friskin

If you're still reading this, you're wrong. I have a newweblog.

I've been wanting to start writing here again, but the longer I wait, the more awkward it feels. It's like when I run into an old friend in the grocery store and duck down the dog food aisle to avoid having to say hello. I've done this before.

We went to A Middle School to start our weekly practicum and instead wound up name-taggedly roller skating around and around with about three hundred middle schoolers, with seventies skates and globe lights and family owned arcade token ticket prizes hand holding gliding flailing chirpingness. When one falls seven help her get up. The disembodied voice demands over the loud speaker that they keep moving. My heart pounded and sweat wetted my forehead with the thought that I could be the next to draw so much attention. I don't know if I would have survived, so instead I went nice and slow. I stayed near the wall and didn't try any of their fancy stuff. I loved the curious young minds, and now that I think about it, this is how the man must have seen me. A cleaner slate, a grand unrealized potential. I would not take offense if someone wanted to hold my hand.

When was the last time I wore any kind of skates?
Whose feet do mine smell like?

I woke up and rolled out of bed pre-9:00 AM only to find that we are not going to work today. We are moping around the house, lamenting lost moments of sleep or solitude. My room is still cooooold but that's no surprise. The documentary has been building itself in my head the past few days. Final Cut is swank compared to iMovie, but not as friendly looking. The buttons are rather small and difficult to see.

I can't remember how long it's supposed to be. Twenty-five minutes? Tops? I feel badly about cutting entire interviews, but some of these people mumbled sour little nothings into my camera so I suppose it's not my fault that they wasted their own twenty-five minutes of Beloit fame (average slightly longer than the rest of the world due to small population and high-speed gossip). Progress goes slowly and surely, but not the time. As anticipated, hours are spent getting one transition just right. Perhaps this is a sign of ill efficiency? I am lucky to be so patient. For now.

I need money.
I have to go to work.
(Jan's replacement has thus far only been referred to as "The New Gay Guy." Once I learn his name I shall make him my new best friend and drag him around to all of Troy's coffee shops and antique stores.)

I should go back to bed. Call if you want to try to lure me out of my dark lair/sinister laboratory/insomnia induced haze.

Don't ask me what this means: My heart might not recover the tragic realization that no thing is nothing, and that apparently no thing is not worth fighting for. Nothing with nobody. No Body said it right when he said, "I miss you already." Ohhhh, I'll be sighing and crying all the way home, but still I'll be going home, and may be some body's body there. Mine hurts after battling last night; I was thrown down again and again and claimed false victory against my opponent. When I felt a shoulder slam full force into my neck I was sure for a moment that I was a goner. Collapsed windpipe. Done and done. I don't know why we fought for as long as we did, or why I laughed so much about it. It was pushing and grabbing and gruntingly leaning with one spectator and periodic pauses to drink water from the same dirty glass. Some external manifestation of an internal struggle? I was so tired afterward, I curled up and fell asleep on the chair. I think about the duality of my ambitions: to settle down and to never settle down. The former is not possible, and the latter is not practical. This (no)thing was not fair to nobodies. I ruin everything with tiny stubborn fists. Ask me again what I want and I might say no thing. The truth is I don't know, and until I do, life will continue to escape my grasp. If you want someone who can be there, you want someone who isn't me, but I guess that has been evident for some months now. These unplanned developments make me sadder than you could know, babe.

I have a half-studied-for exam in seven hours, and I whole heartedly don't care a bit about it.

I could be mad or disappointed that almost no one willingly appreciates creative endeavors around here, but mostly I just want to go home. I sometimes imagine that I can feel the twiny fabric of the downstairs sofa on my feet or smell baked cinnamon and oats. My favorite winter home-scent is the appley oil Mom put in the old vacuum cleaner (the blue one with the papery bags, that is). I vaguely recall lying obstructively in the middle of the carpet, feeling the vibrations through the floor and humming along with the harmonics the motor produced. Quite a nice change from the greasy hair, unwashed sweaters, and over worn sneakers of college life. Home is clean and close and not work. Home was a drafty, poorly built, green split-level with picture windows and decorative shutters. When I go back it will look quite different; my parents chose December as the perfect time to have the house re-modeled. Their investment seems to be their final resignation, after sixteen years, to stay in the neighborhood for a while. Now the house is a chic, beige, fuel-efficient, life-sustaining machine. Mom's next project is hardwood floors so she doesn't have to vacuum as much. Vacuuming hasn't been the same, anyhow, since we got a self-propelled bagless modern technological wonder. I anticipate a new kind of Christmas as the two kids return to the empty nest.

This is the middle class. This is the dream of upward mobility.

AMGB on WBCR was an hour of amazingly wonderful absurdity. My only regret is that we couldn't tape it.

AND I ATE SUSHI YUMMMMM NOW I CAN GO INTO HIBERNATION FOREVER.

All of the happenings in the past twelve hours or so have left me cold. Except March of the Penguins. And Katamari Damacy.

I had a dream that a friend wanted me to perform surgery on his legs because they weren't skinny enough, and that I did the procedure entirely with my teeth. Yeah, so that's biting and ripping chunks of flesh all the way up the shin and a little bit past the knee. No blood, though, and no open wounds either. When I was done I warned him not to spill the glass of milk on himself. I accidentally got milk on my hands and washed it off in a glass of vodka that was conveniently sitting near by. I went upstairs to the bathroom to look for my mom's first aid kit. All I could find were some medium sized band-aids, so we used those to cover the now oozing scars. Just as I was waking up, my friend started to tell me that he hopes he won't be able to use his knees again so he can be the mysterious mutant outcast.

Ugh.

At 5:09 AM the misssion was aborted. Participant motivation was at ten percent and falling, not high enough to brave the icy highway. J thought S said, "We shouldn't go." So we didn't.

I got six more hours of sleep. I fully intend to spend the day fantasizing about the hobbies I would take up if I could afford to, like blacksmithing, egg carving, and building tiny ham radios.

The last name of a long lost friend finally came back to me. School is almost done and for all intents and purposes my brain has shut down. The only thing keeping me from getting totally totally smashed is the possible field trip tomorrow morning. And a lack of psychoactive substances? There is so much that I forget to say. I don't mean to keep secrets; I'm just kind of shy. I came away from the White Elephant with a tiny, wind-up penguin and I couldn't be happier with it. I filled in for the Lovelace at the station today. I battled with technology, laughed at my own jokes, and openly professed my deep-seated and everlasting love for Danny Elfman to a listenership of zero. Later, JoJo and Shannon and I discussed forming band to end all bands while (puffy)painting our Celtic pride onto white t-shirts.

I sometimes wonder how I can run into my shyness like it's a brick wall.

This girl was crying -- sobbing -- in the bathroom tonight when I got home. As I went in, I heard the faucet turn on. A guy was standing protectively behind her as she bent over the sink, half drinking, half soaking her red face in the running water. He made eye contact with me through the mirror and with a compassionate half-eyebrow raise and pouty yet understanding twitch of the chin we both said nothing. I never say anything to her anyhow, except maybe "thanks" when she hesitates to let the door slam shut in my face. She never says anything to me. This might have been the most appropriate time to keep my big mouth closed. Still, I wondered what was wrong. The first two things that popped into my head were:

1. She's pregnant.
OR
2. Someone died.

It's strange and kind of (darkly, grotesquely) funny that I thought of them in that order. She'll be okay or she won't and life will go on. I'll secretly wish her well, but I probably won't ever need or necessarily want to interact with her. I've got bigger fsh to fri.

I awoke with the late, great Jeff Buckley singing in my head. The Christmas card count is up to six. I ran into Grounds Crew Dave for the first time of the semester. He was driving the trailor (why do I want to call it the Bagoda?...) and smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. I wanted to comment on his awesome LIGHTNING BOLT EARRING, but I didn't want to insult him. Not that it would be an insult, because it is awesome. Fuck, I miss those guys.

When I was walking back to my dorm I witnessed a uniformed man picking up scattered bottles of Coke from the snowy ground. He is going to stock them in the vending machine and people are going to buy them. It makes the little obsessive-compulsive core of my being shudder. Sometimes all I can do is stare into the mirror for hours, not because I find myseld necessarily beautiful or ugly, but because I don't believe that anything is real. This seems wrong to me, like a dirty little secret I can't tell anyone. So now you know. I can laugh and laugh and I can draw congruent lines and when I get some initiative I can write some words, but I just can't pull my eyes away. Work, at this point, is incidental.* What I am looking forward to is going to see the midnight showing of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And Holidazzle, and kind of to visiting the frosty haunted cemetary and to going home and everything after.

* That is not to say, however, that I don't adore Rob AND his class, because it takes a genius to teach a course so well that the massive final project is actually fun and easy. It is so cool to write for two people of whom I think so highly.

The strangest thing! There's a bike outside Maurer and it's the same exact model as mine. Schwinn World Tourist, same color and everything. And it kind of scared me because 1. I didn't remember moving mine outside since Friday and 2. the one out front is all rusty and weird looking and the back reflector was broken off. It was like... the sad ghost of my bike, risen from the grave. The grave? I mean, the bottom of the back starewell. But then I went and checked and mine was right where I left it. The question now is WHO in my building is copying me and my awesome bicycle? And WHO leaves such an awesome bicycle out in the snow???

I owe libraries lots of books and/or money. Sorry libraries. It's people like me who fuck up the system, but when you think about it, it's also people like me who put bread on your meager little table via late fees.

My mom has sent me four Christmas cards already, and left me three phone messages this weekend. I think she might be worried about me. Satisfaction is seeing my name in the bottom right corner of a cover sheet. Therapy is pulling my socks off and eating way too much left-over Chinese food and staring off into space and then playing the same three chords over and over on my guitar. No thinking necessary. Oh, oh, college.

(The yellow ear protectors were there again today, and I'm beginning to think that there is something mysterious going on here.)

And on frustration: AR can suck it if he thinks I'm going to write that hourly a third time. Just because he can't recognize brilliance when it kicks him in the face......

On a not so crazy note, the Beloit College Jazz Band is so so so cute, and, as with most things, I enjoyed them more than I should have.

Scrabble es muy divertido.

This is kind of sick: I spent seven hours yesterday and seven hours today in the library. And I still haven't finished the work I need to do by tomorrow. The film paper is done, the ed paper needs editing, and I have to translate my part of the [fote] text. Plus the presentation, which makes me kind of feel like I'm going to puke. BUT, strangely enough, I'm not stressed. At all. Seriously.

Okay, maybe a little when I really think about it and my jaw clenches and my heart beats somewhat faster. My saving grace has been that I've flipped into ultra-sensitive, hyper-aware introvert mode. I snapped out of it a little last night at the Continental Drift party after some tequila and some beer. Today I was back there, though. The time just... escaped. I wouldn't say I was in THE ZONE, though, because I was distracted too easily. (He was wearing these big, yellow headphones like protective gear or something and I feel like I stare at him too much but he appeared out of thin air as I was thinking about it and I was kind of startled and I know he could tell, but all I could think was: are those things holding his ears on?) What did I say about going crazy? Oh, yeah..

Well, before I write anything more incriminating, let me just say that if I haven't returned your phone calls recently, I love you very much and it'll be better soon, and in the mean time I suggest you call in the middle of the night and shout into my answering machine so I have no choice but to pick up.

Every time this guy comes into the box office to order tickets, I follow the protocol. Filling out the form, I smile cheerfully as I ask his name. I do this for a couple of reasons: One, I don't want to seem like a creepy stalker, and two, I hate that people achieve the status of celebrity so easily here. And somehow I get a sick satisfaction out of seeing a little self-important sparkle in his eye wither away. Next time I'll pretend to remember his face or maybe I'll make a guess and get it wrong on purpose. So I suppose I'm feeling cynical. Whatever. This god damned fucking drama bullshit will not be tolerated, nor will any blows to my pride. No no no. I've had enough of that for one semester. Quota hs been filled. Now I'm ready to get out of here and forget I knew any of these people who pretend they don't know me. Good thing I never really liked them in the first place.

Tomorrow I will be locking myself up in the library all day until I finish this research paper, so don't even bother trying to rescue me. Except please do because I might be going totally nutso.

(And to you, Sir, in the front row: If you're looking to start a staring match, I know you know you'll win. Some may think you might as well not even open your big brown love bombs, but I would argue, then, that when you do, when you force your gaze upon me to make some kind of point, I will see you better than you will ever see me, and that is probably my own fault. I will also see you better than you will ever see yourself, and THAT is a sad, sad predicament to be in, because we all own a lot that we can't be proud of. And there I've gone and ended a sentence with a preposition. Boo.)

Today! I saw: the first real snowfall of the season, a man pushing two empty wheel chairs and carrying a pair of crutches, a group of laughing friends, Melies' Magic Show, a Christmas card from Mom, Isaac's amazing insight to the South, socio-linguists at work, an inherited birthmark on my chest, naked research and procrastination, messy room, slipping on the Library steps, the girl who draws, the girl who loves, the girl with the hair.

If you want to buy me a present, try pretty flowers or jewelery, or a pair of mittens since mine are apparently lost and gone forever but maybe in the back of Laura's car because I keep forgetting to check.

Did I mention procrastination?

Enter your name to get yours:

Doctor Unheimlich has diagnosed me with Rebecca G. Dewingitis
Cause:	old library books
Symptoms:	vomiting, mildly red eye, frequent space alien bursting from stomach
Cure:	smoke one and a half cigarettes every day for the rest of your life
Enter your name, for your own diagnosis:

By the by, I got into all of my courses for next semester and as it stands now, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday my first class isn't until 2:00 PM. Ugh.

An expression of utter confidence and a slight blush at the silent acknowledgement of what hasn't been said. So, he thinks I'm smart. Good.

Today I read this: "There are ghost women in my life, exerting their supernatural influence over me. One moment, they're silently stalking in old hardwood-floored corridors of memory, the next they're invisible but laughing, sighing, whispering, or moaning in distant echoes of sexual pleasure long ago spent. Sometimes, I can't tell the difference between them and the real ones."

It took my breath away for a second. Only for a second. I wanted to speak to you. Immediately. I felt the most gut-wrenching urge like crying and holding on for dear life, and then I was able to let it go.

I had to be the one to break the news to J that the "orbs" she found were actually Christmas lights. She wants so desperately to believe and to have her beliefs validated. It was like telling a small child that the Tooth Fairy died.

It's a shame that this kid won't look at me, but I say he has my number and I leave it at that. Sometimes I really really really care and then I remember the downward spiral and how miserable it made me and how much happier I will be once I've gotten it out of my system and forgotten. Though it really is a shame, because he does have my number.

It is snowing. My bike has been rendered useless by the cold, i.e. the back brakes are jammed and pedaling is ten times more difficult than it should be. I should go to bed, but I've resigned myself to not sleeping much this week or next.