2.27

Ope the doors of heaven and let the rains fall but once, and the whole world will swim in the vale of tears. God's will being uncontrollable, however, and his promises infallible, the world has little hope for catharsis aqueous. Instead, we must muddle along as we can in the grime.

2.24b

As I read over the meagre offerings on the shelf, I am reminded once again why students don't like reading. Each book is a reminder of purple prose and over-enthusiastic keepers of the terror "history." Why Plato? Why Chaucer? Why Brontë at all? Moreover, the Christian offering is yet more threadbare, for all its vulgar display. I can see which books have Christian messages from the spine alone. Redeemed, and from what? And again, the Valley of a pseudo-romantic ripoff, one with no tension or development. Another Justin Case.
No wonder the self-developed reader is there only kind! There is no nourishment on these shelves. Where are the S E Hintons and Harper Lees--a brilliant flash in a dark place? Where are the Tolkiens and Rowlings--a relationship rendered over time and wood pulp? Where are the Brooks and Roberts and Greens and all the host of young adult fiction authors--all true to the craft, all pure in their form, all idealistic on their worldview?
At this juncture, I would accept A Wrinkle In Time, and that book insults my childhood aspirations of greatness.
Everything is ash. Everything is fire.

2.24

I'm shaking the anxiety out of my limbs, trying to find something to do. I want a distraction. I want peace.

She just called me; she's sick. How sick, she won't say. Maybe a year, maybe two. I searched for it as soon as she said, but the Internet is not a place to go to feel better. Hundreds of images--is that what she'll look like? Symptoms and side effects--will she still be the vibrant lover I knew? Predictions--should I even tell my mother? Or should I carry this joy and sadness alone (a forbidden love, a secret death. All so poetic)?

Mom is a fatalist. Maybe she'll understand. If I had to fall in love with a woman, it would be a girl fated to die. I just wish the ovarian cancer had found me instead.

2.23

The white hot sun rose above my bed, and I wished I had not been thrust so far from where I once had lived. I longed for shelter where none laid to be had. I longed for cold, the shiver of which was a memory. I longed for stability, but I rolled my pad and set my jaw to walk or be left behind by my fellows.
The yellow sun and varied climes of my home were barred me by an endless exile, the terms of which were clear: "Dragoneth Backeri, to be held, life-long, on Sus, the desert exile."

2.19

[I finally got around to reading The Fault in Our Stars and the hype is not ill-warranted. I am beginning to think that I enjoy such books, having read Perks of Being a Wallflower and Speak and A Day No Pigs Would Die and The Outsiders and more. The problem with such books is that they make me want to write, and I just don't have the patience with myself anymore. I want to write something long-form, not three lines, but three lines is all I can manage, and that only once a week or less. What happened to me? Was angst the only driving factor in my creativity? Can not happiness also promote creation, or is the suffering artist the only artist?]

It was odd, to have this connection to this book--any book, for that matter, but especially one with whose characters I have so little in common. But I feel their pain more keenly for the loss. Unique and lovely, wonderful and kind, self-absorbed and intelligent, they stand and mock me from their unassailable perch. I watch as they play out their vignettes on the edge of an endless chasm, walking back and forth on the edge, begging me to love them as I beg them not to jump. Finally, both acquiesce, and I love them more for having finally listened to my plaintive calls. They turn from the destruction and of course the cliff's edge gives way. Fool! To think that anything beautiful could last. Child! To think that your cajoling could change the mind of a fiction. Animal intelligence! To expect anything but death from a world so cruel.
I wrap myself in blankets and cast the away and roll to the floor and crawl to the bathroom, sobs unwonted and heedless building behind my eyes. This is the pain I have caused others, though fragmented and unknown, and here I receive its full force unstopping and reckless. I pull myself to full height as if to reinforce my own masculinity somehow in this moment of crushing despair over a fictional relationship between two people who will never exist.
And I cry. I want to, but I cannot find the release I need in a simple half-choked sob. This book has taken me, and I have read it nearly non-stop since I picked it up this early afternoon, and I am so close to finishing that I just want to read it and be done, but the tears won't come out. I seek release from a pain, and catharsis has abandoned me. Well, if the Greek is not my refuge, let me try Deutsch. I Seeleschrei with all of me. The house reverberates with the sound of my voice. I scream with fear that I will never stop feeling. I want it out, but it cannot get out with enough speed. The screams accelerate they tear out of me they fly through the walls they cannot be enough they must they must they must. And just as I run out of breath and I don't think the screams can continue, I feel the final, blissful release of an actual unforced sob.

When I finish wiping the tears from my puffy face, I turn the page.

2.11

Bullet-headed, I plunge into the icy waters. I am prepared; it doesn't take my breath away. The floating ice scrapes my skin as I skim past. The frigid chill saps my strength. But I will swim the distance. I will make the shore, because I know what waits for me there.
Sometimes, the journey is not reason enough. Never forget the destination.

Following through with promises

[Sometimes, I make promises with no intention to follow through with them. This is the case with the "I would buy this" of the top forty. I never really intended to buy any of the songs; after all, Stephen had given them all to me. I had them all. But at the same time, I have listened to The Origin of Love approximately forty times since I finished the top forty, which means that he could have just given me a list of forty tracks and each one was the Origin of Love and I probably would have had as much to say.
I have re-listened to the songs in roughly this order:
Origin of Love - Mika
Happy - Pharrell
Wake Me Up - Avicii
Roar - Katy Perry
Sweater Weather - The Neighborhood
Hey Love - Quadron
Royals - Lorde

And I have had cause to actually sing Work by Azalea in a Chemistry class within the last week. ("Walk a miiiile in the Looobertiiiiiiiiines")

So I have listened to a few of these songs quite a few times, and none more than Mika's explosive gloryhouse of wonder and song. I felt like I owed it to him. I really wanted him to benefit in some small way (more than just ad revenue) from my extreme enjoyment of his song.
I think I'm going to buy his album. I have to listen to the rest of it, of course, but I think I'm going to actually use actual money and buy a cd new from the store, which I haven't done since OK Go released Of the Blue Color of the Sky. Woah.

But today, I took a small step towards that, and using a $1 credit on my Amazon account, I purchased Origin of Love for $1.29. A step in the right direction.]

She started crying when she was on the phone. We hadn't even said anything sad--it was more about the lack of emotion than anything else. And I don't think she was just filling the gap with something. It was just the gnawing that gave her grief.