Lisa

Howard West is fixing crepes by the stove while singing some love song in French as Jake the Snake and I are laughing hysterically in the other room at my bargain priced Barnes & Nobles book by the name of “Extraordinary Pigeons.” (Who ever knew that pigeons that look like praying monks could make two people laugh so hard?) After the laughing subsides, Howard calls Jake over to stir a bowl of ingredients together and I hunt in the cupboard for the vanilla extract. The vanilla extract MUST be found and is found, right next to the Kikkoman naturally brewed soy sauce. The three friends rejoice at the discovery and then have a debate on whether or not vanilla extract tastes good by itself. Suddenly the cook has a demand: “Plates!”
I try to locate the gaudiest plates in the whole house while the chef yells that the tableware must be white. “They must!” he says even louder than before. I imagine him with a white chef’s hat and raising his hand like an Italian man in frustration. I find some white plates with red roses on them but the cook shakes his head and says, “Those will not do! White, I need white, not roses, white!” I look violently through the cabinets, hoping to find some trace of white and then in the corner of my eye, my grandmother's thanksgiving plates are spotted. The white, mother of pearl plates with a delicate golden trim around the edge are waiting to be a pedestal for the delicious crepes and whipping cream. I triumphantly hand the chef the plates and he nods in approval.
The Hershey’s chocolate is carefully poured with a pure silver spoon across the crepes in a zigzagged fashion and the strawberries look like yummy pieces of candy begging to be eaten. The two friends in starvation for dessert watch the cook put walnuts and other secret ingredients in the crepes. Without further anticipation the crepes are eaten off of the ivory plates with as much satisfaction as a chubby boy coming home from fat camp and finding a cupcake in the kitchen.
Seconds later Jake the Snake realizes that he is allergic to half of the ingredients he is eating, starts talking funny and quickly asks for a glass of water. Jake is fading fast and in a moment of desperation Howard does the only thing that will keep Jake the Snake from death. The whipping cream is held tightly by the chef’s hand and without a flinch, he sprays it all over the oblivious redhead next to him. Laughter is heard and Jake is alive.

I’m at my church that has priceless stain glass windows and at least one old, bald man in every row. The congregation is praying the same prayers, singing the same songs that I’ve heard since I was five, and reading the same scriptures that have been ingrained into my brain from childhood.
My mind wanders back to my past church days as a toddler which consisted of Sundays with my mother’s pen in my hand, scribbling on the tithing envelopes while softly humming a Sesame Street song and lifting up my dress a little too high for that which society would consider modest. Sunday school never worked for me when I was young. I rarely went to Sunday School. I was the little girl who turned the pew into a drawing table and made stick figures on the bulletin handouts. Meanwhile in a classroom I had hardly ever seen, all the best dressed Sunday School girls sat politely with their hands folded on top of each other and listened to the teacher tell the story of Jonah and the Whale.
I’m going back to the time in second grade when I carved my initials and the initials of my beloved crush, Jonathan Lopez, into the wood on the armrest right in the middle of my Dad’s sermon. With seven year old naivety, I put a plus sign in between the LF and the JL and with my superior mathematic skills I daringly put an equal sign followed by a heart praying to God that this emblem of love would stay true forever. This of course, was before I learned of heartbreak and rejection.
I’m recalling the moments in junior high when my brother would say something funny under his breath in the church service and my mom and I would relentlessly have to resist the laughter that was trying so hard to burst out of our mouths. My mom would laugh by raising her shoulders up and down to keep from making any vocal noise. But the longer we tried to keep ourselves from laughing the harder it was to abstain from it and within a minute or so the whole pew would be shaking. The laughter undoubtedly overcame us.
Now I’m traveling to past recent years when I wanted so much to be closer to God and learn everything I could about Christianity. I would sing those worship songs as if they were the last thing I would ever sing on earth and I would tear up when I would remember His love for me. I listened to the sermons as if they were the only thing that was vital for living and my existence was all tangled together into one huge ball of whatever God’s plan was for my future. I was satisfied. I had joy. I had slowly throughout all the years discovered something that I wanted to keep forever.
But now I’m back to the present sitting in a pew next to the stain glass window of “The Good Samaritan” and wondering whether anything of what I have learned and found in the past was true. I am saying the prayers but not meaning the words and singing the songs that once made me go to my knees but now defend one of my current beliefs of half truths in the church. I wish constantly that I could go back to the way things were in my life but I would rather find truth even if the truth be the fact that life is bitterly meaningless then to fool myself in believing a lie that says that I have a purpose.
I am hurt. I am confused. I’m sitting in church and desperately want to find Jesus here again. My heart is silent. What once was near has now disappeared and I’m left asking why this happened to me so unexpectedly.

I’m in a living room sitting on an old black couch in a roach infested apartment building that has red brick and overlooks the busy life of downtown El Paso. The apartment has different pieces of art on the wall from local artists; some who insist on contributing to the subculture street art that spreads from the ghetto eastside to the glamorous areas of the Westside that look like a lady’s pearl necklace given to her by her socially acceptable husband. Looking out the dirt-stained window I can see a green street sign that reads “California” and I think about past dreams that failed me in one way or another. To the right of me is a Pilipino friend by the name of Justice Constantine who speaks of hope just by the way he sits in that flowered pattern lawn chair and offers me a friendship of silence while I talk for twenty minutes straight about my trip to England and my frustration in the lack of understanding the world around me. He counsels me and we stare at an aluminum coke can while pressing to go beyond the obvious and attempting to ask why.
He gets up while I’m holding back tears, hands me a paper, goes into his undersized kitchen with bright yellow painted walls and dirty dishes to open a cupboard, find some popcorn and put in the microwave. He asks me if I like butter and I say yes while poking my pointer finger in the tiny black holes in his coffee table that can be turned from a coffee table into a footrest in a matter of seconds. I start reading the letter and my thoughts are satisfied knowing that someday I will live my life into the answers of my questions and I don’t need some dozen pink roses to cheer me up. The smell of the popcorn is inhaled by my sanity while Justice Constantine turns on the Television and we watch bootlegged episodes of The Wonder Years even though we both know that Winnie and Kevin don’t end up together. The day turns to evening and I’m convinced that for some unknown reason, this was one of the nicest days of my life which will always be remembered by a redhead girl who for now, is a little too caught up in the motions of existence.

I am officially not a LAME-O anymore.

Fight against the rising tide of conformity.



lets be human beings again.

i'm getting really excited about england.it's probably due to the fact that work is killing me daily. i think i've pretty much stopped living. can't even hear my heartbeat anymore. only the sound of the comfortable air condition while i sit in my comfortable seat rocking back and forth with my convenient cell phone waiting to ring and my convenient camera waiting to take a picture of something life changing. the phone is silent. the camera is off. nothing happens in a world full of selfishness and pride.

i remember being moved by things. i remember when every day was the best day of my life. but today i feel like my summer has been a wasteful emotionless draining encounter with something that is dying or maybe something that is already dead and rotting. everything is grey and nothing is real and something inside of me is yearning to get a spoon and dig myself out of this place.

my art has been lifeless because there is nothing inside of me.i need to start crying for something forth crying for.

but the rain. i can feel it coming.

E.J. and Lisa run hand in hand while a misplaced artillery shell exploded behind them was like watching a romantic scene from Mission Impossible. ~kirk

i came, i saw, and it was beautiful. i can't wait till i get to see fireworks again when it's the fourth of july...maybe SOMETIMES i don't give america enough credit but most of the time i give america the only credit it deserves.

i need...

bagels.

tonight will be my first night to ever see fireworks. i've been waiting for this my whole life. i used to be scared of them so i never saw any and then when i was old enough to realize that they wouldn't kill me, i was always out of the country during the 4th of july. but today my friends is the day that all changes. and anyone who wants to come call me. everyone is invited.

"the dwarf and the tragedian spoke in unison, not to her but to one another. 'you'll notice,' they warned one another, 'she hasn't answered our question.' i realized then that both were the remains of what had once been a person. the dwarf again rattled the chain."

i'm working at a library/bookstore/gift store. it's pretty sweet. i got one of those ladders that connect to the bookshelf that i can slide across and on wednesday i work with a 93 year old lady with the best sweaters ever! ...plus 8.50 an hour. can't beat that.

i've been reading a book a day. it keeps the doctor away.

i sat in a tree holding a branch that would soon crack and grow wings. Delicious ambiguity.

"And when I see you, I really see you upside-down,
but my brain knows better, it picks you up and turns you around."

789 entries, 276 saved IMs, 24 poems, and 7 letters later, it’s been all erased…from my heart…and my computer. I feel a little bit more alive today.

i'm going to be on the discovery channel. i'll tell everyone the date so that if you want to see me doing my goat impression in a light green bridesmaid's dress you can. The Goat is sweeping the nation. i can't believe this is my life...


but sometimes i wonder, "is this my life?"


isn't it strange that as someone is dying in a hospital bed, everyone else is busy with their own lives. someday i'll be the one in that same bed looking out at all the people that are still living. we all end up there someday.

it's not out of my reach and in all actuality it has been waiting for me my whole life. the difference is that i'm finally going to make an effort and put out my hand. many exist but only one knows what will happen.

dragons...no dinosaurs!

too many times i've looked away from the stars because the sky was too vast and overwhelming.too many times i've forgotten the complexity of norwegian geitost cheese. too many times i've called a flower an ordinary object of everyday life. too many times ninja bob has beaten me in Mortal Kombat. too many times, there's been "too many times" and i'm fed up.


if i could be anything i would be a binary star so i wouldn't have to be constrained by gravity.

the fat man walks alone.

i want to understand everything i encounter in a more profound way. "i know that i do not know," but i have this longing to go deeper than this hard surface.i want to be a child who, although immature in thought, will make best of my available knowledge. obtaining wisdom requires discipline and discipline is something that i lack. it goes against my very being. i don't want structure to come in the way of who i am and i don't want to have an accepted behavior within society... but i do want wisdom and if i need some discipline to get me there then make me what you will... in a unconventional, non conformist way, please. :D

it's scares me sometimes. but the scary thing is, it doesn't scare me too much. now that's scary.

the future is an unanswered question until it is here. meanwhile, we sit in the present and wonder what actions we will take when the time comes instead of taking in every moment and realizing that all things work together for the good.




what can a burning bush say to a deaf little girl?

"What you say or do doesn't matter;only feelings matter. if they could make me stop loving you- that would be the real betrayal...they can make you say anything-anything- but they can't make you believe it. they can't get inside you....if you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."


"here comes a candle to light you to bed. here comes a chopper to chop off your head"



medemoodo.

what do you write when you have nothing to say.





sometimes life is too deep for words.

i fell off of a roof yesterday night...but i also kissed on top of it so the fall was definitely worth it. plus, we didn't get caught so all is good in castletown neighborhood.



i hurt like never before. no one touch me. i'll break.

i'm looking out into the world through a window. no one is looking back in.



end.


drink your coffee and leave

fact: I’d rather be invisible than a genuine fraud.

Oh, my life is changing everyday,

In every possible way.
And oh, my dreams, it's never quiet as it seems,
Never quiet as it seems.

I know I've felt like this before, but now I'm feeling it even more,
Because it came from you.
And then I open up and see the person falling here is me,
A different way to be.

I want more impossible to ignore,
Impossible to ignore.
And they'll come true, impossible not to do,
Impossible not to do.

And now I tell you openly, you have my heart so don't hurt me.
You're what I couldn't find.
A totally amazing mind, so understanding and so kind;
You're everything to me.

Oh, my life,
Is changing every day,
In every possible way.

And oh, my dreams,
It's never quiet as it seems,
'Cause you're a dream to me,
Dream to me.

"Don't imagine i've been selected to go to Perelandra because i'm anyone in particular. one never can see, or not till long afterwards, why any one was selected for any job. and when one does, it is usually some reason that leaves no room for vanity. certainly, it is never for what the man himself would have regarded as his chief qualifications."


i'm going to start my day now. today could be the best day of my life or i could end up dead.



new favorite name: humphrey

lord of the rings night tonight. 7:30. everyone is invited. even you.

doritos kinda remind me of arby's curly fries and also my friend's curly hair.

"birds in the sky. they look so high. this is my perfect day."

convos of the day with janelle:
some have 4. some have 5. look, 6!
this is love. look around us. this is the way the world should be.
i wouldn't trade my highschool years with anyone.

"Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point a to point b very fast while other people dash from point b to point a very fast. people living at point c, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point a that so many people from point b are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point b that so many people from point a are so keen to get there."

leaning up against government property. watching a monster balloon bird off in the distance. turning upside down and falling into the sky. sleeping against the barbed wire fense. he's my escape. he's my shoulder to lean on and when i try to explain about the dots in the air he knows exactly what i'm talking about because he sees them too.
we're together. we're free. it's summer. it's love.