absalom.

Christmas was pretty good this year.

Strangely, I am looking forward to Tennessee and our cabin in the Smokey Mountains.

Every time I tell anyone I'm going there, they ask "...but, why?" Would they ask that same question if I said I was going to Paris? No. To Hollywood? No.

Really, people, you could all stand to get out of what you see as "civilization" for a while. Big things do exist in little places. Open land still breathes in Tennessee. And being cold there isn't like being cold in Los Angeles. Being cold in Tennessee is like knowing that Spring is there to rescue you when it's all over. It's Ode to the West Wind reincarnated.

When I was little, we used to go visit my grandparents in the house that my grandfather built. On Christmas Eve, my dad and I would shoot down holly or mistletoe or whatever it was from the trees that populated my grandparents' farmland. Being about four feet tall at the time, those trees were infinite. They housed the unknown, the ethereal, all of my too-tall dreams and ambitions. I've let myself grow up too much it seems.

My dad used to say, in such a backwoods Faulknerian character way, "Just 'cause you live in California now, that don't mean you should ever git above yur raisin'." He would always intensify his accent during those times, for whatever reason. More impact, I guess. But the truth is, I don't think I could ever get above my raising even if I tried. At the end of it all, my family is Southern. And the Jones Graveyard and the Jones River Bend are intense reminders of that. And even though the airport bought out my grandparents' farmhouse and paved a runway over it, just thinking about that place reminds me that I am too far away from where I was meant to be.

sun kil moon.

sorry that
i could never love you back
i could never care enough
in these last days...

green green green
what about the sweetness we knew
what about what's good, what's true
from those days

graven dreams
a million miles ago you seem
the star that i just don't see
anymore

words long gone
lost on journeys we walked on
lost her voice is heard along
the way

sorry for
never going by your door
never feeling love like that
anymore

i just can't stop.

Other things that are interesting: how you can be in love with the idea of a person, but hate who they really are. Like every time you are with them, you try your best to mask your disappointment that they aren't doing exactly what you imagined they'd be doing (which is turning that car around and changing plans). You are angry because they turn your dreams around and skew your perception of perfection.

I am starting to come around to another interesting realization: I have never known love. I have known idealizations and fabricated Disney Channel nightmares, but I have never known love. I think it is interesting how so many people I know have only experienced the same exact thing, but they try to pass it off as something more deep and meaningful. Truthfully, I don't feel as though I'm missing out on much. I'm not ready to compromise my own wants for anyone else at this point, and I know that when I really do fall in love, I will have no choices to make-- everything will be clear. I won't weigh the options. I won't cringe. I can feel the ability in me, I just have not found anyone worth sharing it with.

In fact, I am grateful that I've never been in love. If I had been in love before, it would have ruined the surprise of what is to come. Not only that, if what I had before was love, love would suck.

But, really, at 19, who the fuck cares? Let's go out and go crazy!

sugar cane nightmares.

Being away from home for so long, you find out who your real friends really are. It's interesting, really. I've also decided that I am a terrible writer.

What am I going to do with my life?

one more thing.

I decided that if love does exist, it resides in spontaneity.

Dropping by for a surprise date. Now that is love.
Calling me two hours beforehand to see if I'm free. Now that is faking it.

But, in the real world, you have to call ahead it seems. Well I'm not for that. I think of all of the romantic notions that I alone have fostered, that have not been affected by the media's influence, and they all include an element of surprise. So when I say that I am looking for someone adventurous, I don't mean mountain climbing. I mean, call me just to ask what time it is. Or, better yet, call me at 2:46 am to talk about the eternal forms (yes, I've written about this one before) or ask if I want to share a bottle of wine (or a can of coke and a sandwich) with you on a lonely patch of Los Angeles grass.

bouncy bouncy.

a ridiculous ball of cute.

otter love.

i want one.

una noche despacia.

my checklist for the perfect night:
San Francisco
A bottle of cheap wine
Peanut butter & banana sandwiches

i can barely breathe.

I keep having these strange epiphanies. Like, all the sudden, I'll feel like I can start over. But starting over is so difficult. I just don't know if I have the strength to do it right now.

Do I really have to? All the happiness mixed with all the pain? Wouldn't it just be much easier to resign myself to apathy?

Wouldn't it?

there it is.

a: positively... magical.

Maybe it's the British in me, but whenever I hear about Prince William and this new girl of his (Kate Middleton), I get oddly jealous. She seems so normal, so regular. When you enter the royal family, it's not like meeting a man's evil mother, it's like you have to put on Givenchy and be P-E-R-F-E-C-T. Yet it's so odd how this girl is so normal. A whirlwind of change must be coming about her. She's in love with a prince for god's sake. I think somewhere deep inside me, I feel like I could do what she's doing. And it makes me sad. Because there she is, kissing this beautiful future King of England (I don't care if it IS only symbolic), and here I am, sitting on my butt thinking of what errands I need to run tomorrow. Hmmmm...

speculation.

q: what would it be like to date a prince?

i hate to see you cry.

During nights like this, I think of Travis' house in Half Moon Bay and that night when Marie, Trav, Charles, Jen and I went to his place, drank e, went in the hot tub, and had a grand ol' time laughing at everything. I think of prom night and all that happened and all that didn't. I think of how light and loose my arms feel.

In honor of UCLA's win against USC (that's right, Marie! We beat you!), I am a little trashed. But the parties are all over. And Rebecca, who I used to think was my friend, is hardly ever here at all. So here I am.

Thinking of having to work tomorrow and having to study for finals and having to read Keats' poems. And my head is spinning. And my emotions are unstable. And I feel like, although this night is just about over, my body will never let me sleep.

stop this train.

Installment 1, to be continued:

She loved to take risks. Silver pumps with brown knee-highs; drinking just one more shot of vodka, sans chaser; flying standby to Las Vegas, Nevada one Friday night.

There she was. Middle of the hotel lobby with that combination of clothing that seemed so unlikely, so effortless, so her. Her lipstick was a bit smudged from kissing that guy Joey at the nightclub. One of her fake nails had fallen off and lay beside her foot on the red carpet of the Day's Inn Las Vegas. Her hair, stiff with hairspray, sat in a contented blonde mess on her shoulders.

Her eyelashes were gracefully situated on those big blue eyes - half-open, half-closed - and seemed to blow in the momentary breeze that came through the sliding doors as Jewel entered.

She had come to visit Jewel, but as the tall girl entered the lobby to meet her friend, her mouth dropped open and let out a shrill scream of horror.

The police were already there, too afraid to move the lovely girl. Such a lovely, young girl. Only now that young body rested cold on the floor. No more breath slept in those lungs. The last bits of life seeped out of her skin.

Earlier that night, she sat in the back of a taxi, silent, tapping her fake nails on the door handle beside her. She had phoned Jewel three times already, to no avail. But she tried again. This time she decided to leave a message:

"Hey Jewels, it's me. So I was thinking, what if I met you in Vegas tonight and we party a little too hard like last time? Good idea? Good. Because I'm about to check into my hotel. I'll be out at that place we went to last time, Angelo's, so call me. Peace, baby."

Jewel didn't check her voicemail until midnight.

By that time, it was too late. The whole mess had already started.