ultimately this will all be fine, i tell myself

true: nothing in chicago is, nor ever will be, clean. not my seat on the brown line, not the forks at restaurants, not the kitchen floor, not the bathtub, not my socks. nothing.

false: i am strong, i am tough. nothing can stand in my way. i will stop at nothing to triumph. i am fearless.

true: everything stands in my way and i fear everything from silence to the self-service checkout line at Jewel.

false: i am intimidating. i am looking at you like that because i think you are beneath me.

true: you intimidate the living piss out of me. you too. i am looking at you that way because you are skinnier and clothes look better on you. boys are just like regular ol' people to you. without makeup you are still like a model. you can dance. you have unique skills and talents. you are more flexible, flawless in conversation, and you can probably play an instrument. you're a better athlete. it is all entirely inconsequential to you.

false: i have coping skills, yes i do. i have coping skills, how 'bout you?

true: there is no way i know to ever adequately express my feelings to you. there never has been.

false: we will be the best of friends for the rest of our lives - love, megan

true: in the bathroom at yoga, i am in the huntsville middle locker room all over again.

false: i hate it to run into someone from these years in my hometown and find that i barely recognize them for the dye jobs and weight gain.

true: i would like to get to know you better, i just don't know when to hug.

false: truth for the sake of art.

true: sandwiches are more complicated than you might imagine.

false: things are very easy for me. they always have been.

true: i'm thinking about a pee-wee herman tattoo.

false: this is all about me.

true: you would be quite surprised.

another from the "dark was the night" compilation

"feelin' good." my brightest diamond covers nina simone.

diamonds in the roughly translated

there is a graveyardian fog hovering over the north side of Chicago. where are all the hot closet case teenage vampire werewolf zombie Gagas i've heard so much about?


this just in: earl grey is not lactose intolerant and prefers not to be made gluten free. that being said, it asks that we stick to steeping it in water or soymilk, thank you, and maybe not do the almond milk thing again. while drinkable, it's more like a remedy than a dessert.



Mucca Pazza should be the poet laureates. i don't even know who the current poet laureate. am i supposed to know that? because i'm a writer? because i'm american? because i grew up in a house with books?

nope. Mucca Pazza. hands down, no question. the video doesn't do them justice. there are several shorter ones on Vimeo of much better quality. a Mucca Pazza show will change your life and, if you are lucky enough to see them multiple times, you can count on them to change your mood. i would suggest seeing them in the february/march time particularly, from the underside of your rock caked in chemical waste sewage mud and roly polies. crawl out from the lingering heaps of automoshit gravel turds that stretch for blocks when the snow makes a prolonged exit, bathe your trusty bicycle choking in salt and pedal to wherever the Mucca Pazzians may be. go alone, on your period with unshaven legs and in need of a haircut. if loneliness worries you, bring a flask. or a facebook friend. unless your friend is a phyllopod, they will be eternally grateful to you for bringing them along. not to say that a phyllopod wouldn't have FUN, one just couldn't EXPRESS his love for Mucca Pazza, and is probably a lightweight on saturday nights and if you love Mucca Pazza, you definitely can't afford to send him home in a cab. especially because he probably lives in the burbs. but enough about phyllopods.


Mucca Pazza played a positively BAD.ASS.SHOW. this weekend at St. Paul's Community Center in Wicker Park as part of the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. they are a self-proclaimed circus marching band featuring original music, cheerleaders, and performance bits that i can only suppose Sufjan Stevens was trying to emulate on his Illinoise! tour several years back. which i did not see. i've made a habit of commenting on and about things that i haven't actually read, seen, or experienced. this makes me one of the following: 

• village idiot
• lying poser
• genus genius 
• 26-years-old

when you come to Chicago*, remind me to take you to see Mucca Pazza. i might be in a bad mood again by then and have forgotten about them.


also, if you live here and you are broke and into cool things**, go to a bar called Ricochet's in Lincoln Square this saturday at 3pm. and last saturday and next saturday and every saturday as far as the eye can see so long as you come and bring more non-phyllopods. there you will see a splendid little thing called Paper Machete, Chicago's own "live magazine" hosted by Christopher Piatt and featuring and eclectic brew of local Chicago writers, comics, musicians, & performers etc., doing some very casual and totally charming work in a place that i've walked by about a billion times and always assumed aging child molesters stumbled into when they realized that trying to get laid up the corner at Spyners is a lost cause. turns out i was wrong. well, no, i think i might still be right but only on certain nights of the week. on saturday it was just peachy and Bell's Amber was on special for $4. this past week's line-up included E-W's Margaret Lyons, Chi-Trib movie critic Michael Phillips, food blogger Ryan O'Connor, Lisa Buscani (Neo! Neo! Neo!), and musical guest Sad Brad Smith. ahem. yes.

then! today! tifster gave me a little espresso HJ over at the brand spankin' new Kickstand Espresso Bar set to rival the lame-ballsiest 24-hour Starbucks evah on the whopjennied corner of Belmont + Clark. you can watch her on live webcast when she competes at the Great Lakes Barista Championship this friday in Milwaukee, 3pm CST. girlfriend's bringin' some game. i want to spoil the surprises so bad, but i am keeping my trap clamped.***


side note: a turn signal might have been polite at that four-way. this is me reaching the conclusion that anyone behind the wheel of a car is as helplessly dim as a phyllopod, myself included.

no idea where the phyllopod fixation came from. sometimes words pop into my head for no particular reason even when i'm convinced i've never heard them before. i immediately check the electronic dictionary to find that not only do they exist but they might actually be representative in these cases of appropriate word usage. or creative at the very least.


there might be nothing so simply magnificent as extremely cold water after yoga. it crossed my mind tonight, and marking it down was kind of obligatory since all i've done is bitch for the last few months. 

i'm just trying to make it out of this winter alive, man. some days are more life-threatening than others.

additionally, i have only three bras that i would consider to be entirely fitting & functional, one of which has a ginormous ink stain on the left cup and pit area due to pen leakage in the washing machine.

----------------------

ET CETERALS:

*which you won't
**by which description you are, inherently, broke.
***which has absolutely NOTHING to do/in common with a "clap trap"

"why can't you see yourself as beautiful as i see you?"

some post-weekend avetts.



"will you return," from emotionalism brought to you from the back of a bus.

i may have another apartment within the hour

just music for awhile

found this one last night when i used up my 29 credits from emusic.
found this one again this morning while i was slathering myself in lotion, dressing with no care for what was pilled or mismatched, putting on makeup like it was going to fix something.
found this one again several times over the 8-hour day, sorting clothes in the back away from everyone else, on the way to the berwyn jewel after yoga, up to evanston after berwyn jewel.

i'll keep my own words someplace more quiet for now.

a moment for the sake of pace and sanity

Some Glad Day from Brian Harnetty on Vimeo.

music by bonnie "prince" billy. i think the images are from kansas, where i have little been. it looked just like home, anyway.

rilquick

today i dressed cute because i knew they would put me on the register (which they did) which meant i was less likely to get grubby. sometimes i do this. dress cute. which generally means that i dress up top in a way that does not necessarily rely on a t-shirt, could perhaps require a strapless bra--more for my own peace of mind than necessity, that i apply make up with more intent. i don't know what that intent is, exactly. i reckon it's got something to do with playing cute, because i definitely don't have the confidence to play much more hot than 11th grade, which no matter how hot is still just cute. it's before the breasts and butt and thighs expand into something that must be maintained rather than flaunted. not that i haven't had the adjective "sexy" applied to me, i've just not often felt such a thing. cute is manageable. cute is something that you can pull off even if you are ugly as sin. some days i feel, for a fleeting moment, sexy. many days i feel, for hours upon end whenever i catch my reflection or particularly my profile...a genetic mishap. or--if i am feeling generous--just cute enough to get through the day. i dress cute because some days it is inconvenient to feel relentlessly unattractive.

maybe i treat people better when i look better. i did not freak out on that lady who always pisses me off. today she reminded me of a hybrid of my two grandmothers, plus a little of someone else's demanding grandmother who--after 40 years--still refuses to learn functional english. i was nice to her, extremely patient. i think i even spoke in a different tone of voice. i behaved cutely, you might say. and i was good, in my spare time, at answering emails and making sure that there was at least enough bouncing around in my gut to prevent any unnecessary work drama no matter how mild and fleeting. i drank twice as much water as coffee. i went to yoga. i went to a meeting that i was dreading only mildly for my own insecurity. it was productive and funny. i did not fail.
so she was right when she asked,
"do you ever NOT get your work done?"
and i was right when i responded,
"not when there are other people involved. i guess not."
and i was righter still when i added,
"but i don't always get my bathroom cleaned."
and if she rolled her eyes (which i like to think she did even though it wouldn't have been in a judgmental way), she would have been right.
she might have been wrong when she said to take care of myself in a complicated way that i wouldn't hash out on here.
and i might have been wrong when i didn't.

the snow might be melting. i won't say for sure. it does this, you know. on a yearly basis. false sense of security.

i have more to suppress than usual. some of that isn't fair at all. that unfairness is a huge part of what makes me unhappy--sad and angry to be even less specific. i am feeling marooned and midnight keeps sneaking up on me.

heard this song and thought of you, then more specifically the song that wasn't available on the website i stream my music from

you are hiding at an anthropologie somewhere in birmingham. i have pictures of you in the basement that i don't look at anymore because they've been down there since i moved here and now i have to decide whether or not to move them again. i miss riding in your car and when we supposed we knew each other. it felt like we were best friends for a flash-in-the-pan huntsville high school minute. maybe we were both just the right kind of sad that clicks.


i smelled a hole in the story. that one, and maybe a few in the ones before. and after. they mostly didn't effect me, which is why i never turned you over a spit like the rest of them did when they had every right to. a greater sum of them, anyway. it was the most objective i've ever been in my life. partly because i needed you and partly because you needed me. maybe people thought we were girl crushes. girlfriends like girlfriends. they did when i wrote that piece about you and used it to get my current job. i don't know. i don't really give a shit. we never did that. you are/were a baptist republican in a house that spanned from one block to the next and i was an divorced kid liberal in a 1987 4-cylinder toyota. your sister wore a bra on the outside of her clothes and made out with my gay boyfriend whose parents thought i was a psycho. i used her shower once before school when mine was broken. she painted random words all over the walls. it was kind of yoko. it was definitely stupid. i didn't get it, and i still turned out to be an artist (or something). there were rumors about her and one of the yard guys y'all called Beans. maybe you started them. your next door neighbors had a female ginkgo and it stunk to high heaven. we all skinny dipped that one time in your pool and i was scared because we all knew who the hot ones were and i must have known then that we wouldn't be friends for much longer. your phone rang "toreodor." sometimes i hear it now and it only reminds me of you and that summer that you got yourself into trouble one too many times and he kept calling, and then you left your birkenstocks at THEIR house while i was at the beach with his wife and daughter (who are still like family to me) and i had to rat you out. or him out. you said and did some fucked up things there towards the end. the end of when i knew you.


but then you disappeared.
..........
.........
........
.......
......
.....
....
...
..
.
your birthday is april 5, 1985.
.
..
...
....
.....
......
.......
........
.........
..........
when we met your hair was shorter and you sat behind me in french class
.........
........
.......
......
.....
....
...
..
.
you wore a white skirt for the first day. 
.
..
...
....
.....
......
.......
........
.........
..........
you spelled your name in all lowercase way before 
.........
........
.......
way way way way way before
.....
....
...
..
.
i think the female teachers were envious of you.
.
..
...
you were the prettiest girl in the whole school. hands down. no contest.
....
.....
you taught me how to skip class, which entails just leaving. 
....
...
..
walking right out the side door by the gym
.
..
...
....
that they tore down
.....
......
.......
........
.........
your middle name is an action figure/memorabilia/collectibles manufacturer
..........
.........
........
no relation
.......
......
.....
....
...
..
your best friend died. before i met you. i don't know what happened to him or if you were with him. i never asked.
.
..
...
....
.....
you never told me
......
.......
........
.........
..........
maybe that's why everything was fucked up
.........
........
.......
......
i still miss you
.....
....
...
i'm still giving you the benefit of the doubt
..
.

united airlines flight 2022 - HSV to ORD

i tripped on the step from their breezeway to the garage and twisted my ankle. i was trying to get out through the garage to meet my dad in the driveway. he was trying to be nice. he was trying to give me his GPS thingy because i'd mentioned very much in passing that i might need one (i got lost in the suburbs on friday..again). but it was two hours before i had to be at the airport, sandwiched between two NICU visits. the timing was pushed and poor.

i am behind on everything i need to be doing in chicago. i have shifted various work schedules to the point that i fear i'm more of an inconvenience than a help to the people i work for. i am broke. i have to find an apartment. i am on an emotional rollercoaster in a relationship traffic jam. i want off the ride. i screamed that on my first rollercoaster, The Mindbender, at Six Flags over Atlanta in 1990. you had to be 48 inches to ride. i was barely tall enough, and this was before over-the-shoulder bars. this was a straight up lap bar holding my bony ass in a seat next to my mom, turning full out loop-the-loops. i could see it from the parking lot and i wanted to ride, but mostly to prove something. so i rode it and the whole time i remember screaming, “GET ME OFF THIS THING!!!” which they did, eventually. once the ride was over. i reluctantly rode the Georgia Cyclone. i think. did i? maybe it wasn’t that trip. i remember thinking, and probably being told, that it couldn’t get any worse than The Mindbender. truth be told, it did not get any worse. i have yet to be on a roller coaster as horrifying and evidently unsafe as The Mindbender since that initial ride at the age of 6.

the rolled ankle was the straw that broke the camel's back. when i am surrounded by people who i think by now should know my limits, the flavor of stress and anxieties that drive me to a boiling point, i am twice as likely to blow when they are exceeded. add to that unfavorable conditions and a particularly rushed trip south (not to mention at least one face and one comment that got me crawling in the first 24 hours), and i am an island surrounded on all sides by eggshells. you’re better not to look at me, to let me do what i need to do and move silently on. of course, this is impossible to expect of anyone. ever. at all. especially in unfavorable conditions and with a particularly rushed trip south where my family is lucky to see me two or three times a year on their own turf.

what a holy terror i am. have been. since i was old enough to talk. maybe even before. to love, live with, listen to, teach, befriend. an old friend from high school asked what my blog was about last night and i sort of laughed in that way that implies it is the stupidest thing in the world. "it's basically 'my so-called life' on the internet," i said. "mostly pissing and moaning."  is it worth putting up with? i don't know. sometimes i can be very funny, so i'm told.

i am cursing over the hood of my grandmother’s car, crying and limping out to the end of the driveway where my dad gets out of the car and i am pretty much yelling AT him when he was only trying to be nice and get one last hug in before i leave again for god knows how long. i choke it down for another hour or so till the airport. i choke it down at the airport until the bathroom at o’hare where i will choke it down again again again until i go to sleep tonight.

it feels like i’m always trying not to cry on an airplane, until i get through the front door, before i return a phone call. i’ve started getting headaches. it feels like i’m always lying about what i’m capable of doing. i postponed a workshop due to an overwhelming schedule that could not reconcile itself in time to accommodate something else. i think worry digested my Humphrey’s half sandwich lunch by the time i boarded from gate 7 even though my boarding pass told me to go to gate 9. i think the TSA security checkpoint detailer was either a child molester or thought i was a lying liar when i over explained my life to him because it looked like he was scrutinizing my Illinois driver’s license (which is so clearly a picture of ME, by the way). i think Canada deserved to beat the U.S. for gold in hockey & ice dancing gold. i think Parker Griffith can kiss my ass with that B.S. pamphlet he mailed to my mom’s house and i don’t think abortion should be covered (except when the female can be deemed a victim of sexual crime) by a health bill that isn’t going to pass anyway. i think homeland security is going to give me an ulcer before the age of 40. i am not sorry to have voted for Obama, but i remain to be impressed, to feel taken care of within the scope of how average citizens should be cared for over the interests of big dawg investor gimme-gimmes. i feel passed over like everyone else, and refuse to believe that such a feeling isn’t influencing my emotional well-being and faith in community.

what i need is a land bridge to carry me across to May. if i can get through May, i can get through June & July.