| For posterity. |
[08 Oct 2011|05:43pm] |
I wish I could give you a repair manual. Or show you the beauty in every day things. Or tell you about the strange things that have been happening. I spend too much time grazing, holding only a handful of words. The bigger the word, the more it weighs. Someone else always says it best.
I transferred out of UCSB, and I currently study art history in my own little corner of Los Angeles. I spend a lot of time sitting in the dark, looking at paintings of Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes (Artemisia's is my favorite) or contemplating the symbolic nature of cigarette smoke. You can only trap it in your lungs for so long, you know. It has got to come out some time.
This has all been good for me, I suppose. I even wrote a poem. Kites, letting go. I let up a chuckle on a thin white string.
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[02 May 2010|08:36pm] |
Yesterday I went over to Anita's. I had offered to help her move to an apartment today. She and Will are separated, for the time being. Apparently, the two of them go through valleys like this every so often. Being apart for a while is the best medicine, she told me, though sometimes the remedy is worse than the disease. It's strange for her to wake up in the middle of the night, only to find herself alone. After we finished unpacking, we drank tea and listened to music. Anita introduced me to the music of Mariee Sioux, whom she thought I would enjoy. It just so happens that I do; I tend to like female folk musicians. Karen Dalton, Alela Diane, Vashti Bunyan... all of them. I've been listening to Faces in the Rocks all evening.
It was just beautiful today, perfect for driving with the windows rolled all the way down. I drove through the orange groves, my only regret being that my hair is too short to whip around and stick to my lips. I love it if I can drive fast enough for my breath to catch in my throat. This isn't very safe, but it's when I feel most free. I live this close to death.
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[29 Apr 2010|10:17pm] |
1) Once I read an article about Sibylle Baier's album, Colour Green. She recorded it as a young woman in the seventies, but it went unheard by virtually anyone until her son discovered it some thirty years later and gave it to a recording company. This story has had a certain effect on me, in a way in which I cannot textually pin. Her voice was stashed away, most likely hidden in someone's closet in Germany.
2) I want to write a book, but not a real book. Just a book that will incorporate some things I'm good at, because my sickening writings will not be able to stand alone. I know it, and you know it, too.
3) It's a good thing I'm alone. I'd drive you positively bananas.
P.S.
Remember when I was in love with Anne Frank? I haven't read her diary in ages; I miss her terribly.
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[24 Apr 2010|07:50pm] |
I had the day off work today, and Aunt Abra and Eli are staying over for the weekend. Spending time with Eli now, I can't help but think about how much I'm going to miss him when I leave for Santa Barbara this fall. He's grown so tall; Aunt Abra brought us a picture of the pencil marks on the wall of the garage, measuring his height. He keeps grasshoppers and praying mantises in lidless jars, and draws pictures of dragons on the backs of envelopes. His newest obsession is The Chronicles of Narnia book series. Aunt Abra reads a chapter to him every night before he goes to bed.
I haven't read the books in years, but I think about them sometimes and how they made me feel. My mother used to read them to my sisters and I when we were little, too. Before going to sleep, we'd squeeze together in my twin size bed, and mom would tell us about lamp posts and lions and magic rings. I used to dream about these stories, dancing around in my nightgown with Lucy and Mr. Tumnus, tasting Turkish Delight on my lips (even though I had never eaten it before, and have yet to).
I can't describe the feeling of loss when I woke from these dreams to find myself in my own bedroom, surrounded by the same four walls, the same leaky faucet in the kitchen dripping one floor below. It sounds ridiculous, but wait until it happens to you. Maybe it already has.
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[06 Feb 2010|10:20pm] |
More rain. Dylan and I spent the day warm and dry at the County Museum, looking at fossils and petroglyphs, and other things people left behind. We wondered what natural history museums will contain in the future, what will be considered important anthropological artifacts: a poorly constructed Lady Gaga Halloween costume, maybe? A binder filled with Pokémon cards, kept in pristine condition since 1999? I don't mean to trivialize, but it's quite strange for me to think that the time we're living in now will someday be ancient history.
I haven't been to this museum since I visited on a fourth grade field trip, and it wasn't at all as I remembered it. There were an awful lot of dead animals - birds, especially. Hundreds of them, positioned on fake branches behind glass. It was unnerving, for me at least. All that lost flight.
When we got home, Dylan strummed cross-legged on the floor, and I lay on my bed, eyes rolling back into my head. I couldn't stop thinking about symmetry and naturalism, and how the body can be split into seven sections, all based on a system of mathematical proportions. I imagine my body being diced into separate but equal pieces, taxidermists examining each muscle, bone, tendon, freckle. Cutting me open and stuffing me with cotton.
It is said that all aspects of life have underlying meanings and patterns, and it is our duty as human beings to discover them. And I'm trying. You gotta believe me!
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[28 Jan 2010|10:57pm] |
The other night, Dylan and I watched Requiem, a fictionalized account of the life of Anneliese Michel, a deeply religious girl who suffered severe epileptic seizures and came to believe she was demonically possessed. It was one of those sad, quiet films I come across once in a while. The kind of movie that curls up inside my chest, and gives me a desperate feeling I can't shake. It reminded me of a time when I studied Catholicism obsessively. I read books about priests and saints and others of that pious sort. I watched Polish documentaries about Anneliese. I listened to recordings of her exorcism in the dark, clutching my laminated Blessed Mother prayer cards to my heart. I wanted everything I did to perpetuate goodness.
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| Nothing in particular. |
[22 Jan 2010|04:46pm] |
I woke up this morning on my back, my pillow pushed into the crevice between the edge of my bed and the wall. No wonder my neck is sore. I was the first one up. The entire house was eerily quiet, except for the murmuring of the television set, left on overnight. I walked downstairs, noticed playing cards strewn across the kitchen table in an unfinished game of Solitaire. No activity, no people. I felt like a trespasser. I realized I could have easily crept back up to my room or let myself out of the house and no one would have known I was there. I left without a trace just the same.
I feel lonely. The nice sort of lonely though, which is like a yearning that wriggles around in your ribs and stomach, and doesn't sour for weeks.
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[03 Jan 2010|12:15pm] |
Rode my bicycle down to the bakery this morning and bought a dozen doughnuts for Sarah and I to share over the next few days, balancing the pink cardboard box on the handlebars. I came home to my mother, weeping quietly at the kitchen table. My grandfather, my father's father, died last night of a stroke.
I didn't know him very well, as we didn't speak that often after my dad died. All the memories I have of him date back to when I was a child, little bulbs of recognition that flash across my mind every so often. Just little things, like gestures and idiosyncrasies. I remember sitting on his lap as a toddler, pounding the keys of the family piano. He smelled of stale coffee and Ivory soap. He did very little with himself after retiring: he'd mow the lawn, a package of cigarettes rolled into his sleeve, and water the plants lined up on the living room windowsill. He kept a copy of TV Guide on the armrest of his easy chair. Sometimes he would take my sisters and I to the drugstore for an ice cream cone. We'd pile in the backseat of the Oldsmobile afterward, licking the sticky spots on our wrists where the vanilla had dripped.
The most vivid memory I have of him is the night of my dad's accident. Once he heard the news, he and my grandmother drove six hours straight to our house in Richmond. He sat on the porch step with my mom, his hand pushing back what little hair remained on his head. "Sons are not supposed to die before their fathers." He rubbed the pendant on his Star of David necklace with his thumb. "Who will carry on?"
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[29 Dec 2009|04:06pm] |
Christmas was memorable, because it was the first I didn't spend with my immediate family. On Christmas Eve, Dylan and I drove up to Big Bear with a few of his friends and Katie. We put our money together to rent a cabin, which we had to reserve several months back. Most of our time was spent stepping in each others footprints and figuring out how to work a popcorn popper. Each of us were instructed to bring a small gift for one other person, with two conditions: that it would be cheap and silly. I gave away a pack of holographic trading cards, and received a glow in the dark yo-yo. We ate Christmas dinner at this kooky little restaurant in Big Bear Village, stuffed into a booth and sharing a pizza. Dylan caught the winter air in a glass jar, Katie played Joni Mitchell on her guitar. I hope so much for the people I love.
Nora is home for the New Year's holiday, a whirlwind following closely at her heels, as always. She took me to M&C Liquors to buy a bottle of champagne for midnight. A Basset hound was lying on his side behind the counter. I could see him through the glass storefront from across the parking lot, and he saw me, too. I didn't see anyone out front, so I just walked in like I owned the place and knelt behind the counter, petting him until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. Other than this, I don't have much to report. The space between Christmas and New Year's stretches on for miles.
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[27 Nov 2009|03:17pm] |
This may be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
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[14 Nov 2009|08:49pm] |
Low-slung Blues
Songs with a touch of melancholy.
( +++ )
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[06 Oct 2009|08:06pm] |
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There is no geographical solution to unhappiness.
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[23 Sep 2009|09:29pm] |
I've been busy researching universities, meeting with counselors, studying for the SAT subject tests. I bounce around in the usual way like everyone else, yet I can't shake the feeling that none of this feels like it's really happening to me. Just think - a mere five years ago, at this very time, I was a greasy-haired twelve year old, sleeping in a tent in Monterey with Nora beside me. I learned how God loves His children by digging in the Earth, and how to roast vegetables on a portable Coleman grill. That was important. Now this is.
P.S. Saw Into the Wild for the first time a few days ago, and if you haven't seen it, you really should. It's quite inspiring.
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[26 Aug 2009|10:08pm] |
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[14 Aug 2009|07:19pm] |
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I've felt so out of sorts lately, like only half of me is in my body, going though my daily motions. I think I remember this feeling, as I tend to experience a similar emotional up-and-down this time of year. Nothing tastes quite as good, nothing outside is quite as bright. Sleeping feels manageable, if it wasn't so damn boring. I spend mornings on my stomach, propped up on my elbows, flipping through science magazines filled with glossy photographs of sea spiders and clams. I've been listening to Janis Joplin in large doses these past few days, cocooning myself inside her rough voice. It seems to contain a bit of what little truth exists in the world. I don't think I'll ever love any singer's voice as much as I do hers.
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[06 Aug 2009|06:13pm] |
Strike Another Match
Songs for the end of one chapter, and the beginning of the next; leaving and starting again.
( + )
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| I finished reading The Virgin Suicides. |
[29 Jul 2009|01:55pm] |
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"The essence of the suicides consisted not of sadness or mystery but simple selfishness. The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind."
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| I think I love you. |
[27 Jul 2009|01:52pm] |
She's like a cheap mood lamp: hypnotic and consistent.
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| Alex found a bunny. |
[21 Jul 2009|10:49pm] |
The little guy took shelter from the sun underneath one of the porch chairs out back. We're going through something of a heatwave here in my little pocket of California, which calls for midday naps and cold showers. I spend my mornings in bed, thinking about Dylan. I set aside a half hour for him, just after the sun rises, images of him and I spinning around a two-bit film strip in my brain. I try not to think about him the rest of the day.
But sometimes I'll be reminded. A word, a glance, a touch will set off a paper chain of memories. A familiar breeze will blow in from the right coast. When I am too busy, sleeping through my unfilled hours, trying to find a cold spot on my pillow, watching the sun slip away through the blinds that have remained shut all season - I remember. When it comes down to the end of the day, I seem to be left with myself. I can cause a lot of trouble being alone.
Alex and I spent most of yesterday afternoon watching space-themed movies on TCM and documentaries on the Apollo moon walk. I wish I was an astronaut. My extreme interest/slight obsession with all things outer space certainly gives me the spirit of one, or so I think. If only I could go back in time... plus, I really love any old footage of NASA scientists circa the 1960's. Love, love it.
I just don't know what to do with myself, except sit in the dark and play with my old Lite-Brite. How about you? Do you want to drink cheap wine with me? And sit out on the grass for a few hours or more? And talk about all the people who look so careless and happy? And wonder how they do that?
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