sarita rising

power

2008-05-06T18:45:00.000-04:00

I am having a boundary issue, and I don't like it one bit.

I know this is perfectly reasonable and understandable. No human being likes it when their boundaries are pushed or violated. I've spent a significant amount of time in my life focusing on boundary issues, what to do when boundaries are affected, how to comfort those whose boundaries have not been respected . . . and I'm still having trouble.

I hate confrontation, because I fear it. Because rarely have I had to face the prospect of not "winning" a confrontation, and part of me fears that one day, there will be a confrontation and I will "lose" - I mean really lose, lose something valuable - the fear is that some day, I will lose the ability to control my own boundaries. I will lose the ability to say "no," someone will take that decision away from me. That is the scariest prospect of all. I've never had to face it on my own behalf, and that prospective loss of power is terrifying. I face it on the behalf of others often, every day, but having my own choice taken away? Well, there's a reason powerlessness is a fear, a huge, scary, middle-of-the-night fear for most humans. It is hard to face the prospect of my real powerlessness. I mean, I face the specter of it, the philosophical idea of it, every day, and I've learned to live with that, but that is simply one way of many I've sublimated the fear. I do it in my sexual relationships - BDSM can easily be seen as acting out twin fears: the fear of what we do when we have power over another, and the fear of not having any power. I realized a few short weeks ago that the story I've been telling myself about my romantic/sexual relationships has been a narrative of other people acting on me, not me making choices as an actor in my own story. I think my volunteer work has something to do with it, too - people who've survived losing their power and lived to tell the tale. What if my reality had included no power, from the start? How would I deal with it? How does one exist in the world if one has never known the power to say no?

I don't know. There are people in my life who live this question in various ways - people who didn't have power over their sexual/body boundaries, because they started receiving sexual abuse very young. People who've never had certain assumptions assigned to them by society because of the color of their skin - they've never had access to some kinds of power. People who will never be able to fully engage with their partner in public because of the gender(s) of people involved. All sorts of ways. And this is another way being at the top of the heap has weakened me. This is not to disown my power - all the power I do have, which is plenty - but more to say, having never bounced back from the lack of one kind of power, I'm afraid to lose any of it. Not only is there a paradox of power - having so much, afraid to lose any - but there's also a paradox of resilience. People who've survived our culture in ways different from me - without the power of white skin, or assumed hetero status, or a life free from sexual violence - have survived. That's the point. I'm like those "bubble kids" the media writes about every once in a while - with parents so scared to expose them to germs, to scrapes, to failing grades, that they've never had to navigate a difficult experience. Never had to negotiate falling or failure. Which doesn't raise strong kids, it actually weakens the kids quite a bit. That's how I feel. Unsure of taking a few tentative steps on my own - never having fallen, I do not know it's possible to pick myself up.

Many of our ideas, memes, and tropes are about loss of power over oneself, loss of choice. I think this is why I fear confrontations that don't even involve me - because someone will "lose," someone will end up feeling shitty when probably they were just trying to defend themselves against a perceived threat. I do not trust the world to respect my boundaries, the lines I draw in the sand.

And I know that I am right in this confrontation, and there is no real prospect my boundaries will be disrespected. Rationally, I know this. Irrationally, I fear this confrontation - this basic communication about expectations at work - as much as any other, perhaps more, because even though the person I'm confronting poses no threat to me, she does have power - she's my boss.

what you really need to hear

2005-11-16T22:14:00.000-05:00

i'm in a very strange sort of mood.

i went to the dead poet's slam, which was wonderful, as always. it made me want to write poems, and to recognize that i don't know nearly enough to write poems. it made me want to do romantic things and ostentatious things and a lot of things i really am too practical for. i'm no romantic, though in the secret coves of my heart i like to pretend sometimes.

i should be freaking out over my conference tomorrow but i am strangely zen. (initially wrote sex instead of zen. don't know why. i am strangely sex.)

i spent most of the day in a somewhat-tizzy over going abroad. two months and one week from now i will be in a country i've never visited, staying with a family i've never met, meeting all new people, speaking a language i don't understand. none of that is metaphor, either.

i want to believe it will be wonderful. because it will.

"how can something 'was, was not, forever is?' i'd like to was, was not, forever is myself." - marie howe, on a line of a poem we read

told you it was a strange mood.

i don't know what proposals will take place in my life (so far none have), but i want one of them to happen in the rain. i love rain.

i want to go home, to eat good food, to feel comfort and the prospect of adventure. "you get a phone call: come home. soon." (another line from a poem, this one at the dead poets slam.)

i want to go home. i want to have a home that is mine and not someone else's. i haven't really created a life for myself, not yet.

i want the next two years to come out okay. i want to close my eyes at this, the start of the roller coaster ride, as the days rush faster and faster and where they land i don't know. i want to close my eyes and open them and be somewhere safe, and in love.

i hate my government

2005-11-16T00:12:00.000-05:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm

this grieves my heart.

the U.S. used white phosphorus in the attack on fallujah. i saw that headline on the BBC front page and thought, oh shit, that can't be good, and decided to find out what it was. (of course, we lied about it afterwards.)

white phosphorus starts burning on contact with oxygen, and doesn't stop until A) deprived of oxygen or B) until it burns itself out. as some military guy is quoted in the article, "it'll burn down to the bone."

the horror of this is . . . i want to say incomprehensible, but i know it isn't. i know too much about DU, about agent orange, about the flattening of vietnam, about the army essentially giving my grandfather hodgkin's, about gulf war syndrome, about john crawford, to even pretend to believe my government wouldn't do this because oh yes, it would.

it is bad enough to know my government, with money from me and my parents and my grandparents, is lobbing bullets and "traditional" bombs (by traditional, in this case, i mean bunker busters - bombs that weigh more than i want to think about and create craters wherever they land, including houses we "mistakenly" pick out as targets) at the Iraqi people. we are literally raining fire down upon the people of Iraq.

it's a chemical weapon when launched at civilians. (why it doesn't count as a chem weapon when launched at "combatants" - as if we're even pretending there's a line in iraq - is beyond me. i am lucky: most of war is beyond me.) of course the army fucks are claiming we didn't lob it at civilians, but there is much evidence that those guys are NOT to be believed, isn't there?

no one deserves to have a chunk of this shit burning through their bodies; terrorist, father, brother, cleric, or otherwise. i am sure - sure as i know anything - that this DID hit civilians, and that means grandmothers and babies, with clothes burned through, screaming about a fire they did not know how to stop, fleeing into the streets in the hopes they'd be shot - anything to stop the burning.

the beauty part is the U.S. is not a signatory to the section of a treaty that would make this bombing illegal. (don't even get me started on our lack of "fair play" on treaties and the international scene.)

i hate my government.

i want to believe this shit will stop, but . . . i know too much.

in the new world, first it was the indians, and then it was the africans. it took us a long, long time to fuck up three whole continents' worth of people. (anywhere from two to four, actually: north america and africa, definitely, and south america too, and europe if you believe those on top are hurt as much by the actions against those on the bottom.) but once we were done with that, we turned outward: the phillipines, the conquering of Hawaii, the way we treated immigrants, vietnam, cambodia, the list of misdeeds in central america is longer than i can recount. we have sponsored death squads in dozens and dozens of countries. there's always another set of people to hate, whether it's the commies in vietnam, the jihadists in afghanistan (remember afghanistan?), or the saddam-sympathizers in iraq. this will not stop on its own.

this has been a long time comin

2005-11-06T16:06:00.000-05:00

dear C, ex-TWIL -

it sucks that our relationship has vanished, and i don't really blame myself.

i am not cool enough or activist enough or whatever enough to take up space in your life, to fit into your busy schedule. thank you.

if i could've made it better, if i could've improved it, i would've liked to know. and you, for all your professed honesty, didn't offer me anything. and if you didn't respect me - which is the vibe i got - you should've said it. when my friends do things i don't respect, i call them on their shit. similarly, if i'm *not* doing something and you can't respect THAT, then tell me. don't just spend a year confiding all of this shit in me and then . . . just stop. that's not fair. i really wanted to keep you around.

maybe i'm *not* cool or activist or whatever enough. maybe i am sitting on my ass in college. maybe i'm becoming more apathetic, not less. maybe i do feel a bit like my life is stuck in the mud and i can't wait for it to begin and MAN do i hope this feeling doesn't last beyond this semester, but if you recognize that, again, BRING IT UP. just don't leave me flailing about for an explanation. argh.

and it reinforced a notion i didn't need reinforced, namely that i can walk out of people's lives, and they won't care. that's a shitty idea that i have, and i've been trying to let it go, trying not to test my friends and the strength of my friendships but actually accept people, and then there you go and fuck up. grr.

also, it confirms a sneaky suspicion i had: that you talked to me just because i was there, just because i was around, and that you had 50 other friends who could've filled the exact same niche. i really, really didn't want to believe that, but now i kind of do. so much for the uniqueness of our friendship. but then, part of me is confused - it seemed like we were close, like in some ways i was different than the other 50. maybe that was a lie, maybe some other shinyshiny prospect has come along and you just forgot about me, or (i suspect this is it) your life took a turn or two that i didn't make with you, and you don't know how i could possibly fit in now.

i don't know, maybe my stupidity and ignorance became too much for you. for the record, i was not planning on using you to work out my shit: i'm a grown-up. you could've told me to shut my trap and that it was not your job to educate me or whatever if you felt it necessary. i feel like, through action or inaction, i offended you in some way, and i was never informed or given the opportunity to rectify that.

this sucks.

sarah

hermit

2005-11-03T22:17:00.000-05:00

i feel like i'm failing college. and i love this place academically, and as an institution, and i love my teachers, and i even like my shitty student jobs. but . . . the people not so much. it's the same thing everyone says about sarah lawrence. alums talk about the faculty here, not the kids. there aren't any people here i'm really close to, and the ones i could get close to, i don't know how to approach. i don't know how much of that is the SLC atmosphere and how much is me, but it sucks. and it makes me very, very nervous for the rest of my life. i have awesome friends now, but i would like to grow at some point. i feel like i'm unhealthily pulled to santa, to people related to santa, to all things new mexican . . . it's beautiful here, but i see a picture of the southwest sky and man i just want to be HOME. and i don't like feeling like i'm not completely committed to my life here. it's one of my least favorite qualities about myself. this sucks. i don't want to live in the future and the past, but i keep forgetting that. i suck.

in keeping with my theme, i am very excited to be in chicago in less than three weeks. i'm also looking forward to this semester being over . . . and so scared for my interpersonal skills while abroad. what's wrong with me? i can't make connections with human beings! WTF? i feel seriously socially inept. and i feel like anyone i talk to will just make me feel worse and/or give me crappy advice, or remind me that i have non-slc friends. i am a failure. (i'm also my mother. she kept in touch casually with two people from college, besides my father. less, really.)

i don't want to be in school anymore, and i hate that feeling because i know i'm a fucking broken record. i wish i could take time off, but i can't, due to family financial constraints. (i mean, i could, but then if i wanted to finish college i'd have to go to UNM, which is not a compromise i'm willing to make.)

fuck.

lucky*

2005-10-25T23:43:00.000-04:00

this is my "sarah's upset about rape" post. if you think i'm being whiny, you are probably male, and no matter your gender identity, you are kindly invited to fuck off.

rape is everywhere right now: on the boards, in the book i'm reading, in my mind. i'm preoccupied.

having sarah here has reminded me. we have that whole aaron/adam history. (i liked aaron, he and i had a relationship of sorts, he sexually assaulted sarah. sarah had a relationship, a serious one, with adam, he sexually assaulted me. i hated adam but didn't feel free to make that known because he and sarah were still dating at the time. sarah had no qualms about hating aaron right out loud and subsequently i removed him from my life with a jolt. maybe it's not as resolved as i thought it was. i never dealt with the adam thing; i think it wasn't that big of a deal. i don't know. tangled webs and all that.)

sometimes i feel like i'm living on borrowed time. rape is a reality that haunts me. i put so much energy into being safe, into paying attention. how can i not? it happens here. it happens everywhere. it happens to women i know. i don't want to be among their number and i'm not sure i can keep myself from it.

i'm reading alice sebold's Lucky* right now, which is a memoir of a rape survivor, and i can't not take it into myself. this is a quality i have. i cannot process information without taking it into my brain, inside myself. i cannot stay distant from most situations about which i learn, i cannot stay distant from the emotional states of my friends. it's really hard for me to draw those lines. and with rape, it's even blurrier.

i don't feel like i can walk into the hall and say, hey guys can you keep it down in here, i'm steeped in sadness over the fact that the world is not a safe place for any of the females in my life. that sounds crazy. it is crazy.

my mother insists this "sensitivity" is a good thing. i'm not convinced. i was telling her, i'm scared, mom, that it's not a matter of if but when. and she started lecturing me on fighting back, on protecting myself, and i said, OF COURSE that's what i focus on usually and that's what i think about and that's what i want, but alice sebold fought back, she fought and it didn't work. i have no guarantee. i have no assurance. every day is sorta a roll of the dice. all i have is the hope that i AM "lucky." but i know better than to count on that.

i just wrote a really long post elsewhere about "if ____ ended tomorrow" - the ways my life would be different if rape ended tomorrow, or had never existed, and homophobia, etc. the list that came out was really long, especially considering i'm not a survivor. but then i got even more pissed, realizing that if i have this much to say and i'm not even a survivor - rape isn't even my lived reality, "just" a threat - how pervasive it must be. how common. how unimportant and unnoticed. it's just an expected part of our culture.

this is something men can never understand, and they need to own up to it - you will never know what it is like to walk around in a woman's skin in this culture, in this country. and don't you dare blather to me about how common rape is, or how it has always existed. that does not change a simple fact: you do not have the skin of a woman. therefore, you do not know what it is to simply wear your skin and have that mark you as a potential victim to everyone who sees you. this is so common, in fact, that we don't even see it. we don't consciously think "that woman could be a victim" because we know it already, the same way we already know she has red hair. men cannot imagine this reality. i can barely grasp it, and it's been there my whole life, and certainly ever since you could tell i had breasts.

*the book is called lucky as an ironic comment: the police later tell her, in the same tunnel where she was raped, a girl was killed and dismembered. alice, by comparison, was "lucky."

the one who won't go away

2005-10-20T13:47:00.000-04:00

nutshell.
me: what turns you on?
boy: can i just say "you"?

you most certainly may, good sir.

it was partially out of laziness, as i tend to exhaust him with my endless questions, but that's a great sentence.

(unlike, *ahem*, "if i'm going to be sexual at all it won't be with you." BAD SENTENCE.)

five years and we still make each other crazy. five years and he'll finally be vulnerable, at least in some ways. going on six. soon to be six years of me being as insane as i want and him loving it, six years of me worshipping this boy who never deserved it. six years of exasperating each other.

i make it sound like we're in love. we aren't. i was, at one point, he never. i don't understand it either, not sure i understand how you can go through so much with someone . . . there's a difference between loving each other and being in love with one another. and yeah, ultimate cliche, i might always be in love with the *idea* of him.

i don't know what binds us. but i do feel bound. it's such a strange relationship, and i've never encountered anything like it, never known anyone else who had the same thing with someone. for two people who love definites, our relationship lives in this eternal, infernal gray area between dating, fucking, and friendship.

it's always this boy vs. every other.

what it is

2005-10-18T23:32:00.000-04:00

okay, so here's what's really bothering me.

(for those of you who don't know, i've been hemming and hawing over whether to spend money i *really* don't have to go to chicago for thanksgiving. now that you're all caught up . . . )

one of jonathan's last myspace blogger posts was "the joys of poordom." and i keep thinking about that. and it keeps reminding me that money is not important. even if i had an extra grand in my pockets going to central america, i don't think it would vastly alter my experience there.

and, and. look where money got jonathan, a part of me argues. part of me is terrified that i won't see *this* boy again, at least certainly not for a long, long time. like, all of 2006 and probably beyond. i'm going to have to start living my own life sometime, right? my family is scattered, this year, more than ever before, and it's only going to get worse with sean graduating and various people interning and graduating and whatnot and sarah moving. and once mana and sarah and em are flung to the far reaches of the globe, chicago will not be high on my priority list. and i don't want to lose this kid. i didn't get to say enough of a goodbye in august. that's what it is. i'm scared, and the rollercoaster is just starting to crest the first peak, just about to take off.

according to me, this is how we live, my friends. no money, ever, but happy. jonathan spent two whole paychecks on those goddamn skis.

and part of me, always, is terrified. what if i don't go and regret it? don't tell me it's farfetched, because obviously it isn't. if it's buying a cute shirt in guatemala versus regret for the rest of my life for not going, the choice is obvious.

dreams

2005-10-15T01:03:00.000-04:00

my dreams generally fall into one of four categories:

1. brutally violent. i cannot shake them off the next day because there is the image of a corpse - or two - in my head, and i watched them die. sometimes they don't even die. one dream involved an electrified grate on the roof of a house during a rainstorm, and worse.

2. sex with someone i would never have sex with, like sean or my SFCC english teacher.

3. people dying - but usually not in a horribly sad or violent way. just funerals. or dreams of dead people, where the dead appear. whenever i tell my mom about dreams like that, she asks if they speak in my dreams. sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. oddly enough, this scares me far less than your average grade-B zombie flick.

4. cigarettes. i dream about smoking them, about trying to quit, about smoking too many at once, about having to hide the cigarettes i smoke. i light the wrong ends of cigarettes. i have trouble lighting them. i inhale deeply. i wake up and the stench of smoke is in my nose. i can taste cigarettes. (or what i imagine they taste like.) i should note i've never smoked a single thing in my entire life.

to the boy who complimented my poem

2005-10-14T00:03:00.000-04:00

you're supposed to correct me! that's NOT how it was! i did NOT make eye contact with you, and i certainly wasn't as comfortable and confident as i come off in this snippy little poem. and i expect my poetry teacher to like it when i'm being a little ice queen, but YOU are supposed to call me on my bullshit. you officially have my permission. in fact, it's part of the JOB description if you want to be a friend of mine - built in shock proof shit detector. because i am FULL OF SHIT, and i need people who will TELL ME THAT, either gently like ed and maria, or bluntly like mana and my sister. oy. hard to earn my respect if you accept me as gospel - just my wayward nature. i barely even WROTE the poem. really, you did - you said it, you asked the intense, brutal, erotic, scary, so-sexy-it-makes-me-weak-kneed question. i just reacted, in the space of a tiny little stanza. you give me too much credit, sir.

i wrote this phrase a couple of months back (actually, at first i couldn't remember if i wrote it or emily did. . . i think it was inspired by something she said): "A GROUP OF TEENAGERS JUST TRYING TO STUMBLE THROUGH LIFE WITHOUT TOO MANY PEOPLE GETTING HURT." it still applies, even though i'm technically no longer a teenager. i'm still right. we're not trying to hurt anyone.

and some other things. i want to email you but i'm not sure if it's too passive aggressive. posting on my LJ is *definitely* passive aggressive, but i'm pretty sure this will not be read. but i can't talk to you . . . you make me strangely silent. it's scary, few boys silence me . . . only the really powerful ones. uhoh. in your presence my big mouth shuts itself up.

more later. i'm not done with you.

reprint

2005-10-12T00:53:00.000-04:00

dude, i'm not typing it again, or even copying and pasting. you wanna know the latest shit, look at my livejournal. my ID is the same there as here.

to sum up: there will always, always, ALWAYS be another girl, and she will ALWAYS win.

the meanest thing i've ever written

2005-10-05T23:03:00.000-04:00

**this is cross-posted with my livejournal. this is the last nasty thing i will post there, b/c it is nearly completely an SLC audience, and i don't want to perpetuate the crap around here. so, any venting necessary will be done on this blog from here on out. this is me sinking to her level for a time, writing about it so i don't actually do it. it was prompted by her saying i looked like hagrid, and Boy telling me about it.**

you know what's a party? apparently, every day, there is a new insult about me. being posted in the IMer profile. what doesn't make a lot of sense is that i am blocked from viewing this IMer profile.

how stupid ARE you, have you never been in a goddamn catfight before? you SUCK at this. you know what that means, don't you?

that means i don't KNOW about the insults until YOUR ex-boyfriend - yup, that's right, the one you spent 11 months of your life with, the one you gave your virginity to, yup that's the one - until he tells me about them while i'm laying in bed with him. and he usually starts out by saying i'm beautiful. uh-huh. beautiful. and then he tells me whatever your new bullshit is. man, this plan is working out GREAT, huh? you really showed me! what with that boy in my arms and the compliments coming my way rapid fire, i am WELL on my way to suffering JUST AS MUCH AS YOU. this makes perfect sense!

why didn't I think of this, act like a huge gigantic bitch, and do my best to drive him back into YOUR arms? silly, silly me. there is so much i can learn from you. please, keep on teaching.

because ultimately, i will win. i will have the boy, and not be burdened with the knowledge that, you know, i became his surrogate mother. it will not be my job to scold him, but just to enjoy his company. and i will enjoy it. without having to use him as a barrier against my own insecurities, without relying on him for emotional support, just for the pure joy of his company. i will not be left clawing at his ghost or trying to inflict pain on anyone else who thinks he's great too.

and, to accomplish this, i will not devote my time to approaching you or staring at you. i will not try to get my friends to focus their negativity on you, either. i will not spend any portion of my day devoted to creating more misery in this world. i will not bother talking about how much you suck when you won't even know the conversation took place. in short, i will not do things that make me look like a big gigantic loser (a sore one, at that) who cannot let go, who is acting pathetic, who is behaving as though she is a fraction of her age. i left the hell of junior high long ago, and i am sure as fuck not going back for the likes of you.

so, congratulations. you know your strengths and i know mine. you focus all that misery, all that impotence, all that hatred within yourself, and then go ahead and share with me. i'm happy, sweetheart. with or without your boy, i will be okay. if i get to keep him in my life, get to know him as a person, and watch him grow into whatever he's about to become now that he's by himself, that will be awesome. but i know i'm loved, and pretty, and a decent human being - no need to prove it or keep someone around to affirm it. you do what you have to, darlin. i hope someday you feel okay.

update

2005-10-04T00:12:00.000-04:00

here are the last two posts to my livejournal about the boy situation. if you want to know more/gory details, just ask. i just don't want everyone to get (even more) sick to death of it.

"Fetish"

It's a simple story, really.

Boy breaks up with Girlfriend.
Boy meets Girl.
Boy and Girl enjoy one another's company, move way too fast for it to be wise, make unwise decisions, enjoy each other recklessly, too soon, too quickly.
Girlfriend finds out, is upset.
Boy feels like shit for hurting Girlfriend.
(He cannot bring himself to say "Ex-," even in Girl's arms.)
Boy tells Girl, in true Old Movie Fashion, that they cannot see one another anymore.

Everyone wants to throw up.

(Except in this version, Girl is downing Plan B when Boy calls to tell her, and Girlfriend may be in Serious Health Trouble, and Boy has interesting sexual proclivities. The details change, but the story remains the same.)

"what i wish i could say to her"

i am sorry. in my better moments. it was never our intent to hurt anybody.

he's free now. let him go.

i know this is painful, believe me i do. but he's gone. you have to stand on your own two feet now, and blaming everyone won't change the fact that, at the end of the day you come home to yourself. maybe being a relationship for a long time can mask that, but it's still true no matter how much you avoid it.

you have only yourself upon which to rely.

do you REALLY want me to suffer as you have? is that your goal? or is it just easier to hate me rather than him?

i want you to say, fuck him, he can do whatever he wants, he's not good enough for me anymore. i want you to leave me alone. i don't want you to be a fucking psycho. i said i'm sorry, now please calm down.

please leave him alone.

i don't know why you approached me and said hi today, but i don't take it as a good sign. i don't want confrontation with you. i don't want contact with you.

but.

you should be warned. if you confront me, i will be honest. i will tell you that i'm not sorry for what we did, that i liked it, that he's done with you and that is not my fault. i will tell you to stop acting like a child, pick up your shit and move along. i will try not to say, him abandoning you has nothing to do with your father, because that would go too far. i know too much about you already.

i would like to have faith in you, to think that in normal situations you wouldn't judge me by how many pairs of heels i own or what colors i wear with my haircolor or call me ugly. in a weird way, i want to have the faith in you that he does, because i want to know that he chooses women wisely, want to believe him that you won't really damage me or my relationship with him.

right now, though, i just want you silent and gone from both our lives so this new relationship can unfold in peace. please.

the past 24 hours ago*

2005-10-01T22:41:00.000-04:00

24 hours ago, i got back from babysitting Liam, all ready to settle down with my Incredibly Depressing Book for the evening. the phone rang. i hadn't been expecting to hear from him, as he was involved in SLC's 24 hour play festival (playwrights show up, get topic, start writing, hand over script 12 hours later to actors and director, who have 12 hours til it goes onstage - pretty fucken cool).

he comes over, somewhat drunk, and we talk and make out and cuddle and make out some more and we shower and decide to go to the pub and come back and we negotiate some boundaries, we go to bed, we play with each other, i make good choices and bad ones. i'm still not sure how i feel about certain things, some of which are and are not his fault. we close our eyes at 5 a.m. and he leaves at 7 a.m. for his half of the play festival (directing/acting). he calls me an hour and a half later so i'll wake up for work. i perform poorly at prospie day due to lack of sleep. a fellow admissions worker pulls me aside to tell me she had spoken with boy before he broke up with his girlfriend - that he should wait awhile after they broke up, etc.

this makes me feel like an asshole. they've been broken up for a week about, ooh, tomorow. he and i need to have the several conversations we've been avoiding. damn.

*wow, i just re-read the title. i AM tired! i think i'll leave it.
**i'm not sure anyone reads this anymore, but 'sokay, i'm basically just keeping a record for myself at this point, i guess.

why'dya hafta go and make things so complicated?

2005-09-27T19:49:00.000-04:00

i've been associated with Sarah Lawrence, as an institution, for four years now (my senior year of HS, as a prospie, and my three years of enrollment). for the very first time, tonight, i heard a graduation requirement with which i was not previously familiar: one must spend the entirety of either their junior or senior year on the Bronville campus.

this mucks up my plans, which were to go to Central America this spring (non-SLC program) and go to Cuba (SLC program) next fall, my senior year.

i have to petition the committee on student work to be an exception to the residency rule. i have to argue a case, essentially.

okay, so:
- I couldn't go to Cuba this year because I lacked the Spanish proficiency, so I want to do it my senior year.
- If I spend all my junior year here, I'm still not *sure* I'll speak Spanish well enough to do coursework IN Spanish.
- Doing Augsburg is probably the only thing that will equip me with the confidence in my Spanish to study in Cuba; hence, it is an essential stepping-stone in my academic development and my road to Cuba.
- I want to do the Augsburg program because I think it is unique, I like the structure of it, I adore the emphasis on considering a broader community; an emphasis I feel is lacking in most study abroad programs. The theme of the program is in keeping with my education and will be both personally and academically fulfilling.

so, I am constructing my reality this way:
- Either I win the Committee on Student Work battle and do both programs and everyone is happy, or,
- I just do Augsburg. I am unwilling to wager my entire opportunity to go abroad on the Committee's decision; furthermore, I do not know if I will feel comfortable enough with Spanish to go to Cuba if all I complete Isabel's Advanced Intermediate Spanish class. That isn't enough for me, at least not enough to feel reassured.
- There is no way I will just do Cuba.

Damn.

PS, don't you think, if you were the director of study abroad programs, you would make sure SLC kids KNEW about this? i checked the website, and this requirement is NOT listed by the registrar's office NOR the study abroad office. you have to go to "Undergraduate Study," then click "Academic Program Guidelines," and THEN go to "Requirements for B.A." - something most SLC students would NEVER do on their own, figuring 120 credits, that's it. SOOOO FRUSTRATING!!!!

changes

2005-09-23T01:11:00.000-04:00

starting with this post (i think), i'm turning on the comment feature where you have to copy a word into a box to prove you're a human and not a computer. so, yall, an extra step in order to say what you gotta say.

letters

2005-09-21T16:07:00.000-04:00

dear suzanne -
please cut me some damn slack. i know i'm being flaky and i suck and all, but . . . um . . . you're kind of being an asshole. okay, so i am too. but anyway, slack would be nice. everyone else cuts me slack. i hate setting up meetings, and i don't really like coming to see you because i don't think you like me; maybe that's just you being naturally aloof and standoffish, i dunno, or maybe one semester wasn't enough to base a relationship of this magnitude on (ooh, i need you to sign papers once a semester. why can't i just drop by your office for that?). grr. and bah.

dear sketchy boy #1:
gracias por la conversacion anoche. yo quiero mas, por favor. te quiero mucho, dude. but seriously, thank you.

dear spanish class gods -
i am reeeaaalllllyyy scared of the class i'm about to commit to . . . please don't beat up on me too bad, ok?

dear spanish teacher,
please tell me my spanish is worse than i thought and i simply misheard what you said about me doing conference work when i'm a language/lecture third, and therefore splitting duties for your class with another one. i REALLY don't want to write you a conference paper. i KNOW you are going to kick my ass and i am going to hate it while it's happening but in the end the idea is i'll be in better stead this way.

dear dad:
thank you for coming to visit in october. i'll be so happy to see you. i want to come home. i am being a selfish brat. i'm sorry. thank you for all that you do, for putting up with my constant phone calls, and for allowing me to be here. what you said about concentrating on classes like spanish rather than work helped give me some perspective - my purpose at school is to learn and to study, why can't i grasp that and relax about it?

anyway, thanks.

dear sketchy boy #2:
please call me in two weeks or i will hate you forever.

dear angelone family -
welcome to the neighborhood. i haven't called and said it yet because, well, i suck. see above. but thank you for convincing my daddy to come visit in october.

dear self
get a damn grip already. yeesh. crying won't solve anything. move your ass, ho.

empathy is bad for me

2005-09-21T01:34:00.000-04:00

i read a book for psych (the autobiography of one of the Little Rock Nine) and sobbed the whole way through. i kept telling myself, this is academic reading, get some distance, and i just couldn't. i cried when someone threatened to kill her rather than have her in school with their kids, i cried when she remained positive in the face of these odds that would have made anyone run. i just cried. what the hell is wrong with me?

note to self: CTFO

2005-09-18T15:33:00.000-04:00

i declare this week officially begins fall in new york, specifically on my campus. i want it to be beautiful, to cool off, for me to figure out some cute ways to pair summer stuff and heavier stuff (patterned black stockings under skirts, maybe?), i want the leaves to change color ever so slowly and to not feel ridiculous for wanting a cup of tea. because really, fall here is so beautiful. and it reminds me so much of my childhood - i just end up wanting to buy colored pencils (because art supplies always hold the promise when you buy them that you will someday have the time and talent to use them, and use them well). and maybe fall will calm me the fuck down.

because i have been stressed as hell.

- my poetry teacher probably thinks i'm stupid. (i am NOT being deliriously paranoid, it was a nightmare first conference, i felt so stupid, but i swear i would have been more prepared if he hadn't sprung a time change on me!) and the poems i've been writing really won't help his impression. maybe taking a workshop this semester was a mistake.

- i cannot do prison, due to my own fuckup, and i just . . . don't not get what i want very often, i don't think i make un-fixable mistakes very often, and this just sucks. i hate it when i suck, and i do suck.

- fighting fighting fighting anger anger anger, none of it misdirected, most of it misunderstood.

- still the horrible awful no good very bad feeling of "what SHALL i do with my life?" which is plaguing me and i have no way to figure it out and don't know how to get pointed in the right direction. and, um, everyone i talk to feels the exact same way which makes me very frightened that it's a general malaise and we'll turn into those horribly average losers that have been fodder for so many "gen X" films (reality bites comes to mind) and man would that suck. miserable averageness is the most depressing thing in the world. which brings me to my next item.

- spent the weekend at my aunt's and visiting my cousin at villanova. my aunt is stuck in a miserable, loveless marriage and i HATEHATEHATE her husband in a way i can barely explain except to say it is only the thought of prison that keeps me from doing him physical harm. i loathe this man. and my grandparents are . . . miserable. suffice it to say, it was the perfect example of horrible averageness all weekend, and it just made me so terrified. and glad that i'm single, if that's what being coupled is.

- i am being an ass, generally, specifically in relation to a couple of people, and i don't particularly want to work very hard to fix it. no, i want to curl into a ball and be held and watch movies, i want to order takeout and laugh while i eat it, i want to go back to chicago where i didn 't have to think about things, but i most certainly do not want to do scary things or behave myself or work to be social or get my schoolwork done. none of that appeals to me. leaving school and never coming back appeals to me, buying a plane ticket to anywhere but here appeals to me, telling people what assholes i think they are appeals to me, but functioning as a normal human being, accepting the fact that i am average, and getting on with it DOES NOT APPEAL TO ME. it simply doesn't. i want to say go fuck yourself, but i don't know who to.

- i miss my family and i want to cry. one would think, as a junior in college, i would have gotten over this by now. i want to go home. i'm exhausted. how can i already need R&R, how can getting off campus for a weekend have made me feel like i need a vacation? but i'm stressed and exhausted and all i want is to cry.

manifesto

2005-09-09T00:29:00.000-04:00

dear C -
when you asked if i'm passionate about anything, my first response was to yell at you. to scream, really. in rage and protest that it isn't obvious - can't you see, i'm a very passionate person?! i wanted to be angry because the answer yes, i am passionate but no, i have no direction, no guiding principle. this scares the hell out of me, and i hate that it's so obvious to you. more honestly, no. i haven't found my passion (yet). i am searching, desperately, passionately, frantically, but it certainly isn't found. i have the capacity for great passion, i have ideas and principles about which i feel passionately - things that fire me up. but i lack guidance or a unifying theme. i know this; i know not how to remedy it.

furthermore, i am taken aback by your paternal tone in guiding me.

my own defensiveness aside, i have thought (perhaps without scrutiny) about this institution and my involvement. this place is exclusive, it is structured differently (somewhat), and marketed the same as other places. it practices tokenism, both within the administration and among the student body. the school claims alternative values but, like any other college, its practices include indirect (and direct) worker exploitation, gentrification, a promotion of unethical consumerism, and is just all-around a bad neighbor. some instances are flagrant - the appropriation of a Bronxville area code, the buying of Hill House and driving out its residents - and some less so. there are claims the student body becomes more mainstream every year. when the more "radical" students DO raise a ruckus the school takes steps to pacify and compromise, followed by a typical institutional inaction.

of course it is up to students to hold the school accountable, and of course SLC kids have a good opportunity to do that and maybe one day even become a model for it. of course we must demand transparency from a place that wants to claim a legacy of activism and liberalism but still requires Flik workers to come in on snow days and Flora workers to go for 24 hours straight. yes, it is our job to keep the administration honest if they won't do it themselves, and they have proven they won't. we should do this not because we are bleeding heart liberals and not because it will resolve our guilt. we should do this because it's the right thing to do, and because this school misrepresents itself to everyone and their sister each time it claims to be a shining example of "difference." the cynicism displayed on the part of the admin - through reluctance and resistance to change, via negative responses to the most idealistic and revolutionary of students - is disheartening. the cruel joke of a marketing ploy - you are different, so are we - is simply a lie. we are not different by much. the student body, through its inaction, is failing what should be the ideals of the school as much as the administration failed to ever attempt them. it's our school, and we have to take it back.

________________________________

you raised the question of what the "activists" on this campus will fight for. much of it, of course, is self-serving. we want HIV testing on campus because we are too damn lazy (or scared) to get on a bus or train and go get tested for free in the Bronx, because we want things at our fingertips. it would be more just to raise a clamour about providing free HIV testing not only for students, but for workers, staff, and the surrounding communities as well. but that's dangerous because it might spark a discussion about the school's benefits (or lack thereof) for workers. we'll fill Empty Bellies in the Bronx but send Flik workers home without anything resembling a living wage. we'll teach at the Early Childhood Center but not question its admissions practices. hell, we'll work in admissions and not question our own admissions practices, much less our recruiting tactics. hello, where is the dialogue about Fall and Spring Collective? is it really appropriate for this school, in the name of "diversity," to truck in people of color and have them watch panels and performances by other people of color, while we all pretend this campus doesn't reek of unexamined white privilege? when did that become okay with everyone? how do the participants feel about it?

what about the decision not to let the Red Cross on campus for blood donation? yes, the FDA guidelines suck, but i personally will not allow a political belief to overshadow an opportunity to save lives. the school prioritized differently - it chose a political principle over saving lives. i disagree, and i want the opportunity to say so (okay, really, i want to yell at some whiteboys to stop whining about their "oppression," get over it and do something besides chase away the Blood Donation Bus, but that's just a personal whim). my point is, don't even give me any bullshit about the lack of dialogue here, the apathy. most students are not, at their core, apathetic. but a lot of them do not know how to get heard, and have spent years being brainwashed and internalizing a message of disempowerment. aside from holding the administration accountable, this is the biggest, most important task we face: giving students a new, innovative space to make themselves heard, and - here's the novelty - actually acting upon their words. this is the longterm solution we need, this is the way we equip people with the tools for their own empowerment - by simply showing them their words can be acted upon. this is the elegantly simple way to have the profound impact we are hoping to achieve.

Right to Write

2005-09-08T19:35:00.000-04:00

cross post with my LJ (shut up):

so, prison meeting.

for some reason it made me really angry. people have all sorts of misconceptions about prison, prisoners, and what writing will do for them. i'm sure i was the same way, but at least i knew enough to admit that this would be unlike anything i'd done before.

(likewise i'm sure my anger is due in part to probably being the one who'd done it most recently and not being asked for any input. i'm not mad Corey is leading the program this year; i would only have to leave if i were in charge. but if you're trying to describe what this program IS to people who don't know, having Irene King talk, who's never done it, won't really help. listening to regina - the founder of the program - is great, but she hasn't done the program in at least five years, and she's become a dean since then. she sounded . . . condescending and out of touch, to my ears.)

the general attitude among students was one of, this program sounds like it's really good for THOSE PEOPLE. THOSE PEOPLE need things like this. THEY need "creative outlets" and WE are the ones to provide "creative outlets" for THEM.

i have news for you. walking into prison changed my life. these women were all older than me, all gobs more worldly-wise, street smarter than me. my books and my theories and my social science 101 courses didn't matter one whit in there, nor did my workshop experience. and, i'll admit, i don't think one woman started identifying herself as a writer by the time i left. i just don't. i don't know how much that comments upon my teaching skills, but the group i had just wasn't as . . . i don't want to say advanced, but didn't have as strong a grasp as some of the basics of literary vocabulary. if i'd gone in there to teach a class on simile, i would've lost them before 10 minutes was up. and, it may come as a surprise, but there WERE groups where you could teach classes on simile or metaphor and engage them. but that just wasn't my group. my group was reading the poem slowly and explaining it to each other as they went. only about half my group wrote on any given day. but, honestly, these women could talk. there are disagreements among us volunteers about how much the talking is useful versus disruptive, but i think it was important for *them* (god i hate that word sometimes) to feel heard by someone outside prison. to tell their experiences to someone who'd had different ones.

teaching in prison is probably one of the most humbling experiences of my life to date. every arrogant undergrad should be sent into a correctional facility. you can't not treat *these people* with respect - their conditions are so dehumanizing, and they do have the well-honed skills to take you down a notch, at least verbally, should the need arise. but you find yourself wanting to respect them, to treat them well, to be less dehumanizing in this hellish environment. and the women absolutely return it. they were respectful of us, and once they felt comfortable enough to rib us, we knew they trusted us.

one thing people really miss when talking about prison: my group cared about Lea and I. Lea came back from spring break with a nasty sunburn, and everyone offered her sympathy, recommended salves, and inquired the next week as to whether it was healing. one week i had a particularly nasty cold, and one of the women went to fetch me tissues. these are sweet, caring women, most of whom are (or would be) wonderful caregivers.

i miss them. as hard as it is, i can't wait to get back to prison. i feel so privileged to get to do it, because not only do i get to be acquainted with these smart, funny women, but they send me home with lots of interesting food for thought every week. in a weird way, prison nurtures me.

apples and trees

2005-09-06T00:12:00.000-04:00

from dailykos.com:

"Barbara Bush - the woman whom no less an authority than Dick Nixon said "knows how to hate," the woman who didn't want to trouble her "beautiful mind" with thoughts of "body bags and deaths" - has now offered us yet another gem. After visting refugees staying at the Houston Astrodome, she had this to say:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (she chuckled slightly)--this is working very well for them."

What a cold, callous, wretched ghoul of a person. I just don't even know what else to say."

well, at least now we know where the president gets it from.

life goes on

2005-09-05T01:03:00.000-04:00

i've been bouncing around so much lately. between despair over katrina, the failure of immediate official response ("lack" seems too gentle a word), excitement over my classes and this semester and everything, and just general, you know, living. like, i went to jersey and that was the same as it always is; i found an extra pillow case, the origin of which completely flummoxes me, in with all my crap. (really, any excuse to describe myself as "flummoxed.")

i'm in two psych classes this semester, which is completely weird because previous to this i haven't taken any psych classes ever.

and a poetry class.

i'm so sarah lawrence my head might explode.

i have a real room now, complete with amenities like sheets and comforters and fan, microwave and fridge. i have a chair now, my aunt insisted, and a swiffer. and i plan on buying an iron tomorrow. i feel so freaking domesticated. i keep telling myself, don't acquire shit - you're moving every three months between here and forever.

i miss my family.

the letter i sent

2005-09-03T13:11:00.000-04:00

Elected officials in every U.S. state and territory, from local government to federal, are listed here:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

i called the white house. comment line closed.

here is the letter that i emailed to the "president."

Dear Mr. President -

Sir, your inaction on behalf of the victims of Hurricane Katrina appalls me. Once it became clear that a hurricane was to hit New Orleans, you should have ended your vacation and, at the very least, made sure that local, state, federal and FEMA officials were doing all they could to anticipate and coordinate relief efforts. Your failure to do so is another callous example of your administration's disregard for human life. As with your initial paltry offering of aid to tsunami victims, you have exhibited a basic lack of empathy.

There are people dying, minute by minute, because of your lack of leadership. Where are the values you trumpet? Why are people still trapped on rooftops? After the WTC collapsed it took less than six hours to completely block off lower Manhattan, to evacuate and secure it. Why are the poor people of New Orleans any different? I suppose I've answered my own questions - lower Manhattan is not a slum; the Financial District no ghetto.

Mr. Bush, you had no problems firing the country up to go to war, to chase down terrorists. You convinced Americans to stock up on bottled water and gas masks, to fear Islamic militants and give blood. Why, sir, can you not convince FEMA to marshall its resources and save New Orleans? Why can you not gather what troops remain in the country? Why aren't they there yet? Where is the Coast Guard? Don't you, as their Commander-in-Chief, determine where they go? Shouldn't you, as a strong leader, guide them in the right direction, towards saving lives and lessening this terrible suffering? Sir, as the leader of the free world, is there nothing more you can do than take photos with victims, who are suffering as much from lack of relief efforts as from the disaster itself?

We are Americans. Around the world, we secure peace zones and topple dictatorships. Have we nothing more to offer our own people than a dark, dank Superdome and the threat of disease and death? Can we do no better?

I am ashamed of you, sir. Ashamed of your failures. New Orleans was a shining example of the best of American cities; you are a disgrace to the American spirit of generosity and brotherhood.

You do not make me ashamed to be an American; merely ashamed that you are one, too.

1300 mile bootycall, yall

2005-08-30T21:39:00.000-04:00

i did. i went. it was good. not like that, you pervert. i may have finally learned the lesson that's been five years in coming - it's not a certain boy's fault he didn't fall in love with me. what was he supposed to do? lie? fake it? that wouldn't have worked out any better, and he never lied about it. being the best sex of his life won't make him fall in love with me either (not saying i am, just saying i've made an effort). really nothing will, and he can't change how he feels about something that basic. i can't hold a grudge against him for that. well, i can, and i have for a while, but i don't see much point in it now.

it's funny, he asked why Em doesn't like him (i mean, he knows, but he wanted to know, ya know?), and i think it might actually be because my sister thinks if he'd made an honest woman of me from the beginning maybe i would've avoided being such a 'ho, which never has sat very well with her (the fact that i'm a ho, not that he didn't make an honest woman of me). which is a funny thought, but there might just be something to it. anyway, aside from the fact that she has heard, you know, LOTS of negative things about him for a long time, which is understandable to everyone.

anyway, on my last day there, i wanted to ask him questions i knew would hurt his feelings (or maybe not. that boy is the most inscrutable, self-contained human being i've ever known. more so than gerard, even). so, being me, i decided to find out what was behind this impulse before i started a fight right as i was about to leave. not surprisingly, i figured out i just wanted to beat him up some more for not loving me. um, same battle i've been fighting for so long, that's right. same one. well, i asked myself, now is that productive? no, ma'am. so why do you still want to beat him up for it?

and then i realized.

the boy can be an asshole. a distant, non-communicative, secretive asshole. but. he is honest. he does not lie to me about his feelings or preferences. he has offered me good sex, and, eventually, a really important friendship. he has offered me comfort when i have needed it. he has made me feel sexy. how long am i going to focus on the faults of both of us and our relationship and not just be damn grateful the man i gave my virginity to didn't leave me pregnant or remove himself from my life but, instead, stayed around and helped me figure out some stuff about myself? damn, girl.

sarah grace, don't look at me like that. i know you know a thing or two about distant, uncommunicative boys who are completely lovable, so don't you even give me that. it just took me longer to learn, okay?

did i know this before? seriously, guys, have i said anything like this before? cause it feels like a revelation. really.

you never play with your blog anymore

2005-07-18T01:19:00.000-04:00

it's true, i never blog anymore. work, hang out with friends, eat, play house with my mom, have various existential crises, mourn, worry, shop, get pedicures, flirt with boys, miss boys, reminisce - when is there time for blogging? if i'm going to be boring, may as well be boring in real life, right? may as well be boring sitting on the punk rocks, walking up to the cross of the martyrs, than in my silly room getting frustrated by dialup and listening to mice in the walls.

i miss carre adams a whole lot. carre's very good at forcing me to be honest, and putting me in my (intellectual) place. i need both those things.

i am worried. i am worried about all the usual - my future and all the things i worry about, you know what i mean, finding love, picking a passion, having children, the meaning of life, et cetera et cetera - but there are other things.

i worry about letting my summer slip away. it is half gone and i don't know where it went. i owe my sister a graduation present, a birthday present and i don't know what to get her. i ALWAYS get my sister the best presents - she likes what i give her the best. this is merely a symptom of the larger problems in our relationship, which i won't gore out here, just know that there is a fundamental shift going on. my family, my protestant there-are-no-problems-here denial ridden clan, is going to "talk to someone" about it. it's that bad.

i worry about intellectually shutting down in the summer. even though wise people tell me over and over, this is your time to rest and rejuvenate. you need it. over the next two years, you will need it. even though the very people comforting me about this are the people who themselves never ever take a break. but yes, i feel like i'm in a holding pattern and i don't like that, but i do trust my life for the next two years and i am getting smarter and santa fe and i aren't quite done yet. i'm already nervous about next summer.

i'm going to chicago. to visit one He Who Shall Not Be Named. and it will be good.

i worry about adam davis more than you could comprehend, i worry about yama and about mana worrying about yama, i still think about jonathan all the time and expect him to be around, and i've dreamt about david twice.

i worry about sarah.

if i trusted my sister, i would worry about her. actually, i worry about her anyway.

i miss tracy and maria. and carre, did i mention carre?

i'm actually cleaning my room voluntarily. i feel so different now. even though i know the same boys i've known for years, it's like new relationships with all of them. aaron has changed, bobby has changed, phil has changed, WE have changed. sarah and mana have changed. i don't know WHAT my relationship with ed is anymore, but i have a newfound affection - not love, but genuine affection - for thomas.

but even though all of this sounds so serious, i am having a good summer. a slower one, perhaps, but a good one. mana and i are doing better, even though i still wish she would slow down, she's doing better now than she used to. and i'm trying not to be jealous, even though it's a bigger challenge for me than most.

on a lighthearted note, i made out with two different boys this week and flirted with two others.

i bought a new sex toy.

and i am reading . . .
dun dun DUN
the new book by the author of cunt!!

yes, inga muscio, one of my all-time favorite women, finally got her ass together and put out her second book, which i snatched up and am currently devouring, because i want to surround myself with people as real and optimistic as inga, and because i want to BE her, and i because she made me love the word cunt. and her. did i mention i love inga muscio?

seriously, everyone should read Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil. if you ever hated or loved history class, or found it completely boring, this book is for you.

now if only i could taste.
coming soon: The Day My Mother Found The Sex Toys and Other Silly Stories (yup, it's true)

the blog is not dead

2005-06-26T10:48:00.000-04:00

sorry yall, it's summer, i have not much to say.

just wanted to say, not dead.

nor anyone to sleep with. i was going over my prospects based on who i slept with last summer. (you explain to me the point of seducing someone new in santa fe. yeah, i didn't think there was one. hence, recycling.) and it went something like this: dead, taken, 1300 miles away, and bobby. damn.

but, hey, sarah, aren't there OTHER things in your life besides having sex?

well, yes of course there are. but summer, to me, is sex. maybe it's the hot weather or the fact that i'm traditionally well taken-care-of over the summer months. it's easier to hunt - we're out late, we all think we have money, etc etc. in any event, it's not like i have anything else to do or think about.

i work at a banana republic-type women's clothing store. ONE boy works there, his name is christian, i'm not terribly interested, nor is he. that leaves my other job - the dreaded opera ho reputation rears its ugly head, eh?

also, i have one thing to say: 1300 mile bootycall, yall.

it never ends

2005-05-29T04:13:00.000-04:00

dear jonathan -
i would really like to stop thinking about you.

how the fuck? what? how? i don't understand. 'splainify.

HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU BE DEAD GODDAMNIT JONATHAN YOU HAD ONE MOTHERFUCKING JOB!!

one job, buddy. ALL YOU HAD TO DO was stay alive. why was that too hard? maybe it wasn't entirely your fault but i DON'T CARE. goddamnit. turn your back for two goddamn minutes on these kids.

yesterday, friday, was the 3 month anniversary. at 4:27 on february 27th, phillip christopher brooks delivered some of the worst news of my life and kicked off the worst week and two days ever. it started to snow. it had been clear out, and beautiful, i was in the library reading and looking out the window and letting the sun drive me to distraction. that night, the night after, i sat outside and let it snow on me, needing the cold, needing to feel less deadened, not eating or sleeping, searching out comfort in the words of friends and loved ones that didn't come. disbelief has surrounded your death in a way i hadn't imagined, but even now it grips me. i would have given anything not to write the two poems i wrote about you. given anything. the chill i felt at developing your pictures, the morbid joy handing out the last bits of you i'd salvaged. I AM SO ANGRY AT YOU FOR DYING AND SHATTERING THE TACIT PEACE WE ALL ENJOYED.

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO EVERYONE? yes, it sucks for me that you are not here. i do not understand that you are not here. i'm like an alzheimer's patient. your name comes up in my brain everyday. but the PAIN this has caused SARITA AND MANA AND DON'T EVEN MENTION TIM BROWN? GODDAMNIT, JONATHAN, I COULD KILL YOU ALL OVER AGAIN, YOU BRAT. GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE AND LIVE LIKE THE REST OF US! AAAAAAHHH!!!

i am NOT writing the letter i wrote to david to you in two years. not going to happen. you know why? because i am DONE with this whole DYING SHIT. just STOP IT. everyone stay alive, motherfuckers! i DO NOT want to have to call my sister every five minutes just because i need reassurance she is still breathing. godfuckingdamnit.

dear universe -
you suck. you really suck. you suck so much. i hate you. i hate you lots and lots. if some of my very favorite people didn't live here, i'd be SO up on outta this bitch. fuck you, motherfucker. i'm not even going to list the people you've killed, except to say, jeanine and jessica? extra massive fucked up points for those two, motherfucker. godDAMN i hate you. eat shit and die. leave my friends alone.

and now the poem i haven't showed to anyone but my poetry teacher.

Task

The Toyota fish-tails a bit on snow-topped dirt,
around the U-shaped curve of the road.
He pulls in to the square patch
the family uses as a parking lot and sits.
As the engine cools, he studies the features
of the dash, the CDs, the seats,
the clumps of New Mexico mud on the floor mats.

He sits
observing the artifacts
of a life, unwilling:
to swing his feet to the crunchy snow
slam the door
and admit
the careless dead boy
will never drive this truck again.

oh yeah

2005-05-16T15:19:00.000-04:00

i fly home tomorrow.

i'll be there about 7 pm new mexico time.

today:

2005-05-11T20:15:00.000-04:00

my SKIRT arrived!!!

i dumped orange juice in my lap (not while wearing the skirt, thank goodness) - at work - and then got to sit there and debate whether i should walk home wet (a short, but very public thanks to the gorgeous weather, jaunt) or dry. i chose to dry before changing.

i managed to give myself horrendous, RAW blisters. today i wore about six (not kidding) different outfits. who IS this girl? and why is she wearing so many skirts? two different skirts in one day? oi!

i got FREE chinese food dinner, courtesy of sarah lawrence (it was a good-bye Right to Write thing . . . which i don't wanna post/think about cause i'll just cry. my, how felons can grow on you . . . ).

i gave a tour (wearing the hurty blister-causing shoes) to a transfer who seemed really cool and had his girlfriend along with him, which made it REALLY AWKWARD when i tried to explain the gender ratio, because he didn't come out and SAY she was his girlfriend, so i couldn't come out and SAY "the ratio won't affect you unless you're in an open relationship which is none of my business but just be prepared to FIGHT WOMEN OFF WITH STICKS because you are reasonably normal looking and you talk real good and don't seem like you consume copious amounts of beer/pot, even if you DO have these weird sideburn thingies that take up half your cheek." which is, honestly, what i WANTED to say to him, in keeping with my Tour Guide Pledge of Accuracy.

one week from tomorrow!

2005-05-10T00:17:00.000-04:00

midnight breakfast. everyone you've never seen before comes out for this.

they gave us slap bracelets (mine is leopard-print), disposable cameras, and damp waffles. and this satisfied the masses.

somehow, this makes me feel better. like, if all these ridiculous kids, these freaks and these hipsters, the gamers and geeks, who will NEVER get laid except by their own kind, if they can manage it, i can too. my problem at slc has never been that i'm too strange, but that i'm not strange enough. i love it here in freakville. and they graduate and get jobs and study abroad and take out loans and fall in love and don't do their homework and slack as bad as me. and they're doing pretty well for themselves.

wally (whose full name is wallace good the third, i shit you not), threw a frisbee, tracy picked it up and promptly aimed it at a tree. wally pulled TWO replacements from his messenger bag and tossed those for cover while he went in after the original. how cool is that? who carries backup frisbees?

today i was described as having "sauciness." to be saucy is my goal in life. it really is.

also i got a picture of the girls i made out with, one of whom is now mad at me for not describing her as a great kisser.

Q: who's a little bit drunk?

2005-05-07T01:25:00.000-04:00

A: me!!

tonight was the sleaze ball. here is the sum total of what i wore: heels, pink skirt, pink bra, ribbon. when carre saw me, he actually said, "where did you get that?" as though i'm not supposed to have such things in my wardrobe.

i looked hot and danced. i dance much better - or at least i think i do - when drunk.

i made out with two hott (two t's) females, leah and hilary. we were all drunk.

a gay man complimented me ("i think we have the same shoes!") AND my outfit. that's how i know i've truly arrived, my friends.

i drunk dialed sean, em, and mana, because i knew they would appreciate it.

EVERYONE told me i looked hot, including one gentleman whom i ordered to admire my rack.

it was a good night. i am impressed with my ability to type. i have to sleep now.

word of the day

2005-05-04T23:02:00.000-04:00

2 entries found for syllogism.
syl·lo·gism n.
Logic. A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion; for example, All humans are mortal, the major premise, I am a human, the minor premise, therefore, I am mortal, the conclusion.

Reasoning from the general to the specific; deduction.

A subtle or specious piece of reasoning.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Middle English silogisme, from Old French, from Latin syllogismus, from Greek sullogismos, from sullogizesthai, to infer : sun-, syn- + logizesthai, to count, reckon (from logos, reason. See leg- in Indo-European Roots).]

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

syllogism

n : deductive reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from two premises

nothing new to report

2005-05-03T17:26:00.000-04:00

you know you've been in college too long when pants are really a courtesy more than a necessity.

exactly two weeks from today, i fly home.

i am wearing a hot pink bra with rhinestones in the middle.

the SLC mailroom still owes me my wife's package (hee), and a jean skirt.

today i made the mistake of saying the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was self-explanatory (well, its involvement in this case. i mean, that's what the case was ABOUT.), to which my law teacher replied "i don't hear it explaining itself." i love that man. he also says, i could tell you where it is in the case but i'll let you discover it for yourselves. um, thanks, james. seriously though, should congress have the right to regulate inter- and intra- state commerce? why? where'd they get that right? these are the questions of our day. also, we're gonna have a draft:

traditional end-of-semester stress post

2005-05-03T00:01:00.000-04:00

with a twist.

you see, SLC sucks. the school being so poor, and so many people going abroad, they decided it made financial sense to not have your gift aid travel with you when you go abroad.

the majority of my financial aid is gift.

ergo, studying abroad is actually more expensive for me than my time at ol Sadie Lou.

and the administrator in charge of helping me figure this out is useless to the point of being obstructive. i was nearly reduced to tears of frustration today.

i need scholarships. i need financial aid. i need to get out of america. i NEED to study abroad. i need to apply for other (cheaper[?]) programs.

and yes i have plenty of shit to do and no i don't want to do it; no one in their right mind wants to labor over a language they don't know very well, talking about a book they didn't really read - nor does anyone want to talk about a court case they fear they might not have comprehended in front of a lecture of 30 people. furthermore, i need more job-ness in my life.

i seriously want to bang my head and scream and cry in frustration. i like to think i'm not that easily frustrated, but this is the next year of my life we're talking about, and i *want* to be somewhere else for it. and everyone and their sister is asking me questions - well-meaning strangers, people on tours (i know, i should just keep my damn mouth shut), girls on my hall, relatives, coworkers, friends, and oh, yeah, two schools and my parents. like i know any more than they do. YOU tell me how to pay for it and i'll tell you if i can do it, okay?

gah. and prison today. it ends next week.

i'm just mentally drained right now, with not much end in sight. well, the end comes after *much* difficulty.

and shit!! i have to pack!

work sucks, i know

2005-04-27T13:12:00.000-04:00

dear tour boys -
you're looking at a school that is 4 boyfriends, 6 gay guys, 1 rapist and 9 hipsters away from being an all-girls school. you appear normal, for being high school juniors, and you have academic interests. you seem like you have your shit together, and you mostly don't look like the skinny boys that are oh-so-common around here. get excited!! ask me questions! say SOMETHING, anything. don't just wander around behind me not speaking, not even to each other. yes, i'm female, and three or four years older than you, but come ON, you must have something to say. things i like, things i don't like, how males feel about the ratio. oy. maybe i just should've asked the other tour guide on duty to take you, as he's male. maybe you would've talked to him? or he could've given you a better feeling? i dunno, but man that was a crappy tour. thanks for telling me i was "thorough", but i would've rather had you talking. whatever, it was probably my first tour's fault, but you drove me to pringles anyway.
love, and imploring you to come here for the sake of future female students,
sarah

dear first tour,
dude, you suck. yes, you're rich, but you're VERY VERY conservative and there is no nice way to say this on tour but you CANNOT COME HERE. asking me how many "african american" (NOT minority, NOT students of color, because of course all non-whites are black) students we have? being concerned for my safety while i study abroad, and then telling me that your HOUSEKEEPER has a different view on the third world because she's from honduras? i don't even know where to start. no, we don't have a goddamn catholic group for students on campus. if you don't know what queer means, if i say "sexual minority students" and you NEED to clarify that i mean "homosexuals", this is not the place for you. likewise, if you feel the need to ask me if any of the men are heterosexual, this is not for you. your kid DOES NOT BELONG HERE. academically, she might fit in, and maybe some niggling doubts about her privilege will take hold, but personally we'll either rip her to shreds or she'll come out. either way, i was ingratiating, but we did NOT become friends on that tour. i don't like you, and it was this slimy lying feeling that i had because i could NOT make it clear to you that your student would NOT be comfortable here. please go away before you tell me more about how you had a house in atlanta that's since been turned into a country club. i might vomit all over your very expensive shoes. argh.

sarah

i quit.

here

2005-04-23T18:52:00.000-04:00

yes, boys, i know the link doesn't work. here ya go.

http://www.blogthings.com/amenglishdialecttest/

weird

2005-04-23T01:05:00.000-04:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

25% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak

and what will you do about it, spoiled girl?

2005-04-20T19:26:00.000-04:00

i got in to a program in mexico for fall, now all's i gotta do is pay for it.

today jess told me she's bored, and i said, yes, but you're paid . . . and free.

and that scares me. will i never feel free? if not now, when? i know freedom exists in the mind, all those quotes by those very smart men told me, but does it really? and if so, why not now? i know i feel free in the summer, but summers are very boring. what am i seeking? adventure, probably.

i'm quitting my ASL class - i'm not retaining enough and i won't continue my study of it, c'est la vie. eventually.

if i had all the money and time in the world, i'd learn languages and get a degree in etymology. man, i hope you can do this kind of thing after you're dead, that would be awesome. maybe you're judged based on what you did while on earth and then the reward is whatever you wanted to do but put off, you can do post-mortem. you gotta prioritize. because really, i have a lot to do in my life. and there is just no way to do all of it. if i could, i'd want to live a sleepy little life as a used-bookstore owner, and part of me wants to be a broadway star, and a ball-busting business negotiator, the first female president, sex therapist/safer sex educator, novelist and an ob-gyn saving women's lives with doctors with borders.

then there are the for-real careers i'm still considering: lawyer, parent, NGO gopher/admin, poet, judge, journalist (i'd be amy goodman but i don't think i could be that impartial). . .

and the crazy idealist in me, the immaturity in me, believes i could do all of these things, and do them well, given enough time.

part of me really wants to be a revolutionary, to lead the troops into the mountains, all that romantic bullshit. i don't really want to believe revolution is as much potshots through the windows at night and the decisions you make every day and one abortion at a time. i want the romance, i want to train my body taut like g.i. jane and look like angelina jolie and save the world like indiana jones. (he was pretty smart, you know.)

i don't really want to be where i am, in a ballerina skirt, holding my droopy poems and pouting about my bedtime.

i don't know how to get there. but the part of me that won't let me lie to myself whispers, you don't follow the paths of others; you make your own. so not knowing the way is no excuse. you know this.

a very harsh post

2005-04-17T23:23:00.000-04:00

ways to die before you're 21:

ski. ski high. be a really good skiier. fuck, it doesn't matter.
don't wear your seatbelt. even once.
incorporate strangulation into your sexual practices.
go to a concert at a venue that employs a sex offender. as an added bonus he'll rape you before he strangles you.
there's always suicide. don't worry about being too young for this option.
go sledding at the ski basin. at night.
drive drunk, or if you're too chicken, let someone else do it.
honorable mention: you *might* get killed for being gay, but you can *definitely* get the ever-loving shit kicked out of you.

i'm sure i'm missing some. i didn't know all of them personally, but it's all so shitty and unfair.

dear universe -

fuck you. i am scared to write to people because i'm terrified i'll end up using the writing as a eulogy. yup, that's right. i'm scared if i write someone a letter about why i love them i will end up reading it to a roomful of assembled mourners, just like what sarah had to do - though hers was written after the fact - the hardest thing i can imagine. please don't make me be this scared. please don't do this; just don't. please stop doing this. please? even though i didn't know this one, she was 14 fucking years old. and my sister hurts. and i HATE it when my sister hurts. that was the only fucking thing i asked of you - to keep her from this. i hate that she feels this, hate that she has to cry and witness. it is so hard to witness this, to see a family's grief. this is so unfair. but at least she's alive. i'd rather have her alive and in pain than anything else. i'm scared to even ask it, but please, you fucking two bit son of a bitch universe whom i hope i can't hate any harder, please do not hurt a hair on my sister's head. please. leave her alone. you can fuck with her, but you cannot kill her. i feel i can't ask anymore of you, you betraying bastard. but please this one thing. i love her so.

fucker, let's call a truce. i hate you.

sarah

happy birthday to me!

2005-04-16T11:41:00.000-04:00

*SNL cheerleader music* who's that birthday girl i see? it's me! it's me! i said who's that birthday girl i see? it's me! it's me!

yes, kids, i'm leaving teenagerhood, as of 6:08 pm eastern standard time. huzzah!

my door's always open, come anytime you want

2005-04-14T20:12:00.000-04:00

this was supposed to be a post about how crazy academia makes me. i think it's hilarious; i'm not complaining. it took an hour and a half for this academic to establish that interracial friendships can be the site of important learning experiences. um, yeah. i can sum up the talk in a sentence: when you're friends with someone whose experience differs from yours, you can learn valuable things from them; in the context of race, you can learn things about racism and their experience of it in contrast to your own. now, how long did that take? 8.2 seconds?

whatever, i'm most upset by the fact that she has to write a book to convince academia of this. this is the part that bugs me - that academics need a damn book to explain that which is blindingly obvious. but then, i was never one for subtlety, so maybe i'm missing something.

(more specifically social sciences: "the technology of the self" and "matrix" are just some of the academic words that bug me. likewise the discussion of not neutering academia of emotion and having to make the argument that emotion can indeed have real value in an academic setting. like, duh. yet i can totally understand why supreme court justices need to argue about the right to burn the flag for pages and pages. whatever.)

anyway. i'd also like to say my spanish teacher can't pronounce "doubt" - she says it "douth", as though it rhymes with mouth. i have no idea why; otherwise her english is practically flawless. it's strange and somewhat jarring.

but now i'm all upset again about something else: i may not see jeana and carre for an entire year. i KNEW this already but it just re-hit me in a very literal way because in ONE MONTH it will be bacchanalia and my SECOND YEAR OF COLLEGE will be over. and if i go abroad and they go abroad like we're all planning to, i won't see them for SOOOOO LONG!!!!! a whole year!! and jeana, i'm not as worried, because we have a more solid friendship, we'll still be able to talk to each other over distance, and we'll be back senior year. carre i am just starting to really feel solid with and we need to be in one another's physical presence but instead we will be half a world apart and he is threatening to stay there forever. and i can't afford the damn airfare. so who knows when we'll both be at SLC again, if ever? a very scary, sad thought. how am i supposed to keep you in my life for the next ten years if our first two in close proximity didn't establish a solid friendship and we never live in the same place again? goddamnit i don't wanna lose this one, and even a year apart might do us in.

i smell like smoke

2005-04-13T22:46:00.000-04:00

ya know what's weird? that little second when i've just opened a minute maid orange juice and i inhale and it smells like Sunny D and i think, ew! why'd i buy this stuff? it's gross! but then i taste it and realize, no it's orangey goodness . . . it's just that one moment. . . damn that moment is weird.

(my title reminds me of the line in the andre breton poem - READ IT - "my wife with the hair of a wood fire . . .")

ya know what else is weird? the fact that i was thinking about jimmy dugan (that's right, the character from A League of Their Own) in the bathroom the other night, and then i got to thinking about the spelling of his name and how the sound is rather rare for english - where else does consonant U consonant make a sound like "oo"? for example, it's spelled like "bug" but pronounced like "true." uncommon, i tells ya. (more word trivia - what english words contain four consonants in a row? the only one i've come up with that's english is "northwest" and it's a compound. also, there are two english words that contain all the vowels [with the exception of Y] in alphabetical order, "facetious" and "bonus points to whoever figures out the other one; i don't remember.")

the rat babies on my hall now look like either inflamed penile tissue (catie's description, not mine) or dumplings. like, you know, sweet and sour chicken dumplings. yum.

um, oh yeah, someone threw me onto his/her bed and kissed my neck, but it isn't what you think. i now smell like her/him.

displaced midlife crisis time

2005-04-12T13:08:00.000-04:00

pretension
i want to write
like the sea
salty, eternal
i want you to know
i will come for you.

see, wouldn't you all love me more if my every entry were that ridiculous? maybe i SHOULD just get a livejournal and dive in with all the other sarahlawrence fucks. it would have its benefits. many, many slc people write this way.

i'm am full-on in slc's clutches. i am full-on feeling my inadequacy.

whatshisname is spending the summer in south africa, shooting a documentary. taking two friends with (i am not one of the friends). yep, that's right. but i do have an invitation to go. to south africa. this summer. to visit. (opportunity of a lifetime, much?)

huh. and yet when it came the invite made me want to cry.

i am sick of people telling me to wait, that a calling takes time. i don't want to wait. i'm not a patient person. i want to know my purpose NOW. i want to have a goal, a passion, something i can point to and say, see? THAT'S where i'm headed! doesn't it look awesome over there?

needless to say, i will not being doing anything quite so awesome with my summer.

i want to make the world a better place. this figuring-out-who-you-are crap sucks.

and i know that, in the next two (or five) years, my life will be very strange. i know that, given the things i want to do, it is better and important that i remain single. hell, in the next couple years it will be hard enough for me and my friends to keep track of each other. i comprehend that i cannot have a Soulmate during this time. it would only complicate things. but it is still lame. and if i wait til i have time and space in my life for someone, well, that'll never happen. i just have to be burst in upon.

yes, i really am selfish enough to let someone else's good news do this to me.

you have the right to write, and not much else

2005-04-11T17:18:00.000-04:00

in prison you don't know what it's like outside. in prison you don't get ice for your drink, or regular ball point pens. in prison you can be ticketed for getting a sunburn - it's destruction of state property because your ID no longer matches your skin tone. in prison you can do 17 days in lockdown for losing your ID. seventeen fucking days for a slip of plastic. in prison they can decide to lose your mail or your money order. in prison you can listen to how your daughter is acting out while she lives with her grandmother and you know that there's nothing you can do about it and the only reason she's acting out is because you're in prison and now you have to end the call because it's collect and your mother can't afford all those bills plus your kids. in prison you can get x-rays because you complain about your chest pains and find out you have three lumps and have to go in for surgery. in prison you miss holidays. in prison, rehab is a vacation. at least in rehab you can smoke cigarettes and have sex.

these are the things i know now. what do you want me to do with them?

the question "so what's it like outside?" is devastating, coming from the right person. Nikki can't be much older than me, and she misses her son who's six. Carol never wants to write or talk, because what good are we going to do her? Stephanie doesn't understand the reading. Darlene is breaking up with her wife. anything dealing with love makes her cry. Shanelle's husband drew a Smurfette on the letter he sent her - what does that mean? if he's the man, shouldn't he be the Smurf sending a letter to his Smurfette? Darlene is sick. she's been having a lot of court dates lately. so in the midst of trying to go home and breaking up with her long-time girlfriend, she finds three lumps and must go for surgery. she'll probably get "better" healthcare in jail than out. Nikki goes home this summer. so does Stephanie. Liz is only in for like 8 months. they wish they were all getting out the same day so they could go get pedicures together. Shanelle combs Darlene's hair before it's time to go to the hospital. Liz writes about how, in group, they talk about how to stay sober once they're out and she knows this is bullshit, doesn't know how she'll stay sober, so she'll blahblah and then if that doesn't work it's blahblahblah, she writes. it's actually a funny piece with smart sensibility.

i have yet to wash the jail stench, the stale feeling the reminds me of my great-grandmother's nursing home, off my hands. i never do it quickly enough once i get out. but at least i'm out. out for another week. i wish the hour i'm in could be the one they get out.

these are the things i know now. this is what i've learned.

and when we were analyzing a poem in class today, i was shocked that they were shocked you could get any kind of drug in prison. how can they not know the saying "there's more in than out"? how could they not know that, for a price, you can get anything, as long as you're willing to pay or fuck for it?

this is what i know now.

journal

2005-04-10T20:46:00.000-04:00

i am preoccupied with the search for the perfect journal; it takes place semi-annually and the criteria always change. so rather than write about how i was propositioned on friday by the person i've had a crush on for a year, or how i initially turned it down and have since changed my mind but haven't had a chance to say so, or about last night and how i cried through a speaker who lost his brother in iraq, or my frustration with my poetry assignment and poetry itself, or how jeana and i had the same conversation last night mana and i have been having for 4 years now, or how i tried to be normal and succeeded with the help of a corgi, or even my imaginary conversation with my imaginary mexican host family, i'd like to set forth my criteria.

my journals are mostly spiral-bound or composition notebooks. i like to be able to fold them over and write on - concentrate on - only one page. i often write lying down or hunched over so the ability to make a journal compact is important. the binding must, then, be flexible enough to allow this but durable enough to last a long time - i've had my current journal since october of '04 and this is actually a quick turnaround for me. i beat my journals up and take them everywhere - they are part security blanket. i've had large ones and smallish ones. sometimes the large ones feel ridiculous but the small ones are too playful. they must be lined. i find so many beautiful books that have blank pages and i see no point in buying a journal i'll just have to line myself - there's no point. i hate the ones with traditional book-binding that don't lay flat or bend. i must love my journal, or at least not find it an eyesore - we'll be spending a lot of time together. not anything too flashy - i want the words to do the work themselves and i don't want to answer a lot of questions about the notebook on my bed/in my hands/poking out of my tote bag. my current, almost-spent one is oversize, spiral-bound and black and has a strange little window cut in the front cover that i don't love, that i dashed some verse in that was silly enough to throw off any would-be readers. my journal is inviolate. i consider it an extension of the square inches between my ears and treat invasions with accordant violence.

i hate it when people buy journals for me, and i hate hating that, because they are always so well-intentioned. the only journal bought for me i didn't loathe is my pink love journal, and even that i can't seem to use. i can't have "love" on my cover because too many times my writing is not about love, too many times would that word influence my writing or incite me to greater drama, melacholy, or anger. my covers tend to be blank, but in the past i've done collages on them, and two of my journals (two favorites, actually) had prints on the cover - one was a matchbox, la luna, the other a mermaid with la sirena on it. but just one word? how could i stand it? like the journals with the women on them: she had not yet decided whether to use her power for good or for evil. how could you write with that cheeky mocking slogan facing you? every day? ugh. no, i need a journal that has not too much personality. that's what fueled my comp book trend, for years. it's still my default. the composition notebook is deceptive. it reminds too many people of elementary school, or saved by the bell, or something. they would leave it alone and not ask. it wasn't intimidating. that's another thing, when a journal is too beautiful - too lovely to use. that's why one beautiful journal, i believe it was recycled cardboard, became my substitute yearbook - actually, i've used several beautiful notebooks this way, and now that i think about it i may do something similar with the love book - make it a scrap book of sorts, and contain there things i think represent love, and have my friends write testimonies to love, and for my love letters, and if there's any space left i could end the book with my wedding vows or eulogy, whichever comes first.

as i'm sure you see, i could go on. i love journals. i love books. i love words. i love the blank page. sometimes i'll just open to a fresh page and look at it, and get lost in thought, and move on to something else. there are times i've dated a page and not written anything. i love my journals. they are physical proof that i exist, that i've felt other things other times, that i've grown. how i love them.

two completely different things:
one, i've found my favorite simile for death. it's the end of a li-young lee poem called "eating together." he's talking about his father:
". . . Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him
without any travelers, and lonely for no one."

two: i can never remember which comes first, K or L.

a day in the life

2005-04-06T23:46:00.000-04:00

sarah lawrence is such a special place.

5:00pm-8:00pm, Heimbold Visual Arts Center
* nEO-jUDAICA: ART HAPPENING * VISUAL MANIFESTATIONS OF JEWISH IDENTITY AND SPIRITUALITY

7:00pm, Titsworth Lecture Hall
FOR ALL INTERESTED IN POLITICAL AND QUEER THEATER, lecture by Jennifer Miller, founder of Circus Amok, a New York City based queer, circus-theater company whose mission is to provide free public art addressing contemporary issues of social justice. The group has been together since 1989 bringing its funny, queer, caustic and sexy, political one-ring spectacles to diverse neighborhoods. Over the years the traditional circus techniques have been combined with dance, life-size puppetry, music old and new, and dramatic monologues creating new meanings for circus while continuing to entertain the crowds of all ages throughout the city streets, gardens, parks, and playgrounds.

9:00pm, Westlands South Lawn (by Pub)
ULTIMATE FRISBEE - NIGHT DISC. We play in front of the library when the world is soggy.

9:00 pm, Titsworth Lecture Hall
Come to a screening of "The Miami Model" tonight. In November, 2003, trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami, Florida, to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA threatens to devastate workers, the environment, and public services like health care, education, and water, and to destroy indigenous rights and cultural diversity across North, Central, and South America.Thousands of union members, environmentalists, feminists, anarchists, students, farm workers, media activists, and human rights activists who gathered in Miami to struggle against the FTAA were brutally attacked with rubber bullets, pepper spray, electric guns and shock batons, embedded reporters and information warfare, all coordinated by the new United States Department of Homeland Security.Collectively, Indymedia activists and friends shot hundreds of hours of video footage documenting the FTAA protests in Miami. This footage has been edited by the FTAA Miami Video Working Group into a documentary that cuts through the mass media blackout to reveal the brutal repression and assault on civil liberties that took place, as well as the life-affirming and inspiring alternatives to capitalist globalization that were also in full effect in Miami.

e-mail: (subject line "yoga house 05-06")
Hey everyone,
I am interesting in starting a new "Yoga House" theme for one of the houses on Mead Way. I have a couple of people interested and I was wondering if any of you want to jump in as well. I am hoping to arrange group classes in the city with a van as well other events. If you are interested please e-mail me at TSullivan@slc.edu
Peace,
-Tim

new rule

2005-04-06T19:55:00.000-04:00

new rule: if i have a sex dream about you, i should get to have sex with you. it's the law. i'm looking at you, carre. (nope, no new developments. sorry.)

to my second most popular lover of all time

2005-04-03T17:38:00.000-04:00

(no, this post is not about bobby or phil or anyone dead. one more guess . . . )

i am summoning you. i am working my voodoo and i summon you, kid. show up. call me. find my number. call my sister and get it.

that won't happen. it's the same spell i've been casting for months now, calling out to him. be there when i get back. come outta the woodwork. please let me find you. i know you don't exactly want to be found, but i desperately want you found. all i need from you is one good night, i promise. one good conversation. i don't even need to play with you anymore. i miss the way you used to talk when you were on a really enjoyable roll. you knew how to torture me. i wish we'd been able to grow up together, wish i'd seen you develop. i am calling you back. return.

you affected me, and me only. none of my friends really know what you did to me. (simultaneously, they sense it.) visions of you visit me almost as often as the other ones that everyone knows so much about. i never let you break my heart, but i did love you a whole lot. and it's shitty the way i kicked you out of my life, i just didn't know what else to do at the time. i know your story even though you didn't tell it to me. i know she hit you, i know you miss your father and love him and hate him so very much. i know you're just a screwed up kid in a house full of women looking for a way out. i know how you hide, i know how you exploit the freaky parts of your upbringing so we don't ask what really happened. i'm sorry.

i always imagined you as someone else, in some tiny corner of my brain. in my picturings of you living a different life, they nurture your gifts. in my head we end up with a different story. anywhere but santa fe, you are a potential longterm boyfriend for me. you take copious black and whites of me. had you been raised anywhere else, anytown u.s.a., by slightly less freaky people, you'd be so average, gorgeous, and it would be perfect. you'd be normal and i would too. i picture you winning accolades in high school. working for the newspaper. i see your after school job. i know living in santa and having the freaky lives we all have is good for us, will make us better people in the long run. it's just hard sometimes. i know you're clawing your way out right now, but i wish the past were different for us.

please stop haunting me.

it's not over; hell, it's just beginning

2005-03-31T23:15:00.000-05:00

(dear reader: i am sorry to make this blog so depressing. but i need it. i have no other way. writing by hand takes too long and i cannot keep dumping this shit on my poetry class. i don't know what to do. it isn't over. i'm sorry.)

I wish I could write my way out of this.
I wish I could block out a weekend and feel the entirety at my convenience.
I wish I didn’t feel the need to keep them all on the list.
the nine (now ten) (maybe eleven or twelve or a baker’s dozen)
people who cannot die.
that’s your only job.

of course it was his only job too.
just stay the fuck alive.
for our sakes.

yup, grief is selfish like that.
I grieve you because of the pain you have caused me
and my friends
by leaving our lives.
and yes, I grieve your life.
I grieve the children you will not hold or photograph.
I grieve the cars you will not buy and refurbish.
I grieve the kitty who sleeps in a strange house.
I grieve these parts of your life.

but I also grieve
for the nephew or niece being born
I wonder and worry about the effects this will have on them
to be six months old in the womb
and have your mother struck by this terrible, terrible blow
will you be born bitter?
will you always have a sadness about you?
will they know it came from your uncle micah?
will they tell you the story of how he was abused, how his legs were burnt,
how he, too, suffered insufferable loss?
or will you just know it in your bones?
will you be a quiet child?
you will look like him.
I can already picture your angelic photos.
they haunt me like his.
they are his.
I am sorry for you, tiny unborn person.
sorry for the grief your mama has taken in
sorry we couldn’t shield you even in the womb
from the sorrow of existence.

just checking in

2005-03-31T22:21:00.000-05:00

dear universe -
we haven't talked in awhile.
so just FYI, i still fucking hate you.

you are a fucker.
sarah

timeless

2005-03-29T13:33:00.000-05:00

there are lists that should never exist. i should not have these contingency plans. i should not know what i'll do in the event of catastrophe, and my actions should not be ranked according to the importance of the victim. if someone from circle A dies, i have a plan for that. or circle B. the circles widen outward. how long can we maintain this tension? how long can we keep doing this? how long will we keep holding our breath this time, if two years isn't long enough? i'd literally JUST relaxed my grip. we all know this. and now, nothing. i can't. i realized this morning i wrote "litany" on the train yesterday, on the one month anniversary. it really doesn't feel like a month. i realized the other day, i associate the word "timeless" with sadness, partly because i associate it with this feeling. to me, timelessness is to exist outside of time, and one exists outside of time when it's a crisis. i've been in crisis mode for a month now, and you know what? it could've been a week, for all i knew. the dates move on the calendar but i remain, confused. i associate "timeless" with hospital waits. with the car on the way to a funeral. with the plane ride. with the worst week of my life. with the nights when who you sleep next to doesn't matter as long as it's a warm body. "timeless" is not a word for jewels and art. it is a word for the strangely numb protracted ripping feeling.

i haven't been bothering to write. what's to write about? my depression? my overwhelming sadness? (the two are distinct.) oh, and the emptiness. i feel empty, too. so many emotions to cram in for someone who claims exhaustion. my friends and i have reached the point where we have nothing to say to each other but we stay on the phone anyway. we need the connection. but the emptiness . . . it's a drifting endless feeling that i need to end. i need for it to stop. i need to feel less hollow. but what is there to fill this space in my life? a terrible fear, that's what. well, i'd rather hold the fear at bay by remaining empty then, if it's all the same to you. because it's untenable, it's unfaceable, this unreal reality that my life has become. this is such a strange journey. it just gets weirder. and yes, i am feeling sadness, but it is an exquisite, tempered sadness. my grief is more measured this time. at least, right now. i haven't let go yet. i can feel the screams though. i am scared for them to fade and scared for them to get out so i clutch them to me. they're there.

and to distract myself? the same thing i've always used, just in a different way this time. the obsession over it rather than a concrete act - is there really any difference? and aren't yall tired of it? i know i am. i'm tired of myself, tired of my own antics, my own crutches. mostly just tired of human charades. my mentors are leaving and flying to pieces, i'm not sure which relationships to salvage, i'm worried about my future. the more i learn the less i want to know. the more i look the less i can turn away from the train wreck of existence. argh. this is what happens when i try to write stream of consciousness. i feel cranky.

litany

2005-03-28T19:55:00.000-05:00

for sarah grace archibald:
upon the death of our third friend in four years
before either of us had turned twenty

I’m crying because I’m leaving my sister
I’m crying because my sister doesn’t live near me anymore
I’m crying because I want to make my plane
I’m crying because I don’t want to leave
and yes, I’m crying because one of my lovers is dead
yes I am crying for my friends
yes I am crying because shitty things happen to people
every day and there’s nothing I can do about it
I’m crying because I always wanted to be a mom and now I don’t know how I can do that
what if I’m so terrified something will happen to one of them that I never let them live

I’m crying because I never, ever want you to know
what this feeling is
I am crying because I know it is
universal and
intensely personal and
I hate it anyway.
I’m crying because this time I
can’t say, can’t believe, that
“this will never happen again”
I’m crying because I’m terrified.

I am so scared. not only for you
I am terrified on behalf of my friends
terrified of the thoughts that stalk us
terrified because we ask who’s next
and because we don’t know the answer but we suspect there is one
I’m terrified because my best friend and I made a list
of the 9 people who simply cannot die
if our family is to function
and there are some people who aren’t on it.
I’m terrified because death is stalking us and keeps getting closer and closer
and next time what if
I’m terrified of what if

don’t ask me why I’m crying.

it would take me hours to tell you.

writing you out of my body

2005-03-23T01:37:00.000-05:00

i still write about you. less and less now, but you're still there. especially in times like this. especially since i dreamt of you. i can't forget.

just today i wished for you. just today i thought so long and so hard about you, i half expected my phone to ring, just because you always know. just today i craved you. i told myself cruel truths about you to curb the impulse. i've never done justice to the enormousness of our relationship, which i suppose is a testament in and of itself. i'm sorry. i'm sorry for you and for us and a little bit for myself.

i can't forget you because you spent a night with one hand, your right, resting between my thighs, the way one does when it's cold out and you're trying to warm up your fingers. not demanding or expecting anything - i was suspicious. at one point you did squeeze my leg and tug it tighter to you, but then nothing. i realize you were only half-conscious (unlike me). this was probably the most comfort either of us has ever given the other.

the day we found out angelica died you and i had sex, on your bed, covers not even pulled down, still mostly clothed. i was wearing a black lacy tank top my parents gave me for valentine's day, i think it was that same year. they gave the same shirt to emily. (since then they've mostly given us socks.)

the day we found out david died you went incommunicado for a couple of hours. you wouldn't answer our calls and we didn't know where you were in cruces. you promised to come up as soon as possible - by then you knew you were leaving school anyway.

i've told the story of how you called me that night many times. it still stands out as one of the moments in which you were kindest to me. i never thanked you properly. i don't even know if you know that's the only way i slept that night. it was the most alone i've ever felt and you helped me get through it and you might not know even that.

and. and then. you were the one who told me about jonathan's death. i'm not sure how that fits, but it does. i'm not sure what now, what next.

i really really thought you were gone for good this time. honest. but here you are back again. and i don't know what to make of it. i was young and stupid when i said i wanted you in my life for years to come. but now, five years later, you're still here. WTF?

(you're my johnny, you know. the way sarah feels is the way i imagine i'd feel if something happened to you. you were always one we suspected might fall victim to something - you don't sleep, your driving is atrocious, you're all kinds of emotionally fucked up. and still i loved you. and still i think you are beautiful. mana says you are sorry for what you did to me. i am thankful. she may just be applying salve to my ego, bless her heart. or it may just be years before you figure out what she already knows. i hope i'm not around to find out.)

i'm trying to write you out of my body. trying so hard to write you out of my life. if i write you down enough, if i lay you out in 2-D, will you stick? can i shut you in a notebook and leave you there? please?

you make me ache.

hopelessness

2005-03-16T01:51:00.000-05:00

happy snow day to everyone it affected. thank goodness no one was really traveling today. thank god gerard left early and mike made it here (and then went to work, silly fucker) and mana made it and now shares my bad-weather-travel pain.

i have no money. last night was the first real night of sleep i've had and i wasn't even in my own bed (the heat wouldn't stay on in my room so i slept on the couch like a guest. like kyle, who also stayed here). i'm not eating properly. my body hurts. and this is all normal.

i'm too scattered to write. i'm trying to get it out, to write this out of my consciousness, and it won't go.

* * *

it feels weird being in contact with all the people i tried to leave behind. it is weird to think about adam and tim and JB. the first thing i said when i walked into the brown house wednesday night was, i said i'd never do this again.

i thought i'd never be in contact with them again. i'd kicked everyone out of my phone. the people i maintained contact with are the people i want in my life, and now everyone else is back.

there is a long list of terrible things that have come to light in the past two weeks. i mean serious, life-altering things. seven of them, to be in exact. and none of them are all known by anyone but me, because there are secrets involved.

when did we become statistics? i know too many people who have been raped, too many people who have been in abusive relationships, too many dead kids. i never thought we would be the kind of people who became statistics. i know too many secrets, too many confidentialities, too many things kept hidden. the other night i looked around the table at the atomic. it was JB, tina, mana, sean, sarah, gerard and me, and i thought "i know something no one else knows about everyone at the table, except maybe gerard and tina."

* * *

today i tried something novel: functioning. not too challenging because i didn't leave the house. i don't really know normalcy except as a memory. i did a lousy job.

i hate everything. i'm in a bad mood. i loathe it all.

still haven't heard from bobby.
haven't emailed con law teacher.
i suck.
we ALL need tons of therapy.
i keep thinking, i'm not supposed to be here. i'm supposed to be in philadelphia with homeless people. damnit.

* * *

like i keep saying, i never thought we would be the kind of people who are hopeless. but we're staring hopelessness in the face.

we keep repeating, we don't have the luxury of saying or thinking or believing this will never happen again. three dead kids in four years, all within 8 days of each other, all happened on a monday or a sunday. that's too much of a pattern. this is a sick state of mind, to be finding patterns in friends' deaths. when you plot a line, you start with two points and plot a third in the middle to check your work, much like march 4 and feb 24 and feb 27 in between them.

the two worst words in the english language are: who's next? and we can't stop thinking that.

this trip home was a wake-up call for many of us, even those of us who were already here. (and i do wonder about them, adam and tim and co., what it's like to see us come and go.) all of us are wondering what we're doing with our lives. all of us are thinking about what we love vs our obligations because the two rarely intersect. sarah keeps saying life is short, do what you want.

i have avoided anything philosophical or deep or reflective for a long time. and now it's slapping me in the face. i don't love where i am right now. i don't love most of the people at my school. this is not where i want to be, but i keep thinking i must get a college degree. just get a degree, sarah, then go nuts. then do what tina did. then go abroad. anything. but get the degree first, you must have it. if i leave now i won't go back.

what forces are at work in the universe? how do we face them? how can we possibly NOT think terrible things? "the universe is unfolding as it should." my ASS. fuck you, universe!

we are all so, so scared. terrified. for everyone. it keeps getting closer. what if next time it's too close to survive? i still feel like everyone is suffering more than me, that they deserve and earned more pain by being closer to him. that's fucked up too, and i know it, and i can't not think it.

these past two weeks i've been too fucked up to think straight. it's affected everything from my perspective on an acquaintence's military service to my advice on a friend's ex.

if i died, would random strangers try to comfort those who grieved me with, "she died doing something she loved"? (when people say that about johnny, i think, so did david.)

bring the pain

2005-03-07T01:51:00.000-05:00

my body is sore. stress-sore, like i'm about to get those full-blown pains i get along my collarbone and shoulders. my hands are tingling. i am alone in my dorm room. less than 36 hours and i crash and burn into santa, both good and bad.

but before that, two things:
1) first time in prison (nope, not the name of my forthcoming primere adult release)
2) con law midterm (which i plan on failing horrendously)
(these two thoughts, along with thoughts about bobby, are good distractions.)

today i went to a child's birthday party. he clapped every time people clapped on the CD that was playing. he was angelic and perfect. rich parents talked about applications for obscenely expensive private preschools that feed into the right prep schools.

children still clap, sarah. you yourself drank wine today and rode the subway. people still eat pussy pops - vagina shaped chocolates, for the unintiated. little sarah and i were talking about how numb we feel. mana and i too. it hasn't hit us. we are still talking in the present tense. like he's here. everytime mana listed who she wants to see while home both of us had to bite our tongues to stop his name from coming out.

it had better hit. my current theory is, when i am in the brown house where i never expected to go again, hugging JB who i never expected to touch again, seeing phil and morgan and people i never expected to see again, it will hit.

but little sarah still has a deep-down awful feeling all the time. and really, so do i. i'm flashing back to telling thomas how i hope he never has to go through something like this, and how it was true. even completely numb, even so unfeeling it scares me, this still manages to hurt more than i'd ever imagined. if you've never experienced it i sincerely feel you don't, at least not for a very long time.

the most terrible words in the english language right now are: who's next?

our way of checking in with people now goes like this: how are you, life still sucking? yeah me too. okay, glad we cleared that up. carry on.

my sense of humor has gotten very, very morbid.

i'm in a hole. someone build me a fucking ladder.

i can't reread. i want to, but i can't reread tim's blog post or JB's email (he sent out a fucking email . . . he felt it was necessary to send out a fucking email), or anything else, even though i know it's there. i'm pretending. god wednesday is going to suck so very hard.

i still do not trust the universe. everyone be safe.

unpredictable

2005-03-04T01:18:00.001-05:00

mana's coming! woohoo! and in her words, we totally pulled a good cop/bad cop on a certain senator wall. i got to be bad cop.

something cute: maria clearing her throat before a sign language exercise.

something true: i just don't trust the universe right now.

i scared my spanish teacher when the only thing i piped up in class with was the correct conjugation of "they died."

i want to pierce my lip. lower off to the right. a small ring. i'll bite it all the time.

in light of this week i want a memorial tattoo. i need to incorporate both boys. i am open to suggestions on design, placement, etc, everything.

word of the day: im·pe·cu·ni·ous adj. Lacking money; penniless. See Synonyms at poor

before i forget i must give a shout-out to mana i've been meaning to give since i read this line. but i MUST say thank you for this:
"I love you for everything you are, even that which i am unfamiliar with."
the girl is a damn genius.

more letters:

dear little sister -
i never, ever wish this for you. please do not say you feel bad because you don't know what i'm going through; i don't WANT you to know what i'm going through. if there was anything i could do to keep you safe from this, i would. if my grief staves off your own somehow, then it is worth it. because this sucks so very hard, babe. i know i'm your big sister and you want to do everything i do, but trust me, you need to feel your own grief about this, not mine. please don't worry about me. i'll come through this because i have to.

i worry that this is making you question. the universe is still a good place. i hope. i'm not very trustful right now; i don't have a lot of faith. you always had more than me. i don't want you to lose faith. yes, my friends and i have been through a lot. and all of it has strengthened our ties to each other; it has given us perspective. these are poor excuses but they are the explanations i need in this unfair world. i'm sorry it's all i can offer you, dear. i can't tell you i turn to god, or that i know why this happened, or that this happened because i hang out with people who are more likely to die. i don't KNOW why this happens, but it has and we have to deal with it. i'm sorry you have to deal with it too, sorry i brought you in to this by making you hang out with my friends. if i'd known you'd be helping them grieve and acting as a surrogate me and feeling so in-over-your-head i might have chosen differently. but i have faith in you; i chose the right deputy.

i love you. don't worry about me. take care of yourself. your big sister is coming home soon to lead the way. love you so much, babe.

thank you for writing what you wrote; it was very powerful. it reduced us all to tears. it is also a scathing indictment of a god who would do this to us. you said it more eloquently than i can.

love, your big sister

ps thank you for calling me every day. thank you for asking if there's anyone i'd like you to check in on. thank you thank you so much. i'm sorry i have to lean on you, but i have to, and you're the only best friend i have who's heart isn't being ripped out *quite* as badly as mine right now.

universe -
let me get this straight. i had a friend die junior year, 2002, who was 16. car accident. then in 2003 an 18 year old friend died, different kind of accident. now, in 2005, a 20 year old friend dies, skiing accident. all the death anniversaries fall within ONE WEEK. one calendar week. feb 24, march 3, and now feb 27 right in between them.

i'm noticing a pattern. when 22 rolls around, everything better be copacetic, fucker.

i can't even comment on how unspeakably fucked up that is.

i won't even mention how you took first one of tim's best friends, and then the other. two years apart. or how you took tina's mother freshmen year of high school, then three of her very best friends in succession.

i hate you.

(and PS i hate trying to reassure my little sister this earth is still a good place to live and cursing it with the same breath. but i don't know what else to do. i want her to have the faith i lack.)

home

2005-03-03T23:52:00.000-05:00

home home home i want to be HOME NOW PLEASE.

mana and i agree: this is the most emotional tension we've held for an extended period of time in our lives. this is the hardest emotional test we've ever encountered.

there is nothing coherent about grief. i feel like this is the most surprising part. yes, you are a Grieving Person (sometimes people won't let you forget), and you are numb, but you are still yourself. and you want to clutch desperately at normalcy, or what you think normalcy is. and whatever your usual coping methods are, grief will amplify them. so you find yourself filing at work and trying not to cry. or you find yourself biting your nails over the tension at a student auction, then stop and wonder what the hell you're thinking. you still want to kiss your favorite boys. your dreams will surprise you. there just is nothing uniform or normal or consistent about it. it's the strangest emotional state i've ever experienced.

i'm scared. there are two potential extremes: i will go completely numb in this limbo week and not be able to come back. i will be a numb dead thing while people cry on me. i will withdraw, because i do not want my grief to be public; i want to hoard it for myself and the person it belongs to. the tension of this week will break me in a different way and take away my emotions. i will feel nothing and i might not heal.

option two: i will be a wreck. i will fall apart. i will cry like it is the last time i'll have strength for tears. i will play these keys like a piano and write write write out my grieving thoughts even though no one will probably read them.

this week i keep thinking, this is the hardest thing i've ever done. followed by, don't be so dramatic. what's hard about it? just sit on your arse and don't think until you fly home.

then i remember: i have to manage not to fly apart at the seams, fly in all directions. oh, right. i'll be sitting in class and about to cry at some completely insignificant word or phrase someone's uttered and think, nope, i haven't lost any of those feelings. they're definitely still there. the fact that i sound more powerful reading gwendolyn brooks aloud than i ever have, the emotion in my voice - how did it get there? - reassures me, i am still human, i still feel. the tears will come. it will hit. i won't have trouble unlocking it.

and honestly, i'd rather have it be option two. option one is a terrifying loss of humanity. i need to break it open and get it out. i need to learn from last time.

like i told ed: it'll suck when it hits. but life sucks now anyway. it might as well suck in the service of something, like clawing my way back to reality.

i would never wish this on anyone. i never want anyone to feel this way. emily was saying how she doesn't know how this feels, and was talking about how our parents and her shouldn't talk about it like they know what it's like. i said good. i don't want you to know what this is like or how it feels. your job is just to be there for us, okay? i DON'T WANT you to approximate this. ever. if i could write a spell or a poem strong enough to prevent that, you bet your ass i would.

headshots

2005-03-02T18:15:00.002-05:00

you do not immediately realize that this is the best picture ever taken of the girl. all that is visible is her round face, against a blank wall behind her head. it is black and white and she is smiling. her hair is curling perfectly, swayed by a convincing breeze. her eyes are squeezed by laughter and fat, her eyebrows uneven. you realize her tongue is sticking out and curled up, blending in with her colorless lips. she might have been laughing before this was snapped - the smile and tongue are not forced. there is no hint of dishonesty in her face, and you could muse that she has had a good life.

you cannot see that the wall is actually light brown stucco, or that she is outside on a blazingly clear spring day. her photographer, who must have talent to let youth and beauty do all the work, is much taller than her short, round frame and must bend to three-quarters of his height to capture her face without angles. other kids are gathered, waiting turns and making jokes so the reluctant girl will smile. she has protested that pictures of her are always awful and seems determined to prove it until someone tells the right joke, and she finally relinquishes a genuine smile. the photo is snapped and forgotten by all, except the girl, who will eventually learn two things: her photographer will not live to see his 21st birthday, and she would never have a photo that serenely, effortlessly perfect ever again.

when i come home

2005-03-01T15:21:00.000-05:00

Tuesday - March 8
Arrive 10:12 pm Albuquerque, NM

Sunday - March 27
Depart 06:40 am Albuquerque, NM
Arrive 04:20 pm New York, NY

blogger roll call!

2005-03-01T12:28:00.000-05:00

okay, here is a centralized list of all the blogs i'm reading, so everyone can read and cry with me:

mana: http://manabutt.blogspot.com/
emily/ylime/little pepin: http://maybemobywillstopby.blogspot.com/
gerard: http://theguyyouknow.blogspot.com/liljess: http://longlivetheabsurd.blogspot.com/ (she hasn't written anything yet)

even ed (http://www.livejournal.com/users/jukar42/) wrote something.

and here are two myspace links, though mana and jess and i must warn you, the myspace account is difficult to handle (and the links are not reliable): http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=5904654&blogID=16447004&Mytoken=20050228163710
or http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=5904654&Mytoken=20050228164113

or just open a myspace account and do a friend search, type in jonathan reeves and you'll find him.

but all of this will just make you cry.

2005-03-01T00:34:00.000-05:00

"Life sucks, get a fuckin' helmet!" - Jonathan Micah Reeves, myspace quotation

for small griefs you shout, but for big griefs you whisper or say nothing.
the big griefs must be borne alone, inside.
hal borland

and one more time just because:
Honor the brave who fought,
Honor the dead who fell,
Honor the world they saved.

* * * * *

okay, i am now teary.

not much new to report. numb hours pass. i haven't eaten a real meal in almost 36 hours, i've just had tons of sugar, but shockingly no caffeine except a cup of black tea. and i slept 4 hours and napped a half hour. i am neither tired nor hungry, but wired. the body is a strange animal.

mana and i want to be home so badly we can both feel it. there is a physical ache in my body like none i have ever known. this next week til i fly might just be one of the hardest of my life. i know yall are reading but if someone wants to drop me a comment, i'd really feel much better. don't know why, i'm just obsessing over the blog right now. need something to focus on.

right now i am holding in the anger for fear of exploding. but trust me, it is there. and it is dangerous. and i can feel it and i am frightened. i know that i am very, very strong. i worry about misdirecting that energy or not knowing how to direct it at all. part of me will be angry at him, and that could be dangerous too.

but when i need to remember why i am angry, i will remember what i told ed:
do you know what that kid came through? in a nutshell, he survived abuse, third degree burns on most of his legs as a freshmen in high school, his father's total rejection of him and absence from his life, alcoholism, and the death of his best friend. but he fucking survived. not to mention the cosmic coincidence involved. i mean, look at a calendar - david and angelica were exactly a week apart and now he falls squarely between them. it's horrendous.

it's offensive to my sense of . . . everything.

* * * * *

writing from earlier today:

i will be okay. whatever malicious forces there are in the universe that are testing my family this way, they're not getting the best of me. tonight i'm buying a plane ticket for next tuesday. don't know how i'm going to stick it out another week, but this week i have classes and such to distract me and this weekend my wife is coming down from boston. she flies out of LGA sunday night and i follow on tuesday. so if i can get to friday i will be okay, or at least with someone who understands completely.

also, ylime is acting as my minion, thank god. she's my eyes right now and checking in on the people i'm really worried about in santa. [everyone's invited to my house some night for food and hanging out, just to be in a different space, you all knew that already, yes? good. it's silly to keep inviting you home when you're family anyway.]

dear whoever or whatever is doing this fucked up shit to me and my friends -
still fucking hate you. you fucker. fuck you.

dear weather -
snowing right now is a-okay. snowing a week from now, not okay. please please please please please do not storm sunday or tuesday of next week. my wife and i need to get home for a funeral and some mourning. everyone i talk to wants me home. i want me home. ditto my wife. please please please behave and let us fly home - we promise not to enjoy it, we're just going so we can cry with people we love instead of by ourselves. please. i have never wanted to be anywhere so badly as i want to be in santa fe right now. every time i talk to someone about coming home or make plans for it, i cry. i am crying now. please let me get there safely - my extended family can't handle anymore. please.

what grieving is

2005-02-28T11:40:00.000-05:00

there is this weird place in grief where you just want nothing more than for time to pass. you're not feeling any of the emotions, you're just numb. i guess numb is the word. it's a holding pattern - anyone who's been in an actual holding pattern on a plane knows this sensation, the loud roar of the engines, the totally sensory overload of the constant roaring and the bright neon airplane lights and the twist and jerk of turbulence.

part of me wishes i could just feel all the grief at once, at my convenience. block out an afternoon and go through all the stages, in order. work through my denial and feel all the sadness i will ever feel about this, break for tea, move to anger and bargaining. then i could look back for always with only wistfulness and regret. that might be perfect.

but stupid humans don't stupid work like that. (i hope you laughed at that, it was a funny transition. see? i can still be funny. that's the strange thing about grief. you are Supposed To Be Grieving, but you want to do everything else WHILE you grieve - part of you is desperately clutching at normal, and still wants to be funny or silly or sexy or flatulent or whatever fill-in-the-adjective that is supposed to contain some aspect of your fragile human existence.)

and while you're in Holding Pattern Grief, you can't DO anything. you have to strike just the right chord of distraction and be careful with it. too little distraction and the pain comes on and you can't deal with it right now and it tries to suck you under and you either fight it and pull yourself out or go with it. Holding Pattern Grief is good for when you still have to function, like waiting for the bus or train, going to get food, in between classes. but too much distraction and it's unbearable, you can't stand to be around these people who are Normal when you are Not. and that can make you angry or bring on random tears or outbursts. so you have to be careful.

i forgot how mundane grief is. in the two years, i've forgotten. when i tried to write about it, i did what everyone does - i wrote the sexy, dramatic parts. it's much more interesting to see the falling to the knees and dramatic sobbing. it's the waiting, the numb dragging hours, that no one wants to know about. because it feels like a death sentence, this dull thudding pain.

but a HUGE part of the grieving process is the sheer number of hours you spend. with people who love and understand. doing nothing.

we spent hours in the brown house. laying there. not saying much of anything. people played halo, people put on movies. people came and went. we ate because eating is What You Do, not what we felt like. we watched movies at shakira's, ate from her copious chocolate supplies, made tea. a whole lot of nothing, but with a completely different tinge. we went to walmart and target and gas stations. we got restless.

grief is boring and restless.

2005-02-28T02:09:00.000-05:00

dear universe -
fuck you. fuck you so much and so hard and so long you have internal damage. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck YOU, universe.

how the fuck can you do this?

my friends had JUST healed. all the letters and the crying this week, it felt like closure. it felt like catharsis. it felt good. it's been 2 years since DAC's death, and now you kill one of his best friends?

how fucked up can you get?

i fucking hate you. now if you'll excuse me, i have to go back to tending the far-flung members of my extended family who are in even more pain this time around because of the cruel, sick, sadistic, fucked up irony.

i fucking hate you.
- sarah, who hates you

MOTHERFUCKINGGODDAMNIT I FUCKING HATE THIS SHIT

2005-02-27T17:17:00.000-05:00

MOTHERFUCKING FUCK HOW THE FUCK CAN THIS FUCKING HAPPEN THIS IS SOOOOOOO GODDAMN FUCKED UP.

GODFUCKINGDAMNIT THERE IS NO MOTHERFUCKING GOD BECAUSE IN A JUST UNIVERSE THIS WOULDN'T FUCKING HAPPEN.

best friends shouldn't die. and one best friend, who survives the other's death, should not die two years and three days later. NOT FUCKING FAIR, YOU GODDAMN TWO-FACED UNIVERSE. NO FUCKING FAIR.

i want it to be not true. i want it SOOOOOOOOO to not be true. unfortunately even phillip christopher brooks isn't fucked up enough to lie to me about something like that. these are the times when two-year-old ties, when the people who comforted me then are the ones who will comfort me now, fuck my newly-made friends, they don't know what this is and can't handle it and my old friendships go deeper anyway. what the fuck? i've just been sentenced to at least a week of flashbacks, disbelief and tears.

how THE FUCK can this happen to my extended community? HOW THE FUCK????? how the fuck is this fair?

tim, and adam, and JB, and sarah, and mana, and me and gerard and mike, pray for us. pray for us in this unfair, unholy universe.

we knew. we all fucking knew. you pay for the good times with bad. and we could all FEEL that things were just going too well, could FEEL that something was wrong. i want SO BADLY to not believe this, want it to be the MOST FUCKED UP JOKE THAT WAS EVER TOLD TO A GROUP OF TEENAGERS JUST TRYING TO STUMBLE THROUGH LIFE WITHOUT TOO MANY PEOPLE GETTING HURT.

fuck you, god. fuck you, humanism. fuck you, buddha. fuck EVERYTHING!!!!! HOW THE FUCK COULD THIS HAPPEN?????

I CAN'T EVEN COMPREHEND IT.

what now? a fucking band using both their initials? what now? maybe we should just change the name of the band whenever someone else dies. i DO NOT WANT to write the letter i just wrote to DAC to someone else every two years. motherfucker. jonathan micah reeves. johnny, who's nickname i just learned to spell properly two weeks ago. HOW THE FUCK? out of the triplets, one is left. WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, PICK US OFF ONE BY ONE EVERY COUPLE OF YEARS?????

please please please please please let it be a lie. let it be a huge lie. please. i'd rather hate whoever started a brush fire of gossip forever than have jonathan be gone. please. let me beat up the person who started the rumor, but let jonny be alive, let him return to his tiny one room house and his kitten. i'll do anything.

vagina doctor

2005-02-26T15:35:00.000-05:00

*disclaimer: this post is hilarious if you can get past the subject matter.*

fuck fuck fuck i'm freaking the fuck out.

so i went to the vagina doctor today, and i was thinking, hmm, i'm going to write a post about this, because i have friends who've never been (or haven't been in a long time) to the vagina doctor, some of whom have vaginas, and they should know what it's like (regardless of anatomy) because people freak the hell out about the vagina doctor.

i like the vagina doctor in principle and theory - vagina doctors are Very Important. anyone who's had heterosexual sex (or wants to, or has had a pregnancy scare) should understand the importance of the vagina doctor. (gynecologist, for all you squares. *not saying people who don't engage in hetero sex shouldn't be interested in 'gina docs, just saying they're the most obvious population who'd be concerned, especially among teenagers.) in actuality, i LOATHE the vagina doctor and my appointments with them, though i think it is very important to say the vagina doctor is not NEARLY as scary as people who've never been think they are. the things they do to you are yucky, but not nearly as bad as the imagining what they're going to do to you.

so i'm having this fine lil train of thought chugging along, dutifully pulling out my List of Vagina-Related Questions (you're supposed to make one before you go so, in the moment, you don't forget all), and pondering how this visit is taking longer than it should. then they pop in and ask if they can get a urine sample from me. i've been getting annual exams for 4 years now, and never having been asked for urine that wasn't in connection with a pregnancy test (and knowing i'm not pregnant because i peed in a cup for these people 3 weeks ago and then commenced bleeding), i think Something Is Up.

so i pee in the cup, and calm myself down by thinking how boys have such an advantage when it comes to peeing in cups, and freak myself out thinking how It Has Finally Happened, I Have an STD Because I'm a Slut and A Bad Girl and This Is What Happens To Bad Girls. i trot in with my urine sample and sit down and chew on some ice. the doctor stands in front of me. "have you ever had a yeast infection?" oh thank fucking god. yeast is fine. yeast is not sexually transmitted, everyone gets yeast infections, they do fucking commercials on teevee about it, i can handle that! (i had no idea anything was wrong with me. yeah, i'm in touch with my body.)

so we talk about that and it's cool. and then, somehow, someone brings up my family history (diabetes, both sides). "have you been thirsty lately?" the power of suggestion, eh? all of a sudden my brain is like, yesihavebeenthirstylatelyohmygodi'msick AAAAHHHHH!!! I PEE ALL THE TIME!!!! I'VE GOT DIABETES!!!! then the doc says to the woman doing my tests to "run a glucose sample on that, too." glucose? glucose means SUGAR!!!! sugar means DIABETES!!!!!! (as you can tell, this doc wasn't really impressing me with her bedside manner while i was freakingthefuckout and she was the good one. yes, i got TWO vagina doctors, one of whom didn't know what she was doing, so of course SHE was the one wielding the speculum. that's a whole 'nother story. suffice it to say i NEVER want to hear another male complain about having to bend over and cough, given what my poor cunt just went through.)

so anyway, we're sure it's nothing, just checking because elevated yeast can be an early sign of diabetes. or it can just mean you have a working cunt and you're alive. seriously, the range is that broad. i'm getting blood tests for diabetes on wednesday. oh, and they're checking my cholesterol, also because of family history (because the doc was like, who has diabetes, your father? and i said, no, he's the one with high cholesterol. damn me and my big mouth). isn't that awesome? woohoo. i want to be cool with it, not be such a fucking hypochrondriac. but i am. i always have been. i'm a worst case scenario kind of girl. argh.

update on my night

2005-02-26T03:14:00.000-05:00

watched two movies with two deaf boys. and jeana. had some beer. ran around campus. must go to bed now.

hawk vs. squirrel

2005-02-25T15:25:00.000-05:00

i feel about 18 kinds of awesome right now.

i scammed the bookstore out of $18 - my weekend is paid for! AND i got three free books! (one of which is about sex!)

told a kid in the library that there is nothing geeky about evil dead, it rocks like old metallica! (totally stole the phrase.) it was cute when he asked, what do you really listen to? enya? and when i objected that this was a stereotype he was like, hey! i listen to enya!

there is a hawk outside trying to eat a black squirrel. i wish it was a gray squirrel (as they are more common), but the whole nature thing is beautiful. i'm worried the hawk is lost. *update* a gaggle of SLC kids watched the hawk vs. squirrel drama for TWO HOURS. finally the hawk left, seeming to give up. it returned less than 10 minutes later, just when its prey was getting complacent enough to try and run for cover. the hawk returned, snatched the squirrel, and is now enjoying his squirrel dinner. SLC kids continue to watch, and i think someone got it on video. everyone's saying, that was amazing! incredible! kinda restores my faith in those nutjobs. you could hear the hawk's wings when it swooped in.

took computer to academic computing. and fixed it.

put in work order for our hallway.

had cookies.

week is over, prison survived.

also

2005-02-23T17:28:00.000-05:00

we found this. and played it throughout the day. we are professionals.

http://albinoblacksheep.com/flash/numa.php

6 hours in admissions

2005-02-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

i hate the alphabet. it's time to stop filing when you no longer know if i or e comes first.

Linda, giving Ryan more filing to do: Remember, it's not for me, it's for the cause.

Ryan on his interview: it was great! i mean, it was fine, you know, okay. normal interview. she was just gorgeous and i wanted to let her keeping talking so i could have an excuse to look at her eyes.

actual conversation in SLC admissions today:
prospie parent: i'd like to . . . well, you see my son is applying . . . and i noticed that your school is three-quarters female . . . and i was just wondering if that makes it different? is there a man in the office i could speak to?
female secretary: sure. (transfers to Larry, our flamboyantly gay admissions counselor)
Larry: How can i help you?
prospie parent: um, i was just wondering what it's like for young men at sarah lawrence?
Larry: Excuse me?
PP: well, is it any different? i mean, if he went to another school he'd get a different experience, right?
Larry: um, yes? [thinking: well, yeah, it would be a DIFFERENT SCHOOL.]
PP: i mean, it's just, how does the fact that the school is 3/4 female affect the young men?
Larry: well, i'm told it's not that noticeable . . .
PP: i mean, i like women, i like women a lot, but that must be strange for them.
Larry: . . . ?
PP: okay, um, thanks. bye.

dude, there are only two reasons you would call us with a question like this.

A) you think your son is gay. (and you, in all your moron-ocity, think the # of girls here will TURN him gay.) in which case, he probably is, and he'll find lots of eager fag-hags here, and come out in an open and accepting environment and will make sure to tell you after the tuition bills are paid. he'll come up with a fabulous outfit for the Coming Out Dance, and he will go barely clothed, drunk, and make out with TONS of people whose names he doesn't know! woohoo!

B) more likely: your son is straight, to some extent, and you're worried all the whoring will distract from his schooling. a legit fear, but ASK us that, don't just beat around the moron bush. most college kids go on some kind of rampage first year, and your kid might go on a sex ramage. deal. SLC hands out free condoms, glides (aka dental dams), gloves, and sample packets of lube, because we believe whatever kind of sex you have should be as safe as possible. so chill.

either way, i just wanna be like, yep, your kid's gonna have LOTS of sex! some of it unprotected! HAH!! maybe you'll get REALLY lucky and we'll send him home a daddy! aww!

what was i thinking?

2005-02-21T16:38:00.000-05:00

today is the best i've felt in awhile. today is strange.

i look like a preschooler's art project - teal blue long sleeved tee, pale pink handkerchief hem skirt (handkerchief hems are the ones where the bottom of the skirt is cut into a bunch of V shapes - very popular last spring/summerish, you've seen one on me. the assymetrical bottom-of-skirt aids the impression that i'm a piece of construction paper that has been attacked by safety scissors wielded by a 4 year old), black leggings and midnight blue fingernails, hair messy and clipped up into a bun-like creature. i am le sex on a stick, as they say in Le France.

anyway. i've cried each of the past four days and i don't think that's a bad thing, and i'm not sad (nor am i hormonal). there are just some truths in this world that can only be honestly recognized through tears. i'm young and idealistic enough to believe that. i know tears don't change anything, but they are - shudder at the phrase - part of the process.

most of what i've been thinking about the past 24 hours is: what the fuck was i thinking when i said i'd partcipate in this crazy-ass prison writing program?

yeah, easy for you to think it's cool. you're not the one who will be metal-detectored and face a half dozen women who are wondering what the fuck makes you think you have a right to be there while you half-agree with them.

lea, my teaching partner, warned me that some of the women are pregnant, and many are mothers. they might have their babies in prison. (i will be getting to know these women and trying to forge relationships with them?) most of them will be older, to some degree, than i am. ALL will have more experience than me. and, um, i'm privileged. they have their own ideas about the "rich college kids" who come to teach them. (i would too.) they ask questions: are you doing a paper about this? are you going to write about us?

i'm scared. because this is real. this might *actually matter* to someone. this is not the same thing as helping an opera patron find the bathroom or screwing up someone's half-caf double soy cappucino.

what right DO i have to do this?

IGNORE THIS POST

2005-02-20T02:01:00.000-05:00

* i wrote this late at night a coupla days ago. it has gone through a couple of edits since then, but this is it in more or less original form, sans edits.

Dear DAC,

I will spend part of the second anniversary of your death in jail, getting oriented so I may teach writing to the prisoners. On Thursday you would have been exactly 20 years and 5 months old, and if nothing had happened we wouldn’t have marked the date.

In a way this is not just a 2nd anniversary. It is a 24th (a weird confluence of numbers – you were born on a 24th, died on another 24th, it’s been 24 months – things always come in threes), maybe it is a 14th – I’m not sure when I stopped counting the 24th of every month and giving a pause to reflect, not sure how many times since then I’ve stopped and thought about dates. Or counted. There was a lot of counting in the beginning.

You can still break my heart. Just as well as anyone living. I shared some of the most intimate moments with you. And you were safe and welcomed me for all of it.

I feel like I’ll always be chasing your death. Anything too close at the neck, through S&M conventions and arguments in the kink community forever. When I give my absolutes to partners, your presence will be in the list: no breath play.

Ironically you were always superbly safe for me. I may never recapture the easy intimacy we had. You really did break my heart, honey, or maybe it was me. Since your death I’ve been going over why I hadn’t the sense to kiss you & tickle you & give in. Why, why didn’t I sprint towards that smile? Because I knew it would be unfair. The answer is always the same. I had to be honest with you. I don’t know how you did it, took my rejection & allowed our friendship to survive completely without malice. That’s a rare thing indeed. I am so sorry I didn’t have better sense.

Another thing, too much to explain and impossible to ignore is (was?) your sense of honor. You were the most truly honorable man I have ever known. That alone may be the reason I write to you year after year. I wasn’t the only girl you loved – you loved us all, but it didn’t diminish the strength of your love for any of us. You knew how to appreciate the beauty of a good woman, and you thought we were all beautiful and deserved appreciating. You had a way of complimenting us that made us believe that we really were how you saw us.

And of course, you pouted and fussed like the rest of us. You had an anger management problem and a temper like a pissed off bear – but you never directed it at us. And if we stepped in to resolve a conflict, you respected our word – period. You were hilarious when drunk, because you always drank enough JD to make it impossible to stand. Even piss drunk you were respectful.

In a way, your death gave me gifts. It gave me an improved relationship with my two best friends, the only people in the world who I feel can approximate what I’ve been through. It gave something to Tina, even though I don’t know what – all’s I know is it scared the shit out of her in the beginning. You made me realize I can’t take shit. Your memory is what reminds me I deserve respect. You liked me when I was honest. Your chivalry set the highest standard. Your death gave me a healthy respect for monogamy, a la Tim (it was a direct result). Honey, I respect your parents so much. I admire your mother’s strength something fierce. If I ever have a boy, I can only hope to raise him to be half as respectful as you.

I can still feel the ghost of your body against mine. I remember your hands and forearms, your hairy belly. Your smell: sweat, dirt, detergent and faint sawdust. Your love of classical music & Gypsy Kings & System of a Down. (You ruined an album for me, you know. Toxicity will never be the same.) You hated to read aloud and I always had to be on your jeopardy team (or Boggle) in Gael’s class – remember, she gave you an A!

You shoulda seen the CAPA banquet senior year. Not a dry eye in the house. I’ve seen Jonny and Tim (and Mike and JB) cry now, you know. They renamed Tech Legend after you. And they gave it to Adam when he graduated.

I still remember the first glimpse of Jonny when he walked into that theater. Six feet of crumpling man, who’d survived so much, only to be reduced to tears by this. We just held him because it was all we could do. I was the first one he got to, and I still remember the shirt he was wearing and his hug. I didn’t want to let him go, but when I did he and Sarah just clung to each other. I think they formed their own bubble that entire week.

Your parents are so brave. And honest. And courageous. They refused to lie about you. And honey, Mama Brown . . . she loved you so much. She was a wreck. Out of the 3 “adopted” kids (Adam, Phil, you), I think she liked you the best. Even Dad was upset. I remember your walk and your whine and your whimper. You called me one day in the summer just to talk. Allsup’s chimis. Tim’s sneezes always finding you. You called us Ma’am, you called me Pepe. I remember your “do you want a backrub?” motion. My favorite memory is The Shirt. It was at the memorial service and the wake. I wanted to tell everyone, I did that. I had a part in it. See? I mattered to this life. It was how I introduced myself to your mother.

In a very weird way your death gave me respect for sexual choices. You pursued what turned you on. That simple. Left us with a lot of questions, but it made sense to you. Even that is just what it is – simple, honest, brutal, true and plain. Now as I admonish all my friends to Be Careful, Just Please Be Careful (It’s That Time of Year), I remember. I remember your parents and siblings, I remember your aunt. Colored Sharpies and the phrase “I’m an asshole” (which I hear a LOT, being in college with a bunch of assholes) make me think of you. Even now you break my heart. I love you very much.

Sarah

Honor the brave who fought.
Honor the dead who fell.
Honor the world they saved.

my neck, my back/my pussy AND my crack

2005-02-20T01:11:00.000-05:00

it's a matter of myth that i didn't know what that song was about 'til mana and sean told me. or maybe it was that other song, Oops. yeah, it was the oops song. anyway.
here's a silly poem, i wrote a long time ago, the last line of which is stolen from mana. i've been reading over old journals; it's a dangerous thing.

my ass
my cunt
my boobs
my mouth
these are not for you
leave the disparate parts
in a pile on the floor
for the surrealists to come hang up in the sky

my offer:
a portion of my mind
a bigger share than you deserve
of my attention
if you're lucky
you could win back
a tiny part
of my heart

(but my sweetness is not for you)

- deep, ain't i?

practical magic

2005-02-19T01:47:00.000-05:00

I DIDN'T KNOW ALBERT FINNEY PLAYED DADDY WARBUCKS!!!!!!!!!

no wonder i've always had an inexplicable attraction to him!!!!!

with that, ladies and gentlemen, i bring you my true gender identity:

PRACTICAL FEMME
You are more mentally femme than physically. You love to gussy up for the occasional special event but it wears you out to maintain that image round the clock. Your nails are short but neat, your hair short and easy to care for, and you wear minimal makeup. You usually dress in more feminine styles of pants or longer, flowy skirts, often without hose. But you have no doubt in your heart that you are femme.

You take the direct approach to problems, often flying in head first without looking - this at times gets you in a flustering situation, but you are adept at digging yourself out of it. You like a moderately assertive career in lower management or self-employment. You really don't like having a boss, but don't want the onus of being the top boss.

You're a decent but not fancy cook, keep a neat but not elaborate house, and prefer efficiency to style, comfort to being "trendy."

In relationships you gravitate toward nearly every type, though Extreme Femmes strike you as a bit silly, Androgynes as indecisive and Extreme Butches as too posing. And what you don't date, you welcome as friends, though you are very selective in your friendships and tend to have a small, well chosen circle of associates.

(i chose this from a list, but there IS a butch/femme quiz: http://members.tripod.com/~womens_voices/BF100/BF100.html?submit=I+understand+it+is+a+satire)

this is not a boating accident

2005-02-18T15:26:00.000-05:00

(title comes from a surrealist poem or painting i saw somewhere and found hilarious)

little pieces of happy:
A. i've been wearing pearls these past two days. i'm trying to figure how i can shower in them.
B. my nails are painted blue. i'm a real girl!

i'm not crazy enough. my life is boring. i wish i'd gone to a state school. i want frat parties. i want to get drunk and make out. the parties here are all small. what am i saying? i wouldn't have anything to WEAR to such an event anyway.

i don't want to be in school anymore. to sum up: i never thought i would hate school or monotony. i don't feel like myself. i want to get drunk at frat parties and damn near date raped, or i want to live in the real world and struggle to make ends meet. at least i wouldn't be bored.

bumpersticker a friend saw: any kind of sex that can get you into hell is NOT safe sex.
my version: i ONLY want to have sex that can get me into hell or jail or both.

i'm not harassed on the street enough.
i don't experience street harassment at ALL. am i oblivious? i know i'm not horrendously ugly. in fact, i'm pretty attractive. but i've never been harassed, haven't had the creepy things happen to me like so many friends, haven't been asked out on dates by men twice my age.
so, if it's not because i'm fat (i know too many fat girls getting harassed too) and it's not being ugly that does it, why aren't i getting harassed? there's no way i'm doing EVERYTHING right, and i'm in the new york area, so it's not like people are just *too polite.* so what's up? my walk isn't THAT intimidating. i don't get it. i'm not tall enough to be imposing. i'm reasonably-straight looking. WTF?

i'm not complaining. just curious that this all-too-common phenomenon doesn't happen to me.

boys will be girls and girls will be boys

2005-02-15T18:45:00.000-05:00

i have gender privilege. by this i mean i feel generally comfortable in my skin (actually, i like my skin and its contours lots, but that's another blog entry) and my assigned gender. pretty much everyone in this culture who sees me thinks female, almost automatically, and i don't really object to that. i do not, in my gut, feel uncomfortable as a woman. this affords me a lot of comfort. people who do NOT feel comfortable as their assigned gender simply have a lot more shit to deal with, everything from deciding to stay closeted - coming out of the gender closet seems like one of the most terrifying things - to switching pronouns and names, to clothing and gender presentation. to *pass* as another gender in this culture, you have to walk different, talk different, sound, dress, do everything different. think about it. if you went to the store tomorrow trying to get read as a gender other than your automatically assigned gender, think of all the work you'd have to do to get people to REALLY believe it.

i don't know what to do with that. i am invested in being seen as a woman. so this whole genderless utopia thing, i'm a faker promoting that, que no? i don't REALLY want for there to be no gender. i DO really really think people need more gender choices, and i do really think gender shouldn't be quite the straitjacket it is today. but i really like my gender. i am benefitting from my privilege in this area. i don't know if i really want to give it up. i'm trying to figure out how this DOESN'T make me an asshole, because it looks like a pretty asshole position to take from here.

* * * *

all this is prompted by the-artist-formerly-known-as-TWIL switching gender pronouns on me. this has been in the making for awhile, and today *he* formally stated that *he* prefers masculine or neutral gender pronouns. i am having trouble with this. not just because i have known HER as SHE for a year; something else is wrong. i suppose i'm attracted to and relate to him primarily as/because something in my brain says "female". and somehow part of me is reading this as "safe." something in the back of my brain was saying "if you were attracted this way to a man, you would have to be more careful. but she is female, she understands, females are inherently safer." for someone like me, who has friends of different genders and tries not to see them as genders but as the roles they play in my life, this is a smack upside the head. what a sexist thing to do! to subconsciously declare that women, even as objects of lust, are safer, or make more sense, or are somehow easier to deal with or relate to, is fundamentally a false construction. what i'm saying is, i made that shit up in my head and it's fucked up.

so. i benefit from (yet another kind of) privilege and i'm not being fair to the Devine Mr. C (my new name for the Artist formerly known as TWIL, stay with me kids).

damn. i'm a gender misogynist.

* * * *

i should offer some behind the scenes info to explain this post and the last. i had lunch with the Devine Mr. C (DMC for short), and it was heavy. mr c and the Boyfriend are in a heavy important fight. the BF said some fucked up shit regarding his privilege. the BF is white, mr c is not. basically, the Devine Mr C feels like he ends up in a lot of situations where people are using him as a guinea pig. ie,"i'm not queer, but i'm attracted to you . . . so you can be my experimental phase!" or, "i haven't dealt with my shit or my privilege, so i'm gonna date this person of color and see what it brings up for me, and expect them to be able to help me with my white identity crisis." basically, DMC feels like he is all too often an experiment for people. that's like exoticization, and it's a shitty feeling. it's sort of like feeling like everyone wants you or dates you for your big boobs, or that fact that you're rich, or your willingness to put out or whatever, only worse, because this brings in an extra-icky element of racism/classism/privilege. to use DMC's words, "i might just be done dating privileged white people." what the BF said was THAT hurtful. yikes.

and even worse than that, i couldn't guarantee i wouldn't have hurt her - damn, HIM - the exact same way. i haven't worked through my privilege either (here i'm talking about white privilege - DMC's BF has, presumably, dealt with gender privilege to some extent, being a transperson). i can't say i wouldn't have said the same damn thing - well, okay, maybe i would have had enough damn sense to keep my friggin mouth shut, but that's about it.

* * * *

so yeah, there ya go. such are the thoughts in sarahland today. but at least i was acting, as i told mana, as a good friend and not as a selfish cunt. which was tempting, but no. i was a good little caring cunt. if i'm meant to sleep with DMC, which i'm not sure i AM, it'll happen. what matters is her primary relationship is important to her. (*damn, just noticed. HIS relationship to HIM,
sarah. goddamnit.)

****
Devine Mr C and i decided to put off the Intense Conversation about Gender Identity for another day. part of me wants to argue on for feminine pronouns on behalf of feminism - isn't appropriating masculine privilege for yourself through a masculine pronoun leaving your damn biological sisters out in the wind? is claiming "he" for yourself subversive, because it DOES require a re-appropriation of privilege? shouldn't our definitions of female and who is feminine be expanded to include those who are very "butch" or not traditionally female or people who exist outside of traditionally gendered ideas?

basically, don't you belong fighting over here on MY side? okay, there's no need to be that devisive about it, and i should know better than to think someone's committment to feminism is determined by their gender pronoun. damn. sometimes i'm not as smart as i hope i am.

****
on another note i just finished another Very Important Book. seriously, if you want to understand issues of Queerness, Third Wave Feminism, Sex Positivity, or my new favorite, Ethical Sluthood - aka Free Love - here are the best books i can recommend:

cunt, inga muscio
real live nude girl, carol queen
sex for one, betty dodson
gender outlaw, kate bornstein
the ethical slut, dossie easton and catherine liszt

the last one is the most recently finished. more about that later. if you read these 5 books, you will pretty much have a damn good idea of what's influenced my thinking about sex, love, affection (all three very different and distinct), a more sex-positive culture, and my pansexual/queer identity. in fact, i might make them required reading. they are so freaking awesome. these are the ways i've become the genius i am, yall. READ.

ways to tell i love you

2005-02-15T17:11:00.000-05:00

i will listen for an hour about the potentially relationship-ending fight you are having with your boyfriend.

i will take that hour out of the time that i was planning on devoting to spanish homework (okay, i will take time away from spanish homework for almost anything, but especially for you).

i will spend this hour actually listening and trying to come up with ways to deal with the problem, not trying to jump your bones, even though this previously would have been HIGH on my list of goals. i will not exploit the situation, even though i know i could.

when you suggest opening up the relationship, i remind you this is not a solution to the problems in the primary relationship. even though some little voice in my head or my cunt wants to urge you to do this so i can sleep with you. see? for you i'll look beyond the dictates of my own desires.

i will urge you to stay with him and work it out, on behalf of your honor and the hard work you've done for the sake of said relationship.

most of all, i will wish i could fight your battles for you, wish i could call your boyfriend and yell at him for hurting you so, break it off with him for you, and lay in your bed and cry your tears so you wouldn't have to. i will wish i could feel this pain for you, or split it with you. i will want nothing more than to kiss your forehead and cheeks and take you home and put you in bed and hold you until you fall asleep for a brief respite from these awful fighting thoughts. and i will refrain because i know you need to be alone with these thoughts, know you need to find some way to do your homework even though this is tearing you apart. so i will let you kiss my cheek and walk away with your pain.

but most of all, you will know i love you when, even more than fighting your battles for you, i want you to fight your own battles because i know you will emerge from them stronger and smarter. i will be smart enough to know and trust that you can do this yourself, and know you are smart enough to ask for my help when you need it. i'll let you handle your own shit and step back til you need me to step up. i promise. i'll let you handle this shit as long as you promise to let me know when you need me.

i love you.

tis a pity

2005-02-10T18:48:00.000-05:00

this is a pity-me post. if you are not going to find me duly pitiful, skip down to the highlights.

varying parts of my body are in a war to see which can cause me the most pain this week. so far it's a tie between my sinuses (with occasional stop-everything-stabbing pain) and my right shoulder (which is really mad at me for no apparent reason). my ears are not far behind.

i gave myself a fit of chills because i took a shower during one of my periodic bouts of fever. lame-ASS. but i think it did help me sleep.

i have been unable to concentrate or think or sleep or talk since sunday, when i woke up with this Death Plague Russian Bird Monkey Flu.

hours spent in admissions this week: 13.
tours taken out: 2.
that means ELEVEN hours of filing, or sitting and doing nothing in a boring-ass office. luckily i've been feeling so spacey (thanks dayQuil!), that i just spent most of the time staring off into space and trying to not creep out my admissions-comrades.

my mouse scroll-bar can no longer tell up from down, so there's a lot of webpage bouncing. as brenda would say, it's making me dizzy.

i misspelled "pizzeria" today. it was on the board and everything.

and for some reason, my spanish teacher barked "se necesita dos secretarias" at us, which means, we need two secretaries!, more or less. i'm still not sure why that was necessary.

my spanish companion to my left was drawing: a shark, an octopus, a lit cigarette, can of beer, fire truck. and i was envious of his skills.

i've lost my mind. with that, i bring you . . .

highlights of the week:
hour and a half long lunch with TWIL. we made a list of characteristics i want in a mate. why is it everyone who's in a relationship is eager to have me try one? what IS that? anyone, she can be the best man at my wedding. i love her.

tomorrow i fly to san francisco for a gay wedding! woot! and if nothing else, at least my mom will be there to feel my forehead and coo over me. but i'd much prefer to be healthy and able to taste. which set of parents foots the bill for a gay wedding? (this one is going to be QUITE the affair, too.)

one week from now i'll be in san francisco, bitches!

2005-02-05T23:50:00.000-05:00

damn near midnight and i haven't done a lick of work all day.

it was a great day.

i have to write a poem about something i've never understood. i think she meant an incident which occurred that had some subtext to which we were not privy, but i might do it about the urge to play videogames instead. what IS that?

"you, of all people, should know better than to stereotype."

i stereotype all the time! especially about the ones i love!

sean did not ruin a funeral, due in large part to my help.

i have to write 20 things that start with "i saw and i heard" and i haven't started, and i'm NOT that observant. okay, i am, but it's really hard to be observant without comment or judgement.

it is also really hard for me not to think i am everyone's life consultant. if i do this to you, stop me. it is not my job to plan your job, your internship, your classes or your life. not unless you explicitly ask. i need to break this habit.

even though i still think some people need to change their majors, some people need to change or get jobs, and some people need therapy. (if you think it applies to you, figure it out on your own.)

i reserve the right to make an exception for exes. i will yell at you for being stupid about your breakup whether or not you want me to because that is what good friends do. they listen, let you cry, and keep you on track. if you hate it, leave me.

happenstance

2005-02-01T22:51:00.000-05:00

sometimes i feel like i'm cheating at life. like i've actually started thinking to myself, oh, that'll work itself out. i think this for no reason other than, well, things just work themselves out in my life. fortuitous circumstance - serendipity - is my forte. going into this semester, i knew i wanted to pick up more hours at work. i knew office assisting paid less than tour guiding, and i also like tour guiding much better, and touring has more flexible hours (as well as more replacements to call upon). so, magically, there were no times available when i could office asst. i was just about to panic (as i was scheduled to work all of 2 hours a week) and call Karen and beg to tour more often, when lo and behold she e-mails out the spring schedule, complete with openings in the exact hours i'd designated to work. and voila! more work, up to 12 hours a week instead of last semester's 9 (and that was between both jobs), at the better-paying, well-liked job.

things like this tend to happen to me.
em's right: i was blessed with all the luck in the family.

now, a list!!!! ways to set myself up with connections that will help me land the kind of job i want post-grad:
1. work with Kensington Rights Welfare Union over spring break. learn about advocacy and make sure i really DO have a taste for it.
2. go to Mexico, participate in NGO week. learn about the workings of NGOs, make sure i want to work for one - find a specific one if possible.
3. intern with MADRE senior year. make them love me and want to hire me or offer me to someone else.
4. go to Nicaragua spring break, senior year. (i can go to the beach and get drunk on my own time, right?)

Turbogasm 3000

2005-01-29T23:56:00.000-05:00

i'd like to comment on the guy's column in the new cosmo/glamour. (can't remember which, as they are the same mag. i think it's cosmo, the dude's column name might be jake?) anyway, it's all about how women have gotten too damn casual about their vibrators. one boyfriend found his girl's new toy (horrors!) under a pillow. it includes instruction on vibe buying (from a guy's point of view): don't buy anything too huge or lifelike, as it hurts our feelings. if it's the only way you can get off, we won't like it. we will be willing to play with it, though "it might make us feel like it's Man vs. Machine" (yup, it really says that, i'd forgotten how poorly written this crap was). also, let us have gadget-free sex for awhile, then introduce the vibe when we get bored and move into our "silk scarves and ice cubes" phase of the sexual relationship.

ex-fucking-cuse me? any man who tells me when, how, where, and whether i can use my vibrator, or has the audacity to tell me what kind of toy i should get, will promptly receive swift, life-ending kicks to the groin. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT? you're scared we'll be able to get off without you? guess what, asshole - we already CAN and DO get off without you, whether or not we own toys. and if you're so scared that your *sexual prowess* is what's keeping your woman in the relationship, you deserve to be alone. DID THEY COMPLETELY MISS THE POINT OF VIBRATORS? a vibrator is NOT about you!!!!! it's the most male-centered, misogynist piece of crap i've read in a good, long while. i don't particularly like this new emphasis on sex toys as something couples do together. yeah, it's nice and all, but the primary point of vibrators is to please women. women have gone without pleasure for a very, very long time and to have it co-opted by men and coupledom is pretty lameass. what the fuck IS that shit?

still, i will be chuckling over the image for awhile: some 20something, following his girlfriend around, whining, "see? jake says i should satisfy you because i'm a Big Strong Man. now won't you please throw away the Turbogasm 3000?"

i fixed it!

2005-01-26T21:16:00.000-05:00

don't worry, yall, i've survived my own melodrama. again. i emerged relatively unscathed.

i told brigid due to how busy i am this semester i can't be her co-chair. yep, i broke up with the feminists. no one saw this coming. it's the right thing to do.

on a brighter note: you know you are a brand whore when you walk in to a store and realize you are wearing their brand head-to-toe. and you're not even thinking about spending YOUR money in the store because your normally clueless relatives gave you not one, but TWO gift certificates to this store for christmas. mmmmmm gap.

and reading elizabeth bishop makes me feel real dumb because, um, i don't like her very much. her tactic is NATURE nature NATURE imagery imagery observation *THE MYSTERY OF THE UNIVERSE*. she just observes and observes and then smacks you with "isn't it amazing to be alive?" and while yes, elizabeth, it IS nice to be alive, i've read too many hallmark cards to like you. her poetry is like prose, and i HATE that. i'm not a prose writer because i get bored in the time it takes to move my character from the couch to the kitchen to the glass of milk pouring to the table to crying for no reason. i'd rather just talk about what happened last night that is making her cry now, not walk her about the house. ugh.

when i need to write many many words (ie, writing out the crap, as it's technically termed), i use this and my journal. or i type and then delete a lot. grr.

but did i SAY any of this in group conference? why no, no i did not. i sat silent. when did i get so silent all the time?

AUGH

2005-01-26T01:08:00.000-05:00

nights like tonight have me wondering if i'm in a communications bubble, because i can't seem to get ahold of anyone.

everyone important to me disappears right when i need them. so here i am again, writing in crisis because i have no other recourse. that's a bit melodramatic. still.

slc feminists will be known as the great trainwreck-cluster fuck disaster of my sophomore year.

the name brigid black fills me with nothing but resentment, an emotion more powerful (but followed quickly by) a seething anger and loathing feeling.

and pain. i'm actually really very sad about this. in the way that one is sad when the mean kids come kick down your sandcastle at the beach. sad like that.

want to hear a secret about me? i've only been in positions of leadership twice in my life. both times were spectacular failures. i'm, like, a failure at being an aries - we're natural born leaders, you know. except me. the only place i lead is straight down, kids. better to remain an advisor, advice columnist, and general counselor. it is i who directs other people to take courses of action - i do not take them myself.

the real secret about me is i'm scared. i'm scared to death of other people. in general. i do not trust them. it is ridiculous, and i know this. there are many things i comprehend in my head that have nothing to do with the dictates of my heart (look at my choice of love[r]s if you need more proof). i'm terrified of failure, of looking stupid, of exposing myself to ridicule. ya know what that makes you, if you're a poet? a real shitty one. one of the requirements of any art is a certain willingness to suck, and i haven't found mine yet. that's why art is terrifying and exhilarating - the emotional risk-taking involved. i am still playing it safe. i write funny poems, or poems that don't matter and aren't about anything. because i can, because i'm still skillful with words, because people like wit. it's easy for me, it's sexy for everyone else. flashy.

so. me, as the leader of the feminists, without any help or encouragement, plus a co-chair that would've made a banana sloth look productive, paired with a rival feminista group on campus peopled by more experienced kids, equals one spectacular dose of horrid.

it's so craptacular, in fact, i might be impressed. if i weren't so upset. and everything else in my life was going so swimmingly. motherfuckinggoddamnit.

inga would be so proud

2005-01-24T13:15:00.000-05:00

need more evidence that knitting is cool?

http://www.wombsonwashington.org/

a knitter on the punk knitters community of livejournal remarked, with this new court and the way things are going, i may as well give my reproductive organs to the Supreme Court. turns out there already existed a pattern for knitting a uterus - yep, that's right, and i'd seen the pattern before she mentioned it, actually. so she said, hey, why don't i just knit a uterus! why don't a bunch of us knit uteruses and fling them on the steps of the Court in protest!!

bam, instant consciousness-raising. this is probably totally what inga muscio had in mind while writing cunt.

so now the protest is being planned by members of the D.C. stitch'n'bitch. they're applying for a D.C. protest permit and everything. how fucking awesome is that?

antici..................PATION

2005-01-23T21:22:00.000-05:00

i thought i didn't have anything to say. i am wrong. here is what i'll be doing this semester:

classes: Constitutional Law, Spanish, and Poetry. i now have to do conference work for all of them. that right thur is harder. damnit.
Right to Write: teaching writing in prison. i can barely write myself, now i'm teaching it to other people. i'm gonna have to do lesson plans. i am my mother.
Introductory ASL class: because i am just that cool. i'm gonna be tri-lingual!
P.E. classes: bowling & fencing. told ya i'm cool.
jobs: office assistant, tour guide. i love to file, oh yes i do, i love the alphabet, and CEEB codes, too!

i have to figure out my plans for Spring Break and summer. everyone's all, this summer get an internship! and i'm all, where do i find one, bitches? if you have any insight, lemme know.

oh, and mucho, mucho Study Abroad applications

i am so screwed.

the femme mystique

2005-01-22T03:24:00.000-05:00

ya know what? i think i may just change my gender identity. because i don't feel "female" most of the time; i associate that label with being the object of the straight white male gaze. and very few straight white males have ever impressed me with their gaze; a few have harmed me.

femme makes sense to me. it feels right. even when i'm wearing jeans and a teeshirt, i never feel masculine, only rarely do i feel butch. unequivocally female is how i feel and how i've always felt, it's all i know how to be. female is in my blood and my body, and i just can't explain it. i know i am female in the way that i know i'm an aries, a human, a good writer. it's exhibited by the way that i act. put me next to someone else, someone more butch than me, women who shall remain nameless (yall know who they are - plenty of butch[er] women around in my life), put us in the same teeshirt and jeans, and i will move differently than her. when i'm playing up my femme-ness, i'm focusing you on how female i am, and usually how sexual. there are parts of my body i'll make you notice. i'll walk a certain way.

but most of this is not traditionally "female" or "feminine" - i still know how to walk like i own a room and feel no shame in brazenly asserting myself. that, to me, is where the femme comes in. femmes are all that is right and good with femininity, flipped - instead of existing for the male, you exist for yourself. this is key - femme, for me, is not about flipping femininity simply so i can look attractive to women. femme is for me. i feel attractive and attracted to myself when i'm femme. even when i'm dressed down, adding a sway to my hips or a blush to my cheeks makes me feel better. paradoxically, if i put on a button-down, or a polo, or a baseball tee, it often calls MORE attention to me. i remember wearing baseball tee, jeans, and sneakers in high school - those were some of my most cute-acting, high-pitched-voice-squealing, boy-attracting feminine days. i'm femme with boys AND girls, another distinction. femme travels, whereas "female" feels all straight-jacket-y. the femme code of ethics applies no matter the genitalia of who i want to play with.

another damn thing: a friend of mine, who is about half my size, a tiny wisp of a girl, once said she didn't feel secure in her body. i realized you could tell this, if you watched her. and i gratefully realized that i DO feel secure in my body. on a very fundamental level, your body is where you live. it is our most intimate home. and so many people expend so much effort hating theirs. it's like hating your living room but refusing to paint it. either spruce up the place, or love it anyway, because either way you have to live there. one thing i have never felt is not safe, not assured, by my body. my body is solid. it's right where it belongs. it's fundamentally a safe place for me to live. i like the way it takes up space, i like the way it moves, i like the weight of it against my bones, proving to me that i am real, that i am here.

on the eve of DOOM

2005-01-19T15:13:00.000-05:00

i have nothing to do today. all i want to do is sit and write blog entries. okay then!

i had a dream sarah was on her deathbed. now i realize i was rebuiling an episode of ER in dream form.

it is still freezing in my room. it's snowing on and off, very pretty, but still unfortunately BALLS ASS COLD, which is a technical term.

i hate condoleezza rice. hate her. how did she become SUCH a sellout? she is, arguably, one of the most powerful women of color in america (except oprah. oprah trumps all. oprah for president! if she wins, everyone gets a puppy! or a makeover!), so why does she have to be such an ass? i can't even hate her coherently, so strong is my feeling. she lies, and lies about lying.

colin powell just makes me sad. he had such potential. why, colin? you had such integrity before you signed on with this craptastic cluster fuck of an administration.

on a more personal note, my rule for today was "no shower til you sweat." showers feel so much better when you earn them, no?

why.

2005-01-16T02:34:00.000-05:00

why can't i just tell my mother: i think you didn't set any limits. i think i'm failing, flailing, out here on my own. i didn't get any guidance, but unlike my friends with obviously fucked up parents who obviously didn't do their jobs, you fake it. all too well. it took me and em this long to figure out our household was all about us, that we are completely spoiled. it's even brattier to complain about that, but man did you pull the wool over our eyes. because i had no structure, i now don't trust you to support me. way to be strong, mom. way to give up when the parenting gets too hard.

and my sister? i have all the same fears for her that she does. i fear that the structured academic environment she's been in hasn't prepared her to whip her own ass. that she isn't ready. that she hasn't held a "real" job (for very long). that she can't remember to clean up the house before she leaves it, or communicate, or plan. that her sloppiness means something is terribly wrong. i'm scared for her, of course i am. and i did it differently, so i don't even have shared experience to point to. i don't think i have enough self-discipline, so i can't measure if she does. my freshmen year was my longest period of unemployment in two and a half years.

why can't i just ask my best friend the questions that need asking? is she ever happy? does she believe in the power of thought and words? i do. i believe that thoughts and words - the things we tell ourselves - are immensely powerful. but she must not. i've pointed out her language to her, how it is absolute and negative. i should not have a best friend about whom all i do is complain. i remember when we enjoyed each other; right now i feel like i'm in a marriage that's lost its spark. and her intense defensiveness about everything . . . all i can say is, i would be stressed out and miserable and exhausted too, if i were her. if i never saw any options for myself, i'd feel trapped and stressed out in my cage as well. the key is seeing the options. seeing is a choice, and one she refuses to make.

why can't i remember when i'm at slc that i love santa fe? why do i let those hipsters make me feel ashamed of liking my home? note to self: maybe they don't come from a home and a place as nice as yours. feel lucky. maybe they don't (mostly) like their families, maybe they don't have friends where they're from. it's not pathetic to want to come home and try to grab time with tina and jess and gerard when they roll through town. it's not wrong to want to do nothing but take yoga and pilates with jackie and then go to target with mana. coming home to sarah because she is your best friend and you can't take her with you is okay. will i ever break from this place?

ruminations

2005-01-05T01:51:00.000-05:00

why are there so many people in my ninth house - cancer - around? why are some cancers leaving and others arriving? what's up with that? (why has the one aries in my life faded into the night? do i not need anyone in my seventh house anymore?)

i just set up my new printer, courtesy of my parents. now all i need is a digital camera.

it feels weird to type now.

were i at school, i'd be much more tapped in to the world, methinks. which is weird. the more TV i watch, the less i know.

i'm not going to ruminate publicly on the recent unpleasantness. you've probably talked to me and already know.

tsunami. the word haunts the world. i don't have words big enough for it and i don't know how not to sound frivolous right now, so i'm not going to try. this is another aspect of what being home does to me.

yay for bobby though. i'd like to talk to him and reconnect. i like him. i'm even willing to forgive the not-calling-when-he-says-he-will sin. and we all know that's a big one.

i need to get out of this country.

my relationship with my sister is borderline toxic. i've tried everything. i even tried being honest and opening up. i was brutally rebuffed. just proves what i've always known to be true: only by being a sarcastic, witty, bitter old man can you get anywhere in this world. a sweetness and light outlook that involves trusting your closest friends and relatives won't get you anything.
i'm truly at my wit's end.

home kinda sucks the life out of me. it makes me dumber. i know less about the world. i don't write. i want to go back to my insular cocoon! at least it's insular in healthier ways.

out of the country. slc does a couple of spring break trips to various places; one goes to nicaragua. great opportunity to practice my spanish, que no?

anyone but thomas can answer this completely rhetorical question: why the fuck is nightline doing a story on football tonight? hello?

say it with me, guys: tsunami. bad weather. bush's re-election. nuclear capability of iran. still mounting casualties in iraq - an actual story about this, and why our current methods are failing, would be real neat. or BUSH'S RESHUFFLING OF HIS CABINET. or ANYTHING that matters more than RETIRING FOOTBALL PLAYERS. oy, i can think of six stories right off the top of my head that are news. and that's what you do, nightline buddies, news. not sports. sports are not news. neither are celebrities. really really. hell, why not do an expose on the travesty that is the foster care/adoption system in this country? or bush's new plan to take away federal loans for college? or some good old fashioned medical marijuana? shit that matters?

here's a real crazy idea: if you can't find anything that's newsworthy within our borders, go outside them. revolutionary, i know. hell, charlie rose had a guy speculating about the iraqi elections, then he talked to the desperate housewives writer, then he talked to a dude about the NYT accountability scandal (remember jayson blair?). i KNOW there is more news out there than this, guys. seriously.

maybe i'm just grouchy because my knitting plans aren't going as i want them to and i'm scared to go or not go to nicaragua.

hey, here's a crazy idea! bush COMPLETELY BOTCHED the opportunity to make america look good by hurling much-needed aid at tsunami victims. he waited too long to comment on it publicly, and the aid we've offered is, in a word, paltry. where the fuck was rove on this one? huh, karl? WTF? many victims come from parts of the islamic world - you know, that place we're not so popular? feeding displaced people and offering them clean water and shelter is a realy quick way to turn public opinion, ya know. DUMBASS. at least it's a news story.

sleep naked!

2004-12-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

the cincinnatti airport isn't in cincinnatti. it's not even in fucking ohio. (it's in fucking kentucky, and i will be there tomorrow.)

for those of you who didn't get to see my away message:
cost of quinacrine sterilization, assuming you already have an IUD inserter handy: $5
number of women who have been sterilized this way worldwide: 100,000 and counting
number of regulatory agencies in the world that have found this method medically sound and ethical: 0
number of pages it took me to prove that this is bad: 23.5
being done with komozi's motherfucking bitch of a paper: priceless

and now, an ode to naked naps. (which i invented, patent pending.)

naked naps are what happens when you wake up with no particular timetable for the day, putter around a bit in your jammies or robe, and eventually, lackadaisically, wander off in the direction of a shower. you then turn the heat up real high (actually, this should be done pre-shower to make sure your room is toasty), and crawl back into bed. naked. warm. cuddly. sleepy.

they are the Best. Thing. Ever. being warm is great. being clean is great. being naked for no apparent reason can be great. having nothing to do is great. sleeping is fucking awesome. put all these things together, and my friend you are one quart of ice cream short of paradise. also, naked naps involve reading. that's what you do before you fall asleep (why, what were YOU thinking?). and not anything heavy, either, unless you're engrossed in a great novel. naked nap reading should be fluffy - entertainment weekly, sports illustrated, an anna maxted book. the heat should be up so high you might catch on fire - naked naps originated in the winter, but you can do them in summer, sans heat, obviously.

you cannot just take off your clothes and climb into bed. that is cheating. the shower, the warmth, the wet hair that dries against your pillow - these are all key parts of the naked nap. also, for it to be a true naked nap, it should be alone, at least until you're good at it - otherwise it's just a thinly veiled excuse for sex, which is fine, just don't call it a naked nap because you aren't sleeping. also, i don't think naked naps can be done in a twin bed. i just don't have much faith. but then, i haven't really tried. it's an awesome way to kill a saturday, though. it's mostly a saturday morning activity, come to think of it. (one variant is to get up and go to yoga/pilates/dance/karate unshowered, come home and shower and return to bed, though usually pilates leaves me feeling energized and productive. anyway.)

so there ya go. if you don't have roommates, if you live alone, if you're happy and you know it, try a naked nap. i plan on doing it a LOT this break if i can, meaning when jess and emily aren't sleeping in my room. best thing ever!

to toil is human, to procrastinate divine

2004-12-15T02:16:00.000-05:00

sorry yall, i've been wordy lately. the internet is knitter's porn, i tell you. all the pretty yarn . . . ooh. i need a knitting mentor and i need to diversify to something more complicated than a scarf, otherwise i'll get bored and quit. i have this gray yarn i think would make a perfect felted hat . . . not that i know how to felt, purl, or knit a hat-like shape.

anyway. aside from that, here is my main form of procrastination right now, lifted directly from Big Poppa E's livejournal. (i insist on pronouncing "meme" like the spanish "bebe" - ie, mem-meh. this is incorrect, it should sound more like "meem".)

that meme of threes that's going around now

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. grand high cunt (yes really)
2. sarita
3. sarahpants (stop calling me by my GODDAMN LAST NAME. i am NOT A BASKETBALL PLAYER. THANK YOU.)
THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1. poetsego
2. bs376
3. (it's a secret)
THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. the way i listen (i try to do a good job of it)
2. my ability to introspect (emily always says it's a plus)
3. my belly and my eyes, especially the way the left one crosses when i roll them
+ my laugh
THREE THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. my neediness - i still kinda think it undermines my independence
2. my fear
3. when my toenails get too long but i'm too stubborn to cut them because i want a pedicure so i have godzillatoes
THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
1. spanish by way of puerto rico (woohoo conquerors)
2. russian jew (go greatgrandma go. i hope i inherited her inner spirit and strength)
3. french and irish
THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. EVERYTHING
2. the fact that my first answer is both more pessimistic than i try to be and, um, semi-true
3. the prospect of something happening to ylime
+ other people; namely thundercunt
THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. tooth brushing
2. the internet (only while i'm at school)
3. ink pens (a woman said this to me on the phone today: hol' on, lemme get un ink-pen)
THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. two rings on my left hand.
2. The Comfy Bra. it's been Comfy Bra week around here.
3. inadequate socks
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS (at the moment):
1.
2. question omitted for being too damn common
3.
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS (at the moment):
1.
2. question omitted for being too damn common
3.
THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:
1. knitting something other than a scarf. purling. learning to read a knitting pattern.
2. speaking spanish outside an academic setting - ie, actually speaking spanish.
3. getting out of the country for awhile. maybe nicaragua spring break?
THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP (love is a given):
1. sexual chemisty. otherwise why bother?
2. honesty.
3. support, appreciation for my particular brand of crazy.
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE
1. i think overpopulation is a serious issue in the world today but do not believe coercive government action is the best method to curtailing it
2. i think producers of hate speech are automatically guilty of a hate crime and deserve prosecution
3. i spent the first three years of my life on an Army base
THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX (or same) THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1. the way someone uses their hands, the way they fidget, what their body does when it's at rest
2. the way they handle things they love - car, lighter, etc. if someone were watching me they would notice they way i am constantly fiddling with pens, marking the tips of my fingers with ink, studying the way it trails my skin
3. eye contact
THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:
1. understand daylight savings time
2. learn knitting out of a book
3. explain neoclassical economics
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1. knitting
2. grammar
3. politics
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. leave the library and be done with conference work
2. sit around and eat crappy food and knit and talk with friends
3. go the hell home
THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:
1. poet
2. mama
3. diety
THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. chile
2. spain (rendered null if i study there)
3. australia, maybe?
THREE KID'S NAMES:
1. caleb
2. isabelle
3. after that, the significant other (if there is one) can weigh in. if i bear the kid, i have final say on its name(s). we can arm wrestle or take turns over who gets to name the adopted ones.
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. make something with my own two hands. i haven't decided yet if crafts count. but gerard builds airplanes for a living, mana builds sets, my parents have ripped apart and rebuilt house interiors, my mother sculpts and paints, my father landscapes, together they build ramadas and patioes.
2. learn the army alphabet from artie, who i kind of hope is the last family member to enter the military (alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot gamma hotel indigo)
3. bear a child
THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW:
1. jess, because she just might do it
2. ylime, because she *could* do it, and if she doesn't i can tickle her until she does
3. gerard, because i said so and he likes me.

like i can steal it

2004-12-14T01:05:00.000-05:00

*note: i have tried to make this shorter. sorry.*

climbing up the hill from bates midnight breakfast, i remember where i was one year ago: amazed that the semester had passed, although it hadn't been as quick. i'd survived. still very much tied to santa fe. i was one of the only ones who had left at that point.

still very tied to JB and Phil and the Brown house crew . . . still emotionally wounded over "the david thing", which i continued to saw and hack at in my writing, which wasn't really doing me any good - a real example of "great emotion doesn't always lead to great writing" . . .

one year ago i returned to my triple while everyone else was still at bates. (like most parties, i left early.) i called home - i am still as attached to my family as i was then. i am co-dependent. maybe it's just that good families, with really nice people in them, take longer to break away from than mean ones who you want to leave almost from day one. i had some packing to finish and planned to stay up the entire night. i had a plane to catch first thing tomorrow morning.

now i'm staying to the end of the week and i don't feel ready to leave. not because i'm not excited to go home - the prospect of the next month of lolling about fills me with joyous anticipation - but because i don't know if i've done enough here.

like maybe if i stay longer i'll get more done. like i'll be a different person. like if i stay long enough the magic and genius of this place will seep into me and i will walk away glowing. like all the smart people will rub off. like all the gorgeous people will look more plain if i stay long enough and start to look and think like them. like i can steal it.

but i go home. to safe. home to memory. home to lolling about. home to be always a wonderful writer with good ideas. home to an uncritiqued existence. home to easy.

and wonder if i will ever go anyplace hard. and scared of the feeling that i will spend 80% of my life planning the other 20%. terrified that school is the wayside. terrified that my life will be a series of pit stops with no open road between.

terrified that i will never find the courage to change the world. not caring if it's cheesy, but frightened i'll remain convinced it's too big. terrified i'll never articulate and coalesce that which bothers me, because right now it is so many disparate strands. scared that my ten dollar vocabulary will never amount to anything of value.

it is strange to realize one is typical, but here, i am: i am one of those students who wanders the campus, whom you see occasionally, who's studying their own program and doing their own thing. i am not special. not one of the slc elites. people attach no words to me - not snob, not hipster, not dyke, not dancer, not theater, not drunk, not cokehead, not funny, not queer, not anything. i am defined by whose company i am in, and often i am alone. this has not been my life in five years or so, and it is strange to re-enter. i don't like it. i'd rather be anything than nothing. yet i am not charismatic.

what i imagine of myself and what i actually am are so far apart. i cannot remember the last time this was true.

i feel like i'm just starting out again. i'm just starting to mold myself to become what i envision. but i am impatient.

i want simple things for myself - i want to be fun and popular. (i've never been that. this is all too strange.) i want to have my cell phone ring. i want people to ask if i'm coming when they go wherever they go. i want to not have to make plans. i want to feel as beautiful as some people say i am. i want to be honest. i want to be short-winded. i want to write with strength. i want to have something to write about. i want to be interesting. maybe that's where the hard work lies. only i am responsible for how interesting i am or not, not the timeline of my life.

i want to be as knowing as i act. i want to have stories to tell. i want to get out of here. this little world gets stuffy sometimes; i need to leave. i want to throw caution to the wind, perform rituals in the kitchen at night, tattoo my body. really what i want is to fall in love. that would encompass all my ritual-performing, caution-ignoring impulses. i want to damn my mother for being so practical, even though i'm old enough to decide to be impractical.

it's not practicality: it's fear. it's constantly weighing and measuring and living my life that way. it's having a plan. it's not ever abandoning anything to go out and live. it's convincing myself that life is a circle of friends to waste hours with. and it's not.

it's wanting to get out of my life so badly and being scared that if i leave no one will be around when i get back.

it's all fear. and letting it rule my life. and realizing that fear rules so many people around me. and those whom it doesn't rule are the people i admire most. they are also the people who i know have worked the hardest, but in my impatience i don't see work. and i have so much to learn. i have so far to travel. the greatest lesson of my life, the one i will learn over and over, is patience. these are choices i have made, i am living them out, and i can change them.

i don't even know what i want next.

to toil is human, to procrastinate divine

2004-12-13T20:53:00.000-05:00

sorry yall, i've been wordy lately. the internet is knitter's porn, i tell you. all the pretty yarn . . . ooh. i need a knitting mentor and i need to diversify to something more complicated than a scarf, otherwise i'll get bored and quit. i have this gray yarn i think would make a perfect felted hat . . . not that i know how to felt, purl, or knit a hat-like shape.

anyway. aside from that, here is my main form of procrastination right now, lifted directly from Big Poppa E's livejournal. (i insist on pronouncing "meme" like the spanish "bebe" - ie, mem-meh. this is incorrect, it should sound more like "meem".)

that meme of threes that's going around now

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. grand high cunt (yes really)
2. sarita
3. sarahpants (stop calling me by my GODDAMN LAST NAME. i am NOT A BASKETBALL PLAYER. THANK YOU.)
THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1. poetsego
2. bs376
3. (it's a secret)
THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. the way i listen (i try to do a good job of it)
2. my ability to introspect (emily always says it's a plus)
3. my belly and my eyes, especially the way the left one crosses when i roll them
+ my laugh
THREE THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. my neediness - i still kinda think it undermines my independence
2. my fear
3. when my toenails get too long but i'm too stubborn to cut them because i want a pedicure so i have godzillatoes
THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
1. spanish by way of puerto rico (woohoo conquerors)
2. russian jew (go greatgrandma go. i hope i inherited her inner spirit and strength)
3. french and irish
THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. EVERYTHING
2. the fact that my first answer is both more pessimistic than i try to be and, um, semi-true
3. the prospect of something happening to ylime
+ other people; namely thundercunt
THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. tooth brushing
2. the internet (only while i'm at school)
3. ink pens (a woman said this to me on the phone today: hol' on, lemme get un ink-pen)
THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. two rings on my left hand.
2. The Comfy Bra. it's been Comfy Bra week around here.
3. inadequate socks
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS (at the moment):
1.
2. question omitted for being too damn common
3.
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS (at the moment):
1.
2. question omitted for being too damn common
3.
THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:
1. knitting something other than a scarf. purling. learning to read a knitting pattern.
2. speaking spanish outside an academic setting - ie, actually speaking spanish.
3. getting out of the country for awhile. maybe nicaragua spring break?
THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP (love is a given):
1. sexual chemisty. otherwise why bother?
2. honesty.
3. support, appreciation for my particular brand of crazy.
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE
1. i think overpopulation is a serious issue in the world today but do not believe coercive government action is the best method to curtailing it
2. i think producers of hate speech are automatically guilty of a hate crime and deserve prosecution
3. i spent the first three years of my life on an Army base
THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX (or same) THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1. the way someone uses their hands, the way they fidget, what their body does when it's at rest
2. the way they handle things they love - car, lighter, etc. if someone were watching me they would notice they way i am constantly fiddling with pens, marking the tips of my fingers with ink, studying the way it trails my skin
3. eye contact
THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:
1. understand daylight savings time
2. learn knitting out of a book
3. explain neoclassical economics
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1. knitting
2. grammar
3. politics
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. leave the library and be done with conference work
2. sit around and eat crappy food and knit and talk with friends
3. go the hell home
THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING: * i put mine in ascending order.
1. poet
2. mama
3. diety
THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. chile
2. spain (rendered null if i study there)
3. australia, maybe?
THREE KID'S NAMES:
1. caleb
2. isabelle
3. after that, the significant other (if there is one) can weigh in. if i bear the kid, i have final say on its name(s). we can arm wrestle or take turns over who gets to name the adopted ones.
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. make something with my own two hands. i haven't decided yet if crafts count. but gerard builds airplanes for a living, mana builds sets, my parents have ripped apart and rebuilt house interiors, my mother sculpts and paints, my father landscapes, together they build ramadas and patioes.
2. learn the army alphabet from artie, who i kind of hope is the last family member to enter the military (alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot gamma hotel indigo)
3. bear a child
THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW:
1. jess, because she just might do it
2. ylime, because she *could* do it, and if she doesn't i can tickle her until she does
3. gerard, because i said so and he likes me.

happy conference week!

2004-12-13T01:21:00.000-05:00

i'm breaking out. not seriously, but still. i never break out, not since, um, sophomore year of high school (thanks to a drug that's actually now be recommended to be taken off the market. i was excited to hear that, lemme tell ya). my normally clear-as-a-bell skin has a couple of blemishes. i am shallow enough for this to be a minor annoyance. not that anyone who's not me would even notice.

i broke a plate. one of the plates my parents bought me last year, i think in october. it was a set of four, with green borders and an off-white swirl. it was a good plate - didn't even shatter when it broke. i miss momma; ceramics make me think of her, especially since my first thought was, hmm, should i use this in a mosaic?
i am trying not to take this as a sign. even if it is one, i don't know what it means.

i only have to go to economics twice more!!

i got mytunes and went bat shit crazy, which is also my new favorite phrase.

how bored was i? i counted my underwear. yep. again.
i have 33 pairs of underwear, not including 4 v-strings. i think it's time for a purge, no? it's a sign when only half your socks (also a ridiculous amount of them) can fit in the drawer if all your underwear is put away. not to mention room for sleepwear. oy. which reminds me, i need a total lingerie overhaul. woot.

the sweet girls on my hall gave me a scarf! aww!

joe gallegos facebook friended me. weird.
i can't tell if rio hates me or not, but i love her chapbook.

NO ONE has a christmas present yet. i'm not kidding. okay, i may have knit a scarf or two. don't worry, they're probably not for you.

if emily gets in to pitzer AND slc, which is quite likely, i will experience a crisis - to counsel her as a good big sister, or a selfish girl who wants all her best friends to come live with her?

you know it's conference week if:
i am wearing sweatpants. in public.
alison keohane is wearing pants.

oh, and this is just for thomas, because i'm pretty sure it's related to that random movie "miracle" he's so devoted to:
someone in the SLC library posted a banner made of notebook paper. each sheet has a letter on it, and the text reads "MIRACLES HAPPEN HERE", which is cute and probably uplifting for the library inmates. there are literally people who do not leave the lib the last couple weeks of school; some of them are starting to smell.

"Don’t get it right, get it written." best advice ever. close runner-up: Done is way more awesome than perfect.
Write. Now. Write.

as far as my actual conference work: I want to throw up. The weird shit men spend time thinking up to do to our bodies. The creepy, weird-ass shit they will devote their lives to, the wacked-out theories they will come up with, the bullshit they will try to sell. Are they serious? This shit doesn’t make any sense. A woman’s reproductive system is more complex than a man’s, yet we’ve spent decades and millions figuring out how to stop ovulation. Why? Seriously, dude, this whole womb-envy theory gains more and more credibility with me.

one of my favorite things in the world

2004-12-11T18:14:00.000-05:00

Why I Play With My Cunt
by Lovechild 93
Originally appeared in the pages of Brat Attack #4.
Reprinted in QN Issue #6

BECAUSE I WAS NOT BREASTFED · BECAUSE MY CRIB WAS PADDED AND I LIKE THE FEEL OF STEEL · BECAUSE I WAS SPANKED BY MY BABYSITTER · BECAUSE THE KIDS USED TO CALL ME HALF-BREED · BECAUSE MY FATHER IGNORED ME AND MY MOTHER FUCKED THE BOTTLE · BECAUSE MY BROTHER JERKED OFF TO AUNT JAMIMA · BECAUSE MY DOG WAS KEPT IN BONDAGE TIL THE DAY HE DIED · BECAUSE A WHITEBOY TOOK MY VIRGINITY · BECAUSE I WAS NEVER TAUGHT HOMOSEXUALITY IN HEALTH CLASS · BECAUSE THE SANDMAN WAS A LESBIAN · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE MY PERIOD FEELS LIKE A BULLFIGHT · BECAUSE I HATE THE SMELL OF PORK · BECAUSE I LOVE THE TASTE OF PUSSY · BECAUSE I CAN'T FIST MY OWN ASSHOLE · BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF TIME ON MY HANDS · BECAUSE IT FEELS LIKE A BABY WHEN I SHAVE IT · BECAUSE MY PLATFORM HEEL WON'T FIT INSIDE · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE MY VIBRATOR ISN'T POWERFUL ENOUGH · BECAUSE TRANSSEXUALS TURN ME THE FUCK ON · BECAUSE SCENES FROM CALIGULA RUN THROUGH MY HEAD · BECAUSE CINDERELLA WASN'T MY SLAVE · BECAUSE IT THROBS LIKE A DICK · BECAUSE I SLEEP ALONE · BECAUSE OF THE QUESTION OF DEATH · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE FRIDAY FOSTER SAYS I'M A PERVERT · BECAUSE THE THOUGHT OF TREE VIRGINS IN HORSETAILS · BECAUSE MY DOUBLE-DONG WAS STOLEN · BECAUSE I SMOKED MY LAST CIGARETTE · BECAUSE I WANT TO SPIT-SHINE PRINCE'S BOOTS · BECAUSE I HATE SLOPPY BLOW-JOBS · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE THERE ARE NO MORE VIRGINS · BECAUSE I CAN'T GIVE THE GOVERNMENT AN ENEMA · BECAUSE WHORES BECAME EXPENSIVE · BECAUSE I HATE THE THOUGHT OF CLOTHING · BECAUSE I'M THE BORDERLINE OF A DYKE AND A BOY · BECAUSE I WANT TO BE SADDDLED AND TRAINED LIKE A HORSE · BECAUSE SLAVERY WAS IN MY ROOTS AND I THIRST S&M · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE I CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH PUSSY · BECAUSE THE SOUND OF A WOMAN'S VOICE OVER THE PHONE · BECAUSE WHEN IT'S WET IT GLAZES MY FINGERS · BECAUSE I WANT TO BE GANG-BANGED BY FEMALE INMATES · BECAUSE I WANT TO FUCK FOR FOOD AND WATER · BECAUSE I WASN'T BORN IN A CHASTITY BELT · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE I LIKE TO WORK MY PUSSY · BECAUSE I WAS BORN A BITCH · BECAUSE I LIKE MORE THAN ONE ORGASM · BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TO SAY 'I LOVE YOU' TO ANYONE · BECAUSE IN MY MIND I CAN BE FUCKING ANYONE I WANT · BECAUSE IT'S HEALTHY · BECAUSE I'M A VAIN BITCH AND ONLY I KNOW HOW TO LOVE MYSELF...

one of my favorite things in the world

2004-12-11T18:10:00.000-05:00

reprinted without permission. i originally heard this at SLC's own vagina cabaret, "sarah's vagina" last year.

Why I Play With My Cunt
by Lovechild 93
Originally appeared in the pages of Brat Attack #4.
Reprinted in QN Issue #6

BECAUSE I WAS NOT BREASTFED · BECAUSE MY CRIB WAS PADDED AND I LIKE THE FEEL OF STEEL · BECAUSE I WAS SPANKED BY MY BABYSITTER · BECAUSE THE KIDS USED TO CALL ME HALF-BREED · BECAUSE MY FATHER IGNORED ME AND MY MOTHER FUCKED THE BOTTLE · BECAUSE MY BROTHER JERKED OFF TO AUNT JAMIMA · BECAUSE MY DOG WAS KEPT IN BONDAGE TIL THE DAY HE DIED · BECAUSE A WHITEBOY TOOK MY VIRGINITY · BECAUSE I WAS NEVER TAUGHT HOMOSEXUALITY IN HEALTH CLASS · BECAUSE THE SANDMAN WAS A LESBIAN · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE MY PERIOD FEELS LIKE A BULLFIGHT · BECAUSE I HATE THE SMELL OF PORK · BECAUSE I LOVE THE TASTE OF PUSSY · BECAUSE I CAN'T FIST MY OWN ASSHOLE · BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF TIME ON MY HANDS · BECAUSE IT FEELS LIKE A BABY WHEN I SHAVE IT · BECAUSE MY PLATFORM HEEL WON'T FIT INSIDE · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE MY VIBRATOR ISN'T POWERFUL ENOUGH · BECAUSE TRANSSEXUALS TURN ME THE FUCK ON · BECAUSE SCENES FROM CALIGULA RUN THROUGH MY HEAD · BECAUSE CINDERELLA WASN'T MY SLAVE · BECAUSE IT THROBS LIKE A DICK · BECAUSE I SLEEP ALONE · BECAUSE OF THE QUESTION OF DEATH · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE FRIDAY FOSTER SAYS I'M A PERVERT · BECAUSE THE THOUGHT OF TREE VIRGINS IN HORSETAILS · BECAUSE MY DOUBLE-DONG WAS STOLEN · BECAUSE I SMOKED MY LAST CIGARETTE · BECAUSE I WANT TO SPIT-SHINE PRINCE'S BOOTS · BECAUSE I HATE SLOPPY BLOW-JOBS · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE THERE ARE NO MORE VIRGINS · BECAUSE I CAN'T GIVE THE GOVERNMENT AN ENEMA · BECAUSE WHORES BECAME EXPENSIVE · BECAUSE I HATE THE THOUGHT OF CLOTHING · BECAUSE I'M THE BORDERLINE OF A DYKE AND A BOY · BECAUSE I WANT TO BE SADDDLED AND TRAINED LIKE A HORSE · BECAUSE SLAVERY WAS IN MY ROOTS AND I THIRST S&M · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE I CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH PUSSY · BECAUSE THE SOUND OF A WOMAN'S VOICE OVER THE PHONE · BECAUSE WHEN IT'S WET IT GLAZES MY FINGERS · BECAUSE I WANT TO BE GANG-BANGED BY FEMALE INMATES · BECAUSE I WANT TO FUCK FOR FOOD AND WATER · BECAUSE I WASN'T BORN IN A CHASTITY BELT · BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD · BECAUSE MY CUNT IS SELFISH · BECAUSE IT'S SELF-GRATIFICATION · BECAUSE I LIKE TO WORK MY PUSSY · BECAUSE I WAS BORN A BITCH · BECAUSE I LIKE MORE THAN ONE ORGASM · BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TO SAY 'I LOVE YOU' TO ANYONE · BECAUSE IN MY MIND I CAN BE FUCKING ANYONE I WANT · BECAUSE IT'S HEALTHY · BECAUSE I'M A VAIN BITCH AND ONLY I KNOW HOW TO LOVE MYSELF...

happy fucking friday

2004-12-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

happy international human rights day, everyone!

no, it's not supposed to mean anything. not if you're american! what's that you say? "darfur"? god bless you! and god bless america! oh, you meant a place? never heard of it. huh? iraq? oh, eye-rack. yes, great things we're doing there. liberation takes a long time. abu-huh? nope, not a problem. just a frat hazing. you know, kids drink too much beer at MIT, we put some hoods on some infidels in the middle east. tomaytoe tomahto, kids. make sure to wave that american flag and smile big! big brother is watching! no, i don't think america holds any political prisoners within its borders, we put them all in cuba, where they belong with the bad communists. no, i don't know who leonard peltier is. mumia? oh, yeah, he's the one rage against the machine sings about. good kids, those rage kids. so sad they broke up.

wanna send a letter, a real actual snail mail letter, to a man who's in prison because he doesn't want to go back to vietnam - oops, iraq! if so, click the link: http://sdmcp.org/ and scroll down. he's already been and apparently that whole forcing democracy on people by razing their houses thing is working as well in baghdad as it is in palestine! looks like a nice guy, though, that Camilo Mejia, too bad the liberals got to him with their propaganda and convinced him going to jail would be better than killing women and children (don't even fucking think of tangling with me on this FACT, because it is indeed well documented).

okay, i'll stop writing in that voice, it's a little singsong for my taste though obviously i could continue. want a real interesting thing to read, check out http://www.amnesty.org/ for their newest campaign on women and war. rape is a war tactic - in every war that has ever been there has been rape. to rape literally plants the seed of the invader in the wombs of a people.

thomas posted poetry on my blog. not sure what to make of that, and he doesn't go to slc so i can't chalk it up to conference week.

i'm just curious, of my guy friends who read this, how many of you are registered for the draft? i know there won't be one. but i didn't have to register and probably never will so i'm curious because i haven't done it. in fact, technically i CAN'T do it. i don't plan on yelling at you or anything. gerard? ed? kyle? thomas? bueller?

on a more lighthearted note: pet peeve of right now - bad or lazy spelling. if you're IMing me and can't bother to put TWO FUCKING LETTERS in front of the letter "u", those two letters being Y and O, don't fucking bother asking me about my day, okay? unless you're on your cell phone, typing on those is annoying. but otherwise. it doesn't make you hip hop or punk rock or anything other than fucking annoying. remember how we all made fun of avril for the atrocity that was sk8ter boi? (here i refer to the travesty against syntax, not the "song" itself.) and yes, i am aware that this is passive aggressive of me. but at least i'm spelling out entire words.

though i do draw the line at capitalization.

(one last thing, DO NOT ASK how the paper is going. just DON'T DO IT. i try not to poke you in your stab wounds, ya lot of bleeding ninnies, so leave mine alone and i'll lick them in peace.)

no comment

2004-12-08T20:48:00.000-05:00

conversation with ed:

Jukar5: having fun? enjoying the college experience?
poetsego: i want to go home. i'm tired. i miss my wife and sarah and emily dearly. i need to have a good cry
poetsego: i spent a large part of my day in a funk. i have 15 pages out of 20-25 written.
poetsego: i'll be okay.
Jukar5: I'll throw you a big party.
poetsego: i need to get fucked
Jukar5: with ponies.
Jukar5: okay, there's only so much a party can do.

superwhinyselfspeaks:

2004-12-07T14:15:00.000-05:00

carre kept me from doing any work last night, but only because i let her.

i got out of "this is what democracy looks like", indymedia's first big project and a documentary of the WTO protests in Seattle 5 years ago (wow - 1999), and called her because . . . the more i know, the more it sucks. the visions of what *they* want for us and our world are very, very scary. i needed a good hug. the best antidote to learning about the world's misery is a good hug, methinks. she was all, come over! and for some reason i went and watched a movie with her, something i rarely (ie, never) do. the terminal. i was not in the right mood for it. that girl will never see my tits, which is kind of sad.

depressed about the state of the world. acutely aware that my depression is not productive.

shitloads of work to do. hence the problem with not getting any done last night. yesterday i woke up feeling so productive and pumped. my k conf paper went from non-existant at noon on saturday to twelve pages long 36 hours later, which was pretty awesome. then i asked komozi and he wants it at least 20 pages, which is perfectly reasonable, but it means i have to write more. argh.

at least expectations are winding down in my other classes! i only have to go to econ 3 more times, and for one of those times, we're watching a movie! and i got all my classes for next semester, i already feel like a slacker: con law (speechless with excitement) , poetry with marie howe (who i hear is a genius), and spanish (woo).

my feminists are dead. we have not met in, well, god knows. the fluxies have taken over the compound, we're afraid to peek our heads out the door, i feel like this is a bust, i'm viscerally intensely upset by it, i don't even want to talk to anyone, that's how upset i am, and i'm normally what *some* people would call an "over-process-y lesbian" (term coming from the tendency of certain dykes to want to *process* how everyone *feels* about something before moving forward).

also, carre keeps calling me a dyke whenever i say anything sexual. not sure how i feel about this. i haven't claimed dyke as an identity yet. plus she says it in relation to me stating sexual desires. i don't want my desires to have to be queer to get recognized. this is where the straight part of me gets all indignant and huffy and stands up and says, feminine straight women can state their desires, too! you don't have to be a femme (big diff between feminine and femme), and queer and all that shit to own your desires! argh! (okay, i'm being a processy lesbian.) i've always *been* queer but i haven't always *seemed* queer (don't accuse me of running and hiding, neither). it was the straight part of me that made it first, that stood up and fought. it was men i first dressed in drag for and seduced and got reputations about. i did the whole straight girl thing, and did a good job. maybe some purist queers wouldn't or don't like that about me, and to them i say fuck you, or get on your knees and i'll teach you a thing or two about respect, bitch. (where *did* this new topping side of me come from?)

i guess i don't like being labeled a dyke because dykes can be a bit myopic about claiming ALL female sexual desire as dykey female desire. and that just discounts all my damn straightness i worked so hard for. i don't trust dykes to let me still want men.

the more queer i feel, the more straight i feel. luckily i like juxtapositions.

i like all positions.

books

2004-12-04T15:29:00.000-05:00

if you could recommend like 2 or 3 books to somone right now, what would they be?

Cunt, Inga Muscio (for everyone who has one or knows someone who does)
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (both as an economics text and a social commentary)
Real Live Nude Girl, Carol Queen (this is my number one sex text. theory-bound yet still yummy)

also The Ethical Slut, Dossie Easton - but i can't recommend that as i haven't read it yet myself. but it's on my Imminent Reading list, which means as soon as i crawl out from under the semester it will be mine. as will Gender Outlaw, Kate Bornstein - i'm so excited about reading this book i can barely tell you.

other new reading list items: The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation, Dora Zames Fletcher (heard about it last night). Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy - not new, but i shall read it over break. and i shall cry.

for people who need a beautiful love story: Still Life With Woodpecker or Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins. (if you want to know Carre's spirit animal - Villa Incognito, the first section at least, also by Robbins)

for people who need a bittersweet love story: By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, Paulo Coelho.

for people who need to be reminded to follow their paths in life: The Alchemist, Coelho.

if you need a good cry: Paula, Isabel Allende.

anytime you need a careful, well-crafted story: Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko or The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy.

i could continue, but there's an even 15 to get you started. (only 4 of which i haven't read. hmm. don't worry, my list of books to read is much longer than this.)