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Friday, September 19th, 2008
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3:30 am - Explaining things to myself
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So, this is the first time I've written in here in a very very long time. It's like I keep remembering that I have this thing, but I only update really really sporadically. I know for a fact that this is at least my first time writing in here since moving into my new house with Vyn and Dani.
About Twilight. (It hath enslaved my mind. Literally. Like, why am I thinking about these weirdo books so much? Why do I want to marry Edward? He's kind of a controlling, obsessive jackass. Why do I keep counting down to the movie? Why can I not just get a life?)
This is one of the first book/movie/whathaveyou series where I have felt no desire to jump online to talk about it with fellow fans, and no desire to check out what others are saying, and no desire to actually hear or see what anyone else thinks about it at all. I think this might be because while reading the first book, I was so uninterrupted and so intent on the story that the reader-proxy really took me over. Like, I was totes living in the fucking story-line. To the point of almost creepiness. To the point where I didn't eat or drink anything until I was finished reading it.
I think that because of this, it seems like a very personal, private story to me. I mean, the whole story-line is really fucking weird, and flawed, and the characters are possibly some of the most unhealthy personalities ever invented, but the story is mine more than any other story has been in a while.
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| Monday, January 14th, 2008
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12:03 am - High-handed cultural criticisms.
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Feeling at loose ends, as usual.
I called Ads today. She's always so awkward on the phone, it makes it hard to hold a conversation. But I do try. I told her about the possum debacle, and my epic hangover, and when I'm coming back, etc. etc. She told me about her midterm and her issues with Tristan's sleeping habits and how she her fish died. It was very stimulating. Not.
My aunt called me today. My nine-year-old cousin had tickets to see Hannah Montana and was getting ready. She cried with happiness for 45 minutes when she found out. I cannot remember ever being that obsessed with any one thing or person. Could it be that my personality just isn't wired that way? Or is it something to do with the celebrity-centered culture of today's media, forcing so much importance on one person, franchise, dream?
I suppose it would have something to do with a difference of upbringing. When I was her age, my mom read me Little House on the Prairie, and my dad read me Lord of the Rings. My cousin watches High School Musical and Hannah Montana, and reads...I don't know what. Anything? Suffice it to say that I was perfectly content to spend the evening baking cookies and watching Persuasion on PBS.
I just get worried sometimes that everyone is being fed pre-packaged everything. Music and television and clothes, all in one. Pick a franchise. Interests and eating habits and accessories. Pick a celeb. Reading a book because Oprah picked it, because you saw the movie, because it was assigned in class.
I suppose the broadest bottom line is:
Everyone sucks these days.
current mood:  bitchy
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| Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
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2:34 am - Back to this track again, back to high school...
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Returning to my parents house is making me come to a few conclusions:
1) My mother discovering my drinking has led to more snide (well, loaded anyway) comments, but less watchfulness. Like, she's more ready to let go.
2) But am I? Okay, maybe I am. My sudden bout of freakout-suicidal-depression seems to have been very brief. I took a lot of personal time and figured a lot of stuff out, (I think) and am ready to get a job, a house and do well in school. And stop mooching $20 off my dad here and there.
3) Everyone annoys me! Well, Mal and Rach do here. And select people back home. Pretty much Ads, as long as she's around T, and Vyn all the time. Also, in an interesting turn of events, Dani, all the time. Tomorrow is drunk sledding, and I'd just really rather that I was just going with Jenna, Punk and Bridget. What's up with that? I just can't stand Mal being around right now. That's probably why I'm ripping her apart about her morning after pill incident.
It's like being back in high school, only it's always the weekend, and I never have to get up before noon if I don't want to.
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| Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
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2:36 am
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I've always had this idea that I'll wake up, and I'll be in the house on Pearl Avenue. It'll be fifth grade, and it'll be like we never left. And Joey will be a baby and my sister and I will be friends and Daddy will take us to the hanger with him while he works and everything will stay all perfect and summery like that forever.
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| Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
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1:45 am - A Truth.
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Most girls are straight, till they're not. Then they're gay till they're not. -Alice, The L Word
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| Sunday, December 30th, 2007
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3:27 am - Stuck Here In Neutral
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Can't she tell that I want her?
She's on the out's with her girlfriend. I'm being sympathetic. So's Jenna, but she's being more of a rational person.
"I wanna be a player again! I want to be all cocky and not dependent on anyone!"
Jenna talks her down.
"Dump her, for sure. But don't go slutting around or anything!"
She knows I'd be up for that, doesn't she? But she doesn't even hint. I make sure I don't stare. It's hard, when you like someone. You could look at them for hours. It's still that way with me and T. I could just stare at him for days, and there's no emotion of that sort anymore. Mostly.
Later with Brian. She and Jenna have been flirting with him. He gave her a backrub. I'm sitting on his other side, talking about Family Guy.
We start the movie. The girls on the floor start freaking out. It's kinda creepy. I go to the bathroom halfway through, and come back, sitting down next to Brian without a second thought.
Then I realize that there's stuff going on under the blanket.
My gut twists and I ignore. It stops, eventually.
Later, BB tells me that they used to fuck around.
Oh, I say.
She makes jokes about the girls she might fuck at the New Year's party. I laugh along.
It's not like I put myself out there. We're just friends and all.
But it's still a little gut-wrenching when we part ways.
Next time I see her, she'll have a better girlfriend. Maybe I'll have one.
But this time, this visit home, it could have been.
It wasn't.
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| Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
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3:40 pm - Wow. Bored.
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Reasons I would Die If I Moved To NYC Right Now:
1) Lack of totally marketable skills, other than following most of orders I comprehend from supervisors. A.K.A., if I am told to clean a counter, I can do it. If am am told to use a cash register, I can do it, but my drawer will usually be a little short, or a little over.
2) Inability to NOT have panic attacks when confronting things like electric bills, water bills, internet service, leases, roommates, etc.
3) Inability to manage own finances in a responsible manner. See: my $120 of debt which I should not have, because two months ago, I had $850, and no major expenses. Eating out and buying DVDs are not necessities.
So I can't move to NYC alone. It would be pretty stupid. But still, my life here is pretty weird and random too. Like sleeping with a gay guy, going into debt, giving my blessing for one of my best friends to date the only guy I've honestly liked, buying two 30-packs of PBR at once, etc.
I haven't liked this semester much.
current mood:  discontent
current music: The National>Guest Room
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| Thursday, November 29th, 2007
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1:59 am
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I can't even do a subject with this. Mostly because I'm pretty wasted. But I'm mostly because T and Addie went out on a date today. Like, a date, date.
Like, the guy I've liked for over a year has asked out one of my best friends.
I told her it was cool. Because he's one of my best friends too. But still....
I may have said I was cool with it, but it still hurts to see her doing all the things I wanted to do with him.
I can't quite let go.
And I'm fucking jealous.
And probs a bad person.
Whatever.
current mood: discontent
current music: The heat and water systems in the apartement
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| Monday, November 19th, 2007
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3:50 am - As per academic performance..
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And all school related things...
I cannot do stellar in any class. I COULD, but I can't make myself do homework. I feel like I'm still in sophomore year of high school, and the only way I can do homework is if the teacher comes around to collect it during class, and you're shamed if you don't have it done.
But in college, no one necessarily notices when you don't do your work. The professors do, but they might not say anything.
So I've never necessarily failed a class. I got kicked out of Honor's College, because I had a 3.0 GPA. But that's okay, overall. For freshman year. Now I've realized that my inability to ever motivate myself to do anything is chronic. It's something I could work on, but I choose not to.
And so instead, I sit here in my room and have panic attacks, and realize that projects are due the day before I do them.
And I honestly think I'll probably fail at least one of my classes this semester.
And I can't stop it, or make myself stop it.
current mood:  depressed
current music: The people above me thumping on the floor
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1:29 am - One more thing...
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We made a bowl of brownie batter, for a "just us girlz!" night. And I ate prolly 3 or 4 brownie's worth. And I didn't get a chance to purge afterwards.
Now I feel all horrible and disgusting.
Blargh.
Also, I've had a few shots on the sly, so I can do my homework in a happy haze, and not be bothered by Dani's complaining.
current mood:  aggravated
current music: Ambient building noises, and traffic/sirens.
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| Sunday, November 18th, 2007
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10:57 pm - Sidenote:
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As soon as I can get a moment alone in the room, I will drink four shots at once straight from the bottle of Smirnoff, and not tell anyone that I'm buzzing.
I may or may not be a borderline alcoholic.
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10:46 pm - Progress Report: I am missing you to death...
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Fuck him for being like he is about everything.
For blowing me off like he did, and then telling everyone but me that he DID find me attractive.
And for not being ready for a relationship, but being totally willing to do his ex during the summer.
I can't believe that it's been over a year, and I'm still riding on this stupid crush. It's just so exhausting.
And I wish that it would be gone and I could move on. But I don't want to move on, I just want to be with him. And everything that goes along with being with someone. You know, it's gotten to the point where I really can't imagine how it would go down, that transition from friends to relationship.
But it just drives me nuts.
And I hate when he wears Axe, because it makes me want to jump him. Pretty much like in the commercials.
current mood: bitchy
current music: A Little Less Sixteen Candles>Fall Out Boy
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| Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
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12:16 am - Fuck him. Fuck her.
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I explained to her how I felt about him.
How I felt like he'd used me.
How I feel like he's using her.
How I might be overreacting.
But I must not have made it clear enough how much I just hate being around him. How it make me cringe. How it makes my skin crawl.
Because she made up with him. She forgave him. And now she's always talking about what a good friend he is. She's always inviting him up to the room to hang out. She's always including him in group events.
She's the only one who enjoys spending this time with him. I can tell that she wants us all to like him as much as she does. She wants the guys to be his guy friends. But NO ONE else wants to let him into the group. How much of that is my fault? I don't even care.
Now, I've been sitting alone in the room since 8:00. It's 12:30. She just left while I was in the bathroom. Didn't say anything. Just left Addie to explain and leave.
So now it's me.
And it's clear that despite all her "LUV U"'s and all, she's chosen him over me. She's chosen a boy who's screwed her over and manipulated her so badly into thinking so many horrible things about me.
And anything I say will just confirm his words.
I have to pretend it's all okay.
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| Monday, November 5th, 2007
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5:48 pm - Craziness
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I can smoke again now without feeling the tar sliding down my raw-from-coughing throat. Yay! :)
In other news, I am feeling so crazy-motivated.
You wouldn't want an angel watching over/Well surprise, surprise they wouldn't want to watch
It snowed/sleeted/rained for approximately 34 seconds today around 2:30. Amazing.
I jsut feel so motived. Possibly creatively? But not like writing something. Which is strange. More like making some obsessively huge and physically taxing art project. Like a giant collage. Like tearing all the movie posters off my wall, and pasting all sorts of other things up there. Or tearing the movie posters apart and putting them back together all rag-tag.
Le Sigh.
It's probably just my brain rebelling against all the research and homework I've been doing lately. Gah!
These streets have too many names for me
My playlist for this month. I totes published it on iTunes too.
1 "Back In Your Head" Tegan and Sara
2 "Mistaken For Strangers" The National
3 "Store Bought Bones" The Raconteurs
4 "Get Myself Into It" The Rapture
5 "Consequence of Sounds" Regina Spektor
6 "Shhhhhh! I'm Listening to Reason" Gatsby's American Dream
7 "My Apologies" The Hush Sound
8 "Heat Dies Down" Kaiser Chiefs
9 "Seaside" The Kooks
10 "October Leaves" The Good Life
Awesome music, heartwrenching music, and thought-provoking music.
current mood:  anxious
current music: Get Myself Into It>The Rapture
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5:48 pm - Craziness
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I can smoke again now without feeling the tar sliding down my raw-from-coughing throat. Yay! :)
In other news, I am feeling so crazy-motivated.
You wouldn't want an angel watching over/Well surprise, surprise they wouldn't want to watch
It snowed/sleeted/rained for approximately 34 seconds today around 2:30. Amazing.
I jsut feel so motived. Possibly creatively? But not like writing something. Which is strange. More like making some obsessively huge and physically taxing art project. Like a giant collage. Like tearing all the movie posters off my wall, and pasting all sorts of other things up there. Or tearing the movie posters apart and putting them back together all rag-tag.
Le Sigh.
It's probably just my brain rebelling against all the research and homework I've been doing lately. Gah!
These streets have too many names for me
My playlist for this month. I totes published it on iTunes too.
1 "Back In Your Head" Tegan and Sara
2 "Mistaken For Strangers" The National
3 "Store Bought Bones" The Raconteurs
4 "Get Myself Into It" The Rapture
5 "Consequence of Sounds" Regina Spektor
6 "Shhhhhh! I'm Listening to Reason" Gatsby's American Dream
7 "My Apologies" The Hush Sound
8 "Heat Dies Down" Kaiser Chiefs
9 "Seaside" The Kooks
10 "October Leaves" The Good Life
Awesome music, heartwrenching music, and thought-provoking music.
current mood: anxious
current music: Get Myself Into It>The Rapture
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| Friday, November 2nd, 2007
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4:32 pm
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Dear Dani,
You asked me what I thought, but I didn't feel like I could tell you. I feel like any opinion I give you is compromised in your mind because of my personal history with him. But here's what I think:
1) I think that he is using you. I think that this is probably the fourth time that you've said, "I just need to not be around him for awhile," and then totally forgiven him less than 24 hours later, as soon as you and he have a "deep talk".
I know that he can be very persuasive. We talked about that, you and me. Isn't ironic that he said he might want to be "couple-y" with you, and in order to really make his decision, he'd need to make out with you for awhile? And isn't it strange that he still hasn't given you his answer?
The problem with this is that you keep going back to him as a friend, a friend who's feelings you don't want to hurt. I know that you feel guilty for being mad at him, even if I don't understand exactly why that is. That's why you give him his time on the soap box. And he can be very sincere. Or, he can SOUND very sincere. How many things has he told you that he later contradicted? Most of them were his Very Sincere Talking Points.
Also, RE: your dates with Dustin. He seems like a nice guy. A little intense sometimes, but you haven't known him long enough to make any concrete descisions. But you are trying to do to him what Tim did to you. You're going to have an open relationship with Tim? Is that fair to Dustin? I mean, those huge hickeys on your neck are kind of hard to miss.
Here is my prediction for your future: You will continue to get screwed over by him again, and again, and again. If you decide to give Dustin a chance, he will end up dumping you, and if you end it with him now, you will end up regreting it. Maybe you'll learn from this mistake. I don't know. All I know is that I will be stuck here, listening to you complain about it till Judgement Day.
current music: Grand Theft Autumn>Fall Out Boy
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| Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
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5:25 pm - The Curse of Michael Myers
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Why Halloween is a scary movie:
Halloween takes something safe and usual and makes it scary. Something that's supposed to be all right and proper. Suburbia. Clean middle-class homes with wall-to-wall carpeting and potted plants. Where the things that are wrong or bad are pushed under the carpet, and everyone is always smiling and happy and keeps their lawn cut and tries to keep to their own business.
Suburbia was originally intended to be a little bit of isolation for everyone, and little country house and a little bit of fields. So you could be alone among everything and everyone, but not really alone. Not the scary kind of alone you get in the country, but not suffocated like you get in the city.
But that's what makes it so scary. Scarier than in the country, where you know it's hopeless that someone will come from the start. You KNOW that someone is just across the hedge. You KNOW that if they came to the window right now, they'd see and get help. But they never do. They never see or hear anything. Because it's not just the isolation of suburbia, it's the attitude of the people living there. They shut their eyes to everything that's not "their" business. They work hard at not noticing the imperfections of the people and situations around them.
Halloween knows how suburbanites think. They know how to manipulate the deep lonliness and fear that comes from living in this place.
It's not technology or the modern age that's killing the good things in humanity little by little. It's suburbia.
And Halloween just makes it a literal killing.
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| Sunday, October 28th, 2007
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3:38 pm - Friday
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Out of the club, fresh air, free air.
Short wall near the bus stop, we avoid eye contact with the cop walking by, then give in to laughter
the alcohol buzzes through our blood
the sweet clove smoke curls upwards
taxis
buses
cars
passing by
bright lights, big city
He explains, and the old ache opens up.
The one perfect person.
And you want it, have wanted, will want. Forever.
Impossible.
Blame him. Blame the drinks. Blame the noise, the cold air. The headiness of irresponsibility.
He denies.
A bus ride, a soda, a birthday toast later.
In the alleyway, there it is again.
You hedge, you invent. You challenge him: kiss me.
It's not a challenge, it's a plea. Does he realize through his haze? Do you realize? It doesn't matter.
And it doesn't matter to you, because it's perfect and drunken and wrong and public.
And doomed.
Because we're both just fucking idiots.
current mood:  confused
current music: Night and Day>The Good Life
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| Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
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1:38 am - This Year
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...has been so different. But not in a bad way. Or, not always in a bad way.
Last year was all new-ness. How much can I drink? Long walks through the city at night and crazy spin-the-bottle and sitting in the lounge watching new movies meeting new people long talks with Vyn and Addie and Dani and watching bad porn and being exasperated with people. Doing schoolwork and not doing schoolwork. Skipping class and roadtrips. A sprained ankle and and taking a hit of sweet smoke and going above the earth to the stars.
Everything was new and shiny. Everyone was amazed by the world and everything in it, and everything we could do.
This summer took it all away for awhile. And I ached for it. Ached so bad I could taste it everytime I went to work. Every time I sat down to dinner with my family. Every time I snuck out of a cigarette at one in the morning.
And we all came back. But we all came back different. Because everything you do changes you, a tiny bit at a time. And three months of tiny changes adds up to a lot. A big change.
So everyone came back, and everyone had expectations. But everyone was different, so the expectations were confused. And so these first weeks have been chaos.
We all swirl around each other in a haze of alcohol and pot and DMX and resentment. And yet we keep connecting in new, surprising ways.
There have been big pits of darkness. Ehson and Dani's fight. Kyle and the now barely-healed cuts on his wrists. Tristan's uncomfortable face as he tells me he doesn't want to date right now.
But there have been so many other moments of brightness. $1.50 subs at Jimmy Johns and the journey around them. April and I having a drunked heart-to-heart. The heartache of Mean Creek and clove cigarettes on the patio. Dani and Tim and happiness. Me opening up to Vyn and her simply accepting the secret without judgment.
Some days I wake up and feel too discouraged to talk to people. But when I'm outside, and I can smell Milwaukee, can hear the sirens at night, take a moment outside the conversation to watch everyone laughing, I know that this will be right.
We're going to make it.
We have to.
current mood:  contemplative
current music: Carry Me Home>The Hush Sound
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| Monday, July 30th, 2007
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8:07 pm - Learning to hate
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Superb political reporter and sometime blogger Rick Perlstein recently posted this:
Shortly before she died, my grandmother—one of the people, naturally, I loved the most in the world—broke my heart. Celia Perlstein, like most of our grandparents, didn’t get out much in her final years; in fact, for the last few years of her life, I’m not sure she got out of her old folks home at all. I don’t think she really wanted to. She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.
I’d look out of her eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?
One evening’s visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O’Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.
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