the seventy-six bones of the axial skeleton

I can name them.  Well, most of them.  Remembering all of the facial bones is hard.  Maxilla, mandible, two nasal, (two?) vomer...that's all I've got.  Ethnoid? That's one, right?

Let's pretend that I have been writing consistently, as per usual.  Let's also pretend that I don't have oh, say, around one hundred really dense pages to read for one class tomorrow, and that I don't have any other work for my other classes tomorrow.  

Let's pretend that college is easier than I thought it would be.

Now that that's settled. [acknowledgement of intentional sentence fragment/delusions] 

I was briefly thinking about doing the thing where you write a whole novel during the month of November, but then, I stopped thinking about it.  Then I thought about how November isn't over yet.  Then I thought about how it would actually be kind of insane to start now, considering I don't have any ideas for a novel.  Then I thought about how if I ate another bite of raw spinach and chickpeas, I would throw up.  I did it.  I didn't throw up though.

Usually this is the point where I ask myself some sort of abstract question that I've been thinking about.  There are too many right now to even begin.

I miss doing this, writing.  I need this to be okay, and I haven't been keeping myself okay.  I am cheery on the telephone. "Everything's great, classes are great, I'm totally on top of everything," I believe it when I say it.  It's mostly true, except for the end bit.  I'm sort of on top of some things.  

I I I

I'm sure this is fascinating.  

It would be funny if someone read this and fell in love with me.  Sometimes I read things and fall in love with people for a few minutes.  It happened a couple of months ago, but I got over it after a day or two.  It probably wasn't love; it was just that aching in your chest when you want someone to be something, better maybe, or know that there are other people in the world who feel the same way as they do.  That's kind of how I interpret love.  I've never been in love with anyone, but I think that that's how it would feel for me.  I think I would need to read something they wrote that they didn't want to share with anyone in order to fall in love with a person.

I don't really know where to go from there, except to say that I will write more. But not for you, for me.  It's kind of a selfish thing right now.

getting grimy/unintentional stupid "poetry"

I'm writing less here and more on my own, mostly because I know that people read this occasionally.  And while that is cool and everything, it produces very different stuff. Mostly less angsty.  Not as much swearing, either.  Not that there's anything wrong with swearing, I just think I use it gratuitously when I write for myself.


As usual, this is a product of procrastination.  This is going to be a very long, but very productive, night. I will practice violin in the music building, even though it is far away.  Everything sounds better in there.


Drop an apple, dust it off. Even if the white flesh is speckled with dirt
it can't hurt
when my teeth mark the skin
I can see how crooked they are
a space in between
that means I'm wise beyond my years
it's not that though
I am an underachieving genius who worries about the future
that's not wisdom
that's staring at a screen notebook dots and lines
trying to make it into sense
not knowing or believing that anything is complete
or good
so I think some more
and eat apples
and drop them on the floor. 

ahhhhh

I'm such an idiot
no one can read this ever 
I just reread some old posts
I'm such an idiot 
this is not a poem 
this is me freaking out and abandoning sentence structure
my poems are awful
I'm such an idiot
no one can ever find this blog
did I mention I am an idiot?

I missed this

One room next to mine is blasting jazz.  In the next room over, someone is practicing a monologue.  None of it bothers me, I like the noise, but I'm not sure why. I feel like I have been really busy all day, but I also feel like I haven't done anything at all.  I missed having work to do, learning things.  I can't find one of the readings for one of my classes, and the reading for another seems like such touchy-feely bullshit that I don't even feel like doing it.  But it's okay.  I am finally doing things.

Right now, I'm learning Bach's Violin Concerto in a minor. It's kind of the most exciting thing I am doing right now, because for once in my life, I want to be able to feel like I am good at playing the violin.  Good good.  Actually good.  Like if someone were to hear me play, and he or she said, "Wow, she's good".  That's what I'm talking about.  Right now though, it doesn't sound like a concerto so much as it sounds like notes.  I'm working on it.  It will be better someday.

I don't want to write about how school and life and everything has been so far, because there is both too much to say and not enough.  I wish I could talk about the people I've met and the things I've done, but I'm not sure I want to.  I think that all I need to say is that I am more myself here.  Except more extroverted.  Which is not me at all.

I think I am writing like Hemmingway right now. Or Camus.  Or someone who is not a good writer.  I'm no Dostoevsky. 

packing isn't fun

I'm afraid I'm bringing too much stuff to school with me.  Almost done packing.  It's kind of overwhelming, because I'm so afraid I'll forget something, and I think this is part of why I'm bringing so much stuff.  And I don't know when I'll be done.  There are flashes of it feeling real, but somehow my room looks pretty much the same, so it doesn't feel real that I'm leaving tomorrow.  How is my room still so messy after I packed up all my crap?  What is even left?  I don't know what to do with anything.  My dad said that he wanted my room to be clean before I left, but there's no way that's happening.  Not because I don't want it to be clean, but because I don't even know how to clean it at this point. But I can't write anymore, I have to finish.

I've been writing a lot lately on paper instead of here.  I missed paper more than I realized. The thing is, whenever I'm packing I come across my Harry Potter diary that I've written in sporadically since I was around seven or eight, and I always feel so overwhelmed that I need to write. I think I started abandoning it when I realized it had become the place where I pined over boys, and I didn't want to be that girl who always talked about the boy she liked. The thing is, there are so many qualities that I don't mind and even enjoy in other people that I would hate for myself to have.  I guess talking about stuff like that is one of them.  I like it when my friends talk about their boy problems or whatever, because I like listening to them.  Maybe I'm a good listener because I don't talk...


I always imagined someone finding my diary in the future and reading it, a la Anne Frank.  But I really hope that doesn't happen, because I think that I didn't sound totally vapid only about twenty-five percent of the time.  Whenever I go back and read my diary, it really embarrasses me.  It's like I'm reading the words of an entirely different person.  But it really makes me think about how I'm constantly changing, becoming more myself each day. 


I'm still not done packing though.

Whenever I think of August, I think of old creaking porch swings, but not on porches, on verandas.  There is a wrinkled old man sipping iced tea or mint juleps or lemonade and he tells stories sometimes, but only if you stop and listen.  He whispers to himself all day, his brown hands fluttering.  There are road maps on his hands and face that show ghosts of labor and smiles and pain, and sometimes he'll tell you what they mean but not why, you have to figure out why for yourself, maybe the humming cicadas know.  At night the stars weave uncertainly down to the earth and children catch them in jars, and the old man watches and smiles.  But he warns the children to let the stars go, because otherwise they'll die, and then nobody else can see them.


Not that I spend my summers in the deep South or anything.  That's just what I feel like August is, or should be.