Fool, please.

6:44PM

I listened yesterday to George Carlin's joke about how our house is really only a place to put our stuff. How true it is, in my case especially, as I only envision truly having a 'home' when I've acquired too many books to move around anymore. An elaborate bookshelf with a roof over it, maybe a small bed in the corner; a place to put my stuff.

5:36PM

It's funny how easy it is to get lost in a city, no matter how well you know each block, each cobbled sidestreet. It's even stranger how, when you desire nothing more than to lose yourself in that city, it seems nearly impossible. No matter how many blocks you walk with your head down, only mindful of the bright traffic signals hanging overhead, you can never seem to find a road that doesn't feel familiar- that you haven't walked a thousand times.
I tried to lose myself today, got on the bus and rode to the center of the city and began to walk aimlessly. It was a hopeless task, however, as each city block was steeped in the feeling of the mundane tasks that fill my day-to-day existence. The clothing shops I've browsed, the cafes I've eaten at a thousand times; without glancing up at street names I knew exactly where I was.
Some days it's the menial tasks that seem the hardest to perform. Eat, sleep, shit. I lay on my couch at night, trying to lull myself to sleep, but instead can only muster the strength to lift the remote to shift restlessly between channels.
I fall into depressions sometimes, and think of how beautful Michelangelo's work must have been after he spent days unable to get out of bed. Today I feel that I am exiting one of those hazy depressions, noting how beautiful even the smallest trivialities are after two weeks of not feeling a damn thing.
Most of my thoughts today have come to me in choppy Italian- simple half-meditations on life and love. The opposite of simple, really, but put simply because of my lack of vocabulary.

Even though I am unable, it seems, to lose myself in the city anymore, I enjoy the city best of all because of the noise. When I sit alone inside of my house, or in nature, I can only hear the rush of blood in my eardrums- a constant ringing that reminds me of my existence. The city allows me to forget myself, become a ghost, in the constant flow of traffic- the screeching of brakes and the hum of the mechanical monster.





I haven't decided yet whether this- this feeling that overtakes me from time to time- is why I THINK that I am a writer, or if it is why I AM a writer.
I guess only time will tell.


How pedestrian it is to be an artist these days anyways- a writer, a painter... Everyone is an artist. Six months ago, when buying my Mac at the Apple store in a suburban mall outside of Detroit, I met an artist whose work was hung at the MoMA. A short man, balding and with round glasses, he showed me his photographs as if to convice me that he WASN'T currently selling me a computer. While browsing the 'New Fiction' section at Barnes and Noble today, I noted the various "professions" that kept these writers alive while they struggled with yet another formulaic novel that would surely be printed only in paperback- MTV producer, waiter, Argentinian drug smuggler (OK, maybe not the last one).
Sigh. Well, perhaps when I publish my first novel, the back of my paperback masterpiece will tell tales of vitamin-dealing and grant proposal-translating..... Though I sincerely hope not.

10:05AM

I am sitting on my porch, watching the squirrels crawling along the power lines that trace imaginary shapes over the Georgetown streets; as I watch, I wonder whether these tiny little critters realize the constant danger that they are putting themselves into. As they scamper over these high voltage passes, do they ever stop think about the long tumble to the ground, or the excruciating death of electric shock?
OK, right, they're squirrels. But still. I heard something the other day- on Reno 911 nonetheless- about the difference between bravery and courage. Bravery, The Rock (yes, The Rock) recited tactlessly, is doing something dangerous without even being scared, while courage is understanding that you should be scared, and doing it anyway.
Right. So I sit and ponder that, as I've been feeling progressively more stagnant since my return from Michigan yesterday. I have been working a job that utterly lacks enrichment for almost two months now. I am so afraid to apply for most of the jobs that I really want, and even more terrified to apply to both the Peace Corps and graduate school. What if I, like the little squirrels, get burned by walking on tightropes?


I haven't had any coffee yet (I'm trying to cut my intake down to eventually just tea), so I'm not nearly as eloquent as I should hope to be. But still, what The Rock said struck a cord with me. While these little squirrels risk life and limb in nonchalant brave acts, courage is the step beyond that I am capable of. But now comes that whole 'application process' thing. Sigh.

6:47PM - Short Rant

OK. So generally, when it comes to other peoples' journals, I find it really mundane and almost obnoxious to post about certain things. Being overly dramatic about small things, telling me about your entire day... these are all off-limits if you want me to read your livejournal. However, I'm really bored and pissy, so I'm going to go a slight rant. Read only with this note of caution in mind.

Today I have come to the conclusion that I am only attractive to boys from Georgia and 40-year-old men.

A note to men everywhere: when I rant to you about my hour-long commute, it doesn't make you special. I do that to everyone that says 'hello' to me- that's just what's on my mind.

Sigh. I hate being stuck in the wilderness, it takes so much motivation to even talk myself into driving the 45 minutes it takes me to get to the co-op grocery store (which is where I was assaulted with an unsolicited business card-call me-wink while I was JUST TRYING TO POUR MY DAMN HONEY). Did I mention that I'm quitting smoking today? I accidentally stopped smoking the other day, and got sick, so I figure I'll try and go with it (which happens at least once every three months)... Also, I'm watching a quasi-incestuous love story on tv. And that's making me even angrier.

9:47PM

It's surprising how stressful it can be to find a place to live. Sigh. I can't wait until I'm more settled in.

4:15PM - Trade In Goodbyes For Lullabies And Sing Me Off To Sleep.

Bury me in a sunflower field
If ever I should pass.
Snuggled into burlap-
Warmed up by the grass.

Play me a song not so sad
That one could not but dance,
And whisper me sweet lullabies
To aid eternity trance.

4:59PM

I'm done with EVERYTHING! yay!

Hellooooooo bar.

3:17PM - Stories (because I'm Organizing my English portfolio for class)

Growing up, I spent most of my time at the hair salon where my mom worked. Doing laundry, running errands, gossiping with forty-year-old women… these were the activities of my youth. My life was marked by constant change- though this was manifest in the hairdos of the elderly women who wandered in looking for a new way to style their fading hair.

As I got older, my time spent at the salon took its toll; my hair became my instrument for unconsciously conveying whatever phase I was experiencing. At twelve, I chopped off my long mane of messy blond curls and grew out the bangs I had deemed childish. When thirteen rolled around, I dyed my hair magenta, to match my favorite t-shirt. At fourteen, my hair changed color monthly, moving between red, brown, and blond (which, because of the other colors, ended up being more of a yellow).

And so it went, on into high school, as my hairstyle became a tightly-coiled bun positioned awkwardly on my head. I was shy; I did not hide behind my hair- I hid my hair behind me. I envied the girls with the long, shiny tresses, their hair spilling onto the desk behind them and the sweet smell of hair products lingering long after their presence.

I refused to leave my house with my hair down. It did not look like the beautiful styles of the popular girls; instead, my hair, when worn down, more closely resembled the tattered brooms used by the janitors.

I finally wore my hair long after I decided to put it into dreadlocks during my senior year of high school, much to the dismay of my mother and art teacher. For the first three months, my dreads looked (and smelled) as though they'd been made the nest of a host of small animals. Later, though, they grew more uniform and I learned how to care for them.

To celebrate their half-birthday, I dyed my dreads lime-green and electric blue. I had now become the 'hippie' of my high school; still quiet, I now had an image that my peers viewed as legitimate. I happily bought into it… or maybe, I had finally found a way of expressing who I really was. Either way, I embraced my inner-hippie, wearing hand-painted jeans to school and buying Grateful Dead albums. I had finally found the image I so badly desired throughout my adolescence.

When I graduated high school, I was still the hippie. That summer was spent wandering barefoot, jobless, attending outdoor 'open mic' nights. I came to college with a set of door beads and year-old dreadlocks, excited and nervous to enter a world where I knew this image would have to be substantiated with who I read and what I wrote.

My hair changes have slowed down now, marked only by a change from my high-school dreadlocks to normal hair, and back to dreadlocks. I shaved my head last November, as a final farewell to my attachment to hairstyle; with or without hair, I'm still who I am. There's no changing that.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The concept of marriage has always eluded me- I don't understand the idea of committing to one person, one path, for the rest of my life.

I went to a wedding once, with a boy who thought he was my 'One and Only.'  It was the wedding of his friends Amir and Baharak- two people I had met but didn't know very well. 

We drove all the way to Toronto on a Friday afternoon, after an intense all-nighter spent writing a paper for my independent study.  The trip was also excruciating- our car was searched by Customs, Scott forgot the gift and card, and we got lost at least three times on the way to our hotel.  When we finally got to the wedding hall, however, we were the first to arrive.

After wandering the surrounding grounds for an hour, avoiding all of the old relatives who spoke little English, Scott and I took our place in the balcony overlooking the ceremony.  It was a Persian wedding, which meant long-standing traditions of which I had little understanding.  Instead of walking down the aisle, the bride and groom were seated in throne-like chairs, behind an elaborate table decorated with hundreds of morsels of food.

A man standing before the congregation read a foreign language from a long scroll while the couple fed each other small bites of each symbolic food.  Honey for sweetness in life and sticking together through good and bad times, an elaborate flatbread for prosperity, decorated eggs and nuts for fertility… It lasted for hours.

As I stood overlooking, hand-in-hand with Scott, I pondered the significance of the idea of love.  Are these two people truly giving their hearts- their lives- to one another?  Does love exist in a different way for them than it does for me?

These questions still remain unanswered, almost a year later.  I spent the rest of that day feeling lost and self-conscious, wandering through the laughing crowds of relatives and friends.

There was hope, though- suspended in that cup of honey that each lover drank from.  Maybe it’s not a hope that maybe someday I would be willing to share that cup- my life and love- with someone else, but it is, at least, a hope that the substance of my life will always be as sweet as that honey.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 I’ve never really been on a date before. I’ve ‘hung out’ with guys, I’ve ‘gotten coffee’ with guys, but dating isn’t something that I do.

My last boyfriend, Scott, and I had our first ‘hang out’ two weeks after he took up my roommate’s lease for the summer.  Can you ever really date someone that you live with?

Scott and I broke up last month- right before Valentine’s Day, I think.  After that, guys seemed to come out of the woodworks; random men, old friends, new acquaintances were all asking me to go out with them.  I’ve still never been on a date.

Today I am meeting Tom for a drink.  It is not a date- but we might kiss.  Tom is one of the surprises that happened after I broke up with my boyfriend; two weeks after I was ‘single’ according to my Myspace page, I get a message from Tom about a band that reminded him of me. 

Tom is a boy that I didn’t date two years ago- one that knew me intimately, but not at all.  We had been ‘not dating’ for two months before I left for Africa.  When I came back a month later, he was taken- dating a girl that looked and acted all too much like me, only better.  Slightly prettier, slightly smarter, slightly better at getting men like Tom to date only her.

What will he think now, after two years?  Have I changed and not realized?  My growth has become so fluid- I don’t even notice anymore.

I’m supposed to call him right now.  How does his voice sound?  Will I be nervous?   do know that I’ve gotten stronger, more passionate, smarter, over the past two years.  Will I throw that all away the minute I see him?  Become nineteen again?  Or will I blow him away with my cool? 

2:38PM - Graffiti Paper Continued...

More.

2:30PM

I decided to post the paper I wrote on graffiti last semester for an anthropology independent study, since I feel that most people are inclined to make judgements about the art without any real knowledge.  While it's in need of a lot of revision, I hope that it at least gives anyone brave enough to attempt to read it a new perspective on the artform.

To be continued...

9:25PM

My anthro professor just high-fived me.  What a way to end my college career....


Why did I finally get good at choosing classes/ college in general when I'm just on my way out???  Sigh, I'm tremendously happy.

Edit: After doing a menial amount of research (i.e. reading my lj friends page) I have discovered that my sister will be interning in D.C. over the summer.  OVERjoy (!)

12:23AM - Quick Quick Quick

Today I am thoroughly optimistic about everything. I  E-mailed someone today about possibly volunteering at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (which is an awesome, awesome event), and I encourage everyone to do the same.

www.demf.com

I'm even optimistic about the fact that, if I have skin cancer (which I'm conviced that I do), I have a 9 in 10 chance of survival.  (I also encourage everyone to CHECK YOUR MOLES.)

www.skincancer.org

8:21PM - Two (Short) Silly Poems About Death... and Salvation

These were both written to be read aloud, but I still wish to share them with my few, loyal readers.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Born-Again Christian
(Read in a slow Southern drawl for full effect.)

Hell hath no fury like a Born-Again Christian
And the Mormons come knockin' at my door every chance they get.
Tuesdays, Sundays, even (sometimes) Saturday nights.
Lookin' for a glass of water... lost earring...
A soul to save...
Awwwww Lawdy, you ain't draggin'
me to no Pearly Gates, no way.
For I am a Happy Heathen
(or a wandering Boddhisttva.)--
Either way, save your knockin' for Heaven's front door-
And leave my damned doorbell alone.

Tomorrow I'll Wake Up With Wooden Teeth
(drawn out sing-song-- accent on every other syllable)

Song after song, I sing, I sang-
Till all my singing's done.

Upon the morn, I shall awake
with lumber in my mouth.

Instead of teeth- just trees and logs
Their leaves rustle when I shout.

6:13PM

Mm Mmm Mmm, so close, yet so far away.




Oh to be Young and Liberated... Such is graduation.

1:26PM

            All totaled, I have lived with over fifty people in my life- each one different than the last.  Short, fat, skinny, tall- I’ve lived with all of them.  Gay, straight… ambiguous… bi- I’ve known all of them, and their sex-lives, personally (sometimes too much so).

There was Nathan, who loved everything about Japanese culture and spent the entire year we lived together in his room, playing RPGs on his Mac.  Tara watched MTV everyday, even if the same program had been on the day before.  Nic, a.k.a. ‘The Amish,’ had only three interests: Jameson whiskey, his moustache, and his cowboy hat.  Jack plays guitar and watches hockey religiously; Nick Hampton writes poetry in little Moleskine notebooks and wanders around East Lansing singing to himself.  Each person has been an individual, with interests that vary like day and night. 

            Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not headed towards a “Breakfast Club” speech about how we’re all different but we can all still get along (and spend a Saturday in detention together, playing out silly antics against the school principal).  I’m much too cynical for that.  My point is that we were born in a generation that is able to create and recreate our own identities at the drop of a hat- regardless of our parents, our location, or our peers.

            Personally, I read Beat poetry as often as possible, download Podcasts of the Diane Rehm Show daily, and spend way too much time researching health issues online and self-diagnosing.  But that’s just who I am today.  When I was in high school, I listened to the Grateful Dead and had dreadlocks (which I learned about on a website called Dreadheadhq.com); when I was twelve I listened to Motown and was ridiculed by my peers for not knowing who Bone, Thugs, ‘N Harmony were.  I have reinvented myself more times than I can count, and I’m not even a quarter of a century old yet.

            Since the Internet became widespread in the mid-1990s, I have been an avid user.  As a pre-teen, I spent hours (and hundreds of my parents’ dollars) online, mostly wandering through random chatrooms.  I never spent very much time on the telephone, which always perplexed my mother and her girlfriends, and instead touched base constantly with friends through AOL Instant Messenger.  In high school, I got a Livejournal to keep up with my friends’ lives (even though we saw each other every day) - and random posts made on the site were a main topic of conversation in the cafeteria at lunchtime.

            Today I still have my Livejournal, and also keep a Facebook profile and a Myspace page up, just in case anyone out there wants to know what I’m currently up to, or how I’m wearing my hair these days.  We- the tech-baby generation- have been doing this for years.  And it can only get more complicated from here.

            According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, $12, 542 million was spent on Internet advertising in 2005.  Even as I ‘Googled’ that information, I was bombarded with paid advertisements disguised as search results.  Not only are we advertising ourselves through the Internet, we’re being sold our own identities through the same medium… At the same time.

3:40AM - I've burnt so many bridges that I finally learned how to swim.

10:11PM - Where are you going?

Some days I find myself completely infatuated with the idea of taking up scholarly pursuits for the rest of my life.  To be honest, I could see myself as a magnificent post-colonial historian- perhaps I would publish non-Eurocentric books and chide people for foolishly relegating these other histories to the sidelines of 'Western history'...
Other days all I want to do is get high and paint....



I want to do something that  I love- but I don't know what that is.  And I don't know how to mesh what I love with what I'm incredibly good at.


Sigh.

Where are you going?

1:10AM - As promised...

What are my life goals these days? Tomorrow has become another word... I watch the days go by- I sit idly while it gets later and later into the year.  Every day that I go to work, I sit and wonder where the time has gone... Almost four years gone past, and I feel like I've been in a haze since I stopped writing.  It's funny how easily I forget, I really should write everything down.

I've had some good ideas, and some bad ideas, over the past three and a half years.... I jumped off of a really REALLY tall bridge-- bad idea.  But I do kind of like my idea about life being like a book, and wanting my story to last one thousand pages, without an epilogue.

I guess I'm becoming nostalgic today because I'm working on a photo project, looking at old pictures of my grandmothers and great grandmothers... pictures from when my sister and I were teeny tiny.  It's weird to think- I'm sitting here, running errands, cooking dinner, doing mundane bullshit.... when I could be finding what makes me happiest in life...


But then again, that's always been why I write.

So this is Christmas. (I hope you had fun... another year over, a new one just begun.)

Sigh:) How long has it been since the last lyric post?

1:02AM - Old Life Goals. And other random shit.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

12:26AM - Echoes of the Past: piecing myself back together.

November 6, 2003
Experiments in Pure Psychic Automatism.
I discovered some "stories" and poems saved on my computer from like the first week of college, which is ironic because they're all pure psychic automatism type stuff and I didn't even know that existed back then. Ha. That's irony for ya.
____________________________________________________________________________________
And now a story, because I'm tired of the same old poem:

It begins with an onamonapoea- KASMACK! but ends with a realization. Shallow beginnings beget shallower endings. Isn't love sweet? And Immoral? I should like to think so, how refreshing to think that way. And so this first paragraph, not even being a real one, rambles on nonsensically, for you know nothing of why this story exists... But neither do I.
Perhaps the KASMACK! at the beginning of this story was not hearable. That sound coincides only with a feeling, of love and lust and need and so on and so on and so on. Love is such a beautiful thing: two repressed beings coming together to form one psuedo-emotional antiChrist which eventually procreates, making even more psychotic nothingness. I know of nothing worse than love.

December 16, 2003-->
Black Butterfly
"She's locked herself in the basement again!" A far-off female voice yelled.
Slowly, the girl began to come back to life. Her dreary bedroom surrounded her, enclosed her, flooded her senses. Street noises floated up into a small window to her left, which was propped open by two small novels, both written by the same obscure author.
From another room in the apartment, a male voice yelled, "But we don't have a basement!" in reply.
The girl sat up, shaking her head at the idea of being somehow related to these lunatics. "Every morning, every fucking mourning."
As she moved to get up, her tiny cluttered room became slightly more surreal; a quick flash of change caught her eye, but she pretended not to notice. Her parents were still talking about the most random things in very loud voices as the girl dressed and moved around her room.
She grabbed her shoulder bag and closed the door behind her, entering the hallway. As the door clicked shut, a small drawing on the back of her door fell off, as the final piece of tape on the corner had finally given out. It fluttered to the ground and rested on a stack of books. The drawing, a dark scene with one solitary figure, became a butterfly for a split second- only given enough time to flutter it's wings once. But it happened. It happened so suddenly that no one, not even the girl's God, knew about the unnatural morphing of the picture- which is a good thing, since her God wouldn't have allowed it to happen. Gods generally frown upon magical occurances, since it lends validity to their existence. But the black butterfly happened when the girl's God (and everyone else's Gods) was looking the other way.

January 17th, 2004-->
Maya
I know why the caged bird sings.
Her song fills the prison
exploding
and flowing through metal bars
like water
dripping on the floor below
and falling to the heavens.

She sings as though she is free
But her songs have sorrow too
because her wings will never brush a cloud
and the chat of flowers will remain a mystery
to her ears.
Song is the only thing that is free
in her cage-
prison-
Except her daydreams.

Lovingly, she is kept.
caged birds' songs are full of beauty.
and so is she.
but little attention is paid to words-
Her cries go unanswered
Her wings touch the cage.
I know why the caged bird sings.
Because I sing too.


____________That Said...___________
Have you heard anything you've been saying lately?
Have you been listening to the conversations in your head?
Do you know where you're walking to?
Or are you just walking
so you don't have to stop?

words... or compostions?
write or wrong?
how far does blank page extend
how often does your pen converse
and when did you stop listening to it
direction drags you to the end
but there is none.
there are only more stolen words
only a given phrase
knotches made on a pencil
telling you how far to go.
just keep walking
until there is no more sidewalk.
what then???

The answer comes.

July 21st, 2004--> Written while working at camp, my nickname was Tangerine and I did a lot of cleaning (and met a lot of spiders).
Have you seen Tangerine?
meet eight-legged friends
while hunting
brooms, dustpans, and garbage cans.

wander along path
finding light
greeting sunrises at 7am

A month later-->
Okay, so I've been pondering, and I am terribly excited to be leaving camp in just a matter of days. I feel like I've grown less vibrant since I've been here, like I'm a muted tone compared to how I used to be. But perhaps I was never incredibly vibrant until now. Which brings me to the next idea: every life has a prologue and an epilogue, and then a story in the middle. Usually the story is the shortest, and the epilogue takes up almost one's entire life. I think that up until this point of my life, I was just living the prologue, and now it's story time. I just hope that my life is 1,000 pages long, and the prologue hardly exists. I want to die living.

August 27th, 2004--> A few days after I moved into my apartment with Nathan...
How many years?
Melancholy baby
your love is sadness, sickness, retreat
though the ocean never smelled so sweet
and under your nose the world turns a beat
words you compose become bleak and grey
but baby maybe it was meant to be
see EVERYTHING's lost... not just today

January 1, 2005--> Posted from an Internet café in Szeged, a small college town in Hungary, while I was recovering from the best New Year's Eve EVER.
Take the red pill.
I read my friends list to keep updated as to what's going on with everyone else while I'm away, but today as I read I feel that a lot of people are just really bored lately. All of the entries sound very tired, so I hope that it's just me making assumptions and thats actually not the case. Anyhow, though, I will be home in less than a week, so rejoice! I shall save you from your boredom... That is, if I am not sleeping for an entire bloody week when I get home. Today it has become official- Heidi is sick. I survive though, as we all must. We are in Szeged finally today, after our new year has gotten off to a not so fantastic start. Today was just a bad day, I was tired and cranky and sick, and Agi always takes it too much to heart when I am ornery (sp?). New years eve was bloody brilliant though, Zsofi (agi's friend) met us at about 7 at Buddha Coffee House (such a darling place it was) and we ran back to the hotel for a while. The city was PACKED, like a bloody warzone too with all of the fireworks abounding. Anyways, we got all gussied up (agi actually allowed us to put make-up on her) and drunk (opened the champagne a bit early). Then we went out to watch the fireworks at midnight over the Danube (which we almost missed because of the crowds) armed with a bottle of wine and plastic cups, and then to a techno club where we danced until 6am. Dropped Zsofi off at the bus station and went home and SLEPT quite late. But there are a lot of small funny stories that I have from last night, but as I stated last time, I loathe Hungarian keyboards. Oh, funny thing: directly after my last entry (about how tired I was) Agi and I went down the street and danced for five hours. I think I've been pushing myself a bit far, and I've developed a lot of vices (i.e. an incredible addiction to junk food and esspresso). But a new year, a new Heidi. My intuition tells me that 2öö5 is going to be the best year yet! Okay, must go make eggs and drink tea at Agi's flat, and then rest and recouperate. Viszlat!

January 24, 2005
Excerpts from my Journal written whilst in Rome and Hungary.

Welcome to my head.  These are written amoungst many little doodles and drawings, and are only some choice writings, I left some stuff out.  I am very happy that I looked through this journal today, for I feel that I've already forgotten how I felt when I finally found myself sitting on a brick in Rome.  I am perpetually losing myself, Heidi sure is a hard chick to hold on to.

 

Dec. 26, about 6 am
Romeà Budapest
Train.  Met three men from Senegal, who had just come back from a social issues conference.  They were very interested in race relations in the U.S.; I had a strange feeling from them, though, there was a flirty vibe.  Genova is cold.  Train to Milan has just discovered about 4 inches of snow and it finally feels like Christmas, after the fact.  I am glad to be leaving Rome, I did in fact dig it, but certain people make it less beautiful with their presence.  Ouch, my feelings towards her are as cold as Genova. Cough.  I should really stop saying that I get along with everyone… I do believe I jinx myself.
 
I really like the train, the transition from place to place is much more visible, and the ground is really a lovely thing.  Don’t get me wrong though, I would still like those wings that I wished for at the Trevi Fountain.
 
Funny thing: our journey. 
 
Strange Dream log- 12/31
Took forever to go to sleep, first dream I remember was slicing large chunks of ham and talking to my mom and one other person.
2nd strange dream: Sitting in a chair talking to a certain fellow (names left out of this one yo) when he suddenly tries to seduce me.  He was massively sucking on my big toe (right foot), but I pretended to be asleep. He put a pillow under my head and left.  I got up and was folding clothes and watching some really strange tv show, look out the window and the fellow is still there.  That’s the strangest part though, because I remember vividly this, and I couldn’t see a person at all, but the door to the vehicle was open.  But weirdness is that it was my dad’s truck, not the fellow’s vehicle.  What in the devil does that mean, eh?
 
12/31
gyongy (o has oooomlaut)
The most beautiful Hungarian word as written by Zsofi
 
1/4
Strange dreams for the past two days à medicine induced realities abounded.
Lots of dreams in which I’m smoking.
Also a dream where I went to a club (with Agi? And maybe Zsofi) wearing Agi’s big black coat.  Got stopped by a bouncer and checked for drugs and alcohol.  For some reason, I had a bag of pot (more than an 1/8th, and I did know about it beforehand) in the hood of my coat.  Bouncer took it.  A few minutes later, I found him completely ripped off his ass, and I asked him if it was good shit or what.  Exchange of grins, move into next room, where the bands are playing.  Lack of memory at this part.  Through a door, to outside area à sunny courtyard.  Memory lapse.  We are talking to boys, one of which is Hugh Grant, who, for some reason, is covered in mud on his face (it’s dried and cracked, like he’d been wandering a desert for a while), but his hot white suit thing (think old desert movies) is completely clean.  I think the stranger thing, though, is that I noticed this, but did not find it weird at the time.  We flirted around a bit before introducing ourselves.  He says, “Well… I’m Hugh… of course,” with that sexy Brit finesse of his, and I wake up after introducing myself.
 
I’ve decided that I do in fact believe in fate.  When we were at the castle, and decided to turn around, started to walk back the way we came, it was fate’s hand that Agi stopped us and told us that it’s more beautiful to see another street that we haven’t been on yet.  And somehow, we ended up right at the Hungarian House of Wine.  It’s no Snow White fairy tale, but hell, it works for me.  I feel like my mental state is finally almost recovered, but my physical still has a ways to go.  Anyways, though, I wish fate would guide me to that one magic boy already, though I don’t imagine he would have a sign in front of him like the House of Wine.  ‘THIS IS IT, HEIDI! YOU BLIND IDIOT!’
Oh well, there’s always Paris. 
Sighhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
5/1/05
Saw the most lovely sunset in a bus from Szeged to Veszprem yesterday, and a thousand stars on our way to Budapest in the car.  Today I saw the sunrise over mountains in Milan, while the moon still lingered above.  Always remember that you are Blessed.
Sunrise over mountains…The most beautiful thing I have seen thus far.  How many adventures have I already had? Today was bittersweet, for I shall perhaps never see Agi again, but then again we always take that chance in saying goodbye.  Still, the memories are beautiful, and so is Agi!
1pm-ish
Got on the wrong bloody train.  I have so been in damsel-in-distress mode since I’ve been here.  Luckily it’s a train, so they can’t throw me off.  And it’s going where I need to go, so we SURVIVE through tomorrow.  Hmm, though it’s just been discovered that this train maybe goes faster than it should…  Now I know why I paid the extra 8 euros, and I don’t like it.  I dig slow trains, especially today.  If I didn’t have to get my luggage from Amy’s, I’d go straight through to the airport and sit in the plane until it left on Friday.  That’s how much I’m ready to stand still (underlined).  Bah, being sic, alone, and tired in a foreign country makes for one bitchy Heidi.  I made an emergency run to the vending machine for Kinder chocolate before the train left, because I’m so frazzled.  How terrible is that??? Sigh, at least it wasn’t….. Haven’t had that since we left Pest, so being sick really does have its benefits.  At least when we get to Rome I shouldn’t get too lost, I know that city OK for being there a week (note: I ended up getting lost that night for about 3 hours in the city).  But back to trains.  Oh I could spend the rest of my life living on a train and be happy for it.  Though I would have to change trains every now and again, to keep the view fresh.  But TRAINS!! Yes sir.
 
Ahh, the hills! I could lay on them for days in the sunshine.  And do somersaults through all of them until there were no more hills to do somersaults on. 
 
I heart trains and hills forever.
So much for hearts and hills, now the train isn’t even going in the right bloody direction! My God.  What a day.  Back to where we came from hopefully someone will tell me where I’m headed soon
Optimistic thinking Point #1 for Heidi à At least I got to see Florence through a window.  And it was beautiful.
 
6/1/05
Finally found myself in Rome sitting on a brick step.  Wonder how I got here. ß So far away from home?
 
Blow as deep as you want to Blow.
 
I Hereby, forevermore, Devote Myself to Madness
 
Frantic frequent visits to the local barbershop
To shave my head in order that I might one day- receive a lobotomy
Motion through the notion that there ain’t nothin’ to it man
It’s just life
Just
Like a can of soup
Or a swatch of fabric
That breathing machine over there don’t mean a thing
Unless you’ve got the instructions manual
And
A hammer.
 
Hmm, first attempt at spontaneous prose proves more difficult than it seems.  Perhaps I need to study the ‘list of essentials’ more.  But I have indeed decided that I will from now on devote myself to madness, in a sense.  What’s the point of living if you’re just going to grow old and open an antique shop (reference to “Howl”)? Eh?  I found myself amoungst a rubble of old Heidis while in Rome, and have decided that she is too valuable… I can’t afford to lose her again.
In related news, my vacation has taken yet another interesting turn.  Tonight I spend the evening amoung a crowd of the city’s forgotten, those who sleep wrapped in true madness and despair, in the train station, while I am nestled safely in the train station office of Termini, tanks to my favorite new person, Mauriccio.

Sigh. This entry is getting long and nostalgic, but it's really only for me (no one else need read it.)... I'll probably post another one with later entries, and a BRAND NEW entry tonight. It's monday night, and winter break, I'm allowed to be thoughtful.