if i ventured in the slipstream

well place your hand upon your heart and tell me you won't lie.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:10:19 GMT

every day i see a rich man in a poor man's disguise
he's counting on the future while the past plays on his mind
once when he's had diamonds replaced in his eyes
he couldn't see so well, but ooh how they shined
'cause when they pull the shutters down and throw up in the dark
they'll find that all the dogs outside bite much worse than they bark

here we are living in paradise, living in luxury
oh, the thrill is here, but it won't last long
you better have your fun before it moves along
and you're already looking for another fool like me

well place your hand upon your heart and tell me you won't lie
are you holding out for guarantees before you go to die?
'cause meanwhile up in heaven they are waiting at the gate saying,
"we'd always knew you'd make it, didn't think you'd come this late"
and now it's much too dangerous to stop what you've begun
when everyone in paradise carries a gun

here we are living in paradise, living in luxury
oh, the thrill is here, but it won't last long
you better have your fun before it moves along
and you're already looking for another fool like me

looking down upon the earth you still can't understand
how i can't argue with the man whose got the money in his hand
you talk as if you had no choice, you took all you could grab
but it looks just like a hit, but it feels just like a slap
you don't have to worry and you don't have to try
just lay down your body, it's a lullaby

here we are living in paradise, living in luxury
oh, the thrill is here, but it won't last long
you better have your fun before it moves along
and you're already looking for another fool like me

Medical Daycare.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:13:24 GMT

I’m sitting around with a needle in my arm - well, not a needle, a tube - and thinking there’s something I should be doing. Not in general. Not with my life. Something I should be doing right now. Some errand I could be running, some important decision I could be making. I’m already doing homework while being checked in to medical daycare for the next four hours; what more do I want from myself? The answer of course is as much as I could possibly give. I want myself to give and give and give, and I want nothing to hinder that generosity ever, not even a tube in my arm or the slight flicker of my eyelids as I sit for yet another hour under fluorescent lights with barely anything to eat. What brought me here is not my fault and I don’t believe in God, but every once in a while, mostly at moments like this, I succumb to feelings of victimhood. Clearly, the fact that I’m only twenty-four years old and I need to go for monthly intravenous drug treatments means that I’m being punished for a crime I did not commit. Clearly, because what else could it mean? The other options are too scary, so I tend to go the religious route, at least for a couple of minutes per month, which is the maximum amount of “Why me?” bullshit my brain can handle. Still, here it is again. And now that I’m actively acknowledging its presence, it’s gone.

I know I’m not being punished. I’m here because I have a chronic illness of unknown origin, and this is how we’re dealing with it (“we” in this case being myself and my gastroenterologist) -- monthly infusions of a drug called Remicaid, believed to block inflammation before it has the chance to cause any problems. And so far, it appears to be working. It is problematic to sit around for this long without much to do, though. Especially when the setting is a hospital. It breeds thoughts of life and death and God and God knows what else; it can’t help it. For me, the very smell of a hospital sends me back to the night I looked into the mirror and saw myself as a skeleton staring back at me, moving as I moved, wondering why I hadn’t noticed when a large part of me slipped out the door. It wasn’t just that. It was the way the light hit my face. It was foreign but familiar. Even as I was living in that moment, it seemed like I had already been there, and I was simply remembering what had happened. I wondered if I’d already died and this was what death was, a series of memories of what it had been like to be alive; in my case, what it had been like on the way to death, the moment when I first realized where I was headed, that I could die and would die and there was nothing I could do about it. Except I wasn’t dead. I kept thinking new thoughts, wondering if I still had anything left in me, and it was in that wondering that I realized that I did. What was left of me was standing right here and would now head back to the hospital bed, get some rest, and in the morning, start searching for where things went wrong. The smell of a hospital is always the same, a too-clean smell. A smell of white walls, if white walls could have a specific smell. A smell of loss. Of goodbyes and hellos. Of latex and disinfectant and detergent and bland food. My eyelids flicker.

I have more reading to do.

vignette 01.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:52:53 GMT

I lost my love down by the water where you carried me that night I lay awake, afloat in my dreaming, in your singsong singalong snoring. I could never look at you like that, so powerless, so lifelike as if to say you were. You know. But we both knew you weren’t, and your eyes were dark when open but asleep you were so white, almost sickly. I knew that I couldn’t have you and didn’t know if I wanted you anyway, the way you smoked your sighs into the receiver. I never answered when I sensed it was you and it always was. Your voice over the phone was the voice of someone I once loved and never knew, far away, a voice of a man but you were not a man, you were an infant. I loved you as such. I hated you, too. The way you fawned over me and adored me and thought I was so perfect, so perfectly imperfect. The way you crawled to me in song but never in conversation. You avoided anything worth saying and everything that did come out of your mouth was overly earnest and utterly forgettable: you spoke of bodies but never of water, of thrusting bodies but never of love, and I was sure you didn’t know that you weren’t. Your eyes were dark when open but you were still asleep, snoring. I turned over. There was something I had wanted to say but I knew you could not answer.

new flash fiction.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:43:10 GMT

He enters the café all alight with something too bright to keep your eyes on and scours the room for something unknown, some great mystery we never knew was there. The stench of him overwhelmed the smells of freshly-brewed coffee and sugary pastries. He entered your nose in a way that felt dirty, like his existence were there to violate you. Even his hands were tarred black -- another mystery. He threw down his skateboard, this boy of forty or forty-five years, and finally appeared to notice that he was in a business establishment. His eyes met mine. I've never been able to look into red eyes without mine blushing, too, and I felt like he'd think I was afraid of him. I was more afraid of this than afraid of him, so I stood up a little straighter, spoke louder than I meant to.

"Hey, what can I get for you?" I shouted politely.

He looked accosted. I went too far.

"Uh, you got Pepsi?"

"No, sorry," I said, staring straight back at him and trying to ignore the tiny bloodstains on his grungy yellowed shirt. "We don't sell soda."

"Oh," he said. Just Oh. But he didn't leave. He stood leaning against the counter, not looking at me or anything else, as if searching for an answer. As if his standing there with purpose would surely yield a Pepsi. Not knowing where to look or how to breathe, I left him there. I cleaned things that didn't need cleaning, made back-ups of well-stocked drinks, and tried like hell not to cry. I didn't know at the time why this man affected me so, but I cleaned inside the refrigerators and underneath the ice machine until, finally, another customer came in. A regular. At this moment, I guess he figured our business was done, and without a word he grabbed his skateboard and left. He also left this cloud by the register, and Steve the Roofer walked right into it. It was palpable, this strange intensity in the air, even then. Me with my red eyes, my quickened heart, everything too clean and that unusual lingering odor.

"Are you alright?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," I said hesitantly. "I am now." And I poured his coffee without another word.

steady.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:34:12 GMT

your plague echoes
the hymns of mysteries long forgotten
not-mysteries, certainties of body
unified with spirit
girl flower weeping singing
lost to you are the words on his tongue
the endless night is not endless
the lonely morning is unspoken
a throw of blankets, thick with sweat
a tone repeating through hastened heartbeats
and breaths steady as death
ape arms and glassy eyes
solutions housed in mason jars
a throw of blankets, a jolt of air
the lonely morning is unbroken
lost to you are the worlds on your tongue
wrapped heavy heavy in the gloom of day
peering in your undersized window
at your oversized bed
your legs a mess, your sleeping cat rest-
full and thick with love deep as the low hum of a lover
in the palpable fog of dawn
leaving kisses on your head when you're overbreathing
and yearning without yearning
for guidance to somewhere hearts beat 70x per minute
and waking feels like waking
even when alone

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:15:32 GMT

keep it together keep it together keep it together

rebuilding oneself is tricky business. i should consider myself lucky, having avoiding most symptoms of my illness for just over four years, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. i lie in bed unable to sleep, to breathe, to find peace of mind. my weight is slipping faster than i can maintain it. it's just... i know i should expect this to some degree. i mean, i know what the problem is. it's an illness, it's chronic, it will come back, and yet. i just wasn't prepared. i am barely keeping up with my work, but the key word here is barely. i haven't missed an assignment, and i've only missed each of my classes once. i was almost admitted into the hospital this weekend, but my doctor decided that my treatments could be given to me intravenously on an outpatient basis. all that madness begins thursday. the new medication is supposed to have less severe side-effects, so i'm trying to keep my hopes up.

i just feel so lethargic, so lost in time, so foreign to myself, it's hard to remember that i have anything to lose.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:44:44 GMT

i walked down to the water. i don't know why. it carried me there, the slow breeze in the sky, the pounding in my throat. i couldn't keep count of the beats but i knew there were too many. the water was still, almost too still. time was moving, everywhere people were moving, but i had stopped. it was on my honor. time hadn't stopped. a restlessness woke me, a feeling that something was supposed to happen. photographs in the water of a girl lying on a wooden floor, of a girl leaning against a dimly lit wall in an old white house, that old white house. an eruption. the still water. a girl drops down in front of me to read and suddenly i remember. the bag on my shoulders weighs me down and i remember. i need to get inside. my steps are too swift and inaccurate. i barely make it to the building before it hazes over. i stop and close my eyes. the pounding doesn't slow. i open my eyes and it's still there. i have opened my eyes but cannot shift my attention. i don't know what to focus on anymore now that i've lost myself.

oh livejournal, how i miss thee.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:15:23 GMT

i don't even know how to update anymore. i am a terrible livejournalist. it's true. i never thought this would happen, but it officially has. here are some things, again, in list form:

x. tomorrow is my twenty-fourth birthday. coincidentally, it is also my first day of classes at mount holyoke. as mount holyoke has decided to designate tomorrow as a wednesday, my schedule is slightly intimidating. three classes. one of them happens to be three hours long.

x. at six, my long lost mother is taking jared and i out to dinner for my birthday. we are probably going to big mamou's in springfield, but if the city is wreaked with madness due to michael jordan's arrival (for those who don't know: basketball was invented in my hometown, where i currently live, and the basketball hall of fame is located downtown. michael jordan is being inducted tomorrow, marking one of the biggest events to occur in springfield in quite some time), we just might have to dine elsewhere.

x. even though my only experiences with mount holyoke thus far center around rushed orientation events, i actually feel comfortable there, which is saying a lot considering how strongly i hate formalities and shmoozing with strangers, regardless of how pretty some of them may be.

x. i read franny and zooey after avoiding it for years, and i loved it so much, i almost feel silly. why didn't i read this earlier? it felt like a wes anderson film.

x. jared got a full-time temp-to-hire job assembling stuff at a place in chicopee that makes medical equipment. it's hard to fathom that he'll be getting paid soon after having been out of work for over a year. it's so relieving.

x. that being said, we will obviously be seeing a lot less of each other, as our schedules are fuller and not entirely cooperative. he's been having to go to bed at around 10pm to wake up in time to ride his bike to work for 6:30, and i've been going to bed around midnight since i should be waking up around 8am for school. sigh. not to mention the fact that i'm also working three shifts a week, meaning that on mondays and fridays we only have a whopping three and a half hours of awake-time together, much of which will likely be spent cooking, eating, and doing homework. oh well. enough whining for now. i have some sleep to get.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:16:21 GMT

my grandma's in the hospital again. this time, it was a severe shortage of blood. the doctors haven't figured out why yet, but the important thing is that she's currently getting a transfusion, and they will do all sorts of tests until they figure out why her body isn't producing enough red blood cells. it's so scary now. it used to be that, if she were sick, she was just sick. but now, i don't know. she's eighty-two years old; she has worsening respiratory problems; she doesn't get around as well as she used to. it's starting to feel, for the first time since she was a heavy drinker, like i'm really going to lose her. and i'm not ready to lose the woman who raised me.

some stuff.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 05:45:16 GMT

because i don't feel like organizing my thoughts.

x. megan and jason's wedding was beautiful. we were super busy in the morning, but it was a positive busy. there was a happy energy in the air, and though we were running a bit late, everything came together perfectly (or nearly so). after the ceremony, megan's dad thanked me for writing a personalized (for megan and jason) poem for the occasion, saying that the ceremony wouldn't have been what it was without it, which was really sweet and unexpected.

x. last week, we visited caroline at her new apartment in somerville. i'd never been to somerville before, and i actually liked it a lot. it had both a small-town and urban feel, and her apartment was super nice. we took the way too clean subway to harvard square and did lots of walking around and catching up. hopefully, i'll be able to go back sometime soonish -- maybe on a weekend during school.

x. monday, after work, we're visiting julie at her new apartment in worcester, which is right near clark campus. i really miss julie because we've only seen her a few times this summer, since she was in europe for nearly two months, and school is starting up again soon. luckily, we will have some quality sleepover time this upcoming week. it's been way too long.

x. my aunt jean's wedding is the day after my birthday, which, coincidentally, is the day after my first full day of classes at mount holyoke (which, coincidentally, also happens to be my twenty-fourth birthday). it'll be a hectic week, to say the least. orientation from sunday to wednesday (plus, working a shift at the café on tuesday), work thursday, classes from 10 to 4 on friday, wedding on saturday, and work on sunday. craziness. and i'll have to find time to do my homework somewhere in there. i'm a tad stressed out, but at least it's all good stuff... just sort of tightly scheduled. but anyway, jean's wedding coming up means that i will be seeing my mother next month. she'll be staying with her brother chris in southampton. while she's here, we're going to go to the wedding together; she's going to visit the manhan (that'll be a hoot); and she's going to take jared and i out to dinner for my late-birthday.

x. um, i'm starting at my dream school soon. dudes, this is getting strange.

i know what i know.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:57:24 GMT

i have been thinking a lot about genius (something that tends to happen when i spend several afternoons listening to graceland) and how, even though a part of me doesn't feel entirely comfortable using this term, nor do i have a clear-cut idea of what genius entails, i can easily decide, at the drop of a hat, who is or is not a genius.

examples of genius (according to me):

paul simon
joanna newsom
martin scorsese
bob dylan

people who are considered geniuses but are obviously not (again, according to me):

trent reznor
andy warhol
lou reed
ingmar bergman

now, ask me to explain, and i don't have any answers. it's incredibly silly.

so, we've been doing lots of movie-watching. jared and i saw funny people with megan and jason last sunday, and though we all had very different reactions to the film, we all liked it. we watched a strange/sad/scary french film called fat girl, which left us needing a hug. jared was spike-lee-devirginized by do the right thing, which was the first i saw, too. and now, in honor of the late great john hughes, we're watching one of the few films he penned which we had not seen, some kind of wonderful. eric stoltz was pretty hot as a young lad (in that he bore an uncanny resemblance to paddy mcaloon, which makes me wish he would just change into a white wifebeater already)...

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:05:55 GMT

today is our two year wedding anniversary, so we're going to sierra grille for dinner. we might see a movie afterward, depending on what's playing and so forth. i might prefer to save the money and watch something at home, but we'll see.

megan and jason's wedding is on saturday, so we've been preparing for that for a while. they asked me to read a particular woody allen quote and write something more personal for the ceremony, and i finally finished working on that yesterday. i think i'm pleased with it. it's hard, writing something to be read aloud at a formal function with a bunch of strangers. i tried to make it as accessible/tame as possible while still relating it to the quote. i think i did a pretty good job. we'll see how it goes.

there is a lot to say, but i don't know how to say it. it'll be a much longer entry when the time comes.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:58:16 GMT

boy, am i feeling put off right now.

i'm a simple slave of appetite.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:43:16 GMT

i have been feeling very alive. last week as we swung with megan and jason in a park in easthampton, the lightning began. then came the rain. we flew off the swings as quickly as possible and started running through the dark woods. then came the fireworks. behind us, a rumbling rush and flashes of light. we made it back onto the field and plopped down in front of everyone in the wet grass, watching the rest of the fireworks light the sky.

at home, on megan and jason's porch, we set up a disco ball and danced our hearts out to pay our respects to michael. their house is right near the park, so tons of people were parked in the neighborhood. they drove by the house and watched us put on a show, likely thinking we were intoxicated or worse. we smiled and waved american flags, not giving a fuck. we dubbed their porch "club rain." we plan to open a "club sunshine" sometime in the future.

this week, breakfast with caroline at the wonderful 3hree café. great expired television with ryan. writing poetry on breaks at work. a stormy, soaking hike in northampton. the new woody allen film, whatever works (which was purely delightful, by the way), at pleasant street theater. rock band with megan and jason. tons of great, homemade food. and today, a day of incredible arousal since the moment i woke up: a sexless sexual dream about an old internet friend, prefab sprout on the ride to easthampton, frustration at work, a funny conversation with julie, watching the foo fighters stream live from the white house, a refreshing shower, a clear mind.

sometimes i want to tell everyone how much i love them. this is one of those times.

a song of love, a song of spoil.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:47:17 GMT

moonlight scatters torn out souls
they slip through windows in the cold
dark winter nights and say
please oh please don't go away
please yes please come again some day
;
my eyes opened just to find
a skin-searching pantomime
who crawled through my sheets and through my sighs
and tore my love out--oh rewind

we marched through daylight's foggy lock
and found the other soaked in sweat
though in thick air we were unseen
we knew for once what we had caught
the tumorous street musician growled
a song of love, a song of spoil
as you coiled in and then recoiled
my arms grew weary from their firm hold

but yes, in my bed we danced
we loved ourselves all in a trance
then sang through silent breaths and hands
and turned to windows lustful and
the life breathing all within
drew our sinking souls to sing
songs of love and songs of spoil
;
we lied there dreaming of the soil,
the days that we could give away
lost to the forest and its timeless haze

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:08:03 GMT

i've been thinking about writing plays. for myself this time, rather than for school. i put a lot of care into my assignments, but something different comes out of me if i know that i won't be graded. there's this freedom, this ability to do exactly what i want to do. basically, i've never written a play outside of school. and in a way, i think it is what impresses me the most -- the idea of theater. i love the idea that i could take control of the entire situation: the lighting, the music, the pacing, the words coming out of actors' mouths. it's really fascinating. i have a lot of ideas, but none of them are as solid as i would like them to be.

i feel strangely disconnected from everything lately, sort of like i did in high school. i see people, i talk to them, i listen, i do things, but there's this strange sense that i'm not entirely there. i'm probably i'm the only one who notices. it's just that i feel really lost inside my head. i'm thinking too much. i have all of these grandiose plans that i am not fulfilling, which means that they're simply taking up too much space in my head.

and elvis costello. him, too. i'm doing this silly personal elvis costello retrospective where i listen to every single one of his albums in consecutive order, and it's super wonderful, but the music is sort of possessing me.

i need to figure this out.

i want you. i'm afraid i won't know where to stop.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Tue, 26 May 2009 05:17:33 GMT

jared and i are waking up before 7 am tomorrow in an effort to win tickets to a private elvis costello show in new york city on an unannounced date. if we win, we're going, no matter what we may have had planned for that day. i'm super nervous. i want it so bad. we haven't seen elvis since december 2007, which is too long for me. if we had the opportunity to meet him, i don't even know what i'd do. there is no one who inspires me more than elvis and woody allen, but for some reason, i feel i could retain my composure better in woody's presence. i'm scared and i want it so bad! and i don't want to want it so bad because it's a fucking contest. help.

as i stepped out upon the landing, my heart was already down the stairs.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:39:03 GMT

time seems to have sped up. already it's almost june, almost time to pick classes, almost time to send in my medical forms, almost time to start school, and definitely time to start freaking out. what happened? how did everything happen so quickly? i feel like the days have just been slipping away between long talks with ken and at-home french lessons and little trips to various towns in the valley. what's going on? suddenly i'm really confused and a little awestruck. how am i going to get things done?

honestly, i haven't even really looked at these course listings. all i know is i haven't taken the placement exams yet because i'm scared of them. i know i'm not ready for anything but a beginners' course in french, which is fine because i don't want to be in over my head; i'm just brushing up a bit so i stay afloat. with math, though, it's another story. i don't remember anything. like, at all. and it makes me feel like an idiot because i was in honors math classes in high school, and i actually did fairly well. it's just that i don't remember any of the formulas, and it's been years, and i don't even know where to begin to study. or if i even should. but i'm guessing i should... i don't want to end up having to take like three classes just to get to where i should be. it's awful. anyway, enough about that.

julie's in italy, which is amazing, but now i'm all like, "where's julie?" and wanting to see her every second of the day. "don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?" haha, just kidding. i knew i loved julie. it's just crazy she's going to be gone for most of the summer. we'll have to find a new swimming partner. maybe matt will come with us. yeah, that sounds good.

jared still doesn't have a job, which doesn't come as any sort of surprise, but it still sucks. i'm afraid we won't be able to do any of the things we really want to do this summer (see elvis costello and tori, go to the beach for a few days, etc.), which bums me out. instead i will be trying to get all my mount holyoke stuff together, get my health in tip top shape (like, keep avoiding all fast foods and sodas and cook meals for ourselves most of the time; exercise; get a grip on myself when i start to worry about things that cannot be helped), and do some writing to keep my mind working.

basically, i'm conflicted. i want things to slow down and i want everything to start.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:06:45 GMT

tori's singing about neil gaiman again. it's cute. i can't form much of an opinion on the new album yet, but i think i like it. this song that just started is amazing. holy shit.

anyway, i haven't been writing much recently because i've been spending all my free time with the people i love. since we returned from texas, we've been hanging out with people nearly every day/night. i work in the afternoons, laugh until my throat burns in the evenings. life is good; difficult, but good. i'm getting more and more anxious for the fall semester.

i've been thinking about risk-taking. the idea of it in general. of changing my mind in college, of deciding to do something entirely different, of writing plays, of getting involved in theater, of writing teleplays and taking an internship somewhere i would never choose to live. i know that in these next two years, i need to take a chance on something i would normally shrug off. i feel like there is something i'm not seeing.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:57:29 GMT

today was supposed to be all about pleasing myself in ways i rarely get to please myself these days, by staying inside and doing nothing, and by doing nothing i mean learning french, reading crime and punishment, bathing, cooking, watching the season finale of top model, showering, and watching a movie.

instead my dad decided to cook. we had hamburgers when we would have had curried red lentils and swiss chard. then grandma sent me to withdraw money she didn't even need today from the ATM and buy a huge bag of tea candles, even though she bought a huge bag of tea candles a month or two ago. i never see her lighting these candles. i'm perplexed to say the least... and vexed, because i had no intention of leaving the house today.

stuff:

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Wed, 13 May 2009 06:12:00 GMT

x. seeing people i love everyday.
x. working nearly everyday and seeing people i love there, too.
x. learning french through rosetta stone. we're still in the early stages, but we're plugging away.
x. still reading crime and punishment (i've had very little free time lately - well, not counting what i spend with friends - so i've only been reading in the bath or on breaks from work) and still loving it.
x. thinking constantly about novel ideas: one that's super exciting to me but would probably alienate/frustrate the audience, and one that's not as exciting to me that people might actually like.
x. talking to the beautiful brian molko (of placebo) and the unbelievable marshall herskovitz (co-creator of thirtysomething, my so-called life, and once and again) on facebook.
x. writing my first song ever, which needs some serious work and better lyrics.
x. "i'm a motherlover, you're a motherlover. we should fuck each other's mothers, we should fuck each other's moms..."
x. listening to lots of green day because of their surprisingly great new album, 21st century breakdown.
x. jared learning how to bake lots of stuff: bagels, flour tortillas, corn tortillas, breads, etc.
x. cutting fast food and soda entirely.
x. finishing millennium and rewatching twin peaks.
x. lots and lots of cheers. we're on season two, so frasier will be joining the show soon. i'm quite excited.

hmm, my life is pretty silly, but i like it that way.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:22:21 GMT

starting today off with a headache, apparently. my sleep schedule has been erratic, and i can't help it because i'm still trying to make up for lost sleep, but i have had to work early the past two mornings. jackson's been waking us up super early every day, too. i think he just misses us, but it's driving me crazy. petting him doesn't help. he just keeps walking back and forth across us and staring at me while i try to sleep. i leave for work again in fifteen minutes. at least i have tomorrow off.

i've been feeling a strange mixture of emotions lately: excitement for this upcoming fall and continuing school at mount holyoke, and something almost like resentment for having to wait and go to work nearly every day in the meantime. i feel spoiled, but i don't know what to do about it. i just feel like i should be able to read a bunch of books and write and brush up on my french before starting, but instead life is exactly the same and will remain that way. eh, i don't know. i'm probably just anxious about leaving for work today because i have such a bad headache.

i guess i'll have some juice.

waiting for the bell to toll and i'm wide awake now.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:00:18 GMT

funny how when i actually have things to write about, i have no time to write. this week is vampire weekend/MHC accepted students day/rufus wainwright/texas week, and i am busy, to say the least. excited, though. things are going well.

ken's wife, ruth, has been by the manhan several times to work on her bear fest bear, which is always fun. people have been taking pictures. work has been laid back yet busy. spring is in the air. a few days ago, we got to hang out with cora, adam, and lora, and i hadn't seen any of them in quite a while, so it was super special. we basically just talked, but it was a satisfying night. we'll have the full-out dinner/game night in a couple of months.

the other day, jared and i picked outfits for his mother's wedding. we put on a mini fashion show. i came up with three ensembles, but one of them won out (i liked one other one better, but jared didn't like it, and vice versa). it'll be fun dressing up and being in somewhat formal mode; i haven't done that in a while. today i wasn't wearing underwear at work, but that's another story altogether.

it's time to start packing, but instead i'm listening to the chili peppers and drinking a café au lait. i am lazy when i have things to do.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:56:15 GMT

i won first place in the flash fiction contest (again). i guess i can now safely say that i rule.

eleanorruby@gmail.com — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:42:20 GMT

we just finished watching the final season of millennium. i am more in love with lance henriksen than ever and will miss seeing his warm face two nights a week.