Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts

Sunday, June 23, 2013

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

Sunday, January 09, 2005

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

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

he move me and the chains changed

today is nothing but ice and misery. i'm trying to make myself work on applications, but i'm a whiny baby and i need someone to hold my hand and tell me what to say. i've been avoidantly making charts to look like i've accomplished something and tittering through things i've already finished. when i stop caring altogether, i snack on wheat thins stacked with monterey jack cheese, sip some DP, and listen to kristin hersh. i've become enthralled (again) with her early Muses work. i live in cycles. we used to be funny. one day we'll find it again.

listening to: throwing muses - cry baby cry

Thursday, December 16, 2004

i'm in the fire

school's finally out but nothing feels different. at least not yet. we took our last exams today, then alice, brock, and i went to starbucks where i had my millionth chai. brock went home feeling sick, i came home to sink into a sleep. however katherine called and saved me. we talked on the phone before she came over and we just hung out a while. seeing her is so great, and i am so lucky to have such a great friend. then we went to dinner with my family at bosco's. having katherine there was a nice addition to the conversation. we're a silly family at restaurants, i guess. my mom told ridiculous baby stories and got loud and hysterical. i love it. and i love creme brulee. we came home, and katherine and i wrote some silly rodent-themed parodies of christmas songs which will be performed tomorrow at the yuletide extravaganza at alice's house at 2pm. be there babies.

listening to: pj harvey - snake

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

The higher he's a-getting

i just got home from studying english with katherine. she is a flatterer. i don't mind because i love her company. i have my last two exams tomorrow and i obviously should be studying right now. english won't be too bad, but i'm worried about government. whatev, mang. gather ye rosebuds and shit.

Sunday, November 07, 2004

show's over, folks

i'm partly glad to have more free time on my hands, partly relieved that i can forget all these lines, and then i'm partly anxious now that i have nothing to focus my energy on. also nothing to blame my late nights and dead days on... although i'm sure they'll keep happening. they always do. i really need to focus on getting everything done for school and college, and also get working on some new projects. as long as i always have a viewpoint to look forward to, a realistic short term goal, i'll be fine. i hope. it's the unrealistic short term goals that really get to me. i hope that things'll be all sorted out soon. right now i'm just looking ahead to thanksgiving break. i need some time to recharge. i wish for strength to all of us trying to get through a terrifyingly slow year.

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

everybody's parents are crazy

except mine. if anybody needs to spend some time away from home, i invite you here. i'm sure my units could handle it. in other news, i love chex mix. i've been eating entirely too much lately. also i hate riding the bus home. mostly i hate the waiting around part that we do before we even think about walking to the bus stop. if we could hang around, and then instantaneously arrive at home, i would be much happier. brett and sallis, i assign you the job of building me a portal. hop to it, lads! this week is incredibly long. i want to die. i'm watching movie trailers because the alternative is sleeping. of course, the only time i want to sleep is when i have piles of homework left. i'm done for the night, and what can i say? i require no pillow.

Saturday, January 24, 2004

1 2 3 4 cretins wanna hop some more! 4 5 6 7 all good cretins go to heaven!!!

gahhh no posting for too long. catching up makes my brain ache...
yesterday was nice. i accidentally fell asleep in a chair at davis-kidd and woke up in between two brock phone calls. i felt really rude that i'd done that, but more annoyed that i didn't get any homework done. so when i got home, i attempted to make plans for the night with laylee, then retreated to my room to educated guess and conic section algebra problems. i toiled for about 5 minutes before it was time to eat some chickens and leave. dad drove me to white station to see kevin's one-act. i got there before laylee and becca, but dad wouldn't sit around to wait. that's okay, because they were late anyway. i went in and mrs. j was taking tickets with tim shaver.
mrs. j: who are you here to see tonight?
me: kevin nuckolls
mrs. j: ohhh are you his girl?
me: nahhh
mrs. j: do you wanna be?
me: yeah, you know it *with laughter*
so she proceeded to ask my name in order to set me up with that handsome fella. and tim just giggled away all gushery flip flop. the one-acts themselves were okay. the first was a "comedy" with lindy and davis but i wasn't really amused... the second had joseph w, olivia h, and some girl i don't know, and it was a little funnier. the third was kevin and meg robb, and it wasn't supposed to be funny. they did a very good job, and i enjoyed it a lot. bravo, kiddies! afterwards, we walked kevin to his car where he was parked next to meg. i think i broke shit off her car, but tim fixed that junt. laylee, becca, and i proceeded to walk to backyard burgers where we had milkshakes until brock met us. then laylee's mom came and took her and becca to hi-tone, while brock drove me. i was worried that we were going to be late, since the hi-tone site said that the show started at 9, and we didn't even leave backyard burger until about 9:15. however, we were sitting around at an almost empty hi-tone for quite a while before the opening act even went on. he wasn't too interesting, but my how he went on. finally he went away, and one mr. ANDREW BIRD took the stage. can i simply state that i am newly in love? the man is beautiful. i kept wriggling when he would walk by our table, before the show, and i could hardly contain myself. the opener was such a blah little set that we were all really tired, and i was terrified that the show would be a let down. but andrew bird is fucking god. he started his set by.... whistling. and jesus can that man whistle. then he would play his violin, and it would loop so that he would be harmonizing with himself. he wore his guitar on his back so that he could swing it around and play it sometimes, too. and he had a xylophone on a music stand as well. it was amazing. so much sound for just one man. even when it was just the violin with the loop, i couldn't get over it. not to even mention his voice-- that shit is honey. it's similiar to jeff buckley's in a more smooth and rolling sense. the songs sound like water, if that helps. our ride home was william, even though he couldn't make it to the show. and when we had called, we asked him to get us at 11:30, which was sad because by then we were so simply entranced by the music. we hated to go, oh we did. brock left at about 11:25. he didn't have to be home until midnight, but he wanted to be home early for the first time he was allowed out on a school night. that is a very good idea. such is the like of things i will never think. becca, laylee, and i even stayed a few minutes after our watches said 11:30 because it was just so amazing. we couldn't pull away. before we left, i got the new album, weather systems, but i'm disappointed at how short it is. it was probably around 11:45 when we got outside, but william was nowhere to be found. apparently the clock he was looking at was like 30 minutes early, so he was a bit late. that was fine because we got to hear more of the show, from outside in the freezing cold. although of course i wish we had gotten to see the end. i feel like his climax and closing would've been AMAZING, just because of the nature of the show. he was beautiful... my first thought when he started playing was "gazelle" but brock said "stork" because of the way he would lift one leg while he played. and his little face, and his little beauty... ohhhhh love. the cd i bought has "an eight minute film" which i really hope contains live footage. if so, i am going to have a party for those eight minutes, and you bitches will be there. at any rate. william came eventually. and nearly RAN ME OVER. christ. i felt bad about demanding a ride... oh well. they dropped me off, and i went and unlocked the storm door -- only to discover that dad had locked the door that NOBODY has a key to. i was really annoyed and rang the doorbell, but nobody came. so i went to my damn window, which apparently has the lock broken again. i opened it and started to climb in, only to find morgan in my bed!! i don't know which one of us was more surprised. well. she was pretty freaked out, so i guess she can win. at any rate, i did the rest of my math homework and went to bed at about 1.
school today was okay... nothing really out of the ordinary, that i can remember. oh, i fell down a stair or two, and now my foot really hurts. and laylee had our lunch, and it made me veeeeryyyyyy happy. beau got suspended because he made a dumb joke on the morning announcements -- "as they say in the tampon business, see you next period!" and they fucking SUSPENDED him!!! if that's not the dumbest fucking thing. i hate white station's crazy ass. no warning, no parent meeting, no nothing. suspended, just like that. i think they were just so shocked, it was the first thing that popped into their stupid empty heads. GAHHh. i don't even LIKE that kid, and i didn't like his stupid joke, but i hate the fact that you can't even talk about fucking periods without somebody beating your ass. what the fuck!?1 okay end rant. in study hall, i attempted to read "the jungle" for history class, but allison kept singing "welcome to the jungle" and i was about to go nuts. so we took the obvious route, and wrote a parody. it was funny. "welcome to the jungle, upton sinclair! and mary sigal! sigggall!! siggealll!!! precious precious! welcome to the jungle, we got meat!" WELL it was funny to us. after school, we had a pro bono meeting about the newsletter, which i am now going to be working on as an editor. that is pretty cool. i am only doing it because tarah was like "we need an excuse to see each other!" speaking of, the painting that she did of me in the bathroom won something in the scholastic contest thing that everyone on the planet entered. bravo, tarah!! i am very proud. after the meeting, brock and i drove to his house so that he could put on his Weekend Shirt and get some Oh's which is the only cereal he will eat. that spoiled bitch. we then drove to alice's house to meet up with her, allison, and LA. brock and i, windows down, followed alice, in her wicked new van, to park ave thrift store where i tried on little boy shirts. brock found a lot of hott hipster shirts, but neither of us bought anything because we were both entirely void of money. alice got a very cool skank-flapper skirt, and allison got a kroger shirt and a little boy's chicago bulls shirt. the highlight of the trip was when i found TAP SHOES. i put on one, and a glittering red slipper, and i danced those fucks. but everyone else was in line, and i felt silly so i didn't dance too much. plus those shoes were kind of small. i wish i had taken tap dancing... sigh. maybe i should go back to some kind of dance class. i could very well love it. anyone up for it? next we went to backyard burger because everyone was starving, and we needed cheap. as stated, brock and i had no money anyway, plus we were supposed to go back to my house at around 6:15 to go to dinner with the fam before heading off to the orpheum, so that was cool. we bummed a couple fries and took picture with alice's digicam. brock made this great comment about how we were allowed to bum food now becuse we don't have to bum rides. i was in love with it because he was inferring that i am not bumming rides off of him. i belong in that passenger seat, bitches. it just made me really really happy. brock just does. then we drove to walgreen's where LA bought a huge ass amount of matches. in the parking lot outside, we attempted to light sparklers, but it was no avail. the wind was too strong. we even stood all in a little circle in order to keep the air away, but nothing was working. eventually, we just lit the rest of that pack of matches on fire and threw it on the pavement, and tried to light the sparklers like roasting marshmallows (or potatoes...) round the campfire. and even still, we only got one lit. so we lit an ENTIRE pack of matches on fire, and we all had sparklers and we ran around and it was beautiful. unfortunately by now it was almost 6, and brock is GREAT and wanted to make a good impression on my parents by getting home slightly early. i called them on the way to let them know we were coming, when i was finally informed, when we were next to the central library, that plans had changed. foot wasn't going to get to the house until 7:15, so we were going to have stay at home instead of going out to eat. i was really put out, because i had just gotten into the hanging out spirit, what with the sparklers and all. those things just put me in a tizzy, and i become a total 3-year-old. it's pretty sick and sad. sigh. i guess being here was ... okay. brock and i listened to some music, and burned the andrew bird cd for him, but that's about it. oh, we had a mad scramble on my bed over... what was it? i can't rememeber. something silly. we always have wild fights over silly things, but it's so much fun. it started out as a tickle fight on my bed, that evolved into me sitting on brock and him kicking at me furiously, into us running in a circle around the house a few times until mom got in the way. ah well... then we ate pizza while morgan summarized almost the first half of les mis for brock, because he wanted some summary before we got to the play, so that he could follow. foot didn't get to the house until about 7:20 so we rushed out the door when she arrived. we were on time for the show and everything, so that was good. it was GREAT, and i really enjoyed it. i liked it much better than the first time, where i'd already had to deal with the family listening to the damn CD of it nonstop for an entire year. and this is NOT an exaggeration. i was REALLY surprised at how many of the tunes and lyrics i remembered... not to mention the specific voices and arrangements that were on that album, so i definitely had something to compare it to. there were lots and lots and lots of great oboe parts, which made me very happy. i kept going "OBOE!!" and killing the general population. our seats were not very good, but they were the best we could get buying for six people at the last minute. we brought binoculars, which i used a little bit. cosette terrified me. her voice was shrieky and insanely high-pitched, and when i looked at her in the binoculars, her face was about to pop off. similiar to chelsea. it was nuts. the best part of the play was when the thenardiers ended a scene with me and brock's married couple sit-com bit. it was so great. they took that shit from us, i swear to god. but yeah. i won't bore you with those details. i enjoyed myself. we got out, where we saw mrs. moore (me and morgan's first grade teacher) with her husband walking to their car. she looks the same as ever. she kept saying how me and morgan look exactly the same now. she asked if brock was my boyfriend, and i said no... mom said he was part of the family. ahaha. it was funny. why is it that people always assume we're dating? le sigh. the familia made nice conversation on the way home. mom had gotten us all chocolate roses from her school orchestra's fundraiser. they were lovely. also, i REALLY like that brock didn't leave the second we got here. i hate quick ends to things like that. they should drizzle away, like sandcastles. brock came in and had a drink, and we got his CD and listened to some more music, and talked, and things were just nice. i wish he could've spent the night, like foot. i wish i was a guy? i wish he was a girl? i wish his parents weren't silly? such is the life. i wanted him to just call his mom, and scream "TORNADO FOREVER!" and never leave our silly house. he actually made jokes about things he could say that he could spend the night too, like that he was too tired to drive. it was just sad that he didn't do it. maybe if he asked regularly, instead of always assuming the no, she would've said yes by now... or maybe if our parents would actually go hang out some time. hahhaha that would probably worsen the situation. great scott! it's 1:30am. it's time to put the girlies to bed, as they have fallen asleep on the couch watching amelie. oh, i got my fountain day pictures back from margaret today but... it is really too late to scan them. i'll do it tomorrow, bitches. tomorrow:
-scan fountain day pictures
-read LOTS of "the jungle"
-burn brandon's fucking cds
-photo session with brock
-edit with katherine
-MAMA otherlands thing?
-if none of that, find something/someone to do in the evening
-get sedated

listening to: the ramones - chinese rock

Monday, September 22, 2003

i'm sitting in a cardboard box and my family is taking turns laughing at me. oh well. i should be doing my homework. i'm a genius. plus i'm waiting for jerel to post on DOY, because he said he was going to. so i'm excited. and i can't stop talking to brandon, but what else is new?
today was pretty crappy. everybody got really low grades on the english project. i got my six weeks average for AP U.S. and i'm intensely proud of my 82. how sick is that? i'm pathetic and i make the shittiest grades. what can i say? well... i've still got my cold. mom and i went to therapy thing. we actually talked about school most of the time, which i didn't enjoy. about my stupid non talkness. i don't know. it sucked. that was today. there was another roach in the kitchen. so i had ice cream. mom sprayed lots of bug spray and screamed "SOMETHING'S GOTTA DIE!"

listening to: cat power - rockets

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

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.

Monday, March 31, 2003

crammed into a safe place
me: fit between new and newer
between the sky + the pavement
between the cartoon elf faery pixie angel
between safety i found with you
and the danger i knew was there but never saw
i love this tilted edge
i am free in the cold silk air
my heart catches fire
comfort is
being quietly stuck between love
and the jagged infinity
racing through the streets
in a car that has been familiar until now
being LOUD and firmly me
hanging into night air's cradle
over rolling asphalt
while slick yellow lines chase each other down forever
i'm in a state
in a theatre
in a lap
in laughter
in bliss
i am happy
this is where i want to be
a perfect medium
pain vs. beauty
i would rather watch you and say i wasted my time
right now we are different people
internally changed
by sparks + presence
with thick love nearby
clouds that have been passing us by
are clouds we are now lounging in
the ice we have been hanging on
melts to reveal thin shoots of beauty
stuck to the roof of
the place where our dreams are waiting for us
our bodies are heavy with our skin on tight
unchangeable we are stuck in
we are NOT stuck in life
we have places to go, people to meet
you can't define us while we are still in the making
look at where we're headed
we have creations to make, people to be
you can't stop us now

march 31 in mythology

Thursday, March 20, 2003

i sit here all fucking day just staring into space no smile on my face. what the fuck am i writing? i am trying to escape from the latin language and ms. haughton's evil eye. but it's a good day because i made a couple people laugh even though i annoyed several more. i always just wanted to create some emotion get some response as long as i'm still me. it's not that i feel like it's my duty to be happy. i enjoy it so much i can't waste this 2o minute oasis like i wasted this paper. i think this girl i know hates me now. i was always afraid of this because she is so fiercely adamant about hating someone but she is so nice when she's talking to them. there were always two kinds of food-throwing situations. friends as jokes or she's sick of that person she wants to throw some baby carrots to signify how mad she is and laugh it off. she threw fruit at me during lunch. it's kind of funny but i don't think she meant it kindly this time. i think she doesn't want to tell me to go away because for that she would have to speak real words to me. that's okay. i liked my 2o minutes.
fuck! i lied. i just smiled.
something funny happened and i didn't even see it, but cody behles who looks like a teddy bear, burst into a huge quick laugh so different from his usual giggle. plus i'm bored of gladiators and this day is too long.

Monday, March 17, 2003

"All right, people, let's go somewhere else." Ironic that he even calls us "people" because the way he says it, he obviously doesn't believe that his words are intended for actual "people." We are never "people." We don't ask so much. Every morning Coach Fucking Brooks wants us to "move along" speaking generically into the air and onto the heads a foot or so below his level. Hey Coach, what's wrong with us right here? Are we in somebody's way? Sure, we are standing by some lockers but we are ready and willing to scoot over if some kid needs his books. Where are we supposed to go? Is there a designated spot in this huge school that we don't know about where we're allowed to see our friends before homeroom? Shouldn't it be okay to just be us for a few minutes before we slide back into the daily grind, just to have this one moment? Each of us could walk to our various homerooms in thirty seconds or less. We've been to our lockers. We've got no particular place to be. So Coach Brooks, where the fuck are we SUPPOSED to be? I don't want to be listening to the gory little details of my locker partner's Floridian spring break and I know she won't ask me about mine once she is fucking done, two minutes before the bell rings. Hey I can't see my friends after school. They're busy at Bridge Builders and Mock Trial and Model UN meetings. Plus, we were working so hard on AP applications a week ago, and with all these projects and essays on the weekends... No, these are "people" who don't have time for me outside school. But remember, this is White Station! We are too busy with Extra-Curricular Activities and racking up the Service Hours to have friends! Much less, TALK to them! Heaven forbid, what if we actually got to SEE them sometimes? Oh no, what if we fell that far off our Spartanian horses? What if that happened? We wouldn't get into the right colleges, and we would lead terrible, poor lives! Lives of LOVE, not MONEY!! Because "people" are money, school is money, SUCCESS is money! And didn't you know? Success is power. Success is me in a suit. Success is my husband coming home from a hard day at the office to his loving wife and kids, and a great from-scratch Southern meal. I will be successful!! Fuck yr Princeton! Give me community!!! But look at these "people," they are beautiful individuals. We are writers and artists and we're going to make movies together. We're going to get married and move to California. FUCK YOU, COACH! YOU CAN'T COME!
on St. Patrick's Day
my homeroom teacher says that
the rule about getting pinched
if you're not wearing green
only applies if you're Irish
so he's circling the room
interrogating us
with evil fingers waiting
then he's at my desk and
i won't look up until he's in my face
i'm the only person who got asked two questions
i wonder why that is
Are you Irish?
No.
Are you okay?
Yeah.
hey what could i say otherwise?
"no i'm very not okay.
i'm definitely awful"
in front of unforgiving eyes
i'm supposed to reveal
how alone i feel
my terrible weekend
pain because i am unloved
mentally abused
unwanted
no friends
no love
i am supposed to tell that to
the bald man in the pale green shirt?
i don't think so.
but i lied anyway
Yeah, I am Irish.
No, I am more than okay.

Monday, March 03, 2003

i'd forgotten how much that means to me. how it cheered up my whole day. movies.... a little silly but it's something for me to love, something that we all connect with, put our positive energy into. with camera in hand i don't have to go to college. i can live in memphis forever -- the next digital savvy generation. i will sleep on these couches. i will exist in this office. i will survive in this theatre. imagine me editting away in that exact chair. me borrowing their tripods. (no, i will be loaning MINE to fresh-faced kids with dreams and dreams and dreams like MINE.) me popping organic popcorn, living on jelly beans, putting money into this thing i believe in so entirely that i will give up some luxuries for my cause. who needs TV and commercial cinema when there are indepedent films to be had? to be created? i would give up some baths if i could take part in making something beautiful. i'm on the road, i've already given up a meal or two just to enjoy their company. so why am i even considering making next year hell? you actually want me to give up my time to things i don't care about, even if it means missing their tuesday night workshops again? it will make my life hell and i will have no room to be free.

Sunday, November 10, 2002

we don't have to get along

i'm having a great weekend. friday was a half day, so we did aboslutely NOTHING in school. we had two and a half classes and a basketball game which i chose not to go to. in geometry, we played with calculators and didn't get in trouble. in etymology, we read the school newspaper and i took notes on movie ideas for elise. in biology, i filmed things. then we watched part of tarzan and i tried to read a farewell to arms. don't let anyone try to tell you that that book is not about sex, drugs, and rock n roll. then we were dismissed at 11:10. kevin and his sister emily drove behind elise and i on the way to oak court mall for luncheon. robin and a huge group of people were walking, and at some red light we stopped and waved at them. doug godwin RAN ACROSS POPLAR and got into elise's car, which was beginning to move, and was thereby thrown across the entire backseat as we turned into the parking lot. i swear, the entire population of white station was there. i didn't have any money so i just filmed people eating. elise drove robin home and then we had very meaningful conversation on all levels. we went to elise's house and drove around. she changed out of her uniform and we went and stole morgan from lindenwood, and went straight back to elise's house (next to borders) so that she wouldn't be late for her doctor's appointment, where she got an evil flu shot and almost lost her voice. morgan and i sat around the Masur house and watched labyrinth. when elise got home, we picked up robin and went back to elise's house where, after conference, we called kevin and told him he had to be the star of elise's music video and we needed him at that very second. (oh yeah. elise and kevin are broken up but they don't act like it. hence, elise deciding to do "untouchable face" for her music video.) so we walked to the park and waited. then we filmed some things and it went really well, i think. i forgot to use the cool effect the whole time but i think it will be ok. i'm sad that i can't make that effect happen once i get the footage onto the computer. then elise, morgan, and robin drove to burger king and kevin and i followed. there, kevin paid for me to have dinner, which was fries. i also ordered a small water so that elise could throw it all over kevin. it was a really great shot. poor thing was cold for the rest of the night though. then elise drove robin, morgan, and i around for a while trying to lose kevin. we were actually going to try to go to laylee's house but we got really turned around and suddenly we were going the opposite direction on yates. so we didn't lose him and we went towards black lodge. the whole way we had the sun roof and a couple windows rolled down, singing at the top of our lungs. the best moment of course was when we got to listen to "Debaser" by the pixies and sing to kevin behind us. he also had his sun roof down and was singing at the top of his lungs. he told us later that elise had nearly hit about 2935070239 different things while trying to dance and drive. at black lodge, elise rented morgan fox and josh laurenzi's movie three minutes (based upon the revolution of the sun) but as far as i know, she hasn't had a chance to watch it yet. so we hung out there for a little while and walked around cooper-young and attempted to stalk josh and morgan fox but it didnt work. so we said goodbye to kevin and elise drove robin home. then we went home with elise just to get my backpack and my camera stuff because i had left it there thinking we would come back like. right after the park. so i'm sorry for wasting all of elise's gas but i love love loved getting to talk to her and be in the car for the extra time. it's the first time that i haven't been the first one to get dropped off. i'm so glad i don't have a curfew of any kind ahhahaha. so elise drove morgan and i back home. i got online and stayed on way too late, but (thank god) i sent my alarm for 11am which is when i woke up. voiceless elise came and picked me up at 12 and we went to perkins for lunch. we got to sit in a big roomy booth even though there were only two of us because all the other seats were taken. i loved being able to be there with elise. i can tell her anything. she said that this week would have been a shitfest without me and robin there, and i'm not sure exactly what i did but i really tried to be there for her and let her rant at me whenever she needed. elise and i shared these cheese and chicken quesadilla things that were really good. i didn't think i'd like them but i diddddd and elise paid for them and i felt bad. then she drove me home and as soon as i got there, morgan fox called and talked to morgan my sister about getting the "get up" video to the co-op before 7:30. morgan and i worked on a logo, which would not have been hard but practically none of our tapes are labelled and we had to go through everything trying to find clips for stuff. watch the finished product here and cry because the best part is too dark. oh yeah, our production company is now here. so we took the video to them and we came back and eat dinner and hung out for a while. then we went to go see our video with nine other short films at the first congo theatre. this woman from youth-xpress talked to morgan and i and said she wanted us to write an article about our filmmaking. so we said we'd think about it and she gave us her CARD. it was amazing. morgan bought some organic jelly beans and mom bought some organic soda and they were both very good. some of the movies were very good and some were boring even though they were short. i loved brian siler's two and this one called "rock star" featuring the yeah yeah yeahs, who are my heroes. i can't really remember all of them. margaret, meg, and christie got to come for part of the time (long enough to see our movie) but had to leave, because of their curfew. elise brought robin and brock and i love all of them more than anything. sarah rushakoff came just in time to see ours; dad missed ours because he was at his boss's 60th birthday party down the street. mom nearly fell asleep because it was a "late night out" for her and morgan wore her costume from the video. i loved being there and i loved sitting next to my sister, in front of my parents, and when elise was pimpin with her arm around my shoulder and me nearly falling asleep on her because of this movie that was the shortened version of the last man on earth or whatever it's called. when it was over, elise and robin and brock praised the video and the new logo, and we talked to morgan and josh, who are two of my favorite people on the planet and make me want to live in memphis forever. elise and i got organic sodas, and morgan showed us the trailer for his and josh's next movie, blue citrus hearts. big parts of it were filmed at white station. we were all very upset that we didn't get to be in it, even though morgan my sister is going to be in one scene and apparently morgan fox told elise that we could be in the last scene, so that's cool. we came home eventually and i got online and stuff. here i am. ta-da! good night all. i hope that tomorrow is as wonderful as the rest of the weekend.

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

every day i make my way through the streets of your town

i was really pumped about writing a real post until i sat down. well i'm going to try my best for you guys, because i know i'm sick of looking through blogs with no new posts! (merv's place as the exeption.) i found these 60 cent cappuccino and cream candies that brittany sort of made me buy at big lots a few weeks ago. i'd eaten two that day and that was basically it. but i found them! and i'm addicted! they're really sweet but they leave this taste in my mouth that makes me want another one. plus i'm hungry. mmmmmmm. moving on.
i already talked a little about the weekend... friday night was great. i had rehearsal and then i got to hang out with awesome people. everyone went to abyssinia, which is an ethopian restaurant, and kevin came to pick me up from home (with william's car that kevin couldn't drive) while they were there because i told them i had to eat. and they decided to go to a restaurant like. a block away from my house. because william's stomach was eating itself. so i didn't really have anything except a bite of gross cloth bread. i had to run across poplar twice and it was horrifyingly hilarious. kevin and i nearly died ten times on the way from my house to abyssinia. after that we joggled around across the street, where the creepy cuban captain d's is. and there were these drums or something and we ran all over the world trying to find where they were coming from, with no success. then we drove around listening to modest mouse. we ended up at that christ methodist church place and we played on the playground for a while. kevin and william bribed lots of soda out of this party that was ending at the church. most of it got poured on the wood chips i think. the swings were pretty great. a lot of that newfangled equipment was discovered to be incredibly dangerous! and all the swingie bar things make your hands hurt and smell. alice and i invented the word "muffin" that you have to say like robin goodwin as a kind of abbreviation for "motherfucker" but used in completely different context. then we drove around and it was some modest mouse live song and they said something about thanks to the pixies and i was all like 'THE PIXIES' and they changed the song for me. they played "debaser" for me. it was great. kevin sang it with me. i think elise was trying to get william to watch me sing in his rearview mirror. at that point we had ended up at bookstar so that william could buy smoke and mirrors by neil gaiman. i like that place but we couldnt find the mammoth book of erotica this time.
on saturday.... i went to rehearsal. that was it. oh yeah i went with morgan and mom to buy a present for morgan to take to her friend mariana's birthday, but it also ended up being a shopping trip for mom and dad's anniversary, which was sunday (october 6). morgan bought mariana a card with an old lady on it, being levitated off the ground by all the balloons she was holding. it said "get carried away on your birthday!" and mom got a card for dad that had a cow kissing another cow that said "i love you for heifer." i didn't get anything because i don't have any money. then we went to cat's music. morgan bought the nelly furtado cd for mariana. i had to help mom find the new david bowie cd, heathen, for dad. the two-disc one. with the great pixies cover of "cactus!" i didn't get anything because i DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY. it was so distressing. i tried to make morgan buy the new tegan and sara but she wouldn't. i tried to make mom buy the new bree sharp but she wouldn't. it was depressing. we blew that popsicle stand.
sunday was mom and dad's anniversary so mom woke me up around 9 or something to ask me where dad's card and gift were. i, obviously, couldn't go back to sleep so i got up. nothing really happened until 3:30. which was rehearsal. we worked on scenes 6-8. since i haven't talked about the other rehearsals i'll sum this one up: in scene 6 i'm a really bad villager because i'm not animated enough. in scene 7 i'm a really bad surrealist because i'm not loud enough and i can't say my lines right and i can't play the game very well. in scene 8 i get to play ring-around-the-rosies while the world falls apart. i've decided not to reveal anything about this scene because it needs to be surprising. i'm just like "it's creepy. we play ring-around-the-rosies and it's HORRIFYING!" actually katherine and i were talking about it when her mom drove me to davis-kidd after school today and she was like "i think i'm going to have to leave before scene 8. or maybe i just won't come at all." which is sad. i think she should come and see katherine. katherine was trying to reassure her by telling her that she's not actually IN scene 8. oh oh oh! everyone come to the momo's ball because we really need money!!! the production costs A LOT and bill has already had to cut out some of the things he wanted to do for lack of funds. moving on... right after rehearsal, dad took me to bookstar to meet laylee. she was a little late but it wasn't her fault so thats ok. dad bought a drink at the starbucks there for me and he gave me money to buy something to eat. laylee and i got cold in the cafe so we walked around the bookstore. then this guy julian who went to her school last year came up and we talked to him for a good long time and it turned out she hates him anyway. so that was an eternal waste of time. i didn't know that she hated him, or else we would have been there for a total of two seconds. so laylee finally got us out of there by saying we wanted to go eat at taco bell. she got a cheese quesadilla and i got a chicken quesadilla. laylee didn't finish hers because it was making her sick or something. i finished eating mine while we walked to turlte's music, and we got to talk a bit. outside, she got like. her fourth and fifth phone calls of the evening, on her cell phone. leath wanted to come pick her up at that very second because she was supposed to meet them at borders at 8:30 or something which basically adds up to that she'd allotted less than an hour and a half to our hangoutage time and i'd thought she had to babysit or something. her lovely mother drove me home, where morgan was watching our "get up" video again. my parents were at their anniversary dinner at cafe society. i stayed up way too late online talking to jerel.
on monday, we had the day off. as if you didn't know. i was supposed to meet margaret at the library at 2 to work on this (wretched) english project. the day before, i had realized i wouldn't be able to meet then because i would have no ride, since my parents would be at work. by the time i thought about it on sunday, i felt like it was too late to call. so i called first thing in the morning on monday and left a message. and called like 720385 times and emailed her but we never got in touch. she called here around 2:20 and i felt really really awful. she said she found a few books though. morgan and i watched "seven brides for seven brothers" and it was glorious. we did homework and it sucked.
on tuesday, ms. haughton asked me why i was still out of uniform! i was like "I TOLD YOU." so she wrote me up. when i took the thing to the office, it was fifth period and no one was there so the (EVIL EVIL EVIL) secretary told me she would call me down in sixth period. she didn't. so today i was called to the office during 3rd period (english) and i was there through like. half of 4th. and they didnt even get a chance to talk to me because they're too slow and stupid and evil. so they called me back during 6th period etymology and finally talked me and basically said i had to wear the uniform until my appeal went through. i hate ms. haughton so much right now. not only for that but because of this test we took. i actually did pretty well on it but the things i missed were because of her shit ass directions!!! we had to memorize all this vocabulary, right? the word and its genitive and the meaning. (among other irrelevant things.) so most of the words, you had to memorize the genitive SINGULAR but there were two that you had to memorize the genitive PLURAL for some reason. so on the directions she said to write the genitive singular (she underlined that.) so when i wrote iussa, i put that the genitive singular was iussi, not iussorum. and that it meant 'a command' instead of 'commands' because the woman is ret@rd*d!! and i was too scared to ask her about it today because i thought she would see my non-uniform. go figure because i was actually wearing my black moondance skirt and a grey shirt! quite a few people asked me if i was caving in on the uniform thing. i didn't really mean to be dressed like that. but i don't want to wear that skirt to school again. that skirt was not made for me. or maybe i'm just not compatible with skirts. i can't sit in my desk in the ways that i like to sit wearing a skirt. well not comfortably anyway. or without feeling like i'm going to wipe my shoes all over the thing, which wouldn't have been a good idea, as it rained all today. and like. as soon as i stepped out of the door this morning, the skirt went looser than i'd tied it and it kind of fell down on my hips and dragged the ground all day. i hate going on stairs in that thing. especially when theyre all wet and slippery from the rain. as i said previously, katherine dohan's lovely mother drove me to davis-kidd after school where i finished reading what my mother doesn't know by sonya sones. i hadn't meant to finish it, but it happened. it wasn't nearly as good as stop pretending but i forgive it because it was written in beautiful beautiful poetry form. so stuff that i normally would be bored to death reading about is made interesting anyway. i started reading this book called stoner & spaz and i had just picked up the giver when my mom came. she bought some halloween books and things for her library at school.
POTATOES ARE RADICAL!

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

i know what god wants

today was ok for the most part. ms. haughton, my latin teacher, noticed for the first time that i wasn't in uniform. she took me into the hall and asked me about things and she told me to rethink my decision to appeal and all this. it was ridiculous. if i was braver i would have said something more intelligent/intelligible. in other uniform news, i am SO SICK of hearing people (guys especially) tell me how it doesn't matter and that you can do more damage from 'the inside' anyway. i can't even go into the ridiculousness of that.
oh yeah, by the way, zak baker joined hardcore club after morgan and brittany and i told him how we hated it and how awful it was. and he won't tell us what he did to get into it. probably because he doesn't want us to tell his parents or something, is what i guess. and he asked again today about the hunter thompson video. i was like 'it sucks' and he was like 'i dont care!' but then we had to start rehearsing. in rehearsal news, he's beautiful. in performance news, i play something/someone different in every scene, but that's really typical. it's not relaly like you're suppposed to keep up with who we are. in the scene that we just started to work on today and we're going to do some more with tommorow, i am the famous surrealist poet robert desnos. i think that i am one of the characters, with (two) lines because i was so bad at the little game we did at one of the auditions that the chorus is going to be doing while the surrealists do the surreal thing. or maybe bill thinks i'm a poet haha? i'm nervous about having actual lines to memorize. also, bill said that we would be getting a sense of what part of artaud we were playing by what we had to do in different scenes and i am just completely lost, i swear to god. in the first scene in which we resurrect artaud, i have two lines about flesh and bone and all this. and, later, a line about "so the stillness of the night silences all obscenities." also i am one of lot's daughters (from the bible), in this painting and that is really horrifying. it's also my last scene. i'm going to shut up about the play now. i remember, rereading some things i said about synesthesia, how much i went on and on about nothing.
yesterday a girl named feagin in my seventh period class came up and asked me about why i wasn't wearing the uniform and we talked through.. the whole class. (people were finishing their projects that they were supposed to have finished on friday.) she's a freshman and she asked for my screen name. today we chatted a bit and i found out that she has pretty awesome taste in music (bright eyes, elliott smith, ani difranco, aimee mann, tool, a whole lot of shit i can't remember) and she made a chat with me and a few of her friends who go to white station, one of whom was the girl that used to be in my math class, that i talked to for a milisecond at davis-kidd and who has waved to me in the hall a few times (sam[antha]) point being that that was very cool and coincidental. in other news on the social frontier, i am feeling like a total r*t@rd at this moment. i swear, i feel like i should stop talking to people altogether. yes, i love sharing my music and taste with the world but, of course, i am never recognized for it and everyone else on the planet just is. because i know how to pick my friends. it's like becca's friend who was in the homecoming court that likes bikini kill becuase becca introduced it to her because laylee introduced it to HER because i introduced it to laylee. ditto with rasputina and margaret earthman the cheerleader. and today becca herself (as you can read on her blog, if you know where it is. i don't think i'm supposed to link though) was just randomly talked to by three completely awesome people just sitting at starbucks because she radiates coolness. that and she had a sleater-kinney sticker on her backpack. and they talked about bikini kill, rasputina, and bonfire madigan. katherine dohan is on the morning announcement staff and they played L'Trimm's "cars that go boom" for the song of the day when i discovered that several of katherine's friends had heard the song through her and. there's the usual, of course. i don't know i'm all jealous i guess. that and i know that when they get "famous" or at least they all turn out as really great musicians that i will be sitting around in some shit job and envying the hell out of them because i dropped oboe and never picked up guitar/bass/drums/piano/triangle/cowbell.

Thursday, September 26, 2002

pretty rain makes you smile

"September 24, 2002

Dear Mrs. Jacobs:

After careful review and consideration of your reasons for requesting an exemption from the School Uniform Policy #5150.1 for your child, a decision has been made regarding your request. The policy requires that the person requesting the exemption show he/she wants an exemption due to religious or a strongly-held belief, described as "a philosophy or set of moral principles that guides a person's decision about his/her life or lifestyle." The explanations provided in your written statements submitted on August 12, 14 and September 23, 2002, and expressed in our conversation of September 23, 2002, do not meet the requirements for exemption. Your allowing your children to wear uniforms for one venue but not for another demonstrates inconsistency and, therefore, does not qualify as a strongly held belief. Consequently, I am denying your request for exemption from this policy. If you wish to pursue your request further, you should contact the Mmphis City Schools office of the Board of Commissioners for a final ruling of your appeal (325-5447).
If I can be of further assistance to you, feel free to contact me. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to your children having a successful year.

Sincerely,
Dr. Richard Potts, Director
Zone 2 Schools"

so they denied me because mom put that i'd warn a uniform in the past on the little exemption form thing. i am incredibly upset with both of them. i don't think that wearing the goddam band uniform for one fucking day constitutes checking "yes" for "has your children worn any uniform in the past?" or whatever the damn question was. actually mom thinks that they denied it because morgan is wearing the uniform (after being bullied into it) and i'm the one requesting the exemption. either way it's ridiculous and i'm pissed off.
sticky rain steals my smile.

Monday, September 23, 2002

what matters is your uniform

well blogger just deleted my post and i'm really annoyed. it's taken me a while to come back and redo it but. at the time, mom had just come home (and gone back to work) with news of the "meeting." it turned out that she hadn't even had time to come by the house and get me. i'm really glad we didn't go film it. the anti-meeting consisted of mom giving the guy a (new) note, him reading it, and saying that they'd get back to us. mom did not seem very hopeful about it. she thinks she focused on all the wrong things. i'm going to post her note and you can tell me what you think:

"My concerns are:

1. The authoritarian atmosphere created by the school uniforms policy. Perhaps students are better behaved; they are also less exuberant.
2. The "us" versus "them" attitude promoted by the wearing of uniforms.
3. The increasingly "conformist" attitude towards thinking in classes. The school uniform policy is, contrary to what the school administrators say, fostering an attitude of "we should all think alike." This is especially troubling to me since Memphis, in contrast to other places I have lived, is a city that does not tolerate diversity of opinion well. The schools should be fostering individual thinking, not succumbing to peer pressure.

I have supported my daughter's decision to pursue exemption from the school uniform policy precisely because I believe that at fifteen, she should be learning how to think independently. I have encouraged her to make her own decisions, and not to follow the crowd. If I backed out now, what would I be teaching her? I believe that the process she is experiencing right now is an invaluable lesson about how the world works, regardless of what the outcome is. I am only sorry to see what she seems to be learning is that people in power aren't always thinking people, and that people in power sometimes use that power to bully others. A few teachers and administrators have seen the school uniform policy as an opportunity to throw their weight around.

While this policy may work in the short term, studies show it will not have any great long-term effects. We seem to be focused on the short term that we are risking the life lessons our children should be learning. Learning to make appropriate decisions about clothing would be better than instituting a narrow uniform policy.

4. The Memphis City School Board did not follow recommended procedures for implmenting the policy. There was no discussion with parent and teacher groups before this policy was established. The arbitrary notion that a school uniform policy would improve our scools is fallacious. School uniforms should be part of an in-depth adjustment of school environments.

Thank you for allowing my voice, and my daughter's voice, to be heard.

Leslie Jacobs and Alanna Stewart."