9/11

I cant stop talking about “United 93.” I just cant. Every American I meet. On the phone. I wont shut up. And I don’t know why.
Well I do know why. The best man at my cousins wedding was the pilot of flight 93.
They just released the trailer on the internet and I wont stop watching it. And I cant stop sobbing.
Its as though maybe if I watch it enough I will get used to it.
When TyK first died looking at his picture would make me cry. I kept the program from his funeral behind a class photo and whenever I thought about him I would take the program out and look at him and cry. But after a year, or more, or less, I cant remember, it got so I could see his face and not cry. I still have that program and that class picture with my stuff in New York. And to be perfectly honest, sometimes 8 years on I still cry about him.
And maybe I do want to see that movie. Because I want to cry and cry and cry. I realize I'm still not over 9-11. I don’t think anyone is.
We thought the world was ending. We thought the world was ending. We thought the world was ending.
My daddy was flying to DC on the day. He was grounded in Salt Lake City. He rented a car and drove 15 hours to be home with us.
My uncle used to work one section over from the side of the pentagon that got hit.
My friend jordies brother went to school at Georgetown. She couldn’t get in touch with him and panicked.
We thought the world was ending.
And yet I still went to dance class on that day. I think I went to pick my brother up from Sussex. I stopped at rattlesnake gardens and a woman on a bike asked me what was on the radio. I said they thought Osama Bin Laden had something to do with it.
It was so beautiful that day.
I remember I took a math test. During 2nd period after watching the towers fall.
I tied an American flag to my antenna.
I listened to Bush’s speech and I thought “I will follow this man.”
I listened to Palestinians cheering on the radio and I thought “I hope you never get your fucking country.”
These are my memories.
These are my memories.
We are not over it. We still need to talk about it. And maybe this movie is good. Maybe it will help us.

random shit

It is 11 at night and I am listening to cake. I used to turn off my music at 10 but ever since the screaming match my neighbor got into with the Egyptian across the way, I don’t care. The walls are paper thin and sometimes I can hear him snoring. Its kinda creepy actually. But cake is my revenge. Take THAT vaguely creepy Turkish man.
I broke my comb trying to get out the tangles from the Cape Town beaches. I think this is a sign that I need to cut my hair. Now now, don’t get excited, I’m just thinking about taking a few inches off the bottom. But I think even that would make life far less painful.

holy update Batman!

I woke up at six am this morning from a nightmare I cant remember feeling more homesick and terrified and helpless than I have since I arrived. I don’t know what was in the nightmare but I am still feeling shaken six hours later. I’ve been this affected by dreams before but I always could remember them.
I was doing really well with the whole homesickness thing until the one person I felt closest too here revealed that he just wasn’t that into me. And now all I really want out of life is New York and Missoula.
The main problem I think is that I am on fall break and am not doing anything until Tuesday. So I am bored out of my mind. I don’t really deal well with free time. It makes me antsy.
But Tuesday we head to Cape Town.
And after that life will get incredibly hectic: rehearsals will start for my poetry in performance show, I need to do a research project on South African theater (I'm thinking Afrikaner theater), and I have decided I am going to begin a novel for my creative writing class (I don’t need to finish it, but I do need to write the first two chapters.)
And time will just fly and I will be home before I know it.
I must admit, sometimes I think about staying here. More so when I thought I was in a stable relationship, but I still catch myself doing it.
What if I stayed here?
But I think it has more to do with wanting to put off my graduation than actually wanting to become an expat. And the fact that I still know so little. There is no way I can get to know South Africa in 5 months, let alone southern Africa let alone Africa. And I somehow got it into my head that I could do it and it disappoints me that I can’t.
More realistically I think about finding a way to do the Ghana program in a year. I'm sure I could talk my parents into summer school if need be. That is the advantage of doing this soph year, I still have two years to organize everything.
And I love and miss everyone so much. Sometimes I feel like I will break. But stupid boys and nightmares aside, I am… I don’t know… learning/growing/having a fantastic time. My world is expanding in ways it hasn’t since…Germany.
And I do love it here. I love my friends, American and South African. People are cool the world over. Which is one of the reasons why it is so strange when I find I cant breathe I miss home so much.
I don’t really believe in astrology but people say Geminis are always divided and it has never seemed more true than now.