i can't help it if i'm still in love with you.

(older men)

i'm going to start writing every day. Dave Kelly said I should try it. Sitting down at the same time for an hour, and if nothing is there, then so be it. But if there is something, write it down. I already know i'm fooling myself. but perhaps, i can at least try.
i wish i had a typewriter that worked. my grandparents old one ran out of ink, and i don't know how to find ribbon that fits.
Dave had a mechanical typewriter, and they removed it from his office for an electronic one, then for a computer. He was pissed.
My nana used the typewriter, i think when her hands got too shaky to write anymore- or maybe she just liked the way it felt, maybe it reminded her of younger times. they ended up getting a computer too, I'm not sure how much they used it. It was in the little room next to the coat rack where my grandfathers old hat still hung when we went to clean out their house.

21st century woman

my tongue is numb from smoking two packs of cigarettes a day while writing.
i just spelled tongue wrong again tim.

five more days.
it's so close, but with so much more to do, it doesn't seem like it.
right now i'm writing this instead of writing a paper.

i heard a girl have an orgasm upstairs yesterday.
either she was an exquisite actress, or the ceilings are thinner than they should be.

what just happened.

Sitting at my desk writing and i hear someone going through the bottles in the hallway.
I immediately think it's some person trying to collect the bottles for money.
I wonder what's going on and look out the window, to see a man standing at my window. But i can only see his gloves because my window is right at the doorway.
He just stands there and I think he sees me because he doesn't move.
then he walks around and stands in front of my other window that leads onto the porch.
so i think he's trying to see me inside.

i go sit in my bathroom for a few minutes because there are no windows, meanwhile having a panic attack.
get courage to talk to fiona on the computer.

spondullicks: oh god. i think someone was trying to take the bottles int he hallway
spondullicks: that was so scary
spondullicks: and i was wondering what was going on
spondullicks: and looked out the window
spondullicks: and then he saw me
spondullicks: and then walked around the porch to see if he could see me in the house
spondullicks: holy fuck
spondullicks: i dont care if he takes them but jesus.
spondullicks: that freaked the fuck out of me
spondullicks: maybe i should leave a note.
spondullicks: how did he know the bottles were in here?
spondullicks: maybe it was someone from the landlord....ugh.

AND THE PUNCHLINE!

spondullicks: oh god. i think it was.

look outside again.
and guess what?

it's the guy that does the work for the house.
he was getting a RAKE from the cabinet in the hallway- which explains the bottle noises.
and he probably stood on the porch looking around because it is so messy with other bottles and a turned over ashtray.

THIS is what imagination can do in a five minute period.

I'm so awake now after that incident.

i'm also an idiot, obviously.

i feel sick.
in the ihavenoideawhati'mdoing way.
I just had a painful meeting with my fiction professor.
Not because of her, but because i feel incapable of interaction.
i had to stop myself from crying in her office. i just don't like
when people can see vulnerability and when i can't help but show it.

holy mess.

complainer disclaimer

I feel very overwhelmed with all of the work I need to do in the next three weeks.
I know I can get it done, but having these things hang over my head is both frustrating and obnoxious.
It's also upsetting because I won't have very much time to see Tim, and he is one of the few things that makes me feel better and not so dragged down by everything.

i have to remind myself that i will have a month away from this obligation after these next 17 or so days.

i went to a wedding yesterday.
it was beautiful.
and then at the reception
I laughed a lot.


i just want to watch a movie with you.

*hiatus*

i talked to sara on the phone just now.
she's stuck in the airport on delay.
it made me feel a little better because we
are feeling similar and she has a contagious laugh.

I think i'll go to sleep extrememly early,
and then wake up early in order to be more alive to do my work.
the c-brain functions better hyped up on coffee and cigarettes in the a.m.

feel sad.
miss you already.
want you to walk through the door.
you're on your way home.

i just partially finished an art piece for critique tomorrow.
it's terrible.
i lit it on fire- so now the edges are burnt off and ugly.
i just heard someone say "it smells like smoke down here."

weekend:
tim.
he watched me throw up.
(well. because he was making sure i was o.k.
i thought it was romantic.)
i feel out of control lately.
he's one thing that makes me feel better
even though i'm out of control at him sometimes.

i'm confused about why i do things that i do.
but i also don't want to sit down and figure it out.

get it together girl.

it's a quiet day.
raining softly. i wanted to say the rain seems smaller today. i feel small today.
a whisper of an afternoon.
you know when you don't feel like you could possibly laugh,
and when you do it's surprising and doesnt seem like it belongs to you.

i think part of the reason why i don't like coming back to school
is that it somehow tends to make me feel inadequate. points out the flaws that i have and makes the ones i already knew i had seem more pronounced. it's frustrating and self-absorbed, but not a hollow feeling, which in a way is better i guess. it's not nothing.

but it's also good to be back.
here in this house
with the girls that were sorely missed when i was back at home.
and i do learn something new every day even if it cant be expressed in words.
every single person can teach you something
i honestly believe that
even if it's how not to be an asshole.

i teach my first class tomorrow.

the Housesit.

"come over to my house"
"your house or the house-sit house?"
"my house!"
"the one on linden?"
"yes."
"that's not your house"
(( it is right now))


The room i stayed in and (above above) the hallway leading up to it.

this is juante. he kept me company for two of the days i was at the house. we talked in British accents, tried to do wheelies, and ate peanut butter and jelly together. I told him he would be a heart breaker when he was older, and i know he will be. he seemed to think the opposite though.


I'm not sure why I didn't take a photograph of the house. it was beautiful and the backyard smelled like my grandparent's house in chicago. I made dinner and breakfast either alone or with justin or tim with different ingrediants from the garden (basil,tomatoes) and we always ate on the porch. I spent a lot of time on the porch watching people walk by (that's how i met Juante) and reading.

I rode my bike around the city too, and i wish i could do that always.
everything is so close.

&
yesterday
the sky was on fire.

read this.

"what is the what" by dave eggers
is absolutely amazing & heartbreaking-
it's one of those where it's so hard to believe
because of how safe we are here- so disconnected from
war and yet we know it's all true.

the novel is about Valentino Achak Deng's life during the war in sudan as a young boy and the group of boys he traveled with across sudan to ethiopia
(called the Lost boys)

this website talks about eggers' trip to sudan with
Valentino Achak Deng among other things
(also all of the proceeds of the book go to a foundation in Sudan
to help provide educational opportunities)

http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/blog/?p=37


also, coincidentally, i watched a documentary on some of the
children that were abducted by the rebel forces in sudan and forced to join.
the stories were horrific, and the children were so strong.
there was this one really beautiful part where the
youngest of the boys they were following in the documentary started singing a hymn
that he had learned from other prisoners. i couldn't stop crying. i wanted to grab him and kiss him on the forehead and never let go.



we have no idea. we can never fully understand.

the house-sit.

good.

quiet & slow with getting up early
sitting on the front porch in the sun
and mostly being alone.
making dinner with tomatoes from the garden.
riding the bike around the city
and walking the dog through mount hope cemetery.
"what is the what" by dave eggers.


not-so-good-but-we-move-on.

the dog ate the crotch out of
a pair of underwear and my bathing suit
(she has anxiety issues).
and tim confirmed my thoughts about how the
upstairs hallway looks like it was in 'the shining'.

these two.

jana & diane.
i have this intense anxious feeling that has settled itself in my thighs and the bottom of my stomach. and it gets worse when i lie in my bed and allow myself to think.

washington d.c. in short:
it took 8 hours to drive there. it was a rather pretty drive. the windows were down and it was over 95 degrees in the car most of the ride.
we stayed at trinity college, in small dorm like rooms with couch-beds. not to be rude, but i can't imagine this being a home for a year or longer for the students who attend. anyone would or could go insane staring at the wall. the campus was very nice though, with old stone buildings and everything was very green.
here we are eating at a mexican restaurant (the first night). we were told it was very close to a metro stop, but then found out (through experience) that it was actually a 45 minute walk away. fiona and I walked a little ahead of the group and talked about many things. we were all very sweaty by the time we arrived and drank loads of water.
the food was very good, but for some reason made me sick to my stomach. i threw up twice.
emily and alicia are in this photograph. we got to know them over the trip. really nice & pretty ladies. they go to school with us in geneseo.


we also went to this cafe/ book store that looked incredibly small from the outside but was actually very large when you walked through to the back. we were seated directly behind a man who played guitar and sang cover songs and we ate a very interesting dessert of pear and cinnamon ice cream. our legs stuck to the seats. it was very warm in there. winston, you would have liked this place, in a watch people sort of way.

( waiting for the metro.)

we also went to the portrait gallery, which was very cool too. some of our favorites were l.l. cool j,
gertrude stein, f. scott fitzgerald, and the modern art section.


skip ahead a little bit and we decided to part ways. two went to George town, one went to her sisters, and the other three took a metro to the Mall, where we looked at the monuments late at night. fiona was determined to be in the presence of abe, so we walked a good distance in order to say hello.

(fiona and emily with abe.)

so. in between all of these little outings, we attended a peace conference.which consisted of panels and little lectures based around the situations in Iran, Iraq etc. Oil, and our government. some of them were incredibly interesting- especially, i thought, the woman who spoke about Iran and the connections to the oil companies in the United States and the way in which our government tries to 'secure' the oil supply in order to maintain control and make billions in profits (see: war in Iraq and movements towards Iran). our government, as it stands, makes decisions in order to pander to these companies (since many in the bush administration are connected to these companies, they make a profit as well). these are things i guess i already knew in a way, but it helped to have it repeated and confirmed with statistics.

this makes it all the more pressing to get candidates into the house/senate that do not support these types of policies. it's devastating that we have a government (the administration) that does not care about it's people, or honestly, any other people either. so vote & tells others to as well- and get them out of there.

so. the ride home was pretty and dangerous. it was raining hard at times, but the hills were steaming and the wind was carrying the fog up into the sky. home safe.

xo.
c

i often feel like my body is rejecting itself.
the sick to my stomach after eating.
my skin looking really terrible.
& awkward proportions.

i long for another swim
where i feel light
and clean.

today the little boy i babysit was trying to take apart a toy and he pulled too hard and it hit him hard in the lip.
he got frustrated and embarrassed at first and asked me if i would leave the room. in a few minutes he got over it but still wouldn't really talk to me so i said
"will, are you okay? why aren't you talking to me?"
"you let me get hurt."
"will, i didn't mean for you to get hurt. I would never want you to get hurt."
"you should have said, Will don't play with this toy, you might get hurt!"

(i wished i had that ability to see the consequences ahead of time)


i don't like feeling like im not in control
of my emotions or my body.
i'm not accustomed to this.
things are happening.
im watching them happen-
every one enter and exit.


i'm eating terribly.
and i'll probably only drink water if you set a glass
down right in front of me.
but i'm becoming friends with a four-year-old
seeing some interesting people at the voa
and i talked on the phone (for longer than 30 minutes) for the first time
in a very long time and tony told me to try and open up,
even if it's hard.
i might work on that.

the last ice cube.

addition:
i read this thing.
it said.
"i don't want to want"
and that's it.
exactly.

i feel sick.
i keep pacing around the house trying to think about what's going on
and every one is swirling around in my head. a huge mess.

you know when you are hurt by someone and feel like your being broken down into little pieces,
then realize you have done the exact same thing to someone else.

or when you convince yourself it's not you that's making things fall apart
but the other, and then suddenly somehow see it from their perspective and think
how it's so much more your fault than theirs.


and in that moment when you acknowledge this
when that flash of realization comes,

your heart stops.

so. as of today I'm watching a little boy named Will every monday & wednesday for the rest of the summer. He seems like a typical five year old. loves action figures, video games, and being outside. I think this is the perfect type of job for me (especially growing up with a nephew) and I feel pretty great about it.

i also rode my bike 11 miles today.

i don't know how to explain anything else that's going on in only a few words.
i think he might have said, "why do you have to make everything so complicated?"
but maybe i said that.

or possibly it was just a dream.

attic show.

Dasha played in Syracuse the other night.
everyone was friendly and seemed like they actually wanted to be there.
it was hot and we were all shaky from too much coffee and drenched in sweat by the time we finished playing. but it was so close to perfect.

wish this could happen more often.

i feel pretty okay right now.
i'm trying to let the high from this show keep me going at least for a few days, ie: sun--------------------->wed. or thursday.

there are things i need to do.

1)drink more rums & cokes
2) find a job
3) sell old and too sexy clothes
4) 'unholy mess of a girl '= laundry
5) paint anything.
6) dream about being pippi longstocking ( chk.)
7) finish dasha song-'how do we get out of this place?'
8) try not to lose my mind. or rather, hold on tight to little pieces of it.
9) blend orange juice with ice and drink it. possibly add champagne.
etc.
etc.

...

...

I used to be so good at spending time alone.
now,
it's harder than ever.
I think because i'm so dissatisfied with myself.
what to do with all of this time?

purposeless
and less
and less.

silly rabbit

silly rabbit 018
Originally uploaded by cievenn

"I need that sort of validation."-23

(don't lose yourself)

"i'm sorry i hurt you."-c

(don't let yourself be lost)

"So I really regret not being able to settle for being "OK", or things being nice between us, but that's just how I am."-23


"i just needed more time.
i'm selfish.
because i had all the time
and wasted it unknowingly,
mais c'est la vie."-c


hey mom,
winston isnt coming. just wanted to let you know.
long story short: it didn't end well.

but im okay,
coll



((turning into something else. slowly. it takes time.))

"I think you can get third degree burns from that shit"
"from what shit. fires?"
"no. from boiling hot water"
"just from water?"
"no. the steam. the steam can burn your fingers."
"did that just happen?"
"it just did."
"did it hurt?"
"it hurt a lot."
"more than me and you?"
"i think so."
"i don't want to hurt you."
"i know."
"not even a little bit."
"i know."
"i love you."
"i know that too."
"do you?"
"i try to know that."
"you're trying?"

"i'm trying."

in love.

"We sit and talk,
quietly, with long lapses of silence
and i am aware of the stream
that has no launguage, coursing
beneath the quiet heaven of your eyes"