Sunday, August 30, 2009

if the rocking chairs don't get me

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

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

Saturday, August 29, 2009

first friday

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

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


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

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

Thursday, August 27, 2009

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

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

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

Sunday, August 23, 2009

sending off all my hopes on this flight

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

listening to: julie doiron - oh these walls

Friday, June 19, 2009

tell me another one

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

Thursday, June 18, 2009

losing daylight

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

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

ALL I WANT

crackers with cream cheese and grandma's green pepper jelly.


kill this week.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

i am sick to death of cleverness

just took my first nighttime shower in the dorm... so relaxing! didnt have to worry about running to work or anywhere at all. and no party in the suite to make my nakedness uncomfortable or public. yeehaw. homework time. COFFEECOFFEECOFFEE

ugh i shouldn't have written this, it has sparked a miserable chain of internet events that are nothing like homework or phone calls to the bank or any of the other things on my to-do list. and not even a good post.... this is my stupid life.

Friday, April 10, 2009

fraction of a dream

i think i had my first obama dream last night... but i don't really remember the details, other than that we were in the same room. he was all suit and smile, and i think he was staying in my house. i was sort of hoping that more of it would come back to me as i wrote this, but it's not happening.
the night before last, i had a weird bus dream. the whole time i thought i was riding on the back seat with this kid at school, but as the dream went on, he slowly morphed into someone else. it was only at the very end as i was getting up to leave that i really looked him in the face and realized he was a stranger.
i really should start writing these things down as soon as i wake up, instead of pressing the snooze button four times and never cultivating any dream life. brett was talking to me about lucid dreams the other day and i am SO JEALOUS of people who can do that. i wish i could even remember anything about these things... then again, about a year ago, i was have REALLY intense dreams that would just leave me stunned and devastated and unable to move from bed. it really wasn't just an excuse to skip class, i am pretty sure about that. maybe other people dream like that all the time and i'm just not used to dealing with it. it was like my dream emotions were more real than whatever i would feel when i was awake, and anger in a dream would linger and make me pissed for days.
i want to ask, has anyone else had stuff like this before? but i know that i would just be talking to myself.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

I SHOULDA BREEN A DRUG STORE
YOU WISHED I WAS THE SPECIALS
IT’S SICK WHAT I WOULD HAVE BELIEVED
I NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED

Saturday, March 28, 2009

my week that started really nicely quickly took a trip and fell downhill.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

future:

be observant
write
words on every surface
careful distance
magic
bringing something better
mischief
THE CIRCUS?


listening to: suite couch kid snores

you can hear the whole world whispering

so me and christian made the 11 hour trek to chicago and yes, we even made it back to the mountains. i have no words right now for how it feels to be back... i'm very confused. grateful for the trees and the birds and the SPRING but not the stress and tension. well i guess those were words, but i dont think it really counts.
i dont feel like talking about chicago right now. ask me later, if you care.
MEANWHILE today was the first day back at school. waking up at 8am sucked mightily, but i made it out of bed and got to work TWO MINUTES EARLY. [applause] well folks i checked my mid-term grades and they're not too shabby... various forms of the Ace and a B for Bradshaw, but thats beautiful because of my bumbling bastardization of a research paper. so now i feel like i'm allowed to be a little more relaxed about school, just knowing that i probably dont have to destroy/depress myself when things will be fine. i forgot that that is sort of how school works. ha! seems like years since i have remembered this fact. who keeps these sorts of secrets? after vics, it's lunchtime but i got to avoid gladfelter thanks to a leftover half subway sandwich from the road. hallelujah! i never felt so free. i walked in circles, even! i scrapped my usual beeline to the food trough and stumbled nonlinearly through the formal gardens and behind some unfamiliar buildings till i found a lone red backpack, full of water-logged papers. i could use this kind of company, and the view was good, so i made my spot. immediately i notice, as anyone must when sitting in the grass, that the whole ground is moving, and blades of grass flick up and down with the weight of sturdy black ants. do people talk about 'an army of ants'? i feel like this is a phrase i've heard, but it's not very accurate (well, maybe for fire ants), because the buggers are just all every whichaway and scrambling here and there with no real sense of unity except for FOOD. which is what i had, and there seemed to be more and more of them as my picnic went on. but i thought it was just wonderful, because bugs are just such joyful company, although i dont think they really thought the same of me. i did try to reach out a friendly hand, but the reaction was never good. i suppose it's a helpful lesson for me, to be reminded of my true size and also that they feared me and my power, despite my good intentions. i think these are good things to remember. in any case, i gave them a bit of onion and lettuce and watched them haul it about, to my great delight. maybe people wouldnt complain so much about ants ruining the picnic if they would just learn to share a little... it's really great entertainment, seeing how a tiny ant can tear apart huge chunks of food and lift, what, twenty times its own weight? incredible! so i sat and ate my sandwich and watched the ants carrying parts of it away and let the springy breeze wash me over. ohhh the spring! it always makes me feel so completely renewed, to the point of cliche. and today i just sat on the top of this little hill of brush and i couldn't hear anything but birds and mountain sounds, and a far-off drum circle which i will attribute to the theatre department. and a sudden click-click-click-click made me look up and i thought something was gonna explode and kill me, but it was just a woodpecker, and i really wished i had my camera to shoot him perfectly framed between two powerlines, and the sun spitting somewhere through the clouds, and i can hardly stand to look up out there but i have to, because of the birds! every movement in the grass and the trees and the brush is fluid and sudden and i'm hyperaware until a FUCKING BUMBLE BEE comes at me out of NOWHERE, literally flying straight for my eyeball, and me literally squealing and falling over onto the grass with my sandwich. WHAT are you thinking, bumble bee, why dont you bumble over there? but then i remembered that i can make a good bug friend, and the bumblebee doesnt want to hurt me at all, and just wants to say hello. okay, hello, you can come back now. so he comes back and my sandwich is pretty much done so i leave the limp tomato on the ground and follow the bee to an odd little non-path that goes down the hill through the brush and i can see a butterfly flitting over an abandoned well just up ahead. well, of course, i have to take this walk, but when i move, i scare a feral cat, and she runs outta there pretty quick. definitely a black cat in my path, is this an omen? i'm sorry i scared you, kitty. good luck in the woods. two oddities: some forgotten "tree gear" hanging off a branch and nearly drowned on the forest floor AND a beautiful black-striped rock sitting on a rubbermaid barrel like an altar. so this little non-path lead down the hill to a real trail, and i have to walk along this for a few minutes, with the bee trying to bumble into me the whole time. what the hell are you thinking?! along the path, there's all these strange rock structures whose purpose is sort of lost on me... i need to research this. to me, they look like shrines or cradles, and i want to crawl in even though i am not rock people. maybe one day i'll go take a nap there, at least, and see what i can see. the float and the flutter calls me OUT and everywhere but i realize that it's 1pm and i am officially late for class. i followed the path back, i picked up my paper and plastics, i went back to the buildings. i had to stop on the way to take a picture of a beautiful dead bird with my fucking camera phone. was that disrespectful? i have to think about it.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

didnt i didnt i didnt i

this week has been BIZARRE. my alarm has been messed up and i've woken up hours late every single day this week (not counting sunday, when i did not wake up, because i didnt go to sleep, and i still didnt finish my paper, but at least i turned something in) and i've missed some work and some class and a fucking exam, but i am making up the exam on friday. pretty much everything has been really up and down... i know that i keep saying that and it's sort of a theme for the semester, but i really mean it this week! didn't i say a while back that it seems like every week gets crazier and more intense?? i think it's true, because this week has just been absolute insanity. the weather has been BEAUTIFUL ever since the weekend, just like spring! which is crazy, after the fucking snow attack last monday. the weather has really helped to improve my mood, which basically means distracting me from the shit that i have to do. i am gonna go ahead and talk about yesterday in list form since it was just crazy.
--alarm clock somehow silent, woke up at 11:40
--sent yet another apology email to carol howard
--upset and talked to brett, who convinced me to go to class
--danced and class flew by! did an awesome stretch
--got an email from an otherkin type who is coming here in the fall... YES
--shower with my new tea tree body warsh. contemplated singing, but didnt.
--picked up a mysterious package from the post office, but i'm not allowed to open it yet.
--WORK. looked through archival photos and giggled with emily
--bossman informed us that my coworker/friend is withdrawing from school... i got really down and didnt know what to do besides send her a facebook message, how lame is that.
--vegan cajun dinner at cowpie!! OH YES I DID eat three bowls of etouffee!
--morgan takes me to the secret hammock and i get barefoot outside for the first time in far, far too long
--forced myself to go to the library to study for anthro mid-term
--talked to rachel on gchat instead!! sine we last talked, her life has become completely insane!
--talked to risu-kun the otherkin on gchat!! WOW SO EXCITING
--library closed at midnight, i saw TWO possums on the walk over the bridge!
--brett and i distracted each other for an hour or so
--tried to work on anthro study sheet
--talked to JEREL on gchat for hours! it was fucking great and intense and weird and damn it if i dont miss him like hell sometimes.
--finally went to bed around 5:30. i felt sort of guilty because i'd had my lamp on the whole time but my roommate seemed to be sleeping fine and she didn't complain. today, my alarm fucked up again somehow, but it managed to be an alright day anyway i guess. i rushed around trying to finish my study thing for anthro but i barely used it on the exam after all and i think i did okay anyway. went to work. talked to brett on gchat but kept having to hide the window from my bosses, i dont know how successful that was. WOOPS. i wanted to stay late to make up for some lost hours but i had to meet with bradshaw at 5 to talk about my progress and my paper. it turned out that he hadnt looked at my paper, so he hadnt seen how bad it was and he didnt get the note i left with it. there were a few things i had intended to say but couldnt because even listening to him talk about it made my throat close up and all i could do to keep from breaking down was keep drinking the fucking rose tea that he always gives me. and he kept saying things like "you cant flog yourself, that's just not productive." and he kept saying that i need to take more initiative but also that i need to chill out. we talked for an hour, but mostly i was just listening, laughing at the appropriate times, nodding, and trying not to fall apart.
tomorrow i am seeing the school counselor. i can't wait for this fucking week to be over.
this weekend is the beginning of spring break! my parents are driving up on saturday to pick up my sister and take us out to dinner at tupelo honey where i will eat veggies and drink wine and talk with my wonderful family. on sunday, me and new friend christian are road trippin it to chicago. he can't drive but he is making cookies. i will be so grateful for the company, and i know he will keep me entertained. i hope it's a big ole bonding experience, because i think he's really cool, and i'd like to get to know him better. in chicago, i'm staying with brett at the bowers house, tagging along to class and pretending i'm in art school for the week. i am really excited and nervous.. there's so much to DO and sometimes our visits together go really nicely and some of them are not good. there's been so much anticipation, i feel like it HAS to be good! i am hoping that next week will keep up with the pattern of the semester by being intense in some new ways and then being relaxing in others. you know what i mean? you might not, but you can imagine. anyway, everyone should send good energy to me and my vehicle on sunday.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

I saw a thousand darling imps

WHY didn't i just choose to write about sex in victorian fairy tales like a normal college kid??? WHY did i go and choose this completely impossible and unsummarizable topic that is at once totally fascinating to me and completely frustrating?!?!!
it's moments like this that i really hate myself. why can't i seem to change?? i do this every time. and now it's 12 hours till the paper is due and i have one page written and a pile of fucking notes and THREE piles of references on my desk and AHHHHH i am about to drink some venom to stay up all night, wish me luck and pray that the fairies help me finish this.
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS OHHHHHH FUCK 11 HOURS

listening to: suitemates watching the dark knight and kids outside singing around a bonfire

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

skipped work. skipping class. slept 10 hours and even had a dream, but it was gone before i brushed my teeth.
health center tells me that i'm not sick, but i beg to differ.
is the divacup sexy?

Saturday, February 21, 2009

how terrible orange is and life

so i did neither of those things. maybe things would be different if i had.
ended up talking to laylee on the phone, which was wonderful. then, morgan, aimee, and laura miess showed up in my room begging for liquor. i fed them jack and cokes, and we danced to gravy train!!!! while a couple of dudes tripped in the common room (didn't find that out till later). they dragged me to the post-vagina monologues party at eco-dorm. even though i missed the monologues and i feel very guilty about the whole thing. this party was by far, hands down, the best one i've been to all semester. there was a goddess transformation station where you picked a card from a stack and got face paint to become her. i drew Lady of Beasts and i got a bunch of orange on my face, which... you all know how i feel about orange. but i made up for it by spraying glitter in my hair and some other girls threw glitter all over me. GLITTER is my favorite. i dance dance danced with the ladies and with friends. the music selection was not perfect, but they played a lot of good songs to balance out the crap. the dj told morgan that she really didn't want to play "baby got back" but someone requested it.. she didn't MEAN to have that kind of dance party! heather poured a third of her king cobra into my go-cup for which i am eternally grateful. i loosened up enough to scream/sing "deceptacon" (got a couple of positive comments so i probably shouldnt feel so embarrassed) but not enough to grind with co-worker emily (had to tell her that i was uncomfortable, then worried that i had embarrassed her). i stayed for the entire party, partly because my jacket was missing and it was too cold to walk all the way back to the circle without it. turned out to be squished into the couch cushions, along with half the contents of my purse. all in all, it was a really good time and i'm glad i went. i think i made some friends? we'll see.

what would you do if a cute, intoxicated girl at a party was asking someone for a cigarette burn? if you had one in your hand, and no one else stepped up, would you do it?