Wednesday, March 30, 2011
8 1/2 - Fellini
saw this movie last sunday on the big screen.
it's kind of all i can think about now.
From the Forbes Library Darth Vader Reference Room.
60 minutes on a library computer! What a novelty!
I've rediscovered Luddite life. It ain't so bad.
Began an actual physical journal. This may be a fine step.
I've rediscovered Luddite life. It ain't so bad.
Began an actual physical journal. This may be a fine step.
Monday, March 28, 2011
System Malfunction
Sorry. My computer's dead. I think I cursed myself by posting X-Men's Rogue the other day and then being hit with rogue viruses. Hopefully it will be fixed soon, but until then I'm finding ways to entertain myself without it. I do however Twitter, so ... http://twitter.com/marionettesque
until then, adieu!
until then, adieu!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
After a week of work.
Dear Prudence, even with feeling kinda sick, went out to play tonight. She discussed important interracial problems with a friend (the white rich person being the problem), watched and sung along with people belting their hearts out to 'You Oughta Know' and 'Eye of the Tiger,' made a couple new acquaintances, and danced to some ridiculous top forties (seriously why is it 40's and not some other number?) music, only to end the night singing and dancing to Frank Sinatra.
Stared up at the stars on the way home.
Goodnight.
Stared up at the stars on the way home.
Goodnight.
Friday, March 25, 2011
love in the fast lane
Had the most vivid 1960's dream with you in it last night, because you still haunt my dreams.
You came over, and I pinned you to the floor and asked you if you hated me. You said no, that you never could, that you'd always be there for me as long as I was there for you, and I said yes. We watched a movie, cuddled and kissed.
Unfortunately, you were also on the run from the cops. At a party we were both attending, I was worried because I hadn't seen you in a bit. Cops busted in, I grabbed my shoes, hurriedly and stealthily got them on my feet, and went looking for you. I found you, you looked so scared, we hugged each other close, and then went running. We got as far as another's house, thought we were safe for a while. I tried to calm you down by stroking your long locks, but you were frazzled beyond belief. Cops busted in again. We got separated. You were dealing with a pig and you told me to run. I just kept running into the dark cold void of the mountainous outdoors. I didn't feel right running without you. Last thing I can remember in my dream - you had somehow made it up into the mountains. But you were upset wondering where I was, and I - the same, in regards to you.
Randoms: You had ran away from your dad. I found his last name in a phonebook and called it up, and the voicemail of your father was that of a thick southern accent. You told me you wanted nothing to do with him.
You also had scrawled a certain charles mansonish symbol onto the wall in your house, and then built a version of it out of wood and hung it up.
it was one intense dream. even though we never see nor speak to each other, i'm glad i know you to have had it. was blockbuster worthy. of course it made me think/i probably still care about you. i guess i always will.
You came over, and I pinned you to the floor and asked you if you hated me. You said no, that you never could, that you'd always be there for me as long as I was there for you, and I said yes. We watched a movie, cuddled and kissed.
Unfortunately, you were also on the run from the cops. At a party we were both attending, I was worried because I hadn't seen you in a bit. Cops busted in, I grabbed my shoes, hurriedly and stealthily got them on my feet, and went looking for you. I found you, you looked so scared, we hugged each other close, and then went running. We got as far as another's house, thought we were safe for a while. I tried to calm you down by stroking your long locks, but you were frazzled beyond belief. Cops busted in again. We got separated. You were dealing with a pig and you told me to run. I just kept running into the dark cold void of the mountainous outdoors. I didn't feel right running without you. Last thing I can remember in my dream - you had somehow made it up into the mountains. But you were upset wondering where I was, and I - the same, in regards to you.
Randoms: You had ran away from your dad. I found his last name in a phonebook and called it up, and the voicemail of your father was that of a thick southern accent. You told me you wanted nothing to do with him.
You also had scrawled a certain charles mansonish symbol onto the wall in your house, and then built a version of it out of wood and hung it up.
it was one intense dream. even though we never see nor speak to each other, i'm glad i know you to have had it. was blockbuster worthy. of course it made me think/i probably still care about you. i guess i always will.
tennessee tuxedos & tentative thoughts.
Stressors are floating around me... Here, there, everywhere I look, a stress.
So until I'm able to manage a paragraph or two, you're stuck with a picture of cutie penguins.
Well, and, Ms. Chase could speak on behalf of me a bit:
So until I'm able to manage a paragraph or two, you're stuck with a picture of cutie penguins.
Well, and, Ms. Chase could speak on behalf of me a bit:
Saturday, March 19, 2011
lunacy.
What do you want me to do? Why do you drive me into the arms of people whose imperfections are deadset on driving me crazy? How do you have the power to have me sit here and think about how I'd rather give my life instead of all these others dying in huge natural disasters, under evil dictators, and under terrible mental conditions (zoos, knut.) I would honestly sacrifice myself to a bear or a lion in an instant without thinking twice. Oh dear would I be scared, but I'd do it. On second thought, maybe I wouldn't because I'm probably so terribly tainted with traces of tar and terror and treachery - why would I want to poison a creature I actually love unconditionally. Why can we love animals and babies and innocence so easily but the more tainted the individual the harder to think of such? Yet I can see the base of an individual - through all the thickery and thorns, and try my best to coerce it out. it fails, i fail. time and time again. it's like i never learn, caught in a loop dee loop. no one seems to want this patience and longing and motherly kinship.
they just want a woman who will be obedient, who never thinks to question, who ignores their intuition, their honesty, their nature ability to know when something's wrong is wrong. why on earth would they want a woman who wants them to have the ability to understand and feel everything around them? Well that's a good question.
they just want a woman who will be obedient, who never thinks to question, who ignores their intuition, their honesty, their nature ability to know when something's wrong is wrong. why on earth would they want a woman who wants them to have the ability to understand and feel everything around them? Well that's a good question.
suddenly true, there's better things to do.
Throwing in the towel dealing with men. At least I have my guy pals to bro it up with. I'm too 'BALLSY' and 'FORWARD' and 'MASCULINE' - and my guy (and the gals, but focusing on DUDES) friends RESPECT it and LOVE me for every aspect of my character. and I don't care if that makes me sound full of myself right now, I'm frazzled, annoyed, and through with idiocy. Clouded perceptions fail to get results, and I speak not of myself... how could you honestly not get at what I was saying and play the victim when your brain is pumped up in prescription purgatory? You think they're 'helping you SO much,' get a clue. once your erratic behavior scares the shit out of the next girl you ALREADY found after you mindlessly let me go (because the this day and age instant gratification male needs to get laid! distance cannot be a factor, lord no!) maybe you'll think differently once you read this (presumably) get pissed off (presumably) and things will take its course, of course, presumably. Yeah, what do I know, right? This is just 'stupid girl bullshit.'
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Have you seen the light?
Let Alphonse Mucha's 'Moon' remind us that March's 'Super Moon' will be in full effect on the 19th, that is, it will be closest to the Earth it's been in the past 18 years. Surely some interesting emotions will ensue, but hopefully some healing powers will also be emitted.
This is the best GD song, IMO.
I also wanna know, have you ever seen the rain?
Coffee and Mulligan Stew.
In hopes to assuage my sad, ruptured thoughts from the last entry, this is my favorite Shel Silverstein poem from grade school. I actually had to memorize it and perform it in front of my class:
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too
Went for a ride in a flying shoe.
"Hooray!"
"What fun!"
"It's time we flew!"
Said Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle was captain, and Pickle was crew
And Tickle served coffee and mulligan stew
As higher
And higher
And higher they flew,
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too,
Over the sun and beyond the blue.
"Hold on!"
"Stay in!"
"I hope we do!"
Cried Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle too
Never returned to the world they knew,
And nobody
Knows what's
Happened to
Dear Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too
Went for a ride in a flying shoe.
"Hooray!"
"What fun!"
"It's time we flew!"
Said Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle was captain, and Pickle was crew
And Tickle served coffee and mulligan stew
As higher
And higher
And higher they flew,
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too,
Over the sun and beyond the blue.
"Hold on!"
"Stay in!"
"I hope we do!"
Cried Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle too
Never returned to the world they knew,
And nobody
Knows what's
Happened to
Dear Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Out in the street...
"Has anyone ever mentioned that you seem ethereal?"
Not really, I'd actually like to know in what way.
Tonight when home from work, begin top secret nobody knows project. Tomorrow, converting second room (yes I have two) into an art set-up.
My dad and stepmom came up to visit yesterday (and we took a walk on the bike path with Benny and Ali!) then we ate at a bar and had a couple drinks. I didn't want them to leave :( family is so therapeutic... apparently so therapeutic that I went home and took the most glorious nap in forever (actually cannot remember last nap.) and had the topsiest turviest dream that involved a foreign country with the CRAZIEST rollercoaster I've ever been on (when it was slowly inching up the really high parts I really felt like I was almost peeing my pants in pleasure) it went through sound tunnels n' shit. I lost a boot.
Then I went and sang two songs at "hipster karaoke," which leads me to:
Seriously, stop texting me at 4am. No, I'm not awake - and no, I'm not mean because I'm not awake at 4am to text you back.
Not really, I'd actually like to know in what way.
Tonight when home from work, begin top secret nobody knows project. Tomorrow, converting second room (yes I have two) into an art set-up.
My dad and stepmom came up to visit yesterday (and we took a walk on the bike path with Benny and Ali!) then we ate at a bar and had a couple drinks. I didn't want them to leave :( family is so therapeutic... apparently so therapeutic that I went home and took the most glorious nap in forever (actually cannot remember last nap.) and had the topsiest turviest dream that involved a foreign country with the CRAZIEST rollercoaster I've ever been on (when it was slowly inching up the really high parts I really felt like I was almost peeing my pants in pleasure) it went through sound tunnels n' shit. I lost a boot.
Then I went and sang two songs at "hipster karaoke," which leads me to:
Seriously, stop texting me at 4am. No, I'm not awake - and no, I'm not mean because I'm not awake at 4am to text you back.
Friday, March 11, 2011
s[p]lish s[p]lash
Thinking about my tsunami dream that I had recently and wondering why a random rated R thought just coincided: Imagining miso being eaten inside the slo[p]e the brain once was formally nestled... the skull, upside down, ifyouknowwhatimean (because of crazy horror movie that was watched with Kozak and Cora.)
I knew something seemed sad about yesterday. I fought back tears for the better half of the afternoon, and mother nature began to cry on Gaby and I while we ate [p]izza in the [p]ark.
"You sound cute, you should come over and read me these questions!" was the stand out quote of the night from a res[p]ondent. It was quite the battle. I pretended to stab myself in the head with a [p]encil.
ps: (11/2/2016: the p's were in brackets because my computer at the time's p's had shorted out, or it was possibly Kozak's or Cora's computer's 'P's' that frazzled out.... either or.
pss: I had that tsunami dream a couple days before that actual tsunami (in Japan.)
I knew something seemed sad about yesterday. I fought back tears for the better half of the afternoon, and mother nature began to cry on Gaby and I while we ate [p]izza in the [p]ark.
"You sound cute, you should come over and read me these questions!" was the stand out quote of the night from a res[p]ondent. It was quite the battle. I pretended to stab myself in the head with a [p]encil.
ps: (11/2/2016: the p's were in brackets because my computer at the time's p's had shorted out, or it was possibly Kozak's or Cora's computer's 'P's' that frazzled out.... either or.
pss: I had that tsunami dream a couple days before that actual tsunami (in Japan.)
Arm candy.
I've had my mind re-animated.
only writing five word sentences.
arsonist had oddly shaped feet,
selling shells at the seashore?
Don't mind if he does!
he can work all day,
while Justin gets to play.
only writing five word sentences.
arsonist had oddly shaped feet,
selling shells at the seashore?
Don't mind if he does!
he can work all day,
while Justin gets to play.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
crab apples
My internal clock is taking a beatdown with these crazy hours.
Basically: 4:45pm, grab bus. Walk 15 minutes to work, which is 6pm to midnight. Walk back to bus stop, get home around 1-ish (luckily tonight a super awesome co-worker gave me a ride home.) and generally around the stroke of 10 or so, my brain is literally seething with pain, and I keep on keepin' on with the surveys. Called New Jersey & Cali tonight - the Cali study was actually political & mentioned the protests in the middle east at the moment; got to survey some opinionated young women which was ... uplifting.
Unlike getting home and passing out right away like last night however, I seem to be strangely awake. It's almost 3am and here I am. It's as if I'm writing this right now to comfort my loneliness... sleep, eat, go to work, repeat. I don't 'hang' with anyone anymore, I don't even want to anyways... every time I try something frustrates me into not wanting to deal with it. Everything is too serious with me.
What makes me smile though? The little girl who wanted to show me her parfait cup in line at Trader Joes today. She was so happy that I was so happy that she was going to eat something delicious. And the fact that I noticed her seemed to have the cashier notice her and give her stickers. At this point she was pretty ecstatic.
This is stupidly random, but I wanted to think of a list of my staple foods/drinks - so shopping can be easier, and since it's so easy to start here, ALAS - LIST TIME!
Coffee, Diet Coke, lemonade, orange juice, whiskey, IPA, spinach, red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, avocados, any color peppers, celery, broccoli, sharp cheddar, cream cheese, cottage cheese, everything bagels, balsamic vinagrette, edamame, popcorn, trail mix..... realizing that I really don't eat much fruit?
Crap I just got one of my weird heart palpitations again... it's been happening randomly lately and it kind of seizes up my body. Ohhhh wellll...
Sunday will get here soon enough?
(PS: Thinking about Texas...)
Basically: 4:45pm, grab bus. Walk 15 minutes to work, which is 6pm to midnight. Walk back to bus stop, get home around 1-ish (luckily tonight a super awesome co-worker gave me a ride home.) and generally around the stroke of 10 or so, my brain is literally seething with pain, and I keep on keepin' on with the surveys. Called New Jersey & Cali tonight - the Cali study was actually political & mentioned the protests in the middle east at the moment; got to survey some opinionated young women which was ... uplifting.
Unlike getting home and passing out right away like last night however, I seem to be strangely awake. It's almost 3am and here I am. It's as if I'm writing this right now to comfort my loneliness... sleep, eat, go to work, repeat. I don't 'hang' with anyone anymore, I don't even want to anyways... every time I try something frustrates me into not wanting to deal with it. Everything is too serious with me.
What makes me smile though? The little girl who wanted to show me her parfait cup in line at Trader Joes today. She was so happy that I was so happy that she was going to eat something delicious. And the fact that I noticed her seemed to have the cashier notice her and give her stickers. At this point she was pretty ecstatic.
This is stupidly random, but I wanted to think of a list of my staple foods/drinks - so shopping can be easier, and since it's so easy to start here, ALAS - LIST TIME!
Coffee, Diet Coke, lemonade, orange juice, whiskey, IPA, spinach, red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, avocados, any color peppers, celery, broccoli, sharp cheddar, cream cheese, cottage cheese, everything bagels, balsamic vinagrette, edamame, popcorn, trail mix..... realizing that I really don't eat much fruit?
Crap I just got one of my weird heart palpitations again... it's been happening randomly lately and it kind of seizes up my body. Ohhhh wellll...
Sunday will get here soon enough?
(PS: Thinking about Texas...)
Monday, March 7, 2011
i'm buying it all up in outerspace
just another freakin' manic monday.
rando's in my brain atm:
1. I'm soooo unfashionable. (although I don't really mind this?)
2. keep staying away from the ignorant, unwilling to change/or perceive anything outside of themselves, type. they only like to make you look like a twit, karyn. stay calm and focused, on yourself. (as difficult as that may be.)
3. beginning two projects. will hopefully encapsulate myself in these when i'm not brfss-ing. (ah, work lingo.)
5. go go gadget.
6.
emily haines, forever a kick-ass goddess.
7. go be enlightened a bit here.
and to round it all out, a really good editorial cartoon:
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Unearthing Old Writing Part Deuce
Two stories written for a Creative Writing Course in Spring of '09:
Story #1:
The umbrella. "Tit and tat and bone for bone," were the words that resonated through the musky dimlit room; the smoke from the last camel had yet to subside. The folk twinged slaphappy number gave the girl in bed the relaxation she needed: muscles unclenched, sighs of relief. The music of this singer, the Pete Segar of our generation, was the only thing that made sense to the disheveled head on the pillow.
Another dull Saturday afternoon on an abandoned campus. As if living in a room resemblant to a hospital with white brick walls wasn't enough, staying past Thursday at a suitcase state college was downright introverted and dismal with a lack of bodies bumbling around.
Looking out a single window into the courtyard surrounded by towering residential hall monuments dedicated to deceased scholars, Elizabeth punched the digits of her boyfriend's number rapidly and without haste, pushed the phone up to her cheek, chanting under her breath, "C'mon. C'mon... C'mon!"
"Hey I'm busy what do you need?" Daniel said without a pause, before Elizabeth uttered a solitary word. She opted to protest, since she knew he was only in his room, on his computer.
"Why are you working on a Saturday? Can't you come hang out for a while?"
Then there was a pause.
"Daniel?"
Still no sound.
"Daniel, can you answer me?"
"I just can't today," he finally managed to shoot out. "I'm sorry. I got to go."
Without as much of a bye, Elizabeth snapped the hand-me-down, piece of shit cellphone shut and let out a sharp exhale.
A dining hall meal for one and a five page paper written later, Elizabeth ran up four flights of stairs so steep they seemed almost perpendicular to the ground, and into her getaway car. As her friends blasted some new wave underground indie rock, Elizabeth racked her brain for ideas.
"Whaddya say we do something creative. Let's DIY some shirts!" she exclaimed.
Piling the plastic bags of fruit of the loom t-shirts and paints onto her friend Jenna's floor, they, along with Jenna's boyfriend Jason, began an afternoon of good natured tomfoolery. The dorm room was littered with arts and crafts; it could have easily been mistaken for a kindergarten classroom.
While Jenna was snapping photos of some of their decorative new threads, Elizabeth felt inspired by the sudden flashes of the camera and began to rummage through random artifacts in the desk drawers. Finding a typical black umbrella with the velcro strap secured tightly around the nylon fabric, she had the hair-brain scheme of recreating a Disney moment.
Without saying a word to Jenna or Jason, Elizabeth ripped off the strap, clicked the metal button upward, and out flew the the protective armor, resilient to mother nature's sobs. Being the ham she had been her entire life, Elizabeth, with her blonde hair in pigtails and her long pink skirt fluttering about, hopped up onto a chair and held it above her head.
“Look! I'm Mary Poppins!” Elizabeth said with a grin on her face.
Laughing, she began to twirl it around, lifted her right leg upward in a dance position, and began to wail, “Just a spoonful of sugar, helps the medicine, go down...”
Jenna snapped a picture.
A rainy spring had passed, and Elizabeth made the decision that all undergraduates succumb to after years upon years of befuddled mishaps with roommates, awkward sexual interruptions, and run-ins with inebriated jocks: moving into an apartment complex off of campus. Merely a couple miles away from campus, but still, away.
While collecting and gathering all the things that had a purpose in her new residence, Elizabeth phoned her non-existant-yet-at-times-chivalrous boyfriend for some assistance.
The phone rang for three complete intervals. Right after the “Hi” in the voice mail, Elizabeth snapped
the phone shut, opened it, and redialed. She knew he was there.
“Yes?” Daniel's agitated voice rang out.
“Hi... I was just... wondering something?” she sheepishly asked.
“What is it now?” Daniel asked. He was a man of few words.
“Could you possibly help me move some of my belongings into my apartment?” Elizabeth questioned
again. Thinking to herself, she wished she had a car so that she didn't need to ask someone who didn't
want to be bothered into helping or spending time with her, ever.
Pause. Like usual. Why do I put up with this?
“I think I'm going gray,” Elizabeth joked; it was meant to be a harmless.
“I'm BUSY Elizabeth. Don't you understand I have work to do? Something you should be doing more
often? We'll see. I might be working till late. Don't depend on it.” Daniel lashed out.
“I'm sorry,” she uttered. “Bye...”
Why am I dating a 22 going on 50 year old?
Elizabeth lost the motivation to pack, and the ability to function. Curling up in bed, she laid there, her
thoughts in constant limbo.
Taking a stroll on campus one day with no certain destination in mind, Elizabeth tried to clear her mind of all annoyances. In the distance ahead, she noticed a bushy facial haired boy walking toward her. Instantly intrigued, she stared at his startling handsome looks. Mystery boy had a certain spring in his step that was mesmerizing.
Probably younger than me, all the cute ones are.
Then she noticed he was looking at her.
As they were mere feet away from passing, Elizabeth lost control of her motor skills. “Hi!” she blurted out.
Oh my god, are you serious. I just did that?
After her incredibly outgoing moment, Elizabeth was instantly shy and awkward. Surprisingly, the boy had stopped to respond.
Together, they conversed and covered just about every inch of asphalt the school had purchased in its 150 years of existence. Paul, a sophomore who admired experimental music and his father from Mexico, was unemployed. This did not matter to Elizabeth; it was actually a pleasant fact. She found herself blabbing, telling him every possible known fact about her: how she was originally from halfway across the country, that she took a year off after graduating high school, her affinity for learning, and love for spontaneous, random moments. His giant brown eyes just stared back in full attentiveness, something she hadn't received from anyone in what seemed like light years.
“Want to come back to my dorm and watch a movie?” Paul asked in a completely harmless voice, a tone that didn't seem too expectant of anything.
“Sure, why not?” Elizabeth agreed, sequestering away all of her thoughts of Daniel.
Returning to a dorm room non-resemblant to Elizabeth's old jail cell or Jenna's rustic quarters, it wasn't any better. But with a commandeering resident like Paul in power, he had spruced it up with band posters, musical instruments laid strewn across the room, and somehow, had remodeled his bed into a fort by slipping his mattress underneath the high rise bed frame, draping a sheet over hard metal springs where the mattress normally resided.
As they crawled under the frame, where people generally shoved boxes and shoes, Paul grabbed the John Cusack favorite, Better Off Dead, popped it in his computer, and set it at the end of the mattress, inside the fort.
While Elizabeth paid attention to most of the movie, she couldn't help looking over at Paul every once in a while; he was too adorable for words. Wanting to touch him but knowing her commitment limitations, Elizabeth got closer, rubbed her foot against his; tried every subtle move in the book.
The movie credits rolled; Cusack got the girl, as always.
Pulling away from Paul's lips, she was confused.
What just happened?
Elizabeth didn't remember anything prior to the breakaway. Who initiated it?
Glancing into the dark and realizing she had lost complete track of time, 3am glimmered from Paul's small desktop dialog clock. Worry, in every form imaginable, filled Elizabeth; she had to leave immediately. Not wanting to appear frazzled, she softly spoke to Paul.
“I need to go back to my apartment.”
Alone, she walked off of campus and onto vacant city streets. Adjusting her headphones and putting her music player on shuffle, into her ears flowed a sad, melancholy tune. As if it just had to happen at that moment, she began to feel intermittent drops of rain fall on random places of her body. For most of the journey back it held off, but in the home stretch, it poured, and so did the tears from Elizabeth's face as she ran the rest of the way home.
Having not slept a wink but still residing under the covers, Elizabeth shot out of bed and called Daniel at eight in the morning. Honesty is the best policy, right?
Her thoughts controlled her every move.
Around two hours later, there was a knock at the door. Five minutes later, Elizabeth finally mustered the courage to open it. There stood the elusive never-to-be-seen-or-heard-from boyfriend.
Daniel knew something was up; even if he wasn't around Elizabeth all the time, he knew how free-spirited she could be. This wore on his mind constantly; a new cockeyed scenario of Elizabeth cavorting around arose every couple hours or so.
Finding it relatively easy to tell what happened for what it was: nothing serious and just a kiss, Elizabeth finished with a collective hope that everything would be okay.
“Are you fucking serious?” Daniel almost shouted. “Are you fucking kidding me? I can't... I can't believe this.” And with that, he arose from his seat with a face full of the deepest disgust, and left her apartment.
Conditions were gloomy for the next few months: (s)he fought with every word she could manage, (s)he'd want to make up, (s)he'd want to never be together again, everything would reverse, rewind, fast forward, pause, flip-flop, intensify, lessen: and this pulverized Elizabeth. Neither of them could shake each other off or let one another go without a fight or a change of heart. Eventually it ended; Elizabeth and Daniel had cut off all contact permanently.
Buckling under the pressure of her new I-don't-know-who-I-am stress laden environment, Elizabeth began her new bad habit of smoking. She had finally got her own car, but a week later, it was stolen from her apartment complex.
Oddly perplexed that night, she wondered why someone would commit such an ethically immoral crime. She smoked a cigarette and fell into bed, listening to that slaphappy number. She felt like the bearer of bad luck. Then, as if a light bulb flashed above her head, she remembered.
Story #2:
Momentarily shocked, Elizabeth jolted upright, touching her hand to her head. Barely able to see due to a blinding, pulsating headache, she squinted around the unkempt quarters. As a warm breeze swept in through the window, a single stalk of a healthy fern brushed against her nose, and glancing upwards, the robust plant hanging from the ceiling above the bed swung back and forth.
“Good morning sunshine,” said a voice on the opposite side of the foreign room. “You feeling okay?”
“I kinda uh...” Elizabeth trailed off for a second as she fumbled for her glasses on a rustic side table. “...feel like shit.”
Adjusting the kitschy frames behind her ears, she looked past the bed, where Benjamin sat at a cluttered desk, cutting material with an exacto knife. Looks like we got ourselves a handyman.
“What are you making?” Elizabeth asked running her fingers through her knotted long blonde tresses, the other hand holding her naked, tattooed body upright in the crumpled heap of white afghan blankets.
“I'm making a leather wallet for a friend,” he said, looking at her warmly. “You drank quite a lot last night.”
Benjamin diligently kept at work, and Elizabeth found herself attempting to recall her alcoholic consumption. Benjamin bought the first round, I bought the next, then I put three more gin and tonics on my credit card...
Reaching over the side of the bed for her tote bag, she shuffled through her belongings for a small zip-up tote, where she had remembered there being two ibuprofens left. The night came flooding back in an intense stream of thoughts and emotions, trying to fight against the current of stabbing pangs.
The sun glimmered in the weekend sky, it was the first pleasantly warm day to happen to the small suburban apartment near a cluster of nearby businesses.
Not feeling up to par to write a ten page paper comparing different newspaper's coverage of the sexual revolution of the 1960's, Elizabeth decided the appropriate thing to so was spend the day looking for job. The twist: without a car.
As a previous relationship turned for the tumultuous, Elizabeth had recently went through leaps and hurdles with men, and in acquiring a cheap, reliable car. I just want it to get from point A to B. Having scoured on-line services on her O key-less, 'slower than molasses in January' laptop, she came across a $2,700 dollar pre-owned Dodge Neon.
After meeting with the private owner, an older mechanic who kept up maintenance on his own cars, Elizabeth learned that it had once been his daughter's when she lived up in Boston during college. Northeastern University sticker and all, it was a gas efficient vehicle in good condition.
“Since it seems to have old tires, could the price be knocked down a bit so I may buy new ones?” Elizabeth asked with a kind note in her voice, looking the man in the eyes attentively.
The father didn't take a moment to mull it over. “Just leave 300 dollars out of the check.”
A few excruciatingly obnoxious DMV and bank visits later, the car sat in the parking lot of her complex, night black with a cartoon creamsicle air freshener slightly swaying back and forth in the windshield.
One afternoon after her morning class dismissed, Elizabeth had remembered a box of clothes from her father's house was waiting to be picked up. Enjoying the forty-five minute commute she had once driven so many times before, Elizabeth set off for highways and back roads setting her musical selection to Tom Petty.
“But she grew up tall and she grew up right
with them Indiana boys on an Indiana night.”
With each step Elizabeth cradled the poorly taped together box to the open trunk of her car, she theorized the bottom would burst onto the driveway in one massive, colorful avalanche. Thrusting down the popped end and hearing it click, Elizabeth departed down the unpaved road and took a right onto Rt-202, which connected two small rural towns of two neighboring New England states.
There was a certain dead feeling in the air as Elizabeth cautiously drove away from the Feeding Hills and back into the adjoining Constitution state, one that lingered in the newly overcast clouds. The pavement was wet with chilly drizzle that set in as the temperature dropped. Elizabeth proceeded with caution down the long stretch of a two-laned road: to the left there were vast fields of already plowed corn, up ahead a minute or two on the right was the town's public high school.
In a bizarre, fleeting moment the front end of a Toyota Prius shot its entire front end out of the exit of the high school parking lot; the driver showed no indication of what direction he was turning; there was 15 yards between the two vehicles.
Knowing she couldn't swerve left on the narrow road into oncoming traffic, Elizabeth realized and accepted her fate: since collision was inevitable, she turned her wheel as sharply to the right as possible and slammed on the brakes. With dread in her voice, Elizabeth stammered a lyric or two of the Cat Steven's song that had just shuffled onto the Ipod, squeezing her eyes shut before impact:
“How I wish I had someone to talk to, I'm in an awful way.”
Severely whiplashing as the cars tore into one another, the Neon and the Prius both did sufficient 180 spins. While the Prius knocked a mailbox down across the street, the impact on the Neon crunched in the front end, shattering the battery.
Elizabeth sat in her car, completely unmovable. I've had a car stolen, and now this? This isn't happening. Shaking profusely, she exited the car.
“Are you alright?” she managed to muster, even though her mind was elsewhere. It couldn't seem to think anything other than Why? It wasn't my fault. Neither of these were my fault. They happened within weeks of each other. This couldn't have happened. I shouldn't have made the trip up here.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the younger looking teenager's loud, booming voice: “GET YOUR FUCKING CAR OUT OF THE ROAD.”
Why is he talking like this to me? It was his fault. “Are you kidding me?” Elizabeth asked in shock and disbelief.
Sitting back in the drivers seat with the door ajar, Elizabeth attempted to start the engine, but the ignition and gear were locked up. She shot out of the car. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” she repeated a little louder with more frustration in her voice.
It was the most arrogant little asshole she had ever come across. Since he wouldn't stop shooting her repulsively evil looks, Elizabeth stood in the middle of the road, shaking. Having heard the collision, an older woman ran outside with her younger daughters. She was the owner of the down-turned mailbox.
“What happened, dear?” the woman asked Elizabeth while looking at the teenager, as she, along with Elizabeth, had noticed the cold hostility being emitted from him. She settled her sights back on the frazzled young 22-year-old, putting an aged, weathered hand on the girl's sweat-shirted shoulder.
“I was on campus in class, and I drove up here during some free-time between classes, and my last car got stolen a couple weeks ago, and now this, and I'm not going to be able to make it to my next class...” Elizabeth rambled off into tears.
“I think they're going to understand,” the woman assured her.
Once the police, ambulance, and tow truck arrived, all were having unsuccessful times dealing with the 17-year-old boy, who was apparently driving mommy and daddy's car. Sitting in the ambulance refusing the medic's questions on whether she wanted to be transported, Elizabeth stared down silently at the steps of the open side entrance of the over-sized van.
“Thank you for being so patient, responsive, and detailed about what happened,” a mustached police officer came into light in the open doorway, forcing Elizabeth to look upward. “The other kid is being rather arrogant and cocky. We've had issues with him before.”
Oh great. One of those high school misfits.
Taking Elizabeth's personal identification and car information, the one-piece suited tow truck mechanic wrote the responses to about 10 questions of an entirely verbal relay. Sensing her patient, yet melancholy composure, he finished with something that made Elizabeth smile.
Cupping his hand by his mouth and leaning in towards her ear, he whispered, “Just between you and me, I heard the kid just started crying.”
As the sun set on that warm Saturday evening, walking back from the center of town, Elizabeth was feeling positive about her prospective job opportunity. Feeling particularly upbeat, she walked to the package store and bought a six-pack of micro-brews. Fitting upright in her over-sized tote bag, she slung her alcohol laden bag onto shoulder and returned to her apartment.
The living room and kitchen were spotless after Elizabeth painstakingly cleaned up after her two roommates, who would be in and out like tazmanian devils; leaving atrocious forces to be reckoned with. It took the length of three Ryan Adam's albums to finish.
Sipping on a beer, Elizabeth received a message from a rugged looking fellow she had met a couple nights previously at a bar in Hartford which cordially invited her to see a DJ at an old warehouse that had been newly renovated as a bar. Benjamin, however, was not available to pick her up, albeit wanting to. He only had time to drive to work, then to the party.
Holding her bus pass tightly in her hand at the corner of her complex at night, Elizabeth walked up the steps of the public transportation in a Space Ghost t-shirt and flanel skirt. While she had never gotten the courage to take any other route than the bus to campus and the mall, she was ready to explore beyond what she knew. I'll be okay, I can do this.
With a quickly sketched map of the streets, stops, and times she needed to make the night successful, Elizabeth sat calmly and quietly on the first bus, transferred to another, and put on her headphones. A message popped up in her text messages. “There's going to be a get together after the party at my house, if you'd like to take that route,” Benjamin had written.
Since Elizabeth asked the driver prior to the departure about her certain stop, ten minutes later a voice rang over an intercom: “Farmington and Prospect.” Getting off, she wandered into a nearby gas station looking for answers.
Never being good at telling north from south, Elizabeth asked the sole employee in what direction from the gas station a certain street was. “So I just take a right and head up towards Sisson Avenue?” she reiterated. “Yes, it's a piece of cake,” said the man in a thick accent.
Her phone rang. “Hey Elizabeth, where are you? I'm nearby right now and I want to pick you up,” Benjamin said. “I don't want you walking there alone.” Well, I would have been fine. What a nice guy.
“I'm near Evergreen Ave, and there is a CVS nearby,” Elizabeth said, guiding Benjamin to her whereabouts.
“Stand in front of the CVS, I know where it is,” he said. “See you in a minute.”
Just as she leaned to sit down on a concrete stoop in front of the pharmacy, Benjamin's Audi shot into the front lot. Smiling, Elizabeth hopped into the car, regaling Benjamin about her bus travels, even adding in a little anecdote about making a toddler on the bus smile. While he didn't say much, he smiled back, and she knew he was listening. They arrived at the bar, ordered drinks, and danced to the mixed beats, colliding with many of the mutual friends they had been with when Elizabeth and Benjamin were first acquainted.
Awaking on the bed again, she rolled over to see Benjamin still working on the wallet, an airplane made out of beer cans dangling above his desk. He noticed her stir. “Feeling any better?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Elizabeth yawned. Benjamin laid the materials down and arose from the chair, crawling onto the bed to join her. Giving her a kiss, the two laid in each others arms until it was time to go home. While Benjamin attempted to find the keys to his car, she laid on the hammock tied between two trees in the small, garden-like backyard.
Spacing out to the budding trees and bushes, Elizabeth realized that she didn't remember the tail-end of the night.
“Found 'em,” he said, and they sped off onto the highway blasting music through the rolled down windows, letting in the early spring heatwave. Elizabeth got lost in the hues of the blue sky and the pristine, white clouds.
Things are only going to get better from here.
Story #1:
The umbrella. "Tit and tat and bone for bone," were the words that resonated through the musky dimlit room; the smoke from the last camel had yet to subside. The folk twinged slaphappy number gave the girl in bed the relaxation she needed: muscles unclenched, sighs of relief. The music of this singer, the Pete Segar of our generation, was the only thing that made sense to the disheveled head on the pillow.
Another dull Saturday afternoon on an abandoned campus. As if living in a room resemblant to a hospital with white brick walls wasn't enough, staying past Thursday at a suitcase state college was downright introverted and dismal with a lack of bodies bumbling around.
Looking out a single window into the courtyard surrounded by towering residential hall monuments dedicated to deceased scholars, Elizabeth punched the digits of her boyfriend's number rapidly and without haste, pushed the phone up to her cheek, chanting under her breath, "C'mon. C'mon... C'mon!"
"Hey I'm busy what do you need?" Daniel said without a pause, before Elizabeth uttered a solitary word. She opted to protest, since she knew he was only in his room, on his computer.
"Why are you working on a Saturday? Can't you come hang out for a while?"
Then there was a pause.
"Daniel?"
Still no sound.
"Daniel, can you answer me?"
"I just can't today," he finally managed to shoot out. "I'm sorry. I got to go."
Without as much of a bye, Elizabeth snapped the hand-me-down, piece of shit cellphone shut and let out a sharp exhale.
A dining hall meal for one and a five page paper written later, Elizabeth ran up four flights of stairs so steep they seemed almost perpendicular to the ground, and into her getaway car. As her friends blasted some new wave underground indie rock, Elizabeth racked her brain for ideas.
"Whaddya say we do something creative. Let's DIY some shirts!" she exclaimed.
Piling the plastic bags of fruit of the loom t-shirts and paints onto her friend Jenna's floor, they, along with Jenna's boyfriend Jason, began an afternoon of good natured tomfoolery. The dorm room was littered with arts and crafts; it could have easily been mistaken for a kindergarten classroom.
While Jenna was snapping photos of some of their decorative new threads, Elizabeth felt inspired by the sudden flashes of the camera and began to rummage through random artifacts in the desk drawers. Finding a typical black umbrella with the velcro strap secured tightly around the nylon fabric, she had the hair-brain scheme of recreating a Disney moment.
Without saying a word to Jenna or Jason, Elizabeth ripped off the strap, clicked the metal button upward, and out flew the the protective armor, resilient to mother nature's sobs. Being the ham she had been her entire life, Elizabeth, with her blonde hair in pigtails and her long pink skirt fluttering about, hopped up onto a chair and held it above her head.
“Look! I'm Mary Poppins!” Elizabeth said with a grin on her face.
Laughing, she began to twirl it around, lifted her right leg upward in a dance position, and began to wail, “Just a spoonful of sugar, helps the medicine, go down...”
Jenna snapped a picture.
A rainy spring had passed, and Elizabeth made the decision that all undergraduates succumb to after years upon years of befuddled mishaps with roommates, awkward sexual interruptions, and run-ins with inebriated jocks: moving into an apartment complex off of campus. Merely a couple miles away from campus, but still, away.
While collecting and gathering all the things that had a purpose in her new residence, Elizabeth phoned her non-existant-yet-at-times-chivalrous boyfriend for some assistance.
The phone rang for three complete intervals. Right after the “Hi” in the voice mail, Elizabeth snapped
the phone shut, opened it, and redialed. She knew he was there.
“Yes?” Daniel's agitated voice rang out.
“Hi... I was just... wondering something?” she sheepishly asked.
“What is it now?” Daniel asked. He was a man of few words.
“Could you possibly help me move some of my belongings into my apartment?” Elizabeth questioned
again. Thinking to herself, she wished she had a car so that she didn't need to ask someone who didn't
want to be bothered into helping or spending time with her, ever.
Pause. Like usual. Why do I put up with this?
“I think I'm going gray,” Elizabeth joked; it was meant to be a harmless.
“I'm BUSY Elizabeth. Don't you understand I have work to do? Something you should be doing more
often? We'll see. I might be working till late. Don't depend on it.” Daniel lashed out.
“I'm sorry,” she uttered. “Bye...”
Why am I dating a 22 going on 50 year old?
Elizabeth lost the motivation to pack, and the ability to function. Curling up in bed, she laid there, her
thoughts in constant limbo.
Taking a stroll on campus one day with no certain destination in mind, Elizabeth tried to clear her mind of all annoyances. In the distance ahead, she noticed a bushy facial haired boy walking toward her. Instantly intrigued, she stared at his startling handsome looks. Mystery boy had a certain spring in his step that was mesmerizing.
Probably younger than me, all the cute ones are.
Then she noticed he was looking at her.
As they were mere feet away from passing, Elizabeth lost control of her motor skills. “Hi!” she blurted out.
Oh my god, are you serious. I just did that?
After her incredibly outgoing moment, Elizabeth was instantly shy and awkward. Surprisingly, the boy had stopped to respond.
Together, they conversed and covered just about every inch of asphalt the school had purchased in its 150 years of existence. Paul, a sophomore who admired experimental music and his father from Mexico, was unemployed. This did not matter to Elizabeth; it was actually a pleasant fact. She found herself blabbing, telling him every possible known fact about her: how she was originally from halfway across the country, that she took a year off after graduating high school, her affinity for learning, and love for spontaneous, random moments. His giant brown eyes just stared back in full attentiveness, something she hadn't received from anyone in what seemed like light years.
“Want to come back to my dorm and watch a movie?” Paul asked in a completely harmless voice, a tone that didn't seem too expectant of anything.
“Sure, why not?” Elizabeth agreed, sequestering away all of her thoughts of Daniel.
Returning to a dorm room non-resemblant to Elizabeth's old jail cell or Jenna's rustic quarters, it wasn't any better. But with a commandeering resident like Paul in power, he had spruced it up with band posters, musical instruments laid strewn across the room, and somehow, had remodeled his bed into a fort by slipping his mattress underneath the high rise bed frame, draping a sheet over hard metal springs where the mattress normally resided.
As they crawled under the frame, where people generally shoved boxes and shoes, Paul grabbed the John Cusack favorite, Better Off Dead, popped it in his computer, and set it at the end of the mattress, inside the fort.
While Elizabeth paid attention to most of the movie, she couldn't help looking over at Paul every once in a while; he was too adorable for words. Wanting to touch him but knowing her commitment limitations, Elizabeth got closer, rubbed her foot against his; tried every subtle move in the book.
The movie credits rolled; Cusack got the girl, as always.
Pulling away from Paul's lips, she was confused.
What just happened?
Elizabeth didn't remember anything prior to the breakaway. Who initiated it?
Glancing into the dark and realizing she had lost complete track of time, 3am glimmered from Paul's small desktop dialog clock. Worry, in every form imaginable, filled Elizabeth; she had to leave immediately. Not wanting to appear frazzled, she softly spoke to Paul.
“I need to go back to my apartment.”
Alone, she walked off of campus and onto vacant city streets. Adjusting her headphones and putting her music player on shuffle, into her ears flowed a sad, melancholy tune. As if it just had to happen at that moment, she began to feel intermittent drops of rain fall on random places of her body. For most of the journey back it held off, but in the home stretch, it poured, and so did the tears from Elizabeth's face as she ran the rest of the way home.
Having not slept a wink but still residing under the covers, Elizabeth shot out of bed and called Daniel at eight in the morning. Honesty is the best policy, right?
Her thoughts controlled her every move.
Around two hours later, there was a knock at the door. Five minutes later, Elizabeth finally mustered the courage to open it. There stood the elusive never-to-be-seen-or-heard-from boyfriend.
Daniel knew something was up; even if he wasn't around Elizabeth all the time, he knew how free-spirited she could be. This wore on his mind constantly; a new cockeyed scenario of Elizabeth cavorting around arose every couple hours or so.
Finding it relatively easy to tell what happened for what it was: nothing serious and just a kiss, Elizabeth finished with a collective hope that everything would be okay.
“Are you fucking serious?” Daniel almost shouted. “Are you fucking kidding me? I can't... I can't believe this.” And with that, he arose from his seat with a face full of the deepest disgust, and left her apartment.
Conditions were gloomy for the next few months: (s)he fought with every word she could manage, (s)he'd want to make up, (s)he'd want to never be together again, everything would reverse, rewind, fast forward, pause, flip-flop, intensify, lessen: and this pulverized Elizabeth. Neither of them could shake each other off or let one another go without a fight or a change of heart. Eventually it ended; Elizabeth and Daniel had cut off all contact permanently.
Buckling under the pressure of her new I-don't-know-who-I-am stress laden environment, Elizabeth began her new bad habit of smoking. She had finally got her own car, but a week later, it was stolen from her apartment complex.
Oddly perplexed that night, she wondered why someone would commit such an ethically immoral crime. She smoked a cigarette and fell into bed, listening to that slaphappy number. She felt like the bearer of bad luck. Then, as if a light bulb flashed above her head, she remembered.
Story #2:
Momentarily shocked, Elizabeth jolted upright, touching her hand to her head. Barely able to see due to a blinding, pulsating headache, she squinted around the unkempt quarters. As a warm breeze swept in through the window, a single stalk of a healthy fern brushed against her nose, and glancing upwards, the robust plant hanging from the ceiling above the bed swung back and forth.
“Good morning sunshine,” said a voice on the opposite side of the foreign room. “You feeling okay?”
“I kinda uh...” Elizabeth trailed off for a second as she fumbled for her glasses on a rustic side table. “...feel like shit.”
Adjusting the kitschy frames behind her ears, she looked past the bed, where Benjamin sat at a cluttered desk, cutting material with an exacto knife. Looks like we got ourselves a handyman.
“What are you making?” Elizabeth asked running her fingers through her knotted long blonde tresses, the other hand holding her naked, tattooed body upright in the crumpled heap of white afghan blankets.
“I'm making a leather wallet for a friend,” he said, looking at her warmly. “You drank quite a lot last night.”
Benjamin diligently kept at work, and Elizabeth found herself attempting to recall her alcoholic consumption. Benjamin bought the first round, I bought the next, then I put three more gin and tonics on my credit card...
Reaching over the side of the bed for her tote bag, she shuffled through her belongings for a small zip-up tote, where she had remembered there being two ibuprofens left. The night came flooding back in an intense stream of thoughts and emotions, trying to fight against the current of stabbing pangs.
The sun glimmered in the weekend sky, it was the first pleasantly warm day to happen to the small suburban apartment near a cluster of nearby businesses.
Not feeling up to par to write a ten page paper comparing different newspaper's coverage of the sexual revolution of the 1960's, Elizabeth decided the appropriate thing to so was spend the day looking for job. The twist: without a car.
As a previous relationship turned for the tumultuous, Elizabeth had recently went through leaps and hurdles with men, and in acquiring a cheap, reliable car. I just want it to get from point A to B. Having scoured on-line services on her O key-less, 'slower than molasses in January' laptop, she came across a $2,700 dollar pre-owned Dodge Neon.
After meeting with the private owner, an older mechanic who kept up maintenance on his own cars, Elizabeth learned that it had once been his daughter's when she lived up in Boston during college. Northeastern University sticker and all, it was a gas efficient vehicle in good condition.
“Since it seems to have old tires, could the price be knocked down a bit so I may buy new ones?” Elizabeth asked with a kind note in her voice, looking the man in the eyes attentively.
The father didn't take a moment to mull it over. “Just leave 300 dollars out of the check.”
A few excruciatingly obnoxious DMV and bank visits later, the car sat in the parking lot of her complex, night black with a cartoon creamsicle air freshener slightly swaying back and forth in the windshield.
One afternoon after her morning class dismissed, Elizabeth had remembered a box of clothes from her father's house was waiting to be picked up. Enjoying the forty-five minute commute she had once driven so many times before, Elizabeth set off for highways and back roads setting her musical selection to Tom Petty.
“But she grew up tall and she grew up right
with them Indiana boys on an Indiana night.”
With each step Elizabeth cradled the poorly taped together box to the open trunk of her car, she theorized the bottom would burst onto the driveway in one massive, colorful avalanche. Thrusting down the popped end and hearing it click, Elizabeth departed down the unpaved road and took a right onto Rt-202, which connected two small rural towns of two neighboring New England states.
There was a certain dead feeling in the air as Elizabeth cautiously drove away from the Feeding Hills and back into the adjoining Constitution state, one that lingered in the newly overcast clouds. The pavement was wet with chilly drizzle that set in as the temperature dropped. Elizabeth proceeded with caution down the long stretch of a two-laned road: to the left there were vast fields of already plowed corn, up ahead a minute or two on the right was the town's public high school.
In a bizarre, fleeting moment the front end of a Toyota Prius shot its entire front end out of the exit of the high school parking lot; the driver showed no indication of what direction he was turning; there was 15 yards between the two vehicles.
Knowing she couldn't swerve left on the narrow road into oncoming traffic, Elizabeth realized and accepted her fate: since collision was inevitable, she turned her wheel as sharply to the right as possible and slammed on the brakes. With dread in her voice, Elizabeth stammered a lyric or two of the Cat Steven's song that had just shuffled onto the Ipod, squeezing her eyes shut before impact:
“How I wish I had someone to talk to, I'm in an awful way.”
Severely whiplashing as the cars tore into one another, the Neon and the Prius both did sufficient 180 spins. While the Prius knocked a mailbox down across the street, the impact on the Neon crunched in the front end, shattering the battery.
Elizabeth sat in her car, completely unmovable. I've had a car stolen, and now this? This isn't happening. Shaking profusely, she exited the car.
“Are you alright?” she managed to muster, even though her mind was elsewhere. It couldn't seem to think anything other than Why? It wasn't my fault. Neither of these were my fault. They happened within weeks of each other. This couldn't have happened. I shouldn't have made the trip up here.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the younger looking teenager's loud, booming voice: “GET YOUR FUCKING CAR OUT OF THE ROAD.”
Why is he talking like this to me? It was his fault. “Are you kidding me?” Elizabeth asked in shock and disbelief.
Sitting back in the drivers seat with the door ajar, Elizabeth attempted to start the engine, but the ignition and gear were locked up. She shot out of the car. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” she repeated a little louder with more frustration in her voice.
It was the most arrogant little asshole she had ever come across. Since he wouldn't stop shooting her repulsively evil looks, Elizabeth stood in the middle of the road, shaking. Having heard the collision, an older woman ran outside with her younger daughters. She was the owner of the down-turned mailbox.
“What happened, dear?” the woman asked Elizabeth while looking at the teenager, as she, along with Elizabeth, had noticed the cold hostility being emitted from him. She settled her sights back on the frazzled young 22-year-old, putting an aged, weathered hand on the girl's sweat-shirted shoulder.
“I was on campus in class, and I drove up here during some free-time between classes, and my last car got stolen a couple weeks ago, and now this, and I'm not going to be able to make it to my next class...” Elizabeth rambled off into tears.
“I think they're going to understand,” the woman assured her.
Once the police, ambulance, and tow truck arrived, all were having unsuccessful times dealing with the 17-year-old boy, who was apparently driving mommy and daddy's car. Sitting in the ambulance refusing the medic's questions on whether she wanted to be transported, Elizabeth stared down silently at the steps of the open side entrance of the over-sized van.
“Thank you for being so patient, responsive, and detailed about what happened,” a mustached police officer came into light in the open doorway, forcing Elizabeth to look upward. “The other kid is being rather arrogant and cocky. We've had issues with him before.”
Oh great. One of those high school misfits.
Taking Elizabeth's personal identification and car information, the one-piece suited tow truck mechanic wrote the responses to about 10 questions of an entirely verbal relay. Sensing her patient, yet melancholy composure, he finished with something that made Elizabeth smile.
Cupping his hand by his mouth and leaning in towards her ear, he whispered, “Just between you and me, I heard the kid just started crying.”
As the sun set on that warm Saturday evening, walking back from the center of town, Elizabeth was feeling positive about her prospective job opportunity. Feeling particularly upbeat, she walked to the package store and bought a six-pack of micro-brews. Fitting upright in her over-sized tote bag, she slung her alcohol laden bag onto shoulder and returned to her apartment.
The living room and kitchen were spotless after Elizabeth painstakingly cleaned up after her two roommates, who would be in and out like tazmanian devils; leaving atrocious forces to be reckoned with. It took the length of three Ryan Adam's albums to finish.
Sipping on a beer, Elizabeth received a message from a rugged looking fellow she had met a couple nights previously at a bar in Hartford which cordially invited her to see a DJ at an old warehouse that had been newly renovated as a bar. Benjamin, however, was not available to pick her up, albeit wanting to. He only had time to drive to work, then to the party.
Holding her bus pass tightly in her hand at the corner of her complex at night, Elizabeth walked up the steps of the public transportation in a Space Ghost t-shirt and flanel skirt. While she had never gotten the courage to take any other route than the bus to campus and the mall, she was ready to explore beyond what she knew. I'll be okay, I can do this.
With a quickly sketched map of the streets, stops, and times she needed to make the night successful, Elizabeth sat calmly and quietly on the first bus, transferred to another, and put on her headphones. A message popped up in her text messages. “There's going to be a get together after the party at my house, if you'd like to take that route,” Benjamin had written.
Since Elizabeth asked the driver prior to the departure about her certain stop, ten minutes later a voice rang over an intercom: “Farmington and Prospect.” Getting off, she wandered into a nearby gas station looking for answers.
Never being good at telling north from south, Elizabeth asked the sole employee in what direction from the gas station a certain street was. “So I just take a right and head up towards Sisson Avenue?” she reiterated. “Yes, it's a piece of cake,” said the man in a thick accent.
Her phone rang. “Hey Elizabeth, where are you? I'm nearby right now and I want to pick you up,” Benjamin said. “I don't want you walking there alone.” Well, I would have been fine. What a nice guy.
“I'm near Evergreen Ave, and there is a CVS nearby,” Elizabeth said, guiding Benjamin to her whereabouts.
“Stand in front of the CVS, I know where it is,” he said. “See you in a minute.”
Just as she leaned to sit down on a concrete stoop in front of the pharmacy, Benjamin's Audi shot into the front lot. Smiling, Elizabeth hopped into the car, regaling Benjamin about her bus travels, even adding in a little anecdote about making a toddler on the bus smile. While he didn't say much, he smiled back, and she knew he was listening. They arrived at the bar, ordered drinks, and danced to the mixed beats, colliding with many of the mutual friends they had been with when Elizabeth and Benjamin were first acquainted.
Awaking on the bed again, she rolled over to see Benjamin still working on the wallet, an airplane made out of beer cans dangling above his desk. He noticed her stir. “Feeling any better?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Elizabeth yawned. Benjamin laid the materials down and arose from the chair, crawling onto the bed to join her. Giving her a kiss, the two laid in each others arms until it was time to go home. While Benjamin attempted to find the keys to his car, she laid on the hammock tied between two trees in the small, garden-like backyard.
Spacing out to the budding trees and bushes, Elizabeth realized that she didn't remember the tail-end of the night.
“Found 'em,” he said, and they sped off onto the highway blasting music through the rolled down windows, letting in the early spring heatwave. Elizabeth got lost in the hues of the blue sky and the pristine, white clouds.
Things are only going to get better from here.
Unearthing Old Writing: Toni Morrison - Bluest Eye
A close reading paper for one of my college courses, from October of '08:
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses catachresis and diction to connect with the children's psychological inability to understand society's flawed depiction of perfection, and employs careful wording to elevate the theme of desire for normality.
Blue Eyes are the most significant symbol in the novel which sets up a reoccurring theme of what the characters would like to possess. Morrison gives these 'blue eyes' to inanimate or unrealistic objects that were sculpted by the hands of capitalism: cups, dolls, and candy wrappers.
Keeping in mind it is post Great Depression, it shows the cookie cutter, white picket fence view of America that is emerging, and with that, African Americans struggle to fit in and find their footing. The significance of Morrison's selective diction is embedded into the novels most symbolic passages regarding 'blue eyes.'
Catachresis is intentionally used to denote the use of a figure of speech that violates the norms of a language community. Morrison uses different forms of catachresis throughout the book, enabling the reader to see how impossible it was for the children to ever consider being the societal norm.
Taking a look at the passage, “Frieda brought her four graham crackers on a saucer and some milk in a blue-and-white Shirley Temple cup; she gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple's dimpled face,” (pg. 19) one must pick out the words silhouette and dimples to examine more closely. Considering a generalized silhouette to be a mere outline of an individual filled with a black void, it shows absolutely no features, therefore dimples would not be visible. This raises a question of how the girls could see beauty in the blackness, which is similar to the silhouette and the color of their skin.
At the beginning of that passage, the descriptions of the cup (blue and white, like the eyes and skin color they think they'd prefer) and saucer delicately set out gives the reader a feeling of affluence, even when the family is undoubtedly poor. Another word for affluence can be 'gentle', which coincides with diction in another passage.
Out of the three girls, only one of them seems to be the least jaded in regards to admiring the look of a blue eyed, white faced girl. It is interesting given the fact that Claudia is the youngest, and presumably the least mature of the bunch. Morrison points out how the older girls are getting their periods, and while they are maturing in a physical sense, they are not quite as up to speed in their mental processes as Claudia is; they don't seem to understand why she doesn't worship the “social norm” alongside them.
Claudia speaks of a baby doll phenomenon, explaining how everyone wants one, and even adults wished they had them when they were children. “I was physically revolted by and secretly frightened of those round moronic eyes, the pancake face, and orange worms hair,” (pg. 20) she described the dolls.
While pancake is an obvious reference to the color of the skin that is excepted in society, a lot of focus should be planted upon “physically revolted” and “secretly frightened.” These are opposites of each other, as the former is generally more apparent than the latter because when one is secretly frightened, it can't always be seen; it is more of a feeling or emotion, rather the former is more of a reaction or an experience.
While they are separately contradictory, both of them can't be helped or stopped; they are uncontrollable reactions to society's depiction of perfection. This use of diction shows that while Claudia is obviously on the cusp of attempting to figure out why these blue eyed depictions are not morally correct, a complete thought cannot be properly formed yet, especially in the environment she lives in.
When Pecola goes to the candy store to go get her favorite Mary Janes, she walks outside staring at the girl on the wrappers. “Smiling white face. Blonde hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort.” (pg. 50) It is within the first couple sentences one realizes 'gentle' pops up again, as affluence and gentle both share a commonality of synonyms: honorable, distinguished.
However, gentle is alongside disarray, which is a complete contradictory phrase, but also has double meaning. One could say it is an oxymoron, that there would be nothing gentle about confusion, or one could argue that maybe the girls themselves are gentle and honorable, and they must live in constant confusion.
The second part to the candy store passage to point out is the phrase “clean comfort.” While 'clean' can mean free from moral corruption, comfort means solace. Morrison uses diction, as well as alliteration in the short phrase to show the girls inability to escape moral corruption, that they are not able to comprehend the fabricated 'wholesome' look of the 1950's so called perfect families; they cannot distinguish right from wrong.
From Pecola's point of view, she believes that it is possible to become blue eyed if she wishes hard enough, and receives a glimmer of hope in Junior's black cat. “The blue eyes in the black face held her.” (pg. 90) While the diction is simple, it can be looked at in a different perspective than the attributes belonging to the cat. It is, after all, Pecola's absolute vision of what she aspires to have: a set of blue eyes contrasting with her black skin.
Of all the passages mentioned prior to this one, this sentence is the most succinct and has a cut-to-the-chase point that is the overall theme to the entire novel. The horrific death of the cat is symbolic of the inability of a dark colored creature/individual to have blue eyes; it is simply not possible for a creature with such attributes to be living.
Morrison uses contradiction to show a child's perception of normality. Being force fed objects and photos that are deemed beautiful, these children elicit confused reactions to society's depiction of perfection because they simply do not have an understanding, still have an innocence and naivity to them, and psychologically speaking, are not cognitively advanced enough to comprehend thinking for themselves and to be against what society tells them is correct.
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses catachresis and diction to connect with the children's psychological inability to understand society's flawed depiction of perfection, and employs careful wording to elevate the theme of desire for normality.
Blue Eyes are the most significant symbol in the novel which sets up a reoccurring theme of what the characters would like to possess. Morrison gives these 'blue eyes' to inanimate or unrealistic objects that were sculpted by the hands of capitalism: cups, dolls, and candy wrappers.
Keeping in mind it is post Great Depression, it shows the cookie cutter, white picket fence view of America that is emerging, and with that, African Americans struggle to fit in and find their footing. The significance of Morrison's selective diction is embedded into the novels most symbolic passages regarding 'blue eyes.'
Catachresis is intentionally used to denote the use of a figure of speech that violates the norms of a language community. Morrison uses different forms of catachresis throughout the book, enabling the reader to see how impossible it was for the children to ever consider being the societal norm.
Taking a look at the passage, “Frieda brought her four graham crackers on a saucer and some milk in a blue-and-white Shirley Temple cup; she gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple's dimpled face,” (pg. 19) one must pick out the words silhouette and dimples to examine more closely. Considering a generalized silhouette to be a mere outline of an individual filled with a black void, it shows absolutely no features, therefore dimples would not be visible. This raises a question of how the girls could see beauty in the blackness, which is similar to the silhouette and the color of their skin.
At the beginning of that passage, the descriptions of the cup (blue and white, like the eyes and skin color they think they'd prefer) and saucer delicately set out gives the reader a feeling of affluence, even when the family is undoubtedly poor. Another word for affluence can be 'gentle', which coincides with diction in another passage.
Out of the three girls, only one of them seems to be the least jaded in regards to admiring the look of a blue eyed, white faced girl. It is interesting given the fact that Claudia is the youngest, and presumably the least mature of the bunch. Morrison points out how the older girls are getting their periods, and while they are maturing in a physical sense, they are not quite as up to speed in their mental processes as Claudia is; they don't seem to understand why she doesn't worship the “social norm” alongside them.
Claudia speaks of a baby doll phenomenon, explaining how everyone wants one, and even adults wished they had them when they were children. “I was physically revolted by and secretly frightened of those round moronic eyes, the pancake face, and orange worms hair,” (pg. 20) she described the dolls.
While pancake is an obvious reference to the color of the skin that is excepted in society, a lot of focus should be planted upon “physically revolted” and “secretly frightened.” These are opposites of each other, as the former is generally more apparent than the latter because when one is secretly frightened, it can't always be seen; it is more of a feeling or emotion, rather the former is more of a reaction or an experience.
While they are separately contradictory, both of them can't be helped or stopped; they are uncontrollable reactions to society's depiction of perfection. This use of diction shows that while Claudia is obviously on the cusp of attempting to figure out why these blue eyed depictions are not morally correct, a complete thought cannot be properly formed yet, especially in the environment she lives in.
When Pecola goes to the candy store to go get her favorite Mary Janes, she walks outside staring at the girl on the wrappers. “Smiling white face. Blonde hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort.” (pg. 50) It is within the first couple sentences one realizes 'gentle' pops up again, as affluence and gentle both share a commonality of synonyms: honorable, distinguished.
However, gentle is alongside disarray, which is a complete contradictory phrase, but also has double meaning. One could say it is an oxymoron, that there would be nothing gentle about confusion, or one could argue that maybe the girls themselves are gentle and honorable, and they must live in constant confusion.
The second part to the candy store passage to point out is the phrase “clean comfort.” While 'clean' can mean free from moral corruption, comfort means solace. Morrison uses diction, as well as alliteration in the short phrase to show the girls inability to escape moral corruption, that they are not able to comprehend the fabricated 'wholesome' look of the 1950's so called perfect families; they cannot distinguish right from wrong.
From Pecola's point of view, she believes that it is possible to become blue eyed if she wishes hard enough, and receives a glimmer of hope in Junior's black cat. “The blue eyes in the black face held her.” (pg. 90) While the diction is simple, it can be looked at in a different perspective than the attributes belonging to the cat. It is, after all, Pecola's absolute vision of what she aspires to have: a set of blue eyes contrasting with her black skin.
Of all the passages mentioned prior to this one, this sentence is the most succinct and has a cut-to-the-chase point that is the overall theme to the entire novel. The horrific death of the cat is symbolic of the inability of a dark colored creature/individual to have blue eyes; it is simply not possible for a creature with such attributes to be living.
Morrison uses contradiction to show a child's perception of normality. Being force fed objects and photos that are deemed beautiful, these children elicit confused reactions to society's depiction of perfection because they simply do not have an understanding, still have an innocence and naivity to them, and psychologically speaking, are not cognitively advanced enough to comprehend thinking for themselves and to be against what society tells them is correct.
One with everything in life, I believe, we'll survive if we only try...
"Where are the dreams that we once had?
This is the time to bring them back.
What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues?
Do we forget or forgive?
There’s a whole other life waiting to be lived when...
One day we’re brave enough
To talk with conviction of the heart."
This is the time to bring them back.
What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues?
Do we forget or forgive?
There’s a whole other life waiting to be lived when...
One day we’re brave enough
To talk with conviction of the heart."
Forgot I wanted to write about...
my CRAZY vivid dream that I was convinced was real:
stole my stepmothers car, which somehow once driven out of the garage - resembled a race car... I drove it on a track - while almost driving it off of the track, I turned the wheel all the way to the left to get back on - got in a crazy car flipping wreck with another - camera slow motion replays - but we were both okay. Went back to my house freaking out about the damage - and wondering how badly I'd be slaughtered by the 'rents. (I really thought this was happening.)
THEN! It curtailed into my dog Benny missing... trying to remember if it happened because I left the garage door open when I left with the vehicle. We'd hop in the car, drive around to look, mistake other dogs wandering around for him - all the while my mind would pan to shots of Benny slowly attempting to find his way home himself, all homeward boundlike. (my poor cutie patootie.)
....then, it randomly (and the final freak out phase of the dream sequence) I attempted to bleach my hair, and somehow bleaching my hair turned my locks into dreadlocks. and three different neon colors. much to my dismay.
who knows what's in store for tonight. I think the 4am - 11am timeslot deep in my lobes is funkytown, usa.
stole my stepmothers car, which somehow once driven out of the garage - resembled a race car... I drove it on a track - while almost driving it off of the track, I turned the wheel all the way to the left to get back on - got in a crazy car flipping wreck with another - camera slow motion replays - but we were both okay. Went back to my house freaking out about the damage - and wondering how badly I'd be slaughtered by the 'rents. (I really thought this was happening.)
THEN! It curtailed into my dog Benny missing... trying to remember if it happened because I left the garage door open when I left with the vehicle. We'd hop in the car, drive around to look, mistake other dogs wandering around for him - all the while my mind would pan to shots of Benny slowly attempting to find his way home himself, all homeward boundlike. (my poor cutie patootie.)
....then, it randomly (and the final freak out phase of the dream sequence) I attempted to bleach my hair, and somehow bleaching my hair turned my locks into dreadlocks. and three different neon colors. much to my dismay.
who knows what's in store for tonight. I think the 4am - 11am timeslot deep in my lobes is funkytown, usa.
Quality is a quandary.
So creativity lately has seemed to screech to a complete stop as of late: the cumbersome nature of financial worry/upset has taken the reigns, with me being dragged right behind. Ever since I've began my job a couple weeks ago, I have been sufficiently numbed by working everyday, still not able to spend any money whatsoever (anything I do have goes to bus fare, and even then I'm having troubles coming up with loose change) and hopefully this next months rent and utilities will be paid for soon, as I am in for a breather somewhere in here. While I have decent time during the day to do creative endeavors, I'm always pushing myself to get other monotonous tasks finished... and I get pooped pretty easily these days.
I thought it might be nice though, to take a passage (or SEVERAL) from a favorite book of mine, and just type it out to give the fingers a bit of a workout. This one, 'ironically' enough, goes well with the problem at hand.
"Stuckness. That's what I want to talk about today. Back on our trip out of Miles City you'll remember I talked about how formal scientific method could be applied to the repair of a motorcycle through the study of chains of cause and effect and the application of experimental method to determine these chains. The purpose then was to show what was meant by classical rationality.
Now I want to show that that classic pattern of rationality can be tremendously improved, expanded and made far more effective through the formal recognition of Quality in its operation. Before doing this, however, I should go over some of the negative aspects of traditional maintenance to show just where the problems are.
The first is stuckness, a mental stuckness that accompanies the physical stuckness of whatever it is you're working on. The same thing Chris was suffering from. A screw sticks, for example, on the side cover assembly. You check the manual to see if there might be any special cause for this screw to come off so hard, but all it says is 'Remove side cover plate' in that wonderful terse technical style that never tells you what you want to know. There's no earlier procedure left undone that might cause the cover screws to stick.
If you're experienced you'd probably apply a penetrating liquid and an impact driver at this point. But suppose you're inexperienced and you attack a self-locking plier wrench to the shank of your screwdriver and really twist it hard, a procedure you've had success with in the past, but which this time succeeds only in tearing the slot of the screw.
Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a town screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. You're stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle.
This isn't a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck. In traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.
The book's no good to you now. Neither is scientific reason. You don't need any scientific experiments to find out what's wrong. It's OBVIOUS what's wrong. What you need is a hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses. It operates only after they're around.
This is the zero amount of consciousness. Stuck. No answer. Honked. Kaput. It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing TIME. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. You should take the machine to a REAL mechanic who knows how to figure these things out.
It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. You think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and DROP IT OFF. It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can DEFEAT YOU SO TOTALLY.
What you're up against is the GREAT UNKNOWN, the void of all Western thought. You need some ideas, some hypotheses. Traditional scientific method, unfortunately, has never quite gotten around to say exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses. Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you OUGHT to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past. CREATIVITY, ORIGINALITY, INVENTIVENESS, INTUITION, IMAGINATION - "UNSTUCKNESS," in other words - are completely outside it's domain.
(pgs. 278-280 of Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.)
I thought it might be nice though, to take a passage (or SEVERAL) from a favorite book of mine, and just type it out to give the fingers a bit of a workout. This one, 'ironically' enough, goes well with the problem at hand.
"Stuckness. That's what I want to talk about today. Back on our trip out of Miles City you'll remember I talked about how formal scientific method could be applied to the repair of a motorcycle through the study of chains of cause and effect and the application of experimental method to determine these chains. The purpose then was to show what was meant by classical rationality.
Now I want to show that that classic pattern of rationality can be tremendously improved, expanded and made far more effective through the formal recognition of Quality in its operation. Before doing this, however, I should go over some of the negative aspects of traditional maintenance to show just where the problems are.
The first is stuckness, a mental stuckness that accompanies the physical stuckness of whatever it is you're working on. The same thing Chris was suffering from. A screw sticks, for example, on the side cover assembly. You check the manual to see if there might be any special cause for this screw to come off so hard, but all it says is 'Remove side cover plate' in that wonderful terse technical style that never tells you what you want to know. There's no earlier procedure left undone that might cause the cover screws to stick.
If you're experienced you'd probably apply a penetrating liquid and an impact driver at this point. But suppose you're inexperienced and you attack a self-locking plier wrench to the shank of your screwdriver and really twist it hard, a procedure you've had success with in the past, but which this time succeeds only in tearing the slot of the screw.
Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a town screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. You're stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle.
This isn't a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck. In traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.
The book's no good to you now. Neither is scientific reason. You don't need any scientific experiments to find out what's wrong. It's OBVIOUS what's wrong. What you need is a hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses. It operates only after they're around.
This is the zero amount of consciousness. Stuck. No answer. Honked. Kaput. It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing TIME. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. You should take the machine to a REAL mechanic who knows how to figure these things out.
It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. You think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and DROP IT OFF. It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can DEFEAT YOU SO TOTALLY.
What you're up against is the GREAT UNKNOWN, the void of all Western thought. You need some ideas, some hypotheses. Traditional scientific method, unfortunately, has never quite gotten around to say exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses. Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you OUGHT to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past. CREATIVITY, ORIGINALITY, INVENTIVENESS, INTUITION, IMAGINATION - "UNSTUCKNESS," in other words - are completely outside it's domain.
(pgs. 278-280 of Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.)
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