WhimsicALIty

Haven't Been Here In Awhile

2010-03-09T13:05:00.002-05:00

I graduated in December. I moved back home. I got a job. Four days a week 24/7 I live in a boys' house in Detroit. A scholarship, residential program. Everything is very different from a year ago when I was updating this blog semi-regularly.

However, the themes are the same, and my life, on the inside, is still the same. My grandpa is very sick. My dad doesn't have a job. My mom is so worried that she get headaches from the stress; she can't seem to function without thinking of her worries. It makes me sick. But I am lucky. The boys that I work with are here because of "environmental factors". Maybe one of their parents died, left, or doesn't have enough money to take care of them. Maybe their neighborhoods aren't the best. The program believes that to be successful, they should live in a program I help run. Haha. Me? I can't even help my own family!

It is funny. I am not nearly as sensitive to the boys' criticism as I thought I would be. It hurts when you can hear teenagers whispering about you through closed doors. But I don't mind. My siblings and I fight all the time. Its not really that different.

Nothing is that different. Still, I'm worried.

Unstructured Rage

2009-07-05T14:27:00.004-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/fashion/05summer.html

All I can say:

BULLSHIT.

Luck

2009-04-08T20:04:00.003-04:00

I'm thinking there needs to be a new class at the University of Michigan. This class will be called Luck 340: the way the world works.

I'm very tired of learning about how society is structured to oppress people, or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, how we need to Get A Good Job so that we can Make Lots of $$ and Have A Good Life. I have an intense need right now to duct tape everyone's mouths, tie their hands behind their backs, throw 'em in my jimmy, and take 'em to my family. There, I'd show them the truth.

Look, here's my grandparents. Society was not structured to oppress them. They are white. They are middle/working class. They are Americans. And yet, two sons dead. My grandma suffered a heart attack, breast/skin cancer, and a stroke, because of their deaths. My grandpa was just diagnosed with ALS.

Then I'd tie these twerps back up and take 'em to my parents' house.

Look, here's my dad. He was poor, but he Got A Good Job, Made Lots of $$, and Has A Good Life. His son has cystic fibrosis. Money can not cure cystic fibrosis. Nothing can cure cystic fibrosis.

Luck.

There would be a second course. It would be called Luck 490: livin' and likin' it. It wouldn't be that hard. I wouldn't tie people up and haul them places, we'd just laugh and drink some rum and coke. We'd garden with my grandparents and build furniture with my dad. We'd go on long walks with my mom and push ourselves farther than we needed to go. And we'd take a lot of advice from my boyfriend, and skip a lot of these classes to take a much-needed rest, or drive around town with the windows rolled down.

And if we got a ticket, we'd just blame it on luck.

This, as usual, probably only applies to me

2009-03-30T22:13:00.000-04:00

The quiet moment when light hits his face and you can turn into yourself, form yourself through that light and suddenly your laughing, in a room, at a party, and you understand the power in your head thrown back, laughing, not only because you look so childlike and sweet, but because you have spoken, and others are speaking with you. That is all there is to life. There has to be a connection between all these thoughts. I can’t just move on without a garden, a poem, or a well-intentioned smile. I don’t know what drives other people, but I had momentarily forgot this about myself.

But you can drive anywhere and you can follow directions and end up in places you’ve never been before and there is a success to that. And that is beautiful. But there are so many ties to that one thing, and you can never be happy if you are proud simply to move through the road. You have to put bounds to your thoughts and you have to see the world through beams of light because that is what is beautiful and you want to acknowledge that. You want life to have power, to have meaning, and without that inspiration, you feel like you are driving yourself into a wall of nothing. Grandparents dying. Friends leaving. No promise of any future. But when you pass a cornfield on your drive, and suddenly the morning shifts and it is no longer damp blue, but the orange glow of new morning, you know that everything is settling into place...the dust in the ground beneath the corn, your face peering into the future of the longer road. It is important, I think.

Social Capital

2009-03-04T20:35:00.003-05:00

At the moment I am supposed to be reading about whether or not social historians should include social capital in their eternal analyzing of history or if they should just simply wait for the fad to pass. I haven't gotten to the answer yet, and all I can think about is the new cash register at work.

Its very strange. I've dreamt about this cash register repeatedly. First, I dreamt that we were getting a new one, before I even knew that it was coming. Then, as I was gone for spring break, and they were installing the new cash register, I constantly had dreams that I messed up on it, that everything was amiss because the buttons were in the wrong place.

And they are. They are also ON THE SCREEN! You have to "sign in" to the cash register by a finger scan. Its crazy. I doubt many people want to steal Mia Za's money, but for some reason the register will not let me operate it unless I give it the finger. Because, of course, every time I used my pointer finger it replied with "access denied". Apparently, my pointer fingerprint is unreadable. Though, I'm secretly glad I get to flip it off every time I sign in to work.

But its bizarre. Social capital relates to the assets we have by joining social organizations, the types of advantages we get by being associated with different groups. Everyone was depressed today at work, when I tried to smile at them, the corners of their lips lifted in a droopy, halfhearted way. I was sad too. And it was sunny and warm out! It was beautiful, one of the most clear days we've had all winter.

I think our time is up. As a group, we've run out of energy. Our jokes are turning into complaints; our suggestions for each other are wearing at our shoulders and grinding against our skulls. Its too much. There have been too many changes and the benefits we used to enjoy are dwindling fast.

Please Excuse My Last Post

2009-03-01T17:35:00.003-05:00

It comes off as a tiny bit snobbish. What I mean to say, simply, is that I am finally closer to "getting it", the way my mom has been my entire life. I am glad.

Same Thoughts I'm Usually Thinking

2009-02-28T21:02:00.001-05:00

Its very comforting, this silence. I don’t know what I am trying to prove. In becoming my mother, I have pretty much destroyed all shreds of intelligence I have left. And its not like she isn’t smart. Because of course! of course! I know she knows things--she can feel a person’s true intentions from a mile away--but it is the grammar behind the thing that has really got me.

And the problem is that I always prided myself on my grammar and my four hundred dollar words and I can see the sparks of this literarymind fly off of my mom’s blond head and so I guess mine, though its brown and not nearly as joyous, is also sparking off big words and the correct grammar on days when the hatchet decides to strike. Not usually. Usually I can feel my cold feet sunk in the colder mud and I’m saying words I know don’t exist. But I like ‘em. I like the way they feel against my tongue and through my teeth chattering--because its cold, y’know? And I have to say something. Might as well say what’s easiest.

Its strange, though. I can feel the division. Some people know me as this girl I guess we all used to be. (Me, my mother, my grandmother.) Correct spelling, the brain churning in all the right spots. My siblings always made fun of me for reading too much. Now the new people see me in a different light and it doesn’t match up, parts of me are shining through two different stained glass windows. I don’t know.

I feel more honest now.

My Ambition

2009-02-08T21:14:00.002-05:00

You can have a warm garden with a light kitchen and three apples resting in the fruit bowl
if that is what you want
water dripping from the faucet
and so many people have this life
want this life
need this life
It seems almost mundane in its universality.
And yet,
I want to drink coffee in the golden afternoon and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Strangers

2009-01-30T15:59:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about strangers. About walking into a dark room, three strangers sprawled out on a couch. Your friend introduces you. You might never see them again. Here they are, these strangers, and that moment is perfection. You’re wearing a sweater. The girl on the right is wearing a similar sweater. You are similar. Her grey hair falls across her grainy cheek. You don’t know much else. The boy is sleepy. He yawns.
Strangers are so different than the rest of us. You can never enter their world. When you press ‘sandwich’ on the cash register, and the woman--Tina--on the other side of the counter smiles, all you know about her is that she looks like the type of woman that will find the exact change--$5.29--so you don’t bother with getting a penny, two quarters and two dimes out of the cash register. She leaves to fill her water cup.
I like dim lights and sweaters. I was warm once, inside the home of my first boyfriend’s grandma. It was December and her Christmas tree lights were the same as my great-grandma’s. I didn’t know his grandmother. I couldn’t talk about knitting and that was everything to her. She wasn’t very good at it and the scarves she made were ugly. Yet here we were--and she was still a stranger to me--and all I could feel was the same homesickness I felt at my great-grandmother’s. My great-grandmother lived on a lake and her house felt green and moldy and old. I was young and I thought, “We go here every year before Christmas” because that was what all the adults were saying but I didn’t remember much besides sliding across the lake in my new black shoes. My cousin had ice skates.
Are we born into a world of strangers? We can’t know but we can feel. I was born into a world of bright light and warmth. I was jaundice and they kept me under a bright light to take the yellow out of my skin. My favorite color is yellow. I lived with my grandparents and my mother and father. My father snuck beers within the shelving of his headboard. My mother cried because she I was jaundice and she laughed because I was her baby. My grandparents’ house still feels like home. They were never strangers. I grew through their home to the homesickness I feel today.
I like to create new strangers. I like to feel myself new to the world bright and blinding like sun on snow. I like old strangers. I like the familiarity of Tina as she enters Za’s to buy her sandwich and sit in the corner chewing methodically. She doesn’t know my name but she smiles at me when I ring her up. I like finding myself through the glimmer of strangers’ Christmas tree lights and warm sweaters. And I like that the dim light and warmth of others’ comforters reminds me of the perfection of my own dim light and warm comforter.

To be alive, Today

2009-01-20T15:53:00.003-05:00

I'm so happy to be alive today. I was so tired this morning, rising, early, for class. My bed was so warm, my boyfriend was still asleep, snug, I did not want to shake myself, cold, from my covers and arrive tired into the dim, cold morning, alone. January 20, 2009. I had to get up today.

It was still cold when I walked the bright, clean path between my morning class and work. I shivered when I stepped inside Za's. My glasses did not fog up with the warmth of the restaurant as they usually did, the restaurant was almost as cold as outside. My manager was worried today, not that many customers were showing up. He couldn't understand why. I knew why. Who would come to eat chicken alfredo and greek salad when they could be watching Obama's speech? When they could see our president stand in front of a flushed, earnest crowd, eagerly anticipating the words of a new era?

And so with little food to cook, I had to clean. I thought "this is a historic day" as I scrubbed rotted banana bits off the floor behind the smoothie freezer. I thought "this is a historic day" as I wiped clean the pipes of the front sink. I thought "this is a historic day" as I swept the basement of months' worth of dirt and lint and grime.

I just watched Obama's inaugural speech. Not live, by myself, cold, in my bed. I am so happy, to be alive, today, to have froze this morning on my way to class, to have warmed my stiff hands on a hot rag in the back of an Italian restaurant, to have gone through the mediocre motions of my mediocre life and known that the world was turning in an inspirational way, and that all around me, others were also happy.

CRAZY

2008-12-21T20:19:00.003-05:00

I haven't been this hormonal in a long time. Last night, it started....

My mom made my siblings and I popcorn for dinner. I love popcorn and, like the crazy girl I am, hid it so that I could control when my siblings ate some. They obliged. However, soon enough, my dad ambled into the kitchen, reached onto the counter and grabbed the largest bowl of popcorn.

"You better not eat all of that," I warned him. I tried to be normal, to control the edge in my voice, but inside I was raging. My popcorn! MY POPCORN!

He went into the TV room and proceeded to eat HALF THE BOWL. I could not control myself when I walked in ten minutes later, his greedy fingers scooping the delicious kernels into his mouth, his eyes trained to the television screen, not even visually enjoying the buttery goodness. "You can't take that popcorn!" I cried. "It's for our dinner!"

My dad threw the bowl down and stalked off. I ran upstairs and cried until my parents left for their date.

Eventually, I came back downstairs and my siblings and I took our full bowls of popcorn (my mom had made us some more) and watched some movies. First, we watched The Lion King. I could not understand how I ever handled The Lion King before. Its devastating! I couldn't stop crying. We put in Rudolph, instead. Also, devastating. He's a misfit! I couldn't handle it. I left after twenty minutes and went to read Chloe's book 21 Proms. I cried and cried.

MY LIFE IS OVER. MY LIFE IS JUST LIKE THESE PROMS. ALL OF MY RELATIONSHIPS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AS THESE. I tried to quiet myself down by contemplating how old and mature I am. Twenty. I'm twenty! I am mature! I am completely in control of myself!

To say the least, today didn't go very well.

And, unfortunately, my mom is about to make popcorn again...

Sleepy

2008-12-10T22:01:00.002-05:00

Our class went twenty minutes over today. I wandered down the ice-covered sidewalk afterward and my head was boiling. Through a little yellow window I saw the inside of a little yellow house--the molding, the family portraits, the bookshelves. I love yellow houses.

Throughout my entire childhood I hated brick houses, even though my father would tell me that WE had a brick house so that if the grass burned our house wouldn't burn too.

When my parents divorced, my mom and us kids moved to a little yellow house. It felt safe.

When my mom remarried, we moved to a brick house. Life was exciting. I was living in Detroit. My family was expanding. I changed my mind. I would like brick houses! Maybe someday I would even live in a brick house!

But now, eight years later, I can't do it. I don't like brick houses. I love my family, of course. (This isn't some sort of strange symbolism.) But I don't like brick houses, I like little yellow houses.

I miss my family; I want to be a teenager again

2008-12-01T14:53:00.004-05:00

It started in the fall. Fall isn't very long. Spring lasts longer. I can take spring and it can tease me and whip me and leave me breathless but fall always catches me off guard. It punches me in the gut with vibrant colors and cold wind. Then, its winter and we are no longer standing by a river shivering into our sweaters but we are freezing in blankets and no one wants to leave the fire.

The good thing about winter is that it is a long romance. Night intensifies all feeling and winter--snow against sky, eyes sparkling with champagne--is perpetual night. I can stand with the snow falling into my messy hair and my lips bitten and my cheeks flushed and you will kiss me. I can stand straight under a mistletoe with a Christmas sweater and polished fingernails and you will kiss me. I can run breathless up a snowbank and slip over a patch of ice--spilling red hat, red gloves into the snow--and you will, inevitably, kiss me.

But at least I will be working soon

2008-11-13T17:37:00.004-05:00

Earlier today I was in work. I was hungry. It was two pm and I hadn't eaten since ten o'clock the night before. I was straining pickles from a ginormous (that's a word?!) bucket into a smaller container. The bucket was full of pickle juice. Andy said to me, "Would you drink a cup of that pickle juice?"

I said, "Of course."

I kept straining the pickles and he laughed at me.

My manager came in. I asked him what I should do with the leftover pickle juice.

"Just drink it," he said. He was joking. I did not realize this.

When he realized I didn't realize this, he filled a smoothie cup of pickle juice. "Here you go."

I took a swig. Man! I was hungry! Man! Pickle juice is salty and delicious. I drank the whole cup in the next half hour.

I went home and ate some leftover tortellini from work.

NOW I AM DYING. Who would have thought pickle juice would make me so INCREDIBLY SICK?!?! YAY I GET TO GO BACK INTO WORK AND MOP AND THROW UP THE LOVELY PICKLE JUICE.

I HATE PICKLES.

Quoting the same man, again

2008-11-08T09:48:00.003-05:00

And we all thought it was Emma obsessed with Milan Kundera.

“O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you’ve brought breakfast in bed you’ll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal.” -Milan Kundera

This is particularly relevant to me because I am in my "dangerous first days" with Drew. I have to watch myself now. And I am. Almost neurotically. Also, I am reading a book for my Marriages and Familes class entitled False Love blahblahblah illusions about love are bad. Now, you can sort of understand the status of my mind right now.

INSANE.

Why in the world would I combine dangerous first days with a book called False Love? Who thinks this is a good idea? Not me. Not Milan. Not even Katz, probably.

And yet, here I am, assuming that every story in that book applies to me, that every thing I say is Significant and Vital.

ALSO, the sort of "History in the Making" feeling that is evident throughout the streets of Ann Arbor, and probably the rest of the US, is not helping me go through life in a very normal way.

Getting my MRS

2008-10-29T20:37:00.002-04:00

So we all know that I am taking a course entitled Marriages and Families. Little did I realize, though, that this class is actually trying to gear me toward life as a wife and mother. Who would have thought? I was pretty convinced I was getting a feminist education. I mean, I'm reading about the self-esteem of middle school girls. What could get more feminist than that?

I guess Marriages and Families simply wants to balance out the feminist bias inherent in social science classes at the University of Michigan. A noble cause, I guess. For my homework assignment this week, I was asked to look over www.thenest.com. Now, I am pretty much obsessed with ridiculous websites, so I was happy, as I memorized the correct protocol in making my bedroom comfier, and how to get pregnant the first time. I even scrolled through the dining section, and read about Hosting Your First Holiday Dinner.

Apparently, newlyweds are insane.

6. Start a tradition.
After the meal it’s time to get everyone away from the table and to the family room or the backyard:

* If weather permits, get outside and play a game for all ages like Wiffle ball, soccer or Twister. Keep levels of sportsmanship high. So your niece cheats? She’s five.
* Back indoors work on a family puzzle. Buy one with a fun image and lots of little piece so everyone can start on a different section or break into groups and play cards (Go Fish, War, Hearts).
* Gear up for dessert with a custom-made hot cocoa assembly line (kind of like make your own sundae). Provide fun flavorings like cinnamon sticks, mini marshmallows, Hershey’s Kisses, mint candies, whipped cream and colored sugars.
* Get artful and make thumbprint art of a snowman or reindeer. Buy white card stock and rubber-stamp ink pads so guests can put their finger on the project (ha!). Colored pencils or felt tipped pens can flesh out the designs. Silver or gold pens would be elegant for the holidays.
* Dare we say it? Ok, we will: charades! Ask everyone to put an idea in the hat and start miming.

Do most families do this? When I am 26 and hosting my first holiday dinner, am I going to have to let my niece cheat? Make crafts with my relatives? Work on a PUZZLE?!

I guess I'm glad this is all theoretical. I'll bring this up in class tomorrow, maybe they'll help me reason this out.

Early Morning

2008-10-14T19:17:00.003-04:00

You are so tired in the early autumn morning, but you can not stop shaking. You have felt this before, in other autumns, with other boys, but it is so complete--that moment in which there is nothing but chills shaking your body and the warmth surrounding them. Eventually, as always, it stops and you fall back asleep. It is nothing, as always, but it always feels so significant at that moment, when you can not stop shivering and he warms you.

Procrastinating

2008-10-12T19:33:00.002-04:00

I have gotten so bad that I am resorting to updating this blog. I know, I know, it's crazy! I have a test--haha, let me rephrase that--an exam! tomorrow on the social development of children and a response paper--well, rather, response paragraphs--on both Weber and Durkheim (in their entirety, clearly), but alas! I am updating this blog. I suppose I also have to read some articles on Marriages and Families, but c'mon world, when do I read about Marriages and Families? I obviously know everything there is to know about that.

I am at an interesting point in my life right now, where my old frame of mind is being beaten against a fence, and I am left with my original dirt-level thought processes and you'd think then at that point, where I have to resort to the fundamentals of my life, that I'd be much more studious, but, of course, this is not the case. I do not even think I'm resorting to the fundamentals of my life, however, I think I am taking my ground values given to me from my family and flying through them into the clouds, while the fence-beating part of me cries, stuck in the jagged wire.

This is incredibly abstract and clouded. Let us just say, I am no longer in a very long relationship. I have completely moved on in an astonishingly short amount of time and now I can not get any work done. Good. Okay. My life is so much more easily summarized when I'm not crazy about it.

Me in a window

2008-10-01T00:48:00.003-04:00

My dear, dear mother told me to post a picture of myself. This is, of course, the cop out way in which I can make a new blog post so hooray! picture of myself time!

I am stealing this picture from my friend/roommate Whitney's facebook, though my friend/roommate Emma took it. Yes! complications! Not really, though. Emma is also, amazingly!, in this picture, so be on the lookout for that.

Dirt

2008-09-19T18:34:00.004-04:00

My pores exude Italian food. In my classes, the other students sniff the air and ask aloud why it smells like food. They wonder who was cooking earlier. I don't say anything. When I come home at night, I look down at my arms. There are sticky dressing stains inching up my skin, and my fingernails are dirty from the papers I've held and the food that stuck the dirt there. I am so tired when I get home, I fear my words don't come out of my mouth in the right chunks; I fear they are soupy and unintelligible. But I like all of this. I feel content when I fall asleep at night.

When I am not working, I sit in class and try not to fall asleep. I feel above most of what they are saying because I've held these thoughts before, I know distinctly the language others are just learning. I want to be eager, but I also want to be challenged. My mind takes these concepts and runs with them, so fast that sometimes my conscious can not keep up. Other times, I talk to community organizers on the phone. We are registering voters in Detroit on Sunday, we say. How can we get more volunteers? we ask. How can we understand the situation more objectively? we ask. Who knows, I think. And sometimes, when I am most tired, I think, who cares?

I like the dirt under my fingernails. My head races with abstraction on most days and I need an outlet to quiet it. My manager looked at me, befuddled, when I told him I'd take another shift. "Are you sure, Ali? You're not going to get overwhelmed?"

Little does he know, I'd be overwhelmed without it.

Parenting Techniques

2008-09-14T15:20:00.004-04:00

My classes are pretty much geared to my life as a wife and mother. This is actually hilarious, now that I think about it, because I am IN COLLEGE. I am supposed to be thinking about Keynesian economics or something--astrophysics, I don't know. Today in my social development of children class I read about the history of parenting techniques. As a firm behavior of continuums and the middle road, I'm not necessarily into parenting techniques, but one--in particular--struck me as amazing.

"Pat your fetus and say, 'Pat. I am patting you.'
Stroke your fetus and say, 'Stroke. I am stroking you.'
Gently squeeze your fetus and say, 'Squeeze. I am squeezing you.'"

I can not conceptualize a situation in which the fetus understands these words; however, I am intrigued by feti (sp?) listening to their mothers' voice. I also think it would be pretty awesome to sit in a coffeeshop near a pregnant woman gently squeezing her fetus.

Job

2008-08-18T18:50:00.003-04:00

Emma told me yesterday of a waitress with lines from the book of Job tattooed on her arm. The woman must have gone through a lot of shit to tattoo those lines on her arm, Amy and Jessie think. Emma didn't know. I wonder. Doesn't everyone go through a lot of shit? I feel the weight of my family sitting squarely on my shoulders and I want to cry. It is unfair how much has happened in such a short time, how there was never any space for healing to occur. Alex tells me that life is full of this sadness, and we have to move on. He is right to some extent, but a balance is necessary. You can not move on without first dealing with your problems. I do not know what this entails, I just feel a line of bitterness settling in my veins and it hurts me.

Tempus fugat...

2008-08-03T17:27:00.003-04:00

...not only when you are having fun!

Simply SEMPER.

That is all. I would like to make a long teary blog post about this, but I do not have the patience.

Favors

2008-07-28T17:13:00.002-04:00

I really need to have more well-connected friends. I also need to save these well-connected friends' lives. That would be good. So, friends, I need you to do the following two things:

1. Meet people.

2. Almost die, near me.

Be Jealous

2008-07-21T21:27:00.001-04:00

Cooper:

The Krankenhaus still exists. Be jealous. Be very jealous. You probably don't have PINKEYE or CHILLS or OTHER AILMENTS. Yep, the Krankenhaus still exists.

But you did miss the art fair which was pretty cool. The only way I benefited was that Whitney stole me some fancy drink and I got to make up all of the hours I missed when I I had pinkeye. None of the parties have topped yours. We should fix that so that you'll be really jealous.

Hope you're getting krank in Chile as well,
whatever the nickname is that I have in this haus

PINK EYE

2008-07-15T00:39:00.001-04:00

I hate pink eye, boys, and not being able to go to work. I have a BLANK DAY tomorrow, because of this fucking pink eye, and if my manager knew how much I WANTED to go to work, he'd cry in happiness.

Talking to Myself

2008-06-26T18:36:00.000-04:00

Oh, me. You must be crazy by the way you live. Your brain is consumed by little turns of phrase and every abstraction of The Family. Why, you wear dresses to illustrate your femininity, because to own a role gives you a place in a family. A traditional role, that is. However, you are content now as an observer. As an investigator of policy and as a critic of the tradition. Though you have been obsessed with tradition and rules since you were born. The more rigid, the more real. And yet, your life is not as disciplined as some. You have not made your bed in weeks, and at the moment you can not even type an appropriate conclusion.

Though there is one conclusion we can all enjoy:

Not Even True

2008-06-25T16:53:00.000-04:00

Dear Friend ,

I am alone on an island . I am in the exact center of the island .

I can not bear to look at the water , because what then ? There are no boats .

I have a tent . I have a book .

I have this paper and this pen and your handkerchief .

I even have food . I have a lot of food .

Will you come ?

I lied about the water -- somedays I swim . I take long , long , long swims .

We could swim together . You do not swim well , I remember . I would help you .

You would learn quickly .

We would swim for hours and you would grow to be better than me .

We could read , too . My book is very good . You could bring your books , as well .

Don ‘ t worry . We would have visitors .

We would have whomever you wanted every day .

The only reason I don ‘ t have visitors now is because they look like you .

It makes me lonely for you .

But it is OK . The island is very pleasant . Even alone it is pleasant .

The sunset is beautiful . The birds make a lovely noise . And , at night , I sleep very soundly .

I know you won ‘ t come . You are busy and have a good job . It is OK .

I just want you to know -- I am alone on an island , waiting for you .

Yours Truly ,

A Close Friend

At Second Sight

2008-06-15T23:17:00.000-04:00

It was a two person shift tonight at Za's. Yep, just me and the old manager. (Old, of course, meaning 25.) Two person shifts are always really slow, so the old manager thought it'd be great to ask me Important Questions. ("What is the root of all evil?" "If you had three bullets and no consequences who would you kill?") The first question, however, was so clichéd, so obvious, that I felt a little unsettled answering.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?"

No.

"How about second sight?"

No. I don't even know what that is.

"C'mon. You look. And then you look again. Instant love!" (My old manager is a little hyper. He's the one that will sleep when he is dead.)

No. The thing is, I believe that you can Fall In Love with someone at first sight, or in the shower, or tying your shoes, or as you both reach for the same breadstick or whatever, but that is irrelevant. Eh, who doesn't Fall In Love every day? Everyone is interesting and exciting and in my head and in novels they would all give me a perfectly charmed life and would always think that I smelled good and said cute, silly things. What are more relevant are those relationships that turn unconditional.

I know, I know, you're only supposed to unconditionally love your parents and your children, or something like that, but sometimes, with a few special people, we slip up. Sometimes you go from exclaiming over your shared interests to following the same patterns of thought without noticing it. Sometimes you cross a boundary, where you know there is no return. You can't go any farther with the person mentally, because you haven't even gone that far in your own head. And when you argue, it isn't particularly troublesome that you are both disregarding the other's feelings, because you are tied together, the future holds you both in the same net.

I've lost touch with a lot of friends, but there are some people that I know I'll always feel resting their hands on my shoulders. I know I'm probably too young to say this, but I know that sometimes the boundaries don't matter, the rules are forgotten, and there are some people you'll know forever.

No, I don't believe in love at second sight, but I do believe that I have a few soul mates.

Past White Future White Present Dark

2008-06-14T19:49:00.001-04:00

What did you expect when you sat there dreamlike--white dress, white bathroom, window open? Sex was evident in the scene you created and you knew as you lay in the bathtub with water and lemon on your lips, in your hair and across your navel, that it was coming. But now, stomach churning in bed, you throw up. It is dark now. In the morning the sun and leaves will create shadows across his face, he’ll be a baby in the nook of your arm. The world will be perfect. Now, though. Now, beer and bile and all the food you could have eaten. Now it stains the carpet.

We Ourselves Flash and Yearn

2008-06-06T17:30:00.000-04:00

The family is pro-Sandburg, Carl Sandburg for the kitten. Everyone cried yesterday. I walked home from the river down the wrong street, and the drunks all waved and catcalled. It must have been the shoes. Life, friends, is [not] boring.

I wish

2008-06-05T03:06:00.001-04:00

I wish I wish I wish.

I have so much so much so much to be grateful for, but in bed I think of the lives of other nineteen year olds. How other nineteen year olds are partying at that moment, or sleeping to prepare for their Good Summer Jobs that Will Get Them Somewhere In Life (in the adult world), or studying, or worrying about real problems.

And then there is me.

I have a mini-part time job, and another mini-part time job that starts at the end of June. I want to volunteer desperately, but every place I volunteer to volunteer with wants me to be a full-time volunteer! Excuse me, but I need to eat too. I don't want to party all the time, and I somehow missed out on my chance for a Good Summer Job that Will Get Me Somewhere In Life, especially because I want to be a social worker and not a lawyer or something strange like that. I can't study because I don't have class because I can't afford it in the summer (too many loans), and ahhhhh! I'm worrying and I don't even have a brain tumor or an eviction notice. I'm going to die early because of all this unnecessary worrying!

Everyone reminisces about when they were young and carefree and how great their lives were. What am I doing wrong? Am I sleeping too much? My manager seems to think every teenager's problems stem from sleeping too much. He said he'll sleep when he's dead. Oh, world, I would love to always be awake, if only my life was as great as every middle=aged person's memories.

Of course, deep down, I think their memories are wrong.

Beautiful

2008-06-02T22:13:00.000-04:00

I was riding my bike down the street, music was playing outside of a restaurant, and I thought, "I am going to write a blog post about this!" Of course, I have no idea what THIS is, and I feel kind of disgusting that I thought this, but more so I feel very sad that my memory has failed me once again. However, life is good because I have attractive pictures of my sisters on my computer.

Stuck in the Mud

2008-05-31T23:54:00.000-04:00

I have been following the same pattern for years. I have always worked at Za's. I have always lived in Das Krankenhaus with my friends. I have spent every week of my life waiting for Alex, every Friday with him, and every Saturday saying goodbye to him. I have always gone crazy on Thursday evenings. I have a vague distant memory of my time in college, but nothing before that exists. I have never lived at home with my family, though I have dreams of what it would have been like.

NOW, THE TRUTH:

I have worked at Za's for two months. I have lived in Das Krankenhaus for one month. I have spent two Fridays with Alex this summer, and therefore two Saturdays saying goodbye. I went crazy last Thursday.

I have been in college for two years and lived with my family for almost eighteen years. HOW CAN I FORGET SO EASILY?????

This Is The Problem

2008-05-29T19:01:00.000-04:00

“O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you’ve brought breakfast in bed you’ll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal.” -Milan Kundera

Therefore, I have never brought anyone breakfast in bed. I have, however, corrected essays and been overall a crazy nut during the first days.

Oh how I regret being a crazy nut.

Late at night I write

2008-05-22T00:54:00.000-04:00

Sometimes a night is just a night. This will change your life. Everything changes your life, silly. Every night we move. Even standing still our hearts beat, the world rotates, we move. Every night.

When he wrapped me in his warm sweatshirt and his warm body and calmed my shaking body, I felt loved. I told him, months later, that I knew everything that night--that something remarkable had happened to me. He said, “Sometimes a night is just a night.” I could feel my cheeks flush. I walked out of my dorm, down through the diag, read a banner for a sorority, “This will change your life!” I wanted to scream. Oh, but that sorority can change your life. I see how it is.

I don’t want to scream now, a year later. All I know is that nights flow into a life, and our lives move. A night is just a night. This will change your life.

A little incoherent much?!

2008-05-20T21:44:00.000-04:00

I just want y'all to know one fact about me.

I've grooved so much something something is gone.

And Clinker1 is so crazy David our neighbor.

Ok!

2008-05-19T21:20:00.001-04:00

No one wins!

But anyway, the intense sport of Army Baseball is played when the pitcher throws the little green army guys to the batter who, using a small baseball bat, hits the soldiers across the room and yells, "Throw more!!!"

....contest....

2008-05-17T18:23:00.001-04:00

Any guesses as to how Army baseball is played? Winner gets a remnant.

Relief

2008-05-16T23:08:00.000-04:00

It is quite a relief to be out of the Krankenhaus and into the fine world of Grosse Pointe once again. Yes, yes, I love my roommates, but uhh THE INTERNET CONNECTION! THE INTERNET CONNECTION!

Yes, we are still poor and lazy and continue to steal internet from 1) linksys and 2 NETGEAR. Now our airports pick up many other internets as well, but alas! Clinker1 and jodi and blahblahblahty all are password protected. What confuses me is that we can pick up that they have internet but can not figure out how to tiptoe onto them. And I desperately want to. Linksys bah! How boring! Doesn't the internet sound much better as clinker1? Or Jodi? I bet Jodi would absolutely adore my itunes. But no, she is too stingy.

Anyway, the real problem is that it is much harder for me to read the news without this internet. Ha! Who am I kidding?! What I really want is to stalk unsuspecting strangers and find some baby flesh through corbis. ***

Mmmmm mmmm. That's more like it.

*** That is the first image when you search "baby flesh" on corbis. Don't believe me? Try it yourself. I'm not lying.

Mother's Day

2008-05-11T14:59:00.000-04:00

I have to be quick and not very eloquent because stolen internet is not easy to keep.

I've been thinking about babies and children and motherhood a lot recently. I'm not pregnant, of course, but the spell of yearning was cast on me early in life and recently it has become much greater. At times, my arms tremble for a newborn, and I look at photos of my past and of babies that could be mine and I want to cry in anticipation.

My mom felt this same way. For years, throughout her twenties, she could not have a baby. She bought a doll, and secretly pretended that she had a child. When the stiff, fake doll would not cut it, she babysat for others so she could hold soft baby flesh against her skin. She smelled the sweet smell of a newborn, and I know if I were her, at that moment, I would have cried.

Eventually, I was born. I do not know precisely how she felt at that moment, after struggling through the painful hours of childbirth, through the months of anticipation of a first pregnancy, and through the long years of limp, childless arms, but I can almost taste that joy. There I was. Her baby. Her own flesh and blood, her own creation, her own responsibility, within her arms, on her chest, small head against breast. I want to cry. That joy seems intoxicating, calming, overwhelming.

This joy did not fade, she had a large family, just as she wanted, but she had to struggle through many trials. She had to live through an alcoholic and abusive husband, a man that has very little paternal instincts. She had to leave him, face the headfirst plummet into raising five kids on her own, after being a stay-at-home mom for twelve years. Life gets better, of course. But now my mom still has other trials to face--as Rickie, my youngest brother has just recently been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

Being a mother is not easy. And yet, this is what my mom is--first and foremost. This is what she has always wanted; this is what she had been waiting for for years upon years. I am not sure how a single day could ever recognize the complexity and emotion of motherhood.

I love you, Mommy. Happy Mother's Day!

P.S. I know you wanted something humorous, but I write what comes out of my fingers, nothing more, nothing less.

Uninteresting

2008-05-06T21:59:00.000-04:00

My mother (the very one who views blogs as a STAGE in her life and is over there on my blogroll) is very much part of this blog train and has TAGGED ME.

Six uninteresting facts about myself:

1. I chose meatballs without their delicious Swedish sauce over salmon for dinner today, simply because meatballs are a much cheaper alternative.

2. I am using stolen internet at the moment. Much cheaper.

3. I do not generally care for my finger or toenails. I just pick them off. It's much cheaper.

4. When I was a little girl I thought, "When I grow up, I'm going to spend my $$ on important things like food, not on clothes or toys." It just seemed like the reasonable, adult, cheaper way to go.

5. I regularly steal candy from the bins at Meijer. And from the cheezit boxes. Well, actually, those are cheezits I'm stealing from the cheezit boxes. But regardless, it's much cheaper than actually buying the junk.

6. I once spent $70 on my mother's birthday present, but this mother's day?

Well, let's just say I'm much cheaper now.

A Thought

2008-05-05T21:46:00.000-04:00

I just thought,

Hmmm....I ought to check my blog to see if I updated.

Maybe I'll write more when we at the Krankenhaus get legit internet!

Hark! April?

2008-04-30T14:39:00.000-04:00

Today is a new day.

It was a very long day, as it lasted from March 'til the end of April. But a month does not consist of thirty days in my world. And days do not last 24 hours. During this day my life steamed through a new job, finals, packing and packing and preparing to move into my new house. It was a very long day.

Now, you may ask, "Why is today--after lents of day--a new day in the blogosphere of Ali's mind?" Answer! Your daily double.

1. It's my dad's birthDAY. If I am to celebrate his birth day I must come to terms with the fact that it is a new day.

2. I am moving to the krankenhaus tomorrow, and I think more of my life PREkrankenhaus must be accounted for.

3. Everyone has been updating blogs, and it makes me feel like I should update mine. Thus, it must be a new day.

4. I am very very bored.

However, we all know that I live in a dichotomy-binary-driven world and can not bear to see four answers for a single question, and so I must modify it.

1. WRONG I'm not celebrating my dad's birthday today, because I have to work for hours upon hours.

2. WRONG That just doesn't make any sense. A new day should match up with the day I move into the krankenhaus.

3. RIGHT Alright, alright, it is very easy to influence me.

4. WRONG I am never bored. Hahahaha.

****For all of you who don't understand this NEW DAY THING, you should read my first post, duh*****

Strategies

2008-03-07T11:32:00.000-05:00

Last night, let's say around 10 PM, I explained to Alex my strategy for multiple choice tests. I am, of course, brilliant, so you all may want to take notes.

Each letter is a different person.

That's it. It's very simple, see, because each letter is trying to sell you a different answer and you have to see through their scams to the real answer that only the true, kind letter knows.

But they switch all the time, so you have to keep on your toes. You, also, of course, have to hold a constant dialogue with these letters.

"Oh A, no A, I know you--you've always been a tricky letter, but C, now C would never deceive me, would you C?" And so it goes.

I've never told anyone this strategy before, so let's hear it, who else talks to the different options during multiple choice tests? Hm, let's reword that for greater clarity--who else is a genius?

It is clear

2008-03-03T22:25:00.000-05:00

The sky has parted and the truth has been revealed.

...

...
....
.

....

..

I am terrible at updating! I apparently can not type two words into this pad and call it a day. I simply can not. However, I will try.

At Bard College

2008-02-28T19:49:00.000-05:00

Though I am apparently entrenched within Michigan, at times I leave the state. This precise moment is one of them. It is spring break and I am visiting
Exhibit A.

As you can see from Exhibit A, it is definitely an attractive time. However moving toward Exhibit B, it is not all fun and games.
Exhibit B.

Alex's sleep schedule can perhaps be referred to as typical--for newborn babies and college students. My sleep schedule, however, is much closer to that of my grandparents and nine year olds. Therefore, I spent five hours yesterday morning waiting for him to rise. Actually, I should probably restate that. I spent yesterday morning waiting for him to rise--as I rose at 8 AM and he at 1 PM.

Fortunately, this brings us to Exhibit C, also known as, How I Drove Myself To Insanity While Alex Slept.
Exhibit C.

I know, I know, you can't read the title because photobooth is actually the world's sweetest mirror, but that's not important. The importance is that that woman is blue! and being touched by many, many people. No, no, no, not porn: Milan Kundera! Reputable Czech author! In my handbook, however, his name looks like this:

Milan Kundera: Reputable Nut

It's not that I don't take pleasure in reading about womanizers, it's just that--I don't know--I'm alone in a dorm room in a college in the middle of nowhere where I don't know anyone except one, solitary person and that person--alas!--a boy. So there's my problem. Or, rather, Alex's. Poor Alex.

He's at class now, and here I am, alone with Laughable Loves , ready to attack the next boy who walks through that door (Exhibit D).

Exhibit D.

The end!

2008-02-28T19:10:00.000-05:00

The end, of course, of me NOT having a blog. Clearly. Today my mom said, "Well, I won't have a blog forever, Ali." This is simply a stage of her life, her Blog Stage. I have, however, held out forever in NOT acquiring a blog, and so this is now a transformation into a new realm of possibilities.

Actually, however, this is purely for my own benefit--so that I spend at least 100 words a day trying to entertain myself, as opposed to my usual histrionics. Let me give you an example of that form of writing you will not be privy to:

This is probably the best part of my life to write because I am feeling nostalgic, but sadly I can not write in pen my thoughts fast enough. Perhaps as I sit here with the words spilling out of me--like when I once carried a mug of burning coffee to my grandpa out in his barn and in the cold my stiff fingers could not steady the mug and the coffee burned me--I will understand what my emotions--like hot, burning coffee--really feel like.

So there you go. That is, precisely, the tone you will NEVER see again!!!!