Cathy

PART I.

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:37:05 GMT

Currently, I am drunk and that will hopefully account for the following stupidity or lack of maturity in these next few paragraphs of explanation:

TEXAS. HOUSTON, TEXAS. ARIENNE'S TEXAS. It is a life so unlike that of Tucson-- so far beyond what I have ever conceived possible, except through television shows, and even only sometimes then. This city-- or rather, this very particular zip code, is an area lined with trees and narrow streets with surrounding beautification. The houses are more like palaces. Scoping out the Christmas lights on these houses is more like traveling into another era, where flames instead of bulbs fill the porch lights, and great stone walls and french windows intimidate you in their grandeur. GRASS and shrubbery and tall, tall trees that say farewell to their little leaves are abundant in every street. There are no bicyclists or bicycle lanes here, nor are there any buses or forms of public transportation save for limousines. Absolutely no hipsters, or anyone of the downtown Tucson variety. That has perhaps been the most saddening part.

The first morning I woke up here, I brushed my hair and found a ladybug in my hairbrush. I plucked it out, assuming it to be a red fuzz from the maroon bath towels. The ladybug dropped into the sink and could not lift itself from the small collection of water it laid. I wondered if it was symbolic of my trip. Actually, I wondered why the fuck a ladybug was in my hairbrush.

Sometimes I feel most of the people here are indifferent towards me. Especially last night, at a house gathering, where most of the upperclass types were unable to really connect with me. I don't blame them-- I merely sat in a corner to myself, stoned and perplexed at how utterly different my life is among theirs. Everyone was clean and dressed to a certain degree of perfection. I only marveled at how Arienne and Josephine seemed so much more laid back and free spirited in comparison to the more exclusively preppy crowd. But they are all friends, which was an interesting observation to make. I suppose growing up with the same people for 14 years in the same private school uniform makes close bonds among contrasting personalities inevitable. Arienne threw down some 90 dollars. I was flabbergasted, and then again-- it seemed a perfectly normal gesture.

While there, I had some rather fascinating conversations with a few people. One boy got to talking to me on how he was a music major, but changed it for "obvious" reasons. I asked why, and he looked at me with the utmost bewilderment, as if it were silly I had even questioned his reason for changing it, "I can't very well make a lot of money out of music, can I?" I tried to explain that I didn't understand what he was getting at if it was his "passion" but all he could do was reason out of it. It was very... cliche, in a way... yet, entirely frightening. It became a chore to simply mention my English major, or affinity towards Theatre. I would almost rather say I was undecided instead of analyze the logistics behind my liberal arts fancies to the future leaders of our highest positions. Yes, it was just that frightening to imagine. I mostly felt small and inconsequential, simply out of setting. Being welcomed into a spacious corridor with a nebula projector swirling upon the ceiling, a flat screen TV in the background and Appleton's surprisingly found in the mini-fridge, is all a daunting change to the humdrum of the Tucson social scene. Trust me, walking into a house where a neighborhood is prone to boasting large white columns is enough to make one Tucson girl uneasy. I mentioned the term "hipster" to certain people and they reacted mostly with disdain. I don't expect these future Babbitts to relate.

There are no ranges of mountains to entrap you. When driving away from the city and into country land, with the sun setting to your right, there is a sense of liberty which graces you. The hazy wheat colored sky appears deep and stretches wide in your panorama of sight, creating a wonderful sensation of latitude. The sky looked so immense that the clouds seemed to be a mere blanket in the midst of such cerulean cover.

Tonight I ventured to a restaurant that turned into a club/bar area at night... I'm not exactly sure how it works, just that we pulled into valet and entered a building with hoards of well-dressed, mostly underage drinkers and smokers and dancers. It appeared to be a paradise of cabanas for the not-yet-legal, where one could order shots and pitchers of margaritas without question. And so it was! It was a good time, but unfortunately we had to leave earlier than I hoped for Arienne's sake. I actually don't know at the moment if she is passed out on her bed or drove somewhere else, but I'm content in here and mostly ready to pass out myself.

I will have more in-depth discoveries and spectacular story-telling to come, I'm sure of it! What a fascinating life miss Arienne Willbern leads... if only all restaurants in Tucson allowed one to drink wine without identification, or our hair salons provided egg nogg and Jim Beam... still, I love the eccentricities of Tucson... Distance truly does make the heart grow fonder.
I will always be just a girl from the desert, a deserted girl.

Goodnight,
Cathy

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:30:48 GMT

There's this little riddle about how friendship lasts and lovers end and I can't figure it out.

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:29:20 GMT

Gliding the parking lot of a store, I remember how small and light I was swinging between you and mom, excited when my feet swayed off the pavement as if I caught the moment in slow motion. We witnessed a girl and her father standing near a white car. She was yelling at him. She had that biting tone. I felt pained suddenly for her father. You noticed them. Without looking at me, you said, "That'll be you someday." Offended, I resolved, "No, I will never be like that to you." You said that is what happens when children grow up.

Driving me back to mom one night, I saw a line of orange cones on the street. I understood what their function was from my own observations, but I was so inclined to hear it explained in thorough and complete description by you. "What are those for?" I saw you as a book of infinite guidance. Your interpretations gave print to my world of drafts. You said, "They're there for you to run into." I knew this was false. I challenged you. I demanded that you run into the cones. I then became conscious of the shortness of your answer, the subtle cynicism with which you delivered it. I yelled at you.

If this is what happens when children grow up, what happens to you? In my nightmares, you and mom no longer walk at any constant pace. I am dragging in between your uneven strides. Now there is no between. I am deeply shameful for secretly hoping you would arrive with a thanksgiving meal wrapped up all for me. One year you forgot cranberry sauce, so you rushed to the store and came back with a bag of frozen cranberries for me.

...........

They were the little things, and today was just another day, and he was a little too late, and he was never there, and now he knows how it aches to love when it was not given consent.

Writers aren't exactly people... they're a whole lot of people trying to be one person.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:28:14 GMT

Remember when we were oh so inexperienced, intrigued with the revolting pleasure of what haunts us now?
Those were the good, sunny days.

In other news, my attempts to hit on a 70-year-old professor were dismissed and resulted in jocular sassiness and coy reactions. His large house and hollow photos and shy cat left me sad. But I survive, still. This.

Love, love, love,
Catherine

PS: Soon; the days come to it, soon.

Feeling better.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:15:11 GMT

Professors! How you intrigue me so!

When you add an exclamation point to the end of your own statement, do you ever feel immodest? I do.
I've become insecure with the usage of exclamation points. God.

I embarrassed myself in front of a potential professor today. I was in a trance. I tricked myself with some sensation of boldness and attempted to approach him and introduce myself. Only after a matter of minutes of gawking at him did I realize he was in the midst of an outdoor critique session for his class, and all of the unfamiliar pockets of students lounging about the Cove were awaiting their turn. I proceeded to awkwardly dismiss myself.

Was it confidence I once had, or conceit, or validation? Pft.

This is a tangled thing to follow

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:05:29 GMT

My mother is not dead. Am I a bad daughter for pretending she was dead during nearly three weeks of silence? Am I sick? I can't say that I would have attempted contact after an even longer period of unresponsiveness. Perhaps this is an indication of how emotionally detached I was to either parent even while living with them. Am I sad because of it? I can't say that I am.

I can't say that I fully understand the authenticity of my feelings at all, anymore. The desires stirring in my head have only fermented into a kind of chemical madness. I am madly in love, I am madly in hate, I am madly mad. I thought I was of two parts, only to discover a great number of well-defined fragments exist, each incapable of compromising with the other. I was enamored by the concept of connecting to many things at once, and now I have posed myself into a scattered mess of dots void of links. I need a line. I need continuity.
You drew it so faintly.

"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." Oh, Fitz. Well, well, well, I couldn't even tell you how obscenely enormous it is to me from this bed, the window, the whispers. Stroke me with words, beat me with reality.

I can't say that I haven't been filled with precious dreams only to have them abandoned and beaten until they are no more distinguishable as a diamond is to a corpse. Don't mind my own defense mechanisms. What a large world I see! How easy it will be for each of them to forget me.

Four years ago, soon. That pale, rude awakening. Often a thing will be said and it makes me wonder how we would have gotten along quite well by now.

I can't say it.

3

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:23:42 GMT

2
1

0.

We're paralyzed, we apologize. Our hell is a good life.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:47:47 GMT

It's like how she sniveled about the basis of which their relation was prevailed upon trivial challenges.
Oh, how he said in the most unperturbed of ways it makes us, us.
And in the end we'll both win? She quavered then, for little shards of hope were all that remained in her spirit-- her big, careless spirit that was so inclined to grasp, with decadent expectation, onto any one moment of promise.
But she saw, as she must always be keen to see, the last of his words puffed out in a brilliant cloud, only to dissipate... one day... dissipate, dissipate.

Goodnight.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:15:08 GMT

At work, there's a girl who has earned herself an unflattering reputation. She is almost always at the center of a social scandal, the repercussions of which are whispered throughout all 3 stores. Despite the couple of years she has accumulated such history, this girl is still around, still placing herself into gossip-worthy situations.

Her greatest scandal has evolved over a year long relationship with a fellow employee. He and She began dating. To most of us, He made for a perplexing choice of interest. By the end of the relationship, our curiosity was solidified by his decision to leave the girl for yet another fellow employee. Another male fellow employee. He left her for him.

Then came chaos and the rapid degradation of this girl. This overzealous Christian girl, might I add.
Months have passed since then.

He came into the store tonight, catching both of us off guard. The two of them attempted cordiality, but they mostly bickered. I felt myself watching a show.
When he left, I remarked on their conversation. She explained, "That was us trying to be friends."
I said how I know. I think that's why she enjoys confiding in me so effortlessly, while the rest of the crew must pick up bits of information to string together. I'm given a full on confession because, I think, she enjoys the similes I tie to her feelings.
You think I'm crazy at home-- You don't hear the absurdities work provokes out of me.
I didn't have a simile for her tonight when she said, "It's hard to talk with him when I'm still in love with him. And I know he is still in love with me."

At that point I resolved she was a nutcase to make that claim with such jarring confidence. I forced myself to keep from spewing, "How is this boy who is sticking his dick into another boy's asshole every other night still in love with you?"

And then, suddenly, it dawned on me how jealous I was. Of her. I couldn't understand it, but I'm certain I do now.
Can you believe with such certainty that any given person loves you?
I doubt even the love of my parents, while this girl believes in the unspoken love of a boy who abandoned her for a boy.

Grant me some of that certainty.

Nurse's flowers will not last.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:48:03 GMT

Not drinking Sunday through Thursday. Attempting to sleep before 2am. Attempting to do homework. I don't have a car.

Call me boring or cause me guilt. Attempting to reprogram my soul. Sometimes this means isolation. I've a considerable amount to brood on.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:01:47 GMT

Fuck this. I'm tired of writing only to get nothing but negativity from it.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:35:00 GMT

Dear Lonely, Cruel World,

I'm sitting at the dining table whose transparent black glass happens to mock my very perception of life at this moment. My three roommates surround me, each of us painted in an awkward mixture of sweats, hoodies, tights, and beer. Arienne is softly singing to Taylor Swift. I am reminded of last fall, when I grew miserable with each passing day, finding it an enormous feat to unravel myself from the covers of a too small dorm bed, my ear plugs uncomfortably stowed under my body after a tossing-turning kind of night. I remember driving to the Glory Hole and leaving in depression from the cold shoulders, the air of nothing having happened when it did, feeling pathetic, feeling alone there and then again in my dorm bed and everywhere I was dropped off, feeling trapped on a campus that I couldn't connect with and having no means of a vehicle to escape, pouring my soul into acting classes and then hurting all over from rejection (yeah yeah yeah I'm not over it, I'm never over anything and that is the curse of my head).

And then everything else happened and I felt validated and good and I really believed in you and I healed my own heart. I loved, loved, loved.
I HATE myself. So I just act like this and I sometimes get hurt when people criticize me, but what does it matter? And no one should fucking impart judgement on me when they can't even understand themselves, when they mostly hate themselves too. So fuck off and just love me because I'm loving you. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE COLLECTIVE YOU AND THE SINGULAR YOU AND IT DRIVES EVERYONE A LITTLE MAD, DOESN'T IT? Because I don't know who you are.

Bre is singing that she would swim the ocean for me, but she would probably die.

You wouldn't talk to me if I was considered ugly. Isn't that such a heinous truth? I often wonder how differently people would treat others if they weren't so goddamn beautiful, and it makes me sick. This is why I really abhor certain people for no apparent reason. My friends are really pretty. Why don't I have ugly best friends? I hate myself.

Now picture this: Arienne, completely bald.

I will make an epic trek to South Korea and die in the place my mother was born.

I called her on the phone and she touched herself?
Oh shit, not my mom. Those are song lyrics they were singing. Fuck. Gross. Shit.

Hahahahahahaha,
Catherine KILL.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:58:54 GMT

LOW BLOW ARIENNE. WHY DON'T I DROP OUT.

Modern Love XXIX

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:16:37 GMT

Am I failing? For no longer can I cast
A glory round about this head of gold
Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;
Not like the consecration of the Past!
Is my soul beggared? Something more than earth
I cry for still: I cannot be at peace
In having Love upon a' mortal lease.
I cannot take the woman at her worth!
Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothed
Our human nakedness, and could endow
With spiritual splendour a white brow
That else had grinned at me the fact I loathed?
A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave
Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea.
But, as you will! we'll sit contentedly,
And eat our pot of honey on the grave.

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:47:27 GMT

Parents are moving out by the 15th. It is official!
I don't know where my dad is going, I don't know where my mom is going.
I don't ask questions, and I don't really want to know details.
Holidays will have diminished in their existence and extravagance completely.. I will spend Thanksgiving at the Blumpkin Patch. I will wake up Christmas morning with a couple of cats. To be honest, I'd rather be in this suspension of family life than be thrown into the awkwardness.

I received a phone call today with an offer of furniture. Bench, table, dresser, desks, portraits, accents, oh my!

I feel comfortable with this, but more alone than ever.

Time will tell nothing but I told you so

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:23:44 GMT

I had a most ideal and near perfect portrait of life when mine had first begun.
My dapper military man dad. My homemaker mother. A quaint house on Base, grass in the yard. Sunday services in frilly dresses. Christmas mornings. Marriage. Family friends. A PET. Yes, it really was exactly like that. It was always painted in daylight. That's why I laugh, that's why I've turned into this. Look at how it has changed. Sin crept in and rode my tricycle away, took my pet back to the pound. Why, it's all just a trick. A dirty, dirty trick.

I forget, morning, noon and night, the hundred unexposed layers, foreign code, dissonance. Sometimes I can translate it, the discord resounds familiar. Mostly, I cripple under failed attempts at understanding.

I'm a piece of shit. I'll admit it as cold, hard fact.

who's afraid of the big bad wolf

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:48:12 GMT

Why do I constantly feel as if I'm betraying someone? I can't even reason who that someone is.

I had the most awful dream this morning. It was an epic dream. Epic, because each "segment" played with ample overstatement and established considerably high stakes. It must have incorporated every troublesome situation I have adamantly avoided or feared in my little life. Being the lunatic that I am, I convinced myself to continue sleeping so that I could remedy the problems my dream world invented. Well, I couldn't solve a thing. Actually, I only developed more imaginary predicaments. They became trivial. At one point I couldn't apply makeup, and somehow that was equally as alarming as destroying friendships.

Now I'm awake and I feel ridden with guilt. Then, I must go to work and serve people.
I think I should have had a sibling so I could always feel cohesiveness.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:06:39 GMT

Fuck this shit.

kept company with imaginary characters

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:05:19 GMT

Anyway, she'd spend hours and hours just forcing herself to look through this book. Why, it was the same way she'd force herself to look at the poster of crippled children stuck up in the window at Dixieland Drugs. You know, that one where they want you to give a dime. Meg would stand there, and stare at their eyes and look at the braces on their little crippled-up legs-- then she'd purposely go and spend her dime on a double-scoop ice cream cone and eat it all down. She'd say to me, "See, I can stand it. I can stand it. Just look how I'm gonna be able to stand it."

For months I dreamed about playing Meg. Sad, magic eyes. The exhilaration of taking a drag off of death.
Except, I don't know how to stand it.

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:32:00 GMT

My great character flaw is that I cannot disregard End. You said yours was the inability to give up on multiple girls.
Remember, before we plunged into any of this, we identified these things as if they were our most prominent flaws had we been characters to analyze?

Do you remember, again before we tied ourselves to one another, that you said certain things and then you never said them again after that? And then I tried to say them sometimes but they never entered your heart properly because I settled a weight on them, like some heavy fear of consequence.

Do you know that I have this real image of us catalogued in my mind: Sitting on the bench by the fountain with the sun that casted the shadows of us before our feet, and the two birds (can you believe it, only two birds) hopping there. And I never mentioned it to you in that moment because you would have told me to lay off all the poetry reading and I would have felt so small. Well I think about it a lot as I think about how much more uninhibited we were before when we could say things without consequence and how I thought I saw you as clear as sunlight then, you and your shadow and your bird next to me and my shadow and my bird and it all meant something deep to me and I thought, "I'm in love with this guy."

And right now? If I keep my eyes open too long I see static and insignificance. I wish I could know how to endow meaning in objects and tasks but I'm still alive and doing shit and I don't know what for, what for, what for, what for. I feel trapped in my own body, and the worst part is that I'm not good enough with words to escape my biology. I don't feel any good. Don't be fooled if I look like a functioning, smiling, talking girl.

If it makes it easier for you to believe I'm just like the rest of them, okay.

We never did swim together

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:31:38 GMT

Does anyone from high school remember my slight obsession with allegories? Or the Allegory of the Cave? Well, goddamnit, Professor Scruggs relates the concept to our readings every chance he gets. Swoooooon. He is so in love with literature. I think he is the most beautiful professor I've had yet (and not in the "ew Cathy has a stupid complex towards old professors" kind of perverted sense). I've never known someone to be so illuminating!

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:46:04 GMT

In an attempt to escape from the Jesus recruiters around campus (they always find me), I told one of them in the kindest way possible, "I'm an atheist" (not that I seriously know what I am, am? am). Just as I began to resume my hurried walk (I also mentioned something about being late to someplace) she managed to keep me there for a good ten minutes. How?

Her response to my being atheist: "So, when you die do you think you'll become... like, dirt?"

I was unable to formulate a coherant sentence from the awful way she said the word "dirt," so I allowed her-- or rather, I stood there because I didn't know what else to do and she took advantage of this-- to indulge me on her miraculous realization of the man who died for our sins, which was a revelation sparked, somehow, by her abortion last year, and-- oh! She was a biology major back in the days that she lacked faith, so I should really believe her now, right?

I'm just very angry at people and their tone.

and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, Loss, Loss

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:27:25 GMT

I believe I have become insane. Mostly I scream in the house or cry (just a little) because I can't read a passage in my book because I misplaced it and I would go and buy it but it is 3 in the morning, therefore I shall sit upon the green couch and grow anxious until sleep takes me or a cat claws at my black socks. Also, I have dreams of people and wake up feeling deeply attached to these individuals who will never open up to me, so what the hell, what disappointment, and why should I care-- deeply-- for you, regardless.

I am somehow conflicted by the striking polarity of my bosses. Kim, the Coldstone boss; the relatable mom who has done every outrageous act you've confessed and more. Pam, the Business Office manager; the wise Jewish mother you censor yourself for in fear of judgement. Somehow I love them both equally-- if one can measure love-- yet I am two different Cathys in their presence. I imagine the two of them together and see how acutely they would fail to connect, to simply be in accord. And this, this realization troubles me about myself.

I dream about small, simple moments. I experience no comfort around many people at once, not anymore. I am much more attracted to aloneness or a few quiet souls.

I feel awkward writing all of this with another body in the room, even if said body belongs to Arienne (and I say body because I do believe Arienne is not all there, with the pillow on her stone face). Now, I'm going to leave this place and resume being Cathy.

Sincerely,
Catherine

A certain slant of light.

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:37:35 GMT

The things I miss are mostly myself when I was naive and lame but never realized it at the time no matter how blatantly I implemented superfluous vocabulary words into every mundane sentence I made. And, it seems as if those older kids I used to admire who no longer talk to me or simply fail to smile at me now found me more personable years ago. Was it for my innocent humor? Was my childish curiosity mistaken for charm? I no longer have any long-running bouts of passion, save for a few fluttery instances of excitement that are quickly extinguished by self-consciousness and lack of worth. I used to sincerely believe I would get somewhere in some glorious way, I used to dream of the inconceivable as if it would eventually appear before me in some romantic, epic, beautiful manner.

I NEED TO STOP THIS RIDICULOUS NEGATIVITY AND DO SOMETHING BEFORE I GO OFF THE DEEP END COMPLETELY.

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:41:01 GMT

Words, words, words, language is just a human attempt to, words, fuck fuck fuck.

Dear livejournal,
I'd like to rewrite all of it.