102311

On days like this you need to put on a jacket, put on another jacket, put on music you've never listened to before, and take a walk. Take a good long walk. One where you walk til you don't want to hate your life anymore and then turn around and walk back home.
Make side trips. Go past a friend's old house. Go to the grocery store. Go through the cemetery.
A cemetery is just a park.
Go to the grave of Mildred McCome who died 86yrs ago, age 16, and now her headstone lies flat on top of a concrete base staring up at you with letters so worn you can't be sure her name is even really McCome.
I thought it was the children's section of the cemetery but right in the middle are buried people who lived full lives and it looks so wrong next to the tiny markers with dates spanning less than a decade, a year, a week. Baby Daniels. Infant Roberts. All of them engraved with lambs.
I don't know what it means to be "asleep in jesus."
If I ever got a headstone, I want it to have a secret compartment. I want it to have a quote worth thinking about, like something from margaret Atwood or Joey Comeau. I don't even think I need my name on it. If I had visitors, I hope they'd known me well enough to know it's my heavy body down there.
But I don't really want a tombstone. I want a tree planted over my body so it can feed off of it and grow and make new life and bring beauty to a place most people find cold and dead. I want to tell my friends to make me executor of their estates in their wills if they want to be memorialized with a tree, because that's what I would do for every single one of them and we'd all be big strong gorgeous trees somewhere laughing in the wind about who got peed on by some man's dog in the dead people park.

I don't want to live forever and I'm glad I won't.

051711

"The function of the muscle is to pull and not push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue." - Leonardo di Vinci.

Someone told me that they felt weird last week and couldn't figure out what was wrong until she realized she was feeling happy.
Ohio, why do you pull this shit? It's mid-May already and it's forty degrees and raining and people are forgetting how it feels to be happy. Spring equinox was March 21, you asshole - where's our spring? Where's our flowers?
We need sunshine and flowered dresses and jorts and scraped knees and mango drinks and Icky walks and front lawn picnics and late-night swingsets and marshmallow campfires and strawberry kisses and cave explorations and 9pm sunsets with a best friend and songs written in the form of vignettes
In the past two months I could count the sunny days on one hand. Spring is gone and a STOOPID humid summer is coming where you can't leave the AC or the Olengrungy for more than a few hours (check yr priv!)

I'll wait until it's dark outside.

Spent a wet and freezing winter waiting for March April May. Bring them back, Ohio, before the dog days of panting in the shade, sweating off your sunblock, scratching itchy grassy calves, trying to beat the heat

051711

Cat Lady brainstorming

---

grilled cheese, nose rings, deep v's, nautical things
pocket skirts, torn-up mocs, WuTang shirts, mismatched socks (just for moira!)
baby Scout, Skins UK, Walkabout, Larry Gay

i wanna be a wolf
i wanna be a wolf
i wanna be a wolf
oi oi oi

honeycrisp mapples, drunk quesadillas
damn love mapples, dri-zunk quesadillas

Savn Bhandaris, Anya McPhersons,
losing my virginity in a limosiiiiiiiine

Man on Fire, Man on Fire
why won't you play Man on Fire
don't worry, we'll play Man on Fire
(it'll be presidential;
never get tired
never expire)

Things I need:
good deep v
good nose ring
good grilled cheese
good nautical thing

shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker
just kidding! this is our song
about nutbutts

bby Scout was a bby nutbutt with nuts on his butt
and cruelty in his heart
his youth betrayed him and he was vicious
and relentless in his pursuit
but now he is older, like 2 whole months
older, and doesn't have nuts on his
nutbutt no more
he is sweet and cuddly and my best friend
but he still makes Moira sneeze
ASSHOLE

092908

facts writing fiction
the ending is a cop-out

---

Everything has just been building up. It’s too much, too much. My mind is racing racing racing and there’s nothing I can do to slow down I’m past the end and I just keep running running running. It’s too built up, too too built up and I can’t sleep, no time for sleep, I can’t relax, there’s no time for that, and I just want to rest but there is just no. Time. To. Stop. I can’t stop.

The first thing on my endless to-do list. I don’t understand why I volunteer to be involved with everything, be a part of everything, help goddamn everyone. I have to make cookies for my mom’s friends tonight but there’s So. Much. Nonstop. Maybe if I get this first thing, this one thing, done maybe the rest will come together on its own and I can stop. Relax. Stop. Relax. Calm down. Stop. I could stop.

The oven clicks at three-fifty.

It feels like everything has come onto me at once. School sports work family friends school sports work friends school work work school family friends work school family. And that’s just the beginning.

Whisking the flour, baking soda, and salt together ensures even leavening. This means that the cookie will rise correctly, that it won’t be lumpy and misshapen. The flour is the base for the cookie’s construction.

Sometimes I don’t think I can even do it anymore. I don’t even get a chance to breathe, some nights. Every Tuesday. Thursday. Wednesday. Sunday. Saturday. Friday. I take one breath Monday night and delve into the week again, never stopping resting sleeping breaking.

Cream the softened butter with the sugars. The creaming, all that mashing and mixing with my trusty rubber spatula, causes the sugar crystals to form air pockets, to make a softer cookie. The fats stop the gluten in the flour from forming. The sugar will melt and spread out the cookie.

I sometimes wonder if there’s a way to stop the madness, the chaos, the disgusting calendar on the wall, drowning in red pen.

If the butter is too soft, if it’s a liquid, the cookies won’t come out right.

If the butter is too hard, the creaming process won’t work out well.

If I don’t have time to breathe, my mind won’t work out well.

If I don’t have time to think, my life won’t work out well.

Add the eggs to the fats and the sugars. The yolks work to emulsify the finished dough for even texture. The whites’ proteins coagulate and contribute to the cookie’s structure.

Structure. I’ve got too much structure. I need less flour in my life.

A dash of vanilla for flavor.

I need more flavor in my life. While it adds a pleasant vanilla taste, vanilla extract itself is ninety-some percent alcohol; it has a terribly foul flavor and doesn’t taste good on its own.

Fold one third of the flour mixture at a time into the sugar mixture. Folding keeps the air in the dough. The egg and the gluten further protect the air pockets, for a fluffier cookie. If you stir the dough too much, the pockets will burst and the dough will become tough. The finished cookie will expose the mistake.

Am I stirring my dough too much?

All my work will be for nothing.

Stir in the chocolate chips. American cookies need to be bursting with carbohydrates, cholesterol, high fructose corn syrup, and chocolaty morsels in every bite.

I need more time to enjoy those morsels, those chocolaty morsels. I don’t think my cookies are even made with love; there’s just no time for love. Flavor and love are not totally interchangeable.

Put the dough onto greased pans in teaspoon-sized balls. Bake for ten to twelve minutes.

Ten to twelve minutes to rest stop relax break. Break. Break. I can’t break. But I can stop. It’s possible to stop, because now there’s nothing to do to the cookies. For ten whole minutes. Ten to twelve long minutes to stop. I’ve stopped and nothing bad has happened. I’m just sitting here, I’m resting, and the walls aren’t crumbling around me. There’s a slim chance I’m beginning to relax, but my mind doesn’t know where to genuinely start when it comes to that. Resting, stopping they come first.

If I can’t breathe,

If I can’t think,

I’m not truly functioning.

Maybe I need to please myself before I try to make everyone else happy.

Maybe it’s not really up to me to make everyone else happy.

Maybe everyone else makes him or herself happy first and I don’t even realize it.

Maybe I should

Cut

Down.

Cool

Down.

Cool down.

Cool down.

Cool down.

The cookies are coming out of the oven.

They need to

Cool down.

I have to wait for them to cool before I can write them off. Declare them finished. It feels so unusual to have time to think relax stop.

Have I broken?

No, the cookies aren’t cool yet.

All my activities responsibilities, they’re not for me. They’re all for someone else.

Like these cookies.

I need to quit. This isn’t for me. It’s tearing me apart.

School work friends family sports.

I hate sports. My mom said I needed scholarships. My dad said he’d be proud.

Take one batch out, put another batch in.

My sister was such a good student. I don’t want to let anyone down.

The oven is still radiating heat.

I hate my job. My friends work and my parents always complained about how they started working when they were years younger than I was.

I can’t take the heat, but I can’t get out of the kitchen.

No.

I’m starting over. I’m getting out of the kitchen.

The cookies are wrapped and ready to go.

My priorities are wrapped up and ready to go. I’ve got new priorities, ones where my wants and needs and concerns are important, too. I will do things for myself now.

Less hours at an easier job.

I can sleep.

One sport that I actually enjoy.

I can breathe.

Spending time with my friends and family when I want to.

I can stop.

I can run and jump and play and relax.

No more shit I can’t take I can’t handle I can’t stand. First thing tomorrow, I’m dropping out of all the superfluous, exhausting activities that I’ve grown to hate. I’ll tie up any loose ends, finishing up my remaining commitments. After that, I’m through.

I quit.

I break.

I’m done.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

093008

when I was with the beardy redhead

---

One two three four. Two two three four. Three two three four.

Your heart doesn’t skip a beat.

Your stomach is smooth and soft, thick with whatever food we ate for dinner. Sad I already forgot what it was. It’s not important.

I’ve felt the hair leading down down down hundreds of times before, but my hands never grow tired of it. It matches your bushy eyebrows, and not the fire on your head, or in your pants.