Saturday, September 30, 2006

are you a hologram?

time, you are a sly bastard...sneaking up on me like this and not letting me know which are the rules that you play by even when you know how different they are from mine. "it's going to be twice the phun...cuz it's two way"

i found a wedding bouquet on the ground today...a little odd if you ask me

Thursday, September 28, 2006

an ode to menthol cigarettes

i use at least twice as much rice as real food...especially if the real food is spicy. it's not that i don't like it- just that my mouth is a little wimpy sometimes. today i saw one of the past loves of my life's mother and we were talking to each other like we wished we could be in on some secret together. i found myself wishing i could be her daughter-in-law without having to anything with any of her children and it made me wonder what all that's about. why i love the families of my exes so much...why i forgive these boys their idiotness as long as they take me home for dinner every once in a while. emily gave me pirate band-aids today and they make me happy.

did you ever use to make out at red-lights and then the cars behind you would honk all crazy because your 16-year-old self got lost in the way one of his hand felt behind your neck-the other on the steering wheel and the light had turned green.

has life ever snuck up behind you, slithering on the floor, grabbing your heels, tying them together like shoelaces and it hurts but you can't scream out because you have company and you don't want to alarm them. Are you still sitting there, too embarassed to stand up and show the world?

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

so what if a glass of wine gets me drunk


seriously though folks, are you even LISTENING to the local music show on WCBN? Jacuzzi is officially my all-time favorite band...like woah. "Get down Ann Arbor, I know you want to!" so true... so true. Wow, I'm almost using caps! almost. Right now I'm wearing grandma shorts that I acquired from the Pioneer costume room. it's pretty fantastic. the navy clue pants in combination with my super red collared shirt make a perfect soccar mom. which is really what I've always wanted to be. One love, Ann Arbor. and Goodnight
~lizaaaaaaaaa

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

to my reflection over the top of my computer screen

whenever i see you, you don't look like the person i always thought you were. i mean, the double standards somehow don't fit within that one body and...is it my body? is it my face? the loves of my life will read everything i've ever written and know for certain that the "you" of which i speak is them. each of them. they will twist our memories until it fits my description (just as i twist their's- so desperate to fit somewhere). but, you see, they don't belong anywhere on paper. i have only ever been writing about myself because myself is all i know enough to write about. and because i need to remind myself that i am watching, that i am there. i am not alone as long as i am here with me. am i schizophrenic? it's always a distinct possibility. the dresdon dolls sing the same songs to me and i wish that i could sing back- just to have a conversation with someone without sounding like the way i sound. and because they have more self-interest than i do...and you gotta admit- that's saying something. someday i'll wear yellow petticoats while i water my red roses and even though there are parasites eating away at the bottom of my feet, my red smile and white skin will shine all the way through to the neighbor's front porch. it won't matter that my daughter's a crack whore at 13 or that my son robs corner stores while he should be at soccer practice because i will blissfully ignore it all and just keep on smiling and baking cake after cake after cake.

Monday, September 25, 2006

so liza, aren't you coming out to the bar?

sometimes the wind catches me off balance and i land into you with the loudest of bangs. here we are. on the floor with a pile of unanswered correspondences. they crinkle under our bodies as we scurry away from each other, scared of what the mess will do to our carefully crafted egos. your feet get left behind and my ears droop down until they trip me up and i land on my ass again. the dogs are out tonight, dear. they howl like untrained opera singers and they gnaw at the edges of my toes until the blood spills out like it always wanted to do. they know the taste of your flesh and they are looking they are looking they are looking. but you have always been good at hiding behind me. letting me get all of the attention while you sneak out safetly through the back. you know, there was a time when all i could do was say your name. now i am hung up in the garden with my lips sewn shut. a scarecrow for the lost souls we never gave names to.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

my post

yesterday jen slept until four and she was the first to go to bed last night. she was confused and frustrated but i was kind of jealous of her. i'd like to sleep all day some time. not like it's a great thing or anything, just because sometimes your bed is really fucking comfortable and the day is grey and your shoes hurt, so why the fuck not? Right? I finally decided that i'll be writing about rhode island and corey because i miss him and because i don't really want to talk about anything that's happened recently- in a way it's still kind of happening, even if it doesn't seem like it. i'll scoop up a whole bunch of these white flowers in my backyard someday and make a bouquet just for you and you'll say it smells really sweet and i'll know it has no scent at all but i'll still appreciate that you said it did. does. something.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

if i were a rch man...daidaidaidaidaidaidaidaidai dum


This is an ode to hairy legs and to sweat-stains. An hommage to those girls that will never be able to contain their genes enough to be perfect. A recognition of all who deal with uni-brows and mustaches, big feet and rounded bellies. In other words, it is for every one. Every girl who has felt like less of a girl because when she airbrushes herself it doesn't stay. For anyone who has tried to cover-up their sweat-glands and put cover-up over their dark under-eyes. Us imperfects who are everywhere but nowhere in our mock-ups. Why is the idea of "feminine" always a negation of humanness. Girls should never smell, always shave, never admit to having a digestive system except to embarassingly admit to liking chocolate. I'm no ball-breaker but I'm kind of sick of having to question my femininity. Aren't a female if my genetics and my psychology agree? Why am I a dyke or a man-hater or more masculine for cutting my hair and not shaving? How is that a logical argument? I still have a vagina, right? SO what is a woman? What is feminine? And why the fuck do we expect ourselves to follow along with such arbitrary definitions if it's not what our character tells us is right?

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

your love gets sweeter every day

my eyes are tired and my throat is scratchy. i know i should like this music because it's motown and everyone sould like motown but for some reason i'm really annoyed by it right now. annoyed by a lot of things and somewhere i'm kind of stressed out but mostly i'm able to stay above everything and not care all that much and yea, that's a little bit of a lie, but not terribly. last night i went to a poetry reading and it made me want to do something like that- like getting up in front of everyone and showing them want i sound like when i speak in my own language but i know that it's not as endlessly fascinating as it is to me. i know this because a lot of the poems last night weren't all that fantastic but you know the poet felt like their entire being was in that poem so who are we to talk trash? "oh bob" "oh tina, you're feeling good baby" "oooohhh" "ahhhhh". i'm confused.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

sometimes people make believe they love (me)


the first boy i ever kissed was my best friend, sam, and we went at it for what felt like a life-time. i remember being so surprised by how lips moved and all of the things they could do and how tongues could be like exclamation points or elipses depending on your intent. it was like some secret was suddenly revealed to me and i finally understood why people did it so much and that i would do it so much or at least try to because kissing was like the gateway to this other world where anything was possible even if nothing ever happened.
the first boy i had sex with was my high school boyfriend, danny. we had just watched "angelheart" (a danny devito movie about the devil) and he was almost on his way to work and my dad and step-mom had left for the symphony and before we knew it we were half-way up the stairs, most-of-the-way undressed and we reached that point where we both wanted it to happen and our bodies were telling us it was now but neither of us could actually bring it up. until he did or i did and then we did and even though it hurt it was like seeing a new color and it's so bright you think you have to close your eyes. he was so close to me it made me carnivorous; wanting to press him further into me wanting to taste every part of him so i could know it when he wasn't near.
the first boy who ever insisted on not using a condom to the point where he "put it in" even after i told him not to was matt. and he had no real relationship with me except that we slept together for a month or so. i remember being so shocked by how naked i felt with him there without anything without me wanting it and even though we were sweating i was so cold and i just kept trying to tell myself that i liked it because i knew that if i admitted that i didn't, i'd completely fall apart.
the first boy who refrained from having sex with me because he wanted to get to know me better was Lucas. and even though i was annoyed because all i really wanted to do was get laid, i was so happy and so confused. he cared about me in this way i couldn't understand because i was still hung up on my ex-boyfriend but when he kept not wanting to have sex it made me realize that he knew my distance and wanted me to close to him in every way-not just physically. i wanted to care for him the way that he cared for me, not so we could fuck, but so i could understand not wanting to.
maybe this is too personal. maybe it's too intimate maybe none of it's true.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

it's sunday...huzzah

the more i learn about he art world, the farther away from it i want to get. with its high-heeled gallery openings and up-turned noses. it makes me sick. it makes me jealous it makes me lost confused because what do i do now that i know i don't want a part of it and maybe my whole life i was meant to be a bio-ethicist and here i am drawing pictures all of the time and being more happy at painting then at anything else i've ever done in my whole life but i haven't been able to paint in years so i'm not really a painter any more am i? was it hegel who said that the true artist could never actually create a piece of art because it could never be as perfect as the creator...or something like that. maybe that's it, or maybe i'm just lazy or self-conscious or not pretentious enough blablabalblablabla i write that a lot don't i? last night i danced like i'd never danced before and it reminded me of my ex-boyfriend and how we never danced because he "didn't dance" and i'm pretty sure that's why our sex-life was never mind blowing and then i started thinking about my other ex-boyfriend and how we danced all of the time even when there wasn't any music and how it always felt so awesome and now i'm thinking i should probably stop thinking about the exes because those thought-processes always end in the same realization that no matter how much you think, none of that will change what reality is and maybe that's a bummer but i'm pretty sure it's a good thing. i wonder what my parents would think if i brought a grlfriend home for thanksgiving dinner....

Saturday, September 16, 2006

blabalbala

last night i got stung by a yellow jacket twice. once on my chin and once on my chest. it got a couple other party-goers too. it hurt! i can't remember the last time i got stung by a bee-type insect. crazy. after that a girl at the party fell off of her bike and chipped her teeth. seeing as it was an accident prone evening, we decided to leave as soon as possible. which wasn't really soon enough...people make me nervous...or something. i think i'd just prefer to not be around them. that's not entirely true- i like my friends and i don't mind that other people exist (necessarily) i just don't like having to talk to them when i don't really want to. i keep cutting my hair at random lengths and now i'm worried about getting hair all over our new bathroom so i tend to not cut enough in trying to avoid a mess! i finally have a bike! i'm very excited. i think we'll get along pretty well. she has red handle bars. remember in high school when guys used to call pig-tails "handlebars"? that was really annoying. there were fraternities and sororities at my high school (don't ask why...) and for Beta, the "pledges" had to wear pigtails every tuesday and thursday. so when guys used the term 'handlebars' with them i thought it was funny, because i thought they were stupid...or maybe i was just jealous that they stole my best friend. her name was lauren and we got into trouble together. it was fun. we pulled stupid pranks on people and got drunk before writing our ninth grade math term papers. after a while it got weird though because we started competing for things, like who had made-out with more guys or gone to more parties- stupid shit like that. after a while we just stopped being friends...i think she may have slept with my lame ass boyfriend on my couch once. high school is fucked. my legs are really hairy and i love it and i'm totally self-conscious about it too but don't really have to worry too much since i'm not exactly trying to attract the alpha-male or anything. i don't know what i'm writing about...i'm done...

Thursday, September 14, 2006

it's 10:40 and I'm going to sleep


this is the corner of my room...and it makes me even sleepier then i already am. really...i'm sleepy. i put photos all around my room today (although not in this corner). pictures of my sisters and my nephews and my parents. there are ones of when we were all little and our mother and father still looked each other in the eye. the corners of the photos are rounded. we each look like a different species from what we are today. i'd like to find what's left of them in us..we doe-eyed children and wide-smiling parents. there has to be something left. i am slanted today. bending towards the ground with unbending knees. walking downhill was all but catastrophic. i wish i could figure out what story is mine to tell...

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

what should i be doing instead?

-No, you're going to DO the radio show.
-blablabla
-(laughing)
-blablablablablabla
-No, really Allison. You've got to do it!
-blablablablablablablabla
-Ok, but I should go, I haven't done ANY homework and you have to go do important stuff too.
-blabla
-I know my parents are going to totally freak out.
-blablabla
-I know, but you remember what happened LAST time that happened.
-blablabla
-(laugh) You like mixing it up, Allison.
-blablablablablablablablablablablabla. bla.
-Yeah, I know. Me too. Ok, well I'll talk to you soon.
-blablablablaa
-(laugh) Just tell her that she's been whoring out her sex toys to other countries. (laugh laugh lau)
-blablablablabla
-Ok ok ok. I miss you! Talk to you soon.
-bla
-Same here!

Monday, September 11, 2006


you've been telling me this whole time that things are just as they are (as they are as they are as they are) and i wish i could believe you but it's in the way that we all smile sometimes when we're so drunk off of 55 cent beer even though it's monday night and, yeah, i know that i don't look like her and that i'll never get her and that he'll never like me (because who the fuck doesn't shave under their goddamn armpits) and i really wish that i could tell you i didn't care and that i'm happier the way i am because i am enlightened. i know the TRUTH but of course we all know that's complete bullshit...i just wish i could prove that the hair around my drain could form something beautiful if i lifted it up in the right kind of way. i just wish that friends would stay forever if you held them tight enough. i just wish that with enough training- we could all become something worthwhile. Meanwhile, she is brushing her teeth, examining the angles that her jawline make against the white tiled walls and she's counting the number of blackheads that make her so imperfect and the number of muscles that make him so delicious and she wishes that she could tell me....but i'll keep not listening...because i've cut off my ears...because the noise is too loud. and i'm pretty sure that one day i'll see him at a bar and then we'll be talking and then we'll be leaving and his hand will be around my waist so casual and when we get to his house (which is closer than mine) i'll suddenly forget what it felt like to not want this and then our lips will be so warm and tongues will live and hands will be everywhere and his bed will stumble upon us without introduction and the way he unzips my pants won't be like intrusion and the his hands fit everywhere won't be rude and the way my fingers hold onto his skin will be perfect and the way we don't see each other later will be the way i have always wanted it to be....but i create these lies for myself all of the time.

Saturday, September 09, 2006
















We’re speeding down the highway singing Bonnie Raitt. Ok, go on, make fun if you must (and if you’re an ex-boyfriend of mine, there’s no use because I already know you’re thoughts on the matter), but clearly if you’re disapproving it means that you’ve never flown down some Southwestern road (most likely lost) with your sisters and mother singing “Well I met you on a mid-way, at a fair last year” just about as loud as you can. And as far as you’re concerned you all sound just like the recording because the wind whipping through the open windows is too loud for any of you to actually hear each other. You know that no matter how sad the lot of you are and how angry at each other and how frustrated that you’ll never forget what you’re parents looked like kissing each other and how happy you were for a minute because you thought it meant they wouldn’t get divorced, you know that in spite of all this, there is this song, this album, and you all know it by heart. And for a minute you can all be together on something. And if you’ve never had this experience, I am sad for you and realize that you must find joy somewhere else and so I will permit you to make fun of us for still liking Bonnie Raitt.

Friday, September 08, 2006

your castle and my moat

here we are and i'm not sure why my stomach feels like this but it makes me want to scream really loudly until everything spills out so i can just eat my fucking dinner. it's not about want or need it's about that memory fire that starts burning so hard and it pricks at my skin in a way i don't really understand but i wish i could because then maybe i could control it, control myself. make everything bad turn good. remember how much better being alone is when you're not waiting for someone else. there's nothing i can point to nothing i can comprehend just that fucking memory fire scorching through me just that burnt smell of my skin reminding me how hard i can cry sometimes. the cats are coming in- crawling around our house, up the walls and down again and they sleep in my lap when i black out and chew on my fingers when the blood stops circulating. there are things pounding down on this keyboard- things that i want to say, want to do. there are memories swarming around me and earlier i kept letting them slip out and that truth would just be hanging between us, a bastard child of some other time and i wanted to pick it up, give it a kiss let it know that i still loved it. but we could only ignore it, because that's what happens now. we know everything but we keep it wrapped under because reminding each other of what we tasted like on the bridge or how sometimes peach juice would coat my lips or how the silence that used to build up so tall next to us- all of these memories would get to knocking down this oh-so-carefully manufactured wall we've constructed so guard us exactly from these things. so none of it happened, or none of it was supposed to have happened, or they happened but everyone should just pretend they didn't and the ignored memories start burning up, smelling like dead bodies and we wonder what all this smoke is around us. And how the fuck do we get away from it....

i'd love so much to have my stomach all in one piece.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

i summon the mail gods

so cold. there is an empty man in the truck threatening to tear through the window in the front of my house and his head is made out of cloth but his shoulders are metal through and through. somewhere there are mountains missing me like i escaped their womb and they sing to me in my sleep sometimes but i try to pretend not to hear them otherwise i might get up in the middle of the night and walk my way down to that cowboy country and you'll all wonder where the hell i went. so i cover my ears with my pillow and i try to hummmmmm try to bury everything under try and make believe that liberty street is an endless hill of towering possibilities. "well i can dish it out but i just can't take it".

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

and you stand there screaming but i can't hear what you're trying to say

there are very small things and they hide just underneath my cuticles. they get to scratching sometimes and that's when the biting begins. the kicking the screaming the fistfulls of hair that fly around this room like animals trying to escape something that lives inside of them and no matter how many times they run against the wall they can't get it out can't get it out get it out. i think that this room may be made of glass (just like the side panels of your skull- that's why it crushes so easily under my feet) and i'm so scared of running through the walls- thinking it's an open door like those birds that get caught in train stations and airports and you can't help but wonder how the fuck they got there and how the fuck will they leave? But this isn't a story about exiting- oh no-and it isn't a story of imprisonment. it is a story of how tall things get when you water them too much and how depending on how you say "success" people will always think you're saying "suck" and they wait for something dirty until you finish the word and then they'll get disappointed because they'd really have preferred to hear something that ended wet...pavement has taught me this just now (thanks stephen malkmus). i always forget that i'm the kind of person who waits for the phone to ring until i find myself there again- balancing on my toes counting imaginary measurements of time to justify my actions. "Ok, at the count of three i'm just going to say 'fuck it' and call him...one........twoo............twwooo and a haalf...................what the fuck, it doesn't even matter anyway." Anything can get as small as you want...if you just close your eyes tight enough.