With My Shirt Tucked In And My Shoes Untied.

I really need to sleep right now (because getting up at six in the morning has never really agreed with me), but I think that maybe I need to write a little more.

I am missing something ("something" like a point or the key to my perfection or a box of cheap wine). It might just be the fact that I really, really miss going to church. It's a weird sensation that I haven't felt for a while, but I always feel so grounded after church. I feel a little lighter, because I really do have the world by the ass (like my mom always tried to inform me).

I need some perspective. I need some more scotch tape to mend and coagulate and temporarily suture my life back together. I need millions of dollars. I need to live in poverty on the corner of Nicollet and Seventh. I need I need I need I need I need. I need Sufjan Stevens and Regina Spektor and Chris Carrabba. I need to stop being so vindictive. I need to destroy my hate list once and for all. I need to organize the junk drawer of my memories and grudges and frustrations. I need to Feng Shui my life. I need a fucking moral compass. I need to stop saying "fuck." I need to stop thinking "fuck." I need to stop fucking around.

I stuffed this semester's schedule full so I won't have to deal with all of the angst that I've internalized from Christmas vacation and summer vacation and that awkward period that I'm trying to leave behind, known as my "formative years." I've got class evenly spaced out to consume my entire life and persona. It was a bad move on my part. I thought that it would make me focus on success and my future, but all it does is draw my mind back to tired thoughts of failure and dark clouds and swirly angst and really long bangs and how no one, like, gets me and other things emo kids think about frequently.

Seriously, though, I'm a pair thick-rimmed glasses and Converse All-Stars away from being the perfect portrait of an emo kid. I already have the tight jeans, hair, and attitude.

And maybe the whole truth behind this purposely over-dramatic entry is the fact that I'm starting my volunteering position tomorrow and this is about as nervous and insignificant as I have felt in the longest time.

Maybe since last February.

You're Totally Right, Every Action Was Well Rehearsed

Classes began today. I've got 45 minutes before I've got to meet Bridget for dinner, so please excuse the possible-hastiness of this entry.

It's interesting how tired I feel after around an hour and a half of class today (don't worry, I've got almost four more hours of sociology tonight). I'm getting a little sick, and (because of break and damn Rochester) I've become reaccustomed to eating 52846+ meals a day. I need to get used to eating three meals again. I need to get used to sleeping on a chunk of slate that the U tries to pass as a "mattress." I need to find a happy medium. I need to find any medium, really. I need to become rich and famous. Or at least rich.

This semester is going to be the definition of "long day" with days stretching 9-6, 11-9:30, and 11-8. I sat down and did some physics homework earlier today (which is purely ridiculous, because that would mean I'm actually ahead in a class for once). Plus, I'm working really hard on fitting volunteering at the Region's hospital in there somewhere. Needlesstosay, I need sleep because I get tired simply thinking about how busy I will be soon. (PS: If something actually is needless to say, why say it?)

I feel weird about everything. Today, either everyone is noticing me, or everyone is ignoring me, and I'm really not sure if I care which is correct. ((I am tired and hungry and totally useless in this department.)) I need carbs and chocolate and more caffeine and some tequila and 600mg of ibuprofen, and a really good hug. I don't get (m)any of those when I'm up here.

For some reason, I feel less inclined to believe that I can handle this semester with equal or great ease than last semester. Maybe the Smarch Sadness is setting in unnecessarily early this year. "It's colder than it ought to be in March." Probably because it isn't even March yet, Chris Carrabba. That's probably why.

Anyway, I'm off to obtain at least 3 of the 6 things mention a couple of paragraphs ago. I'll let you be creative and decide which.

"I Hope You Get To A Beautiful Film This Weekend"

I know that it seems premature, but I am already looking toward Spring Break. It isn't that I am too worried about class or living back in the dorms. In fact, I'm more excited to go than I was fall semester.

Instead, everyone is leaving for spring break, and it is my personal goal to be one of the lucky chaps who has a blast on break. I am planning a road trip. Actually, it can't be considered a trip, because there is no set destination. That's correct. I want to finally fufill a goal on my list of 50 things to do before I die. I am planning on packing light, hopping in the car and speeding off toward some perfect place. I am not concerned with comfort or luxury. I am looking for a partner in crime and a few amazing entries in this little puppy.

Today is the first day that I have shared a Caribou table with someone that I don't know. She is fragile and thin and we haven't spoken yet. Her short brown hair bobs tightly around her head, and her protruding black glasses make her look (but not look, the word should be feel) like the artsy English teacher that everyone loved in high school. I can tell that she is smart and determined from the four or five glances that I have stolen while she sipped her coffee.

So, I am reading the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (and I really shouldn't try to begin to analyze it because I'm hardly half-way through. I just want to discuss one point that I feel Rand makes very evident. While I can't remember who exactly says this, it is brought up that everything important you can possibly know about someone is in their face the very first time you regard them. You should be able to read how the person thinks, and what protrudes from their mind when they are alone.

The subsequent meetings and conversations sometimes betray this first thought, but the initial feeling should trump all forms of rhetoric the person enlists. Anyway, there is my philosophical plug for the day.


Things that make me smile:
The fact that I order differently depending on which coffee shop I am in (grande nonfat sugar-free vanilla latte vs. medium sugar-free vanilla latte with skim), the woman across the table from me (she is thinking to herself and smiling and I hope that it is because of a joke she remembered or some remark her child made when he was still innocent), coffee and caffeine and lattes and espresso and coffee mugs.

French and french teachers, the irony that I am not religious but my three favorite teachers from high school taught religion, old music jams in the car (when you still know every word to "independent women" by destiny's child), haikus, looking for apartments, kitchen appliances (call me weird, but having my own stove seems like it will be the highlight of next year), run-on sentences like this one, thick-rimmed glasses, making presents for Steve, giggling and kissing and fighting and most action-verbs, wishing others a pleasant day (even though the weather is wishing the opposite), the color brown (which may possibly be my new favorite color for no apparant reason). I like that this list is much much longer than the next one in my head.

Things that make me frown:
Soy milk is more expensive, my horoscope (that I usually read every few days) told me that a confrontation will change the way I approach my professional life and career, mittens and coats that are the same color but don't match.

While writing this, that wonderful woman that I mentioned earlier and I bonded over how we think that some places lie about actual fat contents. Then, she spoke of theatres and beautiful foriegn films and directors and how rochester could never compare to new york city. She then said good-bye and put on her large black overcoat with a daisy pinned on the collar.

I don't think she realizes how much better I feel.

Tell That Freak To Take It Off (Represent Your Coast)!

So, I am currently listening to the rap group Teriyaki Boyz. I stole them from my new favorite movie: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Let's just say that half of this song is in Japanese, and I'm in love with it.

I get in such weird moods, sometimes, where I listen to music that I can't understand (it doesn't stop me from singing along, though).

There are so many entries like this among the few items that I feel proud of. Those odd, ramblings that make me look like an awkward, pretentious preteen with a fetish for internet frenzies. It seems like on the days that I want to write, I end up cranking out shit like this (and when I have hundreds of other things to do, I pump out this thirty-nine-page masterpiece in like fourteen and a half minutes).

I want to write. I want low-carb Jose Cuervo. I want a British accent. I want a Japanese school girl to be my faux-girlfriend who lets me dress her in wicked clothes. I want to be Gwenny GwenGwen. I want to be blonde and tan and muscley. I want muscley to be a real word. I want to be colorful and earthy and spaced out. I want to believe in karma and reincarnation and heaven and hell and the triumph of good over evil. I want to live in poverty in New York City with a loft that overlooks the whole city. I want to sing and sing and sing about my problems instead of writing in silence and angst.

I want to be allowed to feel excited and depressed at the same time. I want to make that money. I want to be injected with intelligence because actually learning is overrated. I want to write a book called "male, middle-class, and white." I want to scream until I cannot be silenced. I want to be a magazine editor. I want a vivacious red-headed best friend who I know like the back of my hand. I want to finish someone else's sentences. I want to take my clothes off for money. I want to make a mix CD for the Pope and Madonna and Prince and Beyonce and everyone in existence with only one name.

I want to dance until my legs break. I want to travel the world as a famous popstar. I want to hide from the paparazzi. I want a lifetime subscription to Vogue and Nylon and Vanity Fair and GQ. I want jeans from every designer ever. I want a closet that's all white and flourescent. I want to lose my chin and gain some biceps and keep my ass. I want to play the piano. I want three emails from T-Hall that say "You Have A Package" and an email from my boss telling me I got a raise and an email from Kanye West. I want a national holiday dedicated to me.

I want my own elevator. I want it to snow forever. I want this entry to delete itself, because I cannot bring myself to delete it. MaryAnn's a bitch.

And in the words of the immortal Missy Elliott:
"It don’t matter where you from, it’s where you at,
and if you came to freak-a-leak, you better bring your hat."

Okay, I actually don't even know what that really means.
XOXOXO

You're Young Until You're Not.

Today, I am the only laptop in Caribou. The girl at the register, who usually frowns, smiled at me. She is wearing a black turtleneck sweater, and her curly, red hair is up. I think she may be smiling because she messed up my drink the first time. She didn’t really mess it up, though. I did. Today, I ordered decaf, because the doctor said caffeine would cause the stitches in my mouth to bleed. So, after a week and a half of ordering the same drink, I changed my order, and she still made it correctly.

There is an old woman sipping her black coffee and eating a large muffin (possibly the muffin I had my eyes on earlier this coffee break.). She is wearing a Christmas-red sweater with black-and-white checkered pants and tennis shoes. It all clashes in that way that makes you love her like your own grandma. My mom’s mother wears leopard-print stretch pants and baggy sweatshirts with wolves on them. This woman is alone, though, unlike my grandma. She is reading the paper. She is not my grandma, and so I can not comfort her.

The two business people in front of me are just getting back from their vacation, and I envy them. I miss being stressed about things that half-matter (instead of those things that matter too much). He is in a brown suit with a light blue, woven shirt, and he does not look as professional as he could. The woman is blonde, and looks tired. Her glasses are only a little crooked, and her face is flushed red (maybe from the cold). I think she is a nurse (because I cannot recall where the dark blue scrubs are worn, and this may be sexist). They are analyzing a survey, where several people strongly disagree with the accusative statements made about the clinic.

I am not so bored yet today, but it is not even 10:00 yet.

--- --- --- ---

I am spinning the strands of silver that grow and drift from her head. My mother combs her hair each day with that red pick in her tired hands, finding a few more strands of silver-grey.

I have transformed my inner-dialogue from an exhausted fantasy into a spiraling faux-reality where everyone is facing what I am facing, swollen-faced. She is growing her mother’s silver hair, and he is fighting politics with his eyes closed. They live to name what they are searching for.

I, however, am wearing on their thin nerves. They are consuming solid food and sleeping until eleven. Her mother’s sliver is that of an ancient, wise woman, not a wolf. His father has long since abandoned the structure that I have sought.

--- --- --- ---

Yesterday, I cleaned out my entire room, and began throwing away those things that I only pretended I wanted in the first place. There were some things that I still cannot part with.

I threw away notebooks and notebooks that were only one-half or two-thirds full, they were filled with information about the history of the Catholic Church, the Spanish Inquisition, and world hunger. I threw them away, because I could not even bother to thumb through them. I disposed of most of the graduation cards I received. It was a terrible thought, but, for a second I wished that everyone had saved their breath and given me the 1.99 they wasted on that card that I read once and emptied. I deleted the baseball caps and Boy Scout books and plastic things that sort your money and a book on children’s mass and broken pencils and magazine clippings and Dallas Cowboys’ magnets and hats. I took my Dallas locker (finally emptied) down to the entry way, because it was an unnecessary fixture that collected dust like my old magazines, which I could not resolve to throw away.

The man behind me is condemning the book he is reading, because he is bored.

He has only read eight pages.

I am not even eight pages long.

Legs Are Required For Jumping, Dancing.

What's a fire, and why does it (what's the word?) burn?

So, I cannot amuse myself today. I woke up in a rage, and I forgot my cell phone at home. I left my computer at Nick's yesterday, so I cannot faux-live in Caribou today either. Instead, I will be holed up in this desolate, windowless, ninth floor lab, alone, making my friends on the South park character generator, and half-heartedly working on a poem where I shall subtly reveal the meaning of life (but not really).

--- --- --- ---

"When you chose your wisdom teeth,
You stood in line four times."
(The doctor chuckled.)

Through his perfect, gritted teeth,
He told me I had a tough bite
(something about my bark, as well).

One week later,
When the anesthesia bit into me,
I shuddered into a colorless, poppy-affliction.

Awaking bruised and shallow,
I was some victimized man, robbed in the blunt silence of daylight,
Or a woman in the back of an unmarked van.

Their pain was not mine.
Their dignity was lost among the concrete
(and my wisdom was floating in the jar next to me).

--- --- --- ---

I apologize for that poem. It's the best I can do in fluorescent lighting.

I am also being a cheap designer whore (eBay is my love). Someone finally has the Dolce necklace I want up, and it's only eighty bucks! (Haha, I say 'only' because it was in the severe hundreds before.) However, I have absolutely no money. Even after working at this ridiculously high-paying job, I am still paying back money that I used for splurges at the U (and Target). I feel like there will be less of these next semester (along with less starbucks dates and just less friends in general <3 ).

You get me oh so simply.

A Pair Of Dull Scissors and The Yellow Light.

New Year's Resolutions:
=>> Cut back on caffiene. (This one's probably already broken, depending on what you consider "cutting back," especially because I'm sipping my latte at present. Vague resolutions are the worst kind.)
=>> Work out twice a week. (Hopefully, my body stays vicious, too, Fergie.)
=>> Accept the fact that I can't constantly please everyone. (However, this doesn't mean I'll give up trying!)
=>> Four steps to stress relief: Breathe, Stretch, Shake, Let it go. (Man, I think I'm born to win. Me, Broke? That's an oxymoron.)

There's an interesting situation at my place of work. When I came back to work over Thanksgiving break, I got a semi-large schpeel from my boss where he told me not to transfer out of engineering, because I can do whatever I want in engineering. Wanna know what's ironic about that? I had applied three days earlier to transfer into a different college at the U. Did I have the heart to tell him that I transferred into Genetics (aka: far, far away from engineering)? Nope, I stuck it out and lied my ass off. I think that I may continue to lie and pretend to be an aspiring Biomedical Engineer. I'll only have to lie until the end of next summer (I mean "next" like 2008).

So, I picked up that Rhetoric class. I am very VERY excited for it (though I have heard the teacher is very difficult). Here's the class description: "How discourse reproduces consciousness and persuades us to accept that consciousness and the power supporting it. Literary language, advertising, electronic media; film, visual and musical arts, built environment and performance. Techniques for analyzing language, material culture, and performance."

Anyway, the exciting part is that among the books we're reading is "Memoir Of No One In Particular." While this may mean nothing to you, I read the summary of the story, and it sounds like my life (if I were paperback-bound... actually I kind of am paperback-bound...). It talks about this man, and about how his teenage diaries were selfish rantings about himself, but if you looked closer, they were also commentaries on the social structure of the time. By examining himself, he was, in turn, commenting on social issues and modern culture. Wow, could I be more of a nerd?

Apparantly, I could not. While I was lounging around yesterday with some friends/lovers/etc, I started talking about how I spent an entire day reading about starting and maintaining aquariums. Do I own an aquarium? No. My thirst for completely useless knowledge makes me a nerd in the most quintessential form of the word. (Plus, I actually use unnecessarily large words like "quintessential" in everyday writing. Who does that?)

I do wish that I could control what I remember... like you can delete useless things on your computer. What would I wipe out, though? The lyrics to every N*Sync/Spice Girls/BBMak(<<=LOVE) song in existence? Probably not. You never really know when you'll need this sort of thing. The (literally) millions of Friends/OC/The West Wing/Grey's Anatomy/Will and Grace (etc) quotes stored up there somewhere? No. In fact, I would sooner delete the useful information. I think that the "useless" things you know (sports stats, art history, The Fray lyrics, etc) are actually what make you a semi-unique being.

One thing that I would like to document is the fact that three days ago (12/30/2006), my mother actually told me that I looked nice. Aka, there is nothing that she would have changed about my clothes, scarf, HAIR, shoes, or dirty, scruffiness. While she has told me this before, it was because she had forced me through several outfit changes. I actually asked for this in writing (and she didn't retract her statement).

Until next time, lovely munchkins.
Kisses.

PS: You are my sweetest downfall.
PPS: Been a change in plans, rip your old plan up