If you’re in the mood for excellent writing with a sweet undertone, read here.
I’ve also added a few links to the ol’ surfin’ list, such as Peg, a girl who suffered through high school physics with me, but managed to become a successful Spanish teacher and Remember Ender, the Ohio-based band of my former pilot looooover (this can only be said with a deep voice and snarl in your lips) who is extremely tall and literate. [Links have since expired.]
Carry on.
Open letter to Avril Lavigne:
For the love of God, girl, please crawl into my head and snatch your little Complicated tune away. I don’t even like it, but it will not cease. The song is running around my brain like a three-year-old who accidentally ran into a professional football game, intercepted the ball and is now giggling madly and zooming in circles while the players scream and attempt to resume their game.
Listen, Avril. You’re cute, there’s no doubt about it and it’s a cute I like, sans stiff blonde hair and eye popping booby outfits. You’re 17 and trying to rebel against the Britneys by proving you are one badass tough chick who writes her own songs – noble of you, really, though bragging to Rolling Stone about all the physical fights you’ve started and venues you’ve gotten kicked out off really just comes off as trying a leeeeeeeeeeetle too hard (not that I read that whole article. Not that I frantically flipped pages in the magazine until I found it or anything).
My gripe is that, catchy and mind numbing as it is, your hit song is nothing new. And your lyrics, baby, look: not to sound like an elitist 21-year-old, but for a 17-year-old to tell me matter-of-factly that she knows what life is makes me bristle. And then when I find out that life is when “you fall and you crawl and you break and you take what you get and you turn it into honesty,” makes me think you really do know what life is like because, like your lyrics, life makes no sense. Turn it into honesty, eh? Is there an honesty machine I was unaware of that takes broken lives and bandages it with colorful Honesty Healing Strips?
Anyway, it’s been nice chatting with you. I really didn’t mean to download your song; it was an accident. I really didn’t mean to play it over and over again – I have a sticky WinAmp trigger finger.
Love,
The kind folks at zosiablue
P.S.: Against every ounce of sanity I posses, I actually do like your song. Goddamn it, I love it, I can’t freakin’ get enough of it.
P.S.S.: I think I knew more about life when I was 17, too.
P.S.S.S.: Disregard this entire letter. Can I have your autograph?
I defy the oppressive dry heat by sipping a blazing hot cup of coffee. I defy my body’s dizzy desire to be horizontal by bracing myself vertically. I defy my brain chemistry by depriving it of the manmade chemical it needs and instead bribing it with nutrition: “Look, I’m eating bananas and drinking orange juice, and I like neither of them. I’m doing this for you! Could you just appreciate it?”
I defy my humanness by telling half-truths which protect my vulnerability like a rusty screen door. I defy the mosquitos by leaving my windows wide open. I dare them to fly in and they don’t. Instead I get kamikaze moths who fly with a specific and chaotic purpose into my candle flames. I get tiny flies who buzz aimlessly around my lilies and my computer monitor.
I defy my need to breathe by doing so shallowly, so it almost becomes a game. If I can’t see my chest rise, I have won. I defy morning by falling asleep just before it touches me and waking just as it’s creeping back down the steps. I defy beauty by denying it and instead burning the image of the house across the street onto my retinas: the dingy white paint, the stark black shutters and cluttered porch; the upside down bag of Tidy Cat shoved in the corner by the door; the way the light reflects in the upper attic window and I see the mirror of my own house and own window. But I defy light with sunglasses and venetian blinds and a turn of my face to the left, to the wall.
I defy the elephants trampling through the house at breakneck speeds by making mix CDs with his songs and then playing them at top volume, letting the notes smooth and paint over the tracks the elephants have made.
I defy sense by refusing to make it.
I defy death by hiding from it, by being constantly aware of its presence. I defy life by giving it the cold shoulder.
“You want me? Well, fuckin’ come and break the door down -”
Today: nightmares, orange cats, Gardenburgers and pepper jack cheese bought from a bored dark haired boy with a chin piercing, roommates chewing the evil Thrills gum that Elinor sent me from Canada (Beth: “It tastes like Windex.” Sub-leaser John: “It gets less annoying the more you chew it,” while making an absolutely horrible pinched face), Macadamian nut coffee, yellow lilies from the Co-Op, light lingering thunderstorms (Beth: “Jenn, do you think it’s safe to shower when there’s lightening?” Jenn: “Um, I saw a Picket Fences episode once where someone was electrocuted while showering.” Beth: “Uh . . .”), lazy reading on the couch, relief to find that my financial aid is no longer suspended and look, another day has snuck into 8 PM, and I’m alone in the house, watching my fan circulate the air, flickering my candles and tickling my cactus leaves.
It’s also my father’s birthday. He’s the original nerd and I wish I could be home to hug him.
I also made a mix CD in honor of the rain. It included the following songs:
Portishead, Glory Box
Ani Difranco, Everest
Ani Difranco, Most of the Time
Ani Difranco, Pulse
Ani Difranco, Sorry I Am
Brenda Weiler, You Sweet Thing
John Mayer, Comfortable
Radiohead, Motion Picture Soundtrack
Radiohead, Talk Show Host
Sarah Harmer, Lodestar
Silverchair, Miss You Love
Silverman, Time is a Blade
Sunny Wicked, Seraph
And now, to complete a slow July day, I’ll take advantage of the empty house and watch Moulin Rouge, a two hour orgasmic seizure inducing experience to savor.
Well, here’s something I never thought to worry about. I thought amoebas were cute cuddly little fellows.
My bank account is overdrawn again, and this time for a huge amount. I also just found out that I’m on financial aid suspension because of my awful grades last semester. But for some reason I’m cherishing both of those things because they pissed me off, and I need this type of fire desperately right now. I would prefer to be actively angry and scared, then passively nonchalant and doomsday-ish. I keep fucking things up, but I’ll keep cleaning them up. I have to. When the small quarantined square of me that stores my vigor and my strength fades, then I will, too. But for now I’m ready to slay dragons again. I think.
P.S.: I’m in Duluth. It’s nice to be home.
So, tomorrow evening, I’m leaving my basement in Minneapolis for good, and settling back into Duluth. I’m leaving much earlier than I planned, but I feel like it’s time to move on from my little experiment. The results and purpose of the experiment will hopefully be revealed to myself somewhere along the line. I’ll feed it into the computer and wait seven million years for the answer.
I wanted to write a little summary about what I would remember about these past few months, but I think it’s too early for that. Instead, I’ll leave with you this link. You’ve probably read these lyrics already, but it’s a song written by a country singer for John Walker Lindh, and everyone in America is pissed. Good. Let them be pissed. The lyrics begin to dig into why the Lindh situation bothered me so much – here we are, in a country that preaches the freedom to believe in what you choose, and here we are, prosecuting someone for exercising that freedom. How dare he, right?
My uterus snatched the brain cells required for coherency and turned them into evil red pain demons.
The summer is almost over. One more month. My stay in Minneapolis is even closer to over, which is unbelievable considering I can’t quite think of what I accomplished here. Maybe employment doesn’t equal accomplishment.
Must eat.
/end informative update peppered with lightly oiled insights and quips.
Thoughts independent of each other:
Mattlives down the street from me this summer. In fact, it was his mother that indirectly set me up with the place I’m at right now. I’ve seen Matt only two or three times this summer and those times were all in large group settings. When I drive into the neighborhood, I pass his house and without really consciously thinking about it, I always look for his car in his driveway. Though we don’t hang out this summer, there is something comforting about knowing that he’s a two minute walk away if I need to borrow a cup of sugar or a Phish CD
In the drive through at Wendy’s tonight, there was a car full of high school boys in front of me. The guy at the window had forgotten to give them barbecue sauce and the kids drove away without it. A minute later, when I was pulled up at the window, one of the kids walked up to the drive through guy and demanded his barbecue sauce. The guy told him to bring his receipt. The kid had a fit, walked away cursing, but came back with the receipt. The drive through guy happily obliged then and handed him the sauce. The kid said thank you, but then walked away cursing again and as he drove off yelled, “Next time I’m going to Burger King, you fucking dick.” I’m sure that kid went home and told the story of the mean drive through man who wouldn’t give him his barbecue sauce. I was at first upset with the kid’s bad behavior, but when I looked up into the window, the worker was laughing and had already shrugged it off. Two hours later, I can’t shrug it off for some reason.
I ate my Wendy’s treats in my car on the side of the street while reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, all because I saw that my landlady was up when I drove up to the house and while she is quite a nice person, I wasn’t in the mood to chat.
I have drank literally over a gallon of water today.
I miss Virginia.
Elinor sent me Canadian gum called “Thrills” and told me it tasted like disgusting soap. She was right. I spit it out right away. Chris F., on the other hand, happily munched on five at a time.
I am very very tired for no apparent reason.
Okay! I’m not in Duluth yet, as I should have been. This is going to be a positive update. But listen: I am so ridiculous sometimes that I need to take a step away and laugh and point at myself.
I was on my way to Duluth this morning in the middle of awful traffic and every since my Infamous Day of Two Car Accidents, I’ve been a little apprehensive about driving, “a little apprehensive” translating to “a hyperventilating flip-out artist.” So, I’m crawling at 10 miles below the speed limit to the dismay of all the grandmothers zooming past me and my brain is off its leash and running around and yapping up shit like this:
“Oh, my GOD, you’re sixteen feet behind me, don’t hit me don’thitmedon’thitmedon’t hitme, oh shit, we’re going in a tunnel, this is going to end up like Princess Diana, except I’m driving a battered Hyundai and I’m only a princess on my good days, SHIT WHAT IS THAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD ITS A LIVE ANIMAL, oh, it’s just a cardboard box, crap, I can’t swerve around it, I’m going to flip my car if I hit it and I’m not a stunt driver, SHIT SHIT SHIT, okay, my car didn’t flip. Why are you PASSING ME? I’M IN THE RIGHT LANE, I’M ALLOWED TO BE GOING 3 MILES AN HOUR! Don’t honk at me! I used to be a fast driver! What if I was driving slow because I had a broken foot and it was sensitive! You don’t KNOW ME! DON’T HONK AT ME! Oh, God, I think I’m going to puke – ”
Needless to say, I decided not to make the trek to Duluth in afternoon traffic. Hence, I’m leaving tonight. Safer for everyone that way.
Here’s what’s positive: I had a sort of tough day yesterday, not tough in the sense that I slayed dragons or fought my way through the glass ceiling in corporate America, but tough in an emotional-messy way. I was driving home from my emotional-messiness and I was starving, so I stopped at the grocery store. I became fascinated with a tall thin black woman in front of me. Her hair was short and her features were what could only be called handsome, though I never really understood what a “handsome woman” was when I read that term in my books. Anyway, she was so calm and her voice was low, relaxed and serene. She smiled at me and chatted with me, and I wanted to crawl into her leather purse and have her take me home. She was buying baguettes and sparkling seltzer. Her togetherness made my red sloppy face and disheveled unbrushed hair feel ridiculous. But she made me happy for no apparent reason.
And then! Then! I came home to a wonderful care-type package from Elinor, and I was almost giddy with happiness.
Here’s what else makes me happy: I’m drinking de-caf again because I’ve been popping sedatives again to chill my overcorrecting nerves and caffeine doesn’t mix with that. But the cup of coffee I had yesterday was absolutely perfect, sugar and half-and-half balanced to the point of zen.
Yesterday, I was listening to a boy play guitar in a warm park surrounded by happy screaming kids and mosquitos who were nibbling me because my hair smelled sweet.
I have these gray shorts that make me feel my age and make me feel sexy. In fact, I feel all around sexy lately. I went shopping the other day and found the perfect pair of jeans and shoes and now I feel complete, clothing-wise.
Look: poor over privileged me, having to choose between two people who love me. Having to be unemployed, but still have plenty of money. Having to have a car, food to eat, books to read, coffee to drink, friends to hug, music to melt into and parents to run home to. What do I have to complain about? Somehow I find it, though. I wish my brain could make the connection that I have an overabundance. I’m not sure what it thinks I’m lacking.
The feel of the grass under my toes. Absolute love and loyalty from a person who should hate me by now, but continues to surprise and impress me. My damn teddy bear. Do you know I sleep with a teddy bear? I do.
I am okay. Sometimes I’m not, but right now, in this moment, I’m okay and it’s these moments I try so desperately to cling to, to remember, to remember how Laffy Taffy tastes when it’s a gift and to remember the comfort of the passenger seat of an SUV I’ve known for years now, and to mostly remember the untouchable part of me that I don’t let anyone get to, that I keep safe and sacred and strong for afternoons like these when I’m alone, but entirely content.
I’m in a writing slump, both on this site and in general. My mind has been left to its own devices this summer, receiving random stimulation from second-rate books and first-rate philosophical conversation, but it can’t seem to focus on anything specifically. Make sense? My brain needs glasses. You can’t get nerdier than that.
I took a shower in the dark today because breakers were flipping all over the house for some reason and whatever was connected to the bathroom was currently out of service.
On Saturday, I saw an incredible performance by a band called Phantom Planet. The venue was overcrowded and loud, and I can usually only take those type of overwhelming sardine situations if I’m drinking. But I’m not drinking lately, so I sat on the fringes and listened. And it was still just as incredible.
I watched Ani DiFranco’s documentary/concert footage-filled/injected-with-craziness DVD Render. It was a mess of a film, but Ani was interesting and cute and made this statement about the death penalty (paraphrased): “When we sentence someone to the death penalty, we are judging that person on the worst moment of their life.” I like that. I can think of a million arguments against it, but I like it. We are constantly judging people on their mistakes or their “worst moments” – years of decent behavior is forgotten when the apple is reached for. To quote Chris F., who is quoting from Atlas Shrugged, how can you use someone’s own virtue and morality system against them?
Trust is hope taken for granted.
Anyway. Glasses. I told you.
I’ll be in Duluth later this week for Abbey’s’s 21st birthday. I miss that girl. She’s a grown-up and I’m still flitting around porch lights.
Enough! Onto coffee (decaf) and books and who knows what else?
I’ve been really sick for two days now, and today I felt too horrible to even go to Erik’s cabin. So, I’ve been home, recuperating. I do feel better and am driving the four hours to his cabin tomorrow morning.
Alone on the fourth of July for the third year in a row, and for once, I don’t mind. I went to the grocery store and grazed the organic food aisle for close to 45 minutes, a record considering I am known for my avoidance of grocery stores. They overwhelm me, the colors, the fluorescent lights, the wide-open spaces, the clank-clank noises of the carts. Sensory overload. Tonight, I took my time. I walked slowly, I breathed slowly and I carefully selected orange juice and cottage cheese. And I was okay. A little dizzy, as always, a little unfocused, but I was okay.
I walked into the parking lot and people were sitting on their cars. The fireworks had begun, splays of red and white and green against the stars. I contemplated sitting on my car, but the lot was full of families and not single blonde girls in cars with Virginia license plates. So, I left. And I drove and I drove until I stopped in front of a darkened park across the street from the neighborhood I’m living in. I grabbed my orange juice and stepped out of the car. The air was perfect, smooth, warm. Fireworks exploded behind trees and I began to walk towards them, deliberately, thinking left then right, mantra-like. I concentrated on my sandals hitting the gravel and the pulp of the orange juice on my tongue. I walked along the street and was reminded of a different world and time, the many humid summer nights I spent walking through my neighborhood in Virginia. It was a ritual of sorts. I would walk down the hill, sometimes racing, sometimes tiptoeing. I would reach the end and stand under the glare of the streetlight and listen to the creek whisper along the rocks.
Tonight I walked until I was able to see the fireworks through tall trees in someone’s backyard. I stood in the street, very still, very balanced and I watched the wind carry the color of the fireworks like lightening bugs across the sky, through the trees and then down to the grass. I watched and I heard myself breathe and I felt my hand with clarity around the bottle of orange juice. I had goosebumps and mosquito bites and I had a feeling of being for the first time in months. Maybe a year.
The fireworks stopped before I was ready. I walked, anyway, back to my car and drove back to my house, to my basement. My landlady was playing beautiful music out of a small cheap boom box on top of her microwave. I stopped in the door and listened. And listened and listened.
. . .
Seeing the sky light up makes me think of war. I don’t know if I believe in fireworks, and I thought that as I stood there with the lights from the houses reflecting leaf-shaped shadows on my arms. I don’t believe in fireworks? I have lately come to realize there is very little I believe in, and I am almost ill with the fact. I want to believe in anything and everything. Instead, I believe in the moments of clarity, like standing solitary on a street on the fourth of July drinking orange juice. But moments pass and become photographs. How can I believe in a photograph?