Thoughts

Little Weeknight Spasm... Sleep Deprivation

2009-09-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

September 3rd, 2009

Someone:
I am sitting in a pale little kitchen, figures flickering on my attention span like a slide projector:
$20
+$5
+$15
-$40
-$13
-gas money
= $-13-gas money a week

How is South America going to happen again? This cold, flat realization cripples me upon impact. I watch all the visions of life and death and happiness like stone melt into a massive puddle at my feet. I contemplate how to reshape this puddle but no tactic comes to mind. Instead, I opt for the least effective method, lying down in it and trying to soak it back into my skin before it leaves me permanently. I lie there in absolute stillness for several minutes with my lungs swelled, my teeth clenched, and my fingers trying to rupture my temples. Nothing miraculous happens to my puddle.
At last the panic recedes and I sit up, look around, and draw a simple conclusion:
It's time to grow up and get a job.

I Never Thought These Would Hit So Close to Home

2009-08-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

she's looking in the mirror
she's fixing her hair
and i touch my head to feel
what isn't there
she's humming a melody
we learned in grade school
she's so happy
and i think
this is not cool
'cause i know the guy
she's been talking about
i have met him before
and i think
what is this beautiful beautiful woman
settling for?

she bends her breath
when she talks to him
i can see her features begin to blur
as she pours herself
into the mold he made for her
and for everything he does
she has a way to rationalize
she says he don't mean what he do
she tells me he called
to apologize

he says he loves her
he says he's changing
and he can keep her warm
and so she sits there like america
suffering through slow reform
but she'll never get back the time
and the years sneak by
one by one
she is still playing the martyr
i am still praying for revolution

and she still doesn't have what she deserves
but she wakes up smiling every day
she never really expected more
that's just not the way we are raised
and i say to her,
you know,
there's plenty of really great men out there
but she doesn't hear me
she's looking in the mirror
she's fixing her hair

July 14th (I think), 2009

2009-07-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

Someone:

I have for you good news, a self-evaluation to balance it, and demanded changes to make me more healthy.
The news: I got my scores back from AP today and it turns out that I got a 5 of my 3D portfolio. I am beyond thrilled, considering I was biting my lip for months in hopes of a 4. As with my acceptance to Quartz Mountain, however, I felt an immediate instinct to curb an inflated ego with some rational thought. For one thing, once I heard, I returned to the idea of myself as an imposter(sp?). I am not living FOR art, I do not even create every day. How am I defined by the word "artist" if I am not defined by the word "art"? It is a huge part of my life, but I have reached and passed the point where it should BE my life.
It concerns me to realize, as I have this summer, that I have some major self-control issues. The summer has gone swooping by in a stream of miraculous colors and possibilities. It is almost as though I am sitting here, dormant in front of a screen, watching it go by, just watching with a dull laziness, never bothering to make it reality.
My parents are having hardwood floors installed in the back rooms of their house, so I spent the day going through all of my JUNK. Watching the Himalaya-sized heaps of all my worthless crap pile up, it is bitterly humorous to think that I consider myself an aspiring minimalist. I had forgotten WHY. I had forgotten the vast impression that silence and space makes on the mind. The objective of minimalism is to grant easier access to our soul. Elise: rid yourself of distractions and dependencies, such as mirrors, hairpieces, decorations, etc. The best way to glimpse yourself is to cut through the crap, strip off all the material junk.
Since all my stuff is already displaced, I have no excuse to waste this opportunity. I will revive my minimalist approach: no rugs, tapestries, fancifuls, general BS that smothers the floor, etc. The room should be a blank canvas so that my thoughts may dance in, surrounding me and guiding me as I pull them into the physical world (I refuse to use the word "realm").
Now that all the seriousness clogging my brain up has been pitched in your direction, I am in a gibberishly gleeful mood. I bid you farewell and may you take on my abysmal attitude with great courage and iron optimism.
Love Elise

2009-06-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

I want my hair back

2009-06-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

The long-avoided panic attack about Quartz Mountain (I am feeling better now...):

June 10th, 2009

Someone:
I feel like a phony, like an artistic impostor. I am packing for Quartz Mountain, unwrapping all my new supplies, many of which I have not used in years or never at all. I can easily envision arriving to my first class, brand new, embarrassingly unused supplies in tote and surrounded by brilliantly creative people that have devoted every fibre of their being and every spare moment of their time to art and creative growth. The will be wielding gunked-up, much loved supplies that have been hardened by the sweat of their tireless devotion. I have only just realized, Someone, that I will be the amateur. It is obvious that I got in via fluke and now I have wasted a month of potential preparation time doing NOTHING to become a better artist.
A label myself an artist with my "studio" and closet and haircut, but has it ever occurred to you that I rarely produce? I spend my evenings before a television, a fucking TELEVISION! I am thus an impostor because I paint myself an artist then follow up with no art.
And if I am not an artist, then what am I? I have never considered myself anything else.
So my point is this, Someone:
If I do not get my petty little life together and begin doing art at all times, I will continue to be a fraud and become a hollow, useless person. My precious time to live will slide into a void, wasted with meandering bullshit because, when I am not creating or thinking about creating, I am wasting time.

"There's not one day that you are living that has been promised to you."
~Ben Harper

Now that I've vented I can seek eternal contentment again... wow
Elise (My brow is seriously furrowed)

2009-04-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

I have not posted anything in an unusually long time, although I have been thinking many a new thing and growing up. I don't expect you to actually read all of this because it is incredibly redundant, but it is proof of my growth. I think I may be getting over myself. After all, self-awareness is the first step to ironing the kinks out of our approach to living. We'll see. Take note of the dates on which these excerpts were written. Enjoy...?

March 26, 2009
Someone:
. . . Either way, I have a new thought process that has joined my daily routine. As I fall asleep each night, I pray to a god (just in case) to keep the world safe. I promise myself that, if I am fortunate enough to wake the next morning, I will be grateful to live another day and I will be casual, assertive, painfully aware of the world, and HAPPY. The most challenging element of this scheme is its execution, obviously. . .

April 7, 2009
Someone:
. . . More essential an issue to speak of, however, are my newly defined purposes. I have been examining my composition and ambition for quite a while now and I have finally reached semi-steady ground. I believe this guilt I feel is entirely voluntary. It is a conscious decision to be tormented (at least in my case) and it is for this reason: I FEEL guilty in order to BE less guilty. Try to make sense of that. I am undeservingly fortunate, but I would theoretically be a worse human being if I did not A) recognize this and B) at least seek salvation from my ignorance. So you see, beloved Someone, the guilt I feel has actually the opposite purpose of true guilt– to salve my ignorance.
This "guilt" I feel is the force that drives my craving of the impoverished world. I intend to "earn" the fortune I was born into, to give my existence substance, righteousness, and, above all else, deservedness. It will also be my way of coping with the daunting impressions of mankind. Although it is pointless and wrong, I tend to want greatness in comparison with the entire human race. Instead of finding my peace as no one, I wage fierce competition on the artists and spiritually grounded people, which causes an unavoidable sense of defeat. Regardless, I recognize the redundant babble that appears in letter after letter after letter to you, Someone. . .

April 12, 2009
Someone:
HAPPY EASTER, beloved friend! I am not a religious person and yet Easter treats me to the same divinity as those who are devoted with every fiber of their being. There is a certain sense of life in the air. It is not Jesus Christ's risen soul, but rather a festival welcoming the new spring– rebirth. Those evangelicals are not so funny and odd as I traditionally regard them. Today it doesn't matter if the man was or was not divine because the sensation of rebirth is irrefutable in all manners. All day there has been a gentle rain, salving the rampant wildfires that have devouring Oklahoma and intensifying all the colors, saturating the grass and trees and flowers until they are almost unnaturally bright.
I have been experiencing my own little personal "rebirth" as well. Creativity has been rushing into me all day and I have finally crawled out of my inspirational ditch. . .
Pardon my scribbles, dear friend. I love you unconditionally and faithfully,
Elise

Updates

2009-03-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

To record my progress. I have felt much better since they put me on painkillers for the tissue damage in my neck. : ) It is depressing to think about my new levels of hypocrisy in accepting unnecessary medications. The coloring of my eye brings back very distinct memories of Toby's make-up in 8th grade as "Lola."

Not My Most Beautiful Moment...

2009-03-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

I am indulging in a small pity party at the moment, so bear with me.

Today I was in a wreck on my bike. I was speeding down the bridge over the highway on Grand Blvd. (without a helmet) and I believe I hit a trash can, but I am not entirely sure. The only things I remember are: having about 5 concerned strangers towering over me while I struggle to remain conscious. They kept asking me if I could move, and, for a few minutes, my arms would not budge. I remember piling into a stranger's car (an example of my impaired judgement), but getting ahold of my mother in time to prevent this. I remember feeling the back of my head and thinking there was a dent in it. And this is the extent of my memory concerning the next hour.

I could not move my arms for a couple minutes because my body was in shock and the "dent" in the back of my head was, in fact, the decline of my head's surface away from a bloody knot the size of a baseball. I have a severe concussion and I may have internal bleeding in my skull. Both of my collarbones and my jaw feel broken, but they are apparently just traumatized from the "jolt." I also have whiplash.

This is really just my way of notifying my friends of what happened, since I will out of touch for the rest of the break. You guys are the only ones who read my blog, anyways.

Defining this Phase

2009-03-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

This is an exercise in self-confidence.

It is about carrying myself better
ridding myself of vanity
and becoming strong.

This is not about you.
This is not about women.
This is not about masculinity.

This is about self-confidence.

2009-03-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

This is a hasty evening rant that I don't have time to revise, so enjoy....?

I begin my day in the usual fashion, an undignified process of meandering into consciousness through first hour. While trudging to my locker, I study the plastic floor tiles and the yellow florescent lights reflecting off of them. I look up to see Nathan surprisingly near. The sight of him kicks me fully into reality. His hair is unkempt and stringing across his face. His left eye is swollen and sickly blue-grey, dwarfing his narrow face. There is a fat, dark hole beneath his lip with hasty black stitches pulling it together.
I do not know how to respond to him, so I stand idly before him, shock bearing sturdily down on my ribcage. His expression is physically painful to behold, his eyes, which used to be excitingly bright blue, are layered thick with stoic defeat. "What happened to you?" I finally whispered. "Oh, uhhh.. w'll I passed out at the top of a staircase... they told me my blood sugar was too low... uhh..."
I used to really like him. He used to be creative and bright and clever and fun. He used to be surprisingly strong and good-natured. He used to be beautiful and his interest in "pot" colored it with that strange coolness that reeled me in. Now he is wasted and I ache for him so, so much. He is ruined and lifeless. He has been beaten.
I keep hoping they will send him to military school. I am hopeful that, once there, they would confiscate his precious weed and beat the shit out of him. They would turn him into the person he wanted to be. In a way, they would set him free. This is my hope because, without the prospect of military school, I honestly cannot see a way out for him. He is being drowned and I am watching it happen.

Beginning and Ending with a Quote

2009-02-25T18:47:00.000-08:00

"(Youths) are quite aware of what they're going through."
~ David Bowie

I know that I am just another one.
One more screen with letters and words and manufactured ideas.
One more boiling defense and desperate excuse.
One more reason to be blind.

One more attempt at digging through the heap of discarded souls to retrieve my own. But there you are again, before I grasp it firmly. Congratulations. You found me. You tethered me back up. You pried my lips apart. You shoved the parasite back down my throat.
So I feel fine again.

"They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool. 'Till you're so fucking crazy you follow their rules."
~ John Lennon

One more iconic quote

This Entry Makes me Sound at Least 50

2009-02-20T15:06:00.000-08:00

For a reason not yet evident to me, I have been thinking of you lately. Just memories, I assume. You said it doesn't feel like two years, and this is true. I still remember Mr. Swank as though he were leaning over my shoulder yesterday, telling me how to move the brush. I still remember the bond between Claire and I, one with the strength of a triple-ionic bond. I still remember Mr. Austin lurking just beside my conscious thoughts, tinting them with his wisdom and wondrous, exotic tales. I still remember Toby and her obesity and the way my feet would blacken on the dirty floors. I still remember the chaotic, selfish hustle we had, teetering confidently about with stuffed shirts and immortality.
But mostly I remember you, or who you used to be. I realize now how lucky we were. We used to be kindred spirits, off-beat and artistic, both ridiculously moody and tipping over with the weight of our outrageously exaggerated sense of love. I remember the wracking despair in my little hormonal body when I knew you liked her more. It is all laughable now, but it "destroyed my reason for existence" at the time. I was a little girl.
Perhaps all of this is presenting itself to me because, today in history class, alone and maintaining a half-awake conversation with my professor while awaiting the first bell of the day, she told me she had never seen me so talkative. I was barely speaking with her, mind you. I could scarcely fathom the concept of myself as a quiet, reclusive person with long, self-conscious curtains over my face and clad in grey. I felt like a paradox.

Random Entries to Covey

2009-02-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

February 7th, 2009

Someone:
Yesterday I had a procession of thoughts worth recording:
Disney brings out a very obnoxious part of me- the super feminine. I melt at the sight of Disney princesses and coo at dolls with eyelashes to their brows and polyester pink dresses. I want to make porcelain dolls in corsets with Renaissance-style faces and long, flowing locks. I have tried to stamp out the pathetic femininity in me and I have, for the most part, been successful, but it is difficult here.
Most awful of my changes in character is my new found tendency to complain. Oh, my feet, oh my back, oh my I am so cold, oh my lips are dry, oh my chin is dimpled, etc. How dare I complain. How dare I. When the Earth trembles with fear and malnourishment and I skip about the Magic Kingdom, I somehow find the insolence to complain. As if my undeserved indulgences were not undignified enough. I must be mad.
I don't think there are any people here who are not white or chinese.
Keep your head in the right direction, remember why you want to live minimally, the strength and self-awareness achieved in minimalism, the need to do great things. Love your body, take care of your body, know the selfishness in drugs and appreciate your natural state of consciousness, not the sensations of various poisons.

Abstain and grow in your love.
Elise

February 19th, 2009
Someone:
I am despicably and obnoxiously "good" these days. The sparkle in my parents' eye, the role model without friends, the boring, cubicle-creature-to-be who is academically successful only because they have nothing better to do because they have no original thought. Bred to obey, they are the ultimate citizen.
Being "good" is much more difficult that I anticipated. It is not about the poison anymore, it is the sheer lack of imagination I have to think of no righteous rebellion. The best I can think of (besides a snotty drug addicted party animal) is critical, but who am I to be critical? If the hungry world were given opportunities like mine, it would be minimalistic, immeasurably grateful, and happy. I cannot afford to lay this wisdom aside and be unhappy.

Live minimally and virtuously. Give everything spare to the oppressed. Be grateful and, most of all, be happy.
Enough of me and my petty little life. What about you?
Elise

I Will Get Better

2009-02-01T13:32:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a dream that I was watching a girl eat and eat and eat- gorge herself until her body could not hold her and her heart was crushed by the weight of her own flesh. I woke from it at 6:00 A.M. at Madeline Bentley's house on her floor with the taste of cigarettes and pot in my mouth. It was almost an epiphany I had- that the only reasonable way to live is in protection of your own body. Without it, you do not live and, with one that is abused and mutilated, your mind will follow suit.

"I was moved by women in Africa who lived close the earth and didn't understand what it meant to not love their body."
~ Eve Ensler

I have reached a shuttering and frightening conclusion- I must change dramatically. I must give up cigarettes and pot and alcohol, which will mean giving up Madeline, Laura, Katie, Megan, ect. and any social life they would entail. Most painfully, I must give up my rebellion, become someone my parents approve of, become someone honest and deeply "uncool." I must give up that social life and do art.
Today my mother said to me that she didn't think I was spending enough time on my art. To hear this broke me. I never though I could be that person. I never though I would hear that.
I have been crying today and I know I have become selfish and despicable. To cry is to express my own weakness. I do not deserve to cry, not when so many people have it harder and keep their heads held straight. Who am I, a useless, carbon-copy, American teenage girl, to sneer in the face of real sorrow and mock righteous despair. And yet I sit here, in plain selfishness, crying.
I am going to move on and it will be agonizing to make my parents proud. It will hurt to stop lying. But it will happen because I am not happy anymore and I am not Elise. Instead of wallowing in despair, I will change.

I WILL CHANGE
Elise

2009-01-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

According to the quiz off of Austin's latest entry, I am only 27% pro-Obama. There must be something wrong with that quiz...

2009-01-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

The ceiling tiles are being taken down because they don't match her "atmosphere."

Speculations

2009-01-04T11:22:00.001-08:00

You know exactly what you are doing. Maybe you share my fear of becoming ordinary and weak. Maybe you also feel the need to beat yourself down, scrape off all the teenage superficiality so that all you are left looking at is yourself- pure and simple. Maybe that is what you are doing now- falling, falling, falling (and making it obvious) so that you will be put in military school, where they will beat it out of you and you will have to endure, have to be strong. Maybe this is all part of your plan or maybe I am alone in these ideals, imagining you feel the same way because I am afraid for you. Either way, I have a hard time believing that you are merely misguided and disturbed. You used to tell me that you wanted to do immeasurable good for people, to pull a man off the streets and give him a new life. You used to tell me how strong and noble were the men that died for their country. I think you are still Nathan, still passionate and selfless. I think you are trying to fool us all and yourself. I think this is all part of your plan because, if I had the courage, I would be doing the same thing.

Brandon and Swank

2009-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

I made it out! I finally managed to free myself from that mucky state of mind. For several months now, I haven't been keeping my mind wrapped properly around my art and translating my emotions into colors and paints and textiles. I lost the largest part of me- the artist. It disappeared into some elusive cavern of my mind, but now I've won this game of hide and seek, dragged the artist back into daylight, and gotten a paintbrush into my hand.

2008-12-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick excerpt from an english project that I was particularly proud of. Enjoy : )

The only one in there without a pout
Because he had himself all figured out.
His hair was soft and shined up with some product,
He was well-tended and his lips were turned up.
Widely sought for his romance advice,
The girls in school thought him without a vice.
With parents most traditional and wealthy,
He wound up in the councilor’s, though healthy.
They though his state a curable condition
And considered straightening him their mission.
With no heed to their pettiness, he soared,
Ambitious, witty, tasteful, and adored.
This new age might take him as he was,
No one would think to question who he loved,
Or so his daydreams rested as he sat.

Pathetic Attempt at Poetry

2008-12-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

It's been a while.
Lately it's just been the excuse for some illegal excursion or another.
But today I actually went.
The soccer field was a milky yellow plain
Different form the last time I was there,
when it was bright green.

So today I was thinking
of the people in my life.
And all the different people that I am, condensed into one mind.
"I live a hundred lifetimes in a day"
I noticed that you are the only person that knows every angle of me.
And I know at least several of you.

To quote my favorite movie
"There's so much beauty that my heart swells up and I can't take it,
then, when I stop trying to hold onto it, it flows though me."
That is how I feel.
Today I was swinging there
looking idiotic with my eyes shut tight
and a big silly grin on my face.
But I was so happy.
So grateful to be alive
that the love was almost physical inside me.

Expectations

2008-12-11T13:04:00.001-08:00

For Claire: I have quit. I love you so much and, for you and your dying grandfather (as well as my own health), I have quit. This time it isn't a momentary inspiration, it's a life decision. Besides, there is no going back now. I don't want to be gasping for air while we climb the peaks of the Andes and trump through the virgin wilderness. And, on that note, for the record, I still want to go. My desire for Latin America has never wavered, though we should perhaps catch up on our plans. It gets closer every day.

For Swank: I have dedicated myself to art. I will be the best that I can be and I will see you again. Someday, when I am famous and selling my art for thousands apiece, you'll hear about it and smile. In the present, I am photographing all my best art and building a show for you.

For Brandon: I am reaching for the dream. I haven't quite got it yet, but I am looking and I am going to find it, only this time, I am not looking for you. Come by sometime to define life with Ms. Stafford and I again.

For Ms. Stafford: I love to hear you speak. You have an uncanny ability to tell me matter-of-factly everything I have been reaching for. You seem to have it all figured. I am so lucky to have you.

For Bess: I am still trying to figure out how to word our friendship. It's difficult because we are both so many different things mashed together. We are different from each other and yet we are parallel. I can build my thoughts off of you. I love you so much and I am here.

For Maggie: Breakfast Club, sugar cookies, 10:00pm, and you. These are my favorite nights. You let me blab and blab about my life's meaning and, even though you know I make no sense, you listen. You get me. I wish we spent more time together, but hey, I'll be seeing you tomorrow, even if I can't see you straight. LOVE!

Losing Grip: Falling Into the Status Quo

2008-12-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

I feel old today.

It is as if my skin were rippled and translucent and my vague eyes buried in layers. But, more defined than appearance, I feel old. I am tired, solemn, and vacant. Color, which is ordinarily life, bombards my senses. Tonight I desire a life of creamy, soft tones. This is most unusual.

One thing I lack in this age is wisdom. Rather, I am completely unable to think. I sat in the cold, brown yard sucking nicotine that made me breathe too fast, all the while thinking about how stupid I was being. And yet I went in for another. It was as though my mind and body were disconnected and I might as well have been sawing off my hand. I draw the line here. I have to stop before I lose the ability to.

It is not only that. When I am bestowed time for life, I do what? Squander it before a screen. Why is it that I only understand part of the time? I need to be clutching onto my individuality and pouring my every emotion and bit of energy into sculpting. It is through my art that I will not fall. Proof of this: I am on the computer instead of sculpting

and I am falling.

Back to Brandon

2008-11-23T09:01:00.000-08:00

I am making this up as I go
So bear with me.

It has been a long time forgetting you and somehow you keep coming back to me. I haven't seen you since before 10th grade That encounter was tough to swallow because your eyes were pierced by the sun and your face was, no is, the most beautiful I have seen.
It never fails.

Here is the issue: You gave me a new pair of eyes, a new place to go. It was beautiful and you were amazing. You did a good thing for me, but when you left, headed towards your own life, I couldn't keep up with myself. I wasn't ready to live just yet. I still needed you there. So my sight started slipping away and I fell.

"I put your world into my veins. Now a voiceless sympathy is all that remains."

Every time I see you, I come back to life, as though I have been asleep under the flow of time, as though I have been watching it pass and accepting this world of text books and makeup and homes from a designer magazine. But, when I open my eyes, the face in the mirror torments me. I feel I have failed immeasurably and the person I see makes me ill. I am artificial, a plastic, mass produced doll with a polyester bra and the label "made in USA." Worse than this, my mind is on a conveyor belt as well.

So now when I see you, it is not joy that I feel in my restored eyes, it is torture in what they see. I wish you were here all the time so that I could live long enough to change.

Now here is the cure: I will have to differentiate between you and my ambition before I can reform myself and pack a suitcase. I have to let go of you before I can utilize your message. I will start now, and let my art take the reins. I will stop trying to change so that I'll be able to.

"We are given life so that we can live it."

Your senseless, muddled friend,
Elise

Barack Obama

2008-11-04T20:18:00.000-08:00

So he will be president. This is great news as far as can be projected thus far. We'll see then.

Okay. I'm ready.

Edited

2008-10-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

I am there with him. We sit in a caged room cramping with tables. It is the prison meeting room from “Arrested Development” since that is the most prominent prison scene my mind has to offer up. He wears a vivid orange jumpsuit and his face is blackened with a physical misery that has swallowed his entirety. His body has been defeated by the cafeteria food, ropes thriving beneath his skin.
We sit in silence as I wait for thick, soulful words to come to me- words to express- but none arrive at my lips. Instead, I slide my pinkish hand into his and, for the first time since my arrival, he looks at me, but his eyes are too much to handle and I fall away from the scene.

This time it is a memory. His daughter is with him today and is abusing her power as teacher’s little girl by denying the boys in our class of candy. She grins at me and shyly puts forth a caramel apple sucker.

Now I am walking quickly at his side through the grey halls of his church. I am there to help him airbrush skin for a Halloween carnival. A small, vigorous woman with a plaster face and Walmart lips approaches us and grins him in a spouse hug that is clearly for the entertainment of surrounding eyes. “You must be his talented student of the year!” She says to me in a pitch that cracks my eardrums. I am deeply disappointed in his choice for a wife and concerned about his daughter’s upbringing, who is shuffling around with her mother.

Much better.

2008-10-20T13:10:00.001-07:00

I'm feeling a lot better and I apologize to anyone who may have read that last one. Things are all better on that front.

: )

That was an interesting day.

2008-08-21T19:05:00.001-07:00

For the first time since Brandon, I could think of no words to touch the way I felt. There are still none, so the best I can do to explain is to tell you what happened.

When Maggie's voice rumbled through the piece of plastic in my hand, something in me dropped dead. Excuse the cliche, but my heart stopped beating. I can usually fight those obnoxious little balls of saltwater for a while, but not this time. It was coming with a will of its own, so I ran. Suddenly my life's ambition was to keep walking. I had to know if you were just gossiping, Maggie. Mr. Austin would either tell me truth or tell me he couldn't, but he wasn't going to lie.

I broke a couple of my own rules. First being letting the fear sink into me and take over, second freaking out in front of other people. I lost it. I don't have any reason to lose it more than the rest of you. It wasn't my right to make this my own crusade and pretend like I was alone. I tend to be self-righteous like that.

So the sunshine beaming on this little suburban breakdown I hosted in my room is this: I get to hear you again. It will take a long time for me to consider saying anything about it, but I'm just incandescent to hear you again. You didn't turn me away so, for that, I thank you. I know you haven't been completely destroyed. Mr. Ottman had me scared for a moment.

Bottom line to those who read this (since I know you care like me without the lack of self-control), he'll be alright.

My rope no longer exists

2008-08-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

I know I shouldn’t be writing this. I can’t believe I’ve let you get to me but, since you have, I thought this worthy of more than a comment.

Thing number one: rearranging the words in a sentence to make it sound like decent writing is an ineffective method. Maybe you should start saying what you mean instead of trying to sound intelligent because it doesn’t work.

Thing number two: Is there anyone you can think of who is more amazing and deep than yourself. You are irrefutably arrogant. You spend your time complaining about your miserable teenage life and about how there are no people as smart as you. Poor thing. Everyone around you is a daft fool, right? You’re the genius. You’re the poet who people hate because they’re intimidated by your brilliance. They criticize you unjustly when they don’t even know you? Only one, maybe two people know who you really are? But you criticize every single one of those people when you have know idea who they are. And I hate you because I secretly know you’re too good for me, right? No. I hate you because you are blind, weak, and self-righteous.

Thing number three: You’re nothing special. You’re just more effected by the teen syndrome than most. (My life is terrible, the world doesn’t understand me, all my peers are idiots, I have a creative, unique mind that’s much better than all the others.) You are the essence of self-absorbed, pathetic American youth. You’re not above any of the high school bullshit, you’re just filling a niche. Every school had an emotionally damaged asshole like you.

Thing number four: Michael is so much better than you and he deserves Bess. You just can’t stand that, for once, the person you preyed upon saw you for what you are. Someone should warn your new tease.

So, I guess what I’m saying surmounts to this: fuck you. : )

For Maggie

2008-08-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

Everyone has enough reasons to be happy, so be happy, you daft Americans!

The night after seeing you.

2008-08-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

I'm still awake at two in the morning of August 14th. My mind is racing and I've finally hit the tears. I grab a Sharpie and write in small letters on the wall: 1. I need to leave. I need to rupture the framework of this reality and break into a new one. Live a different life than is handed to you. It's getting too easy to be... nevermind. I lost the words in a drop of saltwater tainted with a wish.

"Silence is the loudest parting word you never say. Now a voiceless sympathy is all that remains."
~Ben Harper

In another spurt of this strange sob sessions, I write above it: 2. Do REAL good fro humanity. Get out while you still can.

On a different wall this time: 3. A pair of eyes are always staring in at me. I wish they were real.

4. I'd like to go crazy now. Maybe I should try my skills at resisting the words of therapists and mental institutions. Maybe that would do the trick. At least I would have something more to escape from then my own selfishness.

5. The only thing I'm fighting is myself and my accidental acceptance of the world in which I live. Silly me. Of all rebellions, I had to pick the hardest.

6. Sleep deprivation makes great fuel for thought. It maddens the spirit just enough.

7. When my lips are dry, I put on chapstick. How many people do that?

For some reason I found no number eight the next morning.

9. Whatever I do fresh from high school, I hope it is physically uncomfortable to prove I can be content anywhere.

10. This is the last one because I dropped the better Sharpie behind a shelf. I'm entertained to imagine reading these to find I have idea why I wrote such random, trite shit. : )

And I honestly don't. It really is a sad thing when I try to be dramatic, but this is how my night went, I suppose. You can check my walls to find the thoughts of a maddened heart staring back at you. I'm glad I saw you again, person. I was hoping I would.

Here is the truth, finally

2008-07-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

To quote Ricky Fitz, “never underestimate the power of denial.”

This sentence has been striking the framework of my thoughts lately and I haven’t known why. What exactly am I in denial of? The fact that I am becoming dependent on substances I ridicule all the time? The fact that I am living about five different lives right now? The fact that I am watching myself sink into a life I never wanted and doing nothing about it? Or is the fact that I am rushed with guilt every time I think of you (Make that six different lives, come to think of it.) How can I explain to you that the only part of me you have ever seen is an absolute lie? A blatant, intricate lie.

You would hate me if you knew me. This is the simple truth. I am the very essence of everything you are against, but how can I say this to your face? Surly you must know somewhere within you that the concept of “me” is not real. I hope that you have known this for a long time. I trust that you can feel it. I have been so terrible to you and now I have nothing to do but continue on like this, hating myself in the process. You seem to love me so wholly. You are so trusting and I don’t deserve that. I am not to be trusted. You are treading your water way too far from the shore. You are in danger. Get out now.

So now I have but to hope that you will read this soon. I hope you are not broken. Just don’t trust me anymore, please.

We can’t be together. You know that. I can’t keep living inside of this lie. I can’t let you in and I can’t come out. I love you so, so much, but for that reason I have to let you go. You deserve the best and I think I finally have the courage to say that isn’t me. I was in denial.

Claire,

2008-07-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

We have a lot to learn. Get ready.

oooookay

2008-06-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

So this has been a different kind of day...

I'm Back

2008-06-24T16:54:00.001-07:00

Okay, so the past few days I have been utterly and completely released. For a long time now I have had all these ideas solidifying in my stomach, all these great, breakthrough, abstract ideas stacking up on top of each other, but with no way out. I have not felt like the inspired, reckless, and haunted person I am. I have just felt blah. A couple days ago, I let it all out. My mom said something upsetting and I absolutely lost grip on my sanity. I stampeded into my room and began tearing things off the walls. You may say I had a temper tantrum, but I was not mad at anyone but myself. I've since realized that this is what exactly i needed to do. I began pulling all my exiled ideas up and molding them into reality. No more expectations, no more self-control, no more logic. Just pure, human madness. It felt so good.

I took my most important possession, a painting by him, and just shredded it. In that instance, I shed all these psychological dependencies that have been wrapped around my ankles for the past year. I let go of him, finally. Now I'm free. I have some great, radical ideas about the space in which i live. I got rid of all my furniture and my bedroom has become an ever-changing, pulsing cocoon of creative thought. I want to live through my art and for my art to live through me. This is my purpose.

When I let go, I also realized how close Sam and I have become. Have I been truly blind? He knows a core in me that i did not know I had exposed. It is so strange. We are opposite in every imaginable way, yet here we are, two people thriving on our love for one another. I know him, which is more than i can say for Ian. We thrived on our hatred. It was always a competition. Now I have even been able to let go of that. Ian, I respect you as an individual and I am so glad we have found our own ways. We were never any good for each other.

So you see, someone, I have recaptured my essence, but this time it is my own, not my own image through him.

A Wave- Unabridged and Scattered Thoughts

2008-05-20T15:31:00.000-07:00

I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to go far, far away and I want to stay there until I have learned to be strong. I want to endure and here there is nothing to endure. I am suffocated by the structured, organized way of life. I don’t feel free. I feel like I cannot do as I need to do. I am not the person I need to be, the person pulsing in my veins. I want to scream and scream and scream until everything around me melts away.
I feel like I’m in limbo, like I am treading water. I feel like I’m weak. I feel contained. I want to get rid of everything. I want to strip myself bare, to beat all this out of me so that I know what I am. Get rid of the crust, the mile-deep weights of society and suburbia and stare at what’s left. That’s me. I am what remains.
I don’t know how to scrape everything off here. I just don’t see how to wipe off the cell phone, the TV, the cozy mattress, the shelf of niceties, the heap of rules- not after dark, not this weekend, there’s a family dinner tonight, your cousins will be in town, no hours alone, no, no, no, no, no! I want to be the one to say no, not them. I want to decide. I want to GO! Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go! I need to leave now. It’s time now. I need to endure. I need to vanish from practicality, I need to rip myself out of the ground. They can’t let me go. They are prisoners of practicality. For God’s sake, I don’t want kids. I will become a prisoner of practicality and restriction. I will wall myself in with responsibility. I will drown in an orb of thick meaninglessness. Take your cell phone, not after dark, family dinners, cousins in town, I don’t feel like making a decision....no, no, no. Dependency. Tons and tons and tons of dependencies. I’ll fall in if I’m not careful. I’ll let it soak into me. None of that. I’m after freedom.
If I can successfully strip myself bare and see what’s left, if I at least know what I am, I will have happiness- like stone. I will have spirituality. I will have freedom. I’m sick of waiting. I don’t want to get sucked in. I’m already mostly there and I have three more years to go of limbo, of prison. I’m serving a sentence for being a product of suburbia. Thus far, it’s all I am- that I know of. But I don’t know what’s inside me besides the screaming sex desire of a teenager.

I am hard on myself, she says. You are too soft on yourself. This is who I WANT to be, not who I am forcing myself to become. This is what I WANT! Deal with it.

My least favorite thing about myself is my lack of compassion. I am selfish. Haven’t you read these pages? All I ever do is complain and this itself is even a complaint. I wish I could be satisfied. I want to bear no judgment on anyone, I want to help other people, I want to be forgiving. I want to love everything I see, and yet all I ever think about are my wants, as demonstrated by every sentence. All I ever do is bitch. As far as I know, that’s all I even am. I am the essence of hypocrisy. I am bitching about how much I bitch. It’s even laughable. I say not to judge as I judge, I say not to complain as I complain, I say to love as I hate, I say to help as I hurt, I say to forgive as I hold grudges near my heart. I am a suburban teen, classically. Wow. Let’s get rid of these actions and focus on the speech. Scrape off your hypocrisy with everything else. Go home.

2008-04-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

I've been wrong. So incredibly wrong. She didn't tell anyone and nobody could understand why she was doing this to herself.
My God Maggie.
I'm sorry.
I'm just sorry.

To one of my best friends... I'm sorry for this

2008-04-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

I’m about to be very hard on you, so be prepared. Know that I love you to the roots, but you must know what I feel. You need a slap in the face, so here it is:

You stupid, arrogant American. You shut yourself in your room and wallow in a luxurious puddle of self pity. What a perfect life you lead and yet you can’t stand it. I’m sure you have to look really hard to find something worth the blade.
You think you’re deep? You are one of the shallowest kind out there, one of those selfish suburban teenagers trying to find a place among people who suffer, people who have a reason to suffer.
Oh, but here’s something new, a distraction from all that simulated hurting. Something to drown you and make you feel strong, like you’ve had to endure, like your life would mean something. You’ve been waiting a long time to drown yourself. I can imagine how great that would feel.
I understand the curiosity. Hell, I’ll be next to you for a while if you don’t come across this, but your weakness has made it a need. You need an excuse to suffer, otherwise you’d be in danger of growing out of it. You’re such a conformist. You’re so pathetic.
Do it for the good time, not for the lifestyle.

Oh, and get over yourself.

Happiness like a smooth stone

2008-04-09T14:08:00.000-07:00

February 17th, 2008

Elise:
Please refer to this letter often. You frequently need reminding as to why you should live your life the way it will, must be lived.
Understand that you are ignorant. America is a vast realm of ignorance. It isn’t real. Our borders keep out the world like it is an unpleasant secret. We live in a cocoon of meaningless business and politics. The life you have lived so far is not a real life. So far, your life means absolutely nothing. You have done no good and you will always be hollow if you do not escape.
You say and love to believe that you have a kind of internal strength beyond that of most who surround you. I now believe this to be true, but you must also fear that, if it isn’t put to use, you will let it vanish. I hope this fear will give you incentive to leave, to do hard miserable things in your life, to push you out of your ignorance, no matter how cosy and bright it is. I hope you will learn to find the meaning of pain, so become selfless like you only pretend to be.
To live with no physical comforts and no dependency on pretty things will allow you to feel the internal happiness you have always groped blindly for. Not an airy, momentary bliss, but a deep, spiritually dense happiness, a happiness like smooth stone.
Until you have the age to drive your own life, the airy bliss of your youth will suffice, but when you are finally able to search for something more permanent and more concrete, please, please go searching for it. Don’t fall back because the concept looks relieving and delicious. Go searching for your life’s meaning, even if you don’t want to, when you finally reach the brink of it. Find that meaning in other people or in the sky or somewhere else. Don’t take the easy way out. Don’t dismiss this because I am young right now. I currently have a clarity that I my not find when I reach the brink, so I am leaving this to give you a forward shove. Don’t waste it.

Elise

Waking up to the screams of Darfur

2008-04-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

February 16th, 2008

Fulton has been wonderful. I am in my bliss right now, though also more than slightly disturbed. Today I bought a book about ending the genocide in Darfur at a non-profit hippie store because I fell in love with the cover. So far I have read a mere 19 pages and already i have a different perspective on life than even earlier today. It is extraordinary how ignorant and bubbled up Americans really are. I am astonished by how little we as a society care about the mass murder and slaughter of innocent human beings. It is called a genocide because entire villages are targeted for extinction and wiped off the face of the Earth every single fucking day because of their ethnicity and religion. I can feel Bob Dylan’s words rising in my chest: “How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn’t see.” I am sickened by our uselessness and blindness. We are really and truly blind. Of the plathura of things Brandon said to me of his discoveries, one means everything to me: “Something Australia made me realize was the extent of America’s waste. All the waste!” Beyond his meaning of physical things such as water and plastic and natural resources, I see now our waste of power. We are the superpower, even if we are to fall, and we do nothing worth-while with that. What are we focusing our efforts on right now? A pointless, expensive, religiously-based war where we meddle with Iraq’s politics. That’s all we seem to give a damn about- politics. Not lives or the crimes against humanity smothering Africa. Well wrap your narrow fucking mind around this, America: 4000 fewer people exist because of their religion in just a part of Sudan. Millions of people have been displaced, millions of women have been raped. The government uses starving as a method of murder, poisoning the wastelands meager water supplies by dumping corpses into them. In is beyond inhuman. In Africa today, human beings are slaughtering other human beings by the thousands.
When will America start seeing? When ill we begin to notice what other people are suffering? The answer is blowing in the wind.

Elise

Sick of it All

2008-03-08T07:56:00.000-08:00

Ugggghhh. We’re fighting.

If I were to try and tell you what was in my mind at this present moment, it would come out as a jumbled swirl of aggrivation.

Maybe you don’t see it, but you seem to like her very much, the kind of like where you think about them and give them things.

I thought for a moment’s time that you wanted me back and were trying to ask me without asking me, because you have done that before. I was trying to tell you that I would be afraid of doing that, because of where you seem to be with her. I suppose I have misread everything.

Last night, my words didn’t come out the right way. I was blinded with anger.

You were once in love with her and you once made a huge mistake driven by that love. To me, it looks as though you are trying, in the pit of your mind, to let go of her, but that doesn’t mean she is gone from you, you only want her to be. But that is just what I think.

I’m not sure I want to talk to you anymore. The whole thing is such an irrelevant part of my life. You aren’t a part of it anymore and talking to you only keeps those wounds from healing. I want to heal right now and you aren’t letting me. This isn’t a fault of yours, nor is it anything you can change. I want to erase and move on. I’m going to move on now.
Sorry

An Autobiography of No Point

2008-03-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

What is there for me to say? I can feel things to say, but I cannot catch them and lock them into words. I guess, for that reason, I’m not writer. I can write words, but that isn’t the same thing. I often think myself an artist, but that doesn’t depict who I am in this moment. I have something I want to say, but it will not mean what I intend until you, the reader, know who I am, so I will begin with that.

I live in Oklahoma City, a flat, republican place. I go school, learning things for the grades and therefore, through an endless series of proving myself worthy in the form of national exams, am secured a position in the American realm that will keep my family fed (because it is assumed that I will have children and lead a good, American life). I feel bound to tell you that I hold myself exempt from the blindness that is required of all true Americans. I intend to escape the luscious ignorance America breeds within its borders.

My life so far has been one of a classic, upper-middle class student. Like the other youths, I am strangely selfish and I have the luxury of scorning the perfect life I lead simply because of its perfection. I have a need to note specifics, though they will strike you and any sensible person as dull and pointless:

My mother is an artist, currently building a series inspired by the death of her father. Her hands are an endless source of creation and guidance to me. They define what mine would do if I didn’t have the eternally unsatisfied and unfulfilled brain that I have. I couldn’t live the life she lives and be happy, but it is wonderful to daydream about what my hands could do once they became as broken in as hers. My father, contrastingly, is a health-care lawyer. He isn’t one of the lawyers that are in the business for its wealth, but rather because he loves it. Frankly, I find love for the law an unfathomable source of confusion, because I resent it so, but I respect that it’s his passion. It is his art, strange as that may be.

I have one older brother, who is as much an idol to me as he is a book of how not to live life. He will graduate from college this spring and he hasn’t the faintest idea where he will go from there. Home again, I suspect.

I, in contrast, hope to be self-supporting as soon as possible. I want to travel with my closest friend to the Latin Americas, the wild Latin Americas, and experience. I want to live a life that I find meaningful. Everyone has something different that makes them feel fulfilled, and, apart from my creations, I have yet to find it. As soon as I have the age with which to escape, I will go searching.

I could continue on and on about my petty life. I could tell you about my art, my odd connection with the local Jewish community, my self-pitying boyfriend of 7 past months, the person who opened my eyes, or the person of my current fury, sympathy, and want, but they all seem to be finicky details about someone you care nothing for. I will save those monotonous accounts for another time. Now for the things I have wanted to say:
Wait, I have forgotten my original intent in writing this.

Just one little comment.

2008-01-08T11:56:00.000-08:00

I'm going to let go of you now.

Dear Claire

2008-01-08T11:46:00.000-08:00

I know you won't read this, but I want you to know something. Not pretend to know it, but really know it. I am here for you. Not in the superficial way you would see on a greeting card, but in the way that means something profound. I'm always going to be here, right next to you, so if you secretly doubt it, if you're secretly worried, don't be. We're not going to lose this friendship. We're going to go to Latin America, I know we are. You aren't the only one who thinks about our futures when you wake up every morning. I can't wait for the adventure that our lives are going to become. So jus in case you have doubt in your mind, you have to know that I will always, always, always be here.

Simplicity???

2007-12-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

7 months... wow.

This is just a little urge I have to write something, and I am out of my creative bliss, so bear with me, whoever you are.

Nothing is ever simple, is it? Even simplicity itself is complicated in its own way. This should all be so simple, and, somehow, it isn't. I was supposed to stop loving you a long time ago. Is what I feel now a wave of fond memories? Just a remnant, a ghost? Or is it a rebirth of something that died when our lives changed. Is it coming back? I don't think I want it to. I'm happy with the way my life is, though now I have a strange, inconsistent urge for it to be something else. Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I, very unintentionally, miss you.

Nevermind

Alexis

2007-05-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

I made it through the ceremony without a tear shed. I made it through the after-party with hardly a tear shed.

I sat, being squashed between friends, on a lumpy couch a room away from the loud music and ecstatic dancers. Laughter bubbled in my throat as we merrily rough-housed on the couch. Tears did not even pass through my mind.
A pretend fury towards Bess for her attempt and success at tickling me had me focused in her direction. When I turned back away from her, Alexis was kneeling before my seat with stained eyes. No words had been spoken, I just ceased what I was in the midst of and wrapped her in my arms. Words were and always had been unnecessary since the dawning of our friendship in kindergarten. Her misplaced visit disappeared shortly.
Only when the after-party of our graduation ended did I search for another of Alexis's hugs. This would be a good-bye-and-have-a-good-time-in-Florida hug upon my departure.
As I stepped into a different room, Alexis came bolting up to me and strangled me in one of these routine hugs. When we parted, her eyes had new tears spilling from them. There was a moment that stretched onward as I saw my best friend's beautiful face and watched it grow from that of a rolly-polly toddler to the young woman she is now. In the reflection of her eyes I saw myself do the same. I didn't want to look away and I suddenly knew what all this was. This was our last night on common grounds together and we took a long look at each other, soaking in what we saw and branding ourselves with the memory.
I will never forget the look Alexis gave me, and I know it marks the ending of everything we know and everything we love. I love her more than I could love any sister of mine, for has been more wonderful and more meaningful than a sister. We have grown much closer than sisters, so LYLAS just doesn't cut it anymore.
The tears came and the tears are coming and it is the most painful thing I think I have ever felt. I miss her so much because, though that night is also this night, I know we have lost each other in a dramatic wave of fate and it hurts beyond hurt itself.

The Final Glory

2007-05-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

Possessing enough speed to win a race against infinity, a hard bullet hissed past John's head. Another then another, they came wicked and strong. He was consumed in the heart of an endless sphere of burning orange flames, auralized by the mighty thunder of cannons.
Distorted and delirious, his vision swayed to his step. He stumbled across the bitter earth, broke the edge of a hill into fire just in time to behold the falling of his best friend. So painfully in time to see a crimson blood spew from Eric's bust and wash the death toll with another number. Grief ripped through him, its hurt beyond that of a bullet.
John stared across the battle scene with new eyes. The reds were advancing and few in his coat still clung to their lives. It was a horror to which any decent would repulse at. The sight infested his will to live and he suddenly no longer cared. He had a desperate urge to befall the same fate as Eric, tis the only job that seemed to matter to him. After all, is that not truly the job of a solider, to kill then die in his colors?-or so his thoughts rested.
John stepped toward Eric's body and began to kneel. A red stood only feet away and with a crack of his gun emitted a bullet. It struck John's chest and blood trickled from it. He ignored it for a few moments, refusing to feel the pain. He continued to kneel and he touched Eric's blood with his shaking fingertips. Twas still warm.
John rest his head upon Eric's chest and almost expect it to be heaving with breath. Their bloods swam together and he felt a new sense of peace. Slowly the world evaporated before him and he was strangely happy to be nearly dead. Twas an inexplicable feeling, this idea of receiving joy from such a thing, but to loose all care, to see the gates of God flicker before him, it was all a magnificent thing.
John died with a smile etched into his face.

Written For Halloween

2007-05-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

The thick, musty air slowed my pace, its stiff body as quiet as death. No tree limbs rustled, no birds squawked, the insects made no song. Silence... sheer, pure silence. It swallowed me, nipped at my soul, gripping me with an undeniable fear. And yet I moved on over the hills. Strangely, no leaves brushed me face and there was no twig on the earth to trip me. It was as though I was destined to walk this land, as though I treaded a well-kempt path, but there was none, only virgin wilderness.
My heart echoed in my chest The air remained cold as ice, the world remained silent, but I could feel that something in the atmosphere had changed. Suddenly, a shrill sound ripped through the fog, damning the silence. My swollen veins slowed the rush of my blood. I knew the sound had come from death itself.
I heard suddenly heard a cruel, heavy panting from behind me. Twas the only sound in existence. Closer, closer, closer still. Slick, damp fur combed over my left arm. I could no longer move forward. I just could not. My mind and lungs grew numb with fear. The panting was only inches from my ear hot and sticky with the stench of blood. Fate gathered me in its hands and then nothing, nothing at all.

letter to Mr. Austin

2007-05-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

Mr. Mike Austin,
We have not encountered a situation like that of the first. I fear by this that you consider my way of functioning in that particular situation to be my norm. You must see that my tears did not flow with anxiety, but rage. I have never behaved in such a manner as I did that forlorn September, and I do not intend to repeat my actions.
With that matter covered, I should like to move on to the next. I find my days weary, monotonous even. You brought me an exciting, gripping strand of events. Only when we duel am I entertained, and so it must continue. Lately, having been more agreeable, I fear we may never clash again, knowing each other's personal standing. For this reason, I insist we form a debate. There are so many topics we differ upon. I simply cannot let it go to waste.
I'm quite certain each and every debatable subject would serve useful to our purpose. You may find I am skilled at "arguing," assuming you did not know long ago. I might add that this quality I possess is not influenced by my gender.
I know little of your abilities, as well as the extent of your knowledge. I look forward to finding out.
Sincerely,
Elise

Poor Daddy

2007-04-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my little cousin's First Holy Communion. My parents and I were invited and, nearly against my will, I participated:

The massive church swung like a pendulum before me. I inhaled and stepped forward, facing a world I did not know. Dressed in a prim blouse and with a lace garmet wrapped in my hair, I thought I looked quite the part of a Catholic. I wasn't inclined to make a derogatory statement and I had no interest in being shunned by my surroundings, so I looked the part.
Finally within the walls, I was surrounded by a marble icing on every surface. It's beauty struck me with a surprising force. There were statues of various saints and in the chapel there was a huge, intricate cross with a life-sized Jesus mounted in a classic, graphic style. His muscles had been pried from his body and his ribs carved forward. There was a strange life about it.
Sitting in a velvet dressed pew with the rest of my family, my father was on my right. As we stood to sing a hymn, he noticed how I stared into the distance and my lips were still when I should have been singing. He nudged me and held his book before my face. I waved it away and he tried again. This ritual continued until the song came to an end. With a troubled expression, he turned to me and questioned my apparent displeasure with the singing. "I'm just not in the mood to sing," I replied cooly, and with that the ceremony continued. When the prayed, I kept my head high and said nothing. Daddy placed the warmth of his hand over mine, trying to get me to hold it. I wouldn't even respond. I just stood there, still and cold, staring in another direction. The entire event was filled with little things like that one, where my father was thoroughly perplexed at my lack of spirituality.
When we arrived home, I began to realize he may not know. Slowly I gathered the courage to tell him, and by the time 8:00 struck, I was prepared. "Daddy, can I talk to you about something for a second?" I said, entering the living room. "Of course, sweety," he replied characteristically. "You know that don't believe in God, don't you? "I said, doing my best to peer up at him with innocent eyes. He said nothing, only stared at me for a moment.
He had grown up in an Atheist family and had rebelled all through his childhood, switching between religions. At last he had "found peace with the Christian God," and now he was an ordinary church-goer. His eyes were crossed with an indescribable disappointment. His thoughts rested upon the idea that his only daughter, who was growing up far too fast to begin with, had fallen into the same tragic patterns as his brother, sister, and parents. He wanted me to be his Christian little princess forever, but it just couldn't be that way.
"Why," he finally whispered. "I would rather not go into it for fear of upsetting you. I am far to cynical for my own good." I said, beaming a false beam in his direction. "What often happens is that I will tell something to an ample amount of people and then just assume everyone knows. Often a couple people miss the word. Sorry, Daddy." I said, and left the room, trying to resist the memory of his expression.

I Don't Want Kids

2007-04-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

The sun drenched me with warmth as I rocked back and forth in the rigid swing. With each movement, the whole rickety build moaned and shreaked, making me tighten my ears. My rotund baby cousin clutched my thighs to keep from toppling from my lap and he gleefully bubbled and cooed at the motion of the swing. Back and forth I rocked. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I was trapped into rocking, for whenever I ceased, John Paul would shreak with just as harsh a tone as the swings, pounding his fists on me and saying "swing, swing, swing," in his sloshed words until I would finally bend and rock once more.
Sighing a worn and miserable sigh, I turned my vision to more of my cousins. They were older and darting across the lawn in an improvised game of tag. I was intrigued at how every single time someone got tagged, they would immediately accuse the enemy of cheating. Or they would just whine "but I hurt my ankle" or "but I'm a girl" or "but you can run faster than me" and at last conclude that it just wasn't fair. To be honest, I'd have rather been a referee to this bizarre game then rock John Paul on the unhappy swings.
Oklahoma's pale sun slunk below the horizon and I was still rocking. High-pitched mosquitoes twittered around me, searching for my blood. John Paul seemed to be amused by them, as well as immune. Finally I bit my lip in attempt to gather courage and plopped my cousin off of my lap. He screamed and kicked in rage, but I simply stood and walked away. Shortly, he gave up, huffed, and toddled after me, placing his chubby little paw in my hand. As we crossed the dark yard, I couldn't help but wonder how my aunt and uncle did it. How did they take care of this one crazy baby, let alone another two wild children? I decided then that I didn't want any kids.

Those Pale Colors

2007-04-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

The sun steps through the glass window, giving this pale little room some more pale color. Ridiculous, nauseating chatter drifts to my corner of the room, pushing its way through my ears, however hard I try to block it out. The dull page flickers away for a moment, revealing a spectacular image of rural Germany. I see a wet grey sheen coating the folded earth. Cuddling in the pocket of this ripple is a town of red roofing, all huddled together to escape the chill of rain.
As for me, I am atop the peak of a tall, round hill, skipping over slick piles of mud that are trying with all their might to be a road. The powerful wind throws frantic raindrops into my face. Ahead, my parents refuse to face defeat by the wind and rain. Like fools, they continue their efforts in battle. How pathetically easy it is for the wind to jerk their umbrellas about, batting them like amusing little toys.
Slowly, I begin to see myself falling behind the group atop this vast hill, and I watch myself toss my ragged umbrella, which is doing me no service, into the wind, letting it soar out of sight, toppling through the skies at the wind's delight. I shake my skin from its cold coat of water and face the bleak sky with impossible joy. I spin 'round and 'round until I can spin no more, until my vision pulses and flows in a dizzy gaze. I am so happy to be here, among the fields of German harvest and the herds of bleating sheep. Anywhere but Oklahoma.
Blinking back into my pale little corner, I sigh with my crushed joy and I hear the echoes of those fantastic times in rainy Germany. For a blissful moment I had been able to re-capture my sense of home, knowing I myself was embedded into that rain, that earth, that red little town. A sense of belonging, a sense of home. My despair came from knowing I had been home for a mere 5 days in my lifetime. And, so my story goes. I live to this day among the idle chatter, the burning gasoline, and the pale colors. I live in Oklahoma.