Like:
-brisk weather
-apples, but not sour ones
-cappucinos
-italian, everything italian
-houses that are converted to businesses
-writing with someone else and being separated by our ear buds but still sitting together and working
-dancing alone
-incense and candles
-windows open and wind coming through
-showers
-stickers
-really good comfy jeans
-hugs
-the artist James who sings the song "Sometimes"
-"Treehouse" by I'm from Barcelona
-Making mixed CDs for people, even if it is "over"
Dislike:
-sundresses when it's supposed to be fall
-heavy walkers
-loud generators outside my window
-not being able to find my own place
-ripping my favorite jeans
-hot and humid weather in september when it should rain and be chilly
-Using a phone that has a cord attached.
-itchy eyes, even though I took my allergy medicine
Today I'm content but also really unhappy. I would really really love some Fall weather, I shouldn't be complaining but I really dislike this hot weather, it's humid and awful and it's FALL. Also, I really dislike the pressure to dress up for class as though I am about to be in a J.Crew catalog.
But I'm content because I had a cappucino and it was prepared perfectly, proper amount of foam, even though they say it can't be done with skim milk. And, I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Granville writing pages and found that Granville has a Two Dollar Radio publishing house here... maybe I'll get published after all? Who knows.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
I know summer's almost over
but...
I want bubbles, and fluffies to blow off into the air and a tutu to wear and someone to dance around with.
I guess it's just because I've been so alone lately. I'm not too into this apartment by myself thing. I need people around and I have never before given it so much credit.
I want bubbles, and fluffies to blow off into the air and a tutu to wear and someone to dance around with.
I guess it's just because I've been so alone lately. I'm not too into this apartment by myself thing. I need people around and I have never before given it so much credit.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Moving Prompt from "Juicy Pens and Thirsty Paper"
When I was two and a half years old we moved into a new house. Norwood Avenue would belong to someone else with its pear tree in the yard that fed us succulent fruit and its porch swing that rocked me to sleep in the cradle of my mother’s arms and voice singing “you are my sunshine.” The moving men came in their large truck. The men lumbered like rhinos, their tanned skin taut across their bodies – it looked as though it would tear if they strained too much lifting our furniture. I thought they were stealing my belongings. My clown lamp with balloons for light bulbs in red, blue, yellow and green and my rocking chair with purple flowers parenthetically around my name on the dark wood. They loaded my crib into the rumbling and angry truck as it chugged down the street I sank inside with loss. My identity was in my bedroom, the room that now was only four empty walls with a crumpled piece of paper in one corner and dust in the other. I clung to my Nana’s shoulder – her soft paper-thin skin comforted my cheek and her arm wrapped around me like a seat belt.
My mother and her mother took the car to the new house. On the street with trees like a forest top, reaching together and creating a canopy, a harbor of home. When I get on my first bus ride to school, coming down the street and seeing the safety of the trees ahead, it feels more like home than my clown lamp did when I was two. The pair raced home before Nana and I and even the movers, they all set my room together like it was on Norwood. When I walked into the bedroom it looked just like my room but instead of one window I had two and my rocking chair was next to the closet. I found a magical door in the wall and there was a radiator emanating heat in winter. I had a lamp on the ceiling.
When I was six I thought the magical door could never be opened, it was sealed shut. I thought if it ever could be opened it would lead to a magical world outside my bedroom. That year my father opened it and the excitement ate my vocal chords while I stood there anticipating the other side. He cut the seal with a knife and used a crow bar to pry the door off. There were no hinges, only a wooden plank. He opened the door because the bathtub had stopped working. I didn’t understand how the magic door could help until I saw, there was no world inside the door. There were no magical people or new friends. There were pipes and dripping water. Disappointed and angry at my father for showing me reality, I began to loathe my room. It once was a mystical place and turned into a harsh cold room with pipes and bright lamps just like every other room.
I turned fourteen and decided to give my room a second chance. I reclaimed the mystery for myself. Instead of having a stark white ceiling and pink walls I wanted colors and statements. Dad refused to allow me to paint on the walls. Instead I plastered magazine clippings to the ceiling around the bright lamp in the center. It took weeks to find clippings worthy of my bedroom. I stood on my bed and moved it steadily throughout the room to give me height.
Before we moved into the house the people who lived there were named the Claytons. There is a toyshop in Williamsville, the village next to the town where my house is in. I don’t think they owned it though. The girl who lived in my room was the oldest just like me and she had Scarlet O’Hara wallpaper on her walls. It wasn’t on the walls when I moved in, the wallpaper when I moved in was flowery with blue and brown and pink flowers on a white background. I know she had Scarlet O’Hara wallpaper because her brother came to see the house when he was in Buffalo one winter. He walked around the house telling us stories about when they lived there, like they used to play elevator in the pantry under the stairs that we use to store pots and pans that we don’t use every day. He also told us about the wallpaper in my bedroom and showed us how there is some in the wood ceiling of the attic. On our attic door are flowers painted in neon green and yellow and orange. It says “attics are fun” and the man said that his family didn’t put that there, but that it was there when they moved in. We liked it and so we kept it too. Ever since that time he writes us a Christmas card updating us on his family and their lives and tells us he misses the house and neighborhood. Other people’s houses are not gross like that woman from the Real Housewives of New Jersey says they are, they are in fact rich with history and stories similar to our own and give us glimpses into the house’s life before us. I love living in someone else’s house, it becomes our own home and is my house but still has the life of another family inside it.
My mother and her mother took the car to the new house. On the street with trees like a forest top, reaching together and creating a canopy, a harbor of home. When I get on my first bus ride to school, coming down the street and seeing the safety of the trees ahead, it feels more like home than my clown lamp did when I was two. The pair raced home before Nana and I and even the movers, they all set my room together like it was on Norwood. When I walked into the bedroom it looked just like my room but instead of one window I had two and my rocking chair was next to the closet. I found a magical door in the wall and there was a radiator emanating heat in winter. I had a lamp on the ceiling.
When I was six I thought the magical door could never be opened, it was sealed shut. I thought if it ever could be opened it would lead to a magical world outside my bedroom. That year my father opened it and the excitement ate my vocal chords while I stood there anticipating the other side. He cut the seal with a knife and used a crow bar to pry the door off. There were no hinges, only a wooden plank. He opened the door because the bathtub had stopped working. I didn’t understand how the magic door could help until I saw, there was no world inside the door. There were no magical people or new friends. There were pipes and dripping water. Disappointed and angry at my father for showing me reality, I began to loathe my room. It once was a mystical place and turned into a harsh cold room with pipes and bright lamps just like every other room.
I turned fourteen and decided to give my room a second chance. I reclaimed the mystery for myself. Instead of having a stark white ceiling and pink walls I wanted colors and statements. Dad refused to allow me to paint on the walls. Instead I plastered magazine clippings to the ceiling around the bright lamp in the center. It took weeks to find clippings worthy of my bedroom. I stood on my bed and moved it steadily throughout the room to give me height.
Before we moved into the house the people who lived there were named the Claytons. There is a toyshop in Williamsville, the village next to the town where my house is in. I don’t think they owned it though. The girl who lived in my room was the oldest just like me and she had Scarlet O’Hara wallpaper on her walls. It wasn’t on the walls when I moved in, the wallpaper when I moved in was flowery with blue and brown and pink flowers on a white background. I know she had Scarlet O’Hara wallpaper because her brother came to see the house when he was in Buffalo one winter. He walked around the house telling us stories about when they lived there, like they used to play elevator in the pantry under the stairs that we use to store pots and pans that we don’t use every day. He also told us about the wallpaper in my bedroom and showed us how there is some in the wood ceiling of the attic. On our attic door are flowers painted in neon green and yellow and orange. It says “attics are fun” and the man said that his family didn’t put that there, but that it was there when they moved in. We liked it and so we kept it too. Ever since that time he writes us a Christmas card updating us on his family and their lives and tells us he misses the house and neighborhood. Other people’s houses are not gross like that woman from the Real Housewives of New Jersey says they are, they are in fact rich with history and stories similar to our own and give us glimpses into the house’s life before us. I love living in someone else’s house, it becomes our own home and is my house but still has the life of another family inside it.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Denison Fashion
Are high-waisted skirts in, or are they IN!? Everywhere I look there is a plain white thick-strap tank top tucked into a knee-length high-waisted skirt. Sometimes belted, sometimes left alone. Some have pockets, some have none. But most girls on this Midwest campus are keeping kids in China sewing overtime with their (fashionable?) choices.
What I am most confused about is the level of conformity. Why is it much cooler to be wearing the same exact thing as all of your friends than to be doing something different and more daring. It's just clothing, after all. What really fries my bananas is that at Denison one cannot simply go to class in sweatpants or even jeans and a regular t-shirt without being considered sloppy. God-forbid one hadn't showered before class - "are you sick?" That would be the response. Because only the ill don't shower and wear sweatpants to class.
The only time sweatpants are allowed is if you have just come from the gym. And no, it is unacceptable to be sweaty, flushed, or showing any signs of said trip to the gym. One must have impeccably matching sweatpants and tee-shirt (preferably sports tank) in order to be considered worthy of normal conversation.
Lastly, there is such an enormous pressure here to look a certain way, act a certain way and to produce academics above and beyond the majority of American campuses. The stressors that my peers place on me alone are enough to make me burst. I feel so overwhelmed with pressure to be a certain way while excelling academically. I would bet that at least 75% of women on this campus feel pressure to weigh less, and/or have eating disorders. In Burlington, I felt so free to be who I am, no pressure to act, look, be a certain way. There was acceptance of difference and celebration of differences. Here, difference feels scorned and frowned upon. It's hard to escape and hard to stick to your guns in such a high-anxiety situation. I don't want to lose the person I have become and I can already feel her slipping away a little. It's not "cool" to eat healthy. Here, "healthy" is a RedBull and a poptart. I don't want to eat chemicals. I don't want my vegetables to be frozen or my fruit come from flavored filling. I loved cooking and making good-for you meals in VT. I miss the great city that was a block away, that I was in the middle of. People drink too much here because there's not much more to do and because we're trapped on campus.
I know I'm full of bad things to say about Denison. There are good things. Beautiful campus, alumni support, great friends, big and pretty library with comfy chairs. But I miss the acceptance. I miss the celebration of different people. I miss dance parties in the kitchen every morning.
I've just been down recently (since moving in) it will get better. I hope.
What I am most confused about is the level of conformity. Why is it much cooler to be wearing the same exact thing as all of your friends than to be doing something different and more daring. It's just clothing, after all. What really fries my bananas is that at Denison one cannot simply go to class in sweatpants or even jeans and a regular t-shirt without being considered sloppy. God-forbid one hadn't showered before class - "are you sick?" That would be the response. Because only the ill don't shower and wear sweatpants to class.
The only time sweatpants are allowed is if you have just come from the gym. And no, it is unacceptable to be sweaty, flushed, or showing any signs of said trip to the gym. One must have impeccably matching sweatpants and tee-shirt (preferably sports tank) in order to be considered worthy of normal conversation.
Lastly, there is such an enormous pressure here to look a certain way, act a certain way and to produce academics above and beyond the majority of American campuses. The stressors that my peers place on me alone are enough to make me burst. I feel so overwhelmed with pressure to be a certain way while excelling academically. I would bet that at least 75% of women on this campus feel pressure to weigh less, and/or have eating disorders. In Burlington, I felt so free to be who I am, no pressure to act, look, be a certain way. There was acceptance of difference and celebration of differences. Here, difference feels scorned and frowned upon. It's hard to escape and hard to stick to your guns in such a high-anxiety situation. I don't want to lose the person I have become and I can already feel her slipping away a little. It's not "cool" to eat healthy. Here, "healthy" is a RedBull and a poptart. I don't want to eat chemicals. I don't want my vegetables to be frozen or my fruit come from flavored filling. I loved cooking and making good-for you meals in VT. I miss the great city that was a block away, that I was in the middle of. People drink too much here because there's not much more to do and because we're trapped on campus.
I know I'm full of bad things to say about Denison. There are good things. Beautiful campus, alumni support, great friends, big and pretty library with comfy chairs. But I miss the acceptance. I miss the celebration of different people. I miss dance parties in the kitchen every morning.
I've just been down recently (since moving in) it will get better. I hope.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
exercise
I feel like I am constantly trying to decide between caring about what I look like and just accepting me how I am. I can never decide which to choose. I don't know how to get to that middle ground of accepting how I am and trying to better myself for me instead of making it about superficial aspects of me.
List-writing season is now upon us again. Thank you, Denison, for making me stress like crazy. The thing that inhibits my writing here is the general smell of snobbery among most people. Not everyone is that way, but it sits heavily in the hallways of the writing building. Things must be done a certain way and there's minimal room for freedom which seems contradictory to me since it is Creative Writing. That's how it is though. I need to write more stories, and more of my one story. It's due tomorrow. I have to fill out a blue paper that I think I lost somewhere which requires I choose a title now instead of at the end of my project, can you say IMPOSSIBLE!? seriously, it's ridiculous. So, now I have to choose a title for a project that could completely change and not be pertinent to the title anymore in the end. And I don't think my title of "Everything Sucks Sometimes" will go over so well with my instructor. Maybe I'll call it "Humanity and Tragedy" just for now. That's broad enough I think.
I need a cookbook, if anyone feels like mailing me one. That would be wonderful.
Off to make more lists! Woohoo!
List-writing season is now upon us again. Thank you, Denison, for making me stress like crazy. The thing that inhibits my writing here is the general smell of snobbery among most people. Not everyone is that way, but it sits heavily in the hallways of the writing building. Things must be done a certain way and there's minimal room for freedom which seems contradictory to me since it is Creative Writing. That's how it is though. I need to write more stories, and more of my one story. It's due tomorrow. I have to fill out a blue paper that I think I lost somewhere which requires I choose a title now instead of at the end of my project, can you say IMPOSSIBLE!? seriously, it's ridiculous. So, now I have to choose a title for a project that could completely change and not be pertinent to the title anymore in the end. And I don't think my title of "Everything Sucks Sometimes" will go over so well with my instructor. Maybe I'll call it "Humanity and Tragedy" just for now. That's broad enough I think.
I need a cookbook, if anyone feels like mailing me one. That would be wonderful.
Off to make more lists! Woohoo!
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