today

gojis had so many buds, including some of the new implants. 

also pruned them and the grapes and wlberberries. griff is great. tarryn brought biscuits with amish butter. 

meanwhile thursday sent messages from afar that sent me spinning. where do we go?

farm alliance meeting was awkward. i'm just not the same as these people. even before the third beer. bff isolated itself a little but mike was cute and outgoing. 

i started feeling really sad about my grandparents and the ways i've failed them - their expectations as well as my own. i should have collected more stories, memories, sayings. i hear myself trying to say their words and it just hurts. 

told katherine that i want to be funny (again) and how i miss her (again) and that i've been thinking of stupid fake stand up jokes when i wake up in the morning. she wants to hear them for some reason.  but i'm not sure if they're translatable without the laugh track and funny faces.  

i started getting really sad and crying because i don't belong here, as much as i try. nobody saw it. i'm a great actor. i bought a pack of cigarettes to help me handle it. i bought a whisky ginger to help me handle it. i said "can i get... a.. um..." and he said "'may i'? that mught help." i must've given him a look but he brought out a menu anyway. i explained that we'd had a misunderstanding. i thought he was in teacher mode telling me to use 'may' instead of 'can't' but you can't explain the joke after it's happened. at any rate he didn't charge me for the drink. he was cute and young (dani type) and i think he was trying to convince coworkers to come to karaoke at the crown after shift. 

but after that i still went to the bathroom and cried because i'm missing all the things i care about. i don't know how to talk about it. i'm depressed that my therapist stopped contacting me. i'm depressed that i'm surrounded by farmers and i don't share their knowledge- how much do i want to? i'm depressed by all the books i haven't read and jokes i haven't said. i bought smokes. i told morgan at christmas that i smoke because i hate myself and she made me vow to quit. i was doing okay but i haven't stopped the hate. what is the source? i've explained that i feel less depressed when i'm busy and doing things and have lots of projects- then comes anxiety but it's different problems. i'm still avoiding the root of the problem. i'm still in hate with me. and having urges that i can't fulfill, thinking of writing or joking or whatever. thinking of myself in some other schemes but there's no time to dream with all of these other plans on my head. whose plan? whose dream? where do i fit? nathalie told me to see this pattern. i don't need to go where o think i can help. my help is not the solution. how fuxking selfish even am i?? the neediness of feeling other. the demand to be understood. the feeling of never holding anything. 

they've replaced our old streetlight. it was yellow and faulty and perfect. now we have a constant white dawn over everything, to prevent breakins i expect. the light is cold and familiar and unchanging. i sleep with the blanket over my head. 

i miss my cat. dear gods i miss her more than anything. how i have failed. 

don't trust other people with your ideas.
don't trust other people to know better than you about your things.

i would've ordered a new charger, i would've shipped the old one to east wind.
i knew the package would never make it in time, we'd be stuck here waiting or have to leave without it.
we waited an extra day and we're still leaving without it.
so i finally ordered new goddamn gear this morning, which i should've done immediately when i realized my idiot self left the charger in ohio.


if you had told me you shipped the whole thing back to acorn, i could've ordered a new battery as well as a charger. now i'm down to one.
yes it's better than nothing.
yes really there's no one to be mad at but myself.

and then why am i SO upset? what makes me take this SO seriously?
(and yet not serious enough, i could've done so much more.)
((and yet so serious that i build it up and up until i'm too paralyzed to shoot))

3 and a half months after i've started this journey and i feel totally unaccomplished and broken down.
at first i had a lot of ideas for what i wanted to capture, my vision of my role.
you all wanted heads talking with your own ideas regurgitated. nothing new, nothing true.
after i adjusted to the reality, i still had lots of ideas-- what i thought would capture people's attention, funny videos and zines and things.
you all crushed my ideas and i went ahead and finished killing them off.

so where am i now?
i felt so good about what i gathered at the midden. not great, but okay.
i felt so good until alex said "let's do another interview once you've fleshed out your thoughts more."
i felt so good until rejoice asked if i got exterior shots, after we'd left the state, after knowing that they took the house tour without me.
i felt so good until my dumb ass left my battery and charger in the kitchen, right there in the wall, right where someone else plugged it in.
i felt so good when i found mike's phone charger and packed it for him, how thorough i am! (a lie, i felt irritated that dustin had taken his phone and left the charger here, full well knowing this was mike's because he borrowed it, this is part of our party, this comes with us. and even now i feel irritated, surely someone in our crew saw the battery there in the wall, someone knew this thing should not stay in ohio.)
i felt so good when this journey was an adventure, when i had a purpose, how i was alive and living.

where am i now?
i'm so mad at myself about the battery that i'm not present, not engaging, not actively asking questions or trying to learn new people.
and i'm feeling like a grump, irritated by everything, constant frown.
i feel myself faking it trying to let loose and it feels awful.
i hope i don't have to go back on meds.




back on the road, we arrive at Possibility Alliance just in time to catch a tour with a student group from Truman College. we're just a couple minutes late, so a visitor walks us out to a patch of grass where the rest of the group is gathered in a circle, popcorn-sharing the things we want to change about our world.
Ethan wears a red baseball cap and leads animatedly, barely able to keep up with himself and the long strings of ideas he wants to share. some of the kids seem already bored or jaded, or maybe i just can't tell what people are feeling anymore.
it feels good to sit in the grass, in the sun, to watch the cow and feel the eyes of other humble humans who are not (yet) communards, with a whole different kind of jadedness.
as idealistic or radical or "crazy pants" as ethan might be, i'm still drawn into his words, jogging along after the chasing thoughts, i'm feeling this.
"we look at screens more often than we look in each other's eyes. humans spend more than half of their waking hours looking at screens."
i'm wasting my life, it's clear.
ethan is adamant that we shouldn't feel too guilty about our own habits up to this point; that will only lead to more suffering, more pain. self-hate is not the solution.
this is a hard one to remember.
i can feel the others in my party are not so sold. rejoice has gotten this tour speech twice already and dustin's already checked out and "hopeless" (his words, his goal) at 22.
as much as i'm feeling the impact of these stories, of being here, i can't get rid of the nagging consciousnesses of the other side.
it's funny what impressions i have of the different communities before i get there. i guess i thought i wouldn't be interested in this place -- why, exactly? i can't recall now, and i can't remember details, just a vague impression.
maybe because they have a "gift economy" which in Point A world is not as interesting or radical as income-sharing and therefore is null.
maybe because it's just a small farm with one family in the middle of nowhere, missouri.
but being here, maybe it's the college tour, i get the sense that they're engaged on a broader level than most of the other communities i've met. they host quaker meetings, craft nights, work days, straw bale building workshops and permaculture trainings. they just got back from a rally (??) in detroit for water rights.
and they've done all this with ONLY a landline telephone and no other electricity.
so what do we think we're doing???
at every community i visit, i consider living there, if only for a moment. on this day, in light of all this mess, i wonder what my life would be like without electricity, without screens. how important are they and how much do i need them, really?
maybe ethan is a crackpot and an idealist but isn't that what i've always wanted to be too?
he asks us this question i've heard a lot lately-- if you could do anything, be anything, if someone waved a magic wand and you could have your dream, what would it look like?
i never do know.
i think that's a major part of my problem.
it changes on the daily or it floats just beyond me, a shifting shape in the fog.
what would happen if i cut it all out, the distractions and the phoneys and the plastics? would i find any answers?
what if i learned all new arts, what if i learned a whole new way to be myself?

i might want some of my modern things.
i might want a manual typewriter.
i might learn to build creatures and make worlds and take photos on film to tell my stories.
i certainly will need my cat.
i don't know what to do about that.

for that moment when i imagine myself in whichever community, i can be anything, i have a whole beautiful life there for myself.
and every life, in every land, is always different.


i listen so much, it's one of the few things i'm really good at, that i value about myself.
so often i hear you before you've spoken. sometimes i can answer before you've said it -- and then you interrupt me to tell me your thought and it was exactly what i thought. why can't you hear me??


"Pandora was pretty dopey dude, she had pretty simple instructions. just don't open the box! stupid bitch."

make this man stop butchering this song.

thin skin

this is why my thin gs are lost.

this is why i'm not allowed.

i tried to organize the zines and pamplhets; they were in miples that made sense.
i walked away.
i walked away and that's my own fault.
i walked away and came back to a beautiful clean table.
a clean table and all my piles all my attempts to organize dismissed.
why did i ever bother
why did i even exist
i'm sorry that i have to make piles to feel alive. i don't know where to go where that's okay.
i don't know where i can give anything that gets credit.
i want to be yr legit diy librarian.
yr diy archivsit
yr diy therapist

and yet get into an argument:
you need to shave your legs.
OH DO I
i can't understand although she says it's not personal, it isn't me, she would say it to anyone
can i exist even this close to the status quo
YES WE'RE SAYING THESE WORDS
can i exist without being judged?
no. i'm okay with that.
i'm a judge too it's cool.
can i exist without being made a fool?
okay but you decided that'
the clown was the object
how can i be a clown without being destroyed?
that's for the people to decide
you're the joke
you play the part
and see how the audience reacts
you can't decide how it all shakes down

they ask if you know your skin is thin
if you know your size and scale

it's not wrong, it's just a feeling

apparently this weekend's midsummer SUPERMOON has some downward pull so i guess maybe i'm not so alone after all. although it doesn't really feel that way. where did everybody go? it seems like i used to always have someone to talk to, even if it wasn't necessarily the right person... i miss that. i got to skype with brock for a little while tonight, but the last few years, whenever we talk, i just really miss our old days of talking for hours and hours on end, breaking down every gesture of every social situation and attempting to untangle our confused psyches... the way we pulled each other out.

i hate being nostalgic for high school shit. i hate remembering how long ago that really was. it's not like i can't have interactions like that anymore, i just... don't. 


listening to: tiny vipers - slow motion

however

however happiness is never. the time it comes is the same that it goes.

the restless feeling makes me run to the bars, to the people, to the substance something. 
there is nothing there. that is not where i needed to be.

instead i'm trying this old tack: jam jar gin and tonics, a rollie on the porch out back. 

this isn't it. 

it isn't anywhere.

the only thing is the cat in the drawer.

the only thing is never, more.

i pretend this isn't right, that there's another place for me.

it's nowhere. 
it's nothing. 

cant even complete these sentences. all i hear is wrong.

incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow

currently suffering from constant disappointments. how can i possibly turn this around?

i seem to have lost any fluency i once had in human conversation.
also, words in general.
it's just a COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN. it's always the same.

the girl from my film project mediated a q+a conversation between me and the boy i dreamt was my friend. i was floundering, so frustrated with her impudence, killing.

where do i keep going? the weekends feel like the polar opposite of the weekdays, and that's how it's been all along. except that the weekends aren't really good anymore.

i can't think of anyone i want to talk to right now, but i'm desperate for something. i'm terrified of where my existing relationships are headed and incapable of forming new ones that could be as important and beautiful.

just spilled water all over myself. only 10 minutes ago i was cleaning up the wine i spilled when i tripped on the stairs. not even tipsy.

i'm not present here anymore, but then again, i'm not sure i ever was. but then again, i'm not sure i've ever been. i'm starting to become terrified of going home.

am i even human? how can you be sure?

these lines near killed me today:

when i saw the blossoms broke after the rain
limp and sodden, when you wrote me again
made me think of spiders i washed down the drain
spiders' ghosts, thrown up and back again

blessing all the birds that died so i could live
be a woman
be a woman

all i can do is do.

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.

it's too warm inside your hands

friday was great. ada came to senior out to lunch at atlanta bread company with alice, brock, katherine, laylee, and me. the place was a bad idea, but it was pretty fun being loud and irritating to the east memphis stiffies. we screamed about sex and drugs. after school brock and i went to starbucks then davis-kidd to hang out with margaret. we called alice but she decided she didn't want to hang out. ada met us there, we spent forever standing in the cold parking lot trying to keep warm. fire and ice, babies. we made plans to see tarah, and in the meantime went to visit sick laylee at her house. we ate ice cream and looked at baby pigs. ada called LA for the second time that night, but she also pulled out. nothing was really going the way we'd planned, and i thought ada would be irritated, but she was not. which i am glad for. anyway, ada, brock, and i left for tarah's but on the way she called us and said something had come up but she'd call us when it was over. we wasted time and money at sonic, but listened to good music. stopped by my house for a bit. brock had to go home, so me and ada went driving. tarah never called, so we ended up outside atlanta bread company again smoking cigars. margaret called and said they'd missed their movie, and shortly thereafter, she, christie, and elizabeth joined the party. elizabeth couldn't stay long, and the rest of us went to ck's for a quick cup of coffee. christie had to get home, but margaret invited ada and i to come hang out at her house for a while. we cuddled up in her lovely room and talked for hours. we all lost track of time, for sure. ada finally dropped me off at home around 4:30, and at that exact moment my cell phone started ringing. my dad had discovered that i was not in bed. i made up some weird lie about being outside and talking on the phone. i'm not sure he bought it, but he didn't bring it up today, so i'm not worried. this morning i woke up at like 11:30. had some pasta. watched a lord of the rings special feature with morgan and mom. talked on the phone for a little bit. took a shower. went back to bed until like 6:15, at which point i ate some backyard burger. dad got me a cheeseburger. it was a cooked burger with grated cheese sitting on the top. unfathomable. then morgan and i went to the american musical review at our school to see newman in all his magical glory. i am totally in love with him. in contrast, everything else about it was very shitty and high school as expected. everyone was either showing off or just boring to watch. i spent a lot of the time laughing silently to myself. no offense to anyone in it or anyone who enjoyed it-- it's nearly impossible to have a good high school show, and i'm super critical about them for some reason. almost everything about those things pisses me off, from stoned, self-important techies to selection of songs to irritating people in the audience. oh man i can't help it. afterwards, dad picked me up. we had to drive duncan home. i like her. i watched yellow submarine with my parents. it is not anywhere near being the best beatles movie, and this time i enjoyed it less than i ever have before. i guess i was just in a really critical mood tonight. oh well. then i talked to brandon on the phone a while. i meant to go to bed right afterwards but look at this. here i am. i've already brushed my teeth and everything. sometimes i wonder why i keep this stupid blog, it just wastes my time and yours. now don't you feel silly for spending all that time reading this silly thing? yes you do. good night.

listening to: sleater-kinney - turn it on

i accidentally said out loud “i'm gonna kill myself next year” and the guidance counselor two feet away with her eyes on me didn't offer any guidance and looking at ms. ennis yammering on about how we are all going to competitive colleges because we have goals for the future and we know what we want to do with our lives we want to be doctors lawyers successful and think how terrible we would turn out with no AP classes. looking at ms. ennis and my schedule -- the product of adult and peer pressure -- brings me so close to sobbing that i can't answer her questions because i know my voice will split into a thousand glass splinters and i will shatter in my tiny shell. i hate myself for the courses i'm taking i hate myself for the study hall i'm justifying and it's not even about the grades. i want to please the people i love i want to be with the people i love i want to be doing what i love i want to learn to love myself and, ms. ennis, you are not helping my self-esteem and i hate your pathetic shit-driven shit-ridden guidance. you and your society have shot down my dreams like little geese in the sky because hunting is not a crime here in the south and it's funny that i should mention geese because remember when they would land in the courtyards in middle school and we would watch them instead of class? i remember watching geese and squirrels and leaves but not the blackboard. now i don't know what to do because this classroom is in the basement and we don't have any windows and i don't know what to do because i am not old enough to make decisions for myself. if it were up to me i'd just take some honors classes and i'd sign for Astronomy and German or something and if it were up to me i wouldn't be so nervous and i would be making films daily and it wouldn't matter what some “guidance” counselor thinks (or what she's telling me to do, classes she's telling me to take, how she's telling me to live) because i'd have a strong-minded person to listen to instead. plus i can't stop thinking about the choices i've made because i wrote “classes” on my hand to remind me that i had to decide today and now that it is done i can't think long enough to rub ink off my skin. i have planned myself some amazing hell. it was not supposed to be like this. i'm shaking under my jacket and tears have been pushing their way out of blinks slowly over the last two hours and i can't think straight and i'm fucked up and i hate it. i am mad at myself for not being satisfied with AP/competition/lawyer. today i only want a hug from someone i love, to hear that i am still beautiful and now that life is sort of constantly like that, metaphorically, i thought i would get the literal thing easily. nah. i only get the gift of “LOOK AT THAT UGLY GIRL” in my ear drilling into my head. and no wonder i have no confidence, huh? don't worry, this thing is only a matter of time, right? time until i get over my stupidity until i get over my choices until the year of hell is over. hey i'm just jealous of your good day.