"Wait, you are staying the night? Don't you have to come home and...sew something?"
-Amalia, trying anything she possibly can to get Celisse to not stay the night

"I didn't lose my new friend because I mentioned church, luckily. We went to dinner last night. She's a doll. Like, literally she looks like a doll."
-Kelsea

I'm weighing the pros and cons of taking a semester off. Looking at a degree audit report makes it look so smart to go this semester and just get the whole thing over with within a year, but the things that I want to get done in the next few months have overturned the decision.
This is the first Spring of my life (since I was 5 years old) that I won't be in classes. It feels so freeing. A huge weight strapped to a balloon and floating away. I have my big plans, but I also want to do projects. (I just watched Julie and Julia last night). She had such a cool thing, doing all of Julia's French Cooking recipes in a year. I don't want to overtake something so monumental, but I do want to cook and go bike-riding and hiking, and go to the dentist actually, and work on art that I'm always thinking about, and maybe practice my Spanish, and read books for enjoyment (Or preparation. I need to reread Shakespeare, and I feel like I'm behind because I've never read Paradise Lost by Milton. And I'm definitely learning that The Odyssey is central to just about everything in English Literature...)

So here's to plans, starting now. Not the New Year. Although my heart feels good about the future, and walking into open space.

We took apart the car, piece by piece, starting with the smaller ones, and moving on to the larger ones as our muscles grew bigger. Pretty soon we had a yard full of parts, and we grew bored with each other, sipping coffee and pretending.She took careful scissors to the seams of us, until we were separate pieces as well, and had nothing to drive away from the scene, since our car was parts.We erased each other from the calendars in our phones, we smiled brief smiles.
We graduated to a bottle of wine, once the sun had gone down and we were below freezing. With glasses clinking, we froze to the steps, froze in statues, looking at each other, forced to look at each other. Didn't thaw til it got warm the next days, but our hearts were beating slow, so we put the car back together but it took us hours, with intermittent breaks for calls from our bosses, or to renew our books at the library, or checking the mail and such.
It was a larger thing than us, so we sighed a lot.
Communication of sighs to each other for several days until it hurt to keep going that way. Or hurt more than it had, already. She felt a need to sew us back together. Felt a need to say sorry, but only with her eyes, and even the eyes only spoke in Spanish. We linked fingers momentarily, unwilling to admit love or sacrifice. She turned the ignition, I adjusted the rear view mirror but the car didn't start. We had more time to sit and think about what we'd done wrong, and our used books wouldn't sell, and how we had stopped taking pictures a year ago, so we couldn't remember having fun.
You do what you have to.

you keep saying that

I am in the same place that I was a year ago, for the first time in my life.
I am at the same job, same school, have mostly the same friends and enemies.
It is a very strange thing, and I don't know how I feel about it. Usually I do something drastically different every year, and while I love having a routine, I am feeling tied down, like I need to get going.

I'm just nervous and it makes me turn off my radio when I drive so I can think more.

And all of the while, I was dreaming of Revelry.
Kings of Leon

I don't think I understood until this day
the pain
of finals.


I am so excited to say goodbye to Leopold and Molly Bloom. At least for a while.

"I don't really know what's going on, why are we yelling and clapping?"
"I don't know what's going on. I just can't turn down free enthusiasm."
-me, and then Keaton's response

unsatisfied

I'm just thinking about how shifty things are, and how God wants us to be unsatisfied with the world. To long for Heaven, and oh Lord I do.

I have no reason to complain.
I have no reason not to tie up combat boots tighter and say, "Hell yes, I am a soldier, and that's how I'll go down one day."
Through a season of trouble and desperation, I am applying fresh bandages and reloading my gun.

This is all going to burn, and I don't know why I fight for it. I don't know why I worry. It's time. Time to go.

"I looked my demons in the eye, laid bare my chest, said 'do your best, destroy me.' I've been to hell and back so many times, I must admit you kinda bore me."
Ray Lamontagne

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
T.S. Eliot

I just think this is really appropriate where I am.
Waiting, happily with my eyes shut.

In the Spirit of Starbuck's new consumerist slogan of "wish".

I wish that LOST was back.
I wish that there were no football.
I wish that MK would come find me and say, Yes I've always been in love with you, and when we stare at each other across the courtyard, it has made me write a masterpiece.
I wish for A's.
I wish for twelve dollars an hour.
I wish for no headache to keep living in me.

But in general, I am counting my blessings.
Such as the Lord, and how He provides. Such as dates. Such as Thanksgiving break. Such as not starving to death. Music. Health Insurance. Loving glances from girls in pea coats. A father who is a comrade. And brand new socks.

"Every time you blink, it looks like you are taking a nap."
-Emily



Sometimes there are surprisingly good ends to days that started out really awful.

"Yes and no, you have to choose, Romeo and Juliet: the hangman and the noose. You and me would go good together."
-Dave Matthews. Sometimes shared between me and a very good friend.

Ben Dory's dad was J.D.

He still is. He was like, uncle J.D. to me back then, though. He was really cool. My dad would make fun of him, because he had a ponytail. But they were the same age, and I think J.D. wore a leather jacket. But for sure I know he had a ponytail and rode a motorcycle. I remember him giving us rides on the motorcycle at probably midnight. Or it felt like midnight when you're five.
And once, he took Ben and I to his work with him, where he made robots, and one of them started moving towards us while he was in the bathroom and we fuhreaked out.

J.D.'s still married to Lisa, the feminist. Ben's mom. She would let her leg hair grow out and bleach it. Which seems like more work to me then shaving. But one time, she drank some coke on the beach, and a bee was in the coke can, and she got stung.

She cleaned both my mouth, and Ben's mouth out for saying Shut Up to the dog next door. She's a good mom.

I'm pretty nervous to ever leave my room.
9 days left of hell.

I woke up in a hospital, surrounded by men poking at my love-handles.

You are not supposed to believe though, in love-handles, if you work at a hospital. It's just fat. Just surrounding your waste.
Just providing warmth for the winter.
I let my arm fall over the side of the bed, hoping at any moment, they might raise the head-of-the-bed, so I could sit up. CAN'T MOVE. Hope they bring me a Sprite with a straw in it, hope they turn the channel on the TV to watch TLC. Need to know what not to wear.
He kneels next to the bed, one of the doctors, and they could all follow suit, but they watch to see how it plays out for him.
He asks me, respectively, on a date, on downtown to a restaurant I don't know about. So fancy. He is thinking in his mind, "She will be my lunch Ho." But doesn't say it out loud. Or maybe I am thinking the words lunch ho, because it sounds funny, even makes me laugh, even if that is not the phrase he is thinking for me. Scrunch my eyes. Maybe he is thinking girlfriend, by accident.
"I have so many boyfriends," I tell him, still thinking it'd be nice to be a lunch ho, and how long could I keep that up and still get my homework done for class each week.
He's weakened, but not deterred, because he has my chart in his hand. Could tell me anything, and I'd believe it because of dark framed glasses and Rolex watch. Could tell me brain cancer. Could tell me diabetes, which wouldn't be a big surprise.
But instead I stare out the window, thinking of Ben Dory. Racing for Teenage Mutant Ninja cereal bowls in the morning. Lucky charms mixed with cheerios. Forest Fire Fighter. First love. And the doctor coughs. Doctor Handsome I Read Books.
Doctor lock the door at night.
Doctor give me an answer.

But I am a naked hospital gown person. Can't promise anything before morning pancakes.
Can't
promise
squat.

"Sounds like a boring life."
"I hope it last forever," she said.
-Don Dellilo White Noise

college
14 days left of this semester

I walked into her tiny office, should I knock on the door? I stepped sorrily on papers and over books laying on the floor. She finally notices me and says oh yes come in, and I find that I don't have quite as much respect for professors who clean their offices.
"I can't be bothered to keep my office clean," she tells me raspily. I could listen to her voice all day. If I could just lay in bed eating pancakes, and have her read to me....well it would be magnificent to say the least.
But I snap back to where we are.
"I came to talk to you about my paper." I sit with my ankles crossed, like I am at an interview, and her blue eyes engulf me. Wildly, she gestures, articulates. She says what they all tell me: that I have clear writing and terrible ideas. But by the end of the procedure, without taking off my coat, I check something off the list.

[x] See a professor during office hours.

Something I've never done. And a huge responsibility slash weight is lifted off of me as I walk out the door and a man in a hat is congratulating her on the Phillie's winning last night.

I am slowly taking steps toward recovering who I used to be. Or who I thought I used to be. A strong girl who doesn't blanch and shut down.
Moments at a time.

Some days I realize that I am not in love with Kayleigh anymore, and that she was a serious figment of my imagination. But I find her footprints. I hear her echoes.
When my vision starts to get worse, I think about her.

I can't believe how long I've worked at Starbucks.

I start to wonder where my life is going. I'm too mean to these people, or too nice. I say the same things over and over. Will I say fake things for years?
Phony earth, grumpy people...

I miss seeing the vulnerable side of them. I want to get that back.

"If you (wear) a mustache you can come (to) Randal's bachelor party !!!!!"
-Nicholas D'Amico's poorly spelled text to me this morning.

I am having a very nice time on vacation. Once we got home from Illinois I basically started to live at the Mombergers' and watch Celisse make a wedding cake, and slept in for a really long time all the time. And worked out. And colored my hair. And started talking to an old friend, and went with Cel while she bought her wedding dress.

And I'm really happy.
I think it's also related to no school or work. But I'm really happy.

Lying on the floor, chewing a carrot into pulp, I realized, I am ready to turn over a new leaf.
Closure.
Like I finally feel like I can let myself try to figure out what it used to be like to be happy enough for me, and to walk around whole. Normal.

Its a good feeling.

I am usually not one of those people who can easily figure out which part is right and which part is wrong.

I meet Darrell, or Becka hours and hours before the sun comes up. They accidentally peel each finger down slowly counting, one, two, three, four.
And you sort of hope that by accident, by 50/50 chance, you will do something right. Open or shut mouth at the perfect time.
Take down notes
feed yourself lists
remember to set alarm clocks
and you pray, "God, who knows my name, how big thou art. How strong and sensible. How you know where I am and tomorrow, and the next day." And still you forget to take out contacts from your eyes at night.


But then. There is the small glimmering mile by mile.
i-80
highway leading back to joy, to sorrow, to the only real.

In my mind I see the stretches, and for sure, I will do the only thing I possibly know is right.
Get back in a van.
Go back to Iowa. To Illinois. And fall deep into the arms of someone who needs to never let you go.

"And high above,
Through a lit apartment window
Appear the ceilings and moldings,
The corner of a frame
Hung high on the wall
By someone you'll never meet

And you start to miss her too"
-Dave Smallen



I am nowhere, and my bones are melting into a person who used to be more surviveable.
I am in between walls and walls.

I miss the way you'd sigh yourself to sleep

Maybe its corny to admit that the death of a loved one brings you closer to God. Or not corny. But something like that.
But it's kind of true.

Of course I think of predestination. Everyone around me talks about it constantly. But I just settle myself out to think, "Rachel, whatever happens, God already knew it was going to happen, and people did pick it for themselves."
What the heck am I saying.
I think that all this happened at the right time, and for the right reasons, as screwed up as it is.
My grandmother died after I'd been in school for just two weeks. I drove 40 sleepless hours in 5 days. I became ill. I just happened to be taking a course that the main text happens to be the Bible, but taught by a Jew. A smart Jew who knows Hebrew and can chant Song of Songs by heart. She is crazy and wonderful, even though I don't agree with half of what she says. But this class has taught me to appreciate the Old testament.
And
what
I see
is
a God who was desperately in love with a people
(for thousands of years)
that constantly turned their back on him
in the height of his love and abundance for them.
An adulterous nation wearing Prada, sleeping with Chuck Bass, and texting on an iPhone.
And he loved them so painfully that he sent a son to die for their sloppy pitiful excuse of a thing called Loyalty.
And they turned their head and pretended like it wasn't all over CNN and in the New York Times and on Google news.
Gritting their teeth, they rejected a Messiah, long awaited.

Or what I'm trying to think is that the Old Testament means more to me now. And this strange predestination season has a lot of cold dark roads left, but
I've got chicken noodle soup and
crisp thunder storms.

It's fun to close every once in a while, because I usually get to work with this lady Channin. (said Shannon) She is probably in her early 40's, and is really cute because she is sassy.
She uses Starbucks as her screening process for whether a guy is dateable or not. All these guys who usually look the same as the last one, come in and she suddenly says, "Girls," to me and Kelsey G. "I am going on my break." And then she disappears. The funny thing is that there are like 6 or 8 of them. I don't know how she meets so many dudes, but it is kind of hilarious how our store has become a revolving door bringing in many middle aged guys at like 7 or 7:30 at night. I like it.

Originally uploaded by thethingis99

"Nathaniel, you know there are three things I love in life.
Money,
the pleasures that money affords me,
and you."

-Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl (yes I watch that show, whoops.)

There on the other side of the court yard was him. And for 45 seconds, I pretended not to notice, but suddenly, I am standing in front of him acutely aware of yes how good I look in neon and the way his tattoos stood out brightly in the shade. I had an italian hoagie ($2.95, and a cup of coffee $1.56) and I look down at where he is sitting and say, "Hello, how are you." And he says to me, "Rachel, I can see your headache hasn't gone away, and it probably never will," and I smile because he just knows me so well, but I don't have time to spend the rest of my life with him, as he is pushing up his glasses on his nose. "I have to get to Biblical Poetry and its legacy," I say, holding the king james plus apocrypha. "But later on," and I nod, and he nods.
Sometimes it is easier to have love if the leaves would fall off the tree so I could wear a hoodie.

A moment happened today, which was just like all the moments when I first sold my soul to Starbucks 14 months ago.
I had too much coffee.

Sometimes this is what it takes to survive, but sometimes it is just a drug thing, or an alcohol thing where you say, "I need to feel different in a moment than I do right now," whether or not this gives you chest pains.

Anyway, I was standing at the drive thru for a moment, waiting for the next car, when all tbe sudden it pulls up and I think to myself, that woman has ugly hair. And then I start screaming, because that is not a woman that I am seeing out the window. It is an ugly dog driving the car! And woman-dog is barking at me. So I do another short scream before the woman pulls fully to the window, and I see that is not a dog-woman, that is a woman with Dog on her lap. And I take a step back and scream again.

Well it is at least the hardest I've laughed since Audrey told me the story of peeing on the carpet when she got a puppy.

"One of my favorite things in the world is when I ask somebody if they're hungry, and they are, and I am too."
-Celisse


Today I met Shannon and Tony's beautiful little boy. He looks just like Tony. And they look tired. Celisse and I brought them Este Pizza and smiled a lot and it was mostly like regular hanging out, except there is a baby now, and we were in the hospital. I've never watched anyone pregnant like I have with Shannon, start to finish, so it was pretty great to hold the little guy in my arms and think about how two days ago at Ikea, I put my hand on her belly and felt him kicking at it from the other side of her skin. I can see him running around, future Leonardo. It gives me a little hope in a very unhopeful week.

Things are breakable. And cherishable. And I need to remember my memories.

"I wonder how many smiles I've smiled in my whole life."
-Nick D'Amico

One day we'll wake up the standard. No clicks or malfunctions or sugary drinks. It would be something like the old days but unhindered by tired rubbing of our eyes, and unwritten in Latin.

I don't really know any extra stuff. About anything, or at least what comes to mind. I don't know anything extra about my job, besides what the other people already know, who have been working the same time as me.
It was the same at the bank. I didn't know the extra stuff, unless you were the new guy, then of course I knew more than you. Or the hospital, I really didn't know any extra stuff, unless you were that new girl with freckles and red hair. Then I knew a couple things. She could follow me around and I could teach her a couple things, even though I knew I was quitting shortly, and hadn't told anyone. That is why they let me be a teacher, I guess. But really besides the usual stuff, I wanted to grab that poor little girl by the shoulders and say, "If a man has a blood pressure of 78/45, that is when it is time to tell the nurse. Never forget this, even if you are babysitting and watching Moulin Rouge at 3 in the morning. Go tell the nurse." And this is the part when I would have leaned in closer to tell her, "Don't trust or like Angela. If you hit your head on a TV, she won't even care. Even if you're bleeding." And she would have looked me in the eyes and said, "I have never met an Angela that I liked, yet."

But besides that I never learned extra stuff about how girls do their hair, or what parts of the country are really nice to see, or how to poach an egg the right way. I don't even usually look up my favorite bands to see what they do in their free time, or where they were born and who they are dating. But I hope, when it's all said and done that I know a tiny bit about everything. Like, enough.

"Kaleb, you said you left? And here you are! Are you lying? Are you a liar?"
"Are your pants on fire?"
"Do your parents know about this?"

I have moments, usually near the pastry case, where I forget that I am at work, and I just think that I am always at Starbucks. That I just exist at Starbucks for long periods of time during my week, and for this, money shows up in my bank under my name.

Sometimes it just gets to the point in the day where you say, oh darn it. I've had too much drugs, and where did my arms go?
And then there is a moment where you get a lot of product in your hair, and it looks like you have cut it in the last six months, and you want all your friends to see, but it's gone in five minutes. It was just a dream.
And if you are a happy or nice person where you work, sometimes these people will come back to you. Days on, and you don't know who they are but they are vaguely familiar. A wife will say to her husband, staring, do you know this girl? And he says, "why yes I come through the drive through on Tuesdays and she serves me coffee." And you don't even know that you are part of someone else's schedule, accidentally. Today even, a mediocre woman says to me, "Are you the one who answered the box? My daughter wants you to be her mother. She says she thinks you have a very nice voice and that you would let her get away with things." But either way, when you do all these things by accident, it leads to better tips which is why I'm still here.

I forgot Jessie's laugh. How she sounds a little like Bart from the Simpsons. She came into our store today, and it made me miss a multitude of things, but I miss her silly laugh.

And my questions left over from today are,
where do you go when you are unconscious? It is not sleep, for sure. And it is not dead either. So where is it?

And if you had to die at a store, which one would you pick.

This is how I know, that the twelve year old boy Noah, who lives in my house, is actually my brother and not a baby my parents found in the mountains being raised by wolves.

He comes home from an orthodontist appointment at 8:45am and says to my sisters, let's make mac 'n cheese. And they are saying, Noah, it is nine o clock in the morning, but I almost say, if you make some mac 'n cheese I will eat it.

That, and the fact that I was around when he was born.

This man, today. Well, he hands me his credit card after telling me to write the name "Bob" on his cup. He is maybe 27 or 28 years old, and suddenly I am having a flashback as I run my fingers over the embossed named "Robert" on the plastic card.
I forgot about Bob, and how I sorta thought I loved him.
I forgot about my feelings.
That one day, we showed up on a Sunday, and I'd almost died in the snow on the way to the bank, and there he was, wearing a hoodie, and I'd never seen him wear normal clothes. He was mysterious and secretive, and seeing him wearing normal clothes made me realize all the parts of his life he wasn't telling me from 2:30 to 6:15 each day.

Another day when Tanya insisted to Bob, that he take me as his date to her wedding, and then when I ran to the bathroom instead of letting him ask me to dance.
It was always the wrong timing for me and Bob.

But I think the major reason of our failed romance was that I don't think I will ever like Family Guy.

who led you to this hiding place?

I am standing in so many places, to try to tell you hello.
The things that are already in close proximity to you, become more valuable and your moments with them become less, so that you clutch them so tightly. Your fingernails puncture your palms.

What I mean is, I have been having these moment where I don't feel how hard my heart is beating, I forget breathing, and I am simply alive and in love.

Going to see Neko Case with my dad and family was incredible. Neko is always a good idea. And I get to be back with more family in the green and voluptuous midwest America. I am running, and running farther, and cherishing more.

Also, there is how good God is. How he is love, and we will never understand. How he picks us though we do not pick him. How he holds us and contends for us, and just wants to hear us say hi now and then. And how my arms ache for Him.
I cannot say all the things I mean to say about the trinity, and how warm it is with Him.

the worst limitations on earth

that I will never get to be Russian. Or Jewish. I will never get to live on a small vineyard, and smell the rusty cellar. That I can't go back to being 5 years old, and how magical Barbie commercials were back then.
That I will never get to be a man and marry that cute asian girl that works at Matt's Starbucks. That I won't get to spend a day with Jenny Lewis and make jokes with her. That I won't ever be in the 1800's England, wear those long dresses and meet Mr. Darcy at a ball. (well I met him in a ballroom, but I can't go back there either, it's too long and too late) I won't ever speak French in Morocco or even chop down Amazon overgrowth with a machete.

But I somehow think that heaven will make up for this. That the experience of being with God forever is going to bypass the simple things I will never click out in this life. And I also guess that is why we read.
And then the other thing, is that no girl will ever live exactly in my mind. She won't wake up with 2 hours of sleep and argue with Darrell every morning. She won't shake her hands out cuz they hurt playing my bass. She won't listen to everything on my iPod, I don't think. Sometimes I meet her, close to me, and she is something close to what being in love is, to me.
But she disappears to St. George, or to the arms of a lover.
She disappears to fight global warming.
She smirks, and we are the same but live differently.


What it is, is this: its okay to keep meeting different people who are really the same, and really you, and really lovely.

I worked 11 days in a row without a break, and now, I am sitting here with nothing interesting to say.

I'm starting to think I have carpal tunnel syndrome. I wake up in the night, but my arms are still sleeping.

I am drinking possibly 2 or 3 Passion Tea Lemonades a day.

Celisse and I have exhausted the Redbox, and my arms are tan.

We met often, but never in anything but midnight. And by midnight I mean, it was in the dark.
"Barbara," he says to me. "I do not think you would ever love me if you could see my haircut in the light of day."
But I said, "Kiss me," and I ran my hands through the supposedly uneven hair on top of his head. We would spend the nights doing anything. Once, we sawed open the watermelons in my neighbor's yard. We scarfed them.
One night, we sat on my back porch and smoked 4 packs of cigarettes between us, for a new record. To be honest, I didn't smoke even all of that, but still I loved him.
And even another, we took the dogs for a run, 2 miles in the dark until we lay down in a field of mulch. When I tried to pick up a cactus, he didn't even say anything, and I had serious pain for a day or two.
But that was when I ran into him at the grocery store. I didn't know it was him, but he says to me, "Baby!"
And I looked at him curiously, and he comes up to me close and says low, "Honey, I mean I knew what you looked like. I saw pictures one time."
And here is what I said, I said, "Sid? That is you?" Because, for one, I recognized his voice, although the man in front of me looked like he had seen less better days than a meat grinder and his hair cut. Really. It was as atrocious as he had made it out to be.
So I took a moment to wonder. Does true love come that often? Fanatic love? The kind that makes you run wild in the night and cut down all the tulips in front of city hall when even though there is the Police Station right there? And I said to myself, hell no it does not come that often.
But it was too late because my face had scrunched up into wrinkles that the Botox can't undo, and he sees it with his eyes. Nope, this is not going to work even what with the running wild in the night.
"Sid, what you said. About the haircut," I shrug, clutching my grocery cart even closer as an ocean of bright commercialism in between us.
"I always told you, Barb. And you shoulda called it off months ago," meat-grinder-face walks away slowly from me.
"But Sid," I say to him. "I will always remember the tulips," I giggle. "And breaking into the prosthetics warehouse."
A little smile breaks out into that huge red face of his, and he sighs. But you just don't know til you know.

This is your appropriate and courteous reminder that we're bringing a truckload of something (undiscloseable in this letter) and we need you to fill out the appropriate forms and don't even think about wearing the brown shoes or showing up without the appropriate compensation. You can expect us June 5th, at approximately 4pm, give or take what the traffic lights are doing for us at that time of day. Something unnecessary, but duly appreciated by our truckers is a six pack of literally anything. But that's maybe just if you want to put a smile on their faces. We do not expect to be tipped.

Respectfully yours,

CRSJ INC.

Rachel has a gym membership
Part II
with special guest Celisse Hamburglar

Redbox rentals, cut to commercial break
sleeping in, and recording studio and house church
and basically - commercial break - having a night that makes me remember that everyday is the best day of my life.
Glamor. Semi-charmed kinda life.
But it's the same as it was two weeks ago. I just got happy.

I sat down in the chair, and my neck broke. But I didn't know it was broken until several hours later. If I was ever a kid, I did it in secret.
But this is for the girl that showed up alone to the party.
And this is for that old Native American living alone across America in the oldest bus stations. I see you both hold up your ends of the bargain. Got your distant-photograph-face.
And it tastes like a treadmill.
Continuing walking through weed clouds. Of holding--shoulder jerk and broken arms--the front door open to say goodnight in rainier neighborhoods of I bet you didn't think about lifelessness.
Paint darker pigment into Margaret.

An amazing thing is just feeling good everyday. Or most days.
Not being sick.
Not having a headache.
It was a thing I couldn't remember, and now it is back.

2 days left of school.
Everything is beautiful.

Centrifuge Braking...

I feel like I am just barely getting over a very long weekend (Oh Tuesday I never loved you more) and considering what I have learned after such a huge quantity of Family Time, going to Southern Utah for a day, commercialized Holy Days, and sleeping in forts for more than 3 or 4 nights.

A) In the part of America that I live in, french fries are within walking distance almost always.

B) It is very creepy that Macintosh computers tell you what time it is without warning, and without you asking them. Almost always when you are completely alone, that seemingly innocent Macbook over there (it looks like it's asleep) will suddenly whisper "It's 11 o'clock." And then you scream.

C) I love Jesus, but I hate "Holidays." I'm tired of hype, and really just jealous of everyone else who gets the days off when I have to work.

D) That when I always think I want to move away and start all over, this is completely ridiculous. As homesick as I already am, it would get even worse moving away. I am so grumpy without my friends.

I'm tired from learning. I think I'm going to bed at 7.

You could be thinking "I have my doubts about you," and he could be thinking, "I wonder what's for lunch," but at the end of the day it's still a successful performative when you say "I do."

-My Critical Theory teacher, on successful performatives, and whether or not it matters if you mean what you say (when you're getting married)

"Hey. I was raised by men.



And my mom."

-Audrey

Cute spoon from the Pho restaurant we always go to. It makes me hungry just looking at the picture.

"From time to time I show up in myself just long enough for people to know they are not in the room alone. Usually, these are people who expect something from me--a near future, a not-too-distant future. What I tell them is limited to the people I have already had myself married against. Everything I say is to the best of my knowledge and next to nothing. It comes nowhere close."

-Gary Lutz, Stories in the Worst Way

How Tracy Jordan is affecting my life.

Gertrude. Norma. Maude. Beatrice. Bernice. Judy.

I'm bored from six days of drive through so I just go through names. Only one guy called me on it.
"Welcome to Starbucks, my name is--Maude. What can I get for you?"
"Your name's not Maude."
"Why not?"
"That's too old. And you laughed."
"Yep."
"You should do stripper names next."

So I did that for a little while too. Next time I think I'll go through all the characters on Lost.
This is what I have amounted to.

thought I was layin' in my garden with my fists deep in soil, but I was stranded on an island, shooting flares at your boat

Sometimes I am driving home, and I think, "Oh I should get coffee in the morning on my way to work."

And then I realize that I work at Starbucks.

"Those trailers depreciate so quickly though, like cars."
"Well you know what Tony, they would still appreciate you."
-Bryan

"Maybe when my hair grows long, I will buy a motorcycle."
"Maybe when your hair is longer you'll realize that we have a son together and stop denying him."
"If I ever stop denying him, I'll become an alcoholic."
"Well if you keep pursuing your dream of being on vh1's Divas Live then of course you'll end up an alcoholic. Stop kidding yourself and grow up already."

-a typical text message conversation with Celisse

I am still dreaming about that Saturday somewhere in the future that I get to sleep in. I am exhausted. I am guilty about stuff, but my hands are clean.

Cords and cables. Pumping cold blood back into my arm.

There are doors.


"Ma'am how was your day? Keep your eyes on my face. I want to help you, if you let me."
cold war kids

On the second thought.

Probably like, two months ago I told all my coworkers that I was going to marry a big fat man who didn't care if I was fat. And then I pursued eating every donut and cinnamon roll in our store that I could get my hands on. I filled cups full of signature hot chocolate and whip cream and let it go up my nose until I felt completely happy.

Two days later when it went straight to my love handles, I called upon Mia St. John and the Skinny Bitches. They helped me get straightened out, and I felt so much better.

And now I am in a place of confusion whether I want to eat an entire chocolate cake by myself, or if I want to run for 3 hours a day until I am high off the seratonin and ibuprofen.

These decisions end up making me take a nap.

Best day ever.

Well not really. But its a really wonderful day and I feel obnoxiously happy and thankful.
I missed the first train this morning, but then it was fine. I got on the next one and played Lego Star Wars for half an hour. I made it to my first class on time, miraculously. Somehow I got all the copies of my story (by the way I wrote a story, and it actually has a happy ending!) made in time to just sit and eat with Kristyn. I even got my school i.d. from the lost and found, so I don't have to pay $20 for a new one. I turned in everything on time, and my teacher ended class talking about Lost.
I got a cup of coffee at my store, and workshopped some papers.

I think you could beat me with a stick, and I would just laugh. I'm deliriously happy for no other reason than that Jesus is good.

what I want
Is to sleep in on a Saturday,
eat steaming hot waffles with so much butter that I could hear my arteries clog themselves up, drink Ethiopian Sun dried Sidamo black at the perfect temperature, read my Bible, and then go back to bed.

I believe in this vision. I just believe its a few more months away.

I was really ready to remember a better you that spoke French, even if I take the bus. Even when I fall asleep with my arm on the thermostat, even when I was crying about the older sentences we'd found so amusing, I mean not crying actually. laughing.

They'd take my arms off first and give them to a girl who wanted to hold her child.
They'd take my legs off next and make some girl walk more miles than before she'd been attacked by a shark.
And then I'd feel really sorry. I'd write them letters and say, I'm sorry you'll get bruises now; never figured that one out. One'd write back and say, "I found the burn on your right arm, where you dropped a pan of hot water. The other'd write back and say, "You have flat feet, but some good shape otherwise."
But that would be the end of it, a farewell to limbs.

And then I'd wake up in a Tim Burton movie, or else South Dakota and make a lot more spelling errors than I use to. Better sentences, more amusing.
I'd put Z's where S's go, like I was British.
I wouldn't eavesdrop or drink lattes.
You wouldn't either.
I'd put a note on my calendar when you're coming back, but forget because I'd drop my phone in a boiling river by accident.
It's okay, for a Wednesday though.

tracing the lines in my face for something more beautiful than is there

I like second-hand smoking best. I was standing behind this kid, in front of the door as he was smoking it down to the end, and it smelled rich. Not like the smoke left in your clothes or car. It was smoking and still smelling. Hopefully second-hand smoking won't give me blood clots...
Anyways.
It's Spring today, and I'm thinking about the farm. Dying for the farm. But I'm enjoying life. I'm enjoying sunshine.
Not upset about losing my Train pass, or about guys asking me out, or about my teacher going long, or about all the things that are coming apart at the seams.

Because things are lovely. (I think it's been the 10 hour nights I've been sleeping, and reading the Bible before the sun comes out.)

"Hail to whatever you found in the sunlight that surrounds you. Pretend all the good things are for you. Pretend all the good things are for me too. The weather changes not halfway between your house and mine."
-Rilo Kiley

things you can tell just by looking at her

That she'll easily break my heart.
That the hair in her face is hiding a child I've known all my life, but just met a few months ago.
That she could run my fingers over the scars on her arm until I didn't know who I was or she was.
That she is beautiful and needs to be held tightly til she's not crazy anymore.

And the part that hurts the most is that I can't express to her how Jesus wants her, and wants to make right with God for her. How the nights have hope when to live is Christ.
I'm scared about the explosion.

Ma'am how was your day? Keep your eyes on my face.

Sometimes, it ends up that the sugar in your bloodstream makes that guy look a little familiar.
You think you should explain, "I'm sorry, you look so much like someone I know."
And he is staring at you, thinking, "You are a crazy wacko: hand me my drinks and let me go."
And you think, "No, I brushed my hair today. And if I lean out the window, will you take me in your arms and love me better than he did? Since you look like him, can you just love me a little bit better?"
But you hand him his drinks and don't say anything.
You stop drinking so much coffee, and grow a little older.

"I mean if you smell your hands, they smell like 'hands'...at best."
-Matt Kilpatrick

it's a little like chasing Charles. Only now, a year and a half later, I'm hitting all the red lights--you don't call, you don't write-- and I can hear him singing next to me and I smile because, you are letting your guard down aren't you? Its my arm out the window.
We'd stare and stare, Charlie, and I'm going to come looking for you in Arizona or whatever. If you're going to be there, or Colorado. That's fine too. Grow up cynical on East side or West side, Charlie. Free burritos.
Erase all unread.
Erase meeting men too suddenly.
Erase first dates if he doesn't believe in God.
But keep your iPod close and look at me across parking lot libraries.

It could have been good, Charles.

Uh, I am suddenly in love with tennis. Its all I can think about. I'm finally back into working out outside. I am done with Mia St. John, and the Skinny Bitches (yes, they are really out there, and they are a great workout). And my fingers turn purple and I can visualize my lungs filling up with ice. But it's very spring for February.
God is so good.
So good.

The summer I graduated, Danny came back from the war. I remember driving around Peoria with him and Jackie, singing "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" and feeling the immediate shame.
We were driving to Home Depot.
We got there, and he was sitting on a glider, staring off. Jackie was saying something, there were birds flying around the ceiling, trapped in the warehouse. All I could do was look at him and wonder where he was.
We knew that he had changed. We could feel it. It was like walking on eggshells, and pretending that none of us had felt the terror of gunfire and roadside bombs.
But my grandfather and I sat next to each other at a bonfire one night, and he held my hand because I was weeping. He started to weep with me, even though we were broken in two different ways.
He wept for Dan and how you can't come back with the same innocence. I wept because I felt I was shell of a person, and that you weren't supposed to go into the beginning of real life feeling like you were hollow inside.

We've since been healed, the three of us in different ways, although my grandfather is blind now, and my heart doesn't beat the same way because of what the last three years have done to it. But I think what I mean is that I miss the Midwest.
The holiness of empty fields and eternal sunshine.
The roots you put down one time, and seeing that they still give you a foundation later on.
The only place you ever found unconditional love.

Yeah, the first time you met Jesus.

"It's always a good story if it has tamales. Its just true that everyone likes tamales."
-Matt Kilpatrick

what we need is just what we want

It wasn't that I didn't like Jeff. I just take a really long time to warm up to very outspoken people who try too hard to get me to like them the first hour I know them. So he automatically thought I hated him.
"Can you remember a day in your life that you were nice to me, Rachel," he says to me one day. I pause for a very long time because I am vacuuming coffee grinds. I close my eyes and grit my teeth. Finally I just go along with it.
"No, not a specific day, Jeff."
"Funny, neither can I."
"I don't hate you Jeff. You don't understand me or my humor."
He made me a nice mix tape for Christmas anyway. It had a Vampire Weekend song I'd never heard, a Ryan Adams song and a Pinback song that make me cry, a good Cat Powers jam, a Spoon favorite remixed...and so on. It took me a while to think that maybe I should be nice to him. The Stars song was what did it.
So one day I started a conversation with him about the music that was playing at Starby's. We were talking about the band's last album and how it'd been a while since they'd come out with something.
"It was the end of 2006," I told him.
"Yeah, you're right. It was like, October. Because that was when she told me she didn't love me anymore, and I was foolish to think she'd get excited about me telling her about that album." But the way he said it wasn't like how most sappy guys are trying to go for pity. It was matter of fact. I respected him for that, because I realized he was a deeply sad person, but never shows this. Its always about the dumb jokes. He doesn't open up. I like that.
"Yeah, I remember stuff like that by the relationships too," I admitted to him.

And we still piss each other off. But we kinda don't try to kill each other anymore.

some things I know.

I know its hard to find things in your truck when the overhead light doesn't work for several years. I know that somehow your skin adapts to 20 degree weather, and that the bus driver doesn't remember your face no matter how many times you thank him, with snow in your hair. I know that for some reason old scars do go away after a while, and that this is a blessing. I know that coffee ruins and saves lives. I know that the neater the piles, the more pieces of myself I can find laying around my house, and stuff in my bag to sort out later. I know how to work the washing machine. I know about the other girls the rock star is writing, in the other towns. I know to floss now. I know which things to keep secret in the freezing car, and which ones to admit to. I know I miss medicine, and the race, and purpose.

I don't answer the phone if I do not know who's calling, but I guess the whole point is that we never know really.

no taste for you left, even if my hair grows long.
if that carpet was vacuumed up and the cell phones were charged
We're clean
unhappy
carbonated
and can't find out all the secrets.

Little girl on the bus: "I'm gonna throw snow at my daddy. Like, roll it in a ball and say, "whoops!"
Her brother: "Can I throw snow at my daddy too?"
Their mom: "You can put some in the freezer and save it for when he comes back from California."

I spent a lot of time on Mass Transit today. And went to the mall with my backpack on, which is awkward, especially at a store like Urban, or Lolabella. "Hi, I'm just a crazy weirdo with a backpack on. No I'm not stuffing clothes in it. I'm just a student. Sorry."

Done with:
-5 weeks of school
-1/2 of my total papers due in critical theory
-cafe rio (never again)

eventually our mouths will just turn to dust

I know when I get to heaven, I will be stoked about a mansion and stuff like that, like not having headaches, and hanging out with my friends and peace.
But really what I want, is to just read through stacks and stacks
of
reports.

Rachel , welcome to Heaven. Yep. You died at age 63 of complications of cancer. The good news is you're in heaven now, and we just thought you should know that you:
listened to Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis 18234 times
over the course of your life you used 32424000 rolls of toilet paper
you ate 792 bowls of pho
you went through 46 bottles of shampoo (it would have been more but remember when you were working on dreadlocks?)
845 bowls of mac and cheese
you saved 1200 gallons of gas by taking the bus and riding your bike
You got 1750 bruises, but only 24 were bigger than a baseball
you ate 3 rocks and 2 starfish that were as hard as a rock, and swallowed 9 spiders because you slept in the basement.
Yours truly,
The counters


It would be something cool like that, but more color coordinated.

For some reason, I told Amalia my entire love-life this afternoon before leaving Celisse's house. She gave some very sound advice in her Spanish accent for 20 minutes, and then I laughed and went to the Dentist.
I worshipped God with Jason Mraz the whole way there, but Mraz doesn't know this. With an entirely numb face and a generally optimistic outlook towards mankind I set off into the world.
I'm feeling pretty good from diet and exercise. I haven't smoked in ages, and God walks with me where I go. Despite all of my friends getting pregnant or married and settling down all around me, I feel like the majority of us are on the verge of something life changing (as if those things aren't life changing). Like a balloon ride above the pollution here, only more hardcore. Like where we are going to go.
Perhaps because LOST is back on.

In the beginning of January I was smacking my head in my hands thinking how many steps backward I had taken since the January prior. I felt burnt out, tired of "church", and ready to join the army, or something equally brash. But as quickly as it's gone, the first month of this year has made me realize that despite losing a lot of the amazing things that were keeping me going a year ago, I am always growing, God is always teaching me new things, and that if your friends are any good in the first place, then they are easy to graft back into, whether you chopped off your branches, or they helped you out with it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, that after learning a lot about self-discipline from John McArthur, from quitting coffee, from working out and going to bed early, from sleepovers with Celisse, and after packing away Christmas and the other depths of winter, my heart is finally ready to heal over, and begin again. To be best friends with Jesus first, to have new plans of hope, to have new destinations.
And starting this adventure alone doesn't bother me, but leaves me young and gutsy and free.

Yes, I'm slaying dragons every morning without coffee.

Murder me Rachael, I've made a mistake

My Writing teacher has a tattoo sleeve that he keeps barely hidden, he casually mentioned that he eats pho (by accident), and he's a grad student who drinks water almost as nervously as I do.
I think I have a crush on him.

In other news, I really have been feeling blessed by a few things

-I don't even carry pills around with me when I leave my home for days because I haven't been having headaches
-sleeping at the Momberger's; always. Its wonderful not waking up to a house full of dogs, and Celisse is pretty great too. Ha ha.
-being free: I hardly ever worry anymore about doctor appointments, homework assignments, working 40 hours, money, men, anemia, going to church, band practice. It's like I hit the easy button.

It could be because I've been listening to rap from Jeff the Vegan.

I've been wrestling.

I don't know what I'm up against but I keep fighting and it feels amazing. I throw punches and someone is smiling.
I sat in the dark last night because there was a huge power out. Lit candles and tried to fall asleep without white noise, thinking about what my life is going to be like when its over, and it just looks white, like the end of a book. Like snowfall. When you end up turning the next page and there's nothing?

I run. I run for me, and someone else out there I don't know yet; I keep running. And I am flawed if I'm not free.


"I could follow you into the rubble, or stay right here and save myself some trouble."
-Aimee Mann

My eyes and lungs hurt from the very short time I've spent outside today, waiting for the bus in the pollution.
It wears me out.
And so do annoying English majors.


But God is pretty cool, and I have faith that it has to rain or snow sometime. If it doesn't I'll probably hop a flight to anywhere.

I thought Kayleigh died, but it turned out she just broke her phone, and she's been right here, the whole time, playing Halo with her boyfriend.
I woke up to a text from her, "Rachel rachel rachel rachel, hi hi hi hi hi hi how are you?"
So it turns out that she is even more than alive. She is shooting aliens or something, and she picked one of the six guys, and finally settled down. It made me smile in a fog of alarms as I was waking, to know that she is back from Dixie and that she didn't fall down a mountain, which has happened to at least one person I love very much.

I was trying to decide if it really was worth taking the bus over the train, and I just don't have any answers yet.
I was galloping out to my truck in the warm night air (Well, it's practically summer by now, here, of late) with a flash light, happy to collide with any massive objects made out of metal and collecting pieces of my day to play over again after chicken, polenta, and salad with basalmic vinaigrette, and I just thought,
"Why not?" smile and think of old text messages when you were happy a hundred years ago, or maybe 2008. "Why not be completely, utterly, and divinely happy, despite it being the season of despair?" You can still vacuum the carpet and hear happy accordion music whether or not Darrell hates it. You can even like Ed Hardy, whether or not Darrell hates it.

And I did buy 4 pens today, which is probably why I'm in such a good mood.

"When you're little you think that you'll never catch on fire, but it's really surprising that so many people actually do."
-Celisse, on the Stop, Drop, and Roll method

Dear Kayleigh,
where are you? I am really starting to worry. Every time I see snowboarders or girls with their hair braided down the side of their heads, I think, "where is my Kayleigh?" and you are nowhere to be found in this moment of now.

Please tell me that you are not in an avalanche.
Goodbye,

Rache