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July 4--
so when i think of the fourth of july i think of church barbecues. when i was younger, my mother was the president of the childrens part of the church group... and we had fourth of july picnics. my mother was so heavy, and she had a vertically striped red and white shirt that she wore every fourth with some blue jeans. now she's skinny and wears bikini tops and shorts and my mother pulls it off. and my father, i don't really have many childhood memories of him. my real father. my step dad, yes... i remember one time going to church on the fourht of july and taking pictures in my sundress before we went.. my real dad and i got the dress when we went to mexico.. once again with the church. anybody else noticing a pattern here? church... and it doesn't matter to me anymore. amazing. that dress, though.. i love it. white organza with turquoise and pink ribbons running through the sleeves, and the swirliest skirt i've ever worn. that was the best dress. it went a little past my knees. i wore that dress every time i could until my mother had to turn it into rags.
i'm going to a concert tonight, i don't know if it's the wisest idea but i love ani difranco and i really want to go. so i'm going. all by myself, hoping to god i don't get stranded somewhere i don't want to be. but it doesn't matter. just to go. my parents aren't very happy with me, but what else is new?they never like me very much.. at least my stepfather doesn't, not anymore. i don't understand it. i guess every body goes throuh this when they leave home, but i think that my version is a little extreme. sometimes i creep around my house because i feel so much anger directed towards situations i supposedly create. and i create tension between everyone wnad every thing- i am the root of all problems. no matter how many times they say it's not my fault, the glares and the silences tell a different story. they tell me that i should do more, act more and not say so much. i should prove that i care about them. they think the proof that they care about me is that they still let me live here. and that does prove it, i guess. but at the same time, it's almost the bare minimum of proof. it's the easy proof. i don't know, i think both of us (me and my parents) we all need to work on our relationship. but i think they've given up on me. and i don't like it.

but that dosn't matter. what matters is that i've got to go get in the shower and get ready to go to a concert.

July 3rd. 1998
i am a selfish person. i've decided this. my parents keep telling me i'm selfish, i keep doing selfish things, so, i must be selfish. but it doesn't bother me as much as i thought it would because i'm only selfish about things that are going to directly influence or affect my life. things like what i'm eating for lunch, where i'm going after work. and i don't think i need to report my daily life to the entire world. and that makes me selfish. i want to keep some things to myslef. i want to hold onto memories that are mine,m that i don't have to share unless i want to and will usually only share through poetry and even then it's the edited version because every poet gets a license to mess with things. i'm tired of being good. i'm tired of holding the appearance that i'm good. i'm really tired of this whole life. i mean, ultimately, the things they say to me don't affect them, i am the person who walks around thinking "my parnets think i'm a horrible daughter no matter what i do, even when i try and do what they tell me to do so why do i continue following thier rules and trying to do what they say? becuase i love them but they don't see it so they will continue to tell me i am wrong." because i'm wrong for worryinga bout myself and i'm wrong for wanting to act my age and i'm wrong for abandoning them even though they've been pushing me out since i was twelve. saying "go, go, go" and now they say "stay, or go, but not far. stay close. we need to keep an inventory." and i need to get off of the computer and i need to stop worrying and i need some adjustments to my head. i think i need to get away. but i need to get away with all of the comforts of home. i miss mymother. it's different when she's here and i'm not, becuase the house is not cold and empty. and my father only likes me if i don't have any friends. and i'm still in love with people who are no good for me. people who don't care, won't care, can't care. becuase it's over. i gave..... and gave. and i continue to give. and it gets me nowhere. but it doesn't matter. becuase there is hardly two weeks and i will be gone. and what will we all do then? and do i really want to go camping? i do. but can i do it? or will i freak out again and run inside a coffee shop begging the girl to make me okay, to tell me i'm fine because i don't believe it, to tell me it's all going to work out. it's one thirty three. i have to go to work. and deal with more and more and less. and maybe when i fnally can breathe right again and i stop taking my pulse every hour and i stop having these visions in my head maybe then it's going to be okay.
July 1st 1998
okay so here i am on the brink of moving my ass to virginia and all i can think about is what i am leaving behind- so many friends, so many memories and my parents who i complain about but love for all the world and would never ever change my relationship with them- well, i wish we talked more, but sometimes it's so hard to get through the exterior of "thier" world... so i've been having anxiety attacks and my mother is in phoenix taking care of my grandmother. i'm so scared to move. i'm going to move. there's no doubt in my mind about that, i am definatly moving. it's just the same as i know i'm going to college. i think everyone thinks i'm flaking out on myself by not going to school right away. that is the feeling i get from people. i think if i went to school right now i'd shoot someone on the first day. ka-blam! goodbye norma jean, eh?

i'm eating carrot sticks right now. my father makes me eat them because he thinks i never eat. i don't. i have this horrible problem where i forget to eat or choose not to eat for some reason. that's also a contributor to the anxiety attacks. there are other things, too... but we won't go into those. so i'm scared to death and i'm doing it anyway. and the world will keep moving on here in my little town... people will still walk thier dogs, get their latte's and their mochas; people will still play chess and eat dinner and newspapers will be delivered late and the mail will never arrive at my house on time...... things go on. that's hard to accept: you are only important to the daily life as long as you are immersed in that daily life. i probably have five friends, if that, who i will keep in touch with: Lisa, Ali, Gina... okay, three. and everyone else will "hear" about me from those people... and that's fine with me. but it's disappointing to know that you really don't affect people's lives. they could all take you or leave you. they could all just let you go, make you stay, whatever is convineint and works for them. i don't want to be a commodity, so i think i'll stop investing so much feeling into situations and people. my teacher chris. i'll miss him. and i'll keep in touch with him. so there are five peope. i'll probably write a letter to my work every once in awhile, i promised i would. but you know, people pass through each other. i think of all the friends i have had... and we all still live in the same town. i mean, i graduated highschool less then a month ago and the only people i've seen from highschool i've seen in places like the drugstore, the supermarket, or coming in for coffee. it's funny. we all give a little wave and go about our business. i think we still hold the notioni that school really will start next year and we really will see each other. but we won't. and i don't mind. i did when it first happened, i walked home from the after-grad-nite- party feeling dejected, let down, unhappy... and disoriented. and i felt that way all weekend. i felt like shit. it's a loss of community, you know? and maybe that's why i'm getting so anxious and nervous right now, because i don't want to go through that again. but maybe not. i've been on the fuzzy end of the lollipop so many times in my life, i don't know why i expect to be on the good end... but i'm having fun, sort of. i'm having time to myself, sometimes. but i'm sad, a lot. except when i'm with the people Who make me happy... and although i see them, i don't see them enough. i want to bottle all of the ways that they make me feel better about who i am, what i am, and where i am going sand put it on a shelf that i can take with me. will i find these people again, in years or months? and i will never be this person again, because these moments will not exist. there is no rewind and review, there is just forward at the steady pace. my heart is beating fast again. my breath is a little short. i'm going to go lay down.

later

two women tried to sell me god in berkeley on friday as i was sitting against a bank pillar watching teenagers gather around in circles, sitting on the newspaper racks and smoking cigarettes and acting tough, and the boys on skateboards and the boys in black and boots and earrings in places like thier noses, and the girls with thier ratted-but-i-don't-want-to-look-like-i-spend-time-on-my-hair hair, and the girls with no bras and tight tank tops and the couples and the bums and everyone, just watching, observing while the fog rolled in over the mountains which i took a picture of, and i said to these women that i didn't know what i believed in, and they told me that god loved me. i'm sure he does. but apparantly i have to accept him and have faith in the bible... what does the bible have to do with believin gin god? can't i believe in god and not the bible? because i don't believe in many of the things in the bible... i don't believe it was okay that Lot slept with his daughters, and i think that love is love no matter who it is between. so what if, in the natural scheme of things, it doesn't produce anything like... MORE PEOPLE. what do we need more people for? the world is already populated with billions, what' sit going to matter if a little boy from houston texas hooks up with another little boy and they live together? there's two potential babies that have ost thier potential? that sounds callow, callus, what have you, but it's true. i don't know what i'm saying. my head gets fuzzy sometimes.

so is it all a game? i've been thinking lately that we all scam each other. this guy i went on a date with, Jack, he said to me that all the homeless people out there were all scammers. i don't agree with that. i thyink that there are some people out there who are lazy and do it so they don't have to work, becuase i know people like that. i know those people exist. i have acquantinces like that. but there are some genuine cases on the street, and a lot of them are genuine. so i don't mind giving the quarter if i have it. anyway, so his commment prompted these thoughts about how we all scam each other anyway- because who do we really, ultimately live for in this world? we live for ourselves. and we may take others into consideration, we may bend to thier will from time to time, but we essentialy live for ourselves. and we scam off of each other- to get our way, to aviod a situation, what have you. but each one of us is a scam artist. i'm done with this now.

April 27, 1998
so i've been thinking about choices lately. the choices we make when we are so young and have so much life ahead of us.. and we make choices that will affect us the rest of our lives. i mean, at eighteen, i don't think i can even imagine what thirty is going to be like and where i'd like to be when i'm thirty. hell, i can't even picture twenty one so how am i supposed to know what i want when i'm ready to collect social security?

i mean, i wonder why we decide early. is it because we feel pressured to start a family, a life, what have you? because we want to fit into the norm? what if we all decided not to decice so early, would that recreate the norm? what if the norm became indesicion, or the patience to enjoy one's youth? do we only comment on fifty year old fathers of three year olds because it's not ordainary? because we think people who are over fifty shouldn't have a two year old because the are incapable of taking care of that child like any one younger would? or do we just feel like it's strange, weird, because it's different? my father has a three year old and he's fifty four, fifty five this year. so does that make him a bad parent because he won't be able to give little emily piggy back rides or play strenously with his child? i don't knowl. i mean, we make desicions, we have biological clocks, bUt is it really becasue we want to decide, or becasue we feel we'd be looked at oddly becasue we wait to start settking into something?

i don't know when i want to settle... or if. i ahve some friends who are forty and thirty something, and they are just fine. the woman still looks at life through young eyes, but young wise eyes. she's so knowledgable... she's poetic. her every movement is like a song in and of itself. the reason is becasue she respects herself and accpets hersoefl for who she is.. she's aware of her faults but not defensive about them. she's an amazing woman. a great lady, although she would be embarraesd to know i said that she was a lady she thinks ladies are old.

hell, i sure ain't a lady. i'm too loud and brash and vulgar and pitiless. well, not pitiless, but insensitive. i'm rambling.. but that's the point, right? anyway, i think i know what iwant to do... i want to travel. but i want to live in the places i travel to.. and i want to go alot of places: boston, virginia, washington d.c., washington state, england, baltimore, new york, athens, st. louis, minneapolis, ontario, toronto, philidelphia.. lots and lots of places. and i think that it's good for me to get so many different perspectives other then northern california and the bible-ey part of utah... and phoenix, which is almost impossible to enjoy because one can barely BREATHE in phoenix in the summer... the air is so hot it's like poison. i lived there one august taking care of my grandmother and i though i would die... it was so blazing. i literally fried an egg on the black top outside her house. i was very bored. but i played guitar a lot and got pretty good... i haven't written anything on my guitar in a while. my brother has been here and he's much better on guitar then i am. music is his forte, writing is mine. anyway, we've been writing together.. the next donny and marie. puke. careers were invented in the seventies... and i want to aviod a career.

Email: elmosg@hotmail.com