smileyjess

i told you i hated the movie it's a wonderful life?

p.s. because i forgot to tell you at christmastime, and you would have just accused me of being a scrooge or something.

dear dave, you make everything so alright. love, jess.

When the world ends
Collect your things
You�re coming with me
When the world ends
You tuckle up yourself with me
Watch it as the stars disappear to nothing
The day the world is over
We�ll be lying in bed

I�m gonna rock you like a baby when the cities fall
We will rise as the building�s crumble
Float there and watch it all
Amidst the burning, we�ll be churning
You know, love will be our wings
The passion rises up from the ashes
When the world ends

When the world ends
You�re gonna come with me
We�re going to be crazy
Like a river bends
We�re going to float
Through the criss cross of the mountains
Watch them fade to nothing
When the world ends
You know that�s what�s happening now
I�m going to be there with you somehow, oh...

I�m going to tie you up like a baby in a carriage car
Your legs won�t work cause you want me so
You just lie spread to the wall
The love you got is surely
All the love that I would ever need
I�m going to take you by my side
And love you tall, ��til the world ends

Oh, but don�t you worry about a thing
No, �cause I got you here with me
Don�t you worry about a
Just you and me
Floating through the empty, empty
Just you and me
Oh, graces
Oh, grace

Oh, when the world ends
We�ll be burning one
When the world ends
We�ll be sweet makin� love
Oh, you know when the world ends
I�m going to take you aside and say
Let�s watch it fade away, fade away
And the world�s done
Ours just begun
It�s done
Ours just begun

We�re gonna dive into the emptiness
We�ll be swimming
I�m going to walk you through the pathless roads
I�m going to take you to the top of the mountain that�s no longer there
I�m going to take you to bed and love you, I swear
Like the end is here

I�m going to take you up to
I�m going to take you down on you
I�m going to hold you like an angel, angel

I�m going to love you
I�m going to love you
When the world ends
I�m going to hold you
When the world is over
We�ll just be beginning...

i positively abhor how if i forget it in the morning - say, two hours late - i get the most painful migraines of my life. oh, withdrawal, you're such a bitch. with your slowly blackening pulses creeping on all sides from my temples and slowly clouding my vision, can't concentrate on calc, the tiny squares on the page disappearing to nothingness, climbing four flights of stairs and feeling like i'm going to collapse, dizzy, tentative footsteps back to bed, fall, fall, fall, wake up startled and forgetting, trying to start the day over but it's too late.

too late.

tonight i wore flip flops and we jumped puddles in the rain along federal hill. insides warmed from a steaming, frothy spiced chai, i barely noticed the february chill. to dry off a bit, we sat at a tiny table for two right next to the fireplace, the wood of which crackled audibly over the scraping of chairs along the tiled floor and ice clinking in sparklingly clean, reflection-bearing glasses. mountainous cakes and piles of delicately rich cookies were served on dark plates sprinkled with confectioner's sugar under criss-cross drizzles of raspberry chocolate syrup. soft lights set pastiche aglow, emanating through the windows and casting shadows on the muraled wall. indoor flowerboxes teemed with red-tinged tulips and lofty ferns. my spoon swept the nutmeg and cinnamon spices in swirls in an oversized mug and there were two forks for one towering piece of chocolate cream pie.

on the way home the rain beat steadily against the windows. as the windshield wipers incessantly swayed, i said something that made you laugh - what exactly, i can't even remember. sitting shotgun, i saw it out of the corner of my eye. your smile caught me off guard. we splashed through puddles and the heat was as high as it could go and everything was perfect and nothing hurt.

Have patience and indulgence toward the people... Reexamine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, dismiss what insults your soul, and your flesh shall become a great poem.

Walt Whitman

hambone: yo, teddy, when are you going to clean our microwave?
teddy: tomorrow!
hambone: dude, you said that yesterday... and the day before yesterday....
teddy: and by tomorrow what i really mean is... fuck you guys!

i am happy because
- i saw the ocean yesterday
- ludacris' rollout (my business) came up on shuffle (thanks liv!)
- sharing my heart(s) in chocolate-y deliciousness form in civ
- allie's strange attraction to shiny red wrappers of aforementioned cardiac muscles
- people on ripta that make me laugh out loud with their utter insanity
- i successfully nabbed a washer/dryer combo at 230 am this morning when i was suddenly energized to tackle the enormous piles of laundry on my side of that room that entropy has caused to accumulate
- an unexpected freshly pirated joy division cd
- jack johnson live
- quote of my life (for today, anyways!) is credited to matty k: "if loving skittles is wrong, then i don't want to be right!"
- thoughts of summer

she had recently had an operation, but we forgot to bring flowers. well, technically, we remembered. but then we got swept up in conversation and the crashing waves and listening to live jack johnson that we barged in unannounced and bearing no gifts but tentative smiles. mine was the more tentative of the two.

the drive to the water was so... serene. seeing as how its early february, none of the summer traffic one usually encounters on the way to the cape caused delay. the sky was a crayola crayon pastel of robin's egg blue and it reflected beautifully on the whitecaps of the fiercely rushing current.

there were enormous bay windows all along the east facing side of the house and i caught myself lost in thought (swept away by the undertow, i suppose) more than once from my seat on the comfortably overstuffed couch cushioned with pillows of varying colors. protected from the buffeting winds of the shore, sitting safely tucked by his side, hypnotized by the steady ticking of the intimidating oak grandfather clock, the water seemed oddly inviting. i knew enough not to be fooled, of course, but i probably could have convinced myself that it was actually summer if i had wanted to.

there was no awkward small talk but rather funny anecdotes and an adorable lapdog named lily. sailboats everywhere - on the fireplace mantel, in delicate glass bottles, handpainted murals on tiles, porcelain figurines lining the windowsill.

driving home to a bit of g. love coupled with dave matthews interspersed with some dispatch, my smile didn't wane one bit. i feel fortunate to have been invited.

disheartened.

sleep = necessary

If you give up being a doer, if you give up being in control and you accept yourself as a happening in Existence the way Existence wants you to be, all guilt and all shame are suddenly left behind.

Rabia

taking five hour naps after pulling basically three all nighters in a row.

working on my coke zero and dayquil dependencies.

listening to 4 a.m. by our lady peace.

wondering.

all i want to do, though, is write. and write and write and write. (just sit with a blank notebook and fill it for days on end, past the point of legibility - no one would have to read it anyways, simply to get the words on the paper so they're not taking up so much room in my head.)

maybe someday....

i'm there to talk. simply speak. i'm not supposed to be judged or ridiculed or critiqued. i'm there to be listened to. at the end of the day, she has no problem delineating her work life from her home life. so i don't know why i lied to her. all i know is that i did, and i am hating myself for it.

Привет Джессика, хотели бы Вы присоединяться ко мне для некоторого toboganning после вечернего бурана?

yeah that's right. russian.

it was bound to happen, really. there's only so high you can place something (someone) upon a pedestal before it (they) teeter precariously on the edge and plummet over the side.

disillusionment is never fun. you feel mocked, made a fool of. when the hands are pulled from over your eyes and finally you can see things under the clear light of day, suddenly you wish to regress back to that 'ignorance is bliss' stage.

is it possible to have lived your whole life longing to return to that phase? especially when it doesn't seem like you ever were able to witness it for the first time around? although, in order to miss it, you know that you must have gone through it at some point.

i don't like to be fooled, to play the fool. but sometimes, in my desire to overlook the things i don't wish to view, i'm the one holding the wool over my eyes, i'm the one responsible for the temporary blindness.

that's not to say it makes it any easier. the catastrophe of disillusionment, that is. the part when i can finally see, when points become lucid, when motion slows, when the sound turns down.

no, in fact it's much more difficult.

because then there is no one to blame but yourself.

Portuguese - "Jessica Kowal: cinematically observed as the fairest siesta-taker in the land ... in the blizzard of life she serves as a down comforter."

i told myself i wouldn't care. lies, all lies, i tell you (me).

snow fell for hours on end today, blanketing the campus and defying gravity while it sat graciously upon sturdy branches. swept away in surprising gusts of wind, drifting directionless across freshly-plowed paths, dancing and twirling along the concrete, there one second and gone the next, like a shadow.

it was the first time in a long while i actually wanted to be a part of something. for a few months now i've felt this kind of... melancholy. a sort of... indifference, maybe? no, indifference implies a lack of caring, i've definitely cared - more than i should most of the time.

detached.

that's it. detached. disjointed, removed, separate. maybe a little ripped at the edges, corners folded over, creased lines leaving permanent scars, rough tears and clean cuts.

i just don't understand, so i'm not going to pretend like i expect you to, either.

i hate nighttime.

i hate waking up in the darkness and feeling so shivery and horribly alone.

can you see her standing there trying to find anywhere
there are flowers in her hand but she doesn't know why
offered is advice to you but all you do is fake it

mother, she's only yours tonight and she never cries mother,
I know there is hurt inside Julia

drowning in her own visions,
she's begging the past to stay behind
there's a black cat in the night,
there's a black cat in that sky
offered is advice to you, you left but I don't blame you

we're digging up the past to bury it one last time
I know there's pain inside that truth
but you just have to face it

i forgot how amazing dead poets society is.

the other night while it was snowing i 'cinematically observed' it, comfortably curled up against perfectly plush pillows with a bowl of heavily salted stove-popped corn, my favorite food second only to skittles.

it took me about 10 minutes before i lost any trace of an appettite.

i think that movie is a depiction of me in a former life or something, it makes me that uneasy.

i went into the woods because i wanted to live deliberately. i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life... to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when i came to die, discover that i had not lived.
-henry david thoreau

two surprises, neither of which i deserve. carefully planned and executed, we celebrated a bit early since he had the day off from lax and i have two exams to study for tomorrow night.

steve and i dined at kabob and curry - chosen especially for its vegetarian options! - a delicate table for two beside the big bay window overlooking thayer. the walls were painted rust orange with deep red trim. beautiful indian art was draped beside the heavy oak doorways, and assorted authentic decorations (of marble elephants and sandy zen gardens) peacefully harmonized the atmosphere, blending all background conversation into a barely noticeable steady hum. we shared tangy and spicy dishes, and i was a member of the clean-plate-club for the first time in awhile.

i feel so undeservedly lucky. but i'll take it with a smile. we could have gone to dunkin' donuts or some place equally un-special and i would still be sitting here tonight positively raving about how wonderful my evening was.

prioritization of the world's needs:

http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/

to do list:
1. meet chad from dispatch.

check.

2. receive a warm embrace from chad from dispatch.

check.

state radio concert tonight with fro was awesome. i made friends with brown boys from montana (hi sam! hi chaz!) and rocked out to the most random opening band ever (weird raggaeton singer wearing a t shirt around his head that said "open your eyes: 1% of americans own half of the wealth" who crowd surfed and held onto the ceiling with a skater-dude guitarist who played his guitar with his tongue). narrowly averted getting beer spilled on me as some dude tried to steal my second row spot during state radio's gas can guitar encore. eyes closed and swaying to the music, loving the ringing in my ears, feeling my heart beat with the bass drum after the week from hell, a live show in the teeny tiny 280 person century lounge was just what i needed.

"I spend eight hours a day writing about the other sixteen."
-Augusten Burroughs

i wish i could do that.

i have a new goal in life.

while soaking amidst dancing flickers of candlelight, water hot enough to make my skin steam and hair curl, bubbles with hints of rainbows floating carelessly, it suddenly flooded and floored me. a memory.

laughter echoes off the tiles and plastic toys with obscenely bright hues bounce back after lightly colliding with the white porcelain, water slops over the sides, but a towel soaks it before it has the chance to seep into the chesnut hardwood floor. Barbie joins me because for some inexplicable reason, i have decided that her nylon blonde locks need to be properly conditioned before she joins plastic-haired Ken (boys have it so much easier - even in doll form!) in the sticker decal-ed hot pink convertible (complete with salmon colored leather upholstery) for the evening's date to... i hadn't decided yet. johnson and johnson's no more tears sits on one corner ledge in its vivid yellow container, bottletop open and a slight smear of soap collecting at the end, streaming slowly down the side, gravity doing its job. head tilted back, water runs down my slick, smooth, silky hair and against my skin.

up and out - carefully, carefully - step on the rug, good girl. twirly turban towel wrapped updo, freshly powdered and dressed in my favorite beauty and the beast pajamas, the sound of water draining slightly audible, a whirlpool forms, bubbles gather and become a mountain that turns into a hill that turns into a pile that eventually gets leveled in a matter of mere minutes.

i look up in awe and ask my mom for the millionth time what the red sticker says. placed at adult eye level, it has white block lettering, three small words that my father strategically placed just below the showerhead, perfectly level with my mom's line of vision, when they first moved in and started calling this house a home.

"i love you"

they've been married twenty five years and it's still there - superglued, i'm convinced! corners ever so slightly curled from years - a quarter of a century! - of steam slowly loosening them.

what a nice reminder.

very unexpected but much appreciated robin's egg blue tiffany's boxes (perfectly tied in a practiced bow with a glistening white ribbon), containing a beautiful present resting on a soft bed of tissue

Sam: OK, so... so... sometimes I lie. I mean, I'm weird, man. About random stuff too, I don't even know why I do it. It's like... it's like a tick, I mean sometimes I hear myself say something and think, Wow, that wasn't even remotely true.

-Garden State-

yes, i'm alive.
barely.