blackout poem

she was asleep before
he ordered champagne
little girl,
"It's a long life . . . there
will be lots of champagne another time . . ."


In some ways, the prospect excited him,
In truth, it was difficult to imagine.

Oh man. I'm never gonna be the same, am I? I might be worried.

...whoops.

Every once in awhile, I bump into someone or remember something that grows a wild hair in my ass and makes me do something.

I just had a conversation with an old classmate that more or less convinced me to go teach English in Korea in September.

Let's see where this hole goes!

Beans of Solitude

Ever since I got my space back, I've been... oh, how do I say it? Reveling. Being amazed by my surroundings and my Self and how far I've come. The thing I didn't have before--the feeling that people lose after being comfortable for so long--was the certainty that I was still myself under all that mess I'd made. It's probably what kept me there for so long, standing on some precipice, staring longingly into the unknown I've loved for centuries. You know, some bullshit like that.

I wasn't sure she still existed. I thought maybe I'd killed her--rolled over her in my sleep, or something equally unceremonious. And the me that I once respected, the girl who could survive this sort of trauma, was gone for good. And whatever was left, well she'd never survive.

There was a brief moment, of course, where I fell apart. I lost it. I fell into an abysmal mania and wondered whether or not I'd done the right thing. I imagined this cliff I'd been coming to for a while now, and I'd jumped over a gap to another ledge, equally unstable. I was afraid and in a dark place. The cool thing about my tendencies though, something that others have mistaken for insincerity in the past, is that I tend to go through dark periods really fucking fast. I put my head down, close my eyes, and run like hell to the other side.

The second I hit the bottom and started running with my head down, though, was the second I knew I was still alive. Of course it hurts, just as bad as everyone else does. It wasn't fun. But to know that the me I know so well was still there, and ready to power me through anything, was enough to believe I can deal with whatever is heading my way.

Regardless of what ledge I landed on, or if I even landed anywhere, the jump was correct. That's an absolute. I can't look back.

And, as a separate thought pertaining to the same thing: I read this again and realize it sounds very self-centered. It is, in a sense, but that's avoiding an entire other side to this.

I believe in certain souls helping others along and certain intervals in time--when something is supposed to happen, or needs to happen--and I owe them all everything in this situation. A great friend of mine told me in December of last year to jump in a car with him, because I "needed to be reminded that I could." He told me that I originally put those seeds in him, years ago, and that he was returning the favor. I went ahead and jumped in the car, regardless of impending rent that I didn't have. He started it.

My neighbor popped her head in my door once in March to say hello, and said "Aw, it looks so cozy in here. Our places are so cozy. They make it hard to leave, or grow." Then she left.

A friend came into town a few weeks ago. He started a fire that burned most of the things that needed to burn.

I didn't get here alone. Though I'd like to think so sometimes, I've never gotten anywhere alone. There's a lot more to be said about that, but I'll stop. Some quarks and strings and geists do not like to be discovered, or talked about. In a sense, they're the elves that clean house while we sleep, that your mother always wished she had.

Little bursts of energy, pushing people ever so slightly to say and do things to encourage others. Instead of quarks or strings or geists, they should be called beans. That's my big idea.

I love when I consciously try to spend extended periods of time without the internet. All that mentality does is make it off-limits, which in turn, makes it all the more alluring. I love you, internet. I can't go more than a day or two without needing to google something.

Permaculture for Renters (.com) is something I've been wondering about for a while now. Found it tonight, about 6-7 hours after I decided I would take an internet break for a few days. Whatever, Christie. You can't do it. Not when it's right here!

Talked to a friend of mine at work tonight about that sort of lifestyle--the "I don't need your bill, Entergy" lifestyle--and his grandfather, a spunky old man who goes by the name Wild Bill, does exactly that. He has a blacksmith shop somewhere in North Louisiana and just kind of lives off his land and makes knives and guns. I googled Wild Bill Caldwell tonight also. I want to learn all that shit. I probably never will, but you know. I waited on Wild Bill once, and that's probably the closest I'll ever come to learning how to make weapons.

I'm cutting this one short for frozen yogurt. That's something the internet can't give me.

Trash, for later inspection.

Among the littered floors of break-ups and job-quitting, and the baseboard-cleaning of exterminations, I found all this...stuff. Pictures, flyers, drunken ramblings, textbooks, those little pamphlets the hare krishnas give out in free speech alley. Bar napkins with awful poetry written on them, fiction critiques from classmates I've long forgotten, doodles in the margins of classes I later failed.

Part of me wants to stuff all of it in a bag and chunk it, like I've been doing with everything else. Really, no matter how much I love throwing stuff away, I'm absurdly sentimental... and I went full-blown grandma on the things I found today. There was something very... important, and subtle about everything, because most of it I never intended to keep. It's the residue of my life for the past four years.

Important, because these are the things my brain has used to file away memories. These are the things my college experience memory is based on. And I know it's silly, but I feel like if I sweep them all away or scrub them out of existence, I'm also doing that to the six years I spent at LSU. I know I'll never forget them, but I will forget the little things--the bar napkins and dusty pieces of mirrors, ha--because finding them today, I hadn't thought of their stories in years.

And god damnit, the little things are what I consider to be the blood of experience. They're the things I write about--they center my stories, and they are my literary devices. Little pieces of stuff, trash, that I can pile together to paint not just a story, but a scene--complete with smell, touch, electricity. Life. A force that has power to move others.

I have these boxes in my closet. I haven't gone through them in years, but I think I'll put all those important pieces of trash in there. When I leave here, I'll secretly put them in my parents' attic, where they'll be safe. If I take them with me, they're likely to be destroyed, and I kind of think of them like my crow, or Samson's hair. The source of my power, whatever my power is. I'm not sure I know what my superpower is yet, but I know the potential for it is in those boxes.

Along with everyone I've ever gone on a date with, or destroyed, or anyone who's broken me down to pieces--how it happened is in the closet. All my love stories, all the residue from my drug experiments, all the pictures at the watering holes where everything went down. Bits of string I played with at the park and names of bartenders I loved and customers I loved even more. Besides holding the secret to my superpower, I think I keep all this stuff so that, maybe later in my old age and infinite wisdom, I can open the boxes and put together some document that makes sense out of the things I've done. Because man, it's rare when anything I do makes sense while I'm doing it.

People say hindsight is a bitch. I think hindsight contains the meaning of life. And you know, even if it is a bitch, it always makes sense. Maybe people who think it's a bitch don't want it to make sense, because they wish they'd done it better, or smoother, or otherwise different. I've had my own instances of that--where you're angry because you see exactly why you made a wrong decision, but you still can't go back and correct it.

A life that makes sense in hindsight is the most any of us can ask for. We just want more, more perfection, so we can have the right to go out and tell others how to live. No one has that right. It's hard to blame people for seeking priests and spiritual advisors, or for keeping boxes of trash in their closets for later inspection. We all just really, really want there to be an answer. I don't think there is one, aside from what we each experience, because that's the only thing that will ever make sense to anyone.

daisuki

I haven't spent a dime in days. I've even offered money to people who didn't take it. The universe seems to want me to pay my bills by myself. I've been offered money to buy me out of my life of student loan debt. I've been taken care of many times over this week--my wisdom teeth are gone and I feel I've grown closer to my family by letting them take care of me (also the painkillers helped me be very, very chatty). For the first time in a very long time, I'm not wishing for anything or envious of another's life, or thinking that I should be doing something else with mine. For once, I'm pretty damn sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. In the prophetic words of my magic 8 ball: All signs point to yes.

Tommy and I split up in the best way it could have happened. I hope everything he wants comes to him, but before that, I hope his wants mature a little. He had a lot of them, I could never keep up.

All the bullshit in my life is evaporating at an explosive rate, like none of it was ever real in the first place. It's finally my turn.