A photo which has nothing to do with this post, and everything to do with summer.
1. You may notice about 16,000 entries into various website directories in which this website is self-described as the “web journal of a temperamental actress/writer who lives a very unusual life.” In fact, you may have sauntered in here under the impression you would find someone who lives a very unusual life, and then been sorely disappointed to find no unusual life present. First off, that description was intended for my high school website from nearly six years ago.
Second of all, I was a moron in high school and thought that being depressed and in an arts school meant I was living a “very unusual life.” I also believed the best way to market my website was to plug into every single directory on the internet, which — now that I think of it — probably was the best way to market in 1997. No matter, you will not find an unusual life here. I am very sorry if you’ve been misled.
2. In your earnest searchings for all things Zosia Blue, you may have come across my Audioscrobbler results. Audioscrobbler worked for exactly 32 hours with my WinAmp and then promptly broke. This was the same day I had decided to listen to J-Lo and Christina Aguilera on repeat, which leads me to the conclusion that I either must’ve been a) very angry with my roommates or b) dressing up in slutty clothes to go to a party or a bar. I’m not an outward music snob (inwardly, I’m snarking about each and every one of your music tastes), but I would rather not be known forever in Audioscrobber circles as a J-Lo and Christina Aguilera lover. So, please take note and judge accordingly.
Well. This explains why my fingers were black. Who knew?
Today, I woke with police station inkstains on each of my fingers. No amount of scrubbing will remove the ink, also much like police station ink.* I didn’t drink last night, so there isn’t the possibility that I ended up in jail without remembering it, so, this gets a resounding WTF? Am I sleepwalking? Are there ghosts with inkwells swooping into my room at night? Maybe it’s coming from the inside out, and I’m turning into a Rorschach test. Either way, very strange indeed. (Also, if you have any scenarios to offer me, please feel free to e-mail me. I’m feeling a little like I’m losing my marbles.)
. . .
I really liked this article (via Metafilter). In a way, it pinpoints my discomfort with the idea of frantically attempting to hold onto each second as it passes because you never know when you’re going to die. I feel like the idea of “smell the roses” and all that has drastically gotten out of hand, at least for me. I have moments where something beautiful or interesting is happening, and my mind is screaming, “THIS IS A GREAT MOMENT. REMEMBER IT. MAKE SURE YOU’RE EXPERIENCING IT. ARE YOU? HUH?” So, the idea of thinking of time in tens of thousands of years relaxes me a little. I notice the details, constantly, but it’s comforting to add a feeling of permanence to something wholly impermanent. Or that might just be horrible doublespeak. Either way, good article.
. . .
There’s the smallest of possibilities that things might be getting interesting again. Nothing’s happened yet, but there’s a tiny seed within a seed of an intriguing possibility on the horizon.
*I would like to clarify that I’ve never actually been arrested. As I’ve mentioned before, my mother works in law enforcement, so I spent many hours hanging around the station, and I always ended up being the guinea pig for new officers practicing their fingerprinting techniques.
1. Last night I had a dream in which I fought a ninja, totally Matrix style, with the glossy floating air turns and all. This is only noteworthy because I know nothing about ninjas. I know many people have a cultish fascination with ninjas, but, really, I’ve never paid much attention to the ninja culture. Which probably explains why the ninja I was fighting was wearing a flowered hair bandana, carrying glittery ninja stars (or whatever they’re called), and looking exactly like my homosexual high school boyfriend.
2. I went searching the thrift stores today for the perfect china cup and saucer, but to no avail. Really, my coffee-drinking experiences are enhanced by the crockery at hand, and while the mugs I have make the experience efficient and cozy, nothing beats a china cup. Two summers ago, when I was living in a lady’s basement in Hopkins and just getting on the road to my Wild and Crazy Quarter-Life Existential Crisis, I was spending half my nights with my boyfriend’s at his mother’s place where he was staying occasionally. Our relationship was in the process of slowly ending, so we didn’t do much beyond cuddle into each other at nights, fully-clothed, for companionship.
Early during those summer mornings, I would creep out of the bedroom, into the kitchen and brew a pot of coffee while I turned his mother’s china cups over and over in my hand, marveling at their tiny delicate beauty. I mean, shit, it was just a fucking cup and I know that, but I have never had coffee taste so good as those mornings when I would sit at his mother’s dining room table, watching the sunrise, holding that cup and saucer, pretending this was my very perfect house and my very perfect life.
3. Sometimes I’m watching Chris laugh with a friend or make a sandwich and I suddenly feel this desperate fluttering in my stomach, and I think: I want to always remember him like this; like he is just now, with strong arms and a wide smile; long hair and blue jeans and gray t-shirts. This is not an original thought, and maybe even an entirely sappy one — I mean, I’ve read this sentiment in a million novels, but I’ve never felt the tug of the idea until now.
There is just something about him at 23 years old that is so vital and healthy and present. It’s sometimes like I’m in a movie where the majority of the movie is narrated by an old woman remembering her past, and watching him is the flashback. Sometimes he will turn to grin at me or touch my arm or make a joke, and I feel transparent — not in a negative sense, but in the sense that I’m physically watching the wheels flipping and the moment pass and my body is temporarily blinded by the flash of the picture my brain is frantically trying to capture.
I used think if one was over the age of 16, writing about anxiety and depression on the internet was forbidden, as far as those loose rules that exist around websites go. In my high school website, I did plenty of lamenting and type-weeping, and once I was out of my teens, I thought: okay, enough. Here’s the age where I suck it up; where the norm becomes to compress and bottle, as mental conditions are still - still! - viewed as a whiner’s luxury. But then internet writers I respected, such as Dooce, began sharing their experiences with anxiety and depression. Here are perfectly wonderful, intelligent, capable adults, baring their brain glitches and dark moods, without a trace of teenage angst. And so.
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Hi. I went to Virginia and now I’m back. I’m wearing a necklace made from jellybeans and a sunburn. Stories to follow after I’ve properly smooshed the cats with love.
I have always been a person who claimed to hold no grudges. I have subscribed to the theory for a very long time now that we are all the same on a basic, skeletal level and in that sameness, we are good. So when someone treated me badly or cut in traffic, I said, in the immortal words of Lita Ford, “It ain’t no big thing.” I think this is a concept the entire human race should strive towards: not allowing yourself to be trampled upon, necessarily, but giving friends and strangers and enemies free tickets for compassion. This is an idea I assumed I mastered, until I realized, Saturday night, I have grudges camped in my brain like termites. They had been secretly nibbling, cutting their teeth on grooves and then, inevitably, my structure of forgiveness and mercy toppled.
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Tomorrow, I’m going to wax about some grudges I hold, but for now, here’s another picture from Saturday’s party. It was late, and there were 20 people standing outside, smoking and chattering in the rain, and I was half-asleep on Chris’s shoulder. Kip snapped this picture from the stairs. I like the idea that I look like this when I think nobody’s looking.
This photo pretty much sums up the wild summer party my household threw last night. I have much more to say, but there’s leftover pie to be eaten.