I am leaving in a few hours. I will be out of range for the most part and probably not blogging. I’ll miss out on the memes, the gifs, and eating peaches over the sink.
I am coming back on August 20th.
I hope you all have beautiful summers; we can swap stories at the end.
Two days ago I was at Gina’s house. I stood in her yard and stared at: the field that abuts it, the silos beyond it, the mountains beyond that. She lives in the middle of a bunch of pastures and it is the loveliest place. In a couple days I’ll fly out west and probably spend time staring at a different kind of scenery. Isn’t that why I’m going at all? To see a new place?
I keep having dreams about depression, dreams in which I walk through sadness as if it were a highly viscous fluid. Or as if the depression were literal, some cavity in the earth, and I at the bottom.
They are not quite nightmares but are close enough, in that I have to reassure myself when I wake up. When I dream of zombies or destruction, I check the windows and the Internet, I find a living person and that is proof enough. After these dreams I have to breathe deep and tell myself a story. I remind myself of the importance of agency and kindness, how nice it feels to do things rather than just think them. You’re fine, I say, and as I wake up the words become true.
Today I was joking with Shannan and said, “Your cruelty is bottomless.”
She replied, “Like my rhymes,” and I fell on the ground, dead. Rhymes. Ugh, filled with delight.
Yesterday, after a week and a half of aimless curiosity and irritation, I found my first-string alarm clock. My best hairbrush remains at large.
Also, Shannan came back and I got to spend the evening being chased around a driveway, whispering “sweet cake-decorating angel” every time Josh Hutcherson’s character appeared on screen, and exploring Wal-Mart for finger-paint and other necessities.
We also watched the Hunger Games credits through to the end–they list two snake wranglers, though there weren’t any snakes in the movie. Were there? Perhaps the wrangling was of pre-existing snakes, you know, in the environment.
I wonder how one gets that job.
Had the second Drake verse from “Take Care” stuck in my head all evening, juicing limes and thinking idly about the buying and selling of dreams.
I only heard “Video Games” in January, when the pop-culture corners of the Internet lit up a Lana del Rey Christmas tree and set it on fire. And now I think that’s a shame, because it’s such an obviously summer song, from sundress-wearing to sitting on a swing in your backyard, and the more atmospheric laziness. Like a sweltering afternoon.
Got this song from a young-adult novel. Of course I did, is there any other source of music?
This is a photograph of me my sister took in New York.
I’m putting it here not because it’s a great picture of me but because I believe it’s honest. Or at least more honest than most of my appearances in front of a lens. In the past couple years I’ve regressed, I filled up with fear and became unable to do things that used to be thoughtless. I can’t smile for pictures, I don’t like buying things from cashiers, I can’t remember the time when I’d wear a new set of clothes every day. I gained and lost weight and it changed the shape of my face, or it could just be aging. I got quieter and slower-moving and maybe that shows up in my eyes, I can’t be sure. You see them more than I do anyway–a lot of the time mirrors surprise me, that girl looks familiar but I don’t immediately recognize her as myself.
Whatever, she and I say hello.
Yesterday my mother took me to see Cabin in the Woods. Today I went with my sister to see The Avengers. So, yes: two casts that include Liam Hemsworth, two films that are Joss Whedon-stamped, in as many days.
Ahh, Cabin in the Woods! It is so bonkers-awesome. There are merman jokes. Shout-out to Shannan, who is actually staying in a cabin in the woods right now (West Virginia, no less, it’s like she’s never SEEN a horror movie): don’t read the Latin.
Watching Captain America punch things was also fun, but it’s not so much a lasting memory. The movie made me wish I had a history with comic books; it also made me want to watch more films that feature Mark Ruffalo’s face.
Man, “Ruffalo” is a ridiculous last name.
That concludes my deep thoughts for the evening.
