Sunday, May 30, 2010

it's beyond me; i cannot carry the weight of the heavy world

can't you see that you're piling things you don't want or need into my arms on top of a load that's already too heavy to carry?
i never said i would hold this for you.

can't you see that my arms ache and my back is sore and it's a chore just to drag one weary foot in front of the other?
you never offered to help with this.

can't you see that the sweat is burning my eyes and gluing my shirt to my back, but i can't stop and rest because i would never be able to start again?
you're telling me i need to keep up.

you're running and laughing and screaming at me to hurry because you hate to stand still for too long and the world looks ugly when you walk too slow.

you're throwing on problems, dreams, and ideas as soon as they come into your head, waiting for me to sort them out for you.

it's hot and it's heavy and i can't put it down.

can't you see that i'm crumbling under its weight? my knees are about to buckle and my spine is going to snap and you tell me that it must be great being me, because every day is such a struggle for you.

one day, oh one day i will hand this all back to you. i will put it down and walk away. one day i'll be the one to run off laughing. i'll leave your messes for you to clean and your problems for you to solve. you'll have to chase after your own dreams because mine are going in the opposite direction and i've been ignoring them for far too long.


deep down i know that one day will never get any closer than it is right now.

*****

my brother-in-law yesterday: hannah read me some stuff you wrote, you're really morbid.

today: i set out to write something not morbid.

this is what i got.

the organization/structure is really haphazard, but that's how it came out so i'm leaving it.

*Goodnight, Goodnight - Maroon 5

drive until you lose the road

get in car. don't pack, don't think, just get in the stupid thing.

drive. don't look at a map, don't ask for directions, just see where the road takes you.

stop. when you havent seen a familiar face for a hundred miles and you feel like you've fallen into a different country, pull over.

find a quiet place. go where the quiet is pressing down on you so hard that you forget what it ever felt like to hear.

scream until you run out of breath. don't worry about what people will think or do, just let out every problem, every little stress from home in one long yell. when they're out, don't look at them again.

breathe. inhale the peace, the hope, the relief, the calm, the freedom, the silence, the repose. don't exhale.

relax. don't answer phone calls or emails. read, listen to music, drink pretty drinks, write, walk, sit, watch, talk.

forget. don't think about appointments, responsibilities, chores, unanswered questions, deadlines, worries. wait until you can't remember what they feel, sound, taste like.

go back home. or don't.





one day...

*How to Save a Life - The Fray

Saturday, May 29, 2010

i don't wanna fall asleep

i am dead tired but it is only ten:thirtyfour and i refuse to go to sleep this early. i have come to grips with the fact that i will occasionally sleep at eleven:something because i am getting old and it seems that makes me more tired some days, but ten is just ridiculous.

that is my explanation of why this post may end up being convoluted, confusing, and/or pointless. or my excuse or whatever.

facebook is intimidating me. i started to spend less and less time on it over the past i dunno how long. this might have been in direct relation to the increased number of family members on it that were creating accounts like it was going out of fashion and the random weirdos that insist on adding me as a friend even when i reject them. repeatedly. now, i go on when someone tells me to upload pictures or to occasionally check my wall. because of this, i have a gazillion things to check on that go unchecked because there are just too many of them. here's what my facebook tells me when i go in:


do you see that 69 next to messages? yeah, that's how many messages i still have to read and get back to. wouldnt you avoid it, too?

oh, nephew story because it made me laugh. i had this crossword puzzle book on my bed. it looks a little like this:


except there's over 300 puzzles and the pencil is the yellow-orange color of a number two pencil instead of purple. so my nephew is sitting in my lap and we're watching the wiggles. all of a sudden he gives me a guilty/suspicious/trying to be slick look, then he slowly slides his hand over to the book and tries to pick up the pencil in the picture. (i always take away pencils he gets a hand on.) he cant get it on the first, second, or third try, seeing as it's part of the picture and all and starts to get frustrated. after complaining to me about the "pen" (the way he says pen is hilariously adorable) i show him that it's just a picture. then he tried to act all cool and pretend that he knew it wasnt real by going to touch it and laughing his fake "haha i got you" laugh.

oh, and doesnt the word anonymous remind you of hippopotamus? and doesnt that make you want to laugh just not out loud? no? just me? okay then.

*I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing - Aerosmith

Thursday, May 27, 2010

i don't wanna be friends

okay, so though i know that a lot of your probably like her, i just have to say that i cannot stand lady gaga. i hate her. when she first came out and everyone started obsessing over her i was very meh about her: didnt like her, didnt hate her. as time went on, she began to grate on my nerves more and more. and now, now i would like nothing more than to just erase her from the book of my life. most of her songs are obnoxious and stick in your head for days after you hear them. and not in a good way either. i went into that a bit in this old post. i just realized, though, a couple days ago that all of her songs may actually not be that bad when i heard a cover of one and actually liked it. so i guess she's just my biggest problem.

and i am sorry, her style is not creative or expressive or genius. it is slutty and ridiculous. i mean ninety percent of the time she's not even wearing pants! it's like she sits in her room and tries to think up the most ridiculous, stupidest thing she can, and then wears it. i am so sick of hearing how putting soda cans in her hair was genius and legendary and whatnot. it wasnt. at all.

what brought on this wave of gaga hate? i try not to listen to her if i can avoid it, because i mean, why torture myself, right? yesterday when i was driving home, four out of the six radio stations i have saved were playing her songs. the other two were giving traffic reports or talking about something or other that i wasnt interested in. but yeah, she is taking over my radio and i dont like it. i cannot wait for her fifteen minutes of fame to finish already.

*Bad Romance - Lady Gaga

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

don't try to tell me what to do

i think my mind is mourning the end of LOST which is why i have had no substantial ideas float through my head lately. i havent had many insubstantial ones i could really ramble about either. (last night was the first official tuesday night after the LOST finale.) i know, i know, this is really really pathetic on my part, but i have no say in what my brain decides to do. it's the boss of me, and really, what do you want me to do? go on strike? i think that may be what it's doing.

in an attempt to keep the rest of the post completely LOST free, let me tell you about something that has been really annoying me for weeks now. maybe even months. have any of you seen all of the new volkswagen commercials?? the punchdub ones?



okay, no, volkswagen. just, no. everyone and their mother can tell you that it is punch buggy. as in, you are looking for beetles specifically, not every vw under the sun. and you putting up commercials with some messed up version of the game will not make me relate to you or your car. it annoys me and makes me think that i wouldnt wanna buy something from a comapny who cant even play a game about their own cars right.

and then there's this gem.



even if we are pretending to play punchdub instead because we are sheep and just go with what others tell us to do, you can't play it in the freakin car dealership. the people who try and pull that off are the same people that yell at you while they are almost in tears for sitting in their seat in college, the ones who ask the stupidest questions that piss everyone off and then look around while laughing at their own joke and seem surprised to find everyone glaring at them, the ones that don't think a good joke can be killed. and i definitely don't want to be buying the same stuff as those kinds of people.

so, though i've heard people like these commercials, i have to say i absolutely hate them. i also hated the cavemen geico commercials with a passion, and those stupid guys got their own tv show. my faith in the population faded a bit after that.

target, on the other hand, always has some of my favorite commercials. for example, during the LOST finale (yeah, whatever, i lied. i'm talking about it.), they aired pure awesomeness. they had a couple, but my favorite was this.


you have to watch LOST to really get it, but it is awesome.

*Don't Tell Me - Avril Lavigne

Sunday, May 23, 2010

the odds of faith in the face of doubt

so, LOST is officially over. like forever. sad. i would write a whole long post about the series and the finale and everything, but a) i dont wanna spoil anything for ash and b) i doubt any of you besides my mom wants to read all that, and i basically just told her everything i was thinking anyway.

i'm still left with a couple of questions, but i think i may actually be okay with that. i mean, i wasnt expecting anything less. this is LOST we're talking about.

i need to find something to do on tuesday nights until the DVDs come out and i can have LOST marathons. yes, i realize i'm sad and pathetic. no, i dont particularly care.

they had this thing where people could say their goodbyes to LOST and they'd air some. one person wrote in that they never understood trekkies until they watched LOST. i can relate.

wow this was a pointless post. oh well.

*Camera One - Josh Joplin Group

Saturday, May 22, 2010

you got some kinda nerve

i just finish watching the pilot of LOST (all part of the series finale event) and come upstairs thinking maybe i'll write a blog post about how the show is ending tomorrow *tear* if there's nothing on tv. i sign into blogger and see that one of the blogs i follow is updated. awesome, i think. i'll read that first and then write my post. this blog is written by a friend who was once referred to as "awesome" on this very blog you're reading. i'm beginning to question my judgement. this is how the post started:

A few notes before I begin (a cheap way to respond to comments):
  • I think Lost is a dumb show and got progressively dumber as the show went on season after season. What? The smoke monster is a random experiment that's a person? What?
okay so i realize that he is entitled to think whatever he wants (no matter how wrong and misguided these thoughts are) and i really don't expect everyone to like LOST (because we need to have someone to mock) but this came as such a shock to me. probably just because i was in LOST mode. but yeah, this post is mainly just a way to tell the people i want to about this blasphemy without me having to actually remember tomorrow when my dad is not around so as to avoid any comments from him about how we're wasting our time watching such a stupid show. so hannah (my sister hannah, not any of you other ones lol) i dont need any comments from you saying how you think he's right, because you are both wrong. (to be fair, he did later say that he was planning to watch the entire series, but i am choosing to ignore that for the moment.)

side note: i've been watching LOST since i was sixteen. i can't even remember being sixteen.

oh, and the smoke monster? not an experiment.

*You Found Me - The Fray

man, that's awesome

wow have you noticed that all my posts lately have been thesis-length long? you probably have as you are the ones that have been reading/skipping over them. i really dont notice how much i ramble until i take a look at my blog and think, wow thats a megalong post. so, here's my attempt at a short one:

i was told a while back that the word 'awesome' is really only used on the east coast of the US, or at least only used excessively here. i use the word awesome a billion and one times a day, and kind of just thought everyone else did too. i dunno how i feel about finally becoming an east coaster after like twelve years of living here. i never thought it would happen.

if anyone not living on the east coast could clarify this, i'd be forever grateful. where else do people use awesome for everything?

*Bee Your Man - Relient K

Friday, May 21, 2010

my paper heart will bleed

while waiting around mason a couple of days ago, enjoying the weather and the summer semester peace that falls on the campus this time of year, i think i actually wrote something happy. and by that i mean i wrote something that can kindasortamaybe be confused with happy. you know, like if you've just woken up and your eyes are still a little blurry and your mind still has one foot in dreamland. it's a little long, and i was considering not posting it on here, but i changed my mind because i have to look busy so my sister won't ask me for anymore help on her homework. because of that, feel free to just skip over it unless you too want to look busy and pretend you are reading something important/interesting/whatever. if that's the case, then by all means, read on. and this is just rough, unedited work. i think the editing will include deleting the happy part, though, so i thought i'd post it pre-edited.

oh, and remember when i was in a drabble writing phase? no? well, i was. i think my new writing phase is prose poetry. that's all i seem to write these days. so, um, here it is:


She had the most beautiful heart – a piece of art that took years to perfect. Soft and warm, it was held together with fairy dust and sprinkled with a million tiny yellow daisies. It was vulnerable, but she was trusting. She only saw good intentions and still believed in magic.
When he came along, she gave it to him willingly. Begged him to take it with a smile on her face. He put it in the trunk of his car with his old text books and empty water bottles, and didn't give it another thought. He forgot to tell her he was moving, forgot to say good bye, forgot to give it back.

-

She made a new heart out of glass. It was still pretty, still hopeful, but even more fragile than the first. She shined it with hopes and it sparkled with dreams. The light filtered through it to throw rainbows at the world, making even the ugliest of scenes beautiful. She stayed honest, because it just couldn't hide a lie, and she didn't believe in them anyway.
When he came along, he took it from her sleeve with whispered promises and crooked smiles. But in his showstopping juggling act for his one-man circus, hers was the one to slip to the ground. He didn't help pick up the shattered pieces, didn't help try to piece them together, didn't help dry the tears that wouldn't stop falling.

-

She built a new one, stronger this time. It was heavy with doubt, making it hard to forget. It was fortified with layers of insecurities, making it impossible to break. It was polished enough to reflect back to the world whatever face it showed her. She's starting to think that magic is used up in bedtime stories that end with the elusive happily-ever-after, and intentions are only good if you squint your eyes and tilt your head slightly to the left.
When he came along, with eyes you could drown in and arms that promised protection, he pulled it from her hesitant grasp. He left it for her later on her answering machine: tarnished, dented, and useless.

-

She cut a new heart out of paper. It was flimsy and unsymmetrical, but she didn't have the time, the patience, or the incentive to perfect it. There were discolored splotches where the tears she swore would be her last had landed. It was dull and lifeless, like everyone said her eyes looked now, and just as thin as she had spread herself lately.
When he came along, she handed it to him with a shrug, and he shoved it into his pocket. He used it as a coaster for his morning cup of coffee and to make airplanes out of when he got bored. When he suggested they burn it in a fit of passion and watch the ashes fly away with the summer breeze, she took it back: creases, torn edges, coffee stains, and all.

-

When he came along, she hadn't realized he had taken it until he showed her he had glued patches over the rips and laminated it with scotch tape. He covered it with glow-in-the-dark stars and put it in a frame to “keep it safe.” He gave her his own heart made of newspaper clippings so he'd have room for hers. She sprinkled it with gold dust, made up with magic, and realized that there may be different kinds of intentions, but the good ones were the only ones that matter.


ugh i dont know what it is about blogger, but i always like everything more before i read it on here.

*My Paper Heart - The All-American Rejects

don't wanna be an american idiot

okay, so enough with the mindless babble that has been filling my brain and therefor my blog lately. get ready for a serious post. or semi-serious. or a post about something that should be taken seriously but probably won't because it's summer and that means seriousness is scarce. moving on.

as some of you probably know (and some of you probably don't), i spent ninth grade in saudi arabia at a british school. aside from adjusting to the fact that suddenly the letters IGCSEs inspired more fear in the hearts of students than SATs and that i was suddenly getting points off for writing "my favorite color for airplanes is gray" (note: i always preferred grey with an e) some of the classes seemed to be a lot more advanced than what i was taking in america. it felt like these british kids were getting education shoved down their throats. i reasoned to myself that it was just the different grade system, what with them stopping at tenth and going on to a-levels which in my head were like APs. i mean, they have to shove in more if they're taking less time, right? so my younger self figured, our schools aren't that much stupider than theirs, and i didnt give it anymore thought. i mean, the two biggest computer companies in the world are both american, so we must be doing something right.

recently, i was talking to a friend when she mentioned, all normal and offhandedly, that a british summer vacation is six weeks. six weeks! and suddenly, the generally three month vacation handed out to kids over here seemed a little like overkill. i mean, do they really need to stay out of school that long? (i can say this now because i am no longer in school so a shorter break would not affect me in the least bit.)

if you know me in real life, you may have heard me complaining about the way kids are taught now. remember when we were little, learning to read, and were told to sound out the word? guessing every word that started with "l" before landing on "light" usually got me in trouble. now, my brothers are told to look at the picture and guess what the words are from the starting letter. um, what?? that was just peachy when they were still in picture books, but moving on to chapter books, this means that words they hadnt previously learned are pretty much just skipped over because they (a general they, not just my brothers) cant read them. they cant even sound them out to try and learn them. also, what's with not correcting spelling or grammar because it interferes with their creativity? i learned how to spell and the proper place to capitalize and punctuate and still managed to retain some creativity in elementary school. and my brother's class all had trouble with some science homework, so what does the teacher do? does she explain it so that they actually learn something for once?? no, of course not. she tells them all to just throw it away. that's helpful.

and now with some schools switching to a four day school week because they can't afford to pay teachers for five, well, i just think it's ridiculous. it's always a big joke about how stupid people can be here. we'll post videos of beauty queens who know nothing of geography on youtube. we'll laugh at kids who know more about the history of a video game character than of their country. we roll our eyes at their inability to form a complete sentence or write with legible handwriting and blame technology. what we should really be doing is blaming ourselves and trying to do something about it. the future generation is going to turn out a huge mob of fat, stupid people, and we are letting them.

okay, i'll get off my soapbox now, but think about it. when you are old and depending on this younger generation with your life, i kinda wanna know that they can read and tell the difference between two different medicines.

*American Idiot - Green Day

Thursday, May 20, 2010

had a bad day, don't talk to me, gonna ride this out

why i am super annoyed despite the fact that i havent even been out of bed for half an hour:

one] my family were unbelievably obnoxious in my dream. i dont remember what they did exactly, but i cant stand any of them right now. gah.

two] i woke up with one eye swollen almost shut. dont ask me why or how cause i have no effing idea. i think it may be starting to go down, but it's still more than halfway closed. gah^two.

three] my goal was to sleep in till nine. i woke up every fifteen minutes between seven and eight thirty and even though i refused to get out of bed until nine:ten my body's refusal to retreat into bad habits is annoying.

four] my sister, who hasnt woken up before one for as long as i can remember, woke up early today when i was in the bathroom, and is monopolizing the exercise room when i really felt like just getting on the bike and falling into my music to get unannoyed.

five] i stubbed my toe. shut up, it hurt.

six] my phone has been retarded over the past couple of days and now it is just throwing a bunch of missed calls at me. both from people i know and random numbers, but the phone hasnt been ringing so i dont know if these are new or old. stupid phone.

seven] the meal bar i am having for breakfast is the most disgusting thing i have ever tasted in my entire life. this is the last time i trust other people when they tell me something is "omg so delicious."

*Save Me - Unwritten Law

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

you know you've gotta stop

in my house, for as long as i can remember doing laundry, there always seems to be some article of clothing that comes out of the washing machine an orphan. the entire family swears themselves blue in the face that it does not belong to them. but it had to have belonged to someone in the house because i'm pretty sure the neighbors didnt sneak one of their shirts into our machine as some weird unfunny practical joke.

claims of "you were wearing it like two days ago, how could it be a different shirt?!" are somehow averted and the clothes start a long and exhausting journey to find a home.

it starts out playing musical closets for a while. i'll put it with my sister's clothes assuming it's hers. "this is not my shirt," she'll say, unreasonably offended at the idea, when she sees it. she'll go and stick it with my brothers clothes because that's what she does with random stuff that she doesnt think belongs in our closet. the older of the boys will shove it into the younger one's clothes because he only wears button down stuff if he can help it and no one should put their stuff with his. my younger brother is tiny and could probably fit himself and everything he owns into our clothes, and so he throws it in with my stuff. i find it again and send it down to the basement where my parents live because maybe they know where it came from and who should keep it. of course, a few days later i find it in the pile of clothes making its way back upstairs to us. it goes back in with my clothes, and i give up and just stick it in with my stuff.

cut to a month or so in the future. my sister is looking through my clothes because despite the fact that she goes clothes shopping six million times more than i do, my (side of the) closet just seems to be better equipped for some reason. anyway, she pulls out the adopted shirt. "oh my god this is perfect! where did you get this? how long have you been hiding it? can i have it?"

i look confused at her recurring amnesia, tell her that once again it was an unclaimed shirt from the washing machine. she laughs and takes it. the next time a shirt goes unclaimed, i assume we'll cut the game short and she can just take it from the beginning because it was hers in the first place and she'll take it back eventually.

apparently, we all just really like playing the game.

*Quit Playing Games With My Heart - Backstreet Boys

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

it's better to say too much

so according to my blog and formspring, the last time i posted my formspring answers were six weeks ago. for those of you that dont realize what this means, this means that my original decision to post answers every week has been ridiculously ignored. but because i have a million drafts from the last couple of days that all end midsentence, and i am just trying to waste time after the amazingness that is LOST and before we watch a movie and dont really feel like finishing those, i have decided to post the answers for the past month and a half.

don't you think razan is a bit full of herself.. sheesh! :P
haha nopee.

how much do you love razan?
more than life itself.

Btw... can't comment at all on your posts... makes me sad
that was weird. glad you can comment now. :)

Regarding your post on epilogues, I must say I agree in some respects but disagree in others. I personally use epilogues to almost detour from the story, sometimes hinting at what happens next. It isn't a direct part of the story, so has to be separate.
i already commented on this on my blog, but yeah some epilogues do work. i dont really hate allll of them.

What songs/bands are you currently/recently listening to?
i have been having a new music dry spell (i really need a downloading day), so i've basically just been listening to all my old music on shuffle. the main bands are (in no particular order) maroon 5, the killers, the hush sound, the script, relient k, blue october, the beatles, snow patrol, and a bunch others i can't remember off the top of my head. individual songs are way too many to list. nothing in particular has been on repeat for the past couple of weeks, though.

What are some books in your amazon cart at the moment?
well, i just bought my cart yesterday, but the items i have "saved for later" include: the thorn birds and tim (2 different books) by Colleen McCullough, a bunch (all?) of Chuck Palahniuk books, the portable dorothy parker which has been sitting there for a couple of years now, i capture the castle which has also been in there for years, and the seducer's diary by Soren Kierkegaard among others.

what would be the perfect gift for somebody to get you? (something that was actually attainable)
you can never go wrong with books or chocolate because you can never have enough of either. i have a list of books i'm trying to limit in my amazon cart, any of those would be beyond awesome. but i love anything and everything.

what object from your childhood do you wish you still had?
you asked me this before, and i still don't have an answer. i still have most of my favorite things in the attic somewhere. i'll think about it though.

What's the best birthday cake you've ever seen/eaten? by LujainAl
hmm... best as in taste or look?? homemade or storemade?? my sister made my cake in the shape of the beauty and the beast castle last year (or tried) which was awesome. i think the cakes i saw of your family's are some of the prettiest i've seen.

Where do you stand on juice boxes? by LujainAl
being so small, i don't think you have a choice but to stand on the whole thing. *cringes* now that i've gotten that corniness out of my system, i think juice boxes are awesome... except for the fact that they rarely have enough juice to quench my thirst.

*Say What You Need To Say - John Mayer

Monday, May 17, 2010

and i will try to fix you

during exams, chrome suddenly stopped working on joe. i was distraught, and not only because i realized just how i addicted i had gotten to this browser. i didnt have the time to really delve into the problem, though, so as a temporary fix i switched my non-school related stuff to firefox. (if you remember, i can't use one web browser for all of my things.) firefox is way too boxy and stuff for me to be creative in apparently, so it didnt really work out. and then, my security system stared telling me that it was stopping information from being sent to some weird ip address. great, i think, joe has been infected. again.

i swear this computer picks up more viruses than a (insert witty metaphor here).

suddenly, google is acting weird and i realize that i have the google redirect virus and some spyware, too. while my computer knew enough to stop the spyware from getting any information, it could not for the life of it find the spyware on the computer. i didnt have time to do anything so i turned off joe and started to just use junior. junior loved the attention, but joe was beginning to grow resentful of his newly assigned job as a shelf to hold grad gifts and other end of the school year related junk.

so today, since i finally had some free time, i set to work. after downloading three different malware detection things that couldnt find it, and going through the system files and dlls, i finally cured him without reformatting the stupid thing which i was two seconds away from doing. yay me.

this was a pointless post, i know, but i really had nothing else to write about. sorry people.

*Fix You - Coldplay

Friday, May 14, 2010

you did your walk of fame and that was it

okay so last night i decide i'm not gonna set my alarm or anything and i am going to sleep in because it is the first day of summer break and stuff. so i dont. you know what time i woke up?? eight twenty something! gah i am disgusted with myself and my inability to sleep in anymore. and that was after forcing myself back to sleep twice. i need to go visit my younger self and figure out how to sleep into the double digits.

also, because i know you guys were all just so worried about this, the excitement for graduating did kick in yesterday. it was about the time that i saw a bunch of friends i hadnt seen in forever and we were being herded to the loading dock and wondering how the circus elephants fit there every year. we have very deep thoughts for recent college graduates, do we not? i'd go into graduation detail but it was really just a couple of five minute speeches and then a few agonizing hours of reading through names while me and my friend really had to pee. oh, and the IT school was the second to last to get called. feel sorry for us. but my brothers wore suits and they looked adorable.

another thing, is it cheating to use the same song for post titles two day in a row?? cause i kinda thought so when i wrote it but i really don't feel like going and searching through my music for something else.

*Fly Away From Here - Dropline

Thursday, May 13, 2010

sun comes up then goes away, so does graduation day

my graduation is in exactly five hours. i have to be there earlier than that by i dunno how much. i still have no idea what to wear. i'm thinking i should have thought more about this before the day of because at least then i would have time to either buy something or even wash something. i never realized how unprepared my closet is for occasions like this (at least when i havent done a real load of laundry in forever). a hoodie and jeans would be inappropriate, right?

shouldn't i be more excited for today?? i'm thinking yes.

maybe it is because i finished in the winter and this past semester seemed to have taken years rather than months so the whole thing just seems a little after the fact. it's as if i suddenly went back to my high school to join that graduation. the fact that i'm still going to the same school doesn't seem to make my brain feel any differently about this. i've already graduated. i'm already done. why am i doing this again?

should i be waiting for tonight to come so i can check this off my imaginary to-do list?? i'm thinking no.

anyway, i should go back to searching my closet. hopefully the excitement will kick in later. oh, and if any of you are in the fairfax, va area and have nothing better to do today, you should totally come! yes, i suck at invitations, but i would love to see you! george mason patriot center at 2:30. no tickets required. i'll be the one that probably trips and falls while walking across the stage.

*Fly Away From Here - Dropline

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

fairy tales don't always have a happy ending, do they?

years have passed since a single tear left the shelter of your eye.

it's like when you have a bad experience with alcohol, and suddenly, even the smell of the drink makes you nauseous. just thinking about it makes you want to retreat to the bathroom with your finger down your throat.

because everytime you cry, you remember the him he was, the her she wanted to be, and the them that could never be a them because happy endings don't exist in reality, and there is no such thing as a small lie, and the rain is not the sky crying over their ending. it is just water falling from clouds because it got too cold and too heavy to fly anymore.

and the ocean holds no mermaids because only sharks can live in the toxins you polluted it with. sharks that have no sense of love or good or compassion. sharks that would swallow you whole and laugh about it with their friends.

and you stare into the flame of a candle and pretend it is the sun, even though the sun has not made an appearance in your sky for months. and the quiet moments of peace before you fall asleep every night are spent hoping that things get better, even though hopes are just another word for dreams and you've had nothing but nightmares since the tears stopped.

***

i wrote this while i was "studying" but refused to post it then because that would be considered blogging which would be procrastinating. and since i had just started studying for tonight's exam this morning, procrastinating was not an option. i liked it more when i first wrote it... i'm not sure what happened between now and then.

anyway i have come to the realization that i cannot write happy. :/ that will be my mission before next semester starts: write something happy and hopeful.

and i have officially finished my first semester of grad school. two to go.

*Big Girls Don't Cry - Fergie

Monday, May 10, 2010

so i let go, watching you turn your back like you always do

I was young enough to think that I had seen everything there was to see in this world, and old enough to realize when I was wrong.
It was a simple job the delivery man had left me with: get your package from your neighbor where it is being safely kept and bring it home. The 'bring it home' was never explicitly said, but it was implied.
I was too distracted to remember that the simplest things are often the most complex.
My knock on the door remained unanswered, though I knew she was home because her car was parked outside. I knocked again. And again. And again. And a-
I stopped my raised fist a fraction of an inch away from my neighbor's forehead. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “But my package was delivered to you and I need to pick it up.”
She didn't answer. I couldn't remember if she spoke English.
“A package?” I repeated, miming a box with my hands. “It was brought here earlier.”
She didn't answer.
I finally looked down at her to make sure she was listening. Her shirt was torn and her hands bloody. Her face was streaked with tears still pouring silently from her red, puffy eyes. “Oh. Is this a bad time?”
She turned without a word and walked back into her house. She didn't close the door, and I followed her. She led me to the living room where she silently picked up a baseball bat from the floor, bloody fingerprints already on it, and began to beat something hidden by the couch. With every blow, she would let out a cry, until she was sobbing in rhythm with the hits.
I watched as she lifted up the bloodied mess of whatever she was destroying, and finally found her voice. “No one else was here to do this, so I thought I'd do it myself,” she told me, though I didn't ask. I didn't know what 'this' was; all I really wanted was my package. “There were too many walls, too many obstacles built to protect this,” she said as she tried to tear it in half. It was too strong. She brought it to her face to use her teeth, and I saw it clearly for the first time.
A heart. I had studied enough biology to know it was human. I looked down to the stain on her chest growing from the hole in her shirt and had a good idea whose heart it was. “Really, all I need is that package and I'll be on my way. The delivery man left me a note saying it was here.”
Her lips were dripping red as she brought the heart away from her mouth. “No one else was here to tear it from my chest, so I did it myself. No one was here to step on it; I ground it under my own heel.”
“If you could just tell me where you put the package, I could go get it, and you could carry on with this.”
“I took a knife and stabbed every place I was protecting. I took a club and beat the areas I hid.”
“Is that it?” I asked, pointing to a box wrapped in brown paper across the room. “I'll just check and then... Yes. My name. Well, I'll be taking this.”
A wild cry of anguished pain ripped through the room, and I saw that she had succeeded in pulling her heart apart. It seemed to get easier after the first tear, and she was shredding it into pieces.
“No one ever cared enough to break my heart,” she said between sobs. “So I broke it myself.”
“Thanks for keeping this for me,” I said, holding up the package. “I'll just be going home, now.” I turned back to the hallway we had come down towards the front door.
“And no one even cared enough to watch.”
Weird, I thought to myself as I walked home, already planning dinner in my head.

***

i've gotten used to the fact that almost everything i write elicits a "that's disturbing" from at least one person (usually my older sister). i'm beginning to see why. i mean, what the hell, right??

i have no idea where this came from and no idea why i'm posting it. i will probably end up deleting it the next time i see it, so yeah...

*Faint - Linkin Park

Sunday, May 9, 2010

i'm in the mood to say shit that'll change people's minds

there are times when i read over stuff that i write and i think, "wow. that's actually good." and i go back and make sure that i really did write it and i'm not inadvertently ripping off someone else, and i allow myself a second to enjoy the feeling of being pleasantly surprised.

other times (sadly the more frequent of the two), i read over stuff i had written and cringe inwardly because it is an embarrassment to life itself. i remember how i wanted it to sound and how it most definitely doesnt.

sometimes, when i'm reading something i'll think to myself that my writing isnt that bad. it's not that much worse than this [what i'm reading]. there are times when it may actually even be better (rarely, but whatever), and maybe there's hope for my author dreams yet.

other times, i read something and think of how amazing it is and how i'll never be able to write anything anywhere close to that. how that is real writing and what i do is scribble in the backs of notebooks and into my blog. i see my dreams comes crashing down around me and there's nothing i can do but put out pillows and try to soften their fall. it doesnt work; it still hurts.

i want to write something amazing. something that inspires feelings that completely take over you. something that stays in your mind long after you have finished reading.

i want to write your best friend, your worst enemy. i want to capture your biggest fears and wildest dreams on paper, illustrate them into words that leave you speechless.

i want to make people stop and think. i want them to dog-ear pages to go back and read the same paragraphs over and over again, reading more meaning into it every time.

but i sit here and stare at the blinking cursor, willing myself to find words that don't exist in my head. i write the kid who sits ignored in the back of the class, and read words and scenes that i wish i could think of.

and yes, i know that i should write without putting so much pressure on the words to be perfect, but i am in the mood to write magic, and it remains unreachable.

*War Sweater - Wakey! Wakey!

lazy sunday afternoon i've got no mind to worry

i am bored and i feel like writing but my brain does not want to focus on anything and would really rather stare at one of the stupidest cartoons to hit this generation of stupid cartoons and rot because it's just one of those days, you know? so instead i will post run-on-sentenced rambles to my blog and wait for writing inspiration to strike me like a bolt of lightening or some other cliche that means about the same thing but does nothing to actually bring inspiration anywhere closer to my brain.

sigh.

there is a bug on my wall that i really wish would go away but he does not seem to be responding to my telepathic messages. i am not a fan of bugs. any of them. the creepy slimy gross ones that send shivers up my spine to the stupid ones that walk around asking to be killed. this is mainly because i dont like to kill them and so they just sit there in my house being all buggy until my dad or sister comes along and squashes them despite my telling them that we should just put them outside. not that i usually offer to put them outside myself because that requires catching and or touching them and a lot of these bugs are just gross. i dunno, something about bugs in my house brings out the inner tree hugger in me.

spiders are the worst though. they bring out the shrill screaming little girl in me which can be quite embarrassing if you are sitting outside in a big group and someone points out that you have a ginormous spider crawling on you and you jump up screaming and trying to brush it off your arm with everyone staring at you like you should be committed.

there is a key lime mini bundt cake that is calling out to me from the kitchen that i am desperately trying to ignore because i am more thirsty than hungry but my body does not seem to realize this. but if i go down to the kitchen to get a drink then i will probably eat the cake too and i really don't want it. bundt cakes can be so pushy sometimes.

oh my god i think it is a fanboy and chum chum marathon and i can feel my IQ dropping by the minute. i do not understand how my brothers can watch this show so much. the animation grosses me out and half of the characters seem to have red mushroom slices for noses which i do not understand. also, the plots are stupid and the jokes are not funny.

i also kinda feel like reading but not enough for me to actually get up and get a book and get into it even though i have a pile of books just waiting for me to fall into.

my brother is debating hair removal with my sister. his argument: lady gorillas are hairy so why do humans take off their hair? i think the fanboy and chum chum has gotten to him. my other brother has spent the last five minutes telling me how his friend's favorite word is valuable. he is still not finished telling me. no one can drag out a story as well as ali.

anyway, i will spare you the rest of my pointless thoughts and try to find a funnel so i can get them all moving in the same direction and form a point. then i will write something and be happy.

*Lazy Sunday Afternoon - Small Faces

until someday i'll be waiting for an answer

my life in numbers:

10- the number of dollars in my bank account at the end of last month. it has never gotten so low ever in my entire life, and i'm still not entirely sure where it all went.

9- the number of books that have taken up residence on my bed and like to fight me for mattress space.

8- the number of days it has been since my cousin left. after living with us for three months, i kinda thought it wouldve taken a lot longer than a day to feel like she had never come.

7- the number of times i have refreshed my email this morning, hoping for a new message. i hate waiting for something when you're not even sure if it's going to come.

6- the number of times my brothers have come in my room this morning asking if they can play on the computer if they promise to stay quiet and not wake my sister up. also the number of times i did not believe them.

5- including today, the number of days left until i walk across the stage and am officially declared a graduate from undergrad. it seems like i finished a gazillion years ago instead of a few months. i kinda dont feel like going to it.

4- about the number of months left until mockingjay (the third and final book in the hunger games series) is released. the wait seems intolerable.

3- the number of days since my last blog post and the number of graduation cards i recieved from my grandmother yesterday.

2- the number of birds outside my window. one is sitting on the top ledgy part that i completely forgot the name of though i know i know it. the other is standing on my windowsill staring at me. these are my birds that have lived on top of my window every spring for years, and yet they dont have names. (odd, is it not?)

1- the number of exams i have standing between me and summer. wednesday is too far away.

*I Hate This Song - Secondhand Serenade

Thursday, May 6, 2010

oh, it's just another overdose

senior year of high school i fell in love with tylenol. i'm not sure why exactly because it really doesnt do anything. at all. but i ate it like candy. and no, despite jokes that may point to the contrary, i was not suicidal. anyway, after one night spent lying on the kitchen floor wishing i could throw up (i didnt take enough to do anything but make me really really nauseous. like i said, i wasnt suicidal), i stopped taking the stuff. completely.

i havent put a pill in my mouth since then. you know, to give my liver a chance to detox.

anyway, because of stress, a family to whom the concept of an inside voice is foreign, and chronic migraines, i decided to take some excedrin because really, i couldnt ignore the headache anymore. and if you know me, that's really saying something. i have turned ignoring headaches into an art form. can i just ask, is it possible that four years later my body still has the drug in it? because i swear it feels like i took waaaay more than a few pills. i. dont. feel. good.

and i still have a migraine.

i have decided that medicine sucks.

*Pitiful - Sick Puppies

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

finally

a little over a year ago, i came on this blog and complained about the fact that i couldnt go up to new york to watch city island at the tribeca film festival because of a group presentation.

a couple of weeks ago it was finally released in a nearby movie theater. i couldnt go see it because i was busy with papers and cousins.

today, i finally finally finally got to watch it. after following the production and the release at the festival and the slow release into the public, it was super exciting to finally get to see it. and it totally met my expectations.

i suggest you watch it, too. if only to boost the numbers a bit (even though it's doing great). there's a list of everywhere it's showing on its facebook page and other places online. i would post it here but i really dont feel like it.

*Finally - Fergie

you tryin' to be cool. you look like a fool to me

i was listening to my ipod the other day and a song came up that i havent heard in a few years because i usually skip it. so i listen to it and suddenly realize that the lyrics are so bad it makes me want to go to the singer and punch her in the face. this got me thinking about a bunch of other songs that have lyrics in them that make me cringe. (mind you, i like some of these songs, but that doesnt change anything.) so without further ado, here are some of my most hated lyrics from my itunes, radio, or family member's songs.

She gets the top bunk, I'm sleeping on the floor.
Girl Next Door - Saving Jane

okay, this one has always killed me. the whole point of bunk beds is that there are two beds: one on the top and one on the bottom. so if she takes the top bunk why the hell don't you sleep on the bottom one? why would you sleep on the floor? that doesnt even make any sense. you know, maybe the reason people like her more than you isnt because she's a pretty, popular cheerleader. maybe it's because you are a moron.

Cause I'm gonna shout it out to everyone I meet.
If You See Kay - The Script

i love to meet new people. what i love even more is when i first meet someone for them to start droning on about their ex who i have most likely never met. i mean, really, could you think of any better way to start a friendship? the very best though is when they move on from just talking about said ex to shouting about her to me. shouts that you won't take her leaving you as a defeat will definitely make me wanna stick around and talk to you more... uh, i think i might know why she left you.

I just wanna write you in a song/ Put your smile on paper so you can sing along/ I just wanna bottle the sun/ Keep your light a secret I can find when you are gone
You in a Song - Jason Reeves

this entire song is just one bad lyric after another. none of it makes sense, meanings seem to be contradicting, and it's just overall awful. (i happen to like this song for some reason, though.) first of all, "so" typically means then, for that reason, subsequently. i, for one, see no connection between putting my smile on paper and my ability to sing along. I have successfully managed to sing along to tons of songs that had nothing to do with me or my smile. and then, you said you wanted to bottle the sun. what does that have to do with keeping her light a secret? unless she is the sun, in which case i dont think she's had a smile since we graduated from third grade. if it were me, i'd be gone as soon as you started spewing this nonsense.

you taste like honey, honey. tell me can i be your honey?
Disease - Matchbox 20

whenever my sister listens to this song, i feel the need to go back in time with my red pen and scribble out all of those honey's when rob thomas first thought up those genius lyrics. and then fail him for being stupid and the rest of the band for going along with it. repeating the same word three times in two sentences does not make you cool or witty. it just emphasizes the fact that you have the vocabulary of a mime.

I'll never let your head hit the bed without my hand behind it
Your Body is a Wonderland - John Mayer

ignoring the fact that earlier in this song he says "bubblegum tongue," i think this is the worst line in this song. i'm sorry, do i look like i can't freaking lay down by myself? will i hurt myself as i fall onto a pillow? or do you think i'll get lost and your hand is there to guide me? do you know how uncomfortable it is to sleep on someone's hand? every. single. time. gah.

There were plants and birds and rocks and things.
A Horse with No Name - America

my cousin who was obsessed with this song for a while doesnt have the best english, so he's excused. but for the rest of the world, how could you listen to a song where the songwriter got bored halfway through a sentence and ended it with "and things." i mean, you are talking about a desert. go to any first grader off the street and they'll be able to give you ten more things besides plants and birds and rocks that you could have seen. i mean, go with the obvious. how about sand? but i mean, the have a lot of la la las in the song, too, so maybe they should just go hang out with matchbox 20 and pretend to be trapped in a box. or better yet, really get trapped in a box.

Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago
Smooth Operator - Sade

okay, sade. go to a map. look for chicago. you see all that land on the other side of it? yeah, that means that it is not on the coast. oh, and i hate your name, too.

I drew a line for you/ Oh, what a thing to do/ And it was all yellow.
Yellow - Coldplay

um, this may just be me, but if someone is trying to do something for me, it better be more than drawing a stupid line. i dont care what color it is. if by "oh what a thing to do" you mean, "what an idiotic thing to do," then i think we are on the same page here.

Sadness is beautiful loneliness that's tragical.
Shape of my Heart - Backstreet Boys

you know those people who speak just to hear themselves talk? and the worst type of those people - the ones that string a bunch of big words together to try and sound smart? yeah, the backstreet boys must have hired a dumbed down version of him to write their lyrics. forced poetical crap does not sound smart. and tragical is not a word, as chrome is nice enough to point out.

okay, so i am now tired of this, but if you have any lyrics you love to hate, then put them in the comments.

*Complicated - Avril Lavigne

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

it's over and everything you know is said and done

okay, so i think blogging hiatuses (is that the plural? chrome didnt correct me so i'm guessing yes) are bad for my health. i forget what i used to do with the pointless rambles going on in my head before i started this collection of nonsensical thoughts. or is it that i have more pointless rambles going on because i started blogging, in which case blogging itself is bad for my health? whatever.

i also realized that i am the last person in the world that should attempt to stop procrastinating. it does not work. at all. i stopped writing everything in an attempt to stave off procrastination (it's amazing how much more appealing the thought of washing dishes seems when it's dishes or schoolwork). i even decided not to read for fun. when i got my latest shipment from amazon, though, i decided that not reading or writing is kind of just overkill. don't you think?

anyway, where was i? oh yeah, stress+papers+everyone else's and their mother's problems+no writing = not very fun. you would think that what with all of the "suffering" i was going through i wouldve at least gotten some work done. but i really wouldnt be me if i didnt wait until monday morning to get started despite my very well-thought out motivation techniques. lesson learned: i wont even try to not procrastinate in the future because it obviously doesnt work out for me.

but i'm done, and in the past couple of weeks i have written over 112 pages of technobabble. do you find that as disgusting as i do? who wants to read 100+ pages where your only character is a techie researching the best way to improve intrusion detection systems and forensics examiners checking the EXIF data of images? i mean, i wrote twelve pages on the freaking packing of a jump-kit! ew.

now there are just two finals and graduation to get through and i will officially be summer vacationing.

*When It's Over - 3 Doors Down