actually, though, why is it so hard to be home at christmas?

we don't know what to do with each other. everyone is looking at a screen. everyone is miscommunicating or misunderstanding each other, either because we were looking at screens when we were trying to make a plan, or because screens have killed any communication skills we maybe once had. we don't know how to talk. we don't know how to listen.

your parents have the same problems that you do and it's hard to watch.

papa can't hear anymore so you don't know how to talk to him. you can talk nonsense with grandma, but she doesn't know who you are.

all your big dreams shrink to fit back inside the old house, back into your dark heart. they smolder there and you expect to be embarrassed to talk about them, but no one asks you anyway. you've already been written off. the dreams die without a fire.

you thought you could understand the world out there, but that mess of trash and war seems like a far-off thought and you're the only one worried about wasting paper on plastic presents and not being able to compost the potato skins. if they talk politics, your words will leave you and you fail your cause entirely. what words are left in times like these?

there is a blister on your mouth that rots all your words.

you ask your mother when you began to hate everything. you guess college but she answers "middle school" and probably she is right. she says she felt this way but she hated hating and the world was too much so she gave it up. but she doesn't tell you not to.

just from watching doctor who with the family you love, the family you crave, you know that something is wrong.

you almost cried, to recall the brilliance of Lucille ball. why can't we all? why can't we? what stops us? strips us?

the moon is full and the grass is wet and it's 85 degrees on Christmas.

the world is dying and broken and full of plastic. you know you're either dead or fighting.

you aren't going to win by crouching behind a bush, sucking down fire, calling desperate to a foreign moon with nothing but your dead self and cold toes.

inside there is light and laughter and you've never been its partner.

you are the broken dream of people who wanted better.

what happens when you go home for the holidays

​why can't i enjoy anything
why does it feel like i can't stop being mean
why is nothing ever right

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?!)

where's your full-time gear?

thanksgiving was nice. i didn't really do anything for most of the week. i went home with elise on tuesday to take care of her poor head, which is a lie. it was an excuse for me to be there. she hurt her head, if you didn't know. read her thing about it. her dad didn't want her to drive the car in her condition, which didn't really make sense to either of us, so we sat at her house and watched creepy TV called drew carey and home improvement. linda, elise's mother, fed us wonderful food and then robin came over and was fed too. linda actually offered to drive us somewhere, too! so we picked up laylee and came to my house and watched a charlie brown christmas. we sat around and cast and recast for our movie version. it was great fun. i can't really remember what all we did but it was a nice night. first robin got picked up by her mother, then elise got picked up by her sister lena who had just gotten back in town. i filmed the reunion. it was lovely. then laylee got picked up by her crazy brother who refused to come to the door but sat out in his car for like five years. it was nice. a nice night. the next day i got packed and sat around and elise came over for a couple hours and we worked on untouchable face. she left about an hour before we did. i spent most of my thanksgiving break in jackson, mississippi with my grandparents. i bought two cds - grace by jeff buckley and trompe le monde by the pixies. you should know that "letter to memphis" (the song on which this blog's name is based) is on that pixies album. download it immediately and read the lyrics. it's a beautiful song. anyway i like both cds a lot but i have only listened to each one once. thanksgiving dinner was at cracker barrel with my parents and my grandparent since morgan felt too sick to go. when we got back, we found out she has step throat. poor baby. so yes we got back on saturday afternoon and i think we mostly just sat around for most of the day. my family went to see harry potter around 4 and they liked it. i am very glad i did not go. elise, lena, and brock picked me up at about 7 to go to elise's house where we ate thanksgiving leftovers with kevin, robin, and acacia. elise's brother aaron was there with his friends so we didnt really see him. lena was making clothes and the parentals were off doing god-knows-what so they were basically absent as well. we did get to see a lot of charlie, lena's dog that's part coyote or wolf or something. i had a lovely evening. brock filmed a lot. kevin drove brock, elise (haha) and i home. he and elise broke up practically right after they left my house. i don't think elise is having a very good week. i am waiting for her to call.

i've started doing some editting for "untouchable face". if i wasn't going out of town in about half an hour, then i definitely would finish editting by the time Thanksgiving break is over. but since i am, i can't really make a good estimate. footage is looking great though. maybe i will make some new stills for the page. until then, have a happy turkey day!

today is "Family Christmas" which means that everyone in my immediate family (sister, father, mother) gives each other presents today. because we're going to Georgia for Real Christmas and that is when santa happens and we give gifts to outer relative types. today is a beautiful day.
mom got the best gifts. morgan gave her this statue of a faery for the garden. it's really beautiful and she was like 'i dont know if i can bear to put it outside!' and dad gave her this alan lee print which is (suppposedly) exactly like the one they saw in england a million years ago and dad refused to buy for her. and mom is always going on about that and how you cant even get them anymore (which she made up because it is a better story) and dad found it for her on ebay and had a long conversation with the guy from the company that sold it to him about the san diego comic con (which is THE comic con) and how he was BRINGING ALAN LEE AND THE FROUDS!!! so dad was like 'we have to go' hence two posts ago.
and dad also gave her this great huge poetry book with three audio CDs of the poets reading their work. it was amazing. and my gift (HORRIBLY anti-climactic) was the 'soul music' terry pratchet dvd which is "a tale of sects, dwarfs and rock 'n' roll". but mom really liked it and she was surprised apparently and she was like 'i'm gonna OD on christmas excitement' and it was funny beans.
dad got three DVDs. ahhagha. mom gave him dogma and morgan gave him crouching tiger, hidden dragon which has "over 100 minutes of deleted scenes" and i find that very cool and i gave him monty python and the holy grail and that has the coolest feature thingies such as "how to use your coconuts properly" and then the knights are legos. gahdslkhga.
and morgan and i's presents were sort of matching as they usually are. i gave her boys for pele by tori amos and a tori poster. she gave me the green world by dar williams (which i dont even remember having said i wanted lol) and the self-titled le tigre album. (SO EXCITING!!! WEE!!!)
and dad gave morgan the plushie Delirium doll (who came with a little fishie) and i got Death which is great and morgan says we look alike? then mom gave morgan little setsuma smelling thingies which is lovely because setsuma is a kind of japanese orange and its lovely and she gave me a vanilla travel candle and vanilla lotion thingies.
oh and now that we're on the subject. brittany gave me a vanilla candle as well (you guys know me too well.) and she gave me a little photo album thing (which i desperately needed) and a bag of recee's (but her brother ate one and i forgive him) and frankenberry (which turns your milk pink.) and i am going now.

yeah so i was in jackson, mississippi visiting my grandparents for a few days over thanksgiving break. and uhm i am going to post on the travel blog about it so yeah. laylee is mad because i dont post gahahah. i saw harry potter on friday, as i was manually forced into the damn theatre (betrayed by my family!) and it was godawful. and i bought 'dummy' by portishead and 'the bends' by radiohead and it was Big Fat Head Day. morgan did some more sketches for her Innocent Vegas Showgirl theme (thats what shes calling it, go complain to her) and theyre all gorgeous let me tell you.

;_; brittany has made me REALLY paranoid about christmas. fuck fuck it's not even THANKSGIVING yet. BRITTANY THIS IS ALL YOUR DAMN FAULT.