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. 

Good morning

Wow, has it been a long time since I made a blog post! Truthfully, the reason why is because I was signed into my school email on my computer and I never really felt like logging out. My last post was about summer camp. I can't believe how long ago that feels!

So whats happened since I got home from summer camp?

Junior year has made me hate almost everything. Seriously, there is so little that I enjoy anymore. I know I'm a dramatic girl but I really feel like this is the worst year of my life (so far). I only have like 3 friends, I hate the classes I'm taking, and thinking about college makes me want to burry myself in my backyard.

Anyways, I'm turning 17 on the 18th. I was going to have a party but then only 10 people RSVP'd and I was like "Is it worth it?" and the answer was no. But maybe I'll go bowling with my 3 friends. I think whatever I do for my 17th birthday will have to be better than by 16th because that was the birthday that ALL MY FRIENDS FORGOT :)

:) :) :)

Man, when I opened this blog post I didn't think it would come out so negative! I guess that's just where I'm at. Today I might have an AP art history test and I have an english quiz then tomorrow I have an APUSH test and the day after I have a math test worth 12% of my grade. Then on Thursday I have a group therapy appointment with my mom and my dad. Then Friday is my birthday and formal. Yikes. I wish I could skip this birthday, to be totally honest. They stopped being fun when high school started. Now the days leading up to it are a swinging pendulum of getting hopeful and then reminding myself that I'll probably be disappointed, because its December, and its finals, and its Christmas, and its whatever, and no one cares I'm not 16 anymore.

Okay, if you read this post you probably think I am really miserable. That's just junior year I guess. I'm excited for formal but I'm also nervous because I'm bringing a date (Ari) and it's going to be like two worlds colliding which makes me uncomfortable and I'm not even going to be sitting with my friends because they already filled up their table.

I have to stop writing this post. I keep remembering more stuff. Okay that's it. I'll post some photos of my formal outfit later.

Love, Maisie xxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Summer Sweethearts

I'm home from Camp! It makes me too sad to read or type up my journal entries, so I'm going to stick to posing photos. Shout out to Eden for sending me an email everyday. I loved all of them! Thank you for reading my blog! You're the best and you were here with me in spirit.

The first picture I took at camp. Sorta strange and blurry, but it reminds me of the warm atmosphere of the cabin :-) I think this was in the morning or during rest period. 

Haleigh making fun of our friend Chris. 

One of two snakes! The other one I held around my neck like Britney. Coincidentally, the morning after I had a dream about a hall of snakes. Such a trip. 

My stupid toothbrush! There's actually a really funny story behind this. I usually brush my teeth after every meal, so I discovered that I left my toothbrush down the mountain pretty much imminently. Like a savage, I brushed my teeth with my finger, scratched off plaque with toilet paper, and chewed lots and lots of mint gum for 3 days. There was actually no difference in my breath or tooth appearance, thank god. And I found out that my friend Kent, who I have known for years and is now too old to be a camper, would be on campus for a day because his mom was on med staff. So I asked him to bring me a toothbrush. But then our phones were taken away and he hadn't said yes yet, so I found his mom, Nancy, and asked her if she could ask him for me. Kent is kinda sus and bitchy so I had no idea if he would do it. Luckily, he did. Thanks bitch! 

Our doctors med students who had no idea what the hell they were doing 

THESE PICTURES OF ME AND ALLI ARE SO STRANGE! When she was a kid she used to fill up water balloons and make them soooooo tiny and then give them names and carry them around like babies. Chelsea brought like 100+ water balloons, so of course she had to make 6, give them all names that start with P, and take fake parenting photos with me. 

Lucas!!!!! Always with the sunglasses. 

Oliver, so sad it's his last summer. 

Malcolm and Haleigh 

Grace, Oliver, Erik, and Everett playing cards. Some game I had never heard of

Sevaun and the best tattoo ever. He was telling us about all the tattoos he wants to get. Can't believe he's only a year older than me. 

Sevaun's thumbs! I can't remember what exactly happened but something like he got hurt when he was a kid. 

Sevaun and Lucas 

Mike, the best med student I have ever had. So fun and great to be around. Going to be a great pediatrician some day. 

There were a lot of injuries after a bike ride. This guy let me take a picture of his scrapes and put my finger in his gauge earring hole which was so WEIRD! Malcom's injuries were waaay worse but he wouldn't let me photograph them. 

Mike's veins after playing basket ball. INSANE! 

Halloween! Every year camp has a haunted house and a Halloween dance. Pretty strange to be getting dressed up and feeling spooky in the summer, but it's always fun. LOOK AT MY GROSS SOCK TAN. I was the virgin Mary to Haleigh and Alli's naughty school girls. I found the garland for the halo in the trash can and my head scarf is my dirty bed sheet. I also had a baby Jesus made out of a pillow case and a towel. 

Haleigh and Malcolm again. It was sorta a joke when they started flirting, but then they ended up really liking each other.

Haleigh, Malcolm, and Lucas during first activity period. 

Packing up and getting ready for the last night of camp/Prom. 

PROM!! We took this photo on Haleigh's polaroid. That's her and Malcolm, Alli and Chris, Lucas and I, and Brooke. Prom was incomparable to any night of my life. Firstly, I made prom court! Which I never thought would happen. But my whole cabin and all my friends voted me up there. So I competed with other prom court members for points towards the crown. One of those challenges was using only my mouth to find a peppermint in a bowl of flour! Secondly, I had a date (who I really liked) and so did 2 of my best friends. And while we were slow dancing, Lucas said something to me that thinking back on now makes me tear up. It was so incredibly thoughtful, and it was like, shit, I actually mean something to you. I'm seeing Lucas in a few days and I really can't wait. 

I'm have some disposable photos to get developed and post soon. This week made my summer beautiful. I feel euphoric when I look at these photos. I already can't wait for next year. 

Love, 

Maisie 

xoxooxoxoxooxooxoxoxoooooxxxooxooxox