Okay so I'm just writing, seriously not deleting anything unless it's a typo, this is a totes stream of consciousness nonsense. [UPDATE: I've edited it as little as possible just so it makes sense, but remains almost exactly what I originally wrote. Sorry, I used "its" wrong and it was ruining my life.] I think I'm going to finish the secrets blog this week, or maybe not, but I probably will. It might not make sense and you don't have to comment, maybe it'll be weird?
My brain's a little confused these days, it's trying to wrap itself around paradox and that's hard to do when I've got a lot of lock-boxes and storage space up there that's already maxed out and when I've got so much I'm excited about and for and when I feel so much of ME and so much of my friends have changed over the past few months in a way that's really quite beautiful. I think we've become more humble and I hope I've inspired a few friends to live more for the moment and wait for the next joke and to dance, I like dancing even though I'm bad at it. I like a lot of things that are actually a lot like dancing.
About a month ago, one of my best friend's infant brother died suddenly from an aneurysm, he'd only been alive for about six weeks. It just didn't make any sense whatsoever. I remember when I told Lozo about this baby's death and he said nothing surprises me anymore or something to that effect. I was like, but wait wait isn't that so fucked up? A baby? Like, wtf world? And then all that other shit happened with the job and me getting fired and all this terrible out-of-the-blue stuff w/r/t Olive and he was like seriously, nothing surprises me anymore. I remember when I first read about this on his blog, I thought, OMG, seriously? REALLY PAPI? Like, no. You know? just NO. And when he told me that he wasn't surprised by this shit that was knocking my world off its feet I said no, if we accept such tragedies and also if we accept such unfair and ridiculous behavior out of the blue and when we accept the failure of the medical system to take care of the mentally ill properly and when we accept death before the word "surprise" turned tragic on our tongues then how do we prevent these tragedies and he said, well, we can't. I said how do we keep on? But I already know the answer to that question, obviously. I know how we keep on, wanna know how? WE JUST DO.
In the ensuing weeks following that whole week of hell in which I almost broke my computer from crying onto my keyboard, I swear I read about six bloggers write about the death of a loved one from illness or something unexpected. Perhaps you are one of them. I seriously feel like every day my Google Reader announced one obituary at least, and every time I was like "Seriously, G-d, wtf, stop it! Stop it now!"
Over the weekend I was frolicking with two people I love very much and having a good time and enjoying things and being laid-back. As I did this someone else I love very much almost died but didn't. I don't want to say anything about it but that, and I won't, and please don't ask, or guess who it was, or anything, and I'm not asking for pity or sympathy or even trying to incite a reaction of any kind or anything. I just need to say this to get on. I'm just saying this : it happened and I cannot loose this person, I absolutely refuse to.
So, it was Monday and Cait and Haviland and I were at an art exhibit called WHACK! at this D.C museum in a room dedicated to feminist porn from the 70's and there were all these naturally hairy and un-airbushed women fucking with strap ons and whipping each other and making out with 10 people at once and got this text and I thought right away that I knew who it was texting and I picked it up ready to read something totally adorable that would make me smile and other things but instead it was not that or from who I'd for some reason assumed it'd be from, instead it was news that someone I love very much had almost died and so I sort of just fell on the ground all of a sudden because my heart fell out of my body and Cait was like "What's going on?" and for a long time I could not speak, and then I did.
Then we were in the gift shop later and Natalie called excited about this awesome vaycay we're taking next year and I got so happy talking to her because I love Natalie and am excited for vaycay and I don't feel bad about that either, or weird about it, even, or weird about anything.
Okay so moving on; everything is fine w/r/t this person I love and will be fine. [By that I mean she is alive, fortunately.] That's all I'm gonna say on that.
On Sunday night, a beautiful girl I've never met, but who was one of the people who sent me a secret I'd written about on my secrets blog and one of the people who thanked me afterwards, was hit by a car when she was driving home on her motorcycle. I'll call her Kelly, because that's what I called her in her secret. Kelly read my blog in the first place because she'd been told about it by someone who loved her very much, one of my Top People/Brightest Ring Of Angels, who I'll call "B," was an inspiration to C and helped her to change in ways that were visible, tangible, gorgeous. When B first met Kelly, B said "she's totally out of my league, stunning, kind ..." On Monday, Kelly, after bleeding from her brain for hours and hours and hours, died. She was 26. What's worse, if anything could be worse [not worse, but also terrible and tragic], is that B's done this before. She's already lost someone super-duper-close to her-- NECESSARY (what a word! how nothing truly can be, after all, except life itself!) -- to her from a car accident before. I literally did not think that things like this were possible. I mean, I know from tragedy, obvs, but in some weird way I felt protected by my father's death, like terrible things might still happen to me [and have, from time to time, relatively] but I wouldn't have the exact same thing happen to me again any time soon, no more unexpected or unbearable deaths in a top spot.
When I read about what happened to Lozo in April, I couldn't fathom it. When I relay the entire story of my summer to friends, or the story what happened in October with Olive, I witness shock and awe and more often than I'd like -- disbelief, actual disbelief, these things do not happen in the world they live in either, or so they thought. Like how we all thought for a moment on 9-11 that it was a movie.
So this weekend, I was driving back. I'd had a fun weekend with girls I love and couldn't live without (don't knock on anything, certainly not some dead tree, because there's really no such thing as supersition, it's just an abstraction, all we have really is faith and hope and love, srsly), I realised I'm maxed out on expectation. Stephen Dunn, in one of my favorite poems of all time, "Grudges," wrote this: "Easy for almost anything to occur/Even if we've scraped the sky, we can be rubble./For years those men felt one way, acted another." Obvs it's about 9/11, and the last verse contains, among other words, these lines: "Before you know it something's over/Suddenly someone's missing at the table./It's easy (I know it) for anything to occur -- "
When I read that poem, I thought of my father's heart suddenly attacking and dying, I thought of 9-11 which didn't effect me personally [I am lucky for that], but effected I think everyone's ideas of the Possible and Impossible, at least those of us protected in America and relatively privileged in our lives so far, just a reminder of the implicit mortality of life. Now, when I read that poem it seems universally applicable, and I guess that's sad as hell, but well, life is sad sometimes, and what can we do? Which I guess is what Lozo said when he wrote that top ten for me , and I can't believe I'm quoting wisdom from Lozo, but oh well.
I don't intend to make any dramatic decisions or react as I've reacted in the past to these crises of faith -- in many ways my life's been one long reaction to November 14th, 1995. I'm not threatening benders or a loss of control or inhibition or becoming totally healthy or Zen or really changing any of my present habits. I'm not less excited or energised or happy about any of the truly fantastic things that are happening right now and nothing has or will change how I feel about everything that's going on and all the people I've extended purely excited and optimistic energy towards while simultaneously moderating tragedy on the other line. I'm not numb or over-feeling. I'm not impatient with people's little problems and I'm not any different than I've ever been about how I feel everyone's entitled to their own sadness, their own tragedies, I'm not less worried about the aesthetics of my thighs or my expectations for the fucking L Word premiere or anything.
I guess I'm just slightly more grateful to be alive and I guess I wanna say also, and I say this purely, and not like, cheesy or trying to make anyone react, that ... well, okay, recently Haviland and I were talking about our career goals and I realised suddenly that most of mine are no longer so urgent as they once were. There's a lot of things I want to do still obvs, and sooooo many projects I'm really extra excited about like the teevee show and the BOYSHORTS and my new website and my book and our vlogs and etc. But all I ever wanted to do from writing was help people or help people through times that hit them hard, and I feel so grateful to have done that for so many of you. If you've ever emailed me or commented to tell me how you feel or if I told your secret and you said it changed you, that is the most fucking beautiful thing ever. If I made you LOL or like The L Word more or feel okay about who you are even for half a second, that's worth more than a New York Magazine article or a Conde Nast job or a million dollars or maybe two chicks at once too. After all, the jokes are all we have, guys. Seriously, I think LIFE IS NOT BULLSHITTING WITH US SO WE SHOULD STOP BULLSHITTING WITH EACH OTHER. Totally just used all caps, next thing I'm going to be emailing you about enlarging your penis or pissed at you about something retarded or I'll be Carly texting me to say I GOT AN IPHONEIPHONEIPHONEIPHONE which my phone has never forgotten because every time I type "I," the t9w is like, "oh do you want to say IPHONEIPHONEIPHONE" and I'm like, no, but I'm glad somebody did. I'm excited about the Britney Spears album and about mashed potatoes for Christmas and about going shopping to get gifts for people and about 2008 and about dancing and about hopefully becoming a better person too, about The Planet Podcast and about writing and publishing more and sleeping and being sad sometimes and laughing and making out and going to strip clubs with Lozo. There's a lot of things I want, obvs, as we must want as we are wanting monkeys. Also, I swear, I'm not on crack. I believe in G-d, the children, and that I can fly. Clearly.
Anyhow, what was I saying? Oh yeah. I'm grateful to what I've got now that have made these recent blows easier to weather, and I'm happy to have so many friends who I've met through my blog and know what they're getting into therefore, friends who haven't gotten annoyed at me when I pull crazy shit like deleting my blog or being totally sentimental and ridiculous or exploiting cliche or myself or telling things about other people maybe I shouldn't say, or relishing in attention I might not deserve, or attention that's not healthy for whoever's providing it.
OK so Carly is gonna be here soon. I just wanted to type this stuff out, and it makes me feel important to have a place to put it, because I am a fundamentally ridiculous person. This year has sucked for so many of you, and for me too sometimes, but wow I sure have learned a lot.
You guys should totes cry if you need to and laugh too. Life is really funny, seriously, have you ever seen it? It's fucking ridiculous and hilarious and random as hell. It's fucking tragic. So you know, like hang in there. I'm not gonna say it'll get better but it'll be an experience for sure.
Today I sat down to write a journal entry in my paper journal and all I ended up writing was two pages that started like this: "Tara, I forgive you," and kept going like that, you know, like, also forgave kids who made fun of me in middle school and my retarded ex-boyfriends and the guy who didn't care that I said "no" and just about everyone except Ilene Chaiken and George W. Bush and then I forgave Tara again and again, like Bart Simpson writing on the chalkboard every week during the opening of "The Simpsons."
I know there are a lot of of people I've wronged too and I'm sorry, and I'll probably fuck up again 100 times while I'm still alive, and I'll be sorry when I do.
I'll probs emo out on y'all 100 more times too and get wrapped up in self-pity or self-centered excitement and I'm not really sorry for that, actually. You shouldn't be either when you do those things. I've never judged anyone for anything because we've all got our dark unbearable secrets, things I've done that maybe you wouldn't like me anymore if you knew about, habits I need to break, commitments I've failed on and stuff. But there's a lot of things I'm totally doing good on right now.
Also, I am going to find this entire post unbearably embarrassing and completely retarded and/or inappropriate in about 10 hours.
Also, clearly I am disassociating right now, but oh well, it's a great strategy. Also, I love Six Feet Under, it's the best show ever, you should all watch it.
Rain
Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.
Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.
Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgivable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.
(Raymond Carver)
Ok! Carly's here, ttyl.
That's all. No point. I told you I was a total weirdo. Later, gators
42 comments:
DON'T delete this one.
At least not before I can send the link to a few of my friends who NEED to read it.
And even then, don't delete this one.
"Also, I am going to find this entire post unbearably embarrassing and completeley retarded and/or inappropriate in about 10 hours."
whatever you do, leave this one just as it is. don't edit. not self editing is what the post is about. so just let it be.
when i began to come to terms with being gay one thing i realized is - i don't really feel it's my place to judge what any one does sexually (promiscuity, fetishes, whatever). because i don't want others to judge me for no reason. there will be things that some can't understand - why i'm this way, why she's that way. i won't pretend i understand why anyone is any way. but i feel like so much of the evil in the world is just grounded in misunderstanding. and maybe if we all admitted to ourselves the truths that we hold that don't follow 'the rules,' than maybe we won't expect so much out of rules in the first place.
did that make any sense?
this is totally unrelated to the above (i think) except that the word 'misunderstand' made my thought process jump to.... here.
one of my favorite lyrics is from a pheonix song, and he sings 'let me misunderstand you.' it's like i may prejudge you, how can i not? isn't it basic psych - you try to sum people up to make life more catagorical/easy to file. i may get you wrong. but hang around long enough so i can get you right.
okay. i don't know if any of that made sense.
i think stream of consciousness is contagious.
since you said you weren't depressed or over-feeling or anything, i'm not going to leave you a super-long comment of concern (or praise the use of my wisdom) or anything because i think you've got it together.
however, i will say i do look forward to all the making out.
I copied this into a word document to safeguard it until I have time to read it.
please, for everyone else who hasn't had the chance to get here yet.... leave it up
On the "keepin it reals" scale from 1 to 10, this is a 27.
also, I adore you.
Wow.
I'm speechless.
You just changed my world more than I have the eloquence to express.
Thank you.
i'm totes making those i <3 rock bottom t-shirts you mentioned b4...
Sean Taylor died this morning. He was murdered by an intruder.
I can't stop crying and remembering every Sunday when we screamed "SEAAAAAAANNNNNNN TAYYYYYLOOOORRRRRR" at the tops of our lunch and our throats were raw and our voices rasped.
I'm sure (ok, know) that it sounds silly to be so heartbroken over a football player, so I can't imagine what it'd be like to lose my father, or sister, or best friend, or boyfriend.
If I've learned one thing in the past year or so, it's this: It is OKAY to feel any way to want about anything. Sometimes I feel like I react inappropriately to the untimely deaths of people I barely knew, but I think about it and can fall to pieces. I think we just have to take our feelings and run with them because feelings are what keep us alive. Because I wouldn't know the joys of dancing with my best friends, curling up in bed with my boyfriend, of snowball fights in the street, swimming in the river, sun on our skin, love, if it weren't for feeling all the pain, aches, and heartbreaks of everyday living.
So I'm glad you're not numb. That means you're doing well.
first time commenter. this made me cry. because of its beauty, its truth and the fact that life is all about learning to roll with the punches and appreciate what you have. every single person has highs and lows and it helps to read things like this and you should feel proud that your words have touched others. what could be more important in life than that? nothing.
You know how on the teevee there's the serious-but-oddly-uplifting keyboard music, and someone is talking...talking...talking... but not looking at anyone, just a little right of the camera. Hand gestures, and words, and then that softly spoken sentence with half a question mark at the end that means she's done.
:::pan to a reaction over her shoulder:::
[beat]
:::in lieu of a reply there's a brief touch that says "Yeah...that happened.":::
Then you get scenes from next week or a commercial for Axe Body Spray (that shit totally works btw...I hose myself down in it and sorority chicks come flying out of windows carrying platters of steak and auto parts magazines).
Right...distracted...
What I mean to say is:
Imagine I just touched your shoulder, squeezed for a second, then looked up to where you've been looking (a little bit to the right of the camera), but didn't say anything.
Life is ridiculous! You find yourself standing in hospital hallway at 3:30 am waiting for an elevator that will take you back to your comatose father in an over sterile ICU room in what will be the last hours of his life, when a nurse who knows your face because she’s seen you walk the halls for the last three weeks yells your name before you disappear into the now open doors and proceeds to tell you that your grandma has just arrived in the ER after suffering a stroke. All you can do is stare open-mouthed until your tired mind calculates the logistics of this new catastrophe and then what the hell else can you do but shake your head and laugh. Life, are you serious?!?
But the thing is, you don’t stop or freeze or simply cease to function under the weight of it all. Instead, you get in the elevator and you go to the ER, give your semi-conscious grams a hug and then you go to the ICU and see your dad on a respirator fading out of your life and decide to wait a little while before you tell your devastated mother, who hours before had to witness her mate of thirty-one years be shocked back into existence not once, but twice, that her own mother is a few corridors away trying to leave her as well.
The absurdity of life is just awesome because long about a year later, you read a blog entry that makes you smile, that heavy kind of smile that crinkles your eyes a bit, and you know that Riese gets it, and so does “B” and Lozo and Haviland and about six billion other folks that you’ve never met and there’s comfort in that.
this is beautiful tiger, every word. resonates, etc, and true, about disassociation, great strategy . so, you said it all. life is tragic, and, wtf.
Oh, that made me cry. But it was beautiful. And I feel like even though I didn't email you my secret (I was totes having neurosurger, cuz life is full of surprises), you know it anyway, and with this entry you are shouting it out loud, or not shouting it, but singing it, because singing is more beautiful.
Thank you.
I just wanted to say that as someone who has also seen rock bottom recently (and still fighting my way back to the light) your blog has given me hope/joy/laughter/etc and for that I am grateful to you.
This blog earned you a gold star. You know, on Google Reader? so yeah, gold star for Riese.
one of the things i like about reading your blog is, i never know what to expect. i could be lol-ing one minute and holding back tears the next.
i'm lost for words, so pretty much all i want to say is that you totally rock. like seriously.
you & your words are beautiful. i really did love reading this one.
This is beautiful. I've been up half the night thinking about the dangerous, kafkaesque absurdity that has recently subsumed my own life, and I, apparently, needed a good cry. So, thank you.
And doesn't it feel so good to forgive, to finally forgive? Everything finally changes when that happens.
This is the best I've read from you, totally awesome. Words cannot express. Brava.
I started reading this blog after I got addicted to auto straddle, and slowly you were heading toward rock bottom, and I felt a little guilty, because I was climbing out of rock bottom. Like, how could I take all these good things thrown my way--my partner asking me to move in following an ugly relationship and in spite of her family, rearranging our lives together, my parents being decent about it, etc--while things were spiraling out of control for another girl in NYC I don't really know but feel like I do/totally adore? And it seemed to keep going like that. Where October seemed to suck at every last fiber of your moral, it sent me flowers. And, reading this, it hit me.
I think this is how the cosmic balance works, and HOW we keep going. It's not that there isn't enough good in the world for us all to be tipping the scales with new jobs and raises and Good Things, because there is, but it gets spread around. If everyone had simultaneous rock bottom, the world would cease to exist. No one would get out of bed. Everyone would eat ramen and hide under the covers until the world was out of ramen because the ramen makers were in bed, too. All this stuff happens. And it happens. And it keeps fucking happening, to us, to our families, to our friends. And it's true, nothing is surprising anymore. Except two remarkable details: We make it, and we make it because we have people holding our hands. Through everything else, through all the debilitating shock and pain and confusion, our friends buffer us not from feeling everything at once, but from falling apart from it.
I haven't processed this after reading it once, and there's a chance it will take several times, but I read it and wanted to say ... thanks. Thanks for sharing and being honest ways I wish I could bring myself to.
The following is the close to spoken word poet Anis Mojgani's "Here Am I" It feels relevant:
Let your smile twist
like your heart dancing precariously on my fingertips
staining them
like that high school kid licking his Sharpe tip, writing:
"I was here.
I was here, muthafucka.
And ain't none of y'all can write that in the spot I just wrote it in."
I am here, muthafucka
And we are all here, muthafucka
and we are all muthafuckas, muthafucka
because every breath I give
brings me a second closer to the day that my mother may die
because every breath I take
takes me a second further from the moment she caught my father's eye
because every word I carry
is another stone to put into place
in the foundation that I am building
to ease the days and erase
something that I never saw
what all of us wanted
and what none of us got
what we all happened to have
and what we all forgot
that we all wanted to be something
that we all became something
and it may not be the shit you wanted to be when we were kids
but something is still something
and like some cats say,
"Something's better than nothing."
Feet are smarter than an engine
and dreams are stronger than thighs
and questions are the only answers we need to have to know we are as alive
as the time when I have the mind of a child
asking, "Why is 2+3 always equal to 5?
Where to people go to when they die?
What made the beauty the moon?
The beauty the sea?
Did that beauty make you?
Did that beauty make me?
Will it make me something?
Will I be something?
Am I something?"
And the answer comes:
"Already am,
always was
and I still have time
to be."
life is supposed to be fucking insane. otherwise we'd all be pretentious assholes who think we have it all figured out. or evangelicals.
You'd be a fantastic writing teacher, like Sandra Bernhard setting the world's Jenny Schecter's on a course towards truth and not bullshit.
my mom always said thing don't get better, they just get different. and sometimes that different feels like a bludgeoning and sometimes that different is a completely change of pace, but the important thing is that it is different. there's always possibility. there's always something else and as long as we continue to hold out hope for that something else the world continues to spin and be ridiculous. or not. to be good. or not. to be. i think that's when i knew i'd finally bottomed out. when i stopped seeing the change as permanent and started seeing the change as change. i'm glad you're seeing the different.
someone said something about the reason we're all here, keep coming back, reading is that we get it and we know that you get and that a million other people we haven't even met get it too. that was beautiful.
so thanks. for the words here and everywhere else.
Wow, that was beautiful. As always. I, like you and so many others here, have had a really crapular year. However, I feel so lucky to have stumbled onto your fantastic blog. Your words and your example have been a great solace and inspiration to me. I just wanted to thank you for that and wish you all the best.
WoW, what else can I say.
Your best blogs are the ones you dont think about too much, the ones you write from the same place you wrote this one. I know words you've written have helped me and for that I say thank you.
Thanks for this and thanks for the Dunn poem reference.
'The strange thing is that she was alive this morning. She was alive and now she's not.' That quotes been on my mind since watching a film on Monday (which I can't remember the name of for the life of me) and some of the things you said in this post pretty much sum up what I've been thinking.
Teach me how to write like this?
"this girl called automatic weirdo"? more like "this girl called automatic truth"
i agree
First-time commenter...I just wanted to say thank you. I wish I had something more original to say, but that pretty much covers it. I started reading your L Word recaps during a tough time when laughing at a terrible lesbian show was about the only thing I had to smile at in my day. You said that you wanted to write to contribute to people's lives, and I thought you should know that your posts really have been a help to me. I am sincerely grateful.
Also, the vlogs? Glorious. Obvs.
you must be a truly remarkable person and you are blessed to have such special people around you.
i wish you the best.
yes, thanks for writing things like this and not deleting them.
I like that you're letting everyone just run with it.
Love you, Rieseling.
for this, thank you.
Holy Carpe Diem Riese! No point? No point? That has got to be the biggest understatement imaginable. Don't delete this blog please. When times are tough, I'm going to look back on this one to remind myself that I'm being an idiot. It's easy to forget about the big picture. Thanks for the reminder!
AUTO-WHAT
There's nothing I can say that can reflect how awesome all these comments are, so instead, I'm just going to typetypetype.i'm just limiting myself to 1-2 sentence responses so my head doesn't explode.
madey: first comment response! thank you.
asher: cait said the same thing this weekend, about the gay thing, how it's auto-humble. i guess add my mom being gay onto that and youv'e got yourself some evidence.
lozo: Totally, so do I. Who are you making out with?
caitlinmae: Done and done.
a;ex: On an adoration scale of 1 to 10 ...
someone, anyone: thank you for commenting.
bridget: Perfect 'cause I know this hot model, Haviland Stillwell, to model them, and I have no clothes as I cannot do laundry, it's just overwhelming.
stephanie: I don't know who Sean Taylor is, but I cried when Jim Henson died. In the debate elsewhere, I'm on your team, FYI.
anonymous: I love first time commenters almost as much as I love first time lesbians. No, more, because there's less drama.
adam: [beat] :::in lieu of a reply, there's a brief glance back that says "yeah ... thank you."::: Wait ... what cologne are you wearing?
anonymous #2: That is exactly what I'm talking about.
crystal: That means everything, coming from you.
lmc: I do.
jo: "Maybe you are one of them" (me) ... you.
kazzie: That's also what it's like to live inside my brain.
oolynnieoo: you&your readership is beautiful. Haviland is still obsessed with your name.
ms.malapropos: Yes; the metaphorical load off one's shoulders, the unbearable/bearable lightness.
razia: [wheeeee]
allie: I've been there too, the "why am I getting good, when so many are getting the rough end of it?" but I know they've been there too, and that's what it is, here, let me help you, now you me, otherwise we die
bb: That poem is beautiful and totally perfect/appropriate, I can hear it read out loud.
anonymous: Or fucking insane evagenlcials. Hm, maybe that's repetitive? Possibly.
ing: The only thing that could be better than that in a writing teacher would be french fries & ranch dressing.
abeos: it's about the "turn around" thing, that phrase, we say "life is turning around," who invented that? it doesn't turn around, after all, it just turns, and I think I've finally accepted that.
ali: Ali number two ! So many allies, love it! But also, literally, like you, like allies, like people on your side, and I ilke that.
dewey: And for that I say you're welcome.
in kc: You can always count on me for a Dunn poem, if nothing else.
moonkiller: I know what you're talking about ... I think it's Garden State. That always is the weirdest thing. My college writing teacher once said to me I don't know what 'it' is Marie, but you've 'got it.' and if I was your teacher, I'd say that to you.
basia: And the truth, after all, is weird.
anonymous: Word.
anonymous: And I'm grateful to you for breaking the seal to tell me this.
d: I'm not remarkable, but I am blessed to have such special people around me, fo'sho. Thank you.
rocketdyke: you're welcome.
haviland stillwell: Love you, Diet Dr. Haviland.
ashley: For this, thank you.
AUTO-WHAT: I'm putting that on my book jacket -- "When times are tough, I read Riese to remind myself that I'm being an idiot." auto-HOLLA.
I think it's fine you don't know who Sean Taylor is - honestly wouldn't expect you to! It's obviously a local thing, I mean, I guess a Pats fan would care if Tom Brady died? I wouldn't, really, FYI.
I appreciate the support. It's just personal attacks now so I'm staying out of the rest of it, but it's nice to know. Thanks :)
Yeah, sorry about the wording. Really meant to say that your post will remind me to stop taking myself so seriously, but I guess that message didn't come across too clearly. But if it's going to score me a spot on your jacket, lets run with it! Peace out and word to your mother.
Yours truly, AUTO-IDIOT
P.S.
i have nothing constructive to add, everyone has already said anything worth saying much more eloquently that i possibly could.
i am happy i know you.
love to you
lovelovelovelifelustthewaythatwelivebetty
I like this post.
I think like this a lot which makes me feel like I'm some kind of weirdo. I'm the one who in the middle of late-night conversations poses questions like, "Life is weird. I mean, what the hell IS it? Life, I mean?" and my audience/copatriots (I want that to be a word, is there an m in it or something? I thought it was a word, well anyway) will be like "What?" or "uh, I guess" and I'll be like... "Because what you thought was normal, these little rhythyms you get into, break so easily, and you thought that's what you depended on. Like the way you always back out of your parking spot and then there's a wide-ass truck in the spot next to yours and you can't do it anymore. Or you total your car in a freaking accident and you can't do it anymore. You know? What's even normal?" and they're like. "..."
Especially... like... expectations... because you expect things, and then other ones happen, or those ones happen but they don't, but even though you expected it you knew it wouldn't happen. And when you were disappointed that tiny knowing somewhere was satiated. And you're sitting there trying to contend with yourself and all of this and trying to stop expecting anything ever anymore stop trying to predict or count on things and just live. and laugh and cry and everything else.
Also, I love that I'm not the only one who does the super long sentence thing. When I edit myself I usually end up with 3x as many sentences than I started with, without changing the content at all, because I'll go back through and be like "look at all these sentences chained together in this one word and it makes me mentally hyperventilate just to read it because I'm running out of breath because like Mrs. Oomen says, punctuation is how you tell your reader when to breathe, my readers asphyxiate."
Like, did you see that one? right there? Are you dead on the ground?
I like superlong sentences better anyways. Pfht.
Growing and changing is good. I've learned so much this year, too, I don't even know what I would say to me of this time last year, that girl had just decided to quit boarding school. Holy shit, I was already reading your blog then. Her hair needed help, so probably what I'd say to her would be "sit down and let me fix this" and then, w/r/t her life for the next year, "brace yourself & roll with it." because that's all you really gotta do ever, right?
This comment is too long & too pointless.
I just want you to know how much of an inspiration you have been for me of late. (And Lozo, as well, actually, with his #3 on your guest blog...simply awesome.) It takes a lot of courage to pull ourselves through these times of hardship, and turmoil, and trauma. But we do it because we know we have to do it. If only to keep on keeping on and telling our stories and our lives so that others might learn (or gain a bit of inspiration) from them.
You're doing just that. And that's why I love you.
Not since reading Anais Nin journals have I felt such resonance. Rhetorically, how does it feel to be so intimate with so many people; be a voice inside their mind totally washing them with the resonance of your words. Touching them more intimately and deeply than any physical act merely with electrons and typeface? This particular gift you have amazes and pleases me.
Soothed and comforted by our shared humanity I feel part of the whole.
Thank you for that...
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