today

a bunch of people from the dojo i joined this week went to a bar tonight to watch the fight and hang out, and i was supposed to go. i really thought i was going to go. socialize. i got all dressed and actually got in the car, i drove almost half way there before the panic attack hit and i had to turn around and drive home. i just started thinking to myself "if i try to make friends with these people, they're going to ask me what i do, or what my story is, and i don't have an answer to that question."

so i came home and watched orange is the new black with my parents and cried and now im listening to leonard cohen and staring out the window because i can't even read. i haven't been able to read anything other than franny and zooey since i got back here. i can't even read any more.

so there's your update. this blog is my only contact with the world, because i can't face interaction. i can't imagine answering questions without hyperventilating. im just so tired.

im so tired, and i cant sleep. 

i just moved into my room at my parents' house in the last two days because i couldn't bear to be in the bed we slept in together. i made myself a blanket nest in the corner of the spare bedroom that ive turned into my studio. i didnt sleep there either, but there were fewer ghosts. everywhere i go the ghosts are there first. 

i dont even want to make friends. the walls are up. i dont want to let anyone else into my life again, ever. i just dont have the energy to trust anybody, care for anybody.

im so tired.

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving, say goodbye to Alexandra lost

do not say the moment was imagined
do not stoop to strategies like this
as someone long prepared for this to happen
go firmly to the window, drink it in.

Important life update

I have changed my hair. It feels much more natural this way.

this is taking longer than i thought

i thought my new schedule of going to the gym every morning and the dojo every evening and the meditation and the being with my family and the sleeping at night and all this damn time would make me stop crying at every little thing that reminds me and hurts, so i thought that i was finally ok enough to unpack my suitcase and put all my clothes on shelves and hang my dresses in the closet and my books back on the shelf.

i was wrong. i just zipped up my empty suitcase and put it on the top shelf of the closet, and now im folding all these clothes that have lived in the van and rolled in the dirt of the mountains and the sand in the desert and im sobbing like no time has passed at all.

i hate feeling like this. i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it. i hate my clothes all neat and folded on these same fucking shelves again. i hate my shoes in their neat fucking rows and im just sobbing all over again.

this is taking longer than i thought it would.

new Fiona Apple, Paul Thomas Anderson

Hot Knife

holy shit.

The Long Con

And I know, that's who I am. I'm The Long Con. It's why everyone ever
made to look into my psyche gets freaked out or walks away, saying
"your manipulative, and I think you'd lie to get anything."
So no more defending my own behavior. I am the liar. I am the girl
with more faces, mor identities than you can count, I keep a mirror in
my rooms that you keep thinking is tricking you, because surely it's
just you and I here. Right? Just us. Two.

You fell into my web. I am what they have always said. I am the liar,
the wearer of masks. I am the girl you trust against your own best
instincts.

I am the long con. So don't trust me, don't love me. leave me alone. I'm done hurting.


And maybe, just maybe, I poked it in poorly so you'd think I didn't
mean it, it was a moment of weakness, I'm just a little blue-eyes
girl. How could I be the manipulator??

Bayonets

My love bought me a civil war bayonet blade for my birthday last year, because he knows how I love knives. I totally failed his birthday, bought him roller-coaster-park tix bc he liked them when he was little but his now-bloated organs can't take them. Anyway, he won the birthday present contest, and I was just sitting holding this bayonet blade and realized that it fits in the hand very naturally. I held it and and felt it and thought and realized - that "fit" is from use - this sheath had been gripped so tightly by so many hands that there are grooves where your fingers now just slide into place when you hold it. Some man - or so many men - squeezed this particular blade's sheath with such strength or emotion or strength of emotion that now, when I hold it, grabbing the sheath and yanking out the blade feels natural.

New work

I'm working on an extended essay distinguishing catharsis from art. Much of my most recent publications and my future ones will be experiments on that division.

more Franny

"All I know is I'm losing my mind," Franny said. "I'm just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else's. I'm sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It's disgusting - it is, it is. I don't care what anybody says."

Franny, JD Salinger

"I know this much, is all," Franny said. "If you're a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean you're supposed to LEAVE something beautiful after you get off the page and everything."

Catharsis

Dogs are better than people

I was up writing in my new studio and Nelson came looking for me. I asked him to wait for me over here, and he curled up and waited. Hours ago. He will wait here until the end of time if I asked him to, because he, more than anyone I have met, understands what unconditional love is. I'm going back to work, and he'll be here ready to cuddle when I'm done.

Things I've learned I can do while sobbing

Fly across the country
Collect my bags
Unpack my bags
Take showers
Wash dishes
Write emails
Write stories
Watch movies
Make breakfast
Throw out un-eaten breakfast
Devise and complete art projects
Carry on conversations
Go running
Do laundry
Make tea
Go to the movies
Take the dogs to the park

Sweet agony

"although he had alluded in many a poem to the "happy pain" or even the "sweet agony" of love, he had not understood that the agony could be worse than any other sort of agony - worse than any actual pain of the limbs or organs, worse even than the way his head felt after a night out drinking, which he has previously thought could not be outdone for misery. And there was no way to separate a wounded heart from the body it tormented"

soul-crushing pain update

the more i look at the header image on this blog, the more i realize how representative it is of my current state.

the only way it would be more representative is if it included a nick in my carotid artery that continually pulsed tarantinto-esque amounts of blood all over me.

still hurting

"the thing about love is that it brings out the best
in you, but it could also bring out the worst—
all your fears, rage, self-doubt. don’t mess
around with it. it’ll blow up in your face."

My dreams hurt

I just had a dream that I was catching a nap in the van and when we pulled in to get gas I half woke up and my boyfriend brought me some hot green tea bc it's my favorite. Groggily, i burnt my mouth on it. I sat all the way up in bed to tell him i burned my mouth on the tea, and then realized there is no tea. I'm not in the van. He is not here.

for the best

i could bullshit you all w some history about where that phrase comes from, what it means to do something for the best, the ethics of "for the best for the individual" v "for the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people" and what "for the best" really means, but just by starting this post with "i could..." ive proven my credentials to all the lit and philosophy majors who needed that and ive proven that im an irredeemable asshole to everyone who doesnt give a shit about majors.

i keep hearing people say "i think it's for the best," "what do you think is the best?" "im not sure this is the best...," their voices dripping with burden they refuse to acknowledge as soon as i enter a room. im not upset, in fact im feeling a bit guilty that my existence has so many strangers wondering what would be for the best for me.

ay, here's the rub (ps everyone in the play im quoting dies in the end): there isnt a best possible outcome for the greatest number of people.
there isnt one for me.

i just keep hearing the echo of "keeping her here isnt for the best." i agree though, bc all i want, the thing that would be the best for me, is going home

going home, for me, is reuniting w my man, packing our tent, out cookstove, our books, our spirals, our pencils, our sharpeners, our knives, driving our enny as far into the rockies as she'll go, and then just living there.
we'll find a stream for water. we have weapons so we we'll learn to snare and hunt and fish. before winter we'll build shelter. we divide to living jobs in the morning and then do our art in the afternoon,

i keep thinking to myself "i dont want you to keep thinking about whats best - what compromises need to be made for us to make whats best." i dont want that. i want to go home.

and this living in the fucking dirt and the trees up in the rockies, that was the closest to heaven that ill ever come. and i want to go home to there

i just had the most fun you guys

so for a long time i had been talking about developing a week-long writing camp that i could sell to local libraries or rec centers as i was traveling to bring in a bit of income, and today i finally put that into action!  i did an hour and a half long writing lesson with my 7th grade brother and one of his friends based on a program i did in junior high called power of the pen. essentially the kids get a prompt and then write on that prompt for forty minutes, and at the end i score their stories on creativity, story development, how well they draw the reader in, whether it sets up a beginning and middle and resolves at the end. basic building blocks of fiction writing. it was so so fun.

liam wrote a story about how much he misses the sky, because there was a huge war that drove everyone underground, and then there was an underground war, and then he died in a flood but he liked being dead at the end bc he could see the sky again.

it kinda knocked my socks off.

im so glad i got to do this!!

i wrote this on april 20, 2011

how many declarations of Undying Love
are shoved
into pockets, sent spinning through the wash,
to wash up
on the shores of our sidewalks?
better to seal Love
made in a bathroom with
lipstick on the wall.

more heartbroken ranting

i just kept thinking if i could try harder, we would be better. 

but you weren't even interested in getting to know me.

and so, the disappointment and the sadness.

please do not read this

this is not an open letter. this is not a direct letter.
this is not for anyone but me.
please do not read it.
maybe i will type the whole thing out and google translate it to wingdings so you know this isnt about you.
maybe i will just copy and paste the lyrics of you're so vain so you know this is not about you.

for readers of my blog who were in no way brought here by the blog of mr johnny azari: i am going through a break up.
i am hurting. i am in a love with a man who cannot possibly love me in way that is healthy for both/either of our lives.
i want to not be angry with him, i just am hurting. i have a big open gushing wound in my soul that has obviously nicked open a very important artery bc it just keeps gushing blood and it will not heal and it will not even scab over. it just keeps pulsing out pain and it hurts. it hurts to not turn to him and say "reservoir." it hurts to not build a fire together. it hurts to not hold his scraggly face in my hands. it hurts to sleep alone. it hurts to not have his arms wrapped around me. it hurts to not watch him talk to people and see his face when he's wondering if the joke he just made is funny. it hurts to not count on him. being alone hurts.
but being a burden and a disappointment hurt too.
it hurt to feel lonely when the man i love was standing right next to me. it hurt to know that i could not be helpful in the way i told him that i could be helpful. it hurt to know that i could not be what he needed me to be. it hurt to love him and love him and love him, and pour so much of myself into loving him, and feel that i was pouring my love into a vacuum that could not contain it or notice it. it hurt to know that he wanted me to be someone else, that he wanted to love a different person, but loved me in the hope that i could become that person. it hurt to always want to be better.
it hurts to be without him. it hurt that to believe i would be with him for ever and ever and to now know that i will not. it hurts to hope and believe that there is a woman who can do the things he needs and will do them for him and make him happy. it hurts that i couldn't do those things, that i couldn't make him happy.

i miss him. i love him. i want him to not hurt.

i know that this will become easier and will hurt less. i know that he will be a better man without dragging my Crazy along behind him, and i know that my Crazy will not be an impediment to me if i allow myself to grow with it and become a woman who can stand on her own.
i know that, alone, i can be better. i know that this hurting will make me better.

or maybe i will just always hurt, because i will always love him, but i believe that he and i will both be happier alone. we will both grow through the hurting and be happier. maybe we will even both grow into happy people independently, and then when we are happy alone we will be able to make each other happy together. maybe.

7.13.2134

The wendigo is a demonic creature appearing in the legends of the Algonquian peoples along the Atlantic Coast of the United States and Canada. It is a malevolent, cannibalistic creature strongly associated with winter, the North, and coldness, as well as with famine and starvation. The wendigo is described as gaunt and emaciated, with the ash grey complexion of a corpse. Wendigos were also symbols of gluttony, greed, and excess. Never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they were constantly searching for new victims. Humans could turn into wendigos if they ever resorted to cannibalism or became possessed by the demonic spirit of a wendigo. Once transformed, the individual would turn violent and obsess over eating human flesh. The most frequent cause of transformation into a wendigo was if a person had resorted to cannibalism, consuming the body of another human in order to keep from starving to death during a time of extreme hardship.





declan says:

wait, we cant say 'dumb', we can only send nice words. ooh! is that a candy? can i has one of those? ok  ga'night!!