MAS11

Tue, 12 May 2009 18:22:59 GMT

The trees and river and all the midwest things are beginning to look familiar but it isnt those things that have my mind now. Right now i'm thinking about what's wrong with me and i'm calm as i've been in a while... rather i'm feeling calmer by the day and the weather helps things. a lot. cary upset me a little. he said he would call me today but he didn't and i could have waited but i couldn't... so i couldn't have waited i should have said. it would bother me all night and what was i waiting for? he would have called me, he said he would. not til night and he was alone but he would have. and still will. he'll call me back. but when i talk to him when his friends or a friend is around he acts as if he hardly knows me. he said 'are you still in indianapolis?' Of course i am.
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I don't know when that post was from. Time has become so different in the past years - i am so aware of it and then so unaware of it. And life slows down and speeds up unpredictably.
I have been waiting all day for my grandma to call. That's not true. I used it as an excuse to not go outside where it is just a little too cool to be totally comfortable. I am lonely today. I have been working double shifts and feeling overworked but less lonely to be around the same people day after day. Suddenly it's a day off and there were so many things i meant to do but all my energy crashed. I don't know why it's come to this again. All i want is to get where i want to go; but I'm so afraid of not getting there that it paralyzes me from doing the things i need to do to get there. My heart is acting strange, it is beating fast and then slow. I am tired but i shouldn't be tired. Things are becoming emotional when they shouldn't. I too have to deal with a family that turned out to be something that it is not. Nothing is what you think it is, there are layers to everything and everyone is more than you could possibly understand, especially as a child. Don't get angry at people for being more complicated than you can understand. We all have to deal with this same life and we all want to feel safe and loved, but to be needed is a hard thing. How can we be the thing you want us to be?
I am just talking right now because i've been thinking too hard all day, letting things get to me too much, just lying still so the thoughts can come, trying not to panic with the thought, i should do. Do something. Because there were several things i meant to do but i'm just letting the hours pass. It's lonely. I miss mom too, but when she's there again, it's too much. I don't know. I just don't know. No one will cure u, only time. Indecisiveness has been what's obstructing me, i don't know why i can't decide things. There are too many things to decide and how do you know until you get there. i'm going on a walk what i've been wanting to do all day and havent done.
i think it has to do with having no one in my boat. I have NO one with me in the same position who wants the same things. Even the people i work with who are about my age, most of them are married or practically married or just really different than me -- happy to be here, wanting to go nowhere else. Maybe i should go back to New York.

dumbing

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:04:35 GMT

I was so much smarter then.
It is Friday night and I don't have to wake at 545am as I have been this week to leave from Tom's to get to work by 8. Waking that early is a killer for me. Now I'm just lying in bed (meaning my couch cushions in Tom's office) and rereading some of the stuff i wrote last year when i was in france and knowing i don't have to go to sleep for any other reason than total exhaustion. I'm re-reading these entries and thinking how much smarter i was... how totally naive and how totally much smarter. In my naivity i knew what was right and wrong by instinct whereas here, i'm acting like a stupid cliche american girl lying to myself to convince myself I'm getting what i want instead of just toughening up and GETTING it.
In the beginning there's some thing about dating, and how my worst fear was to get into a relationship i don't want. So i was debating whether to go out and meet people (date... duh) or avoid that because i knew i didn't want to get 'stuck' in a relationship. How cute that I thought that was the worst that could happen. That the second I weakened my guard i'd be in bed with some guy and instantly be his girlfriend. Yeah... if only that was the worst. Lately the worst has been the complete opposite - ending up in bed with someone and thinking that you're in a relationship and then realizing that he doesn't think so at all. Whatever universal rules I used to think were just natural, common sense, intuition - that when it feels like you're with someone you're with them... they don't exist. At least not lately. My attitude has changed i've become only slightly less naive and a hell of a lot stupider.
Anyway, I'm leaving New York. I came for the wrong reasons. I came because my sister asked me to. Not because I wanted to. I just didn't know where else to go. Now i guess its indiana. I have a plan. I know what I'm doing and I'm back in charge of my life. Yeah, i'm going to INDIANA. Where there are cows and fields rather than hooka bars and blues clubs. School. If i end up not getting in for the fall term, at least I'll be in a place where I can just jump and I'll fly. Where I'm not walking across a water bed and trying to jump but never leaving the ground and then falling instead. I'll fly somewhere... maybe back to Paris. Maybe Brazil to visit P--a... yeah that might be good. Hmm...

Cat Power

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:43:16 GMT

Cats have power... and I dodged his kiss. I literally dodged a kiss. I'm listening to Cat power now and wondering where to write this and can't resist the temptation to write it somewhere where someone might even see it. Did you read all my journal from last year? from a year ago? I should re-read them and figure them, what i did them for because things aren't making as much sense though tonight i dodged a kiss and used half the cab fare for dinner which he didn't take me to so i had to find on my own. After drinking two pretty strong drinks but i'm telling you now i don't want more dinner i only want chocolate and there's not any chocolate here but there's chocolate round the corner too bad i'm lying here in bed with my shirt off. like a boy. like i'm a boy and can do these things but the reason i can is because no one else lives here but the cockroaches and the mice. but - that was c-y on the phone, a text, he texted me to say if i was ok. i was feelin high and eating pizza alone at midnight so when the guy lounging by the subway came on to me i pointed to my phone - where i was talking to c-y - and shouted "THAT'S MY BOYFRIEND" and he got mean and said "fuck your boyfriend" which kinda scared me and i realize i'm being too cocky. and that i'm not really safe. so underground, still with reception on my phone (though i'd lost c-y) i called j-h who wasn't there. he must have gone asleep. i spent the morning crying. and i cried in front of him. and i cried on the fucking street outside modelles in the bronx and he didn't have a fucking clue what to say and i didn't have a fucking clue what to do becuase why am i standing around crying nyway? because i'm lonely as fuck in new york and all you can find for love is a boy and when that boy doesnt' understand you it only makes u cry. and cry and cry. and you can't find anything else to understand you because you have no money and you've lost your job so you're scared to do anything that might involve meeing more people who might understand you until you find another job but you aren't finding another job thoug you're looking fucking everywhere so you might as well just live it up then leave. dad will care for you at his home. and that's what you need anyway because u clearly can't care for yourself. i am so tired. so tired. so tired now. but i'm not gonna go to bed til i try to find god til i find god til i feel it. i need to feel it cuz i dont have much else to feel. goodnight.
i am keeping c-y's text that tells me 'girl'. but he wants me more too just like everyone else and it doesn't even mean very much anyway. if it's everyone. everyone loves me i don't know why. i dont know why. i dont know if it's true and i don't know why it doesnt then make me happy and a hell of a lot less lonelyl.

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:27:57 GMT

I started this journal while i was in France for family and friends to be able to read when i wasn't able to make long distance calls... i don't know if anyone actually read it but i kind of liked keeping it so I think i'll write something now.
I'm in NYC and have been here for almost 7 months. I've debated whether to leave or not so many times, but what it comes down to is that, whether NYC is 'my kind of place' or not, i'm not up for another change. I thought coming back to the US would allow me to build a kind of stability if i wanted it, that NYC would be hard but nothing could be as hard as starting over in a new country not speaking the language and not knowing a soul.
Here in NY i have my uncle and my sister... my sister being the main factor that convinced me to come here. She basically begged me to come and even bought me the plane ticket telling me that I could reimburse her when I arrived. I had less than a week at 'home' meaning my mom's new house, not my home but none-the-less, a place i could have rested a while and reconnected with... something. Something where I didn't have to fight all the time. That sounded so melodramatic, but seriously, as satisfying as it was, I did feel like I was constantly having to fight in france. But i accomplished a lot by doing this... i learned a lot and had some amazing experiences that feel like will take years before i can even come CLOSE to finding again. Experiences where i felt totally free and capable of anything... i even dreamed about flying once and that was the only time i had and only time since.
I feel like I should set myself because i'm feeling so frantic and all over the place. Right now, I'm in the NYPublic Library. I'm in the main reading room where the ceilings are made of bronze and painted with blue and clouds. It's a peaceful place to be... after only (only...) 7 months I'm finally discovering various ways to take vacation from chaos. One of them is to come to the library. The main one, not one of the branch ones where the people are as crazy and invasive as Randy, the guy who i used to live next to before I moved a month ago. He wanders the hallway all night making ejaculations of noise - muttering, swearing, coughing and then exclaiming "oh god!!!" and groaning.
But i moved away from there and for a month have slept well. I'm in the same sort of place now - a SRO, only this one I was assured would be quiet. But this morning, I woke up to a familiar sound. I had woken up last night, too, though stayed half asleep and never analyzed what had woken me. A new tenet has moved in: a female version of Randy. She doesn't cough but she got really upset this morning, shouted something inaudible to herself (she is my next door neighbor and i heard it through the wall) and then made a frantic phone-call in which the first thing she said was "are you busy?!" Then she talked for the rest of the time i was home, moving between her room, the hallway, the staircase and outside. When i left she was outside smoking a cigarette still on the phone. My only hope this time is that I won't be the only one upset by this - the man next to me told the guys across the hall to 'catch the door!" when it slammed shut and they shamefully muttered 'srry...'. Perhaps he will complain and i won't even have to.
All I want right now is a stable life. I don't want a 9-5 job kind of stable life but a part time job doing one thing and part time job doing something else... and then a little of this and little of that. Who the hell am i to expect that? Why the hell not. But it takes time to find these things, this kind of life. Actually, if i find it, what if i never want to leave it for school? And i want to go to school. But... i think if i don't find it i won't feel peaceful and secure enough to go to school.
Ok - what. I don't know who i'm writing for now so i don't know whether to mention names. Because of

language ponderings

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:10:31 GMT

It's kind of a strange situation - I force them to speak English, which is the point of it all, but how odd when they speak to one another in english for my benefit. Because normally they speak french, but if the conversation starts in english (between me and ce-n for example) then it will continue if someone interrupts (n-n for example). And then the things I don't correct when c-n (the mother) is talking to me i suddenly thing i should correct when i hear the children repeating the incorrect english. But i don't usually in these situations. I still feel awkward correcting in everyday speech the way I always have with P-a or anyone else to whom english isnt their first language. The way i see it is that language is for communicating and if you can get your point across then why should it matter if you do it in the exact way that some "they" has defined it to be done? And this brings me back to dad correcting my "good" vs. "well" or something - which i do now appreciate because when i hear americans speak badly i cringe. I guess it seems that as a native speaker you don't have an excuse - that you should know the right way before you can play and expand and redefine the language. But as a foreign speaker you are forced to define the language in the way you can - it still is redefining. You are redefining according to your native language. You are constantly translating to make sense of the words.

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:07:10 GMT

It's orange season, winter, though here it feels like prolonged early spring. Rarely cold, always rainy. I wish I could post poems here but found that I can't if i want to publish. This would be considered a publishing. I guess i say that right now because telling is tedious.
I wrote something about modeling for H-p-a...it wasn't a good time. He's somewhat of a creep. Pretends he understands philosophy and psychology but has no idea about female psychology. So anyway, i wrote something about it and sent it to I-n, the artist I met once but who is too broke to pay me to model for him right now. He's a strange character but not a creep, far as i can tell. Just spastic i think. Talks a lot and asks a lot of questions. And for english being his second language, he's pretty damn fast at speaking english. Reminds me a bit of Janet, mom's friend, but more interesting. So I sent him the poem with the caption: 'a new rough poem' and he wrote back saying, 'this isnt rough, its good stuff...really good.' He ignored everything else i said in the email about sorry things aren't going well etc etc but that's ok. Then he texted me and said 'like i said in my email, it's a very good poem. A friend liked it too.' I haven't modeled for him, but this was the kind of exchange i was looking for when i set out to model. I'm glad I know now. When I modeled for H-a's class Wed, I told him "pour la semaine prochain, mercredi encore?" in other words, NOT friday for him... he said "bien suuuuur" the way he always does, slow and deliberate like a fucking fool. I didnt mind modeling for his class but i'm just so annoyed by men right now and since he was one of the men who led me to feel a bit weirded out i might just say no more. Annoying since i changed my lessons around for him. But i'm sure I'll be able to find others. We'll see.
So i'm debating about my hair again. For a while i decided i liked it this length that L-l-a cut it at. I think i'll do it tho- cut it shorter. I'm listening to Polly Pretty Polly. Such a great creepy song! I love it. "willy oh willy I'm afeared for my life. willy oh willy i'm afeared for my life. I'm afraid you mean to murder me and leave me behind. Pretty polly pretty polly you guessin about right. Polly pretty polly you guessin bout right. I've been diggin your grave for the best part of last night." Why's that so good? It's just out of the blue that she suddenly knows he's going to kill her. At first she's no idea. At first they run off for some fun then all of the sudden she just Knows. he's going to kill her and he says Yup. C'est vrai. And he kills her.
The rest of the song - ih. Something about the devil etc etc, but that's not important.

Alberto Giacometti, l'oeuvre gravé

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:44:48 GMT

Ok, it's been forever since I've written here but I was going to try to keep track of things a little here so i'll do my best to catch up. Today I went to the Bibliotheque National - the old one - and saw an exhibition "Alberto Giacometti, l'oeuvre gravé." "gravé being etchings... i think that's what they're called. it's printmaking. I wasn't planning on going to it, in fact i thought the BN was actually a library, but it's now a specialized research library which also has art exhibitions. So instead of finding a bunch of books to read, i spent a couple hours studying the prints. They were so completely perfect and realistic with so few lines depicting everything.
It was encouraging - I think I'm starting a drawing class. Something I've found or maybe just become more used to is going with the flow - accepting what you do understand and going with it until you understand more. I got a job modeling for a Czec artist who speaks fluent french but very little english - so we've done all our conversing in french. I THINK he offered to give me drawing classes and i think i accepted... i know i would have if that was what he was in fact offering... so i think i will be taking drawing from him on friday. Though i might just be modeling for him. Either way, it will be really exciting to be working with him because he seems to be a pretty damn good artist. I know i'm going to have to be careful, there seems to be quite a difference between the artists i've come across here and the artists I've worked with or known in the past. The ones here have all been men and the artists i've known in the past have mostly been women - and younger women. But there is definitely more sexuality involved in working with the male artists, even if it isn't explicit (though as i found, it is sometimes completely about sexuality, and not art at all.) But with the latest guy, his work is really passionate. From what i've seen, i like it a lot. So it will be interesting, a bit scary but i think good, to model for this kind of art...
I have to go teach english now, i'll probably write more when i get back. I'm really tired today, maybe still a bit sick and it's the first week back to a normal schedule. I missed the normal schedule - i floated more than ever during christmas and now i'm glad to be a bit grounded. Christmas was so terrifying. But anyway, i'm tired so not going to do much tonight except iron because i have to. So back in a bit.

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:06:31 GMT

I havent written in a while but really want to try to keep up more or less. What's been happening...
S-t's getting married. I can't believe it (i mean of course i can...its s-t. We all knew he'd be the first. And he is, he's the first of my real friends to get married. M-n from HS got married but that was cuz she got pregnant and she really wasn't a friend for longer than a year. I never knew her baby. her boyfriend was a doofus. (i love that word).
I'm really happy for s-t. I am not jealous, but it made me feel a bit lonely for somebody. I dont want to rush it and there's no way in hell i'm going to get involved with someone who i'm not very very sure about. It's gotten a little bit easier - i'm getting used to it, but it definitely took time to convert the energy from "relationship" energy to "other" energy. I think it's mostly converted?
Went to a reading of a play Monday and Tuesday both. The first one wasn't as good but it made me think of P-a and the second one was hilarious and made me think of P-a. Strange. People have stages in my thoughts when they are so completely there. H-y has done that quite often too.
I submitted some poems today finally. First time submitting! I found some great poems i hadn't thought much of when i wrote but realized they had the quality i really strive for - kind of flippant, not melodramatic. Its my way of getting away from how i originally wrote poetry -- very badly. I will post one after. I also rediscovered the one really weird one i wrote when i was with J-n. Actually I have a LOT of good poems from those 3 months. I guess i needed somewhere to put the energy he was unable to give and recieve. Strange.... Because the person who did that energy exchange best left me with shit to write about. BTW he wrote me a note to which i responded to which he did not respond. Oh well, figures. Pathetic jerk. I really don't hardly care anymore. P-a was right, it's pride more than anything. Of course i lost pride because originally i was vulnerable to him but at this point it is allllll pride. And knowing that i'm getting or have gotten over it.
I quit my day class for private (EXPENSIVE) lessons which I'm just gonna take for a week then i'm left hanging. Sophie said she'd give me lessons, so hopefully I'll learn as much from her as i would have in class. We will do an even exchange - english for french. I'm a little nervous having done that but i suppose i can always take it back up.
I talked to WICE about volunteering to edit for the lit mag and they haven't contacted me but i forgot to fill out the official sheet. So if they dont get me tomorrow i will go in tomorrow... yeah, i can go tomorrow why not. I am having a hard time putting French as a priority. I am much much more interested in the poetry and literature things going on. I guess it's not a horrible thing unless i want to work here next year (which i do) and cant because i didn't learn french well enough. Ok shit, i will study more. French french and french. then poetry. But first french. dammit.

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:58:59 GMT

I'm beginning to think i must leave here. Not france but this house. There is nothing that is so wrong i can leave on the base of that - and that is the problem. The problem is simply that i want more. I want complete freedom. I want to live in Paris, have my own place and find a job that wont kill be but will bring me some money. Not only do I want to, I think i can and that makes this even harder. Morally, i should stay. We signed a contract. It was an "at will" contract, but we are on the understanding that unless something goes terribly wrong (such as illness or death in the family) i will stay. And because i know i should stay, morally, i convince my logic that i couldnt find another way anyway, and that has been my problem in life. When something feels wrong morally I tell myself I cant do it anyway so I feel less frustrated. But it ends up just making me feel crappy anyway, just in a different way. It makes me feel weaker and weaker and more and more helpless. So in a way i want to do this - leave - to prove to myself that i CAN do it. But maybe what would be best is to just admit that yes, i want to leave but know that it would feel morally wrong so acknowledge that it will be a little bit frustrating to stay but at least i know if i wanted i could find a way to leave. And i will find a way to leave. I am here until the end of june and that is only another ... dec-jan, feb, mar, , june, 7 months. Gr. A little more than a half a year. And it can be enough to love Paris and feel free when I'm there. And it can be enough to do what i can to build my resistance to the bullshit of other people's tense energy and obsessiveness so that later, if i come across it again, i won't give a shit if they need their house cleaned twice a week and freak out about when their beautiful ten year old son gets a low grade in English because he is too busy living in his mind instead of studying verbs he sees no reason at all to study. Man i'm hungry again. But i was going to do yoga before i ate so i wouldnt have a full stomach..more in a min.
Going out soon. Writing group at Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and then dinner and the music thing with C-a and maybe C-n who i met at the open mic. C-s didnt write me back. I thought about him for two days straight and was ready to kill him for writing me. Now I dont give a shit. Now i think i may have told him to fuck off without really meaning to... you know, the tone of things, the tone of my response. I wonder how many times people tell eachother to fuck off without meaning to and how many times its really for the best. You really have to learn to trust the right things. The right part of you and the right energy in the world. I don't really have anything against him but .. i was vulnerable to him, very very and he took that for granted. I dont blame him, he didnt know any better same way i didnt.

from last weekend sunday

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:56:35 GMT

Words, art, music, poetry of course, literature, film, people, production and destruction. Rodin: La Porte de l'Enfer. Three works by VanGogh. Felt good and one...the girl...Renoir. And now i must wait for dinner, save the half piece of chocolate in my pocket. Because I can’t spend money I don’t have (though everyone does it.) This chocolate is cocoa mixed with butter and solidified. You don’t touch art, even the ones in the garden covered in spider webs and rain. But they take pictures. Cheese! Smile in front of the gate to hell! It’s just a joke to most people. No one gives a shit about the meaning of anything. Take a picture of me holding the lenscap, wearing my napsac, standing with a smirk before the gate to hell. That is why I should have waited until my day off rather than coming on sunday.

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:48:35 GMT

he's just too a million miles now. you are a million miles away. i can tell u how i am thats it. thats it. i dont care what country, u are a million miles away

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:14:23 GMT

I've found where some of the freedom comes from: not understanding naturally. From the ability to tune out. From being able to read, write and think on the subway. Being able to concentrate. Not having the fear of my writing being read before it's ready. I think I am somewhat attention-deficite-disorder. I went to an english bookstore and couldn't think of the author's name (Ray Bradbury!) for all the talking. For all I could not block out. I wonder if it will stay this way as i learn or if it will become easier to understand french and therefore harder to block it out. Next I'll have to go to Italy. Where conversations can be classical music again.

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:12:43 GMT

Cold for November. Let's have a fire. Energy disappeared then came back. I feel cold on my back but nowhere else. There was one with my whole family. There are pictures somewhere. There was only one child then, not three. We said it was too cold, perhaps too cold. It wasn't though, not for my memory. Bundled, so happy together. Bundled and glowing. I will come back to this.

There is energy- people follow this energy - they just do. We are all proof of that. (The change is happening so fast right now.) Hundreds of thousands of strangers each day regarding you differently day to day. It's not a coincidence. It's not what you're wearing. Come back to this too.

Will find the Rodin Museum today. The energy that I thought was disappearing last night has come back frantically. It is never a calm energy. I will have to relearn to breathe. Reapprendre. I resent that I am not totally free, that I must appear at certain times to do what could be done without me. But life is about finding freedom. Preparing for death and love is all. Maybe more but death and love for sure.

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 06:06:45 GMT

Coffee and chocolate croissant. Am running late - i don't care. Tired and sick of this. Yesterday was early so I'll be just fine. Yes, just fine. Dreamt I took a vacation home and when my logical mind interfered and said, Hey, if you're home that means you have to buy another ticket to go back! Then I reminded myself it was okay it was just a dream vacation, in my mind. Then it was mom visiting me with Luna and i wanted her to guess which was my apartment. There was some kind of dark element working though too. Later maybe. With H-y. Some kind of party. Andother "what your supposed to do" dream. This time I took part and she did too but she was careless and i wasnt and I tried to protect her but she was in her careless distant mindset, the one that sometimes means she's really reallly upset. God I miss her. I wish she'd visit me. I am so easy to tears lately about home things. There was the dog the other day with bandages but who was so happy and i thought of luna and cried. Its just 2 seconds of the crying you hardly notice happens except there are tears. Then it passes.
I need my iPod today even though yesterday I left it at home for fear that while hitchhiking it would get stolen. That's silly. Maybe not. I don't know. Damn, tired. It's moring, always funny in the morning.

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:59:20 GMT

"If the person is a lone male in a wrecked car and an empty stare and burnt out eyes with an axe in the back maybe wait for the next car" - tom

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:13:10 GMT

I leave before sunrise - my new favorite phrase is "coucher de soleil" but i don't know the opposit. "Endormir de soleil" perhaps. The worst time is in the alley, seconds away from the bus stop knowing if it comes now I'll miss it. And especially the past couple days when 40% de trafic assuré en moyenne...which means 40% of bus traffis is assured - on average. So not assured at all and 40% means nothing. In this case the one near my house is 0% de trafic assure. I watch people hitchhike and try to work up the courage to do so. I hate my lack of language. Finally I do - I get a ride to Chateau de Vincenne which is where I needed to go for the metro. I'm realizing people think I understand more than i do and understand what i say more or less. This is good but if they'd speak slower I'd understand more. I am still almost an hour late to class. After class I have Chinese food with C-a and then go home - at this hour (2ish) getting around is much easier. I pick up the 2 little ones from school - i missed them this weekend. I need their oblivious carefree energy. I had a wonderful weekend of totally relaxing and doing exactly what I want and going back to reality, vaacuming, ironing shirts (my husband will iron his own shirts), takes a little adjustment but by evening i'm back in "social" mode and it feels pretty good. I read the kids a bedtime story, Just-so Stories. I vaguely remember them from being little.
Tomorrow I must get a cell phone - I think i miss out on stuff because I dont have a number to give people. Must go to bed - last night slept very little.

dream

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:58:06 GMT

H-y on a motor bike - she said i could drive it - ride first and I was flattered and then drive - but i did a bad job getting over bridges. Gather dogs for winter for D-a's home. Grocery store with C-m. D-y met us there. Thank you M-L- or she'll think i wasn't thinking of her...

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:43:05 GMT

So many of my relationships were just wastes of time. Though i learned from them, they really were just protecting me from something else. So now it feels good to say I probably won't get into another one at least for the whole time I am here. And it's the first time I've said something like that and felt peaceful instead of frantic. I still believe in love and that is more than quite a few people can say.
This is the first entry I am writing directly. All my others have been copied out of my purse journal or bedside journal. This feels more intamate although I am not sure who I am talking to -- blogging really is quite impersonal - sending out your thoughts to the world hoping someone will listen or not caring if someone will listen but needing to feel that theres the possibility of someone listening. Sheesh. I really prefer journaling because then i know its just me. Me and whomever i choose. But right now i need something to do.
I am drinking coffee with the grounds waiting at the bottom of the cup (i didn't have filters) and eating a breakfast of crackers with peanut butter and jam on crackers. I have never been so grateful for peanut butter as when it is rare. Today I think i will go to the market. I wanted to buy christmas presents and have something in mind, but shipping is so expensive mom told me to wait until July when i go home. Either than, or i was thinking to ask dad to send them from Indi when he comes in Feb.

la greve

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:18:05 GMT

15 November 2007
- when the bus comes, only one person makes it on by pressing themselves into the crowd. The next bus comes and a few of us press ourselves in. I get the place by the door and as it closes, my foot gets crushed. But i learn that bus doors will not break bones - a safety feature for situations like these. I take the bus until past Porte Juene and then get out to walk, along with quite a few other people. The bus is, at this point, moving only a hundred feet per ten minutes or so. Walking is faster and it's a crisp sunny morning. Vincenne glows pink in the distance and I am still warm from sleep.
I get a spot on the Metro because Vincenne is the first stop, but by the second stop, we are just as crammed in as the bus was. People generally take it well. In fact, it seems to cheer some up. I only see a couple people looking annoyed. I am not too bothered - I enjoy having only the choice of think or be, not do.
There is such a crowd for line 4 in Chatlet les Halles that I know whether I walk or wait I'll be late for class, so I walk with my map in hand. I pass saint germain and the bookstore i spent hours one day looking for. I get to class an hour late but am grateful I found it at all with my sense of direction. The way home I feel feverish and nearly pass out in the heat and from hunger. I ate lunch with C-a but it was a tiny tiny quiche and I don't know how anybody's hunger can be satisfied by that.

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 06:12:23 GMT

13 nov
Rollerblade home with two bagetts. Bike with friend sidesaddle on back wheel. Tomorrow will be even moreso. Every bike will be rented out I'm sure. Today the train stopped in the tunnel for minutes at a time and no one talked, continuted reading, elbows touching elbows touching backs, sides, butts stomaches. Just two girls talked, giggled and whooped each time we lurched. Hardly a need for a hand hold, we would all fall like dominoes but for the walls. All walls, all doors sealed. It would be eerie, the silence. Maybe it was eerie. I close my eyes and try to feel the people. Try to feel the people gone. If i wanted, I'd be able to convince the blood to drain from my head down to my feet. Three people read over one woman's shoulder - her magazine is different than the others' - the free ones handed out at the entrance. I cannot read, don't understand how they can. I cant even listen to music- i'm more likely to fall down into someone and apologize in the wrong language.

sacre couer

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:27:24 GMT

Sunday 11 nov
It rained a lot after i got there and i got totally soaked. But i
walked around sacre couer until i couldnt stand it. I made it time
for mass (that's what its called?) and then walked around. It is a
very very cute place... like you are inside but outside. Especially
if its raining, outside. Very intamate. I got off the subway in a
not so cute place but found a closer subway for the way back. I will
have to go back to see the vinyard and lapin agile another time.
I got another student today.

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:28:07 GMT

3 November 2007
There was a rose at every table and we rose on may flights of escelators through glass tunnels to get there. C-a took pictures in the night with the flash on. She said, "it's like NASA" in her heavily accented English, but it's better than my Spanish (which is nonexistant.)
Two of the girls wore heels - the kind you must avoid the grates in the sidewalk when wearing. The men marched ahead, as men do, peering at maps and discussing in Spanish. A-- walked with them, her shoes practical, her hair messy and I stayed to "help" the other girls down the cement hill, as I'm used to helping my sister.
We let A-- take care of discussing reservations with the hostess, a doll dressed in doll clothes and I wished I'd worn nicer clothes. But I hadn't known and I didn't really have any here. Just skirts the girl I worked with at the cocktail bar in G-g called "Puritanical." A--'s ability to interact being in just one level past me gave me hope that I will improve quickly.
We were late so we'd have to wait or sit outside. Outside was much nicer, with Paris all around you, silence and the roses glowing on the table, so we tried it. But it had begun to drizzel - a light condensing of fog - so we headed back in where the DJ played a constant stream of French rap and hip hop, which i worried at first would be annoying but soon did exactly what it does for me at clubs and frat parties: sets you in a world of constant movement and no worrysome thought.
O--r ordered wine - a Chardonay. During dinner the food was good but I hardly ate until it was poined out I was the only one with food left on my plate. I've had plenty of food last week - it was good conversation I was hungry for. Everyone except S---a will be leaving in a month. I will have to get used to letting go of the friends I meet.
On the way home, I caught the last RER but it was the wrong one. So i took a night bus and found myself back in Paris at Gare de Lyon. I asked the driver how to get to Nogent sur Marne and he said "trente trois" so I took that one and finally got home at 330am. But this will be good to know - bus 33 from Gare de Lyon goes all night to Nogent.

poem - work with the light

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:13:46 GMT

work with the light here:

angle all the doors just so, so that the main source
is blocked, so the street-lamps don't shine
through the window making a square
that i won't understand later on when I'm not
quite awake but no longer sleeping. Set up the fan so
it still pulls the air from the attached
room of windows, despite the nearly
closed door. Turn it to point air
at both of us where we sleep.
But it's still hot in here:

I can't put on a sheet, i sleep
nearly naked, i sleep next to a body that's too
hot to touch unless i can't stand not touching.
I sleep next to him and wonder if he sniffles
from allergies and if he prefers the doors
wide open anyway. I don't sleep:

I turn my small lamp on and moths fly
by looking for where light comes from.
Moths on the wall, looking for the source
of the light. Moths on the green shade, looking
for light. Moths on the bulb,

end of poem
Miranda Steffens
All Rights Reserved ©

Poem Wire

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:03:14 GMT

Wire

I’ve let the other in now. The ignored
and unreturned phone call I waited
all morning for, the boots pressing
painfully, worn for their power, feeling taller
but not tougher than any stranger. The children
chasing the pigeons, not to capture just scare - lure
with bread, then terrorize. The couples, kissing.
The hunger, dissatisfaction, pants getting tighter.
The call she wants that I don't want to make,
her desperate need for it. The child sprawled
on her mother’s lap, sleeping, the mother,
sleeping or hiding, forehead lowered
to hand. The sign: “s’il vous plait.”
Just please. The fake whine
of a spoiled child wanting more - of what,
he doesn’t know. The girl who tries
to feed them, but they don’t trust
anymore and she only has leaves
on her palm. The difficulty
in reading a map, getting lost
again. The lobster displayed
on a plate outside a restaurant,
alongside an artichoke and potatoes.
Still alive. Claws closed with wire.
The muzzled dogs.
Poem ends.

Miranda Steffens

All Rights Reserved ©

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:50:52 GMT

4 November 07
...he had no taste and neither did I and we will take what we can get and women are taught we must be stronger and never take responsibility for the strength. I would have liked a kiss too but I turned my head away.
Three girls walk slowly through the fogged
subway window they could be ghosts. I think now
maybe they were ghosts. In the bathroom
the walls were fogged mirrors and the lights
were low and red. Sitting on the toilot you can
watch yourself from all angles. But stepping out,
there was no clear place to check your makeup
and hair -- you shouldn't need to, the waitresses
looked like dolls. Someone dressed them
in the afternoon before work or they hired
only ex runway models here.