9:25 p.m. - 05/25/03
this time I'll save myself.
I'm in that sort of musing, semi-creative, largely-lazy mood that always seems to pop up just in time for finals. It's still sweet, though, and I'm looking forward to days I won't spend the ways I'm planning them, but planning them nonetheless. Books and books and music and skin-reacquainting-with-the-sun. I wrote a short story for my gothic class, the first "story" I've written in some time, and I'm feeling a bit battered by the nostalgia of my pre-poetry/ pre-playwright days. Unbelievable as it seems now, there was a time when my main creative energy was spent on stories, though never particularly short ones, and sadly, the one I wrote for gothic was strikingly similar to every story I wrote in seventh grade. The point is, characters are following me home again, and usually I can coax them into plays, but now I'm not entirely sure. And is there any harm in writing character sketches and setting-lacking, lite-on-the-plot stories, if the characters will grow strong and either a) give me an enjoyable moment or b) end up in something I can use more actively, like for a play, after we know each other better? I don't think there's anything entirely wrong with that. In fact, I'm not sure that there's anything partially wrong with that.
I just have some odd synapse in my head which convinces me I cannot write stories, but why let the smoke damage in my brain win against the fire in my blood? I love new characters. I love old characters. The stories I could tell you about girls I know like my fingerprints, like the color of my skin in the dark. Mm. I'm hungry for interaction just talking about it.
Tangentially, I haven't been hungry for much else. I checked out the side effect list for flurazepam - because I'm definitely having dry mouth issues (I'm not sure I've had a drop of saliva in my mouth for the past weeks - blech) - but appetite shifts aren't listed. It might be mental; the point is it's annoying. I'm doing well with it; I'm eating anyway, but I hate feeling indifferent toward meals. I hate not knowing I need to eat until I'm sick from having missed a meal. Tonight, at what was basically dinnertime, I told my mom I needed something to drink, she asked if we could go somewhere where she could get food, and I sort of groaned, then realized what time it was. "Actually, I need to get some food, too," I said, which is impressive on my part. But I wouldn't have known it if she hadn't been around to prompt me with her hunger.
Just keep my eyes on the clock the next few days. Just three meals a day, no big deal; just keep an eye on the time.
I went out with my mom today. Into "the city" (which still feels funny to me. It's not a real city, even though I'd defend it vehemently if anyone who isn't from this area suggested that. It's like the home version of the glitzy game show; the family version of city life. Less urban grit, more visible Gap-shoppers) in search of fun. I had a very surreal experience in a Borders (an establishment I must be forgiven for patronizing, on the grounds that it's taken out all but one independent bookstore and two independent music stores in the city, none of which were near where we were.) For this and other reasons, (like the fact that they stop having any real selection after the first few months, when they begin selling only what has sold during the trial period), I hate Borders passionately, and I have a long history of being burned by them for this distaste. Just browsing? Have a clear idea of what I want? Doesn't matter; Borders still refuses to serve me. Today, I went in with a clear idea of what I wanted: one CD and left in a stupor of discovery.
The one CD: Frightening as it is, I've come upon another mainstream band that I really do enjoy. I'm finding myself less and less resistent to mainstream (and even pop) music, though I still can't listen to it for an extended period of time. Pop songs remind me of actual good times with my friends from N*land (who were all dancy-singy-performance-kids and therefore always had a dance beat bouncing in the background), and generally, if I can make out hip-hop lyrics, they're poetically more interesting than the rest of the music achieving radio-play these days. Anyway, my newest mainstream conversion confessed: Evanesence. I mean seriously, they're like liquid-silver good. How many mainstream bands fuse a pure soprano torch with an actually rocking rock band? How many (mainstream) rocking bands have a female singer fronting them to begin with? So, yes, I'm converted - *sob*. And while I'm making religious references, I also realized during the course of weird events today that a number of bands / artists I really like obviously reference some spirituality, often God, sometimes Jesus, Christ, or even Lord. (A term I still can't help but cringe at. It always makes me think of My Lord And Master.) I don't find the spiritual element at all surprising, really - because that's something I consider a fairly important aspect of my personality. (I'd say more than "fairly" - except that it's always in such a state of fluctuation; it's hard to stand firm about it.) But the presence of theistic and even Christian termanology surprises me. Either I'm getting closer to letting all the religious abuse at N*land go, or I'm losing my mind entirely. But somehow, "Lord" does not sound like someone who owns you, the way men will always own you, when it's coming out of Ben Harper's throat and lips. (But then, I've theorized here often that Ben Harper is God, so...I suppose that might explain it.)
And it was dear Ben who gave me my first jump. At the top of the stairs, he greeted me from a special display - all albums on sale, a brand new release. This being at Borders, the only good sales were on the two albums I already have, so I went to find a headset and listen to the new and the other "sale" item (which is about the cost of a CD at a reasonable store.) Obviously, I fell in love. It's Ben Harper. (To twist even more muscles into my smile, one of the staff members had recommended him with a quote saying he's definitely, "the most underrated artist of our time." I love the liberty with which she stated that, as if it's entirely non-debatable. Which of course it isn't. But it's cute that someone else starts kissing inanimate objects at the sound of his songs, and glowing like a proud relative when he wins new listeners or praise. Eep. Anyway. My but-Borders-never-has-anything escapade had only just begun.
I proceeded to find that Live (who you may remember I strongly associate with Rogers, and therefore care about more than I probably should or would, without the reference, but a girl in exile grasps at straws) had also released a new album and to discover a Chantal Kreviazuk album for less than a third of most of the surrounding CDs. By this point, I was in shock. I only have the one Live album with all the songs Dave played for us, and I couldn't sample it because it's not in their database, so I wasn't entirely set on buying it, but it was definitely tempting. And "Under These Rocks and Stones" (Kreviazuk's first release) is lyrically not-so-good (but if you've heard her sing "Leaving on a Jet Plane, you've gotta be in love.) Anyway, I took all this information and went to the only section of any bookstore where one can feel entirely comfortable and free to ruminate on decisions: children's.
I prioritized my selections, while searching through the titles I read as a child, thinking maybe I could grab something to read quickly while my mom finished whatever she'd found to fuel her time into (because obviously, at this point, I did not need to find a book on top of everything else.) On my way out of the section, I was stunned to see a title on the young adult shelf by Joyce Carol Oates. (Hello? Isn't she basically the most highly commended writer of at least the past decade? And she wrote a kids' book?) Intrigued, I picked it up, and took it downstairs to the cafe where I knew I'd find my mom, buried in art books, with a bevarage just waiting for me to bum a few sips.
(I had to chastise her based on the choice, though. Diet coke? "Diet coke is liquid steel."*)
I told her the horror I'd endured upstairs while my relationship with Borders was turned upside-down and I could barely walk with my eyes open for fear of finding yet another item of the oh-wow-wow-wow calibre. Ever attuned to the bottom line, she took a shortcut through enthusiasm to begin bargaining. Altogether, I did well. I came out of the store with two cds and only paid for one. (No shoplifting involved. Just a spontaneous - and perhaps guilty? - feeling mommy. ...The "perhaps-guilty" is based on a conversation with my father, in which he proposed to take me out and spoil me silly, a not unprecedented side effect of his absence. He's never been gone this long, though, so I'm a little freaked. He hasn't slept at home in a few weeks, which means I'm seeing him less than when he lived in Narnia. Very weird. And in general my parents are weird, and no one in my family sees them getting divorced, but it's bizarre. I'm starting to talk about him a lot because obviously I miss him, and the only person to talk to is my mom, and I know it must be hard for her to hear. But whatever, they're my parents, and part of their job is to deal with what I'm feeling. She's been doing a better job with it since whatever Dr. R spoke to her about on Thursday. Tangent closed.)
While waiting for my mom to check out, I found two more most fabulous things I cannot at the moment afford: the first, an absolutely perfect present for my friend Heather (for whom I'd just this afternoon found an absolutely perfect card). It was one of those tiny gift books, entirely devoted to Pez. If I have the funds to secure presents for the other N*land friends I plan to congratulate / celebrate graduation with, I'll probably go back for it. And then (and this part is downright creepy) on the way out, they had the copy of Jane Eyre.
I don't believe I've ever spoken in this journal about the copy of Jane Eyre. It belongs to the library in N*land, its cloth cover was beaten and ragged, but the book had been reinforced by caring hands enough times that it was still secure. Sarah and I both read Jane Eyre for the first time from that copy, a hardbound magic book we've searched for ever since. I scanned the sale carts super-carefully everytime the library removed a few volumes from their collection. I told myself I'd go back one day with a shitload of money or twelve brand-new copies of the book, and ask to have their copy. When I moved, one of the only things that upset me, (seriously, there were very few) was that I would no longer be able to keep tabs on this book.
Well, they had it. They had perhaps three copies of it at a price so low, I could have bought far more than three copies. I was in absolute shock. I pointed it out to my mom who agreed it had to be the same copy, oddly unrecognizable in its newness, but identical all the same. Absolute glee. I'm going back for it. And I'm getting one for my sister, definitely. At which point, the only remaining (Jane-Eyre-related) mystery will be how do I manage to "distress" this copy to the point of familiarity? Oh, how I miss the lamination, the worn cover, and the library tape!
(On a related note, I'm absolutely thrilled about the impending move's association with libraries. Imagine. I can go to libraries. I can sit in libraries. I can read library books. I can go to bookstores and read there, too, only buying the books I know I want because I can stay in a store as easily as I can stay with my parents. This is going to be beautiful. I'm especially excited, considering the depressing graduation cards I read today, all with the same, "ha-ha, you think you're done, but now there's college!" theme, which I don't have to face yet. Although I *did* look at college websites, for the first time since getting rejected from Hampshire, today. That's pretty huge. And I felt good doing it, too. It made it more firm inside me that I am still going to college - or that I *can* still go to college. The option didn't pack its bags and skip town. There are still schools, still accepting applicants, still ready and willing to stumble across me in their search for a student body. And I'm excited about the short liberty of these next few months, but it's also comforting to know it's not a path to nowhere. I can get off this train at any station. Or rather, I can leave this station on any train...
...That's basically been my day. I don't do the same sort of introspection when I'm out because I have to stay so focused to counter anxiety and other illness issues. I guess I put all my introspection into action, which is good, even if it does make for more of a "here's how I spent my Sunday" entry than I'm normally into. The pain's been fairly low, though, and I'm grateful for that. It's been a rough week for depression, I feel.
There was one moment, when Mom dragged me into a sporting goods store (the kind with all the equipment for camping and canoeing and hiking), where I shook a little in my strength. They have a climbing wall, which has drawn me to them, and pushed me away simultaneously for as long as I've been here. I miss climbing, but I want nothing to do with it because obviously, just putting on a harness would make me tear up and feel nauseous with homesickness. But Mom had to go in, so I stood and watched over a railing as a small girl tried to scale the wall. Mom came up behind me and said, "I'm sorry it's making you sad; I didn't mean to do that." (I'd informed her earlier that seeing something I loved so much in this case made me sad, and I noted the coolness of her being sweet about it.) I told her it wasn't her fault; after all, memories fly up from unseen sources all the time. I don't think it's possible to guard against them.
So I feel and see what happens. I don't know what else to do.
Tomorrow: (maybe) the ethical implications of having a template affair and my growing desire to abandon the strong relationship I've had with this design (for whole *months* now) for an unsure fling with a new object of my infatuation. Template-love-triangles: perhaps the closest I've come to romantic distress.
And I'm proud of that.
chord
*Alix Olson
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