It's hard to remember that life is such a short time

Naima’s Womanifesto
with all mankind has done to my sisters
that i can still love
you
all
that is the power of being a woman



i hate...this internet....my neighbors...my sinuses.

i love...fiona appple...CUNT....life.

Some nights alone, he thinks of her;
and some nights alone, she thinks of him.
And some nights these thoughts occur at the exact same moment
and Mirabelle and Ray are connected again
but neither one would ever know it.


And he thought, how could he miss a woman that he kept at a distance so that when she left he would never have to miss her?





{I'm sure those are misquoted...but to be honest, i don't really care. They are just as beautiful in my mind. It's the feeling that lingers.}

what's left is...



I need you.

I have been thinking about the way I percieve the word want.

I heard it in a song the other day and it made me feel awkward. Almost uncomfortable. In context, it meant to want someone sexually or in a romantic way. And when I heard it I felt 15 again. Like I felt when Lilly would say it or I could see it in her. Not so much for me, but for anyone. Anything. Hearing it then felt intense and foreign. It felt unwelcome or wrong. As if I didn't think that was appropriate to hear or see from someone else. That scares me.


I can't remember the last time I wanted something and could state it. I can't remember saying I want anything. Well, simple things like food or clothes or entertainment, but nothing in depth or whole. Nothing that would satisfy anything more than a physical or slightly mental hunger. Nothing that would fill my being. If that's even possible.


I can feel myself wanting sometimes. I understand that there is a desire. The problem is naming what would satisfy it. I get so confused I give in to filling it with things I have used before: food, clothing, movies, frisbees. This tends to feel like sacrificing several lambs instead of a person. Filling a greater want with a few smaller fulfillments instead of giving myself the greater satisfaction. But that is only because I don't know what that satistaction I'm craving is.




To be honest, this isn't all my original thought. I wish I could claim this as mine, but infact it is derived from a book I read a year or more ago. Appetites by caroline knapp. READ IT. If any of this sounds remotely true. Read it. Twice. And then a year or more later read it again. I want to. When I read it before it hurt with how true it was.


I'm not sure where this leaves me...but I wanted to put it down. So someone else would know too. Tell me what you think. Please.

sometimes I remember how fucked up I am. How hard some normal things are for me.


sometimes I think I can fix this stuff on my own. That I would be okay if only I...

the problem is, the more I recognize the problems the more I ignore them. Or even worse, see what I'm doing as I'm doing it.




There should be so much more than this.

I have my own apartment now.

i live by myself...well, i will soon.

I'm moving in today...maybe.




this is weird.

Stuff's happening.



big changes.



big problems.



big stresses.



Big fun?






word.


p.s. I turn 21 in 5 days. Shouldn't I be excited or something? Fuck.

It seems that I've formed a habit of wanting to move out everytime I am about to start my period.
It's usually fueled by needing to be alone, to be self sufficient, but also to be away from
everyone I know. I seem to get so tense and annoyed with my friends. I don't want to be like that.
I want to be able to care about them fully and love them fully and not feel like a shitface. I
don't want to feel like this, jealous or angry or irritated. I know it's not them that's fueling it,
I know it's my hormones. I know it's a need for self improvement. I know I can't move out, I know I probably don't really want to. I just feel this pressure to take care of everyone, and to me that
ensures an abandonment of self, not because I am being pressured to take care of anyone or even that
I feel like I'm ignoring myself, I am just that kind of person. I just find it a lot easier to make everyone else happy. And lately I've been comparing how often other people make me happy vs. how
often I try to do anything possible to make them happy. There are instances, good instances where I
was genuinely happy, but there are very very few instances when I have choosen to make myself happy.
I think this needs to change. I think I need to do more things for myself. I think I need to find
more things that I can do that make me happy. This really has nothing to do with anyone but me. I
think it's starting to sink in.

"Maybe she could tolerate who I was if there were less of me."
-talking about her mother.

"We have to be funny. Fat girls give the best head. Don't we, Eve? We work harder to keep our men. Fat girls always swallow." Bernice, an african american teenage camper.


"My stomach is America."
-Eve

"What I can't believe is that someone like me, a radical femenist for nearly thirty years, could spend this much time thinking about my stomach. It has become my tormentor, my distractor; it's my most serious commited relationship." -Eve



"Maybe I identify with these women becuase I have bought into the idea that if my stomach were flat, then I would be good and I would be safe. I would be protected. I would be accepted, admired, important, loved. Maybe because for most of my life I have felt wrong, dirty, guilty, and bad, and my stomach is the carrier, the pouch for all that self hatred. Maybe because my stomach has become the repository for my sorrow, my childhood scars, my unfullfilled ambition, my unexpressed rage." -Eve


"Tell the image makers and magazine sellers and the plastic surgeons that you are not afraid. That what you fear the most is the death of imagination and originality and metaphor and passion. Then be bold and LOVE YOUR BODY. STOP FIXING IT. It was never broken." -Eve







Just some stuff I liked and wanted to keep.

look around. enjoy right now.








nothing you will ever experience will be like this.




you will never have this again.




"Because thngs change and friends leave and life doesn't stop for anyone."
As true as it was in the middle of my teen angst.



let it go.

I need more freinds that don't know anyone I do.



I think that's a weird thing to want. I think I'm weird.







I quit my job last week and then promptly got a new one this week. I am now a part time nanny. Three days a week I am watching the craziest, cutest little girl ever. When it gets warm enough she and I are going to have some kickass fun...Really I only have two words for you... SPLASH PAD. To be honest that is probably the biggest goal I have right now...you think that says something about me?



I just finished close to 13 pieces to take to blue 7 today. I highly suggest you go shop there. And buy my stuff.



Pictures will be coming soon.











I think I'm doing well right now. Over all I'm mostly happy. And the things I'm not satisfied with are just choices I am now changing and making better for myself. I like where I am right now.








NOTE TO SELF:


[ ]Save money.
[x]be young.
[x]have fun.
[x]smile.

I have these memories of being young, in middle school, 12 and 13...anyway, I have these memories of being little and laying in my bed at night and thinking. I'm sure it was the normal preteen bullshit that ran through my mind: boys and friends and school. But in these memories I'm sad. I remember trying to be as quiet as possible and crying in little slight gasps and whimpers. I remember crying much harder too and letting these gasps become big and the whimpers become almost moans. In these memories my bedroom door is always open and my dad is always in the living room just a few feet away. He's watching the t.v. on mute, and I am almost sure he woud have been able to hear my sobbing. Thinking about this makes me very sad because I've realized this is when my shame of being sad or upset began. When I was crying so loudly those nights in middle school and high school, not once did my father come in and comfort me. He never asked me if I was alright the next morning. He never came in to hold me. It now makes me feel as though he chose not to care about me. I'm not sure how true that is; if he heard he probably didn't know how to respond. All I know is that it made me relly sad to think about that tonight. I felt like I was 12 again, and no one wanted to help me.


It was hard tonight. I apologize for being so rediculous on my journal...i just needed to put that memory somewhere else.

And I found some really sad ones. It made me think of how ironic it is that someone can be so beautiful and so complex and appear so happy while hiding all of these terrifying things inside of his/her mind. I think it's too intense sometimes to explain how things feel. Like talking about it or mentioning it in anyway would be construed as a means for attention or a pathetic act. When really, it takes balls to say something on livejournal or in an email, especially when it's unimaginable to think of saying it in real life. Knowing that there are people out there that don't understand having issues inside of yourself makes me wonder how some of us have made it this far. I have my issues lined up in my head. Biggest to smallest. With little dotted lines that connect one to another and so on. Realizing them was hard enough, but making any kind of effort to put them in public view or change them inside myself seems to be rather impossible. I just feel bad because I know how shitty it is when it feels like all you can do is purge those thoughts onto a journal or blog because there isn't any way to make someone understand it in person. Or you're so scared of what would happen if you tell someone directly(the responsibility, the looks, the misunderstanding, etc.) that it's all you can do to leak it on to the screen and pretend no one will find it. I know it's online. I know it's unconfidential. I know it's rediculous. I just think it's sad. I wish I could help people in a more definate way.

It seems that I have perfected the art of being emotionless. I think to myself, this could be considered a gift in some cultures...however, in mine, it's not. In stating that, I don't mean to imply self deprivation or dislike; I'm just telling you the truth without much inside it. The line between being truthful about oneself and denigrating oneself seems to be increasingly thin.
Life is slow now; cool and flatlined. I can't help but assume that my seeing the world this way is simply because I am the one doing the seeing. That it is me that is really cool and flatlined, and in the act of seeing the world I have purely projected myself onto it.
I need more beauty in my life.
There's a grouping of trees out on East Franklin; they are perfect. When the sun is setting and it's so quiet outside, it's like the trees are visual music. i wish you could see it. It's intensely vague and the beauty in it is so unassuming it's as if the scene had been missed by thousands of other passerbys until I looked at it at just the right moment to catch it's possibility.
I miss poetry. Writing it and reading it, living it mainly. Maybe this is growing up, losing every passionate feeling in my body until all that's left are goals and worries and blankness. I'm tired of being so restless. I'm bored of being like this while feeling pressure to hide it; pressure to make other people happy and comfortable. to be honest, part of me kind of likes doing that. Putting other's infront of myself. It's been installed in me to be content only when others are. I'm a woman. A bible belt girl brought up in doing as I'm told and smiling as I do it. placing blame was another childhood habit I hold on to.
I can't recall how it felt to be kissed by someone I cared for. Sometimes I think I am so scared of my own memories I have lost them intentionally. I know my history in textbook form, becoming vague in the physical retelling. Hands and lips and arms are all parts of people I pack away. Knowing the emotional results to such stimulation; remembering how our knuckles fit together when he held my hand late at night long after everyone else had passed out hurts much more than a fleeting thought about roy's single bedroom house and an absract dislike for lanky boys. I like forcing physical memories forward. It makes me remember some sense of emotion. Like the trees. It reminds me of what i'm missing.

I think I should make some kind of New Year's resolution...though part of me is very scared of structuring my plans. Whether it is a fear of failure, an expectance and in return acceptance of failure, or a simple rebellion for anything consisting of organized, time spaced thought; I really think making some kind of plan for my life is somewhat useless. The hippie part of me seems to overrule the responsible part a lot these days.


In fact, just to clear the slate, right now I am:

Living in my parents house.
Unemployed.
A college/design school drop out.
Paying nothing on my own.
Staying out too late/sleeping in too often
AND
Avoiding any kind of actual responsibility that I might have to take on.


Well...the last part of that is not really true. I'm moving out of my parent's house in less than 36 hours, and I am selling the clothes I make or reconstruct as a means of employment. Mostly, I'm being young and having a good time without being dependent on alcohol or drugs as a means for ignoring the rest of my life. I'm happy about what I'm doing. I'm happy with the choices I've made and the mistakes that got me here. I'm okay knowing not everyone understands my choices or thinks better of me for them. And I think that's a good thing for me to be okay with. I think it's the most important thing to be happy.

I guess I learned a lot this year. I guess I'm ready to make a lot of decisions I wasn't ready for before. I'm ready to live like I want to, to do what I want to, to be who I want to. I'm proud of the people I surround myself with. I'm happy with the energy they give me and the things I get from them. I enjoy all of them. Especially Aly. I'm okay with this sounding overly cheesey and stupid all at once, because it's been a while since I've felt like I have a group of friends. It's been a while since I had more than 2 or 3 people to call and hangout with at a time. I really love having friends...I think I had forgotten that before I went to Chicago.

So, to get back to what it was I meant this entry to be about, here is an abstract version of my New Year's resolutions:

I will be better to myself.

I will pursue my happiness, and try to meet other's happiness as often as possible.

I will do what I enjoy and receive pleasure from.

I will smile and laugh and think more than I should.

I will be honest, with myself and everyone else when it's needed.

I will try to be understanding.

I will listen and care and show people that I am good at both.

I will fix some things in myself.

I will be more active, in all the ways I should be.

I will help when I can and feel good about what I do




I think that's going to have to do for now. I think that's the best I can do tonight.

Today I went to the hospital thrift store for the half price sale. I looked through the books and found one I might give away for Christmas. It was Carrie by Steven King. I got five other books too, none of which were very interesting really. And when I was paying the older woman that had checked me out the following conversation took place...

Old Lady: Ooo, Steven King. My daughter used to love his books when she was younger.

Kelsey: Hm...really.

Old Lady: She was a little cookoo, though. You must be a little cookoo too, like she was, right?

Kelsey: hah...I guess...

Old Lady: But she's okay now.

Kelsey:....good, then there's still hope.





I think that's the most truthful conversation I've ever had with an older woman, let alone a complete stranger. It made me happy in a sad way. I like that old lady.

I have wanted to paint lately. Not really anything...just paint. I want to put everything inside of myself on canvas or my walls or something very very large. Maybe I will paint the door in my room when I move in. 18 days. I feel like making clothes like I do is a form of art...but not the right kind. I mean, I love making the things I make. The problems I have to go through, how I learn as I do it, the finished product...I like those things. They make me feel better about myself. I like myself more that way. It's nice to see something be created. It's nice to remember things change. I like knowing I can help in these processes. Creating, changing. I like what I'm doing.


I have been trying to read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. I must say it has become a slight struggle. I feel I have to read it though. There were signs for me to do so. A boy on two different busses, a hardback in the background of a reality t.v. show, the man that sold me my new car, indirect approval of the book from a girl I don't really know. What must be will be....I just want to know why the book is forcing me to read it. What will come from these signs? I'm still reading...I'll have to get back to you.


Regina Spector is a genius.


I'm tired and the more I write the more sad I become. I'm not sure why.

I'm contemplating being very emo tonight. It is kind of odd to feel like that...emotional. I don't really, I just miss somethings that come with having some kind of significant other. I miss loving someone else. I miss being able to enjoy someone completely and not hold myself back from doing things I want to when I want to. I have been so scared of being close to anyone that, in thinking about it, I get very uncomfortable. There are excuses in my head about why things will not happen or why I am not loveable. I know these are not true...but thinking them are a form of protection from actually considering risking any part of myself. I am not really sure why love is so scary to me. I'm not even sure I've been in love before. I am just good at losing myself in wanting to be loved or wanting to make someone else compeltely happy. I guess that is what happened at least. I don't think about things that have hurt me much now. I don't want to. There has been enough self examination to last for a long time.



I don't like how sensitive I have become.
I dont like being sensitive.



There are lessons I have learned. Not letting people too close to me, warning signs I see as to why someone is really my friend, rules about who is actually a friend and who is not. I have censors for when I'm being used. I have alarms for people who are over promised in me. I have binoculars on those who I am feeling out and protective cases around those who have been labeled and contained. It's hard to get through this process. I have many levels of security, more check points than O'Hare. You won't get in. You scare me.



It's hard to keep a grasp on mysef most times. You'll forgive me...

Hey lts Nash: you kow how beautiful life is, kelsey?
stnkygrlnppa: I hope I do. But how beautiful is it to you?
Hey lts Nash: extremely beautiful.
Hey lts Nash: everything about it every aspect of it
Hey lts Nash: i mean, life itself would be beautiful if you were just a creature in a neverending void
Hey lts Nash: thats beautiful enough.
Hey lts Nash: but we have much more added
Hey lts Nash: and makes it that much more beautiful
Hey lts Nash: a background.
Hey lts Nash: sound
Hey lts Nash: a voice
Hey lts Nash: music
Hey lts Nash: others
Hey lts Nash: everything
Hey lts Nash: everything just makes it that much more beautiful
stnkygrlnppa: wow. I'm glad life is so beautiful to you. It should be.


_____________________________________________________________________________________________________



Starsjustsparkle: Why me?
Evol Rao: why you. you walked down the sidewalk towards me, hiding behind lilly and i saw this beautiful little kid that i instantly wanted to be. i was jealous and intregued and in lust the monent i laid eyes on you. everytime you walked down the sidewalk at school i would get this feeling and i didnt know if it was disgust or appeal. probably both. and no matter how much you change, your face will still have that same smile and youll still have that same look and youll still make me want to kiss you.
Evol Rao: so thats why.


______________________________________________________________________________________________________



UMystery: you see, what makes you great kelsey is your love! it hurts, but he is ray, no more and no less, but you will be better after this if for no other reason than you loved and tried and cared and learned


______________________________________________________________________________________________________


UMystery: i found a quote that reminded me of you
StarsJustSparkle: what?
UMystery: hold on let me go get it
StarsJustSparkle: I really liked the french one a lot. I just didn't know where it was from or how to even pronounce it
UMystery: hahaha
UMystery: well it's from a good french poet
UMystery: and i imagine ms minshall would tell you
UMystery: but here is the quote

UMystery: "Beautiful she was in form; but to me her fascination lay in her beauty of mind; her soul and sweet sympathy; her sensiblity to all that was beautiful in form, colors, action, life, heart, humanity."



_______________________________________________________________________________________________________



I'm going to be in the Vagina Monologues again at OU. I would like you all to come see me. I'll tell you the dates when i know them.