|
|
Sunday, August 7th, 2005
| |
4:57 pm
|
so I had this dream last night. I had all these dreams. ...but the big one, right before waking up, felt long and involved...and it had to do with being in this scary outpost for social-outreach/I don't know what. ...it was dark. midnight dark, but lit by streetlights--and there were crowds--and big blaring cinematic music. and people were taking orderly turns performing their routines--and the routines were amazing...cinematic. there were acrobatics and rhythmic coordination with the music. the music was loud and pulsing and it came from some source of techonology that confused even my easily-convinced sleep-head, something bigger than the facilities, and it was amazing and terrifying at the same time because I knew I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be, and it was beautiful, but scary--I was there for some bizarre outreach reason. performers were about 30-35...maybe they were younger but looked older. but in the crowd there were small children and women, and men who hadn't made the cut; there were factions; the air was tense and electric. everyone was rapt with attention. there was something huge resting on all this performance. I was unsure of where I was going next--but I knew I'd have to go inside, into the building with the open door and the boarded up windows, and the poker-hall-like heat coming off it...I looked around me and started noticing razors everywhere...I started thinking maybe it's not just being susceptible to stereotypes to think that this has to do with drugs...razors were everywhere. I saw a 5 yr old absent-mindedly pick one up and fidget with it...I left the loud and amazing performance and went into the building. the heat picked up and noises were more confined. there was palpable danger...I didn't know where I was going or why I was there. I felt guilty. but I didn't know what to do about it.
then this merged into a purple-pink brilliant sun rising over the bronx and the fan making the hot air cool and npr-morning-sounds, and I fell back to sleep after thinking about taking a picture of that purple-pink-orange sun.
this morning I walked up the block to get coffee and saw a sign outside the church for vacation bible school...and a tiny tiny ziploc bag on the sidewalk. which threw me off.
|
|
(9 comments | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, August 6th, 2005
| |
12:58 pm
|
I keep forgetting things I want to remember.
the other day I was walking up to school and nobody was around, and right in front of me, on the hothot sidewalk, a tiny baby lizard skittered across to a dirt-weed-sad-tree patch...with its little tail sticking straight up. all morning I'd had that mary timony song in my head--"four little lizards sitting on my knee. dropped down from the poisionous tree. if they bite me, who says it won't be sweet.." so now you're thinking I imagined that lizard--but I didn't.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Saturday, July 23rd, 2005
| |
5:14 pm - ctrl-z
|
|
I had a dream last night that seemed to last all night, where I renamed all my files on my computer--it was so tiring and took so long...and then I realized the new names messed up the files and made them unusable--and there was no way I was going to remember the hundreds of original names...especially since I'd named them senseless-meaningless arrangements of letters and numbers... and I was left just hitting control-z over and over...watching it do nothing.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, June 11th, 2005
| |
8:29 pm - waterlife
|
the other night I dreamed about climbing over fences of corrugated steal. endless ribbed steal walls. so much taller than they seemed at first. so much taller than a person. climbing. over. and then again. never actually hitting ground in between. lots of climbing and struggling.
that morning on the train, pulling into east new york, I saw a wall of corrugated steal panels open up surprisingly--open on one of the seams, forming an unexpected doorway, and a man let another man out, and they nodded, and the man who stayed in, roped a giant heavy chain, like the kind you imagined when you were seven and thought "the heaviest chains, the ones for robbers..and robots," and then train pulled away as the guy who left walked down the sidewalk, and the guy with the chains disappeared and locked everything back up. what goes on in there?
yesterday I saw babies everywhere. each one smaller than the one I'd half-noticed before. until, when I was stealing a stack of napkins at the starbucks above my train's platform (who's comfortable without a stack of store napkins in her bag??...[obviously, everyone except me and the crazy lady who's next to me at every shop I stop in]), I had to say "how old is this baby??" and the lady, with the sling under her arm, a tiny almost-fetal thing tucked up in it, "3 weeks!" teeeeny sleeping eyes, little hands, perfect. ...three weeks! sooo smallll. I sort of wanted to steal it. nono. but I did want to stare at it longer than I did.
it made me think about that japanese/shinto-culture thing I read about a while ago (which I could be mis-remembering now)--where a child is considered "water-life" until age 7...not fully part of this world until 7...existing somewhere in between and unknown and holy until then. I like that. this little worm-baby was definitely water-life. I felt like I was seeing something not many people get to see--something not meant for daylight--(but so good for the daylife to see).
the other day I saw two lower-elementary students playing a word/hand game in the hallway, it was more of a negotiation over something, not even thinking, something clued me in as I walked by: a coded language, mutually understood, real words, but meaning that no adult could understand--I half-could, with imagination and effort and room for interpretation, as I walked by in 10 seconds' time--but something, water-life--and right on the edge. it made me want to watch them longer. be able to get it all on paper.
t. left again today.
I washed my flip flops and had them drying outside, two flip flops in the sun... and my father said out of the blue, "did I miss something? has the rapture come? (..or are you just washing your sandals?....)" haaa.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, June 5th, 2005
| |
1:02 am
|
There were so many good smells out today, as I was driving. Like warm salt-water and fresh seaweedy-smell and mock-orange and fires at dinnertime.
I stopped at a green light. I don't know if that's a sign of something going wrong in my brain, or more like a metaphor being acted out.
Now it's so late, I'm still not done, and instead of good smells, there are unsettling noises outside--raccoons fighting, that awful noise. I always thought it was cats--but someone told me it's raccoons--and honestly, there's a difference between this periodic squawk-shriek and the crazy breeding cat noises that sometimes happen (this--[the raccoons]--is shorter-lasting, more dramatic, more sudden, more horrible)--both are horrid though. So maybe this person was lying or guessing or faking-knowing, or maybe I've made up the memory & thus the information (and come to think of it, I can't remember who told me it was raccoons..so it was most likely my own head)--but when I hear the noise now I picture wicked raccoons attacking bird nests for eggs, and fighting each other, and falling out of the trees.
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, May 15th, 2005
| |
8:02 pm
|
T. gets home tonight! I wish I'd used the time he was gone to teach the robosapiens some new routines to welcome him home.
I have a group project. I think everyone hates group projects.
I have allergies. I think everyone hates those too.
I never liked vic chesnutt before. but now I do. now I love him.
I can't believe that it's sunday night again. and that means 5:15am again tomorrow. I've been on this horrid schedule approximating a "real"/ "responsible" person...[but without the net worth/payoff of "real" and "responsible"...it's sort of like I'm just masquerading as real and responsible.] I can't get over how unrewarding it is. [oh that's the negative voice!! it's rewarding. I'm really lucky. and aren't I also lucky to know that I'm able to do this, like that I can get my body to do it even? that is lucky. and the things I'm doing are the luckiest things--and I see things that remind me of that everyday.] I've taken to resisting sleep the way a baby does--like, you know how, the more aware a baby is of being tired, how they just resist! and you think "oh come on, you're going to be much happier if you give in to it...come on." eventually they do of course--but they resist for as long as they can. I'm technically not a baby--so I've been surprised to watch myself, getting home at 10:30 or 11 at night, after 4 hours of sleep and jumpy nervous bouts of such heavy-dead-sleep on the trains that I just couldn't wait to get home and get to bed. ...but I walk in and suddenly I want awake time, becuase it doesn't seem fair--I want hours for myself--I want the lit television comfort, and I want to read websites, and I want to draw things...and have something to eat...and feel like I have a night, and am not a robot... on my early nights home I get back around 7pm....which is considerably more time in human-hours...but still isn't it furious-making to think that "early-home" is 7pm?! and I push it--until I'm left with 4 hours for sleep again, sometimes I push it all the way down to 2.5, but the time between 11&1 or 3am is something I grip onto--I just will not can not make myself go to bed upon entering the house without even having dinner or sitting and thinking--and I've been keeping this up for soooo long--out of sheer stubborness. it's stupid. but so's getting up at 5:15 and getting home at 11.
on my trainrides home I've been obsessed with the ball fields--it's definitely spring, and the light is lasting to the close edge of 8pm, and whether it's 8pm or 11pm they're lit with small-scale stadium lights--and every field from here to queens is filled with children...pitching and hitting and running and clapping-for-support and, I imagine, some of them, half-falling asleep.. they must be as exhausted as I am!... baseball at 10:30 for 10 yr olds?!
If there was a job that was all sleep I might take it. except for jd's sleep experiment-jobs...those would drive me crazy...but I'm glad he does them. heh.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, April 27th, 2005
| |
1:14 am
|
Today I met an author in the place I stop for coffee. I think he was drawing his name over and over with a Sharpie, and I accidentally made eye-contact (because I was trying to spy on these giant sheets of nice-looking bright drawings on his table) and impulsively, daringly, asked if he draws. He said yes, this is my book--and let me look at it. He let me look at all of his sheets of his book--they were big and informal-formal looking with computer-ruler marks on the very edges and edits on the text and the drawings were beautiful. That was the best part of my day.
I had a meeting today--and TOTALLY wimped out.
I'm tired.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, April 23rd, 2005
| |
8:10 pm
|
|
I just went outside with the trash, and at 8pm the sky is blue-dark, a lit-blue, not black...it's definitely spring. and even though it's been raining all day, the air has a warmth to it...enough that I run to the garage, one foot so fast in front of the other exactly, and run back for the second bag, and run back to the house again, trying to imprint the shape of the house, the lighting, the windows, so that when the house is no more I remember it and can put it in storybooks, because I won't remember in words how it was perfect. and that smell that you forget until the first night you leave your windows open all day--that's out there...I love that smell.
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, March 30th, 2005
| |
1:41 pm - Feed
|
|
so hmm...what does everyone think about yahoo360?...I think it offers maybe too much... and the interface/layout is a bit messy and cluttered.... but it's ambitious, that's for sure. where does it leave little l.journal? it makes me think how easy it is to attach yourself, to weave yourself into these platforms, or something... also it makes me feel anxious...like when the slambook was being passed around the fourth grade girls and I knew just what I'd write and it seemed like a great fun thing and kind and nice and cute, but my mom told me that slambooks were mean and I couldn't keep the slambook at our house and I shouldn't write anything in it at all. also I start thinking about everywhere I've left a trace of myself...friendstery flickrry type places, and the merits and demerits and seductions and repellents of each of these places...and then I feel tired. also, let's start a rumor, I'm pretty sure livejournal has foiled diaryland--it's been down for a week!!--just to reign supreme in the world of online free journally things by making diaryland look incompetent and unable to hold its own!! jerks!
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, January 26th, 2005
| |
10:23 pm - The busy girl buys beauty...The pretty girl buys style...
|
And the simple girl buys...
What she's told to buy...
oh Billy Bragg. you're so sincere.
who knew I'd hear a snippet of a song, out of nowhere tonight, that would almost make me cry while driving, which would, of course, we should have known, rocket me into a nostalgic memory of our time together. And when I got home from the library--how, if not for GOD, would there be one of your albums sitting in a basket of muck...by virtue of my vagabond, guitar-toting, troubadour brother...right there on the kitchen chair. ...well here we are again billy bragg.
you're a regular bob dylan phil ochs...whatever you want. you make me cry--that's what I love you for.
Last night I dreamed about finding wireless connections all over the place...It was hard work! but vapid! I'd plug in my computer, I'd let the wireless technology search, I'd be really tense...waiting...waiting... then I'd find myself plugging in again. sometimes there were connections. sometimes not. each time, I think this is significant, the setting of the plug was really detailed--like the wood, the plastic or the metal...the floor, my kneeling or wedging between a table leg, a dirty train car, etc... my computer screen was like the portal that brought me to another plug.
The night before I screamed in a dream: "well they better get the jetson cars working FAST!!" ...and I was mad. this had to do with the subway system actually...
|
|
(12 comments | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, December 2nd, 2004
| |
12:49 pm
|
unpleasant: I'm eating a bunch of celery that was cut last week...and it's rusty.
pleasant: my black sweater
unpleasant: I'm taking entirely too long to write a paper that's pretty low-stakes. and I'm tired of it.
pleasant: the celery tastes good despite the rusty edges.
|
|
(7 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, November 15th, 2004
| |
1:52 pm
|
Today I got nothing in the mail, except for a home depot catalog...This doesn't bode well for my thirtieth birthday tomorrow. heh. [I've never even shopped at home depot!]
Last week though, I did get a fancy le creuset pot from my steadfast friend beth...for my imaginary kitchen. No, but any day now I am going to have a kitchen--and when I do, I'll have a pretty fire-orange pot to put on the stove. Maybe I'll just sleep with it until then.
|
|
(22 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, November 14th, 2004
| |
7:25 pm
|
skilldoll: man I need new chapstick--
skilldoll: my lips are horrible.
m.: no
m.: MINE
m.: they're like...chunks
skilldoll: haha
skilldoll: no--
skilldoll: you wouldn't even be able to look at my lips. they're grotesque.
skilldoll: like flakes of blood
m.: haha
m.: pirate! stop biting them
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, November 7th, 2004
| |
2:05 am
|
[sorry world.]
for me, I'm stuck between a million sorries. ...or wonderings. there are the big ones--and then also the more immediate ones...like how when I want a sweater, I go out and get a sweater...and I love that cheap sweater...and I don't think about much else.
I saw a terrific high school performance of 12th night tonight. ...t. says: the jazz-singing was unnecessary. ...I say: no way; it was great! one of my favorites--someone I'd walked around as a baby, at night, holding and rocking in giant circles around her house--was viola--which was a treat. [little mimo!--it was m.c.! she cut off her hair for it.] I love high school. way more now than I ever did when I was in it.
|
|
(3 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004
| |
11:05 pm - to the streets....
|
god I can't stand this.... it's not like I can't stand "four more years" of "this"...I mean 4 more years...will be bad. ...probably badder than four years of kerry in terms of international image...war...oh and of course domestic issues... ...but, I really do trust people..I trust, maybe more implausibly, that people are going to stand up when things get worse and worser....radical action...all that.
I've already vowed for myself if abortion rights are taken away I WILL learn how to do first term abortions...I'll do them in my bedroom. ...whatever....I seriously will, and I totally can. that's what I'm thinking about more than anything right now--I'll wear t-shirts that say "do you want to talk about abortion? talk to me...". ... Maybe I'd be thinking of rights regarding sexuality and all that, if I weren't so tired....oh and maybe if fucking kerry and edwards were more aligned with what I wanted them to say to begin with... Maybe I'd be thinking of really really critical health care issues if k/e were more articulate about all that. ...I don't think I'd ever be thinking of taxes...because I'm not that advanced...
whatever...I trust people. we'll all stand up.
but what I really can't stand is this whole freaking "it is VERY close...we are declaring...at this point...bush the winner...." all this 49%/51% drama...it makes me want to throttle people. ....manalive...be more honest...this is way too close to say one way or the other if there's a margin of error...this is sort of nutty. ...and we're not sure what's going on with "democracy"
and I'm just tired.
terry keeps saying funny things about "democracy plaza"
...has anyone else noticed the prevalance of ambien ads during the election?? ......"are you having trouble falling asleep?" (in a soft soothing voice)..."ask your doctor about ambien." ....
and whoever wins will be happy and say it's completely clean. ...and whoever loses will say there's something outstanding...something overlooked or corrupt...
and I'm tired. and I guess, I voted, so I get to go to sleep... but that's going to hurt my superstition beliefs tomorrow. ...
on fucking "democracy plaza" they're illustrating the election results right on the side of the building...that just triggers something BAD in me.
night. godspeed.
I'll see you in the streeets.....
|
|
(3 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
8:33 pm
|
ok...here's my sense--either kerry wins or there will be riots in the streets. ...I've been told by a really smart friend that I'm completely overestimating the populus. ...I don't know. maybe I am.
I really feel like kerry will win...that's just my basic gut feeling...and I hate "gut feeling" but it lets you know what I mean...based on pictures and stories and conversations... I know that my media sources are skewed...my immediate surroundings are a bit tilted I guess...but despite that, it means I won't be shocked if he doesn't win...and I'll be a little surprised if bush wins. ...I'll be really surprised in the end if kerry wins popular vote, but doesn't get the presidency, and there aren't riots. at least outright upheaval and upset. I think overall the coutnry's ready for a change (even if it's just symbolic, and the same old war keeps rolling on, and health care continues to fail the needs of the country, and all that).
I was on wall street maybe for the first time in my life yesterday...and I loved it! ...I might go there all the time. I saw a building that had hot air balloons on its doors. ...I saw a building with a giant owl sculpted into its face. ...I like it way more than I ever thought I would. ...I even found myself smiling at fancy boys in their fancy suits (even as I doubted them internally). ...but not the fancy ladies...because they see through me, and hate me.
T's sitting next to me--saying funny things.
I like marathon commercials that play opera music.
and I like japaneses koala cookies. alot.
|
|
(5 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, October 27th, 2004
| |
2:00 pm - [like wolverines, man.]
|
This morning T. told me that a leaf fell on the tent last night, and woke him, just as he was drifting to sleep. He lay perfectly still, terrified, sure it was a raccoon. Eventually he figured out it had been a leaf. "My heart was beating SO fast." I threatened to tell his Appalchian Trail friends.
"Hey, they'd be scared of rabid things too! Those things are crazy. They make no sense!"
Yesterday, I bought underwear at Sears. Now I love Sears. I really really love Sears.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
| |
11:51 pm
|
T. just came into the kitchen and said that he's going to set up his tent and sleep outside tonight. He has his headlamp strapped on, and the tiny tent we got for our long-ago long-term hike (long-term for him, ended up not so long-term for me...) under his arm.
I looked up from the computer, "oooh! I could too!!" and then I paused, and said "oh. ...that's not so cool when it's in the backyard, is it."
and he said, "it would be a little cooler if you had your own tent..." and trailed off. and I said, "right. ..a little."
[so I'm not sleeping outside tonight.]
T. just stopped again in the kitchen, on his way out--to tell me that when he stoped to tell my father that he'd be sleeping outside tonight, my dad half-nodded without turning around from his computer and said "alright. ...just watch out for the raccoons." T. said, "they won't get through the tent." My dad, still not turning around, said "yup. they rip right through. like wolverines, man."
And out goes T. with his headlamp and his notebook and sleeping bag.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, August 28th, 2004
| |
11:06 pm
|
I'm sitting in j.'s apartment--they left a while ago...
and it took me about an hour to figure out that the periodic rumbling underneath the floor was probably the subway.
I promised a story--but man, I can't even think of one. ....I got up...it was hot. too hot. I cleaned ferociously--the end product was still dirty and cluttered, but it felt better. ...I made coffee...read tomorrow's times, flipped through the rest of the paper... talked to my laura. ...met j. and his friends...had dinner. it was nice. I feel like I laughed a lot. they left. ...it got a little too quiet here--but it's equal parts quiet and nice. Shouldn't I be able to come up with a good story from all that? ...I mean there were train rides... but the people were boring. there were guns on the streets and policey-soldiers acting tough...but even that felt boring. oh and the bathroom at the restaruant--that's not boring! ...but there's not too much of a story...except that when I go in there I jsut want to stay in there, because it's spacious and calm and nicely lit. I definitely smelled urine a few times walking on the street--and that's become something I HATE about here.
I saw way more seed-pods than flowers today, and that means fall's almost here. thank goodness.
I bet I'll have a better story tomorrow, little m.
maybe it's airplanes making the rumbling.
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, August 6th, 2004
| |
9:26 pm
|
I feel like there was a time I used to write here for real. I miss that.
...
for now, before I go to bed, this is enough: you've missed out on my leaving maine, my boston trip...being home, applying for jobs...getting a nice response. ....dealing with major anxiety. ...realizing that belle and sebastian is awful if you're feeling sad. and it's so stupid. ...and why does it make me cry at the same line in string bean jean--every time--ok not cry literally...but "cry" effectively--in the strangest way. ...and another boston trip.
my dreams have been crowded, and when I wake up I think: it's time to get up, becky, but you have more work to do back where you were a minute ago.
my little friends up in maine have been planning my marriage and babies--they're nuts and brilliant. one especially tonight showed great insight.
now I'm going to bed.
but tomorrow maybe I'll tell you about:
1) the interview.
2) the botanic garden.
3) how "god" seemed to be making the place / the whole city seem hospitable for me...like magic.
tomorrow.
|
|
(3 comments | comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
drivingon9's journal