void where prohibited

2009-04-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

Belatedly following the lead of Sir Jems and the late great Wheresthebrain, I hereby retire thesingingbutler.blogspot.com. At this point it's not much of a loss, but fret not, Internet: all the important stuff will be at twitter.com/sarajoon.

2009-03-29T23:01:00.000-07:00

Check me out on Mud Luscious

2009-03-04T01:52:00.000-08:00

I've been in school my whole life and I've made things while I was there. College ain't no excuse to stop. I'm in school, but I'm still alive, I'm still living. People are more important than places are more important than things. What I miss is having a place to go to when I need to get out, somewhere that's warm and open late and isn't home. I don't need wide open spaces, I just don't want to work alone.

2009-02-19T15:51:00.000-08:00

This month I'm on Word Riot YA HURD

Also, twitter.com/sarajoon

2009-02-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

The girl was fairly pretty, with pale skin, a pointed nose long reddish hair in a messy half-ponytail, calf-high moccasin boots, bluish-green AmApp miniskirt, yellow AmApp hoodie. She was drinking a soda from Quizno's, talking to a friend and listening to her iPod. She talked loud and fast, hardly even putting periods at the end of her sentences, skipping over poor defenseless vowels, hitting consonants hard like what she was saying was really really important, and what was she talking about? Bongs, mostly. Bongs she had known and bongs she had broken. And also how much she liked her philosophy class. When she had finished regaling her wretched acquaintance with boring anecdotes and he was attempting to respond in kind, she ceased paying attention to the "conversation," choosing instead to lip-sync and sing along with her iPod very ostentatiously. Not only did she sing the lyrics, she tried to sing the melody and the beat, with lots of "nyowww nyoww vvvv" and "dum dum doo doo" and "chf chf chf" noises. From her highly detailed rendition I gathered that she was listening to "Kids" by MGMT, and later, "Smoke Two Joints" by Sublime. I tried not to look at her. I tried to concentrate on my reading about socialism's criticisms of anarchism, but I couldn't. She was on my left. I tried to stare straight ahead, but her voice demanded attention. I tried to stare out the window on my right, but she was reflected in it. She was everywhere, in every goddamn bus I've ever taken at this school, in every class and at every party, talking so loud that I have to leave, talking so much that everyone completely loses the thread of the one-sided conversation because it all blurs together - or worse, tries to talk through and around and over her because they need to be paid attention to so fucking badly. She's the girl that texts when you're talking to her, the girl that doesn't say anything in class discussions and afterwards complains about how boring they are or how wrong everyone else's opinions are, the girl that can carry on a conversation about Ceasar salad for a full fucking half hour. She's the girl that thinks you're funny if you laugh at her jokes, does everything ironically and remains assured of her irresistibility to any and all sexes no matter when, where, who, how or what the hell is going on. I fucking hate her. And she didn't even have the decency to get off before my stop.

teenidol

2009-01-26T20:43:00.000-08:00

I could feel him rock hard through his skinny jeans. "Nick…just, take me..now."

Joe smirked before disappearing into my closet only to emerge a second later in my favorite pair of black skinny jeans and oversized Metro Station shirt. They both looked better on him.

"I'm yours forever," Nick said. "Now, Kevin, please...take me.."

cures for low self-esteem

2009-01-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

1. therapy
2. narcotics
3. Zoloft
4. plastic surgery
5. artistic industry

I guess I must be pretty fucken cool.

2009-01-05T07:04:00.000-08:00

Today is my day on Six Sentences (dot blogspot dot com) so GO READ IT.

2008-11-19T20:12:00.000-08:00

I don't care. You know? I don't care. Sometimes I wish I did, but I don't. I was walking back from the lounge and it's cold out but I had my rainbow hat with the earflaps and three layers on top so I was okay and I thought Wow this feels nice. Just walking around felt nice. I'd been sitting on my bed for three, four hours and I think my blood had slowed down, it was so bored with my lack of movement.

So I recognize this, and what do I do? Come back into my tiny box room... because fuck you, I want to watch Arrested Development and eat tortellini.

I talk too much and too little, forget to seek sunshine, dissatisfy myself and drool over the food section of the newspaper during dismal dining hall lunches. I spend more time looking at Facebook than actual faces (or books). Surely I will disappoint everyone with my inability to be happy. Surely I have disappointed everyone already.

How do people manage to accumulate so many years of life, with so many people and places and possessions and passions, and keep it all straight in their minds? When I think about the past it feels like I'm watching a movie that has nothing to do with my life, now or ever.

sea change

2008-11-05T05:30:00.001-08:00

It would not be entirely untrue to say that I made an ass of myself at the celebration tonight, but in a good way. It was extremely cathartic; I've been tense and anxious for weeks about the election and so many other things, but the relief of this huge central anxiety just dwarfed everything else. I can't remember the last time I felt so optimistic. I don't know if I ever have.

Objectively, I agree with Erik's t-shirt with the Obama logo that says "Dare to hope. Prepare to be disappointed." I know it won't be a revolution and most of the country's problems won't go away. He's still pro-Israel and anti-gay marriage, among other things, but... still. There is so much to fix, and I actually believe he knows how to do the fixing. I don't want to graduate and find a job in a world of colossal debt, schizophrenic markets and an endless war. I don't want to inherit my parents' problems.

All I have known, all of my reasoning political life, is Bush. He was inaugurated when I was ten. I was too young to be allowed to understand why Clinton was impeached. All I have ever known is Bush and Cheney and Rove and Rice, names that you spit like curse words and shake your head over and mute CNN to avoid hearing. All I have known is shame about our country's leaders, and a profound sense of division from those meant to represent us. No, mother, I don't trust the government; I never have and I still don't, but God - how fucking strange it will be to feel uplifted or informed after seeing the president speak. How novel it will be to feel my heart swell instead of sink when I hear the words "the President." How extraordinary to no longer feel utterly doomed to repeating history and all the mistakes that come with it. It feels like a whole new country.

couldn't help it

2008-09-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

When we pulled up in front of C's house that evening, he was standing outside, smoking a cigarette, wearing black-and-gray argyle socks, moccasins, an enormous pair of shorts, two plaid flannel shirts and a thick new beard that really clinched the Grizzly Man effect. Six hours later, in a room crowded with his paintings, he sat parallel to the television, freshly coked up, his face ruddy, sniffing periodically and lip-syncing along to Alanis Morissette's "Head Over Feet." We, gathered in an unintentional semicircle around him, were at a general loss for words.

P: "This is very... Bunuel surrealism."
Me: "Especially the combination of clashing argyle and plaid."
D: "Exactly."
Me: "Is it symbolic? What does it mean?"
C: "It means I have style. Also I'm colorblind."
P: "Really? Really, you're really colorblind? I've know you for two years and I didn't know that."
Me: "What colors do you mix up?"
C: "Red, blue and green mostly... sometimes purple and yellow, and brown... There's a painting at my house that I did, of green cows. I swear that when the paint was wet they looked brown."
P: "That's beautiful. It's so... poetic, almost. Like - like having dyslexia."
C: "Gives me more street cred."
D: "How is dyslexia poetic?"

I'm rich! I'm rich! I'm comfortably well-off!!

2008-09-13T01:49:00.000-07:00

something in my drink

2008-09-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

Once, at Winter Academy, we were digging a trench around a cabin near the lake because it was going to rain and rain hard, and the dirt was very wet and cakey and we were digging and digging and digging and to occupy my mind, I tried to reflect on the experience and realized there was no really poetic way to describe it. Digging a trench is such a basic action that to give it an abstract comparison would complicate things. It's physical labor, repetitive motion, steady progress towards a conclusion. It might be appropriate to use trench-digging as a metaphor for some complex philosophical or emotional thought process, but never the other way around. Digging a trench isn't like anything - it's just like digging a trench. And for all the slang terms and code words and euphemisms it spawns, sex seems to fall into the same category.

... Which, logically, means the two acts can be appropriately compared (at least in this semantic aspect), thus negating my original point. But I quibble.

ticktock

2008-09-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

The gods confound the man who first found out
How to distinguish hours. Confound him too,
Who in this place set up a sundial,
To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
Into small pieces!

-- Plautus, 200 BC

my dad got a facebook

2008-09-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

" 'Poke Shervin.' What does it mean?"
"Don’t do that."
"But what does it mean?"
"It means he gets a message that says 'Mehran has poked you.'"
"But what does it mean? Is it like a chatting?"

in dignity (an excerpt)

2008-09-01T00:05:00.000-07:00

She looked at her hands, at the grimy floor, at the window. A muscle in her jaw twitched. Up and down and up, went his eyes, feet knees thighs navel tits neck, his gaze like an army of ants crawling her flesh. The bus ground suddenly to a halt, leaning back on its heels and spitting out a heavy sigh; her slim hips swayed to keep her balance, shirt riding up to reveal a pale midriff flat as Kansas. She stiffened and yanked on the hem, widened her stance, felt his eyes creeping up her inner thigh, knew there was no way to hide. She was a hanging display, like the grease-shining dark amber duck carcasses in Chinatown grocery windows.

stuck

2008-08-29T01:36:00.000-07:00

"Basically," he says, untwisting the white wire hanger into a long snake, "I would have panic attacks before class every day and drown myself in Clonopin."
"Are you still on that?"
"Yeah, but I'm also on different meds now. They're good."
I follow him out to his white pickup. "Are you going to quit school?"
"Nah, I'll probably just drop the courses I'm failing and take, like, two really easy ones this semester. But I'm thinking of joining Mensa. All you have to do is prove you have an IQ over 130, which I know because I took a bunch of IQ tests online when I was having a manic episode and I scored higher than that on all of them. Other times I'd taken it, like during high school, I was always depressed and I never scored higher than, like, 95."

He pauses to jam the wire in the crack between the door and the side of the truck. I peer in the window. They're not in the ignition or on the passenger seat, among scratched CDs, a black backpack and a cup of leftover fries. "You know what would be really funny," I say, "is if they were in your pocket."
He feels his jeans and shakes his head, lowering the wire through the half-inch of open window, and scraping in vain at the lock. "I also took a test once I finally got admitted to the psych ward. When I had a panic attack on the highway - couldn't move my arms or legs, I was going like ten miles an hour before I pulled over - they put me in the ER for like three days because there was no room in the psych ward."

I haven't seen him in a few months, but he's still a thrift store whore right down to his underpants (bright yellow boxers patterned with red Sugar Daddy candies). Still smells like Parliaments. My stomach grumbles. After fifteen more minutes of ineffective poking, he hooks the end to grab the handle of the window crank, which opens the window enough for him to wrench his forearm through and press the lock. He finds the keys in a zipped pocket of the backpack. This isn't the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last.
"These meds are killing my short-term memory. It sucked before anyway."
"Does the diagnosis explain anything from your past?"
"Yes," he says, green eyes hidden behind prescription sunglasses, mouth widening in a nervous grin. "Too many things. So many things I can't really go into it, because it'll make me too depressed."
I shrug and lean against the hood. "Can I have some of those fries?"

2008-08-11T01:37:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry and I don't know who I'm apologizing to but I'm sorry. Sorry for being nocturnal, being slow, being small, being messy, being selfish, being careless, being tactless, being lazy and confused and blind and spoiled and forgetful and materialistic and horny and spacey and irritable and stubborn and jealous and nauseous and shallow and paranoid and opportunistic and mutable as wet clay.

But I'm not sorry for feeling guilty; I never will be. They can't take that away from me.

hitch a ride

2008-07-22T22:36:00.000-07:00

At Duarte's:
Waiter: "Will you be having a slice of pie for dessert?"
Henry: "Yes please."
Waiter: "With ice cream?"
All: "Oh yeah."
Waiter (preparing to leave): "Alrighty."
Me: "Wait - what kind of pie are we getting?"
Waiter (as if it were obvious): "You're gettin' olallieberry."
Me: "We are?"
Waiter: "Well, yeah. It's the king of pies!"

I think I had some things to do today but I can't remember what they were. Kids here build lean-to forts and Stonehenges with driftwood while seagulls laugh like women with their mouths wide open, chests bouncing up and down. I imagine the oyster I swallowed earlier swimming around in my stomach among the sea of liquified pie and French fries, imbuing me with magical ocean powers. I'd never eaten oyster before - it tasted very salty, like seawater, but the texture was like having a tongue on top of my own. Does that make sense? It felt like the slick, veiny underside of a tongue.

if you refuse me

2008-07-09T20:45:00.001-07:00

got no more

2008-06-30T10:23:00.001-07:00

My shoulder is peeling. The smoke from the mountain fires seems to have combined forces with the bay fog, and it hasn't been sunny for days. I need to find the insurance form but I don't want to get up to go check and I especially don't want to get up and put on clothes and walk outside to go check. Solitude is trouble lately.

what say you, watson?

2008-06-29T22:21:00.001-07:00

Bag 1: White House/Black Market sunglasses case with white-rimmed aviator sunglasses inside, BC pill round, prescription vial of generic Augmentin, bottle of Advil Migraine, eyelash curlers crusted with black mascara, generic sugarfree honey lemon coughdrops, L'Oreal pressed face powder, Time Balm concealer, pack of tissues, Swiss Army knife, The Color Institute beige eye shimmer cream, BeneFit concealer, BeneFit eyelid primer, pack of tissues, blush brush, Estee Lauder foundation stick, iPod earbuds, red plastic Bic lighter, black Dior mascara, Pentax 10-megapixel Optio camera in black (sans case, which was thrown out the window of a moving car when it was accidentally soaked in spilled fruity blended drink), black Coach wallet with silver buckle (containing debit card, student ID, fake "International ID" card, Aurora Body Therapy business card, American Sign Language alphabet cheat sheet, BART card and $31.62 in cash), black Sharpie, silver bullet lighter, Carmex lip balm, Trident watermelon twist gum, Stride sweet berry hum, beige hacky sack, iPod car stereo adapter, three Tampax Pearl tampons, L'Occitane deodorant towelettes, keys, condom, silver toe ring.

Bag 2: Pride Parade 2008 promotional magazine and flyers, Dixon #2 pencil, Hare Krishna book entitled Civilization and Transcendence, gray Ethernet cable (found on the ground), iPod earbuds, wide black shoelace with stars in alternating rainbow colors, empty Crystal Geyser water bottle, paycheck for $266.77, silver wallet with Andy Warhol banana, biology research paper assignment sheet folded into fourths, Peaches Christ Midnight Mass promotional postcard, Revlon lipcolor tube, algebra review sheet, Hare Krishna bookmark, used tissues, Target receipt from four weeks ago (one item: First Response pregnancy test, $14.93), Papermate blue ballpoint pen, blue plastic Bic lighter, roll of Rolland Instant-Lite charcoal rounds, half-full blue-and-pink glass Aescada perfume bottle, silver-rimmed aviator sunglasses, American Apparel receipt (one item: gold lame miniskirt, $34.64), pack of Marlboro Virginia Blend 100s (three left), 23 blank 4x6 index cards held together with a blue rubber band.

Bag 3: Mollie Stone's receipt (one item: Entenmann's donut holes), five ballpoint Bic pens, one gray rubber pen from W Hotel, #2 pencil, yellow-and-black striped paper clip, two dimes, prescription vial of penicillin, plastic Scotch Tape roll, white hooded sweatshirt tie-dyed red/pink/yellow/blue/black, biodegradable disposable spoon (made from potatoes), Samsung Blackjack v.2, brown leather wallet (containing checkbook, student ID, library card, debit card, Borders Bookstore gift card, 16 first-class stamps, Juut Salon Spa business card, youth 24/7 hotline card, Fry's Electronics gift card, Caltrain ticket to San Francisco from 3/25/08, Blockbuster membership card, tattoo design of turtle with "Hakuna Matata" on its shell, BART card), House of Humor receipt (one item: Indian costume, $38.43), piece of binder paper folded into eighths and covered with incoherent anagrams and drawings "from when I used to hang out with Mollie and I was on hella drugs all the time."

those kids

2008-06-22T04:38:00.000-07:00

Three boys on a bench at a bus stop, sipping Slurpies, popping wheelies, draping their lizard bodies across the sun-baked wood. One of them has green eyes green eyes green eyes.

Three boys in a vacant parking lot, sending skateboards twirling briefly in the air and skidding across the asphalt to smack the curb. One wears a sweatshirt, size small, too big. Their shaggy-haired leader has boldly dispensed with his white tee altogether.

Three girls on the ground, leaning against the red zone, pleather chokers and too-tight layered tank tops, nails varnished shiny purple and black. The tallest brushes ironed, blonde-bleached, pink-streaked hair off her face to get a better look at the shirtless boy. His puffy sneakers never stop nudging the board, the pavement. The smallest girl sucks her lollipop intently, shifting the bulge from one cheek to the other. It clicks sugar against her teeth. She peeks briefly at the sun and wrinkles her nose.

2008-06-22T04:33:00.000-07:00

Don't know how much longer I can keep this thing up. Should probably start posting in different ways. Small unripe fruits. I worry about copyright even though no one reads this who would possibly steal from me.

Cleansed cleansed cleansed cleansed cleansed, from deep down inside. If you asked me anytime in the past month if I was Over It I would have said yes, but I would have been lying. Now I sing it to my reflection like I'm in The Sound of fucking Music. Filthy jokes may be the purest thing in this crazy world; comedy is salvation and what I've been missing lately is gallows humor.

spiritual nihilism

2008-05-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

Absolutely nothing about me is profound, poetic, intellectual, philosophical, articulate, rational or in any way meaningful. And yet - !

dim

2008-05-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

Life is static between beach trips. The sun is unforgiving, mocking, with three weeks left until freedom from the tyranny of the seven-bell schedule. Things get done but it could be so much faster... digestion is painful but I must eat nonetheless. I can't win. Every hour or so my mother knocks on my door to ask me if I want anything. I know she's really asking do I still need her, and I always say no.

The snake is one long muscle, treading my hands and the wrinkles of the bedsheet.
"Does it have a name?"
"Uh, yeah... Trouser."
"Trouser?"
"Like, trouser snake?"
The phrase rings a bell somewhere far away, muffled through the fog of Smirnoff Ice and hot sleepless nights. "Oh, that's like - a kind of a snake - "
"Nooo.... a trouser snake is a penis."
"Oh. Duh."
He snickers. "'Yeah, it's a type of snake - '"
"Shut up. I'm kinda drunk."
"Uh-huh."
"Ah, fuck you."
It pauses, debating his leg. Our heroes croon, warm and safe and warm.

ride home

2008-05-08T21:16:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to make a dot graph of my mood for therapy. I don't get moods. I get vibes.

Wes: "When I was a freshman, this other girl that I had a crush on was like 'hey, Lynette likes you.' I figured, I'm 15, I need a girlfriend, why not. I gave it two weeks, and it's lasted three years."
Me: "What does your dad think of your relationship?"
Wes: "He thinks it's derailing my army career."

2008-05-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

His voice on the phone is heavy, wrenching, like sheepskin handcuffs and concrete blocks tied around my ankles in the elastic moments before sleeping with the fishes, when everything becomes weightless floating leaves on lake surface. If you look hard enough you can stop time, isolate the tiniest wrinkle of a levator labii, detect a contraction of the platysma, and know the truth before it's told.

2008-04-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

He was grading, and on his desk was a photograph of a toddler boy sporting square orange eyeglasses and a smooth, hairless noggin. His eyes were big and dark green and one of them is now glass.
"Is that your son?" we asked.
"Yes, that's during his 'very bald' stage," he said, inclining his head a little as he always does when the subject comes up. "But his hair's started to grow back now."
"Well," I said, without really thinking, "at least you know he'll be a cute old man."
He laughed. It was the most useful thing I had done all day.

2008-04-15T23:48:00.000-07:00

Q: Did my computer stay on for multiple hours without crashing because it sensed my needy vibes and decided to let me watch Annie Hall for the billionth time?
A: Probably.

I have a wonderful string of cheap Christmas lights, each bulb hooded with garishly colored fake daisies. I have less than two months of educational incarceration left and feel almost exactly the same as when I had thirty-two. I have a survival plan that involves staying not-here over the summer. I have a new understanding of a lot of abstract cliches which normally drive me crazy: "to find oneself," "to lose oneself," "to be ready," and "for the best." I have a clean rug, a clear mind and an upset stomach. I guess those are my eggs.

Q: To be, or not to be?
A: That is the question.

I was asked to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, how happy I am. 1 being severely unhappy, 10 being elated. I couldn't do it.

2008-04-07T23:44:00.001-07:00

My parents make me rip up my fingers in despair. What they call a conversation is really just a quieter delivery of all the things that are wrong with me. Mandates: quit your job, dump your boyfriend, don't take a gap year, stop caring about everything that is important to you, stop doing things I can't understand, be like you used to be, you were a better daughter in misery. I want you to have more time for yourself but to spend more time with me; I want you to study more and have more time to sleep; I want you to sever ties with people with piercings; I want you to think more like me. I want you to stop being so stubborn and just do what I say when I say it coaxingly; I want you to see the counselor whom I suggested you stop seeing when our insured sessions ran out; I want you to stop doing all the things you like so that you can be happy. You should socialize more with people your own age: be warmer, more outgoing, but not to anyone I wouldn't trust. I want you to meet new people but not those people; find people who are like you. No, not those people. That is not you. You are better than them; you are unacceptable, you are not normal, you are inexplicable, something has gone wrong. You are better than that, please change. I heard you disagree but I don't understand - didn't I just tell you what to think? Be mature, be rational, don't be stubborn. Let's compromise with my ultimatum.

2008-03-23T22:18:00.001-07:00

Shit!! I'd forgotten how good Cheap Thrills is!

First order of business upon moving out: get drunk and go swimming.

2008-03-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm procrastinating. Big surprise. What a ridiculous setup the world is: "I have these things I want you to see, I'll make them very colorful and shiny so you don't miss it. I am beautiful. Look at me." I can't think about the origins of everything, it gets so overwhelming and I'm scared to do even the littlest...
So what you have to understand is that there is school and art and sometimes a weird combination of the two and when I want to tell someone what I'm thinking which is that sex is just such an undignified concept, I don't because it has no place here, cold and clean like the air in my stomach once I learn to enjoy being hungry. There will be no darkness, there will be no Bulgarian dessert wine.

I'm surprised at how my voice shakes in front of an audience when I'm reading words that don't belong to someone else, and it's something I wrote in about fifteen minutes. What could I do with time? Oh, shut up.

three people

2008-03-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes - I don't know why - I check this, not even for comments, but to see if there's a new post.

There was a warrant out for her husband's arrest so they went back to Texas but now she's with us again, still blonde and 23 and married to a man twice her age. "Took care of business," she said. Quick and dirty.

"Would you still be friends with me if I was just constantly doing this?" he asks, swiveling his hips and grooving to Freddy Cannon.
"All the time?"
"Yeah."
"You couldn't stop?"
"Yeah, I can't stand still. I have to dance."
"Like, you physically can't."
"Right. Would you still be friends with me?"
"Yes! That would be sick!"

His face opens when he starts to talk about seeds, and falls when he mentions the plant that lived in his closet so green and spiky and happy until it died because it grew too big for the container. Plastic coffin, cardboard gravestone. He mourns it by name but soon there will be new friends in vacant lots because, as he says completely without irony, there is one source of happiness that needs only dirt and water and sunshine. His parents hacked his Facebook account and confiscated his cell phone but who cares because we're going to plant morning glories between the cracks in the sidewalk. You can take away our electronics but you can't take away our freedom.

Allie: "I just feel so... good... now that I have alcohol in my hand. You know?"

2008-03-02T19:54:00.000-08:00

God, what's taken me so long?

In Iran there are high walls around every house that hide lush front gardens and white-tiled porches. In the shiny new high-rises, the floor-to-ceiling windows that open onto the balcony just big enough to accommodate a kabob grill come with huge translucent barriers shaped like seashells, overlapping slabs of plastic for your privacy. No one questions this. You can't see the street from your window, but more importantly, the street can't see you.

Alex Gaya (on what constitutes an attractive woman): "I will have no sluts or murderers."

2008-02-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

If snails had skin that was warm and veins that were white then maybe they could crawl into my ears and nestle there absorbing sound, and I wouldn't hear anything and could go bare-eyed and not see anything and then maybe I wouldn't be afraid of anything because it would all just be soft and misty like the fog on the highway when tires kick up the sheen of drizzle and someone screams along to a guitar and nobody else says anything because we don't have to. When my fingernails don't look like my own because they're yellow-knuckled around another's palm and I'm so glad and so ashamed that something has happened then I wonder if the magnetic force field around me has reversed - Like Forces repel, the universe and I are like forces and it wiggles around me, never touching. Forceps are what I need, to reach underneath floating ribs and pluck something growing on the spleen, to wrench and scrape off the mold.

I tried to bike home from work but the chain came off my bike so I walked it six blocks, waited twenty minutes for a bus, rode the bus to the other side of town, got off, walked another six blocks. Greeted with a clean bathtub, don't know who to thank.

2008-02-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

This kid sitting across the couch with the pink-rimmed eyes and the blue braces, this kid is a slang cartel playing the straight man, this kid is funny as shit, I hear you, linguist. Jazz from laptop speakers and it works somehow, yakety sax soundtrack to the routine going over his head. Uncontrollable coughing is a good sign, the other says sagely, lounging with legs double-page full-color spread. Don't give me that, don't give me that shit.

I'm only pretending to be his assistant for now, but he clears his throat slightly and reads ridiculous excerpts from essays with titles like "The Oz in Me." We play handwriting identification and listen to melodic screams. I hate being reminded that I lack copies of my own work. Deja vu deja vu deja vu.

Big round figure in a small flat envelope. God saaaaaaaaaves. Wanted to ask further but his voice went a little funny when he said it so maybe I'll just let Antarctica melt on its own. It's all write, this, way buh-na-nuh-na *guitar riff*

aloe and algae

2008-01-21T00:29:00.000-08:00

Up and down and up. I am described by two separate men as "usually on an even keel," and I wonder where that idea comes from. There is a lot of work to be done, all of which is more than possible - probable. I wonder what's in North Carolina.

Headed for the coast on the warmest day of the year so far: one dirt road, picnic-perfect weather, passing a loaf of bread, every window rolled down. I put away an obscene amount of paella in a bar with a jukebox that played "Folsom Prison Blues" as the mounted deer head directly above my seat kept watch and, picking my way over stepping stones in the low tide, felt the knot in my back unravel with a twinge. We climbed over and around the beach, paying our respects to the anemones, sucking on cherry pits down the winding road home. It's funny how the salt air makes you want to eat and sleep and do everything that is right, which is everything.

Alek cannot remember chunks of his weekend so far but was still able to recount them to me in great detail. He seems happy about it, and I am glad for him.

"The most important things to have around when you're on acid are David Bowie music and Milano cookies." - Guess Who

2008-01-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

Karen O is COMPLETELY FRANTIC
I love the library!
I love being done with Anna Karenina!
I love the picture Michel Gondry drew of me after the too-short interview!
I love working on the literary magazine because it will be such triumph when it prints!
"I love sleeping. I mean, it's just so good. You know?" - Mia
Maybe one day I will be a different person. Hey, yeah!

2008-01-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

Punk rock poetry and self-help books. For some the night is just beginning. I can't speak around her, it's a shame to wait for that call, to wait without working, then I see the screen and stop caring. Teenage rebellion incarnate, his eyebrows. Everyone is downtown tonight but Godot.

2007-12-23T13:47:00.000-08:00

Pshawwww. Let's write something, let's write a movie, I remember that. Don't do nothing.

2007-12-12T21:20:00.000-08:00

ONE
His idea of chilling is getting drunk and cleaning his gun. Work for idle hands, I think you just said hello. Orange plus red makes three and a quarter I don't think this is real did you pack it? I packed socks long walk so alone you just abandon us in infinity with impunity one more time up and down like time and liverwurst above the x-axis. Too complicated for me like philosophical whispers, tropical baby, pull taffy up pale cheek under pink lights. Here is darker, with orange eyebrows and the beat twisting around curls of smoke let's do this together, it'll hurt for just a second hold it hold it burnt sugar red-stripe cheeks watch this breathless. You want to try? Shadowy backlit Satan bursting Rasta colors wait wait just wait tell us what you're feeling close your eyes slow just wait a minute all or something or nothing but don't think about what we're gonna do wait wait - wait - buckle backwards in the dark and laugh.

TWO
This isn't what I wanted, shoes and grease and letdown. Maybe it's all me, maybe I am dead or everyone around me is an impostor. Friday afternoons are the best time for the catchall, my beard, never be on television. Don't try and you'll never lose, my most growing bigger cramp apart and don't slow in case nothing has happened; that would be my biggest fear, hypothetically speaking, of course in an alternate universe we would control ourselves without pressure maybe I'm alone because I'm not talking about boredom a valuable commodity to torn over morals and connect blasphemy to virtue epic sweeping fine line closer think in thousands and commandeer something dead.

THREE
The box is bright, marquee mellow lighting plaid flannel and half-smile under Christmas lights. He is good, smells like clementines and Parliaments. I can pay attention now that I have been hidden, nothing to wait for as cookie cutter rolled out to push me past an archetype (oh I know them). Valise of sugar, pale face case for a razor game that's assonalliterative, don't go to work, they say, what's an hour among friends?

2007-12-12T21:05:00.000-08:00

Downtown on a Wednesday night is strange and neon. Window seats in a high-ceilinged cafe, square-tipped steel spoons and cold chocolate mousse. This is where I live, and there are colored globular lights in the tree down the street. I wonder if I will miss it when I am gone. Henry is going to buy his girlfriend a Christmas present.
"She wears Skechers a lot, you know, with the thing over the toe..."
"Shell toe."
"Right. And she keeps saying she needs a new pair, so I thought I'd get her that. Is that weird though? I mean, as a woman, would you consider footwear a weird gift?"
"No, it sounds totally solid."
"But it's a box full of shoes."
"It's shoes in a box."
"It's - well, yeah, I guess."
He's considering customizing them in some cool way. The mousse is discounted because M works the counter, and I ask her what is good. There is guilt and arrogance and overcompensation everywhere but I can handle it, I understand it, local bands and movie times; I don't want to have to meet people and start all over but I can't stay here.

NIXON DRINKS RIPPLE
BOYCOTT GALLO WINES

2007-11-27T21:53:00.000-08:00

Workin' for the weekend, it never ends, oh wow Tom Waits rules I am so sick my nose is an ice cave and Dodie Bellamy makes me want to run through sentences and lay out bits of scarlet thread, linguistically speaking, with space space space against midnight blue velvet. What a strange weekend, what a week, what a month. To-do lists drown me and I'm stunned when anything gets done, productivity taser. You'll find me writing college essays that are not my own when I should be writing other things (a story won me $50 for books but I'll get around).

2007-11-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight my mother sat down in front of Jeopardy with an excited grin. "Chahar millyon," she said, "he is going to win four million tonight."
"Who?"
"Pesar-e khoshkel." The beautiful boy.
He was, but we didn't see him in action until the end of the second category, flanked by a dumpy woman and bespectacled teacher with tightly folded arms. She was quick, he focused. Our boy Cliff got a Historic Birth Announcements wrong, but It's Only Rock and Roll went fast. The other two racked up thousands. Daily Double dinged, buzzers buzzed, clock ticked admonishingly as they stood stumped and silent at a question mentioning Hybrid Theory.
"Linkin Park Linkin Park Linkin Park Linkin Park," I chanted, filling my glass. My mother hugged her knees on the couch, sucking in her breath whenever Cliff missed a chance.
By the end he was the loser by a mile, $10,000 behind the others. They'll be back tomorrow night.

2007-11-11T19:46:00.000-08:00

"The rollercoaster ride was much like his love for Susan: thrill-based, nauseating, predictable and short-lived."

I'm a sea creature double feature purple-gloved saint. I pass the time with labelmaking, cauldrons, field studies. I work two jobs and second-guess my hobbies, briefly, before downing another cup of pomegranate juice and uncapping new pens to track vibes. My den is cleaned for the winter and at work I feel comfortable unless I feel restless in which case I remind myself of the options, which always include Stop. Biding the time between panic attacks with highlighters and clementines. Well-equipped. Always ready.

2007-11-07T23:53:00.000-08:00

Only going to work one day this weekend but I think I might actually miss it. First shift with a new person is always awkward, but things are getting better. Tal's face is interesting, bridge of the nose almost nonexistent with nostrils suddenly prominent, like an afterthought... strange wide mouth, long dark eyes, hot pink hair sticking out sideways. She works with a wonderful way of staying polite while making customers seem obnoxious for interrupting her nap. She lets the slightest hint of irritation creep into her voice at questions about parking or receipts: just enough to make them feel like a nuisance, but never quite rude. She's a master; I should take notes.

Gossip surrounds the paper like a swamp of taffy, a veritable lagoon of maple syrup. Why MTV didn't pick us for that reality show is beyond me. Alliances form, cliques strengthen, coups, confrontations - it's fucking "Survivor." The world we live in is unbearable. Sharp understands that, Henry is doggedly ignoring it, Tyler faces it with a grimly set jaw, Mr. W frantically avoids its harsh glare, Tomer waves it away with disgust. Men, all. Try to trespass quietly.

Affirmations:
I will go to college
I will floss every day
I will have Alexander Payne's babies

2007-10-31T00:21:00.001-07:00

I have nothing to write about the real world because right now I am not myself. Took a day off from school to recuperate from the debilitating onslaught of bad vibes and get some shit together for this writing scholarship, and now everything outside of my room seems surprisingly unreal, unimportant. I can finish, yes I can, see how far this deadline has pushed me -

2007-10-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

IT'S RAINING IT'S RAINING IT'S RAINING

I think Henry is half-right when he says that nothing is awkward until you say it is. I believe things can be awkward, and that admitting so used to be a welcome relief, but has become overused and now only makes the atmosphere unpleasant. Weekend of shit. Low expectations easily met for Friday; Alex and DW dry-humped like machines on the "dance floor" then headed for the porch to make out. Jake was dressed as a Spartan from 300, i.e. Speedo + cape. He borrowed someone's enormous furry pimp coat as the night got chillier, tried to hug me with it and seemed surprised when I fended him off.
Jake: "What's wrong?"
Me: "Jake, every time you hug me I tell you not to."
Jake: "Oh. Does it have anything to do with the fact that I'm scantily clad?"
Me: "Strangely, no."

So, now. Pomegranate juice and braised endives. Something's missing.

2007-10-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

October drags on. Production can rip me apart sometimes. All this stuff the writing teacher says about being in the present, recording now, is always relevant, and it's funny when you stop and employ it: paying attention to your surroundings with a consciousness like you're watching a movie and everything is significant.

New mantra: Why not?
("SUDDENLY... the bed exploded.")

2007-10-07T21:21:00.000-07:00

There's something very similar about getting drunk and watching a movie. Both take you out of yourself, are most effectively done in semi-darkness, and are considered strange things to do alone, in the morning or for extended periods of time. The temp manager showed me the projector, its infinite gears and cogs and pulleys; one gear turns and stops and turns again 24 times a second, so fast that its pegs don't appear to be moving to the naked eye. The projection room was covered with posters of Swedish horror films, midnight movie madness, something strange with Peter Dinklage. The temp manager's bike was in the corner, next to his huge backpack. He wore a blue t-shirt tucked into belted Levi's with the cuffs rolled up, revealing black socks and puffy white running shoes with Velcro straps. A utility belt of black nylon carried separate pouches for pens, camera and a tiny flashlight. He excused himself to change and came back in a navy blue button-down with double bowtie and a Mickey Mouse embroidered on the pocket in white, kicking his feet bashfully. His laugh was breathy, heavy on the inhale. Seven-hour shift.

2007-09-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

Thirty was the best offer I got, was told I was too late, saw Henry waiting at the corner and accepted.
"Okay, fine." The bum handed me a crumpled twenty, five, one.
"Come on, man, this is only twenty-six." I bought the damn thing for forty. He relented and gave me the last bill he had in his hand, a one. Fucker would sell it for sixty but needed it more.
I started walking fast but didn't try to catch up with Henry. Nora did, jogging, protesting she still wanted to go you guys and hey this isn't fair come on. I personally had no problems with going home; production had been killer and I've seen the band before. We powerwalked against the wind, guided by the glowing neon marquees of sex supermarkets.
"Hey white giiiirl..." leered a trio of black kids in front of a liquor store. Henry glanced back, remembering us, and slowed.
"Hey white boyyyy," I said, giving him a look, and pointed to the painted sign above Etiquette. White text on black said Love Will Solve All Your Problems. He sped up again.

Somewhere between Sixth and Seventh, Nora caught up and started crying. Ten feet behind, I stopped when they did. He put his arm around her, stroked her hair; I traced a half-moon on the bricks with the toe of my shoe and admired City Hall, its pillars and scrolls lit gold and blue-green. He looked back for a moment with an unreadable expression. I wondered what might have happened if I weren't there, and looked away.

After a billion years we began moving again, crossed Market. I kept my distance, watched them talk, watched her tilt towards him. We turned onto Eighth and passed a man curled up on the sidewalk, snoring.

2007-09-23T04:37:00.000-07:00

Can't sleep. I'm not even going to try anymore.

Things happening at a steady pace: I stumble, I slip, I step in things I shouldn't step in and take pleasure in hosing them off. The rain makes me stay in bed for longer... like I need another reason to. There's a cafe downtown I like, with a florist on the front patio and a hookah bar in back. Good smells, good coffee, very good peoplewatching. Time goes slower when I listen to my thoughts, like lying down and suddenly realizing how exhausted I am.

It's funny how the gossip works, how private lives become fair game unless actively protected. Somehow, everyone knows. MLC's dugout deflowering is the stuff of legend, I know NA desanctified home plate, the intimate details of P/B's hookup are stored in my mind alongside all the Forever couples name combinations (Lolly, Brantonia, Zemy; B suggested sex, provided the condom, the whole thing lasted about a minute and later she wrote a song about it). SK and Ari, Ryan and SH, KB and an editor from the year before... somehow, on the newspaper, I become privy to the sexual experiences of people I barely know. Tatie's keeping it chaste, Z is still hot for PB but he's moved on, Allie got nasty with AB, Nora is... Nora, Becca had a guy who left her for college, Max was with that Cat girl a couple of years ago, A is hooking up with SS but got something going on with SM and just ended it with J who is probably lesbian, Rye and the infamous AdL, Stacy's finally going on the Pill, AD is simply rampant.... and did I even mention Nicholas O?

Nora, unprompted, freely relates to me much of her convoluted romantic history. I nod occasionally and ask follow-up questions out of habit. As my eyes glaze over, she misinterprets my expression as one of shock and asks if I think she is crazy, grinning a little in anticipation.
"What, like - chemically?"
"No, not chemically crazy, just... crazy."
"...There's no such thing."
She stares off into the distance for a moment. "I know people who are crazy but not chemically..."
I sense I am supposed to pursue the subject. "Like who?"
She points across the table to Tess, who continues crocheting, oblivious.

Sometimes I wish for something to add to that list, experience to breed sympathy, a more interesting answer to certain questions. Realistically, even if I did, I'd probably lie. Badly. Become supremely awkward, clam up. Deny, deny, deny.

Whatever. Production starts Monday.

Me: "What do you suppose Malcolm's girlfriend is like?"
EK: "A man."

science fiction double feature

2007-09-16T19:43:00.001-07:00

Fuck, fuck, fuck this. I want to hole up for days. I love the gaping holes in my memory, need them to last for weeks. Feeling drunk like melting, lurching forward, sinking in everywhere, putting down roots and ripping 'em up. There used to be a hippie store called Knowhere. I don't think they ever actually sold anything.

It's nice to have this relative peace, relative quiet. Old eponymous gospel as I build, even thought of a title already - just give me one good reason to leave my room.

2007-08-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

Henry informed me of the details of Norandrew's demise; fortunately, their feelings seem to be mutual but the whole affair is still sad. He was not quite surprised; shrugged, grimaced and asked if I'd expected it to last forever. I hadn't, but I seemed to be the only one. His cynicism makes me depressed, which is odd because I'm usually the one cynical about teenage relationships.

Saw some classmates downtown whom I mildly dislike and began to dread school beginning. I'd forgotten what it feels like to be surrounded by them - it's jaw-clenching, eyebrow-furrowing, throat-tightening. Probably just Pavlovian but I don't know of a cure.

On the last plane we sat in front of three teenagers; two girls in velour sweatsuits and a boy with a Warhol Monroe print on his tote bag. They discussed the boy's need for a Facebook account and an acquaintance not present.
"You should have seen his Facebook picture," one girl said disdainfully. "Him with his girlfriend."
"She's ugly," declared the second girl.
"She's alright..." the first replied, cautiously.
There was a long pause.
"She's not pretty though."

I keep tensing at the sound of imagined footsteps. No one else is home.

dorothy was right though

2007-08-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

The Islamic Republic won't let me get to Gawker, Wonkette or the Discovery Channel News website. What the fudge.

Here is what the dating scene is like here: Groups of guys/girls cruise around and settle at some shitty fastfood place. They signal to each other, via glances, gazes and salaamatis ("hello, ladies"), that they are interested. The girls flirt by ignoring the guys. The guys sit down with the girls, stand and talk to them briefly, or just cut to the chase and slip them a piece of paper with their number on it. (Sometimes you can get a twelve-year-old gum vendor to deliver the number...it's slightly more subtle.) If the girl is interested, she calls the guy and they meet at another shitty fastfood place. Pretty soon they have sex. The guy then stops calling the girl because she is now a whore. Girls who date regularly gain reputations, because everybody knows everybody else. When a guy wants to get married, he goes to his family to find him a nice girl, usually a distant (or not-so-distant) cousin. Voila.

THIS JUST IN.....
I am socially retarded! Stay tuned for updates.

Incidentally, I only knew one guy in my whole life who regularly said "hello, ladies" without sounding like a giant skeeze.

2007-07-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

In the immortal words of Holly Golightly... "Quelle night!"

I was totally unprepared for the flight(s) here. Traveling with my grandmother is a colossal burning pain in my rectum; what with carting around all her medicines and blankets and coats, standing around waiting for her to get out of taxis or on planes, rerouting her through security, standing around waiting for the airport wheelchair/wheelchair attendant to arrive, tipping the wheelchair attendant, standing around waiting for absolutely everyone else to get off the plane, even other wheelchair people - all while she sits there grinning peacefully. It's enough to put knots in one's back (but not her, because business class on the flight to Dubai included a massage chair). It makes everything take five times longer than it should; I know she can't help it but my aunt is killing herself trying to make everything run smoothly and never hears a word of appreciation.

Dubai was a trip. Lots of chadori women at the airport. You get used to seeing them after a while but every so often a woman will walk by completely veiled, not even an eye slit, which is unnerving.

The roads here in Shiraz are absolute anarchy: no visible lane lines, precious few traffic lights, mopeds whizzing around, pedestrians casually sauntering through heavy traffic at random intervals. Technically, you keep right, but if there are too many cars in one direction they temporarily take over the oncoming lane. Crosswalks are nonexistent, sidewalks often too small or ruined to use, so people take to the street. I've seen like nine people narrowly avoid death by fender so far, but no actual injuries.

One thing that stands out here is the conspicuous lack of cameras. Back home you can barely walk ten feet without intruding upon someone's PowerShot; here everyone is suspicious of my little Lumix because they don't know what the pictures are for. I managed to be reasonably discreet until we saw a very fashionable girl in the microwave store. I should clarify: due to the mandatory headscarf and overcoat combo (roosari and roopoosh/manteau), it is considered the height of legal chic to display a few inches of coif and/or massive bangs, I mean Jersey girl size, paired with a shortish, tight-fitting brand-name manteau. So we're walking out of the store and she's walking in, and my mother insists I go ask if I can take her picture. "She'll like it, they like it if you ask to take their picture."
My aunt agreed. "Say you are journalist, say you are from America. They will say yes."
"I don't know how to ask..."
"I will ask, don't worry. Speak English to them, don't say you speak Farsi."
We approach her group of about eight girls, who are diffident at first but soon acquiesce after I repeat the request in broken Farsi. They know I'm bullshitting about the journalist thing but don't really care. One of the girls does not want to be in the picture and stands behind me. "Exceuse me," she says, "havold are you?"
"Sixteen," I say automatically. Damn, should've said eighteen.
"It show."
Well, shit.

2007-07-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

This whole thing is very Sherlock Holmes. Scrounging for information, deciphering exclamation points and the possible threat they could imply. We are Nancy Drew, Penny Gadget, Veronica Mars. We are experienced Facebook stalkers. Pathetic to the naked eye - but look closer.

......Yeah, still lame.

Fuck it. Lately everything smells like wine.

2007-06-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

I think it's fitting that my blogger name is a well-known, cheaply popular, slightly shitty painting that I still really like.
The great thing about summer is that the days are so long that they just blend into one long bright afternoon and you can't quite remember what you did last Thursday because it may as well have been yesterday or a month ago for all you feel it. There's no more counting down the hours till freedom or dividing the day into dry chunks that stick in your throat and choke you in your sleep; summer school will damper that feeling slightly, but the day is long and there is time time time. Doing nothing can be pretty damn epic.

Sometimes when I am very happy I look sad but that's only because I'm afraid I'll do something stupid and destroy the nicety. Sometimes it's like I'm high and can't even handle real life because it's all too much too fast and then I space out so I won't have to notice it all. Sometimes I lose track of what's going on because I am concentrating so hard on one singular thing that is happening slowly, a quality which makes me able to tolerate French New Wave movies but look like a dumbass the majority of the time. Sometimes it's like I'm high and can't even handle real life because it's all too much too fast and then I space out so I won't have to notice it all, then I get numb and want it and get it and lose it and don't notice until I want it again.

I like not having time to write because I am so busy doing things instead of having lots of time to write but nothing to write about.

A story by Tess and also me:
Stephanie wakes up and eats a Milk Dud. It chokes her. She cannot breathe. At 8:26 am, the little candy takes her life. She had been awake for one minute and fifty-two seconds. The day was so young.

FIN

Coming soon: Chapter Two, In Which Stephanie Enjoys Life As A Zombie

2007-06-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

Alright alright alright alright alright alright okay now ladies?
YEAH?!
We gonna break this thing down in just a few seconds...
And don't you have me break this thing down for nothin'!

This is one champagne bottle I will wait to pop. Omerta.

I took hardly any pictures the entire month of May because I was so busy with school. A disgusting realization, so I whipped out the camera a couple of times today just to get back in practice. I'm always afraid of being obnoxious but usually turn out like more of a creeper. Everyone likes them afterwards though. Pictures really do help you remember things... Of course, sometimes you don't need any help remembering.

I used to think the expression "his/her eyes lit up" was a meaningless cliche, but it's true as hell. It's that spark of animal alertness, like the peripheral glow of a laser beam. My main activity lately is making lists of things to do over the summer; notebook is good if occasionally shameful. A collaborative guilt.

2007-05-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, during class, I will realize that I am thirsty but not drink from the water bottle in my backpack. I will walk around thinking how much I would really like some water, but will not drink. This goes on for hours, even when I am at home and there is ice to go with the water. "Hm. I guess I'm thirsty. Oh well." As if I were in the middle of the Sahara with no way to solve this problem. Why this happens, I don't know... but the same thing is happening now, with my mind. It itches for rest, in a quiet moment I could hear the blood pulsing through and I know a nap would help but I'm going to watch a movie anyway, to keep my brain busy and when I go to bed I will be grateful for the peace from the noise I inflicted on myself. Usually I feel like everything just runs in one ear and out the other, so I have to write everything down because I know I'll forget and become annoyed at my brain for being able to remember stupid details like what I was thinking while brushing my teeth this morning but drawing a blank at the formula for calculating voltage drop across a series circuit. Maybe remnants of all the crap I think about are building up in my brain, like toxic chemicals collecting in a diseased colon, coming back to haunt me with mental cancer just when my mental immune system is weakened the most. Maybe someday I'll get a mental enema. Why does the mind demand so many analogies?

2007-05-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

Today I dropped history because I'm failing ("Disappointing," she hissed, shoving the drop form into my hand) and made a list of things I like. My cutting article is so god damn depressing. Transcribing is dull work, my head is dead and will be for the next three weeks. On the plus side, I have like two classes tomorrow. It's okay to write about my little life, right? I mean... I try. Maybe I should just stop. But I did that and it turned out badly. Arrrrrrrrrrrgh must get off Facebook

2007-05-20T17:33:00.001-07:00

Ugh. Panic attack.

More later.

2007-05-07T17:54:00.000-07:00

me + Becca = 2(shafted)/bitter

I wrote her limericks and she drew Becca-hearts, which are of a uniquely pointy variety signifying eternal love and appreciation. I'd been keeping myself busy but an entire sleepless Sunday night gave me plenty of time to work myself into a lather over the injustice of the editors' choices. Becca's wrath, however, goes above and beyond mine; she hissed at Tomer after class and stormed out with righteous anger. Hell hath no fury. I'm really glad that Mia got it and all, but come on. She missed production on a regular basis for SAT tutoring and homeopathy appointments; I don't even go to my fucking shrink during production week. And Danielle - well, Danielle will work hard, she always does, but she really just wants this as another activity to put between piano and debate on her Harvard app.

The stress is really busting my balls. For weeks I had mild insomnia, clinical obsession, aggravated allergies, breakouts. I dreamt about the editors. My eyes itched like they were on fire, my fingers were bleeding and raw from biting the skin off, my head hurt, my back hurt, my teeth hurt... And for what? So they could make Pflei ed because "he's chill"? So they could award people who bombed the editing test and started their portfolios the night before? So they could leave me and Becca with nothing but stories about self-mutilation and James Franco?

My brother says it doesn't matter if I get ed as long as I have some official or unofficial influence over the paper, which I will. And he's right - if I really care about the paper as much as I say I do, my title and position don't matter. Only the work I do matters. Working behind the scenes to create a good product matters more than ranking or academic cachet.

Right?

2007-04-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

I just thought the phrase "online presence." Somehow this is like when I used to play Sims and began saying "empty bladder" instead of "use the bathroom."

2007-04-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

There was not a moment. No lightbulb suddenly switched on. It did not suddenly dawn on me, but seeped slowly like viscous bile out of the cracks in my brain till the pantsuited admissions officer speaking so confidently at the podium began to blur and glow and fizzle around the edges. I had to look away.
These "receptions for high school juniors," featuring the fizzy officer and two current (paid) students, were being held around the country for kids not quite wealthy or interested enough to actually visit NYU. The guy and the girl - they were not adults, despite his thinning hair - looked like people I could conceivably talk to but would never want to. Curly-haired, snub-nosed, garrulous girl; male pattern balding, scraggly soul-patched, translucent-skinned boy. The bile began the moment I noticed his suit and thought, That dude looks like an asshole. He was an actor. Her name was Emily. Emily was thoroughly depressing.

I used to be excited about the prospect of going to college. But now it looks like all rhetoric, all theory that you should be putting into practice, internalizing - I thought that's what high school was for, and I don't want to do it all over again, all that bureaucracy crap, paperwork, forms, course requirements that must be "satisfied" like some voracious invisible libido monster. Internships are for teenagers who don't need to pay tuition bills just yet: I want a job. I want jobs, plural. I want to quit and get rehired and start from the bottom and work to the top and see real people, not tweedy academics. All this personal growth stuff they're talking about - wasn't that supposed to happen during high school? Am I missing something???

It's a popular notion that college is for experimentation, but that idea mostly died along with the "well-rounded student" ideal. Now they want passion upon admission but subsequent intellectual masturbation lives on. Schmucking around, so to speak. Do I really want to pay $50,000 a year to dawdle and dabble and juggle and put off "the real world" for just a little bit longer?

I'm never going to get in anyway. Maybe this is why I can't bring myself to care. Maybe I just don't like the idea of jumping through hoops to be something I hate. Student, student, student. Smooth-skinned, eager, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, inside joking, childish, drunken, driven, jaded, naive, delusioned, scrambling to get higher and higher away from anything real. They talk of finding a school that fits you. Fit? FIT?!? Nobody fits, nobody should imagine it the way they want it to be because it never was, is, or will be that way and the whole point is to adapt and adjust and change, because I can count the number of things that are going to change to fit you on one closed fist. They even offer "programs to help you assimilate into the city." Uh-huh, yeah, so everything goes smoothly; no rough patches. Educational KY.

Afterwards, I saw Alex from SAT camp. I'd been watching him for five minutes before he suddenly stopped in front of me on his way out. It was very funny.

2007-04-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

Two weeks of diligently rifling through the mail every day. Two weeks of listening for the clunk of the metal door closing. Two weeks of paranoia, apprehension, scheduling trips to anywhere around the arrival of the mail.

All so that my dad could come home early from work today because of hay fever and receive my pathetically poor quarter grades in the mail. Seriously, it's not that hard to get good grades. You just have to do the homework all the time, which I feel like I do but I guess I don't. What's a D, anyway? 60 out of 100? Three out of five. That's what it is - I do my homework three out of five times. Nothing never seems conspicuous to me; I do not notice negatives or register gaping holes in the point scores as they add up. It's kind of fun to set new resolutions (I'm gonna do my math homework from now on!) but when they're about homework, it makes my world feel so small.

Oh nooooo I'm sinking slowly into depression, I need to read something to get me out. Ahhhh it's too late, I'm there, I'm sunk, I'm comfortably wallowing. It's not that bad, just kind of pensive. Maybe if I keep staring at the computer screen like a contented monkey it won't get worse.

My mother is mad at me. But after reading Emerson's "Self-Reliance" and Walden excerpts, none of this seems to matter too much. I mean, on the bright side, there's that whole writing-contest thing, plus my cocaine article came out today and I keep obsessively checking the online version to see if there's any feedback... because I am a self-absorbed loser. Also because I worked damn hard on that article. OH GOD!! There's a comment saying good job....

from Brigid.
Ew.
Oh well.

I don't know. Detail is a good thing, right? I tend to think and write in very concrete terms. Sort of. Even the abstracts are concrete, you know? Yeah, I need to read something right now.

2007-04-07T18:32:00.001-07:00

My article.

Two words:

2007-04-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

Mother fuck fuck rogue
I'm not a coherent person
unless I really try.
Maybe i wouldn't wont' space this out the way i think it and it will seem more profound.
So here's how fuck here's how it went. I was thinking. About country music. No, that's not true. I was thinking about Roxy and Mike, they're going to prom together, and I met up with them at Borders and Anne is going to UC Berkeley and is gonna be a massive perfect hippie love her and Eric is going to UC Irvine (why doesn't he talk to me any more?). So Roxy didn't get into Columbia. Fucking ass shit, as Tess would say. So anyway we were walking and Mike ran across the streeet to put something in a trash can and then ran back. And Roxy laughed and said "He's like six years old" and it was true, he did look like a six year old, with his neat little reformed punk haircut and green and white striped polo and clean jeans. Let's ignore the worn-to-shreds hemp moccasins. Just running, bobbing along like that in a half-jog, skinny little kid. So then I thought, if Mike heard us saying this, he would probably not like it. YOu know, no one wants to be seen like that. But we were saying it in a good way, like I wouldn't want Mike to be something else, to be ripped or taller or buzzcutted. And maybe if I feel that way, everyone else does too (jury's still out on how often that happens). So no one cares if you're a little chubby or if you don't wear those clothes, cause that's just who you are and other sorts of ways might seem weird. or maybe if that really was you, after a while, wouldn't seem weird. But how you are right now is just right. Right? Left. Excactly.

evolution of an abbreviation

2007-04-03T15:51:00.000-07:00

I am going to -> I'm going to -> I'm gonna -> I'm gon'/Ahmunna -> I'm a/Ima

Least necessary piece of clothing ever. ($70!!!)

a killing time

2007-03-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

I told Mia and Tess about my Thursday appointment.
"Now I feel like Sonia, because she sees someone on Thursdays too."
"I see a therapist," said Tess suddenly.
"Yeah, me too," said Mia.
Suddenly I felt like I was in a Woody Allen movie, and Diane Keaton would soon enter Peet's Coffee in a floppy wide-brimmed hat, discussing Kafka.

My mom is getting overbearing. I thought she would be discreet about all the stuff I told her, but now she's starting to repeat all her old habits, but worse, as if now that we're being nice to each other it's suddenly okay. Today she showed up in a clingy green v-neck. My clingy green v-neck. She knows I even hate sharing socks - what makes her think she can suddenly borrow my clothes now? I am trying to be polite, and nicer, and basically sucking up to her so she'll let me go to the Arctic Monkeys concert, but she's always wanted to have her only daughter be her best friend too. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Ah, spring... lust is in the air. Also pollen. The theeds race is heating up, we have to lead class discussions a couple of weeks after spring break. It won't be that hard, there are lots of opinionated people and it's pretty easy to get an argument going but what if they... um... I don't know. I'm just nervous. All I do at school is sit around and try to figure out how to take the least amount of classes possible next year.

The charity run on Sunday was fun. As EMR, we just stand around eating free food in case anything emergency-related happens, which it never does. But it counts as community service, and we got to lie around in an overgrown field and discuss the New York trip, which Ryan did not attend. We also watched two ladybugs have sex and refused to return to base even though the event was over. Heavy breathing over the radios ensued ("Foot team, return to base." "Hhhhhhhh What are you wearing?") It's a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon - chilling in the sun, talking crap in a Catholic schoolyard.

Ryan: "Once when I was drunk, I ate a Snickers bar. Like a whole Snickers bar. Like, the wrapper."

i love you more than i did the week before

2007-03-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

Forced to enter in the youth category of the city paper's photography contest. Unlike the adult category, the youth receive zero cash prizes. Whatever. Tanya Wilcox won first AND second place last year - how hard can it be?

It's the drizzly kind of day when there's nothing to do but crawl into bed and sleep it off.
Sleep what off?
Nothing in particular.

I'm tired as all-get-out. Too tired to swear. And now I feel like Jon Shan, who says things like "bloody hell" with a nervous look, as if afraid of his own insufferable affectation.

Writing longhand (why is it called that?) is currently taking up most of my time. The keyboard gets hot and makes my fingers itch besides. Today we had an assembly during which I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to take the least number of classes possible next year. I've been having a nervous breakdown for like a week, ever since New York. St Patrick's Day, actually. Ended up telling my mom more than I probably should have, and now I have a psychiatric appointment on Thursday.

Friday was Roxy's photography show at the local art center. Four teens won this scholarship last year and got their work exhibited. Sharp came, but I spent most of the time hanging out with Saba, Roxy's 8-year-old sister.
Saba: "I think you're the most interesting person here."
Me: "You should talk to Mr. Sharp, he's pretty interesting."
Saba [looking him up and down with mild distaste]: "He's a grownup."
Me: "Yeah?"
Saba: "Grownups aren't very interesting."
Me: "Mr. Sharp's not like a normal grownup."

He had only one stroke, like a tally mark, on his nametag sticker. He told me he'd started to write his name but then "decided to fight the power"; he told Saba the pen had suddenly run out of ink.

Saba: "I don't like Jesus. I've never met him."

2007-03-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

On Facebook, I clicked on the sidebar option "My Friends" and the computer rumbled for a second before a little box popped up saying "The document contains no data."
ahahahahahhahahahahahaahah oh god i am so exhausted.

We are now "theedlings." In order to run for editor of the paper next year, you have to turn in early drafts of all your stories, final copies, your two best page layouts, a letter to the editors and the teacher, a column, an editorial, and a limerick. Then you lead a class discussion, give a speech, get voted on, interview with the editors, interview with the teacher, and "don't make any plans for the weekend" in case you've been chosen. The implication is that they come to your house to congratulate you, or something.
Mollie: "But don't stress."
Maddie: "Seriously, you guys, don't stress."
Mollie: "Being an editor is cool, and being a section editor is cool too. No one's a loser."
Malcolm [surveying the group of twenty]: "Except for about fifteen of you."

2007-03-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

There's still a lot to write about, and I can't do it in any particular order, but right now I have to write my astoundingly dull Scarlet Letter essay. It will be formulaic and uninspired, and I will get an A. I'm sad that production is over...
Tomorrow Sarah will break up with Alek.

2007-03-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

There's a lot to say but I have to do my article now because a) it was due last week and b) Malcolm is mad at me. But he's not as threatening as he thinks he is.

2007-02-18T21:39:00.000-08:00

What began as a mild head cold on Saturday morning turned into a choleric delirium by nightfall, possibly aided by the brownie that made me think in preterite for two hours. All I know is that for a minute my head was swimming inside the computer screen and that I mumbled "I feel nauseous" before upchucking in the bushes. At home I was sentenced to clear broth and bed rest, but lounging makes me atrophy so I practice piano at intervals. (geddit...intervals?)

I have two pieces to play at the competition, both of which I love but have practiced to death. There used to be stories to go along with them, Fantasia-like music videos. The Rachmaninoff was A Streetcar Named Desire. The first Shostakovich dance was wolves and butterflies; the last dance was Mollie. Then finals week came along and everything pretty much died. Now I'm just pounding the keys in the right order, conjuring up images of notes on a page, sometimes flowers. (The other day the prelude was a massacre, but that was a one-time thing.) My teacher made me listen to the recording from Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff, which has a dusky-pink, tea-stained picture of the composer on the cover. The acoustics are terrible and the performance is strange. There's this one chordy part that always makes me think of cauliflower and bounding white rabbits that he plays lazily, effortless and rote, those huge hands leaning in the wrong places just because he can, just to make it interesting. It's not pretty but there are sort of domed rooms between his palms and the keys. Goddammit.

"Writing about music is like playing ping pong about diarrhea. Or something like that."
- Russell Morse

2007-02-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

So today Nick goes "Thanks for directing Mia to my writing" and there's a long pause and then I go "Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh...." and we talk about it obliquely until Sharpe gives me this article about Columbine and I get the fuck out of there.

The eds gave me Cinequest. My dream assignment, especially since The Namesake is the opening event, but I can't go because I'll be in Washington D.C. for six days pretending to be smart. I called to confirm my travel plans and the woman asked if I was "the scholar."
"Sorry, what?"
"Are you the scholar?"
"Who?"
"Are you the one going to the conference?"
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry... it's kind of early in the morning..." And also I'm a jackass.

Yesterday mom came to the door to remind me that "no one cares who you interview or what movies you see - it's your grades that matter. And SAT scores. Now do your math homework." At dinner she demanded to know why my story wasn't in the paper (I'd cut it out for my clipbook). Like she actually gives a fuck.

Facebook is not telling me everything I need to know. The mini-feed is not enough. I don't just want to know who changed their Favorite Music and Profile Picture - I want to know who said what to whom, when, where, why, and what it means really. There are letters in the mail from colleges I'm not interested in and Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" is like Ruth Brown's "Mambo Baby" except... about rehab. Two more days of school, two more days of school, two more days of school.

2007-02-11T20:24:00.000-08:00

How much do I not want to do my homework?

Like THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS much.

Nick has apparently written two novels and what he calls "B-sides" to his magnum opus original screenplay, Mad 17. Mia laughs at everything that smug motherfucker says and he insists she must be high.
"What are your books about?" I asked. "Wait, let me guess - you."
"They're not about me," he scoffed.
"Everything he writes is about him," Malcolm objected. "He's a narcissist." I'll find out for myself when I read them online, but I would bet money right now that both Nick's novels are about
a) Nick
b) sex
c) drugs
d) Nick having sex
e) Nick doing drugs
f) Nick having sex while on drugs
Need I go on?

I almost smoked with him. He led me behind the portables pulled out his marine life-themed pipe, but I was suddenly repulsed by the entire idea and declined. He shrugged and pointed to a black scrawl on the metal. "That's my tag," he said.
"What does it say?"
"Gonzo." He pulled out a fat paint pen and scribbled it again. It looked familiar.
"Did you do that in the girls' bathroom too?"
"Yeah." We walked into the light. "But don't tell anyone."
"Aight."

2007-02-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

Wow... my mother made me feel good about myself, for once.

"Sara. That cake. That cake - where is the rest? I think your brother ate the rest. Sara, that cake. I have never - Sara, that cake was was the best - what is in that? how did you make it? - the best, the best, the best cake I have ever eaten."

2007-02-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

I
suck
so
much
why am I so shitty
arrrrrgggghhhh go away

2007-02-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

I used to carpool to school with my old friend Samar. Every morning as her father drove he would tell us some joke or story, keeping up a one-sided conversation as we listened to stay awake. At home, his children teased him about this habit of extracting life lessons from anecdotes so early in the morning, but nobody really minded. One day in April it was pouring rain and he told us that when he was growing up in Pakistan, nobody went to school on such days. "I wake up and see that outside is like this, you don't leave the house. Go back to sleep, make coffee, sit and watch the rain. You don't go to work, go to school."

In that spirit, I called in sick to the detail and read The Namesake all morning instead, then spent the rest of the day thinking about struggle.

Cead, age 7: "It'll be a rockin' dance party!"

2007-02-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

The eds hate me. I hate my movie review. Goddamn Sam got the pass for The Namesake, which I have this crazy urge to see...but Sam is cool and anyway he got his jaw broken by a mugger a few weeks ago so I can't hate him.

I wonder what would happen if we said exactly what they were thinking whenever we wanted to. Judging from the results of Malcolm's philosophy of parrhesia, everyone would hate each other... but even he isn't completely open all the time in a way that Nordlinger sometimes is, with statements that judge and acknowledge and imply. "You look really pretty today." "I used to think you were really annoying, but you're not so bad." Malcolm and Nick - an unholy communication combination.

Rahul will be featured in this edition in a candid interview. But print really can't capture the true crackheadedness he embodies, especially when talking about "bangin'." On Friday I asked him if he'd seen Kat, who was visiting from Middle College. His eyebrows wiggled, lip curled, teeth clenched, and he got that insane predatory look in his eyes. "Aaaaaahh, that MEAT!"

2007-01-30T20:37:00.000-08:00

Another Dead Week rolls around... one of those periods where no one can believe it's ONLY TUESDAY and getting out of bed is truly leaving the womb. Just leave me to my fucking fantasies, they're so much more agreeable than life. I've been spending a lot of time in my head lately, it's not good. First animation took over, an exaggerated, more colorful, truer version of reality; then we saw The Last King of Scotland which was so goddamn vivid... and now I'm back where I started.

Orthodontists are truly creepy people. I guess staying in any field for so long can make you develop compulsions, to the point where you actually begin to care how much the teeth have straightened out. "See, see how all that crowding was there... and look now, look at that," the dentist murmurs, displaying the Before and After pictures in larger-than-life Technicolor. I studied them. The "after" was like an anatomy illustration of the maxilla, especially when the guns were stretched so tight they turned white as bone. I felt odd, like we were all looking at pornography together. The doctor's murmurs of satisfaction took on a distinctly disturbing tone as I realized how much the photos resembled hairless, toothy vaginas.

I really need to sleep. How the hell do you upload pictures to Blogger?

2007-01-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

Abstinence from self-documentation is not without its challenges, but once in a while I indulge. What is this obsession we have with taking pictures and examining them immediately afterwards, courtesy of the digital camera? Like a monkey that sees its reflection in the mirror and thinks it's a second monkey. The pictures are, by turns, jokey, serious, posed, candid, flattering, and not-so-flattering.

I have two pages of House of Meetings to go but the thought of finishing it is almost frightening. This afternoon I fell into a deep depression, ingested enormous amounts of carbohydrates, became lightheaded and eventually burst into tears during a piano lesson. The Russian Experiment. Jesus. Bleak freezing cold tundra, endless hunger and numbness, propaganda, quotas, slave labor, crumbling psyches blanketed with acute paranoia. Crime and Punishment has been on my "to read" list for years now, but I can't even handle a Russian novel written by an Englishman.

Or maybe it's just PMS.

When Mr. G the physics teacher stands in from of me and speaks I can smell snack food on his breath. That foul trail mix of pretzel sticks and triangular orange crackers coated with a vomitous spicy-sweet shellack, studded with bilious green pellets of unknown origin. Why eat that? There are such better foods, snacks included. Cheez-Its and Famous Amos now seem pathetic; Goldfish crackers are a soup topping, not a meal. You could have a ripe nectarine, melted cheese on rosemary foccacia, baby carrots for God's sake, fragrant walnuts, almonds so fresh you can crack them in half and see the oil. Oh, man. I am turning into a foodie. Hobbies don't usually last more than a week for me, but cooking is still engrossing. Baked goods are more work than they're worth, unless it's something absolutely fabulous like rose petal pound cake (which I fucked up nevertheless). I've developed new respect for vegetables with intense flavor (see: flavor flav) like onions and bell peppers. Also, did you know you can make dulce de leche by putting a can of sweetened condensed milk in boiling water for three hours? I am astonished.

Life begins on Mondays.

Mia: "Science rules!"
Mr. G: "Do I detect a note of sarcasm?"

2007-01-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

Looking through my notepad for the DIs' numbers I found a to-do list from last week:

study Spanish (repasos and bk!!)
study fopo (unfamiliar articles, Sunni/Shia)
study math (local min/max?? extra credit hws)

"Fuck this shit!" I screamed, taking great pleasure in crumpling it up savagely. For the record, Osama bin Laden is of the radical Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, and I did not need to know that for the test.

Let's not talk about school.

One of the DIs has found work outside the Yay so the interview will be via email, and I just left a very composed and professional message for the other. That's not sarcasm; it fairly reeked of poise. Then I hung up and had a brief Lamaze breathing session.

2007-01-17T17:41:00.000-08:00

Oh, my god. Fuck this shit. The whole Picasa/blogger thing is not working out. The worst is over. The past two weeks have been a blur; time moves really fast when you're not doing anything worthwhile. Probably why the years fly by for old people. After school I cooked spelt ferrotto and tried to do honey-spiced milk. I am the Barefoot Contessa. There's not much worthwhile to write about whenever I start focusing on school. Maybe I should just shut up. The animated Robin Hood is a FOX (PUNS!).

So, there goes first semester. The future looks bright...except for that whole no-more-humanities thing. Goals: take notes in class, procrastinate less, kick lots of ass, stop measuring time by school holidays, don't break down.

2007-01-15T18:56:00.000-08:00

Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod
I just emailed my interview request to the Marines
They were our drill instructors at Academy and they are very scary
But Marines are So Hot Right Now (c.f. cover of TIME, two separate features in the Chronicle, etc)
Aaaaaaaaa I'm going to interview them I need to think of good questions
aosidjaosijdaosidjhouwqhdkjwansdowedd

I need a mantra. Suggestions?

2007-01-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

Spurred on by Manhattan, Chuck Barris, finals cramming, and the fact that it's due Tuesday... I wrote a story. (!!!!!!!!!!!) It's like 900 words, but the first fiction I've ever written that hasn't immediately made me want to burn it and stab myself in the eyeball with a fork for being so insufferably pretentious. Chalk one up for not sucking. And even though Roxy is the sole commentator on my Flickr photos, I like those too.

Quotes of the week:
Sharp: "FULL THROTTLE ARISTOTLE."

Eric, on his Humanities project: "It took me a while to realize I wanted to do art. Like originally, I wanted to make a catapult...out of mousetraps."

Anne, on a Facebook photo of herself from New Year's: "i am never drinking again. ever. oh my god. i don't even remember wearing a lampshade."

Physics teacher, on fuckknowswhat: "What's the difference between a masochist and a sadist? A masochist says, Hit me! And a sadist says..... [loaded pause, evil pedosmile] .... no."

2007-01-08T23:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't been writing, not just here but anywhere, and am looking forward to the Marines article as an excuse to abandon everything else; all the finals cramming and essays and projects. Shit. Last night involved Naked analysis, four hours of vague nightmares about rats and Dante's Inferno, a prolonged panic attack with lots of spasms and occasional isolated extremity twitches. And right now I'm only procrastinating more, so let's get own it.

Louise: Sometimes I wish I was back in Manchester.
Sophie: What for?
Louise: People talk to you.
Sophie: I talk to you.
Louise: Yeah, but you talk a pile of shit.

2007-01-07T22:28:00.001-08:00

Acantha Condron
to me

Jan 5 (2 days ago)

Hi
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VJAAGRA $ 3. 30
AMBJEEN $ 2. 90
CJAALJS $ 3. 75
XAANXAX $1. 50

http://www.yourfriedrice.info

brilliant and everything, but that doesnt mean a really clever Dark
wizard couldnt fool him
Why did Snape save Harrys life in the first year, then? Why didnt he

2007-01-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

WOW ROGUE

2007-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

8:00 am on the day it's due....officially the latest I have ever technically finished an assignment on time.

2007-01-01T22:58:00.000-08:00

Blablablablabla I'm busy. Stream of consciousness recap: Academy was pretty kickass, made me no longer okay with being blatantly lazy and got an awesome story idea - New Year's fun fun fun but not much more, I didn't say anything overtly dumb but I should tattoo "John Wayne" on my hand, Anne's my hero, French toast and Oh Inverted World go together well - resolutions? Floss. Braces off in three weeks, cravings for Ruth Brown and other 50's big band music with shamelessly codependent lyrics that overuse "daddy" and "baby." Nowadays it's all I'm stronger than yesterday, I'm a survivor, thanks for making me a fighter... but I want "Teardrops From My Eyes" and "Big Hunk O' Love." Oh, and Martin Amis.

Work tomorrow, promise.

2007-01-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

Break is now almost over, with no progress on, um, ANYTHING. I suck.

2006-12-24T12:41:00.000-08:00

Seasonal tensions surprisingly sedate up until today. Mom dashed to Trader Joe's to buy orchids and chocolates for all the principal neighbors, then recruited me to write cards and deliver. Ho-ho-ho. Tonight we attend a gatheration, the same as we did last year.

Was it last year? God.

That was a long year.

Christmas now seems like a precursor to '07. (An appetizer to dessert, some might say... the rugelah of winter holidays.) It's Eid-e Noruz custom to clean house in preparation for the new year. I never really felt spring cleaning, but all break I've been detoxing my room, emptying the closet and hauling bags to Goodwill. All that stuff. Boxes and boxes of it, shelves and drawers full of things I just needed to have and needed to keep. Lots of trinkets and knickknacks and yes, even tchotchkes. It's unsurprising that a little kid would want to stockpile this kind of useless crap; what's amazing is how much my parents indulged my mania for collecting random stones and colorful erasers. And I kept all of it, because I remembered how important they seemed at the time.

The cleansing extends to my body in the form of sporadic attempts at a juice fast. My loathing of carrot juice makes this particularly difficult, but hey... you gotta do what you gotta do. Purity of essence. Peace on earth. And goodwill to all womyn.

2006-12-16T15:02:00.000-08:00

I am not a party person. But winter break has begun. Let's get sequestered in ha! Let's get sequestered in heah!

Big Sonia is thick, mentally and physically. Rummmble innn the junnngle.

2006-12-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

I don't even know why I take badly written movie reviews so personally.

My mother could not have chosen a more fortuitous time to fly south. After her unusually subdued reaction to my disgrace of a report card, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it isn't so much dropping as slowly crushing my face with its heel; venturing out of my room is like navigating a minefield. As of 6:14 pm, it's been declared an official safe zone.

Hanging out in Sharp's room after school is food for idle thought. Hilary with the weak knees, of the Creative Writing Club, apparently has something of a grudge against Stacy.
"I think she thinks it's like...a competition," Stacy mused.
"....But she's never in here," Sharp said, implicitly admitting a circumstance that has not yet been verbalized.
"I know!" agreed Stacy, implicitly concurring. Wait, wouldn't that be explicitly? In a different sense. ANYWAY, the circumstance in question is that hanging out with Sharp is a competition, and how can you resent your opponents if you refuse to compete?

After we showed our Fatima video in class last week, Ryan told about how on the first day of shooting, a UPS guy knocked on the door as we were about to start filming the Vatican scene. I had totally forgotten about it; thought of it again in the car this morning and almost burst out laughing. How it must have looked to the poor delivery guy! Ryan half - well, more than half-naked on the couch, posing in a pope hat, hookah, Cuervo, candles ... tripod and camera conspiciously placed in the middle of the room ... Stacy in lipstick and French maid costume, awkwardly signing for the package. Ryan wasn't just lying there, either: he was mugging for the doorway, perking up and grinning as the rest of us tried to crack up silently.

Physics teacher: "Ah, the eighties...a decade bereft of culture."

2006-12-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

FUCK this shit. Meg can suck my dick. I am unabashedly jealous of Anne's feedback, Mollie's a prude, Malcolm's a sadist, they're all openly biased, the paper is a senior publication and always will be. "Pay dues," pay dues, pay dues my asshole. For what? So I can torture my lessers next year the way they do now, instead of actually working to make the paper better?

I don't know why I'm even so pissed off about this. Sarah said she "didn't know" if my article would get in, which means no, and Meg's a persistent cunt. Still, I would have appreciated being informed of the decision, like, I don't know, WHILE I WAS WRITING IT or maybe DURING PRODUCTION AT LEAST. Rum + grapefruit + soup + bread + chewing on plastic Santa head = still don't feel much better. I was sitting on a bench after school when a passing child looked at me and started whimpering.

Need to let go. Detach. Alex's movie review is so bad it gives me a headache. What do people see in her? Detach, zen, chill. Um, um, okay, breathe. Step back. Laugh. It's funny. It's ridiculously bad. Jesus, is she serious about Unaccompanied Minors being "unrealistic"? It's a children's movie, for God's sake! "A movie for the younger set...mediocre at best." And you couldn't infer that from the trailer? It took you an entire fucking review to come up with it?

Actually, that is kind of funny. Let's listen to some Beck! "Take it easy, take it slow, let it fly, let it flow."

2006-12-02T22:12:00.000-08:00

I learned to play a Chopin waltz today, and didn't do my math homework. Reshoots all day tomorrow. Ariel didn't complain about having to reshoot or remake that poster, and even said she'll help me edit, which is really decent of her. I'm so used to doing all the work in partner/group projects; most people are more than happy to let someone else take charge. Mojitos, less problems, it turns out.

Hanging out in Mr. Sharp's room after school has become a habit, and antidote to the slowly crushing depression that the school day inspires. He showed us his four seconds of screen time in Raising Cain and told me what it's like to be 37. Conversationally, he can't be baited, but gives very satisfactory answers to direct questions. There's a logic to it, and at times I find myself echoing his nonplussed "Okay" at subjects not worth pursuing.

Got good SAT scores, but still can't understand half of Truman Capote's frustratingly opaque short stories.

2006-11-29T23:04:00.000-08:00

Reading Nick's screenplay was probably the highlight of my day. Most of the awesomeness comes from the title... Mad 17: Struggle of the Youth. I'm really not sure if "Struggle of the Youth" is an actual subtitle, maybe a tagline? It was in smaller font under "Mad 17" on the cover page. Sounds like a blaxploitation, or underage porn.

Most of the day I'm walking dead and zone out in class to keep from crying. I read Little Children and Couples and fall asleep on the library couch. My story is late, which is pathetic because it's an opinion and requires no research, but since quarter grades came I've been spending most of my time on schoolwork. I don't know how everyone else does it. They probably make up for their productiveness by being lame the rest of the time. Even Shaun, my physics partner, complained about how "unmotivated" he was. "It's like school is this marathon, to see who can go without falling asleep the longest." Word. That class is mystifyingly soporific, no matter what my mood. His theory: it's the fluorescent lights.

So today I resolved to keep myself busy and not drift in and out of nightmarish arguments with myself and endless dithering about everything. I got this awesome book of ornate lettering and spent the morning copying the simpler ones to write friends' names. By lunch, I didn't feel suicidal. Productiveness is so zen.

Meanwhile, I've developed a propensity for Latina Magazine. Improve my Spanish and find out What Real Mujeres Are Wearing - triple threat. Okay, double.