Deserving

"You deserve better than that," they say together. And they seem to mean it, staring intently at me, "You don't deserve anything they put you through." I stutter a bit, trying to come up with a nice way of explaining this that won't lose me my friends, or at least, that won't stop the tangled hug keeping me warm. It's interesting to me that I can pass as a normal, deserving person.

They don't see what I see, what's so glaringly obvious just beneath the skin. I'm a bad person. There, I've said it. Shame on me for nearly thinking differently. Shame on me. I thought maybe today, I was good. I thought singing at the retirement home was good, but I just fooled them too. I got my reminder before I forgot.

My phone lit up. Glancing down and flipping through the unread messages, there's a new text. "Look in a mirror," it advises, "You manipulate and control people for attention," and then goes on to explain that I'm self centered, I've alienated every friend I had, and of course, that they hate me too.

I look up, still smiling, and click the phone off. That's a skill I've mastered. To keep smiling. Even when it hurts enough that you want to fall to your knees and beg them to stop hurting you. Please. But that's a privilege reserved for people who were wronged. Still smiling. That smile bothers me. There's something so wrong about it. There's something so wrong about all of it.

It's not that I don't deserve it. I must, mustn't I? Or maybe I've just gotten used to it.

Patchwork Mind

Brooding, I tangle my fingers in my hair as I stare at the blinking cursor, and fiddle with the latch above my ear. Out of habit, I press the catch, and my head falls open with a pop. I drift over the familiar ridges of my mind, the bits I know so well of myself.

Absentmindedly, I play with the stitches I put in long ago, in a chunky, uneven line. I've gotten used to the thread there, how I fixed myself to be. I prefer it that way.

I pull gently on a loose end, and it gives. Caught by surprise, I keep pulling, letting them all unravel. Pain tears through my head as the last thread pulls out. Horrifyingly, it hasn't healed, just as ugly as I remembered. I grasp at the kinked and crusted thread, hiding it in my hands, and shove it deep into my pocket. Quickly, I latch my head shut again, and try to pretend nothing happened.

Stories

These are their stories. They carry around their quills, still dripping with ink, as they share and write over and over again. Together, their fingertips are ink-stained in the same colors of shared memories.  I wrote stories too, before, stories to share and tell, but they're sealed up in the leather bound books of others, on shelves far away.

The stories of now have been written here, a setting novel to me. I can read them as many times as I want,  rub my fingers on the pages, but the ink has long dried.

Wish Upon a Star

Walking back from the theater, I balance on the curb, teetering gently to either side. The darkness is young, exploring the world with quiet fingers. Dusky charcoal dusts the sky, blending out to the edges of the world.

The slivered moon shyly peeks out from behind the blackened branches of a bare tree. Elsewhere in the sky, there's a single star with the same whispered glow. I grab it quickly, and close my eyes. Wobbling on my toes, I keep walking, one foot in front of the other on the narrow asphalt. I wish on the breath that leaves my mouth in soft wisps of white.

A misstep, and I stumble off. Opening my eyes again, I glance upward at my wishing star, but it's missing. The sky is black now, even the slivered moon has hidden behind the thicker branches.

I can't help thinking I used it up. I walk inside under guilt and an empty sky.

Thanksgiving

I'm happy. It feels amazing to say that.

I'm thankful. For happiness. For my family. For friends who let me drool blood on them and check on me when I'm drugged and silly. For romance. For writing. For you, dear reader. For love. For everything.

Wisdom Teeth

I promised myself I'd blog once more before the surgery.

Honestly, my secret is that I'm not scared of the knife or the needle. I'm unnerved by the recovery, yes, but it seems manageable. My fear is born mainly of the lack of consciousness.

How precious and intricate our thoughts are, perfectly balanced chemicals in perfect ratios to give us all that we think and do. Everything I'm thinking now, everything that lets me write this to you, is so tiny and perfect, a billion tiny reactions in my mind. So what happens when that gets messed with?

I'm scared of turning off those synapses. I'm scared of being completely gone. I'm scared of realizing that turning my mind off means it's utterly off, and there's nothing I'll remember, aside from a gaping black where I should be alive. I'm scared I'll never come back from that gaping oblivion. I'm scared my thoughts won't line up again. On the smallest level, I'm scared I won't be exactly the same person, though realistically knowing every moment we live changes those thoughts and reactions, and we're never perfectly the same person we were moments ago.

Ridiculous, that all sounds ridiculous, and I know I'm wrong, and I'm sure I'll be fine. Fear is a rather irrational creature.

Playing Dress-Up

Some days, I am tempted. Some days, it seems so close.

I daydream in cloudy fantasies of romance. Saturday night. Maybe I'll straighten my hair. I smile to myself, listening to what everyone would say. How pretty. I have earrings that look real enough, at first glance anyway.
I take note of what others wear. Remember those shoes, you can get shoes like that, I tell myself. I dress, mentally searching for clothing I've bought and never worn, the uncomfortably tight skinny jeans in the bottom left drawer, with the Forever21 hand-me-down top at the back of the closet, a mix of popular style and magazines, until I'm convinced I could pass for someone else, everybody else. I pull out clothing from all nooks into the center of my bedroom, where I hold it out as though adorning an unseen mannequin.
I picture myself in my fantasy. I fit in perfectly. People will come to talk to me and find I'm perfectly interesting as well, and ask me about music or sports. How much we have in common. Rehearsing these conversations in my mind, I'm tempted now to fill my itunes from the 21st century and learn how sports are played.

Alas, how startling reality returns. I reprimand myself silently. With a sigh, I pull the frizz back from my shiny, pockmarked face, and lose whatever figure I had in a torn, discolored sweatshirt. I force myself as though this is my punishment.

Happiness

Here's something new, still staying away from the angsty whining.


I feel full of music, or happiness, or something. I can't hold it all in my heart. There's little cracks, stretched seams, where the feeling is leaking out. It drips out of my heart, down into my arms, and I fling them out, letting the excess fling off my fingertips into the world. It's fun, I suppose. I dance with it, I sing with it, I drive other people crazy. I keep it full of music and colors and people, it flows fast, insatiably greedy though bottomless to share.

I suppose I'm terrified of it.

Later, I turn on Edith Piaf. La Vie en Rose. I sit with my chin at the windowsill and mouth words I don't understand. The glowing remnants of the sunset are somewhat promising, and the whole world seems exciting.

Hamburger Dress

Let's interrupt my normal whiny rambling for something completely different.

I knit a dress that looks like a hamburger! And I love my blog and my readers, so I give you pictures, you're welcome.

Anyway, this is it all spread out, before I sewed it up the back. It's cool, right? Lettuce and cheese and meat and all, and the tomatoes cool too.

This is it finished. I'm really proud. Leave comments!









Lots of love,
         Reagan

Faulty Teenage Logic

He was always attracted to her, but it never bothered me. He dumped me with the promise that we'd be together again. I guess he never really meant it, or maybe he forgot he ever said it, because he forgot about me rather quickly. It wasn't until a few months later I realized we'd never get back together. At the same time, I realized he was flirting with my best friend.

I wasn't so much hurt by the fact that she was my friend as I was by the realization that he was over me. I was foolish, romantic, and he was my first kiss. I never understood the unwritten "bros before hoes" and "chicks before dicks" rules, but I used them anyway. He and I were over, but I wasn't over that. I guess I was so desperate to stop him from being with anyone else, that I played the only card I had, the only expected reaction. So I told her she couldn't be with him.
"Why?" she asked.
"He's my ex."
"So?"
"Well, you're my friend."
"So? We really like each other, and we make each other happy."
"That's not how it works," I snarled. I was stubborn. I was so set in the idea that she was breaking the rules, that she was terrible, that she was breaking girl code and ruining our friendship, that she was the only thing standing between me and him, so I decided nobody could be happy.

I lashed out at both of them, how selfish she was, how scheming he was. I hurt. I forced her to promise me she'd forget about him. Then, pitying myself, I stopped talking to them both. But I was haunted by what she said. "We make each other happy." And how fleeting is happiness? How hard is it to find someone you could talk to? If he couldn't talk to me anymore, maybe he could talk to her. At the very least, maybe they were just happy together. Resigned, I called him.
"Listen, "I sighed, "I've thought a lot about it, and if you want to date her, you can."
"She didn't tell you? We've been dating for a week, I asked her out last monday."
"And she said yes?"
"Well, yeah."
I hung up.

I called her later, but I didn't have the heart to be angry.
"Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," I said. I wasn't.
"Are you ok with it?"
"Yeah." Not a bit.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
"Don't worry about it."

I felt betrayed and helpless. But it wasn't really ever in my control to begin with, it was always their choice. Falling asleep that night, I genuinely wished that they'd be happy together. A week later, she called me. They'd gone to the mall, and evidently, it hadn't gone well.
"I don't get it," she cried, "We just didn't click."
I sighed, and pulled back my hair with one hand, then let it fall absentmindedly around my face. For the next hour, I consoled her over our now shared ex. The phone beeped angrily with a call on hold.
He called me after she did, looking for the same comfort, and I gave it.

I'm not anything more than her now. Just an ex. Just a friend. We'd both been kissed. Written songs about. I wasn't anything special to him anymore. But I don't really regret it. A chance to be happy, even in high school, even for two weeks, is still a chance to be happy. I'm not defending or advocating anything, but if I played it over again, the only thing I'd change would be to wish them well sooner.

What People Have Tried to Teach Me

In political campaigns geared towards attacking an opponent, claims and accusations are made. However, when these claims are made, no matter how ridiculous they may be, the stupidest thing to do is to refute them. If a politician wastes time refuting and defending themselves against one claim, they lose. Instead, what they must do is redirect focus completely so the campaigns don't revolve around one issue.
This seems to me spineless, for if someone accuses you of something, the instinct is to defend yourself, to explain, instead of letting your spirit break. But to fix it, to move on, I don't think you can.

People have tried to teach me that the same is true in real life. When someone hurts you, and accuses you, you cannot refute each claim. To end it, you have to stand there, and let them shoot at you without any intention of removing the bullets, without losing your own temper. I suppose the idea is that if you just let them, they'll run out of ammo and you'll forget about the bullets. Sometimes, that's not the reality. Sometimes, it just keeps hurting, carrying around all those scars with you. I'm just not sure what you're supposed to really do.

If I could yell back, I'd gouge out every bullet and throw it back. I'd defend myself. But I can't bring myself to. Because eventually, carrying around all that lead makes you realize you must be a bad person. And nothing you say can convince anyone otherwise, and the bullets never go away.


This is what people have tried to teach me. I'm scared I've learned it.

Snowstorm

Trekking with camera in hand, I document the deaths of fallen trees. As though this might make it better. It doesn't seem real. It's creepily silent, hauntingly frozen. Thick cracks echo throughout, from trees straining under the weight. Power lines are snapped over and over again. Trunks block every road, piled up on our driveway. We'll be stuck powerless for days.  Nothings charged. No ones ready. The leaves are still on the trees

Opening Night

My heart pounded irregularly, in heavy, thunking beats. The queasy butterflies were familiar, but this time, they seemed to have no intention of settling. I sat on the apron of the stage in the closed house, knowing that all too soon, it'd be filled with people, and I remained shadowed in the depression and homesickness that had haunted me for days. Notes, instructions, props being set, sounds rattled from upstage and wings. It still felt uncomfortable. My head felt too light, but from dizzily low blood pressure or sheer nerves, I couldn't tell. I felt too hot, my hands clammy and gross. I rolled on my side to press my cheek on the cool, black floor and pulled my knees in feebly, to try to stop the nervous crampings.

There was a hum coming from the floor. Murmurs. Footsteps and laughter. Voices I could vaguely place. I sat back up, startled, and they disappeared. Pressing my ear to the floor, I realize it's the makeup room in the basement, sounds floating up through the floor from the rest of the cast. It suddenly strikes me that these sounds are familiar, my cast, and my friends. It's calming. I stay there, feeling at home. The voices rise, faster, panicked, crossing over each other until suddenly, it's silent. Confused, I listen more intently, but the sounds are gone, leaving just a hum of the theater.

Coming down the stairs, I hit people going up. They walk fast, purposefully. Fearfully.
"What's happening?"
"Someone's sick."

The room is frozen, some people kneeling around her, an officer calming asking routine questions. Is she nauseous, is she on medication, deep breaths. There's a murmur of "it's ok, it's all ok." Tech changes are made and quickly rehearsed, and she leaves for the health center, gone like nothing happened, leaving nothing but a shaken feeling and worry.

Ten minutes till curtain, and we stand in a circle, hands linked, heads bowed. There's a sort of religious intensity to it, as we pray, we beg some force for success, for her, for luck.  We pass a pulse through our hands and breathe together. Vital signs consist of four things. Blood pressure, temperature, pulse, and breathing. Things that keep us alive.

Mute

I'm losing my voice. Help me, please. I cannot talk the way I used to. I'm stuck in my own mannerisms, locked in my own head. Maybe it's the mood I'm clouded under. I'm losing my voice.

Four Year

They eye the four year senior steps with an anxious hope, stairs reserved only for seniors who spent all four years at the school. Next year, it'll be them. Not transfers. Not me.

I suddenly realize that I'm still the new kid, and I'll always be new. I'll never have time in between being new and senior, like all the fillings missing. Other girls have known each other for years, from their own beginnings. I'm still new. It's not my school. It's not my locker. It's still not my theater.

I feel homesick for a place that was never really my home.

Why I Do

There's a trick kids do, squeezing the fingers of one hand around the wrist of the other. Rubbing and squeezing until all the blood is gone. Your hand feels dull, grey, and cold, Suddenly, they let go, and the blood pours back in. It feels fizzy and dizzy and bubbling, like your hand is violently being flooded with life, fighting with energy and pulsing inside itself.

In rehearsal, I listen in the wings as a voice floods the stage. She hits a tender point, and her voice catches in a sob, emotion raking her throat. My heart freezes and that same tingling feeling races up my spine, making me shiver.

I don't know what it is, or why it happens. Maybe it's the thrill of performance, or raw emotion, or catharsis. That's why I do theater. For the rush of tingling dizziness that makes me feel alive.

Lost Thoughts

Whenever I have a thought, something I need to think through or work with or understand or remember, I write it down. Once it's solid, I can stop thinking about it. I keep my memory on paper. If I don't write it, I have to keep chewing on the idea in my mind, turning it over and over so I don't lose it.

My paper thoughts lie pressed on pages, caught in notebooks. Flipping through my binder in class, I find notes cramping the bottom margin of a page from last week. One is separated from the rest and underlined.

I can't read it. I must have been thinking too fast, pressing too hard, and it's just a scribble. The first word looks like "I". The second might be "hate" or "acre" or a drawing of something unrecognizable. I struggle blindly to remember what it was. Tracing it over and over again, it makes even less sense now than it did at first. Reluctantly, I give up. Whatever thought I had, whatever I was trying to tell myself to remember is locked in that scribble, and I can never have it back.

Maggie Goes on a Diet

Losing the weight was not only good for Maggie's health

Maggie was so much happier and was also very proud of herself.


Maggie Goes on a Diet, a new book aimed at young girls is a story about an overweight 14-year-old named Maggie who is teased for her weight and decides to start eating healthy and exercising. She becomes a "normal sized" soccer star, gaining popularity in the process. And yes, the entire book rhymes.

Unsurprisingly, a book encouraging dieting in girls as young as six has stirred up controversy. "Terrible reflection on our society, boycott the book. ... This is awful," cried a reader. It threatens to spark eating disorders, sending the dangerous message that happiness comes with being thin. Not to mention the risk of prepubescent girls cutting calories, which can stunt growth and height.

But unsurprisingly, I'm going to do what I always do. And argue something controversial. I support the idea of this book. This book reflects terribly on our society, but not because it's a push for weight loss in young children, because of how many children in our society struggle with obesity. Diet is too dangerous of a word, yes. Clearly, it's irresponsible to encourage a risky weight loss program for children, especially with the risk of eating disorders. Maggie's weight loss is extreme and unhealthy.

But what's wrong with the basic idea of the book? Maggie isn't starving herself, she's moving from eating foods like McDonald's to eating fruit. She starts playing a sport. Shouldn't we encourage healthy habits in children in a society so threatened with obesity? Happiness doesn't come with being thin, pretty, or popular, but setting achievable healthy goals and being happy with yourself is good, isn't it?

When young girls in a focus group were shown a picture of a group of girls their age, they immediately call out the fatter girl in the picture as being different. One, no more than 8 or 9, slides low in her chair, squirming in her white miniskirt and tie dyed shirt. She swings her feet out and rolls her eyes to the ceiling. "Chubby wubby," she singsongs, as she holds her skinny arms out like a pregnant belly. My heart shatters then. The problem lies in the fact that we believe happiness comes with a cinderella type prettiness, that we've taught, maybe by accident, to recognize and ostracize those with  different body types.

It's our fault as a society.
Maggie Goes on a Diet

Spark of Style

My dear readers, I hope you've noticed the lovely new sidebar link to Spark of Style! I even gave you a little preview of the site over here.

My wonderful friend keeps this teen fashion blog, it's well written and sweet. Makes me feel like I understand fashion. Go check it out.

Also, now she's pressured to keep it updated and current, because she's got my vote of confidence.

Lots of love,

Reagan

Having a Pulse

"Just having a pulse is different than living," they argue, "living is taking advantage of life to the fullest."

I don't have my ears pierced, and I've never sat all the way through a sporting event. I've never been to a high school dance or to a fair. I've never been on a roller coaster. I don't know popular music, I don't go to see movies in theaters. And aside from birthdays, I don't go to parties.

I think I'm alive, though I may not fit everyone's definition. Life excites me and I'm part of it, and I think that counts for something. I'm not sure what life is, or how to define it, but I don't think it's limited by standards or bucket lists. But maybe I'm wrong. All I know for sure is that I have a pulse.

Volleyball Game

"Oh, um, thanks," I mutter as I take the boastfully green pompom. This is new. I don't quite understand what's happening, or why, but I lean over the edge to see the volleyball court with the others around me. The numbers mean nothing to me.

I've never been to a real sporting event, but evidently, this one is important. Something happens, and the numbers change. There's cheering. I realize that we scored, but the hoots are quickly silenced and replaced by focus on the game before I can join in. I watch the ball, back and forth. Our point. This time I cheer.

The other team spikes, hard. Their point, and we clap politely. As the game goes on, I start to realize there's a beautiful pattern to it, an art of unspoken communication. Each team has a personality, strengths to fear and weaknesses to be exploited. There's carefully refined skill and tactic and a beautiful blood thirst. Clapping for the other team becomes somewhat nefarious as they become a real threat, and I'm screaming along with the rest, encouraging, yelling, cheering for our team with my silly pompom.

Nevermore

Once upon a midnight dreary...

I sit in my room with the lopsided english book between my legs. The curtains quiver gently, protesting the gentle night breeze. Words criss-cross on the page, paper caught in an inky net. Sparked on an inspiration, I begin to read out loud.

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.


I love the sound, the rhythm, the way the "ap, ap, ap" so aptly describes the tapping. I speed up with it, caught in the barely rhyming, speeding timing, the brilliantly woven words of Poe.

Suddenly, there's the raven, eyes with all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, and I panic. The poem is suddenly all too real in the shadows, and I stop speaking. The sudden silence kills the spell, and the words fall from the air and rearrange themselves back on the page, caught again in their silent net.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was an American computer entrepreneur and innovator. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. A visionary.

Westboro church, on the other hand, is a baptist church in Topeka Kansas, notorious for its controversial picketing, especially of funerals. (Semper Fi Fags)

Today is the funeral of Steve Jobs. Horrifyingly and ironically, a leader of the church tweeted from her iPhone that they will the protesting the funeral because he "had a huge platform; gave God no glory & taught sin." Another member defended the use of the iPhone by explaining:

Steve Jobs didn’t do squat. Man did not create technology. God created technology. He gave it to us [as] a gift and tool to preach to the world... But Steve Jobs taught people to pursue their own interest, he did not tell people to use technology to spread the word of God.

What are they protesting? That his friends and relatives don't deserve closure or remembrance? He will be remembered regardless of their protests. I don't believe are lives are meant to be restricted only to "spreading the word of God" and hurting others by trying force religion. I do my best to respect opinions of others, but this, I cannot.



EDIT (10/8): The funeral was kept private, so the church didn't protest. Bit of relief there.

The Health Center

There's a temptation of freedom ahead. I jump up suddenly, springing out of the chair. There's a second, a brief pause where I think I've mastered it, but it doesn't last long. The room spins and fizzes out into black.  The room spins, ripping any sense of consciousness from my mind, and I fall back onto the chair. Doubled over, all I feel is pain, throbbing and penetrating. It rips through my stomach to my back, tearing with lightening edged claws. I'm dying. I'm most certainly dying.

"You ok?" I can't answer, everything's swimming. A cool hand brushes over my forehead.
"Jesus, you have a fever. Let's go." I don't remember how I got up, but soon we're outside, and the air is freezing, worse on my sweaty face and hands. She pulls me gently by the elbow to the health center, late for her own class. Once there, I start crying, blubbering, and trying explain to the nurse that I'm going to die.

Each new wave silences my mind, and there's no thoughts, just red. I'm in a bed with thin sheets, curled around a heating pad. There's toast and juice on the side table. I slip in and out of sleep. Later, as painkillers dull the sensations, my thoughts come back, vaguely blurry and confused.  How am I not dead?

I force myself up, painstakingly slowly, and shift left, letting my feet dangle over the edge of the bed. Gently, I slide into my shoes. I'm surprised that the world stays put. I make it to the rest of my classes on time, left with only a dizzy headache.

Deflated

She smiled, she glittered, she shone with every greeting, farewell, and everything in between, like every bit of life was too exciting to miss. I liked her right away. Her energy was contagious, like an instant pick me up or recharge. She didn't seem to care that I couldn't return every smile, or bubble with the energy she had. She seemed to accept that was just the way I was.

Nothing's fair. And nothing's expected. But at the same time, we expect change, so though we can't be surprised when something happens, we can be caught off guard, and we can be shattered.

She came back from Long Fall deflated, scarred with loss. Her eyes, delicate and china blue, are the only features left emotive, threatening tears and webbed with sadness. Everything else seems blank, as though someone took a washcloth and rubbed it across her face, washing away her smile, washing away her energy, washing away her.

I want to yell and to force her to get better. I see the shattered pieces, and I want to gather them to throw back at her. But I cannot. To try to patch her up now will only rip her into shreds. So I let her be, to try to mend her own hurt.

Stay strong.

I Decided

It was a bad day sort of day. There was a general tetchiness, as though unhappiness had wedged into every nook and cranny it could find. Rainy greys left campus under the weather. But I had decided to have a good day.

Leaving class, I checked my phone, and realized I was late, and missing the test I had next period. I turned back into the room I had barely left.
"Um, can I have a late pass?"
"You're not late, class was just dismissed."
"It's 1:30."
There was a moment of pause, a testy disbelief at being challenged, and suddenly,
"Oh, my watch is running late! I'm sorry, here," and a pass was scribbled.

As I trekked across campus, water seeped from the dewy grass into my shoes, and the rain started again. I stopped walking, and squinted up at the sky, rippled and tempestuous. With a crack, it ripped open, and rain spilled out. Futilely, I pulled the collar of my jacket up and began walking again, wishing for the umbrella in my locker. It suddenly struck me that I was the only one outside, even if it was just briefly, while everyone else was safe and dry. Safe and dry maybe, but they weren't happy. A bit of surprise came with the realization that I was happy. I'd decided to have a good day, and I was going to take it as such. Slowly, I stretched out my arms as I walked, letting the rain splash against my jacket and skipped light-footedly over deep mud. I reveled in the squelching sounds of water and the freedom and independence of my tardiness. The puddles became noble rivers, the rain a glorious revival, and the greys shimmered in silvers.
And it was a good day.

Stupid Cancer

"Stupid cancer. We all want a new car, a new phone. A person who has cancer only wants one thing... to survive. I know that a lot of you 'who think you're too cool' probably won't re-post this. But some of my friends will. Put this on your wall in honor of someone who died of cancer, survived, or who is fighting against it now."

Please bear in mind, I don't mean to offend anyone. My impossibly small base of readers doesn't justify controversy, but the fact that it's my blog and my viewpoint does. 

I'm not going to re-post this anywhere on Facebook, but not because I'm too cool, because I don't agree with it. It's almost offensive in its own painfully impersonal sentiment. Anything in honor of someone, even a Facebook post, deserves more respect than copy and paste. As for raising awareness, I'd like to think we as a society are aware of cancer, and making people more aware by re-posting a status won't change anything. Change requires more than that. Post a link to a site accepting donations instead, or better, donate money or time yourself.

Not everyone wants a new car or a new phone. There are other illnesses and problems that people suffer from. And from the people I've known with cancer, they want more than just to survive. Some only want to survive for their families and to be there for their children. Some want to teach people about what they're going through. And I'm sure some wouldn't complain if they got a new car or phone. I can't speak for everyone with cancer, because I don't know everyone with cancer, but I do know enough not to generalize. 

You want to make a difference? Go make a difference. Or at least post this instead: donate to the american cancer society

Thoughts

Writing in understandable lucid thoughts has proved once again to be far too difficult. So instead, think about the quote, "cheating at solitaire."

You're just cheating yourself. But you win, even though the value of winning has changed, don't you?  Who loses?

IDH

Hi everyone! So, if you avidly stalk my blog, which I very much hope you do, you'll notice a neat little picture has replaced my twitter picture as a sidebar ad. This is partly because I got into an irreconcilable fight with my twitter feed and it's stubbornly refusing to apologize, and partly because of illdownhill.

Illdownhill is a really cool blog, mainly about long boarding,  but basically about spreading the sensation of downhill euphoria, which works because, you know, I fall downhill a lot. Kidding. Maybe. Anyway, the writer is amazingly wonderful. It's well written, with neat videos and tee-shirts and adventures, so go check it out.

So go start a blog, or comment with a cool blog or website you want to share. If I like it, it'll get a cute little sidebar ad of its own.

Drawing

I wish I could draw. I wish I could put pencil to paper and coax out pictures. I wish I could paint the half eaten apple on the counter in front of me in brilliant watercolors. But I can't. My hands are clunky, and my fingers refuse to put what I can see in my mind on paper. So I write instead.

I write about the apple, forlorn. A warm autumn red on one side, fading into a fresh green on the other, with shades leaking in between. Its width surpasses its height, giving it a stout roundness.  A bite is missing on the left side, and rough whiteness interrupts the color. Shadows grace over the top, where the flesh dips to where the stem, stubby and short, proudly sprouts.

I cannot draw this apple for you.

Ghost Light

photo by  Paul Butzi

If you wait long enough after a show, everyone will leave. Some run out as soon as the curtain closes, eager to beat the others to the parking lot. Some stay to talk. Some chase after actors. But if you wait long enough, everyone leaves, taking their noise and presence with them, until the theater is perfectly empty.

If you wait long enough after a show, the magic floating in the air settles in a sparkling powder across the stage, gently dusting the armrests of seats and aisles. It's sticky and cool, and it leaves marks on your fingers, your skin, your clothes. Should you rub it on your hands, and drag it in dark streaks across your face, you'll shine and reek of memories that only you can see.

If you wait long enough after a show, the show disappears completely, every emotion you had drains out through your feet, into the floor, until you're so empty and realistic again that you're sure that the basement beneath you must be flooded with the emotions that've been left and forgotten, dripping through the seats and armrests and carpets and floors, leaking through the ceiling.

Then the ghost light. An elegant stand, gracefully made at the bottom builds up to nothing, a single bulb. It's suddenly there. Never to be seen backstage or before, just now, in this moment. The bulb is harsh, swollen, with a flaming filament that's hard to look at. It casts strange shadows, but as spectral as it is, there's a cleansing to it, forcing away all remnants of stage lighting, replacing the busy entertainment with this singularity. They say it's there for different things. That keeps away ghosts. That it scares off bad luck. That it wards off the sadness of a dark theater. That it keeps the theater running. That it's for safety. 

They say it gives the ghosts a chance to perform, to have the stage to themselves in the long, empty shadows.

Useless

I can't write tonight. Everything refuses to be acknowledged and made coherent. My fingers stumble and protest, and my mind remains tangled. The haunting feeling doesn't go away, nor can I explain it.

Greyscale

     I pushed hard, breathing heavily. It was the last escape I would have before the cold took away my freedom. The air in the tires was low, and I held tightly against its threat of wobbling, my hands raw from gripping the handlebars. I didn't take my usual path into the woods, choosing instead the pavement, a promising shot to the next town over. Premature leaves lay dead on the ground, like teasers to the foliage soon to unfold in the green canopy overhead. A goal wedged it's way into my head. To the river, chanted my mind, I have to make it to the river. How beautiful it'll be. Just another mile or two. It'll be perfect.

     I saw the edges of the bridge before anything else, and let myself coast to it. My heart was pounding, and sweat dripped in streaks framing my face. I wanted to press myself against the edge and let a breeze brush against my skin. I stopped the bike, and slipped off, kicking out the kickstand in a single, well rehearsed movement, but it wasn't right.

     There was no breeze, and nobody else. Just an empty bridge of unforgiving concrete. I wrapped my hands around the bars of the side, the dark metal hauntingly cool to my fevered touch, and tried to lean out. The river had been battered and flooded by the rain days before, leaving the banks scarred and sick. It was suddenly cloudy greys and lifeless blacks, and I felt trapped and drained.

     I sat on the bench for a minute with a sip or two of water, before heading back without any real promise or direction.

FeedBurner

So, apparently, FeedBurner is working now, but I really don't like it so far.

1. The layout is ugly and gross.
2. You can't see pictures, if I post any.
3. It doesn't update you about posts, just once a day if I post. Which means that you won't get an email for this post if it already sent you one today, you'll just get an ugly hunk tomorrow at a random time.
4. I can't track or control that feed. It's not very user friendly.
5. You can't comment on anything. 
6. It doesn't do what I want. 

Might this result in the removal of FeedBurner? Probably. I'll see what it does to my stats this week first.

Theater

I stand outside the doors, and pause for a moment. I have to go in, I need to. It's unfamiliar still, the air is too still, the doors aren't as heavy. I push gently, and slip inside. They close quickly behind me, sealing in darkness, and I realize the lights are off. The only door to the outside world is that behind me, spilling in warm light around my ankles from underneath, barely reaching the backs of the seats. The stage at the far end is lost completely.

I suddenly realize that I'm completely alone for the first time in a new theater. I pull out my phone to use as a flashlight, but the dim glow proves useless. My fingertips reach across the back wall, barely daring to leave my little spot of light until I find the switch. There are two buttons. Normal and panic. Holding my breath, I tap panic.

The lights come on after a moment, but the theater still feels strange. Nervously, I walk down to the pit and grab the jacket I left. Standing there, I pause. The wings are left in perfect darkness, and the mezzanine towers above the back seats with eerie shadows. I try to convince myself that this is where I'm supposed to be, this is my theater now, this is where I'll perform. But I can't. The seats look blank and empty, the whole place feels startlingly foreign. There's a gentle well-known breeze of the air conditioner, but it does little to comfort me. Slipping on the jacket,  I cross up through the seats quickly, tapping back to normal as I exit.

Following

Hello dear reader! A bit of a personal update on OrganizedChaos instead of a real post tonight. A few of you have mentioned following this blog, which is lovely and possible...

Option One. Blogger seems to like other bloggers, so technically, you need an "official google account" to create a blog and be a "real" follower of mine. It's free and fun and then we can all have blogs together and do bloggish stuff. But keeping a blog is a time-suck. So...

Option Two. You take the advice of my personal resident geek troll, and set up an RSS feed for yourself. Which is really tricky. But I love you all very much, SO I MADE IT EASY PEASY. There's now a NEATO new box over on the right side here called "follow by email."

Type in your email, answer the random squiggly security thing so you're not a robot, and then confirm it. Then, whenever I write a new post, it'll send you a nice little email saying "Reagan wrote something lovely, go read it!" or along those lines, and if I don't write anything, which would be very sad, it won't bother you, and you can unsubscribe at any time, which won't hurt my feelings much.

Anyway, it's pretty great. Though really, keep checking around here, for updates and new layouts and tweets and all that jazz. Plus, Google would pay me if I had enough web traffic, which would be awesome, right?

Anyway, I love your comments. Remember, I take criticism pretty well, and I take praise pretty well too.

9/11

     In an old notebook of mine, I found a scribble, a quick note of a flag I'd passed on the highway once. It grabbed me enough to mark it on paper, but I couldn't remember what grabbed me about it until today. It's a tall flagpole, set on the top of a dark cliff that towers on the side of highway. The rocky top leaves it strangely alone, without trees or shrubbery. I wrote when there was snow settled on the ground, making a stark greyscale against the softly faded reds and blues. The cars rushed passed it, and in the fleeting moment of my passing, I caught it without much wind, simply hanging, lonely at the top of the cliff. It seemed to stand with pride in its subtle gentle flutter. Today again I passed it. It stands without concept of time. The wind pulled it out, and let its stripes and stars wave and flutter, in glory for all it represented, alone at the top of its hill.

What Bothers Me

Scraps of black tire litter the side of highway, dead and ragged. They're torn into pieces, scarred victims of speed and recklessness, trailing skids of black rubber on the pavement around them, alike the splattered blood of roadkill. What bothers me is not the roadkill, nor the tires. What bothers me is that I'm more intrigued by the novelty of the tires.

Someday.

I hate awkward books. Books in awkward proportions. When they're too fat for their width, or too flimsy for their height, they sit awkwardly in your elbow as though they'd rather not be there. Books with terrible pages. They smell fake and rubbery, and threaten to tear like tissue paper. The thin paper make uncomfortable sounds as your fingertips brush it, and the words are distracted by the transparency through to the words on the next page. Glue seeps from the binding onto the pages with a strange stretchiness. The whole book feels wrong, more like an unbalanced brick.

I'm going to write a book, and it's going to be perfect. Its going to be just thick enough to hold by the spine in one hand, and cradle perfectly in a arm. The pages will be thick enough to hold their own story with promise, without being cardstock-ish, the edges of which will line up perfectly, and when you run your fingers along them, there will be no squeaks, but a sound like whispers, like the book is already speaking too you. It'll smell like libraries and mystery, and readers will check to see if anyone's watching before pressing their noses between pages to the binding, to smell it, and I'll be in love with it.

As much as I love OrganizedChaos here, I wish it could be tangible. Someday.

Read Through

We play with words through the first read through. They still feel new, deliciously unfamiliar in our mouths. The monologues tell different stories, which, hearing for the first time, sounds clunky and promising, like unpolished stones. The girl next to me begins, telling a story, "The Sounds You Make," a monologue about the sound, the tiny exhale or disapproval an unnamed character makes to scold her.

My heart freezes slowly, it sounds a touch too familiar. I had a boy who made a noise like that. Whenever I did something wrong, or that he didn't like, he wouldn't scold, or correct. He'd just breathe, a little sigh, and he'd say, "Reagan." It made me hate him, with every ounce of my being, but at the same time, it made me hate myself. Because he didn't yell at me, or leave me, he'd keep it all in this little sigh, and I'd hate myself for not being forgiving or understanding like that. But it wasn't forgiving or understanding, it was awful. Whenever he sighed like that, I'd freeze, like a child who's just been caught doing something wrong. Whenever we weren't together, or it wasn't quiet enough for his breath to make impact, Reagan became his sigh. Just his disapproving "Reagan" was all it took to stop me, to burst any bubble I was floating in, and bring me back down to earth. Reagan became a bad word. Something to avoid. It wasn't my name anymore, it was a scolding. Reagan. When he was happy with me, he used nicknames. I was babygirl. I was sweetheart. I was doll.

So I loved nicknames. I loved my fantasy world where everything was sweet and fake. I loved my hypocoristic names. But eventually, I became Reagan all the time. And then he left. Other people called me Reagan, and didn't understand when I cringed, or apologized, or assumed something was wrong. I tried to stop a friend of mine once, when he insisted on using my name, but he refused to be corrected. "That's your name," he said, "and that's what I'll call you, and you'll call me by my name." I asked him to explain, I couldn't understand, but it was simple. "Because I like my name."

I'm Reagan again now. I've come to love my name again, and love being called by it. It's endearment now, it's special again. But I remember the sound too well. The sigh meant for scolding. And I hate the monologue and I love the monologue for making my heart freeze, in a way all too familiar.

Pretty

The girls here make me happy. They don't have to shave everyday or pluck obsessively or bleach unrealistically. They're all so comfortable being human. They're the prettiest people I know, pretty just isn't plastic.

Anticipation

Anticipation is the greatest moment. Better than the action itself, better than the aftermath. You can have a million scenarios, you can have perfection in any way you dream it can play out, riding high on adrenaline  and excitement. In anticipation, one can revel and delight for hours, compared to the ultimate blip of disappointment built up to be so much more. Anticipation is the building, the imagination, the moment where everything is possible. But on so many levels, it's the farthest from reality.

Choices

I wish now that I had been rejected. What an easy answer, what a solid "no." No choices. No expectations.
 
On some level, I knew I had to go. I had to leave. Or I'd be cursing myself now, cursing myself for never knowing anything, never doing anything, never trying. But now I'm trying. And it's one of the hardest things I've done. And I'm scared.

I'm scared now of expectations, and success and failure, scared of ambition, and the novelty of it all. And I wish for rejection.

Mimic Poem

To the reader who suggested mimic poems, thank you. I had fun.
I hated the idea at first. Why steal writing so blatantly?
But its interesting to steal a voice, and try to talk in it, to feel out their words and phrasing, and become more aware of your own.

Oh, and Phenomenal Woman was simply to see if I could change the  meaning of a poem, not some deep traumatic self consciousness. Thanks!

Mimic Poem: Phenomenal Woman

Other women giggle, judgment in their eyes.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But if I try to teach them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's not about makeup
Or the clothes we wear,
The friends that we have or
How we do our hair.
I'm just a woman
Uncomfortably.
Uncomfortable woman,
That's me.

If I walk into a party,
My heartbeat will speed up,
A flower on the wall,
Ignored by
Lovesick pups.
No one ever would ever see me,
Behind my plastic cup.
I think,
How desperate are we,
For attention of boys
To wear such short dresses,
And dance to loud noise.
I'm a woman
Uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable woman,
That's me.

Lovers are meant for others,
Prettier, not me.
I cannot try
They don't know why
I'm such a mystery.
When I try to show them
I know just what they'll see.
Just the,
Frizz in my hair,
The flaws on my face,
The lack of my breasts,
The fat on my waist.
I'm a woman
Uncomfortably.
Uncomfortable woman,
That's me.

Can't you understand
This pressure to be perfect
Hurts the girls like me.
Self confidence wrecked,
So much effort lost
In the mirrors that reflect.
I see,
The pale untanned,
The stubby bitten nails,
The brown of my eyes,
Clothes bought on sales,
'Cause I'm a woman
Uncomfortably.
Uncomfortable woman,
That's me



NOW GO READ MAYA ANGELOU

Mimic Poem: Grasshopper

                                                             r-e-t-h-o-b-r  o-h

                                                                   who

                                                             a)s i w(at)ch

                      gathershimselfinprepa 

                                                          REHTBOR

                                                                                ration  (and-

                                                               Ju

                                                  M!p

                                                    s         lanDInG 

                                     oTerHbR                            !onThE

                                                                                fl(cou)y(ch)ing.

                          ,brother;

Irene

It's a rocking, a vibration, as though the garage door is opening. All of the garage doors. At once. I pause, and lift my fingers off the keyboard for a moment, hovering off the desk, but I still feel myself shaking. I stand, and pull back the gauzy curtain to peek outside for a cause, perhaps unexpected yard work of neighbors. Nothing. I let the sheer fabric flutter closed. The chair in the corner catches my attention, a rocking chair, an old birthday present, currently used as a makeshift coat hanger. The strap of a dark grey messenger bag is slung across the back, and the bag shakes gently as the entire chair rocks back and forth. I stare at it, but I'm still without any real explanation for it. Moderately annoyed at the interruption, I sit and resume my writing, and make a mental note to blog later about how easy it is to ignore some phenomenon for the mundane, how set we are in our ways, and how determined we are to ignore anything magical. But then, as quickly as it came, it stops, and I freeze again, struck by the reality of it. It happened, didn't it? I couldn't have imagined it.

I ran downstairs quickly, and asked everyone in the house. Did you feel it? Did you feel that? The house, it shook. They look at me, and break into laughter. No, of course not. Of course not. And then I'm crazy.

But I wasn't crazy. I was right. My phone lit up with the same question I'd been asking, and I was validated. My friend grumbled about it. "Now this is all anyone will talk about for days," he moped, "no body got hurt, but you won't hear about anything important until this entire thing blows over."

He was right, in the first bit of his prediction. Facebook and Twitter flooded with bits and pieces blown out of proportion. From victorious declarations of survival, to threats of more of God's wrath. But at the same time, I'm pleased. Of course you won't hear of anything else important, but why isn't this important? The usual garble is meaningless as well, teenage angst and celebrity obsession. But this, an earthquake, however minor, is something. The planet, solid rock tore beneath us. It ripped, scraped, and shook land for miles.

The speculation over Irene is overblown (pun) as well. At worst, category one. Some rain. Some wind. But now, how can I help not being excited? As I type now, the gutter complains noisily outside, and I wish for something. For excitement. For something important.

Resemblance

Movies make me sad, tearing into secrets I didn't know I had. The actor's profile and stuttering strikes a particular note. There's a friend onscreen instead, and I miss him. I feel hollower for being reminded what I'm missing.

The hollowness makes me feel delicate, as though one more crack could send me crying, so I get up, and walk to the kitchen, shuffling gently, through glazed eyes. Absentmindedly, I grab the refrigerator door, but  don't open it. I wrap my fingers around the cool handle, and lean my forehead against it. I ache.  

Maguire

For the first time, I find myself itching for a pencil while I read, as though my rambling thoughts are somehow worth recording. Then again, reactions to Gregory Maguire are always nothing less than orgasmic. His writing is beautiful and intricate, and I delight in pulling it apart. I savor the delicious bits of description, of a nougat white against rain soaked black. I wonder how often his inspiration is visibly and immaturely woven to mine.

NYC

     Every sidewalk sparkles. Under all the tar and gum and dirt and grime, it sparkles. Deep in the cement, there are small flecks that seem to shimmer, like the heart of the city itself. With every step into the smoggy cold air, I love this city.

     At night, I stare out the window. The sky is a sickly grey, lit by the waste below. As I drift off, the blinking lights in the skyline of the people that never sleep all start to look like little stars, and sleep takes me to fuzzy memories of a different sky, with different stars.

Airport

An elderly couple sits at a food court table in the middle of the airport. Impatient people drag their luggage to their respective concourses, grumbling at delays, but the pair seems lost in their own world. They sit across from each other, holding hands over the scratched plastic table. Heads bowed, they mouth words in unison.

Oddly enough, their prayer isn't cheapened by the unopened styrofoam packages of tasteless food on their table. In a world of chaos, they seem to have found what matters. I watch them as I eat, and catch my mother watching them too. When she thinks I'm not looking, she starts to cry.

Metaphors

"A gallon of rich country cream

 hand-whipped into stiff peaks

flung from the beater

into dollops

across a blue oilcloth."

I believe it was in third or fourth grade, we read a poem about the sky being a stretch of blue canvas, with dollops of cream whipped into stiff peaks of clouds. I remember it perfectly, even now, and I was entranced by this, such a beautiful view of the sky. We were told to write poems of our own, each with a metaphor, akin to the sky being a canvas.

I decided to write one about the sky too. It seemed to me so fragile, a delicate balance it showed between night and day, like a perfectly planned game. I wrote about a marble game. A perfectly circular ring, well worn and gritty, with pluming dusts of clouds and edged by the horizons, was the playing field. I wrote about the fiery dragon eyed marble of the sun, and the cool glassy roll of the moon, about how they knocked each other out of the ring and back again, two perfectly balanced opponents in an endless game.

I volunteered to read mine out loud. I stood, and proudly told the class of my marbled metaphor.

Nobody understood it.

Memory

One of my games, when I was very small, was to make up a cleaning service. I would grab sponges, buckets, brushes, and redo entire walls, cleaning off grey sludge and leaving them new and beautiful. I remember how perfectly this worked, I remember how I was surrounded by lots of friends that helped and laughed at my brilliant jokes. One time, my mother sat and watched this magnificent operation, laughing with a camera in hand, probably to record my dizzying wonder at such a small age. I remember explaining to her my system in perfect eloquence.

Curiously enough, in what is the resulting video, I'm not in it at all. Instead, a small, frizzy haired and big-eyed girl is standing against a wall with yellow striped wallpaper, holding one of those dishwashing wands with a sponge on one end and soap in the handle. Without making any difference to the wall, she clumsily slaps the wand against it. While spinning around in lopsided, lumpy circles on her heels, she speaks around the pacifier in her mouth in third person, both to her imaginary friends, one of which seemed to be Winnie the Pooh, and to the camera, explaining that Onyon (my nickname at the time), was cleaning the walls.

What a difference the imagination of childhood makes.

Steady Goes

My belly swells with food; Cajun, pizza, candy, topped with the exhaustion of travel. In a strange bed, on top of starchy hotel sheets, I feel lethargic, as though I'll never move again, and I flash back to when I was little.
Greedy childish hands not knowing when to stop, filling to bursting until I felt sick. I crawled upstairs, to the cool undisturbed, and fell onto my favorite couch. Thick, hard, floral swirls over stiffly packed cushions, meant for show, but the fabric was cool and steady against my feverish cheek.
I wonder what happened to that couch.

Sister Dearest

     A scream tears through the room, leaving us vey nearly deaf in its wake. Almost drunkenly, my sister stumbles out of the tiny bathroom and into the nearly as tiny cabin room, already occupied by my mother and I. There's blood. Sister dear looks crazed, with wet, uncombed hair decorating her shoulders, and little else, standing naked and oblivious to the growing puddle the dripping is creating about her ankles. She repeats, "there's blood," and holds up a towel, still edged with creases from being folded on the rack, and true to her word, stained with ripples of deep red.

     Generally, we are simply amused by her, taking in her antics with gentle smiles, waiting to see what she does next. This time, all amusement is drained and replaced by silent shock. The blood blossoms through the damp terrycloth as the recent shower drips in the background. We all hang in terrified confused silence.

     "Are you bleeding?" An obvious first question, but one that has eluded us in its simplicity, my mother's the first to grab hold of the situation. Eager to hand control to someone else, my sister drops the towel and spreads her arms in display. It flutters to the floor, creating peppermint stripes of red and white. Her nakedness is displayed to validate her sanity; free of any cuts, gashes, or wounds of any kind. Still, we refuse to believe it, hoping to pin the accident on an owner, but the unclaimed blood screams up at us from its heap on the floor. We three stare at each other, looking from person to person for answers none of us know. From the next room, my father remains unfazed by the overheard scene my sisters created, suggesting, "Your nose?"

     "No," she protests, as she pushes both index fingers into nostrils to prove it. She removes them, and there's a moment before she notices the blood now covering them. She explodes into laughter, screaming, "Nosebleed!" and reclaims the towel, returning to the bathroom with her bloody nose. She's gone in a whirlwind, sweeping up all the terror that has settled into the room, and leaving me completely enraptured and still confused, spinning in the dust of her nonsense. Nothing new.

Belize

We drift gently in our tubes, reveling in the cool water and soft currents. Our guide leads, explaining plants and history and landmarks all in a thick but unrecognizable accent. He gestures grandly behind him, at the yawning mouth of a cave. Vines drip over the entrance and trace lazy designs in the water with the tips of their tendril fingers. The limestone ceiling is massive and ornate, lined generously with stalactites. Darkness calls out from within. "Dis is called da gateway to hell," calls out our guide. Comforting.

We float into the cave, and click on our headlights, small beams strapped to our foreheads. The outside light quickly abandons us, as though it too is terrified of what may lie within. We paddle nervously with our fingertips, lost in blindness except from the small circles of blueish light we each cast. Sticks caught in notches high above us serve as a threatening reminder of how high the water can rise, when it feels like it.

"We ah in de deepest part of da watah now, ova 55 feet deep. Der ah feesh hea, dey ah blind, but can be as big as five feet long." My fears shift from the scuffles and squeaking along the ceiling to a hypothetical nudge from below. The ceiling lowers as the walls narrow, and I can see bats now, dipping into holes in the ceiling. My light flickers and dies, leaving me only with the other softly glowing heads around me. What a luxury light is. 

There are soft splashes around us, dripping from the points of the ceiling. The water bunches at the tips of stalactites, forming perfect beads of water, until they're no longer light enough to stay up, and fall to the water with a delicate splash. Blindly, I float under a ridge in the ceiling and a drop forms, as it has for hundreds of years, and falls, a perfectly full and heavy diamond, as it has thousands of times before, and splatters on my face, landing squarely on my nose.

Roatan

     There's another world under the surface. The sandy ledge gives way to a deep crevice, bordered by coral on either side. The rocky walls are alive with oranges and purples, coiled into brain-like blobs and veiny webs fanning out over the coral. On the bottom, seaweed and depth invite darkness, and small flickers are all that suggest scavenging fish. Bigger fish dart through the coral labyrinth, and a large emerald fish simply holds out its fins and wiggles the edges to slip past my right.

      I can only hear my breathing through the snorkel, mechanical and hollow. In. Out. In. Out. A school of yellow stripes dances beneath my flippers, inviting. I push the last of my air out and spit out the plastic mouthpiece, before sinking beneath the surface and pushing down to meet them. Sudden silence. All sound disappears, lost under the crystalline water. Pressure comes next, just a few more feet under and I can feel it inside my mask, pushing into my eyes, my nose, popping my ears. I kick and swim down farther, until I'm surrounded by the utterly fearless group of fish. They're curious, and bump up around me. 

      I hear soft clicking now, growing louder as I get used to submersion. The reef crackles and pops around me, as fish feed and swim. The silence is gone, completely replaced by underwater chaos.
I look up, and I'm suddenly stuck by how deep I am and the burning in my lungs. For a moment, I'm entranced by the glimmer of reflecting off waves above, and a deep blue all around me, reminiscent of massive aquariums whose glass windows I'd stared through as a child.

     I don't dare kick off, scared of breaking the delicate balance, so I move my legs slowly, together, gently and rhythmically, kicking harder as I get nearer. I hit the surface hard, and gasp for air I didn't know I needed. Bobbing on top again, the world below is completely lost under the shimmering blue of the surface.

At the Buffet

     I think I love the way melted chocolate ripples more than the ripples of water. It's thicker and flows slower, with its narcissistic own sheen of dark browns. It piles on top of itself selfishly, gentle ribbons of chocolate upon chocolate, but only for a moment, before it melts into a puddle again. The fountain twirls it, spinning it into glory. I watch intensely through the plastic.

     "Want some?" Caught off guard, I stutter and nod. The woman who spoke takes a rainbow skewer of fruit and dips it under the fountain, expertly coating it as though it's an art. She smiles, as does one with experience does when introducing another to something new. 

     Hours later, I approach again, and timidly ask for another. Please. Something flits across her face, maybe exhaustion or annoyance, and without returning my smile, she dips it quickly and hands it to me, seemingly glad to be rid of it. I'm left confused, wondering what happened in between, and when, that let her start hating chocolate.

Costa Maya

     The sand moves below me, and I squeal as I trip over my feet. A tiny crab scitters away, leaving a twisted trail of tiny sideways footprints. I chase after it, childishly, until it dives under a tangle of leaves on the side on the beach. My focus into the sand brings a crowd. My parents, our guide, and two small children, a skinnier boy and a chubbier girl, both with dark hair and wide eyes, tanned skin that makes my sunburn ivory by comparison. We all stare at the half buried crab, as our guide pokes at it, prompting it to run again. Our group scatters as the crab escapes, and the children follow it, trailing shouts of Spanish behind them. They stare it down a tiny hole in the sand as I retreat into the shade with my parents.

"Go help it," prods my mother, "or they're going to kill it." Reluctantly, I hop across the hot sand back to the little crab and the kids. "Come on little guy," I coo, trying to coax it back to the weeds. The kids catch on and coo at it too, saying things I don't understand, but the crab understands none of us. The younger boy gives up and kicks sand on top of it, burying it. The girl squeals and shouts again, and this time I catch words.

"Muerto," she yells, "Está muerto." 

"No, no," I try to comfort, limited in high school Spanish. "No creo que está, um, esté muerto." Damn subjunctive. "Um, no debemos tocar. Su casa esta en las plantas. Yo creo." His house is in the plants. I think. I scoop my hands into the sand and sift through, finally bringing up a handful, and in the middle, a very scared and sandy crab. His left eye is tucked away in his shell and he hisses at me, blowing tiny bubbles. The two kids yell and follow as we race back to the plants. I drop it gently, and it latches onto a root and refuses to let go. Our sucess is interrupted by my mother, "Roo, we've got to go." I tell her I'm coming and wave adiós to the crab. 

The kids stare at me, "Hablas inglés?"I laugh and nod, "Sí, hablo inglés." 

As we're leaving the beach, our guide tells us a crab is called a cangrejo.
"But be careful," he warns, that's another name for..." lost for words, he strikes a pose, putting a hand on a popped out hip. He gives a little wave with his other hand and whistles. It's charades.
"Hooker?" we guess, "Dancer?"
"No," he says, "the men who..."
"Transvestite?"
Finally, he remembers the word he's been looking for. Gay! We laugh, all delighted with the translation and double meaning, and leave behind our tiny cangrejo.

Vacation!

Hello dear readers! I've been rather good about blogging more often lately, but vacation has stolen me away from the internet, forcing all of my musings into notebooks this week. As I edit and type them, I'll add pictures (my sister's a lovely photographer, see above) and post them here over the next few days. Much love!

Bruised Ego

       I wake up late with a headache, which pounds harder in complaints to the light. I pull myself up, disappointed to see that the rejection and unhappiness haunting me last night has congealed into an angry mess and settled onto the floor, refusing to be forgotten. I cough, choke, and fumble on the nightstand for water, knocking over a stack of books with clumsy fingers, before closing around a dixie cup, leaking with water that sat over night in lukewarm wet paper.

       Crossing to the dresser, I can see the bruise reflected in the mirror, having worked its way into the shadows under my eyes and corners of my mouth. A restless night has left me branded with frizzy hair and lines of creases pressed into my skin, leaving me with a faraway look racked with insanity that has come to naught. I reach for my phone, but the messages waiting threaten to press onto the bruise harder. It stays off.

       With nothing else promising to do, I trudge slowly to pull down the curtains, and curl up on the bed again, cradling my black and blue, in the fake cushioned darkness of late morning.

No More Than

"You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."
 -Francis Crick (one of the co-discoverers of the molecular structure of DNA)

What a comforting offense that is.
Nobody can ever be better than you, or worse. Or matter more, or less. Rejection, cheating, lying, dreaming, hoping, fearing. Maybe Francis Crick is right, and it's nothing deep or meaningful, just cells and molecules and biology happening.  Everything anyone is and everything they feel and think and do, matters nothing, nothing more than nerve cell behavior. You cannot hate or judge people any more than they can you, you cannot criticize molecular behavior and blame a person for it.

Maybe it's comforting to believe that. But to believe that, you have to accept that everything about you is nothing more than nerve cells and associated molecules as well. What are you worth?

Crush

"Unfortunately the situation was so wonderful to me that each time I saw Tommy I melted in delicious giggles and was unable to form a coherent sentence. After a while he stopped including me in his general glances." -I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I love this. So childish, so quickly infatuated and forgotten. Keep my secret, dear reader, his name's just not Tommy.

Reading at Night

There's a in magic books late at night, when exhaustion and fear of the eerie silence of the witching hour play with the mind to coax stories off pages and into life.
I lie on my stomach on the bed, propped up on my elbows, caught in an shot of light cast by a single lamp. The rest of the room seems to be sleeping in the dark greys and shadows that have seeped in from the corners. The lamp is bent over to point directly at me, skimming over the book, highlighting the textures of the pages with little bits and shadows lost in daytime. The paper glitters and my fingers' skeletal shadows grow long and dance on the paper. Each fiber is delicately woven into the page, the delicately detailed and gently yellowed paper, pressed flat and flickering, fighting, as though they're alive and trying to unwind. The ink of the print seeps into them, staining the paper in letters. In the shadows and tricks of night, the ink can leak out of its perfectly shaped letters and move around the page. I hold my face far too close, my nose almost touching the sweet old stories, and I can read softly out loud, gently repeating the words the book gives me in a soft whispers, my lips moving, nearly bumping against the pages in soft kisses.
I'm lost in the brilliant words, stories, and I'm in love.

MIKA

So I was sitting there in the bar and this guy comes up to me and he said “My life stinks,” and I saw his gold credit card and I saw the way he was looking at people across the room and I looked at his face and you know, what a good looking face, and I just said, “Dude, your perspective on life sucks.” 

Think about that. I love MIKA. I think he's brilliant in so many ways.

When the Pup Grows up

"Just as Gavroche was relieving a sergeant who lay near a stone-block, of his cartridges, a ball struck the body.

'The deuce!' said Gavroche. 'So they are killing my dead for me.'

A second ball splintered the pavement beside him. A third upset his basket.

Gavroche looked and saw that it came form the baulieue.

He rose up straight, on his feet, his hair in the wind, his hands upon his hips, his eye fixed upon the National Guards who were firing, and he sang:

On est laid a Nanterre,

C'est la faute a Voltaire,

Et bete a Palaiseau,

Cest la faute a Rousseau.

Then he picked up his basket, put into it the cartridges which had fallen out, without losing a single one, and advancing towards the fusillade, began to empty another cartridge-box." - Les Misérables

     This is possibly my favorite part of Les Mis. I find it hilarious, and beautiful, and darkly disturbing. Gavroche is the urchin, kicked out of his family and forced to live on the street. He takes it upon himself to collect cartridges to support the revolutionaries, and sneaks through the barricade to do so.

     I love his exclamation of "the deuce," his twisted argot way of shouting "what the hell!" So they are killing the dead. He ignores the fact that the shot was for him, and mocks them, mocks their war and the futility of it. Killing the dead. But even that's not enough. He stands and sings to them, fighting their shots with couplets as he comes closer.

"The people in Nanterre are ugly, 
It's Voltaire's fault,
And stupid in Palaiseau, 
It's Rousseau's fault."

     He hides and dances around, closer to them, and continues to sing. "Happy is my character," he tells them, "Misery is my possession." He laughs, disappears, reappears, escapes, returns. And the insurgents were scared. Racked with anxieties of fighting, they became panicked by the boy, the child, the strange fairy, the dwarf, dancing and singing through the fog, running faster than their bullets. They knew not what he was. And they fired. A young boy became an enemy. 

     They shot him in the face, and he starts his last couplet, "La nez dans le ruisseau, my nose is in the creek," and dies before his can blame his death, the fighting, all of the misery on Voltaire and Rousseau.

Semper Fi Fags

     In 2006, members of Westboro church picketed in an anti-gay protest at the funeral of fallen marine Matthew Snyder in Westminster, Maryland. The protesters claimed that God was punishing the United States for "the sin of homosexuality" by killing the soldiers. They shouted at the grieving family, and carried signs saying "Thank God for dead soldiers," "God blew up the troops," "AIDS cures fags," and "Semper Fi Fags." The Snyder family decided to sue the church for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy. In the link above, the spokesperson for the church, Shirley Phelps-Roper and a reporter for Fox News, Julie Banderas, get into an argument about the church's actions.

     They quote different parts of the bible, including, "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart; thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbour, and not bear sin because of him." and "Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Yes, we're supposed to argue for what's right, and yes, the bible does tell us what is morally considered a sin, however you chose to interpret that. But I think that ultimately, we must let everyone choose for themselves what is right and what is wrong, and we must love them for that. I believe that Christianity is distinguished from other religions by the belief that someone died for our sins, so that we could be forgiven. I think the message of Christianity is forgiveness, to forgive and accept each other. Tolerance is the greatest thing one can do. 

     What bothers me in this clip is that neither of them listen to each other. They're both so convinced that they're right that they don't pause for the other, they simply repeat their beliefs and call names. Before I make the wrong point, know that I side completely with the reporter's point of view, but you cannot expect to change someone's point of view just by yelling at them. 

     In the fall of 2007, the Snyders were awarded  $2.9 million in compensatory damages plus $8 million in punitive damages, which were later reduced to $5 million. However, the church appealed in 2008 to a federal appeals court, which reversed the previous decision and argued that the church's free speech rights had been violated.  After more appeals, the case was brought to the Supreme Court this year, in Snyder v. Phelps.

     In March, the court ruled in an 8-1 vote that members of Westboro Baptist Church had a right to promote "a broad-based message on public matters such as wars." CNN anti-gay church right to protest

     We live in a country where stranger can tell a grieving father at his son's funeral that God hates his family and killed his son for defending a country that tolerates gays. Ironically, the country they hate so much has protected their right to do this. We live in a country with free speech. Whatever that means.