Unconscious Autobiographical Art

It's another one of those sleep late, work late, stay up late kind of nights. After I finish here, I'm going to head straight to my room, where my unfinished novels are screaming at me to be completed. I've actually dreamt about my characters for the past few nights, and I'm taking that as a sure sign that I need to get back to work. It's been too long.

What have I been waiting for? That's the real question, isn't it? I spend all my time waiting, waiting, waiting. Wait to finish my books. Wait to pick a career. Wait to figure myself out.

I just watched P.S. I Love You for the first time, and there's a part where main character Holly talks about creating. I found myself silently agreeing with her...

"Just create something... new, and there it is, and it's you, out in the world, outside of you and you can look at it, or hear it, or read it, or feel it... and you know a little more about... you. A little bit more than anyone else does..."

God, it's so true. My writing--the only thing in this world that understands me, really gets me--has taught me so much about myself.

And I'm just beginning to realize what I have to learn.

Grinny

Hmm... What news have I to share with you? Not much, actually.

I'm now trained on the sandwich line at work... which means I get to make food instead of just talk about it. Not entirely sure if I like it better, but it's not bad, so hey.

Senior pictures are coming up soon. Kailey already did hers, and they looked amazing. I went with her on the day she had them done, just to see what it's like, and it was a swell time.

Umm... Cedar Point in two days [YESSSS!], zoo for Kailey's birthday in eight days [SWEEET!], Houghton Lake in ten days [YAY!], Chicago in twelve days [ASLKJHFLKH! (I ran out of excited exclamations)]. But then July is almost over, and I can't have that...

See, I'm enjoying my time off WAY too much to give it up and go back to school. Totally done with education. I don't desire to ever return to my high school, thanks. Even if it's just for one more year.

Eeek. My last summer, flying by. Not cool! I'd like a slowdown, please. :]

Switch Flipped

Focus on your gleaming eyes
And all the world I'll see
Before me
Unfolding, unrolling, revealing its
True nature to be something
Something I don't understand.

On, off, on, off
Cold and hot run side-by-side
Implications thick in smiles
Bitter tempers spin them
Though we fight it valiantly
We've become what we had feared.

Never wanted anything to
Change, you said
You're either foolish or lying
Deluding yourself into believing
That things could ever stay stagnant.

Playlisting

I'm doing my best right now--which isn't very good, mind you--to create a playlist that follows the plot of The Hidden. It's...difficult. I borrowed the idea from Stephenie Meyer, but I'm having a bit of trouble.

I figured that for each part of the book [there are ten "parts" instead of chapters], I should have a song that matches each event. Probably somewhere around 5 or 6 songs per part. Maybe...?

So I'm working on it. Here's what I've got so far [it's just Part I]:

Symphony No. 9 (Scherzo), Beethoven
Ruled by Secrecy, Muse
A Bad Dream, Keane
World Spins Madly On, The Weepies
Dark Blue, Jack's Mannequin
Beauty in Walking Away, Marié Digby
Run, Snow Patrol
Telling Lies, Great Northern

I think that does it. Part I is the longest of the ten parts, so it's only fitting that it has more songs than I thought it would...

Maybe I'll finish this someday. Probably. I don't know. I hope so. :]

Because I Can Love.

What Cassie said in her comment--few posts ago--is true... Only she could say "flipside" to me [after all, it's an insult now] and not get beaten up. Only Kailey could "talk about me behind my back" to Fish and be instantly forgiven. Only Maddy could make fun of the way I talk incessantly and still have all her teeth in her mouth. And only Pinks can poke at my lack of a fashion sense [lol] and still be way cool.

Because, in case you haven't noticed, I love my sisters and my family to death.

Tomorrow is my dad's wedding. I'm still unsure about it all, of course, considering that I don't really get how weddings work [never been to one] and it's a lot of gushy emotion in one room at one time. Sends the emo-radar into panic mode [and it's not a radar for finding emos, thank you]. But I will have a good time, and everything will turn out splendidly. After all, the Morgan family knows how to have a party...

Cassie, Maddy, and Kailey will be attending the reception afterwards, along with my good ol' buddy Danz. It'll be a late night, but because it'll be with my favorite people in the world--siblings and family--all will be good. :]

As for today, I'm celebrating Independence Day with Cassie and Kailey, tearing up the party scene with pretty fireworks and "hot dirgs" [thank you, Kailey, for that]. Hopefully everyone has a great day today.

If not, eat lots of candy and look underneath the stars. Or have a Frosty at 11 PM and look underneath the stars. Or make breadsticks in the latest hours of the night. Or eat tortellini and cheese bread and watch the first half of Moulin Rouge...

Well, it works for me and my girls, doesn't it?

Drive Myself to Madness

They say the only person who will ever truly understand me is me. I'm the only one who has seen everything I've seen, done everything I've done, tried everything I've tried. Nobody else will ever fully comprehend my thoughts, my actions, and the interaction between the two.

The scary part is that I don't know myself at all.

I do things that I never thought I would--or could--do, and then I either regret it or sit in amazement, or both. My thoughts run wild on subjects that I never deemed possible to ponder and I feel sick, sick to the core when I realize that I actually have considered some of the things I've considered.

This is how everyone feels at some point in their life, they say. Everybody goes through this. We all feel lost and confused and detached from our own selves.

Well, I don't believe that. Not for one second. I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel this way, but there are people out there who are ignorant enough to never question who they are or where they stand. Never once will they doubt their identity, their inheritance, their capabilities, or their future.

I, however, am currently questioning them all. Everything about me--right down to what I'll eat for breakfast in the morning--is up for debate, because I cannot make up my mind. Abby Morgan, mastermind decision-maker and director of her life path, is completely and totally incapable of making any kind of choice right now.

It's pathetic, and really, really irritating. I want to just exist. I want to be who I am, because in all honesty, that's the only thing I'm good at.

No, I lied. The one thing I'm good at is faking it. And I must say, I do a damn good job at pretending like I know who I am. So good, in fact, that I've actually begun to believe myself.

Which scares me even more than feeling lost.

What Did We Do?

Another violent storm has shaken my hometown. Trees on the median of the main road are flattened and shingles from my roof are torn away.

A tornado warning rocked us all tonight, causing hundreds of mallgoers to flock to the Panera where I work. We're the safest place in the mall, see, and we conveniently sell wonderful food...

But what did we do? We've had awful weather since the beginning of June. Storm after storm sends families into their basements and the rain just keeps pouring. Makes me wonder what the hell we simple humans could have done to deserve it.

Or maybe... Well, maybe we did nothing wrong. Maybe it's not a punishment.

Maybe it's just another unprovoked, unwarranted, unlucky event. As usual.

Blue is the New Black

I miss it all tonight.

The smile in the moon seems rather dim. Spotlights on my heavy heart are too bright, too bold, too ignorant, and my patience with them is wearing thin.

Sketch my profile into the book of lost causes. Paint my eyes on a page of the deepest heavens and hells.

Make me into something I am and I am not.

Someone ought to remember this. Someone ought to know this by heart. But I've never been one for memory, and my heart cannot think for itself. Someday we'll all understand, you say. Someday it will all be clear. But I will not wait.

The air is thick with implications and expectations, my lungs gasping and choking on injustice. What we deserve and what we have will never be the same; what we want and what we need will never coincide, either.

I miss it all tonight. I think, though, that what I'm really missing, most of all, is myself.

Spin Me Faster, Faster

Please
Don't be my shelter
Or my sanctuary
I'd rather die a thousand deaths than rely on you
Independent and defensive
I walk this road alone.

Please
Don't take my hand
Or guide me
Nothing makes me angrier than weakness
Mine or yours
I walk this road alone.

Please
Don't make me smile
Or laugh
It's only raging salt on glass-torn memories
Then and now
I walk this road alone.

Please
Don't listen to anything I say
Or follow my instructions
I'm just cold, bitter, unfeeling
Broken, yet steadfast
I can't walk this road alone.

The Bed You've Made--Lesson #21.

Sleep where your lies lie.

Don't dance when nobody's watching. Wait until they're paying attention, and maybe you'll inspire someone to join you.

"New and improved" is not always "better for you."

Needs and wants are separate entities. Learn which are which before you start to seek them.

It's not healthy to take big, inexplicable risks every now and then. But it is fun.

Being yourself means faking it sometimes.

The things you say you'd never do end up as the ones you most happily anticipate.

Clichés only work on an ignorant audience. And advice is more heartfelt when it's not prophetic.

If you find the words difficult to say, you're either saying it wrong or saying too much.

Using the word "flipside" in everyday vocabulary is utterly absurd.

And finally: People only share what they've learned about life because they want to come to terms with mistakes. That doesn't always mean that the mistakes were their own.

YAY!

Although the desktop is rather empty and my files have yet to be uploaded, I am extremely content to say that my computer is safe at home.

In fact, I'm blogging from it right now. How beautiful.

Anyway, figured somebody out there might care. I'm off to work until 10.

Catch you on the flipside [lol Cassie you're ridiculous]. :]

Insert Foul Words Here [Sprinkled With Enthusiasm for the Good Stuff]

I still don't have my home computer back, and it's killing me. Being separated from this blog--as well as the Internet in general--is quite literally driving me mad. My grandparents are the most generous people in the world, as far as I'm concerned, so I'm blogging from their computer yet again.

It's not that I need to go on Facebook or Myspace or any of that crap. I don't even need to "surf the Web," or whatever that may entail. No, I just want to be able to remember what it feels like to actually communicate with people via email. Oh, and I'd like to be able to vent my frustrations and celebrate my exciting news on the blog, too.

Is that too much to ask?

Anyway, they'll get our computer back eventually. Whether or not they're able to salvage my important documents and music is still up in the air, though.

For now, summer is in full swing. I spend every waking moment with my sisters, and we've been successful so far in not getting into too much trouble. ;] Boys, of course, are an ongoing problem, but I seriously don't see that changing anytime soon.

My work schedule has not substantially increased in number of hours, so I'm pretty much broke.

Summer homework, I'm afraid to say, is just one of those far-off visions at this point. Will I finish everything? Definitely. Will I enjoy it? Most likely not.

Oh, and I just finished reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I almost cried at the end. Kudos, Picoult, for that, considering that it takes a lot to get me to cry like that.

And writing is a disaster. My laptop, full of once-begun stories just waiting to be told, sits locked in its case on my very untidy bedroom floor. Bad. Very bad.

Who knows? Maybe this means a flood of creativity is about to come my way. Or maybe I'm just slowing becoming more and more of an idiot.

Hmm. What's scary is that the latter sounds a little bit more accurate.

Healing and Destroying

Every time a door opens, another closes, they say. So cliché. I prefer to stay away from the overused phrases, you know? Can't always avoid them, but I sure can try.

So here's my variation of the classic: Every time an old wound is stitched, a new one is torn wide open.

I look around me, and I see the ones who loved you--the ones you hurt--coming to terms with what you've done. They're finally seeming whole again. Smiles come more easily to their faces; hope radiates from them in a way I haven't seen in a long, long time.

These changes, among the other little things I've noticed, make me happy enough to cry.

But there is a storm on the horizon that I can scarcely comprehend. The economy around me hangs precariously balanced between surviving and dying, threatening to steal a beloved uncle, aunt, and cousins from me, with potentially hundreds of miles in between us. My rapidly changing world won't slow down long enough to allow me to catch my grasp on reality, leaving me lost and in the dark to all that whirls and twirls around me. The final year of high school approaches, and I've yet to make any decisions concerning my future...

If you cannot taste my confusion, cannot empathize with what I feel, then you are either cold in a grave or lacking a soul.

If the first, I am sorry for the loss. If the second, I should wish that you keep yourself as far from me as possible.

Caution: This Post Will Waste Your Life.

Still no home computer. I'm at my dad's.

I also have peanut butter stuck to every single one of my teeth and the roof of my mouth. I gave up on eating jelly with peanut butter about two years ago--too much effort, too messy, too sweet--so now I just eat PB on bread. Definitely my favorite food in the world, tied with chocolate and followed closely by hummus.

I really don't have anything enthralling to post here, I suppose. Other than my excitement at being able to use a computer, life is pretty much boring. I worked yesterday 4-10... work tomorrow 3-7... work the rest of the summer...

Hmm.

Oh! Haircut. I got three inches taken off my hair again. It now just brushes my shoulders, which makes me happy and yet mildly insane. It's great for summer, of course, what with my hair being incredibly thick and difficult to persuade, but I also can't really wear it straight without a battle ensuing.

Curly? No problem. Bring on the humidity; it'll only help me out. Straight? Eek...

Umm.

WRITING! I almost forgot. I've done so much writing these past few days that I actually feel like I've accomplished something. Heiress is taking a more mature turn--finally--and Common [separate series...if it ever becomes a series...] has gotten some of the attention it deserves. I wrote a short piece and few poems, too, but those were terrible, as usual.

Lol. I may have perfected the art of self-deprecation. How charming.

I also began and quickly terminated two new stories. The idea for one of them will eventually coincide with Paul's Island [another separate book that I've restarted three times]. Oh, and I'm desperately trying to come up with a new title for that one. Absolutely terrible. Somewhat humiliating, actually.

What a great post. Makes no point at all. Welcome to the inside of my head, folks. :]

It's About Time, Darn It.

Today was my last day of school for the year [thank god]. I didn't think these 180 days would go by so quickly, but apparently I'm luckier than I thought...

Anyway, it's over. My junior year is complete. One more year of this and I'll be free. :]

Oh, and by the way, still no computer. I'm posting from my laptop right now, a feat that is almost impossible, considering that this thing doesn't have an Internet connection. If I explained it to you, I'd have to kill you. Don't expect any real posts for awhile.

But school is done, my exams are done, it's all done. And hopefully the summer will fly by smoothly and perfectly, as it usually does.

Until I have functioning Internets [lol don't try to understand why that had to be plural], keep living. Eventually my life will be back to normal.

Oh, and ceiling fans. Don't put your hand through one when it's turned on. Got it?

Death of a Computer

My computer crashed, and is now very, very dead, so I won't be posting for awhile from home. Right now I'm at my grandparents' house, taking advantage of their Internet...

Grr. I hate being without my technology. The boredom sets in way too fast.

Happy summer, kids. If you live in southeastern Michigan--like me--I certainly hope you have power. My school's been stuck in the dark the past two days because of those ridiculous storms. And all I want is to end this school year...

Grr.

Catch you all someday later.

Reality Found... and I Don't Like It.

The real world sucks.

If you can come up with a way to counter that, be my guest. I certainly can't, and I'm not just being a pessimist...

Yesterday, I deposited my first two paychecks at the bank and it finally sunk in how much money I don't have. Summer begins for me next Friday, and from here all I can see is work, college stuff, work, scholarship stuff, work, and maybe a little bit of fun.

I'm also trying to plan a spring break trip for next year with Cassie, Kailey, and Pinks. It's crazy. We're not wild partygoers, so Cancun is pretty much out, and the resort we've chosen is in the Riviera Maya. However, in order to be able to go, you have to sell one of your kidneys on the black market...

Oh, and gas prices! One week of working doesn't even fill my gas tank anymore. How am I supposed to get to school? To work? To anywhere? My friends and I decided that there will be much carpooling and much walking this summer. We have no other option.

This reality is terrible. Miserable, in fact. I'm seriously considering picking up a second job, a motion I am reluctant yet driven to make. If I do, I won't have any kind of last summer at all. If I don't, I'll just be broke.

Ick. I want to be five years old.