july is the new september...

Which only means that maybe September won't be so cruel when she comes. I am a waltz at an autumn wedding not my own, my 3/4 time makes you stop to smell the flowers in my hair. I'm falling backwards but you're holding my hands and the room and I are both spinning. I hope to die, I take a deep breath, right there in that moment before I read the epilogue and know the ending is not what I had planned.

He told me that the reason I had never fallen in love like I expected to (the fireworks-when-we-met / can’t-think-stop-thinking-of-you-day-and-night / you’re-the-one-who-completes-me type of love) was because it didn't exist, because men like him created that illusion of love to sell pantyhose.

I still am not sure if I believe him.

the whites...

Let us not air out our dirty laundry in the world of cyberland,
Let us speak in third person so that no one will understand.
Someday we'll be old and grey, with a house upon the hill,
We'll laugh and shrug and drink our tea, questioning our will
To have made things work in times of impossible circumstance.

I love you not because you are perfect but because I am not.
I have faith in God and grace, though neither can be sought.
I mustn't miss the lesson, though it aches to learn it.
A heart can break and burn and crumble but love you still must earn it.
Lead us not into temptation in times of impossible circumstance.

To wear a heart on one's sleeve is better than none at all.
So soldiers and sons be ready when the general comes to call.
For death, taxes and love evade no man and are as inevitable as breathing.
So let love and hope and honour soothe your lips even when you are seething.
There will be an answer, even in times of impossible circumstance.

catharsis...

Tomorrow we will all wake up and this will all have been a dream. No kool-aid. No nike shoes. No stress. No drama. No diagnosis to report. We will have fallen into a long slumber and tomorrow we will wake up, knowing it's all going to be okay. We will have stopped worrying and the earth will continue its spin.

We will have all the answers. We will feel content with our questions. Nothing will go unsaid. We will go back to 'normal'. As normal as we ever were, anyways.

The end of the world will be filmed in black and white with no sound. We won't mind a bit because we will watch it together from the best seats in the house.

eleanor rigby...

She pulled over. She looked out at the sky. She threw up into the ditch. She was crying. There's no way this could be it. But it was. She was certain. She could only think in simple sentences. She put her flashers on and sat down on the side of the road. She dry heaved until every pittance of sentiment had been expunged.

She knew that she could not explain it. She now understood what it felt like to be in one of those inexplicable situations that you don't wish upon anyone else, not even your arch nemesis. It was one of those that she always said that she'd never be in. That she would never fall out of love. And here she was, on the side of the highway not only having fallen out of love but having purged every remnant of love out of her.

And then she sobbed some more. She let the tears fall sticky and heavy on her face because she hated herself and her complete inability to explain how just like that it had happened. How just like that she could no longer lie to herself or to him. She knew he wouldn't understand. He'd probably hate her for it. She already knew that she would want to call him in the middle of the night to come over to kill a spider in her bathroom and then she would beg his forgiveness and it would start all over again.

She wanted to scream but when she opened her mouth, only a whisper remained.

the horrible and the miserable or 'what kind of fuckery is this?'

I'm spending the afternoon with Woody Allen and asking myself a wide variety of neuroses-inducing questions, and they couldn't come at a better time. Needless to say I'm very conflicted at the moment and the indecision and anxiety of a middle-aged Jewish comedian who can't date anyone smarter than him makes me feel a lot better about myself.

The inner monologue that runs as the rest of the cast is on pause, this happens in my life on a daily basis. The subtitles of what someone really thinks running along the bottom of the screen, this happens only in my wildest dreams.

Nevermore have I felt luckier to be miserable in my life. "Masturbation is having sex with someone you love." How truly awful it would be to be one of the horrible cases with no hope of recovery, blind, deaf or dumb. It's much better to be miserable, to feel bad about my situation (which really isn't that bad) than to have a real cause to feel horrible about.

Love fades, it's true. But that Woody Allen, he just gets better with time.

Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

You gotta love Back to the Future. When they play the marathon on TBS, I will put down whatever I'm doing, cancel any plans I have, and I will settle in for a long haul with my two favourites, Marty and Doc.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that things are heavy in the future. The unknown and the undecidable, both kill us. The unforeseeable and the impossible. When you look at it like that, the odds seem heavily stacked against us. However, I promise we will look back with a smile and a heavy sigh of disbelief that we survived it all. At the end of the day we will wish that we could do it all over again but we don't because we wouldn't change a thing.

"Between the desire, And the spasm
Between the potency, And the existence
Between the essence, And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom" - T.S. Eliot

So when things get heavy, just hang on and remember to breathe.

hello again or good day sunshine...

It would appear that it is late again and I am up again. I thought of somethings today that make me truly ecstatic.
1. The first being the perfection of holding mittened hands, of feeling the warmth of someone else's (preferably a special sort of someone) hands through your mittens in the cold when it's snowing.
2. The second, that first awe-inspiring, dizzying inhale of "party" smoke exhaled by someone else (again, preferably the special sort of someone) into my own mouth. Sounds sorta gross but it reminds me of a first kiss. The kind that doesn't warrant a "do over".
3. Lastly, the ecstasy of good, clean fun. I know it doesn't seem to fit here, but hear me out... Playing pull the purse and laughing until you dry heave and the supposed hilarity of the situation. Going on the rides and the Stampede and trying to get all "zen" even though you're screaming at the top of your lungs. The shock value of being mooned. That never gets old.

These are the thoughts that accompany me as I try for sleep yet again. It has cooled off, only slightly and only temporarily, but the insomnia still remains.

Good day Sunshine...

untitled... (or la-dee-da or it's times like this where you just close your eyes and kiss...)

Cause everything after this is just bullshit and being cruel...

I've tried several times today to write this post. I can't get things out right it would seem. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's my mind and the past day's (months') craziness. I find myself once again in this same old strange place of tug-of-war.

I don't have any answers. Ask me though and I'll give you everything I've got so far. I will convince you of the brilliance and shrewdness of this well thought out plan. I will reassure you that there are no setbacks, no cons to this plan but really I have no idea. In the end, it's your call and if nothing but your original plan will please you, then don't take this on. No matter how I try to say otherwise.

I guess I figure that if I nominate a plan and you choose it, that means you are choosing me. I know that logic is all wrong. Or that we both agree to take the chance, hold hands and jump feet first because that's all there is. I know that isn't all there is but sometimes I lose sight of it all and I just...

I just want to walk away but I keep running my mouth off with new plans even though I'm running out of ideas.

has anybody seen me...

I awoke this morning earlier than I have in a while. I went to work, earlier than I have all summer. I made pleasant conversation with my coworkers, like I do everyday, and I realized how much I've grown to enjoy those first few minutes where we share the previous evening's jive. I read on the bus to school and for a moment forgot the pressing neurosis of getting my tires changed, paying the utilities, explaining my seeming indifference to one thing or another and selling my wares.

It is in these brief moments that I find some semblance of myself which I seem to have lost these last few months. There is no one to blame for this and I resolve only to be grateful for the moments of the day that pass and during which I see myself. This is not meant to be selfish or egotistical. During these brief moments that pass, for once I don't find myself wishing to be elsewhere. I'm happy and content with the friends I've made, the jobs I've done and I'm blissfully excited about moving forward with my life.

Maybe this sounds silly but I just caught a glimpse of where I'm going, what I'm doing, what I think instead of that of something or someone else. I've grown weary in this maze and I haven't seen me in a very long time.

the midnight disease...

I cannot take one more sleepless night. I cannot toss and turn again. I would give just about anything right now to guarantee a night free from my mind racing, my heart racing, my teeth clenched. It's active indifference, which is the worst kind for certain.

I'm counting sheep. Now I'm herding them around Scottish moors filled with fog. Now a dog is barking. I am still awake. I am pacing around my room. I don't play guitar because I'm afraid my child-like ghost voice will wake Megan and she will again believe that our house is haunted. I don't write in my journal because that would mean that my thoughts had won themselves a place on Primetime, a place where we could all return when sleep finally comes. A place where my thoughts and confessions seek refugee status and demand food and water and shelter and I won't be able to refuse them.

I've written down words lately in hopes of using them in some profound fashion at a later date: meniscus, sinister, holy, prolific. These words glare back at me, gutless. I'm tired but I can't close my eyes. I cannot bear what comes next.

if i came with a warning label...

If I came with a warning label, it would say: Beware of quiet Lauren. Beware of unnervingly still, pensive Lauren. Beware of all the things right below the surface that are trying to get out. Beware of sinister resignation. Beware of the sticky afternoon and the cool of twilight.

Right now I am calm. Quiet. But not serene. Not at all caught in a reverie.

When the dusk has brought the children indoors for the night, I will be sitting outside on the stoop, smoking a cigarette and drinking from a bottle of wine and I will be quiet. Unsettlingly so.

I will be thinking about playing the saddest songs in the world.

Canada, je t'aime...

Canada, je t'aime. Dans toute ta majesté, je m'endors dans tes bras, sûrs enfin de ce que je ne sais pas.

I am in love with you in a way that I cannot describe.