it's the wobblyness that's killing me.

see, 'cause I've been thinking about home v home v home (whatever that means). it is nice to have money and to not have to pay for meals or laundry or blah, blah, blah, but none of those are the reasons that I've stayed here for a week. I miss my friends like crazy, I miss going out and such, but it's the living situation that's stayed me.

it's easy to say I hate chris, amber, alex. I've said it before, I'm saying it now, I'll say it again (probably). but, really, I would like to be more decisive. around them, I'm not. if I really hated them, I would stop buying into (and re-selling) the bullshit and just letting it slide by when alex is "dana" and "she," or when I pretend to care about chris's inane problems with clubs and work. the inherent wobblyness, though, is in the daily conversation - if I'm talking about rent with chris, or with chris and alex, I can't refer to either of them by a pronoun, and I can only refer to chris by a proper name.

part of me says it's good practice for life, for dealing with inevitable people who I have to hide my opinions from. another part of me says, fuck that with a fucking splintered fucking pitchfork.

...actually, that part of me says "fuck" a whole lot, now that I think about it.

it's difficult to think about, because I'm not sure what to do. I'm going to make graduation cards that equal pleas for money and send them to relatives and random rich folks, because I need some cash monies. I have enough to pay rent and have enough left over for christmas presents (I think), but definitely not enough for another two months' rent. thus, I have to be out of my place by the end of december. not a problem, as I always planned it that way, and I don't have a lack of options as far as friends and places go. the mechanics, though? that's what has me confused. the evolving plan right now includes staying at home for a bit over new years and recollecting myself, but then what do I do with my bed and desk? I don't know. maybe a storage unit, but then how do I get it there?

I have a feeling this is minutiae, and I'm obsessing over it so I don't have to think about other things. speaking of those other things, I gave up on both brown and toronto because I couldn't make the deadlines. I sent out my transcript requests today for all the schools with due dates in january, and I added three more schools to the list.

I want to go to grad school so I can have a couple of years off to write, without having to do think about serious. how do I explain that in my letter of interest?

also, I'm switching my journal over soon. look at my profile for the new one.

lordy, lordy, look who's sick of all the how-dee-do.
yep, that'd be me.

seriously. everyone's facebook status. the yahoo load page. the facebook load page. google ("find out where to vote today with google maps!"). yeesh. everything demands your vote, pops up a poll where you can confirm that you voted, asks for your help in rallying for X candidate (though I did see one for cthulhu, which made me laugh).... enough. it's my right, it's my privilege, and ultimately, it's my choice. apparently, change is only worth something if it's brought about through demands and coercion. (I don't think I really think that, I'm just in a cantankerous mood.) so, anyway, yes. I'll turn on the TV, have the results as background noise, but history's a tide. at least, I think so. it's said you can turn it, but I dunno - even the panama canal answers to lunar forces. man, and then I fall right into analogy. okay, waking up fully now. asterisk and later.

you know what's strange? I don't remember ever filling out an NAU application

tired, reasonlessly. still the AM, which is something I've not enjoyed for a few days. woke this morning full of potential. the day's important. important to record that realization, even if it comes to nothing. but what's nothing? I conjured driving to another city, but that's not necessarily earthquaking. finishing a story, seeing a carter or a ben, finding the phd programs. the world's wide.

also. I don't think "boys or stupid" (fill in "boys" with x term - gay men, women, lesbians, men, whatever) does justice to anyone. no group is inherently stupid (this led to a rift with mum this summer when she was unilaterally bashing republicans). individuals inform trends, which in turn transform into the charts our current mathematical epistemology has filled our heads with. everything is a trend. plato writing socrates didn't believe this, but I argued that by today, he's not right anymore. maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. is it any wonder we spend millions trying to understand the weather?

approaching the middle of october, and I can see how my own 'ships have shifted or sailed. as recorded before, my friends are win incarnate. I miss lauren, though, most of all. strange, because I miss both melyssa and jenna, but I feel the loss of lauren most deeply. it manifests itself through not wanting to speak to her and acknowledge the loss (which I'm trying to overcome). but with kyle, lauren and melyssa form a triumvir that I want to want to succeed, if for no other reason than my own selfish desire to see it done.

I remember why living with alex is bad, and I want to record it here for my future eyes: it's abuse, plain and simple. not physical, but. example: yesterday, I go downstairs to have lunch and find my unopened box of crackers open and two of its sleeves missing. of course it's alex, so I head up to his room and knock on his door. no answer, but I know he's in there ("sick or depressed," according to chris. "bullshit," according to me.) so I knock again. a sleepy what? from inside, so I say wake up. he does, I walk in. doesn't even try to hide it: there on the floor are my empty cracker sleeves, with only the crumbs left. he's eaten something like six dozen crackers since I had breakfast three hours before. there's not much to be said but I still ask did you eat my crackers? or something like it. he says he did, throws (literally throws) two wadded-up dollars at me, and finishes the exchange with with no one ever takes me to the fucking grocery store which I follow with what am I, your parent? but this is the danger, see, because not only does he not claim any negative responsibility for this - in his mind, he's done nothing wrong - but he blames me for it. because I haven't taken him to the grocery store, he's perfectly reasonable in his eating of my food, because I'm the one who's erred. my dad used to be very, very good at this kind of psychic manipulation, and while I know alex does this all the time, he does it in various ways - getting rides out of me, having me proofread his documents - that leave me forgetting the last and falling for it again. no more. this abuse ends.

also. might skewer him. emergency thorocotomy gone wrong. be warned and stay tuned.

random myspace additions. they happen. redrawn cliché: death, taxes, and random myspace additions. I normally ignore them, but the one I received today had to pinnacle the pedantry. read for yourself:
(an unknown gay male from minnesota. his "about me")

Hello bitch's my name is Doug, I Live in Minnesota, and have my whole life. I like to hangout my friends. I don't do drugs or get drunk i dont think u need to be high or drunk to have fun. I love to go to the gay 90s to watch the drag show i love it so much i wish i could do drag sometime lol. Also i enjoy going to movies, bowling, going up north to Breezy Point witch is close to Brainerd, and of course shopping duh what gay guy doesnt like shopping. Oh yeah if you have a proplem with me being gay then thats your proplem not mine that your closed minded and have your head up your ass and are prejustice. My thought on world is I think its a evil cruel place it hurts people are prejustice against people for all different excuses and it will never end and i hate the world sorry if think thats weird but thats how i feel



excuse me. I need to go lose my faith in the human race again.

this is the best craigslist ad I have ever seen. EVER. EVAR!!!!!!

ad:

Arch-Nemesis Wanted - (Flagstaff)

---

Reply to: pers-836150240@craigslist.org ^[?]
Date: 2008-09-10, 9:08PM MST

I am in need of an arch-nemesis to help me reach my full potential. Motivation has been hard to come by lately, so Im looking for someone inherently inspiring and evil. My arch-nemesis should desire to hurt people since I am in health care. Also, you should be atleast a little overweight, have no problem mainting a long term relationship with a below average girl and have an above average if not brilliant IQ. Strong chess player and or cape wearer is a plus.

• Location: Flagstaff
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

if I tagged, would this be ideological? perception-based? grounded in epistemology? I dunno. anyway:

the gay barbeque tonight. a small group, spearheaded by ryan, and filled out with two other men besides me. interesting, because we were all not the gay-on-the-sleeve types. one of them came in later than the rest of us, and I immediately perceived him as highly attractive. as the night went on, he established himself as an arrogant, morally vapid blowhard, and so by the end of the night, he was very much less attractive. I don't mean that I found him less attractive because I had more to go on that physical perceptions, I mean that I actually found him less physically attractive. because I'd learned something about his personality, he was actually uglier to my eyes than he had been when I met him.

this is highly highly highly strange to me. also cool, don't get me wrong. says a bit about who I find attractive, though.

I don't think I've played fuck with the grad school process yet. I think I'm on the right track. inherent problem: my thoughts, my limitations. but! when I've spoken to brooke, to dr. gruber, to dan and even to the anderson, they seem to think my thoughts are on the right track. far apart from having letters of recommendation (which'll be nice, don't read me incorrectly), what's warm now is the simply fact that they thought well enough of me that they'll help me out and recommend me for such. they believe in me. that's a powerful feeling.

then there's the friend factor. this term would be unbearable were it not for such. without riding too long on the "my friends are TEH BEST EVAR!!1!" (which they are), let me just say that were it not for the things we do, the discussions we have, our seriousness, our fun, I wouldn't really have a reason to try for such. the grad class is great, but even compared to what I talk to carter, ben, kat about, it's simplistic, skimmy, topoffed only.

wow. I abandon this thing for a while, and then what? positivity, naysayers.

in less happy news, apparently US troops are being deployed domestically. 'course, it's done without pomp, circumstance, or trumpets, so I doubt anyone will hear or care. I'm disconcerted. reinforced: nobody answers to the electorate.

roller bladers outside my window. I'd like roller bladers. also, an attractive man lives across the street, which leads me to:

two weeks ago (three, perhaps), I went to a gay party which turned into another gay party which turned into spin the bottle, which turned into an STD waiting to happen. and lo, strep throat is an STD. I was out for a week, as far as purpose and intent go. the inner conclusion is that it was a dumb, dumb thing to participate in, and the libido needs to be shot in its kneecaps. an entry of several weeks ago says libido is dead, which (I think) was a lie then and certainly is now. there are more important things, that's all. not that I don't continue to look/hope/smile ingratiatingly (another lie?), but gay men? the depths they express, at least in this place, is analogous to a dried-up puddle. the sad thing is that I know now that they're capable of more, but they've created what's more-or-less a self-fulfilling prophecy. carter says that they don't what to do about me, and I'm glad: if they did, I wouldn't be doing my job. they need to understand that there are worlds outside of their bubble, worlds they can't control or assimilate and, more than that, operate on a dimensionally-shifted ideological place. not to pedestal myself (heh, though 'twouldn't be the first time), but I don't give a flying donut fuck about what they wear, or how much it costs, or how much time they spend in the gym. the ironic thing is that I'm reaching the ripening point in which I am attractive for the writing, and it's a dangerous step. heady. it falls under the same category of attraction based on pure physicality: this is what I do, what I am. put it all together, but if you like me based on my writings or my esoteric physicality, you might as well like me for how many green thumbtacks I own. in fact, that might be a better reason, since I chose to buy the thumbtacks.

that was longer than I intened. the summary is as follows: caution and risk are inherent in all things. and everyone's afraid of something.

I'm enjoying the tunes of coheed and cambria, and symphonic rock. queens of the stone age, supertramp, the killers, lostprophets. way to introduce, rockband.

I'm to a barbeque in several minutes. another tomorrow, with some kind of group of reactionary gays. as I told ryan, it's going to end up creating the exact thing that exists already, except on a smaller scale. then again, maybe not? either way, it should be minorly amusing.

the problem with jumping is that then you want to fly

went and spoke to brooke this afternoon. she's brooke, so she's positive, but she's done this whole applying to mfa business and she has the inside, rejected-by-all scoop. it was a kick in the complacency, sure, and I'm moving along now. still, I think I have the skills to beat them all. that's strange, because I'm usually trying to measure myself up and make like I could be the best. here, I feel like the best. I can't explain it, and I can't get rid of it either, but I'm ready to win. I know it'll be a long term in terms of working for it, but I have it. I can't shake that feeling.

I want to kill alex. if I do, someone please bail me out. fo sho: this kid has yet to change, except for the semi-annual "I'm too mainstream and now I need to be jewish/mexican/filipino/transgendered." I told melyssa over the summer that if I never saw alex again, I wouldn't necessarily regret that. I'm smarter than I give myself credit for.

I swear this term will be made up of more than bitching about alex and working on the novel / grad stuff.

I wonder where the anderson is, and if she'd write me a letter of recommendation. brooke says I need the best titles I can get, and she pretty much runs the poetry classes at nau, so I could do worse. she seemed to have some faith in me, anyway. I'd have to have backups, though, 'cause I'm not sure I'd ever hear from her again.

it's amusing: when I get writing and spinning (re-spinning) scenes, I feel like I've done a lot. "hey, yeah, I went to the hospital and broke up with my boyfriend today. no, wait...."

one more bitch-at-alex: he accused me this afternoon of not doing anything, ever, of just sitting in the room and ... whatever. I don't know. jerking off. fuck if I couldn't have punched his chubby fucktarded face. I try to let few things get to me, but the implication that I'm not doing anything when I'm writing gets to me. I mean, the root of the problem is that I know it's true - it's oscar wilde who said that, deep down, no one needs writing or books or any of it. but I chose this, I'm good at it, and if you want to fight me over it, put your fucking fists up if you're going to say I don't do anything.

my heart's been fast. I feel like I'm closed to something. proofs:

negative libido. now that I can, I don't want to. derivation, I believe, of "boyfriend DNE label." if I'm opining that gay is reprehensible as a label, who am I to want a significant (or unsignificant, as preceding cases suggest) just because?

I hate nau. it's safe. two years is the longest commitment I've made to anyone or anything, ever, except for my writing, and that hasn't reached the point where I'm able to separate it from me and send it out on its own. I'll have to. that'll be hard a day. two years, huh? it's time to move on. maybe I like being seen as cavalier. maybe I knew that once I could choose, I'd fly.

how much of me is intellectual snobbery? I dropped a literature class because I didn't agree with the way he taught or presented it. how much of my problem was him, and how much was the education system? do I just want to be a teacher to ride cowboy over the fuck-ups and the non-cares? do I just want to yell at them because, really, no one else cares.

aly and I spoke of the brodawgs and the sorostitutes yesterday, and I couldn't verbalize my point. I have it now: there's nothing wrong with a perception if its the world. these idiots have never been anywhere but here. the vapids in the lit class never got raked by isabella winkler. how many would choose what I've chosen? who even remembers the power to say that things are bad and that they should be better?

driving to the house last night, I thought of a hundred of me and wondered, if all 100 had shipped off to uni ari in august 2005, where we'd all be now, three years later. uni ari? antioch? prescott? here? somewhere else? the scariest thought is that this was the only course, and we all ended up here. I don't regret the choices (isn't that a refrain). what scares me is that I'm afraid that inside me somewhere, if we'd all ended up here, it would mean that the foresight ability and future-planning is too far buried, and that doesn't say much for this grad school plan.

the graduations circumstances of kyle and sunny-kristin frighten me.

I found the four of diamonds on an empty shelf four days ago. sometimes I wish the world were a dream and I could figure things out with books and portents.

I'm scared a lot of the time. but, more than that, I'm angry.

You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.
Jawaharlal Nehru

one of the all-around girls is doing her floor routine to the theme from "pirates of the caribbean."

I think it may be one of the chinese girls?

I can be as cynical and trendily deconstructionist as I want, but hearing the national anthem at the olympics still gives me the shivers.

the liberal studies program has no spirit.

I made this choice not because I wanted the easy way out or wanted to take fewer classes. I truly believe that these classes fulfill the ideal goal of whatever blah blah blah, and if they are to be discounted simply because they don't match the departmental prefixes and numbering system, I submit this as reprehensible. the liberal studies program is designed to round students, to prepare them for the "outside world," and yet it refuses to accept courses that do not fit exactly into NAU's system block? now, why? because it is easier. because it is easier to create a system with a stated goal of improving students' minds and lives, and then forgetting that goal in the bureaucracy. more than once, I've been asked if I believe I'm "special," if I deserve "special attention." yes! of course I am! aren't you? isn't every student? when did the liberal studies banner become nothing more than a cover sheet for a Fordesque assembly line? if the position of the liberal studies program and board is that any class that doesn't come from NAU and doesn't fit into its system is flawed, lesser, or not worth bothering with, then I contend that it is the program itself which is failing, and whose worth should be seriously reconsidered.
what bothers me most about this whole fiasco is the implication that I've made some kind of mistake. that, by not coming to NAU as a freshman, and by trying to transfer credits in from different schools, I'm somehow doing the wrong thing. I'm being difficult in trying to question the program, difficult in trying to petition my classes for acceptance. why can't I just take NAU's classes? I'll say it again: the goal of the liberal studies program, as laid out by the program itself, is to prepare students to be rounded, creative, and several other lofty adjectives that never happen. yet, when a student comes along who takes the time to read those guidelines, to look at the forgotten spirit and think that, just maybe, it's not a bad idea and his classes fill those requirements, that's the one who's punished.
now, if you disagree with me, why don't you ask yourself, what truly prepares a student for outer worldlyness - taking classes merely to fill slots in a required schedule, or attending other institutions to take classes and have experiences completely outside the province of programmed imagination?



who's being helped here? that's my question. by forcing me to drop cross-departmental classes, by forcing me to take something other than indigenous astronomy and medical sociology - two classes that are both higher division and very, very different than my concentration of creative writing - I now have to take classes designed to fill a slot. is that all that the liberal arts program has becoming, slot-filling? what is its goal? where has it been lost?
perhaps I'm biased. the school I had to leave didn't have such a program; classes were taken at the students' leisure, since the adminstation and staff knew that if (1) their instructors were good (2) the classes were quality and (3) the students were interested, horizons would be expanded. maybe that wouldn't work everywhere. maybe the fault of the whole thing is the structured educational system, which decries THIS CLASS, THIS CLASS! here and nothing else.
but I contend that when a student is genuinely trying to expand his or her boundaries with classes far outside his or her area of study; when that student has already experienced classes on every topic imaginable, in every discipline offered; when that student has classes from other institutions that couldn't even be duplicated at the current university; and when all of that is ignored simply to make things easier, to make an existing class fit an existing class for an existing student, it isn't only the student that suffers. the class itself suffers, because it could be filled with students who genuinely want the knowledge. the instructor suffers, because he or she is forced to teach a class to students who aren't genuinely interested in the subject. the school itself suffers, because when slot-filling becomes the norm rather than inquiry and exploration, then learning has stopped and mass-feeding has begun. the portents are here, and the scenarios are falling already. I implore you, don't ignore the benefits of true aesthetic and humanistic inquiry in order to fill a slot with the spiritless title stamped on its box.



let's compare syllabi!
hum 101, semester total:
The course grade is determined on the basis of a mirrored set of interpretive questions taken at the beginning and end of the semester (10 points total), five short-answer discussion questions (10 points total), two online, small-group threaded discussions (10 points total), two response papers based on assigned texts (10 points each), a 1600 word term paper (long session only) counting 25 points, and a final examination (25 points). The course grade is based on a standard curve, 100 total points. There is one and only one make-up assignment (5 points).

so, that's a total of two short papers and one longer one for the ENTIRE SEMESTER. two discussions, for the ENTIRE SEMESTER.





let's look at two weeks' worth of work in dance.

read excerpts from african rhythm, african sensibility by john chernoff (p 34-37, 50 &51, 144-151) and chapter one in "gimme the kneebone bent: music and dance in africa" from stepping on the blues by jacqui malone. select five quotes from readings and respond to them. view the video black dance in america in class and discuss. (one week)

read about any three choreographers in african american genius in modern dance and prepare a paper discussing them and why you chose them. view the videos rainbow round my shoulders and new worlds, new forms in class and discuss. (one week)

two field trips - one, to see the dayton contemporary dance company, and two, to see akram kahn at ohio state. respond to each experience in two-three pages, discussing the intent of the choreographer - communications of the dance, integration of costume, music, and lighting with the vision. also discuss the kind of movement used and your response to each dance. (mid-week)


in two weeks and one unit (african dance), the load of both work and critical thought has surpassed the semester total of work for the NAU class.

everyone running for public office in the lovely town of prescott, arizona has some kind of terminal degree. for half, it's a high school diploma. for the other half, it's an esoteric bachelor's (which, as the almost-holder of an esoteric bachelor's, I can scoff at). one has a doctorate (what are you doing here get out while you still can!).

the new, improved me will not cast judgments. the new, improved me will only state facts, and let the jury of silent readers decide.

no. that's a lie.

I told melyssa and my brother these same facts yesterday whilst riding back from tattooing my brother up. he put it well: "this is a great town."

any sentence containing the words "sucks," "blows," or "cockgoblins" would, I feel, be redundant here.

and that's my politicism for the day.


in other news, we're still trying to rent a house for next term. we've a showing on the eighteenth for a two-story three-bedroom deal that's 1400 a month. a "townhome," if that makes any difference. sounds nice. looks nice. other shoe, where are you? (but I shouldn't think like this. face value. that's the way to go, yeah. face value!)

every so often I'll dream epics: a long period of time, a lot of characters, a run-through plot. a book-dream, kind of. I had one of those last night, in which I received a very complete blow-by-blow narration of the relationship I'm going to have with a man I semi-know up at NAU next term. it was ... strange. I mean,
*I understand compensation dreams.
*I understand wish dreams.
*I understand when my subconscious randomly pick people who mean a specific thing and cast them in my dreams.
blow-by-blow epics freak me out. this guy is probably going to be getting some big time fisheye when I see him again. alternately, I may just ask him out off the get-go and save time. (probably not the latter. I is a wuss.)

an ending note: pineapple express today with melyssa. quite excite all right?

begin where o where?

why do both "blogspot.com" and "blogger.com" redirect you to the same place? perchance they used to be separate? seems greedy to me, no matter the cure.

the best part of my summer ended one week ago. it featured hot tubs, alcohol, latent staph infections, downtown, going out to dinner, "stepbrothers," and good friends. social seclusion sucks as much from both sides, fyi.

aside. my dad came into the room of requirement today whilst I was video gaming with one of my brother's friends and told dom and I that we had to vacuum the house or we couldn't go out that evening. I laughed audibly.

as a public service, I'm trying to obtain a house (with alex) that can serve as the new aly's room for the coming term. yes, yes, it was kyle's too, but it was aly's first.

you know how some songs have power? "sound(s} of silence" is one for me, definitely thanks to its frontrunning "the listening project" at antioch. I used to not be able to listen to it, either, but now I listen to it (probably) too much.

mr. jeffrey eugenides brings up an interesting point in "middlesex" about defining moments - things that you carry for the rest of your life because it was like one of those lightning flashes that shows you every damn things in the night (bad analogy. sorry). continuing with that, you don't really realize at first what you're looking at; it has to go dark again before you can really assimilate it. well, long interlude finished, that was antioch for me. godfuckingdamn do I miss that place sometimes.

jenna's done in the utah woods. now, she's in a group home in oregon, along with the rest of her cult inductees. this is sadsadsad beyond belief. oh, and she's on the necessary myspace again. I could have dealt with not talking to her for a year, even if she came back a completely changed person. I don't know if I can deal with watching the myspace chronicle of the change taking place. I just fucking hope to the fucking universe that she survives this "you are wrong" bullshit.

my dad tried to cut my hair. I have a bald patch over my ear. otherwise, it doesn't look horrible.

evidently "feroc" (fer-oesh) is the new "fab." as much as I like the evolving english language, can we please have a gay coinage that isn't an obvious shortening of a word? please? this is just reinforcing the stereotype that gay men are dummies.

after watching "across the universe" with melyssa and lauren (and post-"mamma mia!"), I started wondering about another contemporary band musical. I would support 1) R.E.M. 2)the police 3) fleetwood mac 4) eurhythmics 5) green day. the b-52s would likely kick ass as well. anyone wanna help me make a movie?

from last year's trip to mexico, when we took my non-aunt aunt polly with us (she's a photographer {pertinent characterization}), we have several quality photos that my mom framed this weekend. my parents, looking happy and parent-like, smiling and holding each other. one each of my brothers on their dirtbikes, jumping. me, far away, on a rock at the edge of the ocean. it should be noted that I look like a chubber from that far away.... conclude what you will. I have.

man, I sound like an angsty sonuvvabitch. I am, actually. now that alex's back, now that it's august, I want to get out of here. the thing is, I'm at the point (and maybe have been for a while) where the benefits of home (mainly, not paying for anything) are overshadowed by the benefits of living somewhere else. home. note the usage. literary fiction in everyday life is an issue that faces us today, motherfuckers.

a last note: the youngest one starts his sophomore year tomorrow. I'm old. also antsy. also cabin feverish.

I have:

1) a bottle of melyssa's unopened vodka in my closet.

2) a bit less than a half a tank of gas in my car.

3) no dad or middle brother through next tuesday.

4) about thirty dollars in my bank account, total.

5) a Real Porn Name.

6) a healthy contempt for my parents.

7) a new group of songs on my iTunes, including radiohead's "creep," which is pretty awesome. also worth noting is that the version used in rock band is edited so they say "very special" instead of "fucking special" at various points in the song. hypocrites.

8) an invitation to go camping with the man I still like. I cannot, thanks to items (2) and (4).

9) a dance party mix, compiled by me and melyssa, ready to be played when my parents go to mexico for all my awesome peeps who are coming to stay & dance (right?)

10) a grandmother I love dearly but who has also decided that she's going to come stay while my parents are in mexico and must be dissuaded.

11) zero apartments for next term. help?

12) four half-hour scripts for my new series. ah, high school. (think an american "degrassi." it's pretty awesome.)

13) returned friends from abroad.

14) a canker sore.

15) several overdue library books, including two by david sedaris, a short work by dennis cooper, and a book of richard siken's poetry.

16) two drumsticks currently propping up my head as I lay on my bed and write this. don't try and picture it.

17) three pairs of broken sunglasses, and none that work.

18) gotten over seeing myself naked and engaging in various acts, thanks to editing my own porn.

19) always wanted to fly.

20) now finished this list.

my mother watches hgtv with a regularity usually associated with the breeding habits of rabbits.
it doesn't do much for me, but I do take note sometimes. today's topic, then: the world and the crazy homosexual. to say that the majoritive perception bothers me is an understatement, but let me clarify with an example. there's one show in particular, design star, that features a wily homo who exemplifies the stereotype. mannerisms and voice, for one, but that's not something I hold anyone accountable for; you can't change how you sound. no, rather: he buddy-buddies up to the woman he doesn't like, offers to help her and praises her design, and then turns to the camera and lambastes her. he brings inarticulacy to an art form, and his entire descriptionary vocabulary consists of the words "fab" and "fierce."
let's say I was myself - no perceptual or ideological changes (throw away the heisenberg uncertainty principle for a moment) - only straight. what would I think of the gay male, given the (albeit limited, compared to most people) exposure I've had to pop culture? to design star and the like, and sitcoms like will & grace, and movies where the gay best friend is caricatured to judge and have no independent thought? in other words, what is the gay male to a population brought up on sex and the city and fashion magazines? I would wager that we/they are nothing more than accessories, something that culture informs women that they should obtain and use, much like an extra large purse or a floofy little dog. it's a dehumanization of the other; simply because majoritive society has accepted that, yes, gay exists doesn't mean that any credibility is granted to gay individuals. instead, we/they are presented as static characters who pass superficial judgments on everyone and covet the latest glossy covers and, if things such as queer as folk enter the picture, fuck the brains out of each other while getting high. it's not only a dangerous perception for the heteronormative population, it's damaging to gay individuals as well because it's a sort of back-reclamation: because society tells us/them "this is what we expect of you," that's all that gets striven for. where are the out gay men in senior residency or attending physician positions in health care? where are the out gay men in the high business world? where are the out gay men in any of the world's political arenas? where are the out gay men in science, in everything from mythbusters to the NASA labs? where are they? they're waiting in the backrooms of bars, snorting god knows what and lapping like dogs after britney spears and tyra banks because that's all that both the heteronormative and homonormative majorities have established as acceptable for the out gay male.
there's no world changing going on here. change happens, and there are a few who are well-regarded, for whom gay is simply an adjective, not the adjective. david sedaris. george takei. but, really, there aren't many.
hmph. this is going to change.

in recent news

melyssa and I picked up a hitchhiker who was profoundly drunk and very giggly last night. it was extra great, because we passed her once whilst she thumbed at us, decided that a skinny college-student-type probably wouldn't kill us, turned around, drove past her the other way, flipped another bitch, and picked her up. as I said then, now she thinks we're the ones trying to get her. I think we were pretty non-gonna-slaughter-you, and she smelled pretty alcoholly, so neither party was in much shape to do much damage to the other. we can, however, add it to the checklist of life achievements: picked up a hitchhiker, check. yeah!

we also spent a great deal of time (a couple of hours) in the square yesterday morning. it reminded me of several things - that I do like being around people, mostly (I've started to think this isolation is making me agoraphobic), and that I don't like being in prescott. both of those I knew, but kinda in a shimmery, blown-bubble kind of way. I got to eat at wildflower. sweet. also went to the dentist, which is not so sweet. the dentista people are nice, to be fair, but the actual dentist is somewhere along the lines of mind-numbing in his protracted conversations, and the hygienist is a perky breeder. I remember this from last time, too, but she alludes time and again to the whole marriage-kids thing after college. I get mine back: I make not-so-subtle digs at sorostitues (thank you, kyle) and such, which I think she was in a past (college) life.

'twas my brother's birthday. 15. we bought him rock band, which is TEH FUN. no joke. by god, maybe I sing badly, but if I do I'm going to sing badly and BE SCORED. and for some reason the game seems to think I don't sing badly. career change, here I come.*
(*joke. but it is a fun game.)

by my angry homeridden plaidclad hairy numb ass, I'm sick of this. that's it, not frustrated. sick of:
waking up in the middle of the night because I'm so sexually frustrated I can't sleep.
not talking to anyone in my household.
sounding depressed and weepy when I try. I do NOT affect this. it's annoying. I can be laughing with melyssa on the phone one minute, and bim bam boom someone asks me something and I'm depressed-sounding.
no social life. melyssa's great, stephen's house is okay, but enough of this. how long has it been? a month?
lying. I'm tired of lying. I wish I could just say, look parents I'm doing porn live with it.
I also want to make good money doing it.
I wish people were back. I wish jenna wasn't being reeducated. I wish alex was back. I wish I was making another movie. I wish melyssa was more able to do things. I wish for lauren, kyle, kat. sunny-kristin. antioch. man, I wish I could spend a day, a week, a month with jeremy.
I wish I had money. there, I said it. I hate it, I hate that the world runs on it, but I hate even more that I'm dead without it. dead. in the water, in the earth, worms crawling through my intestines and eating the shit there. take your pick. pick 'em all. hold on.

in non-depressed news, I had a great time with kyle tonight, I really enjoyed "the road," and I'm writing in a new style at a good clip. that makes me happy.

haven't really talked to my dad since the day of irritation. this is, in many ways, an improvement - it's somewhere between the silent treatment and the amount of interest I was looking for/gauging anyway, so not really bad there. in fact, the problem of boredom really isn't - I'm not bored, just frustrated without any friends. like I've tried to explain, I'm reading a lot, writing better than I have before, but the problem is that I have no choice but to be passive versus active. I can't really experience anything new to write about ... but the happy there is that I have enough stored (and yet to be understood) that I'm good for now. just, you know, frustrated.

I'll have money in early july, because I *do* have a job. let's just say it's adult entertainment, video-related, and really not something I'd like to go into any depth with with friends other than to say "I work in porn." no, I don't have some big alter ego or double life. I'm just ... you know, doing it as a summer job. or something. plus, it's prescott, so it's mostly (all) alone. um, yeah, that's all.

speaking of such things, my family is leaving to go to mexico for my brother's birthday in late july (something like the 23 or 24th through the 28th or 29th), so take this as an open invitation to carpool up or down during that time and come keep me company in my large and empty house. check with me on dates, though. but, seriously, come. play. drink. save me from myself.

I don't really have much to complain about this time. I'm relatively happy, if also relatively stagnatory. oooh, I remember something good! I get to take jane woodman's graduate fiction class next term! that's exciting, that is.

mmm, okay, one last tangent. I love melyssa and would (maybe literally?) die without her here. I like stephen, too, and if it wasn't for going to his house, I'd probably go spare, since I can't really go to melyssa's, either. the problem is, they had to get into another relationship-thing where sex is happening and I am, quite plainly, an awkward third wheel since melyssa and I are best friends now and stephen has told me he wanted to fool around with me, too. and they're having sex. did I mention that? melyssa feels just as awkward about it as I do, I think (and she tells me), but at the same time, I'm not the one boning the guy, right?

and so it goes.

complain rant complain here we go again

shouted down my dad last night in a restaurant for what I wrote in last time's journal. still won't talk to him. got reamed later for not respecting him because they've done so much monetarily for me (paraphrase). translation = we don't get you anymore, and instead of trying, we'll buy you off. I've heard of this, but it (1) saddens (2) disappoints (3) makes me angry. damn it all.

continuing the trend of what my family thinks of me, when I (nonchalantly) asked my brother if I gave him a dollar, if he would go an entire day without playing warcraft. he returned with if he gave me a dollar, would I stop writing for a week. so, says I, that's not a comparison, warcraft is a game, a hobby. followed by an insulting exchange in which I discovered that my brothers, at least, find what I do to be a complete waste of time.

familial support. isn't it strawberries and cream?

I'm frustrated. sexually. emotionally. monetarily. intellectually. to varying degrees, but nutshelled - adverb anything, and I'm probably frustrated in its field. which isn't to say I'm not happy, or that I'm not moving forward, only that I'm frustrated. see, I wouldn't zoom forward to the end of summer or anything, because I feel it's more interesting to live through it. still, there's no denying the frustration.

frustration point uno - what I choose versus what I do, in my parents' eyes. well, moreso my dad's. what I mean: whenever he talks to me, or asks me anything, it's invariably about one of two things: the job I've made up, or the apartment I don't have for next term. he knows I don't have anywhere to live, but the job thing is annoying me. that'll be another whole journal, but for now, let's re-cap: he has never, in living memory, asked about my writing or how that's going or what I'm doing. the only interest he takes in that is the monetary aspect of theoretical grad school, which I suppose is something, albeit a frustrating something. since we had the gay talk many months ago, he's never asked if I'm seeing or dating or sleeping with anyone (okay, the last is excusable, since I probably wouldn't want him to anyway). this is another source of frustration, the least of which is based in the fact that I'm fairly certain I'm seen as a layabout who doesn't do anything useful. then, I tried incorporating those aspects of my life of which he never asks, and I realized, of course! to him, I am an asexual layabout. harsher than his real view, I'm sure, but still a source of frustration. my mom doesn't really get it, either, but I think that's more because she's given up on most everything besides getting through the day, seeing those (*urk*) babies on her job, and finishing the day's sudoku. in a way, my parents *are* good role models: I don't want to end up like them.
my family, as a whole, is even more frustrating. my brothers, when dom isn't working, do exactly two things (seems to be a recurring summer number here): play world of warcraft, and play ping pong. oh, and they eat. honestly, though, they alternate between those two (three) activities from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed. dom does work, but when he comes home, it's time to eat, play warcraft, and then play ping pong. no chance of change. isn't this how the stepfords started?

I suspect this summer that this, in the main, will become a journal of frustrations. there are some happy things, though. for example:

about two weeks (a week and a half? whatever) ago, I "got with" this guy (man) (dude) I'd been interested in for a while, and had (have) talked with since september. it was ... great. I mean, really, best, ever. I wrote a bunch about it, including three poems. I've been workshopping those poems, and I included melyssa in the last batch because, as a person who doesn't write poetry, I thought she'd look at the content rather than the craft, which is what I was hoping for. and lo, she said:
"TONY! Those were gorgeous, I knew you liked him but I had no idea it was that intense."
followed by
"I loved seeing them but I wouldn't send them to him, 'cause it might be kind of creeperish."
too late. I've used him as part of my workshop board on most everything else this year, so why not those? besides, I didn't know they were that intense, either. but now I look at them, and I think, "desire poetry." "infatuation poetry." "obsession poetry." "love poetry." I don't usually get what I'm going for, but in this case, I wasn't going for anything, just for harnessing the emotions that the whole thing caused. so, what? is that love? I certainly like this guy, a lot, but I've learned (am learning) not to project any aspirations onto him. he's a city kid, he's more a cynic than I am, he's leaving around the same time I am, he goes to a different school 100+ miles from both my flag-school and prescott-home, so so so what? but here's the kicker: I know these things, and still I want to try. but try for what? see, that's the problem: I feel like I've learned/been told/have assimilated that there has to be some kind of GOAL. I have to try and groom him (and myself) for boyfriendship or a lifelong committment or whatnot. but why? why can't I just get to know him? I *want* to get to know him, more than I already do. I'd like to see him (which isn't particularly feasible anyway, more than a couple times a month, anyway), talk to him on the phone, discuss any- and everything.
but, if melyssa's intimation is right, and the poems do something to change his mind about me, then that's just foolish. because, really, there isn't a person I would give up writing for, and I know that. hemingway's the one, I think (maybe frost?), who said that if you write well in whatever genre, you're going to lose friends over it, because you have to write them (at least their tics, their idiosyncracies, their whatevers) to make it believable.
so. do I regret talking to him, at whatever time? no. seeing him? no. writing the poems, and letting him see them? no. if I regret anything, it's only that ... no, I guess it's not anything. I would regret not talking/spending time with him again, but I can't regret something that hasn't happened yet, and even if it doesn't, I experienced it, saw what it influenced me for, and would go for doing it again. there are worse things than that, definitely.

I'm coming to think it's better to be gullible.
think about it:
if you call out everything someone says-
'o you don't really like me'
'o you couldn't have done that'
'o you're not that talented'
what reason do they have to tell the truth,
and if they do, what reason do I have to believe it?
but if there's not disbelief, perhaps to gullible,
and even if it's not true, you can just answer
'I believed you'
and unless you're dealing with some hardened ass
or a pathological liar or something
I think it'll do something.
'I believed you.'
and not funny. true.
try.

I remember having all kinds of good thoughts. the having, not the thought. the journalness of the thought, but not its content. and writing this doesn't seem the same.

my dad confirmed it: he wants me to do medical rather than english (in all its esotericity). or, as he put it, "it's not too late to change and do emergency medicine." nice. I mean, maybe it took finding a non-writing interest I expressed actual attraction to to make him say how he really felt. of course, my mum's been against it from the start, but she's only just come around to tell me, "you need to write, and you need to teach, so you need to do this." I'm not sure how much of this is vicarious living, but there it is.

so I'm tooling along on the great grad school search.
I click on a faculty page of a uni that shall remain nameless.
(but is affiliated with the 'och.)
it won't load.
the message it gives me? verbatim?
"too many pages."
meaning is really in everything.

I've been trying to diagnose this weird thing I have/do.

it's like I'm agoraphobic and anti-agoraphobic at the same time. I get stuck with my family and think it's all right because, hey, they're all right and my house is cool and whatnot. I don't need to see people, which is cool because there's not really anyone to see here anyway anymore except melyssa, and I see her when I need to (yesterday for hours, today on the phone for the same [okay, less, I'm not that good of a phone-runner-up]). not much choice in prescott. but, see, I get to this point when I don't see anyone for a couple days when I start to almost-panic because I don't have anyone and, yet, feel afraid of going out to find anyone. how much sense does that make? not a lot to me not a lot to me. but I feel, when it happens, this either clarity or extreme confusion that throws out feelings and thoughts that don't otherwise come. tonight

I made a mistake leaving antioch. I made a mistake coming back to arizona. I mean, I always say that I don't regret it and everything happens for a reason and yada blah whatever, but I'm voicing it now: it was a mistake. two mistakes, actually: leaving antioch, and coming to nau. if I had to leave antioch, and I may have had to, then I should have used the time to find another school that I felt strongly about. do you want to know what my thought process was in coming back? "well, why not? it'll be easy." see, 'cause even then I was thinking about grad school. I mean, I was between sixty and seventy credits by that point, so I figured it would be an easy way to finish. easy. see, that's the key. it would be easy. I wouldn't have to send myself to another school, I wouldn't have to find the money, I wouldn't have to go through recommendations and notes from the dean and whatever the hell else they'd ask for this time. easy, see.

I'm not going all self-effacing now or anything. I don't deny that good things have happened at nau, especially in this last term and (to a lesser degree) the one before it. I mean, when I talk about the a/a-a (agoraphobia/anti-agoraphobia), I think of the posse and parties and whatnot. but is that only because it's been so long since beer train? how many times did I try and start such things out here? three times, I think.

something jeremy said yesterday just struck me, really. something about being twenty-one and having everything open to you. I think the reason it struck me is because I said more or less the same thing to melyssa our last night in mexico. we were walking in the breakers and the moon was mostly full so we could actually see under the water and I was saying something along the lines of while I didn't regret what we did down there, we were all legal and there were clubs and whatnot. why not try? and, see, melyssa and I have had this discussion before, and we've decided (or concluded, I guess) that we don't have fun like most people. wallflowers, maybe. but then I've gone to parties and stuff that have been more *popular*, and I keep remembering that rave [industrial part] of kat's I went to and how much fun I had. I don't think I know myself completely. but there are parts I think I knew, and that was one of them. anyway, in mexico, I put to myself and melyssa, why not do some of those things? why not go to the whatevers in phoenix? the idea scares me, but I never thought I could have fun at the industrial thing either, or the posse parties or the assorted whatevers. I did. so why not something else? being open-minded is a good thing. I still feel like I've just turned 21, because what have I used it for? buying alcohol for the posse. going out with sunny-kristin exactly once. getting a beer at dinner a couple times. the world is open to me, and I haven't used it. I mean, it always has been, but now it is legally. this is rambling. where was I going? oh, right. how am I supposed to make use of it? in prescott? there's nothing. and as sick as I am of saying that, as sick as you are of reading it, I'm sick of it being true. there are bars for old cowboys. period. period, period, period. even in flag, there are bars for the straight college crowd. and this may be explained away through gay nights or I know them all anyway or something, but maybe I'm just determined to dislike flagstaff, too. maybe as much as I enjoy arizona, I need to go somewhere else. where? how, now? I mean, no matter how I slice it, I'm here for a while. I have no money. I have no degree. this is my doing. I chose to stay. I don't regret that, I don't, I don't. okay, new paragraph about regret.

it's a loaded word, no doubt. and I say that I regret leaving antioch. explanation try: accepting the leaving of antioch and coming to nau as neither positive nor negative for the sake of beginning arguments, I don't regret not applying to grad school last fall because I don't think I was ready. I think I've grown a hell of a lot in a short time, and I would be leaps better applying now (and later) than I would've before. but I also feel like I could apply now, but I have no choice but to wait another year. and no matter how I look at it, there's that year. spent at school (which means undergrad, which means nau), spent working, spent at home ... I don't really want any of it. I've overeducated, privileged, pampered, easily reneged upon, and, at the end of the day, a home to nobody but myself. and what will I choose? will it be easy?

as I was driving back from flag for the last time with all my stuff in the back of serenity and my parents driving behind, I was listening and singing to r.e.m. and crying along. damn. I may have been singing to my parents or a thousand different friends or myself or all of the above. anyway, the lines that got me -
"This decision is mine. I have lived a full life
And these are the eyes that I want you to remember.
...
I will try not to burden you.
I can hold these inside. I will hold my breath
Until all these shivers subside,
Just look in my eyes.
I will try not to worry you.
I have seen things that you will never see.
Leave it to memory me. I shudder to breathe."
I don't care what they meant it to be. to me, it was this damn surrender of feeling to what's easy. I'd rather sleep in my old room and its high schoolity because it's beautiful and spacious and the food's paid for and I don't have to go anywhere because, really, where is there to go?

what I really wanted to do was find somewhere I fell in love with. not a rah-rah thing, but something I cared about. something separate from me. I mean, everything that's really core to me is a part of me, even though it can be detached (writing). everything's started in me. I don't get very very close to people or places or things because, at the end, I think, "well, that can be replaced." well, guess what, self? they can't. look at this. look at the antioch thing. I've spent a year and a half trying to make nau replace it, and in the end, it's only succeeded it. antioch wasn't great, but it was a start. I wouldn't be who I was now if I hadn't gone to antioch and then nau, but isn't that stupidly obvious? say I'd gone to antioch and then grinnell or antioch and then sarah lawrence. I hate what ifs, but what if? internally, maybe I'd have missed kathryn and kal and jarin and all of 'em. externally, I certainly wouldn't have met kat and lauren and aly and kyle and sunny-kristin or had the anderson or brooke wonders or dr. gruber or jay or even dan crawley. so. so. SO WHAT? where do I get with all this? I regret but I don't? I regret but I enjoy what I've done anyway? because I do. I DO. so what's the problem? it feels like I've stopped again. even during last semester, when I didn't have enough money to buy food even, I felt like I was moving forward but here in this house in this town if feels like time's stopped and I even forget to take pages off my calendar. that's it, isn't it? it feels like there's no forward motion here, no matter what I do or what I write and I'm not going for anything. but there is. I mean, I think I should live in the moment and all that, but the moment has to lead to another.

I hate having to use money for anything. even, at this point, doing nothing costs money, thanks to my distance from everyone/melyssa and the price of gas. this is also a problem.

so what am I going to get from this? that I haven't gotten already, I mean. keep going forward, because even if the feeling's the same, the circumstances aren't. difference grows.

further to my journal yesterday:

I talked to him about it. evidently, yesterday's status debate is a status of convenience. it is easier, says he, to let this other guy have the in-a-relationship status because it both placates him and also beats off other potential one-night-lookers-for. it makes sense to me, since both juliana and I have done this on satan's website (facebook), both independently and, once, together.

damn it. this kind of makes me like him more.

okay is relative.

see, I've known this guy for close on a year now (nine months?). problem is, he goes to school in phoenix and lives in louisiana. I see him sporadically, at best. and tuesday night, when I was down there seeing my cousin, I got to do everything I've ever wanted to do with him. sexual. nonsexual. postcoital naked talk debate about hemingway. as I told kristin-sunny, such people aren't usual, in my experience. I liked him a lot before. I liked him the first time I saw him. I liked him through words, when I couldn't see him. here's the problem: facebook informs me that, as of about a week ago, he's in a relationship.

once again, okay is relative. but I'm certain this is not okay.

I'm not going to be the other man. his mouth says he likes me a lot, as do his fingers (and I'm talking about words here as well as various sexual opportunances). whilst in the friend stage, he went through a relationship, and I went through whatever the hell those deals were. this is past the friend stage. I like him, if you hadn't gotten that. but what does this say? about him, about me? he sure didn't say anything. am I just one of those people who is utterly iceberged, and that he just wanted to say he slept with me because I'm attractive (he says), no matter what relationship point he was at? does that connote "scummy"?

I usually assume the worst of people. I wish they would stop reinforcing said worst.

it's really not fair for the weather to be doing this when my temporality is already fucked up. I just asked my mom when we were going to set the christmas tree up, to which she replied (obviously and post-haste), "it's may." damn you, cold during summer! damn you, confused school breaks! damn you, whatever part of my brain is supposed to figure out what time of year it is based upon factors other than cloud cover and temperature!

last night, jeremy asked me how I was feeling. answer? peeling, tan, tired, and unsure. off-the-cuff then, but true stretched back and through now. major emphasis on unsure, though the peeling isn't very attractive either.

I'm sitting on the pad of my futon, waiting to be moved out. my room is empty save for what needs to go in the truck. I hate moving. hate, hate, hate. okay, so maybe it is like riding a bike, and you get better as it as you go, but what if you really fucking hate your bike?

tried to get my portfolio back from the anderson today, but no go. I didn't actually expect her to be there at eleven in the AM, but I thought she might have 'em outside. failed miserably at seeing kat, too, though I am glad I got to see everyone last night. actually, I'm glad I got to have a couple extra days up here, though it's playing havoc with my temporality, since I feel like I should be going to class. the empty english building is nice, though, as I well know from the night.

and, by the way, how do I have so much nonsense? I calculated, and I realized that the only *stuff* I really need (and that's barring food and soap and clothes and whatnot) can be condensed to (1) orion, (2) whatever notebooks I'm using [currently, two], (3) pencils, (4) book[s] to read. end. that's it. I haven't been carrying my phone at all of late, and it makes me both happy and more conscious of how other people are on them all the bloody time. having the damn thing is enough - why must I also carry it? fmphrah. nonsense, I say.

they're here.

last night, I learned what having kids is like.

alex's birthday, right. so a condo of four twentysomethings now. three of 'em drunk off their asses, unable to even crawl to the bathroom to upchuck tequila in, right. somehow, when I do lug all three of them into separate beds, they all find the wherewithal to get out again and start trying to drink out of the toilets and take more shots. would have been easier if I could've just tranqed 'em all. funny thing is, I would have if I'd had such.

anyway. the point here is not to cry unfair, but rather to relate the dream that happened after. started out in the english building, third floor, so late the sun was coming up already. I was there with kat and we had art projects, ala giant third grade things, on display for poetry that the anderson was supposed to come inspect, only she hadn't yet. talking to kat, debbie came by, I start telling the story of how I got the idea for mine. flash forward to the story itself: I'm in my car and the anderson's with me, in the passenger seat. we're driving along a road in the dark, and while it's in the woods (and the pine trees are huge), the road's like a six-laner in phoenix and there's a huge, huge parking lot at the end. it's raining, and a very dark night. we get to the parking lot and little shacks of single apartments are scattered around, all with cars parked around 'em. now, I don't remember if we go to one in particular, or if we just pull up to a random one, but we go inside. it's a party. there's a guy I dated for a few days (in real life), and I hear his whiny, queeny voice from another room and want to leave, but the anderson goes slow and the guy, upon being told that I'm there, comes shrieking out. he's drunk, and can't wait to unzip his pants for me. I know he wants to have sex, but I don't want to let him even though I'm carrying over from real life that I'm horny as hell. I get the anderson to leave and we get back in the car and drive into the dark and the rain and the forest. if much happens after that, I don't remember it.

I'm fairly certain I know what some things mean.

also, I got a little drunk before anyone else did and sobered before they were drunk, and learned that to music when I'm drunk I don't keep my clothes on. then again, all I need is, say, three shots to lose inhibitions, and I can sober quickly and be drunk-fun on them. end.

quotables / the shipping news

"he held out his arms. no mistaking what he meant. transfixed, she hardly breathed. one flicker of movement, and he'd be all over her, pulling her clothes up, wrenching the brown stockings and pressing her down on the stones with the shore flies crawling on bare skin, quoyle, entering her, ramming his great chin into the side of her neck. and afterwards some silent agreement, some sore complicity, betrayal. she burst out. ... 'do you know how he died? my husband? I'll tell you. he's in the sea. he's down at the bottom. I never come beside the sea without thinking - 'herold's there.'' ... she slid down the rock, safe now, protected by grief. quoyle stood away, hands dangling, looking at her."
(bril. simply.)

"wavey ran to get away, then for the sake of running, and at last because there was nothing else to do. it would look undecided to change her pace, as though she did not know what she wanted. it seemed always that she had to keep on performing pointless acts."
(I want to write like this)

"'all of a sudden, something behind him. a hairy devil jumped down the hole like a hockey puck ... red eyes. says to me father ... 'be back for you ... after I washes me pots and pans.' father ... ran forty miles.' ... 'my wife,' bawled quoyle, 'is dead.' ... 'I know that,' said tert card. 'that's not news.'"
(best drunk dialogues ever)

"'edna says the only reason he didn't get her was because she was under the copy desk looking for paper clips when the shooting started. remember how there was never enough paper clips? quoyle, they shot at mercalia on the freeway last week. show you how crazy the scene is, I made a joke about living in california, about LA style. fucking bullet holes through her windshield. missed her by inches. she's scared to death and I'm making jokes. it hit me after edna called what a fucking miserable crazy place we're in. there's no place you can go no more without getting shot or burned or beat. and I was laughing.' and quoyle thought he heard his friend crying on the other side of the continent. or maybe he was laughing again."
(she covers so. fucking. much. ground in this book)

"he'd call him up that night. tell him. what? that he could gut a cod while he talked about advertising space and printing costs? that he was wondering if love came in other colors than the basic black of none and the red heat of obsession?"
(colors. she's very colorful.)

quotables / the sweet hereafter

"and then there were those folks who wanted to believe that the accident was not really an accident, that it was somehow caused, and that, therefore, someone was to blame. was it dolores's fault? a lot of people thought so. or was it the fault of the state of new york for not replacing the guardrail out there on the marlowe road? was it the fault of the town highway department for having dug a sandpit and let it fill with water? what about the seat belts that had tied so many of the children into their seats while the rear half of the bus filled with icy water? was it the governor's fault, then, for having generated legislation that required seat belts? who caused the accident anyhow? who can we blame?"
(just like it)

"...some bungling corrupt state agency or some multinational corporation that's cost-accounted the difference between a ten-cent bolt and a million-dollar out-of-court settlement and has decided to sacrifice a few lives for the difference. they do that, work the bottom line; I've seen it play out over and over again, until you start to wonder about the human species. they calculate ahead of time what it will cost them to assure safety versus what they're liekly to be forced to settle for damages when the missing bolt sends the bus over a cliff, and they simply choose the cheaper optoin. and it's up to people like me to make it cheaper to build the bus with that extra bolt, or add the extra yard of guardrail, or drain the quarry. that's the only check you've got against them. that's the only way you can ensure moral responsibility in this society. make it cheaper."
(scary. also, this guy's voice is very lawyerly, very different than the other chars. nice diversity)

"it just wasn't right - to be alive, to have had what people assured you was a close call, and then go out and hire a lawyer; it wasn't right."
(different voice. all his characters are very morally definable. also, this is how I felt after our crash in ohio)

"at that moment, I hated my parents more than I ever had. I hated them for all that had gone before - daddy for what he knew and had done, and mom for what she didn't know and hadn't done - but I also hated them for this new thing, this awful lawsuit. ...why couldn't they just stand up like good people and say to mr. stephens, 'no, forget the lawsuit. we'll get by somehow on our own. it's too harmful to too many people. goodbye, mr. stephens. take your law practice back to new york city, where people like to sue each other.'"
(good. true.)

"they were all sitting in the living room watching television together, like a good american family - it was the simpsons, which was the one show the whole bunch of them thought was funny. me, I can't stand that show; it's insulting."
(this is just for me. glad someone [even a fictional someone] gets it, too)

quotables / beloved

"but maybe a man was nothing but a man ... they encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as you felt how light and lovely that was, they studied your scars and tribulations, after which they did what he had done: ran her children out and tore up the house."
(defeatist? disillusioned? important for writing a simi.char)

"'a man ain't nothing but a man,' said baby suggs. 'but a son? well now, that's somebody.'"
(I suck at writing parents)

"what she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children."
(great language)

"as though a handful of myrtle stuck in the handle of a pressing iron propped against the door in a whitewoman's kitchen could make it hers. as though mint sprig in the mouth changed the breath as well as its odor."
(everything in 3rdP has to do something for char)

there was a thunderstorm today. it made me want to Write Shit. specifically, I stood in my window (in. not behind. not in front of. in.) and thought, "lawdy hey, it's thunderstorming, and I want to Write in that Dang-Nifty Journal I gots." verbatim. so, here it is, several hours later.

there's a new adventure out there
fromthatnight.blogspot.com

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. When left in the sun, mayonnaise grows hair.

unexpectations

unexpected things make me happy. I mean that in both ways, too - things that are unexpected, and things that perhaps shouldn't make me happy.

case in point: doing laundry this morning, one of those va-va-voom low rider cars pulls up in front of my building. tricked out tailpipe, pimp my ride rims, all of it. the guy driver leaves his ride neutralling while he goes to the office. oh, and his windows are down. guess what's pouring out? avril lavigne. yep. it was cool - "complicated" while I was going to the laundry room, "sk8er boi" while I was coming back. put a huge smile on my face. he came back as I was standing on my balcony, and I watched him va-va-voom off. smile.

life as a penguin?

being home is a lot like making a documentary about penguins.

I see the behind-the-scenes tapes of people slogging through the snow. sixty below, they say. hundred mile-per-hour winds, they say. why, the others say. and then at the end it's nothing but big smiles and thumbs up and whatnot. why, the others still say. I think I get it. I don't know if I'd do it (that extreme), but I get it. learning. exploring. pushing the limits. spirit unbounding. that kind of stuff.

actually, that's not like being home at all. but I did just watch a penguin documentary.

being home, on the other hand, is a completely different kind of being. sunnier, for one thing. sharper, too. quieter, I guess. farther away from some things. I'm sunburned and my legs are scratched in several different places. I learned not to ride a mountain bike barefoot (it hurts). I tackled one dog and ran another one down. I made real food, and ate real food (although I can do without the latter. I think I've gone on not much for a while). I did this and that and the other thing and not much at all and a great deal. it was a good vacation, but I was right about not wanting to do it again without much else in sight. I'm looking forward to going back. not driving back, certainly, but going.

stay nimble.

sitcommie

I have a new series in the works.
it's collegey. sitcommie. hopefully funny.
its working title is "blogosphere."
it breaks the fourth wall.
it should be fun.
very.

pine wind

power and responsibility. what do I have? can I change someone's life just by being? can I change someone's lie? I wonder, sometimes. when the lifehinge comes, will you know it? will I know it? there are more than one. maybe three rights will make a square. three lefts make a square, a wrong, a right in their own right.

la flama niposa, la ombra dispare, la noce immortale, la voce murmure.

trees outside my windows.
at home, it's a beast of a cottonwood. spring-summer's best for that boy, when it's in full leaf and it sounds like a river rainstorm with every breeze. it's green, too, the real green that's sunlight through twenty feet of leaves. for some reason, for as long as I can remember, a horseshoe's hung on the lowest branch. it's rusty, brown-copper-redgold.
in flag, it's a pine. I suppose it's the "pine view" the complex is named for: if there wasn't one there already, by golly, then they'd make one. I seem to have many memories of its snow-coveredness. it's green, too, but sunlight goes right through needles. it's the green of darkness, the cottonwood at night, or in a real storm.
they're both nice, I guess, both trees. dichotomies at their most elementary (school), deciduous and coniferous. the cottonwood's budding again, and the pine's lost its snow. we'll be going into green comparison season soon.
...but if it comes to which I'd rather listen to, I choose the cottonwood. wind in a pine feels lonely.

luck

(I take no credit)

And if there are any historians about fifty or one hundred years from now,
and there should be preserved the kinescopes of one week
of all three networks, they will there find recorded
in black and white, and in color evidence of decadence, escapism,
and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.
We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent.
We have a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information.
Our mass media reflect this.
But unless we get up off our fat surpluses
and recognize that television in the main
is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us,
then television and those who finance it,
those who look at it and those who work at it,
may see a totally different picture
too late.

[I]f they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate, yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.

peeves one

oh
and if
anyone
actually
"laughs out loud"
when they type
LOL
I will eat
your grandmother.

two, party number

nanni had a friend (sixties) up with her mother (nineties!) today. they talked, ate, and played wii. that's more or less what I'm doing. man, I hope I'm as hip when I'm old.


I am receiving far more cell traffic than I normally do. to date, I have answered exactly one phone call thus far. I feel a bit bad. it may be the passive-aggressive thing: I don't like doing the phone thing, so I "forget" it. my unconscious may be more metaspy than I give it credit for.

I quite dislike discussing money, except if (can't say when, yet) large sums are being given to me. or if I were doing the giving, I suppose. either scenario involves what I don't have.

I'm staring at a sombrero on my brother's wall. it's bright green with a gold and white flower-thing. it's sparkly, and next to about eight soccer trophies. my brother is weird opposites incarnate.
sharing a room with him isn't that bad. so far, one of three things has happened every night: he goes to bed early and I late, I go to bed early and he late, or he falls asleep on the couch. he'll make an excellent middle-aged husband, except that he doesn't like beer. strange to think of him being eighteen. strange. *shudder*-strange.

tick. tick. tick. there's a real clock on the wall, blue rimmed, with easy-to-see, little kid numbers. it's annoying, sometimes, in the very late of the night when I'm worrying over what to do next semester, or next week. other peoples' problems calm me. is that so very strange?

why do friends come to me for relationship advice? two strikes: haven't had a good, lasting one, and the ones I write about are fucked-up by default. what more motive can I read in a text message that says "you're a cool, nice girl"? no more than has been given, though I hold that my text-at-gunpoint idea is a good one, if not entirely practical. I would still like someone to tell me, though, not how to have a 'ship, but rather "wha!bam, here's
I thought better of it. I'd rather not have anyone tell me. I'd rather do it for myself. this implies some doing. effort. effort? effort. it also implies speaking to party number two ever again. granny mabel's underknickers, but that may be difficult!

lunch with jenny and sarah on the morrow. I'll need a strong constitution to counter what will no doubt be a meal of unintentional(?) barb-slinging. shiny shiny happy happy.

wait faster

I've a bookmark that informs me that "a fine beginning is a beautiful thing." it must be true. it's chinese.
it's true. been trying for more than a week to restart the novella. figured it out last night, wrote it today. tried several other ways to start it. didn't work. died. now it's alive.

I really wasn't aware that gandhi had such a distended forehead. a political cartoon tells me it's so. what am I but a repository and reassociative mirror of media images?

really. thank goddess I found a way back into this story. I've been so dead.

my aesthetic statement for poetry says that if I don't write, bad things happen. equal parts funny haha and truth. I remind myself here that it. is. true. don't let it happen to you.

I feel like a prat for having read the "people" section of the newspaper today. I wouldn't admit to it. here's my secret. no, really, that's it.

I act differently if I'm on my porch. if it's sunny. if it's warm. if I'd just had lunch. if I can't/won't/haven't yet found a way back in. point case? today. wrote an email to an individual [man-boy-20] I've known several months saying that I liked him. true? not really. but see, but see, but see! I knew he'd write back. and that I'd get something good out of it. I did like him. before. before. melyssa asked me if I would be willing to wait for minus-tiful, and I affirmed. I think I would be. am? for now. boring, though, it's boring. and I do like him. danger? that I do something just to un-bore it. I'd knock myself cold with the frying pan of sense if given a chance. change.

it's still pm. an hour away from am. I'm tired. I've done things today. either home is soporific, or I hadn't been doing much at school. likely a mix of both. remedy. working on it. choosing helps.

swiss and cheese

I think I could act. I'm going to try again, anyway. indie is not a word I like. what's the alternative? no studio's going to pay for my project. my indie film. my indie short film. it's about playing. my indie short film about playing. playing. how many connotations does that have?

I'd love to study the psychology of fear. evolution of emotion. a biology class in speculative/alternative evolution. can I create my own schedule?

what? are you going to fix me?

my cat just licked my elbow.

I'd like to hear what I'd like to hear, sometimes. making a choice feels better than a forcing. a coercion. even if it's the wrong one. an addition to the antioch paradox? I chose it. I chose that path. now, here before me, I have a choice of walks. I have the power to end nau here. I choose not to. I choose not to! I choose not to run. could I get away? is that the question?

I'm a lead? a leader?

I choked my brother until he turned purplish for calling me a homo two days ago. I was upset I couldn't do more. I was annoyed I couldn't defend myself. that I didn't drop into the right stance. that I dropped the pencil first [in another situation].

in a way, I'm glad it's cold again. I'm justified in wearing pants. I'd really rather no one see what I did. I'd like an answer for why I did it. if I was a girl, I think I'd shave my head. guys with shaved heads are militaristic neo-nazis. girls with shaved heads are rebellious, deviant, sexy. double standards.

I mine myself for things to write about. problem? this romantic situation is stalled. it's boring. I need something to happen. problem? fucking things up is interesting for the not-me me, but for me it's not so good. maybe it's a good thing I fall in love easily. maybe it's a good thing few can recognize it. ice is my element. no water, no air, no fire, no earth. or all? ice. ice and shadow. I pick those, from the realm of video game elements.

what impact did switzerland ever have in the war?

negative displacement

I've tried before to think of things that a truly polarized.
white?
black?
no gray?
I think I've found it: statics and dynamics. either life is moving along or it isn't. I suppose it could be argued that statics don't even exist, as there's always forward momentum. my point is this: you can grab the wheel, or you can dig your nails into the bumper. yeah, yeah, I know, the steering wheel's at the front, the bumper's at the back, but whoever said I knew how to analogize?
this sounded smart in my head.
being home gives me a different perspective. I've remembranced at great length about antioch and its variegaties, especially how it changed me (and I it? I keep hoping). my main complaint about nau has been, continuously, how I'm static there. how I'm just waiting. how I'm hanging on as the car races along. how my nau theme song is "move along."
not anymore.
I'd be pressed to pin down exactly when things shifted, but they may've been doing it for a while. either way, I'm not the depressed kid who drove home every weekend a year ago. nor am I just down and jaded off antioch anymore. I've grown to like what I'm doing at nau, as well as who I am, who I know, and where things are going.
being home, then. I don't want to be here for extended periods of time. if I do summer school and graduate, then what? what do I do? go home again? no, no, I can't do that. what do I want to do? I think I've come to wanting to stay for next fall. oh, yes, there are reasons. in a nutshell, though, I don't want to displace again, and I have control this time. for the first time?
(would I have stayed at antioch if I could've made the counter-decision in december? signs point to yes.)
don't assumed I'm making this decision based solely on people. I know lauren will be gone in england, and dana-alex will be off somewhere. kat will have her grant (I firmly believe this). aly will be there. kyle, I hope? kristin-sunny will have moved back to the state. jessica will be at nau, and molly/jenny/sarah/kristin will still be around. there are no guarantees of anything long-term, as relationships go, but back in prescott? an ice cube is likelier to survive on phoenician july sidewalk. even if were to go to phoenix, and perhaps live with nanni or stay with kristin-sunny, I have no experience with that kind of thing. the last floor is that I like school, and I'd like to still be in a place where I can get my writing worked on and still learn things and expand myself to write things like how weather's a coming-of-age symbol in "the gryphon" or about the emergence stories of the diné. I guess I don't have huge problems with self-discipline - writer - but I like learning. I like learning! and, since I can't go to grad school for another year, I'd rather keep learning and stay in school than go out and try and wait tables while living my parents. godawful. godawful.
I plan to do a family-chronicling journal in a bit.

it's mine

a new one.

I have a lot to say.
the problem lies in the saying.