should i trust this dialect?

today i feel: stomach-achey
today i'm hearing: rilo kiley--the frug
today i'm thinking: of up and out

I'm going to start writing now. And I have no idea what I'm about to say. But I need to let something out and it might as well be here.

I hate the fact that when your life seems like it's turning upside-down, you still need to do ordinary things. Wash the dishes, clean your laundry, get something to eat. Average, simple, every day things. Things that everyone does. I hate that. Because if something extraordinary happens in your life--be it good or bad--you are extraordinary for that time. And in my imagination, in the world where I actually live, extraordinary people don't do ordinary things. Spiderman doesn't ever use the loo, you know? Gandhi didn't brush his teeth. And, yes, I am aware of the fact that Gandhi probably didn't brush his teeth because he lived in an impoverished, colonialised country and was not a member of the upper class. I understand that. But it makes my point so suck it up.

I think that might be why I hate getting upset so much. I mean, being upset is a load of shite anyway because you're upset and being upset is not a very pleasant experience in the first place. But when I'm upset, I still have that rational side to me, reminding me of all the ordinary, every day stuff I still have to do. Go to class, Kiri; you have a test. Go to bed, Kiri; you need your sleep. Stop crying, Kiri; it doesn't solve a damn thing. But I don't want to be rational or intelligent or functional or any of that bull shit! I just want to be upset. I just want to say, 'You know what, world? Fuck you. I'm sad. I don't want to talk to people, I don't want to make sense, and I don't want to contribute to anything right now. I just want to feel like shit for a while, all-right?' But that's not how it works. Because I can feel my pulse start to skip a little and my breathing get shallow and my chest hurt. And then I have to calm down. And that's really a lot of bullshit, you know? That's just a lot of crap.

Politeness is the bane of my existence. It really is. Last night, I was obligated to speak with someone who could get hit by a Mac truck and I honestly wouldn't care. But ignoring this person, completely blowing them off and getting on with my life, would be rude. And I can't lower myself to that level because I was taught to be 'better than that'. Which I hate. It's like when someone asks you to do something and you really don't want to because you've got things of your own to do. But you can't just tell that person to fuck off because they haven't done anything to you. And whatever they're asking you to do, it's not hard, it's just annoying. So you do it. I hate that. I have no idea why, but I do. I hate the fact that I was raised to be respectful and kind and polite because being a horrible person would be so much easier. Not caring about people? Fuck yes! That would kick ass! But that's not how I am. And that's a good thing, I suppose. Or maybe I was just raised to think so. Observe: a paradox.

I was cruising around the bowels of emo hell today because I'm a tool like that. And I was looking through my friend list. And Matt had changed his profile picture. So I clicked on it because I haven't really heard from that kid in a while and I thought I'd see if anything was new in his life. ...Which it wasn't, really. And please skip this paragraph if you're friends with Matt because this could get really hurtful really fast; I don't know what I'm going to write. I realised while I was flipping through his profile that he is so very, very fake. I mean, he acts as if he's so well-read and intelligent and 'deep', which is just the most abusive, absurd, pointless adjective in the world because it's so fucking relative. But he isn't. He's never read anything written before 1942. And, yeah, he's flipped through a few dozen Ginsberg poems and he knows who Ralph Steadman is and all that shit, and he can listen to all the acoustic indie bands from Chicago and debate how 'retro' and 'new age' they are and all the crap. But that doesn't make you insightful or intelligent or anything that he pretends to be. He has no understanding of human beings. He's never had a bad experience in his life. I mean, yeah, he was depressed when he was in grammar school or whatever; who wasn't? He doesn't understand anything about life. He doesn't understand anything about grief or suffering or real joy. Everything is so fucking blasé to him and it's irritating! Would it kill you to find some wonder in average things? A butterfly only lives for three weeks, but it's beautiful anyway. The population is climbing and destroying the planet day by day, but people still love each other enough to take the chance of having a child. Isn't that incredible? Doesn't that mean something to you?

I'm so sick of taking things for granted. I'm so sick of discarding things because they're dangerous or silly or sentimental or not exactly what I want them to be. No, maybe this poem isn't well-structured, but it still says something, doesn't it? It still means something to you, you know? Maybe you and I won't be together forever, but you're still warm and safe and with me now, aren't you? Aren't I? What's so wrong with living in the moment? What's so wrong with hoping, even if it never happens? What's so wrong with faith? Everything is subjective these days. Everything is up for debate. And maybe that's good and maybe it's not, I don't know. But at least people are thinking. At least they're considering the possibilities.

You know, I'm not really a good student. I bullshit half or more of my papers; I cut class; I'm pretentious at best. All I've got going for me is the fact that I read the right books and I have enough understanding of rhetoric that I can talk my way out of awkward situations. That doesn't make me smart. That doesn't make me dedicated to my academic future. That makes me lucky (and maybe clever, if you're really stretching the compliments). And maybe if I am a 'good student' in whatever traditional setting you're scraping off the bottom of the bowl, what the hell does that mean anyway? Academia is only a model of the real world, not the place itself. So I take lecture notes and turn in my assignments. Does that say anything about my character? Does that say anything about my sense of self?

I don't really know what to say when someone's upset or lost or frightened. I don't. Furthermore, I don't know how to say when I'm feeling any of those things. I don't even know what I want people to say when I'm like that. 'I'm sorry for your loss.' That has got to be the worst phrase in the history of mankind. What does that mean, anyway? Because when someone tells me they're sorry for something happening to me, all I want to say is, 'Why? Why do you feel so damn guilty about it? Is it your fault? Did you do this to me? Because I don't remember this being your fault.' I hate being so damn apologetic. A girl who lives down the hall from me, her grandmother just died. She's sitting outside right now, waiting to go home. And all I could say is, 'I'm sorry'. For what? For the fact that it had to happen to her first? What are we, war wives? Everyone dies; that's just kind of how mortality works. She didn't want to hear that I was sorry. I'll bet you ten fucking dollars that that's all she's heard all morning. She didn't need another goddamn apology. But that's what we're told to say. Not that we know what it feels like to lose someone, that we understand what they're going through, that it feels like they've just lost a part of themselves that they didn't even know they had. No. We can't say that. We can't be fucking honest because honesty isn't actually polite. Honesty is brutal and it hurts so goddamn much and we can't hurt each other, can we? Maybe that's why I'm polite about shit so much. Because I don't want to hurt anyone. That is such bullshit.

I wish I was more honest. I wish I could just walk up to someone and tell them what I thought of them. I wish I could tell my mother how little she understands about me, or tell Da how it doesn't matter to me who he wants to fuck. I wish I could tell my grandparents that I don't believe in they're selfish, superficial dogma. I wish I could tell Matt what a prick he's becoming. I wish I could tell people important things. I wish I wasn't such a fucking coward and I could put it all here, even if that isn't the best way of finding something out. But I am a fucking coward. And I'm so goddamn scared of losing the people that are important to me that I can't bear the thought of them finding out all the secrets I've been keeping from them. Even if those secrets don't really matter. But that's not possible. Because, try as I might, I'm still just human, after all. God, that sucks.

I wish that half of the conversations I have in my head actually happened. They really are wonderful; I promise you they are.

I need to get past all the cryptic messages and innuendos. I need to accept the fact that people find things out and rumours get spread and, yes, sometimes they're about you. I need to come to terms with the fact that life isn't a literary concept: not everyone's a character and not every landscape looks like Trees. I don't think I'm wearing rose-coloured glasses anymore, but my eyes haven't adjusted to the light quite yet. Explains my thing for redheads. Jesus. I don't know. Even when I'm bothered I'm still entertaining, and that's starting to get to me in a way.

There has to be an easier way to give advice. You belong with him and he belongs with me and, yeah, it's going to hurt for a while, but it'll heal someday. Doesn't everything? In some way or another? You just have to wait it out, is all. Suck it up and bite your lip and get along with things. You're blessed in your joys and your sorrows; it all has a purpose in time. Some zen shit like that. There has to be an easier way to say all that. To make confessions and advances and all of that. We are tied down by a language that is so clear cut, it can't define half of the wonderful things in the universe. What does that say about us, the ones who speak it?

Over March Break, I went and caught a flick with Alex Kraft. And on the way home from dropping him off, I drove past Matt's house. And I started to cry because that all seems like it happened so long ago, like the person I was when I was with him is dead now and I'm someone else; some half-assed reincarnation or something. And I dropped a line to Tony, and I told him that I felt like I'd aged six years in the past six months. And he told me he took no responsibility in that. And it made me laugh. And that was enough.

In German, there's this word, gemütlich. There's no English equivalent to it; the best a dictionary can give me is 'homey'. It's like coming home for the first time after you've been away for a year, like seeing your best friend from when you were five years old. It's like a long, warm embrace in the middle of the rain. It's the sense of being right where you belong for the first time in you don't even know how long.

I understood that word for the first time last December. I woke up in my bed, turned over, and saw someone there, saw who was cuddled up with me. And it hit me, what that word really was. I just wish I could tell him that to his face.