i get overly nostalgic and triggered by memories very easily. good and bad. sometimes it’s a burden but i’ve learned to spin it in a creative and constructive direction. for example, i think the End Of August should be its own season. the End Of August is a time that some would say marks the end of summer and beginning of fall. strange how fall has a different meaning once you don’t go to school anymore. the last End Of August was the first time i experienced this. i realized how flexible an individual’s calendar year could be. last End Of August lasted about two weeks. maybe it doesn’t last two weeks every year. maybe there’s a groundhog-like dictating scenario. but two weeks, more or less. last End Of August i got a temp job in the basement of an independent bookstore. this year i got a temp job at a halloween costume warehouse. that’s another thing about the End Of August, those patterns and traditions. like in december when you see pine trees no matter how much you try to avoid christmas. last End Of August i read poetry in front of my friends for the first time. albeit i was plastered, but it was a reading none the less. phill read too. next week i’m holding an event where i will also be giving a reading in front of that same crowd of people. phill’s reading too. during last End Of August i was getting ready to move out of new brunswick, what i thought was for good. my mom became my roommate. this year, i am a mom to my roommates. last End Of August i made friends with three boys who i only met because devin called me to come over and help her wake them, who at one in the afternoon were still sleeping on the couches in her house, which, at the time, was on the other side of town from mine. this End Of August i am living in that house. this End Of August i am on my bed in front of a fan taking off and putting on a sweater and staring at the wall and planning my next move and thinking about poetry and filing the ties and relationships in my head that seem to make and break this time of year. some people say they want to live where they can see all four seasons. maybe the only part of the world that sees the End Of August is the world that my mind inhabits. you could say that the seasons are changing when you see some orange leaves, but i just think that’s too easy. 8/21/14
thank you for loving me (how am i doing?) my dad used to tell me to get thicker skin whenever the people i loved hurt me in ways that couldn’t be explained. so that’s what i did. eating oranges is an old trick i picked up when i stopped smoking cigarettes. it keeps the hands busy and leaves a better smell on my fingers. i started doing other things too-productive things- like writing, doing crafts, even a couple of musical instruments. sometimes when i’m too tired or weak for these activities, i pick up an orange. that’s what i did tonight. have you ever noticed how thick the peel of an orange can be? do you notice how small an orange really is when it’s ready to be eaten? does anyone realize how small i am before they try to devour me? i think sometimes when we feel lost or weak, we try to become things that aren’t human. because maybe then we’ll be less vulnerable, without breakable skin. we try to leave earth without dying first. i learned that if you fuck enough stars you can become the sun. but it’s always safer to be human. sure, my skin turns on me. i itch. and my teeth grind until they’re dust. my skin breaks every day. so what’s everyone so afraid of? peeling back deep enough until you’re small enough to be eaten? or getting lost in space? i keep old wine bottles that i’ve shared with people who, at some point, made me cry when i didn’t think i had any tears left. i may surround myself with empty vessels but i refuse to become one.
airports remind me of funtime america and discovery zone because you have to wait in weirdly shaped lines to go on goofy indoor rides and take off your shoes on not-soft carpeted areas but the most important thing to remember in situations like these is that nothing can truly annoy you if you are tired enough
2014 was just 12 februarys in a row. traditionally, in this hemisphere at least, a year tends to start with winter and end with winter. there are days that get us thinking we can go without wearing a coat for the rest of the week. every december i wax poetic about how i didn’t kill myself that year. this year felt like it was 12 februarys long. 2013 bled into this year. the guy who had sex with an intoxicated and limp version of my body that october has a twitter account that has been taken over by a spambot and i don’t unfollow him because watching this small shred of his life taken out of his control seems almost like fair retribution. i was blonde for about 42 days this year, this fall. the second fall. i had more fun. i started four different jobs this year. some of them overlapped. there were gaps in between others. for a month instead of work i ran away to see part of the country in a triangular-shaped route. i ate from a lot of supermarket olive bars. i end the year with one job. one day on my way to work i saw a squirrel laying face down in the grass. it wasn’t moving. i pretended it was sleeping and kept walking. i looked back twice. start with winter and end with winter. start with death, end with death. an oscar-winning movie. a surprisingly good novel. i’ve been single for exactly two years. i’m celebrating by listening to Confetti by the Lemonheads and not crying. i haven’t moved yet mostly because i imagine it’s easier to feel like dying in a familiar town than it does in an unfamiliar one. i stopped caring about some things. just enough to be comfortable, but not too much that i lost my passion. i love caring. i love not caring. i’ll be starting the new year doing a little bit of both. 12/31/14
mental faculties I see the shadows of someone’s feet under the door while sitting on the toilet in a Starbucks bathroom that I’ll probably never pee in again. I keep thinking of every little place I visit on this trip in those terms. It’s pretty morbid. Though I’ve certainly had enough “Wow I’m glad I’m alive for this right now” moments to keep me from thinking about death for a while. A sad, strange part of me thinks of my mom when I hear flipflop footsteps steadily approaching. Katie is walking around the library in stocking feet. Everything is very silly. I remember being 8 and using my own disposable camera for the first time and crying when most of the photos didn’t develop, I didn’t use the flash. It happens again. I never give up taking pictures because I’m a sap. I keep thinking about being an adult and going to the drug store and “how do you get the film out?“ I keep thinking about that. I still get a nervous sharp pain in my chest when I see someone use a camera without its flash. “The pictures won’t come out,” I say. They don’t care that much. Spencer Madsen wrote something about still feeling bad about something you did when you were six and I want the fictional ghosts that I’m so afraid of to suck every bad memory out of my soul while I sleep on a stranger’s floor in the middle of American paradise. I am not scared of the mouse we saw in the kitchen. I am scared of guilt and romanticism and sour retrospection. I’ve never wanted so badly to be a wild oat. I notice a missed call when I pick up my phone to
I notice a missed call when I pick up my phone to “they are playing Bright Eyes in this Starbucks right now” I send it without allowing response to “why am I a better writer when I’m far from home?” The roads in Florida are white. They almost are in Lancaster, too. What do you regret most about your youth? is a question Buzzfeed asks me when I just want to know which Jimmy Eat World song fits my personality. I am in bed, I do everything in my bed and if I had done it differently I would only have slept in my bed. Bring a bag of candy with me and write down all the poetic things that happen. Five red M+Ms falling out at once and a Reese’s Cup I think will taste better on the second bite. My room is messy. If this were a living room, the couch would be my bed and the TV would be everything else. My room is messy and I feel guilty. A girl I used to love just changed her profile picture and now I can’t sleep. My mom asks if I’m feeling better and I say yes, there’s nothing to feel bad about out here. “There never is,” she says.
Resist the urge to text the person you had a dream about
we are all growing up and dying to tell each other about it
I am bigger than the internet selected tweets, 2015 I live in a house of poop and shit I can't stop eating candy and I feel so alive keepin it alive, keepin it weird
bleaching the negativity from my life also bleaching my entire bathroom but it also feels like im bleaching my life because the fumes are very strong
Fell asleep at 9 not realizing how many people would want to contact me at 9:01 I can't believe it took me until age 24 to cry at stuff yer face
all day i just couldnt wait to get home and eat cheezits and that's exactly what i'm doing Mom asked me what's new and I told her I'm pretty into cheezits now i have so much free time now that i've decided to stop showering i'm gunna change my socks today maybe later #letmelive
Dirt smells so nice on this day of days The land of handsome dogs and baby bjorns Do babies smell like Cheerios or do Cheerios smell like babies
Feeling very zen in this ct rest stop McDonald's Think I'm gunna start drinking stouts It snowed in providence and we got slushies anyway U wouldn't believe how much I've heard people talk abt yaoi in the past twelve hours I screamed so much today Casually cooks couscous and sips beer at the punk gig
I never would have thought that not having a mirror in my room would make getting dressed so much easier
#hype Keep my shit out of yr top ten lists 90s nostalgia is so stale and boring to me now! at this point what i truly want is to capture that "spring of 2013" feeling The great thing about dark chocolate is you can eat as much as you want and it's still good for you Got halfway thru an article abt helicopter parenting before I remembered that I'm actually NOT a middle aged mother of four
The key to good hair is not washing it Am I just gunna become the strange lady that people see walking around town flossing in public? I suppose time will tell
Devin says the way I wear my hair is very "girls high school basketball team" That inside-of-hot-topic smell I hope I never get this sugar ray song out of my head
I have anxiety about spending money even in my dreams
Didn't feel like spring til I walked down Easton while eating bbq chips Just witnessed two women jogging side by side while trying to hold a conversation simultaneously, like this is some kind of romantic comedy
Daily reminder to acknowledge & examine how loudly you use ur voice, and remind yrself of the places of privilege it comes from "Talk is cheap" new brunswick's new city slogan TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP TALK IS CHEAP
suspend white men from poetry
Get two cups of coffee in me and ask me about mtv's unplugged dashboard confessional special from 2003 Last night I got drunk and agreed to go to hot yoga Dear world: I'm sincerely sorry for everything I've done or said while drunk Sara showed me her blog where she documents all her injuries
"i pooped like ten times today is that bad" "yeah it's called diarrhea" this is the best conversation i've ever had 27 year old punk children I heard birds sing today I also bought business cards
Being awake is scary I eat sooo many bananas now I can't wait until it's too hot to sleep Am I boring? Not too worried about it dot tumblr dot com
one thing you'll learn when yr living on yr own is that eggs never!!!! expire!!!! what a world we live in.
How I ask people to hang out: do u want to work on our respective art projects separately in the same room? I'm doing all my favorite things in one day and I owe it all to driving three hours upstate A hex on anyone who's tried to hold me back Sara announced that she's officially a certified nurse's assistant and then put on Dancing Queen by Abba
I don't remember the last time I ate something that was green "God bless this mess" -me any time I cook for myself I am never really sure what cold soy milk is supposed to taste like. This could have gone bad for all I know. I can't stop drinking it Will this super food turn me into a super human Ate a lot of chicken and only cried once
In high school a friend of mine was dating a guy who tried to convince me that he and his friends invented "the game" And that's when I knew I was gay
This week alone I've seen at least two of my coworkers skip instead of walk Told my mom I felt like a Mom and she understood Equating running out of Oreos with death
Reading Cracked articles to remind myself that there are people out there with paid writing jobs who are probably more miserable than I i've had Complicated by Avril Lavigne stuck in my head for days and honestly u promised me i'm never gunna find u fake it
I care about my friends an enormous amount!!!!!!!! I'm very concerned and nervous abt Taylor swift's influence on today's youth Read my new book out soon called "Taylor Swift is Subversive (and other Lies)"
Eating calamari in a place where they pronounce it correctly I literally feel like royalty I'm too young for this much agita honestly this is what i get for buying $1 laundry detergent i've had so many conversations abt nutritional yeast in the past few days and to tell u the truth i don't want it to stop
In 2015 I resolve to start using the acronym M.O. to represent the term "make out." Keep up, ppl I can't wait to never m.o again Really really want to take a vacation from my current life and just be a stoned 19 year old for a week. That's what I want It would be so funny to get pulled over for picking yr nose I want to live in a lemon ginger flavored world
I love punk I'll poop in yr DIY venue Portrait of the Artist Getting her Shit Together Throw bread crumbs on just about anything and u can call it a dinner party
I am the stage mom Refusing to live in a world where ppl only believe that anything important cool or fun must be happening in NYC V nervous abt the boys not wearing their jackets in this v cold garage show I haven't second hand smoked this much since middle school "It's Lit" and other things teenagers say that I still don't really understand
I'm at Buffalo Wild Wings with my parents Stop appropriating my mom Find me running thru the streets yelling HAVE SOME DAMN RESPECT FOR JACKSON BROWNE Now any time I'm just plain angry about something I look at my imaginary watch This is me looking at my imaginary watch waiting for u to catch up *taps on wrist & brings wrist to ear* is this thing even working Congratulations on your brand I am so terrified of all people. U all win
Happy Presidents' Day, I drove all the way to the bank before I realized. Getting emotional at the jiffy lube eating stale valentines day cookies and trying to understand what Love is An alternate universe in which I care about things I'll show u something heart-shaped. It's my ass
Happy valentines day I'm eating expired eggs That thing where u accidentally swipe and see Cupertino's sunny weather report Black and white cookie for dinner Already regret having black and white cookie for dinner
The only thing I ever want to be anxious about is running out of 311 songs to listen to I miss Mattress "I'm starting to wonder if they made it all up" crit's review of the Iliad Routine panic attacks before bed as I reflect on my life 10+ years later and still no one has learned anything from Mean Girls except how to be more mean Everyone needs to shut up for a minute and think abt how Dammit by blink 182 applies to their life I only subtweet in my diary
"we're smarter than everyone bc we're from new jersey" a silly thing i said tonight that probably has some truth to it just tryna go to a buffet with my friends that's all i ever want to do *gets second food service job in order to feed self all day long* I can't wait for my hoops year to be over all this slam dunking is making me exhausted
Forcing my body to tolerate lactose for one night so I can have pjs white slice Pls find it in yr heart to take me seriously while I'm wearing footsie pajamas
I don't understand social media I stopped understanding I think when I made enemies on livejournal I've never been so happy doing work I'm not getting paid to do For the past half hour I've been thinking "dam someone smells strongly of garlic" and I just realized that my lunch opened in my bag If I've learned anything from television it's that I'm most likely surrounded by people who are secretly vampires Buffy summers literally saved my life
I can't listen to any song without hearing Amber by 311 I'd go back to school for a day if only for the ice breakers Trying to deconstruct a text from my mom that says "watching Love Actually and thinking of you"
Omg someone on my block is making baked ziti I want to do literally nothing right now but watch king of the hill The only things I've never finished were 7season television shows and I'm totally ok with that The Gilmore girls theme song plays softly in the distance
Just texted my mom "Down for a hot meal" I think I'll boil my first egg tonight! I'm really into hard boiled eggs now
I could replace tom delonge in blink 182
i have so much distrust and disdain for john lennon Recognition is cool and everything but punks don't need awards ceremonies like this is Hollywood, or kindergarten graduation or something Get out of my yard Put more of ur own bands stickers on the walls why don't u
Gay punks and gay normal people are on two totally different planets of corny yr queer fashion icon most likely got their styling ideas from someone whose heart they broke I can't imagine being the type of person who skis Payless fucking rules
i dont want to get my phone fixed i want to be disconnected forever i want a beeper instead checking out, bye!
Write that thing down before you fall asleep
My brother just told me that he has the bleakest association with Everybody Loves Raymond now because it’s what my parents put on tv around dinner time on Saturdays, which is the day everyone in the house usually has to fend for themselves for dinner, and my mom doesn’t get out of bed, and the lights never get turned on, and the only life that seems to emit within the house is the faint glow and canned laughter coming from Everybody Loves Raymond on the television at 7pm.
90s PSA in which a kid in school receives a note in the shape of a paper airplane that reads, “they/them/their” when the teacher asks who the paper airplane belongs to the student points to the sender and says “it’s theirs!” Pan to a group of school children, one in the center winking slyly. The paper plane recipient faces the camera and says “see how easy that was?” and rides away on a skateboard
Remember this isn’t forever
I never really watched Americas next top model that much but I remember seeing one episode in which Tyra banks tells a story about how she was seated on a plane next to a modeling agent and she didn’t have a portfolio together so the only picture of her she could show him was the one on her passport, which was of course immaculate, somehow highlighting her cheekbones while making the grease on her face emulate a glowing angel orb. It’s fucking Tyra banks, the balance of the universe knows that she is a good model, famous or not, so it tilts in the direction and her life goes with it. I think about that one Tyra banks anecdote a lot because I guess I think about accidental brilliance a lot. How sometimes things go well because u weren’t trying so hard or thinking about it too much. Relying on this logic did not cooperate with my college student life, which made things difficult. I don’t necessarily think, though, this directly has anything to do with why I’m working in a cafe on my alma maters campus two years after graduating. I took a great creative non fiction class my senior year and the instructor comes into my job everyday, where we make light conversation while I construct his daily chai. I finally started visiting the current non fiction section he teaches, and it’s fun to write along with them on prompts. I sat in on the class’s final readings, and the instructor asked me to read something. I didn’t have anything prepared so I read from my twitter and seemed to get the approval of these young co eds who appreciated my quips about my mom, cooking dinner, punk shows and pooping.most of the students pieces got lost in the static of my tired brain but two people really stuck out to me, so I caught up with them after class and chatted as we walked out of the building, and then down the street, where we all kind of wordlessly agreed “let’s hang out.” We went to the first girls house since it was on that side of town. She lives on a street I used to live on. She lives with her younger brother and a one eyed cat named Schmidt. We talked and talked and then talked and talked over to the bus to my side of town to visit the second girls house. We watched broad city because one of them hadn’t seen it. Also we smoked four joints. Not being in college rules, and Tyra banks is real as fuck 4/30/15
ES: last night i was looking at the red emma’s website and they articulated something that might also shed some light on this: “radical” comes from the latin word for “root” so to be “radical” means to attack the root of the problem instead of becoming too preoccupied with the symptoms and this is something i need to practice more often of course it doesn’t do well to dismiss personal stories, but oppression is not a competition and punx need to face the responsibility to take care of one another even if it means stepping back and representing someone else over yourself
TS: In an alternative investigation of the etymology, I think the nonradical has an obsession with the figurehead and look to those with strong individual power, and altho there are many things a person in such a position can do that another individual cannot, the power is superficial and is on its own feeble in terms of making powerful changes that outlast the person and their position. The head is supported by its roots and the plant which supports its roots will flourish, growing stronger and more beautiful as heads come and go, with life coursing throughout the body. The head which ignores its body and roots may look pretty for a time, but closer inspection will reveal how sick it truly is, and a quick death will come as no surprise
ive been thinking abt it and as the beginning of a new lease in nb approaches i’ve decided that i definitely want to continue booking shows here in town, shows that i really really care about happening, but thats it. the bar is set really high. it’s not an exclusivity thing, or a cliquey thing at all, in fact that’s what i’d like to avoid. i want to help out my friends who are talented and want to play shows. i want to be around people who care about the same things. i want to set up weird shit, good shit, that people don’t get to see anywhere else. that people don’t need to take the train to nyc to see. there’s a lot going on in the scene (what does this word even mean?) that i don’t exactly find “radical” and i refuse to support those parts if they’re not something i believe in. i see a lot of pop acts that gain big followings and play in basements, which is cool, who doesn’t like pop music. but i strongly oppose a movement (”movement”) whose only influence has been leading more and more privileged white kids to believe that they too can be famous if they pick up an instrument and sing a few words into the internet. what’s radical about that? what’s punk about that? i don’t think i want that in my basement, in my town. it’s not a genre thing. i’m not gunna be one of those people around here crying about the lack of punk bands anymore because there’s an obvious solution to that (start one!). things are shifting, but it’s okay. punk is good. pop is good. power pop? even better. hip hop, electronic shit, dancey shit, noisy shit, bring it on. ethics are important, motives are important. attitude is important. good all-ages shows shouldn’t be hard to come by. i want to keep it alive. but my x-ray vision is getting better by the day– if i can see right thru u, there’s no way yr coming near my town. 4/19/15
Letters from Bummer Camp Press