Rant and Ramble

when pressed for time between the end of one shift and the beginning of another, multitasking can be eminently useful. however, attempting to eat ramen with one hand while blogging with the other is not necessarily the most effective use of aforementioned precious time.

also, it makes the keyboard sticky.

though, of course, that is only aggravating because of the actual aggravating part of my life - being the fact that i only exist here, like this, in california, but now i want more.

i suppose it's a good sign that the most aggravating part of my life of late is the fact that i only have 33� stamps, but now stamps cost more.

the shadows on tree trunks make me think of you. sweetscented smoke curling above old books makes me think of you. soy milk, for christ's sake, makes me think of you. and this is excluding pillows and bicycles and blue sky and the way steam clouds the bathroom when i take a shower. your echo is in every room now. your fingers trail along all my walls, your skin fills all my skies. i find your scent slipping through the wind when i sleep.

i'm sure i could live without you, but i haven't really tried it yet. you are, as the song says, everywhere to me.

some of them weren't exceptional, but this one is. thanks to tom for the link.

i can do whatever i want with my life.

what should i do?

backgammon is a good game for us; i always beat her at chess, she always beats me at set, neither of us much likes checkers, and card games get too violent. but we're pretty evenly matched at backgammon, and my interminable deliberation of moves can only take so long.

something about her always manages to convince me that the universe sends us obstacles to make sure we know how to navigate, not because it wants us to crash.

also: check out peter's blogathoning and listen to some purtyful music while you're at it.

"turning the page, i wonder why i keep searching for truth in the eloquent words of others, as if truth were shy about appearing before me naked." -sy safransky

i think i'm going to make soup today.

we took my dog to the beach right before he left, and left our lingering footprints in damp sand with hers trundling along between us.

there are moments when i can see years unfurl, when i can feel the path of my life forking. there have been times when i knew that i could change everything, when i could taste the road less traveled. sometimes, they say, you can sense when you are within the shadows of morian's doors.

i feel lost - i feel like i have stumbled and taken my eyes off the horizon, and now the ocean's on my wrong side and i don't know which way is home. there's been much muddled insofar as knowing what i want, but i can say this: i don't want the waiting, i don't want the silence, and i don't want to sleep alone.

there are sweetpeas on my windowsill, the only reminder of a world that exists outside of black and white.

as soon as his plane was safely out of sight, the fog hurried home to comfort me, wrapping tight around the bay and muffling my tooloud music that was trying to hide the tears. backlit by grey, the pines turn charcoal and chalk, and everything beyond the next house is hidden.

i don't like the lurking feeling that everytime i say goodbye i'm killing some part of myself. that each parting makes me harder and colder and yes stronger but not in a way that i want to be. i don't want the armour that would allow me to turn away with blank eyes and steady step and unfaltered heart. i've become too comfortable with distance, and i am afraid that what seems like recovery is just numbness. i feel lost.

he's asleep on the bed. or, in a state of agitated semi-sleep, as his stomach isn't content with rendering us housebound for the evening, and continues to rebel against any vestiges of peace and comfort. so, i sit here with the cold glow of the computer and the warm knowledge that he is asleep on the bed. these days will not be nearly long enough.

it was a long time ago that i got angry.
this was no ordinary ire (some of you will know this story already); it was a deep anger, the kind that brings blackouts and perfect crescent bruises on palms. this was a long time ago, that i lunged and screamed and remembered nothing, emerged sobbing and terrified and numb.

but last night i dreamt of it.
last night i saw him again, was struck stupid by the harsh adrenaline thumpings that begged of me to get away. last night he followed me again in his halting way, peered at me with hot eyes. last night i woke trembling, afraid to look out my window, afraid to leave my bed. the sun rose around five, slipping past its sentry of cool mist to slowly brighten my room, where i curled around a pillow with my back to the wall.

love, i am tired of sleeping alone. hurry.

ditto for goose shit.

the celebration of birthdays always seemed a little silly to me. granted, as a child, it was a welcome opportunity for presents and cake, but i certainly never saw the signifigance of the party itself.

i don't remember if it was a conversation i had or a book i read, but somehow the idea came into my head: a birthday is a chance to celebrate your existance upon the earth, a condition that we happen to measure quantitatively but perhaps should look at more subjectively. yes, you've been alive for twenty years, but so have most of the other six billion people on this poor planet. what distinguishes you from them? - and why not use this thing called "birthday" to celebrate those defining features of your life, rather than simple survival for some length of time.

perhaps you are a compassionate friend, perhaps a generous lover. or you are proud and modest and bold, courageous, honest. creative. you are forgiving and patient, beautiful and strong. there are things that many people lack which you have singing within you. integrity. innovation. curiousity.

time is a ridiculous way to measure a life. don't celebrate years, celebrate loves and friendships and growth. know that your presence on this earth makes it a better place. know that you bring light to the lives of those around you. know that you amaze and enthrall and inspire.

and know that when i say "happy birthday" i am saying all of those things.

"i want a life filled with gesticulations."

tonight felt like something out of a kerouac novel. which is not, after all, such a bad thing to be.

The dark full coffeeshop and we were mad with it, the whole of everything so fast and hot and angry, how foul it all is, knowing that we, we were the keys that would tumble down the castle but only if we could find our way and get there alive, the skin on our backs shaking but of course we only spoke in syllables, smelling like smoke and coffee and indignation we know the so many things wrong with this life and know that we can change it but how but how we here alone and struggling with the swirling world, and needing so much to think that there is something right and good and cool out there that would hold us, our mouths turned to cynics already, wanting to save it all.

"i took your car, drove to texas. sorry honey, but i suspected we were through" -sheryl crow.

that's still the best opening line i can think of.
also:

"wouldn't it be nice if we could hop a flight to anywhere..."

when i was in fifth grade, i stole a kudos bar off of my friend evan's desk. it was an exercize in prepubescent flirting more than anything; i did it as slowly and deliberately as possible, since the point was for him to catch me and for some sort of flustered interaction to result. however, he never looked up, and when i found it safely in my hands, hidden below my desk, i wasn't sure what to do. the bell rang for recess and i darted out into the playground, the illicit item held tight in my hand.

peeling back the wrapper, the rich brown flesh of my stolen treasure gleamed and glistened. i broke it in half, and my accomplice, amy, and i shoved our halves frantically into our mouths and chewed as fast as we could. when we got back to class, evan was crying and the teacher made an announcement.

"someone in this room has stolen something that is not theirs. this will not be tolerated."

the light of blame never swung around to me; i was a "good girl" and so patently trustworthy that no one thought even to ask me if i'd seen anything happen.

unfortunately, i was wracked by guilt. i lay awake nights, a cold heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, and eventually i broke down crying to my parents. they were very good about not laughing at me.

i had to confess to evan, and buy him a whole box of kudos out of my allowance money. he looked at me funny, but accepted both my tearful apology and my box of chocolate-covered granola bars.

right now, i feel that exact same heavy sorrow in my gut, but i have no reason to, and no idea why.

discovery of the day: it is possible to shower for forty minutes, and yet still smell distinctly of oppossum shit.

impatience is gaining on me.

doubt comes pirouetting in from backstage, wrapping me tight in the dark gauze of apprehension. this is a clumsy dance; i am balky and unused to sudden blindness. unused to a blindess such as this, as though i have been spun away from some guiding light rather than simply drenched in a swollen cacophany of rivaling brightnesses. before, it has always been the latter, but now i am left flailing in the wake of this realization: i no longer want to pursue the path that i have laid before myself.

perhaps it is a twofold quandary, a mixing of both aforementioned afflictions. having dilated myself so far in seeing the pure plurality of choices, returning to the well-shadowed trail of scholastic commitment seems confining indeed.

i had a great interview today. the problem is, i don't want to work there. i don't want any of it.

today the sky was close and heavy, a wet wind swirling through the farmer's market and against my legs where my wound is slowly healing. i held sweet peas close to my face and breathed in the pure pinkness of them, felt my muscles pull and creak, complaining after a bout of yoga this morning which left us panting.

i am busy, but i am not busy enough.

"home is jesus wounds."

the wharf was, as per usual, covered in gibbering tourists. we'd walked to the end, relishing the sunshine, discovering jellyfish in the water between boats that clicked together in the breeze. i slanted my eyes at a tourist and she nodded; if i'd asked, she could probably have fed the thought to me in my own words.

by now, we can usually just skip actual conversation. after a decade and more of friendship, we communicate in a language of our own, steeped in meaning, comprised in large part by inside jokes and shared experiences.

this is lucky, because otherwise i'd have to explain myself when i ask her to order "the thing with the stuff" for me, or when i say that i was talking to whats-his-name about how satan called me a gazelle and wasn't that before the thing with the oatmeal, when i was living in the ugly fish house?

sometimes at night i think i hear your voice. usually it's a whisper, a passing breeze, a moment that fills my mind. i turn towards the window, watch the shuddering moonlight twist its way through the trees, wonder if i could find you there in the shadows and nestle your head on the pillows beside my own. i'd like to see you in the cleanstrange light of our sweetclear nights, the soft focus silence of those buried in cloud. i'd like to press myself to you when i wake from a sleepshattered dream, when i wake into the grey light of midmorning sleepy sundays, would like to wake in the middle of the night to wrestle the blanket away from your sleeping self, rolled tight and snoring soundly. i forget sometimes that my bed is empty, sometimes think that i hear your voice.

"sure, we can keep destroying our remaining wilderness areas to log, mine, and drill for oil, but pissing yourself only keeps you warm for so long."

i worry about the silence sometimes.

i don't mean the silence between you and i; i don't know what i mean. i worry that sometimes the world seems to stretch so far that my legs won't be able to match it, worry that the space between the stars is enough to keep me occupied for hours. i worry about the anger that knits itself through this world, seeping through the groundwater, maybe, or falling from the sky. i worry about the silence, the kind that hides a thousand words and keeps us ignorant but sucks away the bliss.

it has been a long, long day.

why is it that the people who appear the least able to give turn out to be the most generous, while the ones snug in the two-story, three-car-garaged, air-conditioned houses are the ones who smile condescendingly and tell you it's just not a good time for them?

and why did i fall asleep with the phrase "my name is caitlin and i'm with calpirg, a statewide public interest group, and i'm out here today working to defend our environmental protection laws" ringing through my head, endlessly?

oh. because i said it at one hundred and thirty one houses yesterday.
right.

exhaustion? oh hey, yeah, come on in.

i keep waking up.

it's not the gasping, violent wrenching out of sleep that usually accompanies my dreams when they take a morbid bent, but just an soft awakening that leaves me with a perfectly clear memory of the dream, an aching thirst, and quietly twitching muscles that won't let me go back to sleep.

i suppose watching a movie described as "a cacophony of numbing violence" right before bed didn't much help either.

you know it's a good day when you have to stop drumming to take your freshly-baked bread out of the oven.

also: plant nurseries now join bookstores on the list of places i shouldn't go if i have anywhere else to be or any money i shouldn't spend but happen to have in my pocket.

along the beach, the seagulls and joggers were out in full force. white-spotted fawns overlooked the dusk from the golfcourse, causing the tourist traffic to coagulate down to three or four miles per hour in front of me. across the water, where the sky scoops down to kiss the sea, a break in the monochome of the clouds let the last bits of sunlight graze her fingertips along the horizon. a tiny ribbon of pure blue and gold against the otherwise uniform grey of a typical evening. the waves pulled themselves towards the shore, long fingers of undertow and whitecap and mist.

i like the fact that i know this stretch of coastline; most of the beaches i don't know nearly as well as i could, but i can drive along and know that this is high tide. i know that the dark splotches in the bay are forests of kelp where otters stash their babies, and great whites lurk just beyond. i know which season the grey whales will pass here in their long migration south, when the monarchs will do the same. i know that the water will get colder as the months peel away through summer, that the high jagged rocks are mostly granite and the jagged trees mostly our peculiar species of cypress. i know this place with the reflexive ease of a lifetime spent in observation through casual experience.

nika and i discussed breifly that we were noticing new traffic signs, new skidmarks on the street. slowly, i am realizing that i like living in a town that small. i like knowing that the strange popping sounds on a particularly hot day are pinecones snapping open. i like that my absolute favorite fifty feet to drive is about six blocks from my house.

i very much like school in philadelphia, but i don't think i'm going to live there.

when i was young, she was still bright and healthy. the drive took forever, the monotonous rhythm of telephone poles emblazoned into my five- or ten-year-old mind. she had a long rolling lawn that led to nowhere, housing bees and artichoke plants to sting my tender barefoot skin. one year, she swept me off a cool leather couch to waltz frail circles in her living room. her hands were soft as a newborn kitten, helpless and blind. her hair flew out of its bun and trailed behind us as if it regretted out passing. her cheek pressed against mine and my awkard adolescent legs knocked into hers. she hummed under her breath and laughed like a child as she released me back to the relative saftey of the rest of my family, gathered for the occasion - a collection of cousins aspiring to be hippies, a huge drooling dog, and a great uncle who called himself my fairy godmother, crowded into her house for a celebration of her birthday and the nation's. we sat out on the lawn and watched fireworks paint the sky, burning afterimages into our retinas, making my baby brother cry.

i remember how bright the sun was in contrast to her papery skin, how devestated i was when we visited her in the nursing home a few years later, and she didn't recognize me.

"let the world be the world, let the dream unfurl, let it run its own game, let it dance with itself" - live

every day i discover more ways i want to spend my life. i want to teach first graders how to paint, i want to take care of elephants and tigers, i want to work in nursing homes, i want to own my own ad agency or law practice or nursery or used book store, i want to work as a doctor in south america, i want to write the great american novel, i want to drum in the streets of copenhagen for change from passersby, i want to sing opera, i want to be an activist, i want to be an astronaut, i want to be a mother, i want to be a mentor, i want to be a scientist, an editor, a farmer, a ranchand, a hermit, a movie star.

i am sitting in my room amidst piles of laundry and half-opened mail, unmade bed and brand-new books. my stomach is full of chai and banana nut bread, my mind buzzing with the ideas that i've been culturing while staring out three weeks' worth of windows as states roll by. i am paralyzed by the flood of desire, the thirst for life that is pouring through me. i want to travel the world, i want to learn the name of every wildflower in my hometown, i want to memorize the cracks in my walls. i want to be a belly dancer. i want to discover a new galaxy. i want the nobel prize for literature or peace or science. i want to live in the mountains with horses for transportation and rich soil for my toes to wiggle in. i want to live in a town with a funny name. i want to live in a hobbit hole with solar-powered lights.

there is so much more world out there than we are led to believe.
and, love, i want to share it all with you.

well then.

the world sidesteps by, smearing colors and flicker eyes, the way that i think i might run if given the solong legs of a pronghorn. i wonder if i will be so protective of the tiny writhing lives which spring from me, when that time comes. if i will place myself in front of the strange alien assaults which glare at my children, give my life for theirs. i wonder if i could have gone another day without the soft tongue of the fog and the whisper of the ocean, if the great stretching silence of the forest could have kept me.

we stopped about an hour east of eugene. my mother refers to that stretch of land as "the enchanted forest" - the ponderosas and the redwoods scratch at the belly of the sky, while big broadleaved maples gaze down at the verdant cacophany of ferns and berry bushes and wildflowers, and the river sighs along, polishing its granite jewelry and sending misty breaths into the coolcrisp air. i stood on a little mulchy path and pulled air into my lungs until they hurt. the scent of life and decay, flowers and riverwater, so different from the altitude-thin oxygen of the wyoming sky.

but, at end, it is blissful to be home.
now, off to the bath.