vanilla raindrops

email: noreia@planet-save.com.

This is my blogchalk:
United States, California, sometimes Steiermark, Austria, something bored teenagers say when they speak useless words into brick walls of cotton candy, English, German, Noreia,creative writing, fiction, reading, college student, strange, cat power, mogwai, arap strap, dresden dolls, white oleander, the earth, my butt, and other big, round things, welcome to the dollhouse, fuckers.

body jewelry by bodyPUNKS!

body jewelry by bodyPUNKS!

body jewelry by BodyPUNKS!

 

And something woke me up

in the midst of

dream and fantasy,

halfway there . . .

Posted by: noreia at 15:56 | link | comments (1) |

It's weird. So many words when I was empty. Like, my emptiness was full of words floating around inside of me, expressing hopelessness. But now I'm not empty. Things have changed in my life. It's like I was on the far side of a chasm, looking across, thinking that the only way across would be through pain that would break me. But it's almost unbelievable -- it worked out. I mean, it really worked out. This whole blog, all that I've written here, that's all gone now. I don't know how to explain it; there's no point in writing it here. It sounds like just one of my "happy days" of before, where I grabbed on to some new band or song or -- anything, and tried to convince myself I was happy. I don't know, this is relief. This is breathing again. I've been sleeping for two years, and he woke me up. Two years, such a long time. It doesn't even seem real, like me. I don't know, I give up on analyzing everything. I will go forward. I will learn to know you again.

Posted by: noreia at 15:35 | link | comments |

i think i'm happy.

Posted by: noreia at 11:22 | link | comments (4) |

"the world is coming to an end, but at least i have my right hand!" -- ian.

driving home from spike's house, sleepy, this morning, i switched on the radio and listened for the first time to sarah and no name's morning show. got home, wanted to hear what they were talking about, so i put on headphones, and now i've been wearing them for about two hours. or three. they played creed's "take me higher," and i thought of walking around in my old high school campus, loose, faded jeans, ripped at the bottom, and my dark, charcoal-grey sweater from my aunt dagmar in austria. i thought of the way my backpack used to fit me, the black straps around my shoulders. my hair hanging around my face. feeling the wind, watching the trees. i worked for the counseling office, delivering call slips all over the school. i loved just taking my time, walking, knowing for the first time in four years where every classroom on campus was located. thinking about jeremy or spike. listening to my purple and grey, five-dollar cassette walkman from walgreens. (i bought about four or five of those because they kept breaking. eventually i had earphones with only one side working, but i liked it because i could listen to music and still be aware of my surroundings.)

it was a quiet year, senior year. a year of changing and finding myself, alone. lonely but beautifully cold somehow, myself in the world. everything fit so well into place that year, made so much sense the way it was. buying used pearl jam records at rasputin for two dollars. listening to jeremy's tapes, the dying batteries in my walkman making savage garden's normally peppy voice low and in slow motion, which i actually liked better. or spike's tape, crazy teenager punk. writing in black, spiral-bound notebook-journals. writing nonsensical, pass-it-back-and-forth stories with christina, looking forward to that, laughing more than ever. or how mr. broderson, our biology teacher, would just kind of sigh and laugh at us because we were such odd-balls, sitting in the back of the classroom with two feet of empty desks around us in all directions because -- well, i guess everyone else thought we were too weird. but it was so much fun. writing those stories that sounded so ridiculously funny, bursting into laughter in the middle of class. (broderson told us to watch the movie "ghost world," said i reminded him of the girl in it. i watched it and thought that was really funny.) or like the time broderson was showing us clear plastic models of chromosomes on a slide projector, and he lost one and said, "i'm missing a chromosome here." and i said, "that's gotta hurt." christina's loud, contagious giggle. i miss her. she was just a nice person, didn't seem to care about all the petty things that so many people care about in high school. when i met her i never thought i'd end up hanging out with her a lot, but when i got into a lot of her classes and she was the only one i knew, we ended up talking a lot and becoming the outcastish class clowns -- but only we knew we were the class clowns; everyone else just looked at us strangely in our fits of laughter. (it was probably my fault that she failed government . . . hmm . . .)

everyone else complained about it, but i loved high school. especially senior year.

Posted by: noreia at 11:17 | link | comments |

i said i was on the verge of something.  i was right.

Posted by: noreia at 09:33 | link | comments |

it's strange when you feel like you're one the verge of something.  good, bad, change.  most of the time i miss that.

shoes scuffling over brown leaves on sidewalks.  looking up at the trees, patterns of spindly leaves on white winter light.  and you say abortion.  and you say get rid of it.  and, baby name books and family.  and i think, how did it come to this for you?  did it have to?  no, but what did you ever do to stop it? 

i don't know, i can't believe it's not your fault at all.  it's so desperate, so cyclic, that i can't believe you had no choice in the shaping of this life.  you could have left.  packed up, moved away, gone to college.  something.  anything.  your grandmother: pregnant at 19.  your mother: pregnant at 19.  you: pregnant at 19. 

and i, feeling like i care more this time, this walk, this conversation, this listening.  i care because i want to shout at you, it's not about you! and i want to hug you at the same time because it's so tragic.  but it would be an empty hug.  and i'm walking in silence, speaking slowly, calmly: think about what you're doing.  you're going to live with this forever, it's not going to go away.  have you talked about adoption?  and i don't say abortion.  and i don't say getting rid of it.  i say killing it.  i think, i might be this baby's only chance.

you don't want to kill it, you say.  you'd be doing it for them.  how can you make such a serious choice for someone else, and have to live with the result of it?

but i look inside myself and find mud-splattered dreams as well. 

you dream.  you constantly dream, in desperation.  your dreams always manifest marred, broken.

Posted by: noreia at 15:12 | link | comments (7) |

"dude, your butt fell off." -- denise (5-19-'03)

"what's with you and your no-ses? they're all . . . three feet long." -- spike (1-22-03)

"i think i might have been about to tell you that you looked like you. that's the only thing i was thinking, except that you look like john lennon." -- spike (1-23-03)

spike: "i want a bear."

me: "dude, you have a bear."

spike: "no i don't."

me: "well, what's with that bear that you have?"

"i met a guy, and we had a baby. and he had an orange beard." -- me

"you're just looking at me with this huge grin on my face." -- spike

Stupid Epiphany

"Andrew?" (seventeen) "I realized that life isn't real."

No you didn't.

"Oh."

And now there's no one left to sing a requiem for Ella(twelve)'s stupid epiphany.

-- 1-31-03

"i had so much fun with those men in third period today." -- spike (1-28-03)

weird places i've read the Bible:

-- on the toilet

-- running around the track in high school

-- in a tree

-- on an airplane

-- in a cellar

now, isn't that normal.

-- 2-3-03

Posted by: noreia at 12:06 | link | comments (5) |

"i need a smaller nose here." -- mom (about the face she was decorating on my brother's birthday cake)

"i'm like a mermaid: i have to keep my legs together." -- me (in a skirt, trying to maneuver around the bed)

"everybody's nose sticks out from their face!" -- spike, trying to convince me i don't have a big nose.

"it's a rainy day; it should rain more." -- spike

"hmm -- you look like a nipple." -- spike, to me, when i was wearing a pointy beanie on my head.

"it looks like something smashing against the glass, like a cartoon; it's all like, POOF! PAM!" -- denise

"guys with makeup are hot. i agree!" -- elba (agreeing with herself in one sentence)

Posted by: noreia at 11:58 | link | comments |

on fire when you're near me

i have to go to the hospital in a few minutes, get this other lump checked out. sleeping, waking. thoughts. it's too bright, i need rain and winter. why does it never last? i feel the thunder in the sky, i see the sky about to rain, and with the prairies i am calling out your name.

is it okay? is it okay?

omi's coming in january. walks through the woods in childhood, wild raspberries. coffee-smelling kitchen at four in the afternoon, rain patterns outside. hugging her, her laughter, her voice. so strong. so gentle. and i keep thinking, maybe she'll make me better. maybe with her, i'll be okay. maybe she'll make this house like austria, like gunther and his wife did. my mother and her mother, sitting around in the afternoons, talking over coffee in their round, melodic mountain dialect of german. oh i long for depth. oh i long for beauty. nostalgic for that faraway land, can't let myself totally feel the longing or i'll break, i'll break here in the californian wasteland.

Posted by: noreia at 11:47 | link | comments |

bullets of black ink

a sleep with so many dreams. cats with human faces. and her, always there. i'm a married man, i have two families, a baby. making a cd.

waking to see her face, and the glaring sun through green leaves.

rip this page from the history book. it's going to rain.

i've never seen my dad crouch down and cover his head with his arms. i just realized this yesterday. i told spike, and she said, "yeah, you have known him for quite a while, huh?" and i said, "yeah, only my whole life." quite a long time never to have seen him doing that. but then spike and i crouched down together, so i can't say that about her.

rain and eclipses. calls from new york. ian called, said he was watching the eclipse. here it was day and cloudy. i was sitting in the garage with the classical guitar, a grey cat and an orange cat, their coats thick from the cold, and spike. the stone floor was cold, and the rain dripped off of the open garage door, the rain dripped everywhere, poured, pounded. water can make everything beautiful. i appreciate water. i am alive, and there is water. that will not last forever.

never embers november.

Posted by: noreia at 12:48 | link | comments (1) |

crossing the line, talking

to the other side of death

Posted by: noreia at 12:39 | link | comments (2) |

it's finally turned winter here. cold, leaves flying everywhere, rustling over cement, musical. evening headlights fuzzy-golden in the fog.  pastel-purple clouds, or clear, crisp blackness of sky with pinpricks of starlight, a full moon. i lie on the sidewalk. i walk, drag my feet through leaves. i sink into it all because it's finally fitting, the world outside finally feels the way i do, it expresses what i hold inside of me, a cold, crisp beauty, a desperately remembered magic.

Posted by: noreia at 11:41 | link | comments |

bridge marching saturday

yesterday.  so familiar.  sitting on the hood of my volvo, you telling me you're pregnant.  you're so excited.  it's like, nothing surprises me.  but then, reaching up, touching the back of my neck: a lump.  and suddenly, it's back.  seven, eight months ago -- that long already?  we all sat out there, the last time i sat on my car and listened to you talking.  and i touched my lump, absently fingered it.  you told me to stop touching it.  you told me to see a doctor.  three months later, i was lying in a white room with an IV in my hand, the doctor telling me, "it was cancer, but we removed it."  radiation, ten days alone.  time, time, and i thought it was over.  the tiny, blue, once-a-day pill and the scars that are starting to fade seemed like reminders of something that maybe didn't happen, a dream, a summer.  

and this lump feels like the last one.  can't make appointments on weekends.  i wait for monday.

and i wonder, is God going to stop at nothing to get my attention, to stop me frozen, turn me back?   

Posted by: noreia at 11:24 | link | comments |

the feeling of your head, your hand.

Posted by: noreia at 13:09 | link | comments (1) |

why do i do this, anyway?  random words on fire.  words in front of me like wings, grey pigeons in a dirty water street.  driving freeways, driving spaceships.  sunlight through glasses.  spider plants on windows.  the tree swaying through the night, grinning like a monster of grey.  waving its arms in the wind.  love i can feel like warm water in my chest, love i can grasp.  small love, frightened, enclosed in a self-world.  walking on the perimeter of grace, dipping fingers into cold water, afraid to dive.

Posted by: noreia at 12:50 | link | comments |

me: you're making fun of my "golden"!

katie: no i'm not, i'm just laughing at it.

Posted by: noreia at 15:13 | link | comments |

"i didn't really mean 'ow.'  i just meant, excuse me, i can't move my lip." -- spike

Posted by: noreia at 15:11 | link | comments (2) |

soaking jack-o'-lanterns

it rained last night. hard. the first big rain of the season. spike lay on my bed, opened the window to listen to it as i brushed my teeth. i caught a glimpse of her, eyes closed, leaning toward the rhythmic, surrounding dripping of the water.

we drove to her house. 11:30 pm. she followed me, our headlights shining off of the black street that glistened like a lake. up in her room, we curled up under the comforter, waiting for our shivers to stop as we listened to the rain.

the tree outside was moving, swaying back and forth in the wind, it's leaves dark grey against the lighter grey sky. light and shadows played against the window frame. i thought of being a child, being in austria, safe in my omi's house.

safe. it's been so long since i've really felt that. taken care of by the bigger person -- my mother, omi, God. i lay there, in the dim light reflected off the cloudy sky, and i tried to relax and feel, once again, that i was going to be okay. that i was taken care of. that this confusion i am in now will not last forever, and one day i'll look back and think, how great God is to have gotten me safely out of that mess.

i tried to sink into that comfort, that safety, that faith, but i know it would have been different if i would have been who i was two years ago. i would have felt it. i wouldn't have had to try.

i came home this morning and thought, we should have taken the jack-o'-lanterns inside. they're soaked now, they're going to get moldy.

Posted by: noreia at 09:29 | link | comments |

root beer and paper cranes. dante's prayer.

i cleaned my neighbor's house today. i do it once a week for $20. she lives there with her husband, her cockatiel, her grey cat, and her dachshund joey. the house is so clean already, it seemed strange to me at first -- to clean it so much. my room could use that much cleaning, but then, i'm not paying myself. and if i was, i still wouldn't be getting any money. man, i'm smart.

and i think there, in the silence of her house. my voice drones on in my head. sometimes it's a nice, quiet relief; other times it's almost unbearable to think so much. today i thought about my neighbor, her life. was this what she dreamt of as a girl? stuck here in this house, this city. i wouldn't want to live here for the rest of my life. drab, grey, dirty industrialism. it's funny how, depending on my internal state, this city can look beautiful: full of trees and city lights at night below hills, stars and wind and leaves and sunsets -- or it can look terrible: trash blowing between speeding cars on streets in the glaring sun, harsh lights of industry and commercialism on every building, people wandering with blank stares on their faces or yelling at you and throwing things out of car windows. i miss the former. i miss the sad, magic beauty of the world, the walking around as if in a dream, looking up at the grey sky through tall trees, autumn leaves. the music. i try to recreate it, but always seem to fail. it seems those states of mind must come naturally.

i'm having more trouble sleeping than i ever have in my life, i think. the night before last, i was up at three, sitting on my bed in the charcoal-grey room, staring with tired eyes out my window at the mountainous, rolling orange clouds against the black sky. they just kept rolling over each other; it was transfixing. things like that give me some kind of quiet hope. things like stars and clouds and trees, rain and grey days and certain magical music. hope that there is a deeper level of beauty in the world, that even if it's like a radio signal that i'm no longer plugged into, at least it's there. and if i strive for it, or maybe let myself fall into it, i can experience it again. and once again know what it's like to see the wide, beautiful world while lying still in His hand.

Posted by: noreia at 16:06 | link | comments (3) |