And the sun's always rising in the sky somewhere

[image via weheartit]

I have never been a morning person, but
lately the mornings are my favorite time of day.
I drive up 101 N and see: bumper-to-bumper traffic;
shiny pre-owned minivans weaving

lane in and lane out; harried parent drivers
reaching back to quiet their quarreling children
as their vehicles drift; a man using his electric shaver
while he drives by Braille along the center

divide.

I have never been a morning person, but
the chilly gray clouds that shadow me down the highway
remind me of the me of four years ago,
whose only summer job

was playing horseback riding camp instructor
to spoiled eight- and nine-year-olds who wanted
to pet the horses more than they wanted to ride them.
They chanted, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, because

they were afraid. And while I drive to work
sometimes I think about the men
who shave while they drive; about the women
who leave their toddlers in locked cars; about the coeds

who brave a flagging job market for tuition money;
and about those frightened children, because
in these moments, more than all other moments,
I would rather not be

me.

Remix

[To the other E v.2]


[image via switchscreens]

(tenderness)

‘i love,’ her friend said,
‘to see ships sailing out toward the horizon on the bay.’
the girl imagined her friend could see
from the intimacy of the ferry building
the tactile tugboats disappearing into sentimental muck,
growing smaller and smaller as they tugged out to sea.
her friend said: ‘it makes me sad to see them sailing back in.
i want to say, you have a boat! go see the world!’

(anxiety)

the girl, being an inlander, didn’t share the sentiment, recalling this: the time she went snorkeling with her family off of Sugar Beach, when she stepped into the boat and was immediately seasick because
the floor was physically solid under her feet, but the boat rolled and dipped and she was pulled in opposite directions, while the life vest, tacky against her bare skin, flapped in the breeze like wings.

when the boat hit the shore
she threw up over the side and decided
an airplane would be a better way to see the world –
at least the cabin would be pressurized and
interior monologue, physical reactions, and obsessive behavior
would be kept to an absolute minimum.

(fondness)

to her friend, the girl said, ‘well they can’t sail forever.’

to which her friend said nothing. to which the girl said nothing.

to which her friend said, ‘i’m wearing my purple boots, you know, the ones i wore the last time we got indian food.’ in the city,
before a concert. it was a book club outing. it may have been the last time the girl wore her purple sneakers. which reminded her that they were living in the moment,
eager to connect with one other; two people, different from everyone around them: they were hell-raisers, punk rockers, pop rock enthusiasts nursing crippling caffeine addictions.

(excitement)

so they took matters into their own hands and,
stirred to. . .activity,
they put themselves in motion.
they drove south with the sunroof cracked open,
and composed a rock musical
and ate fast food
and felt good about their freedom
and felt simultaneously trapped by time constraints.
but it was a moment, and they were
in the real state of being, and

(resignation)

coming home was a good feeling. it was not the greatest feeling. it was neither regret nor sadness. it was unnamable.
they worried they would spend another year looking for the things they’d found on the open road and made plans to live in another moment in the near future.
maybe one day they’ll learn to live with what they’re given, but for now this girl and her friend are playing

the
waiting
game.

(contentment)

i got your card today, the girl said. it made me smile.

To the other E

found via weheartit

'i love,' my friend said, 'to see ships sailing out toward the horizon on the bay.' from the ferry building she could probably see the boats growing smaller and smaller as they were pushed out to sea. she said: 'it makes me sad to see them sailing back in. i want to say, you have a boat! go see the world!'

i, being an inlander, didn't share the sentiment.
i remembered the time i went snorkeling
with my family off of Sugar Beach,
and remembered also that when i stepped into the boat
i was immediately seasick. the floor was solid under my bare feet,
but it rolled and dipped and tugged me in opposite directions,
and when the boat hit the shore i threw up over the side.
man overboard.
an airplane would be a better way to see the world, i decided.
at least the cabin would be pressurized.

to her, i said, 'well they can't sail forever.'

to which she said nothing. to which i said nothing.

to which she said, 'i'm wearing my purple boots, you know, the ones i wore the last time we got indian food.' in the city, before a concert. it was a book club outing. it may have been the last time i wore my purple sneakers. which reminded me that we were living in the moment. we are trying to live in the moment, anyway.

so what we did was this:
last weekend we took a trip south.
it was warmer there, and muggier there,
and the music was just as good as it was up north.
we 'tripped down the 405 with the sunroof cracked open,
and we let our hair down
and composed a rock musical
and ate fast food
and felt good about most things
and felt just all right about others.

coming home was a good feeling. it was not the greatest feeling. afterward we made plans to live in another moment in the near future. maybe one day we will see the world for ourselves on a boat (not likely) or an airplane (more likely) or in a car (please). but for now we're playing

the
waiting
game.

i got your card today, i said. it made me smile.

Sending postcards from a plane crash

Oh, how I wish you wouldn't worry so. There's hope in every breath. But when fear infects the bones, I'm told, the heart is always next.

[via pleasefindthis]

the bus slows as it crests the hill. we coast all the way down into the city. smudging the tips of our noses against the glass, we can see thunderheads rolling in over the tops of the skyscrapers, wisping through power lines. we want to stick our fingers outside to catch the static cling, but the bus windows are fused shut, containing us.

rolling into the city is like ducking into a new world where the sky is gray, not blue, and the power lines are at loose ends, throwing sparks all over the city. "we'll get electrocuted," you say, spreading your fingers out against the window. your hand looks like a glowing thing, an alien thing, and the lightning flashes are electric wires spiraling out of your fingertips. "electrified," you say.

i put my fingers
in the spaces between your fingers because
it's easier to touch that way.

Hurricane streets.

The boy and girl are dancing on the sidewalk outside my house.
I can see them through the window,
half-hidden by severely-trimmed shrubs
at the foot of the driveway,
the tops of their heads just brushing blue sky.
Moving to a three-step beat, bumping knees and rubbing noses,
they waltz.
I lose sight of them for a moment,
but they stumble back into view, framed by the window,
and it is like a landlocked ebb-and-flow in my driveway.
The girl leads with her left and watches the toes of her shoes,
and the boy slips one hand down over her ass, laughing
when she swats him away. When they laugh,
they tip their heads together and clasp hands,
fingers opening and closing involuntarily.
I want to dance with them, but I am inside and
they are tripping over each other, tangled up
like a set of twisted fingers, intertwined.

And her nose starts to bleed a most beautiful ruby red

I was tagged by The Little Passenger, aka Jayne, to do this survey thing. Warning: all of my answers will be boring.


What is your current obsession?
I've been going crazy over this story I've been writing for OVER A YEAR that isn't actually very good. It's 30,000 words and counting (not to be confused with the 25,000 word story I have been writing since last Thanksgiving. Too many long stories). I currently have and have always had a love-hate relationship with this story (which I not-so-affectionately call the "journalist" story even though it has pm nothing to do with journalism). I want to finish it, though, because it would be a pretty big personal accomplishment. And because my friend is FORCING me to finish it. She's a harsh taskmistress, always demanding stories that involve rose petals and punk rockers...WHATEVER.

Coffee or tea?
COFFEE. The answer is ALWAYS coffee.

What's for dinner?
My dad is cooking some kind of pasta dish. I don't know what it is, but it smells delicious.

What was the last thing you bought?
I bought a six pack of Heineken on my way home from the Honda service place this afternoon. GREAT VALUE. You can't beat it.

What are you listening to right now?


What is your favorite ice-cream flavor?
I prefer chocolate chip cookie dough, but I'm a big fan of plain chocolate ice cream. I know, that sounds so boring, but I'm a creature of habit. I'm that person who orders the same thing at every restaurant. Routine is the spice of life! I mean, I wouldn't order it if I didn't enjoy it.

What is your favorite colour?
Blue.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your wardrobe?
Anyone who knows me IRL has probably guessed I'm not all that interested in clothes. I actually hate shopping. But I hate a lot of things. My lack of patience for shopping doesn't necessarily mean I hate being clothed in nice things. If I had to choose an item, I'd probably pick this blouse I bought a couple weeks ago from H&M. It's so cute! It's kind of a peasant blouse/empire waist/flowery thing that I got for $5.

What is your dream job?
Novelist. If I can't be a published author, however, I'd like to work in the promotional/advertising kind of business, specifically in the music industry. I don't even know how I'd make that happen, but I think it would be fucking awesome.

How many times do you press the snooze button before you get up?
I don't actually have an alarm clock. I set the alarm on my phone and put my phone across the room so that I actually have to get up to turn it off every morning. As a result, I don't really end up hitting the equivalent of the snooze button very often. Sometimes I do reset my alarm for fifteen minutes later, but I think that generally requires more alertness and higher brain function than a snooze button does.


I'm not feeling particularly long-winded tonight, so it ends there! You're all lucky. I don't have anyone to tag. I guess I'll just tag anyone who hasn't done this survey yet.

Not wolf brendon.

picture from jackrussell-terrier.com
three cubicles away, there is a boy with red bumps wrapped seductively around his knuckles like ribbon, curving down between his fingers and then sprawling up the pale landscape of his inner arm. he has bumps on his elbows, too, and thin, ashy hair that feathers over his spotty forehead, and a dog, Lola, that hides under the desk, chewing nervously on the corner of the file cabinet. walking past this cubicle on a break room run, I notice the dry skin on his knuckles and compare their texture to the rough skin on my own, smiling at Lola around the file cabinet barrier.

later, when Lola makes a break for the open doorway,
the boy goes after her,
head down,
scabby elbows tucked tightly into his sides,
sprinting.

Practice makes [slightly less terrible]

The boy in the corner of the coffee shop is reading three books at once.
He alternates between them
like he's dealing with his children and
trying not to play favorites, assessing them all equally and
giving each book the same amount of attention before
he carefully marks his place and moves on to the next.
His eyebrows are sparse, like someone glued
granules of pepper onto his skin at the place where they should be,
a tattoo that fills in the blank spaces, and
his lips curve down toward the floor,
like there are weights at the corners of his mouth,
landing him like a bookworm on a hook, and
he is wearing a baseball cap with a brim
that might as well be fresh from the hat-making factory, it's so flat.
He pushes that cap up between books to scratch his forehead.

The boy in the corner of the coffee shop is reading three books, too, and
when I glance up, he glances up, too, almost
as if he anticipated my movement and wanted to beat me to it.
It's too early in the morning for a staring contest. I look past him,
feeling picked bare already because the Book of Disquiet
is a manifesto on the art of depression and
"how to constantly wish to be someone you're not"
and I'm reading it cover to cover.
The boy in the corner of the coffee shop is scratching his forehead
underneath the baseball cap, putting
one finger against the flat-as-can-be brim to push it back and
then questing under the band for the itch.

I should change the title of this blog to TL;DR

Pete Wentz (of Fall Out Boy and I-married-Ashlee-Simpson semi-fame) wrote an article for the Huffington Post about Invisible Children and the RESCUE event happening this weekend. That one terrible comma splice aside, I have to say I'm impressed.

There was some huge drama last week re: the Believers Never Die Part Deux tour, mostly centered around the fact that some people think FOB should quit trying to talk about politics (because their fanbase skews younger than most) and stick to what they do with admirable mediocrity: play concerts! Other people kind of disagreed. Pete Wentz adamantly refuses to stop these political antics because he believes that it is absolutely important to discuss this kind of stuff, even if you're doing it at a live show, and he also believes that today's youth are a lot more perceptive than the rest of the world (and...the kids themselves) seems to think/actually have the emotional and mental capacity to care about political and social issues.

I think FOB's live show is actually pretty amazing, whether you like the band or not, mostly because of the fact that MUSIC is something personal; it's just as real for me as it is for you, no matter what our respective opinions are. It's also about the being-there-in-the-moment-ness of being at a concert, in the pit, sweating all your makeup off, throwing yourself around, singing the shit out of songs that make you feel actual emotions! and accidentally hitting people in the face with your elbows when you all throw your cameras in the air (and wave them like you just don't care, har har). It doesn't matter which band is on stage.

Forgive the cheesiness of the rest of this entry, but this is precisely the reason I think that music can be a POWERFUL vehicle for political action and motivation. Music inspires emotion in people. Political action is, IMO, a direct result of EMOTION. Action occurs because you feel strongly or passionately about some issue and want to DO something about it. I think that music can be a powerful tool for bands like Fall Out Boy that actually want to talk about these issues -- or for bands that are far more "legit" than Fall Out Boy, if that's your feeling.

Because music is something so intensely personal and subjective, it goes without saying that no one else can really dictate what IS good music and what that music says to you. No one else can take away the fact that this music, whatever it is, makes you feel something and is therefore truly important to you. It's integral to the person that you are and to the person you could become. If I'm having a rocking experience at a concert, loving the band and all they choose to be (even if what they choose to be is something totally silly), there is definitely the potential for motivation in the situation. So why can't bands like Fall Out Boy use live shows and music to promote a political message?

I don't see why they can't. Some people would say that Fall Out Boy is totally insignificant because they sing silly, whimsical songs written by the dude who accidentally put pictures of his dick on the internet, and that this automatically means they are never allowed to BE SERIOUS ABOUT SOMETHING they feel is important. I don't think anyone can convincingly argue that Invisible Children is not a good cause. But they can argue that Fall Out Boy's attempts to talk about it and other issues will automatically be null and void -- simply because they're Fall Out Boy. How is that in any way relevant to the conversation? And how is it in any way fair? It sounds more like sour grapes to me. I think we should be thankful that someone with considerable influence over a certain portion of the population is even trying to talk about this kind of thing in a time when people arguably care less than they should. Musical artists definitely have INFLUENCE because they're appealing to emotion through music, and I think they should use it for good causes.

I guess my point is this: true, the Jonas Brothers don't exactly have a subversive political agenda attached to their music, but that doesn't in any way invalidate who they are and what they COULD say -- if they really wanted to say it.

Whether or not we like what they actually have to say is a completely different issue.

What are you going to do to end the silence?

Warning: this is only my opinion.

For the past four years (at least), I've participated in the day of silence. It mattered some years more than others (specifically: it mattered in the years when I actually interacted with people on a daily basis), but regardless of whether or not I am participating this year, I think it's something that needs to be talked about. It's an important cause. That LGBT people everywhere don't feel safe enough to come out to their friends and family may not directly touch your life, but it's still important.

I know people wonder about me because I'm so open with my support for LGBT rights and because I'm particularly interested in gay/lesbian fiction. This is the kind of thing that depresses me. I don't care if you think I'm a lesbian or not. Your assumptions don't matter to me, and it shouldn't matter to you whether or not I'm straight. But the very fact that people DO assume these things is a huge part of the problem. Not the assumptions they make but the very fact that they even feel the need to classify people based on their support for a political cause, or based on the fiction they read and write.

There is this incessant need to know whether so-and-so is gay. Does it really matter to you if they are? If you want to be out and proud and tell the world I AM GAY AND I'M PROUD, you will be. If you want to keep your sexual orientation under wraps, then you will. If you're straight/gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered and want to remain ambiguous in order to demonstrate that even for people who think they're totally cool with the LGBT community, there is still this NEED TO CLASSIFY people that is ingrained in our society and will continue to be ingrained in our society -- then you will.

People are so different. I strongly believe that this need for classification is a part of what is bringing us down. On the one hand, I think the LGBT community needs to set itself apart in order to bring attention to inequalities, prejudices and stereotypes that are still so prevalent today, even in a country where gay marriage is legal in four states. On the other hand, I feel that such classification is (in a different way) a part of the problem.

I am definitely not saying that people should withhold their respective sexual orientations. I'm saying that society's collective attitude toward the LGBT community drives our need to KNOW, to classify, to compartmentalize and to set people into different categories so that we all know HE is gay and SHE is a lesbian and HE identifies as fluidly-gendered. There is a certain power in these categories, but I hope that we all eventually come to a point at which we no longer need to know someone's sexual orientation or gender identification -- just for the sake of knowing.