Brian (Pauls brother) and I hit barnes and noble tonight for me to get some quality writing in and for brian to get out of the house for awhile. I came across a book in the clearance section called Writing For Self-Discovery. I had brought along my notebooks so I went ahead and sat in the cafe and started reading the damn thing. The first exercise on the very first page (which surprised me as most books go into more theory on why you should write before going to the nitty gritty) was to sit in one spot and write about what’s around you. Pick and object and go from there. This is what occurred:
barnes and noble cafe. people. feeling anxious. left breast has slight pains from being anxious. feeling stupid sitting solo at the cafe table with my white painted fingernails, people milling about. various people studying. remembering the cool cafe in Berkeley, CA where all the CalState kids went to. drank coffee. study. college. missing school. thinking of my father. small silver urn around my neck. thin people. beautiful people. grad school. college university. hard tables/chairs. people still here. sitting with Cathleen at the cafe. her sister Carolyn who was way cooler. why is it that people with “Ca” beginning names are called “cat”? on some people it sounds wrong. on others it sounds right. what can one say about the name lisa? derived from Elizabeth. fear to run. flight or fight. i ‘m in a public place and i’m scared.
dreaming about my father more. i’m not sure but it dawns on me in the bathroom tonight that the dreams are a realization he’s okay. he was younger and happier looking. there were scars on his forehead. “Dad, I say,” where are those scars from?” and he points to my necklace — the small silver urn with some of his ashes on it that i wear daily. My father, close to my heart.
i was watching la femme nikita the other night with brian and i saw what i wanted to be — her. Nikita. she is tall, blonde and perfect. except i don’t want to be blonde, just tall and perfect. and she’s was wearing this long black skirt that hung low over her hips and there was an inch or so of skin showing between her shirt and the damn skirt. with her pale skin and deep blue eyes. she looked amazingly exotic. and that was my inspiration. that is what i want to be. i have to lose 100lbs.
fuck.
i remember when i was 14? 15? I weighed 140? 150 pounds. I was like 5’9 or so. And I remember laying on my bed at night, obsessing about my weight and running my hands over my concave stomach and thinking “i’m never going to be fat. i’m not going to allow myself to get past this point in weight.”
that was 1/2 a life ago!
been reading more journals online again. going through diarist.net and sorting by women and ages and reading generally anything of anyone within my age group. and i realize that the 25-32 age bracket is nearly empty — not empty but it’s like what overcomes people between that age group to not write. i’m looking for a REASON and i’m finding it. Ana Voog is 34. Cheryl Tigs is a mom at 54. She can, next year, legally qualify for the AARP. I have 30 whole years left before I need to. And for once I smile. At the cafe. Where the cute goth girl works.
I’m obsessed about ages. People think i’m 22. Brian thought I was 22 or 23. No one believes I just turned 28. But i’m obsessed with other people’s ages. When someone tells me a story, I almost always ask “how old are they?” so that i can make the comment of “she’s immature” or “he should have known better”. and it’s stupid to gauge other people’s life by my age. at 28 i should have accomplished many things and i haven’t. but in a way, i’ve accomplished more than other people ever will. because i took chances. i took the chance, no matter how stupid, on flying to SF with nothing and making a go of it. and when that didn’t work, of driving cross country solo to another state and trying again. and seeing those stupid “jesus knows” signs along the highway. meeting paul for the first time in atlanta. BUT the thing is, i did it. myself. these are my stories and i know lots and lots of people who don’t have the balls to leave within 50 miles of where they were born.
west texas sucked.
my dad was 45 when i was born.
and today i really like me, imperfections and all.
-finis-
so tonight, when the urge struck me to redesign again (and i really do like this new design btw), i felt it. the cold crushing feeling in my chest. and it’s different from all the anxiety attacks i had before. because this time i was not obsessing about anything — I WAS FREAKING WORKING IN PHOTOSHOP. and i start crying. paul is freaking out because i can’t breathe (or so i say between the sobs). my pulse is normal but my chest felt like a ton of bricks landed on it. i call the 24 hour hot line my hmo has set up and i get picked up on the first ring. i tell the woman, mary, what is going on. she assures me i’m not having a heart attack. “you’re on klonopin” she says. “what’s your dosage?” i tell her i’m taking the bare minimum these days – .5mgs .25 in the morning and sometimes .25 later in the after noon. “did you take a dose?” she asks. “yes, i replied — a few moments ago”. klonopin takes 30 minutes to kick in before it works. she talks to me. calms me down. turns out she has done over 15 years as a coronary specialist nurse. i’m not having a heart attack. i’m so low risk it’s disgusting. ‘but this crushing” i keep telling her. it hurts. i don’t know what to do. the klonopin has been my miracle drug for the last two weeks. tonight was worse because it was fast and furious. and i’m so scared something is going on with me. she tells me if the pain doesn’t stop within the next 15 minutes, take another klonopin. after an hour, if there is still pain call. they are open 24 hours. i can be seen.
within an hour brian and i were at 7-11 buying slurpees and a big bite.
Tag: amwriting
i keep coming back
on July 16th 1998, i had made the decision while at work one day to start doing an on-line journal. this wasn’t anything really new to me, other than the fact that i had been writing and posting my journals on and off for about 3 years before that. however, i never had any continuity or any real schedule — but it was time to change that.
i had been browsing the web on and off and finding similar sites and decided i could indeed write not only better but more productive than those who were doing it already.
on that day, i sat down and wrote my first entry and thusly the lisa chronicles were born.
in that year, i’ve shared a lot with those who have come here. the site initially was getting about 25 hits a day (normal for me back then when random people would find it) to over five times the traffic now. i started a counter later on that month and as you can see, nearly 15k worth of unique hits have hit my site. now i’m getting 5x the traffic along with nearly a 100 people subscribed to the mailing list as well. several hundred people eagerly await, daily, for any words or tidbits that i may dish up. sometimes i’ve been silent for a few weeks and others i’m posting several times a day.
my site has been recognized by other sites as being unique and one of a kind. and while people, in the “scene” had known about me for years via “simunye” and my exploits around the web, new people were coming and liking me for what was presented here and not for any past rumors that they may have heard. one night when i was in Memphis, mike and i were at taco bell. i had been drinking and was lollygagging around in the ‘stang, when i had commented “I will forever be known as an on-line diarist”. and then i had said it with such disdain and contempt. the next day, i got an invitation from The Unreal World to apply on being a member (and no, i haven’t heard back from them yet).
i suppose there are many worse things than being known as an on-line diariest. i could be a crackwhore, but i suppose that is beside the point. in the last year i’ve cried, bragged, loved, lost, took chances, became frustrated, just basically lived. in my own hindsight, i no longer read others journals and i no longer read my own. why? because in the past when i had become enamored of a site such as mine, it became a tossup of whether i was living my life or i was living through them. i started having memories of things i knew didn’t happen but my own involvement within that site made me think i did. Or maybe it was my split personality Sam who thought so, who knows.
Regardless, thank you.
Thank you for everything. The next year proves to be even more exciting as I’m finally getting my supple young ass off the west coast and move back east (confirmed and set for October). I love you guys, even if you are all just big big freaks.
———
My friend Dan (he’s a big freak) asked me one day to make a wav saying “You’ve got mail”. And so I did:
mmmmmmmm……you’ve got mail
mmmmmmmm……you’ve got oral
The second file was generated for Pawl, who also asked me to do the chorus to James Brown’s “Sex Machine”. That file won’t get put up.
———
I’ve been slacking, I know, however, taking a cue from several people, if you click on lisa above in the above nav bar, you’ll learn even more about me than you ever wanted to know. but it is slightly amusing.
———
Back in early July, I started a club on yahoo!. and it’s been pretty amusing. go join in the fray and sign up worship me some more — you know the usual stuff. i’m on as g0desslike. that shouldn’t surprise you.
———
and lastly, i’ve been thinking, with all the changing going on around here, the name of the site will no longer be “The Last Word: The Lisa Chronicles” but “Girl Extraordinary: The Lisa Chronicles”. And just where does the word “Girl Extraordinary” come from? Simple:
“Neglekted”
By Afghan Whigs
I know a girl, extraordinary
Suggested something, unsanitary
The rest of the words are located on the whigs site. What can I tell you, Greg Dulli is god. And that song is so me. So is “What Jail Is Like” from the album “Gentlemen”. If you are planning on getting any cds soon, I so highly recommend that one and 1965. I’ve converted so many people to Whigism. I own.
———
I will be at LinuxWorld Expo August 9-12th. I’ll be meeting a bunch of ufies as well as just hanging out. In October, I’ll be heading to the Linux Showcase in Atlanta, again hanging with Ufies. Y’all come and find me, kk?
———
And finally, in the spirit of the 1st Anniversary of The Lisa Chronicles, I was thinking of regging the domain name girlextraordinary.xxx (xxx stipulating whatever TLD i choose: com, org or net) and using that for the basis of journals instead of simunye.org. Any ideas?Thoughts?
Reason?
It’s time for a change, and while the nick Simunye will always be associated with me, it’s time for something new. hell, i need to pay for
iwubpawly.org still, but that is another story 😀
i want feedback on this 🙂
———
And I’ll leave you with these words:
What Jail Is Like
By The Afghan Whigs (of the album Gentlemen)
I’ll warn you, if cornered, I’ll scratch my out of the pen
Wired, an animal, the claustrophobia begins
You think I’m scared of girls, well maybe but i’m not afraid of you
You want to scare me then you’ll cling to me no matter what i do
Tell you a secret, they shared a needle once or twice
i loved her, she loved me, we slept together a couple of times
you think i’m proud of this, well maybe but the shame you never lose
infatuated with a lunatic and cornered by the muse
and it goes down every night
this must be what jail is really like
and i will scratch my way out of this pen
lonely? maybe or maybe not at all
depends your idea your image your definition of a friend
if what your shoveling is company then I’d rather be alone
resentment always goes much further than it was supposed to go
ich liebe dich.
ihr inneres und mein inneres immer zusammen
now you know
*cough*
i’ve been sitting here for the last, oh, hour or so thinking about writing. and i haven’t written a thing.
and i decided that i’ll do this at work.
pussy galore
I had spent a good portion of my night last night making sure this damn thing was redone. I had enjoyed doing the site with more fervor than I had thought possible. I’m in love with my new design and also how it looks overall. Fresh/clean/sparky, I think it reflects me in many ways that other designs haven’t been able to. I believe the information is more up to date and current and isn’t all text based (which it was before). It’s amazing how three graphics, two colors and drop shadow (and a partridge in a pear tree) can make a site look. I still refuse to do heavy graphic intense pages along with javascript/java/midi/blinking intense pages as well. There simply is no need for it.
make a new friend/keep the old
While doing the website last night, I came to the conclusion that I needed to have an archive page. Sure, I’ve been doing TLC for nearly eight months now, longest running span in any format in the four years I’ve been doing this sort of thing. So, I started stockpiling all my old “works” on the archive page and THAT alone took several hours. Why? Well for one, when Slip.Net lost my main website for simunye.com, I had lost nearly a 1000 files, including the work I had saved while mirroring F.U.C.K.. I have written 10-15 pieces within a years span for them, and then it was all gone. It made me realize that my writings was woefully out of date. I had not updated it since early 1998 as well as have “forgotten” that it existed.
It was as if I was trying to hide something.
So, for nearly two hours, I spent playing hide & seek looking for the lost files and getting them all organized on the archive section. It felt -really really- good to read some of my old things. I still think a bunch of it is crap-o-la, but hey, that’s just me. I plan on updating the year in review: 1997 as well as do one for 1998. It was scary to think just how much of my life is now on the web. With putting up these pieces, I realize and see how much I’ve grown/change as well as the world around me. Enjoy.
our little secret
If you are a fan of techno/industrial/house/dance music (or whatever they are calling it these days), may I suggest that you pick up Lords of Acid’s newest cd Our Little Secret. I had the opportunity to check it out when I was back home in Michigan, and loved it. I haven’t purchased the full length cd as of yet, but I did get their cd-maxi-single of Pussy, which has several re-mixes as well as the song The Power is Mine. I’ve been walking around humming the damn thing for a few days now, so you -really- must pick it up.
i don’t need yours because i have one of my own
I don’t know if this was covered yet (you think you can swallow it), but sometime ago, my friend Jessica wrote me this email in regards to my website. She liked the idea of doing an on-line journal, but had some trepidations about doing it. Namely, do I censor myself and how do those closest to me feel about what i write?
the question is a good one, and thankfully i thought i had all the answers. justin supports me in everything that I do, primarily with my writing so what i have to say, really doesn’t bother him. but do i censor myself?
yes, i do.
in a way, i was disgusted with that answer. and with how i felt about everything else, that made sense as to why i would feel disgusted. people often see me as being this raw sort of person and i feel that i am. but i started to notice that when i would write da’ chronicles, that i was blocking things that i would never admit or revel to the public at large.
for what reason, i can’t be too sure. but some include that many people that i would probably bitch about and complain about DO read my pages and suddenly i’m taking their feelings into consideration. they would probably ask me “why can’t you talk to me about this to my face?” and i wouldn’t have a very good answer other than “i dunno.” and as i write this, i realize that i have covered this before. *shrug* i’m old at 26. shoot me. 😉
anyway, there is a lot of stuff i think about, that i have never even thought about including in da’ chronicles. my relationship with justin, how i really feel about him. people that i work with, play with and socialize with. my relationship with my parents. stuff that would be considered really personal and stuff i probably wouldn’t feel too comfortable sharing.
but today a productive day. i finally got my cd’s in order and pulled out the crappy ones i have never listened to (a rob-ism: if you don’t use it for 6 months you don’t need it). sonya took some of them home. i’m either going to pitch them to a few mailing lists i’m on or else just take them to a place that purchases used cd’s. and while i was making notes of additions and subtractions from the collection, i started using an old journal that i had.
i have this thing for buying notebooks (whether softbound or hardcover) that are blank pages so that i can jot something down in it daily. daily ruminations about crap that bothered me, but i knew in my heart that i was censoring myself even then. not as badly as i was here on the web, but i still wouldn’t admit even privately to myself what i really felt. how fucked up is that when you actually carry two journals: one for public and one for private showing?
to me, it’s extremely fucked up. fucked up enough to have me analyze it. well just kidding, but i think part of who i am is found is this simple analogy. i have a public and private side to me, both which are equal to each other. sometimes it may be more dark and other times it may be more complex and other times it’s fluffy like cotton candy.
i liked the idea of keeping a private journal.
the reasoning has to do more with getting rid of my depression than anything else. oh be sure i’ll still be as scintillating as ever, but perhaps keeping two journals i can reach down and write about stuff that really matters (to me) and really bothers me.
the bright side is that i won’t sit here and debate on whether or not i will be mentioning the fact i bought new nail polish called cherrywood.
(but you already did that lisa…)
it’s called allegory! or something. so kindly stop walking across my freshly washed kitchen floor!
fiction baby
last night, while i was browsing the web, i had remembered reading about a place that specialized in on-line journaling. I feel somewhat compelled to go there, as I have had a voice on the web since 1995. However, my attempt, now three years later to get in the game of on-line journaling, is being overshadowed by slick design and not a lot of content by other competitors.
however, i have realized that there are many people who can write articulately, and have something interesting to say. my friend jane is one such person.
but anyway, i found a another place that specialized in on-line journaling, also allowing people to create on-line journals, with the sake of anonymity, and also not having to worry about design, concept, and other such things. they just write, for the sake of writing.
while browsing around, i found that they held a slam contest, which is now all the rage with the lit world. intrigued, i read more on how to participate, and found it was fairly simple. the creatrix of the website presents a image, and you write based on that image. 1000 words or less please.
compelled, inspired, whatever; i wrote. my story, which i had to chop out 1000 words. I have presented both the abridged and unabridgedversion. Do be warned however, the unabridged story is not complete, nor has it been formatted in html or spell checked. I like the unabridged version better, and I will probably continue writing the story tonight when I get home from work.
my entrance into the art of short story writing prompted me to update Tripping on Stars, my anthology of all the on-line versions of my work. I have created a new category, called appropriately enough, ‘short stories’, which will host all the fiction crap i write.
i haven’t written any short stories in years, mostly dealing with i didn’t have the patience. my big concern (and now, don’t laugh), has always been with names: I could never think of names of my characters. last night it was pretty simple coming up with names, as justin and i have created fictional characters for ourselves. He’s Panama Jack, and I’m Virginia Slim, Ms. Slim to you. Unfortunately, since Virginia Slim happens to also be a trade marked name, our little shticks that Justin and I do have to be done in person or on IRC.
Carrying over our on-line shticks to real life has been really interesting, since we are both lovers of J.D. Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald, we end up doing these shticks based on the characters that those authors have created, namely Franny & Zooey, and Zelda & Scott, respectively.
On IRC, Justin and I would go for long periods of time just making up scenes and characters, to the bewilderment and amusement of those on the channel. This creation of characters included Jackie the Pumpkin (also known as Justin’s first wife), Harold the farm boy (also Justin’s ex-lover) and many others. He and I would sit giggling for hours just playing along, and no one would get what the fuck we were talking about.
That was always okay. We basically didn’t give a shit or not, because we got it and that is all that was important.
Justin is also wonderful because he has a mind like a girl. He’s not effeminate, gay or hell, even bi, but he knows how a girl thinks, and he also has good taste. he’s the best girlfriend a girl could have, and the wonderful thing is, he has a cock. Justin and I have decreed that i finally became a lesbian, since i’m fucking my best girlfriend. how many other men do you know that can sit with a female and talk to her about men, pms, clothes, make-up and is either not gay or afraid?
not many i would assume.
many of my friends have been concerned with the age gap (7 years), and it bothered me as well for awhile. but i realized love really doesn’t know age, race, creed or religion, it just is.
i don’t think about his age anymore, excuse me, i should say obsess with it. i’ve come to terms with the fact i will always be older than him, but since i look so damn young for being 26, and he looks older than 19, it’ll work. Justin’s life, which would make a therapist rich, has wonderfully made him more wise then his years. the big difference, was especially when my brother, who is also 19 was living with me, and seeing my brother act like a boy of 19 and justin acted at least 10 years older was amazing. you can’t always assume because of one’s age that they are mentally that age. watching my brother and justin interact taught me that much.
i love justin, and i love him very much. it’s been especially hard with me because i can’t always accept a person as they are: i have a habit of changing them. but i can’t do that with justin. i don’t know if he’s the one, hell, i’ve thought damn near every boy i’ve dated was the one, and i don’t want to muddy my relationship with justin thinking that. i just want to love him in the here and now, and not worry about the future. it’s really nice, being with someone who knows all your secrets, who accepts you for you and gives you the freedom to do what you want. as stated, since justin is barely legal, and i’m prone to go drinking and dancing, he doesn’t give a rats ass that i do things without him. he’s said, and i quote “as long as you come home to me, i don’t care”. he doesn’t question me, like Danny, if i’m late getting home from work, or if i make other plans without him. he understands that, while living together, i don’t need to spend every waking hour with him. but i do anyway. justin gives the best hugs. being 6’8″ must have a lot to do with that.
as always, i’m looking at the clock and now i’m late for work. a part of me doesn’t care, it just feels good to be writing again, and branching off into other area’s that i haven’t explored before. Jeffwas wrong: love is unconditional.
it feels good in my mind, that i can say these four words and not cringe anymore:
i am a writer.
everything’s gone green
help me, somebody help me.
i wonder what i am…
it seems like I’ve been here before.
– everything’s gone green by new order
Tonight at work, I was reading an email that Wired sends out with updates of late breaking news stories. I was reading some such article that had caught my eye, when it had links to websites that were eerily like mine in context, but just overall better designed. One of them, the Fray was awarded for it’s excellent design, and from there I ended up at other sites that were more or less like it: ego-taking domains that really hosted nothing but twenty-something angst, in this damn digital age. The only difference between my site(s) (I know own THREE domains, so therefore I am better) and theirs were two things:
- Better designed and pleasing to the eye.
- A more regular update of content.
In a sense, this pissed me off. I had copied my files from home and brought them to work to *actually* work on (which, it seems I never have time to do, so I don’t know why I keep torturing myself). I immediately opened up ye olde EditPad and went to work hacking something together. But the more I worked on my site, the more angrier I got, and so I left it in lieu of deproving domains and fixing machines.
It got me thinking about a lot about my ‘writing’, though this is not necessarily a new thing.
See, I have been told since I was a child what an exceptional talent I had for weaving the written word. In college, one of my English profs went so far as to say that I could actually make a living off of satirical writing. While it pleased me (and ye olde ego) at the same time, I’ve always taken my ability to string sentences together for granted. For instance, when I was in school, and I had an article to write for the paper or a paper to write for a class, I would always wait till the last minute before I would pound out my masterpiece. And I would always get A’s.
A few months back, I was asked to write an article for an on-line magazine, and I actually got paid for it (400 smackers!). Justin says that I am now an “official” writer since I’ve actually been published. Sometimes I think he is more distraught over my lack of actually putting pen to paper than I am, but, I know since I was a wee tot that I’ve always wanted to be a writer. You know, sitting in some dingy bar in Paris with my drink while scribbling out my latest and greatest. Somewhere between that dream and now, reality happened.
I think about that a lot.
When I have time to browse the web, and I find things to read, I immediately chastise myself for not having written it, thought of it, or doing it myself. Justin asks me: “What is stopping you?”, and I say to him (and to console myself) “Nothing.” But in reality, I have always felt inferior to others when it comes to what I have to say, because I get cynical enough to say “Well, there are no original ideas and no original thoughts.” Mayhap, in a sense that is true, but dammit! I have a ‘voice’ and I know how to articulate myself, and I don’t know why I keep feeling like time (like sands in an hour glass, so are the days of our lives) is escaping me. Justin says that is how he feels about our relationship: he has to hurry up and love me, or else I will be gone.
Michael always tells me how silly I’m being when I start beating myself up. Words wound deep. For instance, when Jeff and I first met over a year and a half ago, it was my ‘writings’ that brought us together, and it was my writings he took the liberty to pummel when we broke up. blah.
In the movie Dream for an Insomniac, the lead character, Frankie; says something how boring the ordinary is and we should only reach for and live for the extraordinary. And I felt a kinship with her and her spirit. And that is how people see me: this free spirit who really doesn’t give a rats ass about what people think about her, but is super sensitive to criticism against her.
I’ve always hated the word ‘writer’. I think about some schmuck who is sitting at home with her fuzzy slippers and pounding out love stories for some cheesy romance novel. I think about the very stereotypical beret wearing, coffee drinking, all black absorbing poets who roam the world looking to get published. I think about people who actually are bad writers and just call themselves that because it is ‘cool’ or ‘neat’. I seemingly have issues with this. 😉
A few years ago (maybe less, maybe more), I was part of an email listserv that was dedicated to the Beat Generation. Since, at 23 I was one of the youngest people on the list, I would sit back and listen to those who had been friends, lovers with the likes of Ginsberg, Keuroac, Ferenghetti, and that ilk. One man, Leon Tabory, found my writings off of a link I had set up on my .sig file, and wrote me the best letters digizines ever saw. He said my “gift” was comparable to his buddies Keuroac and Ferenghetti and that this gift shouldn’t be wasted. I felt a sense of honor, and perhaps praise getting that from him. I felt, like I would achieve status at some point, though it has yet to happen.
When I was young, I used to say “Okay, this summer you are going to write (quote)The Great American Novel(unquote)” and it would .. never .. happen. I would think “Okay, you are going to get up at 8am and pound out something, no matter what for an hour” and it would .. never .. happen. I chastise myself for what I should of done, instead of what I could be doing! That perhaps pisses me off, for I have all these wonderful ideas in my head, things I want to discuss, things I want to do, and I just don’t!
My therapist says that my depression (I mean, is THAT not irony? Isn’t everyone depressed or borderline psychotic these days?) is the reason why I keep pulling this stunt: never finishing things I should be doing. Like college. Or falling in love. Or finishing my book(s). Or actually making something of myself. I think about all these things.
I think about them a lot.
Mayhap too much.