Everything is breaking. my computer keeps telling me that the cooling system is gonna cause a meltdown. Meanwhile all other signs in my life seem to agree. Nothing seems to be working out like is should. I don't think I'm supposed to be doing this to people. No one is rewarded when they play the game with me. If you win you only win heartache and headache and if you lose, well you'll linger in my thoughts to torment me in guilt. That is, if you even wanted to win in the first place.

intimacy vs isolation

what happens when you fear them both? what happens when they turn out to be inextricably linked. I just want to be happy again. I feel disconnected. There is just so much I don't see. So much I don't know. I want to throw my computer.

Simple things that don't happen add up. missed phone calls lead to lack of faith in them ever coming at all. And when all the world is leading you in circles you start to realize that there is something that they are needing that you just can't give.

Green

Fine rain was falling on the gravel and glades.
The last rays of September bejewelled broken blades.
But there's someone that I long for.
Oh, where have you been?

As the red earth lies under a covering of green.
Do you trip on the city's golden gutters and kerbs?
As the seasons grow wild and the ground undisturbed.
'Till you find what you are now
Is less than you've been;
As the red earth lies under a covering of green.

Is patience exhausted?
Are your pockets picked clean?
I was lost in the next world
Or somewhere in between.
And it's much as predicted,
They go down that same track.
They say they'll return
But they never come back.

Fine rain was falling on the gravel and glades.
The last rays of September bejewelled broken blades.
Are you still restless'
Or are you serene?
As the red earth lies under just a covering of green.

--elvis costello

I was thinking about my grandmas today.

I know I'm a couple days late on the Anniversary of losing grandma, but sometimes it's more about the feeling than the facts. I make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich almost every day now. Grandma used to make us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with apricot preserves. She'd cut them and shape them like an airplane. She'd make us soup and pour it into bowls with funny characters on the bottoms.

She had a smell, a soft embrace, and a voice that no one else will ever replicate. She'd let me and my brothers take her yarn and thread and tie up her kitchen cabinets and door-knobs. It was complete craziness. But it was time thats impossible to forget.

Memories of fruit cocktail deserts and roasts. Always bread and butter on the table. I was too young to really understand what I'd lost. I used to cry about it when I would think about it. Then I just stopped letting myself remember- I guess I was embarrassed by how choked up my mother would get whenever we sang On Eagles Wings in church. It was a mix of me wanting to be strong for my mother, and not wanting to be ashamed to hurt.

The other night I had a dream in which I dreamt that my aunt jeane was in trouble. I woke up and wanted to know if she was alright. She's got the most life in her than anyone I know in their 80's. Actually she's got more bite and spunk than some people I go to school with. She's inspired me to be more than just my age. She knows age is just a number. But I couldnt help waking up realizing that I was making a mistake. I've been unexcusably absent lately. I'm just not at family functions. And although I've had fun, I've missed out on her. I've missed her.

My other grandma is another woman I'm learning more from each time I see her. I'm getting to know her as a woman. I don't know enough, and I've only suddenly come upon this realization of perspective. But all of a sudden I realize that this is a woman who knows far more than I do. Someone who has seen the hardships of my life and endured them- been changed by them. Someone who I have always loved, but not actually appreciated until recently. I miss her too.

There are people you love who, when they leave, leave you without the realization of what it is you've lost. And then there are people who are right here, looking for your love, but loving you regardless. You don't want to miss out on those people. I don't.

thats what i needed to say. thanks.

he's tragically independent, a man of tricks and tropes
who hasn't seen the writing on the wall
a wall that obscures with it's sweet tender lies
as it warns of this honest man's fall

-- i betcha homer could come up with something fresh. He'd certainly have had enough time to think of something. Sigh. No real entry tonight. To worn out trying to write a song.

too bad its no good. I'll try again.

vicious lies that wear the sheath of truth,
til the only truth that's left
is the memory of something real.
something good.

ha. not long enough and it doesnt even rhyme. im tired. gnite scouts.

its the same old story baby
one minute you're the belle of the blue and gold dinner
and the next you're just that shameless bitch
who caused that ten year long trojan war
and inevitably loses out to a hoagie.

Considering how much I have to do tomorrow I should probably either be sleeping in preparation or plotting- err in preparation. I have to go get some shot tomorrow and then blow off some class on thursday to get the results read. But I shouldnt worry. Because I asked my friend if it hurt, and he said nah.

This is my friend who has 5 tatoos.... i think its 5. Yeah so maybe he isnt the right guy to talk to about reasonable pain thresholds. Yowzas is teaching really gonna be THIS worth it?

Yes. The answer is yes. (who cares what the answer is, i have to get the test and find out I don't have tuberculosis and thats that.) Not that I'm really worried I have tuberculosis. Not that I'm really worried about misspelling tuberculosis. I just wanna be better than a sandwich folks. And no good sandwich has tuberculosis. I'll tell ya that one.

So about my last entry. Yeah the friend that I was really upset about because of the ugliness that past between us (mostly in my general direction)... the alleged "Jerkmo", if you recall. Well that friend has since realized that I'm much more sensitive than any tooth paste can handle, and we've come to a good understanding. So anyway that's good news.

why do people make jokes when talking about serious things? I mean I know I do it too, and I guess it was more a rhetorical question than a substantial question. I mean, I know why I do it. I do it because it's easier to release the tension through laughing and immediately proposing a comfortable distraction than to stand behind something awkward, uncomfortable, and sincere. People get burnt when they are sincere.

i went for a walk in the snow tonight. it was cold, as you all can imagine. I was impressed I could fit my sweatpants under my jeans. Sometimes I just need to move. Maybe it's like my joke. Maybe after I talk about something heavy or think about something draining I have to take a walk outside because it distracts me at the same time as it parallels the searching I'm doing in my head. I wander around my own thoughts, randomly as they come. Searching for something familiar, something neglected. hehe somehow those two ideas fit together. And I wander outside. Mingling the familiarity of places I know with the neglected feeling of being cold, outside, and alone.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Friends. Lets be selfish, as it's been suggested to me that I try it out, you know give it a spin. I don't exactly feel selfless, but hey, it's not everyday someone suggests being self-centered. Why not? Alright. So friends. Mine are pretty far away. My friends include my older brother, who lives in DC, and who I don't keep well enough in touch with. Also there is my friend in PA, who I havent even met, however he is definitely worthy of inclusion in this small select group. Why so small though? And how are they selected? Well anyway, this group also includes my younger brother who isnt so far away, my roomate christina, and my friend katie who goes to school in maryland. And although I didn't mention two people who in other circumstances I would have mentioned, I think I have good reason for that.

One of my friends has hurt me lately. This friend has always been good for telling me the truth as straight but as kind as possible. And I have valued this friend dearer than them all in certain circumstances. We've had our rough patches, but we're both still standing, and in the same room it seems. That says a lot. However, this friend, when I needed a friend perhaps most of all: was cruel, judgemental, and condescending. It was just a genuinely ugly moment in our friendship. And obviously it bothers me. This is someone I love. Someone I have come to respect, trust, and worry about. Someone I have told the deeper secrets of my life, because I knew they'd be safe. Like I said, we've had our rough patches, and perhaps this is just another one. But it has bothered me. And because I'm still thinking about it, I wanted to get it out here.

The other friend of mine, who would normally be on the list- isnt because our friendship has been hurled into a dimension that is without precedent in my life. We are closer than ever before (perhaps), but at the same time there is so much understanding lacking in the relationship that I just don't know how to handle things. I don't like letting things slip under the rug. And anyway, now that we're in this alternative dimension, the friendship is limited to less conversations of the heart and more awkwardness. And as you can see, those sorts of things bother me.

It's a gentle situation. And lacking both of these people in my life is throwing me off balance.

So there. That was me being self-centered. I don't even like the way it sounds.

I just miss my friends. and I'm hoping they miss me too.