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I've had a lack of inspiration lately... I've been sleeping way too much, and when I'm awake I just read escapist type fiction, and then I have plans most every evening (classes and babysitting, but they're still plans) and between it all, I haven't really done any thinking ...which for you means a fairly boring journal, I think. somebody do something anything soon I know I can't be the only whatever-I-am in the room so why am I so lonely? why am I so tired? I need backup I need company I need to be inspired ani difranco, "face up and sing" I tend to think in song lyrics... I have for years. For a long time I practically lived Sarah McLachlan lyrics. Especially "Elsewhere," "Good Enough," and "Home" (a slightly more obscure one.) ....but "Elsewhere" was the most important. ....but I kinda feel like a traitor talking about it, because it wasn't just me. And my internal censors are going crazy, but I'm gonna try and explain anyway... Okay. So the first time "j.a." (I can't get used to that! I keep typing her name and having to delete it...) Anyway, the first time j.a. and I did anything even remotely physical was this one night she was spending the night at my house... She flopped back on my bed, with her feet on the railing (remember, it's a backwards daybed... more like a crib than a bed.) and I had just put on this "genesis" cd I'd just gotten, and I set it to "repeat all" ...and I flopped back on the bed with her. It was right after this week when I'd written in my journal that I really needed a hug (...this was during my depression... just a couple of months before I hit bottom.) and she'd read that and decided she could do something about it. But the idea of having her hug me absolutely terrified me (huh, I wonder why!) so I was avoiding it... but I flopped down on the bed with her anyway, and we were playing with our feet up on the railing (we were having plays, each foot was a character, they were talking back and forth and beating each other up...) and in order for our feet to interact I had to be right up against her... and eventually, I got really brave and reached over and held her hand. And we sat like that for ages, just sitting there, holding hands and playing with our feet, and completely denying what was happening. Eventually, though, I had to get up, and turn the lights and music off... and when I got back into bed, she had moved just enough that we ended up lying down backwards on my bed, in the most uncomfortable positions. But we stayed like that anyway, because neither of us could face her getting into the other bed, and lying normal on a bed was too obvious... (in case you're wondering, "j.a." still admits she enjoyed this part as much as me... she says it was later she was faking, but I'll take that on a different day...) but eventually we did straighten out, and we stayed like that the whole night, just holding each other. Earlier in the week when I'd been talking about needing a hug, I'd said that when I was brave enough that hug would be my main happy thought, and I had the marble all picked out. (if that doesn't make any sense, go read Peter Pan. the original version.) ...and somewhere during the night I asked j.a. "does this count as a hug?" and she squeezed harder and said "happy thoughts." ...and that's still one of my happy thoughts... things were so much less complicated then than they became later... But anyway, in the morning we were listening to Sarah McLachlan's "Fumbling Towards Ecstacy" (still her best CD...) and I think ja must have been getting ready to go because she was putting her shoes on while "Elsewhere" played... "i love the time and in between the calm inside me in this space where i can breathe i believe there is a distance i have wandered to touch upon the years of reaching out and reaching in holding out, holding in I believe this is heaven to no one else but me and I'll defend it long as I can be Left here to linger in silence if I choose to would you Try to understand" and j.a. said that she thought whoever wrote that song knew. And I knew exactly what she meant by that remark- that whoever wrote that song knew whatever it was we'd felt the night before, and understood it. And to this day I have no idea why she said that about that particular song, but I agreed anyway, because I was pretty sure Sarah McLachlan did know... and forever after that, "it" was known as "Elsewhere." It had colors- blue and green, preferably swirled. That marble was officially named my Elsewhere marble, and I also carried around sea glass ja gave me that were blue and green. They were her best pieces. She'd shown them to me a year before and I was jealous. I couldn't believe it when she gave them to me. In the end, "Elsewhere" basically meant "love" but then we were too shy to say that... you're not supposed to, you know. Love another girl, that is. We were all too aware of that... one of the new bootlegs I got has someone in the audience asking ani how new york is, and she says "I wouldn't fucking know. I have been so... elsewhere. So terribly elsewhere." and everytime I hear that I have this awful urge to call j.a. up and tell her. she would have appreciated that... but I guess elsewhere is pretty much dead now, so it doesn't matter... j.a. loved the rain, so this background is for her. |