SheFallsSoftly

So, in much the form, there’s a new relationship in my life. It’s been sudden (to put it lightly) but it has that odd sort of click that I haven’t felt in ages… It’s really lovely. It’s mutual. I don’t know what to do with this sort of reciprocal energy… I feel as if I should always be giving more than him, but that’s not the way it works. It’s so good. This comes with an odd sort of confidence on my part.. I’m more ready to confront past issues feeling so secure in my present. I don’t think to myself "It’s not like it was," because it’s so much better than that.

The swing was a catastrophe and I don’t really want to talk about it. Ugh. I’m just so sick of debating, but I can’t give up the community. I think maybe I’ll sit out this year and judge next year. Sounds like a much better situation for me… Regardless, spending a week in or near Dallas was really lovely save for the car drama.

I saw Juno and Sweeney Todd. They were both fucking incredible movies. Seriously. So ridiculously good. See them now.

It’s an odd sort of morning… Pensive and quiet. The world is changing.

Well, 2007 is damn close to over. I can’t believe how much my world changes so quickly… My luck changes like the weather in Oklahoma. One day I’m wearing long johns, the next a halter top.

It’s been a good week or so for dating for me. Despite Christmas drama, I went on a really good date while I was in Albuquerque… Good enough that it might be worth pursuing further. Even better, there’s another prospect on the horizon. And both of them like guitar hero! I’m a lucky girl recently. We’ll see how that goes… Hopefully something good can come of it.

I’m home in Vegas for New Year’s… I’m going to a rave to celebrate the event, and will be all kinds of messed up and dancing. Lindsay (my true love) is coming to visit me while I’m here and we’re going to have amazing adventures.

It’s the time of year to think of resolutions, I think… I gave a list last time of various mistakes I hoped to not repeat, but I guess I have to do a bit better than that.

I resolve to:

1. Always be treated the way I deserve to be treated.
   
2. Change the way I think about sex.
3. Find a healthy way to lose a few pounds.
4. Keep my friends and family close to my heart.

Adventuresome, yes?

Anyway. Things are good. I’m happy. Yay!

1. Honors perspectives courses
2. Working on debate
3. Sucking at guitar hero
4. Worrying about money
5. Caring what other people think
6. Settling into medication
7. Trying to deal with problems without professional help
8. Sending text messages in latin
9. Keeping a boy/girlfriend
10. Working at La Luna
11. Having to miss dance
12. Drama
13. Hating my body
14. Wanting to change for others
15. Stupid fights among friends
16. Having to learn to sleep alone
17. Sexual addiction
18. Being unartistic
19. Being afraid of the LSAT
20. Boys being cruel to my friends
21. Being afraid of substances
22. Being afraid to let go
23. Regretting
24. Looking back
25. Being unselfish when I should have been selfish
26. Being forgiven when I should have been merciless
27. Being restrained when I should have been wild
28. Being cruel
29. Being dishonest
30. Compromising too often
31. 12 months of the Bush administration
32. Fall semester
33. Giving up too early
34. Holding on to people who want to go
35. Forgetting to write Sara
36. Forgetting to tell Lindsay how beautiful she is
37. Forgetting to tell Scott how much I appreciate him
38. Forgetting to tell Seth how great he is
39. Forgettin to tell mikale how amazing of a friend she is
40. A time before The Blow
41. Missing Leila’s shows
42. Missing concerts that I wanted to see
43. Not travelling
44. Needing someone else to complete me
45. Apologizing for being different
46. Trying too hard
47. Not reading enough
48. Not dancing enough
49. Not writing enough
50. Not creating enough

Deep down I really love pigeons. They’re scruffy and scrappy and opportunistic… If anybody is out for itself it’s a pigeon. They’re also strangely gentle in soft coos, slowly fluffed feathers pruned.. My mother would never let me touch the feathers  left behind, would wipe off shit from benches before I sat. Pigeons were dirty, I was taught… But I’d sit outside and feed them popcorn and stale bread for hours, just watching them teeter around aimless, impatient… When I threw them crumbs, every bird would flock for it and one little sick broken bird would always be left out. There’s one in every bunch, broken leg, damaged wing… Something defective. I’d attempt to toss food to just it, but inevitably some other birds would steal it.

I don’t want to take that little bit of something that’s been offered to you.

I guess what I’m saying is survival is a trick that not everyone has figured out yet. Like a pigeon stealing food from its friends… I’m doing the best that I can.

I don’t want to damage that one last hope that you have left… but this is what I need to live. I have a feeling you’ll survive without me.

November must be American because it seems to feel it has the right to encroach upon December’s rightful place.

All of this is going to come back someday and bite me on the ass, I think…. What can you expect from anyone but to do what it takes? It’s not that I’m cut throat… I’m just… ingenuitive.

Wings clear and veined

Slick like fat skimmed off soup
Too small to fly
Attached to dirt-colored skin
Fat hands
No words
But I loved him.
I imagined clipping wings
Like pulling off a dead spider’s legs
They wouldn’t take you anywhere…
But just in case.

I feel as if I have no history. I have no collective past to call back to. My grandfather used to tell me all about boyish ways in golden days. The days of youth are not so clean and free as the generation before. I remember my supernintendo fondly, not holding hands in the dime store.

I told my friends this, they told me all about the feminists, about “I am woman, hear me roar.” How can I be proud of a heritage which I disgrace, all pumps and frills and lipgloss? Equality is an ongoing history that I have no part of.

Others have age, race, religion, ethnicity. I am Casey. I am a part of the Northern European Imbred Poor. I was raised atheist. None of the traditions mean anything anymore.

I celebrate my heritage in empty corporate holidays, I wear my identity in designer clothes. I am American and I emulate perfect identity-less beauty, I have second helpings at every meal. I waste. Constantly.

I am American and I will turn back the hands of time with chemicals and scalpels when I feel too old. I will suck out all of my fat and throw it away to lose weight. I do not know hunger. I medicate through pain. I have a winter and summer wardrobe.

I imagine that once my ancestors wore a tartan… My mother tells me I’m not very irish. I wear my red hair, pale skin, freckles like a question mark. I know who I am, but have no idea who I was.

And half jack.

Fuck you, November. Fuck you.

For all of my friends who knew Rebekah Burgess…

Shock is a subtle way to phrase it… Life is too short for all of this hatred and pain… but all of that hatred and pain make life beautiful. I guess I’m not in the best state to talk about this right now.

So, I’ve been working on essentially two art projects that have been overlapping.

The first is based in using Polaroid cameras to create transfer prints. Essentially, you pull apart the pictures, slap it on some paper, and there you go. I spent all day trying to do this. All day. And probably $10 worth of film. What did I get for it? Burns from vodka and developer on my hands, and the unpleasant knowledge that I’m using the wrong camera/film and I’ll need to get new ones. That’s alright. Kodak cameras are about $10 now because they’re all so dang old. It’s just a little frustrating to have wasted so much time.

The second concerns x-rays. I came across a seller for bunches of x-rays, and bought a number. I am going to, essentially, be using x-rays to shrink wrap sculptures. After trying to figure out how on earth I might melt the film (microwave=explosion, oven=discoloration, fire=burning) I came to the sudden conclusion that a heat gun is the answer, and have thus purchased one. It should arrive in the next few days at which point I’ll need to do a google search for “flammability” and “plaster of paris.” You know, safety’s first and all of that.

Art makes me feel good about myself.. It’s sort of like being useful, but more interesting.

It’s hard to give the last word… I’ve gotten good at it, but I suppose I’m failing this time. I need to be away from him. I’m willing to leave the state to do it, and will as soon as I can… All I’m asking him is for the courtesy to quietly ignore me when it becomes necessary. With any luck the situation won’t come up again.



UCO was this weekend. The quarters curse resurfaces, but at least I was first speaker. I made myself sick by taking too many antihistamines (which my doctor prescribe to me as an anti-anxiolytic) and had to cough my way through the round today. The judging pool was supremely sketchy, but it’s all over and done now.



I’m feeling as if debate as a whole might be over and done with for me. I’ve just gotten to the point that I don’t enjoy it anymore. Why bother? I’m exhausted by all of its energies, and I’m not prepared to put even more into it.



I feel like I may be falling back into a little pit of depression. I suppose I should go see the doctor again, and perhaps get an anxiety medication that actually works. I’ve had too many panic attacks in recent days to feel alright about the world.



Looks like I’m going home for thanksgiving. What a surprise.. :-\ All well.



He’ll be here in just a few days, and that makes everything sounds so much better…