A note about being excited and scared at the same time.

I am finally, finally, finally hitting the road this summer! June 29th, one way ticket to Memphis. I can't believe it! I'm ready for the adventure, the ups and downs, the scary what-do-we-do-nows, the passion, the experience, the unknown, the people that we'll meet, the things we'll do, ah! So much to look forward to. Here's to finally taking my dream and making it real. Be it only a month, be it two years, as long as I've gone out there with an open heart and taken in the experience of being on the road with nothing but the pack on my back then I will be proud of my decision. I am already proud of myself. Here we go!

Isn't that beautiful?

One time I was tripping on acid with two of my friends and we happened to notice a humungous tree that was growing out of the ground diagonally, as if it were reaching for the tree across the street. We all agreed, why would he want to grow straight up anyway? And then my one friend looked at us and he said, "that's 300 years of love in slow motion." Isn't that beautiful?

dreams of molly

meet on a corner

share the candy stripes

stand on another corner

walk

find the tunnel

hear the leaves, see them fall

leave the tunnel

enter the drip drop world

well to do spiders, prime real estate

swing by the boats

follow the red sand

climb the rocks, lay on the best one

listen to the strength smash against the rocks

breathe the static electric air

laugh at the static electric tree

laugh at each other

they lay on their favorite rock while the other wanders into a new world

he returns, they’re still laughing

jump on the rocks

hold her hand, don’t let her fall

feel unbreakable, fall

realize you are not unbreakable, bleed, learn, move to a new world

feel at peace with your world

say hi to your trees

realize you need gum

unpreparedly go into the gum aisle

lose control with laughter

there’s so much gum!

leave, keep walking

take a walk on the wild side

your friends are right there

3/26/10

When I woke up this morning he was in my bed and it felt good to wake up in the arms that kept me warm all night. There is a man in the seat in front of me with his Sony headphones around his neck. He’s sleeping with his jaw hanging down. I sleep that way too. I find myself on the upper deck of an enormous bus, trees naked with winter whizzing by, exploded rubber and rotting carcasses lining Route 65. I make it sound dreadful but it is actually a beautiful day. The beginning of spring, cold but sunny. No snow, no clouds. The bus is headed toward Indianapolis and then to Columbus where I will be dropped. I started today in Chicago.

This is a trip I have made many times when I was younger but I am still young and the trip is no less tedious. As much as it annoys me, I have fallen victim to the impatience of a generation overwhelmed by speed and technology. The particular ride from Chicago to Columbus, in the past, was always quite painful as it represented my return to a city where I was going to school 7 hours away from some boy that I loved. I gaze out the window and I think about him for a couple of moments. . . but we don’t really know each other anymore. I feel saddened by this but then my nasal cavity becomes overpowered by the ever familiar scent of cow manure and I remember that I love living in the city. Flat farm land, though it is reminiscent of home and should probably bring about feelings of being a young girl in a life that was so easy, makes me feel weird.

Driving through Indiana I can’t help but notice the ridiculous religious billboards every two miles. One of my favorites, “CATHOLICS. . .can always come home” insinuates that home should be somewhere in Indiana if you claim to be Catholic, I would assume in the vicinity of the billboard, and that if you are not Catholic you can’t come home? Really some strange and confusing stuff going on out there in Jesusland.

Anyway, I drift in and out of consciousness for most of the bus ride but when I am awake I am jealous of the road and I want there to be no destination. I want to have paid $40 for a cross country road adventure or at least to be traveling toward the Pacific but I will end up in Ohio and I will see some of my best friends which will be great and also this guy who I thought highly of until he proved me wrong about that and then I will get back on the bus in three days headed back to Chicago where I will spend one week full of regret and hatred and then I will be fine again. I always end up fine.

o__O

The way I am confused is not to be confused with being confused because I'm too dumb to catch on. I'm confused about what you are doing with your life and why I don't have any desire to do those things. I see people with their lives so sorted out and can't help but think to myself, "um, hey self, did you miss some chapter in your life where they taught you how to be an actual adult? because what the fudge are you doing?" Like, the things that motivate me are not success and money. Money stresses me out and stuff but that's because I get hounded all day every day by bill collectors. I really do not care/could not give less of a shit about it. Take it all, man. None of it's mine anyway. Saving money is boring unless it's for a specific cause such as buying a vehicle or going on vacation or helping your friends/family through something.

There's a side of me that has absolutely no idea why anyone cares about anything. People do things like open savings accounts and put money in them but why? I know why. What I don't know is why I don't have the same attitude. I can never sit still long enough to "plan a life" or "have a savings account" or what have you. In my mind I feel as though my time here is limited (I'm 24) and so why should I save save save when I can experience everything? If my future isn't guaranteed then why am I going to sacrifice things that I want to be doing right now so that maybe I have a few extra bucks when I'm 65? If I live to be 65 then I'll figure all that out then. I'm fine with just "getting by" as long as I'm surrounded by the people I love and as long as we keep laughing and holding on to each other then what else could possibly matter?

What I never want to ask myself is, "why didn't you do that?"

Dr. Internet

My brain has been assaulting me for the last few months which is a normal activity for it except this time it was telling me things like, "YOU HAVE AIDS! FOR SURE!" and "HEADACHE = SYPHILIS/LOVECHILD/BRAIN TUMOR/FATAL INSOMNIA!" I kept being like, "No, Brain! Stop it! I'm trying to apply for jobs that will give me health insurance!" It wasn't working. Instead of applying for new jobs I started using the internet to diagnosis all of the diseases that I was certain had infested my body.

Real quick: did anyone know that such a thing as fatal insomnia exists? I mean, whoa body. Not cool. Anyway...

Here's a tip: do not ever EVER look up any symptoms on the internet unless you have like, a hemorrhoid or something that is easy to compare to a google image. (I once helped a friend diagnose her hemorrhoid with the internet and trust me, there is no room for error when diagnosing those giant ass-vein-balloon things.)

Alright, guess what happens if you ask the internet what might be causing your headaches, loss of appetite, pelvic pain, anxiety, etc?...it will tell you that you are probably already dead but if you happen to still be alive, you will not be for much longer.

So if you tell the internet that you have flu-like symptoms it will tell you that you have:

1.) BODY CANCER! No doubt!

2.) HIV! (yea, if you're lucky! your shitty immune system probably already progressed to AIDS!)

3.) That tingle in your foot? Yea, that's the first indicator of SMALL POX.

4.) You are definitely pregnant!

5.) LATE-ONSET SIDS! What?

6.) The disease where all of your teeth and maybe even your eyebrows fall out!

7.) Just dig your grave already, lady.

I'll stop there but basically the internet tells us that any symptom ever can be caused by anything from the common cold to FUCKING CANCER/AIDS/FETUSES! Dude. Not cool. Common cold > Cancer/AIDS/Babies. Okay well maybe babies are better than having a cold all the time but I am not quite ready to grow another human inside of my body (but if that were the case I would love the baby and be the best mom ever but that's not the case yet). Sorry, future babies. I will (hopefully, maybe) reproduce someday so just be patient. For now I must remain a creepy cat lady with a flat tummy.

So I spent everyday for the last who-knows-how-long-felt-like-forever googling different symptoms that were most likely psychosomatic yet ALL were listed under "possible symptoms" of HIV infection or some form of cancer. Needless to say, I started spazzing myself out until my good friend/coworker, in a frantic attempt to shut me up, made me go get an HIV test and she told me that if I say anything else about having chronic diseases she will beat the shit out of me and never give me any of her trail mix.

Good news: I don't have HIV! and I probably don't have cancer but I am rapidly becoming a hypochondriac thanks to the stupid internet.

I'm kidding. I love you, Internet. You're my boo and all, just please stop telling me I'm going to die.

Then I went home and ate the shit out of some crab rangoon: see above right.

A Vintage Giant

I've made it a habit as of late to swing by Myopic Books (a used book store in Chicago with cats!) at least once a month and I've had a fair amount of luck so far but this^ copy of Ulysses is my most treasured find yet. I know that I am holding a very controversial literary masterpiece in my hands and all that but I am also holding what was once a gift to someone unknown from Susan, with love, in July of 1967. This particular copy was reset and published in 1961, so for 6 years was it Susan's? Maybe it was a gift to Susan and she felt compelled to pass it on. Did it sit on the receiver's shelf until April of 2010 when it took it's place on my nightstand? Maybe I'm the only person who is fascinated by the journeys made by inanimate objects. Even so, this book isn't a breeze by any means and the people who strive to read it are, as a whole, admired by me. I can't help but wonder how many eyes have studied its pages and I don't really know why it matters. I guess I like knowing that items such as this book have experienced love and I truly feel that this one has. I am delighted to own this copy of this book and I realize that I may sound slightly mad to some. Regardless, sometimes things are beautiful.