high in the clean blue air

i've gotten used to the sound of geese approaching, although i always look up to see them pass overhead.
right now, i am hearing a ridiculous cacophony of geese, which sounds close but isn't getting any closer. i think a massive flock must have stopped at our pond! i want to go and find them, but the studious part of me is saying no, stay in your little room, drink your little cup of jasmine tea, and read these mary wollstonecraft essays. still, i'm craning my neck to look out the window, thinking i might get a glimpse of a wing. i know they're close, but all i see is still trees.

listening to: honk honking

today i set my sights on your heart

physical pain lingers after the dream is over. there is no fly fish prick fastened to my finger to test my ability for removal. now i'm typing, but the for first few minutes after i woke up, i was afraid to touch the spot. it still stings a little.
i dreamed that i went to school with brett. i dreamed that the stay-at-home girlfriends wept when the bus drove off. i dreamed of exploring in a field of nail-gun wheelbarrows and a rambling country road where we flew past huge dogs and oxen and a hundred other animals. then i dreamed of a pond, where we hijacked a boat and paddled around serenely until a couple of men threw some traps into the water, my hand was stuck, they said it was just a test and watched me wrestle with it, unable to concentrate because of the pain. i think it was the intensity of the sensation that finally caused me to wake up.
this is the typical tragic tale of monday. i don't want to get up when the alarm goes off, i don't feel like i need to get to work on time, i snooze a million times, and eventually tell myself that it's time to get up. but i don't.
today i woke up at 11:16 and my throat's still sore, so i decided to take the day off. i mean, i still have a ton of work to do for this huge paper that's due tomorrow, and i plan to spend my time doing that. maybe a little nap here and there... i already feel guilty because of an email from dr. bradshaw, asking me to make 21 key-hole-punched copies on light green paper (most likely the poetry class reading list) and to march them straight into his hands as he teaches class in the holden auditorium, all the way behind kitteridge. the past few weeks, he has had me doing this more and more, perhaps to test out how i operate as an English Research Assistant in front of peers. after all, i'll be in the Romanticism class next semester, and i won't be able to hide behind a TA like i do in grammar. which apparently is also part of my job next semester. dr. b had asked me to consider doing it, but jenn tells me that he has already informed her that i WANT to do it. well, i guess i knew i was gonna do it. he just figured it out first.
sorry for the work rant... i wonder if i should go down and eat eggplant sandwich and split pea soup at cowpie or that would just make me feel guilty. my dorm room options are... canned soup or zatarain's. i'm getting really hungry, i think i'll go anyway.

listening to: holly golightly - stain

should i seek out someone i could keep?

i wish i had weapons.
i feel like smashing something, especially the thing that keeps BEEPBEEPBEEPing every couple of minutes. dorms essentially mean patterns, repetitive sounds, repeated behaviors, i want to smash it all. tonight is violent, not nice. maybe just me.
a dog barks like clock work, one time three times, maybe after cars go by.
i feel like scavenging, but i'm already feeling sick, and i know that will make it worse.
a pile of eleven fingernails collected next to my tea cup. i was doing so well, but i broke. my hands have reverted to their former selves and insist on doing meanness. do nailless pinches hurt worse? some say. say some: i want to know it all.
i came home intending to stay, knowing this was impossible. i think it's time to go.
all i wanted was a haircut.

listening to: the magnetic fields - i thought you were my boyfriend

what.

while writing a paper on cocteau's la belle et la bete and thinking about fairy tales, i pulled up my old friend, Last Semester's Deliriously-Written Half-Finished Victorian Fairy Tales Paper That Should Have Been The Best But Wasn't, and i came across this little gem:

Fantasy and fairy tales have the subversive potentiality of no other genre because of their ability to twist reality through its images and symbols in order to create a new reality of their author’s devise that makes his or her point either subtly or directly in comparison to reality as we know it.

translations, please??

ready to explode

i slept all morning to, i guess, make up for the amount of sleep i haven't gotten over the last week. i wish i hadn't, though, because my service trip with my abroad class is tonight, and i'm afraid i'll be up all night, and then i won't want to wake up to garden.
speaking of my abroad class... i woke up to this email from my mom, who i had spoken with on the phone last night. she was planning to call somebody from international programs, but i suppose she couldn't find just one person and decided email was better. so she sends the following email addressed to the dean of students, the dean of work (one of my teachers), and two people in the international programs office... but she didn't use their individual emails and now i'm freaking out that a bunch of student workers are reading the following letter:

To all of you --- I wasn’t sure who to address and it has take longer than I like to find email addresses (does no one have individual e-mail?)

I have a number of concerns about my daughter’s upcoming study abroad class. I don’t want to pay for something that, frankly, seems poorly planned and lacking in academic rigor.
As of yesterday, there was no syllabus, and no full itinerary. The classes that are supposed to prepare the students for the trip are, in the opinion of my daughter, not helpful. I trust my daughter’s reasons for questioning why she should continue with a class this unpromising.

This brings me to my second concern. The plane tickets were bought the week of the first class. It was too late to withdraw when she discovered the class was not what she thought it would be. The class description was certainly enticing, and I’m sure Alanna imagined something more suited to her interests. But again, when the imagination became reality, it was too late. This is most unfair.

I really wanted my daughter to have a study abroad experience, even a very short one. I expected more from Warren Wilson programs because such a strong emphasis is placed on international studies. I really want her to have a good experience. Is there any way she could design an independent study to pursue in England for the time period? Perhaps Warren Wilson has a partner college somewhere that would provide housing. I do not want to lose the money we have paid, and I do not want Alanna to miss a trip to England that will be closer to the study we both believed was offered. I may be overly optimistic, but I believe we can find a way to make this a positive trip.

I usually try to let my daughters’ figure out the problems of college life on their own. However, this problem is too thorny to ignore. I will support Alanna in her decisions, but I wanted to make sure we covered every option.

I appreciate that you listen to our concerns, and I hope we can find a way through the thorns.
Respectfully,
[MY MOM]

after this message, how can i go on the group trip now, even if i wanted to? what a mess. someone please tell me how to feel about this.

everybody sees your smoking gun

this week is all dreams and undone work and headaches and wetness and mess, no time to write at all. and yet...
my big news: i heard back from diane cluck, and she will play on campus next semester! can i tell you i'm thrilled? i wanted a spring show, outside somewhere, but she may be doing a residency somewhere then, so it's looking like february. i need a way to make all the right people come.
oh obvious, the other big news: bell hooks will be on campus all day tomorrow!!!!! my women in u.s. history class gets to join a couple other classes for a special q&a with her at 9:30, she's having gladfelter lunch with students (although i'm too scared to go), and i'm skipping my film class to see her speak at 4pm. i got one of her books from the library, but i've had so much to do, i haven't had any time to read it. i feel guilty that i won't have done my homework for her visit, but i'm excited just the same. i really want to get this book, and also this one. i can't wait to learn! *dork*
have i mentioned the rain? NONSTOP for three days and no end in sight. mostly it's not so bad that i need an umbrella, but it's surely cold and slippery. the worst part is the worms. yesterday ilinca and i each rescued one from the sidewalk on the sunderland hill, but there were squished ones all around. i've been so careful, walking on tiptoes in my rotting boots, but i still come home with soaking wet socks.
after the worms, i talked to dale for over an hour. dale is one of the two career services staff, and his face is amazing. this was my second meeting with him, but it had been a while, so i had forgotten about his face. i asked my question; he asked me to be patient while he thought his answer through. this was no problem. as he thinks, he closes his eyes, knits his furry brows, and occasionally smacks his lips, the bottom one pulling down on the left side. he emerges from the trance slowly, smacking and talking, and finally opening his eyes SO WIDE that his forehead just grows and his glasses move slightly. that's what i can tell you about dale. that, and he loves what he does. we're meeting again soon because he wants to help me find a job and work on my resume. he makes all this stuff not seem so scary.
on my way back to jensen, i saved two more worms. they were shiny and translucent in the rain, white and pink soil monsters fighting pavement. i hope this damn rain stops.
later, i am washing my hands in the cowpie bathroom. three girls are talking, on their way to dinner, i suppose. two leave, one is left behind fixing her hair, just for a moment. she leaves and cuts the light. i am stranded in total darkness, blind. people are always cutting the light on me in that bathroom; at least this time i was out of the stall. sometimes i am really invisible.
over dinner, morgan tells me that i need valium. of course, there's none to be had. it's only uppers for wilsonites, or lately, echinacea and garlic pills.
i don't know how to write about the hell that is my study abroad class. it is juvenile, embarrassing, and boring. i would be mortified to type out what actually transpired in that miserable hour and a half last night. the point is that i went home and cried and then calmed down and wrote an email to the teacher. i found out today that i can only get a partial refund if i decide not to go. i had a horrible meeting with the two teachers that felt like a gang up of feel good nonsense. these two are a trip of their own, talk about cross-cultural experience. the class is trash, but maybe i should go to england just the same. if i go, will i even try to enjoy the group, or will i be a breathing, reading shadow?
advice on this subject would be just peachy. i'm all lost.

listening to: josephine foster & the supposed - who will feel bitter at the day's end?

too long nap

a bus and a plane. brett cancels his flight, where he would have run into my dad, to ride the bus with me. travelling at night, no sleep. a loaf of bread, nutella.
people take pictures of each other -- lover's revenge?

all the lies in a scholar's brain

i made an executive decision to skip banjo class today. to make up for it, i decided to do something productive. class is almost half over and all i've done is... this. i think i'll get into bed and do some history reading. then i'll go to yoga, dinner, and the film festival meeting, but i'll probably skip the radical mental health collective tonight because i think it's art night again blahhh. i have sooooo much work hanging over me, it's not even funny. i hate it when everything happens all at once, but isn't that just the way it goes?
this morning i signed up for my classes for spring: statistics, lit of the restorian period, filming appalachia, and romanticism (i'm the only person in that class so far, but ilinca and morgan are gonna take it with me!) i'm debating adding a 2 credit class like dance, culture, and identity. is 18 hours too much? right now i think i want to go ahead and graduate next semester, rather than stretching it out for another year. why not? i signed up for all my required classes, but i could still change my mind between now and january 22 or so... we'll see.
yesterday i finished lighthousekeeping, and i immediately went to deliver it to morgan's room, where i was sure one of the sick young ladies would like to read it in her little germy bed. however, in trying to sell it to them, i ended up reading them the first chapter. renee and morgan fell asleep, but eva stayed awake, and all of them said they liked what they heard. i hope someone reads it. but also i sorta want to steal it back and flip through it and type up some of the great parts. that's pretty dorky, isn't it. i should be working. yes. productivity is key. i'll do that.

listening to: larkin grimm - link in your chain

school dream

i’m in a class with my old history professor from loyola, but her hair is longer and maybe black. she’s teaching dance instead of world civ, and she doesn’t like me at all because i’m quiet. when we get evaluated, she says that i can’t finish movements, i’m stiff, and a number of other things. maybe this would be okay, but everyone else got showered with praise. i try to talk to her about it, but she’s really mean. somehow i end up storming out of class and throwing a ceramic teacup at the wall.

i don’t know what i’m gonna do. how can i explain this to dr. b and carol? i try to avoid them, but it doesn’t work. they find me eventually. they’re too kind. dr. b doesn’t really understand, he thinks i didn’t really mean it, but i did. carol is overly gentle in my class with her. she and another guy are team teaching and they do some whole elaborate exercise where we all have to hold hands and weave around the big desk they stand behind.
also there’s a girl in the class doing a project or playing a joke or..? she appears to strip topless, standing next to the male teacher, but i see that she has on some sort of flesh-colored thing that’s also binding her breasts -- she’s trying to look like a little girl.
i think this is part of some sort of school-wide event that’s going on... there’s another thing.... lumber?

i sit in a car with my cousin amelia on a street somewhere. we are talking and we see some possums in a tree. there’s a whole family. i scramble to get my camera ready to film them.

that’s all i have left. i can’t believe i slept till 1pm.

guilty dream

brett and i go to a little diner at a stop on our roadtrip, although all they serve is meat and fish... i order blowfish, which comes out looking like a miniature yellow blowfish, staring up at me. i don’t remember actually eating it, but i think i did, and of course felt really guilty about it later. brett reassures me in a truckstop bathroom.

i’m at some sort of bar and an older man offers to buy me a beer. i’m wondering what they have here, when he sorta suggets “Bud?” sorta pleadingly, so i get a PBR. he smiles and says, “that’s my kinda girl.”
there’s some bizarre scene with isaac hayes playing guitar on stage and saying something about, if he likes what he’s playing, of course we’ll like it. i think it’s kinda cool, but it’s not really my kind of music, so i don’t see how he is so confident.

i discover and befriend belan a young man who sleeps on a couch in a large alley/courtyard between some buildings. from head on, it looks like walls on three sides, but once you’re inside there are some crevices that lead to other places. i don’t remember much about my intial relationship with the boy except that i loved hin, cared about him.
i got my whole family to come out and meet him and in solidarity, we each slept on a couch in his alley. each member of my family represented a different color in the conversation we had -- like it was somehow in text even though we were speaking. they wanted to help. i switched couches with belan because he wasn’t comfortable and we talk secretly while my family sleeps.
later, still at night, my mom and sister come with me to a nearby alley, skinner, with a fence on one side. there’s a little dog caught in the fence and we help it free, but mom says, “it’s lost an ear.” then we see there are several other little dogs, and maybe a pig, that are missing ears and sometimes legs. i am devestated. i want to bring these animals to a shelter, but mom says no, it’s too late, especially for the one missing two ears and a leg. suddenly one of these little dogs gets swiped towards the fence and its second ear goes missing. there appears a giant cat, at least three times the size of these tiny dogs. it is matted and ferocious and calm, slowly stalking towards the street and away from us. i hate this beast, despite feeling connected to it. something calls us away, and we never come back.
belan gets us in to a party at an apartment in a nearby building. the apartment is nice enough, but it’s sorta faking being better than it is. it’s sorta twisty and the kitchen where i’m standing is very cramped. some people come in talking about haircuts, they look like people i have seen at school. i say, “i need a haircut” to the one i think is mikaliah with fancy hair, but she sort of scoffs and doesn’t see anything. i keep looking at her face trying to figure out who she is, but it’s sort of shifting, and her friend points out that they should leave because i am staring. i’m embarrassed and i leave, realizing that these people are higher status than me and i don’t know them.
someone makes fun of me for my UK trip, saying it’s a waste of money for so little.
the party is a weird mixture of fancy types and drug lords. it’s sorta classy but sorta not. at one point i heard a grizzly pony tail man say, “you should see what i left on the stairs,” so throughout the rest of the dream, i stop to check out every staircase i see, but i just find scraps, paper with nonsense words, a yellow ball.
i realize brandon is there, and my friend xi chen is his girlfriend, which i feel very weird about and i can’t place the feeling... maybe it’s just jealousy. at one point they disappear into the back. it seems like i follow them immediately, but when i get there i feel like they’ve been gone a while. i’m sure they’re having sex, and indeed, they are rearranging their clothes. i’m really upset, i don’t remember what i’m talking about. i want to tell xi she can do better. i see brandon’s bookshelf against the wall and start going through it, finding lots of my stuff, including drawings by me, tom, and our (fictional) friend nathan. i am livid, “i asked you to return my things and you said you didn’t have any!” at which brandon sort of balks, i guess he had hoped that i wouldn’t find out, or he hadn’t realized that this stuff was even mine. i’m especially upset about nathan, and i tell them that he had also been living on a couch in belan’s alley, but he died. brandon is totally out of hte loop and had no idea that nathan died and he feels pretty bad. but he reminds me that nathan was trans and used female pronouns and goes on this tangent about how queer issues are so important to him, especially since, “i mean i do have a girlfriend” but he didn’t identify completely with men. even though this pisses me off, i feel completely awful about not remembering about nathan’s gender, and all i can say is that i just plain didn’t remember... there’s a lot that’s fuzzy about that time.
by now, belan has transformed into a woman, not in a trans way, but in a dream way. i just know that we have to get her out of that alley, i have a new sense of purpose. i am collecting donations from the people at the party and i know she’ll make it.

as usual, there are many details i've forgotten by now already... this is really only the second part of the dream. there was a whole section about me and brett on a roadtrip, and all i can remember is that sad little blowfish looking at me. i would like to say maybe more will come back to me, but since it typically doesn't, i don't really think it will. although i wish it would.

oh, i just can't resist this sorta thing

Your result for What is your otherkin type? Kintype Indicator Test!...

Faerie

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let's go out into the blackest night time

1. on thursday morning, i left dorland in a hurry, with only 3 minutes to get to history class. still, i paused to hold the door open for the person coming out of the basement, who turned out to be thomas. i had met him a few weeks ago when jayme insisted we invade his room at 3am. we touched tummies and he was nice, but it ended awkwardly with me getting all quiet and self-conscious. i don't think we had talked since that night. so, i was nervous to see him but took a chance and said hello. he was calm, easy; asked about my fall break. we talked for a moment about the funeral and death, and it was a little intense, but thomas didn't shy away from the subject or say anything fakey. at the end of the bridge, our conversation was interrupted when his curly-haired friend attacked him... something about latex gloves clogging the toilet. i walk away without saying goodbye.
2. on friday afternoon, i was slaving over a cutting board with five giant boxes of apples at my feet, rushing to keep all the plates full for the massive number of wilsonites storming the pavilion, hungry for apples. it was so insane, i couldnt even look up to see who was patronizing my table. suddenly a voice: i look up to see that the bubbly voice belongs to a curly-haired, very cheerful girl. she's asking about the figurine from the Red Rose tea boxes, and what does dr. bradshaw tend to do with them. i tell her there's millions floating around the office and yes, she can have the turkey. a little bit later, charlotte and thomas are suddenly asking if i need help slicing; clearly they are in dr. b's epic-heroic class and have gotten the lecture about helping out the poor ERAs to keep us from slicing off our fingers (too late). thomas is so eager and so adorable, i can't turn him down, but his apple-slicing skills are mediocre, and he gives up quickly.
3. later that night, around midnight, i end up in the room across the hall for a halloween party. among other oddballs in the crowd, thomas and curly-head, whose name was discovered to be gina, were there. my group had stumbled in during a compliment circle, where everyone had to give everyone else a compliment. thomas said he had enjoyed our conversations and that one time at the english offices, he thought my feet were dr. bradshaw's until he saw the pink socks. gina said she liked my hair and that hers was green once too.
4. later that night, maybe around 1:30, i went outside to cry in the tent behind dorland. two people come outside: of course, thomas and gina. i'm a bit intoxicated from the party's gin, so i'm brave and say hello. they don't notice i'm crying, thank the stars, and invite me on a walk. it's raining a little, but we walk down to the garden and all around. somehow we stay up till 4am.
5. last night, after my usual crowd has disappeared or gone to bed, i crept down to the dorland basement to see if my new friends were still awake. i piddled outside the door for a minute before getting up the courage to knock. no one heard it. i tried a few more times, pacing back and forth in between, before they finally heard me. i'm invited outside with thomas, gina, charlotte, and paul to share a splif in the tent in the rain. everyone is drunk but me, so i start to catch up with the whisky in my pocket. charlotte and paul disappear and suddenly, somehow, we are throwing pieces of ceiling tile at each other in a battle that moves slowly down the angles of the dorland basement hallway. somehow i see thomas's ass and i get to watch gina wrestle three cookies and a bag of pirate's booty out of the vending machine with a coat hanger.
6. i wonder if we will see each other this week and whether we will get to talk. these sorts of relationships are so very odd.

listening to: the blow - that boy

but why?

three and a half years ago, i traveled to houston, texas, (about 350 miles from new orleans) to see a band called why? and immediately turn around and come home. well, i guess islands played too, and we did get to speak briefly with yoni wolf, who, it turned out, had also driven from louisiana that morning. we nearly drowned in the same storm. our vehicles had temporarily shared a road, which practically meant we were twin souls. i swooned when they played an old hymie's basement song, when yoni beat his tambourine and simultaneously played the keyboard, when he glanced at me as i shouted the call (or response) on "gemini." then i sorta lost my mind on the drive home, thanks to a slowed and sped up mind. i think i talked nonstop for the entire five and a half hour drive and did a little bit of incoherent writing...
but i digress.
last night, why? played in asheville to support their new album, eskimo snow. the venue is only 11 miles from my nook in the mountains, but i was not in the audience at the show. not because i was in astronomy class (it was canceled) or because i had too much homework. instead, i had ended up at an event called stereohype, which was an open-mic about stereotypes, particularly in response to dance the night a'gay and some people's hyper-sexualization and parody of queer culture. the event was kinda neat, but not really spectacular.. if the organizers had advertised before the day of, perhaps more people could have had time to write something presentable. some people's poems and stories were really beautiful and thought-provoking. and then i stumbled around the main campus and the sunderland lawn with renee, becca, and elliot. we swigged some wild irish rose, split a couple southpaws, bummed a few rollies. we loudly sang "sadie" and "chelsea hotel #2" and talked about the band we're gonna start, any day now.. i wandered back to my room around 1:15 and read a few chapters in the novel i'm reading, which just took a major turning point, and i think the rest might be quite funny and continue to be quite beautiful.
but i digress.... so what happened, anyway?
why? has, like many bands i once loved, ceased to produce meaningful work. this can happen for any number of reasons. perhaps the musician loses inspiration or the process becomes work instead of release; maybe they defeat their alcoholism, or find religion, or get signed. or -- wonder of wonders -- maybe they start to produce music that i just don't like.
i find the latest two why? albums almost completely unlistenable. so, perhaps i haven't given them a fair chance. but i was so disgustingly bored and detached from the message because, perhaps, it sounded like the band was too. i hear a desperation to create a universal message, but the metaphors are failing and the rest is uninspired. although it's hard to hear a message at all between the ever more nasally voice yoni has taken on and the continual references to masturbation... perhaps it has something to do with my gender, but i can't help but pick up a hint of sexism in these songs. every woman is fetishized concept, not a person, and just because it's art doesn't mean that sort of reduction is acceptable. and how many times can you tell the same story the same way?
just look at this travesty; http://vimeo.com/6524204

i won't stay awake if i can't kiss your fingers

only have one page of my stupid astronomy paper about space junk. freaking professor never really specified how many pages we are supposed to write ("not twenty"). i am gonna wake up and write the rest tomorrow before class UGH i will be lucky if i can get two more pages out of this thing before i die of apathy. i would rather be learning anything else at this exact moment... boo.
the rest of my day was unspectacular: emma goldman in history, A+ 100 on my grammar exam, cut off from cowpie and exiled to the deli bar at gladfelter, a return to obsessive filing at work, radical politics queer circle, and 11pm chowtime cheese pizza with ben while we attempt to write about space.
why am i alive awake at all?

listening to: throwing muses - city of the dead

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