I was worried today when I awoke gasping and sweating, having just dreamt that Zack from Saved by the Bell had gone on a bloody killing spree with an AK-47, taking Screech down with him.
Fortunately, the day turned out just fine, with naps and metamorphic rock identification (I go to one geology lab and become convinced my calling was to become a geologist - ha! Ha, I say, to the rocks of the world, you won’t be having my soft 20something hands touching your craggy sharp surfaces) and plenty of fine dining in between, as I went grocery shopping last for the first time, literally, since last March. No joke. March was the last time I can remember having a full grocery experience.
I also sliced my little toe close to the bone on a broken lamp and my nose is still painful to the touch, but nothing a little ice cream and an all-nighter can’t fix. Cheerio.
I know sleep isn’t the most fascinating subject, but it seems like once you get to college, it becomes an obsession. I’ve officially ruined any circadian rhythm or healthy sleeping pattern I’ve ever possessed. I’ve developed some what of a routine: four hours of sleep a night during the school week, stay up until the wee hours of 5 or 6 AM Friday night, and then literally crash until 5 PM on Saturday. Today I planned to get some important things done, but no - I lay down for all of two seconds, and I was out for three hours, those three hours being between 8 and 11 PM. So how am I going to get enough sleep to trudge through a 7 hour school day tomorrow? Magic! I can only hope.
In other news, I think my nose is fractured. Note to self (and self’s nose): Even when prompted, don’t try to break up a playful half-drunken 4 AM wrestling match between two hyper energetic boys unless you desire your nose to be smashed in by a flying skull (still attached to the neck and neatly inside the scalp, however). Two days later, my nose still feels swollen and injured.
The moral today is: naps solve everything except sleeping patterns and a flying skull is a frightening image, especially to my poor soft freckled nose.
Goodnight.
P.S.: Oh! I almost forgot. Chris F. and I have second-row tickets to see Ani DiFranco in November. Second row! And it’s an acoustic show, so it’ll just be the girl and her guitar. Yay, yay and a pinch of more yay.
Once we went to the ocean.
Once upon a time we fell asleep at midnight on a boat dock in Detroit Lakes and when we woke hours later, the moon had changed position and we both had a silent moment of wondering if we had been somehow floated up into the stars and dropped on another dock on another planet in another lifetime.
Today is my best friend from middle and high school’s 22nd birthday. I haven’t seen her since January and she’s going through a gross sort of hell with her life lately. I’m thinking about her and hoping she’s okay. I’ve known her for ten years now and she introduced me to all the secret naughty bits of puberty. I miss her.
In an effort to not read fine British Literature, I dug through the Friday Five lists to find a decent group of questions and here is what I found:
1. What is your biggest pet peeve? Why?
Tailgating. It takes me from zero to absolutely fuming red-cheeked pissed in .0005 seconds. I didn’t do well with city driving this summer.
2. What irritating habits do you have?
I poke people in the ear for no apparent reason. Only people I know well, however. I lose absolutely everything and have no sense of direction. I use everything of Erik’s and forget to replenish it. I spill candle wax on everything. I sing too loudly to songs in my room. I’m sure there’s a million things I’m unaware of.
3. Have you tried to change the irritating habits or just let them be?
I’ve tried to not lose things, but it’s sort of hopeless. I think I’ve given up, really.
4. What grosses you out more than anything else? Why?
It takes a lot to gross me out, but tapeworms and maggots used to my top two disgusting puke-worthy elements. I had a long discussion with a groupof kids about tapeworms, however, and made peace with my inner tapeworm. Maggots, however, still make me cringe.
5. What one thing can you never see yourself doing that other people do?
Riding roller coasters, and any other equal stomach-dropping stunt.
These answers make me seem exceptionally odd tonight. Oh well, ear poking fun for everyone.
Her belt buckle has slid to her right hip, or maybe she meant it to be there. She’s singing my favorite song of hers, and all I can seem to do is stare unblinkingly at her silver belt buckle made green by the par cans, sitting squat on her hipbone. Soon there are fingers in my view and she is twisting the buckle back into place, fiddling actually, a nervousness that isn’t conveyed by her loud open-mouthed laugh into the microphone.
And it’s the belt buckle, sort of, that causes me to think of this: defense mechanisms. This time I don’t mean crashing jets brimful with uranium into Iraq; I mean everyday human defense mechanisms that often come off as a personality trait that we dislike in a person. Example: there is a girl in my acquaintance who sticks her nose up at just about everything that isn’t in sync with her own ideals and beliefs. If she doesn’t like a person or a thing, it’s either superficial or “not real” in her eyes. We used to joke around, saying that only thing she actually likes is herself. Mean, now that I look back on it, even meaner when I realize that this is her defense mechanism. To preserve what she can in herself and to mask her insecurities, she elevates and holds everything to an impossible standard.
I met an overeager freshman girl in a gypsy skirt tonight who was hilariously funny and extremely chatty. When I first meet people, I’m extraordinarily quiet and low talking, so her chattiness began to get on my nerves a little. But then: defense mechanism.
I lie through my teeth to preserve what I know, and that’s one of the worst defense mechanisms I can imagine. I’m working on it. I get overly funny, misfire about 75% of my jokes and smile too harshly. If I feel vulnerable, I shut down, grit my teeth, rise above, develop the same traits as the girl in the first example. I am better than you because if I’m not that means you have won. And it is always a competition of insecurities.
This is not a new revelation, but it is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. When I’m finding myself thinking evil thoughts or disliking a person, I stand back and ask why. Most of the time - all of the time, actually - it’s been defense mechanisms.
. . .
The chatty freshman pulled me into where the concert was playing and sat me at a table. She pulled out a deck of Tarot cards and an accompanying book, and looked at me in a way that was supposed to be mysterious, but instead came off as extremely cute. She told me to ask a question, and I stuttered and stuttered until I asked a question, the only question it seem that exists in my fancy little life lately. She fumbled through the reading, obviously inexperienced, until she came to the last card. She grabbed my hand and placed it carefully on top of the card, watching me.
“What do you think this one means?”
I read Tarot, too, so I knew what it meant and I was ready to spout off a sophisticated I-am-old-and-wise answer, but before my lips could move, she stopped me.
“Listen. It means be honest, okay? It means don’t sacrifice, don’t wait for anyone and most of all, stop fucking things up.”
I stared at her. Laughed nervously. Told a joke. Misfired. Grabbed my book bag, said I had to go and left the concert early.
On the way out, I touched Erik’s shoulder, but he didn’t see me, didn’t hear my nervous laughter. Defense mechanism. When people hurt too much for him, they become ghosts.
I walked into the parking lot and the fog swallowed me whole.
Last-ditch Effort to Avoid Homework, 3403th in a Series:
1. Watch your hardrive de-frag. Not just for a few seconds, oh, no: get hypnotized for a full 15 minutes or so as the blue squares fly across your screen, healing what ails your files.
In other news, I’ve read the first thing of the semester that I enjoyed: Dr. Faustus. Somehow I’ve managed to avoid reading it through the years, but now Faustus and I are in love. I found a quotation from it that epitomizes my work ethic: “Hey ho, I am Sloth. I was begotten on a sunny bank and have lain there ever since.”
In other other news, I’m having a rather dry writing spell. Never fear, the more work I have to do in the next few weeks, the more prolific the writing.
I set some goals and guidelines for myself this week, one of which was broken into the wee hours of Monday. I was determined to be in the house by 1 AM and in bed by 2, but how are you supposed to deny a 1:30 AM invitation to a root beer float party?
You can’t, is the answer, and you can’t eat and run like you told yourself you would do when Simpsons quotes and homemade Egg McMuffins are also included.
P.S.: Happy 21st birthday to Miss Elinor, who could fly to Duluth and have a drink with me right now, if she so desired.
I prefer to update at least every other day, but I’ve found myself pretty silent these past few days, at least in terms of inspiring exciting compelling tidbits for here, not that anything here is quite inspiring exciting compelling and/or a tidbit.
So tidbits:
It’s fall outside, which means cold sleeping, oversized turtlenecks and at least a month until driving becomes a major life risk every morning.
I went to a party on Friday that consisted of nerds, and also a lot of people I sort-of knew from various classes or hallway sightings (including the guy I wrote about with the silver travel coffee cup - I saw him every where this week and thought he was intriguing, and then he showed up at the party). I have a sometimes embarrassingly uncanny knack for remembering names and faces from years back. It’s embarrassing, I think, because most people don’t remember names and I look like the dork in the back of the classroom who memorized the middle school yearbook to make friends. A few drinks later, however, and I was accosting a guy from my freshman lit class and amazing (AKA, creeping him out) with my skill to remember exactly where he sat in that 100 person lecture hall.
Speaking of a few drinks, I rarely drink much anymore, but it seems like any time I do, no matter the amount, I have to take half a day to recover. What is this? Am I an alcohol burn-out at 21?
After six straight days of four hour a night sleeps, my body finally collapsed last night at 5 AM and made me sleep solid until 1 PM. But it’s such a cold cozy day that I feel sleepy all over again.
I’m supposed to, I believe, mention the Sunny Wicked gig from the other night. Mentioned.
23 shiny pages of Everyman and my sixth veggie burger in two days awaits. Onward!
Tonight: Sunny Wicked’s first gig of the school year and Corina’s 22nd birthday. Sleep, homework and other
essential nutrients are once again put on hold.
. . .
Speaking of sleep, this has been my schedule this week:
Monday: Sleep at 4 AM, wake at 9 AM
Tuesday: Sleep at 6:30 AM, wake at 11 AM
Wednesday: Sleep at 4:30 AM, wake at 8 AM
I’m due to collapse any moment now.
The art of breaking up:
First, you must roll the vocabulary of the break-up over your tongue: Ex. That one’s short and violent and you’re unable to say it without a quick sneer. Break. Longer, and your lips have to form a kiss to slide through the middle of it. It still ends with a snap, a whip cracked and pulled back. Goodbye. This is tricky. The first syllable of it would lead you to believe that there is joy in it; that when you hold out the “Os,” your mouth is reveling in something easy and low to produce. The “bye” however is the door slam in the face of the smile.
Next, you must re-program, which is slightly more difficult than usual if you live with the person in question. Ah, the first mistake is made right away! You’ve been using his toothpaste this month because you like it better than yours. However, it’s not cute anymore, ladies, because this is what couples do. Instead, reach to the third shelf and find a dusty tube of generic paste that tastes like pickled baking soda. As you brush, the mirror reveals you are wearing one of his old t-shirts. Sitting to check your e-mail reveals the black chair he gave you for Christmas. A slight turn to the right, and there is the framed photograph of him that he gave you for your birthday almost three years ago. (Three years!) You always thought it was silly because it was an odd picture - him, with his profile to the camera, reading a letter in a red plaid easy chair. Now it makes you smile. Too bad! Flip the picture over, take it off your dusting list for the week.
Third, you must re-write the future. Oh, you thought you learned, did you? You thought you learned to not convince yourself once again of marriage and apartments in the city and joint dogs and furniture. You always shuddered when you were at his lake cabin and watched the women fuss over cookies and fruit salad and their men. You always told him that you were independent! You didn’t need anyone! Marriage? In-laws? Ha! That life is not for me! Slowly, it became the life for you because the life was with him. No longer! The future is as follows: wake up on the couch because the one bed between the two of you is in the basement now. Don’t think: “What are my beloved and I doing today?” Think: “How do I get through the day with this gross amputation?”
. . .
I crept quietly in the house this morning at 6 AM. The place felt empty and clean, almost sterile for a change. I stood in the basement and contemplated the curled gathering of covers in the middle of the mattress. There was a space beside it that had the ghost of my indentation in the sheets, and I slid into it. Automatically, his arm slung over my shoulders, heavy and warm. It felt like a violation on my part; for all he knew, he was holding a tuba or an SUV, whatever object fit best in the dreams he was having. But I stayed, slept solid and in the morning, he was gone.
“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
— H.G. WELLS
I feel mean today, like I should be stealing little kids’ lunch money and comic books. So, because of that, here’s a sparkling gleaming list of Participation Positives:
The new live Ani Difranco CD rocks my boxers, if I wore boxers and also if I said things like that. One of the new songs on it, Welcome To, is on repeat repeat repeat.
So, two weeks late, I added a geology course to fulfill one of my general ed categories. Today was my first day and I actually feel like I learned something, which is a novel idea for me in school. I have these days where my brain slinks away from its hermit status and becomes sponge-like and eager. Unfortunately, this happens every decade or so, but at least right now I can tell you anything you want to know about plate tectonics.
This weekend was incredibly fun, though going to the bars is really only something I can do once a month or so. My bank account and my liver are shivering in a corner together right now.
Little things: Pumpkin spice candles which remind me that it’s almost Autumn, which is my favorite season.Boys in green flannel shirts carrying silver travel coffee cups in the Humanities. Sloughing through Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charity and then being rewarded by actually being prepared for the quiz. The way people are always the sweetest when they’re very nearly asleep. For once actually enjoying my status as a senior in college.
Water fountains. Tree shadows. Lullabies. Nifty new highlighters. Saxophones. Shoe boxes. Naps that solve everything. Microphone stand rings. Moles. Care packages. Honey and oat granola bars.
You know, two parts of me are constantly snarling at each other: my cynical, skeptical left side and my new-agey all-you-need-is-love right side. When I write gushy stuff like this, I always want to make disclaimers like, “Look, I see the bad in things, too, believe me, and I don’t romanticize much.” But the truth is I am one of those hippie-esque people who sees the good in everyone and everything, and in the end, that side tends to win.
P.S.: This is a powerful poem.
As I sat in American Lit yesterday, my head exploded. Splat, the fragments fell to the floor and in the rearrangement of them, I found myself dropping my theatre minor, adding a Women’s Studies minor, and contemplating my future in the Serious ohfuckohshit Manner I do every three weeks or so.
Walking to my car in the strange Duluth heat wave, I kept a constant running dialogue. I said: Self, what do you sincerely love that could turn into a career of sorts? And Self replied: the internet, writing, reading books, animals, live music and live theatre. The scoffing smartass that takes up too much space in a well-lit portion of my brain replied, “Oh, look, that’s a list of hobbies. Hobbies, dear girl, hobbies! Not career opportunities, really.”
Then the soothing plump matriach-type figure on the other end cooed, “Oh, you’re only 21 years old. You have plenty of time to figure out what you want!”
Well, true, I know this. And I know these angsty lamentations are just the usual accessories of a college lass in her 20s. But knowing that doesn’t seem to keep me from flipping out on a weekly basis. It also doesn’t help that I am surrounded by 20-something college kids who know exactly what they want, and how to get it.
I feel I am floundering, often. I’m not opening a multi-million dollar nightclub or playing in a rock band or writing for newspapers. I am finding creative ways to not turn in homework or go to class or get more sleep, or reading books of no consequence or adding permalinks to a website that is a “hobby.” I’m yawning and watching with disinterest as September becomes January and 21 becomes 60. I have bursts of productivity that leave me exhausted for three weeks. My biggest struggle of the day is what to eat for lunch.
I’m gliding and not even enjoying the wind.
Since there’s no way I find myself fit enough to write something touching about 9.11, I’ll start a running list here of links that I believe say what I’m unable to put into words:
I’ve never seen war. Hell, I’ve never even been to a funeral or seen a dead body. But I can imagine the absolute terror it causes and that’s why it makes me cringe when I read stuff like this (via Dane). It’s so simple to say fight! fight! fight! when you are watching the destruction through a glass screen. It’s quite easy to lean back in a comfortable armchair, crack open an ice-cold beer and say, “We must kill! It’s the only way.” Fuck that. It’s not the only way. Fighting, whether it’s considered pre-emptive or retaliatory or what, can only result in destruction and unnecessary death.
I don’t have an alternative solution as of yet, but I can almost guarantee that if all the “great minds” of our so-called government put their energy towards a peaceful solution, one would be found. As parents are yelling at their kids for fighting on the playground, who’s going to yell at our government for doing the exact things we teach 6-year-olds are wrong? It disgusts me. Absolutely disgusts me. I don’t care how hippie and new age-y I sound, but I can’t hate or condone violence on a soul, and that includes terrorists, that includes rapists, that includes murderers and that includes the thousands of Afghani and Iranian citizens we are going to destroy because America has one heavy fucked-up trigger finger.
I feel so alone in these thoughts, but I’m not sure I care anymore. And when I do feel this alone, I reference back to the Barbara Kingsolver essay I read last fall, where she said this:
“I fight it as if I’m drowning. When I get to feeling I am an army of one standing out on the plain waving my ridiculous little flag of hope, I call up a friend or two. We remind ourselves in plain English that the last time we got to elect somebody, the majority of us, by a straight popular-vote count, did not ask for the guy who is currently telling us we will win this war and not be ‘misunderestimated.’ We aren’t standing apart from the crowd, we are the crowd. There are millions of us, surely, who know how to look life in the eye, however awful things get, and still try to love it back.”
. . .
So, I wanted to talk about the All Mighty Senators concert that took place at school today. It was a sweaty love-fest and made me miss the two summers I spent at the Big Wu Family Reunion. We didn’t go this year because ticket prices were astronomical, but the two times I did go ended up being the highlight of each summer. It was blazing hot in the school tonight, but there’s nothing like getting lost in a tangle of friends and music.
. . .
The house is asleep and feels empty. It’s considerably cooler in here now. There’s a big gaping hole where a bed used to be in my room and I can’t help but remember a time when I used to sing him to sleep with lullabies at 3 AM.
Well, really, the only news to report is that it’s damn hot here. I don’t mean a slight elevated heat that makes you stuff the jacket back in the closet and wear open toed sandals; I’m talking the type of heat in which you watch your fellow classmates’ eyes glaze with sweat, though the view is blurry because your own eyes have fried inside your skull. Considering I live in the land of (usually) perpetual winter, air conditioning is a faraway dream. It’s too hot to be up here in my bedroom, typing on this computer. In fact, it’s too hot to be living, I think. I’m expecting, and welcoming, spontaneous combustion at any moment now.
Today is finally Matt’s 21st birthday. He’s the last of the brood to be legalized, which is exciting and frightening at the same time because it means we’re all getting elderly.
I was going to do Participation Positives today, but they will have to wait. My freckles are sliding off my face. Time to take a nap in the cool delicious spider-filled basement.
Update, 2:46 PM: Just as I finished writing, the sky opened up and is now exploding with wonderfully cool rain. It’s summer rain, the type that would be warm, if I still lived in Virginia. No naps; time to run in the street like a girl who’s been captive in a desert.
I’m supposed to be reading and analyzing Samuel Johnson’s The Vanity of Human Wishes and I am on the verge of flinging my 4.5 pound Brit Lit into the blender and hoping it produces an educational smoothie that I can drink and be suddenly filled with ancient British knowledge. I seriously am beyond understanding the poem, and I feel dumb even admitting that because I am a literate! educated! English! major! I can’t skip my first paper of the year. However, I’ve gotten a total of 10 hours of sleep in three days and oh how sweet the call of sleep, braying at me like a mermaid atop a cliff, if mermaids bray, which I’m not quite sure they do.
I started this entry an hour ago, and in that time span, I have managed to drink a glass of water, talk to approximately 80 people online, read a story from my American Lit book to Erik, sing loudly and blues-like to Ryan Adams and Ani Difranco, and burn myself on a candle. I haven’t, however, written the paper or finished reading The Vanity of Human Wishes. I unfortunately also just thought of horrible jokes, such as my VAIN HUMAN WISH is not to read this poem, and - well, that’s really all you need to know.
Dane has a nicely written blither today. An excerpt:
“I was having a good time, and didn’t care how foolish I looked. I mean, it’s not a perfect sensation, as my mind often concerns itself with the fact that I’m not concerned with what people may think, and then concerns itself with the fact that I’m concerning myself with the fact that I’m not concerned about other people.”
Also: for some reason, this product keeps popping up in my Amazon Gold Box. I have seriously contemplated purchasing it twice just because, well, I think I’d be the only kid on my block to own one.
I shouldn’t be up this late since I’m trying to re-acclimate my body to a school schedule, but: I went to see Alva Star, a rock band from Minneapolis, at the school tonight and it was absolutely incredible. I sat cross-legged on the floor right up against the stage and stared drop mouthed at the band. I haven’t been that moved by music in a long while. There was a point when John Hermanson, the lead singer, was singing a slower mournful type tune by himself and I was close to tears. I am also now dangerously in love with him. Wow. Wow, wow and wow. It was a beautiful show and I was hugged by awesome kids I hadn’t seen in a while and I left feeling giddy, hyper and creative. This could possibly be, in an odd way, the best beginning to a college year yet.
This is the last vague serious black cloud statement I will make this week: what I’ve learned this summer and in these past few days is that when friends refuse to be straight with you and when friends gossip and fuel rumors without confirming what they’ve heard or attempt to sincerely clear the air; when friends take the dark all-whispers-and-glares route, there is nothing you can do about it except continue to live your life the way you feel is right and take their example as a way not to behave. It’s an unfortunate and sad reality, but I’ve realized that my worry and sadness is over things I can’t change. So no worry! No sadness! (But lots of shady punctuation and run-on sentences, apparently).
. . .
The first day of school! Ah! For the third year in a row, I forgot to print my schedule, so I spent a frantic sweaty half-hour trying to track my class down since the computers were being sticky. My one class of the day consisted of a low talking short professor with jerky head movements. I have a feeling I’m going to be the bad kid in the back of the class this year. I also spent the whole school day with my left contact inside out and smeared with who-knows-what. Despite half-blindness and schedule amnesia, this first day went great. I felt like a social independent hot young thang.
This afternoon, Erik and I had margaritas and chips overlooking the lake, and I felt like I exhaled a breath I had been holding for three months. Last night, I crammed into a car with four good friends and ate pizza and drank coffee in a deserted restaurant. On the way home, we took a back alleyway that had steep grades and bumpy rocks. The sunroof was open and my hair was flying. I am young! and invincible! once more.
An obvious realization: people lose compassion for your pain when you have caused them their own private pain. That’s a lonely and personal thought, and this morning, with the foghorns underscoring the thunderstorm, it’s echoing down the street like a gunshot.
Tomorrow is the first day of school, and I feel I’m beginning the year on a rather isolated path. This time last year, the house plus others were in the living room, piled on couches into each other, unbelievably excited about living together. This time this year, I feel uncomfortable walking into my own kitchen if other people are there. There’s a fine noose of tension dangling in every room I walk in, and it’s beginning to tighten. I walk into rooms and lose my air. I feel nastiness rise in my throat and I catch it just before I let it form words.
I think: understand. Try to understand. I have, and I have, and I have. I’ve been too proud, as usual, but my empathy machine has been constantly whirring. I think: what did you expect? Don’t you deserve this? They all warned you, said this would happen, but you were deaf in love.
I think: how can something so beautiful be so hated? They don’t see the quiet moments under the orange lights; they haven’t read the letters or listened in on the phone calls or peeked in the keyhole to see what type of love this is. They see the hurt on the face of the boy who was left behind; they hear the vitriol from the girl who was betrayed.
I’ve never taken the easy way and this is the first time I’ve considered it. But would it matter? If I forget this summer, this person, will I be included in the inside jokes again, looked at without squinted eyes and curled lips? I don’t think it would change a thing expect to ease the pain of the boy, my best friend, that I cut. Who am I living for then?
My deadline is here. School begins tomorrow, and I have to choose a life. Choose Your Own Adventure at its finest.
I stumbled in at 7 AM this morning, having not been to bed yet as usual, having been given an ultimatum, and I slept with angry dreams. I woke with my eyes metallic, as if I had been crying. The rain fell in gray slants, and I sat curled up in this chair, in this blanket, memorizing the grass. It will be covered in snow in a month and I’ll forget that green was in existence.
I have no eloquence, just jaggedness. I want to give my usual angst disclaimer, but this is real and I feel awful. The part of me that I squelch wants to say, “See? Are you happy? I finally feel terrible and lonely. Is that what you wanted? Can I play again?”
But the part of me that rises will take a shower, brush my teeth, walk downstairs as if I’m still the queen, as if I’m untouchable, as if this is all just an interesting complicated game.
