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

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

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

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

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

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

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