i don't want you here.

I had five cups of coffee today. Being around book people is bad for me. Now I'm coming down off of the caffeine and all I want to do is sleep. Also, I love Roberto Bolano. The end.

boombox.

I would just like to point out that I just discovered that the aforementioned deleted me from his facebook and myspace friends. I bring this up for two reasons. One, it's funny that it took me this long to realize it. Two, it's funny that this would even happen in the first place. Why? Because it's funny learning how petty people can be. And, honestly, I am not hurt. I was a little taken aback at first. I couldn't believe someone would actually take the time and energy to do that. But I seriously laughed after that. Oh, broken relationships in the time of social networking websites.

I am going to a huge publishing conference tomorrow. Excited? Actually, kind of feel like I'm going to puke.

I am so happy I can barely contain myself. I talked to Sam on the phone earlier and I know no other word to describe myself but giddy. Such a stupid word. There's just a constant elation running through me. All the laughter is starting to make my head spin.

five minutes.

It is so strange thinking about him these days. All he is to me now is a series of lessons learned. His face is no longer concrete, the way we laughed feels so forced from so long ago; I strain to remember the jokes we told. It doesn't hurt because it feels like it never happened, which I suppose hurts in theory. The truth is, I fell out of love long ago. Probably the moment that I attained my romantic vision. I was like Gatsby, moving forward so quickly that all I knew how to do was look back. It was innocent and naive. Of course, I feel that because of that, he has a right to hate me. I was the girl who didn't know what she wanted. But how can you blame me? It wasn't my fault. You really never know what you want. It was awful circumstances, terrible confusion, youth leading youth, directionless.

After watching All the Real Girls last night, I couldn't help but see myself in that movie. "I don't know what I'm doing." You think you know what happiness is. Then you see the world, meet new people, and realize that happiness is not a checkbox for "yes" or "no." There are gradations and categories, a million kinds of happiness. I think I am happy now solely because I know this.

One day I may return to thoughts of him. They may feel real again, feel like they happened to me and not some stupid little girl. For now, he's two or three lifetimes away, a sleeping memory that feels like I something I read as an adolescent. Did it mean anything at all? Or was it just a diversion? At the very least (and he'd hate me for saying this), he taught me so much. Now I am able to see outside myself, look at myself critically, and examine why I do the things I do. Then I am able to correct them.

This new guy takes that one step further. He draws me out and makes me feel like an independent, free-thinking person again. I don't feel as shy. I feel like my words, my opinions have consequence. Because of this, I feel like I want to experience a thousand new experiences, big and small. New York, Chicago, Silver Lake, quiet dinners in the dark, movies, new books, driving far far away. I see everything through new eyes.

And, believe me, I feel terrible for what I did to him. As he sees it, I wasted three years of his life. But I spent seven years of my own wondering what if with him. Even when it was it was what if. Still, I don't think that was wasted time. I think he used me as a crutch to stop his loneliness. I used him as a crutch to keep myself from discovering who I am - because that process is dark and scary. My only hope for him is that he finds happiness. I want him to find someone who can cater to his needs without putting as much effort into it as I had to. I want him to find someone funny and cute and not too smart (because I'm not sure he can handle smart smart) and sexy and sure of herself and ready to be there for him. That person is not me. It never was (not to say I am not some of those things). More than anything else, I do not want to have destroyed his faith in love. I hope I didn't do that to him. My ending our relationship was my hope that he could find love, not someone to falsely idealize and delude. I believe one day he will.

Until then, I will be waiting. Until then, I will be trying in vain to make a memory out of something that feels like it was never my own.

award winning,

So tired. I was ready to write about how excited I was that Joe is letting me borrow his Prius. But then I scraped it on a wall trying to get out of his maze of a driveway and all of my elation about the whole situation just disappeared. Though I do love that car, which is probably why I feel so deflated about it. Tomorrow, I'm going to a Q & A with his friends for the movie All the Real Girls. I feel so... literal. That's all I can think of. I'm fucking exhausted.

cars drive drive drive talking heads pajamas closet sunshine runway coffee gold

construct some sort of narrative.

I spent last night in San Juan Capistrano at a large Brazilian BBQ in a beautiful house with interesting people and good music.

I feel like I've had a lot of caffeine today because I am so jittery, and there is this fire burning within me. Music sounds more upbeat, food tastes sweeter, places and people are full of interesting charm, books make more sense. But it's not the caffeine. It's butterflies.

Also, Caroline's party was successful.

I just love everything so much right now. I feel like a new world has opened up for me. And, yes, it hurts to say it, but I made the best decision of my life. I've fucked up a lot in the last twenty years (though more so in the last 5-10), but now I feel like it's time to make things right again. I also think I may be beginning to take myself too seriously. Hearing the way that I talk, you'd think I would have been reading too many academic journals coupled with too much avant garde poetry (it's kind of true though). But really, it has a lot to do with my current English teacher, Professor Dimuro. The way he speaks is so inspiring to me - it's very visual and he adds up a lot of adjectives and nouns which attempt to capture concepts that would otherwise be incommunicable. I actually feel myself beginning to emulate it. It's starting to scare me. Not only that, but I am beginning to adopt concepts of the modern period into my life with no personal foundation for them. It's hopelessness founded on hopelessness, which I really think characterizes our generation. We're the apathetic ones, the ones who have experienced so little and who are so removed from the wars of our world. Today's youngsters are all about self-discovery, but they have no concrete experience with which to discover themselves. So they take trips to Europe, take time off of school, read lots of beat poets - they manufacture life experience. I have no solution; I'm just a part of the problem.

And a final note to self: Go to Brazil.

garcia madero.

Tonight is Caroline's birthday party. Decorations are going up, food is being cooked, cake is being baked, alcohol is being served. All in the passive voice.

I've been thinking a lot about the difference between values within our country, specifically in the context of sexual relations. My family in the South are all Southern Baptists more or less. Of course, there are varying degrees of their religious conviction, but they all come from a social background that preaches abstinence and sexual repression (in my opinion). Living in California, it may be hard for us to understand that more than half of our country still feels this way about sex: that it is purely a reproductive act, or at least that it is a pure act, to be done with one partner after marriage in your king-size bed with rose petals everywhere and little cliche phrases uttered every few moments. Not to say that this vision is negative. It can be quite beautiful. The problem of it is that it is merely an image - that elevating sex to a cinematic quality removes it from human experience and makes it unattainable. This is the sort of human interaction that makes me completely uncomfortable. Sex is not a godly experience, it shouldn't have anything to do with the religious. It is a conscious decision made by two people (or more, if you're into that) to explore the limits of human contact. The very physicality of it - the body, free and released, open, inviting - attests to this notion. I think conflating abstinence from sexual intercourse with Christian purity is more dirty than partaking in the closeness of human interaction. It leads to fetishism, to desires unmet and unexplored, to frustration, to alienation. And this alienation is exactly what sex should be preventing. I'm not advocating free love. I'm not a hippy, far from it. What I am advocating is responsible love and love that takes into account the profound implications of sex to the human condition. Maybe it's close-minded of me to be so open-minded, but looking at sex any other way seems backwards and, for me personally, a limit on the already limited closeness that we feel for one another.

elephant.

I just saw this guy

who Marie and I used to be obsessed with.
He was buying chicken breast fillets.
And I was buying chicken breast steaks.
It was love at first sight.
Or more like 80th sight for me.
Because Marie and I spent a lot of time fawning over him
In high school.

brie and crackers.

My car decided to break down today. So that was fun. My day thus included a hilarious ride with a tow truck driver who offered me gum ("Dirty mouth, clean it up." - Jerry the tow truck driver) and talked to me about Dr. Suess, a conversation with my German car dealer, a long shuttle ride back to Westwood, and then an Old English quiz. I am still shaking a bit from how scary the whole situation was, but I think I handled it pretty well.

The whole thing makes me feel so old - just thinking that I can get myself through situations like that unscathed. Lately, I have felt very old, in the good way. I feel independent and free. I also decided that I am a good person. No matter how many times someone tells me that I am not, I don't have to believe it. We are not our pasts. The whole point of time passing, in my opinion, is evolution. Sometimes certain people take you back to your past when you're really much better off leaving it alone. Now that I am free to move forward, I am beginning to see all the good in myself. Childish notions fade, idealizations wane, and what is left? A little cynicism and a little realism, a few pastoral notions mixed in with compassion and care for others. Things I thought I had lost. I am happy to say that I have found them again.

silver rings from barcelona.

This personal essay is fucking hilarious. It's about a Johnny Cash tattoo and meaningless sex and awkwardness.

Tattoos can go either way for me. Either they're beautiful and sexy (this usually requires some sort of personal connection to the art) or they're a stand-in for something beautiful and sexy. As Faulkner would say, "a shape to fill a lack." I know a lot of people with small tattoos - shamrocks and stars and things of the like. The ink doesn't mean anything more than a cry for attention, maybe even for sexual or personal validation.

Personally, I have only really liked two tattoos in my lifetime. One belongs to my best friend, Sam. She has two beautiful sisters and they all have the same spiraling curls and dark eyes. Her father passed away almost three years ago, but it took them all until about a year ago to realize that they all had the exact same tiny birthmark in the space between their stomachs and their ribcage. They all had their father's signature tattooed - very small - beside it. It's a point of connection, a manifestation of their sisterly bond. It's a bond that I will never understand but will always wish for. And this little swirl of black commemorates their father, who was musical and intelligent and loving and showed each and every one of his daughters what it means to love. I think it's just gorgeous.

The other tattoo that I truly do like belongs to Joe. It's a cherry blossom tree that runs down his arm. The pink blossoms sprinkle across the branches and give the whole thing this sprezzatura feel, of carelessness and natural beauty. He tells me his friend designed it, but I don't know much else. I just know that it's beautiful and that it made his parents angry and that it blends seamlessly with his whole aesthetic as a human being. Yeah, I said it. A human aesthetic. I don't know any other way to explain it.

boyz in the hood.

This will read more like a day summary than anything else, but I left my journal in Los Angeles and I don't want to forget this.

All of the nights I've spent in Berkeley have been a success. Last night was no exception. Marie and I drove home all day yesterday and I finally got home and took a nap, completely exhausted. When I woke up, I drove to San Mateo to pick up Evan from work and then Evan picked up me, Marie, Ryan, and Akira and we drove to the city to get BBQ on the Haight. We were supposed to swing by and pick up Jen and Saleh, but Market street is a huge left-turning nightmare, so we just met up with them at the restaurant. They were already buzzed by the time they made it to us. How I adore my friends. Seven of us fit into Evan's tiny car and I tried to eat my ribs with Marie sitting on my lap. It was a huge, delicious, meaty mess. We all sung along to terrible songs on the radio.

I got that feeling I get whenever I come home. The lights of the city blinking and sparkling as we cross the Bay Bridge. All of my friends together again, bonding over the stupidest, smallest things: Traffic, barbecue sauce, Greg Lee, new stories of adventure.

As we pulled onto Saleh's street, we saw Charley's car park in the driveway. We all jumped out and hugged, all the obligatory oh-i-haven't-seen-you-in-so-long stuff. We met two of Charley's friends from Davis, who were cool. Toasts were had, circles were formed, pie was eaten. We all trekked down the street to a frat party and we danced and made fun of everyone who wasn't dancing. Somehow, Charley, his friends, and I got separated from everyone and we ended up at the Berkeley branch of their fraternity. Charley told me to act like I didn't have any opinions for just a few minutes so we could get in without any problems. Interestingly, this worked.

Charley and I then got separated from his friends. One of them ended up going home with some random girl. He called later and I had to instruct him on how to get back to us (long story). We found the other one as we stepped outside and saw Marie staring up at us from the porch. I'm still not sure how she got there, but it was hilarious.

We headed back to Saleh's. Someone made a passing joke that we should go swimming. Unfortunately, I didn't think this was a joke. We all convinced each other it would be a great idea and we headed out. Jen and I were the first ones in the freezing cold water. Huuuuuge mistake. Huge. Evan, etc. all jumped in afterwards. We all walked back through the cold night air. Charley and I somehow fell down. I have the bruises to prove it. But even after we made it all the way back to Saleh's, we had to turn around and go back to the pool because Charley left his cell phone there. This is when we found his other friend roaming around the streets by himself.

Anyway, long story short (a little late for that though, isn't it?), last night was a success. Even though I slept on the floor without a pillow or a blanket and I shivered myself to sleep, we all had an amazing time. Every time I come home, it makes me reanalyze everything I thought I knew. Because, really, even though I think I'm happy, there is no time when I am happier than when I am with all of my friends. However, I would like to say that there is a certain something I miss about L.A. Usually, I can just forget that life so easily even when I come home for a day or two, but last night I realized that I have found something really worthwhile.

the air is clear.

I'm home! My momma is reading and my cat's out on the back porch roasting in the sun and my dad's riding his motorcycle through Mount Diablo. Everything is right in the world.

Also, leave it to pop lyrics to perfectly convey my feelings at the present moment. Interesting how something I thought was complicated can be summed up in a simple verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus framework played in four beats per measure. Oh, Kelly Clarkson. Oh, women everywhere.

It seems you can't hear me
When I open my mouth you never listen
You say stay, but what does that mean?
Do you think I honestly want to be reminded forever

Don't waste your time trying to fix
What I want to erase
What I need to forget
Don't waste your time on me my friend
Friend, what does that even mean?

I don't want your hand
You'll only pull me down
So save your breath
Don't waste your song
On me, on me
Don't waste your time

It's not easy not answering
Every time I want to talk to you
But I can't
If you only knew the hell I put myself through
Replaying memories in my head of you and I
Every night

You're callin'
You're talkin'
You're tryin'
Tryin' to get in
But it's over, it's over, it's over

sorry, i really am.

If you can't find me this weekend, it's because I'm going to San Francisco. Friend reunion as well as a little birthday shindig for Marie in Berkeley. It's all quite exciting really.

All things are well right now, strangely. Hemingway and Pinot Noir and Griffith Park and endless numbers of phone calls and text messages. That basically sums up the last few days. And I really really don't know what's going on with my writing lately. I feel so lazy about it. It's odd how I had this month-long burst of inspiration and now it has just disappeared. Well, hopefully I can figure out how to make that come back again. The writer's laziness is driving me insane. I hate feeling like there's a wall up in my mind between the latent and the surface.

so what do we do.

Oh, I'm having such a lovely day!

I don't even know what else to say.

I feel like I drained all of the writing out of myself in the last month and a half and now I'm left with... short sentences. And a blank mind. And maybe even a new start.

okay so.

I love Nerve magazine. You should too.

such innocence on those long hot days.

I am sick. So sick. So lots of contemplation and reading and things. I just want to sleep forever. Here is a poem I find lovely. It was featured in Poetry magazine this month. Makes me miss my adolescence and makes me realize how far I've come from where I'm supposed to be. It also gives me hope, hope that life is circular. It makes a lot of sense to me right now, as I step closer and closer toward making decisions I can't take back.

"Midsummer" by Louise Glück

On nights like this we used to swim in the quarry,
the boys making up games requiring them to tear off the girls' clothes
and the girls cooperating, because they had new bodies since
last summer
and they want to exhibit them, the brave ones
leaping off the high rocks--bodies crowding the water.

The nights were humid, still. The stone was cool and wet,
marble for graveyards, for buildings that we never saw,
buildings in cities far away.

On cloudy nights, you were blind. Those nights the rocks were
dangerous,
but in another way it was all dangerous, that was what we were after.
The summer started. Then the boys and girls began to pair off
but always there were a few left at the end--sometimes they'd
keep watch,
sometimes they'd pretend to go off with each other like the rest,
but what could they do there, in the woods? No one wanted to be them.
But they'd show up anyway, as though some night their luck would
change,
fate would be a different fate.

At the beginning and at the end, though, we were all together.
After the evening chores, after the smaller children were in bed,
then we were free. Nobody said anything, but we knew the nights
we'd meet
and the nights we wouldn't. Once or twice, at the end of summer,
we could see a baby was going to come out of all that kissing.

And for those two, it was terrible, as terrible as being alone.
The game was over. We'd sit on the rocks smoking cigarettes,
worrying about the ones who weren't there.

And then finally walk home through the fields,
because there was always work the next day.
And the next day, we were kids again, sitting on the front steps in
the morning
eating a peach. Just that, but it seemed an honor to have a mouth.
And then going to work, which meant helping out in the fields.
One boy worked for an old lady, building shelves.
The house was very old, maybe built when the mountain was built.

And then the day faded. We were dreaming, waiting for night.
Standing at the front door at twilight, watching the shadows lengthen.
And a voice in the kitchen was always complaining about the heat,
wanting the heat to break.

Then the heat broke, the night was clear.
And you thought of the boy or girl you'd be meeting later.
And you thought of walking into the woods and lying down,
practicing all those things you were learning in the water.
And though sometimes you couldn't see the person you were with,
there was no substitute for that person.

The summer night glowed; in the field, fireflies were glinting.
And for those who understood such things, the stars were sending
messages:
You will leave the village where you were born
and in another country you'll become very rich, very powerful,
but always you will mourn something you left behind, even though
you can't say what it was,
and eventually you will return to seek it.

venice beach.

Show, don't tell. Show, don't tell. Things are moving by me meaninglessly quickly. I feel so small. What is the purpose? What is the end result? I may never get back to where I was and the worst part about it is that I don't know whether or not I want to go back to the way things were or not. I never thought I would be someone to not see things in clear-cut ways. What can I say, I'm spoiled, I guess. But now it's like I'm right back where I was - in a different context, of course - feeling the exact same way, not knowing whether or not anything is good or bad or sad or happy or smart or stupid.

I only wanted this time for myself. I never meant to bring anyone else into this mess. But now it's too late. All this does is reinforce my resolution that all I am able to do is hurt people. I miss making people feel good. It makes me feel so happy to know that I have the ability to make others feel as though they have found some meaning, some consistency in this world. But, right now, I need to do some things for myself. If I stop now, I will never find a way out of the unrequited.

Also on my mind: I am considering transferring to Berkeley for a semester next year. I'm not sure how possible this is, but L.A. is suffocating. And I feel like I'm counting down the days. L.A. is where I make all of my worst mistakes.

i may or may not have a real problem here.

I have spent so much time thinking about language lately. It's interesting how a notion that started out as a sentence in a Faulkner novel turned into a thought one year ago. Then into a perspective on love and the meaninglessness of words. Then into a consuming and personally-defining idea. And I have been thinking about how the idea that words are futile is perhaps the most solipsistic, selfish, self-involved, culturally-fragmenting idea possible. If words mean nothing, we may as well never communicate with one another. However, I do believe that non-verbal communication and the simple day-to-day feelings that we experience mean everything that words cannot handle. It isn't that humans cannot communicate our feelings effectively with others, it's that we can only do so when we decide that words are not the correct way to handle this communication. Words are simply symbols for gut reactions and intense emotions rendered inexpressible by the complexity of the human mind. As Kenneth Burke puts it, humans are the "symbol-using animal" even though we are also the "symbol-misusing animal, inventor of the negative, separated from our natural condition by instruments of our own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, and rotten with perfection."

But for all of this cynicism it isn't true that we are simply separated from our natural condition. Or at least, it isn't true that we have no solution for this. I think recognizing that language is bounded and honoring our limited capacity for understanding will connect us to others in the end. I don't think that this comes easily. It only comes when you are honest with others about this, and that, of course, takes intimacy and time. But I can't live my life thinking that there is no way to communicate my happiness. When I think about it, I know that I don't believe that my happiness is inexpressible. I just know that it isn't expressible through words. That leaves a million other ways of approaching my destination, if there even is a destination after all.

Related to this, I read a fantastic piece about magical realism in The College Hill Independent. Here is a short excerpt written by a Brown University student named David Noriega and here is the full article.

"When Gabriel García Márquez delivered his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1982, he was issuing a plaintive warning as much as an expression of gratitude. On behalf of the generation of Latin American writers exaltedly categorized as ‘magical realists’ by the academies of the First World, he dispatched this simple caveat: Be careful how you read us. Be careful, because the magic and wonder you have so consistently gleaned from our words is not a mere stylistic indulgence; it is the only way we have found to interpret a reality perhaps too grim and violent for you to understand."

But if the only words that these writers can use to explain their unimaginable pasts can be exploited and commodified, how are we ever expected to comprehend each other's experiences?

And I have two more points to make before I return to my real life:

1. I need to stop reading so many modernist novels. I blame them for all of this self-reflexive pondering.
   
2. Why is the College Hill Independent so fucking amazing? I could never imagine such a beautiful piece of literary criticism running in the Daily Bruin. Put quite honestly, one never would. We don't do book reviews in our paper. Granted, this paper was (they don't seem to be putting issues out anymore, wtf!) a joint effort between students of Brown and Rhode Island School of Design and it isn't their official school paper, but I wish there were something so beautiful and intelligent that I could hold onto here in Los Angeles.
   

quickly now.

I just returned from voting. I still don't understand why people wouldn't want to vote. I feel guilty if I even wait until after 4pm to do it.

Also, my favorite quote of the day, from Hillary Clinton: "In my White House, we will know who wears the pantsuits."

And now I go to class. Even though all my roommates are ditching. Fuuuuck this.

whiskers on kittens.

Inspired by Paul Madonna and my recent love for blog searching and finding uncultivated talent (including this story and way too cute discussion of how Woody Allen chose Windsor as his go-to typeface):

Lists of things I remember about this week.
Reading
Portrait of the Artist
Lost City Radio
Winesburg, Ohio and other novels situated in the 1920's
New York Times
New blogs
Sartorialist
Query letters and failed attempts
Would like to Read
The New Yorker
Nylon
Martha Stewart
Savage Detectives
Anything published by Chronicle Books or Ten Speed Press
Reference books galore
Anything new and exciting and disjointed
Photog magazines
A million books that may or may not be published by my future place of employment
Movies & TV
15 minutes of Hannah and her Sisters
Flight of the Conchords
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Friends
StuntRock (ok that was last week! Still good!)
Comedy
Jeff Garland (Curb is changed forever!)
Mark Maron (omgbff)
Eaten
Chai smoothie
Pancakes and shit
PB&J
London Broil with Roasted Potatoes and Red Bell Peppers (I made that shit)
Vegetables
Gift burrito
Horchata
Mixed Drinks
A slice of Venice Beach pizza
Caroline's disaster of a casserole
rocky road!
Negative Eaten
Sushi
Projects
"Clean Getaway"
Finding my internship
Reading the Chronicle Books Blog
Keeping up with PW
Editing other people's work
Writing a column
Studying?
Putting together a new fashion portfolio for Fall 08
Learning to love new forms of art
Painting for my living room
Other Things Done
Watched Planet Earth
Tried new unmentionable thing
Cafe 101
Went to new Albertson's
Took Sam and her b/f on a tour of Los Angeles
Beverly Center
Drove aimlessly
Hari Krishna free dinner night
Told secrets
Rock Band
Danced to Bay Area hip hop
Got a little vomit on my shirt
Felt older

high heels high school dreams.

I feel as though I just wasted my life reading this. And now I offer it to you to do the same.

Lipstick Jungle vs. Cashmere Mafia.

I'm still left with the question: Why do they have the exact same adjective-noun constructed titles? Don't executives talk to one another before they get the go-ahead on vapid, gender-stereotyping names for vapid, gender-stereotyping television shows? Don't they hear rumors?

I constantly see billboards for these shows driving on Sunset or in the Valley and they make me want to shoot myself. I wouldn't watch the shows based on their imitation Sex and the City vibes alone (yes, I know Lipstick Rainforest or whatever the fuck is written by Candace Bushnell, shouldn't she move on already?). Oh, and the fact that I can't tell them apart. And because I'm sick of being pandered to, watching marketing schemes as they are pawned off as entertainment. I'm disgusted by the entertainment industry right now. From the Writer's Guild strike to the sudden proliferation of beauty pageant reality shows, it's just in a disgusting mess. So, for now, I'll stick with HBO. It's not really television anyway, or so I've seen in their ads.

***Edit: Also, ever since I wrote this post, I keep getting Lipstick Jungle banner ads on my windows. The Internet is a tricky, tricky, creepy thing that reads my mind and feeds me what I hate the most. Fuck that.

taking a short break.

My little Sammy is visiting me with her new boyfriend, who I think is really great.

I'm having a great weekend. Today, we hung out in Venice and I took her all around L.A. Tonight we're going to a "planet earth"/other earthly substances party and then out for a night on the town at this lounge in Hollywood.

Things feel simple. It's nice to live a pared down existence with no in-betweens and maybes. Just easy. I guess that's why the girls next door get drunk and party every night. You never need to sit down and examine how meaningless it is because you're never conscious of it.

Okay, back to Nintendo/music/pre-partying.

in the heart of the midwest.

This book I'm reading makes sense to me only because it makes absolutely no sense to me. But that's the whole point. Nothing makes sense; nothing is supposed to. I think I'm okay with that.

I had a long discussion last night about the futility of language. Now I only believe in irony and paradox.

" 'Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night... You must not try to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life. If you try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses.' "

"One shudders at the thought of the meaninglessness of life while at the same instant... one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes."

-Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio