Because sometimes I feel like I'm changing from the inside.  My bones are swaying and breaking to the music, retracting from their previous state of being enveloped to a solitary life form, existing alone and feeling battered.  Staring at the tiny creases in my knuckles, some cracked, some bleeding, others I can't quite diagnose under the too-bright off-white lights of this mouse hole of a bathroom.  My love was never strong enough to call back, my lord I wish he was sometimes.  Unanswered telephones, sending straight to a voicemail box that's been full for weeks in an apartment full of broken chairs and books ripped from their bindings.  Sheets strewn around the room in an anxiety fueled cleaning spree, only to be left and forgotten, found days later cold and naked.  Something small but growing, the words come out less and less like I want them to each day.  Sleeping on the floor because it's warm.  Wherever I'm going, there is no we.  Track my steps and trace my trains, I won't look back.

5 Things I Vow to Stop Doing in 2013

2013.  I hate resolutions.  I try not to make them because a. I never keep them, and b. that's mostly due to the fact that I forget them.  So instead of saying "I'm making New Years resolutions" I'm going to make a very real list of 5 things I would like to stop doing in 2013.  These aren't promises to myself or resolutions for anybody else to hold me accountable for, but simply a listing of things I do that I would like to stop doing for whatever reason.  Most of them relate to my severe lack of a love life in some manner, which is equal parts disturbing and comical to me.  So without further ado, here are the 5 things I vow to (attempt to) stop doing in 2013.  But first... my girl crush.

1. Stop saying the F word

It's just plain rude.  When I teach, I make sure to censor myself every minute of every hour from 3:45pm to 10:05pm, or whenever in the vicinity of children in general.  I should probably start applying this censorship rule to other areas of my life... i.e., when I am around older people, strangers, on public transportation, in crowded areas with other people, and basically anywhere except at loud bars or at home by myself.  Also saying the F word is not ladylike at all.  Men don't particularly care for a woman with a mouth as dirty as theirs, so unless I want to continue on this path toward cat-ladydome I had better start cleaning my act up... literally.

2. Giving out fake names/phone numbers at bars

This has been a way too common occurrence recently, particularly after my move to Korea.  The likelihood of being approached at a bar when you're an obnoxious Sarah Silverman lookalike (just shorter and heavier) is slim to none on a good night, so when men talk to me I tend to at least give them the benefit of the doubt.  The problem here is that most foreign guys here are, how do I phrase this... well they're just not that attractive.  I hate to be this person, but if I'm not immediately drawn to you by your physical characteristics, then your conversation skills and personality don't do it for me in the next ten minutes, why would I want to give you another chance?  So, instead, when you start pressing me for personal details I'll tell you my name is "Jessica" and I was in the KKG sorority house at UCSD and I graduated with my B.S. in Political Science in 2009.  Why do I do this?  So I don't have to make a personal connection with you, Jeremy from some rural town in Wisconsin who has his Masters in Organic Chemistry yet for some reason is in the army and has a 12pm curfew in Seoul (thank god).  Who knows, you could be lying to me, too!  In which case we may be perfect for each other.  But in any case, if I don't want to see somebody again or have no interest in them, why bother?  I'm not making a new friend, I'm not looking for a free meal or a romantic date... so bugger off.  No you can't have my real (or my fake) name, and no you can't have my phone number (even if it's one digit off from the real one), because I'm not interested in you.  Go bother Becky or Jennifer or whatever other generic English teacher girl is sidled up at the bar with her girlfriends waiting to get hit on by a nice army boy such as yourself.  (That last sentence made me sound really bitter but I'm not deleting it... because I just might be).

3. Drink less soju & long island iced teas

I think this may be one of the top reasons why I cannot lose that pesky 10 pounds I feel like I've gained in Korea.  I don't actually know how much weight I've gained in the last five months, considering I don't know where to find a scale in this country (not even the gym, really), and I've taken a liking to really baggy sweaters and leggings.  Yeah I've been getting to the gym at least once a week or so, and I walk a lot here... but let's be real, those two things combined can not save a body from consistent weekend abuse and a crappy diet.  I drink more coffee than I do water, usually eat rice or noodles at least once a day, and can't cook to save my life so I eat at restaurants a lot here.  And... mandu.  I'll just leave mandu at that.  Needless to say, between my food habits and my weekend drinking habits, my body, my body is tellin' me no.  The all day hangovers on Sunday I could really do without - I mean despite common belief based on my sleeping pattern during the week, I do really enjoy sunlight and waking hours that end in "AM."  The only exercise I get on Saturdays is the 3-minute calves that I do on my way up hooker hill in 5-inch boot heels.  So I'm not saying I will drink less in this upcoming year, but I will drink smarter.  Try to go to the gym on mornings where I wake up not hungover, and try to drink more water when I'm out, and (even if it is half assed) attempt not to hit up Taco Bell when leaving Itaewon, and drink things with soda water in them instead of... I don't know, 7 different liquors and Coca Cola.

4. Creating & deleting an OKCupid account every few months

I'm 24, not over the hill and definitely not desperate enough to create an online dating profile.  So it's time to either give up on normalcy and go for the online thing 100%, or return to sanity and stop pretending like it's normal to try and scope out potential boyfriends online.  Here's what happens every go 'round with the dreaded OKC.  First, I contemplate my love life (usually alone, in bed, over a bowl of frosted flakes between the hours of 1 and 5 am) and get really down on myself.  Then I poke my stomach a few times and think, "nobody will ever love me, I am fat and single."  Step two, I get on facebook and see my happily married friends, friends getting engaged, people's ultrasound pictures, and various other memorabilia from a life full of love and look around my room and think to myself that I can't even get a cat to love me.  Then I go back for a second bowl of frosted flakes.  Finally, the internet guides me to the deep dark depressing hole that is OKC, I sign up using a seventh fake email address (because you can only create one account per email address, and once you deactivate an account it logs that email address for eternity, apparently), and search for my most flattering picture on facebook.  Fun fact - it's never in photos tagged of me.  Candid moments are not my specialty.  Hours later, after searching dozens of prospective profiles and answers hundreds of pointless FAQ about myself and my principles and moral beliefs, I go back for a third bowl of frosted flakes.  Then I either delete my account that night or the next morning after I've staved off my breakfast food hangover with a nice cup of coffee and solid dose of reality.  I am not that fat, I just need to stop eating seven bowls of cereal at 5 in the morning.  Men like me, just not normal ones.  And on that note, so do cats... just not Korean ones.  So OKC, it's time to kick rocks and say goodbye forever.  I refuse to make a ninth fake email account to sign up for four hours of short lived desperation ever again in my LIFE (i.e., until I am either over 200 pounds or 40 years old and still single).

5. Smoking Korean cigarettes, or any cigarettes in general

Korean cigarettes are CHEAP.  One pack is cheaper than a round-trip bus ride to Seoul, cheaper than one mixed drink at a bar, cheaper than a few large bottles of bottle spring water, cheaper than a head of lettuce or a wooden stick full of questionable street meat.  There are not a lot of habits cheaper than smoking in Korea.  Except for drinking soju (refer to resolution #3).  The main reason I've ever smoked in my life is because I've been drinking, and nothing is better when you're drunk than a cigarette.  Or, sobriety.  Or, free drinks from bartenders.  But I digress.  That is not an excuse for smoking, especially when you tend to drink more than a few nights in a row and suddenly by Monday you're craving a cigarette in the middle of your 5th grade English reading class and you think to yourself, but I don't even smoke!  I smoked two cigarettes on Saturday the 29th, and before that had gone a week without smoking.  Today, Monday the 31st, I officially quit smoking cigarettes.  I am not going to beat myself up if I smoke one every once in a while, because I know I'm really bad at doing what I say I will do when it comes to personal matters, but I'm officially telling myself that I do not need, want, or crave cigarettes anymore.  Next time I want a cigarette, I'm going to watch that old commercial with the cowboy singing about his lungs... you know the one I'm talking about, right?  This one...

Please don't

tell me no again

I can't open these palms any wider

I can't clench these fists

Any tighter than the grip you have on me

When you never say the words

I want to hear you never do the

Things I ask you

Like do you love me

Could you love me

Do you think we could pretend again

I'm lonely but not alone

When two minds coincide

I feel what you think

Before the words escape your lips

I've heard them

Somewhere else, another time

Maybe I knew you then

Maybe I never really know you

But I'd like to think

I do

I'll Never Be Satisfied & I Hate Goodbyes

 

 

"If I never see you again

I will always carry you

inside

outside

on my fingertips

and at brain edges

and in centers

centers

of what I am of

what remains."

- Bukowski

December Settling.

A circle of orange trees, the sound of tambourines shaking in steady rhythm, fingernails clicking on a steering wheel, tea kettles whistling into the early hours of the morning with nobody to pluck them from the flames.  What else reminds me of you?  Waking up to a cold December morning wrapped in a comforter two-sizes-too-large for one person, holes in the pinky finger of my cheap gloves, sideways glances and half-assed smirks, guitar riffs as I drift to sleep around 5am.  I can find you in everything, in anything.  The very last drag of a cigarette before I enter a building, the man in front of me waiting on the elevator, the full moon hiding behind high rises, folds in the pages of the same book I've been reading since summer.  I don't know what else to tell you, you're on my mind.  Finishing whatever's left in the bottom of this too-empty beer bottle, setting it down and wondering where I'll end up tonight, steadying myself against a brick wall and shaking my head to release the demons I've allowed to build up inside of me, knocking my fists lightly against the bathroom mirror so as not to wake the neighbors or break the glass.  Sometimes I just think we made a mistake, all of this distance was a mistake now, just like it was then.  Waking up to dusk, finding a new hole in my favorite sweater, picking at the fabric til it grows and opens up wider and wider, taking down the calendar, lighting it on fire, forgetting about the cup of coffee I made hours ago, crawling back into bed and wondering when this feeling will subside.  I just miss you over and over, it comes and it goes like waves.  Lately it's been a tsunami.

Winter Weather Playlist

summer's sun is setting and the biting winds signal their return.

wrap me in a frozen embrace.

scared to check my lists and cross my t's.

goodbye to the warm weather's breeze.

no more toes in the sand, shoes open, sleeves less.

tonight it snowed in suji on my walk home.

cold.  like home.

because I want to be inside your arms and legs

and anywhere that's nearer to you

To feel the way you breathe

inhale shallowly and exhale when I say so

guiding light lead to me darker days

encompass me in evenings full of light

Brighter still

brighter always when you are inside

Give

me

a sign that things will be

back to the way things were

They always were

You've always been

You'll always be

I need to be

again

Please Don't Talk To Me, I Fall In Love So Easily.

I did love, love deeply.  I will love again.  I can't stand the silence deafening what should be the beautiful space between our faces, pointed at opposite sides of this too-big bed in this too-big world.  I can't look at you, just like I couldn't look at him or the one before him, because I fall in love every time our eyes connect.  I should stop before I'm ahead, but I love a good story and I love to tell it to myself.  Crossing oceans to be away, wishing I could swim them to be anywhere but alone again.  Enveloped in the feeling of nobody's arms wrapped around me, questioning if it's the biting wind or the reminder of solitude that wells up in the corners of my eyes on my way to work each afternoon.  This should set me free, this should be my guide, I should grow here.  But my god I am still so needy.  From the the men I knew before to the ones I grasp onto so tightly now, wishing on some far away burning planet mass that I could keep them in my palm until I'm ready to release them... I knew it could all mean nothing but I can't remember why.  I tethered to a feeling, I'm regretting the expressions, I can't take back the things I said or recount the words exchanged.  How you always end up back here, how I always end up lonely, why he never acted like he wanted me until I wasn't available to be desired any more.  I'll never understand, the mornings come too soon, I'm contemplating whatever decision I made last that haunts me today.  I can't look at you anymore, if I keep looking I'll start loving, and once I start loving I don't stop.  It's so simple, really.  Flip the switch and bury deep inside, you'll move on again just like you've traveled before.

Won't Soon Forget.

I remember the back seat of your tiny truck.  The bed hanging from the ceiling surrounded by near strangers, empty bottles of champagne rolling along the floor and my phone buzzing to remind me I had to return to the world I knew before you sometime soon.  I remember the sick feeling in my stomach, the hangover settling in as the wind took my hair and pulled it out the passenger's seat window of your car as you drove me to your favorite diner for breakfast.  The unnerving quiet settling into the front seat as we pointed the wheels toward the airport signs, tears that I wouldn't dare let you see welling up in the corners of my eyes.  Staring out at the flat land that seemed to stretch forever, imagining the feeling of never leaving again.  Someone else's car, headed back for the home I knew, the home that felt more temporary than any other place in the world with you.  Grasping at moments, holding my face in my palms hitting my head against the desk trying to remember the name of the night we met.  Drinks were poured over words exchanged and a bottle of wine brewed in somebody's bathtub.  Lightning between fingertips, laughing at science because it was more of a feeling than a chemical.  I can't call you now, so I'll remember instead.  I won't soon forget you, you live in the darkest corners of the attic, only allowing me to see you when I'm most desperate.  At the end of something empty, avoiding the reality that makes me cringe and feel a stranger in my own body.  I won't soon forget.

To Falling In Love With Where You Are

The series of conundrums, leaps, bounds, successes and failed attempts that led you to where you are now.  The disasters you've encountered, the places you've left parts of your heart to die lonely and cold like the empty faces that dot the street corners of the Leavenworth Zoo.  The beautiful mistakes and energy exchanges you've shared along the path toward personal enlightenment or finding a savior or persisting until you feel that you've made it.  The rooftops you've made your home, the places you've slept and left half full packs of cigarettes for the next inhabitant, the roads you've stomped along in seven pound boots with steel toes because you never know who you might encounter.  The cars you've ridden in the backseat of, sick to your stomach but singing along to whatever sound was seeping from the radio dial, the speaker keeping time to the beat of your own thumb against your thigh.  The cities you've screamed your praises of, then damned the next morning waking up to the light of dusk and old smoke creeping in through the windows you left open the night before.  The concrete walls hanging pictures of a life you lived before, a floor full of dusty memories you kick beneath the bed frame in hopes that you might forget the person you once were.  I'd like to make a toast to being in love with the existence you are persisting, the life you lead at the present moment.  Being alive and well, functioning just enough to get by but also enough to know you're worth it.  Believing that there's something else around every corner, for better or worse, to never stop chasing it.  To not worrying about progressing or regressing, just to exist and learn.  Enjoying the moments, basking in solitude, feeling the heat of a thousand bodies in the same room.  To loving the life you lead.