weeona was different this year, because I've taken a new approach this summer, and it is not over-analyzing each and every thing, and weeona is usually where i gather all of my thoughts and organize them, or release them, or whatever. I felt antsy while I was there and I know that was bad. I am afraid I am losing touch with my feelings, but at the same time I am filled with a "joy of living" if you will, I am at a time where I am happy doing things, and not thinking about them too much. I am learning to trust myself, and it is scary.

spent weeona reading "Dead Man Walking" and realizing just how fucked up the death penalty really is.

it feels like everyday is a good day here, even the bad ones. thanks pals, i'll miss you with an achey heart when the summer is through.

sat for an hour trying to write something. instead flipped my computer the bird for an hour. harness your fucking hopes and i need to stop believing in magic and start believing in piss and masturbation. i think it would make for better poetry. i'm learning how to be an asshole. is it working? oi vay, i am hopeless, over and over and over again.

days so good you are too tired to write about them. days where you feel comfortable and happy.

I've been scribbling and scribbling, most of it useless, all of it useless, and I am tired, which means that all I want to do is write run on sentences. I will throw out an excerpt from my scribbles:

Dad says I'm likeable. But is that really enough? I'm learning to be an asshole. People like that. I like that. Mom says be careful. She knows me better than you do. While you only suspect I'm pitiful, she knows for sure. She listens to me try to form sentences for an hour. Do you know what love is? That is love.

I've been listening mostly to Redbird and it's counterparts because it is all beautiful and because it sounds just like what love should sound like. You know when you are listening to a song and you can hear a person smiling while they sing? I love that. I am keeping my head up, because there is nowhere else for it to go.

I'm too tired to have appropriate tact, I am going to go scribble some more.

Milwaukee

Today I realized that I am falling in love with Milwaukee, the people more than the city, and I started thinking about going back to school and it tugged at my heart strings. The more places you start calling home the more things you have to miss. I am happy I decided to live here this summer, and I will be back often whence the school year starts.

Tell me something nice. All I want right now is a fresh cup of words, something that slides down my soul and gives me shivers.

I am flipping through The History of Love and it is beautiful but depressing, which I think is how I used to think of life, but then I learned about lyfe, and since then things have been looking up. Today is just one day. What used to scare me, is becoming a comfort. I always have myself. No one knows me better than myself, which means that I always have a scrap left of dignity, if not more. My problem has never been lack of self confidence, but lack of confidence that the things I know are good about myself are things that other people get to see. Last year I told mom "I am learning to get along with myself," and I feel like I am as close to that as I ever will be.

Weeona in three weeks. Sarah in a little less. All I do in the summer is think, which is probably why I never think of summer as being a season I like, but Sarah and I can just spend hours talking about life in shitville and life in wonderville and our "feelings". And weeona, well, at weeona I don't talk at all but work out my inner turmoil through lots of swimming and wandering away and sitting in the chapel singing and staring at the stars because I am crazy and think that the stars and moon actually know something about me. The things about myself that are a comfort to me are the exact things that are a nuisance to other people. Sarah always says that we love hard. She says it's a good thing. Good for who? Not for me. Not for the people being loved. I am learning to love more well roundedly, to maybe just keep some of my love for myself. We love people until they can't breathe. We love people until we can't breathe. I seem to have no control over my emotions, I don't know if that is normal or just Welchy, but they are always strong, rarely dimmed, like they are screaming at the tips of my nerves, like they want something from me, and I can not give it. I never quite understand this. How my body itches for things that it can't have, I don't understand why together my body and brain can't be a little more resourceful. The other thing I just can't wrap my head around is how we all want the same fucking thing, happiness, and certain days it just seems so silly that anyone would ever be sad when they could be happy instead and then other days you remember that we can't seem to control what makes us happy, and we can't seem to properly attain the things that make us happy. I grind my teeth.

I am a dawg, a slobbery, eager, hopeless little mess, with too much love and not enough tact. I am working on it. I am going to go to sleep and think about how lovely my mother is for being my soundboard.

Welch Preservation

Sarah and I spend an hour commiserating over our Welch-dom. We coin a new term: Welch Preservation vs Self Preservation, Welch Preservation meaning sacrificing your own emotional well being under the false assumption that we aim to please, and that our pleasing other people will result in us pleasing ourselves. Somedays I just want to be home, el cafe where my village of parents resides, the comfort of people who know me at a close distance, who will feed me if I talk sweetly, will tease me, a place where I can feel young forever. It's just some days when I can't quite find the hilarity, can we blame it again on my sleepy disposition? I always think I have my ducks lined up, always think I've got it figured out, but we know i don't really believe in that. My grandma and I talk about friends and I feel better. Artie and Pam and go for a joy-ride in Pam's new car, we drink a little beer, Pam gets loud, I get chatty, Artie bullshits, we go home and cook dinner. These are things. Are these the things?

I am looking for a Welch retreat, a few days with my kin, a few days to get my head an heart in sync, a few days to cry and then laugh at our fake misery. That is all I want today, tomorrow, maybe forever. I had lots of 10 minute nightmares, I woke up and stared at the ceiling, full of maps, Australia right in front and thought of Sage, winking at her before falling back asleep. My stomach was squealing and I stared at the ceiling writing lines of poetry in my head about those strange sounds, the best one (though I can't be sure it is good) was "The sound of fallen soldiers, comes muffled, from my stomach." Mom hasn't called me back, and I want to go to bed, but I am not sure how.

"THIS IS NO ROOM AT ALL WHY DON'T YOU POUR ME A FUCKING DRINK"




"FUCK WELCH PRESERVATION" she says. I tell her: we swallow things too often, and it makes us so full of things that are not ours that we lose touch with ourselves. When push comes to shove we need ourselves more than we need them.
It is not in our nature to hang loosely onto people, we claw and clasp, it really musses things up. Oh god, am I this lonely? I didn't even know. Welch-dom, Welchdoom, we like to take it straight to the bloodline, not just for blame but for self-praise too. We are this way because we were born Welches we say. As though that means anything to anyone who isn't us. It is only like this when we are feeling like the loneliest or happiest people in the world. We wonder if this is normal. Is this normal?



"THE WAY YOU TREAT ME LIKELY ONLY SLIGHTLY BRINGS ME DOWN A LOT"