Tuesday, May 15, 2007

To Wash Off the Heat: Underwater Pattern-Swim, My Space Auto-Grin

I wonder how Emily Dickinson made it without air conditioning. I guess that was before global warming. If I was in Michigan and fifteen years old, tonight'd be a perfect night to jump the fence at the Marriot out by the highway, careful not to catch/snag our super-cool skater pants in transit [though torn-up skater pants'd be even super-cooler, I mean, talk about distressed denim, yeah?!]. And then: safely across, we'd strip to our conformist Speedos, glide into the pool--which we'd know/feel but not SEE was all aqua-blue--and splash and dunk in the dark like the best kind of petty criminals. Like embracing the warm, etc. Instead, I'm in NYC, so I'll just whine on my blog.

With just the door ajar, that oceans are.....

Sometimes I lie awake at night worrying that all the good melodies have been used up and there'll be no more good songs, ever. Jake1 used to tell me not to worry because people are inventing new ways to make music. E.g. in his band, Flashpapr, Ben played "computer," like he sat on stage with his lap-top. I thought that was very neat at the time, now it's probably normal. Flashpapr wrote one of the best songs ever written, ever, called "White Flowers." You can listen to it right here. Feeling half-finished and a strange sense of guilt: there is no dream you'll have when you sleep tonight that includes me in your arms...

This's a segue into talking about myspace, which has also "been done" by most bloggers, including me. This time's different though. I'm playing lap-top.

Marie, why did you erase your myspace profile? I'm not sure really. I think I just wanted to see how it felt to delete my myspace profile. 'Cause I think the internet is really funny. Like, all I have to do is press one little button [twice, because obvs Tom is like "WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME??!! You can never return to the way things were!"] and like: poof! There goes a whole year of stuff that I worked hard on and actually just spent three hours re-modeling! Bye! Like, I've clicked a lot of buttons on this computer, haven't I? A LOT!!! Like, millions. But that button, which I clicked with the same physical action I've used to click a whole lot of other buttons, made My Entire Space disappear forever! I guess I did it because, for one sweet minute, I felt like disappearing too.

I'm over that now.

How does it feel? Well, I feel really bad because my friends/fans put sweet comments on there that are now gone. So, yeah, that's how it feels: guilty. That's okay though 'cause I got a Beethoven Bust to keep me warm.


TB's suggested I write a blog entry about all the things I've done for no reason, like selecting the name of this blog or my AOL screen name.

Vintage Chat Convo:

Tara: where does "automatic win" come from?
me: oh, automatic win?
is that i automatically win a girl's picture even if she won't give it to me
and i automatically win the "who has the longest fingers" contest
Tara: oh, that's sweet
right on garth
obvs
4:14 AM you have some madass long fingers
me: actually, i don't know where it [automatic win] came from.

[side note: hers are longer]

The parts of my existence I put great thought into are random; e.g., a Sunday Top Ten, what to pack when I leave home for a day, what magazine to read at the gym, how to phrase things in emails, what to have for dinner, a quote for a birthday card, what library books to check out. Perhaps it's that these small things take up so much mental energy, I've got none left over for many randomized big things.

But people, I think about people: I hold on tight though I often attempt to pretend like I don't, like I'm not holding at all: and even those few attachments often feel cumbersome, unwieldy, possibly dangerous. It is, in fact, dangerous. It's the scariest thing of all time. I take their advice, too. I lean on them, metaphorically and literally. Though literally often it's more of a lap-lean than a shoulder-lean.

"I wanted only to try and live in accord with the promptings that came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?"
-Herman Hesse, Demian

So then there's all the things I just decide lickity-split, saying, Fuck it: Pros/cons/whatevers. Boarding school: my Mom and I were fighting, and I yelled, hypothetically but with feeling; WHATEVER I'M GOING TO BOARDING SCHOOL. So then I got on the computer, waited til 1997 for the page to load, and applied, and got in, and left. I learn every room long enough to make it to the door, then I hear it click shut behind me.

Even college. Because I wasn't accepted to my top choice, I was like, well, I miss Ryan, and if I go to Sarah Lawrence, he and I can hang out a lot, which'd be fun. So okay, I'll go there.

Then, November '99, at Ernie's in Soho, SLC Parents Weekend, my Mom was feeding me and Jake and my brother Lewis and I was freaking out inside about everything; my whole body smelled like chlorine 'cause I'd spent the morning swimming laps and wondering why my heart wouldn't ever stop beating.

Why did I decide what I did that day? Because my Mom said, Marie maybe you should go to school part time. Maybe that will help you relax and then within a few hours I'd decided to drop out of college altogether, a thought which'd only entered my mind that day as a natural extension of the part-time idea. Like, why do part time when I could do NO TIME?

Back then, my rooommate Rachel would say amazing things when my alarm went off at Four A.M., always loud and piercing like a fire alarm, like the end of the world. [I mean: her voice, my alarm, both.] Rachel would shout: There are elephants pounding in my head! Could you possibly be any louder? Do you have to clomp around like that? So I quit the crew team before the first regatta. Because of the morning practices, because of Rachel, because my body was beginning to feel separate from itself, an abandoned ship marked by an enthusiastic if waning flag.

But then! Rachel’s alarm--Rachel preferred the radio---began at 6 (I’m going swimming at 6, Rachel said) and continued for hours, every 9 minutes, another snooze, another painful pop song. Sometimes the alarm didn’t wake her up, and I'd yell: Rachel! To which Rachel responded, on a good day, with something like I know! or on a worse day, I’m fucking going swimming! or on a really bad day: It’s not as bad as your fucking alarm and you clomping like a horse, like an elephant, like a goddamn tortoise, I’ve never seen a skinny girl make so much fucking noise!

One morning, our fight escalated til we were tearing through the house like tigers, leaping across banisters, between other people’s rooms, yelling, throwing around animal metaphors, any swear word that fit neatly between two other words. It ended at the bottom of the stairwell, I looked at her eyes: they flashed with hate. Then, as if on cue, we both started crying.

But we never explain
why we treasure our secrets.
We're in love with our sadness sometimes.
-Chris Pureka, "Cruel and Clumsy"

Rachel had bleached hair and big eyes and wrote dirty brilliant poems. I told my friends on the phone: Eyes that get big, like a frog’s, when she is mad. She can be quite beautiful, I told them, and also quite frightening.

So I packed up a backpack and stayed in my friends’ dormitory for a week. A trial separation. I called myself a “hobo.” It was a joke. I slept with Amber, cuddled up next to her: she slept in tights and dresses and had dinner at 4 A.M. Sometimes we'd go to "The Grill" and wait for the cookies to come out of the oven, then lick them off our fingers while they were still hot and moist and perfect. I'd fall asleep before Amber, but sometimes we fell asleep together. She kept a list of all the boys she'd kissed on her nightstand.

Rachel and I both started smoking but didn't tell each other. We shared an ashtray.

In Amber's dorm, there was no yelling, only smoking and parties. At the end of my week as a hobo, my mother visited and I relished the sanctuary of a hotel. I slept on a cot and it felt like paradise. I felt ready to return to my room, prepared for more yelling, for more half-asleep fights, to pillows thrust across rooms, to unbearable alarm clocks.

Two weeks later, I told my Don I was to dropping out of college and moving to New York City, to take time off before I lost my mind. Because I had friends in the city, because I was on the Slim-Fast diet, literally, but also underweight, because what I did eat I quickly got rid of, because I knew there was no reason for this besides that I wasn't happy and needed to leave.

I wanted to be in the city, anyhow. That's where I'd wanted to go to school.

"I just can't take this like, little fake world on a hill," I told my Don.

"That's called 'going to a Liberal Arts College," He told me.

"Well, I guess I don't want to do that then," I told him.

He told me I was the best student, the most promising writer, he'd had in years, that it'd be a huge mistake to leave. Yes: he extracted a can of gasoline from his pocket, he threw it recklessly around my fire and then turned his head when it started burning I hate white rabbits I hate white rabbits.

And Behold! Ryan! After two weeks of ignoring me completely because I'd disobeyed him by attending a play he was in [he thought it was bad, and my opinion mattered too much to risk things], Ryan told me: Marie, I'm coming with you. I'm moving to the city with you. And we did. We got a bunk bed. Sarah slept in the other room.

The name of Flashpapr's album: Do What You Must Do.



Rachel decided to move back home to Philadelphia to dance, because she didn’t like the dancing at Sarah Lawrence. Because she felt fat. Because her family, she reminded me, is in Philly.

We left behind an empty room, poster putty like melted fossils of a half-started life. We left with our reasons for leaving.

This's Sarah2 and I. I'm like "Whatever, SLC!" and she's like "Whatevs, Tufts!"



And just like that: March '00, at a cafe in Paris [I'd just recently pondered going to Europe for a weekend and then bought a ticket, and by "pondered" I mean, "considered for about five minutes"] where I'm eating something flat and rich and gross and not filling, my then-boyfriend says You should go to U of M, that's great in-state tuition, you won't be in debt when you graduate and I was like, okay.

So just like that: lickity split, decided to go home, even though I used to tell people I'd rather go to an all women's school in the middle of the desert than go back to Ann Arbor. But you never know, you know? You never know what you must do 'til you're doing it, sometimes.

And there is that sound again
The one you've been hearing for decades
Eternal laughter
Endlessly ghosts laughing at histories repeating
Them in you
Forever again
-Flashpapr, 'the air in my stomach'



Cause I never explain who's who:
1: Jake. Violin-player. Met in Ann Arbor, MI at Commie High. Colleged at Columbia in NYC, and, a little bit after that, moved to CA w/his girlfriend for music school. One of the best people I've ever known, hands-down totes.
2: Sarah. Harp-player. Met in Boarding School (Interlochen). She wanted to live in NYC real bad too, so I convinced her to drop out of Tufts and move there with me, so she did.

29 comments:

Nicoel said...

I know whta you mean about the whole deleting myspace thing - I've been struggling with that for a couple of weeks now myself, although I hardly ever use it anymore so I don't know what my problem is...

That being said, I think this is by far one of your best posts - the fact that it's an unedited rough draft speaks volumes for your talents as a writer

Keep on keepin on as they say

Tara said...

For a moment I suspected that team gingerbread was RKB. Then I thought, wait a minute ...

Wow. Relatively silent on Autowin tonight. Tumbleweed tumbleweed.

Everyone must be sleeping. It's late. 1:12 A.M.

I still can't get over the prank we pulled today Marie. That Angelina Jolie one? That was mint.

Mercury said...

Beautiful post. I made a myspace once but I don't think I've logged in, in a zillion years. And I had a total of like 4 friends and no comments, ever.

But I have gone on deleting rampages before. Sometimes it feels like something you gotta do. Burn down a mature forest, then new tender trees grow.

I was the same way with going to boarding school. I wasn't considering it and then I wanted to go, like someone flicked a switch. Thinking back I don't know why I did that. And with people. Sometimes I just have this "I'm going to do this" in my head and I don't know why, what do I want out of this, what am I trying to accomplish? Or there's a line, I have to walk towards it and then cross it and then keep going, just to see if I can.

Like I have to sample one bite of every opportunity I could have. And usually end up not swallowing it. I just have to have it in my mouth for a moment.

Anonymous said...

i miss you on myspace and in real life, too. :(

Anonymous said...

hmm...myspace: a space for beethoven?...but alas nospace for riese/marie...autogirl gone poof...maybe "it's better if you do" push that button twice every once in a while...i mean TB has done it sans nauseum...re-inventing you into her momentary "marie magdalene" just before you both disapparated (just practicing obscure phonics here)...impressive and captivating -- reducing you both into an alluring abstraction...observably intangible...nothing and a period...as the page turns from black to tan...long fingers pushing all the right buttons -- inducing both guilt and pleasure

... what fun

Oo Lynnie oO said...

so 1st of all, i made a blogger!

but yea, this post creeps me out bc my friend deleted her myspace yesterday and it made me mad bc it messed up my "top friends" haha but anyways...we got into a whole convo about how she wanted to get rid of it for a while but just never could and then mustered up the energy to just do it. but she couldn't really explain why she did it...hm

but i also have this friend who is anti-internet. no aim, no myspace, and also no texting? but thats another story...and hes always like "if people really want to talk to me then they can call me" so that always made me think, even tho myspace and stuff is good for keeping in touch with people...if it didnt exisit would i actually think to call certain people and put effort into actually talking to them? probably not. but leaving comments is so much easier, and everyone just feeds eachothers egos and we all feel special when we see "new comments!" ya kno?

the rest of your post was awesome, like i dont know why i do half the things i do.

when i picked my college i didnt think about it too much, i just picked the one that made the most sense, it had my major and it was 2 hours or so from philly, so it was kinda far but not really and it was the first place i visited and the only place i applied and i got in right away, i was content with the first thing i looked at so i really didnt try to look anywhere else. but now im so over it im thinking about going out to California...which is as far away from the pocono mts. as i can get... i realized that i have nothing more to gain from living in and around Philly, i still love it here and its my home but it just has nothing more to offer, im not learning anything new anymore.

i'll leave you with some IMs i sent my friend (this is a super long comment i feel like a super loser)

-did you ever realize like....doing things and making decisons, the first part is always always always the hardest
-like "i want to go to california" and its like "well lynne just fly out there yourself just DO IT DO IT DO IT"
-and then, the actual action of doing w/e you wanna do is way too scary
-because its something you absolutley want and if you didnt get it it would suck
-so you dont even wanna try

but you're totally right when you said "You never know what you must do 'til you're doing it, sometimes." holla. i feel like you wont know if something is right/wrong good/bad for you untill you do it, and then you deal with whatever happens and learn and grow and all that good stuff.

kate said...

It was cold the other day so I started looking up snow fall reports on-line.
3 hours later I had deferred my place for an honours thesis at uni next year and applied for a canadian working visa so I can work at whistler.
It's nice to know that others are flippant about life choices too...

Anonymous said...

i like the new template color.
i had not realized you erased the profile. funny having profiles if you don't check them...

Anonymous said...

Hey Riese...

i must say this is an interesting post.i've never brought my self to make a myspace profile since i learned Rupert Murdoch owns it and that kinda freaked me out about the whole thing...

i'm having trouble with my college choices at the moment; but i know for sure i dont wanna study in this country im livin in right now...

i love the new background colour Riese... im diggin it!!

anyways! cya later!

Bourbon said...

You're really lucky because although you made all the "important" decisions on a whim it seems like it's working for you - well at least from this side of the monitor anyways. I wasn't so lucky I'm in the Uni I go to (you know - the one that's EVERYONE'S last choice for education but first choice for jokes) coz I was too busy sneaking out of the house to meet my then boyfriend in the wee hours of the morning to think about my preferences. I only applied to unis because my neurotic "education comes first" mom bribed me with a car and this uni was my first preference because I didn't give a toss about what kind of place I ended up in. Funnily enough just today, two and a half years later I realised what a mess I had made of it all when in the midst of a meeting for a group assignment in a 3rd year finance subject someone blurted out "Why do we have to raise interest rates to attract deposits?" *blank face* To simplify that is like the writer's equivalent of asking a fellow writer "Do we have to capitalize first AND last names?"

Bourbon said...

Scratch that - I got some memory problems. 420 anyone? Kidding...or am i? The sneaking out thing was totally 11th grade. During preference selection it was all about flirting with my now girlfriend in economics...totally worth it.

AK said...

This is an analog story, but I'm telling it anyway because it's my favorite one about deleting old work. David Park, a famous painter, around these parts (and the father of one of my writing group mates, which is how I got this story), one day decided that he had to start fresh. So he loaded all his canvases, big room size ones, onto his Ford pick-up or maybe it was the convertible, and drove to the Berkeley dump. There he flung those canvases like giant frisbees as far as he could. Then he went back to his studio and began work in a completely new vein which, along with some of his artist pals, started a whole new movement called the Bay Area Figurative Movement

This was just after Jackson Pollock, Kandinsky et al had put New York City on the map with the famous abstract expressionist movement, so it was quite a departure. David Park's work still hangs at SFMOMA and they still tell this story of the dump run to explain why they don't have any of his earlier work.

I have to say your new background color does evoke a whole new sunshiny (maybe too much sun, too bright, too early in the morning, too exposed, Californian), feeling about your work.

But I do have a real fondness for snap decisions like when I decided to go back to school to become a carpenter and electrician and grew a bigger brain instead.

Jaime said...

I loved reading that.

Also, you weren't at Joe's Pub Monday night, were you? There was a girl who looked somewhat like you do in your pictures.

Am I stalking you now?

I also like the new pretty yellow blog. It doesn't burn my retinas like the white-on-black.

I wish I could make decisions quickly.

lonerhino said...

Is that Doubting Thomas? or Thomas Wolfe's - You can't Go Home Again?

Both?

Really beautiful stuff.

riese said...

tg: Thank you!! yeah, i think that a person can go one of two ways: become a "I never checK" person, or just like "c-ya!" person, and I wasn't sure which of those two people I wanted to be. Still not. But oh well!

tb: :) [imagine that icon twisting upside-down, a la chat]

Rachel, this's perfect: Like I have to sample one bite of every opportunity I could have. And usually end up not swallowing it. I just have to have it in my mouth for a moment. Like tender trees, too. And yeah, my IAA decision was one of the only flippant ones I've made that were actually totally perfect.

Haviland: Ditto.

lk: Why does Beethoven only have 53 friends?!!! And like, Mandy Moore's fake myspace probably has 53,000. TB is tricky with her internet recludes/reveals... i've always wanted to be a person with less attachment to things, I guess...and your comment and observations both impress and captivate me...hmmmmm....

lynne: congrats on the blogger profile! the better to link you with, my dear. thats odd about me and your friend. i have a lot of friends who are anti-internet, which I've obvs reminded myself of 30 times in the last 24 hours. LIke "its okay, peanut, Krista doesn't have a myspace either." I know what you mean about it's ability to facilitate communication that should probably be conducted otherwise--I probably wouldn't've done it if i didn't have this blog.

That being said, I hate phone calls, and love texts.

I think that "because its something you absolutley want and if you didnt get it it would suck, so you don't even wanna try" is something we all struggle with.... like how i never tried to get anything published until like, 2004.

kate_st: that's awesome. do what you must do, its the only way to do sometimes.

anon, bloxtox, etc: thanks ! I found it was hard on my eyes too.

blox-tox: That's it! That's the reason! Murdoch! Hate that dude. No myspace for meeee.....re: college, go to the cheapest one. that's my advice. if you don't know what you want, it's best to at least not know what you want for less money.

razia: ah yes...that side of the monitor...and i'm looking at life from both sides now.....and love your updated comment--totes worth it. i do think everything happens for a reason. also i have no clue why we have to attract interest rates to raise deposits, or whatevs.

AK: I think that story is what every artists dreams of when they make massive erasures and start fresh. Next time, I'll be like "Inspired by David Park, I decided..etc" And yeah--I don't like the way it looks asthetically because it's totally like, not my personality (though it will certainly enhance TB's enjoyment of clicking the screen back and forth between our two blogs and commenting: ""you're so precious, you're like the cutest girl in the world, and i'm so dark...like Satan over here.....like...RAWR."

Jaime: Thanks! And no, I wasn't. I'm not a big fan of "leaving the house at night" to "interact with other humans." Actually...I've never even been to Joe's Pub. If you want to stalk me, I can give you a few hot-spots: 1. my apartment, 2. um. hm.

riese said...

lonerhino: as our comments posted at the same time, i didn't have the chance to respond to yours, so i'd like to say:

1. thank you for the kind words, friend!

2. to what does your "that" refer? the Emily Dickinson quote at the start? It's from Part Three: Love, XII...
I didn't quote Wolfe in this [actually, I've never read any of his books...it's on my list, though. This long list of people I need to read?]...and though it's totally accidentally perfect that you mention Doubting Thomas, are you referring to a specific poem or something about Doubting Thomas or called Doubting Thomas, or just Doubting Thomas himself? Or "split the lark," which mentions thomas? doubting thomas doubting thomas.

3. I've just garunteed that anyone googling "doubting thomas" will end up right here. Hi!

MoonKiller said...

I involuntarily got deleted from MySpace, I deleted Tom from my friends list and he wasn't a happy bunny. So, I made a new one. So it's all good.

I always end up reading your blog when I should be doing something else - something usually quite important. I should be writing an English essay which needs to be in tomorrow and which I have yet to start and which will take me an hour and half minimum. My English teacher will kill me dead. Please have that on your conscience = ].

Anyway, as always, I pure love your blog and you never fail to make me giggle. (y).

Anonymous said...

i am totes fixating right now...bit of a semantics dilemma induced by a typo...and in the worst place ever...the one sentence fragment that mentions TB...

so i redeem myself AD NAUSEAM

DH said...

More power to you.
I think you could turn deleting one's myspace profile into a social movement; to be turned into 'so yesterday' - the iGen just might be ready for it. Because, you know, we always wait for someone else to start the trend; like Steve Jobs.
To think, you could potentially single-handedly bring down 10% of Fox Interactive. It'll go down in the history books. Or at least, Wikipedia.

riese said...

moonkiller: involuntarily? how's that happen? tom is totally murdoch's bitch now. 1.5 hours for an English paper's not bad. I'll write it for you if you put 150 dollars in my tip jar. it'll be HILLARIOUS. i'll be like "Grapes of Wrath totes reminded me of this one time in high school that me and [whomever] said this funny thing.."

lk: Yeah, I totally know which line you're talking about. It's okay. I'm a smart cookie and I can figure it out. Do you know TB's obsessed with typos? Like, that's why she's a collaborator on this blog, because when she sees a typo, she can't stand it and has to change it immediately. So it's really funny for you to be fixating over a typo in the part about her. Anyhow: totes Redeemed.

crystal: Wikipedia's the new encyclopedia for the iGen, obvs. I mean, who reads history books anymore? That'd be awesome if I started a movement. Like "hey dudes, what do you actually DO on myspace anyhow, you know? rawr."

Anonymous said...

i'm only deserving of partial redemption because i meant the "sans" bit...just wanted to fix the "nauseam" part...apparently TB and I are totes on the same vibe in terms of obsessing over accurate word choices and having the assumed intellect to spell out those carefully chosen words...i meant "sans" in the non-attachment sense having noticed TB's "non-nausea inducing" approach to playing with the minutiae of everyday choices others (including your's truly) often struggle to make

what can i say -- spontenaiety takes a much better photo that an angst induced metrosexual vomitorium

what am i saying?...hmmmmmmmm

riese: just shut up lk, totes shut up

GIVEN: and yes, you are a smart cookie

frank said...

i'm not sure who you are, and i'm not sure where exactly you linked to me, but i just wanted to say you really remind me of elliot from scrubs, so i'm going to fall in love with you in about 7 minutes.

riese said...

lk: I totally understand what you're saying. Seriously. I thought sans was a typo, and then I thought it totally wasn't a typo and was actually kinda genius and made perfect sense, and then when you mentioned a typo I thought oh, maybe sans is a typo.

lozo: I pretend to read a lot of blogs. But with yours there's no pretending. I read it and often laugh out loud. I should probably post this on your blog comments, not mine. But too late. Maybe you'll read this. Once when I was workin' at the olive garden, elliot-from-scrubs came in to eat, except then she was becky-from-roseanne ('00) and my fellow Hospitaliano Family Members kept coming into the kitchen, where I was busy avoiding work and trying to find free food, to tell me we looked alike and i should go meet her. That seemed awkward to me, so I never did, but maybe I should've, she could have autographed a body part in permanent marker and then we coulda been together forever.

Pike-a-dilly said...

i enjoyed reading this a lot.

im one for impulse decisions as well. long while ago i lived with two bisexual chicks and was dating one. the one i dated used to date the other. we had an agreement, no hanky panky between the two girls because it lead to problems in the past between all of us. of course they were assholes and reneged on the deal. so i quit my job the next day, took everything i had at our house that i wouldnt need out back and lit it on fire, bed dresser, trunk, etc. and left. boy were they mad cause the they couldnt afford the rent.

anyhow, great story and insight to who you are.

MoonKiller said...

Yeah, Tom just deleted me. My profile was awful though I was going through an emo phase so it was all like 'Pity me you fools'

It's a compare/contrast poetry essay so I pretty much cut straight to the point. Didn't get it done though. She threatened to hang me on the curtain rail by my scalf. I would actually take up your offer but I'm skint and I work in pounds not dollars = ].

frank said...

of course i came back. mostly to try to figure out where my link was (which i did).

glad you like me. and glad you're aware of the elliot thing. and glad you thought a permanent-marker-on-the-body autograph was less weird than meeting her because you two look alike.

carlytron said...

so i've been reading for a bit now but have never commented. i never really feel compelled to say much, especially when others convey things much better than i could hope to, but wanted to say that i love your writing and your last few posts have really resonated with me. i spend a good hour figuring out what to wear in the morning but the important decisions (ending a relationship I didn't really want to end, picking up and moving ... again) seem to happen in an instant. i've been mulling over various Important Life Decisions lately and it's good to know that no one my age really has it all together. anyway, just my two cents ... whatever that's worth (approximately $0.02ish, one might say).

riese said...

pike/glen: i did that once too, when this guy who'd sort of secretly started living with Ryan and Sarah and I by gay-manipulating Ryan into this crap-deal chased me into my room with my blow-dryer and screamed at me for erasing his answering machine messages from two months ago because the tape was almost out. I was like, ok, see ya, good luck with that $1000/month rent. I paid Ryan's share. Later that summer he tried to kill Ryan with a broom. That could be a sexual metaphor, but unfortunately it's not.

wow. either i'm crazy or i have a bad habit of surrounding myself with crazy people. NO ONE COMMENT ON THAT THANKS.

mk: it's all the same on paypal, girl. pounds/dollars, compare/contrast. emo profiles rock.

lozo: good work, scout! and by permanent marker i meant "tattoo gun," i've decided.

carlytron: thanks for being a fan! you know what just occured to me? maybe it's because the big issues are so big--and have so many pros/cons, etc--that there's really no way to consider them properly. when they're that huge, the scales will likely balance out, you know, so you gotta just pick a gut instinct and then fly with it. hm.

Mercury said...

I just remembered: about deleting things: I used to play this video game, World of Warcraft tis called, you may have heard of it. When I was like, really depressed/during the custody suit and it was like, 'my escapism'. But every now andd then I'd just delete my favorite character. It would usually mean like 400 hours of mindless point&click just GONE. and I'd be like. 's cool.

Anyway. I'm done now.