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I K I S S E D T H E M O O N L A S T N I G H T. S H E R E S T E D, P A L E, O N M Y F L O O R U N T I L I E N T E R E D. I S O U G H T S L E E P I N M Y D A R K R O O M, L I T B Y H E R S T I L L P R E S E N C E. B E L O N G I N G T O T H E N I G H T O U T S I D E, S H E C R E P T T H R O U G H M Y W I N D O W, C U R I O U S A N D E A G E R T O T O U C H M Y S I L E N T V I O L I N. T H E W I S D O M S H E H A D G A I N E D F R O M W A T C H I N G N E V E R E X P L A I N E D T H E M A G I C S O U N D S S H E H E A R D, S H E W I S H E D T O S I N G, E V E N A S I M P L E C R I C K E T S O N G W O U L D D O. I F O U N D H E R O N M Y F L O O R.
I D A R E D H E R N O T T O B E A F R A I D. S H E A N D I, B O T H S I L E N T, B O T H U N N E R V E D B Y M U S I C B U T N E I T H E R A B L E T O C O N T R O L T H E M U S I C S O A D O R E D. B O T H P A LE, N E I T H E R T I R E D. I L O S T M Y S E L F I N M I D N I G H T M O O N L I G H T, I K I S S E D T H E M O O N.

My penny

So I'm at Rachel's house, back for the month of break. I've gone from 28 degree weather to 48, a nice change. Basically I wear fewer layers when I head out and don't shiver as I walk. It seems to be a month of difficult conversations, with parents, siblings, friends. A lot has been building up over the last few months and culminated into a need for words and communication.
I found a penny today, while visiting my old high school. I had wandered the premises and returned slightly disheveled. About to open my car I noticed the shape in the damp earth, but the copper had dulled so that it matched the ground. I picked it up, ever nervous that it would be face down, I'd had bad luck with penny's lately. Fortunately heads was up. Content, I searched for a date, but the penny was too worn to read, I could hardly see the face, only the building on the back was prominent. I pocketed the grimy penny and continued on my day, only remembering it when my hand drifted to my pocket and I rubbed the coin.
I think life will get better if I let it. I'm going to believe in the luck of a penny, because eventually the last barrier to happiness is yourself. I'll figure out what makes me happy, if I can, and I'll do that. If I can't, I'll smile as I do whatever I do. Even if it's just recovering a lost penny.

When you wear a red hat...

I'm in the midst of finals with two six pg. essays due tomorrow by 2 pm, and not a word yet written. So, I'll only write a brief blog today.
In the library today, as I roamed the shelves to leave, I stopped at Nietzche. It was a two-shelf section. And there in the middle, on the 2nd shelf, was Higgins' "Comic Relief". Heh. (I must buy many copies of that book and distribute them across the country in serious or depressing sections of libraries and bookstores).
I used to know I'd had a good day by the number of scabs and bruises I'd earned (climbing trees, taking risks, falling down). Now the war scars (life scars) take the form of ink stains on my hands and arms, and flour on my nose.

Got my list

The white silhouette of a familiar landscape. In the reflected sunlight snow melts, dripping from the thin branches. The leafless trees, whose furthest branches bow beneath the white weight, shiver in the wind. Children- college students- dart through the cold, breakfast and work motivate their speed. Alone in my room and choreless, I'm not yet cold but dread my emmersion.
--
Rousseau with breakfast
Freezing fingers ruffle French news
Christmas noise surrounds me

--
Life's unpredictable: some days it works. Some days are difficult to get through. With college a day lasts a week, I get to feel defeated and invincible on the same day. Directing feels wonderful, I'm working on a 10 minute original work for a short plays festival. My vision has been realized, and nobody's laughed, pointed and said "you're not a director." I have hope.
In general: hope for the holidays, for my future, for my present. Hope for my friends. Hope for my family. Hope for all the music that has found it's way into my life. The future seems especially cloudy these days (even each tomorrow is very unpredictable), it's becoming easier to appreciate that, rather than dread it.

If I had the chance, I'd ask the world to dance

I was nervous about going home. I knew that things had progressed while I was gone, and I'd exited while creating loose ends. I returned after a lengthy suspense.
To cherish: To hold dear; to embrace with interest.
I cherished those four days. I went back, and experienced a greater break than I could have planned.
3 weeks here, in Boston, focusing on being here. I can't ignore my new situation, I can't push it aside.
Then 4 weeks back at home. With the people who matter.
The greatest things in the world are the hardest to express, I won't try any more tonight. Just know: for four days, I was very happy.

My Paycheck: spaceships

Overheard on way back from Wellsley (sp?), while in subway. The man was talking for whoever would listen.
"I'm from a slum-ish place [...]
"My aunt's been trying to get a job for 18 months [...] So I did what I had to do, I told them I saw spaceships. They sent me to a psychologist and she wrote me as being mentally retarded.
I'm not, you can see I'm not retarded. Mental people don't know what they're talking about and I do. They give me 800 bucks a month with what I get for work. I give $150 to my Aunt, she doesn't want my money. She's retired, she gets checks each month. Every first or third day of the month."
-(11/21/09)

A quick note on the weather...

On Saturday I woke up at about 8 o'clock. I could hear a rustle outside my window. Out of the bed, across the room, to the window, open the blinds, and it is raining. Pouring. Blinds half pulled and I returned to bed for the most peaceful two hours of my rest.
Later, walking to the shower, I stopped to talk to one of The Sophomore Girls on my hall. The Sophomore Girls are a clan of about six girls who decided they wanted to dominate a corner of the third floor hall. These Girls leave their toiletries (all brightly colored, and of the same classic brand) in the bathroom, and, no matter the hour, no matter the layers needed for the weather, these Girls always look good. But, they're quite nice too. Starting with the power outage that knocked light out of Medford, where the residents of the dorm congregated in the hall (only the hallways had light), starting then with conversation over a cake, I've gotten along with those Sophomore Girls.
Right, so I met the black haired one (yes, this will be when I admit I don't know any of their names...) in the hall that Saturday morning.
I, looking out at the rain through the window and the grey sky, "It's beautiful out there."
She, "Yeah, I just want to run outside in it all day."
I smile. Beat.
I, "Oh wait, are you kidding?"
She, "Oh! Are you not?"
Then I launched into my usual speech about the glory of rain, about being able to enjoy it inside with a mug of hot cocoa, curled up with a blanket, or outside as you feel it on your head, playing off your shoulders.
She smiled and said she was glad to finally know someone who liked this weather.
---
In general the weather's been rather uninteresting of late. Not much rain, no sun. No wind even. It's just been cold, grey, and dark at 4:30 pm. All the leaves, the yellow, orange, red, have fallen. The colorful carpet has been replaced by crunchy brown. Looking around, skinny branches reach everywhere towards the sky in woeful configurations. The world has become more tragic, melodramatic, and bitter.
At first I wasn't sure how to take this shift, I thought I'd reached fall, and wasn't prepared for this second transition. Now I'm growing steadily fonder of this new era of weather, it takes itself quite seriously.
I do miss sunshine, though I didn't think I would. Walking back through the dorm on the way to a much needed nap, I spotted sunlight on the couch at the end of the hall! I hadn't seen traces of sunlight in a long while. Ignoring the fact that it was in a rather central location, I set down my backpack, took off my shoes, and fell asleep in the rectangle of warmth.

Scab

For the last three days (the whole last week really) I told myself I'd go into Boston, undergo an adventure. "Tomorrow I'll go" was my daily excuse. So, looking over my week in preparation for blog-writing I decided to give myself the rest of my day, on the off-chance that something would happen. Well, walking back home I realized that stuff had been going on this week, subtle stuff. Without a thought on my part, life was taking place.
A week or two ago I fell. Nothing terrible, just embarrassing. Skinned a small bit of one knee, but mostly got about a quarter-size scab on the right part of my hand, right above the wrist. For a few hours it just bled. Nothing knows red like blood. The substance of blood, the taste (the copper taste of a penny), a "no-excuses" purity. It is blood, take that. Anyways, I put on a band-aid (delicately administered by Elizabeth), and went on with life. Well, sort off. I like to peek at my injury's, lift a corner of the band-aid, keep constant track of how it's fairing, what stage of the development it is at.
As a kid, I was constantly covered in scrapes, scabs, and bruises. Trees were meant to be climbed, fences squeezed through, and new locations meant new explorations.
Sidenote-my parents called me a "bull in a china shop", I would frown, and take the compliment, hearing "a bowl in a china shop". Apparently I was delicate, not discombumerated (my mother's version of "discombobulated" and my childhood middle name). To be honest, I loved the array of war-scars. Well, "scars" is misleading, none of them stayed. And as I grew up, I grew out of injuries, so that now it is rare to see me injured in any way. I live cautiously.
Anyways, this last weeks scrape soon became a scab, and a rather gruesome one, so that, once the bandage was off, many people would catch sight, return for a second look and then ask what had happened. It looked like my skin was festering. (I don't actually know exactly what "festering" means, but it remains one my favorite and frequently-used words...) It was a delight to watch.
Well, walking towards home I once again began touching the skin. Last night I discovered that, besides a rough barrier between old skin and new, the new skin that had replaced the scab was incredibly smooth. It looked cleaner, felt younger. I am better now, having fallen, than before I fell. I have this patch of crisp skin. My body took care of me, figured things out.
It got me thinking. Sometimes things need to get worse before they get well again, that much I knew. I guess I hadn't realized that, rather than "getting well again", things end up better, once you've been hurt. Maybe it's not a rule, but it's a possibility. Life gets ugly sometimes, and the ugly part is still you, you're the cause of your problem. But given time, it'll clean itself up, with effort. And sometimes, it can seem like nothing is happening, but all that nothing time is accompanied by healing, undercover healing.
I like the word 'healing'. It reminds of meditating, and finding peace with yourself. Because, sure, there is a mad world around us, but a person's relationship with the world has to always come second to their relationship with themselves. Sometimes it's terrifying, looking down at the bleeding or the scab, sometimes it is beautiful and fascinating. It can be worse, when you let yourself realize that it is you, the ugly is a part of you.
I live most of my life afraid of getting hurt, Rachel once said I choose to live on extremes. I see the options of giving (either a person or a situation) my everything (time, thoughts, love, hate...), or retreating and leaving nothing. At the first hint that I can't trust a person, or that they are interpreting me 'wrong', I disapear. "I am a whisper, I'm the wind. Arms aren't meant to hold me." So, for nearly a year now, I have been trying to reprogram my brain into realizing that it is okay to get hurt, it's good for me.

"Living is trusting that THIS isn't the moment that you will die.
Relationships are formed when you TRUST that they don't WANT (plan) to hurt you.

THIS=NOW
LIVE NOW

LOVE may not LAST. Little does.
That's no reason to avoid it.
CAUTION is always laced
(sometimes reasonably)
with FEAR." (8/12/09)

New York City

The best time to make a decision (or perhaps the worst) is between 1 and 4 in the morning. I make many of my decisions then.
The most recent was on Halloween. At 1 AM I received a text from a friend, asking whether I wanted to go with him to meet a mutual friend in NYC. "Yes". Of course.
The thing about New York is the people there seem coarser. They know why they are there so you better know too. It seems like New Yorkers have very strong identities, "I'm in New York to study film", "...to act", "...as a photographer", and if you aren't sure then you're probably working hard to figure it out. Back in Boston there's an aura of meandering. People can dabble, take pictures and write and play music. Isn't it odd that you "play" music, that there is no verb directly about music. You can "make" music or "play" it, whereas all the other art forms you simply do: "act", "dance", "write"...
Anyways, New York. We arrived at about 4. New York has a sort of dreary, desperate personality to it, just in general harsh, but bold. The combination of which is not unpleasant. We rode the subway to get to 6th Avenue (the subway is awful by the way, illogical and depressing, in comparison to Boston's inspiring underground). And when we emerged it had begun to sprinkle, thus began our interaction with rain for the night. Everywhere people, of all ages, roamed in costume. Masks passed on all sides. The most common costume of the night was the Joker, easily. At times there would be multiple Jokers waiting at a street corner for the light to change.
Oh, that was odd to: New Yorkers wait for the lights to change. I had to readjust to that. I'd gotten too used to Boston where the street lights are irrelevant both to cars and people, and where people always get the right of way.
One man, a favorite of mine, was dressed as a present, another favorite was dressed as the Artist Formerly Known As the Prince (or is he just "The Prince" now?). At one point, as we waited for a bus, we spotted a cop making out with someone, took me a moment to realize the guy was in costume.
Amazing discovery! There are, in fact, two more Tintin comic books that I did not know of, that were not advertised on the back of the main comic books (the collection of which I own). I found one while in NYC that I had never seen before (in a bookstore that didn't fulfill the promise it showed), it was Tintin's interaction with the Soviet Union, done in black and white. Tintin was a little more portly and more crudely drawn. Looking through it seemed like going back in time, watching the comic de-develop.
The New York weekend was also blessed with good food. Sliced duck, fried cheese, and lamb with potatos: we were at a tapas restaurant called Sala. Absolutely delicious. And in my good luck I found a $10 bill outside the door of the restaurant, dropped (more than likely) by a drunk.
More to tell, it was a long trip. But what it's left me with is an appreciation for Boston, a reminder to keep my eyes open, a more potent desire to live spontaneously, a better sense of comradeship, and great anticipation for my next trip to NYC when I will take the time to visit Central Park and roam the Met.
Last thought: this month is National Novel Writing Month, meaning you're supposed to write 50,000 words by the end of the month, that's about 100 (or less) pages. That, in turn, means 3 to 4 pages a week. Not bad. So, I'm thinking of trying to get 3 pages written a day of Lola and Ishack this month, as a sort of back-priority for my life. 100 pages of that (even if I toss most of them out), would be well worth it. The other alternative would be just to spend an hour writing a day. We'll see.
By the way, the format for this blog is I'm posting every monday, that's the current plan at least.

The other writer

Back when I was 16...
I was in the Borders coffee place and this old man comes and sits down, frustrated by the help of his daughter (probably almost 50 herself). When she left he was able to be at peace, he could watch others and just work. So he takes out his notepad of yellow paper and I really want to talk to him, because now's the only time I'll get to tell him that I think he's incredible because he's sitting right across from me and we're both writers and we're both writing and we've both taken a moment to glance at what the other person is writing in curious skepticism and we're both drinking coffee drinks and we're both extremes on the ages, he's near the end of his life and my life's near the beginning. So finally I asked him, "What are you writing?" And he smiles, that 'Yes! This is the situation we both wanted it to be' smile that writers get when asked about their work and answers "A Novel" "What's it about?" I ask, and he told me, and I listened, and after the one sentence synopsis he told me about the scene he was writing, and then he said "Thank you for asking" and I forget what I said and I went back to writing and so did he and we were comfortable strangers, proud of a moment.

Threw away an apple

I got my first taste of Boston this weekend, first real taste. I've spotted various bookstores to lose myself in, 3 just in Harvard Square, as well as a really cool thrift/vintage clothes store which I'd like to give more time.
Halloween is on its way and, if I have enough time, the plan is to be Poison Ivy (from Batman).
Last night I typed up all the poetry I had written (mostly in Logic class, but some in Peace and Justice, and one or two poems in French). Well, the use of "1 or 2 poems" is misleading, what I have been creating is one long poem. Currently 4 pages. It's interesting, because the poetry goes through fazes as I do: hopeful, overwhelmed, futile, sentimental sometimes, and pleasantly distracted at other times.
So, part of the poem.

Threw away an apple that met with the floor,

My luck, my illustration of disparity.

I do not feel honest despair for the disparity

because I don't know how

to disperse the spare I have.

We are learning about problems, but we are rarely taught how to solve them. Occasionally, we learn of lofty solutions that aren't accessible, that's about it.

Shit and Sunshine

"It's all shit and sunshine in the beginning, and then it gets worse, and then it gets better, much better."

Vera, in latin, means truth. It's a lofty goal, but life is a lofty enterprise.

So, a poem of mine as introduction. This is from when I was playing around with sonnets.

Wake up, eat breakfast, never leave the snare
Ignore your hopes, you'll feel another day.
The shoes not yours, whose body do you wear?
And all the while there's nothing you can say.

Your mind, your body squirms in the attack
You focus on a poem, love, dance cry sing.
Take time, eventually you'll gain the knack
Till then, let dreams or sleep serve as your wing.

Don't waste "now", for there is no forever
The thing you make, maybe that thing will last.
Life's overwhelming sounds combined make "never"
Your moment of Existence passes- fast.

Push past despair onto I can, I will.
Ignore restrictions, and smile at the thrill.


The plan for this blog: some poetry (I've started writing a lot of it since I got to college). Also, to keep the world/myself.. updated on my explorations of Boston. General exploration of thoughts. Comments are always nice, but I'm not really expecting an audience. Maybe I'll rant about some political theories, explore my own. Find a voice? We'll see.