ALL the babies…will be voting for me!
My hair smells like a beach bonfire.
Aw. I missed the gang so much.
I liked how uncomfortable our little five-person matrix got after a few minutes, but I liked even more how we all stayed in that position even after our bodies started complaining. Oh, shucks, love.
Also our various hug permutations and how long it took for us to actually leave after we started saying goodbye.
It’s not even June yet, but last night felt like the end of summer. I suppose David was right: even when only one or two people are leaving (and not for all that long, either) we grow to appreciate the ones who aren’t leaving even more. Two days of not seeing one another feels so long after meeting up again after months of separation.
<3
The night of the accident, and how I felt.
The week of May 15, 2011 started with death and ended without casualties. The world was fine, and life was fine, and I was battered, and relied on my body’s ability to work itself out, as always. “You wear yourself out too much, Tammy Pham” was his reply, and I mused that it’s the only way I know how to survive. And when I think about this, I experience a sudden fear at the realization that I can’t explain why I am the way I am, and the resolution that one day, I will run out of luck and that one day, things will not work out and I will fall.
It is strange and painful to look back and read my thoughts from a time (one year ago) when I was much more vulnerable and much more volatile. This was the night of my first, real, terrifying, haunting, lucid dream. I napped and woke up to a phone call, and went on IM to tell him that I felt down, and that I had seen myself die in a dream, and that it was brutal. He gave me a poem.
The Quiet World
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
Jeffrey McDaniel
“I love you. I can’t put down in words how much I love you,” he said. And I wondered why we use words so generously. And I wondered if I wasted words, the way people waste toilet paper or food or water. And I wondered what it would mean to recycle words. And I think that’s called plagiarism now, but I still wonder. And I asked, “Why is life so wonderful and painful at the same time?” And he replied, “I guess life would get pretty old if it was one or the other.”
http://i56.tinypic.com/1z5qfz6.jpg
I could gush about prom but then I would have to gush about prom.
The issue was that I decided to put off item 5 for halfway through item 6. I went into the car to change and looked backwards to headlights headed toward me. I blinked and the car was gone. I blinked again and I heard a crash on my right. It had crashed into a beat up truck on the other side of the road. He called 911 and they came to get testimonies from us. They said that she would’ve have hit us had the back wheel of her car not hit the curb and caused it to veer off to the left. They found her with two half-empty bottles of whiskey and a pissed-drunk demeanor.
I thought about dying and for a second realized how easy it is to die and how painless it could have been. I stared at him and he told me he’d rather it be him in the car. I told him this wasn’t up to us.
So I don’t mean to be a complete downer, but really, wasn’t the point of freezing a memorial page to prevent things like this from happening?
I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
This time, last year. To the minute.
T: I hope you’re having fun at Amha’s. I had a great birthday party/day. I love you to pieces.
B: I love you too! I’m having a very nice time. I’m happy =]
Two hours later.
T: How was it?
B: I’m being admitted to Mesa Vista psych.
T: What? Was this voluntary?
B: No.
T: Brian, what happened?
B: I can’t talk.
T: Okay. Can you text?
B: I decided to be completely honest. I gotta go now.
I have a 297 page word document on saved on my external hard drive. I’ve read through it twice. And for the life of me, I still do not know what happened that day, and what he was being honest about.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Loose Lips [Kimya Dawson] - so if you wanna burn yourself remember that I love you. and if you wanna cut yourself remember that I love you. and if you wanna kill yourself remember that I love you. call me up before you’re dead, we can make some plans instead. send me an IM, i’ll be your friend.
![This is a piece from October 31st, 2011 that I forgot to post. Oops.
There is terror and excitement in every step taken beyond one’s comfort zone. Yale has strapped me to a toboggan and sent me down a quietly daunting peak of snow. I can’t remember the last time I strayed so far away from home.
I joined a cultural organization—something I thought I’d never be inclined to do—completely on a whim. Through it, I found myself flash-mobbing, dancing, and [hilariously] learning how to sing. I’ve played with silk fans and experienced the high of hearing the satisfying “fwoop” sound they make when flicked open.
Last Monday, I ran for hours and hours up to and back down from East Rock. The run was beautiful during the first half in the cool warmth of October and enchanting during the second half as the night sky took over, dulling the autumn colors into nondescript shades of brown. It hurt because I can’t run often but enjoy running when it happens. My knees are bruised and battered; I feel like an old lady battling arthritis. There is a clicking in my patella.
The raining of leaves is beautiful because you can see where the leaves come from, and yet, hour after hour, the trees seem unchanged. Each leaf falls at its own pace, carried up from beneath by the soft draft, propelled down by gravity, twisting and turning and forming small arcs in the air as it glides on invisible tracks in colorless air. They are not predestined, one might argue, though also without free will. They can’t decide where they land, can’t choose their company. They are like us.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lugkv3ne4L1qa5u60o1_1280.jpg)
This is a piece from October 31st, 2011 that I forgot to post. Oops.
There is terror and excitement in every step taken beyond one’s comfort zone. Yale has strapped me to a toboggan and sent me down a quietly daunting peak of snow. I can’t remember the last time I strayed so far away from home.
I joined a cultural organization—something I thought I’d never be inclined to do—completely on a whim. Through it, I found myself flash-mobbing, dancing, and [hilariously] learning how to sing. I’ve played with silk fans and experienced the high of hearing the satisfying “fwoop” sound they make when flicked open.
Last Monday, I ran for hours and hours up to and back down from East Rock. The run was beautiful during the first half in the cool warmth of October and enchanting during the second half as the night sky took over, dulling the autumn colors into nondescript shades of brown. It hurt because I can’t run often but enjoy running when it happens. My knees are bruised and battered; I feel like an old lady battling arthritis. There is a clicking in my patella.
The raining of leaves is beautiful because you can see where the leaves come from, and yet, hour after hour, the trees seem unchanged. Each leaf falls at its own pace, carried up from beneath by the soft draft, propelled down by gravity, twisting and turning and forming small arcs in the air as it glides on invisible tracks in colorless air. They are not predestined, one might argue, though also without free will. They can’t decide where they land, can’t choose their company. They are like us.