How's that for subtleties

I share the bare thanksgiving streets with a man rustling through the garbage cans in the alley behind charleston. He pulls out a half eaten loaf of bread. I'm invisible to him, which i find comforting. We both wanted the streets to ourselves. Past the brick exterior of apartments and townhouses i see lights glowing, some from TVs, others from laughter. I'm The Pedestrian, but even worse, nobody seems to care. I'm free to wander, so i take a sharp right through the gates of the bucktown park. My shoes weren't meant for this weather. They never are, they weather wherever i go. Water spills in through the hole in the back of my left boot - i mutter obscenities as if i didn't create it in the first place. The swings look lonely, so i go to sit down. It's too cold to use them for their real purpose, swinging that is. Instead i just sit and stare at my half-soaked shoe. It would be a pity-swing anyway, just to keep them company.

The church bells here go off every hour starting at 8 am. 8 am is an awful time to be aware of if you ask me. But they ring 8 very noticeable times. Each individual bell toll makes my teeth hurt, my eyes roll, my legs numb, my fists clench. And then again at 9. The toes of my shoes submerse themselves in woodchips and the chains of the swing take off. I grab hastily at them like the cord on a city bus, but they ignore my signals. The church bells go off, the freezing chains creak in discord - they hate that fucking church as much as i do.

10 tolls, i should head back. I pick myself up by my slightly worn bootstraps, hearing the smack of my shoes on the pavement. I stop, one step, smack, one step, smack. It resonates down the streets and back again, a boomerang of sound. I laugh, it hits me, one step, smack. My pace increases, my muscles tighten, the sound is trailing behind me, shaking windows knocking down bricks, shattering televisions and laughter that encase the glow. Hey, you: i'm thankful for our music and our beds, and our lack of beds, and, well, our heavy fucking memories.

cup 13, long night

The cafeteria cups are simply not large enough to hold all the expectations i have in my morning brew. I know this. I know this i know this i know this, i repeat to myself as i grab for the ceramic mug. And i look at the mug and it looks back at me, and we know that we will never be what the other one needs. Ok, so i'll go for seconds, or thirds, or twelfths, and in each sip i will get bits and pieces of my future day pumping through my veins and waking my nerves. But it never works as smoothly as i predict. Some of my day inevitably spill onto my pants, that is, only when i'm wearing pants i enjoy. if they are zach's pants, well coffee just dances around them, making sure that the irony only permeates into my belongings, not anybody elses. i have so much to say, all. the. mother. fucking. time. And now with the means to say it, in a 9-10 page paper, i'm at a blank. thirteenths. some sloshes onto the floor and into my bag. i over research, as a general statement. and while this is a positive attribute in most cases, it is rare that my research ever affects my decisions or writing. I have found that it is much easier to say what i mean than to mean what i say. And i think i mean that, i really do.

I can understand a cold wind, one that moves through every part of your body causing your muscles to contract in a rapid harmonic wave. Bone-chilling, it pushes its way past the protection of your skin and continues to swirl, tossing your blood up in a tumult within your veins. But the still cold, that is truly unnerving. It's a looming threat, settling on top of your thoughts and encapsulating them in a timeless sphere. I try not to breathe, for hope that my breath will keep body working, but it's desperate to get out. With the wind each exhale disperses quickly, joining the rest of the freezing air as if it never came from me to begin with. Today there is not movement, and with no movement comes no sound. My breath seeps out and hangs for a moment in a warm cloud before the cold sets in. I watch it solidify before my eyes, and with its new chilling weight clamour to the ground before shattering into thousands of pieces. It's the breath of cities, stationary, waiting to be inhaled again. 4 am is the best time to be awake. Your eyelids have grown accustomed to their heaviness and find their way to the middle of your eyes. Things become more apparent, the rise and fall of your chest, the flicker of the courtyard light, the burning paper from your cigarette. No one moves, no one is out, my footsteps echo for ages down four flights of stairs, but the moment the noise reaches the open door, the echo is stifled by the motionless cold. In your exhaustion, you miss the ground, and step out onto air. It's the perfect time to fly, who would know, who would care. You've forgotten what the etching sound of pen on paper is like, it has been a while since your thoughts could flow like this.

dedicated to hanna

We've established a general way to communicate with each other, mostly relying on language to convey any message, both reasonable and totally obscure, to another person. This makes sense, and works out especially well for me since i generally bank on my words as a way to communicate anything and everything. To much touching tends to make me uncomfortable, eye contact was out of the question for a long while, and g-d knows that i'm not well versed on the complexity of body language. Feelings, which even in typing makes me feel nauseatingly feminine, become so deeply immersed in my defensive humor and random streams of consciousness that they are essentially waterlogged and lose all real meaning. So i default to hoping that my ramblings help convey some form of sensitivity that is buried within my language. But this concept, that i can say something and someone else will understand me, has affected my general pattern of thinking. Now not only do i believe that i can communicate everything i want to through our shoddy english language that has been infiltrated by latin and german and french (which is surprising since we're supposed to hate the french right?), but i have taken that a step further, believing that everything i do and think and hope is what an outsider would do and think and hope as well as long as i say it right. P.S. that's not how the system works.

This is where you come in Hanna, the only person i know who actually reads my blog (why you do this is still a mystery, nevertheless a pleasant one, to me). So apparently i'm secretive. Hidden. Withdrawn. Which is bizarre because i feel like i do the friendship equivalent of prostitute myself out to anyone who so much as smiles at me. But maybe this is why people think i'm not the open book i've defined myself to be. I guess i've heard this from other people before, but it seemed so absolutely ridiculous to me that i dusted it off my shoulder like a real pimp would do. Don't you ever forget that ladies is pimps too. Maybe i give a lot of nothing to a wide population. My words, that mask what i actually do, or think, or hope, or dare i say it feel, are something i am more than comfortable sharing, but language doesn't transcend all that is important. Over the past couple of days i have been hit by a slow-moving yet shockingly powerful wave of realization that not everyone, in fact very few people, think in the exact same way that i do. Not only am i totally soaked from head to toe, but this tsunami has left a bitter, salty taste lingering in my mouth. Oh yes, it's the taste of foreboding responsibility. Oh yes, it may even be the taste of an oncoming (but most likely long-winded) change. And this wave will keep pushing me back until i realize that i need to stop relying on this falsehood that i have turned to fact: I am everybody else, and they are me. So now the dish i've scooped onto my plate is dripping over the edges and spilling onto my clothes. Plus this is marni's shirt, so i feel twice as guilty about staining it with my unappealing duty. I could dump it into a trashcan, but in this current day and age we can't afford to waste realizations when other people in third-world countries are starving for this shit. I guess it's time to give in and let myself binge, no matter how full or disgusted i am, and deal with things i've been putting off.

Just seen a face

I had my first brush with love tonight, albeit i wasn't directly involved. Sitting in my normal coffee shop in my normal coffee spot with my normal coffee-based drink i spotted the normal coffee-shop loiterer in the corner. He was bundled in a colorless plaid jacket holding his hands over to collect the steam from his cup, and i realized that he felt this same sense of normalcy with the upstairs of Rendezvous. Yes, he is homeless, and no, i haven't shared more than a glance or a cigarette with him, but i today i felt especially connected. You see, we have more in common than i would have banked on. For starters, i think i bought his jacket in a different color pallet some years back, and moving further in depth, we both looked pretty overwhelmed by our bad attitudes. So i smiled, yes, a sharing smile, and he did the same back, and i felt i had accomplished something for the day. This stranger had the opportunity to be graced by my lovely, warm, exclusive smile. How fucking lucky of him. About 12 minutes and 3/4 of a cup of coffee later a brown haired girl walked up the stairs and started rapping her pack of marb lights on the palm of her hand. She looked around for a moment, walked up to MY stranger, and sat down. Now i don't remember much of anything else from this moment on, but my world lens focused directly on this couple and everything else around me faded to black. She was young and beautiful, had a fairly strong new york accent hidden beneath her reserved demeanor. Her hair was done perfectly to curl at certain spots and fall straight at others, her clothes, unwrinkled, hung off her body. This was the harold and maude of reality - based on appearances the most unlikely pair. I watched for 20 minutes as she talked and learned and he did the same, and his smile got wider, and his laugh deeper, and our shared acknowledgement got shoved off the map completely. She cared, while i wondered. She spoke when i nodded. She listened when i assumed. And when she lifted herself off the chair and said goodbye, he did the same, leaving whatever burdensome mentality he previously wore behind to circle around me. Why was i so scared? Because i felt connected to someone so unlikely or because i felt connected to someone at all? I wanted to exchange words, I wanted to make him laugh, I wanted to learn about his history, or his day, or even his name. I guess i'm not ready, and neither is the majority of the world, but i took a deeper step, a trip, and i fell - for this man and this woman and for my new found faith in humanity. Today, maybe i'll do something beautiful, or at least wear out my rose-colored glasses and let beauty come to me.

white lines at 3 am

The entire state of washington is shrouded by a collection of low hanging clouds. My car, pushing 80 on the narrow strip of I-5 about 60 miles in, pounded through the haze that trapped scattered portions of light and made the trucks around me glow. I told myself i love driving at night, which is probably a truth i have learned, but never really got to experience. I'd like to think i love it, the road clear, the music blasting, my mind alive. But the 2 hours stretched on forever. I could not help picture myself in a scene from the Phantom Tollbooth every time the road took an upward turn. On occasion, and without warning, the open stretch of land is cut off as you enter a wall of evergreen trees. The noise of your wheels on the pavement is amplified as it bounces off the branches and back into your window, harmonizing surprisingly well with the lauryn hill song blasting from my speakers.

This night wasn't cold. I hung my arm out the open window and grabbed at portions of the hot, thick air. As time began to encroach on 3 o'clock, i felt my eyes grow weighted, from the speed and the music and the thickness of the air. Rest Area next right read a blue sign, Next Rest Area 50 miles. I flipped my blinker, for no one but myself to see, and slid off the fast-paced road. Only 4 other cars were dispersed throughout the parking lot, all fogged up from heavy breathing. I couldn't rest, i thought, not with only 60 miles of white lines left for me. A warm wind came through, and all at once lifted the fog that blanketed the cars, exposing a piercing night sky. Climbing on top of my car, i lay face up, trying to take in the heavens before they were tucked away behind the murk once again. Lights shifted around, moving in almost unnoticeable concentric circles, realligning immediately once they caught my attention. Truck after truck rode by, humming as they made their way through what i previously thought was my night. I wondered what they were thinking, listening to, taking in. I shared a connection with them that i could not fabricate at any other hour of the day, or with any other weather but these low, warm clouds. We all were trapped on this road, encased in the glow of our own lights, gauging our progress only by the passing highway markers and fleeting white lines.

I light my cigarette and look up, trying to phase out the sounds of my companion's lives sliding by and focus only on my breathing. Where was the little dipper? I spent half a year tormenting myself, trying to understand a beefy british man explain the universe to me and i couldn't even find the little dipper? The big one, well that i could always see. Or maybe i had been looking at the little one the entire time, and the big was simply too great of a concept for me to grasp. It's all relative i suppose. I exhale my last drag and let my body slide off the side of the car. I see the fog lingering 20 feet above my head, waiting to settle the moment i turn back onto the road. The bright green of my car clock glows 3:00, a time i have always been uncomfortable with. But never before have i felt that i was exactly where i should be, doing the only thing i could do. I turn the key to the right and hear the engine sputter to a start. Without hesitation the fog eases back in as i once again enter the world of the road. I share the next 60 miles with the road, the trucks, and the warm night air.

whether there is weather

Whatever higher power that is romping around above us meek human beings has an ironic sense of humor. The humidity has gotten to me; to both my attitude and my heavy hearty hair. I'm worried that if i stay in this damp room much longer i won't be able to fit my fro through the doorway, and will be forced to bloat until the room gets up and leaves instead. At least i'd feel like i accomplished something with my unconscious protest. Holy hot, michigan. I have never been nostalgic for the weather 3 months ago. Scratch that, 3 weeks ago. The cold, the snow, the frostbite. I remember ever so clearly shaking some mitten-covered fist at the greyed and snowing sky yelling at mother-fucking-nature about how it's mother-fucking-april. I took it too far, so this is probably all some sort of cosmic justice, telling her (mother nature that is) that i understand she's been around for some thousands of years and i'm sure this is just her menopausal mood swings setting in but she should get a grip. And now, after lecturing her about the concept of heat, oh, she's giving it to me baby.
In the haziness of the heat and devastation of finals, the campus has turned into one big mirage for me. Errbody else is done with their exams and stumbling around in a celebratory-drunken stupor, headed to one giant-fucking party that i'm not invited to. I keep seeing an oasis of friends, shining in the distance, but as my eyes focus in and out i see only the glow of my computer screen and papers rustling in the wake of this life size fan, blowing used air over my used body, and doing nothing good for the current situation of my hair that i had described briefly above.
Denise and i wandered on over to rendezvous at some point during this endless night, to get a little bit of learn on, but ended up telling stories to each other, mostly on my part. With the hope that i am just as enigmatic to her as she is to me, i put a little part of myself onto the patio table and watched my history spill through the holes and onto her lap. But instead of grabbing a napkin and wiping my words off of her, i decided to let them seep. I hope she spills something huge and steaming on me one day too, because hell, y'all know misery loves company. This heat is really doing something to me, pumping into my pores until older parts of me overflow and cascade down, drowning villages and towns. I feel pretty drained right now, after dumping myself onto an unsuspecting bystander, but as long as this humidity continues forecasts predict me to be fairly swelled up once again by tomorrow. Hope to withstand all this weathering.

"i bought her a drink, but she wouldn't sleep with me, so i bought her another"

Unless the man sitting to my right is robin williams in Jack, then i'd have to assume from his completely greyed hair and full bearded look that he's around 50. However my inadvertent eavesdropping would tell me otherwise. I would like to assume the teenage attitude towards relationships would grow as you do, but maybe it's simply instilled in certain people, which leaves me very worried. Today someone described college in the best way i could think of. Before coming into this world of scheduled thought even i had the attitude that, hey, i'm going into the real world. Well, college baby, is anything but. We live in this world, a "student ghetto", a redlined area for people going through the exact same things that i am, all told that they are intelligent enough to come here, and floating on the remnants of that belief. And i'm right there with them, up stream, with one of those shitty plastic paddles. So it may be this atmosphere that has left me thinking that nothing in the world is different, especially attitudes about love. We've all got that modern-love-bug. Take nothing seriously, skate by, waiting for the next best thing, because once it's good it'll eventually come to us. At least, that's what Mr. Middle-aged on my starboard side thinks. He, and his fairly silent but agreeable friend just "doesn't give a fuck" and is "just looking for a good time". It's not that bad, i tell myself. No big. Because i have faith that eventually i'll be in the process of searching for a great time, a long time, a life time? Maybe this is what we've entered, an era of haphazard relationships, bumping into one another and ricocheting off in the opposite direction until we run into someone else. The seven-year itch has expanded into a full-fledged bodily rash, that leaves us wanting to scratch all the live long day. I heard oatmeal baths help, however i'm not sure how to relieve an irritated mind. The most devastating part of this scenario is that my sweater is dangerously similar to that mans. I see my future, and it is middle-aged and meek.

Ta-da

Today i found my fingers itching for the comforting click of key-typing today, a clear facebook-withdrawal symptom after LJ and i took a girlscouts oath to stop wasting our lives away on the ether and changed each others' passwords. however the age old adage rings true once more reminding me that when one door closes, another one opens. so here i am, 4 internet tabs away from insanity, browsing through craigslist personal ads, episodes of old addicting tv shows, pictures of celebrities, mayan facts, BBCmundo, anything that could relieve my need for rifling through other people's personal lives in the privacy of my own room. i took a short, but well earned, bathroom break, and upon my return i saw the severity of the situation, with the window showing a list of fight-club quotes, and decided that i need a different form of therapeutic release, just to ease my aching-facebookless-soul.
Maybe banning facebook, the one stable aspect of my life at the moment, wasn't such a good decision. It was almost comforting to know that i had the overly published details of every person's life that i have so much as smiled at lingering right there in front of me. Although i never really care about how much homework chelsea has, or even remember who the fuck ezra, who is now single by the way, is, the fact that i could access said information was a great fall back. But the truth is that while FB allows me to get a sneak-peak into the lives of other unimportant people who i don't think about, it distracts me from thinking about, well, me.
So here's my plan b: blogging. I keep telling myself that i'll keep this updated because it serves as my own mental release from whatever was clogging my mind beforehand, but the idea of it seems so very angsty. I was rarely angsty in highschool, mostly bitter, but even so i generally kept it to myself. However it seems that the blogging-boat that i embarked on was filled with throngs of angry-angsty teens pouring their hearts and souls, or rather other people's depressing song lyrics, out and into public domain. After spending some time sifting through teens writings, i realized more and more that i was becoming one of them, an idea that both shocked and attracted me. It's mob mentality basically. I have no need to recount how linkin park was obviously writing about my life when they wrote the song "i was born this angry, i can't help it, go fuck yourself", but if everybody's doing it then it must be good. Anyways, i hereby dub this post a semi-permanent welcome back party for myself, that is, until i forget to return tomorrow. Let's whip out the streamers and champagne baby.

sell your dope

This is all things considered, from NPR news, I'm Rachel Sherman. I get oddly comforted by music that has no correlation to my life whatsoever. This may explain my newly adopted choice to listen to too much afroman for my own good. Although i'm not black, don't smoke very much weed, or deal it for that matter, i still like to know that if i can't find a job because my skin ain't white, i can always sell my dope, and everything will turn out relatively well. Today is valentine's day, a celebration made for happy people to bask in their love, and the unhappy to drink away their emotions hoping that they may hit that point where vodka meets the time-space continum and skip this holiday altogether. I'd say that this discovery could mean one small step for mankind, one giant leap for alcoholics. I've been feeling super domestic lately, and that combined with the big v-day has left me very few options. So far my best one yet is turning into a leather-wearing alcoholic single mother who heats up microwaveable meals for my children while i watch re-runs of Threes Company on my crappy television. And they say you need direction for a happy life. Yesterday i got into a pretty heated conversation about the nature of list-making. I can spot a list-maker from a mile away. It has something to do with their smell, or maybe my sonar radar, but either way, i know that i'm not one of them. This impedement has caused some unnecessary conflict in my life, mostly because i forget to do everything that i should. But lists do nothing but remind me of everything my lazy ass has yet to accomplish. It's not the most satisfying of feelings. Anyways, i think i'm sensing a change of heart coming on, and so i figured i might as well hop on the bandwagon. 1) homeworkkkk? this includes reminding myself that i neither understand, nor give a shit about astronomy, but should probably look up some information before my midterm. i do feel better about being so g-d awful at it though by reminding myself that at least i'm not an astronomer, studying things that don't matter and will never fully understand until the armageddon comes and i have to drill into a comet with bruce willis and ben affleck. also some history writing, some slavery studying, some spanish reading, and some serious coffee drinking 2) thank becca for her valentine. although i hate the holiday, i would love the sentiment if i were a part of the previous group of people 3) set up study sessions with that semi-iffy guy in my discussion section 4) pee 4.5) wash hands 5) find short shorts for a potentially awkward party tonight 6) rent space jam 7) buy excessive amounts of alcohol, get pregnant and watch more Threes Company I think that was thorough enough for my first attempt at listing. Support for Rachels Ramblming comes form our listeners and Hostess cupcakes, eat your bodyweight. Thanks for listening!

we're not in kansas anymore

I may be lost now that i've been here enough to know where i am. My bed feels too comfortable, my clothes too worn in, my thoughts too premeditated. I've established a routine that i already need to break, and considering the last time i went to the gym was during 'nam, i really don't think i have to upper arm strenth to break it. It's kind of like high school again, with less bells telling me where to go and when. I wish i scheduled my classes earlier in the morning so i could sleep through some of them, instead of sleeping whilst i'm in them. The chairs there don't really welcome a quality hour and a half nap. Maybe i need to wander more, but the moment i begin to wander my wandering mind comes right back into the frigid -4 degree reality. So because physical wandering proved too arctic and difficult, i tried some mental wandering, which was easy since i can't really find myself right now. Somehow i ended up cyberly wandering and accidentally stumbling upon an application for a custodial job at the League (i'm not quite sure how i got there or who exactly filled out the form. i may have been sedated at the time, but now soberly i still kind of hope i get it. i'd be oh-so katie holmes in Mad Money, jamming out to my walkman that i have yet to aquire and pushing carts around). The worst part is that i expect my friends here to help find me, because that seems like a fairly friendly thing to do, but i guess i'm not giving them much to work with. Even back at home too many people told me i'm to distant, although i seem so close, to be readable at all. I just wish i could be written down by someone somewhere so that i could glance at this intangible book every once in a while, you know, just for reference sake. I can't stop making The Wizard of Oz connections in my head, but i should let it be known i hate small dogs, my group does not consist of any particularly furry, metalic or straw characters, and i would look ridiculous in a plaid-blue dress. Dorthy really got lucky with that one yellow road, i mean, there were a limited amount of wrong turns she could take. But she did have her downfalls every once in a while (mostly i'm refering to her minor opium addiction. i can't really blame the girl, everybody loves poppies). I should show up to one of those infamous little-people conventions (sorry if i offended any rouge migit out there reading my rambling. i don't know the proper PC terminology. i'd never fit in) i've always heard of, hoping maybe they can tell me exactly which color of brick road to follow. Why the fuck is everyone around me normal sized? They're useless.