this is going to be a ride so just hold on (evansville, for the last extended period of time)

back in evansville, back to work, back to memories.

i was reading a post on tumblr about how some famous actor i like (i cant remember who) was saying that men are more romantic than women, that when a man wants to marry someone, he's dead serious about it and commits and she becomes everything whereas women are always looking for what's good enough in order to make a decision to settle, like "oh he's got a good job" or something, and i had one of those mini stab-in-the-gut moments when i felt like i fucked up everything i had with my ex, because what we had was real (at least it was on my end, and i feel like it was on his for the most part) and i broke it off because he was dicking around with his band and blah blah blah and whatever.

but then i stopped myself, and i thought:

1. that's stereotypical bullshit, because while women (in my experience) think this way more than men, i know a lot of men who aren't romantic and do the same thing

2. i didn't break up with my ex because he didn't have a good job or go to college (even though he didn't & doesn't), i broke up with him because when you love someone you don't forbid them from doing things that make sense in their heart, you don't tell them they disgust you for making choices you don't approve of, you make an effort to be there for them when they need you instead of blowing them off/somehow fucking up their important memories, and you sure as hell don't get pissed at them for telling your family when you're about to shoot yourself in the head

3. women are genetically trained to look for the best mate to raise their children whereas men aren't built the same way

i just needed to write all this down. because even though i really am over him finally, every time i come home i think it's inevitable that i'm going to think about my ex. because i think about my adolescence and how this place shaped who i am, my friends and enemies and all the shit i went through. the streets i drove and walked every day, and he was a huge part of that for almost three years.

maybe it's because i'm a libra and i am ruled by venus (love), or because no matter how hard you try you can never forget your first love, or because it really was real. maybe because i'm just not the type of person who lets go easily, and i never wanted to let him go but i had to in order to be who i'm supposed to be.

i am talking to a new guy, a sweet guy who i think has really great potential to stay in my life for a while, and i'm very happy to say that. because at first i was scared to not be alone anymore. but he is sweet and not judgmental and i want to know more about him, which is a new thing for me. and it is awkward and things will take getting used to, but that is what's so beautiful about it all.

learning to not be alone again is challenging, but it's the good kind of challenging and i like it.




(by the way, when someone comes up with a way to record thoughts, i will give an arm and a leg to have it. it seems the theme of my thoughts to writing process is to forget everything that had inspired me to write. it seems that i never have a pen/can't write or stay awake long enough when i'm drunk or exhausted or in the shower or driving home at night and these thoughts play on a loop in my head, and it's starting to get incredibly upsetting)

fuck everything

im tired and have way too much work to do and everything in my life is creating stress for me

Is it possible to still care about someone you can't stand?

Food for thought
food for feeling

remembering the namesake of this blog

She makes a lot of abstract art
She haggles for the cheapest price
She never orders take out food before ten o'clock at night
She's really into snowmobiles
She owns a lot of nice flashlights
She cares for all the stupid cats that never found their way home
She shaves her legs with Ginsu knives
She quotes a lot of Annie Hall
She misplaced her virginity back in 1995
She's what's keeping me alive
She's the pizza of my eye
Without her near me I would not survive

It gets cold when she's not around
I float until I sink and I'm swallowed up
It's so cold when she's not around
I wait for her to come home and tell me I'll be fine

She's always eating Captain Crunch
She sings a lot of Ben Folds Five
She's scared to death of cobra snakes
Just like Indiana Jones
She tells the dumbest knock-knock jokes
She drinks a lot of Chardonnay
She hates the way I comb my hair
But she married me last June
She was the bride, I was the groom
I cried a lot and then we spooned
Without her in my life I would be doomed

It gets cold when she's not around
I float until I sink and I'm swallowed up
It's so cold when she's not around
I wait for her to come home and tell me I'll be fine
Tell me I'll be fine

She loves the smell of Christmas trees
She sneezes when she sees bright lights
She fainted on the kitchen floor
When her father passed away
Our baby girl is due this May
And when the little lady grows up
I hope that she will be just like her mother

blogging for no reason in particular

i'm just happy lately, i guess.

i spent the last few days in a fever-induced blur, literally doing nothing but sleeping and eating crackers. i have tomorrow off school and no classes tuesday and am feeling well enough to sit up at my computer, so tomorrow and tuesday will be spent catching up on work for classes and for amy, as well as catching up on breaking bad (a recent studio background tv favorite.)

things are good. i'm a little strapped for cash, but i've got paychecks in the wings. i've got homework up to my neck, but i'm excited to do most of it (exception: art history critical response paper), as they're all book projects that i'm invested in (a book about my mom's blood clot, a book about daniil kharms' "blue notebook no 15," a book for dustin and ivy about our ihop nights and how they helped save my sanity this summer). i'm happy to be working, happy to have things to occupy me when i don't have work (tj and i are working on some super cool collaborations), happy to have friends like tj and blake, and a roommate who will take care of me when i'm sick and not give me shit for not being able to help clean.

on top of all that, my blog is public again and i feel a little freedom with that. i really don't care to block my ex from my life anymore--i just don't care enough about any of it anymore, and that's freeing. i also deleted a lot of his friends who were still friends with me/following me on social network sites, and i think that will help keep him out of my life. that and the fact that i finally get to return to one of my last remaining communities at home--the salon--and know that he won't be there. my mom told me that everyone was so happy that he was leaving that they had a party without him, and i guess that lifted my spirits a little; i was so worried i was going to come home and everyone would be all about him, but that's not the case. amy came up to chicago last week and sent me lots of love from the salon and reassured me that everyone was as happy as i was that my ex was no longer working there. i think it's good for him, too...maybe he can get back to his band stuff without having to juggle 2 jobs. and hopefully he's still planning on moving out of evansville, i think he'd do much better starting new somewhere. i saw his name the other day and didn't see the cool brown tones i used to associate with his name. it was just a name, its normal colors, no different from any other. that felt really good.

i also deleted my okcupid about a month ago, not disabled, deleted. fully gone. and although i get a little lonely without it, it's good. i told myself that, if i still want it back, i can recreate my account when i move back to chicago at the end of january. but for now it's nice to just be.

anyways, i just felt like writing so i did. nothing super important here. just feeling some good vibes lately and wanted to remember them.

this is what my voice sounds like. i don't need to be talking to someone else to hear it.

i am relaxing on my couch with an MIA roommate for the first time in all too long (read: ever. daniella likes to hang about the house a lot, and tonight is really the first time i've been able to just chill alone & it's nice.) gitsy is snoozing on the other side of the couch and i'm blaring some death cab for cutie while procrastinating homework.

i always loved "i can't do better than you" but i never let myself sing it, especially when dylan and i were dating, because i knew it wasn't true. because i can--and will--do better than dylan, but he can't do better than me. maybe that's vain or one-sided but i don't really give a fuck and that feels pretty damn amazing.

tonight was needed.

things

i spent the better part of this evening reviewing past posts on my tumblr and blogger, searching for something--anything--to use in a book project for my letterpress bookworks class. and i think it's so funny how i talk about finding closure and finally being over my ex in almost every post for the past 9 months or so, as though every time i'm saying "this time it's real and i won't have to do it again." and sometimes it really did feel like that. and i guess it still does a little, either that or i'm still coming off of a good few days of being unfalteringly happy without a lover.

but i think, in some respects, i'm coming to terms with the fact that being over my relationship with dylan doesn't mean i don't have memories with him that i think about often. and of course i've created new memories with new friends and think about those, too. but i spent so long with him, and during such a pivotal time of growth, that it would be impossible to look back and not think of him.

i don't want to forget how amazing my senior prom was, or the fact that i drove to six flags on 4 hours of sleep with someone i loved on a total whim. i was going through my text posts on tumblr and it just smacked me in the face that loving him helped me define me. and of course i knew that, but looking back through things i'd forgotten i had written literally illustrated that for me. through loving dylan, i opened up the doors in my heart that i assumed at age 13 i'd never open.

things became so messy this summer and loneliness has got me yearning for any sort of contact with someone i used to share so much with, be it dylan or family i haven't seen in a while or childhood friends who fell out of my life, that i let myself re-think the decisions i began making this time last year. which is always dangerous. i saw that 4 days before dylan and i broke up for real, i posted at 3 am about waking up crying because i missed him so much. and i didn't remember that, not at all. it scared me a little. because of course my posts are heavy with fighting words from almost constant dilemmas he and i had, but i remember thinking that i could marry him last november. for the first time, feeling like you wanted to walk down the aisle with someone, and then essentially barring them from your life a month later. i just sometimes wish i could go back and replay it all again in slow motion.

not saying things would change. but maybe i wouldn't feel like such a bad person right now if i could see it all again.

i'm shaky right now from coming across a status he posted on facebook about a week ago, in response to the photo of my colophon for "what a bitch!," which apparently a friend of his had shown him. i just honestly didn't expect him to see it, or for so many people who i thought understood my side to back him up on facebook. the way people act in situations like that scares me a little, and i feel defenseless. of course his mom takes his side; my mom takes mine. but for people to become so rooted into drama that has absolutely nothing to do with them is ridiculous.

i just really felt like i was in a good place with all of this earlier tonight, and to come across this sends me reeling back for a while. i hate it that the idea of him still has so much control over me (and this might sound stupid, but i'm taking it back to sex and love: i was not dylan's first--of either of those things--and he was mine for both.) they say you always love your first, but that isn't it. it's that i distanced myself because i needed space and room to grow, and he turned me into a monster for it. that's what hurts. that's what makes me shake and cry and not be able to even say hi when i stop by the salon on visits home. it's that i always extended a loving hand (even after he told me to lose contact with him and his family after he tried to kill himself) and it has constantly been met with a slap.

some good (chicago, round 2)

although i've yet to move into my apartment (that comes this weekend--ahh!) i've officially been back in chicago since sunday. i've been crashing on an air mattress in the sunroom of my six friends' large and creaky apartment, and despite the fact that they have no internet and no air conditioning, which gives me the overwhelmingly stressful feeling that camping also gives me, i've been exponentially more happy than i was in evansville. and that's good. i'm so proud of myself for all of the closure i brought into my life--it was the perfect way to wrap up my sometimes childish view of the world, forgive others (and, more importantly, myself) for the hatefulness projected onto me over the past few years, and start my new life in chicago with no guilt and nothing tying me to that tiny, backwards town but the love for my family and the memories i've made there. which brings me to today: my 9-4 class let out at 2, which gave me enough time to get my bike out of storage. i'd had a pretty tired and homesick morning, and the stress of taking my bike with TWO FLAT TIRES not only on a bus but also on two elevated tracks and an underground train made the already bad start to my day worse. so i took my bike over to uptown bikes and got my chain oiled and my tires pumped for only $3, and my day completely turned around. i can't express how good it felt to get back on my bike after so long. forget conditioning myself like i planned; i biked the two miles home as quickly as i could and then took laps around edgewater until i got too hungry to keep going. and now i'm at the 24/7 starbucks in belmont, having just finished a lot of design work. i've still got a little bit more to do before i go home, but i took a break to tumble and came across a quote that inspired this post: “I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.” —Warsan Shire i just can't express how much i love this quote, because it really describes how i'm feeling of late. i'm a lover. that was the difference between dylan and i...even though i was the one who broke up with him, it was because i loved more and for longer, until his inability to love me back the same way got to be too much for me to handle. and i'm lonely, yeah, sometimes. sometimes it's the hardest thing; i'm swept up with the overwhelming need to call someone baby, to pull someone's arms around me, to play with someone else's hair. but i don't want a relationship right now. i don't want someone else knowing things about me that only i know, i don't want to learn things about someone else. i don't want to give my time to anything that doesn't involve my happiness, and that's a first for me. i feel like i finally understand those crazy people who try to marry themselves. that's how i feel, like i am primo #1, most deserving of love and time and care. and it's a really fucking good place to be.

Last night

Last night I told dylan that I didn't want to try to work things out anymore. I had told him sometime in the last 2 weeks or so that I didn't want things to be shitty between us but I realized after lots of self reflection after times when dylan comes into contact with my life, that I'm incredibly unhappy. Like even if I have a positive encounter with him, something in my gut feels disappointed and disgusted. Not angry anymore, not resentful or pointed. Just negative. And I don't need that.

the hunger games

i found an apartment in chicago and am going through the final processes of calling it my own. it's literally perfect, i'm so ecstatic. i've been so worried because six of my closest friends are moving in together, leaving only alea and i out of the loop, and our beautiful condo is literally two blocks from where they'll be living. which is unimaginably amazing.

i've been doing design work outside of my normal work hours to make some extra cash and boost my design portfolio, and it's given me the boost of productivity i've needed of late. that, and i've been able to read for fun (i finished the hunger games series in a day & a half) and have been getting back into my single swing of watching independent films on a nightly basis.

another notable moment in my life: rob kelly has not only started following my tumblr, but is emailing me raw music files of his new project (pontifex). i'm one of the first to hear it, and it's really beautiful stuff. very different from the poppy tae beats, but very rob. (blake, i'll email you the file! it's lovely and you've got to hear it)

i've had very good nights with dustin and ivy, open and raw nights that have allowed me to deepen the veins of friendship in evansville. that, and i've started releasing myself from the rules i've imposed upon myself for the last several years (my whole life?) and have found that i'm so much more happy on a foundation level. i've allowed myself to be reckless, just enough to loosen up these ridiculous expectations i've had for myself.

and then there's dylan. still a force in my life that i can't figure out. there are days when he comes into work smiling and trying to earn my gaze but i literally can't bring myself to look at him. there are other times when i remember the sweetness we had and i just crumple, am physically unable to be in the same space with him. and he's the same way; there are times when i can feel icy disdain pouring from him and there are other times when he offers kindness.

the hunger games was good and addicting at points, but generally mediocre literature. what kept me so enthralled was the dynamic between katniss and peeta, because of course i could only see myself and dylan. but as all mediocre modern literature ends, the two live happily ever after with children and dandelions in meadows and blah blah blah when there's clearly so much that wouldn't be possible to overcome in a real relationship. the hunger games trilogy was clever at times, but the part i loved so much was how genuine loss of love was from both peeta's & katniss' points of view. it was terribly confusing and good for me at the same time.

the thing is, i'm so tired about talking about dylan. i'm tired of feeling more than over him one moment and being a blubbering mess the next. it's things like the fact that both of his parents came into the salon the other day and completely ignored me for a half an hour. the same woman who thanked me repeatedly over the phone for alerting her to the danger her son was putting himself in, the woman who pulled me aside before i left for college and made me promise that i'd come back and see her even if dylan and i broke up, looked straight through me. and i guess at that point i realized how destructive heartbreak can be. i know that dylan said the nastiest things about me in public forum; i saw it with my own eyes. and i haven't been the kindest to him, but i didn't take it to such a level. i like to tell myself that i remained faithful to the truth. but i guess so did he, or at least what he felt was true. that's one thing that manic depression will always hold over me. it created paranoia and depletion and anger that verged on lunacy in someone i loved too much for my own good.

i don't even see him as the same person anymore. the peak of our relationship was right past our one-year anniversary. that's the face of his i see when i remember myself deeply in love. before stereo shout out, before college, before sex. and now i just don't know.

this post is long and doesn't make sense. lately blogger has been more of a long-form internet diary than anything else

too many things

i have too many things to say and i just want to scream them until i get some sort of fucking reaction from you. i dont understand why youre upsetting me this much. i go from hating your guts and realizing how pointless you are in my life and being fine to feeling sad and broken and what the fuck ever, and i cant control it and that's what scares me. you had nothing to lose and i lost it all.

closure

finally got the closure i needed from dylan. after texting him several times earlier in the week regarding our work schedules at solaris and telling him once again that i'm sorry but needed to work at solaris because i had promised amy before he and i broke up that i would work there summers and winters during college, and i'm hard strapped for cash. he responded last night at midnight, 4 days later, saying that he's been over me for a while now and sorry for not telling me when he knew for sure that he was okay like he had promised he would. he didn't keep his promise. and because of that, i've still been worried about what my coming back to evansville was going to do to him, how his progress might suffer and relapse, how things might get bad again. but no, he's been fine while i've been tearing myself apart trying to make this easy for him when he really doesn't give a shit. it just proves that i've always cared more for him than he ever gave a shit about me. and maybe i'm not 100% over him, but i dont think you ever can get 100% over the first person you fell in love with, the person who you gave your virginity, someone who used to mean everything. and i should have taken that into consideration; i wasn't any of those things to him and he was all of them to me.

sleeping with the window open

as though the widened shutters would bring your car along the circle drive and down the street. seein you today confused me, being home when you are here makes me forget my progress and long to be back in November, when I thought for the first time that I might marry you. I need to see my therapist, I need you to say something. anything at all, even spitting hatred would be better than this.

thought that hit me tonight for the first time (surprised it didn't sooner):

if dylan promised to change his ways, if he got on medicine and took up feminism and never ever left me alone when I needed him again, would i start things over with him & try again?

sometimes i wonder

sometimes i wonder if there will ever be a guy out there for me who gets feminism. sounds stupid, but it's so fucking important to me and it doesn't mean shit to any of the guys who have made their presence in my life known. even tj. i love the kid to death, but last night he told me that he talked to his ex about his possibly still having feelings for her and she said she still might have feelings for him, too. so you know what he did after that? he asked her how many people she had sex with after they broke up. after he told me he was going to and i told him not to. and then he got upset at me last night for telling him he crossed a line with her. he just doesn't get it. i dont know but lately i'm just not about anyone telling other people what to do or judging them for the decisions that they make. tj chalks it up to "wanting a girl who has standards" and yeah, i might be wary of dating a guy who goes through girl after girl, but if he really liked her that wouldn't matter. and i wouldnt want a guy who asked me how many people i'd slept with to help him decide whether he should date me or not. dan just came over so im ending this rant early, but i'll probably come back to it.

drafting love letters to ex-lovers (happy 200th post!)

to you
you've been on my mind a lot lately, a nagging thought I can't shake, and almost every day I contemplate picking up the phone. you see I watched this film the other day, one that we had always planned to watch together, about love and loss and being away from each other. and for a while that made me miss you. I've been trying very hard not to, and it has been relatively easy to mark the absence where you once were just that: a nameless empty space where something used to be, no dylan-shaped hole in my heart.

I can't being myself to contact you, it'd be cruel and for my own benefit. I just want to know that you're okay without messing up whatever progress you've made, but it's not possible. so I sit and wait to hear from you, dream of the day when you can tell me that you're over me, that all is forgiven, that you're going to start your life. because all I want is for you to be happy and it kills me that you can't be.

I'm so sorry that things couldn't work out, but you have to know as well as I that it wouldn't have lasted. there were things bigger than us at play. and I'm sorry that I couldn't be there for you through the darkest of your depression. it still breaks me to this day to imagine how alone you must have felt, and I'm so so sorry. I would never wish that on you. I loved you very much, loved you with every fiber of my being and with all the intensity I could imagine. but sometimes people are only in our lives for short periods of burning bright love or friendship and then diaappear, like meteors. you were my comet and I hope that someday you can forgive me enough to think of me in the same way.

I don't know that we can ever be friends but know that I will always care for you.

things to do when you're drunk

eat dark chocolate and goldfish crackers
listen to mogwai
lie in bed and feel how good the blanket feels when you wiggle a little
be thankful for autocorrect because otherwise this would td be legible

reflections

i used to be madly in love with my best friend, and now it's gone.

i need to speak with my therapist again.

like crazy

tonight I finally watched like crazy, a film about a young couple dealing with the trials of a long-distance relationship that dylan and I had planned on seeing way back last summer before things got hard. and I just can't even believe that I made it the whole movie without crying. of course I'm bawling now in bed, trying not to wake alea up. there were so many moments in the movie that literally parallel parts of Dylan's and my relationship, good and bad. and the ending, it's sadly reminiscent of the last weekend dylan stayed here and we reflected on what our relationship had been.

it just seems so cruel to me, the way love can ebb and flow, and how dylan and I were left victims to love dried up. ugh. this has helped aimed
but I can still feel that tonight is going to be long and
tear-soaked

NC (gone to Carolina in my mind)

I miss north carolina.
I miss gravel on bare feet, Popsicles on the back step, waking up to cats fast asleep on my chest.
I miss muddy frogs and holding hands with preschoolers and flashlight tag in true country darkness.
I miss memories of tire swings cut down after one too many injuries, peeing in the woods on long hikes, scaling snake-ridden logs mossy fallen trees behind mamaw's.
I miss foster's, I miss Annie's crazy eyes and wagging butt, I miss sleeping in the backseat while grown-ups wind the van down nameless country roads.
I miss playing poker in the church basement, I miss church.
I miss feeling part of a collective spirit, being healed, communicating with spirit.
I miss mamaw's white house, white down to the painted tv set and lace doilies over end tables.
I miss the way papaw smells, the airbrushed sky in palace pointe.
I miss having my whole family right there at dinner, right there around the bonfire, right there in my heart.

I need to feel the carolina sun on my face, go to biscuitville at 7 am for biscuits the size of dinner plates, to walk barefoot on a beach. I miss my family.

spring break

so far (one day in) my spring break has been lovely. getting through some weird bronchitis/flu thing, I've been eating chicken soup and resting as much as I possibly can. that being said, today I went to the fabric outlet in Pilsen and then went for a bike ride alongside dan, who was jogging. we just talked and walked and had a good night. at 11:50 he asked me for a favor, and I said sure, and he asked me to kiss him. just once, no strings, just so that he'd have his first kiss before turning 20.

I did (should have considered my sickness--I'll feel horrible if he gets sick) & it helped me realize that I don't like him that way. strange how I got to test the waters without having to commit to liking him. & it's good, because the awkward friends-more-than-friends tension I was feeling can go away now. and because I did it for him and not for myself, it helped me put things in perspective. sometimes (& I hate myself for this) I forget that not everything is about me. tonight was good because it was about pretty much everyone but me. it was nice.

success

after about a month of feeling completely unable to control of my life, this week has been wonderful. I'm completely caught up (and even ahead!) in all of my classes, and I'm actually proud of the work I've been doing. I can't wait to be home this weekend and relax with momma and gitsy, and of course friends. ivy and dustin and i already have plans for an ihop night, and i'm so fortunate to find out that dylan is out of town for the weekend, so i can go to work and hang out without being nervous about seeing him. i'm so excited to just hang out with my girls from work, and i'm hoping that Steph will have her baby so i can go see it!

Just two more classes and then i'll be on a plane saturday morning, i can't believe it!

nostalgia

following Blake's post, I've been thinking a lot about nostalgia and te feeling of missing something in my life. I've been lonely lately (I can always tell because I find myself calling both of my parents close to every day, and I know by their voices that they're even tired of hearing from me), which has been really difficult. Things with Isaac aren't what I thought they would be, so I have been contemplating just letting that go. Luckily I think he feels the same way (we haven't talked since Friday) so that shouldn't be a big deal. I tried doing the whole I-kind-of-like-you-but-I-really-just-want-to-make-out-with-you thing and I'm not sure how I feel about it, except that it doesn't fit my life right now. I like being single, not owing my time or energy into anyone but myself, and I'm not going to forfeit those things for someone I don't actually care about. I'm ready to care about someone again, and be cared about.

Which brings me to the point of this post: I think I'm finally 150% over dylan. I don't know when it happened, but I realized today that I don't remember how his body fit against mine or even what he smelled like, only that I liked it at some point in time. I don't think of him when I'm crying and need someone there, or when I'm lonely in my bed at night. I don't remember what it's like to be in love anymore. Only that it was nice and it was good and it helped me grow. And that's sad, yes. But i think it works in the same way that the mind erases past pains. It lets you try again and be swept up in the moment all over again without thinking of the time before, which is comforting. Dylan was a great love of my life and I miss having contact with him, but I'm glad that my brain has erased the bad, erased the hurt, erased the bliss. It's just memory now, a part of me that holds little bias in relation to y other memories.

Another thing about Dylan: I re-read the Little Soul and the Sun, and read the Valkyries by Paulo Coelho, and it occurred to me mid-read (I ended up in tears in the lounge, staring at a children's book) that Dylan and I likely made a pact before life to affect each other in the way we have. One of us chose to be darkness to help both of us grow and forgive, and that makes me so happy. And it makes me able to forgive him and to forgive myself, because I don't know who was playing the darkness. And it was made abundantly clear to me that the reason I fell out of love so quickly (or at least all of a sudden realized it) and why I was able to process so quickly is because my guides made it so. My guides told me I wasn't suppose to be with Dylan anymore, and that's why I did it. Because I knew that no matter how wrong it felt at first, someone was telling me it was right. And I think it was for him as much as it was for me. I think I needed to clear the way for something bigger and better in his life, and that it was time for me to move on. That my process of this breakup wasn't important but his is, which is why it was so quick for me an wont be for him. Spirit works in mysterious ways.

And it helped me remind myself of my faith, of why I NEEDED to get my tattoo even though no one else understood. The women of my family are going to Lily Dale this summer and it's perfect timing. I almost cried when my mom told me. I can't wait. Hopefully I can spend some time in North Carolina, too, take some classes at church, be a part of a few circles. I honestly would like to take next year off just to study under someone, but that can wait until after college when I have more knowledge of myself.

Speaking of church things, remember how I just couldn't drop Jeremy's death? Well, he came through in a reading to my younger cousin Natalie (also a firefighter) just to deliver the message that he was okay. He came through as "someone of Natalie's generation whose name begins with a J and had died tragically very recently," and I find it so fitting that he contacted another firefighter. Nat didn't know who it was, but my aunt remembered hearing about Jeremy's death from my mom, and brought it up. My mom called to tell me in the middle of class and I bawled my eyes out in front of everyone. I'm tearing up now jut thinking of it.

This has sparked so much more in my mind but it's getting late and I have to sleep.

a clarification, and perhaps more confusion?

clarification: what I was talking about in the last post isn't casual sex, more like a short, casual but not "open" relationship. something that definitively has an end date (summer, unless I stay in Chicago, and then fall at the longest)but is still intellectually stimulating and physically involved (at least somewhat), and just gives me someone to talk to. believe me, I would not have let a guy feel me up on the third date if I thought he was a total dillhole. I'm talking a monogamous relationship-ish thing without the stresses of building a future/falling in love.

for some reason, I feel like casual relationship and casual sex are used interchangeably when they are very different. the way I see it: casual sex = no strings attached sex, not monogamous. sex only, nothing morw.
casual relationship = a casual dating type atmosphere, not bf/gf but monogamous. may or may not involve sex.

idk. this is hard to explain. hopefully you can meet him and see how we interact

FWB?

what are the implications of fwb v. a "casual relationship" ?

isaac and i are both at a point in our lives when a long-term or even a serious short-term relationship isn't possible or even desirable. so we are both walking into this fling knowing that we are solely looking for some sort of short-term, committed compassion/passion. someone to talk to, someone to touch, someone to go out with. honestly, in my past i have always thought of the whole fwb/casual relationship thing to be stupid and superficial, but i'm thinking that my point of view might be starting to change. because it's lonely. living in the third largest city in the US is fucking lonely. you don't meet anyone or do anything, and sometimes it's just nice to feel the body heat of another person in close proximity to you.

so my question is: is what i'm doing shameful? am i being selfish in knowing that i am asking isaac into my life knowing that i will never consider him as serious relationship potential? am i being stupid to think that the intellectual and physical satisfaction i get from isaac is enough? does this reflect on my moral standing? (i'm totally tok-ing out here with the morals/ethics debates in my mind) i got back and forth and i've been asking my friends about it. michal thinks that it's great and i should be doing this since i'm in college and i can (but she has a fuck buddy), and emily says she doesn't see the harm. and i honestly really like it. getting to make out with someone who is incredibly hot and is a phenomenal kisser & hasn't tried to push it past where i'm comfortable and thinks that i'm hot is fun, and it's a self esteem boost for both of us. i don't know, there are just so many negative connotations with this idea, which is maybe what is creating this twinge of doubt in my mind.

blake, tell me what you think! we can skype sometime or comment (or both!), but i want your honest opinion, supportive or not. i think people around me are used to the idea, and i need an opinion from back home before i let this go any longer.

issues

yesterday was an awful, awful day for me & it apparently was for a lot of my friends. alea had some pretty rough critiques right in a row, leah broke up with charlie, dan is having problems with his friend who is suicidal & in love with him, and tj feels alone & overstressed. literally last night in the lounge there was at least one person crying at all times. it was pathetic and sad and everyone felt like their own problems were the most important.

katie and i are fighting because she has literally taken over my space. i can't listen to music when i sleep, i can't turn my closet light on, i can't have people over when she's sleeping (even though she has people over to smoke weed while i sleep). And not to mention, she has her posters all over the place & I dont have anywhere to put mine. she completely attacked me yesterday, telling me that i have to use the light from my phone to access my things at night and only that. not to mention she lets people sleep over on my couch (three piss-drunk gay boys in doc martens, nonetheless. doc martens on a white couch? no.) without even telling me they're going to be there, let alone ask.

it's not fair. i'm talking to her today about moving the room around so that my closet is closer to the kitchen and her bed is by the windows. if she won't do that, i'm going to get my RA involved, because this is ridiculous. it was my room first (and i hate saying that but she's a manipulative bitch), and i should be able to feel at home there.

last night was lovely

i went to a Jessie Baylin concert with isaac last night, and at the end of the night while we were waiting for his train, I reached for his hand & he kissed me. and for the entire time I was kissing him, I wasn't thinking about dylan or how I looked or anything that I always find myself stressing over.

things are nice right now. I don't want to be in love right now, but it's good to feel close to someone and to hold someone's hand and to just be. it's weird; I've realized that I've still been looking at the world through high school eyes, and it doesn't have to be that way. I've already run through these lines once and starting again doesn't mean the same thing as it did the first time.

food for thought

three more posts on ym tumblr dash about jeremy's death

what will people say when i have died?

life moves

yesterday a guy I used to know died. and for some reason it has had the biggest effect on my life. I didn't know him that well, but i remember when he added me on myspace, and i saw him a lot at shows. he was always so nice when we talked online. had i known back then that he would die the day before his nineteenth birthday, i wouldn't have believed it. a lot of people i know have posted about him today and last night, and for some reason i just can't shake it. he was a volunteer firefighter at the fire department by my house. the truck ran off the road and flipped, and he died. it's just hard to believe.

that, and i found out a friend of mine from middle school is pregnant and engaged. it's just incredible to me how life is moving in every different direction around me.

next year i will have an apartment and a job and a dog and a rent payment and a lot of other things that make life feel more tangible. and yet i don't know what i'm doing or where i'm going or when i'm going to fall in love again.


this has been a post, okay then.

yesterday was a stress bomb

quite literally.

being a 12-hour day as all of my tuesdays are, every moment of my day yesterday was in some way rushed. I started the morning with having forgotten to prepare a presentation for my class' craft teach-in that day and, after being called to give the first presentation, had to work on my feet to teach a class of crafters how to use adobe illustrator. which would have been a feat even if i had been prepared.

after lunch, I worked in the woodshop for three hours, scavenging for scrap wood and operating a ginormous table saw with teeny tiny pieces of wood. questionable emotional stability due to unpreparedness for the day + fear for my life/fingers = an incredibly nerve-wracking afternoon.

following that I had a 1.5 hour typography lab which I spent finishing the homework due that day & then tumbling while still trying to keep up. a classmate at this point told me that I had 22 type layouts due the next day, bound into a book. (this was the point at which i started panicking because i had felt so on top of things but had forgotten so much work.)

my last class of the day (a 3-hour fibers lab) consisted of holding back tears while trying to justify the point of view of a piece I hadn't read and then sitting in front of a sewing machine. ripping and joining fabrics was the only relaxed part of my day.


after that i went home and pulled an all-nighter to finish my type assignment for the class i'm in now. come to find out the girl who told me it was due was wrong; it's not due until next class, but I didn't know since I missed last class. oops! at least i feel ahead for the first time in a few days. Since I've already finished what my class will be working on today, I can use the morning half to fix up my sleepy type work & take the second half to catch up on my art history homework (a take-home quiz due tomorrow) and think of proposals for my newest project, which I'll have to start developing on friday.


I talked to alea last night about some mixed emotions i've been having about seeing someone (isaac) and possibly feeling conflicted because of my feelings for someone else (dan). But she really did help me in determining that I'm just overthinking things and I shouldn't let that ruin the good thing I've got going with Isaac. He was so sweet yesterday after I explained that I practically ignored him all day because my stress was too high to deal with his texts, and that's what I need right now. Sweetness. And best friends in Bloomington and Chicago to get me through this rough time. And I need to start being that for more people.


I also find out about the RA position today, too, which is another matter in itself. I've already listed all the reasons I want it/it won't be the end of the world if I don't get it, but it'd sure be a nice end to my stressful few days to find out ResLife wants me.



long sigh of relief.
this day will be easy.

i have finally deleted everything of dylan from my life

he's been blocked from everything of mine except for my tumblr (I love my url too much--I guess I just won't be able to post as much personal stuff on there) and i've deleted all of his pictures. i expected it to be freeing, but i felt nothing--a sure sign that i'm over him. and that feels especially great.

oh and btw

to dylan, although I honestly hope you've moved on enough never to see this: you can't say you miss me one day and broadcast on your Facebook that i sent your heart through a wood chipper the next. you cant post things on your blog that say "you can pretend you dont know me but I've seen you naked" when you're the one who told me not to talk to you or your family. you can't say you'd still love to have me back when your best friend has been harassing me on Facebook with the intention of making me feel like shit.

it's not fair for you to make me feel guilty for moving on. you need to let me go.

I went on a date tonight

and it was actually pretty great. he's a little awkward and I'm a little bit more of an intense person than he is, but it was fun and I'm not looking for anything serious right now, so I think it will be good. he's out of town next weekend, but asked me to do something with him when he gets back, which is good.

it's weird to be going out with someone, and it's especially weird for me to be going out with someone who 1.) I met online and 2.) I'm attracted to intellectually more than I currently am physically. not to say that dylan's & my relationship was all physical; it's just that the intellectual/social attraction came after physical attraction.

but I had a good time and he paid for the movie and I have plans for the weekend after next. and it feels good to feel good without any restrictions. i could be ready for another relationship very soon but right now it's just nice to see a movie and get dinner and have plans for the weekend after next. no labels, just being.

blake

i'm so sorry, and i didn't mean to say that our friendship has to end because my relationship with dylan did, i just need time to process everything. i'd like for us to be able to talk in person, but i don't know how to make that happen. let's just let go of it all. im not mad, im just in a really weird place right now.

brak:

i'm really not angry, and i was trying really hard not to seem that way when we were talking. i'm still a little hurt, but it's not like I'm angry with you. i just feel like everything in my life is so different now. it seems stupid to say this, but I feel like in some ways my breaking up with dylan tore you & i apart because we'd become dependent on talking about our boys & sex lives for so long. it's like we don't really have as much to talk about anymore. i don't know. i've just worked so hard through this breakup on my own that it's still very, very hard for me to let people back in, especially people who couldnt be there to hold my hand through all of it. i want things to go back to normal, and i miss you too. it's just all transitional right now and i don't know where things are going.

so this blog has basically become the place where i put things that i want to tell someone but don't want most people to know

and i guess that's okay by me.
I started an okcupid account today, and honestly, i think it could bring some good things into my life. i'm not looking for anything serious at all, but i feel like i need to go on a date with SOMEONE to see where exactly my feelings are right now. and a really, REALLY attractive guy just messaged me. so let's hope everything goes well!

"the sound the microwave just made right now. oh my god"
"i just got lost in text right now. synthesizing your own thoughts, writing them down is so amazing"
"i cant even spell nat geo right now. like g-e-o, that's weird"
"i dont have actual words for that"
"this pen is really cool. is this mine? oh wow i didn't even know i had this"
"have you ever looked at soundwaves? theyre just like infinitely changeable and interchangable but they're just another aesthetic level"
"i have to be honest i havent tried to read anything all day. this is the first time ive tried reading anything on acid and it's so hard." "i know, man, oh my god i TYPED."
"i still have to consider the Blingee" "oh my god, i can't even take Blingee right now"
"wait have we looked at my nails yet? because they're iridescent"
"i feel like most of me transcends words"
"its so distracting to have a beautiful teacher" "well that's only if you dont think of her as an aesthetic object, you just have to penetrate--" "WOAHHHHH" "no guys this is a serious point. you have to look past her as how she looks"
"can we just consider this bedspread? its so beautiful. wait fix that crease...oh that's so much better"
"that thought jut made me stagger. everyone stop. it's such insanity that one little object can just send me on such a trip. put that down."
"no it's so weird, gene and i just literally became the same person. every night we reassimilated and then went apart"



literally i'm the only sober person in my room and this shit is HILARIOUS

hahahahaha

my roommate & her friends are on acid & i'm pissing my pants laughing at what they're doing. i never want to do acid, oh my god

saturday morning

sometimes when i wake up (especially after a night of great sleep) it's very easy to forget where i am. i was looking t the window and realized that the top of the fire escape that seems so far down from my room is the same ladder that seems so high up when i'm walking down the alley to park my bike. i'm living on the 9th floor of a high-rise in the heart of chicago, and it seems so amazing to me.

last night i went to a party & all of my friends dressed up. we had rosewater cupcakes and red wine and danced to a 50's love song playlist one of my friends had made. it was probably the most adorable and genuine moments i've had at school. it was such a great time. i'll post pictures when i get them, because i can't put most of them on facebook. (i can't wait until i'm 21 so all of my cute pictures can actually be seen by people who don't come into my room & look at the pictures by my desk.

anyways, today is a relaxation & production day. i have to make a presentation for my research class on tuesday, edit some typography for my type tech on tuesday & my typography class on wednesday, do some reading for fibers, typography, and art history, and get a head start on my art history essay that's due the first of march. i really think i'll be able to get most of it done today, and that's exciting to me. i also need to mail some stuff to my momma for valentine's day, so i've got to think of something to make her. maybe i'll bind her a book today.

i'm finding a way to be single here. did i wish that maybe something would develop between me & a friend who was at the party? yes. do i think it will happen? no. unfortunately there are a lot of people here who are incredibly difficult to read, and everyone is a little lonely. so it's hard to have expectations for anything. but i hope for new people to walk into my life every day, and for now i'm working on me.

valentine's

so it's the first "alone" in a few years, but I'm actually looking forward to valentine's day this year. Tomorrow my friends and I are getting dressed up (yes, actually) in celebration of V day to bake cupcakes and drink wine & champagne together. I got a package from my mom the other day and she sent my cupcake liners and boxes as my valentine, which will enable me to financially be able to make cupcake valentines for all of my friends, which i'm really looking forward to doing. i love my friends here and i've recently realized how quickly time goes...i don't want to take any moment for granted because it's really likely that life will take us into very different places as soon as next year (several friends are looking to leave SAIC because of financial issues, some of us may be RAs whereas most will move all over chicago into different apartments, some are even thinking of taking a leave of absence to travel). I have always been very good at adaptation, but sometimes it's very easy to get nostalgia for the present when things are so great now and i'm aware that the future could be vastly different.

i had my RA interview this past weekend and i'll know whether or not i've become a part of reslife on february 22. my group interview was absolutely fabulous. members of my group, when prompted about who in the group was a leader, pointed to me when i didn't see it in myself, and that felt really great. my one-on-one (or really two-to-one)interview could really go either way. i could tell that a lot of what i said was the "right" answer by the reactions of my two interviewers, but i was incredibly nervous, almost to the point of crying at times (and then, of course, i felt stupid for crying and was yelling at myself in my head about it, which only made me want to cry more). I think my interviewer could tell, because at times she would draw me off on tangents to the conversation about what music I like and telling me about funny posters that related to a comment I made about my RA. Which helped, a lot. I guess I really can't feel bad if I don't make it (there were literally 75+ people who interviewed, and only 15 spots are available) but I would really, really, REALLY love to be an RA. It's a stressful job, but it takes off the stress of 1.) finding housing and 2.) finding a job. And it's a developmental experience, which is what I want from college. I want to be better than I am when I leave here. Some pros to being rejected: housing with friends (likely alea). GITSY BABY IN CHITOWN <3. visitors without limit. job opportunities (neighborhoods = more small businesses in need of help). incense! parties! music! what the fuck ever! studio space! being able to make encaustic works in my own studio! etc, etc.

~~~

things are good here. stressful, but good. katie and i are having a few bumps (she hates my alarm clock, i hate that she doesn't wash her toothpaste spit out of the sink after brushing her teeth, we are both messy and don't like doing dishes) but it's much better than how forced things were with sarah. i'm creating artwork that i adore and that is compelling. i'm working on setting up an etsy shop and selling at a local store (wolfbait & b-girls) as soon as I decide what exactly i'd like to sell. i've been making sketches for future projects and living a generally very happy, quiet life. things are a bit lonely, i guess, but in general everything is looking up. i've been talking to my mom a lot more, which has been good. it's weird to think that i've only been back here 3 weeks; it already feels as though i never left. which is nice. it's as though i have completely separate lives in chicago and evansville.

anyways, i've been writing this during my art history survey & i'm sure i've missed lots of important things about 20th century architecture

i've asked you not to follow this blog anymore

so please don't

what I would give to be curled up in someone else's arms tonight. I tore (or at least hyperextended) the miniscus of my left knee, and I can hardly walk or bend/straighten my leg. it hurts a bunch and I just want someone to care for me

wonderful

things are wonderful. literally every aspect of my life is in some way fulfilled. I've been working out in the exercise room every day, usually with friends, I've been exploring new practices in my artmaking, and i've picked up a new hobby: subversive cross-stitching. I'm having a ball, I'm building healthy relationships, I'm going with the flow. I have an interview on Sunday for a position as an RA on SAIC reslife and I'm taking an application into Blick this afternoon. Things are looking way, way up. it's weird because it's as if I've had a completely new start; the way I used to live is so foreign to me now that I hardly remember it. and of course it's very unfortunate that this newfound life was birthed of the ashes of an unexplainably happy period of my life, but that's the way things go, I guess. we live and let go and grab on to something new.

TO DYLAN:

stop following this blog and never look at it again

help

i did it to help you
i did it to save your life
i did it to make sure you got the help you need

you say that i'm hurting your family, but i'm not. i'm simply unmasking the hurt that was already there and that needed to be known.

someday you will be better. someday you will look back on this and hopefully you'll be able to forgive me.

your life is more valuable to me than your love for me, so if i have to sacrifice that i will, because you deserve life.

unpacking

i moved back into my dorm last night and, with katie not coming back until tomorrow, i've had the luxury of being able to go through all of my things in peace and at my own pace. it's funny; i've been throwing out a lot of what used to define me and stumbling across little journals i've written through the years on scraps of paper. honestly i was feeling way down in the dumps about coming back up, but it has been absolutely lovely. liz, my RA, caught word that i'd moved in and dropped by for a hug, as did michal. dan came to my room as soon as he got off the plane and we watched intervention & talked for a while while he ate chinese chicken and I cleaned. seriously, his visit completely turned my mood around. it's good to feel like i have a community here, especially after i was left feeling disillusioned after break. several more of my friends get back tomorrow, and i can't wait to see everyone.

anyways, back to the things i found in unpacking. a journal entry from my senior year, during the week-long break dylan and i took at the end of november (how strange it feels for it to have been almost 14 months since then):

"'blood bank.' it strikes me how picturesque the scene being sung is. Makes me think of D even though I really don't want to. Things are different now, much harder. It's like part of this book I read tonight, something about how ignoring something is so much harder than the blessing of ignorance--that it takes effort. That nothing is quite as pure because of that effort: that's how I feel...did I fall out of love? Am I just holding a grudge? ...I feel as though I had been somewhere else, and all of a sudden i'm back on earth, all of my figurative baggage hurtling towards the earth beside me. Whatever this feeling is, it's bittersweet--I may have ost a new love but I found everything that I used to love, everything that makes me who I forgot I am...What happened to the days when books were my best friends? The words that inspired me are still there, but I'm not. And that is scary to me, I think."

and this one, from my last birthday weekend:

"This weekend was so great for me. I went to Lotus and had a wonderful time catching up with my best friend. It had been about a month since we had seen each other, but it honestly felt like three. I was so happy to see her and meet her new friends. Dylan came, too, and then we drove back up to Chicago and spent a night in the cutest little bed and breakfast in Bucktown. Things are so good for our relationship right now. We've shared new experiences that have made us so much stronger. My mom sent me a cake for my birthday (oh yeah--turned nineteen on monday!) and I shared it with friends in the common room. Nearly everything was perfect. I can't believe how lucky I am. I don't think I've ever been happier in my life."


It's surreal how different everything is now, and yet I've found incredible peace in the changes life has recently brought. I've scrubbed my dorm from ceiling to floor, so tomorrow i'm going to wake up, go for a run, and run some final errands before katie gets here. I've got a photoset due on Friday, and I'm incredibly happy with how my pictures came out. I can't wait to show them to my class, and see my friends (TJ, Sam, Emma, & Jake) and their work.



As Sam and BB's mom reminded me as I left town: "Windows of opportunity are everywhere. Windows, windows, windows!" Things feel good, and I can feel that the future is bringing some great things for me. Windows!

tumblr

tonight rob kelly messaged me, telling me that he likes my blog and asking if we'd met before
how lovely.