La Vie En France: Resurgam

Good God.

2009-01-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

Completely forgot about this thing.

To sum things up:

-French boyfriend (Il s'appelles Aymeric).
-Apartment in Aix-en-Provence.
-38 out of 42 points on my progress report!
-Visited the states for Christmas break.
-Speaking French pretty damn well.
-Won't return to the USA til June or July.
-Hair is growing. Great process to watch.
-Have read "No Exit" by Sartre and "The Outsider" by Camus. Cried at the end of the Outsider. Two GREAT books.
-Finished my first art piece for the IB. Finally.
-Have two roomates: one is German, one is French.
-Will begin writing a book with French boyfriend about caves and multiple personalities. Very excited.
-Can see Mt. St. Victoire from my balcony. Wake up to it every morning.

I feel like I'm missing something. I mean, after how long of not updating, I'm sure this small list doesn't cover shit. If you have questions, ask. It'll be good for my memory. I'll have to do some creative writing soon. I've been having a lot of ideas lately. I feel like I'm really tired all of the time. How are all of you?

Rereading...

2008-11-19T15:02:00.000-08:00

I realized I type the word "amazing" frequently. Forgive me, and expect a new post and response to comments soon.

Tiny bit hungover & very sore.

2008-11-08T00:05:00.000-08:00

WOW, Zermatt has been nothing but incredible. Absolutely incredible.

The people that I've met here rock. My hostel is amazing, even though it's very simple (and the cheapest accommodation in town)and so far I've become friends with 2 Swedes, 3 Australians, a few Brits (including a Welsh guy and of course many people from England) and 1 Japanese guy.

First night I met Sara, a nice and bubbly Swedish girl who was hungry, so we went out to eat and talked about life-- she's a ski racer and lived in Colorado last winter for the season and now she's studying in Germany and came down to Zermatt to practice on the glaciers-- and how awesome this town is. Second day I spent with her because we both had to go shopping (I found the cheapest pair of hiking boots!)for skiing.

However that night I met Jimmy (the most amazing Swedish guy), George, and Matt and we all went out to have a drink and get to know each other. Saw this crazy guy playing piano with his butt and drinking white wine while wearing a chicken hat (plus he was really squat and spoke German). Talked about politics, outlooks on life, sex, promiscuity, open-mindedness, beer, people and NONE of it was superficial. We all listened to each other, and engaged, and it was so rewarding. In one bar we were sitting in there was a really, really drunk man (in his forties/fifties maybe) who was stumbling around and didn't know where he was, and found his way outside, but was trying to put his jacket on, and his arm was caught in his hood. Kept trying for ten minutes, couldn't figure it out. So I went outside and got him in his jacket and zipped it up (it's really cold out) and walked him back to his hotel. We all need a little help sometimes.

Yesterday I went out on the glacier by myself in order to teach myself how to ski. And it was terrifying. But i looked at the giant slope and said "It's not going to ski itself". So after skiing around the walking area to get the feel of it, and going down the first baby hill, I took the chair lift to one of the steepest slopes (I didn't know!) and shook my way down, falling, and eating snow as I went. BUT by the end of the day I was successfully skiing without falling, back and forth, controlling my speed, and I'm going out today. I cannot even tell you the accomplishment and gratitude I felt when I was skiing down a glacier in the Swiss Alps with the mountains and snow around me. I almost cried.

After skiing, in the gondola, I met a Swiss man probably in his sixties named Ulrich who has been skiing for over forty years. He invited me to have tea with him in the mountains and told me about his traveling, and that he's been to every Olympic game since 84' or something. His wife was coming in the evening. It was a very nice chat.

THEN (keep in mind this is all in one day) I go back to the hostel, and engage in an amazing conversation with the Japanese guy (I don't remember his name, but it was a bit complicated) and Jimmy about culture in Japan and the rigid manners that everyone abides by (you can't hug a friend in public-- very rude) and the diminishing numbers of Geisha's, and how sushi costs 50 cents and that there's these capsule hotels that are SO cheap ($10/night with Japanese breakfast and Manga's included, ha) where you literally sleep in a tube. Comparing Sweden to America to Japan to Europe overall. Amazing.

And then two Australian guys show up, Gal and Dan, and they're pretty cool guys. Snowboarders, live in Melbourne, and Dan is really into music and plays the drums in this band called Artisans (http://www.myspace.com/artisansmelbourne) so we exchanged music tastes. Some French guy named Lloyd broke us off a piece of his hash, and we rolled a (fragile) spliff (tobacco with chunks of hash in it) and smoked (didn't really affect me, sadly). Then Sara, Jimmy, Dan, Gal, me and Aaron (another Australian that showed up last evening that we invited out) went to a pub together, and looked for dancing but couldn't find any. Took some pictures. Laughed a lot. Gal, Dan, and Aaron headed back early, and the three of us left went to find dancing. We were hell bent.

So we go to this place where there are a good amount of people sitting at the bar, but the dance floor is empty. Of course the three of us just let loose and start dancing like we've never danced before, like no one was watching. The Sara gets tired and leaves and it's up to Jimmy and I to keep it going. I go out into the bar, and start pulling pepole from their chairs and friends, speaking in haphazard French/German saying that they can dance it it'll be fun. Jimmy and I would dance with each new person so they wouldn't feel embarassed. We successfully got about eight more people onto the floor, dancing like no one cared. It was amazing. I was dripping sweat by the end of the night.

Jimmy left this morning, sadly, but it's how life goes. Really great friend. He woke me up to say bye, and said that what I've taught him about letting go and living your own life without caring what other people are doing in theirs will "stick with him forever". I was very complimented, and feel very successful in changing my outlook (I've been trying really hard since my first epiphany at David's), and with the responsibility of growing and knowledge and finding a good way to live a happy life, there is the responsibility of passing it on.

On that note, I will end with saying that I'm going back to sleep, and that muscles I didn't know existed hurt on my body. At 11 I go skiing again with the boys! WAHOO!

2008-11-05T12:02:00.001-08:00

By the way, I tried to post pictures, but it just says that they're uploaded to blogger... but they aren't in my post..? What do I do?

Oh, my friends. This is gonna be a long one.

2008-11-05T10:51:00.001-08:00

First, I'd like to say THANK GOD FOR OBAMA! Congrats you guys!! Sounds like we'll soon be headed in a generally positive direction. Hope the economy improves sooner rather than later, but hey, what goes up must come down.

This trip has been quite an adventure, and it's not over yet! Seeing my friend in Toulouse was refreshing-- a person that I could talk to, and relate with. We went out as a family one night and there was a big festival going on for apparently the Toulouse marathon? We weren't exactly sure for what, but there was an awesome French ska band playing, and all of these paper-machay (sp?) animals, and people drumming. Tanja (friend) and I found a really neat Asian store and I bought a beautiful black oriental dress. We went to the Cathedrale Jacobins where St. Thomas Aquinas was buried (it's enormous and eerily empty). Saw the Toulouse bridge, found a really amazing tea shop, and then stayed in her house admiring the country side and lounging. (By the way, the picture with the clothes hanging, on the wall it says "Fashion is misery". I thought this was great because one of my biggest problems with merging with European lifestyle is the absolute necessity to look your best, have nice clothes, and appreciate/buy into "la mode".)

Chartres wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be. As I went more north it became bitterly cold, and I wasn't prepared for it at all living in Provence. Immediately bought a fluffy scarf, some gloves, and come Converse. Walked the whole town three times. It's nice, just another town. The cathedral is absolutely overwhelming. Beautiful, but at first you walk in and you just have to stop. It's so enormous, with many different sections you can enter into and pray at or light candles. Old, beautiful carved wood confession boxes (is there a proper word?) line the basilica, and the stained glass is immaculate. The day I went in it was spitting out rain, so it was a very somber, dark setting. Nothing affected me the way I thought it would-- you know, the emotional, spiritual "OH MY JEEESUUSSS! I'M SAVED!". However, I believe that was the day that I really started reflecting on myself. I realized that I couldn't quiet my mind to meditate or pray. I walked outside, thinking of trying to find a Moleskine to buy to start journaling, but the rain was heavier, and it was freezing, and there were old toothless men haggling me for money because I was a church-going Christian so obviously I would give them my money, so I returned back into the safety and comfort of the cathedral. Right as I walked in, someone started playing the organ, and then it hit me. I just started crying. This move, and trying to avoid the pain of this move by shoving myself into school work has been emotionally and mentally exhausting, and I couldn't slow down, and I wasn't looking inward, so I broke down. It was nice and very necessary, but not the most comfortable way to spend a nice chummy fall break. By the way, the hotel I stayed at in Chartres was called "Hotel Marmotte". You know, like the animal? there were little drawings of the little furry creature everywhere. Okay, well I thought it was funny. Oh, and my camera DIED while I was in the cathedral, and I didn't bring my charger. :D

So then I took my bags and hauled off to Geneva. My step-brother (David, who I've met twice and is 36, Canadian) and his wife (Anne, who I've never met but is a bit older than him, American/French) and two kids (Juliette, 7; Owen, 3) and the au pair (house nanny, Natalia, Brazilian, 26) were there to welcome me, and until the cab right there I completely forgot that it was halloween! Instantly reminded, however, I had two kids hugging my legs, and there was candy everywhere, and chocolate cupcakes, and pumpkins and spider webs. It felt right at home. However, the break down (or rather build up?) of my personality and reflection was only increasing, and I couldn't voice how I was feeling, and was superbly un-eloquent (I really look up to David also, so the intimidation mixed with "I'm lost!" didn't help... plus he's a step-brother, and we've met twice. It's not exactly "HEY BRO! I love you so much!" sort of thing) and I felt so awkward. But I did talk with David about it, and we got at least three core issues nailed down that I definitely need to take a closer look at, and figure out how to deal with. To give you an idea, I am currently reading "The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth" by M. Scott Peck and it is phenomenally helpful.

Friday (the night I got in) I went out with Natalia to go to a couple bars with her and her friends who are also aux pairs (I don't know if I'm spelling that right) and we went to this Irish pub and a really posh, upperscale bar that had projections of women's crotches on the walls. It was interesting. The bar scene just really isn't my sort of thing though, and they recently re-instated a law in Switzerland that you can smoke in bars. So this tinnnnny little Irish pub is packed with Europeans puffing away, and my tiny little American lungs couldn't take it.

On Sunday we went to the hot baths in the middle of the mountains (about an hour car drive) and it is these amazing hot pools with spouts of water that give you back massages, and bubbles everywhere (think giant jacuzzi's) and chair to sit on, benches to lie on (in the water built into the side!!). Plus, it's indoor AND OUTDOOR! So you're outside in this warm water, steam all around you, snow all around you, mountains all around you. Words cannot explain. That night David, Anne and I shared four bottles of wine (maybe five?) and had a great conversation about getting older and realizing the realities of life, but seizing opportunities while sitting next to a fire.

Monday I was supposed to go to Lausanne to see a museum but got sidetracked by 1) sleeping in and 2) talking with Anne and Natalia about breaking up with a boy from Tulsa who I've had "affiliations" with on and off four about four years. Good girl chat. Then Natalia looked up the times of the museum, and lucky I didn't go because it was closed (everything works out for a reason). The next day however I did go, and was in search of a small museum called "Collection de L'Art Brut". It's an amazing museum based around people with mental incapacities or physical handicaps that express themselves artistically, So there's people who claim they've been possessed, people who are into spirits, and say that their art is a mediumistic revelation, people who have mental retardations, or autism, the clinically insane, or people who have been ostracized from societies and literally follow no social bounds. It was really an emotional experience at first. They have a Japanese exhibition up right now, and I was overwhelmed with happiness that these people are viewed and treated as humans, regular functioning beings with emotions, and feelings. Usually, they're set apart. Someone would look at a handicapped persons art and think "Well, they're just handicapped, it's rubbish" and throw it away. However, the mediums they think of, and the level of creativity and innovative ideas is amazing and inspirational. But it was also a very empathetic time for me... I felt like I've been that weird person my whole life, and until I was trained to abide by society, no one gave a shit about me or what I had to say or contribute, even though it could've been a lot. So what, someone has gone to a psychiatric hospital, or believes in things that don't fit a stereotypical society? Does that make them any less human?

It was a beautiful museum, and I bought three books, and highly recommend it.

Now I'm in Zermatt and again, it's been phenomenal. The train ride up here was gorgeous, and I feel like I have gained a fresh perspective on people and life and handling situations, and how to handle my thoughts when they turn self-diminishing, or life-diminishing. I feel like this is the most I've grown since I was sixteen, probably, and it's because I'm working at it. Tomorrow I think I will go rent hiking boots and go on a hike, see the town, check out the indoor rock climbing. There is fresh snow, so this weekend I'll be skiing!!! AHH!

To finish, here's something I wrote on the train about the scenic view-- completely un-edited, scribbled in my journal (it was hard not to mess with it while I was typing, by the way):

Switerland is... so beautiful, for lack of an instant, better phrase. The sun is framed by green and brown spotted mountains, some in the distance prematurely ready for winter with their white caps. Thick clouds of either smoke or steam are billowing off of this steep rock slab that's towering over my train. The villages are peaceful because the trees are peaceful. This is a place of God and serenity. The trees are gold, yellow, red, orange, green brown-- all in varying hues. I feel welcomed, and immediate comfort. Tiers of rocks with their sandwiched shrubbery greet me on my right, the height of my oppressing mountainous friends luminous and sacred. Small slits of rain appear on my window, horizontal as the steel beast pushes forward through the intimidating grey and mist, a premonition for cold rain and drab settings. The mountains overlap each other. The amount of space they must occupy! It's weird how they fit like geographical puzzle pieces on a flawlessly constructed map. This place is a place of serenity and God. Enerygy is made by wind as a giant white propeller spins to my left, as if to pay homage to an unforseen force that keeps the otherwise inanimate object lively and turning. A beautiful, awe-astounding white stream pours from a cliff, foaming onto its boundaries before cascading down to the more still plain it will reach at its depths. These people have conquered the mountains. They are livable and respected-- mughty, but not feared-- and in ways man has set home on the mountain's wake, but the themselves will never be tamed. I don't even know in which direction to turn my head. I'm more inclined to look right as I am sitting on the right side of the bus, but as I remember that this beautiful omnipotently surrounds me, I look left, am immediately overwhelmed, and return to my 2-D view on the right. If I were to embrace a panoramic view right now.. what would happen? The train hulls to a stop in Martigny and two rapid-chatter Swiss girls sit opposite of the aisle from me, smiling, talking, not bothering me but if they were, they would be blissfully unaware. The train trudges on and I realize the nape of the meniscus, before the mountains begin, is lush vibrant green. How I love fall! How absolutely lucky and thankful I am! I hurry to think or the way to best experience this-- to soak it all up, to not take for granted. I sit and stare. I think I'll eat that hot dog that Natalia packed for me.

Stress and the break.

2008-10-22T23:26:00.000-07:00

I leave for Toulouse tomorrow to start my two-week long backpacking trip. I travel from Toulouse to Chartre, Chartre to Geneva, and Geneva to Marseilles before returning back to school. In Toulouse I'm staying with a friend, Chartre I'm hostelling, and Geneva I'm staying with my brother. I will be taking lots of pictures.

But I'm so tired.
Post later.

She has beautiful breasts.

2008-10-18T05:22:00.000-07:00

For the first time I walked around my boarding house today, in my robe nonetheless. Our grounds are open, and we have these amazing tennis courts connected to an open, grassy field. Pretty pool, nice sitting areas to get away. I will definitely be staying outside more often, and escaping. Pictures soon.

I sat down in the van on the way to school this morning next to a good friend of mine, Katie. She's a quite British girl, and doesn't realize the absolute beauty she possesses. As with any person, my eyes scan her over, taking in her outfit, her straight brown hair. Today she was wearing a low cut vintage-ripoff t-shirt, and I realized how perfect her breasts really are. The color, the shape, the place that they sat square in her shirt, framed by her cardigan. It made me realize how much I love the female body. I glanced down at my own breasts, and then smirked.

My feminine reference reminds me of a love poem I wrote for Provence the other day:

I've fallen in love.
I walk, and beam like the sun that freckles my shoulders.
Suddenly,

streets are more crowded
With teeth; all smiles.
I walk in my stride,
My love by my side.

I feel the cobblestone through my shoes
Smell of nicotene,
Non-pristine,
Endeared, smells like piss.

I smile.
I walk.

Crepes, swearing, dogs;
French splattered,
My love covered,
Like an abstract painting
With its colors and geometry.

I learn to indulge,
My love, she spoils me.
We walk side by side
And I'm strangely content
With a hint

Of lonely.

I. Reflections on mornings at IBS [as a boarder]:

2008-10-13T05:16:00.000-07:00

In the morning my roomates and I all wake up at different times. I, personally, give myself an extra fifteen minutes and get up at quarter past seven. One of my roomates can wake as early as 6:30 to start her morning routine, and another one of my roomates can sleep even later than me. I slam my hand down on the snooze button three times before deciding to sidle out of my top bunk; my two pillows and sheets disheveled, untamed hair giving me the appearance of being part of the band "RATT", goosebumps forming without the protective covering of my duvet. Regardless of what time any of us wake, we (five teenagers) eventually are all up to share one very small bathroom. There are usually three girls simultaneously peering in the mirror-- hairspray fumigating the already humid air, tap running, water splashing, eyelash curlers curling, straightener straightening-- and maybe one girl peeing on the toilet located (rather claustrophobically) next to the sink. Fortunately none of us has botched anothers morning routine so we work in peace, side by side.

As the last parts of our outfits are thrown on-- teeth brushed, hair bobby-pinned or braided, jewelry and shoes matched-- and our backpacks and laptops are being (hastily) packed up, we hear "LES FILLES! ON Y VAAA!" ("GIRLS! NOW WE GO!") from outside our room. The surveillons are ready to go and will move hell and earth to make it to the bus, and eventually breakfast, on time. As my roomates and I clamber out into the brisk, sunless morning (scarves wrapped, breath visible) we hurry to make it to our boarding house's gate (where the bus is usually waiting). Most of the paths outdoors in France are composed of gravel that you can really learn to hate. These small, white rocks that not only cover your shoes with a fine powder that shifts onto anything if rubbed against, but also move under your feet every time you set them down, giving a very insecure run/jog with very little traction any time you're in a hurry (i.e. when your bus has arrived and the whole house is inside the bus except for you). Sometimes my roomates and I can snag a ride with our favorite surveillon, Marion. She usually drives the school's small white minivan to our house at night to have instant transportation, then back to the school in the morning. However, lately she's been driving to Aix in the morning to pick up kids who live in town, therefore leaving my roomates and I to fair on the bus with scattered leftover seats, and glares from the girls who had been waiting.

When we arrive at school, the girls systematically file off of the bus, one after another. Some of the younger girls will (make-up half done, bags swinging, shoes clacking) run down into the locker rooms yelling at each other for spare equipment to make them look "presentable" before the boys arrive ("But I need to borrow your mascara NOW! The boys are almost here!"). Most of us, however, will go directly to the canteen to grab our usual tables with our usual group of friends to have our usual breakfast. For some, like me, it's the yogurt-apple-tea-bread-with-honey-and-butter combo. Others enjoy pain au chocolate with a bowl of milk. Some eat bread and nutella. One of my roomates prefers bread with butter and nutella and three glasses of orange juice. Either way you mix and match, it's still the IBS breakfast and the day has commenced.

As we sit down to finish up bits of homework, or crack jokes (nutella = nut cream) and chat, the boys then ungracefully fall into the cafeteria, by nature much louder than us girls except on the days where you can tell all of them had stayed up too late the night before. Actually, I take that back. At IBS the entrance is very important. The first glance, the outfit, the taking in of someone-- they have to present themselves well. However, after the initial minute or two, they come to themselves. Some will come to our table for the regular "bis bis" on our cheeks before slamming together in the small kitchen area, fighting over who gets breakfast first. Two of my roomates (new) boyfriends will awkwardly stand around us until a chair is made for them. I've noticed that my "friends" or people I talk to during school won't say hi to me in the mornings, because it may have a chance of looking un-cool if they broke form or maybe they wouldn't know what to say. I ponder it for a second, but ultimately I don't mind.

After a while of sitting and chatting (sometimes I pull my computer out and research for classes, or listen to music) the crowd disperses, and I'll stay in the then-shell of the canteen thinking about the social code of IBS and anywhere, really. I'll think about my family, and about God. I'll think about the day to come. I'll pack up my things, go to my locker, re-stock my backpack and take a deep breath before ambling/scurrying off to my first class, trying not to slide on the gravel but usually smiling.

New start on this blog.

2008-10-09T11:55:00.001-07:00

Consider this my e-shredding of previous passages in this blog. True, I could delete them, but each passage (as embarrassed of some of them that I am) marks a different phase in my life, and I think over time it'd be pretty neat to have a collection over a few years worth of time.

Before moving here, I never realized how big the sky really is. Orange and pink-streaked polluted sunsets are clouded with black silhouettes of tree lines, and organized rows within vineyards on secured plots of land. Grapes ready to be picked hang low off of their leaf-covered vines alongside pumpkin patches, where the pumpkins don't look anything like what you find in a supermarket in Oklahoma. The air is fresh, and sometimes I walk and breathe in my full capacity just to stretch what I assume the limits of my lungs are. It feels nice to not smoke.

With each car ride to and from the house that I live at I find something new to marvel at. Men come to work at my school with heavy southern-France accents, sentences coated with "ouai" and "pfft" and natural smells of tough labor, and perspiration draft from their bodies into the wind. My skin is a natural bruised peach-color now and will be year-round, I assume. The French can't take the rain. Anything will be cancelled on an account of bad weather, which makes us international students laugh. In fall, the mornings are cold and sunless, but by mid-day you will regret wearing your thick, toe-warming boots. With moving to Provence, you have to learn to accept the way sweat feels when it drips down your temples. As my hair gets longer, it sticks to my neck and face. For the first time in years I can run my hands through my hair and brush it off of my neck.

Living here while completing the IB is a paradox. Southern France, the place where people go home to sleep during their lunch breaks before returning back to work, makes me tired during class-- the hot sun beams in through open window slits when the dirty curtains are askew from various backpacks and bodies sweeping past them absentmindedly. I'm currently reading "The Outsider" (fully enjoy learning about absurdity) and feel like I can relate to Meursault's Algerian sun. The people in my class make me realize how good my friends were back home. That's not to say that these people aren't great, because a lot of them are really amazing people from different backgrounds, but as Counting Crow's put it so eloquently in "Big Yellow Taxi"-- "She don't know what she got til it's gone".

Now I move on to homework. Massive piles dauntingly staring at me from the shelf across the room. Untouched books for gross amounts of euros. Books of every genre from existentialism to French graphic novels. Memoirs, and non-fictions on Snobbery. "Le Petit Prince" en Frances, next to a three inch thick English-French translating dictionary. I make myself a cup of tea on the designated tea table (covered in lush, mushy, oversteeped teabags, and empty honey bottles; open wrappers and crumbs from biscuits cover the surrounding floor tiles), and bring my backpack up to my bed. Plugging in my earphones, I daze off with focused energy.

2008-06-26T13:44:00.001-07:00

Scotland is more than I could ask for.

RADIOHEAD = TOMORROW

My group just left me.

2008-06-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

I chose my own path. I branched out, and God forbid met a boy to stay with for the next couple of weeks. Everyone is so upset at me. I feel selfish, young, stupid, naive, ignorant, oblivious, and overall, pretty shitty. I don't know which decision I would've regretted more: staying in a group where no one could possibly understand anything I chose to do, or staying in a city that I've never been in before, with a boy whose intrigued me beyond possible belief. I guess only time can tell.

As each day passes, I let another person down.

Scotland.

2008-06-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

I can't stop writing bullshit crappy short little excerpts that are sappy and about some distant lover. How cliche is that? I'm in Scotland right now, trying to decide if I should catch a bus back to London with the rest of the people I came with, or to stay here. I see Radiohead in Glasgow on the 27th (Stallings, where are you!?) and return home on the 1st. Maybe I'll journal today about the beautiful cliffs, fountains, and castles. Maybe I'll write about the bustling Princes street that's so like Manhatten with a bagpipe-infused twist.

Maybe not. Who knows.

GREEN

2008-06-20T03:03:00.001-07:00

In Scotland
you're in Scotland
and I'll return home soon enough
with an ocean in my eyes
and your eyes in my mind.

Redhead.

2008-06-11T19:27:00.000-07:00

The storm passed overhead
Scratched our world to shreds

Close enough to turn our hair's attention

Turn the air yellow for hours.
Have you ever seen such power?
Have you ever loved enough to destroy your love?
You could never love enough.

Give your soul to us.

2008-05-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take a bath
and scrub behind my ears.
According to the man who whispers in them,
it's where I keep my fears.

Update?

2008-04-30T18:32:00.001-07:00

Blah blah detox, blah blah clean and sober, blah blah only organic food, blah court date, blah blah school, and blech blah blah no life, not a big deal, blah blah sex. Blech blah blah three AP tests coming up, blah blah should be studying more. Blah blah blah running more and adding cardio to my daily regimen, blah blah lose weight, blah blah blah gain weight, blah. Found a great few new bands, blah blah blah, don't have time to listen to them. Blah, cried, blah, sex, blah blah blah low self esteem? Blah blech blah blibble-blee-blah, blah blah.

The Creation Story

2008-04-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a little story
about a tall man named Kevin.
About the cigarettes he chain smoked,
the Big Bad Leroy Brown
that he wished he was.
The brash, and physical
tones he took with me
in hues of black and blue.

He made machines
and marveled at ingenuity.
He had no time for
nonsense.
No time for manipulative
little children.
Always formulating
new inventions,
new lies,
and new ways to hurt people
but never on purpose.

Kevin loved intensely.
He loved with what he had in him
which was always under par.
One night he got a woman pregnant
and she sold her soul,
her heart,
and her left ring finger
to a man who would never appease her.

Somewhere along the way
that baby was lost,
and so was their love.
Her love for the man whose love
for her was never good enough.

They realized the gift of life,
and realized the parts they had to make it.
She gargled and vomited for
nine months straight
until her birthday present would
arrive twelve days too soon.
A baby named for a twin,
a baby doomed.

Kevin never meant
to inflict the pain,
the sheer horror,
loss
of
life
that he did upon this family.
He smoked his cigarettes
with his German Shepherds in
the back of his truck
and listened to tunes
that reminded him of the good old
days.

He had beautiful eyes,
barely any hair,
and couldn't cook worth shit.
Unpredictable, often embarrassing,
he never took his pills.
Diagnosis, after diagnosis
the man was a fucking
genius
and went insane,
and I don't blame him.
There's no room for incompati
-bility in this world.

The moral of the story
is that the baby heron
genetically inherited
the quixotic traits
of her father
FATHER
her father
and will live life in
his footsteps.

Not by the nape of my neck,
so help me God.

Up for critique

2008-03-24T18:35:00.001-07:00

It's weird to watch you scrape your knees
and think you see the light
hold your hand
and guide you through
your mindset seemed so right.
And then you snub away the facts
the truth to you so cold
when the only people who tell the truth
are little much
and none too bold.

I hear the hearsay;
you don't try too hard.
I gotta say it's sad.
I try to keep an open mind
knowing that I'm so glad.
Pulled from the pits of despair
I tried to save you from.
Young man, you'll have more serious times
the gloom has yet to come.

And I gotta say that Mary Jane
just doesn't smell that sweet.
When it's her that makes
your sweet milk sour, and
your heart get weak.
You turned her away
and went crawling back
and it's pretty funny to see
that all the while you were afraid
of the power loss from me.

When she controls your mind and soul--
yeah go ahead, get mad--
but watching your life crumble to ash
you know it's getting pretty bad.

How many times do you have to get burned
to take your hand off the fire?
I'm calling you out,
I'm calling you,
a
liar
liar
liar.

I haven't screamed as much since the pigs ate my baby brother!

2008-03-04T18:54:00.000-08:00

Oh, life. I don't know when I missed the seminar on "grappling eloquently," but I was definitely counted absent. The only thing I know to do is scream silently, line by line, hoping maybe someday someone will notice that the girl who has everything only has air in her lungs and blood in her veins. The weight is crumpling my skeletal structure, and I am reduced to dust.

Oh, life. I lost life when the slip knot it tied around my toddler wrist came undone. When the choker collar was finally unattached from a leash. Did I expect anything less than sputtering on cement? While life held me back, I wasn't ready to fall forward, and these gushing anemic gashes on my knees can't find the hemoglobin to close up.

Oh, life. When you realize that attachment to outcomes only results in pain, and bitter... bitter disappointment. When you realize that everyone dies that you love. That no emotion you feel, or thought that you have will ever always and forever remain. That anything you jot down that you know is revolutionary will never reach the world. And that the world will forget you when you're dead. That... that is when you truly realize that all you have is your soul.

Très tragique, non?

I told you I was a conservative Republican.

2008-01-22T17:12:00.000-08:00

72% Bill Richardson
66% John McCain
62% Mike Huckabee
61% Chris Dodd
59% Mitt Romney
58% Hillary Clinton
58% John Edwards
57% Barack Obama
55% Tom Tancredo
52% Fred Thompson
51% Ron Paul
49% Rudy Giuliani
48% Mike Gravel
47% Joe Biden
42% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

And no, I don't support or even like Bill Richardson. I think that was the top choice because I put the Darfur issue as a major issue to me.

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Social Nerd You're interested in things such as politics, psychology, child care, and peace. I wouldn't go so far as to call you a hippie, but some of you may be tree-huggers. You're the type of people who are interested in bettering the world. You're possible the least nerdy of them all; unless you participate in other activies that paled your nerdiness compared to your involvement in social activities. Whatever the case, we could still use more of you around. ^_^
Musician
Artistic Nerd
Drama Nerd
Literature Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

Solace and Cilice

2008-01-16T02:07:00.000-08:00

I'm prepared to kindle life into the stages of an early fire
My breath blown out and sucked in, a machine with dire need
to pump, self-filtering and self-destructive.
Where animalistic and Hellenistic are synonymous,
and there is no retribution for any vile thought,
word or skin painting.
Where requital is not a word because its life lived.
I age, and grow and flower and fall like destiny
is unfolding as a gypsy reads my palm.
The small fire glows between my fingers,
singeing my nailbeds, and catching my eye.
I'm prepared to smother the flames.
At ease knowing embers fly,
and pass over, under, and inside of the
people and things that will have me.
Content knowing this will never be re-done.
This will never be a Hollywood blockbuster,
and a beautiful actress
will never play my role.
In my hands, between my fingers, as my veins pulse
the fire burns out.
Snorting lines of ash and soot,
self-filtering, and self-destructive
hunting for my solace.

Mighty Whale Friend

2008-01-12T23:29:00.000-08:00

I want to create splatter, blood splatter, cement splatter, ovarian splatter.
I want to light a candle and drip the wax in places wax wasn't meant to drip.
I'll go into my attic sometimes just to find spiders to
dip their legs in ink, and watch them
tumble across a page of watercolor paper.
Their little legs making scrambled, confused slashes of
a disheveled insect that once could've been happy.

I want to grow a beard, but I can't so I grow my armpit
hair and I also have leg hair too.
Even when I have three comforters on top of me, I usually can't
feel my toes
but before I fall asleep I'll think of spiders
shaved ice, and Kleenex, most likely.
Sometimes, laying there,
I get these fabulous artistic visions in my head
but I am far too lazy to pick up a pen and paper to jot them down
and when I wake up the next day, they've dissipated into my mind's
junkyard of misplaced thoughts.

Sometimes the fact that my bed is so soft makes me feel uncomfortable
like the Holocaust victims that preferred to sleep on
hard-wood floors after V-Day and liberation. If I think of that
situation, I'll end up sleeping
on my rug and carpet,
and wake up with red knees next to my beautiful piano,
underneath a brightly lit windowsill.

I want to scream and scream and scream and run, but I'm a terrible athlete
and in either instance I would probably have an asthmatic attack, so I sit here.
I make more faces than a five-year-old on a sugar high, and
ex lovers may try to remember them all,
but I'll create new faces just to spite them.

I try to put my cynicism behind me, and tuck
away the rose-tinted glasses to see things as they are.
I've realized it's an impossible feat
but that doesn't keep me from doing it.

I want to create splatter, un-baked Brownie splatter, urine splatter.
I hope I didn't cripple that little spider.

The first time I shot myself naked

2007-12-23T20:11:00.000-08:00

You toy with it for awhile. You take pictures on and off for years, maybe snapping nudes of people you'll never have to face the embarrassment of seeing again. Or the rare intimate photograph that you'll bury under stacks of useless papers, or pictures that don't mean much. You'll study the self-timer, and what angles best suit your figure. You'll pretend after you get out of the shower, posing relentlessly in your fogged mirror for no one to see.

Then one day, the courage and creativity will strike out of nowhere. You'll unbutton your trousers, and blouse, stripping to your skivvies. With a final breath, the underoo's come flying off, and although you're trembling slightly, the readiness inside of you is welling and ebbing, almost overflowing as you set your backdrop.

Whenever you look at a nude in a picture, unless you have some prudish tendencies, you're pretty un-phased. Something about "we all have the same parts" leaves embarrassing blemishes, bumps, fat rolls, bald spots, or hairy patches uncared about. But as you critique yourself under shining bathroom lights in your mirror, turning 360 numerous times, and making new years resolutions and dieting regimens, something about going under the lens yourself can make your stomach turn.

I've been battling myself for years now. Trying to figure out how to cut 145 before the next month. Losing weight without losing hair. Running, working out, eating less, not eating at all. It's been, god honest, a battle. After treatment centers, therapists, boyfriends, friend-friends, not watching T.V., and not comparing myself to other people I've grown tired. I needed to remind myself that a body... a functioning, fully-limbed, strong-appendaged body is something to rejoice about. Tonight, once I tacked up my white sheet, and took a deep breath, something broke inside of me.

I look at the three pictures I took, and this intense proudness is almost sweeping. Proud to have defined arm muscles, instead of wishing for wimpy model arms. Proud to have comforting hills of skin, and toned ligaments with layers that make me less jagged. Most of all, proud to overcome hating this thing I've fought with on and off sense my mammary glands developed.

Ahh, never again will I be shamed. To you reading, I would recommend (if you haven't already) stripping down, and taking a picture. Don't have someone else take it. Let it be your own, let it be your reality check with you, and just accept what develops. Don't be a critic. Be an admirer. It's pretty freeing.

(Just remember to stash 'em in a safe place.)

Degunking [part two]

2007-11-29T20:43:00.000-08:00

I'm tired of writing, but more tired of complaining so I think I will just write. I could write about the current slew of issues and stresses on my mind, but that would lead to complaining and just more thinking and analyzing about my perspective being ridiculous and whether or not I should actually be stressed.

When I think about the bigger scheme of things and the grand picture I realize I'm a small part of this world. However, when I think of the smaller scheme of things I realize that everyone partakes in a ripple effect and that no one is unaffected by anyone in their lives. Sometimes when I write like this I criticize and compare myself to other people who write because their words flow more eloquently and they like to study the different combinations of diction. Right now I feel like I can't study how the English language works, and I can't play around with sestina's or beautiful prose structures because I need this release and I need to write and I can't be bothered with bullshit like that.

I worry about living my life based on what I think other people want to see. Not just my ambitious nature, but what I wear, how I speak, how I act, how I don't act, what persona I should partake in for the hour and I really have grown tired of it. All of this praying to understand my self is helping me feel like I'm doing something, which, again, if I look at the bigger scheme of things I really have. I like to compare myself now to myself a year and a half ago, but instead of being happy about progressing I worry about regression and judge my stupidity, naivity, and blindness that I used to and probably still have. Am I outgoing and charasmatic, or annoying and fake? What is fake? What are these adjectives that I use to judge, not only myself but everyone around me and why do I project my thinking style onto everyone else? It could possibly be no one cares enough to stop and think if I'm annoying or not because I'm not the center of the world. This entitlement bullshit is enough to make me want to take my life.

Not really. Been there, done that.

Do I need a refresher course on how to contain manipulation, and deviations from reality? On rationalizing, and defensiveness? Do I respect other people or myself? What is respect? What is self?

I wish I could stop thinking and just be happy and content with where I am with the people I'm acquainted with, the places I've been, the things I know, and the things I don't know instead of always wanting more, more, more. Patience is a virtue, and sadly, one of the many qualities God seems to have left out of the pile of goo he constructed me out of (aka semen?). Oh, gee, I'm writing and complaining about the things I originally said I wouldn't.

Degunking my Head [part one]

2007-11-29T20:33:00.000-08:00

So much thinking I may go into a coma and that's where I wanted to be a year and a half ago, or six feet under but now I'm so thankful but not all that humble and I wish I would remember everything I used to never know but now I see so much more, and I'd like to think I've changed even though I look back on those journals and realize how truly blind I was and how rude and how self-aggrandizing and how sad sad sad I was. I light candles and focus on school and focus on God and focus on my friends and when do I focus on things I shouldn't focus on and what if I still can't see what everyone else hates when I think everyone else loves it what if everyone secretly is "blah blah blahing" but won't say it to me so I'm the last one left in the dark and my perspective doesn't compare to my brothers or sisters to the left or right but who's to say that anyone's perspective is the right one anyway? We're all fucked, but no we're fucking lucky especially me and the life that I've had the chance to live even though I'm a little bit too loud, too self-assuming and entitled, and a lot annoying and I don't know if those idiosyncrasies will change any time soon but I'd like to work on them I think. Is this maturing or am I still lost in myself and not focused on the people around me and how they think or feel and will I always be disliked by some, hated by (hopefully) few, and loved by many or will the majority just dislike me or will the majority just love me? Will it always matter what other people think about me, yes I think it will because back when I didn't give a fuck I trampled on toes and no one was happy including myself, and the people I claimed I love speaking of love how could anyone (no one specific...) love me when I was so irrational and wrong and ridiculous and blind and how could he love me now that I'm so different the answer is he can't and I'm pretty damn excited to leave him behind but absolutely terrified at being left alone and we're all fucked but no we're fucking lucky especially me who is never actually alone but I always have time to realize that it's all in my head just waiting to get onto paper to degunk my thought process so I can keep on living.

The day Petunia died

2007-11-21T21:42:00.000-08:00

The day Petunia died
I wept and wailed,
fingered leaves and cried
about the fact that she
was now so dead
while I was so alive.

Old man, old man. Swallow me whole.

2007-11-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

I etched the boulders
in your face that the
wrinkles creviced in your skin,
and relished in your spit-soaked tone,
molars mashing words within.
I marched along the plain of hair
course like wheat, but soft as lamb
and have a fondness for the fact
that you simply just don't give a damn.
I remember all the native drums
ma used to play at home
all in the contours of your face
playing the flute made of rib bones.
Marrow dried like gaban spice
useless now but I will stay.
I pet your hair and clip your nails
as I watch you slip away.
The curling in your ears resemble
Japanese blue tides
that you tattooed ink into your skin
reminders that Petunia died
with folding sheets under your chin
dyed titian to match your spiders hands
I marvel at the accuracy in which
you live out sweet God's plan.
Old man, in likeness of a hawk
always pressing to be free
I know your face holds secrets
it will only tell to me.

Rant on "love you" part deux

2007-11-05T19:47:00.000-08:00

Aha, my wisdom is shown in yet another paradigm. Let's look into my hindsight about three posts ago on the use of the word "love," the meaning and intentions behind it.

To quote Tom Waits (and now Fallout Boy?), I wish "champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends," hypothetically speaking. In order to know the difference between love (i.e. consideration, compassion, caring, infinite understanding) and intense emotions or feelings, or infatuation, I realize I need to make a strong distinction between faux and true friends.

Faux friends to me are the ones that although they have the potential to make you laugh and smile, and you can enjoy their company periodically within the boundaries of drug or alcohol-induced euphoria, in sobriety they are unreliable and self-absorbed entities of malevolence. Sad, but true. What's even more sad is when the naive, and unassuming new person to the group is sadly mistaken that these "frenemies" are true friends, and invest emotions, care, and time into these people. Over time this new guy will realize that the "relationship" has come to a stymie, and that they, the giver, is now emotionally drained while the imposters, the takers, are no more aware of their actions than Hellen Keller is of her rude manners at dinner-time.

A true friend of my understanding is one that you can more or less indefinitely count on. They will listen to you bitch, but snap you out of your self-pity induced depression to feed you ice cream and sappy movies, or that perfect amount of advice on how much life sucks to bring help relate. When times get bad with your friends, it will be miserable, but the misery makes you truly appreciate the great times you'll spend with them after the fact, or the great times spent beforehand. They will stick by your side even when there is tribulation, and they're willing to make sacrifices to better the relationship, and keep it thriving. They are the dry leaves to the bonfire. You enjoy their company in sobriety, but can enjoy having a little fun here or there. It's a give and take relationship-- there is no giver, there is no taker. It's just this complex whirlwind of understanding and mutuality that keeps things glued together.

Now that we have this down, lets get back to the original complaint: the misuse of "love". It is pretty wonderful when you finally get down to the nitty gritty of the social cliques that you take part in and realize who truly deserves your attention, and who is worth your mental garbage disposal. Life is energy spent based on perspective, and let's face it: no one likes a wet blanket... so let's get to the social filtering.

You need to filter someone if you check two or more of the below:

__ You get into a fight and they make no attempt at communication to clear up the grey area between fabrications and truth.

__ They fuel their anger with gossip overheard about you, and partake in the gossip.

__ They feel justified in not speaking to you for days for something they're unsure about.

__ They can somehow tell and show you (through actions) that they "love you" one day, but if you do something to upset them they can display their hate for you just as easily the next day.

__ They will get upset at how you feel towards something, even though it's an opinion you're trying to work out, and refuse to see your side, regardless of you trying to qualify it to the point to where you see their side.

Of course there's many more, and I am hyped up on caffeine so these tick-marks may not even make sense when I re-read this tomorrow, but you get the point. The saddest part of this is, the words "I love you" will be regularly repeated by an imposter who fulfills the majority of that description, and it can be confusing, hurtful, time-consuming, and exhausting.

Why the hell would I want to waste my time with all of that?

True, Alfred Lord Tennyson once said "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Yadda, yadda, yadda. But what if you're unsure it's love, in fact you may be quite sure it's not love, and you know that the longer you stay in this detrimental relationship, although the present may be enjoyable, you know there will be dire consequences and a terrible letdown in the future? Would it still be worth it to invest time and emotion in a person that seems unable to care about anyone but themselves?

Ah, as I go through this maze of adolescence, I realize more everyday that the most important lesson I have to grasp is the recognition of faux and true friends, and time management.

Time to clean out my filter.

Ma petite soeur

2007-11-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

There I go again
Uninterruptedly slinging my speech
at you and whoever is in the red zone
My mind is running
Courir de vous
et de moi.

And I hear all of them talking
They're talking too loud
Screaming and ranting
Spit freckling my cheeks

Claiming indifference
Impending ambivalence
I wish I couldn't care
Couldn't dare to stop this war

Et je t'aime
ma petite soeur
I only worry
Scurrying to pick up
the shards of our rapport.

Let me love you
Who am I talking to
Probably you
or most definitely myself

Et au revoir
mon petit chou
It was great for those two years
But uninterruptedly running my mouth
Has made me chew off my tongue.

On the use of the word "nigger"

2007-10-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Some words have absolutely no point value, and some do. Some words have a history behind them, like "fuck", derivative of "fich" which means to start friction. Some, you may think they have no point value, but they might. Some hold centuries of oppression, and racial slander. The word "nigger" has to be carefully selected and placed in context, with a definite meaning behind the use, or the user has persecuted, and wronged a person based on their skin color, or based on something that has absolutely no point value. This was my use of the word nigger.

While yelling at a group of five black kids for hurtling shopping carts down a hill towards oncoming traffic, in a midst of overwhelming fury I said "You are a bunch of niggers that need to go back to the fucking ghetto." Now connecting my synapsis, neurons, and brain cell triggers, I now realize what I should have said is "You all are acting like a bunch of niggers that live in the ghetto." 'What?!', you say? 'You would still use the n-bomb!?' Hell yes I would still use that word based on the definition I have for what I think they are in todays society. I respect African Americans, especially ones that have prevailed over poverty, or a living situation that wasn't in their favor, or ones like Condoleeza Rice, or Barack Obama that are intelligent, respectful citizens working in functional political milieus. They've overcome biases and standardized brash judgements and unfair treatment for hundreds of years. However in today's society, a 'nigger' to me is specifically a black person that doesn't follow the human code of ethics that all human beings innately follow. A gang member, a person who fights dogs, and wears huge jewelry, or pedals drugs. A black person who could put someone down for their personal beliefs, actions, or theories on things, or lifestyle. A black person that causes upheavals, or disturbs the peace. Uses words like "bitch" or "hoe" to address a woman and has no common respect or consideration for anyone except themselves.

'Oh my god,' you say 'you are a racist.'

Wrong. I am a profiler, as anyone else living in this world is, and I would give another name that has centuries of negative connotations to any other person with any other different skin color who behaved and had living standards such as the aforementioned. If it were a group of white kids, I would have said "You all are fucking white trash. Go home to your trailer park." meaning to say "You all are acting like white trash that lives in a trailer park." If they were a group of Mexicans I would have said "You fucking Spics. I bet you're here illegally." meaning to say "You are acting like Spics that would have immigrated illegally." So on and so forth with any other minority group: Asians, Jews, the French, whatever.

I'm not saying that the accusitorial phrases making all white people who live in trailers out to be disgusting people with low morals, or all American-Mexicans to be gross, lowly people are okay. No, they're terrible stereotypes that should be overcome, disbelieved, and never said to anyone of a minority group because it's a terrible generalization that hurts feelings. However in situations where people are acting exactly how a certain stereotype is depicted, I think it's a correct use of diction to use a profile as an example.

My use of the word 'nigger' in context was said more as an insult than as an explanation-- something I never thought I would do because of the huge respect I have for the race, and the importance I put on that word. I now realize that if I would have simply calmed down, and told them why I was rightfully upset, then explained how they looked, whether or not they cared, the point would have been conveyed much better, and I would have come out of it scratch free without looking like a racist bigot. Maybe.

Therefore, this is my explanation of why the word even came to mind. Why, in a verbal argument, I could even use that word without feeling remorseful, or like a terrible, racist Southerner. At first even I was thinking "Good God, Karen. That was horrible." and yes, what I literally said was. But the thought process behind it was well thought out, and I now realize that 'nigger,' although usually a completely taboo and off-limit word, can still be used as a descriptive verb in lieu of a subject or noun.

Et toi...

2007-09-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

"Hey babe. I love you."
"Love you too."

What's wrong with this picture? Can I just say-- you do not love me. Will you give me a quick overview of what exactly love is? I don't think you understand how much it aggravates me to hear those three small words on a daily basis. I love you, I love you, I LOVE you, I love YOU. I call bullshit. If you won't give me your definition, please let me give you mine. Right now our expectations aren't on the same level, and I'm sorry madam, I do not love you.

We've all heard the old quote "Love is patient.. love is kind," and all of the other cheesy sayings. Love to me is absolute selflessness. It's complete consideration, and the grasp that the person who you loves feelings, thoughts, emotions, wants, needs, everything all go before yours. It's a bond that can't be forgotten over a summer, or a small fight about borrowed clothes. It's developed over time, tribulation, and prevailing through the slums of the emotions. It's more than a surface connection, or just having things in common. It's a spiritual bond, a click between two souls when love is felt. It's the fact that you will die for this person you make them happy, or to save their life. Love is serious, and sometimes a terrible, heart-wrenching emotion. Love is not a "maybe" issue, it's a yes or no, non-controllable roller-coaster. It is when you can be completely vulnerable with the person you love, and not be afraid of the consequences.

That's not to say your feelings for me, or your other friends are inadequate. You have strong, intense emotions that make you feel so passionate for another person, and God knows those impulse emotions that make you want to yell from a cliff that your heart may burst from the rapid speed. Darlin', it's okay with me. You appreciate, care for, are infatuated with, feel affection for, are fond of, are devoted to, like a lot, have a hankering for that person. You don't love them. You don't love me. You wouldn't die for me, and don't put me first in anything. I'm not sure I'm even well-liked if I should be labeled in your social caste. It's okay, I don't dislike you for confusing your vocabulary.

...however, this is some bullshit.

And they'll be laughing at her in their little doggy laughs

2007-09-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

He has a face like someone I knew when I was five. I don't know if this person was another kid, or an adult perusing over my shoulder to make sure I'm not adding "little naughties" to my finger-paint animals. I do know that his cheeks are round like a chipmunk that's struck gold, and his lips are slightly chapped from too much air passing through them while he sleeps. His eyes can be like the oceans, a mixture of blue-gray, but the sun will pull open the blinds and show a glint of gold around his pupils. The gray parts in his hair looks like I dipped my mascara wand in silver paint and slowly highlighted only his sideburns while we laid entangled in my sheets. The trim and cut was to his head, but long enough to run my fingers through repeatedly while he crooned into my neck, into my collarbones. His figure was less than Greek, and it only endeared him to me more. I would beg him if he wanted me to to not tone any muscles in his body, but to stay baby-fat-esque until the end of time. The way he lounged comfortably made my heart lurch, and the small looks he'd give me while I was doing simple things around the room, only in my bare, would reassure me that right here and now he wanted, wanted, wanted me. I didn't have to have the breasts that the too-tanned porn stars sported; the breasts in all of the magazines, and minds of American adolescent tweeners. He let me be me, the first in all time, and to this day I can still thank him.

I knew it wouldn't last for long. I knew the fleeting moments we had together would have to absorbed into the back of my brain to always be imprinted, and never be forgotten. I knew as he fingered my pinkie with his ring finger that we felt this way now, but as the seas parted us, and time took it's place in our regular lives the flicker of the light I saw in him would slowly suffocate, and burn out. My heart ached every time I kissed him, but I still let my lips go. I gave permission to my hands to go wild, beating my gut-feelings back with every gentle touch with the tip of his nose on mine. I still remember calling him the last night I would be within 2,000 miles of him, tears running down my cheeks, yelling at him via telephone, asking him how he could let me do this. "Why did I get into this? Why did I let you do this to me? Why do I care so much for someone I know so little about? How could I be this stupid?" The questions were rhetorical, and he let me sob into his ear, my pathetic, heaving sobs filling the emptiness that the lack of conversation left.

Ah, almost a month has passed now, and although the ache in my heart frequently visits, I would not take back any of my feelings, or actions. I would still let my feet lift off of the ground the first time he touched my face, my hands, my lips. That two weeks of a parallel universe completes a nostalgia that I long for so bad I can only help but say "My heart, my heart". Although I was correct in my assumptions that the feelings would slowly wear, the infatuation simmering to less than a boil, I still cherish the company and time you devoted to me. I thank-you, I thank-you, I thank-you, and I bid you adieu.

The wall is nifty. I am like the wall. Therefore, by the transitive, I am nifty.

2007-09-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

Today the air reminded me of rides that make you sick, and pumpkins waiting to be gutted by the future mass murderers of America. Tooth enamel being corroded by sticky visceral substances leaking out of hardened sugar. Maybe even a day or two of passing by toilet-papered houses of future pregnant teenagers. The cheerleaders that feed the inbreds of society. The jocks that allow it to happen.

I don't mind it much. My fingers turned in the winds hair as my car broke through the billowing barricades, hand sticking out of the sunroof. It was somewhat chilly, a light jacket day, but the sun and air mixture was perfect like the color you get when you mix cerulean with a lemon yellow.

For the first time in months, I wished my eyes were blue.

Ay, Carumba-- a likely story.

2007-09-10T19:53:00.000-07:00

Tonight a constant stream of self-realizations keep pouring into my empty mind. I've been asleep since four in the afternoon, and the possibility of getting through tonight without my piano is a slim to none probability.

Honestly, I don't even know what to write. I feel like a wrung sponge. A sad happening is when people see things you don't see in yourself, and to be frank, don't want to see in yourself and try to avoid. Is this what life is about? Avoidances, unawareness, harsh realities? For awhile I saw myself as an icon that I worshipped: the hardships I've faced, and the obsession I have with my thoughts and feelings, my past and present. I was immaculate, impeccable, all-knowing, self-aggrandizing in all my glory. Now I only realize that it was rose-tinted and hovered above like an inferiority complex, and that no, I'm not on par with Zeus or Athena.

Now what?

I've gotten this far without being piked. Without being stoned. Not without being ostracized, or carrying a bad aura and a dramatic, self-absorbed vibe. I switch friends and acquaintances before people can see these things-- see that no matter the relationship, I will put myself first, and no, I will never care about you fully. That your opinion really doesn't matter, and that I will do as I please; I have final say.

I leave people before they can leave me.

Should I tread on such ground to call myself a realist as opposed to a cynic? To deny that I'm acerbic in persona, and say that I do not see life in all negativity, but rather how it is laid before me?

Well, steer clear. I wouldn't want to wake you up from the naivty that life is all roses. Go ahead and stay with that mindset. It's your sights death, not mine.

[By the way, leaving all angst and self-pity in this aside, I have this feeling that reading Shakespeares' works is rubbing off in my writing. I've literally become obsessed with the man, and what he had to offer to the English language. Marry me, oh Bard! ...no, but really, does my writing come off Elizabethan at all?]

Starting with last night, and the frogs.

2007-09-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

My eyes have been opened, and my mind expanded. Earth could never provide something much sweeter as to what I've experience, or the beauty I've seen in the orange hue on the tree-top outline of a squinting man's eyebrow.

I'll start with the notepad with cryptic scribbles, and ramblings that came out of her fucking mouth, from my shaking hand. I relish her incessant beauty, and rejoice in how she's a walking oxymoron of ugliness. The first page is slightly legible, and reminds me of the first of my theories on life-- we are here to create and relive nostalgic memories. "Breasts and womb. We are women-- why isn't that enough?" is front and center. "Let me know you" is turned sideways, and bleeding off the page. "She takes me back" parallels it on the other side. A run on, fall of sentence of nothing proceeds it: "How did I meet Petunia I began". I slightly remember watching a clip of the news before she slammed the power button down and off. From that I derived "That's what he wants-- everyone in the US to see it. The movie. Why would they show it?". The question mark is the most accented part of that sentence.

There's too much to cover, so I will just write out the quotes of the second, third, and fourth pages instead of detailing their location. "I don't have to have perfect handwriting for anyone", "It makes so much since [sense].", "That's it: just want to be know.", "Does she love me", "Please know me", "Its beauty, its love", "get tattoo", ""Id do anything for you karen", "Your negative, youre a factory, you exist, you are beautiful", "with her cigarette, her face and swagger, she's fucking glorious", "dude i love you", "scars don't matter", "lets make love to the world", "you are karen you are beautiful", "am i in chemistry?", "everything that comes out of her mouth is beautiful", "it's raining and we're writing the plot-- writing the storm-- riding the storm", "everything she fuckings says is beautiful and she begs me", "her shirt is on fire", "lets smoke some", "karen whats extasy like?", "karen youre a goddess. youre a work of art", "wanna go smoke some pot?", "frogs and lightning", "we're frozen in space and time", and several interesting scribbles and sketches in-between.

Continuing on with my explanation of reality, and the truths of it all, I realized that our generation is the Columbus of the universe-- as he saw the globe as flat, we have theories on the black vastness that can still be disproved. I saw myself in Petunia, in the way people hated her and her selfishness, but loved her for her originality, and were in awe and amused by her, a friend and foe. She loved me so intensely. She fucking loved me, and clung to me like I was falling off of a cliff. She promised she'd never leave me, always wanted to be with me, and loved me fully. I basked in her empty promises. She wanted to exist with me. She begged me, she didn't ask, she fucking begged me to know her, and love her back. I loved the me in her, and that's about it. I had nothing else to offer.

We sat there, indian-style, facing each other. My head was on the cement, my chest laying across my legs. Her head was on my left knee, her upped body arching, covering mine. We spoke in tongues and philsophized. We realized and saw it all. Laying on the cement she whispered to me "We'll never feel this again, but right now I love you."

No one would talk to her. That's all she wanted, and no one would talk to her, they would only listen, absorbed in her being, completely dumbfounded in her glory, secretly hating her, plotting her demise. She called and called, but no one came. I slunk off to a corner to write, and give a synopsis of my mind. We went upstairs, and faced each other. We took pictures of each other. We loved each other, embraced each other. It was terrifying. I took a picture of her, and she was smiling, distant, looking at me. After I pulled the picture out of my camera and looked at it, I froze. This was not her. This looked nothing like her, and I hated this picture, and I hated her for looking like this in this picture. She snatched it from me, and crumpled it in her hand, then threw it down in the bare mattress declaring it was not her before she stormed out of the room. I loved her for that, and stared, my mouth agape, into the mattress for a good five minutes.

I convinced her that she had killed someone. After crying, and being very unsettled she was taken in a surge of anger, and paced the room, yelling, her hands in a flurry around her tiny frame. She yelled, and yelled at me, finally breaking down and telling us that yes, she thought she killed someone. She thought she killed herself. We destroyed a few pages of her notebook. We searched the house madly for scissors, but settled for a knife. We needed each others hair as a bond, as a promise kept from this night that we'll both forget. She stood there with her shirt off, facing me in a coy manner saying "Can we have new beginning? I love new beginnings.".

After the climax was over, and the pictures were safe and protected from the rain, Petunia and I settled on the couch. We talked of exposed breasts, and the featured film. She talked about existing, and how it was imminent. I listened, and nodded. We then saw our calling, stuck on the window like sap to a tree. There were two frogs, waiting for bait attracted by the light inside, and we knew they were meant to be ours. We tip-toed outside in our underwear and shirts, and she made me fetch hers because she was too short to reach it. Mine stayed safe in my hand, and hers jumped from her into the grassy abyss of my yard. For the rest of the night only toads would approach her, from the exception of Dottie, a miniscule frog that we both became attached to.

In holding and writing about my frog, I realized that nothing could break my tie to it. As it stuck to my fingers, and relied on my soft grip, I needed it like it needed me, and cherished each small wheeze it excreted from it's throat. I stroked it's head, and bulging eyes. I fingered its mouth, and tried to open it. I extended its legs, with admiration for how far they stretched, figuring out the basis behind it's means of transportation. In this moment was when I asked myself how I was ever so estranged from my amphibian friends. In this moment, a new obsession was formed, and Petunia and I were already outside on a new excursion by the time I lost my frog somewhere in my house.

Our bare feet scratched on the cement, the rough top exfoliating the dead layers on the soles. We danced, and spun about. We walked onto the grass, and she let Dottie go, but I called her a bitch for it. We ran, and walked. We splashed in the puddles, and let the rain hit our faces. She climbed a fence, and crouched to the ground, intrigued with everything nature had to offer her. I stood there, cold and hairy, I stood there. We walked back together, holding hands.