in the forest we are hiding unmarked graves where flowers grow

 

 

 

 

So something you have no reason to know about me unless I've told you, which I probably haven't because secrets/it's weird and once when I told a few people most of them looked worried and this one guy didn't say anything but just hugged me for an uncomfortably long time. And then a few months later we may or may not have made out for an uncomfortably long time. Which actually was in no way connected to the thing I haven't told you yet so let's just. Let's just. Let's.

 

Riding the train makes me cry sometimes. That's all I was going to say. Not all the time, but something about the people or the vibration or the blurs out the window, just, something, anyway once in a while I find myself getting teary-eyed for no real reason. I guess you might have already known I have a little bit of a train fixation, actually. But you didn't know about the crying thing I bet. And now you do.

 

When I started typing this, I had a very clear idea about where I was going and it was definitely connected to the picture of Homer up there. No idea where we are right now.

 

Today I didn't have to go to work and instead of spending it catching up on sleep (which actually probably I should have done, even though I don't think you're supposed to do that I think you're supposed to just go to bed and wake up at the same times every day, but WHO LIVES LIKE THAT, honestly) I got up early and washed my laundries (wait is 'laundries' really a word or is it spell check's day off, too?) and took out student loans and cried into my Snuggie for forty-five minutes about it.

 

And then I got my shit together and went to the grocery store for provisions for a special lady's second Welcome Home dinner in two weeks. Because what I lack in the Doing All of The Things Department I make up for in the Being A Clean Roommate Who Cooks Dinner And Doesn't Judge Others Too Harshly for Crying About Wanting to Be a Cat's Mom. Which is good because I don't need to be judged for bringing home drifters/bros. So.

 

Yesterday marked the beginning of Turn-Around Week in terms of the things I put into my body. It's been more than a little bit out of control lately, and I haven't gained fourteen hundred kilos or died or anything yet but. BUT. And I really, really really have no excuse because I am surrounded by healthy, delicious things at work and in life so I need to start eating those things instead of trying to run on Zebra Cakes and Sugar Free Red Bull, otherwise known as Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner of champions, also known as what you can go ahead and list under "Cause of Death," Mr. Coroner.

 

Why would the coroner be reading this, Lindsay?

 

Actually if you are a coroner that's kind of cool.

 

Do most people write blog posts in advance? And edit them? And write about Things instead of obsessing about death and emotional episodes triggered by public transportation? Part of my problem is that I don't know where to begin talking about the things I'm doing right now. And I feel like if I elaborate on one part without mentioning everything else that's going on, too, I will be painting an extremely misleading picture. So meh.

 

My eye sockets feel like they're stuffed with cotton today.



it's not illegal to be a felon

Well, well, well. What do we have here? THE END OF JUNE ALREADY.

How did this happen. Who LET this happen.

If you happen to have noted the absence of nonsense on this part of the internet lately and have been staring at the ceiling at night, wondering and worrying and yearning, allow me to put your mind at ease - I am not too busy being a contributing human (well, I have been contributing a lot of sandwiches and jokes so there are those things) to blog. NOPE. Just making lots of poor life choices. And poor nutritional choices. And really, really enjoying it. Because of course by 'poor' I mean 'awesome' and 'hilarious.' Also I have been hanging out with this guy a lot:

True story. And I know it's kind of hard to tell when I mean things for real but this is one of those times. Not like the time earlier today when I told my boss I put meat juice in all of the vegan salad dressings to make them taste better. Although seriously, vegan things? Taste better. Oreos can do it. Step it up, everything else.

Want to hear another true story? There is an empty box of Whoppers next to me right now. I'm supposed to be Doing Things, not just Eating Whoppers and Not Wearing Pants Because I'm Inside. But it's fucking hot outside and I've done enough Things the last few days to last forever, including a few things that I keep remembering I did and having to put my head down for a few minutes wherever I am.

(Whoppers = Not Vegan, Either. But you do get your daily dose of sorbitan tristearate, I just checked.)

Just stared into space for eight straight minutes. Time to get up and be a person.

Riiiiight

now

.

as soon as i started entering this title a beautiful woman walked in the door with cake

So I started to post like two weeks ago:

I have TOO MANY JOBS. Also just Oprah. But mainly the jobs. [Note: Cut out a longish rant about reading Oprah Magazine; maybe should let all my posts stew in drafts for weeks before publishing] I'd been carrying around this cold fear in the bottom of my tummy area that I wouldn't be able to find a job and then I couldn't afford to live amidst the skyscrapers and dollar pizzas. And part of me kept returning to that fear and finding it a relief. Part of me was nurturing my fear, cuddling it like a little baby kitten and feeding it kitten treats and snuggling its soft kitten furs and doing all I could to encourage it to stay, Stay little fear kitten, and live inside of me forever, because as long as I am busy catering to you I am not doing anything that might require, you know, anything. And this particular fear kitten had/has a lot of components; living in a place that is absurdly expensive on a less-than-reliable income, living with/entering into financial situations with bfffffffles and potentially putting strain on the bfffffl status, living close to someone I think I might like to the point where I really ought to just try and find an internship in an antacid factory because nausea, etc.

And then I got offered a full-time job and I took that shit, even though my intention was to work only enough hours to finance my quasi-adult summer. My intentions were garbage though because, as you know or maybe did not know because you do not listen when I tell you things and/or you are maybe not so good at reading in between lines and making inferences, I am not the most awesome at money and forgot that I have kind of a major trip to make/pay for in October, I have to buy a new computer, and I have to pay for like nine wedding presents. So between selling folks eleven dollar miracle elixirs/building folks fancy free-range sandwiches/learning kitchen Spanish, snuggling the faces off my lady frands, and batting my eyelashes in the general direction of trouble I forgot the internet was a thing again.

This is a quiet moment, a type of moment that I do not have an abundance of right now, and so I am thinking. And what I am thinking is this: How many times in one day is too many times to go to the bodegs? What was the mom in Mommy Dearest's problem with wire hangers? (I just finished hanging all of my clothes on some; they are happy to not have to live in a suitcase anymore but I hope wire hangers aren't somehow worse.) Does running around for nine hours and sometimes picking up marginally heavy things = gym membership? Is that smell the new candle I contributed to the coffee table or my deodorant? How long have I had to pee for, because I feel like a second ago I didn't have to go at all and now I REALLY HAVE TO GO.? How many episodes of Teen Mom 2 is it okay to watch in a row? Is working all day an excuse for bad TV behavior? How about the fact that no one else is home and so it will remain your secret shame? Should I put a picture in this post?

I just lost twenty minutes on weheartit. I'm going to pee and if on that journey I somehow accidentally wind up in the corner store buying more string cheese and chocolate milk then that just is what it is and you can save your disdain for someone who doesn't spend forty-five hours a week at the gym. OKAY.

moon river (which might have been cute if I were Audrey Hepburn but I am not so it was just weird and alarming)

[source]

 

 

So many people, bloggers especially, insist on their own awkwardness.

And I'm not saying I don't believe you (...) but I am saying

that there's "Oh lolz that was awkward" and then there's punch-you-in-the-gut,

keep-you-awake-at-night, soul-cringing awkward. There's funny awkward

[Insert screenshot of any face made on The Office ever here], yeah. Which

makes it worth it to be truly awkward because you get to experience/

are able to appreciate things that so many people don't even notice which is stupid

of them because awkwardness is way better/way cheaper than most other activities.

 

And of course what 'awkward' even means depends on the lens it's being viewed through,

which is why some people can walk around naked and give other people hugs

even though the other people are fully clothed and are trying to do something.

It's also why some things that are so easy and notathing to most people are so hard for some people.

Also because culture.

 

The point of this is that this morning I went up to look at the roof

and drink coffee and enjoy the neighborhood like a bird would

if birds stood on roofs and drank coffee and shivered a little and at first I thought

I should put a brick to stop the door from closing and even picked up the brick

but then something short-circuited in my brain wires and I put down the brick

and shut the door. And then I stood out there for some minutes and then I went to

go back inside but of course I couldn't get the door open. So I remembered

that M had said, Oh, something something, fire escapes, I guess I didn't really

remember what she said that well after all but I looked down and thought I could

probably get to the ground via the fire escape. But it turns out I could not

and the reason I know I could not is because I tried it. And on my way back up

there was a young shirtless man looking confusedly out at me.

And it was not like Breakfast at Tiffany's in the least, mainly because I didn't

have a musical instrument but also because I was wearing pajamas

and some eyeliner that I didn't wash all the way off last night.

I think it was the guy who lives across the hall but I'm not very good at geography,

in any case I might just knock and see if it is him and explain that I wasn't peeking

but that I am just kind of stupid.

 

I have a kind-of interview later on and I am hoping this means

that my awkwardness quota has been filled for the day.



glad i didn't die before i met you

 

CURRENTLY, I am living in squalor. WHERE IS MY BED. Where is it. Where.

 
Trying to Make Time For: Seeing my friends around here. Studying for my last finals. Being a real person. You would think, with three whole days a week now completely free and devoid of responsibility, that I would be getting so many things done. And having adventures. And getting dressed. But you would be wrong, friend of mine. So very wrong. My bed is somewhere in that picture up there. IT IS. I swear. I also swear that there are not seventeen other cats in various states of alive-ness underneath the one cat you can see, even though if you are anything like me you looked at that picture and heard the sound bit from Hoarders. I have a queen sized bed and the space I am utilizing for sleep and not for crap storage is smaller than a cradle.

Should be Doing Instead of Blogging: Memorizing questions for my Spanish oral. That I'm supposed to do in an hour. Only I will bet you my entire checking account* that Senora will not be where she said she was going to be when I go to that place. And the four and a half minutes I'm going to spend furiously flipping flash cards right before I walk down there will be for naught. FOR NAUGHT. Also just remembered have like seventeen other assignments I'm supposed to give to her. What up, google translate. What. Is. Up.

*Don't get too excited. It's pretty bleak. SUZE ORMAN GET IN MY LIFE.

Washing Your Hair?: Bahahahahahhaha ha. hahaha.

Taking Dumb Pictures of Yourself for Dumb Reasons/No Reasons?: Have we met.

 Wishing: That New England would get its act together. Why is spring not a thing here? I guess maybe because we get to have such pretty autumns and the universe is afraid of spoiling us? Whatever, it's fine. And let's be serious, I am in no kind of hurry to put away my grandpa sweaters. No hurry at all. Yesterday morning I sat in the sunshine for twenty minutes, which turned out to be all of the sunshine for the whole day because then it rained ice water forever and I wore fourteen bathrobes and every pair of socks I own and cried. Today it's supposed to be 80 degrees and so I am wearing a dress and bravely did not bring a sweater with me* because of optimism.

*This is not the truth.


Reading: I can't make myself be interested in anything. Which means, obviously, cycling through Stephen Kings for the umpteen millionth time.

Listening to: So I still have Bright Eyes on my iPod. I know. Let's just not talk about it. Let's also not talk about the fact that I still have like a second generation iPod and my phone still flips and YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S VINTAGE, IT MEANS I'M COOL. Except to say, that, listening to these songs now and remembering how connected I felt to the lyrics in high school is a lot of hilarious.

Anticipating: One more week. One more week. One more week.

Wishing:  That I hadn't failed so hard and so immediately at my "Not Buying Any Clothes in May!" idea. Look at me, taking credit for other people's ideas. It was actually this cute lady's idea, sorry I tried to trick you before. Anyway it was a really, really good idea, whoseever whoevers who ever's (how do you say that? why don't I know anything? donde!? por que!) idea it was. (Mine.) (Nope.) Even though my version of "extravagance" is buying something that costs more than four dollars at Savers, when you buy a million things that are less than four dollars that still adds up to more dollars than I have, because of math. (Damn it. I have math to study too. STOP DISTRACTING ME.) And I thought, oh, this combined with not smoking anymore will make me stop having panic attacks about money!

But then I blacked out and bought a pair of sandals. Which, in my defense, I really needed because of not knowing how to walk and therefore all of my other sandals looking like garbage shoes from garbage town.

MORE CAT PICTURES! PLEASE!: Well, fine, you twisted my arm.

it's a trap!

You want to know how annoying it is that I have three days of classes left, but I'm not done until next Thursday? A LOT ANNOYING, IS HOW. But it's fine. I actually can't believe I've been in school for two consecutive semesters. A whole year, guys! And I only spent a teeny tiny bit of it researching ashrams to join in India.

Anyway then summer will be here and I'll be living in the city forever. Or September. Whichever comes first. (I think forever does.)

So I just have to get through this next weekish and the random days off I have in between finals and things that I can't really do too much with. Which shouldn't be too hard and I really should shut up about it because I'll be spending them in the sun on my deck. (Even though I was laying out there yesterday in my "no one is going to see me in this so it doesn't matter that this is basically invisible" bikini and I woke up from my sun-induced doze to a bunch of random men right underneath me ALLEGEDLY "doing work" in my yard. UM WHAT HI. I'M NAKED. So I sort of gathered up the blanket I was sitting on around me Ariel-when-she-first-gets-her-legs style and crept around the corner and back inside the house and waited until they left to go back out again. And then a few days earlier, same situation, all alone in my alone-time bikini, and who drives through waving at me from his lawnmower but my ONE neighbor. Who is basically blind, but still. I was uncomfortable for the both of us. And DON'T tell me to wear more clothes because I won't do it. I will not.)

This was a fake post in which I said a lot of things without saying any thing. And you fell for it. But I still like you.

who suggested a hot dog bake sale

 

The point of this picture was to see what my legs looked like in tall shoes, because while I'm totally good with flashing my stem skin now it hasn't always been that way and I still have feelings of mehr about my sturdy Irish farmer legs. (That came without ankles but in the interest of keeping away from body shaming or whatever I won't bemoan my lack of ankles here. Except that yes I will, because this is my blog and it's not shaming to wonder where the HELL I was when the ankles were being handed out.) So whatever anyway I took a picture to decide whether or not I could wear these shoes in the world. And I realized that sometimes I spend far too many minutes trying to see my physical self the way others see it. That is an unnatural angle for one's neck to be craning in for so much time, friends. And I am sharing this with you because I think, somehow, it would bother me more if I kept it to myself. All secret-like and dust-gathering and gross.

I'm pretty comfortable with my body but I do catch myself measuring it against the standards of some made-up something that I never have been and never will be more times than I am happy with. I remember telling my brother I wished I had his legs once when I was like ten and he was eight and we were laying in the hammock in our yard only by "laying" I obviously mean trying to push each other out of it or make it spin all the way around with both of us inside of it because that is clearly the intended purpose of hammocks. I WANTED THE LEGS OF AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BOY. A particularly scrawny one, at that. What in the whatting what. And I don't do that anymore, honestly ever, look at someone else and say "I wish I had their ____." Because that is a waste of wishes, is what that is. And also because the older I get the more I appreciate the reflection of my life that my body is, and also also, let's be honest, I have aged really well. I look good. I mean really good. In fact, why doesn't everyone come and see how good I look? 

Anyway all I'm trying to say is, if you don't see me around in grown lady shoes during these hot months (which I don't believe are ever going to get here for real and stay because I have PTSnowD) it's not because I'm insecure about how they display my lack of ankles. It's because I can't walk in them. And also because my summer project is to trick this man who is only slightly taller than I am down an aisle (any aisle, I'm not picky, but hopefully the cookie one) and if that isn't a good excuse to keep on wearing different-color Old Navy flip-flops and passably-cute Target sandals from like three years ago, then I honestly really don't know what is.