Oh, My Morning's Coming Back

Okay, finally time for an update.
Today I deposited my first check into my savings account from New York and Company, so that's wonderful. Tomorrow I get paid from Starbucks, and this new, frugal life of mine officially begins. I did the math and figured out my budget, which has me spending about $370 a month on all of the basic things like bills and food. Techinically, it is about $290 on bills and $80 - $100 on gas and food. With my new raise at the 'Bucks, I should be pulling in about $800 a month, and with what I make and get at NY&Co. I should pull in about $400 a month. So, that puts me at $1200, minus $400 on expenses. Thus, being frugal, down-to-the-grind, move-the-fuck-back-home me, I'm going to put about $800 in the old savings account a month until August, in which case I will move and thus spend it all. In that amount of time, I estimate about $2000 - $3000 in savings.
I need to take my car to finish having it fixed my next morning off. I need an allignment, a new battery, and to fix my sideview mirror--which is currently hanging from three cords off the side of my car. Once I have that done, I'm going to keep it very clean and shinny and put a nice FOR SALE sign on it with a price at $3000. Hopefully with all its dents I can pull $3000. And then I will pay that directly to UIC, which will leave me about $1700 in debt with them. I would like to make $4000, but I doubt that will happen, so I am aiming a little low. You haven't seen the car; believe me, it's not worth $4000. Hardly $3000...but it's all I've got.
I'm expecting to get that $600 from the government in May. I filed by myself, not as a dependent to my mother at all, and paid all of my own taxes. I think I made about $12,500. So...I think I should probably be elligiable, at least that is what I've been told. With that, I am torn. My sister and Misti are going to New York, at least so I still hear, in June, and I could use that money to pay for it and go see The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Or, I could use the money toward UIC/moving. I'm in a bind, and I haven't decided. Jon Stewart is very hard for me to pass up. You just don't understand...it's extremely hard for me to pass up. But, I have a debt, and that needs to be paid. Especially since I can't really continue with my education until it is, those bastards. I'm torn. It sucks. Logically...but, goddammit...it's Jon Stewart!

I am going to start looking at single apartments here soon, I just need some time and some ideas. I have a few ideas of where I want to live, so I'm going to scout those first. Then, if they are awful, I am going to search randomly. Hopefully I can find something that looks good, send a friend to check it out, and see if I get it before July. I would like very much to have it waiting for me when I move. I should be able to handle a deposit and a downpayment, so I am just looking for the right place.

Also, I have some ideas of which Starbucks I want to work at, but not a lot. So, I'll be doing some investigations into that matter as well. I have to let Diane, my DM, know which ones I've chosen by the end of April, so that she can start talking it up with the DMs in Chicago. I really want a nifty store, so if you see one you think I should work at, let me know!

And, in my writing life: I am finishing up my first major story--as in, it's longer than four pages--as well as writing poetry pretty consistantly. Woohoo. I am also moving forward with a much bigger project, planning on entering a few larger competitions--and by that I mean simply not poetry competitions, more like short story and essay ones, which to me are bigger and scarier. As for the ones I have entered, I haven't heard from two, but from the other three I did not win. I still don't know if I was a finalist, but it doesn't matter, really, because there is no award for that. The only nice thing about knowing I was one would be to assure me that I at least can be noteworthy, I just need some work. So, we'll see what happens. I just need to keep writing everyday and having faith in my ability to make it work, somehow. If I want to be a writer, I can find a way to do it, right? Carrie Bradshaw did, and she's based after a real woman. :)

So, that is my life. Today I bought a gorgeous trench coat, tomorrow I work all day at both jobs, and Saturday I sleep in. I'm feeling pretty good right now. However, if I don't go to bed soon, and very soon, I will not be feeling so good in the morning. Or at eight pm when I will still be on my feet and folding clothes.
The Whole World's Waking Up

So You Fell Into a Rabbit Hole

Buddhism

I’m afraid everyone will see
through me. See that I know
nothing, that I have no experience.
Honestly, I think they already believe
I’m a failure—a failure in the sense
that I’ve lived no life and now attempt
to write about it, which defies
everything I was ever told.
Write what you know, its better that way.
Am I? The explanation of that theory
would be that I lived other lives,
and have a mild, wisdom-like
recollection of such things,
but I’m not consciously aware
of all the things I’ve done. I bet
I was a hooker, in another life.
A “harlequin woman,” as I’ve said,
and will tend to say in the future—
because it sounds more eloquent than prostitute,
although nothing is as literary
as the word “whore.”
And I bet for a while I
was an English girl, lost somewhere
in the countryside, the carriage ride
getting ever-the-more rough—my corset
ever-the-more painful.
But I enjoyed the adventure when it came,
because I was too noble
to smile and too peasant
to laugh. And I bet, before
all of that, I was just an orphan,
somewhere in the recesses of India
or Sri Lanka or even as west as Saudi Arabia.
And I was abused, probably, and left
to wallow and to die.
Because I was a girl.
Although in some life, maybe
I was a boy, and possibly that’s
why I think I understand anything at all.

March 25, 2008
Where'd You Go for Days and Days?

Are You Poison?

Mosquito

Nobody loves like an insect
who only desires the touch of
your skin and the taste
of your blood so deep inside
your shallow flesh.
Others have tried, tried to love
the way such pests and predators,
such parasites, do. Tried to love
me who cannot be soft
and cannot be gentle,
and whose skin is immune
to stings as passionate
as that of yours.
You are no mosquito,
no bug of prey—and,
if you were, you wouldn’t break
through the barrier of my flesh.
Nothing breaks skin which has been
knitted and sewn to keep out
the pests.
Water and air can come in;
breath and bath can reach deeper
than kisses and embraces
and love.
And nobody loves like an insect,
which you claim to be in the evenings,
when the sun has set and the lights are glowing,
drawing you to their touch.
But mosquito you are not,
and mosquito only does my skin
break for, open and wide,
exposing my fragile heart.

March 17, 2008
Author's Note: my personal ode to Ingrid Michaelson, hahaha. Inspired by her songs "Mosquito", "Breakable", and "Masochist". I hope, however, that it was my point I got across, and not hers.
Are you Poisoning Me?

Love Like No Human Could

Medusa

The truth is: I’m freezing.
I can hear the cold resonating
as I speak to you through blue
lips, still dying for something
you haven’t given in all your time
working toward what it is I have.
I can feel my body trembling,
and you think it’s the touch
of your skin
along the curves of my waist,
but nothing is as icy
as your mouth.
My breath is stifled and
my hands are clenching;
I am struggling to generate
something more than heat.
Because, the passion in your eyes
should be enough to fill my lungs
with fire and desire,
but it’s failing.
And you’ll touch me again and again,
fingers here, lips there,
body wrapping ever so carefully
to consume mine.
But the fire that you burn with,
that spreads along your shoulders
and down to the base of your spine
has turned to ash, has turned to dust;
my body’s riddled with cold.
I’ll just say it, and break the tension,
and stop your lips from turning me to stone.
I’m freezing, and you caused it,
and I’ll roll over when you’re done.
The bed is warmer with just me—
there is only room enough for one.

March 16, 2008
Love Like No Human Should

The Ides of March

My Fingers Get in the Way (So Why Do I Keep Counting?)

I used to believe that three was the
lucky number, until things
continued and years added up.
Now I don’t remember
what number I worship
when thinking back on the times
I spent talking to ghosts in corners
and apparitions on stairwells.
And now they are just air,
so many years later,
years I can’t count on five fingers.
Years I can’t remember
in chronological order,
or in real-time,
or at all.
Years that make you seem
like a distant, far, and sweet thing
I remember on the nights
when counting is hardest.
But I tend to recall, somewhere
after adding, that sweetness
turns to sour, wrinkled things
over time and distance, and
the alcoholic content sometimes
rises past peek, so things turn rancid.
And beautiful things become covered
with the dust of all these years,
unable to fit on five fingers;
and beautiful people are nothing
but words hanging along the shadows,
ghosts and apparitions, memories from
three years before, and beyond the span
of my memory’s recollection.
My hands cringe at the thought
of all those years adding up,
weighing down my little fingers,
which struggle to keep time.

March 15, 2008
Beware the Thirty-Three Stab Wounds to Your Back

I Don't Even Like Jelly

Distance manages to do for me
things no one else could.
It pulled me to pieces and left me
on the floor—kind of like you did,
although it wasn’t as gentle, and yet
it stung less. And it took it’s time,
but eventually, it put my pieces all back
together, one-by-one, glue and staples
and sutures and the blood I lost
when I thought my life was over,
traveling the distance, leaving behind
what I thought was a life.
Nothing I have done
could be considered living,
I’ve been walking this distance numb
and a ghost—not a spirit or demon,
a person
without a purpose but to mess myself up.
These sorts of things
are called self-destructive behaviors,
and I am the self-destructive bear,
swimming out though there is no ice,
searching for shelter though there is no room.
I helped the distance, and I helped you,
to break my arm behind my back and snap
my heart right in two.
And I helped the distance
put me back together, ready
and waiting to shatter again.
It isn’t that I enjoy misery,
but I am starting to think I enjoy
tearing myself to the point of no return.
Settling for something
so mundane
never was this violent.
Maybe it’s the settling,
not the distance, that did this.

I can’t be sure, but the distance isn’t so great
when I think about what it will take
to realize I can’t settle for anything less
than finding you again.
The distance is less, because this settlement is more,
and overcoming myself is twice the challenge
of overcoming the distance.


March 4, 2008
Author's Note: basically just a lot of rambling...an ode to self-destructive behavior. Everybody loves Scrubs and Pandy the Self-Destructive Teddy Bear. Basically, that's all this ever was. Really nothing. :) I write a lot about distance...you would think it was the biggest barrier I have to overcome in order to make my way back home. You would be wrong, unfortunately. Home is, apparently, more than seven-hundred miles away. It's more of a state-of-mind...a seven-hundred-mile-away state-of-mind.
I Don't Even Care