"Don't forget your hanger."

At the end of the night it's the four of us capering out of 7-11 and climbing into the vehicle, laughing. The permutation's slightly different from other winters, other summers, but oddly enough the one I'd always wanted.

Years later and it's still us.

She giggles and I laugh. Because really, you never know.

...

-"Can you take two inches off?" I ask.

"Can you show me that?" Lauren, the business major, looks at my hair with concern. "I was never very good at science."

-"They have peanut butter hot chocolate at that 7-11," Kelsey says.

"SHUT THE F*&K UP!" Mike shouts.

-"We could just hang out and drink cheap wine," Kels suggests. "And then buzz at his apartment..." (O, Chekhov!)

Oh, friends. You have no idea how much I've needed you. Or how well you've loved - and love - me.

...

I feel so much calmer.

"Don’t write too much this break—I’m serious. Just a little tiny bit each day. Writers need down time too."

Well-said.

And I know that soon enough, I'll have plenty to say.

On to the next adventure I go.

"Remember when we used to race people to school?"

...while listening to "Stacy's Mom" and static, and waiting for the windows to defrost.

That senior year was an eventful one, though it took longer for the spinning to ensue. Pick a word to describe yourself. One word. Disciplined.

I passed the first of many tests just before. I tell myself that Disciplined leads to calmness, less anxiety, less pain. I slap myself and stay in line.

The glance would not be worth it.

I am still not sure how I will alter the time I'd adjusted to, even now in this disjointed state. I am still not sure that I won't compromise.

Live and apply. Live and apply.

-
-

I think about that road, think about why I think about that road still.

I know I surprised you then or at least made you blink. And if you were ever to bring this up again, I'd respond to your fears with, Accept it and Break it.

Some day somebody's gonna ask you
a question that you should say yes to
once in your life...

"Make it just between you and the Tsuk."

There are numerous, numerous errors in this vault, besides the obvious overrotation on the landing. (The brave man spotting is Matt -- hi, Matt!) As usual on my early attempts, I rush the half-on and bend my knees before my hands even leave the table. Then, of course, I flip with my eyes closed. Each time I watch, I want to go again -- right now -- and do it properly.

I hadn't flipped this vault since August, when I'd land in the safety of the foam pit. And I hadn't even seriously considered Tsuking onto an actual landing area since landing the vault so...successfully on Feb. 20 -- the infamous splice of The Fifth Metatarsal That Never Wanted to Heal.

So for all of that, you have no idea how much this video pleases me. :-)

"We refuse to satiate the Peruvian gods."

I am certain that the story hasn't ended, but I do need a break from it for awhile.

I'm not sure what I'll find when I return. Scrap it, take another angle, revise, maybe one day reread and say, Hey, that really was all right or Hey, I knew what I was doing.

I'm still not comfortable in being as bold as I wish. But I think I've grown more graceful. Graceful in crafting my tales. Graceful in setting characters, actions, motions in place. And most of all, graceful in stepping away to let them resolve themselves.

night tonic

I become intoxicated from reading too much too quickly. I swallow words like liquor and suddenly pages are emptied, my focus scattered, my thoughts strange and uneven against some other beat. I try to stand, try to talk about the mundane, and I feel the tension between this high twisting refracting perspective and what it is that everyone else wants to talk about...

I blink and walk slowly and try to find someone who will speak to me in this way, just tonight. Perhaps that is why you find me when you're in such a state, you know I will break away from idle how are you what's going on to try to meet you there, you know I will always be here and thinking of there, I want someone to be that for me.

Yet I always fear that inevitably, someone will say,
(tonight it's me): Shut the book, Di. Let it rest for tonight.
Come to bed. This will all fade in the morning.

Quick bits

"I'm kicking ass, taking names..."

"You're not small -- you're fun-sized."

Why didn't Gascon (language, wine, dog) take Jessica to the formal?

At 12:30 a.m., when my paper on Hispanic immigrants suddenly seems hilarious, it's an especially good idea to try to learn the dances to "Dancing" and "Sexy Back" with Brittany.

For the Ange: I went under the knife three years ago today. P4L: destroying the right sides of our bodies since 2004 or so. :-)

Enternecida me tienes.

Snow Day Part 2 (Em and Britt are still playing Uno)

"Oh, you mean 'Uno' is having the whole deck?"

An hour later, we've all beaten Andy. Looks like he'll be rubbing his own feet tonight. Much like Mario Kart and Cranium, we've all come to hate each other a bit during the game.

And no matter how many times I brush off my car and turn up the heat, I will always need Emeline for that literal extra boost. :-)

I'm really excited to be in a play again. I'm not so excited about turning twenty-two, but I can handle it. It all evens out, my friend!

Reason #281 why you know you're a gymnast

How to utilize a snow day:

"I know what I'll do! I'll go to the hospital!" Tanya bounds out of the den with renewed vigor and a potentially fractured back.

"Yeah, I should probably get my ribs x-rayed..." Brittany muses.

"Ooh! Anyone want to come?" Tanya calls. "I can study! This is great!"

Well, why not?

I find ice

One by one they drop off to sleep and the frigid hour freezes pathways, makes them smooth for gliding.

I stream my thoughts. I slip through.

September becomes December and green leaves freeze white. Choked. The season shifts rapidly like a bell curve of dramatic deviations, amazing and disheartening. White softens more starkly than gray.

When it becomes this cold, can you still feel the pulse?

I can.

I should still be falling with them but I'm falling on my own. Flakes fly like peaceful bullets and I can't look away. I am mesmerized. Penetrate me, shock me.

I sink into snow, I move, I find ice, I move.

This is how it should be.

It is cold outside and I said no.

I am starting to know what I want, or at least starting to see what I can do.

A kiss to send us off

You'll never take me alive.

Nothing will be the same, really.

"You look healthier." I do? "Yeah, you looked tired before."

Perhaps. And perhaps it's all right to show the strain sometimes.

But I prefer to be happy. I find signs in black and starless nights.

alone but alive

I feel calm this time. The stars are kind. The night is warm and I feel all right.

I believe that I can walk without falling down.

conversations before 4:11

It's 3:45 a.m. and I know that this is more important than stumbling home wasted, than sleeping, than having an extra hour to work on a paper.

There may not be a point in this, but what's the point in that?

For no reason at all, we begin to laugh. I used to be hyperaware of my location at all times but I finally feel comfortable enough to lay my head down and listen think wonder be still.

These questions taunted me when I was twelve and they are no easier at twenty-one. I still feel like a girl instead of a woman I'm still little when I stand in the crowd but at least the person next to me asks these questions too.

Humans need to make make meaning and this is how we can: by connecting with someone else for a moment - an hour - a century - without money resentment anger excuses . . .

You told me once to write something meaningful and maybe now I have an idea, maybe know why you kept telling me -- maybe meaning is something that glows in a dark place.

..

I woke up happy this morning because I'd dreamt that you were finally ready to be vulnerable with me.

September at the lake

The rain falls quietly here.

Cell phones are silent.

I wonder if you will miss me today.

anticipated ambivalence

It comes to the point where -
I don't know how to say anything that hasn't already
circled in and through and back again and tightened me
within my own words
until I start to think that choking is just
another way to be numb.

I rub water and mineral onto my hands
and wonder if I have unlearned, know how to
unlearn, know only that
whatever I imagine will not
come to pass - perhaps the sword instead,
or the wound, or
nothing at all.

I do not think that you have unlearned.

my life as a collage

My goal this year, it seems, is to change my life as much as possible -- to dart in every other direction and loop back another way -- to collect words and stories where I am the character and not just the observer -- to know, not just believe -- to be there instead of willing it to be so.

And then I will slow my run to a walk, take these still-simmering pieces
put them together -- and I will be me still, this one,
just with more color and something else, yes, something more.

Oh, Spanish!

This is horrendous, but we've all got to start somewhere, right? :-p

Cuando me voy en el día,
escucho la voz del viento;
dice, “Sigo lo que siento.”
Sí, es lo que yo querría…

Cuando por la noche vuelvo,
sigo la senda del cielo
tan clara; ni nieve ni hielo
el sentimiento disuelve.

..
Durante la clase:

La pregunta: "I have a really strange question about Cuernavaca. Would you feel safe going for a run around the neighborhood? I'm sort of exercise-psychotic."
La repuesta: "Are you fast? Then yes."

I stood at the desk later this cold afternoon and thought, Tengo que seguir mi propio destino.

not much of anything, but a

collage of the songs pulsing through my head these past days weeks months (as compiled during a discussion of th(o)roughlines):


doesn't come down when she calls it's time for breakfast will you or won't you be the one i'll always know i hope you always forgive and you never regret i'm following myself just this once and at all once the crowd begins to sing like falling in love feels for the first time and you see that i can't stop shaking collapse into me tired with joy what you feel is what you are and i've rocked them all she's bad and she knows you will consume me but i can't walk away i like you just the way you are more than you know if your body matches what your eyes can do fitting you with weapons in the form of words this feels stranger than truth i cannot forget the way i feel right now we'll all float on shine on you were meant to crank that kept in the dark but you were there in front of me vivo en una casa roja she asks when will i be free.

View from the kitchen

I see:

Napoleon Dynamite. Kitchen:

Central City Bar & Grill.

Save 50 cents. Price Chopper.

(on a paper towel)
Mama!
We were
here! We
fuckin love you!
My concussion is good! I
was happy 2 see you 2day! Jess
says hi. She is gay!
See you soon!
Love your
babies!
Hi Am
Tan & Di!!


(magnetic poetry)
you only have tequila and food

drink more & inhale easy drunk boy

To consider:

"The flame on your back."

Well, how can I be out of character if this is the only character I've got?

Mere notes

I wrote it down - "catalyst - not crutch."

To do: Watch more movies. Improve at video games. Read more books. Know more about just about everything, especially randomness. Be smarter, more creative, stronger.

The perks of being on club: premiere parking at 7:30 p.m. (Or later, knowing me.)

"Tenemos que hacer algo." (Bailar, por supuesto.)

It would be cool if I could eat full meals and had interest in food besides chocolate.

"Thank you for being exactly like me."

I have so many questions that, even if I knew that I would like your answers, I wouldn’t know where to begin.

I've got a lot to say today

First, quotes from others:

You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. - Franz Kafka


...que tomo, en el peligro de verte,
la vida, cuando te oigo.

I take my life in my hands when, on the dangerous occasion of seeing you, I listen to you.
-Frondoso, Lope de Vega's Fuenteovejuna

A real wind blows

A real wind blows tonight as I make that now-habitual brisk walk over the sidewalk.

Through laughs and long hours. Apathy and intensity. Cookie dough ice cream for dinner, "She's, like, old," conversations that feel right and others that just are. There is something I should be doing and it's not being done or said, and I feel all right with that until the morning.

But there is something I want to tell you, and I haven't.

The wind knows.

The world I am living in right now is not real.

passing time

"Seriously, if I don't have a crush on you, you're doing something wrong." - Rachel's outlook on males


A non-haiku of my least favorite expressions:
Fine. That's what she said.
Whatever. You don't even know.
Heh. You would.


"You'll have a black belt in writing. Don't mess with me; I'll write about you."

How would you define "craft"?

..

She touches the lightning.
Her face is serene.

..

All I know is

that I do not want this relentless momentum to stop.

Capitán

He approaches the burning bridge. The soldiers turn from tossing branches onto the sizzling entrance. A post crumbles.

"We've got it under control, Capitán," one man says.

He watches another post fall -- the last tall structure. Then he nods and walks away, slowly, off stage.

Someone raises champagne to him later and he smiles slightly when someone else cracks open a beer instead. He sleeps with someone else and burns a bit. Not as much as he'd thought. It doesn't really matter.

He drives to work the next day and a small, staticky song plays. He'd made her shake and crumble to this song. Once and many times. He had burned. Once and many times.

He switches stations for a song with clear and cold anger.

"We've got it under control, Capitán," one man says.

He nods, slowly, and walks off stage.

Decisive

I know what I need to do.

October 19

Today started well. I backed out of the driveway with one sideview mirror, around cars and past chain-link fences, as if I knew what I was doing.

Today ended well. I don't care if I give too much of myself away right now. I want to be fascinated. I want to really laugh. And to do so, something has to be placed outside of me.

But the night is warm.

I feel all right.

I had hoped for a better sort of morning

I looked at the gray sky over the houses and realize that the only thing that can be done is to create something beautiful.

At some point, I started to relax. I bounced a bit to the music as we chatted.

I can do this, I think.

It's not the place, she said.

It's not about where you are. It's about the person. It's who you are.

encuentro o conquista?

And you give yourself away.

smooth.

It's nice to know after that after these years of relearning what you were never taught, someone notices that you're doing something correctly.

I feel good about that. I feel good about this choice.

Not about the walking, though. I feel the pull of my shins as my legs move briskly. The shadows touch me uncomfortably. I want to get home.

I still think about walking around the corner.

The jig is up

First off, this video = amazing.

Maybe in one week or six I'll be in for a rude jolt. But I'm ready to reveal myself at the time they shout, "Retreat!"

I make my own choices. I choose not to hide.

Thoughts on looking up Dali paintings at the library:

I'll likely make changes, but I like this ending:
He awakens in water, in soft rivers running over his body that whisper in a language he can almost understand.

I want to be considered "incomparable."

A wonderful way to begin the day:

"I like A."
"A is not a number."

After some awful line about dogs shitting razors (thank you, Liz!):
"Holy God, can you imagine that pain?"
"Embrace it."

"I'll never forget hearing this song live."

I wanted you to be uneased
I wanted you to linger
I want you to agree with me
I want you on my side

C'mon and lay it down
I've always been with you here and now
Give all that's within you
Be my savior,
and I will be your downfall.

and later...

Now I'm back on my own
Hear my feet, they're made of stone
Man, I make you go where I go
Well, hell, you, can I take you home?

[Mike will cheer at this song, I know.]

schemes

And that's what I want to do: try them. Not out of desperation, but curiosity.

told to.

"You are an extraordinary woman."

pensamientos espanoles

[De un texto sobre Sor Juana]:
"Su pluma fue su arma mas poderosa."

[De la obra de teatro El muerto disimulado]:
Clarindo: "Viene a ser que de una ausencia
quien mas siente el golpe fiero,
quien se queda or quien se va?"

Clarindo: "Pues ausente no vivo con quien quiero,
y dejo de asistir donde queria,
con que es de quien se va el mal mas fiero."

Lisarda: "Te burlas y me das chasco?
No me hables en hermosuras,
sino en coriscos, en rayos,
en fierezas, en rencores,
en pasiones, en enfados,
en pesadumbres, en iras,
en furores, en estragos,
que la colera mi pecho
hizo un incendio en que ardo."

Clarindo: "Si amor tiene de ensenarme,
vamos a estudiar, ingenio,
para dar en la salida
de mi amante desempeno."

overheard

[potty humor]
While walking past Amber's room:
"I just farted. Don't stand up."

While conditioning:
"Kelly, your foot is in my face."
"Oh. I almost just peed on you."

[existential humor]
While on Tumble Track:
Angela: "The thing is, I may go invisible or sign off --"
Alyssa, the team philosopher: "You can go invisible?"
Angela: "I'm talking about AIM, sweetie, not in real life."

September

This month has gone on for too long.

the juncture

Here I am. Between joy and distress. Between experiments and essays. Between the fantastic and the ordinary. Between reckless and harbor.

In that ages-old battle against the patriarchy, the woman takes up the pen.

the makings of an experiment

This could be your “experiment”:
You ever have that problem where you start writing a poem but by the time you get to line 3 you ask yourself what the fuck are you doing, and why are you writing poetry?

[Is he going to be a nomad?]
[If you don’t want to shack up with him]
[I knew that’s what you were gonna say]

I mean that is a truly profound idea.

[Am I following?]
[Not quite]

You don’t even know what a sordid sad tale that is

[Maybe four glasses of wine
on a Tuesday night
wasn’t a good isea.
Idea. Wednesday.
Whatever.]


Well, I actually have to know them.
Well, take that idiotic shit out and I still would have known what you meant.

"You know what I'm going to do tomorrow? I'm going to look at my notes about these poems. 'Rhyme.' Great." My book's open on the counter and so's my foot.

"Mmm." Emeline looks for something to eat.

I begin talking about the Dirty War in Argentina. She nods.

"OOOH!" I point to the text. "Here we go. The role of nature. I got it. Ready? The wind blows this paper to her feet, and it changes her life. That's what I'm going to use!"

Emeline nods, looking very nervous.

"I know, Em," I answer. "You're jealous that you can't be a Spanish major. Follow your calling!"

She backs away.

Oh, Em, I'm glad that you love me unconditionally. :-D

Lazarillo de Tormes...

It occurs to me that you and I might be doing the exact same things right now.

I could find out, but not yet. Not tonight.

more college living

You become indifferent to the lack of food. You'll figure something out. Bread's acceptable for breakfast and lunch, and pasta provides a luxurious dinner.

And after days of paper towels, you are really, really excited to see a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom.

"on all fours"

After all of the events of the past several weeks/weekends,
I've concluded that I have no idea what's going to happen.
And I find that I just might be all right with the wait and see.

What I Read At Raquette

For anyone who cares!

I call this creative nonfiction. Because, well, it's true.

5.8/9.9.07 – Still.

My eyes burn. I step outside into cool night air. There is no breeze. The smoke from downstairs is subdued and the laughter calming from drunkenness to tiredness.

I want to smudge my eyes with dark eyeliner and look at you behind masked and falsely thick lashes. It might feel right.

But nothing will happen tonight.

It is a May night and the sun will burn this summer. I will write every day. I will laugh and you won’t laugh with me. People will die. I will dance.

Right now I am doing none of those things.

Right now the wooden seat creaks and I'm too tired to wonder how many people have sat in it before. Probably laughing. Probably drunk. At 11:30 there’s not much to view. Scattered students stumble over sidewalks. A car comes to the corner, slows, passes, silence.

For once in my life I am at the perfect height. Up here on the balcony, I can witness it all without needing to stand on my toes.

Otherwise I type in small windows so I can see what is going on.

There is a light on in your window, I know.

I would not usually be so vague, but there is nothing specific to say. I would like someone to come around the corner and up this shadowy road. I would like them to wave to me. Call my name. Sit up here with me for awhile, in silence.

Because I've done enough work. I would like to be amazed right now. I would like to be engaged, fascinated. To one day do the kind of work that makes me eager to be where I am with who is there. And perhaps we’ll have a conversation worth remembering. Worth thinking about. Worth continuing.

It won’t be right now.

The traffic light flashes red and yellow.

I type in small windows to remind myself of perspective.

It is time to sleep, I tell myself, and go into bed, but not to bed.

I want to walk down the road and around the corner.

I'm probably going to regret not doing ANY work for the past two hours

For a certain young lady with whom I just conversed with about love and life:

In some way -- most likely a haphazard, unexpected, and wonderful one -- you will get precisely what you deserve, which is the best. :-)

Stranger than fiction

Gary: "Carmen, are you a citizen yet?"

Carmen: "No. I've applied, though."

Gary: "Well, if you need to marry me to become a citizen, let me know."

Angela: "BWAHAHAHA!!!!!!!"

An update due to popular demand :-)

What I learned while watching The Mission:
Deaf people can't get handcuffed.

..

Raquette Lake was amazing. Precisely what I needed. I shall post photos soon, although they are not nearly as deep and terrific as what Rachel has posted on Facebook.

Some favorite quotes/moments:
After crashing the international bonfire
Steve: "So where are YOU from?"
Guy: "Rochester, New York."

Steve: "So are you miserable?"
Me: "Depends."
Steve: "Like diapers?"

Andy: "I fuckin' love my mom!"

What Rachel and I heard...that should not be typed.

Pat: "Can you do back flips?"

The tarot card reading. Whoa.

I read a piece that I posted on May 8, for anyone who wishes to delve into the archives. I changed it a bit. Contemporized it, if you will. The feelings hold true. It's not something I'd normally read out loud, and for a larger audience, I'd choose humor instead. But it was right for the time.

"You two are spectacular," Dr. Boynton told me as we kayaked on Raquette Lake at 7 a.m.

Thank goodness the radio worked on the way home!

And that we got voicemails from Dr. Reid.

..

And that some things will not change.

(Today is a multi-entry sort of day)

Dear Angie Baby,

Thank you for faithfully reading this blog.

For all SUNY Cortland athletes:

Please refrain from making out with your beloved, whether they are your gender or not, at team functions. Otherwise, you may be subjected to "constant observation."

And to the one and only Denise Wiesner,

Thank you for the spectacular CD you sent to Brittany that includes "Can't Touch This."

Love,
DiGal

La verdad:

"...Aun cuando ama la poesia, el cielo no le dio la gracia de ser poeta."

Awesome word:

cybersquatting.

All I really wanted to do tonight was write.

I find it a bit awkward to do so. It's a bit too much wear my heart on your sleeve with far less answers. At least the bands who sing such lyrics receive cheers.

Even in a house like this, the night ended quickly tonight. I might be the only one left awake, and I'll turn in soon enough.

But I can be here -- myself, my work-in-progress room, my work-in-progress life -- and not be ashamed of the company.

tense change

She noticed later that red stained the gray sweatshirt. The tribulations of hair dye.

The advice came across the cheap Formica table. "You do too much work." Perhaps. "Drink while doing laundry. It's a great time." Hmm. Especially if you don't need to go to college to be a writer.

"Did you dye your hair?" Dunkin Donuts lighting is most certainly unforgiving.

She plays with the still-damp bangs and wonders what else she can begin to get away with.

"Your earrings are like...sorcery."

Well, perhaps not, but she'll work on making her writing such.

The Nasty Life

Gary: "...So I reacted as I usually do."
Angela and I in unison: "Very calmly and rationally?"

Me: "I'm going to the bathroom. Let me know if he says anything about Mayans."
Moments later:
Amber: "He just said that the plot is thickening. You'd better get out, Diana."

After reading out loud my away message:
Amber: "I am nervous! Estoy nerviosa! ... I think something's wrong with me."



And the people we become, well,
they're never really the people who we are.

I think it may be time to realize that this is not going to be the way I want it to be.

I like this:

"In my opinion, karma will be a bigger bitch than I'd ever be."

Hey, baby, is that you? Wow, your hair got so long...

Between last year and now, the clash has become more evident: that I feel like a different person in both places.

The energy remains the same. But not always the outlook and attitude. What changes most is the reality. I don't know which one will last, or which one I want to.

--

But I do know that 1) Christina is fantastic for sending me multitudes of songs, and that despite trees being chopped at 7 a.m., 74 Lincoln = Can't touch this!

Well, it's the last day of August

and I've only changed my schedule once.

And written an "experimental piece" in about an hour (muchas gracias, Pablo Murray).

And felt that life was full, and constantly moving, not passive.

And named our wireless network, "Can't touch this."

And twisted on my own as if it were nothing.

And been happy. Am happy. Still so, in fact.

And known that I need to keep moving, living, writing, learning, before I can plant myself down in one place.

A little:

sick, nervous, stressed, sad, excited, confident, and yet a good part satisfied.

It's that time, of course, to write a letter.

It is cold.

It is cold.

The rain strikes closed eyes, pricks the skin, but captures the trees in green.

It is time, the tired wind says. Time to see flurries on light gray days. Time to miss you like end-of-day sunshine, so simple and beautiful.

Phoenix

I like to check off the skills I've done and the body parts I've hurt.

Then I do those skills again. And again.

By choice.

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
--W.B. Yeats--

The feeling's mutual.

Isn't it lovely to realize that the people you stalk on occasion stalk you back?

We're just too damn curious, all of us.

The next pool party

Of course I think I ate too many s'mores, but it was just a right kind of night -- friends around the fire pit, laughing as the night dries us after a failed game of "Marco Polo," together without pressure or pause, a Long Island night.

Hair

I measured my loose ponytail on Saturday and found that it reached the requisite ten inches.

"Should I donate my hair now?" I asked my parents.

My mom looked at me. "...It's up to you."

"It'll grow back," my dad reasoned.

Confidence.

556

"You cannot love God but hate your neighbor."

If today you hear God's voice, /
harden not your heart.

Confession/Want/Dreams

I really enjoy Timbaland's "The Way I Are."

..

I want to:
-travel
-write creatively
-write professionally
-learn
-teach
-work with children
-stay free
-stay healthy
-stay involved with gymnastics
-be qualified to do anything I fancy
-get married. stay married. and love.
-afford to live wherever I find myself
-raise children that don't frustrate me.
-change the world, somebody's world, in a good way
-be remembered
-finally, maybe, be satisfied with this life

..

Forget dreams, something said. You're too scared to leave.

I don't think so, I answered.

..
Which I'd almost forgotten...

Lift my days,
light up my nights

"You know what makes me happy?

You'll think it's really random and dorky."

"What?"

"The fact that you're doing fulls again."

Aww, Meghan! :-)

Sound Road

Sometimes I raise my hand outside of the rolled-down window. I do not signal. I do not wave.

I feel the air, let my fingers run through it,

then take the wheel again.

I will sit and earn the ransom from up here

The day: long grass, hot sun, port-a-potties that don't flush (which should be outlawed), Sudoku, the Hobbit, sleeping, parks near the Interstate, old friends, riding deer, fired up and letting up.

I know it will all turn for the best eventually, but I am wistful right now.

Then again, it hasn't ended. And as I watch, I am convinced, I tell myself, I make myself believe, that now there is no pain.

The other

As I sat on a rock after my swim, I considered telling the little girl and her grandfather to not be afraid of the water. I’ve lived here most of my mortal life, I’d say.

They would reply, And what about the other one?

Steady.

I feel good. I feel strong.

I land on floor without a twinge or shock of a stressed ligament. I raise my arms above my head, as I should. And I walk away, lightly, ready for the next turn.

Even the storms were not much of anything the other night. Flashes out the window. Pouring rain outside of open windows. But after some Wii golf, the rain slackened, losing interest, leaving us alone with steam rising off of the streets.

An innovative use for a Spanish degree:

Translating Carissa's text messages from her boyfriend.

Of the best ones

I watch her spin around
in her highest heels
You are the best one
of the best ones

-Dashboard Confessional

Reflections on 7-11

Even though I feel the urge to work my abs, the past two nights have been highly enjoyable -- plotted yet spontaneous enough to keep me moving.

I love my friends. I love to dance. Let's think about that one.

Ah! Let's raise to not thinking.

It was supposed to be one of the hottest days yet.

I stepped outside of the air-conditioned office. My car is not unbearably stuffy and the wind carries the sun. The cheetah sunglasses keep me from squinting and I realize that commercials, not music, are playing.

But I am happy. I am good at what I do.

I feel like it is the beginning of June, that things are just starting to happen, or should be doing so.

I watch her spin around in her highest heels

There's a bit of a disjoint as we sit and chat about those things that some of us went to and others weren't invited to, hint around at the things that some of us know and others pretend not to, try to joke and prevent anything from being too obviously wrong.

I find myself bored in those times that are supposed to be "fun" and especially entertained when "fun" just happens. Sure, I'd like to rock out as much as the next person. But "the next person" isn't who I'd want to be with.

But tonight I raised my water and knew that if it were liquor, this would be just right.

But I did dream

that Lena, Natalie, and I were all attending grad school at MIT. Oh, my.

I don't know;

it's just
a weird sort of disjointed day where you know it's bad news on the phone but that you need to have your Cheerio's or you'll regret it later. You've woken up from a night of roaming the beach with a flashlight as a fourteen-year-old boy sings that you're a pirate. You have greasy pizza for lunch and find out that you've got a four-day weekend. It's raining on the Fourth of July and you think that it's fitting because you don't want to celebrate. Little boys whistle as you run down the block. You run down to the beach, but there are too many cars disturbing your peace. Silly people so overly-enthused. You dance in the kitchen because you cannot wait to do gymnastics. "I'm all right," you answer. Your skills in Mario Tennis have improved. "Goodnight, I love you!" the boy says from his sheet cocoon, already falling asleep in his pillow.

You know that it will not be a good two, or many, days.

Meditations.

Driving fast, all right. But I'm impressed by people who can get in their cars quickly. "See ya later!" they say as they find their keys. Then bam, they're out of the parking lot.

How do they do it?

Afterparty

As we walk down the stairs, Kelsey turns to me and whispers, "The balloon is musical."

Every little thing she does is magic.

Old and fun. :-)

In the end

it's me driving myself.

I frighten myself, I berate myself, but in the end, it's me calming myself.

Go on. Go on.

Second chance

Back turned, he leans into the refrigerator. The walls peel the way they always have, slowly. His jeans fit the same way -- too big.

"Do you want a drink or something?" he offers.

Or something, you think. I'll take one of those.

-Why does everyone have to die?

-If nobody died, you wouldn't be here. There'd be too many people. The extras would happen accidentally. Unhappily.

-Maybe.

A sea change

If someone had described it to me in other terms, I probably would have been more interested much earlier. "It's like getting paid to stalk and then write about it."

I may indeed change my mind, as we young people are apt to do. But something real is happening. I have something that will be shaped and cultivated and challenged, but it is something existing, fundamental, ready.

I posted the picture to say, "I am not that girl any longer." But then I pause. Of course I am. And then some.

While talking to Christina and Regina

I miss my life there right now.

I know what I want. I know who I want with me.

Sense of menace

is my new idea for a theme/direction of the Honors Thesis...since I've done, of course, so much work on it already.

Also, GRE = over with = fantastic = relief that I didn't devote my life to studying hefty amounts of information that would most likely not show up on the test.

The sun came out, suprisingly enough.

Forty-seven words

A pale figure runs from the reeds of the marsh, across the road, and up the hill into thick trees. White against night.

-Did you see that? I ask.

He shrugs, turning the car around the corner. –It’s just a ghost.

Behind us, a phantom quietly dies.

GRE Preparation

I decided to see what I was up against whilst I relearned standard deviation and probability, and thus swung onto the FAQ's.

"At the start of the test, you are presented with test questions of middle difficulty. As you answer each question, the computer scores it and uses that information, as well as your responses to preceding questions and information about the test design, to determine the next question. As long as you answer correctly, you will typically be given questions of increased difficulty. When you respond incorrectly, you will typically be given less difficult questions." -- gre.org

So when my questions become, "y = 3x. x=1. Solve for y," I'll know that I'm doing really well.

I like your style, GRE. Until, of course, I take you and get my scores back.

Helicopter lights and bad dreams

What happened to the happy news?

What creature...slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Tedium

I drive home, mindful of deer and police cars, and suddenly remember that I had been gray before. A fitful, tiring gray.

I had forgotten because the gym is a safe place. Writing, too, is a safe place, until it is shown to others beyond my friends and oftentimes classmates.

I tell myself that I tried, am trying now. I am looking everywhere and not hearing a sound.

But maybe I have no reason to mope. It may have been too easy for me up until now.

After all, you're cleared to run.

Big doings in life:

-Cleared to run today! "If you can run two miles without it hurting, then you're healed." I'm sure a few roundoff-back handsprings will also be essential to the final stretch of the healing process...

-Watched movies recently (clearly, I'm a new woman)

-Traveled to Cortland, encountering additional thunderstorms and witnessing (somewhat, when Mom and I weren't busy laughing at people) my dad make his comeback from Pileup Menace to Cycling Champ.

-Reunited with several fantastic former teammates from Spins

-Got a real job (just kidding...that will take quite some time, if ever) (working on it, however)

-Showed the world what Wading River's all about ("world" = non-viral link = click that bad boy)

-Finished a story

"Good deal, Gallagher," as Mr. K would say.

"If Angela was here,"

I tell Brian as we wait for a car to pass us before we walk across the road, "we would have made a run for it." Of course, I've had a bit to drink, which makes the idea even more appealing.

I imagine the Bri standing on the curb, shaking his head, as Angela and I take off over the asphalt. An SUV approaches. Indifferent, Angela's new ACL and my leisurely-healing metatarsal would scamper joyfully through the night, almost as if Pontillo's awaited us down the darkened roads. We would likely begin to giggle loudly and make a Facebook-related comment, or perhaps even a Ross Borden reference to "innate curiosity." The night would be officially concluded only after we'd checked each other's away messages prior to sleep.

As I check Angela's away message now from where she rests in the 845, I raise my Poland Spring to August 25th, to the beauty of receiving "offline" messages, and to Cortland's floor.

Only my father

would cause a bicycle accident on North Country Road that I happened to pass by on my way to the gym.

I cause a scene by envisioning (out loud) a volcanic Bald Hill, flapping my arms in a pre-historic-bird-fashion (nods to Brittany), discussing rumors of pregnancy by homeless men and "bringing one's A-game" with my lovely Seven, and dancing to no music, without any reason at all. All following each other in quick succession.

I suppose it's not so strange, really. But someone has to catch the attention of those who have been treading slowly for too long.

2:14

I think I am ready to write.

If she had indeed

named me Jennifer, I would have certainly spelled "Jenn" with two "n's." Or "Britt" with two "t's," etc.

But when I read the occasional mispelled "Dianna" that is meant for me, I think to myself, "Oh, no, now that's excessive."

12:50am on Route 25A

At the red light, a silver car slides up next to me on the left. Slowly. Slipping against the dashed line. I stare ahead, wondering if the driver is looking at me.

At the green light, the car turns on the speed -- the way I knew it would -- and flashes a quick signal before coasting ahead of me.

I have the feeling that I've been brushed against, a little too nearly, and that a smirk was tossed before he moved on.

So much water so close to home

Falling, cascading, hurtling, everywhere. If I pause quickly in just the right place, will I find myself dry, protected by a ring like bullets, like beads, like rain?

Elementary school and on

They always thought that you were serious and I was laughing.






They didn't know that you were the one who was making me laugh.

Post-trauma

The sky is sunny, but I swear I hear thunder.

A terrible beauty is born

The moon hangs red tonight.

"Was that -?"

"Yes." One flash of lightning and then another.

We stand together on the sidewalk and look up at the sky. Sizzling purple. Horizontal slashes. Angry scrawls on a recently passive sky.

But somehow this electric canopy inspires your confession of fears. "I have the feeling that something is going to go wrong," you say in the car. Large droplets hit the windshield. "Here. In the world. Everywhere."

I wave to friends in the next lane, grins pressed against the glass as they sign to us.

"I wonder if I'm missing a warning," I answer.

Under the roof of a well-lit house, she smiles at his concern. "Let's turn the lights off," she replies. She is calm, gently mocking when the lights no longer turn back on and explosions from the sky shatter the night. "If it's the apocalypse, at least we're all together. If it's the rapture, we won't have time to worry, anyway." Comfortable by candlelight, she stretches on the sofa. She understands religion.

I do not recognize the allusion and feel that I should. I hear "together" and think of my mother, who sits quietly on the same corner of the couch, worrying.

A sudden ricochet from the retreating storm. We are not so potent as we believe ourselves to be.

Later, cars slice through puddles and pass on, indifferent. The lights of stores and traffic gleam as always.

The moon hangs red, dripping from a violent birth.

Glances of mortality

My goodness, I cannot thank you enough.

Implicit

"You!" she says.

"Me," I admit.

Cohesion of scenes

A white figure runs from the marsh, across the road, and up the hill into the woods.

"Oh, my God, that was so awkward!" she exclaims in a low voice, gripping my arm. "I mean, really, WHY?"

Well, you don't answer your phone.

"I wouldn't tell you this if I didn't give a shit!" he shouts.

The flowers, petite and pink, stand brilliantly against the green. How had I failed to notice all of these years?

"It's not that exciting." Then she leans back in the booth and considers. "Well. Sometimes."

"You can't not say it back. That's just the end of the relationship right there!" He doesn't see "You have nice teeth" as an acceptable response to "I love you."

I want to listen, but I close my door instead.

The nights are getting warmer

and I hope the stone settled in your mind will be eroded by gentle, ceaseless waves.

Just what you want to hear:

A consensus at the strap bar produced some of our favorite responses:

"You wouldn't understand."

"You don't understand."

"You don't even know!"

Money

I never thought much about money until I realized that I was supposed to. Like weight, it narrowed people's eyes and added a wistful tone to their voices. Someday, they said. I have to.

They see money as items, as stackable boxes that will barricade them from the wilderness.

I see money as places, as gas, as the transition between here and movement.

The simple life

"Stick it in!"

"Diana just had a flashback."

"Remember, ping-pong is harder than cheerleading."

Sun by day, laughter in the gym, friends and love at night.

Somehow I rarely have too little to do. Somehow I am not at all self-conscious when I stand with these friends.

Perhaps it will somehow work out that I will always prefer to be where I am.

Dancing

Do I want to write my fictions or do I want to play in them? Or both?

A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.

And then I wonder,

why must I be so silly?

My foot tingles.

The computer hums.

The movie plays on.

I love you, you say.

Finally.

I have missed your smile.

A P.S. so I don't forget:

Dear Emeline:

My friends truly enjoyed the video of your Africana dance performance on my camera. But not as much as I enjoyed the live version. :-D

Much love,
your future date at Hairy Tony's

She does.

I am a bit more confident when I come back here. So it has gone for the past year.

I got it. Thanks.

And you watch and think, She does.

Last night in Cortland

Fitting.

The best moment of today:

Beautiful views, ceaseless water, twisting rocks, slices of sunlight and gold-green fields.

But my favorite moment just might have been watching Laurel burst into the running man -- and keep it up -- as I fumbled for my ringing cell phone outside of the library.

:)

I would like to return home feeling more prepared. More complete.

To Do, in red ink

"...Clean kitchen, sweep floor, find out what's in 'Surfer on Acid'..."

Re:

Prayers on X-ray tables do not work.

But I can wear TWO shoes now. Regular shoes. How about that?

We stay sane through these tiny compromises that we have to make.

The night

disconnects me. The only things that feel right are shoes on pavement, legs flexing and straightening, and stars overhead. I am moving. I am moving.

::waves::

HI, LEENES!

Angles

My eyes burn. I step outside into cool night air. The smoke from downstairs is subdued and the laughter calming from drunkenness to tiredness.

I want to smudge my eyes with dark eyeliner and look at you behind masked and falsely thick lashes.

The wooden seat creaks and I'm too tired to wonder how many people have sat in it before. We are at the perfect height up here, I realize as I look at the lights of apartment houses and passing cars. We can witness it all without needing to step down. My perfect height.

I type in small windows so I can see what is going on.

There is a light in your window, I know.

I would like someone to come around the corner and up this shadowy road. I would like them to wave to me. Call my name. Sit up here with me for awhile, in silence.

I don't need to be amazing. I've done enough work. I would like to be amazed right now. I would like to be engaged, fascinated. I want to do the kind of work someday that makes me eager to be where I am with who is there. Is it too much to want that now?

The traffic light flashes red and yellow.

I type in small windows to remind myself of perspective.

It is time to sleep, I tell myself, and go into bed, but not to bed.

I want to walk down the road and around the corner.

Camera One closes in

You're playing you now

Like Diana walking into the middle of a Shakespearean drama.

Isn't it amazing how much everyone is internalizing?
Perhaps we'd all feel better if we just admitted it.

With Martial Vigor

"Philosophy"

If I should labor through daylight and dark,
Consecrate, valorous, serious, true,
Then on the world I may blazon my mark;
And what if I don’t, and what if I do?


"I just wanna go into a frenzy. I really wanna hurt someone. Like God honestly knock someone's teeth out."
Brittany falls into the TV.
Deep blues, greens, and gold.
For Semra, I wrote.
Jeremy's spoken.

"Resume"
Razors pain you; / River are damp; / Acids stain you; / And drugs cause cramp. / Guns aren't lawful; / nooses give; Gas smells awful; / You might as well live.


R.I.P. :-(

Causing the scene

I painted over the writing on the wall.

-What do you want?
-All of you?

Looking at the map

of where I am right now is enough to give me vertigo.

2:24pm

The last half-hour is always the longest.

"Andrea, will my foot ever get better?"

"That's going on 'Word is Bond!'"

Well, now it's here, Angie Baby!

Clearly, back handsprings are a surefire method of recovery. Perhaps Emeline can write her Honors thesis on their miraculous healing powers, akin to holistic therapy. My Honors thesis, meanwhile, will likely be a story that goes on for a long while with something happening here and there, that Kelsey and I will find funny but will only prompt an occasional half-smile out of everyone else. Like, you know, life.

Anna Molly

Fate
or something better
I could care less
Just stay with me for awhile

Things I held sacred/that I dropped

((Clever line, Audioslave.))

I'd forgotten how I enjoyed speaking in a semi-seductive voice over the radio, somehow knowing what song should follow the next. I am always two tracks ahead.

I'd forgotten that I enjoyed portraying someone else, or an extension of myself, for an audience. I like the instant gratification; I love to make you laugh.

Why the heck

am I enjoying myself and not feeling overwhelmed???

Note to self: Add Indiana Jones to list of movies.

Now, if we could get this metatarsal to heal in an efficient manner, then heck, I'd feel unstoppable. :-)

The lights are off in the house. Someone could come out from this silent darkness and nobody would ever hear besides the three of us: Someone, the Raker, and me.

Vulnerable

Is
standing in the
middle of the street,
playing basketball,
four foot five,
with long
girlish locks
blocking your
vision.

1996 Compulsories

"I'd like Gary to say that to me," Brittany muses.

"Say what?" I ask, looking up from painting my nails a Vixen shade of red.

"That he'll always protect me."

Sometimes:

I smile,
nod,
and wonder,
Why the hell
are you
telling
me
this?

It gets hard.

I mean, what the heck do we know, anyway?

Easter Sunday, pondering "fanaticism" a.k.a. "fundamentalism"

Zero degrees Kelvin. The event horizon. +1 + -1 = O.

Nothing.

You know you're a nerd

when you post on WebCT at 1am. And you're not behind on the assignment.

Empathy?

Either way I look at it, I'll never have exactly what I want.

And perhaps we're not supposed to.

I would like to drive fast with the music playing loudly, the lyrics telling me what I should do and feel. And then I would return and write and be applauded.

So fun!

Seriously, who am I?

"Evidently those gynecologist appointments go like hot cakes."

To my faithful and fearless fellow obsesser-over-gymnastics, radio station frolicker, floor runner-arounder, stationary bicycle racer, rehab champion, and PARTNER 4 LIFE:

GOOD LUCK! If there's any pain, just take an Advil. You'll be fine in the morning. It never happened. ;-)

I picked red grapes and wondered,

Are "safe" and "sane" synonymous?

Some girls

stake their territory by robbing their boyfriend's wardrobe. Large T-shirts, baseball sweatshirts, sweatpants, even boxers are looted for their own. I have a boyfriend, the battered T-shirt proclaims when it is worn on a female body. It turns her shapeless. Is that what she wants?

I, on the other hand, have my boyfriend's sock. Singular. Comfortable and clean. I do not need to brandish it as proof of my conquest.

It can't be thundering, I think as I sleep.

Then comes the sound I have not heard in a long while: rain bouncing off the roof.

For some reason I open my eyes and sit up with "Angels We Have Heard on High" in my head.

i Me gusta este poema !

"Verbo" ~ Pablo Neruda

Voy a arrugar esta palabra,
voy a tercerla,
si,
es demasiado lisa,
es como si un gran perro o un gran rio
le hubiera repasado lengua o agua
durante muchos anos.

Quiero que en la palabra
se vea la aspereza,
la sal ferruginosa,
la fuerza desdentada
de la tierra,
la sangre,
de los que hablaron y de los que no hablaron.

Quiero ver la sed
adentro de las silabas:
quiero tocar el fuego
en el sonido:
quiero sentir la oscuridad
del grito. Quiero
palabras asperas
como piedras virgenes.

The way they talk, they make you forget that you'd find stars out in the suburbs. But here you are on a clear night, with streetlights, driveway torches, and headlights boring in and out.

You look up when you're stepping over the curb or balancing on gravel. You raise your eyes as you wonder about crazed men running out from the bushes. You stare into the expanse and blink, opening your eyes from your narrow thoughts. You wanted a quick fix. You wanted home. You wanted sleep.

Your world is dark blue and green right now, the way you always remembered it. The temperature must be below thirty but you swear you can smell spring. The air is always salty, you imagine.

The stars arch over the evergreens. So many stars, you realize again. Your feet wobble and logic returns you to the terrestrial.

You move towards the tangible lights in the windows, slowly, still watching.

I can be someone.

Is it a question? A declaration?

A dream?

We "make and bake" ON PREMISES

Big fan of the new template. Big fan.

So I figured I'd celebrate with a picture.

I'm also a big fan of being back in Cortland, walking with "Das Boot," doing, moving, dreaming. I like what I'm writing, or at least the premises. I like walking through campus at night, shadows on the snow and music in my ears.

I also like that Liz photoshops her eye color in her Facebook pictures. Gotta keep them guessing, you know!

A pleasant lunchtime discussion about death with Rachel, Liz, and Steve:

Steve: "It's nothing...it's beyond our conception of dark, because we know what 'dark' is...it's really something that we don't know! Isn't that scary?"

Diana: "No, I find it comforting."

The definition of manliness = the secure knowledge that if a random attacker were to approach, your male companion would be the one protecting you, not vice versa.

Ah. I like these PWR people!

The 6th of July? 2002

"I think people think I'm nuts when I write them long notes or e-mails, or write in-depth entries for All Quiet on the Western Front, or write twenty pages instead of three. Don't you see, I'm not like you, I can't say it all."

7-31-02
"Well, in place of driver's ed, I cleaned the bathroom. Wahoo."

Some nights I want the world. Some nights I want to sleep. Some nights these desires flip flop, there and back again. In the end it’s me, just me, a laptop away from a bed.

What he said

"So he says, 'I was taught to never be an inconvenience,' so I said, 'Well, I was taught to do anything for anyone.' Seriously, if it weren't for that red light, he would have left me there."

I recognize that second person in myself. I'd rearrange my schedule in any way possible if it would relieve you for me to do so. (As long as, of course, it didn't conflict too nearly with gymnastics.)

But are we taught this? Do we watch it? Or do we just feel it to be right?

Excerpt

You consider yourself an expert on the injured area. It becomes yours, somehow, yet something very distinct from you. “How are you?” and “How’s the knee?” are not the same question. Oh, I’m doing just fine. The knee’s a bit under the weather, though. We may go out to lunch later.

Besides

kicking an impending cold and the fact that I cannot do gymnastics (besides, again, the kips), I'm feeling relaxed. Content. At ease. Enough to not worry about work and consider instead that perhaps I'll gain some sweet abs. ((Which will make up for the seven or so pounds that I've apparently lost -- yay for white hot chocolate?))

Atlas Shrugged

"She looked at him in the exact moment when he turned to look at her. They stood very close to each other. She saw, in his eyes, that he felt as she did. If joy is the aim and the core of existence, she thought, and if that which has the power to give one joy is always guarded as one's deepest secret, then they had seen each other naked in that moment."

"She felt no anger towards anyone on earth. The things she had endured had now receded into some outer fog, like pain that still exists, but has no power to hurt. Those things could not stand in the face of this moment's reality, the meaning of this day was as brilliantly, violently clear as the splashes of sun on the silver of the engine, all men had to perceive it now, no one could doubt it and she had no one to hate."

"It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust, but to know."

Tiny Dancer

Blue jean baby,
L.A. lady,
seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile,
you'll marry a music man

Ballerina, you must have seen her
dancing in the sand
And now she's in me,
always with me,
tiny dancer in my hand

Jesus freaks out in the street
Handing tickets out for God
Turning back, she just laughs
The boulevard is not that bad

Piano man, he makes his stand
In the auditorium
Looking on, she sings the songs
The words she knows, the tune she hums

But oh, how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you and you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly,

Hold me closer, tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
You had a busy day today

"Don't you have a $u*% button at the radio station?"

"No, but I wish I had one"

..

Wouldn't it be nice to type music the way it should be heard?

Is tomorrow really the last day before Spring Break? Does it actually feel like spring anywhere in New York? And do I really sound like Anne of Green Gables when on the phone?

All this and more questions to come!

Chatrooms and David the Gnome on YouTube

As the four of us converse in a chatroom, a la high school, I think of how we'd be driving aimlessly around Long Island, calling each other and eventually finding each other in a parking lot. If we were feeling particularly extravagant, a diner could be in the cards.

Salt on the night air. I'll never forget home.

As long as I find some opportunity to

go for a swim, then maybe I should relax a bit. Despite the crutches, the arctic temperatures, and the x-rays. I've accomplished three, four, five things that I've really wanted already this year.

But I want to improve them.

For now, I pace on my hands.

Hold me here until I sleep

And if these are my parting words
Then this, my last request
Hold me here until I sleep
If I burn, then I burn for you
-Anberlin, "Cadence"

11:00pm

As we've all realized at one point or another,

this is going to take longer than I'd thought.

Movies that Diana "Needs to See:" An Evolving List

-Stand By Me
-Lost in Translation
-The Life of Brian (in full)
-A Beautiful Mind
-Gladiator
-Amelie
-Lucky Number Slevin
-The Wicker Man
-Pride and Prejudice
-Blazing Saddles
-Motorcycle Diaries
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
-Shakespeare in Love
-the latest version of Romeo and Juliet

5.20.2007: I have seen Borat, Moulin Rouge, Shrek the Third, V for Vendetta, and "Harsh Times," all of which I enjoyed. Especially, of course, the latter.

3.5.07

It's more than a little frightening that I'm still very fond of the song "Sexy Love."

Ahem.

We roam the house like tired old women at age twenty-one. "I'm so tired!" we moan at 9:30. Are we asleep by midnight? Of course not.

"Oh, wait," Tanya says, in monologue fashion, as she slowly picks herself up in the den. "Maybe I'm tired from using crutches all day."

"In the white out," I add, my Ace-bandaged foot in its usual perch on top of the desk, next to the computer.

"And would you understand? Yes, you would!" She shuffles out of the den. "You actually use them properly."

As I left the house in the aforementioned whiteout, I looked up the hill and realized that I could barely see the top. I am going to get run over. I fleetingly thought of missing class. I knew that plenty of others would.

Yet I proceed anyway, bravely forging my way through certain peril and potential disaster. First a guy driving in the opposite direction, and later a girl going the same way as me, offered a ride out of the window. Unfortunately, I've been trained too well to say yes to strangers.

What does it mean that I crutched from Pleasant to Old Main, freezing, tapping the crutches together occasionally in hopes of shaking off a bit of snow and not falling on my face, politely declining aid beyond a door being held open?

Probably the very simple fact that I'm stubborn.

In the training room, Tanya and Christine compete to see who can bend their leg more. As five of us on six tables ice or kick, we realize that we've all torn our ACL's. We love gymnastics. We do. As we take over the bars, kipping and conditioning and hopping and not stumbling in front of the trainers, we refuse to be broken.

3.4.07

Everywhere you look in this house, there are two couples behind closed doors, two pairs of crutches, and two girls with compression wraps.

I woke up at 12:30am

or so, as everyone returned to the house. Emeline was back from Buffalo, gymnastics trophy in hand. "Are you asleep?" she asked, peering through the cracked open door. I wouldn't go so far as to describe myself as conscious, but we carried on a conversation about notorious out-of-state individuals who will forever be fabled in these parts.

It seemed like a good opportunity for a bagel and fruit punch-flavored water (100% Vitamin C, you know). A couple of coconut-filled Hershey's kisses, conversations, and peer-editing(s) later, I now consider sleep, wondering:

Why haven't I thrown away all of these nearly empty water bottles?
How do three people tear their ACL's in one week?
I should sweep the floor.
I should probably go to the bathroom.
I should probably organize the books on the ground.
I probably won't.
What will I do at home when I can't do full gymnastics? (Answer: Be creative.)
I like how the intense-looking bruising is nowhere near the fracture.
I'd like to be near you.

Corey Union

"...It was a competition to see who was hotter," Brittany reflects.

"Clearly, you won," Tanya and I say in unison.

High five!

"If I were on American Idol,

I'd dedicate my song to GTB," I say.

"Me, too," agrees Tanya. "I'd sing 'Sexual Healing.'"

sing this song

If I turn into another

Britt and I struggle through another night of our middle-class existence.

the better part of me

Perfectly content.

In that moment, untouchable.

sigh.

Well, you know, it could always be worse. Like if I died from taking three Tylenols...thanks, Em!

Good friends.

It'll make for a good story, I think, that Emeline helped push my car from where it helplessly spun in the Wash Tub parking lot, shoveled off the driveway entrance with me (the Tub should give us free laundry for doing them such a service, I feel), directed my reverse driving, found a parking spot in an apartment lot across the street, and followed me there in her pajama pants.

Our hands are numb inside of our gloves and our skin screams from our faces in the wind, but I do have ice cream for her.

In honor of 2-13,

Why Staying Together is Easier Than Breaking Up.

According to social scientists Angie Baby and DJ Di, a break up entails...

-redecorating the entire room. Down go the photos, frames, cute mementos, and random objects that you've accumulated.
-debating whether or not to hide or destroy said photos and items.
-revamping the profile. Making sure that you appear to be having the time of your life.
-besides late at night after a night with the girls, when "What Hurts the Most" lyrics appear on the away message. Crooked face optional.
-to read or not to read the other person's away messages? Remove from Buddy List? Block?
-what to do about Facebook? "It's complicated?" What if the other party doesn't agree? De-tag photos? Delete person as friend? Leave relationship status blank? "Looking For" = "Random Play" and/or "Whatever I can get," but is that too desperate? To poke back or not to pack back?
-and, of course, GTB will found out, sing your away message to you, and taunt you.

Trust us, kids, it's easier to stick it out.

"'My anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns, hon'...or is it h-u-n?"

"I thought those were the German invaders."

"Weren't those the Visigoths?"

"Maybe both?"

"And you don't have an anaconda."

"That's what you think."

Only two and a half years later,

I realize that the purpose of college is to invert the word home beyond recognition, making you feel comfortable and disjointed wherever you find yourself.

It's Friday already??

Don't let anybody take away your power.

Hold me closer, tiny dancer...

And now I feel that everything will be okay.

otra intro

I will come to your waters and stand still, lest my breath cause a ripple. Your light shimmers over them. You move and shadows bend for you.

You are…you are a Phoenix, says the shirt beneath your blue-and-red vest.

You’ve yet to stare at me coldly, and I am encouraged. You’ve also yet to stare at me with recognition. But I am not deterred. I’ve returned to the line for your register four times over the past week.

Re: Evolution of Writing lecture, 1.31.07

Is artificiality natural to humans?

Por supuesto.

Why else would I write and edit and reconsider if I didn't think of the effect it may have on someone else?

Why Sunday Was Awesome:

"I was checking 'Word is Bond' the other night..." I love you, Angie Baby!

-It was somewhat warm in Rhode Island
-I COMPETED...
-and did not fall
-on the floor
-or
-off of it
-in "the catsuit"
-and screamed to the dehydration point and back again
-and then, despues de muchas risas,
-we arrived home, and I found an elusive odd spot to park in.

This likely won't come as a

surprise to anyone who knows me, but I'm glad to be busy, glad to be rushing quickly through the slush, repeatedly checking assignments and logging into about fourteen different webpages in the name of "Writing in Cyberspace," heading to practice and back again, thinking doing thinking doing thinking doing. I like when they're equal and towards a common, positive goal.

A common, positive goal. I was focused, calm, and clean, without rush or struggle. Continue, sigue.

And I'm pretty fascinated by the fact that iTunes actually organizes all of the music on your computer for you.

Snowflakes.

And what I really mean to say...

is something that I'm not sure what to say about yet. Or think.

It's what I want.

Exactly.

Can I make it happen?

I believe so.

"Emeline - I forgive you as long as we go to Doug's sometime in the nearish future."

"Diana - I apologize for borrowing the journal for academic notes."

"Weird" seems right enough.

I'm weirdly glad to be back in Cortland. I just didn't want to be there anymore, in that mindset. Now I'm comfortably tired to the point where I can't think too specifically. It's nice.

There are things and people that I will have to let go of, or should let go of, or will have to think of letting go of, and what if I don't want to?

The bed's no longer a mess.

The quest:

To write a *meaningful* story.

English is a funky language.

Whilst speaking online
to Emeline
this afternoon,
I noticed that
"good"
and
"food"
do not rhyme.
(Nor do
"online"
and
"Emeline,"
if you know her.)
("Rhyme" could
almost, though.)

What "shouldn't" be said

If you begin a story with, "This might make me sound like a bad person" or "It seemed like a good idea at the time" or "I probably shouldn't be telling you this," then you've got my full attention.

This has the makings of an early night.

Even my alarm sounded too tired to be set.

your stories have gone stale

Glad you had fun, kids, but Saturday night's over.

Emeline is back in the country!!!

Emeline's mom: "Tell Brittany not to fall on her ass."
Tanya: "OMG! I have to call Brittany!" ::calls Brittany about three times and yells this to her. It is questionable if Brittany has even answered her phone::
Emeline: "My mom is going on the wall!"

"I reallllllly need to pee!" she calls.

"I'm almost done!" I say calmly.

My teeth, of course, need to be thoroughly brushed. The water certainly needs to be turned on. Hot and cold. A little stronger. There we go.

I listen to the stream and smile a foamy, devious smirk.

"You make that look effortless,"

and if only the thought process could follow in the same way.

It always gets better. It just doesn't seem so at the time.

. . .

She is not impressed.

!!!

Dear Diana,

This letter is to inform you that your submission to Toasted Cheese has made it past first reading and will be read by the full editorial board this month. It is not an acceptance letter. You will be notified of our final decision in early February.

In the meantime, keep writing!

This picture is awesome

10:10 pm

A sweet cop-out: I've ended this story by using a line previously appearing in the story. Oooh, yeah.

The stars flickered gently in the windows. So many stars.

(Fun with italics!)

There's a bit of a fog about me. I could call it a dream, but if it were so, I would not be here.

[He] had always seen himself floating above the aurora borealis, above the ice caps, in soundless serenity.

in transit

"It was always like that: she was gone and other people were where they belonged. She was going up or down stairs; other people seemed to be settled somewhere." - Toni Morrison

99 Bananas

Why not one more to make it one hundred?

Happy New Year!