I, of course, made my farewell post too soon. I, of course, have 20minutes before the crappy New Years shows come on - do we pick Carson, Seacrest, or Dick? - and 20minutes before Apples to Apples with the family. An hour and 20minutes before I can hit the champagne. But here's something I did in 2005: I am now crazy. I just realized this: Have I finally loved right, the way it's supposed to be done?

Alternated today between ecstatic and grumpy. Alternated today between yelling at my kittens and speaking coochiecoo to them. Alternated today about National-Rail-Woes and Day-Travelcard-Highs. Alternated today between nasty stomachs and happy steamed carrot consumption by fingers. Laid out all my clothing and imagined what I'd wear to the theater, what I'd wear on walks in the park, what I'd wear to rock shows at Lock17. Found out I had plenty of funds to fund fun.

I started a book yesterday. 'The Autograph Man' by Zadie Smith. Got through only 20 pages. Maybe I will spend all night and all day reading it. My brother and I will start the New Year with a Midnight Game of Magic, so that the first thing I do next year is be a nerd with my brother. Tasty.

i don't need a crowded ballroom / everything i want is here / if you're with me / next year will be / the perfect year - sunsetblvd

pondicherry

(I'm just all together mindfucked by technology. For example: pc headsets + msn messenger. Insanity - drawing, screenshakes, little animations popping up all over. I feel like a grandma. This is too much.)

My New Years Eve will consist of champagne shared amongst me and my parents with a bit o' sparkling apple cider on the side and perhaps some ApplesToApples to go along with Dick Clark ringing us in and Ricky Ullman and his friends on the Disney Channel half-assedly singing us in. (Seriously, what are my chances of marrying Ricky Ullman?)

I've always liked to make lists and write on the eve of the new year, and by that I mean I've always liked to think about making lists and writing. But in the past there were always major aspects of my life that I thought needed change, major aspects of me that needed change. For the first time in my life I am incredibly, unbelievingly, content. I am living, I am loving, I am learning.

"I love. I have loved. I will love." Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

And the only thing I wish is the thing I have been wishing for a while. I was reminded of it by 'The Princess Diaries' tonight (I watched it on the Disney Channel like I watched 'The Lizzie McGuire Movie' last night and various other Disney Channel Original Movies on many other nights when I am at home.) There was a quote, "The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all."

So there's crossed fingers for bravery. That's what I feel the final ingredient will be in my oh-so lucky life. Much love. See you on the other side of the pond. And by pond I mean Atlantic Ocean.

http://kristinacalling.blogspot.com

yesterday: worried sick about visas, eurail passes, and what to do after june16.
today: 2hours in borders with piles of london books next to me while a symphonic version of 'phantom of the opera' plays: excited beyond words to do more exploring and show visitors my favorite finds and to find a part-time job in london: indulging in tulle skirts and moleskin journals.

"for a fleeting moment, as anyone can, i imagined i felt the poverty of my future, all its unholdable surfaces, i felt inexplicably ungrateful and sad... i longed for a feeling again, a particular one: the one of approaching a room but of not yet having entered it... anticipation playing in the heart like an orchestra tuning and warming, the notes unwed and fabulous and crazed - i wanted it back! - those beginning sounds, so much more interesting than the piece itself..."
-lorrie moore

remember.

(( 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. ))


{ and here's the other part. the other part is that i was needed. and i took up that spot and here it is, wait for it, because i didn't know it was coming - it was this deep dark still of warmth and sanctity, and between two people, a hot bright spot of privacy and separateness. huddle formation, take it, and i took it, and skinskinskinskin and it slipped out - it flew - i would mouth it - but it was right because it flew right out and i know it was fine. because you know why? that white dove flew back to me. it flew back to me and nestled deep within my skin, just like i wanted to be in your skin. cinderella flying up the stairs, and there are soft nestled warm layers - red, orange, yellow, quite literally - and a castle that looked like puzzle pieces in the opposite color palette - cerulean, indigo, violet - stamped out of antiquity and stained glass. and you and me. and you and you. nestled like peaches in a fruit bowl. }

So this semester was worth a damn, a big damn, but my room is suddenly strangely bare, bare like the first night I spent here, sad and scared and worried on a mattress. And again, I will be sad and scared and worried on a mattress. I know I can live in London. I know I can last, because I've wanted to be in London forever. But this is terrifying! I am terrified! Number one - plugs! Plug adapters. Number two - what if I am not as brave as I want to be?

Perhaps I should watch 'The Brave Little Toaster' for inspiration.

Well, nothing I say here is going to change a thing. My life has been on the way up for the past year and a half. And I'm nostalgic for only yesterday.

give judy my notice.

my insides are eating themselves. i can't eat because whatever i do eat i get this stomachache. i get mopey and then i get grumpy because i'm starving and then i eat and get sad because my stomach soon implodes upon itself.

i've been writing about catch22's lately.

what really grinds my gears:

1) stomach aches and 2) that bitch at the walker who was wearing my boots.

the end.

lost at sea.

"He turned to her one night in bed and said, 'Millie, you're fifty-one. You don't have to have a career. Really, you don't,' and she put her hands to her face and wept."

"But then you had to leave. And in your packing and going, in tearing the seams, the hems, the haws, you felt like some ba dcombination of Odysseus and Penelope. You felt funny in the heart."

"There were people in the world who were good at love and people who were bad at it. She was bad. She used to think she was good at love, that it was intimacy she was bad at. But you had to have both. Love without intimacy, she knew, was an unsung tune. It was all in your head. You said, 'Listen to this!' but what you found yourself singing was a tangle, a nothing, a heap. It reminded her of a dinner party she had gone to once, where dessert was served on plates printed with French songs. After dinner everyone had had to sing their plate, but hers had stil had whipped cream on it, and when it came her turn, she had garbled the notes and words, frantically pushing the whipped cream around with a fork so she could see the next measure. Oh, she was bad, bad like that, at love."

"Dennis' ex-wife had fallen in love with a man she said was like out of a book. Dennis forgot to ask what book. He was depressed and barely dating. 'I should have said to her, 'Yeah, and what book?'"

"People talking were meant to look at a face, the disastrous cupcake of it, the hide-and-seek of the heart dashing across. With a phone, you said words, but you never watched them go in. You saw them off at the airport but never knew whether there was anyone there to greet them when they got off the plane."

"What all to love in the world, went a prayer from her childhood. What all to love?
The lumber of his bones piled close."

"Could you live in the dead excellence of a thing-the stupid mortar of a body, the stubborn husk love had crawled from? Yes, he thought."

These are some quotes I will not have the time or patience to write in my quote book before I have to return it to the library at school. They are all by Lorrie Moore, who breaks my heart but not as much, as I learned tonight, as three short lines by Richard Brautigan.

it features you.

item worthy of notice: in exactly four weeks, my plane will be landing in london. and i will not be back in the united states until june.

the world is passing me by, and while i try to make everyday different and count, it's hard to know exactly how to do that when it's in your face.

feel discovered.

it feels good that i want to clean house and lay in bed and read during this thanksgiving break in minnesota. when there's nobody around, then i can relax and be myself. or be domestic. or be something. i want to do laundry and i want to vacuum. at the same time, i haven't done any of that yet. i haven't had time.

(my little brother is so big.)
(i am getting a kickass pair of boots for christmas and for the first time, i am feeling girly and inredibly excited about a pair of shoes.)

detour.

a detour, understanding this, of sorts.

baby baby please believe me
i would never never do anything to hurt you
baby baby please believe me
i would never never do anything to you
to make you blue
but yesterday i found this letter
from the boy i loved before i ever knew you
before i even knew you
and the train from kansas city
is coming into town
the train from kansas city is a-coming
and there's nothing i can do to make it turn around

baby baby please believe me
nothing in this world will tear us apart
we'll never never part
so wait right here and i will hurry
i'll be back in the time it takes to break a heart
i gotta break his heart
'cause the train from kansas city is coming into town
the train from kansas city is a-coming
and there's nothing i can do to make it turn around

i never answered his letter
i just couldn't tell him that way
no i never answered his letter
i just didn't know what to say
-neko case

you'll never make a living.

there will be moments right before i fall asleep and moments when i am standing on the platform waiting for a train. there will be moments when i am bored in class and moments when i see lichtenstein paintings. there will be moments when i am staring at the computer screen and moments when i sit on a park bench in regents park. there will be moments of monotony and moments of poignance that will break up this whirlwind life you forsee for me. and then intrudingly and unforseen, the miss will rush upon me and i will wonder, unwisely, how much longer i will have to stay here without you. this is not sentimental. this is the unseemly truth.

chain gang of love

"it takes a little time to getting used to
but love can destroy everything
yeah love can destroy everything"

I haven’t been myself of late
I haven’t slept for several days but

Coming home I feel like I
Designed these buildings I walk by
You know you drive me up the wall
I need to see your face that’s all
You little sod I love your eyes
Be everything to me tonight
-elbow

i always tend to love to find the bad and the panic in something so good.
i've said - let it go, it's the past, it's the past. and history, is not, i said not, relevant because it repeats itself.
but maybe people do. and maybe i gotta get to sleep and maybe the walks in the snow are calming because the white helps me clear my mind. or maybe the intense concentration on staying warm leads to these thoughts. either way.

will the circle be unbroken

there are about 15 people in the room right now - in maura and erin's living room. there are approximately four guitars, a banjo, a fiddle, and a clarinet in use. there is redwine and chocolate cake and ice cream. i remember experiencing this for the first time last year - general jamming in large circles. i remember doing nothing but banging a drum every once and a while and feeling generally very extraneous, but this time i played some guitar, some clarinet, and again with my percussion, a shaker filled with lentils. it's beautiful, though. it's so beautiful and THIS, right here, is what college is all about. i glow. i glow like my teeth in black light. i glow.

69 love songs

There are, in fact, three volumes worth of Magnetic Fields albums called "69 Love Songs." We were talking the other day - how can there be oh so many songs about love? When really, from an abstract point of view, there is only one thing to know about it? Whether you do it, or whether you don't. The thing is, the way people do or don't seems special and unique to each and every person. So each and every person will write a love song before their end of days. I've in fact written three.

I've just finished reading Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help" book of short stories. It's the most inspiring thing I've read in ages - and by inspiring I mean not hopeful or jovial or classic inspiration by any means, but by the fact there there is writing out there that hits so close to me. It's my sentiments, my stupid girly sentiments, expressed in beautiful and humorous, scathing, angry prose. And those heartstrings I like tugged so much. Oh, that's there.

In other news, time is dwindling down already. I feel like it's been no time since I arrived in Minnesota, ecstatic and surreal, like no time since I arrived at this house, crying and alone on a futon in my empty bedroom. The last few days have been fabulous in self-improvement - I am inspired to write and to art. There could be nothing better.

A playlist: 1. Cloud Prayer-AC Newman, 2. Prelude #4 in E minor-Chopin, 3. Since I Left You-The Avalanches, 4. I Only Wanna Be With You-Bay City Rollers, 5. Morningwatch-Dolorean, 6. The Pledge-Brendan Benson, 7. If You Knew-Neko Case, 8. All Those Years Ago-George Harrison, 9. Hey Jealousy-Gin Blossoms, 10. Dare-Gorillaz, 11. O Mimi Tu Piu Non Torni-LaBoheme, 12. Annie's Song-John Denver, 13. Theme from 'Eternal Sunshine..'-Jon Brion, 14. Mornings Eleven-The Magic Numbers, 15. Ball&Chain-Martha Wainwright, 16. Kiss at the End of the Rainbow-Mitch&Mickey, 17. What is Your Secret-Nada Surf, 18. Teenage Kicks-Nouvelle Vague, 19. I Summon You-Spoon, 20. Saddest Quo-Pernice Brothers, 21. High Party-Ted Leo&the Pharmacists, 22. Nothing Compares 2 U-Sinead O'Connor.

"There is never anything conclusive, just an endles series of tests.

And could you leave him tripping merrily through the snow?"

john, i'm only dancing

Where is Padme? She's alright, isn't she?

It seems in your anger you have killed her.

NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Instead of rocking to David Bowie and reloading websites I've already seen several times today, I should be drawing dishes in my kitchen. No, you're right, it doesn't sound very inspiring, and you're right, I don't like it either.

things.

> I've come to realize that I like pretty things - keep your philosophies and politics, good sir.

> I refuse all conventions of the female sex but fall prey to them just the same as you.

> I doubt that you would want this but you can go ahead and take it.

> I told myself I'd drive straight through because anticipation is killing me. I stopped several times for the fun of dying a bit more with thoughts of you.

> I'm gonna shake this polaroid up real good despite your explicit instructions not to.

> Sometimes it plagues my mind: who would I die for? I'd take a bullet for you, little brother.

a bed made of linens and sequins and silk

i have a pile of 20 cds to review for the radio station on my desk, i have a pile of unread entertainment weekly's dating back to october 5th on my floor, my bed has been unmade for weeks, i have a gluestick, women's health information, a swiss army knife, some rubberbands, and mirrors that have fallen down from my wall on the floor, i have 8 empty diet coke cans on the surface next to me, i have a box full of birthday presents unsorted, i have money laying out on my desk, i have items of clothing all over the room, i have several stories half-written.

but i glow on a day-to-day basis. and that is something.

giga dance

i'm going to south dakota now. it's fall break already and the semester's halfway through. how life has been good to me and how the sun is bright and my stomach is empty. i am waiting for the call and the honk and then i will be out the door.

vespa

'promiscuous makes an entrance.'

melancholy sets in comfortably in its armchair - for no reason at all.

under your nose

besides all the usual conventions and usual 'good things' in general about living off campus, the thing that i most like is riding my bike - specifically under the following clauses: when it is dark and two in the morning and there are no cars - there are no people - and you bike home as fast as you can with pleasant breeze in your hair and the air whooshing life into your previously tired eyes - riding down the middle of the street with the traffic light changing for you and thinking about - what if you are alone in the world? this is what it would be like - biking home in the dark with no sign of life.

cybele's reverie

oh love, you reckless bastard - why do you make everybody write about you?

i cannot concentrate. also, my stomach is upset so that may have something to do with it - or the fact that i, for once, have a plethora of things i'd rather be doing on the computer. for example, playing 'oregon trail,' 'where int he world is carmen sandiego?', 'jones in the fast lane,' 'simtower,' and 'mixed-up mother goose' - all games from the '90s, from my childhood. if there is anything better in the world than downloading, let me know some other time when i need a boost, because right now i am fine with that idea.

songs of the moment (some old some new):
sexed up - robbie williams
what is your secret - nada surf
eleanor put your boots on - franz ferdinand
the cloud prayer - a.c. newman
the pledge - brendan benson
tears - massive attack

don't give me no headrush in the morning

move it, kristina! move it! do it! get up and write it and create it!

just don't sit here and soak up too much of a good thing.
it's there. you've got it. love it. leave it.

i just had to break the window

I hope that I will know what I got before it's gone.

(I know I've got right now. I hope I'm not forgetting anything.)

handsome drink.

i'm at school. it's, uh, less inspiring than i thought it'd be. it didn't hit me bam boom and i wanted to write the next great american novel or write a song for the ages or create the first great artwork of the 21st century. it didn't. instead i'm tired, lazy, indecisive, and barely hanging on to my to-do list.

it's the little things that get me behind, yet it's the little things that still make me happy to be here.

calm in the valley of the dogs

there is calm in the belly of the beast
there is no alarm in the least
for a thousand and one flashlights in one place
and the glow of a thousand TV waves

The tapping of my feet has moved from the floor and into my chest, where they beat restlessly to no certain rhythm, sometimes resting for a few moments before starting up their thrum once again. There are nerves in my belly now, spent yesterday wavering in uncertainty over the toilet, wondering if I was indeed going to throw them all up. I didn't. But this weekend marked a finality - the last weekend I will ever spend at home as I know it. I will not be back next summer. And so the family and I went shopping - two trips that always mark the weekend before I go back to school. Mervyn's for an extra pair of cheap Levi's jeans and replacement sunglasses. Target for underwear and socks and notebooks and pencil lead. The bags are thrown down on the floor of my room and I second guess myself at how much I'll be able to fit in what I'm carrying back. I won't be able to fit all of it. Up until this point, my mom has been fabulous at keeping my room the way it was - my posters up, my stuffed animals out, still piles of stuff left on the floor from last summer - but how long will it be there now? Saturday was one more week with my kittens. They are staying home and I have given up all Christmas and birthday presents to ensure that they will stay alive the year I am gone. Guilt. I charged up my iPod for the road trip and sometime this week I have to bring in pictures to Costco to get developed so I can put pictures in my album and pictures on the wall. Tiny obligations, squishing my chest in from all different directions. I do not wish to pack. I do not wish to say goodbye. I want, for a while more, comfort in things I know - things like sitting in front of the telly with my mom and brother at night, working on one of my half-finished projects. At the same time, I want this Saturday to get started!i'msoExcited!disneyland!Brother!RoadTripIknowwillbefabulous&IamSpendingitWithaFabulousPerson! but no, I am just a baby. And I'm going to wrap one arm around my little brother and the other around my mother. I'm going to remember how my dad fixed both my old sunglasses and Puss-in-Boots watch with his little tools and tricks of ingenuity. And I will smother my face in my little kittens' fur until I sneeze.

And while I think about this present that will soon be the past, I must remember that this is my past. And that the last few years of school - what I have felt and what I have done - they are the past, and other people are allowed the past as well and prying into a past that is not offered up to me willingly is not worth knowing. I hide things, I do. Not because I am ashamed, not because I am lying, not because I want to forget, but because this is you, me, here, now. That doesn't really matter right now. That was me in the past. This is where I am, and I hope to stop fretting and start trusting and start forgetting...

notice

my mind is not on work, oh no. my mind quit work on friday. it is towards the future.

hot stuff

it is crunch time of summer. it is less than three weeks now that school begins and now my mind revolves around nothing but a bunch of lists and requirements and lack of time.

yesterday i decided that i was going to be the head honcho art curator at a national museum. since i discovered this, i have plunged head first into career reports from princeton review and the government about my newly decided upon career - one that, unless you are a curator a large museum, in true macalester style, pays an average of $30,000. and you gotta have a masters. and if you want to be a big shot, a doctorate. so what the hell. any job is hard to get into.

so i continue to plunge, evaluating internships and the schools that offer doctorates in art history/arts education/museology (i'll be going to socal, florida, or new york, apparently) and now again reworking my major/minor macalester plans.

decided i had to be an art major in order to achieve: it's impossible. can i be an art minor? should i do it in studio or history? i'm further along on the studio track, but would art history look better? and if so, does that mean i should take the 8:30am MWF art history 1 class next semester and therefore be totally screwed over in both sleep deprivation and staying until the very end to take my last final?

it's 10:41am and i've already taken to advil at work.

this planning, this stress, however, gives me focus. and none of it's really real yet.

give me back the stress of planning the road trip, please.

nuh uh.

creepy beyond all reason:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/futurebody

envy is bad and the english language is inept:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.epstein.html

amen.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde

I feel like I am not in the gutter, but I am indeed looking at the stars. Today, I am in the stars, and I am flying by them and they wave to me, and today I am entirely convinced that I am going to do something fabulous with my life. Today I am convinced that I will be brave and bold, that I am as clever as all those people, that wherever I go, I will bring laughter and what I hope most of all is that I can possibly inspire this feeling in others that I care about.

A cliche sentiment perhaps, but my mood is nothing but jumping up and down on the bed and I'm five again and my head doesn't even come close to hitting the ceiling.

true love.

so i'll do my part

not to break your heart

and baby, don't break mine

because i adore you

and i know for sure

you're the spark on the sun

I love the Fruit Bats beyond all reason. I got a chance to listen to their new album yesterday (several times) driving to and from Fresno, a 2.5 hour drive that also allowed me to groove to Kelly Clarkson, Annie, and the new New Pornographers. It feels good to fall in love with a band - it's a fabulous affair, one that allows no broken hearts and allows me to give myself fully while not worrying about etiquette and what others think and no missing, none at all, but still the lovely painful twangs when I listen to "Earthquake of '73." Indeed, I will nurture the love we share and keep it close to my side, and oh, it should be my own little true love, singing of nonsensical things and the beauty of the world.

Yesterday I saw a bear at the zoo. He was alone and pacing and had claws half a foot long. The zookeeper came to the fence and held up a bunch of grapes. Grinning, the bear came to the edge of his habitat and squatted on his hind legs and held his paws out to the side like he was about to give the grapes a big brown bear embrace. 'Oh, I'm so ready,' I bet he was thinking. 'Throw the grapes to me, I will catch them in my mouth!' The zookeeper threw the grapes and they landed on the ground in front of his torso, his paws still spread out waiting to catch them. 'Where are they? Where are they?' . . . 'Oh, drat.' And as the bear was shifting his massive weight to get the grapes lying between his legs, a friendly zoo guest chucks another bunch of grapes. . . right at the bear.

I saw two hookers at the gas station. I assume they were hookers - they were scantily clad and had high heeled shoes on and were leaning through the window of a black pick-up. I wonder what they were saying. How do they know who to approach? Who pays for the motel room? Is it included in the price of the tryst? Is it cheaper then if they just do a backseat job or something? I wonder. But not really.

sad/sad/happy/happy

sad one: When my dad wearily asked, 'How many years left of school does Brian have?' My mom answered, 'Nine.' My dad sighed. 'Nine.' Nine years before he can retire. He will be 66. My parents have made amazing sacrifices for us - and this kind of selflishness is beyond my grasp of understanding - as compassionate as I try to be, everything I do is ultimately for my betterment. Let's face it - it's true.

sad two: The same pattern, repeated, a year later, with a person I thought was my, not to say 'evil twin,' but my equivalent in the world, a friend I made in ridiculous record time and who I thought would salvage my days. And they did, for a while. I could tick off a long checklist of traits they had in common: both had amazingly freaky similarities with me, both are incredibly sensitive males, both tend to believe the world revolves around them, both get offended incredibly easily, both take your sarcasm to heart and dig you into a hole of guilt so deep you can never get out, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And so I call them my new best friend one week, and then can barely handle them the next. It is discouraging, this emptiness I taste.

happy one: I ate pizza and played Risk with my mom and brother tonight. I won Risk, after my brother pulled an Adolescent Hormonal Manuever and quit the game just as I took Southern Europe from him on the defense. Got drunk on wine while sipping it with my mom. Love my mom. Love my brother.

happy two: I am never sure whether to be responsible or irrational. Today, I choose irrationality.

remember when we used to paint our nails?

love: fruit bats.

rusty wings try in vain to catch

the wind that blew my heart away

turn this plane around right now

'cause i'm sick of all this shit

save yourself, save yourself

'cause i'm sinking with this ship

the how to's

How to make a grown man cry: tell him that beyond all else, what you crave is inspiration. Tell him that it's one of the reasons you want to go back to school so badly. Tell him that that's why you've been able to get along through these long summer months as well as you have. Lost time spurs anxiety, which in turn inspires activity. Tell him that the crispness of Minnesota, who knows, something about the place, sharpens your brain and quickens your heart. Tell him that your life is alright as long as you're inspired by something.

Tell him that, and he'll shout YES! and then ask you to stop, please, because he feels like his life is running ahead of him barely allowing him to catch up and that if you keep talking about inspiration, he will realize his lack and start crying.

I WILL BE THERE WITH YOU WHEN YOU TURN OUT THE LIGHT

There comes a time in every properly maturing woman's life where she must stand over an office copy machine for hours in a short skirt. It is a rite of passage and I am proud to say that I have accomplished it.

Dear friends, how I hate copy machines. I hate the way the paper feels hot and grainy after it comes out and I hate the rays I imagine are frying my brain when the document is too fat to close the cover the whole way.

things that brilliant people have said

"Now once more the belt is tight and we summon the proper expression of horror as we look back at our wasted youth. Sometimes, though, there is a ghostly rumble among the drums, an asthmatic whisper in the trombones that swings me back into the early twenties when we drank wood alcohol and every day in every way grew better and better, and there was a first abortive shortening of the skirts, and girls all looked alike in sweater dresses, and people you didn't want to know said 'Yes, we have no bananas,' and it seemed only a question of a few years before the older people would step aside and let the world be run by those who saw things as they were - and it all seems rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings any more." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Although a man may lose a sense of his own importance when he is a mere unit among a busy throng, all utterly regardless of him, it by no means follows that he can dispossess himself, with equal facility, of a very strong sense of the importance and magnitude of his cares."

"When I speak of home, I speak of the place where -- in default of a better -- those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy's tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding."

"Love, however, is very materially assisted by a warm and active imagination: which has a long memory, and will thrive, for a considerable time, on very slight and sparing food."

"Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries."
Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens

"I am not young enough to know everything." Oscar Wilde

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Lady Windermere's Fan Oscar Wilde

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

"Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about." The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde

"The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional." The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde

general nostalgia and his troops.

You should check out some of my old entries. They are quite pretty. This is another thing about school: it inspires me to write good online journal entries, and definitely does not give me time to write entries on how old entries used to be good.

l'amour horrible

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it oepns up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."-Neil Gaiman

I thrive in painful love quotes, I do. I like them more than any quote about love that is uplifting and soaring. I like the giant needle and the big stinger of love, I guess, the beautiful words that they inspire people to create. Because pain makes pretty amazing things happen. Oh it's bad, it's bad, but it's all so thrilling.

I wrote a love letter to the Fruit Bats today.

love is a place

Today with the help of my mom, my desperation and my mad skills at putting together a beautiful PowerPoint presentation (and possibly the fact that my parents love me after all this time), I got the green light for the 2005 SOCAL TO STPAUL ROAD TRIP. It's happening. Alex and I are packing it up and hitting the road on September 1, reaching Sisseton, South Dakota by September 3 to rub belt buckles and kick it with the cowboys. The 2nd Annual Two Star Barn Dance is just a big fat dessert on the side. After that, we'll head to the school and, hey, it's school again, and everything will fall back into place and it will be standard and okay and stressful and exhilarating and happy again.



old world underground where are you now?
subtract my age from the mileage
on my speeding heart, credit cards
accelerate, accumulate
looked for you downtown
wound up in a movie with no story
now it’s late and you are nowhere to be found

Listen to Metric.

kitten update

It is with great sadness and an empty heart that I report that the kitties Dashiell and Yossarian, both aged 10 months, most likely will not be returning to St. Paul in the fall.

You see, the stepcousin I'm living with doesn't like/is allergic to cats and does not want me to bring them, causing me to take action to find a place for Dash & Yoss to stay. The kitties will most likely return to St. Paul in September of 2006 where they will be welcomed back with open arms after a year in SoCal with my dear friend Michelle. Please, wish them luck, those little buggers. I will miss them oh so much.

back to the life

I have been back in the United States for a week and a half now. With the end of my beautiful stint in China came the end of desiring summer. I'm tired of my job and I seriously want to go back to school. Not to say I don't enjoy the things at home - I slept over at Dani's house on Friday, my Netflix, my brother, books at the library, my old girl cat, even my parents - but I've had them for the last two plus months. Basically, it's gotten to the point where this old life, two plus months is enough.

What I've been thinking about lately is the product tie-ins with cereal. They should never stop. There is something classically ridiculous and exciting about toys and special offer send-ins inside cereal boxes. I went with my mother to the grocery store the other day where we bought two boxes of Rice Krispies and a box of Frosted Flakes - over such cereals like Multi-Grain Cheerios - because they had Disney tie-ins - character wobblers and a free Disney pin to pick up at Disneyland. It was fun and now I've got two more extraneous little toys around the house - a Tramp and Iago wobbler that my cats like to bat around.

It's time for something new. I just got word that my grandparents are donating and old bed to me for usage next year in the house. I'm worried about finding a suitable desk and chair and storage space and all that. It's exciting to be out of the dorms, but the convenience was awfully nice.

work 'n play

It is with great pleasure that I will tell you about the little details of my place of work which make it wonderful, despite my oft-idleness and long hours:

I like my desk right by the window, where I can look out and see who is arriving for work and watch the Hong Fook Center Bus drive down the small street several times a day. I can watch all the old Asian people living in the tall housing complexes behind the office walking to and from stores, leaving with empty bags and coming back with full ones. I can watch everybody who works in this building and the building next to us take their cigarette breaks under the same tree. I can see how fast the wind is blowing by watching how fast the Volkswagen sign is turning. I can watch the day go by as the shadows change on the textured panels of the housing complex building.

I like walking to the lake on sunny days and sitting on the sloped grass and having a picnic all by my lonesome while reading a book and watching the other workers on their lunch breaks walking briskly around Lake Merritt. There are groups of ladies who are a little overweight who walk in groups around the lake and talk in loud voices like they were coming straight off of the pages in a chick lit book - I like watching them. In the middle of the lakeside park there is an amusement park called Children's Fairyland and a big marble gazebo. There are geese who migrate around the lake and chase you if you have food or get too close to them. I like being one of the grown-ups, strangely enough. I like knowing that everybody is on their lunch hour and I am also on my lunch hour. I like finding local eateries when I forget my lunch and sitting at a table by myself while drinking Diet Coke and reading a book. I like walking with my sunglasses on and swinging my purse bag. I like wearing skirts everyday and feeling more grown-up when I see myself coming towards me when reflected in windows. I don't know how I feel about not recognizing myself.

I like a lot of the people who work here. I like the man name Claude who told me I couldn't take lunch breaks until I had worked here 90 days and once said I had to bring donuts for everybody on Fridays and who then said, "I don't have a serious bone in my butt." I like the older man Pat who has 'PAT'S' labels on a bunch of office equipment like the automated stapler and three-hole punch and who says things like, 'It's not the size of the wand that pulls the rabbit out of the hat' that are cryptic and weird. I like Irene who gives me those looks when she is working with the older Asian guy who makes people feel uncomfortable when he clears his throat every four words and interrogates them about their lives, who has a very good heart but no social skills whatsoever. Most of all I like Brian, who does good impersonations and accents, and Anjela, who believes she's been visited by aliens, who work in the same room with me - I like that they get it, like me, my auntie, my brother, and Michelle do. We have a conspiracy about the number 22 and I have laughed until I cried so many times already in this room with them. I even like the creepy guy who now works in the room with us because it has provided us with Anjela's 'I'm scared' faces and lots of hilarious awkwardness and even more knowing looks within the room. I like that there is hot chocolate mix and an Arrowhead water cooler in the breakroom. I like that we get the SF Chronicle and the accountant who works here has learned to automatically hand me the 'Datebook' section. I like Luis, who has four children and a car with a sticker that says 'Couples for Christ' and next to that a sticker that says 'Kids for Christ,' who told me that he is glad that I work here.

I like the product catalogs and I like the fact that there are floorplans wherever I walk. I like imagining the conversation between the old Asian couple outside my window right now trasnferring the paper bag between them that says 'NEW LOWER PRICES.' The lady looks upset. I like the new lady who works here with the impossibly quiet voice.

I like to push my chair in and turn off my computer at the end of the day. Closure is always a significant moment.

a small story

Let me tell you a story that will warm your little, oh-so-fragile hearts. The story starts back two years ago during my auntie's graduation present to me - a trip to Disneyland. Little did we know that from this trip we would bring back an undying love and fascination with these little guys (http://fsmat.at/~dreiner/america/disneyland/DSC00366_shitty_mushrooms.JPG). (By the way, I found this image by using Google, even though I have many mushroom pictures on a computer somewhere, and I'm offended by the title of this lame guy's file name.) My brother, auntie, and I have signs, drawings, and little dances dedicated to the parade performing mushrooms. We also have matching mushroom pins.

So I've got my mushroom on my purse that I carry around everywhere. He just ended up there. Flashback to Saturday night. I'm leaving this Japanese food place from dinner and walking through the Little Tokyo plaza and our waiter, this incredibly effeminent skinny Japanese guy with blue contacts and bleached hair, jogs up and asks me, 'Is this yours?' He is holding my little mushroom pin. This is amazing. I am speechless. I think I manage to squeak out, 'Thank you!' but luckily Alex is there to tell him how important it is to me (aka, how much of a big nerd I am). I want to give this funny waiter boy a big hug because I love him because I am a big nerd. Do you know how upset I get when I lose things? If I had lost this... Thank you, kind waiter. I hope your hair never falls out due to bleach and I hope some instant karma is coming your way.

question:

answer you me: would you pay $30 to go see king tut in a museum?

why? how important is it?


now, read this:
"Yes, Tut is back -- loot in tow -- and this time he's bringing family. Of the 130 items on display, more than half come not from Tut's tomb but from the royal graves of the 18th Dynasty (1555 B.C. to 1305 B.C.). Tutankhamun items on display include the golden crown (royal diadem) that the boy king wore, a coffinette that held his liver, a golden ceremonial dagger and falcon collar. The now-iconic golden mask that traveled the first time will not be part of the current exhibition, as it would have added unwieldy travel and insurance costs to the exhibition."

talk about false advertising.

fabulous

"If you went back in time and met your teenage parents, you could not split them up and prevent your birth - even if you wanted to, a new quantum model has stated." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4097258.stm

Oh, BBC, I'm glad you're here to tell us these things.

productivity, fine!

Nowadays, I have nothing to do at work 75% of the time. It is not even two weeks in and already I have altered my own job description. My aim is to now top seven office hour toilet visits. Each day, I will try to top the last day. This is a good goal: it allows me to look productive while I walk back and forth from the water dispenser looking very official with ceramic mug in hand. And every two cups or so, I need to go to the bathroom - which also gives me direction. I also try to sharpen my pencil as many times as possible. Productivity at its finest, kids.

i am a mermaid with golden hair

I have taken up once again with my musical fervor. After a week of listening to nothing but my Andrew Lloyd Webber mix, and only stopping because the CD got too scratched up to listen to with my car's crochety old CD player, I've taken to doing something quite out of the ordinary - listening to musicals I haven't heard three hundred times before. That doesn't mean that I'm going to take up listening to new musicals - or RENT or West Side Story or any kind of hoo-haw, but I did listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Aspects of Love" the entire way through over the last couple days. I don't think I've ever heard the whole thing before, and if I did, it went right through one ear and out the other because I was probably 6 years old when I heard it. Besides, why should I try to listen to it again, my auntie saw it and called the musical "Aspirins of Love" because she needed a bunch to get through the play. But, guess what, I enjoyed it. Funny how that is. I just bought the sheet music for $5 on Amazon. A whole new world of piano playing possibilities - how joyous. The intended incest in the show still kind of gets to me though...

JENNY
If you were a sailor
And heard my song
Would you be lured by me?

ALEX
I wouldn't be
Foolish enough to
Go near your rock --
I'd steer my galleon out to sea..

BOTH
..lonely and lost at sea..

e.

i had an epiphany. know what that epiphany is? it's that i have issues. i never thought i'd be a person to have issues, but i do. mostly issues with expressing myself verbally. isn't that awesome?

i get to go here in two weeks. i am ecstatic.

you may hate me, but i'll remember to love you

yeah, i'm doing something with my life...

inspired by jon carroll, a columnist for the sf chronicle, i have decided to try to write a daily or semi-daily or at least bi-weekly column about things i think about while driving in the car to and from work. i have become one of those rolling along the freeway at a rip-roaring speed of fifteen mph every morning and evening, and with two hours of that sort of idleness, i've got to be able to do something with it other than sing loudly along with musicals and have music loudness competitions with the bumping and grinding black suv next to me. it would help if i could write some notes while i was driving, but i can't. it would help if i had one of those mini-tape voice recorders, but then again, it wouldn't, because i wouldn't be able to articulate my thoughts in verbal form or listen back to it when i'm trying to write my columns during work / my lunch break.

what will i do with them? i don't know. have them, keep them by my side - read them back to myself. maybe i will make a new website just for the shit i write. i certainly won't post them here because posting something structured and even maybe edited here would be against all blogging rules. maybe i can offer them up to a 'zine or, gasp, the mac weekly. the point is, there's a lot of stuff out there to think about and what you can think about, you can write about.

for example, the one i'm writing today is inspired by a car i saw this morning whose license plate was ORCA WHL.

i am inspired, in general.

i fail at life.

i absolutely hate making phone calls and my job right now consists of a lot of them. it's taken me twenty minutes to make two phone calls because i am petrified.

'baby, remember on the bus and my hand was on your knee
when U love somebody it's hard to think about anything but to breathe
baby, I am the cub who was washed out in the flood
when U love somebody and bite your tongue all you get is a mouthful of blood'

i never thought i was the girl, but i'm the girl waiting around all day to get a phone call from marcus. this is not any marcus, this is the marcus who holds a summer job dangling in front of my nose like that dog in 'pirates of the caribbean' to those pirates in prison. he dangles a summer job and a weekend down in SoCal. i left a message with his secretary and on his message machine. i can do nothing but wait.

it seems like i've been the girl who has been waiting over the last couple weeks. waiting for a phone call from barnes & noble, from any of the dozen places that has my application waiting stalemate in their giant vaults of kids desperate for summer jobs. although i haven't had to put much on hold, today i did, and this upset me. since 12:30pm, i have been performing activities that i believe will help me pass the time while i wait for marcus. it is 5pm. marcus may be leaving work now. he may have left the blinking light on his message machine alone today because he had a long day. i can understand. but marcus, oh marcus, why won't he call??

oh, sometimes i am so sure, and sometimes i am so convinced i am being a fool who doesn't ask enough questions and whose lack of skills for serious conversation may come back to bite her in the ass.

zurg

I am convinced of the awesomeness of my old stomping grounds. I like my suburbian town, my city across the bay, that old punk venue I used to go to, everything. It takes showing it to somebody else who has never seen it and appreciates it, going to places you haven't been in years because you thought you knew what it was all about to learn to love it again or even for the first time.

Disneyland = love. And it is so fabulous because I experienced it with so many different people. Trust me, it's a different place each time you go with a different arrangement of people. This past weekend, it was an assortment of the finest chocolates.

with the time you have left

It's up to me to do what I will with the time I have left. My grandparents have been to something like ten funerals in the last month. They have lost 35 friends in the last year. They are 80 and 83 years old. They are still travelling, they are still planning a cruise to Norway, my Grandpa still drives across half the country once a year. To me, them dying is far away. They are the only grandparents I've ever gotten to know - my brother and I are their only grandchildren. Mortality is a frightening concept to think closely about. It is like repeating a word over and over again - the experience of repeating the sounds overwhelming the small, unimportant word. So I think and think about death and when it's coming and how it's going to be and it's scary. It's really frightening. My grandparents used to have a nice group of ten best friends. Only one lady and them are left. I read an article today in a local paper about the little sister of a friend. At 3:03 pm on March 3, 2003, she was in a really horrible accident. She was in the hospital for 28 days and her condition was on and off, she was going to die, she was going to survive. She was 5 years old at the time. I didn't know this. And all of a sudden - this little baby I used to know, who ran around the ice rink, was in a head-on collision and close to death. I didn't even know.

'One Hundred Years of Solitude' waits for me at my bedside. My bed beckons to me all day long. I lay here with the sun streaming through the window and everything else gets lost. I can't be bothered about housing or a job or anything difficult though I know I need to deal with it. My comfort lies in sleeping, reading, curling up with my cats, curling up with the laptop, running errands and eating lunch with my mom. Tomorrow I will look for jobs, maybe. Tomorrow I will write the letters my dad wants me to write - I doubt I'm going to get the job back that I had last summer, sweet as it was, as much as they loved me.

Tomorrow night my family will eat pizza and watch British mysteries. Tomorrow night I wonder what I will have accomplished tomorrow.

I am at home and exhaustion has set in. The kittens are by my side ready to go to bed. So far there are no signs of any permanent or even semi-permanent emotional damage. Lost luggage got delivered by man who expected a tip. I was pissed off so of course I didn't give him one, maybe also the fact that I have 14 cents total in material posession. If you can't tip well, don't tip at all - it's more of an insult to give a low tip than no tip. So are the little lessons of life etiquette. Hello, life. Kristina, signing on. Tomorrow morning I will unpack and deconstruct the life I have just left. I miss it already.

Today is my last day here at Macalester until September 1, and even then, it is still a first of lasts. I had my last lunch in Cafe Mac today. I had a grilled cheese that made me sick - so it was a proper sendoff. While last year the last day seemed to be full of friendly good-byes and organized good-bye brunches, today is much lonelier. I am much more on my own. Right now I am waiting for a DVD to burn in the HRC. I am here past closing hours. I don't know why it is taking so long to burn. This is pissing me off because I'm supposed to be moving out in 45 minutes. My computer will not be dismantled and my auntie will be upset with me. So it goes.

My head hurts and even the Diet Coke with Lime in front of me hasn't helped. My phone has no service and I am cut off from the world. It is dark and hot. What would an entirely dark and hot life be like? Miserable. I don't understand why this is taking so long.

I am not looking forward to summer. I am not looking forward to being the Kristina that is lazy and doesn't want to get in her car to go see friends because she thinks it will be hard work to see them. Distance is a strange love. I love it and hate it because of the conflicting emotions it makes me feel.

The spring was not glorious this year. Springfest was not a happy revelry on the lawn and the last week was not spent being distracted by short skirts and friends on blankets rolling around in the sun. There were no cookies to be shared nor movies to be watched outside on an itty bitty laptop. There were no 4 hours spent outside at night by the swings nor the idea of sleeping outside on the field. I will miss the tulips on Summit Ave, but they are the only thing spring like here.

I have grown. I have grown like the tulips and maybe I'm a yellow one with red tints. I am not a red tulip in full bloom. Hopefully that is yet to come. Maybe it will be in London; maybe it will be next semester when I learn how to cook and grocery shop effectively. Maybe it will be the summer of yearning and missing and hoping and losing.

Why can't I bring my mind to worry? Yet what is this discontent swirling around in the pit of my stomach - what is this constant pounding in my head? Get me out of here. Get me the hell out of Joisey.

I like people more than I ever thought possible here.

I need to finish an essay, find some boxes, perhaps to paint, perhaps to pack stuff in, perhaps to make spaceships out of, and generally make good use of the time I have left.

playlists speak louder than words.

i have none, no words.

Mixes are supposed to give off a certain ambience. Funny how when I listen to "The O.C. Mix 1" and "The O.C. Mix 2" I don't think of the television show at all. I think about myself and my life - playlists and music cater to egocentricism. Every song can somehow be yours. This is the test of a brilliant song. Get people to fight over emotional ownership of the song and you've got a top 10 billboard hit. Come on, get out those quills.

"when i am writing it seems to me that i follow a musical cadence or rhythm"

no, i am not that silly girl.

but i do not like change. there were questions on surveys about mental health that i took in my highschool years - to see if i were normal or depressed - to see if i were justifiably sad or just really lame - that asked if i liked change or if i was scared of it. i always thought i liked change - but i guess i thought of it as i liked to change television channels, clothing, and the desktop on my computer background, not as uprooting and rooting down lives.

so i lied on every survey i took because it seems to me that as long as i am happy, i never want change, i become scared of it. summer offers nothing, it does not beckon. right now right here offers easy company and settled situations, easy access and easy laughter. it's easy right now right here. i've got it all figured out. life has been so good to me for the last month or so - it's ridiculous and now i have to leave it. i don't like that because it's a change.

a great quote by f. scott fitzgerald:
“My own happiness in the past often approached such an ecstasy that I could not share it even with the person dearest to me but had to walk it away in quiet streets and lanes with only fragments of it to distil into little lines in books – and I think that my happiness, or talent for self-delusion or what you will, was an exception. It was not the natural thing but the unnatural – unnatural as the Boom; and my recent experience parallels the wave of despair that swept the nation when the Boom was over.”

i saved the two boxes of girl scout cookies that i had for a very long time. the first box was opened in the occasion of a drunken night and the success of a requited friend crush. the second was opened because of a frustrating day and a disdain for a certain teacher and class and utter conviction that chocolate was the only way to help us. it says a lot these girl scout cookies, more than the carefully placed ethnically diverse awkward-aged girls on the cover of the boxes could ever do. but then again, they did get me these cookies. that's pretty sweet.

well i got myself a new day
and i got myself a second chance
so i headed to the bus stop
and the sun the sun was warm on my face
today i ran for miles just to see what i was made of

well i got myself a song inside. and i got myself some full-blown daylight. gonna tell you just how hard it's been trying to talk myself out of jumping.

today i ran for miles just to see what i was made of.

- gemma hayes

life is, for the third week in a row, very good.

quick - i need songs about fools for love and fools with delusions. i need to relate and emote.

i'm making a playlist. it's called 'i am a fool.'

people are SO lame.

le sigh

keane - "hopes and fears"

i wish it were not so late and my roommate was not sleeping soundly in her bed because then i could blast this.

really, blast everything.

emoting or building

I think the words we need here are: sustainable development.

I need to take a little, give a little, breed a little, stir a little, and carefully sculpt its development into something that will be rich and long-lasting and beneficial to all.

I am obviously talking about feelings. Not oil nor wind power nor green buildings.

'Here is to dying in another's arms and why I had to try it.'

I am at a crossroads and I'm asking the wind or whoever blows it to give me a little shove in the right direction 'cause I can't stay awake thinking about it all night long.

Great weekend. Great week. Don't know how I'm going to deal when its over.

flat top vampire

oh, what strange turn of events!

time is going fast.

these last couple weeks have caused me to exclaim, on more than one occasin, that life is good.

life is good only when one good day has been cushioned by at least 3 good days on both sides. this means 'life is good' is equal to one week of goodness. that may not even be true. perhaps it is one great day cushioned by 4 on each side. that would mean 'life is good' is equal to 8 days of goodness plus one day of greatness.

although exhausted, it has been worth it. i have had those little moments where i realize that all is not lost and that i am a much more interesting and smarter person than i was two years ago. that some of my fears have been quelled. that some of them have only escalated but due to good reason.

i stood outside through the beginning and the end of a thunderstorm. i can't pretend i'm one of those carefree people who like to splosh and run through the rain and who love thunderstorms - because the truth is i dislike rain and am scared of thunderstorms. but that night, i was one of the living. i prefer minnesota weather. it is alive all the time - constantly changing. i wish to be more like it.

we live again

Just a quick note.

Night two where Kristina has not gone to bed before the birds have woken up and began to sing their little ditties. Their little simple tunes that I will never begin to emulate.

My typing sounds so loud. So loud. It is intrsuive in the stillness of the night. And yet I am smiling.

No matter how I look down upon drunkeness, it adds a sort of wonder to the world. I wonder how my brain is functioning to connect to my fingers that are typing. I wonder how I am going to crawl into my bed. I wonder how I am ever going to wake up again and why my wrists are so skinny and that shouldn't they deserve more support for all that they do? More bone? More muscles? I am going to live in London in a year. That will be miraculous. God, all I want to do. It' just to live somewhere where I feel challenged. Where I can take walks in beauty. My house. My house is so suburbian. It' so DULL to take walks. It' just asphalt and big houses that you've seen before. Little trees and front yards that all look the same. There are hills a block away but I can't feel safe walking on them. WHy? Because I'm a girl. I'm not trying to make any sort of statement - it's jsut fact.

Dear Mom, Happy Birthday. I love you. Thank you for helping me be who I am. Thank you for buying the "Phantom of the Opera" record when I was 4 and was terrified of the cover. Because being terrified of the cover at age 4 only made me love it more at age 5 and have it in my heart forever and forever. I once forogt about the magic of musicals - thank goodness I've found it again. Mom, music is my life. Thank you for helping me find it.

Happy Birthday.

I hear a bird song and I haven't even gone to bed yet.

the japanese richard gere

Today I am inspired. This is a great feeling. I don't know how or when it happened. I'm feeling good about myself today. I'm feeling brave. Perhaps this is a triumphant feeling that one often gets after getting over a wrestling match with sickness. I feel good about making my history class laugh today. I feel good about not scheduling out my day and still getting everything done. I feel good, the way that I should.

I want to go on a nice walk with somebody I enjoy spending time with but that I don't spend too much time with but who doesn't make me feel like I am boring and doesn't let my hands sweat. I want to go on adventures and take more pictures. Artsy pictures. I want to go on the light rail and pretend that I am on the London Underground. Every train I go on I pretend I am on the London Underground. I plan art projects around the London Underground. I read books about the London Underground. There are inspiring things to be had to be seen in life and today I feel like I've discovered a lot of them.

I decided I want to be the student that "one who always puts pop culture references in her papers."

Here is something I don't feel good about. My Entertainment Weekly is opened to the HitList because I love Dalton Ross, but on the opposite page is an ad for VH1's concert to benefit their 'Save the Music' campaign. The image is an electric guitar with some bling bling slut nurses hands with resucitators over the guitar. I hate this. But then you look at the artists. . . Alicia Keys Mariah Carey Rod Stewart Rob Thomas Joss Stone John Legend Donna Summer And More. . . and how are they going to save the music? How is this nurse going to save the music with her long red fingernails is really the question?

I made a webpage because I was bored. This is it. It is about stuff I like. I didn't know what else to do. I'm at a loss for content.

The truth is, I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha getcha. Not getchoo. No, Rivers, NO.

nothing compares 2 u

Being sick means not having to say you’re sorry. It means the excuse to avoid human contact. Being sick means everything in your life is put on the backburner. Being sick means you are the pope, the sultan, the queen of England who glances down from atop her tower of pillows, tissues, and empty soup bowls. Being sick means you are the victim and therefore in control of the world.

This morning I got up and I was sick. I made a few unattractive noises and rolled out of bed. Greeted by cheerful ‘good mornings’ of my roommates, I grunted in response, wearily heading towards the bathroom. On the way back, I grunted some more. I’m sick, grunt.

Then they got it. Then they understood. I had triumphantly acquired the ‘get out of jail free’ card. I could be a raving lunatic as long as I interspersed coughs within my speech. Gone all guilt of thinking of my computer as my best friend. Gone all guilt of building up my taciturn walls. I was sick. I had never been freer.

Being sick means an excuse to disappear, be irresponsible, flake out on things I said I’d be at that now, come to fact, I didn’t want to do anymore. Being sick is a doorway to truth. Being sick means being able to insult my closest friends and still keep them close. Being sick gives me the magical ability to be eight again, my health and welfare entirely in the hands of my mother. I gain whiny vocal expressions I didn’t know I possessed.

On Saturday, one of the most beautiful days of the year thus far, I called my aunt. I told her I was sick and since she was sick, we should be sick together. We holed up together, burrowed under blankets, and drowned ourselves in tea, soup, and Diet Coke. We scowled at the bikers and the kids playing outdoors. Lucky jerks, we snarled. We watched Charles and Camilla’s wedding reception on BBC America. I laughed at my aunt for wanting to watch it and she scratched her face deliberately with her middle finger. It was okay, because then I wiggled my fingers and told her to tell me when to stop. She said stop. Only my middle finger was left up. Being sick means being mean. It’s funny when you’re sick and mean.

We went grocery shopping for sick food. Being sick means being able to throw whatever you want into the grocery cart because there is so little that sounds appealing to you that your mother is happy that you’ll eat so you don’t just waste away. You can buy packaged fruits because you’re too sick to cut them up. You can buy ice cream because you say it will make your throat feel better. You can also leave your grocery cart in the middle of the aisle because you are sick and everybody is in your way and they deserve it.

Being sick means everybody gets in your way, just to spite you. Being sick means having people tell you that you look sick or death wormed over. Then you thank them sarcastically. Being sick means you can use your sarcasm to your most potent of abilities. Being sick means always having a conversation starter.

Most of all, being sick means appreciating the sun and your snot-free nose and your tickle-free throat when one morning you finally get out of bed and realize that the room is not spinning and that everybody is just really happy that you’re better.

Probably because they hated you sick.

Sometimes the actions of brushing your teeth and washing your face before you can collapse into bed are just too much.

all i have procured

I am too stupid to go to King's College London and too stupid to go to University College London. Mostly because my major is history and I suck at history. That means I am definitely too stupid to go to Oxford or Cambridge. This totally blows. At one time in my life, one of my life goals was to study at Cambridge. The other two were to marry a soccer player and attend the Oscars. One down, two to go. I am too stupid to live. Why did I not just try harder? Why am I dangling here with my 3.3 GPA? Why do I have a 3.0 in my major? I am too stupid to live.

I am also lonely and I hate car alarms and police sirens. I hate sore throats and I hate being alone in my room trying to do homework when I just want to go to sleep and freak out about study abroad stuff and how I'm going to have to reduce myself to a different London college because I am too stupid to get into King's College or University College. My parents are going to be so T'O'd. They should be. This encourages me to do my homework. Glad I checked up on my stupidity tonight when I still have final papers and projects to do.

I wish all the other aspects of my life would just fall into place so I could just worry about grades and study abroad all day long.

come disconnect the dots with me poppet

Of Montreal = crazylove.
crazylove = Of Montreal.
Of Montreal = band.

I IMed my little brother today, saying, "brian?" 'cause sometimes he is not there. He wrote back, "hi poopface" so then I knew it was him.

I think having two brothers made me who I am today. Cool.

Tonight on 'America's Next Top Model' the contestants had to come up with a perfume/bottle that represented them and market it to people from all over the world. I would say 'This perfume is not going to sell well. I've never sold well. This is for the people who secretly don't want to smell bad but don't want to spend lots of money to smell weird like a perfume. This is called Eau de Open Air and is a chameleon perfume that acclimates itself to its surroundings quite well unless they are stifling or full of complete pretentious and structured crap. It is not flashy and its bottle is quietly sophisticated and funky and angled so that sometimes you can see how sophisticated and funky it is but only if you're of the right angle. Obviously, this is now not marketable at all. And also some sort of crappy metaphor. Thanks, Tyra. I want to be America's Next Top Model."

And so on and so forth..

nothing compares 2 u

I have been dabbling in streaks of unfriendliness, but now I realize that I am on the brink of perhaps losing friends into the large pool of acquaintances. It is my fault, it is their fault, but I feel like I am not doing enough about it. The happier I am, the less I need friends. It is a rotten state and a rotten lot I've been given. The happier I am, the more I can enjoy time to myself. The more I want to enjoy time to myself.

So if I have been rotten to you, I apologize. I know I cannot be great friends with lots and lots of people; I was simply not ordained to be one of those people. I am too antisocial, too introverted, and believe me, no matter what you think, this is true.

I go out of my way to hang out with some people, and it always seems to slip my mind to hang out with others. This is the natural order of things. This is life - and I have trouble with that. Still, there are so many more amazing people that I dont' know and who I want to be my friends. It comes easy, it goes easy. It's so easy to meet new people and it's so easy to lose the people you've met before. It's shit, absolute shit, and I hate it.

I feel the exhaustion of sun on my skin. My skin feels stretched and dry, and so does my body. This weekend has been a good run.

I am still avoiding the future.

life is still sweet.

So, my life is not bad. My knee hurts. But my cats are great. People laughed at my story. That's a good thing. It's a funny story. I'm just stalling. I don't want summer to come. Because by then I should have done and finished things that I haven't begun yet. I want to stall in maybe a week or two, when the weather is perfect and I love everybody.

Home. I'm glad I have two places to call home. When I'm in California, I say I'm going home in two days. When I'm in Minnesota, I say I'm going home tomorrow morning.

Today I feel good about

the fact that a bad-ass looking black & white gun in hand Clive Owen is on my desktop,
I got a very decent grade on my history paper where I constantly feel inadequate,
having looked at a house to live in today and having a new one to look at soon,
eyeball skeleton and of montreal,
making a regular routine of dance dance revolution,
i got 31 questions out of 40 on a star wars quiz,
the tiki room has re-opened.

I played about forty minutes of dance dance revolution tonight. Weary bones, rest well tonight.

The Holocaust in American Life by Peter Novick. Read this. I am so glad to have someone of scholarly knowledge share in my politically incorrect skepticism.

Television has been good. I now have shows to watch every night of the week except Friday and Saturday. It sounds silly, but it's nice to look forward to at least one thing each day.

I don't know what I'm going to do this summer.

'Our Beautiful West Coast Thing'

We are a coast people
There is nothing but ocean out beyond us.
- Jack Spicer

I sit here dreaming
long thoughts of California

at the end of a November day
below a cloudy twilight
near the Pacific

listening to The Mamas and The Papas
THEY'RE GREAT

singing a song about breaking
somebody's heart and digging it!

I think I'll get up
and dance around the room.

Here I go!

- Richard Brautigan

San Francisco yesterday was exceedingly beautiful. Danville, California was exceedingly beautiful today as I lay sun-drenched on my bed, sleeping on and off, taking cat naps. Mom pointed out that the hills were bright green after a rain. Let us not forget that I do, at times, profess my love for Minnesota. Walking across the stone arch bridge, legs hot with numbness, only a flask to keep us warm, waiting underneath the light heater in the light rail station, I loved it more. But anywhere you are, you can love it more.

My cat lets me hold her for long periods at a time now. Perhaps she misses me or perhaps she is just getting old. It is hard to watch cats age. They go through the entire life cycle before your eyes, before you even change that much. Eleven years? I still remember her as a kitten.

i'm 40, i'm not 20, 30

This break has been spent with many hours on this laptop, Lappy 486. Too many, in fact, for my lap gets really hot (sounds kinky, isn't) and my brain starts hurting. Wasn't there some inquiries earlier on about how laptops and cellphones cause cancer? Well, I'm pretty sure the tumors on my brain are festering as we speak. Oh, no joking matter, I know, but . . .

Barry Bonds: my family's tired, i'm tired, you guys wanted to hurt me bad enough, you finally got there, WHO? you, you, you, you, you wanted me to jump off the bridge? i've jumped
myvegetablelove: direct transcript
myvegetablelove: what an asshole
Barry Bonds: i'm tired of my kids crying
Barry Bonds: let's go home
urgininthenight: hahaha
Barry Bonds: 'you've already destroyed me, now go pick a different person'
myvegetablelove: geeeeeez.
urgininthenight: nabhabha. whatta whiner

News flash. Barry Bonds is a whiner. Barry Bonds hurt his knee and now might never come back, do you know why? Because he's tired. Of everything. (prompted by his son.)

While watching KTVU news on a mattress with this laptop, I'm looking at lots and lots of study abroad programs. I've got it narrowed down to these:

Here's the shuffle: Cork College/Cork, Ireland, Trinity College/Dublin, Ireland, University of Glasgow/Scotland, University of Edinburgh/Scotland, King's College London, University College London, Goldsmith College London, University of Amsterdam, or Cambridge University (yeah. right.)

I absolutely cannot choose. Luckily, I have time, but really, not too much. I've been playing around with a lot of things - this is what home is for - worrying about real life. College is my shelter from the world, home is my re-opening to it. And the problem is, all my worrying at home is stuffed into a weekend, a week, a few months.

OH NO, the Pope is ailing. Again.

I'm ailing. Spiritually. Musically. Lovingly. Ly.

"Excuse me? Would you like to see some bathing beauties? ... http://www.tubzfremont.com
Come put your tootsies in our tubs."

Late night commercials. No time for self reflection.

And tomorrow? Evita. They need to adore me, so Christian Dior me...

"The pain struck like a bolt of lightning, exploding in my chest and spreading out down my left arm with paralyzing intensity."

What does this passage describe?

a. A seizure brought on by too much morphine, as described by Susan Kay in Phantom.

b. A person's reaction the exact moment his or her heart is broken.

c. A bodily reaction occurring after withdrawal of meds for one too many days.

The answer, is, of course, all three.

Finally, a triple triple.

I am at home, on my family's new laptop. It's glorious. For example: I am now sitting upstairs in the bonus room watching figure skating whilst checking my e-mail and doing a bunch of other crap. Now I can completely maximize my time efficiency. My free time will double. Or I will spend twice as much time on the computer and in front of the television because my whole life can be set up here in this room. I can sleep here, I can watch TV, I can eat, I can play with Legos, I can watch Disney movies, watch DVDs, and be surrounded by stuffed animals. Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do with all this time.

The last couple of days were strange, but satisfying enough. They went by quickly yet slowly, and were delightful yet heart-wrenching.

(I am so glad this girl did a triple flip triple toe. It shouldn't be rare that girls do triple triples. It makes me upset that it is. )

I was woken up by my cell phone ringing - my grandparents were downstairs and I had overslept. Hungover and having acquired only 4 hours of sleep by 7am, I stumbled through my packing and just barely managed carrying the kittens down the elevator and into the waiting car. Then they asked me about lesbians. They asked me if my friends were lesbians. My grandma said that she heard that "Macalester has a lot of homosexuals." Yeah, I said, all my best friends are homosexuals. I mean, this isn't true, but it could be.

Okay. My mind is wandering.