| consolidation |
[24 Apr 2008|03:18pm] |
I can't concentrate at work, for the life of me.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008  | Out of Touch, Out of Time I ran out of the office and down to the water. Listened to your "Finale," then to "Out of Touch, Out of Time" twice. Smoked two cigarettes, and when I was done crying I danced for a bit. 3:55 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove | | | | | Monday, April 21, 2008 | I cried during a gym class It was at the end, during the cool-down. The instructor put on that Alicia Keys song, the one about no one, no one, no one getting in the way of what i feel for you. She instructed us to get into Child's Pose.
And it was there, with my face pressed to the bright blue mat that smelled like sweat and humanity, with a crappy love song on the loudspeakers, my body awake and aching, that the tiny tremors shook me gently and tears streamed down my face.
It kept me in its hold all the way up 2nd St., your old office building entering my periphery (a new flood.) I imagined you were walking down the street towards me, and I could recognize you from three blocks away. What I mean to say is, not even the entire populace of the City could conceal the thin layer of light all around you.
But I cannot say "light" so I say, "I can recognize that bouncy gait a mile away," the same thing every time. And you shake your head and smile and pull me towards you. each. time.
Never before had I felt so condescended to with a kiss.
Never before had I minded being condescended to so little. 9:53 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove | | | | | Monday, April 14, 2008 | 23 or 22 i had a moment about a week ago when i was driving and i couldn't, for a moment and for the life of me, remember how old i was. a year of my life disappeared, not in terms of memory or event, but i just couldn't remember how many of them there were supposed to have been.
it wasn't until after i caught the error that the panic set in, though it was thankfully brief. it just squeezed my heart for a moment, swung on an artery, on its way someplace else.
***
the days have been more consistently like bell curves this last week, or like sandwiches, or shelves bookended - at any rate - by tears. tears in the morning, tears at night, and something to distract me during the day. i used to be surprised and hurt by how hard it is to be good, but it doesn't really impress me anymore. sometimes it's easy to see a light at the end of the tunnel and sometimes it's easy to feel like your decisions were hardly decisions but simply the only thing that could be done. but even these feelings can coexist with an intense desire to turn back time, take back the last however-long of your life. acceptance, then, comes not so much from true belief in the decisions themselves, but more in our understanding of comtemporary physics.
so hope hangs like your own personal raincloud and everytime you think you've lost it someone tells you about their sister and her husband or their two friends, and gentle little raindrops keep you green, alive, reminded. you start to think maybe things do work out that way, not just for those "other" people, but for you, too. and maybe you did do the mature thing, and the smart thing, and the kind thing, and the loving thing, and the best thing. maybe you really did do the only thing you could have done if you hoped for the future and hoped for yourself and hoped for him and hoped for "you" as in that dual-entity somewhere "down the line."
and when you're sitting in a roomful of so many maybes they start to feel less like conspiratorial ne'er-do-wells and more like dear friends. they collectively gather like sturdily constructed molecules under your heart, giving it bouyancy, motion. you hold onto it and maybe trust that it will take you someplace good, maybe trust that it will make you good. maybe hope it will bring you back one day, better, kinder. maybe even let yourself hope he's there to welcome you back.
***
(...he's holding a sign with your name on it, wearing your favorite shirt and a smile on his face. he says all the things he never could, and you finally accept them without any questions.)
5:14 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove | |
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| How Ashley Got Her Sass Back |
[25 Jan 2008|04:57pm] |
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A discussion over coffee lead to a more actualized resolution to change and the realization that some people are just able to tolerate (perhaps because they understand) the emotional natures of others and some just can’t. Even just to enjoy such conversations and I always did, and I always gravitated towards other people who did. Some of the best times I remember were late night conversations with wine and food, and then it all eventually, inevitably falling apart either in laughter, or tears, or some foolish adventure (which would more likely than not itself end in laughter and/or tears.) Now it seems that our lives have all separated from each other. Maybe college is this connective thread connecting our futures to our pasts, connecting us to each other, tying us up to each other for four years such that the groups that form feel legitimately invested in each other, but only for a spell. Each idea sparks a new thought, as long as the nature of the subject remains vague, aloof, more intellectual and emotional and personal than conclusive and sweeping and factual. I miss such conversations and I suspect that others miss them, too. The thing is, we’re all so busy and grown up. Perhaps there’s some kind of conceit that we know everything now, or ought to. So we can’t suss it out with each other anymore. What a shame. I never realized such emotional masturbation was something we were supposed to grow out of and perhaps this is why I am somewhat of a bore to some people. Oh well, they bore me right back. I find myself reconnecting with my old self in some pretty gratifying ways, while, rather curiously, trying to glean lessons from the old selves of others. Gradually I feel the fire and exuberance returning to me, and it’s for nobody but myself (mostly.) I am grateful for the lessons I have learned, sorry for some of the things I unlearned. But as long as I keep music playing as I fall asleep the nightmares seem to be kept at bay and I wake up with the will, even the desire, to do more than just continue, but to expand. It’s too bad I ever became embarrassed by my own exuberance, true, but I need to get past my dependence on words. Even the most simple sentiments get bogged down in my ability to say one thing a thousand different ways. I just can’t ever pick the right one. I’m too attuned to the nuances of every word that I’m never satisfied at having picked the right one. I certainly don’t take much solace in my ability to note every connotation of every word, because a lot of what keeps me from choosing is insecurity. I cover my bases by saying it every possible way, hoping that the sum of meanings will equal what I actually mean. I, however, can't get at the core myself. I’m not exactly sure what to do about this. I’ve always envied in others the ability to be succinct – to say that one truly biting thing, or that one truly beautiful thing. I feel somewhat incapable of both. Sometimes I’ve been overwhelmed by feeling (or lucky) enough to stumble on a perfect little phrase, but it’s rare. I fear it all ends up sounding rather labored. There is not a lot of effortlessness in my manner. I romanticize the past too much, not just mine, but others’ as well. I think I even romanticize the pasts of others much more, actually, because I am too critical and hard on my own. Right now I am pleased with the effortlessness of change, however, at least at the moment. Looking better, feeling better, being better, it all seems so easy sometimes. I think it’s as long as I don’t wonder or worry about the benefit or the pay-off. That’s where the inevitable downward spiral happens, when I start fretting that despite change x change y has still failed to occur and then I project out ad infinitum that it never will. But “These Things Take Time.” Right now I am also desperately afraid that someone might want to fall in love with me and it will be terribly awkward and inconvenient. But this is getting ahead of myself by a fair margin. Moments like these are when I realize that I’m really a little bit afraid of my past in some respects. That and I’m so awkward. But that’s been noted before. I guess, above all else, I just really want things to work out. I get glimpses of the possible. I need to just not get so demoralized when they keep failing to happen. It doesn’t mean they won’t happen. Or maybe it does. But, for now, if someone asks, this is where I’ll be. Where I’ll be. Hi yo We drift in and out
Hi yo sing into my mouth
Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view
I'm just an animal looking for a home
Share the same space for a minute or two
And you love me till my heart stops
Love me till I'm dead
Eyes that light up, eyes look through you
Cover up the blank spots
Hit me on the head Ah ooh. I have a necklace now that says “Love me ‘til my heart stops.” Isn’t that perfect?
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| A couple of things I know that are probably true |
[19 Jan 2008|07:28pm] |
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"Long Distance Call (25 Hours a Day Remix)" |
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We really don't know anything about other people or about ourselves, at least insofar as we exist to other people. We all, I suppose "know" what we think we know about ourselves, but then the world encroaches and we realize that we don't know anything and can't know anything. WHAT I REALLY MEAN BY "KNOW" is assume, actually, I think.
ANYWAY, case in point:
My bike is fucking rad. This assertion has been more confirmed than rebuked by people, and even the evidence to the contrary is kind of evidence of favor of the hypothesis. The primary evidence to the contrary is that I can leave in random places like at the SF Ferry Plaza or locked to a parking meter near Ghirardelli Square and then return, literally, OVER A MONTH LATER and it will STILL BE THERE, untouched, unscathed, not even an attempt to fuck it up or jack it made. So it must be a piece of shit right? But even this confirmation that my bike is a piece of shit means that my bike is awesome. Because I live a lifestyle that apparently requires me to have the ability to at a moments notice abandon my bike in a random place and leave it there for days upon weeks. I'm serious. I've done this twice before with other bikes and they were never recovered. This is an essential trait of my new bike.
But also, seemingly paradoxically, I get complimented on my bike ALL THE TIME. Or it AT LEAST gets commented on. Usually favorably, but at the very least with a certain amount of respect. One hardxcore cyclist passed me (but did not leave me in the dust, by any means) on the hill up Sir Francis Drake in Larkspur and nodded to how quickly I could go on "that thing" (being my bike, of course.) A cute young man of hipster persuasion on a fixie tried to hit on me when I was on my bike, making some comment about girls on vintage cruisers being irresistibly adorable. A mild-mannered gentleman on the BART even called it a "fine machine." A totally cute girl on the next train called out a "hey, I like you bike!" to me as I was getting off. My bike is a conversation piece. Every time I think I wanted a "better" bike for going on real, intense bike rides, I realize that I will be losing something, something that I enjoy about having a beast of a bike. Something that no one will steal or jack with, but that, when it is performing, people are forced to acknowledge its awesomeness. My car is the EXACT same way. IT is dirty and beat up a bit and I am NOT good about keeping it clean. But she fucking purrs like a sweet young thing, despite her 15 years. And she is a fucking rag-top. So respect, bitches. And they do. The bitches do, in fact, respect. People LOVE to ride in my car with me (well, they did when I was driving people around more, in college.)
Another thing I know: I do not remember my own life. This is a very scary realization, but it is true.
This realization came to me as I was continuing to go on with my LiveJournal project and I started reading entries that described things I absolutely did not remember. Some entries sparked a memory, but many things, so important to me at the time, obviously (but then again what didn't seem significant back then?), but that now, if it had not been for LiveJournal I NEVER would have remembered, and even the documentation did not really help. I could only barely recall exactly what was written there, and could not fill in any extra details. So I have scaled back my project. I am only deleting the truly awful entries from when things REALLY started getting boring, around the time of Stephen. Suffice it to say him breaking up with me was a big turning point in my life, and I can take comfort in the fact that I HATE TO ADMIT THAT, but it has long been acknowledged. I, for some reason, wanted to document the whole thing in gruesome detail. And I forced myself to reread a lot of those details, because I thought maybe it was important. But they don't need to exist here anymore. I thought I had learned what I deserved in relationships because I lucked out with the first one, but it turns out I knew nothing and that was rather dangerous, mixed with the fragile time. It's been talked about and analyzed to death and frankly I'm bored by it and just embarrassed.
But as the entries go further back, I'm less embarrassed. Mostly because the more I read of the Ashley who was not completely bitter and self-destructive and grossly dependent on relationships and a glutton for punishment the more I like her. I feel myself approaching her again. I fear I can't reclaim that openness of spirit, and I don't think I quite want to get back there again, it's what opened me up to so much disaster, I think. But I was riding that kind of spirit pretty successfully for awhile, and I like reading about her. Even reading about the decline of things with Jay, or even the beginning of things with Jay, is not as cringeworthy as reading about Stephen, and that is only because of how extreme and wildly into the shit I had let myself get by then. In terms of what I lost, in a purely listographical, the lack of success with Jay was more of a loss. It's all perspective and where we are at given points. The reason Stephen hit me so hard was my extreme lack of perspective at that point. Funny how things get away from us and interesting how important something like perspective can be - literally, for me, it was the difference between being horribly, gut-wrenchingly sad (as I had been prior) to cripplingly sad. That fine distinction is why I could be beautifully, painfully, romantically sad before, but by the time Stephen and I had dated and broken up I could not handle it and it broke me. The snob in my/my vanity wants to make some snarky comment about Stephen being undeserving of getting to be the one to break me like that, but that is unfair. However I may feel now about the looks of certain qualities of certain people I've spent time with in my life, I liked them enough at the time. I've dated some hotties, and I've dated some bears, but we deserve what we want or what we get, depending on the choice we make. The trick is, since then, I've started to gain this magical thing I've been talking about called perspective. Because I realize that it makes all the difference in these situations.
I am in such a curious mood tonight! I think it is a good one! But oh, am I restless! I have spent all day DOING things, and for and by myself at that! But now that I want to be around people, there are none around, least not until later when the clock strikes "PARTY." But that is how things go sometimes and it is not anyone else's job to make you happy DO YOU HEAR THAT?
Another thing I have learned is to take my own "revelations" with a grain of salt. God, to think it took me so long to start being skeptical of myself in that way! They are helpful to give me that little push, but I've started to look for a bit more proof in my own pudding. Maybe I have you to thank for that....
No, I should start giving myself some credit for a change.
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| return, reduxe |
[09 Jan 2008|07:11pm] |
So as I'm going through old entries and deleting things it is, of course, inevitable that I would read some of them. As I'm going through I am relieved to find that nothing TOO embarrassing has been floating in the cyberspaces here, unwatched by it's creator. Really, as I read I would leave it all alone and be done with it, but I just can't stand such a large gap in my documented history. So as it turns out this whole erasing thing really IS a self-indulgent expression of extremism and obsessive compulsiveness, not so much the philosophical exercise I believed....
At any rate! Here are some things I am discovering about my past self, circa sophomore year:
1) I was quite funny and apparently quite fun to be around, and though prone to melodrama I seemed to be able to keep it at an arm's length so that most people found my interesting and exciting. It turned into honest-to-God depression which deepened, obviously, with the events of a year ago, but the immediate trauma has worn off and maybe I can start being fabulous again, wouldn't that be fun? Revisiting the past is a useful exercise, but I still think covering up the tracks once retraced is also useful, to ensure that dwelling becomes impossible, or at least difficult.
2) The only thing embarrassing about my old entries is NOT how little I censored myself but, rather, how utterly convinced I was all the time that everything I was going through was the most profound and important thing I could be going through. The fact that I find this so embarrassing now, of course, says a lot about who I was and who I am now. It is on the one hand commendable that I have gained much more perspective but, on the other hand, I got more satisfaction out of existence and the things I was doing because I believed in things more and felt a greater sense of gravity, which at the time felt like purpose. Perhaps I can peel back a layer of this cynicism, or two. After all, if anyone is going to hold my loving things a lot against me, that's awfully silly. I wonder if I can retain my gained perspective and my critical, analytical eye while regaining a certain sense of wonder, or at least a lack of reservation, inhibition. Is such a thing possible? Well, the attempt, at least, might be a good start in being happier.
3) Somethings never change. We just gain the ability to portray them differently.
So I am keeping some of the entries that I find particularly telling, that I find amusing and create a sense of affection in me for my former self as well as give me inspiration for my current self. I am deleting the entries that reveal too blatantly what a bleeding-hearted babe in the woods I was. How far I've grown from that shall be revealed, I suppose....
One entry I didn't mean to really delete, but there was really only one part I wanted to keep at that was this line: "Maybe I should start a religion of cliches."
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| Kneeling 'neath your ceiling, yes, I guess I'll be here for a while |
[09 Jan 2008|04:53pm] |
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Curious that I find myself back here again. I don't know what really possessed me to come back except that the passive-aggressive confessional bug never really left me, but I missed that awkward camaraderie of people writing about themselves and only themselves, and the funny little friendship webs that get woven here. I tried it on a different forum and it felt too exhibitionist, and other blogging sites make me feel to pressured to actually write about something. There is just a quality about LiveJournal that seems...quieter somehow. I feel like I'm quieter when I'm on LiveJournal.
I aspire to be quieter.
Plus I am obscenely sentimental. I think a bit (especially this time of year) about the relationships I forged on LiveJournal that actually crossed over in real life - some who were best friends that I lost touch with, or a first broken heart, one relationship that lasted much longer and (I must say thankfully!) went further than it should have by any rational stretch of the imagination. I remember real secrets exchanged with real friends over this thing, somehow writing it and sending it through the wires felt more natural, though I guess I just mean easier.
Despite this sentimentality, however, I will go through with my typical return-to-writing ritual or deleting all my past entries. But whereas before it was out of shame for my silliness in the past, this time it's merely because I don't want things to feel cluttered. I'm in the mood for a clean break, and this mood strikes me often. Be grateful I delete old journal entries to satisfy my boredom and need for freedom as opposed to more extreme severance of people from my life, or uprooting myself, or on and on, things I sometimes feel capable of.
I'm perfectly comfortable with pretending to reinvent myself every few months or so. Of making sweeping changes, or having semi-constant epiphanies. Like Bob Dylan lyrics on the ceiling, some of them are bound to stick.
Anyway, if anyone is still out there, hello again! And if nobody is then this will just be waiting here for someone to find it.
Feel free to gorge yourself on whatever is in here while it's still up. This journal was rather prolific - it should take awhile to erase. I have no idea if anything interesting is still in here. But, as I tend to forget, that's all subjective, isn't it?
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| Freeze your blood and stab it into me. |
[14 Oct 2003|01:04am] |
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"A Willful Suspension of Disbelief" Modest Mouse |
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This is my promise:
If there is something I want, I will make it happen.
I spend too much time sitting on my ass waiting for things. "Why can't I be one those girls that can eat whatever she wants and be skinny?" "Why can't guys always come to me?" "Why can't everything be the way I want it to be all the time?"
And I had a realization last nigth; I rarely do a DAMN thing to ensure that I get what I want. When I told you I wanted to kiss you, that was one of the few times I ever did something to get what I wanted. And when we kissed and touched at that time, it reminded me of that scene in Truly, Madly, Deeply where Alan Rickman is recounting the events of his first date with Juliet Stevenson, in which they spent the whole night just talking and by the morning when they finally kissed they wanted each other so badly that they couldn't even get their clothes off. You help make my life the movie I always wanted it to be. You help me live the life I've wanted. I feel younger with you then I ever had the chance to in high school. No, not younger. More youthful. I know I said some of these things earlier today, and maybe you won't even read this, but I want to know, too, that I've figured these things out. I care about you. I care about you a hell of a lot. And I think you're good for me, now. Because I miss you a lot, but not seeing you all the time forces me to enjoy my own company more. And I've always enjoyed the feeling walking in the late afternoon, but Stanford is probably the most beautiful place in the world right before sunset, especially at this time of year. The low sun stretches out the shadows of he oaks and buildings and makes them all mesh into one large shadow across the concrete. The light filters softly through colored leaves, welcoming you into the glow of heaven, the setting all the leaves ablaze with red and gold. And I never knew how wonderful it could feel to ride a bike, to sit up tall and ride straight down the impressive entrance that is Palm Drive. I enjoy the feel of a sudden breeze, the sounds of my singing voice. And it's all made richer somehow by the missing of you. And then when I see you, it's as though all those moments, those vague senses of joy have met up and joined together.
I want to eat sandwiches at 1AM in the radio station. I want to walk through the streets of the City holding your hand. I want to drag you to some vegan vietnamese restaurant with orange soy chicken. I want to make fun of you in Italian. I want to write you songs and make you mix tapes. I want to kiss you in the rain. I want to stay up all night in bed somewhere and talk and use our last bit of energy in a final act of passion before collapsing into each other's arms for bed. I want to make you breakfast wearing ruffly underwear and one of those black T-shirts you never seem to run out of. Let's sneak into the nature preserve and do nothing but run around under the subtle and limitless stars.
Life isn't for taking seriously.
I think honesty is one of the most important things to me. I want to be this honest with you from now on. Not honest like in my other posts. Those always failed to say what I meant to say. All of what I've just said, that is what I mean. Those other things were just things that were happening, but they said nothing about you and how I really felt. So I'm being honest now, and I will from now on. And I want you to do the same. If anything changes with you, with the way you feel, with what you want, let me know. I know you would, but just to have it said.
Everything is so open to me, right now. The world is just saying. "Here I am, Ashley, as open as a book." And I want to read every fucking page!
I'm kissing you right now. Can you feel it?
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| I've got more stars than the sky |
[08 Sep 2003|08:43pm] |
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"Kennel District" Pavement |
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If this is the only thing you can read, then I haven't decided to like you yet.
Comment here and I may decide to correct that.
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loveonamixtape's journal