Thursday, January 30, 2014

how does anybody get anything done?

sometimes people will say something referencing the fact that i am sort of somehow maybe on my way to becoming a holder of a phd and i just kind of laugh nervously and make some comment along the lines of "it's been a bit of struggle 'till now but that's the plan" because deep down i know how completely ridiculous it is. i mean, i do want to get the degree to end all degrees and all that, but there's something very self-sabotaging about the way i'm going about actually getting it.

take, for example, today. i was supposed to spend the day reading articles and doing some preliminary research so that when i meet up with my adviser this friday he won't know that i have spent exactly zero minutes thinking about my dissertation over the winter break. zero. and that i maybe stretched the truth a little (or a whole freaking lot) when he asked me in emails if i was following certain things and i told him yeah of course i am. but the best laid plans... and other useless idioms that let you know that that is not what happened.

instead i spent the day reading fanfiction (which i am apparently back to doing) and getting worked up over fictional characters. and i also worried a bit about a stain on my "books turn muggles into wizards" t-shirt because dressing like an adult is apparently beyond me. i did manage to get a load of laundry done and take out the trash, but that was about as much responsibleness as i was capable of. there may have also been a bit of pretending that the nervous tension in my stomach was solely caused by the stories and not at all by the fact that i was procrastinating life. and you know how much research i got done? none. i didn't even open the articles. i didn't even open the email the articles were sent in. but i did get the urge to write some fanfiction again, so there's that.

also, i bought a ring today and it's a little too big and seems to be getting bigger by the second which is making me sad.

also number two, last night i got exactly two hours of sleep (if that) because i was just. not. tired. and i wasn't tired the entire day and now it is past midnight and i am still not tired and what is wrong with me? i'm usually (well, at least for the last couple of years) that obnoxious person that has to sleep for like ten hours a night. and all i can think of is this girl they were talking about on the radio a few weeks ago who had a tumor on her brain which made her never have to sleep ever, and i can't remember what happened to her and am pretty sure that i don't have a tumor on my brain but my mind is nothing if not a lover of what if's and late-night hypochondria. also, lightheadedness. i've been feeling light-headed a lot recently and that's not a sign of brain tumors is it? i'm pretty sure headaches are, and my normally constant headaches have been noticeably missing from my life and thank god for that, i tell you.

this post has gotten wildly off-track.

anyway, long story short, i am not an adult and am getting pretty bad at pretending to be one. also, i wish i had studied english and was doing a phd on fanfiction and its role in something or other. i would be right on track. (i overuse the word also.)

*Take It Like A Man - Dragonette

Monday, January 27, 2014

sometimes i plan to celebrate the anniversary of certain events and then i realize that i can't remember anniversaries to save my life and when i go check the date it turns out that the anniversary already passed. and since i'm already late, i drag out the celebration until i don't even feel like celebrating anymore. and then i write a blog post about it.

the most recent instance of this is me not remembering that is has been exactly one year (and then some) since i released my first ever book of prosetry. i announced it first here on my blog. you can reread that post for nostalgia reasons here. if you didn't buy the book for whatever reason, you should click that link and read all the reasons that you should buy it. and then go buy it from amazon. i mean, you can get the kindle version for just under three bucks and get the kindle app for free and then you can read it almost instantly.  or you could wait a little longer and pay a little more and get a copy you can hold in your hands. or you could do both. you know, if you really want to.

one of the reviews i got on please listen was that some of the pieces seemed melodramatic. since it's been a year, i'm going to address that comment. i wrote a lot of those prose poems either as a way to work through or a result of getting through stuff. some of that "stuff" was depression-related, and if you know nothing else about depression then know that it is all melodrama. the worst thing is always happening and never ending. (notice that i didn't say "it seems like..." that was intentional.) so yes. a bunch of it is melodramatic and over-the-top and  you know what? i'm totally okay with that.

i haven't read any of the pieces in the book for a while, but some of my favorite things i've ever written are contained within those pages. (i also think i have most of it memorized from the number of times i read through it while putting it together, and yet there are still typos i didn't catch.) though i'll probably always look back and think, "if i only did..." i will also always be proud of please listen. no matter what happens in the future. for more reasons than i can list.

end shameless self-promotion. 

Saturday, January 25, 2014

giving the academy a rain-check

okay, so. it's common knowledge around here that i like books. and that i think that writing competition shows should be on tv just like cooking competition shows, remodeling competition shows, and who looks prettier competition shows. and since it is award season (is it? i honestly have no idea. is there even an award season or do award shows just kinda happen throughout the entire year? i've never actually watched an award show ever in my entire life. i plan to sometimes, but then i forget. i do enjoy the gif sets that appear after an award show though. anyway, let's just pretend that i know what i'm talking about and that it is awards season, okay?)  i think that books should be awarded right along with movies, tv shows, and music. and yes, i know that books do get awards, but where is their televised glitzy show with a red carpet and readings from the top books of the year and trophies given to the authors? it just doesn't seem fair, if you ask me. so i will be awarding some book-oscars. the nominees are all of the books that i picked up to read last year (you can find the complete list with all of the authors here) because they must have done something right to get picked up, you know?

i'm adapting all of the categories that wikipedia tells me the academy awards use as best as i can. and now, without further ado, i present to you our winners: 

Best character (male) in a leading role (leading role means narrating to me): tobias (allegiant)
Best character (male) in a supporting role: gus (the fault in our stars
Best character (female) in a leading role: cather avery (fangirl)
Best character (female) in a supporting role: reagan (fangirl)
Best children's book: wings of fire: the lost heir
Best short story: life on the refrigerator door (since i finished it in half an hour it counts as a short story)
Best narrating voice: lawrence (when we were romans
Best costume design: the divergent trilogy
Best author: rainbow rowell
Best nonfiction story: discovery of luray caverns 
Best nonfiction short story: climbing everest: tales of triumph and tragedy on the world's highest mountain (this was a library book so i can't tell you which exact story was my actual favorite)
Best editor: it would NOT go to the editor of the tmi series, the divergent series, chose the wrong guy, or the host for sure 
Best story in a foreign location: stolen
Best action story: trash 
Best character descriptions: the host
Best self-published book: off with her heart
Best title: chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger 
Best book: fangirl
Best cover design: the fault in our stars
Best dialog: eleanor and park
Best setting description: stolen
Best world-building: the mortal instruments series (cassandra clare)
Best play: long day's journey into the night
Best poetry collection: teaching my mother how to give birth

this was a lot harder than i thought it would be. i wanted to have ties for almost every category, and the books that i read later in the year were freshest in my mind which was slightly unfair. if i read through the list again, i'd probably change half of them. i would also like to point out that i really  liked the beach street knitting society and yarn club even though it's not bolded in the previous post or the recipient of any of the awards here. i have no idea why because i really enjoyed the book. a lot. 

if you feel like awarding your own books, then let me know who wins. 

*It's Time - Imagine Dragons

Thursday, January 23, 2014

a little late

i mentioned early last year how i changed my reading goal on goodreads from fifty books to thirty-five because i am basically afraid of failing anything, even stupid self-made goals. and then i started the year with a bunch of rereads. since i'm already too late to write any year in review lists for 2013, here is a year in review list for 2013: books read edition.

the books i read last year (sort of in the order that goodreads shows it to me):

  1. the fault in our stars by john green*
  2. eleanor and park by rainbow rowell
  3. eleanor and park by rainbow rowell*
  4. fangirl by rainbow rowell
  5. fangirl by rainbow rowell*
  6. attachments by rainbow rowell (and a half)
  7. stolen by lucy christopher
  8. the host by stephenie meyer*
  9. the beach street knitting society and yarn club by gil mcneil
  10. long day's journey into the night by eugene o'neill
  11. divergent by veronica roth*
  12. insurgent by veronica roth*
  13. allegiant by veronica roth
  14. she's come undone by wally lamb 
  15. persuasion by jane austen*
  16. pride and prejudice by jane austen*
  17. when we were romans by matthew kneale
  18. chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger by beth harbison
  19. city of bones by cassandra clare
  20. city of glass by cassandra clare
  21. city of ashes by cassandra clare
  22. city of fallen angels by cassandra clare
  23. city of lost souls by cassandra clare
  24. wake by lisa mcmann*
  25. fade by lisa mcmann*
  26. gone by lisa mcmann*
  27. night of the tiger by debi emmons
  28. the tiger's cub by debi emmons
  29. wings of fire: the lost heir by tui sutherland
  30. the long fall by walter mosley
  31. discovery of luray caverns by russell h gurnee
  32. trash by andy mulligan
  33. intentional dissonance by iain thomas aka pleasefindthis
  34. off with her heart by amy dale
  35. ranger's apprentice: the ruins of gorlan by john flanagan
  36. miss peregrine's home for peculiar children by ransom riggs
  37. climbing everest: tales of triumph and tragedy on the world's highest mountain by audrey salkeld
  38. weekend in paris by robyn sisman
  39. life on the refrigerator door by alice kuipers
  40. to be or not to be: a choosable path adventure by ryan north
  41. how to be a woman by caitlin moran
  42. perfection by dayna bailey (x)
  43. the story of her holding an orange by milos bogetic (x)
  44. pride and prejudice and zombies by seth grahame-smith (x)
  45. intelligence: from secrets to policy by mark lowenthal
  46. jane austen's england by lesley adkins
  47. teaching my mother how to give birth by warsan shire
  48. twenty-five by rachel l hamm
  49. love is a dog from hell by charles bukowski
  50. bits and pieces of a broken heart by janice angela burt (x)
and then there was a book about fishing that i could not get more than a few chapters in to. 

i find it ironic that i read fifty books in the end. you may choose not to find it so. 

i'm not going to tell you which of these you should read, because i am all for reading anything and everything. so i think you should read all of them. even the ones i did not like. (i will mark the ones that you can push to the very end of your to-read list, though.) i could talk about each of these books for seven hours, so if you want to have a conversation about any of them i will be more than happy to do so. also, after adding so many different symbols after each title that i confused myself, i took them all off except for:

* means it was a reread
(x) means you probably don't need to worry about reading it any time soon
bolded means it made my top five of the year list. (rereads were not included in this list.)(there were some i really liked that i did not bold.)(read everything.)

i am way behind schedule for this year's goal in case you were wondering.

*Torn - Natalie Imbruglia

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

kristy, are you doing okay?

see the problem with reading so much and having an overactive imagination is that, well... you have an overactive imagination and millions of stories to feed it.

you probably know by now that i live in an apartment (that i simultaneously love and hate with all my heart). you may or may not know that i live on the top floor and therefore do not have to deal with things like heavy-footed dancing elephant owners marching on my head day in and day out, which is good because the thin walls/floors/whatever is a common complaint i hear about the apartments i live in. the only time i was really, seriously annoyed by it, though, was when my neighbor bought a new puppy and it barked all. day. long. and all night, too. but i digress. occasionally, i will hear banging from the apartment below us. i never pay any attention to it and rarely even notice it anymore, but the other night i did.

i had just finished my nightly ritual of checking on my clan and playing candy crush when i heard banging, like someone hammering a nail into the wall or knocking really loudly. my mind immediately supplied me with the scene from room (if you haven't read this, then i highly recommend it) where the kidnapped lady and her son stand on her bed and scream at the top of their lungs (the kid thinks it's a game) to try and get someone to notice and rescue them. she also used to turn the lights on and off in the middle of the night to try and get attention. suddenly, i was sure that there was someone trapped in the apartment below me. of course, you can't really do much when all your evidence of a wrongdoing is that it kindasortamaybe reminds you of something that happened in a book. (and that got me to thinking about all the times that people do normal things as a cry for help that are ignored because, well, you're not just going to try and get every person you see arrested on the off-chance that something bad is going on.)

around thanksgiving, there was a watermelon with a small triangle cut out of it left outside of the door of this same apartment. for a month. it was really, really weird. and because i am kind of a creeper, here is a picture of it (cropped in case there are potential stalkers reading this):



it was just there. day after day, week after week. and then one day, it wasn't. 

after the bang in the night that set off my imagination, i realized that there must have been a message for help hidden in there and the kidnapper realized that and took it away i totally missed my chance to save my neighbor and/or her victim. (except, i really didn't miss anything. i peeked into that watermelon as i passed it every single day and watched as it slowly rotted and bugs started to live in it.)

anyway.

neighbor, if you'reading this, i'm sorry i'm creepy and took a picture of your watermelon, but you have to understand, it was really weird. (i also have one taken three weeks after this. i'm sorry for that one too.) i'm also sorry if you are being held captive and i am blogging about it instead of helping. 

kidnapper (hopefully you are not my neighbor because if you are then you put on a very friendly and considerate facade and you are actually my favorite in the building and i'd hate for my favorite neighbor to be evil), if you are reading this then you should know that i'm totally on to you. also, you make really bad choices in places to keep your victims. thin walls, dude. unless you chose this place precisely for that reason because you know that people will just write off any weird noises to normal life. in which case, you're really smart and kinda scary. 

readers, i haven't slept in a while (which is why i'm choosing to stick with that line for the title even though i'm sure another line in the song could be better. i'm just too lazy to google the lyrics and this popped in my head, and well, there you have it). we (my husband and i) are thinking of buying and moving to our first house and good god is this stressful. (i'm probably making it even more stressful than it has to be because that is what i do.) i was doing really well with the blogging regularly thing for a while, too. i was going to write an entire post about this whole house thing, but then i decided not to. this little note is the compromise. 

*Kristy, Are You Doing Okay? - The Offspring

Saturday, January 18, 2014

i'm living in a tree house

my husband watches things on tv that i would never turn to on my own but that i find strangely addicting once i start watching them. one of these shows is on the animal channel about some guy named pete who builds tree houses. and not just any tree houses, but really, really cool ones with electricity and running water and plumbing and lofts and fireplaces and guest rooms and garden roofs. they are amazing. of course, they are also crazy expensive. they'll get a call in the beginning of the episode about "potential clients willing to spend up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars" and i'm just like, what? how do you people just have that much money sitting around to be spent on a tree house?

i'm pretty sure that all kids grow up wanting a tree house. at least, my sisters and i did. really, really badly. but we either lived in townhouses, or houses without big enough yards, or houses with big yards and no good tree-housey trees, or houses that we left before we could ever build one. basically, we never got the tree house. i'm not sure about my sisters, but i never really stopped wanting one. i'm not sitting around actively longing for one or anything, but the desire is still there in the back of my mind. just waiting for the right moment to surface completely.

and this show feeds that desire endlessly.

i have this thing where i'm always saying "one day when i'm rich and famous i'll..." (i remember writing a post about it but when i went to link it here i realized that i never actually posted it. probably one of those times when i couldn't think of a title and decided to come back later in the day when i thought of one but then forgot about the post completely. i'm not going to copy paste it here because it wouldn't really fit, but it includes things like having a house on the beach with huge windows and high ceilings and window seats, hiring someone to hold my book and turn the pages when i'm knitting, hiring someone to talk on the phone for me whenever i'm feeling particularly phone-phobic, having a private plane... stuff like that.) my new addition to my rich and famous list is a tree house. a pete tree house.

i'm going to have a tree house library. all of my books lining the walls of a space where i can read in the branches of a tree. doesn't that sound fantastic? there will also be a little writing area because if i'm rich and famous i will probably be some totally awesome author and need a place to write my totally awesome books. and what better place than hiding in leaves with the squirrels and birds? of course, my tree house will also have to have somewhere to hoard my junk food and maybe also a bed because i would obviously want to live in it. i mean, really, i don't understand how i've lived my life so far without this. i don't know how anyone lives their lives without a tree house.

when you're rich and famous, what will your tree house look like?

*Treehouse - Nada Surf

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

well, if you really needed numbers

i started writing today and it seemed like a lot of really short, disjointed ideas so i decided to do a "my life in numbers" post because i cannot even remember the last time i wrote one. (it is always surprising to me how hard it to is to fill in all of these numbers. every. single. time.)

10- the number of minutes i still need to fill with inspiring speechy words before the orientation tomorrow morning. i may end up just winging it.

9- the time i woke up today for good. (after i turned off my alarms at seven and eight.) i wanted to stay asleep longer to finish my dream, but my sister texted me and we all know that dreams do not always do what we want them to.

8- the number of tabs i have open in this browser window. they are: gmail, blogger, hotmail, facebook, youtube, etsy, some university's english department's page that has a poem i keep meaning to read, and usps.com.

7- the number of ceramic pieces that i have sitting on my coffee table right now. i keep making more and there is just no more room for them in my tiny apartment. they are: a basket, an oval tray thingie with handles, an oval tray thingie without handles, a rectangular tray thingie with butterflies, a vase with swirls on it, a vase shaped like a tree, and a box that looks like two ice cream sandwiches stacked on top of each other. i promise you they are nicer than they sound.

6- the number of family-size boxes of applejacks i have sitting in my apartment mocking me. i got them because my cousin said he wanted and was having trouble ordering them. he failed to tell me that the trouble he had was customs saying he wasn't allowed to bring them into the country until after i bought them. i was then told not to mail them (because they might be taken) but to send them with someone who was travelling there. i bought them in the middle of july if that tells you anything about how well-thought-through this plan was. i'm never going to try and be nice to family again.

5- the number of lives i just lost in candy crush trying to get past this level. this game is crack, guys. i seriously have a problem. sometimes at night i'll steal my husband's phone to play on his if i've already gone through all of my lives.

4- the number of school-related people that have decided to remind me this week that the vacation is nearly over.

3- the number of weeks i have been saying that i need to go jeans shopping. i'm going today, though, i swear. i need a pair that actually fits for the start of the semester. but i really hate shopping for jeans.

2- the number of hours it's been since i woke up from a really weird dream - that i only remember bits and pieces of, but that i wished i held on to better - and i still have this weird feeling hanging over me that does not seem to want to let up. at all. i really wish i could remember the finer details because it might make a really good story, and oh my god i'm so cliche.

1- the number of fingers i sliced yesterday in a moment of stupidity when i was absentmindedly cleaning dried clay off of a knife's blade. it still stings. (related: pottery started back up yesterday. yay!)

*Numbers - JoJo

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

it's not about the money, money, money

the polar vertex left behind amazing weather, you guys. it's so beautiful outside. totally not winter weather (i'm still holding out for a good snow) but still super beautiful.

along with the pretty weather, though, comes the reminder that spring semester is just around the corner. the emails about pre-semester meetings have already started rolling in. i have a ta meeting, an orientation (where i have a speech to give), and a tour/meet-and-greet on thursday. this thursday. bye bye vacation. 

speaking of school, at the end of last semester, mason sent me a lovely check for fifteen hundred dollars. since i have a scholarship that pays for my tuition and i had two campus jobs that each paid part of my tuition, i had some money left over in my student account. i wasn't expecting any money (since the two jobs said they wouldn't pay my tuition since i had a scholarship) so it was a really awesome surprise. and then today mason called me and said that they weren't supposed to give me any money and could i please pay them fifteen hundred dollars before they put my account on hold. so i did. it was decidedly less awesome than getting the money. and the lady was acting like i stole it. "i noticed that you already deposited the check," she said in the most accusatory tone she could manage. uh you mean the check written out to me a month ago? that you guys sent? that i thought was for me? yeah, i guess i did. 

*Price Tag - Jessie J

Monday, January 13, 2014

talk like that won't get you nowhere

sometimes when i'm out in public places by myself, i eavesdrop on people. and by sometimes i mean a lot of the time. i'm not even ashamed of it anymore, because people say the most amusingly stupid stuff when they don't know that i'm listening to them.

case in point: whenever i go to walmart, i always stop by the pathetic book section. i rarely buy anything, but i always have to go and see what books they have. (side note: whenever these not book stores that sell books have harry potter on their shelves, i get ridiculously happy. it really makes my day.) anyway, the books and CDs are in the same aisle, and there were two teenagers already there. one was looking through the CDs and the other was clearly just waiting for her to finish. she glanced over at the books and said, "you know, i might actually read more if getting books was more convenient." the friend looking for CDs hmmed noncommittally. "you know what they should have?" the friend continues, excitement building. "a netflix for books!"
the other friend looks up. "oh my god you're a genius!" she exclaims. "if you could have access to a whole collection of books and then you can just choose whichever one you feel like... that would be awesome. we should totally invent that."
i had to bite my tongue to keep myself from butting into their conversation with, "they actually do have that. it's called a library."

and with the ability to check out ebooks from the library from your own house, claims that libraries are too inconvenient are groundless. i don't think i mentioned it on here, but i gave myself a fifty dollar book buying budget for twenty-fourteen. there were just too many books that i bought last year to read that i didn't even really like and are now just taking up precious bookshelf space. so i will be returning to my library days and if i really like something then i'll add it to my book collection. plus, i already have too many books sitting on the floor to be read. i don't really need to add to them.

oh, and because facebook fills my newsfeed with scribd ads, i know that scribd markets itself as a netflix for books. sorry, girls, you're a little late to the party.

*All I Need - Matchbox 20

Friday, January 10, 2014

i feel like i'm living the worst day over and over again

so this is a story about how i finally started to hate my apartment that i always refused to move out of even when i think it is too small to breathe in, aka the time i realized how effective torture is, aka why yesterday and the day before were really sucky. (every time i say/think/write "this is a story" i want to finish it with "about a girl named lucky" and if you don't get that reference then i'm not sure we can be friends anymore. except still be my friend, please.)

so the day before yesterday i got on here all quasi-hopeful and talking about sleep and running or something. i was taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly and trying to get out of a funk. i really thought it would work. and then the fire alarm happened. oh, that alarm. you may remember my last real encounter with this fire alarm when i was ripped from sleep and forced to stand outside in the cold with a not-allowed bunny while they tried to figure out why it was screaming. (the alarm, not the bunny.) this time was worse.

i think i should start my story with the email i received a few days ago from my apartment people saying that they would be testing the fire alarms on the seventh, or tuesday. now, i spend my entire tuesday at my parents' house. it's kind of my thing. and last year when they checked the alarms, they turned them on for maybe five seconds, made sure the banshee that lives inside the smoke detectors could still wail, and then turned them off. so of course i didn't give the email a second thought.

tuesday came and passed and then it was wednesday. the eighth. meaning the day after the testing was supposed to happen. i'm sitting in my apartment eating string cheese to spite my stomach that was trying to tell me i was nauseous, feeling nervous for no reason, and trying to work up the will to go out and run the errands that i needed to run. and that's when the wailing started. when you are sitting in a quiet apartment one minute and the next minute it is filled with the cries of the entire world being ripped apart, you freeze for a second to try and process what happened. there's no way around it. after i unfroze, my immediate response was to go and hold a pillow up to the alarm to try and muffle it. (it is still way too loud even when muffled.) my first rational thought was that they were doing the testing and it would turn off in a second.

but it didn't.

could it actually be a real fire? i wondered. on the off chance that it was, i threw on some jeans and went to get darcy in his carrier to flee to safety. of course, to do that, i had to stop muffling the alarm with a pillow. that means that it was once again loud enough that you felt that your bones would shatter from the mere intensity of it. which of course freaked darcy out. he ran into the side of his cage twice before finding the door and raced around his playpen in a panic, barreling through obstacles like they weren't there. (you may remember that last time my husband had to get darcy. this time, my husband was at work.) any time i got near the playpen, he would go crazy. i went back to muffle the alarm and think of my options.

(can i just take a second here to point out that i suck at fire alarms? i remember in school i always knew that if there was a real fire i would be the idiot that stayed behind and burned because i was trying to get all my stuff to safety. apparently, i never grew up.)

as i saw it, there were two possible scenarios: either there was a fire or there wasn't. if there was, i could either try and get darcy in a carrier which would probably result in him being hurt along the way or i could just leave on my own. if there wasn't, well, the alarm would turn off eventually, right? wrong. i decided to stand there with a pillow over the alarm and just hope for the best because i'm really smart. but it. would. not. stop. and you know that anxiety that i was feeling? yeah, it just loved it. so i was standing there trying to muffle the constant keening of the alarm inside as i heard the almost BONG BONG BONG of the alarm outside and i lost it. obviously. i stood there sobbing into the chalkboard that hangs on my wall under the alarm as i had a panic attack on the phone to my sister.

i sounded just hysterical enough that my sister ended up taking a cab from her office to my apartment (even though i told her not to bother). (another brief interruption: i may be a tad biased, but i really do have the best sisters ever.) and the alarm went on. and on. and on. i seriously thought it would never stop. my arms burned from holding them up for so long, but i couldn't let them down or the alarm would kill me, i was sure. it was already too loud, especially since i was standing right under it. after an hour it finally went from the wailing to a staticky gurgle type sound, almost like it was losing its voice. that was when i moved to the couch. after about twenty minutes of that, there was silence. and my nerves were shattered. (that was when my sister showed up, and then we went out for some coffee.)

yesterday i get out of bed after not sleeping most of the night and think, okay today i will pull myself out of my funk. because i'm stupid like that and apparently tempting fate is my favorite thing to do. i was going to run all of the errands i didn't do the day before. i was going to drop something off at my sister's office. i was going to make buttons or something for my brother's sga campaign. but first, i was going to take a shower. i was just stepping into the shower when the effing alarm goes off again. i didn't waste time with any thinking this time. i just started to cry (give me a break, i was tired. and hormones suck.) and went out to hold a pillow over the alarm. i did manage to throw on a shirt first. which was good. because a minute later i hear my front door open and a guy walks in saying, "fire marshal!" (apparently he knocked first but i couldn't hear it because the alarm is loud in case you haven't gotten that yet. my sister found this hilarious and said that it sounded like the start of a really bad porno, so there's that.)

maybe having the fire marshal come into your house when the fire alarm is going off and see you trying to muffle said alarm instead of actually leaving the house is not the best situation to be in, but instead of pulling off the pillow, i just asked, "is this, like, real?" i'm so good with words, and also, i already looked like an idiot so whatever. he probably thought i was on drugs, but he hid it pretty well, and just said, "no ma'am. we're just testing it. it'll be off in a second." only, it wasn't. five minutes later it did turn off, but then a few minutes after that, it turned back on again. and that's how it went for hours: on and off, off and on. and it was so much worse than having it be on for an hour straight. because you never knew when it was going to come back. my nerves were so far past fried. i couldn't stop shaking. i was jumpy. i was tired. if i was being detained i would have confessed to anything just to make it stop. it was awful. and i suppose i could have just taken darcy in a minute of silence and left the house for the day, but what was i going to do with a rabbit in tow? plus, it didn't actually occur to me until later.

anyway, it had been quiet for about an hour and a half, and i was pretty sure that the whole ordeal was over but i couldn't untense myself because what if it wasn't? (it actually was, though.) and then the ups guy came and knocked on my door and i screamed. like way too loud. i think i probably gave him a heart attack. (after which i stuck my head out of the door while he ran down the stairs and called out a thank you.) scaring the ups guy made me laugh, and loosened me up enough for me to finally just shower and leave the house for an hour, but my god it was really the worst.

anyway, it is almost noon now and the fire alarm has not gone off at all so already today is awesome. hope yours is, too!

*Worst Day Ever - Simple Plan

Thursday, January 9, 2014

there's a joke here somewhere and it's on me

you know what happens when indecisiveness and forgetfulness get together and make you mess up your birth control pill taking? your body thinks that you stopped taking your birth control. and you know what happens when your body thinks you stopped taking your birth control? i suppose the expected answer here is "you get pregnant," but no. this happens:

body: oh no. ohhhhhhh noo. i'm not getting regular dosages of hormones. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!?!
me: okay, calm down. you can-
body: AAAAHHHHHH NO HORMONES!! WHAT DO I DOOOOOO????!!!!! 
me: if you would just take a second and-
body: okay, okay ummm maybe i'll just... umm... HERE! HAVE A FEW MIGRAINES! AND CRAMPS!
me: what the hell body. you did this on your own for twenty three years. get it together.
body: ANXIETY! I CAN MAKE ANXIETY! HERE! HAVE SOME MORE!
me: would you stop screaming? it is really starting to freak me out.
body: THESE ARE BAD SYMPTOMS FOR BASICALLY EVERY SINGLE THING EVER. HAVE THEM ALL. AND MORE ANXIETY! AND ANOTHER HEADACHE!
me: !@%@$%^#$@#!#$%!!#$&#$@**^%##*^%#!#$
body: NAUSEA! I CAN DO NAUSEA! I DON'T REMEMBER HORMONES BUT NAUSEA IS GOOD!
me: *starts sobbing*
body: HERE IS MORE ANXIETY! AND LOTS OF SLEEP!
me: *still sobbing* there is nothing left to feel anxious about! oh no i didn't bake gingerbread cookies this year! why am i such a failure?!
body: DOESN'T MATTER. HAVE SOME MORE! AND INSOMNIA NOW!
me: i hate everything. 
body: I GIVE UP!

i am seven hundred percent done with life right now. 

i have also been up since three in the morning. i found fangirl online and read it on my phone from a site that doesn't have a mobile app so the text was really tiny. yesterday was supposed to be productive but it straight up sucked. maybe i'll tell that story tomorrow. 

having my hormones out of whack has hindered my storytelling ability. it also makes it very exhausting to do normal things (including all of the fun stuff that i said was going on in my post yesterday) because i just want to sit down in the middle of walmart and cry and punch everyone in the face and also eat a soft pretzel and maybe have a chocolate milkshake. but instead i have to be a functioning human being or something. uggghhh. 

*Dancing in the Dark - Bruce Springsteen

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

now you're stuck in a moment, and you can't get out of it

i woke up today at nine o'clock. nine. and then i stayed in bed until nine:thirty. (i feel like i should mention that the only reason i woke up at all was because my sisters decided to have a whatsapp conversation in our group and i have this thing where i cannot silence my phone before bed because we have no landline and what if there is an emergency, i ask you. and my sisters have this thing where one has to be at work by nine and the other has kids and lives in a different time zone and neither have any consideration for their less-responsibility-ridden sister.) but anyway, nine. it was wonderful.

i've been having some struggles with the stuckness of my life. i think it was the red queen who said, "it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" (yes, i realize that being on the internet means there is no excuse for "thinking" anyone said a quote. two seconds and i could know for sure. but then i would also get sidetracked and this post would never be written. also, random fact: i first fell in love with this quote enough to memorize it not after watching/reading alice in wonderland, but after watching phoebe in wonderland. that movie, guys. it gets me every time.)

for a while now, it's felt like i was doing all the running i could do and, i guess predictably, i've been staying in the same place. still in school. still struggling for this degree. still not really doing much of anything. no kids. no house. no nothing. just... stuck. while everyone else seems to be moving forward. (before anyone tries to give me the whole you're-comparing-your-behind-the-scenes-to-their-highlight-reel or the just-'cause-it's-on-facebook-doesn't-mean-it's-real thing or the everyone-moves-at-a-different-pace-along-a-different-road speech, let me just say, i know. and i'm not actually comparing myself to other people because i got over that years ago. sorry guys, but for the most, i just really don't want your life, even if i might think it's fabulous. that is not the problem. the problem is the stuckness. them moving forward is just not giving me enough distraction from it.) and i couldn't figure out how i could possibly run any faster. (don't let the "couldn't" fool you into thinking i have everything figured out now.)

these past few weeks have been especially stressful and a whole roller coaster of stuff that i am not going to go into right now but that left me feeling very... something. raw? drained? constantly anxious? beat up and left on the side of the road to die? something like that. but at the same time they have been really good weeks filled with family and nightshirts and bunnies and laser tag and golf. and it's funny how that happens sometimes.

anyway, the point is that some days it's nice to stay in bed late not because of anything or despite anything. and even if your stomach still feels like its taken on a side job as a butterfly garden, sometimes, the stuckness doesn't feel so bad.

*Stuck in a Moment - U2

Monday, January 6, 2014

let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

i do believe in fairies. i do. i do.

the words used to mean something to me. they did. they did. now they are as empty as everything else. they have run over my tongue too many times, dropping bits of magic until they were out. leaving behind hope and meaning piece by piece until they become no more than a jumble of letters my brain can no longer make sense of.

i did believe in fairies. i did. i did. 

a need to create is burning just behind my eyes. my fingers are itching to write, but the words that used to be my best friends have abandoned me. i used to hold them closer than the breath that i pull absently from the air. the words are gone, but their echos are left ricocheting in my body, bouncing off my stomach and zigzagging down my trachea like a long forgotten call to what used to be.

a lump forms in my aching throat and my eyes prickle, but i am not sad. am i? my stomach is fluttering like the wings of seven hundred trapped butterflies, but i do not think that i am nervous. at least, there is nothing to be nervous about. my skin burns hot with a flash of what could have been anger but instead was nothing. it is always nothing now. i can't breathe and my trembling fingers are beginning to go numb, but my mind is empty. nothing. nothing. nothing.

maybe if i found my words, it could be something.

i will believe in fairies. i will. i will. 

i used to live with my feet planted firmly in the past and my head floating in the future, but somehow i found myself in the present, and i think i may be stuck here where reality glares down at me from directly above. there are no lurking shadows or dark corners for surprises to hide in. there is only this. there is only now. and i need to find a way out.

they tell you to grow up and live in the moment and i always swore that i wouldn't. but then i did. they tell you that it's the thought that counts, but they're wrong. because i didn't mean to do this, but i am stuck here anyway. i used to think that if you cut me open, ink would leak from my veins and flowery words would bubble from my lips. my lungs would be filled with fairydust and every single one of bones would be a pen. if you cut me open now all you'd see is a mess of sliced bones and severed arteries and warm blood that doesn't know where to go anymore. i used to think that i was my words, but now i'm thinking that i am my blood. moving through the paths set out for me without thought. doing the same thing over and over and over again until i can't do anything else.

but if i could change once, i could do it again.

i will look for my words and i will find the magic again. i will. i will.

*******

the thing about writing is that you can find your groove where everything you write is right, and then you can stop writing for far too long, and you don't think that you can forget how to do it, but you can. you believe the words and ideas and images will be there waiting for you whenever you decide to come back, but they're not. and it's scary to know how quickly the thing you are good at can become the thing that you used to be good at. it's so scary that sometimes you have to just pretend that nothing is wrong and lose yourself in other people's words instead of your own. but eventually you have to sit down and write pages and pages of bad stuff and pick pieces out of them that maybe could be okay and put them together into a makeshift poem that is not in your groove and will never be completely right but will get you back on the horse. that's the secret to life, you know. you need to find that one horse that's meant for you and just ride it. you can hop on and off, but be careful, because if you're off for too long, you'll get trampled by the stampede.

i'm setting a goal for this year to write one million words. anything i write that uses my voice and is not correspondence will count towards this goal (meaning blog posts and poems and short stories and novels and some school work and journal entries and, well, you get the idea) starting with this post. i'll track my words over on the sidebar where my nano word count sits every november so you can guilt me into not slacking. here's to writing.

*Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield