all

i don't know if i've arrived
or departed
from something.
the sound from the heels of my boots are proof
of a move.

i think the tragedy of Julius Caesar is not that friends might deceive us,
(et tu?)
or that people are not always what they seem to be-
but that just as often
we do not even know ourselves so well.
he thought he was constant as a northern star,
but julius wavered with the rest of them.

all stars
dancing or dying
we waver
edges not so defined.

MMM

MMM
"When a life is over,
the one you were living for,
where do you go?

I'll work nights.
I'll dance in the city.
I'll wear red for a burning.
I'll look at the Charles very carefully,
wearing its long legs of neon.
And the cars will go by.
The cars will go by.
And there'll be no scream
from the lady in the red dress
dancing on her own Ellis Island,
who turns in circles,
dancing alone
as the cars go by."

L
"How do you divorce ennui
When you have no motivation to fight?

Get nostalgic
Make lists about anything
Anything
Take classes in the name of a career you could give a shit less about by the time you get the degree.
Art. Disappear into projects that demand and consume.
Stop asking questions.
Treat everything like a giant fucking joke.
Fall in love
But do not ask questions.
"Run mad as often as you choose,
But do not faint."
Where am I going.
Where am I going.
I have a lot of friends.
I have so many friends
But I miss you in a special way.
Love
And
An
Open
Invitation."

Death by Maybelline

Via text from the mother

Another death in the family... Maybelline stopped selling my lipstick shade. The nerve!

Death by conversation in 13 minutes

Via text

11:10 me.
Save new?
Me?

11:11 she.
Save new? Huh? What?

11:18 me.
Anime. Savemwcome Dyyyying

11:23 me.
Dead. I am dead.

(anime kids will be the death of me. Mark it.)

Lackadaisical

I just kind of want to lie around and stare at the ceiling for about three days. Then (maybe) I will rise again.

What if Jesus was just really tired? Kind of bored, maybe. Maybe he just spent those three days kind of staring at the ceiling of the cave. Maybe on the third day he just decided he didn't want to be bothered with humanity and went into hiding for the rest of his life.

State of the Union: Lackadaisical.
Also: It is only Tuesday.

To that woman in the restaurant, so frail a word might blow her over. And smiling. Smiling.

Do you wake up every day with a question on your mind?

say his name

"but you don't believe in meant to be, linds."
"well, i don't believe in god, but I say his name sometimes."

make it

Sometimes when I am posing for a picture, I consciously think to myself right before the flash goes off, "This is the happiest moment of my life." As though that can make my face believe it. As though the Sears Family Portrait Studio could actually be the setting of the happiest moment of my life.

Sometimes I pretend I am in a movie during a particularly poignant moment, when you either feel bad for the girl or care for her deeply- you are falling in love with her at that very moment- just to make moments seem a little more interesting and my face to look a little less tired of it all.

Or tired in a beautiful way.

As though watching an airplane move slowly across the night sky could be the fucking door to an epiphany.
Or something.

sometimes usually, everything actually begins to take on some important glow when i cast myself into a role for long enough. and not like after-school-special glow... like, real. like, Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams and Matt Damon are talking on that bench.

BE PASSIONATE! BE PASSIONATE, WHATEVER YOU DO.
passionate in motion, passionate in calm.
take nothing seriously
except beauty
and finding it in
this moment right now.
now.
now.
now.


now.

now.
now.


now.

pendulum

You can't rush
this art.
It is a four
letter word
like
time
to come home
is wasted
on waiting and better spent on
gluing pieces
together
like heart strings
to a pendulum
until
everything is just a means to creation
and feels about the same as anything.

as well as

To Brautigan:

I wish you were still alive
(you are dead, aren't you?)
so I could kiss your brain
and suck on your words.

Next weekend: a piece of my art will be hanging on a public wall.

Also: visiting the dentist gives me phantom loose teeth.

Furthermore: http://aware.diaryland.com/

as well as: Hyperbole and a Half

free bird

From the "At Work" Collection of L-

Summary of the Lynrd Skynrd Concert
July 18, 2001

Overall, an alright, all-american (well, Southern) rock & roll band. Fat men singing and waving confederate flags around. Drunk 20-50-somethings throwing their fists in the air slow motion, spilling beer on millions & millions of cigarette butts on brown grass. Lighters go up for a song only the first 20 rows know the words to. I lay on my back and listen to people appreciating something I can't understand.

My best friend is crying because her boy has wronged her again. It's become so habitual that we can't do much but watch. We all take turns whispering words that don't help & kissing her forehead-hoping somehow we can transfer some sort of brave. We'll pray she gets hit with a reason to leave but tonight we can't do much but watch people walk around our island of a grass covered blanket. Where a few mintues ago there were thighs & mullets, there is an emptiness cluttered with $3 bottles and beer glasses. Someone let the water out.

We're all looking for someone to define this feeling inside us... this craving for more than what we've found. As hard as we try to find it in words or pictures or addiction-definition is always one step out of reach. It comes without being asked and it goes without saying. And no matter what we do to escape it, it's always the last thought of the day. It's always written somewhere behind our eyes or in that unsettled feeling that never leaves your stomach anymore. And no matter how far we go to chase it, there's always something lacking in that one thing that was supposed to make us happy.

We walk away in no real hurry. The show is done & we're still waiting to feel something. I watch her walk & smoke & I feel helpless. It's easy for people to tell her to walk away, but these are very real chains we're talking about. That's asking for an end to a circle. And she's stronger than some will ever have to be-not because she's got everything together, but because she's surviving with what she's got.


I sing for a while & change the words for her. On the way home we visit a few close calls and a payphone. We leave all of them feeling changed but not different.

And I know there are people everywhere, but I can't help feeling alone. Like life is happening without me. I stood on that blanket & drove & made stupid conversation-but all the time I was standing outside of myself. Reliving days and emotions and wondering if I might lose myself forever. I was not me, but a million mes that came before the me I am today. I was the girl in the movie who couldn't cry until she got angry-and then the whole world stopped to catch her tear. I was the girl who couldn't figure out how to fit into her body. Cheese slices and mustard and that was only the beginning. I was the girl with 2 left feet and too too many mixed drinks in her blood to make it over the balcony. I was the girl walking past midnight-sobbing hysterical looking stung out but dying inside for a pain of a love that was never right in the first place. Below freezing temperatures but I was the girl huddled around her cup of cold coffee she could barely afford. The girl who could barely control her sobs. I was the girl who was crippled by the discomfort of living. Pale turned purple with no blue in sight. I was the girl who picked nerds for friends. Secret codes and priorities got all flip flopped into frisbee football and anything but sleep. I was the girl laughing so hard she spit milk all over the kitchen table. Her mom just rolled her eyes and walked away.

I was the girl. I AM the girl. I am a collection of a million hers and for once I'd like to stop looking for a finished product in all this. For once I wish I would stop chasing after the she I'd like to be. There is no rest in a system where happiness starts in the future which is perpetually a day away. I am lost again. Recalling the past & momentarily forgetting that someday today will be a past I might find myself lost in. I could have stood there forever. Maybe I stand there still...

We sit on the hood of my car & play the "I Want" game. Thinking that if we can name it, it might become real. With all the talk of family & white teeth & surfers, it's all coming down to the realization that the moment is perfect just as it is. No more talk about imperfection as long as Sharon Sanders exists.

And maybe unexceptional nights like this are the most important of them all. They form your character. They force you to remember who you are & who you've been. They remind you (again) that there's no point in wishing you were someone or somewhere else. That journey and destination thing comes to mind, but it's not worth quoting. We've heard it so many times we forget that it means something. It's like, the one gigantic point to life that everyone is always forgetting. And it's more than surviving. And it's not about having everything together. It's about enjoying what you've got and where you're at. Seeing the forest for the trees. Seeing the future as something that doesn't even exist.

But if it did, it would start right now...