words and screams and a million dreams

2002-05-25T20:18:00.000-04:00

i hate boys. and men. and all things male. men should suck their own dicks and leave women out of it. procreation can go to hell. so can i, and so can you, and you, and you. and whoever else who isn't reading this. who should be.

fuck everyone. especially men. you just don't get it, do you? and if you do, sure have a funny way of showing it. NOT showing it. to whom do i speak? the oblivious, obviously.

2002-04-14T22:19:00.000-04:00

tired of this life. if i ever become a rockstar and record an album, that may be a contender for one of the titles i would choose from.

the way i see it, life is nothing but a bunch of if's shining out on a brilliantly lit, bedazzling stage covering up hideous NEVERs with faces so malformed and twisted. it's all a show, and i've got nothing to wear.

actually that's not true. i have plenty to wear, but nowhere to wear it. prancing around my house in stacked stilettos, i trip over my depression, hanging there like some kind of fern, waiting for water. and oh, i feed it. the rain starts in my brain, leaks out through my terrified eyes, races down my overblushed cheeks, quenches my thirsty heart with bitterness.

it's interesting how i use this diary mostly just to bitch about my inner turmoil, and the diaryland one more about the outer happenings. well it's interesting to me anyhow.

i'm getting disillusioned with my diaryland diary though. it doesn't feel right anymore. i can't think fluidly trapped in that little white box in which all my thoughts are supposed to fit. this box, it's bigger, it's wider, it's more forgiving for the chaos that i like to stir up like a cup of coffee.

plus i doubt more than one or two people besides me reads this diary, so i feel less constricted by a potential audience. i mean, i certainly don't really censor myself, or make things appear better than they are, but i'll just avoid talking about certain things or people...i don't know.

lift me from my misery.

2002-03-03T19:35:00.000-05:00

i am feeling incredibly hateful and self loathing right now. incredibly. i wish the wind would just pick me up like dorothy and fly me someplace else, someplace better. someplace far away from bullshit, people who are so inconstant and uncaring, away from lost dreams.

give me something to drink. wash my feet. soak me up. dry me down. ANYTHING ANYTHING ANYTHING but this. this is a harsh cruel world and i am ashamed to live in it, be a part of it. everything and everyone are fucked up. i got no idols as ms. hatfield says.

i got no friends either. no love. no sympathy. just hate boiling up in me like hell. so much hate for such a tiny girl. why am i like this. why can't i be happy with the status quo. happiness is not a part of my genetic code. i play the game and lose, i lose my heart and soul and you.

2002-02-23T15:54:00.000-05:00

i am at such a low point in my life. i can't pull myself up. i keep on sinking down. farther and farther until the bottom falls out and there is an unbridgeable gap between me and the world.

i need help. i need solace. i need something. i just cannot go on like this. rooted and rotted in misery. miserable me. god save the queen, but does he save me? no, never.

i feel FUCKING alone. i like it and i hate it. i want to start over.

fuck you and you and you and you. everybody needs to go to hell and leave me alone. get out, get out.

2002-01-29T21:59:00.000-05:00

verily

i changed the template because i was getting tired of the kitty one.

so it's been awhile, just about a month, to be more precise, since i've written in this. i can't commit fully to anything, it seems. i'll wander back and forth between extremes for as long as they'll let me.

i fear i've become nothing, or that i was always nothing to begin with, only people allowed me to continue the myth that i was something just because they believed it was harmless, a mere sort of amusement. oh look, she's going to ascribe all kinds of virtues and talents to herself and think she's better than everyone else and then BAM, in one fell swoop, the facades are blown off their hinges and she'll be a thousand times more devastated than had we told her in the beginning that she had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to say. i'm telling you, the world is one sick joke.

my mind is emptied like an ash tray turned out in the trash can. my sides are scorched with dead ashes -- grey flakes and black tar that smote and mock me.. i have nothing to life for.

this is quite true. if i had the slightest cause to think otherwise i would readily admit to it, but it is really the truth of the matter -- i have absolutely nothing to live for, except if i want disappointments, regrets, and the death of some qualities that i possess that aren't entirely bad. everything rots away, gets eaten up with starving mouths, gets picked to pieces, like bread in birds beaks, gets thrown into the gutter, decomposes, loses its lustre, becomes devirginized, tainted, used, abused, all that once shimmered and glistened with life dulls down to dirty grey, like rivers that once ran blue now run ribbons of pigeon shit. beauty quickly becomes sharp and threatening as if it were a knife then melts down and twists into something hideous, deformed.

all that is beautiful is really ugly wearing a beautiful costume. everything is ugly, malformed, misshapen. humans being among the most perfect example. girls cake their faces with foundation, powder, blush, eyeshadow, lipstick, smearing fake colours to their pale faces in attempt to mimic life. life drains away second by second, and the more that we run away from it, the more it outpaces us.

we wear costumes and face paint as if we were performing on a stage but not really living. i'm sick of charades and masques and ugliness parading as beautiful, as if deception were praiseworthy. i'm sick of bullshit. let our ugliness manifest itself, drive holes in our cheeks, stakes through our hearts, let us give up the ghostly sigh, at last, at last.

2001-12-20T23:02:00.000-05:00

neglected

yes, you my poor diary have been neglected in the face of my diaryland one because you don't attract lots of random hits. poor thing. i guess you just want to curl up and die, don't you? no, you don't. what to say, what to write... words often fail me, and leave me speechless, grasping for a word floating hazily around.. i need to be more grounded, i think. i'm too much with the birds or whathave you. a line from juliana hatfield that i really like and agree with... i don't care for boys or girls i only hang around with the birds humans only wreck the world they'll kill your whole family for a string of pearls. so true! so sad... everything about life drives me to some kind of subliminal sadness, a coral reef where fishes impale themselves on shimmering pink rock.

i'm in an affirmative mood. yes. yes. yes. but no. no. no. affirmative and negative, i like to affirm the negative in me. and negate the affirmative. i am a deep bitch, birch that hangs in moonly dusk.

i'll write more later or never... who knows.

2001-11-30T19:24:00.000-05:00

the day music died

literally. george harrison, of the beatles, is dead. has passed away, passed on, is no longer with us, is no longer alive, went to heaven, all those euphemisms to really say that he's dead, that is, his heart is no longer beating, pumping blood through his body so the organs have their fill of oxygen, he's no longer thinking or feeling... he's just gone, but his memory, true, lingers.

the whole life of a person in memories.

i want to be remembered by millions of people, but i don't think i'm going to get there by being as hostile and bitter as i am now. gee, that never really occurred to me before. duh. shows just how wide awake i've been...

i have 3 more papers to write in 2 weeks, and it's going to be a struggle. i'm just not sure if i possess the willpower.

i can't think of anything else to write so i'll end this here.

2001-11-24T21:29:00.000-05:00

having nothing to say is really interesting

well, isn't it?

today i should've done massive amounts of schoolwork. of course i declined politely, citing, "oh but gee, i don't wanna be responsible, i just wanna sit in front of my computer all day long, looking up inane things". the schoolwork understood, but i'm not so sure my professors will. oh dear. the troubles i get myself into.

argh!

i cannot think of any suitable topics for 3 of the 4 papers i have to do. maybe i should drop out of college with only one semester left, i'm sure that would go over supremely well with my parents, who have sacrificed life and limb for my ridiculously exorbitant ivy league education, which, i'm sorry to say, probably won't do me much good in the world. haha parents, the joke's on you. it's not really funny. it's really quite sad. my parents have spent at LEAST $150,000 on my high school and college education-- jeezus! they should've just given me that amount in a nice old u-haul, my life would've been set. there wouldn't have been a need for me to go to torturous school and endure alienation, feelings of incompetancy, and loneliness. if i ever become a parent, i know that's what i'm going to do -- just give my 13 year old son or daughter $150,000 and push him/her out into the light of day saying, "make your way and do me proud", wiping a tear the size of mt. everest from my eye. if my parents had done that, gee, i would be so much more willing to tolerate their crap now.

education. hahaha. what passes for education these days is embarrassingly cro-magnon, if even that.

2001-11-23T18:57:00.000-05:00

technotron takes over

the more that days pass, the more i become tired and fed up with myself and my life. will nothing exciting ever happen? am i destined to live a watered down, mostly unsatisfied, hardly ever content life? i shudder to think so, yet i fear that it may be that way. i feel i am different in a way, or ways, that other people aren't, but what does that really mean, or matter? how does that directly affect the decisions i make?

if i had all the answers to the universe in my lap, i'd still be largely agitated. i want the answers, but despite what they are, i want to be able to change them. i want ultimate control over everything, i want the role of god. this life will never be enough for me, what with all my mortal coils. if only i could invent the elixir for immortality, for youth and beauty, art, peace, excitement, all the things that make life brighter. i'm so simple in my wants but ever demanding. i want things to be the way i decree, no straying off course... i once wrote in a short story i had to write for a college writing course, "i'm my worst enemy and my best friend", which still holds true to this day and will always be so. it's like i realize my capacity for self destruction, loathing, and aggrandizement but because it's in me, i love it all, i embrace it, feed it tender shoots from my heart and brain, nourish it, and keep it hostage.

you know how most of the great artists and writers of great literature are always remembered as tortured geniuses, misunderstood by their society, outcasts and often inward looking? well i wonder if any artist/writer can be truly happy and still produce works of incredible passion and beauty. somehow i think not. there has to be an element of discontent, wanting to reach beyond the realm of the ordinary, frustration in order to be able to write, paint, compose, whathaveyou things that affect others, move them beyond tears or smiles, beyond the grave.

this whole trend of "oh look at me, i'm so depressed, i have to take my prozac because i'm really a tortured genius" pisses the fuck out of me while at the same time i realize i'm sort of propagating it... not falsely of course (no, never!) and not because i'm taking medication for my troubles (cause i'm not, i'm just seeing a psychiatrist who does seem rather troubled by me but won't prescribe me anything... maybe she believes in the whole tough love thing) but because i tend to believe depressed people are my own kind, they're "deeper", have more intelligence, and i relate to them on a level. yet i can't help but separate myself from THEM -- they're not as ingrained with a sense of capriciousness, they don't have tatooed to their eyelids a sense of mortal danger, fallibility, jadedness and a world weariness that i was practically born with. i carry this burden of negativity inside me, a child never to be birthed into the harsh light of day, where it can germinate in my soft body and take me over, cell by cell. this will be the ultimate disaster for me, when it reigns unhindered.

oh boohoo, pity poor ciara. she's the poster girl for middle class unrest, a product of boredom, not having enough to do or anywhere to go. although, that's not really true, with me living in the city and all.

i fear my otherness, i fear, given the chance, i will do extraordinary things to the nature of the world. and i'm not just saying that to be all pretentious... i actually do fear it. a good part of me just wants to settle down into mediocrity, living life in the barest, most stripped sense, but who knows... there are wars between my bones, in my skin, sunk in my heart, etched in my brain. ongoing. constant. neverending.

the trees outside my window are nearly leafless, now, in the unseasonal mild of late november.
leaves pile up coating the streets
making nests
i dream between my blankets
take long vacations
in fairy lands
and when i wake up
my eyes burn
the day darkens
deepens
dissolves
into soft black
tender as birds.

2001-11-22T21:37:00.000-05:00

hard luck baby, thanksgiving turkeyless

happy thanksgiving, you pilgrim people. holidays are such letdowns, i get all excited and looking forward to them a week before and then when it's the day of, it feels like a cheap rip off, an imitation. boo. like this year, i expected thanksgiving to be all magical and problem-erasing, a time when i feel close and loved and loving to my family (hah, i usually feel sooo alienated from my family), but of course it wasn't, it was boring and annoying and i felt very thankless.

i am thankful for a few things in my life, like my material possessions, my pets, and a few select people (like what, 2 or 3?) but otherwise i am extremely unsatisfied with my life and the way i live it.

2001-11-18T18:17:00.000-05:00

damage control

that's what i need, some damage control. for my brain and body and heart.

school is getting beyond me, i have 4 major major papers due around the same time (end of november, beginning of december)....
jewish american-- 15-20 pgs.
victorian poetry-- 7-10 pgs.
poetry since the 1950's-- 10-12 pgs.
beat generation-- 10-15 pgs.

that's like a minimum of 50 goddamn pages!!!! argh. i don't even have my goddamn topics finalized, either. i am in deep shit. i want to throw myself off a bridge.

expletives are so soothing, so essential for everyday life. god bless curses. i am feeling ironic tonight, i am feeling...tonight, which is a good thing since feeling has been hard to achieve lately. i am also feeling brutal. cannibalistic. like, i am living for me and only me, and who the fuck cares what happens to anyone, everyone else? i feel this way often, i don't think that's good. i am nihilistic. i am an exodus. i am the beggar leper bound in dirty rags. come touch me, lift a rose from my ashen skin, pour me a drink, revel in my insurgence, intangibility, revive me with cool words and colder stones.

i was watching an exorcism on tv the other night which made me ponder: maybe i should have an exorcism. cause there's SOMETHING inside me... something cruel and ugly and black blooded, maybe an incurable disease, maybe a demonangel, maybe me, maybe you. nah but... i don't believe in stuff like demons or angels, how could i, when life itself is so very bland, rarely if ever rising up beyond itself, the strictures of physical laws and laws we have imposed over nature. if life were scattered with demons and angels, i'd assume life would be far more exciting, less predictable, twists and turns around every corner. but instead, no, we have schedules and laws and moral codes and life follows a strictly regulated pattern, it never varies, it never leaps out from a pile of shadows announcing, "here i am, now let's have some fun!". life is not fun, it is boring and disappointing and hearbreaking and we build it up to be this wonderful adventure (this is our parents' faults as well as our own) so when we finally "grow up" and realize how contained and placid it is, we're so broken and sick with a sense of failure, we can barely move our limbs or breathe, but must continue to do so because we've gotten used to it, we've become accustomed, we've been trained and tamed.

i know i'm negative. it's how i am. it can't be a nurture thing, cause my parents were always very supportive of me, gave me everything i could want, even spoiled me, tried to instill within me god's spledor and all of life's beautiful intricacies, but to no avail... from the time i was a very tiny embryo, the size of a pin head, i was already jaded and nauseated by all the bullshit illusions people have created for themselves just so they could continue living. my poor parents, they must think i'm a disappointment, me being an atheist, a recluse, even, at times, an outcast, when all they wanted was an optimistic, godloving, intelligent (but how can belief in god and intelligence go together?), social, happy girl who would grow up and hold a steady job and get married to a respectable young man, and have children, and die? well, some of those parts are going to happen, just cause there's no other way... i must hold a fucking steady job to continue with my sorry little life, but as sorry as it may be, i want to keep it going because once death strikes, it's final, there's no going back, turning around, and there's no forward motion either. it's complete...stasis. it's paralyzation of the highest order, no body to feel with, no mind to think with, time stops forever, it's just a fucking nightmare. nothing. the idea of nothing is pretty radical, if you think about it. everything is something, but what we don't know, at least not tangibly, is nothing. we can think around it, poke at it, try to step into it, but despite our keenest efforts, it still completely alludes us. nothing is. nothing is not. all the great philsophers have tried to make sense out of it and have failed miserably, no matter what anyone says. no one will ever get it. that's because there is nothing to get.

sometimes i wonder if i should give up my hope for being a poet and try being the 21st century's greatest female philosopher. cause all of those issues perplex me night and day, but i'm afraid i lack the sophistication and eloquence. i'm all rough around the edges, i've got spots that need softening, and lord knows that my language skills aren't as polished as they could be. but i enjoy being like this, making fragments and bad word choices, just to spite all those fucking english teachers i've ever had who circled certain words, phrases, or punctuation with red pencils as though it were a matter of life or death. being a poet is being a kind of philosopher, if you think about it. poets and philosophers are both consumed by and with the need for knowledge, they try to lay bare certain truths about ourselves and the world around us, relationships, why we do the things we do, in fact everything is interconnected. scientists and theologists too have a need for knowledge about ourselves and the world, but all of our approaches are somewhat different. as i've said before, it's all variations on a theme. the theme is life. we vary in how we live it, think about it, deal with it, but underneath it all, it's just sitting there, calmly, looking at us with sedated eyes, it's life, and it's all of us, in everything, and it's the same.

to end on a more upbeat note, if i can... thanksgiving is on thursday and i'm happy (happiness? whatever is that?). even though i don't eat turkey or any of the other stuff, it's still a warm holiday, i like waking up and watching the thanksgiving day parade on tv, it makes me feel like i'm still 5 years old dressed in my pink pajamas with feet, padding out to the living room where i'd curl up on the sofa with my parents surrounding me, and it would be cozy... and i was less cynical, i was capable of genuine happiness and hope. now i'd be even happier if a deafening thunderstorm was leashed down upon us, or if the first snowfall would fall... it's pleasant to be inside, watching from the window, the tiny white flakes drift downward, like pieces of lace, pretty little things, small white birds, torn envelopes.

2001-11-15T21:55:00.000-05:00

beyond sublimation or exhortation

fancy way of saying "this entry contains 100% of nothing, nothing special to enhance your sorry life"

pink light from open space
quivers on a shaft of piecemeal
contained in cardboard boxes of cereal
to be exact
kellogg's special k
i've got something special too you know
right down here in between my
thighs
a surprise
no, not like that
a good one
a warm shallow dish to rest your head in
since you've come such a very long way
please please me
i want your lips to peel me wide open
and let everything just...
flood
sometime in june a fertile goddess
stands on your hair waving you on
she eats peaches like penumbras
planes pass by cutting slices in the sky's eyes
and oh
and oh
oh oh oh
oh!
peach juice sticky on my summer skin
collects down at my feet
in a cool glass

ahhh, now i feel better. i still have more phrases and bits of images behind my head so more poems, more poems! i feel good when i write and when i finish a poem. like i'm somehow impacting the world in a way, maybe not all that significantly, or maybe not at all. what really matters, what's really real, is the imagination, that's what is the foundation for life. so whether or not i'm "right" is irrelevant, in fact, it's so irrelevant that i am right.

still, though, i'm very unhappy right now. being human frustrates and annoys the hell out of me to a breaking point. I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!!!! i really don't. goddamnit. humans are nothing special, we're all biologically practically the same, we all think the same damn thoughts, have said the same words, write the same words, perform the same actions, our lives are nothing but variations on a theme (thank you wallace stevens). it's so true, and so ARGH so so so mindnumbing and paralyzing. it makes me want to give up any kind of hope for affecting the world, or believing in a kind of meaning of life, or a hope for happiness. millions of others have had this very self same thought, and that PISSES ME OFF. originality is null, dull; while certain thoughts and images and beliefs can be modified to an extent, and ripped apart and glued back together in a different shape, they still come from, i.e. originate, from the same hull, they're superficially altered but the same animal. why even bother about trying to make a difference, when difference can't exist in a world where repetition and cloning reign supreme. sure, you might be remembered for a short while for whatever modification on a theme you've enacted, but then someone else will come along and modify your modification even more, even better, and your memory as well as your "difference" will be a ghost in midair.

this is what i've been brooding obsessively about these past few days, weeks, months, hell, years. i wish, i wish, i wish i could be an original something, an original alien on a faraway planet from a distant galaxy, maybe even a different universe (who says there's only one universe? maybe there are billions of billions of universes, all containing within them billions of billions of planets and galaxies and dimensions). the whole world is so vast and limitless yet here i am, in this human body, covered with human hair and skin and sweat and blood, limited beyond even my own comprehension. i wish i could be free, freer than free, freer than what we presume is free, the freest thing possible, limitless, escaping definition, laws of the physical world, laws of worlds not visible to the eye, or felt from the heart.

i want to be a mystery, an enigmatic bundle of concepts and ideas and realities that no one/nothing can pillage, i want to be pure and whole and wholesome and me and me and completely original, that nothing even can resemble me in the slightest way, either physically or biologically or mentally or pyschically or spirtually or any y!

so that's number one on my christmas wish list. i think that's a reasonable thing to ask for, don't you? thank you jolly st. nick and i'll be expecting it in pretty wrapping paper folded neatly with a pretty bow and ribbons. i don't believe in god, but i still believe in santy claus. yep. (actually no, but i would be more willing to believe in santa than in god, they're the same but santa's funner. heh. funner.)

2001-11-12T22:32:00.000-05:00

i brood too much

indeed. truer words have never been spoken or written.

so here's something...strange, not that impressive, telltale, supply whatever word you see fit. anyway, i saw drew off to the airport safely around 6:30am, came back to the apartment, and couldn't fall back asleep. so i turned on the early early news and watched it until about 8:30. but anyway, i noticed as i was in the taxi that traffic really wasn't heavy at all on the expressway, which was sort of weird, and then on the news the anchorpeople were commenting also how traffic almost everywhere, which would normally be heavy, bumper to bumper at that time was really light. though this wasn't any huge miscrepancy, it was still a minor anomaly and this feeling of foreboding washed over me, a heaviness like all of a sudden my body was filled with thousands of little pebbles, and i just knew somewhere in the dark creases of my mind or heart that something awful was going to happen today but i didn't know what, exactly. and only a night or two ago, i had a dream that my college, barnard, was on fire from two explosions near the main gates and i was trapped. people were testing how hot the fire was by throwing up these birds, sparrows, and they got swept up by the force of the billowing smoke and immediately died. then some other bird, an owl i believe, was thrown out and it managed to hang on for a few minutes and then died sitting up on the black iron wrought gate. in that dream i felt so inescapably trapped, i woke up startled out of sleep, my heart beating so hard i thought it was going to burst open, explode like fireworks in dark air. so that dream had been lingering on my consciousness as well as the fact that the 2 month anniversary just happened... and then that weird quietude of the morning.

i guess i'm a prophet or soothsayer and you should all consult with me now for the sake of your futures. that'll be $20,000 each, ok? payable in cash, check, credit card, or family valuables. thanks!

it's just one tragedy after another, and i wish it all would just stop. i know the plane crash today was most likely an accident, but it still was a tragedy, it wasn't meant to happen. it's so hard to keep living a "normal" life when life itself isn't the same as before, everything is warped and bent out of shape, it's like the third and .25 dimension. why oh why... oh why. i feel so sad and sorry for myself lately, that i feel empty and inhuman and like every effort is magnified ten times, so that even walking or talking is difficult, physically and mentally and psychologically and emotionally, but i know that a whole bunch of people probably feel similar things... i'm not alone, damnit, and i want to be. but if i were, i'd be a lot worse than i am, i'm sure. oh you catch 22, contradiction, complication, complexity. c's and c's of c's.

2001-11-08T17:39:00.000-05:00

rectify

the thing that's wrong with the world today is YOU. yep. you heard me. YOU. all the millions of you's... who are no doubt reading my diary because it is essential reading for the lame (oops, i just typed MALE... that was definitely a freudian slip) brained. why am i so bitter lately. i'm not a feminist or chauvinist, i hate girls just as much as boys, i am a non-peopleist, anotherwords a misanthrope. i am the textbook definition misanthrope. everything people do annoys me, the way people type with two fingers, or drink sodas or whatever slurpily or chew disgustingly or talk or laugh or giggle (ew, giggling... it should be outlawed), the way people greet each other all smiles and voices turned up and bright like bells, the way people stand and sit and slouch, and try desperately to turn computers on when they are broken. and so much more.

ARGH.

i have to go to goddamn class right now. stupid poetry since the 1950s bullshit crap. i am so bitter. i am bitter like tea leaves, pungent, dead, once alive now crisply crumbly dry and broken.

2001-11-07T22:06:00.000-05:00

dr. dre got nothing on me or the snoop d-o double g

god how i love that indie genius ben kweller boy.

i saw my new psychiatrist today after an EXTREMELY annoying incident where i felt i was being tested. basically, i thought my appt. with her was at 11am so i got there at 11:15 because my mom gave me misleading information, she buzzed me in, i'm sitting there in the waiting room, waiting (duh), and waiting and waiting. so i get really impatient and start knocking on all the doors since there are more than 1 and they don't have names on them or anything, then i sit back down and wait some more... 25-30 minutes go by and now i'm REALLY PISSED. so i finally write the following note to her:

dear doctor sick (her actual name is dr. sickles),

thank you for being so kind and gracious as to make me wait 30 min for absolutely nothing. i think that was the kindest gesture anyone's ever extended to me. if this is how you treat your patients, then fuck you, and i'll look elsewhere.

-ciara mclaughlin.

and i knock this time on the door i think is hers REALLY loudly, she comes out and says, "oh, i'll be right with you", then a minute later out walks some woman patient and she takes me in. grrrrr. i should've just walked out, that was TOO annoying. then when i'm in session with her, she acts like nothing happened or was peculiar... whatever. THEN to top it all off, she doesn't give me a prescription for happy pills. damnit. i NEED happy pills. i need pills whose job is exclusively to create some kind of artificial glee because it just ain't happening on its own. and me, being nice as i am, even in the throes of my sad miserable little tantrum *i was kinda nasty to her throughout the whole session to get revenge for making me go practically crazy in that waiting room, i was talking to myself and banging my head against the wall (well not too hard) and making all kinds of noises to alert her that i was present)* agreed to see her again next week. and what, will she test my mental health again by making me wait in some torture chamber where optical illusions confuse and bombard my mind and i'll start screaming and finally when i'm tearing pieces of raggy skin off my body, will she come out and say, "i'll be right with you"?

oh boy, i can't wait.

IN MUCH NICER NEWS...

my beat generation teacher who is ultra uber smart and sophisticated and downright cool thinks i am a genius of a writer (she'd think i was a genius of a poet too if i had had to write her poetry instead of a paper). she gave me an a+ on the midterm paper in which we had to write about some beat type experience. i was all complaining about it and thought i couldn't do it, but i guess i could... i wrote about high school and how i was so very shy and how i sort of emerged from it (generally speaking... i'm still very shy, or just inclusive). she wrote on my paper that she expects and knows that someday in the not too distant future she'll be reading one of my books and thinking proudly that i was once her student. actually, here's what she wrote verbatim, it's much easier than trying to summarize:
"you are a real writer, with true talent, and i trust/expect you will write and write and someday i'll be reading your book and thinking proudly (pride attends all moments of recognition for me -- there's always the "i knew" as well as the "she's terrific") that i read you when you were so young writing about when you were even younger."

god i love that woman, i want to have her babies. hah. ok no, but still -- she knows talent when she sees it ;). for anyone who's terribly interested, she's a professor at columbia university of tremendous renown, professor ann douglas who has written books and published articles in the nyt magazine and other stuff. she's seriously the smartest professor i've had so far, the way she thinks and comes up with these brilliant sentences and thoughts. now if she had given me a c or something, i'd be saying how much i hate her and think she's the worst professor i've ever had and how she can go to hell and how she's dumber than bedsheets so of course i'm not objective. that's the way it is. we praise those who praise us, and we curse those who curse us. righto.

2001-11-06T21:32:00.000-05:00

do i terrify you?

so call me anal (actually don't) or uptight but i REALLY REALLY hate it when people can't tell the difference between your and you're.

ciara's lesson of the day-- please pay attention now darlings.

YOUR - used to indicate possession by "you", such as your dog, your mother, your box of lucky charms, your quill pen

YOU'RE - a contraction used as a shorter version of "YOU ARE". you're silly, you're stupid, you're the most worthless piece of shit i've ever laid eyes on, that sort of thing.

glad i could clear things up. no but really, there is a VAST and vital difference between the two words, your and you're.

please people, it's so simple. stay tuned for more exciting and life-altering tips from the sagacious and wordly (freudian slip? i meant worldly) ciara.

2001-11-06T16:34:00.000-05:00

hum

my hair needs cutting, it is nearly down to my butt. and it gets so tangled whenever i sleep, so much so that in class, i'm not concentrating on anything going on but am instead fooling with my hair, trying to separate it and untangle a huge knot in the back under some layers that pisses me off. just when i think i've gotten it completely out, it reappears, i guess it's a magical knot... it will haunt my hair forever.

i've been wearing the same clothes for the past...gee... 4 days? something like that. my theory jeans that i absolutely love, although they need a good washing -- i haven't washed them in at least a month if not more-- my fear of doing laundry interferes or more like my intense hatred of doing laundry, and a white v neck short sleeve t shirt that i don't wear a bra with... cause i'm just too lazy. so my nipples are visible, but when i go out, i always put on my heavy winter coat, because i hate being cold, so no one gets to see my nipples anyway... and that sentence just had waaaaay too many commas and so's, but who the hell cares, it's not like i'm being graded for my grammar or word usage in my own freaking diary. i am an english major, though. one would think i'd have a *little* more respect for the language, but i like to tear it down, shred it, use improper words and signifiers and paste it back together haphazardly. that word, haphazard, is so fun. haphazard. fun fun fun.

i want more new clothes but i don't want to go shopping. i don't know if it's a kind of unwilling laziness or irrational fear or what, but i just don't have the motivation to do it. the last piece of clothing i bought was a beautifully silky skirt by marc jacobs (god, i love that man! not for who he is but for what he designs...), it is short, fitted, with a cute ruffle all along the bottom and has some kind of girly pattern on it in shades of lilac, cream, and rose. the tag is still on it and i don't think i'll have the occasion to wear it anytime soon. other unworn clothes in my closet are...

a beautiful teal silk dress with beading on the top and spaghetti straps by susanna monaco that i bought for only like $40 when it was originally over $200. go me, go me. i love bargains on designer clothes. i got it at the find outlet near barneys warehouse.

a gorgeous silk wrap dress by diane von furstenberg with spaghetti straps and in lush tropical shades of coral and pink. i LOVE this dress... my mom bought it for me for my 21st b-day last may.... it was $360 if i remember correctly. we bought it at intermix, a store that i can't get enough of, but everything in it is so damn expensive!

um... i know there's more.

oh, right. another teal silk (really satin) dress, sort of drapey grecian goddess style, with lots of ties and shirring by plenty that i bought in chicago last spring when i was visiting my aunt... at a store called tangerine, i love that store, and i love bucktown in chicago. (although the name, bucktown is rather annoying, the stores and restaurants and everything are very cool)

a fuschia dress with flowers on it by betsey johnson that my ex bought for me for last christmas. never worn. it's a size large, which i find rather...strange, since it fits ok, but normally i'm a size p, petite in betsey johnson. hmm. i think that on a larger girl the dress is meant to be shorter, cause on me it's sort of long. i dunno. but still a pretty dress. i feel weird about wearing it now that we've broken up.

a winey velvet dress from j.crew (i know, corporate america at its worst,whatever)... still very nice, but i haven't had any occasion to wear it to yet.

i think that's about it. then i have a pink lace bra that i bought at barneys warehouse sale this past august, it was CRAZY madness there... women were literally scratching each other's eyes out trying to outrun the other for a pair of black stillettos or whatever... and the music was techno (ick, throw up) which made things even the more chaotic which i'm sure was the actual point of blasting techno, to make people feel adrenaline rushing and disco ball and strobe light. but anyway, the said bra was originally $75 but i bought it for only $20. i'm still traumatized by the barneys warehouse experience though.

god i love talking about clothes. i am a clothes whore. i am. i have no problem admitting it.

my inventory of designer clothes:
i have two pairs of earl jeans. one cropped the other not.
a marc jacobs jean jacket. dark blue.
marc jacobs skirt in lilac, cream, and rose
a pair of theory jeans
a pair of bright pink built by wendy jeans
a built by wendy grey dress with sash
a built by wendy red and white checkered off the shoulder silk top
a sky asymetrical top with a car on it and rhinestones
two susanna monaco dresses, both in blue, coincidence? i think not.
a susanna monaco camisole with keyhole in pink
a susanna monaco lingerie type camisole in black lace
3 tops by michael stars
2 tops by juicy
an apron red top by love-life
a pink silk apron top/camisole by bebe
a psychedelic 60s type print miniskirt by ruby welles
a jean skirt with leather band on top and pleat in front by parallel
a jean skirt with slit in front by billy blues
coral and pink dress by diane von furstenberg

god, i'm getting tired of writing all this down. i have a lot of clothes. or maybe i don't, who knows. anyway, i know anyone who's reading this is entranced by this display of complete consumerism and superficiality. blah. i'm just as shallow as i am deep. i am a poetic genius dark minded people-hating, animal-loving, food loving, vegetarian society bashing society affirming girly girl who loves to shop and buy clothes and wear makeup and paint nails and talk on the telephone and buy bad magazines that only reinforce weaknesses and watch bad tv shows on tlc and the wb and everything and read stupid books like the girls guide to hunting and fishing and bridget jones diary and jemima j but i call myself an intellectual cause i like to read literary authors too like... virginia woolf and jack kerouac and ernest hemingway and f.scott fitzgerald and goethe and nabokov and james joyce and all kinds of poets like pablo neruda mary oliver molly peacock anne sexton sylvia plath robert lowell robert duncan frank o'hara adrienne rich federico garci lorca arthur rimbaud charles baudelaire paul eluard paul valery ee cummings william carlos williams juan ramon jiminez sandra mcpherson and others and others and more.

underneath it all i am just a big coward. yes. but at least i'm honest and i don't lie or really put up fake fronts. what you see is what you get. i hate people who act a certain way only because they're expected to, or because they've gotten used to acting a certain way all the time, or try to be funnier or smarter or more or less than what they are. basically i hate tons of people. and sometimes i'm one of them, sometimes.

2001-11-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

zoo lite

though i like cats, i think i'm more of a dog person. or, i like cats, but not cat people. you know how there are cat people and then there are dog people. yeah. i'm more of a dog person. dogs are tres cute, i dunno, i love the way they wag their tails when they're happy, and their floppy ears and the way they seem to smile. cats can also be cute, but in a different way. they're not as expressive with their emotions, they like to torture things before killing them, they only think about themselves. come to think of it, if i were a household pet, i'm sure i'd be a cat, not a dog, cause i'm a loner, i think i'm better than everyone else, i'm finicky....

but that doesn't change the fact that i'm still a dog person. i can't pass practically any dog on the street without stopping to bend over and pet it.

and i love bunnies, i always have. cuteness and cottontails.

lately though i've been thinking of the strangeness of owning a pet. it is very strange to assert ownership over an animal that normally would have been living on its own in the wild, but we have domesticated dogs and cats to the point where they can't survive without human kindness, we have emprisoned them and made them our playthings. lucky i'm a human, i guess, or lucky that the human race evolved this way, otherwise i might very well be subjugated to another's whims and fancies. i think fritz hates it when i kiss him but he can't do anything about it, he sits there looking mildly to medium annoyed, tolerating my human affection for him as a furry creature... i only love him because he does cute things, and looks cute, and because he lives with me and i see him everyday and have become accustomed to his ticks and doggy habits. but do i really love him? do i really love anything, anyone?

and if i did, would i have to ask that question? but really, love is an imposition, it's something acquired and not inherent, i believe... love is another made up thing, like god, to comfort us and make us feel better about the shortcomings in life, the brevity and pain and loss. i wish i could make believe, but i just can't pretend.

boy, i am just blowing myself away. haha ha.

a line from letters to cleo just popped into my head and it's so relevant to a certain time and place and person.
"i wish we had a laugh but you're just not funny... baby i'm leaving out the irony".

if all the world was music, i would be a vibrating g string. oh baby. yes. that had more than a few sexual connotations. i am just racking up points with myself, i am impressing myself, i am the queen sheba, the dionysian, but no. but no.

i must get myself back into playing guitar and writing songs. if my rock star fantasy is going to come true, it had better happen while i'm still in my twenties, cause it would just piss me off if i got big and famous in my thirties. i will be young and beautiful and i will rock like no other, sapphires and rubies pinned in my hair, wearing the tightest, softest, most expensive leather boots and short designer miniskirts and camisoles, and the world will stop its business and busyness its plate shifting and cloud drifting and revolution turning and sun worshipping and motor vehicling and shopping and streaming and screaming... to hear my voice drenching and dripping with blood and rain and pain and gain. ok, ok, i'm overboard and i know it. i like to give myself superhero powers now and again just because to step outside my body for even a second, for even imagination, gives me more strength to step back into myself. the release, then reality.

break me down, break me down, like palest silver strings i wing off into sun dried skies and there are no surprises, just ten dark pairs of eyes blinking heavy lids and lashes in unison, choirboys burn candles at both ends, i retreat and both my cheeks blaze forgotten fruits red pomegranates and spicy juices.

shhh. no one's looking. it's allright now, it's allright.

2001-11-05T17:32:00.000-05:00

jujubes

i've been working on my other diary... so sorry blogger, so sorry now.

learning about css! kinda interesting in a nerdy geeky way. i have to figure out a topic for my senior thesis paper... by wednesday! argh, no! and on jewish-americanness, no less... someone shoot me, please save me the trouble.

these have been some very unproductive days, let me tell you. oh but who cares, no one's even listening.

there's a new candy store in manhattan, where the old sam goody used to be on e.60th st. i love that candy store. it's bright and cheerful and has every kind of candy a girl could wish for. m&ms in literally like 500 colors, jellybelly beans, gummi worms, willy wonka candies, pez, chocolates, ice cream, even candy blowing bubbles.

come on and feed me candy... (guitar solo). woah i'm the sugar queen so... shoot me with the speed that i need... (the lovely nina gordon).

on a darker note (isn't there always one with me?), i watched this incredibly, terribly depressing hour special on tlc about dwarves. one guy named tim had an extremely rare type of dwarfism that made his bones twist in these unnatural ways, he could barely stand or walk, he was a human pretzel but only at something like 3 feet. it was so sad. he went to his senior prom and though everyone was nice to him (he even had a date), you could just tell he wasn't accepted like the others were, no matter how hard those people tried to ignore his condition. those people lead truly sad lives... i doubt any day is normal for them.

so when i get too down on myself, i guess i can't be too unhappy comparatively with the suffering and misery of dwarves and other people who aren't accepted by society for what they can't help being.

2001-11-04T23:57:00.000-05:00

branded

i took a bath earlier tonight for the first time in awhile, maybe a year or more. i filled the bathwater with all these aromatherapy things, rosemary, lavender, cassis, fig, white oleander... it smelled rich like grecian goddesses and peaceful. but although the warm water felt nice on my skin, i felt almost suffocated when i sank down into it. my breasts were riding on top, like two white fishes with pointy noses... my legs kept popping up out of the water, refusing to be grounded, in fact everything kept floating, my arms, my legs, my breasts... so it was a struggle between me and gravity and i had to force myself to breathe in and out, the water on top of my chest made it more difficult to get a full breath.

i wanted to play around in the bathtub like i used to when i was younger and bathtime was playtime, fun. i'd swish the water around, pretending i was some sailor stuck at sea, making tidal waves with my hands and kicking legs, sometimes i'd even take my waterproof cabbage patch kid doll in with me and we'd have a grand old time. i was never a barbie girl, always always a cabbage patch kid girl... the dimpled faces and chubbiness and soft fabric bodies were more friendly and real than any plastic uncuddly barbie.

i tried to create those swirling waves and imaginary scenarios but i just couldn't get into it... how sad. so i tried to do something more grownup like read a book in the tub, but i again failed... instead, i ended up just lying there, admiring the sheen on my legs and chest and torso, and thinking thoughtless thoughts for a good 40 minutes or so... feeling slippery and aromatic and sexy and tangled wet matted hair and dripping breasts and warm... but suffocated.

then i took a shower, cancelling the point of taking a bath. i'm very efficient and pragmatic, i am.

2001-11-04T15:35:00.000-05:00

boy genius

an oxymoron. no boys are geniuses. all boys are morons.

i like one of garbage's new songs, "drive you home". it's soft and sweet yet still menacing. i'm a sucker for sweet and sour. i also like ryan adam's (no, not BRYAN adams) "wild flowers". it's so cheesy but beautiful, the way his voice cracks makes me teary and choked up.

while walking fritz i felt like i was going to fall down, i could see blackness coming to get me through the corners of my eyes, it was whisperlight creeping inch by inch and i could feel the ground beneath me bending away from my feet, trying to create a hole between me and the rest of the world. this has been happening lately, moments when i feel like i'm going to pass out, everything starts spinning and humming and i try so hard to hold on but one of these days my grip will fail and i'll be thrown down into hell, my hair flying in fifty different directions, taking flight off certain black branches, bluebirds and robins and white doves clapping webbed feet and petals of last year's elm tree open sharp toothed mouths white as silken snow and breathless. i just waxed poetic. i am someday going to have emotional authority over everyone and their fathers, i will be able to make them laugh or cry or feel stabbing pain with a single word as simple as "me". if only.

but here i am, cold hands and heart, using all ten fingers to type on a keyboard into the world of binary language i go headfirst. i must train myself to be good, to be less me than me, to be other.

to be she.

to be sun and see and we.

today is the day after yesterday and it is the same, it is all the same, same, same.

2001-11-03T18:29:00.000-05:00

the end

yes, it is the end of something. certain ties are in the process of being cut. there's no getting around it, it's just gotta be done. i need to clean the past off me and let go. i'm always letting people and things go. i have one remaining friend from high school whom i talk to only about twice a year, that's it. i'm constantly ending relationships and links to the past; i think it's a way of protecting myself. from what, i'm not exactly sure.... from the eventual loss of them anyway, but i like to end the ties before they naturally die since then i can exert the control. i am a control freak, oh yes i am. so beware, anyone who thinks they have a relationship with me now... it won't last long unless i suddenly stop my somewhat destructive pattern of stepping out before the game is done.

the past hurts, it bleeds red and white and i run away, i run away as i've always done and i won't stop, no, i won't, not until i'm the last person on earth. then the sun will burst open and shower down on me infinite presents and i will laugh as heartily and heavily as i ever have, i'll dance barefoot on dewy green grass and for once, i will be truly happy. this is the way the world works for me.

so i let go and set you free to wander away and make your own little nest of twigs and berries on some distant plain far from here and i am never to be seen again.

goodnight and goodbye.

2001-11-03T13:32:00.000-05:00

creampie

last night i had strawberry shortcake for dessert and it was oh so yummy. whipped cream and fresh strawberries and strawberry sauce and fluffy cake. the rest of life may suck, but at least there's strawberry shortcake.

i thought today maybe a monstrous rainstorm would come crashing down but it didn't. i am sad. i really love the sound of rain pounding on roofs and cartops and air conditioners.

my dad leaves for italy tonight with his butch girlfriend. if he doesn't bring me back a pair of prada, miu miu, or casadei shoes i will hit him over the head with my red purse. and he will cry.

protect me o infidel
hide me from sight
a dark cabin in the night
where cavemen pass
wearing grass
pointy sticks in their hair
and bones through their noses
and everybody knows
that high above in the sky
a dead owl hunts his prey
growing grey in the rust
sucking ripe nectarines
preparing for winter's harvest
and midnight's massacre
of frigid undressed mosquitoes
dancing away in kerosene

blah blah blah. a poem that makes no sense. and the best is yet to come.

is it just me, or do i smell the unmistakable air of regret?

2001-11-02T21:10:00.000-05:00

fishnets

i am wearing a pair of black fishnet stockings right now. they look good on me and men kept hooting and hollering at me while i was walking down the street. i don't know why fishnets are so sexy, i mean, if i had been wearing what i was (a tailored jean skirt with a pleat in front, a violet drapey top, my jean jacket, and silver sandals) without the fishnets, it wouldn't have caused such a commotion. but add the fishnets and prestochango, suddenly i'm like a hooker on 42nd street? i dunno. people are weird. if anything, wearing fishnets covers me up more than it does reveal me.

that whole thing about fishnets just reminded me that someday i am going to read umberto eco's "how to travel with a salmon" since it's lying around here and i've been wanting to read it but haven't gotten around to it yet. fish... one fish two fish red fish blue fish. i don't really like fish, either to eat or to have as pets. they smell funny and as pets they suck. they're not furry and don't do amusing things.

2001-11-02T13:53:00.000-05:00

posty

it's almost two oclock and i'm still in my pajamas. nice. ahh these lazy summer, i mean autumn days. i think i might go shopping today; i haven't been since before sept. 11th. my head is cloudy today, as it usually is these days. i wonder when the clouds will break and the rain will ensue? hmmm.

fritz needs a walk. i need a shower. as you can see, today is another pulse-racing day in the world. i like to mix things up.

2001-11-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

shal-low?

i can't believe i wrote a post as shallow as that. oh well. sometimes it's just gotta be done.

2001-11-01T21:32:00.000-05:00

vitamin water saves the day

i have a recent obsession with glaceau's vitamin water. it tastes good (for water), in flavors like fruit punch or peach or kiwi strawberry and contains vitamins and kavakava and ginkoba and st.john's wort. i drink this stuff every time after i have a step class. it rejuvenates me, or at least i like to pretend it does.

music i'm listening to these days:

love psychedelico! a cool band from japan fronted by a girl... they sing sometimes in english and sometimes in japanese and they're groovy. danceable! when i hear them i feel like shaking my thang, and believe me, i NEVER EVER EVER want to get up and dance. listen to them. good songs are -- moonly and last smile

aimee mann -- she wrote the entire soundtrack for magnolia, which i didn't absolutely love although it seems to be THE movie of movies according to scholarly/artsy fartsy people, but the soundtrack is wonderful. i love the songs red vines, save me, ghostworld, and how am i different. she has the best voice, aside from nina.

ben kweller -- the koolest kid on the block. he has such a sense of humour and writes perfect pop songs. love him, love him. i met him at bowery ballroom that day in late may when i was as drunk as i'd ever been. i must've been all crazy looking but i told him how much i like him and he seemed to think i was cool too... he gave me a hug! what a cutie. go listen to him at benkweller.com

kay hanley, the chick from letters to cleo. her solo stuff is so good, it's more mellow, but she's still got that rocker lioness attitude. i love her voice too, it's deep and throaty and lyrical. chady saves the day, fall, and transneptunian object something or other are great songs.

karen ires. girl wonder who is so sweet and down to earth, completely friendly and honest and smart as hell who writes beautiful melancholy wistful love songs and sings with all her soul. check her out at karenires.com and listen to some mp3s. fav. songs are star, special, faithless, 5am... every single one actually. i can't get enough of karen.

other insignificant crap is that i want to see the harry potter movie. i've read the first two books and think they are just adorable. great kid material, but it appeals to me too. the books have a quality about them that transcends normal adult/child boundaries. the world inside the books is so imaginative and exciting and addictive. i'm quite an addictive person but unlike other people who apply addiction to things like cigarettes or drugs or alcohol or diet pills, i get addicted to books and movies and television and magazines and make up and clothes and food.

my dad is going to italy on saturday for 8 days and i am beyond jealous. i want to go to italy, damnit! grrrrr... i've been there once, years ago, with my traveling violin group and my mother, and we visited rome, florence, assisi, and siena. it is gorgeous there, old old buildings that have acquired a rustic look that is more artistic than it is rundown, and quaint streets with cobblestones hand paved, and little quirky shops, and mountains and lushness and the local people are so nice to americans, speaking in thick accents. italy.... sigh. love it. and the food, the food, the food! oh well, my dad is supposed to bring me back a pair of italian shoes (prada, because, as i said before, life isn't so sweet)... a girl can never have too many shoes.

2001-11-01T12:47:00.000-05:00

undone

oh italia you beautiful thing
with your red paved stones
that girls with swinging ponytails
walk upon with leathered shoes!

to be continued... and today is a new month, the month of november.

2001-11-01T12:35:00.000-05:00

psychiatry and paris

i guess i'm going to see a psychiatrist next week and maybe she'll be able to prescribe me some miracle medication that makes me believe in an afterlife, god, and the basic goodness in people, and i'll be transformed from the cynical, people-hating person i am into one of those so-happy-and-ignorant-you-want-to-slap-them people who ladeeda through life. or maybe not. i doubt that any medication is strong enough to do that.

i'm gonna write down a poem i wrote on the old nina board which is now gone... if i can remember it.

a day in paris

white doves gather
on the promenade
sipping ten year old
water from a fountain of
a dirty old white man.

and i...
i peel tin foil
from my sandwich
noisily
and feed crust crumbs to the wind.

there's a sad music in the air
a carnival down the street
where an organgrinder grits his teeth
and his asthmatic organ gasps for breath
and a ferris wheel circles the sky forever...

i forget my name or why i've come at all
the rainclouds hang with quiet determination
bursting finally like sweet provencal grapes
purpling the street and my face
and i make my way slowly
towards home.

well, i improvised a bit. this version isn't as good as the other, oh well. damn that nina board for disappearing with my lovely poems and thoughts.

2001-10-31T13:43:00.000-05:00

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.

2001-10-31T11:32:00.000-05:00

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.

2001-10-30T17:41:00.000-05:00

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.

2001-10-30T17:33:00.000-05:00

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.

2001-10-30T12:33:00.000-05:00

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.

2001-10-29T12:05:00.000-05:00

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.

2001-10-29T11:31:00.000-05:00

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.

2001-10-29T11:29:00.000-05:00

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//.

2001-10-27T17:42:00.000-04:00

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.

2001-10-25T17:39:00.000-04:00

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.....

2001-10-25T17:36:00.000-04:00

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.

2001-10-20T20:34:00.000-04:00

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...

2001-10-12T16:32:00.000-04:00

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?

2001-10-12T15:56:00.000-04:00

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.