| so the roadtrip was amazing. started out in chicago (i flew from philly with my mom and stepdad) and stayed in wheaton IL for 4 days for a family reunion. the reunion was great, but i don't think i'll write about it right now because that's a whole other story...
my ride picked me up in wheaton on July 5, and we drove across the rest of Illinois, crossed the Mississippi River, and drove across all of Iowa. there's not much to say about iowa. we stopped in a supermarket and couldn't even find any corn, even though that's all we had seen out the car window all day. we camped at the western border of Illinois, along a creek right near the Missouri River. it was really beautiful. i had been deprived of nature for so long; after i helped pitch the tent i ran off into the woods, took a lot of photos, walked around, saw about 20 deer. we cooked vegan chili over a propane stove and sat around the fire pit for the rest of the night.
the next day we drove north up the western coast of iowa and into south dakota. drove almost all the way across south dakota, making some exciting stops at the world's only Corn Palace 
and the country's largest drugstore in Wall, South Dakota. The corn palace is basically this weird building that was built in 1884 or something like that, and the outside and inside are completely decorated with corn. they make all kinds of designs and murals with different colored corn. weird.
Wall Drug (the drugstore) sucked. they have all kinds of tacky stuff that makes fun of native americans, and they import their workers from taiwan.
ok...then we made it to the Badlands. absolutely beautiful. well, beautiful in a weird way; there's a reason why it's called the badlands. some parts of it are like the grand canyon, but a lot smaller, and there are large, flat, desert-like areas here and there. it's very desolate, and i loved it. i think i read that the badlands cover about 240,000 acres. it was pretty incredible. i don't think i've ever been so far away from other human beings before. we found a campsite and pitched the tent, but it was so windy that our large tent wouldn't stay put. that ended up being a good thing, because we just slept outside in our sleeping bags under the clearest sky i've ever seen, illuminated by the moon and the millions of stars that we could see. we did some hiking in the morning, and we saw a lot of bison, antelope, cows, horses, and prairie dogs. i guess i'm naive, but i seriously didn't realize that bison still existed in the US. i thought they were a thing of the past. we actually had to stop our car at one point because a buffalo was just standing right at the side of the road.
we were planning to spend the next whole day in the badlands, but we decided to just continue on. we drove through the pine ridge reservation, which is technically in the badlands, and went to Wounded Knee. at Wounded Knee there is now a visitor's center/small museum and a graveyard for those killed in the massacre. i guess i wasn't quite prepared for all that emotionally. i was kind of just thinking 'oh we'll just stop by Wounded Knee and see what's there and then continue on' but as i was walking around the graveyard, i cried for the first time in 7 months. and that's a big deal for me; i used to cry all the time, but this year i haven't at all really. just seeing all those Lakota Sioux names knowing that they died defending their lives and land from white people. thinking about the fact that no gravestone should ever say Baby Boy Black Bear, and then looking at the dates of his birth and death. only 6 days between..
walked back to the car in silence, drove south to Nebraska, going through the towns of Pine Ridge and Oglala on the way. got to Wyoming and decided to camp in the Medicine Bow State Forest, just north of Laramie. it was really in the middle of nowhere. after getting of the state road, we had to drive several more miles before driving another maybe 45 miles on a small dirt road. at one point we stopped abruptly because there was a huge rattlesnake in the road. it as funny, i started to freak out a little bit because the rattlesnake lifted its head and started moving toward us, so i kind of screamed at everyone to roll up their windows. also had to stop the car for rabbits, cows, and deer. it was cool to see all these animals totally in the wild; some of the animals i saw on the roadtrip were animals that i had only seen on the other side of fences or in cages.
later as we got further into the forest, i opened my window and noticed an extremely good, cinnamon-like scent from the pine trees. it was probably the freshest air i have ever breathed. for dinner we made stuffed peppers and potatoes by wrapping them in foil and throwing them in the fire pit, which ended up being really good.
the next day was the drive all the way across the southern part of wyoming and into utah. most of wyoming, as i expected was extremely desolate. there are so few people that when you do happen to pass another car, it's rude NOT to wave at them. each time we entered a new town, there would be a sign saying the name of the town, the elevation, and the population. some towns had populations of 1, some had as many residents as 18. some signs just had the name and elevation; i wonder why they even bother making it a town. wyoming was pretty beautiful though; it was much more mountainous than i had expected.
(and very windy)
utah was amazing. the half hour drive approaching salt lake city may have been the most beautiful part of the trip. it was so green and majestic and beautiful, i'm not surprised that so many rich celebrities vacation there. we stayed with a very sweet couple in SLC that my friends knew, and we hung out in the backyard with them until around midnight, then i took a very much needed shower and went to sleep.
there's not much to say about nevada. it's a bunch of nothing, strip clubs, and casinos. you can even gamble in most of the rest stops along the highway. i was tempted to gamble for gas money, but i probably would have lost. we stopped at a mexican restaurant in Elko and watched the beginning of the Italy/France final world cup game. it's weird, all of the towns that we stopped in in South Dakota and Nevada we so western, i didn't even know towns like that still existed. i guess i still thought those towns were stereotypes from the past, and i guess the roadtrip has made me understand America a bit better.
it took forever to get across Nevada. we thought it would never end. the salt flats were kind of cool, but got old after a few miles. also, route 80 doesn't cut straight across; the Great Basin is in the way and you have to drive around it to get to California. we kept falling asleep and waking up to see that we had only moved another milimeter on the map.
sometime in the early evening we finally got to California. after 5 days in the car, we thought we would never get there, and it felt really good, although we still had to drive across the Sierra Nevada. the Sierra Nevada was a really nice drive, although i don't think our little Saturn enjoyed it very much.
now i'm in oakland, living in a warehouse with about 30 cats and a bunch of interesting people. i really like the bay area, although public transportation is really expensive. i started applying for jobs right away in berkeley and san francisco, and i now have a part time job selling tickets for the san francisco symphony.
so i guess i'm settled in already. it doesn't take me long to call a new place my home.
for more photos look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silenzia/sets/72157594227000970/ | comments: Leave a comment   |
| the more i travel, the more i realize i should stay in one place. have a more tangible community. it's nice to know people in a lot of places, but i don't want to be known as one of those people who just comes once in a while and just hangs out briefly, just enough time to catch up and that's it. how can i move forward if i'm always catching up? i can't seem to stay in one place these days, and i'm loving this whole travelling thing, but now i'm feeling sad about leaving people behind all over the place. i really value all the wonderful people in my life, and while sometimes i feel like i take them for granted, i feel like i appreciate them more when i just see them once in a while. makes me appreciate the places more too.
[towns are the illusion that things hang together somehow, my pear, your winter]
[what if you get stranded in a town where pears and winters are variants for another? can you eat winter? no. can you live six months inside a frozen pear? no. but there is a place, i know the place, where you will stand and see pear and winter side by side as walls stand by silence. can you punctuate yourself as silence? you will see edges cut away from you, back into a world of another kind- back into real emptiness, some would say. well, we are objects in a wind that stopped, is my view. there are regular towns and irregular towns, there are wounded towns and sober towns and fiercely remembered towns, there are useless but passionate towns that battle on, there are towns where the snow slides from the roofs of the houses with such force that victims are killed, but there are no empty towns (just empty scholars) and there is no regret. now move along.]
-anne carson
i left new brunswick almost a year ago and went back the other day to get some closure. that town rocked me hard, and i love it because although my experiences there were mostly bad, they were intense. i had so many extreme ups and downs, and i totally lost myself in it. i'm glad i moved on, but i left parts of my heart there.
i've left parts of my life, literally and not, scattered all over the place
jersey. new orleans. west philly. iceland. the mississippi river. montreal. south philly. the lower east side. brooklyn. italy. regensburg. berlin. arizona. oakland.
and i think about you, and you, and you, and how life might be more simple if we weren't defined by the distance that separates us. our meeting wouldn't be such an event.
[when are territory does not fit the map, we reshape it: draw and redraw the coastlines and boundaries/name and rename the places of history/until at last we decide that the maps are completed/(though maps are never complete)/our last map is patterned with hard, bold lines/on it is clearly defined/our separate spaces/what is yours / what is mine
(but somewhere between the first and the last map there was a place where there were no demarcations of space, all lines having become breath, a blur brushed across the skin and sweat beading on the small of my back, here and here, hands touch tender and tongue tastes salt like rain the steam the smell of green / unmappable, this leap of memory, this place where our bodies had no borders between)]
-taien ng-chan | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Time: | 10:04 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/shock.gif) anxious |
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| losing touch with myself.
i realize that i have this pattern of how i interact with people, and it disturbs me. i get to know someone really well, and then one of two things happen. i either get used to them and forget that we are two different autonomous human beings, and get really clingy and kind of freak the person out OR the friendship/relationship can be really great, and i'm really enjoying it, but then i start to freak out about how well i can know someone. and then i back off, and the person probably thinks i lost interest in them, and we are never able to be as close as we once were.
i don't know how to disrupt this cycle. how to break a pattern that has been so constant in my life.
i get obsessive about people.
and there are some people that i don't even like anymore, but at times in the past we were really close, and even though i don't particularly like them, i start to feel like shit about them not really talking to me anymore. like, i have reasons to hate you that you don't even realize, and since you don't know about them why are things different on your side too? don't you wonder why we're not so close and wish we still were? doesn't anyone else get really nostalgic about everything the same way i do?
and then i have friends in so many places, but i'm not as close with them as i used to be because i don't see them very often. and they get sick of waiting for me to come back, and then eventually i return and things have changed, and i don't even know half of the people they hang out with because all the social circles have shifted enough for me to feel out of place all over again.
maybe i should stop moving around so much. maybe that's why i feel lonely a lot. i freak out when i'm by myself for a while, and that's been happening a lot. that's why i get depressed whenever i go to pennsylvania. now i'm in montreal, and everything's great, but i'm wondering what the hell i'm doing. i'm making plans to travel during the summer, getting stressed about money, wondering if i should really go to all these places anyway. i feel like it's time to pick a place and stay there, so that i can develop my life and get some sort of direction. but can't i just combine that with my plan to go back to new orleans in the fall and stay there? i can't figure anything out. i feel like no matter where i go, whenever i pick a place i love and decide to stay there, i start really missing all the other places i love. how can i stay in new orleans long term if i'm always having urges to go to places like brooklyn, and california, and mexico? it's just like how i haven't been able to write anything really creative in a while, because in the last few months, i'll get my notebook, go to one of my favorite cafes, and there's always SOMETHING about the atmosphere that's just not right. or it's fine, but i just keep thinking about all the other cafes i could be in that would also be suitable for writing. i have every reason to be satisfied with a certain atmosphere but there's always a level of anxiety that's high enough to keep me numb. and this keeps happening, and i end up not producing anything because i can't stay in one place.
dum dee dum. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| copied from infoshop news. (news.infoshop.org)
Borders"El Gran Paro Americano 2006" "The Great American Boycott 2006"
"Un dia sin immigrante" "A day without an immigrant"
Immigrants contribute 7 billion in social security per year. they earn 240 billion, report 90 billion, and only are reimbursed 5 billion, "where are the 85 billion?" They also contribute to the U.S. economy 25 billion more than they receive in healthcare, etc., etc., etc. According to the anti-immigrant politicians and hatemongers, "immigrants are a drain on society." If this is true, then during the day on May 1st the stock market will surge, and the economy will boom. If not, we prove them wrong once and for all. We know what will happen!
Therefore, the "March 25th Coalition against HR4437 in Los Angeles," the organizers of the mega march of almost 2 million on March 25th, has called for an emergency videoconferenced meeting on April 8th between Los Angeles and any city that wishes to join the efforts toward "El Gran Paro Americano 2006." The following meeting will take place in Chicago on April 22nd, we ask that all that wish to participate and be a part of a national effort on May 1st and beyond, to attend by finding facilities in your areas that can hold the meeting, technologically.
The points of unity are: No Work, No School, No Sales, and No Buying, and also to have rallies around symbols of economic trade in your areas (stock exchanges, anti-immigrant corporations, etc.).
Cities across the United States have marched during the week, therefore, in essence observing a regional boycott, which is only felt regionally. The March 25th Coalition against HR4437, calls for these regions to develop a national network that will "connect the dots." We believe with numbers we have power, the power currently necessary to keep the pressure on the White House to propose provisions that are
just and fair for all immigrants.
We will settle for nothing less than full amnesty and dignity for the millions of undocumented workers presently in the U.S. We believe that increased enforcement is a step in the wrong direction and will only serve to facilitate more tragedies along the Mexican-U.S. border in terms of deaths and family separation.
More details to come... Keep your eye on www.nohr4437.org
and or write to granmarcha2006@hotmail.com
and any tax deductible donations should be made to:
La Hermandand
Mexicana, 7915 Van Nuys Blvd. Panorama City, CA 91402.
Please organize your areas, and join this monumental event that will put our mark on U.S. history. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| it started with a lunar eclipse at midnight. we went to the st. roch cemetery, heard the sound of a nearby freight train and the echoes of my bicycle chain as we looked for the perfect place to lay down on the concrete, between aboveground graves.
 | | comments: Leave a comment |
| i use to have such a hard time standing up for myself. i used to be really quiet in meetings. even if i felt really strongly about something, i'd be afraid to speak up, and then i'd get frustrated when certain things didn't happen because i didn't say anything, or other people would say things that i had been thinking about for a long time. and i'd hate myself for it. recognizing that something was wrong, and knowing what was right, but not doing shit about it, and in the end, letting people or certain things get fucked over. maybe it's because when i knew that something wasn't right, i didn't have any solutions, and didn't think i could do anything about it. but i guess since i've been here, i've learned a lot about how to deal with certain situations, or certain organizing tactics or whatever, and how to call people out on their shit. even if the facts aren't very clear, it does so much just to say something anyway so that a potentially disastrous situation won't escalate.
and i've learned how to be a stronger person, i think. just today i happened to walk into a meeting in which a really serious matter was being discussed, and people were deciding whether or not to kick someone out of a certain organization. certain things were said that really concerned me, and in order to put things into perspective for them, i came out and said that i'd been sexually assaulted, and how and why i'm still having to deal with it months later. i had to talk about it, and i'm glad i did. i don't want it to happen to anyone else, especially if it can be prevented, and especially an organization that's doing relief work in new orleans, and the people who are part of the organization come down here from all over the place to help. i said a lot of stuff that forced people to understand what is most important here, and what they need to prioritize. for once i didn't feel intimidated talking about stuff like that publicly, and later, a guy from the meeting came up to me and said, "that was powerful, thank you for saying what needed to be said."
if you're going to try to lead your own revolution while ditching women (or any other oppressed group of people) along the way, then i'm no part of it. don't try to be a martyr. your martyrdom won't mean anything if you treat women like shit in order to get there. as emma goldman says, "if i can't dance to it, it's not my revolution."
and i've dealt with that so much here. so much that i'm exhausted, overwhelmed, and emotionally drained. there was one night when i was so overwhelmed that i started thinking "i'll just give up fighting and pretend that sexism doesn't exist, and then i won't have to deal with it anymore." but i can't do that. it would be against everything i believe in, and in the end i'd just end up getting hurt so much more. and i'd be dissing my sisters.
it really sickens me how blatant it is here. people say that there's a real revolution going on in new orleans. i've heard people compare this city to palestine, chiapas, to venezuela, to argentina and chechnya. activists here come from some really amazing organizing backgrounds. but the truth is, new orleans is something completely different, a new kind of struggle that's so unfamiliar and intense that there's a lot to get lost in. and then certain people (who aren't even from the local community, i might add) step up and try to lead everyone in one direction, a direction that they say is the revolution, although i can't honestly say i know where it's going. this city has so much potential for building revolutionaries, for going into an all-out war against racism and classism. the problem for me though, is that the people who have stepped up are leaving the women out of the struggle. there's no place for us. we've been dissed so much that sometimes i don't know how much i should even try anymore. there are men who say that they're going to 'lead the revolution' but are extremely sexist, and there are women who defend these men, saying 'oh but they're such good organizers.' and what i'm realizing now is that if i want to be part of this struggle, i'm first going to need to fight what's holding me back. because the struggle that i want to be a part of is being lead by my oppressors, and i've got to do something about that if i want to stay here. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| so we just finalized our plans, we're leaving on monday, and i'm fucking excited. it'll be me, ted, and genevieve in ted's little saturn. i don't know how to drive stickshift, and genevieve doesn't drive at all, so ted will be driving the whole way. it's a 24 hour drive (total travel time) and we're going to stop in Asheville, which is pretty much the halfway point. ah! i can't wait!
oh, and becky's going to be coming in the middle of january, which is really fucking cool. i haven't seen her in years, but we just started making contact, and i can't wait to see her. it's weird, the last time i saw her, our age gap was still significant enough that my sister knew her really well but i never really got to spend much time with her (although now, i'm almost 21 and becky's 24; most of my friends are older than that). among my cousins on my mom's side of the family, we were always kind of split up into two groups based on our age, with the older group being natalie, kyle, giulia, and becky. i was stuck with the younger group, and i kind of always resented that. i felt like i would have related much better to the older group. anyway, since the summer i've been in contact with natalie, and one of her emails to me was kind of like "wow, you're really cool, it's awesome to know that there are other radicals in our family..why didn't we hang out before?" so hopefully we'll see each other soon...which is why i'm dying to go to arizona for new year's to see natalie, but unfortunately i just don't have the funds. natalie pretty much lives part time in chicago, and part time in the arizona desert (geographically, i'm not exactly sure where). anyway, she's having this big extravaganza that starts on dec 27th, and people are staying as late as jan 5th. she has all these crazy events planned, and i'm pretty bummed out that i'll have to miss such an awesome time, but oh well.
i can't wait to get back to new orleans. i feel like i've been sitting around waiting this whole time. wait, that IS what i've been doing. it's been too long.
i'm looking at maps and trying to fix my camera and making CDs for the roadtrip so i can dwell in my excitement.
ahh | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Time: | 06:20 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/thinking.gif) contemplative |
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| so i haven't been writing much on here lately, although that doesn't mean i haven't been writing a lot in general. i was in new orleans for 4 weeks, i'm currently back in the philly area to be with my family for the holidays, and i'm going back down south the day after christmas. my mind has been all over the place, but in a good way. having a lot of intense experiences, and learning a lot. much more clear-headed now. i'm not going to describe my new orleans experiences on here because there's way too much to say, and i have a separate blog for just that. it's http://lizadepro.blogspot.com, for those of you who are interested to read it.
it's crazy, how much my life has changed from having such intense experiences, and it's crazy being back in philly. i don't like being home; my life is really in new orleans now. my friends there have been calling me, asking me why i even came back if i want to still be there so badly, and i guess i don't really know. basically, my dad called me while i was down there and invited me to speak at a peace corps event, and let people know what's going on in new orleans. i didn't want to leave, but he told me that he'd pay for me to get home if i did that. so i did, and it was lame. i knew that an audience of rich white liberals would disappoint me, and sure enough, they weren't very responsive. and some things i said seemed to make them uncomfortable, like when i started talking about the police repression and how they specifically target black people. and when it came time for questions, the only person who raised his hand was the other speaker, a guy who had been doing relief work in Mississippi. they're all a bunch of elitists, and my dad was acting that way too. he kept telling me that before i start talking about new orleans, i should point out the fact that i'm taking time off from school and will be going back. he wanted me to say that so that people would be like "well how did you have the time to go down there, don't you have school or a job?" and i hate that shit, so i just didn't even mention it.
where am i going with this? oh yeah, it's weird to be back. i just feel so stagnant here, especially knowing that there's so much going on in new orleans right now, and im just sitting around waiting to go back. and it's such a completely different world there, and so surreal, that when i came home, it was actually a culture shock for me. people keep asking me questions about what it's like down there. usually i start to answer, and shortly after i start talking i realize that i just don't want to try to describe it to someone who won't understand. because you really need to just go there in order to understand it. or i'll start talking about it, and just hearing myself talk takes me back there, and i feel disconnected and nostalgic. i keep finding myself trailing off as i'm answering someone's question, and just sitting there and thinking about it. sean called me today, and we had a really good talk. it felt good to talk to him, a good friend who's down there right now and understands what it's like to be back here and not want to talk to people about it. and it was good for him, because a lot of volunteers went home for the holidays and it's a little lonely there right now. he told me a lot about what's been going on since i left. a lot of really good developments, also some unfortunate things that we'll have to deal with. it's a good thing i came home though, i guess. i mean, i was only planning to go down for 2 weeks, but while i was there i decided that i wanted to stay down there for the long term. so i figured i should see my parents since i don't know the next time i'll be able to come back here. plus it's the holidays, so my sister is home. anyway, time to go make some tea (i can't seem to get used to the cold weather up here). | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| when the headache and the heartbreak fell out of love on the train tracks, it wasn't supposed to be part of the revolution.
and when i fought you in the snow that day, it wasn't meant to be playful.
i hated you three months too late.
and when i think of how you tried to radicalize me and all the rest of that bullshit,
i know it wasn't what you said, but what you did.
your words were never part of any revolution.
the revolution only started in my heart when i nurtured you during all those cold months
it started when my hand blindly accepted yours in tompkins square park
it started when you ignored me in public, and i realized what it meant
it started when you called me a feminazi for calling you out
the revolution came out of the other ear when you whispered closer closer
it started when i wouldn't let him fuck me because we had no condoms,
and babies were something that he "just didn't worry about anymore"
because "the revolution is the only thing to worry about"
as if i wasn't part of it.
ohh mr. lower ninth you were just so high and mighty and male
that thinking about the implications of your desires wasn't bold and brave enough
but oh, that's right
you patronize
blame the victim
then victimize yourself
just fuck the crustiest girl with the tattoos and it'll be ok
oh manarchy will i always be a jane doe to you?
i've seen you test us all out, make sure we're down
i've helped you with your revolution when will you help me with mine
"but look at my bookshelf, look at all the bell hooks"
well ok that's a good start, but how about looking at me
look at me lying in your bed and i don't know how i got here and
what's burning is what's inside me
because the revolution
isn't just in the streets
it's in my heart | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | so i'm at my dad's now. the weather has been fucking beautiful this week, but unfortunately i have a sprained ankle and can't do much. haven't been outside very much, which is getting to me. i'm getting through my days. i haven't cried in...a week? i'm feeling better, just always stressed about money. i've been making travel plans, but things are making it hard to even do that. i don't know, being at my dad's, i feel like i'm recuperating. but recuperating from what? i think i was right about having to get out of new brunswick. it was too much for me. i feel like new brunswick is a disease, and the most you can do is just get out of it, but the disease always stays with you. or i think it's just me. i went through a lot there, and i have a lot of depressing and emotional associations with that town. anyway, lately i've been trying to work on my mental health, but i'm not sure if i'm really doing what's best for me. i've been talking to a lot of people from the icarus project, which has been helpful, but i really need to see those people in person. that's one of the downsides of moving farther away from new york. there was someone who tried to get a group started in west philly, but had trouble getting people together. i told him i'd be glad to help out, so we'll see what happens. i've been writing about stuff with my mental health, but that's not enough. i can write all i want, but i feel like none of my writing will help me unless someone else reads it, and the person who reads it has to be someone who knows what i'm talking about and can relate. i can't be my own therapist. last year i was doing fairly well, because my best friend at the time always knew the right things to say to me. and he could relate. he made me not feel alone. now i don't have someone like that anymore, and i can't just expect other people to be able to help me the same way. there's one person who i can talk to about some things, and although i don't think he's the greatest person in the world, he can often be a really good friend. he usually knows the right things to say, but once in a while he'll say something that i think is fucked up and then i'll think that i should just stop talking to this person altogether. so i don't know. i guess i need a psychoanalyst again, but i can't afford, or particularly want, a professional one. i was thinking about how with the icarus project, i find a lot of support among everyone who's involved in it, and it's a really great space to share what kinds of problems you're having, but there's still no therapist/patient relationship. so i feel like people can get advice and support from each other, but i haven't figured out if it can actually help me be productive about my mental health and move on. there are a bunch of other anarchists/radicals who are involved in icarus and are having the same problems. i was thinking maybe it's time to have some radical therapists or something. therapists who aren't authoritarian and manipulative and don't work within the mental health system and actually take the time to understand people who aren't part of mainstream culture. i don't know, i've been having a lot of thoughts about stuff. maybe i should write it all down and then not do anything with it. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | dan. | | Time: | 12:43 am |
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| so october 17th is the one year anniversary of my friend dan's death. and you know, i honestly don't feel very sad about it. not that i'm not sad about it, obviously. it was one of the hardest days of my life and took me a long time to get 'over' it, whatever that even means. but i just don't feel particularly emotional. maybe it's because i'm a much different person than i was a year ago, and i've dealt with shit, and other people have dealt with shit, and i've learned that bad things happen, and sometimes close friends die. in fact, just today a few of my friends visited the parents of jordan feder, who died of meningitis on the way back from the FTAA protests in Miami. and my sister recently got a tattoo of a drawing done by her best friend genny, who committed suicide last year. and you know what? there's someone who's still alive who is dead to me now, and it's just as painful to think about him as it is to think about dan, although in a much different way.
dan's ex-boyfriend P (i won't put his name here, even though some of you know) just called me to let me know that 3 hours from now will be the anniversary of his death. and then i remembered what i was doing at THIS time a year ago. i was sitting in P's room, and he was crying about stuff relating to his relationship with dan, thinking that dan didn't really love him. i stayed up until around 4 in the morning trying to comfort him, and a couple hours later i woke up to him running into my room screaming "dan's dead." and then some freshman who barely knew him came in screaming and crying, and i walked P over to dan's house, where i found out exactly what happened. and J was sitting on the porch taking shots of vodka at 10am, and colin was kind of crouched in the corner crying, and jango was sitting on the couch pale and speechless, telling us about the accident that he was in. and i was crying hysterically and my mind was all over the place. i was still trying to take in information and actually believe it. i was still kind of waiting for dan to come home. i was worried sick about max, because i wasn't sure if he would ever get his memory back. i was worried about alex, who was sitting right next to dan in the car. i called my parents and my sister to tell them about it, and my dad said "well at least it isn't as bad as when giulia's friend died, because she killed herself." and my old boss came by to bring a cake, and probably about 100 people came through that house that day, and i played violin for people in the living room because i didn't know what else i could do, and i was worried sick about P, and avi, colin, and i sat at the dining room table trying to make a list of everyone who we needed to tell, worried that we would forget someone. and i remember the funeral down in May's Landing, and how it was kind of eerie because it was very Catholic, and we knew Dan wouldn't have wanted that. and P didn't tell people exactly who he was because not all of Dan's relatives were comfortable with the fact that he was gay. maybe they didn't even know.
and we we had a lot of slumber parties at the delafield house and realized how close our friendships were, and decided that we would try to not take things for granted anymore.
for those of you who don't know, dan was killed by a drunk driver on the NJ turnpike. it makes me fucking sick that people who knew dan still don't think it's a big deal to drive drunk. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | johnny cash | | Time: | 11:49 am |
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| i should start living my life the way that i play chess; bold, assertive, strategic, taking control of situations, willing to take risks if that's what it takes to accomplish anything. i have so many options, i can create my own path, and as long as i don't fuck up too much, i win. i know i won't fuck up, because i think i know myself well enough to not let that happen. i think it's a matter of having enough confidence. i may not know exactly how to succeed the way i want to, but i think i know enough about life to not fuck up.
i don't know, i love change, and i love travelling, and i love adventures and meeting new people, but i'm too apprehensive a lot of the time. i'm not really scared of anything, but i just need to stop being lazy. it's like i keep waiting for something to happen to me, rather than making things happen. so lately i've been making plans. big plans i guess. i'm going to new orleans soon to help out with Common Ground. i have no idea how long i'll be there, but i know that things like rent, everyday life in new jersey, having tickets for upcoming concerts, etc are very minor things and aren't worthy of keeping me here so that i can't do what i actually want/need to do.
people keep asking me what my long term plans are. i don't know. i have no fucking idea. please stop asking me. not because i'm bitter about not having specific plans, but because having specific plans isn't very important. i like not having plans. people keep asking me when i'm going back to college. i don't know. i'm glad i'm not in college. i'd rather be living my life, which is what i'm doing now. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | some emo shit | | Time: | 10:19 am |
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| | it's been raining for several days and it's supposed to continue raining straight through until sunday night. i'm not the happiest person in the world. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| one thing that certain people have said to me over and over again is that they wish they had the ability to forget things. and how forgetting is the most important thing to them. because when you're depressed already, and then things happen in your life, it's hard to deal with. or you move on, but then there are points in your life when memories come back and you feel like you're back at square one. as though you haven't gone anywhere and no matter how much time goes by, you can't really go forward either. nothing can change anything about that. you don't want to live through certain experiences again, but you also don't really want them to be in the past.
sometimes i think i'm doing ok with it, and then it all comes back. when i think about it objectively, i figure it should really be all that hard i guess. but i just can't get it out of my head.
you know how there are certain songs that bring you back to certain memories when you hear them? it's a shame, because i just came across a CD with joe strummer songs that i really love, and i can't listen to them anymore. actually, i'm listening to it right now, but that's why i'm crying.
i need to get away from this computer. out of this room, out of this house. i need to get the fuck out of new brunswick. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| got back from DC yesterday. it sucked. remind me to not go to DC again. it seems like every protest ends up the same way. starts out with a good number of people, lots of energy, and then loses momentum because it's too disorganized and people don't know what they're doing. and people listen to the wrong people. like, if all the locals are saying to go one way, and one random dude from indiana, or another random dude who looks like he's very likely an undercover cop, are yelling to go another way, people for some reason end up listening to the dude from indiana or the undercover cop. i guess because he's louder and sounds more authoritative. it's messed up. so we finally get to the white house, and then we get lost in the large mass of liberals. we finally make it out of there, but when we regroup and start marching again, the black bloc was much smaller. and then, oh my, it's the AFL-CIO building again, we're going in circles. so then it pretty much disintegrated. oh well.
on kid was run over by a police bike, knocked unconscious, and then arrested.
another kid was beaten up (i think) and when the medics came, the cops made the medics go away.
someone else, yesterday, was blocking the World Bank meeting and an SUV ran into him at 45 mph.
apparently cindy sheehan was arrested today.
the only good thing was seeing The Coup, as well as a bunch of people i hadn't seen in a while.
i'm not in a great mood right now. it's a gloomy day and i don't really know what i'm doing. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| so last night i went to the cafe, meaning to get down to work for a while. but then, right when i sat down i realized that i didn't want to bethere. but i didn't want to be home, either. i didn't reall want to be anywhere. maybe it's because it was my first day working under a boss who's a complete capitalist control freak. or maybe it's because i had just found out that $250 mysteriously disappeared from my bank account, which was supposed to go toward rent. i don't know. it could be a lot of things.
you start to feel lonely when you devote more and more of your time to being revolutionary, even though a lot of people are right there with you.
i'm shutting people out of my life because i can't deal with the fact that they neither understand me nor take things seriously.
and i feel like so many things are happening at once.
overwhelmed with an unhealthy guilt about an ex-friend.
an old love suddenly appearing in my living room.
having someone else to reject again, a position i really don't like being in.
that and sara called me out of the blue today.
and it'll be a while until i can go to california.
"i walk on concrete
i walk on sand
but i can't find
a safe place to stand
i'm scared baby
i wanna run
this world's craz
gimme the gun
baby, baby
ain't it true
i'm immortal
when i'm with you
but i want a pistol
in my hand
i wanna go to
a different land" | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| pj harvey is emo as fuck.
i hate using the term 'emo'. it sounds silly. but i've been using it a lot lately.
i was just reading the lyrics to her songs and a lot of them are exactly how i feel. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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