taking notes.

place and space the southern story
airplanes and buffets
take me to the garden
where we will spin in endless circles
around a fountain of water
that renews and renews and never lets
us end
using the colon
to imitate speech
the world is much different than that
hey i'm sorry about recently
that was harsh, too much
don't play with my heart like that
he said
he said i needed to open up
i did
aisles in grocery stores and quiet streets and
there in the darkness, i thought it was time
but time and space
space and place
they never aligned in perfect synchrony
until the water
it cradled your shoulders like a blanket from the night
and we hid there under blankets
and now i'm hiding from it all
i opened up
and now i am afraid
you were wrong
we were Modernists.

no lies.

i ran into your photograph. i miss you. you and those crystal clear brown eyes. come to my house and say it was all misunderstanding. take me away for three weeks. or just fall asleep with me on the golf course, until the dew soaks our clothing and the sky turns gray with morning.

hungry for life.

I want to get a tattoo on my inner arm. I've decided that I want it to be of the James Agee quotation: "I'll do what little I can with writing." The only problem is the font is really important, and I have no idea how I want the font to look. Anyway, that will be my 21st birthday present to myself.

Getting rid of the people who don't care about me as much as I thought they did. I told him exactly how I felt in less than 100 words.

Really let Sam down. I am the worst person ever.

But, on a brighter note, I have broken through the cloud of sadness that has been over me since Monday and I even danced around my room last night. Quite an accomplishment.

from an empty cubicle.

Oh, I am so miserable. One more hour left, but I have finished every last thing that I needed to finish, so I am just sitting around ticking on the keyboard, checking my phone obsessively, feeling jittery from a soy latte and ten cookies (I’m having a bad week, okay?!), and hoping the minutes move a just a bit faster. I’m going to miss it here, but this is just kind of a waste of time.

I am so emotional lately, just a huge fucking mess. My co-workers gave me a card, vegan cookies, and a big bouquet of daisies today and I almost started crying. Not good. Not emotionally stable. Get a grip on yourself, Carrie. I’m worried about what is going to happen to me when I make my rounds and say goodbye to my favorite editors. Very concerned.

And I guess I won’t be seeing Radiohead after all. I don’t even care about him anymore, I just want to see Thom Yorke. And now I’m starting to worry that he’s in the hospital and all these crazy things because I haven’t heard from him in 3 days after talking to him non-stop for 3 weeks. It seems a bit odd, doesn’t it? I really don’t give a shit if he’s not into this whole thing anymore, now I just want to know that he’s okay. He’s very skinny, maybe he got anemia or became crazy sick and passed out and is in a coma and I would never ever know at all. He was getting a cold when we last spoke, maybe it was the plague or avian bird flu or SARS or some sort of weird vegan disease that strikes soy products and inhibits you from picking up your phone or answering one simple fucking text message. This is what happens when people matter to me, all I do is worry. And this is why I should stop getting close to people altogether.

So this took up a good chunk of time, which is promising. Just 45 more minutes. Oh please, 45 minutes, take pity on me and sprint to the finish line.

just throw it away.

Maybe I have had my heart broken before. That dark summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school that I spent in my room writing bad poetry and convincing myself I would never find anything worth my while again – that was the first time my heart was broken. The sad thing is, I never did find anything worthwhile after Brian and that summer (and what we had four years later off and on for three years... oh, yeah, that relationship). I still haven’t.

My friends tell me that it will be okay. But I don’t even feel empty yet. I feel like the vacuum where my ever-cold heart is supposed to be is now more than just empty. It is sprinting away, tearing all the little bones and inside bits with it, twisting them, but not breaking away. Just pulling harder and harder, taking a break to rest, and then starting up again with renewed strength and energy.

At work today, I couldn’t even hold conversations. I ate four brownies. I cried on my drive home. Last night, my friends and I hung out, but all I wanted to do was sit in the dark with my eyes wide open, thinking. Except not-thinking. More like a void of thoughts that becomes noise and flashes of light and pictures. I don’t even know why I’m sad. I should just be rational and realize I will be fine and that this meant nothing and that I will be more than okay.

But it is just Brian distilled into four weeks’ time, it is nothing, it is nothing. If I could make it through that, I can make it through this easily. Then again, Brian hadn’t kissed me, hadn’t held me, hadn’t told me secrets and made me promises at three in the morning. Not yet.

The funny thing is, I have decided to do this on my own, have decided to break my own heart in a way. Because I don’t want to be disrespected, taken advantage of, have someone lower my self-worth. So now I have to suffer the consequences for living with pride in myself, for being too smart to be walked all over.

Caroline wrote me a note today. It made me realize that maybe I do have things to look forward to in Los Angeles. And, for that very reason, I may be moving back in a week or two. I don’t want to stay here and be reminded of what I’ve made myself let go of.

and it's all right.

I took the day off today so I could work from home and avoid the company picnic. I am weary of cowboy-themed lunches held in hippie parks. I don't think that is unusual.

Last weekend, which should have been amazing, greeted me with a blowup from my roommates in Los Angeles, all of my friends leaving town, kittens being mean and running away constantly, the boy toy being gone, and so on.

It makes me realize how skewed my life has become. I need to reevaluate what is important to me, stop being so self-centered. The problem is, I am not exactly sure how to initiate that process. This is all I know, but it does not make me happy.

Internship ends in 2 days. Hate to admit how happy that makes me.

And it's a beautiful summer's day. I must be going. I am only rambling anyway.

summer and all.

I am getting two new kittens today and also buying a Schwinn Cruiser bicycle. Life is good.

a mom, a dad, a son, a dog, a white picket fence.

"No, I don't even know your name
It doesn't matter
You're my experimental game
Just human nature
It's not what, good girls do
Not how they should behave
My head gets so confused
Hard to obey"

And there are the lyrics from what seems to be a generation of women's anthem, "I Kissed a Girl." It's interesting because many years ago (oh, let's say, three or four), I probably would have loved the lyrics of this song. On its surface, it speaks to women's liberation from gender constraints and from sexual rigidity. That once would have impressed me. I think most women like the idea that they are fighting against social expectations of their sexuality ("It's not what good girls do," Kate Perry preaches/whines). But, really, are they? This song is simply reinforcing female objectivity. It preaches to the choir of new females who are convinced of their freedom so much so that they cannot see they are simply living by deeply ingrained social rules. Today's woman (at least adolescent and young adult women) truly believe that the women's liberation movement is no longer necessary because they can wear androgynous clothing and make out with girls they don't care about and have promiscuous sex simply because it feels good.

But this is all indoctrination, it always is. Our purchasing of new clothing, our making out with girls, and our sex only benefit the dominant ideology of female subordination. We make out with women for fun because men like it - we may like it too, but men (let me be the first to tell you), like it even more. We have promiscuous sex, become aware of our bodies, simply for the benefit of men. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with becoming aware of your body and your needs and desires. It becomes a problem when women do it because they know it's what their boyfriends want (and, yes, this is exactly what every fucking identical issue of Cosmopolitan magazine makes women believe). That is not awareness. That is a swallowing of media messages that - deep down inside - we can never make ourselves believe until we throw all that trash away and live independently.

For God's sake, can we please sort this out? And please not at the expense of lesbians. Because that's another thing that makes me angry about this song. "You're my experimental game?" Excuse me? What if this woman actually does care about you, actually does want to pursue something with you? No, no, she can't express herself with anything beyond her body because that's not what Kate Perry's "boyfriend" wants to see happening. It's just a disgusting cycle of reinforcing heteronormativity, taking advantage of those of who do not cash in on what straight men prefer.

And as a final addition, I would like to stress that I do not hate men because I think that may be the impression quite a few people get from me (including my father). I fucking love men. But I love me more. We all love ourselves more than anyone else. And I hate to see representations of my body, be they idealized or realistic or real-life examples, being taken advantage of by a hegemonic system of beliefs about sexuality and gender roles (this ideology - in America - is male, white, consumer product-driven and straight. I have not a single doubt about that.) But I will repeat again that I love men, they drive me crazy, and that I couldn't live without them. Even if they do reign supreme on the cultural level, they will always be there on the individual level to worship the women who really matter.

Those women, in turn, will not feel the need to play with other people's emotions in order to vent their sexual frustrations.

out the door.

I took a long lunch with my aunt today, and along with the many important pieces of life advice she offered me, she said:

“More than a mouthful is too much.”

Touché.

photographs and love letters.

Today, I sat by the water in Redwood Shores, blinded by the sun's reflection off the miniature waves. I looked behind me onto a perfectly manicured street, lined with identical houses, a girl passing me on her bicycle, smiling. I thought about my friends spending time in Africa, making changes in the world, dealing with starvation and injustice and murder and political disjunction. I thought of my cousins in Tennessee, roasting in the sticky heat. I thought of Los Angeles, of all the inequality there and all of the racial and class divisions.

How lucky I am that all I do is complain. I sit in the sunlight, in the breezy, dry eighty degrees. I ponder academia, my job, yoga classes, running, sex, books I've been reading, this insanely adorable/funny/sexy/creative/beautifully confusing guy I have been seeing, my best friends here and there. I have everything. I am a lucky bitch. I hate even my own life sometimes it's so picture perfect.

Yesterday afternoon, I walked to Burlingame Avenue with Saleh, who I have realized is one of my closest friends. I love talking to him about everything as we walk down the tree-lined streets. We passed Burlingame's annual Art on the Avenue - all the Cajun food and frozen lemonade and handmade jewelry you could ever want. I turned to Saleh and said "We live in a disgustingly perfect little town. It's not suburbia, it's a fucking village. It's what people dream about. It's what families hope for. It is utopia." He didn't even argue with me like he usually does. He nodded and explained that there couldn't possibly be anything better than this in America. And while this may be true, it's also very easy to rebel from perfection.

That's where I am coming from. All of that perfection and all I want is a little complexity. Because beneath the pristine shine of the lacquer-painted village in which I live, I want there to be so much more. Maybe that's not necessary. Maybe all I need is everything I already have. But maybe I am simply scared, as I whispered to Tyler as I fell asleep Friday night, to have what I want. He doesn't seem to understand that having him, having a good job, living in a place so devoid of flaws would be too overwhelming for me. Where is the meaning in an existence with no dramatic set of events, no build-up, no peak, no intricate and beautiful denouement?

and in the morning.

Pretend I posted this yesterday at 4 PM when Blogger was having an outage that prohibited me from venting my emotional problems:

I am leaving work in a few minutes, but I wanted a chance to update before I become swept up in the weekend.

I am so confused about everything going on in my love life. I am getting all of these mixed signals from eighteen different angles, and I am sick of it. Just sick of it. So I am in this place, trying to decide: Do I keep playing the game? Or do I just surrender and walk away? I don't have the energy to put energy into this, and I am too mature and no longer inexperienced enough to just take someone's shit because they're going through something and not communicating with me about it. It was nice when I only had to think about myself. Lonely, a bit empty, but nice and liberating. Now it's Friday afternoon and I have the gym to look forward to.I would say I only have myself to blame, but I really think it has more to do with the type of men I am attracted to. It's their fault. Not mine. And, with that, I sign out for the weekend. Hopefully I will have some better news upon my return. Don't get your hopes up though. There seems to be some sort of fuku cast on me.

everything is nothing at all.

No. I don’t know what I am doing. I need time to myself, need to be alone. Why do I somehow always get myself into shit like this? It’s an endless, heartless cycle. I so do not need this right now. Woke up feeling off, couldn’t get out of bed. I stumbled to the kitchen, found a note. Just make it all go away. Where has my own life gone? I need to call my friends and go to cafes and be myself. Just myself. For no one else. Even if that means I will die alone. This is a lot like being addicted to drugs or alcohol or anything else. At the end of it all, I am alone and empty and lost. Yes.

who would have known.

One day I woke up and you were there next to me as the sun it hid behind the morning clouds and you, you kissed my forehead and walked away. Many nights, I go to sleep and think of this, how impermanent and fleeting it will all be in three, two, one. When the lights fade in the underground. When I rest against the shoulders that I met so many years ago and suddenly they become so thin they disappear. I walked down Powell and I saw the way they looked at me. And you, you with your lips and your cheekbones, you with a smile I squeeze your hand. There are times when I get so dizzy I forget to eat and sleep and think. I take one turn of my head and my mind goes completely blank, like in the car that night as the road faded from liquor stores to bars to cop cars to fast food restaurant chains. If you let it slip, does it still mean something? Did you let it slip because this will never, can never, we can't ever let this, mean anything at all? I throw away a lot in my life, treat men like they are disposable, and I am sorry. It's third-wave feminism and self-absorption and being too afraid to feel safe in a world that tells me be pretty, be young, be full of life, be spontaneous, make good decisions, kiss him kiss him kiss him underneath the water, shivering, until your teeth chattering becomes a smile painted on both your slick, smooth, chlorine-drenched lips. If I make mistakes, please forgive me. Please let it go when the day is old and the night rains and peels away the layers of years and makes us young again. I walk down the street. I think of you and all of those before. I wonder this time, maybe, ironically, sadistically: Because I know I can never have your heart, because I know that your feelings will be lost somewhere on the misty streets and in the fog that clears away behind tall, shiny building frames, and because your heart will be left here to ripen and then decay slowly, peacefully, beautifully - does that mean I can finally give away my own?

a brand new bouqet of flowers.

I only have three more weeks left of my work until I get to spend a month reading for my thesis and going to Tennessee.

Finally, I am really enjoying my summer. The freedom has finally become liberating instead of suffocating. I feel healthy and relaxed... for once. I am happy and I am smiling and just thinking of certain stolen seconds, of certain glances, of certain nights in cold cities, makes my heart beat wildly.

I discovered today that I love aloe juice.

I also discovered today that I am about to get my heart broken terribly. That's never really happened to me before. But that's okay because I am only living in the here and now.

oh why hello there.

I think I'm going to name my new kittens Butternut and Gomez. Pretty sure we're getting ragdolls, which are ridiculously ridiculously cute and playful.