obfuscated girl

variations on the word 'sleep'

hello. i have this heaviness in my eyes that is preventing me from being completely awake yet. in honor of that i leave you with a margaret atwood poem as well as the Strangest Link Ever (see links section). happy weekend. here it is supposed to be rainy and cold. i may go to madison to visit my mom and see my sister's orchestra concert, but i haven't decided that yet. that is all. goodnight.

(end)

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

- Margaret Atwood

do not go gently into that good night

so my mother is in the hospital with pneumonia. while it could be something worse, i am really scared and helpless-feeling and the whatif monster is back and thriving. i talked to her tonight & she said that the doctors kept pushing back her release date, and because of the medication she's on she tends to not speak as clearly as she usually does, so i don't know what any of it means. (she's not completely disoriented; it's just that she tends to forget what she was saying quite a bit, something i remember her doing when i was younger.) she also said that diabetic jello is the most disgusting thing ever created. heh.
so i have been thinking about death a little today.
my mom smoked for thirty years on top of having heavy asthma. after she finally quit she was so sick that she only retains about a third of her lung capacity. and as a result she is not going to bounce back from something like pneumonia as easily as other people. i knew that she was probably not going to live to be very old, but i didn't ever want to actually be confronted with her getting sick. i don't think this is serious enough to have a reason to be scared that she's going to DIE, but i am. call it fate, call it unresolved issues about whether there's a god or not, call it my melodramatic tendencies, and you'd probably be right about all of them.
it may seem like it's just one thing after another with me. yo, how do you think it feels? just when i have consciously decided that i am going to Be Okay, this comes along. part of me doesn't want to dwell and another part of me wants to go back home and tell her that i love her and i'm sorry for the years that we hated each other and i need more time, you can't go yet, you need to understand that i need you.
fucking hell.
...i don't think that i have anything else to say.
and for the love of god, please DON'T SMOKE.
...i can't believe i just wrote that. i am amazed.
that is all.
soundtrack: rem, "half a world away."
(end.)

these ideas of the ruling class should not be the ruling ideas

things are not as bleak as they were yesterday. i don't have any one concrete thing to point to & say "this is why i am better." here are some contributing factors:
*i apologized to matthew for keeping him awake until 1 in the morning asking him to list things that i am actually good at, and that felt better.
*i talked to four (4) People Who Were Not Matthew on the phone. as much as i adore him, i equally adore having other contacts left in the world from my former life and the "real" "world" which i sometimes am not so sure i inhabit anymore.
* i am going to see radio 4 tomorrow and i suspect that hearing a bunch of punks yell about various societal injustices (but it's got a beat and you can dance to it) will help me snap out of this whole self-pitying crap.
* i watched "the swan" tonight and was gleeful at realizing that i am not in any way affiliated with the fox network, nor am i One Of Those People Who Actually Seriously Watches That Crap. (uh.) nor, i think, do i need any extensive plastic surgery. i think.
*i read a trashy book from this imprint that makes books that are bad xeroxes of bridget jones's diary and was gleeful at realizing that i am not man-or-baby-obsessed.
*while the nonsmoking thing is not effortless per se i have not regressed, and i've even been drunk/influenced by karaoke during the nonsmoking period. i have lost count of how many days but it's around three weeks. i even had several opportunities to smoke on one occasion because the Princess kept cutting out to do Princess-like things in the bathroom and left her nicotine on the table. i am a paragon of restraint.
*i have been told by more than four people, including matthew, that everything is going to be fine even though it seems awful right now. and while i know that they don't actually have amazing powers of foresight, i also realized that i am being more defeatist than i would like to be these days.

and so i ask you, reader, if you have gotten this far: how do you snap out of it when things are bleak? do you have rituals? mantras? what?

soundtrack: interpol, "stella was a diver and she was always down"
(end.)

prettiest boy

beings that i am secretly insecure about my writing abilities, hell, abilities in general (and by saying that you understand that it translates to being completely obsessed with myself and who might be observing me), i occasionally go back and read reviews that i have written on this website looking for comments that people may or may not have written about them. i haven't written for the website in a while partly because i have been dealing with my own shit and partly because the last review i wrote was completely deconstructed and made fun of by some anonymous guy. which is reason #1 why i will never be a critic, or any sort of a writer, ever: i care too much about what people think of me. but this is not the reason i am all up in arms right now. someone had the following to say about a review that i wrote of seven's travels by atmosphere, back in january:

"It's so sad that this piece relies so heavily on the Eminem comparison when Slug is not even "white". But who cares? If your understanding of hip hop pivots on race or geography shut up."

here is a link to the original review.
basically, this is my rebuttal to this person because i don't have the guts to do it in the original forum.
people can say whatever they want. i am not denying this. and i suppose it's my fault that i didn't point out that slug, the rapper in question, is not actually 100% caucasian, a fact that i had researched and decided not to include in the review. though i can't find the exact information right now i recall that he has one black parent and one white parent. because of his appearance a lot of people are going to assume that he is a white rapper. BECAUSE HE LOOKS WHITE. the media is fabulous at pigeonholing artists like this. people are fabulous at pigeonholing other people like this. my understanding of hiphop pivots on neither race nor geography; what i was saying was if atmosphere were to blow up any larger than they are now, slug is in danger of everyone ELSE doing it. the eminem comparison was based on appearance, yes, but more so because their lyrics share a great number of the same topics. race is and always will be a "pivotal" subject in hip hop, and if nothing else this is proof that it's always gonna be incendiary.
so what is this kid missing? am i missing something? did i accidentally write the most derogatory review on the face of the planet and my dreams of being a female cameron crowe (at ten years older than he was when he started) shot before anyone knows who i am? does everything pivot on race? am i racist for not addressing slug's lineage?am i racist because of the eminem comparison? oh my god, what if someone hated my rufus wainwright review?
(sigh.)
have you ever tried to teach a cat to fetch? the results are hilarious.

soundtrack: tullycraft, "superboy & supergirl"

(end.)
p.s. anyone who cares to follow the hyperlink and has an answer to any of the last Paragraph Of Questions, any perspectives would be appreciated, even if you end up hating me.

goddamnit

so i was in the middle of writing this long elaborate post apologizing for my lack of writings this week and talking about the show i went to in madison which was fantastic except for the audience and how this band broke up the day they were supposed to play the show i saw and my ennui in general and last night's antics wherein my friend, who is newly christened the Princess and i consumed an entire bottle of red wine each and this song and this song were murdered (yes, it was detached-hipster-karaoke night again) and the fact that i have a developing obsession with this and this morning when i woke up it felt like these were nesting in my brain and other various intelligent highly hyperlinked topics of note...
and my computer bit it.
stupid goddamn machines.
it would have been beautifully excecuted, i'm telling you.

soundtrack: minus the bear, "we are not a football team"
(end.)

note to self:

just because you have an extremely difficult time keeping your disgust at your own lack of physical prowess/athleticism in check does not mean that you get to inflict it upon the world at large. just because it's easy to shut down and give up doesn't mean that you get to anymore. just because you secretly think that your boyfriend would be much happier with a girl who could ski/play frisbee/ride a bicycle/run fast/climb things/etc/etc does not mean that you get to or even should remotely consider informing him of your opinion. just because you have never been good at athletic things and wished for grace for years and years and will never attain grace because of your--what's the technical name for it? hemiplegia-- does not mean that you are the only person on earth with problems and are therefore allowed to be Sullen and Hurt. in fact. you should be happy to have legs and arms. just because you are very good at being overdramatic about these things does not give you permission to do so.

(end)

i wonder should i call you but i know just what you'll do

so apparently if you google the following: "west allis green tea samurai" you get matthew's 'about me' page, and if you google "sarah zion halloween muir" you get the first time in his journal that he talks about me. aww. there was some weird way you get to my page through googling too but i am too tired to go find it again. i would just repost the entire im conversation, but i sincerely hate people who do that on their blogs.
i am not responsible for finding out any of this information, by the way. the conversation last night degenerated way too much into the silly. i will admit that i could spend hours googling random shit were it not for the tiny fact that i get computer-induced headaches if i look at a monitor for too long. (and i expect to enter the workforce again?...)
i am exhausted and parts of me hurt that i didn't know were there. i have changed up parts of the Plan at The Gym. The Gym is capitalized when typed and said with a very grave, important voice when spoken cause i never dreamed that i was going to be one of those people who went to The Gym, much less spoke about my experiences at The Gym. i can really only dream of being upwardly mobile at this point. there are certain people who are of the opinion that i should be pounding the pavement with my resume and for realz, be taking anything that i can get, and part of me agrees with this, but the rut i am in makes the concept of doing that entirely depressing. this is not to say that i haven't filled out a few applications for bank tellers and blockbuster peons and used-cd jockeys and taken temp agency tests and the like, but if i took a job like that wouldn't it put me back at square one on the Great Invisible Scale Of Unhappy and Underused?
i can honestly say that i have no idea. about anything. anymore. a sentiment which has been stated and re-stated here.
it has been finalized that i am going to the plea for peace tour, as long as emily doesn't screw anything up about getting the tickets. after i get back (it's in madison) i am embarking on putting together a riot because since milwaukee didn't get the tour, how are we to have any idea how to act like peaceful, non-anarchy-prone citizens?
who's with me?

soundtrack: archers of loaf, "south carolina"

(attica!.)

apple core. back for more. who's your friend? ME.

am back. memo to amy: are you happy now?
sometimes it takes a calf sucking on your hand to remind you that you're alive.

it was rather an uneventful weekend/week thus far. i have food in my refrigerator again, which is a typical result of visiting my parents. i also have a freezer door which appears to be frozen open and the perimeter is surrounded by about six inches of ice (note: this figure may be influenced by my lack of ability to estimate measurements correctly and/or flair for hyperbole.) i have never defrosted anything in my life; any tips anyone can offer would be appreciated.
to clarify the provocative (y'all are SICK) opening statement, one of the activities pursued this weekend was visiting a petting farm that my sister, who just turned 24, note that, wanted to go to. she, my brother and i were the only non-parents there above the age of ten, but it was good anyway. and yes, a calf did suck my fingers, for reasons that have yet to be understood by me. but animals, especially cute baby ones, have always had something of a calming effect, and they did help me to realize that things could actually be a hell of a lot worse.
other pursued activities included:
* watching something's gotta give with my entire family and being so embarrassed at certain points that i had to leave the room
* watching finding nemo , which i'd never seen, and school of rock, which i love (there's really not that much to do in madison).
* being subjected by my mother to a blind oreo taste test, wherein she adamantly claimed that the ones with the blue filling taste way better than the regular white ones. everyone "passed" except my dad, whom i suspect was being obstinate.
* eating vast and copious amounts of candy, some of which i even saved (gasp)!

and that brings us into this week, in which i have basically not done much because Boy called in sick yesterday and i took it upon myself to be his florence nightingale, as it was an excellent excuse for not being alone (there, i said it) and codependent.
the worries have not at all diminished, but they have been back-burnured for the time being.
as ice cube would say: "i didn't even have to use my ak/today was a good day."

soundtrack: spoon, girls can tell
number of days that my first glorious impression of good news for people who love bad news has held since its release: 9

(out.)

hoo

i was listening to npr earlier and they just played a song as an outro to the last program, which was about teenage sex education, i guess. the singer and instrumentation sounded like a bad prince clone & the chorus was as follows:
"we don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time, oh no." there was also some sort of reference to cherry wine. it was really, really funny, and by funny i mean appalling.
i am imagining sex ed classes in which the hapless instructor plays this song in an effort to be "hip" and "speak" and "relate" to the "kids" on their "level."
the situation with the crying is somewhat under control for now. i could theorize about serotonin levels or chemicals or chemical imbalances but i am really not interested in revisiting any of that right now. i feel like i have come out of some sort of battle.
speaking of which, i craftily and stealthily infiltrated matthew's boys night last night and watched "we were soldiers," and have subsequently vowed never to infiltrate a boys night again. it's not that it was bad, or that his friends hissed or spat at me, although i have a great deal of difficulty taking mel gibson seriously in any context these days and giggled upon realizing that his character was both catholic and had 85 children. it's just it was really excruciatingly violent. which is to be expected. (matt said that watching this film actually prepared me to be able to watch kill bill vol. 1 , an invitation which i respectfully declined). the other thing that they apparently watch on a regular basis is star trek enterprise , in which i have no interest. give me my seth cohen.
right now i am having the age-old battle between napping and finding lunch-type sustenance. to better decide which one is going to win, i am going to stop writing.
(am going to parents' house this weekend and am using that as excuse if should happen to not update. have no religious bits whatsoever but have always celebrated heathen bunny part of easter. yay chocolate things and hard boiled eggs, which always seem to taste better when colored.)
happy easter, y'all.

soundtrack: modest mouse,good news for people who love bad news
and holy shit, it's amazing
(out.)

god only knows what i'd be without you

if today was any indication or sign of what is to come, i am going to spend the entirety of the rest of this week curled up in bed crying as if someone kicked me.
i wasted so much time today, as i do many days; something about the time change made me extra tired and something about the fact that i didn't hear anything back about this interview i had on friday set off the crying spell. i was told i would get a call by wednesday if they want me; if they don't i'm going to get a letter. and while the good news is that there was nothing in the mail from them today, something in me thought that if they did want me, if there was a decision made, they would want to inform that person, you know, posthaste. ergo, dissolving into a Big Fucking Baby.
the fact that it's still 30 degrees everywhere (a cookie to anyone who gets that reference, said the smug indie rock girl) is contributing to all of this as well, i think. waiting for the bus and transferring buses and hurrying home with this chill in my bones--it feels like i have been cold forever. cold and lonely and utterly useless.
so basically i did the following, after i was done crying:
dropped off my rent, got enough groceries to last me through tonight (although my stomach is currently questioning that), played on the internet and read blogs devoted to the fascinating lives of high schoolers and mused about how none of them can spell to save their lives and i think it's nelly's/chingy's fault, applied for yet another job, watched horrible daytime television, finally finished london fields...quality alone time. yes sir.
and i think the television is what made me feel worse. i hereby take this forum to announce that i am drawing a contract with myself. ahem.
from now on, i refuse to allow myself to turn on the television between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.; the exceptions being the syndicated episodes of dawson's creek and the simpsons, and then only if i am over at Boy's house.

speaking of Boy and joey potter, we watched pieces of april yesterday and Boy was properly horrified at the amount of estrogen in the script. i thought it was pretty good even though katie holmes's neck tattoo was completely and utterly unconvincing.
off to wallow and kill time for the rest of the evening. hey, the finale of average joe two is on....
someone please kill me.

soundtrack: juliana hatfield, forever baby
(out.)

rebel rebel, your face is a mess

there are certain things that i'm going to get cheap little thrills out of doing even when i'm eighty-five, i think:

* wearing doc martens with pretty skirts
* chewing my nails
* rolling down the window and putting my hand on the roof of the car when it's warm & sunny
* singing in the shower and/or along with my walkman, loudly
* dancing, even though i suspect i look like a moron when i do
* Doing It in public places
* eating an entire pint of haagen dazs and considering it a perfectly acceptable meal
* kissing for so long that you can actually feel your lips increasing in size
* doing stupid things to my hair
* being in any body of water, anywhere (i have heard bad things about the hudson river, even though i've never seen it)
* shaving my legs (i really can't explain this one)
* being bitten
* biting (gently)
* crying for the sake of release
*being too loud
*telling intentionally bad jokes
*exploiting the part of unemployment that allows me to lie in bed and listen to npr for an hour after my alarm has gone off four times already
*secretly being pleased with the size of my breasts
* splitting entire bottles of wine and getting sleepy and goofy
* going on earthworm sidewalk rescue missions after it rains
* having the feeling that somebody needs me.

add some more of your own. lots more. go on. i want to hear someone else's secrets, for a change.

soundtrack: the get up kids, something to write home about

(out.)