theme to my own great escape

for the record

2006-01-03T18:25:00.000-05:00

in the spirit of rob, i give you
the (gradually accumulating) highlights of kimmy's homecoming:
1. rachel and i befriended cute and sleepy australian boy in dorval airport.
2. new mattress delivered by sketchy dudes wearing jncos in a large white truck.
3. fell asleep on couch while watching the king of jordan go scuba diving in the red sea; drooled on the throw pillow, and some crusted to my face.
4. friends rule (lisa pepe, you need to be done with your effing finals already, damnit).
5. sighting of the chainsaw sharpening shop between Long Island Quarry and Kim's Nails.
6. holding the enormous tv while babs (mother-woman) blows dust off of it and into my face. twice.
7. babs hangs a christmas stocking for our dead dog, puts a tennis ball in it, and bursts into tears. what a feel-good christmas eve.
8. receiving a controller that, when hooked up, transforms the tv into a giant etch-a-sketch.
9. falling in love with the amazing, flamboyantly gay boy working at michael's who likes my necklace and calls everyone "honey."
10. playing an intense game of wheel of fortune with jack-jack and beka, being unable to spell "shepherd," and getting my ass kicked by beka. "sleepy hollow" my elbow.
11. being torn apart from my molly at the canadian border. just awesome.

i cannot believe how quickly time speeds.

"Item: the poet has to feed himself and fuck himself."

2005-12-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

it's difficult to be left alone when you're home on vacation. and then, when it finally does happen, you pace the house wondering if there's anything at all you should be doing with your time. mostly i devour libary books or simply grind my teeth, but sometimes i choose to do stranger things. this evening, for example, i guilded a tiny plastic horse in a gold stamp inkpad. i've had both the horse and the inkpad for over a decade now and i am truly amazed that the two have never come together before today. why did it take me over ten years to entertain and satisfy such a simple whim? and why should i have done so just now? i cannot imagine what else i have tucked away in the drawers of this desk, what other childhood relics i've yet to guild or press together.
in other news, this is what i've been holding in my hands for the past few days:

what an ingenious cover for a book of poetry that cleverly describes the corporeal and erotic activity that is both reading and writing poetry. and how silly of me to only realize now that i've been lying in bed with and manipulating the body of a woman these past few nights. not that the poems themselves aren't screaming this very message, but i'm not accustomed to attributing such vocal wit and power to something as simple (and complicated) as a photograph. and honestly, i think i would have overlooked it entirely if i hadn't first consumed jong's poetry and digested the ideas verbally, which allowed me to then process them non-linguistically.
i've noticed the same phenomenon in another book of poems i picked up: "The Poetry of Solitude: A Tribute to Edward Hopper." having somewhat of a ridiculous preoccupation with solitude, i snatched the book up without pausing to consider who in the hell Edward Hopper might be or what it might mean that this poetry was written in tribute to him. but i'm glad i did. why weren't picture books this wonderful when we were kids? each poem is paired with the Hopper painting upon which it reflects or builds, and i spent a good two hours objecting aloud and enthusiastically to the various interpretations and elaborations. but whether i agreed with the poem, the words became my decoder to the paintings. for me, nothing is graspable unless i've first slipped my hand into a glove of language, and only through that glove am i able to interpret and reshape the contours of the visual.

All for some bizarre hometown necessity!
Some ache still found within you!
Now it will go with you, this scene
By Edward Hopper and nothing else.
It will become your own tableau of sadness
Composed of blue and grey already there.
Over or not, this suffering will not say Hosanna.
Now a music will not come out of it.
Grey hat, blue suit, you are in a midnight
Diner painted by Edward Hopper.
-- David Ray

i need to read that before i can read and fully appreciate this . how absurdly inflexible of me, i know. i promise to work on it. and to guild all the tiny plastic horses i may stumble upon in my own amply few moments of blue-grey solitude.

christmas list

2005-11-25T23:31:00.000-05:00

things i'm asking santa for this year:

1. ~~apple-green sequinned slippers~~
2. money for books (of poetry)
3. sweet new playgym for molly, preferably natural wood with peeling bark for her to nibble.
4. spandex leggings. any colour, except maybe puce.
5. a backbone
6. undies
7. the magic bullet (so i can, in turn, give it to my roommate rachel for her birthday).
8. a heart
9. a hot-tub
10. a haircut
11. fresca. like 10 cases.
12. a clue

really, i don't ask for much.

her head was a hole lost to time

2005-11-11T23:35:00.000-05:00

time conflates before me. everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen equates if i think of it just right. or wrong? procrastination becomes a joke within this mindset. how am i supposed to put off what has already come to pass? i'm not saying i don't have any choices here. i do have choices: i don't yet know what has passed, but that it has. i am small and shriveled, old and more flaccid, gone and forgotten - all of that right now. and now. and now...

this morning i didn't have my headphones on as i walked onto campus: i had been talking to my neighbour during the bus ride, and the exposure of my hands to the cold didn't seem worth three minutes of song. as i cut through the adams building a group of three girls kept a distracted pace at my side. one of them was loudly complaining about the loss of her contact lenses, how weird it felt to suddenly have nothing there.

"it's like... my face feels empty! so weird!"

your face is empty, i thought. and then reminded myself that i must sound that way sometimes, too. that i must feel that way sometimes, too. i didn't look at her face. but i looked at the faces of her friends, to see if their own contained anything at all. nope. feigned interest, maybe.

outside of the adams building there was a cranberry muffin, neatly wrapped in saran wrap, placed on the edge of the sidewalk. i eyed it curiously, appalled at my temptation. later, there was taboule on dr. penfield. a whole pan of it. sacrifices to the gods of absence and time, just waiting to never be already claimed.

of beer and bald brows

2005-10-21T23:31:00.000-04:00

i promise you i'll never dream again.

actually, today was a good day for dreams; daydreams realized in the simplest ways are probably what keeps me so goddamn optimistic all the time. i wish i weren't. i wish i saw everything in its harshest light and dullest color. defeated disappointment. unfortunately, i think instead: next time things will be better. do i even have to tell you i cracked my head at an early age on the leg of a rocking chair? the scar must be more than a skid-mark across my left eyebrow.

this beer bottle decidely gives off the richest tone of any beer bottle i've blown across. i've been working on it for some two hours now. nursing the pint and a half and enjoying the pitch as it falls with the water level.

what's your favorite part of speech? me, i'm enamoured of the preposition. the connector that specifies relationships. what could be more informative? what does it matter if i have a noun and a pronoun, a heart and a thought, if i do not know how they comingle, if they comingle?

of. that's my favorite. origin, possesion, source, agency. what else can possibly matter? but it used to mean separation. i suppose it still does, we've just refocused those implications. lexical optimism? i'm not the only one who's cracked an eye.

ps. what's your favorite part of speech? seriously, answer. i know you have one.
pps. the pretty pictures on my blog aren't loading. netscape sucks as a photo host. does anyone know of any functioning, FREE alternatives?

last race home

2005-10-08T19:47:00.000-04:00

we took our last walk together a month and a half ago. it was our usual route - the road through the marsh behind the cabin, flooded by beavers - and only he would go with me.

we trudged through soft mud together, he leading the way, pausing frequently to sniff and to listen for adventure. we reached the stream that the planked bridge used to straddle, and found that it had been washed away with the flooding. only the side logs remained. with a running start, i leapt across, but he held back, unwilling to forge the stream, but determined to hold vigil as i wandered without him through the muck that lay ahead. if i looked carefully through the flashing leaves and shadows behind me, i could see the constant shine of two brown orbs, bright and warm, fixed on my back.

as we returned through the woods i felt a surge of energy. this was my brother at my side, love and habit intertwined, two kids grown up together. for old times's sake, i challenged him to a race down the camp road.

"1... 2... 3!"

his small legs pumped efficiently beneath him. he kicked fragrant dust into my path, ran with an envigoration i hadn't seen in a six years, and beat me to the back porch, panting with victory.

i want him here with me now, or back at the camp on a damp night - stretched out in my lap, head before the hearth, grunting in sleep as i play with his paws.

but i can't have that at all.

he's gone. and i can't begin to say goodbye.

random act of blogging

2005-10-03T22:03:00.000-04:00

so i tried to crash a local poet's "random acts of poetry" reading on the arts steps this afternoon (i'd been tipped off by a reporter/friend from the mcgill daily who was going to cover the story), expecting her to stand, leg perched upon the block, and recite the words aloud, gesturing grandly to apathetic poli-sci students and bewildered first years scurrying late to class. she didn't though, much to my disappointment. instead she made the reading a personal experience, approaching "randomly" chosen individuals, and reading them a "randomly" chosen poem, face to random face. i realize now that this is probably a much more appropriate way to read poetry to strangers - grandiose gestures would have shut people's ears and understanding - but i was disappointed because she didn't randomly pick me as one of her audiences. sure, my prior knowledge of the event would probably have ruined the effect she was going for, but still... i wanted to hear poetry. bitch.

i spent the entire bus ride home telling myself that i would make up for not hearing anyone else's poetry by writing a poem of my own. i scanned the blurred sidewalk for subjects; an old man heaving up a hill after the bus and the indifference of the driver and the passengers (including myself) were going to be my inspiration. ready to write and full of stock phrases, i got off the bus and headed down my street. as i approached the house that my apartment is in, i noticed a woman with a beagle loitering in front of my downstairs neighbour's apartment. she was wearing a wide brimmed, black hat and a jacket much too heavy for the warm day. i dismissed her as just-one-of-those-eccentrics-you-see-in-these-parts.
when i reached my door, however, i became aware that she was talking to me, and plucked my headphones out of my ears (of course i hadn't been listening to the sounds of life and the city, everyone knows it's all worthless din). the crazy lady had found a small shaggy dog without a collar, and wanted to know if it belonged to me. i told her it didn't but my french must have failed me because she brought it up to me anyway. just when i thought she was going to shove the dog off onto me, potential fleas and all, my neighbour from downstairs, phil, came out to see what all the hubbub was about. crazy lady asks him if the dog is his, phil says no, and crazy lady tries to shove the dog off on him. i guess she read the reluctance in phil's face, though, because a moment later she suggested the obvious, that she already had a dog and dog food and she could take it until the owner was found. so off crazy lady goes, small shaggy dog under one arm and beagle on a leash in the other. neighbourly chat between relieved phil and i ensues and a few minutes pass. but just as i was telling phil my theory about our upstairs neighbours being dealers, another woman bursts out of the apartment next to phil's, frazzled greying hair flying at all angles and nasty heather gym shorts clinging to her bony thighs, screaming: "mon chien! KAAAAY-CEEEEE! KAAAAY-CEEE!"

phil and i exchanged that wide-eyed "oh, shit" look that so often passes between two dog bandit abettors, being found out. phil, the native francophone, begins explaining to crazier lady that a woman was concerned for the dog and took it just until the owner could be found, and look, in fact, she's actually just down the street there, with KC in hand, safe and sound.

for reasons that only another mildly insane quebecoise woman could understand, crazier lady grabs me by the arm, and begins shaking me frantically, repeating "mon chien! KAAAAY-CEEEE! KAAAAY-CEEE!"

when i did nothing in response but knit my eyebrows and point down the street, she commanded phil to go get her dog for her, which, mysteriously, phil actually did.

crazier lady and i watched as phil ran a block down the street to the other woman and, because i needed to fill the awkward silence i said (in french) "Look, your dog is just there. The woman has your dog and you can have him back now. You can get him." well, that's what i thought i said, anyway, but those were not the words crazier lady seemed to hear. something snapped inside of her, and she charged like a mother moose down the street towards her KC, passing phil, and snatched her KC out of crazy woman's arms. i was too far out of earshot to hear what was said then, but i can imagine it was something like "tabernac! bitch!" because crazier lady proceeded to slap crazy lady up and down her torso and kick crazy lady's shins.
phil and i, from different ends of the street, exchanged that wide-eyed "oh, shit" look that so often passes between two witnesses of a dog-inspired, crazy lady, cat fight. without waiting for the action to end, phil walked dazedly back up the street to where i stood.
"did you see that? where do we live?" he asked, and then said something in french that i couldn't understand.
"j'pense q'elle est une peu folle," i said.
"yeah, i think so," phil replied.
"well, it was good seeing you," i offered.
"yeah, you too."
i ascended the stairs to my apartment, where the key remained in the door. i pushed myself in and locked the door behind me, sank to the floor and let everything out.
no poetry for me today, just an hour of warm and lonely laughter.

EXCLUSIVELY BY EXCALIBUR

2005-09-22T20:50:00.000-04:00

Having spent half the summer safely hidden behind my uncle's dark, oversized "Excalibur" sunglasses, I'm left feeling naked and exposed on these dimmer days. Suddenly the movements of my eyes are no longer secret, and it takes me a minute to remember that the person across the bus from me can actually see me looking them up and down, nibbling their personal appearance like a mystery danish. Rasperry? Strawberry? Prune? So what if I am nibbling? Don't most people dress to be nibbled in the first place? It's probably all in my mind, but the looks they shoot back are reprimanding and defensive : Hey, you nibbler, I was saving this for the lunch of my own self-perception. Back off.

And now, because my blogging was interrupted, and the train of thought lost forever, I will discuss fruit:

Mango was probably the most intense person I'd ever met. She thrived off of and radiated intensity - it was an airborne contagion that seeped through the pores of your skin in her presence, and entered your bloodstream directly. With Mango, there was no such thing as a casual conversation - the girl was incapable of shooting the breeze or passing the time. Every moment, every subject, was novel and astounding, worthy of the most profound wonder and awe.

"Fruit," she'd say. "Fruit," her eyes widening with the madness of an enclosing serial killer, "The most amazing fruit experience I've ever had was with a papaya." Her words fell with measured cadence; her hand would grip the arm of your chair and those crazed eyes would look deep into your own. "This papaya, it wasn't a normal papaya, it was the richest, reddest papaya I've ever seen ... it was so red - like dark, oxygen-rich blood!" As these words sank in you would suddenly become aware that your own eyes had widened enough to instigate a headache, the hairs on your arms would rise in fascination and anticipation - all for this bloody papaya.

"And then," she'd continue, "I took a bite, and it was the most sensual fruit eating I've ever experienced - I mean really, really sensual. The flesh had this musky smell to it, and it was so soft, and so sweet ... and it got me thinking about how in some cultures the papaya is, like, a symbol of a woman, and i totally understood it. It was really amazing..."

And then she would plunge from the depths of fructal intensity into the basin of cultural intensity, all the while holding you hostage with those enormous and furious eyes.

nail nibbling.

2005-09-13T23:27:00.000-04:00

i've been looking for a symbol of myself. something that i can destroy with a physical release and rebuild with careful thought. an effigy to burn and to redefine. i could make one of those rainbow sand-jar creations out of the ashes, and bring some old lady somewhere some joy. i could delete my facebook or myspace, one deliberate keystroke at a time, but honestly, neither of them actually represents me. i may be represented in my writing; in my journals, in my hack-poetry, in this passionless blog. but i'm too much of an egoist to destroy such a direct reflection of my thoughts. conundrum.

just because i wanted motion

2005-09-01T22:23:00.000-04:00

it's too hot with the window closed, too cool with it open. there is no in-between zone, just short alternating intervals of equal discomfort. if i didn't have this music i couldn't be typing right now. it's just that's how i've been lately - heavy and awkward and still. i'm hoping the beginning of classes will shake me down and back to myself and all of my stupid ideas. oh, how i miss my stupid ideas, i wish i knew who has them now.

you come back to class and your classmates are married, your classmates are in love, your classmates think they belong, your classmates have a list of everything that they want to do in their lives, and your classmates have the determination to do all of it. they're wonderful, even if it isn't all that simple, which i doubt that it is.

if you walk down cartier right now, and look up into my lighted study, you'll probably see me hunched here, scratching my nose or rubbing my eyes, thinking hard about what it is that i don't know i want to do, opening and closing my window, indecisive as ever.

you've watched me change

2005-09-01T19:50:00.000-04:00

and it's happened again.
it rather needed to, didn't it?

at least there's walking around in one's underwear...

2005-08-15T23:07:00.000-04:00

i spoke to three people in person today: the man who came to (unsuccessfully) fix the hot water, the mumbling woman behind the counter at hsbc, and the mumbling woman behind the counter at marché st-jaques. it doesn't matter, though: there are few people i would liked to have spoken with, anyway. i was happier walking down ontario street, losing myself in the flavour of my market apple, completely impervious to the world around me, than i am in most social situations. and that is me: i am the girl whose grandparents had to call her name repeatedly before she could hear them over the roar of her book; i am the girl who can't do a math problem because she loses herself in the tiny possibilities, forgetting the bigger picture of the formula. i was born with an attention that operated like my own personal set of sound-proof headphones; all that i ever needed was to find a proper jack.

solitude in the city, it's something few people manage to find, but i've got it, right here in this empty apartment. dogs bark, keys clank, and i look out of my window with a distant curiosity, vaguely touched by these blips in my steady stream of single-minded perception. the trouble these days is that i seem to have lost control of the cord; the jack i plug into escapes my power of choice. the same sad song is droning on, and my logic fails to call me back.

CHAPTER XVI: Special Methods of Examination ...165

2005-07-26T22:46:00.000-04:00

samm just asked me how to say "bat" in french - "bat, like the flying animal." i haven't responded; i don't know. yet i know that i probably should know, and i know that i probably should look it up. but i'm not going to, and this, i know, is probably a sign of my lazy downfall. sorry, samm. give "le rodent aux ailes" a try - maybe someone would believe you, and that's probably all that matters. on the off-chance that they don't, however, i recommend looking askance, humming an unfamiliar tune, and changing the subject: "were you aware that coleridge's 'this lime-tree bower my prison' was resultant of his wife spilling a pot of scalding hot milk on his foot? ahem, yesyes, quite..."

tomorrow i'm getting on a plane for california. i spent most of this evening listening to rufus wainwright's "california" and the decemberists's "los angeles, i'm yours" in rotation. neither of them have anything particularly good to say about the west coast, but i, self-indulgently, appreciate anything that gives a direct reference to tomorrow's destination; both of these songs ought to figure prominently on my mile-high playlist, as well.

the other day, while perusing the dollar books in a skowhegan thrift store, i stumbled upon what many outdated medical procedure guide book collectors (i leave the syntax and semantics of those last few words up to you) must only dream of: a 1942 edition of "Gynecology for Nurses." yes, it's that special; special enough for me to capitalize it properly. anyway, this little guide book is complete with drawn and labeled diagrams, detailed, and slightly antiquated, descritpions, and an entire chapter wholly devoted to the procedural instructions for seven different types of enemas. holy crap (and lots of it!), what a find. i'm toying with the idea of toting my little gem on the plane with me, you know, just to catch up on the old endocrine system and completely disgust/horrify/amuse/intrigue my on-flight neighbour. but who knows, perhaps there are more vital reasons for me to bring along the guide: there could be turbulence, displacements, infections, heck! a woman could go into labour - i would be the only one qualified to deal with the situation! if it were 1942, anyway.

o, sinnerselves!

2005-07-17T21:51:00.000-04:00

today i sinned against myself; i violated every principle i've ever almost had. i say almost because, for the most part, i consider myself a rather unprincipled person. sure, i've got my strong inclinations for or against certain actions or ideas, but these, i think, are more in accordance with my own human nature than with any sort of moral statutes i may have consciously or unconsciously delineated (all of this is, of course, simply my feeble attempt at self-exculpation - something i schemed up on my guilt trip of a getaway). principles, i told myself, my white knuckles crowning the steering wheel and my chest heaving away at sharp pains, are needless shackles one latches onto oneself to sidestep the risks and effort of individual judgement calls. but me, i'm a free sprit, i'm above such principles. i'm guided by my inclinations but am not a slave to them; i realize when it's ok to be "bad." my cheeks, much to my surprise (i never was much of a blusher), were flushing red at this point - but red with what, i couldn't say. indignation? if i felt indignation, it was only indignation towards myself. or maybe it was the thrill of the chase - the thrill of my renegade body stealing away from its inclinations, holding my mind hostage. but this game of mental man-hunt cannot go on forever, i (whichever part of me is "i") strove to unite my divided selves. justify, justify, justify, come back, slow down, relax. and so i justified, and breathed, and wrote. and here we all are, i think, at peace with our decisions and conclusions, amending our strict inclinations, while better training them for the next chase.

my summer job

2005-07-09T00:29:00.000-04:00

in pictures:

but there's no hook in my gut

2005-06-23T10:53:00.000-04:00

i would like to tell you that i've been too busy to post lately, or that my mind has at least been engaged in more stimulating activities, but i wouldn't have you believe any such nonsense.

the long island summer baits your line with wild fantasies of carefree living, revolutionary ease of the social life, and spontenaeity on a level that could almost reassure you of your own imagination. inevitably, one of these squirming temptations prompts you to bite in, to chomp down with soaring anticipation, but to feel, instead, the sharp pains of responsibility, isolation, and drudgery barbing themselves through your cheek. my mouth is ruined; my voice is silenced. in this tank of concentrated consumerism, i wear nice clothes to fend off my mental alienation, i read non-fiction literature to fend off my mental stagnation.

shit, i've got to get ready for work.

homemade

2005-06-08T23:00:00.000-04:00

today i crafted shoes:

they may be ugly; i may just love them.

i belong on swift's grub street.

2005-04-14T16:54:00.000-04:00

the occurences of my life run in a circular path. you'd think that after a rotation or two i'd learn to avoid the same patches of mud. but the powers of my imagination are such that i can always convince myself i'm running past different trees, rounding new corners - the road seems always fresh. ah well, i suppose mud baths are good for the complexion or something; just cut a cucumber for my eyes so i won't have to see the messes i make.

one day i ought to collect all the entries of this blog (and the old one too) and make an anthology of the world's worst metaphors: "Kim the Hack: an Anthology."

ps. check out the hairs on the leg of my little dragonfly buddy. ain't that sweet? maybe i should have less passion for things like insect hairs... except, if you really think about it, they're incredible. true intricacy is infinite and mind-blowing, a worthy object of prolonged meditation.

yesterday's craving

2005-04-09T13:09:00.000-04:00

i swear i will not complain once in this entire entry

2005-04-06T17:35:00.000-04:00

it's chucks and bikin' weather in mtl, and i'm taking full advantage! admittedly, the whole tonsils-swelling-up-to-the-size-of-grapes thing plus all the recent phlegm-hacking i've been experiencing has kept me from biking as much as i'd like to, but what i have done, i've loved. sure, it was tough in the beginning: that first day barrelling down pot-holed sherbrooke was intensely painful - never have i felt such horrible crotch chaffing, not since i lost my virginity to my bike-seat in fifth grade, anyway. but since then i've toughened up, and it's been smooth cruisin' through horn-blaring traffic and screaming pedestrians - the din of the city harmonizing with my screeching, rusted breaks and the sun glinting off of my shiny purple helmet.

hmm... i sense myself petering out here. well, all i really have left to say is that it's spring in montreal and that's enough to keep me happy for days on end. the snow has melted, the stench has cleared, and i feel like i've just woken up from a very long nap. it would feel good to type "glorious" right here, so i will:

glorious.

flapping about to keep up my strength

2005-03-23T00:23:00.000-05:00

i wanted to do something cheap; i wanted to post something old; i wanted to feign creativity.

wing envy. flightless wings look just as appealing, though the air that they move will never be shaped to lift. but at least the air moves, you could say; at least she will not allow its stagnation. i will not allow my own stagnation. this is a verbal slap across my verbless face.

i'm falling again - falling like i fell through the connecticut air. except this time there is no impact; this is an astronaut's fall - endlessly down and around, till my fiery descent into the elastic ocean. and my tiny bolted window does the scenery no justice.

anticipating my 19th birthday

2005-03-15T23:55:00.000-05:00

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

-- Billy Collins

ps. new comment system's up.

she records her summer goals

2005-03-09T18:44:00.000-05:00

summer approaches quickly, and summer makes me nervous. if it's possible to bungle up one's summer at all, then i certainly did that last year; and i don't mean to do it again. i mean, just look at the shit i did last summer: i took up cooking and baking, i read copious amounts of literature and poetry, i slept for hours on end, i trained myself to ruminate in the third person, i crafted nifty little pins out of fabric and clutter that fell apart within a week. and then, folks, four months of my life were gone. and what did i have for it? a knack for peanut butter bar baking, half a notebook of useless and self-depricating journal entries, a passion for annie dillard, and a couple of pins hot-glued to neon green micromachines and princess-pink barbie shoes. i'm sorry, but that's simply not enough to account for nearly half a year of my life (yes, i know, i'm so difficult to satisfy, the micromachine pins were sheer genius). but this summer is going to be different; this summer i'm setting GOALS.

and here's my first go at it:

1. Get a job and make lots of money.
2. Don't work too hard, take some time to relax.
3. Read.
4. Grow my hair really long so I can hide in it even more effectively.
5. Learn to bake something new.
6. Devise a new useless craft.
7. Remain as pale as possible
8. Write journal entries and poetry that are slightly less self-depricating.
9. Make a new friend who is not a snapper turtle living in the Maine woods.
10. Retrain herself to ruminate in the third person.

excerpt from an undated journal entry

2005-02-28T18:05:00.000-05:00

found this in my "real" journal. it amused me:

I arrived at the Trottier building 15 minutes early for phonology and, feeling parched enough, opted to buy an apple juice from the vending machine. Upon approaching the machine, however, my cheap Long Island girl instincts kicked in and I became very reluctant to part with a precious loony. Resolved to work up some mucus in my mouth and swallow that, or else find a water fountain, I began to turn from the machine, when a shiny object caught my eye. No! It couldn't be! I turned, I looked, I beheld: a loony that some careless engineering student had left in the change slot! How sweet!

Minutes later, while still gloating over and happily sipping my free apple juice, I noticed the presence of that enigmatic boy with [details omitted] from [insert place here] in the corner of the room. He was smiling his unassuming smile and talking to two girls who'd evidently spent too much time preening that morning. Instantly I became self-conscious of the brusque and ungainly way I was throwing back my head, attempting to get every last nectarous drop out of that can. I suddenly wished for a straw, and for clearer skin, larger breasts, a flatter stomach, thinner thighs, and more elegant clothing. Way to ruin a free apple juice, bitches (a term that does not exclude me).

poopsie goes down

2005-02-25T00:46:00.000-05:00

you know it's not home anymore when you don't want the computer to remember your passwords.

hey, kids. i'm on the island, sitting here in my pajamas, wishing i could shower, but holding out because jane used up most of the hot water. but i'm not writing here to tell you all i've discovered that this is no longer home. i've known that for a while now. i'm writing here to tell you that i'm flying backwards through the connecticut air, dreading my impact but enjoying my weightlessness. when i land there will be a soft thud; the ice will resist my form. i'll probably lay motionless for a few moments, sprawled helplessly for dramatic effect, then i'll dutifully contract, grab my elbow and whimper; i'll roll my sore neck for days.

but hey, i'm a limber young lass. i can take it. right?