lately every breath feels like i'm kissing death

Ah, Jon Foreman. He always has something that goes perfectly with my
mood- always.
I'm back. Hello, world.
College is crazy. I feel like I've learned so much and yet nothing at
all. . . It's strange. Maybe it'll sink in.
This'll be a short blog, since it's two in the morning and I've got to
get up at 7:25, but I felt like I couldn't put off writing any longer.
It's in my blood, after all.
Here's a short piece, more of a reminder really of all the things that
were (gasp!) happy about my childhood that I'd like to give my future
children.

When I have kids, I'm going to tell them to sleep tight and to not to
let the bed-bugs bite. I'll say "later gater" and "after a while
crocodile". I'll tell them that the stuff in their eyes when they wake
up in the morning is called sleep. I'll take them to the ocean every
chance I get. If they're scared of the seagulls I'll hold a cracker in
my hand and feed them to show my kids that they should be afraid of no
living thing. I'll let them take risks; let them fall and get back up
again and I'll kiss their boo boo's and they'll know, for sure that I
love them.

Sorry this is so short and sort of wierd. Just wrote it, while
extremely sleep deprived. More to follow- I promise,

<3 Annie

they say i fall in love too easily

Hello, world.
If I had to describe the last few weeks in one word that word would be "new". There's such a sense of urgency and freedom, and brand-spankin' new "newness" about life.
I haven't handled it all too well, honestly. There was the whole three-beers-gets-me-drunk-who-would-have-known thing, and some other stuff I'd rather not discuss, but over all, I love college.
Oh, yeah. I got a tattoo. It's a trinity symbol (you know, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) but it also represents earth, wind and fire. It's on my shoulder. Get on facebook, there's pictures.
What else? Well, Will and I broke up. Well, no. I let Will go. It was obvious he still liked his ex, and who can blame him because she is a really pretty girl and seems sweet, from what I heard.
Now, I'm talking to a boy named Casey. I'm not a whore, I swear. . . things with Will just didn't work out, and Casey is a gentleman, most of the time.
Life just blows by so fast though. One day it's Sunday and I have free time and I'm doing laundry and next thing I know it's Thursday and I only have one class. . . or it's Monday morning and for the life of me I can't get myself up and running.

Don't forget me, world, because I haven't forgotten you.

<3

i want to be 'i love you'

This place is perfect.
It has the dim, yellow lighting that reminds me of my grandparents livingroom and the smell.
Maybe it's because I'm a sensory person.
As if all people aren't sensory. .
But the smell of books, especially old, semi-moldy and water-dammaged books is home.

You know what else is home?
The ocean is home.
The sound of the "swoosh" as the waves hit the sand, the salty, tangy taste on the tip of your tongue and the crevices of your lips- that's home.

Poetry is home, as well.
Today I listened to a podcast that had been hiding in my iPhone. It was called "Caseworker" and was by a man named Bluz.
That poem has been ringing in my ears since I first played it, listening absent mindedly as I uploaded songs onto iTunes.
Then I heard a phrase that caught my ear, "I want to be 'I love you', Mr. Caseworker."
I want to be 'I love you'.
Wow.
So, I listened again. And again. And for a few hours, actually.
That's home.

Home is a hug. I don't get many of those that often, especially now that I'm farther from my friends than I usually am, and I miss my home.
Willie's coming over on Saturday so we can go to a foam dance and slide down a 45 foot slip & slide.
Home.

Lately, home has been the little things too, like a cup of steaming hot rasberry zinger tea that reminds me of Federal Way, or the post-it's with witty sayings on them.

Love, man. Love.
Don't forget it. Don't take it for granted. It's what life's made of, at it's rawest state.

"I want to be 'I love you', Mr. Caseworker."

<3

i write

Yeah, I write. I write America, I write Greece, I write anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. I write sadness and blood and I write war. I write more than nation or city or face or fingers or genitalia. I write.
I write like art, art that can be paint on a canvas, arranged plaster, fecal matter in a can or edible furiniture.
I write like life.
Forget writing America, I want to write people.
I want to write stretch marks and rib cages. I want to write wrinkle lines and tweezed eyebrows and spider veins.

Forget rules.

Why does creativity have to be measured by rhyme, meter, grammar or process? Why can't the work bring the process, instead of the process birthing the result?

I want to write oceans with spraying foam.
Bright pink binders on a library cushion.
Two bodies on a piano room floor.
The leafy green of a fern tickling my cheek.
The foam off a beer.
The ecstacy of jumping on the bed.
Diet wild cherry soda.
Dust on the carpet.
The age rings of trees.
The ridges of my mouse-pad.

I want to write life, and even if no one will read my words about experience; about John Mayer and luke warm coffee mugs, I will still write life and America.
And Russia.
And Europe.
And penguins and explorers in Antarctica.
And love.

I will write stairs.

"Swim in a deep sea of blankets."

Love. Love. Love.

<3

the story of a man named anonymous

It was my second psych ward. The cameras at every corner of the room got flipped off often, but mostly I was scared to be in this place. The locked doors boxed me in and farther than that there was the high metal fence that wouldn't move. Between it's bars I could see cancer patients walking around, all too young to be sick, and most looking closer to death than anything else I'd ever seen.
The reasons I was there are numerous. Every night I would wake up from nightmares in which a pair of deformed hands reached from the darkess to grab my nakedness. Every day I would ingest and uningest multiple times. It was these and the blood, the words, the constant blackness and the spinning of the room.
At the time I was living with a woman from my church who was a nurse. She was a kind soul, though sometimes we had our disagreements.
At that time the reasons and facts behind my second stay at a mental health ward bothered her greatly, to the point of it being obvious that something was wrong.
At work one day, a man walked up to her to do some work and noticed that she didn't look ok. When he asked her why, she told him about the girl that had been living with her but whom 7 days of an institution had not been enough to cure her of her problems.
The man listened and left, I assume.
He later returned holding a package from Build-a-Bear. Inside was a beautiful fawn brown bear with yellow ribbons around both its ears, a journal with a letter inside, and a gift card so the bear could get some clothes.
He said they were for the girl. He said they were for me.
I got them about a day later.
The fact that a total stranger would go out and spend money on me, me. . . was mind-blowing. It had happened though, and the bear, which was later named Wendy (because the ribbons on her ears and the yellow of a Wendy's cup in my room matched) was tangible proof of that.
The letter was writen in a beautiful script and in a pen that somehow changed colors within itself. . . I'm not sure how that works, but it does. It's green and purpleish and beautiful.
This man wrote that he had gone through hardships in his life, and that someone he respected had given him a teddy bear a long, long time ago. He kept it in his truck now, and everytime he needed a boost of hope or courage, he would rub his bears head. The bear had no fur left on it's head now.
He said that love was real. He said keep hoping. He said so much more, because even if he hadn't said anything; he had said everything.
Wendy is now sitting on my bed in my new home. College is a huge step for me, but Wendy is here watching, and her stuffing's already distributed wierd because instead of rubbing her head, I hug her as tight as I can, and she fits perfectly.
As for the time at Children's, she never left my side. I was a 15 year old carrying a teddy bear to my chest and writing sad poems and waking up crying. And it was right.
Honestly, I don't know if I could have made it through that time, and the time to follow without Wendy- no, not without Wendy (though she is amazing) but without the thought that people, even anonymous men who's names I don't know and who's stories I won't get to hear, care. Care enough to take time out of their day, money out of their pocket and love out of their heart.

Let's love like that- every day, all day, for everyone. You never know what kind of difference it'll make.

<3

my name is:

My name is Ana and I am small and toned and tiny and breakable. Every bone shows through and I am fragile as to say ‘do not hurt me’.
My name is Annie and I am short, spirited, whoreish, funny and random. I will shock you, disappoint you and yet still be complete within myself.
I am two. I am one and still another. I am split, not as in two personalities but two entirely different entities living within one body.
I am Ana. I am a skeleton and I am a twig that will crack with the slightest pressure. I am raw and you won’t forget me after you’ve seen me. I burn.
I am Annie. I have secrets that I tell everybody and one that I tell no one, not even myself. I am as honest as can be, because further honesty requires life and I don’t have enough of that in me to attempt fullness.
I am toes curled and apricot body wash and I am a red bracelet on my right wrist. Check it. Remember. A moment on the lips. Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail. Retreat.
You think I am a free spirit full of words and music and acoustic guitar. You think I am everything I say I am, and I am. I am what I say I am but I am nothing. What does that make me? That makes me me.
I am a button spine and cage-ribs and wrist bones and clavicles and hip bones and tendons and muscle and most of all bone.
I am jiggly. I am healthy. What is healthy?
Salad, water, diet coke, black coffee, diet red bull- fifteen whole damn calories.
Anything carbs. Spaghetti, bread, Danish, sandwich, nourish, skin, chew and spit. Savior.
You think I am sickness, but to each his own salvation. I am holy and sacred and I rot my own insides away. I am cryptic, like computer language- only Ann and Ana, me and Mia can understand it.
No, no. I am fused, truly. The break wasn’t clean and particles of each other linger in another. I am you and you are me. We are one, truly, somewhere inside.
Dance with me. It burns calories, it’s aerobics, it’s one two three four and again and again and infinite.
Dance with me. Grasp the moment by the neck and choke all life out of it. Milk it for all it’s got. You won’t live unless you stop and make experiences out of everyday occurrences.
Oh, if you must know, I am the secret.
She is the secret. The secretest secret I have.
Not the disease. The disease is nothing. It’s the girl. Ana.

ketchup

I haven't blogged for a long time, and some of you were probably like "There she goes again, this blog will go down the crapper just like the other ones.". Never fear, people. I'm on the ball.
The main reason my blogging has been nonexistent is that college takes a lot of time, effort and most of all money to get ready for.
So, I found a full time, temporary job working at the fair. Basically, I scooped hand-dipped ice cream or did the soft serve.
For nine out of ten days, from 3-9 or so every night, I was at the fair either doing the ice cream stuff, playing “three a day of dairy” games with the kids, or cutting croissants for cream puffs.
I’m making it sound boring, but really, it was fun. Hopefully I’ll get to do it again next year.
Some really interesting things happened during my time at the fair.
Working at a job where you’re constantly in contact with people is amazing. There are the rude ones, the sweet hearts and the apathetic. There are also the total freaks. You’ve got to love them all.
My cow-workers (yes, I am an idiot) were truly the best.
There was Will, who I first flirted with when he was telling his friend that when men don’t wear the pants in a relationship it’s equivalent to a ball cut-off. Now, I’m dating Will. Well, we’re dating each other, because saying that I’m dating him sounds like I’m in charge and I’m sure he loves his balls.
Will is a total sweet heart who wears the ill-fitted mask of a jerk. Just talk to him. First he’ll make jokes about everything, including you, and you’ll think he’s a total douche, until you stick that through and ask him questions. He shines.
And Dylan, oh Dylan. . . Dylan didn’t like me, at first, because he said he’s pro-interracial marriage, which means he only likes Mexican, Black and Russian girls- not Caucasian ones. Well, until he starts talking to a thoroughly Caucasian one and realizes he likes her. Dylan is everything. He is jazz and diet soda and Subway and dirt. There is no way to describe Dylan. I won’t try.
There was Stella, who randomly slapped my butt one day. She also gave me a totally random massage during a slow spell. Jesus bless Stella. I can’t help but wonder about her life. Her whole family is so genuinely sweet (Stella, her daughter and her granddaughter all worked at the dairy barn with us) that it blew me away.
Oh yeah, there was Will #2, too. He was my bosses son and he cussed a lot, but inside his scruffy, unshaven and XXL size boxers, he was the sweetest soul. I would have liked to catch Will at a more relaxed time and maybe asked him some questions about life and love and milk.
Milk. Wow, that’s ironic. I barely ever eat/drink dairy. I drink milk maybe once a month, if that. Ice cream and cheese I eat a little more often, but even that is rare. My favorite type of cheese is veggie cheese and ice cream has too many calories to reckon with, usually. Yet I found myself working in a dairy barn quizzing kids on the percentages of calcium in milk and if skim or 2% milk had more calcium (skim does). God sure does have a sense of humor.
Truth is, since I started working there my body has decided it isn’t going to stand for my skipping dairy and not taking my vitamins, so it’s gone on a crazy dairy binge. Today I had 2 huge bowls of cereal (granted that’s all I ate, but the heat doesn’t help my appetite) and when I worked at the fair I would have 1-2 sundae’s a day. Twist ice cream with caramel and fudge. Yes ma’am.
So, other than my job, I’ve been spending all the money I made from it. I now have a laptop, an iPhone (which was provided by my uncle, because I could never afford that!) and a whole bunch of other nifty things for my dorm room.
Tomorrow is D-day. Dorm day. Or M-day. Move-in day.
I wonder if my parents will leave when they’re supposed to or not. I can see them there hours after all the other parents have left, still crying and carrying on. “Geez, guys. I’m half an hour away. Some of these parents are half a country away, chill out!”
So, recap. I now have a boyfriend, Will. I now have a laptop, either Walter or Cindy (not sure on the gender yet) and I now have an iPhone, Wonderful (yes, that’s it’s name).
Life has been nicer to me than I ever thought possible. What could I possibly have done right?

<3