i understand
that anyone could take this photo
and it is not special
but there are lots of things that everyone does that i still think are special
so maybe someone will see this and instead of thinking
that is nothing special
they'll just understand that i didn't mean for the picture to be special, i just wanted to show that the trees are special
trees vs. people
what is more beautiful poll, asking people who are most beautiful to me
trees: IIII
people: III
can't decide: I
i am still no closer to knowing the answer because it probably doesn't exist
sky day 365
important lessons learned this year:
everything is probably going to be, at the very least, relatively ok
back up your hard drive
people take their haircuts very seriously
do not work at chain stores
mashup is only interesting for like fifteen minutes
the world is incredibly gigantic
sex is not personal to everyone but it is to me
nothing is true or false
when i don't like certain foods it is probably psychological to some degree
being vegan is not that hard
i really love my mom
i want to work hard
i never want to stop making things
and, feeling is good
out
there is a green or blue sweater i want to wear
and i want to buy a new set of sheets and wash them and put them on my bed
except i want the bed to be in the woods and i want it to be warm and there to be halfway decent light
and then i want to sit on it with you and i want my hair to get in the way when i try to kiss your mouth
and then we could laugh about that extremely briefly
in the woods
and i could get into an argument with anyone on earth that banshee beat and motherless bastard are the most beautiful songs of the last decade and i would not argue thinking that this is true for the world over but i would argue thinking that it is true for me and not other people except what would make the situation interesting would be that the other person would not know this at all
i think you are at work right now
my brother wants me to teach him html as a "work skill"
because he looked at my photo journal for thirty seconds
and thinks that i format everything myself
ha ha
---------------------------------
i know someone who writes in a hundred and fifty dollar journal
how responsible can you hold someone for their lifestyle
is all that is on my mind
how responsible can people be
is all that is on my mind
well when i talked to someone who used to mean a lot to me but who i do not remotely know whatsoever, now, on aol instant messenger in mid-november she asked me are you still in africa and i thought (how do you know that i am in africa if we haven't spoke since january) but i said yeah are you still in america and she said ha ha yes and then i thought (how do you know where i am but it is nice that you still remotely care about where i am because i still care about where you are and that is why i started talking to you) and then she said i have been reading your flickr so i know more about your life than you know about mine and that was interesting maybe
and how it is related to the one hundred and fifty dollar journal is that i told her i wish that i would have gone to art school and she told me that i didn't wish that
and then i could think a lot about how she was an art student at a really "important" school
whatever important is
and then she told me that art students are all really self centered and narcissistic and spoiled and pretentious and the worst people in the world
and i thought that was a weird thing to say about something you were a part of
but instead i said i disagreed, and left it at that
and she said that her saying that obviously was connected to parts of herself that she had issues with
and i thought about how we hadn't talked since january and now we were talking about internal issues with self identity and the politics of aesthetics
that was an ok time
and then this other time i was alone i came up with the perfect name for a secret blog and thought that was good and also a sign that i should do something with my life instead of listening to music so much
i
want
to
read
tao
lin
and
fall
asleep
on
a
futon
at
the
phoenix
and
also
listen
to
someone
i
know
play
the
electric
guitar
with
my
paintbrush
it
is
right
sky day 342
i slept for thirty four hours out of the past forty eight
consistently and perpetually very confused in international airports,
stopping to freak out about your electronics
we have to hydrrrrate
can you trade some music with me before we leave
"oh my god, the next bed i'm going to sleep in is my girlfriends"
that has got to feel good
for real for real, now now
just now, now
we stared at two old ladies crying in the johannesburg airport one time
one of them was wearing a white shirt and the other one was wearing a maroon shirt
and they were both crying a lot and their faces were old and sad
and they hugged each other so hard, their baggy clothes hung over their bodies like nightgowns
there was something coming out of their eyes
and something coming out of their mouths
i watched them like it was my business
i saw you looking at them, too
you said, that is the saddest thing ever
i said yeah
you said they are probably never going to see each other again
i said why
you said because they are so old and one of them is going to new york city
i said do you think they know that
you said they have to have thought about it
i said yeah probably
and then one of them picked up a small bag and got in line to go through a metal detector
and the other one stood there and cried a lot
i said they looked like best friends
yeah, you said, forever
a little kid near me on an airplane
i watched him put on his baseball cap backwards
his mom took a picture of him drinking a can of coke and making a peace sign with his hands
with a kodak easycam or something
on an airplane
think about them looking at this picture later on in life
hey remember that time we rode on a plane
i would like to ride on an airplane with my grandma
and then i would also like the capability to change the way she feels about black people (in general)
i can always count on looking at this one picture of you to make me want to write something
i can always count on this one akron/family song to make me want to write something
you are installing quicktime on your computer in the airport
you are eating a muffin wrapped in a clear package that says, "ballistic muffins inc"
there is a woman in a tan business suit on the plane with yellow curly hair and nails painted white who is drinking white wine and reading white pages in a book with a red cover
she is wearing a lot of makeup and smells like perfume from a department store
she and i have no made eye contact yet but i have looked at her and vice versa
some people call these sorts of situations awkward
i guess it's just disinterest
oh, who knows
sky day 338
ok if i ever write a book not for school it will not be called "internet feelings"
unless i write it in the usa
if i write it in south africa it will be called
"there is a twelve year old homeless person in my kitchen and he will sleep on my floor every night this weekend"
because that is the reality of the difference between what i fucking have time to think about
and then i will feel incredibly sorry for him he is wearing a magic johnson hat on his head and he is also wearing a shirt with an ocean wave on it and he is also eating every single slice of bread i have left and i will wish very hard that i had bought more bread and then i will also wish very hard that he had parents who would take care of him and then when i brush my teeth i will also wish very hard that he had a fucking sink to brush his teeth in
and then he will fall asleep incredibly quickly after eating three slices of bread, an apple, and a glass of soymilk and then ask me whether or not soymilk is milk or not and i will tell him sort of and he will eat all of my groceries and i will feel bad and he will show me a game on the internet about dealing drugs for extra points and when you get to the final level you kill the drug dealer who you buy from throughout the entire game and it is a free game because of advertising and then
you will fall asleep in hayley's empty bunk because she is staying somewhere else and you will ask me if it is okay to use the bathroom and i will want to throw up with how depressed that makes me but then i will say drunkenly yeah you can use the bathroom and i will try extremely hard to not act drunk in front of you because you are drunk a lot for someone who is twelve WHAT THE HELL and i will wish i never drank anything tonight because i had the chance of running into you outside
and then i will act as un-drunk as possible because i want to be a good role model to you
i will feel absolutely fucking terrible for being drunk in front of you and yes, that is how things will go on friday night
your faded camo pants and a pair of white socks that would be gray if they weren't worn a lot
fucking hell
can i turn off the light?
yeah, you can turn off the light
are you writing in your journal
yeah i am
that's cool
"i can't read your journal"
"why, can't you read?"
"no i can read and i would like to read your journal but it is your journal!"
"haha, ok, thanks. do you want to keep a journal?"
"yeah but it's expensive yeah"
"tomorrow i will show you how to keep a free journal"
fall asleep at midnight, you are twelve and i am the reverse of your age
i can smell you from across the room
this is not your fault
if my roommates wake up tomorrow and are pissed off that you are sleeping here then i don't fucking care
i was amazed at how much blue could fit into one afternoon
i am currently impressed with how much i look like a dalmation
freckles are taking over my world
YOU ARE TWELVE
i will think about freckles to try to refrain from becoming as emotional as humanly possible
YOU ARE TWELVE
YOU ARE TWELVE
YOU ARE FUCKING TWELVE
sky day 311
seeing cleveland outlined on a television, with my state blue for the first time i can ever remember in africa is very random but i would be lying if i didn't admit how nice that made me feel
to hear someone say the word ohio
not that i need it or anything but, oh, you know
out of touch, out of touch, out of touch
i called five people today on a payphone, one answered
i knew i got lucky, one for five is a good ratio
and we all stayed awake until seven am for the results because of the time difference
even though we really all knew who was going to win the election
the newspaper this morning's headline was one word, which was
landslide
but everyone was missing home and wishing they were there so we stayed up
yeah, america is pretty fucking stupid
but most of the people that i love live there so
fair enough i guess
i sit in the back drinking cold water
it's funny how almost no other country's elections are international news
i saw a short clip of people in kenya watching the american election on tv
and the african men next to me nudged each other and said something i didn't understand
i know they know a lot of things i don't
watching people asleep on the hard, cold linoleum floors of an establishment that is not 24 hours
but for this sake, is 24 hours
calling my mom on the payphone on guy fawkes day, saying she is happy about the election, her voice is nice even electronified, if that's a word
she said, i called my family today, i called your grandmother today
i talked to my very conservative extended family and they were upset with the results
my mom said she told them that you can't base an entire election on being pro-life
thought about the letter she wrote me at the beginning of this semester and with that little thing she said on the phone
about realizing that she thought abortion was sad but not really any of her business
you voted republican your entire life
and today you told me you were sad about the possibility of gay marriage being banned in california
because "if gay people can't get married in california then where are they supposed to get married?"
are you really the same woman who raised/made me?
it's not just politics, it says a lot about what parts of me you'll love
and which parts you'll just put up with because you have to
and i feel a lot less put up with by you lately
and a lot more loved
hanging up the phone, you said, i don't worry about you too much anymore, you call me enough that i don't have to worry about you
i said that was my intention, duh
you said you never thought about that
i made a bad joke about getting a puppy when i cam home next month
and you actually got it and laughed
it's annoying that in order to feel connected to you i have to be like, eighteen thousand miles away but i'll take what i can get and
it's weird, and i'm not used to this,
but i really do miss you
langa/home
my last night in langa before going to the countryside to live with a white afrikaner family for a week was hard and i felt afraid and then i felt stupid for being afraid
because like i always tell myself people are people and are nothing to be afraid of
and before every single family has opened their home to me i am so afraid
and for no reason, i am constantly afraid of people over and over again, and to be honest
for no reason
in their own way, literally or in their own way, they have hugged me immediately and loved me for the simple fact that i want to know them, in whatever small way it is possible
talking to mama on her bed with the xhosa news on in the background
the makeup caked on the newscaster's conventionally attractive face, ugh
lying in bed with a woman who worked for more than thirty years as a nurse in a township dealing with tb and hiv and aids and consoling people confronting real, tangible loss on a daily basis
i told her i was scared to go to stellenbosch
she said she used to be afraid of going places like that too
i used to be afraid of all white people, she said
were you afraid of me i said
she said no, she hasn't been afraid of white people for a little while now
and then she laughed and said no one could be afraid of me
i said i'm sure it is possible, especially if you've never seen a white person before
she said, yeah, but then you'll just act very silly and it will be fine
she went on and said she used to call all white people master and madam every time she saw one
she said only recently has she been able to relax and call them by their names
i felt my lungs with my bones kind of pressing on them during that
she said don't be scared, they're not going to hurt you, they're different now
i said yeah but do you think they would hurt nelisa if she was going instead of me
she said, i'd like to think not but there is no telling
she said some people in stellenbosch still think apartheid should exist
she said it is unpopular to feel that way, and some people who feel that way won't even admit in public that they feel that way
so there is no telling
i said how can you be so unafraid of them after watching your family fall apart, i said it was only over fourteen years ago, the older people there are the people who did those terrible things
she said i'm not afraid because it is okay, it is not perfect, but it is okay
she closed her mouth and i saw the wrinkles that surround the edges of her lips, her soft and large cheeks
her eyes were closed and she looked at me with certainty and said
it is okay
it is fine
it is not perfect, but it is okay
i said, why is it okay
because i forgive them, and i even love them, too
climbing
a chart for how doing things makes me feel:
taking pictures in america: okay
taking pictures in africa: conflicted and awkward
seeing someone i know in america: okay/good
seeing someone i know in africa: ecstatic
throwing away food in america: bad
throwing away food in africa: fucking evil
all that is left on my plate is a tomato
all that is left on your plate are animal bones
i seriously don't understand
all that people eat here are cheap foods because most people in langa are poor
cheap foods, which are junk foods
fried chicken, fried bread, french fries
and rice, loads of rice
and everyone is still so thin
when i went to school i bought three papayas and ate one
i bought four carrots and ate one
i bought a hat for twenty cents because i did not expect it to be forty degrees
and i only brought a small bag of clothes and not a hat
it was eighty at the beach yesterday
i ate an entire cucumber and the heels of a loaf of wheat bread
put the rest in my bag to give to my host family
all they drink is tea and full cream milk
all they eat is meat and rice, it is all that is cheap here
so, so many goats
vegan at lunch time, not hungry at breakfast, rice and milk for dinner
so, so many goats
so many goats!
sky day 253
the picture of me wearing my favorite shirt
in it i am saying to the person behind the camera
"you look nice with a camera in your hands"
and then you said, wouldn't it be cool if you could spend a whole day doing all your favorite things
wear your favorite shirt, watch your favorite movie, eat your favorite dinner with your favorite person
i said yeah, and write about your favorite things and see your favorite band
you said, drink your favorite drink
i said, reading your favorite poem out loud, to the person it reminds you of
you said, what if it doesn't remind you of anything or anyone
and i said, everything is your favorite because it reminds you of something, at least subconsciously
and then i thought to myself
like my favorite foods, reminds me of noreen, and jessica
my favorite place, my grandpa
my favorite shirt reminds me of anna
my favorite band reminds me of myself
sport, dad
book, matthew
animal, warren
poem, kate
and so on
you said, i think that's just you, noluthando
i said, oh, ok then, sorry but i should have said, no, i'm sure a lot of people feel this way
but i didn't, so,
you put the picture of me in my favorite shirt back in your left pocket
i put myself on the floor, i misplaced the verb
i forgot all the verbs, you helped me with them
a twelve year old saving what i have of grace in the back room
i played the thumb piano (marambe) for you until you fell asleep
and then i tucked you in and then
i fell asleep in the next room, too
sky day 241
all i can think about in africa is
i hate myself a little, for being white
i hate myself a little, for being american
i hate myself a little, for being a college student
babies playing with newspaper in the street
i can't forget simple things, and the water in the shower is an icy trickle
there is no heat, it is winter here and at night it is forty degrees
and everyone else around me is complaining
they miss their clothes and their warm showers and their families and boyfriends, their girlfriends
i miss these things too but seriously we just got here and
this is africa and like a girl on my program who reminds me of taylor, named carrie says
what did you expect?
sky day 219
you told me a story about a young man who went to africa
you said he went there to try to help people and to study abroad
you said he worked with political refugees and worked with people fleeing the famines in ethiopia, fleeing the famines in sudan, fleeing the drought in all of west africa
he worked with men and women and children with aids
he worked with people who didn't know what it was like to have water
whenever they needed it
he worked with people who did not have food
whenever they needed it
he taught people how to read while he was there
even though they did not have much food they still wanted to learn to read
you said he stayed there for four months taking pictures
and writing letters and sending his photos to important people
to show them what was happening so maybe they would use public money
to help feed these people or at least get them some fucking water
you said when he got home to his apartment in cleveland
the first thing he needed to do was buy groceries because he didn't have any in his home
because he had just been gone for four months
so he took the bus to the grocery store
and he walked inside and into the air conditioned produce section
bright red tomatoes and purple grapes, white and brown rice
red meat and potatoes, salsa and chocolate, green and yellow bananas
you said he stood there and looked at all the food on all of the shelves
and cried
my favorite part of my favorite song
this is a visual of the exact moment of the best part of one of my favorite songs
i want wind to blow by the microphones from the glow part two of the remastered re-release on a three lp exclusive
records are dumb and annoying and hilarious but i still love them and i'm kind of embarassed about loving them because i try to avoid everything that people say is hip because it's completely fucking stupid and i can't wait until i am older when hip isn't important anymore but i can't lie about how i feel about the lush sound of certain songs on it completely fucks an mp3 in every possible way
best contemporary songs in my opinion for playing on a record:
1. i want wind to blow by the microphones
2. leaf house by animal collective
3. only skin by joanna newsom
4. it's all nice on ice alright by modest mouse
5. take time by the books
top 5 older songs in my opinion to listen to on a record
1. ceremony by joy division
2. strange fruit by billie holliday
3. half a person by the smiths
4. why can't i be you? by the cure
5. starman by david bowie
gustav
my father's grandfather gustav
is my favorite member of my entire family
i have only met him once, but i know more about him than anyone else
i have heard more stories about this man than any other human being in my entire life
i wonder so many more things about him, ever since i was little, listening to my dad tell stories about living in california, louisiana, and ohio with his russian grandfather, that he served as a pilot in the war, THE war, THE war, THE war,,,
soldiers from the past so different from the soldiers of the now
stories about watermelon seeds and the tattoo on his left arm
his pocket watch and inability to remember directions
his wife's cooking and his daughters, my grandmother
how insanity ran in his family
his stays at mental hospitals
his gentleness, his four dogs, my father's paper route, gustav's paper sales
reminds me of why i do it, i do it to be closer to them
i cannot talk to them so i will do the same things as them
and i will know them in this way, i will love them in this way
my father loved him more than anyone in the world
i can't imagine my father actively loving anyone, at all
he is the reason my father loves baseball
therefore gustav is the reason why i love baseball
it is in our tree, our lineage and marrow, he has planted a summertime love affair with dirt and scoreboards in our names, the kind of love that lets us share a name
i met gustav once, when i was a baby
he shortly died after the day we met, in his sleep
gustav immigrated to the united states when he was 17, arriving with his four brothers in a harbor in boston
my mom told me that the one time in which our physical paths crossed, he held me for several hours
and called me a baby carrot, with my bright orange red hair, then he stated my name and said,
"Maureen! Oh my. It is suitable, for a baby clearly of Irish heritage."
my mom laughed and said, russian as well, as well
i do not remember this whatsoever, obviously
but i can imagine this happening, from what i knew of him, from the volumes i know of him, from the books i've heard my family speak on him,
i know that
i was safe in his hands and
my name was safe in his mouth
meadows
talking to my friend today i see in her face her glowing youth, i realize my own as well
i am twenty, you are not even
i say, we are babies
we are babies and we still do drugs, we still have sex, we still do all of these things
and then i think for a moment and say
well adults don't really have sex or do drugs anyway
and you say
we don't have sex in the best ways
we have sex with other people in adolescent ways
we have sex in ways less meaningful
than some older people must because we are too young to understand it, and i think that when i have sex it is meaningful, i know that it is always meaningful to me
but i know what you mean
you are probably thinking of your parents, who i think are the only adults i've ever met who are actually still in love, and have been for twenty years which is unfathomable for me to even question or begin to understand
i can only hope that someday
i can have half of what they do
with someone for that long
i feel awkward though, thinking that longevity is the magic key to understanding love or sex
perhaps it is just the intensity that is the key to understanding, or a combination or something larger than anything like that
perhaps it is less complicated than this but i doubt it, i really fucking doubt it
i think it's too complicated for me to ever hope to understand
like most things
but i can accept this, happily
at this point in my life i can accept this and be okay with it
dad
balancing bills at his desk
this is a typical saturday
he wakes up and goes to the store
comes home and cuts the grass, i plant flowers and take pictures of the sky
i take his picture, he gets supremely annoyed with me
he asks me, what the hell are you doin' maureen
i tell him i take a picture of the sky every day
he says, that's weird, you are so weird
i laugh and say, it's okay, you are so normal
i am only kidding
he is not normal to me, he is hilarious and inappropriate
i make him lunch after washing my hands
he is a silly, mathematical being
i do not understand him at all, he does not understand me at all
this is okay, i love him
it is okay, i think he loves me
well, whatever love means to him
is probably what he feels towards me
it's through accumulated hours spent in one another's general vicinity
it's through me trying my best to care about basketball games on tv
it's through him offering to pay for my new bike tires, i reject him six times
i want to pay for things myself
i feel awkward accepting your money
i love you but i don't know you
all i can think about sometimes when i talk to you is about your childhood, about your father and what he did to you and your mom
all i can think about is your paper route that you had as a young boy
and i think about my paper route now
we have the same blood, type o negative
a double recessive gene
we have the same blood
we still make no sense in the same room, the same sentence
i love you, i do not know you at all
is this possible
i do not know
perhaps it is known as family default
this makes me feel badly, i will just make you breakfast and leave the room
sky day 137
listening to joy division
while planting about a hundred more flowers today
i get dirty and feeling good
cuts on my hands from guitar
dirt in them
feels weird
i wash my hands and sit down for the first time all day
my brother is being mean, what else is new, i forget how mean he can be sometimes
i don't know what to say to him except
i'm not interested in having this conversation right now
he has taken a finance job instead of a zoo job
because it pays more
he is breaking my heart, i really thought he was changing
when things become more important than people, than animals
i can't get over how fucked up that is
i am worried that he will end up in the suburbs cause i think deep down i know he will
in that frenzy full of bullshit effort, matching garden gloves and tired arguments
i'm not okay with that but it is his life
i just don't want anyone i love to be a drone
is that selfish though?
because it is harder to love drones than people
and i want him to continue to be easy to love
right now is a little hard
we will see how things gooooo
nothing meaningful is coming out of me today
sky day 136
my dad took the day off work today
i played guitar in the backyard for an hour on a break in between planting literally a hundred flowers for my mom
he sat down and listened
he actually listened to me play, he's never really cared about anything i've done except for things related to sports, never seen the pictures i take or heard the songs i write, seen any of my films from high school
never consciously participated in anything my brain is a part of, except my gpa and my sports record
he actually listened to me play for ten minutes
i was so happy i could barely remember the words
i played three songs i wrote
he said they were pretty good
when he got up to leave i said, thanks for listening dad
he said, yep, make sure you finish planting those ugly purple flowers
i said, okay, see you
i say
can i ask you a very, very personal question
you say yes, but you are nervous to find out what this question is
i say,
what is your favorite radiohead album
you laugh and say, well, that is definitely a very personal question, i can tell that you are actually being serious
i secretly hope in my brain that you will not say the bends, pablo honey or some shit like that
not because i don't like them, i do, but in comparison with kid a and amnesiac and all that, it's like comparing enrique iglesias to the books
pop vs art
art vs pop
meaning vs nothing
you say
amnesiac first, kid a second, ok computer third, my top three exactly
and i'm grinning, not that this is any indicator of how we will get along or whether or not anything betweens us means anything
but it means that in a way
you understand some things
the way i understand things, maybe