Tuesday, October 4, 2011

what gives?

sometimes,
when i'm writing,
i realize i come off sounding far more traumatized than i functionally am.






but maybe that's just the liberal arts college?




this theater department is a joke.



Saturday, September 24, 2011

new day rising.

in high school, i floated along conversations. i heard about the "drama" other kids had, secondhand, from their friends who were just ranting or telling a funny story. and i was glad to float, glad i didn't haul around people's shit. glad i didn't babble on to third parties about people now to distant too make any sense. but i also wondered that if people were really so fucked up, why didn't they come to me? duh. i clearly possessed the special balance of emotional distance sympathy and patience. i would be great at advice, i thought. also, if no one saw this, saw how perfect and wise i was, then maybe they weren't actually fucked up, maybe they didn't want help, maybe they just wanted to be more angry over something that was really nothing so they went to a friend to get riled up. i don't know. the important part is i had no part of anything remotely considered social "drama" ever. i also didn't have but one maybe two good friends, but that's a different story.
but i realize, now when i am an older version of that self, one that has some friends and a hell of a lot of acquaintances, i am a person people come to for advice. and i am a third party, and i am a good balance of sympathetic and emotionally distanced enough to seem wise. and now everyone seems fucked up. and everyone seems to freak out FOR TOTALLY LEGITIMATE REASONS over somethings that are really nothings. onlysometimesthey'rereallysomethings,iguess. and it's weird because i think more about the fact of the sort-of burden and sort-of obligation i feel to be a listener, which i know is an essential position, than i think about the actual burden of my friend. their problem remains distant from me, and i am more concerned with my rational perspective as a third party, so as to give best advice. does that make any sense?

no.

but all i know is suddenly my life is filled with others people's emotional drama. and i think back to high school when i wanted to be this person who was turned to for advice. and i'm glad i am, because i love these people past their "drama" and want to see them get through it, but i guess i never thought i would be this kind of listener. everything in some kind of due time. i'm certainly better equipped and wiser than i was when i was 16. the same, but more so.


Wednesday, July 13, 2011

gracious haiku (7-10-7, sure it's a fucking haiku)

some moments it's like, someone
needs to shut off the happiness faucet,
because my cup is so full.


Wednesday, June 22, 2011

i don't wanna talk about how i know this chick's fucking tumblr page okay? i jus wanna blame it on growing up in a digital age and all that jazz.

so AN-EE-WEIGH
complemented my backpack when we passed each other on milwaukee ave. in wicker paaarrrque today.

she said, and i quote (as well as my memory serves me): "that is the coolest backpack i have ever seen."
"thanks, i made it," i said.

and i'll admit i was a little disappointed when she didn't ask to take a picture and put it on her blog.

god fucking damn it i hate my so-called-techlife. in other news i started a facebook page and now i really need to be put out to pasture.

also today i said "times new viking" to this dude i'm sort of going to be working with this summer and he was like, "they're kinda scream-o, right?"
wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong six ways from sunday dude.


Saturday, June 18, 2011

an early summer haiku:

this summer is just
uncanny in its twists of
mist blissed convergence.


Sunday, June 12, 2011

a parting haiku:

seals in water,
tuna in cans, a place for
everything, for now


Thursday, June 2, 2011


had a seizure after thinking she was a mermaid (a girl after my own heart)










MY HEART IT BEATS YES, TO YR CIGARETTE!



DON'T PICK AT THAT.








Monday, May 30, 2011

this is what the kids use blogs for nowadays, rite?

first full week back in chicago and my wallet got stolen, there was a hilarious (and tedious) mix-up at the dmv, and i got hit by a car. gonna send the kimberly and her bronze fucking minivan the bill for my bike tune up.

now that i have only one government registered identity may i please have my seventeen dollars back and move on with the summer? i think i'll just steal seventeen dollars worth of something, who cares what,
also i need confirmation on my summer job, here's to fucking hoping i passed my drug test.

scabs itch. it's gonna scar.


Thursday, March 31, 2011

keeping safe.

i learned how to silkscreen! i put it on a shirt! little monster doodles who frequent the margins of my notebooks!


Friday, February 18, 2011

fuck her tears.

in december,
i entertained the idea of calling myself a poet for the first time EVER.
in that, i submitted the only three "poems" i've ever written to the school's poetry festival.

wouldn't it be Grand?
just Marvelous, to read at a Poetry Festival!
just think! there there is such legitimacy to pouring your heart out!
just think! you would read along side a published poet,
one whose work the Powers That Be deem similar to your own work.
just think! you would have "work." and it doesn't rhyme! because rhyme is complex.
also, i do not think in rhyme. i think in panic. in inner monologue.
and if i cold read in a Poetry Festival, my inner monologues would be deemed good. made legitimate.
WHY LITTLE GIRL YOU'D BE A STAR. and all the poet boys and girls would take me out and tell me my voice is marvelous.

and we would drink cold beer and smoke smoldering tobacco and take turns reading patti smith and allen ginsberg aloud. stopping to say "me next! i have a great one!" and when we'd had enough beers, after hours in some poet loft (the best kind, because they aren't full of paint and pretentious/intimidating conceptual art-in-progress (i don't know what i;m talking about, but i'm sure i'm right.)) we would read our own poems, from our awkward notebooks and folded sheets shoved hastily into back pockets and backpacks.

but no. i got so wrapped up in my anonymous sexy shitty poet loft fantasy that i forgot to finish my story. i got rejected. which duh, makes sense. and i'm fine with it. completely.
and it was out of my head. until i sat down next to this poetry grad student with whom i'm friendly and she was all like,
"emma, i'm glad you submitted to the poetry festival. i meant to send you a personal e-mail because i really liked what you wrote. we all like vote with points [the grad students/festival committee choose the poets by scoring them with points i guess?] and i gave yours high marks."
she said something about my work reminding her of like, herself, i think, sort of a young woman poet type, i think, i don't know, i just said,
"oh wow! thank you so much, jillian, that means a lot." and it does. i mean i don't get the loft or the fame or the compliments on my excellent reading voice, but i got jillian sitting next to me at a play that wasn't great, telling me personally that she enjoyed what i submitted, and i'm okay with that. hell, i'm fucking great with that. now, i'll go back to writing for the stage.


Monday, January 31, 2011

the walls we hit. it's tacky.

i would like to inspire the world with my insanely ambitious failures and mistakes.
i would like to cast strindberg's A Dream Play with only two actors and an ambitious technician.

we should all cry in public a lot more. we should extinguish each other's cigarettes with tears.

an 800 mile essentially blind date in like 20 days is no big deal right? like, hey-o no need to freak out just because i invited a stranger to sleep in my bed right? i should hide my valuables. i should wash my sheets. and my jeans. and all the many articles of clothing that have suddenly begin to smell. abruptly, there are a lot of them.

i am so not okay with skool.
is it really so much to ask to feel okay about letting people down and instead going to watch mr. rickman give me his bestest john gabriel. written by my posthumous boyfriend henrik of course.

no one uses boomboxes anymore. i need three.
THEY'RE FOR AN ART PROJECT OKAY. I'M IN COLLEGE MAKING ART WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YR LIFE, OLD-LADY-IN-A-FUR-COAT-FRONT-ROW-SEASON-TICKET-HOLDER-AT-BAM-writing alan's paycheck.

my friend saw daniel radcliffe and hugh jackman tonight at john gabriel borkman. that totally beats me seeing jenna fischer after our town last spring. because they're brits.

i wrote and staged a performance piece on friday entitled "a dream play." it was very short. i wish i could turn that in instead of my strindberg homework.


Tuesday, January 25, 2011

winter wardrobe expansion #1: california edition.

my cousin in california sent me the first thing she ever knitted for a christmas gift, and it was this totally badass weirdo necktie sort of thing (the kind of amazing first knitting project, that has stitches turning up and disappearing all over the place, and i'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be question mark shaped), so in return i made her a bunny hat, which might just be one of the best looking things i have ever made. definitely one of the first times that what i imagined in my head was as good in reality.
yeah, i used that cat hat pattern from the stitch 'n bitch book as the base. go tell yr mom.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

no interest in.


oh shit it's so good, like from that moment that beth puts on her sunglasses, i'm sold. and i know it's fucking stupid and hypocritical and lame to be blog-posting a video (a times new viking video, no less) that i saw first on pitchfork, but i super love their band even though this song is very like different and kind of derivative of lots of bands that i can't name off the top of (my head).


Monday, January 17, 2011

to yr skull.

every time the pilot says we are beginning our descent into la guardia airport, my mind jumps straight to:
and now is the moment the bomb goes off. between now, this moment, when we are in mid-air decline, losing altitude like pennies out the our holes in our pocket, and touching down on LGA runway, my airplane is in danger of being hijacked and blown to bits.

this thought always comes upon me as if from nowhere. there are several seconds where i believe it with my whole person. in these situations i become preoccupied with wanting to curl into the lap of the person next to me or wanting to scream and run into the cockpit (where i will then curl into the pilot's lap).

today i managed to push past this initial shock that i am in grave and terrible danger by then imagining the more particular things about the bombing. where would the bomber be sitting on the airplane? (how did he/she/they get a bomb, or the makings of one, past the new-fangled airport security?) were they sitting close enough to me to hear me ask the flight attendant for a diet coke? did they think to him/her/themselves:
diet coke, that's funny, see 'cause when someone orders diet coke they aren't ordering it to enjoy it now. well, yes, she will enjoy it now because it is a cold, bubbly, sweet thing, but so is regular coke. but diet coke, nah man, that's for thinking about the future, about all the calories she didn't ingest and won't have to worry about burning off, about some sort of future gain of rational or feel-good-ish-ness. but MUWAHAHAHA!!! listen to her with her diet coke and her future!!! she has no future.

and then we all die.

and then i start to wonder how i'll die. when the bomb goes off. you know in movies when people are sitting in like cars or planes and a bomb happens the sort of jolt forward? would that happen to me? what would my arms do? would i throw my arms up against the tray table locked in front of me? could they hit the tray table so hard that my forearm bones or hand bones shattered? if i threw my arms up in front of me against the tray table and then lurched my body forward would my head collide with my forearms? could i get a concussion from my head colliding with my forearms? could i break my skull by hitting it against my arms? would my arms break after they hit the tray table and got hit by my head? would this scenario render me lifeless? or would i die of internal bleeding or shock or asphyxiation? if the bomb goes off near me, well, all those fumes i'm sure would knock me senseless instantly, if not kill me flat out.
would the oxygen masks deploy and would i be lucid enough to regard this as irony?

and so for a few moments, we are not only descending into la guardia, but also into complete madness. and then i look out the window again and regard the flaming pink flamingo sunset in the west and the glittering golden blink of the city below.