year after year what we do is undone

we took pictures with a disposable camera i still haven't developed. after corn kernels in indiana and eating midwest steaks and clinking glasses of not-milk, my mom and i parted ways in omaha after seeing my grandfather and my grandmother one last time before she died from smoking too many cigarettes in the kitchen.
when i pulled into the small wyoming town, it was cold and windy and i wore a black hat and one glove because my '91 honda accord had eaten the other one. there was a christmas tree lighting ceremony that night and my new roommate and photographer at the paper i was about to begin working for ate cookies with me and her dog sadie jumped all over me. we went to faler's and as i walked past the rows of animal heads staring with proud eyes, i bought coffee even though i never drank coffee. it was beer and coffee that night and what do you want in life? and i said this. i think this. snow and wind and the largeness-lostness of it all. van morrison in the kitchen and who do you think you'll be in your next life? me, maybe someone by a campfire, always.

i've spilled the wine

it's all pseudo tequila shots here, here in the dark damp torn corners of a sort-of island. we left for a week, and when we came back, the yellow leaves had all fallen and i can't stop listening to nina simone. what do you say when someone you don't love tells you they love you? something like : this is life, all feet out of windows and chewed up pens. and i'm sorry it can never be you and me.
writing about shitty health care systems, i momentarily like my job. then i lapse back into apathy and wonder when i'll get the energy to start seriously looking in brooklyn. i'm lackluster even about that. what is it about alaska that pulls me? it's the need for the unknown, for people with torn sweaters, for the lack of pretention and the dustdustdust. then you can say, who's that girl flinging kernels of mud into her hair? and i'll say, oh just me.
it's the need to wake up and say, today, today the world hasn't disappointed me. today i remember where i am, and i like it.

november under lamplight

I'm sorry blogspot, I've ignored you. These posts are from another place I've dug for myself on the Internet. They obviously weren't all written today but over the last couple months.

doing shots of journalismjobs.com

I find that age-old obsession washing over me yet again : Leaving with the big L.
When I was four and living in Virginia for the first time since we moved to Buenos Aires, it was all I could do from finger the cold windowpane in my Charlottesville room and dream of Argentinian zoos and my friend's house where I had traded my all-time favorite animal for some beany butt doll I eyed warily and grew to hate.
Once we moved to Pennsylvania, I was happy with the nearby park but often made up songs about China and Japan and told my parents they could not say good night to me because, alas, though they thought I was merely a lump under my comforter, I was actually thousands of miles away in Shanghai. (Somehow, at age five, I actually knew of Shanghai.)
I've dreamed of Maine, Morocco, Algiers, Russia, Ghana, India. And so the story goes.
Now it's Alaska. I routinely check journalismjobs.com and recently found a posting for a writer/editor position at the Anchorage Press, an alternative weekly. I've spent a good chunk of time today devouring their articles and can list what to do and what not to do during an Alaskan winter : take walks, spend time with friends, buy a sun lamp, don't camp out in front of the television. I nod, as though I have any idea of what they're talking about, feign a shiver and dig my seventh-grade flannel out from the depths of the closet. (Yes, it still fits, along with my converse - you know, those shoes that once upon a time weren't made in sweatshop basements.)
(Side note : My husband is watching "Buffy the vampire something or other Slayer" and I keep getting horrific flashbacks of friends forcing me to watch Dawson's Creek.)
Anyway, I'll keep dreaming. But I know if I really was in Alaska, I'd be moping in some bar, going home by myself and counting the days until I got to see the person I love more than anything in the world again. So, I'll just have to wait until we can be those annoying newcomers chomping at the bit to explore the last bit of the Final Frontier together. Until then, Google images and Journalismjobs will have to suffice.

a survival guide : laughter

Everything I write today, I erase. Here is yet another attempt:

When I talked to her, she told me to come back. I said don't tempt me. I miss feeling like I belong. I miss being surrounded by people I love.

I said : Is that normal? To feel like you don't belong?
She said : There's no such thing as normal. But you're not normal, and you don't belong somewhere that makes you question if you are. Or what you do is.
I said : I know.
She said : I miss your laugh.

So I laughed. And I meant it. I laughed; she laughed; we laughed.

I laugh here too. And sometimes it's genuine. And sometimes it's for survival.

it's all candles and gingham here, little light

i worry i may be too old-souled for blogging. am i supposed to write more coherent entries that address daily issues? because that's what i do for a living, and i don't want to do that in my spare time. so there you go, non-existent blog readers - you will be receiving no doses of reality from this girl.
well, maybe just a little:
i'm obsessing over alaska. i browse journalismjobs.com daily for jobs in alaska, then proceed to spend way too much time googling images of alaska. i am convinced i will end up there, complete with candles in my windows and grungy checkered table cloths.
will this be me, my entire life? chasing some combination of myself from the past and conceived notions of the future until i wilt somewhere in the middle?
on a lighter note, my ex and i have been exchanging e-mails and it's nice to know we can have a functional friendship after having an extremely fucked up relationship.
or was that all in my head? were we normal, swinging on tree branches and writing love notes in women's studies classes? when did those alleged battles happen?

my legacy in dust

today: hopefully Into the Wild, rum and coke with little to no backwash, New York Times, wishing there were SCHIP-veto protests here, sad bartenders and not enough calls back to write my articles.
this weekend: some sort of quasi-meat party, forcing myself to pound kitchen tables, dancingdancingdancing in the nude, ghost busters outfits/maybeevenpainting??, library movies, some sort of zygote of a novel, remember i breathe too so maybe i am normal?
the future: alaska in real life instead of the movies, becoming not a citizen, enfants and picnics combined, growing old and laughter.

excuse me sir, you've lost your vegan cheesesteak

i measure time in letters about first loves and red sweaters, the worn-down soap, in messy beginnings of ends. i do not measure time in yarn, seconds or furrowed eyebrows.
have i changed since i graduated from college three years ago? certainly i've had more conversations over vegan cheesesteaks, more fireflies have been caught and let go. but have i changed? have i grown more cautious? three years ago, i hopped in my car and drove across the country to a town of 1200, where the mountains were always within sight and i didn't finger the windowpane, i flew.
these days, i dance. we dance. Pavement plays in the living room and the wind swings my arms back and forth. but i've got to piece my wings back together again. i've got to smash fists through windows and land gracefully in the grass.

this is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper

friday, my leg tingles. it freezes up and i hit it because i believe it's grown numb, but the sparks shock me and make their way to my heart. my heart, it's supposed to pump something like 6800 litres of blood a day, but mine disappears to climb trees and watches the day end in somebody else's body. like everyone else, i'm too late when i discover it's gone.
(...would you change...?)
i think in parentheses and ellipses; i always have. i once labored over letters and spent an average of seven hours per mixed tape.
i'm beginning to believe fluidity, in all its enigma and beauty and sadness, is one of life's few constants. when do you discover the others?

i am hoping in one or two years, i will need to pass a few minutes in an internet cafe somewhere i've not yet seen, and i'll re-read this. and i'll smile, as i often did in morocco - unless, of course, when i realized Dubyah was effing destroying the world.
asdlkrjaewiojulkzjdaoieruailerkjaklwerjelakwjraes.
i cannot CANNOT wait for that man to be tried as a war criminal.

where did all the indirect objects come from?

Sometimes, my silence is a scream. The blue light filters through the air; I stare while others think I laugh.
I once fingered gingham, believing I would return to where air not arrogance is breathed and passive voice is not a term. what exactly is the difference between I had thought and I thought? Is the past so necessary that we must fragment that as well?
What do I do here? How do I learn, all over again, to live? Is it melodrama when you really feel you cannot breath; when you really do not understand most people around you? Or is that merely your own reality and you have to find some way to make it merge with others? Has mine ever merged with others?
There are moments when I'm pretty sure it has : in the back of a car, driving around Fremont Lake. With fingers intertwined, discussing the life of balloons. Waking with a smile, forgetting, momentarily, that we live in a place with curtains and wood that's slowly rotting.