I've got some real estate here in my bag...

I think my sister is psychic, because just after I finished that last post she came up to the piano and started playing her soulful, brilliant, healing music. All she had was a guitar-book version of some Simon & Garfunkel songs, and she figured out how to invert and harmonic-ize and twist the chords until our house felt like a cathedral of sound and then we sang together and after a few seconds I had forgotten all my worries about perversion and google (I think I'll just make my site unavailable to searches) and everything else.

She's such a great musician. So resounding a melody! So bright a touch, and such a sweet, airy voice...

Such a natural healer.

Then she left to buy food for us so I wouldn't have to eat beans again for dinner, and I pulled up blog posts at random and read them. I love this blog. It's not superb or amazing or anything, but it's very typical of me. I read it and remember again who I am, see a little bit how I come across.

The reason I started this was so that I could carry some of my favorite poems with me, in a sense. I used to try to memorize things, and then I started carrying around printouts, and then I started running to the computer lab to google poems when I started missing them. Now they're all in one place.

And now I look at this and it's pretty much the same story and it feels lovely.

Mom just came home with some shoes that might work with my prom dress (finally found one!) and Renata came home with food and I keep hearing Simon & Garfunkel in my head but I have to go eat Indian food and study more Chem and kiss my sister's chin.

And everything feels natural and right and sweet like curry.
I still want Harry back, though.

All Shook Up

I've started using StatCounter, and it's amazing. It tells you virtually everything about your readers. Unfortunately, it also told me that someone got to my site by googling some dirty words which I will have the decency not to relate, and I got all shivery and grossed out. Even though it's only one person, and they live in Texas and have probably never met me or the person whose blogged name brought them here..

I look over my last few posts now and they just seem disturbing and perverse somehow.

Ugh.
Why do I get like this?
It's a Flaubert club-foot feeling.

I also read a horrible book called Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates about... I don't even want to get into it. She's very appraised and all, so I expected it to be good, but it was terrible and I just felt disturbed at the end.

All of this leaves me with the same feeling I used to get after reading bad sci-fi with overly sexualized characters. It was that feeling that made me stop exploring new sci-fi writers and stick to the classics. Once I'd exhausted them I decided to stop reading sci-fi all together. It's the feeling I got after Friday's shoot-out (you know what I'm talking about); it's the same feeling I got after seeing Frenzy and Psycho for the (respective) first times. The difference was that they were good enough that I got wrapped up in the psychology of it, and it all seemed plausible. I feel like I'm the brainchild of some giant sick perverse thing.

It may also have something to do with only having left the house for half an hour since Friday night and then only to go to school to pick up my English folder and running into Lizzie Dolan while I was going and eating nothing but pasta and bread and chocolate frosting all weekend.

And I hate finals, which seem as perverse as anything else right now.

I want Harry to be here.

Ugh...

Yeuch.

Shoot-Out at the Fantasy Factory

Star Wars was dissappointing, but I enjoyed watching it.

Otherwise, Friday was mostly lovely. Pretty much.

And so I spent all Saturday making Chem study guides and thinking about protons and kelvin scales and diamonds and titration and I remembered all of Mr. Schubert's amazing moments--the shock of seeing a vial of clear liquid, too mundane to be anything but water or vodka, turn, at the touch of a single drop of another clear liquid, violent fuschia and then--another drop--perfectly clear again. I remembered seeing a gummy bear go up in flames, seeing the middle of a penny eaten away, seeing a liquid boil at room temperature, seeing another transparant vial turn into blue flames when the lights went out and then fade until I had to crawl across the ground to turn them on again and Djasi laughed when my scarf was left in the middle of the floor.

Then I watched the last two episodes of The Prisoner, which is by far the trippiest thing I've ever seen. A seventeen-episode TV show from 1985 with Secret Agent Man as the main character--except he's resigned, and won't tell them why, and they've decided to drive him insane to get the answer out of him. In turn he tries to drive them insane, and they give him a number instead of a name and when he wins and kills his chief opressor they bring him back to life and make Secret Agent Man into their leader. Before he takes over, though, he has to meet Number One, and it's all smoke and mirrors and I started philosphising about how it was all a metaphor for him seeking refuge and sanity in his own mind from what happened to him and whatever made him quit and the faces of youth and age and I thought I'd really gotten onto something and my mom told me to stop trying to explain it and take it as it was.

Why do I have so much trouble with that?

Because I'm right. My analysis is right and I know it. She knows it, too.

So I've decided that Chemistry is just a complex lie. There are no chemists. They make it complicated enough that no one in their right mind would persue it past high school to disguise the fact that Mr. Schubert and his kin are really dark magicians toying with us for a year or two and then bidding us farewell at the door. And we leave, amble or flee, blindly, unwittingly, to lead charmed lives and propegate the misunderstanding and mystery of it all.

What else is there to life but blessings and masks and the right to be an individual?

Then again. Maybe there really is something behind it all.

And I have until Thursday 12:00 to figure out what it is.

Yes, Baby, I'm Proud

How awesome is my sister? This is an old picture, but she's the loveliest thing. I mean the very most beautiful girl I've ever met.

So today was the day I was supposed to read/hear my play. I was nervous, of course; all those people hearing my script! Frankie was right when she wrote that cold readings are frightening. I sucked it up, though, and bugged everyone about coming all day and made sure Chris and Taylor ducked out of Fencing and Frankie and Sharpie came in and Elena took time off of studying for her finals and Maya came and Andy Fish responded to my nervy email with two(ish) words: "I'm there! -Fish". I was excited, nervous, shivery.

I was also misanthropic. During my two frees I avoided the park and the smoking-crew on the grounds that I would get cold in my skirt and went to the reading room for a few minutes. It was boring, and I didn't like feeling pressured to talk to people, so I went to the library and wrote a bit, filling pages with my tall drippy handwriting that nobody seems to be able to read. I sat in the hall, I talked to the eighth graders, I poured myself coffee. I wrote some more. I threw away most of the pages. I wished Harry were there. I printed more copies of my play and then reread it and hated it. I went to Algebra and wrote some more; I went to English and drew a face made of palm trees and then one that was a landscape in itself. I lied and told Camille that I had done my sheets and left them at home.

Then Elena showed up, cheerful and cynical and nostalgic, and David and I printed our scripts and collected Scott Shreiber and music stands and headed over to the black box.

Everyone was there (except for Jaya and LK), and I got nervy all over again. Rie and Sofia were busy looking hot; David was busy handing out scripts; everyone else seemed to be talking about the O.C. I couldn't sit still. Frankie and Shapiro came in a few minutes into the script, radiant and apologetic, and I smiled.

David Tay's play was read first. It was excellent. I hadn't foreseen how the scenes would add up and come together, but when we were reading it everything seemed to make sense. In very few scenes he painted an accurate picture of the lives of three characters. I realized that my play was, contrary to what I had thought, longer than it needed to be. The drama was dense; there were two alternate endings. It was entitled the Good, the Bad and the Slutty, which was awesome in itself. The ending we chose to enact was more serious than the other, and less optimistic, and made a larger-picture statement about the nature of trust and of a relationship. Harry insisted on reading all the stage directions in the most dramatic, deep, foreboding voice he could muster. The best part by far, though, was a throwaway line that David read (he played the "disembodied female voice"): "Girl, fuck you!"

It took longer than we'd thought it would, and more music stands than we'd anticipated, but it was OK. Nobody was bored or anything, and time seemed boundless. At least until a bunch of our actors left before Matt's play, including Eddie Pailet, who was my Garrett (male lead). "Rie, if you see Eddie, tell him to get the hell back in here!" I said, a bit too loudly. She gave a kiss on the cheek and assured me that she would. We read Matt's play. It was short, because he wrote the whole thing today, but interesting nonetheless. I liked the characters a lot, but I'm still not sure I understand the underlying message about fate. That it's unpredictable? Hrmph. I'll have to ask him about it.

Alex DaSilva (love that guy!) played a great hobo/murderer, and when he walked off and had to be called back ("Wait, I have more lines? Oh! Put your hands on your head and count to sixty!") I thought my stomach would split in two.

Anyway, Matt's play took longer than we'd expected, too. And Tracy needed to color the blackbox. So I told everyone we'd do it next tuesday.

I'm sorry, guys! I really am!

It was cold and dreary, and I felt cold and dreary. I wasn't really upset at anyone in particular, but I did curse fate in a halfhearted manner before going off to St.'s Alp with Tia, Sofia, David, Matt and Renata. We drank tea and talked about drugs and Prom and Jacob Ledoux and I got very sombre and hated the rain and the stoners and gorgeous people.

So I went home in the rain with Renata, and we both started feeling a little down, and then Harry came over and I was all "do I really have to go to prom?" and he was all "I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to, but..." and I relented pretty much instantly. I just can't find a dress! Plus, I hate formal events where everyone looks good. I've only ever manicured my fingers once, and I've never had my hair done, or makeup, or waxed my eyebrows or used spray hair-removers on my arms or legs or even let my nails grow very long. (I just found out on Ex Ed that tons and tons of girls do the spray-hair-removal thing. How creepy is that?) I'm not naturally that... girly. (I practiced by wearing pink socks today, but it didn't seem to do much.) So I pondered my diluted version of androgyny and the sinfulness of stealing sweaters from the Lost & Found and then Harry's magic worked itself over me and I got a lot happier. Renata did, too, I think. I kissed him good night and my sister and I went to Ennju to eat cheap sushi and Japanese candy (Harry's evil influence!) and talk about philosophy and aging rock stars and tacky writers and seniors and drugs and whorishness and unintentional whorishness and consumerism.

We also talked about being obscured by your own image, so to speak. People know me as V.V. the Hippie, so they don't realize that my main focus is writing. V.V. the Hippie Semi-Writer can't be interested in art or oil paintings. She's too busy being a hippie semi-writer. V.V. the Hyper Clumsy Dancer who Sings In The Hallways can't hold an intellectual conversation or analyze a book. They don't realize that I used to pour over Picasso volumes and old architecture books almost as much as I read Nancy Drew novels, way back in first and second grade. I didn't hit on Klimt and Goya and Dali until I was eleven-ish, but I used to consider myself more of an artist than a writer. (I never wrote almost anything until Lori Renna told me that I could, really. She was the first person who ever believed in me as an artist. I worshipped her. I won a prize in the middle school poetry competition and I gave it to her.)

Renata's having the same problem: she's a pianist mostly, but she's also a cartoonist and is turning into quite the little photographer. My dad always told us that I was the writer of the family and Renata was the musician, so she didn't read and I didn't play instruments. Her stories are amazing. By now, though, she's avoided reading for so long that she's learned the plots of half of the classics just by discussing them with me and hasn't heard of the other half.

Bob Rosen just put two-and-two together and realized that she's my sister. He told me twice by accident, between "doo-wap-a-doo-skeedul-yee-doo-bam"s. He says she's going to be "the next big one."

"The next big... what?"

"Big one. On keyboard, of course. Of the music world. The next great jazz pianist."

He looked like a prophet when he said it. His eyes were slightly misaligned, glossy and reddish, and all of the colors on his face and clothes seemed to melt together, and his head was cocked like always and his hair seemed to slick itself back without gel or even a comb and it seemed certain that he was listening to some music that only he could hear. He seemed to be half in another world already. Half of me felt inclined to distrust anything that seemed even vaguely prophetic, and the other half wanted to be a little girl all over again and believe passionately and blindly and pray and sigh and cast tea leaves over his drippy sweet visions.

Instead I gave him a script and said "Yeah, she's great" while I stood on the precipice of something I still can't name.

And you know what?

I think I believe him.

Gods Themselves

(Title taken from a band that ripped off a sci-fi writer. Because I am a loser, I remember that it was either Asimov or Bradbury. I forget which, because I'm not that much of a loser.)

Okay, I promised pictures, so here's an old one:



That was the time (a mere few weeks ago) that Renata and I decided to make a mother's day cake from a prepackaged mix. It came out tasty, but visually quite displeasing. We had to bake two cakes and stack them, and they both had oddly slanted edges like the base of a cone and we couldn't decide on a frosting flavor, so we compromised. We also bought one can of microwave icing and one can of regular, and we microwaved it for too long so it melted. To use the Patwa-hated phrase, it was very ghetto.

So today I had a good time avoiding everyone I know and being a misanthropist and then I reverted to my other self and mock-flirted with Evan and Douglas and had a dozen people over at my house. They recorded random stuff on my tape splitter and ate ice cream and talked about music. The walls themselves shook with sound; the floor reverberated. Walking across the apartment I would hear three or four different songs being played simultaneously. I danced and served ice cream and watched everyone file out after a few hours and ate bellpeppers and felt nice.

And then I reminisced the days when I actually made an effort to learn to play the guitar--long gone, as I'm a crappy guitarist--and the close of another year (they came here because it was the last rock & mythology meeting of the year, and we were to broke to buy individual ice cream cones.) Two years of high school, two years of friends, two years of being abandoned by departing senior classes. My play is being read tomorrow. My two leads cancelled and I had to draft new ones, which was easy because some people volunteered, and I decided on the spot while talking to her to read Ellen's part myself.

Then Renata came home and played Bridge Over Troubled Water on the piano, complete with reverberating improvised trills, chords, solos, I'm not even sure what, and turned the empty apartment into a cathedral. DaSilva wants her to jam with his band this summer, but she's too shy and says she's not good enough. I think this is ridiculous, as she's just as good as any of them, and is probably the best keyboardist they've played with.

So I'm feeling a little musical right now; can you blame me? This is the direct result of having Alex, Burke, Lucas, Matt, Clark and Zack and Chloe (okay, they didn't contribute to the musical-mood-ness that much, but they're sweet) all at my house at the same time. I'm revisiting amazing concerts in my head: Robert Plant, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan (three times now!), Johnny and Edgar Winter, The Who, R.E.M., Television, Patti Smith... the list is getting kind of lengthy. I've even met a few of them (Donovan, JB, some lesser people) and I followed a guy around the Christmas Market for about ten minutes until I realized that he wasn't actually Roger Daltry. (I gave my Government Mule and Almond Brothers tickets away, but I may get to see them again anyway.)

I've also got some good gigs lined up, the most prominent two being Brian Wilson's Smile tour at Jones Beach and Paul McCartney at Madison Square, and I just got another piece of good news: Ringo Starr tickets go on sale tomorrow. My mom is trying to get some. I'm so excited I can barely type, although I'm doing my best not to embarrass myself again.

The sad thing about it--and the cool thing--is that I rarely buy tickets for myself. Sometimes I go with friends, but two thirds of the time I'm just presented with the tickets when my parents decide they're interested. I'm not complaining, because it's really quite incredible, but it's still a little odd to see the gods of the music world while your dad puts in his earplugs and your mother adjusts the collar of her black two-piece suit. Meanwhile, your porn-star boyfriend sits at home playing computer games and drawing anime.

Not exactly picturesque, but hey...

The weird thing about it is that at fifteen I've seen at least a third of my idols that still live, and I've already made plans to see more of them. This is one of the advantages of living in New York and having friends with connections, and music-geek parents (Footnote: Steve B. actually managed to burn out the lazar on his Mac G4 laptop burning disc after disc for his massive hundred-CD internet "trades"). I've even met some playwrites and writers and actors and such. Last week I got to shake hands with Esmeralda Santiago and Mike Franzini.

It's not like I'm unusual, either. It's New York. My mom saw Mick Jagger and Cher in the same day once. I met Krist Novoselic (at a book signing for Of Grunge and Government) and saw Television in the same day. New Yorkers simply have this advantage. We see celebrities and interesting people on an everyday basis. It's a little strange, really. People's parents grill me about things when I go out of state; my uncles want to know if I've seen their old idols, and thanks to the city my parents are more outrageous now than when they were teenagers. (Not that that's saying much. My mom hadn't finished a beer by herself until she finished college.)

It's kind of creeping me out. Our school harbors this mentale amongst us that we can all succeed with relative ease because all of our parents have; they have to, to send us to Friends and everything. We see Susan Sarandon fussing over Mile's hair and don't bat an eye. (Okay, I do bat an eye. But I try not to.) It's not unusual to have bestesellers at our neighborhood bookstore; it's not strange to see our idols at the supermarket or in the gym. Hell, H. sold Uma Therman lemonade when she was little. She used to live in the same building as Joey Ramone.

Every native New Yorker has their story: a friend who let Bob Dylan sleep on their sofa for half a year, a parent whose clientele list encompasses half the movie industry (you know who I'm talking about), friends who made it, friends who almost made it... even our teachers are successful. Camille is a published poet. Donovan has an article in Harper's. Ron wrote an opera. Jennifer's plays are read all over the city. Will we match our teachers' successes?

It's really creeping me out. Is it strange for a fifteen-year-old to wonder whether she'll make it as a writer before she falls asleep each night, or is it stranger of her to believe that she has a chance, albeit a slim one, of success?

Don't expect much of my play, you guys. Because it's going to suck. I hate it, myself; it has no premise, little continuity, and a lot of cliches.

But come anyway.

If only out of pity for a starry-eyed dreamer whose proximity with fame and glorious success can only diminish, even if her talent as a writer increases.

And it will.

I'm doomed to a life as an unsuccessful novelist sleeping in people's living rooms. At least I have friends with futons and cool parents.

Maybe one day people will be excited to meet me.

(Footnote: This is not a "pity-me post." I'm not begging for assurance or compliments or anything; I'm not really upset or anything, anyway. It's a "here I am" post.)

The Promise

I named it that because once I read this book where this girl's father tells her where he is through his letters by making her read books that take place there, and the last one he mentions is The Promise, and when she finds out there's no book called The Promise she realizes that it means he's coming home. I thought it was stupid because there is a book called The Promise. It's by Chaim Potok and it's very good.

Anyway here are some pictures.



My mom rocks. Yes, that's Secret Agent Man.



Guitars are cool. Yes, that's an eight-track tape splitter, because I am indeed an eighties garage/boy-band. And yes, that's a ukelele. Don't ask.



My abuela gave these to me for my eighth birthday. I thought they were the most beautiful things ever.



The unimpressive products of a year of Yarrott's sculpture class.



My earring lamp and Mexican Katrina. And some other shit.



Me. I tried using the flash, but it made me into a big white square so I reverted back.

So... yeah. That's my life, when I'm not doing other things.

I got up and walked around the house taking pictures until my mom got mad at me. Which was as soon as her episode ended, which was about a minute, unfortunately. Then she left, but I was too lazy to take more. Anyway this is my way of apologizing for a very strange last post.

Without A Cause?

I haven't posted in ages. I'm not sorry. I've been busy.

So Friday was Battle of the Bands. I came a little later than I was supposed to, but Greg Sans-Tongue and I took over the ticketing and relieved Chloe and the other Matt anyway. (The first Matt still has my guitar tuner. Grrr...) The bands were all great. Ella surprised me with a fresh-composed song and a liberated and clear, if mildly timid, Joni Mitchel-esque voice; Peter surprised me by insisting that I dance on stage. I cheated and danced to the right of the stage, but it was just as fun. Alex and Burke did a rock-opera and Burke gave the best facial expressions I've seen in a while, and I acted like a kindergartener again. I couldn't help it. The music did something to me... anyway David Tay, Harry and Elena came over afterwards and we ate cupcakes and I started feeling bad about how I'd been behaving. Everyone had been there, too--people who didn't care, like Jaya and Amanda-Oona-Rachel and the musician folk, and people who probably thought it was wierd. Meh.

So I freaked out about how nobody takes me seriously and how I mar my own intelligence with my stupid actions, and got very mad at myself, and wrote a self-scathing blog post, and then thought it over and in the end spilled everything to Harry over the phone Saturday night. The poor thing used all the force of his boundless and often circulatory logic on me, but I still wasn't swayed.

Then a certain someone called. She was in an extremely good mood: "Hi, V.V.!" she beamed into her cell phone. "I haven't seen you in like forever!" I melted. She told me how meeting a stranger in the park while reading The Bell Jar made her think of me.

And I was in a good mood all weekend.

So basically I decided that I'm kind of cool. Despite everything. I have conversations with hobos and read a lot and play my harmonica--I got another gig request, but I turned it down--and I've got cool friends with good hearts and good brains and I don't need to worry so much. I know I will always worry about how I come across, but I think I've gotten a LOT better, and I'm getting better every day.

My play is being read this thursday, so come, everyone! I want an audience! I need actors, too...

It's a piece of shit--honestly, it is--but I knew it would be, since it has no premise, so I'm not disappointed.

I'll do better this summer.

I discovered today during math that a line from my last poem (written yesterday during Chem) came straight from a J.D. Salinger story, which is weird because I can usually quote from books I read for at least a year, maybe more, and I never mix stuff up like that. It was very Hellen Keller-esque and chilling. Then I got some good grades back and forgot about it.

The rest of the weekend: Saturday I made posters with Oona and felt normal, and Sunday I wrote a lot and got in another fight with my dad. Again.

When I opened my cell phone during Spanish it said "2 missed calls: mobile, Will Curley: Mobile, Will Curley." I laughed out loud because I was picturing some poor seventh grader jumping when I Am The Walrus started pouring out of a fourth-floor locker and Will wondering where my phone was. Then Monty yelled at me and now my blog won't republish for index changes. Grr.

Today I went to Staples with Matt and we found him a three-ring binder and found me a croissant and I paired it with cafeteria coffee and made a cheap and nutritious lunch out of it. While I poured the coffee, I rocked out to Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil, one of my favorite songs, and Amanda sidled up to me with all her grace of foam and said "Hey, it's V.V. rocking out at the tea stand!" How can you help but love her? Then I went to sculpture and cut black and blue and brown paper for my hair and green circles for under my eyes and stared at myself and felt like a gypsy.

I actually am part gypsy. A very small part. I've always been proud of that. I'm a quarter Bohemian, too. And half Mexican and a lot German and a little French on both sides.

I think I act crazy when I'm stressed and I have no other option. When there's no other outlet, when I don't have the strength to inhibit myself.

I think I'm gonna dye my hair right after Prom.

I'm bad. I steal from the Lost & Found.

This is a weird post.

I'm gonna put on my moccasins and a plaid flannel shirt. I'm in the mood.

See beyond the houses in your eyes

It's last period Tuesday and I'm pretending to write my Ex Ed essay in the computer lab. (How ridiculous is that?) I can't stop thinking about all my bad habits, like biting my nails and getting snappy when I have my period and misdirecting my stress and eating unhealthy things that make me unhappy.

The worst habit of all, however, is the one I'm most determined to stop: acting frivolous.

I kind of do this thing where I eat chocolate or recieve a compliment or something and get ridiculously happy and act like a five year old. And even when I'm doing it I hate myself for doing it; I see it as though from somewhere else and I realize that it's not me, not who I am or who I want to be. I can be happy without seeming stupid; I can be free without being insane.

I also do this when I don't know how to deal with something--someone I'm intimidated by, or when I don't know how to react or what to say.

So this post is to bid farewell, I guess, to my idiotic, five-year old self and embrace my empowered, unintimidated, wild free summer gypsy love self.

Oh Suzie Q, Little Suzie Q

So I promised I'd rewrite the post I deleted and explain myself a bit more, but it's difficult since a lot has happened since then.

On Friday Harry and I had blueberry pancakes and wine in celebration of David Tay's birthday--we love you, David!--and watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which I really want to see the ending of now. Then we hung with the Benders at our house for a bit and then got ice cream in the village, which was nice.

In conversation it emerged that I am a very different person at my house than anywhere else. Harry and I rarely argue anywhere else, which probably gives Renata and Rosa a more negative view of our relationship than is accurate. I'm also more comfortable at my house. Oona has noticed this and so have Harry and Abbey. It made me think of what Jennifer taught me in Playwriting (which no longer exists) about the voices of a character. In order for a character to be realistic, they have to have more than one voice that they use according to occasion. A man says a very different thing to a zoo animal than to his mother than to his girlfriend. A woman butters up a security guard when she thinks it will serve her and brushes him away when he advances on her. A girl talks differently to her mother than to her best friend. These things make sense; they relate to people and to dialogue. Is it strange that I'm harder to talk to outside of my house? And yet I don't really want to live here. Until finals are over, anyway.

Anyway, Saturday was dull because I wasn't allowed out of the house, although Harry and Travis showed up and watched Napoleon Dynamite in my living room while I did my homework and got yelled at and fell in love with Virginia Woolf (how had I never read any of her work before?).

Then Harry left (he was booted out) with his brother and I ate beans for dinner again and the creepy fish was found belly-up in the tank. On its side, actually, and the other two fish next to it knew it was dead and were very upset about it. The bulging eyes that never looked at anyone seemed to be staring straight at me. I began recalling everything that Chloe and I had blamed on the fish last year, and all the nightmares it had caused me, and--God help me--I screamed out loud.

So Mom flushed it down the toilet and I made strange drawings on post-it notes in black ink and then threw them away and went off to read Slaughter-House Five again while Renata propagated her social life via IChat.

And then, exactly one year after Harry asked me out on my old Windows '98 (well, if you're counting days of the week, not of the month), a boy in her grade asked her out over the internet.

She accepted, which means that we're both dating computer nerds now (albeit lovable ones) who asked us out online. Which is funny, at least to me.

And then Mom broke the news to me that she'd bought me tickets to see Creedence Clearwater Revival (or at least what's left of them to revive), and I got happy and excited all over again and Harry called and it was nice.

Then Renata got annoyed so I hung up on Harry and we read "MASTER HAROLD" ...and the boys together for a while, each acting the different parts in turn instead of sticking to one character apiece and doing the best voices we could, and then we talked for a few hours after we went to bed and it was very sweet and I made a mental note to set Harry on the boy if he ever hurts her at all in any way whatsoever. Or a team of wild dogs. Whichever.

Then I had nightmares about the damn fish and about being lost in a labyrinth and this guy I used to know named Dave Rodile hating me even though I helped him build his boat two years ago. And Mom woke me up early with the Creedence Clearwater version of Suzie Q.

Oh Suzie Q
Oh Suzie Q
I like the way you walk
I like the way you talk
Oh Suzie Q
Say that you'll be true
Say that you'll be true
And never leave me blue
Oh Suzie Q
Little Suzie Q
Oh Suzie Q
Say that you'll be mine
Say that you'll be mine
Say that you'll be mine
Yeah all the time
Yeah Suzie Q

et cetera.

It was strange because a day ago Susan Bender had told me about how her old roomate used to call her Suzie Q, and it really bugged her. Somehow I didn't mind.

And then I dreamed that I was in a van driving out of the labyrinth, which was really the grand canyon, and all the rocks turned black and mom shook me awake again and it was Television's Marquee Moon instead.

So much good music, so little time, so little appreciation...

And so much writing and so much sheer beauty in the world and me just a poor little dark-eyed girl with a silly dream.

So I finished the play and jotted a bunch of notes over breakfast about the British Invasion (musical) reflecting the remnants of the conquering mentale of the British and a musical competition that dated back to the American Declaration of Independence and something about Walker Percy, I don't remember what that was about, and under all of it I wrote I CAN"T WAIT FOR SUMMER--I HAVE TO WRITE and I felt choked.

Then I had lunch in the park with Harry and Elena came for a bit. I don't want to spoil it but I finished the song in my head:

Oh Suzie Q
Little Suzie Q
I love you true
You know I do
Little Suzie Q

And it was a lovely anniversary, despite being grounded and worried about my sister and racism and dead fish and writing.

And then Renata got this as a fortune in her Chinese food tonight. I have no idea what it means and it's perfect, because I'm watching Buffy and eating chicken tonight and I don't know what any of that means either:

Find the cost of freedom

Deep within the ground;
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down.

The beautiful voices of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and a thousand others echoed in my mind as clearly as if they were all standing behind me. I couldn't get the tune out of my head. In between talking to Hally and hiding from Wendy on Community Service Day I had been contemplating my home situation and had come to the conclusion that I wanted to live somewhere else until finals were over.

I began considering people whose houses I could crash at for a few nights at a time. I calculated for how long, in a hypothetical situation, Oona's parents would be willing to put up with me and how long it would take Amanda's father to notice me; I considered Harry's family (too polite with mine), Elena's parents' trustability (her place is feasable, except that she wakes up very early... still a pretty good idea), the natures of Rachel's dads, and finally how badly my parents would react if I called them on the phone and told them that, with no rebellious or spiteful intentions, I intended to live elsewhere for three to four weeks. I calculated the potential damages; would I still be able to take my writing classes over the summer? Go to Prom? See my friends? Would they march up to the school and demand that I be turned over to the authorities? Imitate Rachel's parents and demand that my school-related punishments be made permenant?

Find the cost of freedom
Deep within the ground;
Mother Earth will swallow you, so
Lay your body down.

In turn, as I shopped briefly for cookie dough with Molly, Hally and Jane and later for sandals, I began questioning how much I really needed to get out of the house anyway. It's true that I'm pretty much grounded for the rest of the year, but my summer looks glorious (from here, anyway), and I don't want to jeopardize it. And if I did contrive to live elsewhere and then did badly on my finals, I'd only prove to them that their previously-held notion that without severe goading I am incapable of finishing the simplest of assignments would almost be proven.

Although at the moment REM seemed proof of divine benevolence, I browsed through my playlist for almost ten minutes on the corner of 13th and 5th to find the live version of the song. I couldn't help but begin to doubt myself and everyone else.

When madmen lead the blind...

The one person I still couldn't doubt was waiting for me upstairs with sweet kisses and tender eyes, but a self-irritated irritability was settling over me and I made the poor fellow dodge potential arguements left and right like hastily thrown handfuls of mud. Eventually I ran out of ammo and everything was lovely again and I felt guilty.

The song was cycling now, one loop over the next as I felt warm arms behind me, the thousand voices multiplying each time and melting together periodically.

Renata and her friend Erica had gone to the basement to push each other around in laundry carts, so when Harry went home I was left to eat broccoli and refried beans (my dinner!) with my mom.

And still the thousand voices in my ears, speaking at different times now; "F-find--find the--find--the cost--"

"Mom," I said as sweetly as I could, "do you know what this Sunday is?"

"Well," she said, "If today's the twelfth..."

"It's Harry's and my one-year anniversary."

"Oh," she said. "That's nice."

"Do you think we could go out to dinner?"

"V, you're grounded!"

I opened my eyes as wide and as humbly as I could and looked up at her with my best baby-doll face. "Please?"

"Your dad grounded you. You'll have to talk to him about it."

"Mom, you know he won't listen to me."

"Well, ask nicely."

"Mom!"

"V," she said, and her eyes were glossy. I dropped my fork and I bent to pick it up. I pretended I was cleaning the rug to avoid resurfacing and meeting her gaze.

"You're so smart, V... ever since you were little they told us... you're so smart, you should be getting A's... it wasn't this hard when we did it... I just want you to be successful, V..."

Find the cost of freedom

"Is it because you don't want to? Are you still trying, V? V, look at me!"

Deep within the ground;

"V, I worked my whole life so my kids could go to a good school, and here you are and you don't even notice."

Mother Earth will swallow you

It was another one of those moments that makes me feel like I have to get out at all costs.

I hate her for guilting me like this but I don't know if I can bear to see her cry.

I hate giving in but I can't bear to see her hurt.

I'll hate every minute of it, and I know already that I'll regret anthing I promise a hundred times over.

And yet...

"Mom, I notice. I'll work hard, Mom, I promise I will. I'll get a good grade. I'll do the best I can. I'll work as hard as I can utnil the school year's over. I really will. I promise."

Why, why, why do I always do this to myself when I know they won't ever reciprocate? Am I really this weak?

"Did you hear me? I promise, Mom, I swear I will."

...But lay your body down.

Don't know much about lit-ra-chur...

So today I listened to a bunch of people gossip and felt a little foolish because I don't know my grade at all.

I hang out with Oona and Rachel and Amanda and it's lovely, and sometimes I hang with Chris and Taylor and them and I've got random friends like Jeff and Tia and Jarrell and Emma and Marsha and they're lovely too, but I don't know my grade very well.

So afterwards I went to St. Mark's for old time's sake and talked to Elena a bit about life. Elena says I'm good at making friends, and while I'm not amazing I'm sufficiently proficient at it; but I didn't used to be, which is why I'm not friends with a lot of people in my grade. They remember me from when I was kind of a loser with ugly hair and strange clothes and was too shy to talk to anyone.

And I'm OK now and not very shy, even though I embarrass myself and get intimidated a lot still, so I've got a lot of friends who are older than me. And a wonderful boyfriend, of course. And they're all leaving and I don't know who I'm going to hang out with next year. I'm not worried, per se, because I know I'll have friends, but I do wonder.

As soon as I get my license I'm going to drive around and visit everyone in college and have a good time.

Anyway, the reason I went to St. Mark's--the excuse, anyway--was that I was looking for a silver Indian anklet with little bells on it. The legend is that silver bells don't make any sound at all, and although I doubt that it's true I had a dream about it and I knew I had to find the anklet before this weekend. Don't ask.

Well, I scoured every Indian shop in the business, and then the African ones, and then the Sock Man (they still recognize me there!) and the t-shirt stores and I found nothing.

And then on a whim I went into Claire's on the way home and found the perfect thing right next to the door.

I hated buying it there, though. It kind of defeats the purpose. And it's not silver and it's very loud.

Kind of looks pretty, though.

So I won this thingy and went to this thing to get it and met Esmeralda Santiago and I realized that I'm not that great a writer and it was sad. Downright heartbreaking, actually. And I thought about how I'll probably never be a writer and it was horrible, even though I made a friend sort of and met cool writers, including Harry's camp friend who was a beat poet and got a $10,000 scholarship and is working with an established writer now to get himself famous and printed all over the world.

And I felt bad in general, and then Harry came up behind me and whispered "V, you're so beautiful and so talented," and I remembered that it's our anniversary this Sunday (even though I'm grounded), and just as I was thinking that, no matter how hopeless my literary persuits are, I was proud to have Harry to borrow shirts from and hug afterwards...

He whispered the very same thing into my ear.

So maybe if I fail I'll join Jaya and be a muse.

Slip-Sliding Away

The words hit my ears and I believe them; Y'know, the nearer your destination, the more you're slip-sliding away...

School is almost over and I don't want it to end, but I can't stand living like this. I've been under constant pressure from my parents about my schoolwork, but all it's accomplished is pitted us against each other violently and caused me stress. I failed two tests this week in two classes I need to get A's in. Why? I've been pleading Ex Ed and the Dylan concerts, but I have no excuse. I freaked out.

I've always justified lying to my parents by reasoning that they overreact so much to the little things that they find out about that I've already gotten what I deserve for everything else I do. Which isn't much, aside from not telling them about my tests and my romantic life. But I got in a conversation with my mom the day before yesterday and ended up telling her about my failed math test in a moment of trust.

Apparantly my trust was misplaced. She's started saying that I'll never go anywhere on a schoolnight again for the rest of high school because I didn't tell her in advance about the test. And we've all been yelling and crying for two days now.

How stupid is that?

I saw Gentry Farley yesterday before Pretty How Towns started playing, and I somehow ended up spilling everything to her when I'd only meant to tell her how hot she looked. And then I realized that I really don't have any problems when I think of some of the people I know.

So here's my life right now: I can't talk to my parents, my teachers think I'm falling apart, I'm achieving a reputation as a stoner without ever having smoked a cigarette, my friends ARE stoners and I worry about them, my best friend worries me so much that I don't talk to her sometimes (does that make sense?), I still don't have a prom dress that I'm happy with, finals are coming up, my sister thinks I'm egocentric and don't listen to her, and half of my friends are going to college. On the other hand, I've got friends that I love and a sister that I love and a boyfriend that I love that keeps me sane and stops me from completely falling apart and kisses away my worries.

So I guess I'm OK.

I still can't wait for summer, though.

I'm gonna be a gypsy again.

I said I'd put up more pictures, so here they are...

I'm lazy so I'm just scanning stuff that's on my dresser.



^^^ Me at the beginning of the year



^^^ I found this on my desktop, and it's funny



^^^ What I was doing when Harry and David were in Japan



^^^ Harry gave this to me a week or two ago, presumably because of my vespa fetish.



^^^ This showed up on my computer



^^^ Harry's conception of himself (kind of) on a napkin

Have a good weekend everyone!

rock the vote

Footnote: No one reads this and it's making me sad.

Should I dye my hair a reddish-purplish shade somewhere between Frankie and Joslyn's colors? The color I'm thinking of is a bit more purploid than that, but you get the idea.

You have until Friday.

Go!

Baby, You're A Rich Man Too...

I remember walking into Yoga the first week of my freshman year, rolling out a mat nervously as the previous class left. "I haven't been to a concert for almost a month," a raven-haired girl with beautifully large eyes told a Greek-maiden-esque beauty, tying her grungy black high-tops while the other adjusted the lace that covered her firm breasts. "I feel terrible."

Jesus, I thought; I'll never be that cool. I don't know that much about music, I don't have any style, and those girls will probably never look twice in my direction.

Survival in high school barely seemed possible; to flourish thus seemed a hopeless quest.

Well, I've survived, and although my style will probably never match Jaya's or Adrianne's (sp?), I caught myself telling a friend in frustration, "I haven't been to a concert for three weeks!"

Hmmm...






Won't say too much about it, but the second night (top ticket) was definately the best concert I've ever been to.

Anyway. I'm going to tell a story now that I've only ever told to Renata and LK. I feel like telling it.

I used to be a very awkward kid. Oona said once (actually, several times) that the catchphrase of her childhood was "weird." Mine were "awkward" and "antisocial." I was very awkward. I couldn't talk to people at all. I chopped all my hair off in sixth grade. I was very tall. People in my building thought I was in college. I was chubby. I'm not afraid to tell you that I weighed in at 132 by the end of eighth grade. In retrospect, the haircut was kind of cool when it evened out. I loved it some days and hated it most days.





^^^Bad hair day





^^^Mediocre hair day

(Footnote: Elena took those pictures and gave them to me in a scrapbook for Christmas. It was one of the best gifts I've ever recieved. Being able to put pictures in like that makes me so proud of myself... I think I'll put more pictures in my blog from now on, just to keep things lively. Anyway...)

I read a lot, and knew a lot of Shakespeare, and a lot of semi-obscure writers and a lot of obscure music. Everything was Elvis and Gerry Lee Lois and Gene Vincent and Roy Orbison and Cannonball Adderly and Frank Sinatra and Little Richard. (OK, those aren't that obscure. I did listen to some obscure stuff, though.) I was actually pretty cool, when I think of it now, but I didn't feel cool.





^^^Me after 8th Grade Play. I was a mother.



^^^Already a gypsy... Halloween after eighth grade. Yes, that's Eddie Baurer in the background. Wonder what I was looking at?

So I made me some friends and bought a bunch of cool clothes and went really hippie for a while.

Then my friends went away and I hit maximum weight (132.5) and felt fat and ugly. Eventually I made new friends and my hair grew back and I started doing a lot of yoga. Eventually I did a bunch of situps and flattened out my stomach. People stopped calling me "young man." I made some friends on St. Marks' Place who liked the way I read. Ash talked to me about Shakespeare. I thought I was in love with him. It took me a while to realize that he was so egocentric--not egotistical, per se, but egocentric--that he would never be able to fully love me back. I was heartbroken but I was stronger. I lost weight without doing anything and leveled out at 128. Ash went to college. My acne got better. I made more friends. I bought more clothes. And more. And more.

And I decided that hating my body was ridiculous.

So I woke up early--at around four--one morning and went to the Y. I went to the locker room and stripped naked, unlacing each shoe and taking the beads out of my hair and taking off my rings and bracelets and earrings and being pure and clean and beautiful. It was one of the most moving experiences I've ever had. At the end of an hour I put on clean undergarments and wrapped a silk scarf over my hair and wore a plain white shirt and jeans and red sneakers and I packed an apple, some string cheese and a water bottle into my backpack and walked all the way down to the East River. From there I trekked to the very tip of the island. I had intended to walk back, but I found a subway card in the pocket of my jeans so I went to Columbia and ate lunch in the Seinfeld cafe.

I can't say I'm in love with my body, but since then I've been much better about it.

And so I stopped doing situps and didn't eat especially healthily and was relatively happy. And I discovered that happiness will help you lose weight a lot faster than diet plans and starvation and angst all combined.

By the time I started dating Harry I was at 125, where I've stayed to this day.

I'm not slight but I'm not heavy for my height. I cry a lot but I'm pretty happy. I don't have amazing amounts of self-confidence, but I usually feel adequate enough to talk to people. I'm not incredibly stylish but I dress moderately well (I think). I don't really do much yoga any more but I still meditate once or twice a week, and I don't wear makeup any more but I feel much more feminine. I'm easily repulsed and easily moved and easily hurt, but I'm not weak because I'm capable of moving on and dealing with the pain. I've got plenty of friends, even though the snobbish girls in my grade still don't talk to me, and I don't really care that they don't. I've become a much better writer since then. I don't really understand why my friends like me or want to befriend me, but it's OK because they do. I've discovered a lot of music and seen a lot of concerts and read a lot of books and become relatively learned about a lot of things. I've learned about love and I've learned about romance and about jealousy and anger and pride and everything in between and now that I've stopped being snappy and distant (results of yesterday's severe hormone swing that involved me shouting "I need to go to Chris because I'm bleeding out of my vagina!" at Greg and Harry at 3:15 on the fourth floor of the main building) I feel kind of proud of who I am.

A lot of people don't like me for reasons I can only imagine, and that's OK too. I'm still a little awkward. I don't move well or talk with ease to people I don't know, but I still talk to people and make friends.

I snipped off a little piece of my hair in the mirror last night, just to see if it would actually cut. It felt nice. I even sharpied a bit of my hair purple during Chem. The color is between Joslyn's and Frankie's, and I like it so much I'm considering doing my whole head. Then again... I was pretty much set on dying it this Friday with Rachel when I looked in the mirror to check out a pair of jeans I found and realized that I kind of like plain brown. It's kind of nice.

Maybe I'll just put some beads back in or something.

So here I am, wearing some plain jeans that don't fit me very well but which I love and a torn, tied t-shirt I bought yesterday for four bucks that depicts a yellow-eyed cheshire cat with a striped red-and-white body. My hair is tied up and a little purple in one corner and my feet are bare except for a silver Indian ankle bracelet and I'm listening to Simon and Garfunkel's Concert In Central Park and the bit where they offer a round of applause for the guys selling loose joints in the park, and I feel lke a Greek goddess in a modern skin.

In the words of Frankie, and probably a lot of other people as well, you've come a long way, baby. That's not to say that I've lived up to Jaya or Adrianne, but I've got a few more years of high school left, and I think I'm doing pretty well.

I feel beautiful.

Maybe it's a hormone thing.

Still.

It's really lovely.