Ungilded Words

Consider the lilies

2011-11-17T04:12:00.001-05:00

I worry a lot.
My worries might be the reason I'm an insomniac. If I try to go to bed at a normal time, I lay there and worry about all the things I haven't done, or the things I shouldn't have done, or the things that might happen to me, or the things that I want to happen that might never happen, and I wonder how I can make everything turn out all right for me.
So usually I just don't go to bed.
Although the nice thing about LA is that between filming and classes and internship, I'm usually completely exhausted by the time I get home and fall asleep pretty easily.
Anyway. This post isn't about my sleeping habits. This post is about worrying. The most worrying thing that happens to me consistently is waiting on the bus. Waiting for the bus to come is such an issue of trust. I have to trust that the bus is actually going to come, which I never completely do. The entire time I'm waiting, I'm thinking, "What if the bus just isn't running today? What if there's a detour and I don't know about it? What if the bus stopped running and I got here too late? Who can I call to pick me up? When should I call them? What if I call someone and then right before they get here the bus comes?" I never trust the bus. So this week I was waiting for the bus, and it was a half an hour late. I was supposed to be at an event at a certain time and because the bus was running late, I was going to be late. So I worried. My jaw and stomach hurt from how tightly I was clenching my muscles. Then, out of the blue, a thought struck me.

"Taylor," the thought said, "worrying about this bus isn't going to make it come any faster."

When people tell me not to worry, that's what they say. And usually I think, "Okay, but if I worry about getting a job then at least I'll be motivated to prepare for it, and so actually my worry is good." Maybe that's true to a certain extent. But...mostly it doesn't do anything. I was hurting myself, and I was doing it for no reason, which is what I'm doing when I worry about my future, and when I worry about maybe being a crazy cat lady who dies alone and then no one finds me for weeks and by then the cats have eaten my face (which is why I'm never going to have cats). Yeah, maybe that will happen and maybe it won't. But regardless of my worrying, the future is coming at me like a bus, and it's going to come when it wants to.

I don't believe that thought was my own. I'm not really detached enough from myself to be able to think that clearly about my worries. I'm skittish about saying that God is trying to teach me something, not because I don't think God teaches, but because I don't know what language to use that won't sound corny. I don't know how to talk about God reaching into my life and dropping a thought like that in my head.

Of course, as soon as I wasn't on the bus anymore, I forgot all about my little revelation. Yesterday I was worrying about food. I'm running low on cash but hate asking my family to send me money, but I figured that if I skipped lunch today I'll have bus fare for Friday and I have enough food for the weekend. If I were a preacher or someone trying to teach you something I would say this was a spiritual decision, that I was leaving the house confident in the knowledge that God would provide lunch for me. I will not say that, because it isn't remotely true. I was dreading going to work and trying not to let anyone notice that I wasn't taking a lunch break. I was also dreading not eating lunch. So I was working away when my supervisor came in to ask me to do something and casually said, "And after that you can go to lunch." I nodded, thinking I would maybe just go for a walk for 15 minutes or so and then come back. About five minutes later, one of the women at the internship announced she was buying lunch for everyone, and asked us to write our sandwich orders down.

Oh, hey, God. Didn't see you there.

I don't really like the idea of life verses or whatever. They seem like a corny Christian thing to do sometimes. Nothing against you if you have one. I just...I don't know. So I'm not going to say that I have a life verse. I am going to say that there is a verse that comes up in my life a lot. (Oh, man. Now I'm going to quote this long passage of scripture that everyone's going to skip over. Maybe don't do that. I know it's a pain, but maybe read it. Because I'm only going to do this once.)

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
"Therefore do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?' or "What shall we drink?' or "What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

At a previous time in my life when I was filled with worry, a guest pastor came to my church and spoke on this verse. He was Hispanic and spoke with a strong accent. He looked into the crowd and said, "Are you not more worth than birds?" It was what I needed. God got me through that. Then a couple of years went by, and here I am again, worrying. So guess what verse the guest speaker I was worrying about being late for quoted when he spoke. He told us not to worry about how we would provide for ourselves in LA, and not to worry about our career paths, that we should instead "consider the lilies of the field."

Did I mention this guy is a television writer for two of my favorite shows? That I talked to him afterwards and he added me on facebook? That he told me to contact him when I come back and to ask any questions I have about writing for television? Did I mention that in the past week so many things have lined up for me in so many ways that are showing me that actually, yes, I do want to write for television, and yes, I can do that? Did I mention that I am more worth than birds?

So for tonight, I'm going to go to bed. I'm not going to worry about tomorrow. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Some lessons.

2011-09-10T06:08:00.000-04:00

   I've only been in LA for three weeks, but I'm already learning a lot. Partially I'm learning about the things I came here with the intention to learn about. Film things. Production things. This post isn't about those things.
   To be overly honest (which is, in the realm of the internet, my modus operandi), half of what I'm learning is empowering and making me feel pretty good about myself and who I am. The other half is showing me that I have a long way to go in this spiral of improvement that is a human life.
   For one thing, I tend to think of myself as someone who doesn't know as much as others, and isn't as qualified to talk as others. This has been beneficial in some ways, because I think it's helped me to become a pretty decent listener, as well as given me a mind open to edification by others. However, since being in LA, a place where I thought people would figure out what I fraud I am for being a film student, I've realized that actually, I do know what I'm talking about some of the time, and actually my thoughts and opinions do matter, and actually I'm pretty good at conversing with others about them. Imagine that. Maybe I'm not a fraud after all.
   On the other hand, I've been struggling with God a lot lately. And by lately I don't mean just since being in LA. By lately I mean pretty much all summer...and also in LA. People's faith and sense of closeness with God ebbs and flows, I've been told. My faith ebbs not, but my closeness is probably better described as distance at this point.
   I had a really good conversation with another student here tonight, which eerily echoed not only some internal battles of my own, but another ongoing conversation I've been having with Erin C. Both told me that maybe I should pray about my God-issues. I told Erin I would try (and she said I had to DO and not try, obviously) but...I keep stopping myself from praying. How am I supposed to pray when I consistently do things that I know God doesn't want me to do? How am I supposed to ask for forgiveness when I know I'm going to keep doing those things? My prayer, at this point, will most likely not be, "God, I'm sorry and I won't do it again," but instead, "God, I'm sorry that I will do this again." I don't ask people for advice that I know I'm not going to take. I don't want to talk to God when I know that I'm not doing what He wants me to do. It seems like I should get myself all righteous again before I talk to Him. (Impossible, for sure. Still, I'd at least like to be more like who I was last year than this year. I've never been this much of a mess before. I didn't know that it felt like this.)
   Then again, if everybody is telling me I should start praying, maybe I should do that. So you'll have to excuse me.

The "F" word (feminism)

2010-11-22T19:56:00.002-05:00

This semester I'm taking a History and Theory of Film class, and I'm really enjoying it a lot. As my professor promised (or warned) at the beginning of the semester, I view films in a really different way than I did at the beginning of the year, and my vocabulary and ability to understand movies is, I think, improving. This is unsurprising, of course, because the entire point of taking classes is to learn new things that I can apply to my life. Yesterday, to prepare for class today, Monica (my housemate) and I watched The Piano, directed by Jane Campion, who is one of a few notable female directors. I've only ever seen one other movie she's directed (Bright Star) so I don't have a whole lot of knowledge of her as a director, but I was excited for this movie because it is the only movie that we've watched for the class that was directed by a woman. As a woman who is planning on directing movies, I'm always glad to see female directors.

Anyway, when we arrived for class today, there were still people in our classroom from the class period before, which happens occasionally, so my classmates were waiting in the hall for them to leave. As usual, the women were standing together in one part of the hallway, and the men (or man, in this case, since only one had arrived) were standing apart. I cannot be overly judgmental of this, because I don't normally opt to sit next to any of the guys because I'm not really friends with any of them, even though I do get along with all of them. Before I could join in the conversation, another of the men in the class approached.

"So, how was The Piano?" He asked. "I didn't get a chance to watch it." I shrugged, because I still don't know how I feel about this particular movie, and because I don't normally know what people want me to say in response to that question. "It was good" seems too subjective, because there are plenty of movies that I think are good that other people don't. On the other hand, "I liked it," seems almost irrelevant, because what does it matter if I liked something? It's like a more self-aware way of saying "It was good." On the third hand, anything longer than either of those options (or their opposites, "It was bad," or "I didn't like it") seems like more information than the person is looking for. As I was considering my answer, the other guy in the hallway answered. "Eh," he said, "I didn't like it. There's a reason women don't make movies." Then he laughed.

The women I was standing with responded negatively; one of them threatened physical harm against him because there were more of us in the hallway then there were men. The others agreed, or said other similar things. I scoffed, and didn't respond other than that, which is my typical response. First of all, I knew that the guy was kidding, even though I thought his joke was in poor taste. Secondly, I learned a long time ago that men only say those kinds of things to get a reaction, and then they usually (depending on how big of jerks they are) say something like, "Isn't she cute when she's mad?" or something equally dismissive. It's a lot easier, and generally more satisfying, to not care when people are saying things like that. Usually they stop.

Of course, even when I try not to care I still care a little bit. Even though, like I said, I knew the guy was joking, it's irritating that's a joke that people even think of. From the things this person has said in class, I know that there are many other films he has not been fond of, but he has never claimed that those movies were bad because they were directed by a man. It would be absurd to say that, because most movies are made by men, and a lot of movies are good. Even though there were probably many reasons this person didn't like The Piano, he decided to claim that the reason he didn't like it was because it was directed by a woman.

I'm sure that, if this person were reading this blog, he would be quick to point out that he doesn't really think that women are inferior to men. (At least, I hope he would.) And it isn't even that I don't like this guy, because I certainly don't dislike him. I typically find him to be intelligent, even when I disagree with what he is saying. He just happened to be participating in something that is a pet peeve of mine: retro-sexism. Full disclosure: I did not just read about that term on my own. A couple of months ago, my friend Alyssa and I were talking about the phenomenon (which was at that point a nameless annoying thing that I hadn't really put my finger on) which Alyssa explained to me was called retro-sexism. Retro-sexism is basically a way of being sexist in an "ironic" way. The way I interpret that is when guys respond to something by saying, "Get back in the kitchen!" or "Make me a sandwich!" and then laugh, because they have won the argument. There is no way for a woman to respond to that, because there is no generally accepted and equally offensive joke for women to make about men. Of course the guys are kidding; they don't really want a sandwich. At the same time, they are using that joke to keep from hearing an intelligent thing a woman has to say. Ending a discussion with, "Go make me a sandwich" is as effective as if you and I were having a level discussion about politics, and you said, "I think illegal aliens should be granted amnesty because the current regulations are too restrictive and don't allow for the influx of immigrants who just want to come to the United States to make a better life for themselves, just like our forefathers did," and I responded by saying loudly, "Yeah, well kiss my butt!"

Of course you would be speechless. How would you respond to that? It would be illogical to continue the argument, as I haven't given you anything to respond to, but as a thinking human being, you probably don't want to respond with a similar retort, as that would be childish. That is how I feel when a man says "Make me a sandwich."

Or "Get back in the kitchen."

Or "There's a reason women don't make movies."

I know it's just a joke, and I know that I'm "taking it too personally" and being a stupid old stick in the mud. Those are the pressures that cause me to scoff at those remarks, as opposed to saying, "When you made that statement, I felt like you weren't taking me seriously as an intelligent human being." It just makes me really tired. Referring "ironically" to old stereotypes as a way to end arguments is just as offensive as referring to them without joking. They both silence someone effectively, and make me feel small and unimportant, when I know I'm not. It's not okay to joke that I, or any woman, am inept because I am a woman. When women are referred to that way, I am frustrated. I am tired. I am sad.

That's what I've been thinking about lately.

What Are You Supposed to Be?

2010-10-31T16:47:00.002-04:00

   As I'm typing this, children are walking up and down our street and through our neighborhood, dressed as pirates and witches and zombies, and it's my job to give them candy. It's my first Halloween, and I'm nervous about it. I was at first wearing a tee shirt and pajama pants, since it's Sunday and the pajama pants are plaid and cool-looking, but after a few batches of children had passed through, I noticed their parents, hanging behind, and realized that I didn't want to be that girl handing out candy in pajamas. I ran upstairs and switched to cords, then came back down. I asked Deanna, "What am I supposed to do? How much candy are they supposed to take? What am I supposed to say?"
   "Just say Happy Halloween, and then they'll take a piece of candy."
   "Just one piece? How are they supposed to get tons of candy?"
   "They'll end up with tons," Deanna's friend Elizabeth, who is visiting, assures me. "Everyone is giving them one piece of candy."
   Still, when a little boy with a camo painted face lingers over the bowl for a few seconds, deciding between the starburst and the tootsie roll, I quietly assure him, "Go ahead, take 'em both," and smile. I'm already breaking the rules.
   A few minutes ago, a couple of boys (probably 11 or 12) came up to the door for their treats. I wished them a Happy Halloween, and as the first boy chose his treat, the second said, "Your shirt is awesome."
   "My shirt?" I asked.
   "Yeah, I like it."
   The other boy looked up, read my shirt. "I'm sorry," he read slowly, "I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am." He nodded in approval, in the "too-cool" way that only 12 year old boys can. "Nice. That's a GREAT shirt." He started to walk away, having collected his skittles. "I'll buy it off of you for twenty bucks."
   Before I could respond, he was gone, clumping down our front porch steps. I turned to Deanna, who was sitting on the couch behind me, laughing at the exchange. I don't know why he offered to buy my shirt, especially since I'm pretty sure it only cost $10, and twenty dollars is a lot of money to a kid. Was he showing off for me, for his friend? Was he trying to act as cocky as the ninja he was dressed as?

   When I was younger, Mom was very firmly in the camp that Halloween was the devil's holiday, and inappropriate for children to celebrate. Although my siblings and I dressed up at least once a week, usually to do interpretive dance to Peter and the Wolf, we did not do so for October 31st. On the last day of October, we stayed in. I never felt like I was missing out. We had a All Hallow's Eve party one year, and other years our church had Harvest Parties where we could dress us and win prizes. And after all, I've always been aware that there are certain things I will never be able to do because I'm a Christian. When I was a child, one of those things was Halloween.
   When I got older, after we had moved out to the country where no one goes trick or treating anyway, we made friends with a family who always held a big Halloween party, and they invited us. This was a huge deal. Mom decided that it would be okay to go to the party. I dressed up as an Autumnal Fairy, wearing the vintage hippie dress I had picked up at a store in Mount Vernon adorned with leaves and with wings (made of wire hangers, panty hose and spray paint). After that, we went to the party every year, but I've never been trick or treating.
   This year, for the first time, watching all the little kids and the middle-schoolers traipse past our front window, I wish I would have had that kind of childhood, just for Halloween. Maybe it's not even that experience that I want. The thing that's so attractive about Halloween is the pretending. Pretending to be someone else, someone who is cool, distinctive, powerful and interesting. When I was a kid, it was easy to pretend. I pretended to be confident. I pretended to be in charge of things. I pretended to be a mermaid every time my friend Rosalyn came over.
   At some point, probably age 13, the pretending became lying. When people talked about music or movies, I pretended that I knew who they were talking about. I lied about who I was, and who I thought I was. When a friend of a friend told me that she didn't like the way I dressed, I told my friend that I didn't care what that other person thought. I told them that I was my own person, that I did what I wanted to do.
   During my senior year of high school, pretending just got too hard. It was too hard to keep track of the bands I was supposedly into. I couldn't keep trying to gauge whether people were talking about song titles or albums. I wouldn't make up any more plots of movies based on the summaries I'd heard from others. I decided that I was going to stop pretending.

   It's nice, as it turns out.

   Now, when someone says, "You know in that movie Requiem For A Dream..." I say, "Nope, haven't seen it," before I can be tempted to lie. Sometimes I think I might be too assertive about it, telling everyone the things I haven't seen or heard or done willy-nilly, scattering my inexperience into the ears of anyone who will listen. I'm afraid that if I don't say something right away, I won't say anything at all and I'll be back to who I was in high school, a girl who was too afraid to be herself for fear that the person she'd invented was much better than the person she really was. I used to pretend to be things because I thought that was how I should be, now I try to do what I want to because that's how I have to be.
   Still, the seduction of pretending is always too close for comfort. Am I wearing this plaid thrift store shirt because I like it, or because everyone else likes it? Am I watching this movie because I want to see it, or because that awesome person over there was talking about it a few days ago? I think I'm still motivated by what other people want, and I think I always will be. The difference, maybe, is that now when I talk to that awesome person over there about the movie, I usually say, "So, I watched (500) Days of Summer because you were talking about it the other day, and you're awesome." Maybe that's more awkward. Maybe it's more off-putting and forward. Either way, it's more truthful. Pretending is no longer about fooling people. Pretending is fun and easy again. Pretending is just for fun and creativity.
   And Halloween.

Goals For Fall Break

2010-10-24T22:20:00.001-04:00

I tend to create goals for myself that I cannot achieve. I expect to accomplish too much in a day, and I realize that. I guess since I never actually accomplish everything I set out to do, I have this feeling that if I put fewer things on my to-do list, I won't finish that shorter list, either. Still, even though I always include "low priority items" that I know will just end up first on tomorrow's To Do list, I end up lying awake at night, unable to sleep because all I can think about are the things I've left undone, and the possible repercussions for my "slacker" behavior. I got to thinking about that today when I told my housemate Deanna that I didn't get as much done over fall break as I intended (a common refrain for me). "I didn't do anything productive at ALL on Thursday," I moaned. "I should have done something on Thursday so I wouldn't have to worry so much today."
After that, we talked about our breaks, and I realized that, even though I didn't complete all my To Dos, I did do a lot of stuff over break, even though I felt like I'd been a lazy bum. Why do I feel like a lazy bum? Because I didn't complete the things that I supposedly "needed" to do. I told Deanna about the fun things I did on Wednesday with the caveat that "The stuff I did on Wednesday was fun and I enjoyed it, and I got to spend time with my family, but..." Although the words I was saying made it seem like I recognize that family time is important, the tone that I was using clearly indicated that my actions are at odds with my words. I wanted to blog about my continual failure to "get things done," and my high stress level this semester, because I keep "slacking off." Why don't I focus more on school? Why don't I do everything I need to do?
I realized that when I talk like that, I'm making myself feel like I am a slacker, when I'm not even close to failing any of my classes. More importantly, I'm learning a LOT, both inside and outside of class. Isn't that what I'm going to college for? To learn? Am I learning? Yes, definitely.
So why do I pay attention only to my failures?
Why do I act like things that aren't assigned for me to do are unimportant?
Why do I put things on my list that I know I will never complete?
Why don't I focus on all the things I did get done this week?

With all these questions in mind, here is my special list for today. Instead of making a To Do list, I'm going to make a Have Done list for my fall break.

Watched The Darjeeling Limited with Mom and Dad, which means that I have now watched every Wes Anderson film.
Wrote two journals for my Groups class.
Read half of The Help, a book for my friend Danyella's book club.
Made collages with Mom and my sisters.
Wrote 20 pages of a script I'm working on with Nick.
Beat three bosses in Super Mario Bros Wii with my siblings and my friend Kevin.
Talked with Zach about his life and my life.
Wrote a KWL for Comm Theory.
Read three books of the Bible.
Went to a bonfire with some friends from church who I rarely see.
Studied for my New Testament Exam for 4 hours.
Spent an afternoon (and a late night) having a jam session with my entire family (including Mom, who can now play ukulele!)
Went to a choir concert my dad performed in.
Ate dinner with my family multiple times.
Talked to my old choir director.
Went to church.
Talked to my friend Alyssa on the phone,
Watched Taxi Driver for History and Theory of Film.
Did a load of laundry.
Hung out with my family in general.
Watched an entire movie with my little sisters (which is, unfortunately, rare for me, since I usually leave them half-way through to do something else).

That is a lot of stuff for someone to do in a fairly limited amount of time. And all of that was beneficial to me. And all of it was good for me to do. I didn't waste my time this fall break. I think I actually spent my time really well. I'm going to focus on that, instead of the two items on my To Do list that I didn't complete.

I don't like to have stereotypical titles that use the words "musings" or "rambling" because that's what people always do.

2010-09-11T02:26:00.000-04:00

I really really really want something exciting to happen to me. I can't sleep anymore because I feel like I'm on the verge of something exciting happening, and if I go to sleep, I'll miss out. I check my email and facebook every couple of minutes because I think something is about to happen.

Nothing is happening.

When my hair is long I'm afraid I look like a cartoon hobo. When my hair is short I'm afraid I look like a lesbian. There is no right answer.

I don't know whether I've changed a lot or not at all since high school. Sometimes I think I'm a better person, and sometimes I think I'm a worse person. Sometimes I think I've been the same person since I was eight years old and pretended to faint whenever people did things that surprised or displeased me.

I don't remember the last time I dreamt. I think maybe the last dream I remember was a dream where I had started smoking and then felt bad about it because I always told myself that I wasn't ever going to smoke, but then in the dream I like smoking much too much to quit. Then Betsy and my mom told me that the dream probably meant that I'm blocking people off from me with a smoke screen of always being funny and I thought they were wrong at first but then I thought about it and was afraid they were right and now I think I'm afraid to remember my dreams because maybe they'll tell me more things I don't like about myself.

Today in directing we did an acting exercise. When I took Intro to Theatre and was in plays, I hated acting exercises and never committed to them. But now I commit to them and I like them because it's making me a better director. But they're the same exercises. Probably, though, I'm not ever going to act again because I think I'm too sensitive about myself. I usually am cast as older women or annoying people, and then for the whole production I keep telling myself "The reason why you got this part is because you're ugly and annoying." I'm much easier on myself as a writer and a director. It doesn't matter what writers and directors look like because no one ever knows who they are, anyway.

The more successful I am in college, the more I worry that I'm going to fail dramatically at real life.

I made cookies with Laura tonight. I'm very glad to have people in my life with whom I am completely comfortable. I am also glad that there is such a thing as chocolate chip cookies.

Sometimes I meet people and feel very upset if we don't become friends right away. But it always turns out that we become friends later when I'm not expecting it, and it's like finding an extra present under the Christmas tree after all the wrapping paper is cleaned up.

Some Things That Have Come To My Attention

2010-08-01T23:04:00.000-04:00

Sometimes if you just see a picture of someone, they don't seem that good-looking. But then when you talk to them you think that they are the most beautiful person in the world.

I always think to myself, "That person is so cool, they act like nothing matters to them. They're so freaking cool." But then if I ever talk to that person, I realize that I care too much about everything to get along with someone who doesn't care about anything. Something awesome will happen, like a thrift store full of Beanie Babies that I don't have, and then that person will find out that I collect Beanie Babies and instead of coming to the realization that Beanie Babies are an important thing to care about, they just scoff and make me feel stupid for seeing wonderfulness in what are essentially bags of plastic beads. So, I have to look at those careless cool people and think, "Taylor, you are too intense and too hyperbolic to be cool, so you'd better just stick with the people who care about things."

I've been watching a lot of videos on YouTube of British people, and now my internal monologue is British.

So, John Mayer wrote on his blog about his hair: "The feathered cut projects an attitude of ease and quiet confidence that seems to have all but eluded our generation. [It] is a work in progress, and as my hair grows longer it will serve to become a more stirring and poignant statement." Yes, he's talking about his hair. He thinks his hair style is going to make a "stirring and poignant statement." The more he talks/writes, the less I like him. Nothing about hair is poignant. I guess unless it's that song about that girl with cancer who has to shave her head before prom and then her boyfriend shaves his head in solidarity. That is poignant. But a Ferris Bueller-esque hairstyle? No. Not poignant.

Zach is home, and he didn't know who Justin Beiber is! Man oh man! I wish I didn't know who Justin Bieber is!

Last night I was trying to figure out who in the world I could imagine myself married to, and there wasn't anyone. I could imagine dating people, but not marrying anyone. That's probably because all the people I was thinking about were Andrew McCarthy, Ewan McGregor and David Tennant.

If all I ever ate was watermelon, I would be happy with my life.

Apparently people really hate you when you talk about music and, after mentioning a band you like, say "Yeah, you've probably never heard of them." I can understand why, in certain circumstances, that would be annoying. But I say that sometimes because sometimes I listen to bands that I really don't see how anyone else could have heard of them, either because they're local, or just random stuff I found online or whatever. And I don't want to act like I'm talking about Coldplay or something, so I don't want the person I'm talking to to feel like they should know who I'm talking about and feel stupid. So that's why sometimes I say, "You've probably never heard of this band."
Also, I guess people say that because they feel proud of how indie they are or something? I don't ever feel proud about knowing about some band, because usually it was someone else who told me about it. It's not like I'm a private eye who scopes out bands or something. I find out about them through websites and friends. Anyone can do that.

Well, well, well.

2010-07-30T00:53:00.000-04:00

My life is full of celebrity moments. No big deal.

When I say "full of celebrity moments," here is what I actually mean: four celebrity moments. But I'm only 20, so that averages out to one every 5 years. And actually, all of these celebrity moments have happened in the past year, now that I think about it. So, when I say that my life is full of celebrity moments, what I really mean is that this past year has been full of celebrity moments and that I expect that number to grow exponentially as I grow more and more famous (which I will achieve either through a. writing and directing b. being a stand-up comedian c. making really great salads or d. being an awesome rock star).

Let me cut to the chase. Here are my celebrity moments. (I'm not counting the time I met Kirk Cameron because, let's be honest, he probably doesn't count.)

Moment The First

The setting: last summer at Lollapalooza. Most of the bands that Melanie (one of my best friends) and I were most excited about drew HUGE crowds, so we didn't get overwhelmingly close. We were pretty far forward for Ben Folds (far enough forward that we didn't have to rely on the giant screens to perceive his talented performance) and even closer for The Decemberists (so close that they seemed like actual people and not little dolls) but she and I got to the stage EXTRA early to see the Kaiser Chiefs, who are a fantastically wonderful band. We weren't pressed right up against the stage, but we were pressed right up against the railing that housed the technicians and photographers. That is how I managed to touch Ricky Wilson, the lead singer. The band put on one of the best shows I've ever seen, with Mr. Wilson climbing up the scaffolding on the sides of the stage and twice running into the crowd.
The first time I just stood there, basically paralyzed with adoration. There he was, right in front of me! The crowd surged to support him as he climbed up on top of the railing and sang his face off. It was only after he retreated to the stage that I realized I had missed my opportunity to touch the rockingest rock star I'd ever seen.
(You're really worried right now, I can tell, but this story is going to end up with me touching Ricky Wilson, so don't worry.) (And when I say touching I don't mean it in a pervy way.)
I wasn't too heartbroken about the whole thing because I'm not exactly a touching kind of person in that I don't make touching people I admire a goal in life. In fact, I was a little bit glad that I didn't touch Mr. Wilson because I don't think I would like being touched by random people all that much, but then again I don't walk into crowds of adoring fans basically asking for them to touch me. Regardless of my feelings on the subject, Ricky Wilson sang a few songs, and then made his way into the crowd once again.
The only explanation I can give for my actions is that he was so absolutely magnetic that my hand flew up and attached itself to his sweaty back. It stayed there as long as he did. I rationalized this action by pointing out to myself that there wasn't anything supporting the rock star as he balanced on the fence, and without my help he might very well have fallen and been trampled by the screaming fans. I guess you could say, in fact, that I saved Ricky Wilson's life, which is a bit more than just a moment.
After the concert, I held out my hand to Melanie. "I touched him!" I said, feigning fangirlishness. "His sweat is on my hand!" Without missing a beat, Melanie rubbed my hand, which actually was dripping with the sweat of Ricky Wilson, all over her face. So that was cool.

Moment The Second

I'm pretty sure I already wrote about this, so here's the scoop: I met Neil Gaiman and gave him a get well soon card.

Moment The Third

Pretty much right after school was out, I was up really late one Thursday night because CollegeHumor was pulling a comedy all-nighter, and they were doing a live webcast of people just hanging out between shoots. I love CollegeHumor. I'm probably going to Hell for it, but I love CollegeHumor. Some of the funniest people with whom I am in love (because basically my only requirements for true love are being really funny and/or being British, I guess) work for CollegeHumor. All through the night, you could tweet them your phone number and they might call you. At first I was like, "There's no way I'm tweeting my phone number, that's crazy, I don't want to get stalked. Also I don't have a Twitter account." (This was before I had a Twitter account, in case you were reading and got all confused because I have a Twitter account. I have a Twitter account.) But then Pat Cassels was all, "Hey, here's some trivia, and we'll call the first person to answer it. Who was Beatle George Harrison's first wife?"
Of course I knew that his first wife was Pattie Boyd. I also know that he met her while filming Hard Day's Night. I also know that both the Beatles movies made quite an impact on his life, because not only did he meet his first wife through the first movie, he also was introduced to Indian music through the second movie, Help!, and Indian influences became an incredibly important part of his musical career, causing the song Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) to be the first pop song featuring the sitar as a prominent instrument. This interest in India eventually sparked an interest in Indian religions for all the Beatles, who eventually flew to India to spend time under the tutelage of Maharaji Mahesh. A lot of the songs on the While Album stemmed from the time in India, including Dear Prudence, Bungalow Bill and Sexy Sadie, whose titular character was originally named Maharaji, because John Lennon felt betrayed by the revelation that the Maharaji was hitting on his female followers and wasn't all pure of heart and such.
All of these things I could have told Pat, and almost did! Unfortunately, just before I completed my account, someone else sent in the answer, and they received the phone call. And they probably just Wikipedia'd it.
That meant that I was forced to spend the entire night trying to connive the various staff members of CollegeHumor.com into calling me, getting more and more desperate as the morning approached. The tweet that finally got their attention, sent at 4:00 in the morning, read "My life is a joke."
But it got Gale Beggy to call me! And I spent the most ecstatic 30 seconds of my life talking to Gale Beggy as people threw glasses of water into her face. Great. Day.

Moment The Fourth

The most recent of these celebrity encounters isn't nearly as entertaining or dramatic, but whatever, it inspired this post, so I guess I'll write about it.
Once again, I was up late on facebook and Twitter, and saw a tweet from Amir Blumenfeld, who I am following. It said, "Late shoot with @Kal_penn, tweet us your questions in the next ten minutes."
I LOVE Kal Penn (whose name, incidentally, is not Kal Penn but Kalpen Modi. He took his stage name as a joke, claiming that a more traditional Americanized name would get him more job offers. BUT the joke was on him because it actually did. Never underestimate the power of racism. Did people just somehow suddenly not realize that he was Indian?). Wow, that parenthetical digression was elaborate enough that I don't even really remember what I was talking about. I love Kal Penn, okay? The day he committed suicide was the day I stopped watching House. My roommate Sarah can attest to this.
So, I tweeted him a pretty lame question, which was "What is the best song you can think of right now?" My reasoning was that firstly you can tell a lot about someone by the music they like and secondly, it's really hard to think of the BEST SONG EVER, so I took the pressure off a little by just making it off the top of his head. I'm sure he appreciated the courtesy.
I didn't expect him to get back to me, but he did! His two word response of "Mika's Rain" elicited the most happiness from the littlest amount of effort that has ever taken place in human history. I wanted to tweet back, complimenting him on his musical taste (because Mika is great) and also mentioning that, in case he was wondering, his most attractive features to me are his inquisitive eyebrows and his thoughtful voice. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to express my fandom in 140 characters or less, and when I thought about ways to shorten my thoughts, I realized my sentiment was a tad on the creepy side, so I just sat in silence.

So, there they are. Exhaustedly enumerated, my celebrity moment have been documented for generations and generations to glance at before thinking, "tl;dr" and going back to their twitterbooks and YouBlogs.

(Oh, also, when I was 12 I had lunch with Tamora Pierce, but that's a kind of long story and probably not that many people care, even though it was the best lunch of my life. Oh my gosh, that was a really great day.)

The Return

2010-07-18T02:52:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I saw my brother for the first time in almost a year. My brother, post-malarial, post-missional, pre-debriefing. I witnessed his first wide-eyed examination of the aisles in a grocery store, his first sip of Mountain Dew Code Red, his first viewing of the Double Rainbow Guy.
I watched him closely as he hugged Mom and Noraa (at once) and Dad, Jaynie, Aleks and Grace (separately, with Noraa coming in again for seconds, thirds, fourths and fifths) to see if he was the same before I gave him a hug of my own.
Selfishly, I wished for all signs to point to normal. I hoped that he would be the same goofy and infuriating brother I have stranglehugged for my entire life, childishly wrapping my arms around his neck and balancing between jealousy and dismissal of his talents.
I never used to think I was selfish or jealous. I remember telling people (but secretly myself) emphatically, "I'm not a jealous person, but--" and feeling the shifty-eyed expression of my soul, who knew it was being lied to. I'm jealous of love. I'm jealous of affection. I'm jealous of attention. I'm jealous of my brother's outright popularity, a kind of popularity I have never enjoyed. People immediately like my brother and crowd around him, whereas I'm friends with popular people and occasionally others mistake me for a member of that class. At the same time, I can gloat over my scholarly achievements in private, knowing that school has never come easy for my younger brother.
I missed all this while he was gone. I forgot that all of our jokes could never really be understood by my friends at school. I listened to bands like Justice and thought about how he had imbued me with an appreciation for techno, even as I pretended to scorn his musical taste.
I realized that, without Zach to talk to late into the night on weekend visits, I had no one else to really confide in, without worrying that I was burdening them with too much information or, in the case of my parents, guilt of one sort or another. I consistently told the girls who flocked to me in hopes of getting close to my brother that he never really talked to me about anything, and that we weren't really that close, but I was lying to them. He told me a lot of things. We were close.
This closeness we shared, I feared, had been stretched and gone limp like an overextended rubber band, its integrity compromised by my lack of emails and the ocean between us. Three emails and a handful of phone and Skype conversations to last almost a year. 10 months. That's the reason my brother is the popular one; he makes an effort.
I scanned his face for the tell-tale signs of a harrowing spiritual missions trip. Would he refuse to smile? Had he grown bitter from suffering observed and absorbed?
He was there. He made the same goofy faces, and told the same meandering stories of his exploits and injuries. But he was changed, too. His face and tone sobered when he spoke of the damage done to Africa by conquerers, tycoons and missionaries. In the short time we visited, he hinted at turmoil.
So I don't know. Jaynie said she gets confused when we talk about Zach. For her, there is the Zach who is her brother and there is also the Zach who just came back from Africa, neither one completely the same nor completely different from the other. I have stayed the same, prolonging my immaturity through college activities and college education and scribbling snippets of collegiate ideals across my blank computer screen. Always the older sister, I'm afraid the seesaw of experience will come down heavily on my brother's side when he finishes his two weeks of debriefing and comes home again.
As I listened to him speak and laugh and ran my hand over the back of his spiky-haired head, his buzzed hair prickling against the palm of my hand, I said without thinking, "I'm never going to stop doing this," with a petulant air that made my whole family laugh. But I know it's true. Even if Zach is different, which I know he must be, he will still be my brother, and he will always be there for me, and I will be there for him. Even if one of us is in college and the other is in Africa.

This almost turned into a post about pet peeves.

2010-05-13T00:02:00.001-04:00

So, I haven't written for a long time (since February, for Pete's sake!). I've started writing things, but then I get a little bit into them and start thinking, "All right, who cares that I don't like euphemisms?" Which I don't. I hate it when people say "passed away" instead of "died," or "made love" instead of "had sex." Really I hate that a lot. But, like I said, probably no one reading this even cares.

Also, a lot of things that I wanted to write about seemed like things that I probably shouldn't just post on a blog because they were too personal, and I'm an over-sharer, I think. So I kept starting to write about things that were probably too much.

I'm home for the summer, which is a little weird to get used to, but not too bad. Basically the hardest part is when people ask what my plans are, and my plans are pretty much "take some time off and not have any plans."

All right, my plans are to write. That doesn't sound impressive. And it doesn't sound like a summer job, which is what everyone else's plans are.

The thing is, this past year has been WONDERFUL, but probably the busiest year of my life. By finals I was totally stressed out, and I need some down time. That's the truth. Because I did everything this year, I think. I co-wrote a play, I directed a film, I took classes, I had a vibrant social life... I mean, that's all pretty normal college stuff, but whatever.

I'm writing stuff that I feel like no one cares about right now.

I'm getting worse at small talk, I think. I used to think I was getting better at it, but I think I'm getting worse. I played guitar and sang for this club thing that took place at my church, and all these women were asking me things about my life, and they knew the kinds of things to ask because they found out I was a college student. What am I supposed to ask people about? Most of the women were over the age of 60, and none of them talked about jobs, so I think they were all retired. Can't ask them about that. And I feel like that's the only thing I can ask people about that isn't weird. Here's the thing: I think I'm much worse at small talk at home and at church because Mom keeps everyone updated on my life, but obviously she doesn't tell me about what's happening to everyone at church every time I talk to her. So I can't just walk up to them and say, "So, what's happening in your life? Anything?" and then grill them about that. Maybe I should take the time to find out more about people's lives, I dunno.

Maybe everyone knows this, but when I get interested in things, I decide to learn all about them. The last thing I did this with was the Beatles (obviously) like, three years ago. Now I'm getting obsessed with SNL. This isn't exactly new; I've wanted to write for SNL since last year. I'm reading this book that I got for Dad for Christmas, and it's called "Live From New York," and it's this whole history of SNL, but it's all people talking about it in interviews. It's probably not super-accurate, and the writers who compiled it all are obviously all misty-eyed over the original cast (not that I'm saying the original cast wasn't FANTASTIC) but they're all venerating the show and making the whole thing kind of melodramatic, which I don't really like when I'm reading cultural stuff, but it's a good book. The best thing about it is that I'm pretty sure that writing for SNL is an accomplishable goal. They usually get young writers who haven't done anything before, but show talent. That's probably me. I'm not a genius or something, but I think I'm a pretty funny person, generally speaking. I'm capable of making people laugh. I think it's a lot more likely that I'll write for SNL than a lot of other things I've wanted to do. The thing that freaks me out is that so many of the original cast and writers, and even writers and cast members today, are so young! They're like, 23. I'm 20! I haven't done a single thing with my life, and my life feels like it's going to be over very soon. It makes me want to just drop out of school and go to New York. But that would be silly because I don't know anything and I don't have any connections. Also I like school.

Anyway, probably none of this is of general interest. I'm losing my knack for writing blogs, maybe. Ugh.

Vision

2010-02-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

The thing I mainly like about having glasses now is that I don't have to feel self-conscious about my face. I don't feel like I should be wearing eyeliner or mascara because what does it matter? My glasses feel like they cover up my whole face.

Also, when people first meet me, they probably just think "glasses." They don't evaluate what I look like, maybe, because there are just these big glasses staring back at them.

I like that.

Maybe it's cowardly, but I can shield myself with my glasses.

Also I can see.

It really helps to see.

Christmas Pizza

2010-01-04T22:53:00.001-05:00

When I started going to Malone, I didn't know anyone. I knew a couple of Betsy's friends who were also freshmen, but they weren't particular friends of mine, just people I knew and chatted with when I ran into them. I was nervous about it, it being college, at the beginning of senior year, but by the end of the year I was really glad I was going to be starting over with a new group of friends and a whole new environment. For various reasons, senior year sucked a lot. I'm not saying that to be all mysterious and dramatic and vague. I'm saying because I'm over the stuff that happened then, and looking back it was all for the best and I don't need to talk about why it sucked. But I'm mentioning that it was terrible because that's the reason why I didn't make a huge effort to stay in touch with my friends from high school last year. Of course I was really busy adjusting to my new schedule and friends which played a large part as well. After all, I still loved my friends. I just wanted to take some time to distance myself from...well, pretty much everything. Even people I love, people who were there for me. I needed time off.

This year has been really nice, because I'm getting back in touch with friends I haven't seen much since I started college. For example, the week before Christmas, I met up with some choir friends at the Christmas Candlelight Concert our choir performs at every year.. I was worried at first that we were all going to be too different and it was going to be one of those terrible moments when you realize that your old friends aren't friends anymore, but as soon as I saw the first couple of friends, I knew it was going to be okay. I saw Jake first, because he's pretty flipping tall, and grinned a cheesy grin, because it was just like old times, guys. Then I saw Ginny, and she ran over and gave me a huge hug, and reminded me that we NEED to hang out, especially since I'm only about 15 minutes away from her when I'm at Malone. And then we talked about how we sat next to each other for years and years and she always thought that as long as she held her music up in front of her face our director couldn't tell what she was doing at all. (Shout out to Ginny, who told me that night that she reads this blog. Woo hoo!) Ginny was ushering and Jake was with his parents, so they left to go show people to their seats and sit down, respectively. Then Melanie showed up, and that was exciting. I still talk to Melanie on a pretty regular basis, so we just goofed off and waited for Andrew, the other former chorister we were sitting with. He gave us a pretty skillful double-hug when he showed up, and we all went in. The concert was fantastic, of course, and afterwards we went to Luigi's, which definitely has the best pizza in the world. Originally I wasn't going to be able to go, because Mom had to pick Dad up someplace else as soon as the concert was over, but Ginny offered to give me a ride back home (even though it's an HOUR DRIVE, for Pete's sake) and then Mom said they could meet her halfway, and so all was right with the world.

It was a really good night. We were loud and full of laughter and stories about college life and the last choir trip they'd been on. Baby Alex protested his nickname of Baby Alex (there are two people named Alex in our group of friends, and he's the younger one), and Caitlin talked about how certain members of the choir none of us had gotten along with were doing. On the ride back with Ginny, we talked about our lives and how her brother steals her breakfast cereal and almost got lost, and promised to keep in touch this semester.

I guess I'm trying to say that I've had enough time off from high school, and I think I'm ready to renew these old friendships. That's what I learned over my Christmas break.

Vintage

2009-12-22T23:17:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about quality a lot lately.
Like, someone with a "quality" voice for musical theatre now would have been considered a terrible singer 20 years ago, because styles change. Or people say that American movies are the best quality, and that our acting is better, but isn't that just a matter of opinion?
What about music? The music that I like, other people don't. Does that mean that they like "bad" music and I like "good" music.
It might be unfair to judge things in such a black and white way. I'm trying to see art as not a matter of good and bad, but of personal taste. Maybe people should just say that they don't prefer things.
It's really hard not to judge, though. It's really easy to make fun of stuff that I think is crap.
It's really easy to make fun of stuff in general.

Look at that. Hippies. Hippies wear the AWESOMEST clothes, hands down. I would dress like that if a) I had those clothes and b) I were beautiful. It's all headbands and bright colors. Geez.

Sometimes I get in the mood to watch every All American Rejects music video there is. I don't care if that's wrong. I love them. I taught Noraa to sing "Swing Swing" when she was too little to even understand the words.

I saw my grades. Even though I was sure I was going to get a B for Foundations of British Literature, I managed to pull an A out of that class. So I have all As for every semester, which is crazy. People keep asking my parents how I'm doing and stuff, and they're always like "Did she get her first B yet?"
I study a lot, I guess.

It's almost Christmas! It's almost flipping Christmas!

Too much

2009-12-05T13:53:00.000-05:00

When I first started listening to the Beatles, I felt like I was listening to music for the first time. It isn't like I'd never liked music before, but most of the music I listened to was music my parents listened to or music I was exposed to in choir. I didn't have my very own favorite band. Not really. I went through a period where I really liked Train and listened to their albums constantly, especially when I was writing. I also once identified strongly with punk rock and ska music, but didn't have any favorites. When I started listening to the Beatles, I knew that I wanted to listen to every single thing they ever performed. I bought my first CD within the next week. I looked up each of them on Wikipedia, then found out everything I could about each album, then each song. Before long, I was getting books out from the library. LOOONG books. Extensive biographies. At first I read without thinking, not stopping to consider which authors were biased toward John or Paul, or which simplified events to the point of meaninglessness. While reading one biography, I realized that I recognized the source the author was using. That started happening more and more often, and I began to realize that I had actual personal opinions about the lives and personalities of the Beatles. I thought I understood why the band broke up, why John and Yoko were inseparable, why Paul couldn't handle her presence. I empathized with them both. I understood each person in the story, and didn't hate any of them. The tale began to feel like the saga of King Arthur to me. I don't hate Mordred, I don't hate Lancelot, I don't hate Arthur, I don't hate Paul, I don't hate John, I don't hate Yoko. I used to stay awake at night, running through scenarios in my head, thinking about what questions I would ask Paul and Ringo if I ever had the chance to interview them. I would ask Paul why he laughed in the middle of Maxwell's Silver Hammer. I'd ask Ringo if he liked acting or singing more.
To be honest, my fascination frightened me. Sometimes I worried that I'd never be able to stop thinking about the Beatles. I wondered if I should stop reading up on them to attempt to curb my own interest.
Life isn't like that. Maybe some people never get over their fixations, but most of the time people just get interested in other things. I still like the Beatles, but they don't consume me. I'm waiting for my next passion to come along. Then I'll learn everything I could ever want to know about that thing. Just like I learned everything I could about the Beatles. Just like I learned everything I could about ancient Egypt. Or Greek mythology. Or Garry Marshall. Things change. People get interested in other things. Most brains don't get stuck on one idea for their whole lives.
I was thinking about personality quizzes, and how I wish that there was some brain measuring thing somewhere that would just tell you everything about yourself. Because personality quizzes aren't that accurate. You pretty much end up getting what you want to get. A three year old could manipulate one of those quizzes to get the answer she wants. So I always end up being nice and awesome on those quizzes when I'm not really especially nice or awesome. I'm pretty much normal. Like, if I take a Beatles quiz, I'm going to get John Lennon as a result, because he's the Beatle I would want to be, so the test wouldn't end up being accurate. Likewise, I like to think that I'm a super-creative person, so when I take Meyers-Briggs tests, I end up being an ENFP, which is pretty creative and empathetic and stuff. I think that I'm like that. I know I want to be like that. Am I really?
So then I was wondering if maybe the fact that I WANT to be those things makes me like those things. Just the fact that I value creativity might mean that I'm naturally inclined to be a creative person. Doesn't our desire to be better influence how good we actually are? Then again, I know people who think they're really good listeners and value good listening, but actually are terrible at listening to people. Or people who think they're funny but aren't. Etc etc.
That's the point in my thought process where I start wondering if I really know anything at all.
(Usually it turns out I don't. Or that I know part of something. Or that I used to know something but then thought that thing wasn't true, but now it appears that it is true. The thing about knowing things is that the strongest thing I think you can ever do is THINK you know it. I don't know if you can ever know you know it, because maybe everything isn't as it seems. And that's why it takes faith to believe in anything.)
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting beside the breakfast table, thinking about my troubles (not literally the breakfast table, mind you). Typically, that kind of activity does more harm than it does good. So of course I ended up thinking about how awful my life is and how many problems I have, and how I don't think any of them will ever be solved, and then I talked to my mom and realized that EVERYONE has really horrible lives, and no one will ever be happy, and life is a vale of tears. (I'm being hyperbolic, but you understand what I'm getting at.) So I was laying in bed, and I started praying, because that's what I do when I'm really upset. I just start complaining to God. Then I thought, "Hey, if everyone's lives suck so much, why should you even think God is listening to you? Why should you even think there is a God?"
I guess I think about evil as much as the next person, but there's always been some pat little argument I learned in high school to argue that God exists, even in the face of evil. But that night, none of those arguments made sense. They were all bull. (I think most of them are probably bull anyway.) So I just said, "God, what the heck. Why? Why, why why?" And then I curled up into a ball, because if there's no God, then there's no point, really. If there's no God, then everything sucks and then everything is over, and that's awful. If there's no God, then there's no point in morality, and there's no point in love, and there's no point in art. So I just stayed in bed for a while, saying over and over "God, please exist, please exist, please exist. Because I don't want to fool myself into believing. Just let me know. I need to know You're there."
Nothing really great happened. There wasn't any flash of lightning. But gradually a sense of calmness filled the room, and I stopped whispering to myself. I was just quiet for a little bit. And I read my Bible, and I read about faith, and I thought, "Okay, God, here's my faith back. I don't know if You're there, but I'm going to go ahead and cast this out, and see if You grab the other end." And I didn't feel like I was alone. I didn't feel a presence in the room, or anything. But I just felt like there was some reason in the universe. That my faith had caught on to something bigger. And then I fell asleep. (I think the sleep might be the strongest argument for God in this story, because my mind was so occupied that I don't know how else I could've slept.)
Sometimes people call Christianity a crutch. Okay, sure. It's a crutch. But when everyone is going around with two broken legs, I don't see a crutch as a bad thing.

Star-gazing

2009-11-17T18:35:00.003-05:00

Last night there was a meteor shower. Some of my friends and I bundled up and headed out around 11:30, stopped at Taco Bell for some Mountain Dew and nachos (because that's what we're fueled by, mostly) and drove until we could see stars.
It took a while.
I get bothered about stars every once in a while. There's so much light pollution in Canton that's it's futile to look up. I can only see the brightest stars. I can't see the Milky Way. Sometimes panic jumps up into my throat when I wonder if someday Millersburg will be like that, too. When I go home, I can see the Summer Triangle and Cassiopeia and even Draco, which is the hardest for me to find and sometimes I think I'm making it up as I go along, connecting stars that aren't meant to be connected. Still, the orange haze of civilization is already creeping up around the horizon of my house on the hill, and it's only a matter of time before I won't be able to see anything but streetlights and cars. I already feel isolated. Human beings are already consumed with ourselves. If we can't see the rest of the galaxy, how will we remember that we aren't the only thing that matters, aren't the only things that are breathtakingly beautiful, aren't the only thing that God created?
We started driving through fields and past Amish houses (you can tell they're Amish because they don't have shutters) and started wondering aloud where we should stop. Laura said we should just stop in a field someplace. I didn't want to because people have private property and I didn't want to get shot.
We stopped in a field someplace.
Sarah and I brought our guitars, but it was too cold to play, and we were close enough to houses that we decided it was best to stay as quiet as it's possible for four girls to be after midnight. So we put down a blanket and flung ourselves into a heap on top of it, and covered up with each other and more blankets. Then we looked at the stars.
At first, everything was overcast, and we could only see things out of the corners of our eyes. We weren't even sure if we were seeing stars or if our eyes were tired and beginning to fail us. Then a tiny hole in the clouds appeared and we could clearly see Orion's belt. Sarah started pointing out constellations that I didn't even know, and told us that she used to want to be an astronomer. As we waited for the clouds to blow away, Chelsea regaled us with stand-up comedy routines she's memorized and then just told us stories of her own. Laura flipped out every time a new star was visible.
I laughed until my stomach hurt and I couldn't feel the cold anymore.
I looked away for a second, and everyone gasped. "Did you see that! That was a giant one!" Laura practically yelled. Everyone had seen the first meteor of the night but me. I looked back up at the sky, and before long there was another. As the night grew colder, we snuggled closer together and gasped when another piece of space shot across the sky.
Eventually the clouds covered the stars again, and we all packed our stuff up and drove back to Malone. Laura cranked up the heat, and I almost fell asleep, covered in blankets and friendship. I crawled into bed, exhausted but complete.
I don't think I ever could have given myself a better life than God has.

Regressing

2009-11-08T00:47:00.003-05:00

I was kind of surprised when the girl behind the counter at Starbucks asked me a question while I waited for my tall mocha frappuccino, so I didn't really hear what she'd said, especially over the roar of the coffee-making-machine-thing.
"What?" I said, leaning over the counter.
"Do you have any big plans for tonight?" she asked again. I shook my head.
"Oh, uh, no." I paused, trying to think if I was doing anything special. I'm usually not. I'm single and don't have a driver's license, so any "big plans" of mine usually involve watching movies or going to Walmart and buying candy and/or milk with Sarah and Laura. Which are all of immense importance to ME, but usually aren't considered big plans by anyone else. "I'm, um, going home."
She smiled. "Oh, that's nice! Have fun." She handed me my coffee, and I was on my way.
I felt really grown up. Partially because I was drinking coffee, which I don't do a whole lot, especially not coffee from Starbucks, but mostly because that was the first time I've mentioned to a stranger that I don't live at home. I live on my own, now. For all she knows, I'm a famous safari explorer who has been living in the Sahara desert for 5 years. Although I suppose my immaturity is revealed by the fact that the first example I thought of just now was so farfetched.
My friend Grape is spending the night. She's downstairs about to sleep. We both have church in the morning. I went to a concert at her church with my little siblings and ran into her there. She saw me and literally screamed with excitement. It made me grin. It made my heart expand. She tackled me in a great hug.
I love hugs, I think. I'm really awkward with hugs, but I like them. I never realized that I didn't know how to hug until last year. I was in a play and was supposed to hug my "husband" and it became all too clear to everyone that my body couldn't manage to coordinate itself into a hug. Maybe it's because I'm used to hugging people much shorter than I am (my siblings and mother) or much taller than me (my brother and dad) and not used to hugging people who are roughly in my height range. Or maybe I'm just not used to hugging people who aren't my family. Anyway. The moral of the story is that now that I am better equipped to hug people, I like it. I especially like when Grape tackle-hugs me. Because it's an overflow of love and joy and it's slightly violent, but only because it's unrestrained. And wonderful.
So what I'm saying is, everyone who sees me anywhere should just hug me. (That's not true. Only because I think people would be crazed out if they thought I was serious.)
Do you ever feel like you're in junior high again? Sometimes I look in the mirror and can only see an awkward 8th grader. I remember one time in 8th grade I wore an outfit that consisted of all items of clothing with the word "princess" on them. Even my socks. My shirt said princess. My jeans said princess (and, to be fair, other things as well). I might've even been wearing a hat that said princess.
Why didn't anyone tell me that wasn't okay?
I'm often afraid that I'm making those same mistakes. I'm still the same person, if you think about it. I haven't learned all that much about fashion since then. I still just wear whatever stuff looks awesome to me. It might still be ridiculous. I wouldn't know. Most of my clothes come from thrift stores, which means that most of the things I wear are things that other people have already decided that they don't even want to own, let alone wear. The only difference between myself then and now is that now I'm aware that I'm capable of being and looking completely silly when I think I look great.
Maybe that's okay, though. My dad used to have a mullet. My dad is even a reasonably cool guy. If everyone in the 80s was duped into having a mullet, it might be okay for me to dupe myself into wearing weird clothes.

Snakeskin

2009-11-03T00:27:00.000-05:00

I don't like losing people.
Who does?
The other day in one of my classes, my professor mentioned that losing touch with people is just a part of life.
That part of life freaking sucks.
I don't want to lose my high school friends. I don't want to lose my college friends. I want to keep everyone trapped in a little box with pins stuck through them and I want to pull them out when I'm lonely or want attention.
That is unfeasible. And cruel. And self-centered. However, it's what I want, deep down inside.

All these thoughts of letting go came from Fall Break. I went home. My brother wasn't there. He's in Pennsylvania, training for the 6 months he's going to spend in Africa. This break is the first time I've really been home for any substantial amount of time without him being there. I kept wandering into his room to talk to him, but he wasn't there.
Then I started thinking about how he's probably going to start living on his own soon. How, after he gets back from Africa, we don't really know what he's going to do. He doesn't really know. So, basically, I can't go home ever again. Slowly, we'll all leave. And I can't be a kid anymore. And I can't have a family anymore.
Freaking crap.

(I'll still have a family. We'll just all be living other places and some of us will have other families.)

Why do things have to change? I don't feel like I change that much. I guess I do, though. Probably some people feel like I've left them. I don't like leaving people, either.

As my professor said, it's an inevitable part of life.

We'd all be on horseback

2009-10-28T01:47:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I wish for brilliance. Sometimes I want to be so ruthlessly intelligent I could cut people down with a single word. I want people to be afraid of me. I want to be a hard and sharp and cold as a diamond. I want Emma Thompson to play me in a movie.

Here's who would really play me: Rosie O'Donnell.

One thing I really like is when I'm passing someone I know, and instead of saying "Hi," or "Hey," or "What's up?" we just nod to each other. Not the kind of nod where you smile and nod completely. I'm talking about the kind of nod where you just lift your chin up and are both too cool to smile or say anything. It's my favorite thing to have happen.

I think I'm the least edgy person in my playwriting class. Everyone else is writing this really artsy stuff or gritty stuff or meaningful stuff, and I'm not, actually. I mean, I think it's meaningful. Sometimes. But it's just stuff about people meeting other people and falling in love over and over again before they realize that falling in love isn't a real thing. And then they realize that love is actually better than falling into it. And I don't know anything about anything, so maybe that's just a load of bull that I'm writing. Do I believe in love at first sight, or do I just believe in hormones? Does anyone believe in love at first sight anymore? I believe in a lot of things that are weirder than that. I don't believe in that, though. I don't really believe in destiny, either, but I find myself thinking that things are destined. Does that make me a hypocrite? Or does it just make me human?

Here's the reason I'm not edgy: I don't ever swear. I really don't. I have a foul mouth in my mind, but I don't say it. One time I called my brother a dick, and one time I said I was being a bitch, but that's it. When I try to write characters who are realistic and swear, they just sound silly. They sound like they're trying too hard. That's because they are. That's because I am. Other people can write things where people have no problem cussing, and it's natural and realistic. And edgy. Not I. I want so badly for a character to tell someone to fuck off, but it's not going to happen. I know why it's not going to happen.

A) I can only ever seem to be alternative and awesome, when really I'm vanilla. I might be a poser. I like things that are different and weird, but I myself am neither of those things.

B) I can't shake the feeling that swearing is not the right thing for me to do. I don't care if other people do, but I can't. I can't can't can't justify it for myself. I like beautiful things, and swearing isn't beautiful. It's raw and emotional and honest and real, but it's not beautiful. It's something I can respect, but I'm not enough of any of those things to write and/or do it. It doesn't make sense for me to feel like that, because when other people swear, I get this weird kind of admiration for them. When people create art with vulgarity, I like it. I mean, I don't like all of it just because there's swearing, but if it's good, I like it.

Lately I feel trapped in my head. I wish I could just shrug out of my skin and take a vacation. I'd float around the ocean for a while and not think about anything anymore. I'd come back when everyone had forgotten about me and I could make myself something new.

I think life is a process of becoming something you aren't yet. Smarter. Stronger. Kinder. Maybe that's good. I think that's good. But if that's true, does that mean that contentedness is stagnation? I don't want it to be. Do I only think progress is good because that's society? Isn't trying to get closer to God trying to progress? I'm going to be honest: I don't feel like I'm close to God right now. I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing. I pray, but I feel like my prayers just jostle loose my insecurities, which bounce and echo in my head, and sometimes I think they're God talking, and sometimes I know it's just my own voice coming back to me.

Are all the things I feel are right really wrong? Are all the people I think are hurting people really helping them? Last year I found out that I knew a lot of stuff I didn't think I knew. This year I'm finding out that I didn't really know a lot of it.

Is this just another time for me to grow? I remember when I was 8 or 10 I went to the doctor because my knees hurt and I was tired all the time. Turns out I was just getting taller and older. Growing pains. I thought I had a disease. Maybe that's what's happening now. Maybe I don't have a spiritual disease, maybe I just need to get taller again.

I played some records today. Artifacts are just as good as time travel. I pretend I'm living in the 60s, only computers were around back then and also Snow Patrol, because I've been listening to them more lately too.

Here's another thing I love: coming into my room and seeing Laura crashed on my couch. I love when people are comfortable around me and just act like themselves. And when I come into my room and see that Laura is fine with chilling there even when she's alone, I feel like a real person.

And that's why I'm never going to be hard as diamonds.

Imbued

2009-10-23T22:30:00.001-04:00

Ever since I was a tiny child, I have wanted to be a writer. My first book was entitled "Dad's Book," which I both wrote and illustrated, and which featured a drawing of my dad standing in front of a barn wearing overalls. No, my dad had never done that (and still hasn't) but I choose to view that as a sign of my creativity, even at the tender age of 5.
By 8, I was writing my own memoirs, although I never got much further than the titles. A few I remember are "My Great Boring Life," and "Tales of the African What-What Bird," which sounds like it might be about something made up, but was actually referring to the fact that my mom had called me that one time because I guess I had a penchant for not hearing what people were saying and then yelling, "WHAT? WHAT?"
I'm trying to say that I wrote a lot, and have always wanted to be a writer.
Technically, I am a writer. I write on a regular basis. I don't do it for money, but I do it for a living. As in, I would probably die if I couldn't express myself using the written word. Heaven only knows I don't express myself well in the spoken one.
The other day I was thinking about how crazy it is that I'm actually good at the thing I love. One could make the argument that I love to write because I'm good at it, but that doesn't explain why I've loved writing before I could do it well. I loved writing even when I wrote things in my journal like,
"Oct 22 1999, Age 9
Today was bad. Aleks couldn't find his shoehe's so every one exepte him was looking for his shoe, mom calld pop & dad. After that she blue up she yeled at us all including me. Why me? I'm upset."
(Don't ask me how I knew how to spell "including" but not "yelled" or even "shoes.")
Worse yet, my journal also documents the angst and inner turmoil I suffered when, at age 11, I discovered that Aaron Carter didn't write his own music.
This is not the height of literature.
Somehow I managed to break through my hatred of my handwriting workbook (thank God for keyboards) and my inability to focus on anything that wasn't how angry I was at my siblings or how betrayed I felt by the music industry. Somehow I made it to college, where I've discovered that I have become, completely by accident, a writer.
How crazy is that?
How crazy is it that the one thing I want to be more than anything else in the world is the one thing at which I excel? The one thing I'm completely comfortable doing.
I know it's not an accident, obviously. I know it has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with this God I worship, but still. I know people who want to be actors but who can't act their way out of a paper bag. I know people who want to be musicians but who can't carry a tune in a bucket. I know people who want to be original but only use worn out metaphors like "act their way out of a paper bag" and "can't carry a tune in a bucket." Seriously, though. Is there anything more torturous than wanting something with everything you've got in your finite little body and not being able to come anywhere near it?
I think I might be the luckiest person alive.

I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

2009-10-18T01:58:00.002-04:00

"I just want you to be happy," he said, rubbing my back gently. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you." He looked at me intensely, and I looked away. He didn't stop. "I love you."
Yes, that was the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.
No, it wasn't real.
Last night I went to an interactive mystery thing, and my character, Gabby Backer, was dating Larry Linebacker. We went to homecoming together before my brother was killed by Cindy Sensational, who wanted her boyfriend, Kevin Kicker, to get the scholarship my twin brother Bobby was about to receive. It was a really fun time: I got into a huge fight with Sally Spirit and Dr. Chambers had to break us up, and then Peter Prez tried to crown himself homecoming king since the actual winner (Bobby) was dead and couldn't fulfill his duties, and Laura and I were two out of the four people who correctly deduced that Cindy Sensational was the murderer, which resulted in our "Smoking Gun" awards.
Still, Larry Linebacker's confession of love was a little unnerving. Not because he was being creepy or uncomfortable. We were both acting out our parts and being silly like everyone else. It just made me think about my own horribly uneventful love life.
After the event, Laura and I started talking about how she and her boyfriend ended up dating and about how my mom thought my dad was going to kill her when he proposed (Spoiler alert: He didn't), and about how Sarah is engaged and all that kind of stuff, and it threw into sharp relief the fact that I have never had a boyfriend in my entire 19 years of existence. To make matters worse, I've never even been pursued. (Okay, one time I was at a square dance and this creepy kid followed me around for a couple hours and ate my pretzels, but I was like 13 at the time and it was a fluke.) And to be honest I'm not THAT upset about it. I don't want a boyfriend just for the sake of having a boyfriend. There are so many great things about being single, really. I don't have to worry about missing anniversaries or spending enough time with my boyfriend, or worry that he's cheating on me, or keep myself from talking about celebrity crushes (although I usually end up going for writers, who aren't that intimidating anyway) or any other things that people who are dating have to worry about. And I heave a sigh of relief.
But there are sucky things about being single, too. Every once in a while I start wondering if I'm ever going to have a partner. I can't help but notice that more and more of my friends are engaged, and that leaves me on the outside looking in, worried about seeming awkward when someone's fiance or boyfriend shows up, completely eclipsing my presence with his charming smile and his cologne.
"What's wrong with me?" I wonder, watching girls my age as they casually touch their engagement rings and smile a little.
I think that's really the part that bothers me. Is there some aspect of my personality that drives people away? Am I a repulsive person? It's the not knowing that's upsetting.
I'm too afraid to let anyone know that there's some little part of me that wants the kind of relationship where people say silly things to each other and fall completely in love. It's like when I'm sitting alone in the cafeteria but I don't want people to know that I'm not sitting alone by choice, so I give my best impersonation of a person who just wants to sit alone for a little bit and doesn't need anyone else in her life. Because obviously letting it be known that there's a romantic part of me is completely pathetic, because who does that? Even writing on my blog about this is uncomfortable. It's too much to reveal. It's weird to confess that I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up a batty old maid living a shoddy apartment in New York writing plays for my cats and keeping a blog about how our civilization has really started going downhill ever since earthquakes shook the midwest into molten lava and California slid into the sea back in 2012 (gosh darned mayans!). For someone who claims to hate romance, I'm sure hung up on the concept.
There are a lot of people in my life who love me. And those relationships aren't inferior to a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Those relationships are loving and stable and I appreciate my friends and family so much. And more importantly than that, I have a God who will love me even if everyone else in my life doesn't. That's not something I take lightly, and it's not something I'd trade for anything else.
I just wish I could shake this feeling that there's something wrong with me. Or that I could figure out what that something is.

Things People Say To Me

2009-10-11T13:44:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I got a chance to see my little sisters when we went out to get a dress for homecoming. (I was going to just wear some random clothes I have, but my mom was like, "We can go to Encore and pick up a dress, no big deal.") So while we were there, my little sister who is 6 was trying on the tiaras and making Laura and Sarah do the same. One of the women working there looked at my little sister and said, "Aren't you just gorgeous!" My little sister, who was gazing at herself in a hand mirror, replied smugly, "Yes!" Laura said her self-confidence balances out my complete lack of that virtue.

Just a couple of minutes ago, I was talking to my suitemate Melissa about homecoming, and she said it's her dream to be homecoming queen someday. "You should vote for me, because I'll bring an end to world peace!"

That's a good campaign strategy for sure.

And now for a segment I like to call, "Laura's Words of Wisdom."

Yesterday at dinner, I was talking about how my little brother is having a hard time at school because apparently all the kids he goes to school with make fun of him and call him "The Weird Kid," even though he's legitimately one of the awesomest 14-year-olds I know. Laura's advice was, "If you can't beat them, don't join them. Kill them."

Righto.

After watching Dead Poet's Society, Laura's comment was, "The moral of this movie is 'Don't trust a ginger.'"

Don't trust a ginger, never trust a ginger, don't trust a ginger; don't trust me.

Finally, a word of caution from Laura: "Don't just eat grapes."

Academic Relationship

2009-10-08T13:42:00.000-04:00

Last night I confided to my roommate and suitemates that I'm unable to turn my brain off. The thing that makes me a (good?) writer, my ability to analyze the smallest phrase for hidden meaning, makes me a neurotic human being. Accepting things blindly is difficult, even when that's all I want to do.
This is especially a problem in church.
While the pastor is speaking, I'm evaluating his statements for veracity, often too critically, especially if I'm at a new church. It's hard to get into the worship service when I can only think about how similar and uncreative most praise and worship songs are. Church becomes less of an outpouring of love to God, and more of an academic exercise. How does this doctrine fit with mine? How many songs use the exact same language? How many errors in grammar did that woman include in her announcement? Why do Christians have to be so average, so silly, so uninspired, so wrong?
That isn't what church is about. Sure, there's a place for study and consultation and heavy thinking; I believe this unto my very soul, and will never stop thinking that. But there's also a place for not thinking, for just acting out of feelings (a part of life I degrade because I'm too afraid to do it), and that aspect of a relationship with God has to be let in. This constant evaluation and rejection of "just empty feelings" only hurts my own ability to grow closer to God. And guess what: I only notice that I'm really far away when something forces my restless mind back into God's endless one, and I remember what it's like to be quiet and listen. That's when God says, "You don't have to understand everything. You CAN'T understand everything. Stop critiquing the music and the speaker and let them do what they're supposed to do. You don't always have to be a rebel; you don't always have to be cutting edge. You don't always have to put up a front so that people won't see that you do want to sing and be close to Me."

It feels like sleeping, but it feels like being completely awake for once.

Does life get any better? (Also, I apologize for the length of this post.)

2009-10-06T00:49:00.000-04:00

Not to be one of those people who constantly talks about how great their lives are, but this past week was just about the best week of my life. Shall I count the ways? Yes. Yes, I shall.

Thursday, I worked at the Writing Center. I love meeting and working with students, but it's also easy to make people feel like crap, since it's kind of a leadership position. Sometimes I feel like if I say one wrong thing, I'll completely ruin writing for the tutee forever. It's difficult to tell if they feel helped or degraded or just bored. But the student I had for Thursday had a great attitude the entire time, and seemed to be enjoying the session. He smiled and asked good questions and laughed when I tried to be funny. At the end, he said something that no other tutee has ever said to me. "Next time I come in," he asked on his way out, "Is it okay if I sign up for you again?"

I'm pretty sure I started glowing. I tried to contain myself. "Yeah, that would be awesome! I always work Thursdays at this time."

He smiled, and thanked me again.

He validated me.

Friday I lazed around and watched Home Alone 1 and 2 with some of my friends. I'd never seen either before, and spent most of the movies covering my face with my blanket and yelling. I really can't take violence, it turns out. I'm too wimpy or sympathetic or childish, I don't know what. Everyone else was highly amused at my shameful display of wimpery. (That is most certainly not a word.)

Saturday afternoon, Laura (my friend), Sarah (my roommate) and I went to Denny's and then to see The Ugly Truth. I don't think I liked it that much. Upon much reflection, I feel like the whole thing was a lie. There was so much emphasis placed on a shallow view of the world, and so little time spent showing the alternative that I came away from the movie thinking, "Well, apparently fakery and promiscuity CAN get you into a relationship. Particularly if you're really hot." I don't think everyone is shallow, though. I think some people are more into personality than sluttiness.

On Sunday I was supposed to go see a play with my playwriting class, but had a conflict. I asked Nick, a friend of mine who is also in playwriting, if he was going to see the play a different time than the rest of the class, and if he would mind giving me a ride. He did. (Give me a ride, that is. He didn't seem to mind.) The play was interesting and different, although I probably wouldn't see it again, and the conversation to and from the show was energizing. We talked about writing and movies and music and most of the things that really matter in life. I feel awkward about writing all about it because Nick is following this blog, and writing down everything we talked about word-for-word would be freakish. So, I'll just say that it was a great time.

Rewind time: Whilst browsing the tweets of those I follow on Twitter on Tuesday, I came across this tweet from neilhimself (aka Neil Gaiman): "Ohio reminders. I'll be talking, reading & probably signing in Cleveland on Sunday."

It's fair to say that I had a heart attack of pure joy. I convinced Laura (the most amazing friend in the world) to take me. My friend Liz ended up coming with us because she saw my status message about Neil Gaiman and freaked out. On the way there we listened to Disney music and talked excitedly about the man we were going to meet.

We got there about 10 minutes after the auditorium filled up but there was an overflow room. Melanie, one of my best friends, texted me: "He has the flu, so make sure to give him soup or tell him to get better. I'm so jealous that you're going." In response, Liz, Laura and I made him a get-well card. It read: "So, I heard you're sick and decided to make this card." It continued inside: "Thanks for coming to Cleveland anyway, and get well soon." Laura drew a bowl of soup and stick figure versions of us, and Liz drew some pretty flowers for a border.

It was a creeper card. It was wonderful.

Shortly after Liz and I had a angsty conversation in which we threatened self-harm if we couldn't meet our favorite author, who should walk into the room but NEIL GAIMAN! He assured us that he didn't want to turn anyone away, and would sign for us as well. He sounded like a less-sarcastic Alan Rickman. He sounded like I was in love with him. He is probably the sexiest writer in the world. I kid you not.

Anyway, he read bits of two of his books and answered questions from the audience. Several times he looked directly at the camera and addressed the overflow room, which sent shivers down my spine. He was delightful and funny and interesting and more than I ever could have hoped for.

Then we waited in line for 2 and a half hours.

The only thing I could manage to say to him was, "Thank you. Thank you." While he was signing, I remembered the card we'd made for him. "OH!" I said, too loudly (as is my wont) and slipped him the card. "We made this for you," I said vaguely, and he looked at it.

"Oh, virtual soup!" he said in his delightful accent, and I wanted to snog him. (I didn't, I didn't.) I said thank you again, and he handed back my brochure.

"Could we get a picture?" I asked timidly.

"Of course. I'll keep scribbling, but you tell me when to look up," he replied. Liz and I positioned ourselves behind him, and Laura snapped the picture.

As we walked out, I said thank you one last time. I was nervous. My vocabulary evaporated. And I really was thankful! I felt deep gratitude to him for signing things for so long. Although, he was surrounded by 900 people who loved him. I'd probably sign things if that many people loved me.

I think the deeper reason I thanked him so many times had to do with how much I owe him. His writing makes me want to write. His writing has opened up worlds to me that I'd never know otherwise. His writing is an inspiration. His writing has helped me cope with life when I didn't even want to. All I could do was say "Thank you," over and over again.

The car ride home was great. We all took turns gushing about meeting him (Liz showed off the drawing of her future gravestone he did in the cover of her copy of The Graveyard Book) and complaining about how hungry we were and how badly we had to pee. Unfortunately, the McDonalds we stopped at happened to be the slowest McDonalds on the face of the earth. The employees were basically wandering around aimlessly while their manager scowled at the three of us for some unknown reason. One employee made roughly 18 trips to the bathroom while we were there. Another stood off in the corner and texted relentlessly.

We got back around 8:30, and I had to do my homework. I had a mini-breakdown (not really, I'm just a drama queen) and spent too much time on facebook, specifically on Compare People. Sarah and I compared rankings. I'm third most likely to be a good mother, which is crazy, and second best listener, which I like to think is true. I'm also 14th prettiest, which is clearly false. I am definitely nothingth prettiest. I'm first most likely to do a favor, though. That's because I'm nice.

Anyway, after I buckled down and read through that thesis I couldn't get my head around, I stayed up and finished all my homework. It was hard to concentrate when all I could think about was plays, encouragement, friends, movies and Neil Gaiman. What a flipping amazing week. What. A. Week. (Thank you to everyone who made it possible!)

9 Beautiful Things

2009-09-29T23:05:00.000-04:00

#1 Tavi, aka "Style Rookie."
So, yes, I found out about this girl through Yahoo news, the least creative place to find anything. This girl is getting a lot of notice from famous fashion people and from me. I love the way she writes, and that the first part of her About Me is "Tiny 13 year old dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats."
Really, though. Look at her blog. She's so quirky and beautiful that it makes me remember that fashion is a type of artwork. It's so easy to get cynical about fashion and think that it's all about shallowness, which sometimes it is. But anyone can put together a really awesome outfit. This girl thrifts and wears shoes she finds in her basement, for Pete's sake.

#2 Games by Gregory Weir

Please play I Fell In Love With The Majesty of Colors. Or I Wish I Were The Moon. They're simple and beautiful and only take a few minutes. But hopefully you'll like them. He has others, but those two are my favorites.

#3 Death To The Tin Man

One of my professors played this in class and the whole day was wonderful as a result. Sometimes you just see things that make you think about everything differently, and you fall in love with everything. This is one of those things. It's a short film based on the story of the tin man from The Wizard of Oz. It was actually kind of funny, because I think the tin man's story is one of the more obscurish trivial things I know, and that made me like this even more. But you don't have to already know the story to love this film.

#4 pictures for sad children

This is probably my favorite webcomic (I linked to the first installment). Please just read the first 8. The comic is basically full of whimsy and optimistic pessimism. There's nothing else to say.

#5 Can You Tell, Ra Ra Riot

The words to this song are full of longing and adolescent angst, but the good kind.

Oh what am I supposed to do?
It's hard to stay cool.
Oh, when you smile at me
and I get nervous every time you speak.

My bed's too big for just me
and when you turn your eyes,
I promise I won't care.

#6 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Elliot.

I know less than nothing about this poem. I just read it and really like it a lot.

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

[This is Taylor. I'm including this part of a stanza, too.]

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

#7 I Want You, Bob Dylan

Dylan is Dylan, and that's about all I need to say about that. This song is so full of great bounds of love.

The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.

#8 Harold and Maude

A lot of people think this movie is creepy and weird. That's true. It is. Aren't people's emotions creepy and weird, though? This movie has a lot to say about how humans are and why they act like they do. We're all looking for love, it seems.

#9 Jon Foreman

I wrote about this on Facebook, but so much of what this man says is so right on. He's all about loving people.

Some Items I Wish To Discuss And Will Therefore Do So

2009-09-28T16:57:00.000-04:00

I used to write notes on Facebook. But then I realized that, although that gave me a potentially wide syndication, that meant that I was constantly thinking about what my friends on facebook would think about what I wrote. Which made me not write that stuff. Or made me write things I wouldn't necessarily write now. I don't think I gave into that pressure a lot, but here we are. I don't have that pressure anymore.

Plus, real writers have blogs.

So, my friend Melanie left all of her CDs at my house when she came over, and I downloaded her Ben Folds CD, Way To Normal, and I'm addicted to it. I keep listening to Cologne over and over and over again. Everything about the song is how I feel sometimes. Which is how it is with just about every Ben Folds song. Maybe he's me? Maybe I'm him? Maybe I just try to identify with really cool, really creative people? One of those.

There's a huge difference between talking to someone when you know what they're saying is true and when you know what they're saying isn't true, even when they're saying the same thing they said yesterday. This isn't based on anyone I've talked to recently. It's just something I think about.

Last semester I walked around campus with my head down all the time, afraid to say hello to people. Now I keep my head up and am an aggressive greeter. If people don't hear me, I keep saying their name until they notice. I'm happier now, even though I'm creepier. People like to be recognized. People like to hear other people say their name.

Definition of a poet: someone who speaks the truth in a way that no one has spoken it before.

So, poets are prophets.

I made those things up. But I think they're true. Does making things up make them untrue? Sometimes. But not always. I hope.

I love having a roommate. I love being around someone and not having to say something, but sometimes saying something if one of us wants to. Sleeping in the same room as someone else. Feeling safe. Sharing. I miss Amanda, but I love Sarah, obviously.

The other night I was at an APO meeting and wondered where Amanda was, because I forgot for a second that she wasn't on campus. I was looking forward to seeing her. It was like reaching to grab something that wasn't there anymore. Jarring and sad.

BUT! Today was a great day on so many levels. I had a lot of great feedback for my first ever script. And I love my classes. And I love a lot of human beings. And my secret sister gave me Swedish Fish in my mailbox, which was a double win because I not only have Swedish Fish, I also had mail.

Mail is great.

That's that.