So in January...

January is almost over!
I wore my snow sweater and it worked, enacting a whole day of cancelled worthless classes so that I can go frolic and ski. I'm in an extra whimsy mood. But not in the sense of creepy whimsy (see the jump).
Whimsy as in drawing my name on my fogged up bathroom windows and listening to She & Him and reading all day in some nook. Writing haikus. Puddle jumping.
But really I've just been reading a really well written biography on our faithful defender Robert E. Lee, wearing ugly sweaters, watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (excellent but sad) and playing guitar.

I feel like this February will be an extra sort of sweet.
Oh gawd, February! When all girls hark about is Valentine's Day and sex (not really) and candlelit dinners blah blah blah
And if that is how you feel you should stop reading ---now.

Because truly sweet Valentine's Day-ing is of the utmost importance. Men get to show how much they actually care. But most of them opt for the really boring "I love you", kiss on the cheek, tasteless necklace sort of deal. Which is sweet and classic and totally what you expect from everyone who doesn't know anything.
But a real man would take his special lady on a date.
To wherever.
Preferably somewhere warm depending on the weather.
A beautiful view with a hot thermos of tasty cocoa and sweet mugs.
What!? The man doesn't have a car? ...Bicycle.
Not a real date. On a real date the man drives, gets out of the car before the lady and opens the door for her. This is a classic and overlooked ritual only given on days of special importance.
Or the date could be a restaurant that you've never been to before, a coffee shop, a concert, ice skating, karaoke, going to the zoo, adopting a cat. Whatever, it need to be cool.

Jolt.

With the side of her forehead pressed against the cool outer glass she stared out onto the frozen streets. Her breathe streamed a little to the side when she blew out all the spent air, it locally fogged up the window.
The seats were hard. Each manhole cover jarred the bus and she shifted in her seat. Left cheek, right cheek, both, never keeping all her weight on one. Last time she had sat flat on her butt like any normal person would do, but this time was an experiment, to keep her but from getting sore.
Every two or three minutes she would try to hold her breathe as long as possible. A minute and a half was all she had lasted so far, heaving out the air onto the window where it would obscure the view. Half a minute was weak, she could do better.
There was no point in bringing a book to read. The bus ride made her so nauseous, with the back of her throat twitching, that reading would lead to a most violent upchuck on the hard plastic seats.
There was that cold sweat, with the recirculating air of the bus staying stifling, hot but never reaching the inner confines of her clothes. It just heated the air she breathed out and blew it back down on her to breathe in again.
The headphones were the protection from older women, bored from the ride, who would try to talk to her if she took them off. It wasn't like she looked particularly friendly, but they were drawn to her, little moths that smelled like cheap perfume to her consuming flame. There was no eye contact on the bus, no friendliness, she just kept within her head nursing empty thoughts.
"Why is the sky blue?" I can't remember, I learned that back in freshman year of high school, but it's gone now.
Each jolt of the bus knocked her head off the window, but it would then return with a dull thunk.
She practiced holding her breathe again. Half a minute really was weak.

Crabs.

I'm surprised by the people at my school who don't read quality fiction.
Sure, I read serial novels every once in a while. I can get into a series. But I enjoy the classics.

Reading: Currently? The last book of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series
Reading: For Research: Lee's Civil War

I only have three classes this semester. I wish I had more. I honestly don't know how to fill my time. I'd love to be volunteering though.

My lack of direction caused my to not get to the C-Ville round of The Jefferson Scholarship, such a disappointment.

I should have applied to UVM, it seems like a much better Northern choice.

I've been using my free time to catch up on movies
- The Social Network --phenomenal, I don't know why I didn't see it before, makes me want to attend an ivy, not that I have that choice...
- The Kids Are All Right -- beautiful, but also... lots of sex
- Shawshank Redemption -- again, why did I take so long to see this?

It would be fun to go shopping soon. I think I'm taking a coffee pilgrimage to Lexington some time.
I also want to go rock climbing.
And bake cookies.
But first I have to work on my Lee Jackson essay, college is so greedy.

Listening currently-
-The Social Network soundtrack- is brilliant, and you can download part of it for free (not the best parts though)
-Dr. Dog- anybody up for a concert in C-ville next month?
-Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean- I could sing praises for Sam Beam all day. All all day.
- Zooey Deschanel's Dream A Little Dream- singing at open mic soon

Back to another month of not blogging and being a hermit.
I'd put a bunch of hermit crabs in a tank together, then they would be mingling crabs, very rare.

You keep all your money in a... grocery bag.

People without means, become caught up in gaining means, so that they can then have means. They usually end up poor.

People with means have two options:
a. They can spend time learning and being smart. Can go to school and get high paying jobs. They can have means.
b. They can throw off money as if it doesn't mean anything (though it's necessary for their lifestyle) and can life off what the previous generation created.

There are also many different exceptions.

I look at myself in the mirror, and consider the options of how I am different, greater, stronger, smarter, more beautiful than everyone else.

I'm not.

The only thing that sets me apart from another person on the planet is that I am only one person. Through environment, development, DNA, fingerprint.

I'm only greater than a few. The others are different, grater, stronger, smarter, more beautiful than I.

So I look in the mirror and consider my options.

It looks bleak.

The truth is, that this world changes at a pace so quick it seems I get lost. Somehow I'm an element in the different tides, the circles and tides of what makes a person matter in life. But when you are a separate entity in such a roiling mass that is today's interconnected society, your presence feels like a wisp, nothing substantial.

It can be looked at like a filter.

Say you want to make grape juice.

You stretch a cloth over a bucket and pour the mashed up grapes into it.

Each drop of juice is someone who will contribute a small amount to society. But they just blend in with the rest of the juice. They are born, live, and die (or if you want to keep the metaphor going, are drank).

The big clots of grape skin are people who matter. Whether they matter in their own lives is not of importance. They matter to other people and contribute much. They can't fit through the cloth and stay on top. It takes lots of grapes to make a good amount of grape juice, so there are lots of people that matter, are rich, go to good schools, have good jobs.

Everyone is either swallowed in a glass of grape juice, or thrown out as unused material, grape skins, in the end.

I don't know what I'm talking about.

The Street Lights All Burn Out

Dreamy sleazy sweety

I was talking to a friend that got back from college. Apparently, she locks her door every time she leaves her dorm room now. She doesn't trust the people in her dorm because they came in and cut her rug. You know, the term for dancing?

I'm feeling that caffeine haiiiigh.

I know I'm in love with Mr. Darcy. But I would never, ever, be Elizabeth. I would be Mary, who would have to compensate for everything by learning. Face in a book- that's me.

I want to go ice skating. Skiing.

Hahaha, I wish you could have seen me trying to learn how to knit today. I'm a lost cause. Abominable.

Goethe's Faust is sitting on my bed. It really wants to be read.

Pulled out a 89.3 for this 9-weeks in AP Art. Point 2 points. Gah, it kills me. kills meh.

"I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses... taking pictures of your feet."

I never get sick. It's one of those irrefutable things. Or it has been. Or it was...

When I'm drinking tea, I always drink it with honey. But, then the honey slowly precipitates to the bottom, leaving the last few sips unbearably sweet.

I'm always really tired now. For the last three weeks I've been "on break". I can get up at ten without it being a big deal. My day doesn't fully start until 5 pm. I'm extremely counter-productive and in a semi-hibernating state. I want to run, but I ache.

I did yoga for the first time Saturday.
Don't, don't even judge. It was powerful stuff.

Merry Hand Egg Championships today and Sunday.

It's a Jungle Out There

I like the peace
in the backseat,
I don't have to drive,
I don't have to speak,
I can watch the country side,
and I can fall asleep.

Cohort classes don't start for another week. I just made a shitty/ original? collage. It just has a bunch of glitter and shit pasted on it. It's supposed to be about the holidays. You can't paste the most important things about winter onto a poster board.

Snow, it melts.
Couches are rather bulky.
Really warm hugs belong to someone else's arms. Not shaky hugs, not awkward hugs, hugs where you just realize you belong in those arms.
Fuzzy hats don't belong on a poster board.
Hot chocolate is a no go.
Christmas movies, TVs, all do not belong.
Drunken holiday parties.
Warm Jackets, warm mittens.
Fluffy animals.
Sleds and Christmas trees.
All do not belong.

How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion.

Watch the beasts snatch their prey and runaway,
Lurk, bite, struggle, snap, death, every day.

The lion, being hungry, throws itself on the antelope, [and] devours it. The panther anxiously awaits the moment when it too can claim its share. Birds of prey have each torn a piece of flesh from the top of the poor animal which sheds a tear. The sun sets.

If I had to pick my favorite piece of art what would it be?

I like the Truthisms piece- You are a victim of the rules you live by.

Going back to school after break is like walking into the jungle, the sounds are all foreign, there is this smell; as we bunch in the stairwells, of perfume and body spray, orchids and sweat. The people grunt and wear sweatpants, they say really nasty things. Its eat or be eaten.

MMXI

The feeling when you've been pretty busy for a couple days and you get home (because you were not there before) and it takes you a little while to unload the car, sink into a chair, eat an apple, vegetate for a little while, and then suddenly you just walk upstairs, pull on your 'jamas and pass out for 4 hours with the cats that miss you and smash up next to you and the partially cloudy day streaming in. (Interject yawn.) It feels good.

School starts tomorrow. I always feel stagnant without school running my life. Without bells to ring and tell me where to go, without books and equations, toting around flash drives and English projects, trying to ignore the loud juniors in the library. Trying to stay on task. Warning: someone will have their backpack turtled soon.

New Years was really pleasant. It may not seem like a vacation, three hours away, but it's enough that I can clear my head of this silly senioritis.

Do you ever think of something that you did once, back when you were pleasantly unaware, or in love, or whatever and it makes you want to puke? Flashback alert. You just sit there and think of all the dumb things you did and regret, and when people say that you shouldn't regret the things that you've done in your life you just want to slap them around. It's my life, if I don't think that I should have done something whose to say that I can't take it back other than the laws of physics? I can't go back and change something, not because you say I can't, but because it's impossible. There is no bending of time, but unfortunately, there is in most cases, memory.

I feel like at the end of my post here I would say I have plans for 2011. I don't have any explicit plans. Keep living? Definitely.

Travel.

Learn things that can be applied to everyday life.

A real and wholly satisfying relationship, and not in just the plain old context of boyfriends but having friends that I can count on. I have a couple now that are really close and it takes a long time for people to grow close to me and for me to grow close to them. There isn't an instinctive trust or that whole putting people at ease immediately.

To cultivate something. Now that it is winter I miss fresh vegetables and fresh flowers and fresh life. Like cold mud on bare toes and cultivating really vibrant conversation. Cultivating something that I would loose myself in. Finding something that flourishes and grows.

Biking. Seems odd, but I'm tired of the ho-hum drive between school. Why not bike? It takes longer, it takes more strength, it means waking up earlier, having helmet hair, not getting places on time. But it also means having the wind in my face, living dangerously, getting up at the crack of dawn. I don't know we'll see how long it lasts.

This is not a resolution. Its trial and error living.