who's that knocking on my door?

I feel like I should clarify my last post a bit before kicking off this one. I meant that while I try to be cheerful and make everyone happy I end up crying anyway. I don't cry every day or all the time or anything. I just live a normal life punctuated by spells of unhappiness.

I also woke up this morning bleeding all over the place, which might have something to do with it.
It's tough being a woman.
At least I have an excuse for looking so hefty lately.
I hope I'm a little saner by the time I reach college, by the time I have kids.

My cell phone rang in Ms. Reyes' class ten minutes before the bell. Doug shouted "answer it!" to her, and I nearly let her, because it was Harry, and it would have been amusing, but she actually asked me if I wanted to answer it myself. I shook my head and turned it off, and ten minutes later I signed out of in-house for the last time, ran down the block to Starbucks and began my weekend.

So after some sadness and a lot of happiness, I fell asleep watching a Sherlock Holmes movie on Harry's lap, and before I knew it I was thrift-market-shopping and watching Amelie and eating dark cherry sorbet at Emack & Bolio's and apologizing and watching more movies with Renata and Travis and reading Wilde and falling asleep again with the book still in my hand, only to be woken up, handed a Patti Smith shirt and told to brush my teeth. I must admit that I didn't. I just curled into a ball and closed my eyes and woke up in time to say good-bye to my dad before he went to Atlanta.

Today I went shopping with my mom, my sister and Matt. I think the poor fellow felt a little awkward, especially when my mom cornered him and started asking about the new college counselor for twenty minutes. We had sushi and went to Daffy's, where I bought several men's shirts and a men's belt.

I worry sometimes about how much I like men's clothes. I like women's clothes, too, but they never seem as edgy or interesting as men's fashion, and I'm not thin enough to make them look good, anyway. So many lovely clothes are left behind because men are afraid to be called gay for wearing them. I buttoned up shirt after shirt in the dressing room and felt great about it. Black corduroy. Black plaid with peach accents. Red washable silk with miniscule blue lines. Dark red and brown with black buttons that pull tight across my breasts. I feel full and luscious in these clothes. I don't see my abdomen protruding or my shoulders sagging forwards. I see dark hair falling around a face that's a little paler than it ought to be, giving it a fragile, Rhonda-like look. I don't see acne or dark circles below my eyes or eyebrows that badly need maitenance. I bought comfortable men's flannel pijama pants, too, the kind that hang over my feet and leave an extra foot at each end of the drawstring.

So I splurged a little. My mom seemed happy to buy everything, and I was more than happy to have it. Matt left to photograph squirrels and we went to Bed Bath & Beyond and splurged again on discounted shampoo, razors and closet organizers. Mom made dinner and I compulsively organized everything and threw a bunch of shoes in a bucket to give away.

Oh, and I tried to make brownies and made cookies instead by accident.

After a long, full weekend, I put on a Mexican blouse (men's), ate a cold slice of cherry pie, watched Scorcese's first movie and sat down to blog, at H.'s request.

Enjoying a beautiful sense of self right now. It's probably from the hormones and the cherry pie, but it still feels nice.

And some photos! Most of these are from today, but a few are old.

I'm blurry.




sequential art; would Scott McCloud call it a comic?




(those were old ^^ and these are new vv)

renata made these for me...




brownies?



My mom used to tell me how her brothers would take apart their car engines and come out with extra pieces.




After all that sorting, it was kind of the same story.

Me in my I'm-bloated mexican blouse. It kind of works better when I don't use a mirror.




The wall, as it stands.



I guess I just want to be a nice person and genuinely appreciate people.