We are all the same underneath the sycamore
I've been thinking about the idea of mind over matter and if you switch your wedding ring to your right finger before you sleep with somebody else, are you still cheating? I mean, obviously you are. But what if you convince yourself that you're not cheating, believe it so much that in your eyes it's true? I guess that doesn't matter though, if you can't convince anyone else. I've been thinking in theoretical terms a lot lately. But that's not really new, is it? I guess I've always done that.And the other thing that I've been thinking about - changing; college; changing at college. Letting change come naturally vs. forcing myself so out of my comfort zone in order to change that I don't have any fun at all. Making friends; how to do that; if I shouldn't force it; if it's bad that I'm yawning at 7 o'clock; if it's bad that I really miss my little sister; if maybe I shouldn't be writing any of this here. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. Or at the very least, Monday, when classes start and I have more important things to think about. Or at least other things to think about.
I really want to talk to my mom right now but I know I shouldn't. I shouldn't I shouldn't I shouldn't. I feel like Rory Gilmore during her first night at Yale when she made her mom sleep on the floor of her dorm room. Something that's going to sound bad no matter how I phrase it: I know my mom would never do that for me.
Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones and I will try to fix you
Everyone is really nice here. And dorky and funny and smart. And a lot of people talk too much, I think to make up for feeling socially awkward/inadequate, but it's okay because everyone says really fascinating things. My room is bigger than I thought it would be and the orange wall isn't totally horrid and making friends is weird but I think I'm managing alright.It's really bizarre for me to be surrounded by people who are so (at least seemingly) confident in who they are even though anywhere else they'd be considered bizarre. I mean, clearly I fit into that category too. But it's just fascinating. I've realized that I learn more about people by just listening to them but that's really hard here, because everyone is like me and was the shy kid in the back of the classroom in high school. I have to keep reminding myself to talk. Which is something that I never tried to do in high school, because I never felt like high school was worth my time. But it got me here, so that's something, I guess.
Tomorrow I'm meeting with my academic adviser and signing up for my classes and I'm kind of afraid that once classes start I'm going to start to hate college. Also I am so not used to having a fan and it's driving me crazy. Its name is Blizzard.
Minor chords of major works
Packing is the biggest pain in the ass ever. Like, if I knew how much of a pain in the ass packing was before I started doing it, I would've decided to go somewhere within driving distance. There is no way in hell I am going to get everything to fit into these suitcases. I wish I had a magical expanding bag, like Mary Poppins or Hermione.I finished The Odyssey today. I guess that's an accomplishment? Tomorrow I have to finish packing. Then, the Taylor Swift concert. And then Wednesday morning I'm moving to Portland. How weird is that?
The end seemed so much greater than either side of the equator
I'm not sure that there's anything worth writing down inside my head today. I woke up and ate breakfast and watched "Numb3rs" and read The Odyssey (hfakljserfna;vnsjd;lajdsfl;kajewncdioskf.ajdsfjeanciafn) and watched "It's Kind of a Funny Story" with Jennifer and had dinner and watched tv with my family and now I'm not doing anything. I only read five books this summer. Six, once I finish The Odyssey. Which I have to do tomorrow. Also: I have to pack up my life into suitcases so I can take it to college. College. Oh my lord.
I don't want to sit on the pavement while you fly
Today we played Taboo and ate ice cream cake and went swimming and made s'mores and it was fun. I think the hardest part of college (besides classes and stuff) for me is going to be starting fresh with people, but I think that's going to be the best part too. Does that make any sense? I'm not sure how to explain myself to people, because I can't really explain myself to myself. That doesn't make any sense either.Words to learn:
- maudlin
- effeminate
- apopleptic
- redoubtable
- affianced
- dentition
- sentience
- avail (as a verb)
- gainsay
- obstreperousness (I'm not sure this one is real)
With her heart heavy still
I just got home from Briana's, where we ate dark chocolate covered pretzels and looked at yearbooks from middle school and talked about books and tumblr and right now I'm listening to Jack's Mannequin and I have this headache that I'm pretty sure is the resurgence of the one I woke up with this morning. My roommate messaged me on Facebook and said that our room has orange walls and purple doors and I think that next year is going to be full of headaches, and also, holy crap, I'm going to college on Wednesday. My love affair with pop-tarts has reached this point where I am seriously considering emailing my HA and asking her if there is a toaster on our floor. Is that ridiculous? I'm pretty sure it's ridiculous.The other day when I was packing my books, I flipped through The Elements of Style and I saw a note about how you're not supposed to use too many qualifiers, but I very much kinda a lot enjoy qualifiers. And so I'm going to use them all over the place if I want to. Because how else am I supposed to express that I really kind of have no idea what I'm talking about?
Ten thousand drunken kids in a field can't be wrong
Right now I am making a mix cd for Michelle called "No Nickelback in College" because really, if I have any influence on anyone from high school, I want it to be that they shouldn't waste time listening to Nickelback when there is so much more out there. Which is the way I tend to think about a lot of things. And then I end up wasting my time anyway. Isn't there a quote about wasted time, and how if you're enjoying it then it's not really wasted?Here is a list of things that make me happy:
1. Van Gogh paintings
2. Anderson Cooper
3. New episodes of "Leverage"
4. "Gus don't be" the prisoner of marzipan, an incorrigible eskimo pie with a caramel ribbon, the one game at Chuck-E-Cheese that isn't broken
5. Foster the People
And your heart is a stone, buried underneath your pretty clothes
I keep thinking about Stockholm Syndrom and how sometimes things are labeled so easily and what about case-by-case basis, and good people and bad people and in-between-the-word-is-a-zillion-shades-of-gray people? Today we went to the mall and I was trying on jeans and they fit perfectly and I was just standing in the dressing room, looking at them in the mirror and wondering how they were so different from the jeans I already had at home, when one of my favorite songs came on the radio. And I thought, these are the jeans, I have to get these jeans. So I did, in every color they had. But now I'm sitting here and the window's open and i can hear crickets and I can't help but wonder about fate or coincidences or random occurrences of undeniable magicalness.I am leaving for college in a week. I don't know what to think about it, so I don't. I talk about it like it's an abstract thing. It's happening on Wednesday, but it's not really. I don't think it'll hit me until I'm lying awake in my dorm room bed at 3 am because everything smells different.
I'll be on the 7 o'clock to Chicago
Tonight I went to a barbecue at Michelle's house, which was fun, and boys are stupid, and not just in the way that boys are stupid because they'll never like me because I'm ugly and fat and blah blah blah. I mean that boys are actually legitimately stupid in the way that they think dead baby jokes are funny and criticize Hannah Montana without any logical basis and my little sister just walked into my room "to say hi" even though she could very well have done that from the hallway and what just happened to this sentence?My mom just gave me a hug and said, "you smell like smoke" and okay let's think of all the possible reasons that Natasha could smell like smoke? Because it's definitely not because she was smoking. I thought I was at this point where I'd made it clear to my family and friends that I think smoking is absolutely disgusting and have no intention of doing it. Another thing I realized tonight: I do not believe that Bones and Booth need to get married now that she's pregnant. But I don't like the term "feminist" because it has all these bad connotations, or at least connotations that I don't think apply to me.
Also: I take issue with people who can't appreciate pop music and hold themselves above everyone else because of that. And I take issue with the fact that my clothes now definitely smell like smoke and are going to have to be washed before I wear them again, which sucks because it takes two wears for these shorts to be comfy and at least one wear for this chambray shirt (funny phrase) to be soft enough that it's more comfortable than a cardigan.
And now I'm going to go write because it makes me feel better. Not that I'm feeling bad right now. Because I'm not. At least I don't think I am. Whatever.
There's a wrinkle in the water
Today I finished a collage and read 10 pages of The Odyssey and read some fan fiction because it's a disease, okay? I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and had some s'mores ice cream and that was really it. Monday starts what is really my last week of summer. But I think that's a good thing, because I'm really kind of bored with this doing nothingness. And right now it's past 11 and I'm blogging because I told myself that I should, but really I just have to pee. I have this thing about goals, and plans, and backing out and changing my mind, and I always do that, and I always tell myself that it's okay, because really, it is. Who cares if I don't blog everyday in August? Who cares that I changed my mind at the last minute and didn't switch schools when I had planned to? But I know that I'm only going to have that luxury for so long.And that's all my deep thoughts for right now. I really have to pee.
Ooh bla di ooh bla da, life goes on
Ohshit, I'm late. But I have a really good excuse. It's a really really good excuse. It makes my 30-minutes-late totally valid.Okay, no, my excuse is crap. I was writing Dramione fan fiction. It's fun and there's no pressure and it's total shit but that's okay because all fan fiction is. And it's fun.
I have nothing interesting to say today. I'll blog for real later. Yes, I will.
I like that we are kinda strange so won't you stay near
Oh right, okay. So today I ate French toast for breakfast and went to Target with my mom and bought a bunch of stuff I need for school. Then I came home and read my daily chapter of The Odyssey and worked on a collage and now I'm listening to Joshua Radin and thinking that I should go to bed soon because I'm meeting Briana for breakfast tomorrow, which means I have to wake up at a decent hour. I piled up some of my books to take to school and I can already tell that there are too many. But I don't want to worry about that now.I've been trying to fix up my 2009 nano even though it's crappy, because I have this thing where I keep telling myself that it's all a learning experience and the only way to get better is to suck for a really, really long time. I think John Green said something like that once. I have glue under my fingernails and it feels really bizarre.
That's it for today. I want to be writing right now.
I'm just a notch in your bedpost but you're just a line in a song
Today I got to thinking about how the Draco/Hermione story (or lack thereof, since it's not canon) is basically (basically meaning I am oversimplifying something that can't really be simplified at all since it's interpreted a zillion different ways in a zillion different fan fics) Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, with a lot more complications and a lot more cussing. And that made me think about how all love stories are basically the same story, and that made me think that that's the same thing I've thought a zillion times. Something else I've done a million times - started reading a Dramione fic, only to abandon it 300 words later because Draco's house elf is named Cue Tip or Ron is cheating on Hermione with Lavendar (seriously?) or Arthur Weasley is Minister of Magic (it's Kingsley Shacklebolt, man, it's gotta be) or Harry is dating Pansy while Ginny sleeps around or Charlie is with Luna, etc etc.It just amazes me how you can take a character that's been so well-defined and perfected by someone and just totally tear him or her to shreds. Ginny is not a bitch and Narcissa Malfoy is not a cookie-baking grandma and fan fic writers overuse the word "irrevocably" and constantly use "the witch" as an alternative to "she." And what is with phrases that sound nice but don't make any sense, like "artless smile" and can we talk about this ridiculous plot where Ginny wants Malfoy and Ron wants Hermione back even though he cheated on her so they're cooking up some scheme to break them up? And yet, I can't tear my eyes away.
And also I think it's really interesting that in some of these fics there are spells to do things I never would've thought of. Like magical wedding bands that prevent spouses from cheating on each other. I'd think that the wizarding community would only use magic to make things easier on themselves, but in some ways, it seems they've made them harder (as in, no electricity or cell phones) and some of the stuff they use is just sort of creepy and kind of totally restricts free will. Of course, none of it's real anyway, so.
It's realllllly time I get back to school.
Lost in a maze of a thousand rainy days
I've started to think about what books I want to bring to school with me, and I've also been considering the fact that no matter what I bring, I probably won't have time to read it. And I've been thinking about how British terms are so much better than American terms ("ice lolly" for "popsicle", "jumper" for "sweater") and about details and how some people (like my mother and certain writers) find it necessary to provide too much and how when you're reading you can skim and skip over it, but when someone's talking to me I have to listen to them. And that's all completely obvious, isn't it? I think myself in circles sometimes, and forcing myself to blog everyday is really just forcing myself to write it down and try to make sense of it, even though it'll never make any sense.Right now I'm thinking about cliches in storytelling and how you can break them, or how you can use them and twist them around so they don't seem cliched anymore. That probably doesn't make any sense. How does apparition work in the rain? What if it's snowing? Sometimes I forget that magic, at least in that sense, isn't real and I start to pick out all of the things that the books never actually explained. All the little technicalities. I keep bumping my hip on the counter in my bathroom, and today I nearly knocked over a lamp. And now I think I've accurately depicted what the thoughts in my head look like.
I'm gonna kick until I need new shoes
Today my mom and I went to the Grove and saw "Cowboys and Aliens" (I nearly fell asleep, oh God I hate westerns) while my sister went to a pool party with her camp friends at this huge house in Beverly Hills. I guess it's probably just personal taste, but I cannot understand why someone would choose to live in an area that is constantly crowded with traffic and tourists and just noise.I really, really hate the word "lover." It is old-fashioned and kind of creepy and doesn't have a lot of weight and I just don't like it. And that thought makes me think about labels and how I really don't like them, and "lover" is really just an evasive label to avoid defining things, and every time I read I wish the writer had used a more concrete word instead. But that's totally contradictory with how I feel about labels.
The best part of "Cowboys and Aliens" (my brain just can't stay in one place) was a glimpse I got of a speckly horse in the background. Apparently it's called a pinto horse or possibly an appaloosa and it's gorgeous and if someday I marry a man who rides horses and we move to the country and he's really rich, I'm going to ask him to get me one and teach me to ride it.
Band on the run
So (10 years in the future-ish) if it turns out that I'm a horrible novelist and I have to resign myself to doing something else (although hopefully I'll love whatever it is and it won't feel like resigning), I'm going to write fan fiction. Because when you're using someone else's characters, you don't have to create them and characterize them. You're only expanding on what's already been written. Which is something that I've learned now, as I've basically descended into full-blown fan fiction addiction. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised. This is how I get with everything - books, tv shows, even writing, occasionally. I'm sure it'll subside eventually.Right now I'm trying to type this using only the pads of my fingers because my nails are wet. This color is called "calming cocoa" and while it looks brown on my nails, it really does look pinkish in the bottle. So suffice to say (what a funny expression) I'm feeling kind of deceived by it. My head is itchy. When I'm old and rich I'm going to have a hand dryer set-up to dry my nails quickly for me, so I don't have to worry about getting pieces of my hair stuck.
It makes me laugh that Hermione's parents have different names in every piece of fan fiction I've read. Canon is such a funny thing. And I don't remember anything about wards in the 7th book either, but they're turning up everywhere. The same with Astoria Greengrass.
I'm awfully boring tonight, aren't I?
I set fire to the rain and I threw us into the flames
Things that I find utterly ridiculous today: when a character in a book says, "well, that's an interesting plot twist" because it obviously is because the writer planned it that way; the phrase, "I find you much changed" because it sounds bizarre and antiquated; that tv news anchors find it appropriate to interview the families of dead soldiers only hours after the deaths; how I can read the same story a zillion times (or hear the same song) and still be fascinated by it; the overused expression, "I know, right?" that holds really not a lot of meaning at all; the fact that the word "fuck" doesn't bother me anymore.I've been thinking about war a lot, not any one war specifically but mostly just the abstract concept of it, and how it's so fascinating in books and movies but so absolutely sickening in real life. But it continues to happen again and again and we continue to write about it and tell stories about it and what if we just stopped? If everything related to war just went away and it was just a distant memory, like cholera or the guillotine. Of course that's impossible, because people suck. Sometimes I'm trying to explain something to myself, or to my little sister, and the only reasoning that I can come up with is that people suck, and they're emotional and impractical and stupid, and that they don't know any other way to be.
I will never understand why fan fiction writers insist on killing Luna Lovegood.
Then who the hell was I
This is going to sound completely ridiculous and I swear I'm not clinically depressed or anything of that sort, but what's the point of working so hard for the future and for my career and for the life I eventually want to have if I could die at any minute? There is a fly in my room. It's teeeeeeeeny tiny and it's flying around in front of my computer screen, which I love to death, really, but it is really reflective so sometimes I can see myself, which is kind of off-putting, and also it shows any and all dirt - including this stupid fly, which just flew way too close to my face.Don't you think that the phrase "like looking for a needle in a haystack" could be easily replaced with "like finding a dropped contact on a carpet"? Because that's what I just did. Today I had lunch with M and L and J because M is leaving for Europe on Monday and by the time he gets back, I'll be packing to leave for Portland. It's so weird to think about not going back to high school, about how we're adults now. M said something today about how he wishes he was 30, because then he'd get to skip all the school and stuff and go right into having a job and a wife and kids. But honestly, I don't want that. Okay, so I guess the point of all the hard work is the experiences that you have along the way and the people you meet and the things you learn.
Where do flies go when they can't get back out side? Is this tiny little fly just going to drop dead during the night somewhere in my room, where it'll be until it gets vacuumed up next week? I wonder how many dead flies are already in here. How creepy.
We'd waste our weeks beneath the sun
So basically I've done absolutely nothing this week besides read a few chapters of The Odyssey and go to the movies once. And I continued that trend today and I'm not even thinking about anything very interesting right now so I'm not sure what I'm going to write, but I promised myself that I would anyway. There is something going on outside my window and it's loud and sounds vaguely like construction, which is ridiculous considering it's 10 o'clock and can't be the workers on the freeway because it's too close.Okay, so what I'm thinking right now is - is the frozen food section different in Britain? I feel like that's a dead giveaway in writing, a way to let your readers know that you're crap and they should just give up now - when your setting feels unauthentic. Or when your characters stay stupid things or use cliches that no one ever uses or behave too well. How do you make what you're writing feel real? Or at least not completely ridiculous.
I think I need to start school now. I need a routine and other things to think about besides Odysseus and stupid romcoms on Netflix.
Go on, film the world before it happens
Today/tonight/last night I've been think about death in the middle of summer and the cruelty of war and the way droplets of Febreeze stick to your legs if you walk through a room right after you spray it and the parts of ourselves that we insist on keeping hidden from everyone. I've been thinking about being eleven years old and how when I was eleven years old, I thought I was invincible, at the point where things can only get more exciting. But now eleven seems so young, so naive and now I'm at this point where I'm sitting here with my laptop burning my legs, thinking that "Northern Downpour" by Panic at the Disco is one of the sweetest songs I've ever heard.I have no idea what to say now. My head is full of all these things that I haven't done and want to do, things I want to experience and feel and learn, and of course there's this lingering fear of what if I can't? I'm not sure if I believe in God but I think I believe in fate and maybe the idea of fate working against you, of circumstances that aren't in your favor, of luck and unluckiness and the possibilities of what if? I'm afraid of boxing myself in somewhere and then getting stuck when I change my mind and decide that it's not what I want anymore. I think I'm running out of get-out-of-jail-free cards when it comes to changing my mind.
On the back of a motor bike with your arms outstretched trying to take flight
I've been reading this Dramione fan fiction, which I know sounds completely ridiculous. I've avoided fan fiction since I first learned it existed, but now here I am, reading it, and I can see that there's something to be said for it. I love the Harry Potter novels, for all that they've given me and what I've taken from them, but they are about Harry Potter. Harry Potter is the main character, and all the rest propel the story along, getting it to where it needs to be. And I can't help but think that maybe that sucks a little bit, because there are characters in the Potterverse that are, in my opinion, much more interesting than Potter himself.And so as I've been reading this, I've been thinking a lot about character development, and how really effing hard it is. People are so, so complex, and how can you mimic that with just text on a page? How can you create someone who seems so real that they blur the line between fiction and reality? Is this the same thing that I wrote about last night? I really have no idea. My mind is circling and circling over all the same thoughts and concepts and questions, and I always come to that same conclusion - I really have no idea.
And the other intriguing thing: in fan fiction, you're not limited to the world of the Potter books, kids' novels - despite the characters growing up themselves. You're not forced to ignore that they're human, that they're 17, 18 years old and are living in hell and are constantly cussing. There's an added layer of reality that I haven't felt before. Does that make any sense? And there's also an added layer of not-reality, of alternative-reality, of these-two-characters-aren't-canon-but-it-doesn't-matter. But it's not really reality at all, because none of it's real. Sometimes it's really easy to forget that, and I think that's maybe a sign of good writing. Or at least of good storytelling.
I kind of hate that there's a difference.
Karen dit que Paris c'est grand
What if I blogged every day in August, at least until I leave for school? And I mean substantial posts. With thoughts about things and more than just lists of daily activities. So today is August 1st and it's the beginning of my last month at home and so it's the beginning on 23ish posts in a row.I just finished watching a romcom called "Someone Like You" and it was adorable, like all romantic comedies are, but there always comes a point when I'm watching one of these movies where I have this sort of out-of-body experience where I realize that what's making me so happy, what I'm enjoying so much, is crap spewed out by Hollywood big wigs and Nicholas Sparks and whoever. And I know that's really cynical, and I guess what I'm saying is that I really enjoy watching relationships develop in movies and novels and such because when you're living your life and forming bonds with people you don't realize you are until one day you look at who you're sitting next to, and suddenly think, how did I become friends with you?
That's how I've been looking at everything lately, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. To clarify: I'm studying everything and everyone and it all seems like something I could write about. That's the object, isn't it, a really good story? But the problem is that every time I think of something and begin to write it down, I realize I've seen it played out a million times in bad movies and poorly written novels. Which begs the question: if I rewrite Twilight, or the essence of it at least, changing the names and the vampire into a mermaid and whatnot, and if I write it well, as in really effing good, does that make it okay? Or am I stealing someone's original idea? Are any ideas really original? I once had this quote on a post-it not stuck to my computer screen, something about how if you wanted to bake a totally original apple pie you'd have to go back and plant the first apple tree yourself, or something like that.
So everything is just a recycling of old ideas. I guess my main question here is, if that's true, why are we wasting our time with crap? Why do I watch so many bad movies and read so many crappy books when there is so much more out there? Why do we default to what's easiest? Why do you have to search really hard to find the good books at the bookstore, but the crappy bestsellers (not to generalize that all bestsellers are crappy, because they definitely aren't) are right at the front, on the buy-one-get-one-half-off table? Why is the bookstore the most crowded when everything is 40% off because the store is closing? That makes me really sad. But that's not the point.
The point is: I want to write a really good book. But first I have to read and watch and listen and learn everything I can. So should I be wasting my time with bad romcoms because they're easy to get, or should I work harder to find the good ones? And more importantly, is there such a thing as a good romcom? Who came up with that word in the first place?
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