vanilla raindrops

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

spike and denise and i are addicted to sushi. the 7-eleven guy always grins at us now when we come in almost every evening for our faux-seafood dinner.

Posted by: noreia at 22:55 | link | comments (7) |

in high school i had a friend named stephanie. she was a constant witness to my weirdness, and she was always just laughing at me when i did crazy things like playing catch with ian with an imaginary ball, or singing veggietales songs at the top of my lungs. i talk to her online occasionally, and the conversations are pretty average, so sometimes, just for fun, i throw in some crazy stuff. she's used to it by now. here's the latest:

stephanie [10:07 PM]: hey
me [10:08 PM]: hey.
me [10:10 PM]: how's the cows?
stephanie [10:10 PM]: great
me [10:11 PM]: they still mooin'?
stephanie [10:11 PM]: you bet cha
me [10:11 PM]: righto.
stephanie [10:12 PM]: this thing is taking forever to download, and it's driving me crazy
me [10:13 PM]: what thing? the cow catcher?
stephanie [10:13 PM]: yeah, that's it
stephanie [10:13 PM]: no really, this video for this job I'm thinking about applying for
me [10:15 PM]: what job is that? cow shepherding?
stephanie [10:15 PM]: kinda
stephanie [10:15 PM]: I'd be working at a lake during the summer
me [10:15 PM]: oh. cow swimming.
stephanie [10:16 PM]: no cow dung cleaning
me [10:16 PM]: yeesh.
stephanie [10:17 PM]: you should look into it
stephanie [10:17 PM]: it looks like a lot of fun
me [10:20 PM]: na, i've got enough cows to worry about, thanks.
stephanie [10:20 PM]: lol
stephanie [10:21 PM]: what are you doing these days?
me [10:22 PM]: umm. well, i'm a lesbian.
me [10:22 PM]: i have a cow girlfriend.
me [10:22 PM]: her name is betsy.
stephanie [10:22 PM]: lol, please tell me you're joking, last time I thought someone was joking it turned out bad
me [10:23 PM]: (laughing.) right, i remember that.
me [10:23 PM]: ha.
me [10:23 PM]: i'm joking.
me [10:24 PM]: she's not really a cow. she's more like a moose. that's legal, right?
stephanie [10:25 PM]: yeah, I think moose is ok
me [10:25 PM]: whew. good.

Posted by: noreia at 22:51 | link | comments |

they meant it. click on the "contact" section.

Posted by: noreia at 22:19 | link | comments |

i think i'll go visit the tazo site and see if they meant it.

Posted by: noreia at 22:14 | link | comments |

i went with spike and denise today to see "under the tuscan sun." we really liked it. we laughed a lot. sometimes at times when everybody else laughed, and other times at random things on the movie like goats and squirrels. italian goats and squirrels. i love italian goats and squirrels.

it was a happy movie with a happy ending, which i like. gotta believe in optimism.

so we talked about how we're going to move to austria and start a bed and breakfast. we are serious about this. i told kema, our Bible study leader, last night, that we're going to start a bed and breakfast, which in german would be "bett und fruehstueck" (which doesn't make sense as a name for a place). but kema thought i said bed and fishsticks. which was funny. so there'll be a picture of a bed and some fishsticks, and people will be all confused when we don't serve seafood.

well, yeah. there's a candle burning in front of my computer. and i have tazo wild sweet orange tea. i laughed when i saw this written on the box:

"To ask questions, share observations or simply have a bit of human contact, write us at . . ."

all these lonely guys will be contacting them, like, "i have no friends; talk to me about tea."

Posted by: noreia at 22:10 | link | comments |

is my font too small? it looks normal to me, but i thought that about my old blog, and people complained that it was too small to read on their computers. should i change the size?

Posted by: noreia at 14:22 | link | comments (3) |

Monday, September 29, 2003

"and old stinky the goat was still there. man, they put the table right down-wind from that goat!" -- my dad, in the living room, about taking his class to the farm.

denise and elba laugh hysterically in denise's room.

i go call spike.

Posted by: noreia at 18:27 | link | comments (3) |

eighty-five visits and only three comments, i think. i'm sad.

Posted by: noreia at 18:24 | link | comments (5) |

you should see elba. today: her hair is green and black. she has black-rimmed glasses on, and is wearing a pastel-pink shirt, and jeans. she's very little, which contributes to denise's and my ability to carry her around frequently. "it's time."

Posted by: noreia at 18:21 | link | comments (1) |

elba hugged my head and said i smell good.

Posted by: noreia at 18:09 | link | comments |

ariana huffed at me.

Posted by: noreia at 18:08 | link | comments |

it's nine o'clock in the morning and i'm barefoot and hungry and cold. i cried because i want to be real with denise. yesterday i was in spike's backyard, full of plants and with a big cloudy sky painted with sunlight overhead, and i was thinking about who i used to be and about God and what i've lost. i miss being a Christian. i'm torn.

Posted by: noreia at 09:09 | link | comments (2) |

Friday, September 26, 2003

spaceships over glasgow

happy september 26th day. jen's birthday.

today i cleaned my neighbor's house while her brown and black dachshund joey sniffed at my jeans.

then i went to walgreens and bought three bottles of root beer for a dollar. i thought about giving some to the construction workers in the parking lot, but then i thought they might think i was flirting with them and they were scary. and they already had a bottle of water. so i missed out on those karma points.

but i did give spike a root beer.

spike and i went to rasputin music and starbucks and target in the evening. it was nice at first -- i really like that shopping plaza. but then we went into taco bell (spike got a quesadilla) and it was so harshly flourescent-bright, and the workers were cleaning up and the only people there were strange men. it seemed really late at night in there. as we walked out again, across the huge open parking lot, a sinking feeling covered me. we sat down on a curb and i stared out at the night lit up by glowing colorful lights in storefronts. suddenly everything that had looked so normal there before looked so terrible. scary and horribly depressing. and, as usual when that feeling comes over me, i found it extremely difficult to talk. i said to spike, quietly, "dude, i don't like it here. it's really depressing all of a sudden." we sat for a moment and i covered my eyes with my fists and listened to mogwai asking, in that low, smooth mellow voice, "what would you do if you saw spaceships over glasgow?" spike asked if i wanted to go somewhere, and i said, "yeah, can we just leave?"

so we got up and started walking toward the car, and i tried to explain to her more of what i was feeling, how everything was closing in and was drained of all joy and hope. how it scared me. but before we got to the car i remembered that i wanted some blue christmas lights from target.

so we went to target. and even as we drove across the parking lot and got out of the car, i started to feel relieved. like the sinking despair was draining out of me. like i could float above it again.

then we went into target and i already felt a lot better -- i actually forgot how terrible i'd felt moments before. we looked all around the store. i bought a huge blue storage bin for the sloppy junk in a corner of my room. (we had fun trying to lift it off the shelf and into the cart.) and i bought a bright green plastic jack o' lantern that would glow when you plugged it in. it was made out of a foamy hard plastic that felt so great under my hands. and i bought the blue lights (spike got green). our rooms will glow in cool, relaxing dream-colors.

there is a tiny, white tea-light candle in front of my computer screen. its flame is flickering to mogwai's soothing voice.

in target, there was a little boy staring at one of the video game screens. he had bleached blond (or naturally yellow) hair and black-rimmed glasses. he was so thin and small in his big grey shirt. i whispered, "spike! look at that kid! he's so cute! budddddddy . . ." we were laughing a lot about the boy and about our shopping cart holding a gargantuan plastic bin with a lime-green pumpkin face grinning on top of it, when suddenly we heard laughter to spike's left, and this tall black guy was laughing with us. it was lucas-pierre, a kid i knew from high school. his name's actually pierre, but when a girl i knew introduced me to him, he said his name was lucas (don't ask me why), so when he later said, "no, it's really pierre," i didn't know what to believe, so i told him i was going to call him lucas-pierre, and i did ever since. today i told him that his target name tag was wrong -- it was missing half of his name. he said, "yeah, i've been meaning to talk to them about that." i said, "don't worry, i have a marker in my pocket -- i'll fix it." and we laughed.

spike is sleeping now in my room. my hair is wet and i smell incense from denise's room. my seven-year-old brother is walking around the house in pink pajamas. this is normal.

june 16th.

Posted by: noreia at 22:48 | link | comments |

i love spike.

Posted by: noreia at 04:34 | link | comments |

it's not even bland. take me somewhere nice.

today i went to see my doctor. she upped my thyroid hormones (which replace the cancerous thyroid they removed), so i got a new prescription. i asked her if i should just throw the old one out, and she said yeah, but now she's read about the environment being affected by medicines people throw away, especially sex drugs. i said, so because of me, all these plants growing over landfills will have hyperthyroidism. they'll be growing all fast. and maybe i should add some pills to my plants at home. she laughed.

it wasn't until i was standing in line at the pharmacy that i realized that plants don't have thyroid glands, and i laughed out loud.

i fall down laughing.

take me somewhere nice.

after kaiser, i went to ian's house (if you want to know about ian, read about him in my old blog, staring out the window at the rain). we had a white oleander fest. actually we just watched the movie, but his mom was there reading the novel at the same time. she was about halfway done, so she left the room when we played the video.

what would you do if you saw a spaceship?

after the movie, ian took me to starbucks. it's in the target shopping plaza, which is one of my two current favorite places in this harsh city. we drank iced mochas at a black table outside, in the cooler-than-comfortable air. we talked.

then we drove to cost plus. and looked at all the cool foreign foods and toys and furnishings. and talked. i told him things i'd never told anyone but spike (and God, and myself). he was supportive. we talked about love and God and religion and politics and the future and family and judgments and acceptance. we said that one day, we're going to move to austria and own a bed and breakfast and live there with our friends. and adopt orphans from all over the world. that is a wonderful dream that i would love to live out, but i doubt ian is going to plan his whole future around it.

anyway, i love ian.

after that, i came home, and -- guess what? -- went to spike's house. more brit-rock and homework. i lit a red berry candle in her room, the sulfur from the match burning my nose and throat.

i realized, there, that i am at an opposite pole from where i was a little more than a year ago. then, every morning when i woke up, it would only take a second for a weight to settle in my chest, a hopelessness to shroud and crush me. i would stare at walls and cry in the afternoon. everything seemed useless.

but now my life holds wonderful secrets, beautiful people. i've come so far with these souls i share life with, who are so unique. so perfect in their humanness, their individuality. spike, ian, denise -- i love you. everyone else -- i love you.

mogwai's singer: i thank God for creating such a voice -- it was a beautiful thing he didn't have to do. mogwai, i listened to you today and for the first time in so long, i felt paralyzed by the music, felt it fill me like oxygen, like love. i had to close my eyes against the utter beauty and melancholy perfection of it. i floated in your song. thanks for giving me that. thanks for creating such a sound.

Posted by: noreia at 03:45 | link | comments |

Thursday, September 25, 2003

afda

this afternoon, spike sat on the couch in my living room playing acoustic classical guitar. i poured sky-blue vanilla cream soda into three champagne classes for denise, spike, and me. i sat in my charcoal-grey sweatshirt next to spike and watched the vanilla blueness bubble. vanilla raindrops? that would be lovely.

Posted by: noreia at 03:43 | link | comments |

mogwai

today was my mother's birthday. spike and denise and i went to target and michael's and cost plus to shop for her. she'd said she just wanted random fun things for the house, and that she liked whatever we liked. so we had fun. i bought a small wooden stool, a shining deep-blue glass bowl, some floating vanilla candles, and three bright yellow rubber ducks. when we gave my mom her presents, i put the stool in the middle of the table and put the blue bowl full of water and floating vanilla fire and baby ducks on top of it. it looked beautiful and calming in our normally sound- and color-cluttered living room.

denise also got my mom candle things. a blue mosaic glass candle holder that sparkled like gems full of fire. spike got my mom a string of indian elephants -- small, colorful, stuffed elephants -- with a bell on the bottom of the string. she wrapped each elephant individually, and my mom swears she thought there was going to be a trick to it as she unwrapped them -- that the last one would be a duck or something.

around nine, i went to spike's house -- surprise surprise. more of our ritual (as of late) of lachrymose brit-rock and creative writing/school work. and stuff . . .

i saw rachel and jesse outside of walgreens. i've known rachel since kindergarten. it's been an interesting friendship. jesse is her supposed-to-be fiance, who wears only black and keeps scorpions for pets (which he was very proud to show me -- they glow under his black light).

i've been working on two stories -- one is a link here ("jacaranda") -- my collaboration with spike. the other is for my class -- about the fourteen-year-old girl who believes in angels. i think.

slowly, i am getting somewhere in both of them.

i'd like to look outside again, into the still, beige darkness. oh, but this song is so beautiful -- "quiet and still," by even johansen (on the sour times substation of brit-rock on accuradio.)

and the lean tree burst into grief.

oh right. i saw a girl today that i used to know (or more like, see around) in high school. back then she dressed in the cutest clothes, her makeup was always flawless, and her hair was pulled back perfectly. she was outgoing and had lots of friends.

today i hardly recognized her. she looked different. older, and maybe . . . jaded. not a child anymore. she asked what i've been doing -- am i in college or something? i said that i took a few classes last spring, but over the summer, something came up and i was too late to register. (i didn't want to say, hey, nice to see you again, i just had thyroid cancer. i mean, i hardly knew her.) she nodded like she understood and said that she doesn't think she'll be going back to school -- she's had a baby. now she's working nights and trying to take care of her son.

crazy how things turn out.

Posted by: noreia at 03:09 | link | comments |

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

arab strap

this guy (on this station) is moaning over a low, eerie guitar and slow-motion quiet percussion. i first heard this music at my creative writing teacher's house last spring. i remembered the name. "elephant shoe" (the album), by arab strap.

today at spike's house i listened to the melancholy brit-rock and stood in the middle of her floor, my eyes closed. i swayed my hands, my arms. i bent at the waist, moved through the air like liquid. followed the music. dark music, indigo-blue, and i swam in it in a trance-dance. nice to have freedom to move.

arab strap is like that. i want it on headphones so i can morph the world into slow, slow music, a state of calm sadness. sad beauty. mono no aware.

but as of yet, i have been unable to find "elephant shoe."

Posted by: noreia at 04:49 | link | comments (1) |

water and ice

i'm drinking ice-water. my eyes feel wide awake and i feel charged with the night.

once, when i was fourteen or fifteen, i was in waldenbooks at the mall. i was looking through christian books, and a guy standing near me started talking to me. (he started the conversation by asking for the time, but i saw a watch on his wrist.) he was older -- in his twenties -- and had curly black hair. his name was nicholas.

he asked me about my beliefs, my church, and my relationship with my father. "would you say he's a good father? why?" i told him about a friend i was worried about, because she was depressed. i told him i was worried about my parents, because they didn't know God. when i talked about my dad, he told me not to worry -- my dad would find peace with God in the end.

he also told me he was depressed. i was talking about my depressed friend, and he said, "i know how that feels; i've been dealing with that lately myself." he was so quiet about it, and i didn't say anything. i didn't know what to say. afterwards i thought i should have said something -- anything. "you'll be okay," or, "i'll pray for you." three years later, when every day seemed harsh-white and bleak to me, when the future looked like a blankness and the tears just seemed to make the empty vacuum inside grow, i learned how much a few nice words can mean. an effort at human connection. to know that, although they don't fully understand, at least someone cares.

that day, nicholas told me i inspired him because i was so young, and because i'd found God just by opening up a Bible and reading it, and then by talking to God like a friend and listening. a depressed young man encouraged a young Christian girl, new in her hope and needing encouragement.

i left the mall smiling, seriously wondering if nicholas was an angel.

sometimes i think of him when i go to waldenbooks. for a while i looked at nametags -- maybe he worked there? i never saw him though.

thank you, nicholas.

Posted by: noreia at 04:16 | link | comments |

moments in beige

i looked outside. it's four in the morning. the night is still and the color of this background. it really is. my tree is moving, its orange leaves rustling -- this is its time. no other noises. cars and houses are frozen. i feel brown-beige.

Posted by: noreia at 03:53 | link | comments |

my mother's cousin ottmar from austria is coming in january. my mom told me to buy a motorcycle helmet, because he's going to rent a bike and will take me riding.

i'll do it, too. i've just survived cancer. i want to live.

Posted by: noreia at 03:33 | link | comments |

i went to spike's house today. we listened to melancholy british rock while she did homework and i worked on my story. i like being in her room. it's on the second floor, and i've always been more comfortable in high places, more relaxed. grounded, i feel trapped. she's got shelves and posters and furniture everywhere -- the overall feeling is brown. her bed is high and firm and great to lie on while writing stories, with the enhanced bass from the music pulsating through the walls around you. blue light from the computer screen.

and it's strange (and good) how no one ever bothers you there. we sit in her room and usually no one knocks on the door. at home, my room is right next to my mom's room, so i hear the canned laughter of her daytime sit-coms and talk shows through the wall. and when my little brother gets home, the living room is consumed by the jarring sounds of pokemon cartoons. i shut myself in my room with music and block the door with my electric guitar case, because no one pays much heed to the sign i put on my door asking them to please knock, and then wait for the door to be opened.

but at spike's house, i can get lost in the rain-world of my story, i can see through the eyes of willow. i can lie back and feel the british bass flow through me. i can read white oleander. i can watch the quiet neighborhood below me, look through treetops dancing in the wind.

i can breathe.