August 16, 2004

• I am wavering like I haven't in a while, feeling like the timing's all
  off for it could (and will, I'm sure it will) all easily be discounted
  as a case of last-minute uncertainty when really it's four monthsworth
  of swallowingme doubts all manifesting, surfacing in the form of North
  Face fleece upon fleece ordered online when I really wanted to be
  picking out another pair of Cole Haan boots and be bohemian
  (two entirely unrelated desires. Both burning, but I'm feeling the need
  to address my awareness that one doesn't lead to the other. And
  I'm so damn defensive from having to rationalize everything always that
  I'm even covering all the stupid, nitpicky bases in my own Xanga.
  Lowlowlow.). I do this, this is who I am, I am characterized by my
  tendency to call that just-glorified shrine of extensive
  majorofferings, of god,WritingEnglishCompLitLinguisticsARTHISTORYliving.alldoneright two
  weeks before I'm to head to Holyoke and tell them I'd like for them to
  take me still. The secret is that I like the shroud of awkward silence
  that floats above my newly brunetteness over Belgian waffles at
  candlelit breakfasts, stuffy family members recommending some certain
  brand of boot waterproofing substance and watching, reallywatchingandwhy? me spoon somuch whipped cream onto my Special Occasion Crystal (again why?)
  soup dish. I like that they cringe and say the wrong things and blink
  and wonder if I don't believe in God, if I meant what I said, I like
  wishing that my hair were even a shade darker to make my eyes icier and
  me look less like them, honey sunny blonde and befall-huedturtlenecked,
  name-dropping and priest-praising and entirely. oblivious. For me too,
  I like bustling things that feel bigger than me, that pull me around
  and pull things out of me that I had sensed and seen glimmers of, but
  never embraced over pecan rolls split sticky piece-by-piece next to
  dullgray traffic jams in emerald wool scarves with Amadeusy everything
  being shouted at me from worn-brick streetcorners, below signs with
  names of schools I hope now never to attend. When you say them so much,
  the words can represent everything and nothing at once, months and
  miserable months of your life, breathless seconds spent loading as many
  cents as you have onto your printing account, so many sips of English
  Breakfast blend and such little enthusiasm over china blue bedding, New
  England Charm (red farm houses and BITINGSTIFLING loneliness I've
  before called crippling), Matisse prints and offerings I'd rather
  decline. Notthistime, Late British Something Banal (I loaded and reloaded
  the usually-speedy site so many times but couldn't find an actual
  unappealing example. I was met instead with an I'll-make-it-symbolic
  this: We're sorry, but this request was taking an unusually long time to complete, and has therefore been stopped.),
  maybesomeothertime-slash-not. I don't want just English with
  (WHYARETHEYALL) Renaissance-focused "fellow" enthusiasts because I ache for
  this language, I want to whiptwistmanipulate it into something, warp
  it, sounddevicedefy it into divine heart/Harpersshattering oblivion. I
  actually sat in the front left corner of that crowded classroom all
  year, yellow flourescent glow pounding down on blonde on hunter-colored
  school-issue coat the pages of
  Eliot/Keats/Byron/Shakespeare/Browning/god anyone parted
  and letting imperfect fingers and allatonceself-importantandsounworthy
  lips trace, form, the words the lines near tears, noreally. I want to
  forget all that's been calculated, take everything precise and
  Should-be Perfect and stuff it in that already-overflowing grayblue
  envelope and send it off to some landfill in Orlando, and instead be
  taken, be brass-wrapped-lapis dangling, for it not to be too late.

  • 3:37 am
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