minute_letters kerry this morning a flash of red running across her lawn while the car is idling across the street her eyes are bloodshot, hair tousled... i'm sorry that you had to wake up. i completely understand. we go to school and are in the photography room, me with my huge bag of grapes, the ones at the bottom are actually beginning to soften and maybe even ferment a little. you wake up suddenly. exposure_boy is talking about the tangelos and we are laughing. james is there looking too serious and so professional. he sometimes scares me out of talking to him. i vowed to myself this morning in the shower that i'd ask him about his trip to see katie in virginia sometime. it seems like they're engaged. he seems so salty. too grubby, for her, because with the exception of me last year, he usually likes the preppy beachy girls. i half-dreamed last night that they broke up. i turned over in bed and tried to open my eyes but they would only open halfway and thinking about it made me feel sick so i held my stomach and sucked in the blackness of my room and wished feverishly that i could just sleep. which is why i really want sometime to go off and find this vast poetic field where i can drink and toke until i feel like a baby just learning to walk and be completely disoriented for a few hours. i cannot stand the thought of being aware of my surroundings any longer. maybe we will park the car in the tall grass and turn on chopin so loud and just get really wasted and wander around in the headlights. how great would that be? i look out the window and behind the black sihlouettes of the trees the sky is turning pink to lilac to orange. and i think about chemistry and how i was thinking of all those derivatives in latin today and i feel so unbelievably alone during school, always now. johanna wants me to sit with her at lunch but she exhausts me and i never see jackie and james and rebecca and i skipped during photography today and hung out in ceramics with philip and exposure_boy because it's only the second day back at school our photo teacher doesn't care where we are. she is so spacy, victor is climbing on the desks and playing his guitar and rebecca is making eyes at eduardo because of his sexy spanish accent and that dorky little senior boy who i think is cute sits in the back with the girl with dreadlocks and they talk the whole time. one time when my dad was showing me how to mix dektol in the darkroom, he was telling me about how he had originally wanted to be a documentary filmmaker, and then he said how he hates his job because he does all this work for huge corporations while he is so against all of that, and i felt sad but finally had some clearer understanding of him when he said that his whole life, he never felt like he really fit in with the rest of the world. because while everyone else is at football games in the fall and trying to get the mexican guys at the convenience store to sell them beer or hooking up with their friends, i am thinking about how in high school time is just a series of minutes. minutes on your cell phone, minutes until 3rd period begins, until you get home, minutes left of soccer practice, the 5 minute conversation with the girl/guy you are practically obsessed with, minutes left of your AP world history teacher's lecture. the lilac and orange are gone. now it's only black. 030108 ... frAnk it only takes minutes to read what you've written, kerry, but in that short time you shine a pleasing light on a world that all of us are familiar with, yet it is all yours and you make it deepy fascinating. your writing drips with intimacy, intricate attention to detail, and the clever ability to see beauty in simplicity. your posts are fotos we can look at. paintings you can't just look at and keep walking. you have to stop and admire the effort and time that went into it. thank you for sharing your interesting life. you are so fucking cool. don't ever stop writing. 030109 ... birches someday i want to meet you kerry. i want to go to the places you go, so i can know what you know. so that maybe i could try to feel the things you feel. i love you're writing. everytime i read it, it's some new place i want to go to. 030109 ... kerry no one has ever said anything like that to me. it makes my hair feel like it's floating off of my head. thank you so much. i don't really know what else to say. i wasn't going to blathe about it because i was afraid i'd fuck it up or something, but i wanted to thank you. 030109 ... kerry i used up most of the ink in my pens drawing during chemistry toda covered a third of one page with doodles and checkerboard print and phrases like "make love not war" and because david said the word strum it caused this weird reaction in my hand so i had to write it down. and then i added the word bum under it. strum bum. would that be like a lazy guitarist? i am listening to a nice song by American Football and knowing tomorrow is friday. friday means jackie and i will go jogging at the park where the bicyclists and dogs and frisbee players are. friday means maybe hanging out at justin's like always. justin makes me sad because he is never alone. he makes me sad because i think he is sad, deep down. its only been about seven months since his dad died. i think he always has people around so he can be distracted. i wonder how he sleeps. maybe this weekend everyone will put on their ragged scarves and snow caps and go down to the elementary school and we can have soccer matches. and i can attack this new roll of film i have and document the weekend. ms. holley told us to write a page about ourselves to give to her so she can get to know us better, or something. and i wrote my name and why i was taking latin and didn't know what else to say because how do you summarize yourself in a page? what i didn't tell her: i am obsessed with light and documentation. i am afraid to learn anything i'll never use in adulthood because i think my brain will run out of space. whenever i listen to classical music i can feel myself getting smarter. i am constantly doing things i don't want to do because i am deathly afraid of regretting anything. i realize how backwards that sounds.... but it makes sense in my head, somehow, in some way i cant explain. i can't dance. there is someone i think about all the time, someone i have known for a while, and i can't do anything about it. there is something specific i know i could say to describe the way i feel about this person but i cannot write it or anything. and i feel like maybe i need to. 030109 ... kerry we pounded the sidewalk out of breath and snowman-lipped all the pigment simply sucked from our skin trains howl as they pull into the station $1.75 to escape this street with its spooked dogwoods and hazy yellow watertower bungalow houses climbing the hills to the railroad tracks. there are no stars just cornflower blue infinitely stretching towards the skyline where the buildings glow orange. you said you would try to keep it up with her until something found you, or you found something, here well i have found you, so what do i do now? i feel as if i could tell you anything. except this....... can we go to Pizza Oz this weekend, and make a movie with kasey? and maybe i will sneak glances at your mouth and i was thinking that if you were blind i dont know if i could stand to see you because your eyes are my favorite part about you what a lame thing to say i say so many lame things every day and you smile at every single one of them 030113 ... kerry today i got off the bus and ran inside, slid down the hallway, got my camera left a note on the kitchen counter: "am taking a walk around the block, taking pictures until it is too dark, will be back in a matter of minutes. -kerry" the same old man is walking the same old dog, the same dog since when i was little, i cannot believe it is still around... i take a picture of him as he passes when he isn't looking and i am walking up and down the street, wandering through the mossy ditches i snap shots of the watertower from between birch trees i wish it was shorter so i could climb up sometime like in gilbert grape (I AM KIND OF SCARED BUT I THINK I MIGHT MAKE AN ATTEMPT AT USING COLOR FILM!!!) i remember when jo and will and that jerk thomas and i went up to the roof and watched our families walking around in the square by the subway i felt like spiderman, i wanted to jump from roof to roof i almost fell climbing back down the ladder because my shoes were wet how many times have i listened to the song "everywhere" by polaris now and felt lonely my street at 4:15 is fake and lonely tree branches waxy, propped up like cardboard cutouts, everything is a paperdoll everything in perfect light i processed my film today that boy in my photo class kept teasing me and watching me his teeth are so straight he is too old for me probably the other one, the nerdy senior, talked to me also i stood at the light table and looked at my picture of james maybe i will make an extra print for myself 030114 ... kerry i made a collaged face in PhotoB today. it looks exactly like Janis Joplin and i am going to use it for my unity project. THIS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. hahaha. i like our routine of wandering aimlessly around the parking lot on fridays and getting rides to Willy's. we get food and i borrow your money, and i eat sour cream, (gasp!) and we talk endlessly. i will use photoshop to soften the lines on Janis's face. she has exposure_boy's gaping mouth and knit cap and audrey's squinting eyes she has laurens long blond hair and she looks crazed buffy came by and took rebecca away from me in the middle of class. she said, "gather all your belongings. don't ask questions." and rebecca asked me several times to go but i'm glad i didn't because our teacher ended up writing up seven people for skipping, all today. so rebecca left me there with no one so i went and sat dumbly in the processing room with the seniors. one girl who had cut off her dreadlocks last semester, with dark brown skin, a white gaping smile, and amber eyes victor with his long brown hair and cheesecutter hat, ripped pants, spindly skinny birch branch arms huge trenchcoat boy with a huge pocketknife and large face, who talks in whispers ever since he lost his voice they tell jokes and i listen and laugh later, victor and neil are yelling at me across the room. "HEY RED SHIRT! STOP CAUSING ALL THIS TROUBLE!" while i read The Colossus and perch my chin on my fist. i grab some prints, leave the room, go through the gym and into the main building, and run smack into my principal. i remember his speech earlier this morning. "THE STUDENTS WHO EGGED THE BOY'S BATHROOM STILL HAVE NOT BEEN TURNED IN. IF YOU DO NOT CONFESS, WE WILL GIVE YOU A FREE RIDE TO THE NEAREST JAIL, NO REQUESTS TAKEN. IF ANYONE HAS ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THESE CRIMINALS, THERE IS A $250 REWARD." lee said later that a freshman in her art class had jumped out of his chair and run to the office. he came back out of breath, saying, "i'm rich! i'm rich!" i go to the literature room, i go in, i give the prints to audrey. i go to ceramics, i talk to exposure_boy, i tell him i used his mouth and hat for my project. what makes me think any of this is interesting at all? i miss talking to james in literature. i miss him leaning over my shoulder to ask me questions. i saw him in the hallway and walked with him for a bit. i walk with justin to chemistry now but it is not the same. i miss james but i don't know if i have a real reason to. 030117 ... kerry we can't find kerouac anywhere. we searched bookstore after bookstore for messages between pages and had to settle for ginsberg and 99 cent photobooks, some spare change, and still a mind starved for perspective. we were hunting for new words and role models. we hate the cashiers with greasy chins and polo shirts even though they showed us to the poetry section. intellectual goblins, witches shrieking prose, our otherwordly angst shakes the bedroom floor. 030120 ... kerry why because everyone can relate to being lonely water is boiling on the stove blue flames licking the pot i left it in there a minute ago i want to burn the house down we talked about bad music today and i worked on my Janis Joplin picture on photoshop. it sucks ass to be back at school, i don't see anybody. but it was good because rebecca wasn't in photo today which actually gave me the opportunity to talk to other people because she is always saying how she feels "out of place." everyone can relate to feeling out of place. today was an eyes-closed day. i wandered the breezeways and had a small lunch and felt stuck together and folded up. you cannot escape me, i will talk to you eventually. i promise. 030121 ... kerry writing back again today. i bought On the Road by jack kerouac, i havent really had time to attack it yet. only chew on the first 2 pages. hehe. i have done so much fucking homework today,i could not hold a pencil in my hand so i tried to write with my left but it only got worse so i said, Screw It and i called vail. she made a cake and left it in the oven for an hour. she's bringing me a piece tomorrow, since as of yesterday i am officially NOT a vegan. no time to go in the darkroom, no time to do anything fun, except right now i am chilling out and listening to Joni Mitchell. i can drink milk and eat yogurt and slurp honey now but i don't want to. i want to go back to only eating grains and fruits and spinach and the like. i enjoyed feeling organic. my mom made me stop. when i am on my own and i can buy my own groceries, i will be a vegan again. last night i dreamed about james. he propped his fist on his hip, slouched, and said, "so when are we going to hang out?" and i woke up not wanting to face anything. 030121 ... mcdougall your mom made you stop being vegan?! what the heck? my friend and i became vegitarian together last august. his mom made him stop too. she said, "It isn't healthy!" i don't have as much respect for his mother now. 030122 ... Black Argonaut (i eat meat) eat some meat, you freaky orange skinned carrot eaters!!!!!! or at least eat some vitamins and beans. If someone's mom doesn't approve of your vegan lifestyle, then they dont appreciate your individual tastes and obviously dont respect you as an individual. Move out! Get your own place! EAT AS MANY GREEN BEANS AS YOU WANT!!! Or, cave in, eat those POOR DEFENSELESS creatures that are bred and beaten and killed and cooked just for that purpose.... The choice, my dear vegan, is yours... 030122 ... Lime Rider (still a bit mad but mostly not from th okay don't take this personal ( i need venting ).... but I hate it when people go disrespect some people, esspecially on blather where it doesn't have to be that way. Yes, I acknowledge the paradox. I was fucking mad at you just now. It's mostly over. You don't know how much I fucking disrespected you (yes mr. i eat meat) that moment. That seems like a lame insult. But with me you couldn't have accomplished worse. I'm sorry i got angry. you were probably just provoking. And laughing. I'm happy you have reached your goal. may it lead you and others to a happier life. (not being sarcastic) Please don't speak like that again. 030122 ... Lime Rider oh and kerry sorry for this on 'your' page. I liked your writing... hope this all hasn't spoiled it all. 030122 ... kerry hey, no problem, nothing is spoiled. :) because i still am in high school and because i live at home, my mom cooks for me, so it made it really hard on her to fix things i could eat. plus, i think she was sneaking stuff into my food.... ergh. anyways, it makes things easier, i guess, but it's kind of a bummer. mr. i eat meat, ahmm i dont remember what your name was... chill out. 030122 ... kerry she told the same story to every class. "the little southern kids who have never heard of wool will be waiting for the bus and it will never come, and they'll get frostbite, on the little tippies of their fingers. the fingertips, frostbitten, and they'll fall off and all of them will become fantastic cat burglars because they won't have fingerprints." ah. "nice coat," i say. you look nice in your navy blue pea coat. "haha, same to you." i look like madeleine in my red one. and i like the way you look under stage lights, slouched and relaxed and completely comfortable facing a screen of black. next week that black screen will be full of faces we won't be able to see, and i am so terrified of the stage, but i came up and sat with you and lauren and jackie and david who was wearing jackie's tight plaid pants with a ponytail and cheerleader-sherpa jacket looking like a girl, and i looked at you grinning as always and the auditorium and the fact that i'm scared is the reason i decided not to give up my part this morning but it was fun after our scene i was walking on the sets that were spread out on tables, chalk in hand, measuring and we chalked them in really well because it was all done so mathematically. stairs are 6 inches apart, the curb was 4 but got widened accidentally to 4 1/2//////// this weekend i'll go downstairs into the darkroom and make prints of my tuba pictures and "i'm bored, let's hang out" just like my dream except it will be coming from my mouth instead of yours and everything will be alright 030123 ... kerry sick of name droppers and people who are just full of shit in general my parents went out with turner's parents he's changed too much, i miss everyone the way they were in preschool... he's so priveleged am i jealous? am i jealous that he's in amsterdam right now, he is fluent in french and is very good at spanish and german, do i care that he is so tall and too-well dressed, by most people's standards he is probably better dressed than i am. always those pressed jeans, black shoes, black leather coat, thick wool sweater, remember we went to armani exchange and the tommy hilfiger store at the mall because he wanted a belt, i head for the sale rack at gap and i know he is switching feet back and forth rocking hands in pockets i don't like that he's impersonal and last time we went to the movies he abandoned me with jackie and his friend from faraway i felt worse for her he went off with his guy friends and they laughed in better seats. but when i came home tonight everything was alright, everything felt so great, i searched for my favorite green pen and my notebook and actually drew a basic outline of my next story, i felt like i needed some structure. AH! today was good, though. i will forget about turner. mom and i look cute walking around together, she is so short and has bright blue eyes, i almost wish i had them instead of my heavy-lidded mossy green-brown but i got the red hair and i am nearly two inches taller than her, we walk side by side and i bought blue chuck taylors from a girl with a pretty alaskan mouse-face, and a belle and sebastian cd from my neighbor's record store the one that tromps around mornings in jeans and stained-glass leggings talked to justin will call tomorrow we are going to dinner. "can i be your dinner date?" he asks me jokingly and smiles goofily. i am laughing. "i'd love that," i say. we will go with kasey and nathalie because the three of us (the girls) are thinking of filming tomorrow, kasey wants crazy shots with violin in the background and i want to convince nathalie to dress up in one of those sparkly dresses the ice skaters wear and take her to the park where she can iceskate and fall everywhere and we will film people laughing and staring later we will go have dinner with justin and maybe james and i'll have my camera and a song in my head and not have to think about anything 030124 ... mcdougall you make your life sound like a lot of fun. the things you do, the people you know. it would be fun to know you in person. if i did, i would like to think, we would be friends. cheers to you friend. 030124 ... kerry cheers. i think we would be friends. and i appreciate that you said that, it was really nice. 030126 ... kerry brainstormed w/ kasey and nat for the movie, we came up with lots of ideas. evil easy listening, mayonnaise funnels, violins, jackie as a caveman, hi-fives, "do you have oral sex?" "YES! YES YES!", afghanistan questions, ice skating, french titles, multiple people throwing up, 'industrial waves' by allen ginsberg, singing ladies, everyone laughin, mayonnaise, fast rewind/fast forward she wants to enter it in the film festival at their highschool saw james today at sarah's for rehearsal, i suddenly ran out of thoughts why does everything feel perfect when we are together and very hopeless when i am alone last night i lay on my bed listening to belle & sebastian and thought about things, mostly things having to do with him, and i have come to a conclusion (see: james) 030126 ... Black Argonaut it appears as if i have become the enemy of this page. i respond to your anger and foul language thusly: i have many friends who are vegetarian and i wholly respect their lifestyle and have even defended it for them. i did not mean to mock anyone's lifestyle nor provoke anyone. i apologize to Lime Rider (the one who used all that foul language) and everyone else who may have gotten mad at my comments. I only wished to throw a little laughter onto a subject which is shrouded in controversy and anxiety. 030127 ... Lime Rider I'm sorry for the foul language, any other day it wouldn't have got to me. As I said.. I needed venting and you happened to come along. As for the laughter... i considered it like that for a moment... but sarcasm is hard to grasp here. Hmmm. We all need a hug sometimes. * hug *, and one to you too kerry, and anyone else who isn't afraid of approaching me 030127 ... kerry shot out 5 prints in less than 15 minutes today, felt relaxed and chill, LUCKILY i was able to talk to jackie last night about james. it feels like her word is always truth even if it is meant for comfort. i get off the phone feeling ten times better than i felt when i called her. i am listening to the new york dolls and thinking about him. how when he talks to me he sidles over and leans close and doesn't take his eyes off mine for a second. i like that kind of confidence, it's energizing. i want i want walking down church st. or sycamore eating biscotti anything anything with my camera swinging against my chest and we can listen to phish or eat at johnny's or watch a movie or anything i will make it happen i have to but my lungs are tired and i am sick of swimming 030127 ... kerry called you last night, ahhh it took me forever just to dial the numbers, over two hours in fact, by 9:53 jackie is yelling at me, "DO IT! DO IT!" and i am squirming knowing i should, WHY because i want to, i'm half-trying to waste time and then say it's too late, half-trying to work up my nerve, whats the big deal? i've called you before. but... i've never had to make up a reason to call, like last night when i spent time agonzing over a good excuse, so i finally do, and you're not "available," your sweet mother takes my name and number, because it's too late to back out now right? she says you'll call back before 10:15, and you do, about five minutes later, i'm thinking about how i hate the way my name and number look on a piece of paper and i'm trying to distract myself listening to the velvet underground, pulling off my socks, phone rings and i know it's you and i'm surprisingly calm, i ask about what i promised myself i would ask about and then we launch into a nice conversation, one like i would have with any of my close girl friends, and i make you laugh hysterically, trying to convince you to get out of fourth period to help me paint sets. you were so stressed today during rehearsal. i am standing near you. you, poor director-boy. your face weary and drawn, you look at me, lock eyes, i give you a warm understanding smile and i get one right back, finally, one of the few smiles i see you wear during rehearsal. i tried to do my reading for history tonight, i got a lot done but kept falling away from the book thinking about you, feeling hot anxiety in my nose and between my eyes, something feels like it is ending but nothing ever started, a million fragments things left unsaid between us i feel lately as if everything in my life is made up my photo teacher has gone insane, beat-a-student-day is tomorrow and our history teacher will be dressing you in chainmail and beating you with spiky club and a spear and a large axe, there are a million chemistry questions i don't remember ever hearing anything about and i am so low on sleep she says everything will work out and i am still believing her because i know she is the smartest person i know 030128 ... kerry *because she is the smartest person i know 030128 ... Black Argonaut Kudos and a high five to Lime Rider. Kerry: say what you want to this person you like, and say it now. If you don't, for any reason, the opportunity will pass you by and you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Take it from one who knows. 030129 ... kerry .make ramen .look at new prints .tell my mother what i want for my birthday .think .change into sweatpants we drove through wretched suburbia to drop audrey off on our way home from our interviews. portfolios in the back, jackie's Chopin and Copland books all over the van, we stopped at this bakery and got hot chocolate and cookies and coffee and truffles, heard about the space ship that exploded or crashed, i dont even know what happened, its a scary thought. i heard there's debris all the way from texas to louisiana. hopefully none of it will blow our way, we walk around with our art spilling out of makeshift portfolios with our soft southern accents. to me, they're only noticeable when i'm really listening out. lis'ning went=wint i hear it now! ah. talked to james last night, i am pretty sure he was stoned. i was kind of jealous. i sat on my bed with new prints of lichen and jackie and old men walking dogs and wanted so desperately to float away like a bubble. went to the record store with johanna and looked for the Shins and Belle&Sebastian, and there was a new man working the register, with an italian face and gelled black hair and a worn-out flannel shirt. and i went to the used clothing store and tried on an orange bowling shirt with the name Mollie on the front, and it fit but it was $29.95 which i thought was ridiculous. it was weird to pull into my driveway with dogwoods and the sunshine so bright and everything looking cheery and empty. it's weird to walk around with artwork and have people look at you twice. there was a boy at the interviews who was tall and lanky and had a nice pen and ink drawing of a vase with some kind of grass coming out of it, and he had divided the rectangular paper into quadrants and used color ink only on two of the diagonal boxes. he had a big nose and a tan shirt and had his artwork set up next to mine, and his portfolio was tied around the edges with big fat twine or rope or something and i found him to be very attractive. but everyone looked so frantic and all i wanted to do was go home and eat ramen. "stoner," vail would have said, and punched my arm and cackled. or go to a concert. not a show, i am not in the mood to be around any kind of scenester or name dropper or anyone trendy. i just want to stand against the wall and watch people. and listen to live music. this morning everything was black, and bread and butter, and cold. and dad walked me to jackie's, and in the car ride home i unfolded the edge of my thick wool cap so it covered my eyes and kept the light out and so i could try to sleep, and audrey giggled when she saw my nose and mouth poking out the bottom. we stopped at the german bakery and got some kind of apple coffe cake and drove by cemeteries with blinding white statues of saints and idols marking graves and standing like ghosts on the grassy hillsides. today will be a good day, i am sure. 030201 ... kerry this weekend, after calls on cellphones and driving past parties not going in, jackie and i went to the coffeeshop and i got a bagel with honey on one side and a huge huge mug of hot chocolate, and she got a cinnamon bran muffin and a thing of juice by arden's garden. and my mug was painted with names of all the smalltown kids we'd met in that shop over the summer, so i was gulping down the watery hot cocoa to get to them all, Kate with blue hair and Thomas from the roof with the stoner eyes and Robbie with the Clash tshirt and Will the slap-bassist and the man with the glittery blue eyes that reminded me so much of james kept coming inside past our table and smiling at me and even though his face was killing me he has so beautiful, i felt like horseshit, i was so sick, still in 2 hours i taught jackie chapter 6 because she's an auditory learner and it was helping me some too. she ate all my cream cheese and my eyes kept watering up and my face kept scrunching and we went outside where we saw amber from my photo class and 2 of her friends. so she came by and showed us a bong she bought from a street vender, it was made from this pretty vodka bottle with a red heart and wings on it and a neat wooden top, and something else blue, i guess a pipe, but it was metal, i dont know it looked weird to me. her friend had weed lotion. im not friends with any of them but she seemed excited to see us and she took pictures of us studying in bright sun on the steps of the square with my arms propped up behind me and my nose red at the tip. today i felt so crummy (crumby-- holden caulfield style) that i nearly fell asleep right in the middle of class, and during photo, i had nothing else to do so i made a list... FEEL GOOD THINGS: capn jazz roast beef flavored ramen vintage valentines red fingernails old jewelry orange freshwater pearls sleep good dreams clean sheets weather when its 60 degrees when its stormy the smell of ozone worn hemp the smell of stale smoke junky cars mixtapes from friends little girls singing old battlescars looking through $3 vinyls writing late at night goldfish in round bowls having no destination having no consequences tiny periwinkle flowers it is lonely when you are looking for someone you once saw and you cannot find them in all the usual places i always look for the back of your UMBRO tshirt or curls wisping at the nape of your neck then lonely victor plays his guitar on the hillside, 4th period, while the freshman gym class plays soccer on the field below and people are sneaking away with their fingers woven together like chinese fingertraps and i use my "calculator" (my cellphone) to call my mother, "please don't make me go to soccer, i feel just terrible" and amber wasnt there, i remember her talking about hot boys in her old life, wherever it was in new england that she used to live, and i saw her tonguering flashing like money in her mouth she was controversial, while i strove for creativity and i cut everything apart while her lens puts it back together 030203 ... dustin aka swinger of birches good things: kerry in your life, telling her life to you. i know i am human and alive when i read what you write. 030204 ... kerry yesterday feeling tilted and skewed, sat on my bed and recorded the exact time and my position on the bed because the light was so inexplicably beautiful, early february precisely 5:25 pm when i was nothing but a pair of eyes in a thick cloud of something like frost and smoke, i cant even describe and talking to justin last night he goes, "we forgot to go out to eat last weekend!" "oh yeah, we did! well, this weekend, okay?" "yeah, cool. friday or saturday?" "um, doesn't matter. i have no plans." "ok. we can decide when it's closer." "alright." ... "what did you feel like eating?" "ahm, im thinking like pasta or pizza or something, that ok?" "yeah, sounds good. fancy or not-so-fancy?" this catches me off guard and i am not sure how to respond at first. "not so fancy." "cool." "yeah, im looking forward to it." "we can go eat on friday and you can come to my house afterwards and we can hang out." "fun!" later, "do you like DMB?" "yeah i do." "well they have a cover band playing at the variety on saturday night. nick and i were gonna go, and i thought maybe you'd like to come." and i would. and today, my first soccer practice this year, we are running in the cold and he cheers for us, and later he and his friend stop tossing baseballs and go up and sit on the dugout to watch the two teams. lonely eyes wandering breezeways, james pushes past gently in clogs and navy fleeces, all nose, all skin, tan casual and loose i sit with candlewax drying on my bedroom floor and neil young reminding me of roadtrips and childhood, trying to study, absorbing page after page about feudalism and france and scholasticism i am sick of caring david is going to an herbalist jackie's dad doesnt stress, he does tai chi, she tried to use of his tricks to clear my sinuses today in history i want acuptuncture i want yoga and pilates and massages and stress balls hot baths classical music pedicures and sunbathing i could sleep everywhere, i stand up and my legs vaporize in the middle of class, even while i stand in the darkroom and neil does the scary brit voice and victor screams hysterically and hides behind me, my new nickname is "red shirt," heads still between my knees staggering through every page 030204 ... kerry leave leave leave leave leave!!!!!!!!! i dont care about webb's party! i dont care, i dont care that you suspect that andrew cheated on his girlfriend, i don't care that you went to that party, ooo big deal, i don't care, i dont respond, i dont contribute, you talk talk talk about how you "didn't want to see him cheat on her" so you went and waited in the car namedropper!! this is my new insult and it feels like lately, it applies to everyone but you're the only one around who i can freely ask questions of. you're the only one who really asks things of me. when i say, "so, you wanna go take pictures today?" you say quickly, "No." fine. our principal comes in. fuck him. i don't feel like acting busy so i sit and continue to read "on the road." later, after he's gone, our photo teacher comes up with a smile on her face and says to me, "hey, kerry-- a hint. next time an administrator comes in to take notes, try to at least look busy." i laugh but i don't get up until she practically shoves a camera at me. "don't you need to take pictures for your watershed project?" she says. "well, yeah, but there's no water--" "don't we have that new fountain-pond thing up there?" i grimace. victor grimaces. "but it's in the shadows, its so dark." "go take pictures, here, its bulkloaded, 20 shots. you can bracket. use up frames." so i leave rebecca staring at the computer screen and i go outside, wander endlessly around the stupid looking pond they just installed where soap bubbles prickle up and spill over the rocks. and i sit down stiffly on a rock and zoom in zoom out take pictures of slick stones and water trickling turner is online, he is sick like the rest of this city, why do i feel so sympathetic all of a sudden? he's never been that nice to me, but i tell him i'm sorry, and try to cheer him up. this weekend i will cheer MYSELF up, i will go hang out with justin and hear live music like i've been saying i want to, and take lots of photos and watch cabarie (sp?) with johanna. i need to take my mind off of soccer and AP history, my research paper, my failing test grades, (-i've never failed so many tests so badly in such a short amount of time, ever-) my cold, a certain boy, money my family doesn't have anymore, "the electric kool-aid acid test" by tom wolfe and "howl" by allen ginsberg are in the mail on their way to my house as i write this. new books, fresh pages, these will clear my sinuses. 030205 ... the swinger of birches there is a poem by allen ginsberg that suprised me. i think the name of it was the title of a year like "paris 1963". it was a beautiful poem because i knew that the person he was writing it to was his lover, a boy in new york city. for that poem, that short burst of brilliance, ginsberg let down all his walls and i saw the gentle benevolence that was the core of his angry writer's heart. i used to think that beatniks were something i wanted to be, but i stopped believing when i realized that life wasn't so bad and all the little things mattered more than the politics and drugs of superior authorities. i am nuetral, the world revolves around and outside of me. i can't be apart of it, because when i am, i get very sad. ps. thank you kerry for writing back. 030206 ... kerry when i was walking in the hallway after school yesterday, walking to meet johanna, i walked by my old math class and my homeroom teacher, who was in there, threw a shoe at my foot. it was really strange, and it made my jump in the air, so i backed up and looked in the room to see who it was, and he was standing in there chuckling. "nice throw, eh?" he said in his australian accent, and i had no IDEA what to say, so i gave him a strange, confused look and kept walking and james came up behind me and we laughed about it. he was smiling and looked nice when we walked outside and the sun hit everything in this big blast of gold, and i felt like i could TELL HIM, my god, i was so close and i blew it and i went home with johanna and sat on her couch drinking cocoa slouched under the window where rows of little glass bottles lined the sills, and i wanted to kick myself in the mouth over and over and over. he said he was going to justin's to smoke the last time before soccer season. i just kind of laughed and was happy that he wouldn't be doing any of that for a couple months because i was sick of how into it he was getting. it is nearly 6:00 at johanna's and i have a new roll of film and i remember the little nature preserve near her house. "we have to go! we have to go!" so we're running around the house trying to find sweaters and shoes, and i'm saying, "we're running out of daylight!" and finally we get out of the house and walk the two blocks there and we go into the nature preserve through little arches where the branches hold vines of lace and down to a big wooden lookout over the swampy pond and we watch the wind make little waves on the blueglass surface. and down through the mud and into the forest where the ground is carpeted in red-orange pine needles and the trees sway just at the top but if you stand quiet, you can hear them creaking and groaning. and if you stoop and look through the trees you see that they seem to go on infinitely and in the distance is just more gray and orange. and then you keep walking and come to this big rock where if you climb up you can look down into the fringes of the forest and at the brances making a sort of slanted roof over the ground, and then through some shrubbery into this short patch of purple and green clover. up the trail it is like glacier where my family took those monstrous hikes, and the trees are huge and towering next to the path and on the right there are long fallen trees over a swamp area. i take so many pictures and i am so jealous because if i lived there i would always be down in the nature preserve writing. we go home and her mother has bought all these things like brie and margarita mix (my idea, my favorite) and french bread and macaroni and soybeans, so we cook up a big feast and emily comes over and we watch Dracula with Bela Lugosi from 1931 and i love it. then jackie and audrey come and we lie on couches watching Edward Scissorhands which is my favorite movie and jackie cries rivers. at home i read "Howl" in its entirety for the first time and feel pained and i sleep dreaming of drowning puppies and beachwater and amsterdam in a sandbar. and everyone is mad at me for some reason. today i hope to buy a new journal and cover it in fabric, and i hope to finish up my film, and tonight justin and i will go to dinner and then go to the concert. 030208 ... kerry see: minute_letters2 030209 ... kerry listening to a yo la tengo cover of the ramone's song "i wanna be your boyfriend" and putting off homework and thinking of things i could say things i could tell you intense not so intense we walked after school as always, you are in the habit of waiting for me, i love that..... i love walking in the sun even saying nothing still feeling peaceful tranquil so many pretty words to describe the smiles bubbling up inside me i wait for my edward_scissorhands soundtrack in the mail, i wait for answers you feel bad about not giving me, when she comes in town you can't call me and we can't wander aimlessly, when she comes in town i know you'll make out with her, and hold her hand, and if i see you it will kill me and i know i will walk around unsure of what to do with myself and acting the way johanna described me that night i saw you and you smoked a joint with all those grimy private school girls with greasy hair and exposure_boy broke his promise and inhaled as much as he could and she later said i was lost in my own thoughts. but i'm like that always, it just got worse this time. dad and i rode home together tonight and i had the huge red itchy blanket on my legs and stuck my feet into the heater and they burned and toasted and cooked i watched the city lights come into view and zoomed in on the skyline like lightning bugs frozen everywhere after school she called us "cute" and it made me feel weird and embarrassed because i hate attention, and i said there was nothing going on, what is so cute? and she said, "Justin told me all about it." but there you were, green-army-jacket-boy, and you know what? you did that thing you always do, just turned around and smiled at me for too long, and i smile back, and everything is fine, except for some weekend soon i don't know when, but it will be a time when i can't talk to you the way i'd like to 030218 ... kerry oooh... wrong one, sorry guys 030218 ... remembering the mastery of kerry 080716 what's it to you? who go blather from