i’ll be bach

I need a short hiatus. I’ll be back in a week or two.

depresso, the sad clown

It’s coming back.

Lord help us all, it’s coming back.

The sleeplessness. The complete and utter disinterest in food. The capability to burst out into tears at any given second.

The last time this happened I was seventeen years old. SEVENTEEN. You would think by now, my skin would be thicker. My heart more sturdy. Not so.

***

When I was a junior in high school, I was head-over-heels in crazy infatuation with this one guy. He was a year older than me and a fellow band geek. In proper form for someone of my generation, I discovered his existence on his Xanga and proceeded to stalk him for 5 months before actually meeting him at band camp in the fall of my junior year. And then, much to my utter surprise, I actually started to become friends with him. I could not believe the events that proceeded. Here was this boy that I had a mondo crush on and I was actually making contact with him! Talking to him ONLINE, sometimes, OMGZORS.

I was absolutely nutso for him. I hung onto his words like gospel, I did favors for him, I signed onto AIM and waited for him to IM me for hours and hours. I woke up every morning with the renewed hope of seeing him in the hallway and having him wave and smile at me. If you had asked me then, I would have told you he hoisted the sun into the sky every morning.

I asked him to go to my junior prom with me. He turned me down, which was embarrassing and unexpected. But I was a spunky little sixteen-year-old, and I knew that he did love me, he just couldn’t see me that way yet.

Eventually I got him to concede. He started paying a lot of attention to me, culminating in an awkward Applebee’s date and some time spent canoodling on the loveseat in my family room while watching Smashing Pumpkins videos in the dark. And thus began my first relationship. It lasted about two weeks. We kissed maybe 4 times and I hated every one.

He didn’t want me and never had. I had essentially forced him to like me. And–embarrassing confession–it took me a long time to get over that. Most of the details of the breakup are inconsequential. It was barely a breakup because it was barely a relationship. But what I do remember is the hard, dark feeling in my torso that didn’t leave me for months. I remember sleeping too much or too little. I remember growing pale and tired and anemic. I remember constantly ripping my cuticles out, a wimp’s attempt at self-mutilation.

Ah, seventeen. Looking back, I realize a number of things:

a) being a teenager sucks–a person looks at you funny and you explode into bawling wails or you desperately try to get them to be your friend or you fume with your fists clenched. It’s not a fun time.
b) that boy didn’t deserve me, not even a little bit.
c) what I learned from that experience did not prepare me for the actual agony of loving someone, except for that very tangible ache–the pain, betrayal and loss I felt for three weeks.

***

I’m home for the weekend and today my family told me I looked sad. And I knew I looked sad. My face felt heavy, the corners of my mouth would not rise.

My mom tried to cheer me up by asking me what I wanted to do for my 21st birthday. I couldn’t think of anything.

I’m tired of feeling seventeen years old again. I want to be as happy as I was 3 months ago. I want my blog entries to stop sounding like a myspace bulletin.

What’s new is the crying. A teenager wouldn’t cry like this. It’s power-crying, curled up like a fetus, hiccuping sobs and strained whispers into pillows: “please, please, please, please. please, please. i love him so much. please.”

I ask you all to bear with me. I will be boring. I will be Depresso, the Sad Clown. I will use phrases like “tangible ache” to describe the desire to cry. I. Will. Be. Emo.

I apologize for this.

this and that

You may or may not be interested to know that I’ve been keeping up with this Weight Watchers business, and these four and a half weeks of not eating bread have been well worth the 30-something sticks of butter I’ve lost. I’m 7 lbs away from my 10% goal and well, when I get there, Yea, there will be much Rejoicing in the Land. And much Shopping at the Mall for Ye Newe and Smallere Pantaloons.

You also may or may not be interested to know that, lately, I’ve been more or less successful at beginning to piece together the shards of my academic achievements.

And that today in my Contemporary Lit class, we read some of Rita Dove’s poetry and listened to Billie Holliday in the dark.

And that Dove said, in a poem called “Canary,” that Billie Holiday had a “burned voice,” and now I think will never listen to her sing without remember this image.

And that I am doing alright since my last entry, thanks. Not awesome, but alright.

I would try to write a little more today, but it would most likely slowly transform into a “I did x and then y and I thought z about it” type of situation. And we don’t want that. Good Lord, we don’t want that.

So I’ll stop here and apologize for the crap update and promise to have a point when I write my next entry. Aheh. heh. Enjoy your Friday!

tales from the crypt

It’s time for something cryptic and depressing! Oooh, I’m taking you guys back to my Xanga years! Enjoy.

**

It’s like no other feeling I’ve ever had, but I know it well.

This dull ache within my sternum, this restless worry in my belly. Imagine that all your fear and sorrow and doubts live in your throat, and when they are summoned they ring and vibrate and travel, inchwise, upward and outward, they crowd up, queued behind your eyes, and they push and push and push and they feel so strange until you realize what it is you must do: cry.

Tell me I’m not the only one to cry for someone who won’t cry for me.

**

WHO’S the Cryptkeeper? ME, THAT’S WHO. Rep. Re. Sent.

Poetry Monday: My Favorite Poem Right Now

Oh, this is a wonderful poem. It’s by Tom Wayman and it is exactly what I’d like to hear my professors say to the members of my generation who waltz into my classes and jauntily ask the question: Did I Miss Anything The Day I Was Gone? Oh, just read it. It makes my day, every time.

Did I Miss Anything?

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
on earth.

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered

but it was one place

And you weren’t here

in which I persistently use some kind of strange stovetop metaphor

Some things have been put on the back-burner while other things remain on those two front burners, hogging up the gas and bubbling over onto the stove, well past their intended cook-time.

For example:

Backburner

• washing these dishes that have been sitting next to me on my desk for about 3 days
• vaccuuming my floor, which is covered in tiny paper circles as a result of a fight I had with a hole-puncher
• completing (or starting) this Contemporary Lit paper that’s due in 24 hours
• reading Siddhartha for my World Religions class
• writing in this blog
• leaving the house for any reason

Frontburner

• reading every single post on Advice Smackdown in the span of 36 hours
• staying up until 4 am with my roommates, talking about Danielle’s imminent engagement to her boyfriend, Alex
• exercising (I KNOW, can you believe it? I think it’s an avoidance tactic.)
• furiously researching my career options and freaking out about what I’m going to do with my life when college is over
• having nearly relationship-ending arguments with Matt on the phone every day
• feeling bad about starting said arguments
• feeling self-righteous about my prerogative to start said arguments
• crying to my roommates about said arguments
• repeat steps 1-4

So I’m living in squalor, hunched over my laptop, reading advice about beauty products, planning my future, and sometimes crying into my keyboard. And alternately I venture away from my desk to roll around on a yoga mat.

Wow. Just add cats.

(By the way, that video clip is NOT the workout I actually do. Mine is much, much lamer.)

(By the way, how INTENSE is that lady in the video? She’s all like HUFF! PUFF! STRAIN! ABS!)

(PARENTHESES!)

***

Now, this is my question, addressed to anyone who is in a relationship (or has been or even desires to be in a relationship): What are the things that consistently trigger fights between you and your Other? For example, Matt and I know we’re going to fight a) when he promises to be somewhere or call at a certain time but fails to properly notify me that he’s going to be late, b) if he has to get off the the phone prematurely (this one probably only reflects my own particular pathology) and c) when I bring up certain spiritual/philosophical views (Yeah. That’s the big one.).

What are your triggers? Do you tend to not bring them up to successfully avoid arguments sometimes? Or do you just let them happen and duke it out?

love actually is all around

We rather like the concept of Valentine’s Day over here in the Townhouse. We’re all about it.

Behold:

Decor!

Delicious treats!

…dish scrubbers…?

Themed outfits!

***

This year’s Valentine’s Day was full of surprises. We woke up this morning to discover that someone had left a rose at each of our doorjambs.

We think it was one of the boys downstairs. Awww.

Then there’s this:

Look everyone, Matt sent me a giant cumbersome box, all the way from England!

Just kidding. These were inside:

They’re beautiful. Despite the fact that I had to ugly them up by using $1.00 plastic cups from Target as a vase.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Spread the love!

The Top 5

I’m going to get these over with as fast as I can. I don’t like to think about them but I know they are hilarious, so I’m sucking it up for your entertainment. Because I’m cool like that.

I like to call this the Top 5 even though there are only four. Only because I know the fifth one is coming and I want it to know it’s been expected here. It’s kind of like how pregnant women “nest.” Or, kind of like adding an extra candle to your birthday cake for good luck. Except the opposite.

The Top 5:

1) The time a bunch of pranksters called my freshman dorm room and pretended to be radio DJs from the college station, and they had me and my friend answer 5 questions and then told us we had won $300 worth of gift certificates to various restaurants/stores in the surrounding area. I went to the station the next morning to pick it up and ended up interrupting what seemed to be a meeting of the entire station staff. They collectively informed me that they hadn’t had a contest that night and that they had never had a phone contest in the history of the station’s existence.

2) The time I left class to go to the bathroom and accidentally went to the men’s room and was wearing purple shoes and had to hide out in the stall until every single boy left.

3) The time Linds and I were trolling her neighborhood and she was rollerblading and I was on a Razor Scooter and we were going down this hill and I was going way, way too fast so I got scared and tried to use the brake but instead of slowing me down, it scraped against the asphalt and started sparking. And then I panicked so I decided to abandon ship and I did the tuck and roll right onto Linds’ brother’s best friend’s front lawn.

4) The time in high school when I was a member of the all-girl “road crew” of our totally dreamy jazz band (which basically meant we gossiped, crushed on the boys, and sometimes untangled wires) and we were at a festival and I was helping to set up sound equipment and drums on the stage and then someone wheeled a speaker directly behind my feet while I wasn’t paying attention so that when I turned around my toes were pinned beneath the speaker and I lost my balance and twisted slowly on my side and rolled onto my back while an entire auditorium full of cute teenage saxophone players watched and laughed.

5) ONLY TIME WILL TELL.

So. What about you? What’s your All-Time Most Embarrassing Moment Of All Time? Come on. Even if it’s absolutely mortifying, at least you don’t have four.

Poetry Monday, Valentine’s Day Edition

Seeing as how Valentine’s Day is in four short days, I thought I’d try to find a vaguely topical poem. Unfortunately, if you google “Valentine’s Day Poetry” you get this gem and this one, too. So I decided to stick with Ms. Margaret Atwood again this week. Enjoy.

Variations on the Word Love

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It’s the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn’t what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there’s the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It’s not love we don’t wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It’s a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

***

Last night I experienced not one but two awful, awful leg cramps, the kind they call a charlie horse. Have you ever had one of these? They are HORRIFIC. I get them in my calf muscles and it feels like my calf muscle has locked in the tense, foot-pointed flex, and the muscle just bunches and bunches more and more until I feel like it’s up behind my kneecap. When you feel one coming on, you’re supposed to straighten your leg out and flex your foot towards your body. This prevents soreness in the future. But what I usually do instead is I curl my body into a ball and start pounding on the wall next to my bed and whisper-yelling “OH NO OH NO OH NO OH NO.” So um. Today I can’t walk. Wikipedia told me to stay seated for at least 12 hours because it keeps your leg bent, and if Wiki says it, it must be true. So I skipped both of my classes to heal my poor right calf.

All morning I felt awful and guilty and like was reverting to my Last Semester Ways, until I would stand up to do something like get a drink of water or turn on the light or open the blinds, and suddenly collapse to the floor because, oh yeah, I can’t walk. It’s so liberating to have a legitimate problem.

Anyway, since I’ve had ample time to do my work and lounge about, I’m back here with a blog post. My next one’s going to be about four of the Top Five Most Embarrassing Moments of My Life. Aren’t you excited?

men, skip this one and go eat a steak.

This entry is going to be about PMS.

There. It’s out in the open now.

This whole week I feel like I’ve reverted to my 15-year-old self. I know this feeling. It’s a complete and total loss of patience. Basically, any kind of persisting behavior pisses me off: my dad coughing intermittently all night, my sister’s table-tennis text messaging with one of her friends, a loud conversation happening outside my door.

I have completely lost the ability to be reasonable. I pick fights with people, I think hateful secret thoughts and whisper expletives under my breath.

I crave fast food and any foods involving melty and crunchy textures–grilled cheese sandwiches are my ultimate PMS food.

I experience random bursts of enthusiasm for unexpected things: taking up piano lessons again, graphic novels, technology, Alicia Keys, “going green,” cooking and baking.

It’s all dampened a bit since I was actually fifteen, but I still feel it. This month’s bout wasn’t really that bad, perhaps because I was distracted by the anticipation of the following events:

• my mom’s surprise birthday party–don’t tell! (March 1)
• my sister’s candy-themed Sweet 16 and the festivities associated with it, ::coughdress shoppingcough:: (March 15)
• planning my own 21st birthday party (April 23)
• the American Sign Language class I plan to take during Maymester on campus (Self-explanatory)
• a Mom’s-side-of-the-family reunion in Las Vegas!! I’ve never been there! I REALLY WANT TO SEE CIRQUE DU SOLEIL!!! Ahem. I’m done. (June 28 and the surrounding couple of days)
• my family’s summer vacation to our timeshare in Myrtle Beach. (Late July to early August)

Since I started college, the spring/summer stretch of the year has always been a friend to me. It looks like this year will prove to be the same. It’s enough to lift a girl out of the pre-menstrual doldrums.