Random Ramblings
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your favorite stranger 9/21/03
There is a little stash of cocaine, but I put it up into the storage closet, so it can't be reached without a ladder. I wish my memory wasn't so vivid, but sometimes that all-encompassing distraction seems nearly impossible to resist. I stop myself-- and it helps to know that the coke might not even be up there anymore, so why climb the ladder like a fool to be left poking my head around in an empty space. And my pusher would probably laugh right in my face if I asked for more. He's trying to stop pushing, but I think he has a few packets left to sell. So I know in case of emergency I could probably get one... but once I've used it up, then there is no safety net anymore. Unless I find another pusher, and the wrong type of seller can really kill you.
I saw my family today, they are so cute. Actually they are so darn good-looking it should be a crime. There is a lot of death around though. Makes the drugs and the good-looking-ness all seem retarded. Haha, I remember sitting on my hands once-- was that to stop myself from taking a cigarette? Is everyone as weak as I am with habits? I think each member of my family leaves an impression, of some sort, on all the people at today's party. My dad exudes uniqueness, I won't explain what i mean. My mom exudes kindness. My brother plays the floppy haired physics guy. My sister plays the young woman who finally blossomed. I don't think I can see myself though. I try to guess, maybe I am the one who says "people!" too much, who eats too many brownies, who is stoic even to the mourning family, who is neither excelling in physics nor blossoming. My relatives seemed to ask me about my new job, so that must be what my mom deems worthy of mentioning to them. "Wall Street" sounds cool, although I'm not trading stocks or managing mutual funds. So I just have to smile a lot and look excited --- and I *am* excited, but I feel like I'm faking it to them, because it's the only thing I can do in the 30-second conversation to give off the impression that Everything Is Great.
Isabel 9/18/03
Jesus F. Christ. $10 is what I paid for lunch today. It was a fantastic roast beef sandwich on hearty tasty 7-grain bread, enjoyed with 2 lovely ladies Teresa & Maggie... but $10 for christsake? for a SANDWICH?
Later on, for free, I had a virgin mary, a diet coke, and a sudden sense of exhaustion. I think maybe I'll ramble about my friends, would that be wrong? I can change the names for the sake of the innocent, right? How about Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda? Myself and my friends resemble this collection of characters quite well, in fact. I think it all boils down to this: I just want to be offered a potato. That's what I've always wanted, the offer. I recall years ago, wanting the maxwell house, and when it was finally offered to me, the thirst for it vanished like a 401(k) at Enron. (Did I just say that?) I just forgot about it completely. I want it all offered to me on a plate, so I can push the plate aside. I've been like this since I was 10. Ask my dad, he found it infuriating. He knew I didn't want a potato, so he didn't want to offer it. But that's what I want, that offer. Of everything. But all I want to take is... a comfortable sweater and my delicious couch and memoirs of a geisha.
9/12/03
i almost forgot to say: Thirty feels good. I mean warm, sweet, milky cocoa with a spike of hot chili pepper.
Learn how to play dumb 9/12/03
'cause every time i try to hold my tongue it slips like a fish from the line
I hope you believe me, when I say I'm trying.
trente 9/9/03
Last night at dinner, my girlfriend read this to me. An old favorite from Cisneros. It's all too perfect.
She's a black lace bra
Ruin your clothes, she will.
That's what I get 9/8/03
It's my last day in my twenties today! The best thing about turning 30 is that for the past 6 months I deemed it reasonable to buy myself or do just about anything my heart desired. Chocolat, clothing, a trip to france, nights out, days away, books galore. That reminds me I need some CDs.
Okay, that's not the best part. The best part is harder to describe... I'm at a loss for words. Perhaps someone else's. (Plath)
And I a smiling woman.
Oh, I musn't put Lady Lazarus on my web page, don't want to scare you.
Making me High 9/4/03
Okay so I've been working on Wall Street for 3 days now. And I realize that during rush hour the subways are going to be crowded, and that when we all funnel up the staircases to get to the street, it will be a bottleneck of
high volumes of commuters. But is there any need to fugging touch me? Is standing up against me going to get you out of the subway station faster? NO IT WON'T, PEOPLE!
Get off me! I guess I need to start letting the crowds clear out before I head up the stairs. Just make my commute 2 minutes longer. Why not.
Jesus Christ.
The Long Hours 9/2/03
I swear, life of mine, thick as a foreign coin, beautiful as money and as brutal, you are my first allegiance. I have no other lover. I press my mouth to yours, my faithful wifebeater, and stifle this mariachi howl. Ah, I adore Cisneros. She always gets it right.
9/1/03
Oh my god I've only got a week left in my twenties. 9/9 and then... whew!
Tell Me Something I Don't Know 9/1/03
We had a weekend away, the five of us, and I realized... we really are Sex and the City. Mr. Hanky, a christmas ham, a hole in the wall.. and it was all a joy.
I am so exhausted... my head is all a-spin. But tonight I get to try something new in bed. I finally purchased one of those foam egg-crate-looking items that go on your mattress & under your sheets. I put my 400-thread-count soft sheets over it. I'm hoping to get 10 hours worth of rest in 5 hours, wish me luck.
A Light of Some Kind 8/28/03
I thought I had been to Hell and back-- and they called it the ShopRite of Jersey City. But there is a place just as evil, just as incompetent and chaotic and senseless. The Department of Motor Vehicles (strangely, also in Jersey City). I hate waiting on lines to begin with (I'd rather skip seeing a movie than wait in line to see it.) So getting my license transferred from NY to NJ was bound to be less than fun. Even worse than waiting on line is waiting on the wrong line, so I tried my best but I discovered there was only one line for All People to wait on-- and that is a bad sign.
After 20 minutes on that line, I was handed a form and told to go to the back of the line and wait on it again to turn in the form. We are talking about a form that would take 30 seconds to fill out. I knew that being snippity would NOT help me, so I kept a smile plastered on my face and clarified: When I got to the front again, I heard her say "You need to use black ink. Fill it out again." Then I got to sit and wait for my name to be called. This was actually the worst part. If you are on a line, you can at least see how many people there are between you and the end of it-- even if you have no idea how long that will take. But sitting in a huge room with a mob of people and no sense of who is behind who-- it's torture. I needed to use the restroom but couldn't afford to leave the general waiting area for fear of missing my name being called. THANK HEAVENS I had a book to read with me, and a good one too. There were poor saps around me staring at the ceiling for an hour. Eventually I heard "Sha#shhh Lecshhh" through the crappy PA system. Then I waited on another line for 20 minutes, at the end of that line I was directed to a whole new line to commence a new wait. At the end of that line I had to press my head against a black pad that all the other skeeze-buckets in jersey city had just pressed their head against, to take the Vision Test. After this, the woman started typing up a storm and then said "oh no, not again. That damn virus!" She told me to take a walk for 45 minutes, then come back and see if the virus had "gone away". With a strong sense of false hope, I went out, had some lunch (after watching someone puke on the sidewalk in front of me)-- then I came back and cut all sorts of lines.
The woman made a phone call and said I'd need to "come back." Uh oh. Today the weather was SPECTACTULAR, as far as I could tell through the window at the DMV.
Hey, Pretty (don't you want to take a ride with me?) 8/25/03
Darling, I've been around. I've been up and down your block, in fact I have been all over town. Down by the lake, and underneath the table in my living room, and outside by the blue blue moon. You can call me what you will, call me a slut, call me a jaded pill. Honey I just thought you should know.
That was from a song by Poe. Anyway. So -uh oh, what if i'm totally honest with myself and I realize that WOOPS my friends were right all along! We'll see. I'll consider it. I was thinking about coffee lately-- but not coffee like everybody means it now, not that silly sex metaphor. But coffee like I meant it way back when I first started rambling. The problem being that I was raised to buy coffee, but I don't think I want to. Ha! And last week I was in shoprite and checked the shelves for Maxwell house... and it wasn't there anymore.
Black In 8/19/03
Oh my heavens to betsy. My lovely floor is almost completely obscured from view by piles of laundry. How does that happen so fast?
There was a big blackout last Thursday-Friday, you probably heard about it. I was 2 stories down in a PATH station, luckily not on a train. Being in the pitch black and having to climb up to the exit was scary enough to thoroughly freak me out. I tried to call everyone I could think of, and was pretty wigged out by the things people said.
Phase I: Collect underpants.
PMS 8/18/03
How different, you make me see myself through the most positive eyes. Now I wish I was something I'm not-- isn't that hell.
Perhaps something lighter: yes-- the mail, when I bring it from the box up to my apartment. The smell of it, very familiar-- the thoughts that come to mind when I first arrive home, I've come to associate them with the smell of arriving home, and that is the scent of the envelopes. The thoughts when I first step into my apartment and think of the plotting out of the rest of my night. My ramblings started out as stupid tales of my daily entertainment. Bugs I ran from or slopes I would ski on, hicks I interacted with, flowers I decapitated. But out west I missed the people and the bustle. Now here in the city I miss my car and the mountains and the quiet and freedom and timelessness.
mourning 7/15/03
This is going to just be a string of lyrics, I guess. I am listening to a lot lately. (Sarah this time)
And its hard at the end of the day. I need some distraction, oh beautiful release. Memories seep from my veins, Let me be empty, oh and weight-less and maybe,
I'll find some peace tonight
I'm going for a run. I promise to try and stay on the sidewalks. Just in case.
7/15/03
I was, this morning, in almost too good of a mood, almost high. To bring myself down, I listened to this song (Vast): Close your eyes let me touch you now Let me give you something that is real. Close the door Leave your fears behind. Let me give you What you're giving me. You are the only thing That makes me want to live at all. When I am with you There's no reason to pretend That When I am with you I feel flames again. Just put me inside you I would never ever leave. Just put me inside you I would never ever leave you. I regret it.
Take in the extent of my 7/12/03
I feel like spewing a bunch of blips from songs I used to listen to a million times when I was young.
She's your Cocaine She's got you shaving your legs
Bring you sister if you can't handle it.
I'm Drunk but right now I'm So in Love with You.
This is the only time I really feel Alive.
I can't shake this feeling from my head.
I know it's not the right thing and I know it's not the good thing. If I can't have everything well then just give me a taste. It gets under my skin. I swear I just found everything I need. I want to wrap it up and swim in it until I drown. I just want something I can never have. Back then I couldn't do the things that I can do now.
I sunburned myself to a crisp today. Out in the bright sun, I got lost in a series of thoughts, and I kept expecting a path to lead the way out. Like one who had been led astray, through the heaven's wide pathless way.
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shannon@sleckey.com