incidentally, the only other person to read this blog today (besides me, while checking my sitemeter) was someone on the eop.gov server (waves, in case they come back.) Apparently EOP is executive office of the president. They were looking for redemption+song+novel, so I figure it's fairly run of the mill, but can anyone confirm the acronym / server for me? And I'm going to go back and check whether they read the entry two back. If so, I will indulge in a brief moment of panic.

love,
alex

This is terribly shallow of me, but who the hell needs 4,000 free email smileys? Please never use them while emailing me, whoever you are. I have just about come to terms with the happy and sad face. Anything else might kill me.

I am ready to be back at school. It amuses me that the busier I am, and the larger the number of people I'm around every day, the less likely I am to get sick. I think I get sick to give myself something to do during vacations. I know that school isn't real work, I know that. I want to remember in case next semester is harder what it's like to totally thrive on school, and what it's like for that to be everyday life. Wake up, roll over, put on slippers, cross the hall to class. I like it there. I want to be back there now.

alex

Talk of the Nation today on US Central American policy with Richard Feynman. NAFTA, CAFTA and back-patting that the region is no longer such a bloody mess (our-fault sort of bloody mess). Sometimes my country makes my skin crawl.

love,
alex

this video charmed my sister. I like it too, for all that it's an unexpectedly chipper change of pace for the makers. It's a lovely little peice of escapism. At the same time, I dislike that the setting is specifically identified as 1970. I want to believe that the escape to sunny hippie land is not nostalgia but a real accessible thing. Everyone always tells us how we missed the sixties. And what they're saying is: remember when we could leave?

love,
alex

BMI: 24.1. This puts me .9 points from 'overweight'. While I admit that I like how I look at this weight, I will also admit that very little of that is muscle (besides maybe the stair-climbing gluteals) and that I do believe that if I choose to concern myself with weight, exercise, and nutrition, the time to start getting in good habits is now, when I'm young and have a teenage metabolism and no achy joints. Also, to be honest, I'm scary enough in see-me-roar mode without looking like a linebacker on top of it. (simultaneously, I piss off enough mostly-male people in see-me-roar mode that I would like to be a little stronger and fleeter of foot.)

I hate how trying to loose weight always pits me against all this cultural stuff. How can I try to get skinnier without feeling terrible for accepting that skinny is good? On some level, aren't I internalizing either the skin-and-bones or the 6-pack hardbody ideals of my culture? How can I (as a person whose body type is usually in the medium range) go on diets and stuff without being an affront to the friends whose bodies are naturally round and look fine that way? If I no longer want to look like Winnie the Pooh, am I expressing some sort of hatred towards the me that has a belly and roundness under her chin? You think I'm exagerrating all this. I'm not. When skinny = good and chubby = bad culturewide, admitting that one wants to go from a little chubby to a little skinny amounts to admitting all kinds of normative values, and there's always that fear that one will slip into anorexia as the health classes have always warned. Because I think about things too much, I have never lost weight on purpose. At the same time, I will go to crazy lengths when I start loosing weight by accident. In Nicaragua, I refused to drink Gatorade for the first few days despite diarrhea and dehydration because drinking things with sugar might make me fat. This was enough of a warning of potential self-destructive behavior.

Then we get into the family, and the mother who's so happy every time I get sick and loose weight and then as I start to regain it watches me eat with an unhappy look on her face. (the mother that says things to me like, some day, someone will think that you're pretty and means to be encouraging.) We get to the sister - more cooperative then I am - who is simultaneously always being watched for signs of anorexia or buliemia and praised every time she drops a pants size. Who are we supposed to be, in this mess? I know I think about things too much. I know I've been alone in this house for too long. But how do I say I want to loose weight without dragging the world into it?

alex

I won't apologize for the constant shifts from }important{ to }shallow{ that my blog entries sometimes contain. Frankly I think it's a consequence of a media-saturated lifestyle where so much information comes at a person that a full emotional response to any of it would be maladaptive. (and I say this as someone who still struggles with such a response and sometimes overshoots avoiding it.)

I don't think I'll be living like this again for a while. My family comes back tomorrow morning, and I'm almost totally better. Next week I will walk to the bus stop and go places, because living in front of screens all day sucks.

love,
alex

official tally of US casualties in Iraq for the last 5 days. Though I've heard somewhere that these tallies may exclude people who later died of their wounds. Anyone have information on that?

Had a nice socialization and feel much better about the world. Also, my computer just downloaded an episode of the Simpsons in fourteen minutes. I love the internet.

alex

Sunrise over the pine-tree horizon, three deer running noisily through the power-line easement behind my house. A fat chickedee freezes in the tree overhead, staring down at me warily. The chill in the air could be a mountain morning in June instead of the hill country in December. How long has it been since I've seen an actual morning?

love,
alex

Yes, you read that time stamp right. As I'm writing this it's 5:04 in the morning. I went to sleep right after I wrote that last entry, so I woke up at three.

I hate the feeling that comes with being sick. It's this pervasive itchy stuffy feeling that translates into an emotion instead of a physical sensation. When I'm around people, I am suddenly claustrophobic and short-tempered. When I'm alone, I'm really really alone. It occurs to me that I haven't been by myself for any length of time since fall break, and even then I wasn't isolated, really. But even then, I never felt lonely like I do now.

When I lived in my old town I felt like this for months on end, when I had the cough that wouldn't go away. Now that I think about it, that's when I almost dropped out of school. I need to figure out how not to do this anymore.

love,
alex

Status: fever, lonely, cranky. I know why I'm sick and I don't want to face up to it. I wish I actually believed that illnesses are caused by exposure to germs. All I know is that, in general, I get sick when the life I want to live doesn't match the life I'm living. Maybe it's dietary, maybe it's stress-related immune suppression, maybe it's just that I subconciously sense germs and get cranky. Whatever. I am going to go lie down on my pallet in the living room and try to get better. Wish me luck.

love,
alex

This prompt borrowed from a writing group I don't belong to via Melissa. Hopefully no harm done.

Twelve people (or groups of people) whom I am grateful to have in my life:

1. The kids in my program at school, which has a cool name that I'm too paranoid to post. For being such awesome dirty hippies
2. My professors, for by and large getting it
3. My family, for putting up with an awful lot and still trying to muddle through the angst and be good to each other
4. My dog. For putting up with an awful lot and still being the nicest person I know
5. The local babies, for gurgling, drooling, staring at my face with half-focused eyes, spitting up, wailing, dirtying their diapers, and having brief adorable moments. I will also include, as a sub-catagory, all the preschoolers who are glad to see me. Having kids in my life is so important.
6. My mother's friend A, for lending us her extended family since we don't have one here
7. My collective, for giving me good work to do
8. My Miami people, and especially J, for being willing to love each other despite pepper spray and paranoia
9. My UU church, no matter where I am, for being my tribe.
10. Erin, for being a friend to come home to
11. My old youth group here, for always letting me come back to be young and silly with them
12. All of you, everywhere



Eleven things that I would put in a time capsule for me to open twenty five years from now:

1. An envelope of Miami pictures and scraps of my Solidarity ribbon in case I've forgotten to take risks
2. My handwritten songbook of young Unitarian songs
3. Pictures of the various local stands of trees that I'll miss
4. A picture of my dog
5. A letter to myself about who I want to be in twenty five years
6. I'd ask my parents and my siblings to write letters
7. One of my sister's trendy shirts, which will either be uproariously funny or awesome vintage that my children will fight over
8. Pictures of the various babies and toddlers in my life
9. A picture of my family
10. A recording of the kids in my program jamming on the front steps of the dorm
11. a copy of my Nicaragua journal and pictures


Ten things this past year has taught me:
(cryptic because my cold meds are wearing off)

1. That I am strong
2. That I can love people for being themselves and they will love me back in the same way
3. That I can help people but not everybody
4. That there is no substitute for being outside, even if it's cloudy and nasty and fifteen degrees with windchill
5. That I have to make decisions and they'll be hard
6. That fear is not my enemy but a way through, if I can understand it
8. That I am surprisingly capable academically
9. That I am a part of a hopeful something that scares me
10. That at the right point in time, you can throw yourself at the moment and use it to change everything


Nine things that hurt me or tested me in the past year or so:

1. Loosing all that innocence in Miami
2. A bit of disillusionment over a boy
3. Realizing that no matter who I can be to the rest of the world, my family will manage to bring out the worst in me
4. Pepper spray
5. Leaving my youth group in my hometown and feeling like I was leaving the Unitarian youth culture. I felt like I had no home in the adult church. It was also over this that I realized that I would get old and die eventually.
6. Realizing that I escaped being 15 but my younger siblings still have to go through it
7. Loving someone who can't be everything I need them to be. (common theme in humanity, anyone?)
8. Loving a world that just won't cooperate
9. Fear


Eight best books and movies I've read or seen this year:

Movies: The Red Violin, Tadpole
Books: _The Dispossessed_ and _Always Coming Home_ by Ursula LeGuinn, _Second Nature_ and _A Botany of Desire_ by Michael Pollan, _The Harder They Come_ by Michael Thellan, and I'll throw in _The Tao of Healing_, even though I only read half of it sitting on the bookstore floor.

Seven things that I've done to make the world a better place this past year:

Oo. I hate virtuous bragging.
1. Decided to go to an affordable (heh. well, kinda) college so that I can work for an NGO instead of having debt to pay off after I graduate.
2. Gave up time and space to many people who needed to be listened to.
3. Stood face to face with riot cops for the sake of the rest of the hemisphere
4. Was a crying shoulder for nine people in police-state Miami
5. Dragged my friend Z to church at least four times, doing what I could for his hangover on the way. (he volunteered to go, it was just the actual making him get up sunday mornings that was tough)
6. Stayed vegetarian, mostly, though the vegan bit got away from me
7. Worked in my Collective to establish a political reading room in my town


Six things that I'd like the next few years to bring:

1. The collapse of 'free trade'
2. An NGO job for me in Nicaragua
3. A couple of worthwhile relationships
4. Good work to do in my town until I leave
5. Happy, whole siblings who choose colleges where they'll be happy
6. Transformation for the better, in general


Five gifts I'd like to give, were money (or laws of physics) no object:

Oh wow. I already listed those below, mostly. (I'm doing this thing backwards, in case you can't tell). So I'll mix it up a bit.

1. I'd like to be able to help people get their lives clear. I know I can do that, I've already done it, I just have no real idea of how.
2. Again, the Bus for my collective
3. I want everyone to suddenly disconnect _happiness_ and _stuff_, turn to their neighbor, and go, let's go sit on the front steps and tell really stupid jokes and laugh.
4. Again, my mother needs to go to Europe.
5. A private endowment for my program at college, so that it wasn't prey to university politics.


Four non-tangible gifts I'd like to get:

1. Never to loose the people who have made themselves our family here.
2. Some combination of realization, grief, repentance, enlightenment, and love both from and for 6,000 cops in the Florida area.
3. My country back
4. Happiness for the people I keep trying to help


Three tangible gifts I'd like to get:

1. Tickets to Cuba
2. Money to buy the Bus for my Collective
3. I want to send my parents on a cruise. It's a long story, but anyway a cruise never hurt anyone. On a cruise, or to Europe.



Two favorite holiday memories:

1. Night Christmas service in my church in my old town. The sanctuary lit only by our votive candles, and "Silent Night" rolling out through the dark and the light and the smell of parrafin and pine needles. I still have every year's candle in a box in my room.
2. In the fourth grade, I got a dollhouse. I know I shouldn't remember _stuff_, but on account of that dollhouse I had three more years of believing in Santa.



One thing that surprised me the most about this last year:

The person I can be came out of nowhere and startled the person that I am. Turns out that I am caring, social, diplomatic, capable of holding a group of people together, capable of facing down fear - not of ignoring it, but of facing it down. The best present of the year has been learning that every assumption I've made about myself is wrong.

Merry Christmas, y'all

love,
alex

I don't believe in 'all that there new-agey nonsense' except when it's true. Lying on my living room floor trying to relax the muscles in my back that never unknot, I can feel places in my body that alternately hurt and feel congested like a bad cold. The fact that these places match where chakras are on a chart perplexes me. The fact that, in my present situation, they are the seats of discomfort in my body worries me.

I'm only a little lovesick. It's good to be able to identify the feeling, a vague commotion of longings and lonelinesses and the odd random lust. I don't know what to do about it and I don't suppose I can do anything. There should be an at least here and I can't think of one.

love,
alex

That last entry might have been important, but it was also one of the worst-composed things I've written in a while. I've been back through it two or three times and I still can't get all the articles to agree. I have given up.

The first three days of silence - i.e. the part where I was still in the dormitory - were for Noble Reasons. I had three or four interesting days lived without the internet. It was good. However, since then, the silence has been entirely mundane. I have nothing to write about. My home life really does not bear close examining, containing as it does large quantities of sloth, wrath, and gluttony. Three mortal sins right there.

I did something to get my courageous life back today, though. I walked four miles into town, crossing the highway to get there. My right to pedestrianism is pretty important to me, and my whole neighborhood is terrified of walking anywhere, so I consider it a good accomplishment. I did end up wading through six lanes of oncoming traffic (the lights are set up wrong) but as you can see I'm alive. I just have to figure out how never to do that again.

I am still thinking about media exhibitionism, privacy, integrity, a whole raft of things. I am thinking of webcam kids, also, teenagers who covered their faces from the cameras in Miami. I am thinking about how some of the faces I saw there when safely inside buildings, will never be on any webpage or news station. The right to live your life unobserved is not something I ever really considered.

So many things. I can't decide whether I need to keep thinking or stop thinking or a little of both.

I wrote an entry that was eaten by Blogger about how I should keep posting, because thinking out loud is better then not thinking. I think I may stand by that. I just hope I can live up to my own standards.

love,
alex

This blog has saved me substantial money in therapy. See, I've been in and out of counseling for years (first visit, second grade), and every single counselor (except maybe the last) loved me. I had some scary phases, but for the most part I told them funny stories. I kept them entertained. That's what they were there for, so that I could tell someone the things going through my head. Just everyday stuff. You know. When I got this blog it took over that function and I was miraculously free of those once-a-week office visits. I might not know who I'm telling my story to here, but it goes somewhere. This is open-ended. Some anonymous someone hears me.

But what becomes the story?

The first night of this break from writing here, I started to keep track of how often I was thinking about blogging. It was a little worrisome. I would think about things before I did them, in the context of writing about them. I was scripting my life as the Alex Show. I am not a popular blogger by any means (three regular readers?) but it feels so good to be able to tell my stories that I came perilously close to making the story my whole life. The peril of the adolescent is doing things for appearances. I go so far as to remove myself from the public eye when doing anything important - watching the sun set, meditating, etc. - to keep them from serving my image. But here my whole life is in this imagined public eye and I need to be sure again that I do things for myself and not because they fit in well with the character I have constructed. Identity/presentability, nature/sociability, even the good old art/life, see, many complicated things running around in my brain. I may be posting and I may not for the next week.

love to each of you,
alex

breaking silence to brag: end of term GPA: 3.94. Hours taken: 15.

life is good to me.
alex

Oh, alex. When will you learn that if you dole out your heart in little bits, it just gets broken peice by peice instead of all at once? When will you learn that you can't tear your heart out of your body and offer each seperately and without entanglement?

With that little attack of adolescent angst, my media fast is starting. No computer, no lights, no radio. Sitting in the dark won't hurt me, but it might bring some hurts I've been trying to ignore to light.

And one last note to maybe explain - or not. Between Miami and finals, I've had to be Alex Lund, young diety to do everything. Now I'm just Alex Lund. Losing my superhuman stay-up-all-night solve all wrongs identity hurts, but I can't live like that when there's no need to, it would be stupid and self-destructive. So I'm seperating out of the world for a while. I'll feel better when I come back. Which will be around Tuesday, if I last that long.

love,
alex

Idea: from noon sunday (after church) to sunup tuesday, unplug every electrical device in my room. physically block myself from going to the computer lab. If I can stand the cold, open the window. If I need light, light a candle. Sit inside with a paper notebook or outside with my thoughts. Live in the dark for a bit.

we'll see if this happens. I think it had better.

love
alex

well crap. throat is swelly and words are hard to get out. I was hoping not to get sick. Off to drink tea. Bleh.

love
alex

So, everyone always goes, what sign are you? and I go, well, Aquarius I guess, and they say well, that explains it. And I go, wha?

Read this, the latter part. I don't believe in astrology, really. Except that it's right.

alex

midnight frozen winter woods (storm winds blowing) and a transforming feeling in the air. The rain came and melted the snow, then froze on the ground, so all these new streambeds run down the centers of the paths with water bubbling away beneath the translucent crust. Fell & banged my knee - stayed very still, and then sat up carefully and tried to focus on how much I loved and appreciated my knee and its continued functioning. Hoping the love and pep talk approach will work.

The surface of the pond arrowed with wind, all darts and rivets and fast-moving shapes transparent. I am so tired today. I am so alive and so happy today. The last exam is in and the winter woods are all around and I'm very happy to be here and alive and well.

rambling ends

love
alex

Just read Howl for the first time. I wonder if there's a great tradition of this-is-us writing. I wonder if I understand these people or if the self-destructive adolescence forever aspires to the brief seedy moment of rapture summarized in every line. I have little such history, just a brief attraction to the moment in the crisis zone. I have no such need to live hot bright and burning, but I have still a need to be so very alive...

I love finals. I know that I'll be okay, is mostly it, but I love the intensity. I have to be doing something to be a real person, I have to be busy, not just occupied but rushed, frenetic, desperate. That's life, that's throwing up a hand to the absent moon and going.

can anyone tell how late it is, how long I've been up (slept more than the dreadlocked child beside me, three days running-) adderal is the new speed. hallways blood vessels pumped rigid with a thousand different things.

I need to stop worrying. I need to just be. I just call and he answers.

i will write an essay about what is happening now later. Because right now, in fact, I am sitting in the computer lab watching a blueberry mac screen with the hum of the machines all around me while a black-haired boy rolls his dreads between his palms and reads Howl for the first time next to me. I am here.

love,
alex

Reading back through my archives - well, Miami did what I hoped it would. It woke me up again. How horribly boring the pre-protest entries always look to me! I'd forgotten that I said that, that I was going to Miami because I had to look this thing in the face. Yeah, I sure did. Wow.

I dreamed last night about my exfriend - remembered what a comfort they'd been to me the first month of school, realized how much of me cares about them. What do I do?

Gray rainy day. Four hours to my first final. I am going to reread some essays with a bowl of yogurt and kashi & try to stay calm.

Oh, incidentally, I caved and bought my first grocery store dairy in years yesterday (Stonyfield yogurt). It was certainly not the first dairy I'd eaten, just the first I paid for with money instead of my meal card. I wish I was at Warren Wilson. I really would have gone there for the food. And something that pissed me off: the veggie wing of the cafeteria was closed, so we all sat in the meat-eater wing (dietary segregation! fun!) and I noticed that a roasted pork chop was $1.19. I am paying $2.80 a bean burger. this sucks.

nothing like living in a hog farm state
mommy, why is the water chunky?

I think my future is a mainly vegan one. It still shocks me how much fat is in dairy products unless they're pretty processed. Vegan food, you can eat as much as you want of just about anything except sugar. Cheese and cream-top yogurt, you have to watch yourself. You can actually eat more than you need to. Add that to what anecdotal evidence I have about dairy and arthritus - well, all this typing means my fingers already get sore some days. I have to do what I can to stay healthy. But in the meantime, I'm hungry & I want some damn yogurt.

<3
alex

Watching the SF mayoral elections like some people watch football. I think I'm scaring the other people in the computer lab. This must be how one stays engaged in politics, by treating it like horse racing. I still think Gonzalez can win. Hopinghopinghopinghoping.

Incidentally, apparently Kucinich would be electable in Europe. WTF kind of wierd country do I live in?

97% of the precincts have reported in. I'm not saying he won't pull through.

alright
good night
alex

So.

Studied about three hours each for my two finals tomorrow. I'll study more in the morning, at least a little. Watched Bruce Almighty - a movie whose stupidity is neither profound nor incredible but simply very very typical - out of the corner of my eye while reading through the photojournal of a twenty three year old photojournalist stoned to death in Somalia.

You know what? I know I'm lucky to be me and not someone else. But some days I get f ckin sick of being singled out. I get sick of professors coming up to me in the hallways and asking me to take their classes. I get really sick of my mother treating me like a f ckin guru. Because every time they do it, my ego inflates a little more. Even here I'm half bragging, about the professors at least (it's only happened twice). I am not WISE. I am a KID. I need people around who swat my butt, buy me a beer, and tell me how stupid I'm being. I need a sarcastic aunt character. Alternately Mikey.

Saw the ex-friend. I don't think it will sink in for a while for either of us. I'm not sure they even got my message. Well, if they didn't, then after a few more snubs they'll track me down & we can have a real screaming confrontation. Whee.

Understand my sarcasm? Understand this bitter hope that I don't know.

Someone's definitely rearranged the top three Adbusters in the library. Hope springs eternal.

In the Bruce Almighty outtakes, a riot cop got whacked in the head with a rock. I don't feel as bad as I should feel for cheering.

drawing down a thousand things. Why hasn't he called? Am I really going to have to learn about getting my heart broken this time? I don't want to.

alex

dukkha: The world as pain and fear. Life as dread of loss rather than the appreciation of what is now.
source

occasionally buddhism has some really useful concepts. I wish I felt like I had time to study that side of life.

alex

Of course, I am tired, nauseaus, scared and nervous. I am also very happy. My brain is bouncing along cheerfully figuring out the world around me. Today walking back from the grocery store with an aching backpack full of exam food, the Bus that I lived on for ten days was in front of the new collective apartment, and E was throwing the windows open above the street. Today the world is bouncing along, slowly being figured out. I like this rapid-changing age, I think. I like learning who I am so fast and so gleefully. I don't mind being intellectually busy. I just wish my stomach was as happy as my brain.

love,
alex

I am inordinantly happy. Both of my papers are done with 2 hours to spare. All I have left to do is a little revising. I am in that state of get-it-done adrenaline burn. I am SO HAPPY. The sun is shining and the world is good.

I know where the crash is coming from. I just had to tell a friend that they'd done something morally unacceptable and that I was cutting them off entirely. I didn't want to do it but I had to. I had to send the email while I was feeling reckless, too, so I had to do it in the middle of being happy. I know that that was the equivalent of dumping someone over instant messanger, but frankly, I felt like being disrespectful in this case.

Off to revise that last paper and then crash. I hope the exfriend gets my IM before class. I have never done this to anyone before. I will feel like shit in a day or two.

love,
alex

And on the survey below, I revise. My heart has been broken, by a nine-year-old named Jose, in front of the national cathedral in Managua. How did I forget that?

alex

Another four hour meeting. Realized that in fixing all the love / terror / comfort of Miami on one person I do not have the residual adoration that I felt for my Nicaragua people as a whole. or at least that sounds like a good explanation. It should have been odd to be with all these people again, like it should have been odd to suddenly be in Miami with them, but it wasn't.

People kept saying, thank you alex for being so grounded. Thank you for being someone to hang onto when the going got rough. I hope they all understood that I couldn't have come through this one if I couldn't hang on to them too.

Every so often, I have this moment of cognitive disconnect: why do I put my whole life on the internet like this? (of course, it is not my whole life. I cut out bits for privacy, I edit events to cast myself in the best light, all those things that come with being the author-as-narrator). Then the disconnect goes away, with no solution or resolution, just a dismissal. Here it is. Here it lies, or tells the truth, or does some good or does nothing.

In case you can't tell, I'm mentally exhausted. I know I needed to go to that meeting and rehash Miami, but I also feel now like I just got off the bus. That drained feeling. What is it? I should feel good, having seen the people that I care about, and having shared a meal and a few hours with them. Maybe it's coming out of that world to face this one.

I'm kind of glad that I have that part of my life, now, that's over out of the mainstream. Where I could drown in the mainstream, now I have an out. Do I want to drop out entirely? Wrong question. No one's ever dropped out entirely. I am sorting so many things in my head right now - my body politic, my life politic, my where I go from here - sorting out so many things, deciding a path around so many hazards and obstacles and don't-go-there. Negotiating.

Writing feels good right now because I can avoid doing my paper by writing. I need to get that stuff done. I know and I will go & do it. And then I will be free to do the next thing. And by Friday, I will be free of it. Ready to plunge into a whole new set of whenevers.

love,
alex

Because nothing's better for overdue papers then taking forty minutes to fill out a survey. Blame erin.

current clothes// tan carharrts, purple thermal shirt. All relatively clean.
current hair// mess? washed it to get the hippie smell out this morning
current music// hum of computer lab comps
current taste// I need to brush my teeth
current smell// faint smell of someone toasting something in the kitchen next door
current annoyance// cold feet. interpret that as you will.
current thing I ought to be doing// oh my god so many essays
current desktop// on my room computer, yellow tulips
Current book// about to start noting Media Unlimited
current cd in cd player// um... probably against me!
Current Worry// stupid freakin finals
Current crush// the whole damn world
Last Person...
You touched// um... patted A's shoulder because she was freaking out over finals. However, J counts more.
You talked to// roommate
you hugged// J
You instant messaged// erin!
You yelled at// probably mom
Who broke your heart// I don't think my heart's been broken yet
You goatse'd// admit to never goatse'ing
Lets Play Favorites ..
Coolest Person// oh that's tough. umm... e for posting this dumbass thing
Food// garbanzo loaf. really.
Drink// water. alternately, Odwalla Superfood smoothies.
Color// right now blue
Shoes// my clogs that always soak through when I walk on grass
Candy// almond joy
Animal// ???
TV Show// probably still Babylon 5 by default
Song// um... possibly the Against Me! three chord song. alternately something from church that you haven't heard of anyway (it is something to have wept, number 28 in the hymnal).
Vegetable// carrot? spinach, maybe
Fruit// pomegranate
Sexual deviancy// not going there
Are you..
understanding// apparently
open-minded// only if you agree with me, sadly, but I make a hell of an effort to understand if you don't
arrogant// a little
Insecure// in some wierd ways
Interesting// ? probably confusing, is that close?
Hungry// always
Friendly// um... really really depends
Smart// people think so. I have a complicated explanation for why I'm really just a product of outdated epistimologies. However, I enjoy being a product of outdated epistomologies.
Moody// not generally. have been lately.
Childish// I could probably use to be more so
Independent// to a fault
organized// riiight. Um, no.
shy// I say I am but no one ever believes me. Maybe I outgrew it?
Difficult// Yes
Attractive// bullshit question. Attractive to whom? In what way? Apparently a lot of people find me emotionally attractive, but I don't turn heads on the streets.
Bored easily// I can entertain myself for hours with everyday office supplies
Messy// Terribly so
thirsty// always
Responsible// I would like to say yes, but only in intellectual / emotional ways
Obsessive// I don't think so
Angry// no. Rarely as angry as the situation deserves.
Sad// Always
Happy// Always
Trusting// no
ill// no
Talkative// in class, yes. person to person, no.
Different// Not in the ways that should matter, but in the ways that do
Unique// absolutely not. I have three clones. One lives in the Midwest, one lives in Florida, and one's from Wisconsin and is a drummer. They are all activists - two of them from my denomination - who I have been told I look just like. I have yet to meet any of these people. I have a theory that if I did the fabric of spacetime would rupture.
Ignored// Only when people don't say hi in the hallway or whatever
Content// Never. I'm eighteen years old.
A thinker// sometimes excessively
Sleepy// no, slept in this morning
Lonely// no. Well, sometimes. But I know I have People.
Who do you want to...
Kill// I don't want to kill Timony. But I wouldn't cry much if he died.
Kiss// um... a lot of people... why?
Hug// my affinity group!
Hook up with// not really anyone at present. I'm tired.
Shake// huh?
Be like// my clone from Florida, who is apparently completely unafraid, or Gail.
Fu ck// yeah if you don't know by now it's none of your business
Do you ever?
Think about being more than friends with a friend? Most of my friends here are hippie boys. What do you think?
Think about the future? Yes. I have a concrete plan that I'm trying not to screw up.
Think about having kids? between the age of 25 & 28. By midnight on my 30th birthday, I will be either already a mother or pregnant.
Think about getting married? Setting up a household, yes. Marrying, probably not.
Think about killing somebody? . . . no.
Think about government? Of course
Think about kissing/hugging just a friend with the intent of more than friendship? nah. all my friends are already pretty huggy.
Have a crush on somebody you know you won't ever have a chance with? To tell the truth, I have no clue what my social standing is here, so I have no clue what kind of chance I might have. A better question would be, do you have a crush you have no intention of acting on. Well, yes.
Buy stuff and not use it? I hope not
Wish for something that you can't have? yes. Most lately, the right to have children NOW. Also, my ignorance back.

Bloody hell.

The essay (due monday) that I thought I could squeeze by with two pages? Five to eight. Required. God almighty. The other essay - a godawful scary thing in which we have to analyze a half-page paragraph referring to two books and two documentaries - is also due Monday. And barely started. I'm glad I had a good Friday to Saturday, because the Saturday to Tuesday is gonna be hell.

Wish me luck
alex

What is it with me and guys who won't sleep with me? Or rather, they'll sleep, all right, and that's all they'll do. I am amused more than annoyed. I love this one too much to really care.

The thing about unwashed hippie boys is, when you hug them - or sleep next to them in a one-room apartment with oregano hanging from the ceiling - you come away with that smell. I'm sorry, deodorant-covered masses, but unwashed hippie boys smell good. It's just y'all meat-eaters that stink.

Oh, I love this one. There is this bright ache in my chest, not the consuming nervousness of the last few days but a feeling like the sky over Miami. It is good to love. And it is probably good to love chastely, because in the end, I will be able to let him go. Not until I have to, though.

It's snowing that feathery-light cold drifting stuff that doesn't stick but blows like sand across dunes. Walked back to the dorm, snow swirling around me in the wind, street beautiful empty at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. I love and know no end.

love,
alex

More than just my boy, this is sanctuary. I remember before I went to Miami I looked at this room and went, so, this is how my people live when they go all the way with it? And I went, eek. Now this is ample. Now I am safe here in the memory of the sanctum that was this group, this company. A voice to talk to in the tent at the end of the long day. Her hand to hold in the streets at night. His shoulder to lean into when I just couldn't look any longer. But I could always look. I always wanted to see, I always wanted to look past the helicopters to the clouds.

I think I go to protests because I like the person I am while I'm there.

love,
alex

I feel better & I'm not sure why.

love
alex

Ditto.

AAAAAH!!!!

First, the entry I wouldv'e written if Blogger wasn't being a (word deleted as I am not British):

It snowed. Four inches deep on the ground, waking up to a fog of white outside. Went walking in the woods, followed the single set of footprints on the path before me only to find that it led back to my door.

Second:

he called.

ack.

Waiting for my friends to get online so I can rail at them about what an idiot I'm being.

love
alex

No one you know.

love
alex

Okay, I admit, it's pms. Massively terrible pms brought on by the way a week of not eating will trip up the hormones and a week of sugar will make you shaky and bitchy anyway. To tell the truth, usually I like standard-issue mood swings. You have a few days where you're on top of the world and a few days where you get all the negativity out of your system. Usually I don't have enough negativity built up in four weeks for it to really hurt when I'm on the downswing.

Well, as you can probably tell by now, with miami behind me and finals in front of me I'm feeling less than cheery about the world. I know that I'll get through it. It just seems like every time I finish something desperately due, something else appears that I was supposed to have done a week and a half ago.

Right now I'm just going to go back to my dorm and drink a smoothie and read harry potter. We'll see if I go to my 5:00 class.

love
alex

"They don't understand," Gloria says to me in the meeting, "when you tell them. They think it's a game. They don't understand the fear."

Why in my life would anyone have a reason to utter such a dramatic bit of dialogue? Why would I agree utterly? Why?

Walking in the woods, the sun that bitter generous golden against the trunks of trees. There was rain while I was gone, snow while I was gone, three inches piled on the bridge, the pond full to overflowing, alien. So clear in the cold. The rainwater has cut channels through the dirt under the rhododendron, broad streambeds, now filled with little ice mesas dirt-topped. I walk between the twisted branches knowing myself undone and grieving, watching without expression all the layers I have built between me and the feeling that twists my gut. I am walking, these days, always with my shoulders curved forward to protect that empty spot in my chest. My back hurts, my neck hurts, my head hurts. People meet my eyes and look away.

The worst: am I a coward? Gloria has the right of it: some days it is worst when it doesn't happen to you. When you are unscarred and happy to be alive, that's when grief will sneak in and grab you by the throat. I do not want to be afraid, but I am afraid. I am afraid.

What they left behind.

Walking in the woods, writing these words in my head, singing songs without moving my lips, so that I wouldn't have to hear the silence or see the light promising on the trunks of the trees. Avoiding the forest is sparing oneself beauty, sparing oneself the lump in the throat, the quickening of the pulse at the complexity and wonder. Those can be painful things.

What did I loose in Miami?

love,
alex

Because who wouldn't want to go on a retreat with their social justice group the weekend before finals? Study? Pfft. Who studies?

It occurs to me, though, that I need to be around these people. People talk to me about what happened in Miami and I think I've moved on, and everyone seems to be going, yeah, move on, you had your moment in the spotlight (pepper spray girl) next thing now. And I thought I was over it, but I was thinking, no, maybe not. Maybe it's not closed off. And at the same time, this nervous headache is not because of Miami, it's because I have ten day's backlog of papers due and finals swooping down on me and Miami NEEDS to be over. I will not give up my degree (or my parent-paid tuition) for the Cause. That degree is for my version of the Cause, which is political not a life of direct action. This direct action thing is something I feel like I need to do now, not forever. The first time was to see what it was. The second time will be to try to extricate the terror implanted by the first.

What am I doing here?

One thing, coming back after such a length has given me a chance to appreciate how in love I am with my program. How glad I am to be here.

As far as the Boy, who is definitely not one chronologically: curse reason! curse slow acquaintainship and figuring out what we mean outside of a war zone. I want to be in Love now now now now now now now. Maybe that was how I got myself out of the war zone, by falling in love and letting that blank out everything behind and around it. Probably true. I am so rarely infatuated with anyone. It hurts to realize that the sensible course would be to let such a rare thing slip by. But then, I am in college. The sensible course is to be insensible with youth. It's a requirement of proper emotional development.

(i got jake back, admit it)

love,
alex