screaming loud enough to turn back the wind

In the last month or so, I've had several very realistic, vivid dreams. The kind where I'm pretty sure whatever it was happened in the Awake World but never actually did. So I'll think I've done something or had a conversation, but it never happened.

Which is very confusing.

Like, I remember having a conversation with Mom about something and coming to a decision about whatever the conversation was about, but I can't remember what the decision was. According to Mom, that conversation never took place.

So, that's awesome.

So, do baby merfolk suckle at their mother’s breast? If they don’t, why do mermaids have boobs?

LOOK AT WHAT MY MOM GOT ME. THIS IS THE CUTEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN.

When I opened the box, my face was apparently hilarious because my aunt started laughing and told my mom to look over. Lilsis said that Mom was delighted to be able to get this little dude for me.

(I apologize for the vagueness! But there are reasons.)



So, my mom is essentially in charge of a large organization, and the places where I and lilsis work are technically part of that organization, except we’re neither of us under her direct chain of command because that would be illegal. She’s been working for this place since before I was born, so pretty much everyone at both my place of work and lilsis’ knows who our mom is. (She’s also apparently terrifying?)

Anyway, today she was on the phone with lilsis (Mom took the afternoon off; lilsis was still at work) and Christmas present drama happened, so Mom said quite loudly into the phone, “Fuck me with a chainsaw!” and lilsis’ officemate heard her. Lilsis’ officemate has only met Mom at lilsis’ wedding, but she obviously has heard a lot of stories, from lilsis and various other people. Mom answers to only two people, and one of them is the governor. Mom has a reputation of do not fuck with me.

Lilsis’ officemate’s reaction was appropriately hilarious and I wish I could've been there.

What the goddamned fuck.

My knee has been killing me for three days, the worst pain I can remember being in, and I spent most of today in bed because now my entire body is aching and I overall feel like shit, and I get up to this.

Fuck everything.

Two As and two Bs for my first semester of the doctoral program! Considering I stopped caring about one of the classes halfway through, I'm happy with a B.

So, in two separate classes this semester I've had other students tell me that they really enjoy my writing.

I have no idea how to take compliments in person. But it really made me happy.

In 1987, the year before I was born, Freire said, “Language gives you a glimpse of how people survive,” (p. 137). It’s a cliché, perhaps, but who writes the history books? Whose exploits are recorded, remembered? When looking into the past, who is the default and who, it seems, never lived or did anything of worth at all? If there is no record of your existence, did you? I used to write frantically, skipping words in their entirety, messy and confusing, my opinions and my beliefs, my hopes and my fears, and I imagined that someone, somehow, someday, would find it and read it and know I had existed, that frightened and angst-filled 13-year-old. I wrote and so I would be remembered. I write. I have written and I will write. I will still be writing tomorrow and next week and decades from now. I’ll look back at that diary I kept in middle-school and I’ll remember the girl I was, the girl who couldn’t begin to fathom the woman she’d grow up to be.

Written November 27, 2016

I ask you
once
and you turn away
with no reply.
.
I chase after you down the block
crying
(me or you?)
and you don’t look back.
.
You don’t look back.
You never have.
.
I never learn.
I take it all—
I pull it in
until all I am is your reflection.
.
Have I ever been my own?
Caught in your lies,
tangled in your smile and your touch,
your toy when you think of me.
.
Your toy,
you toy—
I hold my breath,
faint with hope that always flees.
.
You don’t see me.
I ask you
once
and you leave me.
.
I chase after you
tears on my cheek,
tears in my throat,
and I know you’d never cry for me.
.
You’d never cry for me.
You’d never turn back.
You never have.
.
I watch you walk away,
your spine straight,
your steps sure,
and I exhale.
.
I ask you
but once.
A single time.
A single breath.
.
Exhale.
The dirt is cold beneath my knees.
Inhale.
The sun shines.
.
I chase after you
but you’ve never seen me
for me.
I’m just a reflection.
.
I breathe
as you turn the corner.
.
The ground is steady
and the sun is warm
and I shudder in relief.
.
Is this the kindest you’ve ever been to me?
.
Inhale.
Exhale.
You won’t turn back.
I never learn—
.
Exhale.
But time is all I have now.
Inhale.
Exhale.
.
Breathe.

There's still hope! Holy shit, I had no idea about this. And it comes down to Louisiana?!