30 January 2002 ~ "Who killed my woodpecker?" or, Helena should get more sleep...

Four hours of sleep.

Mango ceylon tea "with essence of vanilla." So sweet. It would be better with an orange. I sip and think, without meaning to think anything at all, something nonsensical like, "this is where I came from."

Email. An unexpected one from a fellow to whom I sent a plastic ear a couple of years ago, just for kicks. People are sweet sometimes.

Pacing in the elevator. Stomping in the elevator. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether the elevator is going up or down.

I want to be a crazy person who stomps in elevators and spends my life hungry and poor, just roaming the shore of Capital Lake smoking and meeting people and letting them read to me. I want to stare at the sky and let everybody fucking wonder what the fuck I'm staring at. I want to never watch television again. I want to wander up to strangers telling them bits and pieces of my life story, twisting everything horribly out of context and then giving horrible fatalistic advice. I want to be a crazy person. I want to find Neil and soak myself in the bottomless pit of his eyes hoping some of whatever's in there gets under my skin and gives me the ability to wander by lakesides for hours just living in the wonder of it all. I want to scream in libraries. I want to be alive unto myself.

Puddles of slush, and California kids bitching about how cold it is at 36 degrees. Fuck off, California kids. You don't know cold. Real cold hurts.

WHERE'S MY FUCKING WOODPECKER? I want my woodpecker back. I think he ditched me.

Class. My voice reading my words aloud. Don't even know what they say anymore. Can hear my voice: unwavering, strong. Can hear my words: the same. Helena Thomas, you got soul, honey-child. Helena Thomas, when they told you in fourth grade that you were a writer, you didn't disappoint them. Helena Thomas, you're not good at a damned other thing in this world, but at least this is a good paper. Doesn't sound like me at all.

Criticism. This last sentence doesn't work for me. You're showing improvement already. Less use of passive verbage.

Across campus. More Cali-kids bitching about the fucking wind. You don't know wind, Cali-kids, until it's 36 degrees and there's a fifty-mile-an-hour arctic blast hitting you from the Sangre de Cristos, twenty-four hours a day for four months straight. You don't know wind, Cali-kids, until you've had school cancelled because all the scarves in the world can't keep fifty-below-zero windchill from doing you some damage while you're waiting at the bus stop at seven-fifteen in the morning, knee deep in snow. Cali-kids are sweet, but they know not what they bitch about. Ohhh, you Cali-kids have no idea what you've got here. No idea whatsoever.

I slam a purple pen into my leg, dull-end first. Not for pain -- I didn't slam it that hard -- but just to be slamming something.

Louise plays guitar. She's not half bad. As in, she's got a good handle on some recognizable rock songs. Makes me homesick.

Met a girl last night who lent me a CD in exchange for an evaluation of her paper and a book recommendation. I said erratically: "What a lot of needles there are, Malte," and wrote her a book recommendation in calligraphy. I wished I had red ink with me. I think that girl thinks I'm crazy. Good for her. I want to be a crazy person sometimes. Wait 'til she reads the recommendation I gave her...

Will carry red ink around with me everywhere I go, just in case.

I never did light that fire, either. Decided against it. I spent too long acquiring the combustibles. Not even sure they are combustibles. Probably are: probably as flammable as non-dairy creamer. Allegedly, if you shake a bottle of non-dairy creamer to mix it with oxygen, and then you light it, it explodes.

["...faster and faster... Until you burst into fire... And the angels wouldn't help you, because they've all gone away..." --Laura Palmer, Fire Walk With Me]

Doesn't matter much anyway.

Walking slowly by your Lake... A thousand times you emailed me about it. A thousand times I emailed you about my Rivers. A thousand times I watched the movies you recommended. You have good taste. I like your music. The Lake doesn't look like I pictured it. I don't remember how I pictured it. Don't remember how I pictured you, though a glossy likeness of you hangs on my wall. I don't know where you are now. I walk by your Lake and listen to my own music. I don't know where I end anymore. Don't know quite what's mine. I know what isn't. I won't bother you anymore. Just let this Lake be mine for a little while.

Distracted. Re-reading this entry. Blurred in front of my eyes a little. There's one line up there that reminds me of Ginsberg, but I swear I didn't steal it. "Who killed my woodpecker? What price mangoes? Are you my Angel?"

Humming a Lou Reed cover. Just popped into my head. Now that I notice, am not particularly pleased. A concentrated effort. I hum "I'm only happy when it rains" instead. That's not much better. To whom does THIS belong?

No one in the halls. Too bad. Was thinking of dragging somebody to the post office or to lunch, maybe offering a cup of tea and the sixteenth of my soul that I haven't managed to strew across the pretty little art-towns of the United States of America. What the hell, you know? Why the fuck not? Why, the motherfucken hell not? You can use my big blue mug for the tea. It's been across the country twice now. It liked Missoula a lot. It even liked Steele, North Dakota. It likes Western Washington best. It grew up in North Bend. It digs the trees. You can't tell from looking at it, but it's a surrealist mug. If you want some tea, I have plenty. "We got mango!"

A day or two after the full moon. I know I'm supposed to be a real live grown-up now, but I still talk to the moon. When I was three, I thought a blue lady lived on the moon. I thought she had a wand and granted wishes. I made a wish to the blue lady on the moon the other night when it was full. I wished for all good things to come to my friend. One of these years I'll learn to be selfish. Maybe once I stop talking to the moon. Grow the hell up, little girl. Be a real New Yorker: be angry at everyone, and don't care about anything but yourself. While you're at it, be a real Binghamtonian, and get yourself a developmental disability to make all the Seattlites wonder what the hell's in the water. Hell's in the well.

Gonna look at this later and think, "wow, I was tired." Going to be wishing, a little bit, that I was a crazy person instead.

~Helena*