staring out the window at the rain

aww, i miss my old blog already.

but the format at motime suits me. just saying hello. vanilla raindrops.

oh dear. i think i'm going to continue to blog at a new location -- nightfireandrain.motime.com. (or the "vanilla raindrops" link to the right.) i'll be back here occasionally, perhaps.

i like this blog because it feels like me now. i was reading it, and it's giving me back some of my self.

deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving --
We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.

-- The Cry of the Children, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

from my journal, august 25th, 2003:

today i thought about vienna -- remembered it -- and thought about how cool it would be to live there. big courtyard of lights and cold and grey dusk and roasted chestnuts and waffles with chocolate syrup and cold cold air in front of the castle. walking the streets full of christmas lights, passing cafes and leather stores, chic young people everywhere. that's how i remember it, from when i was eleven. the cold air charged -- full of an electric excitement. that's where i thought i'd be when i was old enough (like nineteen, like now). that big city. idealistic, youthful excitement. that's what i wanted.

Austria. everything here seems so generic in comparison. there is the real -- the countrysides, the cities, the mountains, clouds (huge), rain in august, thunder storms of summer. sights sounds smells tastes. all real there.

am i alone in here?

by spike and james and denise and me.


Two funky nuns are dancing naked under chocolate towels with Father Moopy-butt because God closed doors. Once when church exploded with Holy thespians, children sporadically poured felineS upon Starbucks floors. ONLOOKERS whooped disobeying citizens' diRTY backsides, Pondered on bicycles. I Love Pastor DiCK, he's a sexy scottish man-whore. Pastor relationships result in dramatic emotional grandmas who often abuse themselves stupidly because they forgetfully idolize Buddhist monks. I try to erase myselF! Shoot, it's impossible!!! OH wait . . . Heres surprisingly naked imps who really NEED Me. Surpisingly, really shocking, yeah, yup, mmm-hmm . . . THE CRYiNg is incredibly DARN! end? Yes, NOID. Mmm Kay. MMM KAY.

it's not letting me view my blogs. sue the postman! fire the gorilla! (okay, not the gorilla. leave him alone.)

Today was my dad's birthday. I drove him to the auto shop at the end of a long, dry road that led to not many other places, so he could drive the other car (which was being worked on) back home. My mom, sister, brother, spike and I went shopping for him. Spike wrote on his birthday card, "You're a cool dude." He made goofy comments as he opened all the presents.

Today I crocheted and skateboarded. I played guitar and drew a Yugio dragon for my little brother.

Every time I try to view a blog (any blog), I get an error message and this is frustrating.

I like candles. When I was in ninth grade I had a health class. The teacher was named Ms.. Hill. She had short, neat, white-blond hair and was always smiling. We made a "total health journal" in that class, and the only part of mine that lacked her written comments ("excellent!") was the spiritual health section, where I wrote about Jesus Christ. I think she was into New Age stuff.
Her classroom always smelled like berries or vanilla or cinnamon, because she always had at least one candle lit somewhere in the room. It was a very relaxed atmosphere, a refuge in the school day. She'd sit on a desk in the front of the room and talk to us like friends. But we really learned, too.
She had us watch movies like "Radio Flyer" and "Powder." I played cards with a guy named Michael, who sat next to me, and who (two years later) also sat next to me in music class and played bass rhythms on my acoustic guitar that I couldn't get out of my head. And who called me up occasionally after we graduated, and once invited spike and me to a party. He said, "You're not vegetarians, are you?" I am. He said, "Do you drink?" I don't. "Do you smoke?" I don't. "Well . . . Do you do anything?" We didn't go to the party.
Ms. Hill (the Health teacher) wrote this in my yearbook at the end of ninth grade:

Stay Focused
Stay True

By this I mean, that people who search for peace & truth are often met by opposition, but eventually you will attract others whose light shines as brightly as yours.

With love and respect,

Ms. Hill

I think I may remember that yearbook "signature" better than any other I've gotten. I was fifteen years old and proud that my teacher -- this cool, peaceful woman -- saw something in me and made the effort to let me know.

That year I was happy and young and innocent and optimistic. Life was bright and sunny and beautiful. I was making friends who actually liked me for who I was, unlike some friends I've had. I was discovering myself and what I believed, learning to love other people and myself and God.

A few moments ago, I went to get my yearbook and found it on my bookshelf, behind a bottle of bright blue Dawn liquid dish soap. Just thought you should know that odd truth.

Happy My Cool-Dude-Dad's Birthday!

Noreia@planet-save.com

"We're here collecting . . . lingerie . . . for needy sexy people."
-- Blanch Deveraux in a nun costume.

"The bottom line is, when you take a chance in life, sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things happen. But if you don't take a chance, nothing happens."
-- Dorothy Zbornac

today a friend i haven't talked to in a while called me and explained to me the whole plot of jane austen's pride and prejudice.

i went to spike's house, and she let me read two of her stories. she is an amazing writer. i was lost in her worlds.

she's sleeping now, in my room.

i started my story. for creative writing class. it's very shabby, but the first scene is there. it's about a fourteen-year-old girl living in santa cruz. who believes in angels.

happy giant moose hair day.

"what are you??? you're a kiiiiitty!" -- me, ten or so minutes ago.

i sat in my room in the rose-smoke, looking through pictures of old stone castles, of grey cats in flowery gardens, of massive, peach-colored clouds. pictures of austria.

i was seventeen then. in those pictures. and more true to myself than i maybe ever have been -- before or since. i was completely happy then.

i feel old. i'm only nineteen, but i'm so different now. i feel jaded. i feel trapped. i feel stuck in one place, the future ever closing in, ever slamming me in the face.

every day i compare myself to other people my age. what is he doing? where has she gotten? why am i doing nothing?

i used to know what i was about. i believed in a love that is stronger than death . . . i still believe, but i am removed from it. by choice. by circumstance. by time.

it was so easy to be right then. i used to wonder what it was like to be on the other side, to be disconnected from what i thought i couldn't possibly live without.

now i know.

i call to you like deep calls to deep over water . . .

deep in my soul there's a craving . . .

i read some of my journal of two years ago, from right after i got back from austria. it's like a totally different person. it's hard to believe that was me. all i cared about then, what i cared about the most, was purity, love, truth.

now what do i care about? i long for those things sometimes, half-heartedly, without turning to the one who used to provide them for me.

strangers take my hands.

i was outside tonight, and i found a slug. i guess he was just a garden slug. i named him dragomere, which i think is a girl's name, but i thought he was a guy. it turns out that slugs are hermaphrodites anyway, though, so the name was appropriate.

so i put my hand in front of dragomere and he tried to eat it. he really did. i felt his little mouth, his little teeth trying to chomp on me. such a weird feeling, but you have got to experience it at some point in your life. really, trust me. it's great. (he looked like he was making out with my hand, all . . . slowly and passionately. then he'd turn his little head away slooooowly, as if to say, all right, i'll go this way then. like i'd hurt his feelings or something.)

he was crawling around on the dirty cement, so eventually, i managed to pick him up and carry him over to the wet grass -- but not before spike snapped a picture of me with draggy. (i'll try to figure out some way to get it posted here, maybe as a link, when it's developed.)

draggy loves me. at least, i hope he does. he sure slimed on me a lot. have you ever tried washing slug slime off your hands? not fun. but it was worth it.

i told spike afterwards that that was something that few slugs get to experience -- being carried across the front lawn by a person. he probably went back and told all his little friends, "and i tried to eat this huge . . . thing, and then it carried me for miles -- i swear. it was crazy!" but his friends probably didn't believe him. just like people who claim to have been zipped off to space by pale, skinny, black-eyed extra-terrestrials.

would you believe me, if i said some aliens picked me up and dropped me off miles away?

noreia@planet-save.com.

if there are angels here on earth, i hope they dress in ripped dickies and worn vans and grey hoodies. i hope their wings are neon pink and glowing like jewels. i hope they love the amber light of the evening sun and get lost in the aquamarine oceans in each drop of rain.

if there are angels here on earth, i hope they walk through high school hallways with invisibly beautiful loners. i hope they paint smiles on babies' faces. i hope they can taste herbal tea and smoke and vanilla pudding; i hope they can smell the asphalt under sprinklers on hot summer nights. i hope they can hear the strums of the fifty-year-old business man's guitar, audio-memories of the hope and openness of his youth -- he wanted to be a rock star.

if there are angels here on earth, i hope they hear the breathless weeping of broken humanity; i hope they seek out crushed souls cowering in dark corners and slowly spread open their huge wings, covering the dying with their feathers of glitter and light.

i hope they kiss and sing and taste the salt of tears. i hope they fall in love and swim in rivers and let their heavy eyes close and carry them into floating dreams.

i hope they dream of you.

my madlib from this site.

Ryan and Seth headed out for an afternoon in search of cappucinos at the men's bathroom. And it was just their luck that they ran into Summer and Marissa who were miscalculating for feet. Seth commented on how hot Summer looked with her ash-grey hamsters on.

"Hello Marissa," Ryan said, "how would you and Summer like to go dripping with us?"

"I don't know," Marissa morosely replied, "Summer and I were supposed to go remembering later."

"And eew," Summer said, "I cound never do anything that involves Seth ungluing in a scarf."

"That's fine with me," Seth replied nastily, "Then we could take my nephew to Hong Kong for some exchange students."

On the trip there, Seth annihilated at Summer the entire time.

"Seth, if you don't stop doing that, I'm going to discuss you with my crazy infant," she said.

Seth smiled at Summer. It was a fun day for all of them. When the day was over, Ryan gave Marissa a bubble that he bought from the bathtub. Marissa loved it and in return gave Ryan an uncanny nose.

earlier today, a little before three p.m.

i'm at my teacher's house. i'm the first one here. blues music. it's cool in here. hey, someone else just arrived.

i think denise lives a life of quiet desperation. it's beautiful. mono no aware. it was so quiet that for a long time, i didn't perceive it at all.

there's so much in her that nobody sees, and i want to see it.

i miss denise.

and i don't like living with secrets.

a fellow student just fell down two stairs. i got up to help, but didn't know what to do. she was laughing. they're talking about the weather.

i put the wrong email address in here, in case anyone actually tried to email me. i've fixed it, though. it's noreia@planet-save.com.

i set my alarm for nine-thirty. i don't know what happened, because i woke up exactly at eleven. i don't know if i could have slept through an hour of a perfect circle blasting until it turned itself off, or if it just didn't work, or if i turned it off and went back to sleep.

which is a weird idea. and something i think i've done more than once. the thing that freaks me out is that i don't remember it at all. although i did dream about the class i have to go to today. i dreamt i was walking through a huge mansion. at first it was like a funhouse -- there was a haunted house section that i didn't enter. then i walked through these huge rooms with crystal chandeliers and glistening wooden floors, and administrators from my old high school were walking around, socializing, and i thought they would stop me and ask me what i was doing there (like they thought i wasn't supposed to be there), but they didn't.

then i found my creative writing teacher sitting on a couch, and she was upset (slightly -- more like irritated) because the rest of the class had gone to a different section of the house because they didn't want to meet where she told them to. i told her that reminded me of high school -- the kids thinking any request a teacher makes is outrageous. (like, do your homework.)

so i woke up and hurried to dress so i could clean my neighbor's house, and it turns out she's not home and forgot to leave me the key. which is good, because i don't have to clean and i have all this time here, now, since i'm all up and ready. so i can write this blog for you.

aren't you lucky.

you probably haven't read all the way through this post to the end, though, because it was pretty boring up there. well, that's just too bad for you, buddy, because something really interesting is about to happen on this post. and if you stopped reading, you're going to miss it.

are you ready? here it is:

something really interesting.

okay, just kidding, that wasn't it. that was really corny. but here it really is, now, really and truly and candidly:

spike sagt, "ich habe vier nasen auf mein fuss."

happy magical rhinoceros day.

rain will fall down,
replenishing
all of our broken dreams
and this burning tree
that's withering
will bloom again; would you believe?

it is now 3:17 in the morning.

has anyone actually read this yet? besides the people i've sent it to.

hey you. random person who doesn't know me. who are you? email me -- you know you want to.

noreia@planet-save.com.

i am using the free version of blogger, so i think that means i can't post photographs.

i was just at someone else's blog, someone with a huge number of links under "archives" and with a page of original photos that are boldly black and white and beautiful. i love reading people's words and seeing images of their lives -- through the words and the photos. what a great concept, this blogging stuff.

i wish i could do everything i want to this page. i wish i had a digital camera. or even a scanner. heck, i should start by getting some more albums for the photos sitting in envelopes in a corner of my room.

last summer (2002), i was bored because i'd just graduated and didn't know what to do. i'd wake up around nine in the morning and actually watch some TV (which was very rare for me at the time, because i hated the media/american popular culture). i'd watch music videos. then i'd take my acoustic steel-string guitar (which later got stolen when denise brought it to school) out into the garage and sit there, playing some slow, melancholy, fingerpicked tune and staring at the leaves on the tree across the court. the wind provided a low, howling background for my songs. the leaves danced like angels, fairies, spirits set free.

then sometimes i'd walk the block or so to darcy's coffee shop. one day i sat at the shiny table near the window and made smeary, bold pastel crayon pictures in my sketchbook. the bells on the door jangled as an older, black man and his wife came into the coffee shop. i'd seen them outside, before i came in -- they were crossing the street and i thought, they look interesting; i hope they're going to darcy's too.

the man ordered drinks in a loud, confident voice. a rich, velvety, southern voice. then they made their way to a table behind me.

from their conversation, i figured out that they were Christians. they talked about prayer meetings and church services and spiritual things. they sounded like those bold Christians who always want to drive out some demon or another and always give you three easy steps! to something or other. the kind of Christians who unabashedly throw around acronyms in their sermons -- like i'm going to remember the point better if its initials spell out "FAITH."

i hoped they wouldn't talk to me. but i wanted to sit there and listen to them.

soon they started talking to people. the people behind the counter (whose asian accents the man had trouble understanding). other customers. the man ended up talking to this young asian postman, telling him about God's plans for his life. the postman was already a Christian, and the black man said he'd had a feeling that he was, just by looking at him.

the postman got so excited about this preacher-man that he went outside and grabbed his friend, a woman postal worker, and brought her in too, to talk to the preacher-man.

so preacher-man asks the woman about her family and figures out she's having troubles with her teenager. it reminded me of one of those TV-psychics, the ones on talk shows -- the way he talked to her. asking her all kinds of questions and then jumping on one of her answers, leading her to reveal other information, always feeding in a "message from the Lord." the postwoman seemed polite and slightly interested, but skeptical. the postman was all gung-ho about it. i think the woman wasn't a christian, and he wanted her to be "saved."

the preacher-man also told one of the postal workers (i don't remember which one) that he/she was going to move -- should move back home to family. in texas, i think. he said that's what God was telling him. (i think it was the guy, but i'm not sure.)

i listened to all this for quite a while before i left. as i threw my empty plastic coffee cup in the trash, i couldn't help but wish, in some small part of myself, that the preacher-man would come over and say, "Child, ah know you've fallen away from the Lawd, but He wants ya ta know that He still loves ya, and He's got a plaaaan fo' ya life. And here's what it is . . ." i mean, it would have been nice to know what was supposed to happen next in my life, to know that i was still "okay" in God's eyes even though i'd chosen love of a boy over love of him.

but i might as well have been invisible, for all the attention preacher-man paid to me. which made most of me happy. still . . . in that one small way, i couldn't help thinking, "God, if you really want me back, why not send this guy over to talk to me?" and then i thought, "maybe God sent this guy in here -- maybe he knew i'd be uncomfortable actually talking to him and it was better just to have heard all this."

pondering all this, i left the coffee shop.

everyone's gone to bed. pepsodent tastes like root beer.

tomorrow i have to clean my neighbor's house for twenty dollars and then go to writing class again. but i'm actually looking forward to the class, despite the drive.

seth died today. my black-goggly-eyed-goldfish-with-goggly-eyes-and-it's-black. i tried to take really good care of him. but i have two snails. one is named melissa.

someone's peeing in the bathroom.

when i went out with ian for coffee yesterday, he was talking to me about my future. he asked what the underlying issues behind my gloomy moods were, and i mentioned that i'm not doing anything and that i don't know what i'm going to do.

he said he's sure i'll do something good, he has no doubt about that. and he told me that it's really important just to get out of your parents' house, to be on your own. he said i should look into the UCs. i had guaranteed admission to a few of them when i graduated high school, because i had like the ninth highest GPA in the school, or something. (although you wouldn't see my intelligence in that sentence i just wrote . . . like, jeez . . . or something.)

and ian said i should just go to college for the first two years with my major as "undeclared," just to do the general ed.

and why not? next fall i can start all over. i could go to europe as an au pair, as i've been thinking about since senior year. or to a college. or anything -- i could do anything.

this blog is not beautiful or poetic. denise's are always beautiful and poetic. i do apologize.

love watery firefish. happy beatnick day.

my sister is sixteen and she thinks better than i do. it must be interesting having her mind. i feel like i've lost so much depth. when i was a senior in high school, i had that cold-dark-beauty feeling about the world, all the time. it was lonely and sad but the sadness was tinged with beauty. beauty tinged with sadness. mono no aware.