beetle-eaters

i really enjoy making up words, i've decided. or using words that don't really work, but if you look at them they work better than any other word you could've chosen?

i think my tiredness is talking.

let's see, what have i done since i've been here last . . . i went camping with the g-ville girls, which was just what i needed. the creek was cold, the fire was warm, the food and the company both hit the spot wonderfully and i think i slept relatively well. although i did wake up once during the night and i'm pretty sure i had just swallowed a big ol' bug.

"eh, it's protein," says my dad. and my mom shrugs her shoulders, nods a little, makes a face and concedes, "i guess so."

we have the same conversation every time we talk about eating bugs. which implies that we talk about it a lot?

anyway. i moved back into school today, but it feels like a totally different campus because i'm in the apartments instead of a dorm. which is fantastic, by the way. i think i would've gone literally and identifiably insane if i had to live in the dorms again.

oh, did i mention that i accidentally gave someone my phone number? yeah. i was in the print shop talking to the guy about getting our brochures printed. the file had been giving them trouble, so we finally figured out a way to make it work.

"ok, well i'll let you know if there's any more trouble"
"thanks!"
"should i just e-mail you or . . . ?"
"yeah, just call me"
(i write down my phone number)

and then he made conversation about how he went to high-school about 15 minutes from my house because he recognized the area code. so i walk out the door still not thinking anything of anything and he says, "well, i'll make sure to give you a call sometime."

i'm pretty sure i gave him the weirdest mix-of-a-smile ever. because as i was smiling it clicked that he wasn't too concerned about the brochure. i mean, really, i just thought that i wouldn't have access to a computer while i was unpacking, so if something went wrong they would need to call me and let me know, you know? i just gave him my number in case, i wasn't giving him my number.

oops. oh well.

i think i'm hopelessly backwards.

but i'm also very tired, because although i did very well in bringing only the essentials, they still translated into climbing the stairs several times in hot weather.

this is the part where you feel sorry for me, remember? or marvel at my independence, either one will work.

*chuckle*

but i do feel very independent. and capable. and all of those things that go along with having an apartment and cooking yourself dinner and cleaning up after you cook yourself dinner.

i think this year is going to go very well.

goodnight ya'll.

the natural state

i, well i'm in the kind of mood to where i couldn't start typing until the bar at the bottom of my screen said "done," if you know what i mean.

i know, i know. i said "if," not "since."

i'm doing well - very full, which is complicated and therefore a little overwhelming but really nice?

i am . . . going to lean my head back and listen to this song. excuse me.

well, thunderstorms and finished business, i suppose. and unfinished business and sinking into couches and cleaning up kid's toys and wooden kitchen tables and concerts and pulsing and the difference between relating to something and actually feeling it.

i'm sleepy. i've been up for 18 hours and i think my need for rest supercedes just about everything. including logical thought processes, but i've never been really good at those, anyway . . .

mm. goodnight.

. . . i'm still gone
on a quest for my song

well i'm on a champagne high

[sister hazel]

nice to meet you (anyway)

hurricane indecisive-jessie hit my room yesterday, or maybe it was experimental-jessie (i never can tell), so clothes are everywhere (not that they weren't everywhere before the hurricane hit, but it certainly didn't help matters. or my mother's nerves.).

i have about an hour before i can call kim, so i should pick them up and then call her.

i think i'm going to play on the computer and then call her, instead. and then pull a late-nighter (or rather, an early-morning-er) to clean. i haven't had one of those in awhile, and i'm not sure my body knows what to do with all this sleep. although apparently i have "an anemia." i would've always thought is was just "anemia," not "an anemia," but i actually read my lab results this time. hooray for being responsible, yes? you learn things!

it's ok, you can roll your eyes.

i learned something else, too - my cholesterol goes up and my iron goes down when i don't have a boyfriend.

*chuckles*

maybe i'll double major, after all . . . (in the interest of my physical health, of course)

kidding, friends, i'm totally kidding.

speaking of (not getting) my MRS degree, tomorrow is my last day of the roller-coaster internship. and, in keeping with this summer's pattern, i feel an absolutely mushy mix of emotion about it. i was so inspired today, the patients were wonderful (as usual), and i got a little pang sitting in the staff education room reading back over my notes because i realized just how much i've learned.

however.

i will be so relieved to be out of the hospital. i will miss the people, and some of the reading materials (yes, i realize that i'm a nerd and have come to accept it, you can laugh if you want to), but i will not miss the environment - i can feel a little weight lift just thinking about driving home tomorrow. and then it pangs, naturally.

so effing paradoxical, emotions are. is that a word? paradoxical? i think it is.

do you know, i was listening to one of the tapes from the hospital on suicide and the droning professor-man said "genetical" in the middle of his lecture.

genetical. i about had a fit right then and there. you've completed how many years of education? and you can't say "genetic?" really?

ack.

i made a list of recipes today. i'm going to make a little notebook one day. isn't that very martha stewart-ish of me? i'm going to title it "jessie's recipes" because that kind of rhymes. and i'll probably write that, too - "jessie's recipes (hey, it rhymes!)." just so posterity can know that i really was crazy all along, i didn't just get that way in my old age.

i miss the sisters, my sisters, terribly bad.

and so annie waits
annie waits
annie waits

i'd forgotten how much i like that song. and ben folds.

still fighting it? mm. yeah. love.

you can write
but you can't edit, edit, edit

well, it's been lovely bouncing all over the place, i could probably go on for awhile, but i think i'll attempt to find my floor. i haven't seen him in awhile, i think we should re-connect, have coffee, catch up, you know.

boy. i haven't been in such a mood in quite some time. maybe those mixed emotions about leaving the internship are more directed than i thought, eh?

good evenin'.

[title:gavin degraw, ben folds, regina spektor]

heavyweights

hm. i am very content.

*chuckle*

i think i'm ridiculous.

we're heavyweights
we take the punch
we find a way

[clarias]

turning to salt

i wonder about fear.

tonight i watched disturbia, and it served as a little bit of a double-whammy. it was relatively scary, you know, serial killers jumping out from behind corners, etc., but it was also one of those cheesy love story plot lines where he gets the girl in the end. "he" being shia labeouf, not the serial killer.

so it scared me a little and then made my lonliness pang (even if it was cliche). and after yesterday and watching becoming jane, that was the last thing i needed.

or maybe the first.

i played piano like i haven't in a long time when it ended. i played like i needed it, you know: when you slow everything down so that every note strikes a chord, and you close your eyes and let your fingers feel their way around the keyboard. if you're the emotional type, or maybe just the musically-self-aware-type, tears may even come.

i haven't cried in a long time, but i can't think of a place where i would want to. tomorrow would be perfect, except there will be people everywhere. i might drive over and see if our dear friend the black piano is accessible. but all the lights will be on, so maybe i won't.

i'm alright, really - i'm just in the stage of conviction where my denial is the queen of the hill. meaning, i know i am so wrong, but i can't see it because at the end of the day, i really don't want to.

i'm stuck.

and doing fine, thank you.

bohemian hooligans

i took my mom downtown tonight - it was fun. we saw becoming jane at the fine arts theatre and then went to old europe, because she'd never been before, and i couldn't be related to someone who had never been to old europe.

but, the movie . . .

*sigh*

there is nothing more attractive than a man in love. which is wonderful, if he is in love with you, but it's also slightly problematic if he's in love with someone else. or if he happens to be in a movie.

i usually don't allow myself the nonsense that is having a celebrity crush, but james mcavoy has ridiculously wonderful blue eyes, not to mention the cocky smile that seems to be my repeated and unfailing downfall. he's also from scotland, and i have decided that a scottish accent is by far the most amazing accent a man can have.

and i just watched him act very much in love for two hours.

gah.

i got my hair cut today - it's short, just like i wanted (it was a very spur-of-the-moment kind of hair cut), and reminiscent of julia stiles in the bourne movies, if i do say so myself. although i definitely don't have her nose. or her likeness, in general, except for the fact that both of our heads are round and now we have the same hair cut. which i like very much.

the terriblewonderful thing about being a hopeless romantic is that you achieve things in love that some people never do, but you also have to wait a lot longer for those things to actually develop. and in the meantime, the daydreaming is quite crippling. especially when you lay it on other people - which you do often, because it's what you believe.

don't i sound haughty! like i'm a step above just because i'm a frustratingly dedicated idealist.

that might just mean i'm naive by choice, yes? but i don't think it's that. i think it's that i view the world through swatches of color and bars of melodies and a general impressionistic kind of fog that doesn't really let many details through. which looks like naivety to those who don't understand it because it means i'm terrible at communication unless i'm bending words or notes or both at the same time. and even then . . .

but there i am being haughty again. it's the jane austen flavor that's left in my mouth. she validates my idealism, so i always feel completely justified in my stance on romance, and life in general, after watching one of her movies or reading one of her books. enter my pride, who bows very deeply upon his entrance and scoops his hand several more times than is necessary. i'm not really sure why my pride is a man, but it's one of those foggy impressionistic things, i suppose.

i love love
i love being in love
i don't care what it does to me

[the format]

i think i should be off to bed if i think i'm going to actually wash my car tomorrow morning and still have energy left to give the boys piggy-back rides tearing around the house, like i did today. maybe they'll forget about it and we can have a low-key afternoon . . .

right. 'night, then.

cookies for breakfast

well. how am i?

restless, right now.

there is something pulling at me. but i kind of know what it is and i don't really want to think about it right now.

my shoulders are peeling.

i'm going to straighten my hair tomorrow. i need to; i haven't all summer.

i also need to get my hair cut. short, i think. a little more-so than last time.

i have dreams of orka whales and owls
but i wake up in fear
you will never be my
you will never be my fool
will never be my fool

mm, yeah. this works.

i don't have to be at heather's until 10 tomorrow morning, so i've got a little extra sleeping room, which is nice.

here's the thing about being noticed: it's just being noticed. and it feels like more, when you've been invisible, but it's not - it's just an acknowledgement. perhaps an attraction, but it will never be acted upon. my favorites are the ones where you meet someone and they look at you that way and then you find out they're engaged? or you see them the next day and they're on a date, etc.

oops.

and then you just feel dumb. but i'm afraid that's starting to be quite a familiar emotion, so it's almost comfortable. i've almost given up on having any control over (or insight about) the interactions i have with the male gender.

almost. and i'm going to hold on to that almost as long as possible, so it's not really an "almost," it's a "not-even-close."

it's all about how you look at things.

this is how it works
you're young until you're not
you love until you don't
you try until you can't
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe
until their dying breath

no this is how it works
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took

[regina spektor]

every little meaning

i feel bad.

and by bad i mean . . . arrogant. and sneaky. and smothered.

let me explain myself a little better: i am the first, but i'm quiet about it; therefore, i feel that i am sometimes judged to be the second and, because of that, i feel the third.

tonight was the last night of bible study. and i led, so i lied. because while we were singing i was trying to relate to the words and i realized that i just don't want to. it's not some deep philosophical block, it's not a complicated collection of feelings that's clogging my spiritual connection, i just don't want to love something that i truly don't have any control over. i don't want to trust. i don't want to give my heart to anything unless i have at least some creative control over where it will go. although i'm very quick to throw it at ideas.

but then, ideas are defined, and dreams are finite.

i know that it's true. i know that he is true. and i'll never be able to believe otherwise, but that does not mean that i want to give it up. it means that i want to look at him when i get sad, like looking at a true painting or listening to a true song, and then move on with my life.

key word being my life.

if i really wanted to change i would've by now. if i really wanted to love i could. i have a source, i have a spiritual keg to tap into (i like beer and i like god and i think god likes beer, so just humor me on this one).

but i want to be the victim, and i can feel myself pulling that card as often as i can. for awhile it was the ex-girlfriend victim card, and now it's the hard-internship victim card. and it's so easy. because everyone wants to know how work is, you know? it's a perfect opportunity for me to whine. not to say that it's not a hard internship, but it's not unbearable and it is nothing when compared to others' struggles. nothing. i have never witnessed death, i have never been abused, i have never been told that what i say doesn't matter because i'm crazy anyway, i have never lost my physical independence.

so, then, how dare i sigh wearily when someone asks me how work is going? how dare i say, "it's hard, you know?"

i feel very much like daisy right now. you know her, from the great gatsby. she's awful. completely satisfied with being caught up in herself, and it is so familiar that every time i think of her i cringe.

that's enough, i think. i'm starting to type just for the sake of typing.

mmph.

hey dessie, hey dessie

i always love keeping sam and jake, even when they are incapable of hearing or obeying me. it calms me down, it pulls out my patience. i'm sure it wouldn't be that way if they were mine, but right now, it's such a comfort. they're always the same.

i just watched a movie called little fish. it was about people and drugs, and i sat there watching it on my couch eating a chocolate ice-cream cone, looking out our bay window with the dog curled up peacefully beside me.

i kind of hate that.

and it makes me wonder which is more real - that life or mine? which one is more true? because mine is cleaner, but their's is stronger. but how filthy is strong, and where does it just turn to muck, you know?

mmph. i'm going to spend my entire life looking for the line, aren't i? running back and forth and back and forth over it. maybe eventually i won't have to run so far before i recognize i've passed it, eh? maybe that's what this whole maturity thing is. getting just a little bit closer to the line.

i guess this means i believe in absolute truth, huh. because i do think there is a line, i just have no idea what it looks like and therefore it would be foolish to judge anyone on their relative placement. but then again, i am foolish. i do wish that i wasn't, worthless as that is when i have been.

i'm going to let this movie settle a little bit. it's still not very formed in my mind.

for those who go too far

i skipped work again today, but it wasn't because i just didn't want to get out of bed this morning, like it is usually. i decided last night as i was falling asleep that i needed to get some things together in my mind and my life before i go back and open myself up to learning. i need to be productive in small ways so that it will spill into the big stuff - starting with the big never does work out all that well, i don't feel.

so i got up and watched a little t.v. and then i sorted through my clothes and got a big pile ready for goodwill, where i'm going to go to on monday and look for record covers for my room next year. i still have to fold the clothes i decided to keep, and i need to sort through my things before i start to pack, but i've got time for that, and i just feel a lot better having done something, you know? i've made a (very small) dent in what feels like the overwhelming list of things to finish before i go to england: that's how my life is organized, right now - it revolves around my trip to lancaster, and everything is "before i go to england" or "after i come back from england."

that's another productive thing i did today - i played on lancaster's website and got a lot of very essential information about my orientation week at the university and the towns around lancaster and all of that. i am absolutely itching to go now - it is so beautiful, the countryside is. lancaster is maybe an hour train ride from the lake district, and manchester is about an hour away. liverpool is close, too. and those two towns are amazing as far as music and cool, british, artsy culture goes.

but i did run across my college's newsletter, in which the first article was about how americans are infesting the campus . . . oops. but it was mostly directed at american men (surprise? i don't think so) and it was a pretty playful article, so it wasn't a hate rant or anything like that. thank goodness.

you'll see - they'll love my southern accent, in time. and who knows, i might just come back with a british one, like madonna did.

it looks like my parents will be over with me before orientation starts and we'll spend a night in manchester and then head up to the lake district for a day before business begins. and then the fam is coming for thanksgiving, because that won't rile up those with an anti-american sentiment. "you don't have my holiday? well then, i'll bring it with me. and my family's coming, too. so there."

not to mention thanksgiving is celebrating our escape from them. oh well.

today was a good day. i called a lot of people and i sent a lot of e-mails and i made a to-do list. and therefore, i feel more organized which means more capable which means not so overwhelmed and stressed out.

i just want to be in lancaster. i want to be backpacking across the english countryside with my new british friends talking about whatever it is that we'll talk about. or in the common kitchen in county college with my building-mates hanging out while we cook. or in manchester in a pub listening to the newest indie band. slash damien rice. i need to buy my ticket! ok. another bullet has just been added to the to-do list.

it's amazing how wonderful just making a to-do list makes me feel. life is so much more manageable on paper.

but i do have something beautiful to look forward to, you know? something to motivate me, and it's becoming more real every day. i know my trip will be so wonderful, and when i remember that it makes me want to make this time i have now just as wonderful as it can be, so that when i'm actually in england i can enjoy it as much as possible, because i will know i didn't waste the months before. if that makes sense.

i've found a temporary muse, you know. i wrote a song yesterday evening, and i'm not sure if i like it or not, but i think it's a relatively good one. i like the lyrics more than i usually do, so that's a good sign. i can't decide whether it's too simple, though, musically. i'll have to wait until jenn gets back to see what she thinks. and jonlyn, she's just always out of town. or rather, we always are out of town at different times, so we never see each other.

but i've been playing piano like a mad woman for the past few days - yesterday i played for a good three hours straight and it was long enough that i had to fold up a blanket and stick it on the bench because my rear end was getting to be pretty sore. my mom says i'm getting old. anyway, and then today i played for at least an hour. i can feel it in my hands, too - they move the keys in a much better way than they do normally. i guess the whole practice thing's got something to it, huh?

i feel like i'm doing well. more importantly, i feel like this kind of well is the kind that will last for longer than an evening or a weekend, so that is encouraging. maybe i'm getting my heart back. something sucked it into neverland for the past couple of weeks and i didn't know where it was, i just knew it wasn't in work or in anything else, really. but now, maybe it's come back. i really hope so. i don't function very well without it.

well. i realize i've just typed a bunch of nothing, but i needed to tell you about my productive day. it makes it more real, somehow. and i'm proud of myself for getting some things done.

i know, i know. baby steps, though, baby steps.

i'm still not satisfied, but at least i can eliminate the little business-y things in my way and then i can actually process the walls that seem to have spontaneously generated in me lately.

but, i need to go to sleep so i can play with my boys tomorrow.

kim, i love you, i hope you are (relatively) well and i will call you tomorrow.

somewhere to fall apart

there's a movie called once that tim and i went to see at the fine arts theatre downtown this afternoon: it's an irish film/musical about the process and connections of writing music.

take this sinking boat
and point it home
we've still got time

[glen hansard & marketa irglova]

i'm still in la-la-land.

do you know what i miss about having a community?

piercing eyes. i miss being seen through.

and just seen, sometimes.

i've decided that purple is a good color for me. i think it makes my eyes look a little more blue. but that might've been the movie making my eyes all watery.

ok. that's enough whining for tonight. i feel ready to throw myself into work tomorrow, so let's hope that really happens this time : )

illegitmate children ROCK

or so says one of the cabin walls in the girl's area of cherokee baptist camp in tennessee.

i spent my weekend there for our family reunion - the crickets and cicadas were gloriously loud and my hair was gloriously awful and i didn't care. and we played in the lake all day and ate too much food. and wore name tags, since none of us know each other. my grandmother has 12 brothers and sisters, it's not my fault i don't know everyone's name.

and on the drive there i discovered the most wonderful love song . . .

love, love isn't always love
the way that we mean
just like you are right now
is all, all that i need

let's start over
don't be afraid, i won't keep track
let's climb to the top
if you won't look down, i won't look back

love, love isn't always love
the kind that you hold
i will be here waiting
if you, you can let go

let's start over
don't be afraid, 'cause i won't keep track
let's climb to the top
if you won't look down, i won't look back

[needtobreathe]

it's mine. i think it's worth saving, so i'm going to. save it until i get my mail-order boyfriend in the mail, i mean. i think it'll be about two weeks, you know how snail mail is . . .

kidding, kidding.

it's a waltz. a perfect one, i'm pretty sure, except i don't really know what tempo a waltz should be. but it feels like it would be a really nice waltz.

anyway.

for now, i think i should listen to it and let it be sung to me.

and i think i should go hiking tomorrow and sing it to the sky. and it's occupant. or creator, to be more accurate, i suppose.

but it's so tempting to let it swirl me into romance-mode, you know? which isn't inappropriate, necessarily. just distracting. and therefore frustrating. and therefore inappropriate?

i don't know. i know i'm single and restless and god's been trying to hold my attention all year and i keep bouncing around like a kid with adhd who's been given two cokes and a bowl of lucky charms. or maybe fruit loops.

but the point is i'm still running. and this year i feel like my rubber band's gotten a lot shorter. i used to be able to run a long time before i ran out of space and got slapped back onto the cosmic wrist. i've gotten slapped back so many times this year i can't even count them.

i used to be able to count them.

you know, it was about a two year cycle. i would get broken about once every two years. and i could talk about the two times i'd been really broken and say ta da! this is my spiritual life, isn't it nice and pretty and controlled?

but now, now it's like well, yesterday i got slapped and today i'm running and tomorrow i'll probably be absolutely broken and then the next day i'll be overflowing and then i'll be frantic and then i'll get slapped again. ta . . . oh shit, hold on . . . sorry, i just tripped again, no, i'll be ok, yeah - it happens all the time, no really, it only bleeds for a little while, yeah, ok, ta da! this is my spiritual life.

here's my struggle: if i'm looking for perfect, he's the mail-order.

my open heart brings him to tears. he loves me so much that he can just sit with me for as long as i need. he just wants to look at me, you know? i mean really look at me. none of this let's-get-right-up-on-
her-bumper-then-pull-up-beside-her-at-the-light-and-give-her-the-
eager-grin and-beady-eyes business. or even the you're-pretty business. because that's just as much of a cover up as is the other.

he can look at me and see my soul. and he loves it. me. my emotions and search for logic and rationality and my need for space and my need for home and my desire for change and my need for consistency. it makes sense to him.


i make sense to him.


i don't even make sense to myself.

so what the crap am i doing running in the other direction?

i don't know. but i think i'm getting tired. of running and typing.

have a beautiful night.

new music wednesday

you know how you get in a rut and the only thing that will pull you out is a new album of amazingness?

enter daylight. the album, not the phenomenon. although the phenomenon is quite lovely as well. especially when it's breaking. or fading.

anyway, the point is that i found my splash-in-the-pond album. and i've decided that i need to straighten my hair tomorrow, just in case this splash doesn't do the trick. it smells good right now, my hair does, because i used mom's shampoo and conditioner tonight and since it's new i can actually smell it when i turn my head a little. except my nose is very stuffy on the left side. i think it's mad that i took it out in the wilderness today.

i suppose i should tell you about that, shouldn't i?

i did make it in to work today, i got there about 10, and then i journaled in my little office space for an hour and then i left. i couldn't stay. i felt like i needed to go outside, so i did. i drove home, changed, got bailey and went for a hike for a few hours.

i'm afraid bailey's more out of shape than i am.

something in me is so desperate. but i think restless is a better word. it makes me desperate, being restless does. it makes me blast caedmon's call driving on 280 with our beast of a dog in the back seat when i should be at work. it makes me drive around on mountain roads for two hours at a time when i should go home. it makes me change every song after the first 10 seconds when i should stop and listen to them. it makes me daydream so much that i don't get anything else done.

i just want to go. and i have no idea where or what for or who would be there when i got there but i just want to go and find out. really, i think i'm just running away from something, although i'm not sure i want to know what it is, because then i couldn't run away from it anymore, could i?

let's just go, please. i think it's starting to catch up.

let's be honest, shall we? i already know what it is: i'm running away from the truth. that raw-ness, the humility, every aspect of it, actually. i'm not sure exactly when i turned from it, but suddenly i find myself facing the other direction and now that i've turned from it, i might as well run, right? because turning back around is painful.

i suppose falling is more painful, but i've never been one to plan for the future. and if i start running now, i won't have to hurt until later. and maybe by then i'll be able to handle it.

uh, right.

i also could just sit here forever and daydream about what might be in that vague, unreachable place. because that's equally as exciting and there's no room for disappointment, is there? or falling.

help?

father, please. except, don't touch that. or that. or that, actually. hey, could you just make me feel better? thanks, you're the best. amen.

i need you to break me.

*she holds her breath*

ok, he says.

no really. i need to fall really badly. bloody knees and elbows, the whole deal.

trust me, you will.

but . . . but . . . i don't even feel it coming, is it coming? when is it coming? what if it doesn't ever? what if i keep running forever? what if i disappear? what if . . .

you'll fall, he says. don't worry.

*sigh*

i guess i'll go to bed, then.

one more thing . . . be there when i do? fall, i mean. if i happen to need assistance in getting back up. but i might be fine, you know. i might not even fall. i might just run away into sunset.

jessie, you're impossible. just go to bed. i've got this, i promise. i've got you. we'll talk tomorrow.

but i just . . . it's just that . . . well, ok.

'night.

if you don't know
just what to think
then put your thoughts away
and keep them out of reach

if you don't know
just where you stand
don't brace a fall
that you may never want to land

[needtobreathe]