I have mixed feelings about water. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I was essentially born drown.

I have decided I want to start getting up at 7. Staying up late can get kind of boring. I am turning into such an old person.

I have now seen the film Splendor In The Grass and I've been thinking about if off an on the whole night. Love when books/movies do that.

I have a sister who basically refuses to shop at Wal-Mart. Because she thinks its dirty and that it smells. She pledged allegiance to Target.

I have an 18-55 mm lens and I want something longer. I'm not sure how I feel about zoom lenses now.

I have my window open and I am hoping I do not get poisoned with allergens.

I have iTunes on and I love the song Pink Graffiti Part 1 by Secret Cities, which is the current song. In a playlist. I don't listen to albums much.

I have to do laundry today or something Very Bad will happen; I'll have no clean clothes whatsoever.

I have changed a lot, when I stop to think about it. I think it's mostly all good. I just feel more myself.

OK, Go

So there are these two versions of myself I have in my head. There's the me that I want to be, where I exaggerate all my virtues and I seem like this super cool woman. Then there's the me that I don't want to be, where all my faults are exaggerated and I seem like an incredibly awkward, weird, dorky baby. When I feel like the second version of myself it makes me feel like thinking that I could ever be the first person is so stupid. When I feel like the first version, it's like the second person never existed. But today, while wrestling with an umbrella in the wind and listening to Delphic, I found myself wondering who the real me is, the person who isn't just a version of myself that I imagine myself to be.

By the way, if you don't write something soon, Andrew Pierce, I am going to kick you where it hurts.

And after all this time...

I'd still rather believe that I'm fine.

I'd still rather believe that it never hurt me and never hurts me now.

I'd still rather push it down.

I'd still rather do the right things for the wrong reasons.

I'd still rather do the wrong things for the right reasons.

I'd still rather pretend that I know exactly what I'm doing and what it all means.

I'd still rather believe I can get by without sleeping.

I'd still rather believe I can always be in control.

I'd still rather count my own life as the only thing worth my time.

I'd still rather focus on the unimportance of past events.

I'd still rather rush to the future.

I'd still rather dig myself in too deep.

I'd still rather hold in the thoughts that really matter and let go recklessly of all the things that come back to haunt you.

I'd still rather get my own way.

How'd I get so effed up? Just wondering.

And how are you supposed to be young? Uhg. I know only so much to know that I know so little. I can't help it that I don't know it all. What am I supposed to do in the meantime is my question. I can't wait until I know more to move. And the only way to learn is to do. How do you start without any prior experience? Oh, I don't really know how to say the things I'm feeling...

Its funny how we're constantly changing. Even if we don't realize it, we are. It's weird how there are things you think you are, and then you say so and it leaves. Like you just needed to hold onto it long enough to say something about it, and then by saying so you free it and it makes room for something else. There were things about myself that I held in for so long, waiting for someone to tell them to. I thought they were so important. But now that I've gotten them out, I've practically forgotten I ever was that way. It's strange.

Here Comes The Sun, Little Darling

We walked in and "Here Comes The Sun," was playing. Liz spun E, who is going on three but thinks she's in her 20s, around in circles.
"There's Laura," said my great uncle Alvin, "I can always tell where she is by her laugh; she's always laughing."
"That's true," says my grandma, "she is always laughing, isn't she?"
Laura is one of my favorite people in the whole entire family.
"Do you remember who this is?" someone asked me. I had no clue. "It's Grandma's sister's daughter." She had the classic Barry dry sense of humor and apparently enjoys mowing people's yards and plowing their snow...? Her daughter, her daughter's daughter, and her daughter's daughter's sons were there as well and I started figuring out how all these people fit into the family. :P She and my grandma discussed their clothing sizes and their exercise habits.
Harold, a friend of the family's for probably 70 years, came up to my sister and I asked why there hadn't been a Christmas picture of us this year.
"We're thinking of bringing it back next year; a lot of people told us they missed it."
"All the old people we know asked us why we didn't have one," I remarked to my sister after Harold walked off.
"Yeah," she agrees. "Maybe we should take one and make a couple of copies for the people who asked about it."
Later, my grandma and her niece we sitting down. "Why, aren't you sitting down?" Grandma asks Britt and me.
"We've got to stand up while we're still able to," I tell her mischievously.
"Did you her that?" Grandma asks her niece, as if she's shocked but I can tell she's amused.
"I'm just teasing," I said. "You're always teasing me."
"Am I?" asked Grandma. Oh goodness, lol.
Britt and I were bored the majority of the time so after a while we went off to find the bathroom -- which was in the basement (called the "first floor" - nice euphemism...) past some doors that said "storage" and "employees only!" with keypad locks. Great...
Liz isn't officially a part of the family, but watching her talk to everyone I thought she looked like a good fit. Grandma doesn't like that she's Catholic, however... *eye roll*
I only got asked twice if I was in college *sigh of relief* and was interrupted before I could answer the dreaded "why not..?" question. My great uncle Alvin of 90 years, my grandma's brother, told me that since I was a "good lookin' gal" I needed to carry a baseball bat with me if I did go to school.
The West Chapel was decorated in soft, soothing pastels and had a mural of Grecian columns on one wall, which are a symbol of stability, all of which I found interesting.
"Did you hear Lanny's little boy?" my Grandma asked me. "'I'm bored.' I told him, 'you'll just have to deal with it.' 'I knoowww,' he said," and she laughed.
Mom and Britt and I went out to get the car. Carl, the one my Grandma thinks tells too raunchy of jokes, caught us on the way out. "Have you been feeling better?" he asks me. I sighed in my head. Nobody can forget that silly hospital incident of last summer, it seems.
"Yeah, I've been doing really good."
"Well, we were praying for you a lot for a while there, like every night!"
"We appreciate it," my mother replies.
In the car, while waiting for my grandma and aunt, mom says, "This is where my dad was. But on the other side, I think. ...It was all a blur."
My mom, on the way home: "Brian was the most upset out of all of them; he was crying when we talked to him. He's not his real son, is he?"
"No," said my grandma. "But he was really little. And he knew that Ben always treated him like his own son. And Big Mouth Carol - that was his first wife - had to go and tell him! Did Laura say if they found out what caused it?"
"It was a heart attack."
He died in bed, with a lit cigarette in his hand. He had a little dog who didn't want to leave his side. It's funny how animals know these things.
Well, anyway, viewing are interesting events. You learn a lot about family history and see a lot of people you never see.

bullets.

• So I had this thought. If I got a job working nights, I would have a real excuse to stay up all night and sleep all day. I don't know why, but I never feel fully functional til deep into the wee hours. There's a part of me that values early to bed, early to rise ... but my body refuses to do it. And after a while, it's easier to give in. :P

• Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever grow up. Once in a while I think I'm starting to, and then I go right back to feeling 18ish. Still. Does anyone really grow up? Or do they all just fake it?
  

• I realized the other day that that my teen years are basically a big blank in my mind.

• Coldplay makes me think of last February and magic.

• Why do I wonder what she looked like?

• I want to be Mars Argo. Or at the very least make freaking awesome videos.
  

This is pointless.

I Never Use My Silver Desk Lamp...

I can't do laundry because there are people in my living room. I don't look presentable so I don't want to have to walk past them. I'm sitting at my desk, listening to the birds pecking and their food behind me, with a hamper of wrinkled tshirts and dirty underwear to my side. How long will I have to wait to do my laundry - that is the question.

Might as well write something while I wait, I guess.

As 2010 begins I'm thinking about spending my time more wisely, figuring out some goals, being more motivated, and building outward action upon inward changes. It's time to see results. I need to start thinking about how important it is to focus on something and working hard to achieve it. I want to know what it's like to accomplish things. Like, what would it be like to finish a novel? I'm thinking I should write a terrible novel. Not on purpose, but just write something really bad for completion's sake. It would be interesting. I also need to read more, clean more, journal more, exercise more, study more, figure out what I want to do with my life when it comes to earning money, etc. etc. I'm 22, the time for action is now. I've already wasted so much time...