see, I'd give you the stars from the bruised evenin' sky and a crown of jewels for your head, now.

This post might be a little bit nauseating, but as this is my blog, and as it is my unofficial anniversary with Marshall - and as happy occasions have been harder to come by, as of late - I'm going for it. Be warned .


One year ago, I had one of the most eventful days of my life. Allow me to set the scene: Sal got neutered by a vet who pronounced his name "Saul," Marshall cried in front of me for the second time ever (the first being at a showing of Brokeback Mountain), my American Lit professor said I had to pretend Walt Whitman was tagging along with me for the entire weekend and then write a poem about it, Marshall wore a skirt, we went to see Gilgamesh downtown, Marshall did a mad hot rap for me, I said "I love you" to her for the last time it would ever come off as platonic. And then she stayed the night with me, after all our friends had cleared the room. She put on two pairs of socks, then valiantly kept Sal from attacking my toes during the night, distracting him with her own feet. We whispered admissions - that we'd been looking forward to the night all week, that we were afraid of becoming bad friends to each other. Finally, we got down to it: Marshall revealed that she wanted me, and I followed suit. And then we agreed that nothing could come of it, because we're both terrible at relationships and besides, we didn't want to ruin our friendship.

And then she kissed me anyway, brave girl that she is. And that, my friends, is how all this came to be. One year, and it's been absolutely incredible, and full of exciting things, like Blankets (my giraffe),

Belly and Boudreaux,
bathtimes,
blizzards (by Asheville's standards, at any rate),
bare feet,
Brian Lee's relationship advice and earnest attempts at photography,
blankets (which Marshall's fond of hiding beneath, thus becoming the Covermonster),
babies,

and being far too famous for our own good.

All this, plus a whole lot of things which don't begin with the letter B. It's been a year, folks, and while I still worry that I'm toxic, I've learned not to let it keep me from loving. Not that I could exactly help it, since I've been falling for this girl since I saw her sitting alone at breakfast one morning, poring through her schoolbooks and oblivious to my blatant stares. It's still kind of a wonder that we ever got together at all, and it was never supposed to become a relationship, much less a love thing, but I'm not a bit shocked that it's gone on this long. Like I'd let go of a girl who calls me 'applejack' and serenades me with James Taylor in her sleep!

Now I'm off to continue our celebration, which started with a bottle of red wine and the Boys on the Side soundtrack (which should be a lesbian staple, by the way) last night, and has gone on all day, in that low-key, lovey-dovey way we tend to do things. Thanks for enduring this post, everyone; and thanks for enduring my crazed condition this year, Copper. I've got all I need, right here, and I'd do well to remember this more often.

don't you see, baby? this is perfection.

Last night was a swinging Virgo party, hosted by Reggie, where Marshall and I got to serve some of the most fabulous people I've ever met. One, a fifty-something queen who does hair and reads tarot cards, told us how to live our lives right, and made it all sound so easy. Another, a very strict-seeming lesbian astrophysicist, gave us advice about our credit ratings and offered to let us catsit sometime. When someone put Shakira on and Marshall wouldn't dance with me, I befriended a riot of a woman named Susan, and we kicked off our shoes and danced like fools in the kitchen. Later on, though, when Sarah McLachlan came on, Marshall indulged my dance fever and it was perfect. We got to meet a really sweet kitty who has feline AIDS, and made all sorts of new friends, and got to hang out more with Lori, whom we adore. And we got paid, which wasn't even really necessary, after all the fun we had.

Last week was an eleven-month anniversary, which we toasted with Marshall's mother and her best friend, Edie, at Tupelo Honey. It was a meeting with my new therapist (this one's number nine, if anyone's counting!), who is like Laura Ashley on uppers and thinks I need to listen to whale songs every night before bed. Shockingly, I love her, and think a change is on its way. I started a new medication, following a new, dubious diagnosis, but made my peace with my crazy shrink, who may or may not be a hack. An older dyke tried to pick me up in the McDonald's parking lot, in a really bizarre manner, and I could only pry my forearm from her grasp after blurting out that I was really, completely fucked up and had to get to therapy immediately. Seriously. I got an A in Poetics, after taking that incomplete and fretting all summer over the coursework; now I've just got to keep it together for my current classes, which shouldn't be hard, as I love all of them, and wish I could take them at least twice. I've been ordering too many earrings, and too many books, online, but it'll all be worth it when I receive my copy of Tennessee Williams's Notebooks this week! When fall break hits, I am going bra-shopping, and to the Asheboro Zoo, and no one is going to stop me.

Saint Nicholas, the brilliant man we met last night, said that we must be impeccable with our word, that "I" is one of the most important words in the language, because it includes the divinity that dwells within us, and that we should always be cautious about what promises we attach to "I." He said the promises to ourselves may be the most important, because if we don't keep them, we eventually lose our capacity to believe in ourselves, and then our word will always mean less. So here's a shot: I am going to get better. No, fuck that - I am getting better. I am going to get into the right grad school, and I am going to turn in a solid draft of my thesis very soon, and I am going to be good to myself in the process. Now that I've said it, I have to, see? I have to believe, anyway. So watch out, friends, because soon, I will be back, and I'll be better, this time. Promise.

which means i am either crazy or a werewolf

It's sad, but true, that one of the highlights of my week is Joey Comeau's "A Softer World" updates. This week's was just what I need, but still can't allow myself:

I'm going to start setting realistic goals for myself. I'm going to
skateboard every day for as long as the weather allows. I'm going to
practice picking locks more regularly. I'm going to improve my French.
I'm going to improve my Arabic. I'm going to learn to fight. I'm going
to live in a decommissioned submarine with my friends. Good morning,
Jeff. Ping. Are we out of toast? Ping. We'll have to send someone into
town. Ping. I'm going to start going out at night, dressed all in
black, with my hood up. I'm going to stand in the shadows where a lot
of people walk past. I'm going to encrypt my hard drive for fun. I'm
going to encrypt the words, "You do good work" and I'm going to send it
to every intelligence agency I can think of.

I'm going to play chess more. I'm going to live my life like it's a
chess game. No. I'm going to live my life like it's a game of rock
paper scissors. I'm going to sit very still in the park until I am
surrounded by pigeons and then I am going to leap up with my arms
outstretched and they will all take flight. I am going to do this to
teenagers in the food court, too. I am going to read books about
economics and apply those principles to my love life. I am going to
write thank you notes on nude photographs of myself and send them to my
heroes. You know what? Forget heroes. I'm going to send them to
strangers. To people who catch my eye. To beautiful broken future best
friends. That is a pretty good way to make friends I think, but maybe
I'm the wrong person to ask.

While I'm still young and healthy, I am going to make a video tape
where I am shaking my head sadly. This is for me to watch when I am old
and I regret everything. Regrets? Fuck you, future Joey. If they ever
make a biopic about me it will be that first dip on the roller-coaster
and it will last the whole movie, clutching the bar, screaming and
crying and terrified, with a belly full of tiny donuts. Today I feel
optimistic about tomorrow.

Things have gotten messy, and I spend too much time debating which would be worse: institutionalization in Hendersonville, or having to go back to Erie without finishing the semester. It's not as if I'd allow myself to take either option, but nor can I stop myself from weighing the two, as if to scare myself straight. Too much caffeine tonight, and not enough sleep. Tomorrow, there will be an oil change and essays on Yeats. Tonight, it's all about Ally McBeal and Dracula-inspired nightmares. Today, I gathered the nerve to e-mail the professor I've deified for three years; it was my first outreach, and probably the only one I've got courage for, but I can't help feeling proud, anyway. Yesterday, I wrote a short story about God and death and piano lessons; now, I'm working on a fiction piece, even though I despise writing fiction, because I want to tell a story about someone named Hannah and I don't know any real Hannahs well enough to write about. It's the first cool night of the season, the first time I got to wear a jacket out. I love this time of year, every year; fall is, once again, my favorite season, until spring comes along. It's good for me to sit and watch the seasons change; it's only a matter of time before I'm forced to follow suit.

she told me, 'baby, when you race today, just take my love along with you.'

Okay, so just a heads-up before I even get started: this is a picture-saturated post. I can't help myself. I just got my camera cord back, after long weeks of separation, and while I'm trying to exercise some restraint, it's been a really vivid, crazy time that I'd like to document, and I'm doing so here. Do people still have dial-up? If you do, this could take a while. Just be glad that I'm sparing you some scandalous video footage which would undoubtedly add years to the time this page must take to load. Anyway!

So, I'm back in Asheville, clearly, which I'm finally settled into, after a really long period of missing my family. When they left me here, after helping me move in, I completely broke down crying, and I didn't feel right again until, oh, some point weeks later. I still really miss them. Being back in Erie isn't the best thing for me, as we've established, but I've been having so many issues with security lately, and they were much more manageable when I had my family all around me, when I could run errands with my mother and drink and dance with my kid brother and continue a still-not-right relationship with my father. Okay, that last part wasn't really much good, but even that beat being without all of them, really. I remember being in high school and thinking, "Okay, once I get through school and can pay my parents back, I'm not going to bother going home anymore except for funerals." And now that I am out of the house, and doing what I want, I find myself missing them so often, and for so many reasons; I've become such a family person. But I'm here now, and missing them is hard, but I couldn't appreciate them nearly so much if I still lived with them, if we still had to deal with all of the negotiations and screaming matches that made me want to run away before.

And 'here' happens to be pretty cozy, in fact. I'm finally in a single, which was long overdue, and while it's small, it's good to have my own room to come home to at the end of the night. Have a look!

And although I've drifted from most of the old crew, and I'm unwilling to pick up any new attachments when leaving here in May is bound to be hard enough, this happens to be a year of cool transfer students and no obligations, and I am totally down with that. Because of a housing shortage, the school stuck two transfers in the lounge of my building for the first week, and they happen to be too fucking great. They've since moved out, but we had a little last-night-in-the-lounge party with a very special guest:

Boudreaux was totally chill, and didn't bark or pee on the carpet or anything. This is part of what makes him my favorite dog, but not nearly all! The girl in the gray up there is named Liz; her identical twin, Kelly, is in the picture underneath. They are both really cute and lesbionic, and have the same laugh, and came from cool colleges in Massachusetts. This blows my mind, for some reason. They are not into fictional twincest, though, which is slightly disheartening but pretty understandable. And they are both Chris Pureka fans! What luck!


Below is Liz from Iowa, who is really cute, aww. She came with us to the Chris Pureka show, and afterwards, we hung out at the Waffle House, where we told our coming-out stories and laughed a whole lot and had a really awesome waitress. And Chris Pureka remembered me, hello! Another life dream crossed off my list!

That's Beck, whose hair is always flawless. She is gazing at Boudreaux, who is staring at Zack, whose hot legs are in the background.

Here's Zack with Lauren, the second awesome transfer student and former lounge-dweller. Lauren is one of the most adorable people in the world, for real, and she took me out of my misery one day without even knowing it when she interrupted a major angstfest and we watched Weeds. Here, Zack and Lauren are harmonizing on "Portions for Foxes." How do I even remember this? Because it was a good night.

Here's our little red rondette, where Brenna lives. We stayed here while we dogsat for Boudreaux, and it was a much-needed getaway.

Brenna's bed is up against a wall of windows, and the light in the mornings is just unbelievable. Also, Boudreaux is very needy and prone to climbing into bed when he's in need of cuddling.

We took him on a walk with Lori and her dog, Belly, and then got custard afterward. It was a good day. Here's evidence:



And then came the Hendersonville Apple Festival, which is the social event of the season.



I kept my goal for the day simple: I wanted a candy apple, and I wanted it to be good. And when I got it, well, Jana was around to document it. The next pictures are all hers, which explains why they're so good.





Marshall is, for some reason, obsessed with the Shrine Club people - you know, the ones who run the children's hospitals? So when the Shriners marched in the parade, she was totally blissed. Afterwards, I couldn't find her for a few minutes; when Jana and I did locate her, she was chatting up a pair of Shriners on lawn chairs. Why is my girlfriend so fucking endearing?

There was a rock museum in a weird basement location, which we found jsut as we were about to call it a day. It was a one-room endeavor, and most of the signs had critical misspellings, but that only added to the place's charm. There were even dinosaur eggs, which were probably laid by a hadrosaur, one of those duck-billed delights. And we got to touch the eggs!

And then there were comps, which you have to pass to graduate as a lit major, and which require memorization of a ridiculous amount of shit. Day One was on Friday, and Jana and I totally fucking rocked our exams. Afterwards, we decided that a bit of drinking was in order. This turned into a seven-hour extravaganza, held in Susan's house, where Marshall and I were dogsitting for Mojo, the sweet little puppy you'll see in some of these pictures.


That's him, right there. He's just a few months old, but he probably won't get much bigger. My cat weighs more than this little fellow; he's that tiny. And adorable, too! We fucking love Mojo, and will probably get to watch him again before long!

We had a very musical night once Marshall joined us: she found a pan flute to play on, and we took turns composing harmonica melodies to illustrate each situation that arose. Which got especially interesting when we got really drunk and impulsive. I got some of these songs captured on video, but they are way too incriminating to post here. Rest assured that you are not missing a whole lot, musically speaking, since none of us has a fucking clue how to play a harmonica.

Emily joined us, and managed to pose cutely in this picture before falling asleep.

This next picture is pretty much the cutest ever. It's also one of the few existing pictures where Mojo isn't all kinds of blurry, since he's in perpetual motion and tends to evade my attempts at photography.


We left Susan's this morning; she got back last night, but had so many fabulous stories of her time in L.A. that we ended up staying up late to hear them, and then staying over. Seriously, this year is all about dogsitting, and although that was unexpected, I'm finding myself turning into a dog enthusiast. I still miss my cat, though.

Now: I should be studying for Day Two of comps, or finishing Madame Bovary, or (god forbid) writing my own shit, since I've only got a month to get my seminar project together. But instead, I'm posting this, and watching Road the the White House on C-SPAN. Ah, well - it's a Sunday evening, and I'm worn-out and overheated, and there's a hellish week ahead, with comps and meetings and a blood test and so much therapy drama you wouldn't even believe it. (On Thursday, this bitch diagnosed me with Bipolar II and prescribed me Lithium in a ten-minute timespan, and she still refers to Marshall as 'Megan.' Fucking hack.) But for right now, I'm feeling all right, maybe more together than I've been all month. Which is not saying much, but it's something, and it's enough.

you're a DJ, I'm a song; take me out and turn me on!

Fuck that last post: Marshall and I get to dogsit again! For this sweet, tiny, precious, scruffy little thing named Mojo. Who is ridiculously photogenic and has a little leather outfit, what?! We haven't even met the dog yet, but his owner is Susan, the woman who heads up Drinking Liberally here, and we have nothing but love for Susan. And she is letting us dogsit! And we are getting off-campus, and we'll have a new playmate/cuddle-buddy, and I'll be able to rest a little easier once I've got a dog in my life again. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. I am rocking the fuck out alone in my room, even though it's way too hot for a high-energy dance marathon like I've been throwing up in here. Sophie Ellis Bextor's "Murder on the Dancefloor" and Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" and Hot Hot Heat's "Talk To Me, Dance With Me" and Geri Halliwell's "Ride It" will be the soundtrack of the night: fact. I am talking like a crazy person and dancing like one, too, and I haven't eaten all day and my therapist might dump me on the next visit and when the fuck am I going to study for comps, seriously? But fuck it all, because all my tunnel-wishes and pink-car-wishes and digital-clock-wishes are coming true, one at a time, and so I've just got to start wishing harder, obviously.

By the next post, I'll have my camera cord back, and will be able to show you my new little room, and my cute new friends, and what a lazy, blurry morning in bed with Boudreaux looks like. For tonight, I am singing with the windows open, dancing like the blissed-out, dog-enthused fiend that I am.

to making it count.

Things not to do when one is depressed:
1) hide in your room all day, leaving only when you really, really have to pee and can't hold it for one minute more;
2) watch Titanic on TV in its entirety (although, if you stop it at my favorite scene, after Rose jumps out of the lifeboat and runs back to Jack and he screams, "You're so stupid, Rose!" and they kiss and laugh and are still alive, well - that's permissible);
3) cry at the dog food commercials that interrupt Titanic periodically;
4) read Madame Bovary and identify with the title character;
5) call your mother on the verge of tears, twice;
6) neglect to study for comps, which start this fucking Friday.

Things that help a whole, whole lot:
1) window-shopping and birthday drinks with Ali at Usual Suspects, framed by a Fergalicious soundtrack;
2) retreats to Marion with my cinnamon girl, where we get to eat Norwegian pancakes and watch lots of Ally McBeal and we don't have to see anyone else if we don't want to;
3) discovering that Chris Pureka has not forgotten me, even though I hadn't seen her since 2004;
4) pretending to be cool and sophisticated and together like Katherine Min;
5) watching Billy Zane try to act.

So, the lists aren't quite even yet, but after a lengthy break for fan-fiction reading, and after Marshall gets home from work, I'm thinking the balance might shift. And if not, hey, tomorrow's the Apple Festival in Hendersonville, and I've got my hopes set on a candy apple. Keep your fingers crossed, eh? I love you all.