vanilla raindrops

email: noreia@planet-save.com.

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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!

 

 what are you?

Posted by: noreia at 00:12 | link | comments (1) |

from my journal, february 21, 2005; 8:00 pm

Because it's so empty and silent in me -- because something has been withdrawn.  Because I'm on the verge of a new life and I realize that but don't feel it; what I feel is numb again, and I'm hoping this new life will change that.  Because I'm playing a game with vulnerability -- reveal, connect; pull back, wait.  Don't hope, don't hope.  "What we're doing is not what we think we're doing."

. . . Sometimes, at night, when there was no moon, you could see the forest fires.  You were sitting on the edge of the world, the language silent in you, the world silent, and beyond the edge was darkness and fire.  And more.

. . . Everything.  Everything had been so real.  And more.

But now it was a dream; something I did while I selpt -- somewhere else -- where I went when I'd gone inside . . .

But I had lived to tell the story.

Standing on the rock, looking out, I understood what the story was.

Here's the story: life is a dream.

It's all a story we're telling ourselves.  Things are dreams, just dreams, when they're not in front of your eyes.  What is in front of your eyes now, what you can reach out and touch, now, will become a dream.

The only thing that keeps us from floating off with the wind is our stories.  They give us a name and put is in a place, allow us to keep on touching . . .

. . . Knowledge became understanding: all that was left in front of me was looking at what was in front of me.  All I could do was laugh.

-- The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, by Tom Spanbauer

I'm trying to find the sister/mother/friend/lover inside myself.  I don't know if she's there; all I hear are echoes when I call for her.  Could I believe in a Goddess, or would that be kidding myself? 

Is anything allowed?  Is everything allowed?

How can we live when it's all going to be gone, a dream, someday?  I think that's what makes me numb -- resignation.  I lived so passionately, I loved so passionately, I fought so hard for it -- but if I wouldn't let it be torn away from me, it just melted down instead, burned out, evaporated.

Is that always what happens?  Nothing is forever, and we just come out of it with life lessons, added dimensions to our personalities -- with more stories to keep us from floating away? 

But what does it matter if I stay put or float away if I'm all alone and with this echoing silence inside?

I've been told that to believe in "true love," in "forever," is something of youth -- an idealistic fairytale that you get over as you grow up.  "Learn to marry yourself before you marry someone else."

I've been told by someone else that that doesn't have to be true -- he said he really believes in human beings filling each other, completing each other. 

Maybe it doesn't matter which one I believe.  Maybe beliefs are just another set of labes: "I'm black/white/brown, I'm homo-/hetero-/bi-/trans-/pan-sexual, I believe this or that set of beliefs about love, about forever."

Maybe the thing is just to live, and find out for myself.  The ultimate goal of every human being is to be happy, right?  All those labels are supposed to supplement that, provide that, achieve that.

It's hard and unsettling, though -- to be resigned to not knowing, to not slapping labels onto things and throwing them into neat boxes.

The best feeling in the world, to me, is to be surrounded by crazy-weird people and to just . . . be.  In that environment, not so serious, not working or homeworking -- just to be.

Today I claimed the bellydance music CD in the promo box at work.

I feel like I've been too vulnerable here.  But I always believed in vulnerability, in being real with people.  They say it's dangerous -- I know.  I could get hurt -- I know.  But it's who I am, and to stifle it would be . . .

Unnatural?

So I make my choice tonight, to put down truth in words, an opening, a wound.

Maybe being real will draw other real people to me.

"Your lack of ego," she said.  Is that what this is?

"(Stories) give us a name and put us in a place, allow us to keep on touching."

8:37 pm

Posted by: noreia at 00:07 | link | comments (1) |

 somebody comment, let me know you're out there.

Posted by: noreia at 19:46 | link | comments (5) |

today i shoveled a dead cat into a garbage bag.

today i drove to work struggling to keep my eyes open.

today i helped a dreadlocked, yellow-shirted woman from florida find CDs for about 45 minutes, while she had mood swings, alternately snapping at me and thanking me for my help.

today i thought, people all learn the rules to the games we play with each other, the mind tricks, the social conduct that will get you what you want, and for the first time i thought, maybe that's not such a bad thing.  maybe i'm getting the hang of it.  maybe openness and trust isn't the ultimate, the point of all human interaction.

or maybe i'm just becoming jaded.

it's so nice not to care so much about everything, not to be so intense.  i should fucking stop analyzing this or i'll ruin it.  i just like the hazy floaty feeling, enhanced by vodka and vicodin and two hours of sleep a night. 

you know what's beautiful?  the sunshine on one of those long, windy roads in the morning, driving with one hand on the wheel and the other trying to keep the batteries from falling out of my portable tape player. 

and i want a white chocolate mocha.  i'm going to see the phantom of the opera, sit and sip my white chocolate with eyes half open and think nothing, lose myself in the story and the music. 

plastic strawberries

fall on heaving bosoms,

shatter in the dark

michael screamed at a random passing truck driver as spike and i tried to scoop the dead cat, eyes bulging, blood, still warm, into a garbage bag.  "you drive too fucking fast!" he yelled, jumping at the windows, banging on the walls of the truck.  "i'll come after you with my shovel!"

"michael!" we shouted.  "calm down, he's fine!" we shouted.

i was at a bookstore a few days ago and i tried to buy dracula and a mocha but i forgot my wallet.  i told a girl with bright, fire-red hair, "you're hair is freakin' awesome," and she said, "i like yours, too."  i made conversation with the sales assistant because i like talking to people, i like making people smile.

Posted by: noreia at 19:42 | link | comments (2) |

from feb. 05 reader's digest:

proverbs from around the world:

"he on whose head we would break a coconut never stands still." -- yoruban (west africa)

"there is no economy in going to bed early to save candles if the result be twins." -- chinese

"with patience and saliva the ant swallows the elephant." -- colombian

"why should a man without a head want a hat?" -- chilean

"the man with nostrils is Mr. Nose among the noseless." -- hindi (india)

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there is something mystical about this time, something similar to what gypsies must feel.  this underlying layer of nightfires and dancing and clanking jewelry.  it's a strange game, discovering myself here, and it's funny how good i feel, how i'm learning really not to give a fuck if i'm liked.  because i think maybe you end up finding the people who were meant to like you, and the rest don't matter. 

my inner monologue doesn't echo so loudly now.  it's more soothing, a whisper, a mellow hum. 

beautiful, i want to tell them all -- it's all so beautiful.  and i'm not tied so tightly to someone, in so many knots, and my strings are in my own hand, i'm controlling the dance.  which makes it my own dance.  i wonder if this was here all along, if i could have found it before.  but it seems that all the clocks are synchronized with fate, that each second hand marks off a point in which i am exactly where i need to be.

listening to: dralion soundtrack (cirque du soleil)

Posted by: noreia at 01:55 | link | comments |

fuck. 

Posted by: noreia at 01:14 | link | comments (2) |