Grabby Hands

For all intents and purposes, I am frustrated.

I have taken the stand-back position and been under people for most of my time in STAC. I'm not trying to be a brat or 'grab for power' but I feel ready and am gunning for a chance. While I have for the most part enjoyed working with the people I have, I'm starting to get frustrated quickly when they can't figure something out and I see an easy solution. I don't want to hurt people's feelings, but sometimes it feels like I'm beating my head on a wall.

Also, I want to write. Straight out. I want to be able to sit and write and feel productive and I haven't felt that in a while. I wrote an eight page script for Creative Writing and we're about to start a scriptwriting unit, but I want to be able to show my work. I didn't put up anything last year, and I'm angry at myself for that and want to get back into it. I feel comfortable again. I want to show myself again.

I am a writer. I wanted to be treated as such. That's not asking a lot, I reckon.

Even If It Kills Me

I had never understood how people could feel like a song was describing their life until today.

While many of the juniors right now are struggling, I am probably in the best emotional and mental state of my life. Things that should be mentioned: 1, I was an unhappy child, and 2, the fact that I am in this state terrifies me; I don't want it to stop but this is also unfamiliar territory.

Anyways, today I was listening to a song and it hit me that the lyrics were in the same state of mind that I am in.

This is the chorus:
For the first time in a long time I can say
That I wanna try
To get better and overcome each moment
In my own way

And later:
For the first time in a long time I can say
That I wanna try
I feel helpless for the most part
But Im learning to open my eyes

The song is about someone who has been in a rut for a while. At first they tried to keep up, but then they let it slip and have been unhappy ever since. Now, the speaker is trying to get their life together, even though their not sure if it'll work. But the point is, as the song is named, they will try "Even if it Kills Me". It's by Motion City Soundtrack.

Update: Values

I’m still thinking about core values.

I think that in fact, my values are control, ability, and status. I think respect is a mix of status and ability. Status just sounds a bit more pretentious, so I think I was embarrassed to use it.

Some other cool mixes I thought of that work for me:
Control + Ability = Protection, Perfection, Productivity
Control + Status = Power, Comfort, Escapism,
Status + Ability = Confidence, Comfort as well?

My hardest one to figure out is family/relationships. I thought they stemmed from respect, but I can’t figure out how to fit it into one of the roots. If anything, the only explanation is that it might just come from ability.

Status

Doing all of these posts so close together has really streamlined my blog titles. Some of the titles I've looked back on from Freshman and Sophmore year were much more creative, but I have to look into every post to see what they were about.

Doing the koans and values today was much easier than it has been over the last two years.
This year, my values are control, ability, and respect. Emily isn't very convinced by my respect argument, but I can only talk so much. I also realized that manipulation, which isn't exactly a value of mine but a habit, stems from control and ability. I like tricking people into doing what I want. I thought helping people might've been one of my core values but i think it might actually fall under ability and respect. I think my koan might be "why can't people do what I want them to?"

After school, I was talking to Emily and she told me that when we were looking at each other in the exercise, she saw that I was high status. I feel that my status is a very complicated matter. I was high status as a child, and by nature, but I became very self-conscious and forced myself into a low status mindset. I've been in this mindset since kindergarten.

I only came to terms with this over the summer. Around the time in my life where I taught myself submission, I realized how controlling I was and refused to ever be in charge of things. I changed these things about myself, buried them deep, and never wanted to be an open book for anybody. I think it's important to say that it was around this time that my nervous habits started: biting my nails, picking at my skin, trichotillomania.

Again, I only came to terms with this recently. My way of dealing with not being controlling was to be incredibly indecisive, and now I'm in a position where I'm trying to ease myself back into my nature. I'm scared that with my friends, if I were to start being higher status, they would stop liking me because my personality would shift. My family knows me as a more confident, in charge person. Not many people outside of it do.

Sufjan Stevens and the 50 States Project

I am 94% sure that Sufjan Stevens is my favorite musician. Of all musicians. And that was a bit hard for me to accept because I listen to such a plethora of music that I've always deemed it impossible to pick a favorite.

A couple of years ago, he came out with an album, Michigan, which I plan on getting for Christmas because I've only heard one song off of it and I have that much faith in him. He then made a statement that he was going to start the 50 States Project where he'd put out an entire concept album for every state. His second album in the series, Come and Feel the Illinoise! is my favorite of his albums. Songs like the Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us! and John Wayne Gacy, Jr. and Casimir Pulaski Day can wreck me emotionally. His most famous song, Chicago, is gorgeous and somehow appeals to a mainstream audience. The tour he went on for the album included a small orchestra and an intricate stage while he and all of the musicians involved wore wings. The album had so many demos that he wished he could put on the album that he made a separate album for the outtakes.

After Illinois, it is disputed whether he decided it would be too difficult to put out FIFTY CONCEPT ALBUMS or that the entire time the project was a joke.

Right now, I've had his song Christmas Unicorn stuck in my head for the whole weekend. He has two (x) (x) dual-part christmas albums out with exactly 100 songs in all. In these albums, he doesn't usually use the expected, classic christmas songs but instead writes his own. If he does the classic songs, he changes them drastically. Not for these christmas albums, but for the presidential election last year he released a version of the Star Spangled Banner that is close to unrecognizable.

Either way, I feel like he's one of the most intelligent, genius lyricists and all out musicians of this generation.

Shakespeare Workshop

I was given the choice between the Shakespeare Workshop and the Playwriting Workshop. I chose Shakespeare, and while it was definitely interesting, I want to walk you through my reasoning because it might not have seemed reasonable.

When I was asked, I immediately weighed my options. With the Shakespeare workshop, I could learn more about acting and actors limits and how to talk to them to get a better performance. In basic terms, I wanted to see the stage from another point of view. Also, I had already picked out my sonnet, #CXXI (121).

I put that up against the playwriting and what I would get out of it. I feel like I might actually be the most versed in playwriting in STAC currently, and I even made a post awhile back on why other people should get into it. It might've looked bad to not take the workshop. Also, the head of the workshop is really good, and I could've learned a lot. I chose the Shakespeare, but that doesn't mean I don't wish I could've taken the playwriting and I've even gotten to points where I regret my decision because of how much I could've gained. I wish I could have taken both.

But I have to remind myself that it isn't worth it to regret. I can only enjoy what I do from here forward. And it is a fun workshop. So it's not like I've drawn a significantly shorter straw.

Hate and its Counterparts

I do not use ‘hate’ lightly. I find it tasteless and only desensitizes people from how serious an accusation that is. Hate is a raw word, that we have turned into a basic term to the point we have to use words like ‘detest’ to get across the true meaning of the original word.

That being said, I find it disgusting when people say that something or someone they don’t like isn’t talented. I hate it.

I’m cool with when someone says “it isn’t my taste” or “the talent(s) shown here aren’t something I appreciate due to who I am as a person”. But for some reason, people want to blame the product rather than just say it isn’t for them.

I have been around plenty of people who don’t like pop music. And I think “good for them, they have their own opinions and I can respect them”. But some people feel it necessary to slam pop music. I used to be one of them, but I’m not anymore and I see the error in my ways. For some people, pop music is what they love, and who am I to say that it’s a talentless medium and that the artists who have put so much into it themselves are useless? I just saw the video of Eminem live at the Youtube Music Awards and it was mesmerizing. Halfway through, though, I remembered how many people I know who don’t like rap music and back up their opinions with ‘it sucks’. To you, it does. But to some people, it is the best thing since sliced bread and you have no right to make a blanket statement that you expect everyone to go along with like that.

The thing I have to back up most with this argument is fanfiction. Personally, I love fanfiction. I follow a large community of people who love fanfiction online. When I tell people that I love fanfiction, they want me to back it up. Okay, sure. But people have this preconception that they hate it, and I think the main reason is because they think it’s poorly written internet garble by whiny teenage girls, which, it is not. One of my favorite books, the Devil’s Mixtape by Mary Borsellini was originally an ebook. In it is my favorite quote on how people treat teenage girls, and I think it’s spot on.

“As soon as teenage girls start to profess love for something, everyone else becomes totally dismissive of it. Teenage girls are open season for the cruelest bullying that our society can dream up. Everyone's vicious to them. They're vicious to each other. Hell, they're even vicious to themselves. It's terrible. 
So if teenage girls have something that they love, isn't that a good thing? Isn't it better for them to find some words they believe in, words like the 'fire-proof and fearless' lyrics that Jacqui wrote? Isn't it better for them to put those words on their arm in a tattoo than for them to cut gashes in that same skin? Shouldn't we be grateful when teenage girls love our work? Shouldn't that be a fucking honor? 
It's used as the cheapest, easiest test of crap, isn't it? If teenage girls love a movie, a book, a band, then it's immediately classified as mediocre shit. Well, I'm not going to stand for that. Someone needs to treat them like they're precious, and if nobody else is ready to step up, I guess it's up to us to put them on the path to recognizing that about themselves.”

People think that since a lot of fanfiction is written and read by teenage girls that it must be garbage. But some of the best writing I’ve read in the past year has been fanfiction. I think a lot of these teenage fanfiction writers are so scared to show people their talent because of the ridicule usually placed on them that they stop trying. But putting it on the internet for people with similar interests helps build up that confidence.

While I’ve never written nor published fanfiction, I felt that way when I put up my portfolio blog. I am super proud of it and I want people to read it. I didn’t expect to feel that way. Now, I want to shake people and tell them “Look at my work! Look at what I’m proud of! Be proud of me!” I feel much more confident in my writing in general now, and it’s amazing. I’m even considering putting as short story I wrote for Creative Writing on there because I’m so proud of it, and I want to show it to people. I’m just not sure that since it wasn’t written for STAC and was written for a class if that’s okay. An answer would be nice. Thank you.

As A Writer

I have many role models. They range from writers to musicians to teenage bloggers to dead revolutionaries. Some are real and some are fictional.

I latch on to these people. With real people, sometimes their happiness can sometimes dictate my own. I live vicariously through these people.

I think that’s what most writers do. We live vicariously through our characters in order to feel accomplished or even alive, whatever you’d prefer to call it. Recently I wrote a short story where one of the characters had been shot and I felt it. I felt this thing sitting restlessly in my gut. I have to be able to get into these character’s heads in order to know their actions and what they’d say, but to do that I have to lose a bit of myself.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think every writer puts a bit of themselves into their characters. It’s impossible not to. But I definitely try to not make it the same part. Everyone has millions of facets swimming around in their bodies, little quirks that separate us. That separate ourselves into different pieces on the inside. As an artist, I don’t want to make the same thing over and over again. While I use a lot of the same themes and have a style that is hopefully my own, I don’t want to be a one trick pony. I have to convince myself that I’m not, or else I wouldn’t be able to write anymore.

The Social Network.

My favorite movie ever is Twilight The Social Network. I love everything about it. I feel like the casting was spot on, the acting spectacular, the score gorgeous, and I can rewatch it over and over. David Fincher is an amazing director. But I think my favorite thing about it is the script. I haven’t seen nearly enough of Aaron Sorkin’s work (this is the only thing I’ve seen, I’m open to suggestions, and I plan to see the West Wing by the end of the year) but this movie makes me want to take in everything he’s ever done.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the Social Network is based on the conception of Facebook. It received eight Academy Award nominations, won three of them, and won four Golden Globes. I feel like it deserved every single one.

I have trouble vocalizing my opinions constantly in person, but even online, having time to think and pick my words carefully, even though I first saw this movie three years ago and have watched it probably six or seven times since then, I’m still speechless. I think that says something. I can only praise it. I can only link my favorite scene to people as a clip on Youtube.

I need people to watch this movie and flip out about it as much as I do. I need someone to talk about it with me. I need someone to help me find the words so that I can finally express my pure awe about the shots and the inflections and that power brought to each scene by actors you wouldn’t expect, some having been absolute nobodies beforehand. This movie made me take Justin Timberlake seriously as an actor. This movie fueled my love for Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, before the Spiderman craze. I need someone to be as crazy about this as me.

Salinger

A couple nights ago, I watched the Salinger documentary that came out a couple months ago and was recently released on Netflix. Now, I read The Catcher in the Rye a few months ago, and just rewatched Finding Forrester a week or two ago, so I was definitely in the right place to watch it. But I wasn’t expecting to learn as much as I did about him.

First of all, I can’t believe that I hadn’t at least read his Wikipedia page before going into it. I look everything up on there. I know way too much about Elizabeth Bathory and Delphine LaLaurie and some of the colleges I’m looking into. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s my system.

I didn’t know that he was in the army. I didn’t know that he was attracted to teenage girls. That definitely changed my opinion of him a bit to say the least. Now I was never one of the people in the documentary who identified heavily with Holden. I just wasn’t. I felt like I knew him, because he reminded me of one of my friends, but that was it. I understand how irritated he was by the fame and the christening of having written THE coming-of-age novel. I don’t understand why people were so personally offended that he pulled himself out of the spotlight, because I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

My personal favorite young adult fiction writer, John Green, is having his latest book made into a movie. While it isn’t my favorite of his books, it is for a lot of other people. While this isn’t the main plot, one of the things that happens to the main character is that she gets to meet her idol, a famous reclusive writer who wrote a cult favorite book. And he was not what she expected at all. That happens a lot with famous people or those in the spotlight. People put them on a pedestal, and I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it’s right. I’m going to make another blog post on this, but when Luke asked us who our role models or people we aspire to be in our daily lives are, around ten people came to mind. The one that I’d probably get most ridiculed for is probably Harry Styles.

It isn’t because he’s a musician or because he’s famous, it’s because he honestly seems like a good person. Don’t believe in the hype. I honestly don’t believe the hype that he’s a womanizer or is going to leave the band etc. Because you have to look at what he does when no one’s watching. I’ve seen post upon post of things he’s done when no one was looking, and he honestly seems like a good kid. I’d want to be friends with him. Also, he dresses really well. But I digress.

I don’t think I could handle being friends with him, let alone meeting him. I’m a wimp, I know, but I know my limits and I know that if I wasn’t in a perfect state of mind I would regret everything said or done looking back.

Salinger was a person, not a statue, not an idol. And when people forget that, what can you expect?

The Zine

I’m not sure how to start this. I love the zine, I properly love it. I just wasn’t expecting to as bratty as that might sound.

Starting out with the project, it was originally just for the writers. While we didn’t have a lot done, we had a name and a theme that went along with Halloween. So, after I missed a day of school, I came in and suddenly everything was different. It felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me and I was immediately a bit unrightfully offended. Things change. But that was how I felt in that moment. That first day when I found out it was suddenly a group project and I went to write, I got nothing done. It wasn’t that I actively wasn’t doing it out of rebelliousness, but I’m not going to say that something wasn’t brewing under the surface that I wasn’t aware of until looking back.

The next time that we worked on it, I felt better about it. More comfortable. I let myself go and wrote some poetry that I ended up using in the Zine that I liked enough that I put it on my portfolio blog almost immediately.

My favorite part of the entire process was probably the putting together of it all. I love and feel proud that I was able to be the one putting it all together and in order. I felt like I had control in a way that I hadn’t felt since I wrote out that page of shots last year that, when I showed it to people, they were kinda floored by how much I loved the organization of it all.

I love having that kind of control. I’ve taken my entire library in my room down and reorganized it twice in the past six months, and I have over 200 books. I haven’t counted. In middle school, I used to clean other people’s lockers for them and when they’d try to pay me I’d never accept. Even if I found money in their lockers, I’d give it to them immediately. Now, I have trouble being personally organized, even though I just did a major cleaning of my room because Lex is having a party in three weeks. I feel a different kind of comfort in either situation, clean or messy. Right now I feel cleaner and more clear headed with the clean room, while when my room is messier I’m more artistic and think in a less conventional way.

Anyways, the Zine. Seeing the finished product, and having it now, I know I’m going to keep it for a long time. I still have the Metamorphosis playbill and the edition of OPUS that I was in from freshman year. I keep these kinds of memories. I need them.

En Route : Destination Unknown

I am a writer. I write things. This year, I’m taking the Creative Writing class offered, have a teacher I actually like (even though my classmates are pretty pretentious), and I’ve been writing more and I honestly believe it is making me happier.

For some reason, this makes me want to do art. Right now, I’m excited about something I’ve been working on in that class, but I don’t want my writing to overlap. Also, I’ve wanted to pursue art for awhile now.

I’m actually worried about it, though. I feel intimidated by the quality reached by a lot of other people in class, and when I draw it is in a very different style. One of my biggest fears is being the odd girl out, without having already accepted that role privately. Therefore, all of my art is reserved in that I am not quick to show it, and am very protective of it. I’m even afraid it isn’t art at all.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to stop writing, I just want to even it out a bit.

On another note,

I am really proud of my portfolio blog. It’s linked at the top of my blog and I’ll even link it here again. It’s a new feeling for me to be openly proud of my writing. Commonly, it is thought that people who say that they’re modest are in fact not so. But, I am modest, especially about my writing, and don’t give myself enough credit. This is me giving myself credit. And I want people to read my work. I want to grow confidence, even if it’s slow but sure.

Songs I’m Currently Obsessed With:

Female Doctor by Miniature Tigers

Sigh No More (featuring Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon) by Joss Whedon, from the Much Ado About Nothing Original Score

Unfinished Masterpieces

The Sagrada Familia is a world-famous catholic church in Barcelona that begun construction in 1882. After 131 years, it is still unfinished. Antoni Gaudi, the original architect on the project died 87 years ago. In his lifetime, he took his time perfecting his plan, stating "my client is not in a hurry." That now seems like an understatement. The Met's website has reported that it is expected to be completed in 2026, as well as linking an accompanying video showing a projection of what it is expected to look like upon completion.

The first time I ever registered the story of the Sagrada Familia was in April. I watch a lot of slam poetry, and one of the poems referenced the church. The poem is titled 'Legos (Unfinished Masterpieces)'.

I've said before how I make mix cds for people as birthday presents or presents in general. Sometimes, I put slam poems as the last track. For Matt's birthday in June, I gave him a mix cd with the poem on it. I never got his feedback on it, but I feel it was a fitting choice.

The poem is performed by two people, Bobby Crawford and Kieran Collier. It goes without needing to be said that the performance is intense. That's kind of the point. But at times, these boys are screaming, using voices that are no longer theirs. They have found a comfortable place and made it a minefield. The poem is a constant roller-coaster, going from poetic to contemplative to madman to soft-spoken.

The poem itself is slightly comedic, telling the story almost from a child's perspective of how serious building legos are. This is a running theme, obviously. It goes on to mention Mozart's unfinished symphonies, the Sagrada Familia and how Antoni never lived to see it finished. Our one dollar bill has an unfinished portrait of George Washington on the front and on the back, a pyramid that died in construction. "We carry incomplete manuscripts in our wallets." Near the end, they acknowledge their pride at being able to create a single poem, when all of these things have gone undone.

It ends on a note of consideration. Throughout the poem, going back to the point of it being a child's perspective, there are consistent situations where family members get in the way. Members of the families keep stepping on their childhood masterpieces, but "please don't step on my dreams." This theme grows larger as the poem goes until the end.

"Every cathedral is an unrealized metaphor. Every construction is an unfinished masterpiece. Every creation is an unbelievable accomplishment.  Please, be careful where you step."

Amanda Palmer to Neil Gaiman to Maurice Sendak

Over the summer, Amanda Palmer put out a blog post about her husband, Neil Gaiman's new book. The blog post was emotional. It discussed the artistic process and how it works individually for everyone. She uses this metaphor that every artist's processes are a blender, different artists just have it on different settings.

For example, Amanda keeps hers around a 2-3 (closer to reality) while Neil is an 8-9 (dwelling deep in fantasy and mystique). I think I'm all over the place, although I do tend to stay on the lower end of the scale. Amanda said that in this book, Neil turned his blender much lower than his usual, making it a challenge.

The book was fantastic. A week or two after I read the blog post, I went to my local library to take it out. This was in July, and the waiting list was so long I didn't get it until mid-September.

Now, I don't want to give anything away. It's a book about a man who went back to a place from his childhood and relives one of his childhood memories, in the most literal terms. This book has earned it's spot on my christmas list, because I know I'm going to need my own copy in the future. But that's not what I need to talk about.

The quote used as an introduction to the book is a Maurice Sendak (author of Where the Wild Things Are) quote from 1993. "I remember my own childhood vividly... I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them." When I read this at the beginning of the book, I understood it personally, but didn't take it all that seriously. Over the past year, I've only started vaguely informing my parents of some of my darker-toned memories. After reading the book, I truly understand why this was a perfect fit to start out the book. The entire book is about memory and it's inconsistencies.

Sometimes I sit and just ponder how I've made it this far in life, in my head, knowing all of the things I've known. Seeing all the things I've seen, hearing... you get the point. I spent a long time self-pitying, and I still haven't quite found a spot where I can tell the truth about a lot of my childhood without my emotions getting in the way. I'm an emotional person, sue me. My parents are great people, and I've gotten to the point where I'm scared of talking about what has happened because sixteen years is a long time, enough for a lot of mistakes.

I remember my childhood vividly. I remember my brother's crib and climbing and embarrassment. I was a very self-conscious child. I knew terrible things. I remember the fighting and my sister cutting open her eyelid and my great-aunt being taken away in an ambulance. I don't like telling adults, because I wasn't supposed to remember. No one wants their kids to remember. But I've realized: it's kind of inevitable.

I am not Happy right now.

I am angry.

The government shutdown after everything that has gone on over the past year politically has gotten to me.

My biggest issue is the criticism President Obama faces from the Tea Party and many Republicans. The fact that every year, each party seems to become more and more polarized is upsetting and frustrating.       

When President Obama threatened to go into Syria, he received flack from all kinds of people, especially conservatives. Okay. That's their opinion.

But when we came to a peaceful resolution as opposed to a military strike, they had to take up issues with that as well! Even though they didn't want to go into Syria in the first place, now that they weren't, all they could talk about was how now Obama was "weak" and "a liar" who "cannot safely govern the American public".

Now, the budget.

The entire budget situation makes me, in plainest terms, upset.

It's hard for me to see and know how many people are going to be furloughed and/or out of work and not feel immediately terrible for those losing income which could threaten their livelihood. Every week that the government doesn't come to a conclusion, the economy suffers from a billion dollars not being in active circulation. We could go into another recession.

This entire problem is based in how the Congress (dominated by Republicans) won't pass the budget because they refuse to accept the Affordable Care Act, which, still went into effect despite the shutdown because it is separate in a way I don't fully understand. The ACA has been in law since 2010. The Supreme Court has upheld it's verdict that the act is constitutional. I can't help but pull my hair out because this is all so ridiculous and pointless.

When I get older, I currently plan on being a writer and a social worker. Those are two of the lowest paying jobs in the country. I would probably benefit from the ACA rather than be faulted.

From my father's point of view, it would only hurt him. In a few years, he's going to need to get his pacemaker replaced, and there will be a tax implemented on him if he doesn't do it in a timely manner. My dad is also still convinced I'll turn out to be a Journalist for the NYT, no matter how many times I correct him.

I side with the act. I side with taxation that would make the country better as a whole. I'm a socialist, sometimes even communistic, I'll admit it. I'm an idealist, and I don't plan on losing that for anyone.

When we had to write on cards in the four person groups saying what project we'd want to do, there was an immediate feeling of failure going around before we'd even begun! I kept having to reiterate that we had to brainstorm under the impression that our idea would prevail.

Many Republicans are expecting the act to fail to the point where they don't even find trying a viable option. That isn't what America is about.

Tomorrow, the spirit week theme is 'America'. I'm not feeling all that spirited right now.

Political Animals (and a little bit of Breaking Bad)

Last summer (2012), the USA Network put out a mini-series titled Political Animals. The entire time it was originally running, I wanted to watch it, but never got around to it. It was only 6 episodes, after all.

I was wrong not to watch it. I ended up marathoning it; not because I wanted to, but because it was addicting. Sigourney Weaver was the main character, a former first lady who starts out running for President and ending up Secretary of State (sound familiar?). She divorces her husband, has two adult sons (one is gay and the other engaged), and while in office as Secretary of State decides again to run for President.

All of the things that are coming to me to talk about are spoilers, therefore I'm holding back. But. What I can say, is that as a drama, it not only surprises you and keep you on the edge of your seat, but it appeals to your emotions. The quality level was the same as Breaking Bad (which I just finished and if I may be so eloquent : ohmygod) or a netflix original (even though I have a lot of problems with Orange is the New Black, I cannot say it isn't a quality program). And the finale was everything I wanted. As with Breaking Bad (I'm going to be talking about this show a lot for the next few days), the finale found a way to tie up so many of the loose ends and give closure and you can see how this truly is the end and tries to help you do your best to find peace. That's a bit of a ramble, isn't it?

On friday morning, first period, my history teacher started talking about how politics are like reality television, if you understand the jargon. I already knew this to an extent, but after seeing this show, I understand it even further. In my last Breaking Bad comparison, the shows also both have strong female leads. And I think that was one of the things that appealed to me.

While I wasn't around or paying attention to the reactions to Political Animals when they were happening, with Breaking Bad, there were a lot of people who really hated Skyler, the wife and mother. That's actually a surprising form of misogyny which a lot of people refused to acknowledge for a long time and some still do.

Now, I loved Skyler. No one I know liked Skyler. But, when I'd ask their reasoning, they couldn't give valid reasons. A lot of it was that she was a strong woman who stood up to her husband and for some reason that made people dislike her. People have actually begun calling it the 'Skyler White Syndrome'. I just want to leave on that note. Misogyny is still widely prevalent in pop culture, which, I mean, we all know. But. It's interesting to see it in a show of such high quality and critical acclaim. Also, watch Political Animals. I guarantee you won't regret it. It's only less than six hours of your life.

'I Love My People'

It's 12:26 AM, and I still have to take a shower. I'll try to make this quick.

I make mix CDs for the people I love. I don't know if I've talked about this in the past, in depth, but I do. Mostly they're for Birthdays or Christmas, and sometimes they're because I feel like the person needs it, but sometimes it's because I feel like I need to give them something to show I care.

I'm not the best at vocalizing my feelings, at all, and writing is the only semi-coherent way  I feel that I can actually do it. Through music, it's different though. I can take someone else's words and make them my own. Throw my own emotions on top and show that I care enough to pick songs, put them in an order that I feel fits best, and then hand write out the tracklist, usually along with a short note of my utter love and devotion.

I've been doing this for, I want to say, at most five years, at least 3 and a half. I feel like I've gotten better with time. Right now, meaning, earlier today into what will probably take until tomorrow night, I'm making Emily one. I felt like I needed to after hearing this one song, 'About Sophie' by Keaton Henson. 

My friends are the some of the most important people to me on the planet. I feel like that's an obvious thing to say, but I feel it in my core. It's important for me to express me emotions for them or else I feel like I'm doing them a disservice by not telling them how absolutely amazing they are all the time. Being able to do things for people I love through a hobby I love is a luxury I wish everyone on the planet had. 

12:38. Time to shower. 

Does He Know Not To Talk About Your Dad?

Over the weekend, I fell in love with the singer-songwriter Keaton Henson. Specifically, I fell in love with his debut album from 2010, Dear.

Last year, I found a blogger (who I still religiously follow) who described one of the types of music she likes as "Men who sound like they might start crying at any moment." Henson is one of those men.

His song, 'You Don't Know How Lucky You Are' has brought me to tears on numerous occasions. This blog title is actually a lyric from the song. His music videos are what get me, though. In the music video for the previously mentioned song, the entire video is just a woman dressed as a pioneer in a field/valley holding back from crying. From one angle. Slowly panning out, so that by the end of the video, you're only out to about from her head to waist. Now, this reminds me of FOT/PHOT, which we learned about last year. For newbies, FOT stands for "Freaking Obnoxious Thing". I'm obviously paraphrasing. And PHOT is an even more obnoxious way to think about it. In the end, it's anything that is so pretentious while making no sense that it kills you inside. But. Me being me, I can pull a symbol out of anything, even if it's a stretch. 

So in the end, I love the video.

Another song of his, 'Small Hands', has an actually beautiful music video. It's an animated/claymation/puppet video (I'm not quite sure which), focusing on the story of a small forest. There's a pair of owls, a pair of rabbits, and a pair of frogs. Throughout the video, a member of each pair is killed, and then you have to watch the ones remaining live on. The rabbit is the one that gets me. The rabbits start out sleeping in their den. A fox comes in, and eats one. The rest of the video, you see the lone rabbit shivering in it's sleep and finally, it isn't in the den any longer. 

I have never felt such a close relationship to a puppet. It both puzzles me and amazes me how well the emotions were conveyed in the video. I highly recommend it. I highly recommend Keaton Henson, as well.

Refresh

On Thursday afternoon, I finished Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. It’s a play that was written 1962 and first performed as well. And I love it.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been in STAC for three years now, since Freshman Year. That year, the writers did playwriting. I fell in love. Luke gave each of us a book of plays to read, and mine were by Albee. The two scripts were The Zoo Story (1958) and The American Dream (1960). I still talk about those plays whenever plays in general come up, and this Christmas I plan on adding them to my list.

They have influenced me a lot, both as a storyteller and a thinker. The creativity and new thinking expressed in them shocked me.
Before STAC, I had never read a play. I knew that in High School I’d be reading Shakespeare, and I was ready for that, but I was very inexperienced in general about plays. I had never read one. The entire format surprised me, and made me want to try. Now, I do not fancy myself a screenwriter. I get so caught up in the visuals, the cinematography, it becomes harder for me to get across the story. I think that partly has to do with my inability to feel adequate using sub-par materials. I know, it’s picky of me in a situation I cannot afford to be picky in. But that’s what I like about plays, you know what you have as a base and you can only go up. You put a blank stage in your head, and build upon it. Movies are already so many things. Plays have layers you can physically see. I also love the live-ness of it all. I love that every time you see it, there’s something new to every performance.

This is a pitch for plays. Everyone should at least try them out. But what’s important to me, is finding what you love, and sticking with it. From what I’ve read, I love Albee. Sure, I’m willing to try new things, but I don’t plan on giving up what I already have in the process.

See you guys tomorrow.

A Blind Library: Podcasts

When you google ‘podcasts’, you get exactly 103 million results. I’ve fairly recently become very interested in podcasts. I have this romanticized view of old radio, like soap operas and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and podcasts feel like the last hope of a dying breed. People always say that today’s generation and daily life requires a shorter attention span, but podcasts challenge that. People will sit down and listen, if it’s something worth listening to for them.

I didn’t think I would enjoy this medium when I first fell into it. The only podcasts I had ever listened to were opinion pieces done by youtubers whom I was already used to enjoying visually as well as audibly, and interviews done with the talented and famous, which I personally think watching an interview is much more interesting than listening to one. But.

That was before.

The reason I started this new medium of podcasts was because I found out about this ‘fantasy’ storytelling/news broadcast, Welcome to Night Vale. Every time I try to explain Night Vale correctly, I never end up doing it justice. Night Vale is a small town in the Southwest deserts of America. Welcome to Night Vale is never what you expect. It’s supernatural while being rooted in fact. It’s ironic because that fact is fact in the story, not to you. Someone in Night Vale saying “There’s an army preparing for war against our small desert town with a hole leading down to their underground city under Lane 8 at the bowling alley” while being completely serious about it is completely unheard of for us. The fact that sometimes statements like this turn out to be true blows us out of the water even further. It’s all told through the voice of the community broadcaster, Cecil Baldwin. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

But I found out about Night Vale a month or two ago, so I think I should talk about the new one I’ve come across. It’s called All the Faces of the Moon by Mike Daisy. In the city, currently, Mike Daisy is performing a new monologue every night at seven p.m. until October 3rd (when I found out about it at first, I just wanted to go to a performance. Now I want everything). It’s going to conclude with there having been 29 separate monologues performed. Each monologue is performed minimalistically, using only a desk and a chair. Mike doesn’t really move. There is also a different oil painting present every night to go with each monologue, the artist being Larissa Tokmakova. He is telling stories of his life, which is now having him referred to as “the modern day Scheherazade”.

I actually love the story of Scheherazade. For those of you who don’t know, the story goes that there was this Prince in Persia who would marry a virgin every night and have them beheaded the next morning, after his first wife was unfaithful. One night, he took Scheherazade as his bride. But, in a tactical trick to save her life, she told him a story so wonderful that had such a cliffhanger that he had to keep her alive another night. After she’d finish one the next night, she’d start another and the cycle would continue. After 1,001 nights, and 1,000 stories, she told him she had no more stories. They were together for so long that they had children, and after so long, he had grown to love her. She is the speaker of the classic One Thousand and One Nights, alternatively titled Arabian Nights. I learned the story after reading a poem with ‘Scheherazade’ as the title, and I was interested.

But back to the podcast. The point is, All the Faces of the Moon, named because over the month every night a different face of the moon will show, is being uploaded every night after it is performed onto iTunes under the album name ‘All Stories are Fiction’. I’ve only gotten through one full episode so far, not counting the preface, because the episodes are thick intellectually and require you to pay attention, as well as being around an hour and a half long as opposed to about 20-30 minutes of Night Vale, usually separated around minute 15 or 20 by a song. I’m really excited to listen to all of them, though. I’m hooked. If anyone has any more suggestions for new podcasts, I’m totally open.   

I Overdid It, Didn't I?

Them Heavy People
The first few times I watched and listened to the song, it felt so disconnected to me. The video meant something completely different than the song. At first, for me the song was about learning something from those less fortunate. After listening to and watching it more than a couple times, I’ve come to a conclusion slightly different, but that slight makes all the difference. Now it feels like it’s about someone teaching you to be yourself and come out of your shell, in order for you to teach it to someone else, a constant “rolling the ball” of responsibility to help people.

My Verse:
my cage has cracked and I’m awake
instead of sleeping in all day
I was meant to scream out loud
not inside my pillow clouds
I don’t care for what I’ve done
living alive is much more fun

I know it’s pretty basic, but I am not one for writing lyrics. I’m very free-verse. Anyways, it’s all about being learning to live, really live, instead of just breathing and going along, just making it by.

Let's Be Alone Together

As I'm writing this, I'm coming home from a concert at the Barclays Center. I'm going to post the proper blog homework tomorrow, but something quick just came to mind that I wanted to share.
I'm excited. I'm really excited for this year. What is fueling this excitement is the fact that we have so many Newbies that have never been on a STAC trip. I get a strange feeling whenever I think about it. Usually, it's worry. The fact that we have so many people unversed in how we do things usually freaks me out, as well as that since we have almost an equal amount of Newbies to Oldies, I know that I probably won't get to hang out with all my friends on the next trip seeing as we'll probably get split up. But being in Brooklyn, so close to the city, made me much more confident in whatever may happen. STAC trips are one of the best things about the program, in my opinion, and I don't feel scared anymore about taking one. In fact, I want one as soon as possible. I want to feel the energy that goes along with these trips as soon as possible. I want the comradery, I want the friendship. I want a lot of things. I'm excited.

"I Need An Adult"

Over the summer, I have grown to strongly dislike the last post I’ve made on this blog. Since then, I’ve made three other drafted posts that I never posted mostly because they were all so strong. One was a pretty depressing look back on the past year, one was a crib notes on me for newbies, and one was about my expectations for the year. I’m going to try to summarize all of them now, as positively as I can, and only part of wanting to do this is to put off finishing my English essay. Let’s go.

Last year I was a depressing little brat who didn’t get a lot done and felt really bad about it. Done.

I suppose the most important thing that newbies need to know about me is that I don’t take bull and show my love through hitting my friends upside the head and using a lot of pet names. Some of them don’t sound very nice but I’m already kinda overemotional so I need to cut back in some places. I love the people around me and this program even very deeply and am loyal to the end.

I think that’s enough.

As an upper classman, this year I want to seriously take charge in making us as a unit more tight-knit and trusting of one another. I don’t want a repeat of last year (I doubt anyone does) and I am more that seriously willing to make a change. While I don’t want to put Luke in a position where he has to be a Nazi dictator, I want the upper classman to support him and if we have any problems then to try to discuss them dispute-free and privately instead of making them a public problem. I made all of my personal problems very personal last year and it’s never a good idea. I want this to be a respectful community of intelligent people who can handle things maturely. I want to lead by example and be a better person. Now, for my personal artistic growth in STAC.

I was talking to Ellen and she was saying that when an type five (enneagram talk) is unhealthy, they act like a seven. While I’m still pretty sure that five is my wing and not my dominant feature, I know that I’m not being myself, and while I want to fix it I’m also willing to try out the new skin first. I’m willing to try almost anything. While I love writing, I feel like I need a break. I’d be willing to spend more time on art or even (eek!) acting. I took quite a few pictures (150+) on a trip I took with Emily that I mildly obsessed over editing-wise on this fabulous app from Hipstamatic called ‘oggl’ that I highly recommend. Basically, I’m open to suggestions for this year.

Now, I’ve started thinking about the future. As my friends know, from the experience of me squeaking and squealing every time the subject is brought up, the future scares me. I’ve looked into colleges that I’m really set on, the only downside being they’re far away and, as college tends to be, expensive. Setting that aside for the moment, it’s important to say that the things I want to do with my life are rather varied. I know I’d love to take classes on European History and try out Slam Poetry and Performance Art, but professions are iffy for me. I’d love to write, definitely. Stageplays or screenplays or poetry or short-form word art, I’m open. But I’m scared. I really am. I think I’d also like to go into Social Work, which really interests me and my favorite poet is a Social Worker, but I’m worried I’d be “selling out” as an artist if I were to go down that road.

Even further down that road, despite the foggier it gets, I know I want to adopt or at least foster inner-city kids over the age of eight up to kids in their teen years, almost legal. I want to be able to give these kids chances, and I have since I was five years old. Because of this, I worry I won’t make enough money to financially support these kids, which goes back to professions which STRESS ME OUT. I don’t even put a spouse into the equation because while I’m set that I will get hitched, I’m not about to expect their professions or anything and don’t want them to shoulder all the work. I try to do as much as I can in these situations. Mostly out of guilt.

I’m getting too personal again. Oh well. Luke, I look forward to a comment about my inevitable accidental self-centeredness which I enjoy in a masochistic way tomorrow. Everyone else, I love you, and let’s make this a great year.

Too Tired to Think Completely Coherently

One of  the things I want most in the world is for people to know me before I meet them. Because of this, I constantly seek out roundabout ways to do this. I try to fit myself into categories, which, morally I don't even agree with doing such an act. I've realized that when I told all of my friends that I was an INFP, I secretly wanted them to look into it just because that was me telling them who I was. I understand from a thinking standpoint how that was unlikely and wrong of me, but I still feel it. I hate explaining myself, I hate making excuses for why I can't do things a certain way etc. I was giving out a play book. I was doing what I could to help others understand me.

I was being childish.

I'm getting back into art. It's almost five am and I haven't slept yet. I stayed up until two thirty working on a piece I started last summer. When I pulled it off of the bookshelf it's been collecting dust on for the better part of a year, my mom piped in that from her perspective I haven't been doing really any art as of late. I really want to finish this. I'm trying to set my mind into the framework that I will. I'll post pictures of it on a couple of days if I can actually get it on it's feet.

Finally, I saw Much Ado About Nothing last night and I cannot commend it high enough. It made me feel the happiest I have in months, and I've been pretty good as of late. When I left the theatre, I felt like I was walking on air. I want everyone to feel that level of elation and joy everyday, just once. I just want everybody to feel good.

A Group Effort at Self-Improvement

Over the summer, I saw a short comedy special by a comedian named Mae Martin on this fantastic comedy show called "Russell Howard's Good News". She began the last part of her bit with something along the lines of "Not to be a downer, but I think the world is ending." While I don't think the world is ending, I am a bit worried.

Ellen came over around noon today, and we spent about eight hours together. The first two hours were spent conversing one-on-one on my couch, talking about everything from what's been going on in her life, in my life, our friend group and finally, STAC.

When I say I'm worried, it's more of an underlying current on my mind that shocks me every once in a while, but it's still there. Right now, with STAC night coming up, it's hard to know how it's going to go personally because I don't think a lot of us know how each other's projects are going. And I'm worried even now about coming across as judgmental or disrespectful or even starting a bad chain of thoughts, when really it's like I almost need some kind of reassurance.

A lot of it is also a fear of how the present will affect the future. I realized we don't have a band together for STAC night yet, and that lack, not yet loss of tradition is just a bit disheartening. After no STACsgiving already this year, I'm worried we'll let it slide again next year. Once you stop doing something, it's hard to get it started again. Trust me.

I was telling Ellen how I want to have strong upperclassmen next year as well. We both agree we want stuff done next year, instead of loose ideas and constant second-guessing which I've seen first-hand. I want our seniors and us as juniors to set a strong standard of completion and pride in our work. Not to ever knock anyone for how things have been handled, but I want to be better. Last year, I felt like I saw the seniors acting and Ilana's poetry and the art and the music going on around me. It was a bit overwhelming, more intimidating. Looking back, it was great to be surrounded and immersed in. Maybe I'm romanticizing. I digress.

I honestly and completely don't think it's any one person's fault. For anything that's gone on this year, even. I hate placing fault on people. I like fixing things and moving forward (I get it from my dad). The main reason I'm posting this is because I want something to force me to be better next year, for people to be able to throw this at me if I'm not getting stuff done or if things start getting tough. I want to be held accountable. I think personal accountability is a big part of being an adult and deserving respect from others. I guess you could say I'm trying to make it a habit. Making being an adult a part time job.

I Am Better than the Worst of me I've Shown

It's hard for me to not start a blog post on a downer-note. Bad habits die hard.

For my birthday, Emily gave me a collection of Bukowski that's over 500 pages long and full of everything I could have ever wanted. I've been flipping pages in it for over a month now, but I've finally started reading it from the beginning through. I'm up to around 220, and I plan to get to at least 280 before I go to bed.

Poetry is addicting to me. I love just sitting and going through page after page of someone yelling at me or pleading or pledging or giving up. I can't seem to stop once I've started.

Ellen gave me a clean book she'd bound herself for my birthday and I love it. I've been using it as a place to write poetry when the mood fits, which I love. I've recently rediscovered things I loved in the seventh and eighth grade, and the nostalgia has overtaken me. Everything was so different the first time around with these musicians, these hobbies... But these songs mean so much more to me now.

Right now, I'm talking to Emily about how I grew up a long time ago. I may be bitter about a lot of things, but I'm not about that. Sure, it bites me in the bum every once in a while, but I don't regret it. I don't dwell on it. I guess that's strange to hear after I've spent the whole year practically wallowing in myself, but I can be positive depending on the topic. Right now, I'm listening to a band I gave up on a year ago, and I remember how little I was when I first heard them and how I had still seen too much for an eleven year old, but I was still so happy. Those are the memories I want to keep. I want to give myself the chance to remember the satisfaction of finishing something I'm proud of for me. I want to do the things that make me feel like sunlight. I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

I Don't Need This

In middle school, I had three people who I considered my closest friends. Emily, Michelle, and Manjot. I still consider these girls to be some of the most intelligent people in my life, and I'm exponentially proud to call them my friends. On Friday night, I had the longest conversations I've had in a while with Michelle and Manjot due to an irritation with the people I usually talk to, and I realized how much I miss these girls. They were my roots, and I had gone running back to them. Sometimes I forget how much I value them.

I wouldn't know these girls if it wasn't for Mr. Coleman. I really really hate when something bad happens and people start having existential crises, like when a teenager commits suicide and the entire school goes to the funeral when, really, the kid had a handful of good friends because they were bullied so extremely. But when I heard Mr. Coleman had died, my first thought was where would I be without him. I wouldn't be friends with who I'm friends with, I wouldn't think of myself as a 'writer', I wouldn't be in STAC. I guess that's the only justifiable reason I think it's okay to talk about on here.

I was irritated with my friends on Friday because no one had talked to me. No one messaged me, texted, etc. A not-so-well-kept secret of mine is that I get unjustly paranoid when people don't contact me. I won't go into it, but I have a rejection complex. So, when people don't contact me my first instinct is that they don't want to talk to me. 95% of the time, the fact that I interact with people with who don't like initiating conversation or are extremely busy is the reason, but I digress. It cyclically pisses me off. For example, Julian usually gets the brunt of my irritation because he hates being the first one to say 'hello' and I've yelled at him for it over three times in the past few months. I'm kind of clingy. I Hate Being Clingy. But a distaste for an aspect of my personality doesn't extinguish the trait, and thus I still have my moments. When I can, though, I try to thwart showing how upset I am.

That is a nice way of saying that I avoid them. Mostly because I think they're avoiding me. I'm crazy, don't question the crazy. So this time, I avoided them by talking to Manjot and Michelle.
The thing is, I wasn't expecting them to make me feel better. Not knocking them, they're great, but when you don't want to drink orange juice you don't expect to like it. But they did, they made me feel great. They both write, and Michelle does art, so it's not like they're any less messed up than the people I usually hang out with, but it was honestly like a breath of fresh air. And after talking to them, I feel a bit more level-headed. Full disclosure, I still haven't talked to my normal group. I'm still upset with them. This is kind of my passive aggressive way of saying it because I hate confrontation yet I feel like I need to get it out.

"You Get So Alone at times that it Just Makes Sense" is the name of a collection by Bukowski. I feel like the title explains me pretty well. I get this way where I think I don't need anyone, or, if I do then it's none of their business if I need them. When I'm upset with people, I get pretty freaking depression. Sorry. But it's also a bit empowering, because I give up for a little bit on talking and sometimes it's good to rely on yourself and your own walls to hold you up. Sure, I went to Manjot and Michelle, but it helped me realize I don't need the people I thought to save me. No one is completely necessary. Not saying I'm dropping anyone, but taking a few days alone isn't bad. I guess this is me saying I don't feel like a package deal anymore.

Who's in Charge, here?

I am currently working on a movie. What first started out purely as a writing project has somehow gained enough horse-power in my mind to warrant a visual medium equivalent. A few months ago, Luke was trying to get me to film a movie without any background and put meaning to it as I went. Looking back on it, it was torture. In the moment, I was okay with being frenzied and worried because that's what I was used to, to be honest, but now I realize that having no backstory just made me anxious. I need to feel some connection to what I'm doing in order to get it done. Even when I'm older and given projects I'll hate, I'll find a way to put my own stamp on it if it's the last thing I do or else I just won't be able to produce a final product. I'm rather stubborn, even when I don't mean to be.

Anyways, the film started out with me blabbering on about light and dark. I find how people interpret these things quite interesting and ultimately quite different than my own ideas. I started out trying to make each line short, under 140 characters, in a short-lived attempt to turn it into a twitter monologue. That has lead to a bit of my dialogue sounding a bit cheesy and rather serious in order to get to the point quickly. If you have spent five minutes talking to me, I just don't talk like that. (Getting to the punch line has always been a difficult task when I can't stop questioning WHY the monkey walked into the bar. (Was it of his own accord? Is this legal?)) I talk like half of my thoughts are meant to be in parenthesis. MOVING FORWARD. I spent quite a few days rewriting all of my notes and putting everything on one piece of paper. Giving myself that time was kind of necessary, I've realized, because that kind of intense OCD organization is something I really enjoy doing. I love filing things down, which I don't really get a chance to do anymore. Lex and I have shared our room her entire life, and she still hasn't figured out how I organize the closet. Also, my iTunes library is pristine. I once spent seven hours straight just sitting and finding out the years songs were released and their track positions etc. Bottom line, I'm broke, someone hire me to clean their house or something. I'd be down.

On Saturday I finally got to filming with Sarah, which a fifth of what I wanted to do couldn't be filmed due to the weather. Tomorrow I'll be working with Matt and Emily for a quick bit, which shouldn't prove too difficult at all seeing as they're lovely. The only problems I face is that I hate bossing people around. I swear, I wish on a daily basis I could communicate telepathically. I was taught to respect people and never put yourself above anyone and I've taken that to heart everyday. This is an insane problem with filming. I don't feel more important, even though I'm the only one who knows what we're doing. I should take public speaking. Or have a child. I need to learn how to be bossy.
That is probably the worst concluding idea I've ever had. It's one forty AM and I'm sorry.

Darling's for the Puppies, Love.

I'm going to write a blog post on everything I've been doing as of late tomorrow, but I just realized something about myself I've never thought about before and I just thought I'd share.

So, fairly recently I realized I overshare a lot in new relationships with people. When I meet someone, I jump in rather quickly to talking about various aspects of my life that would usually take months to address casually. Also, a few months ago, Emily and I were talking and she brought up that a few people that I knew quite a bit about because I'm a chronic listener felt like I knew more about them than they knew about me, and it's true. And these were people that I spent copious amounts of time with and consider close friends. It's not that I actively don't talk, it's just I talk a lot about the same things.

What I just realized, though, is that when I'm over-sharing I'm basically trying to steer the conversation. I will tell someone anything and everything about me I'm comfortable sharing if that means they won't have the opportunity to ask me about the things I'm not comfortable with. It's this strange paradigm where if I can get in as much as I can about my cats, we'll be forced to talk about my cats. Now, I'm not actively trying to keep people away from what I keep hidden, but if something gets too close I get agitated and paranoid. I'm a rather shy person (some might say cripplingly so), but with people I feel that I might have to deal with for long stretches of time, I spew. With short term relationships, like cashiers, I still have to whisper to my mom what I want. But that's not the point.

I'm just thinking about when we did those charcoal drawings and how Luke kept asking Megan about hers and how terrified that made me. I still have my drawing. I know what it means, and I don't want to tell anyone, because I honestly feel like I know everyone has misconstrued it. It wasn't about anxiety or stress or anything like that. Matt made a joke about it being like a Georgia O'Keefe, it wasn't. It might seem like I give a lot away, and I especially think that if people were to read a lot of the posts I have up here they would definitely come to that conclusion. But, I don't feel like I do.

I feel like I've paid a price. That I'm willing to give up all that I have on here and to basic strangers in order to keep the deepest parts of me sacred. Not to my parents, not to my therapists, not to my closest friends who I've told the most. I think everyone has those moments where they think "you think you know me, but you don't", but I think it reaches deeper for me. I don't let people know me. I don't want to be known.

Q4 - WHAT IS REQUIRED of YOU

A Major
I just spent an hour trying to figure out what I want to. Would I go somewhere new, somewhere experimental? I've just realized how much I frankly don't want to do that. Well, that's not completely true, I AM trying something new for me. But it's not crazy and most importantly to me, it doesn't scare me. I know a little bit of fear is good and all, but at this stage in my life a little comfort means everything to me. With that in mind, I'm running with my tail between my legs back to written word. I want to try my hand at short stories, mainly. My job in making all of these little movies has been to try and give up on a hold of the story and let it come to me. That has honestly made me so uncomfortable and questioning of my own capabilities as an artist. I want to try and take that control back. Whatever it takes to find my footing somewhere I can see the ground.

That said, I don't have a firm grasp on what I'd want the finally product of these endeavors to be. Putting together a collection at the end would be the obvious choice, my only qualm being it seems a tad pretentious. Pretentious is one of the top five things I don't want to present myself as. I already have pretentious working against me because I want to work alone. I want be able to do something without having to worry about it being judged in front of me. My community are the people I feel the least judged around. People who have become my closest friends. That's what I believe is going to keep me going through fear of being seen as an egotistical brat. The people who know I'm not. I don't know what I could be graded on. Getting stuff actually done in a timely manner is definitely one, but past that is all technical jargon that I have never excelled in. My apologies. I'm useless at the educational system.

A Minor
I used to love art, arguably more than writing. I want to get back into that. I miss the pride of putting out something visually great, and trying my hand at that again excites me. I haven't put out nearly enough that I'm proud of in too too long and that distresses me. The actual act of even just doodling though, that calms me down. Once I stop, I freak out, so I need to throw myself in when I can. That sounds great for a minor.

A Book
The reason I'm interested in short stories is completely dependent on my limited but so positive experiences with Bukowski. Because of that, I want to read a book on him. Also, he was a very interesting man. He didn't start really writing until he was middle-aged, and even then he was a cult favorite. He also seems all shades of crazy, which I'm depending on to make some juicy scandals.
I'm between these two, but I'm leaning towards the first. I need a tie-breaker.
http://www.amazon.com/Hank-The-Life-Charles-Bukowski/dp/0394575261
http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Bukowski-Locked-Arms-Crazy/dp/0802136974/ref=pd_sim_b_1

A Little Older, A Little Wiser

I honestly didn't realize how long my posts are until about five minutes ago. I don't mean to write so much, it just gets away from me after awhile I suppose. I think it might stem from me trying to compensate for my guilt of not writing enough personally. I don't sit down and just write anymore. This is the main thing. Everything else is up in my head running around in circles, and this is a therapeutic release for me. And I know as a result, my writing is becoming more disjointed and unclear in intent. For the most part, I read intense, feeling-centric poetry in my spare time which influences how I speak and express myself in general. While I find this medium enthralling rather gorgeous, that doesn't mean it has the same effect on others and I know that.

I think this is me apologizing. I feel bad and at fault for how hard I am to understand at times and it's important to me to show that I'm aware of my what can be easiestly described as my shortcomings. I feel like too many people go around ignoring aspects of themselves that can be irritating to others, and while you shouldn't change yourself for others, I think it's good to try and understand their point of view and why it might be found annoying. Just some food for thought, chickadees.

'Fire-Proof & Fearless'

"It's used as the cheapest, easiest test of crap, isn't it? If teenage girls love a movie, a book, a band, then it's immediately classified as mediocre shit. Well, I'm not going to stand for that. Someone needs to treat them like they're precious, and if nobody else is ready to step up, I guess it's up to us to put them on the path to recognizing that about themselves.”  - Mary Borsellini, The Devil's Mixtape

I find it embarrassing to admit, but for the first time in much too long, I've finished a book that I've thoroughly enjoyed. I honestly don't read enough, and it's one of my favorite pasttimes so I really want to get back into it. I think the Devil's Mixtape was an excellent choice to ease me back into the novel medium. It's style of writing is a melting pot, switching from past to present to letters to articles, all while keeping you wonderfully engrossed in the 'Cobweb' of storylines.

I don't know where to start with this book, honestly. Whether to talk about its content or its style or its characters.
Its content puts wonderful twists on pop culture references, questions spirituality, ponders the debate of nature versus nurture and whether fate exists.
Its style is reminiscent of writers you'd find on the internet (which is totally unexpected since it was originally published as an ebook), which is where I've been doing most of my reading for the past few months. This made staying involved easier than if I'd been jumping back into the saddle with A Clockwork Orange (which I tried).
The relationships between its characters are so freaking intricate that I had to reread the book a second time and make a chart of how characters were connected. Keep in mind, this book is set in mostly 1951, 1999, and 2011, so the fact that aside from one character, every single character in the book has some type of relation to at least two other characters.

The main characters of the book are, arguably, Ella, Sally, Amy and Charlotte.
In 1999, Ella is writing letters from hell to her baby sister after she helps orchestrate a school shooting which is basically Columbine but with three perpetrators instead of two.
In 1951, Sally and Amy are homeless teens travelling across Australia.
In 2011, Charlotte is a music journalist following a world-renowned rock band, HUSH.



I just sat back for a moment and realized it is completely impossible to explain the absolute brilliance of this book without giving away the plot. I can say the things that I did because of it (I started rereading it within the hour I finished, this time with two different colored highlighters and a pen with me because it's my copy and I can live with knowing I graffitied its pages in the name of highlighting every amazing quotable line and every foreshadowing hint in yellow, underlining in red every piece of information I'd like to look up such as people/books/movies/events/etc, writing in the margins every time a name was changed with the true ones, and highlighting in pink every quote, phrase or I idea I would consider inking my skin with) but my personal reaction is only mine. I can't claim anyone else would have the same connection with this book that I did.

I can only recommend it to the highest degree, hint that in ebook form it's only 3.99, and offer my now extremely marked physical copy to anyone that wouldn't mind the ink.

Sidenote: The language is also quite vulgar, so I suppose that wouldn't make it suitable to some audiences, but in the end it's that disregard for the fact that if people find something uncomfortable, they won't talk about it and bully others into doing the same. "Sometimes the only way you can talk about serious things is with dumb fantasy stuff and things that are horrible and funny. Just being serious about it isn't serious enough." (Borsellini, 38). Mary Borsellini isn't afraid to make some people uncomfortable and discuss serious topics, like what happens after we die, and I admire that.

Borsellini, Mary.  The Devil's Mixtape.  Los Angeles:  Omnium Gatherum,
   2011.

For the Record, I am not Georgia O'Keeffe

Well, that exercise we did today was interesting to say the least. For those of you who weren't there, we spent ninth period doing abstract charcoal drawings and every so often having others analyze the emotions expressed. First of all, I'd never worked with charcoal before and I immediately fell in love with the medium. But that's probably the most superficial thing I got out of the exercise.

The first drawing I did was described as 'sassy and angry', which I wasn't expecting but can't help but laugh about. I usually try not to use the word 'sassy', just because I feel like it's lost a lot of meaning in the public vernacular, but I suppose in it's true form I could be described as such. And, well, I know I can sometimes be described as angry, but I feel like in those times I am much more extroverted than is the norm for me. And I enjoy the feeling of extroversion, no matter how temporary, so while it might sound strange, I find myself to get a strange rush of pleasure when I get passionately angry about something. So, overall, hearing sassy and angry as a description of my piece and then as a description of me was some form of gratification that I haven't exactly figured out yet.

The second drawing I did started out as someone I have an issue with. The thing is, the reason I have an issue with this person is because, while we are very similar, these similarities are ones that I am not proud of and they seem to almost flaunt. So, I think that says something in itself about the nature of what I was doing. But, by the time mine was being discussed, it had turned a bit from the person I was angry at to the anger I felt and still feel towards our similarities. That turned into an anger and dissatisfaction with myself.

When I changed the orientation of what I was doing 180 degrees, suddenly I found myself in a different part of the piece. I was no longer the ball on the inside or the shading casting itself down upon it, but the lines surrounding it. I think that when we changed the orientation, it was supposed to become a more positive experience and lend a rebirth to the piece and the artist themself. That's not what happened for me. When I became this new part, the entire thing took a darker turn. Without consciously realizing it, I was drawing myself as a shield to the ball of energy in the middle. Looking back at the piece now compared to how I went about building it, I was letting myself do what felt right without questioning it. When I started rubbing in this mild darkness that slowly became think black lines near the edges, I was doing it because of what and how I felt about the lines and the balls and energy I associated with it. It felt right. Now that I've spent time looking at it, I can see a lot of deeper meaning than what I realized I was doing as I went about making it. It's much more personal now. When I was making it, I felt fine with showing it, but now I feel so exposed by it. I think that exposing feeling is what makes me want to keep it though.

That 'Yes' Feeling

My mom has always told me I am my worst critic. I agree with her to an extent, but that doesn't make me any more confident in my work. It is what it is. I feel like teens aren't criticized enough in what they do. Adults assume that 'it's good for their age group', and thus they never fairly critique the rather immature work. I prefer what I do to be put up against adults' and given honest feedback because even though I know it's not nearly as good as what the people I look up to are putting up, I'm going to be an adult sooner or later and I want to get better now rather than to learn the hard way of suddenly finding out what I've been doing my entire life was bollocks. I aspire to be 'great', and I know I have to start yesterday. That's why I question myself so deeply. Because no one else has the kahunas to tell me what I'm doing wrong, I take it upon myself. I sleep with Bukowski and Siken next to my pillow because if I can't sleep, that's what I'd want myself to go to. I go to garage sales and pick up the books and movies I've heard reviews of for a few bucks apiece because I want to have the opportunity to learn from them. I want to be able to see the intricacies of language and hear what makes a record spectacular. I want to know why I love the things I love. I want to have the tools to root out what that 'yes' feeling for me entails.

My favorite music video I've ever seen is It's About Time by Barcelona. I have irritated my close friends multiple times by gushing about its raw symbolism and how I've taken that approach in my own life and therefore my work. I showed it to Lex a couple weeks ago, and she said she understood it but when I asked her questions about it she couldn't seem to find answers. What they are talking about has been so clear to me since the first time I watched it, such that I feel a bit dumb saying it's my favorite music video because it doesn't reserve a lot of thinking for me. I don't think it's right for someone to be criticized for what they enjoy, but since I serve as a walking contradiction, I still feel this way towards myself.

When we got the assignment, I immediately thought of this music video. How could I possibly make a film about a relationship when I already have a favorite video about a relationship?
 I wrote out the script almost immediately. Well, I saw the project, took a nap, and then wrote it out, so a lot didn't happen in between. Originally, an angel tricked a boy into falling in love with her, although the angel knows she can't love him back. I have an entire description of what it originally looked like here, but I want to say right now that this is not how I'd explain the final project at all, mostly because a lot of the symbolism got lost during filming and also because having to be behind the camera is hard.
 I think I subconsciously chose this song to be used for my film before I formally acknowledged it. I think the song has wound itself so deeply into what I consider a relationship that it was the only option I felt right about. I had that yes feeling.

Because I had this song in the back of my mind throughout the entire project, I think the story became more about the song than the actual story I originally wrote out. Especially as time went on and as I spent more time dwelling on what exactly I wanted. I feel like it has a music video vibe to it, which I'm not exactly proud of, but overall I am putting this up and this is what I did and I'm proud of myself for getting it done.

Anyways, here you go.

You Are Not the Voice in My Head

The older I get, the more I think that problems stem from issues of identity, and that solutions to them do not lie in psychology but rather philosophy, and more important, spirituality. The spirituality of which I write isn't to be confused with religion and god. I use the word spirituality as a term to reference the relationship one has with that which is bigger than one's self, the relationship one has with The Divine, which is to say What Has Come Before and What Will Come After, the relationship one has with the concept of life across time.

Art (you being an artist) is one of the ways in which we connect with our spirituality, with our relationship with The Divine.

My first response to this was a genuine 'Wow'. Reading this helped me realize how disjointed I have been with my spirituality as of late and how that has affected me and (arguably) more importantly, my art. Last year, I was very involved in my beliefs and ideas about things like the afterlife, the untangible way we have relationships with others, and other things that are not invisible but only present in another facet of our minds and other realms. The play I put up for StacNight last year was very much influenced by these ideas, along with a confusion of whether I was doing enough in my day to day life not only physically but mentally.
I've been subconsciously trying to decode my Koan for months now. At this point, I think it's 'Is it Enough?'. This is how I've approached a lot of things, and even if it isn't my Koan, it's a question that has been present in my life for quite some time. The Koan, for those of you who don't know, is a very mental, very untangible mess of not only thinking but feeling. The relationship between thinking and feeling is how I personally define philosophy. The head versus the heart, only it's not a fight looking for a winner.
As I've said, my relationship with all of this train of thought had been lost for months. Now that I feel that it's back, I feel more comfortable explaining what it was like without it. I think a good place to start is by saying that my relationship with the afterlife is very integral to who I am and how I view and percieve things. Believing in an afterlife helps me come to terms with the life around me. I've said before that I'm afraid of endings, and I suppose that's related to this. While I don't think of myself as a religious person, I do view myself as agnostic. I believe there's something out there, something that lets us cling to existence and something that gives me a reason to keep clinging. But, for awhile, my views shifted towards atheism. The idea that there is nothing scares me the most, so while I didn't want to believe it, I couldn't stop myself. I didn't have a reason to keep clinging. But I still did.
While mental health definitely holds a role in being suicidal, I feel like it was only gas for me. It fueled, but it wasn't the first spark that lit the flame. It was my loss of belief. In September, I cut ties with one of my best friends. And while it was the right thing to do, it was still hard. I felt like this person put me down and made me feel unreasonably like less of a person. Things were happening in my life already at that point and feeling this way the last straw. Why would a power that I had already accepted was bigger than me only make me feel smaller? So I squashed the higher ruler and put myself on the same level as everyone else. Somehow, that only made me worse.
People make it sound like going down in this fashion is a spiral, but it was slower than that. It was like when you're on an escalator, and you can see that you're slowly but surely going down, so you watch as the levels change. I, for one, have always slowly tipped my head up as I go down, keeping my eyes steady on where I once was, only to look down quickly before I realize I need to step off. I find it interesting how when I go back up on an escalator, instead of looking where I'm coming from, I only look up at where I'm going to be.
Putting myself on the same level as others took away that drive to better myself. I realize now. I need something to look up to. I also need something bigger than me to feel protected while I'm doing it. I rely on the positivity of others and while I know it presents issues on other levels, I've realized it's just who I am. While I don't feel exactly like the person I was last year, I feel more versed and justified in why I feel the way I feel. I know I'm not a healthy person, but I'm not so afraid of it anymore. And right now, that's enough.
NOTE: I feel like it's important not only for others to have the ability to know how I feel, for instance writing on this blog instead of my personal one, but for me to have a positive outlet to express these feelings. Some of the things I write on here are important for me to be able to say to those around me everyday. While I always invite to ponder, I'm not demanding a response to every single thing. I, for one, know how hard it can be to talk about depression without putting your own experiences into it and that can be hard to talk about. I feel like it's just easier to understand my thought process as a whole with these pieces of background information, so that's why I include them.

Rinse & Repeat

My aunt died on Thursday night. We weren't close.  I don't know what is okay to write on here anymore because it's not like anything I've ever written on here was exactly kosher. Especially about such negative topics like death and my intricate relationship with it.

I spend a lot of time not talking, and I feel like when I do, it's meaningless. I was talking to my mom today and I realized that I didn't recognize my own voice. I'm fine, Mom, I swear. I'll talk about it when I'm ready. I've said these things so many times in the past few months and yet they still aren't comfortable on my tongue. I found this great poem today by Phil Kaye that I can really relate to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EILQTDBqhPA

The conversations that I enjoy the most are over the web or text because I can choose how I want to  present myself, while in real life, I'm a mess (in my so holy opinion). I've been saying this for so long and I still feel the compulsory need to reiterate it in every freaking blog post. I talk to Emily and I talk to Ellen and I talk to my therapist and I talk to my dog. I still can't believe myself when I say it out loud. I'm fine. I'll be fine. Sooner or later. Writing them down, they sound safe, like little promises I can keep on a keychain. I sent Julian an angry text a few days ago after he thanked me for being a good friend. I couldn't take being praised for doing something I thought was common courtesy. My favorite poem I've ever read is by Richard Siken, and it's called Litany in which Certain Things are Crossed Out. I have pieces of it memorized. In his collection, which I own if anyone would like to borrow it, this poem is either five or seven pages long. On the last page, he says 'I want more seats reserved for heroes'. I used to think that line was so cliché, something I've read a million times and has lost it's meaning. Repetition kills meaning, and all of that. But now I understand why it's been said so many times. I'm just a regular person doing human things. When I do something nice for my friends, I don't do it for something in return. Well, most of the time. I love my friends. Love, how mundane is that? But it's true. I love them and I do things for them because they deserve it. I don't tell them often enough, because I can't believe it out loud. I love you guys. I hope you love me back.

I like Music and sometimes I get Angry.

I was in the midst of a conversation with Julian, Danny, Emily and Ellen on facebook when I realized the root of my issue with Music-Shaming. Music-Shaming is making someone feel bad, like less of a person or just generally demeaning them because of what type of music they like. I absolutely detest it.
Part of my distaste for it, is that I used to be an adament believer in it. Feeling like a better person because of my taste in music made me feel better about myself all around. I couldn't and can't change who I am as a person, the shape of my eyes, the shade of my skin. But I could choose my interests. I let it define me.

That isn't how people work. The measure of a man is not their interests or their image, it's how they interact with others.

That's the point I'm trying to make. The reason I intensely dislike music-shaming is because of the disrespect it affords to others. The most important thing to me in my life is the relationships I share with others. And putting someone down for something they enjoy isn't someone I'd want to identify as. People have the right their own opinions, and I'd hate for someone to disregard mine as less worthy. I think I'm allowed to like Guns N' Roses and Rita Ora and La Dispute and Brand New and Mayday Parade and Belle & Sebastian and Ed Sheeran and Bright Eyes and the freaking Smiths.

That isn't me thinking my music is better than someone else's. That's me being proud that I can sit here and not worry about what someone else thinks about my personal preferences. I would have never admitted this a year or two ago, but I wouldn't have been able to do this at that point in my life, talk about the things I love without regret. Music I refer to as my guilty pleasures, like One Direction or Taylor Swift give me a euphoria that other music doesn't. Sure, a lot of it's repetitive and honestly ridiculous, but it works for me. I need them for different reasons. And I know a lot of other people have the same feelings about different things in their lives. People just don't like to talk about it. And I'm not asking them to. I guess this is just a public service announcement. Next time you feel like making fun of someone for something as menial as liking Justin Beiber of all things, remember how absolutely meaningless that is. How meaningless it all is. And how you're the only person who can make things matter to you and those around you. Do you really want to be that person?