2005-01-26 || 12:41 p.m.

|| sequence of events ||

it was getting a little comical there for a while, where comical = most heartbreakingly discouraging. sequence of events:

1. spring of 2003: do not get into MFA programs. question life, its meaning, my personal direction. cry a lot. consider taking up bodybuilding or food service.

2. rebound desperately with the most exciting of occupational/academic lovers, the interactive & graphic design program. fall deeply in love. tears well up when listening to lectures on schwitters and eisenstein. feel there is a beautiful future here, of illustrating and record covers and an incredible obnoxious pretentious knowledge of the love affair between mayakovsky and lily brik to spout off about at parties. sigh a lot.

3. find while registering for second year of classes that the program has left without so much of a dear jenn letter. all that energy. all that love. all that money spent at kinko's on oversized copies and good quality glossy color. i was left at the altar, and the ink on my program acceptance letter hadn't even dried yet. consider asking kelly if i too can learn the ways of tortoise wrangling, and imagine making curtains for the camper shell of lois the truck aka tortoise wrangler transport/home.

4. rebound yet again with the mysterious beret-wearing painting class at the art center. get very excited at the thought of paint-stained pants and fingernails. spend money i don't have on quality paint and brushes; entertain the idea of buying the wooden palette reminiscent of arty smurf. purchase beret, but choose the decidedly non-uppity color of gray because i'm a beginner and am sensitive to eye rolling.

5. receive call hours before first class that painting class is horribly underenrolled and cannot accept my love and affection. sit in car in parking lot. meanwhile, meow meow is disgruntled at home, onto my philandering ways with painting, and proceeds to chew and ruin the pristine bristles of a twenty-dollar filbert brush.

6. wander aloft a sea of indecision and bad self esteem. joke with father about god giving me the celestial sign of throwing it all in and start having babies. he doesn't laugh and reminds me there is always a job for me at the power plant. mother gets on the phone and confirms the power plant idea. proceed to get in argument with mother. sit on the couch and eat 9 cookies.

7. a saint of creative opportunity and enthusiasm* appears to me at a bar on san pablo. he reveals the path of righteousness involving my raggedy novel, a vaguely willing agent, and two months to put it all together. vigor for life is restored, as are rampant anxiety dreams somehow involving will oldham riding most dangerously on the back of a flat bed truck. get very excited. get very scared. decide with all my heart that i will do this; i will give up the outside and the beauty that is the bravo channel in exchange for the most emphatic humongous rewrite of my life. re-read first twenty-five pages of novel while sitting on a bench at lunch. get overwhelmingly emotional and high five a tree branch.

*dear saint of c.o.e.: thank you so so very much. i will leave it at that.

but also!
other sequence of events that is turning my life upside down:

1. 1997: spy boy in a suit and lady scarf repeatedly on campus and in apartment building. decide he is french, 30, or gay. run into him at parties/elevator/university mail room and realize he is not french or 30 or gay. run into each other at supermarket and stroll the aisles together with one cart. feel cheeks glow/crush blossom.

2. fall wildly in love and live together. hold him tightly at night. buy him churros and coffee at the panaderia across the street while he is sleeping in makeshift bed of futon, plywood, and milk crates. feel completely blissed out while lying on the roof of the house on 24th street in the dark under stars and church spires. am certain this is eternal.

3. 2000: break up with he who is not french or 30 or gay. resolve to keep the best friend aspect of three-year relationship. hearts breaking all over the place.

4. remain best friends. states get in the way. respective boyfriends/girlfriends widen the gap. see each other less and less. continue to hold respective secret conversations with respective mothers re: certainty of our ending up together.

5. 2005: something clicks. much conversation and possible celestial intervention. grave conversation in the office, a bar in encinitas, regarding our future and a mutual decision to give it another try, now, as our grown-up wise with-it selves. overhead, sparks and planets and future children light up the sky of southern california.

6. i am in love again. and he's not french or 30 or gay.

previous || next || random

guestbook || notes || archives || profile || photos || d-land

Site Meter