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| 01:22am 17/08/2004 |
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ok it still works.
wow.
it's been a long time.i guess i used to have the time to spend that much time a long time ago. I sure as hell don't now. I just got back on because i found the CSSSA community and it made me happy. Hi, CSSSA people. i miss you. i swear i am not emo anymore like the rest of this journal is. In fact, i am wearing the blue crash helmet right now and am listening to Jimmy Cliff. So there. No an eye of god in the house. well. all right. peace out. |
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6mississppis - phantasmagoria.
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| Elephant House |
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| 09:18pm 15/05/2003 |
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music: Ludwig van-Moonlight Sonata (in keeping with the theme)
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I went outside and watched the lunar eclipse.
This moon was an eye in the sky, always has been and always will be. This night it was an elephant eye, quiet and gentle and strong. From one angle she was asleep, bright lid turned down to the waiting world. In another she looked up curiously to heaven and god and all his divine stooges- wanting to know things almost as much as me.
So I talked to her. I sat and asked her what is this terrible beautiful place and how can I see it the way you do and when will that shocking misty glow in the streetlamps be loved somebody else other than me and when that happens will I feel like I lost it?
And that eclipse shadow sped by with an answer: this planet is moving very fast. And it is very large. That is all.
For some reason, this did not make me feel conversely small and slow. The street outside felt like a big hallway in a house, this elephant-god hanging from the rafters making sure all the kids were tucked in.
I figured I should make a wish because, well, it seemed like the right thing to do. You wish on stars and all- so why not eclipses? Anyway, I can’t divulge any more information becasue wishes won’t come true if you tell them. All I can say is that I tried to kill a lot of birds with one stone. I don’t know if I succeeded or not. I have a lot of birds to kill, and I figure the moon is as good size a stone as I’m going to get.
And I really don’t care. Beauty like this only happens once every few years. So when it does… that’s all you need. |
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2mississppis - phantasmagoria.
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| the plastic sword of god, eye or no eye |
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| 09:09pm 05/05/2003 |
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I broke up with Ben today. It took all of ten minutes.
Rather, he broke up with me. He still has feelings for Cara, the last girlfriend who he would always talk about. It’s not that important what he said exactly, just that she called him during the week when I had dress rehearsal and never saw him and the feelings all came flooding back and it wouldn’t be fair to stay with me and blah blah blah. I had to get him to say it. He had originally stuck to the, “I have issues at home” story. I knew it was Cara. So I made him tell me to my face. He looked me straight in the eye and everything.
I realize now that I let him off really, really easy. All I said was okay. And I still want you if you change your mind. Then I walked away. But I do still want him. Even now.
Then I dragged Emily and Erica into the bathroom and sat in the corner of the handicapped stall and sobbed.They had nothing to say except blame things on him. I said it wasn’t his fault and started throwing animal crackers at the toilet.
“Well whose fault is it?”
“Nobody’s fault.”
“Sara, it has to be somebody’s fault.”
“Fine. It’s God’s fault.”
“But you don’t believe in God.”
“I guess I do now.”
Then they were very quiet.
A cracker landed in the bowl with a little splash.
Erica had to go back to class afterwards, but Emily stayed with me.
“I have to get out of here.”
“I know.”
We went to Mr. Fales’ health class, where they were watching Philadelphia. In the trash there was a weird plastic thing making loud, obnoxious car-alarm sounds.
“What is that?”
“Oh, I confiscated it from some kid this morning. It’s a sword.”
“Can I have it?”
“Please.”
It was short with a metallic blue handle. I pressed the button and it emitted a series of ear-splitting shrieks and blinked little colored lights.
Mr. Fales had finished writing me a pass out of class when he looked up and squinted at me.
“Is that a hickey on your neck?”
Five minutes later I went to the nurse and told her I was sick and had to go home. She called my “mom”, which was Emily’s cell phone, and Emily said yes I could walk home. Ten minutes later I did the same for Emily.
Twenty minutes later we were at the beach. I walked down barefoot, not knowing what to do or expect. I just stood there in the sand and stared out into the water. Emliy stood behind me.
“What are all these things on the ground?”
There were these purple blobs covering the ground with clear little wings sticking up. I poked one with a straw and saw it had tentacles.
“Jellyfish maybe.”
One of them was still foaming from its recent arrival onshore. I dug a hole and buried it, wiping the sand smooth and drawing my crescent shape into the sand, the logo I tattooed onto my ankle last year when I was all fucked up. Then I stuck the straw I had poked it with up into the sand for a marker, said a prayer because I was a new believer, as previously discussed.
“ One thing is for sure: that jellyfish is certainly having a worse day than me.”
“That’s a good attitude.”
“My faith in God hath filled me with new hope.”
Then I walked right into the water. It was freezing cold and soaked up my dress and underwear, but it felt good and I enjoyed the fact that I was wet and Emily wasn’t.
I wanted very badly to sit down and let it wash over my face, clean me, shock me awake and out of what was obviously an unpleasant nightmare. But Emily has leather upholstery in her car, so I didn’t.
Instead I just stared.
No epiphanies came to me, no dramatic awakenings. I wished I had my sword. I so badly wanted something to throw into the water as a sacrifice, let go and be done with it. I missed my black leather choker. Could have thrown that. But I lost it last week during rehearsal after wearing it for two years. I was wearing the silk one that always unties and I could have thrown that but I wouldn’t have cared enough about losing it.
I thought about my Toasters pin, but it's a good pin and I would regret it and it’s not ska’s fault Ben doesn’t want me anymore.
I thought about my entire fucking dress. I came close, too. Emily must have seen me standing there looking confused because suddenly she came up and put her arm around me.
“Remember in eighth grade...how in your bat Mitzvah speech you thought Cinco de Mayo was the Mexican day of independence?”
After that I didn’t need to throw anything. I just cried on her. The Mexican day of Independence, it turns out, is in September.
We sat for a while and talked about it, about how she thought he would come back and the whole relationship had been easy from the start and was that a bad thing. I still don’t know. That’s what the whole thing was in a word: easy. We never had fights or problems or deep and somber conversations. We just had fun.
Is a relationship bad if it’s easy? I’m serious. I really don’t know.
I don’t know a lot of things. I didn’t ask too many questions today, jut let it be and was nice and made it simple. It was very considerate of me. He was always the considerate one. Once he gave his favorite sweatshirt to a homeless guy. When we saw the Skatalites with Allie and Jack he spent half the time looking for Jack’s lost shirt.
But I wish now I had shown him more anger or sadness. I am afraid he thinks I don’t care.
I picked a flower on the way back to the car, the purple waxy kind that have the long spiky petals and yellow fuzzy centers.
We drove back to school and got Aryanne, who called “Bri-Bri” so he could tell her what he bought her. And we got Erica, who broke the silence about ten minutes into the ride.
“Sam Cieply told me today Cara didn’t just call him to say hi.”
I noticed there were little bugs in the yellow center of the flower.
When we dropped Erica off I told Emily we were close to my house anyway so I should just go home. I didn’t want to be in the car with Aryanne anyway. I went home and told my dad I got a ride with Alex Nicolau.
Then I came here and ruined the painting I started 2 months ago, before all this, putting on big red handprint trees and painting grey over the little boy’s face.
It was better off beforehand. It had waited and waited for attention and now it’s in the trash. |
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3mississppis - phantasmagoria.
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| Love and Fear |
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| 09:17pm 20/04/2003 |
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happy 4/20, kids.
Today, as usual, I went to drum circle at Venice Beach. Seeing as it was the happiest day of the year, the area was shrouded with smoke and people who weren't exactly regulars.
Make a long story short; i met all my old friends again. Last year was a bit of a bitch for me and i managed to attach myself to all the people who were having similar problems. Some crazy crazy shit used to go down, i tell you what. The more self-destructive we could be, the punker we were. It was one of those things...a lifestyle. Anyway, they are all done and done now, Anna in rehab detention, chris dropped out, finch stuck in Utah, etc . It doesn't really bother me that much anymore. I still see them sometimes, i have other great friends, i stopped feeling like i needed to be a squatter punk with a capital P- i am happy enough.
But seeing Amina nearly put me over the fucking edge. What edge i am referring to i cannot say, as i am quite stoned, but i assure you it was not pretty. I tell you I was real a sad kid in freshman year, caught up in the glamour and comfortable solitary knowing of depression. It was a kind of delicious pain to be alone and know it. I would revel in the fact that I was an undeserving bit of Collateral Damage that is high school.
Amina had it way worse than me. She lived with her mother in a tiny apartment and had this magnificent boyfriend. Justin was the bassist of this shitty metal band FEW-Fucked Either Way. He was a beautiful asshole. After about ten minutes in the same room together one would say something to the other and the fists would fly. I had never seen a couple act so much like siblings.
It might be because by law they were.
Seriously. It started one day later in the year as things began to fall apart. Amina suddenly showed up during one of my classes and pulled me outside. She looked straight into my face for a second. Her own eyes betrayed no emotion.
"Justin’s in jail. Steve tried to rape me so Justin kicked his ass. Then Steve called the police and had Justin arrested. He’s moving to Arizona to be with his mother when he gets out of juvenile hall."
Straight face. Straight voice. I didn’t know what to say so I gave her a hug. She crumbled in my arms and I watched her just sit on the floor. I still didn’t know what to say. Justin’s dad Steve had been like the father of the group. He threw parties for everyone in the condemned house on Hollister Street and bought beer, drugs. He had a Bad Religion tattoo on his arm.
Unsurprisingly, Justin got kicked out of his mother’s house in Arizona. When he returned to Santa Monica Amina’s mom legally adopted him.
Justin and Amina remain the only brother and sister I know who settle their disputes with a good fuck.
Of course, if you fuck often enough eventually you get screwed too. Every few months Amina would have a big pregnancy scare, and when asked why she didn’t use condoms or birth control, she would shrug. It was the way things were. She just didn’t.
She was also into Crystal Meth. I have no idea where it started but one day Meth exploded into our group. Once before I knew the stuff existed we were sitting in PE as usual and she was behaving very strangely. Her eyes cut from side to side to side and her hands twitched and shook and jumped but her face just smiled and smiled and smiled.
"The problem with our society," she declared, "Is that everybody is so busy being oppressed they don’t realize they’re free." For the next hour I was educated about politics, religion, and consumerism by a never-ending stream of stuttering rhetoric. The lecture wasn’t over when the bell rang so we ditched sixth period and went to the Bathroom Window to finish. The Bathroom Window was a window alcove cut high into the wall of a secluded bathroom on campus that was big enough for one to sit in and stare out. In the afternoon the light streamed from the window into the stall in a singular shaft that felt both poetic and unreal. I would always sit in the Window and Amina on the toilet seat and just talk and talk. We both knew that she was only that articulate because of the drugs but I didn’t care because sometimes good conversation feels like drugs anyway.
Once, after a particularly good lecture on a particularly bad day I decided that this time I would hold my own and snorted a cap of Dexadrine while Amina did her meth. That day we decided that there were only two real dimensions in the universe, Love and Fear. One could simultaneously be borne of and be vanquished by the other-it was an ongoing war and alliance that could not be broken or decided. Love and Fear were the only real things. In the meantime we went from bathroom to bathroom and left our mark. In the English building bathroom we did a lipstick mural on the mirror. Then we did lipstick murals on our faces and ran amok into the Science bathroom, where we filled the hand dryers with bits of paper snow and danced around in the blizzard they created when the dryers turned on. In the History bathrooms we spelled out "Love and Fear" on the ceiling with spitballs. We called that day the Grand Tour.
There was one big difference between Amina and I. We both had problems. We both liked the same things. Behaved the same way. We had created lives for ourselves out of situations that had been under our control. We had suffered at the hands of our own independence; often we slit our own throats. She refused birth control. I refused to fit in. My suffering made me sad and alone. But Amina’s suffering made her work harder at accepting her flaws. She slit her own throat and drank in the blood. Amina was not another piece of Collateral Damage. She was a soldier fighting the war.
She was Love and I was Fear.
But I realize now (and this will be very anti-climactic after all that buildup): our desperation was always the same. We just dealt with them differently, because we are different people. In the end she broke up with Justin, and I found out today she is back with him simply because she knows no other way to be. Her eyes are brave, but her face is too old to be a reflection of her spirit.
I remember looking like that. But I’m looking back on those days from a place where I am happy. And I can admit that I am happy without worrying about who I am going to piss off. The difference between then and now is that I no longer feel like it is honorable to deal with your problems by creating bigger ones to dwarf them. You don’t always need to look the enemy in the eye to beat them- the bravest course of action sometimes is just running away…
Who’s to say that love is not blind or fear is not conscious? |
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7mississppis - phantasmagoria.
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| The Importance of Wearing Shoes |
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| 10:18pm 16/04/2003 |
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music: Velvet Underground- White Light White Heat
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it is very dark in this room and my eyes hurt looking at the screen. Today was Passover and my family let me get roaring drunk on the cheap Jewish wine. I haven't been roaring drunk in a long time, so it was entertainment not just for me but for the entire family. I am still a teensy weensy bit gone, as a matter of fact. You can tell because i used the word "teensy weensy" in a sentence.
Anyway, Kate is here from NYC and she was at the seder too. We got a little tipsy and there was this funny emo boy about seventeen years old, Peter Feldman. He was very quiet and cynical until he got drunk too and we all sat listening to Eddie Izzard on CD. Finally I say "hey Peter, you smoke?" and he shrugs and next thing you know the three of us are sitting there arguing because he keeps insisting "It is all one great Battle of the Sexes", kate laughing, me drifting off. Later Kate and I walked down to the canals in like 2 minutes at breakneck speed for no apparent reason whatsoever. As a matter of fact, she kept telling me to slow down, but the song playing in my head was set to the tempo i was walking so i could do absolutely nothing about it.
I continue to be captivated by light at night. Streetlamps, interiors, christmas lights, the moon- there is something about it that feels absolutely perfect and safe. I kept telling Kate "god this is fuckin amazing"- i remember hearing myself repeating it as i physically FELT the energy behind some christmas lights flickering off the water in the canals. But she kept saying "sara, just slow down." But you can't really blame her because she was barefoot. I love Kate. I absolutely do. As a matter of fact, she is passed out on my floor as we speak.
Only difference is I happened to be wearing shoes at the time. Pretty fancy modern invention, shoes. Lets you walk at breakneck speed. Fuckin amazing. |
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phantasmagoria.
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| the eye of god |
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| 07:19pm 02/04/2003 |
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I was walking out of rehearsal today listening to Alex telling me about Hashir, some sadistic little man who failed him on his driver's test, trying to ignore him, when suddenly it all came together. That happens every now and then- it all comes together. You see something and it starts you thinking and that starts you feeling and then it everything else starts up and it has reason and power and makes you want to cry because you understand...everything. Or maybe you just accept everything. This happens every now and then and ususally i hate it because i feel like i have to express it and explain it and make art. It is too much for art. So it just festers in your head and you have to watch it die and it hurts worse than just about anything else on earth.
Today it came together in a good way. I was in a bad mood because my already-divorced parents keep fighting these pointless battles where I am always the loser.I have to hear them threaten each other and listen while they tell me horror stories about the other and blackmail and manipulate. It is so outrageous it should be funny. Yet somehow it definelty isn't.
So anyway I was hearing about Hashir, contemplating which of my friends would let me move in with them, walking up the grassy hill towards the theatre in this electric turquoiuse twilight like you've never seen, a few stars here and there. We walked underneath this big gnarled jacaranda tree and the security light turned on.
I swear I saw the eye of god.
No joke. I am not trying to be metaphorical or florid here, and as a matter of fact i am an athiest, but at that moment that light shining through the trees in the twilight was simply a different existence. it wasn't faith-based. No angels. No miracles.Nobody spoke in tongues. It was just a religious sort of beauty. And it all came together then because aside from that beauty there didn't need to be anything else.
I am reading this book Ben gave me, the Tao Te Ching. Each page is a seperate thought that always makes sense, even when you have your bag packed and are waiting for nightfall to leave because you just can't take the bullshit anymore. This is the page I read under the jacaranda tree:
"...I have heard it is said, one who is good at holding on to life does not try to avoid the rhinoceros or the tiger when travelling on highland nor does he arm himself with armor and weapon when charging an army. There is nowhere for the rhinoceros to pitch its horn; there is nowhere for the tiger to land its claws; there is nowhere for the weapon to lodge its blade. Why is this so?
Because there are no fatal spots on him."
So i picked up a few jacaranda flowers and went home. |
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9mississppis - phantasmagoria.
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| freedom |
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| 10:27pm 28/03/2003 |
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mood: ceramic music: elliot smith
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and then i turned around and it was a month later and my life belonged to a different person then when i had last looked. And i sat back and was like,"well." That's all i said because when you turn around and don't recognize yourself you really are speechless.
I understand that this is the grand beginning of my fancy journal thing which i was supposed to have started weeks ago, but i am not kidding. I have nothing to say about myself because i cannot believe who i am of late. However...it is a remarkably beautiful feeling. You would think that an identity crisis would be all existential and depressing, wouldn't you? It isn't. I feel clean and unfamiliar, like i can be whoever i want because the past is gone. I have spent my entire life concentrating on all the wonderful shit that has happened to me, the mighty adventures you edit in your memory to look like a scene out of Ghost World or SLC Punk-except starring you, with a better soundtrack that has the Velvet Underground. It's very profound and you get that lovely jaded feeling. And now, for some strange reason, it has become entirely inconsequential. I couldn't give less of a shit about how much of a squatter i was, how freaky the grocery store is when you're on shrooms, and what it might mean in the big picture. There is no big picture.
For example: I have a friend who is dying very quickly. She is killing herself physically and mentally in four or five different ways... and is having the time of her life. I asked her why. She said "This fear is new to me." She stares with sunken eyes and almost passed out tonight at a show. She hates this pain but loves that it makes something different for her, gives her a new reality that she can hide away in. I am not saying that is healthy. I am taking her to a clinic tomorrow. All i am saying is that this world is a strange one, and it is exactly what we make it. The past is over. There is only right now. I was sitting with her tonight at the show holding her hands becasue she could not feel them, and i asked her who would have thought of something like this? Why do you have to face each day this way? i really must know. It doesn't matter, she says.
days do not exist. |
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1mississppi - phantasmagoria.
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| testing123 |
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| 10:03pm 12/03/2003 |
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mood: pointy music: neutral milk hotel
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the september mushrooms of midnight
show the rythms of vision
can't move for tripping over them
wipe your tapes
wipe your tapes with lightning |
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1mississppi - phantasmagoria.
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23beatsoff's journal