we can dance and dance

so i found out that my reasons for being angry/sad about girls' night being cancelled were the wrong reasons. it turned out for the better since laylee was feeling sick last night. yesterday sallis came and picked me up in the early afternoon. we got milkshakes at java cabana, he bought the new bjork album, and he got to meet the poor nameless puppy. alice and katherine met us at sonic and we headed downtown to the memphis music and heritage festival. we only knew where one of the stages was, and it was a little late for shopping around. we watched this goofy guy play the piano, ran around peabody place, and went back to the stage where a really hysterical rap group was performing. some guys filmed us for their public access show. as we were leaving, we passed the place where becca and laylee were volunteering. we heard a REALLY great band that sounded something like andrew bird's bowl of fire. the crazy thing is that we came in during the middle of them playing "st. james infirmary." it was weird that i recognized it, being so familiar with danny barker's version, in which he adds a bunch of awesome lines and side notes. actually everyone should hear that version because it's the ultimate. it was really great, and i hated having to leave. sallis took us home, where katherine, alice, and i had a totally awesome girly night as a trio. we stuffed ourselves with cinnamon tea, popcorn, and java chip ice cream. we talked about boyzzz and morocco and great shit. we listened to lots of music and watched some music videos and rolled around on the futon. it was great. i missed seeing LA and laylee though. we stayed up till after 5am, which was a bad idea. ah well. katherine woke up at 9:30 for church. when she came home, alice and i eventually dragged ourselves out of bed and went to breakfast at ck's. i drank too many cups of coffee with sweet-n-low. something inspired me to order the paul bunyan breakfast. do not ask me why. i stuffed myself absolutely full. after a long meal, katherine took me back home. dad immediately took me to lauren's house so that we could work on our math project-- it's a powerpoint presentation for pre-calculs about fucking PEEPS. i took a nap in lauren's super-comfy bed before katherine, alice, and brett picked us up around 7 to head down to south memphis. there's really no words to describe things that i would like to say, but there's at least this: we listened to elephunk (my new favorite album) about 5 times, ate a second breakfast at ihop, found a little piece of the apocalypse, inhaled a cornucopia of chemicals, observed the loading of a barge, befriended men of the mississippi, used a crane as a jungle gym, got covered in oil and sugar, explored a man named harley's boathouse and got sexually harassed by his creepy red neck brother. president's island is my new favorite place. i love the mississippi. i love my city.

listening to: the black eyed peas - the boogie that be

faithless, grungy, pathetic, wretched

last night all plans were somehow abandoned and alice and ended up at home alone all night. it was really great because we had time to hang out and talk and be wonderful. i absolutely LOVE that girl!!!! it was also funny because she and i were hanging out while laylee and LA were hanging out. our group of Girls was separated into the "Al" and the "La" couples. ho ho ho. i love that kind of thing. the kind of thing i do NOT love is that our girls night for this evening is cancelled. it makes me angry and sad. hopefully i'll make up for it by hanging out with sallis and katherine and alice today. hooray!

listening to: juliana hatfield - what a life

Teenage Mythology: Daphne and Apollo Revisited

This boy came quietly out of the wood work, and I was caught off guard. No one before him ever really saw me, with my unruly hair, rumpled skirt, and no trace of self-confidence. That was the life I had learned.

He stole what he could –– the minutes off my cell phone, all my days of summer, midnight in my grandma's kitchen, one desperate hug. Of course I ran. The only thing I knew to do was run. No one taught me how to be pretty, how to be loved. I became afraid to learn. Just told myself to keep my muscles pumping to keep me out of reach.

Well. I may have overdone it. I pulled back 400 miles, building the best defense: a separation of two entire states (measured by 7,877,696 people), the length of a muddy river (equaling eternity). A girl needs her space.

But he couldn't drop it. I couldn't understand why he kept pushing against my limitations, what drove him to stand as watchman of my night and day. Turns out, it was only that he knew me. He knew my legs were not long or strong enough to keep me running forever. How could I have known that he would whittle my wooden heart, gently carve away the rough places in me?

By November he was biting at my heels like an obsessive French dog, hanging on the curtain of my voice, and imagining the curl of my hip. Without my permission. I never wanted to be marked, claimed, owned. But now I look at myself, firmly planted in my sneakers and undeniably connected to some puppy of a boy. He lead me out of my darkness and pulled me into his wood. Some very needy roots sprouted out of me and met up with his –– connecting and intertwining finally at the halfway point on the brown bank of the Mississippi. My limbs fork out like awkward branches, pocked and uneven bark covering completely my milk pale skin. He places his hand on my chest to admire his craftsmanship: heart beating full and sticky with some sound resembling love.

oh please

somebody needs to come hang out with me and alice! aogpwihpghoiwe

things

1. new puppy is ADORABLE. she has no name yet, but we're working on it.
2. home at the end of the world is a ridiculously bad film.
3. "five years" by david bowie is the song of the week, and may very well be the best song of all time.
4. i love my sister and her friends.
5. it really sucks that today is amelia's last in memphis.

rejoice

morgan and mom are on their way to pick up our new cairn terrier puppy. hooray!

no central destination

today at school i actually had energy and a not-so-bad day. it was nice. some kid stuck me with a big piece of clear tape that read "speaks in bad poetry" which is probably not a false accusation. am i right? elizabeth, surprisingly, drove me home, and we stopped on the way for some disgusting, delicious KFC. now LA is over to do hang out and do homework because neither of us can concentrate on homework alone. this makes me happy. i want to start having homework parties all the time. nobody's ever wanted to before! i am very excited. wish us luck.

listening to: cake - long line of cars

it's too much to take

this morning we were waiting to turn left onto perkins (where school is) and we saw this really scary wreck. this guy tried to turn left when there was no way he was going to make it, so he got hit and there was lots of noise and glass and we had to get out of the car and walk through all of it to get to school through the stalled traffic. the scary thing is how easily that could happen to any impatient person at that light-- it's really ridiculous how long you have to wait there every day. it shook me up quite a bit.
the rest of the day was okay for a motherfucking monday. post-school activity was pretty nice too. christ, i refuse to believe it's really monday. i still have some homework that i should be tending to... lates.

yayyy?!!!!

server is back!!!
i am a happy woman.

before noon

yesterday brock came over so that we could go see home at the end of the world at studio, but he was a little late and i realized i didn't have the money for a movie anyway. so we watched before sunrise on my tiny, awful tv. in the middle we started talking and morgan came in for a long time, so we finished the movie about an hour later than we expected to, at 3:30. i felt really bad because we missed janelle's street theatre thing at 2:30. i miss her a lot. but brock and i loved the movie so it was sort of worth it. we talked to my mom a little bit about it, and then headed out to ridgeway 4 armed with university to go see before sunset. at first it felt much more movie, much more planned out, than the first film, but it eventually slipped into that same ease of before sunrise. both films are great and i recommend that everyone see them. but i may have loved them even more because they (especially the first one) felt really relevant right now. but anyway. brock and i came back home to eat something. we talked about renting another movie, but that seemed a little much. so we sprawled around on the futon and made rice krispie treats. morgan and brock started talking degrassi, so i escaped into the den and watched a little pulp fiction with the folks. unfortunately, they were showing it on encore, with all the profanity dubbed over, in full-screen, with commercials and little ads popping up at the bottom of the screen. i really, really, really hate tv. morgan and brock came in and turned on damn noggin. i admit that i left the room on purpose, took on my goddamn contacts, and fell asleep in my tent with the light on. it was barely 10:30. i'm a wimp. brock left me a nice note on my blinds, though. at 12:30, brandon called and woke me up. we only got to talk for 20 minutes but it was still nice. afterwards, i called william with my free long-distance on weekend nights. i've been wanting to talk to him for a long time, but after i got that massive phone bill, i was nervous to use lots of moneys. but i got to talk to him for a solid 45 minutes and it was really nice. he's been so busy, doing lots of things. he dispelled the rumor about him and cherie getting married to buy a house... they'd made a joke in frustration about money for college, saying that if they got married, college would cost less. i hate not hearing things directly from people because of all this fucking twisting around that things go through. at any rate. i woke up far too early -- before anyone else in the family. serves me right for going to bed so damn early. i wash sorting laundry and i found brandon's hulk bandana. it's weird how it's taking me so long to find all the things he left. thank god i'm never giving them back.

just a thought

i might delete my comments again because they're slipping into unuse. any protestors?

god damn internet

today wasn't too bad at school. laylee gave me her turkey sandwich at lunch. and although i got back two horrible test grades, i managed to stay in a pretty good mood. life is good because:
1) kraftwerk in german class
2) meg and i planned a wes anderson party
3) voodoo music fest
after school, brock played chauffer by taking kathryn home and dropping morgan off at eileen's house. he, laylee, and i searched for food in east memphis. laylee and i ended up with glorious chick-fil-a sandwiches and sweet sweet distillers in the car. is it said that brody dalle gives me chills? i think not. we came home and cuddled (and a little more) before laylee got picked up to go to gone with the wind at the orpheum with kevin. brock and i headed over to java cabana to meet up with heather (who is adorable!). aside from soothing my wicked craving for a cinnamon milkshake, i had an awesome time hanging out with her and swinging at peabody like always. she is a very cool girl who i hope to see more of. now i have settled down for a long winter's nap with a vanilla coke to my left and a stack of my father's compilation CDs to my right. i've got to enter them into a database i'm making for him as payment for an outrageous cell phone bill. i could really go for a milkshake and a black and mild, but it'll have to wait.

listening to: empress - a very small step

SWEET LORD

so who's up for this shit? ideally, we could all drive down to new orleans for a weekend, but if parents aren't up for it, my dad has volunteered oh-so-selflessly haha to go. i think i'd just about die if we could make this work.... pleeeeeease can we try? oh my. please tell me you guys will ask your units about this. i need something to live for.

listening to: nancy sinatra - bang bang

i'll start as his knees and i'll end in his dreams

today was pretty shitty. right now i'm in a good mood for some inexplicable reason... most likely because of the nice group chat we had after school by my locker. we should do that every day because it was very nice. lunch was pretty good, also. other than that, my day was absolutely horrible. i had 3 tests in a row, all of which i failed. no joke. i felt really stupid and then i had to go to government and get even more depressed. well at least tomorrow's friday, and we're hopefully having a party at meg's house on saturday. as long as i can look forward to these things, i'll make it through today. hope everyone else is doing well.

cause for excitement

or... a reason to live? whatever you call it, laylee and LA are on their way to pick me up, and i am very excited. i don't know what we're doing, but i don't give a shit because i LOVE THOSE GIRLS! honestly i don't get to see them enough, and i'm in the perfect mood to do something lovely and just talk and be good. or bad... i really don't care either way, as long as i'm with those fine ladies! also i really crave a piece of pizza. and this food thing? yeah, it's getting really bad. i've got to stop eating so much. anyone care to help with my starvation? ho ho ho i'm only half kidding.

listening to: tullycraft - sent to the moon

everybody's parents are crazy

except mine. if anybody needs to spend some time away from home, i invite you here. i'm sure my units could handle it. in other news, i love chex mix. i've been eating entirely too much lately. also i hate riding the bus home. mostly i hate the waiting around part that we do before we even think about walking to the bus stop. if we could hang around, and then instantaneously arrive at home, i would be much happier. brett and sallis, i assign you the job of building me a portal. hop to it, lads! this week is incredibly long. i want to die. i'm watching movie trailers because the alternative is sleeping. of course, the only time i want to sleep is when i have piles of homework left. i'm done for the night, and what can i say? i require no pillow.

laugh it up

i love lemon poppyseed bread from la baguette. and polaroids. and a boy. and vanilla coke. mmmmm.
i am obviously in a better mood than earlier. i really want to leave the house, but i cannot. yesterday i saw garden state and it was fucking amazing. everyone really needs to see that movie. it's really beautiful, and parts of it said things i needed to hear right now. so. yes. also last night i got to hang out with katherine for the first time since fucking casey jones. that is REALLY weird to realize, but it's true. and then of course i left my cell phone and purse in her car somehow. it's very weird because we got into the car and as we were pulling out of the driveway, i said "oh no i left my purse inside!" so katherine had to pay for my subway sandwich and then when we got back home, i couldn't find my purse to pay her back. it was nuts. oh well. also mouse's mom got mad at him for trying to stay out later and he's in trouble with her and i feel awful.
i have to pee. i miss everyone.

my purse has been found, thanks for your concern. today is drab and dreary. i'm in a horrible mood. happy birthday to brock, in any case.

has anyone seen my damn purse?!

deadly food stuffs

i'm eating an egg scrambles and i think it's going to kill me. it's something i found in my freezer that's possibly a year old and dead to all the world. ah well. i need energy. all i've had today is a bunch of chips with cheese sauce at el mezcal, some crackers at lunch, and a couple spoonfuls of cool whip. mmmmmm. diet, how i love thee.