Wanderers This Morning Came By..

"Dear shadow alive and well:

How can the body die?

You tell me everything,

Anything true..."

--Fleet Foxes--

It felt a bit like prying open someone's insides--stretching back yanked wide skin and needling through the boney bit-- reading other people's manuscripts. Everything all double-spaced and decipherable; just like literature was never meant to be. Never did I prepare myself for neither of such things: One being, that I would be instructed to hold the audacity to read someone's hard work, and deem it invalid. Two being, that I would later be standing in an incredibly large line of people in steamy Postal Office fanning myself with a fistful of rejection letters. If there is another way Agents get off, please do let me know.

Now that I have a couple*jobs* (though the worst of which is the only that pays me, and meager amounts at that. Please, World, may I have some more?) on top of being a *student* (though this would require validating my Summer class as an actual...class, and I'm still not so sure it's qualified), I have become a day-walker to this land of hustler transvestite Teen Sensation citylife. With a messenger bag brusing the upper part of my thigh running to the Path Train, or my boots catching on the cobbled street of Bond, I am beginning to feel more and more like a fraud; having let the city buildings seep into my blood stream and fix themselves under my fingernails.

This has been one of the toughest weeks I've had mentally, on many levels. I revisited many things in my head and really re-lived them a bit, on the train, and suddenly I'm thrown into a whirl-win of confusion. I shut parts of myself out when I don't take to them anymore, and though some of those dusty knobs should never be touched, I still find myself placing my fingertips on the rusting hinges, wondering when exactly I ever buckled myself so tightly. Sometimes I'm not the little girl I thought I was, and at other times I wonder if I'll finally learn to be a little girl. Somehow I feel not many people see the lighter side of me anymore. If they ever did. I don't know if many people ever felt like I was someone they could relax around. But I was always the person they came to for advice. Like I was the wise old tree who had seen many paths and taken many of them. Of course I know this isn't true, and though I have taken many paths and seen both wonderful and terrible things alike, each life is for each to live and for me to be spouting out advice or talking the talk is as similar to telling a wall to simply get up the courage to tell the chair how it feels, and get on to it. Each person needs to make their own way. Follow their own footprints and no one else; even if it ultimately leads them in circles.

Perhaps one of the reasons I fell in love with writing is because I felt it was the only cognisent way I could possibly be organized, in the lightest of terms, within my own head. Though I know the main reason I fell in love with it is because language is one of the only things humans have to communicate and truly connect with one another. Otherwise we are just our own worlds, gravitating towards one another before we are launched back into the oblivion, only to return to star dust when we breathe the heaviest sigh.

I suppose today I just feel a bit like an old cardboard box full of letters and photographs of places I've seen and amazing people I've known-- that I swear I've never forgotten, just mis-placed, if just for a while-- in the back of an attic, feeling cramped and weary. How am I ever to figure where I belong, when I know the gypsy whose spirit embodies mine will never have peace. Unsatisfaction is what drives me forth, and admittedly always will. Somethings about myself will never faulter. And I suppose for that reason, my rambling ways will never quit and I will always find my next road.

I know I scare people, sometimes. I've also pissed a lot of people off. But I only know what I know, and I don't always claim that I'm right. I know everyone is just doing the best they can, and I wish they could tell that I'm only trying to do the same; though the people that should really pay attention to that, never will. But that's always how it goes. In any case, I am what I am and who I am is a person who is perhaps at times, frighteningly independent and not afraid to be herself. My friend Cris once told me I had an "unforgiving" personality. I was also told by my director, Josh, that I was "fearless". I think of all words to be used about me, these two stick out in my mind the most. I won't validate them and stake them as true, because that's for other people to label me with, not me. I don't try to cage my amoebic self into a container. But I like to think they have a sparkle of truth, somewhere hid in their individual definition.

Sometimes I miss the raw, reeling emotion I felt in my younger years. Even though some bits of those constant searches for meaning in life have stayed with me, I still feel I was much more soft to the touch emotionally, and perhaps a bit more permeable. But I guess that comes with age. I don't know that it would be mentally safe for me to be like that anymore.

Isn't it amazing? Only twenty, and already I feel the shifting weight of my life's encyclopedia's starting toward the edge of my shelf. I'll be amazed if my shoulders aren't past my waist within the next ten years.

I just wish I was able to be satisfied and relaxed. More like, I wish that's what I wanted. I never know what I want. I suppose that's the other reason I freak people out. I'm a riddle constantly re-wrapping itself. And when people come to me, bleary eyed, asking what my answer is, all I can do is shrug.

You don't know any more than I do.

I'm Sorry Ms. Jackson, I Am For Real.

Latino caribo, mondo bongo

The flower looks good in your hair.

Latino caribo, mondo bongo

Nobody said it was fair...

A little toasty from a frosty mug of Summer Ale, and about fifteen games of pool under my tummy belt, I am listening to Joe Strummer from the comfort of my very own futon. The violins and slow drum beat leaves me feeling sexy and vulgar. I had an incredibly sexy, vulgar dream last that was less pornographic, more flashing neon lights with people dripping and draping all over one another. People tired of dancing in a dreamy eternity, never to put their legs to rest; forever to push the hair out of their lover's mouth. I took Doug, faceless, to the back of the room where we were meant to make love through the use of doorways and staring at one another a lot. And so we stared.

Today I wandered the hard streets of the West Village, and threw down some resumes at coffee and book shops. Then I rolled down to SoHo and dropped resumes like I was in the Middle East (yes, that was in fact a Black Eyed Peas reference. Eat it.), and even picked up an application at EMS.

This afternoon I sat at the pier and read as the sun pulled at its multi-colored shade as it decended. Brandon and I played pool at Fat Cat, bickering over what rules should be used. Jay and Quan met us soon thereafter. After some more games of me still being incredibly rusty, we took to the subways, waved bye to Brandon, then ventured on into Chinatown, where we went to our favorite billard & bar, Tropical. Many, many games and a beer and loads of close instructions from Jay later, and I was finally getting good at it again. My right arm hurts, and thats how I know I did a good game of pool. Means I was concentrating.

I really, really love pool. There are not many things I can outrightly say I am passionate about entertainment wise without some sort of embarrasment. Pool is not one of them. When I'm playing well, I don't think about anything else: just slicing that ball, or hitting it just gently enough.

Tomorrow, Colin comes up from Connecticut. I am very, very excited about this, as I have not seen him since...I don't even remember anymore. Ana, him and I will hopefully get together as well, or, at least, at Coney Island on Friday before Doug & I leave for the Adirondacks.

Tired now, must bid the interwebs adiu.

Au revoir.

Guten Nache.

Buenos Noches, mi amo Nuevo York.

Call Me Naive: A Love Letter

I awoke this morning in a frigid hotel; my washed hair still wet and bed-headed at 7AM to find my limbs intangled in some sort of boyfriend. Trying my best to release the sleep from my eyes after only five hours of the stuff, Doug moaned a few times, and stretched. His hair stood abruptly at end. He told me he loved sleeping next to me. While he was saying this I remembered we had no toothpaste in our hotel room--my breath was rank--while realizing that, oh, things were going to change.

Graduation.

It becomes a whole new world unto itself- a relationship- when you've been in it, and deep in it, for a just a little longer than, "Oh shit I think I love you", and just to the right of, "If you left, I'd have to kill you". Or maybe just to the left of: lock myself in my room, and drink wine until Billy Idol looks attractive again. I realized this realtionship buisness was a doozy today when I found myself checking to make sure he knew where his pants were; if he put enough patches on his hat. Bagpipers played at the ceremony. I squinted heavily in my new jersey-cotton dress trying to find his squinty eyes in the audience. He smiled and gave a thumbs up.

Sometimes, in regards to these "emotion" things, I don't know who I am any more because I can't remember there ever being someone who I gave more of a shit about. His family has even grown on me, in their own ways. But I needed home after two days of someone else's loving and adoring family. Family portraits everywhere. The home cooking. The porcelian plates. The yard in a nice suburban house. The nice family who nicely gets along with the other nice extended family members who nicely remembered to bring the bundt cake. All wonderful, loving people. Just, very; nice. Nice gets tiring, when your used to your own weird family. Tired and expectant of Zoe's (which wound up being postponed to next week), I trudged onto the Hamilton train, and sped for the blinking lights.

I ripped off my dress and dove into boxer shorts and my sporty Dave Matthews Band Winter Concert Tour my boyfriend of Junior year of High School bought me for Christmas of '05 as soon as heard my red door slam. I never saw the Winter Tour. Only the Summer tour, where my at-one-time-boyfriend (drunk, and clinging to my ankle sliding down the mud of the Meadows, with a beer in his hand) was the only person who would even be able to make the case that I did in fact see Dave Matthews Band live once, and loved it. Well...

Buddhas and glass framed bugs stare at me from all sides, as cat hair automatically reaches into my lungs, and yanks out the air. Bones plays on the TV and my guinea pigs run racetrack circles around their pen. I put dibs on Jamal; Little Timmy took first place.

My Mom saw I looked disgruntled, and offered me chocolate cake and tea. I voted cake. Luckily because of Zoe's e-mail, there was a re-count, and after all of Florida's votes were in: cake and tea. She hmphed- as tea fixes everything- and calmly proclaimed she was now going to sleep in a rainforest. I asked whether it was raining in her rainforest, and Keith said, depending, but tonight yes. I watched the bedroom light click out, then grabbed my bunny slippers, shrunk back to the age of five, grabbed a blanky, and slowly opened the door.

Mom in her grey, hip nightgown and Keith clasping a pillow to his chest, the two lay staring up into the ceiling, watching the sounds of raindrops trickle down the walls, small tropical birds flap across the windowsill, and whistling monkies chase the tabby cat out. The two made the monumentous mistake of cracking a joke at my prescense, a mistake which was instantly quieted when I launched myself onto the bed between them like Marmaduke who forgot his size on his Master's lap. Keith fell off the bed. The rainforest hooted on my behalf.

"I also have Tibetan Monestary. Or Aquatic Songs. Or Boat On A Bay."

I heard a click and the sounds of water lapping the sides of our bed boat rocked the three of us into silence. I was on a river in a canoe, the sun shining down on me, and the tall reeds attempting to hitchhike back to Batsto. I heard another click, and whales sang their eerie cello solos through the glittering taxi lights and I remembered why every one should feel small.

Glacier Bay and Bayou were my two favorite CD's besides Shell Silverstein's readings of There's A Light On In the Attic when I was living in my Grandparent's basement growing up. I would watch stare at the light in the hall as it flickered on, revealing a poster of assorted whales, dolphins, fish, eels, and other sea creatures. The whirring of the disc would sound until Glacier Bay rolled over the electronics. Whales would sing their language as violions, bass', cellos, flutes and other animal noise making instruments helped the piece along. I would fall asleep, dreaming of the ocean. Goodnight, peachpit. Goodnight, Momma.

Any car that passed by Keith's apartment in Hackensack would shake every inch of his infentescimal speck of a living space to the bones it didn't have room to hold. Baby birds decided to take up residency in his wall-built bathroom fan, and his downstairs neighbors took a year-round liking to Christmas music. We would stay up watching every James Bond movie, in alphabetical order, until he would fall asleep on the blow up mattress, and I in the over stuffed couch. I would fall asleep, getting swallowed by those couch cushions, the roll and shake of the cars rocking me to sleep. Goodnight, Ree-ann. Goodnight, buttface.


I opened my eyes to the bedroom ceiling as my cat licked my awkward toe that doesn't move when I try to splay out my toes on my left foot.
"I love my family".
Keith and my Mom laughed.
"We think you're weird as hell, too".

And Then There Was (NOUN,VERB,ADVERB, OR LIGHT)

There is something sensual and holistic about taking whole tea leaves between my fingertips. I take a greater joy in this than ever would the man leaning on an open steel grate door pinching rolled leaves of ganja. I know because I've asked him. He told me to tell you: hello. I know the smell of black tea better than a wolf knows home. I've told him so and he just stared at me. I think I offended him. I want to rub tea leaves all over the world and have it fix everything. Which it does, for the five minutes it takes for me to finish it. War always commences when my mug is empty, though. Sorry, Earth, I promise I'll pick less flowers next time; though I promise it wasn't me who deflowered it.

First day back in the city, and already my mindbody is going through detox, and boy is it painful. A city full of people leaving you alone as opposed to a suburban campus full of people trying to grab hold of your buisness and stuff it in their mouths. But my buisness has no grisel, I try to tell the city, you don't even need to use a steak knife. But it doesn't hear me over snapping of photographs and smell of the subway grates, and it just gets distracted looking at the swinging hips and the clinking of purses and coins and the exchanging of left cheek then right cheek kisses. I guess I'm not its type.

The two hour train ride back from Stratford left me feeling even shorter than normal. The windows, I have found, on the MetroNorth transit line are arguably much higher than those in Jersey. Leaves me face pressed against the dirty window trying my hardest to see the backsides of dilapited buildings, snuffing as much recycled air as my borderline asmatic lungs can handle.I wrote for myself last night for the first time in a whole semester. It's as if I haven't had a self these past weeks. It's as if I've been an automated machine working on papers, worrying about internships and people and people's perceptions on me and I on them and them on me on them to the point that I took a raincheck on provoking thoughts for my own sake rather than other's. Not very like me in the least bit. My mindbody has welcomed back with open arms my conciousness; they very much missed one another and one owed the other a sweater.

I have the "Willie" theme song stuck in my head. The soundtrack to that film is so catchy; I watched it with both of my parents today. My Mother hmphthatwascoolprettyinterestinghmph-ed it, and Keith laughholyshitthatwasfuckingawesome-ed it. He got the weird vibe I get from it too, which in my eyes makes the movie successful. You can't forget Willie.I've watched two hours of Current TV-- my favorite addiction and my only TV addiction besides Californication and Weeds (not to be confused with a pot addiction that I don't have, the show just rocks my suburbia awkwardness and has a fantastic array of genres in its soundtrack)-- mostly about modeling in Brazil. Though it did have a segment on the Rio Carnival. I would like to fly there, please. It's okay, I'll just walk; I did buy new shoes today.

My Mom and I passed a terrible accident on the way to Connecticut yesterday. A lady was laying on the road covered in blood; people rushing all around the middle of the lanes. My breathe was short. I kept on singing along to the song playing because I didn't know how to stop acting normal. When we drove by the scene, you could see a Jeep on the opposite side of the highway that had collided with the guardrail; a man lay in the road near the car, and the woman on our side was across the barrier. She could not have been wearing a seatbelt. Two men pressed clothes close to her head, her feet kicking every once in a while. How fragile we truly, truly are. I hope, that they are both alright. We drove on and I texted Doug, telling him I loved him and that breathing is pretty cool after all. Life is so fragile. But its a beautiful fragility, isn't it? Wouldn't life be less beautiful if we all could withstand the sheer force of gravity, of each other's brutality, of nature?Doug's saying on the matter, later, when I rang him: "It's humbling, isn't it? But really, I mean as long as your not lying on the side of the road with a broken back and ambulances all around you, what do you really have to complain about? I mean you're you, I'm me, I love you, and you love me, and thats all we need! I mean what else matters?" And really, what do we truly have without connections to people, connections with animals, with things? If love is all you need and nothing else is worth mentioning, then there are a lot of poor people in the world and money won't cover the half of it. But if being bathed in gold means sticking my toes in gooey algae at the bottoms of lakes, touching every vintage fabric at a street fair booth, and Doug's nose tucked into the back of my neck, then lets get rich and give everybody nice sweaters, and teach them how to dance.

I'm writing a sidebar piece for a railroading magazine about Grampy and his HO scale train set. His journalist friend who loves fish and suds wrote a three-page story on his set and somehow stumbled upon the stack of pictures of myself behind a certain part of his railroad. Every other October since I was seven he's been taking my picture in that exact spot. I was always too short to see the set eye to eye when I was seven. I always liked watching the undersides of the faux mountains; hearing the little wheels along the tracks and hoping nothing would derrail. I stacked piles of the little plastic people onto open air freight cars. Cargo cars. Set them into motion and hoped no one jumped ship. My favorite was the sitting boy weilding a newspaper. "I want my two dollars!" There was no John Cusack figure, to my suprise.I have started Wesley's tour diary, and my favorite bits so far of the 566 pages in existence have been his mentioning of cassette tapes, Willie Nelson in women's clothing, and never having seen a Jam Band perform and getting utterly confused at a"jam sesh".

I have a good feeling about this summer. A warm feeling that smells like inky book pages, has a slightly British sound, and feels like Lally's fingers caught in the net of mine. Possible beach trip Monday, starting Zoe's Wednesday, Adirondacks on Friday. With that I bid the world of interwebs adiu, adiu, to you and you and you. "And here's your bit of zen" from one of my favorite men of science (mostly because it's a compilation of many of my favorite words):

Life...is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast.

-Douglas Adams

To Begin With.

टेक आईटी एअस्य, बुत टेक आईटी।
- वूडी गठरी