oh hey guys

i took an accidental blogging break. things have been busy.

i had a visitor for a week and then i just had a week of catching up on stuff in my life. i'm still working on that last part.

i started running again and this time it's for real.

i've been having lots of intense dreams. i'd say about 90% of them involve a funeral or death in some way. recent epic dreams include one about massive amounts of cocaine and shawn o'donnell and one about evil ex-boyfriend moving in on the same block as the cafe. also going to a carnival with oliver.

last night there was a big thunderstorm and it woke me up and confused me greatly. i jumped out of bed, thinking it was time to go to work, but it was only 1 am. i slept for 6 more hours after that. lap of luxury!

i've found inspiration again, somehow. i started writing a short story that i sort of like the other day. and i drew a picture over the last two days that i like and it makes me smile. also, i picked a name for that writing stuff blog i told you about. maybe i'll do an inaugural post tonight. first i have to cook and eat dinner. i bought a bunch of groceries last night and some weird-looking noodles today. i'll post a picture if it turns out pretty!

what are you having for dinner?

snooze

walking home from staying out way too late last night, i encountered a dead raccoon on the sidewalk. naturally, i took a photo.

it was so peaceful and sweet, laying there.

recently, while i was walking to work between 5:45 am and 6 am, i encountered a sleeping heap of a man on the sidewalk. i paused next to him to look for some abdomen movement to indicate breathing. i saw it, and resumed breathing myself. i kept walking and turned the corner toward the cafe.

i felt only a little pity for him, mostly i was amused. i imagined him waking up as denizens of that block of Winthrop Avenue began making their way toward the train to go to work. he'd be confused, hot, probably with a sore neck (he was literally in a heap, back against a building, one shoulder on the sidewalk and the other about a foot higher than his head). i hoped no one would hassle him. hoped no one had gone through his belongings while he was passed out.

what's the weirdest place you've woken up?

writefail

i told myself i'd blog something every day from here on out and i failed after day two.

the idea was that blogging would hold me accountable, even though i could easily cheat and change the post date so that it looked like i had blogged daily, even if i wrote three posts in one day. i'm not in the business of cheating myself or the two (i'm being hopeful) people who look at this thing without a prompt from facebook.

i did write on the third day, but it was nothing worth posting. and i didn't write on the fourth day. now i'm blogging on the fifth day and this, too, is barely worth posting.

my dinner party project was a similar endeavor. since it's hard for me to complete narrative projects, i thought that writing a story in serial posts might encourage me. and my adoring (and adored) family read the two segments i posted. but then i just stopped working on it. maybe i'll pick it back up. i don't know.

the idea is that if you write every day, even if it's garbage, it's better than not writing. and you can get the garbage out of the way for the brilliance to spill forth. this advice has been given to me by many awesome people: my former shrink, my current writing teacher, my current beau, probably a few other people. i think oliver and i have spoken about it. he's pretty awesome.

i wanted to start a blog dedicated to writing and writing exercises, but i couldn't think of a good name, so i still haven't set it up. one of these days. having a space dedicated to non-personal writing seems like a good way to get myself away from only writing semi- or fully-autobiographical pieces. right?

a bit of a test to see who does, in fact, look at this thing without being directed via facebook: what creative endeavor do you enjoy? do you practice daily, even if you feel devoid of inspiration? let's get to making things, people! it just feels good! even if it's sooooo bad!

where do you find inspiration? if you do practice your craft daily, despite lack of muse, what gets you going? tell me! i'm watching you!!

constant craving

i cuffed the bottom of my jeans today, and flashed back to jen teaching jeff how to peg-roll his jeans on the first of school. maybe it was his first day of high school. maybe it was september of 1989, i can't be sure. maybe it was a few days before school started. i don't know. i do know that i watched carefully and silently. i didn't want anyone to have to teach me on my first day of high school. i wanted to be a natural peg-roller.

though, by the time i entered high school, i was ordering jeans from the Alloy catalog. i wanted the widest flares they had. they were kind of like bell bottoms, but tighter in the thighs than those from the sixties.

i also recall watching jen apply her eye makeup. she wore pink eye shadow on her brow bone and blue on the lids. i used to put the same makeup on the barbies in my coloring books with crayolas. again, practicing so i'd get it right when i was a teenager. regrettably, my teenage years saw more than enough blue eye shadow. i kept away from the pink, though, replacing it with glitter. so much glitter.

some things don't change.

this is what happened

in city summertime, when your window is open and the ceiling fan is rattling at full hilt, sometimes it's hard to tell whether or not it's raining outside. i can hear some tinkling, but maybe it's just the neighbors' window air conditioning unit. or maybe it's rain. it was humid today. it's so hard to tell. it's always hot in this apartment. sometimes the wooden floors seem to sweat.

on a day like today it's hard to think of something to do. i'd like very much to just go to sleep until it's time to go to work tomorrow. i had my first day off in nearly two weeks today and couldn't think of a thing to do. slept 'til a bit past noon and got up to cook some eggs for my boyfriend and i. then we walked to the park to draw pictures and read a book and then we walked back to his home when that had run its course. we watched a japanese art film, all the while knowing he'd rather be downstairs at work on his computer. as soon as the movie was over, he was scooting my bottom out the door and onto the porch.

i was left to entertain myself. i was hungry, so i ate. then cleaned up my room. stepped out to pick up a pint of ice cream. i ran into an acquaintance at the market and struggled with ending the conversation. then i came home and did some reading, ate some raspberries.

i hear a cat in heat out there now, and it sounds like a siren. like a problem, an emergency. i guess, in a way, it is. momma kitty needs some lovin'. it sounds like a plea, begging. the longer i listen, i think maybe it's just the baby next door. it's so hard to tell.