emily feathereaux

i don't think i'll be using this anymore, it's not the same

toad-hollow.tumblr.com

the lion of florence

nicolas andre-monsiau

still going on

1) i've been sick or something the past few days. at first it seemed like allergies but i've had persistent nausea for the past three days. at this point it is less severe and it isn't constant, or if it is prolonged it is perfectly bearable (however bearable nausea can be). i don't really know what the reason for all this is but i guess there's nothing i can do about it. it is getting better. it has been making me tired.

2) i've been painting a landscape for a month. i've never been good at disciplining myself. this morning i was in bed and my mom walked in and came in to look at it and i remember telling her to gooo awaaaay in my tiredness. the nausea has been making it harder for me to discipline myself about painting, all i want to do is sleep, but it is coming along, slowly. it's going to be an allegory, when it's finished.

3) i reactivated my facebook earlier this eve. i looked at some of matt's photos, and oh what a stranger he is. i can't explain the feeling i get when i see pictures of him, i can't even remember the last time i saw him in person. these days i don't ever know if i miss him or not. i used to know his face so well. if i ever saw him out of the blue i'd be so uncomfortable i'd probably cry, he's so intimidating to me now. he's just a big daunting ghost. seeing him would be like looking into the face of a recurring nightmare, he just plagues me. for the longest time he was the best person i knew. he will always be an enigma to me, but i will always have tender feelings for him in my heart and memory, no matter how he has changed. he was one of the best friends i've ever had, and you don't easily forget that.

4) today was a really nice day. it was warm and breezy. when i got home from school i made green tea and sat outside and finished reading o pioneers!. i only had a few pages left, and it was a nice moment i had to myself, with the sun setting before me, and all the trees of my yard and my neighbors' yards. it's an affectionate feeling to feel your hair warming your face and neck, in the face of a cold wind. i felt for the first time i really want it to be spring. no matter how i love the winter and its cold, grey and white days, every year the same thing happens - i always experience, the first day of every season, that inclination for spring

gza

"Your technique is magnificent. When cut across the neck, a sound like wailing winter winds is heard. I'd always hoped to cut someone like that someday. To hear that sound... but to have it happen to my own neck is ridiculous."

lavender and sweat

One of my favorite parts of the savages is when the man Wendy is having an affair with is on the phone with her. he’s calling from her apartment, and, laying on her bed, he says that her smell is like lavender and sweat, and he says it really affectionately. their relationship is such a bittersweet little subplot. he’s laying in her bed on the phone speaking with her, her cat might be in the frame, or his dog, i can’t remember, and he’s smelling one of her shirts or pillows. i always liked that because i’ve always liked the smell of bodies and it’s nice when other people appreciate things like that. people are really offended by body odor and smells that aren’t “clean” (emphasize those quotations) the reasons for which i’ve never really grasped. lavender and sweat is such a good combination. i think my love for the smell of bodies can be attributed in part to one of my old boyfriends because he never showered and he always smelled so good and warm. i can’t remember his smell anymore and i haven’t seen him in almost 2 years but when i stuck my head into his room sometime in late December it came back to me like an old friend. and that was it, i put my head into Matt’s room for two seconds and i smelled him and remembered, of course. it’s also because even when i have showered i still have a distinct smell that some people would consider an “odor” but i can’t tell you how many times i’ve also been approached by people who say that they secretly love my scent. that’s what they say, “secretly”, like it’s a secret. i don’t know one person who’d say they don’t like smells in general but at the same time i don’t know many people who would say that they like the smell of a body untainted by perfume, scented lotion, deodorant, aftershave, whatever, or at least they’d be afraid to admit it. remember, “it’s a secret”. it’s not even that i don’t like the smells of those things. take lavender for instance. i myself have lavender deodorant. it’s a good smell. if someone smells like lavender chances are it’s really pleasant. or a nice spicy aftershave, or what have you. but when i hug someone i don’t want to always smell old spice. actually, bad example, because i love the smell of old spice, so let’s say i don’t want to exclusively smell old spice. on the other hand, that’s just one of many rewards of getting to know someone intimately, because you (ideally) get to experience their “true” scent. that in itself is really intimate. it’s only ever more inviting when you just smell like yourself. i don’t usually leave the best impressions on people but one thing people have said about me is that i’m “warm” and i don’t doubt it’s partly because of my unimposing odor, you know. humility. at the same time it’s logical to think that since we have scent memories we’re more likely to remember someone who has a distinct, personal smell as opposed to some artificial one that ten thousand other people smell of too, which doesn’t sound very humble, and it isn’t about being remembered, it’s just nice to smell like yourself, it’s a part of being who you are. it’s also nice to not be able to identify precisely what someone smells like, at least not entirely. it’s like when you’re tasting wine, smelling is really the most important part. and when people smell wine they observe that the wine might smell like blackberries or chocolate or cherries but the wine doesn’t have blackberries, chocolate or cherries in it, the wine exudes its own smell, and that smell is subjective to the taster. when you’re smelling a person you don’t have the same systematic way of observing that you do when you taste wine but it’s still subjective to an extent because you smell things that not everybody else is smelling. if you’re wearing lavender deodorant you’ll smell like lavender. if you’re also wearing a shirt you haven’t washed in a few days then you’ll smell like lavender but also like a plethora of other unidentifiable smells. what’s offensive about that?

memories

Almost 9 hours of lord of the rings. that was a gray and white day almost 2 years ago at the beach. that same week, maddy and i would wake up in the mornings at 7 or 8 and sit in wooden chairs facing each other and knee socks. our feet up. eating corn flakes from whole foods - or was it trader joe’s? we realized one night, drinking earl grey, that we are ever so distantly related. i borrowed some shoes of hers to go to a farmer’s market in on that rainy day. it was the only rain the whole time we were there. one night i sat on her bed and she towel dried my hair for me. eventually she was too tired (maddy gets tired easily) and we turned out the lights and i finished the job myself. (i’m reminded of the similar wooden chairs in matt’s kitchen. we always made black tea with tons of sugar and honey every time we hung out. all summer, sweet hot black tea.) another time, probably one of the first times i went to maddy’s sweet little gray house, in the morning, she was still in bed (another rainy day) and she invited me in with her, and the warmth that met me is a sensation i will never forget. maddy’s bed situation is different now, but at the time it was 2 twin mattresses on the floor. maddy lives in one of those houses that looks, on the outside, too tiny to fit more than a couple of rooms in. then you go inside and the ceilings upstairs reach the sky. a more immediate understanding of the word “ceiling” if you catch my drift. her bed was below some windows - i forget if they face her steep backyard. did i sleep that night at all? anyway, i got into bed with maddy that morning. she looked so happy. it was before we were really good friends like we are now. i’ll tell you what maddy’s house (and maddy, for that matter) smells like. it smells like your grandmother. rose soap. hot water. moths? it has a comforting smell. it smells like my grandmother, anyway. another time we walked almost 2 hours so she could fill her bike tires up and by that time we were too tired anyway and we ended up getting strong hot black tea (what else?). yet another gray day that was. maddy what is it with you and gray days jesus

i remember inviting noam over at 8 or 9 pm that one night. but i forget when it was, i think a little bit into fall, but not winter. october? i remember inviting him over but i think i hadn't seen him for a long time. i can't remember our precursor to that night. i think it was after a long absence because he said a few times how different i looked. he looked different too. he kept playing with my feet. it was really comforting, especially since i wasn't wearing socks, but with socks on it would have still felt nice, of course. i love when people touch my feet. i love being touched in general, but feet especially, because i'd say on average people don't get their feet touched very often, at least not by old friends or just people dear to them. noam's hands are always smooth, every guy i know has perpetually smooth warm hands. is that a guy thing?

lord i miss

Today I stayed home. I mostly felt all right but recently i have been wanting to spend more and more time alone. in the mornings at school i don't have a first period so i just read for an hour, and i think i'm just getting more and more used to spending time alone that now i prefer it. i really just don't ever seem to want to bother with anyone else or be bothered by anyone. because that's how it feels, like i'm being bothered. it's been getting harder for me to get myself to go to sleep and harder for me to get myself out of bed in the morning. so i stayed home from school today. i always want to be alone.

I've been trying to think about why i have reached this state of solipsism, because that really is what i am becoming, solipsistic. but i don't think there is really a definitive answer or reason why. i certainly attribute it, at least in part, to my restlessness about graduating in four or so months. i really feel that in my solitude of the past month or so that i get closer and closer to myself all the time, and for that reason, i love being alone. i am trying to be more disciplined. i read in the mornings and then i go to art and paint and it's a good way to start the day for me. but at the same time i am always tired and i feel that i am becoming reticent towards others as well as taciturn to the point of putting people off more and more. i'm working on being as honest as i can be, and talking just for the sake of social niceties feels dishonest and exhausting. i don't know how i can balance being around people when i really just want to be alone. no one understands if you just don't want to talk to them and make jokes. it doesn't mean you're depressed or angry at them. everyone always wants a reason. but it's people who are only trying to be my friends, to be nice, how can i deny them friendliness? the only people that don't genuinely irk me these days that i still speak to regularly and see throughout the year, albeit sparsely, are maddy willis and noam. they are such old and dear friends of mine. i don't get to see them a lot. it's why i miss them. when i spend too much time with someone or something i get really really bothered by them, i'm not even sure, really, why i get so tired of people. the only people who are ever my best friends are boyfriends, because for some reason when i'm "in love" i never have those feelings of being burdened, as i do with most everyone else in my life. yes, i can think "i miss maddy more than anything" and "noam is the most tried and true friend i've ever had" but i've experienced those burdenings with them as well. again, i have with most everyone in my life.

anyway i stayed home today and, as you can tell by the timestamp here, it is quite late at night, and as i also mentioned, it's hard to me to get to sleep as well as wake up. i like being in solitude, that much is very true. i just am not gregarious, i don't need to be surrounded by people to be happy. but i am also extremely lonely at night, which is most likely why i don't ever want to go to sleep. sleeping alone is really hard. my friend chris this past november and december used to tell me how hard it was for him, in his apartment ( in which he lives alone ) to sleep alone every night. i have never been afflicted so by the pain of sleeping alone. even when i have boyfriends and i don't get to have sleepovers with them often, yes it hurts, but never so lonely does it make me, because you know you have someone, even if they aren't rightly there. on these lonely nights i think about everyone.

( sometimes things in my room smell like you and i have to press a shirt to my face to inhale it, and i don't know if it's because i am wholly enjoying it or if i'm wondering how in the world whatever it is smells like you after having been washed and worn by me repeatedly, and if it even actually does smell like you or if it's just in my head )

because of how much i just want to be alone nowadays i don't feel the need to engage in "obsequious banter" - all i want is to have conversations with people. just genuine conversations. people don't realize how silly their pointless everyday colloquy can be. i certainly don't realize it all the time.

the other interesting thing about my solitudinousness (what a mouthful) is that a quite common distinguishing characteristic about being lonely is eating habits. at least for me. food is definitely a comfort for me. i'm not really an over eater, but i do like to eat when i'm lonely because i like the action of it. and, food is delicious. but i have been actually eating less than usual lately, and quite healthily. green tea. poached eggs. dry toast. clementines. and of course, honey, honey, honey.

so someone please lay down with me and just run your hands across my body and i would love to fall asleep that way and not have such bad dreams. to wake up to a cold grey day in another place. woodsmoke. clouds. evergreens. rock, stone and wood.

margaret

"woe to the ones who behold the pale horse"

dreamorning

when you want attention from someone who isn't giving it to you it feels like you're not getting attention from anyone

my lips are itchy, scratch them with your teeth

edit: i am WAY too nostalgic for my own good. i used to like this quality of me, on top of everything i knew it could be a burden but i always felt that to remember things too much is better than remembering nothing at all or remembering things as nothing... now i realize that it's a bad quality.

people do things with people and then they have their separate lives and it's all so different when you're alone.. i had the most romantic feelings today in bed eating pineapple alone watching old SNL skits. i romanticized* about the thought of watching the person you love eating fresh pineapple with a fork out of a wegmans container. there's something intimate about eating, and there's something even more intimate about eating with others... i love how little rebeka in 100 years of solitude eats earth and how she grows out of it but always reverts back to it when she's in a time of stress or sadness. earth and wall plaster.

i want to drink hot tea with my eyes closed and my elbows up and remember how it feels to feel really really good

rubdown

"i have lusted after you the way that suckers do"

violent dreams

negate

i have never experienced this feeling before

some thoughts

1: no matter what, i always forgive

2: my life story is in a jar of honey

3: "base generosity"

only crazy people can make good wine

i think that brothers and sisters is a fairly well written series. moving on.

ive been thinking about a lot of things the past few days: firstly, i hate how depression/suicide is romanticized so in our culture. it's because so many artists of various mediums have created beautiful things that were borne from a state of sorrow. this seems to have been giving people in our generation a pseudo-depressed, hypochondriacal quality. it's not "cool" to be depressed. everyone has emotions, that doesn't make everyone depressed. i like keats because not only is his writing beautiful but it is so obviously coming from a place of happiness, same thing with jackson pollock. more often do you hear that an artist does their best work when they're depressed, like sylvia plath, whose work often obviously comes from a place of sadness.

secondly: humans are very clever things. ive had humanism on my mind a lot lately because of my summer assignments for european history and the whole concept is almost funny because it relates eveything to some human quality and attributes so much good to humankind. i'm having trouble with the idea that people are the best thing on this earth. people created the concept of humanism anyway. it's disturbing how people can decieve and lie and just have an inherent instinct to do these things at certain times, and more over how you can not know if someone is lying or telling the truth.

thirdly: what is the obsession with soul mates that people have? how can there possibly be just ONE person that is "right" for you? people find tons of loves in the time that they are alive. i don't doubt that just because they ended they weren't "right" for me at the time. people change, and if you stay with a certain person that appeals to who you are in that epoch of your life, you're gonna get used to them and stay with them until you, or they, change. people are creatures of habit, they are also creatures who love to love

fourthly: i don't appreciate it when guys that i don't like try to sweet talk me or come on to me or flirt or what ever. a lot of people don't like this, but it really fucking gets under my skin that i can literally feel the overly obvious compliments and "kind" words are all for one goal and it's sickening. all the wrong people spoke to me yesterday.

i am not a fan of the self-righteous.

dreaming dreams/green tea

1: there is honey and cinnamon on my face.

the other night i had this weird thought: has anyone ever been able to truely keep a secret? has anyone ever been able to keep something about themselves from another person? i feel like this sounds like an obvious "yes" to some people but to me i don't think it's true. our existence is pretty much based around other people. you can live a solipsistic existence, but in your life you will encounter others. it's inevitable, even when you're alone. you're reading books that were written by other people. what makes a secret a secret? is a secret only a secret when it's something that you share with someone and label "a secret" or is it a thought that you haven't told anyone that you labeled a secret yourself? a secret can be either of these. ten thousand people can know something, does that make it a secret still? can you keep a secret from yourself?

another thing i thought about was: why are straight men so confident in their efforts to woo women?

2: i am so proud of you

sensitive

now listening to this

tis a dainty thing to command, though twere but a flock of sheep

something has gone awry in my neck. i guess i must've slept in a strange position and thusly fucked myself over for the rest of the week. it's a very strange tense pain at the back of my neck and my head. i stood up tonight and walked into the kitchen and almost fell over from this pain. it comes in slow waves. i've never experienced anything like it. it's like someone slammed the back of my neck with a wooden plank. this has gone on for two days now, and sometimes the pain comes forward from the back of my head to my eyes. tonight i was so exhausted when i got home that i kept resting my head down and my neck started up and i decided to go to sleep but i was plagued by various thoughts so i had to get up. i woke up with a cold this morn.

i woke up cold wishing it were winter

my hair grew a lot this past month

i have been aching for some incense. incense comforts. i comfort. people comfort. people go weak to be comforted; to me this is a good quality about humans

there will never not be anything to say because there are an infinite number of sentences and word combinations.

ointment for disappointment

"i really don't know clouds at all"

westernly

right now i smell like/feel akin to my grandmother's dishes: even when you wash them, they are still dirty.
but they are washed underneath dried lavender.

i thought about rob almost consistently all day which happens from time to time. it's also nice when he comes into my mind in a busy day.

i have known and unknown people. it is easier for me to let go of them now but sometimes they come into my mind, on quiet or on busy days. sometimes people do reach out to me. i used to reach out to everyone, needlessly. i am not good at confronting things. even though i am very nostalgic, and even thought i might loathe someone most likely there will come times when i truely, truely miss them, it's also outrageously good to realize when someone is only ever hurting you. bad things happen in my life but when i am able to identify one or several i can weed them out. i think this is stemming from the fact that i am in a very cleansing mood and also have been trying to clean my room for a long time. rose bud

"all i can do is do"

19 july: i'm watching you all like you're fish behind glass. i feel like i am seeing things that i should not be seeing. watching you move

last night i got out of my dark bed and turned on the light and sat up for a couple of hours before going to sleep. whenever i have a problem or something to think about i never get to sleep unless i consider it in some way first because there is no hope of sleep unless that's done. i hate having irrational worries and fears.

certain people in my life seem to have a patronizing tone when speaking to me

today i made tea with too much sugar and honey and got a headache after doing a lot of chores. i realized that i love vaccuuming and doing laundry.

i wouldn't change a single thing


waking up from a dream yields hot skin

all the straws of hay in their haystack are actually needles

1: HONEY MOON

all day i have been thinking about the phrase "honeymoon". you recognize it, but if you look at it it's such a pretty phrase. honey moon. i want to live in those two words. i looked it up on wikipedia:

"The Merriam-Webster dictionary reports the etymology as from "the idea that the first month of marriage is the sweetest" (1546)."

as well as:

"One of the more recent citations in the Oxford English Dictionary indicates that, while today honeymoon has a positive meaning, the word was originally a reference to the inevitable waning of love like a phase of the moon."

sad, pretty things

2: ACQUIESCENCE

i wish i could articulate to everyone that i always want to listen. even though i firmly gather that it's next to if not impossible to fully understand someone, i still love to listen. anyone could talk to me and i would listen to them. i always seem to be able to sympathize with people. my entire life up to last month i thought that empathic was what i am. a latin teacher told me "sym" comes from i think greek and it means "with". usually i connect with people when they share personal things with me; those things. it's hard for me to make a meaningful attachment to someone based on trivial " " that i might have in common with them, but if someone shares a feeling or experience that i can identify with it's like i wonder how they could be missing from my life. it varies from person to person how open they are to share things like that. a lot of the time i think that i can't acknowledge or describe my feelings to people, but it's usually only when i have a problem or if i feel upset. i am extremely sensitive. often time i get upset about something and want to share it with someone but don't physically or mentally feel capable of doing that. at the same time i am more than okay with talking about things that have happened to me and about my thoughts, and also expect everyone else to be able to explain their feelings. but there are certain people who have a "knack" for talking about themselves and their problems in which they don't need the other person to sympathize. they don't need to even necessarily feel understood, they just want to be listened to. lives like a sack full of problems rather than like something good. something that is a burden; their life is special because it's so full of troubles and worries. a joy out of explaining an issue and desiring a resolve. i can never seem to explain myself to anyone but me

and i always lose my glasses

"i'm only shy when i want to be / my head between my cypress knees"