At your request, some of my writing is back.  Before I get mail: These are in no order. They have little structure (if any).  I don't care about punctuation (or lack there of).  I try to update once a week, so anything I add I'll put it up at, or near the top of the list...this doesn't mean its new.  I have 37 notebooks filled with this bullshit.  Please don't bother asking when these were written and who I was writing about, those details are mine. You can read now if you'd like to. 

Cafe

You asked me to meet you,
and I did.

I sat down with no greeting.
You just started to rattle.

Thumb against cup.
Knee against table.
Words against wall.

Blathering on about Willie Nelson,
and Tibet
and how you've got all the answers.

Somehow in your 30-some years
you
have become all-knowing
and we are
cha cha
the fools
who know nothing.

I didn't speak.

not
one
word

Breathing hard, blowing smoke in my face you asked me endless questions.
You answered them all yourself.

You only stopped to hear what song was on...

I know why you stopped,
I know why you stopped.



Like then,

there

that date you had with a short story...
I want to see moments like that
and say nothing
just write about your face
as you sit there fingering the words
as you let them warp you,
let them turn you into a capsule

you are more beautiful than she lets you be

I wonder how her eyes look when she sees you
I wonder if she sees you at all

you are blasting fucking neon to me

I like how I look in your eyes
honest
because
with you I have no choice

there's no hiding with you
there's no need to save face.

l

I hear the sounds sneaking up
and then the rain comes in to blow me away.

The new book is like a bullet.
It's him. It's always been him.
...and he said
"white not red".

...and he said
"the jealousy rips into me as she is living what she lost"
Forced the sinking into the crumpled sheets
and into his slumber, deep.

I lay awake
and learn by mistake.
If I jump everything changes,
and I think it was better when you were a ghost.

Because now, I hang
on every word you do not say.

ll

The keys can give me a voice,
the strings, always deliberate.

The sounds blend me into fiction,
into the ideas of maybe.
I can recognize the charisma,
remember who I was...remember the way you touched my face.
Remember the night you sang only for me?
It was over too fast, so I asked you to sing, again.
Separating the vowels and dismembering the past,
Tongue licking lips and a jaw devouring words like magic.

Right then, I caught a glimpse of who I wanted to be in your eyes.

Lines like knives into flesh, like hooks into cotton,
and it was too late for me.

I was next and had no idea.

Accused me of setting the room on fire with my hair,
that I could burn down the field behind you.

Thinking about it now, old wounds begin to bleed again.
These temporary cuts makes me want to crawl inside myself and die.

I'm out to get myself tonight.
We do this alone.
We dig deep when the day becomes silent,
when the world explodes into black.

lll

If you're searching for amnesty, it isn't here.

Fragile Night

Lost in ideas, in questions that I've never considered.
The wind is whipping up sounds that seem like raindrops
and my eyes are ink-black and heavy.

I'm letting gravity win tonight.
I'm letting your words get to me like you want me to.
You always have a plan.

Sometimes you ask too much of me,
and I always ask too much of you.
Watch me wait forever.

Grabbing my face with a sentence,
Vowels twisting into fists.
You want to break me.
Want to walk me into water up to my lips.
It would be so easy to take a breath,
or one too many.

Implying that you knew all along.
You don't know me like you think you do.
and I cant do this anymore.

I cant get over what this isn't,
what it never was.

Talking, sinking lazy in our metaphors.
It's comfort that you can never compete with.
It's friendship and loyalty
you are not capable of those.

He called me incorrigible...he thinks I'm defective.
The sun is rising again and all the art has died.



Sometimes

plan B
makes
plan A
look like a lying drunk.

Nonetheless,
sometimes
I miss plan A.



beautiful ideas of littering

He told me to

"Make a paper airplane and throw it out your window."
"Make another one."

One Pin Holds Together the World

To kiss a wrist,
to bend a heart,
to empty out the dirt.

I think together we could crush it,
I think we could take it all the way to right
and leave it behind, because nothing really matters anyway.

We can do the things together that we're too afraid to do alone.

You said you really liked the rhythm of my words...

no one ever finds the rhythm,
they only find critique.

"The words don't rhyme."
They just don't get it.
 

 
Tea Time

Missing the rainbow cakes and the late night tea breaks....
I miss how you used to fight for causes that you cared about.

...and I write to know,
and I write to no one.

No one who matters will ever care enough to read this.
 
 

Making Everything Else Ugly

You were kissing me at this moment, one year ago.

Thinking in layers of soft amber,
of melting teal of lavender.

I know. It was once.
You are alone in your world and I am detached.

She isn't good, she isn't deserving.

You're so far...

I miss your smell, your taste
Your fragile eyes
Your soft and tricky fragile eyes.

You are it.

No matter where my life goes,
no matter what I abandon, you are constant.

You will be my last thought...
I hate it, but its true.

One vision of you and I alone on a sofa
When I'm 98 I will think of that night.


 
He said its like you wrote that song about us

He's trying to be you...
trying to fold himself up,
trying to fit into that scuffed up zip lock bag
trying to melt himself down to be one of those picks.

In your hands...if only in your hands.

 

Fabric on a Wall

You there, liking that twall...
I think about that the most
when you were slicing your watermelon all wrong

It tastes just like a nightmare might

You said:
 "One day our walls will be covered in twall".

I have always hated twall...even more now.
It's too busy
like your mind (and mine).

that was then

Now, I'm trying to convince these thoughts to stop.
I'm trying to understand
your new plans...your new obligation.

I don't know how to handle this yet.

So I went just now,
drove to the spot to  do what you said we would.

I took deeper breaths than I wanted to,
but I didn't cry at all.

I told the landscape that she was pretty--
because I'd bet its been a long time since she's heard that.

You promised me,
one day
to photograph the broken together.

You and I alone with the machines.

Instead,
soon your baby.

 
 
Fall is Here and You are Gone

Like an angry tree ready to snap,
ready to let go of the brittleness.
Tonight was my limit.

Your words are still mocking me,
I look at this hole in my chest
this port that just disgusts you.

How impossible for you to care about
this caravan of tubes...
that leads medicine to heal.

How can you be so callous?
You said, you cant encourage the storm...
That was for the best.

Here I sit pretending to be sleeping,
yet I write all night.
I try to solve this.

I cant forgive the meanings,
I wrestle with the questions.
This Cancer is dissolving...and so are we.

 
Oh Shit

Do you want me to fall in love with you?
Because, that's exactly what I'm doing.
 
 
We

Eyes imploding, becoming dim.
You, there with cameras for hands.
You always know how to trick me.

My eyes are done lying, now.
My heart is done breaking.
I've finished hiding from what I need.

Your intentions,
held like a glass hand grenade
ready to ruin.

All I want is to go back in time with you...
to act when we should have.

To lick the words from your mouth,
finally make some sense of this.

Surrounded by foam and emptied out.
So weak, unguarded.

Only one more thing to do.
 

 
Tossing out Ideas

Thinking about your litter art.
I wish I could've seen you on the train.
Maybe I did.
Leaving bits of paper all over the city...

Your face could remain a void,
as long as I can hear your thoughts.

Sketching traces of blue pencil softly, slowly
branding into my skin.

Somehow, the sky is falling slower now...
in pixels
in ideas
in wings being bent so close to their break.

I am soaked;
covered in what I want
I just cant get to it yet.

 
 
Lilac Scent in my backyard.

We talked for three hours tonight.
(like old times)

I was driving so recklessly today.
I didn't go off the road, but my mind was everywhere.
I wanted to pull over and write 700 things down.
Thoughts flowing fast again.

My writing is changing.
Synesthesia is pouring over into my thoughts.
I'm seeing color everywhere
and
I'm starting to smell the letters.

I'm seeing yellow and orange_
Smelling smoke and cherries
and
it's all your fault.

Struggle causes the words to bleed out...
they start to live and molt.

Unresolved, maybe forever
but discussed so beautifully.

Sitting on a sofa damp with raindrops...
your cigarette the only light

"I do love you."
"and I love you."

So thank you for this...this hollow...

I really believe that art in any form is created out of agony.
feeling so desperate
and eager to be rejected, even....
so long as it is recognized.

I guess that is why I'm showing you.
I know we're making the choice we need to, but
still
I'm showing you.
 

 
New Yes

...and the moon is killing me tonight.
Knowing that if you just look up, right now, we can see the same thing.

I keep trying to get closer to it...
like if I think hard enough I can make it there.

The margins are blurring now.
Our still faces changing into real life.

Circle sponges cover my eyes.
Pressed in, leveling me...turning me into mist.

...and to think, a pause could make me want you.
a deliberate space for me to think of all the possibilities.

Where have you been all my life?
It's nice to finally meet someone who likes ellipses as much as I do.



The Chain Just Fell Off

In the tiniest of vases, you placed a piece of heather.
I hate you for that memory.
You destroyed the purest thing I've ever known.
You took away the question, you ruined my eyes that night.
Your mouth is a liar, your mouth is a killer.
Standing crying, watching you leave. It kills me still.
You walked away from me.
I can only write about you. That's how I know.
You think you have all the power and you're right.
I would drop my entire life for you, right now.
I would give it all up for you.    



Love and Loss Insomnia's Bitch

I wish I had a room full of globes,
The answer has to be in there.
I should be asleep, but the poison is makin' the rounds.
Why cant it be simpler? So alone, with what I know.
I love you... but loving you has never been allowed.
I want to know all your secrets, and I've never wanted that.
I change my mind.... I've decided that I want you to keep your distance...
I don't miss any of the things I said I have.    
 

 A Very Distinct Jump

Sacrificing so much to stay on the map...
I wish I were there right now.

To draw your mouth,
to watch you paint.

The colors wash over me,
brush filled thick with pigment.

You still manage to be invisible.
You still manage to let me to settle into calm...

A calm that somehow burns the night away.
A soft, constant heat that does more good than damage.

Who can control a fire?
Right now, you.
 
 

Tonight

I think about the obscurity that you worry about.
I think about the lies you tell to stay at the top.

Numbers you can trust,
but words, they can turn on you.

Your lies have cut through me like the night.
I'm cold and lost and I cant recover yet.

Fall down into the ice and just surrender...

I don't want to learn this one,
this lesson is breaking me down.

New life is starting right now...
New people to fill the void.

To cover up your pain,
to pretend away your sadness.
 

 
foreshadowing

we are scenes filled with yellow umbrellas

of fake blood
of life and friendship
of faster death
of sunflowers
of eyes

those eyes
the blue is blinding
going...going...gone down on me like hands on a piano
and the masonry
the ideals

you work, work, work.
 

 
Talking

to the tallest,
and the shortest of
the dignity.
the thinnest, the thinnest.

We talk of refusal,
of punishment.

Internal resistance,
insisting we can...

we will,
see what we're made of.

I can outlast you.

Lick the swift
and somehow we will become grace.

He is the alcohol,
me the drinker.

It wont end if we try,
the love wont go anywhere.
 

 
Strut

All I want is to watch you.
I want to write your history down,
fast
furiously to make sure that its all there.

(don't worry you can count it later)

You can count
that
to someday be your echo is all I need.
To be muted,
while you preen.

You are the faulty showmen,
the stressed out captivator.
You don't know your magnetism.
You don't know
that I want to inhale you.
 
 

That Doorway

When I'm gone and dead,
when the white melts in red--
You will be thinking of tonight
of what just happened.

When batons aren't moving anymore,
and the mallets have all stopped
When time becomes liquid,
it will all be so effortless.

When you wont need to drink,
when babies are grown,
and traitors are clothed,
and you are free of this...

Like puking
to rid my mouth
to rid my mind
to see this fucking mess through

I've only been sleeping two hours,
I woke up from the chemo that you don't know about.
The room began to swirl,
to spin like your web.

Spin my illness out,
Kick it back to hell.
Your mouth on my mouth,
I felt stronger than I am.

Muscle over body making me stiff,
weaving truth all over my tongue.
Your stupid mouth,
your stupid mouth.
 

 
dove face

You cant call me sunshine anymore.
Never again.

We are not together.
We are restless in choice.
We are becoming strangers.
We cant breathe here.
We have to take a break.

I just can't know you in the fall.

Our anniversary needs to be spent apart.
How is October ours?
How can any October be fruitless?
You took away my time.
and
Your gaudy red candles look like ugly chickens
next to my white doves.
 

 
your torn jeans

Prolific song says

"You are full of words all of the sudden...you should be a writer one day.
and you should never cut that hair off--it just might be your magic."

(profound smiles follow)

Your magic is in those jeans,
the pair that's ripped from the bottom up.

that pair you wore...
when I met your Mother.

when you felt so good
when we went shopping for a sled

(who the hell buys a toboggan in June?)

Someone with plans for the future.
always planning
always thinking ahead

To do:

buy socks
don't read mail
show
write
read
shower
sleep
fuck
write
fuck
don't shower
show
sleep
fuck
buy needless toboggan

(a life less melancholy with more sledding)

I know running.
I know that high.
I know that fear that keeps it pulsing.

Question grips in and somehow maintains the sinew--
for all it has left.

one
more
run

I will outrun my tumors.
See, see.  C.C.
Just for you I will shed them all.
Cancer and otherwise.

This sled will wash the mold out.
It will bring us together before we die.
This sled can force love. 
Real,
not just settling love.

I can never be what you need.
I am never going to be a wife.
I am never going to expect anything.

Why do you need me to expect something?

"Expect new things to happen."

What is so wrong with the present?

next level.
next level.

Maybe you want it so badly because I don't.
 

 
I was supposed to be

I was supposed to be nervous walking up to you
or star struck.

I wasn't.

Your eyes made it easy.
Your eyes were in it immediately.
Standing long, we were shivering.

Our friends wouldn't stop making noise.
You pointed with your head
...rolled your eyes. 

Smiling at me,
you said "Where can we go to get some coffee"?

What a line.
 

 
Sitting in an Empty Bathtub

Knees knocking together,
thinking about how much I loved you

and how it's over now.
I wonder how long you can wait now.

How many months will it be this time before you miss me.
You can do what you want, but this time I wont react.

I miss you.
Right now, I miss you.

but I don't need you like I thought I did.
I'm better off now.
 

 
Crumbling

I watched the bronze melting down what used to mean everything to me.
The only thing that has ever mattered to me...

Tried forgetting for a moment that you lied.
That you gave up.

I wasn't done trying
and
now this fucking cliff is mocking me.
It's forcing me to forget you.

Falling fast and learning as I go
that
to try to hold onto shale is impossible.
 
 

Nest

and I love the way you grab my hip,
as the cutest words escape your lips.

"We are energy."

Eating licorice in the morning,
watching your teeth turn blue.
Couldn't find the asterisks last night.
Looked hard,
looked like in the 4th grade when I lost my shoes.

I whispered to you:
"I'd give anything to have one more day with my jelly shoes,
the
gooold ones".

You yelled back:
"Stay the hell away from me if you're wearing those golden rainbow shoes!
and someone,
please
for the love
of
god
make me a freaking shark cake!"

Twang you are.
South
you are.

Always yelling you are
...always shaking,
Your own shifting sand-castle island retreat.

I've never known anyone like you. 
You stink.  You lie. You make me write poorly. 

We argue the prettiest
faces
jazz
oil on canvas
hand on clay

On some level everything is beautiful,
even ballet in an empty pool.
 

 
roses and v.w.

I woke up at again at 3:30 am. 
Even when I think I've got it beat...
Insomnia shows me who's boss.

You're far from here.  I haven't seen you in weeks.

I got your stupid roses.
I got your bullshit card.

I read your gorgeous letters.
(all fucking four)
I was going to wait to get two more--
(you know, you know)

and you wrote "You're so sensitive to cyan."
and you wrote "My eyes only see magenta."

You want to force me to see something else
but I assure you
to pretend this doesn't bother me is more tricky than you think.

There are things that need to be spoken.
"I love you and I want to kiss your giant strawberry, again."

I'm half assed in this sentence, in this paragraph of words.
My bones becoming more brittle as I type.
and my mind still "hates your stinking guts"

to ask me of my future is just mean.
you made me watch.
I saw you lie on the grandest of stages.
to prove what?

I want to start making soap carvings,
to try to forget you.
That'll teach you...
small replicas of your mistakes.

and you wrote "Everything you see, someone else ignores."
I read it over and over.
I cried,
I hoped stupidly for the unknown.

I can stop thinking about it,
any time I want.
Like you,
I will just pretend to be clean.

Maybe I will marry for real on paper,
maybe I will marry for show.
Like you,
I will just pretend to be faithful.

She loves you more than you love her,
what a romantic union you have.
She's holding on so tightly,
because she knows how loose your canon is.

She wants fame so badly,
your ways are worth it to her.
She wants to be in the papers,
not the pages of your books.
 
You want to be in the papers.
You are everything you pretend to hate.



a coastline is a fractal

If a coastline is a fractal,
you are a parallelogram.

If you think my heart is right for you,
you need to let it breathe.

I need space to understand why I am this way. 
Why no one can make me feel at ease.

I don't live like you do. 
I cant recharge after one minute alone.

You fake it so well.
Pretend to be so isolated.
You are the definition of social.
Lie number one.

You need to let me be honest
because
I've been having some troubles with that shit.

I hurt us.
Him and I.

Lie number one.

You don't like when I tell you the truth.
My guts are burning with this one.
 
You "wanna make it better",
want me to "push his memory away."

You "wanna hold me close, wanna give up smokes"?

Prove it.

If a coastline is a fractal that goes on and on and on...then let it.
Let it heal me and recharge me in my own time.

I have made you crazy. 
I have made you desperate.

You have asked me to ruin everything in my life to prove
that I don't want you_
that I didn't need you instantly.

Rest easy,
I will always be your fool.

You scare me more than anything. 
You are a shifty rock.

I am a shifty rock beside you...
on this coastline of perfection, we are fuck ups together.
 

 
Wait

I waited while you talked to the sales guy
asking the specifics

I waited,
classifying the sounds of a thousand miles.

waiting is all I do

"Wait
your tumor might just get gone."
"get going
gone."

I wait for you to finally give up,
to just
stop loving me.

It is always the same.
 

 
Hypergraphia

Gasping, gushing thick,
like the blood of who we used to be.
Gobs of words that I wish made me feel better.
I write so much that I need water.

I have become inept in the grips of hypergraphia,
of learn, of learn it.

of always
"Jan
give it
one more chance
to start up again.
It will."

"No matter now."
 
Handwriting scrawls that just have to be coming from some else's mind,
it cannot be mine...no matter now.
 

 
"I just cant watch you fade away."

Well, fuck you and your ugliness.
I don't need you.
You blow around like dust anyway.
Sliding your poisonous pen across my eyes.
Took away my sight, brought all the darkness in.
Needle was ready to play,
to kill.

I am your shrinking daffodil.
Withering, wasting down to 6 stone.
I just can't get it together.
Your face is everywhere.
Your marriage.
You have ruined me.

Can you take that chicken sculpture before I rip it's fucking head off?
 

 
I don't like Polaroids like every other asshole in the World

I have paper in my teeth,
I can feel the indents in the corners of my mouth.
(this close to cutting)

Ink was spilled and nothing was safe.
Nothing makes sense right now

and
I want to go back,
I want to live through your guitar,
and
I am not ashamed.

I think about you falling asleep on the flight home...
those were our last moments.

You said
"What if we crash and burn?"
I suppose we did.

You called today and waxed my voicemail.
Told it how very lonely you were.
You aren't alone....even though I didn't answer.
You are never alone.
 
 

Page after

It keeps sliding out.
He's sitting there listening.
He knows we're a sham.
but
He wont ever leave.
and
he knows you're right
and
he knows you're lingering in here.
What fruit could calculate?
What fragrance could divide?
If summer makes us friendly?
What will winter mean?
 
 

Spell-check, a dunk's best friend.

I said goodnight,
but here I sit.
clean
fresh
for telling you the truth.
that no matter when it ends
I will love you in the ways that I do.
I couldn't let it go without you knowing.

It is 342 (my time)
I made another drink.
Sometimes we become what we hate.

There are spots on my glasses.
I cried hard.
I hope to not remember this in the morning.

You sat there listening,
as I cried and tried
to make sense of all of this.
You are so capable of being silent,
I am just not used to that.

I think most people would have hung up.

You are calm.
I am a storm of drunken confusion.

You are so soft,
amazing.

I think about this a lot....more than I should.
This is more than wanting.
I've wanted before.
I've needed never.

You are worth not knowing the outcome,
you are worth the questions of four years.

You
are
everything to me.
right now.

You never need to give me more than tonight.
 
 

New ideas

of an interest revisited...
the one that got away maybe

though,
which one of us does that fit?

always leaving.
we could never stay together.

we always need someone to fight for us...
we are lazy in our adoration.

while we read about solitude in books,
we rest easy, thinking we will never really be alone.

I cant fall in love with you.
I am not strong enough for that.
 
 

now

We had dinner tonight
as friends

Still
you never looked at others
you only looked at me

Legs less shaky
now that you know me like you know me

Lips were relaxed
ready to wait
and I love you for that.

You get better over time.
better
like
wine not whiskey.

and
as you kissed me goodnight
I melted less,
you melted less.

I could feel it.

We really are over.
We really can be friends now.
 
 

Thank you.

I got it today. 
The stack of books. 
Some I'd not seen in years. 
I couldn't wait to get my hands on them...
my brain.

I searched for my sentence for 45 minutes.
I couldn't remember which book it was in.
I know it by heart, but I needed to see the words.
How fitting that I finally found it in Chapter 24.
How absurdly perfect.

Knowing your hands had held them last,
I smelled the pages.
Smushing my nose in,
I hoped to smell a memory.

I thought about when you read it,
before you knew me...
Wishing we could have been children together.
So we didn't have to be alone.



Returning Home

Without seeing you,
I live in a tomb_
a hollow, concrete square.

to
think
about how I feel.

to
think
about what we're doing.

Waiting for the next trip,
so we
can escape our lives.



Over a year

You're still dead, gone a year.
How is that true?

Fourteen months to be exact.
Without your scent, without your questions.

Fourteen months
a lifelong sentence for your friend.

It was supposed to be different.
It was supposed to be me.



starting over

I keep stubbing my toe where you did
It never happened before...

Now its over and over
I am reminded over and over

You asked me how I got to be so jagged?
So prickly and scattered in my decisions.

I thought it ironic that you would make such
an accusation.

Aren't you married
and sleeping in my fucking bed?

Shouldn't you be honeymooning
with your blushing Bride?

Why are you here?
Why are you trying to get me back?

Normal people don't sleep till noon,
Only crazy people do.

You were angry that I slept alone,
that I choose the sofa over you.

that
I chose morality over you.

Jagged starts young,
it goes back to fifteen.

Back to innocence,
even though I wasn't.

That was taken from me long before fifteen.
Stolen youth.

We are so similar,
and I hate that.

because you are a puke...
a puke who hides the truth

but I am going back to being
good.

back to being strong,
alone.
 
I used to think in typewriters,
in old bookcases, no matter how...

I think now
in the smells of your sofa.

The soft cloth worn,
so thin.

Like the skin on your wrist,
it was ready to burst.

Brought to buckle by corduroy slacks
and pot.

and buttoned-down shirts,
unbuttoned.

Your socks stink.
and you know I hate the pot.



one more time, y.l.b.

and the rolling bones,
have stopped.
For me,
the love is over.

I like the body language in that photo...
how in love with his own thoughts he is.
Face forever shielding his eyes,
shielding new views of her.

That makes him my C.T.
(except he is far less holy).
You are my S.,
my M.

and you talk about how he lived,
about how he died in obscurity.
You are convinced that is your doom,
dying without any notice.

(I will notice)

You mock my pencil scratches,
as you type like a maniac.
you are in fact the worst I've had,
because you are not him.

We communicate in grunts,
and I think about a new life everyday.
You called me names last night.
"One more time, you little brat."

(my favorite of the insults)

I am broken this morning,
heart on the plate in front of you.
You eat like a pig.
I pretend to not notice.

You think the entire world
would suck your cock.
You think I should worship you.
I do not.

Sit there, mixing words
to show me later...
Words that you think will win me over
again.

No one fights this much.
You make this harder than it has to be.
We are just not a match.
We need to stop.

You say that I ignore you.
I do,
because this is getting tedious.
Love should not annoy me like this.

You type so loudly,
so much passion you say...unrequited passion.
Don't worry,
soon enough your words wont be about me at all.



I wasn't alone

He knew me before I became this monster.
this cold, calculating beast.
I just want to get it back,
to where he trusted me.
I know that cannot happen.
I have tried.
He will never trust me again.
How could I hurt the one person I actually care about?

I write about leaches.
I write about desperation...
when really, I am desperation.
consumed with fixing things
(I had to delete half my fucking ipod)
It hurts too much to hear anything.
I have become attached to a mystery,
to a brain alone.
and I don't know how to take that.

Today is a six, of course it is.



sometimes a peach is just a peach

now is not the time to ask me these questions
you know
you know
made a promise
nothing we do would become front page news

you said
"I wanna betray you,
make you my wife"

YOU
want to
"hold me for life, want to watch me all day
kicking my feet as we lay"

Together, we can never be still.

I read these words and you
walk right in.

I want to throw up
Why would you show me this now?

March.
March.

Your eyes created piles of lies,
empty promises.
Torture and some sort of sick revenge.

Yet here you sit,
as we listen to the rain.
Let's go out.
to remember the breeze.

Fuck you.
You can not claim that one.
That song is ours.
Not yours.

You say "Where is your head, my tiny, white rose
what are you running from, now?"

I let you kiss the truth from my mouth.

Put it off for another day.
What is one more day?
For the grass to rot
and
the buildings to fade?

Right now, lets just lay.
Right here sleep all night.

No worries,
No fears,
No secrets to keep.
We will always have Holland.



I forgive you.

I was writing about him,
missing him, wondering if he has missed me...
even a little.
Even after I messed everything up.

I was sitting on someone else's couch,
in someone else's home.
I wasn't cold, but I was shivering.
I shiver when I think about him.

I had been writing for
so long that I forgot what time it was.
What day had it become?
then

three numbing words:
"I forgive you."
So simple,
but How?

How could he ever forgive me?
I sat there thinking for a minute
and you
your phone call killed it.

I heard it ring,
I knew it was you.
I knew it wasn't him.
I knew nothing.

I wanted to sit there thinking about him.
and your stupid shit ruined it.
Like you knew.
you said "It shouldn't matter to you this much".

Fuck you.
It will always matter to me.
He will.
You say

"He has a new one,
a blonde one."

Yeah. She is.
and I hope she never hurts him.
I miss him,
even though he hasn't ever been mine.

I caved in when you asked to come here.
I can't be with him, so
you're like a rich man's version,
sick...but

He's better than you.
He's funnier than you.
He's honest.
You're not.
 

 
rusty old blanket

It's weird how regret hits you in the strangest of places
I was halfway through the bridge over-crossing First into Second
when I thought of you while we were still friends

I'm sorry that we don't speak now...
that you can't call me up to talk about his poems
and how they stole your innocence.

I wish I could hear you sing U2 so badly
...just one more time.

But
that choice was mine and then became yours.

It's over now and I know that.

You said "Sometimes you've just gotta let the feeling fade away,
and pray to GOD your heart will do the same."

always talkin' Jesus like we are believers

When you said
"Your eyes tell me you're still in."

I told you
you were vain and arrogant.

I don't think that now.  I never did.

Mornings are the hardest.
Remembering how I used to wake
to soft, adoring kisses
that pepper a new face.
 
 

May Mistakes Bring June Regrets

The tangles of red are smoothed out, now.
The tears that I lost to you
made me alert to each emotion I have...
and I'm scared, and I'm warm with ideas of love.

As I watched you go reluctantly,
I leaned against a flimsy frame for support.
How was I crying? 
When did this happen?

The fears are the same in each eye of four_
somehow they dissipate when you touch my skin.
The lips of both mouths seemed to fit perfectly.
I have guilt...I said I don't, but I do.

Your mouth is guiltless.

I have constant worry. I have anxiety. 
You know that.

but, I swear I'll give all that up,
to taste your tongue forever.
 
 

Sick Swirling Dance

I guess I landed wrong and somehow sprained my heart.
The spirit that you once adored,
is shattered into pieces on my bathroom floor.
I cried in my tub,
Sobbed like I was dying.
Thinking that you didn't love me anymore...
that I had waited too long to tell you
that I loved you, too.
That I still do.

White candles lit my way to memories that disgust me.
Flames dim enough to make me crack.

I hate our past.

and I think about the words compounding
...swirling in my mind.

the massive collapsing pile of words that are just meaningless now.

Words change nothing.
Words cannot save us.

and I became removed, emotional evacuation.
Until you called me and we started this sick dance all over again.
 

 
drab

The eyes of a genius were staring into mine last night
The encouragement of those lips that make me crazy...
envious of his breath and tongue.

I felt his thoughts grinding deep inside my head,
molding into my own again.

How I've missed his wretched face.
Our ugliness slowly shallowing the breaks.

Why was I trying to prove myself worthy to this man_
the only man who has ever really rejected me?

maybe for that fact alone

I watched him compare what strange little creatures we are.
I wanted to move with every bone toward him,
sell him every pitch I've had.

I couldn't help but wonder, though, if it was real this time
or if it was just his way of teaching that I'm still weak.
 

 
Being Kissed by the World

Bent over kneeling, revealing the vulnerable.
I sighed, and pleaded with myself to preserve this feeling
this ripeness.

thoughts of you
disruptive.

You are more honest than most,
you aren't afraid of emotion.

No matter how fast my thoughts are racing,
you
can always bring me to a halt.
allowing me to create these words that might only make sense to you.

I think about Hallelujah.
I wonder how he felt when he wrote it.

Who was this person?

What magnificent creature could make him tick like that?
What gorgeous, troubled monster...

Then I think about you, your face, your perfect mind.
Lips that know. 
Eyes that can talk
and
a voice that makes me understand myself.

How easily a song might happen with a muse like you.
Words flowing,
notes banging and blending into magic.

I've been thinking about your hands again...
maybe I'll write a song.
 
 

Monster

The clock kept getting closer,
and our time was ending.
I let your lips slip by, and it was like breathing.
Then counting the seconds until isn't gone...

until we had to stop.
 
I'll be on my way back to somewhere that I know I don't belong.
Acknowledgement will taunt,
aging ideas of what we offer each other will just devour me.
Thoughts of what I've done will annihilate.
 
Must've been a really bad seed,
or simply rotten soil left unattended (my head is flat in the back).

I will ache, but mostly
I will breathe in and out knowing
that you are here with me always
and someday, you might actually be my partner again
in this world that I've kept for us.

I've nourished this land for us. 
I am Johnny Appleseed.

but
if nothing goes as planned,
and
in a year, when we're wondering where we went wrong...

It was here, it was now.
This decision.

Sometimes I become so overwhelmed with thought,
that I grow tired and dream it all instead.
Sometimes I dream of what I can not hold again,
to remind myself of what I can...

but
what can I say, sometimes a girl just wants the impossible.
 

 
Chelsea Hotel: the Continuation

I sat in my normal chair on a Tuesday at noon.
Breathing in deeply the heat - the 2 of June.
Remembering the day we met and smiling in my own regret.
Thinking of how charmed I was that you liked Leonard Cohen_
quoting Spice Box of the Earth to me
as if you might be teaching me something.
Telling me how beautiful you thought his words were
...how you were on the verge...
how if I wanted to, I could hold your words in my hands soon.

It was cold that night.  I didn't want it to end.
That much I recall. 
I think about your words and the tiny little movements
you couldn't stop.

I turn your words over and over in my head--think of your rock star kisses.
They startled me and bound me to my chair for an entire afternoon.

O' draw me out of an easy skill, into the art of the holy.

Icy breath made me feel so strong, while our eyes began to rightly water.
Kissin' in the cold, on the street in the
wee
small
hours of the morning.

We're really weird.

You called yourself a cowboy. 
I laughed. 
You called yourself an eager beaver. 

I didn't go to your room with you.
I didn't go. 
 

 
I had to

I think about it
how I could have said yes
how he could have shared my bed

I stopped it
because I have a conscience.
 
 

Madge of course it was

I wish I could go back there
that dirty, little coffee shop...
not the hip one, the other one
the mom and pop one
Madge, so it was...
of course it was.

"You can soak in it".

Madge who served me tea with lemon
on a daily basis for free
for close to four years.

It isn't there anymore.
It is an Insurance office, now.

That breaks my heart.
I went in one day last fall to see inside,
and reminisce.

They asked me if I was interested in insurance.
I wasn’t.
 

 
Mercury Meeting Venus

I wish so much that you could be holding me.
I can see you there on the side of your bed,
pushing the thoughts out of your mind...
I know, because I do it daily.
Is it possible that I completely dream you?
That you don't exist outside my mind?
If that's the case, I hope I go crazy
so I can live with these thoughts without limit.
 


On Being My Snowflake

I saw two snowflakes land on my shoulder today.
They were so close that I could see them as they really were.

They were so close, that they felt like us.
These two chips of molded ice became so personal to me.

So they say that no two snowflakes are exactly the same.
Looking in front of me, at the messy mass that they escaped

I think, is that really possible?
These two that found each other...they seem so similar.

It got me to think about ice and snow,
and how and water is what they're made of...

Thickness sets them apart,
but how different can they really be?

In the long run no matter where you walk in the water,
you're gonna to get wet.
Isn't that the idea?
Two snowflakes meeting out of 5 billion, and melting into the pool.

We should embrace the similarities,
instead of pointing out the obvious differences.
 
 
define it

Another day of conversations.
One where I was met eye to eye
One where I was made fun of for "making up a word"

AHEM: Sagacious

sagacious /sges/ [suh-gey-shuhs]
adjective

1. Having or showing acute mental discernment and keen practical sense; shrewd: a sagacious lawyer.
2. Obsolete. keen of scent.

So suck on that, id. I can't help it that my vocabulary stunts your simple intelligence. Read a freaking book once in a while.

Now, the other conversation...the better conversation.  I like it when someone is speaking to me and I'm not thinking of what to say next. I just let him talk. With most people, I am so disinterested that I focus more on what I say. That is shitty, I know, but it's true.

With him, I can't wait to hear the next thing that comes out of his mouth...
I feel like I should be taking notes...feel like I should learn shorthand.
and his questions. his glorious, personal questions
I don't worry about how to word things. With him, I am filter-less. The shit just comes out. Like these words that I'm typing....I can speak them out loud now. Something amazing is happening to me.  I'm going, I'm going.
 
 
I need to crack my shoulder blade...

Has anyone ever felt that need before? 
It hurts like a mofo and there isn't anything I can do to make it feel better. 
I've had to crack my sternum a couple of times which is also very weird. 
I've only ever known one person who did that aside from me. 
I'm getting old and creaky. 
Anyway, email me if you know a good remedy. 

And don't say "Blow me." because Jake already tried that one.
 
 
True Glue

Breathing into you
Sucked into rebellion for the first time.
Meeting my identity face to face.

Learning the difference between truth and idea.

My mind became altered, when your lips touched my face.

As I exploded into a million pieces,
you grabbed every part of me and held me intact.
 
 
Crimson

Time replaces the faces,
and the space around you erases,
the feelings that you thought would never die--
the feelings that you thought would never make you cry,
again.

The duty surpasses the beauty in this case.
The truth becomes a spoof, as you smile at my face.

Be brave and pretend you are not hurting...
be adult and start converting
to aloofness,
to aloneness, like a stranger on the street.

Leave alike behind
only to lose the heart of your mind.

I usually hate all things that rhyme,
but for you I would rhyme all the time.
 
 
Function and Adaptability

There must be a quiet answer somewhere.
I keep doing this.
nearly 2 am now and I'm lost.

Everyday I tell myself that I'm happy,
that I'm solid,
that I'm fine...

Then fifteen things remind me of you,
remind me how much I still care.
I fall apart, become deluded by that same, old air.

Where I am is right, it has to be.
I've never even touched your face.

How can I allow such a contradiction?
Is it doubt, or fear, or fate telling me that it's all wrong?

That you're wrong, that he's' wrong, that I'm wrong...

It feels like I'll only know when it's too late.

I know that I've lived how I should,
and maybe loved like I shouldn't.

Can I ever really move on?
Man, if I actually do end up with you,
what would I write about?
 
 
and You Are Like Ice

I wanted to take pictures of what I saw today
to keep it fresh, to keep my new perspective on beauty current.
I passed the coffee shop by, and went walking in the cold instead.
I went to the river to think of your warmth that I miss so much.
The ice was breaking up to make room for the spring.
The ice was breaking up.
There is an amazing quality that ice has, being so fragile.
Ice can't hide it's weaknesses, like you try to.
It cannot pretend that it's strong when really in needs to come apart.
And that is beautiful,
and you are like ice.
 
 
It begins

Trip-hop and twinkle lights, a tear freezing down your cheek.
Outside the blasts of noise and inside something more destructive than war.
You say to me, "I've met the end and her name looks just like your face."

Winter slipped in when I just wasn't ready
and this growth in my belly is running me.
and its here no matter how much you try to pretend it away.

This isn't over - this isn't for good.
It's just for now -
for fear, for the maybes.

You can't fall in love with Cancer,
It just isn't done.
 
 
Sexing accordion to Jan

In a discussion at lunch over what can only be described as,
the most potent sangria ever made and tofu tacidos, I was told that I have "suckable" lips.

I have never heard such a thing in all my life.
I am a looker of lips. I like lips. I like asymmetrical lips.
Lips with a little neurological retard.
There's something really sexy about the way a bottom lip dimples when someone talks.
I don't have asymmetrical lips, so it never occurred to me that they are appealing to suck upon.
Anyway I am getting off topic.

So lets recap the day, shall we? I am now a drinker of alcohol.
Save it, I don't want any guff from you fucking swine. Swines? Swine.
I am drunk now so you know, I have been all day.

Whilst being drunk, I was talking to friend about something very personal.

When I was a little girl, I played the accordion. I know, right? How can one girl be so freaking cool? I know.
Anyway, I have fond memories of playing, but never actually admitted to it.
Only to one person so far and now all of you can openly mock my childhood hobby...hobbies,
I also made collages from pictures that I'd taken out of my Grams' Redbook Magazines.
Sometimes before she actually read them. That made her hot.

Speaking of "hot". I heard the term "hot bod" tonight. That kills me. Hot bod.

So, I'm thinking of taking it up again. The accordion.
I think it would make me happy. My Grams played when she was sad or happy.
She just loved it. She taught me a little at a time..and with each lesson I loved it more.
I had her accordion for years but no longer do. I need to look into accordions on the internets.

If you play the accordion, please email me with tips and suggestions on purchasing one.
 
 
I Heart NYC t-shirts

So, I had this t-shirt when I was a kid that said "Raisin' a Ruckus". I loved it.
I swam in it because it was big enough for like ten kids to fit into.
It was a rip off of the California Raisins, really, but I loved it anyway.
If I have neglected to mention it, I was a dumb child.  I didn't know it said "ruckus".
I thought it was pronounced roo kus. So I called it that.
My "Raisin' a Roo kus" t-shirt.

My sister (who was a very smart child) made fun of me and said that I was saying it wrong.
I didn't believe her so I looked it up in the dictionary. Shit, she was right.
It still bothers me that I was so dumb at 8 years old.
Anyway, I saw the t-shirt in a thrift store today. I almost bought it.

Almost. I'm scarred.

Speaking of t-shirts, I saw an I Heart JM t-shit like the I Heart NY t-shirts. 
I assume it is for J.ohn M.ayer? Or is the dumb 8 year old in me coming out?
I cant think of anything else it might be for...I heart J.ewish M.en?
In either case, sign me up.

Also, in sort of related news, I sat in a parked car and talked on the phone while I watched
a homeless man watching other people. He didn't see me for a while, then when he did he took off like a bullet.
He had a big Santa beard.
(Oh, the owner of the car is a Jewish Man...ahhh now it all comes together.)

...I think if it does stand for I Heart J.ewish M.en they should replace the heart with the star of David.

I also saw a woman with a jump rope. I was envious. I haven't jumped rope in forever.

I may have been a dumb child, but man could I whip some shit up with a jump rope!

Anyway, the city is...like a weird movie that doesn't end. I love my visits.
My friend Matt said it best "The city is essential...unless you like the country then it is...um...what was I saying?".

I love knowing him...he makes me feel very undumb. 
Undumb.
 
 
morbid morning

A small, white cat named Henry Kissinger just scared me to death.
I woke up to his face looking almost through me.
Not only was he less than an inch from my eyes, but he was making an awful alien noise.
I shooed him away pretty swiftly and he went flying off the bed. Sorry you weirdo kitty.

Adding to my discomfort, I hate sleeping in other people's places.
More specifically waking up in someone else's place.
It screws my entire day up, because I get so disoriented.
The bathroom is never where I left it,
not to mention getting out of bed on the wrong side and hitting a wall of books.
That said, thanks for letting me sleep in your bed...
and for taking me to the zoo..and for feeding me...
and for the new Bud Cort movie...
and really the books are beautiful. I could stare at them all day.

Another thing about this apt. is how high off the ground we are.
I stood up in the gigantic window sill over-looking the city and felt small.
Watching the hustle and bustle, I thought about what would happen if the window gave way.
I'd die one of those tragic deaths that you read about. I
 think that would be an interesting way to go.
Why am I thinking such sick things this morning?

Welp. I don't know. I'm morbid like that sometimes.
I'm a lot like Harold. Maybe I'll find a funeral to go to.
 

Smooches, see you in Chicago

This will be short. No time to chit chat.
I just wanted you all to know that in a staring contest between Henry Kissinger
(the cat, not the former Secretary of State) and myself.
I will lose every time. I think he is part demon.

Last night, I had a nightmare about him. He's one of those sneaky sneakerton cats.
You can just be sitting there reading and with no sound or movement, there he is in front of you
...with his head tilted in the most terrifying manner
...and a look in his eyes that makes you want to jump out of your skin.

Also, my jaw hurts. I want it to stop. Henry Kissinger probably injected me with his demon cat venom.

I'll go get some Starbucks, that will kill it.
 

Ah Christmas Eve.

I went out to the store to get some shit just now. What a terrible mistake.

There were so many people in the store that I waited in the self check out lane for 17 minutes.

So, as I caught up on why we are supposed to care
about how much harder Jennifer Aniston's break up with Vince Vaughn was
than her divorce from Brad Pitt, I saw a woman with 6 or 7 kids.
They were all screaming and dirty looking.
Also, they all weighed more than most adults, I think.
It made me very sad.
More sad than I would be had I just read this trashy magazine while I waited.

My sadness continued until I got home.
It got me to thinking about terrible traditions during this weird time of year.

The time of year when the most suicides happen,
the most car accidents happen,
and the forced gift giving and time spent with family.
I think sadness is quite common even (and maybe especially) while sitting in a room full of "loved" ones
...or missing dead loved ones, which is what I would do in that situation.

Being an Atheist, I don't partake in this shit.
I do, however, have to deal with the people who do and their poor, dirty children in the shopping center.
I like the songs though, I admit it.
 also like the late night drive that I took last night to see the lights in the suburbs.

I'm still sort of sad right now, maybe not for the reasons some are, but I am sad.
Maybe it is the lack of Christ in my soul. :)

So, like I told my friend Josh this afternoon, I hope the love of Jesus fills your heart with joy this day.
He will be guiding me watch tv and drink.

Yeah.

I had a mad crush on this guy in school...for like 5 years. 
I barely knew him.
He was a tall and thin and a geek, a smart mix of perfection.
a cross between Bob Saget, Philo Farnsworth and some kind of sexy, magical, space-dragon.
I wonder where he ended up? 
I'm sure he's a Scientist who studies rust because there couldn't be anything hotter than that.
I sat on his lap in a car once because there were far too many of us...ah reckless youth.  

I also had a dream that we went to a dance together...where  we had to come in costume. 
He showed up in an old army uniform.
That did things to me.

Also, I went as the green M&M.
 

Rant

Sometimes people are shady.

I know someone very shady. Someone who is dating a woman and still has interest in me.
He has done this before. I feel like telling her. I feel like warning her that he is a skeeze.

I wont, but I want to.

Anyway, he is worse than I am when it comes to sending mixed signals (if that is possible).
I am not interested in dating this person at this time (to be clear).
I am more interested in why I keep him in my life. He causes me nothing but confusion and frustration.
I guess it is the unanswered question in my life and will be forever. I simply never plan on addressing it.

Why we set certain limits in our lives is interesting to me.
I limit interaction with my past and my possible future all the time.

So last night he told me that I live like today is all that matters.
Of all days to say something so insensitive.

Today is all that matters. Today is all we have.
This isn't the first time this idea has been presented to me.
You aren't innovative, you're arrogant.
You're arrogant to think you have any fucking idea who I am.
You don't, because I wont allow you to. You don't deserve to.

How did this turn so angry? How can he be the only person to make me react like this?
Maybe because I know he's right. I am afraid.
Of what I gave up and can never get back. Half of my life not knowing.
Half of my life forcing myself to forget. Pretending that other things will make the pain go away.

Like now, I have an idea...why don't I listen to Last Request by Paolo Nutini 600 times in a row
...oh wait, I've already done that. This fucking mp3 will get me through.
Basically, I have been sitting here with ear buds in for days.
I feel lost in how to handle my current situation. Maybe because there is no solution.


Why try to figure out the wrong way to solve something that's gone?

Isn't that ironic, Jake? I swear, who knew it would end up being about this?
Who knew? Certainly not me. I've been running from this past forever.
This painful past of abuse from her. Its over now. I don't owe her anything.
She has been dead for years. She died the day she made that choice
...and today I make a choice to forgive her. 
Today I make the choice to move on.

 
I took a very painful trip today.

One that caused me shame and great relief.
I talked to someone much younger than me.
I wanted to tell him that things get easier as you age...the truth is they don't.
Things are just as complicated as they ever were and there is never one right answer for anything.
This day took every emotion I've had and smashed it into my face.

I was alone with my thoughts for what seemed to be forever.
Sitting on a decision. Sitting on a murder.
Sitting where no one else could judge me but myself.
I was sad. Sad for the last six years of my life...a life that I have fought for.

He once said that he'd never known a more prolific writer...
The truth is, I'd die without it.
without the daily words, I'd have been dead years ago.
Somehow they just pull me through.
Through today's pain -
Through it's heartache and confusion -

Through Cancer.
Sitting in my belly in wait -
Sitting on my brain like a bomb.
Waiting for the time it will finally end this struggle.
I'm tired of defending these cells. I'm ready to regain my life.
I'm tired of giving things up for one reason alone.

 
Living in a Metaphor

my mind is criminal tonight
trying to escape these thoughts
four words twisting finely into a thread...

a silver string of poisonous mercury
it winds around and briefly stops the pumping
it stuns but never fastens

"I still love you."

how can four words destroy so much?
 

train

Collecting all the bits beneath the words that I am hiding...
Trying to come up with something believable.
Something that doesn't scare me and trick me into wanting more.
I wish that you would tell me that I'm forgiven.
Just let me off the hook so I can stop beating myself up about this.

Dissecting how you reacted. That painful smile, that sigh at good-bye...
The next day, I sat there empty.

Thinking and listening to the tracks guide me further and further away from my decision.
I had some pain, I had some sadness. I had some truth slapping me in the face.

I listened to some little boys singing Hebrew songs
and I thought about how long we've known each other.
How long you've been wandering inside my head.

I promised not to do it and I didn't want you to leave (even though I told you to).

You weren't the one who was wrong
and
I have wanted to tell you.

So I am telling you now.
I have wanted you to know what was really going on for months.

and I'm sorry
and I know that will never be enough.

I don't blame you and I know how the heat of the moment is no excuse.

You said it never gets easier to know me
and I get that.

But you do, better than you think you do.

 
Change

Today was quite possibly the weirdest day of my life.

Originally, my friend Mark was coming to Chicago for a visit. I was pretty excited. I was going to meet him downtown and we would fly by the seats of our pants all day. I got to Union Station and waited for his call...and waited...and waited.

In no uncertain terms, I was stood up. He has his excuse, but I don't buy it. :)

I'm totally kidding. He is a good guy and would never stand me up. He sent a text in the middle of the night, explaining that he would be unable to visit because he had an emergency of sorts. I didn't get the text until 20 minutes after I got to Union Station this morning. Boo. Hiss, t mobile. Get your squawk together.

So anyway, rather than the day being ruined (because I now had no plans) I called up Dominic. When I got to his apt. I asked what he wanted to do. He of course wanted food. :) So that was the plan...food and MCA more than likely.

As he was putting on his socks and shoes, I saw his giant jar of change. The same jar I've seen 50 times. He saw me staring at it and said "What's wrong?" I said "Nothing." and asked him how much he thought was in there. He said "I don't know, like 50 or 60 bucks". He said something smart like "If you need money for rock Jan, I have cash..." :)

After I laughed I said "Are you really attached to it?" He said "the jar, yes, the money, no - where are you going with this?"

For some reason, I wanted to give it to people on the street. So we did. After we ate food, we started handing the change out to people. I cant tell you how weird it was at first, but then...I just got into it. Dominic did, too. It was so cute to see his face after handing out to five or six people. The people got less and less weird as we handed it out, I suppose because we were so happy the more we did it.

You all know how much I love to take photos...I wanted to so badly, but I didn't. This was too personal for that. This was a wonderful mistake of a day. :)
 
*poem 6 (I did not write this one)

i make music as it rains
you try to forgive yourself
you sit
you're sad
you ignore me a lot
is it because you want to keep me a secret
i made a promise that this will not become front page news
i think its something else
that you're embarrassed about

so you lied to your friend
doesn't mean your life is over
there is more
there is better
here
i try to figure our why you did what you did
messing and twisting that poor bastards heart like you did
are you doing that to me now
you might be messing with my mind like the rest
you women make men crazy yet full of hope
i want to believe you
i want to know
more

why does your scent stick on my sweater all the way to crackerland?
why do you like that book vending machine at Heathrow?
why do you wear shoes that have holes when you know the rain will never let up
why do you sleep so far away from me
why does my real accent come out when we're together
why wont you come with me when i have to leave
why when we're watching strange culture you disappear
why do your eyes fade when i want you

when i kiss you they are always closed

i'm eating chocolate glazed non-vegan doughnuts in front of you now
giving up the stink is going to make me a fat man
a fat man in crackerland

i'm writing
you're writing
i'm writing about you
you're writing about him
you melt me
you make me angry
angry in this
in this love
 

A lost origin.

Shaping and adapting plastic may have changed my life tonight.
I watched as it was bending in front of me. I watched until it broke open and lost it's purpose.
It was frail and handsome.

It turns out everything you thought you knew was off.
That sounds negative to everyone but him. He knows.
It isn't negative, it's a promise.
Perhaps misplaced, but a promise.

I am in the best mood possible. How weird because it is 3:33 am.
I was in and out of sleep tonight. I think I was quoting Cohen again.
In fact, I know I was. "A dismal pine cone."

I quote Cohen sometimes. I don't quote others or others things.
I can just relate to his work.
I can relate to the not knowing shit and thinking you know everything anyway.
Such an arrogant way to live a life.
Such a private lonely space in thinking that you know.

While falling asleep, I heard him say,
"I guess it depends on who you ask, but I think everyone thinks you're beautiful."
"You are colder than I'd like you to be."

My mind slipped away when I heard the two sentences.
So very different in their intent.

I let him hold me as I fell asleep. I don't let him hold me. I don't know why.
Sometimes two people need that. We have nothing more than friendship and he knows that.
Tonight I caved because I needed him to feel okay.

That was hours ago.

So I'm awake again, drinking coffee and tonight I see my world with a crisper eye.

I've been thinking about what he said to me as I was falling asleep.
What he said to me under his breath and maybe hoping that I didn't hear.

I am not cold. I just don't know how to share my warmth properly.
Someone worth my time, I blow off. I put all my attention into someone as distant as me.
Someone far away so I might never have to come to terms with loving.
Loving is tough. It's easiest to be disconnected.

He is right, I will choose the wrong person to lay it on.

I want to force myself to do something braver. I want to choose someone special.
Someone who isn't the same as every other person in the world.
How can I get my mind to stop questioning - to stop judging...

"I want to stick a knitting needle up my nose
and poke out my brain."

There I go again.

Sometimes it gets like that, like the thoughts will burn off your face.

The options might be so clear to someone else.
It's just easier to see other people making mistakes.
I know what I'm doing.
Instinct though - it's stronger than sense.

I want warmth, but sometimes this need for deepening overwhelms me so I shy away.
I cower in the corner and pretend to be alone.
I take a step back to view it objectively...and fall to hell...and thoughts of him.
 

"And after this we will wear rain-soaked smiles forever..."

So many of you have asked where that tag line came from...which movie? what song?
I haven't answered any of you, so I'm answering you now.
The truth is, it's mine. It's something that I wrote about 6 months ago...maybe more.
It was actually part of a conversation:

Him: And after this?
Me: we will wear rain-soaked smiles forever...

I was recently reminded of it because I've been dissecting my life.
I've been trying to remember my happiest moments. That was one of them.
That one is at the top of the list.

I've been writing a lot the last few days...I'm not sure if it is something I will post, but I like it.
I am satisfied with my work...which is a change, because I haven't been in months.
I think the reason that I'm satisfied is that I'm to the point where approval is no longer being sought.
I am simply writing to write and not necessarily to solve anything.
I'm writing for the purpose of expressing feeling, but I need to let myself feel onto something other than paper.

I have been trying.

Someone in my life said something to me recently, while I was crying.
(I think it was the second time he's seen)
I was crying because I am confused with this life of mine. I love my life. 
As unconventional as it is, it's mine.
The idea of losing it though has been overshadowing me lately. 
I've been quite negative...which is hard for most people to believe who know me. 
It is simply pain.  It is simply confusion.  It is simply illness.

Dealing with the idea of death is a weird concept.
No matter who you are, you cant hide from it.
I don't know if I thought about death much before I got sick.
Maybe I did.
When you're fighting Cancer, I think you think about it more than the average person.
I don't talk about it often. Most people in my life simply forget that I am sick, but he knows.
Maybe I should talk about it more. Maybe then I wouldn't have broken down in front of him.

"This is where I want you to be". That is what he said.

As if I was reacting for his acceptance, or enjoyment -
like I just fell into knowing how to behave for him.

Maybe he thought I was putting on a show...he's been asking for this for so long.
When he stopped asking it happened with ease. 
After it was over, I felt better...imagine that.

 
and I melted right there...

This day lasted forever. In the 26 hours that I've been awake, one thought kept flowing through my mind. A weird one.
This is a bit encrypted.

Maybe we make mistakes for a reason. Who is this person, right? I don't know either...a change gonna come.

I feel like maybe I never knew where my motives were before. I never knew where his were.
Connection is beautiful. No matter how it is founded. If you feel a pull, it's yours.
So I cant define this. Can we ever really define any relationship in our lives? I know that I've never been able to. My friends, I love with all my heart, that's a given. My family, I have grown to love with time and separation. and him. I do love him, in my own way. No matter what has happened. I wanted him here tonight, that much I know. Tonight was one person short of perfection.

I listened to music that melts me. Music that I feel defines my 20s, which are quickly slipping into 30s. As I listened to the words showering our crowd, I closed my eyes and thought about things that scare me. Things that are passing me by at this very moment because I'm afraid.
The conversation in the car on the way to the concert. "Start taking chances." he said. "Take this chance." And he doesn't even know you.

He doesn't even know that you hide like I hide...that you avoid things personal for reasons unknown to you. He doesn't even know if you're worth the chance...but, I know and that is all I need.
 

Lost

I've been sitting here for two solid hours listening to the mix you made. It's the best compellation ever created.
I love every song. Each one lets me slip into myself and the common ground that I hear brings me to a calm.

I think that I'm smitten with ideas right now because, out of nowhere, I can relate to the appeal of option.
I can identify with diving in and not worrying about the stupid shit that I've been freaking out about for over a year now.
The negative what ifs have been replaced with the positive what ifs and I've become quiet.

Inevitably, out of the quiet, comes the writing, and when the writing starts, the crazy cleans away onto paper.
I'm not claiming that its good writing, I'm just pleased to get it out and to be able to leave the rut of a year.

It's a lack of focus that stopped the words, and lack of focus that turned me into a freak.
I've been guideless. I've been scared, and I've been waiting for things to fall into place.
They aren't moving, they never budged. Today I see it though, that it just doesn't matter.

I can work at the coffee house until I'm 50 if I want to.
I can live in a crappy little apartment and be as happy as I would be in some kickass house that I restored.

It's all about who you're with and the choices that lead you to them.

Does it just snap into place like that?
Can fear just morph into acceptance without work?

I can't explain where this is coming from.
I feel like all the strength that had abandoned me in the last year is back with a vengeance
and that I'm entering a new portion of my life...in my relationship with myself
and I'm ready to learn. I feel I'm ready for any outcome.

I feel like I am prepared again. For the past few months I've had little to no stability.
What is stability anyway? Nothing is final, nothing is solid.

Man, this is Agnostic's isn't it?
Or mad rambling like Plath did right before she offed herself in the oven.

It's just that there are so many things that I've been cataloging in my head, that I'm able to spew out now.
I'm aching for the city, I'm stumbling through my relationship,
very recently I've rekindled the fears that I felt when I was first diagnosed with Cancer.

I have no validation for these fears, but they are there.

Fuck you Cancer.

Take my friend and fuck with my life. Stupid fucking disease.

Ugh, it seems that the writing has made me uneasy again,
and as needed as thinking is, I'm starting to get to myself.
 


*I did NOT write this.  Re-reading it though made me very sad. Sadder than I have been in months. I suppose because I am not sad at all. A very important friend wrote this about a very inconsequential man.
because you chose to leave you will never know...

how her face looks when she sees a sunset
how she lets the rain hit her in her face with her eyes closed

how her little feet rub together while she's sound asleep
how she dances in her car to terrible hip hop music

how her voice sounds while she sings in the shower
how she gets so excited when she wins at board games

how her profile looks when she thinks I'm not watching her
how she knows the answer to anything I ask her

how her laugh looks when she makes no noise
how she drinks her coffee with two ice cubes

how her eyes have changed color recently
how she eats slower than anyone alive

how her mind can understand the most screwed up of people (you and I included)
how she hates the sound of paper crackling on TV

how her hair smells after she does her yoga
how she tastes after she drinks green tea

how her lips look while she sits there reading
how she looks at me while I'm speaking to her

how her tiny hands get cold no matter how hot my apartment is
how she loathes the song black velvet by Alana Miles, even though she rocks it at karaoke

how her eyes would twinkle when she talked about you
how she looks now when she talks about you

how her intention is to rid her mind of you
how she is trying to let me be enough

how her smile has melted away everything that I've been afraid of
how she is breaking my heart, just like you broke hers
 

beat boxing

My friend Matt is insane. He is anti everything, but mostly he is anti Justin Timberlake.
Its maybe the funniest thing in the world to see him mocking dance moves...not to mention the terrible beat boxing. 
His long, gangly arms flailing all around.
It will be totally quiet and he will break into song because he knows that I like Justin Timberlake
...save it, I don't care what you think.

We had an interesting evening. A super talk about things that are beyond our control.
Mainly how relationships are beyond our control. Relationships are far too complicated.
I hope to be in one that isn't dramatic. I need to be able to sit in a room in silence and for that to be okay.
I need to feel like me being quiet isn't something that I'm doing wrong.

Anyway, I like my friend and my friend likes me. We understand each other.

Ahh another scattered evening is in store, I can feel it in my bones.
I'm letting things go - the things about you that I can't relate to.
I know I've made you feel lost.
I know I've made you feel angry.

I'm accepting my imperfections tonight and I hope you can, too.

We are all so beautifully imperfect.
Even if we stammer to define things.
Even if we are afraid to accept invitations.
Even if I can't ever love you like you want me to.
Even if you feel lonely sitting next to me.
Even if knowing me will never be enough.

Shit, ask me of subtleties and I will confess it all...only never to your face.
 

update

It was neon green and trapped under my windshield wiper.
As I walked toward it, I wondered what it was.
When I got into my car, I opened it up.
It said "You are beautiful".
I have no idea who wrote it, but it made my day.
I guess I have suspicions of who it might have been. (like I said, this has been a good week).
It reminded me of getting notes in grade school from boys.
Check yes or No notes. I like those.
We should really carry those around with us when we meet people.
It's so simple.

I have recently gone through something that makes me very aware of how single I am
...and how many adorable men there are in my life.

I have a date tomorrow and a date on Saturday night.
I've not dated this much in a long time.
Wait, have I ever done this?
No. I have always had a boy-friend or a boy who I liked.
Single is very good. Putting all your eggs in one basket is stupid.
Instead, I will put an egg in a few baskets.
These are metaphorical eggs...I'm not a hobag. (No matter what Josh might say) :)
 

The People in my Life

Tonight the world was mine. I felt everything all at once.
I got misty eyed, I laughed and then I cried. For real.
Tonight, I cried and it felt just perfect.
It was one of those cleansing cries because I'm thankful just to be alive.
In a room full of people or at home all alone - it needed to happen.

So as you can tell this blog is going to be weird.

I just told a friend that I feel "lovey dovey".
Like I could slow dance all night.
I'm warm and softer than I normally am
...everything looks more beautiful right now and I like the feel of everything I touch.

Oh man I'm inside my head right now.

Let's talk more about this friend. He means more to me than he knows.
I think it is pretty funny that I can tell him when I feel "lovey dovey"
or "snuggly" or whatever other words I've used to describe my state at that moment.
For some reason I know he wont judge me
...and sometimes he says the most perfect things to me and he doesn't even know it.

"I want to sit and eat lentil soup and watch Harold and Maude with you."

That is maybe the most adorable/personal thing you could say to me.
So now you know. I also want you to know that I'm glad we're friends
...and as weird as this sounds, I'm glad that our friendship was tested so I could find out what you really mean to me.

I know I've talked before about how lucky I am to know the people that I do, but I mean it.
I am so impressed with my friends. How do they do it?

So each component of my day has made this one of my favorites days of all time.
Good friends, well worded sentences.
I spent time with people that I care about and feel myself falling into something uncertain and for once I'm going with it. Tonight was muther-fucking marvelous.

I suppose some of this was build-up from last night.
I had a top of the line conversation with an almost stranger.

You know when you get in a rut and you feel like you are nothing like anyone?
I get like that. Sometimes I think that no one understands me.
Or that maybe I don't want anyone to. Then I talk with someone that makes that impossible to believe.
Meeting someone new reminds me that people really aren't that different at all.
In the span of an hour, I felt calm with someone...and I like me some calm.
Common ground is so intriguing to me.

I'm getting way too into this. I will listen to some music that will make the words stop coming out.
I will press my face to my desk
and sit in the dark thinking about choice and friendship and how all of this happiness is devouring me.
What a very lucky girl I am.
 
verre poems - one recent, one not, one telling.

Flying 296 miles

Flying 296 miles to learn a city.
Flying 296 miles to blow your mind.
A mutual interest that I love,
that if I could capture in a jar I would.
And I'd give it away to every lonely, coping soul that I saw.
I would trust a lie, if that's all you could give.
I could deny a truth, if you needed me to.
It was instant for me.

Melt into a Hundred

In clouds of illusion, I swear I saw you today,
walking down Damen Ave.
What if it was you?
You were here to breathe in all this air that surrounds me,
surrounds my life without you.
I could give you everything...in just one day.
One day for us to sit
in a park on a breezy summer day turning into night with city lights to guide us.
I'd walk you all along the river, take you to all my places,
where I read and write and daydream of you.
I'd want that day to melt into a hundred,
melt into a Chicago fall.

Another October

This is my favorite time of the year.
I've always said that there's something pure about the fall.
at least it makes me pure.
When I walk through it, I can feel another year pass over me.
I know more than I did last year, but I'm still the same girl.
I'm still ridiculously certain that there will be more.
There will be more battles to win, or lose.
There will be more change.
There will be more choices to make and each will have an outcome.
So at this point I'm unsure.
but, even a broken clock, is right twice a day.
How bad can this be?
How might the voice in my head be affected today?
I cant make it better than it is right now...time can.
and wouldn't you know it...
Another October is just around the corner.
 

Tides Are Turning

What happens now that you're reading these words?
What happens now that my world is exposed?
One of my life's most important events needs to be decided
needs to be acknowledged.

What if I don't get over this?
What if my heart isn't as strong as I think it?

Or worse, what if yours isn't?


Untitled

Before I met you I was far from sane,
but at least I could conceal myself.
You've stripped all my lies away.
Now my defenses are gone.
I can no longer hide behind my pride.
You hold all my thoughts.
You share all the pain that I feel
Because of you I can fail, and be fine.
I could reach the point of success, and give up.
Nothing can make feel as beautiful and pathetic as you.
 

Slush

I'm walking nowhere to get to you,
inside your world that burns bright with intensity.
We continue through the slush-filled street,
and as the snow falls down to meet your lips...
I know true jealousy
and the snowflakes melt,
as fast as my heart did the night we met.

 
Blind Faith

As night creeps beneath my skin,
I find you loving each star.
As our wishes become real life before our eyes.
As wind gusts at the faces of fate,
and waves of passion hit our feet.
I realize that the sky is falling slower_
now, that I can smell your skin,
and I'm realizing just how
immeasurable my love is for you.
 

The Breaking of Bridges

Bridges break,
Bones heal,
Hearts break,
Mondays suck,
You suck,
My heart wont heal.

 
The envy of a stranger/the shadows of your face

envy is an amazing thing.
How can I be so envious of every person you meet,
every stranger you pass on a street?
And I wonder,
are they envious of me for being given the gift I was.
Such an intriguing way to know
Forced to learn of your views rather than the shadows of your face.
My ideas are sort of insane, get in my car, drive to you.
Knock on your door and offer you some truth.
 

on the radio

For the record, I do not hate you,
I do not blame you.
For the record, you didn't break me,
you never will.
For the record, it did matter,
it doesn't now.
For the record, I was in love.
Key word "was".
 

Lollapalooza

I'm not kidding when I say I am addicted to rhapsody...the best present ever.

So much music - so little time.  Right now, Bill Withers - Aint No Sunshine is on. Before that was It Would Take a Strong Man  by Rick Asley (you know you love it)  Next is Moody's Mood For Love by King Pleasure and I can't wait. 
I wish I had six ears.

I need to stop and rest my ears actually.  I have a long three days of Lollapalooza ahead of me. 
I should be sleeping, but I

just
cant
stop.

Oooh, I just found Could've Been by Tiffany!

 
I could eat it

Oh what a beautiful, scrumptious night. Aside from my thumb and my ankle all is well and could never be better. The air, the sounds, the smells, the friendship. Tonight meant so much more to me than most nights do.

Sometimes people just understand you. They let you be yourself and don't judge you for being different.
They let you fuck up and they love you anyhow. I've been feeling like a fuck up for a few days and it was all washed away tonight. I hope that no one comments on this, or reads it maybe. This one is mine.
I am altered in state right now. Funny how legal substances can do that to a person. Maybe I should cut back.
 

Carrot Top

This blog is disgusting.

So Carrot Top, you know the "comedian". (I use the term loosely)

His head is horrifying to me. I am literally afraid to look at his face.  That said, have you seen the body on that guy? I don't even think he's human. Its like someone placed a really, really ugly head on an Olympic athlete's body.

You all know I dislike muscles, so it makes no sense that I would find a muscular physique attractive. Not to mention that it is one of such a creepy, non-funny tool.

I'm going to go throw up now.
 

one strange weekend

Debating about yogurt?  Can this really get nasty? 
Something so insane caused a near brawl this weekend with very friendly people.

This will set the tone for today's blog entry.
Yogurt somehow led to Global Warming which led to Bush which led to Abortion which led to too much hostility for me to understand.

How can people with such similar interests and ideals have completely different ideas of what should and shouldn't be discussed at a dinner table? Things that should and shouldn't be discussed in general.  Things that are right.  Things that are wrong.  Things that are private and personal for a reason.

This leads me to the other reason my weekend was so weird. 

I know someone who wants to know everything there is to know...even if it is private...especially if its private.  He will obtain information by any means necessary.  Or just pries until the person breaks.  I didn't break, so he took it upon himself to go further than he should've.

I value this person in my life  but his actions changed my view of him.  Something like this with anyone else would have only one outcome.  End of friendship. 

It makes me feel weird to know someone knows all my secrets without me ever mentioning them.  I suppose this person thought the only way to get into my brain was to be sneaky.  If perhaps, I had just told him what he wanted to know he wouldn't have done what he did.  Something tells me though, I'd be wrong.
 
For the record, intimacy is not forced.  Me telling my whole life story in an evening doesn't really happen.  Even if I feel comfortable, robots cant change their spots.  Unless we meet another robot.


Gorka, Young and Cohen

You called tonight,
planned the right things to say.
I needed to hear you...even the lies.
I'd been listening to Gorka,
to Young,
and to Cohen...
Soaking up their experience
and deciding what to do.
Seeing the future untold, unfold before my ears.
Watching this semi-solid land dissolve.
Acknowledging that this may only be one-sided.
I'd been listening to Gorka,
to Young,
and to Cohen...
Taking in the unwanted advice,
and deciding what to do without.
 

The First Man

I saw the sight that you presented,
and resent the fact that you pretended.
The feverish jolt left me abruptly,
but that damned scent lingered long for days.
And somewhere in a blinded haze,
I lost the ability to light my flame into flight...
and all my dignity gone asunder,
that spell of spells you had me under.
In walking somewhere along my route--
your life and bizarre love took root.
While fixating on wrong turn signs,
ignoring the warnings of waving lines.
I saw the strip, I saw the sparkle...
and my eyes were glued to you.
The discerning factor was the truth far off,
but I only saw the blue.
Beauty, beauty and the man.
 

the beefs thing

Okay so my old tagline "like a swift kick to the beefs"...I've gotten too many emails asking about this. 

There was an on-going debate between a friend and I about the word "beefs".
 
In Chicago there are about 990 places to buy Italian Beef Sandwiches (none of which I would partake). 
My friend, on the other hand, enjoys a good Italian Beef Sandwich. 
While telling me how good they were, he explained how they are ordered. 

He said if you order more than one, you say "Two beefs" or "Three beefs" and so on and so on.  I think this sounds wrong.  So after asking over 4 people what they would say, I have given up the fight. 
 
People say "beefs" and I need to get used to it.

So now I use the term "beefs" for "balls" and/or "nuts"...or for your politically correct variety, "testicles". 
I think its fun and it is helping me to forget all about how improper it sounds. 

That is all.

 
Sagittarius

Escaping from responsibility,
any time I sensed attachment, I was gone.
Couldn't commit to any act.
Life, love or happiness
Freedom, performance, or death.

Fearing of suffocation,
any time I heard the words_ I was gone.
Couldn't commit to anyone's.
Life, love or happiness
Freedom, performance, or death.

then you
ruined me.

 
Traffic was an asshole today

On a normal day there is traffic which isn't really that annoying to me. 
I enjoy sitting in my car listening to music (usually Rilo Kiley)...but today,
it was start - stop - start - stop and then more of the same. 
I was so annoyed that I had to turn my music off.  Then I'd get annoyed at that and turn it back on
and again more of the same. 
I also did this with my a/c and heat.  I'd get cold, I'd get hot blah blah blaaaaah.
It was not fun at all. 
I had some interesting text messages to read though when I was stopped for minutes at a time so thank you for that. :) 

And  also, I love Julius Meinl Coffee.  This has nothing to do with anything, I just wanted you all to know.
 

Thirty Something

like lying to protect the innocent.
last night I was twisting, trying not to dissolve.
trying to figure out why I still wonder.

like walking across the most brittle of bridges,
we were destined for a fall.
no rail to hold onto, the ropes pulling apart with each step.

like trying not to melt in a fire.
emotions I didn't know I had were realized.

like trying to freeze the sea,
trying not to care for you is futile.

so futile to not want one more conversation,
and one more after that.

like watching honey drip,
I want to learn you slowly, to learn until we're old.
to learn until we have no air left.
I swear this truth is screaming, but I will never let it make a noise.

That said, I do miss you.

 
My brain and tumors that eat it, tonight at 11.

So many thoughts are running me right now as I listen and type.
I am so sick of illness. I want to open my brain and take it out.
I wish it were that simple.
I wish that Cancer wasn't always here with me. Always on my mind.
I am afraid. I'm rundown and it seems no matter what words I try to put together, I fail.

I'm somehow stumbling by myself...even though I don't have to be.
I can only handle problems alone. It's what I like most about my past, not needing anyone.

I need someone now, my friend.
At the same time I feel that needing someone has made me grow, I feel weakened by it.
I feel like until I am well again, my life is on pause and maybe he is the only person who understands that.

I'm miles and miles away from my friend. The best friend I've ever had maybe. He knows me.
He knows that I am afraid and it's okay for me to be.
He doesn't freak out when I'm scared.
He doesn't panic when we talk about my hair falling out or getting really, really sick again.
He just says "I'm here whatever you need". He lets me over think things if I need to...and I do...I will forever.

There is a lump in my throat that I'm uncomfortable with. I'm sure its all my hidden emotion trying to scream out.
Instead its here in a post and I'm cutting it short because as the lump gets bigger, the bravery is subsiding.

yours truly,
the Sentimental Robot
 

Cancer

Today is another gloomy one, but I heard some news to change my perception...
news I was hoping for, but secretly doubting.
It's weird how turning points for my future always come on days without sunshine.

I have made a decision and for now, I have dodged a bullet.

When I got home, I went through some old notebooks
and read some stuff that I've written about other decisions that I've needed to make.
My writing goes back to the precious age of 11
...before heartstrings were pulled, before adulthood, and long before Cancer.
It's really funny to me how I was this same person.
I guess I was under the impression recently, that Cancer had changed me somehow.
It really hasn't. I've always been like this.

I need to stop viewing Cancer as something outside of me attacking
...as some evil word that isn't quite real.
It is maybe less depressing to think that it is just in there...like another organ.

...and I will trick it into shrinking. (nice to keep your sense of humor in cases like these)

Most of all though, I need to remember that I'm not alone.
This shit happens to so many people...and even if it doesn't happen to them,
it changes to their life if someone they love is sick.

I told a friend recently that I have been really down about being sick
...and really afraid this time around. I feel good today. I was in a slump for sure.
We're all allotted slumps here and there.
I think if it weren't for friendship though, my slump might be permanent.
I am so amazed by the people in my life. I am amazed at what neat, little beings we all are
...how we can come together and comfort each other when things seem so bad that you think you'll be crushed.

Today, I am invincible.  He says I am an amazing slab of nerves...
and look at that the sun is coming out...
 

Electric Grandmother

Who here has seen the movie the Electric Grandmother? I know I have. I was trying to explain this movie to Josh yesterday. How there was a little girl named Agatha who had two brothers and their mom died or something, so the Dad sent away for a nanny sort of thing. NOT on the Internet as previously stated. OR mail order bride as I also said. Maybe by catalog. A mechanical lady catalog, yeah that's it.

Anyway, she was cool. Like an old lady robot. She could shoot orange juice and milk out of her fingers. She had little dispensers in there. That's all that I remember really. I don't even think it was very good. I just remember it.

This is the worst blog ever.

To make it make even less sense, here's a note that I found in my scrap book that melts my little high school heart. :)

circa 1995:

Jan: "You know who I love now don't you? It isn't at all obvious."
Cathy: "I told you that you liked him you son of a bitch. When did you finally admit to this?"
Jan: "Ugh, he just kicked me...he keeps kicking me"
Cathy: "It sounds like he's riding a horse."
Jan: "Your face is riding a horse."
 

Mark your calendars!

For the first time in one million years, I, Jan M.D. Fulton went out to the bars. I have had many a cocktail and stank of cigarette smoke. I have been quite nostalgic this evening...thinking about old friends.

Speaking of which, I would like to point out that my ten year high school reunion is coming up. Can it really be ten years? I am unable to attend, but thanks to myspace.com I have recently been contacted by numerous people from my hometown, which has brought back so many crazy, wonderful memories. Who knew Tomah could produce such interesting people.

So anyway, I sang some karaoke and danced to really bad music. It was a great release. I also got a phone call that made me smile from ear to ear.

I just got home and it looks like the sun is about to rise. I haven't done this since....ever.

Also, M.D. does not stand for "Most Dope" as some might speculate. Or just Jake. It stands for "Mos Def".

...that is a lie.

 
thinking and thinking and thinking

long day of driving.  long day of thinking. 
I was daydreaming about going somewhere other than here
to Chile, to Costa Rica, to Croatia
...some other 'c' place just because. 
I miss travel. 
I thought about travel and I thought about friendships and how weird it is that we like to hold on to some,
run from others and then there are those that just taper off. 
I miss a friend that I haven't talked to in months.  I don't know how to. 
an email that I received today (not from said friend) reminded me of things I don't like to think about. 
reminded me of things that I run from.  things that I try to hide.
I've been getting a lot of comments that I've neglected my journal
- this is true but it isn't intentional. 
its because I've been writing music in private. 
for the second time in my life I've actually written music I am pleased with. 
maybe because my head is so busy.
I am consumed with thought recently. 
I usually only get this way in the fall or when something in my life is changing. 
things are dormant so it makes no sense. 

Well, I did drink four vente cold coffee drinks so that might explain it....
hey don't judge me, it was like soup outside today.

so I didn't say it, but thank you for the best email I have ever read. 
honestly, I have never felt so much from words on a screen. 
the admiration is 100 per cent mutual. 
we both know how lucky we are and I hope that I never forget where I've been.   I hope in ten years we are both still healthy and still thankful. 
most of all, I hope our friendship isn't one that tapers off.  

we really should make our vegan Cancer-free cake. :)
if only to be so wise as the young grasshopper.  ;) 
 

big phrase

When it was all laid out on the line, I wanted to run.
I wanted it to be real, but it was too close.
As I ran I kept thinking,
this -
this can be my magnum bonding opus.
I can try to make this happen.
It will if I stop hiding. If I stop running from everything.
You're always telling me to be braver.
If you're afraid it means it is worth something to you.
I'm breaking
and that scares me.
And who uses a phrase like that?!
Only you.

 
So over the line

I want to lay with you through fabric...
Through shields of tinted glass
and floppy haired memories.
to cover you.
all our naked and smashing.
Man, you got it on my yoga mat!

 
being brave

New developments make me a tired girl. Cancer is the worst thing there is. If you think there is something worse you are wrong. It makes you angry and sad and weak and I am tired of it.

I am sick again. My brain tumor is back to try to wreck what I've rebuilt. A few of you already knew - very few. For some reason I hide it. No more. I will beat this.

I have the best friends on Earth who have helped me more in the last few weeks than they will ever know. They are helping me to be brave...something I have trouble doing on my own. So thank you.
 

Watch the Fuck out!

This is my friend Mark:

He is very wonderful and handsome
(and by this photo you can see he has a great sense of humor).

This is my friend Mark after he was smashed into by an SUV:



Drivers, I need my friends to remain living.
You should be more aware of your surroundings. You are not the only people on the road.
 

Dear Cell phone,

I know in the past, I have been abusive to you. I swear it wont happen again.
I have recently fallen in love with you.
I know that it will be hard for you to trust me again, because I have cursed your name so many times.
I only did that out of fear. I was too stupid to figure you out, but from now on we will start a new.
I will learn your inner workings and try to be more patient when you aren't feeling cooperative.
..and forget the call waiting disasters and the screwy text messaging system. I have let it all go. You are forgiven.
I know right now you're saying "Jan, you cant start a sentence with "And". It just isn't right. I love you for that, too, Cellphone. I love you. You always put me in my place.

Please be my Valentine,
Jan
 

102 at O'Hare

My hair has exploded. At this point, I don't think it can get any bigger. There were power outages everywhere during the night. Mine flickers and comes back on within a few seconds.

I had to go out or I wouldn't have today. When I came back it felt like 80 degrees in my apt. Poor Buster was sprawled out on the kitchen floor. I think I'm going to put him in some cool water. The a/c is on full blast but when its 102 outside its still going to be hot. Chicago has cooling centers all over the city...that is really good. I cant imagine how hot it would be in here without a/c.

Oh, I'm so scattered today. I'm trying to recoup. I had a rough night last night.

Made some very poor choices in behavior. I felt hurt by a friend and in turn, hurt a friend. It was weird and I'm glad its over. It was the most unhealthy relationship I've had with a person...the most unreal. I should've ended it a long time ago.

Onto better things.
 

omega

when you look at me - I wonder
if there's more to you than beauty.
something deeper than the surface
something common and comfortable
when I see you,
you light up and it is incredible.
someone I hardly know, having such an impact on me.
I'm sitting here wanting you to keep it up.
your interest, even when I pretend it doesn't interest me.
like you said, such a crafty web I weave...

 
what I did today

...looked at pretty rust.
...wanted to steal this bike.
...saw dirty, little feet.
...got creeped out.
...stood a bit pigeony.
...re-read this.
...hugged B.
...drew on glass

 
Sincerity IS the new irony.

So I got a bunch of emails about my last post. Asking why there wasn't more writing...and if it was intentional.
The simple answer is that I didn't have much to say at the time - so I did something a little different.
To me, that was just as personal as anything I've written.

It's funny, this mass reaction is what happened with my old site, people getting worried. If I don't write for a day or two, I'm fine. If I'm idle online, or not online at all, don't fret. (Unless your name starts with K, because that shit was adorable.)

So my mouth shut up for a day seems to worry a few of you. I assure you, I am fine. I've been taking some personal time, some social time and some sleep time....finally I sleep.

I have been writing, just more in my notebook than into this metal box that seems to own me.

Here:

I wrote while I was at the bookstore the other day...about this stranger. He was interesting to me.

Sitting in a corner writing in my journal, it was quiet all around me. Then over the store's intercom system a woman said "Would the owner of a white Mercury Cougar come to the front of the store - your lights are on".

She repeated it.

She said the word "white" twice. Each time she said it, another voice echoed hers.

"White".
"White".

I had to find out where this came from.

Peeking through the skinny slots in the bookshelves was this man..my age, maybe a bit older.
This dark haired, weird OCD man. I liked him.

I got up and walked around the corner to see the rest of him. I didn't talk to him, I just smiled. He smiled back maybe knowing that I heard him, maybe not. Either way, it was a cute thing to do when he thought he was alone.

I like to think about the people in my life...how you are when no one can see you. How you are in your cars or in the shower. It fascinates me. I am crazy in my car. I was today. I was listening to Tyson Ritter screaming "Move Along".
I screamed along.

I hope you all know that I wanted to say "scrame" there. I scrame along.

It was a glorious, warm day of hair blowing in the wind and scraming my head off.

I also listened to "It Ends Tonight".  I was reminded of it pretty recently...by my friend the grasshopper. He is smarter than he thinks. He's better than he thinks.

...and here's where it gets sombre -er.

So like I said, it was a warm day.
Without knowing how it would turn out...the conversation happened.
I suppose it would've at some point.
He's tired of loving someone who doesn't love him back.
What the hell is wrong with me that I attract this?
Do I give something off - some weird vibe....please someone help me understand it.

I can love people over time, I can love them in my way.
I can love someone and not be in love with them.
I love someone RIGHT NOW.
It just isn't how they want. It never is.
I try to communicate it, and maybe I just suck at it.
Maybe I think I do fine, but I blow.
Or maybe I say things that I feel, but they are misinterpreted by people.
I'd wager big cheese on that.
I misinterpret people a lot. I think we all do.
We're all a huge lot of fuck ups who do nothing but misinterpret things.

Guh. This blog is making me antsy to shut up again. So I will.


you know what really grinds my gears?

Creeps.

There is a man in my building who is so over the top creepy.

He comes in to my office daily to ask me about random, insignificant news headlines and then stares at my boobs when I answer him. On voting day he actually said to me "You aren’t one of those liberal hippies are you?".

What year do you think it is you stupid loser?

As my dear friend Matt would say, "Like Jem, he is truly outrageous".

Not only does said boob ogler use the common bathroom for longer than anyone on Earth might, but he also sits on the phone all morning yucking it up with people as loud as his voice can carry. It might be the most annoying voice that I’ve ever heard (not to mention this insane clown laugh that is sooo fake). Even with my door closed it is so loud, because HIS door is open.  Apparently he thinks the entire building is interested in his bullshit conversations.

How can I possibly enjoy my vegan freak radio with your blow horn voice blaring you creepy, transparent, vapid crotch-dong?


this just in...
Easter peeps still fucking disgusting.

 
Words of Encouragement and Tinderboxes...

Well today has been lovely. I woke up puking. Nice, huh? Thanks Cancer.
This wont set the tone for the blog - I promise, it will improve.
Though, I must warn you, I am sickly.
Sickly like a little, stray cat who hasn't eaten in weeks
who just shows up on your doorstep meowing just loudly enough for you to hear him.
Forcing you to round up something for it to eat.
(i.e. I look as good, too.)
I don't have the mange yet, but I'll keep you posted.

Today, even in my sickness, I managed something more than lying in bed
(which would have suited me just fine, really).
Due to a social obligation though, I ventured outside.

Smelling the city dirt and feeling sunshine on my face made me quite happy.
As I made it to a friend of a friend's apt., I listened to Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol over and over.

I felt like I was in a movie.
I thought about a boy who sends me these emails
...these gorgeously long, eloquent emails.
I thought about those emails all afternoon and the weird hold they have over me.

The sun was trying to peak back out from behind a huge, grey cloud of doom in front of me
...and it hit me, that is how I feel right now.

Cancer is the dark cloud hovering over my picnic. 
Some days I feel like letting it gobble me...but I wont.
Cancer makes me feel weak, and guilty, and angry and sometimes selfish
...for getting close to people. I don't know why I feel this way, but I do.
I am lucky to have people care for me anyhow. I need that.

I don't know what the next few months have in store for me,
as nothing in my life is stable right now...most of all my health...

I have been quite sick, which is why I haven't written.
I don't have the energy most days. 

Please know that your emails/visits/phone calls/cases of vitamin water are an important part of my wellness.
I think about the time that you all put into to wishing me well and it makes me feel strong.
It makes me feel even more capable of beating this alone.

So, thank you.


assumptions

Have you ever done something that you regret as you're doing it?
Such a vague, mysterious morning I'm having.
Song lyrics floating through my head.
I sometimes lose track of everything else.
My mind is flowing furiously with ideas of how else I could have handled myself.
I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to imply a thing.

This morning is gloomy.
Its fitting. It has been an odd day so far.
I hope it picks up.
Part of me wants to go sit in a park and draw,
and then I come back to Earth and realize that there are other things that I need to be doing.

There are other things I need to be focusing on, but I am sorry.

 
and again

My foundation is sound,
and
it wont crumble when you decide to come around
again
With powdery concrete swept away now, I have rebuilt.
The dirty heart you left me with is healed.
The slipping and sliding of your confusion is no longer here.
and
I know exactly what happened.
I know you were never that man
and I will never want you
again

 
Year in Review

In the past year I have experienced the following things:

- I ended a relationship with the Aaron for no reason, really.  He lives in Boston now - which is still too weird to comprehend. I still care for him as much as I ever did. (He will hate that I wrote that)
- I finally moved to Chicago (after wanting to for years)
- I got a job that I liked (and worked and worked)
- I met my friend the grasshopper through said job (he continues to shock me)
- I talked on the phone more than any other person alive (I'm sure of it)
- I ate lunch with Conan O'Brien (he was as funny as he seems)
- I found out I was sick again (Cancer doesn't care if you've moved on - it doesn't care how happy you are)
- I visited Jake in NYC (every trip is better than the last)
- I met someone special (in the oddest of ways)
- I went to many outdoor concerts (injuring my ankle and thumb at one)
- I met John Mayer (and felt very uncomfortable about it)
- I learned how to play Dungeons and Dragons (jealous?)
- I rekindled some friendships from when I was very young :)
- I did "Up on my Soap Box" for the first time at Slam Poetry night (six years in the making)
- I watched Grasshopper lose it on stage. (proudly)
- I made a snow angel (and caught snowflakes on my tongue)
- I sang karaoke with the Stew Crew (I was crowned the winner)
- I made a promise (and I will keep it)
- I listened to a song over and over (it was the perfect present, K)
- I celebrated my 29th birthday (with Suzen, Mike Jason and Dubbs)
- I got into my first car accident (not my fault)

So December isn't over, but I'm really looking forward to a new year. The end of December and beginning of January bring new events...events long in the making...I hope this year is as good as this month has been (minus the car accident and Cancer, of course).
 

Dear Frank Caliendo,

Just so you know, you are not at all funny. More specifically, you are a terrible impressionist.
In fact, I have no experience whatsoever with impressions, but feel that I could do a better Pacino than you.

So stop it already! Stop it right now.

 
Cohen and Butterflies

This has turned out to be an odd day...of realization, of reflection, of nostalgia.
I had no idea such weird things would be happening.
It started with this dream, sort of a premonition, maybe.
Though, I don't really believe in that shit.
Current events are making it hard to dismiss the idea of fate.

Giddy feelings in my belly. I like them a lot.

 
pure concrete

Choice is fantastic. To have option is something that most of us take for granted.
I've been reminded recently how beautiful choice is. Even in the toughest of circumstances,
we get to decide what happens. I have some choices to make soon. One really big choice.
As confident in my choices as I normally am, certain goings on are affecting this one.

I've met someone.

Someone who isn't afraid of what they want. I admire that so much,
because what I want and don't want plagues me daily. I over think things.
I don't know what is best for me. I'd like to think I do, but really I have no clue.

It seems when I get what I think I want, I don't want it anymore.
I guess when we want what we cant have its exciting.
I find it intriguing to not know the outcome, so I drag it out.
Don't we always want what we cant have? Maybe when we finally have it, it becomes unnecessary.
We don't crave it anymore. There are certain things in my life that I want to crave forever.

If it becomes fact, it changes. Or maybe I'm just crazy.

I wonder all the time what will happen if I do this, or this, or that.

What will happen if I just stop questioning?
Didn't I talk about this very thing like a month ago
...and the month before that? Will this specific wonder ever go away?

Anyway, this person...this brave, honest, handsome man...what he wants is me.
He seems to know with 100 per cent certainty and that fact alone makes me nervous.
I simply don't want to let him down. So I want to make sure I know what I am doing before I do it.

Another thing that I've been thinking about is this friend of mine.
This friend from nine million years ago...who I've been talking to a lot lately.
He really knew me before anyone else did. He knew who I really was/am.
We think the same things are funny, the same things are lame.
We met when we were 12 and now, 16 years later, I'm learning things about him that I never knew.
I hope he finds what he's looking for. He seems to know what he wants, too.
How is it that most of the men I in my life know exactly what they want?

So my friend and I (when we aren't laughing our asses off) talk about what we're looking for,
or looking forward to. We seem to want such different things, but the desire to know is the same. 
He wants to get married, buy a house, have children, all the normal things that don't appeal to me. 
How did two best friends veer so far off?

In learning new things about him, it leads me to question my motives.
It leads me to question what I really want and what I'm really capable of.
Why am I so afraid of things that most people strive for?  
This choice...it doesn't just affect me. I have never thought on these terms before.
How will this affect the other person involved? At least I can admit that I am selfish. 
It is all I've ever known. 
Interesting to think about the other person and how THEY might feel
...considering the fact that I don't really know how to do that,
I will just end this by telling you how badly I want to see "For Your Consideration".

Ironic.
 

Birthday

Today is my good friend Cathy's birthday and Freddie Mercury's.
both excellent singers...but Cathy's mustache isn't half as cool. Happy Birthday anyhow, Cath.
 

Bout it Out

The smell of old paper.
Sick and delicious.
So many words and thoughts sprawled out.
The bricks and wood surrounding them are not enough.

These ideas are bigger.
Let it out, you V to the second.
Let fear fall between your feet
and grab hold of what you don't know.

It will change you.

Your words left broken in a pile,
and your pain behind you as you scoot forward.
These bookshelves and tables as your accoutrement.

Be brave and let it flow.

It was loud and painful...and it was gorgeous to see.
Let it slip. out.
and then we got kicked. out.
But oh well, this night could not be brighter.
 

Your Host

Back beat of my mind.
Out loud for you to find.
See you in the liners.
See me in the back.
Defend your right to love me.
Even if I never actually allow it.
Defend your right to touch my skin.
Because I know you need it.
You tell me that you forgive me.
You tell me to stay.
 

snow

Snow coming out my ass.

What a day! There is so much snow that I feel as though I am back in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Jeepers. Yes, I said "jeepers". I also said "Holy Moly" on the phone last night. Hardy Har. You can take the girl out of Hicksville, but you can't take the Hicksville out of the girl.

Speaking of which, I have been entertaining the idea of a move to New York. Jake has been trying to get me to move to New York for years. I keep thinking of the time that I've spent there...who I become when I'm there...I guess my Dad was right Chicago was my gateway drug.

So along with that desire, I have been entertaining thoughts of a lot of things lately. Relationships, Love, Cancer, Future(s).

I'm trying to be a grown up about feelings that I have and things that are happening in my life that are beyond my control.

With all that is happening, I am about to embark on a scary journey. I have made a decision.

The bottom line is I need this. I need this decision to have been the right one. I can do this. I can overcome the obstacles that are unknown to me right now. The obstacles that have kept me from doing this before.

I am less afraid right now than I ever have been. This is my life. I choose to accept this.

I can't wait.
 

warm fuzzy/cold prickly

When I was in kindergarten, we had this odd activity that I now realize was some sort of socialization test. 

It was called Warm Fuzzy/Cold Prickly.

The object of the activity was to let your classmates know whether or not what they were doing was acceptable or unacceptable behavior.  If you thought someone did something nice, you gave them a warm fuzzy (a billowy cotton ball).  If you thought someone did something shitty, you gave them a cold prickly (a wadded up piece of aluminum foil.)

At the end of the day, the student with the most warm fuzzies got to choose book to have read to the class or got to lead the activity or whatever.  The student with the most cold pricklies had to sit out.  I'm thinking like two or three people will recognize this bizarre game.  Kelly will I'm sure.  (Or anyone who went to Forrest Street School in Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the early to mid 80s)

So where this whole idea to blog about this came from, I'm not sure.  I think I was talking to Dave about it maybe...or Kendall...I don't even remember at this point.  That is why I should type this shit out right away. 

The teacher who implemented this game also escapes me, but the message stuck.  Treat people how you'd like to be treated.  Treat them as if they have a sack full of warm fuzzies to hand out.

So, I've decided that from now on I will hand out internet warm fuzzies and/or cold pricklies accordingly...you have been warned.

*I was informed that I was talking to Aaron about this.

 
wilco

So I went to see Wilco this weekend..twice.
I just cant get over how entertaining the conversations with the audience are.
For me, it isn't even about the music...which is ridiculous to some, I'm sure.
If you've been to several Wilco shows though, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
It somehow feels so personal. The musings are so relatable.
Wilco is the band that I have seen live more than any other band, and I don't even own one of their cds.
Actually, I don't even listen to their music. It is a bizarre relationship I have with these men.
They should make a movie...and you should see them live.
 

what the FUCK?

a concerned friend asked me "What the FUCK have you been doing?"

So here, in the past few days I have been:

Having my car stall for unknown reasons,
Having my car jumped by a very nice guy and his relative,
Sitting in front of a grieving man who talked about his dead Mother,
Making nice men from bookstores get addicted to media outlets,
Wearing dark colored jeans,
Wearing light colored pants,
Driving faster,
Reminding myself to driver slower,
Missing a friend,
Eating far too many yogurt covered raisins,
Talking on the phone at 3 am,
Missing text messages,
Reading a book,
Wanting to read ten others,
Reading emails that make me want to hug people,
Not hugging people.
Not updating my blog, sorry.

 
killing his bereavement

Once I heard him say, "What brings people to speak when they could be listening?"
Isn't that perfect?

I'm wondering a lot of things today. I sometimes wish I could shut my mind off. I wish I could escape my own thoughts.

I wonder why I got sick. I wonder why I was allowed to get better only to get sick again. How fucking cruel.
I wonder how many more pills will enter my life.
I wonder where the next tumor will be found, if there is one.
I wonder if my friends know how grateful I am.
I wonder if wonder will ever subside.
I wonder why when I try to write something simple it turns into madness.
I wonder why he is so beautiful? I wonder if he thinks I am.
I wonder if he might let me make him less lonely. He seems so sad some days.
I wonder if the sound of him laughing is the purest form of beauty that Ill ever know.
I wonder why words on paper can bring me to tears.
I wonder why my mind is consumed with rapid thought,
and the words that leave me vulnerable, that leave me naked, why do I share them with you?
 

Isolation

and this tragedy was dense
..and it tore us apart

when everything was over
there were pieces carpeting the floor
plastic clean enough to cut through to me

round cheeks laughing and teeth sharp like daggers.

I wasn't making sense.
I never make sense to you.

and this feather-lite description isn't enough.
..and it worsens in my silence

and I don't know how to learn anymore.
let it seep out you say, dig deeper
beyond what you're used to.

I can never make the right decision for you.
but I put my heart above my head for once!


Buster plays with coins.

Any coin he can get his furry little mitts on. He has a basket full of catnip mice and glitter balls, but his toy of choice is a quarter. He's playing with one right now. He goes ape nuke for them.

So autumn is right around the corner. I love how I get this time of year. Reflective, extra inquisitive and unusually non-hermity. I love to be outside walking nowhere. I went on a nice walk today, and then sat in a park writing in my journal about forgiveness and acceptance and some other nouns that are difficult to swallow. I figure my life is worth making things right. Who knows how long we have.

I didn't plan for this to be a sad entry and really it isn't sad for me. I can see how it might be for you to read. I'm happy that I get another fall. A fall in Chicago. So many photos I want to capture and ideas to write about...and I will.

Unlike previous years, I cannot wait for winter. It's weird considering how much I'm in love with the fall. But in winter I can go ice skating in Millennium Park. I've wanted to for three years now. Now that I live here I can. There was never any time while I was visiting.

There is never enough time to do anything.

 
I MET CONAN.

Who wants to fuckin touch me?
I had a mad crush on him when I was in 8th grade. 
He is super nice.  I ate lunch with him and two other guys from the show who lived in Chicago at one time.  
Conan said that he felt like a giant next to me and then later said "Maybe you're that baby I gave up in college".  He also asked me if I had a friendster account and I almost died.  Friendster. That fucker is funny.:)
I love him.

 
Up On My Soap Box

When we were sitting on the grass, he asked me
"What do you see, when you open those beautiful brown eyes?"
"What makes your heart go pitter-pat?"

Such a simple question, and I admire his courage to ask.
I feared his reaction to my answer,
I wandered in myself for a bit,
I didn't know which way to turn, which way to grow.

Should I tell him how I want to write, and not for all, but for one.
That I want to publish my words, not to become rich,
but so that one kid in the Eighth grade
can stumble upon my book, old and rugged with next to no use.
So that Eighth grade child can read my words and
drool with ideas of self-expression and possibly success.

Will this man who asked me such a magnificent question
believe or understand my fear of answering?
Will he recoil and tell me how he too hates the negative?

How he wants to pick negative up by the balls and say,
"Fuck you negative!" "Fuck your undying, relentless face!"
Will he tell me that my views of emotion are beautiful,
and a trait to be marveled?

Will he hold my thoughts in with a smile,
and remember them throughout the day, the way I do with yours?
Will his notebooks be filled with new thoughts of this girl?
Will I be accepted into his private world?

I think so, because I am free.
And where there is movement there is peace.

There is peace in this pen,
and there is peace in this girl!

And I am no longer afraid to answer him.

I say to him
"I'll tell you what I think of, what I dream of late in sleep..."
"I dream of you, right now."
"I dream of this merger - of this conversation into trust."
"I dream that I am not alone in thought, that my values meet yours,
and that I respect you as a human, fellow in this place that is often harder than pleasant."
"I dream that I will meet a soul, who smiles about me when he's alone
...maybe a soul, who speaks in gestures of the hand."

I remember a conversation that I once had
with the most beautiful man that I know.
It went slow, as most of them do,
It was an awakening for me, as most of them are...
It went something like this:

"Belle, all that you care about, what means everything to you,
means nothing to him..."
"You are too brilliant a woman to not realize this on your own,
too beautiful a spirit to waste it on him."
"He is emotionless."

"No, he's not." I claim to him,
"He is full of emotion, he is only shielding it out of fear."

"You keep telling yourself that, and you will end up as lonely as he."

(End of conversation)
 

Art School Confidential

I really want to see it now, but I must wait. 
It is times like these when I am jealous of my friends in NYC and LA.  That is the only reason you whoo-ers. 
Chicago is so much cleaner than NYC
and don't even get me started on my issue with LA (which is dirty for a much different reason).
Can I just tell you how unproductive my day has been? 
Basically, I woke up drank water and green tea while I sat here in this chair. 
I spent my time watching weirdos on the internet and answering even weirder emails from people on myspace. 

You people are crazy and no I will not go out with you.   
Oh I sure am sleepy...and cold...and hungry. 
Going to sleep at 5am and waking up at quarter of 2pm is not very good for energy or motivation levels. 
That said, thanks Kendall.  It was fun. :)
 

slouch on the couch

Sometimes in life we assume.
Maybe to avoid things, maybe to hope for things...things that look shinier than they really are.

Interpretation is so very deceiving.
I guess when someone has no facts to go on, assumptions are all that they have.

Maybe people think they have to pick things apart because communication with me can be such a shielded thing.
Without proper communication, confusion follows. I communicate well when I want to.

When you talk to me, know that I say what I mean. If I'm mustering up the words to speak, they're real.
There's no need to read between the lines with me. It will only get you into trouble...into inaccurate assumptions.
I'm not being shady when I'm silent. I'm being silent because some days I am out of words.

I wish that the things I say or don't say would stop hurting people.

I'm sitting here cold, with my window wide open.
I know that I could close it and to not close it shows a little insanity, but the wind hitting me is comforting.
So as I sit here wrapped up in a blanket I'm thinking about the delicate nature of emotional attachment.
Some people get attached so quickly and others never do get attached all the way.
I wonder why that is. Fear I suppose, fear of being alone or fear of being smothered.

Everything is based on fear of something.
Fuck fear...and here I sit...wrapped in a blanket, fearing that I've hurt someone, and I can't stop thinking about it.

I'm going to go sink into the fabric of my couch and watch Ghost World.
 

Tonight I learned...

Yeah, it's 40 degrees right now. What the son of a bitch is that about? I was warm for like three hours and now I'm freezing again.

So, tonight I learned that summer dresses make people happy.
I learned that dogs take up a lot of pillow space.
I learned that pizza and chocolate milk are staples.
I learned about a rectangular cat who liked to be slugged.
I learned that a skyline is home to him.
I learned that I want to remember tonight for it's honesty forever.
I learned that all this crazy writing means something to someone.
I learned that that makes me quite happy.

Most of all, tonight I learned that the best things seem to happen when you just let them without question.
 

The Writer's Thoughts

I look at all this writing that I do,
and it seems that my heart is so big,
and that I have it all together,
and that I have nothing together,
and that I have nothing to grab onto,
and too much to let go of,
and that I am right,
and that I am wrong,
and that I am willing,
and that I am so very reluctant,
and even though I want the world to coincide with my dreams,
I can still appreciate the fact that it doesn't.
 

30 Helens Agree

It's pretty funny just how lazy I was in the shower just now. The water was like spraying me in the face and instead of reaching up to adjust the shower head, I just strained my neck to get my head above it like a cat in deep water.

A lazy day ahead.

Also, I made a promise to a friend that I would post series of very weird blogs from late 2000 while I had the flu, so here goes (at the time I was living in downtown Milwaukee and was 22 years old - and also this was the last time I've had the flu.)

26 December 2000 - If the spirit moves you...

I have just been amazed. I was sitting here
reading an email from Bill when my roommate, Patrick interrupted me to tell me a funny story. Apparently, most days when he comes home from class he sees our mail carrier guy sitting on our steps reading magazines. I thought it was a pretty funny story, but that maybe he was exaggerating about how often this happens. So he was like, "You should go down there right now and see if he's there." So, I did...and there he was. Sitting on our steps INSIDE the building reading a magazine. I wonder if he does this every time he delivers a magazine of personal interest Wouldn't that be weird? Pat said that is why our postage stamps keep going up in cost, because this jackass wastes 45 minutes per building reading Cosmo. It got me to thinking, maybe I will apply at the local post office. I like Cosmo sometimes.  Also, I have decided that Marvin Gaye is the king of sexy. I could listen to "Let's Get it On" one million times in a row. Maybe that will be my New Year's Resolution...and I think I'm catching a cold.

27 December 2000 - Magnolia

As some of you know, I have big opinions about films. I don't proclaim to know a lot about cinematography or lighting or angles or whatever else all the film nerds get into. What I do proclaim to know, is what I like. Ladies and Gentlemen, for your own good, check out Magnolia. For the sake of your future with Entertainment see it a few times. (Patrick this means you) Anyway, I will go on to talk more about the movie now, only giving you teasers of what I thought, because hey, this is a recommendation here, not a review. I don't do that anymore people, buy a newspaper. So yeah, my head hurt for some time after watching it the first time and it did this time around, too. I may hurt yours, but it's a good hurt. So stop crying you baby.  The characters are beautifully flawed and honest and humiliating and I just cant decide which profile I liked the most. Too much to see, too much to adore. It might be my second favorite movie of all time. Harold and Maude is unbeatable, sorry Mr. Anderson...but I would have your babies.

28 December 2000 - Celery

Ya know, I wish that all of you had hair long enough to put into pigtails There's something therapeutic about it. I like to twist them into ringlets and such. Maybe I will buy wigs for all of you or steal some fake hair from Britney Spears and Christina Ah gwee la rah. Jou like blond, vight? Ya, blond is perfect for jou.  Here's something weirder than that maybe. Does celery make your tongue numb? It's a bizarre numb feeling. A dual feeling, really. Not like dentist Novocain numb or foot falling asleep numb - but a much tamer version of both of those together. It's sort of neat now that I think about it. I like to eat celery. I like how it crunches. It's worth the numb.  If celery does make your tongue numb, please email me.  I keep getting sicker. I hate the flu.

29 December 2000 - On Being Sick with the Flu

Every so often there is this truck that drives down Wells St. It's a flat-bedded truck with a lighted billboard on the back.
Every time I see it, it has something new written on it...like, "Get out and rake your yard, ya big dink!" or "You'd better make sure that there aren't any cameras in your pillow before you go to sleep." I just think it's a remarkable thing, this truck. I mean, advertising nothing, except gibberish and maybe fear. And like they say, "Only the strong understand." Wait, do they say that? Or is it "Only the strong survive"? I'm starting to wonder if this billboard truck even exists or if the Nyquil is starting to get to me.

30 December 2000 - Poor Cow.

I had this crazy dream last night. My roommates and I were driving in an '85 Cutlass. We were on an abandoned road in the middle of nowhere...maybe Texas. Anyway, we were all sitting in the front, Duke's of Hazard style. While riding down the road, out of nowhere, a cow leaps out in front of the car. So we hit him and he's all dead looking on the side of the road with his little cow feet up in the air. Then in some sort of miraculous event, he just gets up and walks away. Everything was fine until I saw a sharp-shooter coming out from a field of wheat. He shot the cow, dead. Then I woke up.

01 January 2001 - Brad is my hero.

Just to keep you up to date, I will not be listening to Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" one million times. My friend Brad told me that if I were to attempt this it would take away years of my life. However, with Brad's encouragement, I have decided to go for the World's Record of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" listening. Could you imagine the prestige? I told Brad that I could listen to it like two or three times in a row because chances are there is no Guinness Book of World Records record for this category. He told me that I should listen to it around ten or twelve times, so my record would be out of reach. Man, he sure is a good friend.

-------------------------- End of blog archives.

I hope you're happy.  I think in that week I consumed my weight in Nyquil.
continuous frustration ate my day


So today couldn't have been worse. 

This morning (after sleeping like 4 hours) I got up showered with no hot water and froze my ass off.  I got dressed, broke my favorite necklace, drove my normal 30 minute commute to work (which ended up 45 minutes today) because a of total fucking morons driving on Northwest Highway.   

I'm talking to you ugly lady in the white mini-van with Illinois plates 891110.  Those people honking at you were trying to explain that driving 20 mph in a 40 mph zone will get you murdered at 6:15 a.m.  If I didn't hate honking horns so much I would've joined in

So I had to get to work ass early because I had a meeting (which didn't even HAPPEN because they decided not to show up)  So then I went to meet with a client and learned that they had a huge problem months ago with this huge campaign that my company was responsible for. 

As most of you know, I started this job very recently and know nothing of former accounts.  So I basically ass-kissed for 45 minutes assuring this impossible woman that under my supervision these types of errors will not occur (even though I have no clue if what she wants is even doable).  I will be spending a lot of my time brown-nosing and bullshitting and I just don't like it.  I like other aspects of the job but this is one I don't think I'll ever get used to.
So after my pleasant meeting with Melinda, the ruler of Bitchland, I went back to work and found out that she had called there saying that I was 30 minutes late (which I was NOT and anyone who knows me knows I'm 10 minutes early because I HATE being late).  So I had to defend myself to my new co-workers who probably thought I stopped off to get my nails done.
* (I did not write this one)

what does it cost for a piece of your mind, must be a lot because it fills up mine,
with all the things you say and all the other things you never talk about...
guess my peace of mind is something i'm gonna hafta live without....


Bricks

Bricks aint nothing but bodies laid to take the weight of life and burden.
Stretching out across the world to shelter our fears and uniform our flaws.
Masking whatever differences we have by muddy reds so that no one is loud.
This wall is who I used to be on the inside.
I'm sitting in my sorrow-less world trying so desperately to be a writer again.
Right now, I'm so simple.
and I'm dying to be that person who could create with no motivation.
I'm a girl who's stuck in a rut of comfort.
and I never thought I'd be her.
a lesson in tolerance...that's what this is.


Aging.

I want a "pugs not drugs" t-shirt for my birthday. Or you know, just because you like me.

Speaking of birthdays, I have a friend who is panicking about turning 30.
I can't quite understand it. Maybe my panic number is much higher.
I suppose I'll be in for it, for doubting the power of aging, but I just love getting older.
Each year you get to know more shit, do more shit and you're further and further away from your past
- so you can remember things in a different light.

In being confronted with my friend's fear of getting older, I realized, how comfortable I am in my own skin.

I am melting into 30 and feeling good about it.
I'm pleased about the changing years and I'm much more settled at 28 than I was at 20.
I don't mean like settled party-my-ass-off settled. I barely did that
...with the exception of the parties at 528 Broadway St. (Barrett and Jarod's place)
in Eau Claire, Wisconsin with Bobbi.  We were like Rock Stars.
The boys were cute and the drinks were free.

I mean that I'm more settled in my head. I still struggle daily with what other people do and say and how that affects me,
but I know who I am and what I deserve, and I think that can only happen with age.


Fighting

I heard from a friend from my past. It made me smile.
It made me think about so many things that I have buried. Not denied, but pushed back in my heart.
He knows all of my secrets. He knew then and never judged me.
He and I were together in the most horrible and honorable event in my life.
I wanted it to be him so badly. He was amazing in that moment. I will never forget it.
It made my choice bearable. It affirmed my choice to offer more.
How could he have known that I needed him? I never told him.
He stepped outside his own safety and scooped me up.
Can it really be almost 9 years?
I'm proud of his choices. I'm regretful that I've not kept in touch with him.
To this day, I don't know how he was affected by what we went through.
It's weird, I don't think about it, I haven't thought about it in years and then out of nowhere.
With one click, he reminded me.
How selfish that I've been, how one-dimensional.
He's brought up all these questions...all these memories that feel somehow more positive now.
Until recently, I viewed my hometown as my personal enemy.
When really, I was. It is easy to see that now.
I live a good life, but who knows what I might have become had he not been strong for me.
He really was self-less in that moment.
It's interesting to think about it now, that is the day when I stopped fighting who I was.
I realized that I could never be here again.
I could never be so lost.
I began to choose my future instead of blaming my past.
I didn't know it then, but I do now.
I'm deeper into the music that I'm hearing than I ever have been.
Not the words, this time, the sounds.
Am I fucking growing right now?
Is it that simple? You just wake up and know?
I fantasize about leaving, to Ireland, or to Portland, or to Barcelona, because there
I met the best friend a girl could ask for.
An opportune time for the friendship that I destroyed.
Do I want to leave because I feel unimaginative?
Can I go on each day feeling unchallenged and remain content?
How have I been so content all this time?
Is it because I'm trying to recapture feelings, or to change wrong choices?
The things that I've learned from experiences and the adapting.
Could I go back to those days when I was sad and rewrite my life?
If I could, I wouldn't be right here, right now...
I wonder if it's still the same?
How much can change in 9 years?
I think I'd find that it hadn't changed at all...
Like me, deep down I haven't changed a bit.
My actions have, but my heart is the same.
The streets would be similar and the sounds will never change.
The memories of who I was then, or trying so desperately not to be.
I mourn for that.
I tried so hard to be anything other than I was; so I wouldn't hurt.
I wonder if it would be cathartic to go there now.
Walk down the streets and look at the houses that I was in at one point.
Finally close the door to the pain that I used have...to make room for the new pains that life seems to bring.
What if somehow they cross paths.
What if...I ask it everyday.


Still Frame

Sometimes I still frame myself and pretend that I 'm a photograph.
It seems a lot easier to realize who I am there.
Realize where my fears lie,
and realize just how beautifully imperfect I am.
There is something amazing about imperfection.
You can see it in the eyes of any photo.
When the lungs are relaxed and the brain takes a pause.
You can read it all then.
Today I cried. For myself, I cried.
And for the first time in months I allowed sickness to seep out
Even though now I'm healed...or on my way
It 's weird; will I ever again feel safe?
The still frames of my past allow me
to remember a girl I will never be again.
They allow me to learn myself as a new,
and to remind me of where my eyes have been.
 

Sleepless in Wisconsin

It's three o'clock in the morning
as I pour some more tea: caffeine-free.
I see my hands writing these words...
and I'm marveled and startled at the idea
that I have yet again, neglected to sleep.
My mind is flowing faster than I can grasp,
and my heart isn't taking any breaks.
And as I sit here, I picture you sleeping soundly_
dreaming of good things, Martha Stewart things.
I hope his dreams contain me,
so I can get some sleep soon.


Confident in Crowds

I recently took a break from writing.
Two days, but a break, nonetheless.
I took time off to watch the common.
I took time off to watch him walk.
Studying the way he holds his head,
high while other's are witness...
and drifting slightly lower when he's alone.
You can learn a lot about a man
who is confident in crowds and insecure in secrecy.
He holds more love for what others think of him
than he holds for himself.
I watched his mouth as he spoke_
and I watched his gorgeous hands drag with precision.
It's amazing what I never noticed in casual conversations.
Spying on his world felt exciting and comfortable...
Like he knew that I was there, watching at a distance,
and he wanted me to continue.  


Pointless Anger

He said to me,
"Purity isn't a four-letter-word, stupid."
and I said,

"Yeah; well, pure is...Stupid."


I Saw a Man of Solitude

I saw a man of solitude.
He was standing in a field,
alone with the trees,
and snow two feet deep.
He was standing there doing nothing,
and feeling everything.


Discomfort

Have you ever felt like you were alone?
I mean, tons of people around you, but no one inside...
Well that's me, sometimes...so vague and lost.
And my mind is hurting and full of fear
for wanting to bluntly say "I hate you."
I never used to think that I'd be capable of hate at all...
but I do now, and I think I've always been
I hate the facts that have led me here.
I can write, and cry,
and try to will myself well...
and one day I'll be there,
and one day you wont be.


528

Walking down the writer's block,
with hair in my eyes and dirt on my heart.
I saw him standing on the porch with his next project.
She was cute. Short and sorta chubby.
I felt badly for her, because I knew of her future.
A few years ago I may have warned her...but not now.
Because he changed my life in so many ways
I wouldn't want to cheat her.
He may be the one to open her world
the way he did with mine.
I wonder if she'll get it like I did...
maybe, maybe not.
I think that's his job, though.
To point out the foolish, the nave
and expose them, in-turn making them smart
and cultured in the art of Otto.


Easy Man

Boring men with big ideas of their great achievements.
Trying to be so damned impressive
just to get you into bed
I only meet exactly what I hate...
Reality is bliss to me, honesty rocks the house
I simply want simplicity--is anybody hearing me?
simple views,
simple songs,
simple love, is all.
It's weird how much harder it is to be easy.
Thank You Sweet Procrastination
Some day when I am more, or less trusting...
I will
or will not reveal my love
or fear for you.
Some day I will accept
or decline
to resist you, again...
And I will revel in and cry
or run away and hide.
Some day I will admit
or deny
that I am so deeply in love with you
that it kills me,
or allows me to breathe clean air
for the first time in my life.
Some day I might just stop
or just stop pretending
Someday I might want you to do the same
Some day it might be good or bad
to hold you, again.
Some day I might ask the questions,
or erase them.
Someday I might see you on the street,
I may call out to you
or maybe I'll just pass you by.
Some day I may thank you
or scorn you
for this gift or curse
Some day I might actually understand
how all of this happened...
some day...but not today.

 
Letter to Ireland

Dear Ireland,

We like your rolling green hills and your cliffs. We also like your sheep and cows...screw it all your animals (except that bitch owl at the Dublin Zoo) We enjoyed commuting on your trains…they were quite easy and very efficient. We liked your weird candy (except the Lion Bar which seemed to have saltine crackers inside) We also liked riding your skinny, curvy roads (even though Jan nearly cried a couple of times)

Our only complaint is that you have no pizza delivery services. You should work on that, Ireland.

Love,
Ben and Jan

p.s. freckles.