And my heart's in the strangest place, That's how it started and that's how it ends

I think I'm basing my resolutions off of my pursuit towards the simplicity inspired by Henry David Thoreau (Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity!)

Resolutions...
To be less hard on myself,
To start Moxy Lovechild with Jenny,
To finish many, many books (outside of school reading <3... probably at least one book every 2 months? hopefully it will take less time),
To get into the Advanced Poetry Workshop (hopefully... I'm not going to get my hopes up, but I'm going to try my best),
To start yoga (or kickboxing)/running again,
To learn guitar (longest resolution going- about 7 years!)
and to continue striving towards clarity. Simplicity. Happiness.

Last year, December was a slight mess. This year, December seems to be a huge mess... but there is a group of fantastic friends that have honestly made my year. My E28Besties. My Babycakes. I remember the day I walked into Sam Arkin's class, determined to get out of the slump Fall Quarter placed me in. I looked around and felt something... The next class I end up talking to the girl who ends up being my twin about Sam's shoes. The next few run-ins with this group came from Starbucks adventures, talks before class, friendly hellos, random group projects... A "study group" for our final the next day (possibly the easiest final ever). I found my roommates, and my best friends who I would do anything for. We found each other at the exact right moment in our lives... Plain and simple: I love you my E28Besties<3
Add in the amigos from espanol and the group of people I met in E100... and me oh my, Irvine you look so fine <3

2009 was a year of major growth, of strongly setting my foundation down. There have been a lot of adventures, and absolutely many more to come. I've accomplished more than what I thought would be possible (an internship, being published twice, a job with coffee bean). I'm confident, even with the slight blows to the gut, the heart, the soul, the mind... I'm finding the equilibrium between my logos and pathos (haha).

Here's to 2010... With the company I have, I can tell this is going to be a beautiful year.
[In the New Year- The Walkmen]

I'd rather be or nothing at all

Fake Flowers

One lonely step.
A silence, a puckering
Of the lips as petals fall.
It’s the aftermath of the tongue,
Dropping words as if they could
Simply wither away
In a silken furnace
Heated by the dull underbelly
Of forgotten wanderlust.

I’ve kept an idea of love
In its higher form-
I think it’s through the nose
That one can tell whether
There is truth in one spoken
Word.
To go any higher means to
Offer yourself to falling
Into shards of glitter frost
And no one wants that.

---

(a work in progress)

You're mind is racing like a pro, now, Oh my god it doesn't mean a lot to you

We are carpenters.

When one truly thinks about it, everyone makes things. Chairs, for example. We make them for a functional purpose. But what makes them good or bad? It's all objective, it's all made up of standards, of judgments... and then personal sentiment rides in. It makes one look at the chair and decide whether it serves its purpose or not. In truth, it serves a purpose. Just not to you.

And life is the ultimate pharmakon. It's a matter of "different, but the same". Pliers versus the copper ring. One was needed for the other to be necessary. Such is pain- in order to feel life, one must experience it. It is then broken into what we make of pain- how we deal, how long we allow it to affect our current state, how often it recurs and how it settles. Without pleasure, there is no pain. Without life, there is no death... So when one experiences that sense of dying, there is also that experience of feeling life, of reaching out to it with the utmost optimism and hope that you will escape from its clutches... "Because life is just right". It happens for reasons beyond our grasps.
I wish you could see that personal sentiment makes life an individual experience, but it can be simultaneously shared. You can have that hand to hold when you think no one understands.
Because I will try my very damnedest to get to that level of understanding, and although it will never be full understanding (because I will never experience life within your eyes), I will understand.
Just give me the chance to. Trust me, we'll pull through.

Now it's your rights versus mine, the truth in one free afternoon

Really life, really?
All within the same week?

<3aileen.elif.baum.cho.deanna.diane.jenny.david.fettig.stefanie.justin.tashi.
it could be worse... but you guys are the most amazing friends (and siblings) I will ever have. thank you thank you thank you.

It's everything that is connected and beautiful and now I know just where I stand

My optimism feels like it has been sucked out of me with a straw- directly to the core, hitting that final nerve, knocking every content out of my body into the unknown (for who am I to discuss the contents of my being when they are constantly shifting position, changing shape, falling and lifting in various speeds?)

everything has slowly been crashing down. and I am not one to focus on the haphazard, but the events have stacked in a way that the tower would eventually fall. I knew how to make it- but I was praying that it wouldn't have to be.

I jump to conclusions too swiftly. and by goodness, I am hoping I am wrong (see, there is still some form of optimism). there was something different- maybe is. for the first time, I felt a part of myself truly alive with the potential of something really, really good. and maybe I assumed too much. maybe technology is just lame.

all I know is that a lot of amazing things are happening, coinciding with cherry bomb explosions- you know, the small surprise attacks that, when set off, create something larger, a hit to the soul, to the very core. shock followed by a catharsis, a quick roll of the pathos over the logos...
perhaps I should just remain stoic. but that is not who I am. but I have done it once, twice before. and I am prepared to do it again.

I'm on the fence. please, don't let me down.

Morning is mocking me...

Trying to sleep, but can't (welcome back, blogging nights).

This break is truly beautiful...
Holiday Hootenanny with my ABC was by far the most amazing concert experience (minus my slight dehydration, and by slight I mean stumbling through the crowd...)
Photoshoots/Talks with my Beautiful Gabrielle :) (I am wearing the scarf she gave me everywhere)
Tea-Time-Catch-Ups with Daniel... and future music adventures of reminiscing about the moon.
Coffee Bean. Gah, loving it extremely. Nervous as ever, but loving it.

And there is a lot more of this... Hannukah passing by, the prospect of the holidays, Lady Gaga to attend...

the disjunct of the mind, for the record.
I have been trying to sleep for a few hours. Yet I cannot.
I cannot because the weight within my chest keeps heaving sighs.
Which leads to the mind, which leads to the throat,
where my vocal chords slowly rapt against it,
leading my tongue to flicker the syllables that ought to be said...
and I stared at my phone.
I stared, knowing which number I desired to call...
but it's Russian Roulette.
So when will the ricochet of your voice
enter, straight through me
to calm my nerves, to sink as deeply as if you were here
because, I am willing to do just that.

but a dear friend told me... I got this.
and after finally breathing, I may be able to sleep and march into the sunrise <3

Just like yesterday, I told you I would stay

(shh, I'm not supposed to be on this)
But I can't help but think...
will absence make the heart grow fonder, or will this be "out of sight, out of mind"?

I could indulge in this topic for days. The fluctuating romantic in me is being ruffled up by realism. My cynical side is showing- the one with doubts, the one who needs proof after proof after proof...
Deep down, it comes to the point that I feel my chest, mind, lungs- every organ- rise in anticipation of seeing... and I sigh. To audibly hear reality trickle down around me. To pinch a nerve that this is a moment, however fleeting, but a moment that continuously plays in my head again and again. I want it on repeat.
Because it's been the best I've felt in a long time.

Death by chocolate is a myth, this I know because I lived

Sia is speaking intensely to me tonight (the album Some People Have Real Problems was a huge obsession last year). It's a nice reminder to pick up an album, listen to it playing, and lie around, letting the thoughts and memories flash back and forth between the past and the present.

This week certainly was made of many highs and many lows. The lows were hitting hard within my gut, and I would hate to dwell on them further. But the highs are certainly taking me towards an even brighter future.... I have a job at Coffee Bean now (have not yet started, but it's happening), the quarter is almost over (sad/happy), I have a huge opportunity that may be happening next quarter (I don't want to indulge too much- those who know know what I'm talking about. I just don't want to jinx it)... And, as always, my darling darling friends were around to raise my spirits.

Maybe that's something about the holidays- the little instances of cheer that are thrown in at unexpected moments. Today's events were certainly filled with that- started off the morning horrendously, but then as the day progressed there was laughter and presents and excitement... mmm.
Another example: my darling Elif posted a menu inspired by me (she is an incredible little cook, that lovely girl). The last item (which I am so insanely intrigued by/am becoming obsessed with)... White Chocolate Creme Brulee. I will not die by this at all :)
Thanks<3

Now, finals week has begun, meaning I should not be on this thing... pretty much at all. But, regardless, there is something to post in a way. For my poetry class we had to work on a piece... I never knew my status within the class, as in I could never tell how I was doing academically or creatively. I simply tried my best and fit my professor's mold as best I could. We had to do these 5-sentence write-ups every week based on books we decided to read (I am, in fact, going to finish these books during the break), and eventually they turned into a single piece... Which is what I am going to post below, because as I look at it, I am particularly proud of a moment within there. This piece has shown me my ability to adapt within a certain style while trying to stay true to myself as a poet, if you will.
Perhaps I will edit it further. Perhaps I will let it stand as an assignment-to never be touched again. But it is below, in this form, for a reason for now, and that is where it will stay.

---
Penn Station

Evi descends into Penn Station as she does every weekday at eight in the morning. The air tastes bitter. She is claustrophobic in August sweat.

There is an old Hungarian reading the paper—a girl in knock-off Prada humming. Evi wants to be above it, spinning through spotless glass, sitting in a leather chair in a large room of windows overlooking maple trees.

She finds a green bench and thinks of Portland. It smells of mildew. Through the pigeons pass a pair of red shoes which she covets. She dreams of mahogany and lilies.

Evi taps her foot against the concrete. The clink from her wooden soles vibrates up her leg, sending a second pulse as she folds into herself.

She had always been quicksilver and driven, he knew that. The dandelion seeds always floated to the east, she explained to him. Him in his navy blazer with his green eyes.

He predicted they could never go too far- only to the next layer of mud and maple leaves. She knew they escaped into the night, falling into potted plants, street cracks, gated trees.
She needed to float with them- he decided to settle.

The train arrives. He said to never ride the subway. She drifts within the crowd, falling further into the crevice of the city.

---

and there you have it.