lauren + coffee = hummingbird on crack

one surefire way to clean off your desk:

spill water ALL OVER EVERYTHING!

today's been fun...

if you can't hear the sarcasm in that statement, then you don't know me.

And here's where your mother sleeps
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore
And it's so sad to see the world agree
That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies
All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes

Two headed boy she is all you could need
She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires
And retire to sheets safe and clean
But don't hate her when she gets up to leave

jeff mangum

coming home

i'm starting to remember why i hate coming home. it's the interminable boredom. i have nothing to do. i've watched entirely too much tv and i reread one of my childhood favorite books, julie of the wolves. i sleep too much and feel like crap the rest of the day. i could drive up to my cousins' house, but all we'd end up doing is talking, watching a movie, or sleeping. i want to go out and get some sort of alcohol because i can. but there's no one to drink with. the dogs stink and need a bath...but i dont have the energy. there are plenty of cookies and pies and breads and dinners i could make, but i just cant seem to get started. that's what i really want to do, i want to cook. i want that warm environment and the wonderful smells and the mess and the sweet accomplishment afterward. i'm just not comfortable here.

the one up side is that my bed is warm. for so many years, i've struggled to get my bed warm. finally, i have found the right combination of blankets to keep me from waking up in the middle of the night shivering.

i need something to do...desperately. i really wish we had an extra car. plus i just feel so damn guilty using my parents' gas or time or car or anything.

why can't someone cook good food?? i'm freaking tired of takeout.

"I thought I had found my prince charming. He was perfect and wonderful and we were going to live happily ever after. Imagine my surprise when I kissed him and he turned into a frog! I was so angry and hurt and I felt so betrayed. I felt deceived. I pouted and raged until I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and found that I too was a frog."

-my mother

tonight i am blown away by the amazing girls on my hall. i have underestimated all of them. i was wrong. these are some of the most amazing and real women i have ever had the privilege to know, much less live with. i hope i have time to get to know as many as i possibly can in the next two weeks.

spam.

spam email i just got. i feel like i've read this before...but i can't place it. well, all but the last part.

But now, walking home under the frosty stars, he felt very quiet already, as though he needed no weight to lie heavy on his restless heart. It did not seem restless now, but very still, as though it too were dead. He noticed that the air was milder, and as he crossed the bridge below his house he stopped and listened. Yes, the fine ear of his experience caught a faint grinding sound. By to-morrow the river would begin to break up. It was the end of winter. He surprised himself by his pleasure in thinking of the spring. He slept hardly at all that night, waking with great starts, and imagining himself in strange foreign places, and then recognizing with a scornful familiarity the worn old pieces of furniture in his room. He noticed at these times that it was very cold, and lifelong habit made him reflect that he would better go early to the church because it would be hard to get up steam enough to warm the building before time for service. After he had finished his morning chores and was about to start he noticed that the thermometer stood at four above zero. to. You can begin with SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery, and you can hang onthe whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet toseins to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a speech,

“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
2 Corinthians 3:6

i had it easy. i have it easy. i know.

last night i dreamt i was thrown to the lions. this morning i woke up and found that i was still in their den.

its like being sick...but being so drugged that you forget, so you go out and run around and just make yourself more sick and then wonder why youre so tired. i dont know why. just because your problems are smaller than others' doesnt mean yours are invalidated or that your pain is any less.

valentine, i think i taste it.

the sounds of silence permeate the dawn's rosy glow

opening credits:
Roman Candle - Elliott Smith

waking up:
Sleep the Clock Around - Belle & Sebastian

first day at school:
Four Leaf Clover - Badly Drawn Boy

falling in love:
Caring is Creepy - The Shins

breaking up:
Nobody - Johnny Cash

prom (but i didnt go):
Irma - Magnetic Fields

life's okay:
Evening On The Ground - Iron & Wine

mental breakdown:
Noah Visits - James Newton Howard (The Village Soundtrack)

driving:
Times Have Changed - The New Pornographers

flashback:
Desperate Guys - The Faint

getting back together:
Blueberry Frost - The Mountain Goats

wedding:
Mother's Eyes - Jump, Little Children

birth of a child:
Passing Afternoon - Iron & Wine

final battle:
Allegro Vivace E Con Brio - Ludwig Beethoven

death scene:
Caberet - Liza Minelli

funeral song:
Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella

end credits:
Hickory - Iron & Wine

not too incredibly impressive...but good for a start i suppose. perhaps i will put together an actual soundtrack for my life. it's actually quite interesting if you listen to the songs.

but he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind

so im working on my life soundtrack...or at least the one for right now. i can see myself doing this quite often. i change my mind a lot. why? because i'm too tired to go to sleep. because i'm too tired for it to be tomorrow yet. not because of tomorrow...but because i'm too tired to handle another day...or even the idea of another day. so i'm wasting time. trimming my itunes for a final time. well...not final, but close.

here are the rules for the soundtrack (thanks amy)

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool..

they swallowed the pills like flowers, like they had tomorrow to gain.

im listening to iron and wine again. i dont know why. theres something there thats so broken and beautiful, something that reaches a place in me i forgot. a place that isnt often awake...a place that shouldnt be awake very often. i want your flowers like babies want God's love or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come. time moves forward as sure as tomorrow will come. a sorrowful comfort in constancy. the innocence of a daughter who wants nothing but God's love...and we can't give it to her. we are just so very much not enough...for anyone. the deep hunger i have for one of those soft, warm bundles, still curled up in the shape of the womb. content to close my eyes with my face close to his. something so joyful in the first sounds and cries. something so wonderful. a painful yearning that i can feel from the tightness in my throat to the ache in my chest to the tingling at the tips of my fingers. papa died smiling. im sad. i dont know why. i dont want to be. i shouldnt be. maybe because i missed a dose...maybe two, i cant remember. dont worry. im afraid when your eyes drift away. afraid you will catch the worry in mine. i dreamt about rain...lightning and a deep thunder that shook my chest. cold, crisp, wet wind filled with the smell of the storm washed over my body like a baptism. a relief from the heat that threatened me. i cut my finger yesterday.

waking before you ive got a fever and a childish wish for snow. seems like a long, long time since i spun you to this borrowed radio. you pick a place that's where i'll be. time like your cheek has turned for me.

like the lord who has seen his love but we dont know. im not enough. im sorry. i wish i was.

im so cold...and im shaking my head but the spiderwebs wont go away. im getting tangled up. tuckered out and tamed. broken horse. broken in. broken spirit. tame...broken spirit. a history of lovers led me down the path to you. sometimes i wish things were different. speak as if no one else ever could offer the same. bow as the curtain goes down. fuck 'em they'll come back for more, waiting for a knock at the door. like a razorblade. stop. stop. listen for the warning signs. be watchful, be wary. there's something inside you that could kill you tomorrow. there're demons inside his little orange bottle. we were sixteen maybe less maybe a little more. watching the neon on a liquor store. i finally had a story to tell. an autumn-time lullabye sang our newborn to sleep, waiting in the woods on christmas eve.

im fighting her. i am. she gets her claws around my neck sometimes, but the smell of blood and the heat of the battle clear my eyes, and somehow i wrestle my way out. there are cuts on my neck, but the pain gives me clarity. dont worry my dears, dont worry. dont be afraid of the dreams fever brings. the cold, wet wind will wash them all away and thunder will waken you. hell i thought it was already as heavy as can be...but that's not true. i knew it was never true. i dont know if i will ever realize when it gets heaviest...but i know it's not there yet. will the little pink pills make me blind to the weight that crushes me? will i be happy and ignorant until the end? i hope so. i dont want to see the end. i dont want to know it's coming.

ive got her by the tail now. i'm winning. im strong enough now.

i want your flowers like babies want God's love
or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come.

whisper me tomorrow of your hand and shoulder. red pressing through my breast to reach inside your yearning. to bridge your river eyes. wandering catches in the vine when softly woven. as i'm pressing back inside you from the cold; a retreat from the fingers reaching through the wooden door. loosing sense from the hand wrapped around my mouth across my cheeks. lost within uncertainty you found me. beneath the leaves that fell, beneath the shadows held. strains of sunlight found me, as happenstance stumbled on the vision of a lie we told. listen to the chords on sunlight strings that hang below the canopy. metallic in cold clarity of colored trees.

damn it all.

so i started to work on my take home exam thing and i got one chapter done. then i look back and realize that each question is supposed to be a PAGE in length. needless to say that means i have to redo my answers thus far, which is just depressing. so, having lost ALL motivation, i wandered around the internet...looking at training programs that would give me a good job in case i dont actually graduate because this whole lack of motivation thing does not bode well for me in the long term. though that is worse case scenario it still means that i didnt get the work done that i wanted to get done, and i cant now because i told myself i'd go to bed by 11. however, i did take the time to look and see how many questions i would have to do per day to be done by the due date...only 2 per day. thats doable i suppose. if i dedicate an hour a night to it, and work as if it's due tomorrow, it should get done. my ultimate goal is to be done at least one day before it's due. that would be freaking amazing. however, i still have so much more stuff hanging over my head from other classes (research methods is the biggest monster right now) that i think at the end of it i might just have to have an emotional breakdown for a day or two. the good news is that once that's over, i'm good to go.

a cold season

the fabric of my clothing scratches more at my skin and, when i bend over, there are small pains in the skin of my back. needles pricking and scratching away as the skin stretches painfully, dryly. i smile and my face stings and stretches tight over my cheek bones, across my forehead, and just under my bottom lip. i can't escape the sunny fall days that frustrate me with their too hot sunlight on my head and right side while the cold wind keeps me from shedding one of my thick and cumbersome layers. the warm weight of my extra blankets is comforting, until i wrap myself up and flail in a panic to escape the smothering embrace. i like looking out of windows in the fall, though. or driving in a car. then it's not too hot and i'm not shivering, but i get to enjoy the amber, garnet and lemon colors in the trees. i stare as far out as possible in the ice-clear air, trying to find the last horizon. or i walk through the woods and put my hands in the ice-cold stream, letting the water numb my fingertips. those are the good parts of the cold. not the maddening static cling of my hair to my neck, or how frustratingly dry everything is. if it isnt unbearably dry, it's cold from the damp. i have my guitar now. i have the comforting, crackling fire sound and smell of a hearth in the soft, deep chords at my fingertips; no longer numb from the winter, theyre warm from playing the strings, lengthening them and shortening them on the metal frets. the silver-wrapped silk digs into my fingers, but i don't notice, because i am focused on the harmonious reverberations and soft lullabye of an instrument much older than i; an instrument that sang me to sleep so many times, a humble accompaniment to the gentle tenor of my father's voice. this is the cold season.

ok.

i'll fight it.

i'll fight it with all God's strength.

and i'll win.

ten-minute shower

GO!

i hate the winter

i said i didnt want to go. truth is, i didnt want to get up the energy to go. i dont have the energy...or at least the will to pick it up and dust it off.
i said it was too cold outside, when really it's just too cold inside. if it was warmer, i'd have given a different excuse...maybe that i was feeling bad or something. if it was hot i'd have said it was too hot outside, but it would still be too cold on the inside.
i'm tired. but sleep won't help me.

i dont want to be that mother who just checks out. i dont want my kids wondering why mommy doesnt want to play...why mommy just sits there, staring at nothing. i dont want them to think mommy is mad at them. i dont want to hurt them with this.

my mother is coming this weekend. she's worried about me and is coming to "check up on me." i dont want her to, but i can't say that. mom doesnt belong here, and i know i'll feel resentful of her presence. most of the time, people worrying about me just makes me feel like shit. if i can ignore how i feel, sometimes i can forget how i feel.

blah blah blah. woe is me and other shit.

too many unresolved things...feelings...pasts. i dont want to hurt anyone...i really dont. i cant see it and im sorry. i really cant see it. some things still hurt.

i'm hungry. i didnt eat dinner.

Let Him lead thee blindfold onwards,
Love needs not to know;
Children whom the Father leadeth
Ask not where they go.
Though the path be all unknown,
Over moors and mountains lone.
Gerhard Tersteegen