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!

 

i feel wired, strange. i just got home. i went out with ian, to dinner at the home of samantha, a girl we'd known in high school. her tanned skin, her loud, round chuckle. perfectly tweezed eyebrows, bright red lips. after dinner we went out for coffee. ian, samantha, samantha's fiance -- a skinny blond in a white undershirt whose face looked too childlike for his confident stride, his muscular arms -- and me. then we aimlessly drove around on hilly streets and empty freeways. we ended up at the fiance's house. his parents weren't home.

such a weird night. "nutshell" played as we drove, then "how to disappear completely," layne and thom's low, desperate wails filling the car, flowing out my open passenger window into the night. clear sky, stars so far away. i felt too loud, too unreal, too unlike myself to enjoy the melancholy guitars and the quiet chill of the darkness. i laughed loudly and often, we talked. the fiance was quiet.  i envied him his calm.

before going out for coffee, we'd gone back to the elementary school. samantha, ian and i talked about people we'd known when we went to the school, what they were doing now. her fiance was quiet all night, hugging her, watching us, laughing occasionally. i kept thinking how strange life was, how unpredictable and crazy. last night i never thought i'd end up at the elementary school, writing a letter to a child i didn't know. tonight i never thought i'd be there again, then in the home of a guy i barely knew, looking at the "paintings" in his mother's bedroom -- crayon on paper; she'd bought them for hundreds of dollars.

i felt so strange sitting on the potched-plastic bench in the field of the school, leaning against ian to keep warm, asking samantha about chris or corey or leah -- what had happened to them? we talked about so many people, and i thought, this is what normal young people do -- get together and gossip. ian commented, "isn't it crazy that these people have no idea that we're talking about them? i wonder if people talk about us like this."

and crazy thing. samantha found it hard to get used to how much ian and i have changed, how we're less uptight and straight-laced, how we're not as Bible-thumping as we used to be. i told her i left church in high school for a guy. she was surprised, almost saddened. later, on the bench in the field, we were talking and figured out that my "guy" from back then is now her fiance's best friend. and he's engaged. good for him, i thought. i've wondered, sometimes, what he's doing with himself. ian hates the "guy" and the girl he's engaged to. i don't know. it was just nice to know what happened to him.

how can i express it here? how can i capture the night, the sponataneity of it, the lying on the sidewalk, blocking the orange streetlight with my hand, letting my eyes take in the multitude of stars? how can i explain how it felt to jump out of ian's car as he was stopped at a stop sign on the way home, talking on his cell phone? i ran to the sidewalk, danced in the street, waved at him in front of his car. "i've just never jumped out of a car at a stop sign," i explained as i sank into the seat again and the door clicked shut to my right.

the fiance's house. the birch in the front yard. my head among its whispering leaves, my finger on the white bark, watching tiny ants in a frantic line above it. wanting to run down the still, sloping street, my arms flailing. the salt-and-pepper carpet. ian curled up in a green stuffed chair, twirling his white socked foot, laughing. the orange popsickle with the cream filling, chewing on the stick. the fully stocked wine rack by the door -- "my parents are tasteful alcoholics." the chai latte caffeine jolt. the lack of sleep. the singing.

i love the elementary school at night. i think i'll go there alone sometime. i think i'll sit and talk to God, breathe in the watercolor blackness and the stars.

Posted by: noreia at 00:58 | link | comments |