Nuts and Bolts

2009-02-13T18:32:00.003-10:00

I definitely still look at pictures of you
And I wish I didn't

And I still think about what I'd do if I saw you
I would probably feel like I was punched in the stomach

Yesterday I wondered if you'd ever call again
And thought maybe I should send that email I've been writing in my head.

**

One day a man was interviewing people on the subway.
He was asking the riders why they didn't smile on the way to work.
Likening the train to a slave ship, he asked people why they wouldn't smile.
Just to make things better..
And a woman started singing a song about Happiness that I don't remember.
When the doors open she flitted (yes, flitted) out and danced around someone sitting on a bench.
And she was being filmed then too.
And I was happy about it, but not as happy as the time I saw little old woman who sang dirty songs at Christmastime.

2009-02-13T18:24:00.002-10:00

Mac is eating paper beneath the chair
The ice cream is settling and seeping in my stomach

I'm watching House and wondering why people like this show
They just referenced Deepak, though, but not in a nice way.

I'm probably becoming dumber every day
But I was dumb in the first place for believing that you would save me from this mediocrity.

2008-02-15T19:18:00.000-10:00

i went back to livejournal. sophomoric and a little ridiculous, but old habits die hard and el jay is like the cockroach of bad habits.

2007-12-22T08:05:00.000-10:00

This week has seen an upheaval. I'm glad it's over, but starting a new week cannot erase new concerns or ideas.
I'm "home for the holidays" and I guess there's no place like it. Nothing quite like my mom sleeping a lot, me watching movies from the library, and getting a chance to see my friends (i.e., Nora). So I have a lot of time to think and to find ways to avoid thinking.

I am sure that many of the world's greatest love affairs never had a fighting chance because of distance.

2007-12-15T12:38:00.001-10:00

Sometimes when you forgive people
You really wish you hadn't
Because even though it's a virtuous act,
They never deserved it in the first place.
And it's comical now,
How you loved them
Amusing that you cared
Because you were braver and better
Than they have ever even dared
to
be

Because you had to put up with it.

2007-11-27T21:02:00.000-10:00

For any who read this:
You're probably wasting your time. I don't update and the original purpose of this E-space was to keep an ex updated on how I was pining away for him in India. Well that unfruitful and misguided mission has been accomplished.. So, all being said and done, now that it's said.. I'll probably start writing more.

Moving on..

My job is pretty sweet in a gut-wrenchingly challenging/heart rendering/patience testing kinda way.

No, wait, I think I like writing on paper better.

2007-10-17T07:36:00.001-09:00

So even though I moved to this city five months ago, Mom says that because I have a real job now .. I am "really starting my adult life". I wonder what markers could cancel this one out in the future.
I guess it takes time to adjust to any new place.. even if it's not that new. When I came here, I wanted to leave and maybe try another city, another pace, another life. Thankfully that urge is gone and I find myself lovingly spewing cliches right and left as I walk down the streets of Brooklyn/Manhattan.. "I love this city" I say to myself. While it's not the only place in the world you can walk down a street in a Caribbean neighborhood with women dressed in traditional clothing on your right and a bus of Orthodox Jewish men on your left... it's one of the few. Sometimes I almost resent the fact that I was raised so close to here .. because it didn't afford me much of a chance to move to somewhere I'd want to end up anyway.
I start my job pretty soon. Tomorrow I go in and sign all the necessary papers and set a schedule. I woke up at five thirty this morning rehearsing what I would say to the clients, how I would act, picturing what I would wear. Now and then throughout the day I practice my tone of voice in my head. I go through the motions of sounding cheery, stern, .. a Do Re Mi of emotions. I don't know how this is going to work out, which excites me and I'm sure that is also the reason I have to remind myself to breathe a couple of times each day.

2007-08-14T19:22:00.001-09:00

A lot of things I do, I do because it seems as if it would happen that way in a movie.

2007-08-06T13:09:00.000-09:00

I have been writing lately, but my scribbles are mostly contained to bits of paper I find in my bag or big wads of paper folded in half like the book I'll never write.
In the past two months I have become single, become self destructive (in legal and seemingly fun-at-the-time ways), gotten on track, and am considering now if being on track is worth its price of security. I have also officially finished with Ramapo, officially finished with labelling myself into any sexual identity box, and have decided that the 2 years I was going to take until I started grad school should be 3. I am your typical recent college graduate.. living in New York City... not completely in awe of the place, but secretly harboring all those dreams anyone has when they move here... That some great love will find me, a great tragedy will befall me, or that all of my answers will be conveniently found tidied up in a box somewhere in some bustling crowd or jostling subway car.
I am reading a book right now called Bridgeport Bus and it is about a woman who experiences all those feelings when coming to New York.. but she is a 35 year old virgin (not for long; deflowered by the stout but charming blusher Stanly Scarzinski;; a lovely polish man) who is escaping from her Connecticut home and over weight/overbearing mother. I haven't any of those things .. virginity, polish men, or a mother who cries because her daughter has disappointed her on all fronts. I guess I'm the better for it.
..

I keep seeing women .. grown women.. with age inappropriate shirts.. Like this little old woman I saw on my way to the train today... :Look but don't touch: written in street graffiti style script on her chest. Old enough to be my grandmother. or Too Hot To Handle... I have a physical reaction .. my eyebrow raises and I half swallow. I think about my mom wearing something like that and have to laugh to myself.. my mother who, until I was 12, made sure all of my shirts covered my butt. I wonder now why she didn't start enforcing that rule when I was 15.

..

It is muggy and hot and all this cement doesn't help one bit. Everyone enters the subway with beads of sweat, welcoming the train with profusive pit stains, drenched collars, and legs that stick together (if you're wearing a skirt). At least that the trains are air conditioned, some respite from the heat that I have become used to above ground. Or beaten into submission .. is a better way for me to describe it.. worn into complacency? I walk around oblivious to the sweat saturating my bra and I've stopped dreaming of winter. I am too hot to be bothered. Whaddya gonna do? Complain? What's the use? (the little yenta in my head exclaims)

2007-05-06T19:14:00.000-09:00

"Putting yourself out there". It is hard and sometimes when you do it, the person on the receiving end is worried by the intensity, the honesty... that it might be too much. "Out on a limb".. how true. You're alone out there until someone helps you down, joins you even. When I say "I love you" I am out on that limb.. high up and looking down.. only at that moment remembering I am scared of heights.
And when I am so honest, when I am so blunt, it is because I hold it in most days. Taught early on that if you feel strongly about someone, you're probably going to crowd them. Taught that love was suffocating. Taught this by partners and lovers mostly. How do you break out of that mentality? I force myself now. I have done it consciously since I was 19. With mixed results. Some were receptive and others... hot and cold. Never knowing, I pushed on, firmly believing that if I could just reassure the person I loved that I am here, not going anywhere, that I am real... that they would understand and accept my feelings for what they were, beautiful.
And here I am again, feeling this intensity.. this beating my chest. I never learned how to verbalize my feelings because it was always communicated to me that they were wrong. So they come out in garbled messes, indecipherable and harried. I send them anyway, these emails and letters. A test of myself, if I can do it, a test for my lover.. to see if they understand where it is all coming from. If they are scared, they do not understand.
I have never wanted to crush anyone with my feelings, to crowd them or disable their individuality. No, individuality must be cultivated, encouraged. Just to reassure them that I am here, that someone cares.
Do we transfer our own wants onto others? Because that is all I've ever wanted from someone I am with... to know that they are there. I do not live the Golden Rule so avidly as in this aspect of my life.

2007-05-06T07:43:00.000-09:00

Ok, it can be done.
In a week I have:

-Decided to live in NY instead of Philadelphia
-Obtained a job in Brooklyn
-Found a room for rent
never been more confident I am doing the right thing.

It smells like frosting in my room for some reason. Everything is almost in boxes. I'm excited.. more excited than I was anxious before.

The Iranian gov't. has banned all barbers from giving Western haircuts to men and also trimming eyebrows.
Hah, best thing about moving to Brooklyn.. don't have to give up my WNYC. Nerdin' it up.

2007-05-03T11:47:00.000-09:00

Ah, job security is a beautiful thing. So are health benefits that kick in after four months.
Went on an interview yesterday and got a job with The Working Families Party (www.workingfamliesparty.org ). I start on the 14th and so does the apartment hunt.
I couldn't leave the area. Thought I wanted to, but what it came down to was not wanting to miss out on what is looking like a great relationship. Because I have a choice, I'm not letting distance interfere with this one. She's staying too. Didn't know she was going to leave, but she told me two nights ago she was planning on going home to Cali until a week and a half ago. :)
Great how things work out... and surprising. Since I've met Ali pieces of the puzzle just seem to have fallen into place.

It's very hard to get the rest of my work done. I keep logging onto craigslist and trying to find apartments. It's all I can do to just read an article.
ah!

so, there's the update. In depth thought to follow later.

2007-04-12T17:00:00.000-09:00

I like this video. Each individual's response is representative of how in depth this thought process can go.
I listened and marveled at how much time is devoted to figuring out this integral part of ourselves. To figuring ourselves out in general.
Who are you? What do you identify as?

--

I didn't call that woman back from NBC. I chickened out. I'll call tomorrow and fess up. Maybe I can give her the name of someone else who can help her out.
Some things are so personal.. how you feel about your body, how you feel about your gender/sexuality. So people make up phrases and new names for these things - all creating their own niche.
Some say people with eating disorders are just really self-involved. No, they're lost. If they had their "self" they probably wouldn't be experiencing such disassociation and anguish. And the people on that video, I guess you could say the same thing .. that they sure do spend a lot of time thinking about themselves. But for me, it's like knowing whether or not you're right handed or left... and they're just taking the time to find out.
For every person there is a different identity.. a different definition.

My neck definitely hurts and my body feels out of sorts, but thanks to my impromptu hospital visit Monday (can we say Universal Health Insurance?!?.. yea, needs to happen) , I know all of my vitals are perfect.
that's no way to end an entry, but it's theraflu time. Nothing like being under the weather to justify shameless self-medication.

2007-04-08T19:08:00.000-09:00

Fucking pros and cons, right? No matter how many pros you add up in the little column to the right and no matter how much common sense it makes to follow through with the pros, there are always cons. Only if there are none is it a win win situation.
A lot of decisions I've made lately have had to do with the Pros. Common sense has been outweighing everything else. Still it's hard because, hey, as my Dad said "That's life. It's tough."
The man belongs on the top of a mountain in China for chrissakes. That's a lot of wisdom.
..

Easter was Easter. Went to church. Stood, knelt, spoke when taught to. It all came back to me like I knew it would... I fell into the rhythm like a diver just falls into deep blue waters. I let the smells and hymns envelope me and took comfort in the smiles my mother wore on her face every time I looked her way.
At Aunt Marianne's the boys were in full swing. I chased Jack around and we played basketball. He's small enough that I can balance him on my shoulders and swing him around by his feet. I changed two diapers and read 1 1/2 books out loud today.
Gramma made us some vegetarian chili, but left it at her house. So I had salmon. Steve teased me about being vegetarian and Aunt Marianne tried to get me to take some ham back to school. Dana showed up and I had nothing to say to her. Mom cried when I left because she misses me and she experiences Empty Nest Syndrome in waves (today was a Flow day, not an Ebb).
Gramma and Paul argued the way old people who are married do .. and I fumbled for answers to their questions about what I'm going "to do with my life".
And now I'm back. And it's after 12 a.m. .. no more Easter.

2007-04-06T06:29:00.000-09:00

Hi Kate,

We have not met. I got your name through Amanda here at ANAD. Amanda works with ANAD support group leaders.

Anyway, I currently have a query from Hana Karar of NBC NY. She is looking for someone to interview for a news piece they are putting together about Anorexia/spring break/pro ana websites and co-eds.

Please let me know if you want to be considered as a possible person to be interviewed for this. I can pass your contact information on to Hana. If you like you can also provide me your telephone number. Please call me if you have any questions.

Keith _____ at ANAD

Just got that email. Wow. Pretty cool, maybe I'll end up on the news.

I am happy these days.

2007-03-27T04:36:00.001-09:00

Let me tell you something. Sometimes I wonder if I am lying. If I fabricate .. Were we really that broke growing up? Was I really so displaced by the divorce? Didn't I have it good? Using my cunt and empty wallet as some backstage pass to gain credibility in social circles where you're only as good as your last anecdote validating the corruptive influence of capitalism?
The understanding is that the personal is political and if you're going to be political- your personal life better have been effected by the social constructs you're fighting against.
I sit in meetings where well-off professors and struggling students theorize and strategize about the issue of Class. And there's a push, just like at an evangelical healing ... to come forth, kneel down, and beg for an answer to all of your social ills. Now is when I take my life and put it behind a a frosted glass... recognizable, but blurry. I talk about my childhood, my school growing up, my mother. I always feel dirty afterwards, exploitative.

Three men and one woman have congregated in the back of the car. They are from Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama. I listen to their accents and think of my own, never noticeable in Jersey, but always a topic of conversation when I travel. I recall the feeling I get when it happens - the pride in being assosciated with a larger group, with a home. And it always leads to the romanticism of my home, a faraway look when describing it -- the traveler's relationship the home.
Each time I describe all of this at a meeting or in conversation about politics.. I get that look. Even though I have not traveled far, I am 20 minutes away from home, but Mahwah might as well be a different state to me. Maybe that is the issue, I feel like I stick out. But I don't, do I? I am white .. I can go unnoticed. And as generally futile as I believe "white guilt" to be, I participate during these moments.

We pass through Paterson and I look out the window on my "home".. or at least a town away from my home. I have evoked this name often -- as another badge, another indicator seperating me from the those well-off professors I sit in those groups with. I look out at warehouses with broken windows, yards crowded with garbage, and auto part stores with rusted bumpers piled on their roofs.
I never claimed to live this reality. I am honest, I have to be. I can only talk about what I know.

Looking out this window I feel distant and removed from this scene. Is it my whiteness that removes me? That makes this scene feel like it must be a movie and the window a projector screen? Have I taken any of this on as my own? Is this a disservice to them or shouldn't more people be doing the same: Writing painful scenarios into their life's narration?

2007-03-24T10:19:00.000-09:00

It is beautiful out today, the first in awhile. It finally feels like spring. The feeling is tricky, though, seeing as how I felt the same thing in the fall. I wish the weather would pick a mood and stick to it. I went for a run today. Out of the need to exercise and desperation.
I've been experiencing pains in my stomach, headaches, and some other ailments due to stress. My body hasn't been cooperative since January and I'm trying to find some balance. Hopefully moving around a little will help the situation. I went to the doctor the other week and she said I need to exercise more to alleviate the stress because that is what's causing all this stuff.
As frustrating as it is, I'm amazed at the human body and how attuned it is with the brain.

This past Thursday was the last Female Friendly Funk that I will ever be in charge of. It's going to be put on next semester too and it feels good to have something I have cultivated go on after I will be gone.
I decided on Thursday that I cannot go to Mexico. It's all well and good to throw out the obligatory "When will you get a chance like this again?", but there was the other chorus running through my brain "When will you get a chance to save up money so that you can actually move to Philly with Nora if you go to Mexico?" Romanticism and the "fly by the seat of your pants" mentality has its place in life definitely, but practicality reigns when it comes to having a roof over my head.
So, I'll be here all summer working 35 hours a week at the women's center and taking classes. Well 1 class actually and 1 co-op w/ the Women's Center. I'm actually very happy about this decision. I will not be as rushed. I will have time to get things together for PA.

In its own right, this is my best semester. I'm glad it's also my last.

I'm all business in my head these days.
Lists of things to do, names I have to remember, numbers I have to call. People I get to see ... but that last part is the best.. Seeing Pat tonight for a dinner, Sarah tomorrow, then Alisa. And Melanie in two weeks. And Dan is coming up from MD in three weeks.
I'm happier to be staying home this summer. .. I want to be immersed in my friends, they ground me. and I need to feel rooted. I guess there are some people who do not like that feeling, but I haven't felt grounded at all in my life. This home that I am about to make with Nora . .with our things and our music playing and our food .. I am looking forward to it so much.. I am hungering for that sense of stability; a home that I will not have to leave after a semester or a break.

bernice mulch - fastidious lunch eater

2007-03-21T19:02:00.000-09:00

Bernice Mulch, a woman with a fortunate shape but unfortunate name, sat in her office comprised of walls and a window. She had just eaten lunch and before her lay a tupperware wasteland watched over by a coffee thermos tower. She sighed and felt the piece of leftover turkey settle and expand in her stomach - mixing with creamed corn and banana.
Her desk sat opposite the door to her office - requiring that she turn around anytime she wished to catch more than a peripherary glance outside. The poster facing her depicted a dozen faceless tiny people bowing down to a gargantuan coffee pot raised on a pedestal. It was a poster that Ted from downstairs found hilarious. So, he printed 20 of them and distributed them throughout the department. Bernice knew of 10 employees who still had the poster up - herself included. Bernice Mulch only drank tea, but kept it up for the sole reason that Ted had thought to give it to her. A week prior he had made a joke about Lara From Across The Hall's ass, while Bernice was in earshot.
She liked to pretend the poster was a small beg for forgiveness.
The office held few decorations so she had a lot of time to meditate on the poster and manufacture such improbable little stories for herself. People like Ted do not apologize and mass distributed posters have never been a good peace offering.
On her desk was a (what else?) desk calendar - its ability to encompass the whole desk lent an air of dignity, of managerial manifest destiny to the little room, so Bernice liked to think.

all i have

2007-03-10T13:54:00.000-10:00

Spent some time with Melanie. Wandering around New York City lost, but not caring too much. As lost as we thought we were, ends up we were walking in circles. True to life, right?
A lot of things have come full circle lately. I've ended up where I was before, but different. A year and a half ago I spent time with Melanie, walked my 36o and here I am again, but different. A year and a half ago I was alone. A whole circle, later and I am "alone" again, but different. The goal is to walk up to your starting point as a better person.
My hair is gone again, resting in big clumps in the bathroom garbage. So, there's no more hair to hide behind. I laugh when I think of some of the trite cliches I live my life by, but if it's worth living your life by in the first place ... maybe it's not so trivial. I feel like a different person when my face is so out in the open, when I cannot put any hair in front of my eyes. Hair is important, historically, personally. I notice that when it is longer, I tend to act more demure without thinking about it. I smile more when my hair is shorter.
Got pancakes this morning at Stateline and talked with Melanie about coming out and being comfortable with ourselves. I've taken some big steps towards the latter these past few months. Gradually, every now and then, I purposefully let something slip in conversation, although I notice how much I censor myself as well. I guess this is a half-ass way of doing it to my small readership. Well, it's all about convenience these days.
But the point, right: Talking with her .. identifying with her, sharing funny stories - it felt right. Something I have to get used to, but right. I know that if I didn't live in the heterosexist world I grew up in/exist in ... I think I would've come to this place a lot sooner. The fear I had to explore this part of myself would never have been planted so deep inside of me.
Because I've realized, All my life I have sought approval from men, but only found genuine comfort,love,solace from women.
Maybe I will meet a man one day who will fulfill these basic needs.. who knows. That's not the point, because the point being made is pretty obvious.
__

I leave tomorrow morning for Asheville. I consumed a little today: bought a new bathing suit, jeans, and misc. travel stuff. I started reading No Logo on the shuttle ride over there. I think it's going to benefit me a lot. Considering I freaked out after going to Paramus Park Mall last week with Vanessa, this will help me mend my ways and probably be very therapeutic, hah. Seriously, though, I hadn't been in a mall for over a year and I hadn't bought anything anywhere else besides Sal. Army. What was most jarring, were the mannequins everywhere .. and how thin they were and how incredibly reinforced "The image" was. Lifesize pictures of women with hip bones that jut out, stomachs that sucked in, and breasts that jut out straight ahead and weren't any discernable shape. On the bright side, I must not be exposing myself to that kind of stuff as much as I had feared if I had that reaction.

Anyway, I'm really excited about Asheville. And then there's the march in nyc and having hot coacoa with Ali the next day after I come back.
So happy spring break... and if you're not on spring break, have a good week knowing that across the country thousands of 20 something's are being debaucherous, giddy, and happy knowing that for one week, there is a little less stress.

2007-03-06T11:13:00.000-10:00

Jean Kilbourne came and spoke at Ramapo today. I'd like to think that the ads aimed at/ about women are getting better, but I do not trust my judgement since it feels as if I live in a bubble here.
Before Dr. Kilbourne came Mandy wanted to redo the bulletin board so I was sent to the bookstore to buy magazines that would have objectifying images of women. I looked through the magazines and kept asking myself what offended me. Not a lot of it. Now, does that mean I'm desensitized or that it's gotten better? Or maybe my habit of making excuses for people has led to explaining away offensive images dreamt up by corporate CEO's?
I brought my purchases back to Mandy (a GQ and some In Touch magazines grabbed out of desperation) and questioned a lot of what she picked. I walked away from her and some other coworkers because I had my own program to run. That's how my day started. Doesn't sound that bad, I know, but most of my days have been garnished with a side of Anxiety and tension.

I walk around with my stomach in knots when I turn corners, but I have found a new lightness that will take the place of any pain in due time. I feel like I have woken up from a 2 years long dream. It's hard to wake up and realize another person's reality was your illusion, but I'm better for the knowing. I am happy to be done with it.

*
I leave on Sunday morning , 7am. Saturday will be spent packing and Friday is all about being with Melanie in NYC. Oh and Nora will be up tomorrow evening. A good start to break. I can't wait to get to Asheville and away from here. I need to get out of my head. (out of this weather)
I'm going to apply for an internship in Philly for the fall. The org. is called Women in Transition, and it's a women's shelter there. I figure I'll take whatever job I can to make rent while I intern there and hopefully that will lead to a good job. My time at the Women's Center has helped me tremendously, but I have not had enough person to person contact/experience with women who are actually in need of services and not just who need condoms. There have been a few times when I have been able to really help a client who was experiencing abuse in a relationship or suffering from an eating disorder, but they have been few and far between and I need more work like that.
Right now I'm pretty swamped with programs at the Women's Center. Mainly two.. first, the most important one to me Bodies Not Voices Vigil .. to raise awareness about eating disorders, to remember those who have died and are suffering from them. That's finalized for April 17th as of today (event/conferences meetings are frightening at ramapo. ) And then there's Female Friendly Funk on 3/22. This should be really good and I'm excited about it. It'll be the, um.., fifth and last FFF I will put on. I am motivated by this being my last semester. All but two of my semesters here have been bad, and I'm hoping this semester can be added to those two.

And make some noise about this:

what a difference a day makes

2007-02-14T10:20:00.000-10:00

My family is hurting.
My mother's great-aunt, Vivian, passed away yesterday. Now Gramma is the last sibling left.
I didn't know Vivian very well. I met her once, at Gramma's wedding when I was 15. That was when Aunt Bernice was alive too, a woman about three inches shorter than I am. They are both dead and my grandmother did not get to see any of them before they passed. And her brother Eddie, they only called her after he had died.
I am scared of my close family dying. In my head I see this field where every member of my family is standing .. the ones I know and love best closer to the center... and there is Death, a black cloud, overpowering all the people on the outside until there is just the inside left. The insensitive and selfish thought that is running through my mind is "Now there is no one else left but my precious close family."
I'm embarassed to say it.

My cousin is 20 and has already completed a stint in in-patient care at a hospital for anxiety and depression. I gave his father a letter to give to my cousin and he said "Is there anything in here that's bad? I'm responisble for his mental health now." In his face I could see the wear and tear, the stress, and Ache, because his child is in pain. I almost started crying, scared that maybe there was something in there that was bad... but my uncle changed his concerned expression to a wry one and said "I'm only joking". I have never been very close to Adam, but the last time I saw him .. I had just come back from India and he, from Africa. We talked on the front steps of Aunt Marianne's house for a half hour. He smoked a Marlboro Red and I played with the beads on my slippers. We laughed about our family and I said, "Our family might be crazy, but there sure are a lot very smart and interesting people in it." Adam is one of them. It's weird, after 21 years of my life, not feeling any one way about him, I love him so much. Out of nowhere, a new found appreciation.

So, needless to say, I talked to Mom today. I told her all of my good news in the five seconds allowed and then listened about Aunt Vivian and Adam.. and the little cousins who love their aunts and uncles and gramma and don't know how to hurt for them yet. Jack's hair is getting long and when he gets his hair cut he gets a "lollie", Arran is a sports star, and Gavin is in love with every little baby he sees .. even though he's just one himself. Mom told me in November that Gramma does not want to die. 'I love life', she told my Mom. She tells her husband that she'll die before he does and that he should stop telling her where all his important papers are.

I wish we were all closer and not scattered around the northeast coast (and one in europe if you count Uncle Michael who hasn't set foot on native soil in 12 years).
This isn't about living life waiting to die .. or sitting around feeling sorry for yourself because it's all going to end anyway.. Maybe it's just to remind me that we all die, because sometimes I forget. I hate admitting that I am scared of death because Death isn't something you can overcome or get around. Only when you canbe at peace with the fact that it will happen, can you live life to the fullest. Is that how it works? I'm unsure.

disjointed

2007-01-29T16:12:00.000-10:00

It's time to mend my pants. Got a hole in them two weeks ago.
It's time to make some decisions.
It's time to get serious about training for this 5k I promised I'd do.
It's time to feel butterflies again, smile nervously, and steal glances from across a room. If I'm able.

I need permanence. I crave it, actually. I need a place that I will live in for more than 4 months at a time. I need my Nora to not live so far away. I know nothing about life is permanent, but for once, I want to be in a place, stay in that place, I want people I love around to stay around.

So many things going on right now feel like my stuff that happened in my childhood, but only a decade and a half later. The difference is, I'm not a child anymore with only Child Options. I'm not stuck.

2007-01-21T09:24:00.000-10:00

When I was ten my DARE teacher, Officer Engold, told us to just say No. He brough in a case of pills and drugs to show us so that we would knew what we'd be getting ourselves into if we were ever offered drugs. I remember 25 fifth graders crowded around Engold's display case, enticed by the forbidden. Every one of us wondering if we would ever have the chance to say No and make him proud, or maybe if we would ever have a chance to say Yes.
Fast forward three years and our gym teacher is talking about testes to a group of 25 13yrs. old girls and boys. All of the girls were really smug because the boys were humiliated. Giggles were coming from every corner of the room. Jokes with sex organs as the punch line being whispered to every classmate. Because there, for all to see, were diagrams displaying urethras, scrotums, and penises. The diagrams felt cold and invasive, as if when simplified, we are all just maps with lines protruding from our bodies leading to label box entitled "Heart" or in this case, "Testes". I remember feeling as if I was being let in on a secret that the boys were trying to hide all this time. I remember being impressed that they were so much different than I.
The talk about female bodies came next week. Any girl who felt smug in the face of the boys' embarassment, quickly sported the same flushed face and averted eyes our classmates did the week before. It was almost worse because with our lesson plan came videos with babies struggling their way out of vaginas, diagrams of breasts that showed where the milk glands are, and in depth conversation about how every month for the next 50 or so years we would be cranky and bleed a lot. And we learned that even after a lifetime of bleeding and crying because of "horomones" that we would be given Menopause as our Reproductive Organs Retirement Reward. (We would find out later that with periods also came worrying about periods. Late periods, light periods, extremely heavy periods, clotting periods, irregular periods, periods that come more than once a month, etc.) A lot of us had already started getting visits from "Aunt Flo" (I'm still surprised that we were using that term as late as 1999) and had tried our damndest to keep it a secret from the guys, but Thanks Mr. Niger for letting that cat out of the bag. When you're a 13 year old girl the problem of whether or not you're approved of by some guy is a big deal. Try feel comfortable flirting after a visual of a uterus shedding its inner wall was just projected onto the blackboard. Bigger than life.
I barely remember the sex talk. I remember xeroxed quizzes about how babies are made. I remember talking about condoms and birth control pills. Best of all, I remember that abstinence (from kissing-sex) is the best way to avoid any STDs, unwanted pregnancies, depletion in self-respect, and fun. I remember all of these things that make sense on paper and seemed to be the biggest, most important issues. But something was left out: When did we talk about consent? When did any teacher ever talk about consent in middle school or in high school? The one message I can glean from my education about consent is "Just say No. No means no." You see why I opened up with DARE?
It was all supposed to be so simple. No means no, just say no. If you say no then whoever is pressuring you will think back to their DARE class and they'll back off. This is assuming that the person who's being pressured feels comfortable saying No. And the assumption is also made that the person who is doing the asking will smile, nod, turn on their heels and walk away. The idea that there are other ways of saying No than just verbal communication was one that had not been addressed until very recently in my life. Like, I'm gonna say, last summer. In my head if you didn't say NO, you were saying Yes. With this reasoning, encounters I have had in my life which were not consensual were permissable because I did not say NO. I never thought about how I had turned my head away to avoid a kiss, changed the topic of conversation when it was getting too out of hand, or how I had made excuses to leave. These are all ways of expressing my discomfort, making these situations non-consensual. I had spent so much time beating myself up for "letting this happen", placing all the blame on myself.
I started talking with other women about saying No. I talked to them about feeling silenced, being pressured by someone to engage in (unwanted) physical activity and not being able to speak, opening the mouth with nothing coming out. The discussion always led to the mentality of just "Getting through it": Kissing someone or whathaveyou just to get them off your back. It feels easier to just play the part than to say No. What are we so afraid of? What am I so afraid of? I can only speak for myself here: There is the seizing fear of not being liked (sounds so retro to say it out loud in an age where I feel women are more empowered than ever, but here I am dealing with a seemingly ancient problem.). I suspect that no matter how many public service announcements there are about how a woman should not need a person's approval to validate themselves, there is still a void that needs to be filled by a lot of women and there will always be women who Get Through It.
Not everyone is able to say No, but if you look closely, more women than you might think are saying No. With averted eyes, blank expressions during sex, stiff bodies.
Much different that my DARE experience, there was no t-shirt that came with the completion of my Sex Ed. class. There was no ceremony with a gym full of happy parents content knowing that their child will never engage in illegal or self-destructive activity because now they Know Better. Instead parents lay in their beds at the end of the day breathing sighs of relief that Everything Was Explained and kids lay in their own beds at night doing God knows what with a mixes sense of shame, pleasure, excitement, and validation because now we knew everyone else was doing the same thing. But now I can see that that wasn't the completion of my education about sex anyway. Eight years later I am still learning about my body, who I am as a sexual being, where my boundaries lie. Instead of a certificate with my name embossed in raised black letters, I get a little more comfortable in my own skin when I learn something new about myself or come to understand something once frustrating. Like this whole Saying No business.

2007-01-16T00:00:00.000-10:00

5 AM.
I'm still awake and there are strange noises coming from outside. After investigating, I'm relieved that it's just the branches scraping against the window. Being on the first floor does not have its perks.
So, right, it's five in the morning, my room is still a mess after having moved my life back into a dorm once again (last time). I could have made more progress, but the six episodes of Ugly Betty took up most of my time.
Ok and the squeaking sound must also be the rubbing of tree against glass

..
Well, Dad didn't look much different when I saw him. His belly so big that his shirt went into his belly button so you could easily locate it while first laying eyes on him. His legs are the same size, his hands too.. smaller than I remember them. Not as tall as I remember and less excited than I had hoped for, but just as excited as I expected from someone like him - a man who says less than fifty words per hour if you do most of the talking.
We went to McDonalds and he bought me a coffee. We talked about Gramma, Grampa, my aunt, cousins, and I talked about beer .. A thinly veiled attempt at conveying how Grown Up I am. Yes, I was grasping at straws. As long as we didn't talk about Mom. Which only happened for five minutes on the porch a couple of hours later.
He taught me how to play poker again and we played for rice cakes. I won and ate my crunchy reward slowly because I wasn't hungry, but I ate it just the same.
He left around eight. We had spent about ten hours together. Maybe less. I cried more than I thought I would. I couldn't help looking at him when he was in front of me and thinking "Here, here is the reason I have had so much pain and have dealt with so many consequences", but who doesn't think about that when they look at their parents? At least one out of the both of them...
So, he went back to his wife, my two half brothers, and shiny promise of a second chance at making right what went wrong with me and mom. He said it was so long ago that he doesn't even feel like he was ever married to Mom. The "Pawn" metaphor comes to mind. The "Unwilling Therapist People Seem To Find In Their Children"..
But I should not fault him for thinking he can talk to me about such things. After all, aren't I an adult? Don't I drink beer? Don't I sprinkle every passage with dry sarcasm?

2006-11-22T09:40:00.000-10:00

My dad called on Friday. After we hung up the phone rang again and I answered. "I forgot something", he said.
"Oh?" I responded.
"I forgot to tell you I love you."

I smiled a smile that couldn't translate over the phone, but I thanked him for calling back. Told him "I love you too".

In January I will see my father for the first time in five years. Last week I would have told anyone willing to listen that I wasn't looking forward to it, that I was unsure. But he called back and that's all it takes sometimes.

2006-11-21T19:36:00.001-10:00

The man cannot rest 'til he's finally beaten his needs

I need.

I need to write so I turn off the lights, turn on the music, take off my clothes, and get into pajamas.
Oh, but I'm not sure of what to say.
Today I pushed my body. Running faster than I should be able to considering the shape I'm in, but I was able to. I gained momentum because I thought of all the muck inside of me. If I concentrate hard enough, I feel the pain/sadness/loneliness/frustration congealing itself against the lining of my stomach, burrowing into the crevices of my bones. I ran hard and fast and now I can't walk. Living metaphor.

Tonight in class we talked about relationships, what people want while they're in them. Jarring, isn't it, to have it hit you in the face "I had all that". I went home and ate leftovers and then watched tv with Vanessa.
I told her last night, about me. I told her what the past eleven years have been filled with. I told her why D is so important to me and still is, how his importance was cemented the night he put his hand on my stomach and told me I am beautiful and okay the way I am; his hand encompassing the whole of my body in that moment. I can still feel the shock that went through me, the sensation of jumping into a cold pool simulated by his touch and words.

I told her about Friday: How Vince looked at me and told me I have a disease. He gave me a diagnosis. No one has ever done that and in that moment I found a weird sense of validation.. affirmation that Yes, Something Is Wrong. Then he asked me if I am ready to get better and I told him I had to think about it.
You see, there has been so much change lately that I did not ask for. Too much has been taken away without my permission and sometimes this feels like the last piece. Logic doesn't always have to make sense.
She understood and she smiled. And she hugged me and thanked me for sharing with her, for trusting her enough.

2006-11-20T20:14:00.000-10:00

I was so lonesome for you tonight that I called the number I am not supposed to call and messaged the screenname that probably wasn't you.
I miss your cackle and the way you make an entrance into every room you enter. You do not darken doorways, you illuminate them.
You are larger than life, your smile is wider than my arms could ever stretch in their poor attempts to show how much I love you.
Oregon is a lucky state, within its boundaries lives a woman I dream of. She is taller than mountains and stronger than ancient trees. Her heart beats with the pounding of rivers, her eyes hold constellations not yet discovered, her voice carries with it the wind that touches my face as I go about my day, and her words reverberate in the ears of all that hear them, like a hammer put to the Liberty Bell.
Nothing and no one could make me happier than the sight of you could.
Home, you are my friend.

2006-11-11T16:46:00.000-10:00

Ya basta.

I learned that tonight. Sometimes saying things in other languages makes them more powerful. Finding a different way to say something that has already become a repetitive thought in my head. But spoken in a different language it is a secret even to myself because the tongue is foreign.

I'm going to go and ride my bike. And feel stronger than I have in weeks because my legs will be manifesting my energy into movement. Move move movement. I've had it up to the metaphorical "here" with women symbols being crossed out. M's being > than W's. Every image and inflammatory/bigoted statement cutting at my core and cutting me down to size.

I deserve "this" (Read as: Respect, love, equality, freedom) , but I am stuck in the muck and myre of "that" (Read as: manipulation, lies, hate, neverending stories). Binary boxes and lovely codependencies coddled and nurtured over years.

I'm going to ride my bike and then form a circle around a fire with my friends and people who have yet to become my friends. Being alone followed by being surrounded. Zipping through parking lots followed by sitting on trunks.

2006-11-09T22:27:00.000-10:00

I was in this. There's a picture of me with a banner at the front of the protest. It's on some site somewhere. I'm not putting it here, but thought I'd tell you that it exists anyway.

11/09/2006
Ursinus students participate in JCPenney protest
By: Sarah Keck

Students from Ursinus College joined with students from other colleges and universities in the area and protested Nov. 4 at the JCPenney store at the King of Prussia Mall in solidarity for garment industry workers in Kenya.
The action was part of a three-day conference put on by the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United Students Against Sweatshops, an international organization of student groups fighting for workers' rights and sweatshop-free labor conditions. The conference took place from Nov. 3 to 5 on the Ursinus campus.
"The purpose of this event was for student labor activists in the Mid-Atlantic region to unite and discuss campaigns and strategies, participate in a solidarity action and plan future actions," said Ursinus sophomore Lauren Schaeffer, a member of We Care About the Nation, a strategic student labor focused activist organization at Ursinus.
The protest aimed to increase awareness about a garment factory in Athi River, Kenya, called Rising Sun, which produces clothing for a corporation called Jones Apparel Group. This corporation sells clothing under the name Jones New York, which is then sold wholesale to American department stores. JCPenney is a major buyer of Jones garments.
"This past June, over 1,200 legally unionized workers were summarily dismissed and locked out of the factory," said Ursinus senior Jonathan Kieran, explaining his group's empathy with the workers at Rising Sun. "They were then replaced by casual workers willing to produce at a lower salary, with no benefits, and without the opportunity to join a union."
Kieran said that even though both the Ministry of Labor and Industrial Court of Kenya have sided with the workers, the owners of Rising Sun have still refused to comply with Kenyan and international labor law.
Saturday afternoon, students showed up at JCPenney and put informational brochures in the pockets and sleeves of Jones garments before delivering a formal letter to the managers of the store, informing them of the situation at Rising Sun. Students then formed a line and marched from one end of the King of Prussia Plaza to the other, chanting, distributing fliers, and waving two banners sporting the slogan: "JCPENNEY, STOP PAYING IN PENNIES."
The protest drew the attention of shoppers and mall security guards. Students were eventually forced to leave by security, and some were banned from the mall by the police. No one was arrested.
"It was definitely a shocking event," said Ursinus junior Chris Curley, who participated in the protest. "It brought awareness to an issue that most shoppers aren't necessarily thinking about."
Katie Ringler, a senior at Ursinus, agreed. "It was empowering," she said.
"I think it was pretty incredible that people were so shocked by it, but were really receptive to it," said Dina Yarmus, Ursinus College senior and president of WeCAN. "I think people supported us."
The action came 10 days after members of WeCAN presented a letter to Ursinus President John Strassburger expressing their concerns about the conditions under which Ursinus apparel is made. The letter offered the possibility of the college adopting the Designated Supplies Program, a program of the Workers Rights Consortium, which would ensure that all Ursinus collegiate apparel comes from designated factories that respect workers rights and pay a living wage.
"Adopting the DSP and affiliation with the WRC would help improve the lives of many factory workers, and it would also show the public that an Ursinus education seeks to impact global debates beyond the traditional classroom setting," the letter stated. "By taking this initiative to ensure that our collegiate apparel is made in proper conditions, we are translating this mission from print to reality and living up to the ideals Ursinus has instilled in our campus community as a partner in the world."
For more information about news and events at Ursinus College, visit the college's Web site, www.ursinus.edu.

2006-10-16T06:21:00.000-09:00

In Secaucus we were talking about how kids get pushed into college right after highschool, how there's pressure to go to grad school right after college. How there's no time to rest, understand, process, decide...
We had to get on the train to Penn Station and then on a subway to 96th Street. As we were speeding along, as I was swaying with the car, and he was holding onto the strap - towering over me- he picked up the conversation.
"So you want to know what I did after I graduated highschool?" He didn't wait for me to ask. I only had time to raise my eyebrows.
"I joined the military."
"What, um, branch?" I ask. I almost said "department". Sometimes I don't know what to say when I feel people are on the verge of telling me something big.
"The Air Force. I served in the Gulf War. The first one, the one you don't hear about anymore, the one that was too short to be remembered."

I remember my highschool history teacher served in the army during the Gulf War and how there would be a bitterness in his voice when he spoke of it that I could not understand at 16... and definitely not even now, no matter how hard I might try.
People are coming into the car now and he and I are pushed closer together. I look at him closely and think back to when we were on the Main Bergen Co. Line just an hour ago. I think about how we were talking about how funny it is that there is such a strong sense of Regional Pride in New Jersey. We talked about films, media, the invisible boundaries between different cultures and how film is a medium that breaks those by boundaries by giving the interantional audience an idea of how Everyone Else "must be".
I think about how while we were on the train, he had this story inside of him. I don't know why I sometimes I have the idea that people who have been through remarkable experiences are Marked somehow. The fact that this is not true makes conversing such a pleasure and journey.
"I operated a plane that served as a gas station for other planes. We flew very high and when we looked down, what looked like fireflies, was actually people firing at us."

I look up at him, trying to surf the subway car as I was instructed to do, and listen - grateful to be hearing him because he didn't have to say any of this. He didn't have to start up this conversation again.

But it ended shortly after that. Subways are ideal for these types of exchanges. He said what he had to and I was there to listen until the next stop because then I became engrossed with making stories up for everyone on the subway and I think he was trying to read the newspaper of the woman sitting below him.

We didn't really talk at the party, but every now and then our eyes would meet and I'd raise up my glass of water and smile.
----

This whole interaction reminded me of a Moxy Fruvous song (folk group from Canada). It was written during the Gulf War, but is so relevant today, unfortunately.

Gulf War Song
We got a call to write a song about the war in the Gulf
But we shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings.
So we tried, and gave up, cuz there was no such song,
But the trying was very revealing:

What makes a person so poisonous righteous,
That they'd think less of anyone who just disagrees?
She's just a pacifist, he's just a patriot.
If I said you were crazy, would you have to fight me?

Fighters for liberty,
Fighters for power,
Fighters for longer turns in the shower.

Don't tell me I can't fight 'cause I'll punch out your lights
And history seems to agree
That I would fight you for me.

So we read, and we watched
All the 'specially selected news,
And we learned so much more about the good guys.

"Won't you stand by the flag?"
Was the question unasked.
"Won't you join in and fight with the allies?"

What could we say? We're only 25 years old,
With 25 sweet summers, and hot fires in the cold.
This kind of life makes that violence unthinkable.
We'd like to play hockey, have kids, and grow old.

Fighters for Texaco,
Fighters for power,
Fighters for longer turns in the shower.

Don't tell me I can't fight 'cause I'll punch out your lights,
And history seems to agree
That I would fight you for me,.
That Us would fight Them for We.

He's just a peace-nik,
And she's just a war-hawk.
That's where the beach was,
That's where the sea.

What could we say? We're only 25 years old,
And history seems to agree that I would fight You for Me,
That Us would fight Them for We.
Is that how it always will be?

---

2006-10-14T10:39:00.000-09:00

Am I a feminist participating in my own oppression? I silence myself. I discount my feelings. I make excuses for others, but demand More from myself.

It is during these times that I am a hypocrite. That I feel like an imposter.

What place do I have among my books, role models, mentors, and theories/practices that I take in --- but maybe don't absorb?

Why is it so hard to practice what I preach, to get out the words that are in my head?
It's too hard for me to be angry so I always give up. Say, "Oh, it's okay" "Yea, of course I understand" Placating, never demonstrating.

2006-10-12T19:36:00.000-09:00

I am so restless.

Vince said to me today, "I notice when I ask you about school you never seem excited, like it's an obstacle."

"It is. I don't want to be here."

I pick up packets on volunteering/interning abroad constantly - Knowing that when I look up the cost and think about my savings/the time involved ... that I can't do it. I know I'll have a lot of time after I graduate, but I mean NOW. I want to go somewhere now.

Alternative Spring Break cannot come fast enough.
A year from now can't come fast enough.

I am constantly looking up air fare to India. Comparing prices.
I can't lie, it's not so much the scenery, but the people. Oamjie. Like a hole in my chest, Oamjie. And Lakamma, who would grab my forearm and talk to me in a language we both knew I didn't understand. Manjula, Aravind, Pinkie...

If I had enough to go after I graduate, I keep thinking. But I don't see how I can.

--

This alone occupies my thoughts. I do not want to be involved with anyone because the desire to leave is much stronger. And I guess the Fear that it could happen is just as strong. I don't care if I stay in the country, I just need to go.

The "why" of that will be analyzed later, I'm sure. Why am I not satisfied here? There is nothing to hold me here, maybe that is why. Everything is so temporary. There isn't much built on a solid foundation. Where I live, temporary. My friendships, Time will only tell. The activism that I'm doing is very isolated to this campus. My jobs, all have concrete end dates.
I have my mother.
I have one of my Sisters.
I have another Sister coming back soon.
--

Tonight was Take Back The Night. I spoke. A lot of people spoke. Some men spoke. I was glad of that. I talked about how women who have bad male role models in their family have a better chance of being scared all of their lives.. scared that the man they are dating will be like their Father. They will probably, at some point or another, date someone who is just like their father. Maybe they will date someone like this more than once.. angry at themselves for never learing the lesson. They are more likely to go without food, or stuff their faces full.. trying to fill some void.
"they".. Me.

Then I went to a meeting and some guy said "You should really take Professor ___ if you haven't already. She's amazing. And a plus for the guys, she's really hot"
Fuck you, __! I felt like saying. Fuck you for objectifying someone, for only noticing women's appearances. And the same goes to the guys who feel like harping on other women's appearances in front of other women.
I am really tired of "pro-feminist" men who believe just because they give themselves that title, it gives them a carte blanche to say whatever they want because "You know I'm joking, I'm a feminist!" I feel as if those are the worst because they are not only lying to others, but themselves.

Do you see how much distrust I have?
And the anger... I wanted to ask all the men in the audience tonight "Do you get it? Women have come up here and shared stories of being urinated on, raped, verbally abused, ignored, silenced, hair pulling, yells of "you're my property".. do you get it?
And if I said it .. it wouldn't be because I wanted to make them feel guilty about being men, but able. Able to do something. To talk to their peers. I wanted to ask them, All those jokes I've heard about bitchy feminists, loud women who won't be quiet... Do you envision These Women when you tell those jokes? Because that's who you're hurting. This is the movement you're trivializing when you call a woman a cunt in a derrogatory way, when you think a woman is a bitch because she's sticking up for herself, A prude for saying No.

2006-10-08T14:58:00.000-09:00

I'm quitting. Never should I work in a place where I eat candy bars to feel okay, ignore customers b/c they're vile human beings, mistake a dead mouse for a gerbil ("oh no, that's a mouse, it's just bloated because it's been stuck in that trap for so long"). Fucking store.
Hello Breaking Point, nice to meet you.

---

The cars the cars
they go faster than me
It's okay, it's not a competition.
Take me off the road?
Sign that fucking petition!!
And see what it does, to my will.
Come back tomorrow, I'll be here still.

Ped'lin my bike as fast as I like
Down right lanes and up Left Only hills
Powered by my two wheels.

Powered by my...
Legs that are pumping
My heart that is thumping
My body that is feeling the thrills..

Of taking a close turn
See how it feels
To be close to the ground with only the sound
Of the spinning of your two wheels

2006-09-30T06:39:00.000-09:00

So, the goal is to educate beyond the point of rhetoric. I can hold a conversation and not spout out facts and statistics, but produce a stream of consciousness that accurately relays passion, facts, humanity. That's the goal.

I have been rejecting media lately. Rejecting what I am supposed to look like. Taking time to appreciate the curve, shape, strength of my body. I don't want to be invisible anymore. I want to be loud, heard over the cacophony. I don't want to slip in and out of subways, but shoulder my way through. I don't want to be so small that I need to go to the kids section, I don't want my eyes to sink in my face, I need them vibrant and beautiful.

I've been doing all this. Remembering that when I compare yourself to another woman, I don't know if she is even happy with herself. Stopping myself when the berating thoughts start. Smiling in the mirror when I feel the frowns coming. I don't pinch with my fingers, I run them up and down, loving the curve/shape/strength of my body.

2006-09-26T03:47:00.000-09:00

This is not about Having Without Holding anymore.

2006-09-25T16:33:00.001-09:00

I'm happy I have a way out of here. I can run away in a year. And I'll be honest about it, I'll acknowledge what it is. Running. Flying.

From myself (impossible), from every situation I'm in right now that causes me unease/pleasure/edge of my seat excitement (because it's so overwhelming, i'd leave it)

People can ask me "What're you doing after college" all they want. And I'll be one of the few who has an answer. An answer built on some self-doubt and fear.

If I have been told that I am meant for great things my whole life, it's reasonable that there's this weight. My chest can't hold in this heart. I might burst one day. Feeling has become so intense. It always was, making the walls I'm hiding behind necessary. The severity/intensity of it all might paralyze me.

yea, toot that fucking horn.

2006-09-25T16:33:00.000-09:00

I'm happy I have a way out of here. I can run away in a year. And I'll be honest about it, I'll acknowledge what it is. Running. Flying.

From myself (impossible), from you (unthinkable), from every situation I'm in right now that causes me unease/pleasure/edge of my seat excitement (because it's so overwhelming, i'd leave it)

People can ask me "What're you doing after college" all they want. And I'll be one of the few who has an answer. An answer built on some self-doubt and fear.

If I have been told that I am meant for great things my whole life, it's reasonable that there's this weight. My chest can't hold in this heart. I might burst one day. Feeling has become so intense. It always was, making the walls I'm hiding behind necessary. The severity/intensity of it all might paralyze me.

yea, toot that fucking horn.

2006-09-18T18:01:00.000-09:00

There is nothing quite like Navigating alone. I feel it most while walking up subway stairs.
subways. The closeness. The view of a face, each pore visible if you only glance to the right. Every individual a potential spy, up and coming actor, lover (Make eyes. Ruffle newspapers. Turn pages),.

Going to sleep with cars.horns.bikewheels.ambulances.
In an apartment inhabited by two activists who have made a home
Have filled bookshelves with theory, language, and practice.

The bed, this life, is inviting.

Good night, World.
Good night Countries whose soil I wish my feet were standing on.
Sweet dreams, Dreams. Even they need a rest as of late.

2006-09-15T03:59:00.000-09:00

Liver, I truly am sorry.
Feet, my apologies.
Shoes, you just have to go back.
Stomach, I'll take care of you.

2006-09-03T16:22:00.000-09:00

Lordy, times are rough.

I need to move away from here, but that wouldn't change Anything. It would just make the Anything farther away.
My shoulders feel small today.

And my mouth can't form any words that she needs to hear. I don't know if there are any words. I just want something to happen. Something good. It's about time.

2006-09-03T04:23:00.000-09:00

A package was sent to my house last week. I picked it up on Friday. These items inside it, a poster, books, zines - are making me think in a way I have not in years. I still do not know if I believe in Fate, something about it bothers me, but I'm an admirer the way that life has a way of working out.
I do not know if I would have been receptive to these things a year ago. Three months ago, even.

This week has been intense. Training for the WC basically takes over your life. I'm excited about this semester. Some of the old/familiar will probably happen. I'm going to see if we can start up vegan potluck again, there will be club meetings, bike rides down hills lined with orange/red leaves, and pumpkin flavored everythings. But there's going to be new stuff too. I hold a different position w/ new reponsibilities in the WC, this is my last year, and because of that I have to think about what will happen after.

I saw Balbuena yesterday. It solidified my ambition of going to Peru, but while talking with her, it became obvious that I do not know when I should go. I don't want to go right after I graduate, but I might have to because the loans have to be paid starting six months after I graduate. And the real bottom line is I don't know where I'll live if I don't go to Lima. There are a couple of states where I have a couple of friends and that might have to be the option right now. I'm completely unsure. Exciting.

2006-08-22T17:50:00.000-09:00

Right now it's ten forty five pm and the thought "This year is going to fly by" just popped up in my head. I think things a lot that may or may not be true thus resulting in a lot of resignation to the "What will be will be" type attitude.
Too much resignation is bad for the psyche. It makes me feel as if I really am completely at the whim of the Greater Whole. Maybe I should stop seeing it all with a defeatist's outlook. It just does not satiate me, this resignation..

I sat on the back steps of my house two days ago as dusk was falling shadow by shadow. The pink sky contrasted nicely against the yellow of the little house that sits in my backyard. If you sit on the backsteps you can't see the entire edifice of the house because there are big arching boughs of leaves from the grape vines that grow along the left side of the yard.
I always sit on the steps and never on the white plastic lawn chairs that we never bought so they never belonged to us. I think the landlady did, but she never sits outside.

Being with Mom was good. She's good, she's strong, and after seeing her interact with her own mother yesterday... well, every mother/child relationship is going to be wraught with complexities and trials and tribulations. So, I'm thinking that mothers are human and I am starting to see my mother in that light more so than I ever have. Because, don't get me wrong, I realized a long time ago that she is not perfect, she cannot always fix my problems, or answer my questions, but she tries so so hard and most of the time ... she succeeds. It was funny to see her with Gramma. It's like how the both of us could be 29 years in the future. But I don't think we will.
Growing up with her .. just her.. all my life, it makes things different. I am protective of her in the same way I need her to be protective of me. I hugged her in bed yesterday afternoon when she was scared about going to the doctor for her eyes, and she's held me many times. There's a line that is malleable; it can exist right down the middle, or on her side or mine.

Ah, there are too too many thoughts right now. Thoughts of leaving, of being in backyards/beds/houses Alone, of right and wrong, of emulation and seperation, of Love , of it Conquering, of it Surviving, of Who the hell do I think I am to fuck up my body, of me not caring very much sometimes at all.

Sometimes I don't feel like I have ambition and maybe I am destined to just be a leaf floating downstream.. resigning myself to a life of resignation to the ebb and flow. Today I imagined that I am a creature born for lazy hazy days, good food, drink, and love. Some days I think that if I just had a nice little place somewhere, with a good/like-minded partner, a comfortable bed with two thin pillows, and a cool breeze at night, that I would be fine. Yes, if I had all of those things in one place, then I would be happy. Maybe that's why I don't have them now.. so that I keep moving along.
Whatever it is I am or whatever life I am "meant for" ... I know that I am dissatisfied here. I play with my hair too much, it falls all over my desk. I pick at and gorge food. My feet drag from one job to the next, the mission statement not mattering much anymore. All of it, it doesn't taste right, move/feel/sound/love right.

I read in an astrology book last night that things will be good when I'm 31. Two pages complete with Relationship/Business/Love profie... even a list of birthdays that my birthday would Date well.
Oh yea, and things will also be peaceful and happy when I am 62. I was glad to know it. I am wise beyond my years, Skip says so. And if an overweight limo-drivin', video deejaying man is wrong .. I don't wanna be right.

11:12 pm. Less hair, more tired, a little lighter.

2006-08-19T13:37:00.000-09:00

I love talking to people about their families. I love hearing their dad's quirks, how they were tormented by their older brother or sister. I love doing schtick about my Mom and Gramma. Everyone has funny stories, when what is usually annoying becomes idealized and humorous.
.

I'm going home tonight to spend some time with Mom. More time than I've spent with her all summer. I feel like going back to where I came from. Sometimes I see Ramapo and all that has happened since I came here as a seperate entity from Haledon. Haledon might as well be a million miles away from Mahwah and my experiences in it. It's he Hometown, the one square mile packed with memories, traumas, and joys.
My room is going to be hot and I'm probably going to wake up tomorrow with a stuffy nose and a headache. I wish I had a car so I could live there, sometimes. So I could be a little more rooted than I am; feel as if I have a permanent place of residence.
.

I think New Year's and Birthdays are the two days when people most often look back and say "This time last year..." I'm dealing with most of the problems and am involved in most of the situations (in one degree or another) now that I was last year, but me as a person.. I'm different. I'd like to think so, at least. I'm a firm believer in people being their own worst critics and sometimes that also means judge of character/improvement, but yea, I'd like to think so. So I will. Easy as pie.
.

I just looked down at my desk and there is a picture of Rajesha, Lauren, and myself. I remember asking him when his birthday was and he said he didn't know. I remember thinking how much importance my culture puts on birthdays... using them as milestones and measurements of time/progress.
At work today, Emil asked me what made the weekend different from any other day. "Why do people feel the need to take off on the weekends? What makes Saturday different from Wednesday?" I look up to this guy. He's 60 something, Haledon born, and has that To The Point, Plain As Day life philosophy that people seem to get when they grow older. That mentality that lets them say with confidence "No, you can't be in love when you're 20. Sure, I got married at 20, but it wasn't Love." And me, as a young twenty-something will always say "Well, I don't know, Emil."
Age.
.

Now it's time to pack for Home. Half an hour filled with "I'll probably want to wear that." No matter how trite or trivial, it always amuses me that there are behaviors we all have which we know inside and out. A Predictability we are comfortable with.

2006-08-08T14:12:00.000-09:00

I told Rachel where to go and it was all by memory. I've never navigated those roads without him before. The house was empty when I got there. Cool inside for such a hot day and I was thankful for the absence of mother, brother, father. I left the things on the counter and was about to leave when I thought of going downstairs. The room was dark, the bed stripped of all his bedding, that bad picture of me still on his wall.

I stood at the foot of the bed, remembered the first time we had sex, remembered the last, and touched some of the things on his desk. I smiled, thinking of all the smiles we've shared. I said goodbye to that room because I don't know when or if I'll ever be there again. Out loud, so no one in particular but myself could hear, and made my way up the stairs. There was nothing on the porch or in the kitchen to write on or use to mark that I'd been there save for the items on the counter. So, I walked out. I teared up as I made my way down the stairs, got back in the car, and joined Rachel mid-song... and we pulled out of the driveway singing along to Ben Kweller
"Lizzy I'll write, I'll sing,
telegraph, telegram, telephone, tellin' you
I'll be home soon. "

home soon It only encouraged the welling up of tears, but they were dried when I thought of the beauty of it all. The two years leading up to this point, no matter how marred by recent trials and tribulations.

"It's so beautiful here" Rachel said.

...

Driving on an overpass that looks out onto rows and rows of planned communities, all the roofs looking the same, all the driveways identical, a song is playing
"If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark"

My mind can't help but wander to Greensboro, NC. I think of what that city might look like. I think of the beautiful soul which resides there and the gift he was able to give me without knowing it. Hope for men and women. Hope for my generation.

I am alone, but I am with people. Two in the car. One an old dear friend, the other a new and exciting one.

The photo shoot went well. I was comfortable in front of Tina and at ease with Rachel. The only upsetting part being when I went to go get our bags and I couldn't because I had absentmindedly placed them on a table surrounded by broken glass, and there I was in barefeet.
...

Lately I clam up. Or I let loose. Letting my mouth move before my brain can decide which sounds to make, which intonations and insinuations are appropriate. I walk away insinuating nothing and putting my accents on all the wrong syllables.
And tonight I am in my empty apartment complete with its empty room and empty bed. At night I ache for someone next to me, but awake content to be alone. Having another person here gets in the way of morning routine, interrupts the ebb and flow of my NPR, insufficient breakfast, and outbursts of dancing to Tom Jones.
I know I could have it if I want it, but the idea of another arm around me, another person to call religiously, another set of lips to be resigned to sends shivers down my spine.
Autonomy.
Four syllables which hold four volumes of mornings alone, afternoons with sisters, nights complete with a couple of beer and many friends.
For awhile, I forgot this is my life. It slipped my mind that these are my gifts.

Driving home with Rachel today, belting out Rilo Kiley ... that is Love. She's so good at reaching those notes, but has never laughed at me for being better at singing all the boy's parts. I never feel inadequate or out of tune.
...

Nick made me understand that loving one person does not mean you love another any less. And I am glad because even though I was slowly coming to that conclusion myself, he put it into words before I got There. Making it easier. Making closure and peace easier to locate on the map. Love is exponential. Honesty, when betrayed, becomes brutal. Openness, when practiced, opens the door to better endings. Love, a blessing.
..

2006-08-06T19:14:00.000-09:00

Well, it's now 10 x's harder to date Kate Brown. Blame NOMAS for raising my bar.

This weekend has been the most helpful/affirming/hopeful couple of days I have experienced in...months? Years? This kind of excitement deserves its own category. So, I will say that I have felt like this before, but only rarely and those moments were fleeting and not lumped into hours which, thankfully, translated into days.

The NOMAS conference took place here at Ramapo and from Friday - Sunday I was surrounded by the most pro-feminist, equality/passion driven, attentive, sensitive, listening men I have met in quite some time.
The workshops were good, but I usually benefit most from one on one/group conversations/discussions. I was fortunate to have a good many of those with both men older than me and people of both/any gender/sex whatever my age. The people who spoke on the youth panel were so inspiring and I noticed a lot of women tearing up because hearing them speak about the steps they are taking to reach out to men in all communities, how the approach their relationships with other men and women, how they got into the men's movement .... it was refreshing. It was new. I was sitting in front and proudly looking upon Phil and the new friends I have made.

Michael Kimmel spoke and I went to a workshop headed by Chip James. I have read writings by both of them. It was Kimmel's words that made me cry over coffee last Fall ... and I remember I biked over to Ramsey .. feeling the strain in my muscles and thinking that if I got physically stronger, maybe I'd be able to get through those readings ... feel safer about walking around alone, be certain that I am not as vulnerable as my size/the level of my voice.

I cried at the end. I cried three times and laughed with embarassment each time I did .. each time Mandy came up to me and held me.

Nick and I had a talk today about honesty before he left. He said that Brutal Honesty can only happen when dishonesty has preceded it. We talked about love, communication, partnerships, queerness, and I gave him taboule salad I made for the train/bus ride to D.C.
I wish he could have stayed. At a plenary, someone said that the best advice another activist ever gave him was "It's okay not to know" and that the best thing to do is to start dialogues with people who challenge you in the context of how you see the world, execute your activism, shape/clarify your views...
I met so many people who exemplify this and Nick is one of them. I feel motivated/engaged/a camaraderie with my friends, but I would not say Challenged, per se in areas concerning activism/gender/etc.
well, I did get an open invitation to Durham and a potential pen pal out of the whole thing.

I don't work for the next two days which means I have a lot of writing/reading to do. Some letters need to be sent, some processing on paper done, and I'm determined to finish at least one book this summer. I've started 4 in the past month.

I also want to examine why meeting a woman in recovery did not inspire me, but the experience negatively affected me.

Thank you, Nora for being around for my abreacting this evening. I'll be jealous of Oregon this Fall.

2006-08-01T16:14:00.000-09:00

Well, the phone's not ringing. I don't remember the last five minutes. I remember the haziness, the strong push and pull on my heart, I remember the confusion.

Tonight might be one of those nights. And tomorrow might be one of those days.

Go out and put on a smile and hope that this is one of the 7 out of ten times that it works and I actually feel good.
Wake up and work 12 hours. Eat my pre-packaged meals and say my pre-packaged conversation starters. The bike ride being my only time alone. I am grateful for the concentration and hard work that goes hand in hand with that. The muscles flexing, my forearms tightening, feeling teeth go into my bottom lip as I go up hill. The inner dialogue while I'm doing it.I can't wait, actually.

Nothing I will put here is going to be Right. Fucking words on a god damned screen.

2006-07-31T10:04:00.000-09:00

www.highlandercenter.org

Ok, so I'd like to end up here eventually. I've been reading up on Appalachian Issues (race/women/education/economics) all day. I'm going to keep on reading. I'm 90% sure I'm going to Peru for a minimum of 6 months after I graduate. The plan is to become fluent in Spanish, come back home, and apply any skills I have to bettering communities and empowering/educating women in areas like these.

That's the plan. As of today. In some way working in a different country is less intimidating than staying in the U.S.

I was in Ramsey yesterday unlocking my bike and a woman came up to me and, in Spanish, asked if I spoke Spanish. I said no, but through a series of smiles, hand gestures, and our bad bilingual skills combines, I helped her buy a round trip ticket to Paterson.

Which is near where I grew up. Which made me think about Peru, which made me think about living in another country for the rest of my life and working. But it's in my backyard. It's in Jersey, New York, The Appalachian Mountains. It's in Ramsey,a place where rich and poor coexist, but one is much less aware of the other.

So I will travel and learn. Explore and grow stronger, but I will come back here. But I've always known that. I knew it in India. I knew it when Balbuena offered me a place to stay. I knew it yesterday.

2006-07-28T20:27:00.000-09:00

I kind of fell off my bike today. But luckily I was literally five feet away from the elevator and I have only acquired a small bruise. I'm getting too cocky with tight turns.

I laughed really hard tonight and it reminded me of the importance of cackles and boisterous explosions.

2006-07-26T18:38:00.000-09:00

Switch to 6th gear at MacArthur Blvd. I make disco ball patterns with my head light, swiveling my neck around and singing "She's a lady" by Tom Jones. I pump my legs hard and act as ridiculous as possible .. because I can. Because it's 11 o'clock and I've earned it. There is nothing quite like a 13 hour day. Having to be on and now I'm off. I come home and I can't even tell you how many and which bones are cracking. My stomach hurts because I am all caffeinated/carbonated beverage and no water.

When I open the door to 16D I can hear WNYC playing in my room. I keep it on so I don't have to come home to quiet set of dark rooms.

An older couple came in to the store tonight.

Me: Are you together? (pointing to the stuff on the counter)
Wife: That's what he'd like to think.
The man laughs.

Wife: I got the new digital license and I still look like a hooker.
Husband: Mutters in agreement. And he laughs again.

Heh, perfecto. Those two people and a little boy made my night.

There are people I should call and emails I should write, but I have to let it rest. Because tomorrow will be the same.

It seems to me now the plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone + n.h.
raise your hand

2006-07-26T04:38:00.000-09:00

MONDAY. July something or other. Written en route.

Their apartment is a 4 room, 3 floor walk up in Williamsburg. She flits about the kitchen and TV area showing me how "this is the first place I've lived where I had a perfect place to put that hutch. That space was empty when we moved in"
"Like it was waiting for you," I say. "Yea," she smiles and lights another cigarette. I follow her out on to the fire escape to see the view and think how nice it would be to sleep there, but she is already telling me how once she took a nap out there on couch pillows.

Their bedroom is big. "We never put our clothes away." She sighs, but it's a Happy/Content/Loving accceptance Sigh. It's okay that they're messy. It's a cute quirk that his clothes are thrown in with hers - as entangled as their sheets and arms when they lay together at night.

The smiles I'm givin her are genuine. I'm happy for her. So, there's that physical/knee jerk reaction -- I smile.

*
One time he came home from work and gave her a call so she could drop down the keyes as usual. Neighborhood kids jumping on an abandoned sofa laughed as the keys fell right on his head.
"How was work?" she asked as he walked through the door - ignoring her impulse to hold and pet him; kiss his head.. because it is funny.
"Ok" he must have said - scratching his head and smiling back

*

Over dinner we talked about our mothers. Hers always had someone and felt lonely when she didn't. Mine never had anyone and exists most noticeably in solitude; going three days at a time without having a conversation with anyone else. Most of the time, we don't want to be our parents. We see in them things we don't like about ourselves; things we might become. So we manifest into the opposite.
*

So here I am and there she is getting ready to go to his show. We leave their apartment dark and stifled in late July heat. I'm sure they'll climb the steps later talking and laughing and falling asleep after making love. "Heh," I grunt to myself, "yea probably just like that." And it will probably be just like that because wasn't it always?
*

On the PATH ride home I imagine myself without sexual organs. Without desires. Without love that pulsates ferociously through me. I try and feel ambivalence where my fire is. But I only experience waves of fatigue washing over me and an inward groan at the thought of the bike ride ahead. I distract myself about reading up on an amazing woman activist in Afghanistan and twisting my hair.

I want to go somewhere no one I know has ever been before. To have that and submerge in it, own it, disappear? Where there used to be a "Couldn't/Wouldn't" there is a "And then?" A question implying I did and there is an outcome is the ripples I would make. Yes, "And then?" How far would these ripples reach and how hard would the rock - symbolizing the act of disappearing - break the surface of the pond? What sound would it make and how high up would the water fly after it hits?

__

I almost cried when I was at the gaycenter on West 13th, so happy was I to not be here.
I was most content eating my lunch in Tompkins Sq. Park alone, but not alone. Watching and probably being watched.

2006-07-23T17:07:00.000-09:00

Heh, like it's my first day of school.

I have a list of things I need to bring. I've mapped out the route from the PATH to West 13th St. I am bringing a book, notebook, and pen. I know what I'm going to wear and, just to feel like an adult, I have my dinner plans as well.

I just looked up and Sidrahm is staring back at me. He loved having his picture taken. I'm standing next to him with my arms folded and my right foot in front of my left. I look like a cocky newsboy ... with a big smile on my face. Lauren's caught off guard and Taylor is being cheesy behind us.
I haven't felt right since I got back. Or maybe I didn't feel right before. Yes, I remember... I remember being willing to exchange anything just to be aware, informed, more knowledgeable of the world. And I have exchanged things.
Instead of settling into a complacent idea that I will never go anywhere because that is what my class/station in life dictates, I now have a restlessness oozing with confidence that I can leave .. and more anger/defiance than I had before directed at where I stand in this class system.
Instead of loving where I live and defending the small obnoxious nuances that make up New Jersey... I just see strip malls and people who treat me as inhuman/invisible at work, asphalt, manicured lawns, $500 purses, and girls who are naked and boys who are taught to only see that.
Instead of thinking I could get away from all that in all its forms, I know that these things manifest themselves in one way or another everywhere.
Instead of having no faith in myself and my capabilities.. I bike at night, I figure out trains' peak times, I research savings accounts, I make conscious choices, I have "a day" in the city, I volunteer, I take time.

Walking out of ShopRite two days ago the sky was dark grey and starting seeping through the cracks in the clouds.. An old woman pushing a cart behind me starting talking about the weather. "It's been a bad summer so far", she said. I looked at her and thought Movie Moment. I said, "Yea, it's been rough."

So, I think these things happen for a reason. Is that fatalism? Hmm, I hope not seeing as how I've put in a lot of time to saying I was some angsty existentialist.

2006-07-22T08:26:00.000-09:00

It's the days like this one .. when I have a short shift at work, an exhilirating bike ride home (in the rain and spitting to the side the whole way), a great Wait Wait Don't Tell Me playing on the radio, and wet hair and a comb so I can make funny Elvis-like hair dos ...

Yea, it's days like this one that I am pretty happy. Because it doesn't take much. And who would've guessed? I thought the afternoon would be horrible after I went through that big pothole filled with muddy water.

My legs are getting very strong. My time, faster, I hope. I've been biking every day since Wednesday and will be continuing the pattern until Thursday.

Ok. Well, Carl Kasell is doing limericks now ..

2006-07-21T13:43:00.000-09:00

I am too scared to write. I could have gone to Starbucks after work today and let my mind go nuts on a piece of paper the way I know it needs to, but I came back here instead.

So, I guess I thought I'd write about not being able to write. Monday is looking to be good, though. My morning is booked and my evening is swamped.

What picture does all this even paint?

Well, that was my Friday.

huzzah!

2006-07-18T10:55:00.000-09:00

News Release
From: Campaign to Stop Killer Coke
For more information, contact Pat Clark or Ray Rogers at (718) 852-2808
For Immediate Release, July 18, 2006

Coca-Cola Suffers Big Blow in Investment Community

KLD Research & Analytics, Inc. of Boston, Mass., a world leader in defining corporate responsibility standards, has removed The Coca-Cola Company from its Broad Market Social Index (BMSI). The BMSI consists of all companies within the Russell 3000 that pass KLDs screening criteria.

This means that large institutional investors like Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equity Fund (TIAA-CREF), the nations largest pension fund, will ban Coca-Cola from its CREF Choice Account, the worlds largest socially screened fund for individual investors with $7.9 billion in assets and more than 200,000 investors.

Such action by KLD is a very serious matter for any company, but especially for one like Coca-Cola that spends billions of dollars promoting itself as socially responsible which it is not, said Ray Rogers, director of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke

At the end of December, the CREF Social Choice Account held 1,250,500 shares of Coca-Cola common stock valued at more than $50 million.

KLD applies a two-step research process to determine the BMSI. First, companies involved in alcohol, tobacco, firearms, gambling, nuclear power and military contracting are excluded from consideration. KLD also evaluates companies records in qualitative areas such as community relations, workforce diversity, employee relations, environment, non-U.S. operations, and product safety and use.

2006-07-17T04:28:00.000-09:00

I am a 20 year old woman who hasn't slept with a doll or stuffed animal since the age of 8 or 9, but who now snuggles up to one every night -- even kissing it gently on the head and giving it a squeeze before leaving the apartment .
Hah, oh, the things we do.

-

This morning I woke up with a charlie-horse and even though it hurt, it was cool to feel all the muscles in my calf. There were many!

-

Tonight is the first night bike ride. I am making a big deal out of this because I am nervous. I put the back light on my bike just now and had to smile.

2006-07-16T11:42:00.000-09:00

At the risk of sounding completely bipolar ..
I am feeling okay at 4:38 pm on a Sunday.

Eight hour shift at Petco today.. meaning I was a big waste and stayed upstairs in the Wellness Room for as long as possible because I simply preferred the company of hamsters with swollen assholes to human beings at the time.

Having my watch on while I ride makes me compete with myself, making the ride a little less fun. I'm not surprised when I look at a clock after I'm finished. I don't say "Sweet! _ _ minutes!" So, maybe I'll leave it in my bag. Although today I did pull 20 minutes back from work in 90 something degree heat and my stubby legs.

I called Mother from work today and we were on the phone for 40 minutes. Maybe she is able to be there for me sometimes and I just have to chance it. So I have a list of things I need to do. A list of things I want to do and of course, I know is also stuff that will come up which might alter the path completely.

Yea, bipolar. The Bipolar Sage.

2006-07-15T12:57:00.000-09:00

Katie and I went to Houlihan's today. It was surreal. It was dark. It was a little over priced. We talked about the Uncertainty that pervades this time in our lives. That hangs over us all. I've ignored it, but obviously.. I can't any longer. Uncertainty and the ideology "We'll have to see" is applicable to many facets in my life.
I am trying to keep busy today. There is too much to think/hurt/cry/wonder/worry about.

I don't know if I'll be able to pay for next semester. I might have to take a year off. Pragmatically, I know why I'm in school right now, but this campus/this area/this state is so unsatisfactory. It dawned on me today that until I leave New Jersey, I won't like where I am. I don't want to learn here anymore because it is all just in the classroom. I want to take classes in a different state/country. There isn't much here at all.
That is a horrible/sad feeling.
Yes, I'll make the best of it, but I wonder how good that will end up being anyway.

2006-07-13T04:51:00.000-09:00

Yesterday evening on the train I tried to stay as still as possible. The car was packed as I made my way down the center aisle. I had gotten on three cars back, but kept following the woman in front of me from car to car. I wondered where would be good enough for her. She was making her way into the fourth car when I caught the eye of a young man in a collared shirt and dress pants. I had been looking at all of the men's eyes as I walked down the aisle. Some were tired, some were surprised to see a woman looking at them.
Something about this man made me want to sit down across the aisle from him. I tried to see what it was by looking at him, but there wasn't anything spectacular. He was playing Solitaire on his laptop and his collared shirt was the kind where only the collar is white and the rest is blue. I don't like those. He seemed annoyed by most things and I felt disappointed that I had followed that woman through all those cars just for this.

I was in Observer mode. As if I wasn't there, my face so placid and unflinching, accepting whatever might have happened. A bomb could have gone off and only an "Oh" would have escaped my lips.
I felt more like myself than I usually do, sitting on that train across from the grotesquely fat European woman. Her round painted face. Her stomach fat falling over the belt she had fashionably put around her waist.
I was in the last seat facing the entire car. I felt as if I were on display, but made it my task to meet everyone in the eye. The train started moving with groans and screams of metal chaffing metal. Two men got up and left the car because they said it was too heavy. I looked and wondered how much weight would have to be put on one side of the car for it to turn over.

On the PATH to Hoboken I held the metallic pole covered in germs, but was too tired to care. To my right two young pretty things held onto another pole and the third hand sharing space with theirs was pudgy and belonged to 20 something guy with a face full of character who really filled out his suit. His eyes were blue ... and shrunk back, as if to protect himself from me, when he caught me looking at him. He had a Whole Foods bag and a copy of Tuesdays With Morrie in his hand. He leafed through it semi-interestedly .. as you do when you know someone is watching you and you want them to know, somehow, that you are interested in books. That you read them, that you pour over their words, and go to sleep with their profound meanings.. letting those symbols and truths permeate your dreams.
He looked uncomfortable holding the pole with those girls. His ruddy Irish face tilted down to his book. I thought about how I would never read that book, but because he was reading it.. maybe it was worth looking at. I remember thinking "Hallmark" when I read the back of it once. Because I am so cynical. Because sometimes I overlook or reject pure-hearted/simplistically beautiful things. Things that other people find great joy in because they are not always looking for a pitfall or soemthing to sneer at. Because other people who enjoy these things are not afraid of having their heart warmed.
The PATH stopped and my 14th Street to Hoboken daydreaming was over. Everyone was standing by the doors waiting for them to open. They wouldn't open. How weird, people were muttering. I looked behind me and, funny thing, the other doors had opened instead. Maybe it was because I had already gotten to know him in my head, or pretended I did, but I let out a quick "Oh!" like when you solve a puzzle, squeezed the ruddy face guy's shoulder, smiled at him like we were sharing a joke together/just us, and pointed to the other door. He smiled too.

2006-07-06T13:58:00.000-09:00

Working for almost 24 hours in a row numbs the mind and creates a stoppage of the Word Flow. Reactions are reduced to gutteral noises ommitted from the throat, incoherent sentences, and just pure Feeling racing through the body.

Holding everything in produces the same effect. Hyperventilation can occur, fist clenching emotion. Two years ago today I wasn't working a lot; I just wasn't talking. I wasn't letting out all the stuff that was coming in.
And I feel like it is happening again.
Which is frightening because I fear all I do is Release and practice Abreaction. But there's still more?

This aphasia which comes over me is so crippling that I must lie in bed for however long or until the phone rings. (I'm never one to not answer a phone)
The mind can be so intent on bending things this way and so that it may see what it wants to. I've been seeing horrible things.. letting an off the cuff remark do far more damage than it's worth ..

I am so tired. My brain is so over worked. And, yes, I'm sure that's a 1/3 of it. But these actions .. these occurences, no matter how benign they are.. sometimes they add up in my exhausted brain and I can't see any farther than the picture it paints.
I can't see rationale or the Up Side.

Where is the whole?

2006-07-03T21:31:00.000-09:00

I enjoy the possibilities here. The hints of great things to come that I find in a smile, passionate conversation, or a good joke.
This summer is turning out to be beneficial in a way that none of my other summers have been.
*

Walking back from Brounstein's apartment this morning I thought about how the heat here reflects off the asphalt and smacks you in the face.
*

I went to the state fair at the Meadowlands last night. For what it's worth, it isn't worth the money I spent.

Tonight was better.

I'm going to stop writing this and send Oamjie an email.

2006-07-01T19:23:00.000-09:00

So, here's the truth..

I'm new at this honesty thing. Not that I've been telling lies or witholding truths, but this whole "Ask me how I'm feeling and I'll tell you" thing.

But it's how I feel afterwards... A little scared of the reprecussions, proud, and doubtful of myself
I guess that goes away with time.
*

The apartment is empty now. This makes me more social.

Unfortunately I've stayed up late enough, once again, to reach the point where cognitive thought is .... um.. yea.

2006-06-26T06:49:00.000-09:00

It's summer now. And it will be summer in a month from now just as it was last year, but different, but better, but the same, but hard, but okay.
My hair is pinned up and I think that I like my desk to be a little cluttered because if it wasn't, my room would be very clean and that is unsettling. Nothing looks lived in when it is pristine.
I am lived in.
Passions live in me. Beliefs and hopes.
I'm okay with the floor being visible, but the desk has to be cluttered. Scattered with pictures, jewelry, water bottles, and books.

2006-06-24T05:22:00.000-09:00

Two days ago I was in the window of the store updating the display list of employees and Star Performers with one of the managers. A middle aged, fat, balding, dirty looking guy came in and said to the manager, "Hey, how much is that toy? Is she for sale?" He said, "Uh, no, that one is too expensive."
Apparently he was taking the sarcastic approach.

Then the guy called his kid over and pointed at me. "Hey ___, wouldn't that make a nice toy?" All I could get out was "Alright. Ok." in an -I've had enough- tone. Man, I wish I be as angry as I feel instead of finding my words five minutes to two weeks later.
The rest of that night wasn't so awesome either.

Since I am pretty much either working, eating, sleeping, or working.. Where I work has become very important.. its environment, the people, the politics. There are certain things about both jobs that make me question my comfort level in each.
*

I went home last night. Rachel drove me and I called ahead of time to make sure Mom knew we were coming. I had to get plates because I've been eating from plastic/tupperware. Which is fine, but you know ... I'm a sophisticate.

"I love you, Mom! Bye!" Shout it loudly three times and she'll hear you and then I'm on my way. Linda said it was good to see me, asked me how I am doing ('Just working' I say), and didn't seem to affected that I had dropped by or that I didn't stay long.
The TV was on.
*

At work the other day some of the guys were talking about how they would rather have their partner fake an orgasm than tell them what to do. I asked them if they were really willing to sacrifice their partner's pleasure just so they did not feel emasculated. They said yes.

I think a circle in Dante's Hell should be reserved for selfish lovers.

2006-06-21T07:25:00.000-09:00

Ruma wants me to write an ethnography covering my time in India and my experiences and observations regarding gender. She says it will be cathartic. That just produced an image of me crying over my drink and notebook at any local coffee place as I brought myself back there and let myself feel those feels and touch those touches.

So for now I'm just free writing. I'm going to buy a notebook today and a pen Just For This. So that this process is its own, has its own things, is seperate from everything else in My Life Here... I mean, even though it isn't seperate at all and at certain points in the day my time in India manifests itself and becomes so powerful my lungs cannot take in all of the air they need and the emotional intensity rushing through me could power a million cities.

2006-06-15T22:32:00.000-09:00

Thus continues the never ending search for a space where I can feel calm and safe. Because it's not Haledon, it's definitely not this apartment.
Once again I am sleeping in other people's apartments. Moving around them as they make their meals with their ingredients in their kitchens. I don't have that simple pleasure right now. No, I'm sneaking into my apartment in the afternoons (always with someone with me) hoping they're not here or coming in early in the morning to get my stuff and leave again.

2006-06-13T19:34:00.000-09:00

The party's really kickin' tonight. I can hear them through the paper thin walls.

Can't damper my mood, though.

I don't like writing about what a good mood I am in... hah, but I never hesitate to do so when I'm a mess.

When I was in first grade there was this kid Arnold who would tell a different girl each week.. or even day... that he liked her and he'd marry her. So they'd get married or "go out". I forget. I was one of the hearts trampled on in his rampage through Mrs. Kuiken's first grade class.
So, I got an idea. I got all the girls together and one day at recess we went up to him --holding hands, mind you-- and said in unison We're breaking up with you!

Ah, Kate's first demonstration of women empowerment and not putting up with shit. I think that Confidence, Knowing What You Should Take Or Shouldn't, Imagination, Fearlessness ... are things that we lose over time.
But it comes back in baby steps. Like maybe you pumped up your bike tires by yourself. Or maybe you got mice for two customers for the first time after actively avoiding it for months. And that feeling .. knowing there weren't any other workers around and it had to be done b/c the customer looked impatient.. and you Had to do it.. no choice.. takes the fear out of you when there is no choice.

Anyway.. the look on Arnold's face was priceless.

Okay. Hopefully I'm exhausted enough to fall asleep. I must be sinking to their level because instead of asking them to be quiet I shot a look at one of the girls and shut my door.. but it didn't slam loud enough so I made it slam.

oh shame, kate.

2006-06-12T05:34:00.000-09:00

revelations are cancellations
of mistakes you've made
while on fools' parade

Oh yea, Dorothy Parker and I could've definitely hung out.

*
I bought Do It Yourself beans the other day. I will soak them soon. This is my first time buying a bag o'beans.

*

And I live with children. Girls who throw themselves at boys and cry when they get rejected. Girls who put a pretty sign saying Kate on my door (that was nice) and take it down because they are mad at me and feel as if I'm not doing my share. Oh and leave me a note on the kitchen counter that I miss so I ask them about the sign.
Me: What happened to my sign?
#1: We took it down
Me: Why?
#1: Because we were mad
Me: About what
#1: About stuff.
Me: Like what? Tell me
#1: Just stuff.

(that exchange went on for thirty seconds)

#1: We left a note for you on the counter. Didn't you see it?
Me: No, what did it say?
#1: You really didn't see it?

(that exchange went on for 15 seconds)

So, anyway... I told her it was really passive aggressive and childish to take away a sign I did not ask for and that I would appreciate it if we could all communicate since we occupy the same space.
They were upset because I don't do enough. Sorry I'm usually exhausted and work 50 hour weeks, but I clean my dishes and don't make a mess.

Whatever. They're probably pouring meat juice into my food right now.
*

I've dedicated to much time to them already. More importantly
I've decided to listen to all of the This American Life episodes I missed while I was in India. Better than tv, kids.

2006-06-10T11:02:00.000-09:00

I am feeling better than I have in almost two months. Must have something to do with this whole biking/not smoking/perspective thing I've been trying out.

I realize I'll have moments. Maybe even days, but if I didn't, then I would forget. And if I forgot.. it would be as if it never happened. Or I never went there.
*

Whichever skirts or dresses I deemed fit to bring up here are now hanging in my room. The second drawer is filled with half of the shirts I brought, and the bottom drawer has yet to be filled. My desk is a varying landscape of hills of books, valleys of plates, and small dried lakes where I have spilled some tea.
The suitcase Nora and I lugged into the elevator is still open and most nights I throw whatever is on my bed into it.
When I have a free day maybe I'll clean it up a bit, but that won't happen since free days are meant for Outside, for lunches out, for hikes, and smiles between friends.
*

So, this is my life now. And there are good things in it.

2006-06-09T04:58:00.000-09:00

Yay! Now I can be as self-involved as I want and update all the time! Just downloaded Mozilla, so it's Goodbye Internet Explorer.

Anyway, seven hours of sleep never felt so good. I worked 10 1/2 hours all together yesterday and had too many people tell me "You look exhausted". Oh well, I told Phil that if I break down on Monday (b/c between Sat. and Sun. I'll be working 18 hours) to look me in the eye and say "You did this to yourself." Because I did, but so did my circumstances, I guess.
Hah, boo Circumstances which don't conveniently make my life better or fit perfectly into my plans.

Originally I had an 11a.m - 8pm shift on Sunday, but I switched it to 5pm - 2am (inventory week) so I could do a walk across the GW bridge hosted by the American Cancer Society. It'll be a long day, but a worthwhile one.
-Hmm.. I'm getting "that way"... when all you do is work, so that's all you talk about.

So now that I have the capability to update this thing, is there anything to really say?
My room is a disaster. My hair is sticking out all over the place. My laundry is waiting for me. But so is my bed.

2006-06-05T12:15:00.000-09:00

I haven't updated this for a week and I don't know if anyone's the worse for it. My computer is not letting me update this thing or read my hotmail. Or respond to emails in my webmail. This is problematic, but I am lazy and probably won't get it fixed for awhile.
I realized last night that I am making this up as I go along. My days, how I'm dealing with things, what I say, how I do things. It's not such a bad way to live life, it definitely lets me figure out what works and what doesn't. Right now I have a list of things that Did Not Work and Are Not Working, but there's a counter list and they're kind of even.
I'm saying "list" as if I've actually sat down and written one, but I haven't. Actually I don't know if they're even, these hypothetical lists. I'm obviously just bullshitting... myself? You? Themtheyherhim?
*

Two weeks ago my finger got jammed between a large pallet (basically a huge pile of merchandise stuck on a wood pallet that we cart around the store so we can put it all away) and part of my nail and a big chunk of my skin got ripped off. This is okay because it is healed now and I can feel my fingertip again.
Two weeks ago a coworker there made an off the cuff comment about a Quickie, I chastised him, and we moved on with our conversation. I'll admit, I was a little shocked that he'd say that to me. It's the only uncomfortable incident that has happened since I returned there.
*

When people compliment me, it's usually "cute". I hate it. I hate the way it effects how I act. I can sense myself hamming it up just a bit, smiling a little differently.. I don't see myself as cute. That's a dimunitive word. Small things are cute. Knick knacks and babies.
Size. Size has so much to do with everything.
I don't want to feel the way I did last Fall. Crying after reading packets on rape, feeling small and easily manipulative, working out so I'd feel strong because it was being put on me that I am weak.
No, not weak. Cute.
*

So, today is Monday and I am dealing with everything by eating some Goldfish (baked with smiles!) and avoiding going back to my room.
My cuticles are a mess. I push them down with my thumb and pick the dirt out from under the nail of my right ring finger. My manicure.
*

I get to ride my bike to work tomorrow and back and turn my head so I can hear the wheel zipping down the road. I get to smile and feel wind on my cheeks. I get to squint my eyes while making sharp turns and stick my right arm out for a right turn and my left arm for a left turn (shakily because I'm bad at just having my right hand on the handlebars). I get all that.
I did make a list in India of things that bring me great joy that I can do by myself. Wheel zipping, arm stick, and cheek winding were among the many that came to mind.

2006-05-28T07:10:00.000-09:00

Whoa! Awesome!

I'm going bike riding today!

Exclamation Mark

2006-05-26T14:15:00.000-09:00

My mom lets out big sighs whenever she drops something. Usually she mutters "Jesus Christ!!" under her breath. When I was younger I remember telling her she is a hypocrite for using that language when she tries to be so pious. Mom got pretty pissed. I was 13, what can you do?
*

I found my tan backpack sandwiched between the dresser and bed. There is just garbage in it.. pieces of paper, a bunch of dental floss picks that got loose from their packaging, a lot of pens, and triangles of plastic wrap. I knew that when I tugged it out from beneath the mix of clothing and books which carpets my floor.
I know I was hoping to find something that would take me back to a time when lovers were local and casual conversations came easier. I sat on the edge of my bed facing the window (today it looks upon a white edifice, a grey sky, and tall trees that stand tall and are pointed at the top like knives) rifling through the bag. "Good", I thought to myself... "There are enough pens in here to last me forever." And I was relieved, yes, I thought I had escaped what would have been a self-inflicted pang of nostalgia.
Well, Garrison Keillor is a good man and I'm glad I got to see him on December 16th, stuck between a warm woman from Africa and a rosy cheeked kid from Jersey.
The envelope the tickets came in was bent five different ways and I was surprised that it hadn't met the fate of holding chewed pieces of gum like most scraps in my bags do eventually.
I put the bag down and let out a Linda Brown sigh.

2006-05-25T07:51:00.000-09:00

-How things are at 1:37 pm on a Thursday-

Went to Ruma's for Indian food on Sunday. Her apartment is a little piece of India right in Hawthorne, NJ. I'm going to learn how to make some dishes after Ruma shows me the place in NY where she does her shopping.
People still ask me How was your trip? I've become very comfortable with my answer "Amazing" accompanied with a smile and bobble of the head. It's all I am willing to give to those who are only willing to give three seconds.
I'm always hoping s/he/whoever will want to go out, sit down, and really talk about it. I keep so much of it to myself.
People most comfortable to be around... those who have gone.

*
I haven't seen any good movies lately, I'm reading a great book, and I took tons of back issues of the Gay and Lesbian Review from the WC. So, I have my periodicals covered.
I've been avoiding writing and it's no coincidence that I have to leave in less than ten minutes for work.

There is too much to sort out or Feel. I'm pretty sick/scared/tired of Feeling which must be why I've been working so much, running more, eating better... I'm trying to go in the opposite direction my usual coping methods lead me. Outlets. Outlets are important.
The new bunch of people that are working at Petco are great. I miss Charlie a lot, though, and wish there was an address where I could reach him, but everyone is sure he's overseas now.
Most of the managers and a handful of the employees that were there when I started are still there, but no one who made me feel uncomfortable or angry.

*

I woke up on my back, staring at a pink and purple sky around 7 a.m. Twenty feet away from me, the clif ended. If you stood at the very edge you would see gushing water, wide chasms made of rock, boulder mountains.. all painted shiny black and clear azure in Hampi during sunrise.

2006-05-18T07:52:00.000-09:00

Iowa
Dar Williams

I've never had a way with women,
but the hills of Iowa make me wish that I could
And I've never found a way to say "I love you",
but if the chance came by, oh, I, I would
But way back where I come from, we never mean to bother,
we don't like to make our passions other people's concern
And we walk in the world of safe people,
and at night we walk into our houses and burn.

How I long to fall just a little bit,
to dance out of the lines and stray from the light
But I fear that to fall in love with you
is to fall from a great and gruesome height
So I asked a friend about it, on a bad day,
her husband had just left her, she sat down on the chair he'd left behind
She said, "What is love? Where did it get me?
Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."

Once I had everything, I gave it up
for the shoulder of your driveway and the words I've never felt
And so for you, I came this far across the tracks,
ten miles above the limit and with no seatbelt (and I'd do it again)
For tonight I went running through the screen doors of discretion,
for I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see:
You were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa
and you were not thinking of me.

-the song makes me cry, but the memory makes me smile
*
Of interest
http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/issue145/lovely.htm
On the topic of an idea of beauty being pushed on Indian women.

2006-05-18T05:25:00.000-09:00

Only now, a month after coming home, it is unbareable.
The E-lab is really quiet and I just had to send an email out to John. I know where he'll be sitting when he reads it. I know the sounds.
Maybe feeling displaced is better than being comfortable/stagnant. Because, yes, I would take this feeling over the one that had settled in my bones last summer.

Excerpts from Third Paper. This part, about Madurai.

It's a funny thing, sitting in a rooftop restaurant, looking out at works of beauty –man made and natural, and think that just five hours ago you were in a big shack with dusty floors, wiry women, and children with moon eyes. I eat to forget about those children for a little bit, I laugh louder to drown out their cries and sari tugging, and I go to sleep early, welcoming the respite. This is the first time in my life that my race has played a bigger part in how I am treated by others than my gender.
After DAWN we visit Peoples' Watch. I am sick to my stomach on this day; I am doing banking in my head – making dollars and sense out of my recent bank transaction. Subtract here, add there, carry the two, move the decimal place over a few spaces…This is the reality of lectures, visits, and classes: notebooks out, faces attentive, and minds in New Jersey, India, bed, interlaced with images of bloated Tsunami victims and checking account receipts. Home and India battling it out for domination, your heart is with those little bodies and to cope with it your brain wonders where you'll be working this summer.
The issue of Untouchability does not translate well into American society. Because, wait, is it like sexism or racism? No, not exactly, try again. But there's nothing left to compare it to and we're told not to compare, but how else can I process? So Dalitism is kind of like racism, but not, and I am sitting listening to a representative of People's Watch (name not remembered) trying to dump out all of my previous conceptions of what is Up and Down, Right and Wrong. People's Watch is the Oppressor helping the Oppressed who cannot afford to help themselves. The NGO aids in legal issues, steps in when a person's rights are being violated, and is taking an active role in protesting the Indian government's treatment of the coastal Tsunami victims. Their houses were swept away and then they were told, "No you cannot live here anymore; it is not safe." So they are displaced and a shiny, fancy, affluent resort is being put up where they used to cook their meals and love their kids.
The picture books with the bloated bodies, dead animals, ruined houses, and smiling people shaking hands with their right hand and holding donations with the left came out at the end of the session. We scrambled to hold one of them and our enthusiasm to see pictures was met with reality. I have never seen brains oozing out of a man's eye or a child with bruises all over his body where he was thrown up against the rocks. No, I have just seen poor miserable alive people.
A generic Oppressor is anyone who is not oppressed. If the oppressed are supposed to help themselves, if that's the ideal, then is it okay that the people who helplessly fall into the Oppressor class help them? I thought about that as I sat in the cramped office at People's Watch and lifted my face towards the breeze coming at me from the air conditioner in the wall. I do not think it is right to make these divisions. People fall into too many of the categories. I'm White, that makes me an oppressor, but I'm also a woman, that makes me oppressed. My mother and I have to work very hard to make our ends meet. She does not have health insurance, a full-time job, but she does have Diabetes, a bad back, and depression. My mother is oppressed, but she's white, but, wait, she's also a woman.
These boxes and labels induce guilt or shame. How is to be called Oppressed? Does a self-righteousness and appreciation of acknowledgement flood the system or does a person get crushed under the weight of the implied struggle ahead? And what kind of guilt comes along with being called an Oppressor; that you oppress people... women, if you're a man; people of color, if you're white; the whole of the LGBTQ community if you are straight? ......

People's Watch is made of Oppressors who help Oppressed and there is nothing wrong and everything good about that. I can see of no better way of advocating for equality and justice by practice compassion and giving justice. One by one we filed out of the little building and got back into our auto rickshaws. It was lunch time and we would not be eating on a roof top, but a nice little restaurant at the hotel. Too practice the hand to mouth technique of eating, I had to forget that I just saw three little children laid out shoulder to shoulder on a beach; none of them alive; none of their faces in one piece. .......

The working class, the women, gays, blacks, even the rich fat white men are all under the thumb of Patriarchy, a mentality. It's a simple trick to undo this, just educate. We have to talk until we're blue in the face and then we have to have someone come in and take over for us while we breathe into a brown paper bag. Keep at it. This is why there needs to be advocation for white people to participate in dialogues about race; straight people to understand theirs is a sexuality as well; men to open up about the societal pressures they feel; and for the big bosses and money makers to be forced to spend a day working under the conditions they place on others. So, understanding, people need to understand that just because something is the majority (white, straight, male, etc) does not make it invisible, does not make it exempt from criticism or oppression. Everyone is oppressed and they/we are oppressing themselves/ourselves. By accepting ideology that lets a person be an Oppressor, a person is just falling easily into the box made for him or her. The same is true for the box made for the oppressed. I want radical thinking to break out of these binaries because only then can we have radical change.

2006-05-17T06:55:00.000-09:00

Write a post, bitch the most.
Find a friend, make it end.
Now you're back, sit on a tac.
Wake you up, make you stop.

One of those rare instances where I believe this embodies all I feel like saying.
And then I write more.

Most days I feel pretty self-important and that is the quality which allows me to write innane scribblings. Today is grey for the fifth time consecutively. My skin is not as brown as it used to be.. or warm. This weather is Damp saran wrap, Frozen leftovers, Expired yogurt.
I know if Aravind were here he'd tell me he can see it in my eyes. Big eyes. Caramel eyes. Expressive eyes. I don't think I would get defensive today, or scared by him reaching into me.

I'm going outside now on the off chance this apartment is what is really Grey.

2006-05-15T19:01:00.000-09:00

So, this job. I basically won't have a life. Or if I do, it will be in the late night hours. (Who's going to want to hang out at 1 a.m.?) I get one Sunday off for the entire month, but hooray, time to do "quick errands" as Susi put it.
I am weighing the pros and cons of this situation. Big pro... the My Own room/bed and the $$. Cons have already been stated.

I start back at Petco on Wednesday. I'm making decent Retail Money so me and my wallet can't really complain. I was actually giddy when I hung up the phone with Wade today. There I was, looking forward to mindless monotony because isn't that what keeps the mind occupied? Lulling all the brain cells into a deep sleep where the only dreams dreamt are of paychecks, quittin' time, and where the only fantasies are those in which you tell the customers what you really think ... all of these being your only priorities. Scary stuff.

This Governor's School business would be a ticket out of that, but is it just jumping from the pot to the pan? (Euphamism: check!) I'm going to apply either way and not cry about the result, either way.
*

Dad called me last night and it wasn't so bad. He's still the same Awkward Conversationalist Dad. According to him everything is "fine". Pauses happened when I stopped talking and stayed that way until I piped up with a new topic. He said "I love you" at the end of the conversation and therein lies the only thing he said with feeling. I think because of him I have learned to Take What I Can Get, but also ... understanding that What I Can Get is sometimes a lot.
Evan Brown is limited to how much he can express emotionally. That is the kind of person he is and I get that. Just like I got that him writing me a three page letter about Lenin was his way of showing he's going to make an effort to maintain/restart a relationship with his only daughter.
I wish it wasn't this way, I really do, but it is. I wish I didn't have to make the effort to meet him more than halfway on this. When I was little and had a problem, Dad would just say "Tough" or "Life is tough". Because of him I remember making a concentrated effort at the age of 9 never to cry again, to turn myself off. Thankfully, that didn't work out at all.
*

Okay. Time for couch.

2006-05-15T07:15:00.000-09:00

This is to commemorate the first time I am applying for a job that needs a resume. Very exciting.

This week is going to be fantastic. I'll hand in that resume, go to D.C., meet great people, and eventually find a job. That last one might not be just this week, but we never know. I am being optimistic.

Dinner at Tabouli tonight with lovely ladies. Window seat, feta cheese, good conversation.

I'm feeling pretty good. Marginally to Much better than I have in awhile.

2006-05-14T13:25:00.000-09:00

Now that Jack isn't an infant anymore... now that he can walk, laugh, talk, throw things .. He's much more interesting. He has two brothers, Gavin and Arran, but they were running around with cardboard tubes that doubled as Bazookas and Automatics.
Jack is now the member of my family who is most desirable to hang out with during family gatherings. All I have to do is smile at him or pick him up and his face gets wrinkly, twisted, and swallowed up by his big smile.
So, I threw him around a bit and kissed his belly.

And all of that cancelled out Paul's intrusive questions, the constant screaming from Arran and Gavin, my mother being my mother, so on. and so. forth.

Uncle Danny and Adam have just returned from Africa, but couldn't make it because Adam caught something and is in the hospital. Dana and Steven are both moving into Brooklyn today ... so I was the only 20 something grandkid around.
The less members of the family, the better I think. Especially for my first time around them since being back. Paul asked me What is the sense of community in India doing to help all those poor people there? That's when I told him I don't want to talk about it and went outside.
Uncle Joe came out and we talked. I like him best. Kyle drove up to the house, got out, and brought in the groceries Aunt Marianne told him to get .. and said "A little early to start hiding out, right?"
A sign that a family is a good family is when the members are honest with eachother. We always get together with a little bit of dread and hesitancy. And we all know it.
*

Today's lunch was good. I had salmon and took the leftovers home. Tonight's This American Life is amazing. Tomorrow's hang out session with Rachel will be comforting (who can pass up a best friend and some old movies on what promises to be a cloudy day?) This week's time spent in D.C. is going to be amazing and I have no qualms going to the conference with high expectations.

2006-05-13T09:51:00.000-09:00

I've written two drafts to post which I was not able to finish because something or other kept interrupting me. Now it's been two days and I am overwhelmed.

There is nothing to spit out that isn't already being formulated/cultivated in my head. My brain feels as if it has confronted every issue, analyzed every situation, rejected/accepted every aspect of my life. As if there is not a thought I haven't thought that can be thought within the realm of my experiences.

Oamjie used to ask Where are you?? Some days I would tell him New Jersey. Others, Nicaragua. The majority, Here.
Now NJ is Here, India is There. But it's still all the same... and a good question.
*

NOMAS (look it up) is having their annual conference at Ramapo. I sat in on a planning meeting and the schedule looks amazing. Some of the men who wrote articles I read in my Psych of Gender class will be presenting and I am anxious to hear what they have to say since their words sparked my interest in Men's Psych and the psychology of gender relations.
*
This warm-bodied, hot blooded girl is going to bed. Where an open window is her confidante and a radio, her lover

2006-05-11T05:39:00.000-09:00

"To achieve growth, you have to give 100%."
She is right. I told Yumiko about looking at trees and how you must completely surrender yourself while doing so to find that refuge which resides in the peace that spreads throughout the body. This place, this peace inside of me, it will not solve my problems, but instead is a well of strength and calm that I can draw from.
**

Late at night, illuminated by street lights and a flourescent academic building, sitting on steps I've climbed absent mindedly so many times before, it was as if India was speaking through me. India; all the people I met there who shaped my experience, who held my hand as I walked on the path towards self-acceptance and appreciation of Life no matter its pitfalls. All those people were with me and what a beautiful feeling it was, to feel what I have not felt since I returned. I thought I had lost it, I was scared that the expression my face had in that country, the clearness of my eyes, the Close your eyes/tilt your head back/breathe it all in mentality had been lost. But there it was.
There I was sharing what I had learned to a wonderful woman who needed to hear it all. And, it was as I was sharing, that I realized I must also listen to myself, to these wise souls. I think only because I was imparting this advice to another person, was I able to take it all in myself.
Now is when I have to deal with coming home.
**

It is now because it was just last night that I gave something Rest while allowing it to still grow. On the phone, I feel as if I let go of one thing, and was able to maintain my Love of It All.
I am not afraid of putting myself out there as long as I am being true to myself and others. I did that. I said This is Ok. My door to him is always open (all front/back door jokes aside).
Oh it is so important to always look at the Bigger Picture/Amazing Fluidity/Important Emotions which out weigh any circumstance and which surround this situation. And when I did it, I was over come by how beautiful it is. How impressive it is that one person can love and accept another wholly. Human beings are amazing creatures to have such a capacity.
I have no expectations, I have no regrets. I am not worried and I am not scared. I am happy and excited because I am able to Give without any of those burdens.
**

Yumiko and I sat on the couch and held hands while singing songs we've learned that we now have in common. We hummed pooja songs and described for eachother our own picture of India and what it meant/means to us. She said India glows in her mind. I said that going there was the best thing I have done for myself.
We talked about the irridescent pink sunsets, kind people, spirituality we experienced there. Sitting with her filled me with contentment. I enjoy sharing with others who have been there. I appreciate how we lapse into grateful/loving silence that is not weighed down with the need for conversation.
She and I fell asleep holding hands, the last words on our lips being ones filled with wisdom that we have gained and that has been given to us.

2006-05-10T13:48:00.000-09:00

There are rules I must adhere to that I have forgotten to jot down in the past. How long before you can talk again, how much you're supposed to show that you're upset, how upset you're supposed to be...
Just as wearing black socks with brown pants is a big faux pas, one should not speak the truth or delve deep into their psyche when asked How are you?
It is still surreal. Driving down 202 has taken on a new pain. Living on this campus has been painted with a sepia toned sadness that flashes back and forth to color as the day goes on. Some of the 24 hours being fine and uplifting, the others- maybe your eyes squeeze up a bit, back into your head, and you just let the memories and emotion hit you like a train.
An ocean, a continent cannot prevent me from feeling close to him. I know why what's going on is going on, but sitting in Joe's basement this afternoon, drinking tea in Allendale... I couldn't help but feel blessed that he was/is/will be in my life in some form or another. And I experienced sorrow as well, that a hug can't be had. That it's impossible right now. With this ocean. With this continent. With these decisions. All coming together to make Now.
**

Hopefully I'll be working at the Women's Center over the summer and I'll have a position definitely in the Fall. If I was supposed to go into Petco today, I didn't show up. I need a fresh start.
I need I need I need ... I need to do a lot of things.
**

There's something I need to say now, that I should say, and I know it's there. Unfortunately it is not materializing out of the fog that is confusing/dismantling my gut reactions, heartfelt emotions, and thought process.
**

Well, there I go.

2006-05-08T18:41:00.000-09:00

Where I am right now

Why is it that the thought of clicking a stupid button on myspace makes me sick? Maybe because the process is so emotionaless.

I guess you understand.

And I don't even know if there's any point in writing right now because there is not much that I can type that would properly convey everything.

But .. I can say that no matter what, I am in still in awe of every moment, every everything that made me feel so alive and happy. And I have to honor those moments by cherishing/remembering them. There is the initial impulse to make myself numb, but that would be of no use; cheating myself out of loving/learning from/appreciating an amazing part of my life.

2006-05-07T20:08:00.000-09:00

(100th post)

Excerpt from article(Who Are You Calling An Immigrant?) on Commondreams.org

The fundamental issue still shaping attitudes down to the present is this: Either the Mexicans (and other Latinos) are immigrants to a country called the United States or the U.S. is a Machiavellian power that denies occupying one-half of Mexico for 156 years. During the 1846-48 war against Mexico, at least 50,000 Mexicans died. The fighting took place across many cities considered pure-bred American today; in Los Angeles, a revolt temporarily drove out the U.S. Army. Guerrilla resistance by Mexican fighters left a mythic legacy of those like Joaquin Murrieta and Tiburcio Vasquez, names still alive among Mexican-American students today. Meanwhile, The New York Times was declaring in 1860: “The Mexicans, ignorant and degraded as they are, [should welcome a system] founded on free trade and the right of colonization so that, after a few years of pupilege, the Mexican state would be incorporated into the Union under the same conditions as the original colonies.”

After unilaterally annexing Texas in 1845, despite massive protests, the U.S. president sent troops 100 miles into what previously was Mexican land. When the Mexicans retaliated, the U.S. declared war on the pretext that Americans had been attacked on American soil. When it ended, the U.S. took 51% of Mexico’s land, including California, where the discovery of gold had been kept secret from Mexican negotiators. At least 100,000 Mexicans and an additional 200,000 indigenous people lived on those lands. Ever since, those people and their descendants have lived in a split-consciousness similar to that of African-Americans described in W.E.B. DuBois’ “The Souls of Black Folk.” Each new generation of immigrants fuels that consciousness all over again.

Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the imposed settlement of the 1846-48 war, the inhabitants of the occupied territories were granted legal, political, educational and cultural rights as citizens, not as immigrants. Some of the earliest official documents of California were required under the treaty to be printed in Spanish and English. This treaty, which was unenforced, became the basis for later movements stretching into the 1960s, movements that gave the Southwest an Aztec name (Aztlan) and demanded the return of former land grants. It was not unlike Radical Reconstruction, the period after the Civil War when Gen. Sherman’s official promise of “forty acres and a mule” was withdrawn.

Today’s demonstrations are not demanding implementation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Modern Mexican-Americans have made the legalization of undocumented workers as United States citizens their consensus demand. But there remains an unspoken difference between two states of mind regarding the meaning of the border. In every generation, immigrant workers and youth have claimed their American rights without abandoning the memory of their deeper historical ones.

A significant number of white Americans, especially among the elites, still hold to nativist definitions of American identity, in contrast to those multinational corporations that tend to be more interested in cheap foreign labor than in keeping American white.

Conservative journals like the American Outlook publish articles glorifying “the Anglosphere” as the standard of globalization (March-April 2001). Kevin Phillips is quoted in the article as still longing for an American culture whose “core thought is a kind of English revivalism.” Regarding this month’s demonstrations, the black neoconservative Thomas Sowell has criticized the “demanding” and “threatening” tone of “people who want their own turf on American soil…” (L.A. Daily News, April 29, 2006).

No one lends an Ivy League luster to the Minuteman Mentality more than Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington. A proud “Anglo-Protestant,” Huntington previously advocated the “forced urbanization” of the Vietnamese peasantry into a “Honda culture” as a formula for ending the nationalist uprising. In the ’70s, he complained that an “excess of democracy” threatened Western authorities. More recently, he formulated the strident doctrine of “the clash of civilizations,” decreeing that Islamic culture is incompatible with democratic civilization. Finally, he has weighed in on “The Hispanic Challenge,” arguing that Latino immigration is “a major potential threat to the cultural and possibly political integrity of the United States” (in Foreign Policy, March-April 2006). Huntington argues that Mexican-Americans are too close to their traditional culture to become assimilated as patriotic Americans. By this he means, of course, that they cannot become imitation WASPs, whose identity he sees as basic to the American nation. For Huntington, assimilation seems to mean submission and disappearance into the master culture, a viewpoint still held by many. We defeated you, and now you should become like us.

Largely forgotten in the current debate, too, are those among the elites who still consider Mexico itself a strategic long-term threat. The late Caspar Weinberger, a secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, wrote in 1998 of planning for a theoretical “next war” against Mexico, opting for the military option in case “it becomes necessary to go down in and try to catch [a] rebel leader in Mexico and restore democratic rule to Mexico” (interview with “Chuck Baldwin Live,” Feb. 17, 1998). The Harvard historian of Chiapas, John Womack, has written that in the 1990s “the US government, in particular the Defense Department … wanted ‘low-intensity’ warfare in Mexico” (“Rebellion in Chiapas,” Harvard, 1999).

But the U.S. has historically been the destabilizing force in Mexico, most recently with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has flooded the country with corn and other products and replaced indigenous manufacturing with the maquiladora economy, thus displacing at least hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, many of whom seek survival in el norte. Perpetuating the cycle is absolutely crucial to neo-liberal economics. But it also perpetually stimulates rebelliousness, in fact and memory, among those who take to U.S. streets today, and who shortly will be the urban majority in a new America.
As people of color, mainly immigrants, edge closer to majority status in key states, their relatives to the south are becoming nationalist, populist majorities in country after country, with interests that sharply conflict with the disintegrating U.S. Monroe Doctrine of 1823. If the populist mayor of Mexico City is elected president of Mexico this fall, NAFTA itself will die or be re-negotiated. This is the first time in many decades that the interests of Latinos in the U.S. are closely converging with the governments and people of the nations of the south. As seen even in the recent international baseball championships, the willingness of America’s major league Latino players to join the lineups of their homelands shows the fluid nature of borders and solidarity. A policy beyond the Monroe Doctrine will have to be crafted for the United States, with Latinos in the lead. As Evo Morales of Bolivia is suggesting, “another annexation is possible,” the annexation of the United States into peaceful coexistence with Latin America.

Some would argue that America must simply follow the path of previous immigrant generations, like my Famine Irish ancestors. It is true that the slum-dwelling Irish, Jews and Italians rose in time to the middle class, and the same future may lie ahead for the new immigrants. We can see signs of the past in the growing ranks of Latino trade unionists and mayors and other politicians. But the difference in the histories is race and class. If neo-liberalism has failed to widen the American middle class since 1973, how will it expand to provide decent jobs for the aspiring immigrants in today’s underclass? Is there another New Deal just over the horizon, or a hardening defense of the status quo?

Huntington’s Anglosphere is dying, if only through demographics. It is a matter of time--of when, not whether. The newcomers have neither the need nor the capacity to assimilate into a declining Anglosphere. They will remain multicultural of necessity, the hybrid multitude arising from the depths of empire and its resistance. The real question is how the rest of America, the rest of us, can assimilate and find belonging within all the Americas, where so many flags are fluttering in the gusts of self-determination.

Tom Hayden, who has been active in social movements since 1960, teaches at Occidental College. He is the author, most recently, of "Street Wars and the Future of Violence."

2006-05-07T19:20:00.000-09:00

Matt Drudge is ridiculous. He is bitching and moaning and saying "Ah, c'mon!" just because a principal at an elementary school decided to take ALL the sugar out of the meal menus.
Disney broke off its McDonald's happy meal deal because it was encouraging children to eat junk.

And the DaVinci code is horrible because it's bashing Catholics ... Catholics are pissed off because it depicts Jesus having sex. Hello, People!!! Jesus was a dude and I'm hoping he had sex with someone because I couldn't really relate to someone who was supposed to be Completely Human and didn't. I would like to think Jesus thought whoever he was banging was really cool, but maybe he just needed to get some kicks in because he was stressed from thinking about how he had to die for our sins and stuff.

And all anyone can talk about is Tom Cruise because he's crazy now. And all anyone does is bitch about how that's all the media is covering, but the people complaining ARE the media!

Channel 4 news covered the mayoral race in Newark and interviewed and spent a lot of air time on the Republican/Democrat candidates. Then, there were two seconds which depicted two people sitting down at a Q&A session (you couldn't see their faces) and the reporter said "Blah blah something or other is running from the Socialist party, too." And that was it.
Two party systems are on the The Worst list.

So is WABC and the static that I'm getting on NPR

2006-05-06T15:23:00.000-09:00

My mother is praying the rosary in the kitchen with one working light. She is sitting at the table with one remaining chair. She is part of the family with two dysfunctioning members.
Linda Brown has only spoken a few words to me since she came home. First and briskly "Were there any messages?" Second and sweetly "Is that Diet Pepsi in the fridge for me?"
No no no no no.
Now she is working her mouth around words that have inspired, driven, helped countless for years. Linda Brown does not pray silently when in the comfort of her own home. She is loud, it's impossible not to get drawn into the rhythmic ups and downs of her pleas.
Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond is playing on my radio. I like this song a lot.

Sweet Caroline
Good times never felt so good
Sweet Caroline
I believed they never could
*

In the car today I closed my eyes and let the sun make impressions of gold, brown, orange, and red on my eyelids.
When giving Phil a walking tour of Foodtown this afternoon, I allowed some nostalgia to touch my voice and curve my mouth.
Out last night, I tried to feel comfortable, but wasn't too disappointed that I didn't.
*

I am moving along a highway and behind me is All of This. In front of me are experiences that will make All of This even harder to deal with when I come back, but I still want them.

Mal/Discontent
*

I think I will start training to run a 26 mile because I feel like working towards a lofty goal.
*

Great writers must have produced amazing work when dealing with complicated circumstances, times of depression, periods of forced/deep self-reflection. But I can only look vacantly at blurry_car-window_scenery, television sets (whether on or off), or computer screens. Like when you are punched in the stomach and left sucking for air

2006-05-02T15:23:00.000-09:00

It is undeniable that people need touch. They need to be touched. And I am no different.

I want arms.. I want arms around me when I cry and I want arms to hold me if I'm shaking.

Who would have thought that the people that have been There were the people I couldn't be around today?

So I left and it felt good to leave, to ignore what was swelling up inside of me.

I hate being like this. I hate that other people know I'm like this right now. I keep telling myself it's not a sign of weakness, that it's okay and this is normal. Normal entails Consistency, Predictability, The Certain, The Safe. I am feeling none of those things. And beyond feeling ... there is no situation in my life that holds those values. But what have I kept saying, that that is okay, that this rollercoaster is Life and the intensity of my emotions serve to remind me how alive I am, how deeply I can experience a situation. This rationale reasons it away sometimes, but during moments where I am with no one but myself, when I am letting myself "experience/feel", it doesn't do much good. It is only when I come out of it, look myself in the mirror, and attempt to talk myself into being alright does it work. I'm sure I have many, but right now, I don't know how many more pep talks I can give myself.

I need to give myself permission that This is alright, no matter if it's scary.

I want arms.. I want arms around me when I cry and I want arms to hold me if I'm shaking.

2006-05-01T05:23:00.000-09:00

-The Half Of It -

"You know some Mexicans put our national anthem in Spanish and actually changed the words." I looked up from the letter I was reading, confused. I hadn't heard of this happening and the way she brought it up, it's as if she was saying, "You know those people you always stick up for, well now they're changing your national anthem!"
I don't remember what I said. She asked me if I had any opinion on the matter, and since I hadn't read the news story and had just come back from NYC the other day loaded down with articles on Immigrants' rights, I figured there wasn't anything I could say that she would want to hear. But there were words.
And then I went to my room.
And then she came to my room.

This is when it happens. I am closing my eyes and willing myself back to India. Focusing hard on the images which are soaked in India .. Red dirt, the landing above the kitchen, The Kitchen itself, Big Jyamma's eyes, Lakama's hand on my wrist, Manjula's fingers intertwined with mine.. And I can't hear Mom any more, now, I can hear flutes, folk songs, horns honking, cows mooing, festival music...
And that is when it stopped. I left her talking about how the United States is going to become a Third World Country and I go downstairs, dialed some numbers that have been in my phone for awhile, and crouched down on the ground and cried silent cries.

So Bushman Ave isn't much of a home, but it's my home with my room which I am determined to make a home. I don't have a room anywhere else. I don't have a space all my own where I can move the furniture around and hang up cardboard signs.

I feel as if someone put me here. As if a giant hand picked me up in India, my shirt pinched between its thumb and forefinger, and sat me down in New Jersey.

2006-04-29T18:01:00.000-09:00

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, languages, even the phrase "each other"
Doesn't make any sense

-- Jelauddin Rumi Sufhi poet

Saw that on an advertisement in the subway today. One of those things that you scramble to find a pen and paper to write down and hope you can read it later because the train was moving so fast.

Went to the march in NYC. Got a little motivated, sun, a lot of fun, and tired. There were no Republican protesters and I am a little disappointed. I kept looking for them because last year that was definitely one of the highlights. Watching an old woman yell at some smart ass kid that one day he'd get drafted and have to kill people. It's 11 pm, I've had a little wine, and that doesn't seem funny at all right now.

I talked to Sarah about India intermittently all day. I've never had the chance to hang out with her for so long a period of time and I'm glad I did. We were carrying around our signs which at one point had been taped onto long cardboard tubes, but ditched the signs and walked with the poles all day until we had to head home. She left hers on a sidewalk in the hopes that maybe some kid would find it and use it for a jedi sword like we did, but I kept mine in the hopes that I will be able to make something extraordinary out of the ordinary. If it's still a big tube in a week, I'll throw it out. My life feels cluttered ...or unorganized, but my room doesn't need to be.

Where I Lay My Head Is Home
Haven't slept in my own bed since Sunday night. Walking into Jenai's room, sitting outside with Bethany ... things that make me feel Home. My philosophy on Home is something I think about a lot, something that has come up since I left and then came back, and is just a topic that I want to and need to reflect on. Ok, so, I know I have a home. The confusion about whether or not I do is gone. I have a physical home on Bushman Ave... but I also have Home feelings. I don't hate where I come from. I appreciate it just as I acknowledge that my whole life (no matter its downs) has made me who I am and I'm happy with who I am. But there is something to be said for being able to feel that level of comfort in different places that are not Bushman Ave. And I do believe it is a person's sense of self and who they are surrounded by that help nurture or destroy a Home feeling in any given place.

I didn't buy anything at the march today because I feel that, in my case, it would have been misdirected consumerism. One can argue that all the money goes towards a good cause and that "one" would be completely 100% correct. But I know that part of me wanted to pull out my wallet because I have a need for "stuff". And a sense of entitlement that I should have Stuff. I couldn't justify buying a patch, shirt, or jewelry no matter what the message. Yes, these are good ways to let people know where you stand and maybe start asking questions, but right now I could only feel OK buying books. Because while material items such as clothing, stickers, buttons, etc.. start conversations, it is more important to maintain them and be able to finish them in an informed and fair way.
I wonder if I would feel this way if I had more money or if I had not just come back from India where I realized that I might not have a lot by U.S. standards, but I have so much. And if I had not recently met people who didn't have any cute buttons, patches, bags, or t-shirts that advertised where they stood, but only had their education, Heart, and opinions.

this is all in progress, evolutionizing. I am in progress, reflecting, and changing. and that is beautiful. if it's messy, something that inspires epiphanies, confusing, thrilling, or scary ... it is still very beautiful.

2006-04-27T18:06:00.000-09:00

My backpack is my room. I can fit multiple changes of clothes in it and my toothbrush. Wallet is in front zipper compartment. I saw a guy at the library two days ago who has the same pack and I wanted to strike up a conversation, but, as Backpack Sightings usually go... he was walking away from me when I noticed. Out out out the door.

After being in PA, I can now add drinking in a public park to the very short list of illegal things I've done that don't matter because you're expected to anyway. I work very hard at fulfilling this status quo ... of white suburban girls who have gotten drunk before 21, done some pot, shop lifted some things, but none of them to any gross extent. Please, tell me if there's something I've missed. I have nothing else to do this summer.

Except ... except for going back to work, hopping on another air plane, hopping on some busses, and walking the walk instead of talking the talk of "Turning my room into a sanctuary instead of storage space".

Tomorrow I tackle the college and the WC. These are things... Well, I haven't done anything at all in the week that I've been back which closely resembles stuff I did before I left.

I am thankful to the people who "can imagine" what it's like. I am grateful for those who "know what it's like". I am seeing India Lauren tomorrow and I'm really excited. She definitely fits into the latter, but more specifically my latter. She and I can sit down and spit some stuff out that hasn't been said to anyone else. Or maybe hasn't been understood? I don't like that it's not a universal topic, but I relish the bond she and I can share because of that.

It is very cold in here and sitting in sunny spots in green parks was this gringa's dream come true.

2006-04-25T05:18:00.000-09:00

I write about what I've eaten or who I've seen when I'm not feeling especially emotional, angry, sad, what have you. Then I am feeling Blank. And when I am those things... it's circles. Today I am everything. Name an emotion and I'll quote you the time of day I experienced it.

Saw a documentary for free and by accident yesterday. Courtesy of Isaac (friend of Rachel and Nora's), who we ran into on the sidewalk, hopped in the car and off we went. It is on the Ballet Russes.. A ballet company formed in the 1930's in Europe. Three young Russian girls were its main attraction. The first time girls under 14 were prima ballerinas. So interesting and hilarious because most of the performers were alive for interviews and there is nothing I love more than a 90 year old man talking about pirouettes and having footage of an old Russian woman flirting with him. Priceless... or free, since it was.

Tonight we're cooking for David before his thesis presentation. Someone a couple of weeks ago said "Oh and then the annoying stuff like buying groceries. We'll have to do that stuff when we go back." Hmm, I love buying groceries and making food. I'm excited since my culinary skills have only been extended to dethawing frozen spinach and pouring hot water on oatmeal.

My sleeping is so erratic. Woke up at 3:15 last night, made a phone call, and then went to bed at 4:30.. not because I was tired, but because Phil was exhausted. I'm very happy he's working at the WC this semester and next. The MOC position fits him well, from what I've heard and I really want to work on some ideas with him.. to the best of my ability. Went back to sleep because there was nothing else to do and here I am ... 10:30 a.m. and I've been awake for four hours already.

The Equality Ride that came to Eastern yesterday was interesting enough. Some guy from Repent America was handing out leaflets and a lot of people were arguing. Nora walked away saying "This is silly. I'm going to Wawa!" Wiser words were never spoken. Those people do not want to listen and the only possible outcome with one of them would be higher blood pressure. There is more to say, but my library time is running out.

Paoli, PA is nice... small town complete with its library, starbucks, little municipal building, apartment complexes, and tree lined streets with two-story family homes. Nice paved streets, sidewalks, and manufactured green everywhere. Everything is so compartmentalized, tidy, even, and orderly. What's that like? Cement and wires contrasting against a purposefully planted tree with three tulips in front of it. Just three.
I walked on the overpass to get to the library and imagined the jungles of Kerala. Saw the big leaves, flowers, rivers. Heard the birds and insects. Saw and heard it all while staring at a construction site.

I am staying with Rachel today and Nora tomorrow. Maybe ending up home on Thursday. Being around them is warm, insulated. They are family to me, closer than perhaps. The level of comfort and ease that envelopes me in their presence is so invigorating after being away from it for so long. Laughter and sincerity both come easy at their appropriate times. We know how to finish the other's sentences and we can all find refuge in comfortable silence when need be. It's something extraordinary that I can only fully appreciate now after having been without.
I don't want to leave and I don't want to be anywhere else.

2006-04-23T16:26:00.002-09:00

Limbo. Neither here nor there. I'm out of the house and at Ramapo right now. And I miss my bed, wishing I was in those walls, but I was getting a headache there. I love her tremendously, but I just couldn't stay tonight. But I wish I was there.

I think I left her presents in India along with a couple of other things that can't fit into a suitcase.

Do you think people who come back want to leave right away because it's too uncomfortable being back? And by people, I might mean "me". But I don't think I want to leave completely. I just feel like I'm not here so I might as well be somewhere else.

If I had a little less restraint I would throw a tantrum, make impossible demands on people, stomp my feet, and give into every emotion pulsing through me. Like that scream I let out in Florida ten years ago. When I didn't know any better. When I hadn't been taught that "we don't behave that way."
But that night.. that night in Kerala when those students performed the tribal dances and something ancient floated up from the floor and rained down from the ceiling .. catching us in the middle. So we danced, we flailed, sang, and let go. That happened, I was there. Does it happen here? Can I bring it home?

It stopped raining today. Just the grey clouds are left over hanging over the sky, to the left of my yard. Contrasting against the purple flowers and the one lone tulip growing by the sidewalk.

2006-04-23T05:11:00.000-09:00

Saw Phil last night. He came around 6:30. I had my black pea coat on and a red nose.
We went to Whole Foods and I surpised Jill at work. Some chick asked me if India was fun. Yea, it was fun.
Tried to find Quiznos so I could get an awesome sandwich (I've wanted an awesome sandwich for so long), but Quiznos is no more and so we went buffet-ing at Whole Foods. I had Meditteranean Tofu, mushrooms, bean salad, multi grain tabouli, four stuffed grape leaves which were marvelous. I gave Jill her present and she liked it very much. Jill gave me a little bag of granola. Cranberry, I think.

Mom turned the heat on for me last night and when I got back and off the phone, we talked about India for a little. It wasn't so bad, I told her about the food we ate and some of the stuff I've done.

She said she couldn't understand what I'm going through right now, but "It's so strange to look at you and know you've been in a different country and have done so many things."
Maybe she's getting it.

Went to bed at 11:15, woke up at 4:30, woke up again at 8:30. And I took a nap for an hour and a half yesterday.

It's easier to write this way.

2006-04-22T06:41:00.000-09:00

Did I just see two snow flurries outside?

I hate this.

Give me clear skies and stifling heat that gives way to starry skies and cool nights.

2006-04-22T03:59:00.000-09:00

Written on 4.21.06

I just got back to the sates. Even more recently, I just got back to Haledon.
Books on Jesus H. Christ and helping yourself still dominate the dining room. Book cases add some organization to the chaos that is the living room (they're a recent addition). There are bread crumbs in the Smart Beat, and that container of mustard from god knows when is still taking up space in the fridge -second shelf up in the door.
Have I really been gone for four months or did I just wake up from an intense R.E.M. with only the absence of my partner and the hole in my nose transferring from dream to reality???

I've had short outbursts today. 1.Making a left onto 202 from campus (the weather and scenery mimicking the those of the Fall and Sunday morningss) 2. looking through text messages on my phone 3. Finding pictures from the Fall (that one was like a little yelp, gulp, and shutting of the eyes)
All of these lasted less than thirty seconds and were stifled as fast as they started.

today
*
Some things are not going to change for awhile and I don't want most of them to anyhow. I took off the top of a body wash container this morning, filled it up with water, and put it in the toilet instead of flushing it. The whole "if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down" applies to the last four months of my life. It made an impression on me, how many resources we use here, how little everyone else uses comparatively, and the price the latter are paying for the former's excessiveness.
There was a piece on NPR this morning about how Bangladesh might disappear in the next thirty years because of global warming. A villager who was interviewed sounded indignant and outraged because they are paying the price for the "developed" countries' wastefulness. And they are. And he's right. It's not fair.
I haven't taken a shower yet because I haven't taken one in four months. Just twice in Hampi, but other than that, I've been using the bucket method and I look at my tub and don't know what to do with it or myself. Mm Hampi was an exception though because the shower head was mounted on the side of a large boulder and the area was closed in by a wall of bamboo on the left and rock ledges on the right. I didn't even know we had a shower head in our room until three weeks after we moved in. Didn't even occur to me to look up.
Little things like these are examples of habits I've picked up and am unwilling to put down. Don't waste water. Don't waste food. Walk barefoot when you can.
And I'm putting off using my washing machine for as long as possible. I think I can do it ...
because I have lived in the same four or five shirts for the past four months and coming home, I am overwhelmed by my wardrobe. How could I have ever thought I had too little? I have so much! Little by little I am chipping away at it.

It feels ... it feels as if life has been on pause. Things are the same. The sound of mom's eyeglasses case being opened and shut still signals her waking and coming into the kitchen; Mom still looks at the mail while I'm talking to her; she still asks irrelevant questions at inopportune times.
For example, I am telling her about when I got my nose pierced, the look of the road, the man who did it, how I felt, etc.. I finish and she looks at me. "Aren't you hot in those pajamas?" She leaves me speechless in the worst possible way.

I thought she'd explode when she saw me, but it was quite the opposite. You would have thought I've been just 20 minutes away as usual.. at school... one hug, start opening the mail, start telling the junk mail to send Her money instead of asking it. Ask me when I'm going to start working, tell me her position in Hawthorne was eliminated.
Two jobs down, two to go.

I go into my room and, thanks, I'm ready to cry a little bit. Everything is the same as four months ago except for the weather.

Rachel and I went to Arabica last night. I had a medium spiced chai with soy milk and a small white tea. I was tempted by a slice of apple cinnamon bread, and was put off by the fact that they're selling rice cakes for fifty cents each. Gave Rachel her presents (three bags of loose Indian tea, handmade notebook made by women involved in an income generating road on Kanakapura road), she liked them very much. Sat outside before we got too cold and then sat inside. Me: Big Couch by the window, nearest the counter. Her: Stuffed armchair to my left. Music: Irish folk songs. I asked them to sing Molly Malone because it reminded me of how Jim would never stop singing that and how awful it was.
Met someone who knows both Craig and D. He paid for our second cup of tea and picked my brain about India. I was pretty reluctant.. not because I don't want to talk about it (wait, that might be part of it .. anything could be), but I do not faith in my ability to articulate/get across my thoughts on the matter with someone who I haven't been around for four months. The question running through my brain was "How can I communicate something I haven't had to in so long? How can I let this person understand?" The answer is To the best of my abilities, because I can ask nothing more of my brain right now. Midway into it, I just got tired and we moved on to another subject.
We've met so many people at Arabica, both of us so used to it, that neither of us were put off by him. With the predictable "Do you mind if I sit here?" the three of us settled into conversation, communication. New friend, couldn't hurt.. even though I am still not sure if I agreed or disagreed with most of what he was saying.
Got back at 1:15 a.m.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning. This is going to happen for awhile before my body adjusts to the time change. This happened when I went to India. For the first month and a half I could not sleep past 7:30. I am a reluctant morning person, someone who would much rather sleep until 11, but I am forced into productivity when I wake before dawn.
So I am cleaning my room. Ripping it apart and throwing it out. Saving only articles, pieces of paper I've scribbled on (there is a drawback to being a sporadic writer) and books that I might read eventually. I'm sure I committed some literary sin by putting Emma by Jane Austen in the Give Away pile. I just can't stand reading her.

I found a Marble Notebook from Freshman year of highschool. My journal from Honors English taught by Mr. Parent, a man who became my mentor for two years and then disappeared into another school system and county.
There aren't any dates on most of the entries, but just answers to journal prompts

September 3, 1999
My goal for this school year, being my first, is to work to my fullest potential. It is very to me that I thrive (academically speaking) in this school. Junior high seems long gone, and I am hoping I will have a successful new start in M.R.H.S. I would like very much to get all A's. I suppose that is what my goal comes down to in the end. This is going to take patience and hard work, of course. With the aide of my mom cutting off my phone time during the week, I'm sure I'll be fine.

What is your worst fear?
Another thing (I've left out the first paragraph) that scares the hell out of me is if my mom dies. Where would I go? My dad lives in Florida with his wife and son. They already have a family

Who was your first crush?
I think I was three. His name was Johnathan, or was it Adam? I honestly can't remember!

What do you think is the greatest invention ever made?
The pencil is the greatest invention ever made because it lets you erase mistakes.

Nothing can be worse than....
Dying when you haven't made an impression on the world and no one knows who you were.

I read through this and I have to smile. 14 year old Katie Brown amuses me completely. Such an odd, intense, serious, sarcastic little girl. And who is she now and is how far she's come successfully obvious and .. what's the distance in miles?

I also found a poem written for me. Some pictures taken of me. A star purchased for me..

I asked her
[her lip quivering in the crisp air]
if she would remember me
{me not quite being as developed as one would wish,
The mind of a grandfather
Body of a father
Yet able to be brushed from her eyes
(How I still yearn for them, like precious gems glimmering in the moon's smile)
as though only a down feather on
a patio of a suburban home.}
she answered.

It's 9:30 a.m., raining, and freezing. I think my body is confused. It doesn't know what time it is, my brain has been confused about the days since I came back, and my skin is used to being drenched in sweat ... not walking around on feet with toes that are almost purple from the cold or grabbing at objects with hands that are stiff with chill.

I am going to go to ShopRite with mom if I don't chicken out in the next five minutes. It's raining and grey this Saturday morning. Wait, I've just decided to chicken out.
I am requesting a grapefruit.

Weekend Edition is on and I don't want to miss Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

2006-04-21T02:46:00.000-09:00

How to make the transition from writing aboutIndia to writing about home? I haven't been describing or living through "home" for the past four months.

The Flight.
Part of it.

Well, I threw out all my underwear in Frankfurt. I had washed them before leaving the ashram and they hadn't dried. Never being anyone to throw something out when I could just wash it, mend it, patch it... I didn't even think of just leaving them there like some of the others who were in my situation did. So I put them in a plastic ziploc and put some Baby Powder in there. And, no, I didn't know what I was doing or what I was doing it. It made perfect sense at the time.
I put the bag in my backpack so I could monitor the smell and state of the panties. I bit my lip nervously as we went through the Indian airport security and, my prayers were answered, I didn't have to be randomly searched.
But, Frankfurt, .. oh in Frankfurt.
I had to give up. Seven pairs gone gone. And I am left with only two to my name. This is good because who doesn't love buying new underwear, but problematic because I had been hoping to avoid any shopping establishment like the plague. So, I will just have to ignore them like .. "the annoying waitress".. someone you can kind of ignore, but has just come up to you anyway..like it or not.

-
I was treated like shit at the Indian airport by some dude in big sunglasses (why do people wear sunglasses inside??) at the security desk. The plane was almost finished boarding, I'm in line and I'm told I have to go get a security tag on my pack. Ok ok I go back to the glasses guy who also took my ticket from me ten minutes ago and was asking really acenine questions and making me late.
"I need a security tag"
"Ohhhh, you need a security tag, do you?"
"Yes, that's what I just said"
-speaks about me in Kannada for five minutes-
-I leave and I'm one of the last people to board.

Part of it:
Big Jyamma gave me four of her red bangles and told me to call on April 27th. I don't know what we will say to eachother, but, of course, haven't you learned there's more to communication than that?
I put 100 rps in Roukema's hand for Cheche
Lakama poured sugar into my mouth and I don't know.. I am telling myself because she thinks I'm sweet... or, the kitchen ladies just love literally shoving food in my mouth. Big Jyamma called me a chicken the other day, I might need fattening up...
On the way to the airport I chair danced with Malika and relieved some gas that no one knew about because the windows were down and it was so loud. That's about as ceremonious as that was...
At the airport Aravind cried, said nice things to me, and told me he can get me a job. And he really could. And one day I might experience India.. and not in a sheltered way .. (that should be another entry.. so, moving on)..
I gave Manjula a present and a card and she cried.
Sidhram squeezed my hand so hard when he was shaking it goodbye.
I finished all my papers.
When it was time, I turned my back and just walked away. My brain "left, right, left, right. Okay, put the suitcase on the conveyor belt. Yes, let that man help you because it's so heavy. Oh, there's Malika, catch up... left right left"

I didn't cry.

I still haven't cried.

In Frankfurt I had a good discussion with myself (back and forth back and forth-walking around trying to kill five hours) about the rules for "legitimacy". The guidelines people have set up for themselves so that they can judge how upset someone really is. It would seem as if I'm not upset at all. As if I've just been dropped back into my life here.
Jenai picked me up. First order of business was getting a Greek Salad and chocolate milk shake. Went to see Bethany at AB&G. Had beer. Went to sleep. Had good conversations in between about all the stuff I've missed and love having conversations about ..
I did all that. I was back in Allendale and I didn't get upset once. Well, maybe when that waitress started talking to me about India because "her girlfriend in college went on some all around the world semester program and she loooved India". That sucked a lot. Especially when she said
"Would you say it's dirtier there?"
My face was twisting up and I could see Jenai laughing because she knew this is EXACTLY what I don't want. I just told the woman that because we're so used to America's way of doing things, we would judge other people easily.. something like that. And she said "Yea I guess we're a little excessive (in reference to cleanlines)." There is no language for the words I wanted to say at that moment.

So, the point is I did all that. I had an awesome homecoming, a calm one, a homecoming made easy because of Jenai and Bethany. And I didn't cry and I'm typing this in a dorm room on campus and outside there were people playing frisbee last night, and -shit- here I am. I can't tell which one feels like a dream.. Am I in India dreaming about Jersey? or am I in Jersey and India feels like it was all a dream?

how I've dealt with being back so far does not include.. seeing Mother, stepping foot in my room, unpacking, being alone. I haven't been alone since I got back. not once. Not for one minute. And that's scary enough to make me tear up a little.

2006-04-18T23:01:00.001-09:00

Finishing up some papers.
Tried to make the WNYC live stream work
Of course it didn't
But the introduction did
"WNYC live audio is supported by ..."
A message with a 13 seconds blissful duration
My heart skipped a beat and if my jaw hadn't dropped, I would have smiled '
But, yea that was all that worked.

and here's the contrast. here's the other side of "how are you doing" The part that doesn't have to do with me being anxious to reintroduce things that I love back into my life.

We had a ceremony today that included the staff
Last night was sans staff
Sid talked about Cheche living here and how great that is. on and on
I had to pee and left without bothering to ask him why she isn't living here anymore
I was told last week anyway, No room. New worker. She's in the village.
I'm giving Roukema money for her
Roukema wiped away my tears
Jyamma leaned next to me and said "Going? Bedda bedda, Kate"
.I'm choking.

There is an itch.. the "predictably metaphorical in this context" kind of itch..
And it makes my fingers work a little harder on the key board
My heels pound on the earth with more purpose
I'm just in a state of "go"
Get ready or you'll get left behind, Kate.

2006-04-18T01:19:00.000-09:00

Sitting on the veranda outside the computer room... Green is everywhere, birds are
everywhere, and so is the sense of calm that seeps out of every crack in the
pavement/walls or petal and leaf of each plant. I have to leave tomorrow, Mia. I have to
leave tomorrow at ten o'clock at night, drive into Bangalore one last time - bracing
myself against the bumpy roads that my body is so used to now, just settling into the
rhythmic jostling back and forth.

I need to see you when I get back.

Sorry I have not written recently.

Love,
Kate

*

I have to leave tomorrow. There's no choice or decision making .. no prolonging my stay. I have to leave. At ten p.m. Ten p.m. tomorrow .. a little more than 24 hours.

The screen is coming in and out of focus as I type.

I don't know why anything is important. I know that everything is important.

and what's racing through my mind and pulsing through my veins was unimaginable four months ago. It's so beautiful that it takes my breath away. I am lucky to be feeling this. I am only this sad because I have been touched and affected so deeply.

I am so thankful you'll be waiting there with a hug right now-

Kate

--
I don't know what I'm trying to get across here, or if there's any point. I'm just going to keep trying.. because right now it's overflowing.. a myriad and there is no way I can verbalize it so that it is one containable thing and that makes it stunning. that makes it Life. And I am so appreciative. It's easy to overflow here, but I cannot let it stick to my insides when I get home.

So, I'll keep trying.

ab·re·act: To release (repressed emotions) by acting out, as in words, behavior, or the imagination

2006-04-17T23:50:00.000-09:00

.First, an example.

Hello Kate
How are you?

I was surfing on Myspace.com , came across your profile and
I stuck with it! It is Quite Impressive!
You are a Real Beautiful Girl!

I am interested in making Friendship with you!
Let me introduce myself: I am Sukhjinder,6',3" tall, cool, caring and loving Single guy.I believe in Humanity ,Peace, Sincerity! I hate violence and dishonest people.I am Saggitarian by Zodiac!
It was my Brief intro,if you want to know more about me,you can ask anything.

I hope for the Gracious Response! I am sure this Year will bring your Beautiful Friendship's Gift for me!

Thank you for reading my Profile!

With my Best Wishes!
Friendly Yours!
Sukhi

Dear Indian Men of Myspace,

It is with great regret that I must change my location back to New Jersey. I will never hear from any of you ever again. To answer some of your questions: I was here for school. Yes, I am a foreigner. No, I'd rather not call you.
All of you have been flattering and always good for a laugh. I am sorry that I was not able to take any of you seriously.

- Kate

2006-04-17T11:30:00.000-09:00

Having a club in a mall is a ridiculous concept at 7 p.m. There's this guy behind our booth dancing with himself in the mirror. Taylor shimmies up to him at one point and runs away to the tune of "Oh you're good you're good niiice" following her.
She paid for my drink so I had one. Raps about New York City and city thug life are sending pulses through my body that make my ribs reverberate with the sound. I wonder how many people in this room have been to New York City. I think I hate this. I know I hate what's outside that door more .. a Mall that is full of plastic models showing off the latest styles and people clamoring to catch that sale or get to that movie or eat at that food court (you know, the one that plays Feliz Navidad in April). Maybe it's the same everywhere.
I had to answer an essay question in highschool that asked you to define the Human Condition. I am not so cynical to say that Club SOS in Bangalore's finest mall is it, but it proposes a good argument.
I spent over 9 hours in Bangalore on Easter Sunday and came out of it with some presents, an outfit, a nose piercing, a full belly, and confident that Commercial Street section is better than MG Road.
*

There are things to start when I get home. Things to stop and things to plan. A phone company to call and yell at.. which seems so mundane. Little bits of every day life coming back into play. It is the natural progression. Today Shanti came back for another group session, but this time it wasn't to see how we were all dealing with Indian culture, each other, etc. .. He talked about how our group is never going to be this same group again. That even if we ever did all manage to get together when we're in the states.. it'll be different. True. Very.
I have adapted myself to have mostly any social need met by these ten. If I know I need a good talking to, I go to Malika because she tells it like it is. Maybe I just need to joke around, well, that'd be Fidel. Some introspective/dry/friendly banter, Cindy hands down. Lauren was always down for talking about anything at all. And Taylor has just been good stuff all around.
I know my friends are at home waiting for me. I know now more than I ever did how much I love them. I feel like there will have to be some readjustment though. I've been relating to these people for four months in the way we've all discovered we need to be related to and now all my energy I put into that will be shifted.
Hmm, but shifted into what? Relationships that are as known to me as a favorite book or song? Songs that we get lost in and bop our heads along with. And we hum the tune easily, finishing a verse if the other is uncertain, and smile during the parts where we get to play air instruments. Doesn't sound so bad at all because it's not so bad at all.
It's just a shift. Which is a reality.

*

I hate the internet with a passion. I'm tired of committing my thoughts to text on a screen that pop up in emails, comments, ims to be interpreted any which way. I want to hear and touch. Two senses in need of dusting off, in this context. I hate screens that are pixel/text representations of the people I want to hold. I don't like asking "Hey did you ge that IM" when that one IM could make or break a "conversation". I hate asking "wait, did you mean blah blah when you said blah blah? because some things don't translate well over the internet, you know. Har dee har har" I hate things not translating well. I don't like that I can't call anyone reading this right now and tell them what I'm writing instead of typing it.
Fair enough, it's made me have to push myself to find different ways of communicating how I am. Picking my words a little more carefully. But I still don't think it's an ideal way to train people to engage in conversation.

*
So Home. Challenge about going back that is not related to the physical geography or cultural mindset of the place...
Take what I learn from here and apply it to my life there. Try not to lose it and remember how hard I had to work to attain this sense of peace/self/balance/confidence. It's fledgling yet and maybe fragile. Every day there are situations where I have to keep at it, practice, nurture. Don't over analyze. Don't overreact. Don't make myself sick over things which will work themselves out. Those are my achievements..
I can't get sucked back into old ways of thinking where I don't even factor in to the decision making or honestly believe I will fall apart if I have to stand alone. Which makes not standing alone so much more beautiful. Where I am coming from: Love that has always been there, of course, but now it is not tainted by fear. No, that's been replaced by faith in Life, What's Best, What's Happy, What Will Be.

*
Rest assured there are many things throughout the day that I think would be good choices to write down here.

But then it's 3 a.m., I've been staring at this screen for an indeterminable amount of hours and just have those Late Night thoughts running through my head. The ones you don't pay attention to in the day, the feeling you get in your brain and body that alludes the consciousness during sunlight hours.

And they're not bad.

And they're not good.

It's just fatigue at this point.

My emotions are dictated by which song is playing and I'm just thankful I can let that happen and that I know all the words.

no, scratch that. too tired to say that and have it be true right now.