If I weren't so anti-causing conflict,

then that one about Mordor would be really, really tempting. Also the rocket launcher. Okay, maybe most of them.

Also, and more importantly, watch this:






So much love to you, Jeremy Irons. So much love.

Newest love:

frybread.

10 c flour
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
enough water to form a soft dough

Mix, let sit for ten minutes, tear off a bit and roll it flat, fry in a pan, scarf.

Dear non-reader

I know you try not to come around anymore, but I have this compulsion to say things to you that maybe I shouldn't say to you. So here's my solution, my middle ground. You choose.

I wish things between us could be again the way they were before. I wish we could take those moments of sweetness and closeness and comfort and warmth in the crisp, cool mountain air (because it always is crisp, cool mountain air in my memory) and distill them, and drink them again. I can taste it all whenever I think of you. I can't stop tasting it. I feel your hand in my hand all the time. I feel you in my arms, I feel your sweatshirt against my face all the time. Sometimes I think it's the day in the orchard, or a day on Skyline that I'm reliving. Sometimes I think it's our last hug--the last hug between Us, instead of just between David and Marie, wholly separate entities--at Richard's or just outside Bottom's Up, at the very end. Your shirt was so soft. You were so warm.

I was thinking today that that may have been the last time I felt safe--but who keeps a running tally? And everyone knows I have drama running in my veins, a gift of both bloodlines. But must I question everything? You made me feel safe when I was close to you. Sometimes, and today, the world doesn't feel right without you within reach. That we aren't connected is difficult for me to grasp, even after nearly six months. And yet, there have been days or even weeks when it seemed okay. When I remembered things about you that drove me insane. I know there have been, but it's difficult to feel them now. I want to drive to where you are living and make you take this all back, but I could never make you do anything. I don't know if I could stand the rejection again.



I write things like this, and now I'm talking to the internet at large, and I have this almost overwhelming paranoia about being "emo." I sort of wish I could stop caring about it, but then sometimes I think that this aversion is the only thing keeping me out of the mire. I can be so melancholy. I can be so dramatic. I write things that are true, but I can't write them without enough spin to make you seasick. I can't write them without falling in love with the sound of the words that are spilling from my fingers. I would never make it at the Christian Science Monitor.

I have no idea why this font is extra small. It says it's normal-sized.

A little chaser to follow that bitterness from yesterday, the other day, whenever.

First: I applied (via Craigslist, as almost always) for a before/after school teaching position at the Goddard school, and almost immediately was called for an interview. Here's hoping that goes well.

Second: Thanks to the splendid motivation provided by the heavenly smell of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day soap, I mopped and scrubbed pretty much the entire upstairs (aka main floor), including walls and doors, mostly excluding the bedrooms. Everything smells like geraniums. It is quite lovely.

Also, having worked for about three days, I can now say that my room is mostly clean. And my shoes are organized! This is truly cause for a celebration. 


Unfortunately, the 75% off* stool I wanted to buy was sold today. Such a shame. Maybe I'll have to go for those boots, after all. If I get some money.










































*Speaking of which, here is what I think every time I look at or think about that gorgeous, more-than-I-should-have-spent-on-a-scarf scarf I bought (75% off!) the other day:
"And it shall be an heirloom of my kingdom. All those who follow in my bloodline shall be bound to its fate, for I shall risk no hurt** to the [scarf]. It is precious to me, though I buy it with a great pain."


Ten hugs to anyone who correctly identifies that quote.


Don't judge me.




**Yeah, it may or may not be sealed up in a gallon ziplock bag with some lavender oil on a tissue. It's alpaca wool, okay?

Sociological study:

Implement a ridiculously slanted travesty of a phone survey about energy taxes, and see how many people press 1 to support an energy tax which would, somehow, increase energy production costs. Ask one more question and see whether any of them would press 2 to support a tax which would threaten American jobs. There aren't any advantages to this tax, by the way; congress simply wants to worsen the recession in as many ways as possible. It's all about efficiency, people.

Were I a toddler, this would be true love. The truest.

We (myself, my sister, my mother and two of her sisters, so elegant) had our lunches together at Can-Can today--a really quite lovely French restaurant in Carytown. I had never been in, as it seemed expensive and I am generally cheap, but it was, as I said, really quite lovely. It was full of exquisite little touches of elegance and Europe and class. It seemed (to, admittedly, one who has never spent an instant in France) to feel very European. The ceiling is high, gold and intricate, with circles of fleurs-des-lis around the hanging lamps. The floor is real marble mosaic. The bread is real, good bread, cut right there on a marble countertop before being brought to the table. French herb bread, baguettes, apple bread with raisins. The walls are decorated in places with antique mirrors. The bar was imported from France in three parts. In the bathrooms, there are European-style toilets with silver chains, and beautiful porcelain sinks with arched, swanlike spigots.

I would like to go back.



Ten Thousand Villages is having its (evidently yearly?) 75% off sale, and I spent more money than I should have on a really beautiful hand-woven black alpaca scarf with black embroidery and lace weaving and tassels at the ends made of black ribbon. It is from Bolivia. It was originally $125. How in good conscience could I turn that down? This is the sort of scarf--shawl really, I suppose--that I might pass on to my grandchildren. It is truly a treasure.

I wonder how disorganized a post can be?

I fucking hate living here. Lately it's harder every day to deal with it. And I feel like such a spoiled, whiny brat. Why do I get to feel so put-upon when there are other people who can never move out? When in other cultures, multi-generational family living is the norm? I wonder almost daily how the fuck people can stand that.


Maybe there are some people out there who can grieve in a logical, dignified manner--lots of quiet pain and hurt, gradually tapering down to a resumed normal existence after a few weeks or months. Or maybe everyone who grieves, who has been psychologically eviscerated in some way, plays out some variation on the shit I've been pulling: acting sad, acting normal, acting fucking psychotic, acting normal, et cetera. Maybe everyone has moments where they're going about their business and then some horrible thing rears up within them and rips everything to shreds. It's like I have this masochist inside me in whose possession is that card-catalog of images and moments and feelings that will make these intestines that I've been holding in start to spill back out onto the floor again, loop by loop. Tonight it's David's shirt. I want more than anything to grab the sides of his shirt and pull myself against him and cry into his chest. I can feel the knit cotton in my fists. I can feel his chest under my cheek. I can feel him gently taking me by the shoulders and pushing me away, and I can see myself standing in the front yard and crying, and yelling, and throwing things on the ground while he stands there in front of the house.

This evening there was a lot of frustration going on between me and my parents. I hate it. I hate not wanting to be home. I hate not wanting to be around them. I want to want to be here, especially with Chloe about to leave for college in Connecticut. I don't want to miss these last chances to be with her. But I swear, if my dad sees me upset and gets me to talk to him about it and then responds by telling me to sweep the fucking walks one more goddamn time, I am going to stop speaking to him.

I hate this. Hating. Being angry. Fighting with everyone. Being so tired. Regressing to the fucking seventh grade. What is this? Why am I so angry? Why can't I fix it? Why am I writing like a bratty little kid?

I meant to say, before going on the tangent about my father/parents, that tonight was one of those where I kept turning up the music in the car, trying to make it loud enough to drown myself out. I felt like there was a vacuum in my chest, felt that almost-frantic feeling you get when you've dived down deep and you need a breath, but there's no air to take in.



On the plus side,
1. Kelly went shoe shopping with myself and Chloe in tow, and I got gold flats on sale. I wanted these, but I don't really have the money to spend at the moment. Very sad.

2. I watched The Big Bang Theory with Kelly, and remembered that it's a pretty great show. Mostly just Sheldon(?), but I'm okay with that.

3. I remembered how much I like "I and Love and You" by the Avett Brothers.






Whatever I can remember of what I've been meaning to write for two days:

I realize now that I am not even remotely in the proper emotional state to write this the way I wanted it written, but when I drove over Afton Mountain on my way home from Camp on Saturday, I drove just beneath a cloud. I could (and did) literally put my hand out the window and reach up and feel the cool mist of it on my fingers. there was something else I meant to tie in, about friendship maybe, but it's lost to me--at least for now. Still, it was something of a marvel. Magical.