Broken TomTom

It seems like I've grown up really doing only what was expected of me. Never thought much for myself, besides getting food and good grades. I'm a mess now--I can barely decide on a daily basis what to even eat--should I go to the underbelly or the cafe? Oh the woes of dietary options.

Spending a lot of time in the room, kinda sad. You'd think I'd at least be studying or even playing video games. I don't even know what I do anymore.

...61 days until the semester is over...

Parking Lot

There was a Christmas when I was a sad girl when most of the gifts I got were hygiene products--lotion, body wash, some make up, scrub luffas--when what I really wanted was Pokemon cards and buildable Zoid models. I just got back from happily spending $50 at Wal-Mart on Q-Tips and hair mousse. Talk about irony. :p

I'm trying to decide what I really want out of life. Sadly, I haven't lived enough to want anything.

After moving out of the dorm at the end of last semester, I vowed NEVER to suffer three flights of stairs carrying unnessessary boxes ever again. Three tubs, laptop, a small suit case, my cello, fridge, and TV is all I'm taking.

Peep.

Change beneath the seat

Waning time wasted

picking pennies and singing

room remains unpacked

Conan off on another date. Dad home early. Going off to Lakeland for good Sunday.

It's hard to believe the summer's already over... actually, to be truthful, it felt like forever... but for the first time I'm really not looking forward to going back anymore. I usually love going back, but I really hate the stress.

Goal number two (number one dealing with procrastination) is get a freaking car.

Seat Covers

I'm completely neurotic, you know that? One upset stomach after dinner and I can convince myself I'm dying. I hear a plane fly overhead and automatically assume it's a nuclear warhead aimed at the house. See a shooting star and start thinking about Armageddon. Plan on failing something before I even start.

At least I know I'm crazy, but it's hard to stop a car once it starts to roll downhill.

A small comfort it is, then, to have distraction, when it so easily leads me to chaos. I am my own greatest downfall--I need no pretty face or well-aimed words to topple me. Shit. I really need to take up Yoga, or maybe get my head on straight...

Focus focus clean

practice practice organize

my plans for the week

Haiku sums it up

in nifty little verses

damn upset stomach

Saw roach in bathroom

slimy and black as it crawls

I wanted my Raid

Cannot lay down now

belly in pinches and knots

Hamburger Helper

I swear off red meat

no longer shall I suffer

gaseous agony

Tired but awake

will try sleeping sitting up

back pressed against wall

damn five seven five

sapping all my energy

try to think clearly

fan is blowing cool

damn light baring down harshly

leg tangled in sheet

Shredded Tires

Doubtless, I'm completely torn between grief that summer is over and relief that I can return to accomplishing something in my life.

I'm living in this eerie state of nostalgia, like my memories of all the different sagas in my life are floating together a deep rain puddle in the shade of an oak tree, clear to the bottom coated by golden leaves. Nothing would please me more than just a pointless drive around the state with nothing but a map, a bitch load of CD's, two or three gallons of Arizona Green Tea with Ginseng and Honey, my dog, and a few hundred dollars for nothing but gas and food. I just want to clear my head of all of this, maybe kill this restless apathy so I can get motivated to move on.

I'm lost again, if momentarily.

I think I'm infatuated with a fictional character.

Stupid cello, stupid etudes, stupid Sammartini. Stupid me, knowing this would happen.

I want to hang a rug out back and beat it senseless with a baseball bat, but I'm too tired to attempt it.

Sideswiped

Nothing is more ominous than a new file on Word

untouched by taint of human emotion

or besmirched

by blasphemous attempts at creativity--

mocking me, that blinking cursor--powerless to stop

the screaming sliver of black

as it taunts--ha--ha--ha--ha--

steady rhythm, unceasing, merciless

--ha--ha--ha--ha--

there, then gone,

there again--

ha--ha--ha--blink--blink--blink

sleep is for the dead,

rest for the weary--

but not the anxious--

blink--ha--blink--ha--

bitten nails, broken, cracked lips

scarlet fever of the mind,

shadows hissing

halted heartbeat

dulled humor

and the laughing--

ha--ha--blink--ha--blink--

anger without feeling,

exhaustion without sweat--

waiting...

deliverence, where art thou

blink--HA--blink--HA

patterns in the lights

secured in memory,

sweet pine drifting--

Christmas when I was five

amongst the wolf spiders and piss ants--

alone without fear, gaping at the sing-song

tale spoken in the branches

suspended above a modest mountain;

rewrapped toys and food--

cold sand, grit in my teeth--

there should be a taste, like brown sugar

or cherrys or pie--

pretend anyway

surge of topaz bubbles

rushes through my chest at his name--

goddamn you, heart,

betraying me...

tear you and bleed you out into the abyss,

if I could only reach

blink--ha--blink--HA

dfajfjaskdjfdjfdkjfkd

Making up for Chaos Cobbler, I produced a pan of homemade rice krispie treats this morning.

Rekindled love for all the things I obsessed over when I was thirteen.

Somehow, I think I'm regressing to an earlier state of life as a defense mechanism against stress.

Most interesting dream last night--death on the beach. That sounds like an excellent name for a band...

Woke up, couldn't go back to sleep. I've developed a terrible habit lately of waking up at four or so and convincing myself I have some terrible disease or I'm being personally hunted by every brown recluse in the state. Today it was appendicitis. Turns out I was just hungry.

Anyhow, in my dream I was walking along the beach, suddenly pulled into the surf while a woman narrator described my epic struggle to return to dry shore, very poetically relating this task to life and death. Every crashing wave was another onslaught of trials and hardships in life, pulling me back to the endless sea--and in this case, death and nothingness--and every slight break in the pressure was the little highs in life, quickly followed by another trying, soul-sucking wall of water. It was the most physically taxing thing I think I've ever done, just pulling myself through the very light surf, like my body weighed four times what it should, each clawful of sand so vital and important. It took something deeper and stronger inside to just crawl six or seven feet, and when I was done, I scooted myself around and looked back on my progress, feeling exhausted. A huge wave--larger than all the rest, beautiful and eerily dark and motionless, as if it was made of blue molasses--came tumbling down over the path I made, finally cresting and swallowing me up to take me back out the sea.

I stood up before it hit me, a little bit alarmed--but then I just smiled and kept walking, realizing all along our walks on the beach are but borrowed time--eventually all returns to the void.

Air Vents

That's about the extent of my feelings right now.

After a frustrating forty minutes or so practicing cello in the bathroom--for acoustics, mind you--I grew tired of my fail-at-life attempts to produce a pleasant sound and the putrid stench of cat litter, so I grabbed the bat and headed outdoors to wail on the punching bag out back, Dr. Pepper boxers be damned. Only to find the limb the bag hung on had fallen down, leaving my trip out in the rain and mosquitoes both fruitless and wasted.

Meanwhile, life goes on.

Hey, so that's where I put my keys...

Sunrise Ave

I have an unbelievably short attention span for someone claiming to be so patient.

Rocky roads ahead--but this time I'm bringing a spare tire and a shot gun. College won't get the best of me this semester.

Doom descends--I feel the cold grasp of death stretching for my ankles every time I look over in the corner at my cello, the image of Mrs. Parrette's fingers securely locked around my throat clear in my mind...

"What the hell is this? You call this a scale?! I call this BULL SHIT."

I learned my lesson about money--I think. No more frivilous spending until I have a job. Then I can fart money for the warm feeling that comfort food gives normal people.

I decided I'm going to create a drill sergent persona to keep me motivated and driven. If it was up to me, I'd sit around all day perfecting the art of sleeping.

Turn off the radio

I wanted to take this time out of my life to say I'm sorry. To all the people I've wronged. All the people who died in wars. All the people who loved and lost. All the people who gave with all their heart. All the people dying, crying, suffering, starving, coughing, bleeding, grieving...I can't understand it at all, why we have to be this way. No amount of education or enlightenment can make me understand suffering. No amount of praying will stop it. No amount of crying or hurting for people I don't even know. I still can't stop feeling this way, ashamed to be so alive and blessed and ungrateful. What can I do, short from joining the Peace Corps or starting a war.

I'm so angry it hurts! What do I do... how do I face myself, as a person, as a human, as a woman, as an American. What do I stand for? Why?

Good god, I'm such a cry baby. One movie about the Holocaust and I'm wiping tears and snot off my face.

Broken Horn

Yu Yu Hakusho is such a gem in my book.

Welcome back, anxiety! I missed you like a festering hole in my gut.

More strange dreams... this morning I had another that I was back in high school, but with only two friends--a goth guy and a punk girl. It seems I wore baggy clothing a lot and hid my hair in a cap, so most people assumed I was a guy. The people at that school probably thought I was pretty weird, since I started dating him half-way through. lol He didn't have eyebrows. Strange, I just remembered that.

Maybe if I get back on track with my cello... that sounds like a smart idea, so I don't have to kill myself two weeks before class starts up again.

I love my family. I never realized how awesome it is to have unconditional love until I'm living in it 24 hours a day.

Oh, hell, I need to mail that thing off to John...

Crash Test

After waiting almost two weeks for my camera, I realized it wasn't the prospect of having a camera that excited me--it was having something to wait for in the first place. When it arrived--finally--I opened it, toyed around with it, and now it sits with the rest of my crap, already just another material object to be taken granted. I need a hobby--one that doesn't require the use of my debit card--and fast, else I start up a collection agency for my poor spending habits.

Next I fancy myself getting a guitar. What the f-ing hell? I know it's wrong, I know I should be saving for textbooks--but I can't stop. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion, gaping helplessly from the window as it barrels down the slope for the thrashing waters of the river...

Going back to Lakeland for a few days... Nizhshiz is all I'm going to say about that.

\ /

....> <.....

o

Bumper to Bumper

Give me my waffle or I will kill you.

What Heero should have said.

I can't make up my mind what kind of person I should be looking for, or if I want to look at all. Dark, silent, standoffish? Funny, sensitive, geeky? Kind, intelligent, charming? What flavor of icecream does this cone want? How many rocks do I have to turn over, how many frogs do I have sort through?

What a shlahp of things I've created for myself. I'm not going to graduate any time soon.

Strange dreams lately. Nothing really concrete I can describe.

I heard a rumor that they're actually going to trade Lecavalier. That's pretty major, if it's true.

Yesterday, since I woke up at 3AM and couldn't go back to sleep, I tried watching the old Yu Yu Hakusho movie, but found the english voice acting so ridiculous--aside from Hiei and Kurama, of course--that I couldn't sit through it.

Woop. I don't feel like doing anything.

Pedestrian Crossing

I've decided my favorite author is George Orwell, an act far overdue considering I call reading a hobby.

With all this space and time, I'm writing more than I have all year... I used to love it, it was part of who I was. I'd write things that only I could understand, only I could grasp the importance of or appreciate the humor in--I didn't give a flying dog turd if anyone else liked it. I wrote for me.

LOL those Verizon commercials.

I found a good book to dive into. I'm excited. Vampires and violins--oh no! >:)

Yellow Line

Damn, it's getting hard to think of more phrases that relate to the road...

After watching the entire Fruits Basket series, I felt so girly I went out and bought four skirts and two pairs of shoes. Needless to say, my wallet hates me right now.

Driving Conan to school today, I decided I'd be proud to be his mother, if I were. As it is, I'm glad I'm his sister, even more so to be his friend. Funny how distance and time can change a relationship sometimes.

Watched the new X-Men movie. I think I fell a little bit in love with Hugh Jackman, but only after Steph and I watched The Prestige and then saw him on Ellen. Three movies in two days... unprecedented. I never sit in front of a TV unless my ps2 is hooked up to it.

Hot damn, this tea is good. It's like drinking a smile.

Tire Rotation

You, who looked and never saw...
escape without looking back--your presence
is not needed here.

You, who saw but never looked...
crushing is your weight so that I cannot
bear to witness your existence.

You, who searched and found...
answered my unspoken plea--
run for both our sakes.

So today I realized which bird I can most identify with, given the traits I seem to find the authority to project onto it.

The seagull.

However annoying, pushy, crowding, shameless, and completely deplorable most people find them, I've decided they're gritty creatures with a fantastic set of abilities.

Deciding I needed air, I spent a few hours just walking around, planning on visiting the swans again for some visual inspiration for juries tomorrow (since I am performing a piece about one of the freakin' things) and found myself on a bench beneath a cedar tree watching seagulls paddle luxuriously next to the ducks and Hitler's birds (Joannie-speak for swans) themselves. I thought, whew, they're far from home, but then I realized--who am I to say where they should be? Maybe I'm the one out of place. Maybe all the birds residing on the beaches stealing food from tourists are the ones in the wrong. Or maybe we're all right. I began to admire the gull's adaptive capabilities, and even found their steady glide across the surface as graceful as one of those deplorable creatures sitting a few feet away getting gawked at by the touring seniors. I thought--you don't have to be a swan to be a swan!

Smiling, I then realized all the negative traits humanity has assigned to the gull are negative only because they tread unfavorably on human toes, pooping on our cars and clogging the beaches with thousands of noisy, squalling birds that elicit entertainment from dive bombing picnickers. Really, if you step out of this human perspective, these guys are amazing for being able to coexist with hundreds upon hundreds of fellows in their flock--and can I blame them for taking advantage of opportunities? I'd say a dumb non-beach-native who throws the first crumb deserves the ripples and bird poo. The noise they make--so harsh, but true, raw, honest--is much less unsettling than taking life in silence. It is what it is. (Said swan sneezed, and I was taken aback by how similar the sound was to a car hiccuping a golf ball out the muffler).

How curious, too, they seem to be. They're constantly tilting their head, never accepting one view of anything. Did you know that they're born able to feed themselves, and leave the nest after a month? Some kinds of swans don't leave until a whole year has gone by...

At first I was appalled--what the hell, I don't want to be seagull! I'm not like that, I don't dig through trash! Surely I'd at least be a sparrow or something cool like a raven! How anti-climactic! But alas, the voices in my head adjourned the conference, the verdict being I should suck it up and accept my 'negative' traits and admire my adaptive devices, even if it means not everyone can see the beauty in my occasional grating squawk and pushy perseverance (like people complain about me being overbearing--feels like it, someitmes). Not everyone can something socially acceptable like an eagle or something. Besides, at least my species isn't going extinct. ;p

With the dorm clean and all, it's weird how much spare time I seem to have sprouted from nothingness. Without all that distraction and clutter, life is not nearly as busy as I thought...

Two days in a row I dropped in on the practice rooms, even just for thirty minutes. Out of a whim, really, an experiment to see if my mind can overcome my bodily urge to leave it until the last minute. I'm doing that lately, seeing how hard I can push myself to get things done.

Tonight, I sat and ate dinner with a table full of people I've never met before, all different majors and types of people. And you know what? I flourished. Well, I thought so, anyhow. Kept a good flow of intelligent words coming out of my mouth at appropriate times.

Geez, I'm slipping back into old habits--but I don't care. I think I'll enjoy this summer spent on fanfiction and re-beating Baten Kaitos.

Oh, and practicing. >.>

Rear view Mirror

In retrospect, I didn't think it'd go by this fast. That first year of college was like a streak of tail lights in the rear view mirror. I'm not looking forward to the uncertainty of the four long months ahead. I guess all I can do is trudge ahead with my cello, write some, read some, work some... but it'll be a lonely summer.

Wow. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, how I arrived to this point from eight months ago, moving into this room, green and wet behind the ears. Still have further to go, but a little seasoned, if just with parsley.

So back to having an epic online life to distract me from my non-existent real one...

Downhill Coasting

Just. End. Me.

Bluntly speaking, I'm sick of being a screw-up. Not one piece went well today... what am I doing wrong? I think I'm counting--try to keep a good beat, try to keep the bow moving... and then after that sucktastic performance (it all fell to hell in the middle... I jumped a beat, fml) I trip and fall off the goddamn mini-platform and bust a piece of my cello off. It's a little chunk, but it saddens me all the same. The one thing in my life that I know doesn't mind my endless, selfish ranting when I get into the practice room, doesn't mind my swearing up and down a three octave scale, doesn't care if I grimace at a note... and I hurt it. I let him down somehow. It's like I punched myself in the stomach. Irrational and sentimental as hell, but it's how I feel. He's my partner, you know? The one thing that won't dump me, that's always going to be there, whether I suck or not.

I think it all started rolling downhill that week of the Opera Gala performance.

Ah, but I can still laugh. Laugh because the reason I fell was those stupid shoes that I wanted so bad in tenth grade. Ugh, but let's not about the dizziness from not eating much lately. Didn't even see the edge coming. Thank god for that Victor guy Brenner's going on about. I'm going to have to make a trip over to his establishment and get Nick put back together. I just want to sit down in a practice room and never leave.

Free-floating. That's what it feels like right now. Just skimming along the surface of my skin, not really there but not off on a beach in never-never-land, either.

Holy crap there's a lot of trash in this room...

AAA

While on a trip to obtain sustenance, I caught sight of the sunset and started crying for the shear overwhelming beauty of it.

I cried because I haven't seen a sky like that since before that day that changed everything. I cried because I haven't stopped to bask in the absolute glory a setting sun can give in years. I cried because it was beautiful, and I am killing it, day by day, breath by breath. And I cried because I felt something surge up inside like warm wind and inflate my heart, spread, and sizzle with intensity. Didn't even care about the passing cars--I just gaped and blinked at the illuminated sky like an over-sized puffer fish. Finally, I parked my ass underneath a tree and just let it out--the last few weeks, the pain, the hatred--it all trickled down into the grass. The wind felt like a cool cloth against burned skin. I waited for the sunset to finally die, but even when the sky turned over and took the gray cloak against her chest, I still found it beautiful. Stumbling away, I felt heavy and sodden, but glorious all the same.

Then I walked back up the dorm and found out I missed the hall meeting.

Roundabout

So I haven't expected to end up here after class, of all places. One year ago--to this day--at this time--I was here, probably doing something similar on the internet, under completely different circumstances. When I entered the office, I hadn't expected the sudden rush of nostaglia. But I remember it, this place... the frustration... the fear... the boredom. Muggy afternoons like this--how strange to be here again and feel the same sensations! Like no time had passed. I don't feel in control when I'm here.

He's changed the numbers on the wall. They were written out on an aging sheet of paper, so old you've wouldn't have guessed it was once white. Now the numbers are printed out on computer paper, taped up in the old one's place. A new slip went up next to it--'repair order functions.' Nothing's moved otherwise.

For someone so wordy, it's hard to describe the emotions I'm feeling right now.

This week--last week--this month--

I don't complain much--make it a point not to--but I feel seriously overwhelmed. Not yet to the point I cannot stand it, but I'm gassed. Get me off the ice--send me to the showers, please.

How much have I changed, from this day one year ago? Still a procrastinator, but I know the consequences are much more severe now. Perhaps more confident, if a only a little more.

My grandmother's smile doesn't change from picture to picture. I seem to raise my left cheek a little when I smile, but I see a picture when I don't. I look so happy as a six year old--my hair was golden straw blond, I had frowning brown eyes, but they exude a maturity and knowing you don't expect children to have. So clear faced, so pure... So tan lol. I look like I'm hiding in my high school picture. My tendency to layer clothes hasn't changed much.

No matter how far I run, I'll never be able to leave this place unless I learn to let go, leave it behind for the smile to snag onto when I do remember. Cut the straps holding me facing backwards, look ahead again.

Ah, yes! There was an anime I wanted to watch, but I didn't have a fast enough connection in the laundry room. Sweet deal.

Road Block

Ah, I just want to get on with my life. Today WILL NOT END. This paper DOES NOT SEEM TO WANT TO GET WRITTEN. Friday is my reprieve. Just a few more days...

Mentioned one day in psychology was a concept called 'emotional intelligence.' Part of that was being able to hold a range of emotions and deal with them well, even at the same time. Well, I seem to be either a genius or incredibly stupid, because right now I'm feeling either an assortment of anxieties, disappointments, positive surges of confidence, pangs of loneliness, irritation, depression, intellectual curiosity and exhaustion, or absolutely nothing at all. It's hard to tell at this point.

Getting somewhat bloated. Eating too much.

I have this terrible longing for the cello, but for once, it's not laziness that's keeping me from the practice room. I've never struggled so much with a paper in my entire life. It's not even that hard--I have a great thesis, plenty of sources, proper citations, and great ideas. Hell, it's half-written in my head. But I seem to have writer's block.

FML.

The pigeon shit on the turtle, but still wants to hover around and build its nest on the turtle's back. The turtle just moves on, since he's the digging sort and has a hole to dig. He gets to his chosen spot and finds the soft sand infested with red ants, and a horse nearby nibbling his garden.

We expect three funerals this weekend; the pigeon, the horse, and some guy named Bob. Services will be held on Saturday due to the rioting rabbits expected on the streets this Sunday.

Hitchhikers

There are some people still not using their air conditioner units yet. It's bloody burning up here... Feels like high summer on the open plains of the West, sun beating down on the dried grass and the wind trapped under a massive invisible duck down blanket snugly fit across the earth--not a cloud in the sky, nothing to hinder the penetrative rays of sunlight. On one side of the ravine is the Indian tribe, bickering amounts themselves about the best plan of attack to best their white brothers, and on the other side is the settlement, full of arrogant, self-absorbed first-generation white Americans fresh from the womb of Europe. In between is the diplomatic translator, used by both parties for their own purposes, teased and tossed about No Man's Land between the establishments. How his throat burns for water, how his head spins from the tension! The ship back to his mother country cannot come soon enough...

LOL the commercials for Swiffer are the funniest things on right now.

I do love how things are going right now, despite this temporary trip back to ... here... It'll all be okay, and I feel a big smile coming on when I think about that.

Rules of the Road

I love coming here. The absolute solitude during the day really helps clear my head, and the conversations I get to have with my dad both enthrall me and frighten me. He's tired, and he told me if it wasn't for Conan and I, he really doesn't see a point in being here... it scared me a little, but I can't say I don't blame him... he's gone through a lot, lived a lot, worked a lot... but it's right down scary.

Well, with this world turning to shit, I've got no where to run anymore, no pretty future to dream about, no prince (or rich old benefactors) to come and wisk me away. The way I'm living now... The way I am... I don't like it. I hate it, even. So, today, right now, I'm going to start changing. Nothing's overnight, but I feel better already. It's hard not thinking about the past, how much I want to go back and just hug my younger self and say, "it's okay, it's okay, I love you and you are beautiful." Well, I guess that won't change, but I can learn from it. Instead of waiting twenty years down the road, I'll tell myself now--it's okay, it's okay. I love you and you are beautiful.

Well! Enough of that sappy shit, I'm going clothes shopping. >:)

No Passing Zone

Spring is my least favorite of all the seasons. Didn't care too much for the Vivaldi impression, either...

I don't like this feeling, like I'm staring at the rest of my life from the top looking down--the bottom looks closer from the top, everything on the slant leading to the end appears scrunched and bunched up like the excess plastic wrapping on last night's leftovers. Don't know what's going to happen, but I still fear that nothing will, nothing will change. That no matter how much I personally grow, no one will look at me any different. I'll still look sixteen to the world until suddenly I wake up with premature wrinkles and gray hair... why should that worry me? No where near that sort of thing. Time flies so fast though... I spent my entire life so far looking ahead, waiting for some miraculous event to occur, take this leap off into a happier place and leave that hell behind. The answer always hid in the distance. Well, it isn't going to pop out of my goddamn cereal box when I'm twenty five. I don't even eat cereal.

I know that I'm going to have to be my own hero, my own favorite person, my own support.

Watched American Idol with my dad--all of the sudden I'm critiquing these people like I know what the hell I'm talking about. Never cared much for the show, but that host guy and Simon are the best thing about it. It's pretty funny to see my dad really involved, though. He has his favorites, knows all the rules, watched almost all the episodes... It's so cute.

My brother has gone through three girlfriends that I know about already. Holy shit. My brother is a middle school heartthrob. What was I doing his age? ... lol We had just moved again, from granny's to Winter Haven. I remember being his age. Never fit in, and I tried for a few years. I tell Conan now, "just be yourself, don't give a fuck what anyone else says..." I wish someone had told me that. I also tell him to be nice to girls, but don't treat them differently. I don't want him doing what I did and think the opposite sex is a completely different and exotic species.

Oh, crap, that makes me a bad sister, giving my brother advice with fuck in it...

White Lines

Tampa is such a wonderful place.

Taking myself out to the mall today, and if I find something cute on sale, I'm not going to regret getting it.

I'm struggling so hard to make myself believe that it'll all be okay, but I know it will eventually. I just hate the thought I'm wasting time wallowing around now when I could be enjoying life. I guess this last few months have opened my eyes up a little--I'm not just going to pop out of a cocoon and be this amazing, beautiful woman. We're creatures of habit. I'll be doing the same things and thinking the same brown thoughts thirty years from now if I don't start something now. Not going to be young forever, either--I decided I'm going to start making healthier decisions, because I'm worth it. I have to believe I'm worth it.

So begs the big question... what do I want?

So comes the answer--I don't know.

But for know, I'm content not spitting at my reflection in the mirror anymore. Makes cleaning the bathroom a lot more endurable.

Road Kill

Watching Bear Grylls eat every animal he comes across and trudge across the Sahara dessert made my situation look a lot less dramatic and less interesting... but nonetheless, I've got an intense British narrator dictating every event in my head...

"...and now she waits patiently for the grandfather to return home, so that the rest of the family can eat. Watch now as she distracts herself with the computer, chewing on her nails to dull the hunger. If she were to indulge in anything from the fridge, it most likely result in food poisoning..."

Watched a strange movie tonight. It was probably the most romantic thing I've seen in a long time. It was called "I'm a Cyborg, But it's OK." Basically about a girl who grew up with her grandmother who thought she was a mouse, ends up believing she's a cyborg, tries to charge her batteries by inserting wires into her open wound and plugging them into the wall... After landing herself in the loony bin, she ends up falling in love with a man who thinks he can steal people's souls. It was absolutely beautiful the way he pretended to open up her back to put in a make-believe device to convert food to electrical energy so she would eat. And he sung to her through a plastic cup attached by a string when she was recovering from electric shock therapy while he was in isolation... two completely messed up people found each other from the strangest circumstances... it ended as they were camping out after a failed attempt to gather a billion volts of electricity from a bolt of lightning so she could fulfill her life's purpose of blowing the earth up... it made me wonder... can two people with that much baggage really find love? Will they eventually leave the hospital and continue their relationship and grow together as people? Or...?

Watching Star Wars now... Poor Obi is fighting over a pit of molten lava... He is my favorite, you know...

Yuck... he just ate another scorpion...

Pin a shooting star
watch it fall, fade, flicker--
death to all hope,
doom to all dreams--
wish only on your feet

but given any chance to feel the river's wrath
I'd take my place in line.
One step is all it takes
to loose your footing in the stream
and tumble across the grainy pebbles,
laughing all the way.
One thing to regret the bruises
from protruding rocks
and another
for your feet to feel thirsty for cool water,
dry and cracked
from walking along side the bank.

Who is my favorite Lord of the Rings character? Who, I wonder...

I'm such an idiot...

Flat Tire

Today was like spilling oil on white carpet. Or maybe kicking over a baby stroller into open traffic. Or burning the country flag at a football game. Today just sucked.

So the penguin said to the duck, "at least you can fly, you jackass."

THIS close to punching John in the face. Damn the repercussions... I'll have to get him back somehow, before I forget to be mad at him. I can't hold on to a single stupid grudge for very long.

Headache... aspirin...

Stupid drama...

Intersection

When I went to the Hollingsworth Winds concert last night, I think I learned a little about life watching Dr. Jossim conduct. That woman is just amazing. Seeing her dance on the podium made even me want to get up, get confident and find my own orchestra to conduct, or at least take control of my life. It's a shame not more people go to these things. It's a glorious experience--I take back ever "I can just listen to a recording" comment I ever made, because in truth, nothing can top a live performance. Except maybe being the one performing.

Describing my situation with the cello to my aunt, she asked me--jokingly--sort of--if I was in a relationship with it, and it made me realize I do spend more time with this thing than I do with one single person a day--except on Tuesday. I do think of Nick more of like a partner in crime than just an expensive wooden artifact used to produce sound. I fair tackled John to run after Martha when she tried to take off with it...

It's hard to believe that I am completely different from ten years ago, five years ago, one year ago... how much more change will there be?

I'm relieved to say that I'm not frightened anymore by the concept of change.

I'd say bring it on.

Dead End

There is nothing quite like watching someones head getting blown off in slow motion.

As terrible as that sounds, it's true. Part of you screams, "oh, yuck! How terrible!" and the other part is admiring the distance the glistening spray is getting. Well, you could be perfectly sane, and just stick to the "wtf" part.

(I watched Tommy play some post-apocalypse game when I went to offer my help in studying for his math test Monday. Very graphic.)

I was drama-free all but two days. I knew my mother's genes would show up someplace--my mind can't function without turning inward on itself and slapping around the voices to get them talking...

"Why the hell are you so quiet?"

"What? What do you mean?"
"We were just minding our own business, no need to shout!"
"See? Nothing major is happening, we can relax..."

"What do you mean relax? No such thing! Get your ass back to work making this girl miserable or I'll send you packing!"

"Yes! Yes, of course..."

So I stumbled off of the path of clear-headedness with a much-needed talk with my aunt, who pointed out a few things for me that I didn't expect to hear. Have fun in college? Don't worry so much about the future? It's okay to have mushy, irrational, heart-pounding emotions? They're good for you? Normal, even?

I'm faced with a decision, a choice. Take the sidewalk, where I know what's ahead for the next five miles, and where it ends, or jump the yellow and black caution signs signaling a dead end at the end of the concrete and just see what's beyond the brush, to see how far I can go without turning back. Who knows, it might be that--a dead end. I don't know. In doing so, I forfeit the right to walk the clear-cut pathway, and have to wander along the curb until I find another road. Is it worth the risk? Should I follow my heart, my nerve, and do what I know is the only thing that would make me happy? Or should I play it safe, maybe take the chance that I could learn to like the sidewalk, even though I really want to go off-roading? There are scarier things than snakes in the grass... and I'm sure the harmless looking side could easily harbor some delectable trouble in the dark spots...

But I've always done that. Taken the lighted path and hoped the uneven cracks would be enough to trip me up, to make me learn balance, to grow. Maybe I need a good dose of actual danger to bring me to my senses, make me see that I'm an idiot.

But I don't even have a flashlight... not a clue... they don't write manuals on this sort of stuff, of following your passion. What about regret? What if there's a no trespassing sign just off the gravel? I've bounded over the hurdle for nothing.

Ah, so many but's and what if's.

It seemed so simple a few hours ago on the phone...

And you know what? It probably is.

Speeding Ticket

It might be possible to return to normal life--my head finally returned from its epic voyage in the clouds. I still find myself looking for the birds, craning my neck to peer around the corners, but I know I'll never fly.

Then this college thing finally gets interesting--and it's almost over...

Sailor Moon personality quizzes suck. I've gotten a different answer every time.

I think I'm going to bust out the violent video games...

Oh! I went to the underbelly to get something to eat, and who was there but a group of very obviously Russian guys. I loved listening to them banter back and forth and their heavily accented English when they each ordered like ten dollars worth of food. It made me forget for a while that I was lonely, and feel very itty bity and girly standing next to someone six and a half feet tall. I imagined what I'd say to one if I had the nerve...

"So, you are from Russia?... Oh, that's nice, I've never met anyone, uh, Russian. We totally creamed your ass in the 1980's Olympics, eh?"

That is, if I wanted a death wish. He looked like he could string my intestines up for christmas lights with his teeth. But is it bad I thought he was attractive? Why the hell do I like people I don't have a flying ice brick's chance in hell with? It's always the dangerous ones with me. No, not the trouble-makers in the back of the room jeering at the rest of us losers, but the ones that can actually hurt me. Like a bird who likes the smell of cat litter...

Yuck. That's wonderful, Joannie. I really wanted you to compare yourself to a creature who enjoys the scent of cat piss...

Cruise Control

Finally found what my hobby is--walking. I love to walk. Did nothing but that for close to four hours today in total, outside normal travel. It fills up the holes that friends and music leave gaping.



Along my epic quest to the bank after making three pointless ventures from the music building to TuTu's to my dorm, I realized I hate most of my clothes. Wouldn't it be nice to have a wardrobe reflecting the me now instead of my days of fifteen dom? I haven't gotten a new pair of jeans since I was in tenth grade, and even those were hand-me-downs. So I decided I was going to go shopping soon, dunno where--probably thrift stores--and maybe ask my mom to go along, since I automatically associated clothes shopping with her. Then it hit me--I am just a little girl lonely for her mother. It doesn't matter what she does, what she says, what she doesn't do--I still seek her approval, I want her attention, her hugs, anything. She was just never there.

Happy day, I have money in the bank. Can't spend much of it, though.

Had a dream last night--pretty vivid--and in it I was suppose to play this piece titled "Sounds," a cello duet with piano accompaniment. I remember what the second cello part looked like for the first few measures, and I might recall the sound of the piano, but we'll see how far it goes when I laboriously try to recreate it.

I think I want to try and pick up guitar.

Have a few performances next week. Can't say I'm stoked about the cello trio thing--nervous as a duck trying to fly after being pushed off of a six story building--but I think the orchestra concert might not go as bad as I feared.

In astronomy lab, I was looking for M31, a hazy object near some orange star. I looked up, and said, "hey, is it like a gray fingerprint smudge?" They were like, "yeah, yeah! That's impressive, that you got it so quickly"... then I looked around, and saw many other smudges, and realized my binoculars were out of focus and I was really sighting distorted stars.

Quartet rehearsal... hm...

That black guy at TuTu's makes GREAT coffee.

Dashboard

I think I can finally move forward. The light switch clicked for me today, and it took but thirty seconds. What a refreshing feeling, to just let it all go, go to hell for all I care, and look inside and like what I see.

I guess everything happens for a reason--it's too painful to think that we're gliding pointlessly forward in time by coincidence. Even if I'm wrong, I don't care. If my delusion makes sense, I'll live with it. I'm tired of trying to strip away the layers to see what's beneath--there's nothing there. Nothing but me.

How long will this last? A night? A week? How long before I start yearning again, start pounding away at humanity? I hate being hormonal...

Walked the lake today again, alone with my ipod on shuffle. Halfway through, I started working on my smile, getting both sides to match. My lopsided grin is not going to get me a date. So I tried--by various contorted facial expressions--to do the physically taxing task of lifting my dormant eyebrow as well, and I looked like a psychotic freak strolling down the path, occasionally humming and chuckling at nothing as my face twitched and spasmed. Yep.

I look forward to the day I look back at all these pointless, muddled posts when I'm fifty and say, "boy, were you stupid. And so needlessly brooding..."

Well, to you, my fifty year old self, I say this--"screw off."

Fog Lights

Walking the lake with the ever-tireless Stephanie, I surmised there should be something morally wrong with having all six pistons shooting off in my head when I can barely keep my eyes open. It's living torment to have those impulses working against each other.

Yay for not having jury duty after all. That I am happy about.

On the very still and quiet jaunt around Hollingsworth, my mind finally twisted around itself and wrung out all my wrongs for me. I started thinking about the flawed mind and whether or not every assumption I had, even ones about myself, were wrong. If that's the case, how can I live with myself, this stupid body controlled by senseless logic and chemical imbalances... how could I possibly begin to love myself when I can barely accept it? What now, then, came the question. How am I going to live. What do I believe. Fuck everything else--I'm the one that has to go to sleep on my conscience at night--what do I think? And you know what?

I don't know.

And it feels refreshing to say it. I don't have a goddamn clue. No one's sat down with me and said, "Now Joannie..." Even if they did, I doubt I'd believe them. I can't know all the answers, and I never will. Ninety years old and I won't be any different, except maybe I'll be better learned in atrocity.

It briefly crossed my mind that maybe my current crisis is punishment for not being religious or something, but I don't believe it. God and that whole mess is something I don't care to pretend to know about, but if anyone were to ask me, I'd say he's a pretty sadistic character to create and judge us like that. Like pulling the wings off of grasshoppers and condemning them for not being able to fly...

Going to be a long day... but it's beautiful out.

Gas Light On

In the thrall of Valentines Day, I completely overlooked Friday the 13th.

Had a wonderful quartet rehearsal today.

Not much to write about. My mind is goo.

On second thought, I gave the trumpet a toot or two after too much cello angst, and it made me feel better to just aimlessly blow hot air. Like screaming in a different language, maybe. After seeing Jacqueline Du Pre perform the piece I'm working on and effectively destroy any and all accomplished feeling I gained over the last two weeks or so, I felt like a change of air, so to speak.

Road Rash

<---- You know you'd tap that. When you get a thrill from almost colliding with a skateboarder, you know you're deprived. I wrote yet another poem today, this time in English. It goes as follows:

Maybe I do want you to find my star
however dim and shyly hidden
behind clotted clouds of chortled mist
ah, but you don't know me--
my own skin doesn't know me
soul of a bride--
mind of a hermit--
ship me off, please--to Pluto with Pikachu

Finally, I found my favorite animal. It's been sitting there in front of my face since I was five. I love toads.

Nothing epic like wolves or rhinoceroses. Toads.

Oil Change

I wrote a poem the other day, in pscychology. Rather odd, since no matter how wonderful I might find poetry, I don't enjoy an abundance of my own stuff. It's short--

I stake no claim on this land

yet I feel it drifting away

torn away with crimminal sweetness

It doesn't strike me as anything special now, but it does mean something to me.

Got good work done on the cello today. There is hope after all.

The deepest layer of hell is reserved for cowards. I should know, it says so on my ticket.

My fourth position is a little flat, I've noticed. When I go for a F arrpeggio, the top note is always off. Bothers the piss out of me, almost as much as the slight angle my soundpost seems to be at. It might be time to change strings, but I hate new strings... the ones in my case have got to be older than the ones I've got on...

I'm also talking more outloud, to myself, the cello, to people... I wonder if anyone's getting annoyed yet. The more that seems to come out, the less important my words seem to be.

The laundry room is lonely.

Open Road

Another Monday passes... not nearly as bad as they have been going. I actually feel pretty good right about now. I was told today I've improved, but more importantly I affirmed what I had on the back burner all along--that praise and admiration have to come from within. You can't honestly expect to play beautifully if you hate the sound of yourself. It's not really our job to look for compliments, either, so he said... that our job is to not get told off for doing something wrong.

Another interesting point he made... cellists, psychologically, are the darkest, most introspective, emo people of the orchestra. We have a higher suicide rate than any other section, apparently.

Go figure.

So I'm not melodramatic because I'm a woman. It's because I'm a cellist. Well, I guess it compounds itself in my case...

Traffic Jam

I think I've taken to walking the lake at night. The lights on the water, the passing people, the thrill of possibly getting stabbed (j/k...sorta), the dark, twisted trees... It's like taking a stroll through my mind. A lot comes out and a lot goes in.

Christ, they keep it cold in J.R...

I found I have no true calling. I've never noticed before, but after I get out of college, unless I go right back, I'll most likely be a bum. Agh! Coming from a stellar student. A directionless arrow, I am...

Carrying my ipod more. Walking last night--oh, what a walk--I discovered that I have always wanted to join a band and scream the paint off of the walls. That's something worth dying for.

Dang, I've gone through a bottle of water and the rest of the apple juice... still thirsty...

Maybe I'm not an arrow--that implies I have to be moving faster, straighter--but more like a drifting balloon.

Despite my lack of passion, I seem to be living life a lot more dramatically lately. Whatever it is I'm feeling, I'm absolutely feeling it. Doesn't help when I'm feeling listless. I could crap my pants for the intensity of waiting for the internet to load.

I wonder what that crazy family is up to... No, no I don't... Never mind, they can have whatever they're doing. I don't want it.

I was filling out a survey the other day, and I got stuck on the easiest questions. I ended up scrapping it...

Wonderful.

Crash

Only when I just get over being nauseous, my stomach rolls over in disgust of myself. Really, Joannie, really?! Good god, I take a good thing and throw it away with both hands! I should be institutionalized for the things I do to sabotage myself.

I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like discarded banana peelings left out on a wet, slushy sidewalk. It's Saturday. Nothing to focus on. Nothing to be driven towards. Thinking about the cello makes me sigh internally, so deep a sigh I can't move for the gravity of it. Insane... And I call myself a musician...

"Whirlwind romance," is what Steffie called it. Indeed... I don't know what to think. Maybe I'm not ready. Maybe I am. Maybe I should let him go while he still has a chance, time to run. I'm so selfish... There could be monuments to the level of hypocrisy in me. I try so hard to belong, to be similar, to run on some one's wavelength. I don't have a wavelength anymore. Maybe this is it, right now. Complete angst. Ugh. I have a headache.

I think about him more and more now, Kenny. That's never a good thing. I wonder if his selfish action was so selfish after all. It was his life, his choice. He didn't give a damn if he hurt the hundred people in his life. He didn't care about being right, nice, or proper... At least now I have someone to talk to when I'm alone in the car.

Yuck, I'm shivering now. Why do I get so cold when I get like this? I can't believe I'm indulging myself this way. No one needs to know what's going through my head. I should be able to snap out of this, get back on track. Nothing's wrong, I'm set, why am I like this? No wonder why they call women melodramatic.

I think I'll go take a nap. I hate the weekends.

Roadside Assistance

Imagination is a girl's best friend, right next to a wicked sense of humor.

I find myself laughing a lot more than not, both on the inside and out. At myself, the world, heaven, hell, the whole lot.

It's a no go on falling into 'like' with that one kid. Thank God, I don't need any more complications... I'm almost out of this black pit. Turns out everyone goes through natural bouts of depression every three weeks or so, but I don't think I'm suppose to want to join the military for the strict purpose of getting shot.

An old obsession resurfaced the other day, the cute and addictive online game of Maple Story.

I'm never going to grow up.

Blowout

Today I got dry humped by a good friend of mine from down the hall (and down a floor). It was part of a struggle over the keyboard, of course. She was chatting with an interestingly attractive Irish man on the Internet, and I wanted very badly to type in something vulgar to see what kind of reaction I could get, something non sequitur like 'I want to elephant fuck you,' but the silly girl had objections to that for some reason. All in all, I had some good laughs. She's a fun person to be around. It's sad she's one of the only non-music major friends I have...

So today I unintentionally skipped my first class this semester, bullshitted my first paper, and nearly fell asleep in the first lecture of astronomy. My umbrella broke and the tendons in my right arm are flared up. Oh, but I do love the cello. Like cancer to someone suicidal, maybe.

In the quest to better understand myself and this universe, let alone the world and people, I decided to follow a hockey blog.

...I think I'm starting to like someone I'm not suppose to...

What is it I mean to myself?

I love Jim Youngs, he was smokin' in the eighties... Forget Rob Lowe, man... My roomate painted a picture of him for me for Christmas. Total orgasim on the spot.

I'm so screwed in orchestra. We're playing this Ives piece that requires me to count. ... Heh... at least I'm in the back, sitting two feet away from tonic. I love bassists.

I miss my dog.