2005 was the year of half-promises. It was the year of virgin sacrifices, the year where we got what we wanted.



I started out the year half-drunk with Nick on a yacht, somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. We got off the ship and watched men and women line up two by two and walk hand &hand into the ocean, from that moment I knew no matter what happened that year, no one was going to believe me.

This was the year Ilana and I decided to move to fifteen different places for absolutely no reason. We bought plane tickets to Boston and looked at five million colleges, we ultimately became frustrated and left the country. After briefly attempting to save cancer, I spent the summer in England studying British Literature, I was evacuated off trains, I swam in the river where Virginia Woolf drowned herself &I sat in sylvia plath's chair everyday during class. Although most things ended up feeling as if they had been metaphors, they were completely literal. In April I found a boy who could kiss me like he meant it and during the summer everyone's parents died.


When I look at my calendar I feel like you loved me, every time I was on an airplane, every time I was driving over a state line, when I called you crying because I could not stop sleeping with the neighbors. Bobby Bloom was murdered, we tried to investigate and I sent out one last edition of the neighborhood paper, ultimately, like everything else, signs were inconclusive. She left you because she always leaves you, and you left me but you wont realize it.

For a while I would go to Tampa everyday, it felt like nothing, it feels like the trips to St.Pete do now. This year is a good example of my never ending desire to pretend that I do not have a home, to sleep in everyone else's bed like it has been my bed all along. This year I learned how to curl my hair, I made out on top of the crown jewels, I found a boy who I adore so much that I could just throw up on myself (and I did throw up on myself on numerous occasions,) and in 2005, I did like I meant it.

Somewhere in April Danny called me and said something along the lines of "hi do you have a boyfriend?" no, do you have a girlfriend, "No." and we suddenly ended up hanging out when my life became a toll booth party. There are people in your life that you wont see for years and when you do see them there will not be one ounce of awkwardness, it will be like hitting a play button, those are the people you hold onto, why let them go if it just keeps going on? We gave our second attempt at dating after our summer romance which came sometime after junior year. Because I am a fan of the kind of parallel structure that occurs in life and not in sentences, and because he is a good person (with a great jawline) things have ultimately worked out.

Cancer camped left images in my mind and little pieces of broken kids in my heart. I will never forget Shelby Milligan, a six year old who explained to me what it felt like to be blind and what it felt like to have a brain tumor. I will never forget Lhea who could not speak clearly because she had to take so many steroids but who still knew all the words to 1-2 Step and laughed at the way I could barely booty dance even with assistance. I will never forget the girls in our cabin, the way we danced and sang and how I was forced to eat spaghetti without using my hands. For the rest of my life if anyone ever asks me to, I will stick my head in a bowl of pasta.

Ashley Konrad and I became fed up with nothing, got in the car and our passed crossed fourteen states. Ultimately, we were betrayed by Jackson Davis, raped, and left for dead in our nations capitol. You can cut to all the little scenes: zia, "you consider self, whore?", the endless trips to Amscot or simply "It used to be cattle, but now it's just all saddle creek," comments, and you should have known that we should have turned back, but like young girls, or maybe just like Americans, we stuck with it despite all signs of failure, we gritted our teeth to spite God. In Ohio, we were literally chased up a mountain by dogs, we let them take what they would, and that they did.


When fall came our cars flipped over. You will tell me not to make it sound like more than it was, but I dont have to. Bad decisions month was promptly followed by Beautiful October and near fatal car accidents. The script was written for lovers so we played out the parts complete with E.R waiting rooms, Gemini twins &girls you'd sleep with even though we were just trying to live out the lives of our favorite fairy tales. I don't know how I can love any of you after the way you take your words on mattresses, but somehow I still love everyone just the same. It is fake winter and I always think the car is going to flip over no matter how tight anyone is holding me, it doesnt matter if the car is moving or not.

I have been sleeping most of the afternoon, it does not feel like anything is ending or starting, life is just continuing. There is no magical ball that will drop when the clock strikes midnight declaring some sort of clean slate for all of humanity, there wont be bars of Zest falling from the sky to rid you of your sins, and even though I did a great job of being a fake catholic, there will be no body on my tongue watching me waste my time. We threw bottles into the ocean with some hopes and some wishes and some resolutions, and even though you wouldnt believe me if I told you, but everything came true.

Happy New Year.

january






february






march









april












may















june

Driving home tonight the fog was so thick that cars pulled over/ran red lights as if they were doing the same thing with the same effect. When the ball dropped and "auld lang syne" began playing it sort of felt like nothing, I have never been good at this. I used to desperately say good-bye to every year, age six, age seven, age eight. I'd rip up pieces of paper and put the shreds in yellow plastic bowls from my grandmother's cupboard, i'd call it confetti and expect to feel more. Tonight while everyone smiled and looked at each other I felt like I was on a different planet, I looked at the ground and said over and over "good-bye 2005, goodbye," as if I was praying for rain or trying to get a long lost lover to forgive me. Even though definitions of time are something I invest in so much, even though dates and hours are things I obsess over, for some reason it never really hits me when years change on calendars, I am always waiting for something tangible to come through, slap me in the face and say "see, see, I told you so."
I feel like there is so much more I could have said to you about last year, and of course there is. There is always so much to say about everything, I write volumes about nothing until I've exhausted myself. Because I am a ritual, I drove home tonight to be my own bad. One of my supersititions (there are many) is that I must sleep in my own bed on this night, it feels cleaner and less crowded. I am ultimately hopeless without an arm around me, I've worked for my fake independence like nothing else. I can pay my own bills, I can ride my own planes, I can make my own plans, but when it comes time to close my eyes, I can never really get anything done alone, I am awake staring at the ceiling, calmly waiting for the sky to fall as if God had been waiting there with the cue cards, ahem, "I told you so."


I wanted to post the rest of these pictures, the second half of the year was in fact much more eventful than the first (as always) I have never been one for spring really, in Florida I always start going to the beach much to soon (february) and I always feel heartbroken much too early (april) it is all quite a mess, with definitions and reception.

I really didnt make any resolutions this year, I wrote some things down and said a few words, but it's alwyas the same stuff every year. It is hard to fake a change in the middle of a fake winter, really, it is.
june







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september







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december