how we spend our days is how we spend our lives

sometimes it's easy to start feeling dead. you think to yourself, "these things i'm doing, every day, they don't mean shit. i'm not changing anything. there are 6 billion people on this planet and i act like it's just me." and then you just feel dead.

this weekend, i didn't feel dead. i felt cold and out of breath and hungry and thirsty and sometimes that makes you feel your heart beat a little stronger. i was part of something bigger than me. i took part in being homeless for the homeless, and i did it with 60,000 other people. i wrote letters and worked with a team and slept in cardboard and felt for the first time in a long time that maybe, just maybe, the world was getting a little better because of me.

alot of people think that maybe they don't matter. that their vote doesn't count or their attendance isn't great enough to matter. but someone once said, "never doubt that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world, indeed it is all that ever has." and the truth is, that if every one person thinks they don't matter, then they don't. but if each one thinks they do, we can do great things.

this weekend, we thought we mattered, and we did.

it was worth it. i was cold and didn't sleep and hungry and tired, but god it was worth it. and if you can wake up every day and know that what you're doing every day is worth it, then i think you may have found a dream.

someone else once said that the world is changed by those who show up.

and we did.

<3gen

watch at your own risk

storybooks

pssst.

i don't know if you noticed, but i went missing. there was this rabbit, see, and he was really late for something. and i followed him up a giant beanstalk and met with some flute-playing cattle and this one girl who could spin straw into gold. and there was this princess with really long hair and every night seven little men would climb up her blonde locks into the shoe where she lived and play songs that made the whole world fall asleep.

so that's where i've been.

some sort of asleep.

i know that i broke some things when i left, or maybe broke them before i left and left them that way. and i'm trying now, desperately in fact, to repair any and all of those things. if you were one of those things, i'm sorry, and i'll try not to go away again, i promise.

sometimes a girl gets lost.

good thing someone thought to leave breadcrumbs to lead me home.

<3gen

the last hour

the following has occured in the last hour:

-called my boyfriend and had a nice talk
-watched a video of a hamster carrying around a bag of animal crackers
-watched another video of the same hamster washing his face
-wondered who was filming this hamster so often
-decided i wish i had a hamster
-wondered why i didn't keep that cool mouse from ben's house
- ate a half a bag of cheddar potato chips
-channel surfed to the point where my fingers hurt
-watched House and pieces of Wayne's World
-decided tyra banks is just really creepy
-watched a video of a baby sloth and wished i had one
-tried to make plans with my family in montgomery
-got excited about introducing ben to my family in mongomery
-heard that my friend is getting sex letters from ex-boyfriends in prison
-wished two of my friends could be together
-"when i get out of prison"
-missed my boyfriend a little, but didn't want to call because i just did
-oh yay scrubs is on, gotta run

<3gen

wish me luck i know you think i'll need it

"today is a day of endless possibilities!"
she yells from inside her with all of her ability
tiny and bouncy and curly on top
and a light inside her that never gets turned off
sometimes she wakes me with all seven verses
of a little kid song that she never rehearses
because girls like her just don't need practice
in knowing ways to add to your brightness
or how to appreciate the everyday adventure
from shopping for lightbulbs to telling the future
and i got no problem in sayin' i'd be nothin
if i had to live without lindsey mullen

<3gen

that last bit of sanity

so, what could describe me right now?

hm...

miserable is a good word. exhausted, weak, drained. my head hurts, my teeth hurt, my back hurts, my stomach hurts. my fever goes from 102 to 98 in an hour, i shake from cold then i'm rolling in sweat from heat. the coughing rips at my chest and i feel like i'm gonna throw up but nothing happens except dry heaving. i haven't eaten anything in almost three days and probably won't be able to change that. according to my mother [who i trust more than my doctors because the doctors gave me orange juice, which my mother said not to drink, and it made me throw up, so fuck you doctorface] i can only eat chicken broth or clear liquids- nothing with acid in it. however, i don't have chicken broth, nor do i have a ride to get any, because god know i am not driving with tihs many prescription drugs in my system. not to mention i'm out of tissues. damnit.

so yeah, this sucks. and tomorrow is lindsey's birthday, and she gave me a birthday that was so amazing, and i feel like i can't do anything like that because i just don't have the energy or even the ability to barely write her name on a piece of paper. i feel so shitty about the whole thing. but i'm gonna do my best, and we'll see how it turns out.

my sister is coming to visit tomorrow, so that should make me feel better.

<3gen

if you still love me, please forgive me

i think perhaps childhood memories are better left there.

when i was in the third grade, i had a boyfriend named beau cannon. he was the coolest kid ever, and we always played power rangers with each other on the playground, he always rescued me. we would hang out at his house and watch cartoons an dplay in his back yard. he was a sweet kid and i gave him his first kiss [by third grade, i'd already passed that milestone]. but on the last day of school, he left me a gift on my desk, a nice hairclip for my hair, chich was past my hips back then. i went to find him outside to thank him, but i never saw him again. he moved away, and i never knew what happened to him.

ever since, i've looked for him. just in little places. i thought he had moved to mobile, so every once in a while i would google his name or ask someone if they knew him if they were from mobile. nothing spectacular. but since the advent of facebook, i broadened my search. i thought i could find all my old friends, stephanie denise from kindergarten, philip pender who got hot glue on my leg in fifth grade, omar awwad from seventh. i kept searching for beau, and low and behold i found him. we messaged back and forth, talking about power rangers, how he's engaged now and in the air force, and how our lives went from third grade into college.

now he's calling every day. i don't know how to react. i wanted to see how he was, make sure the memories were real, se eif he remembered me too. but now it seems that he doesn't have anyone to talk to, and he's calling me off the hook so that we can sit on the phone in silece. like lindsey says, there's no etiquette to how to deal with this sort of thing, re-meeting your third grade boyfriend, but i don't think this is the way to go. now it seems he's socially retarded, confused, marrying too early, and downright dumb.

the moral of the story, i suppose, is that i should have left it alone. i had great memories with beau, of playing pretend and him un-chaining me from evil's clutches during recess. we played connect four and card games, he gave me a power rangers valentine that i still have in a box at home. it was a bright spot in my childhood, a fun story to tell my friends. he was cute. i kissed him on the black top. we played kiss-chase.

but now, i tseems tainted. with the real beau. the 11-years-later beau. the beau that has nothing to say, and doesn't have any friends, and wants to talk about nothing. the beau who seems a little obsessive, a littel over-excited. a beau i wasn't planning on making time for. and now i feel like that little piece of my life growing up has a stain on it. i suppose i expected to find him and all of a sudden he would still be in third grade, and i would be too, and the past would crawl back soft and without discomfort.

i'm not going searching on facebook for any memories anymore, and i suggest none of you do either. it's lifting up a rock you lifted up as a child, but back then the things you found there were fun, and now they're just scary.

<3gen

he was part son part earth part daughter part sun

the girl was right.

the universe delivers exactly what you need exactly when you need it.

i believe that more and more every day.

and begin to replace "the universe" with "god".

maybe he knows what he's doing more than i give him credit for.

<3gen

without you, the ground thaws

i don't want to have to do this. i would give anything to be able to do things the same way i have always done them. to stay the girl i always was, even though now i'm a different girl than i've ever been. i'm trying so hard and i don't seem to be succeeding at much of anything.

it's time to make some sacrifices. to do things i don't want to do because they are the RIGHT things to do. i will not think about myself. i will not think about what i want. it's not that day anymore.

it's time to start breaking hearts.
i've gotten so good at it,
i can even break my own.

<3gen

there's a secret magic past world, that you only notice when you're looking back at it, and all i wanna do is turn around

i need something right now, or someone.

but god knows what it is.
if only i knew.

i feel so lonely.

i don't know what i want anyone to do about that at all. and i don't know if i want someone to hold me and keep me safe or to tell me they hate me and leave me alone.

i got in a wreck, in case anyone's curious. lindsey was driving, and we are both find save some minor knicks from broken glass. i'm a little overwhelmed, and overreacting to say the least.

i feel completely let down and drained of everything. i give up, completely. why even bother trying? i just feel so incredibly angry with myself and at the world and at god and at everything.

me: camel's back.
this: the straw.

okay. i'm broken. YOU CAN STOP NOW.

<3gen
i wish any of this made sense

snails see the benefits, the beauty in every inch

lately, things aren't going so well. i'm worried about a lot of things, and i seem preoccupied with trying desperately to fix something in me that seems to be broken. sometimes i feel like i'm losing it. thta something about me that was really bright and happy. i'm afraid it might be going out, little by little. sometimes i get so overwhelmed with living, i just have to sit and wait and feel nothing until i can move another inch.

and yet, i feel so happy. i listen to music and dance around, or read a good book and feel it seeping into me like sunlight tanning skin. i feel content with things, like maybe things being messed up are how they're supposed to be. and though i might be far from loving myself wholly and completely, i at least find myself a good enough person. i still want to see my friends, to touch them and to be around them, to remember childhoods and highschool and share good music and love poems from dark-covered anthologies on sale at the bookstore. i feel like there is so much going on i should be stressed and crying, but i'm not. i feel the weight of all i must do, but i am not letting it crush me.

is this a good thing? i'm not sure.

really, i just want things to get a little more figured out. i know it can't all be, but just a few parts. i want some answers. i need to do some math- and undo some too.

i'm not afraid of the word love.
but perhaps the word control.

<3gen

this ain't a scene, it's a god damn arms race

okay, the constant pile driving at UA is officially annoying. pretty much from 9-5 every day my dorm is shaking violently ever 1.3 seconds including loud booming noises. if i leave the dorm, the sound is just bouncing off every building on campus and sounds like aliens are attacking with lazer beams.

the new fall out boy song is good, by the by.

i would write more, but i can't THINK with all the GOD DAMN PILE DRIVING.

<3gen

bodily violence

so it appears that one of the most prestigeous literary magazines in the country, the Seneca Review, has decided to publish a short story that i wrote last semester. i sent it in on a whim, not at all expecting this sort of publication to want my piece. they have published some pretty famous poets, and i just had to submit something for my final grade in creative writing.

allright, self-esteem restored to 100%.

thank you god, you pulled through.

I'M SO AWESOME.

<3gen

partie deux

the second installment of one hundred things

26-50

26. i fall more in love with faulkner every day
27. i write in all of my books
28. click
29. i do not think i could ever find words in our pitiful human language to describe my absolute disdain and bloodboiling hatred that i possess for analytic philosophy
30. sometimes people have touble understanding that i do not give a damn what they think of me
31. one of the drawbacks and inevitable curses of being open and honest about your relationships is that you, by default, make it everyone else's business, where they then have the right to give you any advice or life lessons they feel necessary. you listen, when really all you can think is that they do not understand at all. also, it is never just one person, but many many people, who for some reason do not think that you know your flaws well enough, or preach them to yourself on a daily basis, and therefore must point them out to you systematically so that if for just one minute, even one second, you try to escape your own self-loathing, they can step in and remind you what you are doing wrong.
33. dr. crowly is quite possibly the most monotone man i have ever encountered in my life.
34. www.pandora.com
35.~while i was fighting wars with myself you were trying to stop the fight~
36. i do not update my blogs often enough
37. an online blog is the ultimate excercise in passive-aggressiveness
38. i do not think i will ever enjoy my father's company
39. bukowski is good, but he is not the best
40. i like being scheduled
41. one of my greatest joys in life is buying and having groceries
42. i have not been drunk in a very long time and that is kind of sad
43. my roommate [the most wonderous thing in the world] and friends [many other magical things] managed to give me quite possibly the most wonderful birthday i have ever experienced in my life, for reasons that even they can not understand
44. i have been having very vivid dreams about things happening to my sister, or me losing her, or fighting or hating and things of that nature, and it's very strange and i wonder what they mean. what am i afraid of?
45. "and i want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd"
46. i need to paint my toenails
47. the more charity work i do, the more i want to do
48. i think i'm going to ask my mom about taking out a student loan
49. i have a place to live next year and it has taken such a huge weight off my shoulders it is marvelous
50. i do not have to justify anything i do to anyone i know - EVER.

<3gen

if nowhere is safe, then let everywhere be nowhere

perhaps no one cam upon my blog this early morning, to wtiness such incredible angst and apparant depression that poured into this little white box when i read too much faulkner, thought too much about my shortcomings, and listened to too many sad songs.

but today things have done a 180. my friends, specifically my most wonderous and unbelievable roommate, made this day better than any birthday i've had. she did it without me asking, she thought of me when she had one hundred other things to fill her pretty head with, she went out of her way to make this day fun. i could not thank her enough for that.

not to mention there was cake. seriously good cake.

this is going to be a good day.
FUCK YES.

<3gen

if you lived here, you'd be home by now

Hey remember the time when I found a human tooth down on Delancey
Hey remember that time we decided to kiss anywhere except the mouth
Hey remember that time when my favorite colors were pink and green
Hey remember that month when I only ate boxes of tangerines
So cheap and juicy, tangerines

Hey remember that time when I would only read Shakespeare
Hey remember that other time when I would only read the backs of cereal boxes
Hey remember that time I tried to save a pigeon with a broken wing
A street cat got him by morning and I had to bury pieces of his body in my building's playground
I thought I was going to be sick, I thought I was going to be sick

Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Parliaments
Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Marlboros
Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Camels
Hey remember that time when I was broke
I didn't care I just bummed from my friends
Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum...

Hey remember that time when you od'ed
Hey remember that other time when you od'ed for the second time
Well in the waiting room while waiting for news of you I hallucinated I could read your mind
And I was on a lot of shit too but what I saw, man, I tell you it was freaky, freaky

--regina spektor, "that time"

<3gen

the mind churns, the heart yearns

every year, i go through this phase where i crave god. i start listening to christian music all the time, writing poetry about my faith and praying nearly every time i'm not talking or working. it's difficult because i'm the only christian in my family who's christian, and i get constantly ridiculed for believing in god at all. and i don't have any christian friends here, at least not the sort that actually like to talk about god. i wish i could go to church, but it's my only day to get some decent sleep and i can never bring myself to wake up early enough.

jeremy wants to talk philosophy, and i just want to use god as an excuse for everything. not only to piss him off, but because i believe it.

there is only one thing in the entire universe that you can depend on 100 percent all of the time without any doubt, and when my world is changing constantly and quickly, god is there no matter what and will always be and has always been.

i think i'm about to lose everything, but maybe that's okay for once.
maybe things are better than i think.

i'm talking about art and poetry.
i'm contemplating faulkner.
he's writing a book.
and there's a boy somewhere whose heart i'm breaking.
and a girl somewhere who wants to save the world.
and a child running away trying to escape the army.

without you, the ground thaws.

nostalgia stays small

things have certainly gotten a little weirder. but in a better, kinder sort of way. my world is more bizarre and upside down than it's ever been, and although all that furniture is still glued to the ceiling, i'm starting to get used to the new places everything is, and maybe one day i'll start being able to take it all down and put it back where it belongs.

i miss different things than i thought i would, and i don't miss things that i thought i was going to miss horribly. some things are just as expected, though. i love seeing my friends again, and talking to sini and james again. aaron coming home is weird and awkward and i don't really know how to deal with it. my dad is dispicable and obnoxcious enough to make my fingernails go instinctually toward my eyes every time he starts to speak. my sister is wonderous, my sewing machine is broken, my christmas presents are thoughtful, and my job is fun. some things are completely expected.

and some thing are so completely unexpected that i feel like i've had the rug ripped out from under me and i'm still flying through the air. i feel suspended above the ground, just waiting for things to crash. i guess we'll see.

what else can i say? i've been out of words lately, you can ask my friends. i can't even explain it to them, barely to myself.

but god am i having the best time i've had in years.

<3 gen

partie une

the first intallment of one hundred things

1-25

1. i am a different girl than i once was. i don't put my faith in things anymore, and some people think that's sad- i think it's smart
2. i will not get a good grade in lab
3. i drink too much milk
4. "samson" is a beautiful song by regina spektor
5. my laptop is warming my lap
6. watch this
7. this year i have reached a whole new level of procrastination
8. i am keeping my sharpies in a giant glass bottle which i think will prove less convenient than i first believed
9. does anyone know what any of this means?
10. boys kissing is pretty cute
11. i might or might not still like my ex-boyfriend- not that that narrows it down much
12. i painted a new birdhouse
13. "you are my sweetest downfall"
14. i bought 'chocolate mint truffle' coffee creamer because there was a snowman on the container
15. ~should have been born into a trust fund, now seeks dashing elderly benefactor~
16. my room is a mess
17. IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY I HAVE TO DO LAUNDRY
18. every day it gets a little bit harder
19. i might go vegan over christmas break
20. i collaged my little table and it looks very good and it sort of made me believe i was an artist after all
21. i love kissing, but don't do it enough
22. i have a paper due tomorrow, plus a french exam, and i'm doing this instead
23. i don't give a damn about philosophy
24. at this point, i would probably sleep with my lab TA for a good grade
25.

disillusionment of ten o'clock

okay, now this is just getting out of hand.

on the plus side, my life is never, ever boring.

dear god.
break needs to be here
RIGHT NOW.

<3gen