some quotes

"In seeking wisdom thou art wise: in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a food." - Lord Chesterfield

"Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still." - Chinese proverb

"Dreams are necessary to life." - Anais Nin

"Have patience in all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew." - Sain Francis de Sales

When did I grow up?

So, I just realized how old I am. I turned 19 on Friday. Sure, that's not old, but my friends are getting married! Rachel Swearingen is now Rachel Brewer. (Brewer? Seriously?) She got married in September. Valen's getting married in January. I missed her bridal shower yesterday because I didn't feel like going home. Rachel apparently thinks she's married. The other day she told me she had a husband and daughter now (which I guess means she's too busy to reply to my suicidal text messages). And Alicia and I have been dating for almost 7 months. That's a long time. I think I'm going to marry her. I'm terrified. I mean, I want to... but I'm terrified. This is all too soon. When did I grow up?

Election Day, '08

There is no one awake to answer my calls. I have received no replies to my text messages. It's 3:30 AM on November 5, 2008. Barrack Obama has been declared the forty-fourth President of the United States of America. He is the first Black man to be elected to the highest rank in our government. I will be nineteen in a week, but I did not vote. I am a republican, but I couldn't bring myself to vote for a party that denies me the right to marry. As much as I long for the day when I can walk down the isle with my beautiful bride, I could not bring myself to vote for a party that denies the rights of unborn children. I couldn't bring myself to make the treck back home to cast an uncertain vote. I was given many opportunities to switch my voter registration to my college town, but was too annoyed by the constant nagging of the college representatives of both parties to do so. My first opportunity to vote for the president, and I chose not to. In spite of the insistence of the media that every vote counts, I do not believe that my vote could have possibly changed anything. And I'm not sure I care. I do regret not exercising my right to vote that the women before me worked so hard for. However, I don't think that decisions such as these should be made without extensive knowledge of the issues. I was told I should vote for Mickey Mouse, just to vote. There's no way in hell I was going to do that. The power to vote is too great to be wasted on a joke like that.

I was at Alicia's apartment when I heard the results of the election. My heart filled with dread and I knew I need to return to my own apartment as soon as possible. As my car rolled to a stop at the base of the Bloomsburg University campus, I was horrified to see hundreds of people crowding the street. The police cars pushed them to the sidewalks in time for me to pass through. My heart raced. Panic seemed through me as I raced up the stairs to my apartment. I informed my roommates of the crowd coming our way. Kelsey grabbed her camera and ran to the seen with me. A hundred people had gathered around the fountain across the street from us and a hundred more were still coming. I was in awe at the sight. People of every race were gathering to celebrate the election of our first black president. The crowd began its march back up to campus, but I hung behind. Once my panic had mostly subsided, I stepped out of myself and followed behind the group. Police from our town and neighboring boroughs tried to block off the streets, but they were no match for this jubilant parade. The crowd gathered once again in front of Carver Hall at the base of campus, ignoring the police warnings to move out of the road. They feared a riot, but this was the most peaceful and joyous gathering I have ever witnessed. I leaned myself against a tree in order to take in the sight. Hundreds of college students cheered, "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" To my right I heard one guy sarcastically cheering along, "O-sa-ma!" This is as expected. The similarity in the name had been pointed out since the beginning of Obama's campaign. The crowd cheered on. One African-American girl sang spirituals and other songs of peace. As the police became more annoyed, I saw a small group of African-American students running away from the scene. As one female member of the group lagged behind, another called out, "We're the first to go to jail! Don't you understand?" To which this slower girl replied, "Obama has made us all equal!" Then the speech began: "I had a dream..." The words sent chills down my spine. This was the common feeling. The dream that Dr. Martin Luther King talked about so long ago had finally been accomplished. Obama has made us all equal... I hope.

Cocoon

I keep making mistakes. I keep going backward. I feel like I'm stuck on one of those moving sidewalks, and I'm trying to walk backward. I'm not sure that's an accurate analogy. I feel like shit. Nothing I do is really right. I haven't even tried writing since the semester started. I'm failing at least 3 of my classes. Actually, make that 4. I'm not going to class. I'm not turning in my work on time. Normally I make it to class at least for the tests, but not this semester. I missed the second test in Methods. I've missed two tests in ASL. Ms. Klein never got my midterm paper for Deaf Culture. I don't know why, but she didn't. It doesn't matter. I only wrote half of it anyway. Why am I sucking so bad at this? My current GPA is 2.66. I got B's in both my summer classes. I was so proud of those B's. I never thought I would be happy about a B. What's happening to me? I don't journal anymore. I tried, but I felt like there was nothing I could write that would summarize this semester. I just need to pass all my classes. I can't worry about my GPA at this point. I just need to pass. Unfortunately, school isn't the only thing I'm worrying about.

I'm typing up my notes from my Deaf Culture class. Ms. Klein used this metaphor about a butterfly. The caterpillar is the process of learning. The cocoon is that time when you face your struggles. The butterfly symbolizes flying free when you know who you are. Who am I? I've never known how to answer that. Sure, there are my textbook answers: I'm a girl. I'm a Christian. I grew up in the South. Then there's all that other stuff: I'm a lesbian, a cutter, a poet. I'm clinically depressed. I deal with anxiety on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis. I can sleep for upwards of 15 hours a day. I'm a wannabe poet. I'm a decent singer (who can't get out of bed to go to choir practice at 12:30 in the afternoon). But who am I, really? This summer, at the CCM house, Jason supposedly described me as "a depressed lesbian." I suppose that's how people see me. Kelsey calls me her "dikey roommate." But is that all I am? I'm white. Is that an active part of my identity? Is my white-ness as important as my gay-ness? Does my 1% Irish-ness matter at all? What about my tend toward obsession? Or the fact that I like being drunk a little too much? How about that I smoke secretly at night? Does my rocky relationship with my parents explain my outburts toward my girlfriend? Why do I act the way I do? I know I should be better, but I don't know how to change. I feel so lost. Not that that's any different from the last 18 years. I'll be 19 in a week and a half. Am I still a teenager? Does it matter?

I'm a bad student. I'm a bad daughter. I'm a bad girlfriend. I'm a bad person. Or, at least, that's how I see myself.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=210879446&blogID=419422889&Mytoken=772F1A62-18BA-40E5-87FA3A9927CDB69465041411

ring

clipped from www.zales.com

Chapter 1

The day we moved was a strange one. The sun was bright in the blue sky above us. I looked out my window and noticed a cloud shaped like a pencil. I had always considered pencils to be extremely lucky objects. I knew the day would bring something spectacular from the moment I saw the pencil cloud.

Paige stalked into the room. Obviously, she didn’t share my optimism for the day.

“Mom says to stuff all your junk in this box.” She threw the cardboard box at me. I ducked.

“Thanks, you could have killed me with that. It was headed straight for my head.” I gathered the box and began filling it with my most treasured possessions. A gum-wrapper with my crush’s phone number on it, a plastic bobble-head doll that I swore looked just like a human version of my dog Samson, and an orange jump rope with three knots in the center were the last things I put in the box. I taped the lid shut and stood up to admire my work.

“Hurry it up, Amy!” my dad yelled up the stairs.

“I’m coming!” I grabbed my Cinderella pillow from the corner and began the long journey of scooting the box down the hall. I hadn’t decided how I would manage to get it down the stairs. I suppose I hoped a genie would appear and grant me three wishes like they did in the movies. I would wish for a unicorn, a secret hideout, and a personal assistant to carry the huge box of stuff for me.

“We’re leaving without you!” Paige called from the car. Somehow her voice traveled farther when she was frustrated.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” I pushed the boxes down the stairs and out the front door. “I’m here!” I said as I fell off the porch. I landed on my pillow with a soft thump. “I’m all right. Don’t anybody bother calling an ambulance.” I brushed myself off and continued the journey to the car.

Samson barked at me from his place in the back seat. It appeared he was saving the seat next to him for me. I climbed in the van. Having completed my duty of getting the enormous box outside, I handed (or rather, pushed) it over to Dad who hoisted it into the U-haul attached to the back of his truck. In a matter of moments we were on our way.

Paige protested our move to the middle of nowhere with a petition signed by all twenty-seven of the kids in her class, three Spidermans, and one George Washington. She insisted it was “a monstrous tragedy to uproot a girl after her first year of junior high.” Surely they would let her spend the rest of her school years living with her best friend.

Our parents looked at the petition, then each other. Then, to Paige’s surprise, they said together, “No.”

“But why?” Paige whined.

There was no answer, just a stern look from both our mother and father. Paige vowed to never speak to either of them ever again. The silence lasted a record-breaking two weeks.

Sitting in the back of the minivan, I wondered what would become of us. How would this move change us? Would this new life be better, or would we wish we had stayed in our big blue house on Main Street?

“What do you think, Samson?” I asked my puppy.

“I think this is stupid. Look around. It’s like they never even entered the twenty-first century!”

I glared at Paige. “I wasn’t talking to you. You were saying, Samson?”

“Aarf!” he replied.

“We’re here,” my mother said as she turned off the road and onto a dirt and pebble driveway.

“Whoopee,” Paige said sarcastically.

Exactly three hours and seventeen minutes after leaving the town I had grown to love, I was standing on our new front porch admiring the view. How different would it be living in the country after living in a bustling small town for the first twelve and a half years of my life? I would soon find out.

***

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” I tried to console Paige.

“Not that bad! Look around. The only thing around here to do is throw rocks!” Paige picked up a stone and threw it across the backcountry road.

“Mom says there’s an ice-cream shop in town.”

“We’re ten miles out of town. How are we supposed to get there?” Paige tossed another stone across the road. “We don’t even have any neighbors.”

I had no answer. Paige had made her point and made it well. There really was nothing around. There were no other kids for us to play with. I would be stuck with Paige all summer. Suddenly, I wished I had protested with Paige. Maybe two angry daughters would have made a difference.

“Paige! Amy!” We both turned toward the house.

“I guess mom wants us,” I said. We gathered ourselves and headed toward the house.

“What’d you want?” Paige asked when we got inside.

“What?” Mom looked confused.

“You called us. Here we are,” Paige said.

“No, I didn’t. But while you’re here…”

We didn’t know it at the time, but that day would be the start of something bigger than ourselves. Something incredible was about to happen. Our world would soon be turned inside out. There was no way we could have been prepared for the things that were to come.

Grandma-sitting

I'm Grandma-sitting today from 10 am to 4-ish pm. I'm tired, my back hurts, and my nose is all runny. There's also this fly that keeps bugging me. And it smells weird here. I've been trying to write, but I can't. I just can't find any inspiration. I found that story that I started writing in English class at co-op. It amused me greatly. I'll post it once I find the first chapter.

I've basically resigned myself to failing everything. I don't give a shit about any of my classes. They're useless. This semester has just sucked too much. I'll do better next time. I'll try harder. I'll be able to do more. I hope.

and here's to my many mistakes...

clipped from www.kawaiinot.com

Spork!!!!!!!!!!!!

clipped from xkcd.com

I used to think that if I killed myself....

clipped from www.asofterworld.com

The Art of Disappearing

The Art of Disappearing
by Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

journal entry, April 7, 2008, 4:34 pm

Silence. I spend my life in silence.
Dr. Barrett tried to make me talk in class today. Professors don't understand. It's not that I have nothing to say. It's not that I can't find the words. I just can't speak. I feel all jumbled. Thousands of voices inside of me. Each knows exactly what it needs to say. Each fighting to live on more minute. Each begging to be the one released. But the only voice I want to listen to, the only voice that really matters is silent. I still haven't found my voice. I'm still being pushed down into nothing. Sound can't travel in a vacuum. My body is a vacuum. I can't push my voice out. My ideas aren't new or radical, but I fear the repercussions of voicing them. You can't control what people think of you, but you can control what you give them to think about. Words. In the end, that's all there is. "Don't forget your obituary." He asked me what I thought that meant. It's what's left you when you're gone -- what people think of you. "But that's not what an obituary is." But that's what it made me think of. Silence. "Go on. You've got a good idea. You need the participation points." I can't. They don't understand. Am I the only person who feels like this? Am I the only person who's forced silent by something inside? I cry. That's the only way my words can escape. Even poetry can't hold this pain. Even poetry can't help me escape. My voice has been silenced. Not by society, men, or God. I've been silenced by the most powerful force -- myself.

Depression, too, is a kind of fire - Taylor Mali

I’m an idiot because once
before we were married she asked me whether I knew
that we would not be having children
if we did get married, and I said yes.

And because she knew I was lying,
she asked if I was really okay with that.
And because I’m an idiot I said yes again.

And once during a fight, not married
more than two years, she said she felt like my first wife,
and I, like an idiot, assured her that she was.

She worked out at the gym five times a week
and smoked as many packs of ultra lights,
and I’m an idiot because when I asked her why,
She said, Because I hate myself and I want to die.
And I laughed and said something I don’t recall,
something completely and utterly insufficient.

From the roof of our apartment,
I saw 40 or 50 people jump from the towers
on a Tuesday morning—we used to be able to see them to the south,
just as, to the north, we can still see
(and by “we” I guess I mean now just me)
the Empire State Building,
which still steeps me in gratitude
because I’m an idiot—
out of the smoke with arms flailing.
And I swear I saw a perfect swan.

And I was going to write a poem
about how fire is the only thing
that can make a person jump out a window.

And maybe I’m an idiot for thinking I could have saved her—
call me her knight in shattered armor—
could have loved her more,
or told the truth about children.

But depression, too, is a kind of fire.
And I know nothing of either.

In search of something more...

I'm running out of options in the friends department. I'm in a very creative mood right now and want to be with creative people. However, my friend options don't allow that. There's Missy, Eric, Ryan, and Dustin... video games. There's Jason... religion and sports. There's Anie and Schrader... mindless television. There's Debon... boring television. There's Corey... hyper-ness. The only person left is Kelsey and she's in the hospital. I'm really out of options here. I need new friends. I need friends who understand the things I like... poetry, art, video blogs... I need new friends.

"One Time, One Day" from Burned by Ellen Hopkins

One Time, One Day

between Davie | and Roberta
I asked my mom | why she persisted,
kept on having | baby after baby.

She looked

at me, at a spot | between my eyes,
blinking like I had | suddenly fallen
crazy. She paused | before answering

as if

to confide would | legitimize my fears.
She drew a deep | breath, leaned against
the chair. I touched | her hand and I thought

she might

cry. Instead she put | baby Davie in my arms.
Pattyn, she said, | it's a woman's role.
I decided if it was | my role, I'd rather

disappear.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I attempted to keep the visual integrity of this intact, but this thing won't let me. The vertical lines are supposed to be spaces. It's set up to represent her eyes and the spot between them where her mother is looking. Use your imagination.

I've had similar conversations with my own mother. Of course, since I'm her only child, these conversations were really not similar at all. Her sister, however, has 12 children. And once when I asked her why, she said essentially the same thing Pattyn's mother did... It's a woman's role.

second draft of my short memoir for Creative Writing

Silent Night

Christmas Eve with the Myers family: eighteen cousins, seven cousin’s children, two aunts, two uncles, a great aunt and a great uncle, a few scattered non-relatives, my grandma, my mom, my dad, and me. One night a year we put aside all the things that fight to pull apart our family: teen pregnancy, alcohol, drugs, heart attacks, MS, guns, the military. We put aside all the things that have pained us throughout the year. We celebrate family. We reminisce. We pray, though half of us have no god to pray to. We look at each other as beautiful human beings who are different in so many ways but are held together by the strongest bond.

Christmas Eve with the Myers family. We all possess an unconditional love for Grandma. It pains us all to watch her struggle with such a debilitating disease as MS. She receives many hugs this Christmas. We all fear it may be her last. She bridges the gap between her children’s worlds. Her five children are remarkably different from each other. My mom, the oldest, has only one child. Aunt Penny, a radically conservative Christian, is the mother of twelve. Larry is an alcoholic with four daughters, each on the same path he took. Aunt Julie, the most liberal of the girls, became a mother at age sixteen. Galen, the loner, has multiple sclerosis like his mother. Extremes are expected in my family. Myers children do nothing in moderation.

Christmas Eve with the Myers family. We ponder many things in the days before Christmas Eve. Will Larry stop by like he said he would? Will he take this opportunity to escape his hard life and get a warm meal for once? Will Galen visit? Twenty years of the Myers Family Christmas Eve Gathering and he never has. Will this be the one he attends? Have Larry’s daughters, the new generation of Myers girls, produced any more children this year? How many illegitimate children are in the family now? Will the girls bring the same boyfriends they did last Christmas Eve? The answers are predictable, but still we ask the questions.

Christmas Eve with the Myers family. There’s someone missing: Nicky. Twenty years of Christmas Eve and this is the first one without Nicholas. My cousin always picked on me, but I love him. He’ll spend his twenty-first birthday in Iraq. The family beams with pride at the portrait of their Nicholas in his army uniform. The family bonds over his excellent choice. I watch, silent.

Christmas Eve with the Myers family. This year we’re singing Christmas carols. Aunt Penny pulls out a box of hymnals. I sit in the corner of the newly-built living room and roll my eyes. All of the songs will be Christ-centered. Aunt Julie and the rest of the non-churchgoers won’t know any of them. I keep this thought to myself. This is not a day for me to speak. The children have all escaped to the freedom of the ice, snow, and trees outdoors. How I wish I could join them, be the child I never was. Only a handful of my older cousins are left with my mom, aunts, and grandma. The men are off talking about their days in the army or air force. Yet another time I have to keep my mouth closed. We sing five songs from the hymnals. My mom’s voice fills the room, sweet and wonderful. I sing along, my own voice a faint shadow of hers. Aunt Penny belts the lyrics with the confidence of someone unknowingly tone deaf. Aunt Julie teases us, laughing at how we sing without needing to look at the hymnal. The music is familiar to us. In truth, it’s lost some of its meaning.

Christmas Eve with the Myers family. The core group stays later than the rest. I’m left in the living room with Aunt Penny and Aunt Julie. The rest of my generation has run off to occupy themselves with something more interesting than gossip. How many months pregnant is Wendi now, seven months, eight? Do you think Lauren is pregnant again? Did she keep the last one or not? Have you heard anything from Galen? Is he taking the medicine for his MS? Is Mom improving? I stay silent. I have nothing to contribute to this conversation, or any other conversation my family has.

I'm reading "Big Fat Manifesto"

"Point that gun.
Squeeze that trigger.
It's so easy to shoot the Fat Girl.
After all, we make the biggest targets."

"It's open season on fat people, no limits, and no restrictions. Hold on to your supersized butts, Fat Girls, because we're the last acceptable targets for bashing, snarking, and discrimination."

"According to some facts and figures printed in USA Today, the typical starlet or cover model is around 30 percent thinner than an average, healthy woman and is likely struggling with issues such as hypoglycemia, hair loss, and even risk of bone loss from lack of eating. Did you know a few decades back models and stars were only 7 or 8 percent thinner than "normal" people? Wonder how that relates to our national size obsession and "obesity epidemic"? Food for thought."