We're Gonna Try Something Different.

http://anesthesia.tumblr.com

Go here now instead.

"I Think They're Glamourized More Than Anything."

- Brenden, on the way out of the hospital after visitng Julie.
I am so sick of having to explain to people that being in a psych ward/ treatment center/ whatever is not bad or pointless. It seems that the general opinion on the matter is that they either brainwash you or that they do nothing.
As someone who spent a week in one last year, I can say that neither of those statements are true. I guess you can liken them to drunk tanks. If you're sufficiently fucked up to go to one, then you need it.

Also: it's almost Christmas.
Also Also: That girl who wrote me the missed connection is back in town tomorrow and I am excited.
Also Also Also: I should probably start writing again. In general.

I've Been Moving A Bit More Slowly.

I spent a good portion of the past week in the car. Thanksgiving was as delightful as always, as was the Christmas tree getting and Post-Thanksgiving.
However, I was hit by a ton of bricks yesterday night. Or a bag of cinderblocks. Or whatever.
Last thanksgiving/Christmas tree getting/etc was spent doing the exact same thing I did last year.
There's someone halfway across the country who I miss more than I can express. He made me a mixed cd of christmas songs.
I have never cried to christmas songs before.

The Sailor's Last Name Was Truelove.

Once upon a time there was a girl who rode the trains. And one evening, on the way to the train that would take her home from school, she walked outside and felt different, like the nightmare she had been living in for the past eight years had just ended, and that if she wanted she could be better for good. And she smiled, and the boy standing outside asked her what she was so happy about. She told him that she didn't know. The next morning she woke up and felt good about it. The morning after that she did the same thing. A week and a few days later, after feeling this way for a solid week and a few days (saving occasional anxiety attacks), she was driving to the place where she spent all of her free time. She smiled to herself, in the car. She was happy to be alive for the first time in eight years. A few days later she saw a sailor on the train reading For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway. She recognized his last name as one she had seen on gravestones 3 years earlier, in a cemetary where her dead relatives were buried. She thought about how odd it was, with the book and their connection being death, and how the coincidence was almost unreal. And she felt alright about it. She didn't know what to do with herself or how to handle herself. She realized that her parameters had shifted, and that she would have to relearn a lot of things. But she looked forward to what was ahead. She looked forward to the plans she had made. She looked forward to the things that would happen that she hadn't planned.
And she was excited about all of it.

A Few More Haiku, Some Self Evident Truths, And Something Else

HAIKU:

Temple to temple,
exhausted,
your hand touches mine.
-10-26-08

Exit from
married couples, long hair, card games, for a cigarette
to celebrate the coming months of floundering.
-10-27-08

The same two conductors
both ways in one day-
a mystical sign of some sort.
-10-28-08

100% straight
means kisses on the cheek
and a not-so-secret crush.
-11-8-08

SELF EVIDENT TRUTHS:

*If you hold still enough, you don't feel trapped.
*The universe will have its way regardless of our current situations.
*Likewise, regret is unnecessary because the universe will balance itself out despite our actions.

OTHER THINGS:

Important B's in a man:
*Bookshelf
*Bedroom
*Body

A Craigslist Missed Connection Posted For Me By A Truly Amazing Woman:
Close But Almost No Cigarettes Left (10-21-08)
I met you too soon and too late.
Ever since I left that night bad luck has been following me.
Makes me wonder if I went the right way at 10:30 the next night because that's all I have time for nowadays.
Was that the right freeway. That's freedom for ya.
To be brave in the face of fate is no simple task.
I wouldn't call it cowardice. well maybe depending on my mood.
There are corn fields, bike parts, mountain ranges, shaking hands
in between here and there. So maybe for now this world is closer.
This made my day, week, month. Where did you come from? Who are you?
We lived ten minutes away that whole time.
Call me when it's time to call me.

(Addendum: I still haven't called her. I'm waiting for something to tell me that it's definitely time.)

Haiku 2 and 3

Three figures in the crosswalk
they all like boys.

---

Freedom doesn't have a purpose
under the light
of the racetrack
-10/17/08

Haiku (Hopefully, The First Of Many)

a line at intelligentsia,
my lime green umbrella,
the smell of clove cigarettes.
-10/15/08

"I want to move halfway across the country in the wrong direction."

I am moving to boston in late january or early february.
There's a lot more stuff I could say about this, about the panicked hour that led to this decision, or the way I stumbled around, lightheaded, for the next 3 hours after I made it, but it's all filler.
Since my sophomore year of high school I have had one dream. Rather, I've had one dream that stuck and that I have secretly been working towards in whatever ways I can, but there really isn't a way to work towards it. My sophomore year of high school is when my now ex-best friend introduced me to the weakerthans. I want to be the girl in the weakerthans songs, and i feel closer than ever to it right now. Of course, I also feel kind of like the girl in the kind of like spitting song, we got a far as minnesota. But what happens next, crucial as it is, is unimportant. I am moving to boston to follow the boy from the last post. Halfway across the country in the wrong direction.

I Wrote This Letter:

To whom it may concern (It should be obvious):
Remember that day all our metaphors stumbled out of our mouths and broke on the floor, but we loved each other anyway? Or when we fell asleep stuck to each other, and curled up perfectly?
I want that to be everyday. I want to eat couscous, and watch movies, and wake up to kiss your sleepy head before I waltz off to school or work or wherever.
I want to not get hurt, or hurt, ever again. I want to have a one and only, to get an apartment and drink tea at the kitchen table and make messes in the living room and get into fights because we're both crazy and go off my meds because we don't have insurance and cry ourselves to sleep and wake up new. I want to get drunk and wake up half dressed, soaked in whiskey. I want to move halfway across the country in the wrong direction.
I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
I mean it.
The only reason I ran away was because I'm an idiot. I won't do it again.

This Week Has Been Pretty Damn Long.

It started out pretty wonderfully,with Monday night and Michael etc, and then got a lot worse. I've been stranded twice this week, and last night threw me.
I have to be vague because if I'm not, I'll end up admitting things that I'm not quite ready to admit. I know them, and my little brother knows, but that's it.
I came to a realization of sorts a few weeks ago involving things that happened and The Idiot by Dostoevsky. Since then I've spent a lot of my brain power thinking about ruined things, and what makes someone ruined, and the connection i feel with that character who shares my name. I'm more like her than I want to concede to. However, if you look at the past year of my life (as in, starting in January of this year) in that context, it makes sense. And it makes it very clear what I am trying to avoid and what I desperately want. They're the same thing. It sucks. Listening to Black Sheep Boy by Okkervil River doesn't help, either. It's a story that I lived, and now I keep reliving because the album is good. I feel like there's some sort of insight that i can use, too. I just need to find it.
I came to a realization this week on tuesday that confirmed that what I'm running away from for months at a time and what I desperately want are one and the same. It scares me as much as I knew it all along. and in combination with last night it leaves me incredibly confused.
Last night was a trip, though. Conversations about something Sarah Kane said, but twisted into something she didn't mean..."Thou shalt not kill thyself".
It's truth, I guess, based on my extensive adventures in trying to kill myself and failing, but I said it as a joke. So much bullshit flew back and forth over that coffee. It was kind of nice. I need serious human interaction on occasion.
Reminded me of something I'm not supposed to remember. Oh well. I was good, and that's what matters.
I've been being good lately, becuase of that guy from a year ago. I really don't know if being good is what i should be doing or not. I don't want to be good. I've never wanted to be good. I'm making efforts and it's making me bored and tired and sick of life. So maybe it's time to cut it out, get all of the other stuff out of my system. The bad half live in wickedness, but the good half live in arrogance, you know? I'll take honest wickedness over arrogance anyday.

I Have Got My Shit Together And I Am Ready To Go.

Right now, it's all about school. School and putting my life back together. I've got a lot of things to fix, and I'm working as hard as I can to fix them.
At the same time I'm kinda sorta undermining myself, but it will work out. I'm on the right track.
I had a birthday and I'm not a teenager anymore. It was a weight off of my shoulders.
It's kind of funny, however, to think that someday all of this will go away...

Whoa Boy.

So I broke up with my conductor. There were a lot of reasons, I don't think I want to go into it.
I met a boy named Dave. I think he's some sort of incarnation of my character Dave, just a little less broken down.
I'm going to school.
Andrea is going to paint a picture of me.
I dyed my hair pink again.
and the mountain goats say this:
"I want to go home, but I am home."

Anne's Fun Word Of The Month!

Andrea's mother, Anne, is kind of unstable. But she uses interesting words. Today's word: Cockamamie.

Cockamamie: Harebrained or crazy.

Thanks Anne!

What The Hell Was I Talking About?

(A game in which I post something weird that I wrote a while ago so that we can all scratch our heads and half laugh, half suck in air through our teeth.)

Today's nonsense: Undated, Untitled. I did, however, like it enough to type it out.

YOU'RE spitting off cliches a
mile a minute and yapping
about how YOU'RE keeping ME
accountable by telling ME what
binds my life together...
what if suddenly I AM
to hold YOU accountable; what
when I say to YOU no,
YOU'RE wrong, that's a sin?
and I lovingly drive you into the soil

What the hell was I talking about?

Long Story Short.

So I think my medicine isn't working as well as it's supposed to. My reasons? I feel like shit. Friday morning I woke up with a completely flat affect.
(Dictionary.com defines affect as 1.)feeling or emotion; 2.)an expressed or observed emotional response: Restricted, flat, or blunted affect may be a symptom of mental illness, especially schizophrenia.)
This lasted all day. All day I was a zombie. There is no worse random ass symptom of depression to manifest itself than a flat affect. I had no other issues, Felt fine, just flat and numb. Not even tired. THAT IS SO FRUSTRATING! I kept taking naps becuase I couldn't do much else. I wasn't tired so it was basically just laying there.
Saturday and Sunday were both small explosion days. I felt kind of like shit, and on both days something stupid made me lose it and almost start crying.
Monday should really be in the category of Saturday and Sunday, but something big happened. Kyle called me. Long story short, It's not a brain tumor, it's something that is or is very similar to MS. Or that's what they think right now. They're not sure. He said that it was good to hear my voice. He said he loved me. He said he was writing something based on what we did. He said that a lot of people visited him in the hospital. Apparently that changed him. He said he had to make amends, and be on good terms with me. I mentioned how i stopped being in school again, and how i wrote a play, and my tattoos. Friendly, friendly conversation.
No. It can't be this way. We can't be friends. He almost killed me and now he needs me and I'm supposed to fall back in line, give him the love he needs from me?
I know he doesn't want it to be the same. It can't be. I've got a new, better boyfriend who I wouldn't trade for anything.
It seems like the powers that be are testing me. Trying to see if I'm a hypocrite, or if I can walk my talk. I keep saying that I love everyone, so the one person I don't want to love waltzes back into my life. And calls a truce. It would be a lot easier if I hated him. But when I wrote that play it all came out and onto the page. A feww weeks, maybe even a month ago, I had this half-crisis where I realized that I don't stop loving. Anyone. I still love him. That love has changed, and been commuted, but I keep all of the love I have for any given person safe when they leave. And if they come back, it's waiting.
Does he not deserve all of the love I have for him? Who am I to tell him he can't have it? If I do that, I fail.
And that turned into a big old panic attack. stumbling down the streets to get to my apartment in hope that someone, anyone had drugs. No one did. I suffered through it, got sick (because I always get sick), and eventually came back out.
This kind of sucks.

"This Is What You Get When You Mess With Us"

Radiohead, Karma Police

This song, especially that line, has been stuck in my head since I heard.
Kyle has a brain tumor.
I feel so justified, and I feel he deserves it. But I realize that I need to be more careful with my thoughts.
But still, brain tumor!

Is It Weird To Miss An Inanimate Object?

Back in January, my little brother totaled my car. My car? A 1990 silver Dodge Dynasty named Frank. Last week he got a new car, a 1992 Dodge Spirit named Grant.
(we name our cars.)
I'm happy that he got another car. We needed one to drive. But I wish it wasn't so close to Frank. Every time I sit in it, or see it, it's like he's rubbing it in my face that he destroyed my one true love. That car was my one true love. It stuck with me through everything, all of my benders and bad decisions, the things I didn't want to do and those moments of perfect freedom driving with the radio turned off down empty country roads.
I'm still not over that car, or what my little brother did to it. And I get really sad thinking about it. Frank saved him. MY car saved HIS life.
He won't even let me drive his.

Dear Kyle Jones,

This whole divulging the last 3 months of my life thing makes me nervous. I don't write out the events as they happened anymore because I don't trust myself to not hurt or upset people. You know that story as well as i do. I don't want any more explosions like that. But, because you are my most avid and interested reader, I'm making an exception in the "tell the truth in a way that can be interpreted as your opinion" rule.
I've decided that, instead of going on a long, winding narrative which would be interesting but long-winded, I'm going to give you a series of person-based vignettes which will make for a shorter, more controlled narrative. I'm more interested in people than events anyways. I'm not even sure what I could call a beginning, because it started in about three different places. But I guess Jack makes a good enough beginning.

JACK
Jack is my little brother's friend, and he's got an entire post dedicated to him and what happened was as follows: Jack and I made out a few times. One of those times was in my apartment. One of those times was right after the NIU shooting. One of those times was in my roommate's bedroom. These were all the same time. Meg didn't dig that, to put it nicely. I got in trouble, every once of it i probably deserved. I'm selfish and biased, so I can't say that i definitely did. After that one time, I had to leave. Not because I was forced out but because I don't do well when people are angry with me. I can't handle it, even if i deserve it. So after Jack left, and after my little brother (who was there the day after) left, and after Meg stopped talking to me, I left. That night was the last time i saw Michael.

MICHAEL
So Michael's place was my refuge from november to february 19th. I went there when i needed a good cuddle, or a good fuck, or just to get away from my living situation. Micheal is, of course, still around, but I haven't been back. I do miss him, please don't misunderstand, but I'm afraid. I do have a conscience, and I do have morals, but I'm not very good at using them. I'm worried that I might do something that i would have to lie about later. So I stay away, and it breaks my heart. The last time I saw him, I was headed for a train to get me out of the city. I didn't know it then, but I was also headed for someone life changing.

ARYN
On that train was my then favorite conductor, now boyfriend. The one who always remembered me and who would tell me that I was breaking his heart when i had a boyfriend who wasn't him. I hoped that he was serious when he said that to me a year ago. I had left him a card and he didn't get it, so he gave me his phone number and email address. I went home beaming, because regardless of what happened next i would never frantically search craigslist and post desperate ads, trying to connect with him. He was, after all, the one who taught me that it was ok to love strangers. I would have been happy with just that, but when I texted him the following monday he told me that he wanted to hold my hand. And I told him that I would love to let him hold my hand. And he invited me to stay at his house the following night (tuesday the 26th). And I did. We talked and I kissed him, and found myself asking him to be my boyfriend the very next morning, after we had separated. And it just keeps getting better. I chose monogamy for this man, and I am amazed at every day that goes by where I even get to text him. I'm getting ahead of myself though, there's a missing weekend. An obliviously missing weekend at that, but it's important, because that's when I met Ian.

IAN
Not to be confused with the Ian from the summer, this Ian is a straight edge vegan who is NOT trying to get in my pants. I fled to Urbana on thursday, to escape the things I need to escape when I go and visit Andrea and Julie. Namely, sobriety. While getting my drink on, I ran into a kid with a beard drinking a shirley temple. This was Ian. It was his birthday. Note that I was pretty drunk. He talked to me anyways, and we discussed veganism and vegetarianism and chicago. I had heard about him before, and was told that he judged people. That is an untrue statement, because I was a drunk nonvegan smoker and he went home and friended me on facebook. Before that happened we (and by we i mean Ian, Ian's friend Petey, Andrea, Andrea's roommate Hanako, this guy named Adam who really liked modest mouse, and myself)all walked to Perkins for french fries. Ian gave me free coffee when I was leaving for the north. That weekend also entailed getting hideously drunk for free at some stupid bar and watching people work on art. When I got home Ian had successfully facebooked my AIM screen name, and so we continued talking. When he was in chicago to get a key to his new apartment and to see ghost mice, we hung out. There was a very long walk and the ghost mice show. This was where I saw meg for the first time in almost a month.Of course, nothing was repaired then, but it was a start. We recently drove down to urbana, where I saw kimya dawson and found out that Nigel had meningitis.

NIGEL AND GENEVIEVE
Nigel is my five year old little brother. He managed to come down with bacterial meningitis. The entire family was prescribed antibiotics but I refused to take them. Even Genevieve had to get a shot. Genevieve was born on easter sunday. After she was born, I went to the parking lot to have a cigarette and threw up. it was pink, from flamin' hots and coffee. The flamin' hots were a bad idea. The pink was appropriate, though. I later went back to my apartment to pick up pills, and it was a total mess. I lost it, and started making plans to move. I grabbed the wrong pills, however, and had to go back a day or two later. This time I entered to find meg standing in the middle of the living room in shock. Her ex- girlfriend had overdosed on heroin. Naturally I stayed. I follow the rules, and the mess was explained. So we're good, thank god.

there were some other bits, like when a drunk man named Abel followed me to my psychiatrist's office and talked to me the entire way, and when my shoes broke and i got the flu in the same day, and a whole lot of taking care of my mother. And I'm working on that film.
Right now, I'm sitting in front of a computar at my parents' house when i should be sleeping. I found a folder of poetry from when I was in high school while looking for blank business cards. I really feel summed up by the symbols on my arm, which I definitely think I'll get as a tattoo. roughly translated, they say "Anything might happen, but don't lose hope. Keep pressing forward and defend yourself and your beliefs. At the end of the day, there will always be a safe place to rest, care if you're sick, and food if you're hungry." I have found that to be so true.
Stupidly intense and complex 3 months, to add to my stupidly complex and intense last year, to add to my stupidly intense and complex life. My dad said it best. Nothing's ever easy for this family.
Any questions?

Life Changing.

I had all of my faith reaffirmed tonight. My faith in humanity, my faith in myself, my faith in the sheer power of loving people the right way, and my faith that I, that WE can change things.
Thank you, Kimya.

Betty Crocker Warm Delights Desserts: A Vignette

You want to know why I hate TV? I hate TV because of commercials. Not just any commericals, really, I think commericals are the most interesting part of TV. They show us how our minds work. There is one commercial that I just can't stand, however. Every night I see it, during the news or late night TV shows my momma watches, or when Arron and I are sitting around watching the golden girls or some other pointless shit.
Betty Crocker Warm Delights microwaveable desserts.
It's all women. Younf Parading around in their pajamas, dancing to music or just relaxing in their favorite chairs. Eating these desserts with drippy fudge or caramel. A sultry woman's voice talking about how chocolate is the 8th wonder of the world, warm chocolate the 9th. About how the spoon should be licked, about how the bowl should be licked until the tongue is tired. Images of women licking.
And so then, the commercial ends, and I don't want chocolate. I think, "goddamnit, now I'm horny. Stupid commercial."
Stupid commercial.

It's Done.

cross through the border states to the wrong side
and look away, virginia
him:
spend every day like the past is a bridge crossing twenty years
whispers away, not so much
get your poison tongue out of my ear
here's a fact you cannot rise above:
we'll have problems and then we'll have bigger ones
from damage to damned control
you wanted to go alone though
i never said no
i never said no
her:
spiteful confrontations, trial separations,
it's just another present to get past
the man was very helpful but i knew he wouldn't stay
there used to be a baby but the baby went away
forswear what you undergo
you wanted to go alone though
i never said no
i never said no
it doesn't make me cry to hear dylan say
most likely you go your way
i'll go mine
i'll go mine
i'll go mine
forswear what you undergo
you wanted to go alone though
i never said no
i never said no
-Harvey Danger, Problems and Bigger Ones.*

*On one of the first mixed cds he made for me, after one of the first huge fights. The cd is called a new career in a new town.
On the way home from a conversation with my dear friend Mike Zivat. In the car with the stereo blasting this mixed cd, the one I generally use to torture myself when I'm riding the Amtrak. Instead, on the song that hurts the most I scream along and after the second verse I yell as loudly as i can, through tears and phlegm and coughs, "I've been healed and there is nothing you can do about it! NOTHING!"
And screaming through that and the next few songs. And I am healed, I am whole again, he is just the vampire, the artist in my past. And I can give of myself wholly to everyone. And for the first time ever, I belong wholly to someone who wants all of my love, not just some of it. He isn't uncomfortable.
The beautiful thing is that love only multiplies when it is given. So I have even more to spread around now. Just not physically anymore. I belong to a train conductor, and he belongs to me.
Make no mistake though, I am completed within myself.
Fuck you, Kyle Weiler, it's all been reversed.

One Of The Most Precious Pieces Of Paper I've Ever Had Is On My Lap.

It's a Metra Electric Track Warrant(Form 14.3), but that's not what makes it important. It's got my train conductor's (whose name I will withold because I think he'd appreciate it) information on it. I'm not going to lose him this time.About a year ago, I was taking the metra almost every day to see the ex. After a while of taking assorted trains I took the 1:30. Around this time I developed a weird fascination with filming everything, so when I got on the train and the conductor was making noises and joking and acting like he might actually enjoy his job, the camera went on. (Note: It is extrememly out of the ordinary for metra conductors to act like they enjoy being conductors.)Not without his permission, of course, but somewhere there's a mini-dv tape of him talking. I think it's in my desk.
I started taking the 1:30 as a matter of course. It fit mine and the ex's schedules pretty well, and gave me some time with my conductor. That time on the train before I went to see the ex gave me a reason to live for however long of a time span it was. He was the only encouraging part of my day. Now, I would crash upon getting into the car sometimes, but that's another story.
Eventually my schedlue changed, and my conductor's schedule got changed. I didn't see him and every once in a while I would miss him terribly.
Every few months or so he would resurface. We would catch up and shoot the breeze and then I would go home feeling wonderful and then it would be another few months. Last time I left him a card, but the metra ate it. This time he gave me contact information.
What more could I ask for?

Feb. 14th Shooting

There was a shooting at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, IL today.
He was unharmed, and I'm not sure why I feel so awful.

It Is, In Fact, Possible To Be A Liar Without Being A Hypocrite.

I missed my show. Had a feeling but I was sure it was tomorrow.
And I took a walk, and I took a shower, and I spent a lot of time yelling at the girl in the mirror with the tattoo that lies. She's the only person who I don't love.Michael says you become what you hate and I've never really agreed with him, and now I realize that because I've always been what I hate.
There's been a lot of guilt in my life lately, and jealousy and shit. Making little hats for the child my mother is about to have just gets me thinking about the one that I should have. She'd be almost a year old. And I'm jealous of my mother, for whom this comes so easy, and I'm guilty that I'm jealous. Especially since I don't want kids, and since my life would be even more in shambles if I hadn't lost her. Or maybe I do, maybe I'm just too scared to ever consider having them.

A Review Of My Little Sister's Band Concert

On Sunday, February 10, 2008, The Crete Lutheran Beginner's Band had its first concert.The conductor, Joel Buege, chose songs based on a winter theme. They opened with Jingle bells, the worn out, simple to play Chirstmas carol, and failed to breathe any more life into it than that guy who did a really bad job in that popular movie. Jingle bells was promptly followed by a painful intro to the next song, a medley of holiday tunes. The official name of the piece was "Holidy Sampler", and Mr. Buege made the mistake of comparing it to those cheesy whitman's samplers you get at Walgreens. After what was a solid start for a bunch of ten year olds, Mr. Buege also took the liberty of filling in for the bass drummer, who had failed to show up, by singing during the parts where there should have been a drum solo. He was a little flat. The last piece, Beethoven's 9th or Ode to Joy, was the musical equivalent to a tums: not the best thing ever, but pleasant enough to make one forget the things that just happened. Finally, the one girl flute section was audible. That factor alone made up for several instances of harmony gone horribly wrong, and my little sister sticking a drum stick up her nose. To her credit, she did not miss her cue.

It Was Real Enough To Make Me Cry. Three Times.

I dreamed I woke up. Not on the couch where I fell asleep, but back in Kyle's bed, in his arms. And we woke up and started getting dressed and there was a noise. It was his mother. He said "I think that's my mom, you might want to put your pants on or something". She walked in and said good morning. We finished getting dressed and left, went to some diner for lunch and he was so sweet to me and he smiled at me and kissed me and held my hand. I asked him what day it was, to show me his phone to see what year it was because I wanted to know if it was real or not. It was 11:23 ae em, January 15, 2002. And I knew I had to wake up and it would be gone and that's what I said to him, and I started crying.
He held me until I woke up for real.
Ok, real enough to make me cry four times.

Funeral.

I spent 3 hours in a car, from 6 onward, with my dad this morning. we went through three albums driving to Peoria. In Peoria there's the Order of Saint Francis motherhouse. My great aunt Boots was a Franciscan sister. She's dead now.
How could I resist a funeral for a woman I barely knew who was disintegrating in her old age and faith?
She looked like she was sleeping. Normally dead people in their caskets look a little off, like they aren't real. That was definitely my aunt Boots in there, taking a nap. It freaked me out and my dad teased me about the secret cigarette I couldn't do without.
It was, of course, a funeral mass. I've never been to a catholic funeral before so I really didn't know what to do, but I was a good catholic for a hour or so. I sang along to all of the hymns and did all of the responsorial shit and took communion, er, the eucharist, er, whatever.
And when I said "amen" to that priest, I meant it more than I wanted to. And when the younger nun told me she'd pray for my cat to mellow out, I believed her more than I know I believe in prayer.
I'm a little bit in shambles, very uncomfortable. I have been for the past few days. And I just bit all of my fingernails off.
I quit biting my nails, right?

To end things:
My phone number is 708-220-6806. I don't give it out. Now it's on the internet for anyone to call and I will field all of those calls.
and for Lucy, stop that. I did the same thing when Winsty told me.

See Jack.

Jack is 16, and Jack is adorable, and Jack is my little brother's friend, and Jack has panic disorder, and Jack sometimes wears glasses, and Jack was named for Jack Kerouac, and Jack is going to grow up into something even more wonderful than what he is now, and Jack is a good kisser, and Jack probably wont ever be my friend now even though I'd like him to be, and Jack doesn't usually smoke cigarettes, and Jack got beaten up on new year's eve, and Jack is from Hegewisch, and Jack has two cats, and Jack makes me think about that dreseden dolls song even though he and the song are in no way related, and Jack sometimes drinks too much, and Jack used to stare at me when I was in high school, and Jack is this huge fucking looming representation of everything that conflicts inside of me and everything that I absolutely adore and loathe at the same time, and Jack is my instability.

I feel horrible. Don't hate me. Don't think I hate you. Someday you'll be older and this will go away and we can be friends. Hopefully it won't take too long.

This Time The Mark It leaves Is Socially Acceptible.

Normally when a new permanent line or word appears on my body, it's something I can't talk about. Social taboo. Nobody wants to hear about how you're suffering and what you did to yourself to deal with it. This time I went to the tattoo parlor, and it wasn't my suffering that caused it.
It was a guy in a camouflage bandanna named Eric. Always with the Erics.
I went in a few days ago to price the thing, my raggedy ann heart. The woman was wonderful and I wished I had enough money to do it then and there. But I didn't, and she said 100 dollars and it was 100 dollars.
When I came back earlier today the place was crowded. What place? Tatu Tatoo on north. It's the place right down the street and I chose close over inexpensive or talented. It's a simple design so it didn't matter. Thought I would be waiting forever, but it only took about 15 minutes before my tattoo artist, Eric, came down and hooked me up. He put my design into the computer(and by put my design into the computer, i mean opened up photoshop, pulled up a heart and put the text inside), and made the stencil thing.
Half an hour later I walked out 100 dollars lighter and with a tattoo. It didn't hurt like people said it would. It's real, real sharp. Looks like a stamp. If you haven't seen it, check out the photo blog.

We Don't Live Here Anymore...

Last saturday I moved. A week ago. There was a lot of packing and secretly smoking in the house and being sad. Now we don't live in Pilsen but in Wicker Park. I hated to leave, even though staying would have been some sort of death wish.
I don't like living in Wicker Park already. There are too many white people, and they make me uncomfortable. Nothing to activate a self loathing that's almost invisible like being surrounded by people who remind you of you. And when I'm self loathing, do I ever loathe myself....
I love the actual apartment. The space is breathtakingly simple, and it felt like home upon walking into it for the first time. I'm gonna stay there as long as I possibly can. Sarah, the new girl, is wonderful. I like her. Haven't seen meg in a few days.
New years eve I fucked up my hip. Later on the friendliest face I know showed up to make me feel better, or maybe just because he was drunk. I don't care because I like to have him around.
I hope I can keep him.