thank you

Considering the fact that I had multiple syringes stuck in my mouth about twelve hours ago, I've had a pretty excellent day. On the anniversary of having one wisdom tooth extracted in a hellish surgical experience we shan't speak of, I had another wisdom tooth pulled in a much less traumatizing fashion today. It only took two songs on my iPod.

When I got home, I proceeded to feel sorry for every person I had smiled at since leaving the dentist as I appraised my bloodstained mouth in the mirror. I asked my sister why no one had told me that I looked like a dopey cannibal and she responded by saying she couldn't look at me until I rinsed the blood out of my mouth.

Attractive.

I started to get feeling back in my lip while watching Gilmore Girls and eating apple sauce. Rachel was a lovely provider. I sat in the comfiest chair ever and got to relax and tumbl and feel better than I had in three days, reminiscing about a year ago today.

A year ago today feels like a lifetime behind me but I still remember coming home from the dentist after test driving the Westie we eventually bought, and lying on the bed that was mine for the last time in that moment, with a person I cared about more than anything. I remember being cranky because I hadn't got my pain medication fast enough and I remember asking her not to leave me. And she didn't.

I remember it so clearly. My sore jaw and swollen cheek. I remember picking up sushi and Starbucks. A smoothie for me--I had to eat it with a spoon. I remember warmth, despite the ice packs.

And even though those memories are buried in a past that's not all hand holding and half-numb smiles, I'm still grateful to have them.

bandages and maps

Your birthday is still my bank pin.

I know I should change it, I know.

But it’s not like it’s my main card,

just the one for family groceries and things.

Still, every time I’m at the checkout with my jug of milk or shampoo,

I get to celebrate the simple fact that you

are alive.

You see, I told myself I was going to stop writing poetry about you.

And I lied.

Because writing poems about you is as easy as putting too much sugar in my tea.

I know I should be weaning back on my dependency

but the sweetness is irresistibly

pulling and I’m tired of resisting.

I’m tired of telling myself to stop thinking about you.

It’s exhausting. Like falling asleep when you’re so tired you don’t remember how.

Logically, I know there was a time when your voice meant less to me and your name, said aloud, didn’t bring tension to my body like the cold days I’ve gotten all too used to.

But logic doesn’t sink through my skin as the feel of your sharp hips once did.

Sometimes, I sit on my floor like a philosopher, tracing the lines on my palm to see if I can figure out where it all went wrong. I think we spent so much energy trying to let each other go while clinging tighter, creating our own world in which we could be together. Lying through quick messages, spelled out through fingers didn’t believe us. But I wanted to.

I wanted to believe we could be friends, people who didn’t hurt each other by being themselves.

But If I wanted to take back all the pain I would have to unravel every second we spent together because like that knitted sweater I never made you, the imperfections are a part of the design,

helplessly intertwined with the wool and the warmth.

I cannot forget you.

So I have to believe that one day, we will be friends. One day we will be people who sit on lawn furniture and drink wine together and I know you probably don’t like wine and maybe you never will so I’ll let you drink Mountain Dew and I’ll even pretend I’m not judging you.

The bandages we wrapped around ourselves to hide the marks of each other will fall away to reveal maps that tell us who we are.

They’ll say that you

will always be a part of me.

But for now, I’ll change my bank pin.

spring appreciation post

It bothers me that though I can call images and sounds to mind, I can't recreate smells inside my head. If I could, I would backdrop my life with scents related to rain.

I. Freaking. Love. Rain.

I love days that can start with clouds, threaten rain, actually rain and then allow the sun a guest appearance before it sets. I love the anticipation of rain, the heavy air filled with moisture. I love the smells and colours that are recreated after a shower, like a layer of paint has been peeled off the world to reveal something brighter and more vibrant.

I love the breezes that make the hot sunshine bearable. I love feeling comfortable in a t-shirt and my Toms. I love the light that stays past 7:30. I love the baseball games that have started up at the diamond a block from my house. I love the sheer possibility of spring.

And maybe it's irrational. Maybe a girl who says things like, "Time is something we've created to make sense of our meaningless lives," shouldn't be saying what I'm about to, but hell. I can't help but feel as if spring loves me back.

things that I like

• Keyboards that have a distinct click and bounce like the ones in libraries and the one I'm typing on this very second.
• Mumford & Sons.
• When people start to talk about something they really care about and everything about their person becomes a storm of energy and passion.
• Drinking London Fogs on patios in the sunshine with people who stumble through sentences in the most endearing ways.
• Saying that I'm an anarchist.
• Mumford & Sons. 
• Painting my nails, even though I hate nail polish slowly peeling off.

On that note, I think I'm going to go paint my nails because I haven't in quite a while and I have the belief that we should all do nice things for ourselves when we're alone in other people's rooms, damn the consequences.

Okay, so I didn't mean it quite like that. But yeah. Be nice to yourself. You're awesome.

my life as an archivist's assistant

I'm finishing up my job in the near future. The title of Archival Assistant which I have so adored will belong to my past and some other girl for the summer. All of the negatives I, so lovingly, placed on the scanner will end up in the freezer, double zip lock bagged, with oven toasted mat board and a humidity tester to keep everything in check.

It's been fascinating getting to know the history of my new-ish community through donated photographs. I've also got to catalog a ton of really cool objects and artifacts. That cataloging may have taken place in a freezing building during mornings that lasted ice ages, but it was still pretty sweet. And then there are the expected coffee runs that come with being an assistant. I loved it all.

And I'll miss it. Only a couple more days and I'll have logged my last hour at the museum. Hopefully my next job will be half as neat. But probably not.

more voting angst

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman (1869-1940)

I realize that I'm spending a lot of energy thinking about this whole voting thing and I can be spending that energy doing something more productive and stuff but I have three weeks to decide on this shit and it's important to me. I also realize that in the most likely scenario, I will end up casting a ballot. But why do I even feel that way? Am I so brainwashed that I will forego my ethics and be an active participant in the corrupt system?

I related it in this beautiful simile today. Okay, so it's not a great simile but it's helping me make sense of my situation here...

Voting for an elected official is like deciding who you want to punch you in the face. First, you have to decide who is least likely to lie about the fact that they're going to punch you in the face. You know that all of them probably will but some might have a lighter touch, so you have to consider that. Maybe they don't want to punch you in the face but at the end of the day, it will be their job. At the very least, they'll be standing a little off to the side, complicit in the fact that you're getting punched.

Then there's the guy in the corner with the green banner saying that they've never punched anyone in the face. But they also haven't had the chance to. And they probably won't get that chance.

Even people who wholeheartedly believe in democracy will tell you that politicians lie. Then the people who are critical of the current electoral system will tell you that the first past the post system does not create representative governments. And so we have to cast a ballot choosing between evil things so we can get someone to maybe not punch us in the face.

Great. Yeah. Sign me up.

If I check off someone's name and drop it in that box, isn't that me buying into the system? Isn't that me giving consent for someone to punch me in the face, even though I had the chance to pick who? Doesn't that make me a complicit member of the corruption that goes on every election and in the space between them?

Will someone please help me? I'm drowning in the gray area of my moral compass.

juxtaposition, or, I use big words because I can

I don't really want to write a blog today. I've written blogs for twenty of the last twenty one days and I'm kind of really tired. I say kind of a lot. Okay, so I've had more than my usual amount of wine tonight and it's made me very sleepy. Also tipsy. Mostly sleepy.

Now I'm watching Star Trek. Sort of. It's on in the background.

So you might have realized this is one of those filler blogs. I'm just going to talk about my day until I get too sleepy to do even that. Feel free to go back to tumbling or whatever. I won't be hurt.

I had a really awesome day. I dyed Rachel's hair and ate a delicious egg sandwich and called three churches. And it's weird because yesterday was mildly shitty. But today has been awesome in an unadulterated fashion. The juxtaposition of shitty and awesome is pretty remarkable in my life.

Now I have to go because I'm being kicked out of the living room. Okay bye.

If you let me

If you let me,

I’ll describe the sounds that my body makes as I sit here waiting, turning my head every time I hear what could possibly be the door open, closing my eyes to hold onto the suspense, refusing to open Shroedinger’s box until I absolutely have to, this cat is both dead AND alive.

I don’t want to be nervous.

I want to be the uncracked mystery you’ve come to expect, want my limbs to secrete ease into this tiny room without trying. But the truth is I’ve been tying up the strings between us, so they won’t come undone, hoping you don’t notice that the way I lean against this wall is rehearsed, like my every heartbeat isn’t.

I’m not feigning to be someone that I'm not, no. I’m just trying to rearrange the pieces of myself into a shape that might be pleasing to your eyes, a three dimensional illusion and a solution to the puzzle at the same time. Just as I uncover these words and deliver them in a way that might be aesthetic to your ears.

I’m looking to leave an impression, like the valleys my guitar strings have carved onto my fingertips, staying long after the song is over. An impression.

Like that lasting expression on your face that says I like what I perceive and I want to know more.

More. Because I would let you put together this jigsaw puzzle if you desired, would even whisper hints against your neck, until you conspired to fit it all together, no matter what.

I’m waiting. But there’s no picture on the box to aid in your quest, nothing but me asking you not to rest until you fit it all together. But please don’t count the missing pieces, let’s fill them up together, whether or not we know how. Let’s pretend that we do and fill them up with the sound of our voices mingling in a conversation that bounds and bounces through the uncertainty in your eyes and the hope in mine, we will redefine

awkward silences.

And if, instead, my presence fills up the space in your mouth with nonsense words, if your mind becomes a wasteland of stutters, I will hang around until I can comprehend what you mean when you don’t utter a single word.

I will set up camp under your lips and catch the first word that falls, just as you have caught this poem.

If you let me.

hi again

I forgot to blog yesterday. And to the four of you that stopped by to visit, I apologize. I don't remember putting it off or procrastinating. It completely slipped my mind until 8 o'clock this morning, when I woke up and it hit me.

I had a dream the other night that all my guitar strings broke. It only just occurred to me that this could be somehow related to Paper Towns in my subconscious. And yes, my play got cancelled yesterday which was more than disappointing but I have plenty of strings left to play out.

Like the guitar strings I've been strumming to the sound of Rachel's ukulele playing, watching day by day as my fingertips roughen from contact with the unforgiving steel. But our voices blend together and soften every inch of my skin and the toughness of those calluses is so satisfying anyway. Look, here is proof that my body is changing for my art, that I am learning and evolving and even my skins cells are responding.

Goodnight, internet :)

to vote or not to vote

To a certain extent, I feel like I have been brainwashed to vote. How could I avoid the rhetoric? The constant refrain that all we need to do is get the youth voter turnout up. Then change will happen. Then... what? We'll revel in the socially liberalism that so many of us dream of and the older fogey conservatives can suck it?

Does anyone think it's really that simple?

It's not. The system is broken and corrupt and choosing between the lesser of two evils seems like a shitty way to make change happen. Maybe my ideals are radical but I just don't feel like the ripples from the pebbles I've been throwing are good enough. Things are pretty bad. We need people to start moving boulders and stop putting eggs into the baskets of people who lie for a living.

Then again, I don't really know what I'm talking about. But neither do they.

excessive John Green fangirling

I feel like a huge theme of my life is that I love to love things. I even love loving loving things. This is reminding me of John Green quoating James Joyce, "Love loves to love love."

Yeah, I just quoted Ulysses through John Green. Bam.

Which segues into my topic today, or lack of topic other than more gushing about things that I love (i.e. John Green). I really enjoy talking about John Green books. It is one of the main things that makes me really happy and engaged and excited about life. Due to this, and the awesomeness of collaboration, I am really stoked to be making a The Fault in Our Stars short film, including the first scene of the book.

Can we just freak out about that for a minute?

I've cast Augustus, Isaac, possibly Patrick and Monica. I'm [probably] going to play Hazel. I've only just started but things are starting to roll and, provided I can find an appropriate church basement, this is really happening!

I am going to create John Green fan art and it is going to be legit and made of awesome and yay life!

Extremely Loud and this book is going to make me cry

I love reading books. Books are a magical way into imagining each other and I am grateful for all the talented writers that give me peeks into what it's like to be another person, even if I'll never really know.

I'm currently reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer. Seventy three pages in and this book has already broken my heart and then failed at an attempt to make it whole again.

But I knew what I was getting into. Everything is Illuminated, also by Foer, was the same. Beautifully devastating. I'm going to go back to reading but please enjoy a brief snippet:

"We need much bigger pockets, I thought as I lay in bed, counting off the seven minutes that it takes a normal person to fall asleep. We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families, and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe. Eight minutes thirty two seconds. But I knew that there couldn't be pockets that enormous. In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that, and so I felt, that night, like the turtle that everything else in the universe was on top of."

 

please and thank you

The goosebumps you bring to my arms,
with your lips on my wrist,
bring the kind of thoughts that can only be expressed,
with the quickest of exhales.
An exhale in the elegant language of skin, 
about my body so desperate for your touch
I am pouring myself into your hands.
And I never said I wasn't selfish.
In fact, if I look back at all the times I asked for more 
so I could get what I needed, 
all I've ever implied 
is that I'm not afraid to speak my mind, 
to ask for what I want to be mine 
and receive it.
So let me put this into practice, let me.
Let me ask you in the simplest terms, 
with the most complex definitions
to put your hands against my rib cage
and pull me closer into you.
Blur the lines.
Turn out the lights.
Your fingers whisper what is true.

the antidote

I always blamed my bi-annual identity crises on being a middle child but if I'm being honest, I know that wasn't it. Because if you ask me who I am, the first thing I will tell you is my name and the second thing I will say is that I have three sisters.

I have three sisters. And yes, I am a middle child. But I have a feeling that even if I didn't have sisters, I would still have all those issues with my identity. What I wouldn't have is three people who make me feel more like me than anyone else.

Is it weird that I feel like I am more myself around these three weirdos who look nothing like me than when I am alone? I had a friend over today and it's not like I wasn't me when it was just the two of us but it's almost like I was more comfortable in my own skin once I was home with my flesh and blood, a cup of tea in my hand. I feel like you can get to know me better when I'm around them and maybe this isn't entirely true, but it feels like it.

They give me permission to be myself without my having to ask and I am eternally grateful. My sisters and the order of our births are not the source of my perennial identity crisis. They are the antidote.

my current favourite teas

I was accused of having a tea addiction today, at which I take offense. First of all, addiction implies that it's an issue. Secondly, I can stop anytime I want.*

I am, however, inspired to quantify what is not an addiction in a list of my favourite teas at the present moment.

1. Lady Londonderry. This stuff smells like gummy bears. Enough has been said. First tasted when served by my lovely friend, Hannah.
2. Sweet Rose. It's like drinking delicious flower petals. *swoon* Brings back memories of cooking class, where I drink this stuff by the pitcher.
3. Egyptian Licorice. This tea is actually so sweet on it's own, it is mildly deceiving. I drank a lot of Egyptian Licorice tea at a grad retreat where I told a story about getting chased by a German Shepard. Good times.
4. Dream Tea. This blend is a mix of I don't even know what but it's all these things with dream enhancing properties and it's freaking trippy and awesome. I am not in any way addicted to this stuff.**
5. Black Dilmah Ceylon. No day is complete without an extremely hot cup of black tea with milk and a dash of sugar.

If you have any tea suggestions for me, I would love to hear them. Aside from that, happy tea drinking, and goodnight.

*Lies.

**More lies.

on writing & performing poetry

I don't know when it started.* Honestly, I used to think poetry was pretentious and complicated. It can definitely be the former. Also, the later. But I didn't see the good parts of pretentious and complicated, at that time, only the bad.

I think I was fifteen when I attended my first poetry slam. Maybe fourteen. In any case, it completely blew me away. I don't remember the poets. Except there was this one guy named Byron. I do remember walking away thinking that I wanted to do that, to be one of those poets.

And it took a few years. Three. But I eventually got up there and, in front of a microphone and a room of people, performed words that I had written. And won the slam, but that's beside the point ;)

I spoke my poems aloud to myself as I walked to the slam. My pace was quick so I could avoid the feeling of being about to collapse. Even at the slam, I couldn't pay attention to anyone else because my poems were just playing over and over in my head, the words taking over and forcing me into a trance of nervousness and excitement.

Performing is a rush. There's not a whole lot of ways to describe it but it's kind of like being mentally chased by a dog on your bicycle. Your heart races and your stomach clenches up and you feel like you might die while at the same time feeling like you've never been this alive.

I've gotten a tad bit addicted to the feeling. And I'm getting my next hit this Sunday. Here's to hoping I don't actually die.

*I also don't know how many blog posts I've started with the words, "I don't know," but I would wager that it's a few.

rooftops

I wrote this at some point over the summer as the start to a possible novel but it hasn't gone anywhere and I'm lazy and at a friend's house so enjoy today's blog and maybe someday it will be the first page of a novel that you'll read with a strange feeling of deja vu.

***

I’ll be the first to admit I was intoxicated. Somewhere between slightly and pretty intoxicated. The kind of drunk where it seems like a good idea to climb out of the window with your glass of stolen Jack and Coke. The kind where you decide to switch out the drink for a guitar so you can sing about heartbreak to the stars and the street cats. That kind.

It smelled like disinfectant in the house and I wanted out. In fact, if the roof had been high enough to kill me and not just leave me seriously injured, I might have wanted that kind of out, too. Alcohol is a depressant, they say. Like I needed any help with that.

Getting the guitar out of the window was kind of awkward. I am as graceful a drunk as any but the bulk of the guitar took some maneuvering. It caught a little on the windowsill and I lost my balance for a bit when I yanked and it gave way. The relief at not falling backwards off the roof surprised me. But I guess life wants to live.

I sat down on the sandpapery roofing and started trying to remember chords. My fingers fumbled to remember the right strings. Somehow, my muscle memory got me through. I strummed into the darkness.

My back against the house, my gaze to the universe, I had one of those fractured moments of clarity I only have after two shots of tequila and one and half girly vodka coolers. Like a light flicked on and off just as quickly, I had lost it but the innuendo of epiphany lasted, like my eyes were stained by the light.

I heard a window open and thought of my dad but then remembered I hadn’t shut my window. There was a boy sticking his head out a window to my right and I stopped playing, the last chord I strummed ringing out.

“Hey, just a friendly reminder that you live in a fucking townhouse complex and it is past midnight. Good day to you.” He didn’t sound angry exactly but the inflection could have been lost on me. He shut the window again and I began to convince myself I’d imagined the event.

I’m still not sure.

right now

I wrote a couple days ago about the future and at the time it seems so relevant but today, more relevant than anything is right now. Not five months from now. Today.

I'm turning nineteen a month from now. There are a lot of firsts in my immediate future. My first government election. First tax return*. First legal drink. Those are legit adult things, guys. *gasp* Am I becoming an adult?

Maybe so. Or maybe I'll be stuck in this in-between state for the foreseeable future. But I like this in-between. I'm doing a ridiculous amount of really awesome things right now. Like making a radio show and planning a trip to the Great Bear Rainforest which may or may not happen. Writing and performing poetry and walking in the rain.

This blog doesn't have much of a point except to say that I'm very stoked to be alive at this particular junction in my life. I'm happy. I hope you are too.

*yes, I could have done this in the two previous years I've had a job but it wasn't mandatory and I didn't. 

I had a coffee this morning. I rarely, if ever, drink coffee but this morning was an exception. Following the coffee (if we're being specific it was a two pump vanilla spice latte) was an extremely long day that has led to the kind of exhaustion that makes me despise everyone around me and also myself.

So if you'll excuse me, I am going to finish my tea, crawl into bed and watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother or perhaps read a chapter of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which is so far incredible, if you were wondering). Then I'm going to go to sleep so that tomorrow I can begin again.

So it goes.

the future... (dun dun duuuuuun)

Yesterday, I made a budget with my mom. This my seem like a insignificant thing but it felt like a turning point. And I wonder how much time I'll spend in the next five months wondering why the words excited and terrified seem so intertwined in my mind, like two vines that wrap around each other because there's nothing else around.

I once described my family as made up of tea and hugs and this is not far from true so I wonder how many times in the next five months it will hit me that I won't be within hugging distance come September. But I'm not the only one taking off. Rachel will be in the Outback and Caitlyn will probably be on the move, too, but it's nice to think of us all as boomerangs, or something, flying off only to return again.

The truth is that I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know why I'm removing myself from the mountains I love to go live on a fault line that could go off at any second. I don't know why I'm separating myself from what I'm just getting used to.

I just know that I need to.

it's complicated

when I was into boys, just boys,

life was easy.

a series of make believe crushes I convinced myself to have,

so that I could be like the others.

And then a real crush,

a does-he-like-me crush

a fall-asleep-thinking-of-his-face crush.

But he 

just wanted to be friends 

and I

had read enough chapters of He’s Just Not That Into You

sitting in a neglected corner of that bookstore in Seattle

to know that I

deserved someone who wanted me back.

Then I fell

into something new

a pool

of fluidity.

My relationship to my sexuality,

shifting, changing, transforming into something

I still don’t have a label for.

now 'it's complicated'
is the subheading
to my life.

I have an email problem

My first email alias was squirelgirl94. That was a long time ago, back in the days when I didn't know that 'squirrel' had two 'r's. Now, I am wiser and have Gmail instead of Aol. Go team. And yet. 

I am afraid of my email inbox.

This is not my fault. Well, it kind of is. But how was I to know as I scrawled my email address on fleeting clipboards that all the newsletters would eventually pile up around me in terrifying piles of electronic space? It  always seemed so harmless to type in a few characters and hit that promising subscribe button. If I had known it would lead to this, I might have been more discerning.

You can just unsubscribe, Alex. It's simple, really.

Yeah but... even that seems unspeakably daunting. I have 1,007 emails right now about about 25 more every day. I don't know how many e-newsletters I'm on the list of. But what if I unsubscribe and then miss something important? Those newsletters are a part of my identity. I could be an up-to-date-on-the-state-of-the-world person if I read everything that came into my inbox every day. If I let them keep coming, I have the chance to be that person.

A part of me knows that I'll never read all the emails I get. I'm deluding myself. But I want to be someone who isn't afraid of all the unread emails. Maybe one day, I will be.

Maybe.

"nobody likes me but I really like to cry"

Today wasn't a bad day. Not exactly. It was, however, a day when random frustrating moments made me cry. Like having my bus drive away as I stood just a few feet away from the bus stop. Or calling the dentist to book an appointment for my wisdom teeth extraction, something I'm really not excited about, and having the receptionist tell me there is nothing available until May 17th.*

(on a side, you think I would be happy about this because it just gets put farther off and it's not like I'm stoked to have my mouth anesthetized and cut open but I was displeased for two reasons: a) I'm turning nineteen on May 10th and will no longer be covered by insurance for such tooth extractions and b) I really should have booked this appointment two weeks ago after my consultation like my mom asked me to.)

So I cried. I also realized I haven't cried in a while. That's one of the weird things about me and crying. I feel like I go through phases wherein I either cry every day or I don't cry at all. We'll see how the next week goes.

The thing is, though, I don't see crying as an inherently bad thing. I know my mom hates it, and it's not like it's a super attractive thing but I generally feel better after. I've read articles about how crying releases mood leveling hormones and blah blah blah. While this may or may not be true, I just feel better afterwards. Is that weird? Probably. Yet there's something so relieving about letting go, whether it's in the form of a couple tears or a minor sob fest on your bed, after which you can wipe off any smudged eyeliner and get on with your life.

*She has since called back with an appointment for me. April 30th. Strangely, I think this is the one year anniversary of my first experience with wisdom tooth extraction. What a great way to celebrate a horrible experience!

***blog title quote from The Con by Tegan and Sara***

tea (feel free to not read this) (this is not Lemony Snicket bullshit I'm serious)

I really love tea. It is a very rare case that I will turn down a cup. I'm sure there was a time when tea wasn't a huge part of my existence but I can't remember it very well. I'd kind of like to go back to that moment when I become a Tea Drinker and take a snapshot. But maybe it happened gradually. Most things do. A cup here, a travel mug there. Just socially, you know. Before it became a full scale addiction, a don't-talk-to-me-before-I've-had-my-tea type of problem.*

Problem? Did I say problem? I didn't mean that. What could be problematic about a warm hug in a mug?

I can't believe I just wrote that and yet I can't bring my finger to erase it. It stays. Maybe I should rename my blog, "Warm Hug in a Mug." That would attract the interwebs, I'm sure. At this rate, I don't really want attention but if I did, I now know how to attain it. Cheesy rhymes and tea rambles.

Day Four of BEDA: The day you collapse into a heap of nothingness and start rambling about tea. And then plead that you have to go to sleep and disappear mysteriously into the fog.

*disappears mysteriously into the fog*

What am I doing with my life?

*I'm not actually like that. Really.

A letter to my past self

About a month ago, a book fell into my lap at the exact moment that I needed it. It's called The Letter Q and it's a collection of letters that queer writers have written to their younger selves. My sister had gotten it out of the library and so I started reading a letter or two when I was upset or just had a free moment. I didn't get to read them all before it had to be returned but it helped. I'll borrow it again some time and finish soaking in the loveliness.

Inspired by that, and with the theme of my post on the 1st about having this blog for over five years, I present a letter to young Alex.

***

Dear Younger Me,

I want you to let go of that vision you have of yourself at eighteen, driving a convertible around in no particular direction with your long, straight hair blowing in the wind. Let it go right now because it's never going to happen. This is because halfway through being eighteen you decide to chop your hair off and leave it in a plastic bag in your closet for six months (sorry, Maddy!).

The main part will be fulfilled. You will drive a convertible, your hair will blow in the wind when you're not restraining it with a hat and you will be on a grand adventure. It will not be a spontaneous joy ride--it will be a trip from point A to point B, from Away to Home. But this will be better because 1. you are in love with the feeling of coming home, almost as much as you love the feeling of heading away on a journey and, 2. joy riding is an inexcusable way to emit carbon.

What I'm trying to say that it won't turn out how you planned. You have to try to be okay with that. Learn to love it. I know you're that kid who organizes the children's paperbacks at the library by author and series but sometimes the librarians don't have time to keep up with you and other kids aren't as astute and you're going to have to deal with that.

This goes for people, too. You probably haven't read Paper Towns yet but I'll give you a preview: "Just remember that sometimes the way you think about a person isn't the way they actually are." The thing about people is that they are complex. Duh. You get this feeling sometimes when you're sitting in traffic or overlooking a moving crowd. Everyone is going somewhere different and they all have problems and unique things that make them smile and you will never know all of their stories. The sooner you figure out how to apply this wonder to the people nearest you, the better.

You will never know what it is like to be anyone but you. Right now, you enjoy this. You are working so hard to distinguish yourself from everyone else that you forget that everyone is just as unique as you. Don't worry about this fact diminishing your personal identity. There is enough room for everyone. I promise.

Eventually, you'll get to a place where you can be a part of a group without surrendering yourself. You'll loosen up your expectations of people and you won't be so disappointed all the time. Sometimes, you'll be surprised by how unexpectedly awesome people (and the world) can be. Once you let go of those plans you've been clutching in your white knuckled fists, you'll leave so much more space for other fantastic things to fall into your palms.

For example, that convertible I told you that you'd be driving at eighteen? It's a freaking Smart Car. (How cool is that?!)

Love always,
You from the future

Toms season

I felt pretty jazzed this morning as I skipped to my bus stop wearing my stained, worn, holey Toms. The soles are slowly disappearing from wandering all down the West Coast and back. The heels are a little folded and looser than they once were. Yet I had that feeling of success that I was going out without needing a hardcore tread to keep from slipping. I'm not even wearing socks.

I remember the last day I wore my Toms in November. It had snowed that night but I wasn't ready to let go yet. Then I had to cross the train tracks climb a gravelly hill out of a parking lot. Spoiler: I made it up without falling. Still, it was a little iffy a few moments and I knew it was time. I put my olive green shoes in the shoe bin and exchanged them for a pair of boots that made everyone ask me if I was taller.

After a solid weekend of lying in the sunshine and walking from one end of town to another wearing a tank top, my feet feeling claustrophobic and sweaty inside my leather boots, I decided to revisit the shoe bin. I can't get over how great it is to not have to hunt for two clean socks in the morning. Not being as tall is a little disappointing but it's worth it for the lightness my feet feel with every step.

I just hope it doesn't snow again.

a simple post

I know I don't know you. And even if I do, I don't really know you. I don't know what you eat for breakfast or what song you've been listening to on repeat most recently or what you think about in the shower. I don't know what unexpected thing made you smile today and I don't know what you're most looking forward to. I don't even know that anyone is going to read this at all.

For that reason, among others, it's hard for me to explain why exactly I've been posting things to this blog for the past five years. Yeah. Five years. My first post is dated March 12th, 2008. Back then, I wrote about Twilight and what an excellent procrastinator I was. Thank god my taste in books has evolved, if nothing else.

Five years. I still can't get over that. Today was not unlike one I probably would have experienced at thirteen, however. I slept until 10:30, the first time I've managed to sleep in all week, and then stayed in bed for most of the day reading a book (Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler). I feel like starting and finishing a book in one day is something I did more when I was thirteen but I could be wrong. 98% of the posts I wrote in 2008 were about Twilight so I don't really want to go back there and poke around. I should probably take some of those posts down but there's something appealing to me about leaving them for the world to see. I am a person who legitimately loved Twilight for at least eight months and I am not ashamed of that. Okay, maybe I'm a little ashamed of it, but not enough to make my blog posts private.

This way, you can see how I've developed as a person, right? A ton of stuff about me has changed in five years. For example, most of my cells have replaced themselves. In two more years, I will be made up of a completely different arrangement of cells--nothing will be the same. Since 2008, I've written two novels, a screenplay and countless poems. I've fallen in love. I've travelled the West Coast of the United States. I've won a poetry slam. I've played music at an open mic. I've hosted a Philosophers' Cafe. I've been to a wedding. I've jumped off a telephone pole. Most importantly, I've stopped believing Twilight is the pinnacle of young adult literature.

I'm irrevocably grateful for that last one.

It's nice to have some written evidence that I have grown. I'm evolving as a person--check my blog for proof. And even though I don't really know you, reader (at least not in the same way that you know me, if you read this blog), I plan to keep writing. Maybe I'll figure out some more reasons why in the next five years.