Pickle My Brains

2009-08-15T02:16:00.001-04:00

even though the last part has been really sad

this summer has been the best i've ever had

i've been so happy i haven't even had time to

think about the bad stuff until now

2009-08-04T22:06:00.001-04:00

summer makes garbage more obnoxious.

summer makes people more obnoxious.

today was like 95 degrees

and seriously, the city is trash.

( i feel pretty gross too)

2009-07-14T19:00:00.002-04:00

Ok, why is it so hard to find Abu Ghraib videos on the internet? Aren't they a huge INTERNET phenomenon? My mentor keeps plying me to include some in my project and I have spent two days looking for some usable ones, and they are impossible to find! I wish I knew Arabic.

2009-07-04T11:07:00.000-04:00

All of a sudden I'm the shortest member of my family. Everyone has outgrown me.

STREAMPAD

2009-07-03T21:25:00.003-04:00

i can't figure out how to use streampad, but i REALLY want to post AQUARIAN DREAM - FANTASY. my current obsession. i'm at home for the weekend, seriously already gaining weight. this afternoon i baked a strawberry, blueberry, and yogurt/cottage cheese tart (red-blue-white fourth of july request). it was adapted from this recipe, from another serious obsession:

www.tartelette.blogspot.com

ben was supposed to come down and spend the weekend here too but his uncle died this week and so he's in princeton, nj. my little sister was so dissapointed. she likes my boyfriend more than me. driving here this morning my mom was saying how my little sister was telling her "ben is really good looking isn't he? i expected ----- [me] to date some geek-looking guy." hahaha ok, and then when i walked in the house today she greeted me by coming downstairs and was like "i thought your BOYFRIEND was coming." she looks around. nope. "mom made me clean." pouty face. soo cute.

2009-06-29T16:29:00.002-04:00

now that i live alone i eat with my hands all the time. i feel like my mom.
i also don't wear a lot of clothes.
IT IS TOO HOT TO WEAR CLOTHES.

i am so hungry right now

2009-06-29T16:24:00.004-04:00

so i let my mom meet my boyfriend when she came to richmond on friday. i told her i wanted her to meet a friend of mine, but as ben later put it she could totally tell when he stuck his sushi into my soy sauce at the restaurant. yeah, she could totally tell.
all she said about him in the car was "ben's so white" hahahahahahahahaha.
and then she invited me and him to come home for the weekend and go to the beach.

Wide Eyed

2009-06-03T17:24:00.002-04:00

by Trinie Dalton.
amazing Amazing AMAZING!
I can't wait to read more of her stuff. It's nice to have time to read in the summer.

2009-06-03T16:52:00.000-04:00

i don't own any shorts. why don't i own any shorts? i hate the summer season, it's too hot to wear clothes.

OMG

2009-05-11T15:22:00.001-04:00

Sea, Sex, and Sun

2009-05-10T10:52:00.004-04:00

Classes are over, it feels like summer! I want a cute ruffled bikini just like this and a vacation!

http://www.garancedore.fr/

2009-05-09T13:38:00.000-04:00

twitter is really addicting

2009-05-09T13:29:00.003-04:00

Visiting home for the weekend, eating a lot of food. When I was little, every time we bought our groceries from the asian market the lady there would always give us an extra treat. Usually these cute koala cookies. I am really craving some right now, although I just baked some coffee cake with dates and have eaten too many slices.

1 2

Don't want to go outside

2009-04-29T12:06:00.003-04:00

http://growing--up.blogspot.com/

2009-04-27T01:06:00.005-04:00

"I don't recognize myself anymore. What made me like the others has been destroyed. I was like everybody else with flaws, perhaps of my own and of my world. You've made me different, taking me out of the natural order of things. While you were near me, I did not realize it. But I understand it now that you're leaving. And the awareness of losing you has become the awareness of my being different. What will become of me from now on? The future will be like living with a self that has nothing to do with me. Will I have to reach the bottom of this difference that you've shown me, that is my real and anguished nature? But even if I don't want to? Won't all this put me against everyone and against everything?"
-Pietro in Teorema

2009-04-20T20:49:00.004-04:00

it's kind of sick how i use my creative writing class for supportive therapy. i can't help it, i like to write about emotional conflict and i draw inspiration from my own life. it's actually really soothing hearing 20 people telling you about how your ex is so cruel, treated you wrong, blah blah. and pointing things out such as the idealization of your "boyfriend" although in the story he is providing as much pain as the story's antagonists. and then reading and re-reading all the comments and trying to figure out who wrote them, and who wrote "you" instead of "the narrator." i worry sometimes that they will meet the people i write about. i should worry more that they know too much about me.

Stress

2009-04-17T01:05:00.005-04:00

Too listless to write this paper. I feel strange. Not good at all.

It doesn't help that I can hear birds chirping outside already and I still have to shampoo my hair and do sit ups before I step outside and "start the day."
i didn't steal

I need to wash my hair

2009-04-12T19:29:00.003-04:00

Hedi Slimane Diary

Work Fun Work

2009-04-11T20:35:00.004-04:00

what I've been working on lately

Actually, done with that now! Then there was the French Film Festival, and now the James River Film Festival. Then exams, then summer internship!

2009-04-09T09:28:00.003-04:00

life is so busy lately! i can't even be sad, even though my laptop was stolen last monday.

lesson time

2009-03-11T21:56:00.002-04:00

su⋅pine
/adj. suˈpaɪn; n. ˈsupaɪn/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [adj. soo-pahyn; n. soo-pahyn] Show IPA
–adjective
1. lying on the back, face or front upward.
2. inactive, passive, or inert, esp. from indolence or indifference.
3. (of the hand) having the palm upward.

i have been lying in this position for the past two days. i'm so sickkkk

Colorgenics Personality Quiz

2009-02-20T21:56:00.002-05:00

Date: 2/20/2009
Colorgenics Number: 07125463

At this particular time, you are feeling that you are or were unjustly and undeservedly treated and/or betrayed in your hopes and dreams. You feel that everything is against you. But look on the bright side for you are, whether you believe it or not, a survivor.

You are very self-sufficient and methodical. You presume to know where you are going but need to find a person who will recognise the way you are, not be too demanding and who is, as they say in Italy, 'Simpatico'.

In spite of the fact that you believe that your hopes and ideas are realistic, it is hard for you to accept that your needs and desires are misunderstood by almost everyone within your sphere of influenceand there is no-one to turn to or rely on. Your pent-up emotions and inherent egocentricity make you quick to take offence, but as matters stand you realise that you will have to make the best of things as they are.

There is considerable amount of stress present in your life at this time and this is perhaps due to some considerable mental and physical frustration. There are various physical needs that are necessary for your well-being but whatever the reasons - mostly of your own making - your needs are not being fulfilled. We wonder why? You are under the impression that nobody seems to care for you. This predicament is most uncomfortable and it is because of this that you are experiencing far more stress than you feel you can cope with. You need to find a soul mate - someone who truly understands you and whose standards are as high as your own. As matters stand you would like to break away from the vicious cycle that you find yourself entrapped but this is easier said than done. You refuse to compromise with your opinions and essentially you are unable to resolve the situation because you are continually postponing the making of the necessary decision. You are stubborn but this should be no deterrent experiencing a happy life.

You feel worn out - you have no energy and your depleted vitality has created intolerance for any further stimulation. You feel inadequate and this subjects you to agitation, irritation and acute distress from which you try to escape by refusing further direct participation. You have become very wary and cautious but you have an inner strength. You have that determination to get your own way and succeed in the end.

Take the quiz yourself!

2009-02-20T01:14:00.002-05:00

I was going through my composition journal, since it's going to be checked in class tomorrow and I found this:

"I've got no conscience, I just got nerves."
-from Stalker (film)

Fallen Angels

2009-02-19T00:31:00.002-05:00

Michelle Reis is so beautiful, I just like to watch her eat noodles. I used to think it was fun to use chopsticks with my ramen, but I only eat my noodles with a fork now.

Current Status

2009-02-19T00:11:00.006-05:00

I am currently needing some ice cream to wash down a waffle with powdered sugar and syrup, some hostess cupcakes (wtf), butterfinger bar, reeses, and chips. !!!
ummmmmm
i'm on a diet?
I guess writing a paper overrides any other status quo. like dieting, or socializing, or seeing sunlight.
DID I REALLY EAT ALL THAT?

Definition: Emotion

2009-02-18T23:41:00.002-05:00

i was in the library late at night a couple days ago studying for a psychopathology exam, and i was really tired. i was sitting in a cubicle, with bad lighting - everything looked yellow - and although i could hear an occasional page turn from somewhere behind me, i felt i was the only person sitting there on the fourth floor. the library was slowly draining of life behind me. my eyes were blurring, i felt like the people in my book.
as i tried reading faster, i slowed down after the neurological relations part, when the chapter morphs into mood and affect. the definition of emotion provided in this book really ground my process to a halt, as much as i wanted to get out of the library.
basically, the book explained emotion as an "action tendency"
then gave the longer definition as "a pattern of action elicited by an external event and a feeling state, accompanied by a characteristic physiological response."
blah blah ignore the second part unless you're a student of psychology then maybe it'll come in handy, i just thought that might clarify the action part of an emotion for you because i really had to think about it. or maybe i was really jaded and dumb from sitting in a cubicle. voluntarily. but an emotion as an "action tendency" really caught me, and now i can't stop thinking about it in any other way.

2009-02-16T14:51:00.005-05:00

I am being such a girl lately.
I don't know if this is good or bad.
I feel I am acting out typical stereotypes - melodramatic, emotional, mood swings, WEIRDNESS, binge eating.
I want to watch the Holiday.

[ignore stupid background video, ignore stupid impulses]

2009-01-17T23:03:00.002-05:00

The most beautiful thing in the world is Mary Beth Reed's Moon Streams.

2009-01-07T04:41:00.002-05:00

"I am going about my whole life in a planned manner. So surprising!"

- Kapurush

Hot Cold

2009-01-07T03:48:00.005-05:00

Today is my mom's birthday and I know I will probably fall asleep by the time she wakes up and that I might not wake up until she falls asleep. I was settling down in bed to watch a film, but I decided to wrap her present now before the sun rises and I forget. Mummy's getting Weleda Skin Food, the hand lotion she regretted not buying for herself last week, covered in old netflix envelopes that have been accumulating in a pile on my bedside table. I am so lazy. I should clean. While I was writing out a poem for her, "Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market," by Pablo Neruda (she loves fish, i don't), I was reminded of Neruda's other poems and how I haven't read them in a while and how his love poems are so great. Their relevance is so touching, I forgot about my mom I was so involved in my own life just reading his work for a while.

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

-Pablo Neruda

My Moon, My Man

2009-01-02T04:25:00.003-05:00

I love you Frank. You will always be my favorite. And when I say I hate boys (I am saying it right now because it it 4:26 AM and therefore too late for him to call) you know you are excluded from that sentiment. Forever.

(Video of Frank O'Hara reading his poem "Having a Coke With You")

Late Night Activity

2009-01-02T03:40:00.003-05:00

I like reading short stories nowadays. They still give you the satisfaction of intellectual stimulation without the interruption of having to constantly put a book down for lack of time. I can't handle fragmentation in my life right now, there is no continuity already.

Read now: "The Whores of Mensa" by Woody Allen

2009-01-01T22:02:00.002-05:00

I think she should have gone for the blue hat.

source

NOT FOR YOU

2008-12-31T21:07:00.001-05:00

Restless soul, enjoy your youth
Like muhammad hits the truth
Cant escape from the common rule
If you hate something, dont you do it too...too...

Small my table, a-sets just two
Got so crowded, I cant make room
Oh, where did they come from?
Stormed my room!
And you dare say it belongs to you...to you...

This is not for you (3x)
Oh, not for you...ah, you...

...scream...my friends...dont call me...
...friends, no they dont scream...
...my friends dont call...my friends dont...

All thats sacred comes from youth
Dedication, naive and true
With no power, nothing to do
I still remember, why dont you...dont you...

This is not for you (3x)
Oh, never was for you...fuck you...
This is not for you...
Oh, this is not for you...yeah, you...
This is not for you...
Oh, not for you...
Oh, you...

-Pearl Jam

Dissolve

2008-11-14T02:33:00.002-05:00

My emotions change daily, hourly - the continual shift like water, perhaps symbolizing the fact that I have no solid feelings, no hard stance on anything.

In class:

2008-11-14T02:31:00.001-05:00

I'm not dumb, just unable to pay attention.

WVLNT (Wavelength For Those Who Don't Have the Time

2008-11-14T00:42:00.005-05:00

This was one of the most disagreeable things I've ever seen. After the film ended and the screen went black, silence filled my brain like oxygen pouring into my ear canals. The struggle to watch WVLNT was worth it, the blank silence afterward had a cathartic effect. It put a stop to the fifteen minutes of nail-biting agony that left me in a state of nerves, and tense sitting on the edge of my seat, clutching my head. Once the DVD was again in my hands, I wanted only to be rid of it, I still felt nauseous and tingly.
I had to search hard to find any beauty in the film. At some points, the lineups of superimposed windows and their coloration brought to mind Rothko and his paintings and the image wasn't completely barren of beauty, but generally speaking the entire film was completely in juxtaposition to the sort of aesthetic I find pleasing. I hate to use the word "ugly," but I found most the images to be uninviting to look at.
Watching it was an experience, which is the only acquisition I rightly feel I took away from it. The film pulls nerves, forcing the viewer to be extremely uncomfortable the entire duration. Visually, it consists solely of superimposition that contain no action - simple static shots. Staring at these for extended periods of time allows the mind to wander. These static images actually look like dissolves - they twitch at the edges - like they are about to fade into the images behind it yet it never comes into lucid fulfillment. Waiting for the images to change continually was tantalizing and dissapointing - it never changed.
Then there was the accompanying soundtrack - which, as a sufferer of migraines, I would only describe as agonizing. The white noise is some buzzing mechanical noise, you sit there, already perplexed at the images wondering is it a vacuum? an eggbeater? a whirring fan? a factory background? some torture machine?
As you sit there, painfully experiencing all of this, one dominant thought strain emerges: suicide. Seriously. "When is this film going to end? Is fifteen minutes over yet? I feel I've spent my entire life watching this. Please just let it end. I am in so much pain. Please, stop all of it. Everythinggg." I found myself numbly saying repeating this, mouthing prayers, as if that would do anything. Credit to WVLNT, it effectively does something - it's just not pleasant, and my shortened experience with this is just about all I can take. I wouldn't watch the full length version of this. Not even out of curiosity.

2008-11-09T19:49:00.002-05:00

I think I might prefer being emotionally dead than being trapped in this tornado of various desires. I'm being pulled in so many different directions, it might tear me apart. Maybe it is better to sit numbly and watch skin tingle with cold rather than feel physical heat.

The Cinnamon Peeler

2008-11-07T00:00:00.002-05:00

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.

and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.

-Michael Ondaatje

A girl read this out loud today during open mic and it really left an imprint on me. I had never heard it before. The only poetry I get nowadays seems to be through others - open mic and such. I crave it.

"Thank God I'm an atheist." - Luis Buñuel

2008-10-30T23:59:00.004-04:00

"There is a way of going to the movies as others go to church and I think that, from a certain angle, quite independently of what is playing, it is there that the only absolutely modern mystery is celebrated."
-André Breton
un chien andalou

Walking through a cold rain of sharp-edged leaves

2008-10-25T20:34:00.006-04:00

Yesterday a boy pointed out that the way everyone in my family calls our dog our own different names only signifies the schismic issues in our overall communication.
Another boy I talk to has wormed his way twice into the ugly composition notebook that I am forced to write in for film class. I promised myself that I wouldn't use it as a journal, the way I sometimes use my preferred moleskin notebooks. Didn't want myself getting all personal for class, but I guess I've been having an overspill of emotions lately - I keep finding traces of them on those wide-ruled pages, even where they're not supposed to be. Those damn splotchy composition notebooks. Everything I write in them ends up looking like fifth-grade homework.

I'm at home right now, and it's really painful to be here. All the unhappiness from previous years living with these people has flooded back, whipping my migraine into a frenzy. I hate when people ask about my family. I'll give them all the conversational basics - I have a mother, father, two little sisters, and a dog. My dad's a professor. I like my mom's cooking. I don't actually like them. Please, don't delve further. It's really difficult having people trying to get to know me better. "Tell me about yourself," they ask. And I know what they want to hear. Each person wants something different, a new side of me. And I could give it to them, but I would rather have someone stare at my naked body than hear my naked mind. It's really hard for me to share myself. I have a clamshell instead of a skull and even I seem incapable of opening it except maybe to filter out the occasional thought or two. Naturally, this seems impairing and god do I know it. Help, I need to change.

slashing ink in the shade of the blinds

2008-10-22T15:06:00.008-04:00

I'm scared.I just watched Nightmare on Elm Street with our neighbors across the hall. I was worried that Heather wouldn't be here when I got back - I didn't want to sleep in the room alone tonight. I suggested we put in another scary movie to cancel out the first - my tried and true remedy for scaring away the frights - and they put in Saw III. (It's a room of boys). Now, I lie back here in bed - not alone - listening to Heather's sleep noises. She moans, her bed creaks, I cringe. Maybe I should have wished her to sleep over at Pauls. It's funny - I always say I've never had a nightmare - but watching Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time tonight, I realized that I had a dream as a child, almost exactly replicating one of the scenes from the movie. I don't remember being frightened however. In my dream, I was on the couch, and all of a sudden long claw-like fingernails came up from beneath and pulled me under the cushions. I didn't die. Instead, when I opened my eyes I was lying on an examination table, with bright lights in my face surrounded by alien-looking creatures with Nosferatu-like fingers. Then I opened my eyes again and I was awake, or maybe I continued dreaming, but don't remember the rest. There are a few standout dreams I have had in my life, and that is one of them. Right now I cannot sleep with these violent images flashing through my mind in the montage style of Saw III. Although I have not slept for days, sleep eludes me still. I feel like the guy from Fight Club. I'm afraid everytime I think of that movie that boy in my Rhetoric class will cross my mind, although a week has gone by since I last saw him and I've forgotten that I'm supposed to have a crush on him. Ah, enough insomniac ramblings. This is not supposed to be a diary entry.
P.S. The pile of textbooks on the pillow next to me is poking my back.

edit- P.P.S. I slept on a pencil last night. RAWRGHHHRRRR newkucfniwEB SJK BVK the sharpened fingernail was real, only i didn't dream about it.

Losing Argument (With Myself)

2008-10-20T04:44:00.002-04:00

I smell like smoke. I was hungover this morning. Well, it is so late now, I suppose I should say yesterday morning. All the great writers drink and smoke. Why am I not churning out any good writing?

I've been thinking - Handsome Boy Modeling School (feat. Cat Power)

2008-10-19T21:29:00.004-04:00

In the course of the past months or weeks, I have realized two things.

1. Home isn't a definite place. It is created when I'm surrounded by my belongings. (I am a materialistic person)
2. I am not a person who can be defined by their actions.
(I've been doing things that don't match up with who I thought I am/wanted to be)

Menthol Cigarretes

2008-10-06T00:57:00.004-04:00

college is a play-ground, this quasi world i feel i'm not really living in. i don't know what i'm doing here - just living day-to-day. sometimes, i wander around at night and it feels like home, like the city is mine. then the sun rises, and the people come out and the city is lost in the crowd although i'm still walking the same sidewalks.

2008-10-05T23:32:00.001-04:00

times have changed to the point where i can't stand being alone with myself anymore.
is this a sign of actual loneliness or self-hatred?

currently: watching the ceiling light drip rain indoors

2008-09-25T16:44:00.013-04:00

An excerpt from "After Dark" by Haruki Murakami:

"Have you got a boyfriend?" Korogi asks.
Mari gives her head a little shake.
"Still a virgin?"
Mari blushes with a quick nod. "Uh-huh."
"That's okay, it's nothing to be ashamed of."
"I know."
"You just didn't happen to meet anybody you liked?" Korogi asks.
"There's one guy I used to see. But..."
"You didn't like him enough to go all the way."
"Right," Mari says. "I had plenty of curiosity, but I just never felt like doing that. I don't know..."
"That's fine," Korogi says.. "There's no sense forcing yourself if you don't feel like it. Tell you the truth, I've had sex with lots of guys, but I think I did it mostly out of fear. I was scared not to have somebody putting his arms around me, so I could never say no. That's all. Nothing good ever came of sex like that. All it does is grind down the meaning of life a piece at a time. Do you see what I'm saying?"
"I think so."
"Someday you'll find the right person, Mari, and you'll learn to have a lot more confidence in yourself. That's what I think. So don't settle for anything less. In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount."

This short passage contains a lot. There's a lot I want to say about it. I really like reading Murakami's work right now, especially this book. It puts me into mind of my own sleepness nights but in a soothing way, placing me in a slow-moving world of darkness lit with the fluorescence of a likewise insomniac city.
Picture

Lost Lolita

2008-09-25T00:13:00.011-04:00

Brigitte Bardot was once described as a woman-child. And although no one would ever liken me to that screen goddess, I feel as if I am the same way. When I was a little girl, I looked very mature. Now mature, I feel I look like a little girl.
(This maturity comes not from physical development but from my rather serious nature.)
Given, I have a penchant for strapped flats with socks and skirts and dresses. I keep my hair cut in a bob, the style of hair most little girls have worn at least once in their childhood. I'm small and often have the word "cute" applied to me. (Seriously, I'm not "cute".)
I know that people don't see me as looking like a child, but that's how I feel lately.
I have just used the word "feel" so often it's beginning to look funny, like I'm spelling it wrong or something.
But, continuing on with my "feelings" - walking around the city, I just feel lost and swallowed up in myself. The reach extends where ever I go. I feel small and insignificant again, and it feels wrong when grown men look and stare at me through their car windows. I am dizzy and disoriented in the streets and often look up in bewilderment when a car whizzes by just barely missing a collision with my body. My work is sloppy, and I keep making mistakes only to wake up from my shallow sleep to realize them and pound myself on the head. I can't concentrate fully on anything, my mind is teeming with all the other things I have to do. I'm fully awake from lack of sleep but I feel so dizzy, like this lack of it had elevated me to some high altitude and left my brain deprived of oxygen. I'm in a constant flux. Time is a 24 hour cycle, the division between night and day has been melded. Day or night is irrelevant when you're sitting in a windowless box.
Picture 1
Picture 2

2008-09-24T23:48:00.002-04:00

"Or is this not the secret of the obstacle between us? - that his type is the large buxon woman, heavy on the earth, while I will always be the virgin-prostitute, the perverse angel, the two-faced sinister and saintly woman."
-Anais Nin from Henry and June

Hello stranger

2008-09-21T20:14:00.004-04:00

It's been a long long while, but I feel like writing again. About myself. About my life. About me me me. And some other things too.
So, I've started college and as much as I love it here, I just don't want to be HERE. I feel so alone being constantly surrounded by people. I keep rethinking everything and therefore never get anything done. Which has always been the way the course of my life has taken place. I lie inanimate on my bed just thinking about the way I want things to be, and never taking action, nothing happens.
Things aren't like that anymore. I'm still the same person, but things happen now. And that's what I want to write about.

edit: New life, new blog, that's always how it goes (with me at least...). So all the old posts have been hidden away in the recesses of Blogger and I'm starting anew.

Cotton Candy Machine

2008-02-02T23:18:00.001-05:00

[THIS POST HAS BEEN ADDED LATER, MUCH LATER, today's date is december 6 2011. the originial post had no words, only a title "cotton candy machine" but i wanted to write this memory down before i forget because it was a very pleasant one.

i think i had a sleepover at susy's house, we woke up early because we had to volunteer at an elementary school in her neighborhood to get hours for national honor society. there was a festival of some sort and susy and i were in charge of working the cotton candy machine. it was hilarious. we had never made cotton candy before and it was so much fun! susy took over sales and i made the cotton candy, dipping the paper cone in the whirling machine until it was covered with enough fluff. i kept changing colors and flavors and we actually enjoyed the volunteering. jordan vaa and tg wignall were volunteering too and i remember talking with them a lot which made me happy because i had a huge crush on jordan and was attracted to tj as well. when we got back to susy's house our shirts were stiff from all the crystalized sugar, and our eyebrows and eyelashes were frosted pink. our hair felt like it was covered in hairspray. we took and shower together and it took FOREVER to get it all off. that was a fun day in high school, i iwsh i had written about it at the time instead of recalling the events 4years later.]

SAT Surprise

2007-12-01T21:03:00.003-05:00

i liked it so much, i wasted 15 of my test minutes just reading it over and over again.

Prosody 101

When they taught me that what mattered most
was not the strict iambic line goose-stepping
over the page but the variations
in that line and the tension produced
on the ear by the surprise of difference,
I understood yet didn't understand
exactly, until just now, years later
in spring, with the trees already lacy
and camellias blowsy with middle age,
I looked out and saw what a cold front had done
to the garden, sweeping in like common language,
unexpected in the sensuous
extravagance of a Maryland spring.
There was a dark edge around each flower
as if it had been outlined in ink
instead of frost, and the tension I felt
between the expected and actual
was like that time I came to you, ready
to say goodbye for good, for you had been
a cold front yourself lately, and as I walked in
you laughed and lifted me up in your arms
as if I too were lacy with spring
instead of middle aged like the camellias,
and I thought: so this is Poetry!

-Linda Pastan