Froomla

On Measurements.

2012-01-26T11:31:00.000-05:00

Hey. I'm being a whiny little piece of shit about this, and if you don't want to read it, I understand. I barely even want to read it. For serious.
Click, if you must.

Art History. It's at ten. I woke up first at 8:20 or so, which is a reasonable time to ride the bus to Kendall and get to class on time and be very happy with all that. I, of course, went back to sleep. I woke up again at 9:10. This is a reasonable time to hurry out of the house, drive to Kendall, and make it to class on time. I told myself "one more minute" and then I went back to sleep, for longer than a minute. I woke up again at 9:47. This is a reasonable time to hurry out of the house, drive too fast, and still be late for class. I scurried about, trying to get my things together, hoping that I could make it without being too late. And then, I stopped. I'm not sure why. I just...didn't go any more.
I guess I skipped class.
I've skipped class, deliberately said "Eh, fuck it, I'm not going." one other time in my life. It was at the end of last school year. Psychology with Kalzynski. First block. I'll always call them blocks, no matter if they do away with block scheduling. I was reared on that method, ninety minutes of Earth Science or Dance or APUSH, the switch never was absorbed, only artificially worn on top of my skin. I was late to class, by a matter of seconds, but I knew I would get a detention for it anyway. You don't get detention for skipping class. The teacher was that kind of a person, letting some people sit in the back of the class and discuss how drunk they were last weekend and giving other people detention for being five seconds late. Ben always showed up late too, maybe more often than I did. I wonder how many detentions he got. I went upstairs, saw that the door was shut, then paused, turned around, and went to the art room. Mrs. Harbar's room, not the other one who replaced Mr. Boyer. She asked me where I was supposed to be, and decided not to kick me out. I sat around, talking to people who were fooling around with bits of wire. They told me that I needed safety glasses, I put them on, and fiddled with beads and broken bits of jewelry for the whole block.
It was a lot better than psychology.

Maybe I can reign it in, concentrate all the bad feeling I have on this week and feel fantastic by the time Sunday rolls around. I have a lot of homework, actually. I had some sort of plan, that I would do all my 3D homework on Friday, all my Drafting on Saturday, and all my Design Drawing on Sunday. I'd study Art History a little bit every night. We have a test coming up at some point. My professor isn't nearly as engaging as the one I had last semester, he just sort of shows slides and talks about them and the artists, instead of showing slides and blowing people's minds apart.

I'm doing fine. I'm a reasonably okay student, I never missed a homework assignment last semester and I'm on track to do the same this semester. I've never failed a class. The lowest grade I've gotten

I need to grow up a little, stop caring what other people thing, stop worrying about all of it.
I'm not going to do that anytime soon. I need petty little things to absorb myself in, otherwise I get consumed by the weight of the universe. It'll crush me, I know it. If I care about grades or homework or the size of my pants, I won't have time to consider the fact that one day, none of this will matter. One day, no one will remember me, or anyone that I knew, or anything that I did. In its own twisted way, it's comforting to know that none of this really matters. I can concern myself with it now, but in the end, we're all going to die, no matter how many showtunes we learn.

I like school, most of the time. Really, I do. I just feel like I'm not doing as much as I could/should be, and that I'm failing because of that. If I wasn't in school, I wouldn't have numbers to measure my personal worth by, and I would go crazy because of it.

(minipost)

2012-01-25T02:54:00.002-05:00

Do you ever have those afternoonsdaysmonthsyears where you feel wildly unmotivated? There are things to do and you sit down to work on them, but you just can't? That is me. All this week. It isn't very much fun, I'll tell you. Not fun at all. Like a day in which you do absolutely nothing and end up sort of hating yourself a little bit? That is my everyday since Sunday in which I did nothing. Like got out of bed at 1 pm and lazed about in my pyjamas all day doing nothing.

That kind of makes me hate myself a little bit. Eh.

I am also thinking of novellas as a viable option and embracing the idea of the book as a physical object. I want to learn the basics of bookbinding and make a limited run of this little project I've been working on. I'm thinking that it would be free to download, with an optional donation* and then have the same thing as a printed piece of wonderfulness. Or maybe try to find a publisher? Melville House has come up a few times in passing over the years, and they seem like they might be interested in this sort of thing.

There's also this other project that I've been working on, with a friend. It's very exciting and a little bit scary and I'm sometimes overcome with that very bad feeling that I tend to get when I'm doing group projects at school, where you feel like you're not putting in enough work and then the paranoia takes over and you just know that everyone else resents you and thinks you don't deserve to be in the group. I am a little bit crazy in this way. YUP.

Maybe this minipost is not actually so miniature after all. Hum de dee. I'm going to bed now, I have to get to school early tomorrow for a Furniture club meeting. Furniture club is one of those events that reminds me that oh, yes, there are more than five people in this program. Funny. I brought home my model of the table thing that I made and it is...incredibly useless. Where am I supposed to put this thing? I might just throw it away...

I am thinking more about sculpture lately. I really like 3D. We are building masks that are supposed to evoke emotions and mine is agression. I have a lot of pent up agression inside my soul.

*to the "Samantha gets to write fun things fund"

Fiction Friday

2012-01-20T18:02:00.001-05:00

You are an expert weaver, even though you don't know it. You take these fragments of information, bits and bytes of you, and you spin them into something more, and you take all of those something mores and you tie them on your loom, taut, taut, and then you get going, shuttle flying back and forth. Faster, faster and you create something from it, you build a life for yourself. I stare at you like I'm amazed, because I am. You're creating fictions, whole universes that never existed before you, and I'm amazed. You're not. You're used to it, this is the norm for you.

How very strange.

Quote of the Month

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

"If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on tv telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it."
Frank Zappa

Well.

2012-01-13T15:44:00.000-05:00

I can't think of a title, whatever.
I HAVE THE FAULT IN OUR STARS.
So. Um. This year.
It's a new year. It's my TENTH year in which Harry Potter has been playing a disproportionatly large role in my life and also the NINTH year since my house burned down which means, in a way, that I am not a child anymore. Odd, isn't it?
I've had a bunch of stuff going on! It's all very interesting! And sometimes it sucks. Like a lot. I haven't been writing on either of the novels, because when I revisited No More Stars I realized just how much it was like my NaNo and I don't love either of them. In fact, I think their stories are dumb and plots are unimaginative and characters are ill-defined and I kind of hate them. So that's that.
I need to write a novel and actually finish it and not hate it.
I should write some short stories.
I should write a play.
I should get off my ass and do something, once in a while.
There's an exciting new project that my friend/housemate and I have been working on, and if it all goes as planned, it will be perfect and amazing and JK Rowling will send me a letter letting me know that she really thinks it's great and then I will DIE. Can you imagine how cool that would be? If it doesn't go as planned, I will be sad. I'm very worried that it won't go as planned. At least I'm good at worrying.
I heard, yesterday, that my school is starting a collaborative design program next year. I don't actually know what collaborative design is, except that apparently you study all aspects of design and then you go get a MBA. Hmm. I think that might be interesting? One of my friends (the person who made this blog layout, incidentally) told me that she was switching her major from Graphic Design to Advertising, which means that she would do more ad directing than actual, like, making advertisements and such. That might be interesting. Also, for the Fashion career day, the vice president of Kenneth Cole is coming to talk. Like, woah. And there's Bodies of Art coming up, which seems cool. Fashion is weird. I am not a fashionable person at all, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's...interesting. You know how male is the default in most things, but in fashion, there are clothes, and then there's menswear? Like an afterthought? That's interesting. I'm getting a little more excited about Kendall and Kendall things. That's good. Also, I plan on going to the Meyer May house on Sunday and it will be fantastic.
New semester has started! It's pretty exciting. Drafting will be shittons of work, Art History will be a party but not as fun and engaging as last semester, Design Drawing with a different professor is woah crazy I feel like I don't know anything anymore, and 3D is fun and great. My 3D professor is fantasticly weird and the class only has seven people and it's all very cool. LIKE (10). Whenever we discuss things, it's makers and objects, never artists and works of art. I like that. I like that expanded definition of things that matter. Also, we discussed artists who are alive today. Somehow, it strikes me as very odd that there are fine artists who are alive right now and all they do is art. And...there are more than 20 of them who exist. How does that even work? What is that like? I follow one of them on twitter, and it seems to involve...calligraphy? This is that awkward moment when I admit to all of you that deep down, I want to be a fine artist and live in a crazy commune in the woods somewhere and make things all day. Only not. They don't always have internet in the woods, did you know that?
I dropped Oral Rhetoric. I have very mixed feelings about this. In high school, I felt a lot like I should have been trying harder, I should have been challenging myself to reach my full potential and I really wasn't. I'm scared of doing the same thing now. I just want to be perfect. If I keep up this only-taking-twelve-credits business, I'm going to graduate a semester or year late. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but...I have to have some sort of measurable success in my life. Is that bad? Does it show a deep internal lack of confidence?
Probably. Whatever.
I need to make some shapes for 3D and do a million drawings for Design Drawing and eugh. I will listen to podcasts while I do them. Fuck college. Now, I have to be at school at 10 on one set of days and 12:30 on another one. PARTY ON.
I have so many feelings about this. This is cool you should check it out and also and wow huh. That's the internet for ya.

Unleashing the crazy

2011-12-31T05:32:00.003-05:00

Hey! You! Read this and give me some life advice to ignore!
On with it.
I'm not really sure what I'm doing with my life, like at all. If you've been reading for a while, you will have noticed that this is a trend. It's a major trend, I would say.
Welp. I am a world-class worrier.
More

I like design. I like writing. I'm not ever really sure what I want to be doing and what I should be doing, and that's kind of a problem.
I'm worried that I went to Kendall because it was easy. I knew I would get in, I knew I would do fine. There's not a competitive atmosphere, there's not any risk of failing. There's also not a huge risk of wild success. It's sometimes pretty meh. On a day to day basis, I'm fairly happy, I'm not unhappy, at least. But when I step back and look at it, I'm questioning everything and wondering what I'm doing with my life. Eugh.
You know that awkward moment when you see a picture on facebook from a party that your close friends were at, that was at the house of someone who you're pretty good friends with, and you weren't invited? Yeah. That. It's fine, though.
It seems like all my friends are having a great time at college, and I'm having an alright time. When I think of that, I then think of how many people have asked me how college is, and how many times I've responded with "great" or something similar. Maybe we're all lying to ourselves and the people around us.
I am positive of my ability to be reasonably successful in furniture. I am positive that I can get through seven more semesters at Kendall, barring some sort of personal trainwreck.
I think I want more than reasonably successful and getting through. I want some sort of fulfillment. I don't know how to get that.
Also, I feel like there's this whole college experience that I'm missing out on because Kendall is a commuter school and isn't very high powered. I kind of want to be normal, in this aspect. Is that just me reverting to Samantha at elevenish, and wanting to, for once, be like everyone else? Probably. Is all of this uncertinty just me taking internal insecurities and foisting them onto Kendall, blaming the school I go to for all my problems? Most likely.
I kind of wish I could take a semester/year/decade off to just figure everything out, but I know that wouldn't work. I would just waste time. A lot of it.
I feel like I'm wasting time at Kendall.
You're supposed to get a lot better at art in your foundations year. I'm halfway through, and not much has changed. I want to go back to figure drawing, please. I think I have to take that class as a junior or something. Sigh.
I'm not sure I should be doing furniture. I would switch to industrial, but I kind of hate computers. All of them, all the time. That's a lie, but it's the reason that I'm not an industrial design major already. I kind of wish that I had been born fifty years ago, so that I could do industrial design without having to deal with all the computerized bullshit.
Maybe I should just quit art ~~and go on a crazy trip around the universe that will give me stories to tell people for the rest of my life~~ and go to a big, normal university and study something that will lead to the same brand of success that my friends from high school have. It's like, in a weird and twisted way, being unhealthily skinny. I know that I'm the kind of person who's bigger than wanting that, but I have moments where I want it anyway. I have moments of wanting both of those things, sometimes. I'm confident. I like who I am. I don't need approval from other people. I don't care what anyone else thinks. Right? Right? I want to be that kind of person, but deep down, I'm not.

Well. That happened. And you read it.
There's another college that I might apply to, because I know that if I apply, I'll get in, and then I'll flip out and wonder what I'm doing with my life and why I'm doing it and everything that I do. Because we don't have enough of that already. If you apply as a transfer student, do they need to see your high school transcript and ACT?
I need to email my art teacher and ask him what on earth I think I'm doing with my life. He'll totally help.

Plaid.

2011-12-25T00:28:00.000-05:00

It's a big deal around here. And stripes.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Fiction Friday!

2011-12-23T10:35:00.002-05:00

Hey! If you're here from Mr. Stonebender's blog, welcome. If you're not here from Mr. Stonebender's blog, welcome! Remember this? It's revised! It's been all prettied up, and this! Is! It! Yay! Other fiction by me is all right here, if you'd like to check that out as well. Enjoy!

Legs in a Tangle

These words are best read out loud, starting slowly and quietly and gradually getting faster and louder and a little scary. A lot scary. The kind of scary that most of us keep buried, deep down where no one can see us ever and we can all act normal on the outside. Smile for the picture, honey. Smile and look pretty.
We've known each other for a long time, haven't we? Was it you who I met years ago, on that night turned morning, don't you remember that? I think I remember it. I thought it happened, but maybe it was all in my head. A lot of stuff was all in my head, back then. But you said that I could conquer it all.
A lot of stuff is all in my head now.
We are holding hands and then I walk away because it's cold rainy I want to go inside inside inside, but you're here and I want to stay with you. You make it okay, you make me stronger. You should come inside, why not stay a while, but you have to go someplace else, someplace important, someplace without me.
I go inside anyway, go home, open the door and close it, sit with my back against it, legs in a tangle of smooth black on the floor, shoes have disappeared somehow and I can't look anyone in the eye, not that there's anyone to look at but you know what I mean? I stare at me and I worry about what's going to happen and I worry about what's already happened and I worry about the things that are happening right this very instant and bam! There's no getting out now, we're in this for the long run, we're in it together. You are stuck, my friend.
That's a lie. I'm all alone. It's okay. I keep telling myself that - I'm okay with it, I'm alone and I like it that way, I'm alone and I don't have to care what anyone else thinks because I am me, and I am good with that, right? Everything about me says something else, everything about me says no it hurts you, doesn't it? It has to hurt you too!
It doesn't.
(I tell myself that lie too.)
I grab onto my hip bone, I love having bones that stick out like that, protrude, and I tug and tug at it, until I can pull it out. I hear a crack at the back, and it's a little bloody, but I don't mind, I've seen blood before, enough to stop caring.
I can't stand up now, but who has to know, I throw my bones across the room, and look back down, down at me. I can conquer it all, I can conquer the world. I want to go away, I want to melt right now. You see, it's not that I want to die, it's that I just want to stop existing. I want to not be awake. Can we make that happen, you and me, together? Just stop being?
Oh wait. It's just me, now.
I pull my tights down a little bit, then trace the scars, up and down my other hip, graceful, beautiful curves, stretching to touch my ribcage and down to my thigh. I did them one by one, each marks a different occasion of hatred pain regret. Ribcage. I need to tear that apart too. Fingernails to sternum, tear at it until it cracks in half and pull it apart too, now there's lungs squishy and exposed and still, somehow, doing their thing.
I stopped doing my thing a long time ago. It must've been something, right? Right? I did something, I was someone. I must've been.
I remember numbers though, before, numbers that I took to heart, numbers that I used build a body for me to live in. Who wants to be a person when you can be data? When we went off into your world, my binary body felt just like home. I want to be row after row of zeros and ones, take the feelings right out of it.
I hate feelings. They're messy and bloody and I wanted to be bone rather than flesh. I don't need to be that human.
Palm to forehead, I claw an eye or two out, and now I can't see, but what was there to see, what was there in the first place? Nothing worth the effort, I think. Nothing worth getting out of bed in the morning. I'm going to sleep now, there's no more reason to be awake. I'm going to dead now, there's no more reason to be alive.
I stand up. We can't be so pathetic now, can we? We keep on going, because we are strong, just as strong as we can pretend to be. It's harder to pretend on your own. I picked up my pieces and put them back where they belong, stretching the skin to fit over them and sewing it back into place.

Conquering it all, just like you said.

I just wanted to show you

2011-12-23T05:16:00.001-05:00

My four favourite A Softer World comics of all time.
In chronological* order.
Here They Are, Love.
I might've just posted this on my blog so that I could close out of the tabs on Chrome and not feel like I was losing something. Maybe.
Let's forever remember December 22, 2011 as the day Door Sixteen, who I love and adore, tweeted me. Let's also remember it as the day I looked like an idiot in front of her. NBD.
Also, big things are happening in the future involving fiction. And it'll probably be very exciting very soon. I'm pumped for it, pretty much.
Christmas is the day after tomorrow. That's odd, isn't it? I mean, I'm sitting three feet away from my Christmas tree, but it doesn't feel like Christmas yet. Is it the astonishing lack of snow? Is it the fact that I haven't sung any carols this year? Who knows. Huh.
*I spelled "chronological" right on the first try. Like a boss.

Up at night

2011-12-22T04:52:00.001-05:00

In the part of yesterday morning before the sun rose, so I can consider it the night before last. Or last night. Or whatever.
I was trying to go to sleep, it was past five, I wasn't tired enough to sleep, i had too much going on in my head. Like always.

So. Yeah. I made a list of all the stuff I wanted to write a blog post about, all the stuff that I needed to get rid of, and now I'm turning that list into a blog post! Yay!
Fear: I'm not quite sure why fear was on the list. But, um, fear. It controls people sometimes, and that's a problem. Or maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's all that's keeping us safe, sometimes.
Don't know how to live: Do you ever get that feeling where you wonder if you're doing everything (or anything) right? This is your time/youth and you're wasting it doing *insert thing that I'm doing* when you should be doing something better/worthwhile/productive. I get that feeling a lot. I generally learn to cope with it, in whatever crippled way I can manage. Eh.
Other people and being social: It used to happen, like a lot, that I'd be sitting at home, being bored, doing nothing and wishing that my friends were free. Right now, when we're on break, it seems like everyone else is feeling the same way. In theory, this results in more social activity, and so far, it has. This is positive. I like doing things with people.
The next thing on the list is Tavi/my general feelings about fashion and feminism and a lot of stuff. That's going to take a while to talk about, I'm putting it at the end of this post. Instead, let's talk about the Beerhorsts. They live really close to my friend and they are a family of crazy artist hippies in the best way possible and I kind of want to be like them. And this kid? I think we should be best friends. No joke.
It seems like it's all about being happy, and I like that.
The next bullet is Makena/BYU/Mormons/Religion- I'm not quite sure what I had to say about that conglomerate of topics, except that Makena was trying to convince me to come to BYU for school. Um...I think it is not going to happen. But it was worth a shot. And, I mean, Brett Helquist went there, and we all know the passion with which I love him. And Ken Jennings, QuizBowl rockstar.
Living in the present: It's good! It feels alive! I should do it all the time!
What if I drop out of college and make some bad choices to write a book about later: To be honest, dropping out of college is forever on the radar of my life. That's probably not going to change until I'm done with college, when it will no longer be an option, because it's looking like grad school is seriously not on the radar of my life. MFAs are a little useless. A lot useless, unless you want to teach, and I don't want to teach art. ~~I can maybe see myself teaching writing.~~ I just wonder if I'm getting what I want out of school and such. And I kind of wonder if I would like the average college experience. Judging by what my friends have said, it involves a lot of alcohol. However, the idea of making bad choices solely to write about later is kind of entertaining. ~~I've always kind of wished that I could quit college and write.~~
The next bullet point is "Lesbian Sherlock Holmes? Yay for Sherlock!" Which...I can't explain. At all. Except that...SHERLOCK IS COMING BACK IN JANUARY AHHHHH! AND I SAW SHERLOCK HOLMES 2 AND IT WAS STELLAR!!!!! I'm not sure about the lesbian part of that. But, um, yeah.
I've been staying up far too late and waking up far too late as of late. This will have to change tomorrow/today, as I'm going to have to leave the house at one in the afternoon. I'm debating about whether I should stay up all day/night or just try to sleep a bit and wake up at ten or so. Agh. I want to be a little more normal in this regard.
The final point is this, except incredibly misspelled - "I want all the people I like to be in the same place all the time" so that we can hang out all the time and they can grow very irritated with me. Obviously.
That point from earlier that I didn't talk about earlier just because it would've taken forever: If you haven't seen it already, watch this video. If you have seen it already, watch it again for good measure. I'll wait.

My mother never told me that I had to be pretty. I had to be clean. I had to be clothed. I was told I was pretty, but pretty, surely, was not what mattered. Smart mattered. Creativity mattered. Pretty was never that important. Just like boys, it was nice to have around, sometimes, but surely not all that I should care about. I am thankful for that. But as a result of all that, I'm not a person who thinks about their clothes very much. I wear things that I prettymuch am okay with, but I'm getting to the point where I want a little more than prettymuch okay with how I dress. This is probably because of The Sartorialist (who I'm not linking to because he's a jerk who doesn't like TAVI, who is a genius rockstar who I adore) and the pretty art school kids. They all dress really well, even the ones who don't shower very often. I want to care more about how I dress and what I look like, but I'm not quite sure what I want to dress like. There are a lot of times when I want to wear a uniform, essentially, the same thing every day. Like a white shirt and jeans, adding a sweater and scarf when it's cold. Then, there are other times when I want to look pretty and feminine and wear dresses with ballet flats, and there are other times when I want to layer a bunch of crazy mismatched things that somehow go together just perfectly.
I know I don't have to choose just one, but I would really like to settle on one thing to be happy with one style. Is that too much to ask for? I just want to have a personal style without thinking about it too much.
And if I ever get grey hair, I'm going to cut it short and dye it crazy colours and I won't care what anyone thinks about it.

A sense of place

2011-12-19T03:31:00.002-05:00

This place is interchangeable with every other suburb in the upper midwest, or the rest of the country, for that matter. There's no soul. There's nothing.
I was trying to think of something to do here. What do people do for fun, anyway? They go shopping? They go smoke weed in the woods? What else is there to do? This is how I got started doing creative stuff, I think. I didn't love it so much as I was thankful for something to do.
Being back here makes me feel like I'm in high school, in the worst way possible. It's all the terrible stuff (being bored, hating everything) without any of the good stuff (seeing your friends every day at school, quizbowl). It's odd, isn't it? I'm not saying that I love Grand Rapids, as a place, because deep down, I don't. It's a stepping stone, a stop on the way to someplace big.
It's motivating, at the very least. A few days here and you're willing to try as hard as you can to get out.

It's alright though, I have all the commas I need. I'm going to watch The Virgin Suicides sometime soon and write this damn novel. And find some people to hang out with.

Odd Fiction Saturday. It's a thing. I promise.

2011-12-17T04:39:00.000-05:00

These words are best read out loud, starting slowly and quietly and gradually getting faster and louder and a little scary. A lot scary.
We are holding hands and then I walk away because it's cold rainy I want to go inside inside inside, but you're here and I want to stay with you. I go inside anyway, go home, open the door and close it, sit with my back against it with my legs in a tangle of black on the floor, shoes have disappeared somehow and I can't look anyone in the eye, not that there's anyone to look at but you know what I mean? I stare at me and I worry about what's going to happen and I worry about what's already happened and I worry about the things that are happening right this very instant and bam! Now we're down the rabbit hole. There's no getting out now, we're in this for the long run, and we're in this together.
That's a lie. I'm all alone. It's okay. I'm okay with that. I keep telling myself that, I'm okay with it, I'm alone and I like it that way, I'm alone and I don't have to care what anyone else thinks because I am me, and I am good with that, right? Everything about me says something else, everything about me says no it hurts you, doesn't it?
It doesn't.
I tell myself that lie too.
I grab onto my hip bone, I love having bones that stick out like that, protrude, and I tug and tug at it, until I can pull it out. It's a little bloody, but I don't mind, I've seen blood before, enough to stop caring. I can't stand up now, but who cares, I throw my bones across the room, and look back down, down at me. I want to go away, I want to melt right now. You see, it's not that I want to die, it's that I just want to stop existing. I want to not be awake. Can we make that happen, you and me, together?Oh wait. You're not here anymore. Asshole. It's just me, now. Dammit.
I pull my tights down a little bit, then trace the little scars, up and down my other hip, graceful, beautiful curves, stretching to touch my ribcage and falling like feathers onto my thighs. Ribcage. I need to tear that apart too. Fingernails to sternum, crack it half and pull it apart too, now there's lungs squishy and exposed and still, somehow, doing their thing.
I stopped doing my thing a long time ago. I can't even remember what it was now.
I remember numbers though. There were a lot of numbers, before, numbers that I took to heart, numbers that I used to make myself into a person, a person I never could be. Who wants to be a person when you can be data? I want to be binary, I want to be row after row of zeros and ones, take the feelings right out of it.
Palm to forehead, I claw an eye or two out, and now I can't see, but what was there to see, what was there in the first place? Nothing worth the effort, I think. Nothing worth getting out of bed in the morning. I'm going to sleep now, there's no more reason to be awake.

Semester in review?

2011-12-16T07:30:00.000-05:00

Is it weird to do a semester in review mere weeks before you write your year in review post? Should they just be lumped together? Are they fully seperate, or is it a more integrated, holistic thing? Did I accidentally schedule three quote of the months for the same day?
Does anyone really care?
I'm going to lump them together. I'm lazy.
This year: OH MY GOSH, SO MUCH FREAKING DYING. Hi guys, let's all set a goal for 2012 and call it "STAY ALIVE, FOOL" We're not going to die next year. Three people from my family, three people from school. That's enough, kthnx.
This semester: I learned a lot. I felt like a failure a lot. I probably did the best in Written Rhetoric, which I'm slightly worried about. Does this mean that I should reconsider my whole life and all my choices ever? YEP. Does it mean that I'm going to change anything? NOPE. Is this all for the best? Probably.
I hated 2D with the firey passion of a thousand suns, but I passed it. I was okay in Intro to Furniture, and I generally liked Design Drawing. Apparently DD is supposed to be really difficult and everyone hates it. I guess I am an anomaly? I figured that out a while ago. Also, ART HISTORY. It was wonderful. Like, awesome. Sigh. Art history.
What else do I have to say? Some sweeping statement about how I've grown and changed and become the person who I am today through perserverence and DAMNIT, I QUIT NANOWRIMO AND SOMETIMES I HATE MYSELF FOR IT.

Yeah. I'm feeling a little erratic right now. I'm going to go write. Or sleep, for that matter, since I've been up for a while. Maybe a Fiction Friday? Maybe a Fiction Saturday? Who knows! The possibilities, they're endless!

Quote of the Month

2011-12-15T00:00:00.002-05:00

"Fiction is the only way I can even begin to twist my lying memories into something true."
John Green

Quote of the Month

2011-12-15T00:00:00.001-05:00

"Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale’s department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time."
Kurt Vonnegut

Quote of the Month

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art—write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can; and I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. ”
Neil Gaiman

A jumbled up bunch of stuff.

2011-12-04T15:47:00.001-05:00

Today it feels like my face is puffy and misshapen, but we're going to write that off to the fact that it is winter and my nose is dripping and I only have class seven more times this semester. Yay! Well...a little bit "Yay!", and a little bit "Fuck!"

I'm not quite ready to do a semester in review yet, but I will be. It'll happen at some point, and when it does, I hope that it'll be deeply interesting. Deeply interesting to people who, you know, care.
I'm writing a book next weekend, you know. It's gonna be awesome. The same kind of awesome that you feel when you are doing something incredibly hard but incredibly fulfilling, where it sucks in the moment, but looking back, everything was right and you were so alive, right then.
I want to feel alive. I want that part of me to wake up again.

Sometimes (a lot of the time, all the fucking time) I wonder if i should pursue just writing and ditch design. I worry that I might like writing more than design, and that if I do, what am I doing with my life. Then I remember identifying every visible car when I was fourteen, I remember discovering Apartment Therapy and midcentury modern and being able to put a name and a face to the styles I loved, and realizing that the kitchen table when I was little? That was a Saarinen. Both are right for me, I think, and I'll probably ping-pong between the two for the rest of my life, with a little outdoorsyness thrown in, for good measure.

It's good to get squares together. I have four squares left. I'm going to conquer the beast. Also, I tweeted my thousandth tweet today. How's that for some alliteration up in hurr?

My APUSH teacher referred to the test as conquering the beast. Like, "On May 7th, you will go into room 160, and you will conquer the beast."
I think it sucks that I was born during AP's, and in a time that first communions frequently fall on, especially given the Catholicism of my dad's side of the family, and the Protestantism of my own family. I went to first communion parties on my birthday, more than once.
We're getting off topic now. I need to study so that I don't fail Art History and die sad and alone. That's what happens to you if you fail Art History.

Plan

2011-12-01T17:22:00.001-05:00

I have a plan. I'm going to be a beast in the rest of this class, then I'm going to leave school, go to Lowe's, get the stuff I need for my table project situation, go home, sleep forever, then wake up. If I wake up early enough, I'll work on the table model for a while. If I don't, then I'll just go to work. After work, I'll go and study my butt off for art history for a few hours, then come home and do some squares. Then art history. Then more squares, and I have to rewrite a paper at some point.

Fun weekend, eh? I'll have time next weekend to do fun stuff, like write the awesome novel of awesomeness that will be so awesome, and...probably just do that. I'll go home at some point too. I mean , I have to. I have a legal obligation to be home for Christmas and make an appearance at the New Year's Day party.

I'm thinking a lot about social interaction and the anatomy of friendships and such lately. Moral of the story: I think the only reason it feels like I'm barely doing anything social at all is that I spent all summer constantly surrounded by people. And I need to make more friends in GR.

Researched.

2011-11-27T20:28:00.001-05:00

I wrote a research paper. On the morning that I finished it, I was an absolute trainwreck, so this thing probably sucks. You should still read it though, because I'm totally right.

Nineteen Years Later

The Harry Potter series would have ended in a way that better satisfied the fans had it not included the epilogue. Harry Potter had all the traits of a successful series. The characters grew throughout the series, and the plot gets more and more complex as the series goes on. The epilogue, for most fans of the books, was entirely unnecessary. Everyone who cares had already decided how things ended for themselves. J.K. Rowling has said that “It would have been humanly impossible to answer every single question that fans have. Because I am dealing with a level of obsession in some of my fans that will not rest un till they know the middle names of Harry's great great grandparents.” (Rowling) yet she tries to answer all the questions that fans have in a matter of pages. Instead of achieving the desired goal of tying up loose ends, the epilogue only serves to cement in cannon a single version of the story, crushing all other possible endings. Fans of the books wanted to know what happens next, but they didn't want that in the form of an epilogue. What they wanted was another book, and then another one after that, but that can't happen. J.K. Rowling can't write Harry Potter books forever. This is acceptable and fans of the books realize this, but they want books, and the epilogue was exactly what they didn't want. They wanted story, not a happily ever after cop out ending.
Most readers decided upon their own ideas of what happens to the characters after the books ended, and whatever J.K. Rowling says about it isn't going to change what they believe. J.K. Rowling repeatedly stated that Harry and Hermione were not going to be in a relationship and that Ron and Hermione were endgame, that is, would be together at the end of the series. However, there are over 13,485 stories categorized as romance with Harry and Hermione on Fanfiction.net. There are 15,844 stories categorized as romance with Ron and Hermione on the same website. Ron and Hermione end up together in the books, which explains the reasons that there are more stories for their pairing, but the fact that there are less than 3,000 stories difference between these pairings shows that fans will write whatever they want, not what J.K. Rowling writes in the books. There are nearly 26,000 stories for the Draco and Hermione pairing, which was never hinted at in the books, and had essentially no chance of happening. (Fanfiction.net) This further proves that fans have different endings for the characters in these books, and do not need to have J.K. Rowling's future forced upon them.
Harry Potter was wildly popular, a worldwide phenomenon that changed a generation of kids. A major part of the Harry Potter phenomenon is the films. Regardless of how they feel about the films as a whole, most fans wholeheartedly agree that the epilogue did not work on film (Mapes). The makeup used to age the actors by nineteen years looked fake and awkward, and the lack of action did not translate well to time on screen. If anything, the epilogue only came off worse when it was on screen. The movie, just like the book, was a fantastic story, but it was less than great when it came to the very end.
The final book had a death toll unmatched by all the previous books combined. The other main issue that people took with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was the pacing towards the beginning, particularly in the fact that J.K. Rowling allowed Harry, Ron, and Hermione to spend nearly a third of the book on a fruitless camping trip. There was a huge conflict in the character's minds and in the reader's minds between hallows and horcruxes, the characters never knew which one they needed more. It's hard to maintain reader attention between two factors like this. Combined, these leave the reader bored and heartbroken. Bored and devastated is a bad situation in itself, but when you add a greatly unsatisfactory epilogue, readers will rise up in revolt. This dissatisfaction is what motivated one dedicated fan to write the song “Book Eight.” Some lyrics of this song include “I want J.K. Rowling to say/ That the epilogue was crap,/ 'Cause we all know it was crap!” and “I know I'm not the the only one/Who wants to know more about Harry's sons.” (Green) the latter of which refers to the bits of information that the readers are given in the epilogue and wanting more of the story behind what we see at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Rather than giving her readers a vague hint of what happened after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling should have saved them the pain of seeing the characters who they loved for years have endings that were different from what they had planned. It is always better to have less story, but please more people with the story that you give them, and this is a message that J.K. Rowling seems to have missed out on. All authors share the ownership of their characters and their stories with their readers and fans. The more a reader loves a book and the characters in a book, the more they feel as though they are a part of the series, and that they should have input on the way the books happen. Of course, they have no actual input, but going directly against what the fans want is not a good way to treat the people who have built an author's career. I'm not advocating playing into only what the fans want, but listening to fan input and opinions would be a good idea for many authors.
The epilogue deviated from the rest of the series in its overall feel. The other books never let the reader believe that the characters lived happily ever after, which left most readers hungry for more story. The goal in the end of the final book was not to leave readers wanting more story, but to tie up loose ends. J.K. Rowling said that Harry tries to create for his family the peace and calm he never had as a child (Brown), the happily ever after that never happened in seven books and should not have been tacked onto the end. If J.K. Rowling wanted to show an ending, this goal could have been achieved in other ways. For instance, if there had been some discussion of the future in the final book, J.K. Rowling’s concepts of how the characters fared after the books were over could have been incorporated naturally.
With the epilogue, the readers are given bits of information that isn't useful without the context to support it. In interviews that she gave after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, she elaborated on the backstory, and with the announcement of Pottermore in June 2011, it was determined that J.K. Rowling would be releasing more information about the world that she created. If she had plans for all of this, which she probably did, she should have not included the epilogue in the book. With Pottermore and the rest of the fan community on the internet, readers can learn and theorize about what happened to their favorite characters to their heart's content, regardless of the existence of the epilogue. For readers who care to learn more, the epilogue is irrelevant. For readers who don't care to find more out on their own, the epilogue is unnecessary.
The epilogue was greatly unsatisfactory and made Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a less stellar than it could have been. Harry Potter will be continued, carried on by fans of the books, but it will not be following the trend of “Nineteen Years Later” in letting everyone live happily ever after. The series thrived on conflict throughout, and it will not be changing now.
Bibliography
Brown, Jen. "Finished 'Potter'? Rowling Tells What Happens Next." Today. MSNBC, 26 July 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. .
FanFiction.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2011.
Green, Hank, narr. Book Eight. 2008. Vlogbrothers. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. .
Mapes, Marty. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2." Movie Habit. Gawker Artists, 15 July 2011. Web. 22 Nov. 2011.
Rowling, Joanne K. Interview by Meredith Vieira. "JK Rowling One-On-One: Part One." Today Show. NBC. 26 July 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. .

Yeah. Everything.

2011-11-22T17:49:00.001-05:00

Today was pretty eventful.
I don't think that I'm going to be writing my NaNoWriMo for the rest of this month. Yes, this is the first year when I've just said that I was done. Yes, I do have a good reason for doing this. Yes, I have thought this out. No, I have not discussed this with anyone else yet. Yes, I do plan on continuing to write the novel. Yes, I still like my novel. Yes, I still want to write. My wordcount is 13,702 right now. This is not impossible to recover from. I am confident in my ability to recover from this kind of a deficit. I'm choosing not to.
I sound like a robot.
I don't feel bad about this. I don't feel like I'm losing. I don't feel like I'm quitting. I think that this specific novel and this specific month were a match made in hell.

So, in other news, today was my carrer day at school. For the furniture department. The first person who came in was this guy who talked about finishing. For his job, he invents new ways to finish furniture. ALL DAY LONG. For one of them, he painted a piece, then threw rice on the wet paint, then waited a while, then scraped the rice off, sanded it a little, then put gold leaf on, then silkscreened a design on top of the gold leaf. WOAH SUPER EPIC AWESOME.
I took a lot of notes.

I learned a lot of things. I learned that back in the day, Kendall basically funneled designers into Baker. That's not so true anymore, which is probably a good thing. I learned what you want to have in a portfolio, and that one of the guys in the furniture department is a totally amazing incredible woodworker. Like, woah.

And here's a picture from the tour of Grand Rapids Chair Company that I took.

Shiny.

Hey

2011-11-19T00:52:00.001-05:00

Girl. Hey.
I really just said that to facilitate the linkage up in hurr.
I'm awkward*. Everyone knew that, right?
Watch this video.

Faber Castell from eric yeo on Vimeo.

Mmmhmm. VERMEEEEEER. Vermeer. Vermeer.

I'm thinking about things that I love right now. I love Manhattan Nest so freeking much. I want to move in with him and Max and so that we can hang out with Door Sixteen and party hard. When I say "Party hard" I mean "Let's go to CB2 and then to MOMA and talk about pretty things." That would be a fantastic day. And Brick House** can hang out with us too.
Guess who has a lot of homework? Guess who isn't doing their homework right now! Guess who's not writing their novel right now either! Guess who's going to be really freeking screwed!
It's, um, me.

Watch Marcel. Marcel. Marshell...

Also, follow this kid if you're a tumblrer. Or even if you're not a tumblrer. Tumblrite. He's pretty legit. I know him irl.

Do you have enough links? Are you linked up? Are you sufficiently distracted from that, um, novel thing?

Welcome to my life. I have no idea what I'm doing here. I am thinking of stories and storytelling and people and the way they relate to each other. I love this novel, still. I love writing, I really love it. I hope that I'll never be in a situation where I have to choose between writing and design, because whenever I ask myself, I constantly go back and forth. As for NaNo, I'm deeply worried that it's not going to happen in November. I feel like I can't give this the attention it deserves while I still try to do well in school, and I have to do well in school. If I don't do well in school, I'm going to have to drop out of college and move in with my parents and flip burgers for the rest of my life and die sad and alone. Okay, well, maybe not all of that would happen, but if I didn't do well in school this year, I would probably have to go back to that town and go to community college.

I had kind of thought "Retard" as an insult had gone the way of "Gay" as an insult, but I guess people still say that? I'm kind of confused by this. I don't say it, and I have my reasons, but other people do?

*I'm thinking about people and the way we consider our physical appearances and how we talk about that. I don't look awesome, and I'm totally fine with that. I just...It's weird. I feel like I said something that made me seem like a pompous douchebag, but I'm not, and...yeah. Awkward.
**If your first reaction to this tumblr isn't "HOLY MOLY I NEED ALL OF THIS STUFF IN MY LIFE" then I'm pretty sure we can't be friends. Go home. To The Brick House.

Quote of the Month

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."
Oscar Wilde

Today.

2011-11-11T17:57:00.001-05:00

11.11.11.
Yep.
I went to the IIDA furniture factory tour today. It was interesting and informative. Yay for interesting and informative! I expected to see a lot of Kendall students, but it was just two of us, and the chair of the furniture department, and one of the interior design professors. The guy who gave our tour was the owner of Grand Rapids Chair Company*, and the whole thing was just...really cool. POWDER COATING. I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO DO IT. ALSO, I WILL LEARN TO WELD. Yep. Those were really interesting. I need to get my build on and try to make some stuff. It can't be that hard, can it?
I know it was an IIDA thing, but I can't help but be surprised by the number of girls who were very obviously interior design students who were there. Despite my best efforts, I will never, ever pass for one of them.
I'm thinking a lot about sustainability in design. I like modern things, and I like Ikea, and I like the fast paced consumption of the newer greater thing. Is that bad? I like things that are sleek and shiny a lot of the time.
I watched Objectified the night before last (It was good. You should watch it. Kendall's library has a copy.) and one of the designers was talking about his father's briefcase, which he inherited, saying that it's gorgeous and gets better with time, like wine. Basically, you want to design wine, not pop.** That's possible with shoes, right? And jeans, sometimes. And cast iron anything. Other than that though, what do you own that has gotten better with age? Tell me, please. In the comments.
I'm just feeling conflicted. I like new and shiny and RTA and everything, but I'm in love with the idea of having products that you can just love and rely upon. I want to own beautiful things. I need to have a great purge of products and only allow things that are perfect and deserving of love into my life.
*It was great, but it would have been better if there wasn't Comic Sans involved. Like, a lot of Comic Sans.
**The other thing I learned from this movie: Karim Rashid looks a little bit like what would happen if Tim Burton and an alien had a child together. In the best way possible.

I think it's the glasses. Think of Tim Burton's glasses, then look at Karim Rashid. See what I mean? Also, if you tweet about Karim Rashid, some company that he's involved with will follow you.

Part Two:
You didn't know this was going to come in parts, did you? Well, I'm happy that you were so surprised.
Did I tell all y'all that I'm writing a novel? It's lovely! It's amazing! It's far shorter than it should be! So yep, my plans for this weekend involve writing, doing an art history project with a friend, writing some more, maybe hanging out with some friends, doing my horrible 2D project of death and despair and pain, and doing my design drawing homework. And writing. For design drawing, we're illustrating. We have to take text (the first few paragraphs of The Hobbit) and draw a picture. Draw a picture about the text. Like, take the things described in the text, and draw them. We have to draw them in COLOUR too. This concept is deeply stressful. I came to school so that I could draw furniture! I don't know how to think this way!

POOP.

2011-11-06T10:57:00.001-05:00

I'm really far behind on my NaNo! Yay! Love my life. Woohoo.

Crap.

It's way too early to be this far behind.

Crap.

And I have to spend two hours driving home today. That's two hours that I can't spend writing. Crap.

But hey, it's Gustavus Adolphus day, and also my half-birthday. So you know, that's a nice non-event.

Crap.

November!

2011-11-03T08:03:00.004-04:00

Hi! It's November, also known as NaNoWriMo, or TheMonthWhereISeemLikeIHaveADHD, or HolyCrapWhenDidCollegeGetDifficult or EwwwGrossMyHairIsFallingOutFromTheStress or ThisIsTheTimeOfYearWhenIGetTheMostHitsIDecayWhy. It's a fun time. I slept for about two hours this morning, and I feel wide awake. My cousin came over because he has an AAA plus membership and I need to get my car towed a hundred miles away from here, but once he got here and we called, he realized that he didn't have that kind of membership. So...that was kinda bad. But it was good to see him.
I was kind of planning to stay up all night because I have ten hundred thousand million drawings for Design Drawing that I need to redo so that I don't fail the class and die sad and alone*, but then I curled up in my bed around five. And got a call saying that my cousin was outside my house at 7:10, dealt with the situation, cousin leaves, I register for classes, and then I blog. That's how the story always ends. I think I'm going to try to finish the drawing I'm working on right now, then go to school and draw some more and go to class. Today, I may be crossing the line into consuming energy drinks. I'm surprised it's taken this long. Energy drinks are kind of like meat: I'm capable of consuming it, I see other people consume it, but I just...don't.
My wordcount is shit.** I am not worried about this in the least. I have all weekend and no functioning car and nothing to do, so I can see myself camping out on the couch for hours, days, weeks on end and writing my heart out. Although, as I was writing this, my mom called and asked if I wanted to come home for the weekend. So that might be happening.
Sometimes I wonder if I want to write more than I want to design furniture. Then I flip out a little bit. I'm worried, constantly, that I'm not doing the right thing, but then again, would studying English really help me? Writers don't have to be English majors. Furniture Designers don't have to be furniture majors either. So really, college doesn't matter at all. It's like expensive high school where everyone smokes.
If I don't do well here, I'll have to go back home and go to Schoolcraft or OCC, which are even more like high school where everyone smokes. That's some motivation, I guess.
Did I tell all y'all how I talked to one of my roommates for four hours straight and totally revamped my novel in the process? It was great. YAY. It feels much more solid now.
*NaNoWriMo has the side-effect of making you dramatic as fuck.
**I typed "ship" first, which reminds me that I am not the only person who has pondered the idea of writing slash fanfics about political figures. Joey thinks about it too! And Derek, obviously. MWWHAHHAHAHAAH. Mangoes.

This is my face

2011-10-31T10:16:00.002-04:00

Covered in freckles, with the occasional spot and some veins.
That's a Kate Nash song, right? I'm too lazy to look it up. But...you should find it on grooveshark or youtube! I think it was good!

And this is what I look like today. The blood that I mixed up last night was all congealed this morning, so that was kind of a problem. Also, I suck at doing makeup. In general.

What are you saying?

2011-10-25T17:26:00.001-04:00

What are you saying? I'm saying...

That was not relevant, but I like Tick Tick Boom, and I wanted you to know it.

I'm having this pervading feeling of worry right now. I'm worried that I'm not making the right decisions, that I'm not doing the right thing with my life. Then, I ask myself what else I would be doing, and I don't have a clue. That's scary, that I might not be doing what I should be doing, but that there's nothing else. I sometimes wonder if I like writing better than I like furniture. And then I panic. I panic because I'm not good enough at writing, and I'm not dedicated enough, and there's no clear path to a career. Would I be better off quitting school and hitchhiking around the country to try and find myself, or at least find something to do?
No, I can't do that. Girls can't go hitchhiking. Nice girls from the suburbs go to college and get married and get a job they can quit it when they have kids.
I don't think I was ever cut out for that, but wouldn't it be so easy? It would be so nice to do exactly what you're supposed to do and be happy with it, to feel whole without making anyone angry because you don't fit into their mold.

I don't want to deal with the future.

Mood: Mildly productive

2011-10-22T20:22:00.004-04:00

My car is mildly broken. Have I mentioned that to the internet yet? The power steering is not working, so, while drivable, it is really, really difficult to steer. Not that steering is important or anything. From what I understand, it's either some tube that's leaking or it's the pump that's broken. Or...the entire steering thing is broken. The tube would cost around $40, the pump would cost around $150 and the entire steering thing would cost around $holycrap. So...I hope it's just the tube that's broken.
I've been feeling mildly productive today. I woke up late, had breakfast (the macaroni and cheese on a bagel concept. It was interesting and carb-a-licous) and then studied some for Art History. I have a test on Monday. It'll be alright, I think. We had a quiz that the teacher said would be an indicator for the test, and I got a 94% on that. I wrote a little bit (a very, very little bit) as well. And then I got dressed and went on a bike ride and called my mom (Little broski is going to homecoming tonight. How cute!) and then I got home. And then I blogged.
Last night I did social things and redid an old Design Drawing assignment. I have a B+ in that class, but if I redo a few assignments, I think I can have an A. I really want an A. I'm proud of myself for doing both of these things. Tonight...I want to get all the pencil drawings done on my Intro to Furniture assignment and do the most recent Design Drawing assignment. That way, I can go to school tomorrow to scan the furniture thing, practice some rendering, study more for art history, and maybe redo another Design Drawing assignment that I got like...a B- on.
I think I'm doing okay in school. Written Rhetoric is super easy, Art History is getting better, Design Drawing is alright, and I've made a slight breakthrough in 2D. The class that's causing the most worry is...Intro to Furniture. We don't have that many assignments, and...I just want to know how I'm doing. This is furniture. This is my major. I love it, right?
I sometimes wonder if I'm doing the right thing.

There was much internal debate

2011-10-18T20:48:00.000-04:00

About me posting this. Well, here goes.
Food is odd. As a concept. I just wanted you to know that I felt that way. And people have relationships with food, and that's also weird. I think I have a weird relationship with food, in the same way that everyone else does. I'm just not really sure what is the right amount of food to eat a lot of the time, or when I should eat. There are days when it feels like all I do is eat, and there are days when I go over what I've eaten and realize that it isn't very much. There are some days when I think about it a lot, Also, I don't eat things that go together. Remember the mac and cheese taco? Stuff like that. Food culture? I has none. And I don't snack as much as I used to. This summer, oh my gosh, there was so much snacking. I gained weight, too. I don't think it was really noticeable to other people, but I noticed, and it really bothered me. I don't know how much I weigh now, because I don't have a scale. I kind of really want to know though.
So yeah. Food is weird, and it sort of freaks me out sometimes. Like now.

Quote of the Month

2011-10-15T00:00:00.000-04:00

When we lose twenty pounds, we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty."
Woody Allen

Go college, go college

2011-10-14T23:17:00.001-04:00

I love having Fridays off of school. Today...I didn't put pants on. At all. Woohoo! Loving the lazy life.
I did, however, try to do some schoolwork. Schoolwork for school. So that I don't fail all my classes and drop out of college and work at McDonald's for the rest of my life.
If you work at McDonald's, I think you have to touch meat.
Eww.

I'm trying to design lamps based on organic forms. It's...there's something. But mostly, I just want to invent my own organic forms to base lamps on. Is that too much to do? I have no idea what I'm doing here. Design drawing got hard, all of a sudden.* I still have an irrational love for it though.

This was what I did in class yesterday. We were working on lighting and shadows, and this drawing sucks so much. Gosh. Can we just call it a bad drawing day and pretend that none of it ever happened?

On the writing front (For some reason, I'm thinking of All Quiet on the Western Front. trollololol) things are not going so hot. I'm worried that I won't get this thing finished in time for NaNoWriMo and then it will just fester on my computer for all of eternity. I don't want this to happen. I need to focus and make this work. I want this. I want this future, I want to be living the dream, and I know that I need to work for it. I just...don't want to.

*AHAAHAHAH.

I constantly ask myself

2011-10-13T00:22:00.002-04:00

If what I'm doing is right. If what I've done is right. If I'm going to regret this all later. If I'm going to ask myself what could have been, and why it wasn't.

I don't expect any answers, at least.

I don't think

2011-10-11T01:11:00.000-04:00

That we belong to us anymore. I am not mine, and you are not you. We are us. The things I make are things that I couldn't have made on my own, and I've never made anything original. That's fine. That's good. You're nothing new either. We're made of remixed, broken parts that we recombine in any way that we can make work. All we ever do is keep on pushing, keep on going, keep on making something, something so that we don't go insane.
All we are is the mix of things we've heard and seen and imagined. That's all. Not human in the least.
I am fine with that. I'm fine with not being that way. I'm done with pretending, done with acting like I'm something different. Like we've changed.
There is no you and me, just us.

I found this piece of paper.

2011-10-09T22:04:00.000-04:00

In a bag. My AP Lit teacher (who was pretty awesome) passed these out to all of us on the last day of my senior year of high school. Now, I'm sharing it with you.

blessing the boats
by Lucille Clifton

(at St. Mary's)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

Well...

2011-10-08T23:52:00.000-04:00

#piecesthatwerefarbetterthantheonethatwonArtPrize

Thick-It, 2011 by Adam Fure

Just sayin'.

It's a landscape.

2011-10-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

Made of felt. On a dress.

I thought it was pretty cool.

What is this

2011-10-06T21:30:00.000-04:00

I don't even...

ArtPrize is good because it brings a lot of art to the city. A lot of that art is just...plain...bad.

Gleecap. Season Three, Episode Three

2011-10-05T23:03:00.000-04:00

I can hear you asking me right now "Why, Samantha, do you not have a Gleecap for episode two?" Well, I had notes for that episode, so that I could write a review. I put them in my backpack. They have not been seen since. This is a source of great distress to me, and I'm working through the issues to the best of my abilities. All I really remember is the giant huge crazy stressful Klaine cliffhanger. Which, of course, was wrapped up in this episode.

Anywho, here goes. I love the beginning bit. Santana's back! She's growing on me. Like a slutty fungus. What is this focus on Mercedes all about? I'm not used to her being treated like a real character, just like an extra who's there every single week. I hate Mr.Schuster. Still. And I am shocked by the concept of Emma having parents.
Figgins: You are brown*. You should understand the Asian F.
I love Mercedes having a love interest.
Next, in rather large letters, I have written "Shake the foundation of Rachel!" So...I think we know how I feel about that one.
Brittany...is that outfit empowering? Really? I think not.
Mercedes...Finger to the forehead. Damn.
Bieste is awesome.
DO NOT MEET THE PARENTS.
Blaine...you are so BA. Mwahahhaahahaha.
I love this song. I guess that the whole "Mercedes having a plot" bit was just building up to this?
MIKE CHANG OH MY GOODNESS. You're having the "Parents, I'm going to be an artsy person" conversation. I had that conversation too, about two years ago. I feel for you. "We earned that part" Um...okay Mom.
DIVA OFF DIVA OFF DIVA OFF DIVA OFF.
Kurt's comment was great, about how people will talk about this forever. I love Kurt.
Have I mentioned that I greatly dislike Wemma? Because I do. Her parent's are horrible. And they said something about redhead "heading" down the road they're on. Lolololol.
Rachel Berry, rainbow flag in the locker.

And then, at the end of the episode, something random struck me as "OH SNAP" worthy. I can't remember what it was. It probably wasn't earth shattering.

So...Other than Glee. Things have been happening in my life. Um....They're really cool. Art History regularly causes explosions in my brain (the good kind) and makes me think about the universe in new and exciting ways andsometimesIconsiderswitchingmajorssothatIcanbeahomelessstarvingweirdowholikesfurnitureandhasaPhDinarthistory AHEM. And Design Drawing is lovely. 2D is kinda dumb. And I got my papers sorted out for my new job, so that should be starting soon. I still don't know people who I can hang out with outside of school, and the fact that most of the people I've met don't have cars doesn't really help with that situation. Still, I really like school. Yay. Derek is coming to visit this weekend, getting here tomorrow night, so that's awesome.
Other than that....Um...Apparently my blog has a lot of words. For people who are used to tumblr, at least. Sorry guys. I like words. A lot of them. AND NANO IS COMING UP WOOOHOOO GUESS WHO HAS A PLOT.

I might have ADHD.

*Is it racist to say that?

At least you have ambition.

2011-10-05T09:21:00.000-04:00

I want to be the sound your shoes make, hitting the pavement, day after day.
I want to be the ribbons wrapped around your bony wrist.
I want to be all of the things you think it better not to say.
I want to be the things you throw away.
I want to know the things you don't want to share.
I want you to know how much I care.

Chapel.

2011-10-03T16:17:00.001-04:00

Rock.

I have a picture of the exact time and place.

2011-10-03T16:15:00.001-04:00

Of where I belong. I wanna go back there. So freaking much.

Fiction Friday!

2011-10-01T03:16:00.005-04:00

It's a Fiction Friday if I want it to be Fiction Friday. Don't mess with me.

It was late June when I drove withRachel out of town, to a field somewhere. We hadn't seen each otherin a long time, too long, but we had talked. We had talked a lot. Wenever talked about anything that really mattered.

I parked the car at the side of theroad. We got out and laid down in the grass without saying a word. Side by side, we looked at the stars for a while, not needing wordsto muddle what was going on between us.

Finally, I spoke. “Rachel, you knowthat I like you.” I turned my head and saw her nod in themoonlight, “I really like you. And I care about you. I want tospend time with you.” Those were all things that she had heard mesay before, more or less. They were things that I assumed were truefor her too. I hoped they were true. I hoped that I wasn'tinventing all of our relationship. Not that we had a relationship. Not that we had much of anything. “I just want you to know how Ifeel about you.” This was supposed to be freeing or something. Itdid not feel freeing. It just felt terrifying, this dead space therewas, between us. Full of questions. Suddenly, it felt like this wasnot a good choice, it felt like I had done all the wrong things andsaid all the wrong things and I was scared. I wanted to go home andcurl up in my bed and never leave again.

She reached toward my side and grabbedmy hand. I was okay again, in seconds. I didn't say anything else. We just stared up at the stars, dreaming and wishing.

“Do you know what I think of when Ilook at the stars?” Rachel posed non-questions like that often.

“What do you think of?”

“I think of the future. I think ofthe past too. I think of myself, a lot. And I think of you. Ithink of everyone else. I think of interconnectedness andloneliness.”

She always said things like that, inthat way that made everyone around her question if she was deep andthoughtful, or if she was just full of shit. No one was ever sure,but that night, I was erring on the side of depth. This wasn't thetime when she would joke.

“I think about you a lot. I hopeyou,” She paused. Holding her breath for a moment. “I hope yourealize that.”

“I had hoped that you did.” Ireplied too fast.

She chuckled, and I heard her moving,on the grass. She moved closer to me, her face above mine, blondehair brushing my face. “I like you. I like you a lot. I like youas more than friends.”

“I feel the same way aboutyou.”
“That makes me very, very happy.” She kissed me, andtouched my hip, in that little strip of exposed skin between my pantsand shirt. My heart, for lack of better term, fluttered. She rolledonto her back, closer to me this time. Our sides touching, twolayers between our skin.
We were quiet again, staring at thestars and contemplating our interconnectedness and whatever else shehad talked about. She was perfect. I loved her. I loved her. Iloved her so freeking much. I loved her in the way that a person whohad never been hurt can love. I had no idea how to say that. I hadfeelings, but I didn't know how to express that. I didn't want toexpress that. I didn't want to put myself out there.

“I”

She glanced at my face again before Ispoke. “What?”

“Nothing.” When you put yourselfout there, you get hurt. I didn't want any of that.

“No, what is it?”

“It's nothing. I just like this. Being here, being with you.”

“I like it too.” We were quietagain, giving me the space to imagine us. I wanted an us. I wantedto hold her hand and walk down the sidewalk together. I wanted more,more than talking to her late at night. I wanted more than on andoff conversation. I wanted a relationship, and all the little couplebenefits that it could come with. There was a reason why we werehere. There was a reason. There was something I wanted to tell her.

“I'm really concerned aboutcollege.”

Rachel was not thinking about the samething that I was thinking of. “Oh. Why are you soconcerned?”
“Because I need to get in. I need to get into acollege that's good.”
“I think you'll get in. You haveeverything going for you. You're going to do fine.”

“Maybe. I don't know. I'm justreally worried about it.”

“You'll be okay.”

“I hope so.”
“I believeyou'll be okay.” She was so insecure, sometimes. She would befine, we both knew it deep down.

“We should probably go home.” Shesat up, arms straight out behind her, hands on the grass. There wasa slight arch to her back, not quite like anyone else. I liked theway my arm fit right there, we belonged like that. She stood up.

I was still lying on the ground. Itwas now or never. I stood up, brushing bits of grass and dirt off ofmy back. “Rachel.” I held both of her hands. “There's areason why I brought you out here. I want us to be something more.”She opened her mouth and I kept talking. “I love you, Rachel. AndI know that you might not love me back, and I know that there's areason why we aren't in a relationship. You don't want to be seenwith me, you don't want to be known as my girlfriend. You'reashamed, you want to be with someone who other people like more. Iknow there's a reason, there's something. I don't care about it. All I want is you. You're my eleven-eleven, you're who I wish forwhen I blow out the candles on my birthday cake. I love you.”

She stared at me. She stared at mefor too long. I had said that too much, too crazy. I sounded like Iwas too into her. There was an imbalance. No one wants animbalance. It's weird and it's awkward.
She pulled her handsaway from mine. Tilting her head to the side, she asked “Is thatreally how you feel?” She said it so slowly, like she was talkingto someone who didn't speak the same language as she did.

“Yes. That's how Ifeel.”
“Oh.”
“We should probably go now.”
“Yes.” We walked to the car. I drove home, not speaking, not looking ather, trying to avoid thinking. I would have turned the radio on, butI was positive that the first song we'd hear would be somethinghorribly love-related.

I got to her house, after years ofdriving. “Bye, I guess.”
“Yeah. Bye. I'll um, see youaround.” She got out of the car, walked to the side door, and letherself in, taking care to shut the door as quietly as possible.

Gleecap! Season Three, Episode One

2011-09-27T19:31:00.002-04:00

Alternately titled: I really, really like Chris Colfer. A lot.

I'm super crazy pumped for a new wonderful episode of Glee tonight. Just so you know.

Overall, this episode was good. Not, say, Power of Madonna/ Cheesus/ Duets good, but it was pretty good.
Starting this episode, I had pretty high hopes. I hoped that maybe, since it's season three, the writers would get their act together and it would feel like they actually discussed the show once in a while. And that every episode written by Ryan Murphy wouldn't suck so much. And I hoped for more character development on Quinn. Remember that talk? Remember the "You get everything you ever wanted, and I get the boy" with Rachel? I wanted more of that. I have big hopes and dreams for Glee. Very few of them are met.

Onto this episode...
Wemma? Really? Why do we keep on putting ourselves through this trash? I almost turned that shenanigans off, but then I remembered that there were good things coming later on. The introduction of the piano concept came next. It seemed dumb and very...Schusteresque. At least they've got his stupid character down pat.
I love when Rachel and Kurt are friendly. I love it so much. I love that they have this little joint future going, I love that they're talking to Emma together. Love love love.
Wasn't Blaine older than Kurt? I thought he was supposed to be some kind of older gay role model.
Quinn, I liked you for five minutes of last season. What are you doing? What happened?
Sue...you are so evil, but no matter what you do, you'll always be better than Will. You could be kicking puppies, and I would still like you better.
This whole "Santana switching teams" deal is a little bit of an obvious metaphor for her sexuality. The next note that I've written down is "Santana on table - I see your stripper future."
Did Jacob Ben-Israel actually film Brit's crotch?
This season's "Yay back to glee" number isn't as good as "Empire State of Mind". Just saying'.
The pepperoni in bra line...Classic, classic Brittany.
This new girl was from Stick It. The more you know...
This whole song...I like that Kurt and Rachel both like Wicked...but I do not like this song. And the choreography is dreadful. Take two excellent performers and have them do a number that just...sucks. Way to go.
Since when is Blaine's last name Anderson, except in the Dalton-verse? There is so much Klaine perfection. So much Klaine perfection, and their BOWTIES. Sigh. I love them so much. Best couple on this show, by a long shot.
A piano would never ever burn that fast. And I don't like this Quinn in the least.
I am still love love loving Kurt and Rachel as friends. So much love for that. That one little clip of Kurt saying that he won't give up on Rachel? That's going to be my inspiration for NaNoWriMo this year...and for the rest of my life.
Does anyone remember that part of the pilot where Team Sue was standing in the exact same spot as Quinn? I want that to connect. I want Quinn to have an identity again. I want her to get her shit together. And apparently Beth is coming back, which will further complicate the Glee-verse. It's good to know that the writers think it's acceptable to drop a storyline for an entire season and bring it back like nothing has happened. LEGIT.

Back at home again.

2011-09-25T17:30:00.000-04:00

This was my weekend. It was great. I went up to camp on Friday, right after I got out of "The Kendall Experience" and got there around 3:30. No one else was there, which was a surprise. I'd never been at camp alone before, so that was kind of strange. It's very, very quiet. I went to my car, got out my blanket, climbed up into my ceilingbed, and took a nap. I woke up a while later by someone calling my name. People! At camp! Still, there were only three of us there for dinner, and everyone else trickled in that evening.

Saturday, we went on a hayride. When I say "hayride", I mean "Ride on mattresses in the kubota trailer", which is like a hayride, except that it doesn't smell and is more comfortable.

We went to the pipeline, where I hadn't actually been yet this summer. It was...the same as ever.
I really, really like camp. Sigh.
Now I'm at home, where I've finally installed Adobe CS all the way (I had to prove my status as a student before I could get a serial number for my copy) and tried to install CAD. And...I'm going to eat dinner, study for art history, try to work on my 2D project, and hope that everything goes well for my job interview tomorrow. Not nessecarially in that order.
I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that I'll be able to get my act together and get a Fiction Friday up this week. It's been a while since we've had one, and I...need to get my butt writing more. Truefact. How many days until NaNo?

This isn't one of those.

2011-09-20T03:52:00.002-04:00

This isn't one of those late night early morning posts where I'm fueled by coffee and diet pepsi and feeling sad and alone and worried.
This isn't one of those posts where I bemoan the fact that I don't blog enough, that I'm not good enough.
This isn't one of those posts where I contemplate the future.
This isn't one of those posts where I talk about writing. About how all I want to do is write. About how I wish I could write something perfect and publish it and have something to be proud of.
This isn't one of those posts where I mention that I need to take a shower.
This isn't one of those posts where I mention how interesting other people's lives are.
This isn't one of those posts where I come to the tragic realization that I can never be all that I aim for.

I'm not one of those people.

My Friday.

2011-09-16T11:57:00.000-04:00

I woke up at an ungodly hour to go to "The Kendall Experience" where I learned about budgeting. And alcohol.
And then I went and talked to one of my professors about an assignment that I'm going to redo.
And then I redid the assignment. Loitering in the furniture room.

It's a fun place to be.

And now I'm going to pack my stuff up, go to the post office, probably go to Bigby, and then either go home, or do the productive thing and work a little more on my dimensions assignment. Last night, I thought that I should have my measuring tape with me so that I can measure furniture at stores. I didn't remember to put it in my backpack, so I really should stop at home first. And probably eat lunch. And then go and work on this thing.

And then tonight, Derek's visiting! Yay!

And then tomorrow, Lauren's visiting! Yay!

College is just a nonstop party.

While I was sitting in the furniture room, loitering, I was listening to a podcast. I was alone, so I figured that I didn't need headphones. Someone walked in to the room to use the microwave (we have a microwave and mini fridge. Being a furniture person has its perks.) It was the Freakanomics podcast. About suicide. Awkward.

Minipost

2011-09-16T01:11:00.001-04:00

Minipost: n. In between a tweet and a real blog post.

Today at Furniture Club, this couple* who were both designers came in to talk to us. They were pretty cool. Gayle, the chair of the department**, asked them to each say the three things that were the most important skills to have in the industry. She said networking and drawing. He said drawing.

Clearly, counting is not a necessary skill.

Btw, this is the collection that she designed. I saw the renderings and sketches. Pretty legit.

I finished reading A Study in Scarlet*** today. And I got Sense and Sensibility from the library to read on the bus. Someone on the bus thought it was funny that I was reading. I'm not sure why this was amusing. People read all the time, and I'm currently regarding my commute time as the time when I can read all of the things that I would have read if I was...deeper. Like Austen. And Doyle.

*Brangelina if Brad had a southern accent, basically.
**She's the chair of the furniture department. This is hilarious. Feel free to laugh.
***All because of Sherlock. Sigh.

Quote of the Month

2011-09-15T00:00:00.000-04:00

"The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That’s the only lasting thing you can create."

Chuck Palahniuk

It's only Wednesday.

2011-09-14T13:20:00.001-04:00

But at least it's hump day!
And I only have "The Kendall Experience" on Friday, so it's almost like it's Thursday! Right?
Sure.
Last night I didn't do any homework. That was probably a mistake. And I went to bed too late, so I was feeling a little too tired during Intro to Furniture Design.
Judging by the number of misspellings in this blog post, I should have slept a lot more.
Tonight, I will be getting home, eating dinner (Do I need to go to Meijer? I don't have any vegetables at home. Do I need vegetables? They could probably wait a couple days.) and doing homework. My homework shouldn't take very long, so when I'm done, I will be sleeping. It will be glorious.

I still haven't written what I said I would write. I've drawn some stuff, at least.
I should write more. But first, I should study for Art History.

Create.

2011-09-12T15:56:00.000-04:00

You know, like, make stuff. I need to do that. I need to make something for myself, something not school related, something that is satisfying and makes me feel like I matter. I should really work harder on this novel. I like it, I like it a lot, but it's hard to motivate myself.
Okay. Here's the deal(io). My current wordcount is 3391. By the time I go to sleep tonight, it will be 8,000 or higher. And, as an added bonus for my lovely, lovely readers, there will be a drawing, created by me, of something in my bedroom. Probably my chair. Or desk. Posted on the blog.
Making promises is probably a good way to force myself to do stuff.

Today during lunch, I made myself a new twitter profile image. I like it quite a bit. I used the tutorial made by the ever-inspiring Door Sixteen.

And here is a random picture that I took quite some time ago. It's muffins.

Solid.

2011-09-09T00:11:00.000-04:00

Plan A1: Become a wealthy famous JK Rowling. Drop out of college.
Plan A: Marry rich European man so you don't have to go to college.
Plan B: Go to college, get a degree, then hopefully find a rich european man to marry
Plan C: Live on a bay in Ireland across from Andrea. Swim over to her lighthouse every day so she can bake me cookies.
Plan D: Go to college, get a degree, work....and work for the rest of your life.
Plan E: Make quotes into a marketable product somehow because Samantha always picks the best ones.
Plan F: something involving me making money so I could fund your artness.....shoot what was it? thinking.
Plan G: The above plan of being a therapist's therapist.

Emaline is helping me plan my life out. I really do like college though. It's just like high school, except it doesn't suck.

Today I sat in a room full of adults and listened to someone talk about design. It was very enlightening. This homeskillet was friends with...
wait for it.
CHARLES EAMES.
Yeah.
What else happened today? I was late for the bus, I saw a white Lamborghini on the way to school, my professor for Written Rhetoric said that she liked my style, I ate lunch at Christian Club, I went to Design Drawing where it seems like my perspective is way better than a lot of people's. I didn't do well on the last homework assignment though. Then I went to 2-D Design, where I released my neurotic freak self into the wild in an effort to use rubber cement to attach pieces of paper to a piece of mat board in a grid pattern. It was satisfying. I still have to do all the lettering on that. I think I'll do it by hand. Then I went to the Design West Michigan talk, where the above talk happened. I saw three of my professors there. And the dean of my school. And then I went home. After I got off the bus, as I was walking to my house, I did some kind of crazy toe-stubbing-tripping-on-uneven-cement action, and now my toe hurts. A lot.
And then I went on Facebook and Skyped a little and read fan fiction. I don't have a real class tomorrow. Homework can totally wait.
Sherlock slashfics practically write themselves.

Go College.

2011-09-06T01:43:00.001-04:00

Tenki go college? Yep. Same idea.I shouldn't be writing this blog post right now. I salhould be finding examples of the Gestalt principles of design. I don't care enough about the gestalt principles. Is that bad?
I have my new written rhetoric class tomorrow. I hope it's better than the other teacher I had.
I want to be good. I want to be better. I want to convince myself that if I work at this, I can get it. I can get it. I can get this.
I should really go to bed.

Quote of the Month

2011-08-15T00:00:00.001-04:00

"Without poets, without artists.. everything would fall a part into chaos. There would be no more seasons, no more civilizations, no more thought, no more humanity, no more life even; and impotent darkness would reign forever. Poets and artists together determine the features of their age, and the future meekly conforms to their edit."

Guillaume Apollinaire

Salem Rocks!

2011-08-12T17:34:00.002-04:00

The rocks were the mascot of a high school that competed against my school in quiz bowl and debate. It was a really dumb mascot.

This is a big rock that's sticking out of Lake Superior. From the backpacking trip.

2011-08-10T17:31:00.003-04:00

I drew this. It's the pipes that are above my bed.

2011-08-05T17:31:00.000-04:00

I learned about it.

Best Home

2011-08-03T21:00:00.000-04:00

(in the woods) Ever.

Film School: Part Seven

2011-07-30T09:00:00.002-04:00

By the end of their meeting, they had some semblance of a plan. They would hold auditions, for the thousands of people who would obviously be clamboring to star in a movie that was far to indie and far to mainstream to ever be well known in either group.
They were to post flyers on the bulletin boards all across campus stating the day (Sunday) and time (4:00) of the auditions. The auditions were to be held in the quad, since it was large and had no rules governing group meetings or the amount of noise created by such meetings.
The fluorescent paper was plastered throughout the school, which seemed as though it would draw a sufficient crowd. They gathered at the quad twenty minutes before the specified time, despite Vivian's constant worry that they weren't going to be there in time, that they were going to be late to their own auditions, and they were the only ones who seemed to be present for their event. As the time drew near, they all (excluding Grant, who was in one of his moods in which he was incapable of human emotion) got a little more excited.
"Mike?"
"What is it?"
"What do you think they're going to be like?"
"I think they're going to be three-headed purple aliens, Vivian. I think they're going to be aliens."
"Mike, we need to be serious. This is serious. We're making a movie, and it's a really big deal. This is our first real, professional project. We need to act like adults."
"And what do adults act like?"
"Adults do not assume that the people who are going to show up for their auditions are blue aliens."
"You're right, Viv. I'm an adult because there's no way I would expect blue aliens. I, for one, am fairly certain that the aliens will be purple."
"Mike, there's really no reason to get mad at me."
"I'm not mad at you."
"You're acting like you're mad at me."
"Both of you, cut it out." Grant said, sternly.
They looked alarmed.
"Dude, since when do you actually care about this project?"
"Since you two fools roped me into it, that's when."
Mike and Vivian exchanged a look of befuddlement. "Well then, it's good that you finally see what it is that we care about so deeply."
"I saw it all along, I just haven't been putting a lot of effort into it."
"Is it going to change then?"
"Not in the near future, hun."
"I'm not hun." Vivian seemed a little irritated at the perceived patronization.
"Everyone can be hun. I'm Southern. I can do that."
"Grant, you're from Conneictiut."
"I'm Southern in spirit."
"Sure."
They stared off in different directions for a while, checking their phones and looking disinterested, each of them following passers-by with their eyes, hoping against hope that they would be the one. No one was the one. No one glanced their way with a kind of curiosity that screamed "Are you here for me? Are you my ticket to glory?"
Four o'clock became four thirty, which became five. Finally, at five twenty-one, someone gave them that look. She was skinny, wearing all black, with hair dyed a putrid shade of green. "Are you the ones holding auditions for that film?"
"Yes! Yes we are! Would you like to audition? Are you an actress?" Vivian seemed overeager, just a little.
"Uhhh, sure. I can audition. What do you want me to do?"
"You can perform your monologue for us whenever you're ready."
"My monologue?"
Grant rolled his eyes rather visibly while Mike explained "The piece you have memorized? To show us a bit of your acting?"
"I don't have one." Most people would be ashamed or embarrassed at this, but this girl seemed entirely blunt about her lack of preparation.
"Then you can't try out. And anyway, the part is for a male." Grant too, lacked subtlety.
"Grant, really?" Vivian looked displeased and turned to the stranger. "Would you care to improv something?"
"I can, I guess."
"Start whenever you like."
"Okay then. This is a story about my, um, best friend, growing up. We were walking around the town where my parents live, and her parents used to live there, but her dad moved away when her mom died. We were fourteen, and we haven't talked a lot since then. But that's a different story. We were walking down this street, and we pass the graveyard, which is kind of cool in the daytime, because you can look around at the old, worn out headstones, but at night it's just weird. There was this one bush, and in the dark it looked like a pile of dirt, like someone had been digging up a grave. Then, she thinks she sees this guy, or maybe she actually sees this guy, I'm not sure. And then we ran, as fast as we could and we got out of there." She paused to take a breath, which she hadn't done in quite some time.
"Is this a true story?"
"It's an improvisation."
"I see."
"We'll be back to you in a few days if you get the part, alright?"
"Sure. Thank you. Bye." She turned and scurried away.
Once she was out of earshot, Grant leaned foreword so that he could look Vivian in the eye. "Really, Viv? Really? Is that all that this stupid school has to offer?"
"You don't have to be so harsh, you know. She was obviously very nervous."
"No matter how nervous she was, she sucked." Mike interjected.
"Isn't there anyone else around here?"
"There are plenty of people around here. None of them want to be in our film."
"Why is that? What are we doing wrong?" Vivian was frustrated at the thought of there being people who didn't love and adore her.
"It's not what we're doing, it's who we are. We don't have anything that anyone wants in the filmmaking world."
"Gee Grant, aren't you a regular Debbie Downer?"
"I make a special effort, just for you."
"I'm honored."
"Stop it. Now. You're acting like idiots. We're going to break now, and regroup tomorrow. I don't want to see either of you for the rest of the day."
"Good idea. Bye." Vivian turned and left.
"I'm gonna head out, then."
"See you later."

Eugh.

2011-07-28T20:52:00.002-04:00

I'm so tired right now. I'm not sure why, really, but this week has wiped me out. Staying up 'till 2:30 last night probably didn't help. Is it always this difficult? Would this be difficult for anyone who isn't me? Becca did this, last week. Lifeguarding and Village Staff all on her own. And she had more cookouts. And she was in Chippewa, so it took her an extra fifteen minutes to get anywhere. Why is this so tough for me? Why am I so dumb? Why didn't I get enough ground turkey, or any sweetened condensed milk, and why did it take me twenty minutes to realize that we had a lifetime supply of tortillas sitting in the pantry, at eye level? I'm still going to have to pack that cookout, the spaghetti and doughboys for breakfast (some sort of opposite day thing) and then pack the horse camp pizza pockets in a cooler so they can take them along for lunch. Then it's s'mores for the Chippewa group after dinner, and that's all. I can handle that, right? Why is Brent so useless? I was talking to Jo about him earlier, in a not really positive at all kind of way, and we were in the kitchen. Later, he comes out of the DVD office at the other end of the unit shelter. I don't know if he was there while I was talking about him, and I don't know if he heard. The kitchen has a sort of base level of loudness that makes it difficult to hear things that are happening inside from outside. There are two big fridges and one big freezer, plus the cookout fridge and the bread freezer, so they all make noise, and I wasn't being that loud. I really shouldn't have said that, but I've been talking about him all summer. That totally makes me a jerk, doesn't it? He's in the same position that I am, first summer on staff and not really sure what to do or where to fit in, and I'm being mean for no reason. I am such an asshole. I just took "Shank Brent" off of the stickies thing on my dashboard. Baby steps, right?

He was being sort of aloof towards me earlier, when I was in the kitchen, eating, but he's always sort of like that. And Fred and Nancy were out in the other room, eating, but I had to act like an antisocial freak and just stay in the kitchen. When I left, Fred asked me if I was going to a cookout, and I was just like "no". Because obviously, if I hadn't been invited to a cookout, I would have just eaten with them, and sat at a table of adults, and conversed like a normal person, instead of sitting in the kitchen and refilling dishes for an hour. I'm not sure if I remember how normal meals work for adults around camp. I just want to sleep. I just want to sleep.

I did go to sleep. With the staff cabin radio next to me, on my bed. I am fairly certain that Joel does the same thing.

Film School: Part Six

2011-07-22T08:00:00.001-04:00

"Mike, what were you texting me about all day? Come to the library, come to the library. I got the message. What’s up?” Vivian looked slightly confused.
“Hey.”
“Oh, um, Grant. Hi. How are you?”
“Good.”
“That’s really great, Grant.” She said “great” and “Grant” next to each other in a sentence. Mistake. It sounded gross. She looked down at the table that she was leaning on. Stood up straight.
He nodded and she turned back to Mike.
“Thanks for coming to the meeting. Sit, please.”
“So I’m allowed to be a part of this?” She sounded needier than she meant to. This was not a situation in which sounding needy would help, not in the least.
“You wanted this? I was roped in.”
“Being a part of something special makes you special. I think this is really special.”
“It is something special. This could be everything, if we make it everything.”
“Mike, let’s cut to the chase. What kind of movie are we making?” Grant interrupted whatever kind of strange, spiritual moment they had been having.
“It’s a one-actor type thing.”
“What kind of a movie has one actor?”
“It’s unique.”
“It’s plotless.”
“Anyway, we’re doing it.”
“You two are so silly and childish.”
“There’s nothing silly or childish about believing in your dreams. You should try it sometime.”
“You just got served, bro.”
“I did not just get served.”
“So let’s start this thing. We need to get storyboarding.”
“That’s gross.”
“Is there something on my face?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand while Mike chuckled.
“We don’t really need to plan this out. We can just go with the flow, you know?”
Vivian turned her head to the right, further than looked possible. “We don't really need to plan? What are you planning on making, a trainwreck?”
“Oh snap!” Mike said.
“Unnecessary, Mike.” Vivian snapped.
“Whatever. I just can't see you two working together. Ever.”
“Can we at least do a little planning on this thing before we just dive in?”
“No.” Mike and Grant said, in unison.
“You are children.”
“Probably true.”
“Well, I'm going to plan this thing out.” She paused for a second, expecting some sort of murmur of agreement. There was none, so, after looking disappointed for a second, she resumed her previously perky disposition and pulled a notebook out of her bag. “Planning is ninety percent of any successful project.”
“Mike, could I talk to you?”
“Yeah.” Mike seemed a little confused by this request.
“You have to get up and walk away.”
“I don't want to get up.”
“I'm just guessing here, but I think he wants to talk to you without me around.” At this, Grant and Mike both felt slightly guilty. They did want to talk without her presence, but they weren't intentionally making her feel left out.
“Um...Okay.”
“Just talk to him.”
They got up and walked away a little, between two bookshelves with titles like A Complete History of German Nationalism and The Soviet Union Today. “What is she doing here?” Grant seemed angry.
“She wanted to be a part of it, okay? I couldn't just say no. And she's really good. Some of the stuff I've seen of hers is way better than anything we've ever made.” A white lie wasn't really a lie, was it?
“Mike, do you go around telling people about your crazy ideas?”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
“This is a trend that should be stopped dead in it's tracks.”
“Is that all?”
“Whatever.”
And with that, they went back to the table where she had been sitting. Both were considerably more subdued than they had been before.
“You have an outline? Already?”
“I've been working on it for a while now.”
“Oh, um, okay.”
“Do you want to help?”
“Sure.”

Film School: Part Five

2011-07-15T08:00:00.006-04:00

“Hi.” Vivian was standing at his door.
“Hi.”
“Are you going to let me in?” She asked, looking past Mike, into his room.
“Why don’t we talk in the hall?” Vivian was more than slightly terrifying, and Mike had no idea of the kind of shenanigans that she would get into if allowed to enter.
He closed the door behind them. The hallway was darker than the room, if that was possible. “So what did you want to talk about?” that seemed like a nicer thing to say than ‘What are you doing here?” which is what he really meant.
“Mike, I know that we’re not best friends or anything,” She looked down and tucked her hair behind her ear, while Mike was struck by how small she was. She was loud and always seemed in control, and it made her seem bigger, somehow. “But I think the movie project that you’re planning has a lot of promise, and I want to help you. I want to create something great, something that we can all be proud of.”
The appeal to emotions was not going to be effective. “What do you have to offer?”
“You’ve seen my work. You know it’s good. Good sense of plot, characters, aesthetics. You know how some movies are just so beautiful that your heart starts beating a little faster? I can make things that feel like that, that give you the same emotional impression.”
He tried not to look impressed. “I see.”
“So, can I?”
“Are you just doing this to get closer to Grant?”
“No.” She seemed just a little defiant, a spirit that didn’t usually show.
“Really? You seem awfully friendly towards him?”
“That’s because we’re friends.”
“Uh huh. I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.” She nodded and walked away.
All she wanted was to be a part of something, for once. Something good, something recognized, something with other people. Was that too much to ask for? Wasn’t she allowed to have something good? Everyone was given things by the universe, inexplicably, without asking. When was her thing going to come? Why couldn’t it be this? She was reaching out for it, she was creating an opportunity for herself, why wasn’t it working?
Because sometimes, nothing works.
Grant was almost asleep when Mike barged into his room.
“Dude, what are you doing here?”
“Remember that movie I wanted to make?”
“That was such a dumb idea, but you were super excited about it.”
“Will you help me make it?”
Grant sat up in bed, alarmed. “You’re actually making it?”
“Yeah.” He paused, in what he hoped was a solemn and dignified way. “I’m making it. Do you want in?”
Grant waited before responding, not deciding on what he would say but on how he would say it. “Yeah. I want to make it.”
“This is fantastic.”
“You’re a nutcase.”

Quote of the Month

2011-07-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

Mae West

This is a casino

2011-07-11T11:53:00.002-04:00

On Belle Isle. I was told that no one goes in there anymore, but I saw three people inside. They were sitting at a table. I don't know what they were doing.

Film School: Part Four

2011-07-08T08:00:00.004-04:00

Mike went the next few days without opening his document of plans, without really thinking about it. There were other things to concentrate on, like work and school and the inevitability of death and the fact that Sarah still didn’t know that he existed, despite multiple attempts to get her attention. Really the whole situation with her reeked of middle school. Maybe relationships were like that, forever feeling juvenile and pathetic, even when you were older and over it.
It was silly. He was silly. She was silly. School was silly.
And so he opened the document again, this time while Grant was there. Mike knew that Grant wasn’t fully on board with the idea, but it was okay. When he saw how great this movie was going to be, he would get on board with the idea, and probably say that it had all been his idea in the first place. Clearly, he would win on this issue, which was a good thing, because there was no way Mike could handle it all on his own.
Vivian, he realized, was going to be an issue. She was sort of friends with Grant, for some strange, inconceivable reason. If he was to be involved in a major way, then she would have to involve herself too. Vivian was the kind of a crazy control freak.
Crap.
The next time he saw Grant he wanted to bring it up, he was thinking about it the whole time they were talking, but he couldn’t find a way to say it without going outright and saying “ I hate Vivian. “
He couldn’t do that, but he had to do something.
As Grant was walking away, towards his next class, he blurted out, unintentionally, “Vivan knows.”
Grant turned around, slowly, puzzled. “What does Vivian know?”
“She knows about the movie.”
“What movie?”
“The movie we’re making.”
“We’re not making a movie, Mike. We’re going to school.”
“We can do both.”
“Not well. You get one or the other or half ass on both. I want school, Mike.”
Mike gave him a condescending look. “Grant, let’s face the music.”
“Face the music? Really? Such a cliche’d line.”
“You know what I mean. Facts. Reality. You’re going to have to see the truth. You don’t give a damn about school because you’re a little rich boy who doesn’t even need college and daddy’s paying for everything you need, and he’ll keep on paying for as long as you need. You don’t have anything in your life that you’ve ever worked for. This is something that you can work for, that all of us can work for.”
“Mike, you don’t have a clue. Get out of here.” His voice was lower than it had been before, and he spoke slowly, as if every word was taking extreme effort on his part.
“Just because you’re too stupid to try anything at all doesn’t mean that you have to hold everyone else back!”
“Just because you’re too pathetic to do anything on your own doesn’t mean you have to drag other people along on your stupid ideas.”
And with that, Mike left the room and Grant, pausing for a second to ponder Mike’s new obsession, got back to his previous occupation. It was stupid, wasn’t it? Mike had those kinds of ideas all the time, Grant had seen this sort of thing before. Last month he had decided to start a business farming cockroaches, and thrown away the idea when he realized that he was terrified of cockroaches. Was this the same thing?
But movies were different. Mike really loved movies, more than anyone else he knew. He could give you the plot and starring actors of every movie he had ever seen. Even animated movies, which neither of them had seen in the past fifteen years. He was obsessed, so if he could succeed at anything (a questionable concept) he could succeed at this. They were film students, anyway. Making movies was the kind of thing people like them did. Was it really unreasonable? A cockroach farm was unreasonable. No one farmed cockroaches. But people made movies all the time. Maybe they didn’t make money at it, and maybe no one ever saw them, but it happened. So...why couldn’t it happen for them?
Clearly, it couldn’t happen for them because they were not the right people. They were not the right ones who had the right set of skills to make something happen. Or...were they?
They weren’t, Grant assured himself. They couldn’t be.
He went back to playing video games.
Grant had never been the kind of person who cared. Some people would have considered this a personality flaw or a lack of character. He did not. He considered his mentality to be a result of a privileged upbringing lacking extreme hardship, for which he considered himself to be incredibly lucky. He didn’t have to work hard for anything in his life, and it had given him a unique, if rosy, outlook on life. It was neither good nor bad, it just was, and it could not and would not be changed at present. He would cope. He would move on. He would never be the kind of celebrity who went to third-world countries to adopt babies and be photographed doing charitable works. He would be sheltered and he would be privileged, and that would be okay with him and everyone else.
Was there something wrong with that?

This is a garden

2011-07-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

At Belle Isle. It's not very well maintained.

Film School: Part Three

2011-07-01T08:00:00.001-04:00

The next day, Mike was sitting in class, bored. It was some academic thing, totally not his cup of tea. He had gone to college so that he could make movies, not so that he could learn about history or math or whatever it was. So, like any reasonable person, he was slacking off. Instead of taking notes, his computer was on a word document, listing a stream of consciousness of what he wanted for this film. It wasn’t a concrete thing so much as it was a mass of ideas.
At the top of the page, he had written “The kind of movie that feels different every time you watch it.” And then listed aspects. “Protagonist: likable, funny, but also profound. Average viewer can identify with him. Reasonably attractive, but not hunky.” It seemed questionable to include an appearance requirement. Did most directors assume that they could find someone who could play the part well and look right? Mike drew an elephant on the desk with a mechanical pencil he had picked up off of the ground earlier. There were more elements to a good film, he knew it. “Protagonist is fighting against someone from his past.” But who was it, from his past? This character didn’t even have a name, and already, they were trying to find some complication in his past. He didn’t have a past, really. He needed depth, complexity. He needed idiosyncrasies. Wasn’t there that one line, in Good Will Hunting, about that kind of stuff? Mike thought about it for a second. There was a line, the therapist said something about his wife, how his wife had those little oddities that everyone has, and how he was the only person who knew all of them, and how that made her special, right? Something like that. This character needed those. He started typing again, listing every weird thing that he could come up with. “Has never had a different haircut than he has now. Has never grown a beard. Is a horrible dancer. Wears no jewelry. Hated most of school. Not terribly social. Dislikes chocolate. Prefers sour candies to sweet candies. Reads books that others thought were boring, not because he liked them, but to spite people. Wears shiny black shoes with pointed toes that looked like they hurt, but didn’t Maybe cowboy boots, for “out there” occasions. Has not owned a pair of athletic shoes since high school, which was an indeterminate amount of time ago.” This was far too much to be talking about shoes, he knew it. Something else, there had to be something else to talk about. “He has a mysterious past, full of things that are ungood in a sad way, not in a dark way. Has probably contemplated suicide at some point in time, but never attempted it. Ran away from home when he was a teenager, ended up staying with extended family for a while. Sees no point in getting comfortable, getting used to a place or a routine. Perpetually unattached.”
Mike bit his lower lip and tapped on his laptop. There was something, something digging into his side. He looked over and saw Vivian, clad in a kelly green sweater, looking at him.
“Oh. Hi there.”
“What are you doing?”
“Learning, sitting in class, you know. Doin’ the school thing.” He had worked with Vivian on a project once, and she was the kind of girl who got in everyone’s business, all the time. Controlling, detail oriented.
“No, what are you typing?”
“Uhhh, this? It’s notes, you know. Because I’m paying attention in class.” Gosh, how did he become such a terrible liar? Really, now, it was pathetic.
“It doesn’t look like notes.” She looked exceedingly proud of herself, and also terrifying. “Maybe this is weird, but I’ve been watching you for the better part of an hour now. It looks as though you’re planning out a story of some sort. A visual story. Like a movie. I think it has a lot of promise.”
“What? A movie? I’m not making a movie. It’s a plan for a, um, webconic. A web, webcomic.”
“Oh.” She looked slightly crestfallen. “Well then. I’d just like to let you know that I think it could be a really great film. I’d make it with you, if you’d like.”
“Well, given that I’m not really making anything, there’s nothing for you to help with.”
“Mike.” She looked him in the eye and placed her hand on his arm.
“How do you know my name?”
“I just do. Don’t ask questions. I think that you have something real, something real and something with the potential to be amazing here, and I want to help you to this future. For you . And for me.”
“Well, that’s really nice and all, but I have to go right now.” He got up and grabbed his things.
“Class isn’t even over.”
“I have a doctor’s appointment. Syphillis. It’s very bad.”
“Oh.” She looked sad now, disappointed.
“Yeah, so see you around, right?”

I'm on a bridge.

2011-06-28T12:17:00.000-04:00

Superlegit.

I adore these people

2011-06-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

So much. They're awesome.

Film School: Part Two

2011-06-25T08:00:00.003-04:00

Grant was sitting on the couch, orange and tan stripes, in Mike’s room, throwing a tennis ball at the ceiling and catching it on the way down. He had perfected the art of very nearly almost hitting the ceiling.
“Grant?”
“Hmmh?”
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Righto.”
“I see that.”
“You know that movie we were going to make, but never did make?”
“Which one?”
Grant sat up, catching the tennis ball in one quick swipe and placing it on the couch beside him. “The one that won us several Oscars.”
“Oh yeah, that one.”
“It’s our Good Will Hunting.”
“Bro, are you saying that you want to make Good Will Hunting?”
“No.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“No I’m not.”
“We can’t make Good Will Hunting. Someone else already made it.”
“I don’t want to make Good Will Hunting. I want to make a movie the same way they made Good Will Hunting.”
“Mmmm, yeah. Hey, Adam Sandler? I was wondering if you could come over here and write a screenplay with me. Can you bring Matt Damon too?” He mimed, with his phone.
“You dumbass. If they can do it, we can do it. Get me a piece of paper.”
“I don’t have any paper.”
“Fine.” He pulled a wadded up receipt out of his pocket. “We’re gonna have a character. Main guy, the one who you root for, the one who’s a better version of you.”
“Geez.”
“Not you particularly, but a general viewer.”
“I see.”
“Yeah. We got the good guy, we need a bad guy.”
“Oh, I see, it’s a deep, artsy film about a couple of superheros and evil villains? Yeah. Cool.”
“Who peed in your mountain dew?”
“What? It’s a possibility.”
“We need an antagonist. They make plot.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Do we want a person? Do we want someone to be out there, trying to get them?”
“This is your thing, not mine.”
“I know, dumbass. I’m bouncing my ideas off of you.”
“Whatever.”
“The world’s just going to be angled against them. Everything out there hates us sometimes.”
Silence.
“And so he’s going to go out into the world. Because when he was a kid, he got this idea in his head, this idea that everyone was against him. Right now, he’s just trying to see if it’s true.”
“Personal journey.”
Mike nodded. That sounded okay, even when you said it out loud. Good sign, he knew. “A personal journey makes a good story.”
“But it’s been done before.”
“Your mom’s been done before.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I know. But really, is that an okay story?” He needed confirmation, reassurance before he went any further. He always had that, the worry that it wouldn’t be okay, that he wouldn’t be successful. Weird. Unwanted.
“Yeah, it is. If you do it right.”
“How would I do it right?”
“Don’t hit anyone over the head with your message of deep, touchy feely, personal growth. That’s gross.”
“I’m not an inspirational speaker.”
“Look in a mirror once in a while, okay?”
“Ouch.”
“Truth. It hurts.”
“Whatever. I’ll try not to talk about feelings too much. You’ll police me on that front.”
Grant stood up, theatrically. “What? What are you talking about?”
Mike scrunched his eyebrows and spoke in the kind of voice usually reserved for explaining very complicated concepts to unintelligent people. “Well, when we’re writing the script for our film, you will tell me when I’m writing something that is more emotional than you’d like. Get it? You can make changes so that it’s not sappy, which everything I write is, apparently.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t I just explain what I was talking about?”
“No, I didn’t catch that one bit. There was something about me changing things, I think, and that seems like it was out of place and very unlikely. I’m not doing this. This is your stupid little project, and you can do your own thing with it.”
“Yeah, I guess. I’ll just screw around with it myself, and you can do whatever you want. You’re right, you’d probably just make it all suck.” Mike said, feigning a lack of confidence.
“I would make it all suck, even more than you would.”
“Why even bother making a movie, right?”
“This is what I’ve been saying all along.”
“Shut up.”

So what if I look like the unabomber?

2011-06-23T12:16:00.000-04:00

I was bored and had a camera. Dangerous combination.

I'm not sure

2011-06-22T12:10:00.000-04:00

Quite what I was thinking when I drew this. Whatever.

I like these buildings

2011-06-20T00:00:00.002-04:00

They are Canadian.

Film School: Part One

2011-06-18T08:00:00.005-04:00

Everyone sat down in the theater for a clandestine showing of their film. Each of them had seen it, in bits and pieces, editing it into something coherent, but this was the first time they’d watched it together, all the way through. Someone turned the lights out and pressed play on the computer. Black screen. “Screw the Danger” in white letters. Helvetica. Grant had pushed for it, Clark had hated it, and the others had more important things to care about than typefaces. The letters dropped away in a cute little animation. Clark’s idea.
The black turned into a greyscale image, which turned into a coloured image, still with a lot of grey and dark blue tones. Vivian had said that they should start out with that aesthetic.
The camera was zooming in towards the back of Clark’s head.
“It seemed cool at the time, but now, so strange. Awkward.”
“I think it’s okay. It’s an original style to start in.”
“Shut up!”
“Fine!”
Clark turned around. Pale, skinny, wide jaw, wide pointed nose and messy bleached hair. He was singing something, but you couldn’t quite read his lips and the voiceover was talking, slow then faster and faster, reading poems without the appropriate pauses and rhythm.
Then it went silent. His lips stopped moving at the very same instant. He looked up. The camera panned to the sky, and back to him, now laying down on impossibly green grass.
A pair of shoes walked up next to his head and Clark started talking.
They remembered how the exact words had been ad-libbed. It hadn’t mattered what he said, so long as it seemed like he was spilling his guts to the camera/ And the effect, they unanimously decided, had been positive.
The camera switched to a bird, just sitting on a little branch. It moved it’s head, looked down, and then just flew away.
Fade to black.
And now Clark was sitting at the counter in a diner, fifties style. He was wearing a button down shirt and tie. Drinking coffee and staring straight forward. He never took his hand off the mug. When he was finished, he reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Took out money, laid it on the counter, stood up, and walked away.
He walked outside, and the camera focused on his shoes, shiny and black, looking like they would fit in far better in a church, worn by a man who was religious because he was a sinner than the Clark they knew. But in that moment, Clark, kicking pieces of gravel as he walked down the side of the road, became someone new, someone fresh.
“This is amazing.”
“Was I wearing brown socks with black pants and black shoes in that shot?”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s perfect.”
“I can’t believe you let me go like that.”
And then they were silenced by a passing semi truck that blew Clark’s hair to the side. And he turned away from the road, took off his shoes, loosened his tie, and started running. They all remembered shooting this scene, how Clark insisted that they get it right the first time, because there was no way he was running away from them twice. They had filmed until he turned into a speck in the woods at the end of the field, and taken years to come back. They’d filmed too, when he was coming back. It wasn’t planned, but they had put it in during the credits. To give closure to the scene, which , someone suggested, would leave the viewer feeling satisfied more than a scene without closure would.
The movie went on like that. Clark didn’t like it. It was too much of him, too much of the strange shots at strange locations, not enough plot. It wasn’t a story, it was a study in narcissism.
And when it was over, someone got up to turn off the computer and projector and turn on the lights.
“It’s not wh-”
“No. We’re not discussing it. Not now. We need to let it sink in, to become a part of us, before we try and do something more with it.”
“Okay. I’m find with that.”
“That’s good.”
“I’m good with that too.”
And their group, having felt so connected, so wildly together a mere hour ago, dissipated.

Quote of the...day?

2011-06-16T23:34:00.000-04:00

"It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches."

Lemony Snicket

Flowers

2011-06-15T11:42:00.000-04:00

Quote of the Month

2011-06-15T00:00:00.000-04:00

"If being crazy is living life the way it’s meant to be lived, then I don’t care if we’re completely insane."

Revolutionary Road

On Emotion

2011-06-13T01:30:00.000-04:00

I am strange and awkward and unemotional. In the worst way, but I've come to terms with it, and the fact that I've gotten to this place where I'm okay with imperfection (in that aspect, at least) is one of my favourite things about myself.
Still, there are some times when I would trade something that I am good at for some, say, social skills. Grad parties exacerbate this situation, if we're calling it that. Can an aspect of your personality be a situation? No. Whatever.
Anyway, I'm never quite sure about how I should socalize with people, but I'm getting better. I'm still not good at maintaining conversations with people, unless I've known them for a long time and can make something entirely out of inside jokes. I will laugh at those inside jokes, even when no one around me understands them. This makes me slightly awkward.
What bothers me more is that I'm never quite sure how I feel about anyone. There's someone who, once upon a time, I was very angry at, and then I forgave them because I realized there wasn't any point in being mad, but there's strange hostility, even now.
There were forty-five commas in that sentence. Is that even legal?
Probably not.
Also, having conversations with yourself on your blog is not socially acceptable.

One day, there will be a big, sweeping blog post in which I summarize high school and pick out favourite memories and pictures and we all get sappy and nastolgic and slightly angry at the injustice of it all, but today is not that day. Tommorrow will probably not be that day either, but it will come.

I was going to summarize this post and say "The moral of the story is..." when I realized that there wasn't really a moral. I'm kind of a dork. Can that function as the moral? Good.

*I have worn my boxers from Senior All-Night Party every night since them. Perhaps they should be...washed. I've heard tell of people doing that with laundry.

Once Upon a Time

2011-06-06T17:31:00.000-04:00

In a land far, far away...
There was a team of directors who were to direct a play. Sadly, they couldn't think of a play to do They were sad. Then, one of them realized that she could write a play just for them to preform. She wrote a play. They all lived happily ever after.
If you want to read this play, go here.

Feeling Good is Good.

2011-06-03T00:58:00.000-04:00

This is the follow up to Blu Dot's "Good design is good."*
Today was my last day of high school. I went to Psych, then Forensics, then Lit, and then it was all over and I threw papers in the air and got my cap and gown and went to lunch.
We're not going back.
It's sinking in, and it feels so good to know that now. After the class of 2011 got screwed over time and time again, they can't do anything else now. We're free.
It's kind of awesome.
This may have aired on the PA system at school today. Maybe.
As I was turning in my responsibility card and going to get my ugly gown, Mr. Finance told me that I was one of his favourite students because I could be myself even when I was surrounded by people who were trying to be someone else. That made me feel good.
And then I got my oh-so-cheap cap and gown and strange little medal. And then went to Noodles and Company, which makes awesome noodles. And Trader Joe's (Peanut butter panda puffs) and drove Lauren home and went to the library to get Pushing Dasies and watched that with Conni. And then we went to the Quiz Bowl party. And then I hung out with Derek. It was, all in all, great.

*To that, I say "Good design is invisible."

Wake up!

2011-05-30T22:14:00.000-04:00

Your future is knocking!

Please note that this would be a fantastic slogan for a college advertisment. Kid sleeping on the front of the pamphlet, picture of college on the inside. It doesn't scream "Ivy League" but it sort of screams "Local University" like a school that is pretty good, but isn't known by people from outside of the area. Like...Oakland University. Or CMU. Or Eastern. People from other states don't really know about those, do they?
Some kid at my school draws little elephant heads in pencil on various surfaces. I think it's a girl, because I saw one in a bathroom once, but it could be multiple people. I like it. It's a motif. I want a motif. I need a motif. Maybe I could draw tigers. Or ligers. Or...lightening bolts.
In other news, this is happening because sometimes, things are right with the world. Notice that it's at U of M. Notice that I live like...half an hour away from U of M. OH SNAP. Let's go.
Speaking of living...places, I got a call today from someone who I emailed about renting a room from. In Grand Rapids. I'm going to check it out next Monday, so hopefully that'll work out. I emailed a bunch of other people too, so if I can schedule a bunch of meetings for that day, it should result in me finding a place to live. Hopefully.
I think I'm going to wear a skirt to school tomorrow.
I just wanted you to know.
Film School is going along swimmingly.
I like swimming.
I've been rereading Paper Heart, and I don't like what I see. I'm not in love with the plot or characters any more. I don't think I'm going to edit it at all. I'd rather write something new. I do not know what that something new will be. Maybe I should write a collection of short stories. Or poetry.* I've heard that there is a Camp NaNoWriMo coming this summer, and that just might be the ticket. Of course, I will not have internet.
There are several thousand bugs in my room, swarming my desk lamp. Problem.
I have a day and a half left of high school. How did that happen? Where did life go? What are we all doing here? And other questions that I ask the universe.
*Someone should stop me from doing that. It will be horrific. Do not want.

Senior Skip Day?

2011-05-26T23:55:00.000-04:00

Today was Senior Skip Day. Also known as the beginning of my five day weekend. Also known as the day before Chris Colfer's 21st birthday.

Sigh. So perfect.

So adorable. I love that word, adorable. Just the way it rolls off the tongue.

So inspiring. Sigh.

Senior skip day was so, so awesome.

Since it was the day of skipping, bunches of friends went out to lunch and I dragged Derek to the DIA. It was a party. He judged me for taking myspace shots in the art.

And caring excessively about the sinks. but really, they're perfect. They're going in my dream house file. This is not the first time I've noticed them.

There was a lion. It was pretty cool, I guess.

This guy? Terribly dapper.

I like this. I do not know why.

You know what this reminds me of? EAMESICLES. YES. LOVE IT.

It may look like macaroni and cheese, but it is not. Really.

This is a piece of my own, entitled "Museum-goer" We actually saw other people, seniors, from our school, at the DIA as well. It was weird.

Another stealthy mirror shot.

A pimptastic couch.

And then, I went to Lauren's and watched Glee.

It was really fun. Really, really fun.

Just remember, Andy is watching you.

Petty

2011-05-22T23:19:00.000-04:00

When there are somewhat large issues facing me, I tend to focus on little things. This is a diversion tactic. I will tap, I will pick at things, I will make sure that my nails and eyebrows look perfect.
Here is the issue that's currently freaking me out. Camera, remember that? I'm a neurotic freak about some things in life, and the condition of...things is one of them. Last night, I let asked my mom to hold my camera for a few hours. Keep in mind that said camera was purchased on May 7th and can be returned to the store within 14 days. Also remember that my mother asked me a few times if I was sure that I wanted to keep it, etc. Anyway, when she gives me back my camera...there is a scratch on the screen that was not present before she gained possession of it. AND IT IS ONE DAY TOO LATE TO RETURN IT, LEAVING ME TO COPE WITH A CAMERA THAT HAS A SCRATCHED SCREEN FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.
And I know that if I point it out to my mom, she will get mad at me. Really mad, most likely. WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST TAKE HER CAMERA?
ASDRFJHKL:SDFGHJKL:SDFGHJKL:SDFGHJKL:LEDFGHJKLSDFGHJKLWEDRFGHJKL
I just have a lot of feelings.

Je voudrais un photo avec ça

2011-05-16T23:09:00.000-04:00

I got a new camera for my birthday. Here are some pictures.

This is my brother. He's holding a plant.

I took this picture. It's the same thing you find when you look for stock images tagged "Spring", "Summer", or "Grass"

These are flowers. They are pink.

This is a creek. It has trees near it.

This is a creek and a person.

And this is the sky.
Clearly, someone is up for a major photography award in the near future. Get off of my runway, Ansel Adams.

Quote of the Month

2011-05-15T00:00:00.001-04:00

"I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing."
Neil Gaiman

You have brains in your head.

2011-05-11T00:04:00.000-04:00

You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...
Dr. Seuss
It's time for the annual birthday post and exercise in pure, unadulterated vanity. I love it. I love me.
Seventeen had a lot of change. Remember? I do. I remember seventeen being a big year, a year that started out okay, had a lot of confusion and frustration and sadness in the middle, and just kind of lined up at the end. Seventeen looked like this.

And this.

Seventeen wore fishnets (twice. For a costume.)

Seventeen bleached her hair (and subsequently dyed it twice, for two very specific circumstances.)

Seventeen made a ring that was nothing like it was meant to be, and was better that way.

Seventeen stayed up all night during NaNoWriMo and took this picture of the sunrise, from her bedroom window.

Seventeen won NaNoWriMo and got balloons. And had some mysterious substance on her hands.

Seventeen drove to Flordia and back (did most of the driving too. Seventeen loved driving. And learned how to drive a stick.)

This picture seems vaguely artsy, or maybe just dumb.

Seventeen visited colleges. Colleges that she got into through no one else's merit but her own. Colleges that gave her scholarships because they thought that she was worth something.

Seventeen went to prom with a fantastic boy.

And seventeen looked like this.

Eighteen looks like this.

And, in a startling new addition, eighteen wore a dress. To school. Shock! Awe! Amazement! Eighteen had certain members of her Lit class sing to her, out of no where.

Seventeen was learning what it was to wish that you could end someone else's suffering. Seventeen was helplessness. Seventeen was wanting something that you could never have. Seventeen was being someone who other people didn't like. Seventeen was learning the value of friends. Seventeen was creating things. Seventeen was obsessing. Seventeen was getting a taste of dreams. Seventeen was seeing what she wanted and getting it. Seventeen was falling into place. Seventeen was feeling valued, and feeling worthless. Seventeen was growing. Seventeen was changing.
And with all that baggage, all those complicated emotions swirling around me, I'm going on to eighteen. Here's to you, eighteen. Here's to everything you'll bring. I love you already.

I just have a lot of feelings.

2011-05-09T22:51:00.000-04:00

True.
I got the cutest mug on the planet for my birthday. NaNoWriMo companion? I think so.
At some point in time, we're going to post the top 25 images from The Sartorialist. Promise.
The annual birthday post is coming soon. But now, I just want to talk, because no one can listen right now. I should go swimming right when I finish this. I should do a lot of things, really. But they don't happen because it just doesn't. No one is pushing me, and I can't motivate myself. Stagnant water grows algae.
Here's the thing: I'm not good at trying to be someone else. I can't express myself more or less or differently than I do right now, because when I do, I feel like a bitch or a pushover the whole time. I can't handle that. And it feels like everyone is either more present or less present than I am. Why can't we all just be on the same stage, for once? It's like with food, I can never quite tell how much is right to have, and that's like with talking, I never know.
I'm thinking about this too much. I know that. But that's how I am. That's how I think, and I can't change, and I don't want to change. So there. This is me. Take it or leave it, world.

I can consistantly be relied upon to have an opinion

2011-05-03T23:36:00.000-04:00

pertaining to Glee.
First off, I noticed that there were some new background sounds in this episode. I approve. I love Fondue For Two, and I want it to come back. A lot. I really liked Brittany in this episode, which is surprising. Kurt is wearing the shirt he was wearing in Duets, which seems like they're hinting towards him and Sam. Way to be subtle. Jane Lynch makes an excellent David Bowie. Halloween plans? Yes. And Ohio would love Anne Coulter. *judgment glare*
The entirety of April Rhodes in this episode was explained at :26. Don't ask, just watch.

I know, right?
Finchel? No. Just no. Santana? Come out already. What happened to your fauxlationship* with Karofsky? Only Jacob Ben-Israel notices. Gosh, that kid is great. One day, he and Karofsky will both join glee club for real, and it will be lovely and amazing. Wait a second...CRACKSHIP. This. Karofskybenisrael. I love it. So much. Does anyone want to write a crackfic about this?
And the accompanist is just furniture? WHAT IF WE NOTICE FURNITURE A LOT MORE THAN WE NOTICE SOME PEOPLE?
The KChen/Schue duet? That sounded, somehow, like this.

I think that Sam and Quinn and Kurt are rehersing a song. Or having sex. Or both. In general, I feel sorry for Sam, but I feel like if anyone was living in a motel with their family, it wouldn't be him. But...I don't know who it would be.
This is a public service announcement: MATTHEW MORRISON, IF YOU'RE READING THIS, DO GLEE A FAVOUR AND GO BACK TO BROADWAY. That is all.
I love my life.
Lastly, does anyone have reccomendations for a fairly good camera that's not super expensive? My parents have offered to get me a camera of my own for my birthday. I'm not planning to be a professional photographer or anything, just looking for something that works for basicish stuff.
*I coined that term my very own self. YES I DID.

This is a blog post.

2011-05-03T00:21:00.000-04:00

I'm at that state where I want to blog and I feel like I should blog, but the only things that I care to write about right now are things that I should not be blogging about. It leaves one in a tough state. Like a police state, but in your own mind.
I'm cold right now. I've been cold all day. It doesn't matter if I put a sweater on. It doesn't matter if I'm sitting by the vent.
Now it feels like nothing is right, like the three line response I send to a six paragraph email is more misfitting than normal, like I can't sleep all the way, like I'm self-aware enough to see that I am adamently opposed to doing anything productive, but lazy enough to not do anything about it.
I don't like this state very much. It feels like there's nothing that I really want to do and that I'm not fully awake. And I want to be wanting something, more than anything.
I guess that's okay.
It's okay enough.
But I had never been fully me and I've never been exactly who or where I want to be. All I know is that right here isn't okay with me and I need to get out.
I'm incoherent now, I can feel it in my bones, but I'm in the water, and it's impossible to get back on the boat.
And I'm thinking about what's pretty and what's not pretty and why we need people to tell us that. And who decides what is and isn't okay, socially. And maybe I just don't exist quite enough to count, all the time. I'm not quite here, I'm up there, drowning in the infinitesimal light of the stars.

And these walls are delicious. That's what matters.

Fiction Friday

2011-04-29T01:50:00.001-04:00

Or Old School Fiction Friday. Or Flashback Fiction Friday. Or Wait - Is That A School Assignment From Sophomore Year Fiction Friday.

Whatever you want to call it, I was going through an old flash drive and found this. Philosophes. In hell. I distinctly remember thinking that this was hilarious. And you get to see my casting decisions as well. Party on.

An Epic Salon in Hell!

Characters-

Samantha-Machiavelli: Believes that the devil should stomp out bad mutinous ideas in hell.

Sanyia-Neitszche:

Emaline-Robespierre: Believes that he should rule, wants to kill everyone.

Marie-Satan: Welcomes everyone to hell.

Satan: I am having some issues with my control of hell. There is a newcomer, I think his name is Hitler. He keeps on trying to take over hell. It’s ridiculous. We must stop him. As a significant philosopher of governmental theory, I have invited you to come and tell me about your opinions on how to best preserve my control of hell at my salon.

Robespierre: That sounds like a fabulous idea. You know, that’s how I started my whole revolution thing. Maybe we should start with a new title. “Devil” has to go. Sounds too mean. Perhaps we should try Citizen-

Satan: No, no, no, I don’t want to start a revolution. I just want to maintain control.

Machiavelli: I can help you maintain control. I will maintain control. I can do this. I am the ninja of maintaining control of large groups of people.

Satan: Really?

Machiavelli: Do you know who I am? I’m Machiavelli. Hello. That means that I’m full of excellent ideas about how to keep the people down. I love to keep the people down. I love it like zombies love brains.

Satan: How do you suggest we keep the people down?

Machiavelli: You have to be fierce. It’s better if they hate you than if they love you, but you probably can’t have both. It’s a part of life.

Nietzsche: But, he’s dead.

Machiavelli: Whatever, it’s a figure of speech!

Nietzsche: You have to be Superman!

Satan: Superman? But isn’t he good?

Nietzsche: No, no, no. This is a different kind of Superman. This Superman is a philosopher.

Satan: And this Superman can help me defeat this Hitler?

Nietzsche: Superman can do anything.

Machiavelli

You have to outsmart this Hitler

Robespierre: What does he want to do?

Satan: He wants to take over and create a superior race.

Nietzsche: A superior race?

Satan: Yeah-the Aryan race or something.

Nietzsche: Then maybe Hitler should rule. He does have a good quantum of power.

Satan: What? No. I need to keep my position as THE ruler of Hell.

Robespierre: Just kill him. It’s as simple as that. We could use the guillotine, if you like.

Nietzsche: You’re doing it all wrong. We need a Superman. Get him in now!

Machiavelli: I think you should kill Hitler then put his head on a stick. That would make for a nice example.

Robespierre: No, just kill him. Kill them all! Him and his so-called “pure” race.

Satan: What the fork? That would be like half the population. All I need to do is keep control. If there are no people, what the heck am I controlling? Oh yeah….NOTHING!

Robespierre: However this is Hell we are talking about. People are pretty much dead as it is in this place. (To Nietzsche and Machiavelli) We should just kill Satan.

Machiavelli: This plan I like.

Nietzsche: This is a very different idea, but I am completely for this plan as well.

Robespierre: Alright let’s come up with a master plan

Machiavelli: Okay so we should just call Hitler, since he murdered thousands in Europe already. Then we shall get rid of Hitler later.

Nietzsche: Hmmmmm….I like this idea quite a lot. It is very dark, but I like it.

Robespierre: I like dark things too! TO SATAN: Where’s Hitler?

Satan: I have no idea.

Robespierre: Well, that's a problem. Find him, bring him here. We’ll take care of him.

Neitzsche: Do you feel bad lying to him?

I think there was more. There really should be more of this, because it is clearly stellar material. I'll check at school tomorrow to see if I've saved anything there. In the meantime, ARTHUR MILLER, GET OFF OF MY RUNWAY.
Edit: I found the rest of it at school. Here it is. It's very nice. There are some edits that overlap with what I posted earlier.

Robespierre: I like dark things too! Where’s Hitler?
Satan: What are you whispering about? (whispered)
Robespierre: We’re looking for Hitler so we can kick his butt.
Satan: I’ll show you where he is.
Robespierre, Satan, Nietzsche leave
(Machiavelli stays, smiling sadistically)
Machiavelli: (soliloquy) Well, I want to kill somebody. I feel like Robespierre is my biggest threat. He’s the most Machiavellian, out of everyone there. Is it weird to use your own name as an adjective? Maybe. But I’ve always wanted to be the kind of person who had a name that was an adjective. Or maybe a verb. Could you machevelli that for me? See, doesn’t that sound nice? Yes. Yes it does. It sounds delicious.

Robespierre and Nietzsche come back in

Machiavelli: Where did you lose Satan?

Robespierre and Nietzsche exchange glances and then say “we took care of him”

Machiavelli: I really didn’t think you two would have the guts to do that.

Robespierre: *Angrily* What do you mean? I killed thousands. I ruled all of France.

Machiavelli: Oh yes you did. And whose ideas did you use to do that?

Robespierre: Certainly not yours.
Machiavelli: Shakes head and laughs.
Nietzsche: It’s so funny that you two believe that you can rule. You are mere mortals. You are not supermen. Supermen should clearly be the ones ruling everything. Not you fools.
Machiavelli: And what makes you think that we’re not Supermen?

Nietzsche: You’re not perfect. You don’t possess the kind of features that a Superman has.
Robespierre and Machiavelli glare and walk towards him.
Nietzsche runs away, preferably squeaking.
Machiavelli laughs, smirks, whatever. (Awkward silence…)
Machiavelli: So…who’s going to rule Hell now?

Robespierre: We should have a Hamlet-style fight to the death!

(they fight, they die)

Robespierre: O Fortinbras! He has my dying voice!

Oh my goodness

2011-04-26T16:35:00.000-04:00

What is happening?
I feel like I've been very productive today. I wrote an essay for sociology, I submitted art to the school art show, I REGISTERED FOR COLLEGE CLASSES BECAUSE I'VE OFFICIALLY DECIDED WHERE I'M GOING HOW DID THAT EVEN HAPPEN, I went to the bank, I figured out the wilderness first aid situation*, I read some blogs, and I...bought hair dye?
Yeah. All that. And it's not even four thirty.
I am so cool.
I need to write some more of Film School, because I'd like to have the first two chapters done before prom. And I should write another Lit essay. Sigh.
It feels like it's been a million years since the last time I blogged. Mostly because it has. I think this has to do with either not having anything at all to talk about or having things to talk about that probably shouldn't be talked about online, lest someone goes a-stalking.
Glee was okay last week. It wasn't as perfect as the one before it, but I fully expect tonight's episode to be fantastic. Yay!
I think I'm growing some sort of chronically non-existent attention span. Woohoo.
I'm going to take a nap now. Or go on a walk. Or both. Simultaneously, since everything is happening at once and I might just become unstuck in time.
*Although I'm worried that my boss thinks I'm going to flake out on it. Worried worried worried. I won't flake out. I promise.

Quote of the Month

2011-04-15T00:00:00.000-04:00

"I never regret anything. Because every little detail of your life is what made you into who you are in the end."

Drew Barrymoore

Well.

2011-04-13T22:01:00.000-04:00

I was going to go to the gym but I didn't. I was going to do work but I didn't. I was going to live my life but I didn't.
So it goes.
I'm taking my lifegaurding test tomorrow. I'm worried about it. But I worry about everything. I'll be fine. Right?
I've been doing a little more work on the Novel. Sometimes I like it and think that it's my baby and it's perfect, and sometimes I hate it more than anything. It's a good thing that I don't exhibit any characteristics of bipolar disorder, right?
Today my sociology class visited an elementary school in Detroit. They had four things that my school doesn't have: windows, glitter, metal detectors, and recess.
I have an overwhelming urge to go to Finance tomorrow and do some day trading. Day trading that involves no actual money.

I loved this typography inside the Eiffel Tower

There were random gas pumps on the street. I thought it was weird. And gas was crazy expensive.

Finance is such a party

2011-04-11T12:54:00.000-04:00

And when I say "Party" I mean "A class where I have computer access and don't have to talk to anyone" they're practically the same thing.

Anyway, I plan on spending the rest of the month gloating about France. It'll be great, but now is not the moment when that is happening. For serious here. Being in France made me realize just how much I need to leave the place where I am now. I need something to get me out of here, to the point where I'd never have to go back. As we know, I have three routes out of my situation. They've convinently been named A, B, and C. So, in short, I'm spending an hour every night this week editing last year's NaNo. I feel like it has something, like it wouldn't make someone vomit. Winning. Yeah.
This was a fantastic blog post.

Hai

2011-04-10T22:49:00.001-04:00

That's Versailles. I'm really tired. I promise that I'll blog more soon.
I wore my Euro shirt that says "I came, I did, I went" on the back today...because I was leaving Europe. People noticed the shirt, but failed to make the connection. I cried. A little. On the inside.

Oh, right

2011-03-28T00:16:00.000-04:00

I decided you might want to know what NaNo 2011 is about. You know, maybe.
I need a drumroll here.

VIRAL VIDEOS.

You think this concept is not interesting and lacks plot. Psh. You lack imagination.

And I'm still on the metaphorical fence about Script Frenzy.
And I did choose such an ugly colour because I thought it would stand out.

You just got poemd

2011-03-28T00:13:00.000-04:00

Get it? It's like pwnd. Except poetry.
This is another one of those things that I find to be hilarious and no one else thinks is vaguely funny.
I'm pretty sure I like this about myself, because it's good to think that things are funny.
So that's you know, good.

I've written my poem for AP Lit. It's a really nice poem. I don't want to post the whole thing here. I want to post one stanza, but if I post one stanza, people will connect that one stanza to the poem on the wall of the classroom. I need to write more. I need to post a Fiction Friday every day of the week and I need to make that comic a reality (because it would be the same kind of funny that I am (not funny at all)(I'm pretty sure that the use of nested parenthesis when words are present is illegal)) Maybe this summer. I'm going to be lacking internets this summer, so...maybe.
In other news, I've decided on the topic of my NaNoWriMo this year. Be jealous. Be comforted by the fact that I've decided remarkably late this time around. I usually determine this sort of thing in the third week of November, the year before I will write it. I love the feeling of having a novel running around in my brain, keeping me from concentrating on anything at all.
In other news, I need to find a writing contest or fiction magazine or something to submit this one story to. Because I love it and think it's good and it's basically my wordbaby.
Also, FRANCE. I'm excited when my mind wanders on over to the thought, but the rest of the time, I'm totally clueless. Huh.

On Writing

2011-03-21T09:11:00.000-04:00

I need to write something. This is obvious, you say. It's almost Script Frenzy, which you're doing this year, which doesn't garner nearly as much excitement as NaNoWriMo does, but still seems interesting. And that novel.
Remember that one? The one that I thought wasn't horrible? The one that I thought might have a chance? Something needs to happen with that thing, that beast that's sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I need to type it. And edit it. And get it out of my freeking head.
Also, today I need to swim, work on local scholarship stuff, and write the freeking thing.
Also, film school. And I need an art something to work on, so that I have direction.
Life? Structure. Nap.

Fiction Friday

2011-03-18T08:54:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry. I do not know what is happening with this. Did I mention that I was sorry? Because I am.

I see the stars all on their own
Tonight
In the woods, with only the trees.
I remember when it was just you and me.
Before the world fell in
through the ceiling
on top of us.
Remember how much we laughed?
That one day when we drove to
the beach and raced into the waves
so loud and so quiet and so together and
so alone.
And it was strange
at that moment
because I remember
thinking that
we were perfect together
but only at that second
and
soon
everything would
change.

And I'm a little bit scared
you know how
I get scared for
no reason sometimes
and when I
did, you could always tell
even if I tried to hide it.
You said it was in my eyes.
And that was why we had been so
amazing together
like we could conquer the world.

Three Things

2011-03-17T17:56:00.004-04:00

With creative pursuits, there's always a stage of exploration. You've been introduced to it, you try it out on a whim, and you have absolutely no idea what you're doing. It's like...you're in the woods, in a place where you've never been before, and you see a bear. At first, you flip out, and then you realize that it's actually Smoky the Bear, and instead of killing you, it talks to you. And then you get talking. After the conversation is over, you remember it and assume you were high while this occured. Either that, or having a very odd dream.
That analogy will make more sense tomorrow, when you see the profits of said creative pursuit. Actually...when I read that...it still makes no sense to me. Whatever.
Thing two: I'm not sure if this is a case of me being whiny or things genuinely being more difficult for me than they are for other people or both, but I effing suck at memorizing French verb conjugations. No matter how hard I study them, I can't ever learn them. Poop. Any ideas on how to make this easier/possible?
Thing three: I'm pretty fairly sure that I messed up something for financial aid at two of the schools I got in to. They weren't schools that I especially wanted to go to, but I'm wondering, right now, what could have been. I hate that notion, the idea of all the things that could have been if only you did one thing differently.

Also, if you're the kind of human being who functions like I do, I bet you would get some sort of benefit out of reading this.

It's March 15

2011-03-15T23:59:00.003-04:00

Also known as the day my house burned down.
Sure is a conversation starter, isn't it? "What were you doing eight years ago today?" "Uh, I don't know." "Well, my house was burning down." "Oh. Oh." And then there's an awkward silence.
The funny thing is, I didn't think of it till about twenty minutes ago. I went all day being excited about Glee being on tonight, and being productive about art, and being excited about life in general, and being excited about France, that I completely forgot about the fact that my life was turned upside down a few years ago. This day used to be a big solemn sort of anniversary for me, and it wasn't, not this time around. This time it was just a normal day. A good day, in fact.
I progressed by leaps and bounds on my art stuff. And I watched Glee, where everything was perfect. Seriously, Klaine kiss! Not just that, but this felt like an old school, classic Glee episode. Guest stars in minor roles, everyone back where they belong. I liked it. So. Freeking. Much. And let's face it, we all went "Squeeee" when the kiss(es!) happened.
I'm growing up, I think. I'm leaving that defining moment of my childhood behind, and at this moment, I love it. I love not having to identify myself by that, I love making up a whole new identity for myself, I love not having to be the same person who I was when I was five or seven or twelve or fourteen.

I'm becoming exactly who I want to be right now, and I don't think I could be happier with myself.