Thursday, January 28, 2016

Living Metaphors

My patent neglect of living things should really come as no surprise to anyone who has ever given me a house plant. Green things always seem to die on me, which may have something to do with the fact that I don’t water them.  Back when Dylan and I were just friends, he gave me a lemon tree. He really ought to have known better, but I gratefully accepted it and stuck it on the window ledge.
There, I thought to myself. The gift of photosynthesis and all that. This is a living metaphor about growing relationships.
The lemon tree died pretty quickly, so that last part wasn’t exactly true, but I guess there was something sort of poetic about the way its edges gently browned and curled.
We have another lemon tree, now. It sits on the mantle and Dylan waters the thing with enough regularity that I toy with turning it into a poem once more, but simply can’t be bothered to do so.
Here is the thing: cold weather and dark days turn me unrecognizable. This is a certainty within my life, one of many that I can list off in a cold and clinical way. For example:
My plants die.
I will unabashedly order chocolate milk at restaurants.
Cold weather and dark days turn me unrecognizable.
I put things in “safe places” so I won’t lose them, and I can never remember where those safe places are.
My feet are always cold.
I haven’t yet decided if there is a point to this blog entry, but you should know that there probably isn’t one. If you want a house update, I’m sorry to tell you that there isn’t too much happening to the Little Pink House these days. Dylan is systematically dismantling the bathroom, but there’s no room for me in that 3x3 box, so I stare out the window, half-heartedly place lost things in their original homes, and think about dead lemon trees.
Sometimes I write. Not often.
Yesterday was the first real snow of the season, but it didn’t stick around for long. My phone tells me that it’s 30 degrees warmer in London than it is here. I’m not sure why, but the thought pleases me. 
While it was snowing, Dylan watered and repotted the overwhelming host of plants downstairs that he keeps alive with minimal effort. Most of them had been trapped in tiny pots for months, and their roots were snarled and tangled. He gently coaxed them into submission and patted them into their new homes while I read.
He is patient and reassuring and does not mind that my feet are cold.
I’m still not quite sure what I am trying to say. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with love that things stop making sense. When this happens, I remind myself that there is frost on the window, but things are still growing.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

NaNo: Day 1

1. Wake up at 6:30. Am horribly confused by time shift.
2. Wallow in a pit of despair and self-pity.
3. Churn out 1740 words of the most terrible drivel ever written.
4. Commence triumphant cackling and self-adulation.
5. Continue the productive trend by cleaning, taking a walk, decorating, reading, grocery shopping, feeding, and writing MORE.
6. Constantly stare at clock while announcing, “It can’t possibly be only ___ o’ clock!”
7. Attempt to begin crocheting Christmas gifts. Begin a scarf for myself instead.
8. Start to succumb to effects of fatigue around 7:00.
9. Stare desperately at clock while announcing, “It can’t possibly be only ____ o’ clock. I’m so tired.”
10. So tired. 
11. Goodnight.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Life Update

For those of you who have reached out and wondered about my existence over the past couple of years, I offer you this:
In connecting with people all over the world through writing, it has been my experience that we see ourselves in each other. We want that happiness for others that we can’t find in ourselves. A lot has changed in my life, and as many of you know, I keep my memories as words. I hope you will all be able to appreciate that I have chosen the path that makes me happiest, and that path and those memories exists as words that I am keeping for myself.
Thank you for respecting that decision.
You know, what’s really neat about growing up is that I keep surprising myself by finding that I have the capacity to be happy, to fall in love with myself as a person, and to sound like a Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul book.
(Sorry about that last part.)

Sunday, November 2, 2014

NaNo

Day one: 1676 words about glitter, chewed-up bacon, and cherub thighs.
Day two: 1,988 words about neatly organized wicker baskets, purple lipstick, and a necklace made of red and yellow pom-poms.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

ONCE UPON A TIME ONE OF MY STUDENTS READ A POEM ALOUD AND IT WAS SO GOOD THAT I STARTED TO UGLY CRY AND THEY ALL JUST SORT OF LOOKED AT ME WITH PANICKED EXPRESSIONS LIKE HAVING FEELINGS WAS CONTAGIOUS AND THEN AFTER THAT NONE OF THEM COMPLAINED ABOUT HAVING TO DO A POETRY UNIT

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Friendship and Extended Metaphors

Making new friends is kinda like getting a bonsai tree.
At first you’re all like, fuck yeah, I got a bonsai, look how neat! But then you start to realize that bonsais require EFFORT and you have to WATER THEM and put weird little wires on their BRANCHES and then you’re just kinda like, yeah, there’s a tiny-ass tree on my windowsill and I don’t know how to feel about that.
Bonsai trees don’t understand when you just want to lie in bed and contemplate the weight of the universe pressing on your eyeballs. They’re all like, hey, repot me and check my soil composition and also let’s go out for beers.
How do you explain social anxiety to a bonsai tree?
Why do I always want things that I will eventually kill?

Sunday, February 16, 2014

SO

Writing a personal entry about my life seemed like a good idea about two minutes ago, but now it’s hanging over my head like one of those commitments you see to completion due to obligation rather than desire.
Or maybe I just won’t see it through at all.
(That in and of itself is probably the best example of what my life is really like, anyway.)