While It Lasted

The death of a dream is a difficult thing, and moreso when your own hand must deal the killing stroke. 

It was a secret, she whispered, and now you've gone and ruined it. You made me think about it, really think about it. Made me try to understand it. Made me realize the truth about it. Made me give it up. 

Now it has to die, she says, and she cries for what never was in the first place.

gpoy

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be one of *them*.

You know, *them*. The students, real ones. The ones who have everything done on time and usually about three weeks early. The ones who aren't worried about finals, or if they are, they're just worried that they haven't studied enough, not that they haven't studied at all. The ones who are so on top of everything that nothing lands on their head and catches them by surprise. The ones who never stay up all night writing a paper (or, more likely, skip the class to write the paper due).

I wonder about what that feels like, sometimes.

Then I snort and tell myself it would be dreadfully boring.

And I go back to writing the paper that was due half an hour ago.

2 down, 1 to go

finals...

finals are the worst.

to be fair, i have very few, and they aren't hard, and i'm not particularly worried about any of them at all.

i just don't wanna.

Carpe College

Today, I will attend my last regular class as a full-time student at Southern Adventist University.

I'm trying not to think about it, but I can't help myself. I also don't want to let it flit away without somehow marking the occasion. I feel like I should make some kind of speech, or cause an uproar in class, or even just ask a question, or maybe make a comment or two loud enough for the class to actually hear. I should do . . . something. I want to savor each moment, actually seize it, because this is it, guys. This is the end of my undergraduate collegiate experience.

And now I'm making myself cry. I really shouldn't.

I guess I don't mind too much. Crying is how I know I'm feeling something intense, whether it's sadness, anger, or even happiness. It's a sick-making mixture of all three right now. Add to that that I'm mortally terrified and you have me figured, don't you? A shivery, weepy mess.

But I'm not going to ruin this day, this last day, this very last day, with my hysterics. The sobbing wreck is going in her corner until tomorrow, because today, I attend my last college class.

It's going to be the best class I have ever had.

Almost done

I toe my way up to the precipice and lean into the wind at my back. How much pressure can I, will I withstand before it tosses me over the craggy edge? With my arms tucked to my sides, I am a ship's mast, not its sail, and I do not fly, but sway. The air screams past my ears, promising failure or a future; I cannot tell which.

I find I do not care.

I've been rather absent

I am dried up creatively, so I keep writing terribly depressing things about TV. 

I rather enjoy them, because I am usually quite impressed with myself when I am done with them, but all the same . . . I'd like to do something else.

I should be writing happier personal stuff, because life, the universe, and everything are treating me well enough at the moment. I guess happiness isn't as inspiring as fictional pain, and surprised by that I am not. I get so much more invested in the unreal than I ever allow myself to do with reality. Woot.

Anywho, this is the blog equivalent of a Tumblr text post. 

Filed under: about me, personal, life stuff, lame

inevitable though it is

when all is

writhing
frothing
trembling

-sparkling-

inside of me
and i'm

wasted
tired
worn

-tender-

with futile longing
for what is

before me
behind me
beside me

-between one breath and the next-

i'm more than desperate.


heart of mine
please lend me

your presence
your time
your attention

-your smile-

lest i crumble.

It's all fine

I'll never say it out loud,

-especially not to you-

but I feel it just as much,

or maybe more.

Every second I'm allowed

-especially the ones with you-

is another moment treasured,

one I store.

I can't possibly give it a name,
-particularly not to your face-
so I smile my secret thought
and look away.

You'll never see my little game,
-though I'm playing it to your face-
and whether I'm glad or not,
it's okay.

Oldest and dearest

Last lecture's done. I stack my scattered notes,
fold up my beaten binder, close my book,
throw pencil, cracked with use, away. My coat's
slung on, then ragged bag. I turn to look
around the quickly emptied classroom where
I studied some, disrupted class a bit,
took piles of quizzes, toyed with frizzing hair,
all while I tried to listen. I admit
I haven't put the effort that I could,
or been the most exemplary student,
but it was fun, this place. I know I would
do nothing differently. I loose a pent
up sigh. It's over, now; all things must end.
I close a gentle door on school, my friend.

Broken

In my hands was a thing,
valued, but very unimportant.
I slackened my grip on slippery edges
and cracked the screen.
It's hard to see now, but I can use it.

In my hands was a possibility,
gleaming, but growing slowly.
I pushed too hard and scarred tender pride
and hurt his feelings.
We talk now, but it's not what it could have been.

In my hands was a life,
precious, but panting for air.
I poured too fast, surpassed its tiny appetite,
and drowned a kitten.
I still cry about it now, but it's dead.

In my hands was my time,
unformed, but unrelenting in its progress.
I let it go, was towed into chaotic ruin,
and wasted the years.
They seem pathetic now, but I can't get them back.

Not even trying.

Tingling fingers twisting up into my innards had me frantic to be staring anywhere but precisely where my eyes were glued, so it was a hopeless case. That was the last thing I needed today, just so you know.

Don't you know how hard I'm trying? Very hard, is my answer, if you bothered to ask. Though I'm really hoping you don't and won't.

You're not helping.

Longest convo ever

I am becoming one with this chair

she mused to herself

slipping into lethargy


I am melding with the metal and musty fabric

she yawned behind her lips

sinking into lassitude


I am fading into dusty browns and caustic brickish reds

she sighed long and quiet

seeping into lovely

nothing

a cry for help

ummmmmmm so i keep remembering things that make it about a hundred times worse.

i'm going to . . . pray some more.

(that is a quote, and i can't place it. help?)

Too transparent by half, but what can one do

I didn't think it would end this way. I think I'm getting worse at it, and I didn't know that was possible. I only managed two days. I had hoped it might last a bit longer, if I'm being honest, and though I rarely am about this sort of thing, this is an occasion for it. I began with nothing, so I've got nothing to lose. 

Actually, to take the cynic's perspective, I think I see improvement in my performance. Lying to myself has never been easier. I know what I want to hear and I say it louder and faster than the truth can squeak out a counterargument. The lie is what sticks. The lie is what ruins it. I write the lie on my mind with my own hand, and my pitiful heart believes its appealing deceit. Then I act the fool and there's an end.

Argh. This sucks.

Throwback

Will someone please punch me in the face?

I am begging anyone to punch some sense into me, because I have none. I ruin everything because I think too much, or maybe not enough, or just the perfect amount to smash to bits anything I am trying to keep balanced, fragile as it is.

It was a secret, she said.

There's another bubble burst, I replied.

Code accepted.

Self destruct sequence initiated.

this is the part where i whine a bit.

i wrote a bad song petey

(that is reference for caitlin who doesn't get on here anymore but I DO WHAT I WANT THOR)

isn't it just the worst, tho? when you know what you just turned in for group review is genuine horseshitakeshrooms? writers' block, man. you have to push out something, anything, so you do, but it's never even remotely going to be anything approaching what you could do if you weren't crushed into literary bits.

bleh.

Listening

"School" was what He said,
And "school" was what I heard.
A gentle voice inside my head
Intoned a single word.

School it is, I smiled.
So that was what I did.
I read and wrote and calmly whiled
Away the months. I hid.

Once more He would speak.
I waited for His will.
His new word sending me to seek
A place for me to fill.

Several years did pass,
But that one word remained.
I thought that sitting in a class
Was what had been ordained.

I thought He left me.
Perhaps He just forgot
This servant waiting patiently
To find her chosen spot.

Prayers got one reply:
That single vexing word.
I whispered, yelled, began to cry,
But "school" was all I heard.

Still more months slipped on.
I gave up plaintive pleas.
I just had trust, for hope was gone
To see the things He sees.

Time was pulling tight.
Decisions overhead
Were blotting out my Father's light
When He finally said:

"School." And I heard it
As He'd meant for my fate.
Instead of being one to sit
In desks, I'll educate.

Father laughed at me.
I heard Him chuckling when
He said it: "School," where I will be
Until He speaks again.

you didn't need to see this but you are welcome

Phooey. That was not what I meant to do for the last hour. Let's try this again.


It's nice when things work out, isn't it? When stuff goes back to how it was or was going to be without any extra effort added. It's fixed itself, and I figured that out in time not to ruin it by meddling in what wasn't, it turns out, broken. Hooray! So that was good. But not particularly useful/relevant.

I want to write a poem about something
that means a lot to me, but how to start?
Already stuck.

;alskdjf;laskjf

I just don't feel like being particularly fictional today? Like...the part of me that says *i only write stuff i know about so don't try to force me to write something ridic* is rearing its incredibly inconvenient head. COME ONNNNNN let's go let's do this think think think think fffffffffffffffffffffffff

I probably shouldn't post this. It is an insight into the way my head works that no one needs to see. I am probably going to post it anyway. For posterity or something.

Remember when I did that journal for Expository Writing and I basically just spent half an hour typing 1000 words of the first things that popped into my head? This is kind of like that.

Loved

Our professor reads us a classmate's letter, gently-accented voice catching on the rawer phrases as the room sits, collectively still. We, together, are breathing in this broken author's pain. His words weave their carefully chosen way into every listening heart, and in me, at least, they lodge just behind my eyes, burning. I lick a salty drip from the corner of my lip where it lands and pat at my cheeks with a stained sweater sleeve.

No class member moves until the letter is complete. Our professor asks for comments.

A few hands go up. One guy says stories like these make him very sad. A girl says they are familiar to her. She is crying. I sniff up my running nose as quietly as possible.

I cannot say to the man who wrote this letter, "I understand." I don't. I cannot know what it is that he goes through. I am not as he is. That is not what he needs. What I can offer, though, is something I cannot say aloud.

The last speaker offers it for me. If, at any point, we have said or done anything to hurt you, we are sorry, he says, and calls for a show of hands. As each person in the room lifts an arm, a voice from the center just says, "I love you, man. Wherever you are."

I know it isn't enough. I just want you to know, wherever any of you are, that you are loved.

Workshop Time

Raaaugh. Since I have the attention span of a gnat and a much less intrusive sense of responsibility, I am once more in the process of scouring my brain for any nuggets of mediocrity I can air before the rather kind audience of my Creative Writing class.

I've got little to nothing. I just had tons of feels about Human Sexuality and our discussions on homosexuality, but I cried those out in the car on the way home, and now they are gone. I don't think I would do the topic much credit, either, and I might get myself into a fair bit of trouble trying to make statements about something I have not experienced and am not very familiar with personally. Meh.

Anywho, I am going to get a fresh post and see where today takes me, I guess.

Hopefully somewhere no man has gone before. That would be awesome.

*poke*

I did it again, didn't I? I said the wrong thing.

Somehow I can't resist poking you, you know that? You are so eminently pokable. It's so easy to prod at you with a few choice words that I'm already thinking anyway, and then I see you deflate like a sad balloon.

I mean, don't think it's because I enjoy watching the light die in your eyes, though. That's not what I'm aiming at . . .  because when you're all puffed up and proud you are every variety of adorable. Why would I muck about with that? I didn't think I was a sadist.

I just have no filter.

Waiting for it

I am
. . . tired.
Deep tired, way down inside tired.
Like I'm wrung out in every direction tired.
But I don't want to sleep. Not yet.

I am also full up of feelings and words and regrets.
Full to stretching and pulling at the seams.

Until I rip.

And all of them will spill out into the night.

Hello again.

I have absented myself from the blog for a few days. Just didn't have it in me to write. Too many distractions.

I need to pick it back up, though. I am short on creative material, and I need to have more of it very soon.

We did Halloween at home tonight, which was awesome. I was a pirate. My siblings and mum did cooler things.

I went to Castle, which featured a sci-fi convention and JONATHAN FRAKES. I did a lot of screeching, a bit of sobbing, and made a noisy nuisance of myself throughout. No regrets at all.

A pretty good Monday, if I had to classify it.

Tense

I feel Damocles' sword swinging gently over my head, and there is nothing I can do about it. Or is there? I really don't know. I just know that I feel really, really bad about something, but I have no idea what that something is. I have a sucking hole right between my collarbones telling me something is very wrong, but for the life of me I cannot put my finger on the problem. It may very well be the life of me, and it will slip through my fingers because my mind is broken.

Augh. Thinking dismal things is getting me nowhere, and I have homework.

I just know something is going to jump on me and I will have royally screwed up by forgetting. I wish I knew what it was.

Over

What we used to be
clearly, plainly
just won't work.

What you said to me
has made me see
You're a jerk.

I wanted a way
to run away,
but I fought.

I wish I could say
that I'm okay,
but I'm not.

Timeout to tell you something weird...

I had a dream last night wherein a person whose opinion matters to me thought I was a man. Like...actually thought I was a man. Secretly. Somehow.

I think my subconscious is trying to say something. I am just not sure what. I'd rather not consider the ramifications of the whole thing, to be quite honest.

I just wanted to say that it happened. It was distressing. I think I dream-slapped the person, but mostly missed, because I don't do stuff like slapping people on a regular basis.

Anyway. Yeah.

I Doubt He Knows

Have you no notion of the damage done

By easy touches and your casual smile?

Do you not know the pain you're causing one

Who cannot bear your kindness but a while?

May anyone request the troubled gift

Of your spent time and your attention, too?

Will every moment shared be cause to lift

Up hopes? Has it no like meaning for you?

Do you deliberate on what you say

Or do you freely spout off gentle things

To everyone? My nerves begin to fray.

I madden me with spiraled wonderings.

We should know better than to firmly pin

Our dreams on a regard so frail, so thin. 

I need to stop doing this.

Good grief . . .

I'm not sure where my head has been at, but it obviously hasn't been on writing of any sort.

Hence my present (ongoing) predicament. Creative Writing Workshop once again looms. Once again I am going to be very late submitting anything. Sorry, professor (in a genuine way, not a sarcastic way, because i know what that looks like).

Aaaaaanyways. I have to write two poems or a longer-ish story, preferably in the next hour. I am kind of gunning for poems, but right now I'm not too topic-rich.

Wish me luck?

Blocked

Sometimes, I think I'll be able to write anything and everything for ages on end.

And sometimes it's not that easy, but I have something to say, at any rate.

And sometimes, I haven't got anything to say, but I say it anyway, and that's enough.

But then there are times when I've written myself out. I'm done.

That's kinda how I feel right now. Or how I felt for several days. Mostly the days following my forced creative binge.

I need to get back into the swing of things.

And stop using so many paragraphs.

Scuba, in which very little is learned

It's dark out, but no moreso than usual beneath the meters of ocean between me and fresh air oh god why am I down here???

I hate scuba. I hate it so much. I swore it was the absolute last thing I would ever ever ever try. I made all of those vows about how someone would have to be paying me a million dollars to get me into a wetsuit. I said only the promise of mouth-to-mouth from Tom Hiddleston could possibly persuade me to strap airtanks to my back and a breathing apparatus to my face because above all my other phobias (including my fear of heights, my horror of the dark, and my aversion to slime) I am most terrified of being unable to breathe. I'll never be an astronaut, because space? No air. Underwater? Also no air. Which is why the question really must be begged . . . what on God's green earth am I doing? And why am I not there, on the green earth of the Lord, instead of here?

Okay, so I know why I am here. It is a reason that seems horrifically inadequate at this moment, but I do have one. I have this really bad habit of deciding to confront things that terrify me, but I never do it in a considered fashion. I make snap judgments with the idea that it'll be fun! and what was I so scared of, anyway? and that usually lasts long enough for me to reach the point of no return, and then I'm in the thick of something I realize I never even wanted to do in the first place, so remind me, someone, please, to never allow myself outside the house without an accountability partner. I should get one of those, and another to remind me not to leave them behind, and also one to remind me to have one, and then another until they can all just sit on me when I have an impulse.

When I was a child, I read Readers' Digest articles. They were interesting, usually. Sensational stuff about serial murderer survivors and mountain climbing escapades; really top-notch journalism for my eight-year-old brain. Of course, the article that left the biggest impression was the one about the scuba diver who went into a cave system and got lost and used her last few minutes of air to carve a loving message to her family on her tank and then died alone in the dark in the water and the tank floated bumped around the ocean until someone picked it up and the only trace of diver ever found was that battered airtank oh no no no that is not the thing to be thinking about right now and hyperventilating into the mouthpiece is doing me no favors either.

A song is running through my head, and let it never be said that my own mind is not without a cruel sense of irony. Tell me how I'm s'posed to breath with no air; can't live, can't breathe with no air . . . no aaaaaiiiiiiiiiirrrrr . . . Thank you for the reminder, Jordin Sparks. I was aware that breathing without air is difficult, but that I can't live is something I'm trying to forget. She isn't done, though. Got me out here in the water so deeeeep . . . 

Water resistance makes it very difficult to give oneself a satisfying facepalm, or to effectively knock aggravating lyrics from the forefront of one's brain, but my efforts in that direction distract me enough from my panic to calm me down just a little. The space of water I'm in isn't actually all that dark or clouded, and at least I can see the bottom. Something else I'm horribly afraid of is open spaces. I mean, anything could be down there, if you can't see it, you know? Anything at all with teeth or baleen or whatever it is whales use to eat unsuspecting trespassers. Of course, my instructor would probably tell me that occurrences of whales eating scuba divers is more rare than alien invasion, or something equally ridiculous and even less reassuring. I rather wish he was around to tell me anything at all, though, because he's not. He's left me here, probably mistakenly assuming I would follow him like a good, normal student without a backlog of intense phobias to combat.

I think I've done rather well for myself, getting this far. I'm kind of stuck between two levels of confidence, though, and that's what has landed me in this predicament. I was ready enough to follow my leader away from the rope, but . . . he was going toward caves and deeper water. I couldn't do that. I saw the cavernous opening in the distance, and I knew it was full of things with tentacles (another phobia) and it was dark and sure to be slimy and definitely too small for me to avoid touching everything, so I froze, and then when I saw that he was gone, I unfroze enough to panic. It doesn't help that I froze up too far from the rope for me to find it again alone, but far enough back that he vanished rather quickly behind a rocky pile on the sandy bed. So now I'm stuck here. I don't know when he'll be back.

I can just sit here, I guess. He should be back soon. I think. I mean, he should realize that I'm gone, and he's supposed to be looking after me. . . . What if something goes wrong? What if my panic attack used up more oxygen than I have to spare? What if he gets stuck in the cave, and no one will ever know because I got stuck here waiting, and then I'll die because I waited too long for him to come back and I can't find the rope either? No air, no aaaaaiiiiiirrrr . . . I can just sit here, right? He's coming back . . .

I still can't hit myself very well, so it takes me about three cycles of this thought progression to realize that I need to either do something or go scuba-crazy.

Do I go back? I could, I guess. I'd really, really rather not get any closer to sea-caves than I need to. Just trying scuba out this far seems like enough to put that check on my bucket list. The ocean is a lot of space to find a rope in, though . . . and if I get lost, I'm not where my instructor left me, and he might not even find me.

On the other hand, going forward takes me closer to where I last saw my instructor . . . and a lot closer to the cave. It's darker down there. There is more seaweed . . . a lot more. Anything could be hiding in it. Anything with tentacles or teeth. I shudder and start to kick back, towards the rope, but . . . I could just wait for him at the farther end of the gully I'm in. He wouldn't miss me, that way . . . and I'd not be lost. Besides . . . I'm here, aren't I?

Even though I say I hate this, no one is making me try this new thing. No one is forcing me to confront this nightmare-inducing intersection of all my deepest fears. I left the house without my crowd of imaginary accountability partners, so this is all on me, and I paid money. If I don't go forward, the entire point of this exercise in lack of impulse-control and carpe-ing the diem will have been for nothing.

I take a careful breath, then two, and then I head for the end of the gulch. The end with the cave.

Oh. He's already coming back.

I follow him back the way we came . . . he finds the rope with no difficulty. We begin our ascent.

That wasn't so bad, after all. I mean, sure, there was a rough minute there, but this has been a new experience. I love those. Scuba is great. I don't know what I was so scared of. In fact, I want to go again. Maybe find a cave or five to explore. I am on top of this. I am the scuba queeeeeee jellyfish get it away get it away get it away I don't want to diiiiiiiiiiiiiieeee---

Status report

Lehah!

I found my notebook with a bunch more stuff in it. I now need approximately six pages. Progress!

Which is faster, do you think? Poetry or prose?

Because poetry takes up more space, but it has to be more carefully considered. Hmm. Perhaps some of both is in order. Not feeling inspired, though.

Ugh, and I have a test today that I haven't looked at yet. This shall be a partyyyyy. :P

I Won't Need Much

She sits in her shop with her tea and a book
And she waits for a patron to step in and look
At the friends she's collected and bound up and kept,
Undoing the damage done by the inept.

Each day is the same; her shop opens at eight.
She takes dinner at five, and she never stays late.
Her cat sheds all over her one beaten chair.
As she watches her programs he bats at her hair.

This gentle life was not all that she wanted
When the world was her oyster and she was not haunted
By mere ghosts of dreams she has long since laid by,
Bold desires for her fame to be writ on the sky.

She aspired, long ago, to be one of the few
Whose offerings to art were acclaimed as true,
To be known by the learned as one of their best,
To become the unchallenged, the measure, the test

By which all who someday would follow could prove
Their worth. But now she just needs her cat to move
Off the chair where she rests from a quiet shop day
And rubs fingers on temples beginning to gray.

Her dreams came to little. It bothers her less.
More than fame or great fortune, she found happiness
In a cup of hot tea, with a book in her hands,
In her corner with everything she understands.

this is going swimmingly

CRUMBS CRUD CRAP CRYING WHYYYYYY

so while i have been making the token attempt to continue to write on a regular basis, apparently i have not been nearly diligent enough.

i may or may not be short a good fifteen pages out of twenty-five due tuesday. decide whether or not 'tis true according to how well you know me.

and, as always during this sort of crisis, the muse has left me entirely.

help me

I just want to not be.

I hate everything.
Everything hates me.

It has been a good day.

Yes indeed.

I'd tell you if I did.

I
do
not
know
what is happening.

So you can stop asking.

Please.

If I had a plan, I'd be doing it.
If I knew what I was doing, I'd be going for it.
If I was going somewhere, I'd be packing.

Rephrasing the question
Doesn't make it easier
For me to appease your
Curiosity.

I
really
honestly
actually
do
not
know
what is happening.

So please stop asking.

22, and how much has changed?

Today is my 22nd birthday. I thought I should post something. I was all full up of feelings and overflowing with bits of profundity earlier, but now I am just tired.


I celebrated by doing basically nothing productive at all. It was nice.

I am just sort of...underwhelmed by all of it, if you catch my drift. I am drained and blank and kind of upset. With myself, or so I tell myself, because myself is the only one that really deserves my ire.

See, my least favorite thing in any relationship, friendly or otherwise, is someone who won't speak their mind, someone who expects you to read theirs and gets upset when you miss some cue they were evidently projecting. I am terrible at reading people. Unless I am told that something upsets you, I will continue to do that thing. Unless you tell me you want something, I will not be giving it to you. It's not for lack of trying, but I pretty much pick up on nothing nonverbal. If you are waiting for me to answer needs you haven't vocalized, you will be waiting forever, and you will be getting upset and blaming me, and I will not know what to do to fix it. I realize that some of this will be a problem with me. I do my best to ask regularly, to check on people to make sure I am not being terrible, and maybe I should be more understanding, but it just hits my rage trigger if you are upset about something I did retroactively, and you had the opportunity to stop me in the first place.

If you can't tell, this works my nerves something fierce.

And that's why it's me that I'm pissed at. I did this today. I've done it before. I've been trying not to do it again.

I was down. Tired. Feeling small, and some days . . . some days I just can't take that feeling anymore. It's probably pathetic, but once in a while, I need to know that I matter. I need to know that someone noticed when I left the room, that someone cared when I wasn't around for that thing everyone else did.

Okay, it is pathetic. But that's how I felt, and I sat in a room with people I could probably have trusted, and I didn't say anything. I worked myself into a roiling mass of anger and sadness instead. I did precisely what I can't stand.

That I recognized it for what it is at all is a measure of progress, I guess . . . ?

Or so I am going to tell myself.

It is my birthday, after all.

Nope.

My room is a mess.

My room is always a mess, but right now, I care.

My room is always a huge mess, but right now, I care, and I should clean it, but I'm not going to.


I'm going to bed.

Pit

She cracks me up. She really does. She thinks she has this in the bag. She's over there on the table's edge chortling to herself and fingering her cards knowingly, in a world of her own making where the spoils of victory pile up around her wooden chair, become a throne of champions in her mind.

We're just watching her, waiting for it to dawn on her that the room has gone silent. The trading floor is closed, kiddo, and you are spoonless.

Immensely long and self-indulgent reminiscence

A few summers ago, I lived in a room with my sisters. We made this work by setting up triple bunk beds, which made getting into and out of bed interesting. The youngest had to climb up a veritable jacob's ladder every time she wanted to sleep. The middle child had the bottom, where she couldn't bring her knees up without scarring them on the undersprings of mine. My bed was just high enough that I couldn't climb in gracefully; it was a sort of half-hop roll thing that left me sprawling like a beached whale. What I'm saying is, once we got into our beds, we weren't going anywhere very quickly.

This was the summer I tried to get in shape, and while I do that every summer, it almost seemed like it was going to stick that year. I rolled (quite literally) out of bed to a horrifyingly cheery alarm every morning at 6:15 and dragged my sisters with me, and we blearily leapt around the living room for about 40 minutes to the smooth sounds of nineties work-out videos. We had a short worship together after that, and then there was usually time to watch an episode of something before I left for work.

Of course, three girls in proximity of that sort has always been a recipe for disaster, particularly when two of them are just far enough apart that they will never agree on anything. My middle sister and I got into so many pointless arguments. The two younger ones got into so many irritating fights. The youngest and I knew better than to start anything with each other. Peace and harmony did not reign more often than chaos and discord, but we did manage to stay alive, and so did all of our belongings. I suppose that counts for something.

My most distinct memories of those few months, however, weren't the ridiculous fights, or the 6:15 work-outs (though my sisters profess psychological scarring from my phone alarm to this day), but the times we spent in our triple bunk bed, going nowhere fast because no one wanted to get up, but not sleepy yet either, because it was the middle of the summer, and the sun refused to set.

It was on one of these occasions that we decided to write a story, each telling one piece at a time. We started off having no idea where it was supposed to go, but it rapidly devolved into my vision versus my middle sister's, and the youngest just listened and nearly cried laughing.

Our story was about a princess on her wedding day, and her dress (said my sister) was hot pink, accessorized by shining silver shoes. Hideous (I said) said the princess, and discarded it out of the window, where it landed (said my sister) on a stable boy who looked longingly up at the window. He was the princess's riding instructor, and the two of them were madly in love. Unfortunately (I said), the princess was to be married to someone else in just a few hours' time. The stable lad was mooning under the window for nothing. Their plan (said my sister) was to run away together. She sent her lady-in-waiting (I said) to tell the boy they could never be together, because if she didn't marry her afianced, her family would be destitute. He sent the lady back, saying (said my sister) that their love would find a way to come through. He would come for her.  The lady-in-waiting (I said) told the princess what he said, but she also told the princess that the two of them should probably just accept their lots. She thought the two of them were empty-headed idiots, and she was tired listening to them and carrying ridiculous messages. Nevertheless (said my sister), the princess had faith that her love would save her from a loveless marriage.
It was finally time for the wedding. The ceremony went through (I said) without a hitch, and soon the new bride was packed up into a carriage with her husband and sent away. (To this news, my sister reacted rather badly.)

(Resultingly, we never did get much farther with our story.)

I wonder, sometimes, where our princess would have ended up if we had finished it. Probably with her stable boy. I had given up on her as a character already, anyway. I was more interested in her lady-in-waiting, who I had in mind for the nefarious husband. He was really just a cursed prince who needed to inherit the princess's property to free himself from an eternity alone. Much more fun than a sappy stupid stable boy, I thought. I was probably wrong.

We haven't written any stories together since. After that summer, I went back to school, and when I came home the next year, I had my room back, and my sisters and I got along much better. Most of the time.

I don't know why I'm telling you all of this. I think it's probably just to preserve it somewhere, and maybe a little bit to prove that in spite of the impression I may have given, my sisters are pretty great.

All the time in the world

he spent months.
years.
maybe decades?
it could have been centuries.

He honestly has no idea how long it took.

and he spent every day
every single one
looking for his friend.

Night, all. For now.

I need to go to sleep.

Just wanted to say that today has been pretty okay, actually. I am glad that today was a day that happened.

I hope tomorrow is as nice.

Thoughts of no sense

I don't know what to write today. I haven't got the urge, if you know what I mean. Nothing is springing forth fully formed, like Athena from my forehead. Of course, I'm not Zeus.

I need to go to a concert, but I don't particularly want to go. I need to do an assignment at the library, but I don't want to put on outside clothes.

It's cold outside today, and it's cold inside my room. My room is always precisely the temperature it should not be; too hot if I'm hot, too cold if I'm cold, and always stifling. 

Some gray days are good days, and some are not. I prefer the sort of fall that makes the sky bluer than seems natural, crispy winds tossing around red-orange leaves with a noisy gust. If it's not going to rain, give me blue skies, please. 

I didn't know what to write, but I tried, I guess.

Posting

I used to post only fandom things. 

Then I posted only boring life things.

Now I post creative attempt things.

And also other stuff. It's more of a blend, I suppose.

I tried writing a villanelle today. I didn't get as far as I would have liked. It is a much more difficult endeavor than I would have supposed. Haven't discarded it, though. I will let all know how it goes.

I do wonder why fandom has played less of a role of late. I think it has something to do with the fact that I've picked up so many new fandoms that I'm not as emotionally involved with, and I have little to nothing to say about them. Hmm.

I'm just enjoying writing whatever, to be quite honest.

Watching

She wanders away alone, waiting for no one to follow, hoping that someone will. No one ever does, though. She's gotten used to it. Not the pied piper type.

That type and entourage are still inside, over there, and she walks until she is at a safe distance from which to watch. Their progress is slow, she has learned, because everyone wants to grab even a piece of the piper's attention. Hangers-on like her, they come and go quickly as they please.

From where she stands, they are dark figures against the bright window, a mass of moving shapes that swells and diminishes at random, indistinguishable as individuals. She rubs her arms in the chilly night and glances up at the sky. One star winks through the orange-black cloud cover. It's alone, too, she thinks.

As she looks back at the door, one shadow breaks away from the others and lingers next to the glass. She squints, and then snorts out a laugh. It's him.

The pack of bodies hasn't gotten any farther, but the single separate form waits by the door. And waits. He opens it for passers-through, and he waits a bit longer. No one has followed him, either. No one ever does. He's not the pied piper type.

He probably doesn't get it, but she does. And she gets him. Not that it matters.

She's still in the dark, and it's time for her to leave. She walks to her car, sparing the stars another momentary glance.

Now, there are two.

This is my confession

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII did not watch the debate. I was actually catching up on The Daily Show at the time. I found it a much more satisfying waste of an evening.

Probably less educational.

Definitely less frustrating.

Doing it differently

"Hey, Mina, I need you to set the table."

She turns around very slowly on the piano bench and eyes me coolly. "Umm . . . you're not my mother." She swivels back to the keys and starts plunking out a tune.

I'm suddenly so angry that I'm shaking. All I did was suggest that she set the stupid table. Was I ordering her around? No. Why the flip did I get the "not my mother" evil eye? I can't stand her.

She's too old to be awed by me anymore. It's been years since those halcyon days, in fact, but I'm several years older, is the point, and that still gives me seniority, dang it. I shouldn't have to tiptoe around her blasted independence; she's still my little sister and I can still call her out when she's not helping out; I can still tell her to stop playing the bleeding piano and set the table for lunch when everyone else is working in the kitchen. No, she doesn't get to ask why I don't do it myself, because she doesn't get to question me; I'm the oldest. I'm not her mother, she says. I've been the one left responsible for her and the rest of us when the parents are gone since I was 10, so, no, I'm not her mother, but I'm not someone she can just ignore, either.

I've slammed into the kitchen and am leaning on the counter, fuming to myself and a bit to my mother, who is chopping lettuce. The water is running in the sink for the juice I was supposed to mix up, so I pull out a pitcher and fill it, muttering to myself about how at least I'm doing something instead of being lazy.

Stirring juice concentrate is cathartic, I find. It helps that the piano goes quiet fairly quickly. Mina's probably clearing up the dining room. Once my beverage concoction in the fridge to cool, I've cooled off a bit myself, and I ask if there is anything else I can do.

"Gravy?" Mum suggests, so I put a pan on the burner and start scraping flour and butter around.

Mum has been half-listening and murmuring things like "just let her be" while I vent my righteous rage, but when I stop talking, she brings up another topic.

"You know that your grandfather has been staying with Aunt Louise in Washington."

"Oh, really? I didn't know she still had him," I reply, pouring water into the rue and whisking it carefully. I didn't know that, really. I lose track of my extended family, for the most part. We never talk to them.

"Yes, he's been there for a while now. Maybe . . . 2 years?" Mum takes a bowl out of the cupboard for the salad. "But apparently, she's got to move out of her house, so she can't keep him for much longer."

I know where this is going. "Pop wants Grandpa to come here, doesn't he?" Mum is nodding, and I spill garlic as I gesture in dismay. "No one is ever home! How are we supposed to take care of him?" I swipe the spicy mess into the trashcan, trying not to sneeze. Grandpa has multiple sclerosis; he's been confined to a wheelchair for as long as I can remember. Also since I can remember, he's been shuttled around between my dad and his siblings, landing with one or the other as long as it takes for another of the seven to pick a fight and cause a problem. I've never thought it was very fair to him, but nothing my dad's family does is very reasonable.

"It's not for certain that he's coming here," Mum says, breaking into my reverie. "Not right away, at least." She disappears through the dining room door with the salad, only to return moments later sans salad and trailed by my sister. Another one, younger than the one I'm mad at. She's getting things to set the table. I'm instantly furious.

"I told Mina to do that," I growl, yanking soy sauce from the fridge. Sophie just shrugs and says she doesn't mind. I slam the bottle down by the stove, sloshing its black-brown contents. I'm about to storm off in search of my nemesis, but the gravy starts to bubble. I have to keep stirring, or it'll burn.

Mum just looks at me, but she picks up where she left off speaking, wringing out a rag to wipe the counter down. "He might be going to your aunt's in Georgia, but I guess she and Louise are on the outs right now."

"When are any of them ever on the ins?" I ask, blowing on a spoonful of brown sauce. I taste it. It needs more salt, which I add.

Sophie is back in the kitchen. "Who are we talking about?"

"Pop and his family," I reply, sailing out with a dish for the table. When I get back, she's laughing.

"I remember how last time we were at Aunt Cathy's, Pop was ready to go after like an hour. He never wants to be around his sisters."

"When we were little," I add, "we always left the family Christmas gatherings two days early, even though we drove ten hours to get there. My proudest moment was telling our awful cousins I was glad to leave." My mouth is twisted in a wry smirk, while my sister still laughs. Thinking on it now, that's the last time I can remember my dad's entire family getting together, and that was probably 15 years ago. I don't know why he and his siblings can't bear to be in the same room for more than an hour or two. It's kind of sad to think about, actually.

Mum is finishing up three different things, and we each take one out to the table. Lunch is ready.

"Your father's family never has gotten along, not since they were young, I'm quite sure," Mum says, wiping her hands on her apron. "Sophie, go call the boys for dinner."

"I'll get Mina," I hear myself saying, a bit to my surprise. As I tread down the hallway to stand by her door, though, I know why I'm here.

I'm still the oldest. She's my little sister, true enough, and what's also true is that she can be mightily annoying.

What's most true of all, though, is that I know where I don't want us to be in twenty years. I knock on the door, apology at the ready.

this is a post about posting to follow.

It's that time again...and by 'that' I mean 'class submission'.

'Nother piece due. I am trying to suss out what it is I want to do. Got a couple of ideas, but I don't know if I can do them justice. Perfectionist is me. When it matters.

Anywho.

Here goes.

Circadian rhythms and how not to have them

It's past time for her to be asleep if she actually wants to correct her sleeping habits, and she's sick of being exhausted come 9 in the morning, but right now, she's not tired at all. This time is hers, when no one is going to interrupt her or invade her space, and everything is so quiet. It's perfect, really. Why would anyone sleep through the night hours?

Or so she thinks right now. She is going to be cursing her stupidity in about 5 hours.

Pox.

What with him being who he is, and her being who she is, it's all extremely unfair.

This situation, right here, this one that she is in right now, is precisely the one she was very much trying to avoid. All of her efforts to the contrary up to this point have just been proven entirely futile, and the heck of it all is that there is really nothing she could have done differently. 

It's been an accidental honeytrap, laid unwittingly and obliviously successful. She's caught, and struggling only makes it worse. 

With him being who he is, and her being who she is, she has no intention of drowning. 

But she's stuck. And it's all extremely unfair.

Not twelve anymore

Three years is a long time to wait.

Stranded alone on a rock with salamanders and slime-sister and ghost-bro for company, he is exhausted. Their games have been great, sure. He's okay with the movie collection, too, even if he can't appreciate what he used to as much as he used to, much as he wants to.

See, he hasn't just been waiting, is the problem. He's been learning to wait, to try, to fight, to cry. To live. He's been growing up, stranded on the flying rock with salamanders and slime-sis and ghost-bro for company. Now it's time to do something, and after all that waiting...

he is definitely ready.

what. a homestuck query.

When reading a hugely enormous thing, one starts to get fuzzy on earlier details.

I am reading an enormously huge thing
and i am so confused.

WHY IS HE ALIVE, THO?
HOW IS HE FIGHTING THIS WORLD-DESTROYING ENTITY WITHOUT INSTA-DEATH?
WASN'T HE JUST ELSEWHERE?
THIS ISN'T A DREAM BUBBLE SITUATION HERE GUYS
WHATTTTT

the thing is homestuck.
I heard not long ago that AH is winding the series down, which makes me intensely sad, but also I am elated, because maybe he will explain some of his screwery?
I am wise enough to his ways to not expect that outcome, though.

Surprised? I was.

I haven't moved

But my heart is thwacking on my insides like I've leaped a hundred miles.

An empty echo thumps behind my eyes in counterpoint 

To the piercing thready note lingering just within my ears.

Shock.

A sudden panic.

Something has changed.

That was unexpected.

ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK

*eagle screech of surprise/terror*

whoooooooooops.

TW: complaint

I'm writing this pathetic little song
About how much I hate being alone.
It's not a tune that will last very long.
It's mostly just me staring at my phone.
I thought that sunset meant fun times would start.
I spent the whole day lying on my bed,
Anticipation rising in my heart,
Some indistinct plan floating through my head,
But nothing came of all my falt'ring dreams.
It turns out no one wants to hang with me.
They're busy with whatever else. It seems
I'll spend the night with vids and VLC.
I'd like to shake this off with a good cry
But I'm too dead inside to even try.

Saturday nights aren't meant for solitude

BOOOOOOORED.

I've self-identified as an introvert all my life, but sometimes I wonder if that's incorrect. Tonight is definitely a wondering night.

I really want to see people. Really want to. I am growing desperate in my sadness.

Everyone else is out tonight. Even my mom is doing some shopping. I have been lying on my bed staring at the ceiling hoping someone wants to see me, or at least won't mind my presence. I even put forth inquiries, and that's rare enough.

I don't want to be alone. Not right now. I have had plenty of time to myself; don't need any more.

As for me...

I write stuff occasionally. I just can't turn most of it in for a class review, now can I? Because they wouldn't get it/would probably be a bit scandalized.

Everyone is writing such serious stuff, by the way. It's all biblical story retellings or stories about broken families or the pain of a little girl bullied or a girl who killed her best friend in an accident or a high-style play about wizards and kings or poems about what the world needs.

I'm a little person in a little sphere and I write about what I know.

Maybe that means what I say won't speak to a great audience, because it's so personalized to me, specifically. The stuff I say isn't going to ring of truth or of great experience, because I haven't got any of that. All I have is the little life I have lived. (And all the fictional lives I have watched played out in so many different permutations of what life can be.)

I suppose it's better that I don't try to make grand statements. Everyone else can have those.

To OTPs

The forger taunts his oft-besuited friend
Two gods have faced each other 'cross a crown
Their kingdom prince and wizard will defend
Detective and his doctor race through town
A genius and his mentor practice law
Wheelchaired professor calms a metal mind
The student snarks but grabs the werewolf's paw
A pair of kinsmen hopes true love to find
Young master's valet makes all wrong things right
TV's the bond between two college guys
The righteous man and angel still must fight
A captain and his first sail o'er the skies
All these and more have taken residence
Inside my heart, whose chambers are immense.

you tried

A kid in Creative Writing tried to write a sonnet today. 

I say kid because he is one of about 3 on campus who looks 13 years old. I am not exaggerating. At least now I know his name.

I say tried because he got the rhyme scheme alright, but the meter was hackneyed. 

*gold star*

I admire effort. I think it was pretty cool that he went out on the limb that he did, going full-on formal poetry like that. 

Still...

it wasn't a sonnet.

Instincts

I didn't mean to growl, though.

Is what I was trying to say.

I was startled, is all. I don't touch people, and they don't touch me. It is just how things go. Not by my choice, particularly...I have been told I am not approachable, I guess. Which is why when you stuck your hand in my face I tried to bury myself in the couch cushions and pretty much hissed like an angry cat. With words.

Then spent the rest of the evening trying to climb the couch arm to avoid contact, while you did the same with the person on your other side.

I wasn't trying to make it weird. 

I was startled, is all.

Crumbs.

Not funny.

"Get off."

It happened too fast, and I wasn't ready. One unsuspecting victim, me, of sudden physical proximity.
It was probably a joke. He knows better; his aim isn't that bad anymore. He lands square in my face every time.

So I'm pretty sure he did this on purpose. His grasp of humor isn't the greatest.

"Seriously, get off me, Cas."

You don't just go landing on top of a guy in the shower.

Assignment due

Editing is hard.

I picked the words I wanted in the first place, you know? And I'm not so full of myself as to think that there is no room for improvement. Believe me, there is so much room.

I just don't know how to fix it.
If I knew, I would have done it.

I gave you the best that I had.

Clipped Wings

When I was a child

I dreamed that I could fly.

Arms to the sides

Leaning forward

I lifted away.

With a tingle in my stomach

And the teeth of my grin chilled in the wind

I was weightless

I was happy

I was free.

And I wanted to bring you with me.

You wanted to keep me close.

I showed you how

Carried you up

I thought it worked

For everyone.

But you couldn't get the knack.

You didn't want me to go without you.

And the more I pulled

The less lift I got.

I kept trying. 

You stayed put.

Eventually

So did I.

With an ache in my arms

And the lines of a frown carved in my face

I was grounded.

I was tired.

I was caught. 

In the dream of a child

I saw our future.

Let me go.

Here goes nothing

HO BOY.

So. I think I am supposed to be writing. Or I am supposed to have been writing for the last 3 weeks, but about 3 sonnets and half a vignette are what I have to show for myself. Hmm.

I want to type up something brilliant, witty, and inspiring, but being realistic, I would settle for lengthy enough for a decent grade. The only problem is we have to workshop the piece I am going to turn in (i did mention that I have nothing to turn it yet, and it's due in the next hour or two, right? OMGGGG WHAT IF I USED THAT THING I DID IT WAS WRITTEN WITHIN THE TIME FRAME AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA not happening) and I am very bad at taking criticism. I get all squirmy and end up actually biting my sleeve to keep my mouth shut and then I mumble through it anyway.

I think best on this blog, so I thought I would warm up here and maybe even write something here. Sound okay?

Here I call upon the muse of the lazy, singer of the song of the procrastinator: hear my panicked cry!
Send me the phrases of a few desperate failures, the broken lines of the bad at time management, and all praise to thee, oh unprepared one, shall I raise. Tomorrow.

I guess it's nice.

You don't tingle like a schoolgirl, and you're not awash in a rush of warmth like a cheap novel heroine, but it does put a smile on your face.

You've done your best all day to look like you're not looking, which you aren't, not really, even if your own eyes betray you more often than not. You didn't offer the first good morning. You didn't push for conversation. You definitely didn't follow him across the hall; he was walking in front of you to start with, and you're practiced at melting into the scenery, so he didn't notice a thing. You smirked instead of guffawing because he wasn't that funny, and you talked to everyone else around before you glanced his way.

All in all, you've been as cool, casual, and disinterested as you could have possibly hoped for. You didn't have an agenda, because that would imply a level of investment in your situation you simply don't have. This isn't something you were angling for, waiting for, or even hoping for at all.

But . . . if you're being honest with yourself, it is a kind of pleasing.

He looked for a seat, among so many empty seats, and he picked the one next to you.

Don't worry; I got it.

I hate relying on other people.

It's not that I don't think they'll come through. Most will. If they don't, I don't let it get to me, because I tell myself I didn't expect much anyway.

It's more that I hate being dependent on anyone but myself. I must constantly prove to myself that I can handle my own problems, or I end up feeling weak and apologizing profusely to whoever is (I think) being horribly inconvenienced by stuff that (I think) is none of their business.

On the other hand, I've been told that it isn't bad to ask for help; that building a network of people you can count on is a good thing. I had never thought of it that way, so I'm trying to readjust a bit. Still, though. I can't help feeling like asking for help is an imposition.

How do you balance that? Being self-reliant, while allowing others to feel needed? I know I like feeling needed. It hurts when I think I'm not needed.

I will have to ponder on this more.

Woke up at 10

It is official. I can't write in the morning.

I sit here and I try, but I am so prosaic in my thoughts (need to brush my teeth)(go get a shower)(did i finish that assignment yet) that even I think I'm being boring. Hmm.

This blog is mine, though, really, so I can say what I want, and boring suits me, I guess. (i will probably qualify almost everything i say)

Can I skip the first class period? is that a thing?

About to go to class. First class of the semester. I would prefer not to.

I don't feel well. I am a terrrrrrrrible creative writer, so taking a class may be a good thing? But I am a truly awful creative writer, so this is probably just going to be incredibly embarrassing.

Heavy hands on the edge of the desk. The sharp edge digs into the heel of my palm. Fingers fidget on black keys waiting for something to inspire them, but nothing comes of it. Always. Never.

Augh.

Tune in next time...

Schooooooool.
It returns on the morrow, and I want absolutely nothing less.
My present dilemma is thus: I am supposed to have read a book this summer. Ha!
I regret to inform you, Professor, that I, a super-senior English major, read no books at all this summer. I did read many works of fiction by independent writers online (read: PWP fic), a great stack of young adult novels that I am ashamed to acknowledge, and the first page of The Great Gatsby. Sum total of my reading.
I watched so much TV, though. I can run you through script after script after script after script, if you like. I think it counts as literature, don't you? It's very creative.

Okay, so perhaps I exaggerate just a bit. I did read a lot of books this summer, but it was all in one great spurt, and none of them really qualify as 'collegiate' reading. I am not disparaging YA lit, but I fear my classmates or, more troublingly, my professor, will.

Will I lie?
Will I be truthful?

I won't.

Close.

And the moment stretches out for hours.

listen to my thumping heart

stare into the glimmering dust

a shaky breath

taste it

ghosting in the glow between me and you

So close.

The window rattles. Sit back. 

But that just happened. Don't forget it.

Tired.

So I have been purposefully staying up very late because I constantly feel that I am leaving something unfinished.

What that something is I cannot tell you, because I do not know it. At any rate, I keep the sort of hours that should let me sleep until noon, but that I cannot do either. I have to take my sisters to school.

Suffice to say that I am constantly exhausted and all the joy has been sucked out of me.

Maybe I'll go to bed earlier.

He in the pit

The little one
She is perfect.

She is the light.
She is our hope.
She is my life.

Stay back
Keep away

Don't dim
Don't tarnish
Don't crush

Innocence.

Breathing my air

Around me is a wall that lets nothing out and nothing in.

The air in here is stifling.

My thoughts are my own thoughts.

My feelings are my own feelings.

I am cut off.

This is me reaching out to get to you:

I don't think it worked.

This is me trying very hard to connect with you:

Nothing? I didn't think so.

Around me is a wall. I want to send me out. I want to let you in.

The air in here is choking me.

My thoughts chase my own thoughts.

My feelings confuse my own feelings.

I am cut off.

It doesn't matter what I thought

This isn't even a fandom thing. I tried to conjure up a scenario to channel it through, but I couldn't find one in my mental catalog, so this is just me being pissed.

Or maybe just sad.

See, I thought we were friends.
Talking friends.
Maybe not confiding friends or secret-telling friends, but actual friends.
Guess not.
(maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion)
(maybe I'm being immature)
(maybe I'm just wrong)

You came to town and you told my brother.
You planned to visit and he knew and I didn't.
Apparently when you have time you talk to him and not me.

In fact...when you called that once, were you intending to reach him and your finger slipped?
You seemed surprised and not that eager to talk.
Yeah. That was probably a mistake.
Well then.

(I could be blowing this out of proportion)
(I could be being immature, and how's that for phrasing)
(I could just be wrong)
(I hope I am wrong about you)
(because I thought)
I thought we were friends.
Actual friends.
Guess not.

This is my walk of shame

THIS.

This is why I never make pronouncements. They always, always, always fall through. It's like I'm challenging myself to fail, and I can't bear to let myself beat...myself? by living up to my own expectations or something oh whatever no one cares suffice it to say I fail.

Therefore I make no promises as of this moment, but I feel like writing.

Tada.

Teen Wolf

I started a new show a couple of weeks ago, and I know I shouldn't have, because I have less than no time for new shows, or I should have less than no time, because my time should be filled up with productive things.

Yeah, right. Like I'm going to be busy improving myself over the summer. Psht. What an idea.

Anywho, I watched the first season and a half of Teen Wolf, which is all that has been released so far.

It is terrible.
Legitimately terrible. Not worth watching terrible.

Badly written (no one knows what is going on, not characters or viewers and especially not the writers).
Hilariously acted (stilted and stiff and like they're about to trip over their own tongues most of the time).
Confusingly executed (even if the actors knew what they were doing the tone flops all over the place).

And I loved every minute of it. Even the moments where I was wincing in lack-of-quality pain.

A couple of characters redeem the entire show in my eyes; one carries it through the whole first season, to be honest. My second viewing of the show has cleared up some confusing bits, though I am still not sure what the hot guy's motivation has been or will ever be. (He goes from "If I have to kill you, I will" to "Run!" *sacrifices himself for the guy* in literally five seconds.)

I am enjoying it more than it merits enjoying, is all I am saying.

No reason at all

It stings.
Sharp, tangy, bitter water laced with chlorine is filling up his ears and his mouth; now his nose and his eyes. He can't feel his legs or his arms, can't move them, can't keep his head up, but his eyes and nose still sting. He can move his mouth, can still scream, but what's the use? His ears pick up the nothing that means he is alone.

Nearly alone.

He looks up. All he can see through the murk of the water in the dim light fractured on the walls from the lights below is a single figure, and he knows who that is. The lone figure on the edge of the pool is not here for him. He isn't going to help him. Why would he? He'll grab his phone, get his friends, save them. He will leave, and the one in the water will be finished.

The water is cool on his face, over his face, above his face. It's dark, quiet, still.

Until it's not.

There's a crash, a movement, a splashing sound, and he feels arms around his neck tugging him up, yanking him from the stillness into the noisy air. The man from the ledge supports his weight, treads water, lets him breathe.

He had no reason to help the one in the water.
But he did.

He picked Derek

Lives on the line, and he has a choice.

Friend on the phone
or
Fallen foe

For a brief span of seconds, he thinks.
He weighs his options, calculates the odds.
A quick mind and a warm heart.
He has both.

Heart wins tonight.
He dives.

Tailor

he knew
(or he thought he knew)
the man beside him in the picture.

talked to him
worked with him
laughed at him
trusted him

loved him.

he knew
(or he thought he knew)
the man beside him in the picture.

he was wrong.

he knew
(or he thought he knew)
the man he saw in the mirror.

he killed the man in the picture.
he killed the man beside him in the picture.
he killed them both.

he finally knew
(he really knew)
the man beside him in the picture.
the man he saw in the mirror.

Reading a book

I have picked up books once more, and I may have commented on this previously, but it is worth revisiting.

I relish the feel of paper between my fingers, maybe cool and crisp, or maybe grainy and damp from the sweat on my fingers, or maybe fragile and fuzzy-soft. The crack of the glue in the spine of a book is like no other muted, calming sound I have ever encountered, but it is one of the most satisfying noises to hear.

Within are splotches of ink stamped or sprayed onto the page that have meaning, and I devour them eagerly, scanning the pages for the story I hope is waiting for me to discover it.

Books are great. I have been listening to Tolkien for about a day and a half; can you tell?

Grandiose pronouncements. You are welcome.

I have reestablished myself in my own room with my computer and also with my bed and my couch and my clothes and my books.
While I did enjoy my time away, I do prefer the shorter commute.
I am also pleased to return to, if not more reliable, more predictably unreliable, internet access.
I am going to be trying to catch up on posts. The goal was, if I am correct in my thinking, to average a post a day. I think to make up the difference by posting more than once for several days in succession. This plan seems sound to me.

Having explained my plan, I shall commence. This has been post one of the great return to the internet.

Absence made excuses for

Have been house-sitting for a week or so, first sans internet, then sans keyboard, then sans good internet connection...

Hence my disappearance.

Will likely continue for another week or so.

I will have a lot of ground to cover once I am back for good.

Not really anything important, just a lot of posts to make up.

Lots of words, little substance. Star Wars.

Despite my best efforts, my attempts at arting this evening have collapsed, rather like a cake, which leaves an unappetizing mess behind. Covered in eraser marks and pencil smudges. My cakes are rather odd.

So, Star Wars.

The hot mess that George Lucas spat out in the nineties (I think?) was an attempt to follow up on his wildly geek-popular trilogy of decades earlier. A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi are formulaic and cheesy, but lovable for being so. The characters are memorable, possibly because of, and not in spite of, the acting abilities or lack thereof of the principal cast. I love these original three movies for the lols, is what I am saying. Then came The Phantom Menace.

Lucas decided it was finally time to make the first three films of his hexology (or however that is spelled...or however one conveys the idea of a double trilogy?) and he framed them around everyone's favorite character, Darth Vader. Vader's fanbase was in for a great deal of misfortune, however, because Anakin Skywalker is the whiniest man-child inflicted on a theater audience.

He is supposed to be becoming a respected Jedi Knight, but he throws tantrums at every opportunity, the difference between him and a two-year-old being that when he waves his arms around, he's holding a light saber, and people tend to die. His relationship with his wife, about 10 years his senior, just puts more of Lucas's strange relationship ideals on display . . . definite Oedipal complex. Eugh. At any rate, Ani is not who I had feels over yesterday (except possibly rage feels and creeeeeepy feels because Haydn Christiansen, while pretty, has the most effective rape face I have ever seen when he attempts to be seductive, or suggestive, or even just happy. It's just his face.) My favorite character in the first three movies, hands down, is Obi-wan Kenobi. (I am probably spelling that incorrectly as well.)

While in the older films, he dies fairly quickly and spends the rest of the series as a particularly pushy and vocal spirit ("USE THE DAMN FORCE LUKE SERIOUSLY JUST USE IT" --Obi-wan, paraphrased), he appears first in Phantom Menace as an apprentice himself (to Jedi Liam Neeson, and how cool is that? Also a favorite, and he also dies very quickly, which is annoying and heeeeeeeey just had another thought: what if the first three are actually about Obi-wan? Because his mentor dies at the end of the first, and so did Luke's, and it's Obi-wan who must, in the end, defeat evil...I am satisfied with this interpretation, and I am forever more going to watch the movies assuming Anakin is a side character. Yes.). Obi-wan Kenobi is Jedi Master of sass, which is a large part of why he is so excellent. He is Anakin's master in Attack of the Clones, and he remains so through Rise of the Sith. During these two films, a relationship between Obi-wan and Anakin is developed that makes clear how close they are; Anakin calls Obi-wan a father figure, and Obi-wan clearly cares for Ani as he would a younger brother. They are sent on dangerous missions as a unit, and it is only when they are separated that either one gets into serious trouble. Anakin's progress toward the Dark Side escalates dramatically each time Obi-wan is absent.

Obi-wan sees more than he wants to about his pupil. Still, he clings to hope, never believing the worst until the evidence is placed directly before him. He tries to refuse the order to kill Anakin. Their final battle is where I lost it. Anakin is obviously off his rocker. Obi-wan is confused and betrayed and so very hurt, and he tries so hard to end it before he has to injure Anakin, but Ani won't listen, so Obi-wan has to strike him down.

Obi-wan takes the blame on himself for what happened. He thinks he failed his student, his friend. I think he did the best he could.

He's why I cried yesterday while watching Star Wars, a very unexpected turn of events. May the Force be with him.

Mostly just hating on Terry Goodkind

I spend all day, every day, watching my focus dwindle and my mind wander off to the farther reaches of nowhere. No thinking happens.

Therefore, I get very, very easily distracted. I need to put my phone away, or something, before I get fired.

To combat this, I listen to audiobooks, or rather, one book and a comedy series. The comedy series is excellent, though I have listened to each episode about 10 times by now. The book . . . is not. It is, in fact, terrible.

The author does not know when to shut up. He repeats himself constantly and is in the characters' heads all. the. time. when there is little enough going on in there with which to concern himself. Every time I hope he is about to gain some momentum, he brings his narrative to a screeching halt by weighing the pros and cons and examining every possible angle and answering every possible question right then and there, usually in a character's thoughts, but sometimes he just comes out and has someone ask the stupidest questions, and maybe the questions could be raised, but right now? really? It is the worst book I have had the misfortune of listening to; at least when I'm reading I can skim over the really terrible stuff or just toss it down in disgust. It doesn't help that the book is set up to be in tracks that are 40 minutes long each, and I can't fast-forward on my mp3, so I am stuck in chunks of 40 minutes, no less, each time I try to suffer through a bit. I could just quit, but I am just invested enough in the overarching narrative (not the endless and endlessly idiotic side-quests, mind you, but the actual main quest narrative) to be the slightest bit curious about how they are going to resolve it. Perhaps I am also displaying some heretofore unrecognized masochistic tendencies. I care nothing for any of the characters. In fact, I think they are all either criminally insane or incredibly juvenile or just plain mentally deficient. I hate this book. The author has tried on an occasion or two to write sensual depictions or psudo-almost sex scenes. These attempts do little more than make me mildly uncomfortable at best, and leave me rolling on the floor laughing at their worst, their chief redeeming feature being his nigh unto homoerotic fixation on gleaming musculature. Fine, I admit this is hilarious to me. Score one for Terry Goodkind. The villain has the stupidest villainous quirk of which I have ever heard in my entire life. He licks his fingers and smooths down his eyebrows constantly. What?

This rant has gotten out of hand. These are my very strong feelings on this book. This stupid, STUPID book.

Remind me tomorrow that I had feels today, rather unexpectedly, over Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

These need to be examined.

Beginnings

A blogger I follow asked people to tell her how they found her blog, and I really wanted to say something.

I wanted to tell her that she was the first person I had encountered who was open and easy about a lifestyle that my environment had never before put in front of me. I wanted to tell her that she was the first place I learned about slash. I wanted to tell her that she was where I found Spock and Kirk and Bones and just Star  Trek, where I met with something I could be really passionate about for the first time in my life. I wanted to tell her that she opened my eyes to an entirely new set of possibilities, that she shaped my perceptions of the world and helped me to accept what I found without prejudice. She was my guide into fandom, and because of that introduction, I found and still have my closest friends.

I wanted to tell her so much.

But this was all a bit verbose and probably overwhelming and too . . . serious. So I just liked a post that said something sort of similar and left it alone.

I had to tell someone.

Thanks, Brittany.

100

100 bottles of root beer on the wall
100 bottles of root beer
take one down and pass it around
99 bottles of root beer on the wall

Also, may the force be with you.

Live long and prosper.

(100 seems somehow important. I am giving you important things that you should know.)

Something unexpected

In the moments he takes to himself to mull over the day

and rationalize what he cannot box away

He calmly thinks on his friends' hijinks

until one memory slips astray.

With growing concern he watches himself with a mental eye

as he dashes through tunnels and gives a cry

Caution tossed and logic lost

because he thought his friend might die.

His duty and his discipline require respect for all living things

but his fear is kindled and his blood sings

With the need to end any threat to his friend

Like a spirit of vengeance, Death he brings.

Shaken and baffled he pulls back from that line of thought

His careful reserve and control come to naught

In that moment he knows that his heart shows

A heart he did not realize he had got.

So he bottles it up and he files it far, far away

And saves its classification for another day

For now it will suffice to know he is not ice

He will allow it to stay.

It's late

Almost forgot about writing this evening. Made me question why I bother, anymore.

Perhaps because it makes me feel intellectual. Sometimes I stumble on things that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

Maybe I just like the sound of my own voice, and the only captive audience I've got is the internet.

Whatever the reason, here have been my few sentences for this post.

Tada.

Went out

I went to a friend's house for games, and I enjoyed the games muchly.

I am terrible at games. Still fun. Especially when nerd games. I try to be enthusiastic about things. That can be difficult.

It's later than I wanted it to be, though. Got to get some sleep.

Before it breaks

Found something that I wrote on a plate. The plate is in two pieces and I keep losing the bits alternately, so since I have them both right at this moment, I'd better type it up.

__

Fragile. Lovely.
rainbow in a soap bubble
Potential in it, and that's what is special.

   I can't tell you
      -she giggled.

Breathing on it when you talk about it sends it careening into oblivion
Lost 'til it's nothing, really, what was I thinking?

   It's a secret
      -she whispered.

There's another bubble burst to pieces goes a maybe smile never let be real

   If I tell you it'll ruin it
      -she sighed.

Confused but not really

I miss my friends, but I can't seem to bring myself to tell them so, or to ask to see them.
That would be needy and greedy and pathetic. If they want to see me, wouldn't they say something?
Perhaps not. Perhaps they are thinking the same things that I am.

It's just all so awkward. How does one people?

One starts by complaining less, I imagine.

Sorry.

What it means

He looks at me, and I look back, and I know what it means.
Our friends know what it means.
Everyone else in the world knows what it means.
Does he?

Sometimes I could swear he knows, and he torments me on purpose . . . but then again, he'd never admit anything like this to anyone. I doubt he admits it to himself.

So when he looks at me, I look back, and I know what it means.
We all know what it means.

Does he?

Shines like memory

Polished until it glows

A moment that I kept for days that were less warm, less happy.

For a moment our words matched, our eyes met, and you . . . smiled. Just for me.

I must have been red, because that smile had never been mine before. I had hoped, but never expected, and all of a sudden, there it was. Mine.

*snap* 

I froze the moment, closed my eyes and willed it to remain. 

When I opened them, it was over.

But it was forever in my mind.

Polished golden by frequent revisiting.

Your smile. 

For me.

Maybe I just hate myself.

I have a very long memory, but only for the worst moments in my life.
I don't keep happy things. I couldn't tell you when I've been the happiest I've ever been.

Instead, I remember shame. I don't even really remember details of how or why it happened.
I just know it was miserable, embarrassing, disappointing, humiliating, etc.
All of the above.

Why is that, do you suppose?

Zzzzz

I am so very very tired.
Fatigued.
Exhausted.

I rather like synonyms.

Rambling does no one any good.
Going to bed.

Diverged

The gap between
you      and       me
is g r o w i n g.
Has the river forked?

What matters to you is not the same as what matters to her is not the same as what matters to me.

A husband.
A child.
A wedding.
A career.
A kitchen set.
A house.

TV.
School.
Internet.
Friends.
Boys.
Mostly fictional boys.

I feel so young. You seem so old.
We stepped off at the same point. Same sort of boat.
Maybe your river is not the same as mine at all.

Terrible face-wise

It's that weird clenching feeling in your gut
the one where you want to twist up and curl over and roll off
where your arms flail and your hands flap and your fingers flutter
you're breathing quick and heaving great noisy sighing wails as your face contorts and your mouth curves down and hangs open like a tragedy mask

You shriek a bit, babble a lot, sob quietly into the pillow you shoved your face into

So unfair.

So attractive.

Angry

Always.

Simmering just under the surface, with a smile on top for decoration but not much else. When it slips it crumples, cracks, fractures into something pained and resigned and helplessly pragmatic; really, what else can be said or done to fix this? So all he has left is a quip and a shrug.

Beneath it, though, he burns. What's down there, deep, is throwing itself against the bars of the cage he's built painstakingly with easy words and slow breaths. He's terrified, and that only feeds his rage, because he's powerless against it and how could that not infuriate anyone? At war with himself, and he's already lost.

And so he knows that it's won, but he puts on his broken grin anyway, because he knows something else.

Even if it controls what he might do, he still controls who he is, no matter how scorching the heat or how violent the turmoil.

That's enough.

A sigh

It's been a few days, and a few days too long since last I set fingers to keyboard and let out a literary breath held.

Not much to tell but disappointment. I got books from the library and found the first, at least, to be much more boring than than it promised. I got audiobooks from the library and as far as I can tell, the first disc is the wrong disc, though it is labeled as though it is the correct one. In short, I have one disc of an entirely different book, and in a spy novel, one disc of ten can make a crucial difference in comprehension of plot, etc. Disappointing.

The week has passed quickly, however, and that is pleasing.

Not even sure what I mean

i wait and i wish

for more

than

this.

and what is this that i find it inadequate?
it is nothing at all which is why the void gapes like it does.

i wait and i wish

for more than

nothing.

Just go to bed.

I am very tired.

And a bit depressed also.

Not really sure why.

Couple of words

I smell of smoke.
Shower?

Nah.
Sleep.

Directions

Full up

Winding down

Worn out

Turning in

Nothing left

It's all right.

It hurts everywhere

Creaking. An old screen door on a spring hinge that smashes back into place with an agonizing clang.
Stretching. A rubber band yanked out of shape that snaps back into shape with a pinching sting.
Ripping. A wash rag caught on a nail that shreds back into filaments with a jagged tear.

My body is a bit worse for the wear this evening.

Cats, three of them

get OUT

go AWAY

LEAVE

you are shedding on my clothes and scratching yourself on my material gross

i wanted to wear those and use that

we are not friends

WE HAVE NEVER BEEN FRIENDS

OUT

also you smell.

Think

I'm less than I thought.
I'm larger than I thought.
I'm weaker than I thought.
I'm louder than I thought.
I'm slower than I thought.

When I thought at all.

That's why I don't.

To Augusta and back

Rumbling road below and on into never-end
Clean dusty plastic sanitizer recycled air cold on face and bare arms
Glare of a purple sun through black lenses and rows of green-blue leaves on trees
Deep sharpening ache in the empty space across lower back

Drove for hours today.

After midnight and before 2

Wrung out.

I'm not feeling feelings

I'm not thinking thoughts

I'm blank.

I should be dreaming dreams.

To bed with me

Sleepy, I am.

Running out of TV to watch already...or rather, I am bored with much of it.

Waaaaay too early in the summer for that.

Deep but not profound

Feet, not shoes.

Happy, not sad.

Sleep, not rest.

Sabbath, not Saturday.

Tomorrow, not today.

Cool your jets

I would die for you.

--that's a bit much, she thinks.

Let's build a future together.

--that's kinda sudden, she thinks.

I would be nothing without you.

--that's a lot of pressure, she thinks.


--it's been a week, she thinks.

Rambling tonight

So, Homestuck.

Oddly enough, though not at all surprising, 'twas Tumblr that introduced me to Hussie's shenanigans. Someone posts as a headline: "HE'S NOT EVEN STUCK AT HOME" and of course this makes me laugh hard enough to remember that I hadn't looked at it yet, so I did, and I was off with a flying leap.

Has been . . . maybe a month? Maybe a week or two more? Since I began the epic journey that is reading Homestuck from its creation until this point. Hussie is nothing if not prolific. It took me the better part of three weeks, reading whenever possible.

Turns out I love everything it chooses to be . . . that Hussie chooses to make it be. No regrets, and I even got a new otp in the bargain. As doomed as most of mine, but just as beautiful for it.

Tis a great fandom. Tis an hilarious comic. Tis an involved story with great characters and interesting worlds.

I rec it. Heartily.

Where ideas go

I love the crisp crackle of paper. I like watching its pristine surface slowly disappear beneath ink and lead, black and blue and gray of a drawing or some words that might mean something and might not, but they mark up the paper all the same.
Roll it up, fold it up, tear it up. Disposable and destructible, brittle and bent.
A used-up sheet is a repository of so much.

Paper is excellent stuff.

Last night was Sunday night

Tis hot. I am tired.
Spent the weekend watching, I kid you not, 4 seasons of Teen Titans, because super heroes and why not.
The internet is misbehaving terribly.
It even ate this post.

Escapism interrupted

Sometimes, I'm dried up.
The words won't come, nor will ideas in any order.
The worst is when I've worked myself up to feel a bit, gotten into character, am on the verge of understanding something new . . . and then am interrupted by reality.
I can't be crying alone in the car for beloved ones on the page and on the screen when I pick my mom up from work. I can't wallow in sentiment while scrubbing a surface clean.
Wouldn't it be nice if reality never had to intrude on the preferable fiction?

A moment's truth

You think yourself better than them, he says, and it's not a question but a statement, because he knows me.

I am smarter. He is stronger. They are beneath the both of us.

Aren't they?

-if i cannot tell myself this lie, prove to myself that it is truth
   -my plans are undone
   -my hopes unfulfilled
   -my purpose lost

I've come too far.

Well, yes, I answer, as if he is stating the obvious.

Redirect

Angry. Bubbling up vengeful thoughts and chewing them back down before they pour out like tears.
Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, stop talking, we, no, I am tired of listening to you go on and on about what no one cares about except you putting all of us into boxes and deciding for us who we are and what we need and how we should spend our time don't label me don't order me don't talk to me because I am only rage and you are the cage that I cannot escape because no matter how much I want to hurt you I can't do it now is not the time the time will never come that I will allow myself to explode because I have the control that you have imposed on me all my life and it has become part of me so I will never escape it or you and that bites worst of all

But if I feed this it will never end, and capsuled hate hurts no one but me.

Channel it elsewhere.

Sonic

ICE CREAM.
At ten forty-five of an evening. I enjoy this.
Relishing the idea of an ill-advised ice cream run and also the cold sweet taste it leaves in my mouth.
So much sugar. I ordered a small.

Blunting my edges but in a bad way

I feel rather like
I am becoming dull.
Not that I was ever interesting. I mean that I'm no longer sharp. I wander around in a chemical haze and move slower than I think even slugs are prone to do.
I hoped I would have lots of thoughts and be deep while I worked.
Turns out being a janitor does not inspire deep thought. It inspires, in fact, no thought, and I am more blank than I was before. Which is to say, very blank indeed.

I need to keep my brain from dripping out my ears.
I need to write more.

What home can do

Come home, little one.

Wayward son.

Wandering brother.

Proud man.

You are
You were
So much better
So much more

Please.

You will be
So much better
So much more
Again.

If you just
Come home.

Today

Long day it has been.

Work boring as usual.

Saw Avengers again, which was stellar.

Still have a lot of feelings that I need to work through, but I have no time to do so, so I am left a seething mass of crazy.

Hmm.

Hopkins on the mind

I'm full up of poetry that isn't mine, and what was me is lost.

Always so afraid of losing my voice means it isn't a strong voice at all and easily swayed and quickly muddled muddied by everything else no strong core to back it up to center it to anchor it in the swelling storm of influence a deluge of diverse universe-dwellers each with a louder word than my little one.

Maybe if I make no sense, no one will understand and they will have to say I am different.

Let's try this again

Okay, no guarantees or I will feel tied down, but I think I finally have time for this lovely part of the internet again.

I've been busy with all sorts of things that aren't really important, if you catch my meaning. Lots of creative endeavors that get me nowhere, because I am exactly as good at them as I am at keeping up with this. Take from that what you will.

I do so wish I had talent. Instead, I decide to tackle art that is definitely not my division. I don't think I have a division.

It's going to take awhile before I can articulate all the feelings I have had lately. Have to sort through them first, and they all blend together into a roiling mass of agonizing pain.

Goody. My tear ducts needed a workout.

Promises I never do keep

It's been awhile...


So I may just type up a few things jotted down on scraps of paper left here and there.


Things that could be read, if anyone cares to read them.


But if no one does, that's okay, too. The internet is better preservation than receipt bits. 


Here's one:


_____

knit, purl, knit, purl, knit, purl. Change needles.

slip, twist, curses, untangle, rethread, knit, purl.

Almost today. Words were on the tip of my tongue, and they might have worked. I didn't say them, though. Not today.

knit, purl, knit, purl, knit two together. Change needles.

Maybe if I had, this would have been it. This could have been my moment, the one I've been waiting for, looking for, hoping for.

slip, slip, knit two together. knit, purl, knit, purl. slip, pull slipped stitch over.

I didn't, though.

knit, purl, knit, drop, rethread. drop, rethread. knit.

If I had.

pull stitch. rethread. purl, knit, purl.

Not today.

Change needles. knit, purl, knit, purl, knit, purl, knit, purl.