I miss Philly, too.

I think I'm glad to be home? I don't know why I thought it would be easy to live without my dear friend nearby, I did it for three years after all. Everything feels different now, not that I expected things to be just as they were when I left, but I don't know what it's supposed to be now. Sometimes I wish I had stayed on the east coast, but I think about how miserable I was there and wonder if location makes any difference at all, if I'll feel like this wherever I go, whoever is there or not...

"I wonder if you're mythologizing me like I do you."

In my dreams it's always Christmas time and you're telling me what I already know, but shouldn't it be different in dreams? We were driving through Nic's neighborhood and every house was on fire. You put your arm around me like in a song, and at home I found a note with our names on it together, as if we'd always received things addressed to the both of us. No, I know you must not be mythologizing me like I do you, and when I think of what you probably are doing I have to laugh to myself. I'd rather remember things the way I wanted them to be and not what they actually were, but it's hard when you keep ending things in dreams.

on writing and being home.

I haven't felt inspired to write anything in awhile, and I'm almost tired of talking about my book, or explaining what prose poetry is. It's a wonderful feeling when someone tells me how much they enjoyed the book, or what their favorite poems were (usually Lemonade or the long one about nights in IV), but some of those poems have been with me for three years. I'm tired of them and I want new ones, but nothing comes. And all of a sudden I feel like whatever I write, people will be reading and judging, like I have to come up with an instant hit. Maybe I'll go back to my paper journals for awhile.

There probably won't be anymore lovely photos from out at sea since someone crashed the boat into the breakwater (not me!), but I've been swimming at the pool with giggly little girls who are thrilled at the prospect of Hello Kitty goggles, building IKEA furniture, reorganizing my bedroom and trying to make my clothes fit in it somehow, working off my east coast paleness at the beach with Michael, rocking the bells with Age, watching the Olympics and wondering why I was never concerned with actually swimming fast when I was on the swim team in high school.

I hope someone will want to go to UG tomorrow night.

home, finally.

nothing new.

I wonder what I have inside me that makes me optimistic in the face of inevitable doom and makes me believe the impossible can happen. Actually, I think I know.

another one.

Staples is trying to ruin my life, or just my literary career. I'm sorry if you get a book and the cover is a bit too small. Hand making 40 books is fun! waaah...

The dreams are still coming. Last night you were in my sister's old room, the one that used to be the "den." (Why are you always renting out rooms from my mom in my dreams?) You told me you missed me and we watched Family Matters together. It was a Christmas episode, everyone was in sweaters and it was snowing outside. In real life, the weather is disgusting and the dream has been with me all day.

old things

It feels good to get rid of old things. I'd been driving around with a PC and a dozen lit mags in the trunk of my car for almost three years. Also gone now are tons of old clothes, like fleece footed PJs an ex's mom gave me and winter scarves I never wore and HK purses and bags (not that I don't like HK anymore, whoa who whoa, I definitely am still in love, just look at my bathroom for crying out loud), and jeans I am just too fat for now. In figuring out how I'll move back home, I've been tempted to sell or give away most of my things and fill two suitcases with the things I really want to keep. One of them would be this guy, of course:

Last night in a dream my apartment was on fire so I grabbed him and ran out. I wish that was the only thing I had to pack, but I'm bringing back so much more.