i woke up early just to see you fly away

yogi the yoga bear says we will cool down really quickly after today's set, since we're so warm. doesn't she know i'm a lizard?
at tonight's radical mental health collective meeting, we did some really intense check-ins and then... made "art". see here.
it's after midnight, i haven't done any homework, yet i am blogging. ahh... feels like the good old days high school.

listening to: the microphones - i'll be in the air

would you believe we have a lot to let go?

how did two weeks go by without any activity on this sad little blog? i'll give you the easy answer: midterms and fall break.
so, not a lot of time for writing and reflecting lately. in fact i feel rather out of practice... part of me wants to write an extremely detailed post about what's been going on, but the other part of me wants to forget about it. in-between currently seems impossible.
i guess the weirdest thing is that i went to my first funeral. my great aunt ella died on the 13th, with no clue where she was, but surrounded by family nonetheless. the funeral was in north georgia, so mom drove in to asheville to pick us up last friday. i felt like a freak with my green hair, like no one but my grandparents really wanted to see me. the weirdest part was the bizarre division between the reality of death and the falseness of the whole thing: the slices of astro turf, blue fuzzy stuff covering the folding chairs, some preacher shaking my hand "bless you" that neither i nor ella even knew. before the service, they opened the coffin, even though they had had a viewing the day before.. i guess this was my first dead body too. i wasn't sure what i was supposed to do, other than look in there at all the pinkness they covered her in, and wonder if she was better off, and hope i never get that old and get covered in pink frills and stared at in a wooden box. i would have expected myself to just think that stuff and feel pretty disconnected from the whole weird experience -- the religion, and the guy talking like ella was a saint for billy graham, and the pinkness, and everything all fake. but my biggest impression was in her stillness, and how close i felt to it. and the wind was blowing the bible and the guestbook nearly off the little dinky podium. and there were only about a dozen chairs, and about 20 or so attendees, and no one would take the last five chairs. i wonder if that would be a sort of southern phenomenon, or if that happens at every funeral with too few chairs. and suddenly it was just over, some cousin or some such was shooing us youngins away, telling us that the funeral director wanted to lower the coffin, and could we kindly walk back to the cars. no one followed us, of course. we tread down that hill of bodies alone, trying to pick out the most unoffensive path with little success. there was no wake, no food, no alcohol, no commiseration. just naps in separate rooms in separate hotels, across a strange little town we hardly knew, that chanda swore was run by inbreds, or at least that's what she saw at the cvs. no one really talked about the funeral, or about ella, after that, except when grandma gave morgan one of her old coats, also pink and fluffy. and that was that. i didn't give my condolences to anyone. i didn't apologize or comfort or anything... who would i have chosen? who should i have felt sorry for? i think we all knew that she wasn't happy living anymore and secretly prayed that our lives wouldn't deteriorate like that, whether or not we believed she was ascending through the pearly gates. and that was my first funeral. today i put the coat in the free store.

listening to: karl blau - mockingbird diet

i don't remember what this means anymore

another possum, stock still in the right middle of the darkly wound road. beautiful, i see glowing eyes. i thank my professor for braking.
girl on bus tells me she doesnt like them.

have i rediscovered a secret to sleeping? the old fetal position i used to do all the time, before i started spooning.

three green sprouts in my salsa jar.


it was only small because everything was samll.


image through a video. maube?
oobebesessiososonnn

i need meaing
]he said...
belifs???

it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me

i dreamed about hiking/climbing trees across an island forest with some people (dudes?) and later going to a small convenience store and walking around late at night with my granny. suddenly it was dawn, and she figured we had talked all night, but i thought the sun was playing tricks.
i only remember this dream because i woke up a couple minutes before my alarm for once.
a few minutes later, i looked out the window and had one of these thoughts: "that looks way too real." how can i tell?
there's a tapping on the bottom of my left foot. i wish it would stop.
my right nostril is stopped up. i really don't want to get sick right now.
today i have class from 9:30 to 12:20, 2:30 to 6, 8:30 to 10:30. i'm going to see some friends open for zoe boekbinder at sage at 7pm. i have a midterm to take, and lots of stupid errands i have been putting off. wish me luck...

listening to: nina simone - feeling good

here's to our wings, not knowing why they wilt

fuck my heart in my throat for choking my voice and letting it linger. fuck this feeling all the time.
today i worked for six hours on a bibliography of criticism, reviews, and articles about margaret cavendish. it was intense and i'm glad i'm not working tomorrow.
tonight, the full circle group met for the first time this semester. it was morgan, four of my close friends, plus hannah and luna, who seem to be organizing, and kelsey from recycling. i felt a little out of place at first, but i think it does make sense for me to be there in some ways. the group is talking mostly, i think, about relationships between body and food, but i think that other body issues will enter the conversation as well.
since the meeting, i've been screwin around in morgan and aimee's room with them, eva, and renee. we are ridiculous. very little homework was done. which means i need to go now and finish studying for my world cinema midterm tomorrow and also do my history reading, in my newly tea-christened textbook. i think it is the fate of all my textbooks to be covered in tea this semester. at least this spill was green, not black.

listening to: why are we building such a big ship? - vultures

temper and tempest to knock at the moon

the cows are louder than ever tonight. you'd think this would feel calming, rural, rustic, but ever since i found out the truth, it has become sort of terrible. i really can't explain how painful they sound, how devastated i feel, and how haunted i will be.....
a while ago, i got back from my first meeting for my UK study abroad class. it was, as i had predicted based on the email i got last night, slightly obnoxious and elementary. we did some "sensory exercises" where we listened to a song or smelled something in a bag and then went around a circle and told what memories or emotions were stirred up by the prompts. i HATE this kind of thing, i hate stupid sense memory, i dont know who invented it, i dont understand it. i had NO memories related to the sesame street theme song or to the smell of curry powder. the first time around i said 'i dont know' and the second time i made something up. fuck that stupid shit FUCK IT i am not a baby can we talk about katharine briggs yet???? lyn had some more things planned for that game but luckily we only did two. then ian (born in england) read us a story and a poem and we talked about the concept of narrative.. again, pretty basic, simplified stuff, and i didnt really agree with all of it but it wasn't exactly a discussion. i am the only lit major in the group.. there are a lot of writing majors, a few environmental science types, and two business. everyone seems nice enough, but they all seem to know each other already, and i feel like they gave me a weird look when i walked in. lyn said i was the only person she didn't know already... i kept feeling like i had missed out on some secret meeting, have i done something wrong? at the end of the class ian unpacked his suitcases to show us what we should bring on the trip. this was really intimidating and made me worried. i hate the idea of a plane, i hate the idea of the tube, i hate myself for knowing how stupid i will be, too scared to order a drink at the pub. however, i was cheered knowing we will be visiting the homes of william wordsworth and beatrix potter, and going on long walks across the countryside. also ian says that when we're in london, he will give us each some money, and we will go to second-hand stores and buy crazy clothes to wear to the theatre. i like his attitude of traveling light, taking only things that are expendable, and getting rid of stuff as you go, if you find something better. i especially like the concept of being small that they were talking about.. not taking up too much space in order to better absorb new surroundings and trying to melt into the culture. so anyway, as a whole, i guess i'm getting excited about the trip, but i'm really terrified and i think the class might irritate the fuck out of me.. we have to make stupid time capsules for the next meeting. UGH what am i, 9 years old?
so, this weekend renee helped me dye my hair. i have been talking about it for a looong time, but somehow never really solidified what i wanted. so this plan turned into a lot of impulsive decisions, and i'm not really sure how i feel about the result.. i keep going back and forth. right now my whole head just feels like a pile of spontaneity that wasn't necessarily the 'right' decision. it went like this:

• a few week ago, i asked aimee to cut my hair. i would have preferred her to do whatever, but she wasn't comfortable with that, so she asked me to come up with something.
  
• i was itching so bad for the cut, that i just sorta gave her a bad description of a sorta-kinda thing, and she did what she thought i wanted.. it didn't come out how i pictured.. much shorter and more perfectly stylized than i had hoped.
• thought about cutting off the rest of my hair... but didn't.
• craving dark green in my hair like a mermaid or a tree. rite aid doesnt have green dye, and walgreens just has 'neon green.' renee convinces me this is what i want, and i figure it'll be okay.
• renee and i set to work, but what to do? should we cut it as well? where should the dye go? i have not thought about these things at all.
• renee and morgan agree: more short bangs. a quick chop and it's done. i think i do like this, but it's not much of a haircut.
• my ideas for dying are the same as my directions to aimee for the cut: confused and vague. renee has a couple ideas, and we just sorta set to it.
• after i wash out the bleach, i realize i shouldn't have left it in so long. the bright green would have come out darker on light brown hair.
• halfway through dyeing, i have an idea for what we should have done. but it's far too late.

so, i went to bed with dye and tinfoil on my head and woke up to... what? well, the green is not not not at all what i wanted, and i'm not sure how i feel about it. i wanted something much more subtle... so i'm debating getting some different, darker dye. but i might just let this fade out first. i feel like a spectacle again, the way i used to feel all the time at loyola. not quite as bad, i guess. i *do* love to be a cartoon, but this is maybe a little much. yesterday morgan called me a muppet, a froot loop, and a melted crayon. definitely not my intention.
i can't believe i just rambled so long about my hair. fuck me. am i this lonely? i think i am just obsessed with the documentation. anyway, fuck it all, i need to be less of a perfectionist anyway. who cares about my stupid hair or that i am talking about it.
in other news, the radical mental health collective last night was amazing... so much better than last week. i really like the smaller size, it seems like we could build a really strong support network for each other. i was really amazed by everyone's openness and, in turn, the respect they were shown by the group. yes, i think it's going to blossom into something really wonderful.
right now i have so much on my mind, i don't know what to do with myself, so i do this blog and play the banjo and make stupid jokes with my friends. the reality is that i have about a gazillion very serious emails to write and calls to make and serious serious business to attend to.
FOR INSTANCE i have a lab report and paper proposal due tomorrow yayyyyyyy good night

listening to: throwing muses - green

email from comrade tom

date Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 3:04 AM subject oh that's it

"you put the parts in there
they don't mean the same thing
but i take what i get"

is what i meant the whole time!

what to do?

should i go to a smart people potluck/party or a g20 arrestees fundraiser or wallow in my room all night?
(i slept till 3:45 today.)

obvervances of the last 20 minutes

--opossum appears out of the depths of sunderland darkness to scavenge for food, find and open a pizza box, and loudly crunch on crusts and crumbs. comes as close as 3 feet?
--a light in the bright full moon fog: lonely individual skips the smoking hut to stand at the foot of the hill. let them keep it, walk to the bridge.
--from under the bridge, a fluffy bundle atop a person creeping towards the vining treehouse. did something run you from the woods?
--a crisp, creaky crackling begins in the schafer trees and lurches towards dorland. it's almost overhead, the sound of tiny pebbles hitting leaves, but i can't feel anything.
--no memory of opening the door

the world is on the verge of calamity

banjo is hard. this week i realized i was doing a lot of things wrong and i almost feel like i've had to start over. i'm gonna try to start practicing every day.
my new lamp goes CLICK----CLICK and i don't think i like it. at least, i don't think it was worth moving my old chunky lamp.
i swept up the dirt from my egg and put it in an empty salsa jar.
brett bought me a book and it came in the mail a couple days ago. it is called DIRT and so far it's pretty crazy. i learned about roman bathhouses and plagues and priests that kiss lepers and filthy monks. COOL!!! i know, right? i'm honored that brett read about this book and thought of disgusting old me. i hope it starts talking about trash soon.
today at work i filed and organized and rearranged for hours and hours. i have a strange desire to redo the whole system of the file cabinets and redistribute all the papers around in the office and just generally make a mess and clean it up. at dinner i was thinking about filing. this may become a problem.

listening to: bonfire madigan - o'sanity

the worst

just now i was trying to set up the new lamp my mom sent me and switch it with my old lamp and i was scooting my stupid cluttered desk and i heard something fall and it didn't sound bad but then i looked behind the desk and there was dirt everywhere and it took a second to hit me: i broke my egg plant. katherine gave that to me months and months ago, and the worst part is, it was still unhatched. i've been waiting for the right time to crack the top and start growing the marigold inside. i almost did it when i moved into this dorm, but i was waiting for the "perfect" time. i guess this is a lesson for the perfectionist part of me... dr. b was getting on to me about that today, too. now i'm really upset. i guess i'm gonna eat my weight in chocolate, and maybe peanut butter. what should i do? i guess i'll try to scoop it into a bag... this is so depressing.

revamp

any thoughts on this new layout? still under construction.. it is one of the premade blogger ones, so i don't know.. it's kinda neat i guess. i dont know, i might just switch it back, who knows. i was getting tired of that old one, though. too much empty space, plus it was on here for like 6 years. that's pretty long, for a layout.

so i am probably maybe gonna change the url of this blog because it's not anonymous at all anymore, now that the blog name has become my email address and username for everything. and what's the point of keeping this thing off google if people can still find it really easily? so... if you want to keep reading, comment on this post or email me. that means you.

a box inside my chest, an animal

today is the 25th anniversary of "the letter" by kristin hersh... just wanted to share that. it's a really intense song, one that i have been dependent on at times, and i know it has been life-changing for so many people.
so, listen to it, i think it's important.

i could not get through september without a battle

today officially feels like fall. walking home from the empower center, i catch hints of roasted marshmallows in the air, that familiar slightly burnt smell that goes with this season. the crisp air felt amazing today, but i am dreading what's coming. morgan says it finally feels like wilson, because so much of our time here is spent bundled up against the cold. it's almost hot chocolate time, i guess that's comforting. something about this weather has made me decide that sitting around my room in a sweater and underwear is a great idea. i think it is, even though my toes are a little cold.
today, sophie asked me how i'm doing, and when my response was hesitant and unsure, she said "oh yeah, your mood always corresponds to the weather!" she's very right. even though i maybe felt a little off today, i was welcoming of the change. i am so ready for this month to be over, for this little section of my life to be done, to move on, somehow. i'm not sure how to accomplish this. perhaps i need a self-help book, or a professional. for now, i will stick to my own program: tea, tickles, phil elvrum. throw in some reflective emails for good measure... but how to let go of so much outrage?

listening to: the microphones - the glow, pt. 2

why put the light on at all?

today at yoga i arose from deep relaxation surrounded by leaves, in my hair and even in my hand. during the class, a cold front came in, and the beautiful day turned into real fall, yellow leaves and all.
each time i go to yoga, the class feels shorter and easier than the week before. i think that it feels shorter because i'm getting used to the pacing, but i think that it is really getting easier, and not that i'm getting stronger, like i wanted to. partly, i am not pushing myself as much as i perhaps should during stretches, because i keep thinking the hard stuff will be next, but it never comes. i might try a different yoga class this week if i have time. don't want to limit myself..
especially since monday is now the meeting day of the new radical mental health collective! today was the first meeting, and in my opinion, it sorta sucked. we were basically just talking about what we want the group to look like, and one dude in particular (who is a nice guy) dominated the whole conversation. i'm nervous about what this is gonna be like... i dont think i could discuss my realest shit with a group of 20+ kids, only some of whom i know. but i'm definitely gonna go next week to see what happens.. mostly what i'd like to see is shared strategies for coping with madness, and more than talking about everybody's personal problems, discussing mental health as a whole: what it means and what we do with it.
i think someone is drinking my soymilk. i think this because tonight, there seemed to be *more* than last time. i think someone is drinking my soymilk and replacing it with water. i put a note on my soymilk. they better not do it again.

listening to: kristin hersh - glass

humiliation was imminent

so, morgan and i decided a few days ago that we had to see the decemberists at their show in asheville. it was sorta last minute, so they weren't the *best* seats in the house, but they were pretty good, considering. yes, they played a huge auditorium, complete with balcony and all. i was very stressed out about getting to the theatre on time. i worked until about 6 and then sat in gladfelter till about 6:40 when i realized what time it was and rushed over the bridge, and morgan and eva asked if we could go by malaprops beforehand and i said "i guess so we have to leave RIGHT NOW" and off we ran. well of course there were still people arriving all throughout the first band's set and even afterwards. the opening act was laura viers and the hall of flames who i began to enjoy more and more as they played more songs. not the most spectacular lyrics, but some of her images were interesting. it was interesting to see a 5-piece band that sounded so minimal. a large part of it was the absence of drums.. they did have one floor tom that they played occasionally. it was just interesting for so many people to have such a minimal, simple sound. it was nice... but very calming, and not a great preparation for the decemberists' set, if you ask me. there was something like a 15 minute break after laura viers, and finally finally the lights dimmed and the decemberists took the stage. they played "the hazards of love" from start to finish, with guest vocalists becky stark from lavendar diamond, as margaret, and shara worden from my brightest diamond as the forest queen. i thought their microphones were too quiet, or that the guitars were too loud, or something, because i couldn't hear them as well as i would've liked. still, i could tell that becky's voice is much stronger than the album would have me believe. (morgan tells me that in her own band, she sings big. i'm not sure why they made that choice on the decemberists album... could it be because she is a frail little woman, the lover rather than the protagonist? ugh.) her voice is beautiful, but her dancing is... not. it almost looked like shara was teaching her to dance at some points. both of them had very stylized sort of moves, to get them from the back of the stage to the front, and highly theatrical poses during their singing parts. becky as margaret just wilted all over the place, her hands in poses of submission, totally helpless and frail. shara, on the other hand, was intense, punchy and low and angular, and soooooo much fun to watch. i definitely want to look into her other music now. although both of their moves seemed pretty planned out, becky seemed a lot more stiff and self-conscious than shara. i would have thought that after being on tour with them for so long, she would have gotten into the part a little more. but, of course, the whole thing was just beautiful, but the story still confuses me.. i mean, i get the basic plot structure, but i have a hard time following the transitions and understanding exactly what is going on at any given moment. and the climax.. i just don't understand at all. so then there was another 15 minute break before their second set! this was quite exciting. colin informed us that they had crafted the setlist specifically for asheville: all their 'country' songs. "but it turns out we're not a country band" and they were apparently surprised by how few country songs they had. the songs were not all my favorites, but there were some real gems in there. so the set: Angel, Won't You Call Me?; Leslie Anne Levine; Crane Wife 3; Down By the Water; Shankhill Butchers; Chimbley Sweep; Dracula's Daughter; O Valencia; Crazy on You.
Down By The Water is a new song featuring colin on harmonica, and that was lots of fun. Chimbley Sweep was completely ridiculous and got totally silly about halfway through. during the bridge, colin wandered out into the audience and climbed on the seats and was deposited back onto the stage, only to pretend/attempt to play his guitar with his teeth. he said he'd never tried that before, but i don't know if i believe it. then the other guitarist was trying it too, but they couldn't do it at all. finally colin said "i bet you're starting to wonder 'how much did i pay for that ticket after all?'" and i was too. but the madness didn't end there.. colin continued to wander around the stage, trying his hand at drums, and then accordion. everyone was switching instruments, and jumping around, and it was quite silly, but went on just a little too long. colin seemed to be taking advantage of the audience by just doing whatever he pleased, whether or not we liked it -- we were sort of stuck there, after all. so finally they went and played the rest of the song... and then what colin called the worst song he had ever written: Dracula's Daughter. proceeded by a ridiculously long story about how after he wrote it, he was crushed by his own paper, his feather pen floated to the floor, the candles were snuffed out, and god shed a single tear, leading to the creation of the nile river and the pyramids?? i'm telling you, it was just silly! HOWEVER the band quickly redeemed itself with O Valencia... morgan and i stood up to dance. then, the diamond ladies came back out to sing a cover of CRAZY ON YOU and it was AMAZING why was it so amazing i dont know. that song really shouldnt be as great as it is.. i'm gonna download a heart album, dont tell. well, we didnt even have to clap and stamp our feet for too long before colin and john, the giraffe drummer, came back out to sing the newish Raincoat Song, which i remember liking quite a bit, but you know... by this point it was pretty obvious that things were winding down. it was like a lullaby, and i thought they might end there. however, they did not. the rest of the band (and the diamonds) came back out to sing Sons and Daughters for their last song, of course. colin finally gave us a bit of audience participation and told us to keep singing out into the streets and into our beds whether or not it annoyed our roommates. however, asheville hipsters suck at audience participation, and it was the most pathetic thing ever. colin kept having to yell things like, "sing from your chest!" and blah. that was lame... but the show was still great.
johanna was sitting two rows behind us, and she needed a ride home, so i gave her one. on the way to the car, the wind blew morgan's dress all the way up, and she squealed and laughed about it all the way home. we dropped johanna off at the village, but the party there looked dead. back in dorland, we opened a big bottle of pinot noir and watched some videos before morgan and eva had to go to sleep. i took the wine and called renee, and she and i decided to traipse around campus for a bit. we went to the ballfields to find the 90s party, but julie told us she had shut it down because they didn't have a party contract... lame. then we sat outside of schafer and talked to carrie for a while. she was on a queer debutante ball/coming out stories kick, and it transferred to renee and i after she went to bed. eventually we got cold and went to my room to piss and find jackets and more wine. we wanted to smoke so we ended up at... the sunderland smoking hut. this kid elliot was there and renee knows him so we sat down for a while. he is in my film class and we got into a big discussion about breathless and just about movies in general. his friend emma, it turned out, had also been at the show, so we talked about that too. a girl came outside who had apparently had alcohol poisoning that night. her RA had called 911, she was taken away in an ambulance, and had to piss in a cup at a gas station, which she did, but escaped through the back door, and hitched a ride back to school. she had been hiding out in the smoking hut ever since but seemed to be sort of freaking out and thinking about dropping out of school. i met a girl named hannah from atlanta who wanted to know about memphis, and a kid named taylor who was responsible for the miserable movie night on thursday and was generally obnoxious, and a weird guy drinking from a flask who was talking about running over deer. there was a quiet kid who should have stuck around. my shining moments of the evening were 1) spotting a possum that no one would have seen (or been able to identify, apparently) if not for my quick eye and 2) reading (almost perfectly) "spring" by gerard manley hopkins from the ancient, damp norton anthology that i had mistaken for a bible but started drooling over when i opened it to a page of browning.
somehow i stayed out there till 5am, i dont understand at all. did i make any friends? we'll see.
today i slept and slept through all the rain, and had that miserable dream (detailed below). i have not gone outside, i have not left my room. tonight is the lord of the rings/arts and crafts party in laura miess's room. should be exciting! renee says she will help make art for my room, since my walls are so devastatingly blank. there's a superhero dance party in my dorm, so i'll probably go for a little while. i have a feeling there were a lot of things i was planning to do today. however, i have forgotten them all and i don't feel like looking at my list to find out what they were just yet. instead i will make some tea and listen to songs.


listening to: rasputina - cage in a cave

disconnected bits from this morning's dream

brock and his new friend are planning to go to france again, of course, even though he'd said he needed to stay here for a while. who would want to stay? he's glowing, so excited. distant before he's even left.
while htey talk, me and a child play games like hide under the mattress. am i babysitting, or just excluded? i feel small too, i can climb around on the furniture like a child.
everything in the town is short, a seemingly neverending straight road cluttered with one-story buildings that are brown and shacky. it's like everyone's a gypsy, nothing is safe. there's a sort of primitive feeling, anything goes.
brittany mcbride's parents open a tavern. normally i would be nervous to go into a place like this, i might not even be allowed to be there. but because i know them, i know i won't get fucked up being there.
i'm sitting with a few people, we are the only people there, we're the first ones to try out the menu. mr mcbride brings us tea but says it's a batch his wife made, and it's no good. i look at the menu for what feels like forever, trying to process it. there is a huge list of meats, including about 5 or 6 (?) fake meat options. i don't understand if it will just be a big slab of meat or if these are choices for different dishes. everyone else is ordering, and then eating, and i'm still staring at the menu. then i remember mr mcbride saying something about an apricot bake or something, "thats what you want, right?" apparently he knew i wouldnt be able to handle the menu. the food is placed in front of me, but i'm not sure if i actually eat any of it. i'm not that thrilled about the dish he's chosen for me.
apparently the room has filled up with people. i see laylee at a table across the room, with strangers. she seems strange, like she's on something, sort of helpless. she sees me too and tries to tell me something, but when i try to respond, the mcbride people glare at me and tell me, not here. i'm worried about her but i can't do anything.
still, somehow i walk around a lot during the meal... and end up not getting to eat my apricot loaf. later i'll go looking for it, but it isn't there.
i keep seeing jamila, she's always talking about.. i forget exactly. she has to do something, she knows now what she has to do. i feel like she's in some sort of bad money situation or trouble with the law, or something, and she's trying to get it sorted out. she's always leaving.
while i am walking by, over a shelf, i see a man looking at me and pointing me out to the man next to him. this continues down a line of four men, ending with mr mcbride. he is shocked but tries not to show it. they're planning to do something to me... ii'm curious what it is.
brandon collapses and is dying. i freak out. me and some other people carry him on a stretcher towards the hospital. he's really sweaty and can't open his eyes. i am remembering everything, how much i cared about him. i give him a very small tongue kiss and tell him i love him. he murmurs "i've been waiting for that." as we get closer to the hospital, he gets more and more coherent, and starts arguing with us that we can't take him htere because he's broke and he hates doctors. i say "wanna see laylee's homeopathetic doctor?" even though i know thats not the right word. brandon says he tried to got here already and it is just a dusty shack, no one there. eventually we stop arguing and put him down, he seems fine again. we don't know how to feel.
i think i run into jamila again.. she's going and i'm coming into the tavern. she says she figured it out... she just has to.. .. what?
brandon's girlfriend is dead somehow. she is propped up on display in the tavern. brandon mourns and i comfort him. everyone's upset.. it is just one more thing in this terrible world going wrong. we watch a video of her (warren makes a brief appearance,a nd i can hear brandon in the background, i guess he's shooting) in a dorm room being cute or something. they're singing abotu how they love this college (obviously crashing there) and she says something like "my arms are swirling around without anything to hold on to" or something even more obnoxious. there's a sheet over the bottom bunk and i'm jealous of the tent, though i wonder if they made it or if it was there already. this is the most realistic part of the dream..
i am wandering around through the city, hopeless, when i see from a great distance, up on a hill, tons of people in tattered clothes slowly pouring in. the "minutiae" (?), or refugees, were forcibly removed from russia and sent back here. i feel like i am hearing this as an announcement over a loudspeaker as it happens. it is a devestating event, a travesty of human rights.
i wander alone along a balcony. i contemplate jumping off but the water is too shallow, it's just a shallow pool of clear water, from here i can see fishes and the tiles on the bottom.
i feel like the mourning period for brandon's girlfriend lasts a few days... finally one day we are in the tavern and he's weeping over her and she just opens her eyes and starts laughing. she was never dead, it was just a joke. "didn't you read my blood letter?" she sticks out her tongue, and brandon scrolls through, reading the words there. he starts laughing too, and everything is okay. i am infuriated, i['m screaming at her, calling her an idiot and an imbecile and heartless. the two of them, and everyone else in the town, think i'm overreacting, being stupid. i nearly throttle the bitch. finally i just leave, feeling ridiculous.
i am wading in the shallow pool with a little kid (the same from earlier?) schools of tiny fishes keep swimming through my underwear, and i have to push them out of my pussy. i feel like htis scene has already happened somewhere earlier in this dream.
i end up alone and outcast in the post-apocalyptic little town. i don't know if i can go back to the tavern, and i don't know where my friends have gone. refugees are crowding in everywhere and i couldnt find room to breathe.

listening to: pitterpattering rain outside the window

gotta keep it kind

the peal open mic last night made me wish i was writing again, or that i could write at all.
right now i'm brewing chinese tea given to me by my new friend, qi. she's says it's green tea infused with jasmine. i followed her directions perfectly but i still feel like i've done something wrong. i probably wasn't supposed to stir it. i was probably supposed to let it steep untouched for half an hour, while singing it a lullaby. this inspires me: i would like to read a book about tea.
yesterday my legs stopped being so sore from yoga on monday, and i could flex and stretch them and start to feel muscle. i was so excited i kept kicking my legs around last night and telling morgan and renee how strong i want them to be. so strong!
i planned to finally get my passport today but apparently they're not open. i'm a fuckup.
(actually this tea is really sweet and soothing and good. maybe it will fix my cramps.)
i plan to do laundry, refill my pills, dye my hair, appeal a parking ticket, write a letter, go out to dinner with morgan, wear a mustache, and dance the night a'gay. oh yes, and write this fucking paper.

listening to: thao with the get down stay down - know better learn faster

words have nearly always hung me

my first paper of the semester was due today. i wanted to get started on it on tuesday night, but between going to ingles, eating ben's birthday cake, and studying for my astronomy test, there wasn't time. last night i sat down around 8:30 to write the paper, made lists of notes, organized them into paragraph topics, and then fucking panicked. it has become inevitable that all my papers go this way. i turned in almost every paper late last semester because i didnt start till the last minute and then i forgot how to write a paper, every time. i am considering going to the writing center for advice. i'm sure they'll say, write your outline and thesis paragraph two weeks ahead of time (my book hadnt even arrived in the mail yet) and write a paragraph every day (the most important part of the reading was the last 20 pages, which i read yesterday) and bring it to the writing center 5 days in advance. well, i wish i could do that. this keeps happening when i try to write papers and i feel like a total failure. it used to be my biggest (only) strength in school. i would gladly write a paper over giving a presentation or making a poster. where did i go wrong?
i guess i'll blame new orleans.

you dont have any self-esteem at all

yet another internet test tells me that i'm an INFP type personality... the tests are always hard for me because i start contradicting myself halfway through. but i do think that this answer makes at least a little bit of sense... maybe? i've gotten INFP every time i've taken the test over the past few years, but i did get ENFP once, back in high school during a confident phase. (if you dont believe me, it's in the archives.) i think i like that description better.
anyway, i want you to take the test and tell me what you get.

listening to: throwing muses - epiphany

things i needed to do today and didn't do:

--get a banjo
--call the health center to make plans to get my physical
--go to see an eighth-generation appalachian ballad singer at sage cafe
--go to derek's meeting aout the g20 protest
--sign up for some activist table thing that i couldnt find
--pick up my mail
--get ahead on my homework
--fix the art party
--write
--take a shower
--eat enough food
--find my TWO missing cups
i guess thats all.

how could you be so blind?

nobody sells you a banjo on labor day. i'm staring to hate all holidays. i went to yoga to unwind, but it turned out to be sort of really intense, a mind-fuck body breaker. i nearly cried a few times, but i refrained. luckily i have made this bodily function optional. mostly. now i'm trying to do homework but i can't seem to get past the fact that i'm staring at a big page full of black text. my mind is on letters, my own words, so many things i need to say. of course, i'm doing this instead.
why do people have to be such bitches? here's what happens when you're depressed on the internet. what can i possibly say? i wish someone would defend me.
also, should i drive an hour and a half to buy this beautiful handmade banjo, which i probably do not deserve?

listening to: joanna newsom - flying a kite

september 4, excerpted from my journal

today in class he treats ben like a dog. yells at him -- "Ben, Stop!" humiliating him and the rest of us. i can barely keep from sliding under the table. why couldn't he say "please" or at least treat him with respect? the classroom suddenly feels like a hierarchy, just like at work, and i'm uncomfortable with my position, wherever it is. i must be a masochist to continually be in this situation, to put myself near this man every day. i consider poison -- nothing fatal. then i consider switching crews but i doubt i could do it. then i'm thinking about my classes, which have seemed fine until now, how i know they will make me miserable because that's just the inevitability of going to school, and being surrounded by humans-- the obnoxious laughing fuckers in film class, the unbearable silence of my all-female women's history class, the droning voice and roaming eyes of my astronomy professor, and dear old bradshaw. it's over before it's begun, and i can't seem to stop the slide. i wonder how long i'll try.

my lip keeps trembling and i'm not sure why, but i'm almost ready to blame it on my new birth control pills. if i stay busy, i can almost distract myself from feeling so loveless and cold. tanya donnelly singing "it's not time for me to go" almost sounds like an omen.
almost, but not quite.

listening to: belly - stay

unfortunately

i'm glad they're happy but right now i would rather not know.
i thought he was good, i'm not surprised that i was wrong.
you are no longer someone i want to spend time on.
i don't remember why i'm still here.
no one confuses and kills me like you do.
the facial structure of certain female strangers gets me dizzy, dry-mouthed.
i was told she was dumb, that's why i'm not jealous.
so why does the dagger still stick warm in my gut?

another anxiety dream about work. went to some sort of convention with dr. b and maybe some friends, students? i get sick and cant actually attend, and i cant make it to work work the next day either. the reasons seemed genuine at the time, but now i cant remember them... later i ask beth if it's okay, if i'm in trouble. she says he's REALLY mad. i spend the rest of the dream avoiding him, running around terribly anxious and frantic.
morgan is in antoher part of the dream... i remember very little of what we talked about. she tries on huge solid color t-shirts (neon green) and she looks like a bell.

a hopeful day, but now i really feel like dying.
or maybe just living alone in a cave for all of forever.
eyes sting, chest caves with unnameable sadness.
how did i get so alone?

stand here and see this

oh god i've realized what my haircut reminds me of. and it's terrifying.

listening to: the blow - come on pauline

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

ALL I WANT

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


kill this week.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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?

i could not embrace the day

THE THERMALS ARE COMING TO MEMPHIS!!!
perfect timing, it's only a few days after i get out of school. a great way to start the summer! this summer will be very busy, of course, again. i will be shooting/editing concrete (yes, still), attending the radical queer convergence in chicago, and there's some talk of SV going on tour, but i dont know if that's still happening. i have been looking at the idapalooza website and getting lovesick for it, but i might be too busy to go... i will have to wait and see what the lineup is, because what if it is too good to miss? then again, there is SO much to do, especially with the movie.... and we really need to get as much done this summer as we can. or else, we will never finish.

this week was one of those ones where you are never sure what day it is, even when the day is half-over. i kept getting confused about which classes i had next, and i would be walking somewhere and not remembering where i was going. maybe i can blame these feelings on the very large bump i took to the head on saturday night, but i don't really feel like placing blame there, it is bad enough already.
it was one of those weeks where each night, you go to bed miserable, realizing you will only get three to five hours of sleep, knowing you will never catch up, and wondering where you went wrong. everything is in a hazy daze and it's all that you can do to even realize that you are tired, because you're just so busy. there is always somewhere to be, something to read or write, something else to be thinking about next. on wednesday someone gave me the advice to "slow down and take some time for yourself" to which i responded "I WILL IF I HAVE TIME!" i usually try to chill out for a little while after dinner but then i end up getting mad at myself for not working, and not finishing what i have to do.
this was one of those weeks where you don't finish any of the things you are supposed to be doing, despite all the planning and time-budgeting and trying to do everything right... nothing goes right. when you finally try to talk to people, thinking you have time for meaningful conversation, you give out bad advice. the conversation you've been needing to have for weeks spirals out of control, leaving you depressed, frustrated, and ultimately too tired to do your homework. i had a take-home exam due on monday that i didn't turn in until wednesday... my professor was so nice, he didn't take off any points for it being late, which is so amazingly lucky. i hope i did a good job on it so that he doesnt feel like it was undeserved. then i had a paper due on friday which i really didn't mean to put off until the night before, but somehow that happened, and i thought it would be easy to do, but everything got away from me, and i ended up writing a really stupid email to my professor at 4:30 in the morning explaining why i couldn't turn the paper in that day. no good reasons, of course.
it was a week for fighting and making up. for unsteadiness and unsureness how to ask for help. for sickness and possible roads to recovery. for conversations left incomplete, and the fear of pressing forward. was i ever able to communicate? it doesn't seem that way. maybe part of the problem is that all these things are going on, leaving me unable to really process what i'm thinking, so when i try to talk, my thoughts are jumbled and i don't know how to get where i need to go. does this change? am i stuck this way forever?
i think i'm gonna clean my room. this seems like a step in the right direction. or maybe i will take a nap.

listening to: hope for agoldensummer - midwest

who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?

virginia woolf has been renewed as one of my heroes. how did i forget that she is so amazing? i just read this excerpt from a room of one's own and i am blown. away. completely. wow.

that is all.


listening to: my own sniffles

realizations of social flaws:
-double w
-names
-your friends need space
-i dont know
-youre so my best friend
-whats (going on upstairs)
-wheres (the dance party)
-nice to meet you
-they said she thinks she's going crazy
-same goddamn bass beat



tonight has been crazy. i'm also pretty sleep deprived. each week just gets stranger. does this calm down, i have to wonder? thats that happened tonight:
-worked late, ecologist speaker guy
-practically fell asleep a million times
-gross dinner at gladfelter with the advancement office kids
-internet... talked to aj?!
-erotic cliterature contest at sage, with only ten entries
-double w at schafer c plus dance party
-trek to ballfield, lost julie
-arrival, lose everyone else
-wandering in circles
-somehow i am back here again and staring at this screen and all i really need is sleep good night.

big birds have been known to dive

i've decided that instead of rambling to certain ghost-town im boxes, i should start blogging more. i've also decided to start collecting more quotes and word artifacts. especially, i want to make a big list of good things about birds and wings. i think that would help. on monday i got a package from katherine with a movie called "jump cut" and 2 very sweet letters, and one from brett containing simply toenails in electrical tape and a swan figurine, which is now preparing for flight on top of my external hardrive. my desk is getting to be a ridiculous mess, not unlike the rest of my room.

things that are currently on my desk:
--laptop
--harddrive featuring swan friend
--lamp
--southern comfort flavored coffee
--a jar of buttons and thread
--fake willy kitty "furreal" companion
--64 box of crayons (the one with the sharpener and the maze)
--natural deodorant stick (lavender scent)
--one daily multi-vitamins
--microgestin fe 1/20
--purple nalgene
--plastic cup of jungle juice from saturday's funk party
--red washcloth
--rit dyed feather
--framed photo of boy in spaceship by tom
--half of a rollie
--59 cents
--the master letters of emily dickinson
--journal with the nyc subway cover
--dead ladybugs from the window hole
--the aforementioned packages and all their contents
--completely bizarre birthday postcard from tom
--blue felt
--grimm's bad girls and bold boys: the moral and social vision of the tales
--black gloves
--shoe insert gel things
--happy birthday signs and a card
--sailor mooooon
--unhatched egg plant from katherine
--envelope note from dr. bradshaw
--a little frog
--fork
--hilary's bandana
--trash of course.

i was thinking that might inspire me to clean up, but it's sort of just fascinating knowing that all of that is here. and my drawers are so empty! i guess i am a Piler. the faeries will never visit me if i don't tidy up...

have i mentioned that monday was freaking gorgeous? i could have sworn it was spring. it was the first time i've really been able to smell anything since i got here, so walking around campus was pleasantly surprising... everything felt new and refreshed. i knew that my office building overlooks the farm, but i didn't realize you could smell it so strongly from way up the hill! you could feel the air getting heavy with heat, and when i walked to the post office in a tshirt, my hands swinging against the clicking pressures of the wind i forced apart, charging up the hill. what a beautiful day!

ben just came over to compare our human sex maps and share stories.. he was here for almost 3 hours and i had no idea how much time had gone by! now it's totally late and i can't remember what else i was planning to write, so i'm just gonna leave it and crash. (let me know if you wanna compare sex maps. ho HO!)

listening to: hop along, queen ansleis - sirens

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!

do the astro

here's the longass horoscope i got today, for a period supposedly lasting from march last year (when i left new orleans) until this coming december. it's no wonder my life is so fucked!

"Valid during many months: The logical and rational faculties of your mind are likely to be scrambled by this influence, so that you are no longer quite sure what you think about anything. Or you may come under the influence of ideas that you would not have held previously. You are likely to make the worst mess of this period if you try to organize and restructure your life now. Consequently this is a bad time for making important decisions that will affect the direction of your life. It is also a bad time for most business decisions, because there is a danger that you are poorly informed about what is going on.

This influence always raises the issue of self-deceit, being deceived by others or your deceit toward others. Be extremely careful of these hazards in any kind of negotiations. Deceit may be inadvertent. For example, you may find that you are unable to clearly express what is on your mind because the thoughts seem so complex and disorganized, and when you do say something, others misunderstand you completely. Be very sure that people really understand your meaning when they say they do.

On the plus side of this influence, you will be much more receptive to subtle forces around you. Your rational mind may be confused, but your intuition is likely to be very sharp. The only difficulty you might have is in making others understand the basis of your understandings.

You may become interested in psychic matters and in mysticism under this influence. You will arrive at a profound and direct knowledge of the inadequacies of unaided logic, and you may seek to expand your understanding of the more hidden aspects of the mind. You may even encounter hidden abilities in your own mind."


it's sort of horrifyingly accurate... i get accused of being irrational all the time, and people don't seem to know what i'm talking about ever, and the stuff i have understood/realized seems way too difficult to talk about. does this seem accurate to anybody else that knows me? does anybody else believe in these sorts of things?

ask me about my birthday, i suppose. it was pretty bizarre. some VERY weird moments, some good points, but didn't feel much like a birthday overall. honestly, i don't mind. but man, it's weird to realize that i've been buying alcohol for a whole year. what! new orleans feels farther and farther away... also weird was that i spent almost a whole year at home, obsessing over the fucking movie, which STILL isn't finished of course. 2 more years!!! ............... aopwiehgasd

i need this in order to complete college successfully.

i go to warren wilson.
today was my first real day of work, and i was cleaning the windows of my office building. well, i was trying... it was going well until the end, when the glass cleaner froze on the glass before i could wipe it off. froze into ice!!! i gave up and went inside just before it started snowing again... after work, i walked to morgan's dorm to pick her up for dinner, and there were geese flying above me honking and the snow fluttering into my coat, and the sun setting behind the mountains and everything all orangey and light and perfect. and then dinner at cowpie was lentil soup, falafel, couscous, baba ghannouj, and homemade pita bread.
now i am reading "hard times" by chickens (c. dickens). i stayed up past my bedtime reading it last night because i am DORKASAURUS and also because i have 100 pages due tomorrow.
good night.

of course, everything i planned to say is lost. i do it on purpose these days. driving home i gripped the wheel to steer the words, all this sort of thought i have avoided.
the real time felt so short but leaves me pondering, questioning, yearning.... for days, weeks, all this wonder.
when i saw you off, the sting of finality sung from the deep engine of the double decker. at one time i was embarrassed to kiss you over and over in that line, but oh how i’ve changed. would that we had stuck together, our lips an irreversible tangle. what a way to go, my face twisting into misery as i turn away, couldn’t i have waited till you couldn’t see? but you call me back, now you’re just a face, framed by door and windshield. and even then, “love you,” i believe it. i go from crushed to grinning, i should have blown a kiss. it’s easy in retrospect, my love is lousy. usually i take off right away, leave you in the belly of the beast and be gone. but the well inside me sinks, since when are we so serious? i sit and stare until i can’t take it and ease myself out of the parking lot, slowly pushing against our steady solid distance. even now you have your claws in me and you don’t even know. even now i’m on pins and needles, prickling, a pincushion. (i still feel stuck, that the sharps stayed in. i guess it’s the lack of food and slight delirium and all this wanting)
at this sort of moment i don’t even know if i know you. body takes over and sleeps sets in.

you offer your version of apology
my anger dissolves into sadness at
our unstoppable divorce. i can’t stop
falling deeper down, you’ve got me.
where do you want me? like this?
and now? my fear, always
underneath, pulses under your cold
hands, my heat bleeding fuel
for regeneration, over and over
the answer and question. then again,
i’m never ready, i was always
left undone, half-baked and
out of breath. later you’ll
admit it, we go so fast, quick:
question -- is it my fault?
of course, he can’t stand it, how
bad i want it. you’ve got me,
unspun and squirming,
not sure of how to love. am i
doing it right? my feelings in a fight

the taste of my motor oil still fresh on your tongue,
you ran long off the charge and sang as you sunk
into the feeble fate of the secret kiss
that fell your fingers, that blew off our bliss

my dashing comrade

this was taken in the new orleans audoban park golf course in april 2007. note the missing hand, containing beer, and the shoeless feet, with flailing totes... tom never ceases to impress us.

a wish your heart makes

I don’t normally remember anything from my dreams, and then when I do, it’s just snippets and a couple of images. Everything is blurry and far away and impossible to explain despite my efforts. For the past four nights, I’ve been attempting sleep on the beds and couches of my Georgia family. As comfortable as they’ve tried to make me, I can’t seem to get a good night’s sleep. Whether it’s because of the pills I’ve started taking regularly, or my subconscious missing my regular bed, or the pleasantly unusual weather, every night I find myself awake at 4am to hear the first crows of the roosters... and plenty more after that.
The only good thing that’s come from my wrecked sleep schedule is the dreaming. If I only sleep for a couple hours at a time, it’s a lot easier for me to remember my dreams, so I’ve been enjoying the experience. Of course, as each night passes and the fresh shadow of a dream is impressed upon my memory, the visions from previous nights start to fade and in the end, I’m left with nothing.
So before I forget any more than I already have, I wanted to tell about some things I remember from last night and this morning, because these seemed particularly relevant. I’ve already forgotten so much of it, but I’ll begin when I ask a girl if I can bum a cigarette. She gives it to me and we start walking and talking. It’s like the bell just rang on Friday afternoon and we’re part of the after school crowd, with the nearly palpable excitement and kids running everywhere. We turn right and I realize that my cigarette is unravelling, although it still retains its shape. Instead of tobacco inside, it’s this reddish-purple gauze that may have had some glitter in it. As we approach a group of kids, much younger than us, I ask her if my cigarette is alright. She says of course it is, and I watch her light a cigarette-shaped piece of purple gauze and start to smoke it. She’s sitting on a ledge next to a young boy, who promptly pulls out a long, skinny joint and lights it. I’m surprised because he’s so young and we’re right in front of the school, but I start wondering how I can get these kids to pass it to me. I turn forwards, toward the school, where an enormous mud and rock ledge rises before me. I try to start climbing it so that I can sit up there with the other kids, but I can barely lift my legs. It’s like my body refuses to listen to what I tell it, and my legs are nearly impossible to move. I can’t make it onto the ledge, so I suppose I leave.
Now one of my friends from Loyola has shown up and we’re off to find the philosophy department or something in this enormous school where everything is white marble. No one else is around. We start to walk up the stairs but my legs give up again, so we decide to take the elevator. It’s taking a long time to get to the floor we want, so my friend suggests that we go to the floor above it first, and then go down, as if this makes totally logical sense, and of course I agree. The ride up to the fourth floor is normal, if I recall correctly. We get off there and then get on another elevator to go down to the floor we need. I suppose it’s still taking a long time to get there because we both sit down against the back wall. Suddenly I’m on my belly, rapidly rolling over and over and over, unable to stop myself, my body out of control. Me and him hadn’t been sitting very far apart, but it feels like it takes forever for me to finally roll into him. My body and mind are completely disconnected, so my mind feels like it’s spinning and turning out of control, and my body seems to be doing the same, although I can’t be sure. I am not totally sure of what my body is doing, despite what it feels like, which is an unstoppable tumble that only ends when he grabs my wrists. I’m looking at the bottom of the elevator, and through holes in the floor, at some bright colors far below. I’m seeing multiples of everything and I still feel like I’m turning, even though I now know for sure that I’m not. I lie on my belly, breathing hard and my head still spinning. My friend leans onto my back and puts his arm around me, holding me steady so that I know everything is alright. I relax into his arms, staring into the elevator hole until the colors begin to sort themselves out, and I slide my hand into his. Then I wake up.

landscape of wire

i become more and more fascinated with the ways nature must adapt to technology and the human invasion of the environment. as terrified as i am by powerlines and any sort of giant metal structures, i have to admit the eerie beauty i see in them. even electricity (one of comrade tom's sworn enemies) can be scarily pretty, and there's really no natural equivalent to it, that i've ever seen. but what's even more beautiful than a lamp glowing white in the middle of a park at night is a lamp straining to glow under the crush of twisting ivy vines and kudzu. as horrified as i often am by humankind's additions to the landscape, i'm always impressed by what she throws back. there's nothing like birds on a wire, all crowded along the same stretch of cable in a long long row. watching them all flock there, scooting along to make room for others, they almost seem to realize the surging power they're gripping in their tiny talons. i wonder, if they knew what it was doing to them and their true homes, what would they do? would a great sacrificial flock be brought in to bite through all the wires, despite certain death? or would they continue, in a one-minded mass, to carry on exactly as they have been? that story sounds familiar...
another many-bodied, one-minded mass passes by these same power lines every day. we know their strength, their capabilities, and their effect on our surroundings. we continue to ignore them, opting to focus on the benefits of this system, which ties in to every other system, except the natural one. i don't believe it should be necessary to destroy in order to create, but that seems to be just about all we can do at this point: continue on a path which is slowly killing the world around us, or destroy this system to create something new.
i think you know where i stand here.