Jun 29 4:51 PM

"HEY! Michaela... (you shit sunshine) Have a great day!"

Don't worry.

don't worry.
Originally uploaded by salmonnn

You'll get used to it.

I can't decide for the life of me if I love this or hate it.

Kind of how I feel about myself, so I guess it's appropriate.

Today I gave myself all sorts of wonderful compliments.

Like I would think up typical degrading Michaela things to say to myself, that I guess I would normally say to you, and instead of dealing with your bitchy responses I said the things I wanted to hear. From myself.

I think sometimes men have a hard time giving compliments, saying nice things. It makes them seem less manly. Or maybe I just don't understand a thing, but since no one seems keen on explaining any of it to me, I'll just stick with my rationalizations.

I've noticed that my blog has sort of become a love/hate letter to you.

I think it's time to focus on myself, since I doubt you even read it anyways, but maybe that's why I feel comfortable saying it in the first place.

Leaving Rhode Island the day after tomorrow.

My heart is swelling in my chest for my cousin Nina and my Aunt Margaret and my grandparents and for cows and for Hobbes. I hate good byes. 

I've sure got a whole lot of loving people to go back to, though. 

I'm excited to drive around Pungo with Ashley, eat donuts and talk about Cat Power with John, photoventures with Hunter, drinking thai iced tea with Pearl and playing with birds with her and Matt, the boardwalk with Dave, swinging at night with Seychelle, eating chocolate cake in a dress with Chris, and so many more, and in no particular order. I have such amazing people in my life.

"Only when she snored did he reach out to touch her. The fact seemed to him infinitely saddening."

Thank you, Juno.

You know, I'm ready to find someone who thinks I shit sunshine.

I want to be friends with you maybe someday. We'll see. 

I feel like we never got to be just friends, I was always in love with you. But it's ok now.

Everything feels ok right now.

I know

It's really stupid but sometimes I'm mad at you after I have nightmares involving you.

Red squirrel in the morning.

I've decided that when I get home I'm going to start amassing a giant hair ball from all the hair that falls out of my head. This is one reason I hate having long hair. Seriously, if you run your fingers through my hair you'll come away with enough hair that you'd think I'd have a bald patch. 

It's a little ridiculous. I'm sure when it's short it falls out just as much but I don't notice as much because the little strands are smaller. Go figure. I'll probably cut my hair when I move so I don't have to wash it as much and I guess it makes me look cooler. Uh.

I can't wait to go home. I can't wait to start purging my room before I move to Richmond. I have a lot of things I'm not planning on taking with me.

And I can't wait to see my sister and Hunter and Seychelle. I miss home but I feel safe here. 

Things to save money for:

Bob Dylan with Ashley

Traveling

I also bought this really gorgeous dress before I left. I need to find someone fun to take me on a fancy date so I can wear it. Hmm.

=)

Ready, set, go.

p.s.

Sometimes I feel like the only states people are ever in is 

IN LOVE

NOT IN LOVE.

Tonight

Weirdly emotional.

Grandma and I watched the latter half of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and it made me cry a little. I've always identified with the Tibby character in a weird way. Not that I'm admitting to reading those books or watching the movies. No way.

Ahem.

Anyways. So then my grandma told me about how she feels responsible for my mom's weight problems and I was going to put the story on here but it makes me tear up a little so I guess I can't right now, it's probably for the better anyways.

But it makes me feel horrible, the way parents feel responsible for every little flaw you might have, like it is some shortcoming on their part. Sometimes I feel like I must be the heaviest weight on my parent's shoulders.

So we had a good cry fest over that and watched Girl With a Pearl Earring and now I can't sleep again but neither does my grandma so I guess it's a family trait.

My mom and my grandma seem to think I resemble Scarlett Johansson but I don't see it. Grandma says we make the same expressions which I'm a little offended by because she's always seemed a little dopey to me, but ok. I still think I look the most like Kate Winslet circa Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That picture makes me a little sad. 

I guess I'll turn off the light now and fight with these pillows for awhile.

love love love.

This photo. Taken by Kristen.

Old friend.

 

  

I still have polaroids of this little guy from the last time I was here. It looks like someone tried to remove him and their attempts were foiled. Tehehee.

My grandma made me download Picasa for photo editing and it's a lot better than iPhoto. I should be getting the whole Adobe Creative Suite soon when my grandma starts taking classes at RISD. Thank the lawddd.

Oh, stop it.

We'll see how long you can keep this one up. I'm getting really tired of the nightmares involving you. I think my brain is trying to purge you out. I wake up sweating and crying almost every night.

I would like to dream about this tulip field, if possible. That's my dream request, great subconscious machine.

Angst, I guess.

I often feel like a huge disappointment.

My grandma adores me, she thinks I'm so talented and beautiful and wonderful. 

I wish I could live up to everyone's expectations for me.

Sometimes people think I'm beautiful, but I'm really just like everyone else.

Sometimes people think I'm smart because I'm quiet, but I'm not.

Sometimes people think I'll amount to something, but chances are I will end up miserable just like everybody else.

I'm so young and already I've fucked everything up. I wish I could start over.

I look at my heart and it hurts. I look at my face and I'm tired of it. I look at my GPA and I realize that if I ever go back to school I'm going to have one hell of a time getting any college to take a chance on me. I look at my job and I realize how incompetent I am at it.

I'M 18 AND EVERYONE EXPECTS ME TO INSTINCTUALLY KNOW WHAT THE HELL I'M SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MYSELF.

No more space left on my flickr. I really need to buy a pro account or find a sugar daddy to buy one for me soon. Went to the Waterman building today in Providence where they have a huge collection of taxidermied animals, bones, insects on pins, and human skeletons. Needless to say, I took a bunch of pictures.

Stupidly weepy today. I didn't sleep well, I had horrible nightmares about a certain someone and about going home and finding that my whole family had left without me. And also about crawling through very tiny spaces and getting stuck. That happens a lot in my dreams, I bet it has some deep subconscious meaning but I'd rather not give myself anymore reasons to think I'm crazy.

I'm scared to go home but I really miss it.

Cats

Never do what you want them to do. Luckily I'm used to this so I still get good photos anyways.

Lots of time to think.

If you asked me a direct question and wanted the truth, I would tell you.

Sometimes I think of questions I want to ask you.

I can't think of what's worse, thinking that you would lie to cover yourself or spare my feelings, or actually knowing the truth.

It's a tricky tricky thing.

In other words, today grandma and I rode bikes all around Warwick looking at the neighbor's animals. Lambs and cows and goats and llamas abound. It's so idyllic here.

It's kind of disgusting

How boys will lead you on for their amusement, make you believe that they love you, and then drop you in an instant if they find someone better (or more amusing). Or if they decide they just don't want to expend the effort anymore.

I've also found that a lot of guys fall in love with an idea, especially when they're far away from you. Suddenly all of your faults disappear and all they can think about or focus on is this perfect ideal they've made of you, and how much they want you and can't have you. Absence makes the heart grow fonder I suppose, but it's not realistic. It's just another form of idol worship.

It's so strange how girls will pine away for weeks after the end of a relationship and most guys are out that night, pretending it never happened. 

I guess I'm a little jealous. Being emotionally invested never seems to pay out in the end but I can't pretend like other people that I'm perfectly fine. I've never fit into our culture of denial or approved of it. 

My mom always told me, it's ok to cry. 

I'm figuring this out as I go along.

My grandma's father. This picture is hand painted and gorgeous to see in person. I'm lucky it scanned so well because we couldn't take it out of the glass. 

It's interesting to me how people used to dress up as Native Americans and cowboys and things for serious pictures. Or in one of my older posts I have one of my grandma's brothers on a pony. People used to come around with ponies and little cowboy hats and they would take your picture for a small fee. We should start that again.

Annie Blakely

A distant relative. She sang opera in Ireland and as an old lady she walked to the bus stop every day during the week to go to work even though she had shingles.

My grandma has a huge wealth of wonderful old photos. She's going to scan some for me so look forward to more family photos. We couldn't scan this one for obvious reasons.

You only miss me when I'm gone.

Is this how it is?

Consider

The finer points of fuck you.

Today I proved that I can do things by myself. I feel very accomplished.

I think maybe you're going to do one of your horrible vindictive things again. Or maybe you just don't care. I don't know how I feel but I'm too far away to do anything about it so helpless and crappy is a good way to begin.

Oh well. THIS IS GOOD FOR ME.

I'm happy to be in Rhode Island sort of. I really miss my mom. And of course I packed shorts and tank tops and skirts and this week is really rainy and miserable. We probably won't even get a chance to go to the beach but we're going to a reptile museum and the zoo and RISD so that's ok. I'm borrowing my grandma's sweater and it's nice.

Going to see my grandma's art show tomorrow and probably traipse about Providence which is one of my favorite things to do. Plan on taking lots of pictures as usual. Providence has the best graffiti, going into the city and inside of it.

Adieu for now. I just feel really weird. And my nasal passages and eyes are exploding because I'm allergic to my grandma's cat Hobbs who felt the need to sleep on my chest for hours while I was lying on the couch watching baseball. I think she senses how messed up it is in there. 

You tell me.

"capricious but corrosion resistant, i want to taste you. i plead, don't keep your distance, but don't corner me. fuck myself, sycophant, unjust. a blank stare at piss and vomit on the floor, doldrums are commonplace. abandon me, clemency death."

Maybe we could just write poems forever instead of actually talking. We bring out the worst in each other and we're both a little in love with the worst of ourselves. I just feel tired.

Good bye. I hate how we realize too late how amazing some people are. But I guess it's better than never realizing at all.

I need

my son bobby.
Originally uploaded by salmonnn

More of this but we're all going away.
Ben and Harrison lived across the street from each other when they were babies. Even after Harrison moved to Washington and Florida they ended up together again.
Maybe I believe in love.

I love my brothers, riding on either side of me, protecting me from the streets of Norfolk.

"Good night.

I love you, you piece of shit."

Time takes care of the wound, so I can believe.
You had so much to give, you thought I couldn't see.
Gifts for boot heels to crush, promises deceived
I had to send it away to bring us back again.
Your eyes and body brighten silent waters, deep.
Your precious daughter in the other room, asleep.
A kiss "Goodnight" from every stranger that I meet.
I had to send it away to bring us back again.
Morning theft, and pretender left, ungrateful.
True Self is what brought you here, to me.
A place where we can accept this love.
Friendship battered down by useless history,
Unexamined failure.
What am I still to you?
Some thief who stole from you?
Or some fool drama queen whose chances were few?
Love brings us to who we need,
a place where we can save
A heart that beats as both siphon and reservoir.
You're a woman, I'm a calf.
You're a window, I'm a knife.
We come together making chance into starlight.
Meet me tomorrow night, or any day you want.
I have no right to wonder just how, or when.
And though the meaning fits, there's no relief in this.
I miss my beautiful friend.
I had to send it away to bring her back again.

-Jeff Buckley "Morning Theft"

Affairs of the <3

This whole "my heart has a prior engagement thing" has got to stop.

You know, where your mind and your body are like "yeah! let's go!"

but your heart is like "ehh sorry, I have a prior engagement to attend to."

In other news, I have turned into one of these kinds of people

<<<<<<<<

Tragic, I know.

Feral kitten.

We called him Hootie and fed him bits of chicken and pulled pork. He'll probably be dead soon, but at least he had one good meal before he departed. Sometimes you can't get too sentimental. 

I hope his soul is recycled into a rich little boy who eats nothing but pate and caviar and petit fours and has parents who spoil him rotten with affection.

Texts I sent Pearl at 3 in the morning even though she was asleep.

3:34 AM: today when i was eating at the party it was just sort of mindless you know? like it was good but i was just shoveling it into my mouth. until i had one of those cupcakes. i seriously enjoyed that thing. like my mouth was shuddering with pleasure. luckily i ate the last one. these are the sorts of things i think about pearl. at 3 in the morning when i can't sleep. my sexual mouth love for cupcakes.

3:37 AM: ps there's a bug in here. he keeps flying around my ear. at first i kept swatting him away but i think he's trying to tell me something.

3:37 AM: hopefully where i can locate more cupcakes. mmmnomslurp.

3:39 AM: la la la la la. la la. la la la. la. la. LA LA LAAA.

3:43 AM: i think a firefly saw macbaby's flashing light and now it's in my window trying to seduce her. wow i'm so bored i'm using 's. next i'll start capitalizing.

3:44 AM: I mean, there is no excuse for boredom but what the hell am I supposed to do at 3 in the morning? Tell me, I'd like to know.

3:44 AM: ps bug bit me. no longer friends.

"My mouth dried and I pretended to keep smiling. Why do we pursue information that we know will never leave our heads? I was inviting a permanent, violent guest into my home. He would defecate on my bed. He would shred my clothes, light fires on the walls. I could see him walking up the driveway and I stood at the door, knowing that I'd be a fool to bring him inside. But still I opened the door."

-Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly from How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers

Party monster.

Originally uploaded by salmonnn

I DON'T WANNA

BE IN LOVE ANYMORE.

Frustration.

Even though I am a hundred different people I will never be enough for you.

My head is fuzzy from lack of sleep. Soon I'll start seeing things. This hasn't happened in awhile. It's just too hard to dig myself out of the hole at this point. I'll just keep going deeper. Nobody cares and even if they did they wouldn't be the person I want to care. 

I just want to be wanted.

And I want to make good art damnit fuckk shittt. I've been making some lately and I'm really proud of it and than later I realize just how shit it is. 

I think I'll go fill the void with Urban Outfitters and than beat myself up later for spending all my money on shoes.

Cut you open

And put baby sea horses in your stomach.

Clean.

I am

Very lonely.

I must always have someone or something. Everything I am feeling has to be projected onto something smaller than me or someone more fucked up than me so I can feel like I'm helping myself.

I'm good, I'm gone.

I wish

I could go back to the time when I felt what I was supposed when I was supposed to.

You are kind to me and not so bad looking, I like you. There is a possible love interest.

You hate me. I am sad.

I've done shitty things to you. I feel bad about it.

That is not fair. I am angry.

I still feel so naive in so many other aspects. I miss my simple emotions.

Picking magnolias in the morning dew.

Who I Would Like To Meet:

THESE SHOES. HOLY SHIT.

i really hope they're flats. really really.

Apparently

The womb is a finding mechanism.

This statement will make anyone, besides my mother, in my immediate family fall to the floor laughing.

News flash: Never trust ANYBODY.

The only person in this world I have full trust in is my father.

I might be the mother of a bitchy lovebird with a rotting wing. She adores me, though. Almost all of my animals, with only two notables, have been assholes who only like me. I guess I'm going to continue the trend.

I might consider writing a book. Thanks to Hunter for the idea. I'll be sure and put you in the acknowledgements. 

I worry a bit about this idea though. I'm pretty sure a lot of people will hate me if I actually write this book. But the way I see it, it's only from my view point, and I pretty much see the world through a black haze of cynicism and pessimism, so it shouldn't really matter to the rest of you apparent optimists who just love EVERYTHING and EVERYONE and EVERY DAY IS A MIRACLE while you run over turtles in your SUVs and backstab the hell out of your friends.

....see what I mean.

Tomorrow: plant burglary.

Coming

and going.

The kinds of things I think about before I can't sleep.

A house with three walls. That's what this feels like.

When I was little my family seemed to collect a maudlin variety of stray animals. To this day I still do this, with people. It always ends badly. Little disappointed deaths.

One day my dad brought home a kitten he named Tuffy. We kept Tuffy in a box at night to sleep. Early in the morning he would begin to mewl piteously. I was the only one that heard him. So every morning for the short duration that we had him I would go to his box, scoop him out, and cradle him to my chest as I rocked him in our rocking chair. He would stop crying. 

The rocking chair is long gone.

One day as we were leaving the house my mom gasped in this horrible way that she often does. Few things really faze me anymore but my mom possesses this amazing ability to gasp and instantly make my stomach drop. She's always had this power over me,

So she gasped and we all looked and my cat, Q-Tip, was coming around the corner of the house with a baby rabbit in her mouth. My mom ran over and took it from her. Unfortunately its spine was broken but it was still alive. I hated my mom a little for this. If she had just let Q-Tip continue on with her grim business it would have been out of its misery. 

It lived for 2 1/2 days, cradled in a nest of sheep's skin and kale, its tiny heart beating rapidly any time someone touched it or my sister and I bumped carrots and lettuce against its little teeth, trying to get it to eat, do something. It died in my lap. I was the only witness.

I have witnessed many deaths of animals. For this reason I'm not allowed to have rats as pets anymore. 

The worst death was the death of my pleco though. I can still smell the sickly sweet scent of the water which clung to my pores for days afterwards. 

"..we've settled back into a congenial routine, one that reminds me of that first couple of months we were dating. After weeks of not talking, it seemed now, in some ways, like we had just met. But a different kind of first impression. More like we'd just met through friends who had warned each of us about the other one. Told us the dark secrets we should know about each other. And now we're not so much overlooking them as we are looking past them."

-from I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

I'm willing

To change the very fiber of my being for you

to change to make you happy

I just

need you.

I wish we could go back to December.

It's not healthy but it's the only thing I can do. I can't understand it. You're like a drug to me and I'm going to keep sticking the needle in until I can't anymore.

One of the best days of my life.

I was not happy when I woke up this morning.

My parents' new obsession has been bonsai gardening. I was dragged halfway unwillingly (I'm open to new things for the most part) to a bonsai society meeting at the Botanical Gardens on Friday and, quite frankly, I was bored out of my mind. Gardening is one of those things I've always felt like you can read a million books about or see a million pictures of, but unless you've been on your hands and knees elbow deep in delicious dirt you don't know the first thing about it. So sitting around for 4 hours (I'm not kidding) watching a power point presentation about miniature trees was somewhat akin to hell on earth for me. But I always try to take something from every experience so I payed attention as much as possible. While consuming all the strawberry filled cupcakes.

While I was pigging out on aforementioned cupcakes I was approached by a lady named Jane. She asked me if I was interested in bonsai and after figuring out that I was she offered to give me some of her plants because she and her husband both didn't have long left on this earth and were planning on moving to the mountains, leaving most of their possessions behind. We planned to meet at a man named Ronnie's house on Sunday. Well, loosely. I gave her my number and address and expected honestly to never hear or see from her again, given my general lack of faith in all mankind.

Until she called me.

So this morning my dad roused me from my bed (no easy task) and off we went, sprouts and small trees in containers all around me in the car while I stewed in tired irritation.

Upon arriving to Ronnie's house my mood lightened immediately. He honestly has the best house I have ever been in or around in my entire life. Little trees in various states of bonsai mutation were everywhere, there was a forest of bamboo, a koi pond, and creepy beautiful little oriental statues and parephanelia everywhere. Inside his house was a mass of tools, baskets, guns, oriental art, taxidermied animals. My heart sang a creepy little song and rubbed its hands together.

I met so many nice people. They took me under their wings and immediately handed me a pair of scissors and instructed me to start chopping. Obviously they didn't know me very well and I was more than happy to oblige. Luckily, I didn't fuck anything up and honestly they were all so patient they wouldn't have minded.

I love the elderly.

At one point one very old man who didn't say very much the whole time (Jane's husband) waved me over. I wandered over expecting him to give me some insight on bonsai this or bonsai that but instead he hobbled farther into the backyard and pointed into the field behind the house. There was a deer and her fawn. He thought I would enjoy the sight, and I did. 

It's the simple things. I always come back to them. The feel of dirt in my hands, tenderly bending a branch back with wire, sitting in the sun, seeing a wild animal from afar, an encouraging word from someone who knows stores of endless information that you are lucky enough to have access to.

What a fucking amazing day.

But

I love you.

Fuck

Everything.

This is not a game, my heart is on the line.

Trust me trust me trust me.

Lovesick.

Don't know why I do this to myself. Come home soon.

Dream

It was a really long dream but sadly I only remember the latter half of it. Basically we were at this airport and there were all of these cats everywhere and we were trying to save them so we had these blankets and were covering millions of cats in our laps. They were really cute and were lying all spread out over our thighs and stomachs and I was doing a really good job of pretending not to care that I was getting all scratched up. It hurt, even in my dream.

Then you started telling me about this cat that lived in this old house that was really ugly, he was a horrible pinkish orange color and he was HUGE and he liked to eat all the other cats and sometimes people and I could see it in my head really clearly and then all of a sudden he was there all tangled in my legs and I was crushing it and it was mostly a carcass anyways so it was really easy to kill but it was still really scary but you were impressed.

Then we were at my old house and my mom and I were in the coat closet and I had this old photograph of an orchestra and everyone looked the same and it was in pieces and I was trying to match the pieces up. And she wanted me to write a letter to Angelina Jolie but I kept spelling her name wrong. And she wanted me to fill a plate full of chocolate that we had in the closet but every time I would get some to put on the plate I would just eat it and I felt really sick but I couldn't stop. And everyone was playing baseball in the living room and I went over there with my little plate of chocolate and you came over and picked me up and said, "this is my lady and I love her and she's the only lady for me." Than you carried me over to the closet and basically never mindddd those chocolates and that orchestra.

I don't understand, but it was interesting nonetheless.

monster

Originally uploaded by salmonnn

She holds a smile

Like someone would hold a crying child.

The distance will kill me.

6-26-2007

'I feel like a wraith moving slowly around my house, consumed with myself and closed from the world. Sometimes I think my physical body stays in my bed and it is my soul that goes wandering. Maybe that's why I just want to go home all the time, so they can be reunited.'

^^^^ date.

I've been in a pretty good place lately. I feel like I've finally found my real friends and weeded out the impostors. No fun. I'd like to be like Eleanor Roosevelt and find the goodness in everyone, and I do, some people are just not ready to let that part of them come to the front. And that's ok. Everything people do is in self defense, for some stupid reason. We're all wounded animals. It's ok. I understand.

Recently things with you have been feeling nicely uncomfortable. You make my tummy hurt a little and make me weak in the knees. That's ok. I kind of feel like we've started over. Hopefully. Maybe. I miss those days. I miss our first kiss and my helpless naivete. And muffin and cupcake and love bear and lady bear and all of our silly things. My fingers are crossed but I'm willing to work for this. I'm not just going to rely on my superstitions and blind faith anymore.

Speaking of faith, my faith in photography has been restored. This is still what I want to do. I'm going to do it some day, no matter what. I mean I do it now (EVERY DAY) I just hope one day I can get paid for it. Work work work love love love.

Thanks Jeremy for checking out my blog. =) I'm going to start posting more work oriented blogs. Next blog: Things NOT To Do At a Book Store EVER Unless You Want To Die.