this imploding heart

Now I know, I know that it's true.

I hate to have it happen like this, but I really just don't see another way. I'd like to say, first, that you are wonderful. Really just mind blowing and amazing and I couldn't stop singing your praises for months. I was really happy. I want that to be perfectly clear.

But lately you havent been around that much and when you do play, you seem kind of sad. So, the weakerthans, you've been a great bandfriend and I'll never forget you, but I've met someone else. I'm sorry. Lets get a beer together soon though, okay?

Love,
Sonya

Dear Ted Leo and The Pharmacists,

Your show was *amazing* last night. I've never seen anybody get the all-agers to dance that much. You're rock-solid musically, and all of your members have great posture. Rock Solidness is sexy, but great posture is sexier. Your fiddle player was sweet and wild and delightful. The vocals were just suprising enough just often enough to make me a little giddy and your songs have that fantastic build that makes me throw a fist in the air when the drum kicks in. So what I'm really trying to say is, will you be my bandfriend?

Let me know,

sonya

Kissing Girls in English at the Back of the Stairs

Remember back in the day when making out consisted of kissing on the couch for a couple of hours after cartoons were over and the news had started. Maybe cop a feel over the clothes, but you didn't really know what to do beyond that? Or you did...know....but no way was that going to happen and this is pretty okay, right? Hands under shirts was a big deal. Laying down was a big deal. Entries in pink diaries everywhere getting 13 year old girls with pony tails grounded for 2 weeks with no TV "and you're not to speak to that boy any more, no 'but's".

So when did it become okay as adults to attempt to round second base on the first game of the season? It's a given that everyone wants to get some now and again, but does it always have to be RIGHT NOW? I don't know what kind of books you like and you're going for a zipper? Doesn't that seem a little weird?

So here's the short version of my question. I don't want to sleep with everyone I kiss. Do you? If so, do you want to sleep with them immediately?

Victoria

The Empress

Parliment Building


Alisha in the garden


Miniature Carnival Dark



Miniature Carnival Light

briefly and probably deleted later

(Hey, do you want to go Tad Leo and the Pharmacists at G-land with me tomorrow night? I have to work at the mall first and everthing, but it should be fun. )

Walking up to the slope

Walking up to the slope entrance of the Grocer. The guilt trip slope, I like to call it, because of the spanger's that consistently sit there with the 'you had money to buy food. give me money' look on their face. That girl with the kitten makes me want to throat punch. (I'm not going to get throat-punch angry anymore, did I tell you about that? Later.)

Anyway. I'm carrying my books and trying to not be angry at incessant talking on subjects of no interest guy when a guy sitting on the ground says. "Spare some change?"

I reply "I don't have any change." Which is true because I'd already given it all away. He comes back with "On the way out, then." Not a question, but a statement.

and I can't do anything but stare at him. With my mouth slightly open and a sort of horrified look on my face. For a really long time.

and what I want to say is: "Hi. I've been working since I was 14 years old. I'm in school and am currently paying for it directly out of pocket. No financial aid, no parental aid, and so far, no debt. I had to borrow a hundred and twenty bucks a few months ago to get my moped out of tow but I paid it back within 2 weeks. You seem to be able to speak english and ask people for money at the same time, so maybe you should go work at a telemarketing company or something. I bet you'd be good at it. In the meantime, don't you kind of consider what you just did harrassment? I'm a little scared to come out of the store now, but I also want to knock your teeth out with my textbook and jam them in your eyeballs. Also, fuck you fuck you fuck you die."

but I didn't say any of those things. I turned around very slowly, entered the store, and purchased fruit, milk, eggs, and picante sauce.

When I walked up the inside steps before The Slope, a tumbleweed rolled by. The guy mopping up the organic grapefruit juice whistled a threatening'Ooo Wee Ooo We Ooo' and the baggers from checkout stand 8 sang 'Wah Wah Wah'. I stood at the top step and the sliding door slid out of the way. It's high noon. There he sits, smoking a cigarette and staring right at me. I adjusted my grip on my bags.

He took his cigarette from his mouth and prepared to speak. I narrowed my eyes. We both held position and stared at each other for a long moment. We sized each other up, and he put his sharp shooter back in it's holster.

"......Have a nice evening, ma'aim"

"You do the same, friend."

I still didn't have any change, anyway.

I float like the clouds on air do

I am so new haircut in Trixie and J's bathroom wearing Dave Matthew's old T-shirt /50 dollars spent at Value Villiage everything-tried-on and out of there in 20 minutes/ sold-that-show-out-cold/accidently on time to church on the scooter so the-clothes-don't-smell-like-bar-even/being catcalled while on the phone with my mom on my way to late brunch harrassment with molly and John/ today, it's not even funny.

It's cold and bright and I feel alright.

try to kiss her I bloody my nose

If I dress your pain up like a bengal tiger and build you a 3 ring circus, you've got to at least aim for the net.

I have only got this screwdriver.
I have only got this thermos.
and only this book of monster jokes, but if you've got an old t-shirt and frying pan I will make you eggs and fried spaghetti and let you cry as long as you want.

. There's a tribe that makes this noise into your chest and it's supposed to make your heart feel better. The vibrations are supposed to shake all the bad out. I am making up noises. The noise I am making into your chest isn't low and gutteral. The noise I am making is Get Up Stand Up Come On Come On Come On Lets Go Now. Because I have also been trapped at the bottom of this well and I know you smell her everywhere but the wind is bound to change. I know she is stuck at the back of your throat, so you've either got to start coughing or choke to death. I'll wrap you up in twine to help you hold yourself together. There's no shame in a little string. My shoulders are still hinges of copper brads and super glue, but they're getting less mechanical every day.

"It's funny. You think when you get your stitches out that you'll be all healed. You're not. There's still a wound there that people could poke at."

"They want to be sure the stitches don't become part of the skin, right?"

wildly apologetic.

Hi, I made about six million mix tapes half a year ago. Last night I woke up flushed with embarrasment about the sound quality. I'm going to redo them with the newly available CD burner or wonderful lovely new home stereo, but I can't remember where I sent them. So the deal is that if you want a mix tape that will, this time, hopefully not sound like shit, let me know.

Wheel Well Well

Holy Shit, hotpants. Read Sven's feb 18 and 15 posts. I think I just got one-upped on the GRANDO! story.

look out in to the dark spring sky

I seem to have lost some personal investment, because theres a certain portion of me who really wants to tell you all about the Ranier Maria/Mates of State/Red Tape/Lands Farther East show last night, but most of me wants to lay down a sloppy list and be done with it. I'm discovering that I'm not any good at talking about what actually happens. My skills reside entirely in the Seemed Like house on Felt Like avenue.

Other than this:

Why didn't somebody tell me how fan-freaking-tastic Lands Farther East is? I stood agape in the 3rd row for twenty minutes as their drummer continued to one-up himself every half second. I have a total talent crush on him now.

Also, everyone's glasses fell off at some point. Adorable.

the girl can't help it.

1: If I tried to force you to do The Robot this weekend, I'm sorry about that....but wasn't it great when that busser did it for, like, a half an hour after I asked him?

2: So whats up, you? We totally made out.

3: Apple! Ikea! Cookie! Burrito!

4: And then also sorry about falling asleep at the table and then sleeping in the car and then coming back in and sleeping at the table again. I just didn't have the stamina. I hope I wasn't being an ass. Do the Robot! Come on, it'll be great!

one hand on your cheek and one foot out the door

When we hold hands, I like to pull your arm up the sleeve of my sweater to the armpit so we look like those paper dolls all attached. Except that you're not wearing a dress and my hair won't stick up like that even when I try to make it. I have a 3 week old bite mark on my leg and there's a part of me that wakes up and thinks "I should throw that bite mark out before it goes bad." before the rest of the waking me can wake up to say "your legs are not the refrigerator."
Last night I dreamed that you were still taller than me.
Last night I dreamed that you still smelled like morning and cigarettes.
Last night I dreamed I was still chasing you on the playground in my purple overalls.
Last night I dreamed I was still putting things in your ear while you slept so that you would swish at them and eventually wake up and I'd pretend I wasn't doing anything but since-you're-up-anyway can we go to 7-11? 'Cause I really want a cherry slurpee and a hot dog.
Can you remember telling me I was pretty? Can you remember saying I was an amusing sort of stupid sometimes? Can you remember telling me to shut up and meaning it? Can you remember helping me when I actually needed it?

I bet you can. I bet you can if you try.

your figure less than greek

The valentines I made last night were probably my best ever. UFO's and Dinosaurs wearing bow ties and Monster trucks and snapping crabs. All declare simply "VALENTINE!". Erin got a tattoo of a goats head and a magnet with a scroll underneath it that reads "It's Mate". I think that's the best freaking valentine ever.

When I got home from the billiards hall I opened the yellow manilla envelope that had been rubber-banded to my doorknob and checked my messages. The envelope contained The Muppet Movie, the voicemail was my mom singing "My Funny Valentine" from beginning to end in her wide open, almost operatic, low alto voice. Thus proving, once again that my mom is really the best valentine ever.

I am drowning, there is no sight of land

How to care for an icepick lodged in your sternum:

1: Remove the icepick.

2: Make a telephone call. I know it's late and you've got all that reading to do, but pick up the damn phone. Is it under the laundry? I don't know. Wait, yes I do, it's in the bathtub. Okay. You know the number.

"Hello?"

"Hi. I'm sad. Make me feel better. "

"Poof! You feel better!"

"....actually, yeah.... I think I do."

repeat as necessary.

I will feel a glow just thinking of you

I'd like to reitterate the fact that I do not read the news. Nor do I watch the news. Sometimes I listen to the news, but not for more than a few minutes at a time and only in British accents. See loves, I'm wildly prone to panic when the situation is entirely out of my hands, and I get convulsive-eye-scratching-terrified, so sensationalist media scare tactics are almost totally unbearable for me.

Now rumor has it that we are going to be chemically bombed or some such dribble, and that I should be trying to chemical-proof my older-than-dirt-with-giant-gaps-in-the-walls apartment. In response, here is a list of things I would like to be doing when my lungs melt into a sticky goo in my chest cavity.

1: Making out in the bed of a pickup truck with somebody I should probably know a little better than this but he went to all that trouble to make those sandwiches so what the heck, right?

2: Shakin' dat ass.

3: Flinging dishes over the embankment behind my house because who needs dishes when your lungs are melted?

4: Walking rigidly with my arms stuck out in front of me, going "Raaaaaaarrghh! Raaaarrghhh!" and threatening to eat the brains of the living.

5: Making a monster-truck ralley diorama in the bottom of a really big shoebox with the fans made out of toothpicks that I glued little scraps of fabric on for their clothes and maybe a dinosaur in with the monster trucks becaus this is my diorama and I can have a dinosaur in it if I want to, dumbface.

You're all invited!

all lined up

I'm starting to think that human beings are born with a limited amount of small talk installed in their brains. It also seems apparent that I'm in my early twenties and I've used up my entire allotment. It's being replaced by Trivia questions. So in the future when you avoid eye contact in the elevator and mutter "Cold enough for you?" Please don't be suprised when I respond with "In Alaska, more people are trampled every year by this animal than by any other. What is the animal?" And then I will flashdance/pummell you until you say Moose.

I found an Ozzy Osbourne cassette tape on the bridge over I-5 last night. At first I was really excited and I wanted to run home and play it, but then I noticed that one of the springs was broken. The ribbon was fine, but the mechanisim bust. Ozzy is trapped inside a cassette shell on the overpass. I used to think about that all the time, actually. When I'd see tape ribbon pulled out and blowing in the wind by the rest stop outside ritzville or twin falls or ontario, I would think "All that music is attached to that flimsy little ribbon, and now it's useless."
The rest stop outside ritzville is the one that has the rattlesnake warnings, I think. Ritzville or Ellensburg, I can't remember.

in the darkest room with the brownest tile

In the next 5 minutes I'm going to try and tell you something. But I'm not trying to learn you good. Lets just keep that in mind.

Okay. I finally admit it. All those songs you thought were for you probably were. This does not change the fact that I hid all the soup you bought in the trunk of your car. Nor does it change the fact that I'm wearing an exact replica of the sweater you wouldn't go back to the restaurant to get, except the replica is more blue than red and more zippered than pullover and actually a hooded sweatshirt instead of a cardigan. That doesnt matter. That doesn't matter at all.

In the receding hairline that is the everynight sunset you told me that things were very likely to stay just as they were unless I called the doctor and did something about it. You know how I hate making phone calls to people who answer phone calls all day. You know all about that. We stared at it and I willed with all my might that the swelling would go down and the black and blue would turn back creamy. You looked over at me with my eyes shut tight and my lips pursed up and my hands in fists and said "I just don't think that's going to work this time."

I loved to kiss you rapid fire when you were reading textbooks because it was almost illegal for you to be annoyed by kissing at the time. I looked it up in the lawbooks when the library re-opened and it turns out that I was the lawbreaker after all. I've been arrested for kissing seven times in my life and once for professing my undying love for a bakery.

and time.

I must be hot when I'm stupid.

or maybe it's that I'm getting fantastic at cutting my own hair. That's sexy, right? Home haircuts? Okay.

So there's this kid in my class who likes to talk. To me. A lot. A whole lot. More than I can stand Lot. Once he found out that I own a scooter, there was no end to the subject matter. Gas mileage, CC's, helmet laws, comparison shopping, blah blah blah. From the moment I sit down until I say something like "I'm sorry, I really need to study." which is always the honest to goodness truth. I didn't pay 300 bucks to sit here and talk to you twice a week, sweetteeth.
He's nice enough, but he's kind of lacking the social graces that tell a person when to shut up. He's also deaf, which means that the lip reading/interpreting makes any conversation twice as long. It certainly doesn't help that I have a hard time interpreting regular mumblers. The conversation goes like this.

him: "Hey Sonya, How many thick trees does your scooter have?"

me: "What?"

him: "how many sneeze trees does your scooter have?"

me: "Sneeze Trees?"

him: "CC's"

me: "Oh. 40."

him: "What?"

me: "Four Zero. Forty."

and so on and so forth. All this while I am frantically trying to memorize the formula that converts percentages of numbers into numeric decimal parts. It makes me foam at the mouth.

So yesterday in the middle of a quiz, he passes me a note that reads "Give me your phone number/email address."

and I think about just not writing back, but he keeps staring at me and pointing at it when he catches my eye. So after a while I write back "Sorry. See you Wednesday.", because I thought just plain old "No way! You'll torment me endlessly! I didn't pay to be tormented!" would be rude.

he catches me in the hall and asks me why not, and we have to have a conversation about how I'm a private person who doesn't like to mix up the different portions of her life. He asks how I ever get my homework done then, if I don't do school stuff out of school. I almost hit him in the mouth.

Okay, all trauma averted. Everyone's happy. Hooray. Walking past the QFC side entrance where there's always a different guy with a different sign playing on the "You were able to buy food, give me money" guilt. So today's guy aims his sign to follow me as I walk past. I ignore the sign and smile at the guy. He asks if I have any change, I respond that I do not, he asks God to bless me, I return the favor and continue walking up the hill. A few seconds later he calls something out to me so I stop and turn around.

me: "What?"

guy: "Mrsosigboveegssis!"

me: "One more time?"

He rolls a few steps closer to me. There's a guy on the curb behind him waiting for a cab and watching me. Sign guy speaks again:
"you got real nice legs. You don't see them that much these days."

guy waiting for a cab's mouth drops open.

me: "Thank you. Goodnight."

in a time trap

(Hey, do you guys think I could go a whole day without smiling?)

Dear Canada,

While among your smiling inhabitants this weekend, I asked permission of a visage of The Queen printed on a coffee mug and she didn't seem to mind. The only time I saw someone litter in you it was an apple core, and the guy was still sitting right there in his cutlass, so I didn't pick it up. The moment I knew I loved you was in the miniature museum when the man who built the fully functional sawmill said he had worked in a real sawmill for 23 years before retiring and building the mini. I had a little trouble finding a good bar in you, but that hard-won martini was fantastic. Also, you are all full of dimpled boys in nice shoes and street musicians who can actually play and people who don't curse at you when you don't have any spare change. I hope you'll marry me, because within 45 minutes of returning to seattle, I was already almost in 2 fights in the street, and I accidently offended some old people, and then I accidently said fuck over the phone to my mom and it made her cry.

(lets all pretend that I'm 11 freaking years old so that I don't have to go back and edit this terrible entry, okay? I'm a little down and out today, but I'll do my best to improve as the week progresses.)

Someday we'll both wake up for good

As it turns out, I've been a killer bee for quite some time.

I woke up this morning as usual, lay in bed trying to figure out if clothes that fit my criteria of "matching" were clean, try to remember where I put my watch last night. Wonder if there are robbers under my bed....
realize that I'm a killer bee.

I rolled to the floor and failed to get my feet under me in time. Landed with the telephone and a dictionary under my ribs. My library book came shortly after me and nailed me on the shoulder. (I have a bad habit of sleeping with a bed full of books.) The December issue of the New Yorker that I can't throw away because I wrote those phone numbers in it made for a poor cushion to break my fall.

I started making plans in the shower. Pamphlets would have to be made. There would be over-dramatized news stories with that muppet headed newscaster making her serious face. Mothers in SUV's would make their children wait in the car at the gas station and scream when a hornet flew by on his way to the nest. I stretched my neck under the hot water and went over my calves with a razor.

It should be noted here that I was a bit suprised by my appearance. I had always assumed that killer bees looked like.....bees. But they don't. They look like mostly pleasant girls in their early twenties with bruised knees and capped teeth and sailors mouths.

Out of the shower and tearing apart the closet. Black full slip, yellow collared shirt with a black cardigan, black skirt with dandelions on it, yellow socks, black mary janes. Hair pulled up in pigtails on top of my head, black elastic bands.

I can understand how people would be confused. They've been pumped full of misinformation. Spending years having nightmares about insects that will take our lives by biting us. Assigning them some sort of malice. I don't think the black widdow knows she's poisionous. Turns out she's usually a grocery store checker. I don't think mosquito's are trying to make you miserable. They appear in the form of pizza delivery boys and poly sci majors. So if I've killed you, I'm sorry. I thought I was coallating business reports, or waiting in line at the bank, or catching your eye at a show, or letting you in the front door. When you find me, spread my wings delicately against the foam backing. Press a pin through my middle to hold me in place and write underneath me in your school marm calligraphy:

Apoidea Liquidatium
Captured near 49° N x 122° W.
The Apoidea Liquidatium takes her coffee with sugar and her gin with lime. 25 confirmed kills

you can't always be down or out

on a personal scale of 1-10, (1 being picking up the phone and setting it back down again. 10 being 3 weeks of insomnia, going for walks in the middle of the night and throwing up in the bushes because something reminded me of this little nervous tic he had), I'm holding at a steady 2. Comperable to, like, 9 mosquito bites and a headache. Or waiting for the bus in a sun dress in december.

of montreal can sleep on my floor any day.

I was just wonderwonwonwonder'n about you. wonder'n if you ever thinkthithinkthink about me

I don't wanna be the one to tell her that she don't

I recently remembered about all the squirt guns in my kitchen.

See, there was a point in time where I was convinced that they were going to be necessary to execute one plan or another, I can't remember which, and so I decided that they best be stored near running water. Just like storing my flashlights in the darkest places of my apartment. It's logic, people. Sheer genius logic.

So G shows up to take me to a party, and I answer the door wearing party clothes and an apron and holding 2 loaded squirt guns. This is not an ambush.

"Dude, come see what I was just doing. It's hilarious."

so we head into the kitchen and I proceed to use the different tones the water makes when it hits the sink to play the
'der ner-ner-ner-ner HEY! der-ner-ner-ner' song that Homer sings in his head during Selma's wedding. (It's a sporting event thing, right? Right?)

And G looks at me for a second. "Okay, is that out of your system?"

"yeah, pretty much."

"Ready to go now?"

"Yeah."

you're wicked, you look so wicked

(When I die, I don't think anyone will say "She spent a lot of time drawing spoons on her knees and barely catching the conversation.", but it wouldn't be innaccurate if they did.)

Reminders to self were as follows:

Left Wrist- OysterSun6. VLADRMSat3 ChurDinSun4 TPmthfkrSun9 BedSat10-12

Right Mid Thigh to Knee- Evans birthday is Saturday. Call Canada. Find your birth certificate. Go to that Art thing. Is your homework done? then do it, dummy.

Knees touching under the table feel like a pack of cigarettes in my pocket. Poisionous, sick making, comforting. Maybe I should get up-Maybe I should go to the bar-I think I should go to the bar. My coat was on the ledge behind the booth and I remember thinking that I knew better.

Smack on the arm. "Thank you for chicken."

"Did it work?"

"there were no flames."

"Those rules are applicable to most meats."

and before I know it I need to fight again. (Dammit all to shitfacebitchfuck if you aren't a great friend, Josh.) The table next to us all dressed in cheap tuxedo's and ill fitting evening gowns looked on as our hands with imaginary pins taped to fingertips and the words "Spoon is Something Missing" scrawled across palms swished and jabbed at ribs. It made me feel better, for certain, but I couldn't help but trace a spoon shape under my collarbone.

There was a boy I used to know several years ago who's chin fit perfectly in the hollow beneath my collarbone. We would fall asleep that way, and when his jaw twitched my bones filled with neon.

"I'm drunk."

"You're not drunk, you're very very tired."

"That is almost always true."

I lifted my coat off the windowsill and saw that the lights had burned a hole through the pocket. Blue sky pink buttoned coat with a burn mark like blue eyes red hair and 3 missing fingers. Tomorrow I will sleep on a mattress that only I've slept on. My bed has been baptised.