sipping whiskey and listening to nina simone and wishing that i had decided to drive to georgia this morning. hanging out in this city with all these people who have known each other forever has been depressing of late- i'm so out of place, i can't keep up, all i have to offer is this pathetic sob story that is you.

i started drawing a little comic strip of us- what happened. how did it start? why did it continue? the narrative is so bold- travelling in bands, going to mexico, hurricane katrina. perhaps what i am mourning the most is the story. we had such a good story.

2008 has been a rough year. deaths, accidents, deaths, break-ups, no money, no time, frustrations, questions. as a child i thought that once you were "grown up" you had it all somehow magically figured out- but now i'm realizing that there is no map, and there are many many streets and alleys and buses out of town. should i stay? should i move across the country yet again and throw away all my friendships once more and forget all of these things? i've been feeling like i'm waking up these days- like this past year was just some strange dream, that none of this happened, my god it was all so boring- but now the question is, what am i going to do? i no longer have to answer to anyone. scary thought, scary thoughts.

i seriously reccommend that no one ever ever ever get invovled in some complicated long distance relationship. the reality never squares with the dreams, and the tension between is just too strong to navigate, and you might find yourself shipwrecked somewhere you weren't meant to be.

things that you said that i don't want to forget:

i know i've been stupid.

i know i fucked up.

i'm depressed a lot of the time, and what i'm depressed about most is how our relationship went bad.




what you didn't say:

i miss you, i love you, i'm sorry.

it astounds me how little i've documented my life over the past few years. maybe i instinctively knew that the picture i would end up drawing would be depressing, and that you had a lot to do with why, and i just wasn't ready to deal with it.

ever so often i think of something positive about you- something you said or did that reminds me as to why i was with you for so long. mostly these positive things happened months, or even years, ago- when we were both younger and prone to grand thoughts about one another, or life in general. these happy little memories have been crowded out by the shit that defined the past nine months, though. perhaps i'm doing you a disservice by concentrating so much on the negative- i don't want to hate you, or even really dislike you. i'd prefer nonchalance. in some ways, i am sad that i have lost that happy person from a few years ago. it's even sadder that you have lost that person. i apologize in advance for forgetting these sweet moments about you, because it's going to happen, and i'll only remember the reasons why we broke up. i wish that you would grant me the same kindness, but ultimately i don't care what you decide the narrative of our relationship is.

i think in a lot of ways we've been strangers to each other for our entire relationship.

i think in a lot of ways i'm tired of thinking about this. i'll be relieved when i have something else to worry about before i fall asleep.

last friday at sunset i was sitting on my back porch, and i realized that there was a giant flock of crows (or murder of crows) flying low directly over my house. caw, caw, caw, all black against the peach lit evening, for the entire slice of sky over my head.

in other news, sunday night i saw an elderly couple walking miniature ponies across north rampart street towards the gas station next to armstrong park. ponies!

i should be working on grad school applications but i am being crushed by my own indecisiveness and instead am (obviously) diddling around on the internet, posting on a blog that i (obviously) rarely post on. go me.

is it fall?

it's been deliciously cool (if, you know, you live in louisiana and think "cool" equates to 75 degrees) and not particularly humid this week. i've been walking to work, since i believe i am about to relocate from mid-city to the bywater, and walking the distance to work will soon be very out-of-the-question.

i do regret how non-pedestrian i've become since moving to the city, but now i've decided i'm just going to have to start biking more. i need to go visit plan b bike project and attach brakes to my bike- currently only the brake on the front tire works, and when i say works, i mean that if i start braking 15 feet before i have to and put my feet down before i reach the intersection i will be able to avoid getting hit by a car. it's just been so easy to ride without brakes here since the city is completely, utterly flat, meaning that my lazy ass can't usually get above, oh, 5-1omph at best. brakes just aren't that much of a necessity, but i suppose if i'm going to start biking clear across town to get to work and back i might want to part with the 40 dollars it would take to install a brake that functions properly.

so i just found out that the girl whose body was used in that infamous sarah palin in a bikini with air rifle was a friend of mine from college. biz-arre. considering she's an uberlefty feminist, i'm sure she's been thrilled with the situation.

i've been splurging on books. and by splurging i mean that i'm purchasing them online for ridiculously low prices, but buying a lot of them. i have always been a reader. i think i am going to start keeping track of the books that i read, simply because there was that huge fuss made last year about how the average american reads four books a year, and they're probably all beach reads anyhow. seriously, i read probably four books a month, depending on the books involved (meaning how long they are, whether or not i am re-reading them, how many books i am reading at the same time, and how interested i am in them.)

so. so far in 2008, i have read moo and a thousand acres by jane smiley.
i am currently reading after the promises, which is about new orleans during lyndon johnson's pursuit of the great society.
i'm trying very hard to read dying to win: the strategic logic of suicide terrorism. i think i may in fact just skip the introductory chapter and go straight to the meat of the study, because i am not digging the ridiculously plodding nature of his thesis introduction. seriously. the man has stated how he designed the study something like nine times in the first twenty pages.

i just ordered books on j. robert oppenheimer and superpatriotism.

i sound like a bore, huh. oh well. it makes for interesting conversations in bars.

it's too cold to contemplate actually going out tonight. even though i am going through bad-jukebox-shuffleboad withdrawal. and quite possibly drinking copious amounts of beer withdrawal. and most certainly not even thinking about drinking screwdrivers ever again, since seriously, i was a drunken fool for krewe d'vieux last weekend. my legs were sore on saturday from following the hot 8 from the bywater to the french quarter to the bywater again.

very relieved it is friday, and that means tomorrow is saturday, and i am going to wake up and paint and pot some plants and then do community outreach in district five. hooboy! i am thinking about going to barkus on sunday. i don't know who i am kidding. i'm going to barkus on sunday.

images of the city

i infiltrated an abandoned pool last weekend. it was raining, and cold, and pretty much a miserable day. part of the city flooded, as per usual. last night i was out in my garden, and i saw that my broccoli has sprouted little itty bitty broccoli heads. it was pretty exciting.

images from the city

i've been listening to an obscene amount of sad, old country these days. i think it's because i miss georgia- the location, and the time i spent there, and the people i knew, and who i used to be. that rickety old house where we fell through the floor a couple of times. and used to drink too much too early in the day. last night there were many people in my dreams who i will probably never speak to again. eventually it won't feel strange that i don't see them everyday.

it's cold and raining here in louisiana today.