(found words on an envelope, winter 2016 in Baltimore at Cafe Hon)

they want you to leave the restaurant. they're talking
about you and you can almost hear them. am I making
someone uncomfortable? what happened now?
too ugly? bookish? poor? smelly?


GET RID of regular pop culture in yr life
there's no room, no time. RETREAT. go back.
no point in gross fascination anymore. there's more for you to do!



why do I relate to the words of survivors?
what fucking happened to me?

• the world is old and movements are bigger than right now.
• reconnect to history
• dissociate from self
• devolve
• remember fairy tales 
• research OLD SHIT
• Magic beyond religion, beyond time - learn what this looks like. 
• WRITE
• read alt histories
• plays/scripts about rad ladies/queers
• READ MORE
• Angela Carter
• Jack Zipes

i'm drinking draft root beer, am in a wonderful mood, and am preparing to blog to you the joys and trials of my thanksgiving holiday. hooray for long alanna postage. (hopefully. if you're laylee.)
wednesday: i went to bed shortly after i blogged, around 3, after said AWESOME conversation time with tarah and aj. what amazing kids. i'm so lucky to have the friends i do. plus, it had been a while since i've really talked to either of them, and it was sort of funny how the conversations were sometimes in a really similiar vein and sometimes totally dissimilar. i clambered into bed and unlocked my window, having promised eileen that i would. i told her she could come play at our house while we were gone, and i didn't think she'd actually come but it was something of a priniciple. i fell asleep listening to vespertine which made me really happy. unfortunately, i forgot to take it out of the cd player for the trip in the morning.
thursday: i was woken up far too early for my poor body. on the way to jackson, i listened to fiona apple and slept. i always forget how short granny is. i guess it's really her 'fault' that i'm so short -- her eye level is at my chest. (no wonder she is constantly talking about my figure.) we had a short little break before the actual thanksgiving meal, and the normal post-dinner talking. mom usually leaves the first, to go take her nap. this time morgan left too. dad, granny, and i talked a while. well. granny told her same old stories, and we listened, and granddaddy sat at the other end of the table very silent. what can i say? they're strange little old southern baptist people. i left a message on sallis's cell phone, since he was in town the same time as me and i thought it'd be cool to see him while we were stuck in jackson. i also called brock, but he was just sitting down to a movie. so i watched i love the 80s strike back with my familia before brandon called, demanding my help on his christmas wish list. i really didn't help at all, but we got to talk so that was cool. then brock called, and i talked to him for 15 minutes longer than i was supposed to, but it was really good to talk to him all the same. unfortunately, i ran down my phone's battery like a mutha and i forgot to bring my chargie thing. oh well. after we got off the phone, i watched dumb vh1 shows with dad and morgan until i nearly fell asleep on the couch staring at miss apple bottoms.
friday: hooray for eggs and biscuits and bacon and real breakfasts! after eating we headed over to barnes and noble for book shopping. i was excited about going but when we got there i didn't really know what i wanted to do there. i ended up at the newstand looking for a new music magazine. dad and i collectively bought cmj new music, magnet, and the new rolling stone featuring top 500 albums of all time. we took morgan home, with a huuuuge stack of books she got for her friends for christmas, and then dropped off mom at tj maxx. dad and i went to the cd sale at circuit city, where i bought AFI and flogging molly. guilty pleasures like a mutha. i'm actually considering giving the flogging molly to someone as a present... but i've just blogged it HAHA and that means i could only give it to brock now. but who else would want it? oh well. maybe i won't give it away. phh. dad got the smiths and the rolling stones. mom got wrapping paper. morgan took a nap. we spent the rest of the day mulling over and arguing with the rolling stone top 500. i made everyone write down the ones they owned. it wasn't very interesting, but there was nothing else to do. and i love lists and patterns and things, so. apwoghiwgopeh obsessive alanna aoiwghepioghoahi. today brock and i were talking about how hard it is to find your real love job in life and actually be able to do it. there's so much pressure to find it that it's really hard to actually notice when it's there, you're so busy looking. the only thing that i just absolutely love with no inhibitions is music... but not the playing of it. i don't really know. brock says he could see me doing the tech stuff, like 'recording engineer'-wise, i guess. or i could do music videos maybe. or just ... buy cds and work at mcdonalds. then again i'd have to like. live in my car, to have enough money to buy albums anyway. agowiphpogihw i'm so offtrack. we watched interview with the vampire at midnight, and that's all that matters. oh i did get to talk to sallis briefly. we talked about hanging out after dinner, but he didn't get home until 9 so he couldn't call back. too bad.
saturday: i woke up to the sound of granny's tv with a really bad headache. i got up because i couldn't lie in the bed any longer, and went to lie on the couch with mom instead. i had some cheerios. went back to the couch. dad gave me an advil, and mom rubbed my back a lot, which made me really happy. the headache got no better. i had another advil. i went back to the bed, where i stayed for a damn long time. we were supposed to leave at 2 today, but dad didn't want to wake me up when i was feeling so bad. they had to, eventually, and we stumbled out of jackson around 3. as we were driving away, i put on my headphones, siamese dream by smashing pumpkins. it is by no means a quiet album, but it automatically sent away my headache. i really don't understand it. i don't know why i hadn't tried that already, since i know music does that to me sometimes. the album ended, and i played some my bloody valentine before we stopped in grenada for fooooood for me, having slept through lunch. when we got back in the car, my headache was creeping back in so i put on live through this by hole, and everything was back to good. i love that album. so i also played celebrity skin just to make sure i packed it in. it was a nice drive; i didn't sleep at all.
we were in downtown memphis around 6, and i finally checked my messages on my near-dead phone. i had a simple one from brock, but i was glad that he left it since he usually doesn't leave messages but he knows i get annoyed when people don't leave them. hooray for that. i had an awesome one from brandon telling me that frosty the snowman was on tv and i was going to miss it. when we got home, mom ordered pizza before i called brock. he had some relatives over and was expected to stay at home, so we couldn't hang out. i didn't feel like calling around because i figured everyone would be busy. so brock and i just had a nice long phone conversation. unforunately, he was ripped prematurely out of it by his mother for reasons still unknown to me. too bad. actually, if we didn't get kicked off the phone we would never stop talking, i'm sure. i think every single conversation we've had, someone has stopped it other than us. okay, maybe there were some "shitload of homework" or "i'm busy" ones. but still. moving on. i had some pizza. sat around online. watched trailers for the director's series, which i'm really excited about. (i'm assuming that my family is giving at least one to me for christmas.) watched degrassi with morgan. talked to some kids online. this is about it.
oh i commented on ted's blog. i'm afraid becca will be mad because she had a very specific thing about him not knowing that we read it... but i know i'd be really annoyed if someone was reading my blog and i had no idea. plus, tarah has been saying very good things about him. and apparently he told her i'm very honest and sincere. i appreciate that a lot, especially since he thinks i hate him. i really don't hate him, though. tarah thinks we'd get along... hahaa. you never know.

listening to: AFI - bleed black
(have i ever mentioned i ADORE davey havok?!)

i think my head's in heaven

today was pretty damn good. school felt sort of silly and very far off, like i wasn't actually there. the day wasn't that long. i think i did better on my math test than i was anticipating. i think i failed latin though. oh well. after school, brock and i had decided to just sort of walk around and hang out for a bit. ezra wheeler turned around and waved to me at the crosswalk. it was nice. he loaned me a pencil in algae. brock and i ended up going to the mall to get some food, because we're just that punk. right as we were walking in, the gratzes pulled up next to us to drop off lydia. it was funny. we talked to william for a couple minutes. he was on his way to have his wisdom teeth pulled. i am so lucky with no wisdom teeth... but it doesn't really count because i still had TERRIBLE oral surgery last summer. shudder. all i remember is amelie and organic macaroni and bubble fish. the point is. while we were eating, robin and katherine w showed up to steal brock's cell phone. it was nice to see them. we sort of loosely talked about doing something later, but robin never called us and we never called her. so i don't know. maybe tomorrow... after they left, we walked to davis-kidd. it was really really nice. we were there for quite a while. there were adorable japanese girls, two cute little boys, and even an eileen mushroom. it was great. we looked at language books, art magazines, photography, muscle men. we talked and split a piece of "chocolate spoon lovin'" cake. we also called laylee and becca to see if they wanted to hang out, but becca's sister was coming into town and they had to eat dinner as a family. they were supposed to call us back later, and forgot to, so we didn't see them or hear from them at all. somehow i feel like brock and i did a lot MORE at davis-kidd, but i guess not. it was very nice at any rate. i love the boy. his mom picked us up, took us to blockbuster, and then back to their house. brock translated some french magazines to me and we looked at gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous pictures (people). we were looking at this article on like. sex in cinema. and since i couldn't read it i could only comment on the pictures. then we started just discussing the models in the ads. then brock was like "oh oh oh" and got out this like. french fashion magazine, saying "there is one guy in here who you are going to love." so we flipped through the whole magazine very carefully, studying everyone scrupulously. near the very end, brock pointed to this totally androgynous little guy and says "this is the one i thought you'd like" and i squealed to death. partly because the man was beautiful, and partly becuse brock knew i'd like him. it was nice. brock said he'd never had anyone to look at his magazines with before and i was glad that we did. i love talking about people with brock, because ... we're both so damn bi. it's completely perfect. then we went downstairs and i started to get some ice cream. i noticed brock watching me, doing that adorably sheepy smile. and i was like "what?!" and he made fun of how i use the ice cream scoop. ahhahahaa. well. he does do it much better than me. we were being really silly and i think i was probably loud, and i think we were disturbing his parents watching some nuts sci-fi scary fillum. sorry, terwillegers. we had to watch our movie (venus beauty institute, featuring the adorable audrey tautou) in wesley's room. it was funny. as i've said, brock and i are very intense in movies. it's too much fun. it makes movies so much more entertaining, when you're really into them. to the extent that you're gripping someone's arm and biting pillows. and we're not talking about thrillers. speaking of. allison did her michael jackson impression english class today. it was fucking awesome. after the movie, we sat around and listened to music and whatnot. then we watched degrassi and some music videos and whosits. my dad came at like 12:45, which was awesome. today was such a great brock day. i really hope he had as good of a time as i did. but i think he did. it was pretty perfect. i didn't mind that much that we didn't get to see anyone else. i think i enjoy brock's company more when we're alone. maybe it just depends who else is around. but everyone knows i get jealous so fucking easy... oh one bad thing was that with all the beautiful models and everything, and brock's newly voiced extreme confidence about his appearance, i felt so ugly all night long. i mean, it wasn't like every five seconds i whined about being a hag. actually i didn't say anything at all. but i didn't THINK it every five seconds either, it was just a general feeling. which i obviously didn't really like. i guess i should be prettier. i started thinking 'well what the fuck alanna you sit there and whine that youre so fucking ugly and you dont do anything about it. you STILL don't buy clothes ever or wear make up or shave your legs or brush your hair. so what the fuck do you expect?' and that's about it. but it makes me feel really silly anyway. oh yeah, but brock and i did the great thing we do a lot where we both start singing the same song at the same time. like 203597 times. i like it that we are doing that again. it's insane and it amazes me every time. god i love brock. man i bet that is all i talk about. well. shit. laylee, if this every becomes what brittany and i lovingly referred to as 'the kyle blog' please let me know. shit guys. i know you guys want to read about it. fucka.
listening to: tattle tale - take ten

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.

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!