when there's been a lot of blackness and fear and hurt sometimes the best thing is to quit going over it and over it and instead
find an occasion for a belly laugh
posted by renee 11:00 AM
Thursday, July 27, 2006
instead of bookmarks, i like to remember page numbers.
416.
also: i'm starting to find myself lost in books in a way i haven't for a long time. each one is a romance, the opening line a first impression, the times away from the story full of longing for our next encounter... real life outside it a bore in comparison. but i know all along that i will ultimately get to page 770 and then it will be over. and i'll have to get my heart worked up for the next one even as i mourn the end of a world i've lost.
here's what i imagine: a rehearsal space in the warehouse district, scuffy wood floors, exposed brick, big windows (drafty in the winter, a little), 15 foot ceilings, 24 hour access, a couple of couches. and somehow, in my dream, there's a grand piano in there, sharing the space with casey's signature green drum set, guitars and cords and mics scattered around. and i go, sometimes, in the middle of the night, or after an evening out on the town, and i'm still all made up and i sit at the piano with a martini and songs pour out.
and i recognize that this comes from seeing the movie "glitter," which i still can't believe i did. but i want it. i want it bad.
unfortunately, this is a financial impossibility due to all the stupid condo builders that eat up every drafty, exposed brick, scuffy floored square foot in a 30 mile radius of the cities. give us 10 years, when all the yuppies want to move their kids to the suburbs and then give us 10 more years, when they've finally given up on ever selling or renting their place and THEN, i might just buy myself a grand piano and take over an abandoned one...
or maybe, just maybe, we'll get extraordinarily lucky.
posted by renee 1:05 PM
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
still hashing out a theory:
people do two things in their relating to other people (maybe all the time). 1) express themselves. as if the source of their movements and sounds is a concrete center, where feelings, ideas, etc are produced free of much external force. 2) create themselves. when the source is fluid, full of complex interpretation of their surroundings and histories, even sometimes consciously behaving in a certain way to get the desired reaction from one's audience.
i have begun to strengthen my core in this way. however, i believe that the best kinds of people keep an appropriate balance of these two practices. one must not be hard, but one must have substance.
also, yesterday, i did three pull ups with only 10 pounds on the resistance bar. i had to make some terrible noises, but i did it. the long term goal, four pull ups with no resistance at all, is in sight. also: i like getting on a machine at the ymca, where i am almost always the smallest person in the weight room, and adding 100 pounds to whatever the last person was lifting. okay, so maybe yesterday was the first time that had ever happened. but i did like it...
posted by renee 9:23 AM
Sunday, July 23, 2006
turns out that the reason i usually want to go home long before bar close isn't at all that i'm getting old. i just hadn't been sleeping in until noon enough...
or something...
i could write about a dozen real entries right now. my head is reeling with assorted anecdotes and profundities and revelations.... but somehow this isn't the right vehicle for them to come out.
i wish i wish i wish
but alas
so, in their place: 1.) i made orange chocolate brownies today. they're yummy. 2.) i am wearing several silver bracelets and they make me want to dance because they jingle and sparkle prettily in the light when i move my arms. 3.) things are very confusing sometimes, but it's comforting to believe in the existence of an answer. 4.) some days i'm really confident that i'm just perfect for somebody. all i have to do is find him. some days, of course, i'm less sure. 5.) my friends are all very beautiful people. 6.) tapes n tapes and the plastic constellations delivered a rock show that made me feel just how i like to feel at rock shows tonight. a shout out to them and those that have made their rock star lives possible.
none of that is really it, though. IT is much thicker, murky, dawdling in my wordlogged brain, only on the verge of being drawn out, not coming of its own accord, and certainly not for the faceless audience of the internet. the internet doesn't ask me questions. it doesn't look deeper, care about the answers. but then again, who does?
i think i do. i hope i do. but sometimes i feel mostly alone in that.
i miss feeling 1) examined and 2) accepted DISTINCTLY and at the same time by a person.
so now i said too much, more than i thought i would, and now it's time for bed.
posted by renee 4:49 AM
Friday, July 21, 2006
here's the arrangement:
i make a cookie jar in my pottery class i lease the cookie jar to c, who keeps it in his office the rent amount is [keeping the cookie jar at all times full of cookies]
recently, i've been paying the rent for my own property quite frequently
i gave my tenant crap about this all week, insisting that he not only fills the cookie jar, but that he fills it with HOMEMADE COOKIES as i have been doing in his delinquency
unsurprisingly, he insists that he doesn't know how to bake cookies.
today, rent was paid under the condition that i keep my mouth shut so c can avoid in the future ever being held responsible for contributing to office potlucks [he has always been let off the hook in the past due to his chromosomes]
mmm... homemade cookies...
posted by renee 8:41 AM
i like boys SOOOOO much more than i like girls, especially in multiples.
thought more about my repulsion to men who do their hair, realized that it comes from 1.) if you're trying to impress me, read a book instead of laboriously teasing out your cowlick 2.) it would make me feel funny to date someone who took more care of their appearance than i did. i don't take much and i like it that way. (of course i reserve the right to fix myself up every great once in awhile for no good reason)
ummm... i miss my roommates, but i'm doing much better than i thought i would. this is, partly, due to 509 being intact for a week more.
it's fun when you're talking to somebody, and you don't run out of things to say, and then, later, when you're not with them anymore, you think of something else you wish you'd remembered to ask. that's when you know they're your good friend.
and people fade in and out of your daily life, but the important ones, they stick little parts of themselves in your memory to be drawn out at just the right time, and it's almost as comforting as if they were sitting there with you.
it's late. i'm going to read for a little bit anyway, because tomorrow i only work in the morning and then i get to do whatever i want.
P.S. THE DEMO ARRIVED! time to stamp and stuff and sell the little buggers. you want one? $5.
P.P.S. i made a 2-3 year plan for my life today. i think i'll stick with it.
posted by renee 12:07 AM
Thursday, July 20, 2006
please, will someone come play a mediocre game of tennis with me? there are courts right by my house, i discovered. i'm pretty bad, and it's been awhile. i'm not completely terrible, but pretty bad.
today i have an advertisement on my coffee cozy. it says "H_ADACH_?" / "Excedrin (two pictures of pills that say 'e') Go!" / "Extra Strength Excedrin. The pain stops. You don't"
and attached was a sample packet of excedrin.
for some reason, it concerns me greatly that coffee is considered a good vehicle for painkiller ads.
i was an advertising major for a couple of years. nothing is accidental. creepy.
a list of items that may or may not have anything to do with three weeks from today.
baking stone othello and other mind games cookbooks dealing perhaps with bread or other yumminess compact discs that i have not heard much of but should books that i would like to read more than once (fiction?! nonfiction?!?) the new york times? the new yorker? the local newspaper? foodie magazines? wino magazines? maps, especially giant maps, especially pretty maps (I LOVE MAPS) hmm... food processor or blender to replace 1) smoking blender 2) leaking blender
p.s. i miss yiling. p.p.s. chicago is whispering in my ear.
posted by renee 9:23 AM
Monday, July 17, 2006
this is a strange time of life when i am brimming with potential consequently facing the possibility of failure when birthdays start pointing to things not yet accomplished
and i look at those who are years past me some of whom build confidence in the inevitability of my success and some of whom seem to me beacons of wasted time
i must explore i must not sit too still i must not allow myself to be seeped in comfort and familiarity
nothing much has been decided about what i will do and the mystery is a heavy burdon, but unlimited doors are open to me and i will take full advantage as best i know how
and all the time i will love
it is the only effort which guarantees a life spent well
posted by renee 2:26 PM
Saturday, July 15, 2006
i feel.
i feel.
i feel you.
god i feel.
God i feel you
God i feel you God i feel you God i feel you
GOD i FEEL
God i feel you here God i feel you here God i feel you here God i feel you here God i feel you here God i feel you here
also: today is wanderlust mount kilimanjaro bristol, england (allan) india (nate/joie) greek islands? turkey poland (rebecca) rio de janeiro (portuguese!) hmm... the middle east in the middle of everything? probably not egypt morocco wuhan, china (nate w) france OR japan ??? (matt) sydney
and i never picked lemons for a farmer on the south western coast of italy. i still could.....
itching itching itching if money were no object, i would have no home and you, my friend, i would take you with me to the ends of the earth
it is quite unlikely that i will do none of these things.
posted by renee 10:03 AM
Thursday, July 13, 2006
a word that quite aptly does not describe me is:
detached
also: how the dissolution of a house full of boys twenty minutes from where i live can make ME feel like my social life is falling apart is interesting. and sad. very very sad.
posted by renee 11:01 AM
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
i i i i i i am i am i am dissatisfied i i i i i am i am i am hopeful, some days i i i i i was under the impression that things fall into place more naturally than this i i i i i am i am i am not i am not doing much to get out of this rut i i i i i i do examine my face for dissymmetry i i i i i i can often find it i i i i i AM painfully so
posted by renee 1:44 PM
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
yesterday, at 5:37 pm, at the intersection between robert street and 6th in downtown saint paul, minnesota, united states of america, a man wearing a boating hat and glasses and a big yellow backpack rode his bicycle across the street slowly, singing the star spangled banner at the absolute top of his lungs. i smiled.
also:
1. i generally don't like boys who put crap in their hair. it's even worse if they also iron their clothing. (ironing is acceptable for men with crap-free hair).
2. akjdflky
3. i'm thinking a lot about languages and countries and jobs and graduate school and what's really important to me in my life. one thing keeps trumping all the others. it is an obvious thing. but that thing is not for now, but for later, and that is mostly fine.
posted by renee 8:12 AM
Monday, July 10, 2006
every time i go to an all staff meeting and listen to the bitching and moaning of alleged adults, i am reminded why there are divorces.
posted by renee 2:23 PM
Sunday, July 09, 2006
i made fun of hilary at 11:14 am for being vain because she was worrying about her fading tan.
from 11:22-1:07 i waxed the living daylights out of my cute little car
the thing which one claims to be ultimate (i.e. a concrete God of some sort, the good of humankind, the good of the earth, some sense of over arching morality, one's own pleasure, etc) has much more effect on the explanation of one's behavior than on the behavior itself.
most things we do just because we do them.
FACT
there is an abb-solute gem of a girl in manhattan right this very minute that i adore and who is having a birthday today.
posted by renee 2:51 PM
Friday, July 07, 2006
somehow, despite my deep values, my confidence in my intelligence, potential and abilities, my distaste for excess, and the fact that the ride on the 50 into downtown st paul is totally my territory.... today a group of upwardly mobile 19 year olds in business clothes that looked half magazine and half dress up and kate spade purses that their fathers bought them and stupid conversations ("is that the capitol?") and trendy sunglasses and perfect hair made me feel completely inadequate as a human being. and i was even wearing make up!
they took over my bus and they took my self-esteem. who are they? where did they come from?
get them out of my downtown.
posted by renee 8:15 AM
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
OLD:
look at her her eyes are deep like the ocean someone told her that once and she liked it but she does not let you see all the way to the bottom there is so much released in words in nuance that it can be overwhelming and she may even tell you the whole truth but it is all controlled by some monster deep, at the bottom of her ocean eyes who wants to stay safe and undiscovered her utter depravity and she thinks if she tells you all about it you won’t be able to hold it over her later you won’t be able to say “you’re so selfish” because she said it first and she’s accepted it but not really, deep down inside her monster he is pouting about DESERVING and NEEDING and CAN’T HELP IT and MY WORTH, MY WORTH, MY WORTH in the meantime she takes a sip of her coffee admires the collection of bracelets she chose this morning and then stares off in the distance with her mile deep eyes
posted by renee 11:55 AM
............................................................................
posted by renee 2:15 PM
yesterday i made two hundred cookies.
the day before yesterday, one of my best friends got married to a boy who at one time thought he liked me (and they are fantastic together). afterwards, we went swimming.
today i'm BORED OUT OF MY FREAKING MIND at work again.
posted by renee 11:03 AM
