smileyjess

life is crazy sometimes.

i have been writing. lots.

i wish i could have said or done something that would have made you want to stay. but what would you ever have stayed for?

"i am finally seeing i am the one worth leaving"

i have it all figured out. it's a sick cycle, but i'm determined to stop it.

the first step to doing so is to identify the stages so that i may more properly understand who i am. because all too often i hate myself.

i'd say for the better part of the last five or six or seven or eight years i've hated myself.

no. that's a lie. and instead of backspacing or deleting or not posting a lying entry, i'm going to leave it there. right there. entirely exposed and open to criticism.

now i will correct myself. i've hated myself for as long as i can remember. it's sad and pathetic and self-absorbed and i know it, i'm beginning to put an end to it.

you want the truth? it's not pretty. i'm not going to sugar coat it. i'm not going to give it a glossy top coat. i'm not going to smile and say it's all alright when it's not.

here's the truth:
i am four. i am wearing a pale pink leotard, and my strawberry blonde whisps of baby-fine johnson and johnson shampooed hair are slightly moist with sweet smelling sweat of softly powdered skin. i see my reflection and i deny that she is me.

i am the fat ballerina. i know i always joke about this, and i know you always laugh politely and tell me i wasn't, but i was. i know this for a fact; it is not a lie. ironically, jessica means grace. i was a bull in a china shop. once when i landed a leap, the cd player skipped and i wanted to die. die.

i am four.

i digress. as i mentioned at the start, i figured it out.

1. feel extremely happy about my life
2. feel guilty for feeling happy
3. become all-encompassingly burdened with guilt/blame
4. become depressed
5. realize that i have nothing about which to be depressed
6. feel extremely happy about my life

and so on and so forth.

this would only happen to jon wall.

upon his triumphant homecoming, we whisked him away for a night on the town. home for less than five hours who does he see but the ex boyfriend.

driving.

naked.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh life!!! you crack me upppp

"i love you like a breadwinner loves his trophy wife."

i had been given a few sedatives and fallen asleep. unbeknownst to me, in the middle of the night, a room had opened up - someone had been let free - and i was moved from an airless, windowless space with millimeters of tissue-thin material separating me from a woman on one side with simultaneous influenza and bronchitis and a mute man on the other side whose appendix was on the verge of explosion. i had instantaneously fallen asleep. the cna watching over me rocked slowly back and forth in her chair, the slightest hint of tears in her eyes, slumped shoulders and a questioning but tight-lipped mouth. i resented her for her unwanted pity - i had done this to myself, after all, i was not worthy of her pity - and resolved to ignore her completely. i feigned sleep for about ten full minutes. iit seemed like ten full hours - i heard every nurse's sneakered step on the yellowed linoleum floor, every patient's sheets rustle, every sigh exhaled by loved ones. i was alone... except... not.

this new room on the fifth floor was my own - entirely for me, equipped with windows on three sides and my own bathroom. pinpricks from the many shots i had received since arriving made bruised constellations up and down my arms. an iv dripped, dripped, dripped who knows what into a blue vein. a necessary addition to my bloodstream for fifteen full days, its mark is permanently left on my forearm. scarred tissue about three-quarters of an inch in diameter still remains. a reminder. it has been four full months (122 days, but who's counting).

i didn't want to see anybody. i refused to accept visitors. i wanted to be alone. but i couldn't. a cna was always literally right next to me, an arm's distance away, watching. just.... watching. a personal spectator critiquing the patient. most took my hints and remained silent. one tried to make small talk ("so, what'd you do to get here?"). i didn't even so much as look at him. i closed my eyes and eventually - a few hours later - fell asleep.

there was not enough space in the room for my loneliness and me and this uninvited, unwanted guest. one had to go. in retrospect, i am lucky the loneliness departed first.

me, on the phone: hi! ... okay ... yup .... totally, that sounds great ... okay ... love you ... see you when i get home ... bye!
jb: i really hope that wasn't your stalker.
js: "okay, beautiful, i'll see you as i'm walking to my car!!!"

or something to that effect.

i know it's august, and i know temps registered in the triple digits last week, but this morning it was 71 degrees when i left at 530 in order to be at met on time. i wore my favourite pair of diesels and hugged myself into my madras j. crew blazer over an old express tank top. beach hair curled even more than usual because i actually had to turn the temperature knob in the camry from blue to red.

i drove to work in the misty, puttering rain. the windshield wipers screeched from side to side on the slowest speed possible, the window not quite damp enough for them to sway smoothly.

i had had a wonderful sunday night speaking to an unheard-from friend and later retreating into the waves for a rather spontaneous midnight swim under the stars with an unexpected visitor. i was determined not to let the monday morning blues get to me.

one as-is unsliced honey whole wheat bagel and seattle's best iced raspberry latte later, my mood increased significantly. i tried not to think about the very difficult time one of my life's loves is going through right now, what with the literal and figurative losses of several family members on top of all the usual chaos. i want to reach out to her and steady everything for her, put it all in its place, straighten out the little knickknacks on the shelf of life that have tipped over or are tilted on their sides. mop up the spilled milk and wipe away any tears. pour drinks down the drain and ooze happiness out of a morphine drip. recite appropriate song lyrics whose words aren't so overused and entirely trite that they have lost their meanings.

i want to drive in a car on the road all by myself with the windows down and music up. i want togather shells and hear the waves echo in my ear. i want to run in the rain til i'm breathless.

i want to reread favourite children's books whose meanings take on new levels when you enter college, like the little prince or maybe the lorax. i want to paint pretty watercolours and hang them on the clothesline in my backyard so that the colours blend as they drip off the page when the wind blows, creating whole new images of nothing but everything. i want to sip lemonade from a frosted glass and hear the glass cubes clink delicately against themselves.

i want to wear big floppy faded yellow beach hats and smile with blindingly white straight teeth. i want to catch butterflies and then let them go. i want to play my acoustic guitar and not be embarassed.

i want to light taper candles in expensive empty wine bottles during thunderstorms and read by the dim glow. i want to tell you that i love you. i want to cut up fresh picked tomatoes and sprinkle them with salt and take a big bite and spray a few seeds and laugh and wipe my mouth not-so-daintily with the back of my left hand and pretend no one saw that.

i want to surprise. i want to be surprised.

"i can't help it if i'm just better than everyone else!" joey b., 2006

today we presented our poster to the people who give us money. for the first time since, oh, that time i got into brown, i felt like i did something right. and granted, i can't take even a quarter of the credit (jamie, john, and laura deserve it all, truth be told), but to be a part of something like i was today felt so self-validating. and, yeah, there were some frustrating points this summer in the lab, but i am definitely able to say - even with our small accomplishments as we start out on the road to successfully completing the Big Picture - it's all worth it. in spite of myself, maybe an m.d./ph.d program is for me. (probably not, but father nick did give an incredible convincing talk today about why i should consider academia as a career...)

in other news, this weekend i'm off to hanover, nh to visit fro at dartmouth. i can't wait to see him - it has been over 2.5 months, far too long to go without seeing one of my most favouritest people on the planet. sangria and blue margaritas and day hikes and kayaking and science and fros and tie dye and oh! i can hardly contain myself. he left a frantic voicemail tonight and i panicked that he was so going to last minute cancel on me, but it turned out he was just making sure i was still visiting, since, you know, this past week i have literally lived inside the walls of albertus magnus and not spoken to anyone about anything other than the wonders of netrin and ahr-1 in rat hippocampi neurons. awesome.

seriously. i am loving my life right now.

things were just so much easier when you were here next to me. comfortable. and as bad as the 'little accident' was, it never had anything to do with us. it had everything to do with family fuck ups and stupid professors and the fact that i liked to pretend things were fine when they werent (oh my god, they so werent) and dreams that - still - get farther away everyday and sophomore year stalkers and lost hope and somuchregret and besides, i had already complained to you too much already.

i remember i was at allie'sin late march, sometime around 1am, growing more and more and more frustrated with my complete inability to understand the calculus three problems that she was ever so patiently explaining to me - over and over and over. the numbers and letters danced on the page, disappearing before my very eyes until all that remained was the painful white reflection of the overhead light. i hadn't eaten since lunch, and in retrospect i was probably just hungry, but i stood up from the swivel computer chair where i had been sitting and nearly lost my balance. i was ready to call it a night without having completed the take home test that was due the next morning at 830am when you asked if i had a little bit of time to spare, to talk. of course i did.

my books got the better of me and i was afraid i would fall if i carried them to your apartment, so i left them on the sidewalk by my place, not caring if anyone stole all of my calc three stuff because - hey, after this dismally failed take home i was probably going to have to drop that class anyway.

i steadied myself on the coffee table and wanted so desperately to hold your hand, but you hate when i do that, so i didn't, of course. finally, you needed me for once. and somehow talking to you - rather, listening to you talk - calmed me down so that i no longer felt like i was going to burst at the seams.

this one night carried me through until the next time it snowed.

my point is this, i guess, and if you're still reading, i'm sorry it's taking so long to say it:

i felt like maybe you knew me more than i had ever intended for you to. and i realized that i had spent so long trying to hide myself from you, but you had seen right through it all, and still wanted me to sit there next to you.

that meant the world to me. and i just wanted to say thanks. and i miss you.

afterwards, i went back and worked until 4am on that test. but i didnt care about it at all anymore. calc three and family fuckups and faraway dreams and lost hope and self-pity and pretending things were fine when they werent.... really didn't seem all that important anymore.

this was probably one of the most freeing moments of my life.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

henry david thoreau's walden

why is fresh prince of bel air on nick at nite?

it's so difficult to do the things that are right. i'm not talking about "right" in terms of "right vs. wrong" (stealing, lying, cheating, et al....). in each of those instances there are two very clear, definitive ways to act. one appeals and one does not. but what do you do when the pros and cons appear to be equal?

i mean the situations where you know what is right in the long term - what could potentially be better for you/others - and still choose not to act upon it solely because it is much easier in the short term to continue things the way they are currently. often it may cause physical/emotional pain to execute the right - risks must be taken, trust must be tested, doubts must be pushed aside - and for these reasons the right doesn't always seem worth it. it all balances out.

i'm here to tell you two things:
1. the right is always worth it and
2. i know i'm the biggest hypocrite for saying that.

there is no 'wrong' standard against which it can be judged. things can be right, or things can be the way they currently are.

what is right is taking the extra step, even when you think your legs are on the brink of collapsing.

i never seem quite able to do this. i'm not a risk-taker. often i see the right but just tell myself terrible excuses/lies and ultimately discourage myself from proper action.

i suppose the opposite of right in this scenario is total inaction, entirely remaining stagnant. unchanged.

if you know even just the tiniest bit about me, you know that i fucking hate change.

i hope that doesnt mean that i hate the things that are right for me.

you are right for me and i don't hate you. i'm just too afraid to change the way things are now.

i get motivated to clean my room for about a half hour.

this is just enough time for me to pull nearly every article of clothing that isn't already off its hanger, off its hanger,

this is just enough time for me to unpack every box of shoes and grab a sharpie so that i can write its contents on the outside.

this is just enough time for me to transfer every single thing on my floor to my bed, where it inevitably remains for at least three days, thus forcing me to fall asleep on the couch to the melodious voice of conan and/or kilbourne.

this is just enough time for me to move furniture so i can dust behind it.

this is just enough time for me to build a pyramid of coke zero cans and be amused by it.

however

this is not enough time for me to fetch a broom. or a vacuum. or a swiffer.

this is not enough time for me to actually dust anything. certainly not my overloaded bookshelves or bureaus or desktops or the couch and coffee table.

this is not enough time for me to hang everything back up.

this is not enough time for me to remember to put clothes for the salvation army in a bag.

this is not enough time for me to filter through little momentos like movie ticket stubs and receipts and drink umbrellas and business cards.

this is not enough time for me to actually follow through on my elaborate plans to clean the disaster that is also known as my room.

it's barely the third week of august, and it's far too cold in ri, even by new england standards. i swear i saw a golden leaf gracefully float by while driving to madeleine's yesterday.

trying to keep my mind off of how anxious i actually am about starting school. patty already returned to holy cross yesterday, so friday and saturday were spent in her most illustrious company. gazpacho and coldstone with dan and jimmy and corey; love and basketball and skittles (respectively). woke up early on saturday and we were firmly planted in broken faded multicoloured beach chairs on the freshly smoothed sands of narragansett. i managed to read a few pages of the world according to garp before sleep caught up with me. and later, splashing in the cold water felt good on my sunburnt shoulders.

sunday i slept until early afternoon. i owe it to myself; god knows in about three weeks i wont be getting more than four or five hours a night most likely....

when madeleine was free at last (thank god almighty) from the confines of the prison that is strawberries, we went to see little miss sunshine at the warwick mall. alas, we had promptly arrived at the wrong theatre (it was playing at the other warwick showcase, of course)! that's what you get when two blondes try to make plans. good thing this one had miraculously planned to arrive early (i love watching the previews!) so we made it to the other one just as the opening credits began.

little miss sunshine is definitely a new favourite. dark comedies are pretty much the best types of films, and this one definitely qualifies as one. i have never considered my family to be normal, but they certainly were by comparison to the characters in the movie! perhaps this is why i enjoyed it so much...

it ended just as step up was beginning across the hall. perfect timing. such badasses are we. step up is the yearly redux of dirty dancing for 2006. the clothes were amazing, and i loved the music. it pretty much made me feel old and unaccomplished though, which i know wasn't the intent, but i can't help the way i feel! it sucks to realize that i'll never be able to reach the level that those dancers were at in any aspect of my life. so it goes, though, right? at least i can laugh about it!

working full time at met this week is sure to cushion my bank account, but it doesn't help that today i bought delicious new shirts at j. crew and earrings and leggings from jasmine sola, in addition to an entirely unnecessary but unable-to-be-passed-up purchase from nordstrom.

dear my favourite pair of two sizes too big gap khaki shorts,

where are you?

love,
jess

You’ve got the cool water
When the fever runs high
And you’ve got the look of love
Right in your eyes
And I was in a crazy motion
Till you calmed me down
It took a little time
But you calmed me down

Some people never say the words
"i love you"
It’s not their style to be so bold
Some people never say the words
"i love you"
But like a child
They’re longing to be told

They’ve got a wall in china
It’s a thousand miles long
To keep out the foreigners
They made it strong
And I’ve got a wall around me
That you can’t even see
It took a little time
To get next to me

If something goes wrong
I’m the first to admit it
The first to admit it
But the last one to know
If something goes right
Well, it’s likely to lose me
It’s apt to confuse me
Because it’s such an unusual sight
Oh I can’t get used to something so right
Something so right

Some people never say the words
"i love you"
It’s not their style to be so bold
Some people never say the words
"i love you"
But like a child
I’m longing to be told

They’ve got a wall in china
And I’ve got a wall around me
It took a little time
To get next to me

-annie lennox-

my best friend in the entire newly-shrunken (sorry, pluto!) universe is breezing through security and tentatively stepping on a plane that will take him to europe for four whole months.

i've mentioned before how terrible i am at saying goodbyes. so today to take my mind off of how everyone i love leaves all the fucking time, i spent so much money that my bank called to verify that my card hadn't been stolen and i was the one actually using it. i kid you not. it's so terrible that i realize why i do what i do and still do absolutely nothing to stop myself.

for instance, filling an unfathomable void with material things.

and then i wonder why i can't see the floor of the master bedroom i occupy at home.

damn it. i forgot to buy more hangers.

Ralph Lauren
2 long sleeve shirts
1 short sleeve shirt
1 grey polo
1 lavender oxford

Gap
2 sweaters
1 stretch long sleeve t
1 pair black chinos
1 pair skinny jeans
1 scarf
1 lip gloss pink lemonade

Jasmine sola
Earrings
Leggings

J. crew
2 long sleeve shirts
Paisley tie belt

Sephora
Eye shadow- me myself and i
You rebel
Clinique cappuccino eyeliner
Benetint

Red sox dot com
Captain varitek shirt

Williams-Sonoma / Linens n’ Things
Coffeepot
Toothbrush holders
Kitchen towels
Plates
Mixing bowls

Sustenance
Coke Zero
Smoothie flavoured Skittles
Yellow tail merlot (courtesy of my easily talked into buying alcohol padre)
Panera bread
Seattle’s best
Protein powder
Odwalla bars

Papyrus
Cards for all the letters I’ve written to you in my mind

numero uno: zac clark
he played at lupo's, i was front row, i like to pretend we had a moment, after his set he hugged me. i pretty much want to have his babies.

numero dos: large iced raspberry lattes with soy and four equals from seattle's best
cost a limb, but worth every lack of subsequent motor movement

numero tres: mindfulness meditation
"In this type of meditation, the breath serves as a tether that the practitioner uses to bring his or her awareness back to the present moment. By residing more frequently in the present moment, practitioners begin to see both the inner and outer aspects of reality. As one more closely observes inner reality, one finds that happiness is not a quality brought about by a change in outer circumstances, but rather by realizing unhappiness starts with one's own "mindless", and therefore automatic, reactions toward pleasant and unpleasant situations or feelings." (wikipedia article)

i want to write, but i literally do not seem able to these past few days. haven't worked at met or the lab at all this week, mostly bumming around reading john irving's the world according to garp and rereading sylvia plath's ariel. afternoon hours this week have been spent with my bare feet tucked underneath me in the most comfiest reading chair of our casa. the rain pounds against the windows and i try not to think about how upset i am that it prevents me from going to the beach on these, my last days of a precious summer break. i wake up late because i come home in the early morning hours. i wonder why i still feel so tired. i sip peach tea and think about what my tea leaves would mean if tea leaves mean anything at all. my words will never measure up to that of a real writer's, and i'm okay with that, i've just been keeping them more and more to myself in my paper journal. once school starts i'm sure i'll just be jotting stuff down here more frequently since physically writing in yet another notebook would probably cause the death of me

"yes, that woman is fricken stupid. she ruined someone yesterday. the client came in and paid $275 for her hair to fall out. she called this morning, and she wants it back."
"her hair!?!?!?!"
"no, jess... her money."

haircut