and sometimes you close your eyes and see the place where you used to live when you were young

there are some things that act as time machines, that pull us back through time to a moment that we may have thought was lost. these can be songs, pictures, foods, movies... anything really. we all have some, and they are all different. for me, one my time machines is the morning call to prayer (athan).

there is a line that is only said in the call to the first prayer of the day. (it basically says that prayer is better than sleep.)

when i hear that line, i am suddenly back in california. i am six years old, and the house smells like fresh paint. there is new hardwood on the floors where there used to be carpet, and later, my sisters and i will fill some time with sock slides. our screams and laughter will fill the rooms of our townhouse. but now the house is quiet and dark. it is ramadan, and we have finished the morning meal. we have prayed. my sisters are asleep - on the floor since our beds were packed up - and my mom is, too. my dad reads his morning quran by a small lamp, and i sit quietly wrapped in my blanket watching tv. the animated adventures of dorothy gale and david and goliath and gulliver's travels. the tv screen grows brightly in the dark. when the cartoons are over, the house will wake up. but for now, there is only me, only the stories.

when i hear that line, i am engulfed in a pocket of peace from the past. the quiet hum of the tv. the silence of an entire neighborhood, minus two, sleeping. and the muffled call for prayer coming from our first athan clock: gold and shiny and shaped like a mosque but with speakers that don't allow for words, only sounds.

half a breath later, i am twenty-six again and sitting on my couch in my little one-bedroom apartment. it is ramadan. i have finished my morning meal, and i am reading my morning quran by a lamp. the world outside my living room is dark and sleeping. our new athan clock is black and sleek and the words pour from it clearly.

and every morning when i hear that prayer is better than sleep, i am six years old again.

*When You Were Young - The Killers

[one] i dropped off darcy this morning to be boarded, and i miss him so much more than i thought i would. the apartment seems so empty and quiet. i didn't realize how much noise he makes even though he doesn't actually "speak." i bet the people under us are happy, though. i always feel bad when darcy thumps because i'm sure they hear it through their ceiling. his thumps are loud.

[two] i am currently in the middle of that feeling of doing something and then not really remembering why you thought it was a good idea and kind wishing that you didn't but you already did so you have no choice to see it though. like when you drag a joke out a little too long, and even you want to just stop it, but it's too late.

[three] future me looking back at my life via my blog may not realize that yesterday was a really good day. i think i should put the record straight. despite not getting landline, it was a very potter day, and it doesn't matter that harry potter technically ended years ago. it doesn't matter that i am now a supposed fully-fledged adult. the second new harry potter stuff appears, the fangirl in me flares up as big as ever. the rita skeeter article was like a breath of fresh air when i hadn't realized i was drowning. i missed those guys. (although technically the article took place two years before the epilogue so my desire to know what happens after the epilogue is still unsatiated. and if this article came out two years earlier then teddy kissing victoire shouldn't have been such a big deal because they would have been doing it for two years. see, this is what happens when i'm starved of information. i get too analytical and critical.) the wizarding world expansion also opened yesterday, and i am planning on visiting it this fall and i am so excited. this has kind of been the year of harry potter news with the theme park, the movie, the play (which i am also fantasy planning on going to see and really hoping that it turns into really planning), and new short stories.

[four] this is kind of going along with the previous point, but it's not hp related so it got its own number. yesterday marked the day that i finally finally finally got past that stupid level in candy crush. the number three-twenty-three will forever haunt me, but i learned a valuable lesson. if it has nothing to do with school, i do not give up easily. i work and try and work and try until i succeed. yay me. (if only i could apply that same perseverance to more productive things. oh well.)

[five] there are eight minutes left until i can eat so i am not going to reread this. if there are typos or non-flowy parts, i apologize. i'm not sorry enough though to edit. 

all of our plans have fallen through

did i mention on here that my travel plans changed a bit because airlines suck and way too many people want to leave and come back on the same days that i do and i suck at planning and maybe some things should not be left to the last minute? lesson learned, by the way.

anyway, because my travel days changed a bit, i was going to be in my apartment on the eighth. when landline comes out. and i was super excited. i mean, i pre-ordered this book in october. i was ready to read it.

as you may or may not realize, today is the eighth. and just take a wild guess who is sitting in her apartment without the book with no chance the book is going to get here today? yup. that would be me.

because, you see, i pre-ordered this book in october. and sometime between then and now, my credit card expired. and while i did change it on amazon after a different order told me it couldn't be shipped because my credit card was expired and i should probably change that, i forgot to change it for this specific order. and so a couple of days ago amazon basically told me the same thing for this book. and even though i updated my credit card information literally seconds after receiving the email (i was lucky enough to be online at the time), they counted it as a new order. which means i had missed the pre-order cut-off date. which means unless i wanted to pay extra for one-day shipping (i have not paid for shipping from amazon for years. i was not about to start now. even if it is for a book i want.) i was going to have to wait a couple of days before i got it.

and so i'm waiting. and hoping it gets here before i leave. this book better be good.

*The Way It Was - The Killers

and we softly surrender to these lives

we are now on the fifth day of july, and i think i have to come to terms with the fact that i will not be doing camp nano this year, and that makes me sad. i just... can't do it. i mean, i can, of course i can, but i think there are things that i need to do instead of it. i think that's what's making me sad. the fact that i know i could carve out an hour or two from every day this month to write, but that i'm choosing not to. i have been waiting for july since december so i would have something - albeit something pretty arbitrary - holding me accountable for my writing. i have seriously been thinking about my characters a lot over the past few months. i really like them. and i really want to write down their story so that other people can like them, too. but i've only been able to do little snippets here and there. there hasn't been that daily push through a couple of thousand of words since november, and i miss it. and i was looking forward to it. and i am actually choosing not to do it. gah.

(i think my problem started when i was debating whether to use camp nano to work on my dissertation, and i have zero problems ignoring that kind of writing, and so my brain thought it was okay. or something.)

i still plan on writing this summer, though. i really do. i want to. the only problem is that planning and wanting are not doing and while i have never had any problem with the first two, that last one has always seemed to trip me up. maybe instead of twenty-six being the year of deep breaths, i should have made it be the year of getting my act together and getting stuff done. or maybe the year of discipline because i need some of that as well. 

*Bed of Lies - Matchbox 20

building and fixing till it's good as new

i started this blog post three different times, and i dunno if it's the fasting or what, but it kept coming out just incredibly sappy. and saccharine. and just... overkill times ten. so. suffice it to say that today was one of those days where you think, being me is actually pretty awesome. those days when you're really appreciative of the little weird things that make you you. and that is all i will say on that. moving on.

my in-laws have this house that they're renting out and i have so many ugly emotions tied up in it that i've started to hate it. (when i was in the midst of whatever i was in around my birthday, i would spend most of days doing small jobs around that house to fix it up between renters, things like caulking bathrooms and painting pantries and scrubbing floors. the feeling of completing a task successfully, no matter how small, was something i needed. it was partly therapeutic and partly toxic and i can still taste the desperation in the air when i'm in it.) anyway, the appliances all kind of decided to die and while i needed to call a repair guy for the washer and fridge, i was going to fix the garbage disposal myself. well, the original plan was for my dad to fix it, but then there was a couple of really intense, stress-filled weeks and then he left the country with the rest of my family. so it was left to me. and let me tell you, it did not look good. i went back to that house three days in a row (mainly because i kept forgetting things that i needed and would try to fix it for ten minutes before telling myself that if i only remembered the needle-nose pliers i would be able to do it and i'll just come back tomorrow) and it got to the point where people were telling me to just leave it to my husband or a repair guy and no that did not mean that i was weak and worthless it just meant that there were some things i could not do. 

but see, i refused to believe that. especially in that house. i had pushed all the stress and failure and negative feelings out of my mind into those rooms for months, and they were all just waiting for a chance to move back in. i could not fail. and so i didn't. and it felt awesome. (i was on the phone with my dad wen i fixed it and i'm pretty sure he thinks i'm crazy because of how excited i got.) and while fixing a garbage disposal is really not that big of a deal, shut up. it was symbolic. with maybe just a bit of some unhealthy obsession. 

and then i became incredibly arrogant because apparently my ego will swell at the slightest hint of an accomplishment and called my husband and said, "you're so lucky you married me. not only am i smart and pretty and creative, but i can also fix stuff. you hit the freaking jackpot." yeaaah, i'm obnoxious. 

and then i tried to play candy crush and failed again at that same level that i have been stuck on forever and my ego was returned to its natural size. i really need to pass this level, you guys. my self-worth has somehow become tied up in it. it's bad. i will be eighty-seven years old and still trying to beat it, refusing to give up. 

*Bob the Builder Theme Song

remember when i used to come on here and wax poetic about the lies that we were told growing up?  like how we could be anything we wanted to be, etc? (i'm pretty sure i wrote more than one post about this kind of stuff, but got sidetracked into reading my old posts for too long and now have no more time to look for them.) yeah, well my recent complaint against what we are telling our children is "practice makes perfect." because it does not. practice makes better most of the time, sure, but sometimes, it doesn't. sometimes you can practice and practice and practice and still completely suck. and you know, being told that you still suck because you just haven't been practicing enough when you know that there is really no possible way that you could have practiced anymore without devoting your entire life to practice - stopping any and every other thing in your life, including eating and sleeping - sucks. gah.

end rant. 

at first, when i see you cry, yeah it makes me smile

a few weeks ago i watched the fault in our stars with a friend. it was... an experience. it was the first time i had ever been in a situation with so many teen fangirls in one place without being a teen fangirl myself. (because, yes, we went to a ya book's movie adaptation on the saturday night of its opening weekend and were then surprised that we were outsiders in the theater.) i can only assume that it was the feeling you would have gotten going to a harry potter midnight book release if you liked the books, sure, but were the type of fan that did not have every character and their house and patronus memorized. the type of fan that didn't own nor particularly care to own any potter-world merchandise outside of the books. it was awful because at the point where the plot turns sad and the tears started building up, the entire theater burst into sobs, and my friend and i completely lost it. it was hilarious. and also completely distracting. the girl sitting in front of us had a little bun on the top of her head that bobbed up and down as she sniffled non-stop through half of the movie. the girls to the left had a frantic passing out of tissues moment when the lights went down. a girl behind us got up, said "i can't stay here," and ran out of the theater crying. one of the boys in her group, after asking the rest of the group if she was okay, went out to bring her back in and she spent the last ten minutes or so of the movie just sobbing. loudly. heart-wrenching-i-just-saw-my-entire-family-murdered-in-front-of-me sobs. it was completely over the top. (oh, and they clapped after every. single. scene.) i was biting my lip so hard to keep from laughing out loud that i'm surprised i didn't go right through it. my friend and i were shaking with silent laughter, because obviously we couldn't risk being killed by a theater full of over-emotional fangirls for having the wrong emotions. it was bad. 

but we made it through, and after leaving the theater and laughing for fifteen minutes straight, we started to discuss the movie. my friend, who hadn't read the book, thought the plot was pretty predictable. if you haven't read/watched it, you may want to just skip down to the next paragraph. you know it's a sad movie so you're expecting something bad to happen. the movie starts with hazel "dying" and then things just continue to get worse for her so you kind of assume that she's going to make it out okay, because there's no way it could be that obvious. gus, on the other hand, seems to have everything going for him, so you figure that he's screwed. it's just the way of books and movies and whatever. so when he dies, it's really sad, but it was also a bit expected.

anyway, i told her that it was less obvious in the book. but something i just read online made me realize that i was wrong. it wasn't just about reading the book vs watching the movie, it was more about when you read the book. i read the book before it exploded into something popular enough to warrant a movie. and i think that made all the difference in the world. because now, everyone knows that the book, and by extension the movie, is Sad with a capital s. you're in that mindset from the beginning, subconsciously preparing yourself for grief from the minute you start it. and when i read it, i had no idea that it was a Sad book. i knew it was about cancer kids, so i kind of thought that it would have a sad ending, but it was touted so much as Not a Cancer Book that i wasn't entirely sure. there was still that little thought that, "this might actually turn out good. there may be a happy ending after all of this." when you know that a book is Sad, there is no hope of a happy ending which makes it less sad then when that hope is crushed and spit on and then run over by a car. twice. 

and that's why i like to read books before the hype. that's what gets me. it's not about that weird hipster-real-fan mentality that is running rampant around the internet. (if i hear one more person tell me that they're a real fan of whatever book because they liked it before the movie, i will scream.) it's about the expecting. and i'm not talking about expectations not being met because it was overhyped or whatever, i'm talking about going into it with a particular mindset. i'd rather someone tell me that something was good/bad than sad/scary/happy. when you go in with a clean slate, everything is sharper. i like to have my feelings crushed and spit on and then run over by a car. twice. i like the feeling of realizing something is laugh out loud funny when i had no idea it would be. it's always funnier than when you expect it to be funny. i like that feeling when you have to pause reading to take a deep breath because this is totally not what you expected. i think that's why i'm having so much trouble getting myself to read any of the books that are becoming movies soon, despite actually wanting to read them. (well, that and the fact that i am in a serious reading slump still and oh my gosh i can't read anything these days.) 

*Smile - Lily Allen

i've been doing just fine

i am awful at telephones, let's just get that out there. i take time to mentally prepare myself before i have to make phone calls. this could be anywhere from ten minutes to two days depending on the nature of the call. (i don't think i have ever said "nature of the call" before in my life, and i feel like an idiot typing it, but there it is.) there are some days, though, that telephones do not bother me in the slightest. i will make a hundred and five calls and be ready to make twelve more. (i think a hundred and seventeen is pretty much my limit, though.) yesterday was a phone call day. which was awesome for the reasons that i will now tell you.

two years ago (or something like that), i was buying a ticket for an event and if i signed up for a trial month of one of those coupon-smart-shopper-whatever programs, i would get forty percent off the ticket. forty percent is kind of a lot, so i signed up. before my trial month was over, i called them up (horror of all horrors) and cancelled my subscription. the following month, however, i had a charge on my credit card for seventeen dollars. for the subscription that i cancelled. i kept planning on calling them to tell them that i should not have been charged, but a part of me kind of hoped it would just go away on its own. the following month, though, i was charged again. so i heaved a big sigh and called up the program people. after a long phone call during which i was passed off to several different people, i was finally told that my subscription was cancelled and i would be credited back the two charges within the next few days. only, i wasn't credited back anything. and the following month, i was charged again. 

i kept pushing off calling them again, and then kind of forgot, and only remembered at bad times, and then two years passed with me being charged seventeen dollars a month. every month. for two years. maybe a little more. and then finally, yesterday happened. and i called and cancelled my credit card. that i didn't use really ever and was only there to be charged seventeen dollars a month. and it feels awesome. i also made a whole bunch of other calls that i have been putting off for forever. and did all of those i-don't-want-to-but-need-to things. it was productive.

while i was feeling extremely gloaty and productive, though, the universe decided to knock me down a few pegs and i ate lunch twice. because i forgot that i had already eaten it. i remember thinking, "oh i forgot to have lunch. i'm not even hungry but people who are on top of things do not skip meals." and then after i finished i saw my plate from my first lunch sitting by the sink and i was like, "oh yeah. that's why i wasn't hungry." 

*Mr. Brightside - The Killers

if you're not here when i break in, i'm gonna go to your closet just so i can smell your skin

i spent most of my life without watching a single reality tv dating show. no bachelor. no bachelorette. no roses or rings or tears. i never even wanted to watch them. not in a i'm-better-than-that way, but in a never-grabbed-my-interest way. i would sometimes hear a recap on the radio the morning after it aired, and i would think... nothing. so i was surprised when commercials for i wanna marry harry aired on fox a few months ago and i thought, yes. i would like to watch that. (for those of you that don't know, twelve american girls went to england where they were competing - for lack of a better word - for a guy they all thought was prince harry but was really just a guy that looked a lot like prince harry. then at the very end he revealed his true identity to the girl he chose in hopes that she would still choose him back. spoiler: she did. and they won a quarter of a million dollars for not being shallow losers.) when the first episode aired i watched it on demand, as i do, and i thought, this is a show that i cannot watch an episode at a time. (i find that reality tv needs to be marathoned for maximum enjoyment.) so i waited. (and forgot about it.) the other day i went to fox on demand and found that all of the episodes were up. (i thought that they had all aired, but really the show was cancelled due to absolutely no one watching it and they just threw the episodes up because there was no point holding on to them.) the point of this story is, after watching eight episodes of a reality tv dating show, i have learned that people can be psychotic. one contestant (what the heck am i supposed to call them?) was straight up terrifyingly crazy and jealous and i was half expecting her to shank the other girls in their sleep the entire time. she was like text book crazy jealous girlfriend. it was both entertaining and horrifying. but mostly horrifying.

you would think that watching eight straight hours of reality tv would mean that i am not being productive, but you would be wrong. (yay insomnia caused by my body being stupid and not knowing how to deal with completely normal hormone fluctuations. still. nothing makes me not wanna get pregnant more than thinking about how my body is obnoxious with every day hormones and how it will go completely haywire with pregnancy hormones. was that tmi?) i have been doing some serious cleaning and reorganizing of my apartment. it looks roomier already. (i also finished crocheting forty plus turtles for my sister's scarf. i hate turtles.) 

*(One Of Those) Crazy Girls - Paramore

i know it's hard

back in high school, there was a running joke of sorts about my girl-scout-ness for lack of a better word. you know, because i did things like bake brownies from scratch and we had a craft room (slash box after we moved) in my house. they would make comments about how i probably made my skirt and my tights and my bag and... you get the idea. a friend wrote in my end of the year notebook thingie:

"I'll remember your craftiness/girl scoutness and how you practically made everything you own... I can imagine you probably made this notebook yourself you liar... that man didn't give it to you."

(those ellipses are not me editing the quote. we were all really big on ellipses back then....) she then wrote that if i was a shape i would be a rectangle, but that is neither here nor there.

anyway. it has been eight years since i graduated high school, and i feel like i am becoming the person that they said i was back then. i just want to make everything. i want to spend hundreds of thousands of hours knitting and only stop when my hands are so cramped that i can barely hold the needles. and even then, i'll just switch to crocheting. (who woulda thought? me, crocheting.)  i want every blanket in my house to be made by me. i want to knit all my clothes. (i'm not even joking, i had the strongest urge to knit myself an entire outfit the other day but i refrained because although i'm fine with being the person who wants to knit their entire wardrobe, i don't think i'm ready to become the person that actually knits her own clothes.) once i finish this turtle scarf for my sister, i plan on crocheting a teddy bear. because why not. i want everyone i know to have babies so that i can make them blankets and hats and sweaters and toys. i want to have made every pot, plate, and mug i own. every vase and box and bowl. i want to make my own notebooks. (i've only done paper-making once outside of science class in sixth grade, but i loved it.)

my most recent crafty urge is to take up weaving. my mom has this huge loom (that i totally plan on stealing someday) that we were kind of obsessed with growing up. so she bought a table loom (that i plan to take a lot sooner than someday) and taught us to weave. we made blankets for our dolls, but then moved on, like kids do. recently, though, i have seen a bunch of woven tapestries and cannot shake the feeling of i need to do that. summers are kind of crazy, so i asked my mom to reteach me to weave in the fall, which she said she'd do. but i still want to weave right now. i am trying really, really hard not to buy myself a lap loom which pretty much needs no teaching because that is fifty dollars that could be used on so many other things. but good god is it hard. if i make it to the end of the summer without writing about my new woven artwork for my walls, i think i deserve a prize.

*Keep Your Head Up - Andy Grammer