some people just suck. in fact, i'd say 99.999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999 9999
99999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999
999999999999999999999999999999% of people suck. that
leaves only me who doesn't suck. yes. this is a hard fact and i can prove it too. sucky people should just go away and go pollute some other environment. i'm the only one who deserves to live.

it's so easy to forego everything and just write for myself. today is halloween. i want some candy but i think i may be just a tiny bit old to go trick or treating. boo. i like those old fashioned halloween candies like double bubble, dums lollipops, those peanut butter chewy thingies, oh and so much more. it seems like those candies only exist on halloween, i never see them on any other days. special halloween candy. i remember when i was young and used to go trick or treating, dressed up in my pink lacy dress as cinderella (going to the ball, not scrubbing the floor cinderella), i'd get my plastic pumpkin completely filled up and come home, where my dad would gobble up almost all of my candy and i'd get so mad! he does this with every kind of food. french fries, popcorn, anything good. maybe that's why i'm thin -- my dad ate my food before i had a chance to. no no. i made up a new non-curse curse that i think will win me the pulitzer. it's.... brace yourselves.... goshgobblins! isn't that amazing? isn't it original, dandy, brilliant? goshgobblins. i like it. it's appropriate for hallow's eve too.

i still have to write that damn beat experience paper -- 7 pages -- by tonight, 5pm. ARGH. i have no experiences to talk of, just whinings and thoughts and hopes and wishes.

i'm getting into my poetry groove thang. yay. i haven't felt in the poetry mood for awhile now, so i think this may be a good sign. my style has changed so much over the years. i'm not sure exactly what style i'm in right now -- a confessional/surrealistic/grounded reality/black mountain type style. an amalgamation of everything worthwhile and worthless. i started out all singsongy, rhymey, piece of crap fake religiousity "god is good, i like food" and then proceeded directly into pretentious sophisticate using big words and phrases like "triskedekaphobes in midtown" and have by twists and turns unknown to gods or men come to arrive safely, here, undirected. i like it here. it feels safe and warm and cozy cuddly teddy bearish. i can just ramble damble my way down into a poem, let it make itself, and get out and be a proud momma. i dunno why but i always feel like they make sense, and more than that, say something real and perhaps even important, and create a kind of beauty somewhere between nature and language.

in short, poetry does me good. not milk, not milk, but poetry.

it started out nice and warm today and then turned to ice. ice, ice baby. i am all about vanilla ice. NOT. i really should be doing my reading for the poetry class i have in about...30 min, but i'm not and i won't. homework is gross. no one should have to be forced to do homework. it smells like donkey dung and grease and mold. i like to breeze through school with my head in the clouds, barely lifting a finger. laziness is so becoming on me. i have a paper to write tonight on a personal beat experience i've had... which begs the question, "well, ciara, HAVE you had a beat experience?" and the answer is resoundingly NO! a beat experience being one that makes you respond in a certain situation in a way that you wouldn't normally, an atypical experience, an out of mind, out of body, anotherwords, a signpost that i'm actually alive and breathing, and no, i do not have the slightest bit of evidence that i am alive in the world. i guess i'll just have to make something up, how sad is that?

SHIT! fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. goddamn it. i just realized i don't have the fucking book -- adrienne rich -- for my poetry class... and i of course didn't do the reading in it and now i can't since i don't have it and now i can't go to class because... i just can't. damnit. i just skipped my step aerobics class because i wanted to get something to eat and now i have to skip this fucking class. i'm definitely not the model student today. whatever.

the day is so long. and cold. and windy.

do be done, day, do be done.
restless i am in my dark blue jean jacket
buttoned over my tiny shoulders
cramped against the crush of solitude
i wait as my watch does all the work
moving 360 degrees again and again
counting down to some dim day
when all the watches in the world
do not work
heaped on the streets, gold on gold
silver, chrome, pink and purple plastics
designs of suns and dogs and coffee cups
melting like wax in that dali painting
superimposed over a landscape of
white sun bleaching everything ghostlike
till then i with supersmooth hands
and feet and face
drink down sweet water and make
a point of letting everything go.

the nina board is back up and looks absolutely freaking horrible. i hate the new board. there are a lot of things and people i hate right about now.

i think i have an ulcer, either that or cancer. yay. i suppose i am more than a tad hypochondriac, but i have these tight knot/pain feelings on my left side that just don't feel imaginary.

i blame it all on the lack of rain. in spain. on a plain behind a drain on new terrain. i am such a rhymer. i am such a goddamn poet.

speaking of which, i need to start research for my modern poetry class. i wanted to do sylvia plath, because i know her work and her journals and letters so well, it would be sooooo easy, not to mention that i, just as thousands of other teenage girls, identify and feel a psychological connection to her, her pain, her ambitions, and losses, and everything else. sylvia plath is the patron saint of teenage girl angst. i am beyond teenagedom technically, but i'm still one at heart.

"i didn't want any flowers, i just wanted to lie with my palms turned up and be utterly empty". or something like that. that is my favorite sylvia plath line ever. it's so beautiful and honest and open, yet it's just soaked in pain and pathos and misery. sivvy sivvy, come save me, save me.

a few lines of verse to try out before i make my way:

so we sit and shave minutes
from the clock
peeling lemons with
practiced hands
the day slows to a waltz
drifting dreamlessly down
unexplored avenues of blue,
blue rain exploding in air
tight compartments
i am weighted down and dark with today.
i am juxtaposed between
lines of meaning
i claim my inheritance
i fold my hands
i break bread
and the day deflowers.

off the top of my head stuff that doesn't make me go crazy

my new collection of songs from the loverly kazaa

singing out loud on trains

kissing

umbrellas

rainstorms -- i am dying for one lately. haven't had one in weeks, weeks, weeks. i want the rain to pound everything like a hammer, hard.

new shoes, soon to be gotten from daddy dearest, if he remembers and can pick out a pair of pradas that aren't the ugliest pair in history. must have brand names cause life isn't so sweet.

um, pears. juicy crisp

cream blush by bobbi brown. in sand pink. makes for a rosy healthy glow not achievable through any natural means on my part.

indian food. the rice, the rice, the spice.

pink everything. pink webpages and perfumes (the new one by lancome i really love, hinthint to whoever may be reading this) and lipsticks and clothes.

crunchy leaves in a pile. so satisfying to crunch.

my step aerobics exercise class. i love to hate it. when i sweat, i feel at least like i'm alive, i can produce sweat! the true mark of genius.

emails.


shit, only an hour to write two goddamn one page papers.... then off to class i must go like a good litle girl, skippadeeskipping.

may the medication gods have tons of fun with me.

screaaaaaaam.
i am going to cry any minute now.

why do i have to put up with FUCKING SCHOOL shit shit shit when i can't even take care of myself???

today is a great day, thank you world.

fuzzy brain -- completely. no make sense. dryer machine gray fluff fuzz fur. brain is dead and gone. sianara brain. ARGHerghack........ help........ must write paper, must write paper, can't even think of one fucking sentence!!!!! not one. no reactions, no actions, just zzzzzzzzzzzz...... snowy screen and too much time spent watching tv. oh pain in my tummy. i think i'm going to check myself into a mental institution, really. i can't take this zombieness anymore. it would be better to have those white walls and strappeddownness and sweetly lemon scented nurses whizzing by on pushcarts than this deadly alive zone. i can't sleep. images swim in my eyes, i hear strange noises, my brain is really done. shake my head and my brain falls out -- good. no brain, no pain. i hope god is enjoying this passionplay, it's all for your entertainment, you sonofabitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! believe in god for a fraction of a microsecond, enough to place blind blame on a faceless face, get it off me, i have no responsibilities, i am a puppet, a toy barbie. you say raise your arm, i do. bleh. i really am in need of some help, i believe. things were bad, have been bad before, but now is different. i feel thisclose to a mental/whatever breakdown constantly. gonna pass out. gonna dieeeee. help help help help this is a call to all for past reservations. a plea to break my knee. just get it over with! jeezus//.

heat buzzes up the poles 3 floors downstairs
sizzle sizzle crack baby crack
don't you know that it's october
and the girls in wooly winter coats
have already come to pick apples with you?
they have come and gone
in white rabbit mufflers
tied around their prissy necks
to pick apples! red and green
and everything in between.
orchards of apples,
singing fruity melodies
rhapsodizing in autumn shakedown wind.
yesterday early morning
a 2.6 earthquake shook me and my tv
i thought it was a bomb
and the wind was rattling the window
and the leaves outside on the trees
were crumbling and making a harsh dry noise
like bones
and i looked around for a familiar face
you had disappeared
gone black into the night
conan o brien still lighting up my screen
thank you.

as the great billy corgan once said, god bless us all for what we think and feel is all we really have. how true, how true, how sad and tragic and beautiful and no and no and no.....

GODDAMNIT! you mean i just typed out all that shit, minimized the screen, maximized it and now it's fucking gone????????? ARGH! why why why. what's the point of even trying when it all gets swept away anyway? there i was, bearing my soul so profoundly, so beautifully, so revolutionarily, and now it's lost in the deep black hole that is the internet, probably never to be stumbled upon for a billion years. well. here's what i was saying before... if i can remember. sitting here typing on one of those old old keyboards, the kind that actually clicks when you type. typing on it makes me feel like i've accomplished something, if even just clicking. the world is so strange lately that even small comforts like this one do me good, make me feel a bit more alive. less than 10 minutes till class time now, and so much to say... perhaps it will have to wait for another time. the thoughts i've been thinking lately -- about god, death, time, the universe, humans, etc, etc, etc, are not at all original or groundbreaking, but everytime i feel them, i can't help but think that they are profound, new, revolutionary. i'm always amazed that the universe doesn't crumble after i think these things, i know it's incredibly self indulgent of me to think that way, but i can't help it.

so i finally let go today. ever since the tragedies on september 11th, i've been slightly numb, unresponsive, unaccostumed to how to act or feel. but after watching the vh1 concert for nyc and seeing the policemen and firefighters and relatives holding up pictures of their lost loved ones, it finally hit home. those people are gone forever, 5,000 friends, mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, boyfriends, girlfriends, aunts, uncles... all it took was less than an hour and two planes. i sat there, eating my linguine, feeling a tightness in my chest, like a green bud about to flower, tears slipsliding down my face. that feeling of tightness, unresolvable grief, it takes hold of my body and clenches it with all its might... i feel captive to my emotions whenever i cry. there's something both deeply satisfying and yet frustrating about crying. it feels like the saddest thing in the world, even if the thing that made you cry in the first place wasn't anything significant at all. i wonder if i'll continue to feel this way as the months get farther and farther away from sept. 11th. forgive me that this is all i've been able to talk or think about... it's getting old, but it will never be completely forgotten -- at least i hope not...

and what of the war going on in afghanistan? if only terrorism could be ended without more innocent lives being lost. if only. sadly, i know this can't and won't happen, and i haven't really got a say in the situation in afghanistan. those people are sad creatures as well, with so many of them starving or being near starvation, having no clean drinking water, and high infant mortality rates. are we asserting our tough american bully on their defenseless whiplashed backs? yes, yes we are. people are running away, leaving their homes, people who didn't deserve any of this either. why is a question that is so relevant and yet cannot be of much use. why is the biggest question of all time. not what, or who, or where... but why. why sums life up in itself. three letters and they mean everything. on my deathbed i will be covered with a white sheet with sweat running down my forehead, whispering, muttering, gasping... why? why? why?

so today is october 12, 2001 and i haven't written any diary type material for a good... 2 years or more. but now, i feel the overwhelming need to write, to record, to tell. as of september 11, 2001, the world has changed, and i, being an organism inside the world, have changed as a result also. everyone has been saying something to this effect, but there's no denying it -- it's true, it's sad and regrettable, and probably could have been prevented. oh silly humans... we are so pitiful at times, so ignorant and naive. i wish for peace, i wish it from the marrow of my bones, i wish it so hard it tears a hole in me and then i wish some more. apocalyptic visions feed my brain at night, images of mass destruction and unthinkable and horrific and no words to even come close to describing the nightmares the world has collectively begun to see opening their hollow yellow eyes, like a cat's, but all darkness and no light. every night i lay in bed turning thoughts and images in my mind and wonder if when i wake up the next morning the world will be even stranger to my eyes, my heart, my brain. it pains me to leave the world for those 8 or so hours, not knowing the directions it can and might turn, where i and all of us might end up, lost in another holy dimension, or among enemies greedily smacking their lips for my blood. but because i am an animal, and need sleep to function on my rational and physically adept levels, i close my eyes and drift off to neverneverland or whatever realm it is that opens as soon as my brain turns off its light. sleep my pretty ones and don't let a lullaby bring you down. so i sleep and sleep and sleep, those precious hours lost to me as i recuperate and gear up for another weary day in the world. everything is more precious, and more fragile -- so breakable and thin like the thinnest sheet of glass, the cracked edge of an eggshell. i write and yet am not purged. i dream and am not purged. i eat, i breathe, i play with my dog, i go to classes, i watch television, listen to my music, talk on the telephone, and what of it? nothing.

my life seems so inconsequential and devoid of real meaning in the context of the whole. sometimes i think of the strangeness of being a mind in a body and my heart stops for a second, my breath catches, my brain stops producing neurons and chemicals, i just reel. and don't even get me started on death!!! i can't, i won't, it digs a rift in me, irrepairable, utterly, i am so lost and afraid.

those poor, poor people in the airplanes that got hijacked and the people trapped in the world trade center and pentagon. i wonder what their very last thoughts were, if they were scared or brave or even knew they were absolutely going to die. there are those who proclaim that everything happens for a reason and there are those who disbelieve in such a theory. i am the latter. tragedies of this magnitude CAN'T happen for any good reason... in the end, there's a chance that we will prevail, but if getting there involved the loss of thousands of lives, it shouldn't and won't be worth it. that is my view at least. martyrs make a choice of sacrificing themselves for a cause, these people had no choice in the matter. they are innocents who deserved with every breath they ever breathed to live and keep living. for all the sadness and sympathy i've been consumed by lately, i haven't really cried. it just somehow doesn't seem real enough yet, despite the countless hours i've spent glued to my tv screen, taking in the images of the rubble, the buildings collapsing, the planes smashing into them, the heroes and victims. it's too much. it's too close to home.