it is impossible to get to maine. actually, its impossible to get anywhere, looking at what the trains are (or, more relevantly, arent) doing this weekend. in other news, my air conditioner is finally out of my one window, so ive been reintroduced to this "daylight" loveliness. sadly, ive been cleaning all morning, and now that i finally have the entire apartments laundry (eg the tablecloth which has been absorbing various take-out chinese sauces since before i moved in - thats an awful lot of chinese, let me tell you; not to mention the process of cleaning off the table, period, to get to the tablecloth was an hour-long project in itself, what with the past-due notices and, ironically, laudry detergents obstructing my path) together im rather bewildered at the concept of actually hauling it all down to my laundromat, where i sit and read because although id love to watch the soap operas theyre in spanish. and then i need a box to ship some presents in but have no idea how to go about obtaining one; i know ive done this before, idiot child, but ive completely forgotten how. all of which assumes i make it to a post office before five, which is looking less and less likely, and so may have to be done in the twee hours of tomorrow morning. and god only knows what tomorrow is going to be up to in spite of me, but i will at least squeeze in a viewing of ANTM episode 2 with the k, since we still cant find a place (being tv-less ourselves) to watch it when it actually airs. also red wine or maybe mojitos, if were going to be all sassy-fancy. faaaaah off to the laundromat, as soon as i find some clothes that arent slated for the washing.

edit. im not moving. im just cleaning. all day long. for ever and ever amen.

why new york is exciting:

1. you never know if that 6'+ homeless guy walking past you is not, in fact, going to walk past you, but instead is going to try to punch you out with a nice left hook. thanks buddy. yeah.
2. a one-woman (written, directed, performed, cradle-to-grave) show about her experiences in rwanda (fall in love, almost die, drink tea) will reassure you that your life is, in fact, really fucking boring. no, really, stop saying "but--"; no one cares.
3. not only does my roommate have a CANE but get this, this is amazing, he has to wear dress shoes with it. he has to! doctors orders! hahahahaha (stiff soles or something - but still!).
4. or then theres the good ole "leave the atm card in the atm machine" trick, which always stirs things up a bit when all else - "but i just wanted to go grocery shopping" - fails.
5. or the ensuing lecture from your mother about how mayyyyybe youre still just a twee little bit irresponsible young lady you live in a big, scary, mean city now and could you please stop losing that damn card and why o why must you always leave it in the most obvious of LOUDLY BEEPING AT YOU TO TAKE YOUR CARD places?
6. and the "mother" game, where your conscience takes on the persona of an uptight, hardass, bible-thumping belt-snapping mom (who is really nothing like yours at all) in order to express itself since youve basically closed-circuited it out of your life (manhole covers...flocks of sheep, hereded by string and sheepdogs) so you end up muttering to yourself while walking down the sidewalk: "young lady...were you thinking...", when in reality you just got off the phone with your real mother who cancelled your card and is giving you cash to tide you over until you get your card back, at worst maybe called you sweetie.
7. i need to prepare a pirate joke for next time i see orlando bloom skateboarding so i dont just stand and blink (repeat) (which, for the record, is about the reaction i expect from any pirate joke i ever tell, to anyone).
8. pouncing on the free moma tomorrow afternoon (how unbelievable is it that target has to sponsor it? what kind of asshole, over-puffedly self-important museum cant afford even four free hours a week? ok, yes, they admit it: "The ultimate purpose of the Museum declared at its founding was to acquire the best modern works of art," and its kind of cute how shameless they are. awwe. still: pouncing, roar).
9. the ever-pressing need to constantly Make Excuses: why youre late (i get on the right train in the wrong direction embarassingly often), why you forgot the wine (the guy at my liquor store tends to disappear for big chunks of time, though he leaves the store open), why youre busy saturday (my plants need me), why are you hanging out in midtown (honestly, everywhere is too expensive, so why single out the 30s?), why are you not up by 10 (im unemployed, remember?), why did you just send me a tyra banks voicemail that calls me "chocolate mama" (i love ANTM shamelessly and you should too, though the chocolate part, well)?
10. increasing dopiness. i feel dumber every.damn.day.
11. there are other people here who love alaska, and dont think im crazy.
12. (this ones a little smarmy) for all the crushing mess of people, its getting easier to connect to them in real ways.
13. its fun to be an idiot: navy blue and black totally match. and no one (its the anti-junior-high) looks at you funny.
14. people are intimidating in their creative energy.
15. anti-war shows - at least until the concert organizers come out and kill the energy by stiltifying it (its hard to look a blatant 'we are going to stop the war in iraq with this show in union square' lie in the face and not die a little, when you really do wish it were true).

bedtime. wasnt that a lame ending? man, i kinda suck these days. pffffftt

thinking of this summer, trying to admit that its passed, and where - summers have essences where other seasons dont, brief and selfcontained - its foci lay, finding them outside myself already (theres the 'past' part), keeping track of them with my hair (it had to be dyed again today - has it already been six months, two dyes, since colorado?), yeah well i know its kind of unbelievably banal but just you tell me how you keep track of these things, how do you know that youll at least try not to forget, other than moving your happinesses through you - this reminds me of that paragraph from dune, the oft-cited 'fear is the mind-killer,' which, alright, but when your fear is what you love, what it can take from you? - trying so hard to keep it close that it embitters your blessedness, wondering (though at least not worrying) about the ways in which what you love doing is going to manipulate you into missing other things less obvious, more needed than wanted; trying to keep passion from deteriorating into self-neglect; i love fall, i love it, i havent smelled downed leaves in so many years that theyre calling forth this wicked pelvic response, and im just so bad at change, so overdrawn, that its a constant reconciliation, i clearly cannot handle this fourth-dimension bullshit and have to materialize it, i need hair and falling leaves, all of it, just to start to understand; ok, guys, wheres everything gone, already.

union square for a cookbook and some chicken-free nuggets. i wish i didnt have to bother with other food; cant they make some sort of space-ready nuggets with all the vitamins a young girl needs? oh well (for the record, the only brand i endorse is morningstar, though the others are passable in a pinch). and nail polish. happy frivolities.

and happy fall. im excited.

tater tots are amazing. this is going to be an excellent week. ive finally got some resolve to back up my actions (whew) and im going to go ahead and indulge the latent-catholic thing and start exploring the more austere side of my spirituality (that word makes me twinge).

theres also, apparently, snow on peak one. shit dude.

ok, so maybe maine the weekend of the 23rd, but more likely the 30th? please summer last just a little longer. i feel like youve been all sweat and tears and id kind of like some ocean and crisp sheets and a fire out back and popular mechanics on the porch (in the company of the decapitated mice - why do cats eat only the head, again?).

its always a good sign when i start focusing on tangibles - the potato, for one, just isnt likely to cause me much trouble.

! melodrama. sorry

can i just say im tired, and theres something very specifically stressful about feeling youre teetering on the edge of inadequacy.
i feel like if i do anything remotely related to self-reflection in the next week i will go on a kinderwhore divest-everything-of-all-possible-meaning binge, sex, drugs, rock and maybe ice cream;
im edgy as fuck-all, havent the energy even to whinge about the roaches (and i HATE the roaches! i LOVE whingeing about them!), and am busy thinking of what i dont have, and am not going to have in the foreseeable future, and its driving me fucking nuts, suddenly, the things ive left behind - by not just choice but intention - and now maybe im mistaken in these intents, badly, ohhhhhh, because it seems like what ive eschewed i suddenly want very badly, its stable, curtains, purpose.

i feel ungrateful. these were my decisions, and ive no business whatever regretting because of consequences i planned for - god, the solitude, maybe i didnt realize -

and even with that - considerably less opaque than usual - im still not sure ive put my finger on it, but im getting closer, because there must be an explanation for large-scale panic attacks in the face of respite. but as i said ive used up my quota of introspection for the, er, ever, and i thoroughly plan on lolling in others' solipsism for a while, which sounds, unbelievably, refreshing.

and if im happy, why cant i just say so? ...which is as close as i can get, to just saying so.

after long explanations and thoughtfulness and even then barely-superficial consideration theres two things still worth hashing out:

one, the things left behind are really important, and i still cant get over the brilliance of the glass slipper, the fortuitous circumstances were all so in love with just taken care of, an image really worth its words; stealing things as, instead of a gap-filler, protection against future loss; the loveliness of having a new void, that youre confident isnt, at least, taking anyone elses space, especially your own; knowing that, as usual, you object to the principle of competing so utterly that maybe its finally progressed into true empathy, like its supposed to; knowing that while, ok, its progressing, you are no saint; at least there is, therein, an incredible strength of self that you cant, whatever else there may be, forget; relying on that, bracing yourself, because the word ensuing is kind of tagging along after you up in queens somewhere. which it is, despite the overbearing solitude thats making me leave all the lights on tonight, sleep on the couch (comfort of communal space), not shower, because, like i said, the void isnt taking up my space, it isnt me, but it sure doesnt fix the solitude, either. it just makes it ring hollow, the clapper on a bell.

two, my ego contemporaneously doesnt forgive and doesnt have any idea whats best for me, which more or less translates to If you didnt know any better its not my fault and im not about to forget it. which is no good whatever for anyone, but at least has similarly negative (as in impotent) bearings on reality, in that it tends to produce a galling, enthralling number of non-response responses from both me and anyone who happens to fall victim to ego-demands; the ego at her best wants me to pretend that the offensive party doesnt exist, not meriting such attentions, which luckily seems to generally work with the goals of the offending party. hence the one-sided "you dont know were in a fight" fights. also henceforth known as the 'getting really fucking stoned and "finally worked up the nerve to buy condoms from the old lady at the drug store" possibility of getting laid so i hope you understand why i dont have time to see you' fights, which i cannot stress enough are sheerly ego-oriented and have nothing to do with my actually not at all inept ability to get over people. i can, is the long and short of that, and i realize im not good with actual positive reinforcement, but the point is im far and away - cant you tell - too narcissistic, introspective, overanalytical-obsessed to do anything but get over people intrinsically, in and of themselves, without drawing others into the practice aside from the occasional whinge. its the proegressive im incompetent and external with, and ive never been an optimist, the ensuing, you go for it; ensue, as you will.