david_and_lauren jane a writer, huh? how do you feel about ambling prose? how do you feel about the love song of j. alfred prufrock? how do you feel about kurt vonnegut's cat's cradle? how do you feel about guinness and lonely tuesday nights? sorry about all the questions. --lauren 041205 ... jane So Lauren. How do I feel... I feel that there's something about Prufrock which can be consistently identified with by people our age. Some kind of spiritual exhaustion and the general impersonality of the contemporary universe... you know what I'm talking about; this whole situation of dealing with specific binary opposites: 1) existing as a person mired in exactly that (existence and being a person) and 2) the intrinsic impersonality of the very self. Throw in a dash of metaphysical insecurity and VOILA. You have the post-90's generation W, or whatever we're called. Now, that being said, I feel nothing for Cat's Cradle, because I havent't read it in a few years. Ambling prose? I'm obviously okay with it, because I'm doing it RIGHT NOW. Finally, guinness and lonely tuesday nights: If April is the cruellest month, which it is, then surely Tuesday is the cruellest day, so I can't really think of any better way to deal with it than with a heavy glass of black beer. Assuming the right person is sitting next to you doing the same thing, but then it wouldn't be lonely, eh? Or WOULD IT? *gasp* So, if I'm not meant to interpret "so so interesting" as being a slap of counter-irony, then I can say that I'm glad you asked me these questions. I feel like I've needed to answer a couple of them to myself for a while, now that I've done it. If you are scoffing at me by now, then fine. I'm indifferent. That being said, you must keep in touch. A shaft of light has been cast into my otherwise bleak and dreary life. Maybe you could even tell me where you go to school, or how many pets you've buried over the years, what color the indiglo on your alarm clock is, etc. David 041205 ... jane david: the answers to your - hmm - "questions" are all more or less short answers, so i'll do my best to insert some anecdotes along the way. what do you say? i go to nyu, otherwise known as "new york university," otherwise known as "the school with the olsen twins." no, i don't know them, yes, i see one all the time, and yes, she takes a long time in the bathroom, and no, i don't know what she does in there. so, other than that, school: school is expensive; i'm giving my father an aneurism even though he's a surgeon and can clearly handle the financial expenses, but he's jewish and so has to watch his money closely. if you're jewish, i'm sorry if that offended you, but remember, i'm speaking about my father. but i like school. right now i'm learning how to write better poetry, and its working (amazing!). i've never enjoyed a class more in my life, except for my high school philosophy class. and maybe fingerpainting time in kindergarten. pets i've buried: to date: 4 without goldfish, 19 with goldfish. don't buy goldfish. pets i've had in my life, that i've either had to give away or ran away + goldfish: 24. they weren't all dogs or anything. so don't worry, i'm not an animal killer. the bulk of that number is goldfish, those cheap motherfuckers that come 20 for 99 cents. unfortunately, my alarm clock has no indiglo. unless you mean the digital numbers, which are red. and my cell phone has a backlight. but the most interesting lights i own are probably the lights around my room - a variation of the christmas light specimen. i also have this flower light that i got for free. it sounds girlier than it is. let me put it this way: i got the light from 2 guys. they were foreign, but lets not hold that against them. alright, well i suppose i've written enough for one night. here, at least. thank you for the stimulating inquiries. thank you for the response - you should know i did not scoff once; on the contrary, i smiled. lauren 041205 ... jane Having been in numerous poetry workshops in college, I can very honestly say that it is a pleasure to meet another person who takes this dying, yet eternally valuable, craft seriously. Really, though, it's important. The better we can write about what we can know, the better we know what we know. And if we can make it beautiful in the process, then we can rule the world. Mwahahaha. Speaking of ye olde Mary Kate 'n' Ashley: I, myself, go to Sarah Lawrence. There was a buzz around here last year because they were allegedly looking at coming to school here. We already had Alex Mac enrolled, so we were hoping to get all of our childhood sit-com favorites under one roof. It could have been so amazing.... We could've had Danny Tanner teaching Ancient History, and the Captain Planet crew could replace the administration... But I still don't envy you. Your once-proud school has been tainted, for at least a few years, with the reputation of being Olsen College. Tsk tsk. I guess now is the time to say that I don't live in Brooklyn (anymore) as my out-of-date profile says. I live on campus, here in Westchester, about fifteen or twenty minutes north of Grand Central on the MTA. It's perfect, I think... the best of both worlds. I think it would be pretty stressful to go to school in the city, right? I can just jump on the train, and I'm there, then I get to come home to the verdant, leafy coolness of the suburbs. Now, are you from New York? I think you can often tell a lot about a person based on where they are from. Not necessarily about their personalities, but about their experiences. It's important, right? Myself, I grew up in Texas, but hardly identify with it. I've traveled a bit, and I've been in college for three years now, long enough to feel no solid connection to "home," as I reluctantly call it, anymore. The good news is that I get to write assloads of papers over the next two weeks. If you want to write some of them for me, I would be forever grateful. I would fan you with one of those oversized palm leaves while singing you pop tunes, etc. It's up to you, but if you know anything about Sophocles, it could all be yours... Shifting gears, though. I think, Lauren, that you are probably a good and genuine person. Typically, one can never tell such a thing based on an internet profile and a few emails, but I'd like to think that I have good enough intuition to make at least the most general assumptions. For one, we exist on a website which exists in a world which is strictly driven by the superficial. This sounds trite, but you know it's true. Anyway, that you haven't asked for a picture surprises me to say the least... few people are willing to even chat with someone unless they know what he or she looks like. AND those of us who choose to protect our privacy from madmen, serial killers, horny firefighters, and government officials by not posting a photo are immediately presumed to be ugly. But this is not always the case. I am rambling. What I was trying to say was that I'll gladly send you a picture (I'm obliged, really) if you're at all interested, but I'd need your email address. If you're not, just copy and paste the following: "I don't give a FUCK what you look like. And there's no way in the HOTTEST OF HELLS that I would write your damn Sophocles paper, so cram it, ASSHOLE." It has been a pleasure. Until next time, David 041207 ... jane hmm...ruling the world, you say? that makes me wonder about that question: "if you had everyone's attention, what would you say?" personally, i'd rather not engage in everyone's attention. i'd rather they stay nestled in whatever comfortable world they live in at this point and carefully observe, in order to avoid solving any of my own problems. see how that works out? you have larisa olenick? is that her name? alex mack...reminds me of ghostwriter - do you remember that show? ah memories. i shouldn't have mentioned it, because i don't even remember a lot about it. leafy coolness of the suburbs sounds nice. i'm always looking for an excuse to get out of the city; sometimes i feel as if i'm living in the middle of a street in a tent, you know? the noise doesn't stop, the internet doesn't work, it's cold...i really shouldn't be complaining. i have a nice apartment. i have one great roommate and one that is barely tolerable. which is more than a lot of people can say, considering most people i know are still in the dorms. i am not from new york originally. i've lived here for about 16 months now. but man, it feels like i've been here for five years. i'm originally from northern california: grew up in suburbia, went to high school in what i thought at the time was "the city" (sacramento), then realized it wasn't and spent most of the time after i got my car driving to berkeley or san francisco in the middle of the night to meet suspicious strangers. i'm amazed i wasn't killed. well, i embellished that a bit. but san francisco was a great escapist venture. on the other note: of course i didn't ask you for your picture. had you wanted people to see it, you would have put it up. and the superficial meetings i've had off this website have ended up as just that: superficial. within the first three minutes i realized i wasn't interested in this person looking me up and down for the next three hours. another reason was because i was so enamored by your response to my initial message, there was no reason to look at a picture. if anything, it was sort of nice to have this anonymous correspondent, but i guess that's ruined by the fact that you've seen my picture. so should i give you my email address? would it ruin my little fantasy at sending messages out into cyberspace and receiving intelligent responses? i honestly don't know. i also don't know if perhaps you're tricking me into being superficial, so if i give you my email address you can say, "see? all along you just wanted to know what i looked like." but you know what? i don't think you would do that. because that would be silly, and you don't seem like one to play silly man games. so i'll give you my email address (jane44079@aol.com), and you can decide . because, yes, now you've piqued my interest. thought you should know. lauren p.s. good luck on your papers. i would be happy to help you, but unfortunately, i skipped sophocles in my class, and i have seven papers to write on my own. if you know anything about plato or propaganda in hitler's germany, please let me know. thanks. 041207 ... jane So here are these mythic pictures. Upon looking at them, I realized that they're not that fabulous at all, but hey, I've only got four pics scanned, so deal with it. One is in Berlin, the other is at a hookah bar in Paris w/ a couple of my good friends, another is a picture of me standing idly and looking REALLY dumb, and yet another is me napkin-whipping my tiny Asian friend Erica at Thankskiving a couple weeks ago. I know, I know, I put in two travel pics, but whatever. They're kinda old, (the black and white ones), from a couple years ago, but you get the idea. Hope I'm not a huge disappointment. David 041207 ... I wonder Why exactly are you keeping track of your correspondence on blather?? 041207 ... jane because correspondence is a lost art 041207 ... jane disappointment? quite the contrary, i must say. i wish my pictures had remained a mystery as well, so that i could surprise you. so where do we go from here, then? do i ask you the proverbial questions, what song have you been playing on repeat lately, how do you get to class everyday, etcetera etcetera. do i give you my telephone number and tell you to call me late at night when you can't sleep and neither can i, so we can further characterize ourselves as something more than words and pictures? or do i simply say, lets leave it as it is, and next time you feel like coming down to the city, let me know. i was never good at making these kinds of decisions... lauren 041207 ... jane [i wonder] see also : what_king_kong_ninja_did_all_day 041207 ... jane If I had everyone's attention, I'd tell them, obviously, to write my freaking Sophocles paper for me. Seriously, though, I'm pounding away at this thing, but it seems to actually get SHORTER. The previous sentence, upon being read over, has an odd and totally unintended masturbatorial subtext that I would like you to disregard. Do you ever run? I know it sounds absurd (running, I mean), but I kinda got into it. It's a ridiculous concept, running when there's nothing chasing you, or nothing to be chased, but whatever. Sometimes, things seem to actually get farther (further?) away as you are running toward them. Total bullshit. Things shouldn't do that. Oh, I TOTALLY watched Ghostwriter. I haven't thought about that show in years. We can say that now, that we haven't thought about something "in years" ... ah, the sweet rot of age. Now that I've decided to be negative, I think that God should seriously stop with this cold-rain-pain-wet situation right (RIGHT) now. Right now. Done. So this is yet another occasion when I do not envy you, living in the city. There may be nothing worse than walking through Manhattan in the rain, am I right? Except maybe walking through Manhattan in the blistering ass summers, but I think rain is probably worse. But you do have an apartment in the city, and that makes me respect you all the more. By respect, I mean I'm jealous. I've lived in the city before, you see, and it's not the experience I'm after. It's bragging rights, and nothing but. People hear that I live in New York, and they get excited, but then I say "Westchester" and they say "oh." If I could say "Manhattan," then the "oh" would be an "Ah!" This is one of the few bourgeois notions I find myself clinging to. But, my internet does in fact work on a regular basis, so HA HA. Now, about this picture situation. I really didn't mean to make a big deal of it. I should back up before I continue. So, I'm in my writing class (this one happens to be fiction rather than poetry) and the suggestion comes up that we should browse websites such as this one in hopes of fine-tuning our abilities to be perceptive about people. I complied. Normally, I'm not much of an e-geek, but I found myself intrigued. I didn't ever talk to anyone, but I'd get an occasional message that I would usually ignore, or reply to briefly. Whatever, right? But you came along, and now I'm writing epic novels to you, etc. But what I mean is that I really have no idea how to proceed under the online pretext. It is a totally new social mode in our culture, and I am unfamiliar with it. Now, since this is called "okcupid" and since the word SINGLE is immediately adjacent to our names, there is always this sub-sexual, pseudo-erotic fine print that goes into all online dating-site interactions. Which means that to send a picture would be to confirm exactly that, thereby destroying the thin veil we had which said "hey, this person is fascinating to me, and I'm having a great time talking to them" in favor of the declaration that we are, in fact, flirting with eachother. Maybe, maybe not. I'll leave it up to you to decide, and it's probably irrelivant anyway. So when I said I didn't mean to make a big deal of the picture situation, I meant that, but now I have made a big deal of it, so I'll just send the damn picture before expectations get high and disappointment starts to rear its hideous head. That being said, I hope you are warm and I hope that this time of year is not being too brutal to you. Hope to hear from you soon, David 041208 ... jane subj: destruction of the thin veil dear david, so neither of us know how to proceed; we're both indecisive. hmm. that leaves us at quite an impasse, don't you think? so we're flirting. and you broke the veil by sending your pictures. but again, i think as you said it, its irrelevant. the question still remains, looming over me like the dark clouds that are inevitably going to be here today. how to proceed? i mean, i don't mind extending to you my email address, i like responding here more than on the website, with the constant reminder of how we "met" each other. you're right, the online thing is a bit tricky. vocabulary doesn't seem to fit, does it? i suppose i feel comfortable giving you my phone number, so i'll rattle on for awhile and then put it at the bottom, see? do i run? only when i'm being chased, or i'm late. (you saw that coming, didnt you?) considering i hike a mile & a half to class everyday (i suppose the word "hike" is lost on you, out in the woods), and the fact that i'm running up and down subway steps all the time, the idea of more exercise (is that spelled right? the more i look at it, the weirder of a word it is) just makes me tired. especially during finals week. especially because i can't wake up early as it is, and i think that's the time i'd like to go walking in manhattan, before it becomes ominously loud and noisy. i had this (how should i put it?) affair last year, it didn't last very long, but i would always walk home at six or seven in the morning. i used to live in the east village, and i was so used to it being noisy all the time, but i loved catching it when it was still yawning, pink and brisk. living here, you really begin to appreciate the quiet times. even closed doors don't shut out all noise. lauren [646.825.1776] 041209 ... emmi what's that movie again? oh, you've_got_mail 041209 ... jane i was thinking more along the lines of griffin & sabine 041209 ... jane Well, to begin: I think that email handles say a lot. "Jane," for examle. Not your real name, as I understand. Perhaps a comment on the desire for anonymity, "Jane," that is, of Jane Doe fame. Or maybe Jane is, say, your cat or sister's name. Maybe. The latter seems more likely, actually, given that if you wanted anonymity, you would just use your real name, what with everyone knowing several dozen Laurens and Lauras and Lauries and so forth. Not that Lauren is a bad name; it became fashionable for a very good reason, I think. The laurel just so happens to be a great flower, and "l"'s and "r's" are the most femine consanants, and "a" is most definitely the most feminine vowell, right? Masculine nouns are the "o" and the "u," when not used to create a more femine sound, like "au." Yes, I do think about this shit. Seems important to me. There's this guy who lives in my apartment. His name is Bowen. He gave me these Mp3's which are quite amazing, but I have no clue which bands are responsible for them. Which is nice, this anonymity. So, to answer your question, I have been playing these mystery songs on repeat lately. I have also been rediscovering my love for the Velvet Underground. Holy shit. I don't think I was able to fully appreciate them a few years ago, but now I realize just how incredible they truly are. Speaking of my apartment, I get to class by walking. It's a time-honored method of transportation. I live on the farthest end of campus, though, so it can be a hike. The good news is that I have a great apartment, except for this guy named Mike who lives with me. He's a total slob, and I would definitely fall on the psychotic-neat-freak end of the spectrum. I was just raised with that kind of mindset, I suppose. Now, I'm really into driving, but only if I have no place to go. So driving to class would defeat the purpose and turn driving into a chore, which I refuse to accept. The bad news is that I just sold my truck, so there will be no driving until I get my old Volvo (yeah, that's right, an OLD VOLVO. The sexiness of it rolls off of the tongue like ambrosia) up from home in January. Until then, I shall walk. It's wise to give an update on Sophocles, if you were interested. So, at Sarah Lawrence we don't have tests as much as we have enormous papers for each class. And I mean ENORMOUS, and you're expected to be working on them during the whole semester. So Sophocles is what I am still working on at the moment, and we've become quite good friends. He seems like a nice enough guy, and I'd probably have a beer with him if that were possible, which it's not. But I'll cut to it. I suddenly notice a phone number tacked onto your last email, which is awesome. But to be honest, I kinda feel like something's been stolen from me, you know? I'll explain: I've never carried on any kind of serious conversation with someone on the internet unless I already knew them. So this is totally new ground for me. And it has been wonderful. We seem to get along really well and have complementary personalities and so forth. And I think I'm learning some interesting things about you. But I was thinking that I actually know absolutely nothing at all about you. I know you're name, I know that you're from California, that you go to NYU and take a class on poetry. I know virtually nothing more. I can gether, though, that you are very likely a good and genuine person. I think that you are someone who is stripped of her most powerful qualities when limited to the elusive email; I think you are someone who can captivate another with those very subtle gestures--the pulling of hair from the face,the tap of a finger, etc. I think, though, that I am the opposite. What you don't seem to realize is that, by giving me your phone number, a phone call will invariably take place, and if a phone call takes place, then the snowball is officially a-rollin', as they say. What I mean, though, is that you don't seem to realize that this may be as good as it gets with me. When I can think about what I have to say, then write it down, I am at my finest. The reality, though, is that I am very difficult to get along with, I am moody, intellectually agressive, oftentimes reclusive, forgetful, and I smoke cigarettes. This is the truth that you cannot understand about me from the distance which currently exists between us. Which leads me to wonder what it is I don't know about you; the answer is that I don't know quite a bit, and that's wonderful, because there is nothing I need more right now than a new friend, and there is no one I can think but you who I would even remotely consider being friends with. You have already taken the risk of giving me your number, which means that you are banking on the assumption that I am not a stalker/rapist/puppy-kicker/panty-smeller, and I appreciate your vote of confidence. I am giving you the same vote of confidence. But before I can call you, I want you to take one more risk for me. I want to know who the fuck you are, Lauren, so that I don't wind up on the train back from Manhattan, or hanging up the phone, thinking "what the FUCK was going through my mind?" or so that you don't end up on the A-train (or whatever train is yours) thinking "What in GOD'S NAME WAS I THINKING," or however it may be. So I want you to tell me something personal. I understand the present, but what about the past and the future? I don't even know what you look like, really, your pictures being so artfully touched up and so forth. Do you have a job? What is your major? What is your favorite part of the city, what would you do with a thousand dollars RIGHT NOW, or a million, what animal would you be, etc... These questions are TOTALLY irrelevant and idiotic, so ignore them, but the fact of the matter is that I feel like I deserve to know a thing or two about you, because you seem, by every measure, to be a truly insightful and amazing person, and that obligates you to share yourself with even the most random of strangers you have found on the internet. And I will look forward to hearing it. David. 041210 ... jane i should explain my email handle before you wonder what my real name really is. when my family first got "the email" when i was about 12, i decided that giving my real name out was dangerous. at the time, my favorite other name was "april" (go figure), so my screenname was april44079 for a very long time. our email got hacked into, and we all had to choose new screennames. the second time around, i chose something plainer: "jane." when i started writing seriously, it was through this online-web-experiment that is a variation on the message board format. everyone else who was writing was using either a singular name or some alias, so i decided that "jane" would be mine. and so it became a sort of penname. it sort of stuck on me, and became kind of a nickname. so i hope that's a good enough explanation for you. if it's not, accept that i have another email address, lauren@nyu.edu, that is more or less obsolete because all email sent to that address is automatically forwarded to this address. now it's my turn to cut to it: correct me if i'm wrong, but you have made a disctinction between the you of letters and the you in reality. granted, i don't know you, but perhaps it will be easier to look at it this way. when you meet someone, there is most of the time a sense of having to make an impression on this person; consequently, you put most of your best features forward. eventually, if you get to know someone, you realize that they snore, or bite their fingernails, or are obsessive &/or compulsive, what have you. so i'm not surprised at your hmm double personality, i suppose. i've worried before about being mysterious: the fear that at one point someone would *really* know me, and the shield of mystery would be gone, and they would think that i was boring. now that i'm a little older and a little wiser, i've learned that mysterioso is in fact perpetual (yes, thats a joke). but seriously, i've learned that the fantasy person in anyone will never deliver, and that knowing all of these idiosyncracies someone has and liking them anyway, thats a true connection. so in response to your self-proclaimed capriciousness, reclusiveness, and inhalation of cancerous toxins: if that's you, thats fine. honesty is what i value most, and your honesty in letting me know these things tacks integrity onto that list. so i guess its my turn to answer your questions, yeah? i dont have a job at the moment. i wanted to be a bartender or work in an art store but i realized that i would most likely have an aneurism attempting to go to school full time and deal with a job; i'm doing finals right now and am (clearly) having issues getting my work done. plus, i think a job would really cut into my sitting-around time. what's my major? what is my major? i don't officially have a major because i'm doing general studies. but unofficially it was philosophy up until recently when i took this super advanced philosophy class without having taken the prerequisites, and decided that i was a poet more than a philosopher. so i guess my umm concentration would be something like creative writing at the moment. my favorite part of the city is the south street seaport. i mean obviously i enjoy where i live, the 'hood and whatnot, but its nice to get away from traffic noises and listen to the river lapping up against the concrete and watch ships bobbing in the water. and pretend i'm not sitting next to a mall. if not the seaport then, either east river park or the place near the west village where you can watch the hudson. i love how all of my favorite spots involve a river, and getting away from the hecticness of the city. i guess its hard to name a favorite if you're "in the box," so to speak. so then to not involve a river, i like the natural history museum. thats my favorite place. seriously, the money questions dont really work with me. i would buy myself some jeans that arent falling apart, or some headphones or something. then i would use the money to stay at nyu. there is a threat of perhaps having to leave the school because of financial difficulties, but i think that i'm going to end up in horrible debt and deal with it later. i guess thats how i feel a lot of the time - that if i'm not spontaneous i'll always regret it. i hardly ever regret things i do, and i try to avoid regretting things i dont do. so i don't know what else to tell you. something personal, i suppose. i was in love once. i was fifteen and he was twenty four. he was in love with me too. i would take the train three hours south (this is in california) and go visit him at his apartment there. for a plethora of reasons (not just the age thing) we couldn't be together, and as desperately as i wanted to lose my virginity to him, he told me he could not, for fear of the repercussions. the night before i was going to see him, an old friend of mine climbed through my window, and i lost my virginity. he was twenty three. i was sixteen. the next night, i had to tell my love, and a few nights later, i was in the fetal position on my floor. is that what you were looking for? let me know if i left anything out. or maybe you can share something personal with me. lauren 041210 ... jane I'm so sorry to take so long... It's been a hellish week, and such, I'm sure you understand. And I must be brief. I leave early tomorrow to go "home for the holidays," as the song goes (and a great song it is, I say sarcastically). Now, by "tell me something personal," I meant to tell me something that's important to you... and you certainly have. And I appreciate it, but I hope I haven't offended you by being so distant... I'm not even sure. I suppose I'm a dick. Am I dick? David 041224 ... jane see, now it's taken me a long time to write back to you, after you inquired so steadily into your um dickness. so i suppose if you are, then i am as well. i'm also home for the holidays, arizona now, then california in a few days. is it immature of me to think that after all these years, my father is still playing favorites? it seems disappointing in a way, in many ways, that this would be true. what are your parents like? do you have any siblings? i'm just curious, so please, answer at your own discretion. lauren 041224 ... jane I have a sister. Only one. No brothers, except for my brother-in-law. There's a story behind all this: I come from something of a redneck family. It's a big laugh. So my sister lives in Tennessee now, with herhusband, who is stationed there (he's in the army). She's 22, he's 22 also, I think, maybe 23. So I flew from NYC to New Orleans on my way home, b/c I can get a cheap JetBlue flight to New Orleans, and I figured that my sister would pick me up on the way, given that she'd be going right through there anyway. BUT... her husband got drunk on post and wound up losing his Christmas leave, so I was stuck in New Orleans for a day, which was fine, but this is the kind of family I have. I went to the whole family thing last night. My aunt throws this Christmas eve situation every year, way out in the stix. It was miserable. Why do we insist on spending time with family? Aside from the co-possession of a certain bloodline, nothing in common exists. Am I right? Of ocurse I'm right. I hope, though, that your family is fun, intelligent, laid-back, et cetera. I hope you are having a wildly fun game of Yahtzee with them RIGHT NOW. If not, then sit back and think of starving African children, and how much shittier their situation is. That's what I'm doing, anyway. Today is my birthday, which makes things a bit more depressing. I'm getting old. I am going to start taking fiber and getting up at 4 in the morning. As per my parents: My father is a decent guy. He's a drunk, but he's also disabled, so he's harmless. He has a good heart, though. My mom's a lesbian and is presently firmly situated in a mid-life crisis. She thinks of herself as something of a hero, I think. Whatever. They're good people, for sure, but I no longer feel any real connection to them. Home is juat a bunch of shadows and shells of a very, very distant past. I'm sure you understand this feeling. Hope all is well. Take care, and Merry Christmas. David. 041229 ... jane spending time with family is supposed to be important, but what if every time you go, you end up in an argument with your father about money, or your brothers bag gets lost at the airport...bad things seem to follow family gatherings. at least mine. in the end, i have to love my family, because they challenge me the most. and i do think i will challenge your "nothing in common exists," only because i find my similarities to my father are often the perpetuator of our conflicts. and my mom and i have been more friends than mother and daughter for years (since she realized i was going to do whatever i want anyway). and my brother is going through some of the same things i am, trying to figure out what the hell he _really_ wants to do with his life. so, another conclusion: in my family at least, the commonality is in fact our shared blood, and love for each other. i just realized how sappy that sounds. i'd certainly rather be in new york at the moment. i am so sick of being here in suburbia, california, in my fathers castle. and the looming conversation regarding school finances is morphing into a potential aneurism. and my mom can't stop talking about how much she hates bush. and my brother is still making me feel like an incompetent child. so my family is by no means perfect. it'll be nice to bet back to the boonies of arizona, i suppose. my mom has better food. i think, perhaps, what i resonate with most of what you said is home being shadows ans shells of a distant past. i ran into my 8th grade algebra teacher yesterday, you know, the teahcer i had a mind-blowing crush on. unfortunately, 8th grade was the year my parents decided to get divorced, and i was stuck, quasi-goth and alone, ditching 3rd period with my three weirdo friends to steal bikes (we returned them) and get sandwiches. 3rd period was algebra. and after the school realized i was cutting class, i had to catch up on all the missed work. this teacher told me to stay after class, and he told me that he knew this wasn't just about some kids cutting class, that there was something else, something bigger, going on. at a time when my parents were too distracted with their own situation to notice i had taken up smoking and drinking and heavy black eyeliner, this comment was profoundly insightful. needless to say, i had wanted to look up this teacher just to see what he was up to, maybe get coffee when i was in town. so in the late summer of this year i did, but i would call and not leave a message, hoping he didn't have caller i.d. and then fate took a turn for me, and i ran into him. of course i was attempting to show him what a bright young woman i had become, impress him with my intellect, and then tell him that it was his comment that jarred me so much as an old child. unfortunately, we were still chit-chatting when my father came over, and teacher went into teacher-mode, and dad went into dad-mode, and i was stuck at a parent-teacher conference, again thirteen years old and awkward, incapable of shooing my father away. talk about shells of a distant past. this probably upset me more than it should have, but after i calmed down, i googled his name and wrote him a nice email. so it goes..... enough about my dramatic teenage years (that will hopefully end soon). a very happy belated birthday to you. don't do anything profound. just get drunk until you cant see straight. and may all of your birthday (and christmas) wishes come trueee.... hope to hear from you soon, take care. lauren 041229 ... jane I have never had a hot teacher. No hot females, at least. A few hot males, but they're just not my thing, you know? Oh, and happy New Year, if that's the kind of thing that matters to you. I went to a couple parties, did the thing, and so on. I was the driver, though, so there was a lot of sobriety going on. Even better, though, was when I went camping. Now, I thought that there was a lot of redneck-edness in my life, but OH NO! There can always be more. I went out to Lost Maples, about an hour west of here, with a couple friends. We built a fire, set up the tent, et cet; then some guy comes up and tells us that our camp site had been reserved, and that we had to move. So we did. And started all over. We wound up next to some RV rednecks who got REALLY drunk. Their children were worse, though. I wish I could explain all of this to you; it occurs to me that there is no perfect way to communicate my experience. You would have had to have been there. But trust me. You should tell me about Arizona. Aside from all the old people and stifling summer heat, it seems like a pretty captivating place. I've been through there a few times, but I was young. I'm a big desert fan, you know? The desert has certain cleansing qualities. And it's better for that refreshing-isolation thing than the more claustrophobic forest situation. I grew up in West Texas, but that's ugly desert, rather than pretty desert. I remember going ot White Sands in New Mexico as a young kid. At that age, it was all pretty incredible. Things are always incredible when you're young, as long as they're not horrifying, you know? Which reminds me to never have children. For one reason or another, I just thought of something that I hadn't thought of in a while. And I will tell you about it: In eighth grade, I failed gym class. (It gets better). I failed gym class because I cheated on a test in the class. It covered various crucial knowledge, like baseball positions and such. Now, I knew the answers, you see, because it was a friggin gym test, and I'm not totally stupid. BUT, I had a crush on this girl who had the class after me, so I told her the questions on the test, and somehow got caught. So I got a 40 in gym class. WHat the fuck, right? It's gym. Gym teachers take themselves SO seriously. Again, Happy New Year. And hang in there with the family. SOon enough you'll be back in fabulous New York, where maybe, just maybe, I'll buy you a drink sometime. David 050101 ... dont mind me _______________________________________________________ 050101 ... jane ah, the designated driver. that was me a lot in high school. however, this new years i spent in san francisco, at a very exclusive, which is to say small, party. it was a friend of mine and her boyfriend, and my roommate and myself. and we just drank at the couple's apartment and then walked down the street where we met a fairy named mary jane (not weed, an actual girl named mary jane) and a dj named frank. it wasn't mind-blowing, but i drank enough, and i was with good people, which i think is important. i looked up lost maples, to get an idea of what "natural" texas looks like, because i've never been there. turns out it looks a lot like northern northern california. and speaking of northern northern california, you would be surprised at the redneck-edness you can find there. i was discussing this with a girl from maine, and we shared our stories of what we thought was exclusively southern redneckness very close to where we were from. i still have this picture in my head of a house off a dirt road, and a man standing out front, bald except for a ponytail, wearing old faded denim and no shirt, tanned by the sun, pot belly hanging out, maybe five of his teeth, hosing down some plants. sound familiar? and then we go in the house, where we're offered a beer (natural ice), and we're in this room smoking pot with his daughter, on a day so hot the door is open in her room to the back porch, and the flies are buzzing around the room, and this is normal to them. so i don't know if you have to explain this southern stuff to me; seems like i've seen similar circumstances. and maybe not. but then arizona. my first visit. my mom lives in between williams and flagstaff in northern arizona. if you write her a letter, you write to williams, but she doesn't really live in a town. this bothered me a lot for some reason. not the location, but the fact that if someone asked where i was, i had to locate myself relative to the closest town. so anyway, she's pretty high up there, elevation-wise, i think maybe 5 or 6 thousand, so my body was aching a lot, but i got a lot of stuff done. and to get to her house which is basically a log cabin, you drive past horses (one house has a goat and a pig) and cross railroad tracks, and then drive on a couple dirt roads, with snow on the side the sun doesn't hit. and her boyfriend has some property, 27 acres i think, and we went there and barbecued and played disc-golf, because that's what you do there. and it was fun, very laid-back, although i felt a little out of place sometimes. and they have satellite tv, but my mom would joke that when it snowed, we had to go out and use a long broom to brush the snow off the dish. she's always laughing and smiling about something. she's wonderful. its difficult for me to be in a place i grew up (davis, not sacramento), where once i thought i was small in a large town, now i think the town is so small and submissive. "downtown" consists of maybe ten streets, with little shops and it might as well be the proverbial general store / butcher shop / post office / fire station town. but it was nice yesterday to drive to san francisco, my favorite drive. i wrote a poem about it awhile ago. i'll share it with you if you like. its not my best poem, but i feel it accurately depicts my feelings on growing up here, and the drive to san francisco. so, david, i hope your new years went well. and i hope that you can get from it whatever you need, whether it be a new beginning or being able to write 05 on something you worked on, or just another day. and i hope your trip back to new york is safe (if you haven't already gone back), and you didn't burn any familial bridges, so to speak. and did you know that "auld lang syne" means "times gone by"? well you do now. a new years trivia moment. have a good one. until next time, lauren 050101 ... jane Howdy. I've decided that home is like a wool sweater. That is to say that it's all warm and fuzzy and comforting until the rains come, at which point the flowers sprout up out of the ground and the sweater shrinks in the dryer, never to fit again. I just made that up on the spot. Which is why it doesn't really make sense if you read it while paying attention. I tend to write while not paying attention. I hope you didn't read this paragraph. I've been hanging out with my friends Boredom and Depression lately. Ha. No, my friends all went back to school, so I'm just kinda sitting around, not doing a whole lot. There's nothing at all that is spectacular about life in San Antonio. Maybe I'll go downtown later. Speaking of downtown. Downtown is actually just a few tall buildings with a river running through the middle of the whole mess. This river has these clever stone walkways running along its banks, and a bunch of chintsy tourist shops and such run along the banks of the walkways. Around this time of year, there are christmas lights in the trees, making it look like nature is no longer relevant, which it isn't. So, this river has been cleverly named the "Riverwalk," El Paseo Del Rio. I used to work on said Paseo. I was in the Frozen Dessert Industry for three years. That is to say that I scooped ice cream, but it was good money and a respectable job for a 15-year old, so stop laughing. This is the first time I've been in San Antonio as a Legal Drinker, so maybe I'll just get really smashed and hit on old women. Mmm. Speaking of which: I ran into my high school art teacher the other day. Her name was Miss Buchanan until it Changed to Mrs. Mogus. She;s a good looking lady, fairly young, and obviously a gold-digger. Her husband is some sixty-year-old architect; you know the story. So, I ran into her at the mall (she was alone) and... I started hitting on her. I have absolutely no idea what came over me. I am not only not even REMOTELY attracted to this women (she's attractive, mind you, but just not to me) but I never, NEVER, EVER hit on people preemptively. You are maybe the only person I have ever even tried to hit on. I guess I'm kinda shy in these situations, or maybe I'm really arrogant and expect it all to fall in my lap. Or maybe I just have respect. Whatever. But the fact of the matter is that she bought it. I think she was about ready to take me home when I ever-so-suavely backed out. Looking back, I was doing it out of boredom, and just to see if I could. I'm shocked that it worked: "Oh my gosh, Mrs. Mogus? You know, it's been years, and you look wonderful! It is still Mrs. MOGUS, right?" "Oh, it is, it is." "Gosh, that's too bad." Isn't that shit hilarious. I think it's hilarious. When people do shit like this they become these outrageous mockeries of themselves, and there's nothing I like better than becomeing a dilution of what I actually am. I'm sorry you had to read all of that. My life has come down to this kind of shit: making jokes out of living things to their faces, the punchline being.. get this... ME. I am a joke. And I'm starting to like it that way. Moving on, though. I want to go on a road trip. Just by the way. Now, you live in New York proper. I'm just in the SUBURBS (snickers fro the crowd). Tell me a few things I should do in New York that I probably haven't already done. And I'm glad things are going fairly well. I would definitely trade AZ for TX any day. In the meantime, havfe fun, be safe, and sleep. David. 050105 ... jane as much as you mock the scenery of downtown san antonio, it sounds really beautiful. i guess it reminds me of reno, which is perhaps the most miserable city in the coutry. but if you wander around reno enough (which you're likely to do if you're not into gambling or listening to people gambling), you will most certainly come across the (truckee?) river. its the most peaceful part of reno, and a nice place to avoid concentrated smoke and the awful and constant cha-chings of the slot machines. but this paseo sounds much nicer anyway. especially the christmas lights in the trees reflecting off the river...it must have a very nice twinkle effect. and i'm not one to make fun of jobs we had when we were fifteen. i worked at a watch store in davis, california. actually i think it was the summer i was sixteen. i worked with this girl shenandoah who was 26 at the time; i'm still friends with her - actually, it was her place in san francisco where i spent new years this year. anyway, the watch store - so not only did we sell watches, we repaired them, and we did engraving. so any sort of plaque that you see, especially those "perpetual plaques" like "employee of the month" where each month they fill in another persons name - that was our doing. or plastic signs that say "no smoking" with the universal no-smoking picture - that was us too. we also made trophies. so if you played baseball or soccer as a kid, you know the whole team gets a trophy at the end of the season - we made those too. but a lot of the time the boss would leave shen and i for two weeks, and we wouldnt know what to do, so us artsy girls would spend time making plastic signs for ourselves. until one day we found incriminating evidence on the boss' computer and both quit. i still notice signs and peoples watches all the time. and i do think you hitting on your teacher is kind of funny, especially in contrast to my run-in with my old teacher, with my awkwardness. well, today is the day i take a plane from california back to arizona. and then in a couple days, back to new york. and speaking of new york - i'm attempting to think of things you might not have done. i've gotten pretty good at stuff in my area, for instance, a block away, on clinton street, you will find the freakatorium. its this teeny tiny shop owned by a guy who swallowed swords for 27 years, and you pay five dollars to get in and see all of this circus paraphernalia, including postcards written by the man with no arms (he has beautiful penmanship), the smallest books in the world, shrunken heads, and on top of it all, the guy swallows a sword for you. awesome. so you probably havent done that. between the freakatorium and the natural history museum, though, i cant think of anything else besides restaurants. oh but speaking of the natural history museum, theres this one room, i think its the hall of biodiversity, where theres all these models of different animals. which is amazing. but in the middle of the hall, theres a jungle-type-rainforest-type thing. anyway, i was just thinking i'd like to be kissed there. in the rainforest. i dont know why. that, and i'd like to be kissed in the rain. but i think i share that fantasy with a lot of people. anyway. i'll stop talking about where i'd like to be kissed. have a safe trip back to ny, whenever it is. and dont let boredom and depression stop you from hitting on old women. that's hot. lauren 050105 ... jane Howdy, as they say. I think we should talk for a bit about Napoleon Dynamite. I just finished watching this movie (for the second time, actually. I saw it in NY when it first came out...). I have come to realize that Texas, for all of its flaws, is no Idaho. You da ho? Ha. Ha ha. No, sorry. As long as I don't live in Idaho, my life can march steadily along the road to victory. If you ever find yourself in Idaho and you happen to run into me, please do remind me that I am a failure. Now, speaking of Reno. I lived in Vegas for a while, so I understand entirely that gambling- and prostitution-based markets, when added to a desert environment, tend to lead to an extraordinary redneck problem. White trash, really. And where there is white trash, there is a total lack of beauty. While there are parts of San Antonio that are easy on the eye, the VAST majority is not; this is my biggest problem with San Antonio. Total lack of respect for beauty. It's all freeways and parking lots here, with some chain restaurants and such on the side of the freeway with big parking lots in front of them. That's it. You know, you have to build shit. So you might as well make it beautiful in the process. Paris, for example. If you got to one of those open-air markets in Paris, the vendors (say, a cherry vendor, for example) realize that they have to sell their cherries; they might as well make them look beautiful in the process. So, they have these cherries displayed in huge vases and champagne glasses and such. Beauty. Tis the key, I think, to a succesful culture: an acceptance of, capacity for, and ability to CREATE it. It's all we have, really. So I've been without internet for some time now, but now that I'm back in the world of technology I've realized that, upon checking Mapquest, it's like a 2000-mile drive to New York. Which I will be undertaking next week. Oh dear. Moving on. Rainforests and such. It seems that you could kill two birds with one stone: if, that is, you could get this mythic rainforest kiss, then it is likely that the mythic rain kiss would follow suit, given that the rainforest is, indeed, the RAINforest. Of course, it rarely rains INSIDE the natural history museum, so other arrangements would have to be made. But, more interesting, is your very appreciation of the natural history museum. There are a lot of children there. I'm fine with kids, I think they're fascinating and such. But when they're hyper and in groups, the temple comes down, as it may be. The natural history museum, though, has some amazing little corners that nobody ever goes to; those are its brightest spots. It's just you and a stuffed manatee. And I suppose that could be romantic. Yes, it could. Fine, I agree. But romance is so interesting. Romance would be the product of the beauty I was talking about earlier. Romance is the persperation of beauty. It's the human evidence of beauty, like how the sound of waves is evidence that the ocean is still there when it's dark. And there is romance in so many crevices of life; you have the traditional one-on-one romance, but there is romance in a walk in the park, in a trip to another country, in having a conversation about something new. Romantics. It is a good term. So yes, your "rainforest-jungle-type-thing" is surely romantic if it's anything. And if it can be romantic, it can be exhilerating. If exhilerating, then adventurous. If adventurous, then worth it. We should go. David. 050114 ... jane dear david, it's become cold in new york. but it's not snowing - yet. i hate how it can be this cold and not snow. how dare it. the weather, i mean. but right now, it's raining kind of. and i decided that today was a good day to wear a skirt. but to balance it out because i did realize it was cold, i decided to wear hiking boots. my, am i a sight for sore eyes. oh, you lived in vegas? can you believe i was there twice over the course of this break? and i didn't even want to be. but i was stuck in what i came to call purgatory, oh yes, the las vegas airport. why are they allowed to have slot machines in the terminal? by the time my plane arrived, i had gone to hell and back. it's the auditory overload of cha-chings of the slot machines i mentioned earlier when i wrote about reno. if the terminal was a city, it would be reno. everyone is tired - zombies - looking at keychains with their names on them, wondering if they should buy a pack of cards or perhaps a t-shirt. vegas baby. the thing that kept me going was the fake new york skyline outside the window. all your chat about beauty made me realize that san antonio isn't the only place that's given up on it. i think many cities in their striving for convenience have forgotten about aesthetics. but in the end the stuff that is most beautiful is perhaps the co-existence of manmade architectural beauty and natural beauty. sadly, however, this is rare. which makes it more desirable. and i hope your drive to new york is a beautiful one. if not, just know that you'll be home soon. that reminds me, my roommate and friend sarah and i went to high school together in sacramento. so we met up there over break. she had this huge argument with her parents (she's an only child, so the dynamics are pretty interesting) which covered a lot of ground. one of the things said was that she couldn't have more than one home and that HERE (sacramento) was her only home. needless to say, it was pretty upsetting. but it got me to thinking - do we have to choose one home at a time? if we can, and if home is where the heart is, does that prove that we can be in love with two people at once? have you? and speaking of love and beauty and romance...and speaking of kisses...and rainforests, and walks in the park...is there ever a conclusion? and we should go to the natural history museum. but part of me is...i suppose timid now. i should explain that i've been really enjoying corresponding with you.. i've said many times that it's a lost art. so part of me is now afraid, as perhaps you were before, of the change of format. so can you reassure me that there is nothing to worry about? or maybe i should do this for myself, or maybe i should just take a risk like i have been so afraid to in the past. any way, i will have to conquer my anxieties, for fear of an opportunity lost. maybe this, maybe that....maybe i will see you soon. and i will look forward to it. lauren 050114 ... jane First of all, one home does not need to be chosen. Home is not a singular noun, I think. That would imply that home is a building with crap in it. Ive actually been thinking lately about nomadic cultures and what their idea of home entails; I imagine that Mogolian nomads (55% of Mongolia is still nomadic -- wow, eh?) think that home is hardly a building or what have you. Their home is surely more of an idea of the land, of people, traditions and values. Ah, but it is mobile, b/c all of the above are portable. The American home is still mired in that 1950s ideal – the "American Dream" of owning a home, for example. I have no home, in that sense. TX is hardly home; I feel virtually no connection to it whatsoever. And college is too tranisent and temporary to be a home, I think. But I've come to realize that I feel that homey connection to my firends; I dropped in on a number of them at their respective colleges while driving cross-country. I came to realize that these people are far more important to me than a city, building, etc. It all sounds quite quaint, but it's true, so fuck all. Second of all, we should talk for a minute about Maryland. I hate Maryland. I stopped in this horrid truck stop with (get this) SLOT MACHINES in it and had the worst meal of my life. Then a fight broke out. Then another. Then I ost my atlas and had to wing it through New Jersey (no easy task). Then the toll roads. And I had no cash, so I had to wing it through those. And such and such. But, after 2100 miles and 35 hours of driving, I am back. And it is holy-hell cold. And I rode in on a flat tire, courtesy of a pothole on the GW bridge, and just spent $351.80 on new tires. Shudder. But, more importantly, I didn't mean to make you feel pressured into anything. I think we would get along just fine, and I certainly wouldn't mind meeting you at some point, but there's hardly any hurry. There's no risk, either, if you can trust me (mwahahaha). Regardless, I still look forward to hearing from you. David 050118 ... jane dear david, today was the second day of classes at nyu, and i'm very excited about this semester. i've got the advanced poetry writing going - man, two hours and forty minutes of talking straight can wear a girl out. i love the teacher though, so its going to be a cool class. did you start already? what are you taking? so you have a car, huh? but busted tires. well thats fun; i wish i had a car around just to take joyrides every once in awhile, or drive to class. although i wouldn't want to worry about parking in the city..that must be tough. did i tell you my favorite genre of music right now? it's really sad, depressing songs disguised as happy songs. for example, "if you dont love me, i'll kill myself" by pete droge. or "but not for me" as sung by chet baker. and "yellow" by coldplay might fit in there. maybe, if i'm feeling generous. man, i'm sorry. i just cannot write today. i really feel spread thin these days in terms of writing. in the end, its the same fucking words over and over again. fucking cycles. but enough about me. its just about that time - thats right. you need to tell me something incredibly personal and humble yourself before me as i did before you. 'cause i'm just done writing for now. sorry. lauren 050119 ... stork daddy dear lauren, what i'm actually doing is trying to show you that i have a high level of reproductive fitness while also determining the reproductive fitness you possess, all because we have inherited a drive to reproduce. i assume you're doing the same. something witty, david. 050119 ... stork daddy hmm...that was more a valid criticism of myself. god i'm so petty when i'm jealous. 050119 ... jane Subject: I am NOT punctual, but I am caring, in a sense. I know I never, ever write back on time. I know. It' s not because of you, it's because of a deeply-seeded flaw in my character. I try not to let it get me down. After all, it is vastly overshadowed by other flaws in my character. There are many. Trust me. But nobody's perfect. So, snow. Snow-snow. Bullshit. I think that, between you and me, we could probably WILL the snow away. Let's try: GO!.................................................................................................................................................................................still there. Damn. Very, very little to report on my end. How can I be so busy and have nothing to say about it? It's the class-work-sleep routine, and I must say that it's getting me down. Quite down. And I'm afraid to go outside ever again, b'cuz it's so cold. And my headlights don't work, and I can't figure out why. Because I am a literature major. Which means I have no useful knowledge. Turned in a short story today in my writing class. It went over very well with the professor, but the class tore it up. It's amazing how a once-robust ego can be ripped to pitiful pieces at the drop of a hat, as they say. My ego is no onger robust. And my headlights are out. I need a cat, or something. Yes, a cat. That would make things better. Sorry to be brief (AND late), but I already have a paper due, and it has to be written in a language that I don't really speak. I hope you can find the will to forgive me, but I PROMISE that the next email will contain my entire psycho-emotional corpus. Until then, do stay warm, avoid the A-line, and drink things that are hot. Take care, David 050126 ... jane you realize there's no need to defend your tardiness in writing. i've been preoccupied with classes, which are way crazier than i thought they'd be; i'm constantly writing and thinking, and the power went out in the whole building today. thats right, i got home and realized that years of counting stairs paid off. my roommate and i lit a lot of candles, and i called 311 because its my favorite thing to do. i told them the power was out in the whole building, and asked if there had been any other complaints on the street. the operator lady told me that she would have to transfer me to 911 because they were the people who investigated this kind of thing, even if its not an urgent emergency. so she tranferred me, and i talked to the 911 people, and they said they would send someone to check it out. well, about 15 minutes later we had FOUR police cars outside our building, and about fifteen cops inside on the narrow stairwell. keep in mind its totally dark too. nypd is incredible. they got the light back on in our apartment and the apartment below us (the restaurant on the first floor had separate electricity, so only half of their lights went out). and this crazy black cop lady yelled at our landlord and they wrote him up. bastard charges us so much money but doesn't expect to maintain the building. also the super is a moron. it was nice to hear a dozen official policemen and women tell us that our landlord and super are idiots, because we've been dealing with these people for a long time. but the heat still needs to be done, so tonight might be a cold night. nothing i havent had to deal with before. cold showers, different story. brr. so thats the story of the day. now i have to go write more bullshit for this bullshit creative writing class. its funny that i hate the class so much, considering how much i love to write. did you already tell me what youre taking? did i already ask? sorry, i'm losing it. anyway, keep warm. take care. lauren 050126 ... jane a ghost ....from the past. ¿no te recuerdas? so - how are things? what a strange question. i suppose i don't really know where to start, because i've always had something you said to go off of. i'm taking a great poetry class, writing a lot. i can send you some of it if you're interested. the snow is depressing me. yesterday it was up to 50 degrees and today it was down to 18. i can see why people in new york suffer from schizophrenia. hopefully it will clear up by next week, my spring break, or the week after, when my brother visits me. he's been in australia for six months, so i'm looking forward to hanging out with him. i was in tower video the other day looking at the poetry reviews, and i came across this small book called "quick fiction." i'll type one of the stories up for you: Dneiper I used to live near the Dneiper River with chemical songs. Once a pack of large boys beat me up until I cried. They said they wanted to to look at my tears under a toy microscope. I don't know whether they had sisters who were hand- some like bearded reedlings or mothers who wore scoop-necked sweaters in warm winters. But I know why a snail wears a helmet. I kow why a bird will die of asphyxia if it does not sing. Mark Yakich so that's that. i hope you're not stressing yourself out too much, young writer. if you get a chance, drop me a line. lauren 050308 ... jane I've never been good at keeping in touch, even with people I've known for years (my sister, for example, who is only a year older than I, but whom I haven't spoken to since her wedding months ago, even though she's apparently pregnant now). We moved a lot when I was young--maybe that has something to do with i; never got too attached, and never wanted to. So my apologies for losing touch, though I can't imagine that it matters too much in the long run, since here we are again. Today is the first day of my Spring Break. I promptly ran out of class this morning and shouted "SPRING BREAK 2005! WOOT WOOT!," but it was snowing, so I quieted down. So basically, here's to Fuck Snow. There are people who theorize that any given thing is verified by its opposite. That is to say, dark is rendered by light, soft by hard, and, following that logic, pleasure is actualized by suffering, and vice versa. So, theoretically, if it didn't suck balls between November and March, then the rest of the year would just be kinda, eh. You know, "eh." Which leads me to wonder whether or not I would have eaten the fruit (were I Adam in Eden, that is), and I think that the answer is probably yes. How boring must Eden have been, you know? That being said, I would love to see some of your writing, and I hope you're rockin' out somewhere warm. David 050311 what's it to you? who go blather from