Second Annual First Day of Skirt!

You guys, you guys! I've been looking forward to this day since last year!! It really might be my new favorite holiday ever and I hope it continues to be a part of my year forever basically. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, go look in February and read the original post.

Today I realized something else. I've also had this blog and have been posting on it at least once a month for over a year now. Samm and I were discussing these very sort of markers recently. How your nails growing out can help you keep track of how long you've been dating your boyfriend. How a scar on the knee can outlast the person with which you got it. How the mundane can somehow become meaningful.

It bugs me that I've been so scarce in the bloggin' world this year. I'm positive my writing suffers from it. But it's a good thing too. It means things are changing. That I'm busy-- less "too much in the head," more "out in the world". When first day of skirt was established, it was a declaration, an act of resistance. It was my way of saying, "That's it. I'm done being miserable. I'm done feeling inadequate and sorry for myself." This year, it's a celebration. It's a marker of a whole year in which I've taken an active role in staving off "ye old depression" as my sister put it recently. (I personally move that we all refer to it as such, although "the blue devils" ain't bad either). And I'm so incredibly proud.

That's the wonderful thing about the days we imbue with personal importance, of ritual. Which by the very definition implies sameness, repetition. From this fact they derive meaning. But they are also about change, hopefully growth. Ritual is as much about sameness as it is about the vital difference that makes this year not the same as the last, and if we're lucky, better.

Canonizing Delerium

I'm snuggled up in my favorite corner window watching you smoke that cigarette like oxygen hurts your lungs and this is the only easy breath you've had all day. This corner is my small salvation, a place to quickly dump the trucks of brains onto the counter for a second and look at them before I gather myself back up again. Like I do everyday.

You have specific ideas about poetry, and about music and that's a fact. The only fact, because you're no more right than I am about Billie Holiday. Your words sound like fists against brick walls. Mine sound like the electrical pulse that won't let you forget you're are alive each second, and always hooked into some kind of machine. Yours sound like flowers blooming for spring too soon. Eager, lonely, dead where they stand.

I'm captivated by the sound of a lone voice echoing in the wrong auditorium. Or the way people apologize with their looks when they've been caught speaking aloud to themselves. With any luck, I'll strip myself down to such sounds, such looks. I will be caught always in that moment of naked truth. Without composure. With any luck, I'll never be composed again.

Of parts. I am composed of parts of people and places and ideas. I am nouns nouns nouns. You have breathed over twenty breaths. You will keep breathing them and breathing them, and inhaling smoke until I'm not there to remind you its happening. And one day we'll both stop breathing, and all we can say to each other is

Sorry you had to see me like this.

Been a while...

Hey there blogosphere. So sorry to leave you hanging for a month. We'll get right to it shall we.

I took every precaution. I got my room in order. Cleaned my whole house. All of that. All the things that I didn't get to do really before the start of last semester. All this in order to feel like my whole world wasn't afloat, a lot of balls in the air and both hands tied behind my back.

The trouble isn't the physical, it seems. My thoughts elsewhere, always. They're where the future is, near and far away, where things are better or I am better. Or worse sometimes too. Or with some boy who isn't answering his phone as immediately as I'd like. With my doubts and fears and anxieties. With my empty belly because I'm too cheap to buy a decent meal and too lazy to make one.

Still, it's better. We do the best we can. And I've gotten this far on an empty belly, and an empty wallet, and less than a full night's sleep.

I can do it again.

How to Procrastinate and Feel Good About It

Once again, we have come to "that time of the year," Finals Week. In my opinion, radio stations should hold off on the Christmas music for just a little while and stick to only power ballads and inspirational songs. And also, it's worth mentioning that I consume far more sweets, salty snacks, and generally terrible foods when I'm too busy freaking out to eat normal things. So maybe our holiday baking should be geared towards that sort of thing for a bit as well.

Aaaanyways, seeing as we'll all most likely be procrastinating a good bit more than studying in the coming weeks, I decided to compile this helpful list of ways to procrastinate while still feeling (remotely, and if you squint your eyes a little) productive.

1. Hygiene: Now this may sound a little weird, but really, when was the last time you flossed? Have you plucked your eyebrows recently? Is it possible that you need to trim your nails? Gents, No-shave November is over. Shave like you mean it. Ladies, paint your nails, or do some sort of face mask/ conditioning treatment. Pumice your feet or something. Basically, do anything that takes longer than usual. 

Reason why this might actually be a good idea: This entire process has the added benefit of making you feel super awesome and really ridiculously good looking the next day. I'm about to sound like a Cosmo, but I feel like I do better on tests when I feel confident.

2. Watch that art film you've been meaning to watch: Instead of watching Jersey Shore of Cake Boss or My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, watch something that you can name drop later instead. You probably already have some pretentious film-snob friend that you can ask for a recommendation so I won't try to give you one from my limited knowledge. Just make sure to ask for a long one. 

Seriously though, movies have an end in sight. At least if you allow yourself one full-length film, you won't end up watching a marathon Law & Order event or something. 

3. Excercise: Whaaaattt? If you know me at all you know that I'm not pro-moving when you don't have to. But I feel like this is a worthy cause. GC kids, you could always take a trip to the new health center and try out that lazy river. Then maybe you can ease yourself into the idea of actually getting on a machine. Plus, I'm told that exercise relieves stress. It might be the break you need.

4. Clean: Really get in there. Dust. Mop under the furniture. Use bleach. Test all the pens in your home to see if they work. Throw out your leftovers. So this one is kind of a stretch, but it's easier to concentrate in a clean environment.

5. Read the news: If you're gonna surf the web, you might as well be informed because of it. Go check the major online news sources: New York Times, BBC, NPR, whatever you fancy. Maybe stay away from Yahoo celeb news though. If it's got more pictures than words try something else.

6. Write a blog that helps others: (wink, wink)

Now for a short list of "absolutely-nots."

• Unless you really can't stand Pandora, don't make a "study playlist." Laboring for hours on that thing will not be worth it in the long run no matter what you tell yourself.
• Big one. Facebook, once a day, preferably in the morning before classes. 
• Don't watch Buffy. This is more for myself than anyone else, but stay away from your guilty television pleasures. 
• And for the love of God, do not Stumble, and do not get on Reddit or Pintrest or Youtube or Hulu. Do that shit in your free time. Your entire month of delicious free time. 

GOOD LUCK!

Not moons

I've been meaning to write a poem about the moon

and how you call me the moon and

how I always imagine it hanging, bobbing

like an apple in my pale abdomen;

shifting, and the tides of my body shifting with its pull.

But, if I am the moon, you are the darkness I hang in. 

It has nothing to do with the color of your skin or

the pallor of mine. 

How could it? But,

You tell me that I'll regret you.
Maybe that's true,

And then we'll both learn, re-learn
An ancient truth. Regret

passes, just as everything.

And here, in this space,

I crave the darkness of our regret 

And the deep, deep darkness of your eyes,

The black specks of freckles under them,

The void both our souls are hanging in--

like stars.

Not moons.

Glisten

It's a trance,

where the scenery becomes no more than

colors and sensation:

the glistening water-- merely glisten

the sound of birds-- only sound

sweetness without fullness,

an empty depth

a turning inward.

It's moving so slowly here--

the breeze on the lake

the air from my lungs

the trees toward sky

It is calmer than the calm we learn to distrust.

Softer than a lover's breath in your ear.

More meaningful than the profound, dignified silence of empty rooms.

I'm writing with a pen that feels broken,

gathering together spare parts I always felt belonged.

They say,

all matter in the universe is expanding, pulling apart.

I used to feel that way too.

Now, I feel myself coming back together.

Each glisten and sound,

upward pulling tree

inward reaching sigh

--together.

Sweater Weather

"It's September! That means that it is time for you to get the fall version of SPRING FEVER! Doesn't everyone on the street look so good you could just eat them! But you shouldn't. That is just your brain having problems. You do not really want to eat them, probably! Probably you just want to get to know them so well that you can kiss, and then kiss maybe again and again until it is time to stop kissing and you can just go about your business until you see someone even BETTER."
-Thank you Joey Comeau


It's easy to decide when Spring has begun. (Skirt day.) I've been trying to pick a similar self marker for Fall. I thought of Plaid Day, Jeans Day, Hot Coffee Day, Hat Day..... none of them were right. None rang true like First Day of Skirt. Fall, I guess, is a little more complex a feeling. Something busy and exciting, melancholic. Something equal parts fire and ice.


Every Fall I fall in love. Or something like it. Actually, it's nothing like love and a lot more like....orange. Orange skies and leaves. And breeze. Anyways, many people can attest to this fact. But this year is going to be different. I've never entered a fall all happily monogamous before. Always, single and sure of myself. Burning with some kind of self-generated steam heat. And coffee, lots of coffee. Call it what you will, someone always finds me in Fall. All bets are off this year. All traditional markers have experienced an upheaval.

We'll just have to see.