full of moxie and viscosity

Some days you can feel yourself getting older.

As I held Ian in my arms yesterday, Tuesdays with Morrie was on the tellyvision (I am subjected to watch the telly on occasion at the twins' house. It's not horrible, but it's not great, either). If you know anything about Tuesdays with Morrie, you know that the subject matter is the meaning of life and the meaning of death.

Now, I consider myself a rational, mature human being. Most of the time, anyway, I consider myself rational and mature. But as Morrie started talking about death, about how it's inevitable and how we're all in denial of our own mortality, I panicked. My father has to die. My mother has to die. And of all of the things in the world that scare me, those two are the most uncontrollable and the most terrifying.

So with the warm, round head of Ian snuggled into my bosom (he is the snuggliest of the two, even when he's really alert and awake, he just wants to be up against a chest, warm), I cried, uncontrollably, terrified. The child was the most important thing in the entire world, but one step removed. What happens to me if I never have children and then my parents die? WHAT HAPPENS TO ME IF I NEVER HAVE CHILDREN AND THEN MY PARENTS DIE? What will I be living for? I cried with him in my arms for an hour, the television on mute, his head in my hands. I was shaking by the time I was through, but I'd worked through my attack. I don't get to choose what I live for, I just have to saturate myself in it while I can.

I used to really loathe all of the responsibilities associated with being an adult, or being on my own, as it were. But as things progress, I think I'm starting to understand that, really, we don't get to shirk those responsibilities, so we might as well freakin embrace them and buck up. I have to pay off all of the ugly credit cards I racked up in college. I have to pay all my other bills. I have to shower (not that showering is a particularly exclusively adult thing to do, or have to do, but it's still something I have to do that I don't always want to). I have to go to work and do things that are stupid (clean floors and smile at rude people, clean up poop, listen to crying).

They all make sense, though. None of it feels like it's for naught, and I guess that's a new feeling for me. I understand where it's all leading, and I'm okay with it.

Since this is MY blog and I get to do whatever I want on it, I'm going to do some plugs for people who really, really deserve plugs.

Shannon Eileen (former Siren, incredible vocalist. Get on her mailing list)
www.shannoneileen.com

Gabriel Mann (duh... if you aren't on his list, you're stupid)
www.gabrielmann.com

That's all for now, there are eight hundred more, but really, check them out. They're so illuminating, so innovative, so fresh... do it. You'll thank me.

Many thanks to Pete Levno for having the idea to go to Denny's last night.

Immeasurable thanks to Nathan Gadd for his surprise phone call tonight which saved me. In completion. Saved. For using words like "destructive" and "meant."

And thanks to my mom for being able to talk to me tonight for the first time in like, three days. We finally caught up. Whew. Three days is a long time.

I just can't get it right. I don't understand how I'm really supposed to be. I try so hard to be upfront with people, let them know how I feel, and then I end up backing off of it and feeling like the worst person in the world for telling them something- it's the Justin Ray Syndrome-- I turn into the Rachel I was with him... the other person is always right, I never have something rational or reasonable to say, and I am actually the bad person for wanting things to be different, or having emotions at all. I just don't get it. I don't know what that balance is. And it makes me really upset and lonely to think about it. So lonely, it's weird, like I want to reach out to someone that doesn't exist, something blank and whole, something white. It doesn't exist, but I really want to reach to it, let it run through my fingers, like everything else.

And how, at the end of these confusing nights
am I supposed to deal
with the guilt
of stories of old
passages past
irrelevant, convinced mistakes
things so far under the bridge
that I can't even see their ripple
but still
tell me, because for now
the guilt is mold
and I am feeling dirty
strange
unsettled
with the Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt
on top of my teeth.

I've had the one night stand
I've had the two night stand
Sheeeyat, I've had the three night stand
The Friends With Benefits
The "Oops, we love each other, now RUN!"
The Spiritual Intertwining of Two Souls in the Night
The Go-to Booty Call
The E-mail Infatuation
The Forbidden Love
The Long Distance
The Phone Sex
The Long Distance Phone Sex
The Intellectual Intercourse
The Coworker
The TA
The Freshman
The Rebounder
The Older Man
The Guy With the Girlfriend
The Heartbreaker
The Woman


I've had so much, but when I fall asleep at night, I feel like I missed out, somehow.

(Bonus Points... email me at rachelroellke@hotmail.com with the names of the above people... and you'll get a special prize!!)

Due to recent, unnameable circumstances, I have the opportunity to put together 50 pages of my novel for someone to read. Someone not in my immediate family or a friend.

Anyway, IT IS HARD TO PUT TOGETHER 50 PAGES. I don't really even like what I've written so far, not the narrative, anyway, and it's so disjointed from how I want it to feel. My goal (I love goals, don't you!? My newest one is to fit into my suede pants by New Years (which I'm spending in LONDON!)) is to get the 50 pages ready by the middle of September (my move date for Fresno). I think it is DOABLE. I like capital LETTERS in this BLOG. So there it is. Goal for Rachel, #3452. Alleluia.

So I thought that it was fun the last time I went to Berbati's Pan by myself. Really, though, I went to the Pan last time to find some kind of friend. This time, however, I really just wanted to go listen to music and I did. And it was wonderful. I bought two CD's and got a button and drank Sprite and water and watched everyone grooving to the sounds of Tea for Julie and the Charmparticles and most importantly, Empty Set, who were surprisingly cohesive and really on... T for J was, as always, incredible, and I only saw one song by the C.P. and it was really hard core, and so therefore, good. I love drums more than I ever have before.

OH! Grey pumas make for a great upper.