So you could write an art house film and I could make my debut
Right now my feet are asleep as usual and I can hear my sister listening to Fortunes Fall in her room and today I got a postcard from Taiwan and how is it that I talk to people I've never met more than I do the people that I see at school nearly every day? I have this internal monologue that's constantly saying do-your-work-stop-messing-around-skins-is-so-great-wait-do-your-work and I have to read All the Pretty Horses and finish all my apps, like, yesterday but right now I want to finger paint all over the walls and run through the rain and never comb my hair again and move to Africa to teach English next year instead of going to college and I don't know what my mom was doing in 1977 but there must've been something wrong with her if she wasn't a Shaun Cassidy fan.I'm really cold which I suppose is also usual and I'm writing run-on sentences which is usual as well but grammatically not a problem for me since that's how I think anyhow. I've got this metaphor running through my head about wasted plans and battling dragons and it doesn't make any sense but I guess what it's telling me is that I ought to be writing, want to be writing instead of writing my app essays and reading Cormac McCarthy and why aren't I sleeping when I could be should be should be?
Maybe you had her, maybe you lost her to another
There's a guy at school who looks exactly like Sid, beanie and squarish nerdy glasses and ironic t-shirts, only he's a redhead. But he's still Sid to me and every time I see him I can't help but wonder what he's thinking, and I can't help but romanticize it and think that he's thinking wonderful thoughts. I have this habit of rooting for the underdogs and the quiet ones, always, because they're the ones that you can't ever read, the ones that are probably thinking the most amazing things that the rest of us could never even understand. A part of me wishes I knew Redheaded Sid, so I could find out what's inside his head, but then there's a part of me that likes that I'll probably never know him, because he might cuss a lot at inappropriate times or he might hate the Beatles or he might smoke, or whatever. He might be someone not at all like who I imagine him to be.Tomorrow is Wednesday, which is halfway through the first week of break. I'm not sure of the date exactly, or how many days there are until Christmas, because I don't keep track of that and don't really care. It's still raining and all the days look the same and I actually sort of miss the sun, but I want it to stay like this forever.
And boys soldier on
Sometimes words play themselves over and over in my head in these rhythms that I've never heard before but seem so familiar, and I can't get them out and I can't write them down because I'm not sure what they are but still I have this compulsion to write now right now and do nothing else until I've done that. I've got dozens of blank journals and a nearly infinite supply of hard drive space but I don't have a story to tell and I think that's the biggest problem.The rain hasn't let up in days and right now I've got the hiccups and this evening I took a nap on the couch while my dad was watching the news, which is really just the weather report, rain rain rain, over and over again. I've got no plans for the rest of the week so I can get everything done that I need to get done but instead all that time to do with what I wish making me feel energized I just feel sluggish. I want to sleep, sleep, sleep, and somehow it's nearly 11 at night and I'm not sleeping and now I have this sudden longing in my stomach for "The OC."
No expression no expression
It's nearly eleven and I'm wearing my mom's old law school sweatshirt and a pair of pink pj pants and I'm cold as usual, but tomorrow I'm going to sleep in. This afternoon my sister had a camp reunion in LA so my mom and I spent four hours at this mall that has a zillion escalators, and I bought a sweater and a thermal and a jacket and every time I look at clother now I'm either thinking of being warm or of winter formal.It's been raining all day today, and that's really the only sign of winter so far as I can tell. I drank a hot chocolate tonight even though I wasn't very cold because it seemed wrong to order a cold drink at Starbucks as the cold rain poured down outside. My mom did anyway though. While she was ordering, I looked up at the wall, where there was a mural of Eliot and Twain and Dickinson sitting in a cafe drinking tea and writing novels and, as I imagine, discussing all the wonders of the world. I think it's so peculiar what parts of my day I remember and what parts I forget. Sometimes nothing seems momentous and sometimes everything does, and it really all only lasts a minute.
There's a voice in the back of my head telling me I wrote nearly that same sentence yesterday, but it doesn't matter because it's that same voice that won't let these thoughts go.
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
Today I had the words "trace us back trace us back" stuck in my head, which is a lyric from "Hysteric" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but of course when I couldn't get it out of my head I didn't know that, so I wrote it on the fingers of my left hand and traced all the veins on my palm in pen. I sat doing nothing in most of my classes today and I was out of paper and so I traced the veins on my palm in black pen and then in red pen. I'm now listening to Florence + the Machine, and I think the lyrics are pure poetry, and I made nearly 200 cookies tonight and so all the scribbles on my hand have washed away. At some point today, maybe in Euro while I was doing nothing or in photo while I was doing nothing or maybe in econ, I considered getting a tattoo, having my favorite words, lyrics with me all the time, a part of me.But of course my favorite words change all the time and so I couldn't commit myself to something so permanent. I can't commit myself to anything, really. Tomorrow is Friday and it's the last day before break, which I'm so excited for, because I miss not waking up at 6 AM and not sitting in econ surrounded by idiots for an hour a day and not being behind on "The Vampire Diaries." I'm going to San Francisco in a two weeks to go to a special exhibit of Impressionist paintings, and I'm going to buy a winter formal dress, and I'm going to finish my college apps and sleep a lot and watch "Skins" and write and enjoy the weather and pretend that the two weeks aren't going to end.
I wish I was better at living in the moment.
You and I will fly out of this town
I don't know what to say right now or even what to think, and I think I'm in way over my head and I'm beyond my depths and I'm trying to make a new cd for my car but nothing sounds right to me right now. If things were the way I want them to be, or think I want them to be, I'd text you and tell you about how I've never liked "The Goofy Movie" and how I think I'm going to end up like Holden and that when I’m sitting at my desk in class I know you're behind me and to the right a bit even though I can't see you.I'm feeling restless again, which is typical for me, I guess, and I want to change, change everything and dye my hair and run away to somewhere beautiful, but of course I can't, because that's not who I am or who I've ever been. It all comes down to me being real and not fictional and not a dynamic character and not someone who people notice because I'm just too damn scared to speak up. To you I'm nothing and I don't expect anything more than that because I'm not the type to make things happen for myself.
I've been listening to the same two songs on repeat for the last two days, and there's no rhyme or reason to it so far as I can tell, and I wish we could just be without any rhyme or reason. There's no rhyme or reason to anything in my head anymore, but for some reason I don't think you'd care. Tomorrow I'll see you again and I probably won't speak to you but that's okay, because a part of me still believes in the idea that everything will work out for the best someday.
I know it's been such a long time
This is a passage from my "novel" and the grammar is horrible but that's the way I like it. I've got a lot on my mind right now and I can't get it straight and I don't want it where it can be found by anyone besides myself, so here's this and maybe in 24 hours things will make more sense to me.
I bury myself in your shoulder, losing myself in my tears. It’s Sunday, lazy Sunday, and we’re sitting on the grass and the wind is blowing my hair and you’re pulling back my hair playing with my hair and you want to fix it all and you say that everything is going to be okay you know it’s going to be okay and I love you I know that I love you but I’m scared because what if you can’t what if I break what if it breaks and it all falls apart and what if it’s so broken so broken that it’s gone it’s hopeless and you can’t fix it? All that’s still all that’s for sure is right now right here, you and me and the wind and the trees and my heart and yours and I love you. And even in the uncertain future where it could break it could all fall apart I love you.
Is there something wrong and you can't put your finger on it
Again I'm sitting here listening to my James Blunt pandora station, and I'm dissecting my brain, but not literally of course, or I guess rather I'm dissecting my psyche, or basically I'm trying to figure out why I am the way I am, but I guess it takes a lifetime or longer to figure that out. I'm shy and silent and thoughtful and ridiculous and obsessive-compulsive and self-conscious (and I'm pretty sure everyone hates me because I'm pretty sure people only say certain things because they feel like they have to) and awkward and I can't believe I'm actually taken the time to do this right now when I have a journal on my nightstand titled "my thoughts" which is basically the same as this since no one reads this anyway, except for this is prettier and lets me post pictures and I type much fast than I write. But the problem, really, is that I can't do either of those things as fast as I can think.Last night at about 10 o'clock my sister and I sat on her bed and looked up at her Beatles poster and told John Lennon how amazing he is, and I guess what I'm realizing is that some things are just too big for me to fully understand, and those are the things that I want to fill my life with. God, I'm pretentious.
Ooh baby baby it's a wild world
I've finished the first season of "Skins" and I'm heartbroken and I know that there's got to be something wrong with me since I care more about fictional characters than I do the people I know in real life, and now I'm sitting here and putting off starting the second season and I'm trying to define "loneliness" and I wonder if I make myself feel this way and that way or if it's just the way that things are. I'm in one of those moods where I just want to drink hot chocolate and wear a giant sweater and lounge around in the Gryffindor common room even though I'm a Ravenclaw, and I want to watch sad movies and write my stupid novel with its stupid fictional dreams, but then I guess all dreams are fictional, aren't they?I'm tired of school and pointless work and all the minutes every day that I spend waiting for someone to do something, for the teacher to start class or for the bell to ring or for someone to show up or for the hands on the clock to reach 9:30 so I can feel like it isn't too early to go to bed. I put on my new shoes tonight and they hurt my feet right away. They're so cute, but I feel like not forcing myself to wear them just because they're cute is something that fits in with my life philosophy, or at least the philosophy that I've been trying to make my life philosophy, which is basically "fuck it", and so if the shoes hurt and make my toes cramp up then I'm not going to wear them.
I just don't want to disappoint anyone.
There's no light that's left to shine
Tumblr is broken and it's left me frustrated and bored, and I've been watching "Skins", and I'm five or six episodes in, I think I've lost count, and Sid/Cassie break my heart. I think it's that he's so oblivious and she's so lovely but she's out of it as well, in a Luna sort of way, and she says "wow" all the time and he always wears that stupid hat, and I know in the end they're going to end up together because they have to and it's tv and plus I read the wikipedia article, but for now I feel like a teenage girl and I want to bury myself in this and the movies I got for Chanukah tonight and all these fictional characters, because a lot of the time it seems like they're more reliable than the non-fictional ones, especially now, as this month is long and the weather's strange and there are things that I don't want to be doing but I know I ought to do, and my thoughts keep on tumbling out of my head in these run-on sentences that end up in English essays and result in less-than-perfect scores.I'm tired, I suppose, that's all it is really, and I want it to be winter break already, and I wish I knew what to say to you when you tell me something about that boy you like, etc. etc., and I wish that what I say could at least once at some point actually be right.
Remember that your eyes can be your enemy
Day 12 — The person you hate most/caused you a lot of painThe worst parts of my days are those times when we're engaged in the same conversation with several other people, and are both speaking on the same topic but not looking at each other or speaking directly to each other or acknowledging each others' presences. The farther removed I get from you, the more I seem to hear about you, and the more I wonder how I put up you and your baggage for so long. And that's what caused me the most pain - the decision to stop putting up with it, having to watch as our whole tower of Jenga blocks collapsed because of the one piece I pulled out, wondering if I did the wrong thing. Still wondering if I did the wrong thing.
I think I hurt you too, and for that I'm sorry. But I'm not sorry for all the rest of this mess, because you've revealed to me more than anything else I've ever experienced, how unbelievably flawed everyone is despite their insistence that they are perfect. We all have these defense mechanisms that we pull out and hide behind when things get bad. Mine is silence, and yours is counter-attact, violent and angry and irrational and one-sided. Even with my shield of silence in place, I've never felt so defenseless in my life.
But in the end what you did was show me who I am more clearly than I've ever seen before. It doesn't seem like you did the same, though, and that's what I'm most sorry for.
You stare politely right on through some sort of window to your right
Words don't always come easy to me, which is strange, I suppose, given that I love words more than nearly anything else. But lately I don't want to speak, because lately I feel like everything I say is taken the wrong way, misinterpreted, or twisted by the listener to mean what he wants it to mean. I guess what baffles me is that so many people speak without meaning anything at all - and when I say something, what I say is what I mean. Wouldn't things be so much simpler if we all just said what we mean?
It's been like a permanent December
I have been writing unsigned love letters, long soliloquies of the way I wish things were, for years, filling notebooks and word docs and the occasional margin of my math notes, but what it all comes down to is that everything is unsigned, I'm always unsigned, and I disguise myself and my letters and I assume new identity after new identity, but in the end the commonality is that I am not the kind of person whom things happen for naturally, and I am not the kind of person who is tenacious enough to go after what she wants.So I've been writing this letter to you in my head for a few days, and basically, I like you, there we have it, but you can't ever know, because of who you are and who I wish I wasn't and because of how I knew your name even before I saw your face. I think you're cute and I like your smile, and meanwhile I write blog posts and add another hundred words to my "novel" that I'll never let anyone read again. You barely even know I exist, and that sounds cliche because it is cliche, because I'm a cliched teenage girl with a crush on a boy in a cliche high school, and as much as I can't wait to escape and build a new world for myself next year, I don't have any hopes that things will change for me now, because in the end I'm still me and you're still you, and things are just the way that things are.
Now it's getting late and I'm so damn cold, and I can't help but know that in the end this will fade like most things do, and I will graduate from high school and look around me at these people that I've spent the last four years with, and I'll pray that they've had a better last four years than I have but that I'll have a better future.
Forget what we're told before we get too old
I just wrote an entire post and then decided not to post it because I guess what it all comes down too is that it's cold out and there's static in the air and I can't deal with being teased, because I don't like being misconceived. I am firm in my thoughts and in my opinions and I don't like when someone starts questioning what I know that I believe and what I know makes me happy just because it doesn't make them happy too. I hate that I am still awake even though I should've gone to bed already, and I hate that I let what other people think get to me even though I try, try, try not to let it.I was in a decent mood two hours ago and now I'm just annoyed, and really damn cold, and those make for horrible conditions under which to blog, because moods pass but no one understands that, and things change and the weather changes every other minute but no one ever gets used to it. This week is feeling really long, and this whole next month is feeling really long and it hasn't even started yet. Maybe I'll edit my open letter and post it tomorrow, and maybe I'll change my url again and not tell anyone this time, because I'm tired of being judged and shoved into a labeled filing drawer in someone else's head.
Remember that time we jumped the fence when the Stones were playing
I haven't blogged in a few days, which is either a reflection of my improving mental state, or a reflection of the hours I've spent watching an entire season of "Veronica Mars" over the last three days. Thanksgiving was fine, I suppose, but I'm not a big holiday person or a big food person so really Thanksgiving is just an excuse for everyone to interrogate me about my college plans and whether or not I have a boyfriend. Yesterday, my mom and Gilly and I went to a musical production of "The Secret Garden", which has always been one of my favorite stories, and then we went to the mall and dinner and to the bookstore, where I bought some books that I'm really excited to read, but I'm also really excited to continue watching "Misfits" and I'm excited for the way I'm going to feel when I (if I ever) finish my college apps, so I have to prioritize all of that.Now I'm sitting here listening to Ke$ha (who I think is a genius and is underrated) and browsing tumblr, like I always am, and I've been thinking a lot about how we perceive other people and whether it's bad to have built someone up in your head to be this amazing person, all the while knowing that you'll never have any kind of relationship with him because you're you and he's him and that's just the way things are. But I guess what I'm wondering is if the way to avoid that, because I think everyone does that, is to avoid people completely, avoid social connections, build walls that no one can break down because it's safer knowing that no one will ever hurt you than to risk that someone will.
And I've been thinking about not knowing someone and never really being able to know someone because a lot of what we make ourselves out to be is just shells of our inner selves or what we want people to see or think they want to see. I'm a pessimist, I suppose, in that sense, which might be why I like television characters, because they're either stereotypes or so complicated and damaged that they don't even understand themselves. But in the end, though, they're not real. They're never real.
Making new resolutions a hundred times
As much as I love my extended relatives, I don't really like all of them, and I don't want tomorrow to happen because I don't want to have to keep talking about college and where I'm applying and why I'm not applying to Yale and Hah-vahd and and I don't want to hear talk about Korea and Obama and I don't want someone to spill wine on me again. I hate being the oldest grandchild, the one who has to chase around the little kids (the youngest is four, he can watch over himself now, can't he?) and who has to have her bat mitzvah first and apply to college first and set the best example for the rest of the kids. The only thing I like about Thanksgiving is sweet potatoes, and the only thing I like about Chanukah is latkes.But it's nearly December and it's nearly Chanukah and winter break and San Francisco, and then it will be 2011, which means my birthday and graduation, or graduation and my birthday, as the order doesn't really matter since they're the same day, and then hopefully the NKOTBSB concert and the Taylor Swift concert and then I'm leaving for college, wherever that may be. I like thinking in segments like that, breaking the year up into parts. It makes things seem like they're going faster than they actually are, makes it seem like I don't still have JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMay before I get to graduation and my birthday.
Quietly we assume
I'm listening to Skye Sweetnam right now, and I still know all the words to all her songs, and I think I may need to find her cd (I'm pretty sure I have the physical cd; hello 2004) and put it in my car. One of my favorite things about driving to school every day is listening to whatever I want and singing along, which I do even though it bugs my sister, because it's my car and I'm driving and I feel it's my right. I don't like parking, or other teenage drivers. or clueless parents in the wrong parking lot after school, but I like having my car keys in my bag and knowing that because they're there, I don't have to rely on my mom for a ride home.It's nearly Chanukah, and despite my general distaste for any and all holidays, I actually like Chanukah, which I think is just because I like latkes and I like the way wrapped presents look before they're opened and I like that's it's weather-appropriate to wear boots every day, even though right now I'm liking my high-tops more and more. It's not winter break yet but I'm already dreaming about it - there's an exhibition of paintings from the Musée d'Orsay in San Francisco, and I want to go, because the exhibition includes some of my favorite Van Goghs, and I guess I've decided he's my favorite, even though he's everyone's favorite, because I really do love him. And the MOMA has a whole thing of Paul Klee prints, and Matisse and Braque, and I just really love modern art.
The more art I see, the more I want to learn about it. I want to move into an artist's colony and write about artists and their paintbrushes and their thoughts and what color socks they wear, and I want to write a book and take photographs and travel around the world and do something different. But I can't help but think that isn't that what everyone wants - to do something different? And if we all want that, then how can any of us actually do it?
The way you move is like a full-on rainstorm and I'm a house of cards
I'm reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer right now, and I'm only sixteen pages in, which is really slow going for me as I've been reading it for three nights already, but I've been going to bed late and only reading a few pages before falling asleep, which is really unusual. But anyhow, the narrator reminds me of myself in that his mind goes so fast that he can barely get out one thought before he's onto another - which reminds me of being in France with G and eating or not eating bloody steak and eating paninis in the rain - which reminds me of this morning in the rain, and right now, because right now I'm freezing and my hands are shaking a bit and it's making it a little difficult to type but I don't want to go to bed right now so I'm typing anyway even though I'm not saying anything at all and I'm really cold.
It's not about your makeup or how you try to shape up to these tiresome paper dreams
I am, as usual, freezing right now, but I had a good night and I'm wearing mascara and I have plans for tomorrow even though it's going to rain and I'm nearly finished with my UC apps, and next week is a two-day week, and so I'm hoping that those two days are good and that everything is going to be good. I'm trying for that, I guess, for good days, because tonight was fun, and I was around people that I actually like and we didn't talk about college for more than a minute and I miss sleepovers sophomore year and watching "10 Things I Hate About You" once a month and game nights and video chatting and all of that.So tonight was good and I wore my giant cardigan sweater but I really, really want to buy a winter formal dress.
You and I walk a fragile line
Today I am bitter and sad and freezing, but that is today and I hope it won't be tomorrow and please don't read this and question my mental health because while I might be legitimately insane, I am not suicidal. But I guess if you're reading this or read that or not or whatever, thanks for stopping by and maybe caring, if you do.I had a horrible day, starting with my car dying and ending with a huge fight between my parents over my car and my irresponsibility, etc., and I finally nearly finished my UC essays, and then S showed up and gave me this three-fingered "hey" and it felt so condescending and fake and I felt like an idiot, and then I came home to all this yelling and my sister in her adorable outfit dashing off to the school play, and then I ate dinner in my room by myself so I wouldn't have to listen to the yelling or be yelled at. Mrs. K was absent today, and whenever she's not there my favorite class, where people are actually genuinely nice and thoughtful and interesting, becomes a little less enjoyable, and Christmas is coming, as evidenced by the Christmas music Mr. H played during our quiz today, and Christmas always puts me in a bad mood, which I guess makes me a bad American or something, but I don't really care.
I'm not seeing Harry Potter right now, and that's just adding to my bad mood but I'm trying not to let my mom know that, because it's really not her fault that I'm not there right now. I could've made it work, I know I could've, but I didn't, and I'm becoming this hermit, but I don't care, not really, because in the future it won't really matter. That's all I'm thinking about now, the future, next week next month next year ten years from now. Tomorrow I'm going to dinner at B's and then the school play with B and E and J, and Saturday I'm seeing Harry Potter with E and I'm going to ball my eyes out, although I guess I've done that enough today, and last Wednesday in the bathroom during second period, so maybe I won't.
Things are changing, but I guess they're always changing, and A's boyfriend is ridiculously perfect for her, and this weekend they're going to share their poetry with each other, and I'm so happy for her because she needs this, but I guess it's just highlighting how high school was not at all what I'd expected it to be, or I guess it hasn't been what I've been led to believe it would be. The other day J said that every day last year was a bad day, and I hate that I feel like that's still true now. I miss having something to hope for.
I'm freezing all the time now, and I'm not sure if it's because of the growing hallow feeling inside my stomach or because I have some kind of blood-iron-I-suck-at-science-deficiency, or because it's actually cold everywhere, but I'm getting tired of it, and it's making me want to move somewhere cold and wear giant sweaters all the time, even though that doesn't make any sense at all. I've been thinking a bit about honesty, and about where I'm the most honest, and I guess the problem with me and with everyone is that I have an easier time being honest with people I don't know very well than I do with myself or with those I'm close to. I guess maybe the friendships in my life, with the exception of M and M, weren't built on earned trust, and the friendships that I'm making now are, or at least I want them to be.
But maybe it's bad that I've reached this point of honesty (quote-unquote) in my blog posts where I feel the need to start off with a disclaimer so that anyone who reads them doesn't think I'm going to kill myself. I'm over-dramatic, that I know, because that I've always been, and I over-explain things and over-analyze things, and maybe these are so obvious in my blog posts because they're things that I normally do inside the safety of my own mind and now they're just exploding all over my keyboard. Typing keeps my hands warm, or maybe it makes my fingers so cold that they go numb and I can't feel them anymore and I'm tricked into thinking that they're warm.
But it's all really just tricks of the mind, isn't it? Honesty is meaningless, or else that's just this bad mood and this pit in my stomach telling me that, telling me that it doesn't matter if my hair looks cute tomorrow or if I do well on my English quiz or if any of my friends really care about me anyway. It's all bad moods and dead car batteries and all the notebooks under my nightstand, and it's all the dead pens piled up on my desk, and it's black gloves and I really need a haircut.
You pore your heart out but you never do see you never do see me
Thing One: When chocolate starts to taste like pennies, which is the same taste you get in your mouth before you throw up, only you know you're not going to throw up, it's just that somehow your chocolate is tasting like pennies.Thing Two: Being asked by your econ teacher to take the attendance up to the office on the way to the computer lab; arriving at the computer lab to discover that the class can't get in because the door is locked; talking about colleges with people you don't really know because it seems that college is the only thing that anyone can talk about right now.
Thing Three: Realizing you need a notebook for English class and then realizing that you have $20 in your wallet and a drivers license and a car with amazing mileage and a gas tank that seems to never need to be filled; going to Target to buy a notebook and using the 10-items-or-less checkout and then feeling awkward when you're handed your change.
Thing Four: Being force-fed compliments that you don't want to hear; accepting that you're not going to get to see Deathly Hallows at midnight like you've been dreaming since you were eleven years old and your Hogwarts letter didn't come in the mail; still dreaming about winter formal dresses despite knowing that you won't be going; knowing that your friend will be going because she somehow suddenly has a boyfriend that you're not sure if you're supposed to talk about so you haven't mentioned it to anyone yet.
Thing Five: Benedict Cumberbatch. Martin Freeman. Benedict Cumberbatch. Martin Freeman.
Thing Six: The night before a math test that you think you're ready for, but you always think you're ready and you never do well; everyone in the world who isn't your mom and doesn't understand that you just can't do math; your bitchy first period teacher who thinks football games at her alma mater are more important than coming to school; feeling like there's nowhere worse to be than second period when a certain someone just won't shut up about something that no one else cares about; the semicolon.
Thing Seven: The collection of broken pencils and dead pens on your desk that seems to just keep growing bigger and bigger and bigger; the bottle of hand sanitizer you've had since the swine flu outbreak a zillion years ago that smells even worse now than it did then; wondering if it bugs anyone that you blog like this and then deciding that it doesn't matter anyway.
Thing Eight: Listening to Michelle Branch; thinking about how the music you loved when you were ten years old is even better now, and much more relevant to your life; that deep-seeded secret love you have for country music and the stories it tells that you'll never tell anyone about; wondering why celebrity hair always looks so much better than non-celebrity hair.
Thing Nine: Constantly wondering who the woman on the cover of the AP European History textbook is rather than actually doing the chapter 21 packet because it's nineteen pages long and it scares you and you hate the way your writing looks until after you've filled up a whole page.
Thing Ten: Tabula Rasa when it comes to thinking of a Thing Ten; John Locke and his funny hair; everyone and their funny hair; your frizzy hair; thoughts of school; thoughts of graduation; thoughts of anything but now, tomorrow, next week.
All around the ripples rock the boat
I just used this new straightening thing on my hair and it smelled rather strange and I think it might've changed the color of my hair, which is fine I guess since it looked just as funny before, and now that I'm looking at it, I've realized that I don't really like wearing my hair straight very much anyway because it looks weird. This thing is supposed to last seven shampoos, if I blow dry it every time I wash it, and I think I can push that to a week and a half at least, which means I can get ready a lot faster in the morning, which I suppose is good.My mom just pulled an ee cummings book out of the attic for me, and it has this inscription on the inside. It's so bizarre to think of someone buying my dad a poetry book, and it's bizarre to think that my parents had people in their lives that would buy them poetry books. I guess it's just bizarre to think that they have pasts, that they were seventeen once.
I guess the good thing about being seventeen, about being any age really, is that you're only that age once.
I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind
I'm currently listening to Bon Iver because I feel like winter and like sadness and like the ending of "Remember Me" just broke my heart. Even when I know something's coming it hits me just as hard as if it were unexpected. And I'm feeling really alone right now, not exactly lonely but alone, I guess because it's late(ish) and my eyes are dry from crying and I reached 20,000 words last night, and I think I wrote an ending that I don't want to reach yet.Tomorrow is Sunday, which means that the day after tomorrow is Monday, and Monday is always horrible - actually all the days where I have to go to school are horrible, but I guess things are never going to get better if I don't try to change them. I've been saying that for months, I suppose, but I guess I have to change who I am, not necessarily who I want to be, but who I am at the current moment, at all the current moments, and that, I guess, is a process that I'm hesitant to start because it looks like it's going to be never-ending. E said that I've chosen to be the way that I am, and by that I mean shy and withdrawn and cowering in the corner, and I guess I have, and I guess it's because I've decided that's the safest way to be.
Tomorrow'll say if you're lost and found
Tonight I wasted two hours of my life watching "Iron Man 2" with my parents when what I really wanted to be watching was "Remember Me", which I know has Robert Pattinson in it, but I want to see it anyway because I think he's either really underrated or really overrated, and I think he's just been handed crap parts, and I want to judge him for myself. But my dad decided to come to Blockbuster with me because he was afraid I'd get lost driving through my neighborhood in the dark (which I suppose is a valid argument) and so we ended up with "Iron Man 2" in addition to my RPattz film, which I will hopefully be able to watch tomorrow night.But anyhow, now I'm listening to Phoenix and repeatedly refreshing tumblr, and it's just like every other night, because I rarely go anywhere and I rarely do anything, but I guess that's my choice. I've been thinking today about how one of my friendships is changing a lot lately - or I guess all of them are but I was thinking about this one in particular - because of who I've decided I want to be, and how that doesn't fit in with who she wants to be. I'm happy with who I am, I think, and I'm happy with how I uphold my morals, but I still can't help but feel like I'm missing out, not just on all that typical cliche teenage stuff, but on having a best friend.
So I guess what I feel like I don't have in my life right now, other than an A in math class, is someone to tell my thoughts to - and my someone I mean someone who isn't my blog or one of my notebooks and by thoughts I mean that I think I've got another pointless crush and I really want to watch "Remember Me."
Tell each other fairy tales
I filmed with my group today for about 7 hours, which was too long, and it was exhausting and annoying and someone spilled grape juice but no one lit anything on fire, and we only have to re-film one of our clips tomorrow (plus the stuff we haven't filmed yet), so I guess overall it went well. But I don't like group projects, and I don't like when people come into my room and start looking at my Harry Potter posters and comment on how many books I have (yes, I'm a nerd, can we move on now, please?).I am having trouble with my UC essays, and I think it's because I want to be writing, and I don't want to be writing them. My mind is elsewhere lately, and I want to watch "A Cinderella Story" and pretend that things like that are real, and I want to reread all my favorite novels, and I want to drive around with no destination in mind. And my hair color is really bothering me, a lot.
So I guess I'm struggling right now with being happy with who I am, being nerdy and tv-obsessed and a sometimes writer and whatever else, because despite how much I don't want to, sometimes all I want is to be like everyone else. And I hate that. I hate that I've been conditioned to think like that, and that it's so hard for me to think otherwise.
And I walk home as the sun goes down
Tonight I went to open-mic night at school, which was fun, I guess, and I'm glad I went because I've been meaning to go to one for a while. Then I drove home in the dark, which is really scary, and now I'm watching Taylor Swift's AMA (or maybe CMA, I really don't know) performance out of the corner of my eye and dreading filming tomorrow and worrying about college apps, just like always. College apps are like this giant rain cloud that's looming closer and closer and soon it's going to erupt right over my head.I am absolutely freezing right now. I've been cold all day, as a matter of fact. I'm not sure if it's because I wasn't wearing enough layers, or because of just how this morning went - I almost feel like I'm descending into this kind of numb state of... numbness? Second period was horrid today. It's been a long time since I've felt that urgent need to just be somewhere else. All I wanted was to not be there, not be listening to her talk about how great she is and how everyone else is horrible to her. What she was saying had absolutely nothing to do with me - but it's so hard for me to take it as she tears other people down to build herself up, because it's exactly what she did to me.
Next year I want to get far, far away from her and all the other people who can't be bothered. That is what college means to me - real human beings, real people, real friends.
I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much
Right now I'm feeling more like a ballerina than I ever have in my life, with the exception of when I was little kid and actually did ballet, as I'm sitting on one of my legs and the other is up on my desk and I'm typing this as I'm sitting like that and it's only a little bit uncomfortable. I'm listening to Landon Pigg, which I haven't done in a while, but it's not as calming as I'd hoped it would be, and neither was the new episode of "Hannah Montana" in which Hannah revealed her secret and got Jesse back.I think I'm going to load a roll of film into my mom's old camera and then teach myself how to use it, as it's a bit different from my dad's in that it doesn't have a rainbow strap (oh, Dad) and has more dials and levers and what-nots. Maybe that's what I'll do tonight instead of watching "Glee", which I, despite my love of Darren Criss, feel like boycotting just because everyone else can't stop talking about it. Plus lately the show has just been making me uncomfortable with its bad writing and awkward sexual tension between the teacher and his students. I'll just watch Darren's musical numbers online later so that I won't feel totally irrelevant.
I hate that that's how I feel when I don't know what everyone else is talking about. I don't give a damn about Lil Wayne or whoever getting out of jail, and for some ridiculously inexplicable reason, I feel stupid when everyone's talking about him and I can't partake in the conversation. But I never partake in conversations anyway. So what, really, am I feeling stupid about?
So this is your maverick, this is Vienna
Day one of three, over and done with. Nearly. I sort of didn't study for my French test, which I'm sure I will feel bad about in the morning, and I still need to shower and get this gross wind out of my hair, but I successfully parked my car in two different parking spaces today, and in front of my house along the curb twice as well, and for some reason that is a much bigger accomplishment for me than having my common app essay done. Oh, also, I finished my common app essay today.I packed up all my flashcards from the last two years into this big plastic tub, and now the plastic tub is just sitting on my floor staring up at me, telling me that I'm wasting it and that it could be used much more efficiently if it were to hold, say, my cameras or my collection of fortune cookie fortunes, but I have this total inability to throw anything away until I know that I'm totally done with it, and for some reason I still think my AP World and APUSH flashcards are going to be useful to me someday in the future. This is why there is the amount of crap in my room that there is.
I am so looking forward to Thanksgiving. By Thanksgiving, my UC app will be done and turned in, and all that I'll have left will be my common app supplemental essays. Actually, January. I'm looking forward to January. Or maybe next April. Yeah, that'd be good.
Trace us back trace us back
Today I picked up my photos from Target. For some reason they're all upside-down on the photo disk, and this one didn't turn out (it was the first one on the roll; I guess I need to work on loading the film better) but I like it anyway. For some reason I only like the trees outside my window certain times of the year, even though they never really lose their leaves. But right now I like them, and I'll like them when summer comes and there's a light breeze and I can open all the windows and hear the leaves moving in the wind.
The weather has finally cooled down, and I have new jeans to wear tomorrow, so the combination of these two things makes me very happy. But I don't know what I'm going to do if it rains. I've never driven in the rain before. And I have to drive at tomorrow night. I don't know if I can drive (and park, mostly park) in the dark, in the rain.
Right now I'm listening to Miley Cyrus and Phoenix and thinking about how horrid my UC essays are and wondering why I'm even applying anyway when I knew that I didn't want to even before I opened their mailer and got the worst paper cut ever. I can hear my sister typing in her room; her word count keeps rising, and I'm trying not to feel bad about quitting. I promised Qwerty I'd give his character a home and now I'm not because I've ditched my stupid road-trip-guitar story, and Gilly doesn't want his character so he's now homeless. But I think I've probably done the character a favor, because he would not have been happy in my novel.
There is no way I'll ever be able to be a professional writer. That's what I always wanted to be as a kid - a novelist with a big, cozy house and a shelf full of all my own books. But I don't have the gumption. I like that word, gumption. It reminds me of "Harriet the Spy". Harriet and Golly had gumption. All I've got is five thousand words from this year, eighteen thousand words from last year, and some new jeans.
Feels like I'm starting again, the last three years were just pretend
Either I've failed my NaNoWriMo novel, or it's failed me, but in any case I think I'm putting it to rest, because as much as I enjoy writing just for the sake of writing, my plot was sloppy and stupid and sappy and in all honesty, I don't know that I'm ever going to like anything that I write as much as I do what I started last November.But that will go nowhere too, because I have this huge difficulty balancing my desire to reconcile who I am with how others see me and my desire to reconcile who I am with how I see myself. So as a result of that, everything I write has some facet of myself in it, just like I find a bit of myself in every novel or play or poem that I read, and so because of that I don't share what I write with anyone. But I think that's okay, at least for right now. I'm not afraid of disapproval really, or of criticism, but of misunderstanding, maybe.
I drove to the SAT today. And then I drove home. And later I drove to Target to drop off a roll of film, and then I drove home again. I've loaded four cds into my car and set up my XM presets, and I have my car tissue box and my sunglasses in the cupholder and I guess it just all feels very permanent. Freeing, and permanent.
The beat of my heart, to the beat of my heart
I just spent five minutes explaining the ending of Arcadia to you, and then you ask me what my name is? What. the. hell. In what world is this okay? I may not socialize with you or make an effort to get to know you but I expect you to, in some deep corner of your brain, file away my name, and the names of all the other kids in your classes.I am just so tired of all this bullshit, of all this everyone using everyone else, of people treating other people like they're disposable. And I am so fricking tired of misogynistic assholes who think they're better than everyone else.
I am angry. I never really get legitimately angry, but right now, that's all I am. I'm not sad - maybe disappointed, maybe bitter, but really, I'm angry.
Because even when I push people out of my life, they just won't go away.
I'm holding on until the last
I am in a horrible, horrible mood right now, which I know is a really bad condition under which to be blogging, but I am just so frustrated right now that I don't know what else to do.I do not like school. I have not liked school since freshman year, but in the last year or so, everything has just gotten worse. I'll be sitting in these classrooms taking notes on things I don't give a damn about, and then I'll look around the room at these people, with their perfect hair and texting-under-the-desk and rude under-their-breath comments, and I can't help but think that this isn't where I should be. I have come to despise some of these people, and how they treat their teachers and their friends and themselves. The word peer doesn't mean anything to me anymore. These are just people that I'm forced to be around because I have to come here everyday so that someday I can get the hell out of here.
I just do not want to go to school anymore. I don't mind the work, for the most part, but I just hate the atmosphere. I hate being so uncomfortable all the time. I hate these assholes that I'm surrounded by.
Tomorrow is Friday. Three-day week. Five day week. Thanksgiving break. December = 3 weeks. Winter break. Almost done.
To turn and run when all I needed was the truth
Sunday night blogging is best accompanied by music by the Fray, pictures of rainy days on my tumblr dashboard, and lines from "New York, I Love You" running through my mind. Today is Halloween, and October hasn't lived up to my fantasies of fall - in fact, everything about this school year seems to be disappointing me a bit. Tomorrow is November 1, and I've plotted out my novel a bit, and accepted that it's going to be essentially a piece of crappy fluff not unlike cotton candy, but maybe a little less satisfying and ultimately worse for you in the end.Yesterday I went shopping with my mom and bought some new jeans and a knit hat and a scarf, and I want fall to be here so, so badly. Summer weather just makes me kind of nostalgic for that feeling of timelessness that I haven't felt in a while - you know that feeling that there's only that single moment and nothing else? I want to jump in big piles of leaves and actually need a jacket when I leave the house. Next year, maybe. Finally, maybe.
Tuesday is my driver's test, and if I actually believed in praying, I'd be praying to pass, because even though I'm readying myself just in case I fail, I feel like there's nothing else I need more right now. I want to be able to drive myself to the bookstore and just sit among all the books, the ones that hopefully will be purchased and brought home and read and reread time again.
I see it all now that you're gone
When I live in Paris I imagine that maybe I'll be a painter, and I'll bring my paints to Pere Lachaise and sit on one of those benches with the cute old men and paint the lipstick kisses on Oscar Wilde's tombstone, paint the way the light reflects off the ground when it's wet, paint the tunnel formed by the branches of the trees as they arch over the cobblestone paths. On rainy days I'll sit in coffee shops and jump in fountains and never wear a beret. And when I live in Venice (which I'll only do during the non-touristy months) I'll never walk alone outside at night because it's impossible not to get lost there, and I'll be one of those locals who never actually pays for their vaporetto tickets, and I'll track down all the good local jewelers and decorate my itsy-bitsy apartment with one-of-a-kind pieces. I'll learn Italian and make friends with all the Italian hipster boys, and I'll work in an art museum, and I'll actually enjoy what I'm doing.I feel like I usually do, and that is like I'm wasting time, like I'm just waiting for something to happen that will change the way I feel about school and my friends and my future and my haircut. I'm feeling like a new haircut again, although I can't keep doing that or I won't have any left to cut off. And lately I've been looking at pictures of these gorgeous celebrities with long hair, and now I'm thinking maybe I want to grow mine out again. But it always drives me crazy when it's long. Isn't that how things usually work, though?
No amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity
Today I finished To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, which was long and rambling and kind of how I think my blog posts and the inside of my head probably look to other people, but I liked it nonetheless and I'm glad I finished it. One of the main themes was about how perceptions change with distance, how things look different from far away, how the passage of time changes things. But I don't think necessarily that the passage of time makes the past look better. I almost picture it like an upside-down parabola, for which there is probably a proper term but I'm not a math person, and at the top you reach this place where the past looks so absolutely horrible, even worse than it did when you were experiencing it. But then you just have to wait a little longer and get over the hill, and then things start to look okay again, and you start to hate people less, and you start to think that maybe you can, and maybe you should, move on from this.But right now I feel like I'm stuck at the top of the parabola, and last year isn't going to start looking better until I get further away from it. And I guess, physically, too. Maybe that's why I want to go so far away.
Your walk-by lies
I think people tend to misunderstand me because I can't verbalize my thoughts the way I want to, and so that's led me to just not speak. So I've become this person who is just... silent. With everything and everyone. The only people that I'm truly comfortable with, truly candid with, are the ones that I've lived with for an extended period of time. (Plus X and Y, but those are exceptions and weird and unexpected and examples of how people continually surprise me.)And I guess when I say that I want to change, that I want to break out of this box that I've built myself into, I don't mean that I want to rebel against my parents or my schoolwork or my lifestyle. Because I like who I am. I like that I have my morals and that I know what I believe, and I don't think any of that will change any time soon.
The other day in class Mrs. K was talking about being overemotional, and her theory is that overemotional-ness is kind of the opposite of autism, as in instead of being unable to connect with people, with your environment, you connect too much, connect with everything and everyone. And on one hand I feel like that's me, totally and completely, but then again I feel like it's backfired, because I've boxed myself into this corner where I feel like there is absolutely no one I can really talk to.
So really, I guess, I don't know what I want.
But it's not true it wasn't you who cast the light
Thing One: That listlessness that just won't go away and it's telling you to do your homework and clean your room and change your name and move far away and do something different, different, different.Thing Two: The stress that comes with group projects and being the only one a room of 40 people who has a working glue stick and lending said glue stick to people who don't know your name and coming up with all the words while everyone else cuts out socks.
Thing Three: When you want to change your blog url but all the urls you want are already taken by inactive bloggers who either haven't blogged since 2004 or have never blogged at all.
Thing Four: Listening to all of Greg Holden's music on youtube because your itunes is broken and Greg Holden never ceases to amaze you.
Thing Five: Why can't I stop biting my nails? I want to I want to I want to but I can't I can't I can't and that seems to win out, always.
Thing Six: Always forgetting my house key when I need it and having to get one out of the mailbox; not having a drivers license; the fear of taking my drivers test that never seems to go away despite three tests next week and a book to finish reading and a powerpoint to finish compiling and college on the brain and gossip that ruins my days.
Thing Seven: Feeling like I've been pushed into this box by high school and by what it's supposed to be and by who I've always been, and I can't break out and be someone new because everyone around me is telling me that this is the way things are and this is how they're supposed to be. Wanting to change my name to something different, completely different, and move away and meet new people and study ballet and art and 18th century British literature and film and photography.
I remember stormy weather the way the sky looks when it's cold
"... I believe that if you can lie about something little, you can lie about something big.""... I don't want to spend my life wallowing in self-pity and I don't want to spend my life being insecure."
"I feel like there are all these rules that have been set up by society - and I find it really fun to break all of them."
"Life doesn't have to be cookie-cutter perfect, neither does your style, your makeup, your clothes - nothing has to be 'perfect.' ... I really would love if what I'm doing was ... also more of a youth movement for really accepting who you are unapologetically and really loving yourself for every imperfection."
Apparently Ke$ha and I have the same philosophy. But she's better at upholding it.
Someday I'll be living in a big old city
Thing One: Trying to explain via college essay this desire to fly despite fear of heights, desire to be Taylor Swift despite fear of crowds, desire to be a ballerina despite total lack of flexibility and beauty and gracefulness.Thing Two: Greasy second-day hair that has been touched by guys sitting behind you on a stupid-smelly-bus because they're too bored for their own good; hair that makes your whole body itchy because it needs to be watched but it was too late at night last night when you got home and you just wanted to sleep.
Thing Three: Writing something that you really like but being too scared to show it to anyone for fear that they might tear it down or question you or misunderstand you. Being misunderstood. Being confused for someone else. Being the one girl in class whose name the teacher doesn't yet know despite the fact that you got 100% on the last test.
Thing Four: Changing seats in class and sitting in alphabetical order by middle name and trying to explain to someone that your mom spelled your middle name wrong on purpose because she wanted it to be different; considering the fact that she must've been crazy to think your first name wasn't different enough as it is.
Thing Five: Feeling so connected to a character in a play that when her heart gets broken you're trying so hard not to cry, focusing on Ben Mckenzie's giant arm muscles like every other girl in the room, trying not to cry and hoping no one will ask you why you don't like the play, because you do like it but you can't explain that you are Laura, feel so much like Laura sometime that it hurts to see her so real on stage instead of just in your head when you were reading the script.
Thing Six: Listening to the new Taylor Swift song three times in a row because it reminds you of what it felt like to be a little kid, what it feels like to feel things so raw, so pure, without logic in the mix.
Thing Seven: That back of the throat about-to-cry feeling that you get when you send your mom your failed attempt at a college app essay that probably looks more like a psychological cry for help. The fear that she'll make you go back to that shrink again, when you know what the problem is, and it's that you can't deal with these people and their masks and their meaningless words and their sagging jeans anymore.
Thing Eight: Knowing the words to the Taylor Swift song by the fifth time through. Loving it so much that you're completely overeager for the album to be released now, now, now, so your mom can buy you the special edition with the bonus tracks at Target.
Thing Nine: Two film cameras from 1975 with two brand-new rolls of film, and nothing to take pictures of, and weather that totally absolutely completely sucks and makes me feel like wearing giant sweaters.
Thing Ten: Days when my converse don't make me feel good like they should, days when the weather gets me down, days when I use stupid cliches, days when I want it to be February already, days when the only thing that makes me feel like writing is this one Taylor Swift song.
And all the things that I misread
I guess the appeal of a giant sweater, a really huge sweater with big sleeves and a long hem, is that I can hide in it, feel like a bag lady or an Olsen twin, and actually dress how I feel. I've been in a ratty-hair-combat-boot-really-fricking-giant-sweater sort of mood lately, but as I have none of the above, I've been wearing my normal clothes and watching a lot of "Veronica Mars" and contemplating the destruction and rebuilding of a fictional romance in nearly 30,000 additional words.I want college to be this place where I can wear giant sweaters and no one judges me and I can follow celebrity gossip and read the classics and no one judges me. I'm trying to build up this immunity to what other people think of me. I don't want to get to a point where I'm basing what I do on the wills of other people so much so that I don't know who I am anymore. But as for right now - I guess the reason that there are so many high school movies is that we can't stop going back over this time in our lives when everything is so confusing and so upside-down and so much like every song that's ever been written.
From a mess to the masses
I am again blogging on my iPod while sitting in bed at nearly 11 pm at night, which first of all signifies that I am not sleeping, and also that I am feeling a bit stressed out. I have two crappy common app essays and two crappy UC app essays that all need to be turned into brilliance that will outshine the blinding C on last year's report card. And I have a math quiz tomorrow that will hopefully bring my 88 up to at least an 89, which should be an A-, and after spending 45 minutes of my evening (time that I could have spent reading the Virginia Woolf novel that is the subject of an in-class essay I have to write next week) teaching Michael how to do the word problems that we've spent a week and a half in class working on and going over, and over, and over.My patience is stretching thin lately - my patience with school and my friends and this stupid tiny keyboard and my sister and this really stupid tiny keyboard - and I'm suddenly addicted to "Veronica Mars". I actually told my mom last night that I don't want to walk in graduation, and as soon as I said it I realized how true it is. I just want to be done. I want to be done and I want to leave and go away and forget everyone who broke my heart over and over. But she said I have to walk for my grandparents. I hope they're proud when they see me in my ridiculous red robe tripping through a foreign football field with 850 of my closest friends. That's all it is, really, high school in general - just for show.
Although I can't help but hope that one day when I'm old and overworked and bitter (moreso than I am now, I mean), I won't regret not doing anything about feeling so trapped, about feeling like I'm wasting my time but not doing anything about it. At least there are positive post-its. Knowing there are girls out there who are considerate enough to make them makes me feel a little less alone, a little less ashamed of my generation. And isn't that the point?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
