care

Who will love me?

And when?

And why?

How much?

Reservoir

I want Quentin Tarantino to pour fake blood on me and play me his favorite songs and tell me stories forever.

My hair looks bomb because I'm the bomb.

I was repeating that to my sister over and over today.

My hair looks bomb because I'm the bomb.

My hair looks bomb because I'm the bomb.

Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams

"All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold."

The Idea by Mark Strand

for Nolan Miller

"For us, too, there was a wish to possess

Something beyond the world we knew, beyond ourselves,

Beyond our power to imagine, something nevertheless

In which we might see ourselves; and this desire

Came always in passing, in waning light, and in such cold

That ice on the valley’s lakes cracked and rolled,

And blowing snow covered what earth we saw,

And scenes from the past, when they surfaced again,

Looked not as they had, but ghostly and white

Among false curves and hidden erasures;

And never once did we feel we were close

Until the night wind said, “Why do this,

Especially now? Go back to the place you belong;”

And there appeared , with its windows glowing, small,

In the distance, in the frozen reaches, a cabin;

And we stood before it, amazed at its being there,

And would have gone forward and opened the door,

And stepped into the glow and warmed ourselves there,

But that it was ours by not being ours,

And should remain empty. That was the idea."

Laura

"I'm not dead yet. I could be soon. And all I want to do, is put my arms around you."

Crying in the school library.

Western Civ

Rousseau: Social contract; french; romantic movement
Marquis: Sadist; French revolution
Robespierre: Jacobin; Reign of terror
d'Holbach: Atheist
Paine: common sense; american rev; god
Kant: Enlightenment

Closing

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny." - C.S. Lewis.

Easier

Make something beautiful, anyway.

Tongue

Surgery.

Tongue.

Insurance.

Appointments.

Christmas trees.

Zoloft.

Emails.

Cell phone.

Bloodwork.

Incredibly Close.

Gilmore Girls.

Homework.

Grades.

Christmas tree brownies.

Sea salt.

Mouthwash.

Kudos.

Risk.

Eyesight.

Overheating laptop.

Sirens.

Rain.

The Met

Gillian

Papa

"He thought that he would lie down and  think about nothing. Sometimes he could do this. Sometimes he could think about the stars without wondering about them and the ocean without problems and the sunrise without what it would bing."

- Islands In The Stream, by Hemingway

I'm feeling anxious lately.

My heart hurts and I see purple specks and my heartbeat gets fast and I have to sit down and breathe deeply and sometimes I can sleep and sometimes I can't, like right now.

Therapy tomorrow, after class.

Medication Tuesday, hopefully.

I'm working on the other things, hopefully.

Sky

Pandora's Box by Rene Magritte.

(Source: rasiel.com)


This is a beautiful painting. I love this painting. I have just seen it for the first time and I love it.

I have a thing for lampposts.

The man's black jacket next to the white rose.

Why is there a white rose?

The color of the sky.

The color of the sky!

The man looks like he's walking over a bridge.

Where is he walking to?

All of the buildings look very similar, although not quite the same.

The color of the sky.

I love this painting.

I don't know the story of Pandora's Box, but I'm going to look it up now. Well I know the basics of it but...off to look it up.

Mmmm.

Floral

I painted over that painting a few weeks ago.

It was a nice painting.

It's gone now.

After class I went out to eat eggs at a diner across from my school, and I sat the painting down in the chair across from me. The waiter looked at it and left and came back and asked if it was Frida. I said no. When I was leaving he told me it was a nice painting.

I think he had a mustache. The waiter, that is.

I'm sitting downstairs now. The television is on, and some Morgan Freeman movie is playing. We set up the Christmas tree today, and it's lit up to my right. 

When we first started setting it up we heard a loud snap. One of the plastic bits of the stand broke off. I think it was my fault. It made the tree start listing to the side. It's a fake tree, by the way. 

We tried putting a pack of post its under the stand to balance it, and then a book of matches, and a weird green plastic ruler like thing. Nothing really worked until my mom had the idea to tie a piece of twine around the tree, and tack the twine to the wall. It's working so far.

Everyone in my house is sleeping or trying to sleep.

My dogs are laying on the floor in front of me. They were excited to see the tree and the beads and the lights and the ornaments. 

Morgan Freeman is young in this movie.

My hair is big right now. I felt a panic attack about to come on earlier, just a small one, probably, so I took a shower and scrubbed my scalp with pine tree shampoo. Before I showered I picked at the blackheads on my nose, and forehead, and chin, and chest until I was bleeding.

Sometimes I "have" to pick my skin when I feel really badly, because what it does it, it forces me to focus on something else, some other form of pain that I can control. I can pick at my skin for a while and make myself feel terrible, and then when I feel bad enough that I need to make myself feel better, I can stop and there's the illusion of released pressure.

I'm aware that picking at my skin is just another problem, and it may calm me down but it's also causing fine lines to form on my nose and chin, and pronounced pores, and...

We drank sparkling grape juice or sparkling cider while we decorated the tree.

I have an O'Doul's next to me right now. 

I've never had one before.

I've never had beer before.

My mom stopped drinking years ago but she likes to drink O'Doul's at family gatherings.

She had one at Thanksgiving yesterday.

This morning my sister and I made eggs with cheese, tomato, and spinach.

They were very good eggs.

We had salmon for dinner.

I tried to make a potato pancake with leftover mashed potatoes, but they were really milky to start with. When I fried them in the pan they just morphed into passable mashed potatoes.

It's so nice to be home and have free food everywhere.

Endless coffee. Toast. Eggs.

Ashley Judd just stabbed someone on television. 

Oh shit.

Stream of consciousness blog posting.

This is a big relief, really.

I should put effort into actual writing.

Ashley Judd is being groped by a bloody man on TV, but I have a feeling that Morgan Freeman will rescue her soon.

I'm going to buy a new sketchbook tomorrow!

The kitchen is right next to me and I'm not really hungry but maybe I should eat some food. 

I could eat food if I wanted to, and that's nice.

There are no Chipotles in my hometown.

That's probably for the best.

Ahhh! Morgan Freeman.

Good. 

I'm knitting a pink and gray cable knit scarf. I don't usually knit cable scarves. My mom and sister said I should try to make sweaters. I should, I've been talking about it for years.

Fisherman's sweaters.

Goals For The Immediate Future

1. Floss every night.
2.

Hustlin'

Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am currently lying in my bed in my childhood bedroom. 

It's cold upstairs and my sheets are cold so I tried to take my laptop under the covers to write, but it didn't work. I had to write on my side while lying on my right arm, and it was definitely warmer but also more uncomfortable.

I just sneezed.

Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving. 

It was nice, I guess. 

Was it nice? 

Yes.

I started almost crying at the table and had to look through the bottom of my water glass at the distorted image of a candle it created in order to stop the tears.

I was sitting with a table of people that I love, and I felt so disconnected. 

Sometimes I feel connected with people but most of life is spent in this sort of isolated place, where even if I am with other people, I don't feel like they really know me, and I feel like there's so much more inside everyone and inside myself, too, that I can't show or see. And that makes me cry sometimes.

I ate mashed potatoes and two bread rolls with butter, and a piece of pumpkin pie and vanilla bean ice cream and a weird "old fashioned" cookie with raisins and molasses in it.

It's nice to be home. My bed is starting to warm up now. 

I have cramps, sort of.

It would be nice to write about my family and people I know on here, but I think I'm uncomfortable with doing that right now. I don't know. It's also nice to just write about what I'm feeling and not get too specific about any of it.

My family is really nice to be around. 

I'm tired.

Sleepy tired achey heart tired.

Listening to Smog, "I Break Horses". 

I want to write a book.

The Patriots are kicking ass right now.

I drew a picture of a boy and girl in ballpoint pen and I like the way it came out.

Old friends break my heart.

Distance.

At work a few days ago a handsome man in shiny brown oxfords was flirting with me. I think he was flirting with me. He kept walking back over to talk to me. He said he has nephews that like curious George and he wanted to buy them a small George figurine but hadn't been able to find one anywhere. I showed him a George jack-in-the-box and puzzle but he said no, no. 

Anyway he was very attractive and it made me feel fluttery to have a beautiful man talk to me. It doesn't happen often enough.

Sweet Lord.

My shoulders hurt because I'm lying on my stomach and typing and for some reason that puts pressure on my shoulders, which causes them to ache.

The only thing that's bothering me is the thing I cannot say. 

I would like to reread Maira Kalman's The Principles of Uncertainty. I own it. It's around somewhere.

My mom said she would be really happy if she was given a jar of jam for Christmas. We were watching a Smuckers commercial on TV.

I had my teeth cleaned yesterday and the dental hygienist mentioned the word "precancerous" in passing, as in so-and-so could potentially become "precancerous."

No. My first grade teacher died from cancer. My elementary school art teacher. My guidance counselor with the newborn baby.

No nonononononon nonononon no.

What to listen to?

Most of the songs in my iTunes library are connected to different memories. 

Hello

"Not everything will be okay but some things will." - Maira Kalman

"When shit brings you down, you just say 'fuck it' and eat yourself some motherfucking candy." - David Sedaris

Crazy

I don't know how other artists can make things without feeling completely crazy during and after the process.

I worked on a drawing all day today, from about ten am to five thirty. I had to stop working on it in order to go to class.

During the drawing process, there was no real conscious thought. I felt inspired and enjoyed the way the picture was coming together, but I didn't make any conscious decisions about how to draw something, or what the character's facial expressions should be, or anything. It just happens.

I think about the podcast or song I happen to be listening to, and I am conscious of where my water containers and ink bottles are. I often forget to eat, when a drawing is going well...I'm super hungry in class right now.

So yeah, the process of creating art, good art, is almost completely uncontrollable, and largely unplanned, and free for me. I almost feel like I can't take any credit for it, because the pictures just come out, they come from somewhere that I can't name or control.

Now I feel wired and crazy and like an unreal person. Walking outside and being around other people after I've been working all day feels like being thrust into the spotlight and forced to dance, or something. I don't know.

And I love getting lost in a drawing. I love to give myself time to see what happens, and then to step back after a few hours and think, holy shit, I like this!

It's an amazing feeling.

And so, I think part of my art making process comes from some sort of inherent talent...my nana was an artist, and most people on my mom's side can draw well. But also, I have no real idea how or why I can draw the way that I do. It feels like it comes from a place outside myself.

And maybe that is why I feel so fucking crazy sometimes.

I love it. I don't want it to ever go away. I'm just saying.

I'm so hungry right now. Oh heavens. I need food. Oh dear.

When I get to my room I'm going o wr and then work on my drawing. I hope it comes out okay! It's weird to have to leave it in the middle of the process, but I was starting to get jittery from a mocha iced coffee and the colors I was choosing were starting to look strange.

And, scene.