find things that are right

I should write a book compiled of quotes from my mother. In the past half an hour I've heard her utter some pretty profound things like,

"I could sit home and watch Desperate Housewives tonight, but then I'm just going to feel like one."

and

"Okay. I've got money, mace, I'm good to go."

.... sentences like that are golden.
Sunday night and I feel like I'm dreaming, maybe because I spent most of the day sleeping, but really I don't know what's going on or where the weekend went.

Here's a list of some things that are wrong:

• I'm alone...
• Well, there are 6 cats roaming around my house. 
• My boyfriend (who is already away and impossible to get a hold of) left for a month long European tour with The Adicts and a bunch of girls and it feels like he's taken up residence in a commune on Saturn. 
• My non boyfriend continues to worship and adore me and I continue to like it, still no physical contact. I am mean and apparently "a tease" but really my head is in a million different places at once, I can't tell up from down anymore, and all I want to do is love someone who is there but I don't know how... 
• I went to see family I hadn't seen in many many years last night, my cousins on my dad's side who are all older than me, mostly married with children chain smokers with heavy Brooklyn accents. I've distanced myself from that family for a reason, last night I remembered why. 
• My father got mad that I went to see my cousins instead of going to see him and his kids and his 26 year old wife who I've never met so he continues to call, not because he wants to talk to me and ask me how my day/week/life is, but because he wants to pressure me to become a part of something I don't feel okay with yet. 
• Then he had the 26 year old wife, who I'm pretty sure is the author of some anonymous hate mail I received after my grandmother died while I was in Berlin last, call me to confront me asking why I won't go to their house, and if she makes me uncomfortable, and to tell me that she couldn't have possibly written that letter because how could she hate me if she's never met me?
• I ended up in a heap of tears on my kitchen floor for a while and remembered why I stopped talking to him for 5 years. I'm thinking I should go back in for another 5. 
• I haven't been able to draw a decent house all day and it's making me crazy.

Here's a list of some things that are right:

• I rode a motorcycle in the freezing cold wearing a borrowed leather jacket, a giant helmut, and some leggings as I held on to someone who's heart I will break. The cold wind pierced through my skin at 60 mph and I hadn't felt so alive in weeks.
• On Tuesday the Marie Antoinette I've had unfinished on my arm for almost 3 years is finally getting colored in. 
• Black Friday didn't feel so black and after work I went to the American Folk Art museum and MOMA, it was perfect.
•  I took 2 Tylenol Extra Strength Rapid Releases and they took the pain away. 
• People may actually see my artwork now. You can find it in an Urban Outfitters newsletter, permanently tattooed on my friend's thigh, and on this website http://www.flickr.com/photos/flypelicanfly/ see moleskin collaboration and pick out which ones are mine. 

Illustrations of above mentioned:

My ex boyfriend is kind and Alex is brave.

  
she'll take her everywhere...

becoming red in the MOMA 
pretending to be Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands, also in MOMA

feeling slightly famous.

dog show

It's Thanksgiving, the dog show is on, in a few hours I'll be sitting around a table surrounded by my family staring at a giant dead bird, they will ask me what I'm thankful for and I won't know what to say. I've been stuck in a very dark place the past few months and I don't know how to save myself and it scares me. Every day I suppress this sadness, I'm really good at pretending everything is okay, but when I have any down time all the feelings I've been trying desperately to keep at bay come out in a shitstorm of tears and fury, maybe I'm unstable and weird but I think I'm finally ready to admit that I need help.

you feel farther than the farthest star in the sky

The Upper Crust

My landlord is making lots of noise in the hallway doing I don't know what. Scraping something, then hammering something, then scraping some more, like nails on a chalkboard. I'm getting annoyed.
I saw this band last night (after the rooftop and the naps, and the absence of hand holding). They were dressed exactly like this and sounded like AC/DC, who I don't particularly like, I had gone to see the bands that played before them, who were better, did not sound like AC/DC and were certainly not dressed like this. Someone threw a filled beer can at the lead singer's head, it was the manifestation of my inner desires and it was a marvelous thing to watch.

Saturday, Sat, Urday, Sa, Turday... confessions

Hello Saturday!
I'm thinking of you, though I shouldn't be.
I'm listening to The Kinks which makes me think of him but I'm simultaneously thinking of another him. The him that took me to the roof yesterday and showed me the sun setting over the trees and tall buildings surrounding Central Park, neither of us had our cameras but we took pictures with our eyes. We've never kissed, we've never held hands, I see him almost every day but we've never even hugged, we're strictly friends, but once, in the middle of the museum, you rested your head on my shoulder because you were tired and I was making you stay awake. We went to your place for naps, me on your couch, you in your room, you covered me with a big blanket and woke me up in time to walk me to my friend and then walked us to the rest of our night, you told her to make sure I got home okay and to be mindful of my two drink limit because you're always there and you always give a shit. You made us a book, you're an artist, we're going to exchange drawings every week, we have a list of restaurants and places and things we want to go to and see and do. Lots of girls want you, yet you spend your time with me, the girl with a boyfriend who has never given you anything, not even a hug, why do you do it? Why are you so nice to me? Why do you treat me the way I wish he did?
We're friends. We're just friends. Friends friends friends. I'm not thinking of you right now. I will not kiss you, I will not hold your hand, I won't even give you a hug.
I'm not thinking of you right now.
Right now, I'm not thinking of you.
I'm not.  

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!






I need a hug.

This morning's train ride I reminded myself that

prostitutes are people too.
people who talk to themselves and sing along to their ipods are people too.
drug addicts are people too.
people who obsess over Twilight are people too.
sleazy men who I catch eying my legs at 6:30am are people too.
people who's arms are so hairy they look like they're wearing long sleeved hair shirts are people too.

people are people are people

On Saturday my world looked exactly like this

Listening to The Modern Lovers and tuning everything else out

My mom came home from Monday night therapy and she sounded like this:

"Your stuff has to live on your chair. I need my wine chair. Did you go out with Sean? I thought you were going out with Sean today? Did you stay late at work? Did you eat something????"

I need to get out of here, and soon.

Maybe I'm the idiot.

Austria, you're alright.

Not all that long ago I was here:

Further proof:

I was in Austria and I was happy.

I saw interesting things like this:

And I ate gross things like this:

It was warm and sunny but once I got stuck in an amusement park during a thunderstorm. I sat in an Austrian pizza place where I could safely watch people run umbrellaless in the pouring rain, then I felt sick and was afraid to go on any rides.

Oh, and there's an Ice cream shop that has this in front:

It spoke to my heart for obvious reasons.

But Facebook, I'd rather not.

It is a strange thing when facebook suggests you write something on the wall of a friend you have who is now dead.
"Help make Facebook better for him", those soul-less bastards over at facebook insist.
They shouldn't suggest such things.
It's really depressing.
Unlike just about everyone else in my generation, I'm trying really hard to get by without needing meds.
Thanks for helping to make the drug option look increasingly appealing assholes.

I broke your grandma's snowglobe

You know when you're certain that everything in your life is going to change but you don't know how and you can't say when? You know it because all of a sudden nothing looks like how it did before but you can't say why. It's like your little life is in a snowglobe, things turn upside down and you're watching it happen under all this water, slowly, you're watching it happen but there's all this sparkly shit in the way, this makes everything interesting and beautiful but confusing and mysterious and sometimes frustrating. Sometimes I wish I could fast-forward, I want to shake the globe so fast I can see past all the sparkle, so I know what happens. Change is scary, it's completely necessary, but terrifying, I'm freaked out. Maybe if I just knew what happens I wouldn't be so afraid?
Maybe I should grow a pair and live.

What if we all woke up one day suddenly able to fly?

October

Carry me around like a giant pink backpack
Take me with you wherever you go
Watch over my contents, hearts are irrecoverable
zip me up, keep mine safe.

 

glow girl

When it's 6:32 in the morning and you're sitting on the train wearing black polka dot tights and eating the most delicious puffy buttery bagel, so gooey and warm it melts in your mouth, the events of the night before still crisp to your senses, they're popping all around you, making you glow...this is when life is beautiful.

What Do You Know?

Tell me something new and exciting.
Tell me something I haven't already heard.
Tell me about your day.
Tell me all about your life.
I'll tell you something old and boring.
I'll tell you something I already know.
I'll tell you about my day.
I'll tell you all about my life.

Build Yourself A House

I like drawing houses. I don't know why exactly but there's something comforting about linking a series of straight lines, knowing that every line is going to turn into something big, something with structure, something everyone can understand and relate to, something that in a small but significant way speaks to the soul. I refuse to use a ruler, my lines are not perfect and the final result is never wholly symmetrical, but each house has character, each house looks like a home, each carefully drawn but imperfect house is satisfying both to look at and create.
I am drawing a house with tiny black lines, and inside I'm beaming.  

Are you there God?

It's me, Jesus.

On refusing to eat and feeling alive

When I get upset, I wash dishes. Sometimes I'm so upset that I can't see the water pouring from the faucet through all the water pouring from my eyes. They fuse together to form a sort of Niagara Falls in my kitchen and the effect is rather calming. Washing dishes is the perfect thing to do while upset, for one thing it's a mindless task. Pick up sponge, pour neon green liquid over sponge, run under hot water, watch foam slowly take over sponge, grab dirty plate, rinse plate, run foamy sponge over plate, rinse plate again, arrange clean plate on dish rack, repeat. Again and again, sometimes with a fork or a crusty pan, but always monotonous, familiar, simple, clean. Now the mind has been given a break and your hands have been given something to do. You're upset, but you're not being upset under a blanket somewhere, you're doing something productive, and somehow that makes you feel better. When my tears run parallel to the faucet, when my hands are covered in warm foam and the water is so hot it burns, that's when I feel alive. This makes my mother crazy though. I won't talk to her about what upsets me because she already thinks she has everything all figured out. How can you tell someone what's going on in your head when before they ask you they first tell you? You can't, so you say you can't talk and go wash dishes and refuse to eat. This makes her say, "Nothing is going to get better by not eating." and "Have some apple stuff so I know you're still alive." But you are alive, because here you are, you're washing dishes, you've successfully created Niagara Falls in your kitchen, you and the faucet are in sync, you and the dirty plates and forks and crusty pans are all being cleansed in scolding hot water and when the ritual is complete, your hands will tingle, you'll feel it, and you'll know you're still alive.