adals;jdf;

Brine

Slime

Sludge

Muck

Luck

Leprachan

misspelling

Duckling

ugly

woman

shark

lark

fork

park


I am so bored I'm going to explode! Briney ocean water.

Fall, leaves, fall

I read good poems today! Here they are.

Advice
Folks, I'm telling you,
Birthing is hard
And dying is mean
So get yourself
A little loving
in between.
-langston hughes

Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
-william shakespear

Fall, Leaves, Fall
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when nights decay
ushers in a drearier day.
-emily bronte

The Night Has a thousand eyes
The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
with the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
and the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
when love is done.
-francis william bourdillon

Cuna Love Song
Many pretty flowers, red, blue,
and yellow; we say to the girls,
"Let's go and walk among the
flowers."
The wind comes and sways the
flowers, the girls are like that
when they dance; some are
wide open, large flowers and
some are tiny little flowers.
The birds love the sunshine and
the starlight; the flowers smell
sweet.
The girls are sweeter than the
flowers.
-anonymous

Without Warning
Without warning
as a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart.
-sappho

Miniver Cheevy
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would send him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
- edwin arlington robinson

Hell is in hell-o

Listening to Doug Shulkind's radio show is sometimes a wonderful experience for me - almost drug like - I become more and more happy as the songs he plays become more and more bizzare. Tears came into my eyes once because it was just so awesome. I can't remember which song I was playing, but it probably involved yoddling or throat singing. I can't help it, I am a sap for deep gravely voices, throat singing (Tuvan), yoddling, and any joyous rucuses really.

Particularly good, Lee Marvin, "I was born under a wandering star." Thats the chorus, and I've left it out. I like these parts the most:
_______________________________________________

Mud can make you prisoner and the plains can bake you dry.
Snow can burn your eyes but only people make you cry.
Home is made for comin' from, for dreams of goin' to.
Which with any luck will never come true.

Do I know where hell is, hell is in hell-o.
Heaven is good-bye forever it's time for me to go.

When I get to heaven tie me to a tree.
Or I'll begin to roam and soon you'll know where I will be.

I was born under a wanderin' star.
A wanderin', wanderin' star.

Longhorn for life.

I decided to not go to Rice. I tore up my acceptance form and told UT that I am coming back. That's my final decision. I feel good about it, but not completely. But no matter what decision I made, I would be second guessing myself, because thats my nature.

Cigarettes and coffee

I bought a pack of cigarettes at about 3 am. Since then, I have smoked 8 of them. It has been 8 hours and 20 minutes. So I'm averaging one per hour. But actually, because I was asleep for 3 of those hours, I'm averaging more than one per hour. I will give them away tonight. My head is tingling. I have a sick feeling in my stomach. I've also drunk alot of coffee. I slept 3 hours last night. I feel nervous and unsettled. Didn't expect to feel this way. But, all things considered, I shouldn't expect to feel very good after drinking so much coffee and smoking all those cigarettes.

I miss my aunt and my mom and my dad and my brother, and my dog and my cat. When I visit home, I feel safe and good. But if I stay there too long I feel restless. When I am away from home, I am not so restless, but I feel less safe and more unsure about myselt. Then I start to miss home. So when I'm at home, I feel the urge to go out into the world.

Ok, thats all, bye. I think I need to develop inner strength! That would help.

Friday the 13th

Today is Friday the 13th. I will ride the bus to Austin in a few hours so that I can take my finals tomorrow. I also signed the acceptance form for graduate school today. I am going to Rice. I hope that I will not have bad luck on my final and in graduate school because of this unfortunate alignment of the calender. I hope I like it at Rice. I'm afraid I won't like it there because I already don't like Houston. I don't like the idea of Houston. I don't like the looks of Houston. I don't like the smell of Houston. In 100 years Houston will probably be one of the most disgusting things humanity has ever created. Right now it's just festering. I'm going to live there for 5 or 6 years of my life. I hope my predictions of misery do not come true.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

I'm about to graduate!

So. I am very overjoyed about this situation. I am 2 tests away from holding a B.S. in Chemistry. I will hold it so close! I am not terribly proud, just happy. I am not proud because... I kind of hated the whole experience. But then why am I so happy? Isn't it obvious? It's because a horrible experience is about to be over.

Ok. So it wasn't horrible, but it certainly wasn't "the best four years of my life." I wish people wouldn't say that. I get by day to day because I believe that these have not been the best four years of my life. The best is yet to come.

Nakajima

My name is Nakajima. I am a tree who has eaten a few people in my day. But every person I ate was evil. I never ate any good people. Well, except once, on accident. Oops.

My Bus Trip

My name is Esmerelda. Esmer is short for mesmer(ise) and el is Spanish for “the” and da is short for day. Therefore my name means mesmerize the day.

I am sitting on a Greyhound bus. The chairs are grey except for down the center of each is a rainbow stripe that takes up one third of the whole chair. The sky is grey too, and it looks ominous, and I hope it rains. I fantasize that a storm will sweep the bus off the road, and will continue to sweep us until we crash into a jungle. I know there are jungles nearby because this part of Texas looks like a jungle from the window of an airplane.

I am reminded of a horrible song. The singer sings over a background of dramatic and emotional instrumental music “God is watching us from a distance,” blah blah blah “From a distance, we all have perfect wings” blah blah blah “From a distance we are all sisters and brothers…” And I’m thinking, every time I hear that song, about how white people all look the same to Chinese people, and I wonder if the lady who sang that song thought about that.

Anyway. I like my skirt. It is grey like the bus and the weather, but with small red and green shapes all over it, and the bottom, which touches my toes, is pitch black. The material is billowy and wispy. When you sit on a bus for hours and hours, and everything is mostly grey, the other colors become magnificent. At least, relative to anything else going on, which you’ve seen before – but I’ve never seen it quite like this before because for the first time that I can remember, my chair is comfortable. I am comfortable and so my mind is free to wonder.

I am Esmerelda!

Imagine this: A man who has never seen a bus before falls asleep holding his walking stick and leaning against a tall Eucalyptus tree, far out in the Ugandan bush. (I assume there are Eucalyptus trees in Uganda.) Anyway, he falls asleep to the sounds of Ugandan crickets. The air is quiet. The world is quiet. He is a thin and muscular man, and his hands and feet are calloused and strong. He is 29 years old and has 4 children, and one wife, so far.

He fell asleep peacefully in Uganda.

He wakes up standing beside a bus at 7 in the evening in August in Texas. The sky is filled with thick billowy grey clouds. The bus’s engine is roaring, the bus’s air conditioner is roaring, and a thick diesel smell surrounds the bus like an invisible hallow – invisible to the men and women who have smelled diesel hallows all their lives. The people are old and young, all shades of brown, a bit dirty and wrinkled and crabby looking.

Our Ugandan hero is told by a quiet voice that he should be calm. He is told that his soul has traveled across the world in his sleep so that he could see the way people are in Texas.

He is calmed by the voice and allows himself to look around – a deep and joyous laughter wells up in his throat, from his belly – what an amazing universe! To his left – gravel – grass – train tracks – medium sized buildings with neon signs – and no more than 2 feet to his right, a growling, grumbling, glowing bus. He walks around the bus, examining its wheels, it’s steel-looking body, it’s tinted windows, it’s side doors, and the backwards American flag painted near the front door. After walking around the bus, the Ugandan walks through the bus. He can walk through people too. It is a funny sensation. He stands for 2 minutes looking at a woman with 4 children. “I have 4 children” he thinks. He carefully sits down inside of the woman, positioning his arms inside of her arms to hold her baby. The baby does not seem to notice that he is being held by 4 arms. The Ugandan follows the motions of the woman’s body perfectly. When she reaches down to her purse to get a pacifier, he reaches down with her. I am looking at them in awe.

When a soul takes leave of its slumbering body, and goes and stands in another body, it can feel all of the things that the other person feels. The Ugandan gathers that the woman is tired and frustrated and bored.

After some time, much to my horror, the Ugandan stands up and looks at me. I look at him and I am unsure about what is going to happen. I don’t want him walking through me, or sitting in me, or anything like that. He walks towards me and crouches down so that his face is directly in front of mine. I can see through his face. He can probably see through mine. He smells like a Ugandan should smell. We stare at each other, and then he smiles, and I relax. He touches my shoulder, and a thrill runs through my body that is unlike any I have ever felt.

Our exchange got a few strange looks, but everyone got over it, and I realized that traveling Ugandan spirits are not unlike children. Earlier today a little girl sat in the chair next to me at the bus station and stared at me while I read my book. I pretended not to notice because, what else could I do? 2 year olds are allowed to stare. When she touched my arm and started playing with my arm hairs, it made me smile, and I wished that people could do that. I wished that I could sit down next to an interesting looking person and just stare at them. I wish that sort of thing wasn’t awkward.

In some places, that sort of thing isn’t awkward. We call them insane asylums, or psychiatric wards or loony bins or institutions. In these places people are free. They are free to laugh at their soup, and to cry when someone says good morning, and to hold their limbs in strange positions for hours on end, or to bellow and howl if the urge becomes overpowering. They are free to play with each others arm hairs, and be delighted.

I am also free to do all of these things on the bus, but here, on the bus, my neighbors would look at me funny, and then I would feel weird on the inside because my fellow humans are looking at me like that. It is better to keep a low profile, and squelch the urge to do anything that is un-directly-explicable.

Of course, that rule doesn’t always apply. There are places where being “weird” is expected. For example, in Austin, Texas on Eeyore’s birthday, all sorts of strange behaviors are smiled upon, because on that one day, all of the people with strange urges that go squelched most of the year are free to act upon them, in celebration of the birth of the world’s most depressed donkey. They dance and play drums and smoke grass and hallucinate and twirl around in hoola hoops, and wear costumes, in broad daylight, in the presence of children.

There is also an exception when people love each other. When people love each other, they are allowed to act strangely, because someone told everyone a long time ago that “All is fair in love and war.”

The Ugandan went home when the bus left the station. I continued down the highway and landed in Dallas. The Ugandan flew over Georgia and some other states, and then over the Atlantic Ocean. And when he landed in his own body again, he directly became one with it, falling instantly asleep. I got in a car with my dad and my aunt and drove to my parents’ house. Then I ate a cheese sandwich.

The End.