do_what_you_want kerry i always assume other people will do what they want, simply because they want to. it always makes me feel ordinary. i am usually under the impression that no one else feels like they're under any kind of pressure. general schmo. i have a hand over my mouth, a foot in the sky, a head in the bassline. i can be a plant on sunday afternoons. blissfully safe in the backyard.... it is surreal to close my eyes without any thought of opening them. i only talk to jackie lately too much history between us tie necklaces around my neck and sort through polyester with me and we won't have to talk about it but we'll know. and if we do that, it will make me happy. i can't hide under the displays because you notice when my eyes flare or a new cloud shades my face, and i to you. there aren't any questions and it saves a lot of time. you envy their licenses, i envy their happiness, and we mourn together. st. patrick's day.... i will go hide out under your window and watch until your eyes get baggy and your lips get floppy. and feel rainwater on the tops of all the ivy, and wonder if this is supposed to affect me. am i supposed to care? i don't want to. we dont flaunt our german-irish roots. what i need to do is swim, in anything. and cry maybe, and if i cry then i will cry hard. and tie things up, and find a tireswing i can sit in and spin in and watch the scenery smear like oil paints. 030317 ... kerry pete yorn is covering david bowie, the smiths.. and i am sitting cold hands {warm heart} curly-Qs on the guitar ringing in my 2 good ears i save for times like this he apologized immensely i apologized silently to myself for getting so caught up in want i am dreaming of people who want to hurt me and i smash tables over their heads and run through quicksand as fast as i can with hands pumping the air she said Clean your room and Bake me some Cookies and i said I'm sick of this and i left and walked to buy film and whatever else i could get with my money, turned out to be 4 books for $11, poetry "Marriage of the Trees" and a novel "Eureka Street" are only 2. one for johanna, for her birthday. one more for me because i am greedy when it comes to books. i want shaved ice flavored green apple and a "bit of the fun." i will miss everyone during the week when i have my life hogged and stolen. hole up in my room with book after book page after page and sleep sleep. 030331 ... kerry "We drive through our city and soak up things we see all the time. I can make old things look new by daydreaming while I drive by them. With the same tree on the same corner, one day I see myself sleeping in its branches, the next day I am kissing someone beneath it. This is how I keep from getting tired of the usual scenery." i wrote this in my story today. it is growing. it is adding lines and pages, up to 6 now, today was a sunny day and rebecca made me so furious with her nosy bullshit that i basically snapped on her and isolated myself for the rest of the class period. i usually want to do that to people, but after i do, i realize i don't enjoy it at all because it usually gives me a headache and i feel like a bitch later. however, today it was very well-deserved. i made up excuses to go ask the ceramics teacher questions and after that, after i'd basically distracted her, went and talked to amanda for a good long while. it was nice. after school walked with james as usual. i will miss everyone ovr spring_break. i have three photo projects officially due this friday and i haven't begun any of them. well i sort of started this afternoon, my mother let me leave soccer early so i could. but one of my projects i am very excited about, it is Portraits with Meaning. and i want to take pictures of boys, and maybe girls but only if they're not white. so i was thinking audrey, i think she'd let me if i asked nicely, and i wanted to ask nathalie but i am pretty sure she will be too shy about it. and for boys i wanted to take pictures of my brother but i already know he'll say No, so maybe James. maybe i'll find a casual way of asking. they wouldn't be model shots. they'd be creative. listening to the talking heads. i have poetry and novels in my room, spines waiting to be cracked. i still haven't finished the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. i'd rather read that than do most things. color film, color film for my projects....... i am very nervous about doing color. 030401 ... silentbob write what you like 030402 ... kerry halfday tomorrow. leave at 12:30, go crazy running around in the sun laughing it is !!! spring_break !!! [saying sarcastically], spring break! wooo!!! now i can spend a week with my grandparents! yippee!!! there has never been a time when i've been more thankful to have a darkroom. i need film. i need negatives to concentrate on. dammit. i can't, i am using color. i can't process color. maybe i'll just make dozens and dozens of photograms. feathers and metal balls and combs. walking to wolf camera, i'd like this film processed please, no, no prints... well maybe prints... with borders? doubles too? i can't afford this stupid hobby of mine. vail calls me a photonerd. and she calls me a geek because i love books and she always asks me how to spell things. i find it funny and even flattering in an embarrassingly bizarre kind of way. tomorrow! portraits! that is all i look forward to, ever, making art and writing. i will do it all week. that and go shopping with my mom, she wants to take my grandmother, i don't care all that much because my grandmother is alright as far as grandmothers go. she's pretty funny and she dyes her hair red so i think she qualifies as cool. when summer comes, i want to find a really fun cool way to earn money. i want to work in a glassblowing place or hang shows or something, anything fun, serve coffee in a chill little place nearby. i want it to be something i wouldn't really consider Work. maybe new clothes. bah i dont need new clothes i always want new clothes but since we're not going to Leaf now.... we all got lazy... and thats perfectly fine. maybe something amazing will happen this week. mom said i should go make new friends for the week. i said thanks for being supportive. in this town most of us are smart. cute, intelligent, white middleclass kids from loving families in nice houses. we all go to college and the divorces are friendly. we're always clean and we make good grades and no one is sad. i have a library fine for $8.10 and a 77 in chemistry. i'm always clean but i feel like i'm lagging. my 4.0 has dissolved... and i am without a float thru television Dad is rediscovering Joni Mitchell. I am tuned in completely now, everything seemed new and fresh if for only a minute when i had to look away from the mirror, looking at a stranger. i know who you are now. extended periods of bliss, its something about the windows. always open and the sun is streaking hot and screaming, and the flowers kneel in silent consent. it feels nice not to dread things... it feels nice to stop and accept. accep that change may take time and so much could be worse. you're always in some kind of green cloud, spacey voice and static. one day we'll probably move away and forget, and we better not regret. people write books about themselves or who they want to be, no one has the attention span to write more than a poem's worth about anybody else. and thats okay. but sometimes don't you wish there was no tomorrow? so we'd have an excuse to go to the movies on schoolnights and stay awake till we can't hold ourselves up any longer, not have to worry about the consequences we'll have to face tomorrow. because os long as we are restrained then tomorrow is our consequence, sunrise is our shaking hands. and the alarm clock, when we remember what we've done what we have to clean up and pay for, is the beginning of our punishment. we are children who never learn from our mistakes, we are inmates who dig the same holes over and over. every day every night entering stealthily praying for a difference maybe the world could change the direction of its rotation and make the night last a little longer... anything to delay the morning. 030403 ... kerry tough_week every week recently. a break will make things better. i've never listened to Agent Orange but i've got some downloading now with some more Buddy Holly. later going swimsuit 'shopping' with Johanna but i won't buy anything... not enough money and nowhere to wear a suit... going to J.Crew with wall-to-wall hardwoods tall ceilings and girls in chinos pulling bikinis out in fours and fives draping them over their arms. i can try on whatever giggle about it and pretend i'm going to buy it she'll get something because her parents don't even think, they just hand her their credit cards basically, i sound jealous. i guess i am in a sense. we have no money anymore... i hate HATE HATE HATE[!!!!!] dad's stupid jokes about not affording college. he can be a jerk sometimes when he is trying to. he doesn't do anything lately to get more jobs. i told mom go to back and take that job john's dad offered her. she refuses to give up her vacations even though she basically earns no money at all. she says if she takes the job she won't be around for us kids. i tell her that i don't care if she's around. i would have cared a year or two ago but i don't need her as much in the same way as i did then. it's different, and it doesn't require her to be physically here every minute. last night audrey and i went to jackie's to take the pictures and *wow* i think we might have something here. audrey first with pretty pink makeup and gelled bangs, a mug covering the bottom of her face and she looks fresh. then we put white powder all over her face and painted her lips tiny [iwant to say geisha-style] and blue eyeshadow, chopsticks in her hair, paper fans and pearls... she jokes occasionally about having no "asian pride" she says "Kerry you're asian!" and i say "Of course i am" laughing while eying thin face reddish hair so whiteskin in the mirror under all these lights and she told jessie and i about FOBs, "Fresh Off the Boat"s. we took all her makeup off and she wore a highneck black shirt and lay on the floor with black hair spread everywhere and we did "See No Evil" and "Speak No Evil" using jackie's foreign coins and "Hear No Evil" with headphones. we put candles for a glow and snapped her looking at them, impromptu portraits, then black lipstick and liquid liner and she was leaning over blowing out the red candle and i was the floor. the floor. was. i was. at 12:30 school was out yesterday. johanna and jackie and i hung around the church for a while waiting for a ride and hung on the trees and talked about how people are starting to drop out, and it took johanna a matter of seconds to walk the labyrinth and come back polka-dotted skirt and fresh-faced. we went to her house, i wore her clothes, we ate and screeched and were crazy then went to the nature preserve where i was the paparazzi. and jackie and i went home after watching part of "The Great Muppet Caper." here i am now thank you james for making it easier to not care 030405 ... kerry im listening to lou reed. everything is a joke, the government and politics or whatever name you assign them, they are a joke, and art is a joke, family and bonding, weather, weather is a joke. poetry even. a boy stood next to me against the wall during the poetry reading and he reminded me, in a sickening way, of myself but only because of his chuck taylors and his camera dangling around his neck. and then i inhaled and he smelled like piss. so i was coiling back scooting closer to johanna whoever was reading's words still shaking the coffeeshop. today we saw an imax with my grandparents. and then dad drove me out to this academy across the street from the governor's mansion where two of my photographs were featured in this huge competition. and art receptions are bullshit anyway but there is a good side to everything [at least thats what they tell me] and the good side to this is that i can see what everyone else is doing. basically, what i should be doing more of, and more so in this case, what i should NOT be doing. as in photoshop-ing, because as of today i've decided that i want my photos unaltered. because altered is... well... not what i'm going for, at all... all the private school kids placed, there weren't any public schoolers in the top five. i have a feeling it has something to do with their equipment. it seemed kind of biased, i thought a lot of the public school kids' works, not necessarily mine or anyone's at my school, were just as great as those of the private schoolers. dad and i talked about the uselessness of artist statements. i believe that really powerful photographs, not the posed shit we saw today, is not about creating, it is more about being in the right place at the right time. 030406 ... kerry at school i thought, i have to ace everything from now on. i have to be perfect. she is bright shiny and happy in new clothes. and i am when i have my camera. when i take new negatives off the reels. giddy drunk and tilting. minor details that remind me of you: ... incense, churches, green grass, eggshells, salt, trees, hats, anything dark blue, forgottenness, Dave Matthews Band, Notre Dame i write you a letter in my head every now and again. i wonder if maybe you are water and i am growing from this. and if i should thank you later, as if that could make up for anything. i assure you no matter what you tell me i will always believe that i've felt more strongly than you have. i will always know that i have cared for you more than you for me, and will always be too embarrassed to tell you. my cynical choking tears in -darkness- only a shield from a sight i don't want anybody to see, as i confessed fear and she was a bleak sihlouette before the window and he was a sad cool lump under blankets and every word i spewed accidentally stabbed him... and he barely said a thing. tears that come only from anger, for anger is all that can make me cry, only does it come from something deeper or is that my analytical meddling? should i back off of things? every moment spent thinking of you is another moment i have to face more of myself in a vulnerable matter. i dont want to see my own skin worn thin... i'd like to think of myself as thicker, stronger than that. i was, for a long time and when i didn't know the difference. then faces gradually unveiled and i fell for every one of them. i think this is a crummy starting point. you are too incomplete and i am too involved, both mentally and emotionally. if this is some sort of letter, this isn't the form in which you should receive it. too dangerous, we only throw ourselves into the road when no cars are coming. and there are so many secrets sidestepped, emotions buried under things both material and conceptual, under words... purposely sugarcoated. i built a candy house around your image and it was so beautiful no one dared touch it, let alone eat it. tried for a while to recycle my thoughts... cleverly revert them back to creative energies and awe everyone, the "smart and nice" girl i don't really let them see much of, she's written another poem and it's beautiful. this doesn't work, it's only procrastination. i can't throw away whatever it is about you that leaves me shaken and spinning. i can only throw away everything else. so now listen to my favorite dylan song "spanish boots of leather". make plans, make time... to be nocturnal some weeks, to rise early others. forget about all that makes you unhappy and if it doesn't heal the wound it should at least remove the blame. now some forgotten times, some tears without rhyme or reason and you'll be too busy doing happier things to sit down and ponder the source. some people their eyes are religious. when your ship comes in my eyes they will be open but i'll be feigning sleep. trying to get you back for times i've felt my love (if you could even call it that) has been wasted on something cold and ahrd. my teeth trying to break up your gravelly promises, i try to swallow the sick remains of you still left in my mouth. i try to swallow the fact that everything's made up. i wonder if one of us will try to reach the other through the ground and who will have a sweeter epitaph and i'm well-aware the chances of this thread still holding by that time are slim. but no matter how hard the wind is blowing or how strongly it will hit my skin some dirt i will sink my fingers into and wonder how much further i have to dig to get to you, trying to swallow the distance. forever yours 030407 ... kerry he wants to buy us things to make up for the lack of words shared. he'll hide behind the excuse that we're family. i sound sour but i hold no real ties to any family other than immediate family. i hid in the bathroom this morning when my grandmother's friend dropped by and i heard her talking to my brother, exclaiming at how big he's gotten; i shut the door and turned on the fan and the light and waited until she was gone. i haven't gotten any bigger, i'm stuck in this stupid cage of mine, both body and mind a cage, i'm still short yes though i'm taller than my mother... i've evolved not grown into bitter cynic ["takes after her father"] people-hater desperate writer basically STUCK in all the traits i've inherited. keep hoping one day everything will be enough for me. because this is not enough. but they called from the beach today. and i talked to nathalie finally and read more of the new book i bought --'Eureka Street'-- and complained over fries and made ramen. i wonder who is suffering from a hangover today. i wonder who will come home sick like before. i wonder why i care enough to wonder. because it is evidence that i care. 030408 ... kerry eyes glaze inhale flats and sharps, finely tuned grace and resume with this current dream you're high off of. although now it's not so much a high, it's more like a bad trip. the crooked branches the breadcrumbs, the footsteps in red clay... she left her sanity here, approximately one month ago, she's headed west. into groggy sunsets, floats into the gold anticipating peace of mind, if that even exists, her blood *here* on this thorn, still wet, this thorn- it's drenched in paranoia; we heard her shouting her flashbacks through the thickest of these woods. the couple next to us goes to the Symphony often. rite of passage into the cultured world... we are ageless here. she in her sophisticated heels and skirt, me, boyish walk in black and snaps and hips unbalanced. i watched him--college student?-- flip through his sheet music beforehand and she asked him the time so we could catch a glimpse of his face. and she back lucky lotto million $ grin! "yeah, he's cute." and then the sophisticate couple, i loved the weave of their necks that they craned to whisper. reminded me of other concerts, one in particular our faces close and us reclined and i vividly recall thinking of camping under open skies and brighter stars. you do that to me, plague me. i am a victim of your grin, your parasite, eyes too addictive. i wish i were immune, i wish i were still in Symphony Hall and maybe you could be there and this is all so very innocent while so very deliberate, heart pounds with real reason, i know exactly who my palms sweat for. 030411 ... kerry cut my hair short, i feel renewed and refreshed in a lighthearted giddy sort of way. it's very nice. today got a lot of "attention" for some reason i dunno why today is different from any other day, frannie says "are you and james going out?" and i said No, HATING the term 'going_out'because it's so.. i dont know, but i can't say we're 'dating' because we're not and also 'dating' is a term for something else entirely, stupid terms to define and categorize everything... but anyway then frannie says "well you should!" and she called me by his last name, Mrs SoandSo, making me blush and laugh and say something dumb, then audrey and yvonne talking about it, yvonne kidding that i stole him, mouth dropping open, wow there is a connection? yeah. amanda, saying "oh look, there's james, kerry," nudge nudge nudge, and mary-kathryn joining in too, i can't take it anymore!! well actually it is annoying but not that bad. we were making fun of emily today on the catwalk because we both really don't like her and she was arguing in french calling me names i couldn't understand because i don't speak french, and we always tease her and she thinks we are kidding, maybe that is mean but it is well-deserved... she told us we should have babies, and have a big mean family together. made me blush yet again. this was a jabbering gabbing highschool blath but it was enjoyable. 030415 ... lotuseater do what you want, just dont tell me about it 030415 ... kerry its passover and he seems sad. i listen to music i used to love in middle school and feel ultimately completely sad also. the rain comes and fills our town with static, one woman wearing black leggings and wrapped in a blue shawl wakls briskly along the sidewalk, face upturned toward the sky. i was tom sawyer today, loose plaid overshirt hair in my eyes and a half-eaten apple in my hand. developed ONE picture today and i think i will call it stone_flowers. When she says she's busy I never ask about her plans. When she says she doesn't feel like talking I say it's fine and we hang up the phone. Quiet understandings between us, smiles shared always despite her drooping lids or my sad-cornered lips, we stood on the bank of the creek and I watched her skip stones across the water. I never was able to skip stones very well but with a flick of her wrist she sent them spiralling out and dancing expertly. So I watched, hard fists jammed into my pockets, and everything was tranquil and sparkling, like the point of transition in a movie and I imagined the cameras we couldn't see recording and I tried to think of a soundtrack. No matter how accustomed we become to our normalcy and even our basic anonymity, when we look at ourselves and see aging lines appear and crease, or hair growing longer, or hands gnarled and veins pushing up like electrical cords embedded in our skin, we still feel like we are the only ones dying, when actually everyone else is dying as well. I sometimes feel like I'll be the first to leave, no matter what. There were Sunday afternoons that were somehow perfect and reigned over the rest of the weekend, even though we knew of the long day that awaited us the next morning. When the sun finally came out for good that spring, we were completely bottled water-barefoot-and biscuits, with shadows swimming, playing Poohsticks and splashing in leftover puddles from hoses and occasionally warm-weather showers. And every one of those Sundays felt like they'd be the last good Sunday for the rest of our lives. when i'm around you i sometimes feel like there are speakers in the trees and they're playing my favorite song. 030417 ... kerry waking up at exactly 11:00 a.m. every morning my alarm doesn't go off again, it is easter and i'll be stretched so thin a saranwrap smile, it is 4/20 which means nothing to me personally but my jewish friends will be smoking up, smoking while most of a nation is praying, how do i feel about this... doesn't it seem kind of disrespectful... because every religion, essentially, is exactly the same. immediately when i got home last night i brushed my teeth. i'd eaten too many sugarcubes, we'd nearly emptied out the jar, there were too many 'intellectuals' [!] in candler park and they were all drinking orange juice. i think of you as i take off my socks. my whole body is blistering, it feels as if my eyes are closing. we felt at home in the trees, scrambling into the arms of magnolias. and i often wonder how many times i've seen the same cars drive by and just didn't realize. and she said Ireland is the hip new place to be. wandering rainy streets writing poems about nothing, whole books about nothing instead of birds and trees and flowers, me with my irish name my irish hair and german nose, if i met someone in ireland would they find it charming that i'm american? lazy southern drawl that's barely there, tugging on the ends of my words and dragging down my voice, sometimes i am drooping i sit up and think, everyone else does what they want so why don't i? why can't i stand up and walk out when i'm tired of sitting here? are you afraid of the consequences of everything as i am? she felt embarrassed when they brought out the funnel. she's composed when she comes over at 10 but you can feel her shame radiating in the sticky april night, we were running down the sidewalk when we saw the car pull up, jostling the box a marraca of biscuits and sugarcubes. i always want to jump on the hoods of parked cars for no reason at all and i never do but my calves are always tensed and ready to spring as i pass by. never hungry in the morning. i can't stand holidays anymore, they only make me incredibly depressed and i can't think of a reason why. i've stopped waiting for the phone to ring. i stopped that awhile ago. my teeth and joints are aching when they say we are so cute. i shake my head laugh a little and wish they would just shut up. your eyes rip right through everything i write, everything i say. and i want desperately to be made of your skin, tough thick almost you say you are shy, you Aren't, they say i'm shy and i'm Not, according to people who are supposed to know me better than anyone else i am cynical and almost jaded. because i am quiet when i have nothing to say, that makes me shy? because i don't fill everything up with words, i do feel like i've left gaps everywhere in my life for the past year. we don't do anything about anything. i just need somewhere to dump all of my secrets. you just need someone to tell you what to do. 030420 ... kerry waking up at exactly 11:00 a.m. every morning my alarm doesn't go off again, it is easter and i'll be stretched so thin a saranwrap smile, it is 4/20 which means nothing to me personally but my jewish friends will be smoking up, smoking while most of a nation is praying, how do i feel about this... doesn't it seem kind of disrespectful... because every religion, essentially, is exactly the same. immediately when i got home last night i brushed my teeth. i'd eaten too many sugarcubes, we'd nearly emptied out the jar, there were too many 'intellectuals' [!] in candler park and they were all drinking orange juice. i think of you as i take off my socks. my whole body is blistering, it feels as if my eyes are closing. we felt at home in the trees, scrambling into the arms of magnolias. and i often wonder how many times i've seen the same cars drive by and just didn't realize. and she said Ireland is the hip new place to be. wandering rainy streets writing poems about nothing, whole books about nothing instead of birds and trees and flowers, me with my irish name my irish hair and german nose, if i met someone in ireland would they find it charming that i'm american? lazy southern drawl that's barely there, tugging on the ends of my words and dragging down my voice, sometimes i am drooping i sit up and think, everyone else does what they want so why don't i? why can't i stand up and walk out when i'm tired of sitting here? are you afraid of the consequences of everything as i am? she felt embarrassed when they brought out the funnel. she's composed when she comes over at 10 but you can feel her shame radiating in the sticky april night, we were running down the sidewalk when we saw the car pull up, jostling the box a marraca of biscuits and sugarcubes. i always want to jump on the hoods of parked cars for no reason at all and i never do but my calves are always tensed and ready to spring as i pass by. never hungry in the morning. i can't stand holidays anymore, they only make me incredibly depressed and i can't think of a reason why. i've stopped waiting for the phone to ring. i stopped that awhile ago. my teeth and joints are aching when they say we are so cute. i shake my head laugh a little and wish they would just shut up. your eyes rip right through everything i write, everything i say. and i want desperately to be made of your skin, tough thick almost you say you are shy, you Aren't, they say i'm shy and i'm Not, according to people who are supposed to know me better than anyone else i am cynical and almost jaded. because i am quiet when i have nothing to say, that makes me shy? because i don't fill everything up with words, i do feel like i've left gaps everywhere in my life for the past year. we don't do anything about anything. i just need somewhere to dump all of my secrets. you just need someone to tell you what to do. the picture window is a collage clumpy with glue and green tissue paper. i think i could cut right through it. 030420 ... kerry ah shit. the second one has one additional sentence at the bottom... i hate when that happens. 030420 ... kerry i will i CAN'T looking at you looking back at me smiling sincerely always your salty eyes are killing me slowly and i go home listen to "bones" by radiohead and feel scaly and dead all over i took pictures of the tree between jackie's and my houses today, the wavering timid "heart" tree. i remember when you and i were walking back to my house and i said it was a valentine tree and you laughed and asked me what was wrong with me. but the leaves are heartshaped and i looked at them last night when she was walking me home in her $8 plaid coat we were sidestepping the worms on the cold wet sidewalk i'm sidestepping you between classes i'm afraid if i talk to you too much i won't know what to say eventually at jupiter coffee he offered me any kind of milkshake i desired too nice, hazelnut or almost or mint, i stuck with plain chocolate and the rain came down in sheets soon after and shake the uneven coffeetable, pins and needles sliding off the cars and a family hides under the eaves of the gas station across the street, i say storms lull me to sleep but it's a little past 5 and not time to go to bed i always want to go to bed lately, but i'm back to organ-playing vampire dreams, and hiding in corners, and sneaking through gardens and today everyone was impossible. today she was in flannel and i was teetering on my own feet and the whole world kept changing the direction of its rotation, sending me flying, yesterday was good... you walked with me all the way to the parking lot and had to go back the other direction. she told me cat_power sometimes plays shows with her back to the audience, and everything was dreary but everything was watercolors everyone else's family members leaving for home and the trees flailing separately manic-ly (sp?) 030422 ... kerry almond, not almost 030422 ... kerry damn -the lightning shook- not -shake- 030422 ... kerry we watched "singing_in_the_rain" and "wallace_and_grommit" and ate cookies melting soft and cool into the basement when i had to babysit the little girl said "straight past the moon" in a very small voice during the movie and i looked at her sideways and her lips were hanging open and it was perfectly normal, somehow. for her that is. i think at some point everyone wishes they could be a marytr. don't you wish you had something to die for? when james and i watched "snatch" everything was chill and stretched, we laughed at all the same times and i look at him and feel nothing but serenity washing over everything all at once its not a big deal anymore the way i like you doesn't interfere with the way we laugh together and i showed him how to make hemp necklaces again, and his is thicker than mine so he cut some for me and last night i made a bracelet i'm wearing it right now ... i still don't want to smoke with him. and i was going to go with him to the festival, got his message 20 minutes too late and i was frustrated but not all that upset, just felt guilty because his voice was gnawing at the machine, he sounded so annoyed with me for not picking up, as if i've ditched him, it was unintentional. it always is. and i went with mary-kathryn, we saw modern dance and a booth with wire crowns i wanted one so bad but we'll make them, they were $20 after all. and the gay and lesbian parade band, with their rainbow sashes, they played songs and people dressed like fairies and other creatures watched on and huge slobbery dripping dogs crept between the legs of people in the crowd. saw turner and he had his arms around two girls, two girls plain and short and giggly and he hugged me anyway because we can't escape that we were each other's first friend, and although now his curls are jelled and he is classic-real-prep in a linen plaid shirt and i'm still something else, nothing in particular and i always was that way even when we were 3 and i made a conscious decision to change my favorite color to yellow because that was his favorite color. i'm still short, redhead with a tilted awkward smile and eyes that dart everywhere who forgets to introduce people and forgets to smile at strangers and walks with hips off-kilter always feeling like i'm about to fall over. and it's okay, to-day. 030427 ... kerry i finished reading "marriage in the trees" by stanley plumly today while i was processing some film from the waterworks. all day i've felt sick, unable to breathe out of my nose and that makes it hard to eat. on the couch in photo, green plastic swimming up around me i almost fell asleep they were playing cards and i was reading poetry about birds and trees and ornithologists and the setting was right. why am i listening to this boy talk about incubus, and talking about emo with audrey, and i care for none of it, but audrey's in love and i'm purely completely happy for her no jealousy at all, i wish i saw her more. i wish i saw a lot of people more... james you are driving me completely utterly insane to the point where at some points i want to just scream at you or push you and i never would, scream at or push anyone really, but i wear your necklace still. things haven't changed, they've just gotten busy. well. things haven't changed from my side... can we go on a picnic this weekend? or out to eat? i want to eat biscuits with you. biscuits glazed with honey and cars skidding by in filthy water and the half-empty bars across the street and everything could be perfect and fluorescent and i never cry, except out of anger, except when i'm so incredibly weak-willed, like last night on the phone with johanna, she may get therapy because of her relationship with her dad and jackie and i [kinda] think its bullshit because it is her fault, and her defensiveness, and normal father-daughter fighting, but we were talking and i realized Who Am I To Judge? there is probably a lot i dont know. she asked me as always after venting if there is anything wrong in my life. nah. just me. everyone feels like this sometimes. i've felt like this always. it's so unbelievably dumb, i can't even describe it without sounding, well 16 mom says everything going on is because of adolescence, and yeah... it probably is, as pathetic as it sounds. or most of it probably is because of adolescence. i told jo some stuff and felt hotness surging up behind my eyes and i wouldn't let it out. it was a better feeling after saying all the stuff i said, and she thinks there's something wrong with me, that maybe i have phobias, or am paranoid. i hate being analyzed and i hate hate hate pity and i hate feeling like there's something wrong with me because that's NORMAL NORMAL NORMAL NORMAL NORMAL i keep saying it in my head, average, normal. shouldn't i be the only one to analyze me? why would i need to be analyzed? what i told johanna is not such a big deal in my head because it's always, always, always there. always. [groan] so when i told her, i was only saying it to say it, to maybe get it out of my head, and she thought it was a bigger deal than i did, and it still seems ordinary to me, but she said it was heavy. it's like if I ever feel upset, about anything, i never want to tell anyone because i'm afraid of appearing overdramatic. 030507 ... kerry I can't help wanting to listen to Neil Young and no one else lately. Because when my headaches are this constant and the night is too hot to sleep, it's the only music that makes me feel any better. yesterday was a beautiful saturday though it was hot and sticky, looking for job applications with jackie and her sister not for me we drank juice from arden's garden, cranberry-apple my Favorite, L5 was too punk too pierced for their cousins and a man with huge dreads was passing out fliers at the intersection making it take forever for us to get through, the three of us girls sitting in this teeny red truck playing an old mixtape with radiohead and u2 and later that afternoon jackie and i gave each other tattoos and filmed random stuff, strawberries in the garden and her dog and each other, i felt filthy all day sweaty and it's not possible to wear the right amount of clothing, after a while you have to stop taking things off... that's how summer is here though. and it is definitely almost summer. james and i went to eat pizza together and he was just coming out of a sleepy fog. he seems to always be in a fog and he slept in the car on the way to pick me up but it's almost endearing. we sat outside where there were colored lightbulbs strung out above our heads and gargoyles on the red posts. things were wonderful, i did exactly what i wanted all day, we walked around in the dark through the park where a couple was having a drunken picnic and the playground was abandoned, conversation flows steadily as it does between friends, as it does between me and johanna, or me and jackie even, i am past the point where i can pick out specific aspects of the evening or specific things he said that made me giddy. it is a general happiness. it is warm and smooth i told him about how i sometimes wished i loved to drink just because it would make everything so much easier, and how the end of the schoolyear always filled me with so much regret, and he understood. he always does. 030511 ... kerry today we took the AP exam and it was hilarious terrifying, our first, it was a breeze. i b.s.-ed my way through the second essay but found out it doesn't matter if the historical evidence is correct just support the thesis, woo! james was last to hand in his paper, time ran out and the counselor was trying to yang it out of his hands while he was writing, he goes No! Wait! Just a minute! Don't! and she finally rips it out of his grasp. i was laughing pretty hard, johanna and i walked down to starbucks to get a cookie. it was about 5:15 and we'd been sitting in the room at the college for 3 hours or more. she got a chai latte, i got my chocolate chip, we sat in the grass on the churchyard that was so thick and so green and every blade so wide, so cool, wandered through the ditch and the trails by the museum, waiting for my mother, little 16 yearold girls still waiting for a ride, it's a sad sad world, ringing cellphones and soft cookies and AP exams and still we have to wait for rides. because we're lazy. and she left then, her sister's down at the noodlehouse with a car, i'm sitting at the gates of the campus playing snake on my phone, everything is gliding around slippery out here first day it's not sweltering out, and i look up and exposure_boy and devin are sneaking away from me, i sit up and stare and they go Damn. she saw us. they were planning to hide in the bushes behind the gate where i was sitting and jump out at me. they are screaming, "DO YOU GO TO THIS COLLEGE? ARE YOU A STUDENT HERE? COLLEGE! COLLEGE!" and i'm laughing the trees are dropping buds and little seeds everywhere they get in my eyes im thinking about where is my mother, where is her car, it's almost 6:00 im bored i want to go do something useful, and here i am doing nothing useful, because i have no homework, and this blathe is almost pointless except to say that i had a really good day because when we were waiting in front of school at 12:30 today james was standing far away with his headphones on listening to jimi hendrix and tapping his foot, bobbing his head, singing slightly, and we all turned around and watched him and laughed, and he never noticed. and i just thought aw, he's so cute. 030512 ... kerry i was wrong--people often don't even know what it is they want. and if they do know, they don't necessarily do it. when i started down this stupid path, i was very careful. i tried to stay out of the way. i'm less careful, now. people sit on the couch with their hands between their knees, their hands on their cheeks, hugging a pillow, hugging themselves, and claim they don't know what to do. they don't know what they want. they don't know how to do anything. they don't even know anything or even themselves in the first place, so now they are stuck. "it seems like you know what you want," i have said so many times. sometimes they laugh, sometimes they roll their eyes. sometimes they look at me, panicked, and ask me what that is. i can't help but laugh a little. "i can't say it. but i can see it--you already know the answer." i sometimes don't, though i should, have patience for people who sit in their life like rocks and refuse to move. they're in their own way. "you're just letting time pass you by," i hear myself say. "you don't have to make every moment magical, sometimes life is just boring, but you're letting it pass you by. you're just SITTING there." no one supervises me like they did at my last job. more and more i say what i want. i try to follow my own advice. i chopped off all my hair and started wearing more or less what i want to work. i only call and write when i want. i eat and drink what i want. a glowing west coast ipa, mussels, milk chocolate, a burger that drips pink juice down my chin. but so much of the time i don't know what i want until i see myself reaching for it. one more cup of coffee, one more chapter before i close this book. one more hour in your bed. i want your hand and i reach for it. it is always nearby; i don't have to reach far. 230619 what's it to you? who go blather from