Love in the Time of the Internet Cellular Phone

P: Are you finished with your essay yet?
A: No.
P: How much more do you have to do?
A: 10 pages.
P: You haven't done anything?
(Eyes go wide, eyebrows settle themselves in deep furrows just above, as though settling in before a storm, green and red sparks fly from the corners of eyelids because complimentary colors are always more catchy, majestic curls of smoke creep out of nostrils and diffuse into the air)
A: NO. I've done a lot. I just haven't written anything yet.
(Ninja stars are produced with rapid speed and hurled with breathtaking accuracy leaving the offender pinned to the wall with the knowledge that the students might have ended an all-too-irreverent life with the flick of her wrist. Lesson learned.)

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When it's my turn at the counter, I fumble over words which should be so straight-forward.
Um, here, uh...I checked out these books, and I would just stick them in the slot, but this one is disintegrating, and I'm afraid it would fall apart in the bin...um, but, the other ones are fine. I can just...or maybe it would be easier...oh, you want my ID? OK, um, one...OK, here it is...
She takes my ID, and my disintegrating book. She smiles and says:
It's ironic that the title of this book is "Structuralism".
HA! I laugh in a voice too loud for the library, Yeah! Funny. Haha. Yeah...

I step out of the library into the cool, dark, soft night. Squatting on her haunches, her back is lit from the lights inside, leaving her face in shadow. Phone pressed to her ear, book in her hand, she declaims in a hushed voice:

...the past flashes like lightening over the gloomy abyss of the future and everything around me collapses...

God I'm going to miss this place.

GOODBYE! MUAH! I LOVE YOU!

Parting words from Ms. D. What more need be said?

*In Other News*

(strains neck to keep head above a torrent of what appear to be...fish with human heads?!?)
Just wanted to drop you a line, and fill you in on the really big happenings of my life leading up to what I'm promised will be my eventual graduation with a Bachelor's degree in sociology...

Spending so much time at home recently has been enlightening. I'll share some of my new-found wisdom with you:

Graham: Who do you think would win at catching pop fly balls at a baseball game, Luke Skywalker, or Gangsta Gollum?

Dad: Obviously Luke Skywalker. He's got the Force.

Graham: I say Gangsta Gollum. Because when Luke Skywalker gets within ten inches of the ball, Gangsta Gollum jumps up with a gun and says, "Back up, foo! My precious!"

Alex: With a gun?

Graham: He's a GANGSTA!

Furthermore, if you've got a few minutes to spare, take a look at this video. It has made me cry every time I've watched it. Try to look beyond the radiant early-nineties apparel if you can.

(Wait, is that a photo of a bathroom? A bathroom for monsters?!)

A Letter to My Favorite Story Book Characters

Here's a reminder to slip in the back pocket of your mind, to be rediscovered when you think you've got nothing left:

You are the most exquisite you there has ever been- don't deny yourself to the world.

All your foibles will end in beauty. I've read the end. Take respite in that. Enjoy your every sunkissed-or-shreakingly-cold breath knowing that everything will be as it should be.

You will find love. I promise. You will love and be loved, and you will feel it in the pit of your belly. It will make you feel sick sometimes, but sometimes it will be in a good way.

You are lost now. You will be found and lost again many times. Your confused and tear-streaked wanderings will lead you places you never would have sought out, had things gone according to plan.

Unutterably Soft

Moments of clarity often come at times when you don't expect them. Not only that, they come about things which you don't expect to take notice of until a curtain is drawn and you look up and say, "Oh."

In a time when breathing seems a chore and focusing is something that I used to do, Sandeep gave me a flower. It smells so sweet. A rose sent from the editors of this story who, looking down, think, "Hey, this girl might lose it. Let's sweeten the deal. " Over the past few weeks, Sandeep has been one of the main contributing factors to my continued tolerance of the confusion that has reigned supreme. And she gave me this rose. It smelled so good. And it was so soft. I walked around with it for the rest of the day; I couldn't very well just leave it somewhere. Maybe part of the attraction of flowers is that they are so fleeting. If you are overly-amorous with a flower, it's stem breaks or it's petals bruise. And even if you're ever-so-careful, it doesn't last for long. And you can only smell it when you inhale. You're denied that pleasure when exhaling. Or when you forget to breathe.

So there I was, walking around holding this rose, smelling it and better, feeling it. Flowers smell good, this we know. But they feel like velvet and butter and cinnamon and sugar. How do we forget this? Drifting from class to class, petting myself with my rose, I realized why women in those old portraits always hold the flowers right up to their faces; it's because they're so soft. I'll bet that when you're sitting for days on end for a portrait, you need a reminder of life and sweetness and light. And John Berger and I thought all along that these ladies were just positioning themselves in the most alluring and demure position for the male viewer. Shame on us.

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Cracked open, wind-burned, anxiously beating in the hopes of finding some thing some end. That’s not what’s meant to be, but still it beats with ravenous desperation. But under the covers in the darkness, the drum continues, magnified in an amphitheater where you are the giantess, your nose brushing the velvety sky, your eyes the stars. For all your grandness, you quiver. Beating becomes a hum, rousing sleeping birds from their nests to stare blearily at the sky and snuggling down deeper to thwart the cool and loneliness from which you have no shelter. Warm or cold hardly matters, because fear lights the night on fire and all that is seen exists behind eyes, between the hum.

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There are times when I think to myself, 'My heart hurts.' The grownup in my mind looks at the 4-year-old in my mind, right into her eyes, and asks, 'What do you mean?' I can't answer. Not in terms I'm accustomed to using. 'I feel it in my heart, and in my belly. They're all twisted up and sad.' What advice does the grownup give the kid?Hmmm.

'I know how you feel, I feel that way sometimes too.'

'Try breathing really deeply, and letting it all go.'

'Do you want some hot chocolate?'

Lay Me Down

Come to me.

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5:50am
6:16am
4:45am
6:11am

Times I've woken up in the last 4 days. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON? Our bodies tell us so much if we choose to listen. If we don't, we just think we're loosing it. The two scenarios may not be mutually exclusive. Grind your teeth at nigh- stress? What's that about? Wake up at quarter-to-five- anxiety? Legs twitching and tingling after a day of lying in bed- is this what it feels like when muscles die?

To use the age old phrase, I feel like a college-student with its head cut off. Running around, bumping into things, watching a movie, saying every five minutes "I have to go do homework." BORING. Be original, won't you Alex? Nobody wants to listen to a stressed-out co-ed. Not even you.

So true. I'm going to go read someone else's blog.

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(sips wine out of coffee mug)

9:22pmKate

hello!

9:22pmJessica

hi

i'm doing homework

not looking at pics of my crush

just so you know

9:23pmKate

I politely suggest you GET OFF FACEBOOK then

btw I'm clearly studying

please stop bothering me

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Alexandra Stokes
Sociology of Immigration- SOC 180
Report on Oakland Chinatown

Oakland Chinatown established itself simultaneously with the city of Oakland itself. It is currently home to many people who participate in numerous and diverse activities. It's quite close, you know. I can't do this right now...
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Don't Give In

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First day of bright, breath-taking, lay-out-in-it-till-you-have-to-go sun. I forgot what it's like, this sun. Or maybe it's not the sun I've forgotten, but the soaking-in of it. In any case, I've clearly forgotten proper sun-etiquette, as is evidenced by my sadly-screaming, red-like-a-cherry-otter-pop back. I'm all about sunscreen, normally. I just forgot. I wasn't prepared. I didn't know it was time for the sun yet, and I can't quite figure out how it sneaked up on me, don't remember this ever happening before. I wonder where I've been that I haven't seenfelt the sun. I don't think I'll go back there, if I can help it.

search out stories

Gal writes*,

Here’s the story: life is a dream.

Sometimes something I read just opens up my mind. Cracks it wide open, and in streams sunlight and fresh air. This is one of those times. A moment of epiphany, often one that I've had before, that I hope I'll never stop having. I don't exactly think that there is an end to life, but more a means to living. Not a revolutionary concept, I know. But what would it mean if I lived that way? What if I sought out stories in the life I'm living, not the one that I wishfearpredictregret tolivelivinglivedwilllive? Find the story and hold it up for everyone to see, they won't be able to look away. Maybe when they do look away, their sight will be forever changed. Or maybe just changed for a minute. It was worth it though, wasn't it? See the dream that you're living and the colors glow with intensity and potential. buzzzzzzz. How could I not have seen them before?

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Abortion. It's a difficult topicconversationexperience. I don't quite know how I feel about it. Well, that's not true. I believe that it should be easily accessible. Not taken lightly. Surrounded by conversation and support for those whose lives it brushes and screams through. Maybe I feel differently since Tikva came into my life, came and went from the life I can touch. It's possible that what has changed is my certainty in what I would choose for myself. Not something that I need to consider, have had to consider, in earnest. But it came up last night. In conversation with a friend, I got a glimpse of the brilliant lifelove that has so drawn me to her;

When my sister got pregnant, when I could finally put together a coherent sentence, I asked her if she was going to keep 'it'. 'It,' as if 'it' was a thing. Now 'it' is my nephew, and I can't imagine my life, my family, the world, without him. I couldn't imagine denying him the right to the world and life, and denying the world the right to him.

So inclined to embrace her wisdom, it occurs to me that this could be bigger. I could make a choice, see the world with more kindness and empathy, hear other people, what they say or mean to say or communicate without saying. Listen to the part of me that says, this person is brilliant and in need of love, instead of the part that says, oh shut up, will you? Write a story, own your authorship, make it into something to be proud of, feel love for.

Colored flags fluttering in the breeze, light like butterflies and bright in their singing.

Look at me, I am the life you are living. You have to see me first though, and I am yours.


* Quoted from The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon by Tom Spanbauer