i have to learn to lock people out of my life and not look back. i must learn this skill.
i'll start out okay, i'll shut the door and lock it and hide the key and almost forget where i put it and then i see this little sliver of light coming under the door and i think, hey, it's been a long time, surely i'm okay to check that out now, right? and so i kneel down and peek under the door to see what's going on in this world completely separate from mine and, wham, everything that i thought and hoped and wished i had left behind comes rushing back and fucking kicks me in the stomach. and by "everything" i mean "selected wonderful memories and the warm fuzzy feeling it brought and the idea that maybe i could still have it all back." the door needs to stay closed and locked. the metaphorical door. but remembering, especially the rose-colored remembering i'm doing, it hurts. i didn't expect that. for a while after i walked away, i tested myself. i'd purposefully listen to something or look at something or say something that i knew would make me remember. and i felt nothing. and i was ecstatic. except now i'm standing at the metaphorical door, biting my lip, wondering where the metaphorical key is and debating whether the metaphorical grass is actually greener over there, or if it's just a trick of the light.
i simply cannot deal with this right now. i have a paper to write, a play to read, 7 days of school to make up, calc AP review to fail, prom dresses to buy ... okay just one dress, but it has to be gorgeous. my point is that i have a life to handle and i can't do that and handle this ... past life. there's new people who won't understand if i sink back to that, and old people who will hate me for it anyways. and more people who i want to never see again who could rush back if i open that damn door. ahhh! see, i can't deal with this. i was fine, i was fine. i drove away, walked away, ran away.... left. made my escape. and what am i going to do now, waste it? two misplaced mouse clicks sure can ruin my evening and doom me to a bunch of sleepless nights. they should put a warning on that thing.
i remember ryan pointing out to me a long time ago that if i don't know what i want, it is highly unlikely that i will ever manage to get it. he was right, of course. the trick is to want what i have. and i have it great. really i do. was that so much better? no need to answer now, i know that all my sleeping and most of my waking hours for the next forever will be devoted to pondering that question. Again.
29 March 2004 1046
i was thinking maybe i'd head on over to school in a little bit here. it's been a while. but i don't want to go to english. or history. and that's two of my three afternoon classes. it is a dilemma indeed. i think i'll go chill with ms albert for english and history and not bother to check in and i might go to chem. ed would be happy to see me. thrilled, even. a new victim. you know, i haven't been to a full day of school in almost three weeks. i guess i should just suck it up and head out. after i take a nap. and find my car keys. and my textbooks. i think i still own some of those. and my homework ... oh wait! that's funny.
29 March 2004 0949
so i was talking with my hands, as i am apt to do (comes with being italian ... if my hands are full or i'm sitting on them or something, i actually talk less and stammer more), when i saw bright blue letters on my palm. this in and of itself is not abnormal - i use my hand as my message board for homework, phone numbers, quotes i want to remember, to-do lists, and on one memorable occasion (test day in combined studies), the Entire history of the Roman Empire.
the only weird thing is that the word is "subsidies."
tara would say that only i would write a word like that on my hand, ever. she'd say that Normal people write "laundry" or "645 3462" or "english 56-94." not three-syllable terms for governmental financial assistance. she's probably right.
now, what could be a logical reason for writing "subsidies" on my hand? i really cannot think of how it's supposed to jog my memory. it's not a vocab word. it's not something i have to remember to do or mother will have my head. it's not a person i need to call. and i have no memory whatsoever of writing it down. none. i obviously wrote it down thinking that those nine letters would be enough to jolt whatever it is that i'm supposed to do or think or write down or something. it was an odd choice for shorthand, though. "subsidies"?!? i mean, i know what they are, but i associate them with, like, tobacco planting and whatnot (which is ironic since their technical definition specifies industries in the "public interest" and cigarettes aren't exactly that, but we won't go there. that's economics and politics and i refuse to go deep this morning). that's north carolina. that's not me.
whenever i forget things, mother always says "guess it wasn't important or you wouldn't have forgotten it." she says it in some sort of sing-song way, mocking me, and i think her point is if it was important, i would have written it down. but i Did write it down! and it Still didn't help. so there. of course, maybe she meant for me to write it down in more detail and on something more permanent and logical than my hand. hm, that's a thought. it's actually hurting my head, trying to come up with Some way that subsidies have some impact on my life. ::sigh:: this is going to distract me all day.
27 March 2004 0056
hmmm... well. it's equality, at any rate. and ridiculous enough that it just might please the rest of the world, or knock some sense into them. plus, it made me laugh. i'll take it.
26 March 2004 0201
all right kids, grab your ice skates, we're heading on down to hell. peter's got a "steady girlfriend" - his words, not mine. i think i just lost like four bets.
25 March 2004 1948
okay, forgive me for sounding like a giggly teenage girl (which, of course, i have all rights To sound like), but ohmigosh how CUTE is jess?! he was teasing me and i got my overly-medicated feelings hurt and took away his speaking privileges (which is actually how that word is spelled, though it looks quite wrong to me), and he ceases to speak. and i get
and then i told him he was being adorable. he actually accepted the loss of the speaking and then he played google image search and made me smile. awww... okay. yes. it was cute. admit it. that's all.
25 March 2004 1101
hm, apparently i'm missing out on all kinds of drama. but that's okay, i've got season 5 of friends on dvd and all 15 channels of basic cable and a whole shitload of calc AP review to keep me company.
of course, the serious downside here is that i'm off the scioly state team. that's shit. i have worked so hard, and i earned my spot, and now it's ... gone. through no fault of my own. or anyone's, really, i know i know. and i could get it back for nationals, as if i'm going to have time to study all that randomness while i'm making up two-three weeks worth of work. and as if i'll be able to stay awake all day by then. give it up, joy. ahh, my inner voice speaks.
ms sorenson just called and said i'm a delegate to girls' state. which will look great on my resume, but also dooms me to an entire week of ... girls. i hate girls. okay, let's qualify that. i don't get along well with most girls, and when it comes to girls in large numbers ... i'll take whacking it with the boys of the croquet club any day. guys are so easygoing and, to use that word of hal's i've been trying to get rid of since gsis, they're chill. (stereotypes, all. humor me, i'm sick.) girls are so petty and hurtful and conniving and ... eh. i'm the worst offender, after all, and i couldn't very well have applied to boys' state, and i wouldn't have wanted to anyways, those dorms bear an uncanny resemblence to a prison. i wonder who i'm going with. i hope it's laura. we can pull midnight escapes and make it rather naimun-like. not that wandering streets at midnight in tennessee is anywhere near as much fun (read: life-threatening) as wandering in DC, but i'll take what i can get.
i know this is all rather disjointed and not exactly the most brilliant writing, but it's been a strenuous day. phone calls, shower, sitting up at the computer. i'm going back to my couch.
20 March 2004 1532
i love college. i just got back from duke and unc and staying with katie. nothing more needs to be said about that, except that I Can't Wait till it's my turn. also, Best Quote Ever: "We're a whorehouse without all the sucking and fucking." -- receptionist at University Massage. heh.
SuperMatt gave me a tour of Durham and Chapel Hill, driving at approximately The Speed Of Light. mother was sure she was going to die seven or eight times... i'm much more trusting in the Super-Ness of Matt and i only thought i was going to die once. it was the first time he's ever seen me without leigh attached and it made me sad that i've only talked to her once in the past year ... she was My Other Half for three TiP weeks, which is more like three months in real time, and then i just let her drop out of my life. no good. next time i come over to NC, i'm invading your house, leigh. that's a promise. i miss that girl. and wandering around duke without her or any of the rest of the West 1 2002 gang was just ... empty. i kept pointing and elbowing mother or just thinking to myself - that's where we all slept on benches outside ... where we had chubby bunny and jello-snarfing contests ... where we played ultimate and lost, every time, esp to genetixxx ... where we snuck into the bryan center day after day, despite not being 4th-years ... where we swiped our cards, tee hee tee hee ... It's sadness that no one who reads this can understand any of that.
so it was great to see SuperMatt again. he talks a mile a minute, using vocabulary i've never actually heard in normal conversation from Anyone. he actually used two words that i don't even know - that's right, be afraid. be very afraid. but it was a great tour, very informative even if he did forget the porn store you can see from duke chapel. and he's quite amusing to talk to. i wonder if he keeps up a running commentary when there's no one else in his car... i get the feeling he might be bored if he didn't. but anyways, i remember why we named him Super.
so now i have two days left of spring break and i have yet to accomplish anything. oh, and everything was going along great and all, and then the irony gods saw fit to teach me a lesson for being complacent in my healthiness and non-swollen-ness and not-needing-a-nap-every-ten-minutes-ness and they did smite me. fuckers.
17 March 2004 0004
holly, i changed the mao question to let you have more room to form your intricate and no doubt scandalous new rules. link me. love me. and now, even mini-we must sleep.
17 March 2004 0000
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOGAN!!
16 March 2004 2359
anytime i run into something online that actually makes me laugh out loud, i feel compelled to share. so here is, from TWoP's recap of the first episode of The Apprentice, a show i love and adore and am willing to admit it but still don't mind seeing mocked, we have a brief rundown of The Story Of Money.
Previously in the story of money: The demand curve looked at the supply curve all, "I'll see you at the market price, you bastard!" Alan Greenspan made out with monetary policy while Andrea Mitchell was having her hair done. Every state got to think up its own shiny quarter, and a bunch of them could think of nothing more scintillating than the official State Outline. Nobody really got into two-dollar bills, even though they were kind of an awesome idea, and nobody would touch Susan B. Anthony dollars, because no one could afford to invest the free time required to ascertain that they weren't quarters. Gas cost, like, $1.45 in the morning and $1.73 in the afternoon -- what was up with that? My bank had worse customer service than several European dictatorships of the past, including some that performed beheadings. Cereal seemed far too expensive, compared to other products that are largely flour. Like, for instance, flour. Northwest Airlines took over the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and brought with it the economic blessing of being unable to fly anywhere except Cedar Rapids for less than $300, unless you rode in the overhead compartment and forewent your pretzel twists. The Federal Reserve ran out of twenties after Alex Rodriguez visited a drive-through ATM on his way to Chuck E. Cheese. The rich got richer. The poor got poorer. The tax code thought expensive second homes were a greater social good than an advanced education. The post office would come to your house, pick up a letter, and deliver it anywhere you asked them to for 37 cents, but ordering French toast from room service four floors away required you to pay a jacked-up menu price, a delivery charge, an included gratuity, and a tip of your own if you didn't want the guy to sneeze on your pancakes. And through the wonders of eBay, everything was worth something to someone, even if it was broken.
i think that sums it all up quite nicely. i'll use that for my next economics paper.
in other news, the left side of my neck and under my jaw has swelled up and hurts like a bitch to the touch. i was gonna say "is tender to the touch" but there ain't nothing tender about this. it is PAIN. also, i cannot turn my head and swallowing is an exercise in masochism. oops, and in a new development, i can't look down or up, either. i'm pretty much confined to what's right in front of me. great for driving, i know. owwwwww. i look all puffy and unbalanced and whatnot and i can't even rock out to the eleventy billion songs i downloaded today (hey, um, RIAA? i was just kidding. eleventy billion - it's a made up number. it means zero. i swear.), because I CAN'T MOVE MY HEAD.
dammit. i'd say that heads will roll for this but the irony is too painful. i'm going to bed. ouch, pain. ouch, pun. owwww!
my cell phone: ring
me: hello?
joan: so i was reminded that i actually am an english major when all four of my professors assigned papers due thursday
me: it's tuesday, right?
joan: yes. i'm giving you my stereo.
me: (confused) you're giving me your stereo?
joan: yes. and my maggie cutler bracelet
me: (still confused) you're giving me the maggie cutler bracelet?
joan: yes, i want you to have them. you may collect them on friday when i have slit my wrists.
i hope joan never stops overreacting dramatically to everything. it would really be a shame to live in a world where normal everyday complications were ... just normal everyday complications. i like it much better when a trip to taco bell is an epic of love and danger and intrigue and bloodlust that can't be told in under 15 minutes. because, if you're really looking for it, there is drama in the trip to taco bell. or in an english assignment. it just takes a joan to find it. if she's ever normal, i'll cry.
15 March 2004 1548
and reggie to the rescue again. he's my hero.
15 March 2004 1017
so i journeyed to the Redneck Heart of the Deep South and came out alive and with my non-accent still intact. I'm so proud of that non-accent... it takes skill to be raised far south of the Mason-Dixon line and come out pronouncing all the syllables in all my words, and not talking out of the side of my mouth past a toothpick or piece of grass.... How I love my Sweet Home Alabama, yes yes i do.
Anyways. so i spent the weekend with mother's family - her sister and kids and her brothers and their kids. we went to visit my great grandmother in her nursing home because she hasn't seen the newest baby yet (who is Adorable... he's got the widest eyes and he just looooks at everything. and he talks all the time... little baby noises, just seeing what sounds he can make. yeah i love kids). i just don't do well in nursing homes. they make me want to die young and recklessly, rather than dying inside slowly one day of sitting in a wheelchair or a hospital bed at a time. i look at the cluttered lobby, full of wheelchairs with their motionless occupants, and wonder what they're thinking. do they still think? can they still amuse themselves with their memories of everything they've seen, or are they really as vegetative on the inside as they look on the outside? and then my grandmother... i remember her when we went out to eat with her and she bought me doll after doll and asked me to sing for her and talked to me. the downward slide is almost too much for me to take.
i don't want to be Old.
but never mind this. right now i am Not old. and i have a prom date, and he's an absolute sweetheart and i adore him and so it's going to be fun. and now i get to go dress shopping and shoe shopping and get my hair done.... ! yey i love getting ready for prom. when i went my freshman year, getting ready was the best part, esp because for some reason, the seniors of 2003 dated .... other seniors in 2003. and there were 3 other freshman there. and i didn't know my boyfriend's friends. so the dance part was even more painful than it needed to be. but this year all my study hall kids are going and i have a fun date and yey! *so* excited.
oh, it always makes me laugh when i see mother's extended family. some of them came to the nursing home too and they're, like, classic small-town redneck. their accents and their clothes and ... gahhh. oh, and the mother drives a mercedes, but their porch just fell off their house and the doors have holes in them. yes, these are my blood relations, people. oh yeah. i shouldn't admit that, probably. i just won't post pictures or tell any more stories. which means that i should go before i embarrass myself and my bloodlines even more.
tomorrow we can talk about my father and his mafia relatives.
i love my family.
12 March 2004 2206
look! i'm in the paper for the CEO visit. apparently i'm a future scientist... who knew? they could have picked a better picture, though, because they certainly took enough... flashbulbs were going off everywhere, i felt like i was on the red carpet for something... surrounded by chemicals, test tubes, and microscopes, and a decidedly biology lab smell. so, not really the red carpet after all. see my smile? it's the "i love you give us money money money" smile. very effective i'm sure. and i'm done.
well. that was a refreshing workout in html. i'm trying to choose a color for my new bedroom so i'll be changing the color of everything i come into contact with for the next few days... a week.... s.... okay, a month. i'm indecisive, what can i say. i have to see if i can live with it first!
the next area of expertise that i will acquire is apparently going to be jazz music, because that is what i have been ordered to find for the JP show. excellent. i figure, i'll just conquer them one at a time. i did irish, and then classical, and a bit of opera, and 40's big band... and i love jazz. so i'm excited about this, even though i have No idea Whatsoever what she wants. it's a woman director! that's not terry! i'm so pleased! she's ridiculously competent and so bubbly and friendly and doesn't seem dramatic or wishy-washy or artistically insane. i mean, i've only known her a day, but she comes off overall as someone who's not going to make me want to pull out all my hair. i'm pleased about this prospect.
graydon and ryan moore were at school today and i was really happy to see them but it was so weird... especially with ryan. i mean, i spent So much time with that boy in the last bit of my sophomore year. and then i think i've seen him twice in the past 10 months. and it's like we're strangers. it was weird, standing in the middle of the hallway, which is a setting i was completely comfortable with him in last year, and looking up at his towering height and having absolutely Nothing to say. eh, what can ya do, we grew apart. and he changed when he went to college, everyone says so. but that's what it's supposed to do, anyways. i miss him though. he's brilliant. and crazy, completely insane. so introspective, and you'd never see it coming until he's throwing deep insights out and they're coming quicker than you can make sense of them. i adored that about him. i need more people like that around. they keep me on my toes.
so, spring break. and i'm grounded. but it's okay, i'm gonna move my room and become the high school's leading expert on rivers, lakes, trees, and polymers. i'll end up an environment lover yet.
bham with the madre tomorrow. better than sitting around here and remembering that i am devoid of phone and vehicle. i'm hoping for the social sanctions to go away on sunday or thereabouts. this entire week without off campus lunch or any other activity has me severly craving a large group of loud and obnoxious teenagers. yeah we are.
11 March 2004 2325
so i attended two of a possible six classes today. it was a great day. the CEO of battelle or ut-battelle, or whatever it actually is, took an interest in the science kids of orhs. and he flew in on his private lear - because he's too rich to fly commercial, he refuses - and brought an entourage of 7 or so cronies who showed up two hours before he did and checked out the route we were taking him on and then stood suspiciously in a-lobby for the better part of an hour looking official, and then for all that is surprisingly down-to-earth. prish, lauren, cbass, ryan, anna, and i got out of 6th and 7th periods to set up the reception (cream puffs and chocolate covered strawberries!! when they said refreshments, i thought they meant cafeteria cookies! and actually, the cafeteria DID show up with those cookies but we laughed them away. CEO's don't eat high school cookies, apparently) and then went with him, the entourage, the entire administration, about four science teachers, and 5 people from various media on a tour of the school. we kept attracting more and more people and barging into classrooms and the whole time flashbulbs were going off and we were surrounded by a sea of dark-colored suits and polished shoes and we generally had A Good Old Time. and as though that weren't enough to break the tedium of the week before spring break, he wants to give us money and we spilled methanol on my hand during the chem demo. those would seem unrelated, and they are, but the one is interesting because it's happiness, the other is interesting because it's a slight toxin and seeps into skin and hurts like a bitch. so anyways, it was a quite eventful day.
and then i got to go speak of trees with dr. ganguly's random star student from a couple of years ago and it turns out that he's k eiran, who i've heard about for years from various people and who i apparently met last summer and didn't know it. he's pretty cool, and he has an unbelievably extensive and very specific knowledge of the environment and then other random things like economics and music-playing technique and he's one of those people i'd just sit and pick their brains for hours if i could. and i talked to him until about 5, so i kinda did. and that was fun.
i miss my baby truck. and my cell phone. i do not have either of these things right now so if you're calling my cell .... well, you can leave a message and i'll get it and call you back with a decent amount of promptness but don't expect me to answer. you'll have to deal with The Voice Mail Message From Hell... (bwahahahha...)
and then there was a question and a failed conversation and glares and sideways looks and no smiles and everything's wrong and weird and i didn't do anything and he hurt me first and there were tears, mine not his because he doesn't cry when he's angry, he gets resigned and settled and comfortable in his rage and you can't change it and i know that and i can't do a thing if he wants to give up on me for something i didn't do, he's been sliding away slowly for almost a year anyways at least now it's final and sudden and kind of like ripping off a bandaid real fast so it only hurts for a minute instead of the months of torture he's been throwing at me and he says i've let him down but i didn't i never would even though he deserved nothing more and he won't believe me that i wouldn't hurt him and that hurts me...
but a hug from reggie (hug?!? he gives hugs?!?) and a voicemail from holly (heh.) later, all is right with the world again.
5 March 2004 1558
well, this was fun.
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Eigth Level of Hell - the Malebolge! Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
i never saw that fraudulent, malicious, panderers thing coming. or wrathful and gloomy. i am, however, amused by the fact that all but one of my damnations match up closely with Holly's. but hey, don't say you didn't see that coming.
Fridays
winning treasurer of IRC and Laura winning secretary (yey! i heart that girl)
joe looking gorgeous in that white shirt (was i drooling? maybe...)
197/200 on the impossible history test
other people buying me ice cream
"second lunch" and Cantarito Friday!
english teachers forgetting to show up for class (thus allowing aformentioned second lunch)
Meredith's BMW
*not* doing sound for State Fair (and not paying to see it, either)
The Darkness (they're so blatently ridiculous that i have to love them)
Omarosa got fired!
PB&J (heh. it's not your Ordinary sandwich...)
spring break and UNC and Duke and katie and supermatt in One Week
Not:
um.... nope, pretty much everything's hot. great day. great, great day.
4 March 2004 2134
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GENNY!
1 March 2004 1914
The Kandinsky.. it's a double.
if i had a livejournal with those little animated emoticon faces, mine would be "pensive" right now. i had an odd day yesterday. i left the house at about 1 30 ish, and told dad that i was headed over to the playhouse to sneak in to Six Degrees, because i didn't feel like paying. that show is a trip. all i knew about it before i went was the six degrees of separation theory, that one person can be connected to any other using just 6 people. the theory has been popularized by kevin bacon, with i think four or five degrees, and i expected the show to put more emphasis on it. but no. The *actual* center of the show is the theory that there are two sides to every story - thus the double sided Kandinsky, which has an ordered side and a chaotic side and rotates constantly at the top of the set. And what order and chaos it is! that show is just a collection of nonsense, but it provokes so many questions. a lot to think about. i really recommend it - the acting, especially Paul, the one who causes all the order and the chaos - is superb. love how all the lines run all over each other, completely overtaken by the urgency and the excitement. it's offensive though, apparently, with the gayness and the cursing and that one perfect porno shot that reggie had to tune down and STILL eight people walked out on the first night. but do go, and watch, and maybe even pay. it's worth it. the only thing i was able to walk away with is the serious awareness that there are, in fact, two sides to every story.
i got to apply that new knowledge almost immediately following the show. end of show: 3:45. joy's return home: 9:45. elapsed time accounted for by copious amounts of gossip about pretty much everyone i know. and wow, conflicts between what, say, wade says and what, say, tony says... it's absolutely amazing. and i think they both believe themselves to be right. how is it possible for anyone to ever know the truth? about anything? anyone who tells a story shades it a bit in their direction and dilutes the pureness of it. for someone as obsessed with the truth as i am, this was a hard blow to take. two people i love and admire, and one of them is lying. or both of them, rather. if i average their stories, i'd probably come out with something vaguely close to accurate. but i don't *want* to guess. anyways, those are the two sides. the chaotic and the orderly. i won't say whose is which. and i guess, in the boys' heads, they ARE truthful. it's in how they percieve things and the subtle ways they change their story so that it is more of what they want that bends the truth. like a mirror in a funhouse...
"Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore... because you can always find the same desires in your own heart... I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves." - Orson Scott Card.
no, really. try it. once you get down to their humanity, their desires and their fears and their hopes... they're too vulnerable. and too much like everyone else. too close to home. in my six hours of constant conversation yesterday - which, by the way, i don't think i've done since... oh. but yes, so you get to know a person, or in this case, a couple of people, pretty well in six hours. and wade has this talent of understanding sarah. sarah... sarah is an enigma. she's beautiful and a little bit hick and manipulative, due in part to her being insecure and always searching for something, and completely crazy. i hope that everything that's going on teaches her that what she's looking for is what she has; i think she's about to realize that. and it's wade. and he loves her through all her faults and everything she's done to him because he knows her... he can predict what she'll do, and somehow, this means that he accepts it. not approves, but accepts. he knows "how she works" and that means more than it would seem, apparently. that orson scott card, he knows his stuff.
so i received an email today that said:
Er... Eh... Hmm.
Sorry.
and that is all. i'm still trying to figure out what prompted THAT lack of communication. i responded with one word. brevity is the soul of wit, after all... though my one word was less than witty. well. i tried. um. and i'm beginning to worry about prom. it's less than two months away. someone ask me? please? that'd be nice. thanks. i swear i'll be a fun date and i promise to be really pretty. and i don't even want to stay at prom, i just want dinner and pictures and a party. a long, fun party. isn't that agreeable to everyone? that's what i thought. now someone, ask me.... go!
i mean, i know who i *want* to take me, but let's face it, that won't happen. his idea of flirting and mine are two entirely separate things. too bad, really. it'd be fun.
