true love waits

7:11 p.m. and i'm at home by myself for the first time in a long while. my beautiful wine colored chenile throw is wrapped around my shoulders, sheltering me in warmth, while my face bows toward the candle flames at my desk. it's the closest i'll get to a fireplace in this house.

i tried to eat something substantial this evening, but honestly, unless i have someone to cook for, i never really make meals. tonight, i ate some vienna bread and goldfish crackers, the remains of which i'm still finding stuck back near what i think are the beginnings of my wisdom teeth. it reminds me of lunch in 8th grade and how hours after i'd begged some goldfish off morgan, i'd realize there was still a little bit left, crammed underneath the wires of my braces.

i hated 8th grade. this was especially difficult because i had loved 7th grade. that was the year i dated tony kohman and kissed him in the park while his friend lenny smoked behind us. that was the year i knew everyone and went to every party. that was the year we listened to whitney houston belt out "and i (e i e i e i) will always love you" on the radio in art class and got dropped off at the pizza hut to meet our friends and watch a movie at the discount theatre next door every friday night.

8th grade seemed to strike suddenly. i had already started showing signs of puberty, but i wasn't prepared for the sudden self-consciousness, or the zits, or the "Year of the Most Devastating Hair Cut Ever." i loved many boys. i owned many banana republic map t-shirts. and i developed an obsession with astrology or anything i thought could predict my chances of happiness, or success, or love. i listened to the cranberries and paperboy (anyone remember ditty?)

anyway, 12 years later i'm here. at the computer on a monday night, listening to christopher o'riley pianoing radiohead on his true love waits album.

i've written a few emails to myself this evening in the vein of ann kiemel, although i think they read more like the psalms of david - up and down and all over the place. i read them out loud and hoped god would hear them like a prayer, in case he can't read, i guess.

this is how i imagine my life unfolding. somewhere. anywhere. typing out words that only i'll ever read. i'd like to imagine myself with a typewriter, but it's too loud. and either a) it'd wake up my kids if i ever had any or b) would cover up the noise of the burgulars breaking in to my humble abode in the mountains of (... i don't know, any place that has mountains) where they'd steal my entire collection of white t-shirts and authentic village jewelry the locals had given me when i'd first entered through the rusting gates of the little city.

yes, a computer is quieter. especially with these silencer keyboards they've been putting out recently.

i digress. though from what i don't know. regardless. new topic.

in all my thinking recently, i wondered what my younger self would have thought of me now. would she be disappointed? would she even understand what's going on in my head?

ah, mary of little faith. my younger me is still me. in april of '98, i wrote in my journal

"i wish i were back in NY. freedom. i was responsible for me and although i wasn't financially independent, i felt in control of my own affairs. i don't want to go back to school. i want it to be summer. i want to be free. i'm tired of this place. i need a whole new place. puke on everything. i just want to yell at everyone. i want someone to love me. i want to get away. i want to fly away. i want to be alone. i want to be surrounded. i want to feel lost. i want to get excited. i want to forget. i want to start over. i want to pack my bags and just start walking. i want something else.

everything is the same here. the same people, the same places, the same attitudes, the same beliefs, the same feelings, the same problems. who cares? who am i to the people down the street? to the owners of homes in brooklyn? i'm nobody to 99.9% of the world."

of course, the next day i wrote about a crush on geoff, and a crush on erik, and how much i loved shelly ("we spent the whole day together and we didn't get remotely sick of each other").

not much ever changes, i guess. granted, instead of letting dolores o'riordan draw tears from my eyes, i let christopher o'riley pound his piano to fake plastic trees and pull words onto paper.

true love waits.

huh. why would you call a song that?

actually, if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna take this bunny trail privately ...