2001-04-11 - 9:18 p.m.

PALIMPSEST
n. 1. A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible.
2. An object, a place, or an area that reflects its history.

my friend morriganlfey, by way of melusine, made note of this word in a recent diary entry... and asked that we (those reading) think about it and apply it to our lives... ack! sounds like homework... flashing back to high school! ***insert weird doodoodoodoo scifi noise and swirly vision here***

well, my life has been a series of reinventions. usually in varying shades of shy. probably my biggest reinvention was when we had moved to san francisco... tenth grade. i was a "smack." that was a los angeles word, circa late '80s... meant you were smart like a nerd, but not geeky... not quite cool either. i was in with a rougher crowd in LA... almost banger material... but i was a bookworm too... wierd combination. i looked it too. wore loose pants and button up cholo shirts (only the top few buttons fastened usually)... but i slicked my hair down with gel, parted on the side, and had thick blocky glasses =P

when we moved to SF, i played tough for a while... but there was no tough crowd, not like LA. i was having a tough time readjusting. after moveing a dozen times, i thought we were finally settled in LA... then my mother and stepdad's relationship fell apart, and they divorced... and my mother moved us back north to be with her mom. she needed someone to keep her together... needed family near... that was the worst summer of my life. i wanted to die... and it showed.

lucky for me, that's when my writing really began to take off and develop. dark, despairing, morbid... stuff i probably would've gotten kicked out of school or institutionalized for nowadays thanks to the whole columbine effect on authoritic paranoia...

i kept to myself... so people at my new school in SF only knew me from what i did... get A's and write poems... people found me interesting... came to me to hear my latest piece, or to gain insight on some algebra-or-some-such problem they've been having...

so there i was... depressed... angry... but somehow popular... and with a clean slate.

i hooked up with another nerdy loner who gave me my first taste of metal... and that's when i found metallica... their Fade to Black album changed my life... in those lyrics and gloomy soundscapes, i found an image of everything i felt and feared... i found solace in that, and gained some sort of stability.

therein lies the transformation... my inward awakening took on an outward influence... i grew my hair long, ditched my old clothes for jeans and flannels, and really dug in with my pen and pad... and here i am today. a little more mature, but pretty much the same ;)