Electricity fills the air in Ames... a sort of buzzing tension gives breath to the cement beneath the feet of dazed giants wandering up Welch Avenue... the normal traffic retreats to make way for a fleet of polished insects driven by wild-eyed parasites with aging crew cuts. Manic energy simultaneously stifles and propels the breeze, and lightning and acid raindrops slide off the gusts into the stagnant air, onto the asphalt, between the stones and grit down into the still-damp soil, setting the earthworms' nerves alight (they become suddenly restless). The trees' neon buds threaten to overwhelm time with their speed, flash open then snap closed like mouths in a stunted old horror film. Anxious fleeting grins, scattered thoughts kept at the surface by the magnetized air and sickly red atmosphere wet with condensation. There are no chemicals, but the people cannot breathe. Shrill guitar notes fade as one progresses through the rolling mounds of a drowning city.

We live underground, on the Other Side, and we see the peaks and lulls and waves and love them. We anticipate them and covet them and eat them with our wooden shovels. We use our pink bandanas as napkins and smile when it's over, our throats clogged with bile and tobacco smoke.






That's what Ames feels like tonight. I don't want to write my paper. I want to watch.

Today I got my Iowa driver's license. When the woman gave me back my social security card but not my California license I felt like part of my identity had just been ripped out of my spine like a piece of paper from a spiral notebook, you know that noise. Then when I was standing in front of the blue curtain to have my picture taken, I wouldn't stop moving and the woman kept snapping the pictures without warning me so we had to redo it three times. I think it would have been funny to use one of the pictures with my eyes to the side and my face half turned and my hair all gross. Here's to you, Iowa.
In the one that finally came out, my face is half turned and my hair is all gross, but my eyes aren't to the side.
I think in a couple years I'll have to get a new driver's license in some other state, preferably Oregon or maybe another California or maybe Washington. Then I can cut this new one up with relish and eat it on a hot dog.

I'm so sick of freshman trend whores. It's far worse than the sorority trend whores, because these trend whores, the "scene" ones, have to put some thought into it, have to want to be different first. But then they can't even come up with their own way of being different, they have to use the one they see in their stupid "alternative culture" publications. You know, the ones that are just as desperate to sell themselves out for a few bucks as the mainstream magazines, only that label themselves alternative. Trend whores. It's the same shit everywhere. Woo fuckety hoo, you're so trendy with your headband and your skinny jeans and your sunglasses WHORE.
I'm talking about the bitch who stole Hannah's bike, by the way. The one who has "S'in D" in her facebook interests. You are SO cool for saying that by the way. How fucking DARING of you. So bad.

I'm supposed to be working on my paper right now. I just finished the four-page intro and now am on to the 10-page middle part, there ain't no goin' back now motherfuckers! I forgot my adderall at home, hence the livejournal post, ha.

My brother texted me today just to say, "did you know that Iowa stands for idiots out wandering around?"

In other news, I'm so fucking horny right now. I'm going to sleep.

http://www.impersonalelectroniccommunication.com/

Um, a friend of a friend's journal.



And yup, it was hormones. =D

fro·zen
—adjective
2. congealed by cold; turned into ice.
3. covered with ice, as a stream.
4. frigid; very cold.
5. injured or killed by frost or cold

waste·land
—noun
1. land that is desolate, barren, or ravaged.
2. a place, era, or aspect of life considered as lacking in spiritual, aesthetic, or other humanizing qualities; a vacuum

That pretty accurately describes Ames at the moment.
Yesterday peaked at 40 degrees (warmest in January so far) and the snow started to melt, leaving puddles on the sidewalks. Today the puddles are frozen so Ames is basically covered in ice. Ugh. The wind is terrible.

This morning at the psychiatrist's office I found out I have a lot of symptoms of borderline personality disorder.

( Read on... )

Makes a lot of sense, considering. I'd looked it up before (after reading Girl, Interrupted) and I guess I got the wrong impression of what it is. I really just want to stop being crazy.

So, I just went to check the temperature outside using my nifty desktop program. It's currently 7 degrees outside with a wind chill of negative 14 degrees. There's a little sidebar next to the current conditions that shows the forcast for today, tonight, tomorrow, etc. I couldn't help noticing the hilarious way in which the people who supply my weather forecast describe the cold. The words used vary from "Very cold" (today) to "Bitterly cold" (tomorrow) to three-sentence descriptions of the snow's movement that end with "Wind chill readings 15 below to 25 below zero" (Sunday and Monday). Give us some hope, you sadistic bastards. Haha. I wouldn't be surprised if I read something like "bone-chilling cold" or "booger-freezing cold" in the next few days. Hmm.

It is that bad, though. Shiverrr.

December 23:

Dear Diary,

Today, after approximately five weeks of successfully crossing and re-crossing the four-inch deep sheet of ice covering my parking lot, I had my first magnificently painful wipeout while getting out of my car.

California, here I come!


Yours,

Jenna