I'm reminded of spring break, when I was desperate for an escape, hoping that the absent rock faces and barren terrain of the Owhyee County outside of Caldwell would cure what ailed me; fill me with that sort of inspiration that only my home can. It very much did. I'm always enamored when I see dense forests and towering trees, but something about rocks and sagebrush and nothing but hills and flatness puts something deep inside of me at ease. Reminds me of something I don't consciously remember, but helps whatever that part of me is.
Despite the fact we decided to go on a rainy day where the trail was slippery, followed but us taking possibly the most slippery icy straight wall of a trail which resulted in a peach sized bruise on my ass. Ouch.
Anyway.
On nanowrimo:
I got to somewhere under 30k. I'm not beating myself up over it, though. I got 30k more than I would have originally. I'm still working on editing it off and on. . . which at this point, is mostly just cutting the shit out of its fur, so to speak.
On other stories:
I've been trying to write YA sort of material over break if only to practice the tone. Working on what will probably end up being a short story with a dumb (read also:no) plot. But! It's stupid and romantic and fun to write so there's that.
On school:
I'm burnt out and that's all I'll say because it's frustrating talking/thinking/acknowledging it.
On music:
Caribou is an excellent band. I've been listening to "Swim" on repeat while reading. Also I wasn't aware of The Lonely Island's second album and been listening to that off and on.
On reading:
I have total of 18 books I want to read over break. I'll make a separate post for these. If I get through all of them I'll be super impressed with myself.
On the new year:
2011 sucked but I'm finding myself sort of optimistic- there is really no way 2012 can suck as much as this year did. I'll probably ramble about this later.
Things are. . . coming along. Day 8 and I've only been averaging about 500 words the last few days. Luckily the first couple days got me far enough ahead it hasn't been a huge issue. Hoping to pound out a bit before bed tonight. As pictured above I hung out and got to my daily minimum at the Flying M in Nampa. I absolutely adore this place and it would probably make me barf if I ever looked at how much money I've spent there.
I said it before and I'll say it again: Jonah is hard to write. He's depressing. He's never in a good mood. He's helpful but he's an asshole. Having a completely character driven story is FUCKING MISERABLE when you want your character to do something or learn something but they CAN'T because that's not how they work. They're assholes. They can't. It has to come SLOWLY and. . . ugh. It's always tempting to let him slip out of character so something will happen.
Following what is apparently suit, here's a few of his songs.
"Bukowski" by Modest Mouse.
"It seems to me that every day turns out to be a little bit more like Bukowski and yeah I know he's a pretty good read but god, who'd wanna be such an asshole?" Jonah would. Jonah would want to be such an asshole.
"Ghouls" by We Are Scientists.
"We all recognize that I'm the problem here. Can't help but feel attacked-- what's that supposed to mean? And no I won't relax or act like it's 'no big deal'."
"Videotape" by Radiohead.
I don't know why but I decided at some point this was his favorite song. He relates to it without it hitting so close to home as to upset him.
So I don't remember what I put in that first post about what I was doing to prepare but I almost guarantee I didn't do it. Pictured above was what I used for sprints last night. Didn't get a WHOLE lot done as I ended up iChatting with Miranda. Alcohol and a new pen and my already abused spiral notebook and pear vodka and whiskey and Hersheys mini cookies and cream left over from halloween. I am a cycle of bad habits.
I'm currently sitting at a bit over 8k and I worry how long it's going to last. This story is largely introspective and exploring Jonah is really depressing. He's a terrible little dude and he breaks my heart. But! Having him interact with the others is fun.
A note on editing? I'm aware once I go back over this its probably going to be cut down to about 10k. . . if that much. But this is extensively flushing out the characters and I think that's worth it.
I'll end this with a couple of songs on his playlist.
"All Along The Watchtower" by Bob Dylan.
There is a theory that this song is about the book of Issiah, which goes along with one of Jonah's themes. The song also simply "feels" like someone running away or being in the process of running. Something urgent.
"Snow" by The Antlers.
If I love The Antlers for anything, it's the absolutely heart breaking vocals. That's a lie. I love The Antlers for everything. The song is slow and quiet and is basically an anthem to crying in bed to abstracted metaphors of your own creation.
"The Fruit That Ate Itself" by Modest Mouse.
One of my favorite songs ever. "Are you gonna be your own goddamn best friend?" + the fact Isaac Brock is literally yelling it at you is pretty great.
I've made people laugh until they cry. I can cheer my friends up. I still have friends despite the sopping shit rag I've been lately. I've been told I'm a good story teller. I've been told I have a lot of potential as a writer. I've been told, despite episodes of crippling depression and anxiety, I'm hilarious.
I had my best friend stab me in the back. I had the most important person in my world lie to me. Despite it being 7 months now, it still hurts. A lot. It still crosses my mind more than I wish it would.
But you know what? I'm doing alright. I'm working on doing alright. The sadness that made me useless for months has devolved to a level of frustration as my other stressors (school, money, pets, never being as internet famous as I feel like I should be) and I feel like I can put a cap on it when it flares up most of the time.
Falling out of love with someone is the hardest thing I've had to force myself to do. I wish I was exaggerating. Literally the hardest.
Do I still hate myself? Who the fuck doesn't. Do I still wake up, a little bit bitter that I didn't die in my sleep? Sure enough. Is my sadness a bit more well distributed? Yeah, I guess so. I have more things to be cynical about than a girl that broke my heart.
It is 10am. I am still in my night gown but I've bothered to put my glasses on (why? they're not real, anyway). There is a load of laundry swishing around the washer. I have a pile of books strewn across my living room table and a shift to work at 5pm tonight. I'm listening to: old Looney Tunes, the sound of two of my cats wrestling each other and that washer I mentioned earlier. Things are alright.
I write this because I normally hate mornings like this. They drive me crazy. You remember when you were in grade/middle/high school and you were sick (like actually sick, not playing hooky you douche-bags) and you'd be laying in bed-- it was around 10am you would wake up (I mean you're sick but COOL you got to leep in) and just lay there with your swollen throat and puffy sinus and wonder if your friends wondered where you were. What were they doing. Were they making fun of Mr. Preggir? Because his nose looks like a dick? Then it hits you: you miss school. You miss feeling not sick and your friends; maybe not school. Suddenly you feel useless and gross- no amount of shower can get this layer of "sick" feeling off of you and you haven't done any homework and you've just watched cartoons all morning and coughed into a pillow and whined at your mom.
. . . I sincerely hope that's what other peoples sick days were like, because I'm going to feel fucking stupid if they didn't. Anyway.
This is still programmed into me- hanging out around the house at 10am = being useless and gross. Especially if I'm still in my pajamas. For some reason I'm totally okay with it today though: I'm being productive, I know I have to work later (even though that's usually frustrating also; I HATE closing shifts when I have nothing else to do during the day. I just sit around and wait for work to take me like the hand of death in the night #dramatic) and I know I have homework to do. Usually at this time of the day I'm itching for an excuse to leave the house; go do my work somewhere else.
But here I am. All is well. Viva la Thursday morning.
Total Side Note: Has anyone else gone back and watched Looney Tunes as an adult? I liked watching them when I was a kid, but listening/watching them as an adult, the writing is really clever and the timing really is fantastic. Sometimes I still really want to be an animator. Is there some kind of degree in the historical impact of cartoons? I'd be on that shit.
Literature and the analysis of it is the ability to rip the skin off of everything with words. It's beautiful, having that much power over text; any text. I feel so thankful and inspired that I have the ability to work with it like this. On this level. I feel like books let me understand them sometimes, not the other way around.
This is the few things I'm confident in. Literature makes me feel so confident, makes me feel intelligent but makes me feel tiny, insignificant and, for lack of a better word, stupid. It humbles me. I will never completely understand it and that, in itself, is comforting. This is a realm I'm comfortable in my insecurities and lack of understanding.
A theory is that literature is completely defined by the community and the environment; if you're involved with a church-- your state, your government, your peers. . . those are what determine what is technically literature. I found this amusing before I realize I'm surrounded by other English majors. Who also are the ones that study theories like this- that we only think it's literature because this group said so. Not really worth delving into right now (I'm pretty sure I'd give myself a migrane) but interesting, none the less.
The physical world holds no place for me. I find my comforts in line breaks and the indents of paragraphs. You are flesh and blood, but I am a semi-colon wearing a human skin. The sole purpose of these hands is to hold a pen, and moments spent doing otherwise feels a waste.
Summer, I hardly knew ye. But I got a 3.5 over summer semester (overall GPA is still in the toilet so. . . boo on that) and read a total of 10 books. Not as much as I would have preferred, but not bad. Not bad at all.
So! Fall semester! Taking:
French! Haven't taken this since high school so it should be an adventure.
Literary analysis! Largely fun because I get to abbreviate as "lit anal".
American Lit 1! Online! Fuck!
Expository Composition! Also online! Double fuck!
Been getting SUPER into zines since I moved my friend up to Portland. It's incredibly hard to immerse yourself in something when there's none of it around you. Boo. To Etsy! In the works of. . . 4 or 5. Haha.
Wow my life is boring. I'll make a "FALL SEMESTER" reading list later.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
"I hung out with bear yesterday and I forgot how amazingly awesome she is even when she is sick. I keep talking about how grossed out I am about this whole thing but I keep forgetting that bear told me everything out of love. She felt bad for lieing to her best friend and I respect her for telling me. I love her so much. She thinks that shes a shitty person but honestly shes the best one I know. I wish I could be halsf the artist, writer, comedian, and person that she is. It surprises me how well she can mask her feelings when shes around so she doesnt gross me out. I think that im about over the grossed out phase and mght be ready to be mad at my sister for cheating."
Woods deleted her blog, but I saved this because I'm an egotistical asshole and this. . . honestly made me feel a lot better when the whole 'situation' went down. Love you bro, thanks for carrying me up that hill.
(either the authors names have escaped me or I'm too lazy to type them. No one reads this anyway. . . so I don't really give a good goddamn. Not even a bad one.)
I have no morals and thus my ideology is flawed. Your hands are my place of worship, your hair my temple. Theists will argue with me (quite admirably I might add) that I am only praying to my own psyche, not a body that was once mine. But I will repeat, I have no morals. I am fingerprints without a criminal record and you are the police.
We'll kick down the fucking door. Open up. Open up.
This was never our story but selfishly I can admit it was only mine. I was hindered by ventricles and nerve systems. Your morals are only chemical reactions and I can admit to my lack thereof. Where are you hands when the world is ending, where am I without a head of hair to come home to. I miss this religion, I am desperate without my faith. I will keep my eyes closed while you answer the prayers of others, I will be jealous of their connection.
I will keep my eyes closed. I will keep my eyes closed and pray for a chemical reaction.
For the full effect of my rambling, I suggest listening to the song "American Vultures" by The Blood Brothers. For full effect of said song, I suggest you listen to their album "March On, Electric Children". To get the full affect of said album, I suggest you listen to their entire discography and mourn them with me.
Anyway.
There is a distinction between "old" and "new" vultures thanks to convergent evolution. (Take that, biology class I failed) "New" vultures are the ones we have largely in North America-- hawks. "Old World Vultures", along with having the coolest friggin name ever are also the more traditional, intimidating, hook beaked (Accipitridae) birds that are grade A nightmare material.
Side note that these birds are what resemble the plague doctor masks; which as creepy as they are, aren't as interesting as I would have hoped. The hooked beak looking part of the mask was to keep potpourri and pleasant herbs as it was believed that it was the smell of the rotting dead was the cause of the plague. Good job, guys. Sometimes I want to go back in time, explain to them what community college is, tell them that I attend it, and then explain to them all the mysteries of the world that they can't figure out are. BASIC ALGEBRA WOAH. Anyway.
This is Lammergeier, or the bearded vulture. Let's go over this.
Holy shit, this thing is fucking terrifying. I'd shit everyone's pants if I saw this son of a bitch in the wild somewhere.
They are HUGE. 10 foot wingspan. It would probably eat your dog. (maybe)
No seriously this thing is freaky as shit. I'd put a collar on it and cart it around on Halloween and be like "BOO MOTHER FUCKER".
Bonus! They look like they're wearing bell-bottom pants. Hah.
DOUBLE BONUS. It has a mustache. LOOK CAREFULLY.
Yanno what Lammergeier means in goddamn german? Lamb Vulture. It will eat your livestock. (this isn't proven, this was the 1700's and everyone was crazy. Simply a belief they held)
COOLEST BIRD EVER RIGHT? What I particularly enjoy about it (besides my now fully developed fantasy of wandering around with it on a collar. . . partially thanks to the Blood Brothers-- OR IS THE VULTURE WAAAAAALKING YOU?) is that it doesn't eat rotting meat like most vultures- it eats the marrow. It has this developed technique of dropping bones off onto rocks to crack them open to get to it that can apparently take 7 years to master.
However, Iranian mythology considers the sight of one good luck.
Shit is fucking ridiculous. There's something poetic to be said here for a vulture that looks like a cracked out vulture from hell that doesn't eat rotting meat like other vultures. How lovely and strange to be the epitome of your species and to take it raise yourself into a hellish level by denying a rotting corpse, pull out its bones, crush them, and eat them.
Unfortunately I'm not feeling poetic, I'm feeling like a caffeinated asshole. Maybe later.
Okay so. Time for another book list, as I'm trying to get into the swing of reading a lot more than I do. . . at the moment. I want these books to be finished by the end of March.
• The Winter of Our Discontent • As I Lay Dying • Fahrenheit 451 (shut up I haven't read it)
Either. . . • House of Leaves (if I can find it) • A Natural History of the Senses
If I start House of Leaves I know chances are slim it's going to get finished by the end of March, but EH I can try. I'm almost done with Steinbeck and I started the Faulkner a while ago, so. I think this is reasonable.
It's odd how we let people into our lives; it's odd how we trust them and confide in them and varying points and degrees. It isn't something we particularly think about, but it's something we do. It's odd how at a certain point, they're carrying a part of you. Friends, family, significant others, the nice lady at the Target check out lane. They know little bits and pieces about who you are and what you do, and you're okay with this because you know little bits and pieces about them. Imagine a bag with a lot of different marbles in it; all of these represent different people and you're knowledge of them. They have some of your marbles and you, theirs.
We risk getting hurt emotionally and physically when we step out the door in the morning, when we get online or when we bother getting out of bed in the morning. We risk everything, every single day. I carry this single fact with me and it's a mantra in scripted on the inside of my skin. Any of you that know me know that I'm deeply afraid of. . . pretty much everything.
But it's odd, that of all the things I was afraid of, there could be something worse that could happen, and it did happen. To abuse the cliche, it feels as though my world is literally falling apart; my perspective on everything has shifted. I'm left considering my fears and what they mean while being held close to me. I feel like it comes down to one fact- to be afraid is to be aware. Fear is motivation and a feeling that keeps me safe. but it is also to be sheltered and carry a specific brand of longing for a world I'm too afraid to touch as a result of that fear.
What happens when you give someone a lot of your marbles? A lot more marbles than you've ever given anyone? As if there was a point I realized this-- I considered that I was giving away handful after handful of marbles, regardless of how many they were handing me. It scared me; it terrified me, but I still handed them over, because that singular knowledge that someone would be careful with those bits of me, comforted me.
I find it ironic that the fear that keeps me afloat was ignored in the one situation I probably should have acknowledged it.
So what do you do with the marbles now? Someone else has that many of yours, you realize you have a lot of theirs. What do you do when someone has seen you inside and out and then doesn't really want it anymore? I think the question I'm struggling with right now, is what do I do with the bag full of marbles almost exclusively belonging to the other person? Is it worth it to throw them away? They can't be given back.
Things that comfort me is all the other marbles I have from all the other people I know. Good people who think (for some god awful reason) that I'm a good person. They are few and far between but I'm thankful to carry bits of them with me, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. To love is to fear, but it is to accept. There isn't just one line that needs to be drawn in the subject, there are spools of thread where lots of lines need to be drawn, but thread is easily broken. I can't tell if this is a good thing or not yet.
So If I have some of your marbles, I thank you and I love you. I thank you for sitting with me while I try to figure out what to do with all these other ones I have left over from someone else, while I empty my bag and sort through them, trying to figure out what they mean to me.
I leave with a song because I'm not sure how else to end this, as it hasn't ended yet and it won't for a while. It makes me feel that even though it's a painful, awkward place, everything and everyone has a place to be in at whatever designated point in time. Even if it's waking up crying and whining endlessly on a blog, everything has a place.
