Reading #3

I really enjoyed going to listen to Nicole Cooley and Julia Kasdorf. I thought they both had really interesting topics for their poetry. I especially liked the poems about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She told us the story of a restaurant that had to close after the hurricane and someone left a sticky note on it, saying what they loved about the restaurant. After that, more and more people left post-its saying that they hoped it would open again soon and their favorite memories from being there. She then took the quotes on those stickies and put them into a poem. This one was my favorite because I liked the story and meaning behind it. Being there and hearing her tell that made it have a bigger impact than if I had just read it on my own. I also thought they did a good job of picking a range of poems to read. Some were funny, like the post-it one, but others were sad, about the devastation the hurricane caused, and the lives it destroyed. I got to here different aspects of the hurricane and different aspect of the New Orleans culture. I thought their poetry was really fun to listen to, and it definitely made me interested in reading more of their work.

The Death of Jason

It’s been 3 months since the hit, and my progress isn’t what it should be. I’m been going to therapy four times a week for the past three months, and I still get headaches every day. I’ve learned the alphabet again, and can do simple math problems finally, but I’m a senior in high school. Addition and multiplication isn’t going to help my pass calculus. I was allowed to go back to school after a month of being out, except I can’t stay for a whole day without getting a piercing headache. I’m beginning to get frustrated.

Today is a big day in therapy for me. Today is the day I might get cleared to drive and operate heavy machinery again. I can’t even tell you how annoying and even embaressing it has been having my mom drive me everywhere. It’s crazy how much I miss the simple freedom of driving myself to school every morning. Just having that time in the car is what I miss. Today is the day.

I walk into the office, and take my usually seat next to the flat screen and flip it to college basketball. I grab for the ESPN Magazine on the coffee table next to me. After about 10 minutes Lucy, one of the nurses, calls me in. After being here what seems like almost every day for three months, I know everyone really well. Lucy is a single mom, that is putting herself through physical therapy school, in order to one day be a sports therapist. Her daughter’s name is Annie and she is in the fourth grade. I’ve spent many afternoons after school helping Annie color in her coloring book in the waiting room.

“Hey Jason! Come on in!” My therapist, Dan, is sitting in a rolling chair, the my overflowing chart in his hand.

“Hey Dan,” I say, sitting on the giant recliner.

“So, today is a big day for us. Let’s see if you pass my driver tests, shall we?” Dan stood up and started preforming some tests.

I walked out of the office to see my mom waiting in the car outside the door. I got in and looked up at her.

“So? Are you a liscensed driver again?” She asked, I think more excited than me. I held up my liscense that they had just given back along with the passing test results. “Thank God!” my mom screamed.

As soon as I got home I ran to grab my keys to go drive to Kyle’s house, just for the sake of driving somewhere. I had gotten three blocks and was loving it. I had missed this freedom so much. I had turned the radio on, but I hadn’t put it on too loud, to not risk a headache. Suddenly, I turned on a corner and the sun was glaring so brightly in my face, I could barely see. That’s when the piercing pain in my head began suddenly. I was driving down a somewhat busy road, but couldn’t even think, the pain was so extreme. I saw a light ahead. For some reason, I couldn’t tell if it was green or red. The pain was unbearable. I think it’s green/ I sped up to get through the light. Suddenly I was flipping, and the lights were swirling around me. The light had in fact not been green, it had been red, which I failed to see due to the excruciating pain I had been experiencing/ That was my last time ever driving. In fact that was my last time breathing as well.

some habits are hard to break

I wake up to a blender going off in the kitchen. As I open my eyes I see that somehow I made it to the couch last night, although I don’t remember. I slowly sit up and then the headache hits. My incredibly sensitive roommate has opened every curtain in our living room making sure to let in every inch of sunlight possible. The brightness is making me feel just wonderful at this point in time. As I slowly get up off the couch I look at my arms and legs looking for any bruises and cuts I might have obtaining the night before, thankfully I see none. I see my shoes across the room next to the door, and wonder if I even had them on when I stumbled into the apartment last night.

I then grab my phone and go to my recent calls. It was just as I had dreaded. A whopping 12 outgoing calls to my ex. I frantically look at my text messages and see that I had drunkenly typed out 4 misspelled texts along with the calls. Many people complain about how they hate when they drunk dial people. Well, for me, it’s my absolute worst habit that I just cannot possibly seem to break.

I send the usual follow up text the next morning, “Hey! So sorry about last night. I must have sat on my phone and it must have called you like 13 times haha my bad!” Obviously they never believe me, but somehow it just makes me feel better that maybe there’s a chance they do.

“How ya feeling?” my roommate says as she walks towards the door, smoothie in hand. “Just so you know, you really made an idiot out of yourself last night.”

Suddenly, it hits me how embarrassed I should be. For the past couple years every morning after I wake up to see what damage I did on my phone, I laugh it off and think of how that guy probably just thinks I’m funny. But no. They probably think I’m annoying and really desperate. Somehow, my obnoxiously chipper roommate just made it apparent to me how detrimental my drunk dialing can actually be. From here on out I make myself a promise. That promise is from no on delete every ex from my phone before ever going out drinking again.

entry 10

I climb into my Jeep racking my brain with what could have possibly happened. I just left them three hours ago from dinner. What could have gone so wrong in only three hours? I start to think the worst, murder, theft, both, and I realize I must calm myself down. I turn on my ipod to some Jason Maraz and turn my speakers up all the way. I relax and I listening to his soothing voice surrounding my car. He always calms me down. It’s dark out and the road to our secret spot are winding, adding to my anxiety. I cautiously but nervously make my way around sharp turns and up steep inclines. Finally I reach the lookout points over Mirror Lake. Back in high school this is where we would all meet almost every afternoon. We’d go through everything that had happened that day, gossip about how we hated all the fake, superficial girls in high school, and dream about one day when we would all be enrolled in college, hopefully all within the state of New York. As I get out of your car, all I can think about it had you miss those days. I had hated high school, and wished for every minute to go by faster until the long awaited graduation when I could finally leave. Now, after two years outside of the bubble that’s high school, two years in the reality of college, I miss the comforting normalcy and predictability of high school.

Then suddenly I see my two best friends huddled on the picnic table on the edge of the lookout. Dana is covered in a blanket and appears to be soaking wet, with Megan covered in dirt and bleeding from her arm. I run over, bracing myself for the worst.

“What’s happened? Are you guys okay?” I burst out.

“Jamie, we did a really bad thing,” Dana says through tears. I can see now that both of them had been crying from their puffy red eyes.

“What? What is it?”

“We thought it would be a funny joke. Just fucking with people from high school, you know all those stupid fake bitches that made our lives miserable; just playing a little prank on them.” Megan, was trying to hold back her tears at this point. It was then I realized that I had only seen her cry once before, and I’ve known this girl since we were both I dippers. It was the day she got her rejection letter from Syracuse. Dana and I had gotten acceptance letters just a week before her. None of us saw it coming seeing as she got straight As in high school and had about 30 different extracurricular activities stacked up on her application. She was the prime example of a killer college application, so no one expected it when they didn’t want her. She didn’t expected the most of all of us.

“Just tell me what happened. I sure it’s not as bad as you think. Just tell me everything,” I try to comfort my two best friends, but have a feeling this is not going to end well.

my favorite thing

A furry ball of brown hair with a stitched on smile and dark marble eyes
A mixture of dryer sheets and my shampoo
Silent until it tumbles off the bed and the plastic nose clinks on the ground
Never tasted it, but it tastes probably hairy
Coarse, worn fur that has been matted down from overuse

He’s always smiling back at me with the same comforting face
He’s been through a lot from trips through the washing machine and dryer to being used as my pillow
When I was little, I thought him falling was him breaking, that little nose shattering, the fall from the bed being deadly
I’ve always been extra careful to not let him become my puppy’s chew toy, to him, everything tastes good
So many hugs given and tears wiped up, all shown in the stains and each and every tuft of fur

villanelle of spring break

Just one more day

Let’s soak up the sun

Just one day away

let’s lay out on the beach

let’s have some fun

Just one more day

Sip a margarita, our favorite, peach

Drink it all, till it’s done

Just One day away

Wanna surf? He said he’d teach

Forget a workout, who needs to run?

Just one more day

I need some highlights, break out the bleach

Gotta get tan, sunscreen? Nah none

Just one day away

Gather some shells, one of each

A week of sleep and it’ll be done

Just one more day

Just one day away

I chose a villanelle because to me, it was the most laid back and less structured form. With my topic being about relaxing at the beach and about spring break away from stressful schoolwork, I thought it would be the best form. I also liked how it didn’t have a structured meter. This gave me a lot more freedom to do what I felt would make the poem better, and gave me more ability to be lenient with form. I think that again adds to the topic of relaxation and a week of no structure or plans. I thought the rhyme scheme of only 3 rhymes would also add to the form because I thought it would help focus it. Some of the other forms had many other rhyme schemes, but I think the simpler it is, the easier it is to follow and the more the audience can connect to the poem and what it’s saying. The rhymes I chose were really just whatever I thought had the most words that would go with the theme of my poem, but I think the refrain is my favorite part because I think it reiterates the exact stress that my poem is about getting away from.

The Book Thief Panel Reflection

After going to the Panel about The Book Thief and young adult literature I’ve learned a lot about different genres of books and the target audiences they appeal to. The publisher of The Book Thief had a lot of interesting things to say about how the genre of young adult literature is growing. I had always thought of what is now called young adult literature as teen books, but I think this new classification is much clearer. Now there is a difference between a book for a preteen or early teen, and kids in their late teens. I also this this creates a distinction between middle school and high school and the topics of the books in which they should be reading. I think she was very knowledgeable about her field and definitely had a lot of insight about publishing children’s books whether it was a picture book or a young adult book. I was a little confused by the speaker who talked about the presence of the Holocaust in literature. This was in reference to the topic of The Book Thief, and since I have never read the book, I think it confused me and I zoned out a little bit at this point. I also think that his topic was so broad and there is so much to discuss within the holocaust and it’s place in literature that hearing a summarized ten minute speech about it just wasn’t enough for this panel. I thought it was an interesting panel to listen to, but it didn’t necessarily flow together with each speaker.