It was a monster; a fantastic monster that was all silver and pointed black words and slithering satin soft vines. I have been getting sicker and sicker lately and believe that, at this very moment, I have hit a point of delusion; I have hit it, smacked right into it, and am resting against its smooth numbingly cool white marble wall. And it's oddly soothing.

I had a ridiculous five paged proposal due for my organic foods class today (to premeditate a twelve pager before the term ends) and I was not going to be mature about. Laughing derisively with my scratchy throat, disdainfully wasting time and catching up on shows with congested sniffs, etc. Halloween had breezed by but the main tragedy is that it's been a year of dilluminating holidays; my birthday, this mess, etc. and I don't like it.

I had outtalked myself the night before at the concert, shimmying and staring  upwards to the stage from the crowd, backed by my doublethreat couple army - but secretly I missed the congested rush and mesh of bodies. Eisley was mesmorizing - I could see white dresses and crass flowers like desert oases; and Say Anything wanted me to turn into an angry, pubescent boy. But we wandered home afterwards, pushing pass the drunken pre-halloween crowd, and bristling like tired little children around our car, cursing its dead battery. I don't believe we were awake any more when the AAA fellow brought the engine back to life, pushing it through the bronze-lit parking garage like a silver ghost. It had rudely stolen our concert euphoria and it was not giving it back.

Halloween the day after was thus made silly and ridiculously warm, dried candied leaves and childish safeness - I wanted my quiet, tea party Julie to go home, if that doesn't sound too terrible (I was terrible and boring), so that I could swear and brainlessly mess around with my cousin and crazy & co. with his silly but harmless dare games and mango-lubed feet races on a night made for mayhem. Yes, even the silly kind. Absent liquor had long lost it's glow of rebellion under this rooftop afterall and my lovely & I had run out of things to say, things to watch on tv. I got dared up after we bid adieus but it was an empty cackle; the night had already gone, and before long, I was back to staring down trains and familiar strangers.

Towards the end of this new week, I was finally noticing an irritating scratch in my throat, thus dutifully wrapping myself into my striped scarf as I stumbled out into the backyard to tackle a monstrous sea of leaves. (Note: the scarf was a present from scruffyhaired boy when we were sophomores and he was still enjoying that stupid selfish love from afar game. the guy has finally surfaced from the world of business-majoring and people-ignoring to reenter facebook but still has not talked to me or mention any of the five or so friendly texts i had sent him so i am also feeling pretty freaking pathetic.)

Anyways, I conquered the bloodclot colored leaves after listening to The Dead Weather in it's entirety and felt pretty freaking sore (still am) and satisfied with myself when I finally decided to start on that five-paged bullshit. That's when the delirium started. The cacophony of adventurous adjectives and hapless sources, amateur seriousness and all that stuff combusted on me. It bit me. I should give up trying to explain it now. I was alternating between helping my orientation pal and typing the stupid thing at the same time; but it became more like trying to be precise with scribbling branches. It was a word euphoria, an epiphany for a golden hour that glittered on until this numbing, very numb now. I must be very sick. I have been seeing traces of adjectives and metaphors and imagery all day since that godawful essay. The proposal is probably terrible and this monster-epiphany business could be attributed to the 5 hours of sleep, larger than usual ice coffee, sunsoaking, green tea, white chocolate frappe, and alleve-taking activities of today; but darlings, I can write again!

(Note: I write my stalker thoughts all verbatim when I'm bored or twitchy inbetween courses and my english professor has been sapping out my english self-worth and I'm obviously getting feverish; but I'm finally starting to feel optimistic today. And it was a gloriously breezy day today with stupid bus to train transfers and philosophical talks and delirious delirium.)

Currently Northanger Abbey (Modern Library Classics) By Jane Austen see related

My head, my red pumpy organs - are somewhere out there with crumply yellow leaves. Collecting dirt in the increasingly cold and damp autumn breezes that graze through the flesh and whistles against the marrow. Everything sounds off through the spiraled megaphone of a vitrola. Keening, unserious, too serious, deprecating, falsetto, distant, maddening, douschy, and so on. The gumballs rattling in some poor girl's alienated head. I strongly believe in the "seeing yourself in the things you love/hate" theory and sometimes it gets way too realistic - that's the right word, right? I hypothesize it, pretend/experiment it, and then I must try to shove it out of my head when I've humanized the asshole talking loudly behind me; about methadones, girls who party hard but not really because they've got squeaky voices, and the best booze to get smashed on. I creep, therefore I am.

It's been a weird day. I'm enjoying the hell out of these grey autumn days because I have finally got that layering thing down pat and my spiced apple (that's what the label says) lips and white shoe laces glow. [interruption: I'm also sparing you the details of my sucky complexion but you and I can just pretend it's not all over the bridge of my nose/brows here and that I don't look (like my dramatic subconscious calls it) like a leper.] Of course, I'm just building this facade for myself, a cool-hearted wry heroine because I'm really just twitchy, stupid, and tired as fuck and I don't know how my feet just pull me up hill, pull me downhill, and into a freaking ditch because I'm doing badbadbad at this college thing and I'm not leaving a mark or enjoying myself like I promised. Which is a bit early to complain but I'm growing afraid of opening my mouth. I'm growing afraid of talking. Of course we've been through all this. And I hate my food & globalization class; I spent all of Wednesday catching up on work and "discussing" some questions online, only to get my short paper back & bashed on for not taking it seriously. Why should I give a flying fuck? I'm torn between wanting writing-criticism... and playing it safe behind that school wall where they give me gold stars for knowing big words. History's been fun though; ever since we had a talk about chivalry (which is a handsome word in itself, non?), I have gotten even more obsessed with that whole doorholding thing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a Say Anything & Eisley concert tomorrow and damsel-like plans for Halloween - as in it will be flimsily planned, trapped, and saccharine; what with Julie's birthday being today and me with no presents or tact left and having to do all the planning and talking... Also, saccharine as in how unfriggingbelievably I'm addicted to Daisy: eau de adventure and trees and baroque and cakes and etc. And also, branches are the skeletons of trees. I don't know. My aunt said it in Vietnamese and it sounded crazily insightful and pretty: xương sống lá cây.

I wore the pretty, rusted-colored cameo necklace I got for $3 on my first-time-the-three-of-us-are-together-since-college-and-they-are-so-comfortable-with-each-other-already-but-why-don't-i-say-something-why-can't-i-feel-right? with Heather & Michelle. And I wore it with a nerdy white button up, fitted silly with my skinny jeans and old black cardigan. But then on the train ride home, a lovely intriguing Japanese pair stood right next to me. The girl had an adorable teal, cherry print skirt and long wavy hair and the boy was tall with black 'nerdy' glasses and boat shoes, doing a restless jig with his feet. I understood 'doshte' & 'baka' haha, and I felt better. And as I boarded the train, a bearded indie fellow in brown sat behind me and I felt visible, briefly, for a change.

I waited in a cold Boston under a chilly lamplit October, standing in line for an overpriced t-shirt store (with promises of a free shirt but that was a lie). In front of me was a really funny fellow dressed up in a shower - a halo'ing rung of white curtains over his head. Glanced and then turning around in line, "Oh, sorry, I heard voices/saw shadows-" and then later to a nosy little boy: "Woah there, buddy. What if I wasn't wearing pants? I could've beena level 3 sex offender." For two hours as the two couples ate (Heather with Zack, Brandon with Melanie), Michelle (the quieter, ice-skating one) and I stood in line, silences broken with me making loud obscenities or commenting wryly about the cold, over and over again. Watched as various strangers asked the shower guy why and/or for a picture. And then the four of my friends came back (with burgers) and we six stood ... until midnight. And as it got colder, we chatted bitterly with our fellow cold Bostonians about the little kids that cut. An overeager guy in a camera with his female friend, and an older looking guy that sounded/looked a bit like one of the Wilson's creepy cousins. Brandon's frisbee'ing friend joined us and we got free cupcakes & hot cocoa from the Johnny Cupcakes and a guy dressed as a monkey dexteriously climbing up a tree...? and Zack belting out mortifying but catchy songs. At the end of it all, I didn't even get a shirt but that was fucking amusing.

And now it's snowing. Snow. In October. Well first, let me just throw in that I talked with Alfred on Thursday (a kid I knew in middle school who I met again through my cousin during a "party" - riding around on my old scooter in our basement, asking if the vodka smelled like soy sauce, mean) during my twenty mins to half hour coffee break before no-credit math. He told me making friends in college wasn't that hard; making point by greeting to at least eight friends as I bitterly blew on my drink. I forgot my phone Tuesday and it rained on me on my way to the History and the train Thursday but no texts. None from my lovelies; which is a little irritating. I also just bought tickets to see Arctic Monkeys with Jason, my little brother, in December; two days before my first college finals. Yikes. And now you're all caught up! Sort of! I think the snow may have stopped...

youthful invincibility. i am hugging a boulder
trying to make something - anything.
i am a little yellow, brittle leaf. i am crushable and lonely,
trying to make something (out of nothing).

and i cannot be defeated,
because i do not know...
defeat. i do now know...
anything. ... do i?
i am youth crunching leaf.
thus, invincible. thus, fragile.