i still, sort of, need a title

My day consisted mainly of writing and sneezing. I am exhausted, and I will submit my damned story tomorrow.

ALSO, last night I dreamt my eighth grade/high school graduation was happening in my driveway. I’d forgotten it was today, so while my classmates were filing into position and someone was about to say the prayer, I ran inside to find a dress and remember the speech I was supposed to give. I couldn’t do either, and the rest of my dream was scenes from Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.

well, yeah, it’s creative and artistic

Today I used the food processor for the second time, ever. Daniel and I made our first salsa! It was a hit, I must admit. The food processor is fun. I’m thinking next time, pesto!

So, this Saturday has been nice. I’m afraid I have not yet revised my story. I almost woke up to write some time around five this morning. But for some reason, that didn’t work out. Maybe something good will come from the hour after midnight. Yeah. Maybe. But usually the stuff I write then is just embarrassing. I feel too free then. Like, I can say anything I want. It’s a sort of drunkenness that should not be published.

You know, I want to write drunk some time. I’ve typed drunken emails on my phone, but it would have been easier on my laptop. So, there’s probably more I could have said to that girl I met at school and like, so completely admire. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to find the message I sent her on Facebook, and tell you more about it.

Okay. I just did it. And I’m embarrassed all over again. Because I gushed over her the morning after! I told her how I think she’s so smart and cool and interesting, and how I can say all of that because we’re separated by a computer screen. And then she responds all nice and cool, like I hadn’t made a fool of myself. And then she said we should have a shot of tequila together! And of course that doesn’t happen. Like, of course. Because I’m terrible at accepting invites from people I can’t imagine would really like to hang out with me. And because I’m generally terrible at hanging out. I feel out of place everywhere. I can’t even picture myself in a place that would serve me a shot of tequila. Unless it’s my house. But that would have been weird, too.

Anyway, I still doubt I’d be able to write a story without editing as I go along, but if I were under the influence of alcohol, I’d be more inclined to think I am too drunk to take my time with words. So, I feel I should do that soon. If I could get all my writer friends to be online at the same time with a couple margaritas in their system, I think we could create something wonderful. At the least, we can have a fun, nerdy chat.

I am such a loser. I’m going to start using tags now. Can we play a game?

i think i need a new town

I’ve been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award! Some quick Googling makes it seem like some sort of meme. But even if it is just a thing that bloggers give to other bloggers simply because they’re following them, I’m honored. But this nomination requires that I nominate fifteen other bloggers. And I don’t follow fifteen other bloggers. So, it doesn’t feel right that I accept this only to tell you seven random facts about myself.

Instead, I’ll do the Friday Five (a complete and total rip-off of Sarah Dessen‘s similarly named “Friday Five”). I want to adopt the idea, Sarah. We can share it.

1. It’s strange to be sitting here at 10pm just, like, relaxed. Relaxed in an energized Friday Night kind of way. Because just a few hours ago, I was in the same spot dreading another day at work in the office. And while I was there, at work I mean, the hours lasted at least 80 minutes. At least. I’m surprised I made it through. I don’t know how it happened, but work ended and I had a few hours of quality time with the boyfriend and the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday. After dinner we went to visit the puppies at the pet store, played a little Crane Game, and then went home when the stores started closing. It was a sweet, fun date.

2. The deadline for my story is Tuesday. I’d like to be done with it this weekend. If I can buckle down and clean it all up tomorrow, I’ll sleep on it, then submit on Sunday. That’s the plan. Remember the beginning of Limitless where Bradley Cooper looks like a hobo and resolves to never leave the room until he makes some progress with his novel? I am familiar with that resolution. And the dissolution of it when he decides a breath of fresh air might be of better help. But this is no time for dillydallying. I think I’m close enough to the deadline for my procrastination adrenaline to start kicking in. And I know we just had a lovely date, but we’ll have to celebrate this some time soon.

3. I’m realizing now how difficult it is to divide my day into five separate thoughts. I guess all this has to be is current, right? I mean, the days earlier this week are fair game. So. I really wish someone would have commented on my Making Out With Friends entry. I thought it was interesting. It kind of made me laugh. At least someone “liked” the link I posted on Facebook. I’ll just assume that means the same as liking the blog entry itself. But, really. Really. I hoped for more dialogue. Did Jen have an intriguing, secret past? Does she have the guts? Is she, like, serious? Come on.

4. Okay. About Ashton Kutcher. I know a lot of people don’t like him, but whenever they say it out loud (or on Facebook), I feel the need to defend him. I don’t have much to work with, but I feel I must do what I can to keep people from hatin’. I think it’s because of our history. In ninth grade Ashton and I, well, we were kind of a thing. He might not be the smartest of people, but his goofiness is charming and endearing. And from what I read on Twitter, he’s passionate about what he does. And that’s attractive. So is his hair.

5. This is a bad picture of my windshield as I was driving home from work this afternoon. I was afraid the light would change soon, so I had to be quick. The sun was bright, warm, and very summery for the 27th of January.

I spend a great deal of time wishing I was Someplace Else. Somewhere cold. Somewhere relaxing. Somewhere there are burritos. But right when I took this picture, I was content with being just there. It was nice, and it should happen more often. Maybe it’s a Friday thing.

jeremiah’s on his way to tell the people

“If the things said in dreams were any less real, I would say them. But they are real. And when we wake up, they evaporate under the pressure.”

That’s a quote from my dream. It looks better italicized, but it doesn’t feel like mine when it is. So, there. What do you think it means? It was said by a stranger in an empty, open garage. But it didn’t sound like he was speaking about anything that happened previously in the dream. The open garage was different, though. The majority of my dreams take place in stairwells, libraries, school hallways, hospital hallways, and parking garage structures. You know. Big, enclosed, maze-like settings. It’s not entirely uncommon for my dreams to take place out in the open. But if I was in a garage, this one might be notable. Also, I remember a t-shirt. An off-white tee with waves on the bottom, covering the bottom left or right portion of a big red circle that made me think of Japan.

There was a time when I thought about Japan a lot. Remember the mission trip on which I did not go? It was sort of a big deal and probably, kind of, maybe, the reason I haven’t really been to church for a while. I couldn’t deal with the pressure of…whatever it was that was.

In other less-frustrating news, I just ate a candy bar. A delicious bar of chocolate. Before I took the last bite, I wished it would last forever. But it didn’t. And I am a little more disappointed than I thought I’d be. Oh well. I have a Snapple to look forward to at work tomorrow. Thank you, Daniel. He is so hot when he buys me sweets.

OKAY. Now, please interpret my Dream Quote. I don’t think it had anything to do with the man fallen over the flower bush in his front yard who, it turned out, wasn’t dead, despite the “dead body” remark of the homeless passerby. Or his frequent predictions that he would die. Soon. And the dead birds, cats, and really hairy dogs alongside his home that I suspected were fake and made of plastic and glue, they were probably not that important.

i could be the eye of your storm

For about an hour this morning, the power was out at work. It was dark, but we have windows to let the sunlight in. So, there’s that. When the power came back on, it took several more hours to get the computer systems running, so there was a lot of time to sit and think. I thought about going home. And if I was allowed, what would I do? I thought about going shopping. But, I don’t know how to do that. I thought about the way I always want power outages to last longer. Because they’re exciting. They aren’t normal. And people just feel different in the dark. Heh. I thought about how thirsty I was. And about the Snapple Daniel bought for me on Monday. I could have gone for another. On my twenty-first birthday, there was an island-wide blackout on Oahu. It lasted for over twenty-four hours at my house in Kaneohe, and other places, even longer. It was fantastic.

Tomorrow is Thursday. I should work on my story. I have an ending, and it is attached. All that’s left to do now is clean it up. I’m not happy with my story. Thinking of it actually, sort of, depresses me. I wanted it to be GOOD. Like, I-know-I-said-it-sucks-but-it’s-actually-pretty-good kind of good. But I mean it! It’s BAD. And I know it. And I’d be ashamed to show it to anyone. I’m embarrassed for the Emmy, too. She’s the main character, and she has been bad. She’s sick. She probably shouldn’t have told me what she’s done. I wish she was better. And not so dumb and sappy. I wish she didn’t try so hard to be profound. If I was profound in any way, it was an accident. But Emmy has no excuses. If that’s even her name!

my whole life became, like, divided

When I can run a mile without dying, I will blog about it. Until then, I will continue to write about the important stuff. Like spending hours in a car, making out with Just A Friend. If that happened at any time in 2006, it would be like, super interesting, right? I mean, that’s the kind of stuff we like to read about, RIGHT?! Or, maybe that’s just me.

I would like to have been sitting in my grandparents’ driveway in 2006 chatting with a Just A Friend, and trying not to think too much about the way he poked my sides or seemed to scoot closer with every other minute. It would be interesting for boring old me to look back to a time when I was someone different. Someone who agreed to let a friend, Just A Friend, kiss me on the lips in the dark after a long conversation about other girls and his romantic feelings toward them. I would like to have been called at two a.m. by a Friend who might have said he wanted to talk, but actually wanted me. In his car. To kiss and to hold as if we hadn’t decided not to like each other. And when I’m stranded in town with bad feelings toward the people I’m with, I would like to have a Friend to call. To pick me up in his familiar car, and let me leave my bad feelings in a dramatic, mysterious fashion. Because we’d be a secret. A big, indecent, entirely exhilarating secret.

But if that were to happen, I’m sure Boring Old Me will have found a way to end it, even six years ago. But I’d have a story. And it would be sensational.

the whole world was that unraveled piece of fabric

It is wonderful to feel liked. I semi-actively seek to be liked by almost every person that I meet. It sounds like a nice thing, I think, to want to be liked. It is a trait that makes me seem social and friendly. But it is cowardly and repulsive. And at times when I am feeling great and strong, and probably angry, I see how weak I’ve been and I decide that I hate almost everyone. And I would, I think, like to tell them about it. Somehow, this doesn’t seem right either.

There must be some middle ground. And somewhere There, I will stand and not be so concerned with the people who are indifferent toward me. Because Here, I am concerned. It bothers me a lot. And in several places and around certain people, it consumes me. Yes. I am eaten up about it. I wonder why these groups have not accepted me. Like, really Accepted me. They are nice toward me. But I still scurry around the perimeters of their invisible fort, trying to scratch my way in. I have to have style. I must have a strange sense of humor, and I must laugh like I cannot control myself. I have to listen to obscure music. I have to love God with all my heart, and never fall away. I must hike. Be loud. Drink coffee. Be upbeat. Watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Prefer vampires to wizards. Dance.

Well, I’m sorry. I can’t. And it’s really, just really, sad how badly I wish I could. Just to be liked. By everyone. Well, I guess now it’s more than Like. I want to be Accepted. And that’s asking for quite a bit.

Oh, great. Now I’m upset. I’ve thought too much about it for tonight. All of you, all you people who are indifferent toward my existence, Screw You.

Just kidding. I didn’t mean that. Not that last part, anyway. I still want you to like me. I want to be a part of your group. Let me in.

hiding at the bottom of your swimming pool some september

What I would really like right now is to be at an airport with a fully charged phone, a backpack full of snacks, pens, new music on my Zune, and a suitcase I’m certain has everything I need to enjoy a week, at least, away from home. I’m bored of Hawaii. I want to see wide open spaces. I want to see land for miles and miles. I want everything to be new again.

I don’t like that I am so often dissatisfied with Things. I should or I could, maybe, find a way to be content. But for now, I am not. And I want only to find something to satisfy me now. Like a ticket to New Orleans, or something. Yeah. That would be nice.

It starts in my stomach as a slow churning. It makes me nauseated and sleepy. So I find a comfortable spot on my bed, there’s really only one, and I sleep. I sleep, and I sleep, and I wake up with my face in my pillow, and I sleep, and sleep some more. Some time later, I can’t sleep anymore. So I stay awake. I sit in a chair at the dining table and I dream of places I would rather be. I sit in front of a computer at work, and I dream of flying far away. Then my bones get restless. It feels as if they are hardening, and they’ll break soon from the pressure of lethargy. Soon, I believe that my brain is calcifying, or whatever brains do before they explode, and then it does. And I fall asleep again.

i’m just a little girl lost in the moment

 

i just want to hold you, take you by your hand

She wanted a dress. A dress to help her feel pretty. A dress she could wear for every occasion to feel beautiful and comfortable. She wanted her friends to love her dress. And to love it again, each time she wore it.

She wanted a pen. A pen with purple ink that flowed smoothly and freely. A pen she could use to write love letters. To write notes on Post-its and shopping lists and fake tattoos on her wrists.  She wanted her words and pictures to look just as hopeful as she sometimes felt.

She wanted a pillow. A pillow of feathers. Soft but thick, and smooth and light. She wanted a pillow on which to dream. Dreams that were terrible and beautiful, and real enough to keep her. A pillow to crave when she’s sitting in the office, trying to remember how to get back.