grapefruit is better with brown sugar

Esther heard soft exclamations from her parents as they scuttled around here and there, grabbing keys, opening doors, starting cars, driving down streets. The house grew uncommonly quiet and the silence seemed to crawl up Esther's spine and twirl her hair with slow, terrifying movements. Esther pulled the covers tighter to her chin. She closed her eyes as tight as she could and repeated over and over, through trembling lips "fall asleep, just fall asleep." As she balanced on the ledge that separated sleep from waking, Esther saw her grandmother walk into her room and sit at the edge of her bed. "Let's see here," muttered the old woman who had died two years before. She began to pat her hands down her body, as if she was looking for a lost pair of car keys. Her fingers, which seemed too many for each hand, climbed up to her wrinkled face and began to scratch at her eyes. To Esther's surprise the fingernails started peeling away layers and layers of skin which her grandmother calmly put into the pocket of her grey shawl. The woman peeled and peeled, murmuring things like "mhm, quite" and "just about there now." Finally, she said "Oh good, we've arrived" as one of her twenty fingers wiped away a thin layer of murky water. Almost instantaneously the woman's eyes began to shine bright like halogen lights on the moon. She reached into her pockets and brought out handfulls upon handfulls of the skin she had peeled from her eyes. She held out both hands to Esther; "See," the woman radiated, "just like onions." And she started to laugh. Without knowing why, Esther began to laugh too. "Yes," she giggled, "like onions." The two laughed and laughed and the grandmother began to throw fistfulls of the shredded skin into the air like wedding rice. The confetti skin sumersaulted and began arranging itself into a smooth, milky ladder in the middle of Esther's room. The ladder went up and up until it broke through the ceiling and into the sky. "Come on," said her grandmother with lamp eyes. "Let us fall through the cushion of the earth." And with that the woman threw off her shawl to reveal the body of a brown newt and with her twenty fingers and fourteen toes she climbed the stairs through the roof. "Yes, let's" Esther muttered and she settled futher into her warm pillow.

strange....

http://www.landdog.blogpsot.com/


who knew?

Mixed Tapes

So I'm listening to a lot of mixed tapes recently. And almost all of the ones I have are from boys. which is interesting. even more interesting is actually listening to the lyrics. Cory's new tape seems to be able "the one that got away." Lucas' tape seems to be all about lovers leaving. So my question is: what do mixed tapes mean? Are they like little musical letters? Are they totally un-related to things? DO people not realize that they put more into them then meets the eye? I can't decide. And I doubt it really matters. It's just an interesting thing...people and how they relate to music.

Speaking of which, I feel like something is wrong with me. I'm not as "into" music as I've always been. I was listening to the new Radiohead album and realized that it was only the second time I had listened to it, even though I've had it for a few months. I remember when Hail to the Thief came out, I was the first person at the record store and I listened to it nonstop for what seemed like ever. Maybe it's because I don't think In Rainbows is as good...not sure. When did I stop being crazy about music? Maybe I just have to find a new good band...

Alright...here I come Trader Joe's.

HEY

MOBILE WHO ARE YOU?

There are no words...

...that can express my complete awe. How it's possible that I am the one person who is in this building right now and preparing for the holiday party is beyond me. It's really amazing. I wish I was in a band. That would make all things well.

to forget?

I just wrote an e-mail to an ex-boyfriend of mine and the e-mail was returned to me...david is no longer accessable via that particular e-mail address. I don't really know why I was writing in the first place. I guess just because I was thinking about him and hoping that he was doing well. I know he's not really the type to keep in touch and would probably much prefer that I not contact him, but I thought I'd be selfish and do it anyway. When I got the delivery failure notice I was a little weirded out, I guess I still am. I've never been very good at letting go or forgetting. I don't mind losing touch with people, but every once in a while I like that people remember each other and send a little energy to a person they haven't seen in years. So to know that this opportunity was rendered impossible is a strange experience. How can you just have a person slip from your life forever. Is that what you do now? I guess so. But I think it will take a lot of getting used to.

To Mobile

I do not know who you are...I don't think. and when I go to find out who you are, blogger will not let me see your profile. How mysterious. But thank you for making comments. My heart, she is warmed.

In other news:

Scumble, the cat is sleeping. Cheesy Spanish music is being played while my sister studies. I took a lot of Santa Fe pictures today to prove to the Brazilian Nanny that my sister is getting that they're not White Slave Traders. I almost went on a train ride...but could not in the end.

Too many things are happening that I cannot fix!

It is late and I am tired

But for some reason I cannot fall asleep. Though my eyes are heavy heavy heavy. I'd like to sleep. I really would. But there is something about the size of this bed that is preventing me from doing so. It's technically not particularly large- the bed in the room I sublet is larger. But it feels so expansive tonight. I've tried making it less so. I've stretched out my arms as wide as they will go. I even rotated myself sideways to take up more room- but to no avail. There is a gaping, empty eternity over at the other side of the bed and I can't help but think of all the different ways it's been filled. The backs that I have fallen asleep to. The way someone else fits into your dreaming and the impossibility of covers when you get close to someone else's skin. How you find a puzzle piece in the other person's body and a separate one in your own and the game becomes how to somehow fit them together. I suppose it is a lonely night. How can it be anything but when you remember the people and realize that there are many you'll never see again. Is that not strange? A person whose smell you can conjure up on sleepless nights...gone from your life story now. Not that it's bad-people leave for a reason...just strange. And so that is what I find in my mind right now. At 1:30am. I can hear the pipes in the house speaking. Scumble, the cat, has positioned herself in the perfect place to inhibit me from stretching out my feet. Old scenarios play and replay themselves in my head. Names reemerge. Faces melt into one another. Places become mazes of time and Cleveland seems like a wilderness of forgotten promises. I'd like to fall asleep now. Wish me luck.

Ba Ba

I cannot believe that it is already December. Holy cow.

Lest we forget the magesty that is cleveland

Santa Fe

My nephew is gorgeous. And perfect. And for some reason his parents can't seem to keep his hair combed and so he's growing a nice set of dreadlocks in the back of his hair. That's not entirely true...but he does seem to have a certain Rastafari look to him when he wakes up in the morning. He can say a variety of vowels which, when combined in certain ways, resemble words and he knows where not only his toes, elbows, nose, fingers, bellybutton reside(s,) he can also point out the same body parts on you. Very exciting stuff.

Santa Fe is lovely. Cold. There's snow on the ground (or as Lucas says "no" because he has not learned the magic sound of 's' yet). I've forgotten how dry it is up here at 7,000 ft and the first day I arrived I had a severe case of altitude sickness. The plan for the next two weeks is to hang out with the small, get a massage :), go to the Film Fest, and try to keep up appearances so I can at least try to look as stylish as my sister (the woman who has worn high heels since the first day she was able to convince our mother to buy her a pair; hiking, running, pregnant, the woman knows no bounds).

Today we will shop for yarn and underpinnings, maybe go to the film library, maybe go to the park. The world is simply full of possibilities.

5:13 pm

Don't tell anyone but I'm supposed to be working now. I always do find the last hour of work the hardest to get through. Especially when it is the 9th hour of work you're facing. After nine hours, life feels more than redundant and you feel that slamming your head repeatedly into wall of glass shards would be more appealing than making one more fucking phone call. So. I'm not working.

The sun is fading. The fluorescent light in this room makes everything feel yellow-urine stained. Not a pleasant sensation but kind of a perfect setting if you think about it.

I find that around this time of day I don't really have thoughts to share because my brain has all but stopped working. Something is percolating in there somewhere, however. Otherwise I wouldn't be tapping these keys so earnestly.

The state of things the state of things. We do try, don't we? To change things, change ourselves. Find the beauty of evolution, etc. But I think all we can ever do is circle around the same problem. We see it from different angles and trick ourselves that the different views are actually solutions. But we are really just digging ourselves into deeper holes. Right?

Maybe.

Maybe you are are beautiful. And I am beautiful and that's what means anything. But I think that's too pretty. I think the reality of it has too many loose ends to be summed up so succinctly.

I have ideas just under the skin of my pointer fingers. Both of them. Imagine. They simmer there and then die sometimes before I can even say "hello," before I can share them with myself, before they see the light of the moon.

Speaking of the moon. It is rising now. With me at my desk. Listening to music that a computer is choosing for me based on two bands that I've told it I like. And this is good. Because it means that I don't have to choose for myself, and it means that I am not all alone. At least I have some audio-accompaniment.

Then End.

tum tee tum

"not one girl I think
who looks on the light of the sun
will ever
have wisdom
like this"

askdhkj

Tonight has been full of things that nobody could wuite explain. Words around our heads that swirl and mix and don't actually come out the way you had thought originally. THe skyline is shimering like you always knew it would- a lightscape of onely people shining their torches into the night to try and find a soulmate. Or something. Tonight has been the night of secrets and betrayals and tears and truths and how do you approach the way your soul fills up with something that looks so much like a brick wall. Something to stop the world when it looks too big to contain. We are all leaving. All the time. We chose who we love. we chose who we forget. and sometimes we have no choice in the matter at all and what we have is a voice in the back of our heads telling us that someone is missing. Something is missing. And all we will have is the memory of something beautiful and i wonder maybe, if we're lucky, it won't ever fade.

after a few months

before coming to
you came through to me
on a gray day like today
with my feet in their socks
with my fingers aand your knots
it felt like tattooing an orange peel
all that poking through
my fingers got sticky
and you put the ink away
i bet you didn't know that you could take
each of my four limbs
and nail them to the corners of my room
or that i'd smile so sweetly while you did it
i imagine that we've been here before
but my mind is always playing tricks on me