the problem where it's in my head so it's already true. being bored with everything. nothing being good enough. i see it with clarity how it could be better, should be. so why am i not doing it?

but how can i do it alone ?????
everything i want is dependent on others. i thought maybe i could make it work here but clearly i can't. this has been the problem all along. i couldn't find the support among my friends, so i sought it externally and i crashed + burned. dependent and dead.

i thought i had some good ideas over the last couple days. i was so fired up. i needed anyone to fuel the flames. all responses (except rex my love) were lukewarm. i was shattered. i broke apart. i became again dumb, useless, unimaginative, incapable, etc forever. i don't know what's true. i don't know what's real. i'm so busted apart with self doubt and dissociation that i don't know even about reality.
i want to talk about it but i'm a pretend artist working without a practice. my mode has been to instigate others or to glom on later. i have no solo. i have no way to know. i consider being alone in my bedroom trying to "work" and i throw up in my mouth, i can't eat for hours. (do i eat at all?) it's as if i'm supposed to have seen everything already but actually not, oh it's better if you don't, just be yourself. it's as if i am supposed to know how to funnel this brain crash through a gold pan and discover my own secret brilliance, eventually. elsewise i guess i'd better sell my (l)eggs to go to school and have them tell me how to be. i'm at a loss. i'm done for. i want to move to a new town and die. i want to disappear or explode.

the veggie soup has chicken stock, donated pre dumpster so technically it's freegan. I almost eat it but I almost cry at the thought. I'd rather go hungry I decide. worse things have happened. do no harm or whatever. plus I've already had one meal today which is better than other days. why is food so fucking hard?? especially on this trip where food is a major theme, a center point of community. am I being dumb by sticking so hard to my vegetarianism? even GPaul the vegan eats piles of dumpster meat. am I just being stubborn? what products are more evil? I'm smoking newports for fucks sake. I'm already ruined. already I'm wondering if I can convince Lando to stop on the road for subway or Taco Bell or some such garbage because I'm clinging so hard to this one thing: I dont eat animals. I just can't do it. maybe this is absurd but it's been over seven years now and it may be the truest thing I've committed to. so I sit outside and smoke and think and feel hungry and wonder if this is a condition of my privilege.  yes, probably. and is it rude for me to abstain in this place, in this broken city with its food deserts, after these good people have housed me and helped me and even thanked me for just taping them?

but of course i can't. i munch on home fries and bits of tofu, and reagan gives us granola for the road, the ridiculous road of me and lando and a new friend named steph, and somehow it takes us 6 hrs to do a normally 3 hour drive. but of course we make it, despite it all, and acorn is now warm and familiar and weirdly enough people are happy to see me.

whining and pining is wrong

this morning i scheduled my first job interview since my last one a month ago at the humane society. just a minute ago, i called back and canceled it.
i'm still depressed about the humane society not calling me back, but i have decided that this is the week to get over it. i almost applied to starbucks a couple days ago and realized that i need to GET REAL.
part of me wants to catch up on here and write about everything that's been going on, but in some ways it doesn't really seem worth remembering. for instance, i embarrassed the life out of myself on friday night, and now i wonder why i ever leave the house. i need some new hobbies. pbrs and music tagging aren't cutting it. but did they ever?
yesterday my parents found cosmo in their bed gnawing on a baby turtle. the top front of its shell was bleeding, and i cupped the turt in my hands while mom dabbed at the wounds with betadine. then we made a house out of a big plastic storage container and a feast of tomatoes, grapes, collards, mushrooms, and the rest of the schnuck's produce aisle. although seemingly healthy and doing fine, turt won't eat and seems pretty stressed. the vet says just to let em back into the wild, i.e. the backyard, but now it looks like there's more blood and i'm afraid.
also morgan is here for fall break. hurray for fall break! finally fall.
now i'm going to the pho hoa binh buffet YAYAYAY

listening to: the magnetic fields - busby berkeley dreams

broken glass as far as we could see

worst beans and rice ever. what is wrong with me??? actually i will just blame these possibly frigerator-burned beans and butterless instant rices.
getting ready to go out with ada. but where to? probably one of the midtown dives we've been frequenting this summer... probably the lamplighter.
i put hot sauce on this beans and rice but it is still kinda inedible. time for a bunch of corn on the cob, i guess.

listening to: hop along - coney island

your daydream ends like a kick in the chest

breakfast for dinner!! sweet potato hashbrowns! pancakes! mimosas!! we should do this more often. i dont know how the fam felt, but i LOVED IT. again!!
went to see the new our own voice show. it's the first one they've done based on a book, though not a fiction of course. bill wrote and directed, but there were lots of new faces... good actors. got to see linley, alden, and grayson. so crazy how much time has gone by since i met them. coming back to memphis always shocks me that way.
i stare at my gmail inbox all day, but i dont read half of what i get and i still havent answered all the important messages i've been putting off from the last 6 months -- or more? steve cohen's newsletter always makes me tear up. what's email for again?
i'm trying to get back into music, but it's really hard. everything feels mediocre. i think i miss books.

listening to: art sorority for girls - spaceship

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.

today all the snow melted.
i have a miserable headache.
i am going to laura miess's birthday dinner at thai basil because i deserve it.
it has been a loooooooong week.
i had some really good conversations, though, in which i was told that i was good to talk to, good with advice, and good at mothering. who knew?
it sounds cheesy, but it's really nice to have these sorts of conversations where someone tells you that you've made htem feel better. i sort of miss those.
must run off to this restaurant.... and probably spend the rest of the night cooped up in schafer c.
we'll seeeee

listening to: the jackson 5 - i'll be there

i'm finding i can fly so high above with you

it's a fucking winter wonderland outside and i didn't get any classes cancelled!!!! what is this!? not my life, i assure you.
yesterday at work, i glanced up from my meaningless existence and saw the freaking bundles of snow pouring around like some kind of explosion at the soap flakes factory. jon said "you can't see the mountain, that means it's snowing!" sure enough, you couldnt see the mountain. it was just whiteness, and some pigs. by the time i left work at 5, there was a nice fat coat of snow on everything. i met up with morgan to eat dinner at gladfelter, where i had salad, corn on the cob, and apple jacks. i tried to do some homework in her room, because my suite is rowdy and never quiet, and i had to read the first half of "in memoriam." but ben came over pretty soon and said "let's go play in the snow!!" and how could we refuse? we had a little snowball fight and saw some other kids running around and even witnessed a few bursts of fireworks. i stuffed so much snow into my face... i had a snow beard, or three.
spent the rest of the night trying to read tennyson, but with very little success. finally trudged back to my dorm around 1am... i actually had a sort of difficult time getting to the right path, since everything was so completely transformed in all the snow. all the lightposts looked the same and my usual landmarks were mostly absent. i wasnt even really bothered by the cold that night because everything was so beautiful and moony. although i was worried i was gonna slip on the hill after the bridge, and i had to hold on to the railing, and i was glad that no one else was awake to see me being so nervosous. tried to read some more in bed but was too tired to get much done. when brett called, i mumbled some incoherent babbles, and since i couldn't make conversation, simply professed my love over and over. so, that's going well.
where is morgan??? i am sitting in her room and i can't find her scissors to open my birthday package and i'm fucking starving and i want to eat some dindin!

boys don't ever have this much fun

i hate the law.
after dinner at the OR tonight, i walked up to my car in the loyola parking garage, in the rain, to discover that i had been BOOTED. granted, this is sort of my own fault, because i dont have a parking permit yet.... but i mean, cmon! it's still pretty early in the year, right? so i had to pay $95 to get them to take it off. it was exceedingly lame.
so, i finally got on the road. i had to stop at rite aid on the way home to pick up some medicine. i walked in totally normal and didnt even notice that some lady's "HEY! PINKIE!" was directed at me! pinkie! what??? is that a racial reference, or could she perhaps have been referring to my dress... i don't know. so i'm standing in line at the pharmacy pick-up and she appears and tells me that i have to leave. why, you ask? because i am barefoot.
"you need to leave and get some shoes."
"i don't have any shoes."
"you need to leave and get some shoes."
"well this will just take one second."
"you need to leave and get some shoes."
"but i'm sick! i need medicine!"
"you need to leave and get some shoes."
i should have kicked a bitch. but instead i just rolled my eyes and left. and now i have no medicine.
here's the point: these days i have been attempting to find happiness wherever i can... it's a rare thing, so i do my damnedest to continue doing the few things i can to maintain a little glow in my day. lately (basically all summer and continuing to the present) i have tried to go barefoot as much as possible. every day i go to school with no shoes.... i've gotten scolded a couple of times at the cafeteria, but basically i ignore it. brandon just keeps telling me that i'm being dumb by not wearing shoes because i'm going to fuck up my feet and i'm automatically shortening the list of places i'm allowed to go. and i understand that it's a liability and a health issue...... but really, i don't give a fuck. you should feel my callouses!!! they are quite impressive. and it's one of the only things that brightens my day. so i'm sorry, world, but i hate you. deal with my fucking bare feet and leave me alone! one day you'll wonder where i went to. and it will be too late.
so leroy just came home with a big bundle of delicious stolen food. yes! all the soy milk in the world will soon be in my belly! bwahahahaha you just wait.

happy list returns!!!

-when something you've assumed is artificial turns out to be real
-drunk haircuts with rachel
-atcha bakery
-mud
-pesto
-the art party
-leroy is making me a spinach sandwich
-spanwiches
-spinietzche
-awesome readings for sociology class
-trading clothes
-bare feet
-sharing
-cat hat from brittany
-looking/feeling like a cartoon
-wine from the bottle
-so much music i can't say

listening to: rakiim some kind of rap "mricophone fiend"

ain't got no use for your red apple juice

i feel like crap. i'm trying to eat pizza and drink chamomile tea. you'd think this would be a disgusting combination, but it doesn't really taste like anything so i'm not minding. today i felt like crap. my head is clouded up and i can't think. i hope to be better soon. fuck this shit.

listening to: the be good tanyas - rain and snow

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

breathe

i've just had an absolutely crazy, very great, yet very surreal 6 days. tuesday brandon got here at about midnight, and we sort of accidentally stayed up all night. his family, who were also evacuating new orleans and heading to memphis, got into town at 5:30am and came to escort him to the house of the friend they were staying with. the plan was for him to stay there until his family left on friday, and then hopefully stay with my family for the weekend. however, as brandon found out 45 minutes later on wednesday morning, this home for refugees was also being occupied by another new orleans family, and was located in olive branch. therefore, brandon showed up at my house after school and never left. thanks to my wonderful parents, who will apparently take in any stray. he, brock, morgan, and i hung out at home for a while before heading to pick up tarah and eating a lovely dinner at memphis pizza cafe. LA met up with us as well, but she and brock had to go home before tarah, brandon, and i went to play in the park and go out for dessert. brandon and i went to sonic, where i got the goddamn thickest vanilla shake of my lifetime and we sat forever listening to the tribe called quest album i had recieved in the mail that day. which is great, by the way. back at home, i did no homework and got little sleep. brandon was feeling guilty about invading our home, so as a favor to my parents, he drove morgan and i to school on thursday. he was supposed to go to the zoo with his family, but something happened and he just wasted a bunch of time driving all the way to olive branch and back out to my house a couple times? there was some craziness that happened and it turned out that he was supposed to pick us up from school, which i didn't know, and had katherine drive me home. which turned out to be nice because she got to meet brandon for real and inhale cloves with us on the patio. that was nice although i wish politics hadn't come up... that's okay because i think they still like each other. mom took me to get my new reading glasses and also to get my regular ones adjusted. when i got home, katherine had gone home, so i bunkered down to do some homework. morgan and brandon kept me company, and made sure i got very little work done. they went to pick up some backyard burgers for us, and i managed to complete six physics problems. eventually i gave up so that brandon and i could go crazy. LA came over in the middle of it to work on something for art class, and while we loved seeing her, i think she was annoyed that it took her so long to get her stuff done. morgan also was working on an art project, and i had a hard time sitting still for her to draw me. sorry, guys. i hope you both get an A from the brilliant mr. berlin. once everybody was done working, brandon and i listened to kid a and beck and had a lovely night. he took us to school in the morning, this time because our parents couldn't. he came to lunch, and i got to sort of show him off. he let me eat half of his sonic toaster sandwich, and life was good. i think he had a good time, even though lunch is so short and i felt guilty that he had to drive all the way out to school just for a few measly minutes with my posse. i tried to convince him to come to all three lunches, but he wouldn't. oh well. he had to come BACK to pick us up. morgan had to do something with ms. kitts, so while we were waiting, we sat in front of the school listening to iggy pop and smoking cloves. it was the real punk rock. when we got home, we lay around on the futon forever waiting for plans to get made. eventually we hopped in the car, turned on the fugees, and went to pick up laylee and alice. on the way we saw about 23957023575320 cops and they stuck around to make a theme of the night. it was pretty weird, but we had a really wholesome day so nobody minded. it was just damn weird. anyway, we couldn't think of a goddamn thing to do so we drove all the way back to midtown and got milkshakes from java. everything was blocked off crazy because they were setting up for the cooper-young festival. being at java was sort of depressing, but nobody really suggested leaving. we ended up buying this cd called "nose songs" by a local guy named müller who uses melodies to bob dylan songs and writes his own lyrics. we then decided we were hungry, and somehow the collective BRILLIANCE of alanna, brandon, laylee, and alice made us decide to go to molly's where we ordered literally nothing but chips, salsa, bean dip, and cheese dip. SWEET LORD. we all felt bloody AWFUL after that, as you can imagine, so we high-tailed it home. we all lay on the futon in the dark and cuddled. brandon and i listened to the cd while laylee and alice gossiped and giggled. LA finally brought don over for us to meet him at like 8 something and we dragged ourselves out of bed to rent a movie at black lodge. it took us forever, but we finally came home happy and ready with "heathers." in the middle of it, kevin showed up with motherfucking william, who was in town for his mom's birthday. we turned off the movie and talked to them for a few strange minutes before they left to explore the city's changes. we put the movie back on, and alice fell asleep quickly afterwards. it ended some time after 1am, and we drove laylee and alice back home and saw 239057352 more cops on the way. i slept allllll morning long-- brandon didn't wake me up until 12, probably prompted by my father, to tell me that i had to be at theatreworks in an hour. the first rehearsal for the show was three hours long, but it went pretty well and i had a good time. even though i was anxious about getting home the whole time. if we weren't going to miss two ensemble rehearsals for voodoo, i would've tried to get out of that one. for brandon's sake, of course. he stayed at home and watched raising arizona and rock n roll high school. back at home, we sat around on the couch for a while before heading over to the cooper-young festival. to be honest, i don't know why we went, other than to see people. i don't think we stopped at any booth for more than a minute, and we only stopped at about three. we just sort of mosied along hoping to glimpse a familiar face. we did a good job of that, but then we never really talked to anyone for that long, unless they ended up joining our procession. it was a really weird concept to even be there that way. we eventually made it into java, after latching onto brock, eileen, mouse, and some friend of somebody's who i don't know. in java we found becca, daniell, laylee, kevin, and william who we sort of sort of kind of attempted to make future plans with, but did a horrible job. brandon and i got really hungry but didn't want to eat at the festival. with yet another craving for pizza coming on, we grabbed morgan and high-tailed it over to memphis pizza cafe where we had a strange meal because i made morgan feel to guilty to buy anything since she'd forgotten money. i'm a horrible person and i'm sorry. then she had to go home to work or something? we dropped her off back at home. we went on a quest for greenery and ended up on the metal floor of peabody park's jungle gym. so that was a failure, but we had managed to enjoy ourselves nonetheless. i love the sound of trains going by. we then rushed to studio to see garden state, which i had already seen, but brandon hadn't and he loved it. i was really glad. plus it was sort of a perfect goodbye movie. at home we listened to julie ruin and cat power before going to bed way too late. we woke up at 7:30 and layed around for a while in my tent. we went to breakfast at IHOP and pretended to be a pair of happy collegiate artists taking joy in life's simple pleasures-- coffee and cigarettes. it takes me forever to eat so we were there for an hour or so? i apologize to everyone who has ever had to take a meal with me. back at home we had a second anti-climactic ending to our surreal little venture. we sat around for a while burning cds. i mean come on. but seriously, folks, it was a good time. brandon left at about 1pm, rolling away towards union inside a round, green little car. he didn't look back, and i couldn't look on. i went with the family to see sky capitan of the world tomorrow which was a very silly, but very beautiful movie that took my mind off things until i got brandon's home-safe call. new orleans is still above water. it didn't even rain.

listening to: godspeed you black emperor! - sleep

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.

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?!)

the waiter set my plate down
"thank you" as i'm contemplating
what the fuck i ordered
i rotate the plate to see if this
creature
is more manageable from another angle
mom is smiling secretly
she reveals that
she knows
she is okay with everything
like i knew she would be
but over lunch because of one
silly mistake my sister made?
while she's sipping brown ale and
i'm trying to figure out
how to bite into my sandwich
funny because nothing has happened
we are just doing what we have been doing
plus talking
it's just a proposal
i am insistent.
mom says
"my january baby's growing up
my little girl's in love"
but she's always been
such a silly woman
and hopelessly romantic
so i don't know how to act around my family
they have never known something so big about me
i am so good at keeping hidden
and when this was right in front of them
did they see?
No.
it took a little nudge from a poem
that accidentally got left in their line of vision
not even my mistake
because i know how to wipe my tracks
as i'm running away backwards
so i'm on stage melting under bright lights
EXPOSED
performing a facimile of my life
i have forgotten how i used to be
i have forgotten my act
i'm trying to seem normal as usual
i have forgotten how to be around her
and i know they can see it now
when i lay against her shoulder
i hope at least they have a memory of who they think i am
that they can reteach to me
so "hi mom!" here's a shoutout to my family
the nosy noisemakers discovering me in here
back again? who let you in?
we'll get a bouncer for this haven

mom sent me off
to buy chilli ingredients.
neither of us was wearing shoes.
too cold for her outside,
but not for me?
i trek through the snow alone
leaving angry footprints
in my neighbors' perfect yards.
it takes me a couple minutes
to find the right beans.
and i never do find a
"spice pkg of cumin seeds or ground"
but i spend five minutes standing
in front of the mexican spice rack.
these two men come up next to me
(wearing matching coats, i swear)
they look like crazy indie guys.
they're also looking for some kind of chili spices.
i stall for as long as i can,
fiddling with my list and my jacket and the
products that came to my city, my tiny midtown grocery store
in order to satisfy the growing hispanic population
in the cheap apartments across the street.
here i am in my comfort.
here they are in their miniature ghetto.
here i am complaining that i have to walk to the store in the snow.
here they are having no choice, no car, no big fluffy coat.
here i am stalling next to my new favorite people,
handling the merchendise.
here i am wishing for them to be a couple,
watching their feet standing close.
they still haven't decided what to buy when
i slip away still empty-handed.
i just take the most generic seasoning up to the register
slide change into my pockets
wish change upon the world

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!

pull this thread as i walk away

my teeth hurt like ANYTHING. it's really uncool. i had oral surgery last thursday, and last night right before i went to bed they started hurting more than they have hurt all week. and it's so sad too because i actually attempted to eat pizza last night, and succeeded fairly well. oh well. so i'm back to pasta (cheesy alfredo by kraft). i already ate all the pudding. dad doesn't want me to take the strong painkillers until he comes home from work, god knows why not. kroger's extra strength Pain Reliever does NOT do any good, let me tell you. i just had crazy memories of my dream from last night about. i dont know. i remember people from OOVTT and going into this little miniature jungle petting zoo, except that the lions were out to get me. it took me forever and ever to get to sleep last night, and then i had to get haunted by a crazy dream. wonderful.

other things alanna remembers about last night:
--thinking that if the cd (house tornado by throwing muses) ended before i fell asleep, i would get up and finish feed
--deciding to partially resurrect the cam archives, for lack of things to do
--reminding myself that i could musically link kristin hersh to frank black. like in the six degrees of kevin bacon. i think i fell asleep while i was doing it though, because i don't ever remember getting there. or maybe i got side-tracked trying to make it longer than four degrees.

wahhh i was so bored i decided to make a blog.... just like laylee did. wahaha so lets see. last night i made my alltime favorite forgotten cookies also called sleepytime cookies also called (by me only) bliss. they turned out quite well considering i made them. and i have now decided to eat one at this very second. mmmmmmmm ;_; ill have to post the recipe.

so last night i was talking to nick and then the wall wiggled and i sort of looked at it and THERE WAS THIS HUGE HUGE HUGE MASSIVE ROACH CRAWLING ON THE WALL!! before i knew it i had screamed slightly (and just for your information, no one came running. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A RAPIST BREAKS IN, EH?!?) and ohh god it was so disgusting. i was also standing in the chair, wondering slightly how i got there, and watching the roach horrificly. i sent a few urgent ims to nick and he was very sweet and tried to calm me down...... after a while of making fun of me. O_o OH WELL I STILL LOVE YOU THERE NICK. and then laylee made fun of me... and well it was really really horrifying. but i managed to save my cookies from the evil beasties.

i woke up a while ago when mom was banging on the windows yelling at morgan and i to wake up. she had, apparently, forgotten her house key. so it seems that these cookies have become my breakfast. blissss. i should probably have like cereal or something. so uhm morgan's making me go play something with her. if im bored enough ill like.... post some more later.

currently listening to --- "here in my head" by tori amos (this song is sooooo beautiful why the hell isnt it on an album!??!?)
current lyric--- in my head i found you there running around and following me but you dont intend it but i find that i have now more than i ever wanted to so maybe thomas jefferson wasnt born in your backyard like you have said? and maybe im just the horizon