I don't know, but perhaps ambivalence is as good a reason as any to move in a certain direction. Last night I sobbed like a child and cried, I want to be a baby! But in some ways I am, the way - pardon this cheesy metaphor - a tree wears every stage of its past in its rings. There's no need to flinch from growth, from "generativity": from the next stage. There are sweet compensations in everything. I want, not to wear progeny like an accessory as the tabloids seem to try to frame it as, but to learn. Sheer curiosity and the biological instinct, and the type of love that I myself have degraded, out of pain and confusion, with my words and my impatience. This love gave me lessons, I think, in loving without expectation for return, though I always raged against it.
I am filled with doubts about myself but I'd like to let nature take its course. Who knows what is empty rhetoric, and who knows what the real selfishness is? I want to learn to be selfless, but is the desire itself not greed? I want to become grounded and to sharpen my values, not be a tyrant and/or a wreck: but there is no guarantee.
I also want to get a job, to give me more perspective. To meet others from all kinds of walks of life. I start to feel sorry for myself, often, but the truth is, I would rather be over-frazzled, than empty and lonely; I would rather choose struggles and challenges that stretch me a little thin and make me lose myself a little and have barely enough time for a shower, but feel a kinship with other people, than to bask endlessly in effete individualism. Or so I think. I'm not going to say I'm mature for my age, because I doubt that's true, but I've certainly been through enough to make myself wonder why I would possibly need more uninterrupted "youth," to ask what the benefit is in the ability for a rambling space of recklessness. Have I not drank cup after cup of straight whiskey and laid across a strange bathroom floor, crying and laughing? Have I not made a fool of myself, chasing this boy & that boy, straining to transmute (wc?) to meat? I don't want to live off welfare. I want to get further education and to work hard. Yes, I like my privacy and my free time, but I keep coming to this point, and I have brought myself to it. No one forced it upon me. Nothing is idyllic. I am from a broken home but I never planned to sentence myself to isolation, and I never, ever wanted to be single. Yes, there is a beauty in it, in Virginia Woolf, the wild castle of herself. Yes, I am terrified of submitting to normalcy, but I won't know until I get there.
I told my old friend, my old boyfriend, my steady post who carried my couches and my grief so many times, E., and it's as bad as I expected. He thinks I have no head, that I have done something horrible, that I will be stranded. Good lord. Perhaps he is right.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
this time I peed on the one that makes a cross if it's positive.
"A heart resolved after due reflection will not flinch at the critical moment."
*
Everytime I say, "Guess what?" to my wonderful, irrepressible, HIV positive, not-at-all requisite gay best friend in Philadelphia, he says, "You're pregnant?"
Once he said that having children seemed to him like a jail sentence without parole. My dear friend J. seems to echo these sentiments and, one of four children, "conceive" (horrible distasteful, tone-battering pun, not that I can convey an even microscopically appropriate tone for this of all entries) of the procreating stance with skeptism if not faint (though not cruel) scorn. Many people wonder if "all those people from high school on Facebook" can make it a day without posting twenty photos of Junior spitting up cotton candy or what have you.
Yet I can't afford to expend energy defending my strange choices. Isn't it basically a mystery why anyone makes such huge, absurd leaps of faith? Am I just empty inside (not literally of course), no better than one of those high school girls who thinks they know how to cure loneliness, and subject their lack on a blank slate of, innocence. Eww. Who can think? It's been a little less than 24 hours since the impulsive choice to yellow rain a spare stick; and the subsequent-immediate, dizzifying, heartrending wild shaking*, and the resolve which is on some level more terrifying then the hem & haw, youth preserved, the desire to sprawl and to sleep in and to party, and the fear of selfishness. MFA programs, goodbye! The boy who looks like Dylan and exchanged many times scintillating glances with me: fare thee well! Drinking three at Bridge Street and stumbling through this old town with its stone buildings and its bridges and its rambling, urine-reeking crazies with hearts secretly for God, I'm still here. At least for now. ES, the love who stayed weeks in my hospital room, who made a dummy out of medical supplies and brought me daily chicken caesar salads, who snorted my pain medication in the bathroom and loved me through the shit-filled pink plastic bed pans, springing hard ons over a slipping down johnny: I cannot be for you, I am sorry. I know how you loved and how you tried. It's not about who deserves what, always. At least not in any comprehensible way, I don't think.
*Yes, I will miss the false elation of marijuana, the agitated rush: but what can compare to that shaking, that realization? 23 years old. Who will not groan in discuss**, what joke will I not be the butt of? But that is no way to think, and one conquers all with love, and faith.
Did I do it only to trap him, out of sheer desperation, and if so, should I hate myself? I knew what I was doing. I am a sentient being, at least. I've been planning for it for a very long time, really, with all my false starts and I know, at least, these early parts, the heaviness of breasts and eyes, the haze. The bumping into things, the wistful looks at the figure, the cut lines of my stomach, my tiny waist; I am a woman after all nothing lasts after all. And what is real, and what is vanity? Of course I like to be a beautiful creation, but I am no model, and do I live only to preserve through hoarding that little spark that I have, or to share it? It cannot all always be the same? I can't keep dipping my toes in the water forever. As my transpersonal psychology professor used to always say, "It took every single moment which came before this to create this one."
I didn't think it would be easy, and it's not, no matter how much I love the man, and maybe I shouldn't, I don't know, but why think like that now? I can't say the third time's the charm (though I just did), because that is trite and disgusting, but I did, by which I mean, at least this time someone besides me was happy about it.
Can I live? Oh my Lord. Technically, you know, I have my ducks in a row. A solid cushion in the bank, a parttime job, a bachelor's degree, experience with suffering and surrendering to it; a loving, now-sober mother with endless time and real affection for me and my, again, bizarre decisions; a monthly check, and, Thank god, really, health insurance. But what will that matter when I feel as though I am ripped apart? When it seems I am in a personal hell of my own? What will it matter when the mister is out drinking and I burn with cagey jealousy? When I, deranged with sleep deprivation, try to walk out the door to get groceries and then turn around, in horror and disgust at myself for forgetting, and the sinking feeling that nothing will ever, ever be the same?
(** Quite interesting slip, freudian or not.)
And this is all, of course, the best case scenario, barring major tragedies, deformities, etc. -- none of which I have any special God-given right to be spared of.
But this is what I have decided to do, only weeks after a disastrous sort of anti-showdown, ordered out of my lover's house, and he was just a flash of going in the night air. Until he was back, or I was, and he was saying, my kisses were revolting, he did not love me, my faith was a farce.
It has little to do with logic, but intuition, and there will be those who condemn me for it. I will, for my part, try to glorify God, and remember that
"Everything passes,
Everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do.
And someday maybe,
Who knows, baby,
I'll come and be cryin' to you." Bob Dylan, fellow Gemini, fellow four.
*
And it's not that I think I'm a "writer." I've never written anything substantial, coherent, or of note. I wrote a few years ago, in the introduction to my creative writing portfolio, that it wasn't so much that I didn't know how to say, noting that I had a certain natural facility, a certain fluidity & technical inclination: it was that I didn't have a what. But angst aside, (my "too personal story," as Dylan puts it), Victor Frankl said something far more interesting, that, "once you have a why, any how is possible."
But I want to write. I want to write and write and I don't expect to change the world but only to, as W writes, be the next nobody but be, as fully as possible, myself. I don't want to lose luminosity. I don't want to stop caring, and I don't want to stop feeling the great melancholy and vivid untameable wildness which runs to the core of the earth. The attractions and aversion which pass wordlessly between us all, who Lawrence called ships passing in the night, or was that someone else? (perhaps Lawrence just said something about two strangers on a highway) And I don't want to write a goddamned mommy blog. The crack, is it closed for me? It opens when a woman has her period. Mine may not come for over a year. It will be lonely and swelling, at times. It's not death, even if it feels like the end of a very much, even if I vowed not to do it until I was sure there was nothing I'd rather do. There are advantages to being young. To being fresh-faced and healthy and in love, though I do worry about circulation and that poor old foot of mine.
I want to have friends, though perhaps many will be disgusted, and the wheat will be separated from the chaff. What great loyalty do I deserve, anyway?
I want to go hiking, and to be under the sun, and drink coffee with multiple refills with adults, and all of these things. I don't know but I just have to go on. I wish I could be a man, sometimes, but why think like that?
When I was shot, I was not happy about it, but did I not embrace reality? Did I not bow to the fact that my life would just be a bit different than others, the same as it already was? And did I not always know that I didn't, actually, know very much at all about great suffering? That there were only a very few shaky minutes, and that really I was safe, coddled, comfortable, in good hands? I learned to move in a new way and I will learn again. My birth name means "industrious." I'm not sure I want to change my last name, and no one is forcing me, though it may be a concession worth making to set certain people at ease. He will work, I think, wherever he has to, and hopefully give music lessons with his great and often hidden intelligence. The new one will most likely be a Virgo. We will have the influence of Mercury in common, at least, and some great if difficult communication. Perhaps I will surprise myself with my strength when the "critical moment" arrives. Better yet, perhaps God will surprise me with the hands-on experience of His mercy. Which is, ultimately, infinitely more interesting than any veneer of "strength" I delusionally imagine is native to myself.
*
Everytime I say, "Guess what?" to my wonderful, irrepressible, HIV positive, not-at-all requisite gay best friend in Philadelphia, he says, "You're pregnant?"
Once he said that having children seemed to him like a jail sentence without parole. My dear friend J. seems to echo these sentiments and, one of four children, "conceive" (horrible distasteful, tone-battering pun, not that I can convey an even microscopically appropriate tone for this of all entries) of the procreating stance with skeptism if not faint (though not cruel) scorn. Many people wonder if "all those people from high school on Facebook" can make it a day without posting twenty photos of Junior spitting up cotton candy or what have you.
Yet I can't afford to expend energy defending my strange choices. Isn't it basically a mystery why anyone makes such huge, absurd leaps of faith? Am I just empty inside (not literally of course), no better than one of those high school girls who thinks they know how to cure loneliness, and subject their lack on a blank slate of, innocence. Eww. Who can think? It's been a little less than 24 hours since the impulsive choice to yellow rain a spare stick; and the subsequent-immediate, dizzifying, heartrending wild shaking*, and the resolve which is on some level more terrifying then the hem & haw, youth preserved, the desire to sprawl and to sleep in and to party, and the fear of selfishness. MFA programs, goodbye! The boy who looks like Dylan and exchanged many times scintillating glances with me: fare thee well! Drinking three at Bridge Street and stumbling through this old town with its stone buildings and its bridges and its rambling, urine-reeking crazies with hearts secretly for God, I'm still here. At least for now. ES, the love who stayed weeks in my hospital room, who made a dummy out of medical supplies and brought me daily chicken caesar salads, who snorted my pain medication in the bathroom and loved me through the shit-filled pink plastic bed pans, springing hard ons over a slipping down johnny: I cannot be for you, I am sorry. I know how you loved and how you tried. It's not about who deserves what, always. At least not in any comprehensible way, I don't think.
*Yes, I will miss the false elation of marijuana, the agitated rush: but what can compare to that shaking, that realization? 23 years old. Who will not groan in discuss**, what joke will I not be the butt of? But that is no way to think, and one conquers all with love, and faith.
Did I do it only to trap him, out of sheer desperation, and if so, should I hate myself? I knew what I was doing. I am a sentient being, at least. I've been planning for it for a very long time, really, with all my false starts and I know, at least, these early parts, the heaviness of breasts and eyes, the haze. The bumping into things, the wistful looks at the figure, the cut lines of my stomach, my tiny waist; I am a woman after all nothing lasts after all. And what is real, and what is vanity? Of course I like to be a beautiful creation, but I am no model, and do I live only to preserve through hoarding that little spark that I have, or to share it? It cannot all always be the same? I can't keep dipping my toes in the water forever. As my transpersonal psychology professor used to always say, "It took every single moment which came before this to create this one."
I didn't think it would be easy, and it's not, no matter how much I love the man, and maybe I shouldn't, I don't know, but why think like that now? I can't say the third time's the charm (though I just did), because that is trite and disgusting, but I did, by which I mean, at least this time someone besides me was happy about it.
Can I live? Oh my Lord. Technically, you know, I have my ducks in a row. A solid cushion in the bank, a parttime job, a bachelor's degree, experience with suffering and surrendering to it; a loving, now-sober mother with endless time and real affection for me and my, again, bizarre decisions; a monthly check, and, Thank god, really, health insurance. But what will that matter when I feel as though I am ripped apart? When it seems I am in a personal hell of my own? What will it matter when the mister is out drinking and I burn with cagey jealousy? When I, deranged with sleep deprivation, try to walk out the door to get groceries and then turn around, in horror and disgust at myself for forgetting, and the sinking feeling that nothing will ever, ever be the same?
(** Quite interesting slip, freudian or not.)
And this is all, of course, the best case scenario, barring major tragedies, deformities, etc. -- none of which I have any special God-given right to be spared of.
But this is what I have decided to do, only weeks after a disastrous sort of anti-showdown, ordered out of my lover's house, and he was just a flash of going in the night air. Until he was back, or I was, and he was saying, my kisses were revolting, he did not love me, my faith was a farce.
It has little to do with logic, but intuition, and there will be those who condemn me for it. I will, for my part, try to glorify God, and remember that
"Everything passes,
Everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do.
And someday maybe,
Who knows, baby,
I'll come and be cryin' to you." Bob Dylan, fellow Gemini, fellow four.
*
And it's not that I think I'm a "writer." I've never written anything substantial, coherent, or of note. I wrote a few years ago, in the introduction to my creative writing portfolio, that it wasn't so much that I didn't know how to say, noting that I had a certain natural facility, a certain fluidity & technical inclination: it was that I didn't have a what. But angst aside, (my "too personal story," as Dylan puts it), Victor Frankl said something far more interesting, that, "once you have a why, any how is possible."
But I want to write. I want to write and write and I don't expect to change the world but only to, as W writes, be the next nobody but be, as fully as possible, myself. I don't want to lose luminosity. I don't want to stop caring, and I don't want to stop feeling the great melancholy and vivid untameable wildness which runs to the core of the earth. The attractions and aversion which pass wordlessly between us all, who Lawrence called ships passing in the night, or was that someone else? (perhaps Lawrence just said something about two strangers on a highway) And I don't want to write a goddamned mommy blog. The crack, is it closed for me? It opens when a woman has her period. Mine may not come for over a year. It will be lonely and swelling, at times. It's not death, even if it feels like the end of a very much, even if I vowed not to do it until I was sure there was nothing I'd rather do. There are advantages to being young. To being fresh-faced and healthy and in love, though I do worry about circulation and that poor old foot of mine.
I want to have friends, though perhaps many will be disgusted, and the wheat will be separated from the chaff. What great loyalty do I deserve, anyway?
I want to go hiking, and to be under the sun, and drink coffee with multiple refills with adults, and all of these things. I don't know but I just have to go on. I wish I could be a man, sometimes, but why think like that?
When I was shot, I was not happy about it, but did I not embrace reality? Did I not bow to the fact that my life would just be a bit different than others, the same as it already was? And did I not always know that I didn't, actually, know very much at all about great suffering? That there were only a very few shaky minutes, and that really I was safe, coddled, comfortable, in good hands? I learned to move in a new way and I will learn again. My birth name means "industrious." I'm not sure I want to change my last name, and no one is forcing me, though it may be a concession worth making to set certain people at ease. He will work, I think, wherever he has to, and hopefully give music lessons with his great and often hidden intelligence. The new one will most likely be a Virgo. We will have the influence of Mercury in common, at least, and some great if difficult communication. Perhaps I will surprise myself with my strength when the "critical moment" arrives. Better yet, perhaps God will surprise me with the hands-on experience of His mercy. Which is, ultimately, infinitely more interesting than any veneer of "strength" I delusionally imagine is native to myself.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Down with superstition, it is not helping me today.
It's time to start giving the blogs titles which are at least vaguely related to the content. It's best when whimsy is grounded in reality. Otherwise it's just the rantings of a robot/smarterchild defunkto/a parrot four dozen genius monkeys locked in a room cannot be Shakespeare, at his most spunky
I've been reading the Psalms. "Why do you stand afar off, o Lord? / Why do you hide in times of trouble" (Psalm 10)
I am far too obsessed with the delusion of trying to control so much which is out of my reach.
I am worrying about Mercury Retrograde, and it strikes me that my astrology "hobby" may be doing more harm than good, if this is what it's coming to. I'm worrying because a. I'm traveling, most likely Monday; and b. my special friend said some very commital things, unprompted, which excited me, but then I started doing - I won't call it research - netsurfing on Mercury rx, which we entered at 6 am and are in until January 15 (and I gotta get home somehow, people; this influence affects travel and communication the most... last year on January 12th I traveled during one of these: holy f*ck, is all I can say). I just want to keep the darkness moving out and stop worrying, because, as one astrology guru wrote in her online advice column, in response to some lamentation about marrying during a void of course moon:
"25 · Molly · 25 March 2009
Hi Kate— I don’t know of any way to change it once it is done. You just have to let it go and see where life takes you. My sister got married with the Moon v/c. She & her husband are doing fine. Don’t worry about it, because worrying can put negativity out there, and we don’t want that. Just trust that it happened when it was supposed to. Congratulations & best wishes."
*
In happier news: I was very productive today. I finished the mittens! with a lot of help from stepsister A., and bustled about the house with her; I gutted and cleaned a huge turkey, did dishes and hung laundry (the household has a washer but the dryer is broken, and they love to be frugal and industrious, making homemade bread and soymilk and all kinds of things... and who can hold that gainst them? It's really very comfortable and beautiful here, and it is nice to be busy with "real" work), chopped vegetables for soup. I like to work, especially next to A. Hopefully my heavy mood will pass. The Lord is good.
*
Also, though each individual is effected differently, we're all in astrological transits together. And if Jesus could stop a storm, I'm pretty sure he can stop some planet that merely LOOKS like it's going backwards from effing my (by which I mean our, all us) life/lives up.
So, yeah. Let's keep on keepin on like the King said. These bloody things, mercury retrograde periods that is, happen 3 or 4 times a year and stay for weeks. It's no way to spend a life; I have more interesting things to study. Like Latin, Spanish, and theology. May have dropped the ball on the guitar, though it is not, I repeat, it is NOT, too late...
I've been reading the Psalms. "Why do you stand afar off, o Lord? / Why do you hide in times of trouble" (Psalm 10)
I am far too obsessed with the delusion of trying to control so much which is out of my reach.
I am worrying about Mercury Retrograde, and it strikes me that my astrology "hobby" may be doing more harm than good, if this is what it's coming to. I'm worrying because a. I'm traveling, most likely Monday; and b. my special friend said some very commital things, unprompted, which excited me, but then I started doing - I won't call it research - netsurfing on Mercury rx, which we entered at 6 am and are in until January 15 (and I gotta get home somehow, people; this influence affects travel and communication the most... last year on January 12th I traveled during one of these: holy f*ck, is all I can say). I just want to keep the darkness moving out and stop worrying, because, as one astrology guru wrote in her online advice column, in response to some lamentation about marrying during a void of course moon:
"25 · Molly · 25 March 2009
Hi Kate— I don’t know of any way to change it once it is done. You just have to let it go and see where life takes you. My sister got married with the Moon v/c. She & her husband are doing fine. Don’t worry about it, because worrying can put negativity out there, and we don’t want that. Just trust that it happened when it was supposed to. Congratulations & best wishes."
*
In happier news: I was very productive today. I finished the mittens! with a lot of help from stepsister A., and bustled about the house with her; I gutted and cleaned a huge turkey, did dishes and hung laundry (the household has a washer but the dryer is broken, and they love to be frugal and industrious, making homemade bread and soymilk and all kinds of things... and who can hold that gainst them? It's really very comfortable and beautiful here, and it is nice to be busy with "real" work), chopped vegetables for soup. I like to work, especially next to A. Hopefully my heavy mood will pass. The Lord is good.
*
Also, though each individual is effected differently, we're all in astrological transits together. And if Jesus could stop a storm, I'm pretty sure he can stop some planet that merely LOOKS like it's going backwards from effing my (by which I mean our, all us) life/lives up.
So, yeah. Let's keep on keepin on like the King said. These bloody things, mercury retrograde periods that is, happen 3 or 4 times a year and stay for weeks. It's no way to spend a life; I have more interesting things to study. Like Latin, Spanish, and theology. May have dropped the ball on the guitar, though it is not, I repeat, it is NOT, too late...
On bridging unbridgeable gaps, but he said several times what I said actually surprised him a great deal; I'm talking about my father
I'm not feeling very expressive, as though words were a finite resource, and I spent them all talking to my father in the past hour, as I sipped coffee and really had to go to the bathroom (as though the "holding in") were some kind of metaphor.
Many things rub me the wrong way which probably shouldn't. The way my stepsister keeps her door open at night, for example, though I otherwise think she's pretty great and only bristle when I think she has an aversion to my strangeness/rough edges, though I do get a laugh out of her once in awhile. ("That's a beautiful mailbox," I said, pointing to a plant in a ceramic, decorative holder above the kitchen sink, shaped somewhat like a mailbox. She looked confused for a brief second, but she is rather bright, and played along, gave a brief and relevant response - as she almost always does- regarding the history of how it came to be theirs/there).
How could I begin to share the smallest part of my conversation with my father? I am grateful that I type so fast, almost 100 wpm. It's one of the best things I have going for me when combined with having a lot to say- although whether or not I ever actually have "something" to say is arguable (controversial? unclear? ha) -- although, as per mentioned, I'm not sure this is one of those times.
Sometimes you just have to warm up.
Last night we had freezing rain and today is Ulalume-worthy (though Poe's misty dank regions of Weir or whathaveyou were memorialized in October, not December): not a hint of sun, howling wind, a canvas of white and all manner of greys, and that weird indescribable blue of winter. Enough of that thing I can't really do.
I'm a bit nervous about traveling home, because Mercury went Retrograde this morning but geez louise, not every aspect of transit can fall apart. At any rate, I may feel right at home; not my Mercury but FIVE of my planets were retrograde when I was born, leading to feelings of social privation, though I'm not sure what "privation" means, and only refer to feeling like a man unto myself, who is a misfit, and somehow can't fit in with society. Oh, yeah!
My boyfriend gave me quite a stern talking to last night, and it took us over an hour to get to a comfortable place of being (temporarily) resolved. He doesn't want to be "that guy," and have to call at a certain exact time, when who knows what he will be doing - he says "Spontaneity is not the issue," he doesn't want to be controlled- but from my perspective, I need to feel that he is accountable for me (within REASON, he should know by now that I give enormous leeway, and only really require a sincere attitude and what I discern as an earnest effort.) He said he'd probably never break up with me, anyway, and I said, I know. It will have to be me to do it permanently, if it comes to that, and he got defensive and insecure, but anyway eff all this I can't wait to jump on his beautiful body and hold him for hours. It's gonna be hot, though I may stop sleeping with him. Hahahaha, "until we're married," -- only I'm not kidding, I'm seriously considering it.
I had sort of troubled (though not limitlessly heavy) dreams about him. I got mad, and stormed off, as we were walking with my other ex J and J's new gf (whom we recently went out to/in Portland with, and had a decent time) into "80s Night." 80s Night is a real phenomenon that I've heard about but not experienced - actually, there are probably many variations/instances of it - but in my dream it was in a civic center type building and behind a sort of glass door. I went back because in my dream I remembered that he had been with J's new gf (not true in real life), had "known" her in the biblical sense, and I wanted to speak to him about it honestly more out of curiosity and affection than jealousy.
It was really a small room, and packed - though not uncomfortable so. I saw J, looking a bit sad (though he is in real life very flat, schizophrenic and heavily medicated, which I often misconstrue as melancholia, or not, perhaps), in a tophat, but I cruised right by him with false bravado and entered a line. The lines were moving in opposite directions, it was the cheesiest dancing, a bit like two "cabooses" at the roller rink, or something. At any rate I wasn't really jiving, though trying to appear, again, very confident and happy, for when I saw D., though I actually never did, because what I did was this: it's very hard to describe, but somehow I threw myself down right in the middle of the line of people and made almost everyone topple over! You had to be there, but I did it on purpose and it was quite funny, and then I woke up, to the howling wind, though it was only 7:30 am.
The light flickers here; "Changes in the weather, are bound to be extreme." My Dad and I listened to music, on this internet program where you can listen to anything for free and make a playlist but you have to pay to download, while my stepsister made yet another pair of mittens (I have abandoned mine, literally and figuratively; I may make my mother pick up the slack) and my stepmother laid in bed with one of her endless and infinite "afflictions," (don't get me started; I may not be nice.)
I can't even begin to describe the conversation my father and I had this morning. We are very alike in many ways, with melancholy temperaments and Pisces moon (which came first...hahaha: sorry, inside joke...with MYSELF... only it's not really a "joke" in the sense of a trace of cleverness, well maybe a trace, like trace metals in things). I was trying to describe in what ways I am subjectively uncomfortable here despite all their good efforts and no fault of anyone, really, but myself. I said, "You know, the last time we were all under the same roof together, I was kicked out." He said, "You still see it that way." "Yes, I do," I said, "You said I had to go live with my Mom." Anyway. It's very hard to truly forgive, and it's an ongoing process, and truly & deeply important to me, at least I hope.
I'm going to wash my hair and go have tea with the Pastor's wife. How could I say no to that woman? She just called, and talks so fast, and she chirps like a bird, and I find her strangely beautiful. Maybe I'll post later.
Many things rub me the wrong way which probably shouldn't. The way my stepsister keeps her door open at night, for example, though I otherwise think she's pretty great and only bristle when I think she has an aversion to my strangeness/rough edges, though I do get a laugh out of her once in awhile. ("That's a beautiful mailbox," I said, pointing to a plant in a ceramic, decorative holder above the kitchen sink, shaped somewhat like a mailbox. She looked confused for a brief second, but she is rather bright, and played along, gave a brief and relevant response - as she almost always does- regarding the history of how it came to be theirs/there).
How could I begin to share the smallest part of my conversation with my father? I am grateful that I type so fast, almost 100 wpm. It's one of the best things I have going for me when combined with having a lot to say- although whether or not I ever actually have "something" to say is arguable (controversial? unclear? ha) -- although, as per mentioned, I'm not sure this is one of those times.
Sometimes you just have to warm up.
Last night we had freezing rain and today is Ulalume-worthy (though Poe's misty dank regions of Weir or whathaveyou were memorialized in October, not December): not a hint of sun, howling wind, a canvas of white and all manner of greys, and that weird indescribable blue of winter. Enough of that thing I can't really do.
I'm a bit nervous about traveling home, because Mercury went Retrograde this morning but geez louise, not every aspect of transit can fall apart. At any rate, I may feel right at home; not my Mercury but FIVE of my planets were retrograde when I was born, leading to feelings of social privation, though I'm not sure what "privation" means, and only refer to feeling like a man unto myself, who is a misfit, and somehow can't fit in with society. Oh, yeah!
My boyfriend gave me quite a stern talking to last night, and it took us over an hour to get to a comfortable place of being (temporarily) resolved. He doesn't want to be "that guy," and have to call at a certain exact time, when who knows what he will be doing - he says "Spontaneity is not the issue," he doesn't want to be controlled- but from my perspective, I need to feel that he is accountable for me (within REASON, he should know by now that I give enormous leeway, and only really require a sincere attitude and what I discern as an earnest effort.) He said he'd probably never break up with me, anyway, and I said, I know. It will have to be me to do it permanently, if it comes to that, and he got defensive and insecure, but anyway eff all this I can't wait to jump on his beautiful body and hold him for hours. It's gonna be hot, though I may stop sleeping with him. Hahahaha, "until we're married," -- only I'm not kidding, I'm seriously considering it.
I had sort of troubled (though not limitlessly heavy) dreams about him. I got mad, and stormed off, as we were walking with my other ex J and J's new gf (whom we recently went out to/in Portland with, and had a decent time) into "80s Night." 80s Night is a real phenomenon that I've heard about but not experienced - actually, there are probably many variations/instances of it - but in my dream it was in a civic center type building and behind a sort of glass door. I went back because in my dream I remembered that he had been with J's new gf (not true in real life), had "known" her in the biblical sense, and I wanted to speak to him about it honestly more out of curiosity and affection than jealousy.
It was really a small room, and packed - though not uncomfortable so. I saw J, looking a bit sad (though he is in real life very flat, schizophrenic and heavily medicated, which I often misconstrue as melancholia, or not, perhaps), in a tophat, but I cruised right by him with false bravado and entered a line. The lines were moving in opposite directions, it was the cheesiest dancing, a bit like two "cabooses" at the roller rink, or something. At any rate I wasn't really jiving, though trying to appear, again, very confident and happy, for when I saw D., though I actually never did, because what I did was this: it's very hard to describe, but somehow I threw myself down right in the middle of the line of people and made almost everyone topple over! You had to be there, but I did it on purpose and it was quite funny, and then I woke up, to the howling wind, though it was only 7:30 am.
The light flickers here; "Changes in the weather, are bound to be extreme." My Dad and I listened to music, on this internet program where you can listen to anything for free and make a playlist but you have to pay to download, while my stepsister made yet another pair of mittens (I have abandoned mine, literally and figuratively; I may make my mother pick up the slack) and my stepmother laid in bed with one of her endless and infinite "afflictions," (don't get me started; I may not be nice.)
I can't even begin to describe the conversation my father and I had this morning. We are very alike in many ways, with melancholy temperaments and Pisces moon (which came first...hahaha: sorry, inside joke...with MYSELF... only it's not really a "joke" in the sense of a trace of cleverness, well maybe a trace, like trace metals in things). I was trying to describe in what ways I am subjectively uncomfortable here despite all their good efforts and no fault of anyone, really, but myself. I said, "You know, the last time we were all under the same roof together, I was kicked out." He said, "You still see it that way." "Yes, I do," I said, "You said I had to go live with my Mom." Anyway. It's very hard to truly forgive, and it's an ongoing process, and truly & deeply important to me, at least I hope.
I'm going to wash my hair and go have tea with the Pastor's wife. How could I say no to that woman? She just called, and talks so fast, and she chirps like a bird, and I find her strangely beautiful. Maybe I'll post later.
Friday, December 25, 2009
integrating to one: time to connect with the creativity of entrepeneuring
Matt: "Christmas is so weird... It's just like a prelude to New Year's"
Me: "Um, you forgot about the sacrificial lamb who died for all mankind"
Matt: "Yeah, you forgot about New Year's Resolutions."
....
Matt: "I got sooo drunk last New Year's."
Me: "That reminds me, I'm going to make like ten resolutions, and stick to them."
*
Hi Folks.
Last night was yet another long dark night of the soul. I started to feel lighter around my dad, and even stepmother; she gave me a squeeze on the arm on the way into the chinese buffet, where I ate sensibly and well, all things considered, and later that evening I was very tired, with burning behind my eyes, and fading in and out of existence, and I was waiting with the old anxiety for a short phone call between the hours of 9 and 10 pm eastern time. At 9:40 I got some text from anonymous@something net, that "people were going to bed, and I am too," which didn't make sense to me because it seems easier to just make a phone call as opposed to sign onto some fancy anonymous texting website I didn't think individual-in-question knew a thing about, so that he had worked hard to avoid speaking to me but also somehow meet the Great Expectation, and I began to lose a lot of hope, and though this is pretty tedious, I considered taking down the abstract colored pencil art which I've mounted on the shelf next to the bed as a symbol of love and commitment. (I prevailed against the urge)
I was, again, fuming (like last night), and, again, though I thought many times I was beyond it, coursing with agitation and indignation literally in the bloodstream. I started to get nervous even before this; I was chatting on facebook with a girl from high school and I said (being an excellent conversationalist), "Who do you think the cutest boy in our grade was?" And she said, "Your bf, and J. -" and I was jolted with pain, because, on some level I don't think I really believe that he is in anyway my anything.*
And I have bigger fish to fry, I suppose, but also: the way out is through. (Who said it, who said it?) And, as my dear departed grandmother (she was once my best friend, I lived with her the year I was seven, she was my babysitter, taught me solitaire and gave me saltines with cheese melted in her old gas oven) used to always say: "This too, shall pass." (overdue for a tattoo?) I read somewhere on the internet- not the first encounter with this idea- about "controlled grieving," wherein you write in a journal about the thing for say 20 minutes a day, as this supposedly helps reduce walking around like a human zombie all the time in mad despondency.
*Why not be an anthropologist? My dad thinks it's morally wrong but he is referring to a certain secular bias, not the field in its essence, I think. My dad, my dad: oh my! Last night he had a fit of Salvador Dali, I was sitting upstairs and he was still going: "There's a phonograph in that piano... That violin is the body... There are only so many shapes- a violin and a body, that's a reasonable comparison! And all the background stuff, you can't keep track of it... you could spend hours..." And they say, my stepmother and stepsister, that I am a regular chip off the old block, and they are a family, though nothing is perfect, there is real tenderness here, and inside jokes...
Apparently my dad has given up on being an artist, saying that there will always be others to do it, and he just can't find the time. He is in no way a lazy person, but has he limited himself in this? A little less chatting mister; you don't need a movie everynight. But here is a man with a family, and his own business, and I ought not speak of what I don't know. But I, I still want to be an artist! No matter how bad I am, no matter how petty my perspective and how hard it is to expand it one little centimeter, and no matter how many times me ego is crushed under the wagon wheels of cute boys and other impossible combinations.
Salvador Dali, by the way, known for his melting clocks and his composing human beings of objects, who my stepmother felt lukewarm at best for, and called something with a hole in its swelling belly a "pregnancy," and I worried vaguely talk of abortion was around the corner, (and I'm starting to be afflicted with certain feelings), but anyway, Salvador Dali said the following, which made me laugh with glee:
"Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy - the joy of being Salvador Dalí - and I ask myself in rapture, 'What wonderful things is this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today?'"
Not that I think the Answer is becoming re-romanticized with myself. But there is a point to which we need to be truly ecstatic to be who we are, with out unique gifts, I think. I am intimidated by beauty, particularly this one young man- and not everyone sees it in him, which almost makes it scarier to me - but why? Why should I see someone beautiful and think I should claim them as my own? Do I look out at the mountains outside my window here, the snow on the ground and the crisscrossed dark branches in the misty gloom, and say, That is mine! I own it!
Another thing: why not be an anthropologist and a psychologist? Why must it all be pain pain pain? Why not detach, and learn? A lot can be learned from a difficult love, and I ought to embrace that suffering. I also can learn a lot from my dad and stepfamily, with an anthropological attitude that does not necessarily have to be cold and clinical and condescending... but can be one of open wonder. I don't know. What the hell was in the bag from the movie store? I went to look at the movie and my stepmom panicked and grabbed it and gave me just the movie. I'm sure it wasn't a Christmas present. So what was it? What are you hiding, people?
And it's none of my business.
Last night I tried to sleep for a couple hours, because I so needed it. Around midnight I went downstairs and my father was at the dining room table reading the bible (this morning I was on the phone and walked into the living room, where my stepmother was reading the bible and she moved to go upstairs, she with her talk of women and multitasking, and her effing displays of -false? who can know the hearts of men?- deference / get a grip, self, I was like, Oh, sorry, I'll go and she's like Oh, I'll go; a lighter manifestation: my stepsister, whom I wholeheartedly - mostly - love, and I were both like, you go first, and I made a game of it, coming into the house last night from the Chinest buffet, we were both sort of shuffling offering the other to go first and I said, let's do the polite dance) and anyway, my dad, midnight, he was like, oh you're up or something and I said, just like a pouty child, "I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight." And he sort of frowned (you Capricorns! don't be the death of me, I beseech you!) and was like, "Is your heart rate okay?" And I was like, "Well yeah," and he was like, "Oh, you'll be fine," and I went to bed and cried (muffling my sobs because the three bedrooms are all right next to each other), like I hadn't for a long time, I felt the old old child-feeling, but not the good Christmas-stockingy kind, rocking myself in the bed, and praying earnestly for death, why I couldn't say, because no matter what happened, I was a bottomless well of sadness, and it wasn't even a chemical problem, just a bottomless one, and everything was so, so sad, despite our best intentions, and why did my life have to include someone who was so beautiful and difficult and rejecting that it tortured me? And why didn't I have the strength or peace of mind to know what to do, and all this time while I fumed, I got rejected so many times. And would it really be up to me, at some point, to decide for myself what to do? Or would I just be scratching my head in the dust of (mocassin? is that what he wears?) leavetaking no. 613, and is writing things like this bad?
*
And last Christmas it was unseasonably warm, in Augusta Maine, I recall. I stolidly did nothing, as usual - (what the frig does "intrepid" mean, again? I should know, whatever that means, but don't. I have a whole slew of words to look up. Perhaps I'll do the fun elementary school thing where I look up the words, I found them in Dostoevsky: phalanstery, asserverate, brigan, mountebank: and then use them on a sentence, but obviously I'd do it on my blog.)
May start posting the blogs in Myspace as well, miss my audience a tad--but I've been being more personal on here, if that is possible. I've heard it's all a false veneer of openness anyway, these things that I do. I think I'm going to try to be more disciplined in what I write about. Maybe I'll choose little themes, but at any rate I can't talk so much about the one person, it isn't healthy. There's a time and a season but it can't be continuous/perpetual.
Last Christmas, actually, I did nothing, but not quite. I donned an aquamarine prom dress with a lot of back exposure, it was like criss crossed and long, and thinking about it now I sort of long for it. I'd like to wear a very pretty dress, as I feel a bit drab and the sun is nowhere to be seen. Before the fancy-wearing session, I walked slowly to Cumberland Farm's, bought a people magazine, and read it on a rock. I can't remember if I had coffee.
*
New Year's Resolutions. Rough Draft Version.
"At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since." - Salvador Dali
1. Write 3 hours every single effing day. I have NEVER ever done this, but it is BEYOND possible.
2. Start a small cleaning business. This is vague.
3. Stop cursing frequently and drop only the occasional swear word for good effect. I'm not sure why I would put this on here but it occurs to me that it is not really hip for me to pottymouth and just makes me seem like I'm trying to be tough or something. Better to just be sincere. That would be very refreshing.
4. Read the Bible every single day. Not sure how much.
5. Don't scream at people.
6. Don't call anyone more then once in a row, esp. if their phone is on, and esp. if it is not in anyway an emergency (subjective "emergencies" do not count, and should be addressed elsewhere in the resolutions)
7. Study Latin and Spanish. Not sure what form this will take.
8. Apply to Omega and Americorps Vista.
*
Haha, now I can read about the Ennegram for hours, since it's not the New Year yet! I ought to enjoy it while it lasts.
*
Oh, speaking of taking things by force: my stepsister has a friend in the nursing home next door. Do you know how they became friends? The woman, Rose, who is about 90, was walking by the house, saw my stepsister in the window, and started yelling up at her, and hollered for her to come down. ("I think giving and receiving presents is Rose's love language." - "Oh I'll say.") There is a lot more I could say about Rose, who I met yesterday, but I'll save it for another time.
*
Peace on earth, goodwill to men. Amen.
Me: "Um, you forgot about the sacrificial lamb who died for all mankind"
Matt: "Yeah, you forgot about New Year's Resolutions."
....
Matt: "I got sooo drunk last New Year's."
Me: "That reminds me, I'm going to make like ten resolutions, and stick to them."
*
Hi Folks.
Last night was yet another long dark night of the soul. I started to feel lighter around my dad, and even stepmother; she gave me a squeeze on the arm on the way into the chinese buffet, where I ate sensibly and well, all things considered, and later that evening I was very tired, with burning behind my eyes, and fading in and out of existence, and I was waiting with the old anxiety for a short phone call between the hours of 9 and 10 pm eastern time. At 9:40 I got some text from anonymous@something net, that "people were going to bed, and I am too," which didn't make sense to me because it seems easier to just make a phone call as opposed to sign onto some fancy anonymous texting website I didn't think individual-in-question knew a thing about, so that he had worked hard to avoid speaking to me but also somehow meet the Great Expectation, and I began to lose a lot of hope, and though this is pretty tedious, I considered taking down the abstract colored pencil art which I've mounted on the shelf next to the bed as a symbol of love and commitment. (I prevailed against the urge)
I was, again, fuming (like last night), and, again, though I thought many times I was beyond it, coursing with agitation and indignation literally in the bloodstream. I started to get nervous even before this; I was chatting on facebook with a girl from high school and I said (being an excellent conversationalist), "Who do you think the cutest boy in our grade was?" And she said, "Your bf, and J. -" and I was jolted with pain, because, on some level I don't think I really believe that he is in anyway my anything.*
And I have bigger fish to fry, I suppose, but also: the way out is through. (Who said it, who said it?) And, as my dear departed grandmother (she was once my best friend, I lived with her the year I was seven, she was my babysitter, taught me solitaire and gave me saltines with cheese melted in her old gas oven) used to always say: "This too, shall pass." (overdue for a tattoo?) I read somewhere on the internet- not the first encounter with this idea- about "controlled grieving," wherein you write in a journal about the thing for say 20 minutes a day, as this supposedly helps reduce walking around like a human zombie all the time in mad despondency.
*Why not be an anthropologist? My dad thinks it's morally wrong but he is referring to a certain secular bias, not the field in its essence, I think. My dad, my dad: oh my! Last night he had a fit of Salvador Dali, I was sitting upstairs and he was still going: "There's a phonograph in that piano... That violin is the body... There are only so many shapes- a violin and a body, that's a reasonable comparison! And all the background stuff, you can't keep track of it... you could spend hours..." And they say, my stepmother and stepsister, that I am a regular chip off the old block, and they are a family, though nothing is perfect, there is real tenderness here, and inside jokes...
Apparently my dad has given up on being an artist, saying that there will always be others to do it, and he just can't find the time. He is in no way a lazy person, but has he limited himself in this? A little less chatting mister; you don't need a movie everynight. But here is a man with a family, and his own business, and I ought not speak of what I don't know. But I, I still want to be an artist! No matter how bad I am, no matter how petty my perspective and how hard it is to expand it one little centimeter, and no matter how many times me ego is crushed under the wagon wheels of cute boys and other impossible combinations.
Salvador Dali, by the way, known for his melting clocks and his composing human beings of objects, who my stepmother felt lukewarm at best for, and called something with a hole in its swelling belly a "pregnancy," and I worried vaguely talk of abortion was around the corner, (and I'm starting to be afflicted with certain feelings), but anyway, Salvador Dali said the following, which made me laugh with glee:
"Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy - the joy of being Salvador Dalí - and I ask myself in rapture, 'What wonderful things is this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today?'"
Not that I think the Answer is becoming re-romanticized with myself. But there is a point to which we need to be truly ecstatic to be who we are, with out unique gifts, I think. I am intimidated by beauty, particularly this one young man- and not everyone sees it in him, which almost makes it scarier to me - but why? Why should I see someone beautiful and think I should claim them as my own? Do I look out at the mountains outside my window here, the snow on the ground and the crisscrossed dark branches in the misty gloom, and say, That is mine! I own it!
Another thing: why not be an anthropologist and a psychologist? Why must it all be pain pain pain? Why not detach, and learn? A lot can be learned from a difficult love, and I ought to embrace that suffering. I also can learn a lot from my dad and stepfamily, with an anthropological attitude that does not necessarily have to be cold and clinical and condescending... but can be one of open wonder. I don't know. What the hell was in the bag from the movie store? I went to look at the movie and my stepmom panicked and grabbed it and gave me just the movie. I'm sure it wasn't a Christmas present. So what was it? What are you hiding, people?
And it's none of my business.
Last night I tried to sleep for a couple hours, because I so needed it. Around midnight I went downstairs and my father was at the dining room table reading the bible (this morning I was on the phone and walked into the living room, where my stepmother was reading the bible and she moved to go upstairs, she with her talk of women and multitasking, and her effing displays of -false? who can know the hearts of men?- deference / get a grip, self, I was like, Oh, sorry, I'll go and she's like Oh, I'll go; a lighter manifestation: my stepsister, whom I wholeheartedly - mostly - love, and I were both like, you go first, and I made a game of it, coming into the house last night from the Chinest buffet, we were both sort of shuffling offering the other to go first and I said, let's do the polite dance) and anyway, my dad, midnight, he was like, oh you're up or something and I said, just like a pouty child, "I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight." And he sort of frowned (you Capricorns! don't be the death of me, I beseech you!) and was like, "Is your heart rate okay?" And I was like, "Well yeah," and he was like, "Oh, you'll be fine," and I went to bed and cried (muffling my sobs because the three bedrooms are all right next to each other), like I hadn't for a long time, I felt the old old child-feeling, but not the good Christmas-stockingy kind, rocking myself in the bed, and praying earnestly for death, why I couldn't say, because no matter what happened, I was a bottomless well of sadness, and it wasn't even a chemical problem, just a bottomless one, and everything was so, so sad, despite our best intentions, and why did my life have to include someone who was so beautiful and difficult and rejecting that it tortured me? And why didn't I have the strength or peace of mind to know what to do, and all this time while I fumed, I got rejected so many times. And would it really be up to me, at some point, to decide for myself what to do? Or would I just be scratching my head in the dust of (mocassin? is that what he wears?) leavetaking no. 613, and is writing things like this bad?
*
And last Christmas it was unseasonably warm, in Augusta Maine, I recall. I stolidly did nothing, as usual - (what the frig does "intrepid" mean, again? I should know, whatever that means, but don't. I have a whole slew of words to look up. Perhaps I'll do the fun elementary school thing where I look up the words, I found them in Dostoevsky: phalanstery, asserverate, brigan, mountebank: and then use them on a sentence, but obviously I'd do it on my blog.)
May start posting the blogs in Myspace as well, miss my audience a tad--but I've been being more personal on here, if that is possible. I've heard it's all a false veneer of openness anyway, these things that I do. I think I'm going to try to be more disciplined in what I write about. Maybe I'll choose little themes, but at any rate I can't talk so much about the one person, it isn't healthy. There's a time and a season but it can't be continuous/perpetual.
Last Christmas, actually, I did nothing, but not quite. I donned an aquamarine prom dress with a lot of back exposure, it was like criss crossed and long, and thinking about it now I sort of long for it. I'd like to wear a very pretty dress, as I feel a bit drab and the sun is nowhere to be seen. Before the fancy-wearing session, I walked slowly to Cumberland Farm's, bought a people magazine, and read it on a rock. I can't remember if I had coffee.
*
New Year's Resolutions. Rough Draft Version.
"At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since." - Salvador Dali
1. Write 3 hours every single effing day. I have NEVER ever done this, but it is BEYOND possible.
2. Start a small cleaning business. This is vague.
3. Stop cursing frequently and drop only the occasional swear word for good effect. I'm not sure why I would put this on here but it occurs to me that it is not really hip for me to pottymouth and just makes me seem like I'm trying to be tough or something. Better to just be sincere. That would be very refreshing.
4. Read the Bible every single day. Not sure how much.
5. Don't scream at people.
6. Don't call anyone more then once in a row, esp. if their phone is on, and esp. if it is not in anyway an emergency (subjective "emergencies" do not count, and should be addressed elsewhere in the resolutions)
7. Study Latin and Spanish. Not sure what form this will take.
8. Apply to Omega and Americorps Vista.
*
Haha, now I can read about the Ennegram for hours, since it's not the New Year yet! I ought to enjoy it while it lasts.
*
Oh, speaking of taking things by force: my stepsister has a friend in the nursing home next door. Do you know how they became friends? The woman, Rose, who is about 90, was walking by the house, saw my stepsister in the window, and started yelling up at her, and hollered for her to come down. ("I think giving and receiving presents is Rose's love language." - "Oh I'll say.") There is a lot more I could say about Rose, who I met yesterday, but I'll save it for another time.
*
Peace on earth, goodwill to men. Amen.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
He said I'm about 45% wrong, you're only 45% right
Ohhh I don't want to lose the game. Or is it not a game? The family sings Christmas carols downstairs while I fret about the cutest boy in the world. It's stupid and I need to lean in God's comfort/build a psychic shield/distract myself. I can hear the weariness in his voicemail. Chinese buffet tonight. Is faith enough? This life could be over any minute, at any rate.
Here is a discussion forum post I found seeking wisdom on search.com:
"Open Question
I need serious help with my girlfriend?
I've been with her for 9 months already and we kissed a lot. I already made tongue kissing her not exciting to me. Once in a while, I let myself get turned on by tongue kissing my girlfriend. When I am kissing my girlfriend, she noticed that I don't get excited and ask me what's wrong? How come she asks me if something's wrong and ask me if I think she's beautiful after kissing each other when I don't get turned on? When she asks me if I think she's beautiful after kissing and not getting turned on, I just tell her that I do find her beautiful but she doesn't believes me. I did show her that I like her by kissing her.
6 minutes ago - 4 days left to answer."
Here is a discussion forum post I found seeking wisdom on search.com:
"Open Question
I need serious help with my girlfriend?
I've been with her for 9 months already and we kissed a lot. I already made tongue kissing her not exciting to me. Once in a while, I let myself get turned on by tongue kissing my girlfriend. When I am kissing my girlfriend, she noticed that I don't get excited and ask me what's wrong? How come she asks me if something's wrong and ask me if I think she's beautiful after kissing each other when I don't get turned on? When she asks me if I think she's beautiful after kissing and not getting turned on, I just tell her that I do find her beautiful but she doesn't believes me. I did show her that I like her by kissing her.
6 minutes ago - 4 days left to answer."
Where are you, my love, my berry crepe, in the oatmeal-stone tiles of the sinking floor?
8:30 am.
Stepmother: "You just get up and go, don't you?" [I am washing dishes and positively boogying to the Cure on the ipod]
Me: Well, I was up past 2 am last night.
Stepmother: Really, reading?
Me: Sort of. More like being angsty.
Stepmother: About what?
Me: Some angst.
*
At least I did the right thing about her birthday (which is today, inspiring all sorts of dreadful mixed metaphors about Santa Storks and so on), which was to acknowledge it. I wasn't going to as I had already made my position clear on Christmas presents- let's not bother- but I can see that I did the right thing. If I had not gotten her anything it would be the worst part of my father, the part that shuns sentimentality and cares only for what is practical, like lending a hand, some money for groceries--if that.
Some women need small acknowledgements (including me I suppose, as I am leading up to, the great drama of the "Check In" phone call: a source of devastating contention; it is small things, after all, which start wars and fires and everything) and these more than pay off in the end. Although my stepmother can be devastatingly cold and in certain ways betrayed my trust in major ways when I was young (and made me out to be a thief for taking her motherfreaking lavender talcum powder into my room after a shower and absentmindedly leaving there; she put a postit or something on it that was like, "You can have this. I love you. I'll pray for your sins" or something at least that ridiculous, but that was many years ago, and though the past is always with us and we cannot do away with it, we must of course allow for progress)- why shouldn't I strive to love her and get along with her? She has her moments, a soothing voice, and a smile which flashes like the sun. And though not an intensely elegant woman, she IS womanly (Capricorn Sun, Scorpio Moon, and thus also formidable, whereas my Gemini/Pisces melts all over the screen and blows to another dimension before I even really understand that something has gone wrong between us) pretty eyes like a cat's, green with dark lashes. She's a medical transcriptionist and has few hobbies but she has a real fighting spirit- was pregnant in high school, had a mess of a Mom who didn't take care of her, lost her sister to a murder when she was 18, single parent--and boy did she do something right with those girls, who are among the most easygoing and pleasant I almost ever met. (Our blended family was quite funny in that her girls were so submissive, a little but not much younger then us, and Zach and I had lived as though among wolves with our single Father, had been like a council with no real Boundaries of parental authority/progenic submission, and were both asked to leave the house; whereas the girls, 21 and almost 18 are not budging until they are properly courted and then married)
*
My boyfriend and I got into quite a rift last night which disturbed my sleep but was good in the sense that I had to call on God. Also, given our troubled history, what sense would it make for things to go perfectly smoothly? It is only sensible that conflicts arise and then we rationally and compassionately deal with them, which is what ultimately happened in this case (I think) and for this I am glad. I will say, however, that I descended into a personal hell last night, and many would say I overreacted but to me it was real and unstoppable. What happened was that he was supposed to call me at a certain time. He was going to a friend's that I'm not crazy about anyway for a variety of compelling reasons, but I would never forbid him to hang out with a platonic friend (not that he would ever listen to me, but today he told me one of his biggest hang-ups and his reasons for fickleness is a deep-seated fear of being emasculated or, in lay terms, "whipped," which I wasn't really so conscious of and is perhaps a good thing to know), but anyway, I expect him to call when he says he will unless there is a very good reason, particularly when I am away and when we are just beginning to grow in a committed way and I have understandable trust issues with him, who has disappeared many times (though never, to be fair, permanently). But anyway, who really cares, because what is a phone call, but it's an accountability thing, and he didn't call, and I grew frantic, and did something I should not do for many reasons which include that there is no need to make a collossal fool of myself when I'm simultaneously accomplishing nothing whatsover. So what I did was about 4 texts, who knows how many calls, and also a few calls to the friend, which he considers unacceptable but... I don't know. I kind of consider being blown off unacceptable.
At any rate, I got ahold of him, reamed him out, said many absurd and unflattering things, he hung up, I called back, and then his phone was shut off for lack of payment.
It was crazy, because I kept telling myself, you've been through this movie before, keep cool babycakes, what is the point, you can ditch him if you really don't like it; you're a free agent without having to humiliate yourself etc. etc. etc. But it was so bad that I thought I'd never sleep again, so I got in touch with the Good Lord and we had quite a bit of one on one time. I could literally feel fear and anxiety coursing through my body and I was like geez, this can't be good, but I was like God, you are sovereign. This is as preordained as the cigarette I had mid-bible study on the streets with swirling light snow, which I thought would provoke a relieving BM (how I suffered gas, last night, raw onions hamburg tahini my goodness, I told my family: "All that is left to do with this is pursue a crescendo." - "Great," they said. "We're all in this together," I said. "Really," the said), and was preordained, to not. I thought again of my gunshot, of that awful sinking horror, and I had a moment where I was like God, Why did you give that to me? If I can't ever get better [by which I referred not to physical recovery but cleaning up my act], why give me something else to stumble upon?... But then I remembered what the Pastor's wife said earlier, that it was not for us to know (which I'm sure unbelievers consider a particularly stupid cop-out, and I must work on constructing an answer to them, but I can say little except that even in the most mundane matters, we often don't understand the value of any given thing in isolation and the whole can be very slow to reveal itself) and it was foolish to think that God had made a mistake. I decided to make some decisions. I decided if I didn't hear from D by noon I would not talk to him for several days and then reevaluate the situation. I prayed about whether or not to throw in the towel. He called around 2 though I had turned off my phone, and fell asleep around that time and really slept pretty okay, had interesting dreams with a great deal of mixed company, and though I have burning behind my eyes from the combo of getting less then my sleep "quota" and coffee cup no. 3 (a combo I must admit is not without charm), all is well. As I told David, the anxiety I have left over is not like the attack which took my body captive so many times including last night and points to some real Issues in me that need Healing (and I am not here being tongue-in-cheek, no matter how much it seems like it), but more like the anxiety I feel sending off a packet full of many different things to graduate school and keep checking. Like: did we get everything? Are our ducks as well lined up as they can be, for now? It's hard to leave things off in the middle and accept the best amount of peace you can get in the moment, but it's part of life, and maybe one women (with their multitasking-geared brains, they say) have an edge in. I was quite hysterical and actually said to him on the phone, "Can you get off S's [his friend] dick for a minute and [bleeping]talk to me," which was unnecessary and benefited no one. He for his part apologized for his actions, we have a bit of a game plan, but I have to remember that he is one of many men I could be happy with. Neither of us want to be the other's doormat which is healthy and right though often our behavior has not been. As long as he recognizes when he's in the wrong and calls me out for my shit, and we can resolve our conflicts, I'm willing to work on it. I have, after all, been in love with him for many years.
*
There's a lot more I want to say about matters of faith, but I will come back to it.
Stepmother: "You just get up and go, don't you?" [I am washing dishes and positively boogying to the Cure on the ipod]
Me: Well, I was up past 2 am last night.
Stepmother: Really, reading?
Me: Sort of. More like being angsty.
Stepmother: About what?
Me: Some angst.
*
At least I did the right thing about her birthday (which is today, inspiring all sorts of dreadful mixed metaphors about Santa Storks and so on), which was to acknowledge it. I wasn't going to as I had already made my position clear on Christmas presents- let's not bother- but I can see that I did the right thing. If I had not gotten her anything it would be the worst part of my father, the part that shuns sentimentality and cares only for what is practical, like lending a hand, some money for groceries--if that.
Some women need small acknowledgements (including me I suppose, as I am leading up to, the great drama of the "Check In" phone call: a source of devastating contention; it is small things, after all, which start wars and fires and everything) and these more than pay off in the end. Although my stepmother can be devastatingly cold and in certain ways betrayed my trust in major ways when I was young (and made me out to be a thief for taking her motherfreaking lavender talcum powder into my room after a shower and absentmindedly leaving there; she put a postit or something on it that was like, "You can have this. I love you. I'll pray for your sins" or something at least that ridiculous, but that was many years ago, and though the past is always with us and we cannot do away with it, we must of course allow for progress)- why shouldn't I strive to love her and get along with her? She has her moments, a soothing voice, and a smile which flashes like the sun. And though not an intensely elegant woman, she IS womanly (Capricorn Sun, Scorpio Moon, and thus also formidable, whereas my Gemini/Pisces melts all over the screen and blows to another dimension before I even really understand that something has gone wrong between us) pretty eyes like a cat's, green with dark lashes. She's a medical transcriptionist and has few hobbies but she has a real fighting spirit- was pregnant in high school, had a mess of a Mom who didn't take care of her, lost her sister to a murder when she was 18, single parent--and boy did she do something right with those girls, who are among the most easygoing and pleasant I almost ever met. (Our blended family was quite funny in that her girls were so submissive, a little but not much younger then us, and Zach and I had lived as though among wolves with our single Father, had been like a council with no real Boundaries of parental authority/progenic submission, and were both asked to leave the house; whereas the girls, 21 and almost 18 are not budging until they are properly courted and then married)
*
My boyfriend and I got into quite a rift last night which disturbed my sleep but was good in the sense that I had to call on God. Also, given our troubled history, what sense would it make for things to go perfectly smoothly? It is only sensible that conflicts arise and then we rationally and compassionately deal with them, which is what ultimately happened in this case (I think) and for this I am glad. I will say, however, that I descended into a personal hell last night, and many would say I overreacted but to me it was real and unstoppable. What happened was that he was supposed to call me at a certain time. He was going to a friend's that I'm not crazy about anyway for a variety of compelling reasons, but I would never forbid him to hang out with a platonic friend (not that he would ever listen to me, but today he told me one of his biggest hang-ups and his reasons for fickleness is a deep-seated fear of being emasculated or, in lay terms, "whipped," which I wasn't really so conscious of and is perhaps a good thing to know), but anyway, I expect him to call when he says he will unless there is a very good reason, particularly when I am away and when we are just beginning to grow in a committed way and I have understandable trust issues with him, who has disappeared many times (though never, to be fair, permanently). But anyway, who really cares, because what is a phone call, but it's an accountability thing, and he didn't call, and I grew frantic, and did something I should not do for many reasons which include that there is no need to make a collossal fool of myself when I'm simultaneously accomplishing nothing whatsover. So what I did was about 4 texts, who knows how many calls, and also a few calls to the friend, which he considers unacceptable but... I don't know. I kind of consider being blown off unacceptable.
At any rate, I got ahold of him, reamed him out, said many absurd and unflattering things, he hung up, I called back, and then his phone was shut off for lack of payment.
It was crazy, because I kept telling myself, you've been through this movie before, keep cool babycakes, what is the point, you can ditch him if you really don't like it; you're a free agent without having to humiliate yourself etc. etc. etc. But it was so bad that I thought I'd never sleep again, so I got in touch with the Good Lord and we had quite a bit of one on one time. I could literally feel fear and anxiety coursing through my body and I was like geez, this can't be good, but I was like God, you are sovereign. This is as preordained as the cigarette I had mid-bible study on the streets with swirling light snow, which I thought would provoke a relieving BM (how I suffered gas, last night, raw onions hamburg tahini my goodness, I told my family: "All that is left to do with this is pursue a crescendo." - "Great," they said. "We're all in this together," I said. "Really," the said), and was preordained, to not. I thought again of my gunshot, of that awful sinking horror, and I had a moment where I was like God, Why did you give that to me? If I can't ever get better [by which I referred not to physical recovery but cleaning up my act], why give me something else to stumble upon?... But then I remembered what the Pastor's wife said earlier, that it was not for us to know (which I'm sure unbelievers consider a particularly stupid cop-out, and I must work on constructing an answer to them, but I can say little except that even in the most mundane matters, we often don't understand the value of any given thing in isolation and the whole can be very slow to reveal itself) and it was foolish to think that God had made a mistake. I decided to make some decisions. I decided if I didn't hear from D by noon I would not talk to him for several days and then reevaluate the situation. I prayed about whether or not to throw in the towel. He called around 2 though I had turned off my phone, and fell asleep around that time and really slept pretty okay, had interesting dreams with a great deal of mixed company, and though I have burning behind my eyes from the combo of getting less then my sleep "quota" and coffee cup no. 3 (a combo I must admit is not without charm), all is well. As I told David, the anxiety I have left over is not like the attack which took my body captive so many times including last night and points to some real Issues in me that need Healing (and I am not here being tongue-in-cheek, no matter how much it seems like it), but more like the anxiety I feel sending off a packet full of many different things to graduate school and keep checking. Like: did we get everything? Are our ducks as well lined up as they can be, for now? It's hard to leave things off in the middle and accept the best amount of peace you can get in the moment, but it's part of life, and maybe one women (with their multitasking-geared brains, they say) have an edge in. I was quite hysterical and actually said to him on the phone, "Can you get off S's [his friend] dick for a minute and [bleeping]talk to me," which was unnecessary and benefited no one. He for his part apologized for his actions, we have a bit of a game plan, but I have to remember that he is one of many men I could be happy with. Neither of us want to be the other's doormat which is healthy and right though often our behavior has not been. As long as he recognizes when he's in the wrong and calls me out for my shit, and we can resolve our conflicts, I'm willing to work on it. I have, after all, been in love with him for many years.
*
There's a lot more I want to say about matters of faith, but I will come back to it.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
"Do you like mittens?"
These are the kind of texts we have arrived at.
I've been staying with my dad, stepmother, and 17 year-old stepsister for about a week, and may stay almost two weeks more. I don't much like to leave my bedroom, let alone my hometown, but it's been a fairly easy venture since I have a private space while I'm here (my other stepsister is visiting her biological father in Maine), though no door, and a little close for comfort to Dad and Stepmom, but everyone seems to just fall right asleep at night, so I have that sense of the inner sanctuary and besides that a lot of free time.
I DO have to periodically remind myself that I'm no longer 17 and can leave at will, and that my father and stepmother are just fragile human beings and not the ultimate ambassadors for Christ, though they make good strides. Yesterday my dad worked a fairly full day and then silently filled out an elaborate invoice at mealtime (he has his own carpentry/renovation business, go Dad!) and said like twenty words to me, including criticizing something I was doing regarding dishes. (D. was like, "Do you have an exact count because you wrote them all in your notebook?" and I was like, "Better to air my complaints in my notebook than to peoples' faces"... but he also pointed out the rational course, about me being a Big Girl and not having to take others' inconsistency, moodiness, etc. personally.)
Today, however, he offered me a driving lesson-- I just got my license and will SUPPOSEDLY have a '97 Ford Taurus standard waiting for me when I get home, so need to navigate the shift. As this is dreadfully tedious, I requested in lieu a guitar lesson. He taught me a blues scale but looking down at the strings makes me a bit dizzy. I've been playing guitar for about nine years. I play once every 5 or 6 months for a couple minutes, with a couple notable exceptions (one of which launched this: www.myspace.com/cigmidcig - though I had a bit of help from this or that 'difficult husband': Just kidding, I'm saving all my marriage mojo for just the one; he asked today if he could make the wedding ring out of a spoon and embed it with little pieces of glass. I said that was the wrong spirit but maybe it's the right one. He also offered a Champion, TM, Sweatshirt as symbol of commitment, in that I'd wear it every single day. Oh, Pisces Moon, you castle-builder). It's pretty intense, to the point that TD, my first all-the-way, remarked this summer "What I don't understand is how you managed to get WORSE at guitar after all these years. Why don't you have Dave teach you or something?" So there.
My brother by contrast used to practice a full ten hours per day and, they tell me, phenomenal. No, he is really good, though perhaps a bit stiff and I've no right...I asked my father if this was NECESSARY and he admitted to periods of practicing up to 6 hours on a daily basis. But I don't want to be a "musician." I only want an outlet for all the poetry, since, as I wrote on myspace months ago, "my childish couplets can no longer contain it."
I had difficult dreams last night. My injured foot was falling apart and was rotting to the point that it would kill the whole body; this may or maay not have been influenced by recent readings in the New Testament concerning how it is better to lose a member of the body then the whole body. But in my dream it was not so much a giant hole bit out like when the gun did that thing to me, but that the bottom of the foot had a seem and flesh and blood was oozing out of that seam: it was becoming undone. There was also some encounter with a rifle which I believe my mom had and I was trying to convince her to get it out of there-- something which happens a surprising (or not) amount in my dreams. I also dreamt about D. making me jealous with his friends' girlfriend, I asked him to smoke a cigarette with me at the gazebo (by the way, it's Day Two Without Cigarettes, "It's the end of the world as we know it / And I feel fine")but he was like, "I already did that, with A." (A. is the friends' girlfriend, and he has spent a lot of time with that couple this year) and I cleared my throat and tensed up and said, "Just you and A.?" and he was rambling about other people / making strange justifications, when I think I woke up.
I hope I have a bun in the oven if not there will be tacos for dinner, with leftover turkey rice stirfry, and ginger bars ice cream etc.
I spent three hours at a coffee shop today, and I'm not going to make fun of any part of it, though we - the coffee shop, the British woman who owned it, what I did there, me- could all be construed as pretentious. The truth is it was wonderful, I did some first-rate eavesdropping, scribbled, read a bit of a Cuelo book: "The Day Veronica Chose to Die," or something, had three cups of fair trade "shade grown" (okay, whatever) coffee, an onion spinach tomato omelot on panini, lentil soup with a big hunk of wheat bread and very thick real butter; and a piece of orange ginger cake with thick citrus frosting (a lot like icing: where is the line?) which I still have like 2/3 of. The prices were good. It was a bit dim for writing and reading and I had a chill from washing my hair, but I kept my coat on and waited for it to dry.
*
Last night my stepsister started showing me how to sew mittens from old sweaters she got very cheap from a church-run thrifstore. You cut out and then sew the mittens in three parts each and then do fleece liners for the inside and unite them with a cuff. We listened to a Miley Cyrus playlist ( on apologies: "I'll believe it, when you mean it / If you text it, I'll delete it). I've of course heard her many times but never realized it was her. What a grown up voice she has! Then we capped our evening with an episode of Hannah Montana- a first for me.
*
There is a lot I could say-- about the way I want salvation for all but they say that's unbiblical, and how D. said he had "no sentimental attachment" to the same thing, and it scared me a little, but when I read the rest of his letter I could see that he was being balanced, and only really saying that he can't be pulled to Hades by downdraggers at his heels, but he balanced this with the need for compassion for those who "are in hell right NOW"; how horror sticks with you and pervades dreams, and makes you jump (sometimes even the toast popping can send me for a loop), but is not the main thing, and how no matter we suffer in this life, Jesus is very gentle, and we ourselves have a great deal of this light in us, and sometimes the part that makes you want to cry is not how hard it all is, which it undoubtedly is, but how light the load actually is, but perhaps that is just a perceptual trick of time-- but I am very hungry and I want to read a magazine.
*
Isn't it weird that we have no idea when we'll die? I know I don't get an originality bonus check for that, but it really is an original effort anytime you move close to really believing the truth of it, I think.
I've been staying with my dad, stepmother, and 17 year-old stepsister for about a week, and may stay almost two weeks more. I don't much like to leave my bedroom, let alone my hometown, but it's been a fairly easy venture since I have a private space while I'm here (my other stepsister is visiting her biological father in Maine), though no door, and a little close for comfort to Dad and Stepmom, but everyone seems to just fall right asleep at night, so I have that sense of the inner sanctuary and besides that a lot of free time.
I DO have to periodically remind myself that I'm no longer 17 and can leave at will, and that my father and stepmother are just fragile human beings and not the ultimate ambassadors for Christ, though they make good strides. Yesterday my dad worked a fairly full day and then silently filled out an elaborate invoice at mealtime (he has his own carpentry/renovation business, go Dad!) and said like twenty words to me, including criticizing something I was doing regarding dishes. (D. was like, "Do you have an exact count because you wrote them all in your notebook?" and I was like, "Better to air my complaints in my notebook than to peoples' faces"... but he also pointed out the rational course, about me being a Big Girl and not having to take others' inconsistency, moodiness, etc. personally.)
Today, however, he offered me a driving lesson-- I just got my license and will SUPPOSEDLY have a '97 Ford Taurus standard waiting for me when I get home, so need to navigate the shift. As this is dreadfully tedious, I requested in lieu a guitar lesson. He taught me a blues scale but looking down at the strings makes me a bit dizzy. I've been playing guitar for about nine years. I play once every 5 or 6 months for a couple minutes, with a couple notable exceptions (one of which launched this: www.myspace.com/cigmidcig - though I had a bit of help from this or that 'difficult husband': Just kidding, I'm saving all my marriage mojo for just the one; he asked today if he could make the wedding ring out of a spoon and embed it with little pieces of glass. I said that was the wrong spirit but maybe it's the right one. He also offered a Champion, TM, Sweatshirt as symbol of commitment, in that I'd wear it every single day. Oh, Pisces Moon, you castle-builder). It's pretty intense, to the point that TD, my first all-the-way, remarked this summer "What I don't understand is how you managed to get WORSE at guitar after all these years. Why don't you have Dave teach you or something?" So there.
My brother by contrast used to practice a full ten hours per day and, they tell me, phenomenal. No, he is really good, though perhaps a bit stiff and I've no right...I asked my father if this was NECESSARY and he admitted to periods of practicing up to 6 hours on a daily basis. But I don't want to be a "musician." I only want an outlet for all the poetry, since, as I wrote on myspace months ago, "my childish couplets can no longer contain it."
I had difficult dreams last night. My injured foot was falling apart and was rotting to the point that it would kill the whole body; this may or maay not have been influenced by recent readings in the New Testament concerning how it is better to lose a member of the body then the whole body. But in my dream it was not so much a giant hole bit out like when the gun did that thing to me, but that the bottom of the foot had a seem and flesh and blood was oozing out of that seam: it was becoming undone. There was also some encounter with a rifle which I believe my mom had and I was trying to convince her to get it out of there-- something which happens a surprising (or not) amount in my dreams. I also dreamt about D. making me jealous with his friends' girlfriend, I asked him to smoke a cigarette with me at the gazebo (by the way, it's Day Two Without Cigarettes, "It's the end of the world as we know it / And I feel fine")but he was like, "I already did that, with A." (A. is the friends' girlfriend, and he has spent a lot of time with that couple this year) and I cleared my throat and tensed up and said, "Just you and A.?" and he was rambling about other people / making strange justifications, when I think I woke up.
I hope I have a bun in the oven if not there will be tacos for dinner, with leftover turkey rice stirfry, and ginger bars ice cream etc.
I spent three hours at a coffee shop today, and I'm not going to make fun of any part of it, though we - the coffee shop, the British woman who owned it, what I did there, me- could all be construed as pretentious. The truth is it was wonderful, I did some first-rate eavesdropping, scribbled, read a bit of a Cuelo book: "The Day Veronica Chose to Die," or something, had three cups of fair trade "shade grown" (okay, whatever) coffee, an onion spinach tomato omelot on panini, lentil soup with a big hunk of wheat bread and very thick real butter; and a piece of orange ginger cake with thick citrus frosting (a lot like icing: where is the line?) which I still have like 2/3 of. The prices were good. It was a bit dim for writing and reading and I had a chill from washing my hair, but I kept my coat on and waited for it to dry.
*
Last night my stepsister started showing me how to sew mittens from old sweaters she got very cheap from a church-run thrifstore. You cut out and then sew the mittens in three parts each and then do fleece liners for the inside and unite them with a cuff. We listened to a Miley Cyrus playlist ( on apologies: "I'll believe it, when you mean it / If you text it, I'll delete it). I've of course heard her many times but never realized it was her. What a grown up voice she has! Then we capped our evening with an episode of Hannah Montana- a first for me.
*
There is a lot I could say-- about the way I want salvation for all but they say that's unbiblical, and how D. said he had "no sentimental attachment" to the same thing, and it scared me a little, but when I read the rest of his letter I could see that he was being balanced, and only really saying that he can't be pulled to Hades by downdraggers at his heels, but he balanced this with the need for compassion for those who "are in hell right NOW"; how horror sticks with you and pervades dreams, and makes you jump (sometimes even the toast popping can send me for a loop), but is not the main thing, and how no matter we suffer in this life, Jesus is very gentle, and we ourselves have a great deal of this light in us, and sometimes the part that makes you want to cry is not how hard it all is, which it undoubtedly is, but how light the load actually is, but perhaps that is just a perceptual trick of time-- but I am very hungry and I want to read a magazine.
*
Isn't it weird that we have no idea when we'll die? I know I don't get an originality bonus check for that, but it really is an original effort anytime you move close to really believing the truth of it, I think.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
On Peeling Fruit.
Dear Good People of the Earth Whom I Aim to Automatically Love,
It's 8:07 and I've been up about 40 minutes. Why I don't know. I'm dreadfully hungry, and forget that I often wake up hungry, due to my tendency to immediately attack the caffeinated beverage.
Still dabblingly "editing" poetry, which, as I hinted in a Facebook status (Lord have mercy on our strange, our tiny "global" existence), is not something at all concrete / what constitutes improvement? I keep finding flamboyant, blatant typos, and finding them does not set me at ease / make me think, Oh, good, I caught that; rather, wtf else did I totally overlook through a combination of
I want coffee but I also desire to give my Dad and stepmother some space to discuss whatever they discuss, the guise of kindness in droning confessionalism, or something, though they are people who are trying hard and have made good strides. No matter how tedious they seem to me, I can imagine I seem infinitely more so to them.
My mucus took a neonish yellow turn today, though still transluscent- all those phone conversations in the freezing cold perhaps. I've been down to one cigarette a day here, not out of hiding but out of following my own inclination more then the social currents. I feel like even that one cigarette is more about asserting my autonomy then craving for the item in itself. I've gained a bit of weight, which is fundamentally fine, but provokes a tinge of oldschool sadness on some deep level; I'm defensive / I don't care what you say. I keep thinking of that celebrity, who was it Kate Moss I think "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." That's completely politically incorrect in our era of ED's (just learned this abbreviation yesterday), and I will probably scare off all the other bloggers on here. But it is part of the reality of image/fashion/lifeinthefastlane, and not one to be shunned before examination, I don't think. I fluctuate, as many have commented. Sometimes I equate weighing a bit less with being a little sharper though other times clamor for ass. Enough.
I've become convicted by Rita Mae Brown, who wrote a writing manual called "Starting from Scratch." I do things in a troubling order, sometimes, but I am going to come to terms with my folly, I hope, and develop discipline, because even if I was stupid in the way I went about applying to graduate school in certain areas I did, as previously mentioned, inevitably learn from the experience, and I want to be a writer, and will pursue it and who can stop me? The truth is I want to write not just these blogs, which you can't convince me are totally lacking in value, but novels. Anyway, Ms. Brown compared the writer not-knowing-Latin (I think of the title of Woolf's essay "On Not Knowing Greek": what an artist!) to the parent who performs surgery on her child without medical training because she so loves the child. So now I want to learn Latin. I'm not sure how to go about this but it is deeply imbedded in English, I hear.
I'm really excited to devote myself more to reading less to pecking at "pieces" I wish anyway to retire. I did once write "lucky find of the black eyeliner nub, leaping from the sheets like a fish," so there is hope. More of that kind of sentiment, less of the one day counseling session testimonials.
Speaking of which, my relationship may need guidance, even a third party- which perhaps you youngsters (I'm pretending someone reads this to sustain it, but I really may have to return to my ole internet stomping grounds, this just isn't as fun- though you can comment anonymously, and disguising your identity will be an exercise in tone and structure and all kinds of things, though I forget what we are afraid of, no offense, and I should probably be More Afraid, in terms of taking sensible precautions, not Less) find a bit ridiculous... But it's not, necessarily, if we can be wise, open, loving, and resourceful. Kinda vague, huh? Last night in my dream there was a couple who wanted to commit to each other and they decided to spend a year with no contact. I don't think I'd like that and I think I've had more than enough of "breaks." But at the same time, I am enjoying being out of state after a ten day romantic marathon with my man and a lot of emotion and declarations on both our parts. I'm just gonna be cool about it, well, by my standards. Cooler than I've ever been, with balanced desires and my eggs in sundry baskets (sorry, I keep using that qualifier and I've no right to). Like learning Latin. And, oh yeah, I keep forgetting: guitar. Peace be with you my lovely friends. <3
It's 8:07 and I've been up about 40 minutes. Why I don't know. I'm dreadfully hungry, and forget that I often wake up hungry, due to my tendency to immediately attack the caffeinated beverage.
Still dabblingly "editing" poetry, which, as I hinted in a Facebook status (Lord have mercy on our strange, our tiny "global" existence), is not something at all concrete / what constitutes improvement? I keep finding flamboyant, blatant typos, and finding them does not set me at ease / make me think, Oh, good, I caught that; rather, wtf else did I totally overlook through a combination of
I want coffee but I also desire to give my Dad and stepmother some space to discuss whatever they discuss, the guise of kindness in droning confessionalism, or something, though they are people who are trying hard and have made good strides. No matter how tedious they seem to me, I can imagine I seem infinitely more so to them.
My mucus took a neonish yellow turn today, though still transluscent- all those phone conversations in the freezing cold perhaps. I've been down to one cigarette a day here, not out of hiding but out of following my own inclination more then the social currents. I feel like even that one cigarette is more about asserting my autonomy then craving for the item in itself. I've gained a bit of weight, which is fundamentally fine, but provokes a tinge of oldschool sadness on some deep level; I'm defensive / I don't care what you say. I keep thinking of that celebrity, who was it Kate Moss I think "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." That's completely politically incorrect in our era of ED's (just learned this abbreviation yesterday), and I will probably scare off all the other bloggers on here. But it is part of the reality of image/fashion/lifeinthefastlane, and not one to be shunned before examination, I don't think. I fluctuate, as many have commented. Sometimes I equate weighing a bit less with being a little sharper though other times clamor for ass. Enough.
I've become convicted by Rita Mae Brown, who wrote a writing manual called "Starting from Scratch." I do things in a troubling order, sometimes, but I am going to come to terms with my folly, I hope, and develop discipline, because even if I was stupid in the way I went about applying to graduate school in certain areas I did, as previously mentioned, inevitably learn from the experience, and I want to be a writer, and will pursue it and who can stop me? The truth is I want to write not just these blogs, which you can't convince me are totally lacking in value, but novels. Anyway, Ms. Brown compared the writer not-knowing-Latin (I think of the title of Woolf's essay "On Not Knowing Greek": what an artist!) to the parent who performs surgery on her child without medical training because she so loves the child. So now I want to learn Latin. I'm not sure how to go about this but it is deeply imbedded in English, I hear.
I'm really excited to devote myself more to reading less to pecking at "pieces" I wish anyway to retire. I did once write "lucky find of the black eyeliner nub, leaping from the sheets like a fish," so there is hope. More of that kind of sentiment, less of the one day counseling session testimonials.
Speaking of which, my relationship may need guidance, even a third party- which perhaps you youngsters (I'm pretending someone reads this to sustain it, but I really may have to return to my ole internet stomping grounds, this just isn't as fun- though you can comment anonymously, and disguising your identity will be an exercise in tone and structure and all kinds of things, though I forget what we are afraid of, no offense, and I should probably be More Afraid, in terms of taking sensible precautions, not Less) find a bit ridiculous... But it's not, necessarily, if we can be wise, open, loving, and resourceful. Kinda vague, huh? Last night in my dream there was a couple who wanted to commit to each other and they decided to spend a year with no contact. I don't think I'd like that and I think I've had more than enough of "breaks." But at the same time, I am enjoying being out of state after a ten day romantic marathon with my man and a lot of emotion and declarations on both our parts. I'm just gonna be cool about it, well, by my standards. Cooler than I've ever been, with balanced desires and my eggs in sundry baskets (sorry, I keep using that qualifier and I've no right to). Like learning Latin. And, oh yeah, I keep forgetting: guitar. Peace be with you my lovely friends. <3
Monday, December 21, 2009
It's a New, No, It's a No, Mascara Day
The disco bling brooch from the White Elephant party has been found, so that all is well. Except what is not, such as the creeping sense that I really was incorrect in not applying to 10+ MFAs, but I am a girl I am a tired girl I am a happy girl, I want to stay happy and I could barely follow these threads; I'd rather get on the elliptical, the yummy keyboard and Steinishly rant but with a different soul and not the evidence of genius : ( Dr. Greene says if I didn't do it, there is a reason. I worry he could inspire some fatalistic inertia, but it is not for me to know.
It does feel good to free-style. I feel all this pressure, to edit & edit, my own brother who does not call himself a writer probably sits with a piece of writing much longer and more seriously then I do. I myself (that phrase, does it have to go? "I myself," is it too much? Why would anyone use it? Who else could the I be? But what a ring, what a ring: and this is what my own mother, ha, said of my her-given name: "I thought it had a nice ring to it.") would rather live my whole life like an absurd soliloquy, which is what I wrote in my Livejournal (username: mothslikefire) many years ago. I was in love then and I'm in love now, but I'm probably not using the words right. There is a man in my life, oh yes, there is a man, he is tall and dreamy and smart, and says he loves me he does; and launches poems, and troubled dreams, and is only one person. Once I had him saved in my phone as "justaman," a reminder which seemed relevant, but it seems increasingly obvious, which is a good thing, I think, and perhaps precludes better loving.
I call going to sleep "launching," by the way, if that tells you anything about where I place dreaming on the priority scale, and I try, actually, these days, to remember my dreams less, though I shouldn't write that, because I am superstitious about words and thus trying to stay positive/be very clear and truthful. I've had the thought before and it occured to me again (because I was reading a notebook from 6 mos prior in which I wrote it): Isn't it weird that, if you went to sleep at a slightly different time, place, or bodily position, your dreams might be entirely something other than what they are?
Implications?
It does feel good to free-style. I feel all this pressure, to edit & edit, my own brother who does not call himself a writer probably sits with a piece of writing much longer and more seriously then I do. I myself (that phrase, does it have to go? "I myself," is it too much? Why would anyone use it? Who else could the I be? But what a ring, what a ring: and this is what my own mother, ha, said of my her-given name: "I thought it had a nice ring to it.") would rather live my whole life like an absurd soliloquy, which is what I wrote in my Livejournal (username: mothslikefire) many years ago. I was in love then and I'm in love now, but I'm probably not using the words right. There is a man in my life, oh yes, there is a man, he is tall and dreamy and smart, and says he loves me he does; and launches poems, and troubled dreams, and is only one person. Once I had him saved in my phone as "justaman," a reminder which seemed relevant, but it seems increasingly obvious, which is a good thing, I think, and perhaps precludes better loving.
I call going to sleep "launching," by the way, if that tells you anything about where I place dreaming on the priority scale, and I try, actually, these days, to remember my dreams less, though I shouldn't write that, because I am superstitious about words and thus trying to stay positive/be very clear and truthful. I've had the thought before and it occured to me again (because I was reading a notebook from 6 mos prior in which I wrote it): Isn't it weird that, if you went to sleep at a slightly different time, place, or bodily position, your dreams might be entirely something other than what they are?
Implications?
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Let's Keep the Darkness Moving Out
Hi Folks,
I'm just stopping in. A friend of mine recently moved her writings over here, and four rapid (rabid) messages from internet stalker friend (her true self is my true self's friend, at least) later, I'm thinking I should do the same. Just step away from the Myspace. I'm not feeling poetic, intellectual, or even melancholy, just a little panicked by the barrage of sentiments like : "I am going to cover you in gasoline and burn you to death you little slut cunt elitist snob. You think you are better than everyone. You are attention seeking and a drama queen. You like to make other feel like shit about themselves. why don’t you get a life and top selling pills to kids...." Creating a new blog gives me a sense of moving on; go me / so there.
: )
I'm commited to not being blown like a leaf by this, to staying centered. The girl, whoever she is (I'm not even positive it's who I think, though I'm pretty positive) needs prayer and that's that. She says she knows where I live and maybe she does. If the Lord wills for her to show up with the gasoline and the matches (her weapon of choice, apparently), what can I do? She already thought of the whole moving solution, said it didn't matter how many times, she was gonna finish me. I don't believe it, but all kinds of things happen as anyone knows.
She's "Karma" on Myspace, which I'm sure on some level is hilarious and for her current default has a cropped photo of my face in a very realistic Chipmunk body. Her 2-D Design is improving, perhaps her writing as well (who can judge such vagaries as craft and aestheticism?) I have no idea what "vagaries" exactly means.
When I first saw this embellished depiction of me I was deeply distraught, not because of the allusion to my cheeks- which are round indeed, even at the 110 pounds or so I am unbraggingly (well, I don't know, I'll get back to this, body image being a Theme), unflinchingly at- but because it was jarring and freaky and crept at me from the wrong direction and struck deep, hard. I have yet to connect with the humor of the photo on any deep level. She does know my phone number (she wrote it in her first message from this crop and said she was going to give it to some "big fucking angry nigger bitches," or something) though nothing has come of it so far. I was going to change it immediately, but on second thought that would be hugely inconvenient. I don't think I need to.
I'm having a surprisingly pleasant vacation (what that word means for me in my current lifestyle I can't begin to define, but it is one) with Dad et. al, even if he is "outraged" by the likes of Jackson Pollack, crying for all the "serious, disciplined" artists out there. He's a fundamentalist Christian, way conservative, two weeks from fifty years old, looks like George Bush, and has struggled all his life with mood swings /Pisces Moon complications. He's a lively conversationalist, however. I'd love to write more but I am deeply discouraged, and I think that talking about something is a way of feeding it, sometimes. There is much to learn from him in terms of the spiritual life. I am feeling good to be around people who pray and relate many matters to God.
I exercised on my Dad's elliptical machine for 25 hardcore minutes yesterday and today, listening to music like Pavement and the Cure on DY's ipod. DY is a frequent character in my writings. I'm very pleased to announce that he is my boyfriend, but don't blink!
I am hoping the exercise will be good for sleeping. I also have a couple applications to finish up / send off, and I'm not holding my breath. I feel like I sort of didn't prioritize that well and dropped the ball in certain critical areas. Like as hard as I worked, and edited, and schemed, and tried... I didn't even read my personal statements from beginning to end before submitting them, repeated words, didn't catch all my extra commas, etc. But it was an exercise in committing to a sort of long-term goal, and I think I've learned a lot, and don't regret it. I also realize I'm up against very low acceptance rates, and that I am young, and if moved, can try again. It's been overall an interesting, beautiful, and productive fall. And now it's winter time, I think. I am not disappointed.
Love,
Spicy Shalom
I'm just stopping in. A friend of mine recently moved her writings over here, and four rapid (rabid) messages from internet stalker friend (her true self is my true self's friend, at least) later, I'm thinking I should do the same. Just step away from the Myspace. I'm not feeling poetic, intellectual, or even melancholy, just a little panicked by the barrage of sentiments like : "I am going to cover you in gasoline and burn you to death you little slut cunt elitist snob. You think you are better than everyone. You are attention seeking and a drama queen. You like to make other feel like shit about themselves. why don’t you get a life and top selling pills to kids...." Creating a new blog gives me a sense of moving on; go me / so there.
: )
I'm commited to not being blown like a leaf by this, to staying centered. The girl, whoever she is (I'm not even positive it's who I think, though I'm pretty positive) needs prayer and that's that. She says she knows where I live and maybe she does. If the Lord wills for her to show up with the gasoline and the matches (her weapon of choice, apparently), what can I do? She already thought of the whole moving solution, said it didn't matter how many times, she was gonna finish me. I don't believe it, but all kinds of things happen as anyone knows.
She's "Karma" on Myspace, which I'm sure on some level is hilarious and for her current default has a cropped photo of my face in a very realistic Chipmunk body. Her 2-D Design is improving, perhaps her writing as well (who can judge such vagaries as craft and aestheticism?) I have no idea what "vagaries" exactly means.
When I first saw this embellished depiction of me I was deeply distraught, not because of the allusion to my cheeks- which are round indeed, even at the 110 pounds or so I am unbraggingly (well, I don't know, I'll get back to this, body image being a Theme), unflinchingly at- but because it was jarring and freaky and crept at me from the wrong direction and struck deep, hard. I have yet to connect with the humor of the photo on any deep level. She does know my phone number (she wrote it in her first message from this crop and said she was going to give it to some "big fucking angry nigger bitches," or something) though nothing has come of it so far. I was going to change it immediately, but on second thought that would be hugely inconvenient. I don't think I need to.
I'm having a surprisingly pleasant vacation (what that word means for me in my current lifestyle I can't begin to define, but it is one) with Dad et. al, even if he is "outraged" by the likes of Jackson Pollack, crying for all the "serious, disciplined" artists out there. He's a fundamentalist Christian, way conservative, two weeks from fifty years old, looks like George Bush, and has struggled all his life with mood swings /Pisces Moon complications. He's a lively conversationalist, however. I'd love to write more but I am deeply discouraged, and I think that talking about something is a way of feeding it, sometimes. There is much to learn from him in terms of the spiritual life. I am feeling good to be around people who pray and relate many matters to God.
I exercised on my Dad's elliptical machine for 25 hardcore minutes yesterday and today, listening to music like Pavement and the Cure on DY's ipod. DY is a frequent character in my writings. I'm very pleased to announce that he is my boyfriend, but don't blink!
I am hoping the exercise will be good for sleeping. I also have a couple applications to finish up / send off, and I'm not holding my breath. I feel like I sort of didn't prioritize that well and dropped the ball in certain critical areas. Like as hard as I worked, and edited, and schemed, and tried... I didn't even read my personal statements from beginning to end before submitting them, repeated words, didn't catch all my extra commas, etc. But it was an exercise in committing to a sort of long-term goal, and I think I've learned a lot, and don't regret it. I also realize I'm up against very low acceptance rates, and that I am young, and if moved, can try again. It's been overall an interesting, beautiful, and productive fall. And now it's winter time, I think. I am not disappointed.
Love,
Spicy Shalom
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