soon-to-be scarf

too long

It's been so long since I've knitted that I can't remember how to start the stiches. As I get going, it comes back to me, but it strikes me as odd that I haven't knitted for almost a year, even though it's one of the biggest stress relievers I've ever known and I love making beautiful things.

but then again, I have no time. busy busy busy.

right now my eyelids are weighted with sleep, my back hurts, my feet hurt, it has been a long exhausting day, but I'm still writing because I want to. But sometimes I just can't muster up the wanting to more than wanting to sleep. same goes for most of my solitary extracurricular activites. As much as I enjoy reading a book, crafting a shadow box, collaging with my endless supply of paper and photos, I just can't seem to make time for those things that bring a deep sense of satisfaction and joy to my somewhat lackluster life.

there's something else though; I constantly push aside stuff for me to do stuff for other people. it's dumb and I don't want to do it anymore. I have never been a conciously selfish person, deciding to do what's best for me first, but it's about time I start.

first step has been letting go of those few friendships that only make me wonder, why am I even bothering to hang out with this person?

my second step has been having my day off be my day and not scheduling anything else...though sometimes this doesn't always happen.

next, I've been doing small things that make me happy and fulfilled in an effort to accommadate being so busy: I'll put a card and envelope in my purse to write a note during a lull, carry a bigger purse so I have a book to read at all possible times (usually during travel on the impossible CTA) and I've been trying not to deny myself every single thing that feels like a treat, because the truth is, one bagel and cream cheese isn't going to make the difference.

Excuse me, I've got to get back to my knitting...

helium head

maybe I just needed a day off. maybe it was last night's drinking combined with no dinner and four hours of sleep; no coffee consumed til four in the afternoon. useless, I was.

the only sense of accomplishment I feel is that I started reading a book today and it's nearly done. happened to me the other day too. usually that kind of consumption is something I regard with some suspicion, wondering if it means that I am holing up again, fighting off the urges to do the shit I've absolutely got to do.

It feels okay because one of the things I've absolutely got to do is write my manuscript, and I can't write when I'm not reading something. It's an odd phenomenon, but my writing feels forced or trite when there's nothing I've been reading.

I can tell it's about time to begin my manuscript; I've been wanting to write here more often, I've been writing super duper eloquent text messages that I save with some sense of pride and I've been having dreams.

I'm sure I dream all the time, but I hardly remember them. Every so often I have transcribed the details of some dreams I remember online. I find it interesting that when I go into this kind of period, it is usually fall, which used to mean school, reading lots, I also tend to dream in a vividness that gives it some concreteness so that when I wake, I have strong recollections of what I was dreaming about.

Also, I have become agitated. I find the dullness I encounter from living day to day almost painful. I am bitter and bitter is bad.

this is what I know from watching others: do what you want and you will get what you deserve. wasting time not doing what you want is mind-numbing. doing what you want actually changes people from morose Eeyores to vibrant people who make a difference.

fuck. what am I doing here? my friend dan the man is thrilled that I want to go into the peace corps. maybe it's the right time to give myself away to a cause that's worth my time, my exhaustion, my sore feet, my cracked hands, my smiles, my tears, my heart.

at 24 I was pretty funny:

Thursday, April 26, 2001

Regrets:

Dropping out of school.
My estrangement with my various family members who should know who they are.
Letting my relationships get all taken for granted.
The way Vince and I got engaged the first time.
Passing on opportunity.
Not volunteering for a good cause when I should have.

Goals:
Graduate college by 2006.
Be a millionaire via intellectual property.
Be a generous millionaire.
Write a novel or two before I turn 30.
Volunteer and learn more about marine biology through Shedd Aquarium.
Become a mentor.
Become more involved in YCA.
See my nephew at least once a year.
Have the wedding that I dream of having.

Interestingly enough, the only goal I managed to make good on was graduating college by 2006. And even that is a little off, because my last day of school was December 18th, 2006. Of course, my regrets are the same and even have new offshoots of them, and my goals actually don't sound so bad, except for the wedding part. I almost left that out, but that and the millionaire part made me laugh.

I've been reading through a lot of my old journal entries trying to identify the "great writer" that Scotty's brother Tom claimed to remember from my bugs in amber days. It's been a while since I looked at those entries and to a large degree what I see is a person who is me but not me, my life is completely different now and everything I used to hate I have learned to embrace. A lot of what I wrote were highly amusing stories that took place at the coffeeshop:
liar, liar, garbage can on fire!
the jesse jackson of clark st
seven strikes you're out!

So did I see a great writer? I don't know. I wish I could say that going to school and spending sixty grand on a fancy education made me a better writer, but I think it made me a better person, so it's not such a loss. I think my journal writing hit a brilliant summit during the dating and exhilaration that was Mr Burnham (which can be viewed at the diaryland site).

Take them or leave them, online journals, blogs, chewed up bubble gum on the sidewalk, there's something to be said for being able to transport back in time with a few clicks on a keyboard.

what is your greatest ambition? to become immortal, then die.

breathless was amazing.

godard is a genius. I can't wait to watch more of his movies, because they apparently get more and more unconventional. He was largely uncompromising in his vision and he had a fascinating theory on blending fiction with real life, creating a psuedo-documentary style movie, in which he obscured the camera so that people didn't know they were on film and he captured life as it was happening in that time and that place. That idea really appeals to me with my work, and kind of feels like the direction I'd like to take.

the funny thing is, he wondered if I would watch breathless and find it dull. terribly boring. and I wondered if I would like simply because I want to like him,

but no, it was joyous to watch and I was fascinated.

this is the moment I live for

as I shuffled through a mix of gray, stomped down snow and sparkly white flakes, staring at the dusting left on trees and iron gates,

there, bubbling, in the [surprising] stillness of my mind, a sentence formed. my body kept moving along the sidewalks, but my brain went on a mental tangent. the sentence was spat out fully formed, followed by a viscous strand of continuing sentences and the background of the subject. it has been so long I feared my writing process had changed somehow. a sense of great relief rushed through me and I stopped in my tracks, like a moose frozen by a sound in the distance.

since school has taken over the reigns of my writing style, my ability to cull the grit of my life into pearls of prose seemed to have expired, either due to the efforts of the more rigorous procedure of homework [five pages a week?! impossible!] or the complete occupation of my mind to angst.

it remains intact, an oyster still, and the last two months of rest and lack of crafting fiction have not been a waste, for the mulling and turning over of material is still going on [always going on] and to my great delight, it has produced the next thing, the next step, beginning with that sentence.

I rejoiced that I knew I had a pen, struggled with my bag to search for some scrap of paper, even a receipt would do, and wrote down the sentence. I also wrote down what was left of its trail, which was slowly dissapating, and the little of it I got will do well to give me more ideas to consider.

I continued on my walk, dragging my feet through new snow that no one had walked through yet. and I was glad.

a timeline:

8:34 a.m. I awake, groggy. lots of drinking the night before at ranalli's. there was a drinking game with the show 24. slept about six and a half hours. the first things I think of make me groan.

9:17 a.m. running to catch the train that is crawling overheard on the tracks. I make the train, but am out of breath. I try to read Madame Bovary, but my head spins and I feel a wave of nausea so strong, I consider getting off the train and standing over a garbage bin for a while. But I am late, and have no time for possibly vomiting on cta property.

9:57 a.m. I become one of those customers at Starbucks that I have always hated: I ask for a piece of marble loaf "that isn't exposed to the air."

10:05 a.m. I arrive at Diane's out of breath, laden with sbux and not really ready to work, but oh well, such is life.

11:59 a.m. I leave Diane's slightly annoyed, late for Siena. We have accomplished a lot, but there is a crick in my neck, a migraine is threatening to surface, and whenever I point out things that Diane's done wrong, she somehow finds a way to blame it on me. such is my lot in life.

12:05 p.m. Kim sighs when I arrive. she seems to finally be getting used to my being late, at least, you'd think so.

105-2:35 p.m. Walter arrives and we debrief about the previous evening's racous events. I make possibly the best sandwich on the planet and eat it into extinction with satisfying noises and praises.

3:34 p.m. A man seems to find the idea of pulling the change game on me a sure thing, but unfortunately for him, even though I am hungover, my ability to work on auto-pilot and my peripheral observational skills are still functioning at optimum capacity, so he leaves after a yelling match with no extra money and calls me a bitch.

3:40 p.m. I count the drawer and it is neither over nor under, which means that guy was a total asshole.

4:42 p.m. Rob comes in and distracts me from my work in the best way possible: stories told and shared brownie and doughnut. I sit in the front and put my feet up on a stool.

6:37 p.m. Kim calls to check in and I am still way behind on the closing tasks, as usual. She's opening tomorrow so everything has to be p-e-r-f-e-c-t.

7: 15 p.m. I am late for meeting Kim. of course. one of our customers has comped us tickets to his neo-classical concert. Even though it is cold, we go. Even though Kim is mad at me for a dozen things I've done wrong lately, we go. Even though the idea of spending two hours with someone whose business I just closed with the utmost anxiety via perfectionism that makes me want to wither and die, we go.

9:23 p.m. the concert was fantastic. Mr. Burns led the group in the bears fighting song as a suprise. the reception in the lobby is decent, we half hug and say our greetings. Kim eats a lot of desserts. I people watch. When I realize what time it is, I panic. I'm supposed to be at school, meeting my new friend dustin, and typing a journal entry for this site. instead I'm nibbling on mushroom and onion quesidillas made by fox & obel and watching my boss eat her third mini puff pastry with powdered sugar on top that floats in the air and lands on her five hundred dollar cashmere sweater, looking like lint or worse yet, dandruff.

9:48 p.m. I meet dustin in the depaul center. He is accompanied by a classmate whose presence irks me somewhat, but not enough to make me ignore him. he's not coming with us, which is good.

10:22 p.m. dustin and I stop off at dunkin' donuts at clark and division for a "pick-me-up" in the form of a donut called "glazed stick." I love words and descriptions of things. we are instant friends and we dissolve together.

11:04 p.m. we enter our destination: neo. dustin wants to get to know the place, and I seem to know about it, since it's down the street from siena.

11:05p.m. -1:36 a.m. after a couple drinks, dustin's ready for the dance floor. it takes one more and some encouragement from a weirdo named elvis for me to join him. I actually dance and don't care how I must look to people. but I cannot stop people watching. of course.

1:37 a.m. after elvis leaves our table and goes back out to the dance floor, we make a hasty exit, but not before writing him a note on a napkin, "it was nice to meet you. thanks for the stories. d + c." not sure if dustin finds this odd or cool, but he assesses this and then we depart.

1:46 a.m. dustin and I are walking to the train and he is letting me lavish him with words and laughing heartily at my wisdom and humor. it is fun to talk to him.

2:07 a.m. the dominick's is closed. the train beckons. we stand on the platform and talk about whether or not life is purely destiny or free will or some combination of the two. my brain, which is buzzed and still operating as high speed peripheral observatory realizes that the only other person standing two feet away from us on the platform was just dancing at neo with us. weird.

2:23 a.m. dustin has disembarked at belmont. after he leaves, the man who was also at neo comes over and begins to strike up an awkward conversation with me in which he introduces himself and then asks what sort of music gets played at neo on wednesday. I don't know the answer.

2:37 a.m. a man sitting on the train car stands to exit at granville. my telescope turns to view this movement and he nods at me and then gestures towards the doors of the train as if to say, join me. I smile and turn my head to the window. I am a little freaked. what the fuck?!

2:40 a.m. I get off the train and wave goodbye to edward, the fellow neo dancer. he waves back.

2:40:09 a.m. dustin texts me, "hit that shit."

2:40:14 a.m. I literally, actually: lol.

2:45 a.m. I enter my apartment to find it slightly rearranged: a carbon monoxide detector was installed in my apartment today. someone came into my apartment to plug a carbon monoxide detector into an outlet on the wall.

3:13 a.m. I want to collapse into sleep, but my promise to write lures me to my laptop. I begin typing this here entry.

4:01 a.m. I am turning off the light. good night.

"newly baffled strangers"

the joy that rises in my chest from the company I've been keeping has been so thoroughly fulfilling that I feel I might explode from happiness. it seems strange to realize that all these wonderful people have been surrounding me for a while and it is only now that I have awoken to their presence and personalities and I find them to be such tremendous people that I almost quaver in their presence, as a fear trembles over me that I might somehow ruin it all if I say the wrong thing.

my new year's resolution has been the driving force behind this, and yet, it had already begun some months ago with the inclusion of annie and walter (two amazing and incredibly warm and fuzzy coffee shop customers) into my social bosom. all day I wondered how I could wait until Monday to speak with annie again. today I had a sushi lunch with walter and it was like spending time with someone who knows you so well that you don't even have to talk, yet there is always something to say, no matter how many times I hang out with him. then there is my coworker val, who has the kind of laugh that makes you yearn to say funny things just so you can hear it again and again. her delight in me gives me great pleasure, and I can only hope she feels my appreciation of her good values, sense of humor and kindness in each of my expressions to her. we went to see a movie and I spoiled her with peanut butter hershey's kisses and hot cheetos, and we reveled in our own secret jokes.

yesterday I got to hang out with beth, who I realize I haven't seen in many months, and her husband ed, and their pets, and I literally found myself sitting back in one of their newly accquired dining room chairs and simply being in the moment, resting, completely content, a feeling I have not had in some time.

my conversation with them is awkward, and sometimes intimate, as if they can see past my physical self and right into my innermost thoughts, and I know this is just a symptom of my loneliness, which I had not realized plagued me so deeply until today.

a man who comes to the coffeeshop quite often who happens to physically resemble my old roommate greg: entered and I engaged him in the most gregarious and whooping kind of statements that he, quite frankly, seemed baffled by, because there is no history of that between us, just polite and perfunctory exchanges, and it occurred to me that I miss my old roommate greg quite a lot, a lot more than I would ever admit as an answer if that question was posed. of course, when I am no longer forced to endure his presence, I find myself fondly recalling the moments that were good between us and feel forlorn enough to wonder if it really was so bad after all.

[can you tell I am reading a classic novel?]

the return of olive oyl.

as a kid, one of the few verbal barbs that the children managed to muster up in an effort to make fun of me was calling me "Olive Oyl!" And really that was probably one of the most perfect things to call me, since I was indeed as skinny as a rail, tall, with big feet while being slightly and awkardly attractive.

in high school, gentle curves began to take over my body and I wasn't the tallest girl around and no one was smart enough to call me names (they simply resorted to snickering or laughing in my presence).

after high school, my body slowly expanded outward. in my lack of knowledge about nutrition, I prepared meals that would have nicely fed someone vying for a spot on the football team, carbs, carbs, and more carbs, followed closely with protein and sweets.

lately, people have been wondering how I've gotten so skinny again (or in some cases, they forgot how big I'd gotten). somehow, I can only explain that my best diet seems to be breaking up with a boyfriend.

how else can I explain that not even a year ago I gave away all my size 10 pants because I have given up on ever wearing them again! how else I can explain the struggle and frustration of trying to lose weight and not buying new pants that were a size 16, and I spent an entire year wearing two pairs of corduroys my mom bought me at Wal-mart, one pair was green and one was brown and I wore them until they literally fell apart. how else can I explain that it was like a constant agony that went everywhere with me? how else could I explain how those forty pounds had crept into my skin and stayed there, clinging to my bones for dear life and no matter how hard I tried, nothing worked.

part of the answer lies in simply not having a boyfriend. eric did most of the cooking. all the food we ate must have suited him perfectly or he had the world's most amazing metabolism, because as I began to expand, even if I tried not to eat as much as him, he stayed the same. but we had the worst combination: we always ate late. we often ate out. and he was an enormous carnivore, and his love for meat and cheese and alcohol was too alluring to refuse on a regular basis. we were two steps removed from the sin of gluttony and happier for it. some of my best memories of us involve food.

alone, I am not one to cook for myself. I can't really afford to eat out as often. I eat a lot at the coffeeshop, which is one of the reasons I find it hard to quit working there. and I tend to eat dinner well before nine (which was our usual dining hour), so I don't go to bed with a stomach full of food.

so it is not like I am actively "dieting." it is not like I am going out of my way not to eat. In fact, I love food and eating. what I am going to eat for my next meal is--sadly--a constant mental occupation (when I'm not thinking about boys, of course).

yet, I've been getting the concerned lectures about my appearance. I look skinny. and when I say that it is not really something I am trying to do, but it would be nice if I lost ten to twelve more pounds, the people get aghast. angry. worried.

This is how it began last time I was skinny, right before the rumors spread of me being anorexic (me, not eating? that was hilarious!) or bulimic (a little more plausible, but still not true) and finally, that I was ill from some kind of disease that was forcing me to shed weight rapidly (people just have way too much time on their hands).

And for some reason, the whole height weight proportion thing seems to be a completely useless factoid, because I simply appear too skinny at my proposed ideal weight (at 5'11" & 3/4, I should weigh between 155-160). but I don't feel too skinny at my ideal weight. maybe a little bit in my chest: my collarbones and ribcage seem more prounounced and visible under my skin and my breasts are smaller. no one ever says, wow look at that sexy sternum!

I've noticed this before, and it is still a confounding thing: no one ever asks me if I feel okay being skinny. everyone just assumes that I am hurting myself. no one ever assumes I feel terrible being fat. I can't walk up stairs without going out of breath, can't run for the bus without huffing and puffing; I feel heavy and bloated and weighted down. not to mention all the damage it does mentally when I look at myself and do not like what I see. just because most people in my life have gotten used to me being thirty to forty pounds overweight doesn't mean I ought to stay that way.

it just amuses me that people talk about weight so much and yet everything they say to me is completely backwards. I lost twenty pounds doing the cleanse. that was in MAY. that was eight months ago. At the time, it seemed scary and weird and I'll admit, I was a little perturbed by the whole thing too. since the cleanse, I lost another ten pounds. that I did not gain any weight back was thanks to my own delight over being thinner and my best diet plan (the breakup) as well as eating better and taking yoga class. and then what do people who love me have to say about it? are you okay, Christine? are you you taking this hard time out on your body?

maybe I should get into lady bodybuilding and then people will leave me alone.

egads.

I am done with my undergraduate career.

when it surprises you.

My work got read aloud today in class (among others) and it was heavily recalled, and for the most part, I think people really got the point of the story, really got the feeling I was going for.

The triumph in that is it is probably the piece that is closest to my journal writing style, and yet it still has its own feeling apart from me. Also, it was a rare piece of mostly fiction (I tend to have about half real life instances and half made up scenarios), in which the characters I'd envisioned grew beyond what I'd seen for them, and the scene unfolded in a way I hadn't predicted.

Moreover, I was pleased with the subtle sense of extended metaphor in the piece, something I hadn't noticed I'd done til I read it through a couple times.

Or, as Steve Martin says in my favorite Steve Martin Movie, "Sometimes, I even amaze myself."

If you'd like to read the piece in question, send me an email and I'll send it to you.