y’all made too much of it
…but it was pretty good. Redickulous amounts of facebook messages from people I barely know? Expected and still awesome. The texts and calls? (Three people sang! My GRANDFATHER called, which is huge.) <3 My roomate was amazing, and we grabbed a cake mix. That proceeded to feed the a capella group I was in… who sang and teased and made noise about it. I love everyone.
Yes, it’s been a great birthday. How could it not? The snow is pretty, the day was beautiful, there was cake and a package from my strange mother. My ocarina came in, and I know how to play the lullaby from Pan’s Labyrinth. It was a perfect first-not-with-family birthday.
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WHINEBITCHICHHABEHUNGAR.
In other news, I spent the last coupla lucid!minutes skeduling. Happiness is a nonfogged brain.
MONDAY. Day of ease.
- German 120, 10:30-11:20
- Chem 106, 1:30-2:20
TUESDAY. Day of fuuuuuuuck.
- German 120, 10:00-10:50
- Philosophy 120, 11:30-12:45
- English 105, 1:30-2:45
- English 120, 3:00-5:30
- (Last half, German 129, 6:30-7:45)
WEDNESDAY. Day of frantic prep.
- German 120, 10:30-11:20
- Chem 106, 1:30-2:20
THURSDAY. Day of graaaaaaaah.
- German 120, 10:00-10:50
- Philosophy 120, 11:30-12:45
- English 105, 1:30-2:45
- Ballroom Dancing, 3:00-4:30
FRIDAY. Day of thank you FSM.
- Chem 106, 1:30-2:20
..tomorrow’s Tuesday, innit it? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
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* Beloved, Toni Morrison
* Antigone, Jean Anouilh
* Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen
* The Awakening, Kate Chopin
* In Our Time, Ernest Douchbag
* The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
* The Assault, Henrik Mulisch
* The Pickup, Nandine Gordimer
* Blood Wedding, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
* The Crucible, Arthur Miller
* Invisible Life, E. Lynn Harris
* Passing, Nella Larson
* Hamlet, Folger Library Edition
* Loving Her, Ann Allen Shockley
* Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man, James Johnson
* Handmaiden’s Tale, Margret Atwood
* I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelo
* Giovanni’s Room, James Joyce
* Bell Jar, Silvia Plath
* Equus, Peter Shaftner
* The Waste Land, T.S. Elliot
* Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
* The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
* A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
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you can see the movement of lights and the distance of smoke and the way the wind is blowing, the colors behind your eyes and a the rainbow in the lightbulb? The sensations and textures of fabric and skin and heat and cold and the way that flavours dance on the tongue? and music. goodness, sounds.
it’s really gentle. it’s stuff I’d notice without any help, but it’s all so vivid and wonderful and soft, so peaceful and silky.
it’s realizing how much energy you have after devouring coffee, feeling it course through your veins and wanting to run and dance. and the way fruit juice bursts in your mouth, with smooth dark rich lovely of sorbet.
the feeling isn’t as pronounced as it was while we were eating, but it’s still around. And it’s there in normal moments too, catching an elusive scent and recognizing it, hearing a song and being able to sing the next bit, neatly side stepping an obsticle you didn’t see, so much more. Being aware. Of how I feel and the world around me.
It’s hugging someone and actually feeling the tension leave your body, their body.
I deeply wish I had words for the way I feel right now, in tune in key.
it’s a combination, I guess. Of the painkillers and sadness and awareness of my own life. I won’t use them tomorrow unless I hurt badly, because I’m aware of the addict factor. But I can’t deny how nice it is to be in this mindset.
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drive safe
It starts with a facebook message, Sunday “Do you know what happened? I think there was a death in her family, but I don’t know for sure.” Minutes later. “Oh god. Her brother passed away” The cell-phone rings and we text each other, leave messages. I get a call from my sister in the dead of the night, crying. “I just wanted to hear you, that you were okay.” Fragile, fragile life. My mother comforts me as I cry. I didn’t really know him. I know his sister. I know his friends. I email and call and comfort. The next morning, I go to work. I’m a wreck, trying to figure out what happened. The obituary isn’t posted until mid-afternoon. My mother freezes. “He worked at the Y?” “Yeah. Opening pool guy.” My mother teaches spinning in the early morning. She described him. I nod. She saw him every morning, cheerful chats and hellos. He’s touched a life without ever needing to know her name.
The car ride there was quiet. We spoke about trivial things. A high-school teacher I hadn’t been close to gave me a one-armed hug as we walked in the door. Then we entered. Take off our coats. I sign the book for three people. Myself. My sister. My lover. All of us are deeply affected. Only one of us could be there physically. We look at the pictures. Sassy child, he mowed the lawn with his toy mower, defends a rock. The picture that starts the tears is simple, him and his girlfriend grinning up at the camera.
We hug his sister, our friend. Talk about small things. Tell her we love her. There is an awkward moment with a girl who’s been cruel, but we simply compliment her hair and leave it be. Walk to the other room. I talk with two girls from school, seniors now, comparing socks, Christmas mismatching, green m&ms, pianokeys and glowinthedark. “How are you? Stupid question.” “It’s all I can think to say, but I can’t say anything when people ask me. I’ve already gone through it too many times. I’m just blank now” His girlfriend is there, and she is hugged.
I can’t turn around. He’s in the room, and I didn’t notice. Later, I found out the family had been laughing; even at his wake, he was better-looking than 90% of everyone. They go up while I hug another. The sisters come back crying. “Can you go up alone?” “Yeah, just be ready to go after”
I talk to him. Little things. I didn’t know him well. Yet he made an impression, an imprint in my life. The sisters come up and walk with me back. Tissues are discreetly placed around the room, and I am grateful. We say our goodbyes, and hug and keep in physical contact with each other.
At the wake, if you listened carefully, you’d hear the rest of the room. And about half of them would be crying. And about half of them would be laughing. Then they’d switch.
He was alive, and then he was dead. Because of ice. Because of the car. Because he had no seatbelt. There were no human villains. Just tragedy and a twenty-one year old man, loved and loveable, thrown from a car. And he won’t go to her senior Semi with her, or see her eighteenth birthday. She’ll have guilt because she was driving, replaying that moment in her head. It was not her fault. It will never be her fault. She needs to know this.
After the wake, the most important thing happened. We weren’t alone. We were listening to Lady GaGa and laughing and talking and eating and being alive. We were watching youtube and devouring ice cream and Indian food sipping chai and tea. We watched tv, and talked about sad things. It’s been shitty since November, and we all want spring back. But there was something so right about this collective tribe, a gathering of laughter and tears. We talked about sex and love and heartbreaks. We talked about foes and friends and awkward. We talked about his death. His life. Her life. We didn’t stop hugging and touching and being.
I’m exhausted and the drugs make my perception weird, aches and pains with the painkiller only helping some. And I’m almost grateful to the pain because it is small and temporary and I may whine, but I’m alive. There is a we, a collective that mourns, lives, laughs together. Even when they’re in another state. We are. We are love and life and this is us forever.
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imma lotta talk
and the walk is lost, but you know me, and you know I am harmless. I was the little girl who wanted to be a falconer, so adamant. Then it’s this and that, and I toss my whims like birdseed in the snow.
I need to find my little journal, finish it and start new. Third one.
Yesterday, my mother and father learned that I have been sexually active. They both offered me condoms. It was refreshing, because now I am that much more an adult in their minds. It was kinda terrifying, this moment in my head. Mostly because I always thought it would come after they walked in on us. But no. It happened as we paused the tv, waiting for dad to get off the phone. And my mother asks, gesturing, “By the way, have you and boy… ” *finger gestures*I shake my head in amusement. Consider for a second. “Yes, we are having sexual relations. If that’s what” *finger gesture* “means. Most awkward way to ask ever!” “Better than Mr. Peen and the Giant”
Well. I guess so.
So, milestone of a sort reached. Dad came in, so I told him. He gave me the best “well, duh” look I’ve seen in a while. He then offered me wine. I instead made myself a mimosa, to ward off the awkward. Surprisingly, it worked. So, yeah. The last people to know have now been told.
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The Whole Thing.
This was originally titled, why family shouldn’t be on facebook. It’s gotten so. much. bigger. bitter. Read at your own risk. It’s shown sequentially. Anything [in blocks] is me.
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adventure: I had one!
The woods fully lit up by the moon, color bleached out of the world. fallen trees and a violent glade and a strange place of holy-life, trees still wreathed and living. Gateways and passages and sculptures.
And a fat raccoon.
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Whenever I get lost, totally gone and out buhbai! too deep in the pond or skating on ice, I ground myself in books or people. Both can be risky, but infinitely better than drowning or freezing or some other metaphor.
People are risky because they can feed into the feeling, especially if they’re bad too. Or the could be the weak one and you have to be strong for them, protector-mama instinct. or they could be fine and you lose yourself further, or they could be the strong one and you the duckling. Or they can distract you so thoroughly you forget about the funk you were in.
Books are risky because the kind of books you can lose yourself in are rarely fluffy. Humor is good if you can stomach it without becoming cynical. Christopher Moore, Stephanie Plum, Jennifer Crusie. It depends on what kind of lost you are. Kids books. Epic tales. Novels are good for living another life. Novella and plays and tragedies for the power packed into so small so few. Equus. Some Charles de Lint books. Short story collection by firebird press. World War Z. The one book about the boy who draws maps in everything and is in an asylum. The Bell Jar. Really, anything Plath. e. e. cummings. Ray Bradbury.
I miss my shelf at home.
Brought to you by The Perks of Being a Wallflower my go-to book to make me live and feel and really breath again.
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