i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Part of me wants to write about this.  About how death is scary.  Death is quiet.  Death is peace. Part of me wants to write about how unfair it is that my cousin will have to think every year, on her birthday, that this was the day that her mother passed on.

Part of me wants to write how important it is to say "I love you" to every one you love every day because you never know when it's going to be the last time you see them.  The last time they see you.

But I can't.  I don't know how to do it.  I don't know what to say to someone who has just lost their mother.  I don't know what I will do on that awful day.  I just wish her love and peace.  So much love and so much peace.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-e e cummings

i think i can

So it's 2012 and we're all still here.  Personally, I was hoping for an apocalypse-type-thing because I am the world's greatest procrastinator.  I start books, diets, exercise regimes, blogs (ahem) with no intention of ever finishing them.  I don't believe in will power, at least not in the sense that I have any at all.  Shiny things get my attention.  I just have issues, yo. Look, I'm even starting my resolutions list a week late!  I win.

But in the interest of actually having 2012 be different from 2011 (and 2010 and 2009...you get the idea), I WOULD like to make a few changes in my life.  Accomplish something.  Do something.  So here is my wishlist for 2012.  I think ten is reasonable, so boom:

• Quit smoking, for crying out loud.  Not only is it reallyreallyREALLY expensive (and also kinda gross, I KNOW), I am basically limiting almost everything in my life for this one vice.  A pack-a-day vice, which makes me sound like an aging classic rock singer or a trucker.  It makes me spend way to o much money for paper and dried up plant.  It makes my lungs hurt.  It makes me gaspy and coughy.  Not sure the way to go, though.  Due to other medications, chantix seems like it might not be for me.  e-cigarettes = more smoking.  The patch gives me weird dreams.  The gum tastes like shit.  Oh, shit.  I'm talking myself out of it already.  For realsies.  I'm going to throw-down like the detox scene in Trainspotting.  Except for the suppositories and toilet diving.
• Move that ass.  Due to my crazy-ass smoking, exercise has been out of the picture for over a year.  I've gained weight, which I hate so much, since I was not exactly a skinny girl to begin with.  I wanna climb stairs without feeling like I'm going to die.
• It's all about the Benjamins  I seriously have to concentrate on saving in 2012, especially for reason #4.  I plan to do this two-fold: get a 401K plan started at work (yes I KNOW it's insane that I don't have one.) and put away as much as I can a paycheck.  I need some cushion in case, oh, I don't know, my insanely effed up car decides to shit the bed for good.
• MOVE OUT  After 9 years of living on my own, I had some issues that landed me back with my parents.  That was November 2010.  I need my own place.  Preferably in-town, two-bedroom, accepts a dog and two cats, including heat, hot water and snow removal.  Also must not be ghetto or directly next door to a KSC frat house.  Big windows and walking distance to work a plus.  Walking distance to bars a plus plus.
• Read more.  Like, a lot more  Remember how I said I couldn't finish a book?  Yeah, it's EPIC.  I have total book ADD (I blame NPR and Huffington Post.  Also Oprah--I can't help it.  That bitch knows EVERYTHING.)  My goal is to read one a week.  My brain needs the exercise.  Today I started 'The Tiger's Wife' by Tea Obreht.
• Spend more time with my family.  So it may seem counterproductive to want to move away from my family but also be closer to them, but I have good reason to want this.  Last month, a family member was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and was given days to live.  It may seem dramatic, but seeing all my aunts that I haven't seen in years has made me want to be closer to my sister, my brother, my parents, my grandmother.  It's all about making the effort.  You never know what will happen.  And it's never too late.
• Get crafty  Learn to crochet.  Learn to knit.  Sew my own curtains.  Anything but scrapbook.  If you see me near a Cricut, I give you permission to smack a bitch.
• Get a tattoo.  Yeah.  So.  I don't know what I want, but I know that I want one.
• Get my passport stamped, damn it.  I didn't travel in 2011 and my passport is totally pouting about it.  Amsterdam, Scandinavia, Columbia, Prague (again?), India?  Anywhere but here, yo.  I need to move about this world.  I get nervous when I haven't been completely cursed out in a foreign language after awhile.  Canada counts, too.  I've never been to Montreal.  Would love to hit up the West Coast and see San Francisco or Seattle.  Or Portland.  Or anywhere.
• Fall in love.  'Nuff said.  I know you can't force it but I'm doing the work, kissing the frogs and keeping my fingers crossed.

So hopefully I will keep blogging and keep you up to date on how badly I am failing at all of this.  'Til then, ta.

it's not fair to call it a comeback--my therapist has been bugging me to start writing for the last year and a half. Most of the time, I feel like I don't have much to say.  The internet has made the world much smaller and posting intimate details and thoughts makes me as nervous as a whore in church.

Let's just start where I wanna start.  I like music.  I like photography.  I like food.  I like my dog.

Sometimes I will post about music I'm listening to.  Sometimes I will post pretty pictures.  Sometimes I will rant.

Sometimes I'll keep it all in my head.  But this space is here.  That's what's important.

she gave us a mirror she gave us a map

she gave us a mirror she gave us a map, originally uploaded by jenlyn.

It started at the old mental hospital in Concord.

Walking around and around. Knocking on doors. Peering in windows.

I just wanted to get in.

Alas, everything happens for a reason.

We got in the car and drove north. Out of Concord. Into the country. Through a cemetery or two. Because I like cemeteries.

We drove past a road that said "Webster Cemetery". I made a quick U-turn because, you know, I like cemeteries.

Drove past three large, abandoned, open brick buildings. Drove past the birthplace of Daniel Webster.

Wondered who the hell Daniel Webster was.

Drove through a corn field.

Came back to the buildings.

Ultimately gathered it all up and asked if I could go inside one of the buildings.

Said "I'm a photographer".

Additionally, Sufjan Stevens was on Austin City Limits last night. I've been watching it on a loop. Where did he come from? He has got such a gift.
Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day

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sufjan has daddy issues, and other boys I don't understand

While I was sitting alone in my car tonight, my Zune (which is partially intuitive, of course. Not like those damn iPods.) decided to play 'Seer's Tower' by Sufjan Stevens. He is amazing but he has issues. Daddy issues. 'Illinoise' is ripe with them. The lyrics to Seer's tower go:

"In the tower above the earth,
There is a view that reaches far
Where we see the universe,
I see the fire, I see the end.

Seven miles above the earth,
There is Emmanuel of mothers.
With his sward, with his robe,
He comes dividing man from brothers.

In the tower above the earth, we built it for Emmanuel.
In the powers of the earth, we wait until it rips and rips.
In the tower above the earth, we built it for Emmanuel.
Oh my mother, she betrayed us, but my father loved and bathed us.

Still I go to the deepest grave,
Where I go to sleep alone."

Yeah, OKAY, Sufjy. Whatever. You must be making enough for some kind of therapy at this point.

The reason I was sitting alone in my car is because I had recently made a phone call to an old friend and was sitting in the parking lot to see if I would get a response.

Here's the thing...this old friend of mine, I haven't spoken to him since May. So that's about 8 months. This person is also my oldest friend (well, not oldest age wise, that would be Nickolas (ha ha cheap shot), but oldest as in longest.) and I've known him since I was 15.

Ah, what does it matter, anyway? People come in and out of our lives like the breeze. There are those who stay and those who go. There are those who stay for a while and then those who are as fleeting as a breath. It's not a choice thing.

I'm tired of the being angry. I know that it won't be the same but what ever IS the same, really? And is being the same good?

So I sat. Listening to that Sufjan song and glancing up at the windows above me.

I didn't get an answer.

Perhaps I don't deserve one. I know I have been a shit in my life. But there is shittiness on both sides. But I want to put all that shit behind me. And start on some new shit. Start a whole new shitty book and shitty times and good times.

Because that is life.

i <3 PBS

currently watching: American Masters: Annie Leibowitz. She is amazing.

currently loving: solitude, the thought of sleep, Spoon's 'Gimmie Fiction'.

currently wishing: I lived in the 60's, had a little more money, was somewhere warm and beautiful that smells like incense and flowers

currently feeling: poor, anxious for my tax return, nervous about money

Almost finished with 'Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim'. Looking to read Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties by Robert Stone, maybe some stuff by Tom Wolff.

enjoy your rabbit

I'm what you might call a music snob or...music elitist. I listen to stuff that I think is good, disregard the standard poppy/rappy crap and voice my musical opinion to whoever listens. I have strong opinions about Madonna's last album and her albums before that. I have issues with Coldplay's latest album, to whom I feel betrayed. It's good to have an opinion about SOMETHING, my 8th grade English teacher told me during a debate portion of our class. To have an opinion meant you had a brain, with thoughts in it. My father, while I was working on my index cards for my Pro-Life side of our debate the next day, said I was too young to have an opinion, that I hadn't had enough experience to have anything to say about anything. That's stuck with me since. So if I have an opionion, or if something rocks, or sucks, I tell you. Because I have an opinion. You don't have to listen, but I'm going to tell you what I think.

And here's the what. I have become increasingly aware over the past, well, three years that there are bands out there that basically exist under the horizon line, never bobbing up onto the the surface, happy blowing bubbles under the water of near-obscurity.

I like these bands. I like the indie-don't-give-shit-we'll-put-out-our-own-record-and-tour-in-my-mom's-van attitude. I want to keep them in my pocket. I want them to stay small and not want to get famous and tour tiny little venues and shhh...just don't go on TRL, promise. And when they do get big, I kind of back away going "Who the HELL are you?" Ah, Coldplay. They broke my heart. They could've been SMALL, I tell you! They could've just remained on that slow-mo, out of focus Yellow beach forever. Ok, Rush of Blood to Head kicked ASS. But that started their rapid, steady decline into Crapdom. They could've been great.

But I digress...

I think this is why I like Wilco, Spoon, Neko Case and some others so much. Wilco has existed for SO long and they've only had one "major" hit, which was 'Box Full of Letters' which hit the charts when I was effing high school, for Christ's sake. These bands seem to exist in my head, my own private orchestra, full of emotion and hidden meaning. Listening makes me feel better. It makes me think and dance and write and sing. I feel lucky to have them, knowing I'll NEVER have to make choice between listening to Fergie's new album or that great new P Diddy single. God, it makes me want to put my head through a plate glass window, it really does. It's almost unbearable. Ugh.

Music is important to me. It's a tangible memory. It's a memory I can listen to.

Playlist from this evening (as you can see, the Zune shuffle can be a bit weird)
Mer Girl, Madonna
29, Ryan Adams
Believe, Gus Gus
Polybackwards, Gus Gus
Nature is the Law, Richard Ashcroft
Small Stakes, Spoon
The Two Sides of Monsieru Valentine, Spoon ("Every morning, I've got a new chance.")
They're Winning, the Walkmen
Kicking Television (live), Wilco
Blues Die Hard, Uncle Tupelo
Year of Our Lord, Sufjan Stevens
Heaven, the Talking Heads
My Mathematical Mind, Spoon (possibly one of my favorite songs...Britt Daniel has one of the voices, man.)
Death of a Disco Dancer, the Smiths
God Put a Smile Upon Your Face, Coldplay
Love is the New Feel Awful, the Dandy Warhols

manufactured anger

I'm watching a brilliant documentary on IFC right now called "Punk: Attitude". I really enjoy watching documentaries and I love listening to people with something to say. It's about the underground punk scene in the 70's, 80's and 90's. They've got Chrissie Hynde and Henry Rollins yacking about the punk scene. It's very special. If you're into it, it's on again this afternoon. I love Henry Rollins. He's not afraid to say exactly what he means.

I LOVE IFC. I love their stuff, I love the movies they play. It's like PBS with a middle finger. There's a new movie coming out, done in the style of 1940's film noir called "The Good German". It's going to be Cate Blanchett's year, I think. I hope it comes to the Colonial.

It's a dark, rainy New Year's day. I've got to go to my parents to do laundry at some point. Ugh. My brain is all foggy. I'm getting old.