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.

frosty frosty sounds

1.) "maps" - the yeah yeah yeahs
2.) "i can't take it" - tegan and sara
3.) "the catch" - nyles lannen
4.) "re: stacks" - bon iver
5.) "postcards from italy" - beirut
6.) "california one youth and beauty" - the decemberists
7.) "a lack of color" - death cab for cutie
8.) "enjoy your worries, you may never have them again" - the books
9.) "subsong" - jel
10.) "tatou" - brand new
11.) "romeo" - juliette lewis and the licks
12.) "i am always the one who calls" - pedro the lion
13.) "flume" - bon iver
14.) "gone away from me" - ray lamontagne
15.) "mare mortis" - the appleseed cast
16.) "linger" - the cranberries
17.) "white shadows" - coldplay
18.) "manhattan" - kings of leon

and she and she is out at sea

she's out at sea again...
since she's left i've ended every day realizing i've slipped something on or into my pocket that was hers or has been hers... you know how best friends do these things. there's borrowed things and traded things and things that are pocketed or swept up or drunkenly exchanged. more absentmindedly than intentionally, i've been carrying something of hers around with me. it's silly. it's sweet. it's something.

(it happens sometimes when my sister leaves, too.)

this is one of my favorite shirts i've swapped with her, and everyone always comments on the hole in the back. i've no idea how it got there but i've no intention of sewing it up... i love it the way it is (not unlike how i love her unconditionally). i usually hear "well, you should sew it up, otherwise it doesn't look nice."
nice for whom? it looks damn near perfect to me in its imperfect state: perfectly worn in, nice color, good neckline, not too tight, much nicer than a stiff, starched, ballet pink, skin-tight scoop-necked something or other.
i don't know.
i guess i just think a hole in a shirt is the least of my worries at this point.
besides.
i love the shirt the way it came to me: from my best friend.

the end of the year is approaching.
more later i suppose...
<3

works in progress

there are seven on the wall
all works in progress.
all terrible as far as i'm concerned...
but they're where my mind's been:

over and over again

he used to play this one cd some girl gave him.

he used to play it on long car rides, usually home, sometimes to twin peaks, but always on long car rides. there was one song he played over and over and over again on repeat, and i always thought it was one of the saddest songs i'd ever heard... one of those ones that made your heart quiver a little. i think i asked once who it was by, but he never knew.

i came across it today on my computer though.

i haven't been writing, just painting and playing the guitar a whole damn lot.

i've had the biggest writer's block.

but i came across the song on my computer, i'd lifted it off a friend's computer two years ago when we were all crashing in my apartment when i used to live in the big, emerald city. i'd fallen in love with the way the music sounded like it was raining, like it's always raining in seattle.

i miss the seattle days more.

the irony is in the title of the song: "enjoy your worries, you may never have them again" by the books off their album "thought for food".

enjoy:

sitting on the side waiting for a sign

i can't write anything.

"don't forget me"

"try not to forget me, okay," he said. how could i? i remember most of my classmates names from third and fourth grade, and could probably remember half of them from kindergarden if i gave it a good shot. besides, he'd worked pretty hard to argue against the professor the entire quarter while i'd basically done the opposite and tried to understand exactly where the professor was coming from. we were polar opposites, that much had been made clear over the quarter... then again...

"it sucks i'm leaving the day we finally meet, doesn't it?"

well. we'd actually met three months prior, but we'd only just had six hours worth of conversation to make up for lost time. i'd given up looking for anything, and for some reason as soon as i'd let go, all the worthwhile things were falling into my visual realm of.... whatever you want to call it. of course. as soon as i'd thought i had no more heart to give, i realized it had only been kept armored inside a steel dinosaur trap...

that would probably not open for a long time.

or a long while.

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

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

i watched the teens last night.

the ones i can't help but return to every weekend.

if my heart was left anywhere, it was somewhere between the south narthex and the cafeteria. i watched them all at once: the flirting, the giggling, the chasing, the awkward conversations, the hand-holding, the hugging... all that fun stuff. i remembered when a high-school break up was the absolute most devastating thing in the entire world. i remembered when everything was absolute. that's what i like about going back to volunteer with them: they remind me that things don't have to be so grey and wishy-washy. things can be defined if i let them be what they are.

more later i guess.

take me there

it was a long night of everything at once.

the greatest christmas party we'd ever had kept happening, and then just as suddenly (though not soon at all, for it had had a good eight hour run), everything began to slow down but it never really stopped.

he woke up a few hours later in a panic, and i wasn't really sure if i'd ever really fallen asleep to begin with. she'd just fallen asleep, and was far enough away from me that i wasn't sure what to do.

you know.... how you can always think a little clearer when your best friend's closer to you.

he told me he'd had a nightmare of the world ending and buildings burning, and all the three months of talking about philosophy had me wondering if i had anything to do with it. how hypersensitive are we, anyway? where'd our senses go? was i just over-thinking everything? i was too tired to continue wondering if anything meant anything at all, and i still wasn't sure if i had fallen asleep anyway, so i did what any good friend would do and i patted his forehead and told him it was going to be okay.

and then i wished she was awake, too, so that maybe she could pat my forehead and tell me everything was going to be okay as well. but she was asleep, and the night always brings more fears and doubts than it ought to.

and then i thought of all the places i wanted to go.

not just the following day, not even in a few weeks.

all of a sudden i wanted to stand up and run and go to all the places i'd captured in my heart, but then i wondered if i even had one at all, or maybe if i'd given it away one too many times and was left with absolutely nothing.

do i have to build myself a new heart?

i was thinking too much.

maybe i still am.

all i knew was that i wanted to run somewhere right the hell then. i sat up and saw the moonlight peeking through the blinds: all the city was asleep.

maybe the city won't take me back, but everywhere else will welcome me:

woke up and drove

i woke up and started driving this morning... not really sure where i was going, but i left with the absolute certainty that i would find something different and somewhere new to study if i drove somewhere else... somewhere not where i usually land. not seattle. not federal way. not.... anywhere specific. i played cortez the killer, called my other half, and then took the first exit and stopped at the first coffee shop i found. i decided that wherever i landed would be the start of something else. new? i don't know. everything is new now.

life probably isn't made up of signs as much as it is lovely coincidences, but i figure... if i can just put the pieces together myself and make my own signs and meanings, it'll work out itself.
so i named this cafe my new hangout.
here's to writing papers.
love.

oh my thoughts? they come out sideways.

oh sunday

"there's a secret magic past world that you only notice when you're looking back at it"

it snowed, it rained, and soon... and then...

....and then there was music.

the sun is out.

1) "naomi" - neutral milk hotel

2) "a fond farewell" - elliott smith

3) "naked as we came" - iron and wine

4) "hallelujah" - jeff buckley

5) "pamphleteer" - the weakerthans

6) "etienne d'aout" - malajube

7) "i can't take this" - tegan and sara

8) "autumn sweater" - yo la tengo

9) "hoppipolla" - sigur ros

10) "empty" - ray lamontagne

11) "maple leaves" - jens lekman

12) "the orchids" - califone

13) "half dead" - the mountain goats

14) "postcards from italy" - beirut

15) "two zero two" - northstar

16) "barfly" - ray lamontagne

17) "time of no reply" - nick drake

18) "conversations" - the posies

19) "the summer ends" - american football

20) "rebbelions (lies)" - the arcade fire

21) "skinny boy" - amy milian

as a side note:

it took me until i hit 'publish' the second time to realize today is the first day of december. i've lost track of everything, i guess.

the last 14 hours have been a waste of time

because of all this crap that post secrets has so wonderfully put into postcard-form:

anyway. i've been working on getting ahold of this loan for about a month now, and i'm about an hour away from having all the right things come together so i can get ahold of it.

and then get away.

none of this news is incredibly important.

i've lost track of time. i've lost track of everything. i spent the entire morning in tears for some bullshit i can't seem to wrap my mind around. how long does someone tell lies for to make themselves feel better about themselves? about what they don't want but think they need? does it only last until they realize they've deceived everyone else as well? i've never gone away from trusting my gut so much.

my heart aches.

but according to pinker, i don't have one at all.

and nietzche?

i just need to use this bs waste of time to be stronger.

my brain is tired.

my heart aches.

and i wonder.

see...

...why is it that if guys do this, it's super sweet and romantic

but if it was the other way around, ladies automatically get the label "crazy bitch"?

i mean what the hell?

i mean, i'd never do this, but why did anyone ever think it was sweet in the first place? why can't we all just live in 80's movies? where's my breakfast club?

snowed in

i'm only moving as far as i can bum rides
or as far as my camera will take me.

1) "coffee shop soundtrack" - all time low
2) "the feel good drag" - amberlin
3) "my little japanese cigarette case" - spoon
4) "kevin is gay" - giant drag
5) "champagne supernova" - oasis
6) "two beds and a coffee machine" - savage garden
7) "coffee and cigarettes" - augustana
8) "coffee & tv" - blur
9) "soco amaretto lime" - brand new
10) "cigarette" - ben fold's five
11) "coffee shop" - red hot chili peppers
12) "coffee break" - forever the sickest kids
13) "amitriptyline" - john vanderslice
14) "cigarettes and alcohol" - oasis
15) "nights of the living dead" - tilly and the wall
16) "coffee" - copeland
17) "smelling cigarettes" - the fiery furnaces
18) "lemurs, man, lemurs" - minus the bear
19) "motorcycle drive by" - third eye blind
20) "cigarettes and chocolate milk" - rufus wainright
21) "aneurysm" - weezer (nirvana cover)

i'm almost positive i posted this playlist on my last blog, but it's one of my favorite rounds of music to hit when i'm stuck somewhere for a while longer than i'd like. i haven't listened to it in long while, and i'd almost forgot how much i liked listening to all these songs in this particular order.

bolded, of course, are the ones i love the most.

life aint always what you think it oughtta be...

speak easy

...and there was that godawful silence. some people fear it i guess: that silence over the telephone, the awkwardness of not being able to see the other person's face, reaction, or eyes. i don't really mind it, though, since i've grown accustomed to listening for the slightest change in tone. sometimes i think i can hear people's expressions better than i can read them on their faces.
it's hard to explain.
but there it was, that silence that everyone hates.
i just kind of welcome it.
it doesn't really mean one thing or another.
i was sitting on my bed... actually i was lying on my stomach and my blinds were half open so i could see the outside from where i was. he had asked how everything was, and since i don't know him that well i gave the obligatory "everything's fine, going great, just doing homework" response. it was true enough, i was doing homework, and my grades are better than they've been since march 2009. everything on paper is fine.
and that's when the pause happened.
i figured i'd bored him since he's horribly intellectual, but the pause lasted longer than what would say that.
he was thinking.
shit.
i'm the only person that's allowed to think things over.
shit.shit.shit. he was thinking. about me. foreign thoughts...
why was he thinking? the pause felt like eternity. he was about to call me out. i could smell it.
i am the master of "everything's fine." i could write a book on everything being fine.
"you know," he said, "you can tell me what's really on your mind."

there it was.

actually, i couldn't, because that's what's managed to get me in trouble my entire life. this last year, actually: not being able to tell the right kind of things. the acceptable things. maybe it's been longer than a year... maybe two...three....or an eternity of not being able to call the right shots, since this problem manifests itself in all sorts of different ways. my days of pleasing for the sake of pleasing have run short. thus spoke zarathustra.
then again, maybe i could give up my stubbornness.

"everything's fine. just doing homework."

pause.
this must be why people avoid phone conversations like the plague.
i don't know. listening isn't terrible: you can pick up on the person on the other end. you can pick up on what they're thinking with their tones and the way they breath... all without them seeing the looks you make when you wrinkle your face closer to the receiver.

"you really can tell me what's going on."
i'd barely known him two weeks, although technically i'd been hearing stories about him since i was fifteen. he was actually a legend as far as i could tell.

"really." i stated. it was not a question. that sharp tone of sarcasm always slides in when i don't believe what someone's saying.

"yeah, really, i'd like to know what's going on with you."

it's such a foreign feeling....
maybe there are good people out there.

god willin and the creek don't rise

lovely.

sunday morning at the mosque

or, better titled, the select few times i will write about my faith online (because words do no justice for what i pursue).
i wrote this yesterday, but as far as blogging goes, it belongs here more than it does anywhere else i guess.


I have this class I'm taking for one of my theology courses appropriately titled "Spiritual Traditions: East and West". Like almost all my other theology courses, I love it. when it comes to searching for G-d, I can't get enough. I'm completely consumed by all faith traditions, and I was thrilled when I found out we get to do a "site visit" as part of our curriculum. We have the opportunity to visit a number of different worship services, and since the opportunity is here, I'm going to as many as I can. Why not?
So tomorrow morning I'm planning on attending a Muslim worship service. I'm not really sure what to expect, but I know two things: 1) I'm going to have to cover my head, and 2) I'm going to have to sit in an entirely different section, not only because I'm female, but because I'll be a visitor. Cool. I started looking into why men and women are set to worship in different sections, and why this is still an extremely common practice, and the main reason is so one group won't distract the other.
Huh.
At first I didn't really get it, I mean, it's a group of people not unlike my own community, and we're all going to worship the same G-d, so why is anyone worried about distraction in the awesomeness of worship (and by "awesome" I don't mean like... the cheesy awesome you hear thrown around when you watch "Saved" with Mandy Moore, but awesome like.... the original definition of the word: awe-inspiring, you know?)? I mean, when I go to my own worship services, men and women and children and all of everyone sit together: no big deal. We still get caught up in the mass (if we know what's going on), it's still beautiful, and to be honest I'm always inspired in faith by my friend RJ whom I usually end up sitting next to. I wouldn't have the same inspiration if I sat by myself, not that I would have a bad experience by any means, it's just... some people inspire me in different ways. See? Boys and girls can sit together and still get it. Everything's ok.

But then I stared thinking about it more. I remember going through that long lecture-y process of getting confirmed. It was a sincere, conscious decision on my part, and also the beginning of what sparked my desire to study theology. I don't actually remember much of the confirmation process, save for the night we did adoration.
Now.
Unless you're Catholic, you probably don't understand the weight adoration holds, but let me tell you, it is the more.... sincere and amazing thing I have the opportunity to participate in.
Anyway, I remember doing adoration during the confirmation retreat, and I remember specifically kneeling next to this guy I used to go to grade school with. The session was long, and it was beautiful, but I was also a sixteen year old girl, and after about forty minutes of this process, I remember having the epiphany that this guy was totally hot.
I know. Totally the wrong thing to be thinking about.
And then he elbowed me. And basically it was all downhill from there.
Now.
I was an adult.
Technically.
In terms of faith.
But I was still a sixteen year old girl (keyword being "was").

And now I'm understanding why men and women worship in different sections. It's nothing oppressing or discriminatory or anything of that nature. It's just a recognition that people are people, and if you're going to worship, then go for that and not to bump elbows with the people sitting next to you. People are people, and distractions happen, so with the encouragement to sit separately, you have time to reflect internally.

I think it's lovely.

I'm absolutely excited for tomorrow morning, it's going to be entirely different from anything I've experienced thus far.


See, this is why I love studying theology: so much of your own faith begins to unfold upon the reflection of other traditions, whether they're great revelations or small ones.
Anyway, that's all for now.

words

i fall in love with places so easily.
i loved yakima, how stupid is that? i'm not sure if it was just all the places we went to, or the company that made it worthwhile, but i can't help but feel so....

much like i'm taking out the trash when i think of it.

i feel like i imagined the whole thing.


and all the people.
all gone.





i have never wanted to leave my life so badly,
to just pick up and leave and startsomethingnew.

something else.
something not this life i lead.


i feel like i'm living in 1984--- the book, did you ever have to read that in high school? with big brother always watching? i haven't been home the last three weeks. i've stopped in for food, and the occasional sleep if at all. nothing seems worth sleeping through anymore, since the last year feels like something i wasted. trying to find something worthwhile i guess. worried about all the wrong things.
i feel like i'm living in 1984, because i do everything for something else, and when i slip just out of line, i'm called out.
and it's a load of bullshit.


i looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in what feels like weeks
--my sister has this big, tall mirror in her old room, good for seeing all of yourself as opposed to the mirror i have in my room that only shows the top quarter of myself (it would show the top half of me if only i didn't have stacks and stacks of books and cds piled on my dresser)--
i cut my hair out of my face a little
and i've dropped a significant amount of weight in the last few weeks
i've lost my appetite,
but for books... never.
nietzche, descartes, and siddhartha have all become the most important authors of this mess.


what the hell am i doing with my life.
never going back to yakima, that's for sure...
because there's something deeply disturbing about falling in love with places:
they never love you back.

maybe i've had it all wrong this whole time.
what can love back?
what if you're never sure you loved in the first place?
i love everything
and nothing
all at once i guess.
it's a hard feeling to explain.

bs.

i am living in 1984.
the book.
not the year.

i saved your number "do not answer"

look.
i need coffee just like any other person in seattle, except i'm pretty sure i need it more. i need it when i wake up, i need it when i'm headed to class, i need it before i go to sleep. i figured if this is the biggest vice i've got, i'm doing alright. so look, i went to a concert the other night and it was pretty empty when doors opened so i got my stamp and walked across the street to the holy grail of coffee, vivace's, for a little something to keep me warm and occupied.
the great thing about coffee is that you can have it alone with your newspaper (stranger, seattle weekly, or homework) and people understand that you need a little brain stimulation, just not necessarily from any joe walking down the street.
i had about a half hour to kill and i scanned all the open seats... realizing my options were next to:

a) the evangelist and potential convert.
b) the loud book club.
c) guy on computer.
d) student being consumed the homework they had sprawled on the surrounding tables.
e) THAT couple (you know what i'm talking about).

it was like a math problem for me, and by process of elimination i could quickly find my perfect seat to have a date with myself and my americano. on any other day, the evangelist would've been my first choice. i mean let's be real, i'm a twenty-something college student who is over-enthusiastic about her torah class and has CHOSEN to study theology. really. i would usually jump right in, but i was needing some serious alone time, something i haven't had for a good year, so i opted out. the same ruling applied for the book club, and i was left with three more seats.
i knew in the next five days i'd have my own homework eating me for breakfast, and the poor student i was debating sitting near looked like they were about to cry if anyone came close, so i nixed him out of my seating option, too.
and THAT couple? yeah right.

which left my with guy on computer.
easy.
unassuming.
he looked like he was having a relationship with his computer, so i took my polite two seats away and sat with my paper and my coffee. bliss.
i am such a nerd.

and then it started, innocent of course, with an inquiry to keep an eye on his computer while he used the mens room. i assured him i'd give the ol' one-two if someone tried to take his stuff, and received a quick punch in the shoulder as a thanks.
note to all: using the bathroom as an excuse to talk to a girl, and then punching her in the arm is not a good pick up line.
there was the return and the thanks, and i had my coffee and my paper and was fine. and then he asked to see my hand.
what?
apparently it was the beginning of a thumb-war initiation. cute, if i was like five. but ok, look: he JUST came from the bathroom. HE IS A STRANGER, and he was not smooth with his game. i did not want to touch his hands, who knows if he washed them post-restoom? being the socially awkward genius i am, i turned it away from thumb-waring, assuring him i was reading something good (is there anything ever really good in the stranger? i should've picked up a real paper. or a book).
he then had to know what i was reading.
not just an inquiry but a DEMAND. he INSISTED i move closer than my polite two seats away, and when i declined, he moved in.
he HAD TO KNOW what i was reading, doing with my life, doing in seattle, etc, and he was not talking to my face.
GUYS: girls know when you're talking a good foot below their eyes. don't be a slimeball, be a man and grow up.
there is a fine line between entertaining conversation and flirting. are people no longer courteous? did this man really think my one-word answers were just an attempt to be coy? i could not deflect his need to know, but it was at the point where it was MY corner and MY seat and MY time at vivace's, and i wasn't about to let some slimeball take away the joy i find at the holy grail of coffee.
i looked around, and realized all the previously open seats were taken (save for the one next to THAT couple, but i wasn't about to get anywhere near it).
he was trying to play his game well. some guy must have written a book that said "ask girls questions about themselves and you'll score big time. girls love talking about themselves". ok. there's truth to this, but in the way that EVERYONE likes talking about themselves: it's the subject they know best. this guy was going overboard. whenever i turned the conversation around, he gave three answers. he was in art school. no, actually he was studying to be a massage therapist. no, actually he wasn't in school.
you know what? i didn't really care what he was doing.
he was just making it obvious that he was a bad liar.
are all men bad liars?
and if so, why not just tell the truth?

then my saving grace arrived:
the one question people always ask, and upon my answering the creepers usually back off.
"what are you studying?" he asked.
aha.
this conversation was over, right?
wrong.
"theology" i answered. the same thing always happens: the blank stare followed by the furrowed brow, followed by the "oh. are you going to be a minister?"
he then told me he loved religions.
and that he loved the bible.
and hebrew.
and judaism.
"what religion do you practice" he asked.
he then told me he loved catholicism.
and christian mysticism.
now, look, he could have been telling the truth MAYBE, but two things gave him away:
ONE, i've talked with enough of the theology department to know what genuine lovers of theology sound like when they talk about it all. actually, i've talked to enough people with things they are passionate about, that i can hear the genuine tone of happiness when they begin to talk about things they love. this man had an overemphasis on everything, excessive nodding, and a way of cutting off the tail end of all my sentences that just rubbed me the wrong way in general.
TWO, i know seattle. i've been in a relationship with the city for the last eight years and i know what people here are like. i know we live in a city that is very non-religious. i know the trendy answer to religion is "i'm spiritual but don't ascribe to anything in particular" or "i'm against organized religion" or whatever bs. i know my city, and i have a pretty good feeling i've met almost everyone that reads christian, jewish, and muslim mysticism for fun.
i was at the point that i was turning into a jerk entertaining the conversation, so i told him i had to go.
and then...
then! he asked for my number.
now, look, i've only been asked for my number twice previously in my whole life. i didn't know people still did that, i thought they just facebook stalked or got it through the grapevine or something... panicked, tired, and ready to leave, i asked instead for his ("panicked" being the key word). he had that slimey look on his face like he just won something by means of cheating, scribbled his number, and passed it over as i was on my way out.

courtesy is my biggest vice.
so i saved his number as "creepy: do not answer".

circle circle dot dot

you see, i have this pattern:
i think i'm going to move, and i don't.
and i hate admitting that i need the help of other people
so i don't get very far...
move.
not like.... not like physically move, but move leaps and bounds in all other directions.
and it's funny,
because i do it most when i'm away from everything
that i'm told i'm supposed to want.

fuck conformity.

but i have this pattern, see
i get too scared.
the pattern of fear is so deeply rooted, and i can feel it in my bones
it makes up my marrow
and i wonder why all the other people who are afraid don't say anything about it.
you know?
it would sure as shit make me feel better about being afraid.

betray your monsters.

i never really have time to be afraid, anyway.
so i'm not.

weekend

i slept in my band shirts and wore them underneath everything because (believe it or not) i had a dress code this weekend. i did it anyway, and wondered if i have it in me. my body was there most of this weekend, i heard a lot of good things, but my poor mind kept wandering around the world... around my life... there's a handful of them that keep me grounded.
and i wonder
if maybe i don't need a title to be anything important.
i was never one for dress codes if i didn't make them up myself.

i named my future apartment the exodus house, and it rings of everything i'm dreaming of... save for the dreams i had this weekend. i scribbled them down on loose pieces of paper when i woke up, and then finished throughout the morning when they'd slip back into my mind... so what we have here is direct from paper to type:


morning of nov. 5th:
I had a dream we climbed a stairwell (at the same time but not together). I had a dream you led me to a secret cave above the city, and in my dream you led me up a broken ladder. I had a dream we had to escape, but I was already gone. In my dream you tried to let us escape by going up... up and out from the ladder to the sky...
out to the sky
out and away from everything
and I saw the ladder was broken
and you didn't know even though you saw it, too.
But in my dream I went first anyways because you needed to be needed
and you needed to decide
and I was already fine
and you were the left behind.
In my dream I already knew what I was doing: I climbed the ladder anyway.
I fell.
You fell.
And it was all over.

morning of nov. 6th
Last night I had a dream you were him and she was me.
Last night I dreamt her life and his were all the same as they are when I'm awake (but you were him and she was me) and I heard the last message she left on his phone. She had too much on her plate but it was her life (in both sleeping and waking); in my dream she wasn't strong anymore, and he heard it all and gave up. He didn't love her anymore.
...the walls were red...
...and then I was five...
...and then I was ten...
...and then I woke up.

morning of nov. 7th
Was the previous night a sort of metaphor of a dream of the near past, and this last night loose recollection the present?
Then what of the near future?
I wondered these things when I went to sleep last night, and I drifted into my subconscious wondering if I would have a dream revealing the near future. I'm sure there's plenty of other people who wonder the same things.... don't we all, though?

I slept soundly last night.
I do not recall what I dreamt.


beneath it all, my champions of music lived along with me. a friend at school saw me strolling through campus and asked what band of the day was.

lessons learned:
things don't have to be on the surface to be real.
dreams do not tell the future, and if they do, you forget them as soon as you wake up, so there's no time to dwell in the dreamworld.
the things we don't see are more often than not more real than the things we do.

night.

i had an epiphany today

it was a good one.
it involved the whole damn nada surf "the weight is a gift". it's too big for today, though, my thoughts are spilling all over themselves, and i have to finish sorting them all out. it'll have to wait till tomorrow, and anyway, today was a brand new day: "keep the blood in your head, keep your feet on the ground". that's the bigger picture for the day, starting small, starting new, starting starting starting everything and starting simple... starting small before i can get anywhere bigger.
i've seen brand new two or three times, and they're one of those five bands i can listen to nonstop and never get tired of... but that's for another day, too...(i have five or six brand new shirts, so we'll be getting back to them sooner or later).
but check it: go ahead and the jet city fix buttons straight outta 2003 on the right side of the collar of the vest. do they show? or does my crappy macbook camera not do the buttons justice? i LIVED for go ahead shows when i was in junior high and high school. to me, they were everything worthwhile in the seattle/south end local music scene, along with a good number of other staple local bands.
and there it is: i'm an obvious product of the pop-punk post-millenium scene of teenage seattle. i thrived off of it, and i'm pretty sure i still do... but not the scene, the music. the "die for it all, gotta feel all the world just like everyone in the band" feeling i get out of live shows, ya know? i love that feeling more than a lot of things.
so charged.
so beat.
so.
fucking.
alive.
and it's weird, because i get the same feeling in the middle of nowhere on a mountain or at a lake.
funny how that works....

anyway, getting back to starting small...
brand new start.
brand new day.
brand new everything.
that's all i'm getting out of today...
and don't worry about it, i'm sitting on the counter of the kitchen at my parents' house writing this, dripping sticky sweet otter pop juice everywhere.

i think that's what love is.
starting all over with all the old weapons of what makes life good.

love.

pictures, or it's not legit.

i hit a slump:
that's hard for me to admit.
i hit a slump, and most of what i dragged out of it is that i missed out on talking about things like great philosophers and great theologians. i hit a slump and wallowed, and now i've emerged.
pictures, or it's not legit.
i didn't know how to drag myself out of it, really, and i guess i never have a formula (because life is not a math problem, no matter how hard i used to try and make it... at least i have that one figured out). my life is settling, and i hate that feeling. do i always need a battle to fight? not necessarily. do i need things to always be hard? not in the least: a year and a half ago when things were getting really shitty, i avoided the toll it was taking on me altogether so i wouldn't have to be "that girl" who always has excuses and problems, and it didn't even matter that what i was going through was more than a handful of decent excuses. i don't like things to be hard if they don't have to.
no.
not hard.
but i love a good challenge.

where have all the challenges gone?
and then i hit this goddamned slump. the reasons are less than desirable to discuss over blogging, and quite frankly aren't that important anymore. what is important is that i found along the way all these... things that i enjoy. challenges: not unlike particularly difficult books or a painting i just can't seem to be satisfied with as a finished product.
i pulled out all my big guns:
sketchbooks i used to carry around (some for figure drawing, others for not)
books... the really good ones that are hard and good and all for the sake of reading
paints: god. i miss painting.
and that goddamned grant i've been debating on whether or not to take. the one that would allow me to move out and away.

if ever i needed a time to start everything over, it would be now: now that i have the motivation and the understanding of what i'm doing with my life.

and pictures, too, or it's not legit.
i'm wearing every goddamned band tee i own, one right after the other... because at the heart of it all i'm a hopeless romantic and i have this notion that at the end of getting through them all i'll have figured something out (recently, i thought people weren't taking me seriously because i slum around in band tees, but i realized over the last month that it's just because a lot of people are assholes).
so.
with each shirt comes a lesson:punctuality. this was yesterday's band: the builders and the butchers. really. fucking. good. band.
but a day late. so, what is to be taken from yesterday is this: one of my biggest vices, lack of punctuality, must go. and with it, i will be able to cultivate more important things, like finishing paintings on time and being able to set aside that elusive time to spend on the guitar. and loving worthwhile things.
today's will be up later.
for my own sake.

love.