Wednesday, September 29, 2010

a day for lost things

I didn't lose sleep last night. Apparently it is very normal to sleep all the way through the night and not wake up to toss and turn or check the time. I lost time. I am accustomed to waking up every few hours and noting the time, then going back to bed. Even in the summer I would do it. Generally I never have disturbance free nights.

I lost my women's earring collection, the only collection that I cared about other than my mail art. I have three orphaned earrings who were kept in another place, but now they are the only ones I have. I realized they are lost for good.

I lost my ipod touch and my headphones. Gone. Not in any inch of my locker, not outside, on the busses, or in the lost and found. Just gone. No more music companion or late night clock. I think what I will miss most are my sentences. For a few months I would type in a sentence everyday for a month just to capture a moment, feeling, or thought of the day. I stopped a little while ago, but I always meant to do something with them.

I lost my privacy. I lost the freedom to do whatever I want to with my body without anyone worrying about it. The case is against cleanliness. Clean places mean that people can read your shit because they can see where it is in your drawer, or cupboard. They can read letters, journal entries, and things they were never meant to read because they can find it.

Despite saying I am not lost, despite trying not to feel this way, that's the only way to describe today. Lost. I am more tired, and care less. Monsterous days that never end but are actually filled with very little. Uncertain, indecisive, and awkward, I have never felt less like a deer. I wish I could call in sick to school somedays. Not that I am sick, but I think something can be said for thoughts.


Thursday, September 23, 2010

Neither.

I am becoming you. You drank wine. I drink coffee in a less picturesque city. We both fade, forgotten. I am a language no one wanted to learn. I'm too hard, and never make sense. Too many accents. The grammar relies on feeling instead of logic. It takes time.

I say this to your generation who never heard me, and to those after and now who never will.I try hard to relate, but I cannot.I actually try at being just this much awkward and not more.

I can see why we are dead




languages.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Did Andy Warhol ever sleep?

Y'know, if I were to do it over again, I'd probably give this life to someone else, someone who deserves it more than I do. I know you can't do that, but that's what I would do. I'd give it to a girl who wanted the opportunity to be a nurse. She would have been so great at it, saved people's lives and shit. I'd give her me minus the fuck-ups, the bad body, bad clothes, and queerness. Blank slate, but same opportunities. She'd be a real winner. There'd be a wedding, a big white, catholic wedding in a church and an open bar at the reception.

Y'know what Judith Halberstam? I don't know about the giant gay world, but it is hard being queer me, it's hard being loser me. It's hard to fuck up everything that you do in everyone else's eyes. It's hard not to be the right girl girl, the right queer girl, or the lesbian everyone wants you to be. I know I probably missed the point of some theory I've yet to read. It's just a process, yet no one says it gets easier. Burnt out, I've read the stories, people burn out into apathy. Work til we don't give a shit anymore, then give it to the kids who work til they don't give a shit anymore.

Y'know I might go to bed at 9:30pm because I still don't feel well. Tomorrow's a fucking long day, and this not feeling well is a product of something. Tomorrow's the counsellor day. Oh, life's not really this dramatic, it just feels like this sometimes. Constantly feels like its ending and nothing good is starting, but that's the quirks of having a mind like mine. I hope I am not becoming the kind of person who goes to bed early because it doesn't suit my nocturnal creativity.


Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Shoulda seen the other girl

Feel like I've been in a fight, never actually been in one before. I know there are things I would punch people over in the right situation. Body is worn. I have bruises in random places. They look like they've been there for days, but I am only noticing them now. Old scars, new scars, healing scars. They're just there. Kind of given up worrying about them too much for the time being. They're just there.

I feel ill, some sort of stomach virus. Tired a lot more. Maybe its the bussing, maybe its school. Maybe its all the 8:30am mornings on days when I finish at 5:30pm. I don't know. Everyone is tired, but I am usually never this tired.

The hypochondriac in me is saying leukemia. The realist in me is saying go to sleep you silly girl.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

P.S.

I'm so tired.
I'm so goddamn tired.

You are a poet

I gave birth to a poem that I wrote many weeks ago. I gave birth to it in a room of other poets, some just learning, others very good at the rhythm of words. It was a high and a low, and a nervous, frightening, but empowering experience. I walked like the girl who could write a poem like that. I walked today like someone who was full of the confidence that a poem like that creates inside you.

It was real, it was slam, it was expression and art. Afterwards, I felt faint and fell onto the couch and said, "Who am I?" I laughed, shook my head and asked again, "Who am I?" aloud. I shocked myself.

John shook his head, smiled and said, "I don't know. This is too real. This is too real."

And it was.

I seem to be dragging my friends into the most uncomfortable, yet interesting experiences lately. First it was the Dub poetry workshop/slam, then it was that strange play. Tomorrow laptop orchestra.

Keepin' it real, keepin' it strange.
I feel unpredictable.

Today:
I lost my student card.
14th consecutive day of wearing a dress or skirt
started to photo-document food (for school)

Sunday, September 12, 2010

This week:

Open mic night
Play watching
Orthodontist appointment
Taking back the night
Teaching guitar
Zine making
Life planning
School fucking
Early mornings x4
Late evenings x3
Work shifts x3

At least you have Fridays "off"

Saturday, September 11, 2010

I wish I had someone to lean on. I don't even know what to write because I have written everything. I keep having dreams of people in my life. they have all moved on and are so happy, well-known, and wealthy. Something needs to change soon.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Something

Something happened when I was younger. Maybe it was because I was smart, maybe it was because I was incessantly teased. Teased and ostracized so much that when everyone grew out of it, somehow I still heard their voices and their hatred towards me. I became them and excluded myself from everything because I wasn't wanted. Maybe it was because I drew and made so many things. Something happened, and I detached from the world.

I withdrew into myself because I couldn't fit in. I couldn't become certain types of girls because I didn't look the right way, I didn't make friends easily, I didn't have enough money. Because of that, who I am is forever changed.

Thirteen to twenty is a long time to feel this. Every time I thumb through old notebooks, I come across repeated feelings, repeated moments like this where I try to step back and look at it all. I am looking at it all, and let me tell you this head is full of thoughts. I am not a forever kind of person.

Not to be alarming. This is just same old, same old.

Apologies

Endless upon endless.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Everyone needs to make new things, Please!

I feel like putting a memo out to every artist I know, every photographer I look at, every zinester, blogger, writer, and internet creative type I admire.

Make new things.
Write new things.
Take more photos.
Make zines with me.

Please?

I get sad when I flip through my inspiration directory and see day after day of sameness.
Maybe I consume art too easily.

On a sidenote: My mother is too excited by this month of non-stop girlishness. Dresses will be the death of me. Broke down and bought plaid today.

"You could buy the same shirt in the women's section,"

"I know mom, but its not the same."

"I guess everyone's buying those kinds of clothing now."

Monday, September 6, 2010

Canzine 2010

Do I go, book a table and sell my zines in among the awesomeness of other people?

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Better me than you

They love you. God, they'd miss you too much. A forgettable, unmissable self writes this for unforgettable you. Nailpolish, coffee and big city. Who is this girl? Go away. Shoo shoo. Big fear, little courage. No regrets. Are you kidding? No, don't call me that. Used to have impossibly high morals. Miss morals. No friends. Sharp pain in your side when you inhale deeply. Gone, can't you see there's nothing there? Tomorrow, tomorrow. Fuck it, I say. All the prophets are dead.

Wrong. You are wrong. Cold toes. Trembling. Scars, don't make more. No one wants to hear your stories. Magic! It's over. Sleep, sleep. Alliteration takes too much work. Press next button. Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with thee, and all the lies. Blessed are those who shop at American apparel, for they shall get laid. All I really want is girls. However, conditions like this guarantee loneliness. Sign your name.
-A.L.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Don't

Only finished stitching my zines tonight. I was ready to abandon them, forever unbound. Save for one single copy, I have hid them away from the rest of the world. I know now that they are made, they no longer really belong to me, but I just can't let go of them yet.

Dear girl,
you are in too many of my Dear girl pages.
-the girl who owns the world


Thursday, September 2, 2010

Can't calm down.

Serious, it's serious now.
The pit of my stomach chews over the overflow of thoughts I swallowed.
I am exhausted, yet sleep feels like something that belongs to other people like speedos and mohawks.

You inspired someone today. That should be enough to calm you.
You made a new zine friend, you saw a movie about Babies.
You went to a birthday party, dressed up for yourself.

Does it balance out the other things?
The buying the thing you needed the very very very least,
The close to stitches without trying,
The smiling not because you are happy about happy things

If it doesn't rain, tomorrow night I might pitch a tent in the backyard and sleep in it.

This is one of the photos that is going to appear in an online writing anthology in October.

Never

I never got back to sleep last night. I pulled the sheets off my mattress trying to steal half hours of dreams. It was never morning. Neither the left or right side of the bed could drag me under for long.

When I close my eyes, I don't see the daydream girl anymore. I don't see the wood panelling, the blue sheet, the backward gaze and half smile. I don't see it anymore. She knows something's up, so she's fled the mind of someone who doesn't want theirs.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Not there yet

Lesson Plans:
-you only took 6 pictures this summer
-"sorry"
-I can be alone and you can't.
-We gave up on a Wednesday.
-"I saw it, and I was like what the FUCK? It's like you can't make up your mind, boy or girl."
-Your dad doesn't know
-Catch Dreams Out of Thin Air