30 August 2008

mix tape v

Like Looking in a Mirror ("Drain You")
mixed Feb 26, '04 (junior year of hs)

side a:
1) "Ready For You" - Hoobastank
2) "Sorry to Burden You" - No Way Josie
3) "Think Twice" - Eve 6
4) "Minority" - Green Day
5) "Graduate" - Third Eye Blind
6) "Take Five" - Dave Brubeck Quartet
7) "Mad World" - Gary Jules
8) "Drain You" - Nirvana
9) "What You Are" - Audioslave
10) "UR" - Alanis Morissette
11) "Oceans" - Pearl Jam
12) "Save Me" - Hanson
13) "I Am the Walrus" - the Beatles

side b:
14) "Disenchanted Lullaby" - Foo Fighters
15) "The Motivation Proclamation" - Good Charlotte
16) "Idioteque" - Radiohead
17) "Numb" - Linkin Park
18) "What's My Age Again" - Blink-182
19) "My Beloved Monster" - Eels
20) "Wasting Time" - Collective Soul
21) "My Own Worst Enemy" - Lit
22) "Cast No Shadow" - Oasis
23) "When the World Ends" - Dave Matthews Band
24) "All Eyes On Me" - Goo Goo Dolls
25) "Push" - Matchbox 20
26) "On My Own" - the Used

25 August 2008

hypothesis:

courtesy of my hearing anatomy professor:

"human beings are infinitely variable."

agree/disagree?

23 August 2008

thunderstorm meditation (excerpts)

solitude was a useful tool, she thought, but she had yet to understand how. it only made her think of the people she was missing. perhaps it was which people, and how, that were important.

a loon cried out over the lake. there was a lonely creature.

silence is not very silent, she thought to herself. thunder, crickets, rain; the occasional bullfrog or loon; the persistent lapping of the water. water always moves toward the shore--where does it move away from?

the first band of storms had gone. her curiosity tempted her outside just soon enough to see that the second band was darker, lower, and moving much faster. the clouds made her feel exceptionally small. the trees were dead still as the clouds relentlessly rolled forward. the low branches began to flicker first. she shivered, and went back inside before the clouds overtook the last evening light.

she sang into the storm and thought of how much silence, though not silent, is enveloping. as soon as the last syllable was past her lips, it was swallowed by the quiet, and it was as if her voice had never been. but then, she knew that her vibration still traveled out, even if it was now so small as to be unheard, carried on the wind and the rain into the lake and the trees and the world, and that somewhere, her voice would touch some life in a way that neither of them would predict or understand.

the lightning lit the forest like milliseconds of day.

13 August 2008

realization:

i am still continually amazed by the countless ways in which it is possible to love another person. i don't expect this will change. it's been true for years now, and there are still so many experiences i haven't had.

the trouble is making them all fit together, because there are only so many words in this language for kinds of relationships (and only one word for "love," which is endlessly problematic), and there are so many people who don't understand that the ways to love are limitless.

i hesitate to say i like the way one's language shapes one's culture, but i am intrigued by it.

09 August 2008

synchronicity, part deux

i just watched Amelie again. it had been too long, and was just about due for another viewing. this is a movie, as i see it, about finding good in the world, and about the universe unfolding as it should (with a little effort).

i'm also reading the Watchmen graphic novel, which is pretty much the opposite story so far.

strange things have been happening to me lately. i guess no more strange than usual....just particularly noticeable. there was the man on the crowded bus who chose me to talk to one evening, saw me to my core, introduced himself, and told me to grow out my hair, which was funny because that's exactly what i've been trying to do. there was the woman at work yesterday who gave me a copy of her book, on her spiritual journey as a Western physician incorporating concepts and practices from Eastern medicine and philosophy, and who signed it for me, with the message "Follow your heart's passion and the universe will conspire in your favor!" (i have mixed feelings about her, i'll admit, but i was pleased to meet her very grounded 17-year-old son.) there's learning how to live in an entirely new set of circumstances....

so yes, it's reassuring to see a movie about finding where you need to be. especially at a moment when it seems as if the life i want (?) has no place in the world i know. here's to new-found definitions of self, and struggles with their implications. (and vaguery on the internet.)

06 August 2008

talking about it (semi-fiction)

i'll marry you, he says. i've already married you in my mind. the rest of the world doesn't need to know; they're not ready yet.

i go back and forth. yes, i will marry you; yes, i will dedicate my life to you; no, i'm not too young. there is no "too young" when you know as certainly as i know. i have never loved anyone the way i love you; i could never love anyone the way i love you.

what are the risks? the risks don't matter. we're smart; we'll be safe. and even if something goes wrong, we're mature enough to deal with it, no matter what they say. we will make do if we have to. it'll just be starting our life sooner than we'd planned. funny how the parts we don't want to rush and parts we want sooner than possible run into each other.

this goes on for weeks, then months. this spans every other argument. every disagreement ends with i-love-you's and a discussion of this. how badly we want it, how practical we could make it--how real we could make it.

yes, i will marry you; yes, i will dedicate my life to you. i belong more to you than i belong to myself. in private, he calls me by his last name.

when the phone call comes, it is like a sign from God, if we still believe in Him. the timing is too perfect to ignore. the opportunity is too perfect to reject. practically every permission has been granted; practically every decision has already been made.

we stall, even then. it's almost as if we know better. then on the last day, it happens, reluctant and slow, readily and rushed, on someone else's couch for fear that my mother will suddenly come home.

he kisses me, holds me, tells me everything i never knew i wanted to hear. let's keep this just between us. it's too special to share. he goes home and i go back to my family, the one i wish i no longer had to claim. i try not to smile too much. i limit my words, remembering that everyone is still sad and i am supposed to be, too.

it hurts but it is a good hurt, and the kind of sore i am afterwards tells me that i have accomplished something. it is a tangible reminder that i am changed. when it goes away, i want it back. it is a sick-sweet secret, and it is mine, and i own it. with shame and shamelessness in good measure.

i go back to school the next day, and when my best friend meets me at my locker in the morning, it is as if nothing has changed. but i know we are speaking to each other across that rift, the one that separates the girls who have from the girls who haven't, and only i know which side i am on.

it continues this way, as often as we can make it: yes, i have married you; yes, i dedicate my life to you. let's keep this just between us. it's too special to share.

i go back to school, and when my best friend meets me at my locker in the morning, neither of us knows which side the other is on. it is not open for discussion. so we stop talking.

he becomes my everything, just the way we said we wanted it. there is nothing but each other. if they notice, they say nothing. but who needs their notice?

yes, i have married you; yes, i dedicate my life to you. but why don't you think of it this way? why can't you agree with me? why do you antagonize me? you're doing this on purpose, even though i love you so much. let's keep this just between us. it's too special to share.

why don't you pay me any attention when we're around other people? why do you need me so much? why can't you make everything better the way you used to? why do you rely on me to be the sole source of your happiness? yes, i dedicate my life to you, but i am not living enough to give you this much.

at first it hurt, and then it was nothing but pressure. then it was nothing but the hemp around my neck and the tears that stung my cheeks. yes, i have married you, and we've kept it just between us, but now there is no one who can validate this feeling of divorce.

04 August 2008

on the train from new york (excerpts)

7/27/2008

"wow" is the best compliment i could have received as i came down the stairs.
i kiss like a woman, not like a girl.
you are beautiful, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

i wonder what i will look like when i get old. i wonder [often] what old women looked like when they were young. i aspire to be a crone...


sketches on M.C., 4 years later:
too old for her age. hard on the outside--thick--but soft if you can reach her. ice-blue eyes that burn like acetylene. soundgarden, mudhoney, pearl jam and nirvana. confidence that is usually genuine. beautiful to those who don't know they're looking for it.


lewistown junction, 3:46 pm
mommy is home! daddy and two little boys are waiting to greet her and her friend with flowers, hugs, and kisses. the smiles on their faces, and the way daddy kisses his wife, trying to hug her with a stroller between them, busy and adult and yet so full of how much he has missed her, brings tears to my eyes. not jealousy--anticipation.

as we pull away from the station, five children and one woman are sitting on the curb, waving goodbye. i and the woman behind me wave back, and i wonder if they can see us.


****
"ice-blue eyes that burn like acetylene" is my favorite phrase that i have ever written.