The Beast

Journal Excerpts, May 22nd 2007 - December 29, 2007:

1. We are not looking at the road. We are looking at the houses and trees and we are singing along with the stereo. Our mouths are wide open, wrapping around the words, and the windows are down when we see the cat catch a squirrel in its mouth. Hilary pulls the car to the side of the road, opens her door, and jumps out in one fluid motion while Ellen and I look on in horror.

Hilary scares the cat away and walks back to the car, her shoulders slack and her arms at her sides. "I shouldn't have done that." She sits down in the driver's seat and closes the door. "It was too late." Hilary explains what we couldn't see from the car: the wild look on the cat's eyes, the blood on its teeth, the way the squirrel cowered before Hilary, trying to drag itself away on its belly because it could no longer run.

I'm staring intently at my hands when Hilary says, "I killed it." I'm mapping out the blue veins peeking out from under my skin when she whispers, "I murdered it." (May, 2007 -- events happened November, 2006)

2. I don't like to think of myself as hateful, but I hate him. I hate him so much that it makes me sick to think that I was ever sad or sorry enough to let him near me. (June, 2007)

3. I try so hard to be kind and forgiving and in many ways I feel as though he damaged that capacity for kindness. (June, 2007)

4. I have zerio desirability and my social life is practically negative and now I have guys kissing me at ska shows and telling me I have the perfect body and what is even going on? (June, 2007)

5. Jon wakes up to smoke a cigarette and ask if we can have sex. I say no, like I always do. (July, 2007)

6. Jon's bed is really just a mattress on the floor, but I guess I've never known a guy with a real bed anyway. The sheets are blue grey and have navy squares on them. He has two pillows. I wonder if this is because he likes to have two pillows or because he's used to sharing his bed with someone. There's not much on the walls: a painting that looks like it was done in high school art class, photos of his dead father, and something that looks like art from a Dungeons and Dragons book. I don't feel much better when I realize it's an insert from a Led Zeppelin album. Boys. (July, 2007)

7. Girl: "Skippy, I love it when you tell stories." Skippy: "I fucking hate it when you talk." (July, 2007)

8. The secret language of this summer is dirty mattresses and empty bottles of Red Stripe, Jimmy's hand over his heart, beating fast and loud. "I took too much of some new supplement." Alex laughing, "Doesn't he mean steroid? I think what he meant to say was, I took too much of some steroid." (July, 2007)

9. Last night was enthusiastic echoing calls of, "Bike party!" It was kneeling on the ground, the concrete kissing our knees while we forced air into our tires. Last night was Will's collapsible bike pump and his strong, wide hands making a difficult task seem easy. Last night was Stephanie joking, "It reminds me of giving a hand job." And me responding, "Except not as boring." (August, 2007)

10. Will: So what does James think about vegetables? Me: He hates them and has replaced them with cigarettes. (October, 2007)

11. Paul says, "I don't feel like I've had 11 beers." Says, "Hey, do you drink?" And flexes his arms. I can't take him seriously, this boy who poured bleach on his jeans in high school and was a minute legend for staring down robbers at the KFC on Euclid Ave., saying, "What are you gonna do, shoot me?" (November, 2007)

12. I'm just trying to figure out what I want. (November, 2007)

13. I just want something in my life to be going right. (November, 2007)

14. Britt called/texted last night and said, "So much drama." Said, "J has some ugly girlfriend and Carmen slept at my house last night." She said, "We're having a party the night you get home. Jon won't be there, so you'll be safe." She said, "He has a girlfriend, we think she's as stupid as he is."

15. Bob: No, that would be the K Hound. Write that down. (December, 2007 -- I don't know what this means anymore.)

16. Today was long but good and now I feel jittery from too much caffeine and not enough food. [...] Weird. I wish I wasn't so shy or whatever. [...] I had a good time tonight. (December, 2007)

She Walks On Me

When I'm feeling upset or homesick or unstable or like I'm 15, I like to listen to Hole's album, Live Through This and "She Walks on Me" is, still, after all these years, perfect, especially when Courtney sneers, "Don't you touch me, don't you dare.

I got my score on the Praxis II - a perfect 200 out of 200. At first it felt like it might mean something significant, but after a long day of writing awkward lesson plans that I don't really believe in and really, I don't even know why I'm writing this.

By the Way

I just rediscovered Built to Spill's cover of "By the Way," a gorgeous Heavenly song. I'm not sure which version I prefer, except to say that the Built to Spill version has this whine to it, this sadness and need that doesn't quite come across when I listen to Heavenly.

I've been thinking about music a lot lately. Listening to Kaia in bed a few nights ago, I was reminded of high school -- lying in my old twin bed, my walkman resting on my stomach while I listened to mix tapes, mainly songs by Kaia, Tattle Tale (fuzzy sounding and always, always cut off), the Butchies ("Heartfelt" from Are We Not Femme?), and "Fuck It" by Delta Dart, whose tapes I would order through an Australian zine distro. But Kaia, always Kaia. I remember hearing "That's Mr. Baby to You" for the first time, long before I would even understand how much it really meant, hearing her say, "It’s gonna take so much time to undo what you did to me and this is a big fuck you for every name and every shot you took." It was something I needed to hear, just like I needed to hear Tattle Tale singing about recovery from sexual assault (for years that line from "Erica" was all I could think about, wrote it over and over in my journals and on myself, sweated it off when I was trying to escape my own skin) and Kathleen Hanna singing about the importance of living, of continuing to live. When I am alone in the car, when I'm feeling homesick, when I am scared or sad or angry, I still hear those songs, still draw on them, find myself singing, "Does that mean my body must always be a source of pain? No, no, no, no, no, no, no," reminding myself, that it is possible "[to turn] cursive letters into knives."

When I was in high school, I wanted to give these songs to people, wanted to show them these sounds because I could not, would not, and still won't tell them about myself. But I still draw on memories, seeing Bonfire Madigan in high school, walking home from downtown Willoughby after a night that I thought might be signaling the beginning of something singing "Carrie's Song" by Tiger Trap, and I guess I don't know why I'm writing this except for the fact that I'm seeing Mirah next weekend and Kaia at the end of the month and all day, all week, all of my life since I was 15 years old has been too tiring and too complicated

Forever Young

I wish I were here instead.

Skulls

I've been listening to The Misfits a lot lately, blasting "Skulls" and "Last Caress" and all those other stupid songs that remind me of years 13-15 (one of my friends loved The Misfits so much that he painted one of the walls in his room with a giant Misfits skull-logo mural, no wonder we all seemed so uncool).

Today was pathetic attempts to look professional. Cardigans, my glasses, and the lowest heels I could possibly find. Today was driving through Hamilton alone, blasting favorite songs and singing loud to myself.

I finally forced myself to re-register myself to vote in Butler county. I'm almost done with my Shakespeare paper. I'm reading Alice, I Think (a supposedly feminist book for a YA book club that I'm facilitating) and finding it almost impossible to choke down. Maybe The Misfits are causing a deterioration in my feminist ideals? Regardless of what Danzig might think, I'm glad that Bitch Magazine isn't going under.

I was really hoping there would be more to senior year than takeout for China One and tv on dvd.

Spit on a Stranger

Good Ideas that are actually Bad Ideas:

Listening to favorite, sentimental songs on repeat ("Erica," enough said about that)
Rereading old journal entries (that is part of the problem with keeping a record of your life next to library books and poetry anthologies -- you will read it and only be reminded of things you are trying not to think about)
Creed by Meg Kearney -- beautiful, but too much, and sickening to read the last lines and think about yourself 5 or 6 years ago ("and it would be more than I could stand" -- exactly, exactly)
Making your to-do list for the next three weeks -- crying when you see just how much there is to-do (crying, itself: supposedly therapeutic, mostly frustrating/embarrassing)
Trying to read Judith Butler when you're already feeling confused (you will only end up thinking about how much of your adolescence was governed by gender melancholia and nobody likes thinking about middle school anyway)
Contemplating petitioning for graduation without student teaching (sure, it gets you out of here 16 weeks sooner, but then what?)

Good Ideas that are actually Good Ideas

Just going to bed already

Possible Harm

I'm back in Oxford.

After three years of coming and going between Oxford and Cleveland, I've started to realize that whenever I come back here, it feels like I never left in the first place. It's like Oxford exists in some weird time loop that allows you to pause and resume old lives. So, I'm back in Oxford and back in rm. 222 and even though the beds are in different places and posters are arranged in new ways, things feel basically the same. I'm hoping that means this semester will go by quickly.

I've never started a school year with such low expectations, which is sort of nerve wracking. Senior year is supposed to feel like something and so far this just feels like a whole bunch of nothingness. Even spending time with other people feels like being alone.

The same old Yeats quote is taped up by my bed and my hair is all out of control, like it always is. I forgot to pack my hairbrush, like I usually do. You'd think by now I'd know how to do this, but I'm still clueless.