Classic Liz (Revised).

I always do this, especially after a transitional summer, which this certainly was. Oh fuck, jesus christ, oh this summer.
oh oh oh oh
I did it here, after the ridiculous circus that was summer 2006.

So here goes,
My favorite memories of summer 2009.
(rewritten because I just accidentally deleted my original post while doing some major cross blog restructuring, so apologies if I forgot anything this time around).

*(probably the BEST one) Tim randomly showing up in town & Tim & Rin & I making that incredible dinner out of the nothing in my fridge & taking that late night walk & laying in the street & me calling out of work the next morning & us three having breakfast at the Green Bean.
*DnDnD2k09, pretty much the whole freaking thing, especially all the laughing & silliness in the car, our first night in Asheville, singing the Magnetic Fields' "Washington DC" as we drove into guess where, the beautiful highway into New Orleans through the Gulf Coast, the shrimp boil at the R Bar in the Marigny, the Bourbon Mile, the second day driving through the mountains in Virginia & dying of beauty & Foamhenge & car sandwiches. & again, so much laughter & adventure.
*my moving day into 133, the whole thing, from the toasted coconut cream iced coffees to the sandwiches from State Street & Ballantines in my old back yard to the mussels & beer sampler trays at at the Noho Brewery & A Dead Hipster Or A Stove Boat.
*so very much excellent dancing, at the Basement, the 11's, & Bishop's, thanks to all Noho's awesome djs for all those great nights.
*of course all my very late night walks home from dancing, just me & my ipod & the sky & my cute dresses, even when it was raining, which it always was.
*the night in June I randomly met Mark at the 11's on the velvet couch & we had that great conversation.
*visiting with gramma in Brewster & margaritas & white wine & scallops at Clancy's then Job Lot & Marshall's & Curious by Britney Spears & fierce new sneakers.
*at the Spoke the night it was WAY to cold for August
*late night adventures involving rooftop views & 7-11 snacks & parks in the pouring rain.
*the night Karen & I saw rabbit rabbit at the Brass Cat & then drove to the Basement for Woolly Bully blasting Nas & arrived exactly at the door at 12:59.
*the last Amazing Love where I danced with Jono.
* all those DnD Thursdays at Hugo's & Sierra especially the going away party for the road trip where we actually had a big party of people out making art together in a bar.
*Cirque du Filet.
*the night Jed & I dragged the kitchen chairs onto the front lawn on King Street & the road trip was born & then we went on that late night adventure to amherst & the top of that hill & drove around listening to hip hop.
* the dinner party Karen & I had had 273 with the rose petals.
*fourth of july & chicken apple sausages & jalapeno chips at Melissa's party & then dancing at Danielle's & Lisette making my dress much much shorter with scissors & Jed & I falling asleep awkwardly on the floor.
* that day Jono randomly made me lunch & we sat on his porch all day & enjoyed the garden & the rare sunshine.
* that trip Melissa & I took to Cape Cod for swimming & laying in the sun & thriftstoring & good food.
*the times at work where Amy, Cait, Hillary, Thomas & Faye really made me laugh so hard I cried.
*rewatching Twin Peaks in my living room with my roommates.
*remembering how much I love cooking for my friends, & doing something about that.
* that day in early summer where Rin & I began planting the garden & drank the first iced tea of the season with lavender ice cubes
*Isaac's fabulous bacon party plus the night before when my bacon lasagna was born at Hugo's (where all good ideas are born).
*the first meal cooked at 133, dinner party with Melissa & Jed where Jed drew us unpacking my books in short skirts.
*the beginning of DnDnE dinners with Beth. (hopefully many more to come).
*learning how to draw & paint again. & remembering why I care to do so.
& I guess ending on my birthday, the first day of fall, beginning with a perfect night dancing at the Basement, a perfect day of smoked salmon bagels & thriftstoring with my lovely stylish friends, a delicious dinner party with people I love & an unexpected gift the next morning.

Rereading the old post from 2006 to link to it, I'm kind of amazed & awed at the similarities.
I look forward to fall 2009. I really do.
I really think it's gonna be alright.
Some things broke this summer, but some things were fixed, too.

first dinner with friends at 133.

first dinner party at my new home. with jed & melissa, pesto (my basil) & linguine & heirloom cherry tomatoes & a side of sauted chicken apple sausage & shallots & swiss chard.

what I picked from my porch garden for this meal.

oh, & cape cod blueberries picked by my family as dessert. served over coconut milk ice cream.

I should have taken more pictures of the food, but I was having too much fun, here's to more gorgeous dinner parties in this new house.

two symbolic meals

first, my first meal cooked in my new apartment, the first new home I've felt really good about in a long time. patty pan squash, vidalia onions, my thai basil, local baby arugula, wild yam buckwheat soba noodles. Simple, but your first meal eaten in a new kitchen is a test. & this kitchen is beautiful. with flowers from ali & katie. 

Second, leftovers at mum's house in brewster after driving here tonight. interesting day, accomplished a lot of practical things (new goal: not hide under the covers when faced with practical tasks) drank pbr with jed in the late afternoon at his house discussing album covers while mark slept in my bed at home, went to whole foods because for some reason I decided I couldn't manage the drive with sushi (sushi/road trip emergency) & realized that rin is my only real friend left in that whole store. weird, cause the store was once my whole life. anyway, cold macaroni, peas, mashed potatoes & roasted veggies at mum's, after a very contemplative drive, considering life & death & love & friendship. 

I really miss my gorgeous new apartment & can't wait to unpack, but it's kind of nice to take the night off from noho. 

last night, 273 south

moving for reals tomorrow. still not ready, but yet still posting on my various blogs.

why why why

I'm currently eating this sandwich. cuz it's almost 1am & I've moved four times in less than six months because my life is insane. damn, have to fix that. later. (back burner, large stove, ali). anyway, the sandwich was sriracha, swiss cheese, mayonaise, & roasted red pepper hummous. a feel good classic. with jalapeno kettle chips.

what my desk looks like, roughly eight hours before moving, not good.

& my dresser. oh dear lord, help.

dustry rose tries to help.

but isn't really helping.
although still adorable.

well, here's to to my life being more stable at the end of tomorrow. & let's hope jed & jono have some patience with the chaos of my objects.

It finally feels like summer, so I'm using the oven.

What happens when I'm really broke, moving AGAIN in three days & I haven't really packed, & it suddenly becomes really & delightfully hot out. & I'M HUNGRY.

free sunflowers from work are cool. I should so totally pack that vase, but whatever. beauty means something too. also cool is a shit ton of free summer squash. roasted in my beloved le cresuet baking dish with free shitake mushrooms, & thai basil & banana peppers & thyme from my garden. in olive oil & garlic & salt & pepper, of course.

dr taking advantage of the now empty record shelf. yeah I'm packing a little between drinking & cooking & blogging, etc.

even though having the oven on at 400 degrees was insane right now, it all smelled really good roasting & if DnD is really taking a road trip to new orleans in late august, I need to work on my heat tolerance. So far, after crap freezing rainy summer 2009, I'm really liking being sweaty & drinking chilled white wine in short shorts. over angel hair pasta. I think inspired by this post.

me, cooking & sweating & packing, july 2009.

dusty rose is also hot.

anyway, I think it's neat to cook yourself a really nice dinner in the middle of chaos. & last night I didn't pack at all but had an awesome time with a really good friend. & I'm about to embark on a road trip that I totally can't afford just for AWESOMENESS SAKE. & I'm going dancing right this minute.
Balance it's all about balance. & cooking & painting & adventure. That's it. oh, & dancing & friends & not killing yourself.

eating "exotic" squash & ignoring sadness

First, & most importantly, here's DR, helping me pack. thank jesus for kittens.



Yup, another late night dinner. this time "exotic" squash free from work (no idea why it's so exotic, it appears to be a round version of zucchini) & onions (also free from work) & avocado & thai basil & a banana pepper from my garden & whole grain udon noodles. no time to be doing this, this cooking meals & then contemplating them. really need to pack. but something else besides the general life chaos of me/financial crisis/moving/uncetainty about housemates/ thing that's been going on with me lately also happened & so there an undercurrent of sadness to everything I do. A very dear & trusted friend told me, "just give it some time & don't think about it for a couple of days" & that's right. but now it's been more than a couple of days & I find I still can't think about it or deal with it. it still hurts too much. & so now I find myself not packing but at least I am cooking mjyself a beautiful dinner & not sit on the floor crying. & I packed one box of vintage juice glasses & fabulous shot glasses that's gonna have to be enough for now.

noodles plus green things.

& then eaten over the rest of yesterday's lettuce. for freshness. five different green tastes: squash in butter (warm), avocado (meaty), lettuce (crisp), thai basil (sharp), banana pepper (hot).

I dealt with a lot of practical shit this week while ignoring my current emotional landscape. I'm doing the best I can. I still believe that people should try to communicate better, but they never ever do. Still I really learned this week that even though I feel kind of out of place a lot of the time, I do have some real true friends, even here, & they all came from unlikely places.

So I'm just gonna eat my green things & noodles & drink more wine at 1am & keep listening to all of the silver jews albums mixed on itunes shuffle & maybe pack another box or two. doing the best I can. that's all I've got. & if my heart is breaking under the surface, well, I find that it matters less & less.

& I'm gonna end on one of my favorite lyric quotes ever, "& if cars could run on teardrops I'd be long long gone. " thanks david berman. also, Drinking & Drawing road trip 09 to the deep south in august to look forward to. If we don't die, it will be awesome.

3am Dinners?

One element of the weird lifestyle I've been living lately is that my meal schedule (& my sleep schedule) are way way off. For instance, yesterday I worked, ate these things, went to the 11's for a night of "official" Drinking & Drawing, went to hugo's for more drinks & more drawing, & then we all went to the 11's to dance our asses off. Then I walked home all sweaty & realized I was starving & despite the late hour needed some real food. this has been my pattern lately, coming home from the bar to an extremely late night dinner, & finding myself really inspired to take pictures from my sketchbook & blog rather than sleep. Many of my finest blog posts are completed 2am or later, usually while I'm eating dinner.

last night I reheated cold ravioli from the previous night with tons of hot sauce & tomato sauce (I like food really spicy late at night).

& I had this beautiful head of lettuce that I brought home free from work hanging out in my fridge next to the banana peppers.

so I ate this, near dawn, while writing. that's goddess dressing on the lettuce.

then based on some late night text messages I left the house again, got to sleep as the sun was rising & the birds were going crazy (damn those birds), slept until around noon, got up in time to aquire my large iced coffee at the haymarket & some 3/$10 cds (stereolab, pavement, the smiths) at turn it up (my shopping contribution to the incredibly annoying noho tag sale), & head to work, where I just left, to come home, drink some wine, listen to the silver jews, & write on more blogs. & possible go out again to a party. & all I've had to eat all day is a bowl of soup at work, & I brought home a ton of free squash, so probably there's a late night dinner in my future. a typical day for me lately.
I worry that I'm turning into my dad with all my strange habits, I really do. He did, still does, the late night meal thing. I know this isn't normal, dinner at 3am, sleep at 5am, work at 1:30pm, I don't know.
I'm just so happy lately hanging out by myself, eating these crazy meals, & writing on the internet. although right now I REALLY need to be packing, since I am moving once again in six days. Having reasonable priorities has never been my strong point.

greens & wine & breathing

It's been the kind of week where on several occasions I've woken up with the panic attacks that used to hit me every morning this winter, i.e. winter 2009, greenfield, when whole foods & some people in my life caused me to have a nervous breakdown. I don't like it. This morning I woke up that way, managed to calm myself the fuck down, drove to shelbourne falls (coffee roasters on king street, not the town) (although going to the town would have been nice) for coffee & juice, & sat in the breakfast nook & proceeded to deal with the internal list of all the stuff I need to take care of that's making my head feel all crazy. lots of life transitions, of which moving in a week is maybe not the least. considering that at 10am this morning I really couldn't see getting out from under the covers, a lot was really accomplished today. as a reward for not dying of panic, after meeting a potential new roommate in town tonight I took myself to state street & bought a bottle of very cheap red wine & a giant bundle of local swiss chard.
& made this.

there's the swiss chard sauting with olive oil, butter, garlic, a banana pepper from my porch garden, & some dried chili peppers (from the free bulk stuff at work that I've been carrying around in my purse all week). just like me to have dried chili peppers in my giant orange vinyl purse with all the pens & glue. food & art, food & art.

then I added some jarred tomato sauce (cheating but I'm moving very soon so am using up my staples plus not really buying much new food) & sriracha. I really like my tomato/pasta things to be spicy. my homemade red sauce contains sriracha, & usually some sort of spicy sausage, & fuck it's delicious. tomatoes lend themselves really well to spiciness. so does cheese.

there it is, over pasta (sadly kind of crappy trader joes ravioli things that I inherited from a friend who moved, but whatever, I'm pretty broke) with sliced cherry tomatoes from the porch garden on top. The cherries are very fresh & sweet & lend something very delightful to the spicy greens & tomatoey mess underneath. (I ALSO have to add that because I'm moving & in the process of packing, that that is not my dish. I know I know, I'm an aesthetic snob, but I cannot bear for the internet to not know that MY dishes are vintage & pretty & NOT Pier One CRAP. Thank you.)(I know: liz, stop apologizing in parenthesis.)

so making myself good dinners in the midst of pure chaos helps, & so does when I have an impromptu dinner party with two of my favorite people on earth, one of whom I never ever get to see. having good people in my life & realizing it makes me want to pull myself together & deserve it, & also a few simple moments of pure joy sliding down a playground slide at 2am with people you love after sharing an amazing meal together is why we put up with crap jobs & tricky living situations & being broke & scared & confused & still keep getting up in the morning.
I was not mostly responsible for the brilliance of this meal, so all I'll say is, it was delicious & the company was better. & all the flowers were grown by me.
I sometimes lately think that I just went from one nervous breakdown to another, from total unemployed isolation in snowy greenfield to out very single freaking night social butterfly in summertime northampton, but I'm still trying to pull it together. having the person who saved my life by writing to me this winter randomly show up for 24 hours this week...well, these are the things I am reminding myself of when I slow down & breathe through it. there are wonderful people on this earth, & I can count at least five of them as my true friends. ok.
I hear thunder. & now it's pouring. winter of ice, summer of downpours. I was going to go out dancing tonight but maybe I'll just get into bed & read instead. I need words. maybe cooking myself dinner alone in my party dress with dustyrose is enough.

where have I been? oh, OUT. + a recipe.

long late spring/early summer for me. so so so long. in fact I should be sleeping right now. all I'm gonna say is the last night I stayed in for a single night was two wednesdays ago & that was just for one night. I left greenfield (in april, last time I posted here), & I guess I went crazy, from the shyest girl in the world to out every night. I don't know. I don't know. I still (theoretically) like staying in, I just also like being around people (also not a totally true statement), & the out option is always winning, at least at the moment. more time to do both in would be cool.
it's a lot to explain right now. it is 2:29am. although I also used to go to bed before 5am & now I also don't. but I'm always hopeful that "maybe tonight" I will. sorry for the long absence. I've also been doing these things: Drinking & Drawing & Eating & Drawing.
I moved back to northamopton. I found a new (soul crushingly horrible) job. I've met a lot of people, a few of them amazingly awesome. I've danced my fucking ass off. & plan on continuing to do so (although a small personal victory tonight was that I DID NOT go to the basement).
& life is still in turmoil.
I'm still working it out.
more details later but for now, what I ate tonight:

it was totally insane to cook myself dinner at 1:30am when I got home from melissa's tonight, but I was hungry & I had some very tempting purple scallions AND purple carrots waiting for me on the kitchen counter & I was hungry, so I sauted them in coconut oil with marsala curry powder...

& garlic & thai basil from my porch & a few red chili peppers. & randomly an egg, 'cause I was cooking all late night crazy like I do sometimes, & had just read a food article about singapore street food that made me insane with joy so I was thinking outside the box. then I added coconut milk...

& then the whole thing was served over white basmati rice & eaten at 2:26am while blogging. dinner shouldn't be eaten so late, but then again, why not?

hi again. I've been taking a lot of good/garden photos lately, so perhaps more of those later. XOXO
p.s. don't y'all think that being a vegetarian & especially a vegan is such an AMERICAN thing to do (still thinking about singapore street food, & by extension, street foods the world over).

retracing my steps

I've had a strange week, where I've ended up revisiting, alone, a lot of places important to me in the past, the places that are the building blocks of my psychic memory of myself. I escaped from total chaos in northampton and finally gave in and took dustyrose and went to my mom's house on the cape. This is the longest I've spent in brewster since 1996, the summer between my freshman year at simon's rock and my first and sophomore year at risd, when I probably spent about a month here. Other than that, in the past ten years, I've been here for two nights at the most, maybe twice a year. And now I've been here eight days. 

And because until last november I've been in a serious monogamous relationship for most of my adult life, this is also among the handful of times I've been home (mom's house, funny how quickly I've started referring to this as 'home' since I haven't had one of my own lately) alone and not entertaining a significant other since I was a teenager. 

In this past week: all my favorite beaches and church thrift stores and ponds and woods and marshes and swamps and coffeeshops of the cape, the risd campus, my old apartment in providence, downtown new bedford and the walk between our apartment and the bookstore, the highway between northampton and new bedford and providence and brewster, a lot. 

New Bedford: where my idea of what things should look like came from. 

Brewster: the lake upon who's shores I grew up. 

Providence: my first apartment, my first love, first drink, first sushi. 

lots of driving, lots of ocean, lots of walking, lots of picking up shells, trips to drugstores buying makeup and other stuff like a teenager, loud music in my car, 

places I haven't seen since childhood, and have never seen through my own eyes as an adult (by which I mean, just looked at them, not showing them to someone else while retelling the story of myself). 

Wearing my boots and crazy vintage dresses all week, enjoying sleevelessness and my new since last summer arm tattoos, my badass boots on the sand of the beaches of the cape, big sunglasses and my ipod, guided by voices and pavement and the silver jews and modest mouse and bjork while I think think think, sound of waves in the background, the path around slough pond, the sidewalk of new bedford between orchard street and pleasant street that I've been walking alone since I was six, the brick sidewalks of benefit street in providence echoing my footsteps more then ten years ago when I first fell in love and I walked all night, when I first learned how to walk all night, 

dreaming of my friends, and of bridges, and of nail polish bottles lined up on a mantle. 

All this was unplanned, but the timing is seeming strangely fitting, as I have this weird feeling my life is about to change really soon really fast really majorly. 

maybe not. I don't know. I think I'm right and I think I'm wrong and I'm sure what I want and then I'm not and then I remember, it's not exactly about what I want, if it's going to happen then it is. 

This has been the week of revisiting, and of waiting. Past and future, edge of some sort of cliff. 

thanks.

I'm almost to my personal deadline for recovery (start of spring), and that means somehow I survived this winter.
Like this is an awards show (I know I'm way too obsessed with celebrity culture, well you know what, it's my healthiest current obsession so I'm gonna go with it), credit goes to: rin (for sitting there and listening to me so many, many times, and always knowing psychically exactly when to call me), beth & sarah h (cause I needed somewhere awesome to go on friday nights and plus oh my god, so much support and crafts and good thrift stores sense from you guys heart heart heart), my parents, especially my dad (for weirdly not judging me for ruining my own life, and supporting me so much), troy (for never once saying this was my fault, although a lot of it really was), hilary (for understanding me a lot, and remembering to check in) ali (for continuing to be the same incredible sister she's always been), and tim (for saving my life this winter, absolutely, one hundred percent through the written word). thanks so godamn fucking much y'all.
I was thinking about this while walking today (and even though it was kind of freezing it was definitely a spring day)(ha! "kind of" and "definitely" in the same cause, I'm so conflicted)(so I was reminded of the deadline)(ha! again so many ellipses)(I love ellipses), and I was suddenly so humbled I was tearful.
Not to be cheesy, but omg, it's been a hard couple of months (I know it's stupid, and worse things could totally happen to a person, way way way worse, oh god I do know, and I'm so grateful really), but still, I've been struggling to remain above water lately.
And none you ever, ever pointed out that obviously, in face of all possible disasters, this is nothing. Cause you knew I already knew that, and reminding me wasn't going to help anything.
Everyone was so kind in the face of my total breakdown over stupid personal shit.
Sorry if this is incredibly cheesy, but I am essentially breathless with thanks.
And I think one of the positives of a really bad betrayal is that you come to appreciate the people who are true.
so thanks. you are so appreciated.
AND.
final thank you,
(greg).
for continuing to take my calls and treat me like a true friend after what I did.
You have no idea how much that meant to me and I have no way to tell you.
(I'm writing this like I'm talking to you directly, but I'm sure many of those named don't bother with reading this nonsense.)
k. night. thanks.

love & gratitude & footstools & plastic deer & pink vintage suits

This weekend. Was really great. Not that weekends should mean anything to be because I'm still unemployed, and they usually don't really, but I decided in advance that I need something right now in terms of pleasure, and that I was going to have a weekend, and then everything actually worked out that way, I don't know, I spend too much time alone worrying, I need a change, at least occasionally.
(this is going to be a really boring post of what I did this weekend that no one but me could ever possibly care about, just warning you)
So friday morning I woke up after sort of an important night with s. and was having a pleasant rainy day doing laundry and reading a lot, and was so happy with the warm rainy foggy weather, and was ok with a night at home but then b. called with the free sarah vowell tickets, and really all day I'd been kind of sad that I was missing that, so I was both excited to go, plus I am always kind of overly excited and humbled when people remember me or offer things to me or are especially kind to me, and it's not even like this is that rare, it's more that I never feel like I deserve it, or understand on some level why people care about me. I know, I have weird high/low self esteem.
So friday night was great, then saturday it was a kind of a beautiful day at least for the last day of February in new england anyway, very sunny and reasonably not freezing, and I got up and drove to noho and bought the world's largest scone (strawberry & walnut) from the haymarket and ate it on the steps of the church on main street in the sun writing in my journal for the first time since fall and had that awesome conversation with ali and went to the art supply store and was greeted so pleasantly by friends and then had a truly wonderful trip to savers with b. and s. and spent more than three hours there and had so much fun and acquired a footstool that randomly matches all my furniture and a bag full of plastic forest creatures and a truly awe-inspiring hot pink vintage suit and really enjoyed spending good thrift store time with people with excellent taste and came home and s. came over and I made thai beef curry and we had a really nice night. And my dreams were weird and intense but it was still really nice waking up in his arms.
I think I'm happy. And in terms of my recent past, I realized while driving my car this morning that NOT being unhealthily attached to a person in a super intense obsessive way does not mean that I don't like them, and I should stop comparing this to that other thing because it's really pretty great as it is.
Then today, sunday, I had a very lovely morning here with s. and then picked up r. and went to that opening (can't talk about that yet) and then we had lunch and had good art conversation and I'm really excited about the art project but I managed to get myself in a weird, sad mood on my drive home and it was hard to shake it.
My itunes shuffle keeps playing classic pavement in droves and it's very very nice. And wilco. Nice and relaxing and pleasant for a sunday night, especially since doing my required daily food painting rather cured my stupid depressive tendency to dwell on stuff and waste time.
Again, thanks art. I don't know what I'd do without you.

Art Project

I had a really, really nice weekend, but ended with a rather ambivalent sunday night. I got melancholy for a while, for no reason at all...just starting to come out of it. through art. weirdly.
Thank jesus for this collaborative art project with r. (more on the details of this later), I really do need more concrete things to do.
And I hadn't realized how much I miss just painting, with actual brushes and paint, etc.
I really like all the parts this project has...my regular journal/sketchbook, my new food journal, my food porn facebook album, my daily paintings of everything I eat, my facebook album of those pictures, my notes in my regular journal about the project, my official journal of the project, this blog of course I think there will be more,
I wish it was tomorrow so I can eat and draw more things.
I like carrying around all these various notebooks. I feel busy and important. And it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about what I'm doing as long as it feels that way to me. I like having my bag full of pens and glue and words and images.
But I was not in a good mood at all. Just sitting around and staring at things and tormenting myself with my thoughts.
I was really kind of frozen into inactivity, but then r. called, and reminded me about the project, and a tiny part of my brain woke up.
I HAVE to do this one food painting everyday, so I did it, and I liked what I did, and now I'm not in such as bad place. Hmm.
In terms of things in my life I am grateful for, this is way up there.

deadline

I'm giving myself until spring to get over this, then I need to move on. And by "spring" I mean the official spring solstice, in many ways the holiest day of the year, and by "this" I mean I need to let go of a whole lot of anger and resentment and regret and everything to do with the whole foods saga.
I was suspended just days after the winter solstice, and fired the day before new years eve, so if this ends on the first day of spring, this will have been one complete season of my life.
And winter is traditionally the season of death and rebirth...which is what this winter has been for me, absolutely.
So it will be quite fitting if this period in my life takes exactly one season.
And my relationship with emerson fitted neatly into one season, fall, so that works too.
Fall has always been my favorite season, and so many parts of that relationship were pure pleasure, even though it ended badly. And I started dating him just days before my 30th birthday, and my birthday is always an important day for me.
And 30 should have ended my saturn return, I believe.
But spring. Spring will be something new.
I've really been working on myself this winter, seeing myself through something very dark born out of my own heart.
Come spring, I'm going to be ready for gardens, for sunshine, for dancing, for art, and for trust again, maybe.
Winter 2008-2009 I think I will always remember as the time I really got to know myself. Was always alone with myself. And it was scary and I cried a lot and always woke up in a panic, but look, now I sleep through the night again. I've accepted a lot of things. I've learned how to be grateful, that none of this is by any means the end of the world. That I am so so so thankful that this is the worst I've had to deal with, really I'm very lucky.
I've lost a lot of friends, but the ones I still have, are amazing. awe-inspiring. my family is amazing and awe-inspiring.
Spring is going to bring a lot more art work.
I still wake up thinking about him every single fucking day. Three more weeks, then that has to stop.
I think on the first day of spring I need to perform some sort of ritual. I don't know what yet, but I either need to set a bunch of things on fire or throw things off a cliff into the ocean.
When I got divorced almost three years ago a lot of people told me I needed to take the time to deal with it, even if it was hard, and I didn't.
I'm doing it now.
And I'm going to be at least a reasonably functional version of liz again, soon.

What I've gotten out of this so far.

One thing. I know that right now I'm stronger than I've ever been. Because I don't really feel like I need anyone else. Because I've accepted all kinds of loss and let it go. Because I now one hundred percent totally understand the great pleasure in coming home alone to my own apartment and my cat and a book and my thoughts.
When burns left I partied all the time until I ended up in another committed long term relationship.
I was always surrounded by people, and then I met greg, and then I did that...
This time I lost mostly everyone, so I couldn't do that.
I have never in my life enjoyed my own company so much nor cared so little what other people thought.
This is been a weird hard up and down journey that I think I really needed however much it has sucks.
And today at the co-op they were stocking the seed display, and I thought, it's really almost spring.
I've almost survived this winter, with heart and mind somewhat intact. enough to work with.
If you'd asked me what the odds of that were on december 31, 2008, I wouldn't have been so sure.
But I did it.
The song I was just thinking reminded me of this whole thing just randomly came on itunes shuffle.
WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD.
Rilo Kiley, "A Better Son/Daughter."
I was just thinking of quoting it, and here it is.
Because I am going to come out of this better stronger smarter more grownup a better friend a better daughter etc.
"And I'll fight and I'll make it through and I'll fake it if I have to."
So in some ways he gave me a lot of freedom. Now if I could just find a job...

my valentines confession.

still totally miss him.
still shaking from seeing him tonight.
still don't believe he isn't still hurting too.
I know we were in the same place for at least a while.
For sure at least for six months we were in the same place together and didn't even know the other felt that way.
so what goes on in his head? how does he deal with what eventually happened? I wish he would tell me so I could deal with it too.
still standing over the kitchen sink alone eating pumpkin ice cream blankly, too sad to even cry, trying to get drunk enough so I can just cry already...
...cause this hurts worse than tears.
He just looked at me on the street tonight like I wasn't even there.
And less than four months ago he convinced me to give up everything because he thought we could be together forever.
Who is he? How did I trust him? When will I stop caring about the answers to these questions?
I would take him back in ten seconds. This totally sucks. Happy valentines day. fuck fuck fuck.

((tiny related thoughts))

I thought for a split second in the exhibit tonight that what I should be doing is being an eating disorder counselor for teenaged girls. I think I could do that.
Very well.
And maybe even help someone who might otherwise die. Like I almost did.
How do I even go about doing that?
(plus all this train of thought has huge relevance to my visual artwork that I can't even begin to deal with right now...but I'm aware of the connections...
...body image, celebrities, porn, britney, food, yeah I get it...or am trying too)

valentines eve & other weird painful shit: Part #2: Shame

Tonight I was confronted with a lot of weird painfully deeply difficult to process things that take me back to my deepest darkest parts, the stuff that keeps me up at night. All night.
So I saw emerson tonight. That happened.
Earlier, I met b. at the Smith Art Museum, because it was Northampton Arts Night Out, and when the Smith Museum is free (as it should always be, of course) and Lauren Greenfield's Thin & Girl Culture was at the Smith Museum
That was really good, but weird and hard for me, because it was a lot of photos of women with eating disorders, and eating disorder stuff is still oh so indescribably hard for me to deal with, and I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to write about it tonight. Still the hardest thing for me to talk about/deal with/acknowledge in anyway/think about.
Even though the year when I regularly weighed under 100 pounds was when I was 14, so 16 years ago now.
I've been living pretty much as normal and appearing normal for 16 years. weird.
To be clear, I can talk about it, in a very specific way, a way that I've created, a language I've created, where I can mention certain controlled truths, and act like I'm dealing with it, but that actually never really even scratches the surface. Of what I've done. Of what I've felt. Of how I still live.
I certainly don't talk about it in the present tense. It's 10:50pm and all I've eaten all day is a single yogurt. I'm fighting with myself with what I'll eat next. Since I've been fired, I can at least on some level see that I'm exercising compulsively (now 205 situps a day plus all this other stuff) but I can't stop. I love when people buy me dinner, because then I'm allowed to eat whatever I want without following my rules.
I eat plenty, and I maintain a normal weight, mostly, but the amount of rules, involved, I know it's not normal, whatever that is, because I can't find the words to talk about. I would never, ever tell anyone what I really think when it comes to eating.
I eroticize it, I play games, I deny myself things...I think this why I want to just go live on a farm because I figure if I was really in touch with food and the sources of my food than all this nonsense my intellectual mind knows is silly and ridiculous would go away.
Gardening helps. That's why I do it. Inpatient eating disorder units should have gardens. And animals. Really.
The show we saw tonight had all these photos of girls being forced to eat cookies, but what if they had to raise chickens and then kill and eat them? Or just gather eggs? That seems like something that would have shaken me out of my self obsession as a teenager. In a good way. And eating disorders are always a self obsession. not that you can stop it just because you know this.
Send all anorexics to sustainable farms and see what happens. seriously.
Food I create myself has less guilt. Food I cook myself does too.
Something about labor, hands, work, touch....
So seeing those photographs...I was almost in tears by the time I left that exhibit. I was choking in my throat.
Not in a bad way. I was really glad I saw it. But it wasn't easy. I think a lot of the point of my own work is that I'm trying so hard to conceive of a language in which to talk about these things.
I need to talk about them. It's part of why I am an artist.
Someone should. And that show tonight, that all from an observer's perspective, because most of those girls photographed are too fucked up to make their own art.
I want to be the voice from the inside, the one who was just that bad, but survived anyway. And I will survive what is happening to me now.
So it was an intense evening in my soul already...
And then I was walking alone down main street in the cold back to my car and standing at the light at the main intersection waiting to cross, and I look over my shoulder behind me for some reason I still can't figure out (ali says I was looking for him) and I see first one member of his band, then the next, and I knew what was coming but it happened so fast, then him, come around the corner, and I didn't know what to do, so I looked away, but I'm pretty sure he saw me, and looked away too, and walked past me.
And then I felt like crying again and I still do.
Both of these are things I'm ashamed of.
That I've treated and still treat my body this way. That I loved him and trusted him and that he treated me this way.
Shame.
That ties this whole night together.
And a lot of my recent life.
In the recent past I've been on my knees in front of one person while someone who likes me sincerely called me on the phone to make plans with me. And have been at the computer at 1am eating leftover homemade curry and dirty instant messaging two different people with the same first same name at the same time.
Shame.
What's going on here?
Starving myself/loving the wrong people. A lot to think about.
And it's almost valentines day...and I take holidays, even stupid ones seriously, because I love ceremony.
It's gonna be a long night.
Thanks sweet jesus that K. made me a 21 love songs mix for valentines day that arrived unexpectedly in the mail this morning, along with this month's cosmo (An Orgasm Almost Killed Her: we are not kidding)(actual headline).
and I'm gonna listened to that truly excellent mix and write my heart out and drink cheap white wine and eat a chicken sandwich from the food the guy who doesn't eat much left behind.
good for me. I am embracing having an appetite. I think I'll make curried chicken salad.
Fuck shame. So what I loved him and I was wrong. He should be ashamed, and he is, cause he can't even look me in the face. Fuck that.
I've got a lot more to write on this subject, I think. Stay tuned.

(valentines)(food)(the inbetween bit)

(one other thing: my ideal valentines date, and which I've had with various partners for at least most of the last eleven years, is to cook a really special gorgeous romantic dinner at home with my love...I think the guy tomorrow wouldn't understand the food/sex/love/touch thing that matters to me so much...that's part of the problem...when I cooked him dinner for the first time this week, he didn't finish his plate and I was the only one eating butter...that sort of thing doesn't make me want to fuck you)
(I don't want to go to a restaurant, I want my valentines date to lick butter off my fingers and fuck me up against the kitchen wall while we are still cooking, pots and pans all on the stove and knives and cutting boards everywhere, everything smelling delicious)
(at least I know this)
(Iwrote this about myself the other day)
(You should message me if:
If you are open to adventure.
If you are by nature a sensual person, and the way life tastes, sounds, smells, sounds, and feels matters to you.
If you think food is incredibly sexy, and you agree that cooking an elaborate, messy, and indulgent meal is an excellent form of foreplay. And if you like to eat, because I like to cook, and I like people who truly appreciate food.
If you like dancing and getting sweaty.
If you want to go a dive bar for a bunch of hours and play the jukebox and act ridiculous.
If you smell and taste good, because I always notice that about a person.
If doing whiskey shots and eating cake in bed sounds like fun to you.
and you should like music, doesn't matter what kind because I like a lot.)
(of course, I know who all things are true about)

valentines eve & other weird painful shit: Part #1

So valentines eve 2009. First valentines day since 1998 when I was 19 that I haven't been in a committed long term relationship with someone I was in love with on valentines day. That's eleven years, people.
So there's that. Not that I'll be alone at all, I have a date, a really nice date planned to go to see "Coraline" and eat sushi at osaka, with someone I like ok, who is handsome and smart and funny and seems to really like me and the way I think and who pays attention to my art, etc. perfect on paper, but on the other hand , as ali and jocelyn and I were just joking, I'm just not that into him? Get it? I could let him know that by suggesting we see, "He's Just Not That Into You" instead of "Coraline." But he planned this date, and it's a great date, it's all stuff I love to do, so what is my problem? That it feels like we are really "dating" now and one thing I do know is that I don't want that. Not with one person. My poor little heart can't handle it yet.
I'm turning into one of those boys I've dated who's terrified of the word "Girlfriend." I just don't want to be anybody's girlfriend, except maybe one person's and that's the wrong person.
And valentines day is of course complicated because ever since I broke up with emerson, well I guess not since we broke up, we broke up in november, and I thought for while we'd certainly get back together haha now we'll never even speak again, I guess since he got me fired at christmas, I 've been on a dating spree that I can't entirely understand or explain to myself or anyone else. Mostly people from the internet, a few from real life. Right now I am currently have a specifically nondating sex/friendship thing with three people, and dating two other people, making plans to meet at least two new people next week, plus two people I've met in person I'm avoiding, plus a handful of people I only email. Hmmm.
Very emotionally confusing, especially considering I've never really dated casually before, only ever gone from one serious relationship to the next.
And the only person who moves me at all is the one most specifically nonromantic. But maybe that's exactly the reason I'm moved, because that situation is safe. It's definitely the only situation where I'm having sex because I really want to, which is sad I guess.
I had a good conversation with a & k about what this means about what I really want, and whether or not it's ok for me to want the things I seem to want.
Am I a slut, a whore, am I really messed up emotionally, am I really sexually confused, am I normal?
When I describe it to myself, I just say that all I want is to feel something. And that I can't. That's here is an empty space in my chest and I'm just trying to fill it with something.
That the only reason that I can handle all this is that emerson left me so emotionally removed from myself and everything else that I can just jump from one person to the next and not feel a real connection.
I feel guilty about my date tomorrow, I feel like he wants something different and I'm not being honest.
I'm confused, because the me I used to be would have been so happy about this situation and the me I am right now feels nothing.
I mostly want to be alone these days, that's when I usually feel the best with a few exception.
I guess emerson gave me that, an appreciation of my own company that I didn't have when I was clinging to him for everything.
Although I never am alone, this week I had exactly one night to spend alone in my apartment.
But then why am I dating all these people?
I think I really really really need the attention, I'm craving it so much, just tell me I'm beautiful, sexy, special, that you want me, that I'm not the worthless creature that he threw away and wrecked and didn't even bother turn around to look back at.
I saw him tonight of course. For the first time since the morning after that fateful store party, back on december 17th. Then I was suspended on the 23rd and I never saw him again, I saw the back of his head the one time I went back to the store to get the stuff from my locker, but this time I saw his face and I believe he saw me.
That's part #2. But of course it happened tonight. Valentines Eve. In a parallel universe of course, we end up not destroying each other and I wake up in his arms tomorrow.

duality/complexity...trashy vs. everything else

I'm having a problem lately with feeling like people keep making assumptions about me, or thinking they know what my next step with be, or making blanket decisions about my personality without really knowing me at all.
Like they take one tiny grain of information and run with it and construct a whole persona for me from it. I don't think that's fair.
I have a lot of complexity, and contradictions, and just because you really love one thing about me doesn't mean you'll like the whole package, so don't get so excited.
So don't go on and act all surprised if you like me, and then you learn something that you don't like. And don't try and act like I lied to you, because all sorts of contradictory things about me just happen to be true.
I try to be a good human being and bring my reusable bag to the grocery store and recycle everything and believe in and support local agrculture and businesses and would rather walk places than drive and like to cook and grow my own food and don't like mostly to eat chemicals or things from mixes or any fast food and all those things are very very true but I also drive an old Ford Explorer and I love it, if I had all the money in the world and could buy any car I wanted I might buy a really big ridiculous pickup truck and I love shampoo with really strong scents and all other manner of artificially scented body and cleaning products from target and my perfume if britney spears' "curious" hahaha and I don't like candy but sometimes a reeses peanut butter cup can send me to heaven annd I am very romantic and sentimental but I also like sex with no attachments and I like toenail polish and glitter eyeshadow, and trashy clothing from the mall, and coffee from machines in gas stations, amd I like to dress old fashioned and love beautiful vintage things but I like hip jeans and fabulous sneakers too and hell I like to mostly just wear my pink sweatpants from target at home so don't treat me like such a princess where I can only wear skirts and hair ribbons and I dislike most things new age or hippy-like at all but I really believe in yoga and tarot and do both of those things everyday and sometimes I love just sitting on my yoga mat focusing and I love to cook and really care about food and appreciate really amazing food but you can take me to a diner or make me frozen french fries and I'll be really really happy and I love very very much both beautiful old well-made objects and cheap plastic crap and I'm incredibly shy and have trouble meeting new people but I'll drive to stranger's house in a different city and get into their bed within ten mintues and have no problem with it and I love shoes but can't really walk in high heels and I keep my apartment really neat and organized but also don't care if my friends get crumbs and frosting all over the place and I can be equally excited about an evening spent crafting and watching anne of green gables and drinking tea or or an evening drinking a shit ton of alcohol and doing outrageopus things and I'll do a lot of things to please other people but I'll also stand my ground and it is not because I'm a bitch or may be it is and I'm very private about what I really think but I'll tell you a lot of intimate details you probably don't want to hear and I like a lot of very cool hipster music like the silver jews and guided by voices that impresses cute indy boys but I also love britney spears and ani difranco and hall&oats and steely dan and the pet shop boys and lots of country music and old broadway musicals and hardcore rap music and I love bad 80's hair metal like guns n' roses and bon jovi and poison a lot plus lots of queer punk from the 90's like team dresch and bratmobile etc and I read the new yorker and cosmo and like six food magazines and a lot of glossy tabloids and I love them all and I read nonfiction and poetry and difficult novels and chick lit and trashy horror novels and books which are basically food porn ...
and I feel like I am a smart spiritual artistic creative trashy drunken reckless slutty sincere open hearted self-protective romantic exhibitionist private girl all at once.
I know: all about me.
I am one hundred percent sure that this is true of everybody,. but I still keep getting: oh I thought "you were different, I'm disappointed" lately. Over stupid shit like I care about the earth but drive my big car, or really love pavement but also really love britney, or am a genuinely smart person but love love love bad reality tv. So what?
This is just what went through my head earlier today driving in beloved Ford Explorer listening to ani difranco wearing my badass motorcycle boots on my way home from a date where I felt kind of misunderstood/judged to the big y in greenfield to buy toilet paper, trash bags, fancy feast for dustyrose, and cheap white wine for me.
One last note: maybe this is my fault, because I will play with whomever I'm with. But never to the degree that it's not true, it's just that if there are things we have in common, I will focus on those. Is that bad?

more from my apartment tonight

I don't why, but ani's really nice tonight.
Two quotes from "knuckle Down" which I generally think is just a terrible album, and I've never really listened to, I can't stop playing over and over again. Again, it's probably been ten years since I seriously listened to ani difranco. But I guess I made the correct random choice tonight.
"come home and my guitar
has nothin to say to me
i recoil from all my friends
and then i'm in misery
been so long since i've been held
really since i was his
probably just need to be held
that's probably all it is"
-ani, "recoil"
"but you can't will yourself happy
you can't will your cunt wet
you can't keep standing at the station
pretending you're being met
you can't wear a sign that says 'yours'
when that ain't what you get"
-ani, "callous"
....other little things about tonight...I've been reading Julia Child's memoir, "My Life In France, " and that's making me incredibly happy. And she didn't learn to cook at all until she was 36, so maybe there is serious hope for me. Maybe I will have my restaurant someday. And she found the love of her life in her late 30's, and they lived happily ever after, complete with delicious food, so again, hope...
...I found a completely brand new "clear head" candle from whole foods in the bathroom that I had forgotten I had and that's making the apartment much better...
...last night I stayed up late reading and working in my sketchbook, not messing around pointlessly on the internet and I think it might happen again tonight...(except then why am I writing in this blog?)
...even though it's late I just did some yoga, and now I feel bendy and calmer...
...my tarot card for tonight was the Hawk, Messenger, "do not let your emotions cloud your perceptions. Examine your life from a higher perspective." When don't I let my emotions cloud my perceptions...hmmm.

in my space

It's weird, I like this guy, the one who came to visit today, we had a nice day, and spent some quiet time drinking coffee and reading at bart's and later sitting in the whately diner looking out at the beautiful snowy dusk eating french fries and talking about country music, and he had his own fries but was using my ketchup which I thought was cute, and we drove around in his truck in the snow which I love, and lately he's really felt like my friend, but every time he's here, as soon as he leaves I feel compelled to clean and clean the apartment and get rid of every trace of him.
When he left tonight I first took a long walk in the snow, because I needed fresh air so much...and when I got back to the apartment I meant to do some other stuff but like I had no choice in the matter I immediately started rinsing out ashtrays and picking up glasses and changed my sheets and lit candles and am about to take a shower. I was thinking of cooking something even though I'm not hungry just so the apartment won't smell like him anymore.
...and I'm listening to old ani difranco for some reason, which I almost never do anymore....I think it's going to be sleater-kinney next, too.
When I was with e., he'd also manage to trash my entire apartment every time he spent the night, but I'd kind of enjoy finding the reminders of his presence the next day. Same with when g. and I first started dating. The time he left my bed full of lucky charms I thought it was adorable.
But now it's like I want to erase any hint this guy was ever here, and just get my home back to the way it was when I woke up this morning.
Again, I do like him, so I don't know what this physical aversion to him in my personal space is about.
Maybe it has nothing to do with him and this all has something to do with the boundaries I need right now in life. Like I just don't want boys in my space and that's that.
I don't know, I still feel like if it was the right boy, I wouldn't mind if my sheets smelled like him, but maybe I'm wrong.

Recipe: Comfort Food=broccoli & udon noodles

This is my most comforting at home dinner: Broccoli, chicken, and udon noodles.

Broccoli
1 to 2 jalapeño peppers to taste
Red Bell Pepper
chicken breasts
1 onion
several cloves of garlic
a avocado
package of udon noodles
olive oil
sesame oil
soy sauce
sriracha hot sauce
chili oil
fish sauce

1. Saute the onion and garlic and jalapeño peppers in olive oil for about ten minutes on medium high heat.
2. Add a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce.
3. Add broccoli, chicken, and bell pepper, cook about another five minutes.
4. Add chopped avocado.
5. Add a splash each (or more to taste) of sriracha hot sauce, sesame oil, chili oil, fish sauce. Let simmer, adding more soy sauce if it needs liquid. Cook at least 15-20 minutes.
6. Boil water, add udon noodles.
7. Add drained udon noodles, plus more soy sauce, cook on high for another couple of minutes.
Serve.
(I'm going to go eat this right now).

random kindnesses are good

On the positive side of my last post, and I think this is different from basing your happiness on other people, some lovely people I am fortunate enough to know have really warmed my heart in this past week.
It's the little random things people do that they don't have to that make you realize that you are really not alone even when you are taking some time off from reality and hiding out in your apartment.
1. In the middle of the yucky snowstorm last wednesday, a king cake arrived on my front porch sent by a friend in new orleans. The amount of joy I felt when I walked up to the front porch in the midst of all the snow and ice and saw the giant festive box cannot be measured.
2. the king cake inspired a king cake party the next night, and having my friends over to my apartment for cake and homemade cheese straws and valentines conversation hearts and hummus and hello kitty toast and giggling and wine and whiskey and poetry and dirty versions of the barbie queen of the prom game (barbie queen of the blowjob, complete with toy dinosaurs and gummy octopuses as playing pieces) was needed.
3. my car was completely and utterly stuck in the snow in my driveway following that snowstorm last week, and three of my next door neighbors whom I do not know at all helped push the car, shovel snow, actually drive the car, and just generally assist until I actually got out of the driveway (oh god god god I'm getting really sick of winter) (I pretended I was from louisiana I was so embarrassed at my inability to drive my own car). But they helped so much, and they totally didn't have to, and it was amazing.
4. The chinese food bought for me on friday when I was starving and broke, oh yay for hot and sour soup and sesame balls and eggrolls at ten pm when it's cold and you haven't eaten all day but have no money.
5. this unexpectedly lovely trip to boston on saturday, filled with lots of humor and conversation and getting lost and activities meant for children.
6. Something kind and true said by a friend on aim yesterday when I was at my lowest point and needed it most.
I hope that these are things I can do back for people someday.

finding myself around here somewhere

It's been a real roller coaster ride the past couple of days. I have no idea if this is all in my head or if outside events are contributing.
Still unemployed, so I'm still spending a lot of time in my head.
Last week there was another snowstorm, and that really depressed me...not sure exactly why, except certainly there is no novelty anymore to days spent alone in my apartment getting to do cozy stuff and read and cook and work on projects. That's what I do everyday.
But I'm still enjoying it. I could enjoy that for a very long time. It's just sometimes I get into a bad place in my head where I'm very very unproductive, and then when I feel like working again, I get angry at all that wasted time.
I'm definitely basing my happiness too much on other people. I'll wake up so down, and stupid things like an email or a phone call can really lift my mood, but it shouldn't be that way.
Yesterday, some plans I was really looking forward to were canceled, and I was way too down about it. Which made me really glad in a way that those plans were canceled, because it was a good lesson.
I woke up so depressed about it, and then was like, no, I should be happy to have the evening to myself. This is a gift. And I was really, deep down inside.
And I took a long walk, and came home really grateful that I still have my gorgeous apartment, and my lovely cat, and enough money to cook my little dinners...(last night avocado, peas, udon noodles, fried, weird but really good.)
What would I rather do than spend the evening home alone with dustyrose writing and drawing and listening to music and cooking? nothing (I mean occasionally some other things).
(and last night I also ended up having an unexpectedly wonderful and random phone conversation...which made me really happy...but see, basing my happiness on other people again).
Someone I care about recently told me that thing everyone always says about needing to be ok with yourself before you can be there for other people, and my mood this weekend really made that seem true to me.
And he said that I was being selfish with my feelings, which is also very true, I'm keeping all my real feelings locked close to my heart in a tiny box.
I do one hundred percent enjoy my own company, a lot, and nothing about my selfimage should have anything to do with how other people see me.
Plus, there is so so so much I want to do. So much. So I could actually see no one ever and just work here, and not run out of things to do for a long time.
I haven't even made my calender page for February yet, never mind the rest of the year! omg! And I have all these painting ideas, and I want to crochet, and I just started to learn embroidery, and I have all these things to read....and I like having the time to cook, and I have letters to write (oh and I should find a job at some point)...
But I still let what other people think or say about me get to me too much. I need to stop waking up and checking my email to see how I'm going to feel about the day.
I need to go into my interactions with other people from a much stronger, more secure place.
Lots of walking and writing and tarot and yoga. And cooking and making sure that I take care of my body.
I'm paying attention to the physical details of life as much as I can. Tasting delicious things. The feel of the air yesterday when it was surprisingly warm and I could sense spring in the air. The feel of my wonderful bed and sheets and blankets and pillows when I go to sleep all by myself with a book.
My tarot card today told me that I needed to be playful and trusting again, and to let traumatic past events go.
I'm listening to fiona apple tonight, which is kind of nostalgic and fun.

more thoughts on trainwrecks...

Britney...she's like an old school glamorous celebrity, not in talent, but in capacity for trainwreck...tragedy...disaster...like judy garland or elizabeth taylor...the glamour in tragedy.
That's key as to why we keep looking at britney. It's almost impossible for human beings to look away from tragedy, especially a poetic tragedy all done up in glitter.
Girls crying with their eyemakeup running, stockings torn...it's classic.
If only a national tabloid had been there that night of the whole foods store party to find me crying on the stairs.

Old School Surveyness...(afterall I wrote this one)

Since I am actually the author of this survey, and it makes my last totally insane post not the first one, here you go...

1. Three things you did today that you liked?
Took a beautiful walk at dusk, filled out that 25 questions thing on facebook and then wrote in my blog, did yoga and listened to music.

2. Three things you did today that you didn’t like?
That phone conversation, that coffee conversation, applying for jobs that I don’t want, essentially the things involving other people were bad and the things alone were good. Except beth and I had some awesome facebook comment conversation that warmed my heart.

3. What are you wearing?
Pink pj bottoms with horse silhouettes, white wife beater, ancient vintage brown hooded sweater with giant holes, braids.

4. What was your last meal?
Homemade by me last summer frozen spicy cilantro pesto with 365 butternut squash ravioli.

5. What did you wish it was?
That was pretty good, but maybe ideally it would have been a totally indulgent steak and potatoes and wine dinner with someone cute.

6. Five objects on/in your:
a. kitchen table: ceramic bird, dried pink tea roses, two plants, pair of black fingerless gloves reading “rise up with fists!!!”, my large sketchbook and various collage materials
bedside table: tiny plastic jesus and virgin mary figurines (mary glows in the dark), pile of books, pile of new yorker magazines, can of polar seltzer (pomegranate flavor), stone from cape cod reading “hope” from mum and barb’s wedding
fridge: chocolate bacon, cheap white wine, various chutneys and curry pastes, honey roasted peanut butter, coffee syrup (for coffee milk like in rhode island)

7. Reading/listening to/watching in the last three hours:
Reading: Stupid novel about maine I bought at the salvation army here in Greenfield for 75 cents, because I keep wanting to move to maine, listening: the mountain goats sunset tree, watching: mostly the laptop screen and dustyrose act like an idiot attacking things no one else can see.

8. You get inspired to leave right this minute on a road trip, from which you may never plan to return, what do you throw in the car:
Sketchbook, some magazines and old books for collage, glue, the laptop, my best cowboy boots and my motorcycle boots, my roughly three or five or eight favorite dresses, lots of tights and socks, an assortment of books I love pulled off the shelf at random, a couple of my precious objects (i.e. shot glasses, ceramic animals, toys) to remember who I was, dustyrose and all her favorite toys and feathers, lots of scarves and fingerless gloves, my Cusinart, a handful of shells, my tarot cards, whatever photos I can grab quickly.

9. Who did you talk to or text or see today (not including people who were at your work)
Saw Danielle, texted Beth, spoke to someone I really didn’t want to, some other internet communication.

10. Describe your environment right now (sight/sound/smell/light/taste):
Beautiful golden light I created here with lamps and objects, still listening to the Mountain Goats, always vaguely smells like garlic and butter and curry here.

11. What is that environment lacking?
Not that much. On some days I would say company, but right now I’m good solo. I stress, right now. Ask me in an hour.

12. Where are you going next?
No idea. Austin? Back to New Orleans? Nowhere? Onto a fishing boat?

13. A recent dream?
The Martha Stewart one where I had to wear a short skirt in order to work for her at a job involving cookie eating was awesome. I also recently dreamed I found really nice rug. It was blue, very blue. Seems random, but I remembered it very clearly and it was a happy dream. I’m still having reacquiring nightmares at the moment, I don’t want to talk about those.

14. First thing you do when waking up?
Right now, I panic, then calm down, go make tea, email friends for a while in order to feel human. Then do yoga.

15. Best very recent memory:
Diane’s party last Friday.

16. What do you want to learn to do right away?
Cook professionally. Learn knife skills.

17. Favorite things from all five senses:
Sight: sunset
Smell: butter, onion, and garlic
Taste: kissing
Feel: yarn of good quality while crocheting
Sound: country music

18. What do you want in life right now?
Less uncertainty. Less distrust. More love and openness.

19. If you want to talk to someone, do you call or text?
I text. Because I’m shy. And awkward on the phone, although lately I’ve been improving.

20. Would you rather have the love of your life last forever, or lots of important and meaningful relationships?
Both?

Trainwreck (me & britney spears & courtney love)

Just a few random thoughts...lately a various assortment of sort of shitty things have happened to me (and oh believe me I fully realize that these are not shitty things on a truly horrible scale, I know that I am not dying or sick and not starving and not living in a war zone or a natural disaster, I know, I know, and I am incredibly grateful for all those things, I am I am I am)...but I still have experienced what one could call some sort of trauma, and the way people are now treating me is, um, interesting? weird? hurtful? funny?
(this going to all tie back into britney, don't worry)
(also this won't make a huge amount of sense, overall, so if you are looking for cohesion, stop reading)
But I made a terrible romantic decision and that caused me to lose my job, and before that he hurt me really badly both emotionally and physically, and since about mid-november I've been in a kind of downward spiral, way before I lost my job this happened, and that led to some other insane behavior and lots out of control drunken reckless behavior...
Hi britney! Hi courtney love! yes! trainwreck city!
I think it's true, no matter who you are, you get your heart broken publicly, it hurts the same way, and people treat you the same way, like it's catching, and just because someone fucked you over real real real bad, and you have the emotional awareness to be feeling it, then there is something wrong with you.
"just get over it", they say. "move on." and I know that to be true. but I'm not there yet.
For me, the fact that I get up and get dressed everyday, keep my house clean, feed the cat, feed myself, apply for jobs, paint some, write about art, all these things are a major victory. A lot of me just wants to lie in bed and cry.
But I get accused of dwelling in the past. I guess I am. But that was such a major betrayal. The whole thing, the violence, the betrayal, the effect it's had on my life, I'm not ready to move on. I can't yet.
I can't. I'm trying. I'm trying so hard...to let go of the anger, the hurt, oh I know these are unproductive emotions, I want then gone, I do I do.
But I still don't sleep. I still am having panic attacks. I still go over it in my head constantly. I still wake up so sad every single day. I never ever want to get out of bed in the morning. I'm trying but I don't. I'm still grateful for everything I have, but that doesn't mean I feel ok.
Ok, this is the bad part, here goes:
I AM SORRY THAT HE BROKE MY HEART WORSE THAN IT'S EVER BEEN BROKEN BEFORE AND I FELL APART AND THEN HE GAVE THEM MY LETTERS AND I GOT FIRED AND NOW I'M BROKE AND UNEMPLOYED AND REALLY FREAKED OUT AND LONELY BUT I HATE EVERYONE AND CAN'T TRUST AT ALL AND CAN'T LET ANYONE IN BUT KEEP TAKING THESE CRAZY RISKS IN ORDER TO HEAR SOMEONE SAY THAT I'M BEAUTIFUL BUT I MOSTLY HAVE AN OUT OF BODY THING GOING DURING SEX NOW AND I'M SORRY IF HE WASN'T VIOLENT ENOUGH TO MEET SOME PEOPLE'S STANDARDS BUT IT WAS VIOLENT ENOUGH FOR ME AND I KEEP DISCONNECTING AND I DON'T CARE WHO THINKS I'M LYING OR EXAGGERATING OR TRYING TO GET ATTENTION WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN HE AND I NO ONE SHOULD KNOW THE DETAILS OF EXCEPT HE AND I AND IT WAS REALLY FUCKING BAD AND I HAVE BEEN 13 AGAIN SINCE NOVEMBER 29. SO FUCK YOU EMERSON. AND COURTNEY. AND YOUR FRIENDS. AND EVERYONE WHO THINKS I AM TAKING IT TOO HARD. YEAH I WAS A SHITHEAD TOO. BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO TAKE EVERYTHING. YOU FUCKING BASTARD YOU SLAM MY HEAD AGAINST A WALL AND CAUSE ME TO HAVE A SEMI-NERVOUS BREAKDOWN BECAUSE NO ONE HAS DONE THAT TO ME SINCE I WAS 13 YEARS OLD AND THEN YOU BLAME ME FOR IT WHICH I BELIEVE AND THEN I START TO COLLAPSE AND YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT TO GET ME FIRED AND REMOVE ANY STABILITY OR REASON TO GET OUT OF BED AT ALL FROM MY LIFE JUST WHEN I NEED IT MOST.
ok, bad part over. But for everyone who keeps asking, this is where the Britney thing comes from, people watching while you go from everything to nothing, and both judging and enjoying it at the same time.
I know people are backing away from me in that "oh no trainwreck" kind of way.
Look how courtney love has been treated for more than ten years now, because maybe you act crazy when someone you love even tries to kill themselves. I've been there. And people want you to act normal. But nothing is anymore.
Falling apart publicly...it's interesting.
Driving to work the day I was suspended totally unexpectedly, I was listening to the new britney album, and really liking "circus" a lot, and already thinking about changing my facebook status to "all eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus." and then I was interviewed about my emotions and my sex life and then suspended, and I did change it to that, but then it was so much more funny and sad and ironic.
My final point: women should be allowed to be outrageous and hot and crazy and emotional and feel pain and act out without being raked over coals like this. Only girls ever seem to be left crying alone on the stairs and photographed at their worst and mocked and judged by everyone.
From the Mountain Goats, "I am going to make it through this year if it kills me."
I'm just really wounded right now. I'm doing what I can. That's all.