I probably should stop posting my new stuff on here

before I actually perform it in public. Does anyone actually read this thing anyway? Should I be concerned?

"3am"

The last time I heard
“I love you”
like you meant it
I was 16 and you were driving away
Kicking up dust that would choke
On back country dirt roads
Sad excuses compared to city pavement
Lined not by buildings or cars or streetlamps
But by trees heavy with the snow and bent
Bent over like old ladies,
devoid of life, weeping.

The last time I heard
“I love you”
like you meant it
I locked myself in a linen closet
And cried into pillows with yellow daisies
Scented with lavendar and cedar wood
Drowning in cloth and teeth and tears
So no one could hear me
Hoping to silence myself
Between sheets and fabric
Just like you always did.

The last time I heard
“I love you”
like you meant it
It was followed by a hollow dial tone
And an empty gaze at the girl behind me
Or was it a mirror?
I can’t ever remember.

The last time I heard
“I love you”
like you meant it
you were lying on your side in my jeep
staring out the window at the passing cars
and lights and houses and people
As I drove you to the hospital
But those who see what you saw
Never speak of it afterwards
And you grabbed my hand suddenly
With a human whisper
Confessed your sins.


The last time I heard
“I love you”
like you ment it
You didn’t have to say it at all
But looked at the snowdrifts
With piercing fear and doubt
The kind of existential anguish
And lonesome solitude
That keeps you from sleeping
And slips you into a cold glove of panic
At 3 in the morning.
When you suddenly realize
That all you ever wanted
Was to be alone.

Fever Rising

My best friend from highschool is getting married. 10 days after my 22nd birthday, she's getting married to the guy she's been with for the past 8 years. They must be in love. 8 years of living together, of traveling around the world together. 8 years of compromise, of saying "yeah I got a full scholarships to the best schools in the country, but i'll go wherever you go". Making it work. I wonder if I'll ever find someone I'd give up my life for like that.

I turned in my budget report yesterday by the skin of my teeth. What a funny phrase. But that's just it, by the skin of my teeth. Barely even made it. Hit send at 4:59. There it was, that's all I could do. It's gotten to that point now that people are starting to look at me funny when I shrug in response to "What are you going to do next year?" You mean- you don't know?! You mean- you have no idea where you'll be living or where you'll work or what kind of job you'll have? You don't have a clue about what country you'll be in? You want to leave the states? (you call it the states?)

I have no clue. I still have no clue. I'm still waiting for that brilliant moment when the skies part and I'm given a sign. I'm not going to get married just yet. I'm not going to become a financial analyst and work on wall street just like all the other creative writing majors "just until i make enough money so I can write for a while". I'm not joining the peace corps or teach for america. I don't know what I"m doing with myself. It's like I'm waiting for that perfect ride to come along and pick me up, but for now, i'm the only sucker still walking on the side of the road with her thumb out. Scratch that. I don't even want a perfect ride. I just want a decent one, one that will take me far enough so I can have an adventure.

I think I need to get out of the northeast.

I was walking around campus today, and all of the sudden, I felt really old. I saw myself the way I saw the seniors when I was a freshman in college: adultlike, with their shit all together, with direction, demanding respect. Half the time I don't even know what I"m doing. And I wonder if that's what life really is: maybe we never really know what we're doing, and we're just sitting around waiting for someone else to discover that we're complete frauds, that we're just making it up as we go along. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a man on a train. At 22 he was a financial analyst. He went to harvard, majored in history and economics and now worked in connecticut, lived in a house with other financial analysts. His whole life was there, right in front of him. And he didn't want it at all. he looked at me and said "it's only a matter of time before they discover that I'm just faking it". Is that what this world is? Just ruled by chance, uncertainty and fakers? I talked to a freshman about how I wanted to transfer when I was her year. I told her I had expected college to be so much different, I expected to finally find "my people". I've realized now, however, that "my people" aren't who I expected them to be. We don't all agree, in fact, we disagree more. But thats what makes us interesting. We're all just making it up as we go along. We're all constantly scraping one idea and creating another of ourselves, a constant self-portrait in action. Constantly changing and learning and growing and editing, erasing and creating over and over again.

I feel like I have blinders on.

I start running subjects this week for my senior project. A senior project is supposed to be the culmination of our academic careers. It's fitting, then, that I have no idea what I am doing. Cross my fingers and dive right in.

Into pieces

I've been keeping tiny scraps of my college career. I wish I had started sooner. Party invitations, silly valentines, hate-grams, love notes, commented essays from professors, letters from Iraq, fliers for various events, cards from the deans or the president inviting me to dinner, articles from the newspaper, cutouts from the literary magazines. Anything to remind me that yes i did infact come a long way, and yes, i did infact experience a college experience, however strange and atypical. Looking back, I wish I hadn't taken myself so seriously, knowing now that no one outside the college bubble is going to know the difference between an A or a B on this next lab report. No one is going to care that I still have to look up proper APA style before writing my reference section, and no one is going to care that I switched my classes/lab groups/major/thesis topic at least 3 times before deciding on one that I'm still not sure I want to do. Sometimes I feel like my college experience is simply an extention of my high school experience, a series of hard times and awkward moments, strung together by common thread of knowing that someday we'd all fondly look back on our mistakes and laugh. It's a time to learn about a subject you're passionate about, but more importantly, it's a time to learn about how you react to being passionate about something. Just like high school, sometimes I wonder if college is simply a time to stress ourselves out, to panic over silly things, be they social drama or academic drama, to spread ourselves too thinly, or not enough. Maybe it's just another hoop we have to jump through, just like everything else, just to see how high and how far we can jump, how much we can push ourselves before we crack.
I watch those movies now, those hollywood movies about how college is supposed to be. How it's supposed to be this ongoing party, a balance between self-realization, hedonistic tendencies, social catastrophe, academic pressure and how we all somehow come out perfectly aware, being able to finally turn back around to that panel, or committee or single person who is judging us, who though seemingly doubted us the whole time was just in fact testing us, and stand up for what we truly believe in. And I wonder when this moment of clarity is supposed to occur. When is it my turn to truly stick it to the man, to infact become the man, and realize that it was all just a big test of my will to reach my potential?
I feel like I'm piecing my college career together in a folder, these tiny scraps of memories, of things I don't even particularly care about but that I know, one day, I will look at with longing and smile sadly about the way I didn't even know how good I had it.
A familiar sentiment envelops me as I put these pieces together: It's the fear of forgetting that is more painful than the forgetting itself.

Not a love poem

This is not a love poem
to shake the world
and make the sun rise
to lift prematurely tangerine
into the cold grey skies

this is not a love poem
about love unrequited
about a love that will
paint me gold and
change my life

This is not a love poem
written on partchment snow mountaintops
or sandy pear oceansides
Not filled with dramatic tears
or elongated lines and ...
which signify heartwrenching sighs

This is not a love poem
written for the sake of writing
a love poem
This is a I yeah I hate you
but you shouldn't have left poem
a you stole my heart
in a clumsy attempted theft poem
this is a you're a fucking nutcase
but i can't resist you poem
a why don't you shut the hell up
so i can just kiss you poem
this is a I should have known
and judged your track record poem
a I so kicked you to the curb
but now I want you back poem

This is not a love poem
about love true and pure
about love returned
about love was but is no more
This is not a love poem
that will bring tears to your eyes
nor a poem that will placate
anyone's heartbroken cries

This is a love poem
about the type of love
that defines the lines we draw
to connect ourselves like constellations
in the hallucinations of a solid sky

A love poem about the type of love
that makes me write love poems
In the margin of my spanish novel
straddling the lines of two languages
reaching to get through to you
any way I can
and always coming up short.

The type of love that will inspire me
to get up infront of everyone
and read this love poem
that I wrote
about no one
at all.

The moon cannot be stolen

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
***
A weakness of mine has been exposed. Ever since I was little, even when I am terrified, heartbroken or furious; I smile.
When I was little and fought with my brother, who would chase me around the house with a wooden spoon and scream, I'd stop and laugh. I'd laugh at him, even though I was scared of him. When my father and I argue, to the point of him threatening to cut me off financially, I smile. I get so angry that I smile. I don't know why this happens. It is as if in that moment I transcend the situation to see how funny emotion is, how it makes us act so irrationally, and how silly it is that I feel so negatively.
Even if I hate you with every particle of my body, even if you disgust me, I will smile. I will laugh. Because I don't know what else to do.

Business As Usual

These dirty streets are not my own
But I walk them
Barefoot
Wasted potential crackling like glass below my feet
Barefoot
Because I want to make a connection
To the life that lies low beneath black pavement
I can feel it
Breathe

Breathe like the boys with cigarettes who tell me not to smoke
Like the girl with the guitar who plays the blues
Guitar blues without smoke
Smokey blues and breathe
So beatuifully I try to cry
Out o creater, god prophet priestess poet whore
Write me a song and make it love me
These conditional blues notes ain’t notes of mine
But if they were, we’d make a damn good tune
Breathe in

Streetlights, nighttime
Dirty city grime
Into my lungs
On the soles of my feet
Into my blood
The blood of a nation runs below me
Covered by scabs of pavement and
Makeshift bandaids of buildings shaking
Scared of someday crashing down.
An empire destroyed before it was known
Or understood
Completely

O how I long for fields of wildflowers
No more plastic neon petals safe secured
behind synthetic sheets in a store in lower manahttan

I want to breathe something real
Believe in something real
To touch to feel to connect
I walk these streets that were never mine
And are never yours
barefoot
to remind you that
I’m real
You can touch me
I’m standing right behind you
Just
Turn around

with a side of salvaje

I woke up in a panic the other night, my body pumping with adrenaline. I had a realization, mid-dream. Whether or not I was ready to admit it, the passage of time is blatantly upon me. I lay in bed and stared out my window, the wind toying with unresting flakes of snow. Whether or not I was ready to admit it: this was my life and it's ending moment by moment. I've only got so long left in college. And then what? Sometimes I lose track of what's really important. I get caught up in the daily drama of social scenarios, boys being boys, girls being girls and everyone being so melodramatic and heartbroken and beautiful that I forget to really look at those people. Each a miracle, each so unique. Just like me. I forget that the most beautiful moments in life doesn't have to occur in exotic locations, far from home; that in fact the most beautiful things are the ordinary, like the sticky rings of coffe that my leaky mug makes on my desk in the morning, or the way my roommate grumbles an incoherent and beautiful "goodmorning" before falling asleep for another 3 hours.

Friday was incredible. Geo and I painted our faces and dressed like Cirque du Soleil acrobats. We wandered tripping through calf deep snow to watch a short piece about vampires, staring one of our mutual friends. It was great and it made me wonder how different my life would've been had I kept acting. Pete was great, it never ceases to amaze me how talented people are always right in front of us, and yet we never recognize them. Afterwards Geo and I stopped by opus and had a quick bite, and made our way over to the farmhouse, where some people were grouped together playing the guitar and singing. After a bit, i was faced with a slight misunderstanding and a bit of sadness, perhaps another sign from god or the universe or whatever that I'm doing all the looking in the wrong places.

I needed some alone time, so I wandered through the snow in my boots and velvet dress accross campus. I passed four groups of people speaking spanish with melodic accents from a place I couldn't put my finger on, two of whom called out to me in salutation. I began to cry. I don't know why. Perhaps because my pride was hurt, but I was really just overcome with the feeling of not belonging, of alienation. That's the best way to put it: I feel like an alien. Like I'm constantly harboring some kind of secret, and yet no one is fooled. I felt alone, no one could possibly understand me for who I am and appreciate me for my faults.

Teary-eyed and frozen, I climbed to the perfumed warmth and comfort of my friends in Eels, who cleaned me up both emotionally and physically. The kindess of other women is impeccable. Glancing around the room at them, the soft lighting and the dance music, I felt a slight tug inside: why have I avoided women throughout my life? Sure we fight and we judge, and we can be so cruel. But men are just the same. At least with women it's honest cruelty: with men, it's innocent cruelty. Like little puppies, they beg and beg for what they want and once they get it, they are contented, without even a flash of gratitude or compassion towards their masters. A trained response, that's all it is. I digress.

I was back on my feet in a few minutes, rejuvinated and happy to be alive. Still an invasive feeling of solitude pulled at me, but nevermind that. I was happy to be surrounded by such beautiful people. I walked back to the barn, and met up with Geo again. We sat front row center during our friend's performances. I walked over to my friends' in TKE who were having a party in the ajoining room. Everyone was dressed as pirates, and there I was as a clown. We all looked ridiculous, and I couldnt help but feel a sense of home with them. I always feel at home with them, even uncomfortably so. I met up with the girls from Eels and we walked to ELS basement. Our beloved basement brings back so many memories of freshman year. I hadn't been down there for a long time, and to see everyone dancing around to a live band dressed as clowns and circus performers made me so ecstatic. It was beautiful. Why hadn't I found these people before? No time for regrets, I suppose. I've only got a limited amount of time left.

I had the same dream last night. I was surrounded by people, in an apartment someplace warm, with silk tapestries and beads hanging from the ceiling and intricate rugs and pillows strewn across the floor. The walls were made of sand, hard packed sand like the kind children make sand-castles and sculptures out of. Every time I walked by the wall, bits of sand would stream down in cascading waterfalls. It was my apartment, I knew somehow. There was a sunflower growing from the top of a plain wooden table, which shone incredibly brightly that it lit the entire room in a beautiful dark tangerine. A man with dark skin and green eyes approached me. He didn't say anything and I poured him a glass of water. He looked at me intently, and I smiled. I said "I'll give you a couple months. You think about it, ok?" and he said witha voice soft and whispery, so startingly quiet and loving that it echoed in my ears after I awoke "You don't have a couple of months. All you have is now."
Cheers to that.

Letters, letters

I recived two letters, two actual, handwritten, beautiful, poetic letters this valentines day. One was anonymous. The other, from Iraq. Both brought about the same sentiment: that life is short, and for gods sake, why waste it looking for something or someone that cannot possibly exist.
I lied out on my bed again today and watched the sunset, watching the wind play with loosely fallen snowflakes that hadn't yet found their place amongst the rest of the piles and piles of snow. it was as if the wind was dancing with those flakes, and for a brief moment, I felt more solidarity with those misplaced ice crystals than anything I've ever felt before. Who am I trying to kid? I'm stuck in a phase, trying to figure out who I am and trying to see if there is anyone out there that is going to accept me for this person I may be. I feel like one of those snowflakes, being tossed and turned by life, and perhaps it's a sign that i need to pay attention more.
I walked alone tonight, practically knee deep in snow and passed, on separate occasions, four people speaking spanish. It's times like these when all i want is to go home; to go to a place where people seemed to "get" me more, to understand all my idiocyncracies or at least accept them for what they were. I haven't experienced homesickness like this in almost a year. Homesick for a place that I don't even belong. Homesick because I don't even know where home is anymore.
These letters are beautiful and give me hope. But also give me a sense of loneliness. Just as the anonymous person falsely (although perhaps sweetly) claims to love me, s/he does not know who I am. Because no words can express me accurately, no actions, no voice. You think you love me, but you only know a part of me, however big, however small. You say you want to be remembered. A true claim in the face of death, a voice of reason in the madness of destruction. Of course you want to be remembered. And I will remember you, just as you wish that I remember you: fighting for something we can never attain. I love you and respect you but I could never be you. I cannot relate to your pain, because I can only imagine the existential pain that can come with killing another.
I'm sad. and I feel trapped. And even now, after 4 years in this place, and 21 years in this life, I don't know how to get out.

Why I think cupid needs to be shot in the butt

No, not because I'm bitter. I enjoy being bitter (and I hate it when bitter people say that). Cupid needs to be shot in the butt because Valentines day is a hoax. People should be this loving and compassionate every day of the year. It would mean so much more to me to get flowers or chocolate or (hey how about this one for a change?!) spend some meaningful time with people I care about any other day of the year. But tomorrow, valentines day, is like that cop-out day. It's like the day where girls expect that shiny/sparkly/chocolatey/lacey crap and guys expect... well... we all know what guys expect. It's all about the image. Because if we're that one little kid without any valentines in our desk when we come back from recess, our self-esteem plummets way down. I've never been that little kid, but man, it must suck. Honestly, I'd rather be that little kid and then be someone special any other day of the year. Yeah sure, I could get a box of chocolates or a buffer-gram or (haha) one of those sorority crush bottles or whatever. But that's just sooo easy. I want thoughtfullness and compassion on a day where it's not broadcast across the country. Everyone gets valentines on valentines day. Give me a love letter (a real love letter, not a valentine) any random day of the week, and I'll spare cupid's little ass. But seeing as though that's a) not going to happen or b) going to happen but from some guy who thinks it's an easy way into my pants, cupid is gonna have to cover it up tomorrow. Little jerk.

psychology or philosophy

Science: a set of logical and empirical methods which provide for the systematic observation of empirical phenomena in order to understand them (skeptic.com).

Psychology: an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior.

So then *why* is it, that whenever I mention psychology as a science, biology concentrators, chemistry concentrators and physics concentrators get all flustered? The biggest argument I always get about psychology being a *humanities* subject instead of a scientific one is that you apparantly can't prove anything in psychology. My response is the obvious (particularly to those bio people): can you really ever prove anything? What is a theory? It's not a fact. Sure it is dependable, but any person who as studied science would know that you can't *prove* a theory.
Something that really freaks out biology, chemistry and physics concentrators is the connection between their field and my field. Psychobiology (aka neuroscience) where we study the effect of certain mental illnesses on the brain, Psychopharmacology where we study the affect of certain chemicals on the brain. Psychophysics where we study sensation and perception and the relation between the stimulus and sensation (this includes differential sensitivity, absolute sensitivity, signal detection, partition scales, psychophysical ratio scaling, etc. You can borrow my book on psychophysics if you don't believe me.)
Psychology is not this whimsical, subjective study where we sit and interpret your behavior. True, it used to be like that, but then again biology used to be like that too and physics didn't exist. Things change and so does science. Most psychologists know better than to use open ended, subjective tests in order to study cognition and behavior. The reason? It's a pain in the ass to code (ie: taking an open-ended response and giving it a numerical value). No one wants to go though 45 pages of hand written notes and code them all. Furthermore, since we do (gasp) study cognition and know the brain quite well, we also know that to go through by hand and rate open ended responses could lead to a variety of problems (rater fatigue, observer bias, etc)
Furthermore, there is this ridiculous sentiment that since we all are conscious, thinking animals, psychology is common sense. Oh how the opposite is true. Anyone who has ever experienced depression could tell you that it isn't something you can control and just *snap out of*. You can't diagnose yourself, especially when you're in that state. But what about social psychology? That's definitley common sense, right? Wrong again. Social psychologists have found a number of phenomena which are actually counter-intuitive (although now, due to the widespread popularity of the results, perhaps because they are so shocking, people may consider them to be common sense. This is, however, much like the way we consider smoking to be bad for your health to be common sense- it wasn't always so obvious.) We'd all like to think we are the exception, we'd all like to think that if we saw someone getting mugged or a raped or killed, we'd intervene, we'd at least call the police. But it's not so. There are a number of factors which control our behavior in that moment. The truth is, the majority of us would keep walking, or close the windows, or turn up our ipod headphones.
Take my thesis: although I can't tell you directly what I'm studying (because many of my potential participant pool have access to this page), I can give you the gist. Basically, I'm studying unconscious attitudes (ie: the way you feel about someone without even realizing it- sort of an example would be the way you dislike someone without knowing why) and their relation to uncontrolled body movement. People get all freaked out whenever I mention the words unconscious or uncontrolled. Immediately they think of Freud and the subconscious as this like weird place (think Being John Malcovitch) were all your neuroses come together and you want to have sex with your mother etc etc. I'm not talking about that place.
Perhaps a good example is the shooting of Amadu Dialo. Dialo was an imigrant from Africa (I forget which country) who had just moved to a poorer neighborhood in new york city. He didn't speak much english and understood even less. He had heard from one of his friends that many people get mugged in that neighborhood. While he was walking home late one night, a car full of undercover police officers spotted him. They thought he looked suspicious. They got out of the car and began to follow him. When the told him to stop and turn around, Dialo did not understand. He reached for his pocket and pulled something out. The NYPD unit fired 41 rounds at the unarmed African immigrant, at point-blank range, killing him instantly. When one of the officers was called back to the scene, he was shocked to see what was in Dialo's hand. Not a gun: a wallet. Dialo thought the cops were mugging him, and tried to save himself. The shocking part was that the cops did not see the wallet: they literally *saw* a gun. When we have expectations of things, our minds can play horrible tricks on us. There is nothing whimsical or unscientific about studying the way our minds behave in these kinds of situations. We can manipulate and recreate these kinds of situations in the laboratory all the time (with less violence, of course).
Think you're different? Of course you do. Check out the demonstration:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
The results might shock you.
Basically, my tip for anyone who confuses psychology with philosophy? Take a social-cognition course (how the thoughts you think affect your behavior and your well being in social situations). Or better yet, take a Psychopathology course (and study things like Multiple Personality Disorder, Schitsophrenia, Chronic Depression, Anorexia Nervosa, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder etc..). Maybe that will change your mind.

did you know?

More women die from cervical cancer than AIDS every year in the US.

www.tell-someone.com

Shining armor and all

I know I often complain about ridiculous situations I get myself into, and most often these complaints are broadcast to pretty much everyone via my poetry. But it never ceases to amaze me how people (mainly guys) always think they are the exception. Just as an example, I've had so many people approach me about "finding my nice guy" who I referenced in two of my pieces. The comment usually goes something like "Did your nice guy call you yet?" and I smile and say "No he didn't" and then he says "well here I am." And as cute as it is, I just hope to god they aren't serious. It's happened at least 10 times now. How could he possibly be serious? Because if he *was* infact that nice guy, he would need to know me before assuming he's what I'm looking for, and I'm what he's looking for. I mean, it seems like this nice guy quest has only called everyone else out of the woodwork, nice guys or not. I'm not saying they aren't nice, most of them are pretty great, but honestly it's just not working for me anymore. And then I get the nice guys who try too hard to be the nice guy I'm looking for (down to quoting john cusack!), and then it's just awkward and sad and I don't know what to do about it. Solution? Kill off the nice guy character. He's got to go. Then again, it's probably too late for that anyway...
The truth is, the nice guy doesn't exist. It's an imaginary scenario that I created to get people thinking about the way they act- both men and women: are certain guys so slick that they don't even realize we see right through their game? And why do girls always go for the blatant asshole types? These are important questions to ask ourselves because no one is exempt. I always go for the assholes. It's like this mommy complex where I think if I take care of them, they'll change. But man, at least I know that about myself and am trying to change it. But by fronting as a nice guy, you're not being a nice guy-- you're being slick. And what do they expect? That my eyes will be open and all the sudden god's hands will come through the sky and push us together and angels will sing? Do they think I'll have sex with them then and there because they say they're the nice guy I've been waiting for? It's not gonna happen because clearly they don't know me. They know a part of me, a performer part of me where I'm confident and funny and cocky and kind of a bitch. And they like that part of me. But there's this whole complicated other side of me which, yeah sure it seems kind of romantic and whatever- the tormented poet/activist blah blah blah- but it's not. I'm kind of a pain in the ass, and I know that. And I know that not many people can handle my moodiness, sensitivity and quirkiness. And furthermore, I don't shave my legs often. That cuts out at least half of those "nice guys" because god knows if she doesn't shave her legs she's a dirty radical hippy feminist (or, you know, just lazy...).
Anyway, I guess I'm just kind of disappointed. There's this sentiment that I can sense where people feel like they need to rescue me. I've always gotten that feeling from people, perhaps because I'm so much smaller than everyone else, but men always feel like they need to rescue me and protect me and slay the fucking dragon for me. And while some chivalry is nice, I'm stronger than I look and I've dealt with things that I pray no one else has to deal with at this age, man or woman. I've been faced with the prospect of death twice already in my life, so I'm aware that I'm fragile, but I'm also aware that you are too. I've got so many walls up, it would have to take a grenade to hurt me deeply. I don't need a knight in shining armor, I need a guy who is as complicated and twisted as me, who can handle my neuroses and I can handle his. And I know guys like that exist. I know a few of them.

Peregrinacion

Curled up in a comfy sweater and overstuffed chair with a soy chai and a copy of Coehlo's The Pilgrimage, I am transported back to one year ago, walking half my normal pace through crowded streets, dodging tourists, dog excrement, old gypsy women handing out sprigs of rosemary and pickpockets. It occurs to me: I must go to Pamplona, just south of the Pyrenees. I've never been there, and until that moment, in a backdrop of snow, the desire to become a pilgrim had never been so strong since I was in Granada:
- No te vayas (Don't go)
-Volvere, no te preocupes (I'll come back, don't worry)
-Siempre dicen eso. Nunca pasa. (They always say they'll return. They never do.)
-Te prometo. Volvere (I promise. I will return)
But I realize now that the desire to return, to go back to a place in my mind that is the resonating home of my heart, is really just a desire to dig deeper into this world and what little time I may have left. My promise to return was not a physical promise, although I would love to return to that city some day. It was more of a spiritual promise: I will return to be reborn again, to bury myself in the dirt of life, to sleep on cliffs and be covered in my fears. To live off of only what I can carry and the kindness of others. I will return meant that this journey I started one year ago would not be over, simply postponed to finish out my duties as a suburban college girl.
Once again, I have found the desire to be struck in the face by the odd coincidences in life, the meaningless yet beautiful way our lives are woven together and torn apart to create intricate knots and patterns that, if they carry any meaning at all, it is a meaning we haven't the capacity to understand. Like an untranslatable phrase, or an emotion that has no name.
I don't know what is the cause, but I'm craving that enchanting magnetism of uncertainty. And in a way I feel like I have failed to transmit that magnetism into life here at school, that shocking pulse which revives us from the cold and emotionless drone of our daily lives. I wanted to be a vessel of this love, I don't know what else to call it, to share the ecstatic nature of life that was once shared with me. But perhaps I'm not ready yet. I've already forgotten how it feels, I only have my words- words which only grant the surface of my intended message...

"Girlie" push-ups

I was 7 years old. The type of 7 year old girl who is what your mother would call a "raggamuffin". I had knotty hair and always falling all over the place. I was really awkward (a trait that plagued me up until senior year of high school), and my arms stuck out like fragile sticks. But man, I could do pushups.
I could do as many push ups as my 7 year old twin brother. And they were the normal kind, none of that "girlie" push-up stuff. I could also run a mile as fast as the boys, do as many pull-ups and crunches as the boys. It never occured to me that because I looked different than them, I wouldn't be able to acomplish the same tasks. And then it happened. I was 12 years old and these new girls came to school. They all seemed so much older, already grown out of their awkward pre-adolescent phase. Probably as a result of my shyness and my smallness, I was simultaneously terrified and in awe of them. They wore tight fitting clothes to gym class, shaved their legs regularly (something I still don't do), and talked about boys, clothes and pop-music. I felt like an alien standing amongst them, short, brown and skrawny in my boys gym clothes and my hair in a messy braid. Our gym teacher told us to do a certain number of pushups, and so I began. Not 5 seconds into my push-up routine did one of the girls yell out:
"can we do girlie pushups?"
There i was, mid pushup, and i looked over and the new girls who weren't doing pushups at all. But then I looked at my friends and they were doing the same thing. It was the cool thing to do- to handicap ourselves because we were girls. I was the only one doing "boy pushups". With an exaggerated eye roll the gym teacher allowed them to proceed in the pathetic form of girlie pushups. Even at that young age, I knew something was up.
The next year the annual mile run became "optional" for the girls. We had the choice to partake in the fitness test or to attend a Home-economics class. Guess which one most girls chose. Guess which one I chose. I beat most of the boys that year in the mile run. I remember my gym teacher pulling me aside afterwards and congratulating me.
It starts so young. And so I wonder how much of this gender difference in strength is true, and how much is ingrained in our behavior since age 12. Of course a guy who is twice my height and weight can lift more than me. I don't doubt it for a second. Hell, a girl who is my height and weight can probably lift more than me. I'm not a very muscular person, and I'm OK with that. but how different would I be now if I was never introduced to the world of handicapping, of "oh I"m a girl and I've got my period and I'm so weak and I CAN"T POSSIBLY run a mile in this condition (ie the condition of being a woman)." Seriously.
And that's something else that really gets me. I can't stand these midol/tylenol/advil commercials that make it seem like every 28 days we grow scales, devil horns and turn into a bitch bigger than the incredible hulk. In reality, PMS doesn't affect everyone like that. Furthermore, I resent having something natural and normal being refered to as something negative, a hassle, a pain. By doing so we're just proving the theory that female bodies are defective male bodies (thank you Freud, Plato and Aristotle). The truth of the matter is that everyone goes through mood swings. I know mine don't even coincide with my cycle. I know guys that turn into assholes like clockwork every month and girls that stay rational and level headed. I love it that when a girl is moody, she's PMSing. When a guy is moody he's either an artist or got Bipolar Disorder (ie a true disorder, which is caused by imbalanced chemical levels that can be treated with medicine, as opposed to an imaginary disorder like PMS which is caused by a woman uterus floating around her body and can't be treated by anything other than common household pain killers.) What now, professionals?!
And no, I'm not PMSing as I'm writing this. I've got another 2 weeks of "normalcy" until my skin scales over...
And while we're on hte topic of media and portraying ridiculous images, let's talk about the body image issue. It's pledging season and so I really have nothing but pity for those freshman girls. They might as well walk around with signs on their necks saying "Please don't feed the pledges". It's weird how we only associate body insecurity with being overweight. I think my own self image is so messed up at this point, and yet somehow my insecurities aren't valid because I'm small. Believe it or not, until I am made self-aware (aka put infront of a mirror) I think I'm overweight. Then when I am put infront of the mirror, I'm still not satisfied because I'm *too* little. I mostly blame the media for this. There is this ideal woman that we're all striving to be, who doesn't even exist and could never exist. I hate how our media basically sets us up for failure, we're constantly being told that the way we are isn't good enough.
When I talk about this I don't just mean girls, guys go through it too. But there is something about the way they project it onto girls that is especially damaging. There is nothing damaging about being told you should be strong and powerful, (ie the natural progression for a male body after puberty) but there is something horribly wrong with the way women are told we're to be small and fragile (ie the un-natural progression for women after puberty- we gain weight because we need to have enough fat to bear children).
I bring this up now because I am taking a cardio class at college, and I find myself feeling the same way I felt when I was 12 and awkward. I look around the room and I am not just the skinniest, but the *smallest* person there. And it's not a good thing. It's a very bad thing. I actually feel a level of disgust looking at myself. And yet when I express this, people think I'm nuts. It's disgust that passes, of course. I don't hate myself nor do I have an eating disorder. But for that split moment, it's like I'm joining in with the rest of womankind in hating myself, my body and feeling weak and incapable. Will we ever be happy with who we are? I'm working on it. But I'm not sure if it's possible. Perhaps the damage has already been done. Perhaps we should ban girlie pushups and home economics classes for 6th grade girls. I'd like to have words with the dumb jerk who came up with the concept of girlie pushups...

spokenword additions

A new classic? Probably not, but I still think its funny:

"Freshman boy poem"

Ladies and Gentlemen
I have a confession
my new thing is
a slight obsession
with those adorable boyse
whom we call freshmen

I know I know
I said the curve theory had to go
But i've reconsidered my decision
please ehar out my revision
because i think they're so darn cute
in that creepy
I want to use you as a teddybear way

Digressions digressions
I want me a freshman
Intead of giving that freshman girl tart
a jaded senior girl glare
I'll go up to that poor shmo
who thought eh actually stood a chance
to win out over the senior econ major
with embroidered whales on his pants
And steal him away
"But we met on AA!"
he will say

I just can't resist
the awkward conversations
and the typical
"so you're a senior.....
... what's your thesis?"

Man, nothing turns me on more
than a poor freshman pledge
puking on my floor

I love how they go home
so their mom can do their wash
and how they pop their collars
because they still think it's posh

And how they'll take me on a date to the diner
because they don't ahve cars
and I love how they suggest innocent corny things
like going to minor field to watch the stars

I know the freshman boys are tough
because they take a lot of flack
consider this a calling to senior girls
maybe we should cut them some slack

We've all been there:
senior boys think they're so wise
and junior boys don't look us in our eyes
(helllooo? I'm up here!)
Sophmmore boys, well, been there, done that
but freshman boys, man
I got your back.
**
"A spoken word poem that (gasp) is poetic and (gasp) is meant to be spoken (softly with hands in your pockets and eyes to the floor)"

He came to me well dressed that day
seeming as if he had something important to say
Poster child for
Brooks brothers catalogue
but He was missing a button
an empty space second from the bottom
tucked into a black belt that matched his shoes
hoping I wouldn't notice

He tried to sell me
But I knew He had nothing real to say
I tried to push Him away
Him and His imperfections
Imposter! Liar! Bastard!
Who do you think you are?
You think you can fool me?
I wanted to say
and I let Him get away.

That night I looked through
black and white picture books
and tried to remember the color of his eyes
but I couldn't no matter how hard I tried
I walked through city streets to clear my head
and ran into an old man who
for 20 bucks and a handle of vodka
sold me my heart wrapped in a box of grey
I felt cheated as I walked away.

But I dreamt that night of colors.
tangerine walls and crimson suns and
water a sparkly blue.
Green eyes.
And decided that If he ever came back
I'd let him stay
and we'd say all the things we shouldn't say
That we tried but couldn't say
If he ever came back
I'd fix His button.
I'd do it for free.

Being afraid

Spent an hour watching the snow fall this morning. I don't know why I never watched snow fall in the past, and I'm not even sure why I think it's so profoundly stunning. It's weird how things can change so rapidly, things change and your outlook changes and the way you physically percieve the world changes. There's something incredibly beautiful about the way the snow matches the sky. I never liked winter before. But now, just zoning out and watching the snow fall, it's just the most comforting thing I can do at this point. I feel like I'm watching my life fall from the sky in clean little pieces. I wish I knew how this was going to end, or even if it will end. I might be over-reacting. I don't even know how I'm supposed to react to this. No one ever taught me how to wrap my mind around somethng this big. I've got this numbing kind of fear that follows me around- one minute i'll be fine and the next, just stunned with fear. Scared to death. How ironic. I need to be productive about this, that is the only blessing that can come of all this- i need to help stop it from hurting anyone else. It's so hard to make a connection- will they listen? probably not. But I have to try. No one should have to go through this. And so I'm just turning my life off and watching the snow as much as I can, just to have something predictable to hold on to.