Ode to my pancreas

Five years old, no pants, insulin injection, cool shirt 

Remember how last post I said I wanted to share some of my creative writing? Welp!

Here is a poem I wrote for our first writing assignment, "Ode to a Body Part." I decided to write about my pancreas, because I am a type one diabetic and I have a lot of feelings about it. If you're wondering what type one diabetes is, you should really google it. It's different from type two diabetes. It's something I don't always like to talk about, but it has brought some goodness into my life. For example, the camp I go to every summer is exclusively for people with T1D, and it's where I met my boyfriend and two of my very best friends. Here's my poem:

My illness seeps through my skin

The sick inside leaks all the way to my fingertips

A cluster of little brown spots on my ring finger

Each one a kiss from the lancet device

My rotten organ blooms in the bruises on my thighs

Purple and yellow reminders of yesterday’s shots.

A tiny computer sits silent on my arm

The medical tape is peeling, itching

Ripping it off will only make it worse.

I can try to ignore my broken pancreas,

But my body is screaming It’s name.  




Love, Maisie

Sept-Dec

Senior portraits. This was the best one and my mom took it on her dang iPhone!

Dear reader,

What's happened since the last time I posted? So much! I'll try to think of the biggest things:

- I went on a three-day long trip to Bellingham, Washington to stay with my boyfriend all by my little self!

My boyfriend Zach in his dorm drinking milk. He loves milk. I have no idea why. 

Cool artwork at this burger place in Bellingham! 

Hugging some of the campus artwork

- I went to a Kanye West concert with my friend Sarina!

- I joined a creative writing class, and I love it. I can't believe I've found a place where my voice is heard and where I feel safe enough to have people read and critique my writing. I feel so incredibly lucky.
- My 18th bday is on Sunday!
- I got accepted to 3 colleges! Yee haw!


Senior year is wild. So much is changing so quickly. I feel like I have little control over anything any more. I think any day now I might do something like dye my hair blonde and get a tattoo just to feel like I have some power over myself. Wow, that's dark. Anyways!

I'm super excited for my birthday. My best friends Clara and Juli decorated my locker at school for me this morning and on Saturday I'm having a little party. Friday is my school's winter formal! (Photos soon to come).

With Clara in the bath 

Clara's bowling ball/cat, opal

Working girl! 

Us as goth girls for the halloween carnival at school!

Aztec mask. I over-did it, big time. 

Me + Chaz, passport photos 

My boyfriend's drug dealer, Skye.

My beautiful BFF Juli :-) 

In my bedroom with my best friends, Clara, Chaz, and Juli! 

Sorry for the varying photo sizes, it feels like I haven't blogged in 9 billion years! That reminds me, my guidance counselor wanted me to send her a link to this blog. Could you imagine!?!? Well, I think that's all I have to say for now. I have some more blog posts planned; I'd love to share some of my writing and post some formal pictures and I'm planning a ski trip w Chaz!

More to come and much love,

Maisie 🍓🍓🍓
xooxoxo

crucial life update!

dearest friends,

a post like this is long over due! i have so much to tell you...

first, i finally moved! it seemed like something that would never happen. i didn't believe my parents at first when they told me they bought the house. we live 6 minutes away from our old house. that doesn't sound like a lot, but i swear the two neighborhoods are universes apart. i get off at a different train stop. i go to a different grocery story. crazy.

this move has been such a good change. i love having my own bedroom and my own closet. i got a new bed from ikea and hung up my poster from an art history field trip, and it really feels like this space is mine. photos soon to come!

second, i had an amazing summer. i spend 3 weeks up at my summer camp with my best friends. i visited san francisco for a few days and went to sfmoma (can i just live there already?) and saw the stanley kubrick exhibit at the contemporary jewish museum. unbelievably cool.

me and the baby from 2001 space odyssey, one of my all time favorite movies 

and i started my senior year! already it is so much better than the endless emotional and academic torture of junior year. it's weird how now everything i experience makes my slightly nostalgic, even if it's not over yet. i'm trying to get my fill on everything "high school." going to all the spirit activities and school dances, etc... here's my schedule for the fall semester:

period 1: statistics and probability
period 2: economics
period 3: spirituality in literature (my religion class)
period 4: ap literature
period 5: study hall
period 6: spanish IV
period 7: study hall!

less ap classes this year because i don't want to kill my self like i did last year. so happy i chose not to take ap stats! can't believe i was actually thinking about doing that!

oh yeah, i have a boyfriend now! his name is Zach. he was a counselor at camp (we both have type 1 diabetes). he makes me so, so, so happy. seriously.

so that's whats up with me! many more good thing soon to come, i hope!

love,
maisie

Goodbyes~

Me in August                               Me a few weeks ago




Guys, I'm moving. For real this time! We sold the house and bought a new one not too far away. My mom doesn't want anyone to be sad about the move and I would really rather not get emotional about it either. Plus, the more I think about it, my childhood neighborhood has changed an awful lot since we first moved here. I'll still have all the good memories when I leave. There are a few things I'll really miss though, so I'm writing my goodbyes here...

Goodbye lemon tree.
Goodbye milk door.
Goodbye crack on the bedroom ceiling that perfectly divided the room in half.
Goodbye hole in the bedroom floor from when Ethne jumped on the bed and the post went through the cheap wood.
Goodbye hallway cabinet doors that never shut.
Goodbye living room heater.
Goodbye noisy air conditioner.
Goodbye nickel that I glued to the closed door.
Goodbye grey marks on the walls scratched on by the edge of the computer screen.
Goodbye backyard.
Goodbye to bike riding around the culdesac and to the corner store.
Goodbye Marco. I don't know when I'll see you again. You'll always have a place in my heart.
Goodbye Maury's perfectly shaped rock.
Goodbye to walking to ventura or by the LA river or to my ex boyfriend's house or to the farmer's market to buy strawberries or pet the bunnies.
Goodbye best friend's old house.
Goodbye park.
Goodbye doorknob that always stuck.
Goodbye neighbor's tree full of CD's to keep the birds away.
Goodbye neighbor's scary dog that always barked from behind his fence when you walked by.
Goodbye telephone box my dad told me a troll lived in.
Goodbye house with dingy curtains where the supposed Italian restaurant murderer lived.
Goodbye orange ice cream truck that sang "Happy Birthday" in a strange tune when it drove by.
Goodbye neighbors arguing on their terrace in Russian.
Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!


I think the most recent parts of my life have separated so neatly, that in a very very short about of time the girl I was from august to january has become an alien to me. In one clean motion, my whole life was chopped up and thrown back together in a different order. I dress differently and listen to different music, hang out with different people and spend more time on reading and homework. I know how to drive now. And now I live somewhere different too.