After Reading Him His Story

Sometimes I should keep some of my guts to myself.
Keep them inside me so that I can use them for the things that guts are used for.
Sometimes I think theyre communal property
Sometimes I think they belong to the ones who gave them to me,
Just because you cooked for me doesn’t mean I should hand you my vomit.
Just because you spoke words and danced your cinematic choreography does not mean you have the rights to my screenplays.
Sometimes I should keep some guts to myself.
Other wise late at night when I sit inside myself I have nothing to hold onto…
Because its all be spread out like butter onto the tiny cracked crackers in different countries…
I give a bit of it to you and it becomes less real to me and I wonder why I feel empty after I’ve handed it out to every stranger who I pass.
I need some of this angst to keep me oiled, keep me turning.
I need to hold this in my fingers like slime and see it seep through the cracks where my folded hands cant keep the air out.
Sometimes I think I should lie.
I should lie so that the truth feels sharper when its truth.
If theres nothing but truth than it doesn’t matter.
If theres nothing but white-
Over exposed
Under exposed.
We need balance
We need lies.
I need lies.
That’s the truth.
I always tell the truth.

home

i put toast in the toaster and water to boil for tea and then i came here to write a blog but its taking me too long and i keep thinking about the story we heard yesterday about the senior film student who left his film rewinding when he got caught up in a conversation and when he came back his film has been spun so fast that it had splintered into film splinters and had been shot off the reel and was stuck in the walls...

the only thing that will go wrong with my toast-in fact probably has gone wrong already-is that my brother will eat it... i heard him get out of bed about thrity seconds ago, he walked downstairs-i think my toast is probably history... and it was frozen too... ill have to unfreeze the next one...
ah
life.

Color Coverage

This weekend i filmed my color coverage assignment at The Spot.
Our clique of Green Meadow kids who transfered to nyack named it "The Spot." and then renamed it "Spotsylvania" (which never stuck) when we passed an exit for a town called Spotsylvania on our way to florida last summer.

The nyack kids who knew about the spot already and had been trespassing there since middle school-they called it "lord of the flies." both names suit it.

The Spot is a hill that has stone steps and then a wooden trelesy staricase that lead down to the river... on a bit of empty land between two expensive huge river view houses.

Theres a porch halfway down the hill where the stone steps turn to the wooden steps and where theres a lamp post thats going to fall one day but hasnt yet, just leans on a dramatic Caligari-esque angle.

i filmed Edy James and Raina.

they walked down the hill and sat on the porch and drank orange juiceboxes against blue skies in ektachrome colors. they looked out on the view and were probably out of focus because i had one of those zoom lense bolexs that is impossible to focus by eye through.

but
im praying to the gods of film labs and bolex cameras.
I making frequent offerings to them, i burn small animals over a fire and let the smoke trail up to them.
I've woven all my leftover film into a twisty celluloid shrine for them and i kneel before it and ask them to just forgive me that millienth of an inch that my focus was off.
and please make sure that the guys at pac lab have enough caffiene in their coffees so they mix the chemicals correctly.
and then
i get off my knees and feel quite confident in the gods affection for me
and wait for my film to come back...
all in focus and properly exposed with beautiful orange juice boxes contrasting unbelievably with blue skies and blue shirts and purple scarves and green eyes.
yum.
o and also
that shot that i planned to pull focus on
but all i did was zoom out
because everything looks focused through the lense
that shot
that shot will be perfectly pulled even though i know i didnt pull it.

New Moon

To Whom It May Concern,
CC: screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg
CC: whoever hired Melissa Rosenberg

your characters need to smile.
why are they in love?
we dont beleive him just because he says it.
you have to show us why.

characters say "i love you" unashamedly in two kinds of stories- soap operas and fairytales.
do you know which story youre in?
because we do.
we, the little lovesick girls, even kristen sterwart, we know which story we're in.
Twilight is a fairytale. i promise. thats why we love it, thats why we hate the movies,
thats why we cringe, embaressed for your charecters while they profess their love. theyre sitting awkwardly outside their archetypes because you think they are a joke.
we dont think theyre a joke.
i promise.
we read those books and couldnt stop smilling.
i couldnt stop smiling for a month while i read twilight, holding it infront of my face while i walked from class to class.
and im sitting in the movie theater begging you to make me smile
trying to fall in love
i want to fall in love with your characters by how can i when you dont even show me then falling in love with eachother.


The story of Twilight is ridiculous. that is the point.
but
what you fail to realize is this: the reason that we-little lovesick girls- are so unbelievably obsessed with this story is that IT TAKES ITSELF SERIOUSLY.

stephanie meyer's books convinced us that vampires exist by putting it in our terms.
"what would it really be like?"
she gave us bella- who is in love with the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. she gave us Bella's disbelief and her excitement and her delight...
imagine a conversation between a priest and an atheist.
what does the priest say- a good priest- a learned understanding one- he is trying to persuade the atheist-in the atheist's own terms-to believe in god.

the twilight screenplays are giving us nothing!
they are giving us angst.
they are giving us a sci fi OC

im paying you for your time.

i want you to give me what i want.

i want the seriousness, and the believablily, the magical reality that i gave up my elite feminist integrity to read.
i want the fairytale.
please please study the differnce between a soap opera "i love you" and a fairytale one.
if thats all you do it will be enough.

Tiny Tale: in which a candy cane forest melts

once upon a time there was a forest of candy canes.
the children walked between the shiny red and white trees and stopped to lick the stalks, theyre cheeks and mittens got sticky with sugar.

when summer came the forest melted and became a sugar swamp.
in june the children swam in the syrup but by july they learned that walking around drenched in sugar attracted the bees.
so during july and august the children went only as far as the the edge of the swamp where they lay down on their stomachs and stuck straws in and drank.

in the fall the swamp turned hard because, it was not water, it was sugar and so it didnt need to wait for the winter to freeze.

the children set up a stall where they rented out sugar skates and scissors.
the people came and rented skates. they skated out onto the sugar swamp and when they fell they stuck to the sugar so they used their scissors to cut themselves free and then hurried home in their ripped clothes kicking yellow leaves away from their sticky feet.

and by this time no one remembered that it all started with candy canes.

i keep passing my room inspections

i keep passing my room inspections
even though they say no christmas lights.
and i have christmas lights.

My Trinity

note: a healthy understanding of The Matrix is recomended for proper enjoyment of this post

In my version of the matrix, in order to make myself fall in love with Neo and trinity; in order to make myself care about that tender moment at the end, I will make Trinity younger and purer.

What I mean is: she is the one who loves The One, so, symbolically-since we like to beleive that Jesus never fell in love-the only woman Trinity could be a symbol for is Mary.
So she should be like... young and pretty and quiet and virginal...



For all the feminists who are raising their eyebrows and accusing me of making a powerful heroin into a damsel in distress- please read on-

Trinity should be the little dangerous one, the one who cares for neo- like she does do in the movie- almost tucking him in like a mother, into the chair and sticking a long needle into his brain, tenderly, with a hand on his chest. She should be just like that... the tender careful feminine one and then
when she needs to be- when morpheus who- sorry- is God, calls upon her to "get neo out! hes all that matters!"
then she rises to the occasion and Neo is shocked that this little sister, little mother character is taking charge.
That is when he falls in love with her. Not when he sees her in tight black leather for the first time.
She can wear the tight black leather but she should wear it with a elemental sort of swagger... maybe her hair isnt greased back, maybe it's in two braids or maybe its curly.

The oracal told trinity that she would fall in love and that that man that man that she would love would be the one.
That bothers my Trinity. She dislikes neo. He does something… anything to make her feel unloved by him and she decides that he is not the one because she hates him. she wants him to fail. Until he does something to redeem himself but of course then she’s mad at him for making her not hate him.
Basically
What im trying to say is

If the point of the movie is humans fighting for humanity… give the characters some humanity… make them human…. Give them some angst and for a pair of storytellers so obviously talented at playing with metephore- learn your woman archytepes and play.

Something Fell

Something fell
And left that line of cloud,
That slices the sky
Beside the moon.
It looks like an angel stretched out his hand
Tried to catch hold of something
To slow his descent
But instead left the wake
That ends abruptly
After passing the moon
Which I think is where
The angel stopped grasping at nothing,
Where he let go of the air.
And with his hands crossed
Over his heart,
The way that they told me to fold
My arms at the water park
When I went down the tallest slide,
The angel closes his eyes
And thinks about
How it feels to fall.

When We Leave In The Night

We will find our socks
In the bottom of the bed,
Peel them back on
And leave in the night
But first we will wash
Our faces and drink
Handfuls of water from the bathroom.

We will strip the sheets
From the fold out couch
And fold it up. We will take
Apples from the kitchen
And hold them in our teeth
As we zip up our coats. We will slink

Across the lawn and pick up the bottles
And drop them
Into someone else’s trash,
A block away. But first we will find you,
Asleep in the next room, sit on your bed
And kiss your cheeks

We will try not to creak
As we leave down the stairs in the night,
Whispering that we are sorry
For waking you.



(molly looking at her film on the bus)

Mommy

Fog and College

it rained all day and then misted all night.
and i drank four shots of cheap something that didn't do much except unstick me from my mind long enough to let me let Anna dress me. which she did. very well.

Real Girl

part I
i have a girl who isnt real.
shes mine. i love her.
we swim together in the ocean with some guys. (adam and jake are there.)
when it starts to get too cold i carry her inside. we're at a hotel. theres a pool its green and blue, not in a dirty way, in a chloriney way.
i turn a switch in her neck and she turns on and i drop her into the water.
"this is where im supposed to swim?" shes disgusted. she thinks the water isnt real water.
there are old men watching us. i dont want them to know that shes not real.

part II
i am carrying her, shes the same girl but shes a child, a toddler.
we are at the same hotel but it feels like a mall... no a fair. there are people carrying around cotton candy and like... corn dogs.
im carrying my unreal girl. she has her arms around my neck, shes "asleep" she smells like plastic. i dont want anyone to know that shes not real.
three men, two father age and one college age step into step beside me. they ask me where her father is, where the rest of my family is. theyre flirting with me, wondering if i have a husband.
i tell them that im fine with just her. i pat her back. she puts her hand on my cheek because shes alive.
she feels a little too light and she has a screw in her neck.
i keep wondering if i should have stayed in the ocean with the boys. i feel too responsible here with this child who is a child and i am responsible for her but also i am responsibe for making sure no one finds out the truth.

part III
ive lost her. me and someone else who i know (ive forgotten but it might have been molly...) are looking for her. i dont want anyone to see her, dont want anyone to find out that shes not real.

A Cage (short story for screenwriting class)

Today there’s another weird bug in the shower. Mom and I have been killing them for weeks. There seems to be an infinite variety, today it’s a spidery one with a tiny body and legs like strands of hair. This one has a stinger. I splash it but somehow it floats on its thin legs and circles around the drain for a bit but then Mom drops a cupful of water on top of it.
She lets the water run over the crime scene for a minute, watching the spot where the bug was, convinced, she says, that the bug has left a poison residue that she might absorb through her feet.
I’m watching her, sitting on the closed toilet seat.
She tells me that she thinks there’s an army of bugs under the bathroom but that they come out one at a time because these are the scouts.
“No one who ventures up that drain ever returns…” she narrates in her narrating voice while she shampoos her hair.

Outside the sky is white. I’ve taken a book out here with me and am sitting on the lawn like a confused sunbather waiting for the storm. I’m breathing in the air like adrenaline. I let the wind flip the pages of my book. I read that page until it flips to a new one and I’m piecing together a message that I pretend the wind is sending me.
My fingers are red and hard to bend but I’ll wait here until the wind blows so hard that my heart speeds even though I’m not afraid and the first snowflakes melt on the page and make bubbles of ink in the text.

Inside Mom is sitting in the middle of the almost empty living room, in the middle of the white shag carpet. There’s a white coffee mug beside her, ten minutes ago it was triple espresso.
“Your eyes are twitching.” I tell her.
“I know,” she says, “I'm working on it.”
We hear the kitchen door open and close and feel a fleeting draft. Mom says nothing but tightens her grip on the carpet.
“Maggie, I was trying to call you.” says my aunt Louisa, appearing at my shoulder. “No ones answering the phone.”
She brushes past me into the room she smells like snow and chemically perfume.
“Anyway, he’s dead.” She says looking down at Mom
“Who’s dead?” Mom asks calmly, eyes closed.
“Donny, he was… What are you doing?”
“She’s trying to overheat her brain.” I explain, “She drank a lot of coffee and if she can get her eyes to stop twitching…”
“How did he die?” Mom interrupts without opening her eyes.
“He was old.” Louisa says absently, she’s trying to leave.
“But how did he die?”
“He was sick.” My aunt is always trying to leave. She is only ever here when she’s between other places.
Mom’s leg starts bouncing against the carpet. She closes her eyes. I turn away and go to the kitchen.
My aunt follows a few minutes later. She sits down across the tiny table and begins, absentmindedly to sip from the white coffee mug she’s apparently just confiscated. She crosses one leg over the other and the foot on top starts bouncing.
“Who died?” I ask her.
“Donny.”
“Who was Donny?” past tense, I think.
“Maggie’s canary.”
“Oh.”
“He was at Grandma’s, your mom hung him from the shower curtain rod.”
I know she means hanging in a cage but I think about a tiny bird hanging by a tiny noose, tiny feet twitching.
“You should try to get her out of the house.”
I nod.
“She needs to do things.”
“She does things.” I think about the bugs.
Louisa raises her eyebrows. She means a job. Mom needs a new job. Louisa takes another a sip of Mom’s coffee.
“So you’re going out tonight?” she asks, noticing the makeup on my eyes.
I nod.
“Will there be boys there?” Louisa likes to think that she’s the cool aunt who I can tell things to.
“You can tell me anything” I remember her swearing, the day she noticed that I had shaved my legs.
“Yeah there’ll be boys.”
She stands up suddenly.
“What was in that coffee!” She’s opening and closing her palms probably in time with her racing heart.
She grabs her black shiny bag and red scarf from the back of her chair. She hasn’t taken off her coat.
“Bye.” I say. She puts the red scarf around her neck and throws one side over her shoulder.
“Have fun.” She reaches for the doorknob, which is right behind her in the tiny kitchen for a second I watch the snow falling behind her then the door slams shut.
I go back to the living room. I stand in the doorway and watch Mom warring with her twitching eyes. She’s sitting up perfectly straight. Her little hands are white and she’s twined her fingers into the rug and is holding on as though the whole picture is upside down and she and the rug are flat against the ceiling.
“I’ve been feeling a little guilty,” I say, “about killing the bugs.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Mom? Wanna go somewhere?”
Silence.
“Maybe tomorrow you can shower alone? They never come back once you drown them. I think it’s probably okay.”
“Donny’s dead.” Mom says, eyes closed. “He hung himself in the shower.”
“You hung him in the shower.” I tell her.
“But don’t you see him in a little bird noose when you think about it?” Her leg starts twitching again.
“No.” I say, “He was in his cage.”
She opens her eyes for a minute and looks at me.
“Yeah I know.” She says
“I’m going to a party.” I say
“Will there be boys there?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, they’re probably scared of you.” She says.
“What?” she’s looking up at me, which makes her eyes look huge.
“You should kiss them.” She says “Don’t wait for them to…”
“Mom?”
“Mmm?”
“I don’t know. Never mind.”

The party’s in the basement of the last house on the block. It’s the house where most of the parties are held and there are red chili pepper lights that blink out of sink with the beat of the music. I like to try to make the two pulses line up it feels like holding repelling magnets together.
Tonight there will be a boy leaning against the yellow wall. I’ll lean against it too, too close to him. He’ll swallow, look over his shoulder for a rescue. I’ll smile and put my hands on his cheeks. I’ll kiss him, it’ll only last a minute then I’ll pull away.
He’ll stare at me, stare like tasting. He’ll put his hands on the wall on either side of my head. I’ll stay there as long as I can, staring back while his eyes blink black and red with the lights.
I’ll like it there, between him and the wall but I won’t let him know. I’ll break free, duck quickly under his arm, find the bathroom and press my face right up to the mirror.
I’ll take someone’s coat from the pile near the door and put it on, it’ll be too big.
Outside the snow will be frozen like ice. Behind me, near the ground, the basement windows will throb with the red lights and the bass from the stereo. The cell phone in the pocket of the stolen jacket will buzz once. I’ll step and slide as lightly as I can across the surface of the snow; back and forth before the house, pretending that the lawn is a lake, waiting for tiny cracks, hoping not to fall through.

Dream: In which Maya, Eliza and I look for a theme park, I drive across the Bear Mountain Bridge, and then I kill a baby.

First mommy was driving and Maya, Eliza and I were in the car, they in the backseat, me in the front. We were on that winding highway along the side of a cliff above the Hudson river. Maya and Eliza wanted to go to a theme park, so did I, but I felt bad that mommy was going to drive us all the way there even though she seemed happy to do it.
When we got to the end of the road I was preoccupied. I think I was looking at my ipod of some other thing. Mommy said something that I didn’t hear. When I looked up mommy was gone but the car was still moving, as though it were on tracks- I mean as far as my dream self was concerned it was sort of on tracks because I wasn’t worried that anything would happen until we had to make the turn onto the bridge. The turn was coming up and mommy still wasn’t back in the driver seat.
I, as I feel I have done in lots of dreams- in any case my dream self knew just what to do- held the wheel and turned (a bit too sharply and a bit to close to the railing and a plummeting fall to death) onto the bridge. I was thinking that nothing bad would happen unless we had to slow down. I swung one leg over to the pedal and placed my foot over the break. I wasn’t sure that the pedal that my foot was over was the break and I didn’t think we needed to slow down yet so I just left my foot there.
The bridge was sort of like the under level of the GW bridge, but with more turns and lower railings and a walkway down the center which mommy came running down.
When she got to us I was about to put my foot down on the break but suddenly she was there and she put her foot on the break and everything was all right again.
I asked her where she had gone. She said she had walked across to the ATM on the other side of the bridge to check the balance of her credit card. I saw that a credit card and a receipt were stuck in her bra. The receipt had rain spots on it and I realized it was raining. I thought of how quickly she had stuffed the stuff away while she ran to us.
We crossed the bridge.
We went into the traffic circle and turned off at Bear Mountain Park.
Maya and Eliza complained that this was not a real amusement park. I agreed but somewhere in the back of my mind I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t. I told them that there might be some rides over- here- or –here. We looked for rides. Maya and Eliza had on their creepy giggly faces which i never know what to do about.
There was a baby that suddenly latched itself onto me. I thought its parents might be the parents sitting on the side of the path nearby so I played with the baby near those parents for a while and crooned about how cute he was in their direction and they agreed but then I realized they were the wrong parents and I wondered where my babie’s parents were. This went on for a LONG while that I’ve forgotten the details of. Then one of the woman pointed and said she thought that that man coming into the park was the baby’s dad so I picked up the baby, the baby was naked and suddenly I was scared he would poop on me, and carried him towards the dad.
When I got near enough to talk to the man I put the baby down and asked him. “is this your baby?”
And he said “what baby?” and I realized that baby had run off.
I told the man that I had been watching his baby but now the baby was gone but he could go find him now.
I thought- that’s not any different than if I was never here- he lost the baby, I found the baby, I lost the baby- he still had to find the baby- I didn’t.
But I helped him look everywhere for the baby.
We couldn’t find him. The man took a long stick and started to hit me with it. It broke in half and I took the other half and hit him back saying that this was not my fault and I was sorry I had gotten involved.
This part gets hazy but I think we went back towards the entrance of the park and my dad was there and I explained to him that this man had lost his baby but it wasn’t my fault and now he had hit me with a stick- we were still holding our pieces of stick. I don’t remember if my dad said anything. Then I remembered that there was a pool and asked the man if he had looked in the pool. He hadn’t. He was going to go look when I told him, no, I’d look.
I went to the pool. There were all these little girls in the water. “Is there a baby in the pool?” I asked them
They giggled and said there was.
With that I knew that there was a dead baby in the pool but I still didn’t admit that in my next question-“where is he?”
“Over there and-“ one girl giggled and spoke for the others “someone ate the dead baby’s foot.”
I didn’t look for the body, in that way that you know something is there but you don’t look at it but it is so present that you might as well have looked. I walked back to the man standing in the entrance of the park and said “I have to go now. He’s in the pool.” And left, I mean, woke up since I had been becoming vaguely aware that it was a dream for the whole second part and with that last awful bit I decided I had had enough.

INFO: I’ve been told that driving in dreams represents life. Like- if you are driving you are driving your own life, if someone else is driving they are driving your life as it were, if you are driving off a cliff with no breaks--- yeah… you get it.

Info 2: my mom keeps telling me that hurting my feet is about “taking the next step.” Like- going to college tomorrow and last week I jumped off a fence onto a root and hurt my heel and I’m limping…

Info 3: babies in dreams are supposed to be like… your ideas and goals. Other people’s babies are… other peoples dreams and goals. Other people’s babies dying… other peoples babies getting lost… other peoples babies clinging to you… Getting beaten for loosing other peoples babies…

Info 4: money is kind of freaking me out lately. Like the lack of it AND the spending of it when there isn’t a lack of it. Probably because I’m afraid of the lack of it. And because I’ve been spending a lot of other people’s money what with going to college and all…

Info 5: I’m going to college tomorrow.

Serendipity

moved max into his apartment in new palz.
we drove the uhaul truck home. i like driving in trucks, they bounce.
we stopped at a stop & shop and bought fruit.
while we were checking out i got a text from lydia
Lydia: are you in a stop & Shop
Me: yes.. ...
Lydia: Hahahah

i was looking around expecting to her see her.
but he friend was there, a friend that i dont know but apparently met me once.
the friend texted lydia and lydia texted me.

last night we watched Serendipity and as john cusack searched for and grasped at tiny bits of information about his lost soul mate i realized that no one could loose someone else so completely like that anymore. he would just look her up on facebook. with only the information he had... british, career, what she looked like- no problem.


"By benign fate the message goes astray that would tell romeo of the plan. he hears only that juliet is dead-" says shakepsear in Shakespeare in love.

... definitely impossible.

almonds

There's nothing to eat here.
Today I've eaten almonds.

Waving

I'm in the cafe at B&N. The man in the grey shirt looks over his shoulder at me. It’s that kind of tick of a look, the kind that you cant control.
Its all right man. I know the feeling. I try to hide it behind sunglasses, that way I can let my eyes go where they please…. That way they ones i stare at don’t notice that I'm looking-
O man, come on…
He’s switched his seat, got up and is now sitting on the other side of his table, he’s watching me over the top of his magazine.
Man, your so obvious!
…maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I should be so obvious. Next time I’ll take my sunglasses off, let the one i stare at see that I'm eating him up! - like candy, like colors, he’s turning to gooey sticky paint as my eyes slurp him towards me.
But if he saw then he’d know.
The glasses are also really nessessary you know, for other reasons. Really. The wind is blowing and if I take them off my hair will get into my eyes. The sunglasses stay on.

“Ai! Ai! Ai!” says the baby waving at me from his stroller.
I wave back.
The waving is the problem.
No waving.
My silent screaming eye searching is one sided.

some third person on my lunch hour in washington square park

There are little girls, behind the boy. the girls are maybe nine or ten years old. They’re wearing one piece bathing suits and scooting around the fountain on those skinny scooters that are so small that you can fold them up and take them in your backpack on the ferry to fire island… all the other bicycles have to go on a separate boat- the freight boat, which goes back and forth only once a week, inconvenient for the cyclist who is only on the island for the weekend.
The boy is sitting straight backed to avoid leaning against the uncomfortable backrest of the green bench, his hands are resting over the academic looking, but possibly poetic marble notebook in his lap.
She sits down across the path from him, takes a novel from her bag and watches him over the top of it.
The man in the round glasses and the tucked in white t-shirt, sitting to the left of the boy, on the next bench, is watching the girl.
The girl is uncomfortable and tries to lean in a way that doesn’t dig the clasp of her bra into her spine. she is waiting for the boy to open his notebook and write something down. She wants to imagine that he is writing about her.
The man in the round glasses and the tucked in white t-shirt is watching the girl.
The boy stands, puts his unopened notebook under his arm. He wanders over to a stone bench near the fountain where he lies on his back placing the notebook on his chest, under his crossed arms like a teddy bear or, she thinks, like a very small light lover.
The sun has shifted slightly over head but she hasn’t noticed. She looks away from the boy and sees the man in the white t-shirt, his face is turned in her direction. The lenses of his glasses, opaque in the glare a moment before have turned clear and now she can see his eyes and sees that they are closed.

Listening to Lyrics

I love the shins. i have loved the shins for years.
i have never had any idea (well a bit of an idea but not a lot of an idea) what they are saying...
i looked up the lyrics.
and then imagined a 19 year old boy slouching into poetry class at 8am and reading this poem to the room.


"Pressed In A Book"
by the shins

(Read it first then listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3LonXfRDMs&feature=PlayList&p=C67BA1FCB06EFD17&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=17 )

Doted on like seeds planted in rows
The untied shoelaces of you life
Nutured all year then presssed in a book
Or displayed in bad taste at the table
Problems arise and you fan the fire
While there's a wild pack of dogs loose in your house tonight.
Cut from bad cloth or soiled like socks
Add it up and basically people never change.

They just talk and make plans in the dark
Or make haste with ideas that can't help
But creep good people out
As you talk to me too much you're assuming
We don't always want what's right.

Did i strike the right set of chords? you're annoyed.
The goal is to ignite you then move on.
You feel ill at ease. you got no squeeze.
And the wise cracks won't make you more stable.
You've learned you lines to scale and to time.
Why must i remind you now i'm only less able.
Cut from bad cloth or soiled like socks
We're ordinary people we can't help but to change

As we walk and make plans in the dark
Or make haste with the boy who can't help
But creep good people out.
As you talk to me too much you're assuming
We don't always want what's right.

Two fallen saplings in an open field.
Snow padding gently on an empty bench.
An old woman's jewelry lying unadorned.
Colo nesting robins allied for the first time.
I know when you hear these sappy lines
You'll roll your eyes and say "nice try".

waiting

"its dawning on me that everything i am and everything i do is my life.
"like this isn't just a practice run?"
"yeah. yeah exactly..."

today i am someone who ate a whole grapefruit. i cut it in half, ate one half with a spoon and cut the other into three sections. right now my hands are sticky. right now i am a little sweaty and also upset that i got my hair cut and now have bangs which i thought i wanted but don't want now. i am someone who does not want bangs. i am someone who has bangs.
i am someone with sticky fingers.
i am someone who has interesting dreams. i like my dreams. i like hearing about other peoples dreams. i like it when Katrina sends me hers on facebook but i always hope to see my name in them.
i will be a film student.
right now i am someone who is waiting. i am waiting to be a film student and i am waiting for my hair to grow back and i am waiting for my hair to grow long.


i am someone who loves poetry but not the wordy kind.
i don't have a very big vocabulary. i wish i had a bigger vocabulary even though i really don't like big words as much as small words.
today i decided to pack but didn't. i ate three pieces of buttered toast. i woke up at twelve. I'm wearing my pajamas.
today i am someone who is waiting.
i am hungry
i am tired
i am angry at men
the men who used to be boys but now i title "men" because i am angry at them for that. for becoming men.
i am frustrated with the air conditioner
i have sticky fingers
i am hungry
i am typing
i am blogging
i am hoping someone reads this and not knowing why they would
i am thinking that that was a self conscious and bad thing to say
and so was that
i think i am practicing
i am waiting for the event
but its started and all Ive performed for eighteen years is waiting.
I'm slouching
i can feel my stomach on my stomach
i am trying to tell the truth.

quote:
"the world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. it is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. Your are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or tear the pages."
- Illusions: adventures of the reluctant messiah by Richard Bach