Daniela Scrima’s blog

I wake up sprawled on the floor, lying on my travel pillow which I purchased for twenty-five dollars by advice of chiropractor. "I don't think you're really in the position not to take my advice, Daniela" this is what Dr.Calluci tells me, and because I've been waiting for an hour and a half among the elderly I say, "Dr.Calluci, just wondering, are you like-- an actual medical doctor?"
I buy the pillow anyway.

On the floor of the airport I sit up and I am immediately handed a pamphlet about Jesus Christ. This seems appropriate enough: the sun is shining brightly in my face, the wind is not blowing in my hair.
My arm is really banged up and because this is not New York City everyone asks over and over again "what happened to your arm?"

A boy who could be my age, but is probably younger asks me "Are you afraid of flying?"

Of course. I tell him. Not scared at all. I want to say that I love airports that I am in my element, that I could be anyone but instead I do not say what happened to my arm  I say "I cannot handle the take offs and landings"

I wake up sprawled on the floor and suddenly I am taking a shit ton of Percocet with missionaries who are on their way to Peru.I let them tell me about God and I mainly not my head, I stop to say "I really only believe in the Blessed Virgin" and they note that I am not speaking of myself and keep going.
"Why are you going to Peru? Can't you just leave those people alone?" I don't know if they give me a real answer but their backpacks are filled as if they were going to go film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas not Jesus Camp: The Sequel

Once I let my friend Jesse borrow the book White Noise and she read it on a flight with her mother on their way to Costa Rica, a missionary vomitted on her and all over the book something like fifteen minutes after take off.

We are not sure if this actually means anything, but we write it down anyway. Just in case. Just in case the police come storming in and ask for an account so I can "well here it happened like this officers, I have it on this sheet of paper"
but even the police man, the private would ask me from the door frame

"what happened to your arm?"

There are times in life where you start settling and truly, I have no idea why. I either want to say "hurry up and get it over with" or "chill the fuck out man and let your guard down" I believe in purgatory, naturally, of course, but I've never been a fan of limbo and the authorities, the missionaries, the men with missing jaws-- none of them can tell me that there is any difference.

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The other day we drove in a car Nick, Ashley, Autumn, Aaron and myself and tried to find a place called "Amelia Island" we ended up at Fort DeSoto and it was completely deserted, all you could see was sand and water and some grass and an  occasional bicycle going by. At first we just stood there. Then Nick waded in. That ashley said it wasnt so cold. Then I collapsed like the the earth was begging me to and then I wanted to take off all of my clothes. I have never swam naked in the ocean, i have gone bras and panties in the night, but I have never been truly naked during the day in the water. So I stripped off. Autumn, who goes to an all girls school in Roanoke, which I believe is called Roanoke, held my bra in my hand for me while I touched my own breasts in the water. I kept saying to everyone "we have to do this now because this is beautiful" there was a sense of urgency but still a sense of panic. There is always a sense of panic like "what if I can never do this again?" It's not a question of whether I'll ever come back to the ocean, but whether the ocean  will ever come back.

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In the car Autumn, who has her masters or is working on her Masters or something about Psychology diagnosis everyone. Ashley takes a drag off of her Newports even though she is enraged that I handed her the wrong pack "Newport Lights" we didn't even know they existed.
"THESE PROBABLY DONT EVEN HAVE FIBERGLASS IN THEM"
I apologize, smoke one myself, cant inhale but figure that she's wrong and they probably do.
Then Ashley says "well Daniela, we diagnosed you already last night."

Oh do tell
"We diagnosed you with HPD"
like HPV?
"No HPD"
What's HPD? Why did you diagnose me? What the fuck?

Autumn has either printed this out or is maybe reading it from her phone but then she explains to me that if she was my doctor she would diagnose me with "Histrionic Personality Disorder"
I say from the backseat, half glaring at Nick because he was born, "I don't think I have any kind of disorder.

Autumn begins reading:

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriate seductiveness, usually beginning in early adulthood.

The essential feature of histrionic personality disorder is an excessive pattern of emotionality and attention-seeking behavior. These individuals are lively, dramatic, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. They may be inappropriately sexually provocative, express strong emotions with an impressionistic style, and be easily influenced by others.

People with this disorder are usually able to function at a high level and can be successful socially and professionally. People with histrionic personality disorder usually have good social skills, but they tend to use these skills to manipulate other people and become the center of attention. [1] Furthermore, histrionic personality disorder may affect a person's social or romantic relationships or their ability to cope with losses or failures. People with this disorder may seek treatment for depression when romantic relationships end, although this is by no means a feature exclusive to this disorder. They often fail to see their own personal situation realistically, instead tending to dramatize and exaggerate their difficulties. They may go through frequent job changes, as they become easily bored and have trouble dealing with frustration. Because they tend to crave novelty and excitement, they may place themselves in risky situations.

She finishes reading and everyone in the car just nods their heads. "I have never even heard of this! Everything cannot just be a disorder. Having a personality is a disorder"

I put on lipstick. I stare out at the ocean. I wake up days later and the missionaries from Peru diagnose me with hell and slip a white pill in my mouth.

I pack when I get home. I unpack even though it's been dark for hours.

Before bed, or during bed, I fall asleep with my glasses on. All this time I thought I only suffered from terminal uniqueness. I am back in New York. No one asks what happened to my arm, and if I told the truth would they even believe me?

"someone cut me with a butter knife"

I'm not sure. The pamphlet about Christ is at the bedside table. I cannot keep my eyes open. I didn't get a sunburn.

"Have your coffee and stop your crying," my alarm goes off and I say this to myself like I am a strict mother giving a proper scolding. I've made the bed before I am barely even out of it. "I believe it was just the dreams, I believe it is just the weather."

Yesterday my roommate cried in the kitchen so I gave her a hug and used my fingers to wipe away her tears. I don't like to get like that in front of anyone and it's funny, because I can usually only cry late at night or early in the morning. I feel like it's daylight savings time. It's like I let myself relax enough in my sleep that something goes through the surface.
So this morning, upon rising, I burst into tears. I put my head in my hands and I take my hair down. There is water next to the bed. I drink it slowly as if something has actually happened, as if this is a reaction.
"Make your bed. Get dressed. Get a hold of yourself."

If anyone who loved me, or did not love me, was here they would say "enough with the theatrics, Daniela," they would say "is there a reason to be this dramatic right now?" I do it in front of no one. Wash my own face. I think the last thing I said to him was that I wish I needed nothing just like the story in the book.

I put "Sodom, South Georgia" on the record player because I've learned how to move my finger to the line. all dead white boys say God is good. White tongues hang out. God is good. I want to talk to Jackson but I can't feel where he is these days. You know how sometimes you can tell with a person? You can feel it with them and you can tell? I can't tell. I can't tell and I should have given him (and many other things) up for Lent.

I don't know how this happens to me constantly in New York City, but I don't own an umbrella again. I have the proper boots now. The proper stride. I can look straight ahead, but I don't know what I've done with the umbrellas. The subject line refers to chickens. Once I met a man and he loved penguins. I believe it is evident in a woman's face if she rode horses when she was a girl.

And here we go again we are back to my thoughts that don't come as thinks it is only "I feel" or "I believe" suddenly it is not "I think" or "I know" Suddenly I am telling strangers what I feel about their fingers. I put "Coxcomb Red" on the record player because once, a boy who kissed me in a dorm got me high and then got me into the band Songs: Ohia. I could see the May 4th Memorial from out the bedroom window and at any moment where I could see a massacre, I felt like things were meant to be. He told me the song reminded him me, and because I was eighteen, I did not believe him. Now that is the only compliment. You'd think it be different, that I would have trusted more than. But later on in cars with men and boys listening to the radio or complaining about a tape deck, I learned the reason all music had ever been written.
Just tell me this song is about me. Make it up.

I was talking to my 'intern', who allows me to call her that or puffin or butter cup, and I was telling her that I wish I would have moved to New York when I was 21. It seemed like it would have been this exciting, outrageous thing to arrive here at that age. A sat for a minute with the months and then I remembered that I did. I did move to New York when I was 21.

I did move to New York when I was 21. I did learn how to cry without an audience. In the beginning it was all fancy dinners and social climbers, but then I couldn't keep up. I thought we were really doing it for the arts or we were really doing it for the cause or we were doing it for the charities and then a woman who I admired very much told me to apply fake eyelashes and lose fifteen pounds. And I would have loved to, and maybe I did, maybe that did happen. But I still think if I did it, it was for the right reasons. It was to build the well, not to wear the dress.

People talk to me about regrets, about the news, about the economy. Friends act as if they are phoning to let me in on the real world, as if I have cut myself off from some thing that is actually going on. They begin with "have you heard?" and they ask "so what do you think?" and I watch the old ladies cross the street and I am happy that I can record Democracy Now on DVR because lying on the couch and seeing boring faces is the closest I can get to sitting in a car and waiting for the light to turn green.

The voices on the phones, seldom, rarely, I answer-- I don't listen to what they say. I've learned to tune into the AM radio now. If I am lucky I get a preacher all the way from Tennessee and he promises me salvation. "Get out of bed and drink a cup of coffee." And because no one wants to hear about it, because no one wants to pretend the lines on my face are the lines on records, I wipe them off myself. I feel and I believe and perhaps after I've dressed and washed my hair I too will become enraged about all of these scandals. Oh these scandals! Going on right before my eyes. I too will phone to tell the news; I too will think.

http://www.danielascrima.com

Yesterday we had to talk about "Seymour: An Introduction" for two hours &I thought everyone was wrong. Sometimes I have no idea how I can be a lit major because I don't really like to talk about it, I like what it is to me.

Jay's flight got canceled so I poured an extra bowl of dog food, and John's flight got delayed so I talked to him on the phone and you could hear the flight attendants saying to make room under seats and overhead. I am not on an airplane.

I feel like all I do is wash the floor and I am still upset about the dishes in the sink. Maybe I will never stop being upset about the dishes in the sink. I want to live alone so I can have high ceilings and decorate how I like and have things that are mine. My psychiatrist says this is because I am an only child; my psychic says it's because the moon is in my favor this year.

Last night Laura came over and I filled my hair with aqua net. This morning I washed it twice to try and get rid of the smell of smoke. I had water and read more Wally Lamb which I cannot stop reading. Except the book is kind of about the Columbine shootings and it is also kind of very violent and sad. I tried to start it before I went to Florida the last time in December, but I stopped. Now I am almost done and I don't want to be because I like it when books go on forever.

Remember how I told you I bought Cosmopolitan Magazine? Well, it was not good for me to read. Really it says a million terrible things and it asks you to look at your boyfriends dick and see if it's different colors and then on the next page it tells you if you are single this is how you hang a picture on the wall. And I wonder maybe some lady reads this and finds out that their boyfriend's dick is different colors and then just hangs herself instead.

I have to think about packing because it will be warm in Florida. Not warm it will be hot. I bet it will be 90 degrees but with a breeze. If my skin wants to burn I will let it. I say every year that I do not get sunburns because I am half Sicilian. If you've been with me for more than a year then you know the truth, if not then maybe you will see.

I am waiting for Jayme to come back because she is gone. I am waiting for Tuesday because I need to have my hair washed and blown out and then my tarot cards read. Then people from China will stay at my parent's house and I will clean the room that is my room there but not my childhood bedroom and hopefully we will drive.

On Wednesday, we are going to Space Camp. I wonder how long it takes to get there. I remember going for field trips to Cape Canaveral and I was so happy because you could eat astronaut ice cream.  It is like Styrofoam kind of, you know?

I am happy about the ocean. I act like I live no where near the Atlantic Ocean. I act like I act like I act like I act like I act like.

Sorry, I am in a fitful mood today. It is Blair's birthday, happy Birthday Blair.

I need to sit back down and finish writing my lists. I will have to wait for Jayme to come back until I can pack. Packing is a puffin party. I watched the last episode of The Girls Next Door and it ruined my life. But hey, I feel fine because another season of The Hills is starting. During the commercial Heidi cries and Spencer punches someone in the face. A lot of times.
I really am this stupid.

My doctor says it's all about iron "you're not getting enough iron, Daniela." I want to ask him if he believes in blood lines but I don't know what kind of question that would be.

I will probably act out for the next ten days, I can feel it strongly in my bones.

Song Against Sex - Neutral Milk Hotel

On this lovely morning the jury is hung &the house echoes nothings , now everyone’s gone. It’s the coldest day I’ve seen in December thus far. I don’t want to stock up for the winter, So I’m calling for a hunger-strike. I’m cashing in coupons and saving up my change for salvation or a pack of cigarettes. You’ll be holding your daughter while the laundry dries in my backyard. I’ll marry a doctor after witnessing a message (not a murder) &from here on out I’ll invest in good men—not lost boys—and I’ll watch the skyline like a monument. I’ll watch the window for your silhouette &if you return I’ll shoot you down. We’ll call the troops &act on instinct. I will forget your stomach and your backbone and I will believe in day traders instead of night traitors so when the storm comes in it will all fall into place. There’s a place for you in everything, especially the scripture you read your daughter every night, wanting her so badly to believe in something, in something more than the man made lakes you try and drown in every single night.

And you know I’m not a good swimmer, that I’ve started drinking too much coffee again. That Blair gives me donuts while I sit at the counter of Jimmy’s Diner and write, like some version of a regular, or Perez Hilton. I want to tell the man lying naked next to me in my bed that when I go stay at my parent’s house it’s like wanting to play a piano that already plays itself. The man laying next to me in bed, I don’t think he really wants me to tell him anything at all.  I go on anyway: I want to be a regular, but I don’t want my teeth to get stained in the process, so I am going to drink this coffee through a straw, I am going to wipe these crumbs from my mouth. I need to call Trade Secret in Clearwater, Florida, call the mall where I used to work and demand that Randy Phoenix fix my hair. Randy, everyone has ruined it, they’ve ravaged it. It’s everyone’s hands all up on my head, all up in my grill.

I’ve been living it out in bathtubs, touching necks that don’t remind me of yours. It’s not that it’s really different from what it used to be, you know? It’s just that my position has changed. I’m always eager in the kitchen, perched over the sink with my middle finger reaching further down my throat then you had ever even thought of going. Still you’re the one taunting my insides, begging my breasts to bring up the past and  then watch it as it’s swept up with the sink and trembles  down the drain. “You’ll never be a regular, Daniela Scrima, you don’t even have that in you, look, you’ve gotten crumbs all up in your hair.”
Failed attempts at just bein’ a human, like last week when I tried to take up smoking and couldnt decide on which hand would be held or which man would wake up naked next to me in bed—but I knew the lighting would be perfect, I knew the music would be queued, and the dogs would be shitting on the pristine tile floor. You were looking at me like you were the palm reader, like out of all of the women in the world , you could hold this deck of cards over me, telling me no man wants to play games during the first cold week of December.

 A storm front was coming &the semen was damned. I told you that was my favorite television show but I don’t know why you believed me. The troops were lyin out in front of trenches, I was slathering on tanning lotion, massaging the bullet holes in your chest. Everyone’s laughing when I’m talking, except Nick, who knows I’ve never made a joke in my life, who knows he shares the same name as my father, and knows that to me, well names, mean everything. He asks for prawns to break my spirit. The troops call their estranged mother’s and their hot tempered daddies and they read the truth from index cards that I keep in my room. They laugh when you love me and they die when you declare that love is dead. You want to see my signature pose? My leg trick? It seems like I’ll do it for just about anyone, these days.

I go to my old apartment and sit with my old roommate who calls are old supplier while we sit on the old carpet. I say “when I first moved to New York City, I slept next to that radiator, right on the floor,” You round up my influence and you kiss their wrists and ankles like love is your middle name. Like love was my middle name. Cuts on lips will always remind me of you. God wouldn’t dare damn a boy like you. Not with the stars so soft and the view so clear. God couldn’t do that to us, no sir, no baby, no never. If God did he would have nowhere to showcase the New York City skyline—the one so obscured with structures that it would forever remind you of free men and dying women, the one so dark sans constellations that we wont even know when an old moon meets new. The God you believe in, well that God let me in on his big secret, kid, he warned me that boys will be boys until he sees a man where the moon should be.

On Monday, my stock broker broke down and bought a shotgun. It’s the market, it’s the times, it’s the collapse, don’t forget to do nothing when Wednesday comes, we got to prove were equal after all. You say, you say. Just like you did last week, telling me on Thanksgiving that you bought one too. You say all men have guns in Virginia, baby, don’t get so blue. This soups on the house.  You tell me to stop pretend I am south of the Mason-Dixon line. You look at me with wide eyes and say “this is not a wise investment, see in New York City, we call boys like this a ‘throw-away,” you look around my bedrooms, noticing the bones &bruises. I tell one man that I am an individual and I tell another that I am made of metal, that they never gave me braces so my mouth and manners and movements are crooked. Let’s get Cotarded in here.. Let’s get Cotarded in here.

The jury is hung, the crumbs in my hair, the soups getting cold, you’re telling me to get the fuck away from the counter, you’re saying “put your clothes back on, this is my song &you’re not going to steal it”.
 In bed naked, I don’t want  to give a speech unless it’s a monologue. A monologue I learned a long time ago, and I’m gonna deliver it in any voice that I want to. Maybe I will become a regular, maybe I’ll sit at this counter every day instead of going to the library or sitting at my own desk, so I can keep saying that this is my job. Who am I kidding? I love everyone I’ve ever met. I may not remember their names, their faces or meeting them at all, but I’ll fucking love them anyway.

Anyway, I am drinking my coffee with a straw. I have finals next week. I scheduled a hair appointment with Randy from Trade Secret, my favorite drag queen &my favorite hair dresser. If I am going to put my head in anyone’s hands it will be that man. See, my heart is up for grabs, I’ll leave it on the counter with donut crumbs, but my hair, oh honey my hair, you’re going to have to wait more than a minute or a second or a year, you’re going to have run your fingers through it for the rest of my life. That is true love, that is what true love really is, you can feel it stop, you can’t wash it out, you cant wash it out, but you can knot it up, you can ravage it to all hell.  The jury is hung and the house echoes now that they’ve gone. There’s a place for all of you in everything, especially the scripture that you read to your daughter every night, but baby, please, stop making these man made lakes, I can’t see the moon, and all I need the water for is washing a hunger-strike out of my hair, I know you think the time has come, but I’m not ready to let you watch me drown, God says he is going to stop building men with eyes that work that way.

htttp://oh-snap.livejournal.com

I want a banana. Like a baby wants a banana. Sitting outside I just want to say "please don't be mean" or maybe show men what women look like without skin. I could take them to a museum where they would be lined up on display, and then we could discuss it on a daytime talk show. I would explain that these women have no skin now even though they have spent years growing it back. I wonder if it would have any effect, like the burn victims on the television screen. The burn victims are massaging ointment on to their arms-- or their stubs, the places where their arms used to be. They speak directly to you, me, God and the cameraman, they say "it still really hurts."

I ask him to come in the room and watch this with me. I think he says "this is sick" or "this is fucked up" or "what is wrong with you?" And then he goes back to playing some video game where he gets to have a machine gun, where I don't get to talk. I keep speaking even though I am sure he cant hear me, and I say "you know they were babies too, you know they had high chairs," I continue, "someone puts cheerios on a high chair and they still eat them, don't you get that?" I  try, and I try, but I cannot get up to the change channel.

All of the phone calls I make are long distances, but it doesn't really matter anymore. I don't know how my phone works, or how phone works in general. I don't understand how you can hear me right away. I don't like the telephone and I wish there was a thirty second delay so I could feel like it was working somehow. Long distances phone calls also don't matter, because I don't think my cell phone provider takes note of this. I can call anyone nationally and it makes no difference. I am always under my minutes every month so they roll over to the next month, and I cant get a smaller plan than what I already have. I miss my lovers and their landlines. I want to call and ask if you are home. I think that text messages could have quite possibly ruined our lives.

And I can't make excuses anymore, I can't say "oh, I'm sorry I wasn't home," because it doesn't matter if I was home or not, anyone can reach me anywhere. People can even gps my location with their phones. We can make maps of each other across the city. We are a video game that I obviously am not good at. I force myself to work through this, I sit down and listen to all of my voice mails and sometimes it shocks me that anyone says my name, the way my name sounds coming out of other peoples mouths. He leaves me a voice mail, "Daniela, it's me" I suck my stomach in and I stare at the television screen.

I swore I'd quit, you know, like some people say they will quit smoking, or how certain men have really great ideas. I've put myself all over the internet since puberty, it was a natural response to outside circumstance, to being thirteen years old. Sometimes I wish there was one giant delete button, I guess we all feel like that sometimes. But the rest of the time, I just don't stop. I am part of a larger hybrid that does this also, I don't know if this is a collective society, if we are doing this together, competing for attention or still just having an outlet. I feel like this is habit, because I can do this easily, and I cannot answer the phone or respond to my own name. I don't know how this name thing has happened-- when I began to feel it was unfair for anyone to say my name. My parents call and I want to say "I AM SORRY NO ONE LIVES HERE bY THAT NAME," as if they'd never met me. I don't want to hear about the running tab I am as a human, my carbon foot print or the words I said as a toddler. If anyone asks me why I lied, I will tell them it is because I do not remember getting teeth.

After I've finished reading and writing my papers, I learn my real life lessons through daytime television. I watch one year of a woman's life as she loses half her body weight through gastric bypass surgery. I like this story for so many reasons. I like it because they are not acknowledging the real issue at all, it's a three hour special and all they talk about is the food she consumes in secret. They don't stop to make the connection to emotional eating, or maybe they do, but not enough. I don't think they make note of it enough because they act like it will go away. I have read about people ripping through their new stomachs, snapping through their lapbands. And it has nothing to do with being hungry. You don't go to a drive thru, pull up in your car and order three value meals because you need something to eat.
They say she is happy now, except for the excess skin. A surgery is scheduled. She cries in front of the camera, and I think I would cry too, but I don't. He comes upstairs and glares me down, like he does not make love to me, I am just some body that shares his body. His eyes are blank and I almost start laughing. This is a man or boy that has no knowledge of our government, doesn't understand how anything in the political system works and refuses to register to vote. He tells me about his high scores and I want to say "I am sorry, the person you are looking for does not reside at this residence."

I just wanted to be the prodigal son, mom. Can't I come home now? Can't we change the genders and prove everything right, mom? Why don't you listen to my voicemails, mom? I make these requests to God himself and it's like his secretary is mimicking me, when I ask to speak to him, they just tell me I have the wrong number. It doesn't even matter that I called the landline.

A famous author hangs himself. I know I should tell you he hanged himself but it still doesn't sound right to me. I have never understood that pattern in speech, and I never had to think about it until Sadam Hussein is going to be executed. I do not watch this event on daytime television, I instead watch it on youtube the next day. Everyone is watching the ball drop, bringing in The New Year-- and I can't help but to find this so disturbing. I wish he would have offed himself, or that they could have given him the choice. I understand that he was a horrible man, but I know that tomorrow it is going to be 2007, and I don't want to see a video of a man being hanged. I don't like the way it sounds. I don't want to imagine the presidents face. I tell myself that things will change when I move to the city, like this is not a global event. Alone in my childhood bedroom, I take this very personally.

On television nearly two years later I watch the Republican National Convention every night for a week. The whole time I keep putting my hand on my heart. I cant chant "drill, baby, drill" and I am not understanding any of the jokes. The boy or man I mentioned earlier doesn't walk into the room because he does not live here, has never lived here, has never slept in my new bed in my new bedroom. I tell myself this is sterile ground. I change my phone number. I get new mouth wash. I answer the phone and I sound as uplifting as I can, someone on the other line, maybe you says "Daniela?" and I am so happy, so happy with the receiver that isn't a receiver at all, so happy with the minutes that arent minutes at all. I start to tell you right away, before it cuts to the machine, I start to tell you "I am so happy to hear from you! I don't remember the last time we talked! Did you hear all the men were hanged? Do you remember getting teeth? Oh you do! Well that's good. That's good." I lie, "i do not remember getting teeth."

& it's memories that I'm stealing, but you're innocent when you dream, when you dream."

During the week days, the mornings are mostly the same.  I used to fear the mornings because of “going through the motions,” because of the process, but now I enjoy it. I enjoy the ritual. I do it alone. I set the water to boil and go make the bed, I pour the coffee and while it cools I place myself on the hardwood floor &stretch my limbs in different ways.  In a few paragraphs I will tell you everything, I decided to when the water was boiling. If you wanted this to be your business before, then here you go, it can still be your business now.

When I am off the floor I try and write, I have lost a story line, kept my mouth shut &forgot about plot, this morning I remind myself to take note of this again. I used to think simply in narrative, I could have delivered a voice over if you would have put a microphone inside of my brain, it could have been in all of your favorite commercials. I should give up coffee again, I did so well for a while, but now I’m back to it. The only reason I want to give it up is so I can start drinking it again. My roommate has a French press and when classes began this year I started pouring myself a cup. I would drink something, and then feel something. The fact that I could feel the effects of caffeine became a new & astonishing revelation. Caffeine existed after all.  Something is actually there.  There are things I know but that does not mean I really choose to believe them. Just because something happens to be a fact does not mean that I will happen to feel it.
Isn’t that right Alexander Graham Bell--why won’t you stop phoning me in the middle of the night? Isn’t that right Abigail Folger- - lying bloody on the floor?

My reaction to statements and questions is no longer answered with "I think" or "i know" instead I always say "I believe in that" or "I don't believe in that." My roommate said she was stubborn because three generations of her family are stubborn and I said "I don't believe in that.” I want to know what people believe in not what they think, not what they know tell me how it feeels. Everyone tears up in front of me all the time, so I just don't cry at all.
There are enough people crying around me. These days, I never have to cry for anyone. For years, I had to cry for them all. In all of my dreams there are cars and roads and motions that I cannot control. The roads go up mountains or the air and the world is usually desolate, there are not many people, there are things left over. In the dream I already know what's happened, but when I wake up, I can't figure it out.

You know, when I was in my last Florida relationship, I always drove down to St.Pete. My boyfriend and I  both lived off of the same road, about 45 minutes apart. But it was the same road, Belcher Road, our houses were directly lined up on a map. It was a two turn drive. Left out of  my parent’s driveway onto Belcher, down Belcher for forty, forty-five minutes, maybe longer maybe shorter, and then a left onto his street, there was his house. We both lived on cul-de-sacs, fake dead end roads. Mine was connected to a trailer park and his linked on to some neighborhood.
The thing was, I always made that drive. It was always me driving, in my car. First I called it the Drive of Shame, they thought I was funny, I made up names for things, I marked landmarks on the road i said "I've just driven over Jurassic Park" and they loved me. There I was, bearing gifts, shelling out hair products and advise and babysitting and it was always me making that drive, two times a day or every night. He didn't make that drive. And now, much later, I am glad he didn’t. I am glad that I don’t process the narrative that way, because then, my god, who would have had the right?

I became ac costumed to his house, his family, his bedroom. I watched his home movies, I went over his grandmother's, I went to softball games and I brought over baked goods. And in retrospect, I did this all for a person who knew so little about me, who really in the end doesn’t know that much about me at all. I never shared the good stuff, I was busy naming the streets.
 I think if he was asked what color my eyes are, he wouldn’t remember.
I am absolutely sure he would have no idea what color my eyes are.
And it's funny, because I had no eyes back then. I didn't even have eyes. I covered them up. I made them bright blue, or dark green or hazel.  I pushed contact lenses into them so you would never know. No one knew the difference, I could have said my eyes were born hazel and it would have been the same as giving a small child a balloon. And that’s the thing, I had no eyes back then, I had someone else's eyes, someone else's eyes, and someone else's family.

After it all ended, after he cheats on me and causes a scene like a toddler and I am exiled off the block, pulling at my own hair, I realize how some things are just for nothing. If I show up with a shampoo I don’t really have to share a part of myself, I just have to tell you what it does to the follicles of your hair. No one sincerely believes me when I explain how much I liked working at K-Mart or the mall when I was younger, but I did. I liked it because it had so little to do with me. I believed in. I believe in hair conditioner, I don’t believe in retinas.

One day in the kitchen, after I decided I would just move to New York, I told my mother "I gave them everything and now they don't even know me at all." Because he never knew my family, he never saw my home movies, he has touched my body one million times and he still if he saw me today would ask where I got that scar. And every time I told him a different story. He never caught on, he never remembered.. He never will. I could tell him
“I fell out of a tree,” “I burned to death in a fire,” “I fell down the stairs,” “I was bit by a mouse,” “I was born this way,” and each time he nodded his head, not piecing anything together. That was my fault. That was me playing the role of George, looking at Lennie deep in his eyes, he asks me where I got that scar and I tell him if he can just stay out of trouble, I'll let him tend to the rabbits.

"Oh will you? Will you let me tend to the rabbits, George?"

But that is what I Wanted love to be like. I wanted it to be easy, I wanted to be in control. And when the ball dropped, I lost it. I wanted to settle for something simple. My father would scoff in the beginning "stop referring to your boyfriend as simple, it makes him sound stupid." But he was both. He ate when he was hungry and he slept when he was tired.

There are two kinds of people in this world: the kind that eat when they are hungry and the kind that sleep when they are tired, and those that cannot manage to do either.

It figures, I have acted out all of my best scenes for a blind audience, I have given the best speeches to deaf ears.

And now I don't really love anyone, there is never anyone new. At some point I decided I would just never tell any of these stories. I would believe in: stories, feelings, hardwood floors.
 I don't want to have to tell any of these stories, you know, even though that’s what I am doing right now.  I wish I could hand over a transcript, some survey like the ones we used to fill out on the internet--- do you remember? First we would send them to each other in e-mails, then later on we would copy &paste them into our blogs?
That could just answer the questions for me. Name, Age, Place of Birth, Parents, Every school I've ever gone to, Everyone I ever made love to, Who my best friends are, What my parents do, What countries I have been to, What states. .
They could study it and get back to me and when I tried to kiss their mouths I'd realize that they had no lips.

They have no lips, my god, they have no tongues. It's all teeth, my god. I'ts all bone. It was all bone.

After I started having serious relationships at the age of thirteen, I kind of discovered that the pain would go away. Even if I was hurting, even if we were acting out the biggest scene, I gained some perspective that when I was older it really wouldn’t matter anymore. Yes, there are certain people that I will probably never stop loving, but then there are those who I never really loved at all.  I could never be the victim in this story, just because I was stabbed in the front does not mean I didn’t bring it up on myself. I just wanted to be stabbed in the face instead of the back. It’s not like I picked my ex-boyfriend out of the crowd for his brain, it was more the fact that I liked the way he looked in pictures; I liked the fact that he had nothing to say and if I stuck to it my life would have no possibilities.

And I have blogged all of my serious relationships, it was just at some point that I stopped blogging the break ups, I didn’t write the bad parts down because then I would have been a failure. My perception became so skewed that I didn’t know what photographs I’d be able to accumulate for you. Back then, the mornings were never the same, I woke up at different times and did different things, there was no ritual it was just the mundane. You see, there were signs that said DEAD END ROAD but I thought because I knew the shortcuts, the side entrances, the best way to make a three-point turn that I could get to wherever I was going. And I don’t know if this will surprise you or not, but all the dead end roads were dead.

There was always something comforting in this idea that maybe I would never have to live up to any expectations, that I could have just been barefoot and pregnant on some shitty tile floor without a thought in my head.  And then it’s over and you realize that maybe all the things you went through really weren’t that much, I want to say simple sentences like “get your idiot body away from mine,” or “don’t you ever tell me to get over anything in my life,” I will start singing to strangers: if you don’t know me by now, you won’t never ever ever ever know meeee, oooooooooo.

For two years I stopped writing the truth and instead just blurted out some vague sentences starring: Daniela Scrima! As Loopy Pieces of Metal! But now I don’t see the point in protecting the identities of the innocent, you know, I’ve been telling you this story since the day I was born, may as well not stop now, right? I don’t feel like it will be any fun of it’s all bone. What kind of ritual would I have if I spared your name? If I didn't ask you to tell me all of your dreams about owning this land, before I politely asked you to turn around &face that tree, you know baby, just so I could see the back of your head.

I cant sleep through the night, because I'm scared of the dark. I think too much, and the darkness scares the hell out of me. I have a nightlite, and terrible sleeping habits. I wake up screaming. Or I don't wake up at all. I listen to music that my mother did when she was my age. I listen to it like it still has a purpose, like it's brand new, because for me, it is. I read books over and over. And I smile a lot on the outside. I try as hard as I can not to drown, but sometimes the waves are inevitable. I lived in Florida for ten years, so don't expect me to get excited over sunshine. No matter how together I get it, I will always stand to be corrected. Someone will always point out that I put the, comma in the wrong place, they wont even read the sentence. They will look into my eyes and right past me. They will tear apart my face. And I will make part of this up. I will sleep or stop or stop or sleep. I will be your personal Jesus. You can light me on fire, and I'll love it. I will find you in deserted rooms and crowded hallways, you will fill my brain. I will want more. But I will never be enough for you. This is all you need to remember, because I'm beginning to forget. I meet a girl in college who never has nightmares. She becomes my best friend almost instantly, and I cant ever get past the fact that she has gone her whole life without ever having a nightmare. She is an amazing person, I adore her completely. And she has never had a nightmare. I end up relating back to it everytime we speak. It's like when you're talking to someone whose parents both died in a car accident when they were ten, you have conversations and you talk like everything is alright, but you always go back to that thought. You're talking to them about chocolate milk, and you're thinking about their parents dying in a car. You want to ask questions like "how is it like to feel like that?" or you want to treat them like they are extra fragile. Fragile in the same way that someone who is in a wheel chair gets looks from everyone that are trying to point out "I will treat you as an equal, although you're in a wheel chair". You try and be so politely correct, like it's not obvious that it's the only thing on your mind. It's how you sit there and think, "I don't know what is worse, that people like me arent good enough for people like you, or that people like me care, because it's the people like me that should know better, and instead I watch us run after you". Realizing something is always a step, in rehab and therapy they tell you all this stuff about how denial is awful and honesty is always the best policy. But the only thing worse than denial is realization; you can realize and address the problem-but that does not mean you will do anything about it. So I stay up in bed feeling jealous about a lack of some sort of nightmare. I've just done a bunch of coke, so I cant really feel my nose. I keep placing my fingers on it, and getting nowhere. It's Ohio, and its February, where did I plan on going anyway? I want to hug someone, or punch someone or preferably find the cure for cancer, at a truck stop. But the year is two-thousand &four, and that just sounds ridiculous. It sounds like saying "2056", it sounds like the future, it sounds like we should be metal suits and have no emotions. Maybe that is all we have, but I'm sure missing out on the present. So when the year sounds like the future, you end up taking what you can get. Besides, you're right handed and you always have nightmares. The boy sitting next to you, he probably just feels obligated. The people you want dont want you back, and the people you used to say you'd die for are now just better off dead. It's like when I realized that we went from years of boys trying to get down our pants, to years of boys that just didn't know how. You've been waking up screaming since you first made it out of the womb, like you came off the assembly line flat out fucked. You came off the assembly line flat out fucked and your parents should have probably taken you back and got their refund. If theyre lucky, there was probably some good deal going on, or something with a 100% guarantee. Your parents who are just made for each other, they wouldnt have bothered to keep the receipt, yet they will still spend eighty hours arguing over who threw it away. They still make the time to argue about whose fault it is that they cant return the baby, they come to the realization that this has somehow become their responsibility. Well, shit. So you sit down over breakfast with your nightmareless best friend. We're sitting at Denny's and I'm staring at my hashed browns. We're eating, and we're laughing. We eat pancakes in a matter that says "simple really is simple" and orange juice ends up represneting salvation. I'm thinking about how eating strips of bacon will probably add a few years to my time spent in purgatory, and how the roman catholic church will probably not want anything to do with me, because me, well i've put things up my nose, and hands have gone down my shirt far too many times; I've done things that no one talks about on nights when everything is going really well. I've done things we'd like to ignore. We regret telling our mothers. These are the times when I'm wanting The Blessed Virgin Miss Mary to slap the baby Jesus, to shake his little body for spitting up on her pure blue gown. Maybe if she did, I'd feel so much better for being me. And I eat my pancakes and think "the only reason I'm thinking like this is because I've had so many nightmares" She's never had nightmares so how could she understand that the eggs on my plate are making the baby jesus cry. And Goddamnit! It's not fair. I wake up and I cant tell you where I am.Where the fuck is everyone? Where did everybody go? When my mind is racing like I'm fifteen and my hands are moving like i'm sixty five. When I'm laying on my stomach, like a beached whale who is ready to die. She lays on the beach covered in the blubber which is just her, and she is accepting that there is no air or water left, she went too close to shore. She comes to terms with dying, but even when the world darkens and fades and being coherent escapes her, she is ready to die if she must, but is still praying for one last wave. And I just cant remember where anyone has gone. Cant remember what zip code existance is currently belonging to. It's a feeling of vertigo, a constant falling. Simply put, I feel like my equillibrium shot itself in the face. And I'm just left reading the suicide note. Like a mother who walks into her kitchen and doesnt know where she went wrong, it takes her a moment to realize that the red stuff all over the counter and the pink chunks all over the floor belong to her son, whose body is sitting in the chair, and whose shotgun has fallen across the kitchen table. She'll never be able to admit that the first thought that crossed her mind was "Oh my, what a mess", because instantly she starts screaming out "oh my baby, oh my baby'. And she falls like she's falling, has no idea where she went wrong. Unless you are this mother in that kitchen, you don't know what it's like to wake up in my bed. And I wake up not knowing where I am. Not remembering that you cant start paragraphs with "and" or even with "so". Glued to my sheets I can not tell you what state I'm in or whose bed I'm in. I cant tell because instead of opening my eyes, I just shove my face further into the pillow. Like it's love. I wake up gasping for air because when my eyes were closed and I was deep in some sort of NREM sleep, I had a nightmare that I was drowning while everyone watched. Or I wake up holding on to the sore spots in my stomach where lions just ripped my stomach to shreds. Maybe it was the dream where my mother stabs me over and over again, because I cant get out of bed. Because I was the greatest mistake she has made to date. And I wake-up, but cant open my eyes. I'm paralized. I'm even more tired than I was before I went to sleep, if that's even possible. I cant move, because I cant remember where the fuck I am. I toss from side to side and cant tell you if I'm in Florida or not. I try and feel if there is some warmth hitting my face from an open window, I try and feel if I'm spread across my California king size mattress, like I'm dying and it's the west coast. I feel like my hip bones should be sticking out more, and my hair should be sticking up less. But I'm probably not in Florida. It's the east coast, and everyone knows where you live; they know you at the mall &and the market-they know you on the beach and at the bars. You live in one of the most overpopulated counties in the country, you live in a place where people vacation or die, a place that is completely transient, where everyone leaves and comes and leaves again, and you are still not anonymous. You don't watch television, and maybe you should. Maybe you should take your iron, and stop taking sleeping pills. The state is full of strangers and it still ends up that everybody knows your na-me and they are always glad you ca-me. But, you're probably not occupying the sunshine state. The two of you have parted ways like someone who wears those horrid patches so they can quit smoking. I don't know who wears the patch and who is the person, you or Florida. I don't know where I am, and when I say "You" I always mean "Me". The sunshine state just turned cloudy, and you arent even there for the execution. You were there to watch them steal the election, but I think you slept through the other parts. Winding up somewhere up north, like it could somehow save you. Maybe I'm at grandma's house, sleeping in the blue room, the walls lined with Virgin Mary's and me tossing and turning like it's too terrible. Everything smells like death and catholicism. Everything reminds you of that childhood is just a re-written memory, and you can change it as often as you like, or as often as you need to. And while everyone shut their eyes, so you could change your blouse, you accidently grew up. You said "oh, well, alright, sure" and everyone opens their eyes and wants you dead. In the way that puberty screws you up, and society screws you worse. Besides, you don't have it in you to explain anything, you're tired, goddamnit, why doesnt anyone ever understand when you're tired? Your grandmother holds a rosary in one hand and painkillers in the other, and all you can remember is how you've always wanted to be just like her. I'm sitting at a table now, and girls are walking by drunk.They are giggling and laughing and having a great time, and it's really upsetting me. They do things like have movie night and braid each others hair &say things like "BEST FRIENDS FOR LIFE" constantly. Of course the only reason that this upsets me is that I'm completely jealous. I wonder if they have ever left anything. I bet they were proud of themselves for going to a school that was forty-five minutes away, I'm sure they pat themselves on the back for being so brave. I want to ask "have you ever ran out of a room just to see if anyone will run after you?". Remember, by "room" I mean "state" and by "you" I mean "me". So I always end up sitting alone waiting for someone. Developing some sort of neurosis in order to pass the time. I'm waiting for the good feeling to wear off, because it always does. I'm waiting until I can put more things up my nose, or maybe I'm waiting for more hands to be placed over my mouth. I think sometimes when I sit like this, I convince myself that someone eventually will fall in love with me, that someone will think I'm really swell and offer to hold my hand at night. But I know this is not so, no one ever really falls in love with me. No one really has that in them. I'm sure my hair isnt pretty enough, my cheekbones arent as high, I don't speak in a way you could love, the way I bite my lower lip, it probably makes you want to slap me. I try and pretend I don't believe in the love I read about in books, that it is just silly, just an illusion. I like to pretend that I dont envy the way he holds her head during an on screen kiss. I like to pretend a lot of things. And I always end up realizing that it's basically my fault. I have nightmares, and it's my fault. I wake up grabbing the sheets for someone to hold me, and it's my fault. I wake up grabbing for someone, like someone should be laying next to me patiently, just waiting to hold my hand and kiss my forehead and say "Daniela, everything is alright". It's funny, because I wake up feeling like everyone else left me. I wake up clawing at my sheets, you'd think I was searching for my long lost lover who fell asleep beside me, with his abdomen pressed deep into my spine, like we're the same person. But he didnt fall asleep next to me, it's really not like that at all. It's like you left your long lost lover at a bar, and you came home alone, just to throw up. Maybe I'll win the Pulitzer prize for puking, or the congressional medal of honor for crying out my eyes. Maybe one day I'll be able to explain this accurately, to tell you the reason I'll give you my soul if you'll run after me. Maybe one day I'll be able to give you the reasons that I'm so in love with the underdog, maybe one day I'll be able to tell you why I'd serve the sentence for Johnny 99, or why I'd let the witch put me in her oven. But right now, all I can tell you is, I feel like everyone else has left me. I feel like Spot has every right to kill me in the backyard. Every right. In the end, I'm left waiting for the eulogy, I am the man who leaves a room of one hundred nice girls to go in search of a prostitute, for true love. So when I wake up I have to remind myself that it was me who left everyone, that it was me who ran from my life screaming, like it was on fire. Like it was the prettiest building I had ever seen, bursting into flames before my eyes. No one asks who lit the match until they make sure everyone made it out alive. It is those few minutes where some of us breathe easy, and some of us just hold our breath. When I leave it's because I have to. I leave like it's love, or like it's sudden. Like it's a book or a mini-series playing on TV after everyone has stopped watching. I am your only option unless you want to watch the infomercials. I leave because I have to. I am a ten year old girl walking into her backyard to play with her best friend in the whole world, the family pet named "Spot". I have just had a rough day at school, a boy made fun of me on the bus, and I tried so hard not to cry. I bit my tongue and I lifted my eyes toward the ceiling, I kind of smiled and I wished everyone else would stop laughing. I'm the ten year old girl, just waiting to go home and play with Spot. I'm just so excited. I'm walking in the backyard to play with Spot, not even going to eat a snack, who needs a snack? I'm the ten year old girl realizing that Spot is barking all over the place, that he's foaming at the mouth, that Spot is ready to go for the kill. He's ready to jump toward the jugalar and call it a day. If she doesnt turn around and run, Spot is going to rip apart her little face. So she does, she backs away and runs with tears in her eyes, not fully understanding why; suddenly everything has changed. Then she watches Spot get shot in the head like it's all her fault. Unless you're that little girl, unless youre watching your dog with rabies change your life, unless you're running away because it's just too much-if you're not any of that, You have no idea how I feel. Everyone has always told me "go, go, go" no one has ever said "stop". I have no concept of "no more". I always want more. More, more, more. They always handed me two hundred dollars for passing go, and gave me a slap on the wrist plus a get out of jail free card. They told me "dream if you want to dream" so I did. Everyone else developed a concept of stop, but for me it was always "go, go, go-more, more, more". I wil keep drinking after everyone else realizes they are drunk, I will keep driving after I run out of road, I will keep singing after the song is over, because I can never manage to get it out of my head. I will keep talking after everyone else is done listening, because I am so scared to shut up. I will take more sleeping pills, just incase. More tylenol just incase. I will read the page twice, because I feel like I am missing something. I will sit there waiting to feel more, because I always want more. My best friend eats her eggs and fucks her boyfriend. She smiles blissfully like a Stepford wife. I sit around thinking about the word "scrambled" and waiting for the fucking rapture. I used to sneak out of my window and meet up with my friends, we would listen to punk rock, or rock, or hardcore or anything, we'd listen to it because we wanted to feel like we had a purpose. Everyone else was asleep in their beds, but we stayed up getting stoned, waiting for more. And even when they were done, when they were laughing and realizing that we cant care about "Anarchy in the UK", because this is America, and it is not the 1970's, I'd keep inhaling, I'd keep thinking "what if the goverment puts a chip in my head"-and maybe that's just what they did. That's the whole reason I ever started doing drugs in the first place, the whole reason I ever started drinking, or talking or writing, it was because I always felt so much more. Everyone else had a concept of enough, and I always ended up waiting for more. So maybe this is more than my obsession with nightmares, maybe this is more than even my disatrous obsession with the American dream. Maybe this is more than all those books I read, or all those boys who will never fall in love with me. Maybe, it's more than my obsession with numbers, my theory that if I can learn calculus, I will really save my soul. For me two plus two only works out in theory, never in practice. Some things are so much better in theory. I am so much better on paper than in real life. Even communism looks good on paper. So I go through life believing I could fix it all if I just learned some calculus. If I could just sit down and get past the fact that there are things called "imiganary numbers" and that if you multiply two negative numbers, you get a positive. If I could be good at long division and recite the first nine billion digits in pi, than I too would be saved. Everyone else could get communion, have the light crisp wafer of Christ absorb on their tongue, and be, I'd be content with integers. I tell this to math majors all the time, and they always shoot me down. They practically get offended. They say "I know Calculus, and everything in my life is not okay". They say it in this condscending tone that blows my mind completely. It's just how I think if I can get some random boy who is incapable of love, to love me, that I really will be worth saving. It's why Sylvia Plath puts her head in the oven, and no one ever questions that maybe she was just trying to bake. And I'm talking to math majors thinking "Goddamnit!" I want to scream "I HATE YOU" I want to tell them that they don't understand, that it doesnt matter if it doesnt work for them, that it will work for me. I want to slap their stupid faces and leave the room screaming. I want to have a breakdown infront of everyone. I just want to say "thanks for missing the point completely". And just like everything else in my life that starts off as just being good and simple, this too ends up being bad and complicated. I am being told that there is no quick fix to this burning desire in the pit of my stomach, that I am going to actually have to get it together, and work it all out. And I'm so homesick, but I don't know where I live. I listen to songs over and over again, and I don't know if this is really about my bad dreams. I can tell you that I was relieved when the building burst into flames, I can tell you that not everything I tell you is true. Maybe I wanted Spot to tear apart my face. Infact, I probably walked back outside and got mawled on purpose, because I needed the conflict. I needed more. Maybe I am glad that they will never love me as much as I need them to, that they will never love this face, or this mind. Because if they did, what would my new goal be? If I found happiness, I'd probably drown myself. I'd probably let tigers tear me to shreds like they do in my worst dreams. Because I am perpetually fucked. My parents call me from one thousand miles away to tell me they finally found the receipt. They give out a big sigh of relieve over the telephone, my father tells me in a ridiculously bombastic tone "Your mother just put it inbetween two phone books, it was here all along". Finally, they can get their refund. Finally they can send the baby back. Maybe now they can love each other again, if they ever loved each other at all. I want to say "please love me, please don't go, please don't leave me, please make me stop-please I just want to stop", but instead I just turn off the phone. I collect my two hundred dollars and swallow more sleep, I pray to Gods that have stopped listening, and I wait for lovers who will never come. I can tell you the exact dates off when I went wrong, I can give you a list of witnesses. If my life were a court trial, it would be a lot easier. If it were a book, you'd read it all the time. If it were communism, you'd switch your political party. But in practice, it just all falls through the cracks. You will pound down my door, and you'll want me dead. You will be screaming and dying in the street, and strangers will ask you if you have tried the Atkins diet, because they think maybe that is all you need. Maybe it's the bread. You'll be like all my long lost lovers who suffocate me in public, who place their hands over my mouth until my face turns blue and I fall onto the floor. You will say "you were so much better on paper". And you will be so right. Because at funerals, everyone is made out to be a great person. When you write down accomplishments, they always sound like a lot more. When you have nightmares that are vivid and last for hours, they always seem so real. You wake up so relieved, so relieved that it was just a dream, it was so much worse when your eyes were shut. But it's not like you've ever even gone to sleep to dream. You're scared of the dark and your parents hate you. You leave everyone and everyone leaves you. No one is following you out of the room, and you wake up not knowing where you are. You never know where you are. and remember by "you" I just mean "me".

I don't know what made us want to find something like that so badly, but it's all I wanted to do. I had just graduated high school, in a few months I'd be moving away from everyone. We all took trips to the Super Wal*Mart together, and we wandered through the aisles of Target in search of the perfect twin extra long sheets. We did all the things that incoming freshman should do, we just also consistently went looking for ghosts. That summer was about a trip to Dunellon, nights spent in the old slave graveyard and endless drives around the abandoned mental institution. We hit up every website to find out where the ghosts were, checked all of "Haunted Florida," we were even willing to leave Pinellas County. Looking back, I want to say that this was just what we did because there was nothing else to do. Now, Clearwater is not in the middle of nowhere. In fact- it is a hot bed for tourism, there are gorgeous beaches, and then little miniature golf courses scattered around among shops where you can get your named spelled out in sea shells. On the weekends you can do things like ride a jet ski, or go parasailing or do other things someone would do when they vacationed to the west coast of Florida. But you see, when you live there, you don't really do these things. You may go to the beach, but unlike the tourists, we don't swim in January. There are so many months left in the year with nothing to do, where you drive around and think "there is absolutely nothing to do". So, wanted to find ghosts, or demons, or anything really. Sometimes we'd steal our father's flashlights, the very strong ones that they saved for the hurricanes (because when this story takes place, Florida is still plagued by storms) and we'd pack bags and look up directions and go and try and find ghosts. It wasnt only that summer - that summer when I swore I'd never go back, it was before then and after then, too. Even now when I visit we make a three hour drive to go to Spook Hill, we ride around in the Circus Town, we stare at the window. But I want to tell you about how desperate I felt when I did it then, how good I felt. It felt like sex for the first time, when you have sex when you're too young. You are in on a big secret that no one else knows about. You feel special and you feel disgusting. We fucked when we were too young and then we looked for ghosts all summer when we turned 18. And all of the ghosts were supposed to be kept in grave yards. But I left for Ohio, after nights of abandonment and a going away party, I went to my grandmothers house and in many ways, I purged myself of the things that I had done wrong. I had this kind of insanity about me in high school that I don't think I can accurately describe because I just can't feel it anymore. I had some kind of anger, and then I went to Ohio. I spent two months in the summer there before returning to Florida to gather my belongings. I wanted to stay in Ohio because I had lived there until I was 8, and I had no choice about moving to Florida and I felt that it wasnt fair I wanted to give myself something back. And I didn't know that my grandmother would die or that I would fuck up or that I would leave and return to read some broken down eulogy . But that summer I felt like everything was mine. The ghosts were mine and the house was mine and my freedom would be mine and I'd learn to stop writing, even in letters to men I'd never end up meeting, because I wanted some things to be personal. I go through these phases, like then where I don't want to share anything. And then sometimes I am just Barbara Walters talking to Oprah Winfrey, I don't want it to be mine, I want to get rid of it. You see, now it's yours. You'll have to go there to Dunellon and see that church and ride in a car while the lights go out. You, you can go drink red wine in my grandmother's backyard and you can kiss the boy across the street. You can drive to the east coast of Florida on drugs with your best friends and decide to legally change your name to Aurora Borealis before the olympics or the floods or the concept of four or five years- now you can do that. There are one million things that I can never say anything about, so just let me tell you these things. None of the ghosts would look us in the eye, you know, you know what? I don't even know if any of those places were actually haunted. I don't even know if you believe in ghosts at all.