rockofgibraltar
Originally uploaded by 9 0 0 0

Let's

Do it again.

Sometimes I cry

Until my eyes are swollen and bruised and the pupils spread like black puddles.

<0

I never knew what love was until you came into my life.

Now I know less.

I'm already dead in my head.

I'm so glad

I found you.

You have a lot to learn

But my old soul is too tired I'd teach you myself but you wouldn't listen now would you.

Things of little or no importance.

I've been eating steamed dumplings like mad lately. I'm afraid I'll get tired of them but I can't stop. They remind me of my childhood when my mom would take my sister and I to this chinese restaurant all the time. It was dimly lit and had beads hanging in the doorways that we would run through until my mom told us to stop.

Summer of dumplings.

I didn't realize so many people read my blog on a regular basis. I'm flattered but at the same time a little bewildered. I'm still going to keep writing what I write and doing what I do, though.

I found an intact robin's egg on the ground yesterday when I was walking but it was cold so I put it back. It was sad but I didn't let it get to me.

I've been feeling a little numb lately but I guess it is a welcome change from feeling like a raw wound on feet.

I want to try lots of new things. 

Last night I went somewhere I had never been in my life and it was wonderful. The sky was on fire with stars and the whole time I was convincing myself that I was going to die and those were my last moments which sounds bad but it's a game I've always played when I'm in the right frame of mind.

That is all for now.

"He said I shouldn't contact him. We finished in anger, although it was not nearly as nasty or ugly as it could have been, so I obliged. Even when he sent an email apologizing. Even when he sent messages saying he still needed me in his life. Now every few days I get a "hope you're well" or "how are you?" It's not me being strong for the both of us, thinking of his emotional well-being; I'm afraid to respond for my own sake. I'm afraid it will start again."

-Nightmare Brunette

Hm.

{manipulate & pull open like a flower and scratch}

Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.

I guess I should not be surprised. I just wish for once people would stop being so shitty and prove me wrong. Always expect the worst, especially when you're hoping for the best.

Grandma Robin.

Where I get my artist genes from and the reason my favorite bird is a robin. Can't wait to see her next week and to stay with her in Rhode Island. It's going to be heaven on earth. I'm in love with Rhode Island.

Dance with the dead.

Drowned world.

And there are so many things

I would like to show you, if you would lend me some of your time.

Summah

Going to Rhode Island to visit my grandma (June 23 to July 2) for a delicious food and art making filled trip. I'm a little nervous because it will be my first time riding an airplane by myself and I have to get off of one airplane and onto another and my stomach is already getting really anxious about it. But I also think it's kind of exciting and I know I'll be able to figure it out. 

And I also just found out I'm going to be able to teach at fiddle camp at the academy of music this year. I was feeling really down about it because with moving and everything I was sure I wasn't gonna have time but I'm doing it this year no matter what! I need motivation to pick up a violin again anyways. Emily was so kind to let me borrow hers and Ian is currently borrowing my broken one. I love sharing.

So for now all is ok in this world. I'm really glad I'm going to be able to get away. I want to also start planning (officially, not loosely!) trips to New York to see Ben and also a train ride to D.C. with Seychelle. It kind of sucks because I have to work a lot to save up for Richmond but I feel like this summer is so full of opportunity that I need to take advantage of.

I love you.

Means I make love to you?

Is that it?

Sad as it is, as long as I get to see you and hold you and hear you speak those words, I don't really care about anything else. 

I still love you terribly. I still want to be with you.

But as long as I have this, I think I could survive.

Zoloft, come a little faster. Yeah I gave in. But feeling nothing is better than feeling everything. I look forward to the day when I will no longer be able to cry.

Used

Empty 

shell.

Fuck.

Still hurts though, motherfucker.

Originally uploaded by 9 0 0 0

Baby I'm afraid of a lot of things but
I ain't scared of loving you
And baby I know you're afraid of a lot of things
But don't be scared of love... 'cause
People will say all kinds of things
But that don't mean a damn to me
'Cause all I see is what's in front of me
And that's you.

Well I've been dragged all over the place
I've taken hits time just don't erase
And baby I can see you've been fucked with too
But that don't mean your loving days are through
'Cause people will say all kinds of things
But that don't mean a damn to me
'Cause all I see is what's in front of me
And that's you.

Well I may be just a fool
But I know you're just as cool
And cool kids, they belong together.

-Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Poor Song

Sketchbook.

Fragment of a piece I'm working on. It didn't scan correctly but it looks nice like that anyways.

Blah blah blah.

Not angsty.

Today we officially signed the lease on our house in Richmond. I'm gonna start moving in July and by August will be living there all the time.

thank god thank god thank god thank god.

Also started reading The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno, the same author of Hairstyles of the Damned. It's his new book. Promising so far, I'll keep you posted as to whether or not it's worth fully reading.

I remember the first night you came to see me. It was awkward but you made my blood run faster. And it wasn't that awkward.

I remember our first kiss so strongly. It's weird how your lips know when they've met their match. And also dangerous because once they have, they never want to bother with any other lips again.

I remember when I was plagued with stomach pains so I couldn't go out but you came and cuddled with me anyways before you went out, in my secret fort. Since deconstructed.

I remember how you used to text me from the bathroom. When we were in the same house. It made me feel so happy, that you couldn't stand to not be talking to me even when you were just in another room.

I remember when we made love that night and I was kind of drunk but I pretended I wasn't and I was taking off my shoes and I stumbled and you laughed at me. I was so dizzy with beer and love.

I remember when you said, I still love you, and it sounded really genuine and I really believed you. 

Shame on me. I'm a fool.

It's like whenever I finally start to heal from this something comes along and rips it open and it hurts again and worse and worse each time. But I can't stop.

When I still played violin every day and had a lesson once a week and was a promising young violinist, my teacher used to make me memorize my music. After the performance was over, whenever my mind would start to forget the song, I would get it stuck in my head. I would have it stuck in my head for days and each day a different part of the song would disappear from my memory until it was only a snippet. Fragment by fragment.

Every day I remember something and it hurts so that I grimace, biting back my tears until my jaw aches and my throat tightens with those horrible moaning sounds I make, like a caged animal. I hate that the most. I hear it and I'm like where did that come from? And I realize. It scares me.

I can only hope that one day you will not plague my mind like those songs did, that fragment by fragment you will disappear until you are nothing but a promising memory echoing in the back of my mind.

Summah reading list!

These are the books I want to read this summer (if you have any of them feel free to pass them my way. i'll even trade you. i have tons. let's do this!)

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk

A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown

Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio

Cat Power: a Good Woman by Elizabeth Goodman

Pride, Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson (I actually have this one, just have yet to read it)

Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate by Brad Warner

(gonna add more as I think of them.)

Originally uploaded by 9 0 0 0

i love this man's art. it makes me chuckle and makes my heart ache at the same time and yet a lot of it is just so gorgeously meaningless.

"Yes, you do fuck a lot of things up."

Sorry for all of the lyrics lately. I feel incapable of saying what I feel for myself since it is almost always wrong, or I guess not appealing to others. I can only be myself, all of the damn time.

I know I feel better and worse at the same time.

My life is one big hypocritical changing mood swingy mess.

I want Ben to come back. I'm proud of him but it seems like we grew really close again as soon as he had to leave. Miss my little brother, Ben. 

And I miss my band. We may have sucked but we had fun and people liked us.

It is summer so most of my friends are back in Virginia Beach but I can't help but feel like my heart is being pulled in one million directions as everyone gets farther away.

In other more meaningless news my hair is dying again. Fun. It's almost chopping time? Maybe? Growing it out has become a sort of test for me with no prize at the end because I guess the prize would be having long hair which I've decided I don't care about at all and will just annoy me as it comes out in handfuls and sticks to my neck. Still I feel like I have to prove to myself that I can do it. 

Silly silly.

Good Woman.

I want to be a good woman

And I want for you to be a good man

And this is why I will be leaving

And this is why I can't see you no more.

I will miss your heart so tender

I will lack this love forever.

I don't want to be a bad woman

And I can't stand to see you to be a bad man.

I will miss your heart so tender

I will lack this love forever.

This is why I am leavin'

And this is why I can't see you no more

And this is why I am lying

When I say "I don't love you no more"

'Cause I want to be a good woman

And I want for you to be a good man.

-Cat Power

(all accurate except the tender heart part. good luck finding that.)

My Maudlin Career.

You kissed me on the forehead

Now these kisses give me concussion

We were love at first sight

Now this crush, is crushing.

I retraced your steps through the city of romance lazily

I took to the desert with your harshest words and they saved me.

 

I'll bail you out again

I've got the readies

I'm not a child I know

We're not going steady.

 

Your pain's gigantic but it's not as big as your ego

Promise not to abandon you, please let me go.

 

I harbored worried feelings

Like they were worth protecting

You say I'm too kind and sentimental

Like you could catch affection.

 

Oh in your eyes there's a sadness

Enough to kill the both of us

Are those eyes overrated?

They make me want to give up on love.

 

I'll brace myself for the loneliness

Say hello to feelings that I despise

 

This maudlin career has come to an end

I don't want to be sad again.

 

-Camera Obscura

The Prodigal Son.

You scare us, yeah, you welcome us,
and you motion us to move our mouths.
and we lie, yes we lie.

You know our thoughts, you put them there.
You free us, tell us where to fall,
so we hide, yes we hide.

When I breathe again, I swear, it'll be with you.

You make us yeah, you cure us yes.
You kill the calf, as we second guess the first try,
the suns too cold, oh no.

The darkness falls, as nothing moves.
Your heartbeat slows, it gets too cold so you sleep,
yes we all sleep.
When i rise again,

I swear, it'll be with you.

-The Black Angels

Cosmia.

It is not in your nature to dwell on such things.

Excuse it as heartburn, a hiccup in the flow of the world, and you will move on.

You will forget me.

It is the way of the world.

CATHARSIS.

It's funny, when I first met you I was sick. All day and night I tossed and turned, my stomach turning itself into knots. I clamped my throat tight and refused to eat, refused to vomit. I should have known it was an omen. Our bodies try to protect us. It's called the gift of fear.

Now I am sick again.

I clamp my throat tight but I vomit anyways.

I wipe you from my mouth, wipe the poison from my lips.

Wipe you from my heart, one slow retch at a time.

"The Huichol say: If you have been made of corn (eekoo) and you eat the peyote (heekori), you become the jaguar (maye) that hunts your deer (maxra) that is your own spirit. In other words, stalk and hurt yourself before you stalk and hunt anything else. Know yourself."

-from Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin

Hyenas.

Seriously, that's dirty. I would never do that to any of you.

I fucking hate females sometimes. Lurking around like disgusting scavengers waiting to steal my leftovers or my children.

Well, this is one lion baby you are not going to steal from my loving heart. Sorry.

You're doomed to forever feed on rotting carcasses. Your mouths are already full of shit.

I may seem crazy but I'm almost always right. Have you noticed that?

I'm starting to hate when I'm right.

These days.

photo by Annika Aschberg

photo by Marie Edwards

Trust your instincts.

And never let anyone make you feel bad for being right. Always do the right thing, even if it means you will have no friends and society will ostracize you. At least you'll be able to sleep at night.
People always ask me about the time when I shaved my head and I suppose this is as good of a time as any to explain.
I shaved my head in the September of 2007. It was something I had always wanted to do, and when I got into Governor's School (where it's basically a requirement to shave your head) I figured it was the perfect time. Everyone is always wondering if I did it because I'm a lesbian, and the answer is firmly no. I think it's ironic that being a lesbian is associated with pillaging your hair.
People also assumed that maybe I had a relative that had cancer or that I was sick or something, but once the truth came out that I did it purely for the sake of doing it, the harassment begin. I never lied. People would come up and ask me "why did you do that?" And I could have lied to protect myself, but I would say, "Because I wanted to."
I have a history of harassing my hair. There was a point in my life when I dyed my hair black once a week, blow dried it every day, and back combed it. Than I topped it all off with pounds of Aqua Net. I'm sorry, ozone layer.
I've had horrible bleached white hair (more yellow actually), I've had every color known to man in my hair at one point, and sometimes all together.
I always had ridiculously long lustrous hair before that. My mother compared the color to fairy gold. When I started to obsess over my body image and feel like I was coming under scrutiny, my hair was the first to suffer. One night I locked myself in the bathroom and cut off all my hair. Badly. Our bathroom door is still broken from my mom and sister removing the handle in order to get in. Thus begin the hair odyssey. Since that night about 2 or 3 years ago my hair has never been past shoulder length (until now! it's getting there!)
I've always had this need for people to see me. To REALLY see me, and how is that possible when you're hiding behind lengths of hair? Hair is also the number one feminine feature, I dare say even over breasts and the obvious. An ugly face is usually forgiven if it is hidden behind a gorgeous mane. Rarely do supermodels, or women identified for their beauty have short hair, and if they do, they are usually more popular among the more progressive among us than the masses (Agyness Deyn comes to mind).
I suppose senior year is supposed to be one of the greatest years of your life. Finally you get to lord over all of your peers, you get to leave school early, prom, all of those inane school activities catered to those about to enter the world.
Instead it was one of the worst years of my life. I have never experienced the level of hate I did that year. People are truly scared of things they don't understand, even silly things such as a hairless girl. Get out the stake, burn the witch. The most 'beautiful' (open to interpretation) girl at Kempsville, the one all the guys had their tongues on the floor over, had extensions. Blond horrible ones. That's how desperate the situation was.
To top it all off senior year was the year my face decided to explode with acne. I had nothing to hide behind. Blissfully, until now, I don't think I really realized how awful it was. I was too busy just trying to get through each day. There is a conspicuous lack of pictures of me from that time though, and it scares me a little. I feel like I completely lost connection with myself.
Still, looking back I don't think I would change a thing. It's like when I shaved my hair off I opened up a curtain. I caught a glimpse of how truly ugly and scared and close minded the general population is. I realized how strong I was. I might have cried almost every day but I got through it. I also realize how STUPID it was. The fact that I was almost broken by people who hated me because I had no hair. Is this really what we have been reduced to? A society who feeds off of beautiful things, who worships the dead follicles sprouting forth from our scalps?

I want you back.

What do you want?

(I will buy you burritos every day if that's what it takes.)

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."

'Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V.'

oh-my witchy twitchy girl

i think you are so nice,

i give you bowls of porridge

and i give you bowls of ice

cream.

i give you lots of kisses,

and i give you lots of hugs,

but i never give you sandwiches

with bugs

in.

Expelling the poison.

"The world is a horrible place. There is nothing beautiful or worthwhile left in it."

"That's not true. Today when I was mowing the lawn there were tons of ladybugs everywhere! Like a ruby sea."

"And you ran them over with the lawn mower?"

"..... No."

"Yes you did."

"They were fine. And then all of these robins came with their bright red breasts and were hopping around the yard. They weren't even afraid."

"And they ate the ladybugs?"

"NO. They were eating worms. There are beautiful things you just won't let yourself see them."

Everything is so fucked. Just when you think it can't get any worse something totally fucked and unexpected happens to prove you wrong. Such is life.

the e machine

My bones

Hurt me sometimes.

Discovery.

Arno Rafael Minkkinen

Today at work I was putting away books and I saw one with a beautiful photograph on the cover. Being the amazing employee I am I flipped open to the back jacket flap to find out who took it (instead of scurrying around frantically asking every customer if they needed help finding the Danielle Steele books or various other typical nonsense).

It's funny how the universe slaps us in the face. This is the kind of work I myself have been delving into recently (though of course not as good as him by any stretch). I love it. It's black and white, it's clever, it's raw, it's skin, it's perfect. Thanks, universe.

A spider hanging.

I woke up this morning and I looked out the window and the words kept repeating in my head "thank you for spending one of my last days with me thank you for spending one of my last days with me thank you for spending one of my last days with me thank you for spending one of my last days with me.."

It has been a blood and tear filled day. I wish the orthodontist let you keep your wisdom teeth after they removed them. I know my sister would have given them to me. 

Lovely bruises all over my body, as if I haven't been punished enough for what I am.

A bloody coward.

Speech of Aristophanes running through my head. I know when our limbs are tangled together and your lips are on mine, that we were once somehow together. Are you my lost half, cut from me by the gods so long ago? Or just some lucky distraction?

Sparks in the dark.