dreaming is free

this morning i woke up with smell of canned peas in my nose. its how the cape smells, how the ocean and sand would smell during low tide when hermit crabs littered the path to the beach and the dunes, walking along singing Blondie to the ocean so that i could swim and bury myself in sand while amy got caught in seaweed. then we would go back to the cedar cabin, lay in the hammock strung between pine trees and growing in sand in the sideyard. laying head to heel sharing headphones while we harmonized to That Dog and Rose Melberg while the sun shining through the trees made patterns on our closed eyelids. we laid there for hours, singing, talking, planning out our lives of living there or going to california where amy would write feminist screenplays while i played in a band and had rainbow brite hair, living in shitty next door to each other apartments with our long haired artsy boyfriends, her with cats, me with dogs. the only thing conflicting my mind was what milkshake i would get at the Ben and Jerry's up the road: chocolate or strawberry, and how i could get amy to talk to the cute ice cream scooper.

i've been having similar dreams lately, which is actually not very uncommon. most dreams i've had in my life, i have had my whole life because they repeat themselves, the only slight difference being something like setting or someone else aside from the usual few will be in them. those are the only ones i really remember, most others, no matter how vivid usually pass from memory when i wake up. certain parts usually stick out though, parts with people, usually saying or doing something weird or profound or nerve racking to me in reality. for the past two weeks or so, about two nights or more a week, i've been in a similar vein of dreams. they are very short and very odd, not very vivid in terms of setting, just enough to know where i might be. in them, i am always with someone i love dearly, old friends, family members, people i miss, people i've been in conflict with or about. in one, we were on the beach in Wellfleet County, in another we were in my old house in Garfield Hts, in another i was in the studio at TU. in every dream, i come across one of these people in these places, and when i walk up to them, i realize that their fingertips and my fingertips are dipped and stained in black ink. then i look down and there's a press, usually a letter press, and we start dragging our fingers across the letters and plates and printing them.


somedays i feel like i'm drowning myself in my own skin, that just when i get used to being in it, feeling good about the person in there, i try to suffocate her. being in my home environment amplifies that a lot of the time, some of you know why, some of you don't and its not really something i choose to share but nonetheless exists. i know that and it's something i'm working on - its not as easy as saying 'it's bad' or 'it's good', a lot of things just run deep here. does that make sense? i'm pretty sure, in some way or another, that is the case for everyone.
most days, i read a lot, organize all the stuff in my room, make things for people, drink a lot of coffee, walk my dog and put in applications all over the place. i hang out with my sister, we bake cakes when we're bored or she'll try to give me a make over, try out new fashion tips she reads about in Seventeen (weird). after an early friday evening of laying in my bed trying to figure out something to do, we decided to watch The Wizard of Oz to The Dark Side of the Moon and it turned out to be one of the best fridays i've had in a long time. it was really weird and really awesome. we drank a lot of pop and ate turkey burgers and rice cakes.
i have spent a lot of time with my extended family which is really awesome - mardi gras, birthday parties, brunches, whatever, any reason we have to get together. as much as i don't really do crowds or large gatherings of people, i'm pretty sure thats only specific to strangers with interspersed friends because i could probably be around my entire family for the good part of a day no problem, regardless of vast amounts of little girls and pink shit that is occasionally all over the place. thats why God gives us beer and cousins.



i've been spending a lot of time with these kids - babies - which is actually amazing. they are so much fun and so smart and i love hanging out with them. i love playing cars and transformers with them and watching Cinderella and cuddling on the couch with them. i love making them laugh, i love picking them up, i love reading to them. i even love them when they are running around screaming from too much sugar. whatever. it's awesome.


on wednesday i start interning here: Zygote Press in downtown Cleveland (we're still the mistake on the lake! thank god!)



which is awesome. the extensiveness of this space and the things in it are too awesome for words but will probably try to be explained to one or more of you at a later date.

i had coffee with a very old friend of mine the other day. his name is jimmy and we've been friends since the summer we graduated from high school. the week before i had a dream with him in it, he just appeared out of nowhere and the next day i had a message from him on my phone. i hadn't seen him in over a year and we sat in a panera for 4 1/2 hours until they had to close, not only catching up but talking about things. everything. our worldviews, what we want to accomplish, where we're going from here, our trepidation's, our experiences, how we constantly process these things everyday. we've both changed and grown in a lot of ways and not so much in others and it was just really good to sit with someone whose known me that long, who is here with me, in this town, in this urban sprawl. he's one of those people who after years of interacting and being friends, i don't really need to explain myself so much. it's nice to not have to do that. it was one of those interactions with someone you know so well, who knows you that when you leave, you just feel a sense of relief because in a way they have brought you back to yourself. they have brought you back to yourself just by seeing you and knowing you the way that they do. it was one of those interactions that reminded me and brought back to me that part of myself that i like, parts that i not only like but am proud of, those parts that are the best of me.


my dad told me today that i just need to get up and go. i don't need to stay here, i can work a mindless job like waitressing somewhere else and still get on my feet. i could have stayed in indiana (surprise!), i could go anywhere basically. it really threw me off because if i could be elsewhere i would.
he's right.
it's warming up here a little (probably not for long) but its nice to smell a little dirt instead of snow

break

deep
deep
deep
deep
breaths.
must fill every single one of my tar stained alvioli's with air.
3 times
4 times
as many times as i can
breath deep
exhale slowly.
painfully slow.
shakily slow.
3 times
4 times
let it out.
shake it off.
take a step back.
play it cool.
think.
realize.
accept.
and continue.

welcome to the precipice.


remember where you come from, remember who you are, remember you are loved unconditionally, remember you are supported without question or hesitation. remember what you've so far been through, remember what you have learned from that. remember who knows those things and loves them, keep them near to you and distance yourself from those who can't see it, who fear it, who don't understand. everyone has baggage, anyone worth knowing or being with. accept things you can't change, work on the things you can. make yourself happy for one day in your life and fuck everyone else, in the end it means nothing. don't try to fix things, don't try to figure them out, don't try to hold control. love things as they are, if they are good and good for you, they will figure out themselves if they need to be. otherwise, enjoy their unquestionable, simple comfort that they bring. say what needs to be said, hold your tongue when it is necessary and wise. love honestly, live honestly, communicate honestly and go with your guts even when you know you are at fault because your mind can talk you out of anything. take responsibility for your actions because they are yours, you are the only one who can change them, no one can make one do anything, need anything, be anything but yourself. don't make excuses, don't blame others for your problems, don't expect others to come to you, don't sit silent - if you are unhappy, you must change that, no one else. speak up and speak out of love, not out of bitterness or judgement or blame or ignorance, there is always more going on than anyone else really knows. be able to look at yourself critically, squarely, humbly and with modest love because you were made, as you are, to be something greater and bigger than all of this, it will just take some time.

do what you need to do, pray for wisdom and pray pray and pray for grace. grace and wisdom and love. no one needs more than that. because at the end of the day, regardless of physical suffering, everyone is suffering. all of humanity is suffering one way or another whether it be global or communal or personal - know that you are, identify it and with it and remember those who really are and give praise for your mercy, for your grace and be grateful.

figure it out
do it
get it done
and be done with it.


when i am older, i will have an orange tree.
in a month or so, i will probably cut off all my hair.
tomorrow i will pack.
an hour ago, i was drinking coffee out of my peter pan mug in my safe place.
an hour from now i will be at the post office sending off a letter.
this time last week i was sleeping.
this time next week i'll be at home with my sister.
this time next year i'll know where i want to be and who i'll want to be with.
this time a year ago i didn't even know you.
i can't wait to take my shoes off and look up at the stars without freezing.

infj

i've been listening to a lot of music lately. dumb statement, but i bring it up because it put in my mind an interesting correlation i have noticed.
certain music obviously stimulates people differently, duh, everyone is different. what i mean is, i'm finding that most people i know usually fall into two very broad categories: people who listen to music because of the actual sound and music, and people who listen to music mostly for lyrical content. these are obviously not strict categories and everyone is a little or a lot of both, but its interesting to me because this leads into the very important fact of how music is interpreted for each person, which then leads to the whole mixtape mix cd culture so involved in generation x.
music conveys different things to each person, whether that be through lyrical or musical content. i listen to a lot of music without words that rips my heart out but a lot of the music i listen to i love so much because of words combined with that music. for example, i can say for me, my best friend, and now that i think about it, most of the females i know, listen to music for its lyrical content because thats what we probably most associate with FEELING. they are words, spelled out. again, not that wordless music cannot be associated with feeling, but with words, it is spelled out and a lot of times the musical sounds reflect those words and that feeling. isn't that interesting? i find it interesting. it comes down to how any kind of music connects with you, sometimes its through words and sometimes its through sound. you play a song that means something to you through it sounds but may mean or say something entirely different to me because of its words, its all about interpretation. it's the pro and the con of most art - the difference in interpretation, the beauty in that and how it can relate so differently but so universally to each person at the same time, but depending on where its coming from that difference in interpretation can also be a little dangerous too.
i have this habit where sometimes, when i'm listening to music, i think about my life as a movie. not my whole life, mostly just small parts of my life, like what is currently happening, what i'm currently experiencing or feeling or seeing and for each moment i think about what song would play to best describe and convey what is is thats happening while at the same time expressing how i'm thinking and feeling. what would play during the opening credits, what would play when i'm feeling a particular sort of happy, what i'm feeling during a pretty low moment, etc. all of those things. thats not uncommon, i'm pretty sure a lot of people make mini movies like that, i wonder if there is an actual film out there somewhere that has no dialogue, just music to serve as it. i'm sure there is, but not a short one, and not one thats vague, but kind of like playing Dark Side of the Moon to Wizard of Oz, kind of not. like if The Royal Tenenbaums had just its soundtrack and no dialogue, i think everything would still be conveyed properly and beautifully.
most music appeals to me lyrically because it mostly has the words i completely lack or lack the ability to say, to speak. i'm not very good at speaking, especially when something needs to be said. and it only makes it better when the sounds coming out with those words are the sounds i would try to make if i could not speak.


i've been depressed lately, lately as in...oh...the past 2 months, a relapse in some ways especially after being home and soon to be going back there for a while. some music hurts that and some music helps it. i've been working at not feeling things so intensely or concentrating on those feelings so much since i was in middle school to very little avail. sometimes my mind and my guts are so clouded with feelings and thoughts in conflict and crisis that i cannot concentrate on anything else ever and i've been trying to work out of that for the past 2 months, to basically care less, if care at all. it blinds me sometimes, irrationally, single minded and crazy. it's really difficult. its always been difficult and always will be because it is just something that will always be. i will feel things change, hurt, grow, fail and push before they ever do - the blue comes from trying to either keep those things from happening or trying to change them myself. stubbornness and pride and guilt and worry. because of that, there always comes a time in the lives of those that i love and who love me where i keep myself from them, where i guard myself in self preservation and protection because my love for them and the intensity of my relationships with them get to be so much so that they scare me - and the hurt that comes with it because things always change, constant change, the fact that things can't always be what they are and that they will never be that way again through fights or individual, personal change or loss or space or distance or time or ignorance or passivity or aggressiveness or pushing or anything and it just takes me a while to remember that i can't push all the time or keep pushing. all i can and want to do is be still and you can't be still if you're always trying to keep yourself from hurt all the time.
so here i am, again trying to be still, trying to feel things but not fear them into complete hardness, not to ignore them but to feel them and accept them, knowing what will happen - knowing it will bring me hurt, knowing i'll be pulling out defenses but knowing i'll be taking risks. it will be so difficult - i'll want to curl up and die and bury myself and feel the howl between my lungs rife with all the words i can't speak and thoughts i can't figure out and feelings i can't make go away and things i can't get unstuck from my mind, but i'll know what it is and i'll know what it isn't and i'll work on leaving it behind me.


for now, all i would really need to be content is an egg sammy, some iced tea, rose melberg on vinyl and a little patch of sunshine to sit in, but its foggy and cold so i'll settle for the sammy, strawberry milk and jersey shore.

howl

can't do this.
can't.
can not.
do
this.

you can't carry it with you if you want to survive

as the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and make it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty...


for the first time in my life, i find myself wishing for spring and summer. i want to be in my woods again, getting lost there. i want to smell tomato plants and wet warm dirt and the lavender and sage and lemon verbena in my herb garden. i want to go back to the jungle in the mountains on the river, eating oranges off trees and just seeing the hills and the green and the air outside my door.
i want to go back to san francisco and walk those hills and streets and go to the bay and the beach and eat crusty bread with cheese and cobb salads and walk through haight ashbury and knob hill and beatnik north shore streets with my music on and eating a veggie sammy with an organic orange creme soda while i sit on a curb and watch everything.

when i'm older, i want an orange tree.
i'm 22 years old and sometimes, a lot of the time, i still want to live like Weetzie Bat.


awesome things and things realized over christmas break:
1. madi can moonwalk. like REALLY moonwalk, she can actually do it. i wouldn't lie about that. how she's the one out of three who ended up here from planet badass, i have no idea.
2. she also made a snooki cookie - yes, from jersey shore - IE: a sugar cookie iced with complete guidette makeup, a poof for her hair and a black eye.
3. being back in upland, with all this cold, wind and snow, i find myself wishing to be elsewhere, like i so often do. i've spent a lot of my time here thinking that, thinking about being elsewhere, WHY didn't i go somewhere else, why the HELL didn't i transfer to art school when i could have...blah blah blah etc. but here's the thing, and i know i've harped on this before so humor me - the people i have met here are completely indispensable to me. they are irreplaceable and i would be foolish and arrogant to think otherwise. sure, i could say i would have met similar people if i would have ended up somewhere else, that there would have been no loss, no one is really that unique anymore so i would have met SOMEONE like you or you or you or whoever, that SOMEHOW in that parallel universe situation, needs would have been met one way or another and i would have grown into a similar albeit slightly different self.
bullshit. at least for me.
have we really become so disconnected or jaded or distanced in our actual personal visceral relationships with others to think such things?sure, in a rational way, that may be true, but in saying or even thinking something like that i feel like you strip everyone in your life who means anything to you of their value. and its probably stripped enough as it is simply by existing.
if you haven't noticed, i think about these things a lot. how i treat, react, interact, invest in others and how others do that with me and the dynamics of all of that and the blessings and heartache that can come with that. its exhausting but at least i know thats the secret to life.
4. i love when you're listening to music, or your listening to some new music for the first time and a song comes on and within the first 30 seconds it just rips your heart out its so good, just everything about it is perfect for the moment your in and you feel like crying and screaming and smiling and rolling around and dancing at the same time because the words combined with that music is just the most beautiful perfect thing you ever heard and you just want to share it with everyone, or with someone special and close to you or you just want to keep it to yourself and hide it so that no one can feel that moment of truth that you did and see that part of you.
5. swiss cheese toasties.
6. i really like to remaster mix lists.
7. the hundreds of letter press images waiting for me.
8. what the hell, i'm a goner anyway so what do i have to lose? if its not this, then its something else i guess. there's so much growing to be done and time to pass. i've got a house with an orange tree or a cranberry bog to get to and a little shop to work in. it would be great if you would come but you have dreams to live out and hearts to break and a heart to get broken. i'll do my best to be around and keep a place for all of that.

hellooooo cigarette!

peace and chicken grease.

rewind

things i have to remind myself of constantly:

one day at a time

all is full of love.



let's be honest friends, my mind is a pretty hot mess most of the time. whose isn't. i didn't make this blog so people i love can read me whining. i made it to share my thoughts. to get them out. sometimes, i just don't have it together. sure, everything is still fluttering around in there, but you pray about it. you talk to your friends. you scream it out. you take baby steps. because most of the time, it's not what you think it is, nor is it as bad. everything is everything, what comes to pass is supposed to and what doesn't, doesn't. at the end of the day, you have those who love you, and sure, you go through some shit, some confusion, but those are meant to stay, will stay and make sure that they do. that's all there is to it.
its good to know that no matter what happens, no matter what is so bad or so confusing in a moment, i'll still be here and so will you. i know that as fact. i do not question it and i don't know why i ever would. some people in your life are just there to stay. staying should be enough, shouldn't it?

my bestie is the best there is. she made me a christmas video, she keeps me sane and calm when i need to be and still loves me without failure or question while still knowing pretty much everything about me, all the best parts of me and the very worst as well.
how many people do you love like that?
better question, how many people know you love them like that?
if you're anything like me, probably not many because we are great at thinking people know what we really mean through our actions.
newsflash: most of the time, they don't.
we're too busy taking them for granted.

so here's one small step, a started for when i verbalize it at a later date if i haven't let you know already:
i love you emily, i love you britty, i love you tiffy, i love you stephen, i love you taylor, i love you jamie, i love you mom, i love you dad, i love you madi, i love you alex, i love you hero, i love you lamb, i love you frog, i love you lizzy, i love you jimmy, i love you christine, i love you amy, i love you eileen, i love you spencermonster, i love you dustin, i love you andrew, i love you luke, i love you paul, i love you beth, i love you daelan, i love you nathan, i love you rachel, i love you ally, i love you sarah, i love you ashely, i love you lindsey, i love you carmen, i love you steph, i love you jon, i love you erica, i love you andy1, i love you andy2, i love you kevin, i love you kyle, i love you kylie, i love you grandma, i love you pop pop, i love you grandma k, i love you grandpa k, i love you mike,dave,deb,marykay,terese,jim,marie,thad,tash,danielle,ian,matt,dave,jon,anna,nat,soph, i love you kathy, connie, dale, helene, greg, mary, ed, bill, andrea, jackie, timmy,michelle,tina,tony and all 150 of my cousins.

merry christmas :)
thats all for a while.

hello friends

i am currently snowed in in the beautiful town of upland until monday due to quite a bit of snow, a mothers nervousness, and silliness upon my part in a checking account.

this is, in a way, another one of those karma situations i've been experiencing over the past 48-72 hours considering i wanted nothing more to get out of here this time yesterday but this is good.

it's snowing. white fluffy sticky snow, building snow, snow ball fight snow.
school is over which takes away a lot of the stress.
this gives me more time with stephen whom i will miss to a point beyond explanation.
this gives me more time with tiff whose easy company i don't experience enough through the school time.
this gives me time to relax myself, to process the last week because Lord knows enough happened that needs thinking and sorting.
this gives me time to make mixes and write letters and make homemade notebooks and christmas cards and presents.
this gives me time to clean while listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas album that is so amazing.
COCOA. raspberry cocoa.
i'll probably watch Love Actually again and do something ridiculous.
this is good.


ps: little known fact: the pixies are probably still my favorite band, seriously. its probably because they're so weird.