Thursday, February 14th, 2002
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3:25 pm
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i'm sick and tired of trying to figure out what i'm supposed to be doing with my life. what is the best next move for me and how can i avoid my previous pitfalls of plunging myself into situations that are inevitably worse than where i started from. it makes me just want to sit still and wait for a sign to fall in my lap. i keep thinking that being young i should just be plunging ahead on whatever path strikes my fancy, relishing the adventure and waiting to see what happens next. but i've done that and truthfully i'm starting to feel old. i've jumped without looking and the ground rushes up to greet me a bit faster every time. i'm so scared of making the wrong decision i've reverted to making no decisions. the new job, the old job, stay here, move, college, management...it's all just blurred into one big question mark where i'm sure all the options are just big shiny doors to nothingness and desperation. and i hate valentines day. not that this is a new development. i've hated it for 13 years. but this year the fates have conspired to make it especially cruel. yes, i have a significant other. but what all the books and movies never let you in on is that that is not enough. i don't want a paper heart and candy. i want to know what to do with my life. i want to not be sick, not have a $75 ticket, and have gotten the job that i thought was going to make the past year fall into place. to have something like a plan, something that makes sense and keeps me from drowning myself in lavender vanilla bubble bath. but i don't. and i know that it could be worse. i could have no options at all. but to me it seems that to have options you don't like and can't decide between is worse than having none at all.
current music: cat power, the covers record
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Thursday, January 24th, 2002
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3:10 pm
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our words have been bargains we made with no intention of fulfilling
couched between tile scenes and whispered sunken wetness
and i wonder if 'love' is a word of ownership or promise or simply rhetoric to comfort
pale limbs and difference of opinion
boredom counters the need for coffee in my hands
and in the bedroom or the bathroom or a quiet cold car at midnight
lips dissolve my resolve to look for something more
and i play at the past with an old plaid bathrobe tie and you refuse and quite rightly you think as i cry because i can't remember if i'm supposed to be ashamed or if this is merely catharsis
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Saturday, January 19th, 2002
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4:43 am
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3:06 am
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beer and frost on the car windows and making out in the front seat like teenagers, trying to arrange myself around the parking brake and the gearshift. listening to bad r&b; and unbuttoning your shirt with one hand. not wanting to get out in the cold to walk to my car. trying to rearrange my bra and unlock the car door. and now i'm home and you are at your mother's. the night seems like it's never going to end.
if you spend very little time with each person no one notices that you aren't really saying anything worthwhile. no one notices that the sentences clog themselves at the base of your throat and that your eyes are heavy with all the things you don't say. and the things you want or feel that you never express because then people aren't capable of denying you anything. then you can't be rejected or turned down. i don't even want to think about relinquishing the poker face.
started writing those pathetic paper journal entries that consist primarily of 'fuck this shit' or similarly expressive statements. want you to be able to make it all alright. i want you to be safety and numbers and carry an army in your pocket to defend me from this feeling.
he used to come into my room, blocking the light from the hallway. now it's hard to sleep in half light. sometimes when i've just hardly woken up and my eyes are still scratchy and blurred and i don't know who is touching me and i want to scream but no sound comes out. i used to sleep with someone who would hold their hand over my mouth when i was about to scream. i used to sleep with someone who never even woke up when i was thrashing around. i used to sleep with someone who held me in a cocoon and is now gone. tonight i'm having trouble sleeping and i wish that i could find a way to do it with no one there.
wine in a blue ceramic mug, itchy sweaters, nightmares, sleeping alone, unrequited emotional tangents. this is what little girls are made of. tonight.
current music: i want to kiss like pj harvey sounds.
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Saturday, January 5th, 2002
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5:35 am
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watched 'girl on the bridge' last night. made me wonder, can you hear me when i'm not there, in your head, somewhere inside of you?
my eyes feel itchy and sore. found books in thrift shop because it's cheaper than ones with my discount at work. though the covers look crappy. spent all my money. wondered why we fight so much right before sunset. spent my whole lunch hour reading in my car. got next weekend off. resolved to quit smoking and then lit a cigarette because of the stress of quitting. stayed up all night for no good reason. the bed is cold without you. decided the new year seemed stale.
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4:37 am
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Monday, December 31st, 2001
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7:45 pm
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new years recipe
*one bottle stoli vanil
*one bottle chocolate liqueur
*one shaker
*one bottle pink champagne
*one bottle amaretto
*one box raspberry truffles
*blue velvet; 200 cigarettes; unknown stripper movie
*one new pack cigarettes
*one pair yellow flannel sheep print pj's
*cheese pizza
*violent femmes greatest hits
*bouncy mattress
add girls and shake well. happy new year.
current music: pink, get this party started
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Sunday, December 30th, 2001
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2:36 am
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tonight was not like last night with the peaceful drive home and the rain slicking down my windshield and sprinkling my face through the crack in the window and 'wicked game' on the radio. i want to ask people if they ever feel anything but emptiness. i want to ask them if they ever go home feeling fulfilled. i go home angry but at least i'm not a void. take a shower and wash the stench of drama and shallow interaction from my body, along with the sweat of women i don't know very well and care for less. i want to know why you kiss my cheek and caress my hip as you pass by and don't give a damn about a word out of my mouth. i want to know why i bother. i think it has something to do with dancing and the way i feel with my eyes closed and the music pulsing through my head and my hips twisting in my private rhythm and the absence of everything i hate. and then you push up to me and put your hands on my waist, uninvited, and look past me as you press your body into mine. your hair will brush my arm as you turn and when i see you outside you won't say a word or you will tell me you've been meaning to call and it has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that i'm wearing a slinky red thing and i'm standing next to the right people sucking in nicotine and wishing you felt compelled to say something that proved you knew or cared about more than these two facts.
sometimes you're the only thing that makes it ok. sometimes i come home and i feel so drained and you fill me up. you tell me that even when i'm depressed and hating everyone you will still adore me, you won't care if i chase everyone away and we are inhabiting our own fucking island. you won't care if i refuse to play nice and smile pretty and you won't be angry at me for baring my teeth at her for selling her soul because it's the thing to do. lots of buyers. and you won't care if i scream because people never do what they say they will. because when i pinky swear it means something. but i don't care about any of it. you see me and i glow.
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Friday, December 28th, 2001
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12:51 pm
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saw 'bread and tulips' last night. aside from the fact that my glasses were giving me a headache and so it was hard to keep up with subtitles, i liked it. i like idealistic foreign films. they make me smile. also we had rented 'happiness' and watched it right before so it was a nice change of mood. i like 'happiness' but it sort of depressed me. it just reminded me too much of things and people i'd rather not revisit.
christmas came and went with a minimum of fanfare and i worked the day before and the day after so i sort of just felt like i was trying to fit in holiday cheer between shifts. my dad didn't even send a card. not that i expected it or wanted it, but it hurts just the same. however, i ended up receiving presents from jess and liz and my mom and sister that were far too generous and probably the nicest things i've gotten in years which made the whole thing seem sort of surreal and dreamlike. sometimes i feel like i can't be enough to deserve the care that some people take to make me smile. maybe i do, but it seems like i shouldn't be loved as much as i am sometimes.
and now we're on to plans for new-years. i kind of just want to stay in and have a slumber party but i can't imagine anyone would give up going out to come over and drink wine in my room. i went to the city two years ago and i hated the crowds and the frantic pace of it. and i hate driving in traffic. so this year i think i will just light some candles, rent some movies and cuddle up in blankets and get peacefully drunk. anyone want to come?
i have to be at work in three hours and i am in denial. i keep thinking people can't possibly be this rude and annoying and moronic. and then i go to work and discover i'm wrong. i can't wait till things slow down in january and i can contemplate taking some time off and getting out of here. maybe going home. maybe just driving up the coast or something. i need a break. i used to be so involved in drama and people and things and now i just want things to be quiet. i get scared that someday that is going to change and i'll be here all alone, but for now i just want it to be slow and boring and silent.
current music: mazzy star
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Sunday, December 23rd, 2001
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8:32 pm
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i want hair to hide behind. i want a more enigmatic smile. decoded it means something different than you see. it's like my high school locker room. trying not to stare, convinced everyone can tell i'm thinking something different than i'm supposed to. and i lie. i lie alot. it's not that i mean to or even want to, but when you are that transparent what other choice do you have? because otherwise i feel so naked and emptied. like this hole blown open from the inside and everything comes spilling out for public consumption. i keep thinking that when i'm sleeping some night all my life will somehow be broadcast to an audience of thousands and i will wake up and there i am watching myself up there, my hand between my thighs, horrified that everyone knows what my face looks like when i touch myself. watching the reactions to my thoughts and the truth of all the things i told you all to keep you out.
most of the time i duck my head to keep the blushes or tell-tale smiles from view. i am convinced you can see how badly i want this or that. i am determined that i will tell enough conflicting stories to keep you from knowing how much each little thing means. i guess it works to a degree. i've managed to confuse myself. walking this thin razor line between my real reaction and the desired one. wanting not to upset the balance. it makes me want to dye my hair and wear big dark sunglasses to hide from this inability to distinguish between what i want and what i've presumed is the correct thing for me to want. wanting desperately to be found and yet expending copious amounts of energy to hide myself. i want each smile, each straining tendon to mean as much to you as it does to me. i want to be able to look you full in the face without feeling ridiculous. i feel like a psycho killer. i'm plotting your demise with each footfall, i'm planning to molest you behind the lockers, i'm planning to want more than you're prepared to give. but it's none of these. it's so simple it seems sinister. i want you to like me.
current music: aimee mann
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Monday, December 17th, 2001
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10:46 pm
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my body is rebellious and angry. every inch of me feels far off and cottony pain. painkillers and alcohol and the pain that started it, all balled up. outside it's like driving in bathroom steam without the blessing of heat. i roll my head on the headrest and let my vision fade into the fog. i feel all my reactions from far off, like watching a shockwave from miles away, lighting the horizon but it still seems too far off to move. moving like sleepwalking and regretting the multiple cups of coffee and alcohol which seem to be creating a unique sort of havoc in my stomach. i'm so stupid sometimes.
we put little white christmas lights in the window and the room has sort of a non-flickering candle feel. i think we should keep them up year round and forgo regular lighting. called my sister, it was good to hear her still breathing the same in spite of her distasteful politics. my throat gets sore imagining all the screaming that we don't do anymore. i love her small hands so like my own that are so determined to create a world of jam-hands and china patterns. it's like parts of my mother were floating inside her and i got her need for conflict and she got the need for peace. when we hug we make a distorted portrait of her.
days seem like years lately. dragging all this shit around from mind-set to setting. sometimes i wish you would just reach inside of me like a wasted pinata and see what you could pull out. see if there's anything left worth consuming.
current music: i'm on fire
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Friday, December 14th, 2001
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12:22 am
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i've been wanting to write, running out of time, writing in a paper journal, feeling awkward with the pen in my hand, and being unable to shake feelings that hang around for days. it's hard to write when i can't define it. i have to have something coherent to say. for my own peace of mind or just because i feel like that's how its supposed to be. i've just had that middle of the night, cold, waking from a nightmare feeling. there doesn't seem to be any way to snap out of it. i smile when i should, i laugh when it's expected, but i fear being alone. driving, sitting, walking through the mall feeling glazed over, any lack of personal noise. i like to watch freight trains. moving through the early darkening sky, they drown out everything.
i've been watching too many movies and falling into plot-lines that aren't mine. it's an easy tendency to want to be the favorite child, or the bravest, and i am neither. most of us aren't, but we stay alive by hoping that someday someone will believe us to be. that we will be living a truth bigger than ourselves and we are crushed to realize that more often than not, the biggest event of the day is making it through another one and brushing our teeth regularly. though i still hold up the hope of someday being the dangerous angel who made everything different. the turning point in my own life or someone else's. sometimes i curse your lack of feeling and artistry, i wanted to be a muse. i don't know. i want to be able to explain myself to myself. but in truth i am probably less of a mystery to the average bystander. pathetic, really, to be drowning in this lack of objectivity.
you really should watch 'lost and delirious' and 'mulholland drive' though.
current music: cat power, wonderwall
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Thursday, December 13th, 2001
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11:26 pm
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sometimes
even after the movie ends
i keep watching the screen
the blackness fading into static
hoping for an alternate ending
maybe just a voice
telling me it'll all be alright
i can't let go of the possibility
that if i let it roll on long enough
everything will be different.
current music: ani difranco, you had time
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Sunday, December 9th, 2001
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1:06 am
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how did i not know about the elliott smith show until some stupid boy came into my work bought a really bad book and asked me if was going cause i'm wearing my shirt? today just gets better and better.
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Friday, December 7th, 2001
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1:13 am
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mother
it's winter
and i have a hole in my slippers
the ones i forgot to ask her to fix last time
the stuffing peeking out as i walk
wandering from room to room
testing light-switches
to see if light can give me the illusion of warmth.
some days i try watching
the travel channel
for tropical beaches
until they segue into ski conditions
which just makes me long for some snow
to go with my cold feet.
i don't think it's normal
or maybe simply not preferable
to have christmas without real snowmen
though somehow
the plastic light-up nativity scenes
look right at home on green leaf-littered lawns
alongside carved lawn gnomes
both seem mythical,
out-of-place,
falsely hopeful,
and prone to street theft...
for whatever reason.
i have to remind myself that it means something to the inhabitants
these plastic idols
and i am forced to respect the fact that she never went in for such things
though all that means something to her just the same
more inspirational i'd imagine
lawn decor being far too crass a way to express beliefs.
i've forgotten inspiration over the years
and i fear that by the time i rediscover the need to ask where she found it
she'll be gone
taking my memories of snowmen and all the answers about tax forms and life and god
with her
all i can do at this point, i guess
is buy us matching slippers.
bridge the distance with something
anything
to forestall
inevitable endings
and the gathering cold.
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Wednesday, December 5th, 2001
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2:03 am
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i saw am?lie tonight. finally. i smiled all the way home and then went to the store and bought wine and raspberry chocolate to enhance my mood. there should be more movies like that.
lately, i have been having these attacks of memory. where i get stuck in thinking about the past and am unable to be satisfied with anything here. i want to not think like that but it's been so hard. i keep seeing things that spark something and i fear i am making the people around me completely weary of hearing about how here is not like there. which of course it could never be. and there probably wasn't much good at the time but in retrospect of course it is where i wish i was. maybe i am just scared of moving forward and so i want to go back to familiar landscapes. maybe i really do miss it. maybe this path is played out for me and there is no further i can go. i don't know anymore. all i know is i keep thinking of faces and places and feeling this deep pang of longing and regret. but maybe leaving here would be the same. things left unfinished, unsaid, undone...that i would always regret not completing. maybe there is no way for things to tie up neatly. maybe i am just a victim of a sitcom upbringing and i keep expecting a solution and a conclusion. which i will never have. as this is real life (or so they tell me) and things don't always work out. i just want to stop this missing. this wanting for things gone.
current music: aimee mann
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Sunday, December 2nd, 2001
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2:24 am
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i need to buy a lighter. all i have are matches and it's hard to light your cigarette with matches in the rain. grey days and rainstorms and all i want to do is stay in bed and stare at the treetops and listen to sad music. instead i go to work and want to smash this thing inside of me that makes it hard to talk to people. i seem incapable of talking sometimes. and when i do the words come out awkward and forced sounding. like i rehearsed them in my head. which i sometimes do. and it still doesn't come out the way i want it to. i feel neon. garish and ugly and overdone. without ever opening my mouth i become a caricature. i try. i went out with people from work tonight after closing. and i stared at my body in the plate glass window and i wondered who i was. and why my posture looked so strange. i was trying to watch myself from a distance and i got all twisted. how do you become easy over a maple donut? i don't know how to become the me i feel when i'm in the bathtub, my fingers sliding over my body. sure and purposeful. my thoughts fluid strands. my skin fitting properly. why can't i think of how to make it all come out right when it matters? i need a script to for-stall further public erosion. i need less room for mistakes. sometimes things as simple as talking are too fucking hard.
current music: red house painters, songs for a blue guitar
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Tuesday, November 27th, 2001
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12:55 am
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too many ghosts in the walls. the balls keep changing shape on the table and all i can think of are ani lyrics. sometimes my memory plays tricks on me where i can only remember the good times and i have to thank my lucky stars that some of you are still around reminding me of why we aren't all together anymore. because otherwise i'd be standing in the bathroom staring into the smeared mirror, listening to the bad jukebox music and the clack of the cue ball finding it's mark and wondering why my eyes look so different and why things changed. but they have and it has nothing to do with whose arm i am walking through the neon-lit door on, it's inside and not always easy to see. i try to remember things as they were. sometimes though, i see one of their cars and i want to follow it, the way we followed hot-air balloons when i was little, to the end. but unlike that there is no end where everything gets broken down and i finally understand. because people are more like following a rainbow, you can drive and drive and never understand why it ends just where it does. just that it does.
in the back room there's a lamp
that hangs over the pool table
and when the fan is on it swings
gently side to side
there's a changing constellation
of balls as we are playing
i see orion and say nothing
the only thing i can think of saying
is fuck you...
yeah. sometimes i miss you all.
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Monday, November 26th, 2001
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12:53 am
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i still remember you standing in halls, sitting on washing machines, crying over nothing. long after you've forgotten the little details. but the cold in my bones reminds me of every cup of coffee i ever warmed my hands over. i don't remember the same way you do. with come-hither details and grainy black and white romanticisms. i remember my frozen hands and the stress over the next words out of my mouth and the worry over practical details. i'm still here. somewhere. though maybe not where you left me, exactly. still breathing. concentrating on the in and out of it.
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Thursday, November 22nd, 2001
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5:37 pm
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your shirt when you hug me feels like clean soft white sheets. it makes me sleepy. family days without any family feel surreal. however, there will always be sports on tv and too loud children. i ran to the store to buy another bottle of wine. to take the edge off. i think i am mostly thankful that no one here tries to pretend that things are that much different than any other day.
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