modern guilt 08 012 2008

life is still bananas.

i feel like everyone is bummed out at me and like i’m making a lot of wrong choices. lately i’ve gotten a new job, given up the new job because it wasn’t what i wanted, went to chicago, planned interviews, ate a lot (a lot) of frozen custard and am now on a post-summer pre-semester break from my other job so i’ve got time to focus on things i didn’t think i would want to care about, ever. like lame artsy shit and making quilts. i didn’t realize it before, but quilts are like crazy puzzles that have to be organized in a beautiful way, and also you don’t have to make them boring or old ladyish at all. it’s kind of right up my alley and i didn’t even know it.

anyway — that shit is dumb. in other news, i feel like i’m being split in two and don’t know what to do about it. ha! a year ago i moved to north carolina and a year ago i never dreamed that a year from then i’d be where i am now. i still believe with everything in my still-beating heart that i am doing the right thing, but it’s hard to keep going on that kind of momentum when i still feel so secretly ashamed and bummed out about quitting & coming home. having panic attacks about what a lazy piece of shit i was for months and months at a time has not really trained me to make the best decisions for myself, and i am even now taking baby steps, all these hesitant stumbles in only sometimes-right directions because i am absolutely fucking terrified of being too selfish, too wrong, of giving up. it’s a weirdly bitter thing to realize, especially for me because i try so hard every day to be self-reliant and stand up to assholes who are making the world a worse place by being in it. case in point: giving up and quitting a job that i didn’t like, didn’t feel comfortable with, didn’t think matched at all with any of my professional ambitions, thinking my newboss was kind of a sexist weirdo, but feeling like total shit for it because what kind of idiot would quit a job after a week? me, that’s who. i can be a strong-minded, decisive woman who makes her choices absolutely in her best interest, but it doesn’t mean i’m responsible or happy all the time, and it’s hard. it’s a really fucking hard thing to balance.

tomorrow i am gonna: take my sister to the doctor, mail a package to galesburg, go to the fabric store (i know, right, seriously) and the boner store, apply for jobs with discretion, paint some shoes, look at how beautiful it is outside everywhere and not worry so goddamned much.

people like that are the only people here 04 07 2008

well, okay, i don’t really want to talk that much about basketball, except to say that of course the jayhawks earned their win. last night felt really bizarre to me, the whole thing, like i was in some drug-induced haze thing the entire time, watching carolina get so thoroughly and immediately trounced in the first half. not that carolina basketball isn’t susceptible to losing badly, of course every team is — i’d just never seen anything like that, much less in a final four game. anyway, they did rally hard, i cried a lot about it, retained some dignity in the end.

yesterday was a weird day in general, though, i suppose: i went about my normal businesses and some dude with a knife and my cigarettes in his hand mildly expressed he thought i was an officer of the law.

now i’ll talk about that picture. there’s a chicken that sometimes hangs out in our yard, just chilling out usually, when he/she/it is not making terrible noises directly outside my window very early in the morning. the situation does really remind me of this thing from my childhood, though no one seems to ever know what i’m talking about when i make reference to “that one thing from sesame street.” also, sometimes when i go out to my car, the chicken is just sitting there in that tree, staring at me like a creep. fowl stalker. it’s awesome.

JUST KIDDING.
(it is not awesome)
(it is a little bit majestic, though)

i just was hit hard with a wave of very intense yearning for summer. i’m not looking forward to almost fainting in the heat, but i am looking forward to so, so many other things about it, like: no school, working, hanging hard, getting real freckled again, reading beautiful books (i used to keep a list of things i wanted to read, but i seriously think i plowed my way through it last fall when i didn’t have a computer and had lots of time), going to the beach — which i have never done before, or, like, seen the ocean for real –my 23rd birthday on friday the 13th of june, drinking soco & sweet tea on as many porches as possible. going places! i get defeated sometimes, unbearably upset and nervous, but the reality is that i have a whole lot to look forward to yet. there is nothing in the world to be so sad about.

some serious boating 07 015 2007

Glad for the navigator.

thrillinois 07 015 2007

Who said this was boring?

view from the couch 07 014 2007

In the afternoon.

taffylicious 07 014 2007

The collective key to my heart.

cherries 06 030 2007

when she is old and i am famous 06 019 2007

I cleaned the apartment.