Day 1.

I think one of the central jobs of art is to name stuff for us, to give shape and language to the things we feel in isolation. --John Green

it feels like somebody took my heart and dropped it into a bucket of boiling tears... and at the same time, somebody else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer... and then a third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grief bone... and I'm crying, and nobody can hear me, because I'm terribly, terribly... terribly alone.

--michael scott

You laugh. You well up a bit.

Any emotion, if followed along their deepest course, runs to these-- laughter, crying, love and hate, congealed into one scab of emotion. It's why we love antithesis.

"The opposite of war isn't peace... it's creation!"--Rent

I love the sound of creation, fingers racing to henpeck, type out the letters at thoughtspeed.

Creation tastes new, takes a minute to sink in. Then we decide. Then we comment. Then we react.

I've spent too much time looking for other people who have said it better. Let them build me up, particle by particle of influence and mythology, but not define me.

So my only New Year's Resolution, the only one I think and hope I can keep, is to create something new every day.

(So I started small.)

Eight Layer Bars To Eat Over The Sink At 2:20 AM (adapted from Teens Cook :D )

heat oven to 350

1. mix 2 c. graham cracker crumbs and 1 stick butter in a 9x13 pan, pat down

2. layer on: 1.5 c coconut

3. 1 cup chocolate chips

4. 1 cup butterscotch

5. 1.5 c nuts

6. 1 c. chopped dried figs

7. 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk (drizzle over everything)

(taste all ingredients separately prior to baking for 30-40 minutes)

feeling low

when will i stop hurting other people?

The World I Come From

I have a genetic tendency to worry. 

Passed down through my father's grandfather, who decided not to teach his son to swim for fear he'd drown in the process--

Worry accompanied by the knowledge of its rationality.

They had a lost a son to the ocean. 

Passed down through my father, whose parents left him and went on a camping trip-- after two days, he called the ranger, asked to check that they were alive and well-- he was 40, it was all the same--

My father's list is the speed-dial of his ever-present cellphone. 

1-- All messages

2-- His sister, Barbara

3--His younger sister, Lorraine

4-- His wife

5--Nana

6--Connie

7--Me

Passed down to me, morbidly cataloguing my friends most likely to kill themselves in pursuit of adventure. Friends who feel the most, or numb themselves worst. My mental list. 

We resort to survival strategies-- one summer, my mom watched all seven kids, cousins and sisters and brothers, me in her arms, the rest in the merced river. Not an L.A. river, bound in concrete angles, limited: a Yosemite river, with rapid swaths of white and deceptively slippery rocks and mournful trees, hiding the riverbank with their hair of branches. 

one two three four five six seven. She kept up a vigil of counting. 

one two three four five six seven. 

We fill our minds with equally possible events, each riveting to contemplate. 

And there is something safe-feeling about being complete in my little universe.

One two three. 

My family. 

My friends.

My habits. 

The worries keep me in the backseat, make my voice wobble at important moments, make me doubt where each action will take me. 

What if?

I keep an open mind. 

Can't find my copy of Hamlet, am resorting to sparknotes side by side shakespeare online-- the side by sides get hilarious:

This heavy-headed revel east and west

Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations.

becomes

Other countries criticize us for our loud partying.

Shakespeare exits stage, forcefully vomiting. 

"I bet Riemann had no friends"

what nostalgia smells like

ivory soap smells like childhood. 

mom got some today and washing my hands brought it all back-- the airy clean smell alone summoning connie and i sitting on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, carving birds with plastic knives. soap flaking away, drifting down. our snow.