thought

regardless of whether you believe in the reason they were constructed for, believe in God, hell, sin, whatever, there is something so beautiful and comforting and serene about hearing church bells while riding your bicycle through your new, beautiful neighborhood

to GPB

(( we were cowboys and that was all there was. we were cowboys and the land was ours, outside, it was ours. we were cowboys and everything outside was precious to us, every grass irreplaceable and every tree an entity of its own. we went down into the darker grass where there were sticks on the ground and the trees were moving. i saw trees reaching and yearning and i felt that pull on my heart and the trees, they were recreating every moment of human history. it was dark down by those trees and we searched in the tall grass for sticks that weren't hollow and that would catch on fire. together we gathered these sticks and we brought them up to the fire ring and that was our goal. we were cowboys and we had only one task in mind and that was to make that fire. we went to the horses, i don't know why we went to the horses, probably just because cowboys go to horses, and i held their cheeks as i fed them hay. their cheeks moved, all three horses in very different ways, and it was this horrible, ethereal still when they stopped chewing. they would stop chewing and it would be a deafening silence, their eyes looking at something beyond what any of us could comprehend. so we were cowboys with our horses, and we were cowboys congregating around something sacred. there were others, but they were inside, they were battling, they were squirming in heat and intensity, and they were the others, and we wanted no part. instead we trekked on the grass that made patterns in the wind - we scoured the land, we stood silent as the coyotes were yelling - they were yipping, squealing, crying - what were they doing - did they find something that we were looking for? this is the thing - and this is the very essence of it - we were cowboys and we were in another time and place and we had a mission - a mission that was the simplest and most beautiful and yet most deadly thing in the world - we were searching for control, for the ultimate symbol of dangerous and beautiful power - we were lookin' to fix a bonfire. )) - 12/2005

that fall might have been one of the best.

my new place is going to be feng-shui-tastic! i need to concentrate on something, right?

today i smoked with my 50-year-old auntie. she giggled and side split and everything you're supposed to do. i was in a bad mood all day so i just got paranoid, but i loved watching her laugh. she looked so lovely. like before she married that cold man. she's in years, so much older, but we have always been like two peas in a pod.

one of the feng-shui ideas is to get rid of all the crap you have that doesn't actively make you happy. i don't think i have too much of that, but i'm excited to purge. today mrak gave me his post-college advice: you're too young to accumulate crap.

other: you're too young to let shit weigh you down.

so toss mistakes you did last night in a drunken haze, forget the things lingering in your mind that you can do nothing about, burn away that boy in the back of your mind, don't listen to rilo kiley too much.

keep a moleskin by your bed and go to wet paint and find the beautiful black pen that makes you really really happy. keep it in your giant bag that now has pen ink all over it (it was supposed to be reversible but that option was lost within the first week of carrying crap in it) write down anything that inspires you. this year is for your creation. realizing that you are interested and you are interesting and don't PUSH, for gods sake, let things run their course and you will be fine.

tell me what brave men run from. leave it in the comments.

"i'm a modern girl, but i fold in half so easily"

1. do people in minnesota overuse their car headlights? it seems like they turn on their lights for every instance when it's not expressly sunny out - in grey weather, light grey weather, slightly foggy, slightly rainy weather, anything.

2. kitties are like children - you buy them lots of nice toys but all they want to play with are cardboard boxes.

3. how do i move so fast not doing anything?

I am reacquainting myself with my favorite book ever, "Self-Help" by Lorrie Moore.

I think for my birthday, along with everybody getting me a tiki mug from Psycho Suzi's, I want her entire collection of books. All I have is "Self-Help," which is great to read over and over again, but I want more.

Beware, for one of my most beloved people in the world was seduced by a cold man and is currently, painfully, realizing it:

"'Cold men destroy women,' my mother wrote me years later. 'They woo them with something personable that they bring out for show, something annexed to their souls like a fake greenhouse, lead you in, and you think you see life and vitality and sun and greenness, and then when you love them, they lead you out into their real soul, a drafty, cavernous, empty ballroom, inexorably arched and vaulted and mocking you with its echoes - you hear all you have sacrificed, all you have given, landing with a loud clunk.'"

How does Lorrie Moore know all of this? And how does she write it so well?

"A week, a month, a year: Tell him you've changed. You no longer like the same music, eat the same food. You dress differently. The two of you are incongruous together. When he tells you that he is changing too, that he loves your records, your teas, your falafel, your shoes, tell him: See, that's the problem. Endeavor to baffle.

Pace around in the kitchen and say that you are unhappy.

But I love you, he will say in his soft, bewildered way, stirring the spaghetti sauce but not you, staring into the pan as if waiting for something, a magic fish, to rise from it and say: That is always enough, why is that not always enough?"

And that's the best way I can explain it.

beable

i want to:

sleep forever with kittens on my body/head/face or near me. do something spontaneous. meet my match. give somebody a playlist i've made for them and watch their face while they listen to it. leave if they don't get it. stay forever if they do. get over it. have some compassion. be 5 out of 7 days a week like that one really good day that happens now only once a week. you know the one where you can do anything. you can make any phone call, no matter how hard. you can walk confidently and feel pretty but not feel leered at. you can be compassionate, confident, funny, and lovable all at the same time. be lovable. be that person you want to be like. the one who's got it but doesn't flaunt it. the person who just is.

but most of all: be able. be able. be able. be able.

DISNEYLAND

DISNEYLAND DISNEYLAND DISNEYLAND - i'm going this weekend.

god, i need a vacation. this is awesome.

i had to take down all my postcards because of dashiell

Today I cried about 5 times. Including during the American Idol finale. This is retarded.

I hate not having a job. Or rather, I just really want one. I mean, of course, I have internships at the Soap and the Walker, but it's just not enough, is it?

albums that when i forget about but then i listen to them and i am like whoa, that is GOOD

albums that when i forget about but then i listen to them and i am like whoa, that is GOOD:

neko case 'blacklisted'
monkey swallows the unvierse 'the bright carvings'
wilco 'yankee hotel foxtrot'
a.c. newman 'the slow wonder'

more when i am like whoa with another album
(i am going through inventory on my ipod)
(also sketching layouts for my website)