Kind of like the mall scene in Mean Girls

Audiblezzzz: "When Did Your Heart Go Missing"-Rooney

I'm one of those people I feel bad for when I see them, and I think this is the first time I've ever done this. I am at at a restaurant, eating alone. I suppose it is not entirely alone; I have my homework to accompany me, but nonetheless, I am here, eating a bread bowl in solitude. Without a second thought.
Admittedly, the thought of being alone and desolate is appealing to me lately. I have been entertaining the thought of moving up to our apartment in Chico earlier than planned, to make my job hunt more practical, and to just spend some time... with myself. Human contact and communication has proven to be exhausting and I either want to sleep or live in some silence for awhile.
Because in the end...we're all truly alone, aren't we? I have amazing people in my life, but I am all I have at the same time. And I want to make peace with the constant loneliness I have felt. I want to get on its good side.'

Enough of that. There's a specific moment I'd like to write about, because in witnessing it, I was completely overtaken by the comedy of the situation.
Setting: Starbucks, about 8:30 pm. But instead of Baristas behind the counter, it was a bunch of Grizzly Bears with green aprons on. As I was waiting for my coffee, this delicious piece of man comes in. And I'm not typically one to judge these kinds of situations, but even I knew that this guy was beautiful. He was wearing a charming grandpa sweater, but with white Toms. What a perfect mix of generations, right? His face was scruffy with golden blond hair to match the tousled hair on his head, and he had piercing blue eyes.
WOW, anyways. Hi.
What was funny was how the animals behind the counter acted when they laid their hungry eyes on him. The certain carnivore at the register seemed to be in a trance as she politely asked him what his order was. She practiced flawless customer service, down to the last dreamy smile she gave him as she told him to "have a good day". As her eyes followed him to the bathroom, as soon as he drifted out of sight, she exclaimed to her two other co-workers:

"OH. MY. GOD. DidyouseehimhewasSOOOOcuteholyshityouhavetolookathimwhenhegetsback!!"
The other Grizzlies=giggles and frantic stares towards the bathroom... "Okay, okay we'll look!"
Cashier Grizzly: "SHH! He's coming back RIGHT NOW!"

They "went back to work", but now each one of them had their eyes fastened tightly on the restroom door. As they hustled and bustled getting dishes done and fixing drinks, they bumped into each other and fumbled with iced coffee as their eyeballs remained glued to the same spot.

As he re-entered the room, they kept their cool. Like they weren't waiting for him...
He silently took his coffee as all three women told him to have a FABULOUS day and smiled intensely at his golden face. He turned his back to fix his coffee, and when he did so, all of the smitten Bears made eyes at each other, weak at the knees, but fierce with instant lust. Had there not been a tall counter separating the employees from the customer, I would've been concerned for his safety.
He left the shop and they exhaled sighs of composure and began to excitedly chatter about how GORGEOUS he was, and suggested ideas of activities they would include him in, if given the chance.

It was hilarious. And so entertaining to watch. You know why?
Because throughout the day, we are constantly faced with the complexities of being human; the complications of everyday life. We have to make big decisions, face our emotions and sort out our feelings, we must balance responsibility with our own personal journeys towards Happiness... we must do a lot throughout our day. Our brains are constantly working in complicated ways, constantly moving and thinking and feeling and speaking and breathing.

This brief scenario was actually pretty inspiring to watch because it reminded me that even though we are human beings, the most complicated organisms known to live to this day (there are probably smarter aliens somewhere else), we are still quite animalistic. Raw. We are still ultimately guided by instincts. And watching these three women drool over an incredibly attractive man like he was a juicy steak was enough to ensure my belief that no matter how much influence society has on us, we are still animals.
Its comforting to know that even in times of such complication, we will still always have our animal instincts. They will still fuel us to be passionate, even if it is over something as simple as physical attraction. I don't want to ever be too human.



"Yeah, when I was only 17,
I could hear the angels whispering
So I droned into the woods and wandered aimlessly about
Until I heard my mother shouting through the fog
It turned out to be the howling of a dog
Or a wolf to be exact, the sound sent shivers down my back
But I was drawn into the pack and before long
They allowed me to join in and sing their song
So from the cliffs and highest hill, yeah
We would gladly get our fill
Howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn
And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong
For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah
And my thoughts, they surely were
Turned to instinct
and obedience to God.

You can wear your fur
like a river on fire
But you better be sure
if you're makin God a liar
I'm a rattlesnake, Babe,
I'm like fuel on fire
So if you're gonna get made,
Don't be afraid of what you've learned."

-"Furr": Blitzen Trapper

attack of the teenage hormone-infested 80 ft octopus

Currently listening to: "Basique"- Little People
issssaJAM.

My least favorite time of the week is on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 11:50 am-12:30 pm. It is the idle 40 minutes I have to kill between my Anthropology and Psychology classes. 40 minutes is the perfect amount of time to do absolutely nothing.

The following is an inner monologue that I have decided to document.

...So I drive aimlessly through the blue-grey, trying to find music to propel me, to be my engine, until I have to return to LMC's bland, white, windowless classrooms and toilets that flush when you're not ready for them to... and when it does this you make a Jim Halpert face but no one is watching you because you're enclosed in a stall that's kind of like your mind.
Small and cramped and stuffy.
Occasionally smells of excrement.
Sometimes deafening with the shuffles of zippers (the opening and closing of new and old thoughts), sinks (washing myself of something...cleansing), and crumpling paper towels (disposable things, thoughts that are underdeveloped, thoughts that I dismiss).
Other times, incredibly silent. Like you're the only person on campus who has ever had to go pee in the history of urination. Like you're the only person who thinks in the history of brains.

YES. IT'S BACK.

Maybe for this fleeting moment, but it's here. Run with it. Sail with it. Open the masts of your mind, self, and let small breezes of interaction and tangents lead you every which way until your mind-your hand-cramps. Yes, it may become still again. But PATIENCE, it is a virtue. Sure, it's frustrating. Cry. Go ahead. Let your best friend paint your nails Christmas colors in May and eat some waffles and scream and contemplate cutting off all your hair that hangs heavy on your head, suffocating your neck like a python. And sleep. Write about how you hate to write sometimes and how you're shitty at it most of the time, but how you must keep the promise you have made to yourself.
Remind yourself.
Tell yourself that you are a silly girl and that you're not going to die if you have a fleeting thought that what you do, what you feel, has no direction.
Direction is self-created. W R I T E
Soon your words will turn into something. Usable, or not. You will spin straw into gold eventually. And the birds will sing and your ink will run out and you will soon feel whole again.

Reeeeeeeach

Starting the day off with a visual for a change.
I'm a picture thief. But this is just so cool to me.
Thanks Abalaba. :)

Casper

3-11-10--Proof that I am going loony.

There is a ghost that haunts me. She sits with me in the car and I show her songs I think she might like.
She whispers in my ear when I cook in the kitchen... "this needs more salt." "Stir that, it's gonna burn."
She lays with me in bed, and I can almost feel her arms around me, her heavy breathing against my hair as she drifts to sleep. Slightly, very slightly, I can feel her pull me closer late into the night; maybe as a result of a bad dream, maybe as a result of the warmth that comes not from blankets, but only from another human's body.
I can feel her everywhere, see her everywhere.
She watches me as I talk to others, as I kiss another. She laughs, "You don't kiss them like you kissed me." She torments any ideas I have of progression.

This morning, I was laying in the sun in my backyard. It was a nice change from yesterday--rain and dark looming clouds. She came out of the sliding glass doors as I took a sip of my tea. She chuckled.
"What are you doing?"
"Enjoying the sun," I say. She laughs again as she walks over to me.
"Good morning," says the ghost. And I kiss her on the cheek.

300,000 beats

Currently listening to: "Fearless" by Low.



What... a day.

I can do so little lately and still feel exhausted. But I woke up to see the morning today, and I am thoroughly convinced that when I pull myself out of bed early enough to see the world awaken, my day will be better. Better? I don't know, actually. But more fulfilling, to say the least. It feels so nice to wake with the Earth, and then watch the it fall dark as it's time to lay to rest again. Bearing witness to the cycle of a day is a beautiful privilege. So now that the sky is black again, it is time for me to lay my head and let my subconscious go into its natural rise and fall, just like breath. However, the subconscious is an intimidating entity. You never know what it will throw at you. And you can't argue it.

Despite my contentedness this morning, I now lay in bed somewhat cynical. I am thinking of growing old, and this makes my heart feel funny.
I don't want to get old. I don't want to get gray hair and arthritis... And I just have this funny feeling that I'm totally going to get arthritis when I'm old. My great grandma had it, and she used to sit at the kitchen table and pound on her hand until it would lie flat. She would curse at it, call her cramped hands "sons uh bitches", and scold my grandpa when he would catch her in her frustration.


When I look back at the last 19 years of my life... What have I done? 19 years is a long time. Is there anything of significance that I have created? I suppose with the majority of the population, no one has. Or, it depends on the definition of significance we are choosing to use.

In this case, I am choosing to define significance as "the ripples that we create through life's course... the way we affect people, whether positively or negatively, through our actions, beliefs, and overall being." Something like that.
My ripples are microscopic in the grand scheme of...anything and everything. And thinking about the people we encounter throughout our journeys, most of them eventually become tiny specks on the time lines of our lives.
Just like in TV shows, people make guest appearances, stay awhile, make their impact, and then they just vanish...almost into thin air. Just like Cleveland in Family Guy. He is nothing but a memory to Peter and the gang, yet he is off living his own life with his family, having crazy, politically incorrect adventures elsewhere, with different people.
Does he ever think of Peter, Joe, or Quagmire? Or is he content with bidding them farewell, dismissing them as just a segment in his life; They are a chapter of his life's story that needs no editing or revisiting that will now sit on the shelf of his mind, collecting dust. He can take it down whenever he needs to, if he wants to. If he will ever allow himself to need to or want to.

Family Guy? Really?
Bye credibility. ANYWAY.

I don't want to end this on a raincloud of a note. I suppose the way I can turn this and make it positive is to look at what I can do to make my ripples reach farther. I will dwell upon this for a few days. Until then...

"What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we're here." -Anne Lamott

I hope my words don't bore you.

currently listening to: Let Your Love Grow Tall-Passion Pit





Alright, confession. I've been putting off starting this thing for a couple days now. It's not because I haven't had time, or that I've been tired. It's because... I have a fear of technology, to an extent. When it comes to writing. Allow me to elaborate.

I'm a pencil and paper kind of girl. As soon as I sit in front of a blank screen, with the cursor blinking at me, I feel like I lose all creativity. There's some kind of connection I feel when I'm physically writing, a connection that I don't get when my fingers hit keys. I don't get inspired by a blank word processor document, but give me an old ratty notebook and we're golden.

However, a recent realization made me give into technology and give blogging a try. It's not a huge risk or anything... but it is breaking a personal convention of mine. Among this lost semester of soul searching, I've discovered that the career I have prepared myself for throughout my entire time in high school is not exactly what I want to do anymore. I've realized that if I'm going to go to college at all, I might as well be pursuing what I've always loved and had a passion for, not just settle for something I know I'll make a living with. Something safe. Who wants to be safe? How boring.

My passion is the written word. Writing, literature, language.... all of it. And most people who get anywhere in this field don't really sit down and hand-write all of their drafts anymore. They're all computer savvy. So, I suppose this is my feeble attempt at getting myself comfortable with technology; I need to learn to trust it, and not let it intimidate me or kill my creative flow (which is not as constant as I'd like anyways).

Here goes nothing.


Among the previously mentioned realization, (the one about everything I planned on for 4 years suddenly not feeling right anymore? Yeah, that's the one), I have made another. This one was a product of a period of hopelessness, loneliness, and hormones. I sat down one night, and all I could think of was this single line. It repeated over and over in my head, and I still haven't really dissected it enough to fully understand it's meaning yet. But I wrote it down.

Writing is going to save my life.

And that was it. I stayed up for hours that night, writing about that single line. I made a schedule of all the writing I wanted to do; what time of day I wanted to do it, what projects would coincide well with that point in my day, etc. I made lists, I sat and stared at the wall, chewed on my pencil, but I felt good. Like a million dollars, actually. Because for the first time in my life, I felt my purpose. It wasn't just something I was searching for, or trying to create.


It's been right in front of me for years!

Jeez.


People can be good at things. I'm sure I would make an adequate garbage woman, or restaurant manager, or TEACHER. But after that late night, I realized I don't want to just be good at something. I want to excel at something, and I want to feel it. I want my heart to be connected to it, and I want it to change my life. I want to live my life with passion, not practicality. For fulfillment, and not a paycheck. I can live off Top Ramen for months, and it's SO cheap. And Starbucks gives out free water, so I'm set. Who needs to eat when you're in love with what you do. I don't want to be in love with anything, or anyone for that matter, except writing. I'm marrying myself to it from this moment on.


Here's the part where I integrate something I hand-wrote last night/this morning. Because I'm old fashioned like that. Along the same lines as the subject ^above^. Just expanding upon this very LOUD idea in my head.
Forgive me if it becomes rant-like. But I think it will be the perfect closing.


"I'm writing this to save my life. If I put down my pencil, I will die. If the lead does so much as make contact with the wood of this table on which I write upon, my heart would stop the second the two materials meet. My lungs would stop expanding and contracting, my blood would run cold. My eyes would stop seeing, my nose would stop smelling, my ears would stop hearing. I will die.

Or at least that's what if feels like.
And I don't want to take that chance, so... I'm going to keep scribbling.

I suppose I've always been good at crafting a story out of nothing. I can finish a PB & J sandwich, throw down the crusts, and stare at them for awhile... sooner or later I could probably come up with some kind of meaning or symbol to go along with the sandwich's remains. Abandoned ideas? A symbol of the people we leave behind as we travel our life's course? Usually complete bullshit, but sometimes I get lucky and it sounds good.

That's kind of what writing is to me, creating significance to coincide with normal events. Events that may not have any meaning at all, but making them extraordinary. Like they've never happened to anyone else before, when usually people experience these kinds of things every day. I guess that's what I try to do on a daily basis. I take my thoughts and I run with them--see where they take me. Sometimes that leap of faith will turn into pages and pages of pride, word-vomit that I want to share with everyone...

"Look what I did! Do you want a copy for your fridge?...No? Ahh... come on."

More often than not, it leads me to a brick wall, a dead end. It will leave me sitting at my table with a boring, half-baked idea and crumpled masses all around me. Defeat.

But that's what writing is. Or life, huh? It's even comparable to sex. Most of the time, you leave unsatisfied. But then there's that one time, where everything is just right, the universe is in line and the stars are arranged perfectly, and your brain explodes with impatient lines bouncing off the walls of your mind, begging, screaming to be recorded.

"Okay, okay! Shut the fuck up. Let me get a pen."

And when it's all written, your mind finally calm again, your soul is at peace with what is down on paper... You recline. Sigh, contentedly. Sometimes you even produce a euphoric half-smile.

"Daaaaaayum. I need a cigarette."

I could live as a celibate nun if all of my writing days were like that. If I was always bursting with things to say, always inspired. But the fact of the matter is, that majority of days are not those kind of days. The majority of days are the brick wall, blue-ball, dead-end days, where I usually say to myself: "Man. This sucks," and vow that I'm never going to write a single word down again.

My journal will sit, untouched, under my bed for a few days. A week, tops. And by the slow creeping end of that week, I come bursting through my bedroom door, tearing the sheets off my bed, throwing around my belongings and clothes and cat if he's in the way, until I finally remember where I hid that little black book in the first place. Panting, fiending like a meth addict, I flip open to the next blank page and let my brain spill out onto the paper. And then I'm better. Renewed, and at peace.
The little composition book piece of my heart has been reunited with the rest of my body, and now I can breathe right again. My vision is not blurred, my hearing is not muffled, my blood is warm and alive. My lungs take big, greedy gulps of air, and my heart, finally as a whole, beats deafening tribal rhythms in my chest."


And to think this was just going to be my hobby.