Go it alone.

You will be happy to know that I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about pretty much everything, much of which first surfaced on that quiet, lonely drive to Gainesville Friday night.

A life is worth more than many people realize. I have had a lot of experiences. Age aside, I've almost lived out an entire life: I have traveled; I have lived away from home; I have held a job; I have budgeted; I have learned the difference between love, lust, and jealousy; I have written entire anthologies on adolescence, God, the infinite search for meaning; I have had time to watch the clouds drift by and contemplate all these things in an afternoon of lemonade and no-see-ums.

I don't know what's going to happen; I don't know if anything ever will. It's an anniversary of sorts today and I'm going to say what I intended to say, even if it never means a thing:

I'm doing alright. I wish I could've seen me then. I wish I could've sat me down and told myself a story - warned myself maybe - and made my eyes wide with awe and disbelief. I'm ending the process of growing up (finally) and most things don't carry the same definitions and taboos. It's OK - whatever it is, it's OK. Nothing has to be perfect, including happiness. The only person who can ever know for sure is me, and even then it's debatable. All the sleep-overs and concerts and first dates and full moons add up to some sort of Counting Crows lyric, though I haven't decided which one just yet. Most things change the way most things never do; it's all a wheel of perspective and subjectivity, but there are a few black and white facts in between all the interpretation and figuring out. There's a lot going on in general, espectially when life seems stagnant. There are chances that really should be taken and others that can slide.

Not everything has to be missed to be remembered, though, and today I'd like to believe that more than anything.

Woo is me!

BEST DAY EVER!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

HA!

I can't stop giggling to myself. I'm alone in my room, the door isn't even open, and I just can't shut up. I'm such a girl.

But you know what? It's Friday, I earned it, and I don't care.

So nyeh.

Enter: Gnarls Barkley

I awoke this morning in that old 5:00 AM terror, tangled in sheets and being strangled by my own hair. I was gasping for breath and the moisture above my lip (though my shoulders were bare) helped me to recognize that yes, I had been taken by surprise, so rudely ousted from dream to hyperdream. And it was at that moment - my elbows supporting me, my eyes hovering about in wild disarray - that I truly, honestly questioned not the hour nor the day but my entire being. No Where? could suffice; no recollection of unconscious mindplay or repositioning of my startled body would have done. Instead I thought, "Who am I?" and immediately fell back asleep.

Yes. That actually happened. ...I think.

I've been writing some of the weirdest shit lately.

No, I meant on paper. But thanks for your encouragement.

Ever since my first writing experience in which I told the story of Cinnamon the talking cat in all her glory and misadventure I have found a certain pleasure in writing, one which I have replaced time and time again with new, sometimes less-productive means. I always seem, however, to come back to this basic method of communication with myself. Whenever my thoughts run dry and I feel I will never again pen a pathetic, metaphor-ridden line, I somehow manage to write. I don't always think, and indeed I do think this is a central reason why my hobby cannot simply up and die.

It is a mode of self-discovery for me. I like art - I do. I don't always like your art, but (biased as I am) I will always fall in love with mine. Sometimes it is easy to understand; other times it is a labyrinth of red and white, me standing in the center, the target. I don't even know what I've done most of the time until I reread some novel passage months after the ink has stained, realizing only then that perhaps there was more to what I wrote than originally intended.

I'd like to think I effect some sort of interest by never sharing a majority of the lines I scribe, but in all honesty I'm never hiding them, either; my entire collection, the past nine years of my life, is relatively easy to find. And besides - if I up and died tomorrow, wouldn't someone find it anyways? The only part about this fact that bothers me - truly bothers me - is that if (Well, I suppose when would be a more appropriate word - wouldn't you be intrigued if you stumbled upon a copious collection of loose-leafs and wire-bounds?) all my friends and family were to read my writings, would anyone ever really get what each piece meant? Sure - what they become is much more important, I know, I know; but you can't read the whole if the pieces don't make sense.

I'll wrap this up: My blog sucks.

Short and sweet

Sometimes things don't turn out the way we imagine they might, but it's important to remember that the destination isn't the point of interest.




That's all I got.

Lluvia

Rain always makes me feel so good.

A Few Little Birds

I love how much one person can change your life and the way you live it. Moreover, I love how several people can change you in several little ways.

Yes - this is going to be just what I've been needing.

Something tells me I'm into something good...

I can see myself growing in a place like this. It is a corner in an apartment and I can rightfully say it is all my own. I can see the sun waking me on winter mornings and I can hear the laughter from all the far-fetched ideas that could be shared around coffee and tea. I can see myself feeling hopelessly at home here in the space of another month, and I can see myself healthy and happy and smiling for eight more that - like it or not - will likely pass very quickly. I can see myself becoming aware. I can see myself writing more and learning new ways in which to relieve stress and anxiety.

I can see the happiness and the help and I can see the growth already.

Blur

Time always has a way of creeping up on me, especially when I think it has come to a sugary slow stop.

As I sit here on this last night I'll be spending at home, I can't help but contemplate how this has happened once again. Old friends trying new things, like relationships and drugs; new friends trying old things, like recalling childhood television favorites and having the same mannerisms. It seems as though time has gradually melded everything different into something rather the same.

Life sure is beautiful.

There is, however, one frustration that must naturally come of all this:

I'm tired of these mother fuckin' snakes on this mother fuckin' plane!

Come sail with me...

Today was astoundingly beautiful in so many ways and fortunately, even through the Pepsi problems, everyone else seemed to enjoy the beach one final time before the end of summer.

"Well, I didn't have my coupon at the time, and the person I checked out with told me I could bring this back with my receipt..."

Today has been quite blah. Maybe it's because I'm tired and out of things to say, or maybe it's got something - a teeny, tiny little something - to do with all the excuses I'm so sick of hearing.

But probably it's just the fact that I've kept this miserable excuse of a generic LJ for almost THREE BF-ING YEARS.

I don't know. Just a speculation.

In the mud in the maze of her imagination...

I really don't have much to write, so I'm just going to describe the scene:

Jazz music.

I'm checking my MySpace, because it's working again. The mother of an old best friend has made her own profile. Oh, America.

There are pictures - sadly, regretfully, way too many pictures - littering my closet doors and my desk of a con artist.

The green marker won't fit all the way into the beerstein I use as a marker holder (except for green ones).

Jazz ends. NP portion of NPR resumes.

My left shoulder starts to hurt for some weird reason, the way it usually hurts for some weird reason.

I look to my left and see my one lone hat draped over its one lone home, wondering if it actually is trendy or if I just imagine it is when I set out to wear it.

Another more prominent picture, dusty yet bright as ever, smiles forward at me from nearly two years ago. I think about how he smelled and wonder if I'll ever hug him long enough again to find out if he still smells like that. It was always a unique signature of his.

Collages on the bulliten board remind me of the way I like to make art and the way it really has no direction. Ever. And I like that.

Vintage pin: "OUR NEXT PRESIDENT - JOHN F. KENNEDY." I wonder how people go about knowing to collect these things in advance. Were antiques ever modern?

Ooh - mosquito bite! Right knee. How the hell did it end up there, under pajama pants? Friendly little bastard, aren't we?

Spanishy jazz. It's all about the jazzplay tonight, I guess.

Spoke too soon. Ella Fitzgerald? Make up your mind, guys.

Going to see my sister in a week and a half. I find it amusing how bouncy balls account for some of the longest-lasting jokes and the best-had laughs in any given lifetime.

Walking and working and writing and reflecting - it's been kind of a funny little summer, hasn't it? Big plans, big dreams, and never knowing quite where to start or how. Or if.

It's late. Not by my normal standards, but it's late. Or it's early. I can never know which is more correct.

Time to put my thoughts to rest.

Standing on the precipice of big time. Again.

"Perfect love drives out all fear."

But most people go away. Where? Into themselves? Out of themselves? Flirting with disaster all around themselves?

I don't get it anymore. I want to, but I just don't. It's something that came so easy to me before the day I wrote it down; now that I have, all it has become are words on paper and thoughts thrown to the wind.

Where did it go? Will it come back? Who will find who first? Is anyone looking? Is anyone there? Will it ever happen again?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's alright; I realize I'm being vague enough. I wrote this one more for me than for you. Why did I post it, then? Because I damn well can.



(...Huh?)

Another Frank Sinatra kind of twilight

It's funny how the memory of love can leave you in such bittersweet enchantment. Just the sight of the stars some nights can send me to that infinitely untoucheable "back there" when I am sure "back there" had never been there.

I suppose the world would be a much uglier place without dreams and kisses and all the softest things you can ever remember all in a pair of spell-binding eyes. And truly - where would we be without the butterflies and the firsts and the uncertainty and the hesitance? ...Still in ninth grade.

Certainly, sometimes it hurts to be one unit rather than part of a set. But to know the difference implies that perhaps that long-ago time filed in the "back there" section of life is, in fact, not so far back.

There is nothing for me but to love you
Just the way you look tonight.

Breakdown

I hope this old train breaks down.
Then I could take a walk around
And see what there is to see,
And time is just a melody...
All the people in the street
Walk as fast as their feet can take them.
I just roam through town,
And though my windows got a view,
The frame I'm looking through
Seems to have no concern for me now;
So for now

I need this here
Old train to breakdown.
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown.

This engine screams out loud,
Saying the beat gonna crawl westbound.
So I don't even make a sound,
Because its gonna sting me when I leave this town,
All the people in the street
That I'll never get to meet...
If these tracks don't bend somehow,
And I got no time
That I got to get to
Where I don't need to be,
So I

I need this here

Old train to breakdown.

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown.

I need this here
Old train to breakdown.
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown.
I wanna break on down,
But I can't stop now.
Let me break on down...

But you can't stop nothing
If you got no control
Of the thoughts in your mind
That you kept in, you know.
You don't know nothing,
But you don't need to know.
The wisdom's in the trees,
Not the glass windows.
You can't stop wishing
If you don't let go,
But things that you find
And you lose, and you know
You keep on rolling
Put the moment on hold -
The frame's too bright,
So put the blinds down low

I need this here
Old train to breakdown.
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown.
I need this here

Old train to breakdown.

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown.

I wanna break on down,

But I can't stop now.

"Yeah, shoot."

Today I laughed so hard I cried.

A ramble of sorts

So I guess you know what to expect.

It seems like a lot of people are in relationships these days, and even still most of my closest friends are as single as they come. It seems like no one is ever so sure of themselves, regardless of their availabilty classification.

That's one thing I've noticed. Another is coffee. I always thought it was so sophisticated, but it's just coffee; it's just a drink that makes your pee smell like... coffee.

There's no secret to smelling good, either. Perfume, people; that's it.

Work can take a lot out of you, and yet we go to college so we can work our lives away. Sitting on front porches, swinging the down the days sounds like a much better idea, doesn't it?

It's all a big Catch-22. The mystery is slowly being squeezed out of adulthood. Every secret, every ambiguity is ever-so-delicately being revealed. We're not children anymore, and this isn't quite the Kansas in which we grew up. Tea parties and hide-and-seek afternoons are replaced with pina coladas and zombie summers spent desperately trying to make tan-lines and flatten abs.

And it's not that one is better than or more preferable or even comprable to the other. They're just... different. Then and now are certainly different.

I know that probably made zero sense, and even I didn't bother reading over it before I hit "Publish;" it's what I was thinking just now.

Golly.

I just read over some things I wrote this past year - poetry, prose, unclassifiables.

I'm kind of a wacko.

In my life, I'll love you more.

There.

Pause it.

Did you feel that? Did chills run up and down your spine just now? Didn't it make you feel so overwhelmingly... something? Didn't it make you want to cry or laugh or run around in a field like some moon child with flowers in your hair?

I can't explain it, but certain songs have that sound to them that just... I don't know. I can't put into words the way the melody makes me feel.

What really got this ball rolling was "In My Life" by The Beatles. Those opening chords really do it to me, whatever "it" is, just like "Dancing in the Moonlight" and, on occasion, "Ride Wit Me" - you know, the part where Nelly goes "boo, boo, boo" before the song even starts.

...Don't get fresh with me.

The point is, I can't stop listening to that song. I've been replaying the opening part at various times throughout the day and it has consistently brought back the same feeling of whatever.

And there you have it.