inspiration won’t rule the nation…

ugh seattle you’re really big and scary.
like a big scary mean angry beast with high rents and no jobs in bars for me.
and no friends and no parking.
and self-righteous yuppies in sandals who think they remember the sixties.
but if they really remembered the sixties, they’d be living somewhere other than the city of non-profits but no smiles on the streets.
no one looks at eachother,
except the lesbian in the obama shirt who said i had pretty eyes.

seattle, everyone raves for you.
everyone from somewhere in a twenty-mile radius claims you as home.

but when i walk along, marveling at the sheer volume of commerce on the streets, neck craned to see the top story of buildings full of professionals and the people who work for them, I feel a little out of place.

and i wonder,

can everyone tell that i don’t belong here?

give us those nice, bright colors; give us the greens of summers; makes you think all the world’s a sunny day.

a peek for everyone, because i’m trying to be positive.

and because everything you fill a new house with has lived somewhere else before.

and because you can’t spell “cartography” without “art.”

and because i’m not the only one moving.

and because everything, even beds with ladders, come full-circle.

still moving. last night was really strange. we stayed in my new yellow studio.

all of our furniture is in a storage unit fifty miles away.

and our old apartment empty, except for the all the little debris that’s left after a storm blows through.

we’ve spent the day sorting through the damage, drinking beer and wondering where the rest of our life went.

but tonight we both have to go back to work so i guess life will be the same there as it always was.

wish us luck.

xoxo hanna

(and zach and indi)

out with the old, in with the new….

…but i’ll be damned if i’m not taking some of the old with me….

ummmm....yes.

very own bathroom, very own second-hand sign.

thanks, baldings. always in my heart.

yours is the only version of my desertion that I could ever subscribe to

here are a few great things:

-indiana.

-interpol.

-wheat thins. (esp. when you can stand in front of your refrigerator with a box of wheat thins tucked under your arm and systematically go through the condiments and other assorted fridge fare and dip them in anything you notice.)

-family.

-specifically, my family. more specifically, my hero/grandfather. what a fucking man. DAMN. he is, i believe, mostly responsible for any awesomeness that i bear. or any of us, really. him and my own father. Mom, we got real lucky for a family full of hard-luck white-trash/ immigrants and others searching for political/religious/linguistic asylum.

-public radio.

-making friends.

-having a job that makes me not really care if it’s a work day or not, because i know it will be funny either way.

-bourbon.

-beer.

xoxox

and so I do what I do, and at least I exist

oh wait, though. really. let’s take a pause and again ask myself:

what actually would make me happy?

and don’t say family, because that’s a given.

and don’t say Indi, because that’s one, too.

Yes, we speak of things that matter, with words that must be said.

my life is mosty functional.

that is, i feel purely utilitarian. proletariat.

i find little bits of satisfaction in conversation, in sunlight, in passages of books that others have written that ring true.

but for the most part, i work. i make a little money. i spend a little money.

and i do radio. at which my mumbling and my stuttering render me mediocre. but it doesn’t matter because i can play music without speaking, and say a lot that way.

sitting on my porch (MY porch. my somewhat-very-own porch) tonight, i got an idea of what the next nine or ten months will be like.

new house, new street, new corner store (where i got recognized from work. that’s an entry for another day.) new bus route, new bike ride.

new heartache, new uselessness, new nights spent wandering in circles in my home with a bottle and a romanticized idea of what my life was supposed to be like.

perhaps i was wrong in condemning organized religion. i see the merit- it must be nice to feel like there’s a reason to your existence.

but ignorance gets corrected eventually, and it’s never easy to swallow.

i prefer to deal with what is in front of me, and not what is beyond the last heartbeat.

and, apparently, i will do this in the corniest way possible.

so, i will continue to live on my own first principle:

don’t fuck anyone over.

just pretend i didn’t tear your world apart.

i like kimya dawson very much.
if i had a beautiful voice, i could make music like she does.

but instead, i will just sing along.

and think it’s me.

and maybe play the songs on the radio.

and post the lyrics to my journal.

like this:

and where will I go where I can feel safe
when my family sells its place
and we all split up and move away?
I’m trying to be brave ’cause when I’m brave
other people feel brave
but I feel like my heart is caving in

i want to go play the guitar.

and drink tea.

and go home.

i miss lamplight and curly hair and pot-smelling apartments and dreadlocks and couches where couches don’t belong.

the puget sound can go straight to hell. it’s no willamette river and it never will be, no matter how crunchy these seattle kids think they are. fuck.

xoxo hanna

p.s. day 4 of liquid diet is going well. i decided next week will be “only raw fruit + veggies + any liquids i want”

ha.