns about my daughter’s upcoming study abroad class. I don’t want to pay for something that, frankly, seems poorly planned and lacking in academic rigor.
As of yesterday, there was no syllabus, and no full itinerary. The classes that are supposed to prepare the students for the trip are, in the opinion of my daughter, not helpful. I trust my daughter’s reasons for questioning why she should continue with a class this unpromising.

This brings me to my second concern. The plane tickets were bought the week of the first class. It was too late to withdraw when she discovered the class was not what she thought it would be. The class description was certainly enticing, and I’m sure Alanna imagined something more suited to her interests. But again, when the imagination became reality, it was too late. This is most unfair.

I really wanted my daughter to have a study abroad experience, even a very short one. I expected more from Warren Wilson programs because such a strong emphasis is placed on international studies. I really want her to have a good experience. Is there any way she could design an independent study to pursue in England for the time period? Perhaps Warren Wilson has a partner college somewhere that would provide housing. I do not want to lose the money we have paid, and I do not want Alanna to miss a trip to England that will be closer to the study we both believed was offered. I may be overly optimistic, but I believe we can find a way to make this a positive trip.

I usually try to let my daughters’ figure out the problems of college life on their own. However, this problem is too thorny to ignore. I will support Alanna in her decisions, but I wanted to make sure we covered every option.

I appreciate that you listen to our concerns, and I hope we can find a way through the thorns.
Respectfully,
[MY MOM]

after this message, how can i go on the group trip now, even if i wanted to? what a mess. someone please tell me how to feel about this.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

everybody sees your smoking gun

this week is all dreams and undone work and headaches and wetness and mess, no time to write at all. and yet...
my big news: i heard back from diane cluck, and she will play on campus next semester! can i tell you i'm thrilled? i wanted a spring show, outside somewhere, but she may be doing a residency somewhere then, so it's looking like february. i need a way to make all the right people come.
oh obvious, the other big news: bell hooks will be on campus all day tomorrow!!!!! my women in u.s. history class gets to join a couple other classes for a special q&a with her at 9:30, she's having gladfelter lunch with students (although i'm too scared to go), and i'm skipping my film class to see her speak at 4pm. i got one of her books from the library, but i've had so much to do, i haven't had any time to read it. i feel guilty that i won't have done my homework for her visit, but i'm excited just the same. i really want to get this book, and also this one. i can't wait to learn! *dork*
have i mentioned the rain? NONSTOP for three days and no end in sight. mostly it's not so bad that i need an umbrella, but it's surely cold and slippery. the worst part is the worms. yesterday ilinca and i each rescued one from the sidewalk on the sunderland hill, but there were squished ones all around. i've been so careful, walking on tiptoes in my rotting boots, but i still come home with soaking wet socks.
after the worms, i talked to dale for over an hour. dale is one of the two career services staff, and his face is amazing. this was my second meeting with him, but it had been a while, so i had forgotten about his face. i asked my question; he asked me to be patient while he thought his answer through. this was no problem. as he thinks, he closes his eyes, knits his furry brows, and occasionally smacks his lips, the bottom one pulling down on the left side. he emerges from the trance slowly, smacking and talking, and finally opening his eyes SO WIDE that his forehead just grows and his glasses move slightly. that's what i can tell you about dale. that, and he loves what he does. we're meeting again soon because he wants to help me find a job and work on my resume. he makes all this stuff not seem so scary.
on my way back to jensen, i saved two more worms. they were shiny and translucent in the rain, white and pink soil monsters fighting pavement. i hope this damn rain stops.
later, i am washing my hands in the cowpie bathroom. three girls are talking, on their way to dinner, i suppose. two leave, one is left behind fixing her hair, just for a moment. she leaves and cuts the light. i am stranded in total darkness, blind. people are always cutting the light on me in that bathroom; at least this time i was out of the stall. sometimes i am really invisible.
over dinner, morgan tells me that i need valium. of course, there's none to be had. it's only uppers for wilsonites, or lately, echinacea and garlic pills.
i don't know how to write about the hell that is my study abroad class. it is juvenile, embarrassing, and boring. i would be mortified to type out what actually transpired in that miserable hour and a half last night. the point is that i went home and cried and then calmed down and wrote an email to the teacher. i found out today that i can only get a partial refund if i decide not to go. i had a horrible meeting with the two teachers that felt like a gang up of feel good nonsense. these two are a trip of their own, talk about cross-cultural experience. the class is trash, but maybe i should go to england just the same. if i go, will i even try to enjoy the group, or will i be a breathing, reading shadow?
advice on this subject would be just peachy. i'm all lost.

listening to: josephine foster & the supposed - who will feel bitter at the day's end?

Monday, November 09, 2009

too long nap

a bus and a plane. brett cancels his flight, where he would have run into my dad, to ride the bus with me. travelling at night, no sleep. a loaf of bread, nutella.
people take pictures of each other -- lover's revenge?

all the lies in a scholar's brain

i made an executive decision to skip banjo class today. to make up for it, i decided to do something productive. class is almost half over and all i've done is... this. i think i'll get into bed and do some history reading. then i'll go to yoga, dinner, and the film festival meeting, but i'll probably skip the radical mental health collective tonight because i think it's art night again blahhh. i have sooooo much work hanging over me, it's not even funny. i hate it when everything happens all at once, but isn't that just the way it goes?
this morning i signed up for my classes for spring: statistics, lit of the restorian period, filming appalachia, and romanticism (i'm the only person in that class so far, but ilinca and morgan are gonna take it with me!) i'm debating adding a 2 credit class like dance, culture, and identity. is 18 hours too much? right now i think i want to go ahead and graduate next semester, rather than stretching it out for another year. why not? i signed up for all my required classes, but i could still change my mind between now and january 22 or so... we'll see.
yesterday i finished lighthousekeeping, and i immediately went to deliver it to morgan's room, where i was sure one of the sick young ladies would like to read it in her little germy bed. however, in trying to sell it to them, i ended up reading them the first chapter. renee and morgan fell asleep, but eva stayed awake, and all of them said they liked what they heard. i hope someone reads it. but also i sorta want to steal it back and flip through it and type up some of the great parts. that's pretty dorky, isn't it. i should be working. yes. productivity is key. i'll do that.

listening to: larkin grimm - link in your chain

Sunday, November 08, 2009

school dream

i’m in a class with my old history professor from loyola, but her hair is longer and maybe black. she’s teaching dance instead of world civ, and she doesn’t like me at all because i’m quiet. when we get evaluated, she says that i can’t finish movements, i’m stiff, and a number of other things. maybe this would be okay, but everyone else got showered with praise. i try to talk to her about it, but she’s really mean. somehow i end up storming out of class and throwing a ceramic teacup at the wall.

i don’t know what i’m gonna do. how can i explain this to dr. b and carol? i try to avoid them, but it doesn’t work. they find me eventually. they’re too kind. dr. b doesn’t really understand, he thinks i didn’t really mean it, but i did. carol is overly gentle in my class with her. she and another guy are team teaching and they do some whole elaborate exercise where we all have to hold hands and weave around the big desk they stand behind.
also there’s a girl in the class doing a project or playing a joke or..? she appears to strip topless, standing next to the male teacher, but i see that she has on some sort of flesh-colored thing that’s also binding her breasts -- she’s trying to look like a little girl.
i think this is part of some sort of school-wide event that’s going on... there’s another thing.... lumber?

i sit in a car with my cousin amelia on a street somewhere. we are talking and we see some possums in a tree. there’s a whole family. i scramble to get my camera ready to film them.

that’s all i have left. i can’t believe i slept till 1pm.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

guilty dream

brett and i go to a little diner at a stop on our roadtrip, although all they serve is meat and fish... i order blowfish, which comes out looking like a miniature yellow blowfish, staring up at me. i don’t remember actually eating it, but i think i did, and of course felt really guilty about it later. brett reassures me in a truckstop bathroom.

i’m at some sort of bar and an older man offers to buy me a beer. i’m wondering what they have here, when he sorta suggets “Bud?” sorta pleadingly, so i get a PBR. he smiles and says, “that’s my kinda girl.”
there’s some bizarre scene with isaac hayes playing guitar on stage and saying something about, if he likes what he’s playing, of course we’ll like it. i think it’s kinda cool, but it’s not really my kind of music, so i don’t see how he is so confident.

i discover and befriend belan a young man who sleeps on a couch in a large alley/courtyard between some buildings. from head on, it looks like walls on three sides, but once you’re inside there are some crevices that lead to other places. i don’t remember much about my intial relationship with the boy except that i loved hin, cared about him.
i got my whole family to come out and meet him and in solidarity, we each slept on a couch in his alley. each member of my family represented a different color in the conversation we had -- like it was somehow in text even though we were speaking. they wanted to help. i switched couches with belan because he wasn’t comfortable and we talk secretly while my family sleeps.
later, still at night, my mom and sister come with me to a nearby alley, skinner, with a fence on one side. there’s a little dog caught in the fence and we help it free, but mom says, “it’s lost an ear.” then we see there are several other little dogs, and maybe a pig, that are missing ears and sometimes legs. i am devestated. i want to bring these animals to a shelter, but mom says no, it’s too late, especially for the one missing two ears and a leg. suddenly one of these little dogs gets swiped towards the fence and its second ear goes missing. there appears a giant cat, at least three times the size of these tiny dogs. it is matted and ferocious and calm, slowly stalking towards the street and away from us. i hate this beast, despite feeling connected to it. something calls us away, and we never come back.
belan gets us in to a party at an apartment in a nearby building. the apartment is nice enough, but it’s sorta faking being better than it is. it’s sorta twisty and the kitchen where i’m standing is very cramped. some people come in talking about haircuts, they look like people i have seen at school. i say, “i need a haircut” to the one i think is mikaliah with fancy hair, but she sort of scoffs and doesn’t see anything. i keep looking at her face trying to figure out who she is, but it’s sort of shifting, and her friend points out that they should leave because i am staring. i’m embarrassed and i leave, realizing that these people are higher status than me and i don’t know them.
someone makes fun of me for my UK trip, saying it’s a waste of money for so little.
the party is a weird mixture of fancy types and drug lords. it’s sorta classy but sorta not. at one point i heard a grizzly pony tail man say, “you should see what i left on the stairs,” so throughout the rest of the dream, i stop to check out every staircase i see, but i just find scraps, paper with nonsense words, a yellow ball.
i realize brandon is there, and my friend xi chen is his girlfriend, which i feel very weird about and i can’t place the feeling... maybe it’s just jealousy. at one point they disappear into the back. it seems like i follow them immediately, but when i get there i feel like they’ve been gone a while. i’m sure they’re having sex, and indeed, they are rearranging their clothes. i’m really upset, i don’t remember what i’m talking about. i want to tell xi she can do better. i see brandon’s bookshelf against the wall and start going through it, finding lots of my stuff, including drawings by me, tom, and our (fictional) friend nathan. i am livid, “i asked you to return my things and you said you didn’t have any!” at which brandon sort of balks, i guess he had hoped that i wouldn’t find out, or he hadn’t realized that this stuff was even mine. i’m especially upset about nathan, and i tell them that he had also been living on a couch in belan’s alley, but he died. brandon is totally out of hte loop and had no idea that nathan died and he feels pretty bad. but he reminds me that nathan was trans and used female pronouns and goes on this tangent about how queer issues are so important to him, especially since, “i mean i do have a girlfriend” but he didn’t identify completely with men. even though this pisses me off, i feel completely awful about not remembering about nathan’s gender, and all i can say is that i just plain didn’t remember... there’s a lot that’s fuzzy about that time.
by now, belan has transformed into a woman, not in a trans way, but in a dream way. i just know that we have to get her out of that alley, i have a new sense of purpose. i am collecting donations from the people at the party and i know she’ll make it.

as usual, there are many details i've forgotten by now already... this is really only the second part of the dream. there was a whole section about me and brett on a roadtrip, and all i can remember is that sad little blowfish looking at me. i would like to say maybe more will come back to me, but since it typically doesn't, i don't really think it will. although i wish it would.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Sunday, November 01, 2009

let's go out into the blackest night time

1. on thursday morning, i left dorland in a hurry, with only 3 minutes to get to history class. still, i paused to hold the door open for the person coming out of the basement, who turned out to be thomas. i had met him a few weeks ago when jayme insisted we invade his room at 3am. we touched tummies and he was nice, but it ended awkwardly with me getting all quiet and self-conscious. i don't think we had talked since that night. so, i was nervous to see him but took a chance and said hello. he was calm, easy; asked about my fall break. we talked for a moment about the funeral and death, and it was a little intense, but thomas didn't shy away from the subject or say anything fakey. at the end of the bridge, our conversation was interrupted when his curly-haired friend attacked him... something about latex gloves clogging the toilet. i walk away without saying goodbye.
2. on friday afternoon, i was slaving over a cutting board with five giant boxes of apples at my feet, rushing to keep all the plates full for the massive number of wilsonites storming the pavilion, hungry for apples. it was so insane, i couldnt even look up to see who was patronizing my table. suddenly a voice: i look up to see that the bubbly voice belongs to a curly-haired, very cheerful girl. she's asking about the figurine from the Red Rose tea boxes, and what does dr. bradshaw tend to do with them. i tell her there's millions floating around the office and yes, she can have the turkey. a little bit later, charlotte and thomas are suddenly asking if i need help slicing; clearly they are in dr. b's epic-heroic class and have gotten the lecture about helping out the poor ERAs to keep us from slicing off our fingers (too late). thomas is so eager and so adorable, i can't turn him down, but his apple-slicing skills are mediocre, and he gives up quickly.
3. later that night, around midnight, i end up in the room across the hall for a halloween party. among other oddballs in the crowd, thomas and curly-head, whose name was discovered to be gina, were there. my group had stumbled in during a compliment circle, where everyone had to give everyone else a compliment. thomas said he had enjoyed our conversations and that one time at the english offices, he thought my feet were dr. bradshaw's until he saw the pink socks. gina said she liked my hair and that hers was green once too.
4. later that night, maybe around 1:30, i went outside to cry in the tent behind dorland. two people come outside: of course, thomas and gina. i'm a bit intoxicated from the party's gin, so i'm brave and say hello. they don't notice i'm crying, thank the stars, and invite me on a walk. it's raining a little, but we walk down to the garden and all around. somehow we stay up till 4am.
5. last night, after my usual crowd has disappeared or gone to bed, i crept down to the dorland basement to see if my new friends were still awake. i piddled outside the door for a minute before getting up the courage to knock. no one heard it. i tried a few more times, pacing back and forth in between, before they finally heard me. i'm invited outside with thomas, gina, charlotte, and paul to share a splif in the tent in the rain. everyone is drunk but me, so i start to catch up with the whisky in my pocket. charlotte and paul disappear and suddenly, somehow, we are throwing pieces of ceiling tile at each other in a battle that moves slowly down the angles of the dorland basement hallway. somehow i see thomas's ass and i get to watch gina wrestle three cookies and a bag of pirate's booty out of the vending machine with a coat hanger.
6. i wonder if we will see each other this week and whether we will get to talk. these sorts of relationships are so very odd.

listening to: the blow - that boy

Friday, October 30, 2009

but why?

three and a half years ago, i traveled to houston, texas, (about 350 miles from new orleans) to see a band called why? and immediately turn around and come home. well, i guess islands played too, and we did get to speak briefly with yoni wolf, who, it turned out, had also driven from louisiana that morning. we nearly drowned in the same storm. our vehicles had temporarily shared a road, which practically meant we were twin souls. i swooned when they played an old hymie's basement song, when yoni beat his tambourine and simultaneously played the keyboard, when he glanced at me as i shouted the call (or response) on "gemini." then i sorta lost my mind on the drive home, thanks to a slowed and sped up mind. i think i talked nonstop for the entire five and a half hour drive and did a little bit of incoherent writing...
but i digress.
last night, why? played in asheville to support their new album, eskimo snow. the venue is only 11 miles from my nook in the mountains, but i was not in the audience at the show. not because i was in astronomy class (it was canceled) or because i had too much homework. instead, i had ended up at an event called stereohype, which was an open-mic about stereotypes, particularly in response to dance the night a'gay and some people's hyper-sexualization and parody of queer culture. the event was kinda neat, but not really spectacular.. if the organizers had advertised before the day of, perhaps more people could have had time to write something presentable. some people's poems and stories were really beautiful and thought-provoking. and then i stumbled around the main campus and the sunderland lawn with renee, becca, and elliot. we swigged some wild irish rose, split a couple southpaws, bummed a few rollies. we loudly sang "sadie" and "chelsea hotel #2" and talked about the band we're gonna start, any day now.. i wandered back to my room around 1:15 and read a few chapters in the novel i'm reading, which just took a major turning point, and i think the rest might be quite funny and continue to be quite beautiful.
but i digress.... so what happened, anyway?
why? has, like many bands i once loved, ceased to produce meaningful work. this can happen for any number of reasons. perhaps the musician loses inspiration or the process becomes work instead of release; maybe they defeat their alcoholism, or find religion, or get signed. or -- wonder of wonders -- maybe they start to produce music that i just don't like.
i find the latest two why? albums almost completely unlistenable. so, perhaps i haven't given them a fair chance. but i was so disgustingly bored and detached from the message because, perhaps, it sounded like the band was too. i hear a desperation to create a universal message, but the metaphors are failing and the rest is uninspired. although it's hard to hear a message at all between the ever more nasally voice yoni has taken on and the continual references to masturbation... perhaps it has something to do with my gender, but i can't help but pick up a hint of sexism in these songs. every woman is fetishized concept, not a person, and just because it's art doesn't mean that sort of reduction is acceptable. and how many times can you tell the same story the same way?
just look at this travesty; http://vimeo.com/6524204


Wednesday, October 28, 2009

i won't stay awake if i can't kiss your fingers

only have one page of my stupid astronomy paper about space junk. freaking professor never really specified how many pages we are supposed to write ("not twenty"). i am gonna wake up and write the rest tomorrow before class UGH i will be lucky if i can get two more pages out of this thing before i die of apathy. i would rather be learning anything else at this exact moment... boo.
the rest of my day was unspectacular: emma goldman in history, A+ 100 on my grammar exam, cut off from cowpie and exiled to the deli bar at gladfelter, a return to obsessive filing at work, radical politics queer circle, and 11pm chowtime cheese pizza with ben while we attempt to write about space.
why am i alive awake at all?

listening to: throwing muses - city of the dead

Monday, October 26, 2009

i woke up early just to see you fly away

yogi the yoga bear says we will cool down really quickly after today's set, since we're so warm. doesn't she know i'm a lizard?
at tonight's radical mental health collective meeting, we did some really intense check-ins and then... made "art". see here.
it's after midnight, i haven't done any homework, yet i am blogging. ahh... feels like the good old days high school.

listening to: the microphones - i'll be in the air

Sunday, October 25, 2009

would you believe we have a lot to let go?

how did two weeks go by without any activity on this sad little blog? i'll give you the easy answer: midterms and fall break.
so, not a lot of time for writing and reflecting lately. in fact i feel rather out of practice... part of me wants to write an extremely detailed post about what's been going on, but the other part of me wants to forget about it. in-between currently seems impossible.
i guess the weirdest thing is that i went to my first funeral. my great aunt ella died on the 13th, with no clue where she was, but surrounded by family nonetheless. the funeral was in north georgia, so mom drove in to asheville to pick us up last friday. i felt like a freak with my green hair, like no one but my grandparents really wanted to see me. the weirdest part was the bizarre division between the reality of death and the falseness of the whole thing: the slices of astro turf, blue fuzzy stuff covering the folding chairs, some preacher shaking my hand "bless you" that neither i nor ella even knew. before the service, they opened the coffin, even though they had had a viewing the day before.. i guess this was my first dead body too. i wasn't sure what i was supposed to do, other than look in there at all the pinkness they covered her in, and wonder if she was better off, and hope i never get that old and get covered in pink frills and stared at in a wooden box. i would have expected myself to just think that stuff and feel pretty disconnected from the whole weird experience -- the religion, and the guy talking like ella was a saint for billy graham, and the pinkness, and everything all fake. but my biggest impression was in her stillness, and how close i felt to it. and the wind was blowing the bible and the guestbook nearly off the little dinky podium. and there were only about a dozen chairs, and about 20 or so attendees, and no one would take the last five chairs. i wonder if that would be a sort of southern phenomenon, or if that happens at every funeral with too few chairs. and suddenly it was just over, some cousin or some such was shooing us youngins away, telling us that the funeral director wanted to lower the coffin, and could we kindly walk back to the cars. no one followed us, of course. we tread down that hill of bodies alone, trying to pick out the most unoffensive path with little success. there was no wake, no food, no alcohol, no commiseration. just naps in separate rooms in separate hotels, across a strange little town we hardly knew, that chanda swore was run by inbreds, or at least that's what she saw at the cvs. no one really talked about the funeral, or about ella, after that, except when grandma gave morgan one of her old coats, also pink and fluffy. and that was that. i didn't give my condolences to anyone. i didn't apologize or comfort or anything... who would i have chosen? who should i have felt sorry for? i think we all knew that she wasn't happy living anymore and secretly prayed that our lives wouldn't deteriorate like that, whether or not we believed she was ascending through the pearly gates. and that was my first funeral. today i put the coat in the free store.

listening to: karl blau - mockingbird diet

Friday, October 09, 2009

i don't remember what this means anymore

another possum, stock still in the right middle of the darkly wound road. beautiful, i see glowing eyes. i thank my professor for braking.
girl on bus tells me she doesnt like them.

have i rediscovered a secret to sleeping? the old fetal position i used to do all the time, before i started spooning.

three green sprouts in my salsa jar.


it was only small because everything was samll.


image through a video. maube?
oobebesessiososonnn

i need meaing
]he said...
belifs???

Thursday, October 08, 2009

it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me

i dreamed about hiking/climbing trees across an island forest with some people (dudes?) and later going to a small convenience store and walking around late at night with my granny. suddenly it was dawn, and she figured we had talked all night, but i thought the sun was playing tricks.
i only remember this dream because i woke up a couple minutes before my alarm for once.
a few minutes later, i looked out the window and had one of these thoughts: "that looks way too real." how can i tell?
there's a tapping on the bottom of my left foot. i wish it would stop.
my right nostril is stopped up. i really don't want to get sick right now.
today i have class from 9:30 to 12:20, 2:30 to 6, 8:30 to 10:30. i'm going to see some friends open for zoe boekbinder at sage at 7pm. i have a midterm to take, and lots of stupid errands i have been putting off. wish me luck...

listening to: nina simone - feeling good

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

here's to our wings, not knowing why they wilt

fuck my heart in my throat for choking my voice and letting it linger. fuck this feeling all the time.
today i worked for six hours on a bibliography of criticism, reviews, and articles about margaret cavendish. it was intense and i'm glad i'm not working tomorrow.
tonight, the full circle group met for the first time this semester. it was morgan, four of my close friends, plus hannah and luna, who seem to be organizing, and kelsey from recycling. i felt a little out of place at first, but i think it does make sense for me to be there in some ways. the group is talking mostly, i think, about relationships between body and food, but i think that other body issues will enter the conversation as well.
since the meeting, i've been screwin around in morgan and aimee's room with them, eva, and renee. we are ridiculous. very little homework was done. which means i need to go now and finish studying for my world cinema midterm tomorrow and also do my history reading, in my newly tea-christened textbook. i think it is the fate of all my textbooks to be covered in tea this semester. at least this spill was green, not black.

listening to: why are we building such a big ship? - vultures

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

temper and tempest to knock at the moon

the cows are louder than ever tonight. you'd think this would feel calming, rural, rustic, but ever since i found out the truth, it has become sort of terrible. i really can't explain how painful they sound, how devastated i feel, and how haunted i will be.....
a while ago, i got back from my first meeting for my UK study abroad class. it was, as i had predicted based on the email i got last night, slightly obnoxious and elementary. we did some "sensory exercises" where we listened to a song or smelled something in a bag and then went around a circle and told what memories or emotions were stirred up by the prompts. i HATE this kind of thing, i hate stupid sense memory, i dont know who invented it, i dont understand it. i had NO memories related to the sesame street theme song or to the smell of curry powder. the first time around i said 'i dont know' and the second time i made something up. fuck that stupid shit FUCK IT i am not a baby can we talk about katharine briggs yet???? lyn had some more things planned for that game but luckily we only did two. then ian (born in england) read us a story and a poem and we talked about the concept of narrative.. again, pretty basic, simplified stuff, and i didnt really agree with all of it but it wasn't exactly a discussion. i am the only lit major in the group.. there are a lot of writing majors, a few environmental science types, and two business. everyone seems nice enough, but they all seem to know each other already, and i feel like they gave me a weird look when i walked in. lyn said i was the only person she didn't know already... i kept feeling like i had missed out on some secret meeting, have i done something wrong? at the end of the class ian unpacked his suitcases to show us what we should bring on the trip. this was really intimidating and made me worried. i hate the idea of a plane, i hate the idea of the tube, i hate myself for knowing how stupid i will be, too scared to order a drink at the pub. however, i was cheered knowing we will be visiting the homes of william wordsworth and beatrix potter, and going on long walks across the countryside. also ian says that when we're in london, he will give us each some money, and we will go to second-hand stores and buy crazy clothes to wear to the theatre. i like his attitude of traveling light, taking only things that are expendable, and getting rid of stuff as you go, if you find something better. i especially like the concept of being small that they were talking about.. not taking up too much space in order to better absorb new surroundings and trying to melt into the culture. so anyway, as a whole, i guess i'm getting excited about the trip, but i'm really terrified and i think the class might irritate the fuck out of me.. we have to make stupid time capsules for the next meeting. UGH what am i, 9 years old?
so, this weekend renee helped me dye my hair. i have been talking about it for a looong time, but somehow never really solidified what i wanted. so this plan turned into a lot of impulsive decisions, and i'm not really sure how i feel about the result.. i keep going back and forth. right now my whole head just feels like a pile of spontaneity that wasn't necessarily the 'right' decision. it went like this:
  • a few week ago, i asked aimee to cut my hair. i would have preferred her to do whatever, but she wasn't comfortable with that, so she asked me to come up with something.
  • i was itching so bad for the cut, that i just sorta gave her a bad description of a sorta-kinda thing, and she did what she thought i wanted.. it didn't come out how i pictured.. much shorter and more perfectly stylized than i had hoped.
  • thought about cutting off the rest of my hair... but didn't.
  • craving dark green in my hair like a mermaid or a tree. rite aid doesnt have green dye, and walgreens just has 'neon green.' renee convinces me this is what i want, and i figure it'll be okay.
  • renee and i set to work, but what to do? should we cut it as well? where should the dye go? i have not thought about these things at all.
  • renee and morgan agree: more short bangs. a quick chop and it's done. i think i do like this, but it's not much of a haircut.
  • my ideas for dying are the same as my directions to aimee for the cut: confused and vague. renee has a couple ideas, and we just sorta set to it.
  • after i wash out the bleach, i realize i shouldn't have left it in so long. the bright green would have come out darker on light brown hair.
  • halfway through dyeing, i have an idea for what we should have done. but it's far too late.
so, i went to bed with dye and tinfoil on my head and woke up to... what? well, the green is not not not at all what i wanted, and i'm not sure how i feel about it. i wanted something much more subtle... so i'm debating getting some different, darker dye. but i might just let this fade out first. i feel like a spectacle again, the way i used to feel all the time at loyola. not quite as bad, i guess. i *do* love to be a cartoon, but this is maybe a little much. yesterday morgan called me a muppet, a froot loop, and a melted crayon. definitely not my intention.
i can't believe i just rambled so long about my hair. fuck me. am i this lonely? i think i am just obsessed with the documentation. anyway, fuck it all, i need to be less of a perfectionist anyway. who cares about my stupid hair or that i am talking about it.
in other news, the radical mental health collective last night was amazing... so much better than last week. i really like the smaller size, it seems like we could build a really strong support network for each other. i was really amazed by everyone's openness and, in turn, the respect they were shown by the group. yes, i think it's going to blossom into something really wonderful.
right now i have so much on my mind, i don't know what to do with myself, so i do this blog and play the banjo and make stupid jokes with my friends. the reality is that i have about a gazillion very serious emails to write and calls to make and serious serious business to attend to.
FOR INSTANCE i have a lab report and paper proposal due tomorrow yayyyyyyy good night

listening to: throwing muses - green

Monday, October 05, 2009

email from comrade tom

dateMon, Oct 5, 2009 at 3:04 AM
subjectoh that's it



"you put the parts in there
they don't mean the same thing
but i take what i get"

is what i meant the whole time!

Saturday, October 03, 2009

what to do?

should i go to a smart people potluck/party or a g20 arrestees fundraiser or wallow in my room all night?
(i slept till 3:45 today.)

obvervances of the last 20 minutes

--opossum appears out of the depths of sunderland darkness to scavenge for food, find and open a pizza box, and loudly crunch on crusts and crumbs. comes as close as 3 feet?
--a light in the bright full moon fog: lonely individual skips the smoking hut to stand at the foot of the hill. let them keep it, walk to the bridge.
--from under the bridge, a fluffy bundle atop a person creeping towards the vining treehouse. did something run you from the woods?
--a crisp, creaky crackling begins in the schafer trees and lurches towards dorland. it's almost overhead, the sound of tiny pebbles hitting leaves, but i can't feel anything.
--no memory of opening the door

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

the world is on the verge of calamity

banjo is hard. this week i realized i was doing a lot of things wrong and i almost feel like i've had to start over. i'm gonna try to start practicing every day.
my new lamp goes CLICK----CLICK and i don't think i like it. at least, i don't think it was worth moving my old chunky lamp.
i swept up the dirt from my egg and put it in an empty salsa jar.
brett bought me a book and it came in the mail a couple days ago. it is called DIRT and so far it's pretty crazy. i learned about roman bathhouses and plagues and priests that kiss lepers and filthy monks. COOL!!! i know, right? i'm honored that brett read about this book and thought of disgusting old me. i hope it starts talking about trash soon.
today at work i filed and organized and rearranged for hours and hours. i have a strange desire to redo the whole system of the file cabinets and redistribute all the papers around in the office and just generally make a mess and clean it up. at dinner i was thinking about filing. this may become a problem.

listening to: bonfire madigan - o'sanity

the worst

just now i was trying to set up the new lamp my mom sent me and switch it with my old lamp and i was scooting my stupid cluttered desk and i heard something fall and it didn't sound bad but then i looked behind the desk and there was dirt everywhere and it took a second to hit me: i broke my egg plant. katherine gave that to me months and months ago, and the worst part is, it was still unhatched. i've been waiting for the right time to crack the top and start growing the marigold inside. i almost did it when i moved into this dorm, but i was waiting for the "perfect" time. i guess this is a lesson for the perfectionist part of me... dr. b was getting on to me about that today, too. now i'm really upset. i guess i'm gonna eat my weight in chocolate, and maybe peanut butter. what should i do? i guess i'll try to scoop it into a bag... this is so depressing.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

revamp

any thoughts on this new layout? still under construction.. it is one of the premade blogger ones, so i don't know.. it's kinda neat i guess. i dont know, i might just switch it back, who knows. i was getting tired of that old one, though. too much empty space, plus it was on here for like 6 years. that's pretty long, for a layout.

so i am probably maybe gonna change the url of this blog because it's not anonymous at all anymore, now that the blog name has become my email address and username for everything. and what's the point of keeping this thing off google if people can still find it really easily? so... if you want to keep reading, comment on this post or email me. that means you.

a box inside my chest, an animal

today is the 25th anniversary of "the letter" by kristin hersh... just wanted to share that. it's a really intense song, one that i have been dependent on at times, and i know it has been life-changing for so many people.
so, listen to it, i think it's important.

i could not get through september without a battle

today officially feels like fall. walking home from the empower center, i catch hints of roasted marshmallows in the air, that familiar slightly burnt smell that goes with this season. the crisp air felt amazing today, but i am dreading what's coming. morgan says it finally feels like wilson, because so much of our time here is spent bundled up against the cold. it's almost hot chocolate time, i guess that's comforting. something about this weather has made me decide that sitting around my room in a sweater and underwear is a great idea. i think it is, even though my toes are a little cold.
today, sophie asked me how i'm doing, and when my response was hesitant and unsure, she said "oh yeah, your mood always corresponds to the weather!" she's very right. even though i maybe felt a little off today, i was welcoming of the change. i am so ready for this month to be over, for this little section of my life to be done, to move on, somehow. i'm not sure how to accomplish this. perhaps i need a self-help book, or a professional. for now, i will stick to my own program: tea, tickles, phil elvrum. throw in some reflective emails for good measure... but how to let go of so much outrage?

listening to: the microphones - the glow, pt. 2

why put the light on at all?

today at yoga i arose from deep relaxation surrounded by leaves, in my hair and even in my hand. during the class, a cold front came in, and the beautiful day turned into real fall, yellow leaves and all.
each time i go to yoga, the class feels shorter and easier than the week before. i think that it feels shorter because i'm getting used to the pacing, but i think that it is really getting easier, and not that i'm getting stronger, like i wanted to. partly, i am not pushing myself as much as i perhaps should during stretches, because i keep thinking the hard stuff will be next, but it never comes. i might try a different yoga class this week if i have time. don't want to limit myself..
especially since monday is now the meeting day of the new radical mental health collective! today was the first meeting, and in my opinion, it sorta sucked. we were basically just talking about what we want the group to look like, and one dude in particular (who is a nice guy) dominated the whole conversation. i'm nervous about what this is gonna be like... i dont think i could discuss my realest shit with a group of 20+ kids, only some of whom i know. but i'm definitely gonna go next week to see what happens.. mostly what i'd like to see is shared strategies for coping with madness, and more than talking about everybody's personal problems, discussing mental health as a whole: what it means and what we do with it.
i think someone is drinking my soymilk. i think this because tonight, there seemed to be *more* than last time. i think someone is drinking my soymilk and replacing it with water. i put a note on my soymilk. they better not do it again.

listening to: kristin hersh - glass

Saturday, September 26, 2009

humiliation was imminent

so, morgan and i decided a few days ago that we had to see the decemberists at their show in asheville. it was sorta last minute, so they weren't the *best* seats in the house, but they were pretty good, considering. yes, they played a huge auditorium, complete with balcony and all. i was very stressed out about getting to the theatre on time. i worked until about 6 and then sat in gladfelter till about 6:40 when i realized what time it was and rushed over the bridge, and morgan and eva asked if we could go by malaprops beforehand and i said "i guess so we have to leave RIGHT NOW" and off we ran. well of course there were still people arriving all throughout the first band's set and even afterwards. the opening act was laura viers and the hall of flames who i began to enjoy more and more as they played more songs. not the most spectacular lyrics, but some of her images were interesting. it was interesting to see a 5-piece band that sounded so minimal. a large part of it was the absence of drums.. they did have one floor tom that they played occasionally. it was just interesting for so many people to have such a minimal, simple sound. it was nice... but very calming, and not a great preparation for the decemberists' set, if you ask me. there was something like a 15 minute break after laura viers, and finally finally the lights dimmed and the decemberists took the stage. they played "the hazards of love" from start to finish, with guest vocalists becky stark from lavendar diamond, as margaret, and shara worden from my brightest diamond as the forest queen. i thought their microphones were too quiet, or that the guitars were too loud, or something, because i couldn't hear them as well as i would've liked. still, i could tell that becky's voice is much stronger than the album would have me believe. (morgan tells me that in her own band, she sings big. i'm not sure why they made that choice on the decemberists album... could it be because she is a frail little woman, the lover rather than the protagonist? ugh.) her voice is beautiful, but her dancing is... not. it almost looked like shara was teaching her to dance at some points. both of them had very stylized sort of moves, to get them from the back of the stage to the front, and highly theatrical poses during their singing parts. becky as margaret just wilted all over the place, her hands in poses of submission, totally helpless and frail. shara, on the other hand, was intense, punchy and low and angular, and soooooo much fun to watch. i definitely want to look into her other music now. although both of their moves seemed pretty planned out, becky seemed a lot more stiff and self-conscious than shara. i would have thought that after being on tour with them for so long, she would have gotten into the part a little more. but, of course, the whole thing was just beautiful, but the story still confuses me.. i mean, i get the basic plot structure, but i have a hard time following the transitions and understanding exactly what is going on at any given moment. and the climax.. i just don't understand at all. so then there was another 15 minute break before their second set! this was quite exciting. colin informed us that they had crafted the setlist specifically for asheville: all their 'country' songs. "but it turns out we're not a country band" and they were apparently surprised by how few country songs they had. the songs were not all my favorites, but there were some real gems in there. so the set: Angel, Won't You Call Me?; Leslie Anne Levine; Crane Wife 3; Down By the Water; Shankhill Butchers; Chimbley Sweep; Dracula's Daughter; O Valencia; Crazy on You.
Down By The Water is a new song featuring colin on harmonica, and that was lots of fun. Chimbley Sweep was completely ridiculous and got totally silly about halfway through. during the bridge, colin wandered out into the audience and climbed on the seats and was deposited back onto the stage, only to pretend/attempt to play his guitar with his teeth. he said he'd never tried that before, but i don't know if i believe it. then the other guitarist was trying it too, but they couldn't do it at all. finally colin said "i bet you're starting to wonder 'how much did i pay for that ticket after all?'" and i was too. but the madness didn't end there.. colin continued to wander around the stage, trying his hand at drums, and then accordion. everyone was switching instruments, and jumping around, and it was quite silly, but went on just a little too long. colin seemed to be taking advantage of the audience by just doing whatever he pleased, whether or not we liked it -- we were sort of stuck there, after all. so finally they went and played the rest of the song... and then what colin called the worst song he had ever written: Dracula's Daughter. proceeded by a ridiculously long story about how after he wrote it, he was crushed by his own paper, his feather pen floated to the floor, the candles were snuffed out, and god shed a single tear, leading to the creation of the nile river and the pyramids?? i'm telling you, it was just silly! HOWEVER the band quickly redeemed itself with O Valencia... morgan and i stood up to dance. then, the diamond ladies came back out to sing a cover of CRAZY ON YOU and it was AMAZING why was it so amazing i dont know. that song really shouldnt be as great as it is.. i'm gonna download a heart album, dont tell. well, we didnt even have to clap and stamp our feet for too long before colin and john, the giraffe drummer, came back out to sing the newish Raincoat Song, which i remember liking quite a bit, but you know... by this point it was pretty obvious that things were winding down. it was like a lullaby, and i thought they might end there. however, they did not. the rest of the band (and the diamonds) came back out to sing Sons and Daughters for their last song, of course. colin finally gave us a bit of audience participation and told us to keep singing out into the streets and into our beds whether or not it annoyed our roommates. however, asheville hipsters suck at audience participation, and it was the most pathetic thing ever. colin kept having to yell things like, "sing from your chest!" and blah. that was lame... but the show was still great.
johanna was sitting two rows behind us, and she needed a ride home, so i gave her one. on the way to the car, the wind blew morgan's dress all the way up, and she squealed and laughed about it all the way home. we dropped johanna off at the village, but the party there looked dead. back in dorland, we opened a big bottle of pinot noir and watched some videos before morgan and eva had to go to sleep. i took the wine and called renee, and she and i decided to traipse around campus for a bit. we went to the ballfields to find the 90s party, but julie told us she had shut it down because they didn't have a party contract... lame. then we sat outside of schafer and talked to carrie for a while. she was on a queer debutante ball/coming out stories kick, and it transferred to renee and i after she went to bed. eventually we got cold and went to my room to piss and find jackets and more wine. we wanted to smoke so we ended up at... the sunderland smoking hut. this kid elliot was there and renee knows him so we sat down for a while. he is in my film class and we got into a big discussion about breathless and just about movies in general. his friend emma, it turned out, had also been at the show, so we talked about that too. a girl came outside who had apparently had alcohol poisoning that night. her RA had called 911, she was taken away in an ambulance, and had to piss in a cup at a gas station, which she did, but escaped through the back door, and hitched a ride back to school. she had been hiding out in the smoking hut ever since but seemed to be sort of freaking out and thinking about dropping out of school. i met a girl named hannah from atlanta who wanted to know about memphis, and a kid named taylor who was responsible for the miserable movie night on thursday and was generally obnoxious, and a weird guy drinking from a flask who was talking about running over deer. there was a quiet kid who should have stuck around. my shining moments of the evening were 1) spotting a possum that no one would have seen (or been able to identify, apparently) if not for my quick eye and 2) reading (almost perfectly) "spring" by gerard manley hopkins from the ancient, damp norton anthology that i had mistaken for a bible but started drooling over when i opened it to a page of browning.
somehow i stayed out there till 5am, i dont understand at all. did i make any friends? we'll see.
today i slept and slept through all the rain, and had that miserable dream (detailed below). i have not gone outside, i have not left my room. tonight is the lord of the rings/arts and crafts party in laura miess's room. should be exciting! renee says she will help make art for my room, since my walls are so devastatingly blank. there's a superhero dance party in my dorm, so i'll probably go for a little while. i have a feeling there were a lot of things i was planning to do today. however, i have forgotten them all and i don't feel like looking at my list to find out what they were just yet. instead i will make some tea and listen to songs.


listening to: rasputina - cage in a cave

disconnected bits from this morning's dream

brock and his new friend are planning to go to france again, of course, even though he'd said he needed to stay here for a while. who would want to stay? he's glowing, so excited. distant before he's even left.
while htey talk, me and a child play games like hide under the mattress. am i babysitting, or just excluded? i feel small too, i can climb around on the furniture like a child.
everything in the town is short, a seemingly neverending straight road cluttered with one-story buildings that are brown and shacky. it's like everyone's a gypsy, nothing is safe. there's a sort of primitive feeling, anything goes.
brittany mcbride's parents open a tavern. normally i would be nervous to go into a place like this, i might not even be allowed to be there. but because i know them, i know i won't get fucked up being there.
i'm sitting with a few people, we are the only people there, we're the first ones to try out the menu. mr mcbride brings us tea but says it's a batch his wife made, and it's no good. i look at the menu for what feels like forever, trying to process it. there is a huge list of meats, including about 5 or 6 (?) fake meat options. i don't understand if it will just be a big slab of meat or if these are choices for different dishes. everyone else is ordering, and then eating, and i'm still staring at the menu. then i remember mr mcbride saying something about an apricot bake or something, "thats what you want, right?" apparently he knew i wouldnt be able to handle the menu. the food is placed in front of me, but i'm not sure if i actually eat any of it. i'm not that thrilled about the dish he's chosen for me.
apparently the room has filled up with people. i see laylee at a table across the room, with strangers. she seems strange, like she's on something, sort of helpless. she sees me too and tries to tell me something, but when i try to respond, the mcbride people glare at me and tell me, not here. i'm worried about her but i can't do anything.
still, somehow i walk around a lot during the meal... and end up not getting to eat my apricot loaf. later i'll go looking for it, but it isn't there.
i keep seeing jamila, she's always talking about.. i forget exactly. she has to do something, she knows now what she has to do. i feel like she's in some sort of bad money situation or trouble with the law, or something, and she's trying to get it sorted out. she's always leaving.
while i am walking by, over a shelf, i see a man looking at me and pointing me out to the man next to him. this continues down a line of four men, ending with mr mcbride. he is shocked but tries not to show it. they're planning to do something to me... ii'm curious what it is.
brandon collapses and is dying. i freak out. me and some other people carry him on a stretcher towards the hospital. he's really sweaty and can't open his eyes. i am remembering everything, how much i cared about him. i give him a very small tongue kiss and tell him i love him. he murmurs "i've been waiting for that." as we get closer to the hospital, he gets more and more coherent, and starts arguing with us that we can't take him htere because he's broke and he hates doctors. i say "wanna see laylee's homeopathetic doctor?" even though i know thats not the right word. brandon says he tried to got here already and it is just a dusty shack, no one there. eventually we stop arguing and put him down, he seems fine again. we don't know how to feel.
i think i run into jamila again.. she's going and i'm coming into the tavern. she says she figured it out... she just has to.. .. what?
brandon's girlfriend is dead somehow. she is propped up on display in the tavern. brandon mourns and i comfort him. everyone's upset.. it is just one more thing in this terrible world going wrong. we watch a video of her (warren makes a brief appearance,a nd i can hear brandon in the background, i guess he's shooting) in a dorm room being cute or something. they're singing abotu how they love this college (obviously crashing there) and she says something like "my arms are swirling around without anything to hold on to" or something even more obnoxious. there's a sheet over the bottom bunk and i'm jealous of the tent, though i wonder if they made it or if it was there already. this is the most realistic part of the dream..
i am wandering around through the city, hopeless, when i see from a great distance, up on a hill, tons of people in tattered clothes slowly pouring in. the "minutiae" (?), or refugees, were forcibly removed from russia and sent back here. i feel like i am hearing this as an announcement over a loudspeaker as it happens. it is a devestating event, a travesty of human rights.
i wander alone along a balcony. i contemplate jumping off but the water is too shallow, it's just a shallow pool of clear water, from here i can see fishes and the tiles on the bottom.
i feel like the mourning period for brandon's girlfriend lasts a few days... finally one day we are in the tavern and he's weeping over her and she just opens her eyes and starts laughing. she was never dead, it was just a joke. "didn't you read my blood letter?" she sticks out her tongue, and brandon scrolls through, reading the words there. he starts laughing too, and everything is okay. i am infuriated, i['m screaming at her, calling her an idiot and an imbecile and heartless. the two of them, and everyone else in the town, think i'm overreacting, being stupid. i nearly throttle the bitch. finally i just leave, feeling ridiculous.
i am wading in the shallow pool with a little kid (the same from earlier?) schools of tiny fishes keep swimming through my underwear, and i have to push them out of my pussy. i feel like htis scene has already happened somewhere earlier in this dream.
i end up alone and outcast in the post-apocalyptic little town. i don't know if i can go back to the tavern, and i don't know where my friends have gone. refugees are crowding in everywhere and i couldnt find room to breathe.

listening to: pitterpattering rain outside the window

Saturday, September 19, 2009

gotta keep it kind

the peal open mic last night made me wish i was writing again, or that i could write at all.
right now i'm brewing chinese tea given to me by my new friend, qi. she's says it's green tea infused with jasmine. i followed her directions perfectly but i still feel like i've done something wrong. i probably wasn't supposed to stir it. i was probably supposed to let it steep untouched for half an hour, while singing it a lullaby. this inspires me: i would like to read a book about tea.
yesterday my legs stopped being so sore from yoga on monday, and i could flex and stretch them and start to feel muscle. i was so excited i kept kicking my legs around last night and telling morgan and renee how strong i want them to be. so strong!
i planned to finally get my passport today but apparently they're not open. i'm a fuckup.
(actually this tea is really sweet and soothing and good. maybe it will fix my cramps.)
i plan to do laundry, refill my pills, dye my hair, appeal a parking ticket, write a letter, go out to dinner with morgan, wear a mustache, and dance the night a'gay. oh yes, and write this fucking paper.

listening to: thao with the get down stay down - know better learn faster

Thursday, September 17, 2009

words have nearly always hung me

my first paper of the semester was due today. i wanted to get started on it on tuesday night, but between going to ingles, eating ben's birthday cake, and studying for my astronomy test, there wasn't time. last night i sat down around 8:30 to write the paper, made lists of notes, organized them into paragraph topics, and then fucking panicked. it has become inevitable that all my papers go this way. i turned in almost every paper late last semester because i didnt start till the last minute and then i forgot how to write a paper, every time. i am considering going to the writing center for advice. i'm sure they'll say, write your outline and thesis paragraph two weeks ahead of time (my book hadnt even arrived in the mail yet) and write a paragraph every day (the most important part of the reading was the last 20 pages, which i read yesterday) and bring it to the writing center 5 days in advance. well, i wish i could do that. this keeps happening when i try to write papers and i feel like a total failure. it used to be my biggest (only) strength in school. i would gladly write a paper over giving a presentation or making a poster. where did i go wrong?
i guess i'll blame new orleans.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

you dont have any self-esteem at all

yet another internet test tells me that i'm an INFP type personality... the tests are always hard for me because i start contradicting myself halfway through. but i do think that this answer makes at least a little bit of sense... maybe? i've gotten INFP every time i've taken the test over the past few years, but i did get ENFP once, back in high school during a confident phase. (if you dont believe me, it's in the archives.) i think i like that description better.
anyway, i want you to take the test and tell me what you get.

listening to: throwing muses - epiphany

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

things i needed to do today and didn't do:

--get a banjo
--call the health center to make plans to get my physical
--go to see an eighth-generation appalachian ballad singer at sage cafe
--go to derek's meeting aout the g20 protest
--sign up for some activist table thing that i couldnt find
--pick up my mail
--get ahead on my homework
--fix the art party
--write
--take a shower
--eat enough food
--find my TWO missing cups
i guess thats all.

Monday, September 07, 2009

how could you be so blind?

nobody sells you a banjo on labor day. i'm staring to hate all holidays. i went to yoga to unwind, but it turned out to be sort of really intense, a mind-fuck body breaker. i nearly cried a few times, but i refrained. luckily i have made this bodily function optional. mostly. now i'm trying to do homework but i can't seem to get past the fact that i'm staring at a big page full of black text. my mind is on letters, my own words, so many things i need to say. of course, i'm doing this instead.
why do people have to be such bitches? here's what happens when you're depressed on the internet. what can i possibly say? i wish someone would defend me.
also, should i drive an hour and a half to buy this beautiful handmade banjo, which i probably do not deserve?

listening to: joanna newsom - flying a kite

Sunday, September 06, 2009

september 4, excerpted from my journal

today in class he treats ben like a dog. yells at him -- "Ben, Stop!" humiliating him and the rest of us. i can barely keep from sliding under the table. why couldn't he say "please" or at least treat him with respect? the classroom suddenly feels like a hierarchy, just like at work, and i'm uncomfortable with my position, wherever it is. i must be a masochist to continually be in this situation, to put myself near this man every day. i consider poison -- nothing fatal. then i consider switching crews but i doubt i could do it. then i'm thinking about my classes, which have seemed fine until now, how i know they will make me miserable because that's just the inevitability of going to school, and being surrounded by humans-- the obnoxious laughing fuckers in film class, the unbearable silence of my all-female women's history class, the droning voice and roaming eyes of my astronomy professor, and dear old bradshaw. it's over before it's begun, and i can't seem to stop the slide. i wonder how long i'll try.

Saturday, September 05, 2009

my lip keeps trembling and i'm not sure why, but i'm almost ready to blame it on my new birth control pills. if i stay busy, i can almost distract myself from feeling so loveless and cold. tanya donnelly singing "it's not time for me to go" almost sounds like an omen.
almost, but not quite.

listening to: belly - stay

Friday, September 04, 2009

unfortunately

i'm glad they're happy but right now i would rather not know.
i thought he was good, i'm not surprised that i was wrong.
you are no longer someone i want to spend time on.
i don't remember why i'm still here.
no one confuses and kills me like you do.
the facial structure of certain female strangers gets me dizzy, dry-mouthed.
i was told she was dumb, that's why i'm not jealous.
so why does the dagger still stick warm in my gut?
another anxiety dream about work. went to some sort of convention with dr. b and maybe some friends, students? i get sick and cant actually attend, and i cant make it to work work the next day either. the reasons seemed genuine at the time, but now i cant remember them... later i ask beth if it's okay, if i'm in trouble. she says he's REALLY mad. i spend the rest of the dream avoiding him, running around terribly anxious and frantic.
morgan is in antoher part of the dream... i remember very little of what we talked about. she tries on huge solid color t-shirts (neon green) and she looks like a bell.

Thursday, September 03, 2009

a hopeful day, but now i really feel like dying.
or maybe just living alone in a cave for all of forever.
eyes sting, chest caves with unnameable sadness.
how did i get so alone?

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

stand here and see this

oh god i've realized what my haircut reminds me of. and it's terrifying.

listening to: the blow - come on pauline

Sunday, August 30, 2009

if the rocking chairs don't get me

last night i dreamed that i befriended a little poofball with eyes, a creature that made sure the world would continue working as it should and protected the trees, not unlike a kodama. it introduced me to the other poofball types and everything was beautiful until society created some sort of huge metal monster machines to destroy them. i tried to stop them but it was impossible.
i might have remembered more, but i woke up to the sight of two young women also waking up on my extra mattress. unexpected guests throw me off. but it was a nice day, i suppose. better than yesterday. we ate indian food buffet style and wandered around in asheville and read poems in bed. i plunged a toilet for the first time, and it was also anticlimactic.
now, all my homework is done and i'm a lonely one.

listening to: hurray for the riff raff - here it comes
my clothes dried in the sun, i laid in bed not even tired.
went to dogwood pasture for the first time, it was terribly anticlimactic. the sign said beware of an aggressive bear, but not even a rustle. a foggy night with no stars, just sitting on a concrete slab, with nothing to say to anyone.
found out that the midnight serenade from the cows was the mothers separated from their calves. i feel guilty for being soothed by those sounds.
i maintain the illusion that no one likes me, still wants me. the day is a regression, a waste.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

first friday

today: two girls cheek to cheek, wooden bench in a circle of trees, everyone is walking to class but no one is around.

the bridge rattles and creaks, a metal bar come loose shakes as i walk over. the drop to the ground becomes clear, stretches out and i'm thinking about dying. you give me a soft smile that makes this okay.


tonight: "open mic two" smells like train travelers and sharp pine, the weight of sophie's shoulders shaking with laughter into my chest, so many hands keeping simultaneous time that i can barely make out chris singing and picking, morgan dances and smiles in a way i'd forgotten, i twirl a yellow flower.

i keep thinking there will be a parade, but the banjos are put away and i go home alone.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

film class makes me full of myself. i might turn into a snob. was this a bad idea?
feel like making eyes with everyone... another bad idea?
every day this week i've passed the same cigarette butt on the third step on the stairs by the cowpie patio on the way to the library. i wonder why no one has bothered to pick it up, at eco-college. maybe it's fear of swine flu? but still, it's surprising, nonetheless. i realize that i haven't bothered to pick it up either, which i can justify -- if i picked it up, i might be tempted to smoke it. but that's a silly mind game, and i am just the same as everyone else.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

that's more of a lie than it was supposed to be. i am working on honing the skill of exaggerated storytelling. how am i doin?
yeah right.
today i was almost run over by a tractor while delivering the english department mail.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

sending off all my hopes on this flight

fuck this summer. fuck a movie.
turning off tunnel road, i roll the windows down and let the sweet mountain air cut into my lungs. how did i forget this feeling of freshness, everything circulating new and clean, not muggy stifling sitting around stuck for the same forever.. green floods my vision and i'm so glad we got here before dark, to see the valley and the farm and a loner crossing the bridge above the road.
we're unloading the car and i spot a squirrel in the dorland lobby. he played the piano but froze when he caught me staring. i hope we get to be better friends.
i'm really starting to get settled in, have i finally gotten used to dorm life, after all this time?
through the open window of my dorm room, i hear all kinds of crickets and bugs and birds... (have you ever had this happen where you're listening to an album and suddenly it's playing cricket sounds through the speakers and it's strange competition for the crickets outside and it sounds like this bizarre echo? well, i think i like it.) and suddenly, from a distance, a flock of geese! i peer hopefully into the twilight and am granted a glimpse of the magnificent v, so close to the trees, so lucky.
i cross the bridge at the exact right moment to see a beautiful moth land on the rail. she pauses, stretches and lets me take her picture. oh, to be a mountain thing!!

listening to: julie doiron - oh these walls

Friday, June 19, 2009

tell me another one

took me forever to get to sleep... thinking about me and brett and our relationship as it slides away from us. depressed as hell and desperate for sleep. however, not sure if i had this dream until after the phone rang early this morning... slept till noon, and this is what happened:
  • rainbow-- wanted to steal but felt guilty, justified it and only took a pair of socks
  • bar-- hanging out with alice and laylee and friends, they leave and i stay? took a nap at a booth, later they come back and we do heroin (katherine’s birthday)-- it feels AWESOME for about 10 seconds, brett is worried
  • documentary about katherine’s dad (me, katherine, and brett are making it?)
  • katherine’s footage-- dad at work making faces, shots of cars in garages, women in dentist chairs with globes on their heads waiting for brain surgery (shot through glass window) then the tape turns into trailers for some old docs that were gonna be at indie memphis?? long bit about pygmies (i'm getting all the footage mixed up)
  • cottonwood tree in grandma’s backyard in georgia (transforms to another house later?) i can look right into the flower and see the little seeds and i think this will be perfect for my shot, but how can i get ryan here?
  • hippoes and treehouse in the backyard.
  • confrontation with brandon in the treehouse... we talk about our relationship, but he scoffs at a lot of what i say. he calls me crazy and addicted, i try to explain the circumstances, ask “what about tom? you like him.” brandon says tom denied/downplayed his insanity/addictions while he was with steff, and now it’s all broken loose (does he say that it’s just like me? or is that implied?) and i argue that that’s not true about tom (also me?)
  • we can see my mom asleep through the window
  • i ask if it’s christmas and he says almost. but it feels like summer
  • i think he’s wearing my grandma’s christmas shirt but actually it’s a famous artist and my grandma’s work is on a board that he moves behind him
  • he chastises me about doing heroin and i explain that it was just a little and i had napped
  • i tease him lightly about wanting to have sex with dogs, he denies it... then we see some dogs and his tone changes. he talks about the primal-ness of it and how it really isn’t that bad... he walks over to one by some bushes and fucks it... i am really curious and try to get closer, but i can't really see what's happening, and it’s over in seconds. how does he justify it?
  • katherine offhandedly invites brandon to stay over, and later he takes her up on it.. he’ll sleep in the treehouse and she’ll sleep in the hammock in the back backyard
  • weirdo nature girl agrees to sleep somewhere besides the hammock-- white flowy dress, sandals, weird underwear that showcases her thin pubes (why did i see them?)
  • mom explains to me that the hippoes sleep stacked on top of each other
can't remember it coherently enough for it to be in order, or sound better, or make more sense. that's all i've got.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

losing daylight

this dream might begin when my real-life phone rings and for some reason i assume it’s Will calling me about some show, and when it rings again it must be Stephen, and they need instruments or my help somehow.
i’m in a skinny living room where everyone sits on chairs and couches against the side walls, opposite each other. it’s sort of like rita’s old shotgun, but more fratty. why are we here and these guys talking to us?
we go shopping at target or somewhere. there’s a long sequence of picking out toys and dresses and sheets. are we setting up our dorm rooms? the store seems massive and white and things are arranged sort of haphazardly and there only seems to be one or two of each item. me and another girl get into a tiff about who gets the baby mice toys. i feel satisifed that i’ve picked out good stuff and sit down to each with my friends and the guys from earlier, on the other side of the store. here is a long sequence that sees a lot of my plate and a little bit of hte table conversation, about the food, which is rice and beans. the beans are a very odd texture and a sort of clay dirt red color. they seem more like lumps than beans, but i still make a comment that they’re a complete protein. one kid has to go home to get more money, presumably for food. did he spend the rest on junk? i feel like everyone has more food than me, or keeps getting seconds, and i am the slowest.
by the time i’m done eating, i have forgotten what i put into my overflowing cart. i sit down in an opposite corner in the store (front right?) to go through what i’ve decided to buy. nothing seems necessary, and i can’t believe i was planning to buy all these things. i make a huge pile of what i need to put back, i can’t understand what i was thinking. here there is some detail from earlier that i’ve forgotten, about how for some reason i have my suitcase here, and a lot of my own clothes. so another problem is that a few of my own clothes have gotten mixed in with the stuff in my cart, so i am setting those aside, too.
in my cart i find a beautiful green dress, and i look forever for hte price tag. when i find it, all the numbers are sort of rubbing off, and it’s been marked down so many times i can’t tell which is the real price. it was once $796 or something ridiculous but now it’s... $80? i can’t quite make it out, and make the decision to put it in my suitecase with my real clothes. it will be an honest mistake. in the pile, i also find a cream colored slip that doesnt look like my style so i try to katherine if its one of hers. she has her back to me, and i suppose she is busy doing something that i can’t see, but it annoys me that she doesn’t answer me. i ask her a couple of times and maybe throw the slip over to her. i’m pretty sure it wasn’t hers either. then for some reason i’m looking on the bottom of this clothes rack behind me and i find what looks like an old halloween shirt of mine. then i see that it must be my shirt because it even has my old buttons on it still. then i find another shirt of mine, from kindergarten, that has a picture of the class on it, and i find my face on it too. i feel like i am trying to prove to someone that these are my old clothes, but i can’t remember who it is or if it was just to myself. then on the shirt, there’s a scene that scans the faces of the class, who are standing on some sort of float. below the float, there is a band playing in a little row for the picture. the accordian player is a guy from the frat (john katz?) and the guy standing next to him is his brother or twin or clone. they look older although i thought they were the same age as me.
i think this somehow transitinos into another section of the dream, in which i am in some sort of class, although the room is really dark and everyone is sitting cross-legged on the floor, and i think there’s a piano. the teacher looks like patti smith and when she asks who wants to read a poem aloud, i volunteer. a couple of lines in, she steps out. since i started reading, the room seems really loud, some sort of white noise that i can’t possibly speak over. my voice can’t get louder and i can’t be heard. it’s frustrating because i really want to do a good job reading this poem, but i also find myself really struggling with the language, tripping over my tongue in a way i’m not used to. perhaps this is the nature of the poem (ex. “Gilta razors razor lipsticker”) but i feel like i am mispronouncing words and really straining to read the words in the dark and there’s all this noise, and i’m about halfway through when two kids are simultaneously trying to pass me another poem that’s being passed around, and they’re both laying these two pieces of paper on me-- my arm and shoulder, two angles. i try to ignore them and keep reading a few more lines but it just becomes so insistent, wagging the paper on me and being completely distracting, and the room seems louder and louder, and i finally just say “FUCK, YOU GUYS!” and throw up the paper and walk out of the room. i walk down an eerie dark bluey sterile hallway, totally empty, and imagine what the kids are gonna tell our teacher. i make the decision not to go back to class today.