- Surprise!

- ...Hopefully things are not automatically weird now.

- Skins can go fuck itself. In the asshole.

- Signing up for classes is challenging again; it's like freshman year, needing to have back-up plans for my back-up plans because the classes keep filling up before I can add them.

- The number of bruises I have on my legs is ridiculous.

- I want to say that I just remembered something, but I didn't actually forget it. I just... haven't happened to recall it for nine years running? I don't know. It makes no sense. I'm severely weirded out and I can't decide if I'm supposed to be upset or not.

- ...but seriously. It's not like anything about me is suddenly different, but I feel really weird.

- I want to go back to sleep until my headache and queasy feelings are gone, but I can't because my cousin is still here and I am trying to be a polite host. At least as much as I can be when we're both hungover and my apartment looks like hurricane Newcastle blew through and left no survivors.

- My other cousin left very early yesterday. It's weird when we hang out because we act like friends. Not that that's a bad thing, but we aren't, at least insofar as she doesn't actually like me. The types of jokes I like to make, the subjects I am most often thinking about, the way I talk- all of it bugs her. Of course, knowing this makes me nervous and so then I start babbling non-stop.

- The song "Don't Think I'm Not" by Vitamin C is stuck in my head and refusing to budge. I keep catching myself humming it.

- We're going to use the rainy day today to watch documentaries. And by we, I mostly mean me.


Aaaand that's all.

There is a silent war being waged in my kitchen.

Well, it's actually less of a war, and more of a stand-off. Possibly a game of chicken. Anyway, no one is doing dishes or taking out the trash.

This actually occurs a few times a month, but usually someone (...usually me) gives up and does all of the dishes and takes the trash out and we start fresh. I can't justify my instinctual belly-up instinct this time, however, because the dishes were all there when I came back from my trip, and therefore none of them are mine.

Plus, I already took out the trash just now, and it was so full that the bag started to rip down the middle while I was carrying it. Fun stuff.



Also, my cousins are visiting tonight, and I'm getting that weird 'hostess' anxiety that I seem to have picked up from my mom. I dislike it very much.



Aaaaaand I asked Tina about her hypothetical reaction to the hypothetical situation in which my hypothetical sexuality hypothetically was not as fixed on hetero as I've been letting her assume. Just because one of the cousins coming up will definitely make jokes once she drinks, now that I'm the newest news on the family gossip reel, and as much as I don't want to talk about it as a sure thing when it hasn't been for years, I even more don't want to talk about it as a secret I've been keeping, or anything else that makes it into a big deal.

Stupid me asked over text and now I have to wait for a response. Ugh.



Katy and Alyonka are having a snark contest right now and it takes so much effort to not take sides, and way more energy than I have to try to diffuse things.

To top it off, when I was pulling my toothbrush out of it's holder by my sink, and flipping the brush-side up towards me, I lost my grip on the handle and it went spinning across the room, in a perfect arc- right into the toilet. Fucking awesome.



All of these things are combining to make me grumpy. Grrr. See? The problem is that I have never figured out a way to express being grumpy that doesn't end up making me feel worse (as in angry at myself, and therefore angrier in general).

Grr Argh Poop NERDS Fuck.
Craptastic!
Shark Farts.
Bitchtits. Wait, no. 
Douchewaffle!

Ah, there it is.




...not really, though; I still feel stressed and frustrated and vaguely stupid, like I want to fight someone or something and I HATE that feeling.

So of course I'm picking a fight with myself, because I'm the only one I don't feel bad taking out my anger on.

Shut up, brain. Shut up shut up shut up! Stop being stupid and oversensitive and self-indulgent. Stop wallowing in your own mess.

Lauren, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why can you not EVER just feel something like a normal person?
Yeah, because look at all the good that's doing for them.

STOP.

These are just conditions. They are not permanent. They will be different tomorrow and so will I.





*sigh* I'm off to class and to buy a toothbrush. Anyone have any funny jokes? I could use a distraction.
 

Playlist of the Moment:

1. Sand In My Shoes- Dido
2. Star Matter- Ani Difanco
3. Bang Bang- Dispatch
4. Wasteland- Augustana
5. The Only Living Boy In New York- Simon & Garfunkel
6. Downfall- Matchbox Twenty


All of which vaguely make me think of Cloud Atlas, because I am still in the middle of it. I am trying to make my mind drop it and focus on something else for right now, because if I start the second half of it I know I won't stop until I finish it. It isn't really working; I start doing something else and think that I have succesfully shifted my attention, but a few minutes later a fully-formed thought about something from the book jumps up from god knows where and takes over again.


I can't decide if I'm looking forward to or dreading the annual family trip to the snow, which is this weekend. I'm too out of shape for snowboarding to be anything but painful after one day of it, and the older sibling in me is weirdly touchy about the fact that my brothers are way better at it than me. I do love it, though, at least for the first day. We are going to a different cabin that allows dogs (:D !) this year, which means there is a lot of extra space. My grandparents and cousin are coming, which is good. Except for the weird anxiety that I get around family members.
 

• Pong (duh)
• Gaucho Ball
• Battle Beers
• Hockey
• Baseball
• King's
• 7-11-doubles
• Mushroom Cup

So... I guess this is a crush.


Oh lord. Here we go.


Can we just skip to the embarassing part and get it over with?

• contemplated possible futures (you could be reading the journal of the future owner of a medical marijuana clinic. Or possibly the journal of a future high school counselor)
• attempted to write stand-up comedy
• decided against a career in stand-up comedy
• slept through my sink being fixed
• been chastened by the plumber for taking the fire alarms off of the walls in the apartment
• missed my Feminist Studies 80 (that's intro to LGBTQ studies) section for the second time in a row. It's like trying to take a philosophy major all over again. When I'm around other people who think like me, I realize how much we all like to hear ourselves talk, and it makes me supremely uncomfortable
• made myself late for stats section by writing this (and also by waking up after noon)

Yesterday I made a mix to dance/sing to in my apartment's crappy shower. My roommates were all gone, so I shut myself in the bathroom with it on full blast for almost an hour.
Unfortunately, when I got out, I discovered two things: a) that our pipes are either backed up or broken, and turning on the shower or flushing the toilet causes the kitchen sink to fill up and overflow, and b) that the vent in our bathroom is connected to the one in our neighbors' bathroom, and they can hear me, very well, every time in sing in the shower. Which is often. Loudly, and often.

In honor of these events, a night with absolutely nothing to do except continuosly bail out the sink to keep it from overflowing, and the fact that I want to start making fanmixes but had no idea how to, and wanted to practice, here's the mix that I was listening to:Tubthumping. I even made art to go with it.

Listen to it while driving, since I can't.






http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?eydtztmzfln
 


EDIT: I forgot one. Poopy. If you want it, put this one between Sleepyhead and Relief on the playlist.

Clothes Off!   -Gym Class Heroes

Most recent art- colored pencil, and the blue vein is being shy because it's too light a color.







I want to color in the random white glob in the center with black, but I feel like it will make the picture even more unbalanced. Idk.

A stoner-monologue has taken over my thoughts lately (in the planet-earth voice, I think) in a continuous loop. It's the same stupid feeling I've been clinging to for months and I need to let go because honestly, if I don't wake up soon my life will go down the drain.

So here is me... letting it go. I need a shrink, probably, or maybe just a tape-recorder, but as with everything else I should be getting or doing in my life, I’m going to put both of those off some more and think about this instead.

1.

I am in my second year of college and the world has dropped out from under my feet. I am only nineteen.

I bet you could tell that. I bet the immaturity and inexperience and panic I can’t shake is discernible in my voice, in these words. I bet that, if I were to ever sell anything I write in college, I would have to lie and say that I wrote it while I was in high school. Then it would seem insightful and advanced and someone would say “the narrator’s youth makes her experiences and perceptions compelling. This work is ahead of the curve.”

And then I could be like “Well when you put it that way, so is pedophilia.” And I think if I could do that I would have fulfilled the extent of my purpose here.

But honestly. Nothing I believed about the world is true is not exactly an original revelation. I didn't even realize that I believed anything about the world; I looked around and I saw what I saw and I didn't realize that I had certain expectations and ideals that affected my perceptions of everything.
Belief connotes certainty and faith, but when you think about the literal definition, belief implies doubt; if there were no doubt, we would say we know this instead of we believe in this.

I've forgotten where this is going, so I'm going to start over (1).

1. I wish there was a CTRL+N command for life.

2.

                What I am most scared of right now is that I am going to end up one of those homeless people who sit all day in the park next to the liquor stores in Isla Vista (1). I feel bad for thinking about things in that way, because I feel condescending, and so now I can’t look at any of them when I ride past them on the way to class (2).

It surprises me that when I actually contrast that lifestyle with whatever vague plan for my future I’ve got hidden in the back of my mind, more and more aspects of theirs seem to come out on top. It surprises me that ‘that type’ of lifestyle could actually even be comparable to the type I will eventually inherit, should I so much as prance around like a dog in a show and jump through all the right hoops and not purposely and personally mess my own life up. I hate that there is that distinction in my mind and I hate that I can even think about things that way. But at the same time I feel like that surprise is supposed to be a warning. It’s telling me wake up/ the world doesn’t actually work the way it does in stories or in your head/ yes, you are nothing but your conditions, so stop being so proud or scared or whatever silly inconsistency has your mind in such a frenzy and just accept your place.

This angry, tired, panicky feeling only goes away when I am falling asleep in the grass by the side of a bike trail in the middle of the afternoon, or underwater, or walking when just the right song comes on and everything else in me just stills to feel the tonic and all its tiny movements and echoes.

I’m starting to think that if I could just fall asleep in the sun and move myself out of everyone else’s way, where whatever vacancy or laziness or absent-mindedness or detachment it is that I can’t shake won’t trouble them anymore, or have the chance to let them down or hurt them, that would be okay. And easier, and maybe better.

 I could compromise: I could get one of those unimportant, empty jobs that are unchallenging enough, and irrelevant enough that my lack of effort won’t adversely affect anyone. I could get one of those jobs somewhere far away but also not important. Like Montana (sorry Montana), or Vermont [(yay Vermont!)(3)]. I could get that job in Montana or Vermont, and visit just enough so that no one missed me or worried about me- or not much, anyway; I think I will always worry and disappoint my parents at least a little bit.

 I could meet enough people there, over time, that the loneliness wouldn’t be crippling… until whenever that stupid biological clock metaphor turns out to actually be inside of me (good god do I really have this little control over how I feel and act?), true to all of the clichéd impressions I have scorned ever since my idealistic little brain could understand that they existed (4). Once that clock chimes just like it’s been programmed in me that it would since before I was born, I will latch onto someone (4b) and worry away the years making them the purpose of my life in order to prove that there is one (5).

It’s supposed to be a good thing that imagining that scenario makes me want to cry (although I won’t), but the older I get, the more I feel that that is what is going to happen, with or without my consent. So lately all I want to do is go to sleep- find an off button for my brain and do the whole thing on autopilot. I don’t want to end up a housewife hoarding romance novels (6). I’d rather not dream at all.

1.       I think that this is an insensitive way to express the direction my life seems to be turning in right now, but no matter how hard I try I can’t think of any other way to convey this in any comparable clarity.

2.       I used to look for this really cute border collie that lives there with them, and smile at anyone I made eye contact with, but now the smiles feel patronizing so I just look at the ground even though that feels just as patronizing, once I’m so absorbed in staring at my handlebars and thinking about it.

3.       It would be fun to live there because Vermont does a lot of progressive things before any of the other states do- only, those things only get reported later, when they happen somewhere lik California and the media does a 'retrospective of the issue' type of article.

3b. See, there’s the condescending thing again, because I live in the richest part of the most powerful country in the world. Except that now, oops, we aren’t anymore, and it’s a disturbing adjustment to realize how much of an adjustment it is to actually have to include other parts of the world in your considerations.

4.       I guess ‘that clock metaphor’ could also apply to that whole clock-maker theology metaphor, and while I originally meant my maternal clock and stereotypes about women being emotionally needy, that actually works just as well.

4b. (or onto some religion)

5.       Unless I am ugly or insecure enough to drive everyone else away (5b), in which case I will probably own many many cats. Or actually, I would probably end up with dogs, but still, same idea.

5b. That is not the right way to look at things, and this sounds stupid, but that is the way I look at things. If I am good enough I will get a husband (or a wife). If I don’t end up with someone, even if I tell myself it is by choice, it is because I am inadequate.
 

6.           Because she still dreams but has lost touch with almost everything real, and so her dreams have been reduced to stupid clichés and a deux ex machina type of romance, any rush of actual feeling.