For FeFe

When I was younger, my mother took home a 3 week old kitten. Even then, I was very much attached with infants, of any kind, there's something about their dependence and their unconditional adoration for you that made you feel special and not so alone. So when I first laid eyes on Kitty, I was utterly smitten. I had never had a pet before.

Her fur reminded me of a ball of lint and her face, her face resembled the tiny etching of Simba in the Lion King. I would always peek in on her to catch glimpses of her napping. She was the tiniest thing I had ever seen, curled up with her tail, the length of a pinky, tucked in. She was easily the most precious thing I have ever owned.

Weeks pass and she grew. She was always mewling, always so hungry. She probably got that from me, there are times where I'm a bottomless pit. I'd rub her tummy when she roll over to play with a tassel; I loved her white tummy and grey stripes. I didn't want others to see, but I'd kiss her so often that she probably despised me.

On the day Kitty peed on me, all I could think was, 'I thought cats were supposed to be cleaner than dogs.' But those days were forgotten, replaced by memories of times where she began to pounce and play tag and jump off of the couch. And when she really started to move, she was always getting yelled at, running into the shower stall or playing with bags of garbage. She was a mischievous one.

Those memories ended when my dad gave her away. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, but I suppose if I did get the chance, I wouldn't have been able to.

But when I enter my room I still smell her and I still expect her to run out the door. Though, she's no longer there, I still expect her to wait at the door, looking at me with pleading eyes to let her out to play.

There's a point you reach in life when it's okay to say the things you want to say and express to the world what kind of person you truly are.

I'm not quite sure I'm ready to do that just yet. I suppose I hold back quite a lot in this blog and I don't branch out as much as I should or hope to, but one day I will. Perhaps, some time soon.

Gobble Gobble

I wish I didn't ever have to see that look of discontent on my grandmother's face. But what can I do? My family is on intent of living discontent lives.

Good Writing makes my Toes Curl

CarrollBlog 11.23

She said she fell in love with him the night of the flying saucers. It was one of their first dates. At the time it was obvious he was more interested in her than vice versa. She *was* interested, but he didn't make her hair stand on end. In Manhattan they went into a diner and sitting at the counter, ordered coffee. Those were the days of cigarettes and coffee at any time of the day or night. They lit up and started chatting. The waiter who served them was short and thin, scrawny. After bringing their order he walked away and began talking to a fat guy at the other end of the counter. A few minutes later the two men-- fat and thin-- began arguing. At first it was no big thing but quickly escalated into a shouting match. Everyone in the place was staring at them-- everyone except her date who kept talking to her. He stayed calm and didn't even glance at the men yelling twenty feet away. Suddenly there was a crash. Standing, the fat man smashed a saucer on the counter. The pieces went flying everywhere. The little waiter shouted You'll have to pay for that! Big man snatched up another saucer from the counter and threw it against a wall. Furious, the waiter reached out and grabbing big man by his shirt, yelled for someone to call the cops. The two fighters staggered and shoved their way down the counter until they were near the woman and her date. Any customers still in the place quickly moved to the farthest corner of the diner to get away from the action. All except her date who stayed where he was sipping his coffee. She yelled at him to get out of there-- was he crazy? He only looked at her, smiled and shrugged that everything was fine-- no problem. Luckily the police arrived and separated the fighters. The men calmed down and sheepishly tried to explain to them what had happened. With a gallant sweep of his hand, her date gestured to the empty seat next to him. As if to say-- coast's clear, come on back.
Then.
Right then she fell for him big time.

http://www.jonathancarroll.com/blog/index.php

I finished reading Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison. I'm so angry right now, so indignant for that little girl. I want to run out and start punching out parents. God. She's such a marvelous writer.

I want to write like Tim O'Brien, Alice Sebold, and Dorothy Allison. They write with so much feeling.

I really want to hit something right now.

Trap doors & Bubbles

I didn't realize how much I missed people until now. How after a long time, the mere sight or the mere sound of their voice makes me realize how much they mean to me, how much of myself they hold in them.

He told me that he was going to be there and I got nervous and stupid and dramatic. I hadn't seen him until the end when I was walking out the door, when I was wondering if I should go over and say hi. I suppose if he had been looking my way I would have gone over and said hi, but his back was turned towards me.

I remember smiling. I could spot him anywhere. Fucking giant. He was dressed in a suit jacket and his hair was longer, almost back to his Hercules self.

I don't know why, but, during this whole semester, I wanted to stay away. He knows too much about me, things I've never shared because I never had the chance or because he could understand that side that people normally don't understand and that scares me. So I stayed away and it was fairly easy, except when I was TAing, and the lecture was taking a test and I saw this boy at the end look like him. This kid looked like a younger version of him. I couldn't stop staring (I'm such a fucking creeper). Then later, a friend says she saw him just when that class was ending and I missed, as in physically, him. Then I saw her a few minutes later and she was asking me to go with her and I could have, but decided not to since I had class. Then she texted me saying she saw him again. Close calls.

When I saw his back, it made me just melt again, reminded me of his childish nature and how he would look even without seeing his face for over a month. It brought back all these feelings that I try to keep away because honestly nothing will come of it.

My professor said something from her new novel that fit how I felt. She said, "Two halves that can never be whole." It reminds me of Z. & G. & now him, no matter how much I wish things were different, they aren't.

But this isn't just about him. It's also about Day. I haven't heard Day's voice over two months. I didn't realize how much I missed her, her laughter and her support. I felt like I could talk with her forever, but because of stupid lack of service (fucking mountain), I didn't.

I can't wait to snuggle up against her and have all the latest gossip and drama spill from our lips like wisps of smoke. Like him, she can understand me in ways no one else can. I can't wait.

I'm about to snap and I don't know why. It's like my blood is filled with hatred, so much unnatural--is it?--hatred. Everything has been getting on my nerves. I've been getting so riled up and close to becoming vindictive. I wonder if it's because I'm reading Bastard of North Carolina because that character is so angry or my little friend would like to visit me now.

But as I was coming up, back to the apartment, I looked up and there were all these puffy clouds and I just got lost in all that blue.

So two sedatives: kitty and the sky. Not too shabby.

So not thinking about work!

I want to be ambitious. I wish I had someone be ambitious with me, so that I could take that step, but that would mean being social right?

Ugh. What I need is that friend to bounce off of. That ambitious friend.

If I were God

If I were God, a lot of people would be dead. Thank goodness, I'm not. I can list some names off the top of my head that I wouldn't mind eradicating.

I'm vindictive. My muscles twitch to be a complete bitch, but karma comes back three-fold, so I'll reign myself back for now.

For now.
---------------------------------------------------------

The kitty climbed into my lap and fell asleep. I feel that only animals and babies can truly calm me down. There's a sweet innocence in them that makes me want to forget everything.

Confession

I've never been in love.

Angry Face is Beautiful

I remember reading HP at the beginning of the year and thinking about how wonderful some of the writers are. I thought that they were grad students here at Bing, but they aren't. They're writers from all over the country. If I had knew that, I would have thought how unlikely I would be associated with it.

I thought nothing of HP, just that I'm so very detached from it. And now? Now I'll be part of it next semester. I'll be one of the strands that create such a lovely literary magazine. I'm excited and scared shitless.

Sentimentality can destroy a story

It's funny how people are more brilliant when they're isolated and lack social skills. They must lack to excel. Sometimes I feel like I'm losing myself because I move away from what I used to want to be or how I used to feel and act. God. I know I can be really vague at times (like now).

For example, I may write better, but only in perfecting my style and storyline. The complexity and the meanings are still at an arm's length away. The farther I get to creating a story logically (as my mastery in weaving a story is better), the farther I get from writing what reaches out to people, the emotions that matter.

For example, when everything is perfectly well and I have every reason to laugh and to hang out, the less I want to write because I waste my time like that.

I'm drinking ginger tea and it's fucking strong.

I shall ravage you!

FUCK YOU LOVE & DEATH

I know. I get it. It's November 5 and I have yet to post a blog yet. It's just...there seems nothing for me to say, nothing rather intelligent anyways.

I did get my English internship. Yippee!

My Halloween? It consisted of getting lost in a corn maze with my cousins, getting red all over the boys--red hair spray--I danced with (Joker was a definitely stoned hottie), and finding out if I could I'd have my own intervention and bluntly state why everyone is a fuck up, including myself.

When I was reading The Lovely Bones, I was wondering if it was anything close to what my mom sees. I get this feeling that she's really disappointed, perhaps not in me, but in our family. You'd think time--not just years but centuries--would erase the pain of suppression, of tradition, and of goddamn stupidity. But no, we have a long way to go.

Clingstone Peaches
by Chris Haven

I am eleven in early December
on the twisty road to Crescent OK
past the gated Kerr-McGee plant that killed
Karen Silkwood I wondered if our car
ever passed hers on the way to grandma's.

My father and his eight sisters divide
the estate he has strange authority
the youngest, the only male, and the eye
of a grocer he unstocks the freezer
at dusk he spots the unpicked peach tree.

He tells me to come on and I feel strong
hands me a basket asks catch or climb
catch I say as my father in black tie
black wingtips disappears into the arms
of the tree a peach falls to my hands.

I place them in the basket the skin stings
my palms when I catch it leaves no bruise but
the ones that hit my face do I can't tell
my father it's enough I can't see his face
I can't know this is a kind of crying.

That night in the hard light of the bathroom
I still feel the peaches on my skin my
mother takes a tweezers plucks the needles
from my cheeks like splinters hundreds of cling-
stone peaches like in baskets they will rot.