I'm moving accounts to a different username, *oniontripe. If you like to keep up with me on dA, add that name to your friends list. I'll be moving my hefty gallery comprised of a whopping two newish deviations over to the new name tonight. And after that, I will no longer update this journal or check here for any comments, deviations, notes, what have you. Eventually (and maybe tonight, even), I'll get around to watching probably most of the people on my current friends list, anyway. But I don't know, maybe you're the impatient type.

Reasons for switching:
* I find this username obsolete and infantile.

There it is. Make no attempts to persuade me that oniontripe isn't a hair's breadth more meaningful than nyuji-tora, you will not win. I chose this name when I was sixteen and stupid, and after two journal eradications and one subsequent gallery flushing, I think the need for something new is all too apparent. So it goes.

I have to say, writing is a very difficult thing to do when you are contemporaneously in possession of adorable cats and a camera phone.

Oh yes. New phone! I've joined the 21st century now.

It's a little odd to think about her so much, but at least I feel like I can write about her and present it credibly. Not so even five days ago.

I just want to have a little job that gives me enough money to live and doesn't suck my soul out. Sometimes. Other times I think about Zora: cultural anthropologist, folklorist, writer. I hope I can have courage to do as my passions urge me.

My parents have a sideboard made of a rich, dark wood that stands in the front room with the piano, and we pile books on it because we don't have enough shelf space. Lately, with the acquisition of a dog, we've been piling dog toys and brushes and treat bags on it as well. I was replacing the oversized red rubber brush--that I had just been using on a cat--when a strange title amid one of the stacks caught my attention: The Teacher's Selected Anthology of Poetry. Neither of my parents are English teachers, so what business they had with a book like that, I didn't know. Naturally, I investigated. The cover page, overly stiff and a bit yellow with a fabricated aged look, revealed in pompously swirling script that the book was, in fact, an annual publication of "exceptional" eighth grade poetry from around the country. And again, why do my parents have this book?

Ah, but one page was flagged! A strip of paper in a loud pink color stood up from the middle of the book, shouting Pick me, pick me, ME! I turned to it and found the following poem, which I had apparently written and had published in my eighth grade year. I don't even remember if I knew about this or not, but it at least explains why my parents would have this sort of book in the house.

As a forewarning: cut me some slack. I was fourteen, I guess, and I was pretentious as hell. My teachers were always getting on my case for giving them too much "flowery language," as one American history teacher put it. I'm sure the wording you see here was the tamest version my then-self could have produced. Being locked into an antique rhyme scheme probably didn't help, either.

* The Firebird

How beautiful to have seen the Firebird,
floating so gently on an evening breeze,
singing a song made of only one word.

My eyes met with a scarlet-gold blur
as it glided along with graceful ease.
How beautiful to have seen the Firebird.

To its flame-tipped feathers my eye was lured.
It lit on a branch which swung in the breeze,
singing its song made of only one word.

"LU-LAY, LU-LAY!" sang the wondrous bird,
in a silvery voice that filled the trees.
How beautiful to have seen the Firebird!

With its sharp gaze it mutely inferred,
"Why do you stare?" I then tried to appease.
"Sing me again your song with one word!"

In reply, the bird took flight without word.
I held my arms out and cried, "Come back, please!"
But it flew on, the beautiful bird,
singing its song made of only one word. *

I don't remember writing this villanelle, so I'm guessing it was a class assignment that my teacher just liked a lot. And I don't really know why I felt like reprinting it here, other than maybe for the fact that I found a poem from the Adolescent Era that isn't all that atrocious. Incidentally, I thumbed through the rest of the poems in the book. The bulk of them addressed the concern of love--which, in fourteen-year-olds is at least amusing, if nothing else--or took the unfortunately familiar Poor-Miserable-Me! figure, as the work of young poets is wont to do. So, I mean, at least it's not that kind of wailing-violin drivel.

But, really. If my parents honestly liked it, they could have just asked for a copy. An anthology of teenage poetry chosen by doting English teachers just isn't their kind of book, I tell you.

1. I am writing to you today from the hot, damp, sweaty armpit of central Florida, where I am currently passing my days in tepid, languorous exile and waiting with mounting impatience for my release and subsequent return to Tallahassee. You may ask why I speak as if I'm lying in captivity. Indeed, the binds of family obligation to "spend some time at home during the summer" are a veritable set of shackles, clanking clangorously in mocking harmony to my moans of direst despair. What fate! What mire! O, sweet Angels, I beg but the briefest respite...

Okay, that was fun for a while. But I'm done now.

2. Nobody has gone to Jared for me.

I'm sorry. I'm watching the House marathon and being rather dramatically influenced by the commercials. This will be a drive-by-journalling, to be sure.

3. I have done quite a bit of reading in the five days I've had at home. Read one writing textbook rather thoroughly, one of Ben's that he left with me. I felt I could use the review before I get back into writing classes in the fall--for serious, this time. I've also been about some writing, and I'm all sorts of excited about it. I don't mean you should expect the next Nobel Literature Prize-winning piece of short fiction. Only that I'm beyond happy to be writing again, and really making an effort with it.

Also have been reading a novel, Sacred Games. Ben recommended it, but I don't know what I think of it yet. I'm going to give it a real go, of course. But I'm a few chapters in and still a little overwhelmed by the decidedly detective novelish tone of the writing. We'll see.

4. Have noticed an increase in both the frequency and intensity of anxiety attacks. A bit worried. Stupid life-altering situations.

5. I think I need reading glasses. YAY. I have an appointment tomorrow morning to find out. I've always wanted glasses, which I know is really nerdy, but I admit, I think lens-clad people look cooler and sexier than their less appareled counterparts.

6. Fifteen days until Ben comes to stay FOR GOOD. Girly squeal!

7. I need to spend more time on BBC News dot com. It's the only way I can remain positive that the world keeps turning like I think it does.

Lamely enough, I can't think of much else that wouldn't be redundant of something I've already said. Off!