looking back, moving on

last weekend something possessed me to label all my old entries into a series of vague usually useless categories no one else will ever use.

i think my OCD tendencies played no small part (my co-workers have begun to notice i clean my desk every night before i leave and systematically tap the desktop while composing important emails). but more than that, i was in the mood for a little retrospective.

suddenly i catch myself so completely enraptured this life. a life that i never imagined or could possibly have thought was mine not so very long ago. little moments where he tucks me into bed as he gets up so no drafts get in. or as i quickly sign off on my taxi account in the back of a cab, late for a board meeting. or when i tell him i love him and know that i mean it. fleeting moments of some other pretend life. like scenes from a movie or more appropriately, some other twenty-something with a job and a partner and none of the things i ever really considered to be part of my reality.

from the outside it seems so unlike me, so impossible to be here, that when i suddenly see it, the shock is overwhelming. and it never completely disappears. or it hasn't yet anyway. i do realize 5 months isn't really a forever by any means. frankly i have my doubts about me and forever too. but i guess that's part of my point. when i am suddenly jerked out of this misty haze of contentment and day-to-day and see myself from a distance being comfortable with a hand on mine and giving presentations without my tell-tale right knee quiver, I see someone else and wonder how I got here. How i can still feel and be me and yet have grown into something I never could have dreamed for myself.

i guess it's that i've so quickly become accustomed to a life wholly unconnected with what came before in so many ways. that i already take it for granted when only six months ago i was the same, but everything else was different. and that necessitates admitting i have no idea where the next six months will lead.

so, in this oddly worrisome and yet entirely unburdened mood, i wanted to look back on how i got here. as if seeing my moody scratches would give me a retrospective map of my path to her and now. to shed some light on what has become an utterly unbelievable journey.

suffice to say, i didn't tell me anything i didn't already know. i did grimace and wonder at the things i used to say and feel about him and me. i am still uncomfortable with our awkward past i guess, but better at now and trying to undo the things i did then. it's a miracle we happened the way we did i think, but somehow i am not surprised i did that backwards too.

and it's easy to see how desperately unhappy i was at my old job, as it slowly ate into me and my tone. and worrisome how the content changed from friends and escpapdes to a chornology of coupledom and ranting. and a relief to see the trickling away of wild desperate adventures just screaming out. clutching at need. and doubt.

i don't have any reason to be writing this. you don't care gentle reader. frankly, whether you read them or not, it's all still the rubbish in my head at the end of the day.

i guess suddenly the newness of it all struck me this morning. timely, what with my first valentines just past and our birthdays both next week. i'm marking time, noting change and assessing. like always, i overanalyze. the content may change, but the system stays in tact.

being left alone has some odd consequences (or, the return to greece)

so in an effort to regain some sanity (and mostly our own individual lives) liam and i are spending our first night apart in a month. it feels like longer.

but the whole constantly moving house/scared to be bothering flatmates/don't get anything done because all we do is hang out with each other/lack of personal space has left both our lives in absolute shambles.

so, i am home in the big empty quiet. and decided some life maintenance was in order. things like bagging up clothes for charity. throwing away the flowers he gave me weeks ago which were v. dead on the dresser. neatly stacking the book pile by the bed. etc etc.


which slowly dissolved into sorting out the collage pile. let me explain:

the sofa in my room is in a massive bay window. so around the sides and back there are large person-sized gaps between the angled walls and furniture. they tend to accumulate person-sized piles of crap that need regular purging.

the whole lefthand side became the collage pile because i used to stack old magazines or calendars or things that would come in handy for crafty projects and wrapping paper and the kinds of useless modgepodge related activities i fill dull evenings.

part of me is still 6. i know. just be glad it's the part that likes to paste things for fun, not the part that likes to eat paste for fun.

but so back there became home to magazines, newspaper clippings, postcards, flyers, photographs, ticket stubs. anything pertaining to craftiness, preserving memories or vaguely arty went down the blackhole behind the sofa.

and today was the day i craved bare floor, so i started sorting.



it was like a trip down memory lane.

notes from my dad, a weird and hilarious letter form my uncle james, sonali's wedding invitation, my carmen tickets. a postcard from spain, my pass to turnberry, my diploma.

some were hilarious. i found a rhinoceros card from phil from when we first met. back when he had a crush on maggie and when he ruptured his eardrum in a violent flu we went and took care of him. in his drug induced haze, his mother (back in canada) convinced him to send us thank you cards. i found one slid under my door with a mom and babi rhino on it reading:

"sarah -

(prewritten text) May your day be very enjoyable and the year ahead bring everything that means happiness to you (crossed out: HAPPY BIRTHDAY) (end prewritten text)

Thanks for all your help with tea and soup and stuff. My mom was relieved to know I have a few girls taking care of me.

- philip

ps I didn't know this was a birthday card when i bought it"




and of course the icing: the greece book.

in the tradition of the road trip journal of 2001, i took a little notebook with us on our fornight tour of the greek islands back when i barely knew mandy and had the money to jetset europe on someone else's dime.

it is a highly detailed account of our trip written mostly drunk in diners, bored on ferrys and hungover on beaches. that is to say, it's mostly games of MASH, diagrams of six degrees of kevin bacon and our all time best "NCAA double elimination finals" (aka bracketing all your male friends into a tournament of who you would sleep with in a table of either/or pairings leading to the ultimate fuck buddy; usually written with little hearts around it)

and a lot of stupid quotes of our insanely witty selves. i seem to remember us being giddy from sunlight, lack of sleep and too much greek beer pretty much all day. i shall record here some of the most brilliant for posterity, just in case the book falls behind the couch for another year (or twelve):

- "is loitering in god's house a sin?", mandy

- in response to a spotted pigeon: "why can't you mix a black lab and a poodle and get a dalmatian?", sara

- "we are swimming against the grain", sara

- "taste the water. it's like goat cheese or some shit", mandy

- "it's like a vermeer gone wrong", sara (on a picturesque mandy in yellow turban)

- "shafts of light sounds dirty. unless you mean like Samuel L. Jackson Shaft. SHAFT! (insert showy kate hand gesture)

- "is jesus gay?", a drunk us

- "that's fucked the fuck up", mandy

- this is heavy as fuck. it's a fucking baby", mandy (on her heavy and overpacked purse)

- "don't use that swear phrase", sara

- "everyone will be so happy to have us home. you're the crux of their social existance and i'm really fun too!", mandy

*** i am coming to realize (a little late) we sounds retarded. like kirsten dunst and michelle williams in Dick retarded. but i am really really amused so fuck off. ***

- "What the Christ?!?", sara

-"I'm getting so dark I don't even recognize myself. I look like a black lady!", mandy

- "so hold on. i am going to give you the short version of my near death experience with dolphins.", mandy

- "at worst i am my own 12th cousin", sara (on the grady-grady incest possibility)

- on a beach campsite, bored, drunk and with no tent "we don't need no stinkin' tv see? we got a cat. we just need a mouse on a string", mandy (to be fair, there really was a cat)

- "if you have'nt picked out your song what defines you as a couple?", mandy

- "because i'm a beer whore", sara

- "you could find a real mannequin with man-bits", mandy

- "back in the habit man, like sister act 2", sara



and in case you care, I am going to marrry Gerard Butler and drive a mercedes 320 in new zealand with no kids. i had a salmon wedding dress. And Mandy wed Matt Dillon. They'll have 'the square root of pi' number of children and live in North Dakota.

Our hottest friend by far was Maria's boyfriend Dave (think Chris Martin but actually attractive), I spent 787.35 euro (which at the time was £527.52) and lost my virginity.

it was a good trip.

j

in honour of jennie's birthday (and in recompense for not shipping malteser packing peanuts this year), i'm going to do that horrible thing where i make lists of references no one will understand but is infinately fun for me in remembering. in no particualr order, the random moments of jennie currently in my head, a tribute:

- lying on her bedroom floor at kingsley, furiously finishing the cd party cds, in all their deco glory. two computers, three women, a papercutter and she was still ridiculously late.

- lolled on my freshman futon, fairylights above us, listening to billy joel and pointedly not talking about joe.

- standing in my parents house, her first visit, in front of an open fridge. hungry and bored, she grabs one of the many unlabed styrofoam boxes , finds some congealed mac and cheese and begins to eat straight from the box. a look of distaste crosses her face, she puts the rest of the clump, until now precariously skwered on a fork, back in the box and shuts the fridge. my eyes scan the room, my sibling stands in the doorway, aghast at this stranger eating our food and then putting it back, an act she has yet to live down.

- sitting in the michigan theatre watching some merchant ivory film. i think it must have been house of mirth. and she began pulling apart that curl behind her left ear. running her fingers through it over and over, making an incesant like shhhhinkth noise. the first time i could hear her bored and uncomfortable.

- nintendo, waffles, and beanbags. what should have been a tradition.

- waking up in u towers, giggling about buffy, not knowing what time it was, when we fell asleep, or why we were still on top of the blankets, with all the hay sticking out of her hair from our jaunt to the cider mill the day before.

- posing, arms spread, silly cap askew, in that blasted tweed coat, in the frosty scottish countryside while i snap a photo. a boring, fruitless, three mile walk to "town" became a photoshoot and goat quest. only with jennie.

- but one of my all time favourite moments, is leaning our backs on the vatican, waiting for the sunrise and her quiet amused silence at my stupidity:






this isn't all. this isn't even some. probably if i thought about it, it isnt even a fair representation. but today, this is her for me. fragmented and fondly remembered.

missed.

happy birthday bitch.

i just checked my email for the first time in days.

mostly it was freecycle posts, the random promotion from amazon, and the film festival update. but in amongst the rubble was a casual reminder of my 10 year middle school reunion.

there is no way we are having one and there is certainly nothing on earth to entice me to go, but it still felt really weird. like remembering something you didnt know you forgot. a concrete reminder of someone else, some other place and time and life. like some other me.

ten years ago i stood, poised for high school, in britain for the first time. i had
- newly minted teeth,
- eyes unshackled by lawyer glasses,
- was fresh off the track team,
- was deserpately and secretly in love with anders
- and was wishing more than anything to be an academic for the rest of my days.
i also wore pleated cuffed shorts in colours like sage.

and now, i live here, where i decided i belonged that summer
- my teeth are stained and false,
- my eyes are (finally?) open,
- i've the bones of a geriatric,
- i am sadly smitten and trying to grow out of it,.
- and wishing i knew what was held in the rest of my days.
my fashion may be slightly better (in a neo-prep ironic/retro way), though only time will tell.

and most of all i find i miss the surety that came in those days before high school. i remember the ultimate contentment life held when there was the promise of a future far away and every possibility i would eventually get it right. the belief in someday.

but it seems i have no talent for certainty.

but i guess that is okay too. there is some comfort in having come out of that shell, that isolated existance where there was nothing outside my immediate impulse and no one on earth who saw me.

i am drifting away now. it must be the whisky. but anyway, all i meant was that seems like a lifetime ago. and i wonder if i am really at all any different. i suppose i still believe in someday.

death of a dream

so, i am not ashamed to admit i love shitty blockbuster heist flicks. anytime, anywhere, i'll watch slick bastards damn the man and possibly wield naughty weapons.

so in a day of nostalgia and joy, i slipped in Mission Impossible for the first time in years. A mainstay of my video collection, and an early member of my adoration of all things espionagy.

fair enough the make-up is dated, the technology looks archaic, and the soundtrack gimicky. these are the small things one must forgive - like with Sneakers or Charade.

but i cannot get over what the last year or two has done to tom cruise.

i used to see that wild enthusiastic look in his eye and think "gosh, it's so crazy it just might work! you clever bastard." (and want to name my sons ethan hunt) and now i see it and think "that man possibly ate placenta and believes aliens came to earth. you psycho fucker." (and want to never see that manic look again).

it is truly scarring.

invalid

i am not a necessarily active person. in fact i often am the human embodiment of lethargy and sloth (my second favourite sin).

i can do a pride and prejudice marathon without batting an eye, and often without even switching positions. a day off, more often than not, is pretty much 8 solid hours of silent sitting and reading. one of my best talents is forming nests (not unlike the home of the mad sleeping demon) from any available textiles and nestling for days on end.

but enforced rest is climbing the charts of tortures i cannot endure.

the second i am required to sit, unable to move, restricted from action, i seriously freak out. i feel caged. panic sets in. i am restless and lonely and regularly crave active hobbies i wouldnt dream of attempting when at my full capacity.

it is claustrophobic, this lack of mobility. i have never wanted to run or scream more.

i am trapped. teathered. arrested.

i remember when i was on swim team, we would have a taper in training before league meet. everyday would be easier until i swear to god we floated around for half an hour and then got sent home. my body was used to swimming at least 5 miles a day. That friday, at my grandmas house, I went for a walk on her treadmill to stretch my restless joints while she sat on the adjecent bed and we chatted. Before I realized it, I had run 3 and a half miles and had barely lost my breath.

I just needed to get it out of my system. I never ran that far again.



tuesday i could limp. wednesday i could walk short distances with only a slight wimper. so by friday i thought i could have an easy day at work. by lunch i was sent home for hobbling.

i think i am the first person to ever go to work out of boredom - and fail.

so now i am back on my sofa, determined to have a full day of recovery so i can get the hell out of here tomorrow.

it's slowly killing me, but i am determined to try. i have gathered comforts around me and take yoga breaths everytime i think about the fact i cant even get to my backyard (megan, the fear of paralysis is becoming all too real).

and part of me wonders if i could keep this active energy when not propped up by pillows and antinflamatories, would i? i think a world of yes. from the retrospect view of the sofa, it's a shame i waste so much time lolling about. i cant afford to waste my good(ish) health only to feel like this in my decrepit rag of a body for years to follow.

it's sickening. the only time i am halfway inspired to contemplate excersize is when i am physically incapable of doing it. that's irony for you. welcome to my life.

stories

my new friends (aka the ones who met me in a professional capacity and have not yet (or at least rarely) been exposed to my drunken lunacy, vixenish mania, or general idiotic frivolity outside the office) have begun remarking with regular frequency how all my stories are weird, ridiculous, and sometimes frightening.

fair enough, the hole in the picture of my brain i don't remember getting because my sister hit me on the head with a hammer is weird.

or the dog running away from the boy in the bodycast and the lady with no memory not knowing how to pick him up, so calling her high school best friend's mom (the only phone number she remembers) can be uncomfortable (but very funny).

the time andy got drunk and complained how drew got laid more than him is a good one too, but only when one explains the entire andy-andy height comedy value.

or when bridget and i smuggled greasy mozzerella sticks in to see the hours under my shirt and i burned my stomach. that's classy.

soon Cruella (her heavy make up runs when her eyes water. a lot.), the psycho flatmate who hates me for kicking her out (she took it kind of personally), and slept with all my friends, will be in regular rotation too, but not til she actually leaves.

even small everyday occurances like how the special ed kid proposed to me in the lunch line everyday for a year or i broke my arm playing gym class soccer and my teacher didnt believe me or even just the fact i used to be a butterfly swimmer gets a chuckle. these are now hilarious anecdotes well and truly out of the scope of these tame british people. i am like a sitcom without the studio audience.

i was mostly amused at my novelty act, that any awkward pub conversation or bad encounter can be salvaged by a sara-story is a handy weapon when one knows mostly tools.

i was getting used to idea that i was just a better storyteller than i used to be, and the fact that i laugh through most of the horrific and sometimes gory memories of my childhood and beyond i thought was a step forward from the cowering and crying that occupied my early years.

julie once said (i think i was in the midst of the broke-the-arm-falling-off-the-vaccuum-cleaner story) "don't you have any normal stories?".

i don't think i do, and i am totally okay with that. at first i thought maybe this was just my schtick, but turns out i was wrong.

jennie came last weekend. and she told the bat story and mentioned both the time i passed out and threw up jungle juice in our dorm and the time she puked on our kitchen floor. in fact we did a lot of reminiscing and at our picnic i missed my lady death strike nails a lot.

and it could have been julie again, but i don't remember, anyway someone said "god, don't your friends have any normal stories about you either?".

and then i got a letter from my brother. a real hand written ledgible letter (i know. i got all weepy happy) and the whole first page was a story about how mom was excited to see the strangers with candy movie and the only interview with amy sedaris was in playboy, so she bought it. not only bought it, bought it from the 7-11 at jolly and okemos so now the kid behind the counter (who tom went to school with) gives him the shifty eye all the time because he knows our mom buys porn.

and although this is a very funny story, especially if you know mom, it made me realize the storytelling isn't just my thing. it's how we all are. it's how everyone at home i know is and is possibly one of the things i miss most.

maybe it's my secret password, this ability to have ridiculous embarassing things happen and then laugh about it later. lord knows no one would survive with me very long if they couldn't laugh at kate's double broken feet or being cast as the lover of your arch-nemesis in the school play. (especially that time my skirt fell down in the school talent show). i break, ruin, or screw up a lot. and it's funny.

lordy, if jennie hadn't been amused or at least tolerant of my destroying the car, being convinced we were going to be raped in a cornfield, and positive obsession with fazolis within the first 24hours of our roadtrip, i don't think we'd be friends. but she did. and we are. and i am glad.

anyway, you may wonder (if you are still reading) why i am ranting on and on about stories and screw ups and silliness.

because, yet again, i have done it.

i am bedridden.

last night i helped liam move - from one 5th floor flat to another - and all the stairs and heavy boxes were too much for my knee. my patella tendon is so seized up i can't move my leg without grating pain not unlike the staples that used to hold it together. and i had to call into work because i could not stand up this morning. seriously. no good deed goes unpunished indeed.

so here i am, stuck in bed, writing an email to my boss since i cant reach the phone, and all i can think is, she will so not appreciate the hilarity here within.

hatched

lauren has inspired me. of course i shamefully eat up any likeness to celebrity hoping it'll shed light on what i look like as no two cameras, mirrors or pairs of eyes seem to agree. and my unending fascination with celebrity whoredom always helps.

so, in the lazy summer sunlight i started recalling all the past ingenues and vixens i've resembled or replayed.

1 - Anna Chulmsky (in My Girl). I think perhaps the neurotic conotrolling pre-teen image may have had something to do with it as much as a nose i've still barely grown into, as this was from the nanny who insists i almost killed her baby.

2 - Claire Danes. I'm pretty sure we're talking My So-Called Life here which is also fittingly neurotic and angsty with the uber-nose. One thing I am sure of, it was before her Mod Squad makeover when she lost all that weight. I am still the proud owner of that round Iowa face and the tits she forsook for Hollywood.

3 - Kate Winslet. Again, I am pretty sure the curvy women of Hollywood (in this case with both the nose and shocking eyebrows of my high school years) are called into play mostly because i am not nor ever will be waifish. that said, this was back when she was famous for empire waisted dresses and swooning.

4 - Kathy Ireland. My bunk buddy at camp likened me to a super model junior year. I was new to mascara and the perfected 90s side part of messy sexy glory (well, as much so as any 16 year old had the right to have. too bad I was almost a decade behind). I still wonder if she was hitting on me as no one looks that good in the blue lake polo.

5 - young Brooke Shields (no I don't believe in island incest). A brunch-friend who I barely know mentioned the other day, but as she was fucking hot (and this was before the disaster of a sitcom, the baby drama, or the cocaine), I'll take it. Though, I was just off a holiday tan and glowing from retail therapy, brownie kebabs and gossip. A good mood makes anyone more attractive. Unless of course you are one of those broody sexy men i find myself messily attracted to who are usually a disappointment when they finally smile.

6 - and now Kathleen Turner. And I'll take Joan Wilder with her 80s hair and Michael Douglas in white pants so long as no one mentions The Graduate or Baby Geniuses and I get Jessica Rabbit's legs. Christ, in the white dress from BodyHeat, I'd do her.

So I think we can all say I have grown here. In everything but sense (and especially vanity).

But all in all, I think we are headed in the right direction (and yes jennie, that is away from cable knits and plaid, too tight cut up tshirts, paisley velvet pants, and various other disasters of my previous incarnations. i shudder at the thought and blame all of you for not talking me out of these things but waiting for me to realize and relive the embarassment for years to come.).

but hallelujah. the duckling has sprouted. or at least stopped molting.

night of the living hedgehog (an ode to gameshows gone by)

so once upon a time, i lived with lauren. when she didn't hate me for filling the kitchen with ants or forgetting to pay the phone bill, it was really really great. especially when she could get drunk off 2 sminrnoff ices or indulge ourselves in flavo-ice and temptation island 2. or that time she needed help to band-aid over her nipples because her dress was too low for a bra and lord knows she wasn't going to nip out.

but all good things have a price, and hers was the random medical scares. (though, this is not the time for the insulin scare story where we went to the hosiptal in the middle of the night and i watched "aliens in the wild wild west" on disney only to run into a friend who got a broken beer bottle in the face while watching a child throw up in the waiting room. that's a different time.)

but once, when the pump was still newish lauren had to stay awake until her bloodsugar chilled the fuck out.

i don't remember what happened or why. what time of year it was. or what inspired us to watch TBS, back when it had just nixed it's "superstation" logo. But curled in our basement hell hole cubby; lauren, bridget and i wiled away the hours with old school Family Feud.

oh yes, it was the night of crazy grandma.

Now, I am not a huge family feud fan. But years of gameshow network with the girl had taught me to find Richard funny rather than pathetic and the retro-ness (sidenote: can you have a word that is only prefix-suffix without any actual content? is this postmodern lingusitics now?) of it all had it's charm. I still of course refused to watch the ones with Al from Home Improvement (except that time there was the Stars on Ice face-off. that was amazing.) and if anyone thinks Louie Anderson should still be alive, stop reading now.

Anyway, it was 3am. And it was old school family feud with the "ooh cheek or mouth Richard?" suspense and this tiny mad woman became my hero.

I wish I remembered more of it (It is times like these I miss diary-x for having lost all such carefully recorded memories I wrote down expressly so I wouldn't have to store them in my brain any longer), but her best two were:

question: Name a favourite pet
answer: hedgehog

question: Name someone you would leave your keys with
answer: mailbox
Richard notes this is not a person and gives her a rare, possibly unprecedented, do-over while trying not to fall over in gin-soaked, coconut-oiled laughter
new answer: mailman
she may have hastened to change this to "stranger" or I may have added that in later for effect. I have a tendency to do that.

Anyway, I wish I remembered more of that night. For all the drama of lauren's brushes with sugar-less death, it did make for some good times.

And I thought of it today because I found this. A pale comparison, but a fresh reminder of those classic gameshow days gone by.

perhaps jean grey wasn't a total cunt

didn't you ever wonder if the phoenix was really jean grey just snapped? she was sick of the fake and the wimpy and the dictation and the lame sweetness and just fucking flipped and went on a rampage? that the whole suspended animation thing was just a flimsy cover up?

because scott wouldnt put out and the professor wouldnt let her use cerebro and the team shunted her to recon and research. that she fainted at every breath and constantly had to fend off logan. that 20 years in that school and she was still just an assistant. that she had to wear nude colored cargo pants. i'd have done more than a poorly executed apocalypse, that's for sure.

today it feels like that.

like the well of frustration is running over and this tub of me has no overflow drain.

i feel in a rage. or rather, like in the very near future i soon will be.

granted, part of this will be it is the morning of my last day of vacation and i have done absolutely nothing. and part of me is still a whinging toddler who hates the end of things.

but it is seriously more than that.

i bit liam saturday. hard. he was mad at me for something i hadnt done and stormed out of a party. i left soon after in a drunken rage of disappointment and libido. i ran into him on the street, my mind too fuzzy to know if it was on purpose. i didnt have words. i had what equates to pg angry sex. standing on a street corner. hot and fast and rushing and a little bit violent. i felt caged. and it felt great. and if fucking scares me.

sometimes he is so terribly frustrating. harsh. cruel. cold. and most the time i am yoga-goddess weatherer of storms. but every once in a while he gets in and tears me apart and i flood like the hoover dam. and it makes me hate both of us. and i dont know which frightens me more; that we got ourselves here or that when the chips are down and i've lost control, i hurt him.

it also doesnt help i was in a mood that whole night because it was phils goodbye party.

and for all our mess and his silliness and everything we have ever screwed up between us, he was so easy. to be with and not be judged or used or feel compelled to talk. he was a guy in the very best of ways and i will miss him.

plus, he gave me his return of the jedi pillowcase. i have no words for how much this means to me. he has had it since 1983. it was always the one i used. on drunk nights when i crashed on the sofa. on the infamous walk of shame morning i was too hungover to go home and lay around his all day, grateful he didnt ask. as a seat cushion for arrested development marathons. my arm rest for blue jays games. my pillow that one night we "napped". and he gave it to me. he was always a sentimental guy. and now it sits on my chair, and i dont have the heart to use it.

and of course there should have been a party to see him off. he always complained he had no friends but me and jack. and truth be told it was sarah's friends and my co-workers and random neighbors. girls he'd slept with and pub aquaintences. the party went on for hours after i waved goodbye to the taxi. but a little piece of me wanted to say goodbye to my boys - for jack took him to the airport - on my own. not with strangers passing a fag an armsbreath away and my own drama waiting for me upstairs. it felt rushed. cramped. amputated. and he was worth more than that. i hope he knows it.

sorry, i am just full on whinging now.

last night having to talk on the phone right before bed was horrible. which dont get me wrong, it can be lovely. but it can be so full of heavy silences and pregnant phrasology i rarely have the energy for much less sleepy hung over and lonely. plus, it is infinately worse when it is all just flippant chatter and errands i dont want to address from bed on a sunday. sometimes it only reminds me how far away you are. i know i am a freak about the phone, but it put me in a mood straight away today.

anyway, i should stop. cut myself off before i say something really horrid i dont even mean. just to feel it in my mouth. let me watch the dominoes fall. pick at the scabs and watch them bleed.

i am going to have breakfast and pay my council tax and play my violin and then i think take a bath. and hopefully this tar, this thick creeping bile, will be seeped away. gently excreeted from my every pore until my insides are clear again. i am clear again. i am clean.

vie melodien

in the dappled sunlight of my gold coifed room (perhaps we have finally out run the porn dungeon title), i was moved to music this afternoon, and picked up my violin.

an instrument (and object) with which i have had one of the most tumultuous relationships of my entire life, leading to our five year estrangement. a separation i felt compelled to reconcile these last few weeks.

as i opened the ridiculous case, still tattered from tiny locker jams, the complete familiarity and yet entire foreignness of it was overwhelming. it was all there - the massive sponge stain, the fancy import rosin that'd been a christmas gift, the spare Dominant strings in their hideously retro packaging, the suzuki books covered with garish stickers.

i won't pretend i was ever a prodigy. by the beginning of high school i'd given up practicing all together and within two years was relegated to the back of the orchestra with the stoners and dropouts (where a whole different piece of my education began). but even in the later years, in fleeting moments, it was perfect.

the right tune, the right note even, and i could just soar. it was a voice opening in me. an unanswered truth.

sometimes, just for a minute, when playing something breathtaking, i felt whole.

and perhaps it was the fleetness of these moments that pushed me away. my lessons were chunks of prescribed classics chosen for their modal shifts. our orchestral pieces were heavy on cello melody because everyone knew they were the only halfway decent section, and mostly 40 minutes too long for anyone with ears.

and i was uninspired. the one thing it promised seemed to be forever beyond my ability and not even a concern for my teachers.

so i left it. a nostalgic relic, a closed possibility. a dream.

and as i lifted it to my shoulder today, i thought perhaps i should have left it there. to rot in my parents closet.

i am absolutely rubbish. clunky. out of tune. slow. airy. childish.

the hickey on my neck of which i was so secretly proud is long gone, the grooves in my bowfingers filled back in. we no longer fit, my violin and i.

we are like reunited lovers, trying to find where we were. how we were. limbs akimbo. bodies out of joint.

and of course we can't. i am not the same size or shape or player i once was. we'll have to begin again, finding our voice, seeking the sweet spots. retuning ourselves.

it hurts a little the songs i scrape through now are dated in mr. dewey's sharp masculine scrawl '02/25/94'. that i can hear the strength behind notes that come out as whispers makes me wince.

but oh, the promise of that power. that expression is what brought me back. that it's still there, this voiceless singing and challenging flight. the possibility of momentary transcendence.

if i am patient, we can, once again make music.

faux americana

my weekend has inadvertently become a celebration of american stereotype:

friday; dinner at the buffallo grill
- there were photographs of native americans covering the walls like a themed bennigans
- my co-workers asked if we actually learn about the native peoples at school
- and one even said " chief joseph - that cant be his indian name can it?"
- i had corn on the cob. they scoffed at my indelicacy. i reveled in the buttery goodness
- most of the menu was steak. i had the peppercorn and lemon.
- i had to explain jambalya

friday; community theatre guys and dolls
- they all sounded like bobby deniro in the untouchables
- on crack
- and with tampons shoved up their noses
- adelaide was a watered down lina lamont
- there were paper stars and stripes on the newstand
- it was positively adorable
- and atrocious

saturday; lupe pintos
- a mexican deli
- ... is really and import grocer with stove top, betty crocker and their ilk
- i bought a whatchamacalit. hersheys is unheard of (did i tell you the time i brought back hershey kisses and everyone was thrilled because they had never seen a real one and wondered if they really all had the little flags? yeah. arthur giving them to francine would have been lost. no wonder aardvark picture books are in a slump here.)
- and pace salsa

saturday; junebug
- totally one of those indie family pastiches
- absoultely hilarious
- and depressing
- americana on film makes me sad for home. even if its appalachia baptists, it's closer to hicksville midwest catholics compared to here. i miss my boppa.
- worth seeing even if alessandro nivola couldn't pass for a southern boy in a million years, he is fucking adorable

saturday; home
- call mom
- call sister
- wear flannel shirt
- hum showtunes

and although kitch and wrong and oh so very very bad in places (yes i know oversized flannel died with cobain), it still has a little piece of me aching for home. because, as the fairy tales tell us, no matter what kind of hell-hole farm you are from, there is no place like home.

the wrath of babes

so i am sick of my twenty-first century whinging and endless lists. It's like those late episodes of a good sitcom where the premise no longer works and it wasn't clever enough to handle self-reflexive irony.

and like any true sitcom, i am introducing a spunky child to boost ratings and liven up a deadly saturday line-up. But unlike my 80s predecessors, through a twist of fate (and a minor time warp), the child is me.



doodle-loodle-loo, doodle-loodle-loo, doodle-loodle-loo...

you know how your brother is totally annoying and scribbles on your bestest ballerina drawing with the red slippers? or that time your sister totally used the blue power rangers slurpee cup from k-mart even though she knew billy was your favorite? remember when mom forgot to call you in sick so once again you have to grovel to the principal about your family's minor mishaps and get him to unfail you from world history due to absence?

you know what totally is the best emotional release for this? and no, i dont mean counting to ten, yoga, volunteering with the girl scouts or making macaroni mecklaces for grandma.

concoccting poison.

just sneak out into the yard while mom makes spaghetti and gather a few simple ingredients:

- a strong stick stripped of leaves and twigs for stirring
- dirt
- water (if you can unkink the hose)
- leaves - especially maple since they crack and get gooey
- pine needles and/or twigs
- any flower petals available
- those red squishy berries often found on old lady hedg
- a brick

to prepare deadly poison potion:
- gather the berries into a pile on the pavement. smash them with a brick repeatedly until the sidewalk runs red with their blood. this sacrfice is cathardic and symbolic.
- add dirt and water until it is a thick nasty paste and imagine force feeding it to said sister until she chokes.
- add pine needles for texture and leaves if needed
- flutter flower petals daintily over the top to decorate
- then smash their pretty little faces with the brick, thus metaphorically destroying all that is pure and innocent in your wake

- scrape onto a big flat leaf
- visualize serving it either open-faced or perhaps rolled like a taco.
presentation is everything, use your imagination!


...doodle-loodle-loo, doodle-loodle-loo, doodle-loodle-loo.



this is something i actually used to do as a small child to curb my fury. i saw those berries today and wished i could again, but alas - no bricks.

sometimes i worry for little me and want to wrap her up and make her unpsycho.

and sometimes i cant help but laugh that i thought the geeky ranger was hot.

for fucks sake. you fucking mother fucking cunt. i hate you and hope you die a bloody horrible death. involving rabies and lacerations.

i have officially lost everything i have ever written on diary-x. 5 years of every honest confession and tiny dream and things i would never say outloud but needed to vent. its all my memories stored up since i couldnt hold them in my head. it is my first scotland. it was my seetha. it was my parent-proof daydreams and first dirty lesbian confessions. it was me.

i feel amputated.

i miss my sister more now because i cant hear her in monochromatic pinks at the click of a button anymore.

i miss my first forays into html.

i miss my most raw voice.

i miss me.

itemization

a. i miss d-x. where else can i whinge about damp tights and rave about croci and know my mom will write me a sweet note about it later? wow that's pathetic.

b. two days in a row now i have been caught in the blistering sheets of icy death known as spring showers. if i am sick for my party so help me god, someone will die. probably me. from mixing pnemonia and gin.

c. my party requires every guest wear a hat, crown or headress of their choosing. today i went shopping for my hat. it's down to a lace-veiled wide brimmed sunhat ala scarlett o'hara (though i won't be adding the killer 50s prom dress i found with it at the vintage place) or red fedora with tipped brim. it is like Else on the runway meets Carmen Sandiego. Sounds like I am leaning towards the fedora. Sexy is always better. And when satin corsets can be a legitimate addition, this party is going to rock.

d. i made homemade chicken pot pie. but made the crust too thin and it sank into the filling. now its more like dumplings. yummy ugly dumplings.

e. i am wearing my sweet 16 pearls. the year of social death. the year of my first kiss and RB (thank god not together) and the infamous Molly. the year between Purv and Olstad. the year of HOBY. the year i realized what i was wearing and cried. the year i left Okemos behind. birthdays are fucking weird man.

f. for once in all my remembered past, i don't want sex for my birthday. well, not first and only sex. is it ironic it is the first birthday i am not a virgin?