see...

...why is it that if guys do this, it's super sweet and romantic

but if it was the other way around, ladies automatically get the label "crazy bitch"?

i mean what the hell?

i mean, i'd never do this, but why did anyone ever think it was sweet in the first place? why can't we all just live in 80's movies? where's my breakfast club?

snowed in

i'm only moving as far as i can bum rides
or as far as my camera will take me.

1) "coffee shop soundtrack" - all time low
2) "the feel good drag" - amberlin
3) "my little japanese cigarette case" - spoon
4) "kevin is gay" - giant drag
5) "champagne supernova" - oasis
6) "two beds and a coffee machine" - savage garden
7) "coffee and cigarettes" - augustana
8) "coffee & tv" - blur
9) "soco amaretto lime" - brand new
10) "cigarette" - ben fold's five
11) "coffee shop" - red hot chili peppers
12) "coffee break" - forever the sickest kids
13) "amitriptyline" - john vanderslice
14) "cigarettes and alcohol" - oasis
15) "nights of the living dead" - tilly and the wall
16) "coffee" - copeland
17) "smelling cigarettes" - the fiery furnaces
18) "lemurs, man, lemurs" - minus the bear
19) "motorcycle drive by" - third eye blind
20) "cigarettes and chocolate milk" - rufus wainright
21) "aneurysm" - weezer (nirvana cover)

i'm almost positive i posted this playlist on my last blog, but it's one of my favorite rounds of music to hit when i'm stuck somewhere for a while longer than i'd like. i haven't listened to it in long while, and i'd almost forgot how much i liked listening to all these songs in this particular order.

bolded, of course, are the ones i love the most.

life aint always what you think it oughtta be...

speak easy

...and there was that godawful silence. some people fear it i guess: that silence over the telephone, the awkwardness of not being able to see the other person's face, reaction, or eyes. i don't really mind it, though, since i've grown accustomed to listening for the slightest change in tone. sometimes i think i can hear people's expressions better than i can read them on their faces.
it's hard to explain.
but there it was, that silence that everyone hates.
i just kind of welcome it.
it doesn't really mean one thing or another.
i was sitting on my bed... actually i was lying on my stomach and my blinds were half open so i could see the outside from where i was. he had asked how everything was, and since i don't know him that well i gave the obligatory "everything's fine, going great, just doing homework" response. it was true enough, i was doing homework, and my grades are better than they've been since march 2009. everything on paper is fine.
and that's when the pause happened.
i figured i'd bored him since he's horribly intellectual, but the pause lasted longer than what would say that.
he was thinking.
shit.
i'm the only person that's allowed to think things over.
shit.shit.shit. he was thinking. about me. foreign thoughts...
why was he thinking? the pause felt like eternity. he was about to call me out. i could smell it.
i am the master of "everything's fine." i could write a book on everything being fine.
"you know," he said, "you can tell me what's really on your mind."

there it was.

actually, i couldn't, because that's what's managed to get me in trouble my entire life. this last year, actually: not being able to tell the right kind of things. the acceptable things. maybe it's been longer than a year... maybe two...three....or an eternity of not being able to call the right shots, since this problem manifests itself in all sorts of different ways. my days of pleasing for the sake of pleasing have run short. thus spoke zarathustra.
then again, maybe i could give up my stubbornness.

"everything's fine. just doing homework."

pause.
this must be why people avoid phone conversations like the plague.
i don't know. listening isn't terrible: you can pick up on the person on the other end. you can pick up on what they're thinking with their tones and the way they breath... all without them seeing the looks you make when you wrinkle your face closer to the receiver.

"you really can tell me what's going on."
i'd barely known him two weeks, although technically i'd been hearing stories about him since i was fifteen. he was actually a legend as far as i could tell.

"really." i stated. it was not a question. that sharp tone of sarcasm always slides in when i don't believe what someone's saying.

"yeah, really, i'd like to know what's going on with you."

it's such a foreign feeling....
maybe there are good people out there.

god willin and the creek don't rise

lovely.

sunday morning at the mosque

or, better titled, the select few times i will write about my faith online (because words do no justice for what i pursue).
i wrote this yesterday, but as far as blogging goes, it belongs here more than it does anywhere else i guess.


I have this class I'm taking for one of my theology courses appropriately titled "Spiritual Traditions: East and West". Like almost all my other theology courses, I love it. when it comes to searching for G-d, I can't get enough. I'm completely consumed by all faith traditions, and I was thrilled when I found out we get to do a "site visit" as part of our curriculum. We have the opportunity to visit a number of different worship services, and since the opportunity is here, I'm going to as many as I can. Why not?
So tomorrow morning I'm planning on attending a Muslim worship service. I'm not really sure what to expect, but I know two things: 1) I'm going to have to cover my head, and 2) I'm going to have to sit in an entirely different section, not only because I'm female, but because I'll be a visitor. Cool. I started looking into why men and women are set to worship in different sections, and why this is still an extremely common practice, and the main reason is so one group won't distract the other.
Huh.
At first I didn't really get it, I mean, it's a group of people not unlike my own community, and we're all going to worship the same G-d, so why is anyone worried about distraction in the awesomeness of worship (and by "awesome" I don't mean like... the cheesy awesome you hear thrown around when you watch "Saved" with Mandy Moore, but awesome like.... the original definition of the word: awe-inspiring, you know?)? I mean, when I go to my own worship services, men and women and children and all of everyone sit together: no big deal. We still get caught up in the mass (if we know what's going on), it's still beautiful, and to be honest I'm always inspired in faith by my friend RJ whom I usually end up sitting next to. I wouldn't have the same inspiration if I sat by myself, not that I would have a bad experience by any means, it's just... some people inspire me in different ways. See? Boys and girls can sit together and still get it. Everything's ok.

But then I stared thinking about it more. I remember going through that long lecture-y process of getting confirmed. It was a sincere, conscious decision on my part, and also the beginning of what sparked my desire to study theology. I don't actually remember much of the confirmation process, save for the night we did adoration.
Now.
Unless you're Catholic, you probably don't understand the weight adoration holds, but let me tell you, it is the more.... sincere and amazing thing I have the opportunity to participate in.
Anyway, I remember doing adoration during the confirmation retreat, and I remember specifically kneeling next to this guy I used to go to grade school with. The session was long, and it was beautiful, but I was also a sixteen year old girl, and after about forty minutes of this process, I remember having the epiphany that this guy was totally hot.
I know. Totally the wrong thing to be thinking about.
And then he elbowed me. And basically it was all downhill from there.
Now.
I was an adult.
Technically.
In terms of faith.
But I was still a sixteen year old girl (keyword being "was").

And now I'm understanding why men and women worship in different sections. It's nothing oppressing or discriminatory or anything of that nature. It's just a recognition that people are people, and if you're going to worship, then go for that and not to bump elbows with the people sitting next to you. People are people, and distractions happen, so with the encouragement to sit separately, you have time to reflect internally.

I think it's lovely.

I'm absolutely excited for tomorrow morning, it's going to be entirely different from anything I've experienced thus far.


See, this is why I love studying theology: so much of your own faith begins to unfold upon the reflection of other traditions, whether they're great revelations or small ones.
Anyway, that's all for now.

words

i fall in love with places so easily.
i loved yakima, how stupid is that? i'm not sure if it was just all the places we went to, or the company that made it worthwhile, but i can't help but feel so....

much like i'm taking out the trash when i think of it.

i feel like i imagined the whole thing.


and all the people.
all gone.





i have never wanted to leave my life so badly,
to just pick up and leave and startsomethingnew.

something else.
something not this life i lead.


i feel like i'm living in 1984--- the book, did you ever have to read that in high school? with big brother always watching? i haven't been home the last three weeks. i've stopped in for food, and the occasional sleep if at all. nothing seems worth sleeping through anymore, since the last year feels like something i wasted. trying to find something worthwhile i guess. worried about all the wrong things.
i feel like i'm living in 1984, because i do everything for something else, and when i slip just out of line, i'm called out.
and it's a load of bullshit.


i looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in what feels like weeks
--my sister has this big, tall mirror in her old room, good for seeing all of yourself as opposed to the mirror i have in my room that only shows the top quarter of myself (it would show the top half of me if only i didn't have stacks and stacks of books and cds piled on my dresser)--
i cut my hair out of my face a little
and i've dropped a significant amount of weight in the last few weeks
i've lost my appetite,
but for books... never.
nietzche, descartes, and siddhartha have all become the most important authors of this mess.


what the hell am i doing with my life.
never going back to yakima, that's for sure...
because there's something deeply disturbing about falling in love with places:
they never love you back.

maybe i've had it all wrong this whole time.
what can love back?
what if you're never sure you loved in the first place?
i love everything
and nothing
all at once i guess.
it's a hard feeling to explain.

bs.

i am living in 1984.
the book.
not the year.

i saved your number "do not answer"

look.
i need coffee just like any other person in seattle, except i'm pretty sure i need it more. i need it when i wake up, i need it when i'm headed to class, i need it before i go to sleep. i figured if this is the biggest vice i've got, i'm doing alright. so look, i went to a concert the other night and it was pretty empty when doors opened so i got my stamp and walked across the street to the holy grail of coffee, vivace's, for a little something to keep me warm and occupied.
the great thing about coffee is that you can have it alone with your newspaper (stranger, seattle weekly, or homework) and people understand that you need a little brain stimulation, just not necessarily from any joe walking down the street.
i had about a half hour to kill and i scanned all the open seats... realizing my options were next to:

a) the evangelist and potential convert.
b) the loud book club.
c) guy on computer.
d) student being consumed the homework they had sprawled on the surrounding tables.
e) THAT couple (you know what i'm talking about).

it was like a math problem for me, and by process of elimination i could quickly find my perfect seat to have a date with myself and my americano. on any other day, the evangelist would've been my first choice. i mean let's be real, i'm a twenty-something college student who is over-enthusiastic about her torah class and has CHOSEN to study theology. really. i would usually jump right in, but i was needing some serious alone time, something i haven't had for a good year, so i opted out. the same ruling applied for the book club, and i was left with three more seats.
i knew in the next five days i'd have my own homework eating me for breakfast, and the poor student i was debating sitting near looked like they were about to cry if anyone came close, so i nixed him out of my seating option, too.
and THAT couple? yeah right.

which left my with guy on computer.
easy.
unassuming.
he looked like he was having a relationship with his computer, so i took my polite two seats away and sat with my paper and my coffee. bliss.
i am such a nerd.

and then it started, innocent of course, with an inquiry to keep an eye on his computer while he used the mens room. i assured him i'd give the ol' one-two if someone tried to take his stuff, and received a quick punch in the shoulder as a thanks.
note to all: using the bathroom as an excuse to talk to a girl, and then punching her in the arm is not a good pick up line.
there was the return and the thanks, and i had my coffee and my paper and was fine. and then he asked to see my hand.
what?
apparently it was the beginning of a thumb-war initiation. cute, if i was like five. but ok, look: he JUST came from the bathroom. HE IS A STRANGER, and he was not smooth with his game. i did not want to touch his hands, who knows if he washed them post-restoom? being the socially awkward genius i am, i turned it away from thumb-waring, assuring him i was reading something good (is there anything ever really good in the stranger? i should've picked up a real paper. or a book).
he then had to know what i was reading.
not just an inquiry but a DEMAND. he INSISTED i move closer than my polite two seats away, and when i declined, he moved in.
he HAD TO KNOW what i was reading, doing with my life, doing in seattle, etc, and he was not talking to my face.
GUYS: girls know when you're talking a good foot below their eyes. don't be a slimeball, be a man and grow up.
there is a fine line between entertaining conversation and flirting. are people no longer courteous? did this man really think my one-word answers were just an attempt to be coy? i could not deflect his need to know, but it was at the point where it was MY corner and MY seat and MY time at vivace's, and i wasn't about to let some slimeball take away the joy i find at the holy grail of coffee.
i looked around, and realized all the previously open seats were taken (save for the one next to THAT couple, but i wasn't about to get anywhere near it).
he was trying to play his game well. some guy must have written a book that said "ask girls questions about themselves and you'll score big time. girls love talking about themselves". ok. there's truth to this, but in the way that EVERYONE likes talking about themselves: it's the subject they know best. this guy was going overboard. whenever i turned the conversation around, he gave three answers. he was in art school. no, actually he was studying to be a massage therapist. no, actually he wasn't in school.
you know what? i didn't really care what he was doing.
he was just making it obvious that he was a bad liar.
are all men bad liars?
and if so, why not just tell the truth?

then my saving grace arrived:
the one question people always ask, and upon my answering the creepers usually back off.
"what are you studying?" he asked.
aha.
this conversation was over, right?
wrong.
"theology" i answered. the same thing always happens: the blank stare followed by the furrowed brow, followed by the "oh. are you going to be a minister?"
he then told me he loved religions.
and that he loved the bible.
and hebrew.
and judaism.
"what religion do you practice" he asked.
he then told me he loved catholicism.
and christian mysticism.
now, look, he could have been telling the truth MAYBE, but two things gave him away:
ONE, i've talked with enough of the theology department to know what genuine lovers of theology sound like when they talk about it all. actually, i've talked to enough people with things they are passionate about, that i can hear the genuine tone of happiness when they begin to talk about things they love. this man had an overemphasis on everything, excessive nodding, and a way of cutting off the tail end of all my sentences that just rubbed me the wrong way in general.
TWO, i know seattle. i've been in a relationship with the city for the last eight years and i know what people here are like. i know we live in a city that is very non-religious. i know the trendy answer to religion is "i'm spiritual but don't ascribe to anything in particular" or "i'm against organized religion" or whatever bs. i know my city, and i have a pretty good feeling i've met almost everyone that reads christian, jewish, and muslim mysticism for fun.
i was at the point that i was turning into a jerk entertaining the conversation, so i told him i had to go.
and then...
then! he asked for my number.
now, look, i've only been asked for my number twice previously in my whole life. i didn't know people still did that, i thought they just facebook stalked or got it through the grapevine or something... panicked, tired, and ready to leave, i asked instead for his ("panicked" being the key word). he had that slimey look on his face like he just won something by means of cheating, scribbled his number, and passed it over as i was on my way out.

courtesy is my biggest vice.
so i saved his number as "creepy: do not answer".

circle circle dot dot

you see, i have this pattern:
i think i'm going to move, and i don't.
and i hate admitting that i need the help of other people
so i don't get very far...
move.
not like.... not like physically move, but move leaps and bounds in all other directions.
and it's funny,
because i do it most when i'm away from everything
that i'm told i'm supposed to want.

fuck conformity.

but i have this pattern, see
i get too scared.
the pattern of fear is so deeply rooted, and i can feel it in my bones
it makes up my marrow
and i wonder why all the other people who are afraid don't say anything about it.
you know?
it would sure as shit make me feel better about being afraid.

betray your monsters.

i never really have time to be afraid, anyway.
so i'm not.

weekend

i slept in my band shirts and wore them underneath everything because (believe it or not) i had a dress code this weekend. i did it anyway, and wondered if i have it in me. my body was there most of this weekend, i heard a lot of good things, but my poor mind kept wandering around the world... around my life... there's a handful of them that keep me grounded.
and i wonder
if maybe i don't need a title to be anything important.
i was never one for dress codes if i didn't make them up myself.

i named my future apartment the exodus house, and it rings of everything i'm dreaming of... save for the dreams i had this weekend. i scribbled them down on loose pieces of paper when i woke up, and then finished throughout the morning when they'd slip back into my mind... so what we have here is direct from paper to type:


morning of nov. 5th:
I had a dream we climbed a stairwell (at the same time but not together). I had a dream you led me to a secret cave above the city, and in my dream you led me up a broken ladder. I had a dream we had to escape, but I was already gone. In my dream you tried to let us escape by going up... up and out from the ladder to the sky...
out to the sky
out and away from everything
and I saw the ladder was broken
and you didn't know even though you saw it, too.
But in my dream I went first anyways because you needed to be needed
and you needed to decide
and I was already fine
and you were the left behind.
In my dream I already knew what I was doing: I climbed the ladder anyway.
I fell.
You fell.
And it was all over.

morning of nov. 6th
Last night I had a dream you were him and she was me.
Last night I dreamt her life and his were all the same as they are when I'm awake (but you were him and she was me) and I heard the last message she left on his phone. She had too much on her plate but it was her life (in both sleeping and waking); in my dream she wasn't strong anymore, and he heard it all and gave up. He didn't love her anymore.
...the walls were red...
...and then I was five...
...and then I was ten...
...and then I woke up.

morning of nov. 7th
Was the previous night a sort of metaphor of a dream of the near past, and this last night loose recollection the present?
Then what of the near future?
I wondered these things when I went to sleep last night, and I drifted into my subconscious wondering if I would have a dream revealing the near future. I'm sure there's plenty of other people who wonder the same things.... don't we all, though?

I slept soundly last night.
I do not recall what I dreamt.


beneath it all, my champions of music lived along with me. a friend at school saw me strolling through campus and asked what band of the day was.

lessons learned:
things don't have to be on the surface to be real.
dreams do not tell the future, and if they do, you forget them as soon as you wake up, so there's no time to dwell in the dreamworld.
the things we don't see are more often than not more real than the things we do.

night.

i had an epiphany today

it was a good one.
it involved the whole damn nada surf "the weight is a gift". it's too big for today, though, my thoughts are spilling all over themselves, and i have to finish sorting them all out. it'll have to wait till tomorrow, and anyway, today was a brand new day: "keep the blood in your head, keep your feet on the ground". that's the bigger picture for the day, starting small, starting new, starting starting starting everything and starting simple... starting small before i can get anywhere bigger.
i've seen brand new two or three times, and they're one of those five bands i can listen to nonstop and never get tired of... but that's for another day, too...(i have five or six brand new shirts, so we'll be getting back to them sooner or later).
but check it: go ahead and the jet city fix buttons straight outta 2003 on the right side of the collar of the vest. do they show? or does my crappy macbook camera not do the buttons justice? i LIVED for go ahead shows when i was in junior high and high school. to me, they were everything worthwhile in the seattle/south end local music scene, along with a good number of other staple local bands.
and there it is: i'm an obvious product of the pop-punk post-millenium scene of teenage seattle. i thrived off of it, and i'm pretty sure i still do... but not the scene, the music. the "die for it all, gotta feel all the world just like everyone in the band" feeling i get out of live shows, ya know? i love that feeling more than a lot of things.
so charged.
so beat.
so.
fucking.
alive.
and it's weird, because i get the same feeling in the middle of nowhere on a mountain or at a lake.
funny how that works....

anyway, getting back to starting small...
brand new start.
brand new day.
brand new everything.
that's all i'm getting out of today...
and don't worry about it, i'm sitting on the counter of the kitchen at my parents' house writing this, dripping sticky sweet otter pop juice everywhere.

i think that's what love is.
starting all over with all the old weapons of what makes life good.

love.

pictures, or it's not legit.

i hit a slump:
that's hard for me to admit.
i hit a slump, and most of what i dragged out of it is that i missed out on talking about things like great philosophers and great theologians. i hit a slump and wallowed, and now i've emerged.
pictures, or it's not legit.
i didn't know how to drag myself out of it, really, and i guess i never have a formula (because life is not a math problem, no matter how hard i used to try and make it... at least i have that one figured out). my life is settling, and i hate that feeling. do i always need a battle to fight? not necessarily. do i need things to always be hard? not in the least: a year and a half ago when things were getting really shitty, i avoided the toll it was taking on me altogether so i wouldn't have to be "that girl" who always has excuses and problems, and it didn't even matter that what i was going through was more than a handful of decent excuses. i don't like things to be hard if they don't have to.
no.
not hard.
but i love a good challenge.

where have all the challenges gone?
and then i hit this goddamned slump. the reasons are less than desirable to discuss over blogging, and quite frankly aren't that important anymore. what is important is that i found along the way all these... things that i enjoy. challenges: not unlike particularly difficult books or a painting i just can't seem to be satisfied with as a finished product.
i pulled out all my big guns:
sketchbooks i used to carry around (some for figure drawing, others for not)
books... the really good ones that are hard and good and all for the sake of reading
paints: god. i miss painting.
and that goddamned grant i've been debating on whether or not to take. the one that would allow me to move out and away.

if ever i needed a time to start everything over, it would be now: now that i have the motivation and the understanding of what i'm doing with my life.

and pictures, too, or it's not legit.
i'm wearing every goddamned band tee i own, one right after the other... because at the heart of it all i'm a hopeless romantic and i have this notion that at the end of getting through them all i'll have figured something out (recently, i thought people weren't taking me seriously because i slum around in band tees, but i realized over the last month that it's just because a lot of people are assholes).
so.
with each shirt comes a lesson:punctuality. this was yesterday's band: the builders and the butchers. really. fucking. good. band.
but a day late. so, what is to be taken from yesterday is this: one of my biggest vices, lack of punctuality, must go. and with it, i will be able to cultivate more important things, like finishing paintings on time and being able to set aside that elusive time to spend on the guitar. and loving worthwhile things.
today's will be up later.
for my own sake.

love.