Napping for England.

So.

I'm having a hard time trying to nap.
I really need sleep.
like, hella.

But I just can't seem to sleep when there's still sunlight poking through the cloudy skies of San Francisco.
I mean, as I've said, napping is a great challenge for me.
Hopefully I'll be able to get to sleep early, I'm exhausted.

And I'm kind of permanently sick.
I had a pretty terrible cold before Amy and Jess came to visit.
And then I got one after they left.
And then I recovered for about...a day.
And now I have an earth-shattering cough and a runny nose.
gawd. my life is hard.

But I had a pretty good day.
Nate sent me a list today that described why he and I are the best people ever.
It went something like this:

Reasons why Danielle and Nate are the coolest cats ever:
1) 300+ combined IQ
2) John Lennon lovers
3) Third Eye Blind lovers
4) Only two people not to hate on Yoko
5) Eazy Freezy, bitch
6) etc.

and it pretty much made my day.

Creative Writing is the best class I've ever taken in my life, and it's going to be even better now that we're moving into fiction.

I'm glad we're done with poetry. I think I've definitely improved, though. My teacher loved my last one, Living is Wasted on the Dying. And it's always nice to hear good things about your work from someone you really respect.

This last one was kind of weird to write.
it made me feel all creepy and introspective.
and it's kind of melodramatic and personal.
It needs some fine-tuning, that much is certain.
But, here it is:

Our Father

My foot aches like the cork trapped in the violent mouth of a bottle of red wine.
The pain feels familiar, like repressed memories.

Half-crippled already,
I tripped.
I fell.
I ached.
I did not cry.
I plucked myself from the
chewing gum sidewalk and
hobbled home to a house that was not mine.

I think it's broken.
"you're fine"

The first time it happened, he rushed.
An hour's drive in 20 minutes.
The plastic, sweaty, fungus-colored pillow
breaking my arm anew with every
pothole in the deaf and dying desert road.

The next time it happened, he shushed.
He screamed that I was lying.
"it doesn't hurt," he told me.
"you're doing this for attention"
I never quite believed him.

Barricaded in his burgundy bathroom with a locked door.
Handicapped escape to a bone-white pick-up truck cabin.
Then I cried.

"you're coming to McDonald's"
I think it's broken.
"you're fine"

McDonald's, the epicenter of pain.

"Were you in a skiing accident?"
No, I was walking.

Christmas and my eleventh birthday,
my right side paralyzed.
After a while it stopped hurting.
It will never stop hurting.

That hurt attached bricks to my eyelids
as I struggled to document
all of the things I wanted him
to be.
I wrote nothing on the back of an envelope containing the
hate letter,
unaddressed, to him.

Our father can't help me, I'll start with Hail Mary.