Of how terrible orange is and life.

2010-03-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

College: Cons

-credit card minimums

-stroller traffic

-the art history department

-the price of hot sauce

-provincial dialect in Victorian novels

-ambulances

-freshmen potheads acting like no one ever smoked pot before

-postcolonialists

-instant noodles

-people who think they know more about Harry Potter than I do

-people who never read Harry Potter

-couples

-vapid people in interesting clothes

-bad writing

-good writing

College: Pros

-bacon

-hot sauce

-sluts

-new order dance parties

-drunk twister

-self-pity

April is the cruelest month

2009-04-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

"It was a very lovely spring day, Gertrude Stein had been going to the opera every night and also going to the opera in the afternoon and had been otherwise engrossed and it was the period of the final examinations, and there was the examination in William James' course. She sat down with the examination paper before her and she just could not. Dear Professor James, she wrote at the top of her paper. I am so sorry but really I do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy to-day, and left.

The next day she had a postal card from William James saying, Dear Miss Stein, I understand perfectly how you feel I often feel like that myself. And underneath it he gave her work the highest mark in his course."

from The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

...and now I will start my ten page research paper.

We Deliver!

2009-02-27T20:02:00.000-08:00

There is only shame in the full boy seen naked.

The others were born vacancies.

Therefore,

he walks hurriedly to his locker:

O, how his brothers mock

this present blood, how

they dream.

See! Our stick figure of doors

is in real life a dark celebrity: the bare brother,

once confused

with the symbol, was soon

famous for a day.

Diary Entry, 11/26/01

2009-02-16T10:44:00.000-08:00

To my high school self -

Please fill out the following:

Do you have a boyfriend in your freshman year? Who is he?

Name________ YES [] NO []

How about soph? Who is he?

Name________ YES [] NO[]

Junior?

Name________ YES [] NO []

Senior?

Name________ YES [] (Please! Pick yes! You betta have one by then!!!) NO [] (NO sucks. Don’t do it).

If I picked 3 or more NO’s, then I must be a total loser! Advice: wake up! Do something about what you’re not doing!

If I picked 3 or more Yes’s, then I rock! No advice 4 me! I’m perrrrrrfect.

If I picked half and half, I am just fine. Fine is good. I am still proud of myself!

Thanks 4 participating, my high school self!

Pce out,

Daryl

Timothy Wardrobe: an unfinished draft (to be read out loud in a British accent)

2009-02-04T13:22:00.000-08:00

Timothy Wardrobe, every day, dragged a fresh garbage bag of post-it notes to the wastebasket at the end of his home’s long, steep driveway.

He hoped one day they would stop coming, that one day, maybe all of the sudden or gradually, he would lose his mind for good.

But now, it turned up at every moment and corner, at every hour and underside, at every second and ceiling, in one inch by one inch yellow post-it notes, in unfamiliar handwriting. He, as typical of children who wish to be normal, told no one about his “shoebox,” as he termed his secrets. His parents had little concern, because they were never home to notice his odd behavior. Only the Hungarian nanny, who lived in the basement with the winter clothes in summer and summer clothes in winter, seemed suspicious. Only the Hungarian nanny, because she took the garbage out on Thursdays, despite the overzealous protests of the young boy.

“But Aunnie, I want to, I’ve been looking forward to it since morning. You work too hard.”

School was even more difficult for Timothy. The other boys called him “Mothy Wardrobe” every time he got up from his seat to cough into a post-it by the teacher’s desk. His own desk was littered with these crumpled bits of paper by the end of each class. Hence, Mothy Wardrobe.

But he wasn’t coughing.

Once, Gregory Mantle was the last boy to leave Geometry. He found a tattered post-it note stuck to the edge of Mothy’s desk, and opened it. He gave it to Miss Thornton, the teacher, profoundly disturbed.

Of course, classrooms are notorious for note taking and note-passing alike.

That night, Miss Thornton sat at her desk with her magnifying glass and examined the note so as to discover its author. She removed from the highest shelf in her wardrobe an old pickle jar filled to the top with all the scrawled notes of her students she found and collected throughout the year. She compared penmanship to find a match.

Timothy was neglectful of his notes that day because during Geometry he came to a horrifying discovery. Upon staring at the back of its loose pigtails, he realized that the head of Molly Wire was supported only by the curved top of a clothes hanger. Then he noticed all the other children –even Mrs. Thornton, had the same peculiarity. He felt his own collarbone, shoulders, and neck, and shrunk in horror. From that day on, he thought, he would fold all his attire, and he knew why children feared closets.

Timothy wished he had no head, so he could hang in the quiet closet with the clothes and not have to worry about walking or his notes.

The Transit Museum

2009-01-18T20:28:00.000-08:00

On the bus back from the city I saw

a broad lady reined by overcoat

pause in the studded crowd.

Ten minutes later

I remember her, how the storm

washed the sepia sidewalk,

how all the pedestrians stopped

before the finished painting: this street

was not dark or any one color,

but a stained glass wreck

of angles and men.

I saw the truest mess soak through that street.

And now I press my brow

to my water-veiled window as this vehicle

sighs into Short Hills.

Out there,

even the remotest puddle holds its pose.

The unfeeling foot hesitates

over its own reflection, then

stumbles back

into the black and white

photograph of this drenched town,

so false under glass.

Emo Endeavors

2009-01-12T23:20:00.000-08:00

I wrote my first unquestionably bad poem the other day. It reminded me of the time this nine year old at my old camp ran to get ice cream and accidentally stepped on a baby bird. For some reason. I will post it, anyway, of course.

Untitled

Just dismiss as imprecise

these lined and written hands.

I seek out stations to replace

our bygone garden shade.

We bide in fire seized

beneath ceiling fans and snow, know this traffic

like an age: even I

fear these amber fires as home.

My heart sits, my legs ache with peace,

I am almost dressed.

All the while I adjust my faith

to the flesh of your bedroom, those

untouchable walls, soft toys

whispering once the doorknob grasps

the imminence of arrest:

you ask nothing, but hover

amongst the lost flock long gone

from your eyes. And as they see me

to the stairs, I am made a child,

holding fast to the rail, to the flightless

arms of a falling elm.

Testing, Testing...

2009-01-11T21:46:00.000-08:00

This is my dumb first post. I have no idea what the point of this blog is yet, but I decided I want to keep one after abandoning my adorable xanga two years ago. I predict most of the crap on here will be as self-deprecating and aimless as this brief introduction. Enjoy.