dilapidated dilapidated dilapidated

i've fallen out of habit and i am the paying the consequences of doing so. but things happen in these synchronic loops, seasonal sacred geometry, allusions to religious syncretism. i try to remember everything but i end up lying in bed too heavy. little things, like yelling at my dad, birds in the winter time, estranged eye contact and devotion to the stomach send me back on track. 

i keep getting distracted. let me tell you about what i really want. i want a 2 story house with an attic and a basement. i want old wood floors and an ornate fireplace. i want a personal library and a home computer. i want an attic where i can make a guest room with a triangle ceiling and a circle glass window and i can sit on an old couch and smoke inside. i want big couches and turkish glass lamps and oriental rugs and throw pillows with tassels. i don't drink red wine but i want a big rack of it for my friends. i want a queen bed with a feather duvet and 2 cats. i want a kitchen i can bake bread in and watch the snow fall outside. i want a bathroom with a tub that i can lie in and a shower i can sing in. i want bongos in my living room for my friends to play.

alex and i went for a drive and talked about dropping out of school and saving up to buy a house. we both agreed it would be boring. we drove through the part of town thats dilapidated and we talked about how fun it is to say the word dilapidated. dilapidated dilapidated dilapidated. all the old victorian brick buildings are destroyed or their lawns strewn with plastic trash. everythings laced with chain link fences. the horizon locks you in when you can't see past the long, lanky expanses of power plants. there was a recycling bin with a hole burned through the middle. "you don't even see that shit in brooklyn." he was right. the abandoned town hall, in it's great red colonial fortitude, had two guys smoking crack on the doorstep. "that's hard." i said. dilapidated, dilapidated, dilapidated.

i have in my phone notes something about how kurt vonnegut was probably really fucking annoying but good at eating pussy. being a writer is sort of a pathetic thing. because a lot of the times it sounds like shit and there's no purpose for it. i was thinking about how i wish i was pretty enough to be a model. being a model felt more noble than being a writer. and i realized that's because i'd feel more accomplished by selling someone else's product and i wanted to wither away.

last winter i fucked men for the last time. now i am so depraved i think i would do it again. it's easy. men take my aloofness as attractive and i get to feel wanted. i'm better at talking to men because my attraction is inauthentic. i just want to feel like i've won something. when i seem scared women leave me alone. like they should. it makes me worry about where i begin and end. what do i want? why do i want it? 

i sat in my car in zoe's driveway and explained this all to her. she tells me i'm overthinking it. my ex used to say it was my mother's voice in my head making me second guess myself. it feels like if i was to do exactly what i wanted i would do nothing. 

my dad comes into my room at the worse moments. i'm always on the verge of tears and i bark at him. maybe he's not coming in at a bad time, i think all time is just like this now. last year was the same too. i just cry and cry and cry and bark and bark. like a bad dog. he leaves me alone and comes back in an hour asking if i want cookies or water or something. he is a good father. i am a bad daughter. 

i've spent a lot of time putting up with shit i shouldn't have. a lot of time being groped, yelled at, disrespected and disregarded. letting people put me down. and that was all when i did what i thought i wanted. every morning i shoot out of bed with my heart in my throat waking from bad dreams. every time i open the fridge i start to cry. when have i thought too much? when haven't i thought enough? 

being down can feel so good. i have known many people to give up and lie down. to recede so far back into yourself that nothing can hurt you. but you just feel nothing. i have tried to peek into everyone's turtle shells because i know how it feels. somedays i want to give up and stay down. when someone looks into mine, i don't trust them. i've gotten really good at playing both sides.

i thought about going out west and becoming a car mechanic. i felt like it would make me useful and happy. on new years i drunkenly lamented about one day being a shaman. i felt like it would be useful for me. i said i think people would trust me.

zoe and i talk about wanting to be spies. or detectives. i always love in stories where a character joins a team and doesn't trust them but follows along anyway. i love stories. i told zoe about how much i loved her boyfriend's storyline for the game he's developing. i sit down to write and i can't think of any stories myself. what am i doing then? my artist statement was about feeling like an outsider looking in. am i making any fucking sense right now? 

a couple weeks ago i was in the part of town that makes me nervous. ruby is great at imposing un-nervousness. she's able to make you feel crazy for being nervous. right now?? whaaaat?? everything's okay. it's fineeeee. we're having fun. i'm wearing her feathered coat her grandma made. i'm more drunk than i'd like to be and this place is too busy and its too late. i'm waiting to sober up and waiting on an order of fries. i see a man out of the corner of my eye hunting us. i look down and sort of clear my throat in warning. he comes over anyway.

"big sis huhh?" he keeps crooning to ruby. she is chatting him away. she doesn't give a fuck. the last time i was here a group of college boys told me i was lying about being 16. i remember them trying to grab at my id. i can't show that i'm shitting my pants right now. so i curl into myself and keep looking down at my phone like i have better things to do. i hear his voice direct to me. "this the intriguing one." for a second it's involuntary. i look up and make eye contact with him. "she is." ruby keeps it going. for a second it feels like everything has worked. the art of crafting fear into fashion. it's battalion. i never want anyone to win. but here, i am the intriguing one. for a second, it justifies this belief that i pulled off the heist of a lifetime. 

i'm scrolling through tinder eating a bag of marshmallows. at the same time i'm workshopping the kurt vonnegut joke in my notes app. i'm getting notifications that more kids have been reduced to data and dirt. how do i say that kurt vonnegut going to war made him more socially aware than the weird guys who went to art school? or that i'd rather let a traumatized man eat me out than a sensitive women because the stakes are less high. i'm ignoring the news. i've been loathing my journalism degree. i picked it because i thought art was selfish. i felt like it was obligatory to do something for the greater good. my wants are not enough. i'll never get that beautiful house with the bongos. and i could never be a good journalist because i hate the news. so i live in a halfway state where i blog. christ.

pea-soup anderson's closed. i just checked my phone and saw that. fuck. there isn't room for novelty anymore. novelty has had the social relevance of jerking off since novelty existed. and look. 100 year old useless california road side attraction pea-soup anderson's is closed. what sort of worth do i have in this world?

i took a break to go to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and thought about how i have created a game where i am always destined to lose. my ex girlfriend said to me that she loved my eyes. i take a second to stare into them in the bathroom. they look so lifeless. if i really focus, smile at myself, they twinkle a little. relaxing my face, they're dead again. what do i even do about this?

i remember thinking about how i picked up journalism to be some sort of martyr but like myself, nobody reads the news. then i thought about how much bill nye has influenced me, of informative entertainment, of trying to pioneer some way of writing thats engaging and influential. then i tell myself i'm being selfish. is that my mother? is that who is in my head telling me these things?

my father comments on how skinny i look whenever i walk past him. i cycle through weights every 3 years like how i cycle through haircuts every 4. right now i'm trying to lose weight. i look at old pictures and miss my tits. i'm telling myself this is to teach myself discipline. i run for 10 minutes because when i run for 2 i want to quit so i run for 10 and then stop. i heave in the lady's restroom. i tell myself i'll feel better soon. i always do. it makes you better at doing bad things.

i remember i used to count in my head when my boyfriend would have sex with me. up to 10 and back. just to get it over with. 

my mother lies in bed all day to get up and go to work and come back home and sleep and then sometimes wander to the bar and back. she used to be an interior designer. now she sleeps on a bed with mismatched pillowcases. my father follows her around and cleans up her messes. we have a big home and it's strewn with garbage. big plastic bags everywhere. my mother is trying to clean out my brother and i's old toys. every couple weeks she will muster up the strength to put a couple things in bags and then back to bed she goes. my father says every day is difficult for her. he likes to clean up his messes. he brings me dinner after i bark at him. here is one of those times where i hold my tongue. here, i don't know. where does discipline begin or end? am i the dog i really think i am?

my gut tells me to hold back on this one. i wrote something a while ago about the gut being the house of the holy spirit. i'll pat myself on the back for that one. if that get's published that's something they'd put on tee shirts or coffee mugs. 

i don't understand why somedays my eyes look dead. i look in the mirror and i look dead. i will hug my dad tonight and probably yell at him again tomorrow. it is snowing right now. last year we got stuck under ten feet. now it's a wimpy inch or so. the wind still beats on the window. on christmas it was 50 degrees out. when i walked outside this morning to let my dog out i heard a few birds crying from the tree. they must be so confused, i thought. inside, i turn and feel my stomach while looking in the mirror. it's getting a little smaller. my abs are more defined. everything around me is changing. joining the change feels just as worrisome as letting it pass over me.

i watch a video of a woman talking about giving birth and it makes me so nauseous i want to go back to sleep.