mrfwfg

garbage is on television. i mean it. shirley manson is covering her head on the ground. in fishnets.

can words really do anything? when i feel this way, i write. i think it's productive. it helps, to feel like i can successfully transmit exactly the idea of my toetips to my hairtips to words on a page. and i like to think that if someone in jackson hole googles 'mrfwfg' and ends up here, that they might decide they will read this nonsense instead of rephrasing their search. and that for a couple minutes, while the words flash through their eyes and into their brain that their toetips will tingle and their hairtips will sway and that they might just understand the idea... of me.

i think sometimes i tell people i love them just so they'll say it back. maybe not. maybe i really just want them to be happy for a second. everyone wants to be loved.

it's one of those nights. you don't know what i mean... yet. a film-loneliness night. the movie was cute. that whole 'socialist readings/thimble thing'? i knew i'd seen it a hundred times before. but it had to be maggie gyllenhaal. do i love her because her name is 'maggie gyllenhaal' and anyone with that name must be wonderful? because her characters in the last two movies i've seen her in have been bakers and cake-makers? i think i might work at a bakery this summer. just because of her. is that silly? maybe i'll meet a maggie gyllenhaal there. a real one. i think it's because it's me, because it's my situation, because of what i feel is important, because of what i've been through, that it resonates so strongly. when they're laying in bed and the narrator's talking about falling in love and she rolls over against will ferrell? yeah. is it naive to think that's all that is worth living for? it probably is. right now i could care less. i also hate the feeling that there's not a single way a common person can approach an actress and be taken seriously. and not be a fan wanting an autograph. and not be a waste of time. same goes for singers. and it's not like i've tried. it's just that i can see it happening and i know exactly how it plays out. exactly. exactly.

it just occurred to me that i should name my new old bicycle. i think 'maggie' would do just fine.

i want to keep writing... i just can't think of anything else important right now. another night... 'the she'. she's somewhere. in the next second, both our hearts will beat. did you hear it?

early

it's barely 11:20 and i can hardly keep my eyes open. it's gonna be nice to be asleep by midnight or a little after. i'm blowing off a lot but who cares. the semester is ending. i couldn't care. i wouldn't if i could.

i have been working straight through this semester. i'm not sure where it went. never really stopped to take a breath. all of a sudden it's two weeks until i'm moving out again and will be fully halfway done with my time here. that's kind of depressing. even if i move on and go to carolina a couple years... i'm not sure how that will work out. i'll just be a 6th year senior or something like that. and most of the people i see a good bit of are leaving to go overseas. this is good and bad, naturally, but i'm a bit jealous to hear them talk about europe and going together. if they're gonna all go, they can at least go alone...

it's surprising to me how slowly consciousness bubbles to the surface sometimes. the girl i wrote about a while back - maybe a month or two ago - in the coffee shop, the one from my film class. she lives in my dorm. never saw her here until a week or so ago. you know she's lived here the entire semester... somehow i never knew it. i was playing rook in the lounge last night and she came down the stairs and walked out. (wow, colbert just referenced "stephanie colburtle the turtle." eerie...) having never spoken to each other, she saw me and i, having glanced up to see who it was, saw her and looked back down. she walked on past me and left. the one thing that struck me though was that in that half-instant that i looked at her face, her expression never changed. she saw us playing cards and walked on out. this is so difficult to describe. it wasn't that she was angry, but there was no softness in her face. it felt like a judgment. i could feel it, just from that tiny look. you're sitting in the lounge playing rook with these other people. judging my friends too. i sort of wish she'd never seen me there, but i don't really know why. later, when i had switched chairs, she walked back in the door. we repeated our little dance. why haven't i ever noticed her here before?

today, after citizen kane, i wandered out and up the quad, walking like i was cool or something, and went to the post office. i thought, walking in, that i saw her behind me. after i'd looked in my box (nothing!), i waited, not wanting to walk out and pass her. i don't even think i ever saw her. i pulled my phone out and flipped through text messages like someone loved me. she walked in and past me to her box. i know by the jeans and the t-shirt. i walked on out, put my phone back in my pocket, and shuffled towards huff. i thought to myself... jesus god, i'm creepy. why do i do the things i do? stand there pretending to be doing something just so i wouldn't have to consciously walk past some random girl in the post office. so dumb. but, you know, for a second there, i didn't even care. i limboed a wispy tree branch and looked up at the sky. i'm a ridiculous and awkward individual, painfully so. and i'm alone and the semester's almost over and i'm not gonna worry about it. oh, and i love the way i walk when i feel like she's around. just like i don't have a care in the world. confidently, purposefully. pretty much like i want her to feel like i don't need to even know her at all. but i'm still walking alone, and so is she. she does the same thing and it's so attractive to me. never hanging around in a pack of girls or hanging on any guys. just her. that's all she needs. i swear sometimes i catch a look of loneliness, though. i just wonder how two people who don't need each other ever actually... speak to each other. it's an ineffective and illogical plan but a comfortable one.

when i got to my room, i put down my shit and pulled out a plastic bottle i meant to recycle. the middle pane of glass on our lounge door is the only transparent one. i saw her walk through the lounge and i happened to walk in the second she walked out. i don't think she even saw me. but all of a sudden, she's everywhere. that's how consciousness works, though... the more i see her, the less i see em. ah, to be rid of these shifting allegiances. <-- i don't know what that meant, it just felt right.

you know who i'm closest to? nobody. i thought i'd write down a name but it would probably be a lie. i'm close to nobody. i have nobody. wow, i just realized that. it happens every now and then. if i had written a name...

you don't love me at all
but don't think that it bothers me at all
you're a bad-hearted boy trap, baby doll
but you're
you're so damn hot
oh

orke...

bouncy tonight. a while back i was sitting at the worker's table and saw a girl ordering coffee. she was facing the other direction and had gray sweatpants and a pink hoodie on. i don't know how but i knew exactly who it was... ipsp girl. the one who, when we're picking out names chose "jack kerouac" which prompted me to tell her i wish i'd chosen that. not that "baby's got the bends" wasn't great anyway. always made the study directors smile. this beautiful kid got to be a target while my friend and i got placed as observers, the significantly less fun flip side. benefit was, even though we were both assigned to be observing boring heavy girl, we could watch hipspg the whole time, which was the case the first time. i don't know that we saw her again, though. in the second half of the semester, when i was stuck watching dvd's of yet another boring ugly girl (and only her, as it was she the camera was focused on) my dvd fucked up and i got to switch it out for a 4-way group shot for the rest of the observation. lo and behold, hipspg. anyway, i recognized her from behind, which was odd. she has such a demeanor, so composed and relaxed and cool. you know, the kind of girl who, in a hoodie and sweatpants, is so much more attractive than most other girls out there who are trying so much harder... and "jack kerouac"? come on... what can i do?

she didn't stick around, though, and i was left sitting alone again. i mean, it's nice

wait wait wait wait... that "if you lay here..." song just ended and now it's enrique wanting to be my hero coming in over the coffeehouse speakers. i'm walking back to my room. this isn't worth it.

...

ok, back in the comforting and quiet confines of my box. tv is (thankfully) on mute, leaving me with my typing and the song in my head (the reason for my bounciness). forget that last coffeehouse thought, there. it wouldn't have helped anyone. in an unrelated note, i looked at someone's pictures on fbook today and had a bad realization about them.

i'm registered for summer school at ncstate. couldn't imagine anything more fun than that. every morning at eight. three hours. tuesday and thursday i have to wait around for two and a half hours after all that for my lab at two. oh man. i can't wait... god, let it be easy. all of this leads me to my most recent career choice: pharmacy. the logical thing would be to transfer to carolina right now but i don't really want to leave wake so i'm not going to. just gonna finish out two more years and get my degrees here, then transfer into the 3rd or 4th year of the pharmD at unc. spend a couple years there, a year in a hospital, and get a job in some hospital pharmacy. 27 years old and making $100,000. that's the plan, anyway.

"oh, yesterday came suddenly..."

it was a strange day. beautiful in a photograph. blue skies, electric green trees, people walking about. but blustery winds and noises. i walked out my door at five till ten. amplified voices from the chapel next door. it was holocaust remembrance day. 12 straight hours of names being read, not even close to reaching 6,000,000 (and that was just for the jews...). a couple hours later, in the beginning of art class, a girl a couple rows down from me told her friend she'd heard there was a shooting up at virginia tech and that one was dead and seven injured. i dismissed it as a minor tragedy and forgot. at lunch, before i left for my room, a friend asked me if i'd heard about the 20 dead up at vtech. i told her she was crazy and was making shit up cause i'd heard it was only 1. she insisted so i said i'd just look it up when i got back. returned to my room with food and checked the message boards. sure enough, there was a thread devoted to it all. i started reading at the beginning to catch everything as it unfolded. appalling isn't the right word, but it's close. the cable was out campuswide due to the winds and i was forced to have a russian news channel on in the background while continuously scanning the board and any online news agent i could find. my window was open... it was so beautiful outside. all of them had different numbers to display. it was 16, then 20, then 22. pretty soon, speculation reached 30. you could watch them rise. people reported different sources, different speculations. 22 to 32 hurt. just like a pressure wave square in the chest, every time it rose. shocking isn't the right word, but it's close. one guy was posting from his locked-down dorm room, two floors above the first murder. he didn't have tv or cell phone so he posted to us. he broke down crying talking about how insane it all was. just crazy. pretty soon stories came out about some poster's friend here having a friend there who was the only person to survive in his classroom. the tv came back and with it videos of the cops outside, gunshots coming in bunches, up to 18 in thirty seconds or so. horrifying isn't the right word, but it's close.

i had to leave so i walked out and went down to look at the deacon shop sale around five. they were still reading victims' names. pretty soon the wind carried them away. i was dismayed to see a girl there. she said hello and asked me how i was doing. i told her i wasn't doing too well at all. she asked why. i responded, "oh... just today i guess" and walked away. she didn't bother me again. i bought a shirt and walked back. the sun filtering through the trees, the grass ready to be mowed. the wind dancing with the names.

at two today, the bell in the chapel rang thirty three times. i walked outside to listen, sat down on huff steps in the sunlight by myself. people everywhere stopped. it was the loudest i'd ever heard those bells before, the most vocal and plaintive. without exaggerating, i can tell you it sounded like a hundred thousand people weeping.

it's war

the rabbit looked frightened. it was 3:22 in the morning and he had taken a single large hop into the right lane of a small tree-lined and dimly lit side street around the faculty apartments on campus. he looked up in time to see a decade-old volvo (turbocharged, mind you) bearing down on him. terrified, his little bunny brain randomly chose one of the four cardinal directions to hop... turns out it was the correct one, backwards. the volvo swerved and braked for good measure, its driver miraculously not missing a syllable in the song he was singing at the top of his lungs. he did, however, have a miniature heart attack that didn't so much attack him as made him wonder (brain separate from body)... hmm, this must be what a heart attack feels like. the driver did not get held up on the walk back from the parking lot to his dorm. in fact, the dorm was 75% quieter than when he left an hour earlier. lovely.

half

it's after two and i'm laying on my bed listening to this wonderful beautiful album i've never heard before. it's dark except for the light from my laptop, the two clocks (microwave and alarm) and the broken lines framing my door, not to mention the peephole. i'm sure if i turned those lights off, i'd notice the glow creeping in under the blinds from the parking lot. i can't decide whether i'm happy being alone here or if i'd rather be sharing this small space with someone else. i can only think of one other time i've ever used my computer on my bed and i think the situation was pretty similar. writing a story for class... it was a different album back then, though.

there's still a big red line across my wrist from the rubber band welts. still a little gray scar a couple inches up, too.

there's only one of my "friends" online. this one freshman girl i took bio lab with last semester. we did a presentation. it was kind of nice; she was cute. i tried talking to her a couple times afterwards but i really don't think she cared much to be friends with me. oh well. no use in trying to talk to her now.

i had emailed somebody up at the gonzo store about a t-shirt they had on clearance that wouldn't add to my shopping cart about five days ago. i'd forgotten about the whole thing but someone emailed back tonight saying they still had two shirts left and that the checkout mechanism worked fine for them. if it didn't work, i could get back with them. i tried it again, was able to order, and wrote back with a short little note saying it worked fine and thanks. i got an email at midnight saying "Thanks for your order. I'll ship it out tomorrow. Have a wonderful night." really made me smile. i wish there were more people in the world like that.

i'm a little concerned about the future. i hate to think i'm wasting $45,000 a year going to school here if i don't... become something. i always figured on med school and hospitals and radiology or something. i found a website a couple days ago to the tune of 'so you want to be a radiologist...' it basically recommended that you do it because you love it and because you have a good heart and because you wanted to heal people because otherwise, you just wouldn't make it. it's just too hard. and, you know... that's not really me at all. what else is there to do? investment banking? fuck. i was thinking what i wanted to do had nothing to do with jobs or careers. but then i figured... well, there's always writing for a magazine. shooting pictures. teaching skydiving. owning a restaurant. cooking? oh, and being in a band :) i guess those are careers. i don't know how much a liberal arts education is going to speed me on my way, though...

i just laid here for a couple hours and watched "half nelson" in the dark. great movie, by the way. too bad i have to degrade it by writing a paper for sociology on it. you know, it didn't even really help. not what i expected anyway. still good.

maybe i'll be the next hunter s thompson.

i can't say how much i'd like to close my eyes and float away right now. i've always had this dream of flying. independently flying, not like in a plane or with wings. feels like too much effort. just floating, you know? all alone, unattached. out of reach. how wonderful would that be? maybe there are drugs that can make you do that.

you know what? i'm happy tonight. maybe not actively happy. maybe content. maybe i'll get a haircut like ryan gosling and grow a beard. of course then i'd have to start smoking, snorting crack, and be a basehead. i guess i'll see where the summer leads first. i still need to dig that hole. i'm hungry. i haven't eaten dinner in a couple days.

i wonder if most people are content with their lives. when i think of my future it's pretty great. i'd say better than 93% of people's lives. i guess that's just americans, though. worldwide, probably 99.97%. i wonder if i'll make it that high. i worry because it's only that one chance. i worry because my heart has beat once every second for the past 636,366,000 seconds, approximately. i worry because it must be getting tired and it makes me intensely tired thinking about how it never stops. and i really really honestly wish it would just rest so i could rest. and i wouldn't blame it one bit for quitting right now because i would were i in its situation. and that would be it. my one chance. and i wonder about those other six billion people whose lives aren't quite what my future is imagined to be. are they all disappointed? how am i gonna be when things don't go my way?

maybe i'll be the first... me.

whenever i say 'you', it's not supposed to be painfully obvious who i'm talking to. i think it should be, by now. i know the other girl, she doesn't read anymore. i know you'd like this album here. it always seems like we're out of phase, doesn't it? not that it matters. i'm a disaster and you're a healer. just thought it was strange how these things work out. i also think it's strange that you're a couple hundred miles away asleep right now. that you're a part of the world at the same time i'm dozing off in my dark room tapping away while my music hits its last track. doesn't seem like you should exist. i'm sorry, i'm rambling. just thought it was interesting.

sweet dreams, goodnight.