Left and Leaving

Life moves way too fast. I'm moving to California in one month. I'm transferring to the Whole Foods in Santa Barbara, and figuring out what it is about that place and that Travis that I am so drawn to.

Last night I got to watch my favorite band in the entire universe play to maybe 20 people who actually were there to see them, and it was heavenly. Also after 7 years, I finally conversated with Kris Roe, for an entire five seconds.

"play Make it Last"

"They don't know that one."

Best five seconds of my life.

Wish List.

A BITCH CAN DREAM.

1. milo bobblehead






link

2. sailor jerry dvd



link


3. where the wild things are deckz



link

4. jeffrey mcdaniel's books. all of them.

Poemz.

Jeffrey Mcdaniel is a wizard.

1975


A boy asks his father to spiral a football over a tree
to arch it, so the ball will arrive an instant before the child.

The child dives. tendons extended, heart bucking
hands opening, to clutch what descends from the sky.

Your mother left today for the institution. If the ball
hits ground, she dies.

That December afternoon the boy's mother passed away,
thirty-three times in the first hour.

Each time he grabbed her head from the snow and
ran it back to his father, promised to do better
and he did, he ran hard, focused, dove.

I caught my mother's skull thirteen times in a row
and she's still not coming home.


-----------------------------------------------------------


YOUR EYES ARE SO GREEN ONE OF YOUR PARENTS MUST BE PART TRAFFIC LIGHT


-ABSENCE


##################################################

The milk will be good until October 7th. That guy nursing the hangover will be good starting tomorrow. The little boy will be good from now until Christmas and then he will be bad again. The little girl, lifting the dollhouse over her head and hurling it to the ground, will not be good no matter what. Charlie says it’s all good as he lights a joint the size of a telescope and charts his inner constellations. Sally was doing good until her period started and her legs began feeling like giant blood sausages. Lynda can’t go to college in this country: her grades are good, but her paperwork is bad. She entered America the bad way—you must somersault across Ellis Island, not pirouette across La Fronterra. Lucifer’s Dollhouse would be a good name for a strip club, but a bad name for a nunnery. Once I saw a priest jab a crucifix into his arm and his head tilt back, as God’s delicious morphine swirled through his veins. Nothing ruins a good time quicker than staring at someone whose eyeballs are like hourglasses filled with rat poison. The opposite of good night is good riddance. The opposite of good-bye is fuck off. Those boys said that girl had good tits, meaning her breasts were very mature and she could go away for the weekend and leave them in charge of her body. Man, that girl looks so good, I want to grab the mosquito, that just bit her, out of the air and swallow it, like a vitamin filled with her blood. The young man asks the woman if he is a good fuck. Yes, you are a good, little fuck, she says.

happy

Tonight I was a wild child and the result of this was a 2 hour drive home with chocolate smeared all over my face and the greatest singalong ever.

I was kissing your eyelids when I should've been in college.


Trav is in an airplane zoomin' over a bunch of states on his way home. I feel a lot of different ways. I feel great that I just got to spend another 12 days listening to how he says "water" and waking up to the sound of him snoring every morning. On the other hand, I feel really bad that he was here for one of the worst moments of my/my mom's life.

I can't help but wonder if there are any more seams holding my life together that could possibly rip. I will actually just fall apart. It doesn't make sense to me how drastically different my life is now compared to just six or seven months ago. Everything is different. I watched my own father die. This alone was enough to wreck me from the inside out, but somehow I kept it together enough to pass through the days. It's been seven months and all that's different from the moment I lost him is that I don't cry as much. It certainly does not hurt any less, though, and I still can't get over how he went. This is a major reason why seeing my mom's boyfriend stand over her body, lying on the floor where he threw her, one week ago, kicking her in her stomach and side and back and legs--this is why nothing makes sense to me. The effect that alcohol has had on my life slams into me, daily. Alcohol is a constant reminder that will always take away the things I love. Even my mother's pride. After it happened, after the cops left and the house was left trashed and mattresses flipped over, I sunk into the spot between Trav's arm and chest. I wondered how the fuck anyone can reach this point. I wondered when a man could let himself go so badly to the point where he is throwing a woman he loves out from a bed they share and onto the floor where he beats her. I wonder if I hadn't been home what it would've taken for my mom to call the police on her own. Would she have ever? It crushes me to even think about. I also wondered how the fuck this had to happen when Travis was here for the first time. Needless to say, I was pretty fucked up or a few days afterward, though things have settled and feel like they're getting better, now.

There are just some things I have no control over. "Life is what happens while we're making plans." Since July, things have been so insanely different and weird for me. Falling intensely and hard for someone was not something I wanted to do for a very long time, if ever again. When you are crushed by someone else or even when you crush another person, what's the point? You take everything that you still have going for you, and you take your heart and you slam the fucking door shut. A heart like a tomb. Maybe a person or two will come along who shake you up, in the moment, but you're still mad and you're still bitter and you end up dreading even hearing from these people and within a week you've successfully managed to ignore and hurt them. Oh well.

But you did something that I didn't plan on. I still do not know how you did it, because I was content being alone and rude and never opening that tomb for anyone else again.

Oh well. Got me under your spell.

The whole point of this post was going to be about how I think it's funny I am not in school right now, while all my friends are flipping their wigs about essays and exams. Instead I am going back and forth across the United States just to figure out what you're doing to my heart. Every time it feels even better.

The only thing you need sometimes are chilly nights and warmer thighs. 'Cause nothing's like being held, sometimes.

And I meant what I said in my car.

I promise to be good and true. I will draw you a picture of the insides of me. Because the words I need just haven't been thought of yet. I want to be good to you. Can you possibly promise me that you will look at me like I am the first flower of spring, like I am a line you just read that knocked you down and you have to repeat it over just to make sure you read me correctly? And tell me that no one else can knock you down that way? And mostly that I will wake up and you'll still be here and not there. Tonight I am a girl with too many thoughts in her brain. So many firsts with you, I refuse to have any lasts.

I just want to see inside your heart.

Life is weird. I've never been so poor, so busy, and so happy and so sad all at once. Today is my day off and I am going to play bingo all day downtown with Sarah.

I think I am in love.

I think my dad is haunting me. If anything, the memory of him sure is.

If I told you that I
was thinking of moving west
would you save a place for me?
I'll come home
because it's worse that I expected.

A place in my heart
for my home to the west
where we'll watch the same sunsets,
and when I doubt...
I'll look east and lock my heart
in a brass box to new boston mich.
I'm breaking off but this is my home.

I'd do anything for you,
give you the world if I could.
Is that what you want me to do?
These bridges and boundaries are bringing me closer to you.

Dad.

I still get goosebumps when I ring up flowers at work. Certain ones (I'm not even sure what type of flowers these even are) smell exactly the same way as the room my father's funeral was in. This is sick, I know, and I almost feel insane for nearly coming to tears in front of these people, buying these flowers; excited to go home and give them to their wives, who will most likely grab them and the first thing they will do is take a deep breath and let this scent that haunts me happily consume them. I smell these as I scan the plastic tag around the stems though and for a split second I see myself peering over a casket, staring at the body my beautiful dad once lived in, surrounded by all these living flowers. The view of his eyelids that are now shut forever and his body in that suit I never even saw him wear are enough to knock me off my feet but in just one second it passes and I can "feel" my hand touching my customer's next item: a small tomato, a bag of apples, a box of their favorite cereal, but I really can't feel a thing.

distance means nothing to me. it only makes me want to see you.

"She's better than my dream girl. She's real."

After watching 500 days of summer online last night, I realized that line is the best, ever.

I got so cranky because I missed someone so much. It is weird to miss someone again and to have someone on my mind all day. It is even weirder to be across the country from this person, separated by so many states and even time zones. I feel better now, after not sleeping yet and thinking about it all night. I think it's only natural to have nights like those sometimes.

I am still figuring all this out. I know that whatever is happening with us is not even near this point yet, but I was just realizing last night that no one will love you how you want to be loved, they’ll love you in the only ways they know how. Life throws everyone down drastically different paths, so how can we expect everyone to love in the same way? The person you’ll spend your lifetime with will love you in their way and you’ll love in yours, and maybe you’ll meet in the middle and it will last. None of us know what we’re doing...we’re just fumbling for matches in the dark. If you’re lucky, you'll strike the right one.

you're fine.

There are problems, and there are real problems. The vast majority of us don't have real problems. Our failure to appreciate this difference constitutes a major distortion of thinking--which has proved to effectively destroy more lives than all war and disease combined.

Listen, I know what's happening in this world--there are liars and cheats, there's prejudice, violence, greed, sickness...I know what's happening. I'm not going to let it deter me from living my life, though. Look, I live in this world, too. I'm tired of bad days and carrying this attitude around with me on my brainwaves. So long to all of that shit.

I feel like being cheerful. Not necessarily because I have things to be cheerful about but because I can't imagine being happy without first feeling happiness. I'm happy to live in this world with all it's shit, drudgery, and broken dreams. It is still a beautiful old world.

to-do.

Above all. I need one of these guys in my life:



1. Learn how to eat with chopsticks.
2. Transfer to school in CA. Pastry chef?!
3. Become fluent in spanish again.
4. Bike tour of japan.
5. INDIA.
6. Dolphin swims.

I really didn't want to let go of your hands and get on that airplane and come home. 17,280 minutes was reeeeeeeaaaaally not enough.

To sum it up, I fell in love with California, I fell in huge like with travis farmer, I fell into an ocean and seal/dolphin sighting obsession, and I give myself one year before I'm out of here. If that.

Sometimes taking off can open up your eyes to everything that lies in your heart.

I should have never come home.

goodbye summer

These are the last few days of our beautiful ann arbor summer. I wonder how we let the weeks and days and hours fly by us. I could go on and on but I'll keep it short: this summer saved my life.

I started back at whole foods in ann arbor. This company is literally the best ever to work for and it feels good to be back. Everyone in this store is so awesome. Also almost everyone seems to be married or at least engaged, it's wild and I envy it, it's so adorable and lucky.

Santa Barbara in four days. If Amanda and I don't come home, don't be surprised. Everything seems better there. Literally everything. I can't wait to see travis and that ocean and feel perfection for 12 days.

dear dad.

After you passed, I got a lot of different perspectives on how to deal. Most of it only hurt me instead of helping me, but that's life.I get it. Nobody knows what to say to a 20 year old girl who lost a father she spent her whole life trying to understand. For a while I really don't think my brain or my heart let me believe you actually left me. My heart told me, "he couldn't leave you right now. Nope. Not as you're just becoming close for the first time since you were a child. he would never leave you like this." And my brain tricked me into thinking he was still just 60 miles and a phone call away. I guess that trick is still being played because most mornings I wake up expecting a missed call from you only now I want to call you and tell you I love you instead of putting it off for days like I did when you were still here. Despite all the bad advice I got, a few people really pulled me up with these: "It comes in waves" and "some days are harder than others." It still hurts like hell and it's harder than anything else. But those are the waves and these feelings are only this intense some days.

As long as my memory serves me, I'll never forget what happened that night when I came home from the hospital, after I had just watched you take your last breath and your chest heaved up and down until your life was gone.I don't believe in god or signs or some fairy tale afterlife. But man, did the idea of you shake me up that night dad.

I was upstairs in my bedroom in royal oak with tymm, trying to figure out how to fall asleep. It was after 5 am and I was in bed with my glasses off, exhausted in complete darkness. Out of nowhere that orange light began to glow. He jumped up to see where it was coming from. "Do you see that jess?" I could see it even with my broken eyeballs. It was coming from some power cord on the floor and without my glasses on it lit up my entire world for a few seconds as tymm held the cord up in front of me, holding one end of it in each hand to show me it was not plugged into anything and it was still glowing. How the power light on that cord was glowing in his hands that night after you died I guess I'll never know. But there are two things I do know. You were an electrician and you didn't say goodbye to me. You were good at most things you did, but you were great at two things. Making lights turn on and making sure you always told me you loved me before you said goodbye. And for the rest of my life I'll believe that's exactly what you did that night in my bedroom in royal oak. Two days later I got a tattoo of a latern to keep me sane.It's worked. All I have left are memories and for the rest of my life I will search for moments full of you. I loved you endlessly, my handsome dad. If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied and illuminate the "no" on their vacancy signs--if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, I'll follow you into the dark.

I can't wait to look at bees, climb on trees, carve our names in three inches deep, dance naked to jazz, eat pounds of cake and sing at the tops of our lungs.

You and those wolf tee shirts.

I never sleep anymore. Last night was nice. Birthdays everywhere. Sheena from Lemuria sang Sarah happy birthday, that was wild. I work in 45 minutes. I don't know how people can sit in bars all the time. I feel like a hoss with shit stuck in my lungs from all the smoke I sat around last night. I don't know how people even need to get drunk when drinks like Mountain Dew World of Warcraft exist. I woke up feeling like I had a hangover just from consuming that. I turn into a freak of nature from that beverage. Ask Johnny.

Ice cream sales time.

my life, my rules

I am lonely, yet not just anyone will do. I don't know why some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness. In reality those who satisfy me are those who allow me to live simply with my idea of them. I have lots of ideas when I think about you.

CALIFORNIA. AUGUST 26-SEPTEMBER 8.

California. Where the mountains climb so tall, and waves crash blue around you. I will be here. On this coast. In one month. My heart is doing backflips and cartwheels and my stomach is turning inside out. Travis says everything is free in california and that we are going to touch seals on their bellies. Amanda says we're going to explore and I'm never going to want to come home. There's something sweet about seeing the world. My entire life feels better.

I've got to admit, I'm the happiest I've been in a very long time.

I just want to fall asleep tangled up with someone every single night.

This does not pertain to my life but it certainly makes me smile and feel like maybe one day someone will feel like this about me.

I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up:
These are the best days of our lives.
The only thing that matters
is just following your heart,
and eventually you'll finally get it right.

chicago. i am coming.

I've never been so alone, and I've never been so alive. I have the wildest feeling in my guts when I think about leaving here at the end of August. Is it good timing? On one hand, the timing couldn't be better. I owe too much money to school so I can't go back this semester, my lease is up and I literally feel like home is nowhere, all my friends have these big plans and all I have is what is left over from my shattered big plans. I can look at it two ways. My plans are shattered, or maybe I don't need some fucking plan at all. I choose the second. I know now how foolish we were to think that things could ever have worked out for us. The entire time, he told me, "Jessica, you and I are two entirely different people." On the major things, religion, societal norms, humor, we were so in tune it literally felt magical. On the little things, not even close. Not even halfway. At some point in being with him, I developed a very raw hatred for a lot of things, where I once loved or at least tried to understand them. I became surprisingly bitter and most of this was probably my own fault, but misery loves company. This is not to say there weren't incredibly happy days. But happiness and love isn't enough. He told me that all along but I just shrugged it off in my typical lovestruck manner. "love is all you need." I heard that my whole life, I swore it had to be true. After every fight I tried to mend it with, "but it's us." and, "i love you." And each fight only got worse. I have never been pushed to that point before, where I would stand shaking and ready to wreck everything and anyone in my sight. The day we broke up, after I asked him to never bother coming back home again, my own body couldn't even handle it and I sat on the floor in the bathroom while my insides came out of my mouth and I realized that was it. I was done. There is only so much you can put yourself through before you just throw your hands in the air, waving an imaginary flag of defeat. I gave up. Shut my heart down, like a tomb. Then suddenly a new interest is sparked, in someone you never would have guessed. I found myself drawn to a new person and I realized there is life after these shit storms. It is possible to truly love someone until the day your body shuts down. I can hate and I can hurt and I can mope but above all I can still love again. The simplest things have brought me the most enjoyable comfort, things I didn't even realize I needed before. Saying goodnight to johnny every night, hearing sarah and erica's voice daily, texting amanda before I sleep, riding bikes with nick, making new friends from canada and california and frank and his homer phone calls, these are the things I need. and these are the things I have. So, back to where i started this entry? Is this good timing? Should I go? I feel like the things that matter the most to me are things I will be able to take with me no matter where I go. The wiring of my brain is something you would not believe.

Anyway, I'm late for work. Art fair can eat my shit, I'm tired of being tired. But at least I've had the best week of this summer.

This band has broken my heart and put it back together again too many times to count.This song is what letting go FEELS like.

It's my barfday, gonna party like it's mah barf day. I am 21. Instead of an alocohlic beverage, at midnight, I consumed a monster burrito. Vegan. Straight edge. Dude.

Last night Johnny and Amanda and I laid in the middle of hogwarts, our favorite enchanted-ass forest in the middle of the law quad and they talked about Harry Potter and my dome wandered elsewhere and I thought about how quickly things have changed for me in just a month. No regrets, though. Life is what happens while we're making plans. So we're laying in the dark and I keep hearing what I think is somebody sneaking around by us, trying to chop our heads off. Instead, a sprinkler in the ground, aimed directly at my face shoots on, straight at my glasses and we all tumble around out of it's path, kicking and screaming.

I love how that place actually feels like magic, like there's some little freak leprechaun playing tricks on us in there. I bet the air is made of wizard breath and dragon farts.

In any case, it's been a great start to my birthday. Thanks, babiez.

Last night was the best I've felt all summer, maybe. Amanda Martin is an angel. Jasdave is the funniest prince I've ever met in my life. Hands down. Ever. I may have met my tall dream babe...Travis. He flicked pennies at nerd heads and reached out to pet a cat while being mobbed by drunk guys. Well.... I hate everyone but I really liked them.

We can take this weekend, drive out past city limits, keep on driving just as far as we can go. And we can take this weekend, and make it last forever, deal the shackles of our lives a breaking blow. Because to run away is victory, a tank of gas is freedom, and a starry night and open road is hope. We can take my fast car, or maybe just close our eyes, and when we open them the world we want can be the world we know.

One month, I'm gone.

Old man Sam.

So, I woke up to interesting text messages from an old coworker at Whole Foods, where I was a cashier until three months ago when my dad died and I broke my foot. I had only worked there for a couple months but I apparently made more friends there than I even realized, including an amazing older Syrian man named Sam. He used to come through my line, almost daily, with the most positive attitude in the world and always asking me about my life, my boyfriend, and also for 50% off his bill, and then cracked up at his own jokes for at least a minute straight while his combed-over little hairs on his empty head would bounce around.


Here's what Ed told me.

"So this customer named Sam comes in and asks about you today. I told him you went back to Ann Arbor and he got so mad. Then he asked about your boyfriend, and I told him you guys broke up and he was like, 'she is such a nice girl, I wish I had the chance to know her.' Then he said you should have cooked for Tymm. 'She should know that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach not PUSSY JUICE.' When he said pussy juice I almost just died. Also he said you were gonna invite him to your birthday party..."

Only that old foreign man would say pussy juice thinking it's socially acceptable. Reason #41,000 I miss that job. I'm gonna go find this 60 year old Sam, tell him I love him and his charmingly innocent/vulgar brain, and invite him to my birthday party at the beach.

unlisted track - jawbreaker

THERE IS NO GOD.

I can't even be nice about this anymore. Your "epic, beautiful, neverending" faith is all based off of selfishness. And unfortunately for you, the world is much bigger than outside of YOUR trivial life. So while you can fill pages upon pages about your love for a god that isn't listening, I can sum up my argument in one sentence:

It is generally accepted that we must assume things do not exist unless we have evidence that they do...even theists follow this rule most of the time; they don't believe in unicorns, even though they can't conclusively prove that no unicorns exist anywhere.

God is a unicorn. Awesome idea, but it's just that. An idea in a human's mind. Get over yourself and take a fucking class on evolution.

I chase dreams that don't exist.

When I stand behind the ice cream freezers at work patiently waiting for these little brats to finish screaming their orders to their pushover mothers, my mind wanders. As the turd is screeching about how he wants a bigger size or more than one flavor, I slip into a daze every time and I stare out the window and think about where I am, and where I want to be.

Where I want to be: Head underwater at Springmill pond. Swimming across the lake with Julie. Not wondering. Cutting all my jeans into shorts. Singing with all my favorites at Title Fight in July. In a car with Sarah and Johnny, singing terrible pop punk jams to eachother. In a tent with Amanda Martin in some dead serious woods. In a car full of my shit going to Chicago or Austin to live with Erica for a month or two or three or four. Disneyland. Jumping off a bridge into water (because all my friends are doing it). Whistling. I gotta learn to whistle first. Spitting into a cheap hotel pools after breaking into them with you and you and you. Starting a band (FINALLY) with Ryan Felton. Grandpa and dad's cabin on Sunrise Lake. Catching moths and lightning bugs in bottles but then letting them go to fabricate my sense of humanity. Feet on the dashboard, Morrissey dancing. Breathing in an ocean. Well deserved, fun bruises. Pretending to fight and just liking the touch. Phone calls with old voices. Dancing without clothes. High of 76. "I think I'll visit you at work tonight." Returned calls.

Where I am:

304 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 20 years old; 21 in a few weeks. Single. Okay with it. Broke. Thirteen dollars to last me an entire week...wish me luck. No hair. Summer. Went to the beach a few days ago and had the best day of summer, so far. Saves the Day stuck in my head. Empty apartment. Drinking grape juice from wine glasses. Best friends on the planet. Trying not to wonder where you are. It comes in waves.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Wish you were still here dad.

don't let your heart run your life

To let go of someone doesn't mean you have to stop loving; it only means that you allow that person to find his or her own happiness without expecting him/her to come back. Letting go is not just setting the other person free, but is also setting yourself free from all the bitterness, hatred, and anger that you keep in your heart. Do not let the bitterness take away your strength and weaken you, and never allow pain to dishearten you; but rather let yourself grow from bearing it.

Don't let your heart run your life. Be sensible, and let your mind speak for itself.

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.

I'm not the same anymore. I am looking up. No more "nostalgia forever." There are mountains ahead, fuck the mountains behind. For once, I feel challenged by the people I surround myself with. This is beautiful. You're bringing out the best in me. The long talks I wouldn't trade for the world, where when they're over, my ears are ringing and my eyelids are swollen with salt water creeping over the edges and I feel NEW. Or awake. Or both? I miss when you were afraid to be mean to me, when I didn't even know how to say your last name. I recognize now, though, that the truth is, everyone will hurt you. Gotta decide who's worth the pain. I'm still figuring this out.

Still young, still fucking up. I'll get this right one of these days. Sailin' on...

you made me such an asshole

You stole all the covers and fucked up my head.

I know that a lot of what I say has been lifted off of men's room walls.
Maybe I've crossed the wrong rivers and walked down all the wrong halls.
But nothing can change the fact that we used to share a bed
and that's why it scared me so when you turned to me and said:

"Yeah, you look like someone
Yeah you look like someone who up and left me low.
Yeah, you look like someone I used to know."

I asked the painter why the roads are colored black.
He said, " it's because people leave
and no highway will bring them back."
So if you don't want me I promise not to linger,
But before I go I gotta ask you dear about the tan line
on your ring finger.

Chicago heals me.

Time to focus on ourselves. I think at some point we forgot we were separate people and we actually do have two different hearts and lifes to live. This isn't goodbye, this is just see you later. Life is what happens while we're making plans.

I'm going to slow down. I will take JTB's advice and live by the hour. I will stop for every flower. My emotions shouldn't rule me the way they do. They overcome my logic, my senses, and they consume me.

Spending the last couple days in Chicago with good friends really brought me back to my senses. It's time to live for myself (and I hope you do the same). There are things I would like to do that you don't believe in. It's very likely that I won't be in Michigan after the next couple months pass. Our lease will be up on this apartment, I'll hopefully be able to transfer to a different Whole Foods, I'm not able to go back to school so I'll have a very open schedule; everything just seems to point to GO LIVE YOUR LIFE. Even just for a couple months. I feel like it's something I shoud do while I've finally got the time.

I guess we'll see where we are when the time gets here. For now I'm slowing down. These emotions will pass and my head will still be on straight.

Over.

I wasn't kidding when I said I'd go to Austin if this was it. I'm anchorless. But I don't want this to be it. Nobody said it was easy.

On an even worse note, happy birthday dad. I wish you were still here more than anything in the world. I love you so much, I wish I could watch you blow out forty six candles today. Instead I've just got pictures and memories.

Why can't I ever stop where I want to stay?

I'm a hoss, but yo. Can it get hot enough to be at the beach yet? I need it, right now, every morning, running into Johnny's room and scrambling out the door with sleepy eyed friends, towels, clown sized sunglasses, bags of food that will clog our hearts, pop punk singalongs the whole way there. 

Come on summer, I am waaaaaiting to swim in you...

"Where Did You Go" by Valencia describes my life in detail.

"And it feels like this is the perfect time for me to say that deep down inside I'm hurting, but at least I know you're worth it. And if I hold myself with pride and accept the pain, then life will take me through these changes, because I have so much left to see."

My dad's birthday is 6 days away and it's really wrecking my heart. In the meantime I've been fucking up with everyone I love, by shutting down and being a nervous wreck half the time. Last night I let that side of me go and I finally let everything out. Luckily, Tymm's arms are always there to consume me and some of my friends' hearts are made of gold.

So long, someday I'll find the strength to move on.

Being back where I feel home was all I needed. I've got my dad on my mind all the time, but the feelings aren't so heavy anymore. They are just light and I can feel him all around me even though I know he isn't there. This is the best. I feel like I drifted too far and I'm swimming back to shore.

This must be the place.

Calcutta

Would you feel as good as I would here? I don't fear catastrophes as much as I hope to experience them in my lifetime. It's bound to happen anyway.

Do you need a lot of what you've got to survive?

MOVING IN, IN THREE HOURS.

Goodbye to the past couple terrible months of my life. Hello to OUR city, summer, a tiny hot beautiful cozy apartment, my best friend, my Tymm in two weeks...

There are mountains ahead, fuck the mountains behind.

Some people say I just got an attitude. Some people say I'm just hard to deal with. I just try to survive. Done some things that I'm not too proud of. You know you never want to hurt the people you love. Sometimes you've gotta look them in the eye and apologize.

Was this song written for me?

Oh in a dream
My father came to me
And made me swear that I’d keep
What's sacred to me
And if I get the choice
To live in his name
I'll find my way through the rain
Singing oh happy day...

I don’t mean to close the door
But for the record my heart is sore
You blew through me like bullet holes
Left stains on my sheets and stains
On my soul
You left me broke down beggin for change
Had to catch a ride with a man who’s deranged
He had your hands and my father’s face
Another western vampire different time same place
I have dreams that brings me sadness
Pain much deep that a river
Sorrow flow through me in tiny waves of shivers


- Coco Rosie, "Werewolf"

My stupid life.

So, I spent all day in bed yesterday because I'm sick. Around 9:30 pm last night, I'm sweating, naked, half asleep in bed with my glasses off. I hear some insane howling right outside my house and before I can even sit up, there is THIS ANIMAL (in the picture) who I think is a fucking WOLF in my house, on my BED, jumping all over my naked bod.

WHAT THE FUCK!?

I can't see shit and I think I am wrestling a wolf or some other animal that's about to wreck my life, and then it lays down on my bed belly up and BARKS. It's a fucking friendly cutie baby husky, all white and silverz, and it's someone's dog who has actually came into our house another time last summer. So, after having a serious heart attack, the dog jumps off my bed and out of the house, and I am just sitting there in complete shock and all I hear is laughter from my mom or Dave or whoever was in the house.

Lesson of the day is shut the fucking screen door, Dave.

I seriously WOULD be the idiot who dies in her own bed by getting mauled by some crazy ass woodland creature. Fuck!

Let down.

Last night my little brother broke my heart.

"I just can't take it that he died a very sad person. I just wished I could have helped him and told him that people did care so much about him, including me. I had plans to take him to do everything he wanted to do...fishing trips and traveling, when I got the money. But I never even told him that. I couldn't because he was never sober for a fucking second and I couldn't be around him because it tore me up. Mom called him and told him I was worried sick about him and he was thrilled that I even cared. When his electricity got shut off, Jessica, the house was so scary because he blocked off every room and slept in the living room next to the gas fireplace to keep warm. Damn it. I can't stop crying now. I don't know. I just wanted to take him on real fishing trips and all those places he wanted to go. I just wanted to get rich so he wouldn't have to worry about a thing. I always said I wanted to make him happy before I made myself happy despite the way he treated me. He still deserved the best."

If I lose faith in this world, I hope it doesn't come as a surprise.

Fuck you, I'm an anteater

Can't believe I have to miss this show tomorrow for work. My best friends are playing with my favorite band on earth at the tiniest most comfortable venue and I will be making cakes the entire time...boo. Also, tonight my favorite Michigan band/best pals band is playing with 108 and Soul Control. Should be a perfect time. Making vegan dinner to take.

Just depends if I can move this shit out of my house fast enough...but it's really fucking stupid/hard with a broken foot, pouring rain, and absolutely by myself. Give me a break. GO TO THESE.

PS

This is my bedroom, and outside that window is a long stretch of roof from the apartment building and Jordan (the guy who lives there right now) said it's the best spot in the world to sit on at night. I will be sleeping on the roof. Perfect life.

This will not be as funny to you as it was to us.

Johnny and I signed the lease to our new apartment last night. Tymm got to see it, too, finally. Though he will only be there for maybe 2 weeks the entire time we live there, haha.

Anyway we had to meet the landlord in his "office" which was, from the outside, this abandoned shithole building. He lets us in and our eyes POP. The place is like a fucking enchanted castle inside. It's all restored, redecorated, and insanely gorgeous inside. The ceilings seemed neverending and in the living room was this intense stained glass ceiling. So this goofball with a toupe on his dome sits us at this fancy dining room table and we're all just sitting there (johnny and i plus the dudes who live in our apartment currently) while the landlord gets his paperwork together upstairs.

So he comes down, after about ten minutes of us sitting without him, marvelling at the fucking mansion we're sitting in. I instantly notice his toupe is going to slide off his sweating head because of the intense humidity in the room and I am already filled with laughter. The entire time I feel Johnny kicking me and I seriously almost lose my mind. The landlord keeps going on and on about he is an attorney, owns 7 businesses BESIDES his rental property, invented some golf machine, is this really important rich dude, blah blah blah. I am texting Johnny underneath the table the whole time about this guy's fucking hair and FINALLY the landlord's cell phone rings and in the middle of interviewing us, he answers it on HIS BLUETOOTH (a 65 yr old man with a bluetooth) and says, "HI CANDI" in the goofiest voice I have ever heard. I turn to Johnny and we fucking burst. Our faces are dark shades of red and we can't stop laughing. I keep saying, "I'm seriously dying, it's so hot," Johnny has both hands on his face, Jordan across from us is pulling his hair, and the landlord is seriously clueless that we're all dying because of this fucking wig on his brain. Typically I would think this is adorable, but the dude is some rich goon who kept making TERRIBLE jokes about us coming home drunk. It doesn't register to people that SOME PEOPLE DON'T DRINK. He made this joke probably five times before he realized nobody was laughing.

Anyway I wrote that strictly for memory purposes, because I NEVER want to forget how hilarious that situation was. Writing it out does it nearly no justice as compared to being there in that 100 degree room with Johnny and two strangers and our sweaty landlord with a wig. I have never felt so stupid. I could not stop laughing. I actually had to think about the past month of my life to stop laughing, that's how much it took.

So, that was our first experience with the landlord, and I'm sure there will be many more. Johnny thinks the lesson there was "don't judge a book by it's cover." But I think the lesson is "judge a landlord by his toupe."

Last night felt unbelievably great. New Found Glory. Everyone I love surrounding me singing our guts out. Tymm's life is seriously becoming unreal. I'm so proud of him and excited for everything his band is looking forward to. Bummer that it means he'll be gone much more, but it's just a small price to pay for all the good things coming his way...

So happy to get the fuck out of this house and into a tiny apartment with my best friend in downtown Ann Arbor. Back to my ice cream shop, back to where I feel comfortable in my own skin. I've got a million things on my mind, but I feel alright. Cast my worries to the side, focus only when I get the time. I will get there safely. I feel so lucky to have the few perfect friends that I do. I've got big plans with them for this season. Summer is here...I can feel all the beach days right around the corner. I will LIVE in a lake this summer. I am anchorless.

For sanity's sake, I wish my dad could leave my mind for at least a few moments a day. I literally spend all of my time thinking about him. Just wondering if things could've been different. I listen to "Anchorless" by the Weakerthans at least twice a day and the water balloons behind my eyelids pop.

"They called here to tell me that your're finally dying, through a veil of childish cries. Southern Manitoba prairie's pulling at the pant leg of your bad disguise. So why were you so anchorless? Shoebox full of photos; found a grainy mirror. Sunken cheeks and slender hands. Grocery lists and carbon-copied letters offer silence for my small demands. Hey how'd you get so anchorless? Got an armchair from your family home. Got your P.G. Wodehouse novels, and your telephone. Got your plates and stainless steel. Got that way of never saying what you really feel: so anchorless. A boat abandoned in some backyard. Anchorless in the small town that you lived and died in."

Yesterday was one month. When we got our new apartment yesterday I wanted to call my dad and flip my wig about how excited I am and ask him to help me move my things. But he isn't there to call, he isn't standing in his kitchen looking at birds through binoculars or watching my little brother shoot hoops in the backyard. He is gone.

I need you so much closer.

EARTH DAY.

TODAY. SO HAPPY.

WE ARE MOVING BACK TO ANN ARBOR. I AM SO HAPPY I COULD BURST. I AM SO EXCITED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, I'M A CREEP. I'M A WEIRDO. WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE? I DON'T BELONG HERE. I'M COMING BACK TO MY CITY! AND MY JOB! Perfect life. See ya, Peter. Fuck off.

My third grade teacher told me I had no future.
I run through snow and turn around
just to make sure I've got a past.

My life's a chandelier dropped from an airplane.
I graduated first in my class from alibi school.

There ought to be a healthy family cage at the zoo,
or an open field, where I can lose my mother
as many times as I need.

When I get bored, I call the cops, tell them
there's a pervert peeking in my window!
then I slip on a flimsy nightgown, go outside,
press my face against the glass and wait...

This makes me proud to be an American

where drunk drivers ought to wear necklaces
made from the spines of children they've run over.

I remember my face being invented
through a windshield.

All the wounds stitched with horsehair
So the scars galloped across my forehead.

I remember the hymns cherubs sang
in my bloodstream. The way even my shadow ached
when the chubby infants stopped.

I remember wishing I could be boiled like water
and made pure again. Desire
so real it could be outlined in chalk.

My eyes were the color of palm trees
in a hurricane. I'd wake up
and my ID would start the day without me.

Somewhere a junkie fixes the hole in his arm
and a racing car zips around my halo.

A good God is hard to find
(because she isn't real)

Each morning I look in the mirror
and say promise me something
don't do the things I've done.

Sarah cut and dyed my wig...

I'm sure nobody cares but I have to document this because it's freaking me out! Still have to lighten it a lot more but I'm waiting a few days so my hair doesn't fall out like Stinky's tail hair (meow). I love it. Sarah is getting really good at doing hair. I can't believe she can do all this to my brain for free....life rules. Each of my closest friends have the best jobs. I'm so proud of them. Especially Tymm!!! Fireworks got added to the fucking NEW FOUND GLORY tour...this is unbelievable. Even crazier is that they're playing a sold out show down the street from our house on April 26th, life is seriously a shock. This is huge for them. They are really taking off and it is so intense and awesome and they really deserve it.

Also I went to work at Sarah's ice cream shop last night and I feel like I AM BACK. My heart isn't so sore finally. That place calms me like nothing else can. Her grandparents have owned it for three or four decades and they used to have an antique shop there and then decided to make it an ice cream shop 25 ish years ago. I can't even describe how perfect it is. When you step in you feel like you are right in the middle of 1945.

ANYWAY, I feel so good and I love this life. PERFECT.

I'm alone but I'm not lonely. I have kinetic energy. The dividing line will separate us all. Sometimes it's those nights where I'm all I have is really all I need.

I wonder when or if it'll get easier. With each day I pretend to feel better but it's just getting harder, and becoming more "real." I still cry daily, possibly even hourly. I miss you, dad.

It's strange how the sun can shine when your father's dead and you're stuck behind a window. But it's only strange until I say fuck it, I will never be stuck anywhere.

Last night felt good. I slept in my best friend's bed while he snored on the couch and I couldn't stop crying. I wasn't even sad or miserable or anything intense. Okay I think maybe I was 10% sad since I was sleeping alone for the first of 35 nights without Tymm but otherwise, I didn't even know what I was doing crying like that into Johnny's pillows. I have the most wild emotions right now and I don't have the energy to sort them out so I just cried last night because I feel so bad and I feel so good. I feel guilty for having amazing days. I feel guilty when I sit with my best friend and laugh until we're drooling (we're pigs). But when I am happy like that, I savor it and I push away the guilt and it doesn't come back until I try falling asleep.

That's when I feel stuck, and I panic and wonder with intensity if the grip on my heart will ever loosen up. That's when I replay my day and the smiles and the faces of the people who made me laugh and then the guilt slams into me and my eyes fill up. And that's when I have to tell myself to shut up because after all of this, I deserve these good days and I deserve these amazing friends. And I close my eyes and push every thought out of my way until all I see is black and after hours of this, I finally sleep.

So, those are my nights, and these are my days. Today will feel good. Picking up Dave Kloc from the airport, he's home from LA for a couple days. Great dude. Then watching the Office with the usual bebes and their dogs, I HOPE.

I'm alone, but I'm not alone. I have kinetic energy.

Thank you for fixing me just in time for you to say goodbye again. I will have a knot in my stomach for the next thirty five days. Thank you for making me see there's a life in me. It was dying to get out. I love you. Pinky swear.

Sitting on a bench outside my classroom. My crutches are parked next to me. Waiting for Ryan to pick me up from school. I don't know who I was trying to kid coming to school with these pieces of shit stuffed under my armpits. I shouldn't have stayed up so late last night but I had fun in Caitlyn's bedroom, haha. Those Shea sisters....

I just ran into Ryan Felton and he's wearing a Busch Gardens windbreaker that he bought in Virginia because he was cold. Only this dude would spend 55 dollars on a theme park windbreaker.

I got my period today.

Tymm's in Chicago.

See ya.

Happy Easter, dudes.

Today Tymm, Ryan, Aaron and I went to the Detroit Zoo. It's in walking distance from our house but since I'm in my moon boot we had to drive there and they took turns crashing me into fences/walls in a wheelchair. The underground polar bear and seals exhibit blew my mind. Completely surrounded by water, polar bears can stand on your head and seals can just hang out next to you. I also fell in love with artic foxes and pudu and warthogs, as always. The lions roared at eachother back and forth until they fell asleep. It was wild. Also extremely cold and we were all underdressed. I am still numb. Nap time. Good day. Thanks for pushing me dudes. And thanks for always carrying me around, my Tim!

ps. We really wanted to steal a prairie dog but we had no way to hide it because I forgot my purse. Also Aaron almost got killed by a peacock and a duck. Goodnight.

I can feel myself turning back into the girl I was in that picture. Where I had a better attitude, I saw my friends every day, I ate ice cream in my second family's ice cream shop and then Sarah and I laid together on this hill every single day, where I drove out to go swimming in my dad's pool, where I woke up every morning in my mom's house to either her or the dogs making me laugh before I even opened my eyes, where I didn't even know how to pronounce Tymm's last name so I just pretended he only had a first name, where we'd spend every night in Johnny's backyard around a shitty fire we could never keep going and then end up getting ten people naked and swim, where my grandpa didn't have cancer yet and was still hammering shit in his basement, where I hid moth balls in Mrs. Gibbs hallway and stunk up the entire ice cream shop on accident, where Julie still drove around in that T-model junk ride with star wars stickers everywhere, where I rode my bike more than I drove my car, and where everything felt RIGHT.

March 2009 and the beginning of this month had the potential to wreck me. It was literally my worst nightmare coming true. Moving to Royal Oak and instantly dealing with the creepy Chelsea shit, my stubborn beautiful dad's life being taken from him, breaking my foot on the day of his funeral, and the downward spiral from those two situations. But I feel it closing. I've never wanted something to end as much as I wanted March to.

I know I'm turning back into the girl in that picture because I can feel the brakes slowing and my clear state of mind returning. I can't expect to come to a complete halt and everything just fall back into place. But I can appreciate the slow days I have now, laying in bed, feeling the love of my life's skin next to mine as I rest, dreaming about summer and baseball fields and slipping into the clear water at the beach, teaching my friends dogs to swim, putting some money together somehow to drive out to one of Fireworks shows this summer since he'll be gone for months at a time. I can appreciate my future.

Despair can ravage you if you turn your head and look down the path that's lead you here. Because, what can you change? You're a vessel now, floating down the waterways. You can take your rudder, and aim your ship, just don't bother with the things left in your wake. Just sail, belly up to the clouds, the rocks scraping your back. To breathe in the air will be the only thing that you have. And your love will be warm nights with pockets of moonlight spotlighting you as you drift, the actor in this play. You walk across the stage, take a bow, hear the applause. And as the curtains fall just know you did it all the best that you knew how. And you can hear them cheering now, so let a smile out and show your teeth because you know you lived it well.

I am coming home.

Quit posing like you're rebellious, you boring pieces of shit. You're flying the flag of anger when you're as generic as white bread.

Real post coming soon.

And just like that, he's gone. My handsome, stubborn dad was stolen from this earth by the hands of some young brutal coward. I forgive you, dad, for everything. I know you weren't innocent. I struggled for two decades trying to relate to you. I struggled for two decades trying to forgive you for the person you were and for the person you weren't. The most important thing in the world to me is that we ended our struggle on our own terms three or four months ago, and I finally felt like your daughter again. You have my heart in a kung-fu grip, dad. You spent the last four months of your life reminding me everyday, "I love you Jezebel." I had to delete those voicemails after your funeral the other day. There were probably ten or more, just you, rambling. They always ended the same way. I can look at your pictures right now, but I can't hear your voice. My ribs feel like they're cracking, like my heart is just swelling and bursting behind them, when I hear your voice played back over my phone. You and those vocal chords are gone.

Everyone's got something to say about where you went. Nana thinks you're in heaven, saving her a seat. Johnny thinks you're watching over him every time he sinks the basketball into the net; you're still at his games, you're the reason he scored that time. Your wife thinks you're coming home, she's only dreaming, this can't be real because she can still smell you on the pillows. I even heard some biker at your benefit dinner say you're probably sitting at the bar in hell, trying to buy the devil a drink.

But me? I know where you are. You're home. Home is nowhere. You aren't anywhere, but it sure feels like you are. I'd like to feel safe and comfortable and say a prayer to you hoping you're up in the sky listening to me. But I know that's not the case and I know that I am not safe in that sense. I am safe, though, with memories. You're still alive when I close my eyes and the movie screen starts playing on my eyelids. That's where you are and that's where you'll be forever. Standing above my eyelashes, I can still see you staring out the kitchen window, singing me some 90s country song. And then you turn around. There you are, dad. You're standing on my eyelashes wearing those old work boots, the same pair of jeans you've worn since as far back as I can remember, that flannel with a cigarette burn on the bottom right side, those rough big hands down on either side of your body. Your knuckles were always scabbed. I remember your thumbs were as big as my whole hand. Your neck lined with tiny brown specks all the way up to your mouth and behind your ears. The cuts on your striking jawbone from last time you shaved. Those cracked lips. Those crooked teeth. That nose that I wear, too. And then those eyes. Those wild blue bulbs of life that I wished mine looked like every time I looked into them. I'd spend hours when I was little sitting next to you pulling your earlobes and asking why my eyes were green. The best part about you was your ocean eyes dad. I think I'll miss seeing those, most.

I can't finish everything I wanted to say. This hurts. It's time go back upstairs and crawl into bed with my sleepy Tymm and close my eyes and play the movies on my eyelids. Tymm. Nothing else compares. He has proven to me his heart is made of gold. At the benefit dinner, my dad's best friend came up to me and said, "I heard you're married!"

He heard I was WHAT?

"Yeah, that's what your dad said. He said you got married!"

I don't know why my dad would've told this man I was married to Tymm but it makes me feel better knowing he met the person I will spend the rest of my life loving. I think my dad knew I was going to marry Tymm before I even did. He won't be there to walk me down the aisle, but it's okay because he already did, at some point in his wild mind.

Sleep time. See you in the movies dad. I'll follow you into the dark.

You can't look at the sky without looking right through it. When I look at you I feel the exact same thing.