weapons of mass dysfunction

adventure

2008-06-04T23:46:00.001-07:00

i have moved:

http://gennythebrave.blogspot.com

enjoy.

<3gen

yes we can

2008-06-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

what a premium night on the daily show:

- drunk john oliver
- David McCullough
- new comedian
- david sedaris
- jon and stephen fighting

oh, did i mention obama won the nomination?

i was in tears.

<3gen

did you ever climb the poplar trees? did you ever throw the young birds against the stable wall?

2008-04-21T00:51:00.003-07:00

this year has changed me. in so, so many ways.

i am reading a story about a girl in east germany, trying to define herself as part of herself and also part of her country. and when the wall comes down, who is she? when she has spent so much time defining herself as part of the GDR, part of the party, part of the movement and the stasi and everything her country promised, and now it's been torn down by the youth and their hammers, who is she now? does she have an identity outside of this revolution?

and i ask her the same question that has plagued me: how do you return to a normal that you have never had?

i must now define myself without a relationship. without love, without adoration, without a promise of someone to call, someone to come home to. it is something i have never, ever done. encountered a world alone.

this year began with the greatest heartbreak of my life. a heartbreak that neither he, nor i fully understand or ever will. there are new wounds being opened every day, just when i get the old ones mended. there are dreams or letters i write or conclusions i come to that are frightening and new. there is still so much anger, so many tears that i still have to work to leave behind. it is hard to let go of things that you can barely hold onto in the first place. each day brings new facets to the tragedy of january, ten days before my birthday, fifty-six days before a conversation with god that happened 34 days before the first day of the rest of my life.

so now i start over. i was burned up, destroyed, and now i can rebuild. every month this year seemed to take something new away from me, something that made me cry, made me afraid, made me want to give up. but it also stripped me of everything holding me back, took me down to my bare bones. perhaps god was selling off what i didn't need, sloughing off the old skin to create new. now i can create something out of the ashes of a broken spirit. now i live my life for myself, a life without a "we", without obligation or dependency, a life i have not had since i was 12. a life single.

it seems nothing new, something everyone has to go through. but for me, it is a new start that i have been afraid of my whole life. who will tell me they love me? who will tell me i'm beautiful? who will save me? now i have to do those things for myself, and i think i am finally ready to. i don't have to be sad anymore, i don't have to be angry at you anymore, i don't have to wonder or worry about trust anymore. now i will learn to take care of myself.

do i miss love? of course i miss love, it is glorious. but love does not love back, love does not care what works and what does not work. love does not make things easier. because love exists even when you don't want it to, love will not leave your doorstep when you ask it to, love will not disappear if you beg it to, love will not hide itself when you want it to make things a little easier. love does not listen.

love does not conquer all- you do.

and i am.

it was the hard to leave it behind, walk away from safety and comfort, walk away from forgiveness and easiness, walk away from everything i thought i needed to be okay. it took leaving it behind to finally see that it wouldn't kill me.

this is for me, and no one else. what matters is me, and my happiness, my independence, my survival. what matters is my path, my life, and my decisions to do great things. not held back, not tied down, and not afraid of losing anything. when all that matters is inside yourself, you can't lose anything.

<3gen

Now I kinda loved two girls and now I kinda lost them both

2008-04-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

2008 has been a marked year.

On new years' day, i was awakened by one of my best friends and my exboyfriend fondling and cooing in the wee hours of the morning- right behind my head.

In January I had to have emergency surgery. I decided to take the semester off to recuperate and work.

In February I lost the job that I had taken the semester off for.

In March, I ended my relationship of over a year with the man of my dreams.

It's April, and God knows what is around the corner.

those teenage hopes

2007-12-11T23:25:00.001-08:00

do you remember when we knew absolutely nothing, but we were so sure of everything?

those were the days.

i've gotten a lot of flack lately for being 'idealistic'. i'm sure that all of my africa-loving confidants and club members have gotten the same jive from anyone they've told 'i'm gonna change the world.' it's a hefty goal, i won't lie, but i know that, and i don't think there's anything wrong with hefty goals.

whether it be my wanting to be a high school english teacher, or save africa, or write a novel, or change anything significant, people seem very quick to discourage. they tell me that i'm being 'overly optimistic' and 'not thinking about the real world' and 'setting goals too high' and that i'll 'be dissapointed.' well, i'm pretty sure that any person in the whole world who has ever done anything worth anything heard the same crap from everyone they knew. i'm sure that steinbeck heard that writing the great american novel was too great a task, and plenty of people told martin luther king that there was no point in even trying to desegregate america, and someone probably told oprah that trying to build a school in africa was a task too great to take on. in fact, i bet people told her when she was thirteen that there was no good in trying to be anything more than she was, or try to change the world, because it was never going to happen.

i'm not saying that i'm anything like any of those great people, in fact i'm saying that my goal seems insiginificant compared to theirs, and if they can achieve that sort of greatness, why can't i be a teacher? and if you think i don't understand what i'm getting myself into, or i'm being too idealistic, or i'm an idiot for wanting to change a few kid's lives, then fuck you. you don't know me and you didn't have very good teachers.

because you know what? people do it. there are teachers out there who get thanked for oscars, and who get movies made about them. there are also teachers whose name will never be in a paper, and will never be on a talk show, and who may never even hear thank you, but years later someone tells their kids 'it's all thanks to this teacher i had in high school..." maybe if it never happened, maybe if teachers never made a difference, i would believe you. but the thing is, they do. it's possible, and it's possible for me.

i would rather be idealistic than cynical. i would rather believe in good things than wait patiently for the bad. if given the choice, any day, to set my goals so high that i can never reach them or set them so low that anyone could, i would choose the first.

and in a few years, or decades, when i am doing something i love, and i feel like i've made a difference, whether everyone sees it or not, and you're complacent with where you've always been, and the way things always were, then we'll see who's happier. you will probably lie.

<3genevieve

come fly wih me, let's float down to peru

2007-11-19T21:55:00.000-08:00

sometimes you have to take advantage of beautiful days. yesterday was cold and rainy and gloomy and today slapped yesterday in the face. today the sky was clear, the temperature was a utopian 73 degrees, and the sun said it had nothing better to do but shine. i walked around my apartment complex eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich and sipping coffee. i danced to music playing in my headphones, while wearing pajamas, all aorund the sidewalks at my complex. those strange looks from other residents? they wer jealous, because no one can take advantage of a beautiful day like i can.

did i have to write a paper for shakespeare today? yes. did i recently have a gint fight with my im-so-in-love-i-can't-tand-it boyfriend? yes. am i still amd for not painting, not writing, not having a 4.0 and being completely broke? yes, yes, and oh god yes.

but today, it was a utopian 73 degrees, and the sun said it had nothing better to do but shine, and that's all there was.

<3gen

five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

2007-11-11T20:12:00.000-08:00

when you're boyfriend is out of town and kind of annoying, your best friend makes you feel like you've done everything wrong, and your other best friend would have a brain aneurysm if you cried in front of him, you can get to feeling pretty isolated.

when you feel like you work all the time for next to nothing, and barely have time to finish the schoolwork for a class you discovered is actually completely useless to you now. or even when you posted a few days ago about how in love you are, and while you have complete faith in that love, love does not a relationship make, and you worry that maybe the things that have happened are happening all over again, and it's only a matter of time before you prove everyone right all over again. when maybe your best friend's best friend is completely right about you, and you're just a dependent slut who finds love because she needs it to survive. maybe you haven't changed at all in 5 years. maybe everyone is right about you, after all this time. they've got you all figured out.

you can get to feeling pretty alone. because you haven't painted anything worthwhile in months, and you haven't written anything beautiful in what feels like years, and you're going to have to work nearly 70 hours a week over christmas because you know what you're hitting the bottom. you can feel pretty desperate, when you feel like you're working constantly and have nothing to show for it, and your best ideas turn out all wrong, and things just aren't how you'd like them to be right now.

so you watch RENT, because you can't watch it with your boyfriend because he makes you feel stupid for liking happy good movies, and you sing along because your roommates think you have a good voice, and you wish things would get back to how they were a while ago.

okay.

<3gen

naglingnerk

2007-11-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

love is a pretty tricky thing. first of all, it needs a much larger vocabulary. "love" is a weighted, frightening word that holds immeasurable meaning and implications beneath and between 4 measly letters. anne sexton wrote in her novella surfacing, "the Inuit have 150 words for snow because it is so important to them, we should have as many for love." the romantics, transcendentalists, and shakespeare all talked about the inadequacy of language, i think they had it right.

besides there not being enough words, there doesn't seem to be a plethora of correct information about it. fairy tales, walt disney, and romantic comedies have ruined it for everyone. but not in the way that you're thinking. it isn't that they got it wrong, or glamourized it beyond what anyone could ever hope to find- they just didn't finish the story. talk to anyone at the very beginning of a relationship and the fairy tales are true- find them 2 years into it or post break-up and meg ryan has ruined it for everyone. the movies and stories and kissing-scenes with revolving cameras and flashing lights only tell the first part, and the first part isn't love, it's just endorphins telling you what you want to hear.

but the truth about love is better than the fantasies. i'm not saying that the cinderella's made it seem better than it really is, but that they didn't give love enough credit. the real love comes much later, and it comes with much more fireworks than any first kiss.

love is believing that good will prevail when all signs point to no. love is accepting that things will not always be good, and they will not always be easy, or might never be easy, but that there are things more important than ease. love is allowing flaws, of yourself and of others, and not blaming them when things go wrong. it is not romance and flowers or a soundtrack playing as you dance in a parking lot. it's forgiving someone for wrecking your car, or revealing a deep secret to the last person that needed to hear it, or it is understanding that others, just like yourself, very often do not make sense.

love is honestly and completely holding yourself before someone else. it is also accepting that you might be a number 2 priority. i know that everyone says in love, you must always be the other person's number 1. this is not true. love is sacrificing things that you want and need to make sure than someone else gets what they want and need- but it is also caring about yourself enough to ask for what you believe you deserve when you believe you deserve it, no matter if you think it is rediculous or wrong. it is having what you want, but also wanting what you have.

love is also fighting. love is being angry and finding someone else to be logically insane. love is sometimes giving in when you know beyond all doubt that you are right. it can also be desperately hurting someone because you know it is what is right and what is good. this is most often love from your parents- which i have understood more and more each day that i am alive.

all of these things do not necessarily 'complete' you, but rather complete the way you see your world. it isn't that you had a hole to fill, but rather that everyone has a space that is meant to hold love. it can be shaped as a mother, or a husband, or a wife. it can be shaped like a sister, or a roommate, a best friend or a dog. we can survive without this space being full just as we can survive without ever eating chocolate- but things are so much better when it's there. the bad and the good, the lovely and the sorrowful, creates not really love, but rather a life. a life that neither person claims as their own, but that they are part of something more than themselves. something beautiful that makes you think, "oh. so this is what i needed. all this time."

i am not saying that the relationship i am in now has made me an expert. or that even the 30-some-odd before do. i am not saying that it will turn into wedding bells, or that it will not. i am not saying that it is perfect, in fact it is far from, and i am not saying that i have it all figured out. i am not saying it will last forever. i am not even saying that these things i've said are correct for everyone.

all i am saying is that i know that i am in love.
and that is what matters to me.

<3gen

all is full of love

2007-10-04T20:24:00.001-07:00

some people think our past is something like a chain that holds us back from what we're running toward. that the things that have hurt us or frightened us are clinging to us, and they won't let us move forward. they're springing up from the ground and wrapping around our ankles like thick, evil roots, and pulling us into the ground so we keep running, but we just never move.

for a very long time i have ascribed to this belief. i have become frustrated to the point of tears at my inability to cut the threads of my past. sad stories, broken hearts, childhood memories that look like childhood abuse, and mean-spirited boys have been holding me back for such a long time. i start feeling like my wounds are visible and bleeding, like maybe my past is holding onto me so tightly that everyone else can see it.

but i've been thinking. what if it turns out not to be so much a chain, but more like a trail of breadcrumbs. is it really so bad to stay connected with your past? why is that viewed as wrong, anyway? i believe that if anyone tells you that they have left their past behind, they are either lying or didn't have anything interesting happen to them in their whole goddamn life. our past has all the little pieces that made us whole now, and if we didn't have it then we'd be these weird holey-people without all the spaces filled in. if it is a chain, what are we without it? a ship without an anchor? i think our past, all the ugly parts and everything, have to be connected to us or else we can't ever find our way back to the parts of our life that made it worth getting to where we are now.

in other words, i'm finished listening to the voices in my head. the voices that have always told me "it's not healthy if you cry when you're alone" and "you shouldn't always be in a relationship" and "you should never let things get to you that happened over a year ago." these are just things that my mother told me, or maybe my friend told me, or maybe i read it in a book or who knows where. the point is, who decided this? these strange "absolute truths" about life that i'm supposed to believe work for everyone. i'm different from every single other person in the whole, wide world. and i think i get my own set of rules.

i get sad if i'm alone late at night. for no reason, usually.
i cry at movies.
i still get bothered by things that happened in my past.
i like attention.
i like to be called pretty.
i like having a boyfriend.
i have sex.
i enjoy it.

and i am completely okay with all of these things.
unless of course, oprah said they were bad.

but she's on my side.

<3gen

say for me, love

2007-08-13T00:10:00.000-07:00

i believe that my natural inclination to be frustratingly fickle might be one of my more charming qualities.

things are much better. my lindsey and my cooper will be home soon, which i believe might make my world brighten up considerably. there have been long talks, old pizza, cute little babies falling asleep in my lap and vanilla wafers during bambi. all of these things have made this difficult trial go a little easier.

it isn't over, if that's what you were thinking. the answer to every relationship problem is certainly not to end it. however, getting real is almost always necessary, and some real was certainly got. and he got it, and i got it, and honestly i think we'll be fine.

the fact is, that both of us, all of us, every last stinkin' one of us is always growing up, and always making mistakes, and the truth is that we need to remember the good when the bad comes by. that's what it's all about.

remember, the world is conspiring to shower you with blessings.
even when you can not tell.

<3gen

the weight of lies

2007-08-09T11:09:00.001-07:00

the easiest way is very rarely the right way. in fact, it is probably safe to say that it never is.

i will be a big girl. that is my new resolution. revolution. whatever you want to call it. i will no longer lie down and let things happen. i will no longer wait for good things to get themselves done. i will no longer trust those who love me to never let me down. so many times i have used the metaphor that i am standing in the road waiting for the truck to hit me. this time, i'm moving out of the way.

so many times i set myself up for heartbreak. i lay my little tattered organ out on the table, tape it together best i can, and whisper into its poor, deadened ears "don't worry, this time you will be all right." and i ignore its protests, and i do not listen to the voices that yell at me to get out, save yourself, before it's too late. and low and behold, each time i find ymself crumbled yet again, and just as surprised as ever.

this time it will be different.

it will be hard. to walk away from something, to let an infected wound heal, to give myself time and space to be safe. but the truth is that i am no longer a child, and it is time that i stood up and took care of myself. i refuse to trust that things will fix themselves. and i refuse to stick around and watch them fall to ruin. i would rather have tears tonight and tears tomorrow, than tears two or ten yeras down the road when what i thought would happen eventually, finally does, while i hold myself together and think "i knew it. i knew it. i knew it."

i am deeply, deeply sorry if i have broken your heart.
but i am finally taking care of myself.

<3gen

~
The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there
So when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere

goodbye my almost lover, goodbye my hopeless dream

2007-07-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

that's sort of how i've felt about the past 6 months. with last semester transforming into one of the most dreadful academic experiences of my life, a new relationship that was beautiful but fraught with drama and outside problems, and a summer that turned into massive depression and financial worries, this year has been what looked like a great thing at first, and turned out not to be so much so.

it wasn't all bad. meeting ben has changed my life, i got invited into the cooper suite of wonders, lindsey and i got great things done with invisible children, and i did manage to pass with a 3.7 GPA. so i guess the year of inadequacy left me with a little dignity.

but like i said, it was what i thought was a great relationship, and it didn't turn out to be so. so sorry, last-half-of-2007, i'm going to have to break it off. you weren't the year i fell in love with, you changed, and let me say that it's not me, it's YOU.

i am ready for this new half to start. i've met a new, sexier, younger year 2007, and with a new apartment, a great schedule, and a new job, i'm hoping this year will kick all the ass that the past 6 months has left untouched. maybe my new second-half-of-2007 will see last-half-of-2007 trying to talk to me and he'll tell him to leave me alone. my new year will make sure that my last year won't bother me, won't make me feel bad, and will generally forget that i was ever with it.

so long, last-half-of-2007. hope you find a nice life.

basically, i'm ready to get started.

let's do this.

<3gen

nothing happens here that doesn't happen there

2007-06-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

i don't want to be emotional and too personal here, because lately that has gotten me into trouble.

lately, i have made some mistakes. i have made several people angry. i feel completely alienated.

things haven't been good for me, guys. this summer has been one of the hardest.

things are just so hard right now.
so fucking hard.

<3gen

the japanese make the best pens

2007-06-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

alabama has recently been running ads for their "click it or ticket" campaign on all the local radio stations. i am a full proponent of this campaign, seeing as how my current driving record truly lends itself to not only seatbelts, but probably the same sort of restraint mechanisms they use on jets and roller coasters. on these ads a stern voice comes on at the very end and asserts that "last year 1,058 people died in alabama in automobile accidents, 543 of them weren't wearing seatbelts."

while my manager and big brother steve drove me home from inventory one night, the ad came on the radio. steve exclaimed, "that's the dumbest commercial i've heard on the radio!"
i replied to him, "steve, it's important to wear your seatbelt, it's not dumb!"
"yeah, but those statisitcs are useless! if you wanna convince me to wear my seatbelt, gimme better than a 50/50 chance. tell me that out os 1,100 people, 1,000 of them weren't wearing their seatbelts. not almost half. that means if iw ear my seatbelt i still only have a 50/50 chance of living!"

i think this is a very valid point.

<3gen

p.s. i was listening in on a customer's conversation the other day as he gave advice over the phone to what i gathered was a young woman who had been fired from a job. he then traipsed into the schools supplies aisle, picked up a compass, and said into the phone, mid-sentence of hallmark advice, "i'm going to learn how to use a compass. i've decided." i think this is a lesson for all of us.

can't see past her scarlet letter, and we've never even met her

2007-05-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

i'm feeling 'life' creep up on me faster than it ever has. i'm a little overhwhelmed, to be honest. i've realized recently that pretty soon i'm gonna have to start making grown-up decisions, and i don't know if i'm ready to. mine and ben's relationship has become something that i'm beginning to think might be the real thing, and we're going to have to start planning our lives to be grown ups together. ben will be a licensed student pastor by february, and by then we'll only have two semesters of college left. then he'll have grad school in atlanta, and i'll be becoming a teacher. as soon as i graduate, my little sister will be starting her senior year in highschool.

all this and i can't even drive a car, i don't have any money, i've only worked in retail, and i can't make pancakes.

i'm twenty years old. i never, in my whole life, thought i would be twenty years old.
good god.

what am i going to do?

<3gen

oxygen

2007-05-04T14:26:00.001-07:00

click this and read this:

I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.

On and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.

I wanna see through all the lies of society
To the reality, happiness is at stake
I wanna hold up my head with dignity
Proud of a life where to give means more than to take
I wan't to live beyond the modern mentality
Where paper is all that you're really taught to create
Do you remember the forgotten America?
Justice, equality, freedom to every race?
Just need to get past all the lies and hypocrisy
Make up and hair to the truth behind every face
That look around to all the people you see,
How many of them are happy and free?
I know it sounds like a dream
But it's the only thing that can get me to sleep at night
I know it's hard to believe
But it's easy to see that something here isn't right
I know the future looks dark
But it's there that the kids of today must carry the light.

If i'm afraid to catch a dream
I weave your baskets and i'll float them down the river stream
Each one i weave with words i speak to carry love to your relief.

how we spend our days is how we spend our lives

2007-04-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

sometimes it's easy to start feeling dead. you think to yourself, "these things i'm doing, every day, they don't mean shit. i'm not changing anything. there are 6 billion people on this planet and i act like it's just me." and then you just feel dead.

this weekend, i didn't feel dead. i felt cold and out of breath and hungry and thirsty and sometimes that makes you feel your heart beat a little stronger. i was part of something bigger than me. i took part in being homeless for the homeless, and i did it with 60,000 other people. i wrote letters and worked with a team and slept in cardboard and felt for the first time in a long time that maybe, just maybe, the world was getting a little better because of me.

alot of people think that maybe they don't matter. that their vote doesn't count or their attendance isn't great enough to matter. but someone once said, "never doubt that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world, indeed it is all that ever has." and the truth is, that if every one person thinks they don't matter, then they don't. but if each one thinks they do, we can do great things.

this weekend, we thought we mattered, and we did.

it was worth it. i was cold and didn't sleep and hungry and tired, but god it was worth it. and if you can wake up every day and know that what you're doing every day is worth it, then i think you may have found a dream.

someone else once said that the world is changed by those who show up.

and we did.

<3gen

watch at your own risk

2007-04-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

storybooks

2007-04-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

pssst.

i don't know if you noticed, but i went missing. there was this rabbit, see, and he was really late for something. and i followed him up a giant beanstalk and met with some flute-playing cattle and this one girl who could spin straw into gold. and there was this princess with really long hair and every night seven little men would climb up her blonde locks into the shoe where she lived and play songs that made the whole world fall asleep.

so that's where i've been.

some sort of asleep.

i know that i broke some things when i left, or maybe broke them before i left and left them that way. and i'm trying now, desperately in fact, to repair any and all of those things. if you were one of those things, i'm sorry, and i'll try not to go away again, i promise.

sometimes a girl gets lost.

good thing someone thought to leave breadcrumbs to lead me home.

<3gen

the last hour

2007-03-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

the following has occured in the last hour:

-called my boyfriend and had a nice talk
-watched a video of a hamster carrying around a bag of animal crackers
-watched another video of the same hamster washing his face
-wondered who was filming this hamster so often
-decided i wish i had a hamster
-wondered why i didn't keep that cool mouse from ben's house
- ate a half a bag of cheddar potato chips
-channel surfed to the point where my fingers hurt
-watched House and pieces of Wayne's World
-decided tyra banks is just really creepy
-watched a video of a baby sloth and wished i had one
-tried to make plans with my family in montgomery
-got excited about introducing ben to my family in mongomery
-heard that my friend is getting sex letters from ex-boyfriends in prison
-wished two of my friends could be together
-"when i get out of prison"
-missed my boyfriend a little, but didn't want to call because i just did
-oh yay scrubs is on, gotta run

<3gen

wish me luck i know you think i'll need it

2007-02-27T09:05:00.000-08:00

"today is a day of endless possibilities!"
she yells from inside her with all of her ability
tiny and bouncy and curly on top
and a light inside her that never gets turned off
sometimes she wakes me with all seven verses
of a little kid song that she never rehearses
because girls like her just don't need practice
in knowing ways to add to your brightness
or how to appreciate the everyday adventure
from shopping for lightbulbs to telling the future
and i got no problem in sayin' i'd be nothin
if i had to live without lindsey mullen

<3gen

that last bit of sanity

2007-02-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

so, what could describe me right now?

hm...

miserable is a good word. exhausted, weak, drained. my head hurts, my teeth hurt, my back hurts, my stomach hurts. my fever goes from 102 to 98 in an hour, i shake from cold then i'm rolling in sweat from heat. the coughing rips at my chest and i feel like i'm gonna throw up but nothing happens except dry heaving. i haven't eaten anything in almost three days and probably won't be able to change that. according to my mother [who i trust more than my doctors because the doctors gave me orange juice, which my mother said not to drink, and it made me throw up, so fuck you doctorface] i can only eat chicken broth or clear liquids- nothing with acid in it. however, i don't have chicken broth, nor do i have a ride to get any, because god know i am not driving with tihs many prescription drugs in my system. not to mention i'm out of tissues. damnit.

so yeah, this sucks. and tomorrow is lindsey's birthday, and she gave me a birthday that was so amazing, and i feel like i can't do anything like that because i just don't have the energy or even the ability to barely write her name on a piece of paper. i feel so shitty about the whole thing. but i'm gonna do my best, and we'll see how it turns out.

my sister is coming to visit tomorrow, so that should make me feel better.

<3gen

if you still love me, please forgive me

2007-02-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

i think perhaps childhood memories are better left there.

when i was in the third grade, i had a boyfriend named beau cannon. he was the coolest kid ever, and we always played power rangers with each other on the playground, he always rescued me. we would hang out at his house and watch cartoons an dplay in his back yard. he was a sweet kid and i gave him his first kiss [by third grade, i'd already passed that milestone]. but on the last day of school, he left me a gift on my desk, a nice hairclip for my hair, chich was past my hips back then. i went to find him outside to thank him, but i never saw him again. he moved away, and i never knew what happened to him.

ever since, i've looked for him. just in little places. i thought he had moved to mobile, so every once in a while i would google his name or ask someone if they knew him if they were from mobile. nothing spectacular. but since the advent of facebook, i broadened my search. i thought i could find all my old friends, stephanie denise from kindergarten, philip pender who got hot glue on my leg in fifth grade, omar awwad from seventh. i kept searching for beau, and low and behold i found him. we messaged back and forth, talking about power rangers, how he's engaged now and in the air force, and how our lives went from third grade into college.

now he's calling every day. i don't know how to react. i wanted to see how he was, make sure the memories were real, se eif he remembered me too. but now it seems that he doesn't have anyone to talk to, and he's calling me off the hook so that we can sit on the phone in silece. like lindsey says, there's no etiquette to how to deal with this sort of thing, re-meeting your third grade boyfriend, but i don't think this is the way to go. now it seems he's socially retarded, confused, marrying too early, and downright dumb.

the moral of the story, i suppose, is that i should have left it alone. i had great memories with beau, of playing pretend and him un-chaining me from evil's clutches during recess. we played connect four and card games, he gave me a power rangers valentine that i still have in a box at home. it was a bright spot in my childhood, a fun story to tell my friends. he was cute. i kissed him on the black top. we played kiss-chase.

but now, i tseems tainted. with the real beau. the 11-years-later beau. the beau that has nothing to say, and doesn't have any friends, and wants to talk about nothing. the beau who seems a little obsessive, a littel over-excited. a beau i wasn't planning on making time for. and now i feel like that little piece of my life growing up has a stain on it. i suppose i expected to find him and all of a sudden he would still be in third grade, and i would be too, and the past would crawl back soft and without discomfort.

i'm not going searching on facebook for any memories anymore, and i suggest none of you do either. it's lifting up a rock you lifted up as a child, but back then the things you found there were fun, and now they're just scary.

<3gen

he was part son part earth part daughter part sun

2007-02-04T23:50:00.000-08:00

the girl was right.

the universe delivers exactly what you need exactly when you need it.

i believe that more and more every day.

and begin to replace "the universe" with "god".

maybe he knows what he's doing more than i give him credit for.

<3gen

without you, the ground thaws

2007-02-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

i don't want to have to do this. i would give anything to be able to do things the same way i have always done them. to stay the girl i always was, even though now i'm a different girl than i've ever been. i'm trying so hard and i don't seem to be succeeding at much of anything.

it's time to make some sacrifices. to do things i don't want to do because they are the RIGHT things to do. i will not think about myself. i will not think about what i want. it's not that day anymore.

it's time to start breaking hearts.
i've gotten so good at it,
i can even break my own.

<3gen

there's a secret magic past world, that you only notice when you're looking back at it, and all i wanna do is turn around

2007-02-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

i need something right now, or someone.

but god knows what it is.
if only i knew.

i feel so lonely.

i don't know what i want anyone to do about that at all. and i don't know if i want someone to hold me and keep me safe or to tell me they hate me and leave me alone.

i got in a wreck, in case anyone's curious. lindsey was driving, and we are both find save some minor knicks from broken glass. i'm a little overwhelmed, and overreacting to say the least.

i feel completely let down and drained of everything. i give up, completely. why even bother trying? i just feel so incredibly angry with myself and at the world and at god and at everything.

me: camel's back.
this: the straw.

okay. i'm broken. YOU CAN STOP NOW.

<3gen
i wish any of this made sense

snails see the benefits, the beauty in every inch

2007-01-28T23:08:00.000-08:00

lately, things aren't going so well. i'm worried about a lot of things, and i seem preoccupied with trying desperately to fix something in me that seems to be broken. sometimes i feel like i'm losing it. thta something about me that was really bright and happy. i'm afraid it might be going out, little by little. sometimes i get so overwhelmed with living, i just have to sit and wait and feel nothing until i can move another inch.

and yet, i feel so happy. i listen to music and dance around, or read a good book and feel it seeping into me like sunlight tanning skin. i feel content with things, like maybe things being messed up are how they're supposed to be. and though i might be far from loving myself wholly and completely, i at least find myself a good enough person. i still want to see my friends, to touch them and to be around them, to remember childhoods and highschool and share good music and love poems from dark-covered anthologies on sale at the bookstore. i feel like there is so much going on i should be stressed and crying, but i'm not. i feel the weight of all i must do, but i am not letting it crush me.

is this a good thing? i'm not sure.

really, i just want things to get a little more figured out. i know it can't all be, but just a few parts. i want some answers. i need to do some math- and undo some too.

i'm not afraid of the word love.
but perhaps the word control.

<3gen

this ain't a scene, it's a god damn arms race

2007-01-25T13:19:00.001-08:00

okay, the constant pile driving at UA is officially annoying. pretty much from 9-5 every day my dorm is shaking violently ever 1.3 seconds including loud booming noises. if i leave the dorm, the sound is just bouncing off every building on campus and sounds like aliens are attacking with lazer beams.

the new fall out boy song is good, by the by.

i would write more, but i can't THINK with all the GOD DAMN PILE DRIVING.

<3gen

bodily violence

2007-01-22T19:57:00.001-08:00

so it appears that one of the most prestigeous literary magazines in the country, the Seneca Review, has decided to publish a short story that i wrote last semester. i sent it in on a whim, not at all expecting this sort of publication to want my piece. they have published some pretty famous poets, and i just had to submit something for my final grade in creative writing.

allright, self-esteem restored to 100%.

thank you god, you pulled through.

I'M SO AWESOME.

<3gen

partie deux

2007-01-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

the second installment of one hundred things

26-50

26. i fall more in love with faulkner every day
27. i write in all of my books
28. click
29. i do not think i could ever find words in our pitiful human language to describe my absolute disdain and bloodboiling hatred that i possess for analytic philosophy
30. sometimes people have touble understanding that i do not give a damn what they think of me
31. one of the drawbacks and inevitable curses of being open and honest about your relationships is that you, by default, make it everyone else's business, where they then have the right to give you any advice or life lessons they feel necessary. you listen, when really all you can think is that they do not understand at all. also, it is never just one person, but many many people, who for some reason do not think that you know your flaws well enough, or preach them to yourself on a daily basis, and therefore must point them out to you systematically so that if for just one minute, even one second, you try to escape your own self-loathing, they can step in and remind you what you are doing wrong.
33. dr. crowly is quite possibly the most monotone man i have ever encountered in my life.
34. www.pandora.com
35.~while i was fighting wars with myself you were trying to stop the fight~
36. i do not update my blogs often enough
37. an online blog is the ultimate excercise in passive-aggressiveness
38. i do not think i will ever enjoy my father's company
39. bukowski is good, but he is not the best
40. i like being scheduled
41. one of my greatest joys in life is buying and having groceries
42. i have not been drunk in a very long time and that is kind of sad
43. my roommate [the most wonderous thing in the world] and friends [many other magical things] managed to give me quite possibly the most wonderful birthday i have ever experienced in my life, for reasons that even they can not understand
44. i have been having very vivid dreams about things happening to my sister, or me losing her, or fighting or hating and things of that nature, and it's very strange and i wonder what they mean. what am i afraid of?
45. "and i want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd"
46. i need to paint my toenails
47. the more charity work i do, the more i want to do
48. i think i'm going to ask my mom about taking out a student loan
49. i have a place to live next year and it has taken such a huge weight off my shoulders it is marvelous
50. i do not have to justify anything i do to anyone i know - EVER.

<3gen

if nowhere is safe, then let everywhere be nowhere

2007-01-14T01:22:00.000-08:00

perhaps no one cam upon my blog this early morning, to wtiness such incredible angst and apparant depression that poured into this little white box when i read too much faulkner, thought too much about my shortcomings, and listened to too many sad songs.

but today things have done a 180. my friends, specifically my most wonderous and unbelievable roommate, made this day better than any birthday i've had. she did it without me asking, she thought of me when she had one hundred other things to fill her pretty head with, she went out of her way to make this day fun. i could not thank her enough for that.

not to mention there was cake. seriously good cake.

this is going to be a good day.
FUCK YES.

<3gen

if you lived here, you'd be home by now

2007-01-11T20:48:00.000-08:00

Hey remember the time when I found a human tooth down on Delancey
Hey remember that time we decided to kiss anywhere except the mouth
Hey remember that time when my favorite colors were pink and green
Hey remember that month when I only ate boxes of tangerines
So cheap and juicy, tangerines

Hey remember that time when I would only read Shakespeare
Hey remember that other time when I would only read the backs of cereal boxes
Hey remember that time I tried to save a pigeon with a broken wing
A street cat got him by morning and I had to bury pieces of his body in my building's playground
I thought I was going to be sick, I thought I was going to be sick

Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Parliaments
Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Marlboros
Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Camels
Hey remember that time when I was broke
I didn't care I just bummed from my friends
Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum...

Hey remember that time when you od'ed
Hey remember that other time when you od'ed for the second time
Well in the waiting room while waiting for news of you I hallucinated I could read your mind
And I was on a lot of shit too but what I saw, man, I tell you it was freaky, freaky

--regina spektor, "that time"

<3gen

the mind churns, the heart yearns

2007-01-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

every year, i go through this phase where i crave god. i start listening to christian music all the time, writing poetry about my faith and praying nearly every time i'm not talking or working. it's difficult because i'm the only christian in my family who's christian, and i get constantly ridiculed for believing in god at all. and i don't have any christian friends here, at least not the sort that actually like to talk about god. i wish i could go to church, but it's my only day to get some decent sleep and i can never bring myself to wake up early enough.

jeremy wants to talk philosophy, and i just want to use god as an excuse for everything. not only to piss him off, but because i believe it.

there is only one thing in the entire universe that you can depend on 100 percent all of the time without any doubt, and when my world is changing constantly and quickly, god is there no matter what and will always be and has always been.

i think i'm about to lose everything, but maybe that's okay for once.
maybe things are better than i think.

i'm talking about art and poetry.
i'm contemplating faulkner.
he's writing a book.
and there's a boy somewhere whose heart i'm breaking.
and a girl somewhere who wants to save the world.
and a child running away trying to escape the army.

without you, the ground thaws.

nostalgia stays small

2006-12-26T14:44:00.000-08:00

things have certainly gotten a little weirder. but in a better, kinder sort of way. my world is more bizarre and upside down than it's ever been, and although all that furniture is still glued to the ceiling, i'm starting to get used to the new places everything is, and maybe one day i'll start being able to take it all down and put it back where it belongs.

i miss different things than i thought i would, and i don't miss things that i thought i was going to miss horribly. some things are just as expected, though. i love seeing my friends again, and talking to sini and james again. aaron coming home is weird and awkward and i don't really know how to deal with it. my dad is dispicable and obnoxcious enough to make my fingernails go instinctually toward my eyes every time he starts to speak. my sister is wonderous, my sewing machine is broken, my christmas presents are thoughtful, and my job is fun. some things are completely expected.

and some thing are so completely unexpected that i feel like i've had the rug ripped out from under me and i'm still flying through the air. i feel suspended above the ground, just waiting for things to crash. i guess we'll see.

what else can i say? i've been out of words lately, you can ask my friends. i can't even explain it to them, barely to myself.

but god am i having the best time i've had in years.

<3 gen

partie une

2006-12-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

the first intallment of one hundred things

1-25

1. i am a different girl than i once was. i don't put my faith in things anymore, and some people think that's sad- i think it's smart
2. i will not get a good grade in lab
3. i drink too much milk
4. "samson" is a beautiful song by regina spektor
5. my laptop is warming my lap
6. watch this
7. this year i have reached a whole new level of procrastination
8. i am keeping my sharpies in a giant glass bottle which i think will prove less convenient than i first believed
9. does anyone know what any of this means?
10. boys kissing is pretty cute
11. i might or might not still like my ex-boyfriend- not that that narrows it down much
12. i painted a new birdhouse
13. "you are my sweetest downfall"
14. i bought 'chocolate mint truffle' coffee creamer because there was a snowman on the container
15. ~should have been born into a trust fund, now seeks dashing elderly benefactor~
16. my room is a mess
17. IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY I HAVE TO DO LAUNDRY
18. every day it gets a little bit harder
19. i might go vegan over christmas break
20. i collaged my little table and it looks very good and it sort of made me believe i was an artist after all
21. i love kissing, but don't do it enough
22. i have a paper due tomorrow, plus a french exam, and i'm doing this instead
23. i don't give a damn about philosophy
24. at this point, i would probably sleep with my lab TA for a good grade
25.

disillusionment of ten o'clock

2006-12-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

okay, now this is just getting out of hand.

on the plus side, my life is never, ever boring.

dear god.
break needs to be here
RIGHT NOW.

<3gen

you are my sweetest downfall

2006-12-06T21:06:00.001-08:00

i loved you first, i loved you first

it's baffling sometimes how quickly things can change. one minute a place for everything and everything it's place, three seconds later your furniture is glued to the ceiling. and you look around the room and think "how did this happen?" you trusted that things were the way they were, not good or bad but just that they were, and that was how they would stay. you thought, of all the things in the world, you at least had faith in the chair being in the corner and the table next to it and the shelves against the far wall. you knew each piece, they were your friends. they stayed where you put them, they held you when you were tired.

then one day, you walk in the door and it's turned around and on the ceiling. you scream. you trusted them, you thought you knew everything about every piece of every one and they betrayed you. they've moved and changed.

they've started falling back in love with you.
or they've stopped calling because they don't need you now.
or they've started getting drunk at noon and staying that way.

and you think, "gosh, i never really knew them at all."

i feel like i've already learned this lesson before. i feel like this should be routine.

it never is.

the history books forgot about us,
and the bible didn't mention us,
not even once

<3gen

guilty feet ain't got no rhythm

2006-12-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

how sad is it, exactly, that whenever i feel sad or lonely, i watch videos on you tube about tommy and kimberly romance from power rangers?

really really sad?
devastatingly sad?
sad enough to where you believe i really shouldn't be let out in public?

yeah, it's strange, i admit. but it says alot about me. i don't want a boyfriend. i don't want another ryan spain. i don't want a jeremy, or an aaron, or even a james. i don't want a connor or a corey or a daniel or a thomas or any of those boys or any more boys to come.

i want a tommy. i want a white ranger. or a harry potter, or the harry who met sally, or a leopold, or an aiden, or any of those hundreds of fantasy men who are perfect and everything you need until the credits roll. they all come around just when you need them, and they say the things you want and they hold you like they're supposed to and things get warmer.

that's what i want. the not real.

something that's not real. because real gets too real. real goes on for years. real involves commitment and planning and confusion and banality. i don't want those fantasy men to be real, i want them to stay fake, to stay impossible. because when you get the real thing, when you think you've found everything you could possibly ever want, when one boy starts marking things off your list of "dream boy" qualities, you realize that you wanted more than that. you realize that those tiny little qualities do not come together to make happy. you realize that those fantasies are better left fantasies, because they don't translate well into reality at all. not at all.

i want the not real.
the perfect without the stale.
the boy without the relationship.
i want to be able to cue the credits.

<3gen

you're easier to describe in metaphor

2006-12-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

i hate to do another negative post so quickly after one completely devoted to hatred. and yet, here we are smack in the middle of another emo, self-depracating blog post. hooray.

i didn't mean to miss french this morning.
i decorated our door in our room for christmas.
joe came in to give a tour, and i got sad because i've always wanted to give tours of blount, and i've asked to many times, but no one ever asks me to and i don't think anyone wants me to just because i don't hang out with people in the dorm that often.
i went to the thrift store.
i left my credit card in the room which meant i had to use my very last cash and change to my name to put gas in my car.
i can't get more cash because the credit union doesn't take temporary liscenses and since i just got mine renewed i can't get cash out for 2 weeks.
which means i have no cigarettes.
and won't for quite a while.
i found a dress that was really nice but eventually put it back because i wam just kidding myself thinking i can fit into a size 10.
a sixe ten is rather large.
a skinny girl my age with her cute boyfriend picked up the dress right after me.
it will look great on her.
she will look great with her boyfriend.
my father called then, asking me when my reading got out.
my reading at 4:30.
it was 4:55.
i forgot to go to the reading and it was my last chance.
i don't know how badly it will hurt my grade.
i'm not going to get good grades this semester.
and that is all my fault.
just like it's my fault that i'm alone.
that i'm a size 14.
that i have no money.
that my father is mad at me.
that i swerved on the highway from crying.

some people just have unlucky lives.

<3gen

a song that leonard wrote for me

2006-11-30T17:02:00.000-08:00

"Why don't you try" by Leonard Cohen

Why don't you try to do without him?

Why don't you try to live alone?

Do you really need his hands for your passion?

Do you really need his heart for your throne?

Do you need his labour for your baby?

Do you need his beast for the bone?

Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady?

I know you're going to make, make it on your own.

Why don't your try to forget him?

Just open up your dainty little hand.

You know this life is filled with many sweet companions,

many satisfying one-night stands.

Do you want to be the ditch around a tower?

Do you want to be the moonlight in his cave?

Do you want to give your blessing to his power

as he goes whistling past his daddy, past his daddy's grave

the beauty of roommates

2006-11-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

[breaking sounds]
me: quit breaking shit!
lindsey from the bathroom: don't tell me what to do.

me: wow, we should open a window to let out the fumes.
lindsey: or we could just get high.

me: lindsey we really need a baby seal.
lindsey: you're right.

me: oh lindsey! my new car has buttons!
lindsey: you need buttons.

me: lindsey, i'm having this big problem with splenda.
lindsey: sounds epic.

lindsey: i really like it when i look at the clock exactly ten minutes after the last time i looked at the clock.
me: how often does that happen?
lindsey: pretty much never, but when it does. oh man.

me: god damn i wish this girl would stop inviting me to her party, i'm not going.
lindsey: hey, some people would kill to have your problems

lindsey: it sucks when i'm eating my sandwich and i have to ask, "was that my fake meat, or a napkin?"
me: that doesn't say much for your fake meat.
lindsey: yeah, especially because i don't even have a napkin.

and just now:
me: i am not finding near as many lindsey quotes as i had first hoped
lindsey: yeah, i'm pretty elusive

sometimes i wish i could stay in this room forever.

<3 ashes

his korean wife

2006-11-27T22:26:00.000-08:00

as of late, i hate things. and hate takes alot of energy. i know that just two posts ago i was knee-deep in squishy, hard-to-wade-through love. but now, after a certainly less-than-stellar thanksgiving, which is the understatement of the century, i find myself listing things i hate, rather than can't live without.

i hate that i can't post here how sad and lonely and dissapointed i've been feeling because my ex boyfriend will read it and worry his pretty little head and freak the fuck out and want to know what's wrong and why it's wrong and how he can fix it when, if he understood things as all, he would know that is the last thing i want from an angry rant on my blog.

i hate my father. i hate every thing that he does and every thing that he causes and creates. i hate that he hates me. i hate that i can't get over than no matter what i do.

i hate that i can't come up with great lines like lindsey, or write humor like sini, or be sweet like laura, or keep myself at a distance like cooper, or not be affected by anything like my sister, or let things go like my mother.

i hate that my dreams lately have been nothing but romance and kissing and rescues and torrential love affairs acted out in rain and carseats.

i hate that no matter how much my brain begs me not to, my heart craves relationships in a way that is neither healthy nor comforting.

i hate that something i love i must keep far, far away.

i hate that i am spending so much time hating.
it hurts.

<3ashes

seriously

2006-11-25T16:34:00.001-08:00

WHY AM I NOT HARRY POTTER?!

no, really.

<3gen

joy to the world

2006-11-17T10:09:00.000-08:00

sometimes i love my life.

i love my little to-do list next to my closet.
i love making bacon egg and cheese sandwiches and watching cooking shows.
i love spending my own, hard-earned money.
i love my stuffed animals sitting on my books.
i love having a printer.
i love my fabric-covered tv.
i love having a place for everything.
i love washing my own dishes.
i love my beautiful room.
i love it when my roommate says things like:
"hey guys, it's 2006, why am i still having to walk places?"
i love new friends who are good for me.
i love having school supplies.
i love packing for home.
i love having a home.
i love making coffee in the mornings.
i love having my life condensed to one side of a dorm room- it's cozy.
i love beautiful days.
i love my cloak.
i love writing good essays.
i love listening to music.
i love my new car.
i love trying to be a grown up, and sometimes it works.

i am thankful for everything god has given me.
and evyerthing my friends have given me.
and everything my family has given me.
and everything i have given myself.

i've got soul but i'm not a soldier,
gen

friends

2006-11-15T19:32:00.000-08:00

for lindsey mullen:

for rachel carter:

for harrybear:

for ryan cooper:

and i'm done

i'm in love with the tip of your iceberg

2006-11-07T22:30:00.000-08:00

and i wonder will i ever see the rest?

-- Micheal Leviton

check out this wonderous place

lessthanthree, ashes

the artist is the pheonix who burns to emerge

2006-11-02T22:47:00.000-08:00

i'm drunk.

seems like aperfect time to post.

my exboyfriend made this blog for me. i'ma lso using his journal to write in nowadays. and i can't colalge over it, but i hate being reminded of what once was. what once was perfect, and how haunts my sleep. i'm sending poetry to boys at midnight and feeling numb. i'm being cryptic and writing songs. i'm being a bad, bad girl.

i'm wanting things that i should never, ever want. i'm wanting to be bad person.

better to reign in heaven than serve in hell.

i'm doubting things i have never doubted. i'm regretting things and i have no regrets. my hands feel warm and my head is fuzzy and full of cobwebs and soft, pliable rage. i feel wasted. in the drunk sense, but also int he sense that i've been all. used. up.

for some reason i just had a flashback to my middle school. i wonder where that came from.

my hands are so warm. maybe it's this keyboard. maybe it's this night.

it's getting cold outside. today it smelled like christmas. my life lately seems a string of dissapointments and misconceptions, wants and needs that never get met, friends that never get where i want to go, talks i never get to have, grades i can never make, leaderships i never take.

i'm starting to give up.

i thought i was starting to get jaded, but this is what's really starting. i'm starting not to feel. i'm training myself to feel nothing. i'm slowly widdling down my emotional state to three basic emotions: love, hate, and loss. do you really need anything else?

emotion has defined my life for so long, i'm hoping i can live without it. the truth is, it has bred nothing but spoiled relationships, rape cases, and suicide attempts. to be honsest, emotion has never done a damn good thing for me.

i am so drunk. my hands are so warm. today smelled like chriistmas.

i think i should change my name.

<3 ashes

no pheonix intended

i miss you like my left arm that's been lost in a war

2006-10-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

oh, beauty.

how you evade me so preposterously.

and how you find me so inconveniently.

<3gen

writer of fiction

2006-10-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

i seem to have made a mess of things. but perhaps it's a good mess. or perhaps it's a fun mess. or maybe a wonderful beautiful mess. but that's only if i'm a really lucky girl. and i think we all know i am not a very lucky girl. i think this could turn out to be an ugly mess.

but my life is that of messes, fun or ugly, so it should not be anything new. the last time i started talking like this, about making messes and mistakes with boys and cars, i started smoking, cried for six days straight, and could barely work through the fog i walked through. but this time, there's no tears. there's no fog, and though there are a few cigarettes i don't pick them up in hopes they will somehow get me breathing again. this time, no big deal.

i'm finally taking my own advice.

maybe i'm not a hypocrite anymore.

this time, i can't help being myself. this time, i refuse to hate myself for something happening that i did not intend. this time i don't think it's the end of the world. this time i don't think everything is crashing down. this time i don't think this is the end of a friendship, which last time had me walking around like a tear-soaked zombie craving brains. this time i'll be me. and i'll listen to what i have told so many others and be myself, and the best of myself, and try to help pthers, and try to be better, but i can only try my best.

this feels strange.

it's a wonder what can be accomplished when you listen to yourself.

i skiped french today. i haven't started on my lab term paper.
i am queen procrastinator.
but i don't care.
i'm the happiest i've been in a long
long
long
time.

<3monroe

OH GOD

2006-10-16T21:17:00.000-07:00

what goes up must, inevitably come down.

crashing down.

i did feel whole for a little while though, i really did.

<3gen

quarter-inch pieces

2006-10-16T02:23:00.000-07:00

i felt whole for a little while.

<3gen

let us rebuild this kingdom, and let us call it promise

2006-08-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

my life is kind of amazing right now, in part to:
- lindsey jayne FUCKIN mullen being such a beautiful badass
- my new and most beautiful dorm room
- covering a couch all day yesterday
- floor-to-ceiling posters
- knowing that my room is so much better than anyone else's on the god damn planet
- ryan cooper and harrison
- rachel carter and her kitties
- the $1000 i saved this summer for whatever i want
- not wanting to go home
- painted ladders
- did i mention lindsey jayne?

so that's my life right now. in short- unadulturated happiness. my boyfriend gets here today, where i will spend at least 1.3 minutes rubbing the fact that my room is better than his in his face. then my new, lovely, desirable life will be complete.

at some point, i have to buy school supplies and text books, but i'm just so giddy it's distracting!

<3the gen

acceptance

2006-07-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

so much of the advice i have recieved as of late, from others and from myself, has been simple: accept it, and move on. there are bad parts of life, things get really hard sometimes, and when you find yourself crying in a foggy room, just accept that this is life, and take it and go on to the next day. i don't like that, i don't want to have to move on; that too, i must accept.

i have to accept that aaron will never get over his grudge and be my friend again. i have to accept that the friendships i hold dearest in the world are not what they used to be. i have to accept that things change [this is one that i have struggled with for the longest]. i have to accept that i must have a serious conversation with my boyfriend. i have to accept that there are secrets that i learned today that i can't share for fear of making the same mistake twice. i have to accept that someone just betrayed me just like i betrayed aaron, but i won't let it change how i feel about that person. i have to accept that that makes me think aaron overreacted. i have to accept that i am forgetful, shallow, clumsy, and a liar. and i have to accept that all of the artistic talent, glitter, witty jokes and good talks can not make up for that.

i hate it. i hate that there are so many things wrong and i just have to 'accept it and move on.' i don't like this kind of life. sometimes i think so much has happened in barely twenty years of life, and i'm expected to go on for another fifty or so? maybe we've extended the life span too much, why there is no great passion in this generation, no great american novel. there's just too many years, we take everything for granted. it's too intense, there's too much life. 70 plus years of 'accepting' that life is shitty most of the time? i'm not okay with it.

i've kept an online journal in some form or another for nearly 6 years now, and my hauntings are spread over nearly twenty different journals. some are just poetry, some stories, some emotional and angsty others witty and fake. but when i look back, the number of entries about 'accepting' something horrible and moving on with my life is astounding. so many entries filled with words of tears and giving up and growing up and all that jazz. things should not have to be this hard.

but they are.
and i have to accept it.
<3gen

just what is a good life anyway?

2006-06-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

i know, i know. it's been such a long, sad time since i updated. i thought that being home for the summer [and by home, i mean not at all] would leave plenty of time for blog updates and photos and daily journalings of my oh-so-interesting life. but the truth is, work is one thing i didn't expect-time consuming.

i really enjoy my job, and i'm damn good at it. except when people want me to suggest a good present for someone turning a year old, and i usually want to say 'they're a year old, just dangle a red sock in front of them and they'll think you're a god.' but yet, they want flashy lights and music that the poor kid will be terrified of or grow out of in a year and then they'll be back wanting something even flashier and even more light-up-y than before. but usually i enjoy a good day at work, and it's busy enough to be fun, and my coworker elaine is the most fun thing in the world. but man, 9 hours a day, it takes effort. and once i get home, the soft, once-inviting glow of the laptop just doesn't seem to beckon me the way it used to.

plus, when i'm not working, i'm with my friends, who are really the only ones who care to read my little journal anyway, so they get what's going on. but i've got a couple readers on here who i don't see that often, so i suppose i owe them a good shout once in a while. lately, in the friends category, things have been...well... bizarre to say the least. lots of talking, lots of secrets, lots of late nights. but it's good, and we're growing up, or grown-ups, or something and we're being good people and that's what's important. i'm making new friends out of old friends and discovering commonalities with people i never thought i had. even if that commonality is a sad one, it is a commonality none the less.

and hey, here's a paragraph that isn't on my xanga or my livejournal, because no one here at home reads this journal. i've been spending tons of time, including much late-night-talking time, with aaron. it seems i've finally found a way to be his friend, and to help him. sometimes i have to resist the urge to fall in love with him all over again, because that would be so easy, but i won't. because that's not my life anymore, and i'm not that girl anymore.

all in all, i think i'm doing pretty well. i know this wasn't exactly funny or cute, or really all that informative. but soon i'll post pictures from work, detailed schedules of my daily life, and fun stories about little girls in tutus or maui jim sunglasses. i love you all. 10-4.

<3gen

we know

2006-06-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

<3 gen

ashville, motherfuckers

2006-05-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

sweet. so now i can do a real update, after hashing through the bullshit on my xanga.

i really do love ashville, it's a great place. full of hippies and cool shops and clothes. not to mention the prices are great, there are practically no people dressed like they walked out of a tiger beat, and there is something cool around every corner. this place is all about being mellow and happy and artistic. local artists, microbreweries, coffee shops with $1 cappucino. also, i MAY or may not have bought a beret.

but anyway. basically the only drawback is my father. only a week living with the rutsky's and i'd forgotten how god damn annoying that man is. he's constantly saying "this town's weird isn't it?" and i mean constantly, i am not exaggerating. i mean it's seriously every few minutes, if not seconds. whenever something goes wrong at all, he blames my mother for not saying something, when really it was just him being an absolute idiot. i mean he is seriously one of the dumbest people i've ever encountered. jesus christ. i can't take it.

not to mention i can't shake the feeling that aaron is mad at me for god knows what reason. he shouldn't treat me like one of his clingy girls from colorado, he doesn't have to avoid me completely. i hate it. i wish it wasn't my fault all the time.
i can't wait to build lindsey's prezzie. it's exciting. i'm missing my college friends alot, especially andrew and lindsey. not to mention the fun kids i got close with at the end of the year, ryan cooper and harrison and laine and mary elizabeth and her boyfriend. i'm really excited about this summer seeing my friends, but part of me can't wait till next semester. living with lindsey, our bad ass room, my classes, more jokes and WOW and parties.

today was a beautiful day.
i look fucking bad ass in this hat.

library madness

2006-05-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

now that i finally have the chance to rekindle my love for reading, the following books have been checked out to grace my life for the nest 3 months:

flowers for algernon- daniel keyes
the catcher in the rye- j.d. salinger
beyond genetics- glenn mcgee
an american childhood- annie dillard
weetzie bat- francesca lia block
why some like it hot: food, genes, and cultural diversity- gary paul nabham
travels with charlie- john steinbeck
one flew over the cuckoo's nest- ken kesey
whose view of life? embryos, cloning, and stem cells- jane maienschien
a heartbreaking work of staggering genius- dave eggers
genome- matt ridley

it has been a busy as hell two days. yesterday i unpacked both cars, packed one with lindsey's stuff and the other with mine for the rutsky's, cleaned the kitchen, went out for mother's day, did two loads of laundry and returned it all nicely folded, and cleaned up my stuff downstairs. today i got up early, went to my job interview, accepted a full tiem job working in toys at smith's variety store in mountainbrook, moved all of my things into the rutsky's, and came to the library to check out the very books i have listed before you.

i feel like a grown up. it's strange.
but i have a brand new my little pony lunchbox for work, so i think i'm ok.

<3gen

tomorrow

2006-05-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

it's a strange feeling. i have plans, i have things to do that i planned and that technically, i don't have to do it. i have a job interview tomorrow at 10am, and then i'm moving into the rutsky's house until the afternoon. i have some shopping planned and some phone calls to make.

but they're plans that i made, they are things that i did on my own and arrangements that i took care of and that i decided on and now i carry them out and finish. and i'm doing it by myself, on my own time. i'm going to make my own breakfast. i'm going to pack my own room. i feel like a grown up.

i watched the series finale of west wing with my parents. it's still one of my favorite shows, and this one was the president's terms ending and the new president taking over. the old staff was leaving, boxes and furniture moving out, new plans made. and as the president was on the plane headed home, his wife asked him what he was thinking about, and he answered "tomorrow."

and that's what i feel like. i feel like for once in my life, i can do things that i decide to do for myself. i don't have homework, i don't have to worry about next semester. i have a job i got myself, money i earned, a cell phone i haven't lost yet. i can read a book if i want to. i can paint. i can rearrange a bookshelf. just if i feel like it.

this is new and exciting.

ice cream exciting.

<3gen

p.s. i miss my friends. i miss them so much. i get to see my birmingham friends this summer, then back to tuscaloosa for late night WOW talk from andrew, sex jokes, lindsey face, snuggling, drunken nights, mess, fans, angel music and paty. i can't wait for everything in the world. just. can't. wait.

oh shit.. i did it

2006-04-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

1. Reply with your name and I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie/book/fictional character reminds me of you.
3. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me. Or at least me.
4. I'll tell you my favorite memory of you.
5. I'll tell you what animal or plant you remind me of.
6. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
7. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal.

<3gen

good to be home

2006-04-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

so i've been home this weekend for easter, and for once, it seems like things are falling into place. my life, it seems, for a few moments, is being planned and pieced together and may actually work out. i worry with predicting that things will work out the way i want them, which rarely happens in my life, but perhaps this time.....

this weekend i felt infinitely better than i have in such a long time. james came home, and for a while yesterday, i laid in the back of his convertible and looked up at the big blue sky while driving to ryan's house and listening to mpr. and that night at dinner joe showed a slideshow about caitlin, something we all hadn't thought about in a long time. and i got to see cindy and gretchen and karen, and snoopy walked around on the floor, and scruggs came over and we all went and got donuts, and we sat on james's floor and looked at pictures and ate donuts. for just a few minutes, it was like old times.

and today we had easter. and we ate chocolate and made food together as a family and then sat at the table and said grace and ate. and my dad didn't make any comments about the food, and he was nice, and didn't say a mean thing about anybody. and he listened to our stories, and he told him own, and he didn't interrupt or say NO to everything we said. and my mom laughed and my sister didn't answer her cell phone. and we had an ice easter dinner and nothing went wrong. we didn't have to tell my dad to turn off the tv, no one got yelled at, the food was delicious, and the day was beautiful. it was probably one of the only great family dinners we've ever had.
and now i'm washing clothes and writing a paper and listening to mark isham [crash soundtrack]. and i feel okay. yeah, i'm not gonna pull higher than a C in french. yeah, i have a paper due tomorrow and a creative writing assignment. yeah, the new teacher for my blount class really sucks. yeah, it's getting tiresome living so close with so many people for so long. and yeah, i am SO ready for all my friends to be back home and in james's room and laughing like we never graduated high school and we never left home. but you know what? summer's pretty close, my parents aren't fighting, and i think i can hold myself over until we can all be together again this summer.

i know it's trite, but i think the best metaphor for life is in fact a roller coaster. i think everyone uses that parallel because it's true, and it works, and it really feels like that sometimes. i will leave you with song lyrics- go download the song if you like it.

"better son/daughter" by rilo kiley
~and sometimes when you're on
you're really fukin' on
and your friends they sing along
and they love you.
but the lows are so extreme
that the good seems fuckin' cheap
and it teases you for weeks in its absence.
but you'll fight and you'll make it through
you'll fake it
if you have to
and you'll show up for work with a smile.
and you'll better
and you'll be smarter
and more grown up
and a better daughter
or son or a real good friend.
and you'll be awake
you'll be alert
you'll be positive though it hurts
you'll be happy and you'll be
beautiful.
you'll be happy.~

<3gen

quotables

2006-04-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

"And I thought, there was no God, there was only what you wanted"
--White Oleander, by Janet Fitch

I'm Writing A Letter

2006-04-06T02:01:00.000-07:00

Dear God,
oooooHi, it's Genevieve. I know we haven't written in a while, but in your last letter you menioned a few natural disasters you were going to be proccupied with, so i let you off for a little while. But it has come to my attention that you have, yet again, made an aggregious error in your Life and Death department. I'm sorry to sound so formal, I know you and I are old friends and we've been writing these letters for some time, but I feel it necessary to give this matter the respect it deserves.
ooooo I really liked Ute Winston. She was probably my favorite teacher since Rutsky, and most likely one of the best I've ever had. She was a wonderful person, and always made us laugh, not to mention a self-declared and student-supported bad ass. We joked about her, we trusted her with our essays. She understood things like specificity, creativity, details and open-ended quesitons. She always smiled, put people in their place, taught great history and always managed to make everyone speak. She was a great teacher, and I wanted her to be my gramma. She was our own little German grandmother and we loved her- masturbation jokes and all.
ooooo I don't understand your reasoning in allowing her to die. I understand that she was old, but I thought I took priority here? I thought that when it came to me, you promised you wouldn't take any more people I liked before I said I was okay with it? We had this discussion God, we talked about it, and I want you to know that this is not fucking cool. This is not okay with me and fuck formality but this is really taking it too far. This whole high-and-mighty routine is getting old, especially when you just arbitrarily decide that you are going to take friends, principals, and good teachers away from this world. You said you would check with me! You said you would call! But no, the letters stopped, your number got disconnected, and now you let Ute Winston die? And you gave us another teacher whose nickname is "Douchebag Dokee?" You can't replace her! And you can't make half of my dorm cry, including me and all my close friends, and make me recieve the news while the tornado siren is going off and the whole world explodes.
ooooo I don't give a damn about natural disasters! Fuck hunger and poverty and earthquakes and adoption and car bombs and a war and gas prices and corruption! I take priority! You can't ignore me forever! You can't take anyone else! You promised you wouldn't do it again, and you went and did it anyway.
ooooo I'm sorry to break from formality, but please try to write back as soon as possible. It's been nearly a year since we talked, and I keep writing. I've enclosed a few stamps this time, in case you've run out of stamps. And some extra paper and an envelope or two. I also dropped in a pencil and a pen, just in case you don't have one. I put my dorm phone number, and Ryan's cell if you want to call. But I'm here most of the time, so just please write back. Or something. I just want you to answer.
ooooo Maybe you ran out of stamps.

Sincerely Yours,
Genevieve

lindsey mullen is

2006-03-27T01:44:00.000-08:00

inspired by lyrics of nickel creek's 'when you come back down':
~My greatest fear will be that you will crash and burn

And I won't feel your fire

I'll be the other hand that always holds the line

Connectin' in between your sweet heart and mine

I'm strung out on that wire

And I'll be on the other end,

To hear you when you call Angel,

you were born to fly,

Your memory's the sunshine every new day brings

I know the sky is calling Angel,

let me help you with your wings ~

'jayne'

lindsey mullen is bright lights. she is exciting and her eyes squint when she smiles and it makes me giggle. she is happy even when she's sad. she is incomprehensibly beautiful. she has tiny lighted eyes and big rosy cheeks and a smile you can see from the moon. she has curly hair and lovely skin and nice hands and cute feet. she has a lovely face. she's not just effective- she's affected. and that's something that people these says just plain aren't. she loves people intensely and without reason. she loves people more than they love her and that has been and always will be her curse. she is a good girl. she is good despite everything that has ever happened or things that are happening or things that are going to happen. she knows how to lie. she is good at it. she understands that is scary but she is in complete control of her vices. she controls things she doesn't know she controls. lindsey mullen is alright. she is the smell after it rains. she is kittens. she loves her cats and loves her friends who treat her poorly. sometimes she thinks she desernes it. she never ever does. she knows what to do to make you feel like the whole wide world. she is one hundred dollars. she is atypical. she is abnormal. she is alien. she is wonderful. lindsey mullen is good chocolate and stuffed bunnies and happy children. she is playing in the rain. she is clinging to her past for all the right reasons. she is understanding. she is passionate. she has passion in her and outside her. it leaks from her like tears. she cries. she gets angry. lindsey mullen glows in the dark. she is a postcard with a hundred secrets and she is sweet smelling hair and she is flowy skirts and she is infection laughter. she is eloquent. she is a genius. she is a child in a big girls' body. she has a great rack. lindsey is sweet. her voice is high and she sings like she fucking means it. she loves good music. she can make fabulous mix cds. lindsey is glitterfantastic. she is bats. she is puppies. she is late night. she is orange and pink and green and purple. she is unorganized. she is uberorganized. she knows when it matters. she knows when it doesn't- but really it does. she knows when it doesn't- and it really doesn't. she does her best. she takes care of others before herself. she forgets to take her iron. she knows when things are cute and fun. she knows how to have fun. she makes everything fun. lindsey mullen is infinitely beautiful when she's drunk. lindsey is emotion and that's perfect. she feels things like i do and that is why i feel part of me in her. she knows it is okay to feel. she is a wonderful writer. she is brave. she is strong. she doesn't think any of these things are true. she doesn't see in her what we all see. she probably never will. she is waiting for prince charming. prince charming is searching for her. she makes mistakes. she fucks up. she hates herself. just like everyone else. but she's nothing like everyone else. lindsey is free from the chains that the earth can spring up and wrap around her. lindsey can laugh through pain. lindsey knows more than you. she knows more than me. she is bright and love and flowers and pretty stones and fire and static electricity and good books and little girls and speeches and oranges and dishes and poems and walls and messages in bottles. she is coloring books and buttons and charm bracelets and toys and bubbles and voices and education and art museums and high schools. lindsey mullen is parking spots and light bulbs and caterpillars and rain-soaked grass and sunshine and pretty days and rainstorms and lightning and glowworms and cute children and warm blankets and sharpie markers and moral forum and fake pearls and real pearls. lindsey jayne mullen is my heart and my best friend. she is bright lights.

<3gen>

6 weird things

2006-03-21T02:29:00.000-08:00

so lindsey has instructed me to list 6 strange things about myself. this is difficult not in thinking of these six things, but rather narrowing the list down to six. we'll just go with the weirdest i can come up with right now.

1. sometimes late at night, i pour milk in a bowl and drink it like soup. but if you walked in on me doing it, i would just say i just finished eating cereal.

2. i rehearse speeches i will one day give to people, or hope to give to people, in my kitchen or in the bathroom. the one i practice most often is if ie ver win any big award on television, and preach to all the celebrities about how they are frivilous and wasteful and should spend theirmoney on aids research and not diamond-encrusted shoes and personal stylists.

3. i am convinced beyond all doubt that RENT is and will always remain the most underrated movie ever created.

4. it really annoys me when people wake up startled, or are generally skittish when they are asleep or close to asleep.

5. i have virtually no care or thoughts about personal hygeine. i can barly spell the word.

6. i have a secret dream to become a famous singer- i secretly love to sing in front of people, i'm just always afraid to because it's never appropriate and i don't want to look like i'm showing off.

some other weird things might be that i hate most of modern technology, i enjoy working on very tiny things in detal [e.g painting tile grout], and i have a tendency to develop crushes on my teachers. oh, and i'm kinky as hell. but that's not really weird is it?

my next post will be a surprise for my best friend.
hooray.

<3gen

je veux le mort

2006-03-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

the question that i find myself asking is, why do i bother? i probably tried harder studying for this french test than any test i've taken in a very long time. two days straight of nothing but writing over and over again, memorizing conjugation, re-hydrating sentences, quizzing myself on vocabulary, working on composition. i got a tutor, i made notecards, and even bought a brand new notebook specifically to write french over and over and over and over again until my french eyes bleed french blood all over my french book.

and yet? a 73. and ryan? he studied two hours the night before, and worried over the weekend about doing badly. i felt confident, i worked hard, this was gonna be my first A on a french test this semester. and yet, it seems that ten times the work only amounts to a few points on a test. so i ask myself, why even bother trying uber-hard if it doesn't do any good?

give me a poem to analyze and i could put you to shame- i dissect poetry in my sleep, it's second nature by now. read a novel and find every miniscule metaphor in ever gesture and every beautiful manipulation and intention? it's what i'm best at, and i can promise i'm better at it than you. because it's the ONE SINGLE THING that i fucking rock at.

i can draw fairly well, sing fairly well, cook fairly well. i'm a nice person, generous, thoughtful, and the most assertive person i know. i do what i can and i think i'm pretty alright.

but smart? not a word i would use. it's all about retaining knowlege- and i just can't do it. memorization kills me. i lose my keys, cell phones, money, cards, books, anything able to be lost, really. and i get teased mercilessly for it. i can't remember ANYTHING about french, i can't have a big vocabulary because i can't ever remember what the words all mean, and i can't keep track of money to save my life.

i know i'm being self deprecating and you guys all think that it's not a big deal if i lose my keys or can't remember french conjugations. but for me? it's a huge deal. only because it's something that i have to deal with every single day, and no matter what i do, it never gets any better.

so again, i ask myself, why bother at all?

<3gen

seasons of...

2006-03-01T11:41:00.000-08:00

a few christmases ago, my mother gave me this book. mostly because i blatantly pointed out that i wanted it, but my mother is such a person that she most likely would have figured out that i wanted it without my instruction [e.g. she bought me my oprah dvd before i even knew it existed, and who knows i like oprah that much?]

i have discovered recently that i must read this book at least once a year, because it seems that the knowlege it procures so beautifully and willingly i forget just as well after a year or a little less has gone by. the most effective part of this book, which indicates that part that i hsould start reading most often, is a certain section that has to do with the seasons of life. that we all, in a sense, so through 4 seasons in our lives as does the weather of a year.

there is spring, where everything is new and beautiful and exciting and blooming, the sun is shining and the clouds move slowly. there is summer, where things are warm and familiar and things are in full bloom and colorful. there is an autumn, where things begin to wither and change, it gets a little colder and cloudier. and there is inevitably a winter, where things are dead and dying, cold and frail, and the days are mostly cloudy and wet.

for some people, this actually follows the seasons [sometimes i think i'm like that, other times, when alabama doesn't have winter, i have trouble deducing it] and for others, their winter is in spring and their summer is in autumn. what matters is that these things are natural, and inevitable. what i have to realize, and perhaps others who udnerstand my dilemma, is that the seasons of my life do not make me a bad person, and it isn't abnormal to go through a few months that suck like a 2 dollar whore. no one gets angry at mother nature for getting cold, i don't assume it's because the world has done something wrong, or that it is somehow at fault for killing its own flowers. i should listen to that part of me, and understand that i can't hate myself for being sad and troubled for a while, and that it's completely natural and involuntary that things get rocky and difficult sometimes. it's so easy to forget this, because the last time i had trouble was three seasons ago, and by now i've forgotten what it was like to hurt like this. but the last winter helped me prepare for this one, just like all the winters before it prepared for the ones following, and i can get ready for spring.

and in spring, things will be beautiful and wonderful and new again. the truth is, the same things that are going to be beautiful and amazing and exciting this spring are the same things that were new and exciting every spring, but this time, i've changed a little, and it's been three seasons since my last spring too, so i've forgotten what it looks like to see a flower bloom. we cycle through the same seasons, it just gets more intense, and better prepared for, each time.
i think after enough phone calls, talks to sini, and trips home, i'm going to be headed back into spring-mode fairly soon. i have some relationship issues to work out, some old skeletons to get out of the closet, and a few vices that i shouldn't indulge nearly as often. and when that's over, i'll go back to liking myself, and understanding myself, and maybe this time i'll remember all of this when winter comes again.

maybe that's all growing up really is. remembering spring in winter and remembering winter in spring.

<3gen>

a message for you

2006-02-26T04:08:00.000-08:00

watch RENT. i don't care if you hate musicals, or you think it's too dramatic, or if your name is aaron bailey. watch it for the amazing acting, watch for the little idiosyncracies of each actor. watch it for the incredible story behind it, and the way it defined an entire generation an emotional movement. watch it for the person who wrote it, who died the morning of its opening and had an incredible life. watch it for the cast who really lived together, and who are amazing people.

overlook what you might think is a melodramatic ending, or lyrics you don't understand, or character flaws you don't think are realistic. look at it in a real way, in the way that you want to affect the audience, the feelings you want people to leave with. think of it in terms of the story, and the meaning of the entire group of people, and what each line and each lyric means. what it for the amazing final number where all the songs fit together perfectly.

more than anything- watch it for yourself. watch it for the times you've sat and thought "i wish things were like they were a year ago." i know that ryan and i have been thinking and praying that very often right now. i don't know if my other friends from back home are thinking the same thing, i don't know if they ever miss what we had or are worried that they're losing it like i am afraid of every day, but this movie helps me udnerstand life so much more. and don't demean it or me if you don't understand it or refuse to see it.

sit down with me to watch it and let's talk- i'll make you love it. i know these people, we are these people. and i don't know if sini or aaron or scruggs or james understands what this makes me feel, but it allows me to trust that we will never stop being friends. it lets me stop being afraid that i'm going to lose everything. it brings me back home, back to planet earth. i trust in the world, i understand that things change and sometimes things really fucking suck and sometimes it feels like my whole world is colapsing in on me and this is the end isn't it? but it isn't, and i believe in myself and my friends that things like this aren't going to end.

after watching the entire thing over ten times, the director/actor commentary, all the deleted scenes, the full-length documentary, all the interviews and illegal videos of the stage performances i can get my grubby little hands on, it only amazes me more. you think it's just some shallow musical you can look over, but if you can't look deeper into it than that than it's your own fault for thinking it shallow because you won't consider that a movie of its calibre can carry something greater within it. i challenge you to really watch it, to really consider the acting and the tiniest detail. i challenge you to appreciate the musical talent that had to go into it and the real point of the ending- no matter if you like it or not, think about the message they're trying to get across.

these things are real. you might think it's over the top, but it isn't.
i have fallen in love with everything RENT.

i hope that my friends understand how much i miss them, and how on the days where i feel closest to giving up, the memories of our last year together keeps me going. please, never forget any of that, and get back in touch, and stay that way, and don't ever, ever let me or any of us lose you. we are each other and we are one heart and we can not let space separate that. i love you all so very much, and this movie solidifies that love, and squelches my fear of losing you all, and brings me back to a place that i love every time i watch it.

good night.
good morning.
good life.

you can't dump me- you're blind!

2006-02-19T20:49:00.000-08:00

CSI is probably the most rediculous show i have ever had the displeasure of watching. it positively butchers the legal, medical, and scientific world in ways i didn't know people could fathom. the medical tests that the doctors and medical examiner's conduct are out of this world, having images of the human body project up on a computer screen that no current hospital ever had or could ever invent. and since when can these machines point out, with bright, blinking yellow boxes, exactly what the examiner is looking for? and since when is it necessary protocol to accuse a man just out of surgery that he purposely put his copilot in a coma so he couldn't answer questions he somehow knew would occur after a plane crash he didn't cause?

W-T-F!

and their characters have such mesmerizing dialogue as "you can't dump me- you're blind!" and "good thing manequins aren't people." not to mention the criminals they portray are probably the most moronic characters ever created so much that they are laughably inhuman. there's a doctor who wants to gain on the insurance policy he's taken out on his hands, what is his first idea as to how? well, obviously, take his partner to grand central station and have his partner pour acid on his hands during rush hour. but- uh oh- the partner flubs it up and the doctor ends up dead from acid to the face.

who writes this shit?

i won't even go INTO the absolute idiocy that is their genetics lab and forensic pathology, considering the abhorable dialogue only humorize slightly the way they portay genetics, with tests that are so science fiction i feel like i'm watching star trek. you take the DNA from a dead girl, DNA from another guy, and instantly you can match it to a child you have no sample of? creating a dna fingerprint in about 6 seconds by putting a drop of blood into a canister? let me tell you, i've made a DNA fingerprint, and it takes 2 days and lots of work- they don't even extract the DNA from the blood! they don't even run a polymerase chain reaction so where the hell did they get the sample?! there's no centrefuge, no adding dye, no counting nitrogenous bases- they don't even know how to read the damn fingerprint! how did these people get into crime scene investigation?!

ok, so i did go into the idiocy that is their genetics lab, but i got all excited.

the point here is, if the news media wants to assume that criminals out there are devising perfect crimes because of crime shows, they certainly aren't crime shows like CSI, because that shit is off the wall crazy.

no polymerase chain reaction using a viral plasmid?! who does that?

<3 gen

cliffs of red clay

2006-02-12T01:46:00.000-08:00

today was a good day. the day that i needed. the day to give me a reality check, about things that are beautiful and good and untainted by everything else that i have in my life.

today i woke up late and ate cinnamon rolls with my friends. we went for a walk through deep woods and saw antique bridges and walked through mud and climbed over mossy trees. we went up high hills and looked out over the tennessee river while the sun was high on the horizon and the chilly air blew up off the river and made us all huddle together. we heard the water and the birds and the wind.

and i walked home with my true love in the slow-falling snow, the tiny flakes hitting my eyelashes and we kissed in the street. and i stood in lindsey's front yard while the snow came down in great big chunks of ice and coated the ground and the wind blew the snow sideways. and i stared out over the river while the sun peeked out from under the clouds and heavy snow blowing everywhere and i kissed ryan again and everything was just so beautiful.

then we all made pasta together, ate a nice meal all at the table like a family, and watched good movies and loved each other very much.

today was the day that i needed to show me everything.

<3 gen

how ryan cooper feels about dinosaurs....

2006-02-09T02:22:00.000-08:00

i do not think there is a single thing in the world i love more than kittens in cups.

from now on, when someone asks "what's your favorite thing in the whole world?"
my answer, emphatically, is kittens in cups.
<3>

the only living boy in new york

2006-02-06T01:59:00.000-08:00

it's amazing what a nicer mood you get into after you clean up your space. living with four people in one room, this place gets pretty disgusting. i'm someone who doesn't mind mess and can't clean up after myself to save my own life, i just dust compulsively and my roomies appreciate that, lindsey is someone who likes things clean and neat, but is cluttered because she's always too bouncy and excited to worry about cleaning, andrew doesn't give a fuck about anything, the least of which is a clean room, and ryan will bitch about the room all day and night but won't lift a finger until it gets to the point where ebola is growing in the corners.

so, i took the initiative, put on garden state, and cleaned the motherfuck out of this place. i overhauled the bathroom, getting rid of weeks worth of newspaper and toilet paper rolls. cleaned out the sinks, got rid of the dish drainer [i.e. putting it on the shelf in the hallway], and put all our stuff on one side. we've got a new suitemate moving in and he'll need a sink.

then i threw away every ounce of garbage on mine and ryan's side of the room that i could find, put our clothes into equal piles, hid my stuff beside the tv stand, and organized all our school books. i also fixed ryan's shrines, excorsized his lamp [it was possessed by demons of the underworld], and dusted every appliance and object i could reach- on both sides of the room.

so now i have a nice environment to drink my tea, write my essay, and finish garden state before falling to sleep.

god damnit.
it's 3:47 a.m.

the one downfall to cleaning like a madwoman- now i don't have time to do the things that caused me to clean. i will go to sleep, then use the hour between french and english tomorrow to finish this paper, it's really all downhill from the point i'm at now anyway.

"good luck exploring the infinite abyss"

<3 gen

p.s. i need to buy a watch, buy myself a pay-as-you-go cellphone, apply for a debit card, and start seriously looking at scholarships. good night.

2006-01-30T00:56:00.000-08:00

we will be wildlife children

2006-01-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

i think one day we will begin to devolve.

all of sudden, after centuries of slouching, our backs will bow and crack until we walk completely bent over like we're all looking for the change we just dropped. everything will be moving so fast, that shopping and eating will become first-come-first-serve. everything will be a race, and we wil bash eachother's heads from running bent over for the last morsel for 5.99. sooner or later we will start hunting food, because its the only way we can figure to eat, because the race has become too fast and too dangerous.

car accidents will become the leading cause of death for everyone. animals and humans alike, automobiles are the new plague, the new aids. everyone is just going to fast that all we can do is slow down. we'll start walking out in the woods so we aren't hit from flying shrapnal from the thousands of car wrecks every day. explosions will sound all day long, and nothing but construction and slicing trees can be heard for miles.

the people in the gated communities will eventually become right up against the interstate, and after a few house fires from flying car engines and hundreds of children dying in the streets from flying vehicles, the yuppies and their families will move further out into the neighborhoods, buying small houses away from the noise.

but the all day noise and explosions and danger won't be able to be escaped. we'll move into the forests that are left, the few that greenpeace and sierra club have saved. the animals that have survived will be in surplus since their habitat has been reduced so drastically. we'll hunt our own food, and build our own houses. we will walk hunched over and pray that no one else comes for us.

the crews will come to us and try to build their wal-marts and their mcdonalds and their gateway stores, but we will stand on our front lines, we will protect our families and our trees and we will shout in rough voices, "you will not take this. this land is not for you. go away." and we will take them down with our primitive tools, because they can't fight us. civilization will deplete because we just can't take the danger any more.

we will grow together in natural, healthy communities. we will redevelop social roles and gender biases. prejudices will shift and empathy will thrive because we all moved here for the same reason.

contruction will end, cars will stop driving, because there's no one left. the people left in the cities to shop at the malls and race for the food will have died, in competition or on the interstates. most of them died on contact. the newest disease spreading across the world is technology.

so then we will be like atoms, searching to reach our lowest potential energy. we will devolve and reevaluate and recreate and ressurect our universe.

one day we will re-survive our creation, and perhaps we will avoid the burning engines from cars in mid-air, and the twenty-thousand floor buildings, and the television broadcast directly into our minds.

one day we will not know "television".

<3 gen

don't wake me i plan on sleeping in

2006-01-26T17:50:00.000-08:00

allright, so it has recently come to my attention that i feel the shittiest i have felt in months. someone's airborne, god-forsaken, man-eating cold crept up on me yesterday, and today, without so much as a warning or sympathy card it it me full-force with a brick to the face. i feel absolutely awful. when i get a cold, i get a fucking cold, and my head seems to be slowly collapsing in on itself, while my nose bursts into flame, my throat coated in a fine layer of what can only be described as GAK circa 1994, which puts me in a constant state of feeling like i'm going to vomit. this fucking sucks.

not to mention that since this morning, it is becoming increasingly clear that i need to have my wisdom teeth taken out. it was looking like the little fuckers were going to creep in under the radar of my anal, oral-surgery obsessed dentists. but low and behold, the one on the back right has popped inand made his presence known making it nearly impossible to eat without sering pain through my jaw on that side. NOT to fucking mention that i just got done having that stupid fucking stomach virus so i can actually eat regular food again, but i can eat even LESS now because i can't god damn chew.

i want to be at home with my mommy. i feel so disgusting, not to mention sick makes me feel lonely and sad anyway, and my boyfriend is asleep. so i'm just going to sit here, feel like crap, and miss my family where they take care of me.

pros of being in college:
-eat what and when i want
-sleep when i feel like it
-act on my whims

cons
-no mommy
-no one taking care of me
-did i mention no mommy?

<3 gen

{pout}

coagulated

2006-01-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

this is good story

so monday night, my creative writing class trekked across the parking lot and through the doors into gorgas library. we travelled to the third floor, my favorite floor, because it is full of fiction, literary criticisms, and science journals. our assignment was a simple one: find a book, pick a page, and use the words on that page in any new form you choose to create an original work. our teacher put money in the copier, and we were told to choose one page with lots of text, and copy it. i searched for a book for longer than anyone else, my desire to find a genetics book and use their scientific jargon to create prose. my search proved futile, so at the last second i grabbed "an american dream" from the shelf - a small, antique-looking book with a battered brown cover. i flipped through the pages, and on a certain page the word "coagulated" jumped out at me and i chose that page- page 59. i photocopied the page, stuffed it into my bookbag, and left- it wasn't due till wednesday.

so today, after french, i walked over to the starbucks to start on my assignment. i ordered a sweet coffee, sat down on a couch, and pulled out my notebook. i took a few seconds to rip off the edges of the photocopy to reduce my copy to the single page- page 59. i sat down, ready to start, and read what i had brought with me.

you can read what i read if you like, at the bottom of the page, you then may understand my feelings better.

i was moved to tears. unbelievably moved. magnificently changed. i read over it what must have been ten times, just in awe. how did i manage to pick this page, this moment, this desperate scene out of all the hundreds of pages? how could i have walked around with such emotion in my bag and not felt its weight? how could these words have been hiding in my pack for two days without them breaking free and screaming "look at us we are beautiful!" until i was forced to read them. the page, isolated from all its brothers and sisters, tells only a tiny fraction of a story, but at the same time tells so very much. i cried in the middle of starbucks, surrounded by people blabbing about facebook and vanilla lattes and gymnastics, and they were ignorant to the bright light i held in my hands. i just wanted to force them all to read it, to start a sobbing fest in that coffee shop and change everyone's life.

the tiny bits of dialogue are the most amazing. it is so horribly sad without using any words like sadness, or any tears, or any explanation. its description and simplicity evoke the deepest sort of sadness and sympathy, and there is so much about the narrator that is revealed. a good book is one that you can read the entire story in one page, and this is that. the words are so sweet, the narration so matter-of-fact while at the same time being so intensely mournful. i couldn't get enough of it. i wanted to swallow it whole, i wanted the words to run through my blood, i wanted something to show for this feeling that overcame me. i wanted to burst into flame.

after reading it enough times to where i was satisfied with my feelings for it, i started my assignment. i wanted to use every single word the author had, i wanted to somehow get that same reaction and that same meaning and make eveyrone in my class just burn with the same intensity that i had. i separated the whole page, made columns for all the nouns, all the verbs, the adjectives, adverbs, prepositions. i wrote down all the personal pronouns, articles, adjectives that could be nouns and prepositions that could be adjectives. i picked apart every piece i could get my fingers on, separating and labeling every part of every sentence. i wrote down all the punctuation- i wanted to be thorough.

then, as i readied myself to begin rearranging, i suddenly felt a great sense of guilt. what had i done? this beautiful piece, these moving feelings and intense emotions, i had just reduced the entire page to several pieces of paper covered in meaningless garbage. i felt like i had gone into someone's home, stolen their baby, and pinned it down and dissected it, spreading all its parts on their floor, and yelling "i didn't mean to! it was so beautiful! it was only homework!" i looked at all my work and rearranging and felt disgusting, like i had destroyed something irreplacable. i read the original page again, trying to catch that original feeling, the holes it stuck in me- but still, i felt so plainly awful.

so i crumpled up my pages of dissection and stuffed them in my sweet coffee cup and threw them away. i read the page over again, and penciled in some thoughts on the copy, underlined particularly good words, and contemplated different ways to rearrange. but i just couldn't sit there any more with all the baby parts lying in front of me in a bloody mess. i'll do the assignment, and i might post it if any of you want to read it, but i just thought i would share this strange little experience.

it's changed my life in a very small way.
and i'm going to read this book.
<3>An American Dream page 59

of pink-tinted glasses was sitting in his car, the door open, holding
his temple, and groaning in a whining gurgling sound which be-
trayed the shoddy state of his internal plumbing.
But I had broken through the crowd and was about to kneel at
Deborah's body. An arm in a blue serge sleeve held me back.
"Officer, that's my wife."
The arm went down suddenly. "You better not look, mister"
There was nothing agreeable to see. She must have first struck
the pavement, and the nearest car had been almost at a halt before it
hit her. Perhaps it pushed the body a few feet. Now her limbs
had the used-up look of rope washed limp in the sea, and her
head was wedged beneath a tire. There was a man taking photo-
graphs, his strobe light going off each time with a mean crackling
hiss, and as I knelt, he stepped back and turned to someone else, a
doctor with a satchel in his hand, and said, "She's yours."
"All right, move the car back," the doctor said. Two policemen
near me pushed on the automobile and retired the front wheels a
foot before the car bumped gently into the car behind it. I knelt
ahead of the medical examiner and looked at her face. It was filthy
with a scrape of asphalt and tire marks. Just hald of her was
recognizable, for the side of her face which caught the tire was
swollen. She looked like a fat young girl. But trhe back of her head,
like a fruit gone rotten and lying in its juices, was the center of a
pond of coagulated blood near to a foot in diameter. I stayed between
the police photographer who was getting ready to take more pictures
and the medical examiner who was opening his satchel, and still
on my knees, touched my face to hers, being careful to catch some of
the blood on my hands, and even (as I nuzzled her hair with my
nose) a streak of two more on my cheeks. "Oh, baby," I said alound. It
might have been good to weep, but nothing of that sort was even
near. No, shock and stupor would be the best I could muster.
"Deborah," I said, and like an echo from the worst of one's past
came a clear sense of doing this before, of making love to some

digestion imperfection

2006-01-23T21:14:00.000-08:00

i find that blogger, much like a beautiful woman, has such attractive and beauteous design that i can somehwat overlook its aformentioned annoyances and shortcomings. so here i am, to return to the blogging site that i am so good at complaining about.

i seem to have somewhat beaten this stupid stomach infection that i have- and i am fairly certain that's what it is. i managed to eat tuna and a plum earlier, and so far my intestines have yet to scream and thrash in protest. i believe that the key to these health problems is to find food that doesn't piss of any of my inner organs, and that has so far proven to evade all potential agony associated with my digestive system. the following things can not be ingested any longer:

1. paty [which usually isn't safe for any human being, anyway]
2. anything moderately greasy
3. anything heavy in sugar
4. anything with alot of fat, like mayonaise or salad dressing
5. pretty much any food that is moderately "tasty" "delicious" or "fucking amazing", my diet is now reduced to things that fall under the category of "fruit" "vegetable" or "cow dung"

*sigh* i feel like i am getting a 50 year old's stomach and little early. so now i have the beauty of a young metabolism, and not the stomach to take advantage of it. then again, maybe this is god's way of making me get to a healthy weight- by literally forcing me to eat healthy food. fuck god.

i want a cookie.

<3 gen

endlessly irritating

2006-01-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

why i have returned to this pathetic blogspot, i do not know. the navigtion is aggravatingly difficult, my profile picture continues to look horribly pixelated no matter what action i take to replace it, the design tools are unclear and fickle, and the publishing process, which other blogs seem to have no trouble making a point-and-click procedure, blogger manages to add a thousand more buttons to add to my annoyance.

i do not think that anything frustrates me so much as technology that tries to make things more "convenient" by adding ten thousand more options and patches and extensions which, in reality, just make everything ten thousand times more difficult and annoying to use. not to mention that it then proceeds to make me feel incredibly stupid.

that frustration then leads to me and my boyfriend arguing over nothing, but just annoyed by eachother's idiosyncracies, the sounds of our voice, the way we look at one another. we read into it way too much, we get frsutrated, i listen to music and pretend i don't just want to scream.

all of this just because this stupid god-forsaken website is overly difficult, firefox makes everything complicated and won't read my xanga html, and my boyfriend's keyboard is so insensitive that i have to practically bash it to pieces to make it recognize that i'm typing.

fuck technology and fuck blogger.

internet explorer, xanga, and old keyboards rock the world.
fuck.

<3 gen