"but a lesson must be lived in order to be learned"

(another nonsense post)

and even though every ani album leaves me a little more confused as to
exactly where she's going, there's always at least one song per album that
makes me feel like she's yanking out some part of what makes me me out
through the back of my neck, and sorting it into something that looks more
like sense. and it's a little like marginalia, or the reason i read poetry,
the idea of connecting to someone somewhere, and the idea that there's a
whole slew of crazy women, scattered about the globe, most of us heading
into our thirties, who grew into our skins listening to her be crazy and
angry and queer and we've all had that man as is is about, and we all listen
to her tell us that the media is not fooling us when we're getting depressed
about the current state of the world.

it reminds me how much of a collage i am, since every album contains at
least one song that yanks be back to another time and place. i'm defined
just as much by the empty spaces as by the full ones, and maybe what i can't
remember is a little bit of a blessing mixed in with the curse. and while
i don't think i let go of anything with grace, be it a grudge or reasons for
selfflagellation, maybe that's the next thing to figure out.

or maybe i'm borrowing trouble, 'cause for all my clenched fists raised to
the sky, i'm doing pretty bloody well, maybe there is no next thing to
figure out. i don't need to go turning over all the rocks and rotten logs
in my head to find the slimy things living underneath, even if it's been
years since i've seen a rhinoceros bug and i don't even know what other
people call them.

i'm not doing anything. i'm not saving the world, or going to school, or
looking for the person i'm going to spend the rest of my life with. i've
found him, i've got my BA and the scars to prove it, and i'm one of the
footsoldiers of the revolution who pays her dues in the form of her gasbill
and her organic vegetables and walking to work. i'm not looking for an
excuse to move, or making excuses for staying in the valley, i didn't go to
college here, and i've found myself a comfortable noncollege niche, even if
i have collegeage friends. if the peace is sometimes precarious, it
doesn't make it any less peaceful, or any less far, far better than anything
that i've found or made before now.

i wonder sometimes, if it's different for other people, if they don't have
the rocksolid conviction that each day is better than anything else that's
happened to them ever before. even if last weekend was more fun than this
weekend, or my preferences for tuesdays over thursdays, i still know that
this is a river. so i guess, more precisely, since i know it's different,
'cause everything's different, even when it's not, i wonder what kind of
different. and i wonder if it is that i think of the crazy girl full of
wanting to die, as a specific point on a line and every day takes me further
away from that. or maybe that i'm tallying days with light, and
obviously 713 days is better than 712. or maybe i'm marking the fading of
the physical scars and each day takes me closer to the mythical someday when
i'll be brave enough to swim in public again without looking around to see
who's looking and who's seeing.

but, no matter the reason, it's all still pretty fanfuckingtastic to live.

"but a lesson must be lived in order to be learned"

(another nonsense post)

and even though every ani album leaves me a little more confused as to
exactly where she's going, there's always at least one song per album that
makes me feel like she's yanking out some part of what makes me me out
through the back of my neck, and sorting it into something that looks more
like sense. and it's a little like marginalia, or the reason i read poetry,
the idea of connecting to someone somewhere, and the idea that there's a
whole slew of crazy women, scattered about the globe, most of us heading
into our thirties, who grew into our skins listening to her be crazy and
angry and queer and we've all had that man as is is about, and we all listen
to her tell us that the media is not fooling us when we're getting depressed
about the current state of the world.

it reminds me how much of a collage i am, since every album contains at
least one song that yanks be back to another time and place. i'm defined
just as much by the empty spaces as by the full ones, and maybe what i can't
remember is a little bit of a blessing mixed in with the curse. and while
i don't think i let go of anything with grace, be it a grudge or reasons for
selfflagellation, maybe that's the next thing to figure out.

or maybe i'm borrowing trouble, 'cause for all my clenched fists raised to
the sky, i'm doing pretty bloody well, maybe there is no next thing to
figure out. i don't need to go turning over all the rocks and rotten logs
in my head to find the slimy things living underneath, even if it's been
years since i've seen a rhinoceros bug and i don't even know what other
people call them.

i'm not doing anything. i'm not saving the world, or going to school, or
looking for the person i'm going to spend the rest of my life with. i've
found him, i've got my BA and the scars to prove it, and i'm one of the
footsoldiers of the revolution who pays her dues in the form of her gasbill
and her organic vegetables and walking to work. i'm not looking for an
excuse to move, or making excuses for staying in the valley, i didn't go to
college here, and i've found myself a comfortable noncollege niche, even if
i have collegeage friends. if the peace is sometimes precarious, it
doesn't make it any less peaceful, or any less far, far better than anything
that i've found or made before now.

i wonder sometimes, if it's different for other people, if they don't have
the rocksolid conviction that each day is better than anything else that's
happened to them ever before. even if last weekend was more fun than this
weekend, or my preferences for tuesdays over thursdays, i still know that
this is a river. so i guess, more precisely, since i know it's different,
'cause everything's different, even when it's not, i wonder what kind of
different. and i wonder if it is that i think of the crazy girl full of
wanting to die, as a specific point on a line and every day takes me further
away from that. or maybe that i'm tallying days with light, and
obviously 713 days is better than 712. or maybe i'm marking the fading of
the physical scars and each day takes me closer to the mythical someday when
i'll be brave enough to swim in public again without looking around to see
who's looking and who's seeing.

but, no matter the reason, it's all still pretty fanfuckingtastic to live.