28 August 2009

disaster is relative

I promise to never be
the kitten stuck up in the tree
the smallest of calamities
everyone stops their lives to look at me

the whole neighborhood will soon know
when the firemen put on a show
to save miss kitten from falling below
(instead lower her safely down just so)

and no one says 'she got herself there alone
let her find her own way home'

focus// efforts

i'm focusing all my efforts on

finding a job
decorating my new art studio

saving up for student loan payments
buying acrylics and books about Bohemia

making professional contacts
champagne and retro movies with my old girlfriends

being the early bird
battling insomnia

being a lawyer
being lucie

27 August 2009

question

Is it human nature to be naturally happy and it takes effort to be sad, or is it human nature to be naturally sad and it takes effort to be happy?

21 August 2009

silly sally

silly sally ledbetter
sneezes when she drinks fizzy pop
and thought about shaving her eyebrows,
for a second.
she has a lovely gait and a mellow voice
and she
grows her own be bop cherries and licorice
silly sally
thems sellin' like hot cakes nowadays.
kiss your elbow and wink.

20 August 2009

my old home

beige carpet // potpourri // wallpaper // pledge furniture polish // doilies // curled rug // ceramics // dusty fireplace // clean linoleum// dark shiny wood table // puffed valence //

comfort

18 August 2009

positive thought of the day


is nothing
more delightful
than a tutu?


i wish the whole world was covered in tulle and organza

they (should) say

the road
to american
higher education
is paved
with
good intentions.

to do

go to public library to research millinery.

eat chocolate.

17 August 2009

shopping list

olive juice

my left shoe







chocolate

14 August 2009

stories I wrote in high school: "The Algebra Teacher"

I've decided that my algebra teacher is very unsatisfied with her life. Its because of her husband. He is very protective of her. She doesn't enjoy her job. She goes home and grades papers and dreams of beaches and sunsets and bittersweet breezes. She could be a doctor. She could be a professor. But no, she is stuck here in nowheresville suburbia. But she'll get out some day- she'll leave that worthless man and find real love: something that she can never configure with numbers on a chalkboard.

Its strange that I know so much about her, and yet she can't seem to remember my name...

01 August 2009

stories I wrote in high school: "She, her, oh"

(this was a story I tried to write from a male perspective)

She sat back against her pillows in her soft, dark negligee. He looked into her eyes as he buttoned up his shirt. He couldn't believe he had done it again. After all this time. After everytime he told himself he wouldn't go back again.

But Jesus, she was beautiful. Her body was a continuous line- dark brunette waves turning to soft slanted shoulders fading to the curves of her hips down the length of her leg. He could look at her forever.

She smiled her crooked smile and stood, pressing her body against his. "Lovely," she said. "Won't you stay?" She pouted her lips and leaned back a little, while gently entangling her leg with his.

"I can't" he said.

"Just as well," she replied as she slipped out of the lingerie and into a big blanket. "I'm going to Paris in two days."

He didn't want to know that. He didn't want to know anything else that she would do or had done. He wished he didn't even know her address. He resented all of this knowledge because he knew deep down that if he got that feeling again- the dark, miserable, empty feeling, he would have to see her again. He knew he would follow her to Paris if he could, if it got too bad.

There she would be waiting for him, with champagne and Vivaldi. There she would let him in and take him in her bed and eat toast in the morning. He just couldn't take it anymore. He loved her too deeply, too passionately to stand. Ecstasy was in her eyes and bliss in her blankets, and his heart continuously broke after each time. All his dreams were within her, and she didn't even care.

He went into the bathroom and splashed water onto his face. He knew he had to just go away. He knew that he had to ignore the dark feeling that came with being without her and eventually it would dull down. He promised himself he would not go back again.

He left through the window to avoid saying goodbye and feeling another kiss on his lips. The goodbye kisses were always half given: if he never received the beginning, he wouldn't have to return for the end.

stories I wrote in high school: "Indecision"

I sat blankly on my bed and stared into my closet. I had a taste in my mouth that was like I had been drinking flat coke. Of course, it wasn't true, because I had been living off of grape juice and poptarts for four days. I just felt like it, you know?

Well, anyway, I was staring at my closet wishing that maybe if I blinked I might open my eyes to something new and exciting, but every time it was the same old clothes. It made me think of the time when I was seven and I put on one of my mother's dresses, but I didn't fill out the top at all (nor the rest of the dress for that matter). I modeled in the mirror, pretending I had a figure, but everytime I looked it was just the same old boring me- so I cut all my hair off with the bathroom scissors. My mom says I get bored with things too quickly. I don't think that's true. After all, I was still eating blueberry poptarts, wasn't I?

One thing I was bored with, though, was Tony. Excruciatingly bored. The way he talked, walked, kissed, sneezed... All of it put me to sleep. So I sat in front of my closet with a clear mission: find a dump Tony outfit. Black... black... I thought, for mourning, of course. I put on a black dress that hung to my knees and added a pink sequin ribbon to hang on my hips that I had so craved at a young age.

One time I went to the mall with Tony. We were in his car, cruising through the parking lot. I saw a parking spot, it must have been about 6 spots back from the front door. But Tony said he though he saw something closer, so instead of listening to me he drove on. Of course, we lost both spots. And isn't that just like Tony? Always looking for something better than what he has right in front of his face. And it drives me crazy.

I took off the black dress and put on a pair of green pants and a black top, but the velvet swirls on the cuffs of the pants seemed too cheery for the occasion.

I remember when Tony bought me a lamp for our anniversary. He said he was trying to be different. It was the ugliest thing I had ever seen, but I put it in my room anyway. The base had painted fish on it that looked absolutely demonic. They gave me nightmares until I tied a scarf over them.

I exchanged my pants for a miniskirt and ankle boots, which of course made me change my shirt to a dark blue camisole. But it was too sexy. I didn't want him picturing me naked right before we broke up.

My mind flew back to our first kiss: It was in my backyard, late one humid summer night. He actually asked me if he could kiss me before he did. It was so dorky. So of course I was all ready for it, instead of it being spontaneous and wonderful, as first kisses are supposed to be. I recall the evening to be a disaster.

I threw on outfit after outfit, until I began to realize that I wasn't really worried about alligator belts and a-line skirts, I was procrastinating. And as I sat there, in my robe now, staring into the closet, the phone rang.

It was Tony.

"Hello dollface" he said. Oh, I hated when he called me that.

"Hi Tony" I said flatly.

"Well I was wondering if you wanted to go dancing tonight. The whole crowd should be there?"

"Well," I said. "Well... ok."

"That's great" he said. "And dollface, I love you."

Hearing Tony's amourous words across the line made my face turn pink and I suddenly and briefly forgot about all the previosly overanalyzed faults of his. So maybe he was a little over ambitious, a lot of girls like that in a guy. And so maybe he had strange taste in presents and sometimes he tended to get a little nervous. These things, I thought, are not things to lose someone over.

"I love you too Tony," I said back, smiling. "And puh-lease don't call me dollface," I said with a sigh.

"I'll pick you up at eight. Oh, will you wear that black dress I love with that weird sparkly ribbon thingy?"

As I changed back into my original outfit, I reflected on my problem. I sipped from my glass of grape juice and decided maybe I should go chopping all my hair off everytime I'm bored.

stories I wrote in high school

Seeing as I am (temporarily) squatting at my fathers house, I started searching for my old portfolio of short stories I wrote in high school that I used to send off to Seventeen Magazine- never had one published, though. I thought I could rewrite some of the stories to update them to a more mature perspective. I can't find my portfolio but I did find stacks of notebooks packed with (awful) poetry and scribbled with shorts. I thought I would share some here on the blog- there is a certain sweetness to the naivety (I had hardly been outside of my small southern town). Most stories are about escaping your life for something better, full of people I wish I knew in real life. Hope you enjoy them-- I'll keep digging for the portfolio...

(Ps I was in high school from 1997 to 2001, if you want "cultural context").