i have to admit i've been creeping away from lj quietly so that no one will catch me. i feel like i'm monitoring people, not communicating with them.
are the poems really a physical thing? it strikes me that they aren't, possibly because mainly they exist online and on computers, not in a book somewhere.
as for me, i don't really know. i feel as thought i keep trying to renegotiate my relationship to the entire thing. to be honest, i'm kind of in an odd position. there's never been a point where i saw kristina on anything near a daily basis, for example. when i wrote that letter to seventeen i wondered if i'd be stepping on your toes, and questioned my right to represent anyone at all who knew her, even myself.
you talk about holding on to minor things like a coke can, but in most ways i feel like i hold on to small memories. my interactions with kristina, except for that day i visited in september two years ago, were mostly tiny blips in her day. the proportions are different now that it's me looking back trying to hold on; to her for the most part i was probably just another friend of a friend. it throws me off that the time i really connected with her and got to know her is the last time i saw her. before, she'd been a friend, but not in the same personal way.
also, i don't know if the memorials you're talking about fall into 'occult' so much as 'ritual'. i'm starting to think myth is a powerful way to frame how we look at our lives, even if we don't believe in some ultimate truth to it. it seems like all we do is mythologize the past, so we might as well be aware of it and direct it. i think ritual has a place in commemorating, and in marking changes in your understanding, and represents your questions about the usefulness of communication and who it's for- dialoging with yourself through kristina to understand where you're at. makes sense to me.
I've been gone for so long that I have managed once again to alienate some of the most interesting and powerful people I've every met. (namely, you.) I just read this and if you're out there still and you check these things periodically, then thank you.
It's odd to read these pages again. While they were not written by a different person, they were written by a me I have a destressingly short memory of. I pushed all of this away for a long time, but I don't want to forget the positive aspects of UPS and the benefits of being naive. I still live in Tacoma and I would love to buy you a coffee/tea/beer/poison of your choice and have a long conversation.
Your letter to Seventeen was beautiful. I hated the interview and I hated the article- the way it was such a sniffed out, sell-our-magazine piece of bullshit because a beautiful white girl died for very little reason. I did it because I was hopeful that it would have an impact on someone, that someone would take the noose off of his or her neck, that a friend would act faster or tougher and hold down the would-be victim and violently, physically, force them back to health and happiness. I wanted to take all of the rage and energy of Kristina and make a difference, scratch some eyes and make people see all that is fucked up and ugly so that they could nurture it into something better. But I failed. I fell victim to the pounding in my head, the tempting destractions of a normal, stressful daily university life and I kept it all inside because I wasn't strong enough in the end. I threw myself into school, I learned to not feel, I let myself be carried away with the mundane, with friends and with my boyfriend. The result was that I slept for two years and it's only now that I've dragged my groggy ass out of bed. I'm awake. I'm aware and maybe now I'm a little stronger.
hi dear. i emailed you over xmas break at the jennabug address @ hotmail and i realized you might not still be using this. what's your current email address? ash
I wrote you a novel on the first of January, I don't know if you ever got it. Maybe you'll see this someday. I have to post it separately and in pieces because LJ says it's too long....
are the poems really a physical thing? it strikes me that they aren't, possibly because mainly they exist online and on computers, not in a book somewhere.
as for me, i don't really know. i feel as thought i keep trying to renegotiate my relationship to the entire thing. to be honest, i'm kind of in an odd position. there's never been a point where i saw kristina on anything near a daily basis, for example. when i wrote that letter to seventeen i wondered if i'd be stepping on your toes, and questioned my right to represent anyone at all who knew her, even myself.
you talk about holding on to minor things like a coke can, but in most ways i feel like i hold on to small memories. my interactions with kristina, except for that day i visited in september two years ago, were mostly tiny blips in her day. the proportions are different now that it's me looking back trying to hold on; to her for the most part i was probably just another friend of a friend. it throws me off that the time i really connected with her and got to know her is the last time i saw her. before, she'd been a friend, but not in the same personal way.
also, i don't know if the memorials you're talking about fall into 'occult' so much as 'ritual'. i'm starting to think myth is a powerful way to frame how we look at our lives, even if we don't believe in some ultimate truth to it. it seems like all we do is mythologize the past, so we might as well be aware of it and direct it. i think ritual has a place in commemorating, and in marking changes in your understanding, and represents your questions about the usefulness of communication and who it's for- dialoging with yourself through kristina to understand where you're at. makes sense to me.
miss you.
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It's odd to read these pages again. While they were not written by a different person, they were written by a me I have a destressingly short memory of. I pushed all of this away for a long time, but I don't want to forget the positive aspects of UPS and the benefits of being naive. I still live in Tacoma and I would love to buy you a coffee/tea/beer/poison of your choice and have a long conversation.
Your letter to Seventeen was beautiful. I hated the interview and I hated the article- the way it was such a sniffed out, sell-our-magazine piece of bullshit because a beautiful white girl died for very little reason. I did it because I was hopeful that it would have an impact on someone, that someone would take the noose off of his or her neck, that a friend would act faster or tougher and hold down the would-be victim and violently, physically, force them back to health and happiness. I wanted to take all of the rage and energy of Kristina and make a difference, scratch some eyes and make people see all that is fucked up and ugly so that they could nurture it into something better. But I failed. I fell victim to the pounding in my head, the tempting destractions of a normal, stressful daily university life and I kept it all inside because I wasn't strong enough in the end. I threw myself into school, I learned to not feel, I let myself be carried away with the mundane, with friends and with my boyfriend. The result was that I slept for two years and it's only now that I've dragged my groggy ass out of bed. I'm awake. I'm aware and maybe now I'm a little stronger.
It's nice to meet you.
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I wrote you a novel on the first of January, I don't know if you ever got it. Maybe you'll see this someday. I have to post it separately and in pieces because LJ says it's too long....
Reply
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