Butterfly Thumbnails

Today I rushed to the bus and plopped down in a seat. I quickly clued in on the man who sat in front of me. He had glasses and the collar peeping from his sweater was plaid. Hellooo
There was a book yawning open in his lap so I stealthily leaned over to see what it was (I always try to see what people are reading on the bus. sometimes I'll attempt a conversation if I've read the book as well, but this rarely goes well).
The pages were glossy and filled with brightly colored thumbnails of butterfly wings. Of course I quietly gasped.
This was about the time he lifted his hand to scratch his face and a gold wedding band winked back at me. Goddamnit.


Leaves

Miles high wind nudges her bark
covered ant scampered ladder back
& forth, back & forth. She breathes
in the rain cloud she sees squatting,
waterlogged, on the top of
a distant roiling hill.

Blades wait far below, jade, pointed
upward, their individual edges
blurred together from her distance.
The nestle of leaves rubbing bodies
against each other rattles around her.
She wraps a hand tighter around
the slim flakey trunk and moves her
feet. Scrapes further out on a branch.

Wind nudges the swollen cloud closer.
The rain pities its way down
pops, a laugh, as each drop slaps
the leaves. It’s pattering sharp
giggles that bubble all around her
speeding up as the cloud yawns
its mouth open wider & wider.

Like a suffocated owl, damp
feathers smothered in the winds
moist breath, she steps back from
the branch & tries to hug the weak
trunk. Her wide darkmoon eyes search
for you, forgetting you’d climbed
back down yesterday.

Sober One Day. (am I faking it?)

We make our own gravity to give weight to things.
-Ani Difranco

What did I ever use the internet for before facebook? I have no idea what to do with it now. I’ve found myself refreshing missed connections or perezhilton a lot….because these are so much better for my emotional health than fb. Once an addict always an addict eh?

I was smacked with this really intense fear today at work. A mom told me something and I roared with laughter. Then my brain shrieked, “that wasn’t funny!” And I stopped. I hadn’t even realized I’d faked the laughter, it’d just exploded out of me, tilted face, squinted eyes, the whole package.
It’s really scary to recognize my ability to fool even myself.
How often am I faking it? Am I faking life? The funny thing about continually melting in and out of depression and anxiety is the line between functioning & non-functioning is blurred. I can’t tell if I’m really having good days or if I just know I should be having a good day.

I tried to write a poem today in my fish class titled Leaves about a girl who’d climbed to the top of a tree, but it’s proved much more difficult than I’d anticipated.

Hope your day is beautiful.

Lists. On a Lazy Sunday...

Things I Need To Do Today
1. Apply to schools
2. Clean house for inspection
3. Homework
4. Take a shower
5. Not wallow

Things I Have Done Today
1. Realized app deadlines have already passed for half my schools
2. Thrown clothes and papers around the floor looking for my earbuds
3. Driven to three bookstores. Looked for 4 books. Come home empty-handed. Goddamn chainstores suck
4. Not showered...yet?
5. Wallowed. Excessively. The self-indulgent kind that makes you feel utterly selfish.


Sundays are the estranged half-uncle of the weekdays.
--He comes around more often than you'd like, makes you feel uncomfortable and overly aware of how little success you've had in the past week, scratches his face while chuckling--
"Still sitting on your ass I see...well at least that bag of Doritos found a comfortable home in your waistline."
or
"Maybe you could write the kleenex corporation? Have 'em sponsor you? Could call yourself Team Wallow."

Fucking Uncle Sunday.

woa!

I guess I should have said "every other annual posting"

Emotional hoo-ha

Well..I suppose it's time for my semi-annual posting.

Don't have much to say except I've had a tsunami of emotions slamming around inside me for a few weeks now. (*coughLindsaycough*) Why did you have to go & be such a good person and go to Namibia for two years? Huh?
I'm looking forward to life quieting down again for a while.
Although then it's easier to hear all the bullshit in my skull.

I'm still not into this whole "blog" thing so I guess I'm done with this post for now.
Maybe I'll be back again a little sooner than last time. Since I have a fan now...
(hi lindsay)

Writhing around in mud

People seriously underestimate the power of old people.

For one thing they've been around for so long they are like wrinkled old goldmines, just filled with gems of stories.
Also in goldmines, however, is dirt.
Lots and lots of it.

People often forget that once you tap into an old person they can pretty much tell you all the filth involving everyone (even you most likely).

I've been going to dinner with my grandmother a lot this summer and it's been actually pretty fun. It's so easy for a relative to be pegged as 'the crazy one' or 'the fat one' or 'the one with a peg-leg'
While she definitely has her issues, I feel a connection with her since I have my issues as well.

The best part of talking with my grandma is hearing alllll the juicy gossip about my family members.

My family always felt so boring and normal while growing up.
As I get older I begin to realize there's a lot more beneath the surface.
And I'm finally feeling like I belong to a real family now....gossip and darkness galore.

I feel like my family is the crisp white linen cloth on a 5-star restaurant table. It's corners perfectly creased.
But I want to clutch one of those corners and tear it clear off the table causing the sparkling silverware to go flying. I want to hear the plates shatter on the ground. Underneath will be the old mangled table. Cuts in the wood from knives. Stains. Splinters and rough edges.

I will finally feel like I'm seeing it for the first time.

This is how I want to know my family.
Fuck white tablecloths.


After this epiphany while at dinner with my grandmother tonight. It hit me. I finally get the scene in "I Heart Huckabees" when they are rolling around in the mud, rubbing the dirt over their bodies. I've seen the movie countless times and that scene remained a mystery to me.
I get it.

I'm in my tree.

Woa

I had completely forgotten I started this.

What's even scarier is I can't remember who "you know who you are" even was! I feel like there was one person in particular asking me to blog...but I've drawn a blank. This is a little haunting since I've been feeling more and more like a senior citizen as the days pass.

I've been wanting to get back into art so I went and bought pastels today. I was a dumbass and bought regular pastels (aka: chalk) instead of oil pastels. Needless to say my drawing looked like a blind 5yr old had drawn it with their teeth...so I've gone back to playing the role of "frustrated artist".

I saw a dermatologist today. He was one of those doctors who obviously had failed his Bedside Mannerisms exam, because he was trying way too hard.
He had this bizzare way of smiling nonstop with his eyes very wide.
As he described the mildly invasive surgery I was about to get - he was smiling.
As he told me I couldn't wear my ipod because I might get electrocuted- he was smiling.
"Now I'm going to burn the insides of the wound so the blood vessels are sealed...." He said to me with a manic smile.
It seriously was disconcerting.
I tried to small chat as he filed away at my arm.
"Sooooo, what got you interested in dermatology?"
Such a weird afternoon.



I'm sad from being a workaholic.

Once this job is over, I will be as free as a naked baby running across a lawn, giggling hysterically, while his parents try to chase him down.
THAT kind of free!