Things I Love

I'm getting into the idea of lists. This is a short one of what I can think of at the moment, in no particular order:

-people (you know who you are. I think I'll make a separate list later dedicated solely to people)
-personified and anthropomorphized birds (especially crows, ravens, and magpies)
-shiny things (broken glass, marbles, bits of metal, etc.)
-graffiti
-imprints in the cement of sidewalks (names, feet, hands, leaves, etc.)
-swings
-music--ukulele, accordion, bagpipes
-cats
-dogs
-clouds
-scraps of paper
-books
-notes in margins & other people's notes in margins
-mashed potatoes
-the color blue
-dictionaries
-fiction
-socks
-pillows
-hot chocolate, tea, coffee
-SPOONS!! (especially tiny tea spoons)
-vague, passionate lyrics
-watercolors
-spiders (especially jumping spiders)

-You---thank you for reading this. <3 

Battling the Evils of Makeup

Someday I want to dye my hair blue, cut it spiky short, and wear a really short skirt with black tights that only go to my knees. Maybe with a shirt/jacket with slits in the shoulders and elbows. I want to dress up for fun and use flashy blue eye shadow.

The only makeup I've ever worn is stage makeup, and that was to make me look old. All the girls did their own makeup for One Act Play except me--I didn't know how. When they tried to teach me I just ended up poking myself in the eye and crying like the guys did.

I think I grew up thinking it was bad to be a girl. It was only okay if I acted like I wasn't a girl--hated the color pink, played with bugs, wore plain clothing, didn't wear makeup or want to, didn't talk about boys...

No, that isn't it. Being female doesn't mean liking the color pink and wearing makeup. Those things have nothing to do with being a girl. Maybe it's bad to be... "that kind of girl"?

This all sounds silly. Still, this is what I grew up thinking:

-Girls who wear lots of makeup and flashy clothing grow up to be slutty women.

-Being a slutty woman is almost the same as being a desirable woman.  

-Men make women happy, and men only like desirable women 

-Only pretty girls are allowed to be pretty, and therefore only pretty girls are allowed to grow up to be desirable women, and therefore only pretty girls can really be happy. 

-I wasn't pretty and I couldn't be pretty. 

Obviously those things aren't true. It's silly that I even grew up thinking that--this is the 21st century, and women are more respected than ever. It's true that there are still plenty of negative stereotypes floating around, but... I don't know. I just don't want to sound melodramatic.

Sometimes I want to draw attention to myself. When I was in One Act Play in high school, I secretly wanted to play lead. In Celtic ensemble, I wanted to sing lead on a song. The one time I did it ended pretty disastrously. I guess I haven't reached a sufficient confidence level yet. I guess these things take time.

You know... being a woman is a wonderful thing, and I hope someday soon I can really feel that way myself.

Stickin' it to the Man

I feel sad and angry. I feel poor--a very specific kind of poor... white middle-class poor. Not quite "white trash," but that kind of poor where you have a really nice laptop and health insurance but you wear tattered clothes that don't fit and your family fights about money all the time. Where you can afford to take medication for a "rich people's disease" but you put off buying new shoes until the ones you're wearing break every tenth step. It's not really a lack of money. It's a disjointed, irrational mindset.

I'm listening to "Dance Music" by The Mountain Goats and thinking about that song that starts "If she wants to dance and drink all night, no one's gonna stop her," and the years I spent riding in a big white van, old and beat-up, but still good, with an amazing friend. I should call her.

I'm tired of hearing "We'll talk about it when you get home." We don't communicate any better in person. The only difference is that I'm more intimidated by them in person, and they have the option to physically stop me from doing things. I've never been openly rebellious before. I'm not even trying to do that now, and I don't want to sound like an angsty teenager. But I'm being smothered and there's not even a good reason for it.

I'm not going to bow to the king anymore. I need to get the hell out of this messed up kingdom before I can keep trying to help the queen who is really a servant. I'm no bloody pawn-shaped princess.

Another Up-too-Late

"I grow old, I grow old
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."

Such a silly line in such a somber poem (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot). I love getting lines of poetry stuck in my head.

This summer I'm going to write lyrical narrative poetry about my adventures with a close friend in an old van, my experiences with dog fights, the people who have taught me music, about suicide, talking to curtains, Jules and Sarah, and that awful boyfriend from high school (it's so stupid, but he still occasionally haunts my dreams, telling me how inadequate I am, transforming me back into that self-hating martyr), about my sister and our language and singing and sidewalk lunch and driving in circles to watch the lights and lying in the grass. Snailing. I could write a poem 30 sections long about her. I want to put mundane things side by side with dark and light philosophical things.

I want to write children's stories about monsters and my friend the cebolla (onion) who plays violin. Children's stories about visiting a goblin market and how to thank house brownies without sending them away. Children's stories that teach science and magic at the same time. I want to write children's stories that do not try to hide the darkness in life. Children's stories that know monsters really do exist and people hurt each other, even the people who are supposed to protect you, and that awful things can happen to children even though they shouldn't. I want to tell them "I know. Come with me, and I'll walk you through it until you can find your own way."

I want to write young adult fiction and work on all this story dough sitting around my kitchen.

Do you know how amazing you are? How many incredible things, beautiful and dark, painful and liberating, that you constantly absorb and change, preserve, remember, and give back to the world? How valuable you are as a creature, as matter, as energy, as a human being?

Work your dough, your paint, your clay, your crinkling pages of crunched numbers.

"Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves" -Mary Oliver, Wild Geese 

Remember and believe that you are a child of the stars.

You are so Important

I'm up late and I shouldn't be. But that's okay. For good or ill, it's all over tomorrow.

In spite of everything I've had a good semester. Mostly right now, I just wanted to put down some happy thoughts.

It makes me so happy that I've become friends with Ian's roommate. I'm not just his roommate's girlfriend. I can come hang out with him without Ian and plot silly jokes with him. He sends me facebook messages about government conspiracies and annoying things that the U.S. does, things we can be angry about together. We went halvsies on an early birthday present for Ian. Recently I've taken to spending my up-late-and-shouldn't-be's sitting on his bed while he sits at his computer, watching "The Angry Beavers" or "Hey Arnold" together, commiserating about the decline in quality cartoons since the 90's. We have awesome 1v1's on Melee, and he coaches me through Majora's Mask and Fire Emblem.

I've embraced my identity as a gamer and feel totally comfortable among my nerdy guy friends. I've become a confident speaker in my classes. One day I more or less soloed a discussion with Caswell and I informally led a group discussion in my poetry class. I feel like a skilled peer reviewer and feel confident and comfortable speaking in workshops. I shamelessly volunteered to read my work in creative writing class, breaking the ice for my classmates.

GPA shmeePA. My grades aren't so good, but I have direct quotes from my professors saying how much they appreciated my contribution to discussions. I genuinely learn things. Isn't that the point?

Well. That's my big project for the summer, and deadlines, like extinction, are not evil, but simply Are. They can be good things. They'll serve to keep me from striving for unhealthy perfection so that I don't squander my thoughts and experiences on one project that is already valuable as it is. They'll help me help people.

All my life until now, I've felt like a martyr in training. I've valued unconditional patience, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice. I've deliberately suffered great harm even if the benefit for others was small. Why do these unconditional values make sense in a conditional world? The one unconditional thing I still believe in is love. Even then, love need not be alone. Emotions can coexist.

Now, I seek wisdom. I still seek to understand as much as I can, but I want to learn to exercise patience when it is appropriate, and alternately to act swiftly and decisively when I need to. I no longer suppress and fear anger. It has a place in things. Sometimes anger is as helpful as patience.


I'm just as valuable as any other creature, and so are you. 

Muffling the Sounds of the Universe

I'm sitting at a cubicle on the 5th floor stacks. I was going to take this time and atmosphere to continue my frenzied last minute preparation for a conference tomorrow, but now... I'm going to write here instead.


Good news and bad news. I'm no longer presenting at the conference. That relieves a great deal of stress... but I've also lost the respect of a professor I dearly love. 


Stress relieved, yes, but I feel like shit.


I feel like I shouldn't be working for an amazing literary review, shouldn't be able to take these amazing classes... I don't know how I got these things. Late, late, late. What excuse do I have? "To present at the conference is a privilege you have not earned." Privileges I haven't earned. 


It was a nice email, a straightforward, formal email. All true. He ended with "Please know this is not personal. I'm disappointed, but I still support you and your work and your future." 


I think I should stop quoting the email. It's making me feel worse. 


Oh Caswell, how can I face you? 


So tired. Head hurts. I almost want to bike home and go back to sleep. Wouldn't that be silly. Expend energy to regain some energy. I could just sleep somewhere in the library, but it would be so nice to be back home in bed, protected by sheets and blankets and pillows that muffle the sounds of the universe.


Hell. The exercise and comfort would be good for me. I don't care if "True solace is finding none." I'll take my cheap instant solace for now and brew homemade solace later. 


Somehow, I want to handle this well and turn it into something positive. I think I'll handwrite a note for Clara, apologizing for not following through and presenting alongside her. Telling her how wonderful a speaker and writer she is. Maybe I could do the same for Diane and the kind man in charge of the conference, at least in email format.


"I promised to my wife and children. I'd never touch another drink as long as I live. But even then, it sounds so soothing... this'll all blow over in time... this'll all blow over in time..." ("We Used to Vacation," Cold War Kids)


My 'poison' is laziness and procrastination. Most of the time, I feel like I'm living my life singing a constant apology.


It's unpoetic of me, but I don't like to end blog posts on pure sadness. I hope you're doing well, having an amazing day, loving your life. Thank you for reading. I love you so much. 

Does he make you happy?

I waved goodbye with both hands, jumping, arms flailing. I smiled.

Then I walked alone, past the house where my grandmother died, down the road that has as many holes and cracks as I used to. I walked to the Sky Pier, the pile of boards that overlooks the field behind my house and the expanse of sky where so often I used to sit and let my thoughts drift away. I cried.

Last night, Ian and I lay in my bed, talking. He met my spirit sister, Manda, yesterday, and I told him stories about her and our past. Topics shifted rapidly as they almost always do around midnight, led to reminiscing. He was so sleepy. He apologized for not talking much, but said he wanted to listen to my voice. And I told him about how clear my memories were of first meeting him. I remember how he said he would have guessed I was an atheist, and when I asked why, he hesitated before saying "Because... you're intelligent." Remembering all these tiny glimpses of his nervousness. He struck me as someone who was very confident and comfortable with who he was. I asked him last night if he was ever nervous then, and was surprised when he said "very." Because "You're an intelligent, beautiful woman, and I'm just me." Says the man who stayed awake with me all night soon after I met him, talking philosophy, global skepticism, Taoism, his ideas about the massive network of actions on the atomic level, the idea that free-will could exist even though, atomically, you were always going to do the things you do. Every string of reactions between atoms and cells and matter flowed toward your every action. This man who has sung me sane during psychotic break downs.

I talked. He mumbled phrases I've come to recognize by his tone, the "Mhm," that means yes, the one that means no, the "I love you." Those minutes before you fall asleep are magical to me. Minutes where your deepest dreams and secrets are as safe as "How are you?"

But I felt those falling asleep twitches in his fingers and felt so surprisingly, profoundly sad. That I was suddenly alone with my thoughts and memories, and he in another world. And as I'd been remembering for a while, I started remembering my teenage years, when I stayed up late at night, the only one awake in the house. Usually I love being awake while others are asleep--watching over them, feeling the echoes of their dreams--but this... I felt sad because those words that flowed between us had drifted away, and he had gone where I could not follow.

When he left today, I felt like he was falling asleep again.

It's absolutely ridiculous to cry when someone leaves and is only going to be gone for three days, but it makes sense if you feel trapped in a place of past years' sadness. If you watch your present put on his coat and pick up his bags.

I met his sister, Verity, over the week of Christmas in Colorado. Late one night, playing games with her, Ian, and his uncle, she asked us to describe our weirdest date. But I've never really had anything I considered a date in the typical sense, and anything close to it wasn't weird. And once we were 'dating,' we weren't dating. We were spending time together as newly acquainted companions. Is that what dating is? I picture dinner in restaurants, trips to the movies, maybe bowling or something, and lots of questions aimed at explaining each other's personality. Maybe we were doing the introvert's version of that.

Manda only really asked one question about Ian: "Does he make you happy?" We think it's a very wise question.

He is my INTJ to my INFJ. I've never been happier.

And now I feel much better. I have plenty to do over the next three days. For now, I'm going to take a shower and then dye my hair red with the henna I've had for two years of indecision.

"Open your arms and feel that horrible loneliness, knowing it will pass." -Laura Zak


I've been doing much better since the first night passed. 


My greatest fears come just before going to sleep. I want to sleep, to surrender my consciousness, to surface into the next day, but I also fear it; my nightmares have come back lately. Even more than that, I fear not falling asleep. I even fear that time between lying down and falling asleep. 


So I take benadryl and hold my bunny. 


I want to write dark fantasies. I want to mix the dark and the whimsical. I want to spend a month making wind chimes out of found objects in a junkyard. I want to chop firewood all day. 


I think before I leave, I'm going to spend a day in Terri's room. I'm going to gather every piece of her that I have and place it in a circle around me. A few hours in silence, then a few with her music. I will write everything I think, feel, and remember in a journal. I will face the reality of her absence, embrace the reality of my loneliness, and begin walking the path toward realizing the reality of her eternal closeness.