zeroes and ones

is the first thing i see, thrust into an otherwise unobtrusive skyline as i look over the screen of my computer.  in a curious turn of events, i ended up leaving jp a couple of days early, and had an impromptu sleepover with the dear, dear katie.  she is a unique creature, cute as hell, both young and old at the same time, going back and forth between talking about her very grownup job, and her very teenage hormonal responses.  i LOVE it!  it was kinda random, but wickedly fun; a night of riesling and spliffs, girl talk and rupaul’s drag U, which may or may not be the finest television production of our time.  i’ve now spent two nights in boston without my car being broken into, which is more than i can say about the last time i was here.  i don’t even think anyone’s screwed with my bike.  it’s pretty shocking.

at this point, i think it is starting to occur to me that i am in fact leaving the life i know behind.  i’m starting to get a little sad, saying goodbye to lynne really got that ball rolling, and now it’s sort of more real, everything after boston is completely new territory for me.  i keep thinking that  the friends i love, my family, things of that nature, they’ll all still be with me, regardless of the distance, and it is true, but it’s also going to be completely different.  i have a feeling that as much as i do not love the idea of it, i am going to have to become a phone person.  gabrielle somehow kinda eased me into it over the summer (maybe because there was no other alternative?  because if i wanted to talk to someone after dinner that wasn’t in my cabin, i either had to call them or have a detailed text conversation?), but i just still can’t ever see myself as being a person that enjoys copious amounts of phone time.

in awkward news, there is this dude sitting at the table across from me, watching me.  i was trying to ignore it, but he seems to think i was just oblivious and decided to broadcast that he doesn’t mean to stare, but he’s not used to seeing such beautiful women with such beautiful artwork on their bodies.  GREAT.  so, this is going to have to get wrapped up real fast.

i’m waiting on sean, who i thought i was having breakfast with around ten… it is now 12:05p; like usual, he’s taking his sweet time.  i have yet to make plans with sean that he can actually be on time for.  it’s part of his charm, though.  he wouldn’t be sean if he wasn’t perpetually late.  he’s the last face i’ll see in boston, and i’m pretty happy about that.  he is truly a wonderful person, i’m very lucky to know him.

so, today: heading for princeton, hoping to make a pitstop in orange, ct on my way there, to see miranda, then spending an evening with my beloved lee, and tomorrow… amish country!  my darling marshall!  then back to lee on thursday!  and then for the weekend, gabrielle!!  i can’t wait!  i’m so glad i’m doing this.

xoxo

morgan

i thought about you nonstop today from the time i got up to the time i left my desk and through the rest of my otherwise lovely early evening until i saw you and i think that’s really stupid. i think a lot of things are stupid, mostly jobs and factories and people and jean shorts and bluetooth earpieces and how little public transportation is used when it is so convenient and how we can’t cure cancer or AIDS but we can get ass implants and especially me. not that i’m self-depreciating, i’m just sort of accepting of the fact that i’m stupid and you pretty much are too and pretty much everyone we’ve ever met and everyone we ever will meet is also stupid and if we met someone smart we’d probably just make fun of them and call them fat or ugly or stupid.

sometimes when i think about you i think it’d be a good idea to cry but also it seems like a good idea to laugh and most of the time i just think it’d be a good idea to just sit there and think some more and usually i go over past scenarios in my head and sometimes i exaggerate them or take them out of context and sometimes i think about hugging you or telling you stories or looking at childhood photographs or taking off your clothes. and sometimes i think about other people too, but mostly i think about you, but it’s something you’re just going to have to understand is that i do think about a lot of other people and if i see someone and they are so striking my eyes turn black as my pupils expand to fully immerse myself in them, then i am going to probably end up thinking to myself about how lovely they are and maybe i’ll even think about what it’d be like if they look off their clothes and maybe even think about what it’d be like if we both took off our clothes together because sometimes that’s what happens, and you know that, i think. sometimes people just end up with no clothes on and sometimes they like it and sometimes they hate it and then they get dressed and go home and don’t even say goodbye and that’s when you really go crazy and start doing weird shit. and by you i mean me but i’m always doing weird shit regardless of the involvement of another being.  i like to pretend i like thinking about wardrobe makeovers or organizing my living space with feng shui or writing the next great american novel or body sculpting but i usually just end up singing disco songs to my dog or putting on funny outfits and then making funny faces in the mirror then sulking because i don’t feel attractive and then put on my pajamas and walk down the street to where all the brown people live and think about how i wish i wasn’t white and then i think about how you are white and i am white and then i guess it’s okay to not be ethnic because you’re so beautiful and i love you even though you’re pretty much just like me.

i hate this entry because it’s stupid and i’m stupid so i’m going to go get in a stupid bed and have stupid dreams about things i’d be so happy to see in real life because then maybe that would stop making me pray for my house to burn down.

i’m sitting in this terrible, faux-Mexican themed bar where all-American college kids find themselves waiting tables long after graduation, with one of those people who you end up being friends with even though you don’t really like them at all. i can see right down her shirt and even though i don’t think that i even find myself being particularly attracted to breasts, i can’t help but look down there. if i were a man and i actually liked breasts i would understand this as an invitation to look, and as a woman my friend would probably make a big deal out of this and feel violated and sexualized but it’s kind of like a rainbow or the cutest puppy or a car crash or a celebrity or a birth in the sense that if you aren’t used to seeing something and it’s there to see… you might just look.

the face above the showy breasts is talking about a fair, a county fair that i’ve gone to many times, and can’t really picture not hearing about. i don’t even live there anymore, but people still call me to tell me when the fair weekends are. my friend wants me to drive home for the weekend, where she still lives, so we can go to the fair and eat fried dough and italian sausages and drink beer and go on rides and watch tractor pulls and look at prize winning livestock, to see draft horses and baby lambs and all kinds of different types of bunnies and pigs with testicles as big as my head and really all i was ever interested in was the freakshow and they don’t even have that at the fair anymore. going to the fair is always a problem for me; it’s so big but in such a little place. the town is not very big, the fair is full of so many more people than i’ve ever experienced in that town. i feel like i could go there and disappear, that my entire past would disappear there and i’d arrive re-born somewhere else open and beautiful and quiet, but the week after the fair is gone, it’s just like before, it’s just like i’m in 5th grade and sick with chicken pox, it’s just like i’m in 3rd grade and my parents decide to get divorced and also decide to tell me while i’m watching Beetlejuice and then i can’t ever watch Beetlejuice again without crying, it’s just like i’m in kindergarten and me and my friend john are making popcicle sticks talk to each other about tennis and the teacher gets mad at us and we don’t get gold stars for the day and marks my slow decline into the person i never wanted or hoped to be, or i’m in pre-school and tom toutan kisses me and i scream because his hair is so dark and his eyes are so dark and bottomless and his skin is so white and he invites me to his birthday party at burger king and i never wanted anything to do with him to begin with and my parents made me go and made fun of me about it while i sat in the backwards seat in our wood-paneled station wagon and played with my dolls and hid pennies and notes in the locked up compartment in the arm-rest and also cried because i didn’t want to grow up and marry him but my parents said i would and laughed and laughed and i didn’t understand that i didn’t have to.

i blink twice, refocus.  on the fair chatter looming above those exposed mammaries.

its written
on the walls in charcoal, in the threads of the sheets
weaved into the fabric of the couch, the caning in the chairs,
scrawled across the picnic table in the park,
muttered through the speakers on the subway trains.

sometimes i think i see it twisted in the ivy,
then i look again and its gone.
its scratched into your chest, your shoulder blades,
the hollows of your hips, the backs of your knees.
skinny wrists, tiny fingers, tear the texts

from books to sheets to scraps,
committing what remains to rapid fading recollection.