the gatekeeper

I have...

2009-07-13T04:36:00.000-07:00

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i'm considering leaving blogger and reverting to tumblr

2009-07-08T00:41:00.000-07:00

what are you thoughts?

so, i find joseph gordon-levitt incredibly, undeniably, and absolutely sexy. i don't know why, but it may be because of his quiet, but probing roles and because of that blasted movie, 10 things i hate about you. he slightly resembles heath ledger, which i noticed when i first saw them both in that film, although, to be honest, i've yet to see the talent in gordon-levitt that we've all seen...saw... in ledger, god bless.

anent to this affection for gordon-levitt, i really want to see 500 days of summer. it looks absolutely heartwarming :] not to mention, zooey deschanel is just... fucking hot.

i'm suspended. as if the crux of a reversing gait is collapsing, as if the sun has not yet decided to fall, as if a potent realization is trembling with anticipation. i'm suspended. in wait.

ERIC (4)

2009-07-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

it strikes me that i truly care about a person when their being angry with me truly affects me.

for instance. chris' anger scares me half to death. this shouldn't really be the case. he's not necessarily a big person, and i could probably hurt him if i tried. i'm also more articulate and more of a bitch than he is. but when he's angry i get quiet and avoid him and feel abnormally scared. i used to think that this was a unique case with chris because of his subtle violence. i don't mean this in a negative way, it's just that this guy has a lot of... energy, for lack of a better word, inside him that translates either into passion or violence; violence as in intense, uncontrolled emotion, or small bursts of complete indifference that flare with a stringent light behind his eyes. it's a quality that i love and hate in him that i haven't found in anyone else.

so, i used to think that only his anger affected me this way.
but then there's eric. i think he's only been really mad at me once, and i still have no idea why. he may have been annoyed with me at other times, since i think that i've given him enough reasons to just run in the other direction, but really getting mad? doesn't happen often.
but when he did get mad, just that once, and let me know it, some fragile strand of equal footing snapped and i found myself wondering why the hell i cared so much. i wanted both to hug him and walk away from him, kiss him and slap him, slap myself, run away, yell at someone, anyone... and at the root of it was the same emotion that i feel toward chris when he's angry...i hate it. it makes me feel like i am not enough for my body to contain. it makes me insecure with my understanding of where our relationship stands. it makes me want to take showers and rip pages out of my journals.

sounds rather histrionic.

there aren't many people who make me feel that way. my father. chris. eric. rick, maybe... and i guess that's pretty much it.

this isn't to say that i don't care about other people i my life, its just that these people affect me in a certain way.

http://www.ymdphoto.com/maxwellst/index.html

zombie movies?

2009-07-06T23:23:00.001-07:00

tonight i went out with domo to mcclain's for coffee; we caught up on things while she sipped on a snapple and i on an espresso. some guy bummed a cig and said it was gnarly that i smoke unfiltered cigarettes... who uses the word gnarly these days? i guess this guy does. it was nice to talk to domo again; it's always nice to talk to her.

the thing is, i hang out with so much testosterone that when i get to have a nice conversation with a fellow female, it's.. relaxing, in a way.

on the drive home we were discussing the differences between friendships with males and females. i think both of us agree that it's so much.. simpler and easier to have a friendship with a guy. there's much less complication involved, fewer layers of tension and emotion to work through in order to solidify a relationship. but that trait can also be a negative. i have many guy friends, but very few to whom i can really open up. maybe because they're less complicated, they can't understand my complexities. but with the certain girls that i'm friends with, i'm able to talk about subjects of various depth, things that bother and enlighten me both on the surface and in the deepest reaches of my mind. you can't do that with a lot of guys... not to put any guys down. not at all, but even when i hear two boys talking about serious subjects, they don't discuss it with the same explorative and revealing nature that females talk in...

or maybe everything i just said is bullshit.
*shrug*

i look around and think "this is everything i know."

2009-07-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

but i learn rather quickly.

we went to any place we could find that was off limits, climbing fences, skirting barbed wire and cursing all along. we drove ourselves nearly mad in the half-black light, trying to move, trying not to shiver. finally we ended up in a dirty corner of a neighborhood that smelled like crude waste and sweat. we stopped and leaned against each other, catching up with time, slowing our breaths. he said, don't let anyone catch a glimpse of you when you're not thinking--the void will be apparent in your eyes. i looked back at him, grimaced with the pain in my sides from running, and spit on the floor. both of us should stop smoking, we could have gotten further if only we could run faster. yeah, he said, but the distance doesn't matter--as long as it's dark.

i was watching Atonement the other day--another one of those beautiful joe wright movies that always distract me from the writing by forcing gorgeous, irresistible images into my mind. there's a line that briony uses to explain the ease of writing: "...if you write a story, you only have to say the word ‘castle’ and you can see the towers and the woods and the village below..."
maybe because she's just a little girl at the time, and thus her thoughts must be simpler, but i completely disagree with her. yes, if i write the word "castle," you see all these things, but it's up to the writer to add the layers of emotion and significance that can't be visually perceived through reading. and that's what makes writing so hard. i say "bruise," but it takes me several sentences more to explain why the bruise truly hurts, and what receiving it has done to me. i say "song," and the depth of feeling i allot to that song can't be immediately absorbed...

writing is frustratingly difficult for me these days. and i guess that's one of the reasons why...

miss me?

2009-07-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

damn, it's been a while.
i still haven't unpacked *sheepish*
back from korea & ny & edc. i can't even begin to describe everything that happened. korea and new york were absolutely amazing; definitely the most amazing start to any summer i've had. and edc was just... O_O rolled my ass off and had the time of my life.

for the rest of the summer, i want to go to hard in august, and somehow make a trip to santa barbara... should be fun :]

i need new heels& i need to lose weight.
let's start the day off with a few lines...

for lack of words

2009-06-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

I look like this today:

This morning at 3, I looked like this:

I've been feeling like this since yesterday:

I can't wait to go to Korea. I need a change of pace. -__-

ERIC (3). Fireworks. Nothing.

2009-06-04T02:02:00.000-07:00

It's 230am; I stumble into the house, clean up, and continue with Eric's entries...

Here's another thing about me that I find paradoxical:

Usually when someone has caught my attention, I will tell him so. I'll be direct and say, "I like you/I'm attracted to you." For the longest time I was under the assumption that I did this in order to allow my emotions room to breathe, give me the satisfaction of having at least let the person know. To achieve some form of satisfaction within myself.
BUT
Perhaps because I've only said "I like you" to one other guy, and all the other times it's been "I'm attracted to you," or perhaps because I've been oblivious to myself all along, or, even better, perhaps because my feelings are not reciprocated, I've discovered that, at least with Eric, the opposite is really the truth.
There is no unburdening of emotion. There is no satisfaction, just the undying push and pull of wanting and fearing hope.

I can't help myself.

He says things that push the wave of affection to its crest: "I could picture myself dating you," "You will see me again..." and I'm forced to devote all my energy into trying to dampen the seemingly inevitable rise of simple, unadulterated wishfulness, the kind that whispers words like "maybe" while instilling sudden, unanticipated urges to feel his hair, or place a light touch on his elbow.

so glad i found:

2009-06-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.appendix-mag.com/

Very much worth a look.

Morning:
>Went to the last graduation rehearsal, scared the shit out of the fob sitting next to me, and read two stories in the short story collection I'm currently reading.

Afternoon:
>Bought black flats for graduation (I now have a personal vendetta against astroturf)& also purchased a great t-shirt
>Received an entirely unexpected call from George, who picked me up shortly after
>Ate at Mr. G's Pizza with George; Mayur eventually joined &eventually crossed the parking lot for coffee.
>Hung out with those two until Joann came; Mayur and George left a bit after when the former had to go to class

Evening:
>Stayed at Starbucks with Joann, talking, until about 9
>Now currently chilling at home until Eric comes to take me to the beach.

It was so, so nice to talk to Joann again. I loved hearing about her classes at MIT and her experiences there. And her boyfriend~!
I missed her so much throughout this entire school year; soon I'll be on the same coast as her again, though...

While she and I were at Starbucks, talking on the plushy chairs, a group of about 5 people came in together and sat down near us. At first I thought it was a little strange I didn't hear them greet each other, but it was then apparent that they were all deaf.
While Joann and I discussed our separate lives, the people next to us moved their hands, communicating with as much as we did. Once in a while, I glanced at them to watch their hands move. Eventually, I spoke to Joann, "You know, what these people are doing is amazing. I've never seen a group of deaf people communicating in public like this." She and I talked about communication and the wonders of being able to speak to another individual, deeply and surely, without really saying anything at all.
It completed the evening, I think, sitting their with an old friend, in slight awe of something so simple, yet so complex as communication. It really was beautiful, how expressive the emotions were, and how their entire bodies seemed to compensate for lack of speech: the angles of their bodies, the inward leaning of postures, and the intensity of their gazes.
I wanted to tell them that they were all inspiring, but I realized that they wouldn't be able to hear me.

I was reminded of this

it depends on what you value.

2009-06-02T22:20:00.001-07:00

.

Mr G, just because I don't go to the beach doesn't necessarily mean that I won't take my bag elsewhere, or that "bad things" won't "ensue."
Location isn't necessarily a factor.
Unless, of course, you were thinking about the increased possibility of danger, imagining that I'd throw myself into the ocean while under the influence, or something...

I guess.

I was a good girl and video chatted with Todd instead of going out to the beach.
But.. I'm leaving soon to go somewhere else and I'm going to the beach tomorrow.

Mwahaha.

ERIC (2)

2009-06-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

This boy and his demands, I swear.

It is now 4:40am, and no, I still have not slept.

I've never actually told him that I've had feelings for him. Those words were never directly stated, in fact, knowing me, I may not even be capable of saying them.
We've skirted around the issue, though, often enough for him to get the point, I think. I remember once he told me that once he saw a girl... choosing certain lifestyle habits, he could never be interested in them romantically. I remember cringing inwardly as soon as he told me that, the weight of possibility disappearing without a backward glance and leaving behind a heaviness greater than that of possibility itself.
I was foolish, though, to expect in the first place. It's just that he's so nice at times that I can't help myself.
Sometimes, when I'm out late, or early, depending on how you look at it, I'll think of him and what he said, and how he never really pressures me to quit anything, but sometimes he'll tell me that I shouldn't, that I mustn't. Like when I'm racking lines on CD cases, or sitting on railroad tracks, smoking, walking through streets slightly buzzed.
But to be honest, such thoughts have the unfortunate effect of pushing me closer to recklessness; I think about him, then rack another line, take another drag, take another swig. Maybe to forget or to avoid; knowing me, probably a bit of both.
Not that it really matters, anyway.

To be honest, there's still a slight tugging. When he says he'll take me to the beach, when he calls me funny, when he mentions fireworks. I try and ignore it, always, but I've never been one to completely deny things; I have to admit that it's there, tugging...

mission. blow.

2009-06-01T03:03:00.000-07:00

And success.

It is 3am. I can not sleep. Fairly blown, if you know what I mean.

A this point that's kind of all I have to say. I need to write, pen to paper. Typing just doesn't cut it at times. I don't particularly have anything to write, but whenever I feel this need to project outwards, to be outside of myself, to purge, to rid the excess...

you make my need to explode overpower my need to implode.

2009-05-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

I fall victim to this need.
is this treason?

Do you remember that one time I took a Sharpie while you were half-sleeping on my bed, and right underneath your belly button, I wrote "MINE" with an arrow pointing downward?
You opened your eyes, looked down to read it and laughed before catching my eyes and murmuring, "Okay."
I smiled back and told myself that it may not necessarily be a good thing. I think you knew that already, though, so I said nothing and tossed the Sharpie on my desk before crawling over the length of your body as I grinned, almost frightened by the emotions I felt as I watched you close your eyes and lean back, a lazy smile on your face. I kissed your chin, you nose, and the space between your eyes before putting my head on your chest and pressing my body close, lying on top of you. Your arms enclose me, and I think we sighed together as we relaxed, ready to fall asleep but knowing that we never would.

I once taught myself what worth was.
This implies that I once knew.
(Yet
so often the mind wakes and unravels at once, losing beats and phrases, leaving the body and consciousness to falter with what's left--
halves of emotions and the empty memory of having once been satiated--
leaving the rest of me to fall under the weight of my own palm.
So often the mind works like a swelling tide against the direction of what one desires.)
But now
I feel as though I've left myself: my better half has decided that I no longer deserve attention. I'm worthless.

it is entirely possible to desire too much

2009-05-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

Journal entry. Monday, 25 May.

Every day I'm preoccupied with the struggle of producing something new--a defining moment, a voice, an action--to mark me as unique to constitute an answer to the question of "who are you?" or, more often "who were you?"
Every day I'm faced with the same question and I wonder if I'm destined to be remembered for refusing to answer. But still, my "answers" are no longer answers--no single solution could possibly gather up all the loose ends and frayed arguments that result from my human presence in this world.
So instead of answering I end up producing an enormous supply of commentaries and ramblings on questions of myself, but the nagging insistent thought that remains is how long this pathetic commentary could stay useful, or even entertaining.
Am I worthwhile? Do I make sense?
So I continue to look to seek while suffering at the hand of my own self-awareness, even as this suffering unfolds a kind of existence that makes such awareness increasingly impersonal and difficult to reconcile with the self. I don't know if I should thus abandon awareness to live solely for the self or pursue awareness to replace the self.
It becomes so difficult, therefore, to imagine me.
It becomes so difficult, I mean, to reduce my life to a single, allegorical truth.
I am both the narrator and the spectator of my experiences, although I desire to be neither.

ERIC

2009-05-27T01:31:00.000-07:00

happy now?

this guy's one of the two people in my life i've ever called "oppa," so i will acquiesce to a blog entry, at least.

what's odd is that we don't necessarily talk all that often. ever since i've stopped technically being his student, the majority of our conversations take place online, but when we do talk, for some reason i end up wanting to transfer bits of our discussions into my personal journal. even though most of what he says is just.. half-witty commentary.
he makes me think, is what i mean.

i really hope he doesn't buy me that book for graduation. i can't help getting slightly emotional when people buy me books and journals. call me a nerd, but that will never change.
i suppose he won't, though, since it's rather difficult to get.
self-preservation, really. that's all. i don't like feeling emotional weight with people i can't afford to have such a connection with, and as i told lily earlier, i'm somewhat of an expert at cutting off any burgeoning emotional ties. but i usually accomplish that through distance, harsh honesty, and intentional wrongdoing, and i don't want to do that with him.

i react to him as i would a natural event. like rain, or the crevices of light in between dark clouds. or a moving tide. he reacts to himself as a realization waiting to happen. at least that's what it seems like from the time i've known him.
i could be wrong. see, he's another one of those people i know who always seem as if they're waiting for something, but sometimes it turns out that those people already found what they were looking for, they just didn't like what they found.
if he is waiting, though, he waits more patiently than others, not faltering before the spectacle of life like a lot of people do.

to be honest, sometimes i feel small around him. particularly when we come into physical contact. yes, i realize that that's rather contradictory to my nature; when i see a boy i like all i want to do is touch and feel. but with eric, even a accidental brush of the body as he passes by makes me want to lean, not necessarily away from him, but further into myself. this could be for a lot of reasons. i'm not sure of any of them, so i won't take the time here to talk about them.
last time we saw each other, he gave me this half-hug, and it's not like i saw stars and felt explosions, but it was too surprising for me to actually register until after the fact.

but i think i've gone through a lot of quiet little discoveries like that around him.

During moments like these I faltered. I tricked myself out of desolation; I could not tell if I was moving or moved. And such feelings seemed to contradict me, the way love seemed to contradict itself and its lovers with a sweeping gesture that traveled as much as it trapped.
--pamela lu

the boys i've kissed

2009-05-26T15:58:00.000-07:00

Today I went to school at in the middle of 5th period. I was walking down my block, smoking a cig, then off in the distance I saw a car coming up that looked suspiciously like my father's Audi TT. No one ever drives that car, so I was fairly confused. I hid my cigarette behind the clipboard I was carrying anyway. The car came closer and pulled over to my side of the sidewalk, and I thought, Holy FUCK that's my mother.
I slipped the cig in between the pages of my agenda and put it out as I waved hello to her.
Dammit.

When the earth was still flat, I met a lovely boy named Pascal. I told him that I'd be whatever he wanted me to be, just because he was beautiful enough to listen to without feeling guilty about it.
And then I think I did become what he wanted me to be. I spent a few weeks that way, moving this way and that, dancing with him. I don't know how it happened. Suddenly we were one.
My steps were his. His steps were mine.
It's wonderful. It's all kinds of amazing. But I'm only who we wants me to be, not who I was before. Had to lose myself in order to clear out my insides for his wills and dreams for the two of us. You give and take and end up here. The view's great, but sometimes the way the clouds lift makes you think of nostalgia and the person you were before.

entertainment rather than salvation

2009-05-25T23:42:00.000-07:00

After we were done, I went to the bathroom and tried to vomit. It didn't work, unfortunately.

I was flipping through Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close today, reading over my highlighted sections, the little phrases I've marked, and I noticed this one:

Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn't have to invent a thing.

I immediately thought of C. I called him today, but he seemed so tired that I just told him we could talk later. The other night, I found an old picture of him in my room, from when he was in eighth grade and I was in sixth. We had gone to New York, and we were sitting in Hard Rock Cafe. He looks so different, so young. I remember he said that I was such a tease on that trip...

Dear Neil,

I've reached a definite standstill. The only directions that are open to me are the ones I'm sick and tired of. The only way I want to go is still closed to me, as of yet.
And what can I do? Stand still? Turn in circles? The pause of time, its laziness and intolerable quiet, ebbs at the edge of my bones... It's tiring in the worst way possible: I'm drenched in an exhaustion that results from doing noting. Doing nothing and waiting.
There's no cure for this.

service

2009-05-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

I get home at 5:20am. I still can't sleep.

I am the inside of an oil drum--black, thick, resistant sludge drips the length of my bones like soiled perspiration, like the rotting sap of a tree riddled with the carcasses of chewed insects, like spoiled honey, and like saliva from the lips of someone who has just vomited.
I am this empty.
I am this dirty.
On the inside, I accumulate mold and bacteria, dirt and body fluids. The scum reaches outward, seeping out every orifice--I'm blinded, muted, deafened, immobilized...
This is suffocation, and this is my life.

reformatted poem from ages ago

2009-05-16T04:23:00.000-07:00

metro centre parking lot

2009-05-15T23:22:00.000-07:00

He called her anyway.
The air outside the car was cold enough to make her conscious of her body as she stepped out of the back seat, pulling her cardigan back on.
“Go ahead and call her. It’s okay.”
During moments like this she let herself give in to the stereotypes of her gender, saying things that she didn’t mean and always expecting the man to understand her true intentions. He didn’t; he never does. But she understood that he didn’t know and left her thoughts unsaid for the moment because she was tired of her saying what was on her mind when he could only meet her halfway, even when trying his best to understand.
He walked away as he dialed and faintly heard him say hello over the sound of her feet dragging on the cement. The street light cast a heavy shadow as she walked toward the nearby gas station. The sounds of car engines and people talking grew as she got near, and the sudden presence of strangers made her feel isolated. She had gotten used to the quiet and the stillness, the voices of two people, the intimacy, and the softness.
“Could I get the keys to the restroom, please?” The cashier pointed to the counter where the key lay, strung onto a rusty piece of metal that looked like it had been chewed on and dropped into the toilet too many times. The inside of the restroom had the same air of soiled indifference. The soap smelled too harsh and mold sat comfortably in the crease where the sink meets the wall. After washing her hands she leaned against the empty paper towel dispenser, wiping her palms on her jeans. She didn’t want to go back yet.
They had too deep a history to be rid of each other, even if they wanted to. She had moments when she wanted to forget his presence in her life, when she needed to create some distance. Even when they didn’t speak for a year because of all his betrayals and the layers of tension he refused to resolve, he still had some presence in her life. She always wrote about him, and so much of her creative energy stemmed from their relationship. When she painted, she could tell that he was, in some way, her muse. And she supposed it was the same with him; she never apologized to anyone as sincerely as he did to her, and no one made him feel more ashamed for his past actions. Although, she had to admit, he had never done anything so shameful to anyone else either.
Now they were at a point in their relationship where familiarity transcended intimacy and anger, where they still didn’t understand each other, and sometimes they didn’t want to, but ignorance was just accepted as another aspect of their closeness. They had gone through so much that whatever was to come couldn’t be significant enough to pry them apart.
Constantly, she asked herself if she wanted this. What did he think about their relationship? She never knew, and any serious talk about it couldn’t avoid the mention of the past, the history that was the ever threatening ghost, drifting in and out of their relationship, sparking anger and mistrust at awkward intervals.
Earlier in the day, she had told him, “I hate it when the guys I fuck talk with their ex-girlfriends or some other girl in their lives right after sex. I hate it. I don’t know why—it’s not like I even care about the emotion in sex or its sacredness and shit, but it makes me feel like nothing more than a whore when that happens. It’s so fucking… disrespectful. And dirty.”
That was less than seven hours ago.
The fact that he called her anyway made her question so many things; did he remember, or was he just insensitive; did he feel sorry again, and was he planning on apologizing. But this was one of those nights when she couldn’t think about questions like that. The handle of the restroom door was cold, and as she walked to the car, she slowed down when she saw that he was still on the phone. She hadn’t waited long enough. She lingered underneath the street light, watching that shadow of hers.
When he hung up he started to walk over to her, but she turned around and reached him before he came underneath the light. She didn’t want to see his face. In the car it still smelled of him and of her, of sweat and of sweetness, and the hint of warmth reminded her of home, for some reason.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry about calling her.”
“It’s okay. I told you to.”
“I know.”
She lit a cigarette; the flame cast her face in a strange orange glow, and he thought that she looked beautiful, but that she had lied when she said she was feeling okay. But that was alright, since both of them told small lies to each other, leaving truth for bigger things because in the past, big lies had bled them dry.

unlikely at this point.

2009-05-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

want is too complicated. i wish i was free of it, and i wish i really could travel to the edge of the earth and jump, without holding anyone's hand, without screaming, without thinking, just falling and feeling the weight of the world drift upwards, off my shoulders.
i wish i could be so free, just for a moment or two.

maybe because of my deteriorating relationship with my mother, or maybe because i'm so ready to leave, or maybe because i've been trying to quit smoking, i've been kind of down these days. i was walking to school and i passed large outgrowth of honeysuckles; i smelled them before i saw them, and i almost smiled. i love that scent. i was about to light a cigarette, but i felt bad about ruining the smell with the stench of tobacco, so i walked to the other side of the street and lit it before turning around to watch the little yellow and white flowers, softly dancing in the morning breeze. the sun hadn't shed its clouds yet, and i felt this small spark of uninhibited bliss. i realized that i haven't felt that way in a weeks.

whenever i feel like this, i make an effort to find out what the problem is and fix it, get back to my fast-paced self again, but it's not working.

the fact that i need adderall feel halfway decent when taking my AP tests doesn't help. the fact that the season finale of house ended so sadly didn't help.

as of now, i just want to stand in front of a Rothko and lose myself.

2009-05-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

current read: valley of the dolls, jacqueline susann (don't judge me)
current listen: lykke li

stretched on the floor with our underwear on, we looked up at the sky, the night's wind drifting in from the window to lift our hair. we didn't touch, flattened against the white carpet, silent and eyes wide open. we burned the roof with our eyes, blood pumping and thoughts flatlined. i didn't know what to say, and you didn't know how to feel. it was cold and it was dark. the city wasn't brimming in the same way it used to--it was teeming.
but it was quiet and still inside. i wanted to tell you that eventually, this endlessness would go away, but i wasn't sure enough to say anything.

i don't care what you say.. i like love story.

2009-05-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

i say that proudly, too.

and who can pass up coldplay?

red cactus

2009-05-04T15:20:00.001-07:00

.

my eyes hurt.

the weather's been so off these days.

i've realized that if i don't want people to judge me, i should stop telling them things. i hate feeling as though i've disappointed people; someone will judge my character negatively based on very superficial things, without truly knowing who i am, and i'll feel as though i have some obligation towards them, as if i've done something wrong, when i shouldn't. they're the one's being judgemental. i don't owe them anything. i shouldn't feel remorseful in the slightest.
but for some reason, i do.
and i kind of hate it.

another one of mine, using sheet music:

i heard that a covenant was made using my blood, without my knowing; the earth split as the words were spoken, the birds flew higher than they should in awe, and the sun repealed its efforts, leaving the cities empty with only the vague echo of light.

tell me what you see

2009-05-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

i have this urge to look into his face and find something that will come nearer to me without my beckoning. i want to touch the bridge of his nose and feel the slope that rests in between the eyes; i want to brush a nail against his eyebrows and trace a line from his lower eyelashes to his chin; i want to crook my finger and fit my knuckle vertically along the dip above his lip; i want to run the pads of my fingers slowly across his mouth.

i want to do this all without wondering what he's thinking--i want it to be that familiar, that close, that intimate.

one of mine. inspired by kaoss/chaos pads:

digging illegal meat

2009-04-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

.

April was a month of seduction and cocaine and loss.
I'm not sure what May will be, but I'm graduating in less than a month, so I'm sure there will be plenty of happiness and fucking up.

I've realized that sometimes, all I want to do is play free cell with my Shakespeare playing cards, sitting on the sidewalk with my legs folded, staring at the face of Mr. Bill Shakespeare with a cig in between my teeth. Other times I want to run until I collapse from the duress. Other times I want to wrap presents for people whom I've never met, so I can imagine faceless beings filled with joy when they open gifts sent only with the best of intentions.

Covenant
This is a recent sculpture of mine; inspired by the covenant Moses and his people made with God after receiving the Ten Commandments.

i want a subwoofer system on my time machine. boom.

2009-04-28T15:59:00.001-07:00

.

moshi moshi everyone !

i haven't been around lately. sorry. i just haven't been on my computer lately, or home lately, or quiet enough to actually sit down and write a blog entry.

i still love you, though.

so, since the last post, i went to coachella for all three days and back, went to the railroad tracks and back, went to half falling in love and back, and called mary and chris and tried to tell them in my own way, how much i love them both.

since the last post, my throat has been fucked up from the sudden increase of cigarettes, my mind has been wired from adderall and other lovely delicious things that go boom inside, and my journal has been sitting all by it's lonesome; it's hard to write these days.

how have all of you been, though ?

you'll go home. you'll find that home is not home anymore; then the sky will break... but as long as you stay here, you can always think to yourself: one day, i'll go home... no?
fantastic logic, love--so i have a home to go to as long as i don't go there.
exactly; you don't really have a home until you leave it, and then, when you've left it, getting back is impossible.

Message from the dirt floor. Message from the E crazed and the fucked face.

2009-04-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

It has been a while, my friends.

How is everyone?

So, haven't been home in a while. I called Jon yesterday and he was rude. I had a cream puff today and I had lemon sorbet today and I had a drunk boy today.

Alright.
I feel so shitfaced and fucked, but who's keeping track?
I miss Mary, and I want to see Lily. And I want to go to San Francisco so that I can see Domo.
I need to start finding some girlfriends that I can actually hang out with often. Damn. All this testosterone is really getting to me.

Love. Me.

The thing is, he encounters. He ENCOUNTERS. At times only witnessing, but always moving through events that can not be, as they are with others, separated from his life so that he is constantly carrying several lives with him at once that can only be perceived as a collection of partial narratives too bright and complex to be absorbed and understood in one lifetime--except that he has, is, carries, only exactly one life at all times.
It's too much. Really. Sometimes it's too much.

He's leaving me to falter before a spectacle whose mystery and unbelievable beauty is distanced, fading precisely because I keep backing away from it, thinking with every step that it might pull me back with a question in his eyes: Where are you going? Why are you leaving me?
But I falter, and he is ever the spectacle.

"home"

2009-03-31T16:54:00.001-07:00

.

I'm going to NYU :]

no crash. no bang.

2009-03-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

Love letter, No. 2

In defense, I never thought this day would come. I never understood that we might be able to know each other, and never thought that the languages that give us speech and heart would be understood. I knew you and you knew me. In the beginning, both of us thought it an impossibility.

J

You and your exuberant, symphonic self. Shit, everything you can’t keep within yourself you allow to spill out, like music, like a performer losing control on stage. You perform for this beloved audience, belonging to the world, although the world never reciprocates and belongs to you. I’m always catching up to you, aren’t I. You became yourself so long ago, but here I am, becoming more and more like myself everyday, falling behind with the new ideas that expire before I can reach them.

Not that it matters.

See, for the longest time I found it difficult to talk to you, thinking that we’d forever be untranslatable to each other and thus the possibility of conversation would always escape us. Your self-assurance and your easy, breezy sublimation of daily anxieties that belied your so apparent yet all too easily forgettable fragility made me want to kiss you and hurt you and uncover you and bury you all at once. But then I think we found that, a fait accompli, we became a “we,” without any choice in the matter. People used to tell me that I have too much spirit for my circumstances. And your spirit was never ending, unseen like the wind and the most forceful gale to ever sway me.

So nothing else mattered.

You convinced me that I existed. Disregarding our masochistic need (everyone’s masochistic need) to be conflicted and stay that way, we held mirrors for each other and peeled the second faces off so that the heat emanating from the first, true ones could finally be released. We mingled. We borrowed languages from each other to add more to our names. Nothing else mattered. You always acted like the war reporter who was born after the negotiating of peace, unable to understand the news around you or comprehend the terms of peace. By those terms, I’m forever acting like the war-stricken veteran, inanely rambling a steady stream of dialogue that consists of questions constantly answering itself and never arriving anywhere, too sarcastic and ironic to sound like any language. At least not one you could discern. Too much emotion there; not knowing what to do with them all, we involuntarily let them escape, revealing them so we could live beside each other.

You
mattered.

You still matter; you’re the fragile extension of myself that I keep closer to me than anything, like utopia and like memory, to assure myself that I am, indeed me. I am the darker half of you. I yearned to be nostalgic for childhood even when I was a child, and then we met and there was no such thing as growing up, so remembering and childhood and youth became one and nothing mattered. Everything was everywhere all at once: we were everything and everywhere all at once. We were, we are, the raw and trembling energy, music, motion that can only be boiled down to “feeling,” forever moving and dancing, speaking in tongues and meeting halfway to grant peace and comprehension, forever living like so, forever loving.

We’re assaulted and overwhelmed by memories that always seem as though they’re not ours, but nonetheless feel like they’ve happened to us. We own them, just as we own each other.

loose

2009-03-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

.

Reading: Closer, Patrick Marber; Diary, Chuck Palahniuk
Listening: Soulwax; Fleet Foxes
Watching: Skins

I think back to my childhood and I remember barbecued chicken and fruit pie, never getting along with my younger sister, and reading because real-life people were generally much less interesting than those I met in books. I remember going to the bookstore a lot. I remember fighting with my mother a lot. My mother’s the kind of mother who doesn’t see/know a difference between “doing this to her” and “doing this for me.” But really, I grew up on Kerouac and Kesey, Palahniuk and Bukowski, Vonnegut and Heller. I never had anything that I could call a relationship with my father, but I was raised by men. In spite of all my mother’s Presbyterian teaching/preaching, I was raised by men. Of the beatnik/post-war/nihilist type.

I think back to my adolescence now and mostly remember only the feelings; numbness and provocation, feeling lusty and wanting to be close to the next boy, and eventually girl, that I came across and found attractive. Feeling wonderful. Feeling high. Feeling attractive. My friend theorized that a “social buzz” scale existed—the higher the number, the more fucking awesome you felt. I don’t clearly remember ever reaching that ten, but I’m sure I have several times. That’s basically how I remember adolescence, at least, that’s how I remember the parts of it that I want to remember.

The parts that I don’t want to remember come to me in emotions too. Feeling like I want to run away from home. Feeling like drinking myself to death. Feeling like the scum of the earth underneath my parents’ noses, making them sneer. Feeling judged, wanting to say that it takes one to fucking know one, so don’t judge me because I’m sure that if we were to lay out our honest opinions of each other, I’d figuratively cut your pretty little throat and bleed you dry. I remember miscommunication and fat culture gaps that made me ashamed of who I wanted to be, confused and unaware and frightened of who I wanted to be. I still want the same things, but I haven’t quite gotten rid of the feelings yet. My vision for the future is relatively the same, it’s just the present that I live differently.

Bless your body, bless your soul

2009-03-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

pray for peace and self-control...

This is the world we live in
-- The Killers

Explain to me how Franz Ferdinand rocks my world.
Like sex and lucid dreams.

Today, I feel a little lighter inside. I had some herbal tonic from Arizona, which was nice. I also went to school in the middle of second period after having written a ten page essay the night before. Had two cigs while walking to school and felt productive with my nice shades on and a thermos of coffee in my hand and cig& iPod in the other. It was nice.

I want to lose more weight.

I don't have a simple answer, but I think I can answer with something better. I can at least take your hands and tell you that I don't care if they're clammy. I can at least touch your denim covered knee and trail my hand upwards. I can at least make you think of nothing else but the physical sensation of two bodies touching... that's more than a lot of people can say.
And I can give you freedom if you are willing enough to be vulnerable enough to let me in. I can teach you to fly if you'll look my way and touch my wings. I can give you small spurts of joy, intensity, sadness, growth, and an irrevocable sense of peace.
If you let me.

domoneeek is back!

2009-03-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Since my last post...

Thurs: MOCA meeting, then went to Pasadena with R and tried to find coffee.

Fri: Deadline night; I had a very long, very candid conversation with A, which was enlightening at least and entertaining at most. Afterwards, went to Guppy House with D for food; I didn't know that the Guppy House was open until the early hours of the morning, but it's nice to know.

Sat: Oy vey. Had 2 hours of sleep and did some work before going to MOCA... Once there, set up for TEEN NIGHT. Bwahahaha. Which was absolutely delicious...
left MOCA with R, then went to C&J's and had... well, fun, I'll say. then there was a fight, the house shook and Q and I sat in disbelief in the back room of the house. J stumbled in with blood everywhere. The cops eventually came, we scrambled to hide things, and after interrogating everyone, R asked the police if he could take his girlfriend home, and the two of us left...
A rather frightening night.
Came home and tried to sleep, to no avail.

Sun: Went to an anti-homophobia/gay rights youth rally in LA... marched and marched and yelled and yelled. Also went for dim sum for lunch and La Golondrina for dindin.
Came home and had a phone/text conversation with C that made me want to cry. Tutored someone from Walnut before trying to sleep.
To no avail. At least until 5 in the morning or so.

I'm tired.

He's very beautiful.

He was trying to put a poster on his wall. I was sitting on his airbed when he asked me if it looked straight,and I said no. The right side's a little lower. He asked me to get him a piece of tape, telling me that there are scissors on the shelf next to me. Before he finished his sentence I had already ripped it with my teeth. "Or, I guess you could resort to animalistic behavior."
"What if I happen to enjoy animalistic behavior."
"I figured. You seem like the type."
"Why?"
He never answered.

The fight was scary. Halfway, he walked in with a knife in his hand and said "shit" before hiding the knife and leaving again.

When he came back home, he asked me how I was doing, and I looked at him once before looking away again. "Ah. It's one of those days, huh." He then asked me if I wanted to share a bowl, but I said no.
"Weed fucks me up."
"..Like I said, want half?"

We were walking to the living room, and he let me go in front of him, saying "Ladies first."
"Bullshit."
"Chivalry is dead?"
"Yep."
"Damn, so I can't play that card."
"I wasn't aware that you were trying to play any cards."

His voice is... throaty, in a sense. Not in a raspy manner, but when he speaks, there's a slight crackle to his 'r' and his vowels. I can imagine that against my ear. That's not a good thing, but I can't help but smile whenever I hear his voice close to me.

He asked me to hold the chair while he was taping that poster. After he was done, I pushed the chair with my foot and made him go round and round.

When all of use were outside, waiting for the police to talk to each one of us, I was shivering in a chair as he stood next to me.
"It's cold."
"There's a difference..."
"Difference between what?"
"There's a difference between cold and..."
"..Hmmm?"
"Nevermind. Just remind me to explain to you later."

But I never got to ask because R took me home so soon after we were cleared. I'm afraid that he won't remember what he was going to say next time I see him.

tell me why i can't wake up and start the day over again

2009-03-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

classical greek mythology says that humans were originally combined with four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces.
zeus feared their powers and split them all in half, condemning them to spend the rest of their lives searching for their other half to complete them.

one cigarette left

2009-03-17T22:40:00.000-07:00

i feel like i'm connected to him by a bridge of memory, a tenuous and ever-present stream of fleeting images, thoughts, words, emotions, that remind us forcefully of each other... we don't speak to each other yet we ... do in a way. in our minds, by reliving conversations, taking joy in those recollections.
it's as though...we've transcended the physical?
and we've always been able to connect more with silence than with conversation, i suppose. our relationship is... felt out, not talked out. talking it out leads to disaster and misunderstanding, which causes tension, angry glances, deep resentment. and now that we're so far removed from each other, i feel more connected to him in my thoughts as though i'm maintaining a relationship with the memory of him, and not him... is this a step backwards?
i don't really know what i'd say to him if i saw him. i think i'd just want to hold him close to me and breath him, kiss him, and sigh... it's odd, being away but still feeling.

c'est assez pour maintenant.

2009-03-17T01:17:00.000-07:00

e & i would never work.

i would love him & maybe he would love me. but, nonetheless, i'd give myself to him in a way i've never given myself to anyone, like a timidly and carefully wrapped gift. and he'd open me up & discover that i'm not the gift he expected, but he'd smile and nod and say thank you all the same, because he's kind like that, then that fragile falsehood of appreciation and those callously let down expectations would eat us apart.

which makes me a little sad. because i really think i could love him. i could love myself for him, even.

but its okay, because he still listens to me and puts up with my oddities when i need someone to simply accept and tolerate.

he's good at that.

he's just one of those guys i know whose presence in my life is heavy with possibility, and maybe desire too. because i can think of him when i'm happy and when i'm sad. because i want to know what he thinks of me and of the beach. because i want to be able to know, even only once, exactly how he kisses girls he really likes, and because i want to be able to matter enough to him to be able to see him years from now with a wide grin on my face.

because i want to dance and sleep and yell and scream in front of him, and have that be a natural thing.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that it would be nice for a guy like him to be familiar to me. i think familiarity with a guy like him would be a very peaceful, and beautiful thing.

with insomnia, you're never really asleep. you're never really awake.

2009-03-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

friday night/saturday morning... i revisited an old habit while at c&j's. it was a very, very entertaining night if i may say so myself. not necessarily all that great for my health, but too fun for me to care, if you get my gist.
so much for my resolution to stay clean.
then on saturday i went in for work @ moca for 6 hours... which was actually a lot more stressful than anticipated. then met with ana to finish the editor-in-chief app for next year...

life has been very hectic and full.

"je pense donc je suis." i think therefore i am.
and with the amount of thinking that i do, i must be a fucking god.
i "am" too much. everywhere.

listening: machine slublime --vive la fete
reading: one flew over the cuckoo's nest --ken kesey
watching: shakespeare in love

the world is bright.

oh yes. in other news: i got accepted into nyu, which is very heartening. r took me out for coffee tonight as a little "celebration." he really is a darling. i like that he's in my life, and i like even more that i'm in his.

when i'm alone, i like to listen to songs from every facet of the music spectrum-- give me wagner and puccini, daft punk and justice, the doors and queen--and sway, gentle, or shake and tremble to the quiet, urgent, soothing, brilliant beats. just so i can feel. just so i can be, in a sense, affected by music song dance melody rhythm.

...ah .

to snort or not to snort

2009-03-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

that is the question.

i want to have fun tonight. i want to laugh and not have sex and be close with others tonight. i want to be really cheerful tonight, and i want to be free tonight.

no one stops me, so i might as well.

what do i always say?
icarus, take me with you.

my mother

2009-03-12T23:08:00.000-07:00

is an absolutely amazing person.
the best Christian
i know.
one of those give all types
of mothers
who always say
why are you doing this to me.

i used to say that
i never want to be like her,
a shackled domestic
engineer
who never votes.
so i did everything she wouldn't do
thinking that i could
figure something out
that way
through the smoke
and twisted branches.

and i will never be
an absolutely amazing person
or
the best Christian
you know
and i won't ever
give all

because i could never be like my mother
even after
the smoke clears
and the branches
straighten out

because she always asked
why are you doing this to me
and i found
that there's no difference

between doing this to her
and doing this
for me.

la vie? c'est un jeu--un jeu d'enfants. et moi?

2009-03-11T15:50:00.000-07:00

je suis toujours un enfant.

i went out for a smoke just now; the sun was bright and the sky was clean, and as a gentle breeze brushed against my temple, i wanted to look at my reflection and say, clearly, "don't fuck this up. do not fuck this up."

this is a restless night we face, isn't it.

2009-03-11T01:43:00.000-07:00

damn straight, but we're young& we've got fire on our side,
so fuck all and run.

my eyes have been blood red all day, which has led to A thinking that i'm completely faded, and J looking at me funny.

this is going to be another long post.

today (which is now yesterday, since it's now past 2am):
told my mother that i was sicker than i really am, crawled back to bed& woke up around noon. turned off the stove that my mother forgot to check on. the rice cake didn't burn, though--it oddly turned to mush.
@ around 6pm, i went out with R.
i never really know where i'll end up when i go out with R.
we ended up in venice. he needed to go to the municipal court around there to clear something up for a ticket, and so we went to the beach at night, which is something we need to do more often.
got a pair of shades in black and gold. R got two white ones. that boy is always a stickler for white sunglasses.
we trekked down the boardwalk, hoods up and cigarettes clamped in our mouths. i convinced him to get closer to the water, so we walked across the sand barefooted and sat down to watch the tide. the sun was almost done for the day; we watched the sky fade, slowly and with excruciatingly beautiful colors.
the water looked silver. it was so violent and i couldn't hear anything but the waves crashing and the sound of the wind.
i was at peace, with the wind so cold and R's arm around me, hand tucked against the crook of my neck to keep his fingers from going numb.
we stayed until the sun was completely gone, lying down eventually, getting sand in our hair, and talking about things that i can't recall.
when we walked back, we saw the moon. "do you see the rabbit in the moon?" "yeah, i can see it's little ears."
we got back to the car, discovered that he got another parking ticket, cursed the police and damned the fucking po-po's to hell and then attempted to find unurban for half an hour, driving along pico. we were too caffeine starved to care that we couldn't find it, though, so we just drove back to db and hit starbucks before going to fullerton to C and J's house.
they were all smoking weed, or, M was smoking weed. and watching south park.
i pet the cat.
when we went out with C and A to for a cig, we talked... about something concerning profanity on the radio. "i don't get why you can't say shit on the radio when you can say bitch or ass." ""because bitch and ass have technical definitions." "there you go. see, G you're too smart to hang."
I know that's just A being A, but it ... alienates me... when he says things like that. earlier we were discussing my schedule. he asked me what time i get out this year. i said i go 0-6 with 6 APs. "you're a strong girl, G."
fuck, man. that's just the way i run.
they all played rock band, and i crawled on the couch, found a blanket that i decided to steal as soon as i unfolded it, wrapped it around my neck and went in search of J.
when i found him, i asked him, "do you guys have any tea?" "no. i actually don't believe in drinking tea." he tripped out the cat by spinning him on a chair until i told him to stop. poor Lenny.
i uncovered J's yearbook. we spent a good deal of time looking though it, even though he told me not to. R joined us eventually. and M. i laid down on M and R laid down on me and J got up and started kind of ranting about cleaning, or something...shit, i don't know.
J is beautiful. you have to understand that. he's the boy who can't forget about the girl who got away, who wants to be a playwright, who's more close than open, even though a lot of people see him as a window they can jump out of.
R had a cig in J's room before everyone went out to smoke. we were standing around in a circle; some guy who had joined us an hour before named Mo found out i'm still in high school; we talked about museums& acid trips; some people drifted to look at the cat in the window, and i realized that... maybe these guys need to hang out with girls more often. even though they're so fun the way they are. i'm the only girl whenever i see them, and they need more estrogen around them... and i'm not really one to do that.
R and i left shortly after. i held out both hands to J as i was leaving and he gave me double high fives before he turned his hands to me and i hit them both. he winced and said "i sliced my fingers open today," and showed me his two hello kitty bandages.
i told R that when he goes for his morning walk with J tomorrow, he should tell him that i like him.
"he's so cute."
"oh, G."

shine on me.

2009-03-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

This is nice, you know.
Yeah, it is.
It's cold.
That's okay. It'll be warm soon.
You know...we could actually be pretty good together.
No, we could be more than good.
You think so?
Yeah. I really do.
Then.. why aren't we together?
Just in case it's not, love, and because you are the sun, and I am the moon, and the two match very beautifully because they are counterparts, but they can only be so close to each other.
I can be a star instead.
The sun is a star, dear...the sun is a star.

fucking herbs.

2009-03-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

.

i think i'm getting sicker; the phlegm in my throat is gone, but it's left in its wake a roughness that makes me cough like a 98 yr. old smoke ridden cat lover.

i realized that i have aristotle, james joyce, and bukowski lying on my desk, saying 'hello, i'm gina's books.'
nice. if i may say so myself.

the pretty thursday:
on thursday, i went to moca; at the apprentice meeting, after we finished sin factory planning, we went down to the galleries to look at the new permanent collection exhibit.
carolyn and i turned the first corner and saw a beautiful pollock and smiled. then we turned another corner and saw... fucking, at least 8 rothko's and wanted to break down into tears.
EIGHT.
i knew that moca has a wonderful permanent collection, and that often visitors complain when they come because the rothko's aren't up. but eight are right now.
EIGHT.
if you can stop by moca to see them, please, please do. i was absolutely blown away. i love rothko to begin with, but this gallery in the exhibit was overwhelming. i can't really explain the feeling i get when i see a rothko, standing straight in front of it to receive the full impact of the painting.
have you ever looked up at a clear, unobstructed view of the sky during the day while lying down in the grass? your eyes have nothing to focus on because the sky is endless, the universe is endless, and the angels flying up there are invisible. you have nothing to think about because you're too stricken by the vast expanse of atmosphere and blue. i can't really describe it.
that's the only similar feeling i can think of that might give you an understanding of what i feel when i look at a rothko.

after the meeting, i met up with rick on the corner of grand and 2nd and we went back to moca for knife and fork's engagement party--we played mini golf throughout the museum! it was great; the 8 holes were dispersed throughout the lobby of the galleries, the reading room, the ahmanson theater (which was screening yellow submarine--shit yes-- and the hole that was inside the theater sang a beatles song when a golf ball went in), and the staff offices/storage space.
everyone got a nice, thorough tour of the museum's architecture, and there were also donut holes/pita& hummus being served :]
it was nice; rick and i stayed a bit after we finished playing and left before it got unbearably crowded.
after that we went to little tokyo to koraku for ramen and made the mistake of actually ordering two dishes instead of doing our usual thing where we split one. i don't think i finished even half of mine, and ditto for him.
not that it matters.

after that, we drove back to chino and killed time before the midnight watchmen showing; the movie was absolutely horrible. i don't even want to think about it, so i won't. i have to say this, though: leonard cohen's hallelujah is NOT appropriate music for a sex scene, no matter how badly made it is.

i got home at around 330, and woke up 3 hours later for school, which was absolute torture. not that i minded.

the ugly friday:
last night i ended up shivering and desperately trying to call people while huddled up on someone's couch, completely thrown out of my mind by a terrible, terrible weed trip.
i still don't know whose couch, or house, i was in. i puked twice. weed does this to me every other time i smoke it. i never have good experiences with fucking cannabis. why the fuck do i do this. i don't know.
i just wanted to feel uncontrolled, maybe drink a little and have someone's warm arms around me while i just... float.
but that didn't happen.

and i think i may have ruined someone's birthday get together.
sorry.

maybe it's because i went out with lauren and smoked with people i've never seen before in fucking glendora. maybe it's because i really wanted to be with someone else, and i was too cold, too cold, too cold.

today i went to moca for a shift with esteban and registered some student works. then i ended up at a borders in la habra for three hours; got a few moleskine cahiers, another bukowski, and the cambridge edition of thus spoke zarathustra (which i'm fuckkkking excited to read)

and now i'm off to watch skins :]

hawk

2009-03-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

.

the weather is kind of fucked up. my hands are incredibly cold and i wish you were here to hold them. i think there's something wrong with my bones, because at random times they'll ache as if being wrenched apart; i can't grip anything and i can't think until the pain ebbs away. most of the time it happens in my fingers and my wrists, but sometimes it happens in my ankles.

i know i have migraines all the time, but they really have been getting worse; i feel like my brain is deteriorating--it must be if i feel like its burning underneath hot coals every morning. i hate that it makes me feel so damn angry all the time; i become less patient, more irritated, more angry. i don't like it, but no matter how much ibuprofen i down, it doesn't go away. i think i'm going to take a page from house's book and start breaking my hand.

half wrote a poem about your shadows underneath cheap fluorescent lights at dusk and called it "why i love you only in the dark." stored it beneath my ribcage with all the other things that will one day make me detonate. if you'd fit, you would have been there years ago, in that one summer. then maybe i would have let you out to smell the rain once, freeze, then thaw out to become a better person, a truer lover, a more beautiful and resilient friend.

fucker, there's nothing to save

2009-03-02T20:50:00.000-08:00

.

this past weekend:
friday - went to chris& jeff's and ended up watching the latter half of fight club before going to rick's for dinner. then i tutored albert. lovely.
saturday - went for lunch with my mother, then she took my sisters and me shopping. i got a pair of enzo angliano gladiator sandals in black and gold, a bcbgmaxazria dress (i have this odd fondness for that brand...) and a black cardigan from free people (hello, lily). i was debating over whether or not i should purchase black flats from facconable, and then realized that i'd fuck up the suede, being the clumsy loon that i am... and i went to a rave with rick and jeff and devon in san bernafuckingdino. came back at around 545 in the morning and immediately crashed on my bed.
sunday - woke up two hours after coming home and went to church.. -_- then spent the rest of the day craving cigs because i got my opened pack taken away by fucking rave security.

but i'm happy now because i got a pack of parliament full flavors before going out with lauren for ramen tonight.

it was nice.

but
the highlight of my day was mr. gunderson giving me his phone number. i couldn't even concentrate on what he was saying to me at the time; i just kept thinking "he's giving me his number. willingly. and for no real reason other than convenience. oh. oh. oh."

yeah...

you don't fool me, effy stonem

2009-02-25T23:03:00.000-08:00

.

I think I simply want to experience it with him. Just once.
I want to know--I crave knowing--if he'd touch with only the tips of his fingers, smoothly and softly, or if he'd take possession, with a certain degree of arrogance, using his entire palm, shifting the position of my body and truly caressing as if yearning for as much contact as possible. I want to know how he expresses love and how he expresses lust. Imagination isn't enough. Every time I look at his hands, I wonder, but it's not as if I'd ever have the opportunity to find out.

it's an excuse that we're making; is it good enough?

2009-02-24T19:34:00.000-08:00

.

Back from Fresno.

I am energy: I change shape and form, and I manifest myself in different ways. You have to understand. THIS is why I am the way I am. And there are different kinds of energy--good, bad, destructive... I can identify so many in me. Each of us is a unique composition of different energies. Some of us are arranged so that our being is composed of neat layers of energy, and others are composed so that they host dichotomies--warring masses--of different energies. I think I am somewhere in between.

Sometimes, when lost, I understand that I am FOUND. But so often, the state of being found is merely one of being CAUGHT. I want to be free from all of it. I want to be able to be happy with being lost, without desire to be found and without fear of being caught. I want to be able to take that into my hands and hold it close and smile.

.

it was you

2009-02-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

.

on saturday, i went to the dan graham exhibition opening at moca with rick; the only bad part about the night was some 30 yr. old woman asking if she could bum a cig off of me. other than that it was really nice; sonic youth played since the band is close with the artist--an added bonus. before going to moca, we went to a little udon place in little tokyo and ran into fabrizio; i tried very hard not to laugh at rick's attempt to eat asian noodles with chopsticks. i failed, but at least i didn't laugh as much as when he ran into a sanrio...
anyway.
the night was fun. it exceeded rick's expectations, at least, although we both ended up wanting to drop acid by the end of the night.
but that's what dan graham's work does to you, really.

then on monday i went for pancakes with rick and lauren and her friend marx before going to watch entre les murs. i've wanted to watch it since it was announced that it won the palm d'or at cannes, but to be honest, i had mixed reactions. it requires a very patient viewer, let's say, who's open minded enough to really analyze the relationship between student and teacher and the educational dynamic.
it was interesting. not necessarily provocative, but poignant all the same.

tomorrow morning i leave for fresno and will be back by sunday night.
fucking great.

like cocaine

2009-02-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

.

Dan Rickwood (pen name Stanley Donwood) has created all of Radiohead's album art and poster art since their 1994 album. I knew him largely as an artist, but recently discovered that he writes as well; I always love finding people who integrate writing and art so beautifully in their lives. His work is great. Here are a couple of my favorite pieces:

SNUFF
by Stanley Donwood

We loved each other so much that sometimes it hurt, even when we were close. I wanted to be her and she wanted to be me. Sex never felt complete, and afterwards we talked carelessly about easy subjects to avoid discussing the ache that bruised us both. So one day, in the kitchen, she cut me and I cut her; gently, slowly, too easily. It was the knife we used for onions and our tears were painful but expectant. We dripped the blood into coffee mugs, then bandaged up and went to bed. We fucked and there were stars but we saw different constellations.
The next day the blood was dry and rusty in the mugs. We scraped it diligently onto sheets of paper. We looked at each other silently and lowered our heads to snort each other's dust. Afterwards we both carried a pouch of powdered blood, and when we were low and apart we would retire to a restroom and sniff, sniff, sniff.
Oh my darling, we went on and on. Our blood was there always, red and viscous, burnt ochre and blowaway. My blood in your nasal membranes, filtering into your capillaries, finding its inexorable way to your heart. Your blood. My nose. My heart. We belonged to each other and we had made our love tangible, real; something that could be weighed and consumed, taken and enjoyed.
It wasn't a surprise when we used the scalpel to shave flesh from each other's upper arms. We dried the flesh, though it was difficult to dessicate it completely. We used the airing cupboard. The powdered flesh was better ; cocaine to blood's speed.
Did it end badly? Did we go too far? Was our love replaced or deleted by want or need? In losing ourselves in each other did we lose the essence in ourselves that the other loved? Did time simply bore us with its slow wearing-down? I have no answers to any of those questions. But now, sitting here in the kitchen, I admit I am scared of the knife, that I can't dig deeply enough to draw blood, that I will have nothing in the morning but red, raised scratches on my arm. I don't want her to cut me.
Did we kill each other, or are we living happily; but only as happily as you are?

.

screening humanity

2009-02-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

.

There's a Korean show called "Screening Humanity" about poor people. Or, perhaps I should say disadvantaged; usually the individuals that are featured live in very poor rural areas of Korea and struggle through various ordeals like poverty. The show focuses on their struggles, their dreams; entirely documentary-like with a narrator with a soft, female voice.

I usually hate watching it. It's the American in me--I don't want to feel so like shit when I watch it. It's heartbreaking, but not in the sense of a good movie like The Reader, that says to you, "Here, here's a piece of humanity that you should be aware about." This show gives viewers the emotions that you get after watching some hour long infomercial about poor people in Africa, except it doesn't ask you to donate money. It makes you feel over privileged if you know what I mean, and I'm not exceptionally fortunate either so it's not a pleasant feeling...

I feel like I'm not articulating this very well.

Regardless, my father was watching it tonight and this time the show was focusing on a ten year old boy names Giseok Kim. It caught my intention because he plays the piano. Brilliantly. Beautifully. He lives in an incredibly run down house with his grandfather as his mother left when he was one and his grandmother and father passed away. When I heard him describe his "philosophy" about playing, I wanted to cry: the interviewer asked him how he plays sad pieces, and he was trying to explain how he puts certain emphasis on the ivory keys for certain moments of a song...
He's ten years old, for Christ's sake.
He started playing when he was seven after his grandfather sent him to a piano, wanting his grandson to learn something. Giseok doesn't go to school. His piano tutor acts like a mother to him, cooking dinner when Giseok stays late at the tutoring center practicing, buying math and reading workbooks for him so he can get some semblance of a basic education...
He practices on his own, and even though he's only been playing for three years, he plays better than my mother does, which is saying a lot. When my mother saw him play, she said "That's what you call genius. That's what you call blessed." I couldn't say anything really. It makes me wonder whether or not kids like him can get someone to fund his education after appearing on shows like that. He deserves so much more, not because of his natural talent, but because he really works harder than most adults.
At one point during the episode, Giseok went sledding with some other kids and time came to go to his piano lesson. The narrator commented that he looked a little sad because he had to leave before everyone else, but when asked if he wanted to forgo the lesson, he said, "No, I should go. I have to go." I wish I had that sort of discipline and passion for something in my life.
Watching the episode also made me really admire the people in Giseok's life too. His grandfather, who drives him to his piano tutor's everyday on his little run down vespa, who can't read or write but tells Giseok gently to study at the other side of the room because the light is brighter there, who acts as Giseok's little cooking assistant because he can't cook much and Giseok makes most of the food, standing on tiptoes to scramble eggs on the stove. At his piano teacher's there's a poster a window with a list of students who have won competitions and the like. Giseok's name is first, and his grandfather stands in front of the window and looks at it everyday after dropping his grandfather off, proud and joyful. Whenever Giseok gives him a back massage, he smiles and comments later that if it wasn't for his grandson, he would have died already because it's such a joy raising him. The grandfather exercises every morning to the sound of his grandson practicing, walking on a second-hand treadmill without exerting himself too much because he had heart surgery last year...
And then there's his piano teacher who clips Giseok's nails for him and tells him that he needs to be more nutritious in his eating habits because his nails will get brittle. Giseok's never been to the movie theater, so she watched a video with him on a little TV in a separate room; the movie was about a little boy who wants to be a pianist, but is poor like Giseok and ends up watching his grandmother die of cancer and has to live with his grandfather... He was so happy when he recognized a song in the movie because he had played it before. He said, "You taught me that one too." They had a tissue box between them and were silent with tears by the end of film. When Giseok didn't bring his math homework that his piano tutor assigned, she raised her voice a little and said, "I didn't want to yell... but he needs someone to discipline him if he wants to grow up to become a great person. There's no one else." And she looked as if she was on the verge of tears, too...
And then there's Giseok himself, who practices on his own, studies on his own, cooks on his own, but never seems lonely. He says he wants to go to Harvard and study in the piano department there. He says it with such conviction. "I want to go to Harvard. I have to go to Harvard. I'm going to go to Harvard."

It's uplifting to day the least. It makes me want to work hard, so to speak.
As Giseok's piano teacher said, "You have to keep working hard because there's always someone out there who's working just as hard or harder; don't give up."

gimmick

2009-02-08T23:01:00.000-08:00

.

R said something really... true... tonight as we were driving to McClain's.
He said that the hard part is waiting, waiting when you know that something great is going to happen in your life and that you're going to be able to start something new, but it won't happen for a really long time.
I feel like I'm stuck in that moment, this very difficult moment of endurance and subdued energy that increases with every passing day. I feel tender and strong, wild but calm, and expectant but exhausted.
It's like restlessness, but it's also like sleep.

.

The sun is still shining

2009-02-07T15:44:00.000-08:00

.

Last night I watched Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
It's a brilliant semi-documentary. I believe it was nominated for the foreign film Oscar in 2005; stars Julia Jentsch as the German hero of the White Rose movement. What I loved best was the constant reference to the outside world--Sophie's intermittent glances outside windows--the ceiling of the atrium, the window in the prison, the window in the interrogator's room.
The best scene, I think, was one of the last ones where Hans, Sophie, and Christophe share a cigarette before the executions. It was terribly moving. My mother came home to me bawling on the couch.
The writing was perfect, as was the cinematography. The acting was more than decent as well, although I have to say that that's largely because of Jentsch.

I also watched Underdog, this pretty short film about coming-of-age in Israel, unforeseen consequences, and the beast within the human. Directed by Eran Merav. I heard about it several times before; apparently it's been lauded by critics for a while, and I know that it won some award at the Berlin Festival. Also recommended to anyone who enjoys a great clip. It's less than half an hour long.

This morning I was in the mood for another short so I watched Intervals, by Paul Greenaway. It's a rather experimental sort of film, using black and white stills and observational clips from the 1960s (?) in Venice. After watching I said "Hmmm?"

I love the feeling of watching a good film.
Tonight I think I'm going to watch The Dead, and then Great Genius and Profound Stupidity. I think De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté is playing early tomorrow morning, and I've only watched that once before...

.

Taking Sides.

2009-02-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

.

I have a question. For everyone.

How do I find peace?

The world is an abyss that, as Nietzsche said, stares back into me because I have stared for too long into it.

.

skipped school today

2009-02-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

.

I have taken it upon myself to be
thin
and
commanding.

The second one is fairly easy for me.
The first is never enough, never attainable.

Sometimes I want to breathe in a different kind of air.
But most of the time the air I breathe is riddled with cigarette smoke.

I've seventeen; don't expect me to have philosophies that don't contradict.

green

2009-02-02T18:59:00.001-08:00

.

I went out with C today and said goodbye. We smoked while dragging our feet in a slow walk across a path in the park where we first met again last year after an age of separation. I sat between his legs on a table, and he asked me how school's going. It took a split second for me to register; he never asked me that before. I ran my nails over his stomach, and he chuckled. Sometimes he leaned forward, resting his head on my shoulder and breathing deeply as if he needed to leave right then. Then we walked, and we touched underneath the shadow of a tree that he said was maybe twelve years old, and I breathed against his neck, wondering if I'd ever be able to forget how he smells. We gave and took away from each other, alone in a car in the parking lot we always go to, unaware for the most part of the night around us.

It was too short. Everything has been too short.
I am, I think, afraid that we didn't have enough time to find the strength to last.

Sometimes I get the creeping feeling that maybe if I was able to just let go, really let go, then maybe we could have had more time; maybe if I was more open and less expectant, maybe the tension on which our relationship sat for so long could have dissolved sooner. Sometimes I begin to regret.

But then I remember the way he made me feel and the whys behind the urgent questions. I remember that I asked him things, knowing that he would never be able to answer, building frustration within and without, trying to understand him, trying too hard to open him to me. Then I remember his resistance and his anger, the quiet force that never fails to push my hands away, making me take a step back. I remember that most of my memories of us aren't happy, only beautiful in the sense that at least he and I felt, loved, needed, in varying degrees, almost never meeting in our energy, yet continuing for those few moments in which we did. Because those moments were like the quietness of a perfect, perfect night, like the volatile beauty of a dirty, half-opened window, like the feeling of his breath hitching against my skin or the accidental brush of my hair against his collar. We were always as bright or as dark as our understanding of each other.

In the car, on the way home, I watched his hands light up intermittently underneath the pale, reaching street lights. I tried to memorized the way his knuckles are so pronounced and the bump on the side of his wrist that's more noticeable than most people's. The little swell of bone that I always kiss. I love the way his fingers are thin, slightly fanning out toward the tip. I love the way he drives with his legs relaxed and apart, reminiscent of some sexual overtone and entirely comfortable. I love the way he'll look at me randomly as he drives and take his hands off the wheel to scare me. I love so many things about the way he walks, touches, listens, reaches out; yet I will never say I love him. And he will never say he loves me, although he did tell me that he's thankful.

When he said goodbye, he hugged me and kissed the edges of my lips, and I told him to stay safe. He laughed a little and didn't respond, not looking upset by the fact that we'd never have this again, but at the same time emanating a particular shade of yearning that made me feel as though time is the most corrosive force in life. The last picture in my mind is of him, smiling out of the car, hair swept across his eyes.

.

absence seizure

2009-02-01T19:54:00.000-08:00

.

Here we are, practicing the art of each other. Here we are with hands outstretched, reaching with an eager, awakened yearning for a new understanding of skin, of cause and effect; what will make the body shake, and what will make it arch. Here we are with a goodbye held afloat between the plain of your gaze and mine, simmering into me and also into you. Here we are without words. Here we are with half an understanding of what faith in another person should be. Here we are in the dimness, trembling, loving, somewhat. Here we are with our hips touching and our knowledge of each other slanted toward the delicacy of the moment. Here we are feeling young in years and eternal in heart, yet slightly aged in our scope for sadness. Here we are facing the start of another era, one i which we will learn, again, blame and forgiveness, vulnerability and fear. Here we are without any doubt over who can feel the deepest and who can love most easily. Here we are with our minds calm and blood racing, unable to speak louder than the sound of skin against skin. Here we are with no concerns. Here we are, amazed. Here we are with a sense of failure and longing that threatens to make the darkness around us seem like home. Here we are with very little to gain and too much to lose. Here we are diving in anyway. Here we are with a mask of strength and a tendency to smile when kissed a certain way. Here we are, together.

.

MAYBE MY GREATEST FEAR IS THAT I AM POWERFUL, BUT INADEQUATE

2009-01-31T17:47:00.000-08:00

.

I prevail. With the help of a voice or an ear at times, I prevail.

take me to the room where your brother was born;
we can watch the curtains sway and the walls drip
with rain and grime

Kaya Scodelario is my love. Mary and Lily--you guys watch Skins. You know how amazingly beautiful she is as Effy, particularly in the new series 3. I think I'm falling half in love. She's so gorgeous and ethereal in a way, yet intricately pathetic, too...

.

what is it that your mother said.

2009-01-27T17:03:00.000-08:00

.

february is the month of starvation.
i can feel the wind on my face: this week it is cold, and last week it burned me as if i needed to confess. i still don't know what.

we will dance again, someday...

.

pub based mayhem

2009-01-24T22:32:00.000-08:00

.

out with the old :/

in with the new :]

playlist:
halfway home--tv on the radio
nude--radiohead
radio cure--wilco
shove it--santogold

A: Class, settle down. This is Jane--she's a new student from California; everyone give a warm welcome. Now, Jane why don't you introduce yourself and tell the class your name, where you're from, and oh, I dunno--demonstrate a talent and say a few things about you that are interesting.
B: Right. Well you just said my name and where I'm from and I don't really fancy being repetitive. Any talents that I'm willing to expose require the removal of certain articles of clothing and are thus inappropriate for these circumstances. Unless, of course, you'd like me to try and demonstrate without removing any clothing, which could also be intriguing. Things that make me interesting include my vocabulary and my ability to make you hate me but want me all at once. I'm also bisexual.
A: ...Right. Thank you. Uh... well, I suppose you can sit down now; there's an empty seat behind Calvin.

.

the sun will spread our

2009-01-16T20:33:00.000-08:00

.

I'm pretty excited for the inauguration. I want to go to Philadelphia.

day by numbers...
coffee cups: 3
cigs: 3
basketball games seen: 2
soccer games seen: 1
shirts worn: 5
bruises: 2

During the weekend it is, thankfully, easier for me to sleep. I wake up later, at least, after having gone to bed in the early morning... it's noon and I can hear the piano.. My mother is playing and singing softly: hymnals and other praise songs. The rising chord progressions wake me, shaking the sleep away with the movement of the songs. It's beautiful waking up like this, but I get up from bed with a heavy heart each time, unable to stay in bed because my thoughts are sinful, and my mother's music invades my mind. The blanket feels too warm, and I sit up in bed with a sigh; I recognize the song and contemplate singing along, but I never do. The sun is shining too harshly, and the sounds of a distant freeway rush through the window. I'm still tired.

.

SHE'S BACK

2009-01-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

.

from the college application GRAVE, yo!

There will be nothing particularly serious in this post. Why? Because I haven't slept in god knows how long, I'm cranky, I'm cramped, and I can't bring myself to think properly. Even writing that sentence was an agonizing mental exercise.

I'm slowly burning out.

Hello again.
SO.

SHOPPING

I have gone on a shopping bonanza since I've been gone: Mary and Lily will both appreciate this, really. I've never spent so much money on clothes at once. Items include:

BCBG Max Azria 2 Piece Suit: Jacket& Pants
BCBG Max Azria gold jacquard skirt
BCBG Max Azria Runway satin creme blouse.

A roughly $1200 package I got for less than $400. Why? Because I am the sale scouting queen of the western hemisphere, that's why.

I will take pictures and post.

I also bought a shitload of stuff from Urban Outfitters; if my soulmate was a clothing store, UO would be it, I think...

Covet Organic French Terry Cardigan

BDG Oversized Funnel Neck Jacket

Kimchi Blue Chiffon Floral Print Blouse

Kimchi Blue Ruffle Peacoat

Silence & Noise Waterfall Top

Silence & Noise Ombre Fringe Halter Top

Cheap Monday Leather Caroline Skirt

Kimchi Blue Briefcase Bag

Now each one of these would ahve cost at least 70 dollars at most 200, but once again: sale scouting queen of the western hemisphere

...yeah. I almost feel dirty for having spent so much. But this is a once in a lifetime experience for me, so...

CHRISTMAS

I received:

iPod touch
Heima (Sigur Ros documentary)
A Cross the Universe (Justice documentary)
Part of the Weekend Never Dies (Soulwax documentary)
Tales of the Beedle and the Bard (JK Rowling)
Reddish faux leather fold-over shoulder purse

>

Gave to my mother: BCBG Max Azria wool coat, which I fortunately found for $150 marked down from $450

Gave to my father: Adidas golf footwear

Gave to my sister: 1 year membership to the Sierra Club

Gave to my baby sister: Crayola Mixables and Crayola Twistables

NEW YEARS

On new year's eve I went with Julienne to see MILK, then over to her house to celebrate with a handful of other people/countdown.
Then on new year's night I went out with friends to do something that I no longer have any recollection of.

OTHER SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

Mr. Gunderson gave me a beignet
I made 1st chair for All-Southern and also made All-State and am now practicing for those seating auditions
Finished college apps (FUCK)
Cut back severely on smoking. This will work, damnit.

i want to want nothing.

2008-12-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

.

I am on hiatus until perhaps mid-January.

Going through some personal issues and also working through college apps. Channel me any strength or wisdom. I'll take it with as much grace as I am capable of bearing.

After the hiatus I will be back with full force, because I know no other form of force.

.

michelle wie is surprisingly not articulate. but lily, on the other hand...

2008-12-07T21:02:00.000-08:00

.

stupidxstace (9:01:22 PM): *le sigh*
stupidxstace (9:01:25 PM): what i would love
stupidxstace (9:01:28 PM): is a justice remix
stupidxstace (9:01:29 PM): of mama mia
stupidxstace (9:01:33 PM): holy fucking shit cock

tee hee
HEE HEE
HA !

.

my name is overwhelming to me

2008-12-04T19:53:00.001-08:00

.

tonight i go out and bless the air for being so cold.

i was thinking about music and god today as we were discussing the dan graham exhibit that's coming up for moca..
it's interesting how for some people, music is enough--the human mind is enough; emotions and beauty of life are enough and more to fill us and to motivate us into obsession, passion, pride... the doors, patti smith, sonic youth... you watch their live concert videos and both the musician and the crowd are completely pulled underneath a tide of very human, very honest and very raw energy.
but for others.. they spend the majority of their lives searching for more, yearning and following something that is greater than life (could anything ever be?) and praying fervently for something that lies outside of human understanding. this thing called faith and it's demands on the soul... i don't know.
i don't know which is greater; i don't know which constitutes a better life. i think these things change with age, and i think these things can coexist, although it's never easy to bear.

.

i just sit and question for hours upon hours, and then i'm given morning; because that's just how the world works--it just give you a brand new day

2008-12-03T19:11:00.000-08:00

.

music: sigur ros--ara batur; makes me want to cry and laugh and run and shout and love everyone

sometimes i want to leave everything and go to europe, meet someone funny enough to room with and share nice wine with him.
sometimes i want to cry until the day shakes away from me.
sometimes i want to make foreign policy decisions and write treaties.
sometimes i just have to assume that the crevices in my brain haven't started cracking and bleeding.
sometimes i want to do nothing but lie in the comfortable, soft bed of my favorite boy all day, smoking with him and being soft-spoken.
sometimes i want to bang my head against the wall.
sometimes i want to be secretary general of the united nations.
sometimes i would rather be a hermit and isolate myself from everyone.
sometimes i want to spend entire days in parks and laugh and laugh and laugh.

all the time, i don't know.

you are the war to end all the wars inside me. the soldier runs, face scarred and mind ablaze with the thought of home. and in the distance a sun quakes. closer, the heart echoes. i feel the tremors stop, the voices halt, and your blood is on my hands again. the fight is still and quiet, giving us time to cry as we need, to sing as we must and to love in the only way we can.

.

i take your clothes off and they fall reluctantly, as if they know how much of an honor it is to be on your body.

2008-11-27T23:41:00.000-08:00

.

thanksgiving
was nice--dinner with jennifer and lisa. food is overwhelming. we went for a walk/smoke later and talked.

i'm thankful for my friends. i'm thankful for lily, mary, dominique and neha. rick, beautiful rick, and chris--forever my chris. and i'm thankful for mayur mayur mayur. mayur, idiotic mayur.

i'm thankful for family. my sisters. my mother. my father.

and i'm thankful for the beautiful things; the things that i know exist in this world, even though often they are hidden by other, more saddening things.

.

mary mary. sweet mary.

2008-11-25T21:51:00.000-08:00

.

it's raining outside.
it makes me want to weep.
the world is new.

it has been a while, my loves. my hearts. my souls.

since i've been gone i've
rekindled a friendship and
discussed having a romantic relationship with said friend
although i really think i like
someone else
who is too old and too uninterested and too...
nice
for me.

keeping my shirt on didn't do much good.

chuck palahniuk said that "when you're an addict, you can go without feeling anything except drunk or stoned or hungry. still, when you compare this to other feelings to sadness anger, fear, worry, despair, and depression, well, an addiction no longer looks so bad. it looks like a very viable option."
i am addicted to cigarettes, staying awake, sex, coffee, self-destructive behavior, writing, painting, and chris.
but. like chuck said. compared to everything else, i'm fine with what i've got.

keeps the monsters at bay.

i will post more-- promise.

secret heart...

2008-11-11T22:50:00.000-08:00

.

... why so mysterious ?

i... am unsure. last time, i did this to keep him. i offered myself physically and made myself into temptation in order to ensure that he would stay. i used my body to keep him close to me, and we fucked in my room, the window open and the sun bright. it was too bright for me. i've rarely felt so dirty and vulnerable before. i saw everything, his facial expression and the clenched jaw. it was the worst.
and now, this time, i can't be positive that i'm not doing it again. it's been a year since we've spoken, emotions have been either erased or sufficiently subdued, but i'm still relatively frightened of him, or more frightened of what he is capable of making me feel. so when i kiss him, i don't know whether or not it's because i'm insecure. i don't even know how secure i am. i want to put my fingers on his lips and whisper that i'm scared; but he'd only tell me not to be, that it will be different, and i won't really believe him.

i told him i wasn't confused. i think i lied.

.

YES, WE CAN

2008-11-05T17:56:00.000-08:00

sometimes we sit close and i scheme to get closer to you

2008-11-03T22:21:00.000-08:00

.

WHEW .

fri/sat: halloween-- HARD FEST. justice, crystal castles, soulwax, crookers, simian, etc. my ears are still ringing in this beautiful, beautiful way. this is going to keep me happy for the rest of the fucking month.
then, SAT IIs. pfffft.
then, LILY. and unurban and.. gigi? and smoking too much and too much coffee and not enough eating, or sleeping, for that matter...
and... galactic violet birds.

3:23 i went crazy.

you just have no fucking idea how amazing it was...

wonderful, isn't it

2008-10-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

.

G: I was thinking about how it hasn't rained yet and how I'm a little scared of it raining. I remember you smelled a lot like rain.
C: When I'm off lockdown, idk when that will be, would you like to hang out or get something to eat one day?

often, i feel uncontrolled; hunger is satisfying because in my mastery over it, i'm assured a sense of satisfaction that is derived from unadulterated denial. i feel composed. i feel focused. i feel like i'm making progress. i feel like i am literally answering to myself and refuting the forces that push me toward chaotic gluttony. i feel sharper and more confident.
maybe that's what i crave-- the confidence. the strength of will that i can hold and lick and devour and possess with incandescent greed. it's mine, and i won't give it to you. it sounds like a sick concept, even to me. but we're all sick. we're all twisted in some form or another. we all crave certain things for entirely impure reasons. we all lie and cheat and whore ourselves. we all relish being degraded in some way or another. we're all voyeurs and exhibitionists, tantalized by the idea of bondage and submission. we all crave power. we all sin whenever we convince ourselves that god can't be watching. we all cry when we realize again that he's always watching. we all take pleasure in pain--our own or that of others. we all curse our deities. we all masturbate. we all enjoy temptation in this glistening, sinful way.

and if you call me a cynic for thinking that way, i'm just going to ask that you prove me wrong.

i'm pretty sure i ate less than 500 calories today. which is good, i suppose. mrs. park saw me and told me that i look like i've lost some weight. which is also good. but i will not stop until my BMI is at least 4 points lower. i refuse to stay so fat. i refuse. i refuse.

but i still feel like i'm getting f a t t e r.

.

the black force in blood that wakes, wakes, wakes

2008-10-25T02:20:00.000-07:00

these days i have been forced to judge myself as others would judge me, to worry about how i appear to others. i really hate that. more than anything, i think it degrades my sense of knowing who i am, makes me more detached from myself. i really hate it.

i got back from deadline night. it was stressful, just because feature theme was rather late and a&e needed a lot of touching up. i sat in front of a laptop, working on photoshop for around 45 minutes or so before getting a text from R. i guess he was looking for booze and fun people, but before he found them he came and talked with me for a bit. we sat on the stairs and smoked, then sat on the bleachers and kissed. i told him to stay safe when he left.

the other day, i saw someone that i wasn't prepared to see. you know how there are certain people in your life that you just have to brace yourself for--certain individuals who, because your history with them is so... dense, you have to grit your teeth and tell yourself a few things before you can actually physically face them?
i almost passed him without noticing. but then i saw his nose. i know that nose anywhere. and i bounced down the stairs as softly as i could and peeked. he saw me and i blinked, then left. he was on the phone. as i was walking back up, i heard his footsteps behind me and started to climb the stairs faster, and when i got to the top, i turned around, and there he was, coming back up. he has a green t-shirt on. his hair looked darker than i remembered. it had grown out again. he waved. i gave as much of a smile as i could. someone called him from the gate and he said "that's my cousin"
i nodded and left, not really turning to see if he had gone.
over a year of not speaking to each other, and then, "that's my cousin"
the encounter disoriented me for the rest of the day. you know how you get that out-of-body feeling--you feel as if you are an illusion, a meaningless blob of barely functioning blubber. weak bones. it was disheartening, but also a relief that i wasn't drastically affected. i wasn't crying or shaking or thinking of old memories. that was the best part: seeing him but being able to keep myself from actually thinking about him.

right now its 215am. i'm sketching, writing a bit. then i'll sleep a few hours and wake up in time to finish some work before rehearsal tomorrow.
my exhaustion is reaching an unreasonable extent.

for you, i am unhurt. but for me, i'm frightened.

2008-10-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

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there are certain beauties that shine from inside my eye, outward toward the world, so that i never know whether the source is within me, or if its merely a reflection of external wonderment. i can feel them glow when my thoughts get hazy, and i'm lifted into a calmer state of mind, where i can think of old hurts and new patches of rawness without the sadder strains of emotion.
my foot is on a ledge of a bureau on which faded pictures are scattered, half burned. a candle sinks too fast and the wood is cold.

before nov 1 i must finish:
studying for physics, mathIIc, lit subject tests
stanford supplement/common/rec letters/secondary school report and send everything

that's in less than two weeks. i feel like a fish in a boiling metal pot.

warcut

2008-10-17T00:39:00.000-07:00

.

these days i have been fighting migraines, wearing sparkly skirts and trying not to cry and trying not to kiss all these boys that i half love, half want to be with, but could never give myself to.

these days i want to talk to c--- again, even though that would be a very delicate thing. a perhaps dangerous thing. i just need to "set things right" and be able to not wonder.

i don't believe in the sun.
sometimes i believe in me.
i believe in the moon
the tide
and the anger
you paint me with.
but i don't believe in
memories or
the way you move your mouth.
i don't believe in you.
i don't believe in you.

.

pass the parcel

2008-10-11T21:41:00.000-07:00

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the crack of light underneath your eye is disheartening. i've never seen it there before, and i guess i expected more from you.

these days i feel perpetually tired, perhaps because of the exhaustion of applications and whatnot, or perhaps because journalism is so draining, or perhaps because i'm just extremely sick of having all this negative energy flood into me when i am not in a position to relieve it.

these days i've been wishing that i still did coke.

these days i haven't been finishing everything that i need to finish. i haven't been losing weight either. i haven't been seeing friends or writing in my journal, i haven't been sketching and i haven't been singing. i apologize for the rather gloomy mood, but i feel rather grey these days.

today my mother needed to get some jeans, so i went shopping with her and ended up buying:
leopard print shorts (21)
black gladiator heels (21)
long-sleeved cardigan (gap)
black/silver sequined skirt (express)
multicolored print/sequin skirt (express)

then came home and cut a pair of my mother's extremely old jeans to fashion a pair of shorts before going to meet eric for physics. he bought me milk tea and i stole a no smoking sign from near the stairwell

i believe this is from the recent sonia rykiel show...

.

it's getting colder. the bones begin to cool and remind you of certain, rainier memories.

2008-10-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

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i spent today watching the starter wife and thus feeling like a lazy, divorced woman with trust issues. it was a combination of watching debra messing make feeble attempts to take charge of her own life and being incredibly frustrated with my lack of cigarettes. i left my pack in genesis' car.

*head desk*

but, now, i have finished english homework, i don't feel like finishing the rest of my homework, and i think i'll a) finish more of the common app b) print out the TE forms and c) study for physics.

then maybe i'll clean my room

.

LOVVVER FOREVVVER

2008-10-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

.

today i felt no need for it, but most of the time i wish that escape could be a definite provision.

today, the machine behind my eyes is eating me.

sometimes when i paint things, i want to give them to people. but sometimes the paintings look scary, and i don't know how to stop them from looking that way.

sometimes writing is overwhelming. with art, it's different--when i'm making a sculpture or drawing, i feel more in control because the distance is shorter: the distance between your brain-hand-sketchbook or brain-hand-sculpture is shorter, more manageable, than the distance between the brain-journal. i feel less autonomous. i feel like people will know things. the line between open and vulnerable is much thinner with writing.
sometimes that's a good thing. but i think, for me, most of the time it's not.

sometimes we need to be loved more than once in order to understand that when the music dies down, and the night goes to rest, all that matters is that soft, lingering kiss.

.

sing quietly

2008-09-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

are you doing her

2008-09-22T20:02:00.001-07:00

.

at times i need to be loved... more than once.
those times, sadness paints me inside and out,
sweeping brushstrokes across the plain of my bones.
but then some fallible sense of carelessness tries furiously
to rub it away.

i danced today. listening to sigur ros.
conducting some 70 piece orchestra in my mind.
my legs, gracelessly swaying,
my eyes shut.

tony: my head's forgotten bits of me. all sorts of bits.

what have i been doing lately

smoking
fucking
studying
singing

what have you been doing lately?

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PLANETS

2008-09-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

.

RATHER LENGTHY POST:
(sorry but I feel like talking)

FRDY:

Deadline night/ Branding Iron game
Deadline night was slightly infuriating because of the slow pace and the fact that we finished at 1 AM. We did eat Moca Salsa, though, which was delicious. And earlier on in the evening I went with Kevin and Janice to watch Burn After Reading, which was a wonderfully dark comedy. Tilda Swinton was amazing, as was George Clooney and John Malkovich. Brad Pitt just looked like he had a fucking shitload of fun while he filmed it. He must have, given his character. I think he acted just like Kevin does, actually. Just a little crazier. Oh, and Frances McDormand was hilarious yet disturbing as well.

And as for the Branding Iron game, I did not attend because of deadline night, but I did go down to the field with press badges and our photographers to make sure they got good shots ... and to see Mr. Gunderson

STRDY:

Took the ACT in the morning. Fuck it. Fuck all standardized testing.

Then R picked me up and we choo choo over to his optometrist, then Yorba Linda to go to Joann's. Then to his house so his roommate can make some makeshift tie for him out of tape and the fabric he bought. Then J leaves. Then R and I kill time before picking L up at work. Then.. then then what . Then we drive over to San Bernadino for fucking NOCTURNAL.
Which was progressively fun. I say progressively because at first it wasn't all that great, what with the bastards and the e that took forever to kick in. But as the night got older, it got to be so fucking amazing.
I admit that the pills were too mellow. But they didn't serve me all too badly.
And the music also got increasingly better as it got later. Which reminds me: when we stepped in the gate, there was a middle-aged white man with extremely long blonde tresses in a gold viking armorish suit playing the electric cello.
After the sun went down, I saw planets and met too many people that I don't remember and watched these people named Guy (?) and Steve (?)do illusionist tricks with these clear acrylic globes. Fucking tripped me out. I kept seeing little people inside them.
And the TREES. There were GORGEOUS TREES that looked kind of like monsters with wonderful layers of thick bark and leaves like none I've seen before. And then the colored paper lanterns in them that kept looking like solar system. And then the cool grass underneath that we laid on for so long...
Damn it was great.
Then L and I headed for the Top Ten Tent... R went somewhere, I think to see So Me. We got in while the second to last DJ was spinning so we could get upfront for for for DIGITALISM. And then DIGITALISM. I was right up front with L, holding onto the railing, rolling on the second pill right as they started spinning.
The fact that I was here makes me so happy:

DIGITALISM
DIGITALISM
DIGITALISM
DIGITALISM
I never knew that Jence was so cute. I've never really seen pictures of them in person, but when the duo got on stage i was all WHO THE FUCK IS THIS BEAUTIFUL SKINNY WHITE BOY. Most likely his German blood, yeah?

From NOCTURNAL:

Then went to R's house with L at like what 5 AM?
It is now technically

SNDAY:

J was asleep but woke up briefly. R smoked a little bowl and went straight to sleep, as did L in on the sofa downstairs. But MOI. I took a walk with a cig in hand, freezing my ass off and terrified because everything I saw--every shadow, fire hydrant, car, etc-- looked like PEOPLE. Got kind of lost but eventually made it back. Then I took a shower, changed into R's tshirt/boxers and went downstairs to watch HOUSE. Fell asleep on little futon thing.

I slept for two hours before waking up again at 845 AM because it was too fucking cold. I read, wrote, laid down, went on a walk, smoked cig after cig until noon, when finally everyone else started waking up. R went back to sleep and I laid next to him for a bit, then left, went downstairs for D's coffee. Then J made muffins and taught me how to make a shake with the Baskin Robbin's shake machine.

Fucking Awesome. New appreciation for butter pecan.

Then went outside with J and talked about.. about what, politics history literature movies? D joined us and eventually L when she finally woke up. R stumbled out at one point or another. Then R took L back to her car and I played on J's laptop and helped him fold his laundry until R got home. Then eventually J left for work and R and I had... fun. Then it got dark and I smoked half a pack in the dark while R talked online with his friend in Canada, who told me to shut up. Then R took a shower and I tried to gather all my shit before we left. I think I left a shirt next to J's bed, in spite of my attempt to not forget anything.
And now I'm home. Mlehk.

FUCK!!!
DIGITALISM!!!

.

how low can you go.

2008-09-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

.

i believe that i am masochistically attracted to constant movement, constant work. i don't like taking the metro because the lines confuse me. i don't like feeling like i am not THERE. and i do not like the awkwardness of speaking and not being heard. i hate the fact that i have been given this beautiful imagination and that i find within myself such dissatisfying or detrimental sources on which this imagination grows. i dream about things that make me sad. i can not stand the instances in which others that once seemed so rational suddenly meet a barrier, on which we stand at opposite ends, forever incapable of breaching our fears and prejudices, our secrets and our hopes.

i think i'm in love with my teacher. it was relatively cold today.

things that save me, once, twice, thrice over:

no official music video. i hope the quality does this song justice. because holy fuck, man. holy fuck:

today i met a lot of people. first day at MAP. esteban. carolyn. berkely. dalia. karina. edwin. ellen. there were a lot more. but i'm bad with names.
we spoke of marlene dumas and other things.

so today i moca'd it out.
tommorow, friday: watch burn after reading with kevin; go to deadline night get home at midnight and SLEEP for test the next day.
day after, saturday: 8am ACT testing; then NOCTURNAL.
later, sunday: cool down down down and then moca for toca assistant-ing.

.

"A stone had been dropped into the well, the well was my youthful soul."

2008-09-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

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Der Vogel kämpft sich aus dem Ei. Das Ei ist die Welt. Wer geboren werden will, muss eine Welt zerstören. Der Vogel fliegt zu Gott. Der Gott heisst Abraxas.
The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

--HERMAN HESSE, Demian

From my journal--a page from Demian and a metro ticket I found tucked into my battered copy of Blindness I bought used from Amazon.

Today I got up at 730 and went to Elite, where I was told that I looked scholarly today, perhaps because of my glasses, since I was wearing Gap skinnies and a bright green shirt-dress I tied into a tunic... which is also from Gap, now that I think of it... bought it for 10 bucks on sale while I was in junior high. It says "peace" all over it.
And I was wearing my leather jacket too. I don't know how Mr. Mann got "scholarly." I swear they keep the rooms freezing cold just to ensure that you'll stay awake...

After I walked over to Albertson's because I needed some superglue for my sculpture; I was in a rush and finally reached the cashier, only to have her ask me for my ID.
"I need to be 18 to buy.. superglue."
"Yeah. Sorry."
"You know you keep it next to the elementary school supplies, right above the Hannah Montana notebooks?"
It would be nice if it was placed somewhere that indicates that one needs to be a legal adult to purchase it.

Then went to Barnes&Nobles. Read Demian again and it hit me, as it does every time I read that book, why exactly it has been one of my favorites for years.

After coming home my family went over to my neighbors; my father drank too much beer and my mother looked as though she had an enormous migraine. I felt both pity for her and anger at my father, who was singing with the neighbors far too loudly. But then I also felt irritated with her-- she was the one who had insisted we come and say hello, and now she was irritable.
I met the neighbor's son who's a year older than me, but in the same grade.
I came home with my sisters. My parents are still over there, singing...

Thursday I went to R--'s, stole his shirt and drank 6 beers, spoke with M-- on the phone for roughly half an hour and smoked hooka and cigarettes. I saw K--; she seems to have changed a bit. And A-- and some guy named M--. They played beer pong and I closed my eyes and sort of snoozed in J--'s bed, which smelled like him. Then J-- came home and rushed into the room with that overtly energetic gait of his. He said hello and asked if I was enjoying the bed.
"Where did yesterday's shorts go?"
"They stayed with yesterday."

.

hit me, you fucker.

2008-09-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

.

the house smells like ant repellent and old spice.

the burden of pleasing you has devolved upon someone else. so leave, and stop your whining.

i had been craving two things: the movie "closer" and the book "out of her mind."
i couldn't find either and thought myself insane for a while, and then was terrified that i had LOST the said dvd and book.
but then i found out i let gimin?jimin?geemin? borrow "closer" and i had lent "out of her mind" to miss chen, neither of whom have returned their respective lended objects. which is fine, really, i was just afraid that i had lost them.

but i still want to watch closer, and read a few excerpts from that book...

yes, he loved the Lord.
but grace does not remove certain shadows, and the scorn of mortals proves resistant to even the frosted breath of God. and He may forgive you, but sometimes you sleep on a scarred back, with self-inflicted wounds. sometimes the lack of light begins in your arteries. sometimes your inability to love yourself makes you second guess your love for everyone else. including God, the Father, who art in heaven. sometimes such questions consume you--you allow them to, slipping into some false bliss.

i will burn you into the end of the earth

2008-08-30T23:21:00.000-07:00

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mr. moran sounds like an italian mob don and looks like xavier from xmen.
i can't concentrate in fifth period.
some people in my lit class are insufferable bigots.

music:
redial: 45 overdrive
vanshe: sex city
tilly and the wall: tall tall grass
the kills: fuck the people
thom yorke: tell me why

book:
may it please the court

movie:
closer

dream:

can i talk to you. in private.

no.

please.

i'm not going anywhere with you. stay here and talk or leave.

i didn't know what to do. all i knew was that things weren't what they used to be like and i couldn't take it.

did you expect it to be the same?

yes. yes i did.

you always expect the wrong things.

i am resurrected.
you are more life than i have ever seen.

.

INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY

2008-08-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

.

.

the most necessary and unholy baptism has occurred

2008-08-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

.

Today I spit out a first name that no longer matters to me. I ruined a mood and I kissed dry, chapped lips, licking plaque-covered teeth. Today I looked up--there were no clouds; I felt the sky, vast and unending as it is, consume my mind, starting with its insides. Today I was an exhibitionist. A sweaty exhibitionist. Today I was a creation. Today I pulled at something that didn't need any more tension and snapped a string, unraveling a machine and lapping the oil that seeped over the gears. Today I held back and did not say the things that would have freed me. Today I did not sigh when I needed to and felt the waiting breath ache within me. Today I laughed too much and smiled too little.

And tonight I watch my sisters play and listen for my mother's melodies as she coaxes our baby grand piano. Those songs bleed with me--I know neither their titles nor their purposes, but the melodies I know by rote, unwillingly, most of the time. Tonight I do not sleep and instead work for something unattainable, fighting advances that I wish would flee from me and move on to seek other victims--my heart, my lungs, my kidneys, but please, not my mind. Tonight I tame my stomach for the sake of experience, memorize a freeway system, dream while awake.

My day and my night are immersed in the air above a winding road--the road on which the ambulance and squad cars move; the road on which the drunken girls lucky enough to make it home unbroken stumble; the road on which the sun leaves its heat.
My day and my night are no more a part of me than the dusk. My days sink and escape; my nights beg incoherently of something unfamiliar and perverse. Sin and healing, deafness and tortous spirals laced with prayer.

You are the space in between days.
This leaves me with no time.
I love once and hard,
branching too far, then,
like a lesion,
I weep,
having been torn
like your philosophies--
your easily fallible philosophies

our
easily fallible philosophies
that I remember forming
with burns and tongues
back
when our sleep was rude
and the arch of the sun
was like a womb.

we fly from sidewalk to monolith

2008-08-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

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it's two in the morning.
i write on your skin. "Mine. I lick your bone."
maybe the reason i am so willing to sleep with boys, or men, is because it's the quickest way to learn each other.

they are all the same and all different.
some of them love very well. some not so well. but those who do are worse at other things.
i take their cigarettes and stare at ceilings and whisper. sometimes it feels like church, but with laughter. sometimes it feels like being rubbed raw. you spit and moan to hide fear and vulnerability.
you can't live with disgrace. i cover mine sometimes with cushions. sometimes with--

i love all of them, some. not with what they say, drunk, at parties. not with the way they remember my skin. we love each other except for the fact that we can't wait to leave, after. and we're not in love with each other's cores, or each other's socks.
i don't even like socks.
i think if we can't love our drunken slurs, how we remember, our facts, cores, socks--this isn't complete love.
this is never complete love. never complete--

this will have to do.
no fondness and such wanting. i have been held. i have
been held.

are there degrees of blindness? because if there are, i'd have to insist that you are more blind than me. i, at the very least, understood the level of clemency that is proportionate to human fallacy. i, at the very least, forgave you. for the first time, anyway. you, on the other hand, were merciless in your standards and irrationally unforgiving--you had no place to not forgive me. it was entirely unfair.

.

i'm a good liar. mostly because i couldn't care less what i say to people, and because i never just lie: i make up a whole story.

2008-08-22T00:23:00.000-07:00

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This is teenage

My best friend is not a Christian.
But he whispers
like the finer things in life I never knew,
and I can remember
sitting in the back of a room together,
the dim light burning between us
as though we were reborn.
I can remember every one
of the easily fallible philosophies
that we created.
To me, they felt like prayers.

.

DEAR ICARUS,

2008-08-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

.

You always fly too close to the sun--you're heart's too wild.
But wild hearts never break.

You lucky bastard.

CURRENT PLAYLIST:

We've been through some damn good times together. We've seen the sun divide itself. We've seen the love of the world become a different form of hate. We've done it all together. We've made each other's beds almost as often as we've made each other's murders. Don't you think it's all a bit odd--this slow song that we play for each other whenever we feel like utter shit. We've been to war together. I've killed for you. You've fucked for me. We are each other's rude awakenings. We are each other's fears and sleeps and reasons for insomnia, each other's manias. You stand on my feet. I stand on your heart. We lick each other's ears.
I think we deserve better.
You want to know the truth? I love waking up next to you. But I would never stay in bed long enough for you to wake up next to me. We're worse when we're together. When I'm with you I want to kiss somebody else.
But when we're apart I ACHE for you.

But it's nothing that I can't fix on my own.

.

.

i wish i could be vulnerable more often than i can afford

2008-08-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

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tension, release, tension, release

maybe i am the selfish one. maybe i am the jealous one. i know people who have never experienced the feeling of jealousy in their lives. i am one than feels it more often that i'd like to.
maybe i have every reason to do so.
maybe i have no reason to do so.
sometimes i want to be liberated from myself. especially from my thoughts and the dense, complicated matter that clings to the inside of my skull. but i can smell, constantly, the rust from the metal shackles that bind me down, keeping me from jumping when i want to, keeping me from dancing when i want to. all i can do is use my voice, sing old beatles songs and whisper things that i wish were my secrets.
but sometimes i can't even do that. or it's not enough.

sometimes i sing and the voice echoes maniacally, morphs into something else that i would never call my own; nonetheless it reveals to me the hurt of my nation and the weaknesses that i really, really hope i will be able to overcome.

this morning i went to love and came back.
then later on in the evening, after studying at chang's for a few hours, i went out with rick, met up with al and mike. i drew a lion on a pillar and wrote "RAWR" next to it. al asked why asian girls always do that.
how should i know.
i wrote lenore kandel words on rick's stomach.
smoked maybe 8 cigarettes.
had a venti americano.

then i came back home and took a two hour long shower, one hour of which i just sat in the shower stall, letting the soap suds and cold water slide my body down.
it was that kind of day.
i scrubbed my body raw today. the washcloth was grey at times, the bathroom smelled like vanilla.
most people don't scrub both legs at once. so after i'm done scrubbing my left leg, i stretched my leg out, and it was funny how it was slightly, oh so slightly lighter than the right one.
made me smile.

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balance through imbalance

2008-08-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

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CURRENT PLAYLIST
Afghan Raiders: Solid Gold (Techjio Remix)
Herve: Cheap Thrills (Detboi Remix)
Sharkslayer: Cold As Ice

we sat there, watching minnows circle. the sunset was in my back and the edge of the bank was damp. like our hair. the wet stones seemed to tease our sight. i had no sense of space or depth. all i could understand was that we were here together, and the little fish were eating each other. my skin felt distantly clammy, and the light hitting the river pushed me into myself as i rode the sunbeams out.
and then your head was on my shoulder. i smelled the muddled aroma of wet skin and dirt and the crook of my neck became warm. the day was just too hot. everything seemed filtered through orange and deep brown. your musk meddled in mine; your sweat fused us together and i didn't understand what was going on. but i smiled and laughed when appropriate, my elbow in the proper pose and all other thoughts away from me. i remembered you as you remembered me.
how do you explain moments like this to yourself. you remember through vague waves of feelings; you remember joy and timidity and softened hope, and then a lingering depression of acceptance, a weight of understanding. i can't remember specific sights, and every time i relive it in my head, something changes. the only thing that remains constant is the result and the smell of your skin.

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be vulnerable for me as i am for you

2008-08-17T00:54:00.000-07:00

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i cut my hair.

i was watching the season 1 dvd set of house m.d. today, and i noticed that white people honestly have no idea how to tell asians apart. there's a certain episode in which the korean actor from harold and kumar guest stars as a patient with a jaw infection and various sexual fetishes. the only person that seems to care for him is his dominatrix. there's a seen in which house coerces his parents into signing a consent form, and i'm thinking... what the fuck, that lady's chinese. and that man over there is japanese... so we have a chinese mother, japanese father and a korean son.
and then, of course, house makes a comment about dumplings. and that's the last straw.
you'd think that the producer's of the show would be a tad more consistent in their casting decisions. but what can i say, we all look the same to them white folk, i suppose....

photographer: chadwick tyler

and his demons--

imogen:

and ida:

i have murmured love against every line of your body. i return to you with fever and false wisdom. i want to be beautiful for you.

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SCINTILLA

2008-08-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

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I just want to live with myself
And enjoy the Good I owe Heaven,
Alone, with no witnesses,
Free of love, jealousy,
Hatred, hopes and suspicion.

--Fray Luis de Leon

At times I sympathize with my mother. At times my father is insensitive. Most of the time I just wish he believed in God. I never really understood the difficulty of being married to someone who is of a different faith, and still, I can't say that I fully understand it, but sometimes I think that I can relate. Or empathize.
Religion... faith... constitutes so much of who you are. The beliefs that ground you, morally and emotionally, the tenets that guide you subconsciously throughout every action you make--it all defines you. And when you choose to be with someone for the rest of your life, you allow that person to define you too. And when that part of you meets your faith, and they don't agree... you lose so much of yourself and your effort. Life becomes tolerance, this enormous, taxing effort to maintain your beliefs while committing to someone who doesn't understand, or doesn't accept them. You become that much more vulnerable. My mother can't go to choir practice without feeling guilty to my father. Sometimes it seems like he doesn't respect her beliefs at all.
I love them both. But it's difficult to not take sides at times like this. And in regard to how this affects me... I don't know. Everyone who knows me outside of my family can pretty much assume that I don't lead a Christian lifestyle: I have casual sex, I've tried nearly every drug out there, I have the mouth of a damned sailor and my Bible is dusty, to say the least. Yes, I do to church, but I feel that it's more to please my mother than anything else; I struggle tremendously with my faith.
Maybe some of the reasoning behind it is because my parents are both so different in their beliefs. My mother tries her best and she's the most amazing, faithful role model I have. But my father isn't spiritual at all. I feel like my identity in regard to my faith is thus divided.

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GO PHELPS GO !!!!!!!

2008-08-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

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Who saw the opening ceremonies and thought they kicked mother fucking ASS!

Shit.

CURRENT PLAYLIST:
Infadels: Free Things (Alex Metric Remix)
Scenario Rock: Skitzo Dancer (Justice Remix)
Coldplay: Fix You

These days I've been saying goodbye.

Today:

I fell asleep at six in the morning, slept until around noon. I woke up, put on some music and toasted some naan for breakfast/lunch. I read a couple essays before going out on the lawn for a smoke. It was a slow morning.
Then my father came to take me to MOCA, which was great-- focused on Marlene Dumas. I had already seen the exhibit, but it was nice to discuss it with the people there. And then we did some painting exercises, focusing on her wet style. Got a few paintings done.

Meeting with Henry for maybe the last time was, thankfully, smooth flowing and not irritating. I think he held back his usual aggravating remarks so I wouldn't get as angry with him as usual. We drove around for half the date, though, be being as horrible as I am with directions. The Irvine Spectrum was just.. lost on me. So we ended up going to Newport, eating at Yardhouse before watching Dark Knight (You catch a lot of things watching it the second time) Although I admit that I was focusing partially on other things...
I don't know when I'll see him again. I don't like that feeling.

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YOU ARE MY PAEAN

2008-08-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

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CURRENT PLAYLIST:
Splittr: All Alone (Alex Metric Vocal)
Proxy: 40 Seconds
Sigur Ros: Sé Lest
The Kills: Cheap and Cheerful (SebastiAn Remix)
Björk: Hyperballad

I had registration todayayay.
My senior year:

0 AP Studio Art: Gee
1 AP Rhetoric: Moran
2 AP Gov/Econ: Lee/Wan
3 Band: Acciani
4 Journalism: Chen
5 AP Music Theory: Gunderson
6 AP Literature: Kelly
7 Marching Band: Gunderson

Damn could today fry EGGS. After registration, I went to the bakery for chestnut bread and cream cheese pastries; then I went off to Elite for four hours of torturous, yet bittersweetly humorous classes. Torturous because it's just Elite, and torture is ingrained in the walls of the place, and bittersweetly humorous because it's Mr. Mann, and he's funny.

Things I must finish before school starts:
1. all Rhet homework (reading 3 books, writing 3 essays, finishing UC personal statements)
2. all Lit homework (analyzing 8 poems, reading 4 books, 4 AP book reports)
3. my CD/glass sculpture

I'm fucking screwed and tired to death already.
But hey, at least there's a party.

All the gold you wear will save you in the end. I feel the beating rush and the gentle flow. We wash each other at the water's edge, and I beg to be turned to stone. Your hair is sticking to your forehead, and your lips are cold like fish and skin of cooled cantaloupe. I want to taste them. I want to love in a manner that is, at the very least, like the manner in which the flowers you placed in behind my ear move when I walk. This gold will save you in the end, I whisper as I place my toes on yours and we face each other, my hands on your knees and your hands on mine. The birds leave, and the beating grows stronger. The water will reflect the workings of our heads. For now, we smile.

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SOME GENTLEMAN YOU TURNED OUT TO BE

2008-08-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

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CURRENT PLAYLIST
Santogold+Justice: L.E.S.D.A.N.C.E
Danger: 11h30
Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip: Angles
Frank Omura: The Juggernaut Audition
The Management: Kids (Afterschool Dance MegaMix)

CURRENT READS
Ian McEwan: Amsterdam
Seneca: Slaves

Aujourd'hui, I went to the Quest Diagnostics lab to get my blood tests over with. While I was waiting to get my insurance papers in order, I saw a a little Chinese girl, maybe little over a year old. She stared at me while I made faces at her and smiled when I puffed my cheeks. But then she had to get a shot, and when she came back out, she clung to her father and cried. I hate that. And then there was this little white boy who started whining in this incredibly sad high pitched voice when his mother went into the doctor's office, but his father calmed him down and the kid soon began running around, looking shyly over to where my mother and I were sitting.. it was the cutest thing.
The TV in the waiting room was set to some AccentHealth channel; this is how I know how pointless it is to take SRC in high school: all they talked about was which vegetables have high vitamin C content and how you should always where a helmet when you skateboard... why anyone would pay to have that TV channel is beyond me. Maybe just to see Dr. Sanjay Gupta and his odd eyebrow flexibility lecture you on mirror therapy for amputees...
Who knows.

Anyway. The blood test was, thankfully, short, none of that goddamn stick a needle in me 7 times to look for the right vein shit. My mother said that the Quest Lab tends to have more proficient nurses.

I used to be terrified of taking blood tests, that huge needle and the ridiculously tight rubber band--make a fist... and, relax. Now I figure that since I have to take one twice a year, might as well watch as they do it and wonder at how quickly the little test tube fills up with my blood. But it's still cold in the lab, and the patient's chair looks like something one would be executed in. But whatever.

After we went to Yoshinoya, and my mother laughed at the amount of ginger I spilched from them. I said that I didn't take too much, that would be mean, and then I opened my container and all of the rice was covered in nice, fresh red ginger.
Muaha. I'm Korean. Leave me alone with my ginger.

And then I went to Chang's suffered for three hours before going to Chino with my mom. We looked around at Target then picked up my sister and hit Barnes&Nobles, where I got to page 131 of Ian McEwan's Amsterdam. I really do like his style of writing-- it's very introspective and.. slow moving. He takes the time to ponder detail after detail and every thought; he seems to know the characters incredibly intimately, and he sure as hell knows how to tell a story...
Anyway. I can't wait to finish the book.

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Very interesting blog. Very.
But very NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Don't say I didn't warn you:
http://www.theingoing.blogspot.com/

MOOD: WOWBEENS

2008-08-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

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CURRENT PLAYLIST
Beastie Boyz: Intergalactic (Yellus Remake)
Justice: DVNO (LA Riots Remix)
Beck: Modern Guilt
Radiohead: Nude (Holy Fuck Remix)
LetroN: Don't Need No Man

The last one is like Uffie times two. I listen because it makes me feel like one of those girls that call themselves independent women when they should really just call themselves sluts.

Today I jumped around with my baby sister while listening to MSTRKRFT's remix of Justice's D.A.N.C.E
She's 6. I'm trying to foster a fondness for electro in her while she's young. Muahaha.

I haven't updated in a while, have I? Welllll, since the last post.
Oh shit I met up with Domo. That was fun. She biked, I scootered, and what do you get when you mix those elements with HEAT and a couple issues of Interview? Something pretty chill, I suppose; something pretty dazzle dazzle. It was nice to be able to hang with her before she heads up to SanFran with flowers in her hair.
And then it was funny because the day after I saw her at the same place while with Ms. Chen.

Went to LAGUNA. Waves roll. So do avocado and shrimp vinaigrette. And of course, being the femme fatales that we are, and Fashion Island being on the way back, we stopped by there, and I f-f-finally got my Obama progress t-shirt, which I will wear as often as possible just to make the thirty bucks worth it. But yes, that day was fun, full of American mass consumerism and salt water.

So, that was Friday (?). Then let's skip to Sunday. I painted for five hours. Straight. It was one of those unstoppable, inevitable periods of overworking and productivity. I still didn't paint anything I would be proud of, however. I don't like how sporadic my creative ethic is, how I'll find myself in lulls of weeks during which I don't even want to look at my sketchpad/paintbrushes, and then during a period of 1-3 three days, I won't be able to do anything else BUT paint and draw. It bothers me that it's so inconsistent.
The same thing goes like flows like blows for my writing.
And then... after getting my hands dirty I grabbed my jeans and my spankin' black leather jacket and went out with Rickckckckckckck. Which resulted in going to McClain's and biting. And talking about deep dark secrets like shhhGOD. After this, what was after this: for some reason which I still don't remember, he had to take Al to Riverside. So we did. And Selfridge played tag-along. It wasn't necessarily the greatest car ride. And Rickckckckck looked half perturbed half indignant the entire way through.
But after we went back to his house Jeff's house and he looked happy again. We moved around underneath black lights, I tried to read a play but failed after my eyes felt fried, and Jeff gave his whole-hearted attention to the impossible quiz, which... I confess I will never find amusement in. I took a 2minute shower and stole Rickckck's Christmas boxers. I was about to tackle Jeff but he held off on the rum, thus excusing him from my great affinity for manhandling semi-innocents. The rum's gone?

Sweet goodbyes.
Frustration.

Monday was shit in a hole and more painting and dealing with insufferably judgmental schoolmates that I can not believe are the same age as me. I beg for patience and find none. How am I supposed to smile, then?

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FINA-FUCKING-LLY.

2008-07-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

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it is OUT. if you haven't seen it go to moviefone and do so NOW.

shi hi hi hi it.
pretty fucking excited.

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5.6? 5.8? earthquake today. i was home alone, sitting downstairs. everything shook and i heard this crash and fall down upstairs. moments of fear tend to tell you things. you want to know what i hate most about earthquakes? the sound of the earth moving. i hate it. i hate it.
it started in chino. henry and i were there on saturday.
that earthquake was all us. yep.

my philosophy class was cancelled because of the earthquake too. which was great, except for the fact that i spent the earlier part of the day writing my argumentative essay in a rush -_-

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you were always the surface of an entirely new reason to fear.

2008-07-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

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right now it's 1207am, and i've spent the entire day home alone doing basically nothing except thinking and writing. my journal's feeling pretty worn out, i bet. as for me, my eyes hurt, my right breast is uncomfortable and my cunt is still sore.
pretty fucking bummed out. nicotine withdrawal is a mother fucking bitch.
i watched hotel chevalier again, and then natalie portman's episode of inside the actor's studio.
that woman makes me want to be lesbian, i swear. she's fucking amazing.
i also measured my bra size today, 32B, and wrote a letter to lily.

it's just been one of those days, you know? where you're just like fuck everything but most of all fuck me.

i need a fucking cigarette, that's my problem. and i need someone to just take my mind off things. don't you hate it when you sink into these moods that can't be removed unless you sleep deeply, dreamlessly? but what the fuck do you do if you're an insomniac that doesn't dream.

you want to know a secret? i'm a massive liar with an affinity for old clothes. everyone thinks that i work best when alone, and that i'm fine with being by myself, but honestly, who likes being lonely, hm? i wish i had a brother and i wish that my hands weren't cold all the time. i wish i could scream right now, but my parents and my sisters are sleeping.

i wish i lived a alone. i wish i lived with all my friends.

c: are you going to say anything, or should i just turn around and act like this didn't happen.
a: i don't know what to say. i haven't seen you in a year. i haven't spoken to you in two years.
c: and that's your fucking fault.
a: i know.
c: at least we've reached an understanding.
a: you look great. you lost a lot of weight, though.
c: i told you i would.
a: i'm sorry.
c: are you.
a: yes. and please don't ask me why. you know why.
c: why?
a: because i didn't mean it. because if i could, i would fix it.
c: you can't.
a: i know.
c: but you didn't even try.
a: i never meant for it to--
c: i don't really care what you meant.
a: i thought that we could go back. and that we could be friends.
c: at that point i was never going to be your friend. never. i would never even want to be your friend.
a: okay.
c: okay.
a: can i at least know how you're doing? i didn't think you would be here. i thought you stopped messing with all this. didn't you tell me that you were goign to try and remove yourself from it all.
c: i told you a lot of things. just like you told me a lot of things.
a: i know that.
c: and the result is that this is the last time we will speak to each other. i'm going to leave now.
a: don't.
c: i will.

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you are killer this and killer that

2008-07-27T17:22:00.001-07:00

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yesterday:

slept through sat practice
went to chang's and grumbled through the repurcussions of sleeping through the test
met henry. met henry. met henry.

it was wonderful. we played truth or truth for an incredibly long time and we went to barnes and nobles to purchase some books. we talked about japan and how he likes okinawa. we talked about squirrels and we talked about marriage.
we also ran into domo and elliot.

it sort of hit me, in the middle of it all, that we have been friends for five years of so. five years is a long time. when i first met him i didn't really think that it would last this long; we've only really seen each other, what, 6 or 7 times? he lives too far away. but he's still around. we still talk and care for each other in our separate ways...
jeez, confusing. jeez, i don't know anything.
i'm going to miss him and his odd, immature self.

i came home at 4 in the morning and sat in my bed for the longest time, thinking about nothings that thrill and thinking about somethings that hurt.

today: skipped church, got up and watched persuasion again before working a bit and eating some odd curry/salsa/naan brunch. i didn't sleep enough and my coffee was too weak.

now i'm going to watch the new episode of a drama i've been meaning to catch up on, and then i'm going to finish my letter to lily...

lily dear, if you read this, please e-mail me or respond to my comment on your blog: i don't know if i should send my letter to rhode island or la...

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