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11 October 2008 : Digging at the Base of the Mountain.
I like to think that I have forever been the kind of woman who knows her body, and knows that she knows her body, not in a pretentious way but the most static way imaginable. This is how it is supposed to be, so this is how it is.
Mostly that is not true. Mostly, until maybe four years ago, I lived a life outside the body. One that was constrained, maybe, by the ways I could move, constrained but never colored. Never shadowed.
There are a lot of things I can say, about bodies. About all of your bodies. About the bodies I have known. My mother's, soft and warm in all the beaten blood ways of archetype. My father's, rough hewn all my life until it was - in a moment - reduced to the too-pink cheeks and grim smile that are the sum total of my memory, that lifeless facsimile in his casket. My best friends and myself engaged carelessly, glorying in the contact sport that is adolescence.
Our bodies are nothing short of miraculous and this is both a wonder and a dread fact, the undertow of which I tread against ceaselessly in recent days. My particular illness, my kind doctor with his furrowed brow, all these things have rolled me downhill to the dirty bottom where I run my fingers through my hair to catch tangles and spit dirt and detritus from my mouth, the dirty bottom this: the responsibility of being mortal.
If we are lucky, if we are smart, I think we learn to draw lines. We understand somewhere instinctively that there is a basic middle ground between Iron Man and the shaking drunk in the corner reeking of cigarettes and failure (what failure? the failure to rail against one's own baser pleasures?). My lines have been drawn for me this past year, baseball metaphors and tiny white pills that I never let linger long enough on the tongue to know if they were more than metaphorical in their bitterness.
I have been unkind to my body in so many ways. These were my three strikes: cigarettes, birth control, obesity. Then the ominous fourth, the omnipotent family history. A father dead at 45 from the same heart disease that killed his own father. I am lucky because I know my downfalls, I know exactly what I must not touch.
Cigarettes, birth control, obesity. Genetics.
Since March I have lost, on average, about one pound a week. This with careful deliberation, with a new kind of notebook constantly at my side, filled not with fanciful observations or brief snippets of poetry but with every single thing that crosses my lips. A handful of popcorn snatched from a friend, an ounce of creamer poured into my coffee. I have become a master of these things, I can eyeball a liquid ounce, weigh meat in my palm and know.
But even in this I have been unkind, because I have treated my body like a science experiment, and it has repaid me by becoming a stranger. The way it functions, the processes that make it mine, they have all changed, and it frustrates me, it infuriates me. I have been through something like this before, during that lost year in San Francisco, when the money was as tight as it was ever brave enough to be, and what I consumed was primarily found - day old pastries from my roommate's coffeehouse job, whatever Scott was kind enough to buy. Then I was calm with understanding; it was pure abuse, a price I paid for being inconsiderate, for never taking a moment to consider that truly this body is the one thing I'll ever have that is mine alone. Mine to own.
I am infuriated now because I do everything right. I read the labels and even if I want it, I put it back. I make my concessions, give up a midnight snack in favor of putting those two ounces of cream in my morning coffee. I have rigidly and without pity taken in 1400 calories a day, refused anything containing corn syrup, made the most of my allotment in stacks of vegetables, in carefully portioned lean protein consumed in at least a 1:2 ratio with carbohydrates. It feels ridiculous, it feels outrageous, it feels obsessive. But then I have to remind myself of this, which is an admission I have yet to make in a public forum: I have an eating disorder. It's not the sexy kind, it's not the acceptable kind. The media wouldn't give it much consideration because it's not the kind that makes you thin. But it's there, and I have to rage against it every day in the most basic of ways.
What I really want to rage against is the change. The loss of the simple comforts of knowing exactly what was going on in there and why. It isn't so bad that I get up some mornings and have to notch my belt a little tighter (though when it comes time to replace my clothes, my destitution may prove to be an issue), but there are things about being a woman - cycles and circles, rituals and rites - that feel utterly sacred. Like the fact of their existence should contain no loopholes.
Giving my body some of the respect it deserves, finally, should not have made us strangers. If anything, we should be falling in love all over again.
At the end, how will I wear it? When the mountain has fallen, I am a little uncertain about where I'm going to store my tools: someplace far enough away to be safe (from obsession, from envy, from the unrealistic expectation that being thin will change everything) but close enough to find at a moment's notice, should I need some visual reminder that I tunneled through. Where will I lay my hands in repose if not on the shelf of my belly?
The puzzles of the flesh I know will not be unraveled in a single day, metaphor being what it is, but terror holds me back even more than laziness and the unfortunate psychology of the world from which I come.
posted by lindsay at 18:40 :: 2 comments
31 August 2007 : the longest and most pointless photo post in like, pretty much forever
see, just because i stopped posting pictures doesn't mean i stopped taking pictures. and a couple of things have happened in the last day or so to make me feel pretty high schoolish about being self involved (by which i mean, i was SO self involved in high school it was embarrassing). anyway, i went through every photo on my camera, some of which dated back as far as march, and decided to share the following gems with you, mostly because i have nothing to say and i can't seem to sleep.
first, a delightful series of photos from my last trip to madison, which i think was in may. i think you'll be delighted to see me pretty much the drunkest i've ever been outside wisconsin:
because, there were drinks with dinner, a bar with 4$ pitchers of amber bock, and then a 12 pack of pbr. on the sidewalk.
but earlier that day, i went to the laundromat on main street while cera was at work, and i was treated to THIS:
then, i went to lexington for the very first time ever to find an apartment, and i had fantastic hair (this photo was taken by a gentleman rockstar with extraordinary hair):
up next, an evening at the irving theatre (which produced many choice shots i am not at liberty to share, including one of frank shakin' booty), where frank said something that prompted a fairly common reaction from me:
later, i did something that made frank angry, so to make up for it (and many future transgressions, i'm pretty sure), i made this face:
then, cera was totally adorable. so i took a picture of it. cause, you know, that never happens. also, please note that in this photo, cera is wearing the sweater.
lisa, she took a picture of my cleavage.
i took a trip to california, where i saw capitola beach from the balcony of mr. toots (believe it or not, this is one of the photos that has not been photoshopped).
lindsay lorraine and i went out on west cliff to dig in sand and bury things and there was a really friendly starfish.
lindsay lorraine and i were very happy to get to hang out for once, ever.
and a slew of conceited, photoshopped, painfully angled self portraits:
the end.
posted by lindsay at 01:42 :: 2 comments
29 January 2007 : dear frank charlemagne
a promise is to be taken with a grain of salt; these were recorded in 2000 and 2003, respectively. keep it in mind.
1. live goodnight elizabeth
2. clover
that second song? oh, it's about the reason (boy) i moved to california. uhm, he had dreadlocks. enough said.
oh, and it was recorded in a bedroom in foster city, california with an mp3 player and a microphone. i'm pretty sure myself and the cellist were both pantsless.
fucking PRICELESS, my late teen years.
love,
lindsay
posted by lindsay at 20:12 :: 6 comments
11 December 2006 : uhm...truth.
i've been neglecting you lately, and i'm sorry. the truth is that i'm very busy, in demand, and highly selective. which means this: it's finals week, heroes has gotten really good, i've learned how to crochet, and i'm officially in a band (a real one this time).
what i had planned was a post of decent length in which i described all the reasons that i'm greatful to be single. and the major one right now is that i'm deciding where i want to go next year and the direction my life is taking, and i don't want to have to take into account anyone's needs but my own. so, that's a plus.
but the real reason for that post was just to share the following things with all of you, which could be considered reasons why it's probably good that i'm single, or could be considered reasons why i should probably find a boyfriend very quickly, before it's too late.
1. three days ago, i woke up early, was lying in bed thinking, and realized something was digging uncomfortably into my thigh. i reached down, thinking it was just a feather from the mattress, which happens quite frequently. was it a feather?
no.
three days ago, i woke up with my retainer stuck to my thigh.
2. i still wear a retainer. far from sexy.
3. this morning at work, i went to the bathroom, and i found cat hair in my undies.
like, a clump of it.
like, if i didn't know better, i'd think the cat was sleeping in the top drawer of my dresser.
but he isn't.
but please, don't let this turn you away from asking me out, because really, it's kind of endearing.
posted by lindsay at 00:57 :: 3 comments
02 December 2006 : it's my vanity
feel free to ignore this entry if you're not lisa, fyi. or if you are easily annoyed by bad quality webcam photos from the late 1990s. or if you plan on mocking me for all the unflattering ways i let myself look over the past eight years.
the tagline of this blog refers very specifically to a conversation i had with frank several months ago, in which i informed him of the fact that my hair was my vanity. and then paused. and then said, "and i mean that in a totally jane austen kind of way."
proof and proverbial pudding aside, i just spent the last several hours cleaning hard drives and transferring files between desktop and laptop, in an attempt to organize my life.
in this process, i found many, many photos. and pursuant to a conversation lisa and i had yesterday, i've decided to post them for her (and your) enjoyment. this is by no means exhaustive, so don't go thinking that i wasn't particularly creative in my youth - my resources are just limited, what with scratchy data cds and years worth of file reallocation.
anyway, i give you the timeline of the hair that graces my head, and many of the transformations it survived on its way to becoming the long, gloriously shiny curtain that it is today (irrespective of the fact that i got an overly-zealous bang trimmin' the other day and look slightly like betty page). believe it.
01. this is the most awkward of all my awkward growing out phases, a throwback to the fall of my junior year of high school (1999, man). how freaking young do i look in this photo, seriously?
02. fateful summer of 2000 found me experimenting with varying shades of blonde, especially in the summer. the first is what cera referred to as my "bertha the trucker puff," and i must admit that upon viewing this photo, she wasn't totally wrong. the second one is the blondest i ever managed to get, and i'm sad to say that this is the largest and best photo i have of those days.
03. i began experimenting with color in the fall of 2000, and i have loved this hair more than any hair has ever been loved before (and still kind of do).
04. eventually, my hair started screaming in protest every time i even looked at it, so i returned to something more natural. and i mostly just posted the first one so everyone would know that i was actually kind of cool and hardcore at one point in my life.
05. then, more awkward growing out happened. it would take about five years for me to realize that if i just went through with it completely one time, i wouldn't have to keep going through it over and over.
06. i thought orange highlights might help. then, cera and i got drunk at her brother's house, found some scissors in my glovebox, and decided i needed a haircut (the actual wonder of which is not really demonstrated by the second photo).
07. i let it get decently long when i was in california, but maintained some pretty hideous bang action that shall never be repeated.
08. about a year after that photo, i decided i wanted that haircut again. the woman i went to at supercuts didn't speak english, cut her finger and bled on my head, and then proceeded to give me a bob that hit just the tips of my ears, a blight so horrifying that it lasted less than 24 hours - a 24 hours i spent wearing a hat, crying on scott's bed, and searching for the man who would turn out to be the best stylist i ever had - oh, eddie. if only you weren't in san francisco. what i ended up with was this (look how shiny!). this is the best photo i have, so know that it's about a half-inch long and very spiky in the back.
09. and this terrifying photo is from the winter of 2003, but marks the beginnings of the delight i carry on my head today - the least awkward growing out stage ever, god love that eddie.
and that's the official end, with the exception of the prom pictures (read: burgundy with orange and pink highlights, crimped) i'll show you some other time, when i'm not too lazy to go upstairs and find them.
i'm so sorry about this post.
posted by lindsay at 23:13 :: 7 comments
28 November 2006 : has removable calvarium!
as you probably know, because i've probably told you, i will be turning twenty-four over the coming weekend. so i thought it was time that i brought out the list.
this year for my birthday, i would like:
- one open shot at michael bublé, preferably in a public forum where many people besides myself will be able to benefit from the feeling of immense satisfaction that can only come from my fist hitting his face.
- for the guys in the home theatre department to stop playing the michael bublé holiday concert, so i can be rid of the aforementioned violent fantasy.
- the common sense to return the new blue winter coat i bought this week which cost approximately half of my weekly budget (and from which i have not yet found the stones to remove the tags; if only it weren't so beautiful!).
- stan or another gentleman much like him.
- for unc chapel hill's application deadline not to be this friday (it was nice while it lasted. so long, dr. escobar).
- sleazy, sweaty high school making out with someone who has about five days of stubble.
or, alternately, you could all just come out and get drunk with me on friday night. either way.
posted by lindsay at 21:19 :: 5 comments
12 November 2006 : un-chosen
i've got to get my priorities straight, and try to maintain a little bit of integrity. by that i mean, i should be able to be the same person no matter who i'm with or what i'm doing. nothing should change just because my surroundings are different.
i work with a woman i don't know how to place. she's tiny - less than five feet - with a shock of bright red hair and totally rubenesque. originally from the bronx, she talks fast and she talks loud, and her laugh is all cigarettes and cheap vodka, bawdy as hell and contagious to boot. she knows what she likes and what she doesn't, and will never hesitate to tell it like it is. to your face. until you cry. and she'll never feel bad about it.
i like her, a lot. she takes everything i say at face value, and she laughs at all my messes, which make them seem a little further away.
we are outside on this strange, warm and humid november day. i'm a mess today, no makeup, frizzy hair and dirty clothes. spending my day hoping once again that the evening will bring something worth getting excited about; something that won't backfire on me.
she lights a cigarette and crouches down on the sidewalk where i sit sprawled against the blue painted bricks, gossiping lightning fast about everyone we work with. i wonder briefly what she says about me when i'm not around, but decide that i don't care all that much, and i've given the workplace little to work with in the last 13 months.
the girl she is talking about is a girl i can't stand. someone i've never spoken to, but because she's got that air about her. every time i walk past the customer service desk, her eyes follow me full of judgment and disdain. i know all about this - it's a thing girls do. i know i intimidate her, but i don't really know why. still, i'm not in the mood to be generous and her stares are getting on my last nerve.
"i'm prettier than she is," i say, knowing it's true but not sure why i'm announcing it.
"for sure," the redhead tells me, taking a drag.
"maybe that's all it is," i say. "have you ever noticed how fat girls tend to be really critical of other fat girls? you'd think that they'd be jealous and annoyed at the skinny little girls, band together against the beauty myth, but instead they're just all critical of each other. maybe she doesn't like that i'm confident."
the fact that i needed to announce my physical superiority over hers belies my proclaimed confidence. i'm so tired.
later that day, the girl in question would speak to me for the first time. she was surprisingly friendly, but my patience was thin.
tonight, i had that feeling rise up in me again. i'm prettier than she is, i thought. it didn't make me feel better at all, and i stopped it short, because spacing between the eyes and a nicely shaped nose do not a whole make. and i know it.
i've often fallen into the trap of thinking that if i could only be prettier, things would be better. i wouldn't be lonely, i wouldn't mess up so much. as though a smaller waist size or a boyfriend would magically make me less lazy, more motivated and less likely to fall to delusions of grandeur and invention. but with the acknowledgement of the fact that looks aren't everything comes something far more sinister. the knowledge that if it isn't about the way that i look, then it might just be about who i am.
i've never questioned myself like this before. i've never thought, what's wrong with me, that he doesn't want me? it's always been, what the hell is wrong with him? how could he possibly not want me?
i don't like this feeling, and i don't like the situation that brought it about. and i don't really know how to get rid of either, other than to ignore them.
so that's the path i think i've chosen (although i gave lengthy consideration to something much more passive aggressive). i have a paper due tomorrow. i'll throw myself into academics and pretend that nothing ever happened. ever. and i mean that in a since oh, 1999, kind of way.
emma thompson would be so proud.
posted by lindsay at 19:28 :: 1 comments
07 October 2006 : field sobriety
tonight i admire the reflection of my bone structure as i close the kitchen window on the cold. my glass is one quarter full of warm spicy wine; the pink matches my cheeks and makes my eyes glow.
there is a feeling in the air here i can't name. i'm strangely fine with everything in my head, though i should not be.
in the car, on the drive home, i clenched my fists until my wrists ached and shouted "god dammit, no," at the stereo. again and again. it's dangerous to love anything so much, even only a song.
tired, delighted, disappointed - the drive was too long and too short. the true story of this past week. i let myself get distracted, my careful life got disrupted and now i will pay for it in working hours and fractions of gpa.
perhaps i'll look up my guitar tomorrow and see about making amends. i have a few things to say, and a few things to do.
i'm old enough to understand, but young enough to still believe.
it's not the sturdiest precipice.
lucky i've learned to walk on tiptoe to stretch my legs out and make my jeans fit. i'll toe this line as carefully as any other, and find success that stems from a slow cigarette on a steamy august afternoon. i made my decision and i possess the integrity to stay with it.
if you hold out your arms, you can find balance.
posted by lindsay at 01:25 :: 0 comments
28 March 2006 : saturday night
it starts with the simplest idea.
a single thought, and something about a saturday evening movie marathon coaxes it out; strokes its nose until it inches from behind that wall built up between self preservation and the rest of a girl's mind.
she feels unreal, like the lines between contrivance and reality have finally blurred and that woman she is trying so desperately to be is being taken over by the girl she really is.
it is egged on, that tiny, tiny thought, by the downstairs bathroom. dark green walls and bad lighting force out of her skin a glow like burning sugar and give depth to the wells underneath the eyes until they start to grow visibly. in that mirror, some mornings she is bright eyed and dewy, but tonight there is something feral, and something trapped hiding back there. she does not feel the way her reflection tells her she feels, and that is frightening.
that little thought, it explodes, sending burning shrapnel through the entirety of current affairs and makes everything seem just a little smaller.
for a minute or two, she honestly believes that she only exists when she is standing in front of a reflective surface.
no threat, no matter how barbaric, could make her contemplate the actuality behind that conviction. nothing could make her sit down and consider what it is, precisely, that sucked on that idea until it glowed with life like a cigarette.
just one little thought. it's there all night. it culminates and she finds herself lying in a ball on the cold kitchen floor, sobbing and shrieking while the dog whimpers and tries pawing, licking, biting at her forearms to get her to stand up, stop covering her face.
she falls asleep on the couch completely drained and runs and hides at the first sound of other humans in the house. in the morning those shadows under her eyes are only mascara, black eyeliner and too much sleep, but she treads warily through the downstairs and does not look in the mirror while washing her hands.
posted by lindsay at 22:55 :: 0 comments
26 October 2005 : nothing said.
every thing i do is a symptom of the place where my life came to a standstill.
dyed hair, dark. purchased lipstick, red. scarves and velvet jackets, corduroy pants and henley sheets, fresh razors, overpriced lotion. i am desperate for warmth, color and textures against my skin.
i have been dispossessed. of my free will, maybe. of my effervescence. i only do what i must in response to this environment. i have been left only with my culpability.
where then, is bravery? do you respond innately to a stimulus, will you run toward the brightest light you see if i hurt you? are we (you, especially) brave only with our mouths?
you might be brave to put your hands on my back, soft flesh above the blades of the ilium, that bone that cradles all the organs, that bone that allows me to walk upright. you might be brave to touch me there by way of exploring new territory. you might be brave to want that. i might be brave to tell you this. the inominate, it is - the bone without a name.
you might have been brave to use your mouth to kiss me. i have friends who would label that brave, and so do you. mine would cheer, and yours might shudder. you might think i am a girl to pass on the street, not a girl to stop for.
native americans believe that the only thing a human being owns, from birth to death, is a voice. you can use that voice to cry, and that is the only real power anyone might posses.
are you brave, then, only with your voice?
i will question you again and again because i do not believe in this sort of bravery, i do not believe that you are a champion of this kind. i will question you again and again because i can't seem to stop hoping that you want to be brave, trace my bones, submerge me in choice.
how much time spent studying fairy tales. how much time spent building other lives while lying awake. how much time waiting. how much more.
can you be brave?
posted by lindsay at 23:12 :: 0 comments
09 October 2005 : this impossible ocean, part 2.
it never really matters what's going on.
you have a clean room and coldplay on the stereo.
your roommates made dinner and you're all caught up on your homework.
you like the way you look, you're comfortable in your soft bed.
you have the best friends, you're sure, that anyone ever had.
you have the best family, you're sure, that anyone ever had.
you're looking forward to the next several weeks - the weather, the people, the knowledge you're going to acquire.
you like a boy. more than you've liked a boy in say, three years.
you are well rested, recently responsible, accomplished, loved. the wind is just chilly enough and it is blowing through the windows, over your shoulders. your cat is curled up purring in the curve of your hip.
still it doesn't matter.
because you just sat down for a second to catch your breath and it all came flowing in. that familiar sadness. you're never sure if it feels beautiful because it is or if it feels beautiful because you want to justify it. either way, you're going to have a lot of trouble working out of it.
suddenly you can't concentrate. the room around you is dim. you've smoked cigarette after cigarette until your throat is raw and you just can't calm down. you are nervous about nothing, because nothing is happening. you can't stand the idea of yourself existing.
and now that you're older, there are no words you can write, no chords you can play, no pictures you can draw that will make it recede. now that you're older you just have to wait it out.
but you were so sick last night, so sick this morning. you didn't get out of bed until after two, you've only been awake for seven hours and you're going to be awake at least seven more. all you can do is let it settle, let it take over. you can't go downstairs because you have to wear it like a badge and your roommates will see it, they will ask you what is wrong. you don't want to talk about it because you won't know what to say - there is nothing to say.
it just comes, and it takes over, and it's there. if you're lucky, it will be gone by tomorrow, when you have to get yourself up and enter the world.
and you still won't know where it came from, or where it goes when it's gone. only that it is real surely as you are and it will always, always be back.
posted by lindsay at 23:13 :: 0 comments
01 June 2005 : the simplest plan.
i felt so naive, so distanced from what was happening around me. i felt like i was still a twelve year old girl. and technically, mostly, as far as experience is concerned, i think i am.
it's nice to relive your past in a good way. not going back to places that don't remember you as well as you remember them, not thinking sadly about what you might have done to change things. its nice to look at your friends and say, "man, that was so fucking great. i wish that moment had lasted for a million years."
and yet, all weekend, between the marathon x-box sessions (serious vampire ass was kicked) and the copious amounts of coffee, ridiculously copious amounts of food, abnormal amounts of alcohol, driving and music, there was this taint of sadness. i wanted to go here - to see this boy. i wanted to go there - to see that boy. yeah, he recognized me across the parking lot even with my gigantic sunglasses on, two days after he had taken my sandwich order and commented on my tattoo.
the thing was, i was involved in this totally decadent weekend and what i cared about was a boy. because that is what i lack, what i have always lacked, what i have come to believe that i will continue to lack up to and past the time that my only pursuits are gardening, feeding the cats, and yelling at the kids outside.
this is how i am lucky: i have more better friends than maybe anyone i know. i am not sure if this means that i am just more open, or more receptive to that sort of thing, or if it means i accept it more easily. or if i just get along with almost anyone really easily.
but that's the truth. i have gotten close enough for sharing with thirteen people that i can count without thinking about it - probably more. and all of those people i still refer to as "best friend," without a second thought.
and yet, in the middle of this deliciously sunny, laughter filled weekend, i wanted my preferences met. i wanted to go to the bar where that boy would be - the one who asked when i was coming back. i wanted to go to that restaurant where that boy would be - the one who said "cute" twice and probably meant it.
i need that reassurance, i need that satisfaction. i want someone to push my hair over my shoulder, bury his face in my neck and fall asleep. i want someone to say to me, "no, i know you're falling asleep. you always breathe like that when you're falling asleep." i miss that security, and i miss feeling that beautiful.
i was sorry that my determination to remain bridget jones hampered even a few seconds of our weekend, but there you have it. that's what i do. with possibilities so few and far between, it's up to me to follow through with every lead, just to make sure.
when you're me, here is never gone.
posted by lindsay at 23:25 :: 0 comments
10 December 2004 : in the life.
7:30 am, walgreens, indianapolis.
i am contemplating life on burgess avenue, life at cherry tree plaza, wondering exactly how tired i can get, and how long we can live like this before we kill each other. i am sad because i missed america's next top model the previous night.
the woman who works the cash register in the early mornings is my favorite. every time i come in, she tells me how pretty i am, and how good i smell, and what great style i have. i prefer to assume she does not share this with every customer.
she knows i am headed for the cooler section, for the 99 cent liter bottles of randomly flavored water. i'm trying every flavor, slowly though, because some mornings you have a triple shot mocha, and everything else seems superfluous.
i notice batteries. i need batteries. so i grab them and at the counter, she says, 'i really like your sweater. you're so cute. these batteries are on sale for 4.99.'
'yes,' i say. 'But its been my experience that duracell lasts longer, so i think i'll just stick with the ones i've got.'
'What are you using them for?'
pause. the simple lie command center in my brain doesn't open until at least 8 am. i stand there so long trying to think of something for which i might plausibly be using batteries in such a way as to be concerned for their lifespan. thirty seconds at least. at which point, my mouth is sort of opening and closing like i'm a fish, and she looks away.
then she looks back, strengthened by a deep breath, and with a sad, sad smile says, 'a portable cd player?' as gently as you can imagine.
'yeah,' i say. 'for my discman.' i pay, i leave, i wonder if she has an accurate picture in her mind now as to the size and dimension of my inability to lie. if she's thinking that it's about six inches long, fleshy pink, with four different settings and an appendage shaped like a serpent - well, she's totally right.
the orange flavored spring water at walgreens tastes like mcdonald's 'orange drink,' and is now totally my new favorite thing.
posted by lindsay at 23:38 :: 0 comments
01 August 2004 : nouveau fiction for the recent 20-something
in response to getting my head spun on wednesday night, i did some thinking.
i prefer to stay illusioned, i've decided.
i'm officially breaking up with 'delusion snores, sleep with reality.'
reality falls asleep as soon as he gets off, see. and then i go home and sit on the edge of my bed wondering what the hell is wrong with me. i let my guard down long enough to be violently reminded of why that guard was set up in the first place. that's what gets me down, most of the time. the shattering of those carefully cut windows.
anyway, sometimes when it gets really bad, i think to myself, 'stop pretending. you're never going to be [insert adjective such as beautiful, desirable, or cool here].'
somehow, (and fortunately) my head stubbornly insists that i am, indeed, all of those things and more.
of course, my stubborn head also insists that "no, really, bon jovi is good," and also that my parents used to drive a green cadillac, a fact which my mother vehemently denies. but i remember sitting bitch, sunburned and windblown with an ice cream cone, on the green leather seat of that green caddy.
so sometimes i decide, HEY. STOP KIDDING YOURSELF. and then i decide, if you didn't make these things up in your head, you wouldn't get disappointed when they turn out to be false everywhere else. but self improvement is a waste of time unless its concentrated solely within, as a means to better self. you know, as opposed to making self look better in order to impress other people. and since i've yet to master useful self improvement (i fight with myself daily over whether or not its possible to change in any way not superficial), i think i'm just gonna sit here with my thighs sticking to the seat.
you know, living on a prayer.
posted by lindsay at 23:44 :: 0 comments
30 June 2004 : me-specific dimorphism
once again, it appears i spoke too soon. misspoke, too soon.
i had looked so far forward to this, summer now, and being able to relax. and its true that a break from classes offered me up something completely new and unheard of - free time, me time - and plenty of it. the problem has manifested itself as this: with all this free time, it has come to light that i have nothing with which to fill it. i was doing so well the last few weeks - going out, being around people, laughing.
but at this point, there are only so many hours i can sit reading at the coffeeshop, even a book so good as the one i'm reading right now. there are only so many hours i can revel in being able to lie on the couch and watch as many episodes of buffy as my heart desires.
there are also only so many times a week i can get drunk by myself in the living room of this big empty house.
there is such a huge barrier between who i am, who i really, really am and who you all think you know i am, and who i know i am (which is infrequent and hopelessly incomplete), and who i try to make you all think i am.
and it comes crashing back in, the sadness, menacing as usual. the endless longing for physical pain, the fight against it, the sleepless nights and the days that stretch out so long i want to throw things at the sun, try to encourage its disappearance just this once. i am so bored with it, the thinking, the waiting. i begrudge no one their outward (or inward, be as it may) occupations, i begrudge the few friends i have nothing, even on a night like tonight when all i want is the presence of someone breathing in the same room and that is the only thing i can not seem to find.
i have to wonder. how many months of my life have i wasted being hopeless? and worse yet, how many months of my life being alarmingly naive? the hopeful months.
and there will always be things - my front porch, far too many cigarettes and one too many beers, weekends at ceras, but i find myself stretching time out - counting down hours between trips to madison, as if two days on third street is the only reason i am able to keep breathing. there will always be this feeling, my wasted youth.
it stands to reason, based on who i am right now and how i operate, that if i don't fix this quickly then i am wasted. imagine my exuberance at 30, when still alone and waiting, when my tits have started to sag and the lines around my mouth are no longer from laughing, and when settling down and being part of something larger than myself is no longer softly in the future, something bright to look forward to but something i must do RIGHT NOW otherwise its going to be too late.
and it is only the vague recollection of the exquisite sensation imparted by two singular digits, a moment of my life that passed so quickly i wonder if its intensity isn't only something that i imagined. something i recall falsely to keep me going, while i wait and pretend that i am not hopeful in order to protect myself from further disappointment if nothing else.
however unfortunately, even that is invalid, as there is still disappointment. the safety bought by my hesitation at putting myself into the arena is countered by disappointment of my own creation, disappointment in my head. i make these things up, because i want to be validated. if i am going to be sad, i might as well at least have something to be sad about, even if it's a figment of my imagination.
it might help if i knew what i wanted.
tonight is dark, the beautiful weather interrupted by another evening that i will ignore. the couch, soft and blue, and the television whose noise at least interrupts the nagging of the thoughts i just unloaded so ineloquently here - imagine how they arrange themselves in my head.
new batteries, the image of myself in the mirror at walgreens, pale skin and dark skirt, beauty as i move. a bar of chocolate, new batteries, the promise of eight hours of sleep - the sleeping that means i do not have to think about it.
the memory of a single moment sparking anew the hope that begins the cycle, every time i find it back in the back of my head.
i think it will always be this:
myself, alone in this dark room. too hot or too cold, and waiting.
posted by lindsay at 23:45 :: 0 comments
24 January 2004 : blameless; distracted
i need to stop waiting for the last minute.
i need to stop smoking in my apartment. i need to stop smoking. i need to stop eating things that make me sick. jalapeno chips and salsa, and anything that involves grease.
i have stomach aches all the time. any time, if i am awake, if i am breathing, i have a stomach ache. i need to stop having stomach aches.
i need to stop waiting around, wishing for things that i know are never going to happen. not in this life.
i think i need to resign myself to living this life alone. i think that will help make the stomach aches go. my mom thinks im diabetic and my brothers think that i just need to stop eating spicy foods.
i think that i need to stop carrying around the weight of everything ive ever lost. it centers itself there, in the solar plexus. before it, my softest skin. behind it, parts of me that get ignored so frequently that any touch is alien, will make me jump.
"A blow to that area, if it penetrates to the true solar plexus, not only causes great pain but may also temporarily halt visceral functioning."
this is all because i am struggling now with the loss of something i held inside me for many years, something that kept me going. a very tactile sense of hope, rough like the woolen plaid blankets we used to keep in the living room. the ones the cats scratched to bits.
i want you to know who i am. i want you to know that i like my iced tea sweetened and that my collection of notebooks is just a symptom of an unseemly obsession with adverbs. i want you to know that i like being kissed on the sternum and that i secretly worship bon jovi and that i give up when things get hard. i want you to know that i panic when anything tiny goes wrong, my face contorts and i forget to breathe and sometimes i cry.
i want you to know that i want to make everyone happy, but i havent got the strength. or the time, or the energy. i never get enough sleep.
but more than that. i want you to want to know. i want you to be delighted when i go nearly crazy over the absence of limes in the house, that i will go to the grocery store at any hour of the day or night to buy limes because truly i can not live without them.
i have devised and perfected a million techniques to offer up to you little tiny bits of my life, and i know that you have collected them, because you remembered them when we spoke. and your former beauty lay among snowdrifts somewhere in the past i like to forget about but you knew who i was.
not because you wanted to, but because i plied you with hints and subtleties.
i need to go out more. i need to forget about the joy of your arm across my waist at three in the morning.
i need to find fulfillment in things more tangible, that last longer. like the sunlight on the river outside my window. i think i will try.
i need to understand that beauty is not the end, and that if i were beautiful, things would not be better. i would still be panicky, and i think there would still be days that i might pause in front of the mirror and cry over the hatred i have for what i see there.
i need to find someone who will not shave off his beard. i need to think that i will not fail.
posted by lindsay at 02:25 :: 0 comments
23 April 2003 : truth songs.
my latest question.
i am led to wonder what kind of girl i am, that you were the one not afraid to be with me. what does it say about you, what does it say about me?
there are things that we have known, things that we have said, things that i envision, things that we invented.
i once spent a noticable amount of time thinking about cute pet names, and consequentially, ways to implant them in you subtly, while i forgot them, so you would call me turtle and i would be surprised that you thought of something so nice. bean sprout, mimosa, whatever. i was inifinitely clever in the ways that turned you into what i wanted.
every day i pass these men on the street, beautiful men in long jeans and long hair, with thick leather belts holding them together. only the rare native turns my head these days, though, only the long straight profile of a smooth skinned sioux boy makes me wonder. and none of them carries a dagger. you are my specimen. you carry two.
you told me about fear. together, i think we may be afraid of everything. i walk on tiptoe when you are sleeping and you lie to me, there are infinite dimensions to our deception. you're afraid of hurting my feelings because you think you know about me. you think you know my truths.
ill be honest with you.
i heal faster than you can do simple maths in your head. so tell me about fear. but if you spare me like this again, i may break you. i may break you because it would be satisfying.
-----------
there is a girl who stays with us right now. a girl who works at an expensive coffeeshop in the financial district, serving coffees and pastries to well groomed men in suits. every night she brings home bags of croissants, butter soaking out of their crusts and through their wrappings onto the counter. i live on pastry, two croissants and a muffin every day, because its free and i am poor. at night when i rifle through bags of bread, my body screams for the protein i cannot afford to feed it, the way it screams when i am in the shower. then it whips me to kneeling, shaming me for being the only one who touches it.
the body is made for survival. i know that my frequent cravings for potatoes indicate a lack of starch in my diet, or in my life. i think this body, of all bodies i have known, has the ability to speak in metaphors. my respect for it is immeasurable. it knows i like potatoes and it knows how to best tell me how much it misses you. i stumble in the mornings, that weakness behind my thighs a signal that my sensitivity is waning. it expects me to talk to you, but how will you answer it?
"i am craving you. i think that the lack of contact between your mouth and my body is dangerous. i am going to waste away."
i see your thickly amused stare, cold because you still hate the female parts of me, you hate any part of me that wants you or needs you or maybe loves you. you will shake your long hair with its growing streaks of pure white. sometimes when i look at you i search your head in the dark, my eyes seeking a strand of brown as a symbol of your youth, of the virility youve had that i will never know.
"youre crazy. speak boy if you want me to understand you."
i think instead i will fall asleep alone in your bed, unsatisfied but dreaming. i never lose hope, probably because i am capable. i will wake up in an hour or so and excuse myself to the bathroom, or the couch in the living room to assume the duty you denied and i will return dully satisfied to sleep through the night. every morning i wake up with you, i wake up angry. how vicious, this cycle. my body forgives you, but will not forgive me. i forgive you, but not this body. we could get along if it could forget you. you forgive nothing that is any part of me. i am all girl, and i think you will always hate me for falling for you.
posted by lindsay at 23:57 :: 0 comments
I like to think that I have forever been the kind of woman who knows her body, and knows that she knows her body, not in a pretentious way but the most static way imaginable. This is how it is supposed to be, so this is how it is.
Mostly that is not true. Mostly, until maybe four years ago, I lived a life outside the body. One that was constrained, maybe, by the ways I could move, constrained but never colored. Never shadowed.
There are a lot of things I can say, about bodies. About all of your bodies. About the bodies I have known. My mother's, soft and warm in all the beaten blood ways of archetype. My father's, rough hewn all my life until it was - in a moment - reduced to the too-pink cheeks and grim smile that are the sum total of my memory, that lifeless facsimile in his casket. My best friends and myself engaged carelessly, glorying in the contact sport that is adolescence.
Our bodies are nothing short of miraculous and this is both a wonder and a dread fact, the undertow of which I tread against ceaselessly in recent days. My particular illness, my kind doctor with his furrowed brow, all these things have rolled me downhill to the dirty bottom where I run my fingers through my hair to catch tangles and spit dirt and detritus from my mouth, the dirty bottom this: the responsibility of being mortal.
If we are lucky, if we are smart, I think we learn to draw lines. We understand somewhere instinctively that there is a basic middle ground between Iron Man and the shaking drunk in the corner reeking of cigarettes and failure (what failure? the failure to rail against one's own baser pleasures?). My lines have been drawn for me this past year, baseball metaphors and tiny white pills that I never let linger long enough on the tongue to know if they were more than metaphorical in their bitterness.
I have been unkind to my body in so many ways. These were my three strikes: cigarettes, birth control, obesity. Then the ominous fourth, the omnipotent family history. A father dead at 45 from the same heart disease that killed his own father. I am lucky because I know my downfalls, I know exactly what I must not touch.
Cigarettes, birth control, obesity. Genetics.
Since March I have lost, on average, about one pound a week. This with careful deliberation, with a new kind of notebook constantly at my side, filled not with fanciful observations or brief snippets of poetry but with every single thing that crosses my lips. A handful of popcorn snatched from a friend, an ounce of creamer poured into my coffee. I have become a master of these things, I can eyeball a liquid ounce, weigh meat in my palm and know.
But even in this I have been unkind, because I have treated my body like a science experiment, and it has repaid me by becoming a stranger. The way it functions, the processes that make it mine, they have all changed, and it frustrates me, it infuriates me. I have been through something like this before, during that lost year in San Francisco, when the money was as tight as it was ever brave enough to be, and what I consumed was primarily found - day old pastries from my roommate's coffeehouse job, whatever Scott was kind enough to buy. Then I was calm with understanding; it was pure abuse, a price I paid for being inconsiderate, for never taking a moment to consider that truly this body is the one thing I'll ever have that is mine alone. Mine to own.
I am infuriated now because I do everything right. I read the labels and even if I want it, I put it back. I make my concessions, give up a midnight snack in favor of putting those two ounces of cream in my morning coffee. I have rigidly and without pity taken in 1400 calories a day, refused anything containing corn syrup, made the most of my allotment in stacks of vegetables, in carefully portioned lean protein consumed in at least a 1:2 ratio with carbohydrates. It feels ridiculous, it feels outrageous, it feels obsessive. But then I have to remind myself of this, which is an admission I have yet to make in a public forum: I have an eating disorder. It's not the sexy kind, it's not the acceptable kind. The media wouldn't give it much consideration because it's not the kind that makes you thin. But it's there, and I have to rage against it every day in the most basic of ways.
What I really want to rage against is the change. The loss of the simple comforts of knowing exactly what was going on in there and why. It isn't so bad that I get up some mornings and have to notch my belt a little tighter (though when it comes time to replace my clothes, my destitution may prove to be an issue), but there are things about being a woman - cycles and circles, rituals and rites - that feel utterly sacred. Like the fact of their existence should contain no loopholes.
Giving my body some of the respect it deserves, finally, should not have made us strangers. If anything, we should be falling in love all over again.
At the end, how will I wear it? When the mountain has fallen, I am a little uncertain about where I'm going to store my tools: someplace far enough away to be safe (from obsession, from envy, from the unrealistic expectation that being thin will change everything) but close enough to find at a moment's notice, should I need some visual reminder that I tunneled through. Where will I lay my hands in repose if not on the shelf of my belly?
The puzzles of the flesh I know will not be unraveled in a single day, metaphor being what it is, but terror holds me back even more than laziness and the unfortunate psychology of the world from which I come.
posted by lindsay at 18:40 :: 2 comments
31 August 2007 : the longest and most pointless photo post in like, pretty much forever
see, just because i stopped posting pictures doesn't mean i stopped taking pictures. and a couple of things have happened in the last day or so to make me feel pretty high schoolish about being self involved (by which i mean, i was SO self involved in high school it was embarrassing). anyway, i went through every photo on my camera, some of which dated back as far as march, and decided to share the following gems with you, mostly because i have nothing to say and i can't seem to sleep.
first, a delightful series of photos from my last trip to madison, which i think was in may. i think you'll be delighted to see me pretty much the drunkest i've ever been outside wisconsin:
because, there were drinks with dinner, a bar with 4$ pitchers of amber bock, and then a 12 pack of pbr. on the sidewalk.
but earlier that day, i went to the laundromat on main street while cera was at work, and i was treated to THIS:
then, i went to lexington for the very first time ever to find an apartment, and i had fantastic hair (this photo was taken by a gentleman rockstar with extraordinary hair):
up next, an evening at the irving theatre (which produced many choice shots i am not at liberty to share, including one of frank shakin' booty), where frank said something that prompted a fairly common reaction from me:
later, i did something that made frank angry, so to make up for it (and many future transgressions, i'm pretty sure), i made this face:
then, cera was totally adorable. so i took a picture of it. cause, you know, that never happens. also, please note that in this photo, cera is wearing the sweater.
lisa, she took a picture of my cleavage.
i took a trip to california, where i saw capitola beach from the balcony of mr. toots (believe it or not, this is one of the photos that has not been photoshopped).
lindsay lorraine and i went out on west cliff to dig in sand and bury things and there was a really friendly starfish.
lindsay lorraine and i were very happy to get to hang out for once, ever.
and a slew of conceited, photoshopped, painfully angled self portraits:
the end.
posted by lindsay at 01:42 :: 2 comments
29 January 2007 : dear frank charlemagne
a promise is to be taken with a grain of salt; these were recorded in 2000 and 2003, respectively. keep it in mind.
1. live goodnight elizabeth
2. clover
that second song? oh, it's about the reason (boy) i moved to california. uhm, he had dreadlocks. enough said.
oh, and it was recorded in a bedroom in foster city, california with an mp3 player and a microphone. i'm pretty sure myself and the cellist were both pantsless.
fucking PRICELESS, my late teen years.
love,
lindsay
posted by lindsay at 20:12 :: 6 comments
11 December 2006 : uhm...truth.
i've been neglecting you lately, and i'm sorry. the truth is that i'm very busy, in demand, and highly selective. which means this: it's finals week, heroes has gotten really good, i've learned how to crochet, and i'm officially in a band (a real one this time).
what i had planned was a post of decent length in which i described all the reasons that i'm greatful to be single. and the major one right now is that i'm deciding where i want to go next year and the direction my life is taking, and i don't want to have to take into account anyone's needs but my own. so, that's a plus.
but the real reason for that post was just to share the following things with all of you, which could be considered reasons why it's probably good that i'm single, or could be considered reasons why i should probably find a boyfriend very quickly, before it's too late.
1. three days ago, i woke up early, was lying in bed thinking, and realized something was digging uncomfortably into my thigh. i reached down, thinking it was just a feather from the mattress, which happens quite frequently. was it a feather?
no.
three days ago, i woke up with my retainer stuck to my thigh.
2. i still wear a retainer. far from sexy.
3. this morning at work, i went to the bathroom, and i found cat hair in my undies.
like, a clump of it.
like, if i didn't know better, i'd think the cat was sleeping in the top drawer of my dresser.
but he isn't.
but please, don't let this turn you away from asking me out, because really, it's kind of endearing.
posted by lindsay at 00:57 :: 3 comments
02 December 2006 : it's my vanity
feel free to ignore this entry if you're not lisa, fyi. or if you are easily annoyed by bad quality webcam photos from the late 1990s. or if you plan on mocking me for all the unflattering ways i let myself look over the past eight years.
the tagline of this blog refers very specifically to a conversation i had with frank several months ago, in which i informed him of the fact that my hair was my vanity. and then paused. and then said, "and i mean that in a totally jane austen kind of way."
proof and proverbial pudding aside, i just spent the last several hours cleaning hard drives and transferring files between desktop and laptop, in an attempt to organize my life.
in this process, i found many, many photos. and pursuant to a conversation lisa and i had yesterday, i've decided to post them for her (and your) enjoyment. this is by no means exhaustive, so don't go thinking that i wasn't particularly creative in my youth - my resources are just limited, what with scratchy data cds and years worth of file reallocation.
anyway, i give you the timeline of the hair that graces my head, and many of the transformations it survived on its way to becoming the long, gloriously shiny curtain that it is today (irrespective of the fact that i got an overly-zealous bang trimmin' the other day and look slightly like betty page). believe it.
01. this is the most awkward of all my awkward growing out phases, a throwback to the fall of my junior year of high school (1999, man). how freaking young do i look in this photo, seriously?
02. fateful summer of 2000 found me experimenting with varying shades of blonde, especially in the summer. the first is what cera referred to as my "bertha the trucker puff," and i must admit that upon viewing this photo, she wasn't totally wrong. the second one is the blondest i ever managed to get, and i'm sad to say that this is the largest and best photo i have of those days.
03. i began experimenting with color in the fall of 2000, and i have loved this hair more than any hair has ever been loved before (and still kind of do).
04. eventually, my hair started screaming in protest every time i even looked at it, so i returned to something more natural. and i mostly just posted the first one so everyone would know that i was actually kind of cool and hardcore at one point in my life.
05. then, more awkward growing out happened. it would take about five years for me to realize that if i just went through with it completely one time, i wouldn't have to keep going through it over and over.
06. i thought orange highlights might help. then, cera and i got drunk at her brother's house, found some scissors in my glovebox, and decided i needed a haircut (the actual wonder of which is not really demonstrated by the second photo).
07. i let it get decently long when i was in california, but maintained some pretty hideous bang action that shall never be repeated.
08. about a year after that photo, i decided i wanted that haircut again. the woman i went to at supercuts didn't speak english, cut her finger and bled on my head, and then proceeded to give me a bob that hit just the tips of my ears, a blight so horrifying that it lasted less than 24 hours - a 24 hours i spent wearing a hat, crying on scott's bed, and searching for the man who would turn out to be the best stylist i ever had - oh, eddie. if only you weren't in san francisco. what i ended up with was this (look how shiny!). this is the best photo i have, so know that it's about a half-inch long and very spiky in the back.
09. and this terrifying photo is from the winter of 2003, but marks the beginnings of the delight i carry on my head today - the least awkward growing out stage ever, god love that eddie.
and that's the official end, with the exception of the prom pictures (read: burgundy with orange and pink highlights, crimped) i'll show you some other time, when i'm not too lazy to go upstairs and find them.
i'm so sorry about this post.
posted by lindsay at 23:13 :: 7 comments
28 November 2006 : has removable calvarium!
as you probably know, because i've probably told you, i will be turning twenty-four over the coming weekend. so i thought it was time that i brought out the list.
this year for my birthday, i would like:
- one open shot at michael bublé, preferably in a public forum where many people besides myself will be able to benefit from the feeling of immense satisfaction that can only come from my fist hitting his face.
- for the guys in the home theatre department to stop playing the michael bublé holiday concert, so i can be rid of the aforementioned violent fantasy.
- the common sense to return the new blue winter coat i bought this week which cost approximately half of my weekly budget (and from which i have not yet found the stones to remove the tags; if only it weren't so beautiful!).
- stan or another gentleman much like him.
- for unc chapel hill's application deadline not to be this friday (it was nice while it lasted. so long, dr. escobar).
- sleazy, sweaty high school making out with someone who has about five days of stubble.
or, alternately, you could all just come out and get drunk with me on friday night. either way.
posted by lindsay at 21:19 :: 5 comments
12 November 2006 : un-chosen
i've got to get my priorities straight, and try to maintain a little bit of integrity. by that i mean, i should be able to be the same person no matter who i'm with or what i'm doing. nothing should change just because my surroundings are different.
i work with a woman i don't know how to place. she's tiny - less than five feet - with a shock of bright red hair and totally rubenesque. originally from the bronx, she talks fast and she talks loud, and her laugh is all cigarettes and cheap vodka, bawdy as hell and contagious to boot. she knows what she likes and what she doesn't, and will never hesitate to tell it like it is. to your face. until you cry. and she'll never feel bad about it.
i like her, a lot. she takes everything i say at face value, and she laughs at all my messes, which make them seem a little further away.
we are outside on this strange, warm and humid november day. i'm a mess today, no makeup, frizzy hair and dirty clothes. spending my day hoping once again that the evening will bring something worth getting excited about; something that won't backfire on me.
she lights a cigarette and crouches down on the sidewalk where i sit sprawled against the blue painted bricks, gossiping lightning fast about everyone we work with. i wonder briefly what she says about me when i'm not around, but decide that i don't care all that much, and i've given the workplace little to work with in the last 13 months.
the girl she is talking about is a girl i can't stand. someone i've never spoken to, but because she's got that air about her. every time i walk past the customer service desk, her eyes follow me full of judgment and disdain. i know all about this - it's a thing girls do. i know i intimidate her, but i don't really know why. still, i'm not in the mood to be generous and her stares are getting on my last nerve.
"i'm prettier than she is," i say, knowing it's true but not sure why i'm announcing it.
"for sure," the redhead tells me, taking a drag.
"maybe that's all it is," i say. "have you ever noticed how fat girls tend to be really critical of other fat girls? you'd think that they'd be jealous and annoyed at the skinny little girls, band together against the beauty myth, but instead they're just all critical of each other. maybe she doesn't like that i'm confident."
the fact that i needed to announce my physical superiority over hers belies my proclaimed confidence. i'm so tired.
later that day, the girl in question would speak to me for the first time. she was surprisingly friendly, but my patience was thin.
tonight, i had that feeling rise up in me again. i'm prettier than she is, i thought. it didn't make me feel better at all, and i stopped it short, because spacing between the eyes and a nicely shaped nose do not a whole make. and i know it.
i've often fallen into the trap of thinking that if i could only be prettier, things would be better. i wouldn't be lonely, i wouldn't mess up so much. as though a smaller waist size or a boyfriend would magically make me less lazy, more motivated and less likely to fall to delusions of grandeur and invention. but with the acknowledgement of the fact that looks aren't everything comes something far more sinister. the knowledge that if it isn't about the way that i look, then it might just be about who i am.
i've never questioned myself like this before. i've never thought, what's wrong with me, that he doesn't want me? it's always been, what the hell is wrong with him? how could he possibly not want me?
i don't like this feeling, and i don't like the situation that brought it about. and i don't really know how to get rid of either, other than to ignore them.
so that's the path i think i've chosen (although i gave lengthy consideration to something much more passive aggressive). i have a paper due tomorrow. i'll throw myself into academics and pretend that nothing ever happened. ever. and i mean that in a since oh, 1999, kind of way.
emma thompson would be so proud.
posted by lindsay at 19:28 :: 1 comments
07 October 2006 : field sobriety
tonight i admire the reflection of my bone structure as i close the kitchen window on the cold. my glass is one quarter full of warm spicy wine; the pink matches my cheeks and makes my eyes glow.
there is a feeling in the air here i can't name. i'm strangely fine with everything in my head, though i should not be.
in the car, on the drive home, i clenched my fists until my wrists ached and shouted "god dammit, no," at the stereo. again and again. it's dangerous to love anything so much, even only a song.
tired, delighted, disappointed - the drive was too long and too short. the true story of this past week. i let myself get distracted, my careful life got disrupted and now i will pay for it in working hours and fractions of gpa.
perhaps i'll look up my guitar tomorrow and see about making amends. i have a few things to say, and a few things to do.
i'm old enough to understand, but young enough to still believe.
it's not the sturdiest precipice.
lucky i've learned to walk on tiptoe to stretch my legs out and make my jeans fit. i'll toe this line as carefully as any other, and find success that stems from a slow cigarette on a steamy august afternoon. i made my decision and i possess the integrity to stay with it.
if you hold out your arms, you can find balance.
posted by lindsay at 01:25 :: 0 comments
28 March 2006 : saturday night
it starts with the simplest idea.
a single thought, and something about a saturday evening movie marathon coaxes it out; strokes its nose until it inches from behind that wall built up between self preservation and the rest of a girl's mind.
she feels unreal, like the lines between contrivance and reality have finally blurred and that woman she is trying so desperately to be is being taken over by the girl she really is.
it is egged on, that tiny, tiny thought, by the downstairs bathroom. dark green walls and bad lighting force out of her skin a glow like burning sugar and give depth to the wells underneath the eyes until they start to grow visibly. in that mirror, some mornings she is bright eyed and dewy, but tonight there is something feral, and something trapped hiding back there. she does not feel the way her reflection tells her she feels, and that is frightening.
that little thought, it explodes, sending burning shrapnel through the entirety of current affairs and makes everything seem just a little smaller.
for a minute or two, she honestly believes that she only exists when she is standing in front of a reflective surface.
no threat, no matter how barbaric, could make her contemplate the actuality behind that conviction. nothing could make her sit down and consider what it is, precisely, that sucked on that idea until it glowed with life like a cigarette.
just one little thought. it's there all night. it culminates and she finds herself lying in a ball on the cold kitchen floor, sobbing and shrieking while the dog whimpers and tries pawing, licking, biting at her forearms to get her to stand up, stop covering her face.
she falls asleep on the couch completely drained and runs and hides at the first sound of other humans in the house. in the morning those shadows under her eyes are only mascara, black eyeliner and too much sleep, but she treads warily through the downstairs and does not look in the mirror while washing her hands.
posted by lindsay at 22:55 :: 0 comments
26 October 2005 : nothing said.
every thing i do is a symptom of the place where my life came to a standstill.
dyed hair, dark. purchased lipstick, red. scarves and velvet jackets, corduroy pants and henley sheets, fresh razors, overpriced lotion. i am desperate for warmth, color and textures against my skin.
i have been dispossessed. of my free will, maybe. of my effervescence. i only do what i must in response to this environment. i have been left only with my culpability.
where then, is bravery? do you respond innately to a stimulus, will you run toward the brightest light you see if i hurt you? are we (you, especially) brave only with our mouths?
you might be brave to put your hands on my back, soft flesh above the blades of the ilium, that bone that cradles all the organs, that bone that allows me to walk upright. you might be brave to touch me there by way of exploring new territory. you might be brave to want that. i might be brave to tell you this. the inominate, it is - the bone without a name.
you might have been brave to use your mouth to kiss me. i have friends who would label that brave, and so do you. mine would cheer, and yours might shudder. you might think i am a girl to pass on the street, not a girl to stop for.
native americans believe that the only thing a human being owns, from birth to death, is a voice. you can use that voice to cry, and that is the only real power anyone might posses.
are you brave, then, only with your voice?
i will question you again and again because i do not believe in this sort of bravery, i do not believe that you are a champion of this kind. i will question you again and again because i can't seem to stop hoping that you want to be brave, trace my bones, submerge me in choice.
how much time spent studying fairy tales. how much time spent building other lives while lying awake. how much time waiting. how much more.
can you be brave?
posted by lindsay at 23:12 :: 0 comments
09 October 2005 : this impossible ocean, part 2.
it never really matters what's going on.
you have a clean room and coldplay on the stereo.
your roommates made dinner and you're all caught up on your homework.
you like the way you look, you're comfortable in your soft bed.
you have the best friends, you're sure, that anyone ever had.
you have the best family, you're sure, that anyone ever had.
you're looking forward to the next several weeks - the weather, the people, the knowledge you're going to acquire.
you like a boy. more than you've liked a boy in say, three years.
you are well rested, recently responsible, accomplished, loved. the wind is just chilly enough and it is blowing through the windows, over your shoulders. your cat is curled up purring in the curve of your hip.
still it doesn't matter.
because you just sat down for a second to catch your breath and it all came flowing in. that familiar sadness. you're never sure if it feels beautiful because it is or if it feels beautiful because you want to justify it. either way, you're going to have a lot of trouble working out of it.
suddenly you can't concentrate. the room around you is dim. you've smoked cigarette after cigarette until your throat is raw and you just can't calm down. you are nervous about nothing, because nothing is happening. you can't stand the idea of yourself existing.
and now that you're older, there are no words you can write, no chords you can play, no pictures you can draw that will make it recede. now that you're older you just have to wait it out.
but you were so sick last night, so sick this morning. you didn't get out of bed until after two, you've only been awake for seven hours and you're going to be awake at least seven more. all you can do is let it settle, let it take over. you can't go downstairs because you have to wear it like a badge and your roommates will see it, they will ask you what is wrong. you don't want to talk about it because you won't know what to say - there is nothing to say.
it just comes, and it takes over, and it's there. if you're lucky, it will be gone by tomorrow, when you have to get yourself up and enter the world.
and you still won't know where it came from, or where it goes when it's gone. only that it is real surely as you are and it will always, always be back.
posted by lindsay at 23:13 :: 0 comments
01 June 2005 : the simplest plan.
i felt so naive, so distanced from what was happening around me. i felt like i was still a twelve year old girl. and technically, mostly, as far as experience is concerned, i think i am.
it's nice to relive your past in a good way. not going back to places that don't remember you as well as you remember them, not thinking sadly about what you might have done to change things. its nice to look at your friends and say, "man, that was so fucking great. i wish that moment had lasted for a million years."
and yet, all weekend, between the marathon x-box sessions (serious vampire ass was kicked) and the copious amounts of coffee, ridiculously copious amounts of food, abnormal amounts of alcohol, driving and music, there was this taint of sadness. i wanted to go here - to see this boy. i wanted to go there - to see that boy. yeah, he recognized me across the parking lot even with my gigantic sunglasses on, two days after he had taken my sandwich order and commented on my tattoo.
the thing was, i was involved in this totally decadent weekend and what i cared about was a boy. because that is what i lack, what i have always lacked, what i have come to believe that i will continue to lack up to and past the time that my only pursuits are gardening, feeding the cats, and yelling at the kids outside.
this is how i am lucky: i have more better friends than maybe anyone i know. i am not sure if this means that i am just more open, or more receptive to that sort of thing, or if it means i accept it more easily. or if i just get along with almost anyone really easily.
but that's the truth. i have gotten close enough for sharing with thirteen people that i can count without thinking about it - probably more. and all of those people i still refer to as "best friend," without a second thought.
and yet, in the middle of this deliciously sunny, laughter filled weekend, i wanted my preferences met. i wanted to go to the bar where that boy would be - the one who asked when i was coming back. i wanted to go to that restaurant where that boy would be - the one who said "cute" twice and probably meant it.
i need that reassurance, i need that satisfaction. i want someone to push my hair over my shoulder, bury his face in my neck and fall asleep. i want someone to say to me, "no, i know you're falling asleep. you always breathe like that when you're falling asleep." i miss that security, and i miss feeling that beautiful.
i was sorry that my determination to remain bridget jones hampered even a few seconds of our weekend, but there you have it. that's what i do. with possibilities so few and far between, it's up to me to follow through with every lead, just to make sure.
when you're me, here is never gone.
posted by lindsay at 23:25 :: 0 comments
10 December 2004 : in the life.
7:30 am, walgreens, indianapolis.
i am contemplating life on burgess avenue, life at cherry tree plaza, wondering exactly how tired i can get, and how long we can live like this before we kill each other. i am sad because i missed america's next top model the previous night.
the woman who works the cash register in the early mornings is my favorite. every time i come in, she tells me how pretty i am, and how good i smell, and what great style i have. i prefer to assume she does not share this with every customer.
she knows i am headed for the cooler section, for the 99 cent liter bottles of randomly flavored water. i'm trying every flavor, slowly though, because some mornings you have a triple shot mocha, and everything else seems superfluous.
i notice batteries. i need batteries. so i grab them and at the counter, she says, 'i really like your sweater. you're so cute. these batteries are on sale for 4.99.'
'yes,' i say. 'But its been my experience that duracell lasts longer, so i think i'll just stick with the ones i've got.'
'What are you using them for?'
pause. the simple lie command center in my brain doesn't open until at least 8 am. i stand there so long trying to think of something for which i might plausibly be using batteries in such a way as to be concerned for their lifespan. thirty seconds at least. at which point, my mouth is sort of opening and closing like i'm a fish, and she looks away.
then she looks back, strengthened by a deep breath, and with a sad, sad smile says, 'a portable cd player?' as gently as you can imagine.
'yeah,' i say. 'for my discman.' i pay, i leave, i wonder if she has an accurate picture in her mind now as to the size and dimension of my inability to lie. if she's thinking that it's about six inches long, fleshy pink, with four different settings and an appendage shaped like a serpent - well, she's totally right.
the orange flavored spring water at walgreens tastes like mcdonald's 'orange drink,' and is now totally my new favorite thing.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure, on being shamelessly self involved
posted by lindsay at 23:38 :: 0 comments
01 August 2004 : nouveau fiction for the recent 20-something
in response to getting my head spun on wednesday night, i did some thinking.
i prefer to stay illusioned, i've decided.
i'm officially breaking up with 'delusion snores, sleep with reality.'
reality falls asleep as soon as he gets off, see. and then i go home and sit on the edge of my bed wondering what the hell is wrong with me. i let my guard down long enough to be violently reminded of why that guard was set up in the first place. that's what gets me down, most of the time. the shattering of those carefully cut windows.
anyway, sometimes when it gets really bad, i think to myself, 'stop pretending. you're never going to be [insert adjective such as beautiful, desirable, or cool here].'
somehow, (and fortunately) my head stubbornly insists that i am, indeed, all of those things and more.
of course, my stubborn head also insists that "no, really, bon jovi is good," and also that my parents used to drive a green cadillac, a fact which my mother vehemently denies. but i remember sitting bitch, sunburned and windblown with an ice cream cone, on the green leather seat of that green caddy.
so sometimes i decide, HEY. STOP KIDDING YOURSELF. and then i decide, if you didn't make these things up in your head, you wouldn't get disappointed when they turn out to be false everywhere else. but self improvement is a waste of time unless its concentrated solely within, as a means to better self. you know, as opposed to making self look better in order to impress other people. and since i've yet to master useful self improvement (i fight with myself daily over whether or not its possible to change in any way not superficial), i think i'm just gonna sit here with my thighs sticking to the seat.
you know, living on a prayer.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure, on being shamelessly self involved
posted by lindsay at 23:44 :: 0 comments
30 June 2004 : me-specific dimorphism
once again, it appears i spoke too soon. misspoke, too soon.
i had looked so far forward to this, summer now, and being able to relax. and its true that a break from classes offered me up something completely new and unheard of - free time, me time - and plenty of it. the problem has manifested itself as this: with all this free time, it has come to light that i have nothing with which to fill it. i was doing so well the last few weeks - going out, being around people, laughing.
but at this point, there are only so many hours i can sit reading at the coffeeshop, even a book so good as the one i'm reading right now. there are only so many hours i can revel in being able to lie on the couch and watch as many episodes of buffy as my heart desires.
there are also only so many times a week i can get drunk by myself in the living room of this big empty house.
there is such a huge barrier between who i am, who i really, really am and who you all think you know i am, and who i know i am (which is infrequent and hopelessly incomplete), and who i try to make you all think i am.
and it comes crashing back in, the sadness, menacing as usual. the endless longing for physical pain, the fight against it, the sleepless nights and the days that stretch out so long i want to throw things at the sun, try to encourage its disappearance just this once. i am so bored with it, the thinking, the waiting. i begrudge no one their outward (or inward, be as it may) occupations, i begrudge the few friends i have nothing, even on a night like tonight when all i want is the presence of someone breathing in the same room and that is the only thing i can not seem to find.
i have to wonder. how many months of my life have i wasted being hopeless? and worse yet, how many months of my life being alarmingly naive? the hopeful months.
and there will always be things - my front porch, far too many cigarettes and one too many beers, weekends at ceras, but i find myself stretching time out - counting down hours between trips to madison, as if two days on third street is the only reason i am able to keep breathing. there will always be this feeling, my wasted youth.
it stands to reason, based on who i am right now and how i operate, that if i don't fix this quickly then i am wasted. imagine my exuberance at 30, when still alone and waiting, when my tits have started to sag and the lines around my mouth are no longer from laughing, and when settling down and being part of something larger than myself is no longer softly in the future, something bright to look forward to but something i must do RIGHT NOW otherwise its going to be too late.
and it is only the vague recollection of the exquisite sensation imparted by two singular digits, a moment of my life that passed so quickly i wonder if its intensity isn't only something that i imagined. something i recall falsely to keep me going, while i wait and pretend that i am not hopeful in order to protect myself from further disappointment if nothing else.
however unfortunately, even that is invalid, as there is still disappointment. the safety bought by my hesitation at putting myself into the arena is countered by disappointment of my own creation, disappointment in my head. i make these things up, because i want to be validated. if i am going to be sad, i might as well at least have something to be sad about, even if it's a figment of my imagination.
it might help if i knew what i wanted.
tonight is dark, the beautiful weather interrupted by another evening that i will ignore. the couch, soft and blue, and the television whose noise at least interrupts the nagging of the thoughts i just unloaded so ineloquently here - imagine how they arrange themselves in my head.
new batteries, the image of myself in the mirror at walgreens, pale skin and dark skirt, beauty as i move. a bar of chocolate, new batteries, the promise of eight hours of sleep - the sleeping that means i do not have to think about it.
the memory of a single moment sparking anew the hope that begins the cycle, every time i find it back in the back of my head.
i think it will always be this:
myself, alone in this dark room. too hot or too cold, and waiting.
posted by lindsay at 23:45 :: 0 comments
24 January 2004 : blameless; distracted
i need to stop waiting for the last minute.
i need to stop smoking in my apartment. i need to stop smoking. i need to stop eating things that make me sick. jalapeno chips and salsa, and anything that involves grease.
i have stomach aches all the time. any time, if i am awake, if i am breathing, i have a stomach ache. i need to stop having stomach aches.
i need to stop waiting around, wishing for things that i know are never going to happen. not in this life.
i think i need to resign myself to living this life alone. i think that will help make the stomach aches go. my mom thinks im diabetic and my brothers think that i just need to stop eating spicy foods.
i think that i need to stop carrying around the weight of everything ive ever lost. it centers itself there, in the solar plexus. before it, my softest skin. behind it, parts of me that get ignored so frequently that any touch is alien, will make me jump.
"A blow to that area, if it penetrates to the true solar plexus, not only causes great pain but may also temporarily halt visceral functioning."
this is all because i am struggling now with the loss of something i held inside me for many years, something that kept me going. a very tactile sense of hope, rough like the woolen plaid blankets we used to keep in the living room. the ones the cats scratched to bits.
i want you to know who i am. i want you to know that i like my iced tea sweetened and that my collection of notebooks is just a symptom of an unseemly obsession with adverbs. i want you to know that i like being kissed on the sternum and that i secretly worship bon jovi and that i give up when things get hard. i want you to know that i panic when anything tiny goes wrong, my face contorts and i forget to breathe and sometimes i cry.
i want you to know that i want to make everyone happy, but i havent got the strength. or the time, or the energy. i never get enough sleep.
but more than that. i want you to want to know. i want you to be delighted when i go nearly crazy over the absence of limes in the house, that i will go to the grocery store at any hour of the day or night to buy limes because truly i can not live without them.
i have devised and perfected a million techniques to offer up to you little tiny bits of my life, and i know that you have collected them, because you remembered them when we spoke. and your former beauty lay among snowdrifts somewhere in the past i like to forget about but you knew who i was.
not because you wanted to, but because i plied you with hints and subtleties.
i need to go out more. i need to forget about the joy of your arm across my waist at three in the morning.
i need to find fulfillment in things more tangible, that last longer. like the sunlight on the river outside my window. i think i will try.
i need to understand that beauty is not the end, and that if i were beautiful, things would not be better. i would still be panicky, and i think there would still be days that i might pause in front of the mirror and cry over the hatred i have for what i see there.
i need to find someone who will not shave off his beard. i need to think that i will not fail.
posted by lindsay at 02:25 :: 0 comments
23 April 2003 : truth songs.
my latest question.
i am led to wonder what kind of girl i am, that you were the one not afraid to be with me. what does it say about you, what does it say about me?
there are things that we have known, things that we have said, things that i envision, things that we invented.
i once spent a noticable amount of time thinking about cute pet names, and consequentially, ways to implant them in you subtly, while i forgot them, so you would call me turtle and i would be surprised that you thought of something so nice. bean sprout, mimosa, whatever. i was inifinitely clever in the ways that turned you into what i wanted.
every day i pass these men on the street, beautiful men in long jeans and long hair, with thick leather belts holding them together. only the rare native turns my head these days, though, only the long straight profile of a smooth skinned sioux boy makes me wonder. and none of them carries a dagger. you are my specimen. you carry two.
you told me about fear. together, i think we may be afraid of everything. i walk on tiptoe when you are sleeping and you lie to me, there are infinite dimensions to our deception. you're afraid of hurting my feelings because you think you know about me. you think you know my truths.
ill be honest with you.
i heal faster than you can do simple maths in your head. so tell me about fear. but if you spare me like this again, i may break you. i may break you because it would be satisfying.
-----------
there is a girl who stays with us right now. a girl who works at an expensive coffeeshop in the financial district, serving coffees and pastries to well groomed men in suits. every night she brings home bags of croissants, butter soaking out of their crusts and through their wrappings onto the counter. i live on pastry, two croissants and a muffin every day, because its free and i am poor. at night when i rifle through bags of bread, my body screams for the protein i cannot afford to feed it, the way it screams when i am in the shower. then it whips me to kneeling, shaming me for being the only one who touches it.
the body is made for survival. i know that my frequent cravings for potatoes indicate a lack of starch in my diet, or in my life. i think this body, of all bodies i have known, has the ability to speak in metaphors. my respect for it is immeasurable. it knows i like potatoes and it knows how to best tell me how much it misses you. i stumble in the mornings, that weakness behind my thighs a signal that my sensitivity is waning. it expects me to talk to you, but how will you answer it?
"i am craving you. i think that the lack of contact between your mouth and my body is dangerous. i am going to waste away."
i see your thickly amused stare, cold because you still hate the female parts of me, you hate any part of me that wants you or needs you or maybe loves you. you will shake your long hair with its growing streaks of pure white. sometimes when i look at you i search your head in the dark, my eyes seeking a strand of brown as a symbol of your youth, of the virility youve had that i will never know.
"youre crazy. speak boy if you want me to understand you."
i think instead i will fall asleep alone in your bed, unsatisfied but dreaming. i never lose hope, probably because i am capable. i will wake up in an hour or so and excuse myself to the bathroom, or the couch in the living room to assume the duty you denied and i will return dully satisfied to sleep through the night. every morning i wake up with you, i wake up angry. how vicious, this cycle. my body forgives you, but will not forgive me. i forgive you, but not this body. we could get along if it could forget you. you forgive nothing that is any part of me. i am all girl, and i think you will always hate me for falling for you.
Labels: on being shamelessly self involved
posted by lindsay at 23:57 :: 0 comments