Unnamed Poem

Millions of possibilities died between
Us
And still
We held each other
Closer
Closer
And closer
As close as two people could be
One
Your eyes
Warm brown
A chocolate kiss
A puppy's fur
A slice of fresh baked banana bread
Promising
Things that have been lacking
Since I put down my Bible
My crucifix
And picked up the world
A mess of string
And tried
To untangle it

Thoughts

I know I should not be sad.

But I am.

Why can't I be normal?

Happy?

Realize how good my life is?



I feel badly

that I'm always sad,

because people have to put up with me

and my crazy

bouts of depression.



I need to stop depending on people.

And take control of my own happiness.

Why is it so hard?

Things that make me depressed:

1. Printed sheets, because they have a right way and a wrong way, and when you put them on the wrong way, they annoy you, but you're too lazy to strip your bed and do them again.
2. How your nose hurts when you cry lying in your bed.
3. How long it takes to make hard-boiled eggs.
4. How long it takes to cool hard-boiled eggs after you make them.
5. How you start eating stuff while making hard-boiled eggs, so by the time they're done, you aren't hungry anymore.
6. How food makes you fat.
7. How snow burns your feet when you go running bare footed in it.
8. Common sense that told you not to go running bare footed and in your night gown in the snow.
9. Common sense is always right.
10. How you always have to re-situate yourself while talking on the phone in bed.
11. How your arm ALWAYS falls asleep while talking on the phone in bed.
12. Sex
13. Society
14. Ineffective anti-depressants.
15. People who live to far away to give you hugs when you need them.
16. My father
17. My mother
18. My brother
19. My extended family
20. The holiday season
21. The fact church and state aren't separated.
22. Nice people die while mean ones always live for a long time.
23. The fact life isn't like a novel.
24. I won't be able to read all the books I want to in my life time.
25. The fact I'm too much of a coward to take the coward's way out.
26. College applications
27. Essays
28. The essays on college applications
29. School
30. Homework
31. The fact this is funny and you are laughing at it when I am feeling so depressed right now.

I've been thinking.

If Jesus were alive today, he would have dinner with transvestites, AIDS patients, illegal immigrants, gays, and Arabs. There is so much intolerance taught by the Church. Just like there was two thousand years ago in Israel. Didn't Jesus come to teach us to love one another, to accept one another just as we are? Why, then, do people hold the cross as a banner over them as they hate and loath and teach their children to do the same? Why haven't we learned to accept and cherish one another, flawed as we are? Why can't we just be? I think it is incredibly Unchristian to hate people, especially based on things they cannot change. But it still isn't okay to hate someone because of the choices they make. I don't care if you think being gay is a choice or not, it is wrong to hate people because of their sexual orientation. There have been so many people since Jesus preaching love and coexistence. Martin Luther King Jr. Ghandi. Why can't we actually emulate them like we claim to? We say we have fixed all of our race issues, all of our religious intolerance. That's bull. We're just as hateful as we were two thousand years ago when God decided, "These people need to be taught a lesson!" Let's hope that if He decides we need more teaching, that it is another example, instead of a punishment (i.e. The Flood). What I'm trying to say is: Love others, you jerks!

Why?

She would sit in her chair, and I would wander around the room, touching her things. I never looked at her, never studied her. I had assumed she would always be there. I would sit at the kitchen table and ask questions.
“Why do you have butterfly stickers on your window?”
“So the birds don’t kill themselves trying to fly in.”
My favorite thing was to walk around the house. The kitchen and living room were banal to me; I had been there so many times. I was very interested by the dining room, though. No one ever went in it, so when I did, I felt like its discoverer. The basement also fascinated me. It was dark and dank and scary. It smelled old. My favorite room was the children’s room. The room where my mother hid under the bed, unwilling to do her chores. The room where my mother and her cousin laid in bed and listened to the weather reports, praying for snow days. I have not seen that room, or the dining room, or the basement, or even the kitchen, in almost seven years. When my mother and I are nearby, we’ll drive past the house. It is different now. It seems to miss her, that woman I took for granted.

Camp

Is interesting. It's supposeed to be this big thing, where all these famous writers wrote their best work, but I just can't concentrate. Maybe it's the new environment. Maybe it's the awesome people. Maybe it's the fact that I'm dead tired. Who knows? I have started this really weird story that's going nowhere. It's about a guy who killed his wife and daughter, and then hangs himself. I don't know how I came up with that. Blah. Yawn. I really liked the Duck's song. I think that can relate to a lot of people. I mean A LOT. Like, every country singer ever. They're always crying their hearts out over so-and-so. They seldom have happy songs. I wonder why? With pop, it's more of a balance: some happy, some sad. Maybe all country songs are depressing because country itself is depressing. It sure depresses me. Sorry, Horse, if you are reading this. I know you love country music. That's just your preference. I'd take it over rap any day. I'd rather have hang-youself-music than I'm-going-to-hang-you-then-rape-your-mother-music. Okay, I'm done. You're all probably centering your sniper rifles on me by now. Auf Wiedersehen!

a traumatic experience.

I got shots and blood drawn yesterday. Anybody who knows me knows how much I hate needles. Mom said I should write about it, so I did.

Needles



Foreboding, but without the normal anxiety. It’s a dull, apathetic feeling, like a prisoner being sent to the electric chair who doesn’t care to live. Past times, I have had major anxiety. Almost attacks, before. Mother tells me not to worry about it until it happens. I push it from my mind, but it tries to crawl back into my consciousness, but without fervor. I fight back feebly. I am lying on the bed. I fall asleep. I drift in and out of consciousness. I am a rag doll, tossed carelessly on the floor. I feel nothing. My mother wakes me by turning on the television. She was watching her soap opera. The actors are terrible. Finally, we leave. I read a book in the car, and try to lose myself in it. When we get there, Mom realizes she has forgotten the forms and sends me in without her. I wait alone in the lobby, then am called back. We have to get started, the nurse says. I fill out the evaluation, then the doctor comes in the room. She says the dreaded word. “Vaccines.” No. Oh, no. My breathing quickens. She says we’ll wait for my mom before the needles. That was good. Mom comes. We go through the exam. It feels like a dream. Surreal and difficult to concentrate on. Then the woman came in to draw blood. The same nurse from before is with her, and holds my hand. I lie on my back and look up at the mobile above me. The person pictured on it is bald and has very thick eyebrows. When the strip of elastic is tied around my arm, I begin to panic. “Mom!” I cry. The needle plunges into my arm. “You’re doing good,” croons the nurse. I don’t feel like I am “doing good”. I don’t even mentally think to correct her. I feel the blood draining from my arm. As she slides the needle out, I can feel it leaving my body. A strange experience. Then there is a cotton ball and tape, and it is done. But it isn’t done. I have two shots I have to get next. The moment they leave, the tears well up and come cascading down my cheeks. My mother comes over to me and encircles me in her arms. “Cry,” she demands. I weep, and sob, and wail a bit. Then come the shots. The nurse is very kind about it, and has me breath in and out while she does it to keep my mind off the needles being jabbed into my flesh.
I am very proud of myself. I did not pull away once. And granted, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But my arm still hurts.

Kurt Vonnegut

I just finished God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. It was beyond amazing. It was spectacular. It was ingenious. I cannot say enough good things about this book. As in most Kurt Vonnegut books (at least every single one I've read), the hero is less than perfect. Actually he's pretty repulsive: drunk, fat, and challenged hygiene-wise. But he sets out to do something beautiful. Vonnegut philosophizes about the distribution of wealth, socialism, and idealism. He also touches in the important issues of family history, broom sticks, volunteer fire-brigades, and ungrateful orphans. Read it. That's all I can say.

Creative Outlet

She followed him up the stairs.
"John. Speak to me." He turned around. His face was pale and wan in the moonlight. She could see the lines beginning to grow on his forehead and under his eyes. Not laugh lines, but worry lines. His clothes hung on his gaunt frame as they would on a clothes line. Tears began rolling down her cheeks involuntaryily. He turned around and continued climbing the stairs. "John, you can't do this," she sobbed. He did not even turn around this time. She started hiccuping like a child, and sat down to weep on the cold steps.
The gunshot made her jump and cry out in anguish at the cold moon.
Up in the attic, John was slumped over in his favorite chair, blood pooling from his temple. In his limp hand was clutched his prized revolver. In his skull, the tumor shuddered and died as his brain did.

Note: I'm not in a very cheery mood, just in case you haven't noticed.

Here's something to make you feel better:

Close Encounters of the Fox Kind

If you understood the allusion in the title: Get a life.  

The creation of the blog indicates exactly how self-centered our culture has become.  There is nothing more narcissistic than arbitrarily assuming that the whole world wants to read about one's pathetic little life.  Hence, I am embracing the blogging culture whole-heartedly.  I honestly don't care if people actually want to read this, or not.  I'm just incredibly bored.

For those of you wondering what the title means (having understood the allusion; I assume anybody reading a blog has no life), it is reference to the wonderful experience I had today involving foxes.  Last Saturday, two of my friends and I saw four foxes.  They were about a hundred feet away from us at all times, but it was still pretty cool because they were FOXES, and I had never seen them up close like that before.  They didn't even try to run away when we called to them (at first I mistook one for a corgi.  She was sitting down!).  Today I went down to the same park and saw (I assume) the same foxes.  Only this time, there were five.  FIVE.  I decided to see how close I could get to them, so I started off across the baseball green.  The vixen (or the assumed vixen) would stop and stare at me every-so-often, so I would stop and sit down to calm her fears.  Once she seemed comfortable again, I would get up and move until she tensed.  She had a little kit that stayed with her, but all the rest left after about five minutes.  I don't blame them.  There were screaming kids playing baseball.  I wanted to bolt as well.  Finally, the kit got so curious about me that he decided to check me out.  He came within at least twenty feet, before sluicing (I love that word!) back into the undergrowth.  I sat with them for at least a half an hour before they got bored and left.  It was pretty awesome, though!

Now see how bored you've become?  That's why blogging is so fun for me.  I can cause undue pain to people I will never meet.  Huzzah!