There's an American dishwasher named Walker who lives with his mom and dad, his brother Rory, and his girlfriend Maeve here in Dunedin. He invited me to Thanksgiving with his family so I could "be myself" (an obnoxious American). I ran from work so I wouldn't be late, picked up the salad Simon made and threw on a wrinkled dress. Smelling of booze, fried food, and with unshaven dry legs I managed to drive my beat up Toyota up Blacks Road to their house.

Walker's house is all his mom. She painted the ceiling in swirls, her collages adorn all walls, flowers and jars full of shells and beads and glittery things are on every counter. There's huge sofas, things dangling in the window, massive statues of angels looking out, and art projects unfinished in ever nook and cranny. Their deck looks out onto the whole of Dunedin, and the ocean. There were people from Canada, Montana, Minnesota, Dunedin, and of course, yours truly: Chicago.

Food littered the dining room and kitchen. The idea of meeting so many new people, and thinking of unshaven legs, and proving myself immediately sent me into sweating profusely. Literally. It was like a bad middle school movie, all that sort of familiar accented social interaction had my armpits doing the Free Willy in moments. I ate a lot of turkey and had a tour of all of the art work on the walls, and it was all beautiful. I talked to Walker and Maeve, and a few more people. I offended a really nice girl who might now think I'm anti-semetic, but seriously didn't mean to. And I talked far too nervously about far too much, but mainly kept it in my pants.

After dinner we all sat outside in the setting sun in Dunedin. I thought about missing Thanksgiving with my family, and I thought about America, and I thought about Simon and I, and all of this shit in my head. A Canadian girl started a conversation with me, and I think a lot of people were listening about why I was there. And I realized it when I said it, I think I want to live, I'm looking for, a place that doesn't exist. I thought to myself "eh, I don't really feel like I completely fit in America, how about New Zealand?" and now I think "eh, I don't really fit in New Zealand, maybe I'll go to Australia", but really it's not where you are, but who you are, and all that sentimental words for the wise bullshit. But it's how I really felt. Really feel. And that was sad, I was thankful for what I have, but I don't know what the hell to do with it, and maybe I could be thankful for that feeling, but holy shit am I confused.

Anyway. Then, of course, someone asked where I went to University, and I said Smith. Walker's mom immediately turned to me and said "THE SMITH?" as if it was a bad man she knew, someone on Death Row, or maybe just an infamous serial killer. And then proceded to get me to state to everyone there what the tuition of Smith was. Then told me that I slouched and I should sit like a lady. Could have let it go, but man, what the hell. I guess the turkey was good, but was it that good? Of course it doesn't mean anything that I met my best friends there, or completely questioned everything I've thought there, or learned how to be articulate, or learned how to make creativity mean something there, it just matters that Smith is an elite ivy league school, and you either don't know it or you're intimidated, or fuck all. Admittedly I need to cultivate a humbling sense of humour immediately or die a horrible social pariah death.

We kept talking and I realized something else, even though I felt great and it was a great situation, and I was so glad to be with all these people talking and eating and having a great time, I didn't feel wholly comfortable for some reason, just as I feel with groups of Kiwis. And here's the kicker:

I've only spent six months here, but I've processed enough that I'm no longer completely 100% American and am a fucking long way from being completely Kiwi, so I'm a mismatched sock drawer of culture. That's a shitter.

I got in the car and drove home after some pumpkin pie, I was really appreciative of this massive gesture that an American/Kiwi family made for me, but I wanted to be closer. I wanted this family to be my friends, my loved ones, people I could just delve into and let my heart out to as well. And the fact is: they're not here. I should stop winge-ing though, because honestly it was beautiful, just a little unsettling.

I got into my Toyota with the broke ass passenger door because a lady backed into Simon while he was driving, and I drove home with the only radio station that my car is able to play (because it's Japanese): Classic Hits. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun came on, and I realized suddenly how much I relate to that song right now. So I pumped it up and sang all the way back to my flat.

I come home in the morning light,
My mother says "When you gonna live your life right?"
Oh,mother,dear,
We're not the fortunate ones,
and girls they wanna have fun.

The phone rings in the middle of the night,
My father yells "What you gonna do with your life?"
Oh,daddy,dear,
You know you're still number one,
But girls,
They wanna have fu-un,
Oh,girls,just wanna have
That's all they really want.....
Some fun....

It's not necessarily that I want to have fun, but I want to discover something that I hoped was important, but I can't put my finger on what. Man, that sounds like some hippie bullshit right there, but that's about where I'm at. I feel like I am letting down my parents, letting down my friends, and my family. It doesn't help that the nextdoor neighbors are doing a keg stand right now.

Then again you really could just summarize with: I went to Thanksgiving abroad in an amazing house, with good conversation Americans/Canadians/Kiwis, and I listened to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun on the way home in my Toyota (Anthony) and truly I am on the other side of the planet loosing my mind

and strangely feeling okay about it.

good things:
I made enchiladas with simon last night, and they were really good.
I'm trying to expand my love, or lack thereof, of spicy food, and it's sort of working.
I'm planning on going on a major expedition with simon on my days off of work (monday tuesday).
I'm reading a lot of Jodi Picoult novels.
Feeling a slightly less swaying libra-balance in my life.
Our backyard has extremely long grass, the clothesline has wound it's way around a tree, and the days have been so sunny that I put a blanket out there and drink tea in the light, normally with our cat Frances.
My flatmates and I play games trying to guess all 50 states.
I reconnected with my host family, specifically mom, and felt really good amidst their packing for a new house.
I'm semi-working on my CV, grad school apps, and fellowships.
Simon.
Good phone calls with friends and family.
I'm thinking about visiting Australia soon.
The neighbor's cat had kittens. They are so cute in their drawer. Just opened their eyes- five of them. Little mews like bird chirps.
I made peanut butter cookies today.

bad things:
I am anxious about going home, and anxious about staying here.
I feel like I don't quite have a home anymore, and people around me both home and away are/do make me feel that way, I get defensive and it all goes relatively downhill from there.
There are so many things I want to work on, but I don't know where to start: patience, over-sensitivity, being judgmental, being depressive; I have this intense social anxiety around people, and I'm trying really hard to just stop it immediately, but it's difficult.
I'm also pretty let down by a lot of things back home that I've been figuring out. Friends, family. It's taken six months and I'm still sorting out my feelings with a half-dozen relationships that I have. This all makes me very nervous. I have to let it go sometimes, and it's hard to. I love people so much, I expect so much out of them, but not everyone or anyone is going to live up to that expectation, and it crushes me. I don't know how to expect a normal amount, or just put my foot down at the right time.
Really, the downside is people and anxiety.
and of course "future".

Overall though, I am reminding myself to relax. Hopefully I am becoming a better person than I was/am, and that's good. Six months metacognition will make anyone anxious.

Anyway, any tips or comments, or observations-- I'd be keen to hear.

is happiness something that we choose for ourselves?
I've tried choosing it again and again, tried living with an upbeat attitude, looking forward and not back.
I can't help feeling lost right now, falling.

my brain tells me to do so many things.
look for flats, apply to grad schools, call home, get outside,
be happy.

What's missing from my life? I'm doing what most people dream of.
I'm on the other side of the world, living, working, going to the ocean.
Why do I suddenly feel like everything is leaking out of my life
instead of flooding in.

Everyone I know is in a bad state right now, there's no person who sees a light at the end of the tunnel, and I am a stranger, even to myself. The man I sleep next to seems happy enough, wakes up, stretches, goes to school for exams.

A part of me doesn't want to be happy- is that it? It's not enough, and look at all those happy shiny people, are they actually alive or are they just complacent? What will make me happy: purpose. Being my own person. Getting this little evil out of me. This little seed that grows and grows, saying: look at that person, you're better worse than them. look, another, just another not to trust. remember that time you fucked up? yeah. it's still here. in the back of your head. remember that person that let you down? they're still here, all in a line. waiting to shake your memory with their tiny fists.

was I happier before? was there a time when I have been purely happy? we can't quite remember after awhile, can we?

I found my "diaryland" diary from my junior year in high school (2003) today, and I wanted to cross post this, see where I was, what my writing was like, and where I'm at now. Interesting stuff.

Prose Poem 1
You left your red coat hung up. The last time you came here.

The ranch in Montana is unbuilt, and it creaks like a murderer under my bed at night under the snow in the park there are leaves. Their coats are no longer red and orange but black and brown where centipedes have made their nests. There are no robins.


Prose Poem 2
Today.

She's drunk again tonight, but you could never tell from the half stares she gives.

Our house turns to God's house when the cork lies bruised and torn on the counter top.

It's February and the house across the street still has it's Christmas lights on.

this flint-lit morning
when I rang my mother,
she asked (again)
what I was doing here.

in her roundabout way,
she wondered
what was happening
was anything happening?
why wasn't I there instead of here?

you dried off with a towel
two feet from our voices.

put on your clothes
packed your schoolbag
kissed me on the cheek
opened the door
and left.

the entire day I spent
wringing my hands
drying dishes, grinding coffee,
little mother in my ear
mumbling with her black voice
why are you working here?
anyone can work at a cafe.
when are you coming home?

when you come to pick me up
the moon hovers above us
a cheshire cat smile
grinning down with white light,
reflecting off our rings.

I sit on your bike
and you push me all the way home,
watching for the curbs
and the broken glass.

Steadying myself on your shoulder,
I tell you what I already know:
my mother is unhappy.

The night is silent:
a deafening roar
that asks me
with a thunder that rings in my ears

where do you belong?

saturday afternoon stretches
around me
as I take the four blocks home
step by step.

folding your pants
I am seeing the holes
I have to darn
peeking out of the tweed
winking in the light
from the window.

my hands move over our room
like calming a child.
there, there, last week,
there, there dirty dishes.

the power I have in my skin
is leaking out- a honey yellow
through the window.

walking back I know I will think
this step, this step
matters.
each one proving the existence
of little me,
peeking out between the
streets, winking
in the light.

I've been having dreams about visiting/talking to people about grad schools. My future is so undecided right now; I can't think of a more indecisive time I've had in my life.

Last night I dreamed about Sarah Lawrence. It was pretty awful. They were confusing grad students with undergraduate students and giving us a tour through their crap library that had concrete slabs instead of bookshelves. One of the main things they showed was Shel Silverstein's "library" which was a shelf of his books with gaping holes where people stole some of them. The guide, who I think was Bob Boone my old writing teacher, explained that they had just begun to shrink the books in order to stop stealing.

A few nights ago, I dreamed about Columbia. My friend (?) Gio is there right now, and I was talking to him about it in the dream. He didn't want me to come for another year, so he could have the time alone there.

Yesterday my mom asked me (on the phone) what I was planning to do when I got back (in November, she's assuming). There are no jobs in the U.S. right now, the unemployment rate is 10% in Chicago, and I don't know what I'd want to do for a six month period. I haven't applied to grad schools yet because applications aren't posted for 2010. Even if they were, I'm not positive I'd know if I want to go, where I want to go, what I want to go for.

I still want to travel. I want to go to Australia. I want to climb things. I want to meet other people. I want to go on a boat. But most of all I want to have dreams that make sense, dreams I can afford to interpret, dreams that I can accomplish here, now, without scraping my scalp off.

August looks like this:
hills like old pictures, the tiny eyes of houses
peering out of closed shutters
like eyelids wrinkled with light.

My hands are chapped, the change of weather,
waking up to a frost that nibbles the ends of the grass
on the front lawn.

The coffee cups I wash
have turned to conch shells,
the grinds etched into the sides like gritty sand.

I dream of hiding one under my shirt,
carefully stepping into the bathroom,
locking the shuddering door,
closing my eyes,

putting it to my ear.

my love is building a cage- a steel house I live inside, yes, I am alive. that pumping is a want- to be embraced by that passing stranger. please take me into your house- your heart- it must have arteries like open doors, it must be a thin thin skin, it must be warm.

the hills all close in like strangers, turning their backs to me and when I scale them they've turned again to look the other way. the moon tonight was a rabbit in a kennel of light- so full we had to stare at it together. only reminded of where we were when you soaked your sock in that puddle.

I love you we might say in the morning, but now it is to dark to read lips.

he brushes my hair after I get out of the shower. when I start to cry he hugs me, puts lotion on my feet, makes jokes about how small my toes are, he takes off his shirt gives it to me to blow my nose. goes to make pasta as I write this. how can I repay these small favors, why then am I still so alone?

I woke up knowing I would take Fletcher on a run. Running with my dog is like running with a movie star- in fact it's a lot like running with Rob Pattinson. Everyone oggles at him, and oohs and aaaahs him, everyone pets him (and his ego). However, Fletch is a pain in the ass to run with (like I imagine Rob Pattinson would be), I can't get him to actually keep up, and I end up having to carry all 45 lbs of him. He won't come away from the beach, and when he's off leash he runs away and won't come back. In short, he drives me crazy, but everyone thinks he's adorable. We swam a little together, but the trouble is that whenever anyone is in the water Fletcher assumes they're drowning and tries to either a) save them or b) barks until they save themselves. He also has enormous... canine teeth... (double pun, living with my parents has me punning it up in the worst ways).

I dropped Fletch at home and went to Oak Street Beach alone, which I loved. When I am alone, and not psyching myself out about life, I'm all right company. Feeling dizzy and full with sun, I went to the cafe on the beach and stretched out, ordered a sandwich, talked to the waiter about Jodi Picoult books, and West With the Night, and drank a lot of water. Warm, full of air, I walked home. Feeling steady.

One week from tomorrow I'm on a plane. I tell Chicago, this isn't goodbye, it's see you next time.

I have suddenly and completely become enraged. I can't say for sure what sparked it. A conversation about being vegetarian? Reflecting on my life for the last year? Thinking about Jodi Picoult's book "Nineteen Minutes"? Seeing an old friend? I really can't say. What I can say is I'm restless, and I feel like I want to punch something.

This is one thing that upsets me: bullshit and a lack of genuine living (not that I'm not a part of this). For instance, in "Nineteen Minutes" a politician buys a ribbon to wear on his wrist in the colors of a school that had a shooting. He does this because he wants to be re-elected, not because he is sympathetic, but because he knows to get re-elected you probably should do this.

Everyone has their own agenda. It's hard to be nice because people don't believe you. Who the hell would want to be nice in this world? It gets you nowhere, and everyone knows kindness is not a survival skill.

This makes me legitimately angry, endlessly hopeless, and irrationally-- it makes me want to sob.

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. -P.G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs

Since our awareness of others is considered our duty, the price we pay when things go wrong is guilt and self-hatred. And things always go wrong. We respond with apologies; we continue to apologize long after the event is forgotten - and even if it had no casual relation to anything we did to begin with. -Nancy Chodorow

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so you apologize for truth.
-Benjamin Disraeli

This morning, after my horrific dream, I thought about who I wanted to apologize to and people who I wanted apologies from. The fact is, you can't change people. The last year of Smith was like ten thousand apologies not said by others, and not relayed by me. Too much sensitivity and too much personal betrayal to recount. The fact is, it's over. The people who have offended me seriously know that they have, but I can't expect an apology from them because they do not want to change, and do not feel sorry. On the flip side, I apologize too frequently, and let people under my skin too easily, truly I deserve better.

It was good to think that. Now, the hard part: moving on.

I dream that I am with people from Smith-- mainly Annie and Jillian (and maybe Angie?) and also with my parents. We are going on this huge adventure (specifically with my dad). Except that first we are in the school that R, T, and B went to. After eating I go to the bathroom. I look in the mirror and suddenly my teeth are so loose, I am sure they will fall out. And they do. All four in front, three on the bottom. I'm dropping the pieces on the floor, trying to hand them off to Smith people who can't seem to get their act together to actually help me (i.e. taking the pieces from me). My father comes in while I am crying with my teeth everywhere, and tells me we can't afford this. More trips to the dentist. More surgery. Suddenly I realize that someone has drugged me, laced my drink with something that made this happen. An investigation goes on, and a girl from the school did it. I wake up seeing her face looking down at the floor.

Normally teeth dreams symbolize insecurity, which makes sense. I was pretty insecure in my life situation this year, and I did feel like I was crawling around looking for help where there wasn't any. However, considering I actually had this happen to one of my teeth (minus the laced drugs), I think this might be literal fear. Regardless, I'm going to brush my teeth.

"We have survived for all these millennia because we have been able to eat. And now that seems to have become a curse. Why? What is it that makes us, at forty years old, want to have the same body we had when we were young? Is it possible to stop time? Of course not. And why should we be thin?

We don't need to be thin. We buy books, go to gyms, we expend a lot of brain power on trying to hold back time, when we should be celebrating the miracle of being here in the world. Instead of thinking about how to live better, we're obsessed with weight.

Forget all about that. You can read all the books you want, do all the exercise you want, punish yourself as much as you want, but you will still have only two choices-- either stop living or get fat.

Eat in moderation, but take pleasure in eating: it isn't what enters a person's mouth that's evil, but what leaves it. Remember that for millennia we have struggled in order to keep from starving. Whose idea was it that we had to be thin all our lives? I'll tell you: the vampires of the soul, those who are so afraid to the future that they think it's possible to stop the wheel of time. Use the energy and effort you put into dieting to nourish yourself with spiritual bread. Know that the Great Mother gives generously and wisely. Respect that and you will get no fatter than passing time demands. Instead of artificiality burning those calories, try to transform them into the energy required to fight for your dreams. No one ever stayed slim for very long just because of a diet."

-The Witch of Portobello, Paulo Coehlo

the first period since I got home from smith is ravaging me. whilst fantasizing about my dog running away, so that my parents will once again care about me, I am doubled over in cramps. I am pretty sure I almost exploded/cried/blew eight gaskets at mom's birthday dinner tonight, and had to actually leave and go upstairs because my stress level was so high. not to mention a paramedic would probably take me to the e.r. with how much blood I'm losing.

tomorrow will be better.

When we were seven, D convinced me that he was part of the C.I.A's major combat unit domestically and internationally. I, being seven and eager to believe any fantasy, believed him. I would come over, and he would make me hide in the bushes behind his house, "this is how we hide in the brush on our missions", D would say. He'd shake his head, "you really wouldn't understand".

( The stories we tell )

Seven years ago a man committed suicide across the street from our soccer practice. He fell out of his window like one of those air conditioning units; crashed into the alley twenty feet from where fifteen 16 year old girls were practicing sprints. I wasn't there that day, neither was R. We skipped to eat sushi about a block away, that's what I pretend to remember anyway. I heard about it the next day at school. How the entire field paused, thinking that part of the building had fallen, was it something out of the sky?, all these teenage girls, pretty, their thighs stretched tight and naked under their short-shorts.

( read )

Four weeks from tomorrow I go to New Zealand. I was thinking today, on my two hour walk with Fletcher by the lake front, about how my life feels like it's on fast forward. I graduated, and in two weeks that will be a month ago. I don't know how to slow it down.

I'm going to New Zealand to do something I'm afraid of (see: go to a foreign country again and try to get along there), I'm also going to see the love of my 21 year long life. I am nervous about a lot of things, but mostly I am just noticing.

I try to notice Chicago as much as I can, to get as much as I can out of it today, tomorrow, the next day. I devise plans of things to do here, there, everywhere, so I am not depressed.

More on that later. Nap time.

There is a huge pause button on my brain: the move to Chicago. I was 13. Everything was a blur, and I still don't know how it happened. It wasn't a crisis for me, I organized my room, I met the neighbors.

Trevor, Brooke, Ryan, all had wanted another neighbor their age for years they said. Snip, snip, snip and I can cut out all the memories I don't want in my head. Snip, snip, snip. Forget-me-scissors.

Their faces are all still there- Trevor three years ago saying "we've all agreed that college has done good things for you Abi" with his groping hands on my back. Seven years back saying of course he had to cheat on me, I wouldn't "put out" after all. Ryan mumbling "I had a dream, your hair was long again, and you were in a ballroom gown champagne colored walking down a staircase to whisper in my ear that you loved me" while I listen to him in my men's jeans, my head buzzed, every ounce of love leaking out my pores. Brooke six years back when I sent her that note in thanks for her friendship with my sweaty penmanship, her response calling me a lesbian. Assuming I was hitting on her.

Who do we blame for loosing our innocence once it's gone? Do we blame the place we moved to? Was it the bitter alleys full of homeless men that stare up at our windows (mom screamed "close your curtains! there are men staring at you out there!")? The boy that said he fell in love with us for two weeks and then demanded sex? Was it the beautiful girl with the big white bed who we so stupidly wanted to be friends with, wanted to play dress up with and have some of that 'pretty' rub off on us too like shoeshine? What about the other boy, the guy that didn't fit in that we thought we could change, but ended up just trying to change us into someone 'less weird'. Do we blame the streetlights like a thousand golden eyelids closed to our prayers, hundreds of yellow ears ignoring our Wizard of Oz shoe clicks?

There's no place like home
There's no place like home
There's no place like home

Why do we cling to that moment so completely? I cling so completely to those broken places like stones in my pocket too perfect to skip. I cling to Trevor tugging at my pants, to Ryan telling me I had no sense of humor, why did I have to be so intense? To Brooke giving me a look over her gate, giving me a hug so perfect it couldn't have been genuine, like a sexy china doll. I cling like I'm drowning, even if it's my raft drowning me. We all do. It's part of the reason we're happy to alive, there's meaning in those moments. Some fucked up meaning that only you remember, we are important through them, we are these history holders that no one else is. Ask any of them, they won't remember like I do, that's what we say.

Yeah, maybe my innocence is gone, we say. But I'll be the one to tell the story.