Tonight I grew up a little

For some reason, I've never been able to play for strangers unless it is a paid gig. I've never played at an open mic before, because it scared me so much. It meant that I thought that my music had enough worth that I could share it with people not for their enjoyment per ce, but as an exibihition of who I am. I didn't play my own songs, that would have been too scary for the first time. I played Angel Band with Leah, then I am not at War, which everybody loved, and some girl yelled out "Who was that last one by?" and I said, with so much pride, I could have burst..."My sister." And she said, "aw, honey, that was great" and I said "I love her" and I meant it sincerely because I can't mean to be funny when I'm that nervous, but they all laughed anyway. And then I played "When I Was a Boy." I made Benjamin and Leah promise me that they would tell me if I was off-tune, and they said I wasn't and maybe they were telling the truth. I think I sounded like Joan Baez though, because my voice was shaking so bad. I feel shaky still, but I feel good, like I've gotten over a hill, like the next time it will be easier.

I have great friends here. Tonight, my dorm threw me a surprise birthday party. They all pitched in and bought me a life-size stand-up cardboard thing of Viggo. I've never been so thrilled in all my life. They blindfolded me and stuck him in front of me. It was amazing. Then I went to contradancing which was sooooo much fun and really really hard. I danced for three songs and then I played with the band for the rest. I learned so much in just a few hours. I learned how to play jigs, reels, and waltzes. Reanna, Leah, and I all played tonight and it was so great. I can't even put to words what it felt like.

That's all for now. I'm off to bed to have happy dreams.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!

I sing so much better when I'm not playing the guitar, which is strange. I've always been such a good multi-tasker. But it's true. My voice is boring when I sing while playing and half the time it's off key just a little. It sounds forced and unhappy and I don't like that. So, what is the solution...of course...a cappella music or a guitar player. IfI was a decent guitar player than I wouldn't care so much about how my voice sounded, but when all you have going for you is your voice, then you need to pay attention to the voice. So what would be the best of all possible worlds....a really great guitar player and a microphone.

I'm in the process of writing my first love story subplot...funny isn't it? What do I know about love stories that end well...oh wait, there's Viggo who is completely and utterly without reservation devoted to me. He sits on my bed all day with his big sword waiting for my return. We make love so much that I can hardly get my work done and I have to plead with him to stop looking at me with those dark, intent eyes...I have to read!! Maybe I'll write a song called "Falling In Love with the Poster Above MY Bed" and it would be a sad sad song and very silly.

Speaking of songs, I'm off to the contradancing musicians workshop with Leah soon. We are to be playing for the next one, but we have to learn about things like what kind of song to play during what kind of dance.

But I digress, I was talking about my love subplot. Okay, so this girl (and she is a girl still...21) starts a teaching job in the middle of nowhere Georgia and during her first teachers meeting on her first day, all they can do is stare at her and pronounce her last name wrong and then really slowly..Luh-pay-hee. Anyway, she's scared shitless and is regretting her decision to have eaten that morning. Anyway she rushes to bathroom in the librarian's office, behind the circulation desk and to the right next to the books on tape and overhead bulbs, and pukes her brains out. And then the slightly odd looking, awkward Media Specialist (HA!) goes in to check on her and....LOVE....wow, writing about makes me see how lame it sounds. Well, good. Oh, and you know what else, Novalee Nation was in love with the town Librarian Forney wasn't she. But I can't have him be another teacher. That's too Boston Public. He can't be the custodian. That's too Good Will Hunting (or Goodwill Hunting as Kayla and I call it). But he has to be there. He's got to become a part of her journey later on. But I have got a character that I really like named Daisy who is kinda a cross between LouAnn in the Bean Trees, Kayla, and this teacher I had in sixth grade who wore way too much makeup and was a little insane. She's fun.

Growing Up Tall

I never thought, not in a million years, that I would be nineteen...or grown up. I thought I would always be nine, and here I am, sitting here, finally understanding that I will never be nine again. "And they tell him take your time, it won't be long now till you drag your feet to slow the cirles down." I have exactly eleven hours left of being eighteen. My friends are throwing a little party for me, and asked me very nicely if they could use my birthday as an excuse to get drunk and I said..."Yeah, I guess," and I suppose that I should get drunk with them or else it will annoy me to see them being careless and unconcerned. This will be my drinking day of the semester (I've given myself one per semester 1, because I can't afford alcohol, and 2, because I refuse to become those idiots who knocked over our igloo).

Today I wanted to roll around in the grass back home. Marina has this amazing black lab, Toliver, and he makes me want to get down on my knees and rub my face in some mud. But it's too cold here, and I'm really beginning to understand what Dar meant when she said "February was so long that it lasted until March." I'm really homesick right now. I was starting to be homesick a few weeks ago and then I went to see Nerissa and Katryna Nields (actually I didn't have to go anywhere...they came to Bard!!) and the songs on this new album feel really domestic, about the ties of family , finding yourself, and learning to accept what can and cannot be fixed in life, and it all made me dreadfully homesick in a sad, wonderful way. And I started thinking about where I am and where i want to go.

This is the life that I want right? To be free and independent, doing something new every time an opportunity comes around, becoming a nomad, doing all the things that I never thought I'd do, going to all those places that i never thought I would see? Then why does it feel wrong sometimes. Shosha said that we should go where our hearts feel like spring. My heart's feeling like February in New York. My heart wants to be up at Carl Sandburg's in April or sitting on the porch with Daddy talking about Damn Republicans with Cocoa on my lap, but mostly my heart wants to be sitting in the backseat of the van drawing pictures of orphans on steno pads with Shosha singing our voices out to Late Night Grande Hotel while Nicholas pees in a Gatorade bottle. And yet I'm never happy for long at home which makes me think that maybe my problem is not so much place as it is company.

(Later) But what is this? Okay. Stop. I'm hereby giving up bemoaning my life for Lent...or at least for this entry.

Why, because right now I smell good. I just dragged my cd player and The Metaphysics of Morals into the bathroom and took a long hot bath. Also, I have decided to give myself the day off tomorrow to play music and write. I work with the babies tomorrow until 1 and then the afternoon will be all mine to do as I please with it. Maybe I will paint too. Nineteen will be the year that I take extremely good care of myself, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I've been going to the gym four times a week now for the past month and a half and feel much better and am fending off the winter ick. I'm also going to start drinking more water, especially since I am going to be singing much more. I am writing and listening to good music and making my own and reading for pleasure and crying and laughing and watching good movies and building silly things in the snow. And spiritually, well I haven't quite figured that out yet. I think I may have a go at meditation. I got a good book in the library about Buddhism for beginners. I think Jesus and Buddha get on very well and so I'm thinking of just mixing the two and finding a good place.

That's all for now...I'm also trying to do some lucid dreaming which is very fun when it works.

I woke up this morning craving an eye for an eye

I saw Lumumba tonight, and I was once again struck speechless at the credits, tears streaming down my face wondering how in the world I was going to justify leaving that movie theatre and going back to my room where everything around me lies superfulous and rank, and continue in a life where the most pressing delema I have to overcome on any given day is how I get all my reading done and still get to bed by midnight. How do I justify living so untouched and fearless in a world filled with injustice akin to not even our most horrific nightmares. My stomach hurts for the legacy that comes with the color of my skin and with the money in my pocket. I didn't kill Lumumba. But I did, I do, and I will. I didn't sit back and say nothing when my country excercized its "inaliable right" to regime changes whenever it saw fit. But I did, I do, and I will. I haven't and will never buy a diamond, but I will have bought one by belonging to a culture where all my peers will wear them with pride.
But all this is pointless, and it just makes me feel shitty, and I'm of no use to anyone that way. So what do I do? "What then must we do?" We can't just go back to the way we were, and we can't go around angry and counterproductive. And who can we hold accountable? I could kill my roommate right now. She comes in from one of her mall shopping sprees and says "How was your movie?" but doesn't wait for me to reply, and launches in detail into the exciting story of her shopping excursion. I'm not going to bother. Anyway, last time I tried to talk to her about terrible injustices and tragedy, she smiled and said, in this sweet little baby voice, "Yeah, that's so sad." But that's beside the point. Because of her background, she is about as likely of reaching a state of true concern about anyone but herself as a little boy in the Congo is of growing up to be a film major at Bard College, or a beetle becoming an elephant. I digress. It's unfair of me to say that. I don't know her soul.
Right now I'm just holding my baby doll and trying to reconcile things in my head. It's nice to have something to hold on to. It's times like these when I wish I could lay down in bed next to my mother and say nothing, but know that I was understood. But my baby doll, Adah Ruby, will have to do.
But then again, another really special thing happened tonight. I realized that for the first time in my life, I had a friend my age who connected with me on the most fundamental of levels. I've loved all my friends without restraint or conditions, but never did I think that I could ever explain to them what my heart was like and have them more or less understand it. Tonight I was having a hard time getting in touch with my emotions (I've been on meds for about three weeks now, so maybe that is the reason) which is probably a good thing or I would have embarrased myself. But I looked over at Leah, and it seemed as if she was feeling and expressing everything that I, at the moment, could not. And afterwards, she leaned over and held on to me while we watched the credits and felt something unnamable and unspeakable, two people trying to figure out how to live with themselves and finding comfort in the fact that they are not alone. As we were leaving the theatre and she said something to the effect of "how am I supposed to go home now?" I just wanted to turn around and tell her how lucky I was to be able to connect with someone on that level.
Ha! Now I just need to find someone who possesses these qualities and who I am sexually attracted to, and I'll be well on my way to a soulmate.
Another good part of the day was this: Leah and I put up an Igloo. Or rather the first half of the igloo--that is it has no roof yet. It has the startings of a roof. We've gradually worked our way inwards, but it's still in progress (I'm being optimistic here...It'll most likely collapse).
Okay, I'm drained. I'm gonna go sing.