08.29.010

i wrote a little on friday while at work. my head has been swirling with things to write about, but the thing is that i don't really want to commit them to anywhere. i don't know why. well, i do know why. it seems scary for some reason. foreign. is that a biproduct of reading so much this year? i think it might be. maybe because i feel as though anything i write will pale in comparison to everything i've read. i am a terrible critic. the version of walden i bought has all these other thoreau writings in it, and i don't really want to read the things proceeding walden, but i feel as though i have to. so i might not read walden right now. i don't know that i'm in the right mindframe for it. i might read franny and zooey instead. i don't know. i have so many books. i went to a book sale in camden yesterday and picked up more, because it is like some sort of bad habit, but it can't really be that bad, can it? i don't know. i am tired, despite having not really done anything all weekend. i am trying to organize my crafty things for crafting times, but it is not really working very well. my dad came to my house thursday night to pick some stuff up and he was outside banging on something. i didn't know what it was until friday afternoon, when he told me that he had fixed the soffit under the roof along the long side of my house. which is where the starlings used to nest in the spring. i could hear their babies singing from my living room and it was nice. and now that's not going to happen anymore. it's sad. there is this turn as you are coming into the village part of my town from the north, and the tree canopy stretched across the road, and it was so nice all year; in the spring the new growth would be overhead, in the summer you were shaded by the green, in the autumn it was always so nice to look through the sunroof at the blur of colors passing over you, and even the bare branches draped in snow in winter looked friendly. it was my favorite part about the entire drive headed south to my house. but for some reason, they just cut down a whole slew of trees along the road, including all the trees that stretched across the road. now it's vacant and blue skied, with only the stumps and lingering limbs and scent of freshly cut wood to distinguish that stretch of road from the rest of 1a. i am tired and disconnected from most things again. i don't know how to reconnect, or maybe i do not want to. i am thinking about running away to for a little while this winter and walking across the brooklyn bridge while it is snowing (i am terribly obsessed with photos of a snowy brooklyn bridge) and riding the central park carousel (which i am assuming they run on snowy days, because it seems like the most magical, appropriate thing ever) and to see morgan, who i completely missed while she was up because i was preparing for my failed tuesday travels on monday night. i get especially upset when i think about the fact that i could've seen my best friend and received some sort of human connection about feeling completely terrible and upset about everything (and i probably would be feeling slightly better about things), but instead i decided to prepare for seven hours in a car that only yielded a lot of disappointment and booze (mostly for my parents, but also a bottle of rum and a bottle of schnapps for myself). there are very large spaces between my fingers. i hope things change soon. i want autumn and snow.

08.25.010

blogger ate my blog. this is the gist of what i wanted to say.

yesterday was a bust. i almost made it to the massachusetts border before finding out the carousel was closed (even though around ten am, the carousel had posted on facebook that they would be opening at 11, and i awoke to discover that the weather forecast for southern new england wasn't looking that bad). it was a long day of seven+ hours of driving and i am still very tired and feeling upset. this is probably the fifteenth time in the past two years that something outside of my (or anyone's) control has happened to stop something nice from happening.

both my father and my sister questioned my adoration and devotion towards him and his music today. i don't know how to react to such questionings. the best i could do was explain that it was not his decision to not open the carousel (i don't understand how this was lost on them in the first place). i can't explain why he is important to me, that his music is something like a safe haven that doesn't exist for me anywhere in the physical world; but it does exist in this world built in notes and chords and warbling voices (human and otherwise) and silences and wax cylinder scratches, and thusly it becomes some sort of temporary physical location while it is happening, and shortly afterwards in some amber tinted afterglow. they don't understand it. it is a hard thing to understand, i suppose, if you're not experiencing it firsthand.

at any rate, i am tired of the weather and time and money and things that keep me from doing the things i want to do and seeing the people that matter most to me. i feel so solitary all the time, all i wanted was to not feel that way for a while.

i don't know why i expect things to ever work out okay. one would think that after twentysix years with this surname that one would know better than to think things ever work out for the best. i don't know why i look forward to things. you would think i would know better.

i am entirely too sensitive and i don't want to be, but i don't know how else to be.

maybe i'll sleep it off tonight. sleep wasn't being very friendly with me last night, so i've been out of sorts all day. i would like to not be out of sorts tomorrow.

08.22.010

my fingertips hurt for two reasons. number one, i bought an acoustic guitar. nothing fancy, just a johnson student guitar. kind of impulsively, but i had the cash and i very rarely use cash when i buy anything, and it seemed like a good idea. the only problem is that i have unusually small hands for an adult lady, or at least kind of stubby fingers, and thusly fretting certain chords is kind of impossible, but i still am trying, hands be damned.

number two, i also bought knitting supplies. i have not knitted in about fifteen years. i am working on a plain yellow scarf, because i never successfully knitted anything in the past that didn't end up becoming a pot holder. also, i never learned how to cast on (my mom always did it for me), so i have learned that via the youtubes. i am also going to have to learn how to cast off. and different stitches. i'm just doing the basic purl stitch, because it came back to me naturally. or at least it's something like a purl stitch; i do it differently than all the videos i've seen*. i think i am actually doing it dyslexically, which is pretty funny/awesome. i had to start over three times due to me picking up stitches. i am not entirely sure how i managed to do it, but i started with 40, and about six rows in, i ended up with 45. currently things are going well. i've only managed about 12 rows in this current incarnation, but it's the most i've managed so far, so, there is that.

in news that is necessary to maintaining (or i guess we're to the point that i should say restoring) something like sanity, it appears as though hillary and i will be out of the state for a day or two towards the middle of the week of the week, which may or may not have something to do with this. i am excited for about a thousand reasons, only few of which i will mention, in no particular order.

; time away from everything about my life in maine has become a strange, unfortunate necessity. it will be nice to get away, even if only for a day and a half.
; i will hopefully be able to see my wonderful e6 loving friends amy and casey. and perhaps we will meet some new people, although i have yet to prod about on the interwebs to see if anyone else i know of but have never met is going.
; hi, it's julian and singing saws at the carousel. i haven't seen julian (or a singing saw that is not poorly encouraged to sing by those of us with sore fingertips) in a year and a half. it's going to be overwhelmingly beautiful; the carousel is such a nice creature, as is julian, and band organs make me happier than i have words for, and when you consider the combination of the colors and the lights lights and whirling things and julian... it has the makings for a really nice day.
; and of course, it's always nice to see the ocean, unobstructed by islands. it's really rare to see unislanded ocean in maine. i remember that it struck me as so strange to be able to look out to sea and not see anything but blue, that there is no differentiating between the water and the sky. it will be nice.

so of course because i am planning on trying to get out of dodge this week, my throat feels terrible and i've been coughing all day, and so i'm taking extra vitamin c and elderberry syrup as a precaution. i'm still working out the details of lodging, since there is nothing attractive about making the approximately ten hour long round trip to and from mass in one day, and in a dream world, i'd love to stay for two nights and be able to go do things in the city at some point. we'll see. hillary has a friend who we could go stay with, but driving in boston is one of my least favorite things in the entire world, and especially whereas it's an unfamiliar part of boston (brighton). i'm thinking about getting a room somewhere (rockland, probably), and then maybe we could stay in brighton the following night? i don't know. planning last minute trips makes me feel like a jerk. i have an email in to my friend heather who lives in weymouth to see if we could stay with her, but i have this weird feeling that she is out of town. i'll know more tomorrow. i've also invited my friend morgan, who is up visiting, assuming she doesn't have a whole slew of things to do tuesday/wednesday. although i don't know how long she is up for. it seems to me that we're having a weird misconnection this time. those happen with us every once in a while; sometimes when she's up to visit, we can never get our schedules to mesh. so i might not see her until around christmas. hopefully sooner if i can get my act together and get down to nyc for an autumn/early winter visit.

SO. i might not write on wednesday, depending on where i am and what is going on in my life, but i will probably write on thursday if i don't write on wednesday, but you can't hold me to that because i don't know anything about anything.

i watched me and you and everyone we know today, as well as 500 days of summer. both were good.

i finished dubliners earlier this week, read nine stories in about a day, and i have been reading the diary of anne frank during the day, and a few of grimm's fairytales before bed each night. i believe i'll be reading walden next.

at any rate, i am quite tired, so we should remedy that.

someday, i'll resume videos. but not today.

*apparently, i am doing the garter stitch, which i subconsciously picked up from watching my mother knit in the car and at my parents house when i go to visit them.

08.18.010

today i was dismissed from work early in order to pick up some things in bangor for an order we're working on.

on the way home, on the other side of the road, there were three crows in the breakdown lane, picking at something. they started to fly off as the column of traffic i was in approached.

two of them flew up and across the road, and one just started to fly across, but didn't have enough altitude.

when i realized what was about to happen, i looked in my rearview, and the guy behind me was too close for me to slam on my brakes and come to a screeching halt, and all i could manage to do was to slow down a little and it was just so awful.

he hit the windshield.

it made the worst sound and my stomach turned and my face flushed porcelain and my heart died a lot and i couldn't look back to see if he was okay (there is no way he was) and i started shaking and crying hysterically. i have no recollection of the next five minutes before walking into the house and falling apart on the kitchen floor. i keep crying about it. i am entirely too sensitive and that is a terrible thing to be when all you see on a daily basis are dead porcupines and raccoons that only ever wanted to come over to play monopoly at your house and you work somewhere where you are told that you are useless on a daily basis and then you are accidentally responsible for the murder of a crow, an animal you revere and love and respect and want to be.

i hope this stops soon. i miss nice things. the blue light hasn't flickered in about a week. i feel too much.

08.15.010

i finished dubliners today and was mostly unimpressed, except for that last story, which was quite good. i found a copy of salinger's nine stories for 99¢ in goodwill yesterday immediately after complaining to hillary about having never even seen it during any of my book seeking adventures this year. i went to borders today mostly to be surrounded by books and ended up buying franny and zooey and a new copy of walden, and some moleskin journals because i obviously do not have enough journals. i am having an incredibly difficult time mentally right now and i can't innumerate why to anyone. or at least i don't want to. it's hard, and i don't think anyone has the patience to listen to it all and to try to work it out with me. it's such a stupid long story and it is emotionally draining to have to go through it all so i'm refusing to. i locked myself in the bathroom to cry for half an hour at work on friday and then i cried again while walking out of thee olde television station after picking up my paycheck. this happened while exchanging hellos with people. i am awkward. i am hairpin triggery. i am tired and sad and distant and disconnecting and it's not good. i talked to tyler last night, and he was trying to get me to talk, and i just can't. everything is so longwinded and boring and it feels really trite and self involved and i hate feeling this way. i just need something good to happen because i'm getting to a place that i forget what it feels like to have good things happen. i need to shake things up, but i don't know what to do. i need to get out of maine, but i can't afford it right now. i have more needs than i do means, and that's problematic. so i'm just gonna drink and listen to music and just stay curled up in bed for a while.





maybe i was following hashtags on twitter all week (especially friday night). i want new pipes you see, pipes you don't. music so bad, it kind of hurts. probably the most bummed that i missed this set. and the circulatory system set (which i heard was spot on). and the apples in stereo set. and the marshmallow coast set. and everything. and everything. i am never where i should be.

08.11.010

i'm really out of sorts. i'm short tempered and angry and upset and depressed. i want to delete myself completely and i just want to go away. i figure this is either some longwinded identity crisis or something more slightly more serious. anytime i am anywhere (and i’m always somewhere), all i can think is that i’m not supposed to be where i am. and i feel like all thoughts are snowballing in my head to this gigantic mass of general crappiness in regards to my "friends" and my "life" in maine and my "job" and my "education" (or lack thereof). i feel like i have missed all the opportunities i wanted to take advantage of, and i can trace it back to when it happened (things were set into motion [or at least i became aware of them] in the beginning of 2002, and those things started to effect everything in the middle of 2002 into the beginning of 2003, and then 2003 found me honest-to-god friendless and depressed and having dropped out of college and never going home, but never going anywhere instead of home, just driving all night long with the music that saved and changed my life), and it just makes me want to die. of course, there are things that would probably never had happened if some of these things didn't take place in my life, but the fact of the matter is that i hate where i am and i hate what i'm doing and i don't know what to do with it because i have a deed in a lockbox and i don't know why i have a deed in a lockbox. i didn't want a deed in a lockbox. i treat it like a death sentence. there are so many things i want to go back in time and fix but i can't, so arguably, shouldn't i be focusing on trying to remedy the things that suck now? i can't. my head won't let me. i can't get out of my head. it's the only place that i am all the time and it's such a curse. i don't know what i'm doing in regards to anything in my life. i keep hoping to sleep it off, it keeps not happening. maybe tonight.

i hope i am feeling well enough to see morgan when she is up (which might be now?). we spent three hours talking about our lives in a mexican restaurant last year and i think i need that again now.

08.08.010

on thursday, i got paid. post-bill paying, i did not end up with enough money to do the trip to georgia. additionally, i started to get sick.

i heard from my friend morgan on friday, saying that she was going to be headed up to maine late next week, and asked if i was going to a local music festival. i told her about my hopes to travel to new york, although they had been dashed since i was feeling completely miserable by then. she said that i would be welcomed down anytime.

but for now, i am home. i don't know. i don't really feel very sad about anything, but that's mostly because i feel so goddamned miserable. hillary and i are composing cacoughphonies. it's bad that she's still mostly sick a week later. this means i have at least another five days worth of feeling crappy, since my immune system is the worst immune system in the world™.

i'm sure i won't feel sad about missing popfest until my friends start arriving and posting from georgia (tomorrow). i might be absent from the internet for a while. i don't know. i feel like i felt in the third grade, when i was supposed to be the daisy in alice in wonderland. i only had one line which consisted of one word ("daisy") and i was to sing in the small ensemble of flowers that sang golden afternoon. and i got sick. miserably sick, a day or two before the opening (and closing) night. i was devastated. to make matters worse, for some reason i was watching wheel of fortune, and they had an alice in wonderland themed show on. i kid you not. it was nutso.

so basically, i feel sick and miserable and sorry for myself. like a giant ball of pathetic. i've been watching newsradio and the deadliest catch (???) and random movies (amelie, the jerk, the breakfast club). i don't know how much more work i'm going to miss. i hate being sick. and i can't tell if this is very pneumonia-esque because i have apparently blocked all of that out of my mind. i feel as though i'm having trouble breathing, but i can't tell if it's just from being really phlegmy or if it's something more nefarious. i don't know.

08.04.010

they're doing this thing along the road i traverse daily, where they are air blasting the plants that have had enough tenacity to grow up through the asphalt and then tarring over the cracks. it makes my heart break.

additionally, along the same stretch of road, they're also amputating kind old spruce and fir and pine tree limbs to make way for cables and wires and things of that nature that are not nature at all. also heartbreaking.

i am making the popfest decision tomorrow. casey has determined that she can do the trip, although it would leave her with no post-popfest funds. so it's my decision to make. there's no nice way to say this, but my financial situation is fucked so royally. i am getting paid something tomorrow. the only way popfest can happen for me is if i am paid all the money i am owed in back pay tomorrow, which might happen, but i doubt that it will because my brother is also owed back pay and my dad has bills and there has been no additional money and it's just a mess. i'm trying to mentally prepare myself for this. it really has been the only thing i've been looking forward to all year. it sucks.

additionally, hillary came home from vermont with some really terrible respiratory illness (it sounds like pneumonia to me), and i am living in this absolute crazy panic attack where i am certain i am going to get sick and i feel as though i might be getting sick, but i can't tell if that's just me being crazy or if it's an actual thing that is happening.

if i can't go to popfest and i don't end up getting sick in the next few days, i'm going to contact my friend morgan, who resides in new york city, to see if i can run away to her place for a few days. i might not even be able to afford to do that (there's also the chance she'll be unable to put me up), but it's something i would like to do. if i can't afford that, i don't know what i'm going to do, but i have to do something because i feel psychotic.

at any rate, i cut my hair tonight because that's what i do when i feel like this.



might not write again this sunday or upcoming wednesday. i don't know. unless there is exceptionally good news tomorrow, i'm pretty certain i won't be feeling very communicative. if there are travels in my near future, i will post something tomorrow evening. if there aren't, i won't.

i don't know what else to say.




Nick Drake- Way to Blue

Nick Drake | MySpace Music Videos

08.01.010

ribbit ribbit.

fruit flies keep completing suicide missions in my wine tonight. it's kind of depressing, but fact of the matter is that i am currently plagued with fruit flies because i bought a lot of fruit (rasp/black/blueberries), so while it is kind of gross to be dredging up the corpses of dead fruit flies from my wine, it means less hand clapping. although, hand clapping can be fun. albeit kind of gross when you're trying to rid yourself of fruit flies.

i digress. i am waiting to wash the berries until the fruit fly situation gets a little more under control/in between palms.

winteringport had fireworks in honor of my half birthday yesterday. okay, they had fireworks for their own birthday, but it also was my half birthday. only six more months of twentysixdom. more like twentysixdoom.

i went to seriousport yesterday morning for a book sale. i bought a two books about birds (one of which is in dutch?), a pictorial learn to speak russian book, a book about america's wonderlands, david copperfield and empire falls. i visited with the parentals for a little bit before heading home.

hillary's been in vermont for a wedding all weekend, so i've had the house to myself. it's been nice. i've played music loudly and done whatever i've wanted whenever i've wanted. not that having her around prohibits me from doing such a thing, but one has more freedom when they are completely alone. kittens have been reasonably nice, although bella threw up yesterday and one of them peed in a really peculiar location friday after hillary left. i don't know.

perhaps i should've done laundry today, but i didn't. i will tomorrow. i didn't accomplish much today, but that's alright. i cleaned half the kitchen. i am still very tired from the last two weeks. i really just wanted to stay in bed all day. i am still in the boat, and probably will be for a few days this week.

popfest is still up in the air for me. it's in almost a week.

the week of fill-in work at thee olde television job was actually really fun. i had a nice time, but i think it was because i knew i was only doing it for five days. it was not fun when there was no definite end in sight.

regular job is slow and troubling.

my dove friends are back, after about a month or so hiatus. it's nice to see them again.

i finished notes from underground friday night. it ended with the dream of a ridiculous man, which was also so good. i don't know if i ever posted, but the book contained white nights, excerpts from house of the dead, notes from underground, and the dream of a ridiculous man. i could take or leave the stuff from house of the dead, but everything else was really nice. i haven't started a new book yet because i don't know what to start. i have five books in my bed right now. i guess i will just pick one and start reading.

i'm tired and i need to shower.





my friend laura posted this on facebook and i've watched it many times. i love it. it makes me cry in a nice way.