the last train for the coast

here is a smattering of things i have not forgotten but at the same time have forgotten as well as some new. long run on sentence.

cody hudson

Jakub Julian Ziolkowski



Matthew Palladino

michelle blade

ludachristmas

i couldn't help myself. happy thoughts to all this week.
(and yes, i am a bad jew)

lightning with stag in its glare

one day, not long from this one, i want to ride a beautiful train with you and talk about life and eat cheese and laugh and forecast our futures. i want to forget all that has come before for a few minutes and only think of the present, the movement of the train and the light spilling in through the windows. i want to hold hands and steal kisses and take sips of dark beer. i want to fall asleep on your shoulder and wake when you nudge me and see your smile and have your run your fingers through my hair. i want to take a thousand pictures of this moment that i will show to people when i return, so they can see our smiling faces and know that we existed only for each other. dreams are hard to become reality, but i feel this one just might. far from this frost covered land that i lately inhabit and far from the pain i feel right now. that train ride exists. it exists just as you and i exist and somehow it will all come together and will be even better than my thoughts.

set yourself on fire

i sometimes look at things like this and wonder why i am not there all the time.
probably because of the zombies.

cold blooded old times

last year at this time, i was cold. thinking about graduate school applications and wrestling with daily snow storms in chicago and wondering where my life was going. i was frozen last winter. i wore long underwear, double gloves, scarves, hats, and a long puffy jacket. i wore my uggs into the ground. i would sit in matthew's apartment, in my long underwear, in my hat, under a blanket, and think if it was feasable to smoke a cigarette with my frozen hands. he drank a lot of tea. i drank a lot of hot chocolate. he never understood how i could drink mine when it was still so hot, and i think it was because i was frozen. when your bones are chilled, you are never warm. you never think you'll be warm again in fact. i would go home at night to my freezing apartment and sleep in my long underwear and sometimes even socks! and wish i had either a boy or a puppy to curl up with. funny. i still have those thoughts, although right now i would rather have the puppy. after the coldest winter months, after i threw out my uggs and hung up the winter coat in a closet far far away, i was still a bit chilled. but probably because of other reasons other than weather. i was accepted into grad school and my future was around the corner, but my past was lurking. it lurks still. it jumps up and down when i need to concentrate on things in the present. it says rachel rachel i am here and i am going to annoy you and make you feel the cold, the chicago cold that never escapes your bones after you live there. i am wearing gloves right now and two sweaters and socks and i even turned the heat up. i tell myself to stop being cold. i am willing it but i cannot escape it. not here, not even when i turn my face to the california sunshine and smile. i suppose that is just how it will be now. i suppose i am going to be ok with that.

a did you know lesson

here

una lettera per voi

i just wanted to write quickly. tell you i am thinking of you. hope you are doing well. i am deep into finals, with 2 left to turn in and a residency application for berlin almost finished. but today i am heading to the east bay for a bbq and beer wintery celebration that will most likely get me drunk before 6 o'clock. lets hope that i can pull myself together and finish that paper and that project and that application all in time for my 6:30am flight on thursday. new york city will be so cold. i do not think i am ready for it. i bought an amazing black and white dress yesterday and i am excited to wear it and be a new yorker for three weeks. museums galore, bagels, and my beautiful sisters to drink wine with. i am thinking about brooklyn and my nephews smiling faces and rainbow cookies. oh venieros! how i would love to snuggle up with a latte
and a rainbow cookie right now. instead i will heat up some lentils and brush my teeth and think about you. i am sending you happy thoughts, so please do not be cold and sad. think of me sitting in my light filled dining room thinking of you in yours.

irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically

i noticed that sometimes when i don't leave my house, i forget where i am. my only contacts are my roommates, who just remind me of love and home, and my emails, which are usually from places all over that central location means nothing. the beauty of the dot com. i wonder if i could be anywhere right now. i am here though and here is good. there would be better maybe. sometimes i wish i could subsist only on figs and california wine and a little sunshine. i don't know what that would make me. fruit and fermentation. maybe one day i will pick my own figs and make my own wine, although molly tells me fig picking is a quite horrid job. itchy and sticky. i would rather be fresh when i eat my figs. i have a whole bag of persimmons that came from my brother's tree. they have yet to ripen, but when they do, they will be gooey and sweet and delicious like jam and jellies. i hope they ripen before next thursday. i am most definitely back on cigarettes for the time being and each one reminds me of somewhere else. back on that somewhere else. maybe it is nerves. maybe it is the looming end of the semester. or maybe its just cold.