I Am Not Dead

Hello, hello, hello-

I am not dead. I am not even really close to dead. I just have so many things vying to pull my time away from schoolwork that blogging, sad to say, often gets pushed to the end of the list. That's right. You're a distraction from my other distractions. How does that make you feel?

February break starts Friday though THANK THE LORD. I am flying back to Massachusetts where, upon arriving, I will promptly take a bubble bath. I'm also getting my next tattoo and spending a few nights at Wheaton College where one of my very best friends goes. She'll be doing schoolwork. I, will not. The only thing I will be doing is living it up, wild college girl style. It, will be awesome. (Honestly, I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just excited to see what a college that isn't Christian, in the middle of a cow field, and covered in ice and snow like our very own pre-Aslan version of Narnia is like. Also, a place where there is something to do past eleven o'clock. Maybe even somewhere to go that isn't on campus. In other words, a place that is not Houghton.)

I'm really freaking excited for break, which actually completely sucks, because whenever you're really excited for something and you've built it up a lot in your mind, it always always lets you down. I really don't want break to let me down.

I don't think it will though: I don't know how it could. My best friend is easy to be with and even when we haven't seen each other in ages, we've known each other so long that we can fill in the gaps in moments and it's like we saw each other yesterday again. Also, I'm psyched that she's coming with me to get my tattoo, and getting her belly button pierced. I love it when friends go with me to get bodily mutilations. It just makes them that much more meaningful.

I am also psyched to see my parents; I should probably mention that. Or, just to be in my house really. And most especially, to see my dog, aka Holly, aka the coolest animal on this entire planet. I miss that dog, so very much. I plan to get my fill of her over this break.

I also plan to eat steak. Hopefully. If I can convince my parents to take me out to a steakhouse because, as always, I am next to broke right now.

And you know what else I plan to do? Blog. I know. You should be super grateful that I am willing to spend my precious free time blogging for people like you. It's because I love you, Dear Readers. I love you lots for putting up with me and my laziness and mood-swings and weird obsessions every week.

It's very possible one of these blog posts will be about tattoos (FINALLY). Since I'm getting my new one, it seems appropriate to finally address the topic and my personal (obviously positive) feelings on the matter. It's also possible that one of these blog posts will be the short story that I promised (if you read it) on my twitter account last week or so. You know what I just did there? I just promised you two blog posts next week. What the frigidaire was I thinking?

So, there you go. I just have to make it through the next five days alive and then I will be living it up and telling you all about it. Save some free time next week to read my lovely ramblings.

Until then.

P.S.
This week, I did four things I have never done before. I watched Shutter Island, which freaked me out, in the best way, and I liked it a lot. (Even though the people I was watching it with TALKED THROUGH THE WHOLE THING NOT TO POINT FINGERS OR ACT LIKE I'M STILL ANGRY ABOUT IT OR ANYTHING JED. MAYBE YOU WOULD'VE UNDERSTOOD IT BETTER IF YOU'D BEEN ABLE TO SHUT UP FOR FIVE SECONDS.) (It's ok, he doesn't read this blog. He has no idea I even have a blog. No worries.) Uhm, where was I? Oh. I played pool for the first time, and I immediately realized there is a reason I have been avoiding the pasttime all these years, and I stopped playing pool. I finished a 38 oz. bag of peanut butter m&m's. Not by myself. Don't worry. AND I made pottery at a real live pottery wheel, and it was awesome, and I plan to do it again, maybe more than once. It's really awesome when your future roommate is an art major and you've just always had all these deep, hidden, unfullfilled dreams of being artistic buried inside of you. It's really very awesome.

P.P.S. That was a really long P.S. Sorry. That's all. See you very soon. I hope. Wish me luck this week!

A Depressing (But Non-Valentine's Day Related!) Post

Oh Blogosphere-

There is so much that I want to say to you, yet so much holds me back. I know that underneath it all, though you seem really friendly and welcoming, you really are an interweb portal to all sorts of unknown people and absolutely anybody in the world could access you at any time. Knowing that keeps me from spilling my guts to you, though I want to. You aren't my diary: I have to remind myself of that often. In fact, I have a diary, or a journal, if you will. I have several of them. I don't need to spill my guts here.

But what can I say, when my life has been spiralling completely out of control, when these past 5 or 6 weeks have been so terribly difficult, when I have spent every day treading water, simply trying to keep my head above the current, and getting splashed over and hit square in the face with another wave of salty sea water every time that I think I've started to make some progress.

Am I drowning?

Is God trying to tell me something?

I feel that usual frustration return to me, the frustration directed at everyone in my life, most especially God, and none of it toward myself, the person that really deserves the brunt of it.

Why are they doing this to me? I ask. Do they mean to be mean? Do they care that they are hurting my feelings? And- why did I do that? It was their fault. They made me do it, by making me feel this way. It's not supposed to feel this way. Why doesn't he like me? I need him to like me, but he'll never like me now, not after what I did. I just want her to be my friend again, my best friend, but the more I hold onto her, the more she starts to slip away. I can't even look at myself in the mirror. I feel sick. If I pass this semester, it will be a miracle. I just want to go home, to get out of here. I need something, something to make me feel okay. I thought I was doing better, I thought I was feeling better. Why, God, when I just walked out of that desert, would you lead me back into yet another one? Will I ever be out of the desert?

It's all falling apart, but when is it not? I feel ashamed, about almost everything about me, everything that I have done, everything that I am. I told a friend Sunday night, "I thought I had more self-respect for myself than this." I really did. But it turns out, I don't.

Why do I feel exactly like I'm fifteen years old again? I'm nearly nineteen; life wasn't supposed to feel this way anymore.

What do I even have? I look down at my hands: they are empty. What do I even have anymore? "It really hits me now/ If this is all I got/ Then I'm alone with nothing."

Monastir said it right. "Life Is Long When You're Lonely."

*I just finished writing this and then realized it was Valentine's Day. I truly didn't mean to be so depressing on V-Day. That's honestly just really hugely coincidental.

*One very good thing about my life recently: one of my most favorite friends came to visit for the weekend, from Buffalo, and I got to see her lots and it was absolutely wonderful.

Fiction Fridays

Guess what guys! I am really super very excited to announce that this blog will be hosting a new feature! I know! Who would've thunk it! I'm not really a "feature" type of girl.

I've had a plethora of blogs in the past, ones that I've created and used and then deleted or created and never used and then deleted, and as of now, I think three are in existence and two are updated regularly. My tumblr: is the blog that I kind of just use for fun, for personal things or random things or pretty and exciting things that I want to post whenever. This blog, when I began it, was meant to be a place for me to post completed works of fiction that I wrote.

As it was, I wrote more, I think I once termed them "impassioned diatribes" than works of fiction, hence the name shift and, on the whole, a kind of purpose shift for the blog. But I don't want to stop posting fiction altogether, as that was kind of my original purpose, and it is, ultimately, what I most enjoy writing and the place I hope to eventually take my writing, in terms of a career and my life focus, etc.

So with that being said, I present to you Fiction Fridays. Now that my fiction class has ended, I have no reason to be writing fiction on a regular basis anymore, and that's not good, because that means that I won't. I just won't do it. And I need to be doing it. So to keep me writing fiction and to maybe make my blog a bit more fun and interesting? (maybe not) I'm going to have Fiction Fridays, at least once, maybe twice a month. These are Fridays on which I will be posting strictly works of fiction. I have no guidelines for the types or lengths or quality of fiction at the present. I'm also going to set the goal of just getting at least one Fiction Friday a month for now, and we'll see how that goes. For whatever reason, I seem to do a lot better at posting regularly when I'm actually at school, so that seems to indicate I will still be able to do my regular weekly post as well as a Fiction Friday on the week that the two coincide, but once again, no promises. We'll see what happens with it, where it goes. For now, I'm going to try it out and hopefully, it's not a complete flop! I hope you're looking forward to it! (Maybe. Kinda. Ok. Shut up.)

The Deal

It seems that, unintentionally, I've begun doing weekly blog posts. I just want you to know now, how sorry I am. I really never meant to do this to you, I never meant to subject you to the inner workings of my mind on a regular, weekly basis. It was so much nicer for everyone, I know, back during the summer when I only posted once, maybe twice a month. Or how about the past year, when I didn't even have a blog at all, after I deleted my first one (I DID have a blog before this, believe it or not, but thank God, nobody has access to it anymore, not even me.) So anyhow, I'm sorry, but I just can't help myself. I've come to the conclusion, this week in particular, that it's just too exhausting to be me, to have to hear the incessant thoughts going on in my own head all the time. I honestly can't stand it. So I need somewhere to unleash it all, and I think that my friends, as much as they love and adore me, kind of want to punch me in the face...

So here I am, blogging my thoughts instead.

I have nothing further to say here, maybe I'll come up with something in the near future (your screams of protest are noted). I just wanted to let you know what the deal was gonna be from now on.

Once again, my deepest, sincerest apologies.