Okay, Life.

11:11am: Nothing changes on New Year's Day
I don't feel 100% about the above quote, but I felt it fitting. Eric made a point yesterday about playing that U2 song, as I would always do in my days when I was obsessed with the band.

I don't have an entry from each month of my DJ for 2008 because I hardly wrote in it, but I would like to do a quick overview of the year, even though I don't feel like it. I'm hoping to feel better about it once I do it. Do I made any sense?

Early 2008. I don't remember a whole lot except seasonal depression and breaking up with Eric after dating since Summer 07. So, yeah.

Spring 2008. Then it got better. I went to Europe and totally fell in love with Berlin, had a blast in Prague and Vienna. I think about that trip almost everyday. So many good times, fun and nice memories. Too many to list here.
Got back together with Eric on my parent's 26th wedding anniversary AND Morrissey's birthday. I swear that man wants us to be together.

Summer 2008. Played a belly dancer in How to Write a Play, went to Memphis to see if I want to live there and decided on No, but could certainly go to Graceland at least once a year.

Fall 2008. My 25th Birthday party was 3 days long and a blast. Decided that I am going to Grad school Fall 2010. Barack Obama freaking won the election - probably the most significant historical event to happen in my lifetime other than 9-11. I was Sarah Palin for Halloween.

Winter/Late 2008. Eric started living with me, on the sly, sort of, and I can now only imagine the days when I swore I would never be THAT kind of person. There's nothing wrong with THAT kind of person, but I am surprised, and pleased, that it has come to me. My best buddy Molly got married and it was lovely.

So, the year started off a little bleak, but it definetly got better. I think it will only keep getting better. Fan-freaking-tastic.

This year I plan too:

1. prepare for grad school. I am enrolled in Dr. Boyle's Chaucer class, which I am looking forward to (because I heart Dr. B), I must GRE-it-up, I've got to write some essays and pick a good one with apply with, aaaand, well that's mainly it. I must got recommendations but that will be easy.

2. Clear out things in my life such as the projects I start but don't finish: It's ok not to sell crafts, it's ok not to write a book of poems. I'm just going to have to let myself focus on one thing, and that is now school.

3. Save money.

4. Be a little healthier. I know I can do this, I've done it before. I just gotta do it again.

5. Rock the party. Duh, easiest thing in the world to do.

So, obviously, 2009 is going to kick ass. Wish me luck. Guten gluck!!

6:03pm: No, I'm alive
Hi. I have kind of forgotten about the DJ. Guess what, I'm not gonna say much except

Check out my Etsy page! www.sonntag.etsy.com

:0

8:45am: Snow Day
This is what it looked like last year at this time (Valentine's Day in fact):



and




Maybe it will be a repeat!

5:40pm: no work just play
1. The age you will be on your next birthday?



2. A place you’d like to travel?



3. Your favorite place?



4. Your favorite object?



5. Your favorite food?

http://s135.photobucket.com/albums/q152/33ii/?action=view¤t=grilled_cheese.gif

6. Your favorite animal?



7. Your favorite color?




8. The town in which you were born?



9. The town you live in?






10. The name of a past pet?



11. The first name of a past love?



12. Your First name (real not nickname)?



13. Your middle name?



14. A bad habit of yours?



15. Your first job?

4:03pm: Paper trails
Hi. I suppose, since I'm not going to actually write this second paper I have to do this week since I don't have my notes or anything (at my parent's abode) I will DJjjjj. I'm watching two episodes of Rock of Love II that I've already seen. There's this hilarious, hidious French stripper on it. There's the psycho obsessed girl. There's a really old lady. There's this one girl who reads him a lame ass poem. I like the Frenchie.

I'm using my dad's laptop on my parent's bed, and my dog wants so badly to jump up on the bed and snuggle with me. He keeps looking at me wagging his tail with his ears perked up, but when I say, No Bailey, and his ears go down. That's so funny.

Last night could have been fun, I guess. I went to the Gallery Crawl with Eric and his friend Gina and her boyfriend. Gina's pretty cool. Though, I wasn't in a good state of mind. I got really stressed, just little things got to be quickly that built up with the fact that the galleries were completely crowded and I totally blew it by the middle of the evening. I mean, I was shaking and anxious and just freaking out and wanting to cry. I mostly felt pathetic for ruining what could have been a good time. I called Eric later, since I split early and felt like I jerk, to say sorry, but secretly I wanted to make sure for my own insecurities that he didn't hate me. Ok, I know he's not going to hate me. It's just hard for my brain to wrap around the idea that people forgive a friend for having some anxiety she can't handle.

My mom is calling me for din din. I guess I'll write more later?

THanksbuye

9:21pm: Time for reflection and open bars
Yeah, so I just came from my Leadership class and we talked about how reflecting on and learning from our life expieriences makes us a better leader. So, rather than trying to type up my Women's Studies paper quick, I am going to have some ME time ME TIME. I haven't DJ'd in a while. These are probably the reasons why:

Firstly, my old computer, HP, might have finally kicked it. I wasn't so surprised when it just wouldn't turn on the other day, but I didn't realize how much that sucks right now because I'm in a freaking online class. Such is the reason I am now in the 241 computer lab in Grace library at the same computer I always used in this lab. It's still freezing at this spot as always. And, as always why I'd be here, my computer at home is a-broken.

What made me feel all fuzzy and nostalgic was that I probably have typed an entry in this spot long ago. I was probably talking online with my friend Joe in Maryland, who is now even more of an alcohalic than he was then, unfortunatly. That's why I haven't talked to him much lately. I do miss his late IMs. We would talk waaaay into the night. Good times.

Actually, some of my fondest personal memories of Carlow are the times when I hung out alone in these computer labs thinking and typing and talking all about life. Life Life Life. I wrote so many good papers and poems then. Seriously, some of the best work I did at 3:00 am in the big FWH computer lab.

Now, I'm still a Carlower and always will be I'm sure, in some way or another. And, I'm okay with that, if not a wee bit proud.

Another reason why you may not have heard much from me is that I is busy as HELL girl. My agenda for the year:

work
classes
GermanyPragueVienna
anthology*
Allan-getting married
Me-turning 25-day before Allan-getting married**

*So, I joined the Dionne's Project at Carlow, a flegeling organization of mostly students who focus on domestic and interpersonal violence and abuse. Long story short, at the first meeting I got the big idea to produce and edit an anthology of poetry and fiction of local contributors that will sell to raise money for our mission.

If I hadn't gotten Jan Beatty interested, I'd probably never do this.

That's not a bad thing- I have to keep telling myself that. It's not. Really! The reason why I have to tell myself that is because I am afraid of failing and worried that it will become too overwhelming for me. I have all these great ideas, but putting them to action, honestly, never fully happens. So, this is my chance. And, as soon as I can get things in order, which is soon, I feel like I can truly begin this project -which will probably last into late October. Who's with me?

**Speaking of October. So, I've been dreaming of this awesome birthday party for me. Why not? You only turn 25 once. You only turn 2 once, I don't need a fucking excuse. Parties are awesome. I wanted it to be on my actual birthday-the 17th of October this year is a Friday. Well, once I got the anthology idea, I realized that the opening reception-release party thing for it will probably be that week of my birthday, so maybe having it on the Saturday the 18th would be okay.

Then I get this call. My little brother says, I know it's your birthday but don't make any plans, you have to be at my wedding rehearsal and my wedding the next day! He was super excited, as he should be. But, look, do the math, I am going to be at my little brother's fucking wedding rehearsal the day I turn 25. How thrilled to you think I am?

I have many mixed emotions about this whole entire THING. The girl-I don't freaking know her and if she asks me to be in her wedding party, I will have to say no based on the fact that I will be wrapping up the biggest part of this book I'm putting together around the same time, meaning I will be way busy with my own personal achievements that go beyond (in my opinion) getting freaking married like the rest of the world, and also because I don't know her! I'm saying No to the question-but I hope it never even gets asked.

I also felt pretty sad by the date choice. I didn't ask why, I'm assuming it was the date the girl, who's name is Heidi by the way, picked for her own school schedule-I know she is currently in school, I think, and, of fuck it, I don't know why it's THAT DAY. I HATE that it's THAT DAY. Who can blame me? Who hasn't seen 16 Candles?

Do not fret, my party will be the first Saturday in October, as I found I've done for the last two years. But this time, it will be not jsut a record party, but an all out My Super Sweet 16 crazy shit at a bar birthday party with dancing and a DJ and my hot body in a sexy dress with lots of boobs.

Oh, and I am going to look freaking HOT at my brother's wedding. If you think that sounds weird, just remember what I said about when it is.

Also, I am really happy that I have Eric to come with me. At least I won't be that pathetic girl all alone by the open bar. I'll be THAT PATHETIC GIRL at 25 with the weird boyfriend at the open bar.

My brother did say that for my birthday, he would get me my own open bar at the wedding.

8:33pm: Your heart is like the ocean, mysterious and dark
Bob Dylan is so good. Just so freaking good. When I was a freshman I was really into him, and I lost track. Lately, since the movie I'm Not There came out, I've been into him again. The words are just so perfect and unexpected, very specific. Just great.

Today, a Saturday, was probably a true Caturday. To me at least. I got up at 10 am, played video games til 3. Went out alone in the cold and in my sweater to read my Europe books and order contacts. Came home to Bob Dylans and dishwashing. I wrote a bit of a poem, too.

I've been talking a little to Little Kayla on the Facebook. She turned out pretty cool. She said Jan said that I was going to be working in the MFA office, which isn't true since I have a job elsewhere at Carlow, but whatever. I thought that was a little weird.

I don't even have much to say. I just wanted to throw in a Bob Dylan lyric in the Subject. It's from the song "One More Cup of Coffee." The White Stripes do a good cover of it on their first album. Calexico do a cover of it on the I'm Not There soundtrack, putting in their Tex Mex brass, making it feel like Quention Tarentino background music. I know what I mean.

I stood there and hummed,
I tapped on her drum and asked her how come.
And she buttoned her boot,
And straightened her suit,
Then she said, "Don't get cute."
So I forced my hands in my pockets
And felt with my thumbs,
And gallantly handed her
My very last piece of gum.

^from "4th Time Around" I love how this stanza seems to suggest something "cute" by the line "So I forced my hands in my pockets" but he only offers her some gum. It's such a real thing to do, which is something that makes him great, I think. He's so revered, yet, just look at what he's writing. Such banal things, yet so artfully put together.

Like your smile
And your fingertips
Like the way that you move your lips.
I like the cool way you look at me,
Everything about you is bringing me
Misery.
...
Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must.
You do what you must do and ya do it well,
I'll do it for you, honey baby,
Can't you tell?

^Buckets of Rain. I just enjoy it.

It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
And your long-time curse hurts
But what's worse
Is this pain in here
I can't stay in here
Ain't it clear that--

I just can't fit
Yes, I believe it's time for us to quit
When we meet again
Introduced as friends
Please don't let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world.
Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes, you do
You make love just like a woman, yes, you do
Then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl.

^Just Like a Woman. As a sometimes dramatic young girl, I thought this was a song that I could relate to most. It's a song not just about a woman and a girl, but about the relationship she had with the singer, who was equally as affected by it. Supposedly it's about Edie Sedgwick, specifically. She was one of Andy Warhol's Factory Girls if you don't know.

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Whatever colors you have in your mind
I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile
His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you're the best thing that he's ever seen

Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he's standing in front of you

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead
I long to see you in the morning light
I long to reach for you in the night
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead

^Lay Lady Lay. Just a beautiful, sweet song.

Your sister sees the future
Like your mama and yourself.
You've never learned to read or write
There's no books upon your shelf.
And your pleasure knows no limits
Your voice is like a meadowlark
But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and dark.

^One More Cup of Coffee. See above.

They walked along by the old canal
A little confused, I remember well
And stopped into a strange hotel with a neon burnin' bright.
He felt the heat of the night hit him like a freight train
Moving with a simple twist of fate.

^Simple Twist of Fate. This particular part of the song really exemplifies his smart diction. The "heat" directly after the line about a neon light is no mistake. He could have used a direct metaphor, comparing the neon light of the hotel to the freight train, but instead it's used as a symbol. I can much more clearly see a very strong, imposing neon light of the hotel, where the two people in the song (who meet once in a "simple twist of fate") stay the night than just saying that the heat was like a freight train. It's not just the heat of the night, it's the heat enhancing the neon lights, making them even more of a freight train than the heat itself. (I am bored you can tell...)

She was workin' in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer,
I just kept lookin' at the side of her face
In the spotlight so clear.
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I's just about to do the same,
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me, "Don't I know your name?"
I muttered somethin' underneath my breath,
She studied the lines on my face.
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe,
Tangled up in blue.

^Tangled up in Blue. I just always liked this song. I was always tickled by the fact that this topless dancer made him blush by tying his shoe, of all things. It's like the gum.

If your mem'ry served you well.
This wheel's on fire,
Rolling down the road,
Best notify my next of kin,
This wheel shall explode!

^Wheels on Fire. Siouxsie does a cover of this song. Also, it's the theme song to Absolutely Fabulous.

Wigwam has no words, but it's a good song for just that. I feel like he was like, what the hell, I'm fucking Bob Dylan, here's a song where I just say, "da da da daaa da, dee dee dee deeeeee." Featured on the Royal Tenenbaums Soundtrack and during the scene where Henry asks Ethel to marry him and she admits she hadn't been with a man in 27 years or some crazy number.

Later.

11:10pm: The end of the world
I would have tried writing a novel called The End of the World when I was 15 or 16.

In the meantime, currently I am 24, at the threshold of 2008, and awaiting the moment when I can fall asleep for the third time in 24 hours.

Last night Eric and I had a fun and merry (as in slightly drunken) Christmas dinner at D's by my house. It's quite possibly one of my most favorite places to eat/drink, especially since it's in easy walking distance from my house. They are like the universe of beers there.

Speaking of beer, my brother, who is 20, is apparently working under the table at a new beer distributer in Monroeville where the owner gave him two six packs of import beers. One of them is from China and that I haven't tried yet, and the other is a German white brew which was one of the best bottled beers I've had in a while. How lucky am I to have a relative like that? Last Christmas we fought nastily in the car and in the kitchen. This Christmas, it was just fine and even a little fun. Hopefully things are looking up?

By the way, this is my obligatory at home-home post. I haven't posted in a while, wanted to, but just haven't. I do this, get on the internet at home in hopes someone will IM me before I lose confidence and IM them while type type typing away my forlorness at home. I really wanted to see my family, but I really hate coming home like this. I really hate feeling like I can't just be at home-my-home with my own plans. But, what would those plans be that would diferentiat it from every other slaving day? Secretly, I want a Christmas-Christmas like when I was little. Who wouldn't? Jesus, he wouldn't I bet.

I got some pretty cute presents from Eric this morning, in our mock Christmas morning festivities. I hurried down stairs before he would get up, turned on my tree lights and set out our presents under the tree. I guess he knew I had done it before he saw it, but it was happy to me. We had Eggos and milk and coffee out of the Halloween tea mugs Ringa got me.

Here's a secret. There was a tiny box Eric had wrapped and I secretly hoped it would be a ring of some sort. Some binding something, you know? It's fun to think things like that sometimes, but I should just stop it now. Instead in the box was a handmade wooden turtle that shakes his head at the slightest bit of movement. He intended it for me to put it on my desk at work so I won't get so stressed out. God, that's really sweet. Why did it take me all day to really, really appriciate that?

Oh the days of my White Stripes courting. I just IM'd that to Eric. I needed companionship on the 'rents' internet. I was thinking specifically of the time, which you can find posted in there somewhere 2 or 3 years ago, when Jeremy brought a White Stripes 45 and set it on the couch in gold wrapping paper while my back was turned. I just thought that was the greatest thing ever. I was in lurve. I still never felt like that ever since. But, I'll never just be 21 again.

Things go on. I am pretty content, not exilirated, but content wtih how things are. They seem to still be germinating, but it's going. I just feel like I've hit some sort of plateau yet are coasting across it wondering when it will end. This is mediocrity, but it could be worse. What a weird time this is.

For next year: Chill out (what else is new?) work harder for myself. I guess that's it. Things are gonna change I can feel it (like in the Beck song).

I did have that feeling.

See you next year if not before... guten gluck

4:34pm: This year in crafts: 2007
So, Molly and I are going to start writing a craft/party planning book. In order to better prepare on this, I decided to revamp my knitting journal. In turn, I will try to remember milestones in crafting this past year.

Knitting stayed the same except that I learned how to do hats. They are now probably my most favorite things to knit. They're quick and easy and very practical. I made a great hat for someone for Christmas. I don't think she'd actually read this, but just in case I will not say who it's for. I started getting yarns from Knit One, since I want to branch out into new kinds of yarn, specifically wools.

I also created the "cell sock," the sock for your cell phone. It certainly is not as popular as Ringa's cell phone cozies, but I think they're cute.

I attempted selling the cell socks and other knits at two I Made It fairs, but I really couldn't get into selling my own things. Two folks that work at Your Mom's in Bellvue, who I see around at craft shows a lot and have been in contact with suggest I sell goods at their store. I may consider that since I would like to try and expose my stuff to the world and I think it may be more successful than the shows.

I do really love the crafts shows all over Pittsburgh. My aunts used to always do craft shows, but like most of us know, the ones in the city are pretty cool. They're a new kind of feminism for some and a reaction against mainstream consumerism and marketing for others. It's fun for all. The article I've been trying to write since October on the matter is on hold now. It's been stressing me out that I can't seem to wrap my brain around how to write it, so I've just said too bad, don't write it.

I think that's it for now that I can think of. For next year, boy, I have plans. The book that Molly and I are doing, then I want to try and put together a book of Pittsburgh crafters, which may be a more interesting substitute to my article and a good practice or precursor to the book Molly and I want to do. I also intend on setting up craft get-togethers at Carlow where the crafts made will be sold at I Made It's and the proceeds go to Dionne's Project, that I am involved with at Carlow now. There's also the anthology with that, but that something else... What else? Well, I think that's it. Not as much, and as overwhelming, as I thought.

See you next year!

6:40pm: All the things I wanted to say (in the laundromat)
[A young woman sits on a stool or waiting chairs at a Laundromat, attempting to write a letter to a person of interest to her. She writes with a legal pad and pencil. She is alone, save one instance as noted. *Note on text: a stop in the actress writing is indicated by a “-” Each time the writing of the letter is interrupted, the actress either scribbles her words out, erases them, or uses a new sheet of paper.
Props: stool, near empty legal pad, one pencil, one box of Snuggle dryer sheets, and an empty laundry basket.]

[writes] Dear Henrick, Here is a list of all the things I ever wanted to say to you in person but have not the guts to say, thus the pencil to paper-
[speaks] No, that sounds ridiculous. [thinks] Okay.
[writes] Dear Henrick, I want to tell you how much- No.
Dean Henrick, Did you ever feel like you had a load of tension of words in your belly and you need to- Eww.
Dear Henrick, I’m in the Laundromat, which is a metaphor for this letter I am writing to you. It’s the place where I take out my mind, set it to spin cycle, toss it in the dryer with a Snuggle sheet, and it comes out warm, soft, static free, but mostly clean. Clean of all the things I want to say to you. Not that I’m saying those things are dirty that I want tell you. This isn’t an erotic letter- Now who’s going to want to read this?
Dear Henrick, My most desirable, astoundingly handsome, ravishingly [pauses to find the word] hot, uhm, man child.- No. Only a weirdo would be interested in reading this.
[Gets up from the stool and starts pacing the room.] I wish I could just talk. Face to face. People do it all the time. They speak special words to each other, they say them at wedding ceremonies in front of their parents and cousins and caterers. I just can’t seem to put my words together right. In my head the words sounds like Vivaldi or Gershwin, but seconds before they slip out of my mouth, they sound like belch. I just want to save the embarrassment of telling you, to your face, that I really like you. I just love spending time with you, and I want to spend a lot more time with you. Why can’t I even write this down? I like you a lot. And, I’m talking to myself.
Dear Henrick, I guess only crazies do their laundry at night. [Sneezes] -That’s it. Yeah. I’ll just let it come to me, naturally and unexpected like a sneeze. Let it flow.
[writes] Remember that one time we were asked to leave the coffee shop because it was getting ready to close? It was a winter advisory night. You had a vanilla chai and I had hot chocolate. We played Scrabble and you kicked my ass. Insisted “et” was a usable word and built it off my “enemy.” And then I saw it was getting late, got up to leave, and you grabbed my wrist. Well, not so much grabbed as you gently pulled my hand by the fingertips to examine the charm bracelet I had on. It felt like electric shock. You did shock me, under the table. Our knees touched and a shock jumped between us.-
How do I remember that? God, he’s going to think I’m psycho obsessive. But isn’t that what love is? [pauses to think about that] No. [sighs in frustration.] I don’t even know why I’m trying. Why do I feel like I need to say it? He must know. I think. [Has epiphany]
Dear Henrick, I have been pacing this stuffy Laundromat for a while, trying to figure out a way to tell you that I like you a lot. Well, I just did it. Why was it so hard? I realize only now. I have clouded thoughts on how you feel about me. You need to talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in your head, your heart, heck, your pants, just let me know. Give me some indication! I mean, are you shy and awkward like me? You don’t seem it, with a strong, noble name like Henrick, or maybe you got made fun of for it and you’re terribly, secretly shy because of that. But, from the moment we met you seemed very esteemed in chatting with me, talking about this and that. This and that was never anything specific about me really, so how am I to know how you feel. I mean, how do you like me? Do you like me with milk and sugar, with cheese, scrambled? Do you freaking like me or not?-
[Dryer buzzer goes off loudly, startling the actress.]
This is obviously stressing me out. Not good. I can’t worry about how someone else feels about me. I suppose that’s what it is. Maybe I should just ignore my feelings. These unrequited feelings. I might as well be a stock character in a Shakespearean comedy. The fool. [Tears out last sheet of legal paper.] Damn. [Crumples it up, tosses it with the rest. Looks around. In desperation, takes a sheet of Snuggle and begins to write.]
Dear Henrick, I am going to write this once and it will be the last time I ever express this. It has been building up in me like straw on a camel’s back. It has been straining my brain, causing me to wake up with a charging heart, and look like a crazy person in the Laundromat. So, first and last time ever, pay attention. I am going to say it! I like you. Do you like me? [pause] P.S. If you ever read this, please disregard it! [Leaves dryer sheet letter on the stool while she gathers her laundry. Begins to leave without the letter, stops, realizes what she forgot, thinks about it, but leaves it, shrugging her shoulders.]

11:17pm: an email i just wrote to molly
Uhm, yeah! You win 37 beers. Way to go, Molly! Woooo!!!

Anyway, I was just thinking of something. I've been thinking about the olde days and Dan. Like, when we used to hang out at the Goose. You know. I cannot think of the Goose without associating him in it. Like, this one time, actually it was that terrible night Crystal got mugged. We had a great time, you me and Dan, not knowing what was going on with our other friends, totally innocent. I remember he played the song Pencil Skirt by Pulp on the juke box and he tried to hold my hand a little under the table. I bet you never knew that. It was like a second. Our fingers for real touched though. I thought it was really cool. And then he drove me back to the dorms (oh the dorms) and we were all heady and happy. And then you called me on my cell about Crystal getting mugged. So, that was over. What a damper! Oh well, I believe in kismet. Oh, and Dan's shitty car!

I totally miss going to the Goose and hanging out with those guys, Dan and Todd. I was there once since you've been gone, Molly! It's just not all that easy to get to and stay at late without a car. Boo. Plus, I was there with Eric, and though we had fun and I totally kicked his butt multiple times at pool (which I usually do), I kept saying, "Oh and we used to always play this song and get gin and tonics -light on the gin and Barkeep Laurence is so hot but gay and Molly this and Molly that and Dan totally played this song because he had a crush on me." Phew. Sigh.

Life tends to be rather banal save the occasional affirmation of love between Eric and I. I know it's because I'm working a regular schedule and I don't "go out" like I used to. I feel kind of homely. It's okay, it's just not all that glamorous, like I used to be. And, doing things like that with Eric, or hearing about the few times he's gone to "80s night" (you know, the fake one in Lawrenceville. Boy's never been to any club nights at Laga, sorry.) it makes me feel like he'll just never be as cool to me as you guys are. Or as cool as me, for that matter. Ha. He's a youngin'. He wasn't even able to go to a bar a year ago. I've got years of awesome partying on him. It makes me feel like he's still unfamiliar to me and I'm lost in his company.

Do not get me wrong, my lady, I'm super happy with Eric. He's awesome, and today, right now, if he asked me to marry him, I would say yes. I would say it tomorrow and probably next week too. But, the thing is this. That one time Dan tried dating me, I was only 21, I was little. If that were to happen now, I bet we'd probably be together a lot longer than one date that ended very awkwardly, for me at least. So, you never know I guess.

I suppose I was feeling restless. Needed to tell someone all the above. I have been thinking about this on and off lately. I feel kind of weird randomly contacting Dan. I don't want to sound like I'm looking for something. I don't know, to me it was just seem weird. Crap, I thought I was over having doubts and shreds of feelings for others. Maybe I am just restless. I suppose the only thing to do about that is appreciate and soak up what's going on now. It is pretty sweet...

Okay, well helter skelter la la la la la la la. Talk to you soon...

bye bye! heart heart heart

Angela

9:37pm: to...live in my...specific skin
lol. That made me laugh Ringa.

So, today starts another week. How many weeks do we have until xmas break? 4. Pretty soon I will be counting those down, you bet on it. So yeah, another 4 weeks of Registrar's bullshit and coming home to cats and a long, long evening of cable and internet and other lethargies. Short phone call from the boy.

"You are a great writer. You just have to find your story." That's a line from Never Been Kissed, the Drew Barrymore and David Arquette CLASSIC. Remember? Where Drew Barrymore is an undercover reporter reliving her high school traumas, dramas and dreams! Sigh. We all have many stories I suppose. I've got some great stories. It's a matter of actually writing them down. It's really just that simple. Duh.

I did write the first draft of my monologue though, that's one down. Next is that god damned craft article. Ringa, I need your input on it. I will interview you. I want Isn't That Something? to be the feature of my domestic study on the current craft trend. I need to make a decision on this fucking thing that I've been sort of writing for months (or really like one and almost a half months).

I just feel like such a loser for not doing it. It nags me like money nags me. But, it's like I can't get it out of my brain. I cannot focus. So, I bought a planner. A Vintage Playboy planner!

That's what it's like to live in my specific skin sometimes. Feeling listless and lost. Sometimes I feel like it's because of my glasses and lack of pariferal vision. Yeah, I don't know how that's spelled.

I wish I could have a crush on my English teacher again.

So, all this, is something I feel super strongly about. Why don't I just do it?

12:45pm: stuff
Arabic Eyes
“And soldiers flipping ID cards,
the men who editorialized blood
till it was pale and not worth spilling,
meant nothing to her.”
-from “Her Way” by Naomi Shihab Nye
There is a store on Carson St. in the South Side of Pittsburgh that sells a plethora of Middle Eastern collectables and gifts. The walls are draped with sparkling golds, burnt reds, and the color of crackling aubergine skin. Usually there are a few tables outside displaying exotic jewelry that convince boyfriends to buy for their girlfriends. The store’s sign is very plain, just a white background and blue block letters reading “Nick’s Imports.”
I was walking past one day when, who I presumed was Nick himself, stopped me and asked, “Are you Syrian?”
Slightly annoyed, I answered “Yes,” which was only half the truth. I don’t like being bothered by men I don’t know.
“I am Syrian too! I could tell by your eyes.” He then instructed me to stay put as he disappeared into the store. Bringing back a small, old woman wrapped in a mild burqa, he introduced her as his mother who “Is from Syria!” She was very pretty, I thought.
“You are Seelyyan?” she said to me in her thick, twisting tongue accent.
“Yes, my dad is actually.” She didn’t seem to understand my English.
After a vacant pause and a long stare, she asked if I went to school.
“Yes, I go to Carlow College for Literature and writing.”
“Doo-kane college? You go to Doo-kane college?”
I didn’t feel like explaining, “Yeah, Duquesne University” and I smiled amused. Out of the all universities stuffed in the city Pittsburgh, she probably only knew Duquesne as it is across the brown Monongahela River from the South Side.
At the time I felt a little awkward, as I normally would being confronted off guard with a personal question by someone I didn’t know, especially on Carson St., which is covered in, what I (affectionately) call, Yinzer bars. However, I was also thrilled by the encounter. As a dark haired, dark eyed woman named Angela, often people ask me if I am Italian and want to know my Italian last name. And, usually they seem confused or disappointed when I explain that my name is Arabic. Pittsburgh is a very Italian American city, so I don’t blame anyone for wanting to know if I’m in their clan. Or, they just don’t know what I’m talking about. If it catches me on a bad day, I could feel rejected and a black sheep to society. Though there was one time I made up an Italian name for this guy, just for shits and giggles. Nick was the first one to get it right, and I felt like I wasn’t alone in the city anymore, but there were Syrians everywhere and I didn’t even know.
The mother was silent then, but at least she seemed to approve of Doo-kane. Looking down the street, perhaps she was wondering what she was doing in such a balmy, cement, and cool gray American city. Then, I thought of my father’s mother.

Because my father and my great-Uncle Ghazi are the only Syrians I knew growing up, I was never fully exposed to an Arabic culture. I saw Uncle Ghazi and Aunt Janie (not Arabic) about once a year and we sometimes at his home cooking. As a typical American child would be, I was never crazy about such unfamiliar foods as tough shish kabob and minty salads. Their living room was adorned with Persian rugs and afghans, always feeling very cozy. Though, above the dining room table was a large plaque reading something in gold Arabic lettering. Still I can imagine the mysterious characters resembling melismatic heart rates on an emergency room monitor. It would have been only a beautiful artifact to me, except for the etched swords arching over the words that intimidated me, making me feel like I shouldn’t know what those letters really spell out. Otherwise, there wasn’t much indication or expression of an ethnic background in my family, or even much talk of them beyond Uncle Ghazi.
Talking to or asking my dad about his family, I learned growing up, was like picking at a perpetually sensitive scar in his DNA. Attributing his brother are phrases like “never got along” and “trouble maker.” I was about sixteen or seventeen when I came home from school alone and he called. It was a cordial phone call, but I really didn’t know or feel like I had anything to say. I’ve never met him or even talked to him before that instance. My dad’s brother may be the most touchy area in his history. The absence of having words for him inspires me to write a whole other essay. Meanwhile, a similar void surrounds my dad’s father, my grandfather, who I don’t believe I’ve seen a picture of. Unlike my dad and I do together, he didn’t watch and make fun of bad sci fi shows or take long car rides and listen to the classic rock radio with his father. In fact, I’m not sure what they did together if anything. I know he bought and sold real estate, and consequently the family of four moved around a lot. He and his wife didn’t completely get along, I suppose, from overhearing once that he had hit her. I was pretty young but old enough to know what domestic violence is. A talk radio show was debating issues around and it and my dad blurted out,
“Just one time my dad hit my mom, she walked right out.”
In the late seventies, early eighties, his father was living in an elderly home. He and my mom would visit, sneaking in cans of sardines for him. He died there when he was ninety years old, before I was born I believe. That’s all I really can tell anyone about him, and it’s because my dad chooses to avoid it for his own reasons, whatever they may be. But, while memory and existence of his father was avoided, the culture was forgotten as well, and not firmly or purposely passed down to the next generation.
In my senior year English class, we were assigned a project where we researched our family origins and presented them to the class. Living in Pittsburgh put me in a class full of German, Irish, Italian, Polish, and Slavic classmates. The city is actually known for neighborhoods like its own “Little Italy” of Bloomfield and Polish Hill (where you will find the best Polish American dive bar in the world, Gooski’s.). The St. Patrick’s Day parade is a big day Downtown, perogies and sauerkraut are at every picnic and office party. So, being a disgruntled teenager that I was, I wanted to stand out among my classmates and talk about my non-Pittsburgh norm family, my Arabic side. With a little help from the Ellis Island immigration website and a little bit of communication from my dad, I found out a little more about Albert Bayout Sr. that I might not know otherwise.
After a progression of extensive family history presentations, I got up to read my scant information to the class.
“He came to the States through Ellis Island in the early 1900s as a child. In the 1950s my grandmother Faye Dib and her brother, my great-Uncle Ghazi, came to the states. In 1961 in Allentown, PA my dad was born. My grandmother died young, in her fifties. My dad’s father died in the early 80s when he was Ninety.”
I felt like telling the class he was so old when he died, I just thought that was interesting.
My English teacher meanwhile was doing math in her head. She blurted out,
“So, your grandfather must have been pretty old when your dad was born?” I thought about it. “I suppose,” I replied, never having really thought about his age in 1961 before. I was more overwhelmed with the fact that I never knew any of the information about a relative close in lineage and having my dad react in his usual uncomfortable reminiscing.
“He was about seventy when your dad was born,” she continued. The class was humored and disgusted and I was standing alone with nothing in front of me but them. I wasn’t sure how to defend a person I’ve never met, never seen a picture of and who was my grandfather. The subject of a much older man having a child with a younger woman was just so taboo for my English teacher, that I suppose my completing the project and having something unique to say was not of her concern. Perhaps it’s scandalous, but nothing that the only half Arabic girl in the class should be embarrassed or feel deviant about, before or after September 11th. Plus, it happens in Hollywood all the time.
I actually don’t remember if it happened before or after that pinnacle day, but the Arabic background of my presentation didn’t seem to matter to the class anyway. Actually, it never completely affected me too personally either. Perhaps being intimidated by the Arabic scrawled plaque in Uncle Ghazi’s dining room was a result of being in first grade during Desert Storm, not that negative media influence is a big surprise. The Middle East to me, before I was old enough to understand, was a mysterious Disney cartoon world of silks, harem girls, and talking parrots on Saturday morning, and on the weekday evening news, an angry image of post-bomb dust clouds, wailing women in burqas and thin, tan children with machine guns. Then, every once and a while, I was reminded that it was the close origin of my father and present home of family members I’ve not met. This puzzled me and, though I could recite each line of Disney’s Aladdin, I still felt that my family was so far away that I didn’t have one except in my dear old dad. I could not compare him to a genie with Robin Williams’ voice or to a militant Saddaam Hussain. On top of that the only other source of the Middle East I could have gotten was often ignored and rejected by its messanger. My fathers family was left secret to me and consequently a culture I could have been part of.

In college my roommate Stacy was a history major with heavy opinions on politics. Often CNN was blaring on our TV, car bomb after subway bomb after suicide bomb after anti-Bush protest via Palestine, Jeruselum, Bagdad, Beruit, etc. Often I feel, as many probably do, exhausted by the repetitive destruction that tears up the region. Again, a reminder of what always seemed shrouded to me. But, since Stacy enjoyed her history, both in American government textbooks and through herself. She identifies with her father’s Italian American background and is grateful for it. We once met up at my house to make perogies together and pretended we were old immigrant women in Hell’s Kitchen. Around this time I started to think further into my own. I also had friends now that showed curiosity and interest in my ethnic background, not aversion.
One semester, I tempted in Carlow’s MFA department when writer Naomi Shihab Nye read for the International Poetry Forum. I was lucky enough to bring her water and usher the event. After the reading, in which she talked about being a being half Palestinian, one of my professors bought me my choice of one of her books. I chose 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. He introduced me to her and she asked me, “What’s your ethnicity?”
I told her and she said the golden jasmine phrase, “Yes, I can see it by your eyes.”
She was a very sweet lady, warm and funny. She signed my book, “For Angela- hoping you’ll feel at home in this book!” It took me a year to pick it up and really read it, and it was just by accident. I was looking for a different book of poetry to jumpstart my writing muse, but I found Nye instead. Thus, came this piece.
Nye’s father is from Palestine, but she grew up in the American Midwest. Unlike me, however, she grew up immersed in the culture and has traveled through the Mid East and being connected with it. In her introduction to the book signed to me, she writes about Arabic friends and families sitting around bonfires in her backyard, eating warm pita. These pleasant and rich memories allow her to be filled with and proud of her heritage
Pieces like Nye’s book sometimes make me feel guilty for feeling indifferent about a culture I was born into. I feel like I should have more universal heritage, other than just what we individually do and become part of something bigger. I feel like I should know traditions and customs and infiltrate them into my life so that I belonged to something beyond my tight circle of friends, my mom, dad and brother, and myself. People ask me if I know Arabic, yet I can hardly remember my French class. They ask me if I am Muslim or if I can tell them anything about the religion, but I don’t even follow the Lutheranism that I was loosely brought up in. I can tell them that in Middle Eastern culture, if you don’t burp after you finish eating, then it implies that didn’t enjoy your food, but I’m not even sure if that’s completely true. I identify with a lot of things, but never my ethnicity. Because my dad never disclosed information to me about his family, who happens to be Arabic, I just never learned it. There’s this mysterious culture of a thousand and one nights and suicide bombers that is far back in my history, and I don’t feel part of it, and feel like I should try to be.

So, I left off talking about how I feel that or how I've grown to find my identity as a Pittsburgher, if anything. Not so much a Yinzer, but I know my city, it's history and sweet spots, and I like it very much. And, I say my city because I'm the first born in my family to have grown up here. When I was 18 I moved out into dorms in the city and explored it and grew in it, came into my own in Pittsburgh, and I truly feel that it's my home. And, I feel that the culture is my culture. Pittsburgh food is a mixture of Slavic, Polish, and German, and Pittsburgh. That is what I identify with.

But, there was still my father's mother in the past. While his whole family always seemed a mystery to me, I singled into my Syrian grandmother, sort of idolizing her from afar, very far away. I found a black and white photograph of she and my dad. He was four months old and it was Christmas, 1961 and mother holding him and smiling in front of an aluminum Christmas tree. She looked like Sophia Loren in the picture, the rich Meditteranean features (that luckily got passed down to me). I took this picture and posted it inside of a journal of mine with a makeshift lock on it. The only reason it was such a secret was because my dad always had been secretive and even negative and seemingly angry about his family's past. He never spoke well of his brother, and I do recall a circumstance when he was yelling at him over the phone while my mom yelled at my dad and my baby brother cried. Though, he never spoke ill of his mother, and maybe I felt bad for him for losing her and felt cheated for not having her as a grandmother. But, there she was, there they both were, in my secret journal in a way I chose them to be.

I don't have a specific I idea of how she was like. I know she was pretty and was told she made iced tea in a saucepan on the stove and liked onion rings. She watched Dark Shadows and wore 1950s cat eye glasses. She definetly was a Syrian American and not a traditional Muslim woman. I also know that she was married to a man who was much older than her and who seemed stern, was in real estate and hit her at least once, to which she walked out of the house. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever seen a picture of him.

So, when I met this woman, Halla at my new job, Aladdin's, I felt a little sentimental attachment to her. She is older, probably in her 40s or 50s and preps food, grills eggplants and skins them and chops garlic. She doesn't speak English well, so when she was trying to set me up with her son, Mestafa, who is from Morocco I think and speaks English well, translated for her to me. He and I were amused. He told me how much she likes me, Halla. I cut myself at work, and she asked me if I needed help. She doesn't look anything like my dad's mother, but in my head, sometimes when I see her, I think, you're the grandmother I never had, with the cursive accent and those dark, sharp, and heavy browed Arabic eyes.

I don't regret never growing up with her or any of my dad's family, 96% of who I never met. But, we are his family, my mom, my brother and I. And, I feel the same way about them, and my friends. I sort of always felt like I never had roots, perhaps just in comparison to other people I knew, those Italian classmates with all their cousins. Still, that's okay with me. Since I went to school and lived away from my only real family, and being the first born in Pittsburgh, I felt like I was all on my own to make my own history and my own roots, my own culture. Being part Arabic is a fact, but it's not completely how I feel, as some people just assume or choose to assume their heritage as encompassing their being. I suppose I'm just a product of the 21st century, someone who is undefinable in a few definate words with an eclectic mish mash of backgrounds and pasts and no definate knowledge of where it all came from and where it's going. There's also no comfortable American story about a Protestant family that grew old together and who I see each Christmas, but who were untraditionally Muslim, not happily married, and who died, I'm pretty sure, before I was born. People my dad rarely talks about and who gave me the looks that Syrians everywhere find.

8:26pm: Jesus!
It was careless of me to place the candle behind me. When I came back upstairs after examining the bookshelf, I found a smell of snuffed candle, the wax. Then I found the smell of burning plaster Jesus statue. I scolded him. However, being that the black char stretched from his knee to his stigmata'd hand that pointed to his naked heart, I think he was teaching me a lesson.

6:39pm: This is the day when things fall into place
Have you seen that M & Ms commercial with the song "This is the Day" by The The? Well, I had that song on a tape once, and I gave it away. But, the M & Ms remind me of how nice that song is. So, I illegally downloaded it.

I was reading some posts from almost a year ago, last February actually, the month when I was so, so broke and I finally asked my mom for money, the last month I was so, so broke. I spent a lot of hours at the 61C and tips I didn't really have on the cheapest thing I could get so that I could use their free internet and write amongst the young students of Squirrel Hill. Like the song says: "You've been reading some old letters.
You smile and think how much you've changed.
All the money in the world couldn't buy back those days."

I do certainly feel a lot different than I did then.

I feel that the girl that I was, the one the felt as if she was only in a void of transition where something better would happen, that she'd emerge as a ironed and clean breathing woman and look back at the rusty, scared, but dreaming girl she used to be. I feel like I've succeed. I'm a woman, I support myself and only myself, I try my best, and I'm pretty happy with it. That's all I really wanted.

"You could've done anything, if you'd wanted.
And all your friends and family think that you're lucky.
But the side of you they'll never see
Is when you're left alone with the memories
That hold your life together like -- GLUE"

Those are some more lyrics to the song. I like how the publisher on the ad filled web site I found them on has GLUE so CAPITALIZED.

So, I would say that today just feels right. It feels like the day that I realize that "this is the day when things fall into place." At least for now. I mean, at least for -- NOW.

PEACE BITCHES!

10:17pm: Just waiting for the day to end.
I guess you can say I'm waiting for the moon to rise. That Belle and Sebastian version of what could be a Cure song. Oh, my Cat Stevens song came on.

I won't go into the details of my evening and why it sucks. The second time I went into details I got even more upset than I did before. Like, to the point that I felt like I used to feel. Oh, those days those days those days when I would come home from work at like 6 after an hour a half commute and do nothing but cry all night and if I didn't do that, I felt like I couldn't leave the house. Like that. Really angry.

Basically I think I've pinpointed something, hopefully the only thing, that would really make me break it all off with Eric, and that's that he is a big pushover. He's a freaking pussy, he has the passiveness of a chic and it's really pathetic. Most of my girlfriends stand up for themselves and their friends more than he does. Basically, I do not deal with untactful friends. To me that's someone I can't trust. So, I do not deal with that. I just don't.

Basically, also, the only thing that I could stick with him still is the fact that, unlike almost every other boy I've ever liked, he knew AND admitted that he really did a stupid thing and acted very lame AND apologized. I don't think I've ever been apologized for when very similar things have happened. He even called me back later because he was really upset that he made me so upset. So, I guess the fact that he is pretty much a pushover, makes it easy for him to do what he did. But, I still think I was right. Shontae and Dana both agree. If your friend had you come out on the bus across town and halfway there said Whoops Uhm There's no room for you in the car to this concert I invited you to, that you said months ago you wanted to go to, Wouldn't YOU be pissed? I was. Honestly, if he really wanted me to come, he should have made a spot for me very long ago. That really pissed me off. The whole time too we knew about this show, it was like he didn't want to know or admit that I wanted to go, and like I said, at the last minute he said I can because there was a spot in the car, and then all the sudden there wasn't. That's such fucking bullshit. I was so mad. I guess I still am. I knew I'd end up doing this.

Maybe I should call this all off. Just have it over. Obviously, if you look at the history of my DJ and read each entry mentioning a boy, you will find that mostly I talk about how stressed out I get. One is more likely to talk about the bads I suppose, to get them off her chest. The more and more I am awake, I just get madder. It was just really untactful. He really didn't think about any of that, and it really backfired on him.

Secretly, I was serious when I said "I'm glad you called and I'm glad you suffered." I wanted him to feel bad, I did.

I'm probably taking this a lot more extremely than I should or could. If I wasn't the type of person to be stubborn in her own ways and plans, like if I have a plan for the day and switch it, that's okay, but if I switch it and it turns out to be really shitty because someone just let it or made it shitty, I just get really out of my element. My element isn't this rabid, angry, mean, snapping girl. I'm really nice and fun, you know that. I don't want to be the girl from the movie The Secretary. (I used to think I was. But, I took a shower tonight because I didn't want to be.)

Well, we shall see I guess. I really do sometimes just want to cut him off. I think it's the age thing, the fact that he's still in college. Being out of school is really a smack in the face. I can't relate to him a lot of times. He says he knows what I mean sometimes, but I don't really feel like he does. Maybe I don't want to think he does. Maybe I don't think he does because, like I said, he's still a 21 year old college student. I'm a 24 year old grad and all I do is support myself. I know you guys get it. And, won't you agree that it was different when you were still in school?

Plus, this week at Carlow has been one of the most irritating weeks at Carlow ever, including when I was a student. Why has it been so irritating? Students. Fucking stupid, rude, cheap ass students. Fucking pathetic.

These are a few of a my least favorite things ^ ^

Well, since a Neko song just came on (I guess she's like my new Bono.) I should just quit. Sigh. Oh, she is so divine. She gets the Mad Love icon. Isn't that was love is though, in every sense of the word? Sometimes I think so.

12:24pm: Neko Case
Once again, she has stolen my heart. I freaking love her. You know that? I love Neko Case.

I decided to go to the Pitt book store on break today to find a lit journal, specifically one called 5 AM. It's published by Judith Volmer, a poet and friend of Jan Beatty's who I interviewed for the Purple Menace once, and Ed Ochester, who, if you know anything about Pitt and it's Poetry Series, he is the Pitt Poetry Series King. Did I spell series right? Anyway, they don't have a submission period, so I figured I'd try to take a look at their stuff to see what I may submit.

First I forgot that the above is actually why I went to that book store and found myself in their poetry paper back section. They have probably the best, maybe the only, selection of new poetry in Oakland. Maybe even Pittsburgh proper? Well, I'm looking and looking, see a few names I know of, nothing jumped out at me today. Then I remembered, Oh! 5 AM! I mosied over to the periodicals and my level of disillusionment and overwhelmness escalated. As always. This always happens to me in the face of poetry periodicals. I start to feel pathetic and vacant of talent, even drive. I feel like I'm not trying hard enough and that whatever I might do is crap anyway. There are so many periodicals, it just flies in my face every time I try to look into submitting or try to find some inspiration. I just feel like I don't belong in that whole scheme, those of writers in publications. You know?

I browsed around the cheap books, found that most of them were in Spanish or German and almost went home. Then, I decided to look again. Maybe there's some cheap thing I can just take home. I found a little, skinny issue of Poetry and to my greatest pleasure, one of the featured writers listed on the front was my very own Neko Neko Case! Immediatly I bought it and immediatly I read her essay on her reverence, yet her sense of belong to POETRY. Immediatly, I felt so much better, and totally inspired.

Afterward. Jan Beatty encourages the general knowledge of modern and very current poetry. While comparison to the last years of Dennison it is an improvment in the creative writing department of Carlow, it's not a total improvement. I think that Jan focuses too much on that though. It seems like it's what works for her, inspires her. It's not what inspires me though. I guess I'm not "hip," but it just doesn't work for me. So, that's why I feel like I don't belong in that whole scheme. What inspires me is Neko Case. In so many ways.

10:50pm: ooo baby baby
It's that time of year but I don't feel it. The same thing happened on my birthday. It's depressing me. I've also got a 20 year old brother who's shacking up at my house, a dad who, from past experience, probably blew up in his face when something stupid happened, and a mom who freaks out too much each time this happens. And I am always in the middle. It really is not fun being in the middle. Nor is it comfortable, nice, or even helpful to anyone, in my opinion. I feel so fucking down this week, and I want to cry at least once a day. I just fucking am sick of it.

But anyway, I was riding the bus home and had a fun idea, so that's good. You know that song by Cat Stevens called "Ooo Baby Baby"? I don't actually think that's the title of the song, maybe it's actually "Wild World." Yeah, that's it. In the song, the singer is directing his song to a young girl who's about to go out in the world. He says, "OOO Baby, Baby, it's a wild world. It's hard to get by just on a smile girl. OOO baby... and I'll always remember you as a child girl." I just love that song. It sounds sweet, but it also sounds dark. So, one day, actually Labor Day this year, I heard that song on the radio. I thought, hrm, this makes me think of a relationship between, not a father and daughter as may have been the intent (I don't know) but between a young woman and an older man. A mature relationship. Like, they DO IT. And the older man, he acts like he has her on a string since he's older and experienced, and she of course the same since she's youthful and attractive. Neither of them do really, because both of them fear getting older. Even the young woman. I suppose it can be a catharsis of sorts for me? Both of them cannot expect to have learned everything about human relations, contact, and even love no matter how old or even experienced they are. That's what I think, as a 24 year old woman. Heh. Well, what I thought the real strength of the short story would be is putting calculated references to Cat Stevens throughout and intertwining them with small parts of the plot. Oh, and a part when the female character is riding the bus home late at night and suddenly smells Ramen. Yeah, rooted in fact. Why don't I get up and DO IT.

Siouxsie Sioux, so good.

1:02pm: white women, all messed up
So, as you may know, I watch a whole lot of crime documentaries. I just saw one of those Snapped on Oxygen about Mary Winkler, a Tennessee woman who shot to death her minister husband. They had three daughters. Not much money, so a huge insurance policy wasn't in it. They said that Mary had a slew of part time low pay jobs while her husband, Matthew, also worked various part time preaching jobs. Finally he got a full time position at a church (and these were very traditional, fundamentalist Christians...) and Mary was able to go back to school.

So far, how does this sound? Well, speaking of her going back to school, the couple had met in college. He was her first boyfriend and about three months after meeting they were going to be married. Throughout their marriage, we learned in the trial, while Mary spoke her testimony, that he was verbally and physically abusive. He had her wear costumes or "clothing" that a stripper would, and if she rejected he would hurt her. Remember that I said this guy was a preacher? Are you surprised.

Also, Mary had heavy financial problems. She had many private

5:18pm: holy snit
haha. Holy SNIT. I meant shit. What? Shit. WHAT? SHIT!!!!

SO, I'm done working for the day, as far as I am concerned. I've been a little busy lately, not as much as I thought, but I'm being kept busy. I'm also mondo sleepy at the moment. Go figure. I'm preparing, or was, for this presentation I'm doing twice tomorrow for students, if anyone even comes. I know one person will def be there, and she's staff as well as a student. Bah. I don't know, I sort of want to just get it over with...

Oh, Karma Police just came on my internet radio.

Someone just tried to come in the door, but I guess they changed her mind. GOOD.

I should tell her, this is what you'll get, when you meeeess with us.

So, last night, I totally missed Dr. Boyle's, what I heard, triumphant reading/singing and guitar playing show at the Sphinx. I really wanted to go, mostly so I can say hello and score some self esteem points by flirting with him and seeing him blush his pants off. Do I really need that though? No way! This is what I was doing instead last night.

So, I got a coupon from Big Burrito to go to any of their restaurants and redeem it for an entree up to $30. That's some deal! I wanted to just go to Mad Mex and walk across the street then to the Sphinx, but since I asked Eric if he wanted to join me in this endeavor, he suggested we go somewhere nicer. It would have been more financially lucrative to use it at a more expensive restaurant anyway, since I can by ONE entree that cost UP TO $30. Mad Mex doesn't have $30 dinners. Casbah sure does though! They have many things almost $30 dollars. I always wanted to go there. It looks so beautiful from the outside. They always have white Christmas lights on.

I sort of wanted to sit in the "patio" which is all enclosed by plastic, sort of, and has a the lights and is really, really pretty, but it was so miserable weatherwise yesterday, they "squeezed us in" inside so we'd be most comfortable. The place they sat us at was actually reserved for someone at 8:30 and it was like 6:30 then, so we're like Yeah! We'll be done then...

Intially we were only going to split the $30 or less entree and go to the reading, but being in there with all the pretty lights, why would eat quick and leave? It's not that kind of place. It's a sit down for hours, eat many courses, drink a lot, and love love love. So, I agreed to an appitizer, which was actually only 8 bucks. That's like Friday's price, you know? We got frilled flat bread and three varieties of hummus plate. They had this artichoke hummus that was realllly good. Oh but first the chef's special little pre-appetizer thing was this bulgar wheat and goat cheese salad thing. It was not good. Then, we had the appitizer that was good. They also had this awesome bread, fresh baked, and warm and soft. Mmmmmmm. That was one of my favorite parts of the meal. I also had this really, really great pinot grigio. Eric got a fancy beer. Then, we split our $20 pasta, which I ate most of because, you know Eric and his chicken fingers and garlic toast and pizza. THEN they cleared our table of all bread crumbs with a metal scrapper thing. I thought that was funny.

ACtually, I got to go. See yo.

3:51pm: Here she is
SOOOooooOOOO

Upon a second look, about two months later, in my vacation suitcase, I freaking found my Batgirl shirt. I feel kind of stupid. I just really didn't look in every pocket in my suitcase before. Hell, I don't know. That was weird. It's like I was meant not to find it until now, so that I can appreciate it even MORE.

The reason why I love this shirt so much is that it's my power shirt. I have worn it to many a party, whilst excersizing, to bed. Hell, I lost my virginity in this shirt. Actually no. Why would I be wearing a shirt and losing my virginity? I have done a few naughty things in it though. Just saying. I got it at Hot Topic. I wore it at the Sun Studios Memphis and got a compliment from the guy who did our tour, which made me feel cool. I wore this shirt to Graceland! I've worn it miniature golfing! And here she is again... It's like the beginning of a whole new life together.

2:17pm: Batgirl! Batgirl, where are you?!?!?!!
Hi. I'm totally playing hookie from work right now. I woke up by my alarm this morning after many weird, disturbing dreams, and I just didn't want to do anything. I have absolutely nothing do to at work, nothing. It's been like that all week. It's so stupid. I sit there doing nothing! And people aren't even really calling or coming in the office needing things, so there's NOTHING! I called an hour into my shift like, look I'm staying home today.

I think I will make chocolate chip cookies. Vegan, being that I've no eggs. I think I will also make mac n cheese. Oh, ha. I have no chocolate chips. I want the batter really.

I believe I have lost my favorite shirt, my Batgirl shirt. I really am confused over it. Maybe I left it somehow in Virginia Beach, since that's the last place I clearly remember wearing it. But, I wouldn't have left it, or anything. I mean, I especially wouldn't have left THAT shirt. My mom said it's not at the house. I remember vaguely washing it when I got home from that trip. It annoys me a lot. I've looked everywhere in this apartment. sad.

2:58pm: I give up
The last two days at work have been more boring than ever. I started just doing poetry this morning, and then some busy work I made up for myself, but mostly poetry and a few surveys (for this article I want to do). Who knows if I'll actually hear back from people.

So work is boring lately. I also have been feeling a little anxious again. I really, really don't want it to get the way it was before, so I feel that I'm trying successfully to at least keep it a mostly under control. But, I still cried last night. I still have a constant nervous, depressed feeling in the back of my mind all the time. I know what is causing it exactly, so I am trying to ignore that. I really don't want to deal with it. Big Big Big sigh.

In order to attempt to stay on par this weekend, in which I plan to and want to entertain many people I care about, I took a Zoloft last night and another this morning. Okay, last night I also took it with two shots of Jim Beam, but that was in self defense. I needed to sleep. I took another this morning, and while it will take a few days or a week to really kick in, I know it's in there. I have waves of nausea every hour or so and my hands are shaking. I'm also pretty sleepy, but that's normal anyway.

If you didn't know I was taking it for a little while in the winter, and it worked really well for me. I mean really well. Then after one bottle ended, I stopped, just to see how I would do, and I did great. It was the time when I was weaning myself away from Shawn and doing the old lady thing, and having a really, really good time. There probably was a month or two in there when I was on no med, no boy, and I think I was even exersizing. Now the time has come in the newest relationship that I start to hate it. As you know it's been going on for a while, me second guessing my feelings, blah. I kind of hate that I started taking the Zoloft again, well just two times, but it's for my own control I think, and I will not call any boy, I won't. It's for my own good. My bestest friend Ashley Pearson is coming to town like Santa Claus and it's gonna rock.

I just needed to get that off my chest, some of it. You guys got a watered down version. Sorry. Don't mean to go Disney on you.

On a lighter note= So yeah, my party. This is what I have planned for this wekkend! I meant to spell it that way. Like nekkid! Say it with me! WEKK-ind. Like Wicked! Ash will be in town about 7 or 8, probably more like 8:30 unless I'm lucky. We'll go to a bar, and depending on who's joining us. If it's just us two, I think I want to go to Gooski's. My favorite place on Earth if we're talking in overexagerations. And then tomorrow we will do some shopping for the party and then to the record store. Ashley always wants to go to Jerry's when she's here. I'm not sure where we could eat lunch at. I would say Aladdin's if two fo the managers weren't pissed at me. Then, we will get ready for said party in which all who attend must dance and must, must, must have a good time or else! And that includes me too. I can't make a claim like that and not follow it. So, make sure I'm flipping happy. Sunday we'll probably go to Pamela's for breakfast, as that's another Ashley Pittsburgh stop. I is excited.

I'm tempted to see what I wrote in the DJ a year ago. Tata for nowta.

5:40pm: today
Today was the boringest day ever at work.

I'm just watching A&E, which is part of the reason why I got cable. I probably watch too much of it. It seems like almost ever murder within families, couples for example, have a motive of gaining large amounts of money. I mean, don't people learn? That sucks. I can't even imagine being associated with people like that. I mean, if someone came up to you, your best friend, and they asked if you would help them murder someone, would you freaking do it? I would tell them to seek help. Crazy.

And, why is money such a motive for death, for killing a person? The first thing you think is, that person is greedy. But, maybe they really needed to pay some bills? I'm not justifying murder, but I'm just saying people get really, really freaking disparate. So much so that they go crazy. Murders like this don't happen in other countries, and they almost all happen in the Midwestern US. Full of crazies.

7:01pm: Oh Girl.
About a year ago I started blogging, journaling, writing, whatev, with the intention of putting together a book. I bet you can guess that I didn't really write that book. However, I hope you can guess that I still am trying to. Last time I had a few essay-y ideas with feminist overtones or themes. It sort of fell away for a bit, but all the things I've been reading lately lead me back to those femmy things I've been thinking about writing. Aside from not being able to focus and not being able to pinpoint what it is that I want to say, I really feel strongly about what I think I want to say. Do you get it?

Well, first I guess I will start with, at this point, reviewing and maybe even editing my "Womanifesto.:

Sunday, March 07, 2004

So, here are the main points for my Womanifesto:
-Independence
-Honesty
-Individual

The book Cunt by Inga Muscio suggested every woman write a "Womanifesto." Here she talks about it:

Defining and articulating your beliefs serves you in any context. By taking
that step further and causing those beliefs to exist in the material world, you
contribute to a social climate of cuntlovin' evolution...

A womanifesto does not have to be written. It can be a song, dance, painting or
whatever medium stirs passionnin your heart.
(185)

I think this is a great thing for any woman, any age; any socioecon. status; any religion; any whatever to do. I have done mine (in writing, my favorite medium). I started it after I finished Cunt which was a while ago, and I am still perfecting it. Only part of it I posted above. It can be a lot of fun, but mostly an interesting thought provoking process - thinking about society, gender / sex, but especially deeply thinking about yourself -all this as a woman.

I also greatly suggest reading Cunt. My friend Dana suggested it to me, and I loved it. My personal opinion, some of it is rather radical, Muscio is obviously a man-hater, a little but of a flake. BUT, she writes the book as objective as she can, she "warns" the reader about her predisposition, which has its slight undertones, but does not interfere when the reader is willing to communicate. ***And not just for girls either. I think it is an very interesting book for a man to read. Muscio doesn't suggest this anywhere, and though I don't think she would. Though, I do. Guys ought to read this and be proud of their

so-called
counterparts.

That's Cunt: a declaration of independence. Muscio, Inga. Published in 1998.
IBSN: 1-58005-015-8

See what all this Cuntlovin' is about.

11:44 0 comments
Friday, March 05, 2004

____


Okay, so that's not what I thought it was! Ha! Oh well. I have been distracted by Rock of Love, which is yet another entertaining train wreck of a tv show. So called rock n roll. Suck my Rock of Love Bret Schmichaels. That's a whole other story. But, something to write about as well, rock n roll.

So, what I think the main things that I want to say or make "feminism" out of and into are these things:
-Women are vessels and beings for themselves first (so, not solely a mother, or that it's a choice to become a mother)
-Women can be sexual in any way they please (so, talking about me having sex and wanting to have sex does not make me a slut or easy. It really doesn't)
-Feminism is what you make of it, like everything else is what you make of it.

Yeah, okay. That's there to start.