the sound of loneliness turned up to ten.
this is the sound of someone losing the plot.
making out they're okay when they're not.
you're not gonna like it but here comes the chorus
and it goes like this:

oh baby, here comes the fear again.
oh, the end is near again.
a monkey's built a house on your back.
you can't get anyone to come in the sack
and here comes another panic attack.
oh, here we go again...

i know i'm so boring when i'm depressed. i feel like i'm letting everybody down. i feel like i've been lying every time i've ever been happy, i feel like i can't be trusted and i am far too emotionally high-maintenance. i feel like whining about the same miserable things over and over again, going down the same aimless roads, stabbing myself with little searing pins, miserythreads, sewing them around myself until i am completely obscured.

god, when i'm sad i make bad metaphors. and when i'm feeling crafty, i obviously make bad metaphors involving depression and crafts.

and i hate myself for not knowing how to fucking archive my entries, not being ftp-competent, and for waiting for a phonecall that may or may not come. for doing stupid horrible things that i know are evil and pointless and could hurt so many people, myself most of all. i could lose everything. why do i have to push the boundaries so hard? why do i have to be reminded of my limits in ways that are so painful and harsh and sudden, why do i expect anything else at all, ever?

and what am i doing now, whispering or screaming this into a vacuum? i would like to be able to say that i am keeping myself busy with productive things, creative things, something other than sitting here with a full and aching stomach and a face sticky from tears. and i'm thinking right now: it's been an hour or and hour and a half or an hour or two and i still don't know what's going on, but what right do i have to ask, i am the hand that was pushed away, the one who forgets, the one who is heartless at the root, brokenhearted, not making sense, end transmission.

so now you know the words to our song.
pretty soon you'll all be singing along.
when you're sad, when you're lonely and it all turns out wrong.
when you've got the fear.
& when you're no longer searching for beauty or love.
just some kind of life with the edges taken off.
when you can't even define what it is that you are frightened of.
this song will be here.
oh baby, here comes the fear again.
the end is near again.
if you ever get that chimp off your back.
if you ever find the thing that you lack.
but you know you're only having a laugh & here we go again.
until the end.

i have to pick up my cheque* from work this afternoon. i'm hoping it will be for a significant amount of money, because i have spent the whole last week training. you see, waitresses make a whopping two dollars an hour, on the average, and that compensation only generally exists for tax purposes. in other words, when you're a waitress, your cheque is normally for about six bucks. but since i wasn't getting tipped i should have been getting paid at a higher training rate, therefore enabling me to actually have cash in my pocket, if all goes well.

update: fuck. i only got 19 dollars and twenty cents. in other words, i was not paid for training, only for yesterday. and i feel so crashed, so crashed, so miserable, i have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. i know there is nothing i can do but relax, nothing i should do, really, i know i am always wrong and always making it worse and i am always afraid and i thought i was done with this, doing things that make myself sickest of all, cheap thrills and little pills, throwing myself into whatever warmth is there, when it is wrong, so wrong.

and this karma is in the air, this evil and cruelty i have sown with my fear comes back to slap me in the face after nothing, as if this is how it always should have been, always will be. and i will not tolerate it, i can't breathe like this, i can't live like this.

*french spelling, it's bess and amy's fault.

al playing geetar on thanksgiving.

al playing geetar and diego playing bass.

diego's self portrait (one of them) and diego.

al and sweetie, my sweeeeet puppygirl (not mine, but she's pretty much mine, thanks)

now is one of those times when i can't keep my mouth shut and it would probably be better not to say anything at all. not because i'm feeling particularly vicious or wicked or stupid or depressed or evil or anything, either. quite the opposite. i'm feeling extraordinarily elated and mouthy and happy and chatty and i want to write emails to everyone i know telling them cheesy things about how much i love them, and not even normal people, people like katie's older brother and my friend benny, which is okay, i actually could not restrain myself from writing an email to benny, but this is allright because he is a sweet dickinson friend of mine i have spent a lot of time with at shows and hippie things like that. so he gets it.

basically all this excess creativity i have going on in my soul is making me feel frantic and like i'm running around like a headless chicken. i want to start making things, collages, decos, etc etc, i want to send these things to my friends and make them happy. i want to crochet enough blankets to wrap up the whole fucking world. i don't ever want to crash from this insane buzz of doing, doing, doing, feeling, feeling, feeling, and being happy besides. i want to reinvent myself, i want to exercise and eat better and get a really nice haircut and i want to buy nice clothes, i want to move out of my parents' house and have my own place, a place with friends, something. i love my parents but i definitely need to spread out, establish myself in an empty space that is MINE ALL MINE. i used to be terrified of the idea of living alone, now i kind of welcome it. i mean, i adore people and i love having them around, but i don't think i'd be miserable, as long as people were always coming over and stuff, which they would, because my friends are like that.

basically i just feel all this excess of energy that is not wasted, i am working, i am busy, i am on top of things, i am always doing something, and there is just so so much i want to do, really, and how could i have ever forgotten that? even if what i want to do is something stupid, in the scheme of things, like something small and arty or even just dyeing my hair, for god's sake, it's something, it's a moment's pleasure, it's everything. feeling so wild and eager means nothing unless it is used in some way, unless that energy is translated and transformed into something created, something actual, some kind of movement, it is lost. i don't want to lose anything that way, i don't want to squander my gifts.

reason #626 why i rock:

i mentioned that i helped diego write a monet paper a couple of weeks ago...well, he got it back today and it was a NINETY EIGHT! score! he totally gives me full credit for it, although i used a little sewing metaphor and said "you know, all i did was type what you had written, edit for style and grammar and spice it up a little...it's like i sewed together the already existing patches on your patchwork quilt!" yeah. just like that. anyway, he's so grateful and i'm very happy to have been of service. see, i'm a TOTAL NERD and i basically LIVE for writing papers.

now i've been spending a lot of time on nervousness dot org and i have set up some rad exchanges. i'm getting a journal in the mail from this chica sometime soon, and i'm crocheting her a scarf...it's going to be all scorpio magicalicious. doodlydoo! i love crocheting in the cold weather. mmm. i can't help feeling so damn crafty lately...

work is going okay. i really like the women i work with, i just wish i could stop training and start making actual $. but that's enough bitching about that, thaaanks...i can actually picture myself enjoying this job. it's a relaxing, nice restaurant where the bills are large and the tips are always twenty percent or more. such a nice change from this place. i hate hate hate corporate restaurants.

tonight diego talked to me about passion. what is passion? what is mine? i know mine, i do...my passion is writing, creation, beauty, love. mostly writing. i think i'm going to title my book "stories that are not necessarily mine to tell." heh.
and i realized from writing on napkins and also from seeing my brother and the wisdom of her teeny sweet cousin samantha, who is 8 and said "i just create, no matter what, i just like creating, i don't care what it looks like or what it is..." that creation is important and it is me and i am here and i SING OF MYSELF like walt fucking whitman and here is a non-whitman poem that inspires me thusly:

+++++++++++++++

Love after Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

derek walcott, collected poems

so my thanksgiving was neat. i ate all the traditional orange and red and brown foods, drank the traditional cider. i saw my little brother for the first time in a couple of months.

last night i went to the studio avec diego and hung out with him, drinking wine and imbibing other unmentionables, whilst he painted a self-portrait. i wrote a lot of stories and thoughts on napkins. i wish i had a scanner but i don't, so here is one:

so sometimes i hate being a girl. like right now, i have my period and no tampons or sanitary devices of any sort, no $ to purchase any and nowhere to go. I AM ON THE RAG. I AM CURRENTLY BEING VISITED BY AUNT FLOW. and my boobies are sore and my previously clean undies are now dirty and permanently stained with the dark castoffs of my uterus.

the worst getting-a-period story i have ever heard is from my mother. she had her first menses/menarche/what have you at age nine and a half. if that wasn't already traumatic enough, she was playing tennis in full tennis whites (it was the 1960s, yo) with her tennis instructor that she had a crush on (at age NINE AND A HALF, mind you). and her mother had never told her of 'The Mysteries of Womanhood' - so she was bleeding all over her tennis whites and started FREAKING OUT because she thought she was BLEEDING TO DEATH. so she ran off the court screaming bloody murder whilst actually bleeding bloody murder and, i must tell you, she's quite a good tennis player, so i know she went back, and sometimes she sees her old instructor at the supermarket.

anyway, this is the kind of trauma men never have to deal avec. this is unfair, althouhg i don't resent them too much, because us girls are thankfully free of unsightly diving board and gym class boners. HA!

++++++

in other news...i have been spending a lot of time with the ex lately. and it's been nice, so nice. and i'm not worried or overly expectant or any of the typical things. i'm just enjoying him, remembering how good it feels to love and be loved and all that jazz. i've grown up so much through this relationship, through the falling apart and inevitable coming together of this relationship. i know how to trust my instincts and how to let the good feelings last longer than a five minute afterglow.

this rocks my ass. seriously, i have never seen anything so cool as that target thingy.

today at work was not so bad. it was kind of random, actually. i kind of wandered around while people showed me things, and i'm really just trying to figure out what waitresses here are responsible for as opposed to at my old job, and whenever i start to feel confused or out of it i think of my waitress totems,* clara and betsy.

clara, you see, was my friend and, eventually, roommate in college. clara and i slept in two college-issue bunk beds taped together with our boyfriends ben. there's a lot to say about clara, but, basically, she possessed the ability to completely rock any job, working with difficult people, befriending everyone cool, saving her money and striding around with a smile on her face, or with pissed-off energy. always so kinetic, that clara.

betsy has had waitressing jobs for four or five years now. she's a bartender now, actually, and she makes loads o' money. she managed to carve out a lucrative waitressing career in the country[side] that enabled her to buy really pretty furniture. betsy is an insane workaholic a la clara, too.

strange ben facts related to this story: clara's ben's family owned the restaurant she worked in. they moved to colorado from pennsylvania together after graduation and now she lives in california and he lives in (no shit) antarctica.

my ben is waitress betsy's brother. their cute mom sent me a nailpolish upon my first waitressing job by OPI. it's the blatantly ironic one on the top row of nailpolishes in this link.

boy things: diego's mom called me today when i was in the shower. alex and diego both later said she wanted my address. i think it's funny that she calls here. it somehow validates me in some bizarre way. diego called me tonight, ended up chatting avec my brother, who is home! he asked me over and we watched a movie and then looked obsessively at francis bacon paintings on the internet and smoked some pot. francis bacon is cool, i love his creepy triptych inspired by the oresteia.

of course, he did say that he wanted cigarettes, and had no money, so of course he wanted me to come over to provide him avec cigarettes, and he didn't even try to hug me when i left, but there was no coldness, just distant sweetness, kindness, what have you. and i looked at him tonight and i thought, do i even feel anything? do i even love him? but it's not even about that, sometimes, love -- sometimes love isn't this overwhelming thing, all the time. it's a meditation, it's peace, it's joy in simply being together. love isn't always about passion and being lovers, as much as i would like it to be. it simply isn't, it simply can't be. so when i feel this friendship with him, this nothing, this passionless time, it is not passionless. it is simply a moment shared in peace, the ability to share moments in quiet peace, to feel calm when you are with someone, to feel balanced and grateful. that's the love he brings to me. passion doesn't always have to be there. i have to keep telling myself that, even though i know it's true.

*i also think of another waitress totem, mel. mel has actually worked at the restaurant i currently work in, and pretty much hated it avec a passion. the thing is, mel is a very successful waitress in her own right, most recently waitressing in LBI, north carolina and, soon, hoboken. she's a great girl, sweet and charming, but she can be dumb as rocks. so i think, jesus, mel could figure this out. i can definitely do it!

i didn't start work last week because i was the victim of a sudden repugnant sore on my mouth. today, one week later, i'm woozy from antibiotics, the sore is caked in mushy blood that is apparently "healing", i woke up this morning with a stalactite of hardened blood on my front tooth, and, thanks to the antibiotics, i think i'm getting a yeast infection.

i start work tomorrow, obviously "rested up" and "ready for the best day possible."

oh, did i mention my cuticles are raw, hardened, and probably infected? they are.

hannah and alex's roommate pete procured two baby turtles "from an asian lady on lexington avenue for ten dollars." they're so cute. they're so much happier now with light and shredded carrots and lettuce and a light and a big shell to "bask" on than they were when it was just them and the water. at first they just floated around looking depressed. now distinct personalities have emerged. bill, the one with the "slitty, mean-looking eyes"* is quite the happy, social turtle. he likes to be pet, make dinosaurish mouth-opening movements, and walk around on palms. bob, the one with the "pokey-outy eyes" is kind of grim and doesn't do much. when you pick him up he goes into his shell and glares at you.

i am restless and my tongue hurts. i couldn't kiss anyone right now even if i wanted to. i'm so diseased over here.

i am excited to start work. work means keeping busy, money, and a slew of other things that will help to make me happy and productive. fuck yeah. i am NOT going to get fired or sick of this job. NONONO.

*this is hannah's assessment. she named the turtles. pete wanted to call them "lex" and "asia," based on how he got them. duh. those sound like porn star names, not turtle names. we thought that bill would be more like bob is, and vice-versa, based on their looks alone. goes to show that we were wrong. also goes to show that turtles pretty much act dead until they get light on them.

the heater is thumping and scaring the hell out of me. last night i watched the leonid shower. went into my backyard and saw these rocketlike streaks of green and yellow across the sky, some that looked just like little shooting stars. woke up my dad. made him watch. yes, it was five o' clock in the morning, but he didn't seem to mind.

this thing on my mouth is getting smaller but not healing. in other words, the visible part is getting healed over but the open sore wound part in my mouth, the part that actually hurts, the inside of my lip, is not healing at all. this sucks.

sometimes i do these morbid web trolls where i obsessively look at things that bore/disgust/repulse me in one way or another. tonight i have been exploring "pro-ana" sites. WARNING TO FRIENDS WITH JOBS: DO NOT FOLLOW THESE LINKS AT WORK UNLESS YOU ARE ALONE ALONE ALONE. some of the content is visually nasty and/or otherwise psychotic and i don't want to be responsible for getting you fired, thanks.

anyway, i remember this site from a couple of years ago when it was an aol homestead site. now it's a sicko pay fetish tool of the patriarchy forum. this site is of a totally different ilk than the others i have looked at, but, strangely, it is included on all the "pro-ana" link lists.

um, hello, girls? are you really that fucking desperate to look at pictures of skinny ribs and nonexistent tits that you will absorb the ranting and raving of this "divine fetishist?" guess so. i have to admit, the best pictures of anorexic chicks are to be had at this website!

i have also come to this conclusion: anorexics are fucking boring. your generic pro-ana site contains basically the same things: a list of obvious "tips", pictures of emaciated supermodels, "recipies" involving several pieces of fruit and seltzer water, lists of "safe" and "unsafe" foods, a whiny journal, bad anorexic poetry, and a shrine to anorexic celebs karen carpenter and tracey gold.

i know it doesn't sound like i have any compassion for anorexics. you're right. i fucking don't. why not? well, maybe it's because i am a body anarchist, i think you can get as fat or as thin or as buff or as tattooed or whatever as you want, and you have the right to do so. maybe it's because skinny girls are considered infinitely beautiful, and infinitely tragic, and i'd like my misery with a side of depth, thanks, and not just some waifish suffering mascara-stained whore whining about how her size four jeans are just so fucking tight on her fat assss!

anorexia is a social disease. it's a disease germinated by media culture and popularized by rich white bitches with nothing better to do, no suffering of their own to make them genuinely tragic, or white trash bitches who are genuinely tragic in their white trashdom but desire a classier level of suffering.

in other words, people who really suffer don't have the fucking time to wax poetic about anorexia. i mean, famous people and supermodels with anorexia i can kind of understand. because, you know, they ARE their images. that's where the money comes from. but if you're not famous and you have anorexia and you expect to be taken seriously, i will laugh in your face and assume you are a sorority girl who simply hasn't been date raped yet. get a real problem, okay? get fat and harrassed. that's a problem. get fucking molested, get beaten, get a drug addiction*, get a genital mutilation, move to the fucking ghetto, get poor. do something.

are we so afraid of our actual emotions and selves in this country that we have to turn to societally-approved "diseases" like anorexia to make ourselves better? i mean, i'm a hypocrite, being depressed and medicated and all, but i seriously inform you, i was depressed before it was cool, okay? i spent most of my life feeling miserable ALONE, in an entirely UNHIP manner, HIDING MY PROBLEMS. because, guess what? REAL PROBLEMS GET HIDDEN. for years and years and years. i am so sick of insta-sufferers and their fucking rants about their insta-miseries. mostly, i am sick of the saturation of pity and delight that accompanies it.

there's a poem by diane wakoski that describes exactly what i'm feeling, about this beautiful poet being better than everyone else because she was beautiful, but shouldn't the ugly poets have been better?

UGLY FUCKING ROCKS. so suffer on, skinny bitches, you denizens of style, suffer your way into higher paychecks and designer clothes, and know that you have missed out on some essential form of being.

the word of the day is, obviously, misanthropic.

*of course, if you are addicted to drugs, it is entirely your fault, but at least you'll have some fun and cool stories, which is far more interesting than weight loss charts and pictures of bony asses.

i'm like a flashing laser and a rolling thunder
i'm dangerous
i'm like a stepping razor
don't you watch my size
i'm dangerous, dangerous

tara is great. she wrote this:

I thought about Tupac yesterday. He allowed himself to act how he felt, not trying to easily transistion from mode or point of view to another. He taught me something important: it's not your job to resolve the inconsistencies in your life. I don't need to wipe them away, become easily compartmentalized and understandable to the outside world. It'll dull the lustre* of my being.

some facts:

last night i went to two doctors. my therapist, who is so nice and loves me even though she was best friends with elisabeth shue** in high school and is clearly That Kind of spunky, go-getting lady that i feel is so worlds away from what i am capable of being, someone with one foot in my world, a watcher of sorts, and a full-cycle of existence in What Happens.

i'm concerned for you she said.

but i'm not depressed. i insisted. i'm not unhappy, i don't fantasize about violent things or terminal illness, or the kind things my tear-choked friends and family would say at my funeral, about how i changed their lives, how they would gravely Live On Without Me, how they would soldier forward but never be the same, i don't spend hours wallowing in grief, i don't cry and see this bottomless pit of sadness anymore, i just don't see anything, i know i am in but outside, i know what i will have to be accustomed to and so i am slowly doing it, becoming it, wrapping myself around it...

she wrinkles her nose and her eyes turn down, sparkle though they do.

what do you care about, marie?

i shrug. i don't know. i...i...i care about what happens on my soap opera. (bursting of tears)***

i also went to the [biscuity] dermatologist, who mumbled what kind of sore i have very quickly and cheerfully and incoherently gave me a prescription for some antibiotics. in the office there was a friendly black woman my mom's age who wanted to know what the patches on my bag meant****, and a sweet eastern european mother with her almost-one-year-old incredibly well behaved and beautiful baby boy, tony. tony, such a big man's name for such a teeny little man, he had huge blue eyes and was so enticed by everything, smiling and all over the place, crawling and googling and so happy, and his mom was really sweet, not an uptight, yuppie get-yr-germs-away-from-my-offspring kind of mom, but a kind, oh-my-baby-really-likes-you-and-that's-great kind of mom.

then i went home. hannah explained how leo and laura's wedding was busted up***** over the phone, and i soon fell asleep, woken later for antibiotics and dinner.

that evening i was watching horrible friday night teevee with my mom, thieves, starring some english chick and john stamos, and i was actually getting into it, when my dog lucy****** started barking, and see, our doorbell doesn't work, it like never has, so basically when the dog barks it means someone's at the door or our neighbors have come home or the mail is getting dropped off or something...

anyway there's no one at the door this time. but twenty minutes later lucy does it again, and my dad comes upstairs to answer the door, and it's diego, of all people, and oleg is waiting in the car, and do i want to go see harry potter with everyone?

i knew about this exodus, but i declined a prepurchased ticket earlier in the week, thinking i would be working. but i throw off the blanket and i am fully dressed underneath, and i get into oleg's hatchback, and diego says yeah i went to alex's to get my stuff and i thought you weren't going for some stupid reason and also i didn't wanna hear about it if i went without you and blah blah but sweet, and when i say thank you, and mean it, he stops making excuses. also when he realizes i knew before, of course. anyway.

so alex, hannah, katie, diego, oleg, mark, stacy and i go to see harry potter. we're the oldest fucking people in the theatre without children, but it's all good. we get tickets, no problem, seats together, no problem.

the movie is long, but i am grateful to be snug on this outing with seven friends. note: stacy is 22, katie and i are 24, hannah is 26, diego is 27 in three weeks, mark is 29 and alex and oleg are 30. not that this is an issue avec harry potter, but still.

the movie is rad. hagrid is the part that is most different than i imagined, but so be it.

tonight i watched a lifetime movie starring ex-billie from Days, lisa rinna, gail o' grady from NYPD Blue and it was called Another Woman's Husband, it was my worst nightmare, but i loved watching it, love those lifetime movies, dammit.

tonight hung out with alex and seb and craig and hannah and alex and i went to dunkin' donuts late night, where we befriended two punk rock kids who looked about nineteen, so they obviously aren't first-generation punk rock, but who gives a fuck anyway, the one with green hair was explaining that he had cake all over him, cake and vomit, because he had gotten into a cake fight just moments before, and the kid who had landed him with cake was sitting at a nearby table, we discussed harry potter, which he also saw yesterday but did not like as nearly as much as i did.

note to self.

*i changed the spelling here. i tend to britishize everything. i'm fucking eurotrash.

**elisabeth and andrew shue went to my high school. so did lauryn hill, bill bellamy from MTV, alfred kinsey of the kinsey report, judith viorst, who wrote alexander and the terrible horrible no good very bad day, linda gottlieb who produced dirty dancing and still produces One Life To Live, zach braff who is now the star o' scrubs, and multitudes of others who i can't remember and are probably less important. zach and lauryn are the only ones i actually went to school avec, and zach is the only one i have actually talked to in recent times, since he and diego have been friends for a long time.

***i'm really this stupid.

****i didn't want to tell her that i didn't remember, and when we were drunk on my birthday my friends came up with some, diego noted the "Dancing With The Devil" badge, tara "Gay Nuclear Power" and angel, "Steppin' Out In Jamaica." that's really what they look like, too.

*****a lame All My Children reference, i'll admit.

******i don't talk about her nearly enough. lucy rocks my world. she's my little sister. she's a cocker spaniel who's just over two and is full of spunky girl attitude, and she's the real reason i still live avec mes parents.

i get so overwhelmed...

ugh. have i been asleep for several years? sometimes that's what it feels like. believe it or not, my job still has not started yet. i went in yesterday and i was blatantly sick, so she sent me home. i'm starting tuesday. hopefully, by then, i will not be sick.

seriously, though, the worst thing to do is to bitch about how i'm not doing anything rather than doing it. i know this. yet i cannot bring myself to do much. for me, this job, as paltry as it is, is truly the first step. because money does mean something to me. money means emancipation and individual struggle, believe it or not.

i really do need to be padded within the walls of academia for the rest of my life. this is a fact. it's not that i am antisocial, it's that i need a community that runs on my mindspeed. that doesn't expect the actual as much as the imagined, that is all about raising consciousness rather than passing bills and paperwork in circles.

the world seems so dried-out to me and i have barely given it a chance. my problem is that i am too fucking pampered, too fucking spoiled. strangely, when i have to struggle i succeed. when i am comfortable i fail.

maybe that's why my blood is so hungry for revolution. maybe that's why everyday horror seems blunted upon itself, depth and texture nonexistent.

the best part is, i am not depressed. really!

dinner tonight - pizza from reservoir, xtra cheese, garlic, meatballs. yum!

what did you have for dinner tonight? it's my new favorite question.

this thing on my face that has me fretting so seems to be a bite i inflicted upon myself in my sleep whilst grinding my teeth. i haven't always ground my teeth. it's just this open, sore wound that i keep continually covering with bacitracin ointment to no avail. i mean, it's not getting worse, i guess, but it's still this gross open cut on my lip that stings every time air touches it (which is constantly). in other words, FUCKING OW.

i have been finding myself desperate to write but not so desperate to write in here lately. maybe i should return to ye olde fashioned paper journals on a more regular basis, perhaps i should start writing letters to friends again instead of being lazy? this past weekend has made me realize that i am anxious to shed my memories, my happenings, like old skin, but not here. i want to share, i do, but not here.

time for ye olde pen and paper? we'll see.

okay. so thursday is over and i have this big hangover. pete and i tease each other as per usual, kevin is pretty much all o'er me, and i can't say i mind. i didn't DO anything, and frankly, i get off on being the hot chica.

quote o' the evening:

pete, looking at katie - "you're cute..." at hannah - "you're hot..." and me - "and as for you...god, i can't even SAY what you are." heh!

so friday night rolls around and i'm terribly disorganized. my parents buy me a lovely bracelet/ring and scarf, and give me $. i don't manage to alert my city girls where i'm going to be, since none of my jersey friends can seem to get anything together until the last minute. so we're hanging out at alex and hannah's apartment and eventually find our way to the gaslight. this rad blues chick and her band are playing, really really swingin' boogie woogie. the clueless bartender buys me a free weinstephaner, the mean viking bartender wears my sparkly jackie o glasses, two of my ex-high-school crushes approach me out o' nowhere, and my ex-boy-love forces me to swing dance avec him whilst people take pictures of us.

and then i went home. with him.

dare i drag this out anymore? ugh. there is, as always, more to tell.

i am thinking positively, despite this hideous and monstrous thing on my lip.

really, what amuses me most of all about my birthday is the fact that tara gave me the best present i have ever received, a hand-crocheted and lined and quilted bag with all of my girl scout patches on it, in the girl scout colors, no less. SO FUCKING RAD.

and also that she refers to a roofie, or rohyponal, or whatever, on her page as a "roiphe", which is funny because katie roiphe is the name of that mouthy academic chick who basically doesn't believe in date rape.

so my birthday was pretty rad.

i guess it begins thursday night. because my friends insisted on going out, hannah, alex, katie, mark, stacy and i ended up going to toro loco to see our friend wuba's funk band play. it was rad. his girlfriend, rachel, was the soul-momma singer as usual. and i got pretty drunk. because pete was there and he bought me a shot of blackhaus, which is just about the nicest girly liquor a boy can buy for a girl and still drink himself.

kevin was also there. i don't know if i have the energy to explain kevin's deal. let's just say for now, he's a biscuity business and property owning ridiculously flirty aries stud.

so let's fast forward to kevin's house, where we all ended up (except for mark and stacy and oh my god, i can't remember if katie was there all of a sudden, i think she was, blackout much?).

oh god. i need to tell this story but i have this godforsaken lesion or blood blister or in general herpes on my lip and i can't bring myself to stop focusing on it.

i hope it doesn't have anything to do with the story! heh.

okay, now is one of those times when i have a million bajillion things to say but i am in a rush, so i will share just the important things. important meaning of course what i am blurting to spit out.

i am obsessed with this. now would probably not be the brightest time to take such a tour, but who knows? i could pass for someone a bit outside of the allied powers, fake an english accent, not that such a thing would help. or i could take the advice of my friend julie, who spent time in syria and palestine last year and says basically that no one there hates us as they do on the news, they are mostly gentle and superkind, like the tibetans asking reporters for pictures of the dalai lama.

i am obsessed with the land of nod, east of eden. i even wrote a bad rap about it:

These lyrics in my mind
are serpentine
More fickle than you think
and not as kind

As I know I should be
when god speaks to me
And whispers all the things
I swear I see:

The only way to make it good
is to swipe it all away
The debts east of eden
east of eden
Are paid

You’ve all learned your lessons
So represent what you know,
Generate universal microflow
transmit in the safe zone

Let your river run longer,
no crimes against your lovers
Your sisters or your brothers,
your fathers or your mothers,

Your babies or your govern-
ment can’t control you
only expand the control
To learn to fight the power
you’ve just got to roll
with the punches
and destroy the machine
Through silence not violence
keep your own street clean

With kindness not violence
ride the serpentine
With kindness not violence
wind serpentine

the word of the day is trenchant.

that is all for now.

is this thing on?

urgh. i am a retard. i am scared to archive on blogger. help!

Ha ha ha!

The funniest thing just happened. I was at Hannah and Alex's watching Channel Seven Soaps as I am notoriously wont to do, and Alex nonchalantly hands Hannah their phone bill. So she sits there with her little pink Hi-Liter to set about marking off her charges, and all of a sudden she's flipping through the pages incredulously, and it turns out that their other roommate's* high-strung girlfriend** called the kid's cellphone EIGHTY-FIVE TIMES in three hours from their apartment.

Five pages of the phone bill. Every minute, sometimes more than that.

I mean, I've done some crazy, totally insane stalker things. Or so I thought. But, for god's sake, it's not like the boy is offering to give away free tickets to see The King of Pop or something! Especially not from betwixt 11:30 pm and 2:30 in the morning!

*Pete. he is the owner of Hunter, who is a dog i adore more than I love most people. he's from missouri and is an intern for EMTEEVEE and is a business major at baruch college in the city. um, he's kind of hip hop and altogether lovable although a wee uptight sometimes himself and

**he's dating Amber, whom is nice, I guess, when she feels like it, but whom hannah describes most accurately as a god-damned-jennifer-aniston-wannabe.

per your request that i reconstruct events:

a cap comes off the 40-ounce
the bowling captain’s out to pounce
uncap the joy, out of control
the Night Cat goes within my soul

i'm stump-jumpin’ drunk from the get go
yeah, all right, we’re gonna ride with The Flood tonight
yeah, all right, we’re gonna uncap with Flood tonight, let’s go
the Night Cat makes me wanna sing
because I don't feel a thing
except all the joy in the world

come on, get in the car, let's go
yeah, all right, gonna ride with The Flood tonight
yeah, all right, I’m stump-jumpin’ drunk from the get go
owww, stump-jumpin’ drunk and let’s go
stump-jumpin’ drunk and let’s go*

*in other words, don't be silly, reading what you wrote enabled my feeble mind to construct a more accurate chronicle o' events than i had previously ever achieved. but the song comes closest to summing it up, thanks.

--- Message (#19) to Silvertone at 22:36 ---
- 1:01 .Silvertone - homo disco novus*
- you've been that forever. just thought i'd share.

*** Message (#20) from Silvertone at 22:36 ***
>you've been "she sighs and the whole world inhales" forever on mine

--- Message (#21) to Silvertone at 22:37 ---
-guh, that goes on my orgasm list.
-i lurve yoo.

--- Message (#22) to Silvertone at 22:39 ---
-I HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU

*** Message (#23) from Silvertone at 22:40 ***
>*hee hee* i've hada crush on you fo-ev-ah!

--- Message (#24) to Silvertone at 22:40 ---
-it's scary! i've had a crush on you forever too!
-*blush*

*** Message (#25) from Silvertone at 22:42 ***
>it is scary. a month ago or so, all our conversations about monagamy
>and lust and stuff spurred me to talk about Monagamy Issues with
>my girl, which has led to good stuff between she and I. so thank you
>for crushing, and being my crushee. you're good for my relationship ;)
>oh, that sounds so bad

*here i am referring to my friends list on ISCA. i have known clancy for over two years and sometimes i wonder why i haven't packed up and moved to iowa to fall madly in love with him IRL. probably because the phrase "IRL" is involved! truly, though, at this early stage of the game, he is closest to being the man o' my dreams. oh, and he's madly in love, in IOWA no less, so what can a jerzee girl do but wish the kid well? SIGH.

it seems no one has noticed the comment function available at the bottom of each and every post.

either that, or no one cares.

*kri*

come on, assholes! say something! even if you don't know me! ESPECIALLY if you don't know me. i live for that shit.

i knew wil wheaton had a weblog, but adam curry?!?!* this is too good! the best part of the site is clearly the the mtv part where he dishes on the starz. in the billy idol story he refers to billy and downtown julie brown as "two sluts in a barrel." phwoar!

* par bess, there's even a paean to pine! oh, adam curry! where is the section on your website where you explain why you changed hairstyles with bon jovi?

ugh! i hate blogger! i screwed up the last post and now i can't fix it!
i was just trying to post this link to some really funny hallowe'en costumes. and it won't let me delete it. so go see it and ignore the hideous eyesore below.

i know hallowe'en is over, but when you see posted by margaux bohemia | 6:15:13 PM

favorite craftyfabulous links o' the day:

sparklecraft! is it just me, or was the audrey wallhanging featured in jane magazine sometime last year? this diy chick is so cool, she shares instructions on the how-to. anyway, they're an absolute steal, and when i obtain my own surely pink-bedecked pad, i imagine i'll snag samantha and audrey so they can stare coyly at one another behind the sofa, with kittenish erin staring obliquely out into space in the middle!

there are rad craft projects galore to be had at crafty chica!

anyone who's ever lived with me can attest to my rabid adoration for all things shag, big-eyed, vintage and heinously adorably ugly. the folks at sparkle factory peddle goods that are right up my wood-paneled alley! i want almost everything pictured in the glorious sparkle matinee!

note to friends: expect crafty presents come the holiday season! even though i have a job now!

someone's turning 24?
might have to do something to you 24 times!!
hmmm...

an email i recieved from my friend pete. woo!
yeah, i would shag him, too, but he's in a band with the ex.
go fig.

I *HEART* BIG EYED ART

she was a january girl
she never let on how insane it was
in that tiny kinda scary house
by the woods by the woods by the woods

what she has been saying about true true love has got me thinking. i mean, how much value can i really put in the past? how much should i? when i am full of feeling, that feeling, the one that everything is right, so right?

things have changed. i don't spend days, weeks, hours pining. i don't let it get to me anymore. i am experimenting with different kinds of faith -- faith that has nothing to do with anyone but me. i love being in rooms full of strangers, alone, projecting myself and watching their reactions to me, a me that has nothing to do with anyone else. because i can't survive that way. i can't constantly be aware of what someone else is thinking of me, that what they are feeling will change at any moment, that i could lose them at any second.

i am internally suspicious of everything: the motives of people that i know would never betray me in any way, my own motives, my own feelings, that this might all be a cruel joke of the worst order or that i will have a fairy-tale ending, that everything will fall into place one day, in spite of everything, no matter what happens now, that the deepest core of faith i have truly felt will come through.

because, you see, if it doesn't come through, a lot of the chemistry, the math behind the magic, falls apart. it's like discovering the theory of relativity isn't true, that gravity no longer applies. i find myself stumbling around blindly in rooms i have mapped out like my own body -- i feel shaken, stirred, displaced. and i know that giving into these feelings is what will make them come true, but does it make me crazy, does it make me teresa lopez-fitzgerald and delusional to hope for these secret things, these things that i want, to hope that i do have second sight, that my soul has not betrayed me simply because my desire has washed over any trace i had of being rational.

because you don't know what i'm up against, kids. maybe you do, maybe you've lived it, in a story with your own set of names and locations. that this golden thread you have traced throughout the world has become so desperately frayed, it is almost invisible, the strings to your heart have been cut, but you are alive, you are still here to tell the story, which continues to unwind in spite of itself --

make me laugh
say you know
what you want
you said we were the real thing
so i show you some more
and i learn
what black magic can do
make me laugh
say you know
you can turn me into the real thing
so i show you some more
and i learn --

the obvious?

"you know, that tori song butterfly is really beautiful, a really beautiful song."

i'm a horrible person because yes, i went to my new job today, and i am ashamed yet elated to state that there is no way in any kind of ungodly HELL i am EVER stepping foot in that miserable hole again.

it's okay, though, because i have an interview at a far swankier place tomorrow.

stop making fun of me.*

*and for god's sake, don't be worried, or mad at me, for that matter. these mistakes are the best and most kinetically forward-moving i have made in ages. god bless the wheelturn of my sweetass birthday year.

pps. also, i got my application from here today. la.

i love and yet i bite my tongue.
a conversation in bed:*

she: come here.

he: *scowl evident in voice* why?

she: it's cold. it's not like i want you to stick it in or anything.**

*two or three times in the last couple of weeks. just platonic. good-natured sleeping. some couchy snuggling. platonic. good. natured. sleeping.

**true at that precise moment. true in general? i'm not gonna lie. still waiting for the day when he breaks open. not pushing but watching, always watching. am i horrible, because i am not pushing and still i love though i bite my tongue? i love and i shut my mouth. i shut my mouth but i cannot shut my heart.

HAPPY TWENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY BEN!

ben is my boy. he is this gentle angel who is like a big fluffy puppy but he can also be snarky and bitter with the best of them. he's fucking cute as shit and he's my number one favorite person to lay around with, doing nothing. i know that sounds funny, but whatever. it's easy to have fun doing fun things with just about anybody. but how many people are there that you can spend literally days watching tv with and having the time of your life?

probably the most sacred part of my history with ben is when we lived in england. springhill. hash. fish n chips with homemade tangy sauce. clacton-on-sea. cider. hash. bunnies. tesco. biopot. tonight, matthew, i'm going to be... big brekkie. tea. high street. hash. endless tuna melts made with delicious irish cheddar. did i mention ben took care of me for a whole year, making me superhearty dinners and watching passions and beauty and the beast with me? did i mention that we were happy, so happy, in that little 4x10 room for a whole entire year, even if the room check lady thought i was a scandalous messy whore and wanted desperately to kick us out? i spent so much money at the BP that my dad thought we rented a car. TGIF Paris.

I LOVE BEN. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEET ONE.

i can't help myself from being paranoid.

correction: i can help myself from being paranoid, i just have to exercise constant vigilance.*

constant vigilance means not letting myself be swept away by the possibilities of my paranoia. of realizing that i am On Top Of Things and that after all this time my picture is still in his wallet and my friends don't forget about me, that when i walk away they are waiting, wondering where i was.

*immediately after writing this phrase i tried to remember where i got it from. the essential rumi? one of my zen books? various poetry? no, kids. MAD-EYE MOODY!

dood, i don't even give the littlest shit about baseball, but this sucks nonetheless.

"Always learn poems by heart," she said. "They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay."

WHITE OLEANDER. JANET FITCH.

mainly, it comes down to this: people are self-serving shits. it is more important to them to feel desired, in the spotlight, wanted, for whatever pathetic paltry moment it takes. more important than anything else. am i overreacting again? fuck you.

i know this: i am as alone as i have ever been and i don't care. i don't feel any different. i have always known what is coming, one way or the other. i know i cannot trust because i know i cannot be trusted. then again, never have i been given something that mattered one way or the other to them and thrown it in their faces. even altruism is self-interest. isn't that what you said?

hey, where the fuck were you when my lights went out?
time flies when you're falling down
i spread my rot all over this town
and every one of you looks the same
and every one of you feels the same

wow. i am completely disgusted. not so much that he would ask, but that he would ask her in front of me and a few other people. you know, just in case anyone makes the mistake of thinking for a moment that i still matter. better that they know up front. better that i am humiliated in front of them and forced to keep a straight face. better that i am expected to talk to her or him like everything is normal.

she just lost a friend, because you know what? i am used to this from him. i know him. and yes, i am not afraid to say this - he matters more to me. i would rather have him full of mistakes and promises than not at all. with him i am willing to swallow my pride for the sake of the occasional gem. on the other hand, any pretense of real friendship she and i had is officially over. i don't need another desperate whore to worry about. another bleeding slit. i have my own fucking misery and inadequacy and crimes of the mind to obsess over. i don't have the time or the inclination to justify yours. you are a WHORE. rationalize that on your own time. salt up your pillow with your own fucking desperation.

and she didn't even stop to see the look on my face. when the subject was over she brought it back up again. this is war, it is always war, and fuck you, i choose myself.

alex is going to feed me dinner. yay!

and i'm bringing the drunkies. yay! now i'm off to chug a sierra nevada before i go drive o'er to his place with a sketchily partially opened jug o' wine.

by way of bess, bwo law-ra:

WALLET - i do not have a wallet, thanks. the closest thing i have to a wallet is a red silk* tissue holder sent to me by my japanese pen pal from the sixth grade, eriko. this is where i hold my walletesque things.

TOOTHBRUSH - yes. fuschia and white.

JEWELRY WORN DAILY - three rings. the white gold/aquamarine/diamond ring that ben gave me, the silver ring that looks like a belt that mary catherine gave to me for my 16th birthday, the silver and onyx ring clara gave to me for my 21st birthday.

SOCKS - i try not to wear socks. just ask anybody about my notoriously stinky smelly feet.

PILLOW COVER - little orphan annie and sandy.

BLANKET - peter rabbit.

COFFEE CUP - my much-loved plastic eagle island mug.

SUNGLASSES - my infamous sparkly cat eye orange glasses.

UNDERWEAR - basically various victoria's secret cotton crap.

SHOES - i am bad with shoes. either my broken out of season bamboo slides that jesse got me or my brown vans.

NAILPOLISH - note to self: must start wearing nailpolish soon. i used to wear revlon's vixen all the time.

KEYCHAIN - i hate to admit this, but a half-chewed plasticy saturn dealership thing.

COMPUTER - my dad's jury-rigged pc with the HUUUGE MONITOR.

FAVORITE TOP - um, i guess this week it's my uberhip 70s turtleneck i bought for a dollar.

FAVORITE BOTTOM - i'm with bess on the indigo flares.

SHAMPOO/CONDITIONER - lately i've been using salon selectives. the purple one, for dry hair. if i were wealthy i'd use l'occitane or something by phyto.**

COLOGNE - fig by zents, which sweet jenny cullen bought for me and fits me perfectlike.***

CD IN RIGHT NOW - talking heads remain in light

CAR - blue green saturn, baybee! mad stickers all over it. and it smells.

GOOD LUCK OBJECT - i have this beautiful beautiful blue kyanite that i got at the summit festival this summer for a song. ohhh, it's so wonderful.

*by red silk i mean polyester silkesque.

**my friend amy works for phyto and gave me a crapload of their stuff last year. note to self: beg more phyto produits off of amy.

***it's a little creepy that my ex-boyfriend's mother liked my perfume so much that she went out and bought it for herself. i mean, it suits her, too. we're both kind of musky gypsy women. but i don't know, sometimes i think it's a good thing we broke up, because for god's sake, who wants to sleep avec someone who smells like your mom? even though i, of course, smelled like that first. nyah.

i have such a crush on severus snape. yes, that severus snape. as in the does-not-really-exist-slytherin-master-professor-of-potions-ex-death-eater from the harry potter books.

i kinda like alan rickman, who is playing him in the movie. he was also the evil sheriff of nottingham in the robin hood prince o' thieves movie. i always like the evil ones. also, i feel certain i would be a slytherin or a ravenclaw. then again, maybe i would be a gryffindor. i mean, hermione is a smarty pants and she's in gryffindor.

time for marie's harry potter conspiracies!

i think snape hates harry because he was in love with his mother, and lily chose james potter over him. evidence: NONE. just my romantically ridiculous imagination.

oh, and i got a job. i'm a little freaked out that they hired me basically on the spot, but that should be a good thing, not something to worry about. whatever. money. yay!

i'm feeling
my heart's not beating anymore

i'm feeling
it's all right this happened once before

i'm fine, i'm fine, 'cause i'm

tripping in this strange design
none is yours and far less mine
hold the wheel, read the sign
keep the tires off the line
just relax you're doing fine
swimming in this real thing
i call a life
can i bring
a few companions on this ride?

PANIC.

i must. get. a job.

seriously. i have been *trying* and interviewing and what not but nothing has come through yet. this sucks. i have financial obligations that are going to hit me SO SO HARD at the end of this month, and i HAVE TO DO SOMETHING before then.

i hate this. i hate being paranoid and worrying. i hate getting threatening letters from my therapist threatening to close my chart because i haven't had the $ to see her since i lost my job (which she doesn't even know about, mind you). i hate that i lost my job in the first place. i hate that i am always losing jobs in that fashion, with no time to plan. seriously, that SUCKS.

alright. enough bitchybitching for now. it is november, my month, my favorite month of all, beautiful fall.

last night something funny happened. diego's mom called me and was like, call diego at this number. so i call. the phone rang and rang and then was answered by some clearly drunk random man. he said it was a payphone in a hotel. in newark. um.

so i call maria back and she's like, try THIS number instead. so i call that number. ring ring. no answer. ring ring. busy.

after like three more times and several different numbers, i finally get through to him. he's drunk. please do me a favor he says. i'm thinking, oh crap. please come here and get drunk and do art with me while i paint.

that's not a favor! i say. but i went, and it was fun, and I WILL GET A JOB.