Two Winters

This New Year, my only real resolution is to write something everyday. So far, I'm 7 for 9 since I hadn't yet thought up my plan on the two days of the month. I make promises to myself almost weekly--some of which I stop caring about, some which I've successfully implemented into my life, and some which I still have to remind myself about every day--so the idea of doing something concrete every single day for an entire year is appealing. I don't have any real set guidelines: I might write here, I might write for autostraddle, I might write a letter, or I might just write for myself. The point is that I write something.

Today, inspired by my friend (acquaintance? what do you call someone you met one time in 3-D and got along swimmingly with?) Ashley, I created two mixes for winter: cold and warm. The extremes that winter brings come in the differences between indoors and outside, light(s) and darkness, being alone and together. I've never been good at choosing favorites which makes winter the perfect season* for me.

*Along with spring, summer, and fall.

i couldn't stand being a passing fancy. before i give my body, i must give my thoughts, my mind, my dreams. and you weren't having any of those.

do you know that i only rushed that one time? i rushed and then i panicked because i hear that i’m a grown up now and i had be rough when really all i am is melting.

so i stopped. here i am; i am not jumping.

what could i do? there are lots of things i’d like. to stop battling all the eyelashes, to start. i’d like to have somewhere to put all the pretty words i could write for you. your ears might be a good place to empty what i have stored up in my head. maybe it would find its way in before you start running away.

i could fold up into you and be warm all night and i’d even stay longer if you let me.

we could sit in front of my paper fire and pretend like the heat is real because we’re both stuck in the city and it’s making us tear apart. or i could trap you on my roof. i’ll force you to be romantic and then scream at you like the wind is glaring at me. i might cry so you know how i am.

i confuse everything that’s easy about the earth for subtlety when things aren’t going my way. it’s just because winter is tragic and if i can’t have what i want, i’ll join the quiet and take devastation for depth.

right now i’m a puddle. i’m shivering and worried that i can’t do words like i can’t do people and if they both escape you, what do you have?

i think i’m just making up loves for my room because it’s here and my hands are alone.

stomach flu

um, everyone in philadelphia is sick right now. luckily i got a flu shot so i’m just losing my voice, which ideally will end up being sexy for a few days. we’ll see. i think about the weather a lot when i’m in the city since interaction requires me to actually go out into it and right now it’s being a total fucking dick. like last night, it was doing the really pretty quiet snow thing and i walked home all smiley listening to it being silent. then i woke up this morning and the sidewalks were all slippy and melted and it was raining. come on, weather. stop being a tease.

also, i hate alligators and they are on tv right now in my living room. people are provoking them. oh god. i hate alligators almost as much as i hate rabies.

speaking of alligators, have you seen this video? please watch it.

i am going to make t-shirts with this little guy on it.

incidentally, have you noticed that obama is left handed? i am left handed. i think all left-handed people get secretly excited when they realize someone else is a lefty too. i know i do. why do left handed people die younger than right handed people? why do i get my university’s hillel newletter? do the colors on my blog make it too hard to read? why is the discovery channel now the home shopping network? life is full of questions.

HOMYGOD THEY ARE LETTING ALLIGATORS CHASE THEM. he just said “we’re gonna put on some heavy armor and agitate the alligator to try to get him to chase us.” guess what mythbuster? elbow pads are not exactly what i’d call “heavy armor.” actually, not even close; maybe if you’re five and trying to learn to rollerskate. that motherfucker is going to crush your bones into tiny tiny pieces.

i bought lotion the a few weeks ago that smelled like last winter, but now i don’t even notice it.

isn’t it funny how smells fade into familiarity? and you know how smell is supposed to be the sense that’s most tied to memory? try to describe how something smells. it’s hard. but then, when you talk about how something looks—there are so many words! flat, smooth, small, close, easy, curvy, ugly, young, red, blue, alive. scent escapes language and lurks somewhere back in your head, back where memories are spun.

it’s almost february, too. i’ve been waiting for it since november so i can listen to “february air” while i walk to class because i like songs with specific months and days and times in them.

there’s not really a point here. i think the point is: i would like some bike-friendly weather so that i can go outside and start making sense.

Consider the Hands that Write This Letter

after Marina Wilson
Consider the hands
that write this letter.
The left palm pressed flat against the paper,
as it has done before, over my heart,
in peace or reverence
to the sea or some beautiful thing
I saw once, felt once: snow falling
like rice flung from the giants' wedding,
or the strangest birds. & consider, then,
the right hand, & how it is a fist,
within which a sharpened utensil,
similar to the way I've held a spade,
match to the wick, the horse's reins,
loping, the very fists
I've seen from the roads to Limay & Estelí.
For years, I have come to sit this way:
one hand open, one hand closed,
like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up
the food that comes from that farming.
Or, yes, it is like the way I've danced
with my left hand opened around a shoulder
& my right hand closed inside
of another hand. & how
I pray, I pray for this
to be my way: sweet
work alluded to in the body's position
to its paper:
left hand, right hand
like an open eye, an eye closed:
one hand flat against the trapdoor,
the other hand knocking, knocking.

[Aracelis Girmay]

when did you first realize that planets were smaller than stars? i think i only understood this recently.

i’ve been here for three weeks, where everything has a place, but i can’t find the big dipper.
when i was tiny, my dad would wake me at that time between late late night and morning [there’s a word for that in spanish, it’s “madrugada.” i like how they have words for things that we have to explain with a whole sentence. it’s like they understand something that i ruin with too many adjectives or too much explanation] to show me the stars. even in the spring it would be cold that early, so he would wrap me up in the afghan his grandma made for us and carry me outside. the streetlights on our road seemed like they were always burnt out; the only thing lighting up the night was the moon right above us and it was changing every night. he’d try to show me orion, but there were too many stars for me to tell where he started or ended. or cassiopeia, because she was a queen and was like our name. but all those stars were too dim from my driveway. so he would hold me on his back with one arm and point with the other at the two pine trees across the street and i would find the constellation between them.

every night since i’ve been back, there’s been so much sky. i look toward the two familiar trees, but i just can’t see the big dipper. i’ve noticed that some of my streetlights have been replaced, lighting up the neighborhood while they mute the skies, but i doubt this newness is what clouds the reminder of my little memory.

stars are ubiquitous; no matter where you go, they’re right there above you. my grandpa taught me this word when i still lived in pittsburgh, and told me that god was ubiquitous.

see? this is safe. i can submerge myself in it without losing everything else. i won’t drown.

last summer, i was worried about the one star that burned weaker than the other six. i know it’s been working so hard for so many years, but i hope it doesn’t fade completely, at least not while i’m still looking at it. i wonder if that is a completely selfish wish. then i wonder if it’s already dead and maybe we’re just seeing leftover light. the message [“goodnight, ladies and gentlemen. thank you for coming to the show.”] hasn’t gotten to us yet.

the thing about night is that you can feel the darkness. it’s like when you see stars from somewhere where nothing else is. with no lights to dim their brilliance, you realize how many there really are, filling in the space in between the ones you see every night. because that only happens when you’re far away from everything else.

and then there’s tying memories to something big, something in the sky that everyone else can taste, if they want to. it’s more universal than having thoughts about books or songs, and no one can talk about it, not if they want it to stay real. you throw a rope up above your head and bind just a speck of yourself to your star. you let your ideas swirl around—they’re there in case someone wants to share with you, but you’re content knowing they’ve been thought.

hang on, sloopy

ohio has a lot to offer--corn, homogeneity, tomato juice [the state drink], cows, cities that start with the letter c...  cincinnati, a world-renowned cultural metropolis, is home to the shaker museum [a religous group who [shockingly] died out a hundred years after they were founded because they didn't believe in procreation], a giant statue of jesus, 98 degrees, lots of sausage [i blame the germans], jerry springer, and is conveniently located near the creation museum.  

with so many options, i've obviously opted to hide out in my room most of the time i've been home, emerging every few days to eat a buckeye or go to the library. [the library here is fantastic, seriously.  they have everything your little heart could ever want and if they don't have it, they will buy it for you.  also, the girls who work there are occasionally cute and always nerdy, so i can impress them with my library-card-number-memorization skills.  4054550, bitches.]  

my friends who are home for christmas are hermits too, but sometimes we get adventurous and go out into the cold to spend qsbt* together.  all i've wanted to do is dance so i've been suggesting that we join the rest of civilization and learn the "single ladies" dance or find my friend isabella's "darren's dance grooves" tape but instead we've mostly just played the youtube game.  everyone who needs more dolla bills in their life knows that the best thing to do with your friends is play the youtube game.  you go to their house and show them videos that you like and they show you their favorites and even though you both realize how pathetic this is, no one has to pay money and so you're pretty happy.  isabella brought this genius video to my attention the other day while we were being poor together.

i come from a "not scrabble" family.  this is mostly because we prefer the smack of violence over intellect.  we have a talent for turning any nice family game into an argument and can make you feel inadequate and judged no matter what we're playing.  card games mean long, cruel stares at the player who takes longer than three seconds to play and scattergories usually results in yelling and someone going home mad.  

in other news, my dog is in heat [ew] and has to wear a diaper and my mum asked me the other day if i have penis envy.  t-minus 11 days until i get to go back to philadelphia, thank baby jesus.  

*qsbt = quality sober bonding time.  this one comes from my friend dani aka daniela aka donatello peepmichaelangelo aka petemike.  dani is also famous for being 14, emo, loving dolphins, stripes, and josh, and also being a secret gay.

flurry fury

i am flying away to cincinnati on saturday and i am so excited my head is going to explode. i am even convinced that the flight is going to be fantastic.

[this is mostly because the last flight i took was like a tiny version of hell, so this time will definitely be an improvement. besides sitting in the

airport for 6 hours after my flight was delayed, i got stopped by the tsa guys because i was carrying a space heater in my bag. they were convinced it was a bomb, [which, if i’m going to be honest, isn’t really a bad assumption; it’s older than me, makes ticking noises, and sparks sometimes] and so they decided that it would be a good idea to take everything out of my suitcase and question me about the heater for about a year. also, the person in front of me was the crankiest old woman alive. the little boy sitting next to me touched her seat a few time and she kept slapping him. at first i thought maybe he just had an abusive grandma or something, but then they weren’t related and she was just mean.]

going to cincinnati means seeing stars, reading real books without feeling guilty about not doing homework, spooning with my dog, and playing cards with my

grandma. and it’s christmas which is especially exciting because i really like wrapping presents. [ps if anyone wants to know what to wrap for me, i would like cowboy boots, a flu shot, paris je t’aime, a shamwow, and some new songs to love.]

This Winter

I suppose, with the wind and rain outside, and more to come, we’ve cocooned with blankets, warm fires. I suppose, like the change of season, freezing cold, instead of sun, inward, instead of outward, the season of that endless war, killer hurricanes, loved ones lost, I’ll just turn the page, start over.

I’ve often wondered if I’m a winter writer, rather than summer. Throw on thick sweaters, coats, gloves and trek high up the mountain to my tower, to “bear” for winter. One small, frosty window to look out. “Countless tales,” I write in my journal shivering, “layers of rain, snow, and wind, to overcome.”

It is this imagination that binds. Pen in hand, fingers spread evenly on a keyboard. Wipe the frost, find the pulse. Tell them what ails, or inspires. Reveal the colors, be it agony, intense and miserably cold, or thoughts of romance, desires, engulfed or enflamed by simple candlelight. Set the temperature and tone, open the page, begin.

I suppose, from my mountain view, the lights below, mere weeks before Christmas, that I’ve got something significant to share. A vast landscape, glistening jewels of light, smoke billowing from thousands of chimneys. Don’t know, can’t tell yet. Maybe nothing.

I stroke my long beard, smoke my pipe, pull the flaps of my hat lower. We are, the words of every season, all of us, to our last breath, touching hearts and souls, scribbling blindly, breathlessly, designing, building, hunkering down.

But all is silent, save the wind, howling at my back.

Look, tell them of the pain of death, so recently endured, what my eyes have seen, tortured, beaten, abused. Tell them of flying high above the fray, a view so magnificent, it begs to say, to express, to share. Create an unforgettable character, that mighty hero of mind and heart that gives, saves, knows all. One who carries us to that tearful page of victory. Lie down here, another blanket to keep warm.

I suppose, there is no greatness, not now, perhaps later, but we trudge through, press on. Every day, every season, different.

High above the howling storm, frost on my beard, eyes searching wanefully to heartfelt losses, human touch. Seasons that follow, lead, churn deeply. Imagination does not go cold. Or does it? Here, take this pen, write it. Eyes, alive and moving beyond the snow, conjuring winters across the ridge, snowflakes dreamily to the page.

We’re not gone, only adjusting, acclimating, different sights and sounds, binding. Takes time to see, peel the layers, undress. There is nothing to say, not yet, the world at our feet.

“Countless tales,” I write, “layers of snow and wind, to overcome.”

[Charles Mariano]

is it possible for sound to make a heart bend?

i like these songs a lot a lot. but in that way that it kind of hurts, you know? they sound like memories and comfort and love and being cold. they feel like blankets; sometimes too much, but usually they're cozy. they let you drown in everything you hear. and then there are words, which say exactly what you were thinking but better than you ever could.

there are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all
winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
but my hands remember hers, rolling 'round the shaded ferns
naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

[ ]

a piece of love in your face that bathed me in regret

we liked to watch you laughing
picking insects off of plants
no time to think of consequences

you tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in

i wanted to thank you for a vision that was lost that you returned
but you're past where you understand

i've got nostalgic pavements

i will love this love forever

i was of three [or four] minds

xiii
it was evening all afternoon.
it was snowing
and it was going to snow.
the blackbird sat
in the cedar-limbs.

[wallace stevens: 13 ways of looking at a blackbird]

1: winter means being cold

sometimes when i’m outside, i try to think “cold is just a state of mind,” because maybe, if i think about it [or don’t think about it so much] the cold won’t get me.

i like how it feels when you first go outside, suffocated by your too many layers, and then this wind cuts at your face and blows through you. and i like that cold weather means that i can stay inside with a hoodie and my comforter.
but after a while of winter, the cold outside seems intrusive and the cozy feeling inside starts to be sickly, like when there’s too much sugar.

2: and getting sick
i have vertigo. i knew i was sick and not just bitching about having a cold because i kept falling up stairs and feeling like i was sinking into chairs. after waiting in student health services for 4 months, a doctor played the “follow my finger” game with me [which i lost at] and told me that vertigo can last from two hours to two months. my reaction: at least it’s got a good name. my mum’s reaction: “DO NOT RIDE YOUR BIKE. YOU WILL DIE. AND IF YOU DON’T DIE, I WILL KILL YOU.”

also: rabies. i don’t have it, obviously, but i

listened to a “this american life” around halloween about rabies and since then, i’ve been a walking psa. rabies is FUCKED UP. do you know what it does? it makes animals senselessly violent, takes away all their inhibitions, makes them immune to pain, heightens their sense of focus, and makes adrenaline practically ooze out of their eyeballs; basically, it makes them into real life, tiny, furry versions of superman, but evil. i know what you’re thinking: superman can fly and raccoons can’t. BUT guess what the number one carrier of rabies is? bats. and bats fly. if you wake up and a bat is in your house, you should get tested for rabies STAT. if you don’t get a vaccine within 72 hours, you die. new york and the surrounding area has experienced a ridiculous increase in rabies outbreaks, with over 300 reported attacks last year. and since it’s not bad enough that i live by new york during the school year, there is a new rabies epidemic spreading towards southwest ohio, i.e. cincinnati. i am going to be attacked by an animal and i am going to die.

3: it turns out that all your friends, they were just mean, dressed up
i can’t figure out how someone can spend so much time hating me; planning and whispering and manipulating and then pretending like they don’t care. but then, i’ve only recently started to understand what a waste it is. when i’ve figured something out, i expect that it’s something that everyone already knows. i have this skewed view where i’m just catching up with the rest of the world, when really i’m learning along with everyone else.

so sometimes i get sad for people i don’t even like. i wonder who has left them and how big that shadow is. i’ve decided that writing someone off as crazy overlooks too much and is too easy. it’s like denying them humanity, to say that they have no other motivation.

4: waffles

i’m trying to make a budget and track my spending and all those nice grown-up things that i really wish i would be better at, but i haven't been very successful yet. if i were going to estimate where i spend my money, though, i am guessing that it would look like this:

what this graph illustrates, besides that i spend too much on waffles, is that i should probably weigh a lot more than i do right now and that i should start saving my money so i can by a graphics tablet and actually draw pictures on my computer.

if you ever come to philadelphia, i will take you to eat at bonte before getting you a cheesesteak. meat and cheesewhiz just sound gross together, but that’s not the point, the point is: bonte’s waffles are bangin’.

work in progress 2.0

this is the beginning of the second painting in the series.



and here's the fireplace that i spent all wednesday night making instead of writing my spanish essay, my art history essay, my gender essay, doing my race reading, or working on one of three paintings i have due soon. it was totally worth it.



in other news: we ran out of orange juice a week ago and now i'm sick. i don't think that's a coincidence. actually, we ran out of food a week ago so i ate stale pretzels all weekend, which may or may not have something to do with me being sick.

in the beginning, sometimes i left messages in the street

but you wanted her to look through your memories and feel like she owned a part of them simply because you were hers. you wanted her to wish she possessed some old part of you. you wanted her to love your family and your bed and the streets you drove on and not want to leave ever. with her, you weren't okay with rain, you wanted a storm--an unstoppable, torrential downpour. instead, you had clouds and clouds, threatening to let everything pour out but she gave up before even the littlest one could break. she likes possibility but she won't give herself over to it and she can't be happy.

give it time and it'll fix itself, but right now you're not sure if you want it to. you have this obsession with feeling and you can't shake it.

in the beginning it was uninviting, but it's quickly becoming devastating. you're continually doing maintenance when all you need is something new but you can't give up because you're too attached to memories. and your nostalgia is this particular kind, a kind that belongs to experiences that haven't been lived yet and things that you want to wake up tangled in and then woven into the sheets of. your shoes are always the same and don't travel very far.

lately, your life has faded to black and white and your dreams, once fantastic, play out the small things you crave when you're awake. you're distracted and worried that you're losing your imagination and innocence and everything else that you gave away so easily and so willingly because you thought you would never run out of things to give. what you once thought was tying you down has turned into your safety net for when you walk on tightropes [which seems like every day now] and it's moving farther and father away, making you fall longer every time. you wake up with bruises you can't explain and a longing you can't articulate.

it's almost winter and you want to be warm. you miss the familiar and think about how strange it is that everything you used to recognize has become foreign. telephone lines are too thin to travel. the static is too loud and your words move too fast to span the distance.

so how will you handle the discontent? this aggravation is hostile to your nature, which is overly sensitive but impassive. you'll look for brilliance in your ordinary background, like the inviting coolness of your pillow, and lay away at night hoping they don't run out of good songs. you could wait for it to come, but instead you'll be after it all night. you've got time to make.