It's Been a Year, Now

So this is it.

I was running downtown. Tripping on a crack in the sidewalk, I almost fell flat onto some punk's graffitti scrawled in white spray-paint. "We are the real terrorists." It stood out against that overgrown grass and a plank-board bench. I couldn't help but smile at this personal truth. A fifteen year old has said more than some middle-agers have in their entire life. Declaration.

This is the part of the story where I, like that kid who was probably angry about the state of something a lot less consequential than terrorism, break out of everyday life syntax and puncuation rules. This is that segment where I do something stupid like smoke three cigarettes or lay out on my deck naked or down a third of a bottle of Jose. I like feeling trashy (read: badass) every now and then. So, why am I suddenly censoring my life? I'm trying so very hard to fold my quirks back into a box for the summer. Clean-pressed John is not yet back from the cleaners, so which personality should assume for the time being?

I have several options. I'm trying on my chef-hat and my motorcycle jacket and my dewrag and my gucci sunglasses and I just can't decide what make of it all. Should I arm myself with a cane or a cigarette or an umbrella-ella-ella? I don't know and I hate rihanna for ruining that word for the next few months. I haven't been able to arm myself with this keyboard for so.very.long.

I am where I am, and sometimes I forget that. Where are you?

May Day with Tulips, Two Lips?

Happy May Day!

Of course it would be beautiful out all week. If you get a chance today, you need to stand in the Mall at least for a few minutes. These are my favorite days: when the grass is so green that the munchkins would be impressed, and the sky bows to shake the horizon's hands. The 20-somethings pretend not to notice, but I like to think it makes their day, too.

The crazy man outside of Smith Hall makes me smile. Even though he's crazy, his conviction is admirable. He is standing on a garbage can wearing a boa and camo pants: shouting.shouting.shouting. Does he know that we're not listening as we mosey-on-by? I hope not.

Yesterday, the rain was a refreshing break. It was the kind of rain that they use for kisses in movies. We almost braved it; armed with only an umbrella. In the end, though, we ducked into something silver. (Liz Phair hops to my mind again: we're already wet, and we're gonna go swimming). That rain is what has done me in for the week. It is the rain's fault that my world it bursting with color (I wore grey to counteract my distracting delight, but it's not working as well as I had hoped).

I can not focus on focusing. I can, however, talk for hours and avoid all forms of productivity and drink coffee like it's more important than air and write blogs like it's nobody's business... when in fact I'm making it their business.

Summer is approaching at a gallop, and I can't say I'm entirely ready for Rochester again. Two weeks ago, I could have left in 20 seconds, but there are always complications: some are delightful and others are awful. I can't wait to leave every weekend... just for the weekend.

I will now return to the physics hole that I have dug for myself. Promise me you will stop and admire a flower just for me?

Step by step, we make our way
walking through a crowded place.
The shining streets soak my feet.
You push the doors, I'll buy the drinks.

Don't Bring Pajamas

Let me just pre-empt' this one by saying that I wrote it on Thursday in the computer lounge at coffman. When the computer spontaneously shut down, I didn't even think that this would be saved. I was frustrated to say the least.

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I haven't written anything in over a week.

I guess "anything" isn't true. I have written two papers and somewhere close to one hundred wall posts. I am not able to indulge in that exhibitionist poetic fetish I have, though. There is no ink pouring from my ears or spouting from my fingertips. Instead, I'll just paint you a picture of my current life. It, as usual will be black and white with the occasional splash of green. I try so very hard to appear abstract and modern.

I was going to meet with my cultural studies professor. Actually, I would be on my way there right now if I wasn't a chicken shit. In general, I feel that I usually need to have some sort of presentation prepared for when I go meet with him (or any sort of authority figure). There is absolutely nothing intimidating about him except his exceptional knowledge of gay, French philosophers. I mean, I could easily beat this guy up (and everyone knows I'm not exactly the hulk... I do consider myself pretty feisty though, haha).

One thing that possibly made me afraid to write is the fact that I am actually starting a paper on the medium typically noted as "journal" or "memoir", and how it can and can't be considered literature. The readings from class were written, obviously, by gay Frenchmen, and so I question their applicability to the more general form of culture (however, not to myself... not that I speak French). I don't want to be psychoanalyzed. I just want to expel some of this built up energy and maybe entertain someone else once in a while.

Anyway, I made my schedule for next semester. I should say re-made, because I've had this done basically since the course schedules came out for fall 2007. I dropped Medical Terminology to take Intro to Drawing. I figure that if I don't start taking classes I want to take, I might never know what I want to do with my life (not that it would be all-to-surprising if I never really figured that out). I see Erika working and I would love to be a design major, and then I sit down and write something I really like and I want to transfer and major in Creative Writing, and then I think about all the possibilities of medical school or pharmacy school or opening up a bakery or a coffee shop or a shoe store or cineplex etc. (Update: I'm not doing drawing, because it fit really poorly into my schedule).

More than a week ago, Megan told me something so true. I suffer from restless John syndrome. It is because of this that I'm nearly certain I may never find something that I enjoy doing for the rest of my life or someone that I enjoy being with for an extended period of time. At this moment, I think I could totally handle being a temp. I would change jobs every few weeks and write a book about it and suddenly be thrown into fame and fortune. It would be like a really crappy lifetime movie. The love of my life (possibly/probably my Alaskan Husky/Collie) would get cancer and I would have to make it through the days of eating only jars of peanut butter and chocolate frosting and into a new light where I could appreciate the "little" things in life. Ah, if only I were a director of crappy lifetime movies... I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

It should be noted that this is being written to stall. Everything I do is just to stall until I figure this crap all out. I just hope I figure out what I want to do before I stall my way into medicine.

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Saturday Morning and who's gonna play with me?

I got a little more than five hours of sleep last night. The sad thing is, it was voluntary. Everyone else is asleep and I’m awake pounding on the keyboard as quietly as I can. I haven’t been sleeping very much lately. This may be attributed to the fact that I'm not getting enough done, and so I can't go to sleep and it wakes me up in the morning.

Honestly, I don't enjoy being so nerdy that my school work is one of the first things on my mind at all time. I would rather have other things on my mind, like william carlos williams, margaret atwood, or ayn rand.

This string of gorgeous days is determined to ruin my GPA, and it might just succeed in doing so. I lay out in the mall for a couple of hours doing nothing... more than once a week. Yesterday, I indulged in a little more of The Fountainhead, which apparently no one has heard of. That damn perfect sun lulls me into complacency and all I can do is use my chemistry book for a pillow and smile excessively.

I would write more, because this is effectively two entries, but I feel that everyone might need a little break. I promise I won't wait two weeks until the next one!

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Liz Phair knows what I'm thinking.

Americana? Tropicana.

I'm waiting for my own personal exodus, deliverance, transcendence, exposition, exhibition, social liberty, reality show, sherlock holmes, paparazzi, perfected defense mechanism, etc. I'm not equipped with the gloves to take my life into my own hands. (It's prickly and entoxicating!)

Karma-of-the-Day:
"Recognize ordinary, everyday activities as opportunities to awaken."

It's Tuesday (Twos-day), which means that I will be drinking more than two cups of coffee, taking four classes in two subjects, standing on my own two feet, staying up until two in the morning, and putting in my two cents everywhere possible.

Restore my faith in the human race and tell someone 'thank you for being' today.

That Melody I Love

Sunny South Dakota. Other than the fact that I'm near death due to the pending sore throat and possile ear infection, I am wonderful! Let's have some fun, shall we?

I like writing for myself. I can write about whatever I want: angst and sunflowers and jose cuervo and car dancing and regular dancing and south dakota and spring and truffles and even dirty socks. I can write haikus if the wind blows me that way:

.that wind, you know, is
tired of howling away.
sleep, Tempest, and dream.

I can write IN ALL CAPS or forget tousespaces. I can etirw sdrawkcab. I can write you love songs and doodle lyrics and scribble down chem.notes. You can use words and words and swords and hoards of words and herds of birds or chords and curds.

If you stare at a page for long enough you can melt the letters into lines like ice into water. No, no, that's not right, is it? I must rearrange. Rearrange. If you melt at ice enough you can stare into a water lines the long letters into page. There, much better.

Sorandom.edu What can you do with words?

Warm Days Are Near!

I’m on your futon with my green eyes budding dreams like leaves.

I’m serious. Last night you and I were willow trees at dusk on the brim of an overfull lagoon. I was drawing from some scene on Pocahontas, I believe. Our slender arms bent from lack of energy, and the sun had long since set. All the while you leaned toward me, and the wind pushed me away. My leaves whispered. “It must be!”

Here, I am a seventeen-year-old Czech girl flirting with the Russian soldiers: short skirts and heels. I am pointing something much worse than a gun at these celibate fools. In short, I am declaring my victory and freedom over the mundane norms. I am walking barefoot in the hallway. I am living on caffeine. I am coloring outside of the lines and drawing tattoos with magic marker and lying in the quad with my shirt off. No one is leering.

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the colorless rain
slowly titrates the grey earth…
Equilibrium!

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From the mattress, I am budding like a sugar maple: stretching limbs in all direction. My pale, peach leaves grasp for oxygen with the intensity of new life. I wake each morning refreshed and vivid. With every active moment, I grow grey and wilted: waiting for the youth to creep into my veins in sleep.

And so on. And so forth. You know I’m illustrating these vibrant metaphors in varicose mediums. April showers bring May flowers, and Mayflowers bring Pilgrims. To whom do we owe the credit for the April showers? Let us trace the train of events.

Unknown.Source: April.showers: May.flowers: Pilgrims: Is it November already?

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rain.storm.eruption
of grass bouquets and yellow
dandelions for Mom.

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I am a Spring.motif waiting to happen!

Only Hearing Negative

You said that I was naive,
and I thought that I was strong.

I must graciously express my gratitude to the sky today for it's compliance. Many days, it tries to fight my mood, but this greyness suits me very well, thank you very much.

Of course, there are specks of color impading upon this grey matter like a magnificent song implanted in your eternal consciousness. So, you are stuck playing this song again and again through your words and tempo of step and that way you gesture with your palm facing upward.

These colors are infinitely penetrating: red rainboots, blue raincoats, the yellow lines painted upon the curb. However, this brightness only exists in relativity to the drab rain. On an exemplary spring day, the yellow lines pale in comparison to the sun. And so, due to their complete subjectivity, we can dismiss the colored flecks invading our navy canvas. We can fully regard them as sharp flecks of white noise trouncing upon our "perfect" silence of being.

A man in the Northrop Mall stands on his garbage can pedestal reading a newspaper satire, and so illustrating his own satirical nature. He condemns the rain with a newspaper, and thereby offers himself to the eternal consumption of everything grey and khaki and suburban. I truly hope he can feel the electric regret charging in the air like I can.

"We can never know what to want, because living one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives, nor perfect it in our lives to come... If we only have on life to live, we might as well not have lived at all."
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Acorn to Oak

and.now I am an oak tree in centralPark.
my roots are pushing.pushing into spring soil.
Now,you may ask me:
'to what purpose do you grow?'

halted, i am pondering the question.
i have grown without remorse
and budded and sprouted and rooted and wilted
for nineteen years over.

never have i asked the Question: "Why?"

'i suppose,' beginning steadily,
'that I must live to grow.'
'that the sun coaxes only me from slumber.'
'that there is space to become larger, so larger I will.become.'

'For God himself has ringed me in an azure sky
(like some stately king),
and all remaining for me to do
is grow.and.grow.and.grow.'

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My spring break is coming to a close so very quickly. At this point, I had hoped that all snow would be completely eradicated. I am so very ready for spring and robins and pastel colors (actually, ew) and bunnies and daffodils and daisies. I am ready to wake up from Black&WhiteMinneapolis with its black snow in the gutter like homeless men and silt on the sidwalks.

Technicolor Explosion of grass so green it looks fake and squirrels everywhere and bright-colored-rainboots and hooded sweatshirts and walking outside and spring.Gel.Gems and boy bands in my iPod on the way to class!

Building Houses Out Of Matchsticks

Fact #1: If you are left with terrible coffee (aka "Eight O'Clock Coffee" from Target Boutique), if you heat it up enough, your taste buds can't tell how terrible it really is! Beware though, because as it cools off, the bitterness creeps back in.

Fact #2: It works just as well with terrible people! Heat it up until you can't tell the difference.

So I'm in Walter Library as I am apt to be on a Wednesday afternoon. I am fed, caffienated, slightly motivated, and ready to begin some serious homeworking. On today's agenda: Chemistry. I wish I could just take alchemy instead. Since it isn't true, you can just make it up as you go!

My legs are already taking revenge on me for this morning's workout. Even when I used to work out, I rarely ran for long periods of time because my knees give me shit for the next two weeks. Well, I have ran for the past four days and them knees are giving me hell.

Oh you're everything I'm wanting... come to think of it, I'm aching.
On account of my transgression, will you welcome this confession?

Yesterday, I had two 1/2 pieces of cheesecake at the same restaurant with two different people. Cafe Latte is possibly the best cafe in the entire world (obviously, I'm still in the honeymoon stage). Let's just say today I am ninety-six pounds heavier due to the cookies-and-cream-cheesecake and turtle-cheesecake oozing from my pores (now there's an excellent visual!).

I can't write today.
I think I'll try again later.

If they say "nothing is forever", what makes love the exception?

You Can Hide Quiet As A Mouse

There is a big block of cheese in the way of my writing, and I have been gnawing for the entire past month. I have hardly made a dent. I can not climb over it. Instead, I will begin a long journey around it. Sit tight, folks. It might be a while.

It is 12:26 on the first Saturday of Spring Break. I am in bed right now. I know, I should be somewhere in Mexico doing illegal drugs and taking tequila shots. Instead, I am in Rochester, Minnesota between my navy blue comforter and forest green sheets (and the cotton is pilled from overuse the last few years).

I need Sufjan Stevens to come sing me to sleep.
Casimir Pulaski Day is seamless and perfect on repeat.

For a while I wished that I would get insomnia when something was really bothering me. That way, I always had some sort of excuse for when I sucked at everything all day. Instead, I get eight hours like clockwork, and I am forced to face the day with an optimistic attitude. (Sometimes, I just hate those!)

I want money right now, but not because I want to impress anyone. I want to reinvent myself. I want a new me clothed in something interesting and powerful and ME. I know that I could probably do it without money, but that would take more work. Abercrombie really was the downfall of me... because all I have to show for last year’s work is a closet full of clothes that someone told me to like. Later, I can count on fingers and toes how many things from there I want to keep.

This next week will enforce all of my awkwardness and tiredness. I swear… I could dye my hair a million different colors and never find anything I like. I could read The Fountainhead for the rest of my life. I am trying to compile a mental list of things to do while I am in Territorial for a week. Laura told me to find a story. I would very much like to do so.

I want perfectionism and materialism and God and dark chocolate to meld into a single, technocratic structure to support me in my endeavor to find out what is making me tick like that fucking alligator in Peter Pan.

"Oh, the glory that the Lord has made and the complications you could do without (when I kissed you on the mouth). Tuesday night, at the bible study, we lift our hands and pray over your body, but nothing ever happens..."