A song I can sing

 Current Music: She and Him- You Really Got a Hold on Me

I don't think I've entirely figured LJ out yet. I mostly use it to post (usually) bad poetry, and lists of things I've done/want to do/books I've read. I guess it's supposed to be something like a diary accessible to others, so here goes.

I guess I'm making this entry since I'm in such a good place in my life, and I want to have some sort of memento from it. Everything's just genuinely so chill right now. I've figured out where I want to go next fall: New College of Florida. I think I'm going to send in my deposit sometime in the next few weeks. This morning I woke up, went to school, and talked about India for all of first hour. My ex is spending two months there this summer, which is going to be incredible. Then, I sat on one of the verrry comfy couches and read some more of Brother Karamazov, which is a pretty good book so far. I think, if this isn't too pretentious, that I understand some of the things especially Alyosha is going through. And Fyodor just makes me laugh. My best friend came to pick me up, and I gave her one of my delicious vegan mint chocolate chip cupcakes I baked last night. They are so good! They almost look too pretty to eat, they have green mint frosting and chocolate ganache on top and I love them. (If you're looking for a cookbook, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World is my new fave.) The rest of school was alright, I had a test in Macro that was sort of difficult, but then I spent the rest of the next period just chatting with my Environmental Science teacher, who is easily one of my favorite people ever. She told us about working in a hospital in the seventies while she was in college, which was cool. Then after school, we had a dance meeting and that was fun. I went to Ritual and had delicious tea and some good times with my junior friends. I'm going to miss them. It's always hard when I realize too late that I've squandered the time I could have spent getting to know really amazing kids, but I guess that's life for you. And that was my day.

I haven't written anything creatively for awhile, partly out of boycott against my creative writing sponsor and partly because I haven't had that much to say. I feel like that might be changing soon, though...

::sigh:: Everything's just so beautiful right now. I wouldn't even know how to begin to ask for anything better.

Restaurants

WEST DES MOINES
Gateway Market and Cafe
Fresh Cafe

GRAND
Tandoor

ROOSEVELT
La Mie

DRAKE
Mars Cafe
Frank's Pizza

INGERSOLL
Black Cat
Zanzibar's

LOCUST
Ritual Cafe
Centro

SHERMAN HILL
Gateway Market
A Dong

DOWNTOWN
Funky Pickle

EAST VILLAGE
Noodle Zoo
Taste of Thailand
Gong Fu Tea

A list

 Songs for Senior Recital

-Bach Prelude in E minor
-Bach Prelude in C major
-Chopin Prelude in E minor
-Pachelbel Canon
-Bach Sonata

+ more Chopin ? more from Book IV ?

to be continued...

Books Read in 2009

1. Off the Map by Hibickina and Kika

2. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
3. Red Bird by Mary Oliver
4. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
5. Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein
6. Valencia by Michelle Tea
7. I Saw You...: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections by Julia Wertz
8. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Forest

 Tonight will take forever to end.

You can tell because the jangly guitars of her car music are blending into the darkening sky, because our laughter is the best feeling in the world and all we need, because when I'm staring at the diners and thrift stores flying by I can sense her taking me in and I know she likes it.

Tonight we'll have adventures too vivid to be real.

    We pull into the curving entrance to the lake and I know we're not supposed to be here. It's late- or early morning- and no one, we're told so often, is up to any good at those hours. Probably there's a law against us being here because probably the government thinks we'll come here to partake of illegal narcotics. This is, I promise, not the case.
We're both quiet as the car idles. I want to tell her that I'd be happy staying in this moment with her forever, that I don't need whatever big things are going to happen when she leaves. But those are the kinds of things I can never get out.        
    "Are you ready?" she whispers. "I'm kind of nervous."
    "Let's just do it."
    Layer by layer we peel away our clothes. I think it's easier for me because I've stopped feeling obliged to wear undergarments. In the moonlight, I catch a glimpse of her breasts. They are as large and beautiful as I knew they'd be.
    We open the car doors and feel the night surround our skin in a cool blast of summer and fleeting opportunity. We don't need words, anymore. I'm first to take off and I hear her started giggle behind me. She sprints to catch up, and we stare into each others' eyes, acknowledging the challenge. We race toward the moon, the horizon, and whoops and laughter emanate from us, unbidden. The noise makes a great echoing, and I know the land is voicing its agreement.
    We run until we're out of breath and we fall down because it's all we can do. I look up into the stars, into the big gaps between the stars, and wonder if any of them know that I need them to be there to look at.
    I look at her, and her hair is spilling all over her. I inch my body closer to hers until I can hear her shallow breaths, one, then the next in quick succession. I take her hand and can't believe how warm it is. Then, I stop pretending not to want her.
    I move my body over her and spread my legs around her little waist. Her breasts are still there. I am not ready for her to know my intentions with them. I lower my head and in the quiet we find each others' mouths. It is like, and not like, every other kiss: gentle at first, then more urgent. I catch her lower lip between my teeth, feel her tongue prowling about in my mouth. Everything in me is singing and feels taut like a string waiting to be plucked. With one hand, I begin to rub her breasts and she moans into my mouth like a guttural lament. My other hand is waiting to be deployed and as I feel it make its course down her torso to the place where she, too, is waiting, I know we are both ready. I am in love with my naked vixen and know no other desire.

    Afterward, we lie a long time in the grass. I feel like the sun might rise, soon; I feel like the sun will never rise again. I am trapped, as before, in the body of someone I don't know. But I have made love to a girl, to the entire world, and this brings me peace.

Senior List

 This is my list of things I want to accomplish before senior year ends.

1. Attend a potluck dinner for the Vegetarian Association of Iowa
2. Take a road trip to Fairfield, IA
3. Publish a zine
4. Go to Pella, IA
5. Buy something from that witchcraft store in Sherman Hills
6. Buy a t-shirt from Smash
7. Buy food from Campbell's

fuck tha weatherman

There's a sea of time between now and anything I have to look forward to.

Life right now feels a lot emptier than it has in a while. I haven't had REAL EXCITING LAUGHTER-INDUCING FUN in what seems like years.
I know why her writing's not any good: she's never suffered. Not once. She hasn't lost best friends or struggled with her identity. She hasn't felt everything around her change and shift. She hasn't experienced anything meaningful.
I popped a pimple, and it shot onto the mirror.
I think I have things to say worth saying. I just can't find anyone who wants to hear.

Right now, I'm thinking about reading literature from a different country every two weeks.
SPAIN: Jose Saramago, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
RUSSIA: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
FRANCE: Arthur Rimbaud
Fuck, they're all men, and I've dedicated myself to this woman-only life. But Jose Saramago is brilliant! Women's music is better than I imagined.

I feel like I have twenty things, maybe, but this is the wrong blog for writing about such trivial interpersonal problems. Everything feels fucking out of place, like it shifted one position over, but it's upside down in a way that I don't know how to put it back. And I can't be PMSing, which makes it worse. I don't know what to blame this fucking unhappiness on if it's not hormones. I feel like I'm trapping myself in isolation. In fact, I know I am, because all I want is some damned company.

I'm fucking lonely. I feel bored and restless and useless and used up and tired and lonely. I'm discontented and melancholy and all the things I shouldn't have to be, now that AP tests are over and all my stress should be gone.

Why can't I put myself in better relationships? As soon as one of them starts to work out, I fuck it up by trying to make them jealous, or ignoring them. I shouldn't have to fight against myself to be happy. ALL parts of my being should be going toward better relationships and less negativity. I keep feeling like I'm finally on track, I've finally realized what's been wrong all along. But I keep falling off and finding the way back to despair again. I'm so tired of this worn-out pattern of manipulation and jealousy. I'm so tired of making choices I know will piss me off. I'm so tired of being me, this unpleasable, unplacatable person who tricks herself into believing she doesn't have a choice.