do you know that i am

sorry do you know

that

what can you do

get out of bed early because you can't sleep anymore

make coffee, shower, keep the cats from pulling at the carpet by balcony door,

go to class, be the funniest person in the room, 

wonder if the professor who looks into your eyes the whole period can really see in there,

think, learn, love thinking and learning, but in a lazy sort of way,

walk

around

smoke

cigarettes

talk to people who are good, people you like, who are good people,

say the same things,

make circles in the snow, find a tree that feels like heaven to lean against because

it is solid, and old, 

say the same things over and over and over,

show up half an hour late to a funeral for a girl you barely knew,

hug her girlfriend who is still alive, pale and thin in a pink dress in the snow,

look into her eyes and try to really see in there, 

palm her some marijuana and say sorry it's not much, i'm sorry, it's all i have for you,

feel like you don't have any right to be there,

go home,

be funny, with people you like,

bitch out on obligations because leaving the apartment is too much to handle,

bitch out on ________ because ________________ is too much to handle,

have the same conversation over and over,

drink and 

drink, and

drink,

alternating cycles of feeling golden and feeling unfit, too cruel to be alive,

too awful, too weak, just awful, over and over,

smile, apologize, smile, i'm sorry, everything is nothing is 

fine,

dreams contd.

Walking through the corn stubble and pseudo-prairie scrub with a boy (tall) and a girl (short, with short dark hair).  We came upon dry creek beds with tall barbed-wire fences on each bank.  We climbed the fences, me placing my hands between the rusty barbs and scaling up and up, taller than the fence looked from the bottom.  We walked in the sandy channels with steep walls of dark earth on either side, trees leaning overhead with their roots exposed.  We emerged on a freshwater beach and waded out into the warm, green water.  Someone said, "This water goes to the ocean."

Reflecting now, I think I was with my brother and sister; we used to play in the dry creeks at home when I was little.

Non-dream memory, associated:

My brother and I had a special "fort" made from this chamber formed by tree roots that became a sort of cave when the floodwater washed the dirt away in the riverbed.  Our mom had this "ruby" the size of a second knuckle, probably part of a gaudy broken earring or necklace but to us it was precious.  We put it in a small soap box lined with cotton from pill bottles and buried it in the tree cave, our secret.  I think we forgot about it for a few months, then I went back and dug it up on my own.  The cardboard box had almost dissolved away but the ruby was still there.  I don't know what happened to it after that. 

why was i not a film major?

(many practical reasons, however)

It's like learning a beautiful language I already speak as a pidgin.  

how to un do

steak it easy

note to self: The hot french girl who added me randomly on facebook a long time ago, her status is "steak it easy."  

I guess it's already some bizarre nasty drive-thru/delivery-only greasy meat and fried goods emporium in Houston, too, but

I'm still putting that on a t-shirt. 

what

Is there some remote possibility that I am actually retarded.

Why is my Degree Audit telling me I need to take another "Human Behavior"-type class.  And that the majority of the classes I'm in this semester are "Electives" I don't need.  I thought I... what.  Did I miss this somehow?  What the FUCK are "IS Courses?"  How was I so positive I was on top of everything and signing up for the right shit last semester?  Freaking out here.  

I think I am going to cry.

This is a "feel sorry for me" post.  

I am just discovering that I apparently need only one "humanities" course, to get jan to drop my "intro to english" requirement, to basically just say what my focus and minor are.  And then done.  Except: I need two more "IS Courses" (what) and 14 more hours at the university total.

What the FUCKKKK what do I do

when do the compartments

come apart

ment all catastrophic

currents, currently

casting sad sidelongs

from the saddle

where is the sun

set

where is the mouth of the

red river

where is my piebald mare

why is this arrow

here

in my shoulder

drinking cowboy coffee,

the sky swallows,

the sand is speaking in tongues

constraints

"Chrissie,

Due to financial constraints, I will no longer be able to participate in the 2009 UNL at Oxford Program.

I truly appreciate the opportunity you've extended to me, and regret that I will not be going!

Best wishes,

Sarah"

This isn't a "feel sorry for me" post; I'm really not too disappointed.  I did not have the $800 "down payment"  today, when it was due, and I found myself not really caring.  I saw it as a way to travel/study abroad (or two) with someone holding my hand, but now I'll just have to save and travel on my own.

So, there's that.

I came home and found out the heat's been turned off in my apartment for about 3 days.  Not deadbeat-turned-off, just... manually, somehow, at some time I do not recall.  I didn't notice for the first two days.  The cats were displeased.  Now it's been running for about two and a half hours.  

  

Time to drink.  

how does it go

you can heat up the old aches

the tissue remembers

the blisters 

if a tooth hurts just

chew with the other side

curl up the toes

place the weight else

where

the scar remembers

when she was

impediment

it's not going to be

the bomb

that kills us just 

the buildup

this lady is a lake

lax and out and re-lax if i could only
frost over cover c
onver sated
verse ate
you on the hill are you
facing
the water
are you com for
table

fire alarm

Tonight the ash-can on the porch was smoldering for at least a half-hour before I smelled it.  The cat smelled it first, huddling by the door looking concerned.  

Then, an hour later, the doily under the incense burner was alight and glowing.

Something wants me burnin'

like the 

prairie

grocery store

The bin of portabellos was full but I couldn't find two that I thought were perfectly sized and shaped; I would prefer that they not look flat and anemic on top for personal aesthetic reasons and also that the stem not seem too woody and clotted with peat as they are sold by weight.  I noticed the one I was holding had a little bruise-line on top when I started to get panicky because maybe I was taking too long and maybe that man over there wanted mushrooms too but was just pretending to consider mealy winter tomatoes while I spent five minutes trying to find the mushrooms that were okay but the lights from the deli case were too bright and made surfaces too shiny and I got overwhelmed by math and colors and time.   

A kid who looked like he was 11-12 in one of those motorized wheelchairs.  He was talking to his mom in the soda aisle of Super Saver about what he could go pick out for himself while I stood nervously and blindly scanning the rows of colorful sugar-water because some chick parked her cart right in front of the soda I wanted and camped out to carefully examine a Fresca label or some shit while I clenched my hands and tried not to start breathing too fast and heavy from all of the people milling around and potentially looking at me.  

The kid in the chair finished talking to his mom and buzzed down the aisle, and said pretty loud: "God, being poor SUCKS,"

right when he went past me, so I said "Yep."  And the girl blocking my soda looked up with big eyes.  

Coca-Cola comes in 20-packs now, I worried without knowing why if they still make 24-packs, in case this international sweet beverage corporation was trying to pull a fast one and charge the same price for less soda-pop.  No, not today, I concluded.  The 20-pack was on sale.

There was a dude considering canned goods, he was short, shorter than I am, wearing a black trenchcoat and a black little scarf and a black what-are-they-called like a golfer's cap.  I could see that he worried he was blocking my progress toward canned beans but he was not, and there was no way I could communicate this to him really except to act as relaxed as I could about reaching for the beans, and to force myself not to reconsider the store-brand that was 20 cents cheaper and lean in and snatch at both options to compare minor details on the labels.  

I kept getting an odd sensation that I knew this guy, but I think he just reminded me of someone I used to know.  Maybe I could feel his sensitivity, like mine, to inconveniencing others in the slightest.  There is something vulnerable in kindness that radiates from a person like subtle perfume, not in the face as I cannot bring myself to look at them most of the time but maybe in the shoulders, a slope of concession and goodwill.

The lines were long and when I got in one I left a space in front of me so I wouldn't be blocking the horizontal aisle.  A vietnamese-looking man pushed his cart in front of me, into the space I'd made.  His cart had only two gigantic packages of chicken legs.  After I checked out the short man in black was bagging his groceries next to me.  Outside it was dark and very cold.

who

"'Who am I?' Maybe you've never even asked yourself this question. You might think you already know who you are. Unfortunately, however, it's likely that you don't know who you are at all. And if you don't know your real identity, you're in trouble. You'll spend your life in a kind of dream state—you'll falsely identify yourself as something or someone you aren't. Then, on the basis of this false identification, you'll determine the goals of your life and the purpose of your existence. You use these goals to gauge whether you are making 'progress' in life, whether you are a 'success.' And you are aided and abetted in this delusion by a complex network of relationships with other dreamers. Of course, at death (and sometimes before), the whole thing turns into a nightmare."--Jagad Guru Chris Butler

Someone's fire alarm has been going off all morning.  

Someone's fire alarm has been going off all morning.

Someone's fire alarm has been going off all morning.

Piercing sound is coming through the cracks in the door like icy air.

I don't feel good.

I do not feel very well.

"I hope I can stop crying before I go to work."

Who am I.

get you some

This, the eighth, is the first semester where I feel like I'm surrounded by absolutely brilliant professors.  For all of my classes.

You don't know how good and intimidating and exciting this feels.*

*not to pay a shitload of money to be brayed at by some grad student all semester.

dinner

it was so

 beautiful

school days, fool days

Just a note for myself, mostly for memorization purposes, so I can start to get organized.  

Monday: Film Directors · 11:00-12:15, Andrews 102

Tuesday: Medieval & Ren. Writers · 11:00-12:15, Andrews 19

 Westerns · 1:30-4:40, Ross Theatre 123

Wednesday: Film Directors · 11:00-12:15 And. 102

Japanese & Asian Cinema · 1:30-4:40, Ross Theatre 123

Thursday: Medieval & Ren. Writers · 11:00-12:15 And. 19

   Writing of Poetry (Hawley) · 2:30-4:50, Andrews 129

Work

Monday 1:00-5:00

"Oh fuck what's going on here I got confused, I have no time.  Maybe work like 8-10:30 Wednesday?  Shit."

Friday whenever

Things to be done:

Get backpack/notebook/pens/etc. in working order.  

Queue up films for Film Directors in Netflix.

Read syllabi that have been posted.

Drop stupid other poetry class I'm not actually taking.

Get override form from Canfield 107 to get official in Hawley's class.

Buy new little notebook for planner.

Buy/organize 3-ring binders for each class that I will probably neglect anyway.

Buy books.

Climax.

Afterglow.

My schedule is actually kind of awesome.  Except for the work thing; I guess when I was working this out last week I forgot about my earlier class on Wednesday.  I'm also sad I'm not taking Latin this semester (again), and that part of my brain has atrophied to almost nothing.  I just have this like hourglass of gems in my head labeled "English Credits Until You Can Graduate" and I've parceled them out so carefully that there's no room for anything else.  Maybe if I'm still stuck in Lincoln next fall semester I'll just take it by itself.  

I need to teach myself some film terminology today.

I am craving deviled eggs.  Or.  Vinegar?

I am going to be okay.  

The Bohemian

· 1 shot Patron XO Cafe Coffee Tequila Liqueur

· 1 "shot" Oregon Chai Tea Mix

· splash of milk/cream to your tastes

Serve over ice with stirring straw.  I could see adding vodka to make this more white russian-y but the tequila does me up well enough.  Also, I don't have any vodka.  

I'm escaping into fantasy, tonight.  It is needed.  My current plan is to balance out my Fallout karma by only being nice to women.    

Oh and: why is it that I decide to watch Ninja Scroll out of the blue for the first time in a million years then the next day see the A.S. bump about how Leo Dicaprio is remaking it.  Whaaaat.

I CAME BACK TO EXPLAIN that I remembered I was first was thinking about Ninja Scroll again because the female protagonist is poisonous and anyone who touches/kisses/fucks her dies horribly.  SO SEE IT'S

my hand

I was awake at 6 again this morning and was up for a couple melancholy hours, but managed to get back to sleep at which point I immediately dreamed my apartment was full of family members for some holiday and I was fixing something upstairs.  I was struggling angrily with whatever it was but then it seemed to be fixed!  But my left hand stung, and I looked down and there were two crooked but neat cuts across the palm, horizontal and vertical.  I shrugged it off but a few minutes later felt something warm and wet on my forearm and looked down to see spiraling ribbons of blood bloom from my palm and flow down to my elbow.  The point where the cuts intersected had burst open or pulled away, revealing how deep the cuts were; a flap of skin was hanging off and I could clearly see bone.  

"I should probably go to the hospital," I thought, feeling dizzy.  The rest of the dream was long and in full detail but I won't get into it.  Basically went all about town for the holiday and I kept telling people I needed to go get stitches, and they would agree with me then go back to whatever they were doing.  My fingertips turned dusky purple on both hands.  What was odd is the fact that my hand hurt, in the dream, I don't know if I was laying on it (I wasn't when I woke up) but every few minutes I'd look down and see all the blood and the open, trembling wound and it would start aching badly and I'd hold it in front of me, moaning and whimpering, while nobody paid attention.

By the end of the dream it had started healing and I'd stopped showing it to people. 

Right now my arm still has mild throbbing pains and I keep looking at my hand expecting to see blood.  

things seen

There is now a network in my building named "ADOLF HITLER MAKES PLAYS."

I was driving behind a van earlier with a bumper sticker that said only: "Do not hit me!"

Okay, I thought.

I won't.

This morning I went to make coffee and then realized I had no more filters, so I plucked the one from yesterday off the top of the trash (it was on a plastic bag okay), rinsed it out, and used it again.

I just threw my socks, aiming for the laundry pile but instead launching them over the edge of my apartment's loft.

That's about where I'm at.  

note to self

watch fuckin ninja scroll again sometime that movie rocked my shit in high school

tyger tyger

Kind of living through a series of small windows currently.

Like I live in this vastness on my side of a wall, heavy and light and churning like a dishwasher.  And I pop my head through this window or that window to make my appearance at work; to friends; at home.  But it's like a cartoon where there's really a tiger behind me, waiting to pounce and maul, that the people outside can't see, that I'm holding the straining tiger back with every mental and physical force I've got, all while simpering to the outside.

Are these similes working for you.

How have I been lately, am I working for you.

I'm tired of thinking about myself, the "What am I going to do?  What I am I going to do?!" of life.  I don't know, I don't fuckin' know.  I feel a snap coming soon, like a twig, like a bone, just horrible, like the femur of a pretty woman breaking under a carriage wheel.  And you saw the carriage rolling toward her for way too long, and you didn't do anything, because you're dealing with this fucking tiger problem.  

Are you

getting me.  

dearms

I dreamed of espionage, pretending to be the adopted daughter of a stunning, wealthy couple to sneak into some kind of wicked government headquarters and break out my real little brother.  The shuttle that took you around the headquarters was operated by a robotic woman with a blank face and a soft voice, but the shuttle was also like a horrible roller coaster that threw you all around its spherical interior while the robot-woman calmly told you to remain stationary.

I dreamed that I suddenly realized I'd been showing up naked to class and work, and this might be why people had been treating me oddly. 

I dreamed pouting over this, like, "Well how else am I supposed to make people like me?"  

television

"The second great-seeming thing is that television looks to be an absolute godsend for a human subspecies that loves to watch people but hates to be watched itself.  For the television screen affords access only one-way.  A psychic ball-check valve.  We can see Them; They can't see Us.  We can relax, unobserved, as we ogle.  I happen to believe this is  why television also appeals so much to lonely people.  To voluntary shut-ins.  Every lonely human I know watches way more than the average U.S. six hours a day.  The lonely, like the fictive, love one-way watching.  For lonely people are usually lonely not because of hideous deformity or odor or obnoxiousness -- in fact there exist today support- and social groups for persons with precisely these attributes.  Lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being around other humans.  They are allergic to people.  People affect them too strongly.  Let's call the average U.S. lonely person Joe Briefcase.  Joe Briefcase fears and loathes the strain of the special self-consciousness which seems to afflict him only when other real human beings are around, staring, their human sense-antennae abristle.  Joe B. fears how he might appear, come across, to watchers.  He chooses to sit out the enormously stressful U.S. game of appearance poker."  -- David Foster Wallace, E. Unibus Plurum: television and U.S. fiction

hair

When jmillz cut kenny's hair I stole a piece ("a lock"), I don't know why, because I'm weird, because it was so pretty in dark ringlets on the linoleum, because I wanted to steal a piece of his spirit.  Whatever.  Anyway, it's been tucked safely in my checkbook but it apparently escaped this week, as every time I reach into my purse whatever I pull out is trailed by strands of kenny-hair.  I am not so much disturbed by having a purse full of someone else's hair as I am by my apparent indifference to this fact.  I should clean it out, but I need a new purse anyway and it may be the excuse that finally pushes me to it.  

Went to the doctor today (annual exam), hung-over as fuuuuck because I'm not good at planning.  I both love and hate going to the doctor; it makes me quiver with anxiety but also I love the sterile safety of it, and the ladies tending to you with gentle efficiency and pretty, manicured nails.    

I ain't been writing much, I often just want a break from mental activity lately.

the chronicles of the amazing defective woman

I asked my mom, even: "Did I ever play with like dolls of babies when I was little?  Baby dolls?  I don't have a single memory of ever playing with one." 

Mom: "No, never!  You had zero interest, you just had your puppies and kitties."