so this is the new year...

1) "everything you want" - vertical horizon

2) "wherever you will go" - the calling

3) "one headlight" - the wallflowers

4) "(absolutely) story of a girl" - nine days

5) "she's so high" - tal bachman

6) "if you could only see" - tonic

7) "dare you to move" - switchfoot

8) "you're a god" - verticle horizon

9) "wherever you will go" - the calling

thursday

i am counting

every day like it's something to pass.

i woke up after a twenty minute nap i never realized i was taking... you know the kind, where you wake up entirely unaware that you were asleep. it was already dark, and it was barely after five pm. i flicked on some bon iver and knocked back the rest of my sunny delight; something in the back of my mind hoped it would make the sun come back the way i remember it did in all the commercials growing up.

after staring out the window at the space needle glowing in the greyish darkened sky, i pulled myself together and realized "this is it". i'm getting somewhere, but i'm not there yet. i have a lot to do.

then i wondered, am i always going to be stuck in this feeling that i am always searching? is this a feeling that i should be pleased with? i washed some dishes and played the music that reminded me of the summer i felt freed. i grabbed my planner, packed a bag, and made a mental not to sit down and make a list of everything i needed to accomplish to hit a turning point.

sunday secrets

anyone who gets to hear me talk in real life, get to run into me in real life, or gets to wait behind me in the magazine aisle in the store can easily guess that i am in love with beautiful clothes. i'm not sure if "fashion" is the right word for what i'm in love with, since fashion encompasses trends, designers, magazines, hipsters, and run-of-the-mill blogs; lovely clothing and interesting clothing are what i secretly love.

anyway, here's a photo from fashion week that everyone and their mother already know about, nicki minaj and anna wintour (editor in chief of american vogue):

i love how nicki's top is actually a similar but more outrageous interpretation of what anna's wearing. two icons from two planets, side by side. i love this. but it's a secret.

thoughts on images, part 2

i spent my entire junior high and high school years concerned about losing weight, and now that i'm years past recovery, i weigh less than i did when it all began. i don't know where it went or how it happened, but i am aware i dropped a significant amount of my body weight since i started getting my life back together. i do not think they are related; i don't think i lost weight because i got my life together or vice versa, but the fact that i don't know what happened draws out some sort of uncertainty. i prefer knowing what is happening to myself.

some things make me want to punch you in the face

other things make me realize i'm a better person

sometimes, these two things are actually the same thing.

up & up

he wrote

to me about michelangelo. the loveliest things would slip from his mind onto the keyboard, onto paper, onto the pavement. anywhere. he was like a bit of energy that would leave a glowing trail of himself everywhere he went. he would glow everywhere he went, but it wasn't the sort of lightness you could recognize. you had to look for it. you had to really see him. he was an unconventional bit, radiating unbeknownst to himself. beautiful things are like that: unaware of how wonderful they are. and that's how he was, unconventionally everything and unaware.

and he wrote to me about michelangelo, but not how we were similar, but rather how he connected both myself and the artist. i wanted to keep every moment in a jar. the whole time was like trying to keep sand from falling between my fingers, but being too drawn to the faintest of sparkling it made when it moved from my hands back to the ground. he was like the sand itself, i guess. he belonged everywhere.

( __________ )

first thought

alone:

can i just drink this straight?

/night

walk me to barcelona

in autumn

when the weather proves to be too cool for one

and too lonely to stroll alone.

walk me somewhere near spain

and soon

and maybe then

i can find my way across the ocean.

come quickly,

walk me till my knees are weak from

dragging this weary soul across the shore.

walk me till i have no question

of who you are and who i am not.

walk me till we see the trees

and the seas are waving lovely goodbyes.

walk me till we never say goodbye

and then...

whisper me silent love songs

when our feet are too tired to carry on.

when we near where we are going,

dear,

tell me you love me.

read me every book you've read,

we'll part the reeds and find out way

and then

sing me the rest of the way

to spain.

this isn't working

i thought

if i worked really hard at something

and did really well

i would leave feeling really good about it

and myself

and everything.

but i go to work every day

and i work my ass off

and i do really well

and everyone tells me i'm doing well

but i don't leave feeling like i've accomplished anything.

this work isn't working.

when am i going to figure out how to make this all feel worthwhile?

thoughts on images, part one

rarely will i post photos of myself on my blog. i thought i could do a photo a day as i went through my (ridiculously large) collection of band tees, but i got bored with writing about that so i dropped it (but still went through a month or two wearing a different band tee every day). i think i thought that if i was tracking my physical progress through something, it would make my own means of tracking my internal growth more tangible. this, of course, isn't how things work, and i came back to the realization that my image and my thoughts are entirely separate vehicles of expression.

when i think more about it, i guess i feel like seeing my face will somehow distract or influence what i write, and whether that's positive or negative, i'd like to steer clear from that. i like the way words sound and look and feel when you say them and read them. i like the way words paint their own pictures when you don't have any pictures to base them off of. i like the thought that someone is out there reading this in their own voice and trying to figure out the tone to read each word and which ones to emphasize, and perhaps even what sort of facial expressions come along with each idea. you don't need to see a picture of me to do any of this, and perhaps if you had one, your own thoughts wouldn't be able to stir properly.

everything seem to be accompanied by an image as well. think of everything you buy, think of how the new york times seem so much more captivating with a lovely photo.

words alone begin to be terrifying when you're left to deal with them yourself.

the board game.

let's play a game called "pull yourself together and pretend everything's fucking fantastic even though you're having the shit chewed out of you every other night." we'll make the rules simple, dress yourself up in every goddamn outfit that makes you look fucking fantastic everyday, and ten extra points if you throw on a pair of heels and get your make up perfect. you win if you've pulled a fast one on everyone and nail this.

let's play a game called "one cup half empty" where you pretend it's half full the whole damn time. let's make up rules and number them one through six and have them go as followed:

fake

it

till

you

make

it.

let's wrap it up in a lovely package and sell it as something beautiful, and let everyone know that the beautiful thing about mastering this game is that even in your worst, you can manage to pull yourself together when everyone else needs you more. let's say this game lasts about a month or so. let's say you can't play with friends, they couldn't catch on. when they say "too much" and "attention" right after one another, you pass. you could try and explain the rules, but if they want to be best friends AND shoot you down when you explain what's going on, is it worth it?

--------------------

--------------------

--------------------

let's cut the bullshit and get to the point:

conflicts that drag on for over a few months blow.

stress and conflict that manage to maintain themselves for nine months and more are exhausting and heavy on the heart.

sometimes i can't handle it all on my own.

sometimes i just need to be around people/places/things that aren't weighed down to heavily by all of this, and i'm starting to think that's too much to depend on.

so i'll just do everything by my goddamn self.

today i realized if i can foresee and ending point, this doesn't all feel so weighty and morose, and perhaps if i pretends it's a game i have to feign my optimism though, then maybe i can make it out okay.

so everything's fucking fantastic.

and if it's not, it has to be... it just does.

one two three four

could've been better focused

(it's a metaphor, fool).

summertime & stay 18 forever

Nietzsche, I am in love (with your words)

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' "

all at once

i kept

all the sweet things in a file. girls do that i think. all the sweet nothings that might have meant something if i had any patience. i'm slipping. not down, just out. i'm slipping too fast and too far from anything recognizable, and it's the same damn problem i keep running into, but they're not really problems, they're just things that don't have solutions yet. the thing is, i keep slipping too far away and it's like i can't recognize the things i have and what they are anymore because

because

the measuring rod by which i kept track of what lovely and love were

have changed

or shifted

or been taken down.

after things got bad at home, i haven't been able to figure out anything anymore.

patience

is the one thing i will never be able to keep much of, and with that i am certain i will never be able to keep anyone close. i keep everyone at bay. that's the worst of it all; i keep everyone at bay and with that it seems to be my most gracious company. i can count in my head the handful who have stuck through, one of whom is living with me, another few scattered around the state.

i think

i think i fear anyone getting too close again

because

i still can't get over how much i lost myself the last time and i don't want that to happen

(again

again

again)...

...

"you need too much attention" he said. they could kill if they were anything but words.

"that's too easy" i thought, and i thought more about how i need someone who can put up a better fight. attention is easy to give and easy for me to live without (the sullen bay being my most giving of company). calling it attention would be too easy, and maybe i just gave up with it being a simple name for something so much bigger.

the webs we weave ourselves can either bind us else...

"it's not attention i need" i thought. i didn't have the energy to argue so i let it go. sometimes that's all the beauty we can find: the letting go. the truth was that i didn't know what any of it looked like anymore. i didn't know how to say "everything you've told me i've heard before and had my heart broken worse", and i didn't know how to tell him "everything you've done for me i've had done before" because the truth cuts deeper than anyone wants to talk about. he could have told me every day for a hundred years i was something, but i'm lots of things to lots of different people, maybe seven hundred years worth of different things to different people. i didn't need attention, i needed to know why this was any different from anything else. i'd been told too many times before that someone's wanted to keep me forever, so much so that forever means nothing.

everything's been stripped of meaning.

i needed definition.

that's something i lost a long time ago, and have been stumbling in and out of relationships (boyfriends, family, friendships and otherwise) trying to figure out. "it's great that i'm special, but why am i special to you." i was awful. maybe i still am. i don't need attention. i don't need structure. maybe i just need someone who knows what the hell they're doing.

i guess i just need someone willing to fight me for me.

i don't want any of that world back

but i don't know where i stand anymore.

tell your fiance i'm sure she's lovely

but please don't bother telling her about me.

i push everyone away when they get too close

because

the closest relationships i have these days seem to be

all sorts of backwards and i can't keep up.

i just realized this and damn near had a heart attack.

i have no idea what the fuck i'm doing.

we were never here

i'm starting to feel like there must be something inherently wrong with the way i see things.

not everything.

just some things and other things.

i feel like i keep coming back to the same starting point while still spiraling upwards. like my life is taking me back to the same points even though i've already passed them, that i'm being brought back to the same events to have some sort of "do-over" with better knowledge. i bet some people hope and dream of having these opportunities presented to them, maybe a lot of people do, i don't know. do you sit back and think "i wish i could do that situation over again, i would do things differently this time around" or "if i knew back then what i know now, it would all be different"? i feel like a fair amount of time i give myself do-overs (and why not? i make my own reality), but other times i am certain life is playing some awful trick on me and i'm forced to take one step forward and two back, all the while working with the knowledge i have gained in the meantime.

but do you ever wonder "if i knew back then what i know now..." and think that maybe things would end up the exact same anyhow? that no matter how much knowledge or wisdom you gain between any amount of space or time, that if you're put in the same situation again, it will just always end the same? even if you change every bit of the situation on your end, if the input of the opposing factor remains the same, the end results can't change.

i've been thinking about this a lot.

...and will it happen again?

texts from last night

"i feel like i have no reason to be. having already been for 23 years is less and less a convincing enough argument to make it to 24."

go ahead. ask me how my day's been.

i've had this text from last night

from one of my best friends

on my mind all morning.

and he called to spend quality time,

..."seek not hours to kill but hours to live..."

but what falls through keeps falling.

so i work.

a lot.

so i don't have to think about this.

coffee talk

i haven't talked about coffee in a while.

unfortunately, a lot of this has to do with not working with coffee anymore (in fact, i don't think i've talked much coffee since i jumped ships with blogs).

here enters the verisimo 801:

officially? not a bad machine... if it were 2005 and its plastic parts didn't clip off so easily in the middle of a downtown seattle rush. also not bad if it's double wands were covered or could move about more freely. maybe if the hoppers were larger that would be better, or if it wasn't an automatic machine altogether. honestly? i hate this machine. starbucks started replacing their semi-automatic machines with these bad boys a few years back and i have to say, "training" on these machines is a lot faster, but there's no real coffee experience when you get to the bottom of it. baristas trained on these machines lose the knowledge of what effort goes into making coffee, and on top of that the flavor extraction is bitter.

every time.

so boys and girls are "learning" about coffee but the real art was lost as soon as these machines moved in. while starbucks have moved on to bigger and (admittedly) better automatic machines i can't help but ask, was the loss of real, honest coffee experiences worth the automatic upgrade? i can't say it was worth it.

bikini kill etc

my mind's wandering... no words yet today.

(untitled)

i know everyone and their mother listens to this song, but god she's lovely:

the book of three

"leave all your love and your longing behind, you can't carry it with you if you want to survive"

foursquare

"i couldn't tell if i was a masochist or an optimist"

i am here again.

if i was just more of everything...

shit.

cheshire

"the loneliness, it's palpable"

what resonates is significant to what is hidden in our core. the very things that move us can keep us from moving, from breathing. what is it about these things? i can't find the words to pin down or define explicitly what they are, but there are things there within our own selves that are instinctual and so much a part of who we are... what sort of things have we kept from our own animal instincts that we can no longer tap into? what sort of things move and halt us that we are so programmed to overlook as animals that use (and maybe overuse) our intellect?

it's a curious and beautiful heartache all at once.

it's not a loneliness of human contact, because that is for certain something i do not have. is it recognition of things that i know i will never have? i know i'm a stubborn hopeless romantic. it's something in the air breathe in and out when i walk down the streets of seattle in the early morning and fall in love with. it's something i feel underneath and throughout lovely songs that is separate and still entirely a part of the music.

"i wear my garments so it shows, and i know only love is all maroon..."

it's nothing i can write about honestly right now, first because i don't know, and second because i do.

hush that fuss

it's been a rough week or so.

i don't know why, i just don't feel like type-writing. i haven't been inspired enough to write a letter to one of my dearest friends, and i have writing just to fill space. i've been getting my fill of creative outlets: i've been dancing more (again, thank god), reading, drawing, and taking a hell of a lot more photography than usual. i've been working a whole hell of a lot, and i've been broke as all hell for the last few weeks.

i have to psyche myself out to eat top ramen.

that broke.

but it feels good, you know? it feels good to be on my own, to figure out how to take care of myself.

soundtrack for the latter part of this day:

1) "my lovin' (never gonna get it)" - en vogue

2) "i wanna be down" (remix) - brandy featuring mc lyte, yoyo, and queen latifah

3) "if your girl only knew" - aaliyah

4) "the rain (supa dupa fly)" - missy elliott

5) "rosa parks" - outkast

6) "don't walk away" - jade

7) "whatta man" - salt 'n' pepa featuring en vogue

8) "no scrubs" - tlc

9) "try again" - aaliyah featuring timbaland

you know.

early 90's sort of evening...

i'll write about a love i never had.

in the morning i'll give you a call

when i decide whether or not we can still talk

(or be in love)

or any of the other half-winded movements

we made up to get by, and then...

and then maybe we can talk about how i loved

(and you loved)

and how we almost always fell in love with

how

we both wanted the whole stretch of the universe

(for ourselves but not for us, my love).

and then we can sift through the silence and the static when

we can both touch (and go) on how

it never came to us because we dreamt

with our eyes open

and breathed in a stagnant air

we only caught in between dreaming and living.

and i hate you for everything you made me give up

to be anything but myself

and i love every goddamned false image

i built up around you

so i wouldn't have to think about what we aren't.

and i'll write about a broken heart i never had,

but maybe then i can figure out why you stop and start

the way you always did

and never will around me again.

and why'd we stretch so far?

i could never not love the way

you move in the morning

and i could never love the way you won't.

love me love me

one more for good measure

"fuck this is awesome"

out finding life.

i need to develop my film and my heart.

finally found me

I can't believe this came out of the 90's.

This is absolutely everything I'm listening to right now.

It makes me wonder what other music I could fall in love with

that I might never find?

night terrors

the last few nights i've been having this same dream play over and over again:

i'm at my high school prom with this guy i was crazy about when i was 14...15....16..... and every night it takes place in a castle or a large, large house... think harry potter or beauty and the beast but no fun. every night i run up and down the hallways looking for someone, dragging my prom date around trying to convince him that something really really bad is going to happen, but never able to tell him what because i don't know. one night i walked into a room with no floor or ceiling or walls or anything, just pitch black... nothingness. another night i walked outside to a flogging molly concert underwater, and i couldn't breathe and there was no way to get out of the water so i was drowning. one time everything just froze and i couldn't move or breathe or talk.

the same "outline" of events always happen: going to prom with so-and-so, getting lost in a large house franticly looking to stop something "bad" that i can't predict, walking into an area where i lose all of my senses... but after what seems like forever i always manage to get out of the third "leg" of my dream when i discover what the awful thing is that is about to happen: everyone is being murdered.

at this point i rush backwards through all the events of my dream that had happened that night. if before you die your entire life flashes before you, this is similar but backwards... does that make sense? things stop racing backwards when i get back toward the beginning of my dream when i just arrive a "prom". it's horribly morbid: i walk into the room where prom is taking place to find people across the ground, and i'm never sure if they're all actually dead or just passed out, but the other guests keep dancing and having a good time like nothing's gone wrong. sometimes the people on the floor are missing limbs or their innards, sometimes they're not. sometimes i'm certain a handful are dead, other times i'm watching from a distance and can't really be certain (my eyesight it poor both in real life and in my dream world). i'm never after who or what has caused this to happen; the dream always ends with my looking over all the people wondering what the hell is going on.

at this point i wake myself up either crying or trying to yell or whimpering.

these dreams are terrifying, not only because of all the obviously morbid events, but because they're different from what my "normal" dreams consist of. usually at night i dream i'm running away from someone or something, and sometimes it's a fantastic adventures, sometimes it's flat out boring, sometimes it's a nightmare, sometimes it's just trying to avoid running into an ex on the street. the thing is... i always know what i'm running from and that i'm running from something... hardly ever am i entirely unaware of what IT is, much less am i ever running toward something.

dreams are odd.

last night prom was in russia on top of some sort of eiffel tower structure.

it was a nice change of scenery at least.

performance art

dear readers, after five years of making coffee i have taken my first job doing something entirely different: i am a maker of sandwiches. the best part is that it's still performance art.

this is what i'm listening to and falling in love with

right the hell now.

big things are coming

now that i have funding for life again.

more later...

bread and butter

cheering with a stranger for nothing in particular,

and too disowned to know you're never alone.

but there it stands: a breathing end

counting seventy times back again.

i think i heard the birds calling

your name

in the quietest moment of the daytime

when i'd forgotten about you.

if i could write lovely things about you all day

i guess i'd spend my time wondering if you really existed

or if

i was in love with the honest things that weren't

about you; the things we hold onto anyway

because it reminds us that

love is more than just a verb

and maybe then that

it's there if we're patient and...

maybe still...

a whole lotta nothin

it's a shattering feeling, but not leaving me feeling broken. it's a shattering feeling like... like the earth or the sky or my self broke open and i can finally get it.

it's something.

it followed when i realized "this is something everyone's doing right now and i can't do this". but who is everyone?

more later.

It's a Draw

it's a toss up really. a draw would mean both sides would have given a good fight.

oh you make lists, too?

things i absolutely have to do today:

1) finish my homework

2) go grocery shopping

3) put my belongings where they belong

4) do the dishes

5) buy film for that camera i fell in love with and then fell out of love with and then fell in love with again

6) follow up on those people i bothered about hiring me.

what? you don't make lists?

oh lord have mercy on my soul

"she's the devil."

i had no idea what she meant, mostly because it'd been a long time since i'd had a belief that involved a satan in a personified form. theology does that to you i guess... or maybe it doesn't, but it did that to me. "she's the devil," she kept saying, like maybe i would begin to believe it if she said it more. i didn't, but i loved her all the same. if there's any evil forces in my life, they're the ones that creep up on me when i don't have enough sleep, when it's early in the morning, and i can feel a hangover coming on. it would be the things that sneak up on me in my weakest hours when i'm certain all that's connecting this moment to the next is my chain smoking and the coffee brewing.

nobody is the devil and

g-d didn't put shackles on our feet, they sang.

no, we do that ourselves.

no. she's not the devil. nobody is. if there's something evil in this world it's our inability to let our instincts kick in. it's the thing that forces us to think too much and not at all. it's the thing that reasons we'll feel better in the morning when we know we won't. it's the fear you build up and never want to let go of because you're afraid there might be nothing left when you release it. it's the walls you build up when you're afraid to believe in something greater than yourself. it's everything you use to hold yourself back, but it's something you make up... not something that's forced upon you.

for me. for now anyway.

these things are manmade, and so is it...

it's the brokenness of our universe at best,

but it's still something we can make and shape and change.

g-d didn't put cuffs on our hands either, i heard.

diet

i'm pretty damn broke.

i'm on this college diet called "buy what's cheap and hope it works", and i'm pretty sure most middle-class twenty-somethings go through it when their thirst for knowledge overrides their hunger for decent nutrition. i go grocery shopping enough to make sure i'm getting enough fruits and vegetables, and i'm learning enough to know i'll care more about where my food's coming from once i can earn enough money to support my concerns. i'm on a diet called "i don't care about anything physically because my mental stability is all that matters". it weans you off the bullshit and makes you think about what actually matters.

you practice it in high school - everything is either so damn important or nothing at all, and the tragedy is that nothing's really that important most of the time unless your adulthood breaches itself on you prematurely and you have to care about adult things before you understand why or how.
and i'm on this diet called "i don't give a shit about you anymore" and it involved feigning interest. i'm slowly weaning myself off caring about anything involving you. breaking it down, i don't know why i still give a shit. i really really don't. half the time i feel like i'm just feigning my care because it's downright in my nature to care about every damn thing. and i do. just not this... or at least i don't want to... badly enough that i just don't care one way or the other what the shit happens. or how the hell i act. or anything. i don't have any way of measuring my progress or knowing whether or not this is worth occupying my precious living-waking minutes, but... hell... if something bigger comes along (and that's not saying much because there's so much more to this world than me or it) i'll have a tougher skin and a better attitude. i'll be able to navigate my concerns in a more constructive manner. i can't tell whether i actually give a shit or i'm pretending so badly so that i don't have to think about anything else, but at this point it's a diet of the mind.

cut out what doesn't matter.

the tragedy of twenty-something is that everything matters.

one hundred truths for every one lost in the cave

i think i know what i want and that scares me...

...because what if it's not what i want at all?

have i conditioned myself to think i want something?

have i convinced myself i don't actually want the things i do?

time flies

let us remember this moment in time

that i was writing about liberation

and feared the morning.

let us remember the moment

i ate cold chili from a tupperware

contemplating my next move on something

that always feels next to impossible,

and the irony that

i'd just discovered oppression is not a response of divine things,

but rather a reaction of people by people

and i was only moments ago frustrated

with something i feel i cannot escape or change.

enlightenment and deliverance comes in all forms,

creatively.

here, through tupperware and cold chili.

sea of words//cortez cortez

it was a combination of everything: music to live for, a crusty venue i'd been existing off of since i was in high school, good company, probably more to drink than i should've had, the city, the nighttime, and a thousand bodies pressed up against the stage to feel and smell and breathe the music.

it was good. really good. not like the "my spirits are lifted" good but like.... "today is the sort of day that's worth living a few more times through, and it's gonna fuel my spirits for a long time" good. good like fresh coffee. good like the sun and the rain all at once.

really good.

"nothing can go wrong" good.

but the sea of words tumbled out as soon as i started getting tired and comfortable and they just... ran far and long and off without me. it was like watching a movie in a dream in really slow motion--- the kind of dream where you try and get up and leave but your feet move too slow. i opened my mouth and the words tumbled out, and i could hear them move faster than my brain could stop them.

the night ended in a terrible argument and honestly? that didn't even matter. all i was hung up on the following morning was the fact that i admitted it.

i downed a few glasses of water mulling over what i'd said. maybe nobody heard. maybe they didn't remember. maybe we can just go on pretending i didn't say anything. i filled my glass again - things were still good... they always are if you let them be.

everything changed since i was eighteen except for that and i had to go on and admit it.

mother of mercy.

more later.

i am in love

i am in love

right the hell now

with this music.

Go Ahead:

ask me what i believe in.

i'm ill, not sick.

"this is bullshit" i thought to myself. i'd been lying in bed for three or four day, only getting up to make the occasional peanut butter and jelly or when i thought i was going crazy and needed air. i'd been sick, but i'd been wondering if maybe i was on the downhill roll toward being depressed.

bullshit.

i don't have time to be sick OR depressed.

it's hard to explain of you haven't really experienced it. being depressed i mean. it's like any other illness, it comes out of nowhere and sort of sucks you dry. it's exhausting being in it but it's exhausting trying to pull yourself out of it, and even though people say "just snap out of it"... you.... can't. either way, i didn't have time for any of it, i had a shit ton of deadlines to make and i didn't have time to be sick. or depressed.

dammit.

i walked to school a few times just to pretend i was okay. do you ever do that? just try and pretend you're fine even though it's obvious nothing's alright? i could feel my eyes bloodshot from allergies and sinus infections, my nose was running and raw from blowing it every other minute, my whole body ached.

"i'll just pretend i'm fine," i told myself. who the hell doesn't do that, right? i got dressed, put on make up, packed my backpack and went to emerald city smoothie. perfect. energy boost, vitamin c, and some protein: just what i need. i'd be fine in no time!

"i'm great! i'm doing fantastic! i'm terrific!" i kept telling myself, "i'll just trick myself into feeling better! this is gonna be easy!" after i finished my smoothie i realized drinking it had worn me out. always stubborn to admit when anything's wrong, i kept trying to remind myself everything would be okay soon. "i'm great! i'm doing fantastic! i'm going to make all my deadlines for homework! i can do this!"

i finally made it to the school library and got to the stairwell- i ALWAYS take the stairs over the elevator. i looked at all of them and all of a sudden i felt like i was in one of those really bad dreams where you're trapped running up or down stairs forever, and it's really a pain-in-the-ass sort of nightmare.

they all are.

"this is bullshit. i'm sick and there's nothing i can do to pretend i'm not."

soup&salad

since i'd moved out, we'd made a point to have dinner together at least once a week, but she'd been gone down to the city i'd left pieces of my heart all over, and so it'd become less frequent than either of us had hoped.

we were splitting something pretty normal: salad and chicken noodle soup. neither of us really had the energy for much creativity, and we were more focused on just existing off of each other. it's been pretty rough for all of us.

"those girls were always so condescending, weren't they..." she said, more an observation than a question. it was true. i'd been mulling over a friend's birthday this weekend and was bouncing my thoughts off of her. i love my friend dearly, but i'd always got the impression a friend of hers looked down at me because i never treated high school like a grand competition. pettiness aside, my friend was the most important thing, so i'd decided to go. screw what other people think.

"yeah, kinda. i don't know. they liked to compare grades in high school and this person was always really shocked when i did well." it was true. how can high school girls be so mean? it's been ages since high school, but i was more than certain some things wouldn't change... why do people hold on to bullshit things like that? life's not a competition, and as the great words of baz luhrmann, "in the end it's only with yourself."

"you know..." i started, "...theres a kid in my theology class that seems pretty shocked when i turn in homework."

"why? you're pretty smart, you just always put yourself down." truth. when i was younger i was shipped around the state so i could take tests and be tested for my "intelligence". i blew everyone out of the goddamned water every time, but it just never seemed important if i wasn't doing anything with it... like helping people or changing the world or something.

"it's my attitude."

"what do you mean? i mean i know, but..."

"i just.... i'd rather people think i don't give a shit than know that there's things in my life i can't handle that are a million times more important." another truth - my life has always been like this. i basically sabotaged my grades my senior year of high school when my best friend was raped... how do you help someone through that? that was the first time i realized life can be (and often is) more important than a gpa. when a friend took his life two years ago..... even though we'd only recently made amends i still dropped out of school for a while to figure out how to deal and be the support for our best friend (there's never a way to "deal" with these things by the way).

and now.... now things are really bad, and i'd really rather everyone just think i have an attitude than know my world is falling apart.

she knew exactly what i was talking about.

more later.

jcs

i love this. i mean seriously, someone looked at this and said "dammit, if there is a heaven it's going to be full of dancing women and judas". i know it's corny but in a lot of regards i think jesus christ superstar is a pretty theologically sound movie.
happy easter:

love,
your favorite theology student

her voice///i die every time.

open letter

oh, you know who you are,

you promised me you wouldn't. do you remember those car rides? there were two of them. the first one was when we were driving home from fred meyers to the tree house. we were behind a school bus and i missed the turn (like i always did). you told me about him, you grew up with him, and then you lost him. i was young and i didn't know much about anything but i made you promise me you would never do that. the second one was in the parking lot of fred meyers a year and a half later. all i could say was "i remember you told me about him" and you promised me you wouldn't do it.

i'm not going to say you're the reason i don't trust anyone who holds promises: there's plenty better candidates for that. no. not you. hardly. we got along so well, we just didn't work. it's funny because i do the same damn thing now that i used to accuse you of doing. i fall off the face of the planet when i'm batshit terrified of the world. it's exhausting isn't it?

we had a lot in common.

we love her.

you see what i did there? you were always good at picking up on my subtleties because i dropped them so infrequently and deliberately. but you see what i did with that? that statement is intentionally remaining in the present.

the action of loving from both of us continues.

i don't know if talking to a ghost makes me batshit crazy, but i don't think there's any way to deal with this. i hardly knew you as well as she did and this is fucking tearing me up. i can't imagine how she's doing. i'm not writing this to push any blame on you, i'm just saying. i can't imagine. i guess i don't know where any of the three of us are with this, hardly either of you.

you know the funny thing? you're still alive with the glory of love.

love preserves everything.

this is not the end...

-me

speak easy

don't get too excited, i won't vlog much i just felt like talking instead of writing today. i don't particularly like listening to myself talk, but i needed to keep some sort of consistency with my thoughts/writing/creative outlet.

cheers!

more later.

simple questions

"hey! how have you been?"

when has a simple question ever received a simple answer?

"alive with the glory of love"

quoted from one of my favorite song writers, max bemis.

there's even a video to go along:

still writers block.

tons of hw.

more later, i promise i promise.

i feel like i've been all over the place

trying to capture all the words i let go

running around like they've been cast into the wind

before i set them all free.

to whom do i belong?

"who do you talk to?"

the words cut through everything and hit the floor deliberately. he always spoke with intention, even the times he wasn't sure what he was getting to. i'd spent the last three months working with him to try and put a talk together, and i'd taken pride in orchestrating a lot of the event... i wasn't about to answer, answering would mean that i was asking for help, and how much sense would that make if i'm the one who's supposed to be giving the help? then again, i hear pride's a sin.

"who do you talk to?"

he asked again. i was a mess. i had been for about the last two weeks, and i'd done a damn good job keeping it from everyone.... because honestly? i wasn't there for me, and nobody needed to hear what i was going through. as far as i've been concerned, a good leader is strong even when they feel they're breaking. i wasn't about to give in to my weaknesses, especially in front of my team.

who do i talk to? the question hit me hard. i can't even remember if i answered it.... chances are good i didn't. it hit me in the gut. it was too close to home. i don't talk to anyone anymore.

oh.

sure.

i talk a lot, and i talk a lot about things that aren't extremely important, and hell when i'm two or three down at a bar i can talk theology all night. but who do i talk to? the only answer i had was a brutal reality check:

i only "talk" to my therapist these days. more specifically, every other week on wednesday mornings. it's easier. for now.

i get into the most intimate details of my life, and over the last six months i've had them all twisted and thrown back at me. humiliating. when did people stop thinking logically or with care? i have nothing left to give in speaking, family and friends alike. everything's been used. i'm spent.

that's not to say that life is any less beautiful, and i've run out of love, but the very precious words that carry my thoughts have been torn up and cast out and..... if i can't keep anything lovely for myself, what then will my words hold? if my words are taken from me, then to whom do they belong? to whom do i belong?

2323232323

happy birthday to me :)

so damn fabulous

brushin my teeth.

small towns

I'll preface this post by noting that a lot has been going on. Most of the days I'm left feeling emotionally exhausted, a little scared, and in a roundabout way... content. I've moved to Seattle... out of the small town I've grown up in, thirty-something miles north-ish of what I'm used to. In the two weeks I've been back up here I've noticed something backwards. When I was down in the south end I was better known to belong to Seattle: I go to school in Seattle, I go out in Seattle, and I generally hang out and kill time in Seattle. Now that I'm back here again I catch myself absentmindedly talking about the south end. Ask me my favorite bands of the moment: Big Sur, Goldfinch, Elk and Boar... Tacoma bands. My favorite venues? I'm in love with the art gallery I started hanging out at on weekends, and even though the Liberty Theater's closed it will forever be my favorite Puyallup venue. The five mile drive around Owen's beach is no longer a drive away since I don't have a car... but I left part of my heart on the beach so I won't miss it as much when I'm away.

It's not that I'm sad or that I think that I'm missing out... it just makes me wonder.... to whom do I belong? I'm waking up in Seattle wondering when the city's going to eat me alive, but I'd wake up in my small town trying to get away before it did the same thing. I feel like I'm stretched between one city and the other, like my heart's skipping beats between cities wondering and wandering along the water.

I know I've chosen to be here, and for me it was for the best. I don't feel like I've given anything up... maybe some conveniences... but at the end of the day I'm still left wondering... where do I belong?

kiss me with that country mouth so plain.

and all the kids in the south end

sing the greatest love song ever written

and carry each others' hearts

close

and they know all the words

and when to sing

and when to weep and

the words mean everything

close to everything worthwhile:

something something something else

trying to make better what i do what i do

but you can't make this better

if the roadblock is you.

rinse.

repeat.

walked along the sidewalks with a ghost and wondered if anything was worth saying out loud. how do we reason with the ones who can't see past themselves? what about when you knew them before they were consumed by themselves, before the time they thought everything that couldn't be understood in the measurement of self was either an attack or something to be discarded?

"stop being a victim" was all i wanted to say, but patience and courtesy are my two biggest vices, and so i let it pass. he wouldn't have understood.

everything's so damn lovely save for the things people won't let be. even the brokenness of everything. i mean i know life's not rainbows and sunshine, but if the beauty of all the downs and outs are overlooked just to race toward the onlys and the ups...... there's a great amount of life left incomplete.

oh.

we can't fix each other so we gotta just move and dance and save ourselves...

more later.

why am i on this journey anyway?

underwater turtle taxi

the fact of the matter is that i haven't been inspired to write.

it's not that i'm sad or depressed or blah or uninspired or whatever, i just go through waves where i don't feel like writing. i've been doing a lot of moving. walking. being. turning. moving myself away from all the things that have become normal or the things that i fear will become normal.

oh and i have a shit ton of homework to finish before winter quarter 2011 finishes me.

why do i work so damn hard to not fall into a pattern of anything when the truth is that i function best when i have a pattern to follow? i love patterns. i love math, which is no more than a series of patterns. i love making coffee, and that's nothing more than a series of action-patterns (with a keen sense of knowledge, i might add).

i hate monotony.

there we go.

i like everything too much to get stuck in monotony. it's a pretty big fear... and somehow it's all very comforting, and i keep turning this idea over and over in my head and try and make sense of it all... like if i read it enough times or delete it and re-type it it'll somehow make more sense to me or it will read as something more plausible than what it actually says.

because i mean exactly what i'm saying:

i'm terrified of getting stuck in a routine but i find routines so comforting.

i hate them, but i need something solid to depend on because my life is batshit crazy by nature.

no. ok hold on i take that back. my life's pretty average, i just happen to run into lots of crazy shit that i'm positive other people don't run into regularly.

that's why the better part of me craves a routine: i'm so used to things being so not normal.

everyone's batshit crazy.

i'm tired, a little pissy, and i have a mountain of homework before spring break.

i'm half counting down the minutes till happy hour at my favorite dive.

half not.

on a lighter note, it seems like the only routine i've managed to keep up lately is wearing this same navy sweatshirt for the last three weeks or so.

-love-

writers block

writers' block

again

again

again

today: i'm already over you. tomorrow? i'm over you, too. people come and go, but the days don't go anywhere, they just hang out and pass by and i'm still tired of them, save for those few hours when the world seems to fall into place (why not fall sooner than later? i guess i won't know that one).

i've spent the last few weeks listening to myself hum the same songs over and over and over again, like they're going to reveal some sort of excellent secret when i'm through with them (but not over them).

bon iver.

borrowed clothes.

same car.

different everything.

i don't know what i'm doing.

more later iguess.

drawn from two sources:

"Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is... Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever."

right the hell now

shit.

i wasn't expecting to go back to reno so soon.
here i come, lovetown, let's make this one work.
for the team.

albrecht durer analysis

not the best. not the worst. at least i'm painting. more later.

shows

slummed around tacoma this weekend going to shows at the peabody waldorf in tacoma. part of it felt like high school: slipping out late just to be as close to the music as you can so you can't hear anything and forget about everything else in the world that could ever matter. the pictures are worth nothing... somewhere between my drive and the night ending i stopped caring about how the pictures would turn out, and just took them to keep the time standing... but the music was amazing, the company was excellent... it felt like stealing old nights in sumner for a while. it felt like everything and nothing.

birds & batteries played an excellent set. it was all the sort of music to make you forget everything just to move:

and, oh lord, goldfinch holds a place in my heart that will never die. they're the sort of band i know i love, but fall for more and more every time i see them live.

saturday night, summed up in a photo:

a blur of everything. crappy photos, lovely music, good company. it's been one of those weekends that made me forget all the shit going on because the music's been so damn good. elk and boar played the sort of music that reminded me it's not the first time a heart's been broken and there are better and worse things to come... and maybe even a hint that we're not all alone in this mess.

the last band to play last night was too lovely for words.... all of them were, but big sur especially.

i was so caught up in listening i couldn't think of anything but the lovely, moody songs to match all the empty hearts washed up and standing still in tacoma that night.

love.

sunday secrets

"it's not that i don't love you, it's that i don't love."

i'll take a hundred for every one in the cave.

welcome home
you're never alone:

paper hearts//yellow walls

i never really spoke the words out loud.

i knew it the whole damn time, too. long before he said anything, long before we even really talked about much, i just knew. what do we call that? intuition? reading coffee grounds? attention to detail? nobody had to tell me, and maybe that's what it is about being attached to a physical space: that you leave bits of yourself behind to be picked up by others. half the time i can't make up my damn mind about what i believe, but i know i think there's something to this... i guess it's the only way i can explain how i knew.

maybe it was the brokenness that attracted me. him. all of us. i don’t know, but wouldn’t it happen that zarathustra would point out that it's our weakness to give attention to pain... maybe that’s what drew me. maybe it's what drew everyone else in, too, you know? that need to repair whatever they sensed needed repairing... that desire to gaze after what is broken.

it's the same feeling you get when you slow down to look at a car accident, or when you can’t help but hope the waves will wash over all the tracks in the sand.

anyway.

i remember the night he told me. i was looking for company... really i was looking for anywhere to go but home, and i knew (by intuition or by habit) that someone would still be around. i swung by and we closed the place down: we cleaned and scrubbed and wiped down anything and everything... maybe just to try and clean the heavy weight the place had held. i drank to remember. he drank to forget. i could feel it coming a mile away, and i figured i was finally going to hear the entire thing beginning to end.

it was the heart.

it always is though, isn’t it?

it took everything not to drag out from him the words i already knew were coming. patience is not my virtue when i already know the answer, but it wasn't my story to tell. i don’t really know how i knew. it wasn’t intuition but it wasn’t spelled our across the peeling linoleum floor, either. the words slipped out, first quietly and then...

i've been told to never get old

...and we're just falling because

we're too beat to fall in love

and fill our winded pipes with

anything... least of which we'd hoped

was love.

so we're falling fast

to break our backs on broken bones:

the softest thing to call a home

for now

because we can't keep anything

down and out (aside from

the soft fall of nothing

in our stomaches).

and i wanted it too...

-h

it freezes your already cold heart

still in a timshel mood.
these are a few weeks old, but this is where i go home to.
love.

it will steal your innocence

but it will not steal your substance.

ohhh i could sing this song over and over again it sounds like forever and all the lovely things i lost hope in somewhere back there.... oh. this is something to not lose hope in.

but the water is cold. i guess the everything everywhere is cold. everything leftover is the drive down into the valley with the perfect view of the mountain in the distance. it's getting lighter, spring is coming around somewhere sometime soon, and i've slipped out of the quiet routine i acquired over the winter..... i'm ready to drive. somewhere, i don't know where. back to the places i went fishing over the summer... or something.
i've been spending every free time i have drawing/painting/cutting and pasting.... getting rolls of film in and out of my camera... saving up what little money i have.... living exclusively off coffee and soup. i feel like i just don't have time for anything else anymore.
homework, maybe. art for breakfast. art for lunch. art for dinner. music in between. film for sleep.

daydream believing.

oh: all the lovely music.
i think i finally have some work worth posting.
more to come.

swiss army romance

ten year reunion show tonight at neumos.
pretty stoked. i was fortunate enough to have a friend give me an extra ticket to the show. i don't know what i'm doing with my life, but i'm happy i have a friend who's a concert junkie just like me.

sometimes you're just too far in to pretend you're growing up and out of the things you fall in love with.
cheers
-holly

ps. buying a disposable for the concert tonight, photos to come.

i look like the trouble i caused

i look like the fabulous sort of trouble i caused. there's only a few pictures from when i was 19 and cut all my hair off (i'm now 22 and look nothing like how i used to). i caused a lot of trouble. these were the days when i moved out and lived with a couple girls i worked with and partied every night. this picture was taken right after christmas that year in my room at my parent's house with the notorious teal walls. my sister used to tell me this photo was asking for trouble, and to be honest, i didn't give a shit. i was fabulous. i could walk into any party on the hill uninvited. i had bands crashing on my floor regularly. i was kind of an asshole. i notoriously showed up for class hungover every morning.
it's only been three years.
three years? no... this photo had to have been taken when i was eighteen. four years.
things have changed.
a whole fucking lot.
i don't even recognize the girl in this photo, and i don't think anyone else would, either.

what the what

vendetta red's having a reunion show at el corazon (of course, if you know better it will always be the graceland).
this is the most important thing right now.

transatlanticism

isn't that one of the most lovely words?
is it even real?
oh...death cab.



i spent a couple hours killing time in my car talking about music and the old local scene seattle used to have roughly between 01 and 08... all the glory bands like daphne and ghost runner and what not. i had a mix in my cd player (not by coincidence at all, it was what playlist i'd posted a few days ago) and he'd asked what album the death cab song was on.
"transatlanticim"
it came out without any hesitation... there was no thought involved in my answer.
weird, huh? i don't know, i mean,
is that even what it's on? i don't own the album.... i don't think i have any death cab albums at all, and i don't think i've even listened to any of the albums it all the way through. it was just.... something i know. where did it come from? is it just a seattle thing?

but i love the way the word sounds. i've been saying it over and over again to myself, mostly in thought... but it's slipped out every once and a while.

transatlanticism....
maybe it's just a seattle thing.