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!

There is no end of the world.

Only the wind feels like winter.

Foam fizzes and flies, sun breaks against gray clouds and blue crests, I raise my camera, and suddenly this all ceases. This becomes nothing on a tiny digital screen.

My bare hands hold steady against the wind as my hair flies in front of the flash. Flash, flash, do I even need one? The old man in the gray car holds his camera, a real camera, an artistic one. His luck will be the same as mine. The lens mutes and diminishes, except for the very talented or the very lucky.

But I focus and capture anyway. The Sound leaps, shatters, and recedes.

All is as it should be. There is no end of the world.

I step down from the cement to leave. The old man's face is in his hands.

Does he agree?

As she walks across the dark yard

and I turn on the music that reminds me of long drives for one person, I wonder how it is that two people who love each other can hurt one another so deeply.

And, yet, continue to love. Unceasingly.

Will that be me? I wonder now and then.

nervous

And what if my words were to fail me?

Bright nights and quiet noises.

And my goodness, am I really about to be twenty-one tomorrow?!