Bird · Flyers · and · Fish · Swimmers

Anyways. New years resolutions... I don't know. Get off my ass. Stop eating Chocolate, as stated previously. Stop talking about movies. Leave the country.  That'll do it.

My roommate is totally high from cleaning the bathroom. We found out yesterday that nail polish remover gets paint off the tiles, but these rooms have really poor ventilation, and so we ended up having a walk and eating tons of McDonalds. Today she locks herself in the bathroom with cleaner, and the bathroom is sparkling, and she's giggling like a madman and acting nutso.

Also just ran out of liquid eyeliner. I'm saving up for some new shoes since I wore though all of them this year, but I'm sure I can spare 3 bucks for cheap liner.

Can't wait to see the Kara Walker show at the Hammer. I'm glad it's there for so long. I missed the Alison Saars show at the LA Louver. My parents went, they said it was fantastic. But the LA Louver always has good shows, I'll just see what's up when I get there.

Giant project due tomorrow. Just started it. Guess who's earning her scholarship.

You know, I had never cut my own hair before, because it scared me. But I always felt like just chopping it all off. Like it needed to be gone. So I did it. And it's still not the hair of my dreams, but it's so much better than that dead birds nest I had just because I felt I fit into whatever world I was walking through, like it was what was expected of me. And maybe, even though it's frightening and nobody wants me to do it, I should leave school. Hair grows back, I can always come back. I just feel like taking scissors to my life right now.

Patched the holes in my pants with cotton. Now I can walk in them without my thighs bleeding. They actually don't bleed- they turn grey. Weird, right? Friction+ Skin= Grey Spots.

Watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Nearly shit myself laughing. I never liked Val Kilmer before. Ever. In anything. I just need Kilmer to abandon his current reality and become Gay Perry forever and rock my world.

This summer= tanning, losing weight, getting back to what I used to look like. Not this fat, white, alien Tiana. I was just comparing pictures of me in August and me now... it's really.... shocking. I want to go back, really.

I am spending my time ignoring the conversation on Novalis until I hear an obvious Greek myth reference and then I chime in, dead and intelligent sounding.

The heart, the senses, the realms of nature, the essence of nature the return to nature, the human mind, the death of the heart the return of the heart, the transcendence of the heart, the breaking of Eros, the exhaustion of the imagination, the promises of Fable, wisdom, the eradication of wisdom, the mother, the father, immature love, pure love, mature love, rides around the run in chariots, giants, fountains, fates, the grim reaper, promises, degradation, disintegration.

I am looking at poetry online.

Sounds
    Like pearls,
Roll off your tongue
    To graze this eager ebon ear

Doubt and fear
    Ungainly things,
With blushings
        Disappear.
I used to read Maya Angeleou’s poetry every free reading session in 6th or seventh grade. I don’t remember which.

There is one I love more than this, but I can not remember.

my hair has grown out about two inches. yay! soon- a fro. I don't know why I'm celebrating this. Maybe I'm turning over a big fat leaf just chock-full of black pride. Hell, if I could look like Betty Davis or a Black Panther, I'd rock the fro and the pick and the yellow leather booty shorts (that would be Davis.. not the Panthers.)

The kitchen sink smells like cheese. We've taken to microwaving breakfast, lunch and dinner on napkins and cardboard, drinking soup out of coffee mugs, drinking coffee out of ceramic shot glasses. Why is washing the dishes so difficult for me to wrap my mind around. It was my only job at home, I should be used to it.

Dave Eggers= love, btw. How we Are Hungry and You Shall Know Our Velocity make me feel bright and shiny inside. I'm working my way slowly through A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and What is the What, and I just read Theo in The Book of Other people, and My current, active read at the moment is The Best American Non Required Reading, edited by Eggers. I love this man. I love his Non Profits, his proclivity towards political and social issues, his strong gravitational pull that gently dips the matter around him so that he is the center around which wonderful words and images rotate.

Kurt Vonnegut

-part of the poem by Louise Erdrich

I went to see more of the Hopper exhibit today. It was like an assembly line of people, since it just opened this week. Step forward, note painting, nod head, whisper something clever to companion while still looking at the painting, nod again, move forward, step lively people!
I never liked Edward Hopper before. I thought they were too... straightforward. Too much like a 1920's-30's  American advertisement. But looking at them up close, looking at how many he made, how different they are, how much feeling they convey. Light. Light! Light! I want to walk by the buildings, sit on the roof tops, I want to sit quietly next to his people.

I like Edward Hopper now. I understand the popularity of Nighthawks now.

Interestingly enough, I was watching Dead Like Me season one all week, and today, the first epsode I watch, at 11:00 at night, is Nighthawks, and at the end they recreate the painting with Mason, Rube, George and the Busboy. They even took into account the counter facing the other way and made it work. They took into account how sparse the painting was, no details in the other windows, in the street. I liked their imitation more than that one that CSI did.

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.

I've got Marla Singer's voice in my head. No shit I'm having trouble writing a children's book.