gazing.

i love stars. constellations. history unchanged.

the greeks and romans named Orion and

i get the honor of hanging out with him today.

ISN'T THAT COOL?!

i love that stars make me feel small, make me feel just how spherical is our little bubble of earth and water and lava and hot/cold fronts of air. but at the same time, the stars never change in size, not really. they're always little flecks of light. little. so looking at them doesn't really make me change in size. i have to remind myself that that star is as big as life. as big as earth, maybe. as big as all the fires i never want to see in my reality. stars are likes paintings, because i'll never get close enough with only my human eye to change them. ever. i don't know the science of it all, but i'm pretty sure i'll never touch or kill or push or change a star. i can only look at them and maybe someday i will have the good fortune to look at them through a high powered telescope and get to tell Orion how nice his biceps look up-close.

last night i looked up at the right moment and saw my new friend Orion staring down at me. i freaked out and erin laughed at me. i love constellations. tonight i bundled up and went to try to photograph him, but he would have none of it, so i just looked at him and admired and jumped up and down to express my excitement to myself and hear my cold boots on the cement parking lot top.

everybody, meet Orion.

Orion, this is everybody.

radio show #9. sure, fine, whatever. AND WEEKEND.

fight war, not wars - crass

creme brulee - sonic youth

vicious - lou reed

hippie, hippie, hoorah - black lips

anna (go to him) - the beatles

gimme some time (live) - smith westerns

tainted love - soft cell

the early 80's - times new viking

everybody's down - no age

hidden place - bjork

be yr mama - sleater-kinney

you're gonna miss me - 13th floor elevators

the murder mystery - the velvet underground

split - liliput

this radio show has no theme. this radio show was rambling. this radio show had less thought than usual put into it (maybe, maybe not). i went to pennsylvania this weekend. a little silly, rather expensive, but i keep dismissing it as "hey, it's college." every real-world mistake i make, i do feel like i learn a lot from. meagbus is a very nice thing (transportation), especially when it runs on time. cream of wheat is also a very nice thing (late-night breakfast). philadelphia looks like a very nice thing (place) and i hope to spend more time there some day. new york city is a very nice thing (distraction, time-waster, money suck).

SNOW.

THE FIRST SNOW. FINALLY. I WORE MY WINTER JACKET. FINALLY. I'M STILL WEARING THE CLOTHES I PUT ON THIRTY-SIX HOURS AGO AND NEVER TOOK OFF.

PLEASE ENJOY THESE PHOTOS OF THE BRACHIOSAURUS HEDGES OUTSIDE OF THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. THOSE ARE BEAUTIFUL DINOS.

PLEASE ENJOY THIS COVERTLY TAKEN PHOTO OF ERIN REAPPLYING LIPSTICK IN A FALAFEL RESTAURANT. I LIKED THE GARLAND AND LIGHTS IN THE MIRROR AND ALL THE RED.

PLEASE ENJOY THIS PHOTO OF THE BABY EVERGREEN TREE I FOUND SET UP IN OUR APARTMENT WHEN I GOT HOME THIS EVENING. YOU CAN'T TELL, BUT IT IS BEING WEIGHTED DOWN BY A BAG OF RICE AND SEVERAL BOOKS AND IS TIED TO THE WALL WITH STRING AND DUCT TAPE. I HAVE BEEN COMMISSIONED TO MAKE A STAR FOR THE TOP.

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS.

I GET TO GO TO CHICAGO ("HOME"?) IN TWELVE DAYS. !!!!!!!

SO MUCH WORK STANDS TO BE CONQUERED IN THOSE TWELVE DAYS. IT IS NOT FUNNY. IT IS INTIMIDATING. THE TIME WASTE OF NEW YORK CITY IS CALLING MY NAME SO LOUDLY. I MIGHT GO NEXT WEEKEND. BECAUSE I FUCKING CAN. BUT I CANNOT SPEND ANYMORE MONEY. NO.

PEARS. exacerbate.

EXHALE.

this afternoon at the train station

i exhale

i take out my green pear.

BITE.

oh god oh no

this pear has cancer,

i gave it cancer.

CRY.

there is a brown spot where my mouth bit.

there is a cancer and a spot i avoid eating

- it turns into a tumor.

AVOID.

the pear is delicious when i get to the good parts

the pear is delicious when i don't want to cry at it

into it, salt water and fruit juice.

on the train i notice a man with a bandage on the side of his head, at his temple. WE ARE ALL INJURED. EVEN THE PEARS. I AM STILL FEELING OFF.

in my playwriting class today, everyone liked what i had written. probably the most positive feedback i've gotten yet. "it reminds me of the handmaid's tale," was one comment. i know. i knew it when i wrote it. "damn," i said to myself, "this is the most atwood thing." and i didn't like it because of that. i love margaret atwood and the handmaid's tale but i liked my play over.there, not as something i had written, as something that my writing buddy hannah might have written. i don't want to sound like anyone, which i realize is really naive but ultimately an honest thought.

i want to write a play like crave by sarah kane.

well, i don't want to be depressed enough to write a play like crave, but you understand?

the style, the images,

it's forty-five minutes of busted up spitfire poetry.

i saw a production of it at school tonight and it was beautiful.

my writing buddy hannah said she thought i would like it, that it was a very "me" play. i agree, i think. i want it to be me: in style and staging, but i am not that obviously broken. but i think the style and structure and staging is maybe more than half the play. that point can be argued. hannah also introduced me to her friend/producer:

"do you two know each other?"

(head shakes all around.)

"this is nora."

"i'm emma," i say.

(hand shakes all around.)

"she's our costume designer," says hannah with a smile.

on tuesday hannah asked me to be the costume designer for the show she is directing in the spring semester, the last five years. tuesday was a great day. i said yes. i want to do a good job. i want to do the best job. i want to make the costumes

PERFECT.

i want to sew them all by hand and machine.

FROM SCRATCH.

there are only two characters (i haven't read the script, but i know that much) and they must be attired perfectly.

the characters may be injured, but their clothes will suit them perfectly. their clothes will attire their injury. their clothes will be their unsuspecting pear skin, the first layer before we bite in, just like in real life on train station platforms.

scavenger tendencies.

when you find that one of your suite-mates has cleaned out her part of the fridge (good for her) and has thrown away two perfectly good bunches (heads? trees? stalks?) of broccoli, what do you do? if you're me, you eat them even though you aren't hungry and enjoy vegetables! vegetables! besides, even if you're not hungry, it's good iron, which as a non-meat-eater, you don't really get enough of,

so congrats on the broccoli find!

all day today i've felt off.

like depressed, maybe,

i've been quiet a lot and when i realize that i haven't talked in a while, my mouth feels heavy and when i talk my tongue feels heavy, but i don't know that i'm talking. i'm more like interacting. giving that person near me something to react to. going through motions according to the abstraction of personality that i've somehow built for myself.

the day isn't over until i take off my blue jeans.

i could still go out. i'm still clothed, my hair is how it always is. i may have invited myself to pennsylvania today. i hate inviting myself places, i hope i don't seem pushy or invasive.

"we need to have an adventure."

yes.

i need to sleep more. when i sleep, lately, exhaustion overcomes me and i sprawl. i don't normally sprawl when i sleep. face down arms out, i've heard it on two separate accounts of two separate nights.

what's wrong?

the rocking, post-cruise,

ship-upon-the-pacific

feeling has gone away mostly i think,

except for now, when i think of it. the rocking, world-moving-beneath-my-feet feeling was equivalent to being slightly drunk. i would sway a little every now and then, even when on dry land.

at six o'clock i was sitting in the library, endeavoring to read bleak house but i apparently had to get some things out of my system and i wrote this:

"there are two things and only two things happening in my head right now. one is whatever is in front of me. the other is the opening number to Company.

'those good and crazy people, my friends.

those good and crazy people, my married friends.'

it's been like this for 2.5 hours.

i wish the world would stop moving in waves beneath my feet.

i still feel the cruise ship.

'phone rings,

door chimes,

in comes company.'

in the fall/winter i fall in love with peoples' faces and sweaters and skin

in the summer i fall in love with peoples' legs.

rain or shine i'm going to new york city this weekend

and then hopefully to pennsylvania to bryn mawr to see christine.

i want friends."

and then i censor myself and stop typing what i wrote over six hours ago. because i hate it and it is unimportant. i wonder if tomorrow will be different, even though my complete tipsy apathy towards things was kind of nice today. i laughed inappropriately and said odd things. i did not do the homework that i should have. i was very fidgety. sitting through three hours of a pretty decent Cabaret was very difficult. i kept shifting my legs. i felt bad for the girl next to me. i would have distracted me if i was sitting next to me.

bl

ea

kh

ou

se.

i need to finish it ASAP.

yes.

i have three-hundred+ more pages to go and now i have the opening to Cabaret playing in my head.

"wilkomen bienvenue welcome."

if i could, i would travel back in time and give courtney love a great big hug and buy her a pack of cigarettes and a cup of coffee. then we would go to the brown elephant, where i first saw and wanted live through this when i was about ten but didn't ask my mom to buy it for me, because i didn't know what it might hold. at the brown elephant we would buy clothing for ourselves and for her daughter, who she would hire me to babysit every now and then. she would pay me well, but not always in cash money. sometimes she would have to pay me in stories.

i wonder to this day how i might be different if i had bought live through this all those years ago.

reading graffiti in a library study room.

"be who you are and

say what you feel

because those who

mind don't matter

and those who

matter don't mind."

- dr. seuss

density. drag.

i might be asleep. right now. my eyes might be closed. my fingers might be typing out of self-deprecating habit. i might be dreaming. that's what i thought last night when i walked in and saw my roommate not wearing pajammaz. well, i thought, that might be her bare back, but then again, the room is tilting pretty severely and i'd rather just lie down. i might never finish my homework. this might be all one long day, as the light of the sky has no bearing on when i'm awake. i'm sleeping less than 25% of each day, at least five days a week. usually six. thursday night (when a whole lot of rather illogical partying happens), i can usually get eight hours. this morning i woke up, admittedly in a possibly altered state of mind, and stepped straight into the shower. and then i cleaned my room and completely forgot about my morning until later erin, who'd been leaving for church when i was washing my hair, said she was surprised to hear me up and cleaning myself no less (i like to get good and scuzzy before showering, so i can better appreciate clean. however, erin enjoys reminding me that i shower maybe one or two times weekly, passing only mild judgment) so early. i stared at her. what? i had forgotten that i'd showered this morning. or yesterday morning, as we are now in monday. today is one of my suite-mate's birthdays. tomorrow is my birthday. which i have also been forgetting. my mother told me to stop by the post office on tuesday. why? i asked. because it's not just tuesday, she responded. huh?ohyeahright. i hate how much time i spend on my computer. i'm looking forward to not having it over thanksgiving break. so looking forward to that. i hate itunes. i hate itunes. to listen to most of my music means i have to have my computer on and open and then i think of this thing or that thing to look up online and everyone knows that vicious horrible cycle of mouse click after mouse click until all hope and time has been lost, and it's your own fault and not the computer's or the fault of the capitalists who dreamt up the internet. it's your own lack of self-control, like the kind that comes out when you eat half a pint of ice cream like some fucking girl cliche, some chick all ripped up after her boyfriend broke up with her, only for you, for me, there is no break up, there is mutual agreement, and there is ice cream and the two are independent of each other.

in other news: i really like my bangs.

in other news: i would like somebody to love here at college.

in other news: there is a coffee table outside my window, on the roof of the parking lot, which is also my apartment's fire escape. i found the table weeks ago, and washed it and then put it out (which was difficult - getting it out the window) because it smelled. i brought it in today and now it is full of water from the rain over the weeks and it still smells. so i put it back on the roof. i will take it back to where i found it sometime in the next couple days. and i liked this table. everything goes wrong.

runaway.

dr. gibbs: they'll have a lot of troubles, i suppose, but that's none of our business. everybody has a right to their own troubles.

mrs. gibbs: yes... people are meant to go through life two by two. 'tain't natural to be lonesome.

-our town by thornton wilder

scorpion 1: too, too, two.

scorpion 2: so many twos.

scorpion 1: everything comes in twos.

scorpion 2: except you, winnie.

-the desert play by eric dufault