The New Year

Today, I stumbled upon my prompt box.  The one with the pretty strips of paper all folded up and full of interesting prompts upon which to write.  Well.  Things to think about writing about.  Because you know what, I'm going to end that sentence with a preposition...and everyone's going to like it.  So there.  Anyway, I pulled a prompt:

"Turn to an entry in your journal or diary from a year or more ago.  What has changed and what has stayed the same since then?"

Naturally, that brought me to look at this beauty from a little more than a year ago.  As far as attitudes go, I'm pretty much in the same place.  I relish the idea of growing old versus growing up because it makes my brain hurt in a not quite unpleasant way.  And I wholeheartedly agree with Past Brianna that I would much rather grow old.  There will be no growing up here.

As far as life goes, this time last year, I was living in Florida.  I was packing my bags to get ready to come back to Illinois.  I had no job prospects, and no idea what I was going to do with my life past move into my childhood bedroom in my parents' house.  I was newly single, I was irrationally bitter, and I knew that I was going to miss the support and friendship I found in my flatmates.  I had also just finished off a tiring week of work, and was excited to get to a more normal work schedule for my last week.  I was also writing angsty and/or conflicted poetry, some of which turned out well.

This year, I still (unfortunately) have no idea what I'm going to do with my life.  But today I'm at home in Illinois temporarily because come Saturday, I will be driving back out to Nebraska where work has taken me.  I have a job, I have my own place to live (rent-free), and I have excellent co-workers who I'm looking forward to getting to know even better during the next couple months of 2014.  I'm staying in touch with the majority of my flatmates, as well as classmates from college and high school.  I'm just finishing up a relaxing week of rejuvenating "at home time" and there's a part of me that's itching to get back to Nebraska.  Today I find myself irrationally optimistic when I'm not choked with terror, and making Shrinky Dinks, because that's what a 23 year old does with her free time in her childhood home before she gets back to her "big kid job."  Though I can't classify under a specific heading or genre...I'm still writing poetry that echoes way too much of my current life experiences.

My one conflict with my past "journal entry" is that though I agree with it and want to put it into practice, I'm currently in a job that requires me to act a mite bit older than my true age...because I manage college students.  And I'm no longer a college student, so I can't buddy-buddy with them.  So I find it more difficult to not grow up, or to do justice to my desire to never grow up.  I wouldn't say that I think my soul has died and I'm now an adult, but I will say that I can't run around coloring on walls with crayons or rolling around in the snow in front of my Nebraska home.  Frustrating, yes.  But I'm sure the universe has its reasons for putting me through this.  (Oh gosh, that sounded a lot...I don't know, but I'm leaving it because I'm too lazy to find a way to re-phrase.)

Onward to create more Shrinky Dinks!

Happy 2014, let's make this one a great one!

"When you grow up, your heart dies."

- The Breakfast Club

Kaleidoscope Heart

I learned recently that one of my readers recently (how many times can I use that word in a sentence...) is an attorney, or at least works at an attorney's office, so their name links back to that website.  You know who you are if you're reading this now!  And I find it interesting that they commented on one of my posts to stress legality and getting everything down in "black and white."  Just wanted to take a moment to thank that commenter, and assure them that my Last Will and Testament post was a draft, I'll be working out the kinks soon, and when I'm closer to my deathbed.

Moving on to today's prompt which I pulled from my box (yes, I'm going to announce that every time I pull a prompt from the box, you'll probably get irritated, but you'll have to either deal with it or...deal with it, thank you!).

Today's prompt:  What music album would be used for a movie about your life?

I was just thinking about this fairly recently (it's that word again...).  I'm actually making a list of all the songs that are out now or that I'm hearing played on the radio right now that apply to my post-graduation "real world" life.  So I've got a couple songs on that list, but it's not a whole album.  One that I'd just like to mention because a friend shared it with me and I feel like it suddenly applies with "22 is like the worst idea that I have ever had..." is Paramore's "Hello Cold World."  It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

What's strange is that there's one album that would be pretty good for a movie about my life right now.  Or at least, how my life is right now, and that's Sara Bareilles' "Kaleidoscope Heart."  I shamelessly borrowed the CD from my local library so I could familiarize myself with the music, because my same friend who sent me Paramore's song also sent me "Uncharted."

There was a good week when I played this song on loop.  It was in December, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life when I got home from Florida.  If there was a movie montage to go with this song in the movie of my life, it would be me puttering around the apartment, playing on my computer, and writing stacks of poetry.  Which is interesting in that that's exactly what I'm doing right now since I've been back from Florida.  But this is how I've found myself approaching my life right now.  It's uncharted.  I'm the one making my decisions and determining my own future, drawing the lines on my own map, and I don't want to listen to other people telling me how "to get started."

Then there's "Gonna Get Over You," which makes me love Sara Bareilles all the more, because the music video is so fun.  I don't really know what to say about this.  I'm not sure it's making a promise that I can keep, but I don't know.  "I'm not the girl I intend to be."  This is something I want to live, I want to be the girl that I do intend to be.  Just...need to figure that one out.

"King of Anything."  The song that I've heard on the radio and sung along with.  This would be perfect for the movie of my life because the movie of my life is going to be a romantic comedy of some sort, and I'm going to sing this to someone in a diner.  At least, that's how I'm imagining it.

I'm not really feeling coherent right now, but my feeling is that this album as a whole pretty accurately paints my life as it is right now.  I'm still figuring things out, feeling like there's potential for everything, and yet having no idea how I'm going to get there.  I feel like I want everything but I don't have enough room in my arms to carry it all to the check-out counter.  So there's a lot of reflection needed, but I'm going to be playing this beauty on loop for the next couple forevers because Sara Bareilles is keeping me sane right now.

"Each day, countin' up the minutes, till I get alone, 'cause I can't stay

in the middle of it all, it's nobody's fault, but I'm

so low, never knew how much I didn't know, 

oh, everything is uncharted.

I know I'm getting nowhere, when I only sit and stare..."

- Sara Bareilles, "Uncharted"

Goodness

Today I pulled a prompt from my magical prompt box, but the first one I pulled was: Name a time when you broke a rule or law.  Did you get caught, or did you get away with it?  I feel like this would be an unwise thing to write about on a blog where the proper authorities could conceivably find me.  So we're not going to do that one.  The short answer for the curious, is yes I have, but get caught, no.  I'd like to keep it that way.  Just ask me, and I'll tell you the story!

Anyway, one more time!

This is my mysterious full of orange slips with prompts on them.  Magical, yes?

Today's prompt:  Name one thing you feel brings out the good in people.

Laughter.  There are a number of different types of laughter, but most importantly is the laughter that actually makes people happy.  I find that happiness and laughter tend to bring out the good in people.  I say this because I enjoy surrounding myself with people who enjoy laughing and who enjoy making other people laugh.  Because laughter is a unifying experience, people tend to be more friendly once they've laughed together.  I remember going to poetry slams on campus and leaving with this warm feeling and being met with smiles from other people because we had shared something, and I feel like that's part of the "good" that comes out in people.  So laughter for one.

I think that also leaks into shared experiences.  Sharing experiences brings out a good toward the people in that specific context, which is good, and sometimes that also extends to good towards outside people.  I'm not sure if that sentence makes any sense, but it made sense in my head, so I'm leaving it.

Kindness.  Being shown it yourself brings out kindness in others in a sort of "pay it forward" type of attitude. Random Acts of Kindness Week is in February, and I've always wanted to do little anonymous random acts of kindness, but I always manage to forget, which probably says a lot about me, but we're not going to go there.

Feeling like someone cares about you.  This always makes me feel like I need to do something for someone else or let that caring person know just how much their care and concern means to me.  Just because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Caffeine.  I'm only kidding.

Love.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."

- Wendy Mass

A Very Potter Reflection

Yesterday I settled in front of my laptop with a mug of tea and donned a set of headphones to watch Team Starkid's A Very Potter Senior Year, the very last in the Harry Potter parody trilogy.  And I realized, it's the end of an era.

It's been a long time.  The Harry Potter craze.  But it felt like AVPSY was a salute to the end.  We're told that it's okay to let things go and move on.  And "okay" is definitely good enough.

Move on, eh?

Reflecting back on Harry Potter instead of moving on for the purposes of this post, I remember in maybe 4th grade, my elementary school librarian held up the book and gave us a concise summary while I thought to myself, "That looks weird..."  This coming from the only girl in her class who wore tights after the age of six.  It wasn't until one of my friends talked it up and lent me the first two books that I really got into it.  I remember reading Chamber of Secrets at night and shivering at the voice in the walls, and I remember asking for my own copies of the first three books for Christmas.  I didn't read the third one until I had my own copy.  I remember being at a birthday party when the fourth book came out and my dad and grandpa going at midnight to get me my copy.  Books 5 through 7 were delivered straight to my house through Amazon.  I never went to a release party, and looking back on it, I regret that.

But I think a big part of why I wanted to write when I was younger was because I was reading good books. I used to write about witches and magic all the time, and reading Harry Potter was fuel for that, I think.  At that time I wanted to write a book.  A novel.  Right now, I'm not so sure, the only thing I'm sure about is that I want to keep writing.

It's probably been said a ton, but I think the magic of Harry Potter is the effect it has on its readers.  That a series of young adult books could inspire a group of college kids to write a series of parody musicals, that a movement of poets and musicians are out there creating wizard rock, and that the Harry Potter Alliance is making love, not horcruxes.  It's amazing to me that I can look at all that a boy wizard and his friends have done for us and realize that Harry's part of the reason we knew "okay" was good enough.  So even though we're growing up and some of us are graduating college or adventuring off into the real world, we still carry Hogwarts with us.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to read next, and I'm not really sure that it'll have the same impact on me that Harry Potter did, but I'm kinda hoping that it does.  I'd hate to go through the rest of my life reading things that are any less than magical.

"I do not read for I have renounced life, I read because one life is just not enough for me."

- Abbas Al-Akkad

Theatrical and Writing Concerns

So I started this post during my last semester of college and left it as a draft.  It kinda feels like I should finish it.

...

This morning I awoke at my usual 7 AM (today to the sounds of the Tangled soundtrack) because I'm participating in the 24 hour theatre fest.  It's exactly what it sounds like.  In 24 hours, a bunch of people write, direct and act in a series of short plays.  The most intense part (I think) is that the writers stayed up for quite a long time last night writing our plays.  Today is the first day that I'm thankful I'm not a writer.  Today I'm just an actor, so I can take directions and do what I'm told and get feedback, no worries about people misinterpreting what I write or butchering my lines.

It's a glorious feeling.  I feel free.

But the real fact of the matter is that I am a writer.  Maybe not for this show, but for the show of life, I'm writing the script, and half of the lines need to be cut.  They're not that good.  I've been writing a lot.  As my loyal readers know, I've been writing a poem a day since the beginning of September, and there's no end it sight quite yet.  I've noticed that a lot of my poems are influenced by what's going on in my life at the time of writing.  I had a whole series of zombie related poems when my university was playing a game called Humans versus Zombies, and I have a short bunch of poems that feature or are indirectly related to the boy I started seeing about two days after I started the Poem-a-Day project.

A good many of my poems are products of my distress.  I frequently get flustered or stressed out, and instead of buckling down and committing to doing my homework, I write poetry.  If you're friends with me, chances are you've shown up in my writing in some capacity, though I try my best not to consciously do that.  But a lot of times I'm worried/concerned/hurt/stressed/distressed, so I have to get the words down on paper.  And I can't help but wonder if there will ever be a time when it would be appropriate to show the objects of these poems the poetry that was written about them.  Mostly because I'm at this stage in my writing where I want to show everyone everything, dance around and sing, "Aren't I brilliant?"  Even though I would never admit to it if they told me I was.  The answer I've come to is "probably not, Brianna" because I can't for certain determine what the objects of poetry might read in the piece, and I don't want to create awkward situations.

...

Now that I've gotten to a point where there have been distinctive shifts in my life and situation, I've been writing a lot about my daily life which isn't too thrilling.  And I've learned that a break up can be really great fodder for ideas, even though you have to jump over the cliche hurdles to get to anything good.  So I find myself thinking...would I want to show anyone those poems much less the person they're about?  Yeah, I think it would be safe to say that that would be awkward.  Even if I wasn't purposely writing about a person, if I wrote something that they could interpret as about them...emotional distress.  I know this partially from experience and partially because I'm self-centered.

So it all boils down to even though I can crow, "Oh the cleverness of me!" I can't show the subjects of my poetry those poems.  I just can't.  So if I'm looking for feedback...I better pray that those feedback givers don't show up in my poetry because I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable unnecessarily   All uncomfortability must come from necessity, naturally!  Gosh!  When it's all over, when I'm done being broken up about a break up or done feeling betrayed or abandoned by close friends or done being over the moon excited about an unpaid internship, even when the feelings are gone, they're still going to be stuck to the page of the poem, so even if I say, "Hey, I don't feel this miserable/happy/whateveremotionapplies anymore," the reader could still read into it.  And then misunderstanding.  Or worse, understanding.  Understanding that maybe they made me feel that way, and then guilt.  And no one wants that.  Well, at least I don't want people to feel guilty.

Decision: Choose your audience wisely, Brianna.  The end.

"Poetry is an act of peace.  Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread."

- Pablo Neruda

A Letter to/from My Valentine

Even though I technically asked and was accepted as a valentine for my mother, sometimes you just have to write some mushy stuff.  I know it's probably trite and I'm probably contradicting my post from last year, but you know...here goes nothing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Valentine I Wish I Would Get:

Dearest Brianna,

It feels as though it's been weeks since I heard your voice when in reality it hasn't even been one week.  And now it's Valentine's Day.  And I know how you feel about Valentine's Day, so for I'll count the cliches for you when they come up.

You mean the world to me (1).  No joke.  If it came down to whether I would want you or the world, well, you would be more portable.

I can't imagine myself with anyone else but you (2) although if Angelina Jolie came calling, I might have to go running.  We have to have our principles here and I figure if I tell you in advance, you won't be able to argue with me when it happens.

In short, love, let's go have adventures and make the most out of life (3).

I love you, happy Valentine's day.

Love,
Random Imaginary (preferably British) Gentleman

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Valentine I Wish I Would Send:

Dear love,

Yesterday I started writing thank you notes for the presents I got for Christmas, and because you know me so well, you're going to keep your mouth shut about thank you notes being most effective when they come right after the holiday they belong to...  Anyway, the point is that because I'm kind of in a more thankful mood than I usually am, this will probably end up being a thank you note rather than a love letter, so I apologize if you were getting your hopes up.

Thank you.

Thank you for understanding me enough to know that you have to let me ride the shopping cart in the parking lot, and if you don't I'll probably pout.  Thank you for letting me drag you down every single aisle in the grocery store because it amuses me.

Thank you for letting me play.  It's taken me a really long time to find someone like you who is willing to let me play.  You once told me that you didn't see the point in becoming an adult if you couldn't be childish sometimes, and I'm pretty sure that that's when I fell for you.  And the best part is, you don't just let me play, you join in.  You pun with me, and I love that about you.  I was always afraid that I would end up with someone who would crush my soul and force me to write stuffy poetry, but you make me want to go on adventures with you and stay up all night eating candy.

Thank you for using British-isms and/or being British yourself.  You know that that's exactly what I love, and you use it to your advantage.  It's perfect.  Seriously.  Don't ever stop.  And thank you for understanding that if David Tennant comes into my life, I will leave you.  And even if you don't really understand, thank you for allowing that this is a reality.

Thank you for kissing me to shut me up when I'm on a rant.  Oh wait.  That's me.  Um.  Well, thank you for letting me kiss you to shut you up?  :^P

Thank you for writing to me.  I've always had a list of things that I would want my perfect man to be and do, and writing to me is up there.  I love the letters and the postcards and the e-mails, I love that we're in contact outside of text messages because I have to admit that I love reading the words that you physically wrote on a piece of paper for me.  It's kinda awesome.  You don't have to write me poetry, but I love that you do, it makes me melt.

Thank you for supporting me, especially when I'm being irrational.  Thank you for holding me and calming my panic especially when you don't understand what the big deal is anyway.  Because I know it's dumb.  And I know that I worry without reason, but sometimes it's just something I need to do.  Thank you for being there.

Thank you for not giving up on me.

Love,
Brianna

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

To all the lovers, to all the romantics, to all those looking for love, or to those who have lost it, may you have a wonderful day full of sunshine and warmth.  And don't forget about discounted candy tomorrow!

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PROMPT:
Write your own valentine you wish you would send or receive!

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street."

- W.H. Auden

Stress

Let's face it, this post has been a long time coming.  We all knew this was coming, and now you people who actually read my blog can rest at ease because it's true, I'm stressed and I'm going to be writing about it.

After the end of the Disney College Program, I found my way back to my hometown, which means that I'm living with my parents.  This doesn't feel like it should be a really big deal, but with my brother returning to university, I'm (for all intents and purposes) an only child.  I mean this in the sense that my parents' attentions, concerns, aggression is all concentrated on me.  I've only begun to realize this now.

(BRIANNA sets about packing up a bag with her laptop and other things.  DAD comes down the stairs, just woken up.)

DAD:  Where are you going?

BRIANNA: The library.

I understand that it's a parent's job to know where their child is, and I understand that they're really just looking out for me and worrying because that's all part of their job description, but I've never given them reason to worry about me, and it really shouldn't matter where I'm going because it's broad daylight, I'm a responsible pseudo-adult, and I don't have any bad influence friends to meet up with.

That's another stress that I have.  Once again I've sunk into the feeling that if I contact the friends who are nearby, I'll be bothering them.  Only a couple of my friends have steady work right now, so I really shouldn't be worrying about this as much as I am, but there it is.  I need to see people every now and again though, because otherwise I get lethargic and sink into a funk.  Which I've been on the verge of doing multiple times right up until I go to the library for some sort of human interaction with the lady who checks out the movies I'm torturing myself with.

Because there it is, the broken heart that I'm nursing.  And the cliche of saying it makes me weep more than the actual thing, so I've been telling people that the reason I'm so cold all the time is because my soul is made of ice and I don't have a heart anymore.  Because frankly, that's what it feels like.  I'm quick to cry, and I sit there remembering good times on loop.  I feel like the epitome of a romantic comedy heroine who's stuck in the misery montage with no hope of pulling myself out.  So basically, I feel not a little bit pathetic.  Through some terrible coincidence, I keep pulling romantic films off the shelves at the libraries and insisting that they'll make me feel better...and they don't really.  Which shouldn't surprise me, really.  I'm just at a loss there because no matter what I do, it hurts.  Everything hurts.  Doing things, not doing things, listening to music, skipping the familiar songs, writing horrible break-up poetry, avoiding writing poetry at all, reading, watching movies, talking, not talking.  Everything hurts, and it feels like my insides are frozen and my outsides are burning up.  Like my skin'll just turn into steam and escape through the roof and the rest of me'll just freeze and connect with concrete.  I have no idea what to do to fix this.

Oh, and money.

(BRIANNA comes back through the back door, bright and excited from a lunch with a friend.  MOM is playing a Facebook game on the computer.)

BRIANNA:  So my friend and I are planning to go on adventures in the city and maybe take some day trips out of town--

MOM:  Brianna, I'm not going to fund your fun.  I can't.

BRIANNA:  I--what?

MOM:  I can't fund your day trips and your fun.

Once again.  I understand this.  I have no job.  I should be looking for a job.  Preferably one that will pay me money.  With that money, I can have fun.  But at the same time, I need to have fun and see my friends in order to remain sane or run the risk of becoming a hermit.  That's ignoring the fact that hermits can have friends.

Well, if I were a hermit and friends with The Doctor, things would be different.  Point being, if I don't leave the house and have human interaction, I feel less human, more stressed.

And then I'm looking for a job.  I don't even know where to start, so I'm making it up as I go.  I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to call to follow-up and make sure that places got my resume after all, and I constantly lose track of where I applied anyway no matter how many lists I keep.  I'm looking at positions in libraries, small publishing houses, and universities, anything that I might be vaguely interested in.  Once it starts warming up, I'm planning on knocking on doors all up and down the streets where the small businesses live nearby my home, but I'm really hoping that it doesn't come down to that.  And all I want to do is write.

What it all boils down to is: I'M STRESSED!  Living with my parents is a weird dance thing that I have to do so everyone retains some semblance of happiness, I have no friends, busy friends, or friends I'm afraid to bother, I'm looking for a job, dealing with a broken heart (or lack of a heart), and wanting to write.  And there it is.  So now I've spent 20 some odd minutes writing this post instead of searching for a job while I've been at the library, but you know...it kinda helped in a weird way?  Happy Tuesday!

"To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time."

- Leonard Bernstein

Selfish or Selfless?

Anna sat in her bedroom, painting her toenails the darkest shade of blue she owned.  She was crunched up in a position that in any other situation would have been considered uncomfortable, but when it comes to painting one's toenails, one discovers the ability to contort one's body into the strangest shapes in order to reach every angle of that tiny little nail.  The music drifting from her laptop was provided by her most random Pandora station because she didn't much feel like listening to Christmas music despite the nearness of the holiday.

At that moment, there was a knock on her door.  And while she was silently narrating her life in the third person, she briefly pondered the idea of a knock arriving on a door.  It was a odd phrase because a knock wasn't a thing, so it couldn't exactly sit on a door, it was more of an event that happened without the door's knowledge or consent.  So shouldn't a knock "accost" a door?  Rather than just "be" on a door?  Anna shook her head to dislodge such narrative thoughts.

"Come in."

"You sure?" said a male voice from the the other side of the door.  He poked his head around the door and raised his eyebrows at Anna who rolled her eyes and waved impatiently at him to make a decision about whether he was entering or not.  Taking that as his cue to "stay or go," Rhys let himself in and sidled over to Anna's desk chair which he flipped around and settled into, doing all this before saying, "So how are you?"

"I'm just grand," Anna mumbled, flicking another coat of polish on her pinkie toe.  "I'm alive."

"And how are you handling your first break-up, sweetie?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair and tilting his head at an awkward angle so he could catch Anna's eyes which were bent down to concentrate on her toenails.

"I'm fine, no thanks to you, selfless bastard," Anna said, deigning to look up at Rhys and flash him a vicious smile.  "Can I refer to you as that from now on?  'Selfless bastard'?"

"I think the official term is 'selfish bastard,' darling," Rhys commented dryly.

"Yeah, but you're not really, that being why I would want to call you 'selfless bastard.'  Plus I enjoy the mislead in making people think that I was made a mistake of calling you the wrong thing," she said, twisting the cap on her nail polish and nodding in satisfaction.  Only half of that satisfaction really being in finding a new term of "endearment" for Rhys that she was pleased with.  "It pleases me that I can speak about you in an unexpected way."

"Do what makes you happy."

A silence fell over the conversation at that point, because that was always his advice, and that was always the advice that ended any argument about what Anna should do whether it be for her choice of dinner or choice of classes for the next semester.  Her happiness was always one of Rhys' top priorities, even though Anna argued that he should do what made him happy every now and again, and that was when she was met with "Making you happy makes me happy."  Which Anna should have smacked him for or maybe rolled her eyes at, but it always worked.  And that was why he ended things, because ultimately it felt like even if in the shortrun she was grumpy, painting her nails dark colors and listening to moody music, in the longrun it's what would make her happy.  And she couldn't even hate him for it.

"I am a greedy, selfish bastard.  I want the fact that I existed to mean something."

- Harry Chapin 

Oz

Q:  So we're talking about Wizard of Oz today?  I knew you liked it, but not as much as you like Wicked...

A:  We're not talking about Wizard of Oz.

Q:  But--but--really?  Why not?

A:  Because we're talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Q:  We--uh--what?

A:  Just shut up and listen, okay.  But in all fairness, anyone who hasn't seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer might want to skip this post, there are spoilers.  Kind of.  I mean, there are things that you could probably figure out all on your own, but yeah.  I really just want an excuse to use ***SPOILER ALERT*** in a real live blog post.  That's right.

Okay, so I've always known that if I were a character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I would be Willow.

Willow's the bookworm.  She's awkward, cheerful, usually looks on the bright side and harbors a gigantic crush on one of her best friends.  She's also the one who discovers she's a lesbian later on in the series, but when I'm talking about my being Willow, I'm talking about the high school Willow.  The awkward adorable one.  The one who wears strange sweaters and tights when her classmates are wearing mini skirts and belly shirts.  Yeah.  I'm Willow in her days before she becomes cool in college and before she comes into her own as a witch.

A large part of why I was okay with being Willow was the fact that in high school she ends up with Oz for a while.

If I had a favorite character on Buffy, hands down it would be Oz.  He is my absolute favorite because though he doesn't talk much, when he does, he's clever and sweet.  Basically he's perfect for Willow because he's smart, he adores her awkwardness, and he's super kind to her.  He's matter-of-fact and unapologetic about his affection for her, and he's just so cool.  Maybe that seems like a lame reason to like a character, but I love Oz.  Like a lot.

While Angel is all "I'll love you until the day I day, oh wait, I'm immortal, so basically I'll love you forever," Oz says things like "I'm going to ask you to go out with me tomorrow night, and I'm kinda nervous about it actually.  It's interesting."  Love.  So much love.

So I'm spending a lot of my time being Willow and not really worrying about things like boys, when I'm really secretly waiting for my Oz.

But what I conveniently forget is that even if I end up getting an Oz, he's going to end up leaving not only me but Sunnydale so he can tame the wolf.  Yeah, he's a werewolf.  And basically he leaves to protect Willow and everyone from the wolf, doing "what's best" for everyone around him.  And when I watched the show, I wanted to punch him in the face for hurting Willow like that, just leaving her on the curb as he drives away.  She's stuck broken-hearted and in Sunnydale where all she really gets to do is play second fiddle to Buffy when before that she actually mattered to someone like Oz.  But at the same time, the me who saw herself as Awkward Willow understood why Oz was taking off.  It made sense that he had to figure things out.  At the same time, I didn't realize that Willow had things to figure out too.  Though she was starting to come into her own and do more than be a sidekick, she really needed to step up.  But there were the beginnings of that that I didn't realize until I looked back on it.

Right about now, I'm not sure where I am in the Willow continuum, but I'd like to think that I'm a little less awkward if a little more adorable.  Maybe I should just take up witchcraft and see what happens.  :^P

"Sometimes, when I'm sitting in class--you know, I'm not thinking about class, 'cause that would never happen--I think about kissing you. And, it's like everything stops. It's like, it's like...freeze frame. Willow kissage. (pauses) Oh, I'm not gonna kiss you."

- Oz

Grounded

On the morning of takeoff, the air was so filled with fog it would have put Natasha Bedingfeld's "pocket full of sunshine" to shame.  We could barely see the runway where we were standing let alone the lights bordering it.  I just figured my vision was blurring because I'd always been afraid of how tall I was, and seeing the ground blur in a gray blanket and losing sight of my feet seemed like a logical extension of my terror.

That morning you were already questioning whether flying with me was a good idea in the first place while I warmed up my arms by stretching them out and trying to flap them around.  These questions swirling around inside your head like a little kid's science project were muted, and I wouldn't have been able to hear them over the fog anyway.  One thing I knew: if you were flying, I was flying.

And I used to think that I was already flying around because standing in the middle of a runway in fog already feels like walking on clouds, so why did I feel so rooted?  My arms made pretty pathetic wings, all scrawny and featherless, but you never saw that as a problem because you subscribed to the belief that all you had to do was throw yourself at the ground and miss.  I was trying not to think about what would happen if I didn't miss, because I didn't know if trying to purposely miss would defeat the purpose of missing in the first place.

But even if I didn't miss the ground, I would miss you.  So I guess it's lucky that morning we were grounded even if takeoff is still in your flight plan.

Thank you to Sunday Scribblings for the prompt: Grounded.

"And if I'm flying solo

at least I'm flying free.  

To those who'd ground me, 

take a message back from me.  

Tell them how I am

defying gravity."

- "Defying Gravity" from "Wicked"

The Cake

“I’m going to make you a cake that looks like a Band-Aid, but it might end up looking more like a penis, so even better!” Elisa let out a laugh as she said it, causing Anna to shake her head.

“Yeah, okay, Elisa,” Anna said, heading out the door in her striped work uniform shirt and matching skort.

Little did she know that when she arrived home in the darker hours of the evening after sunset, she would be greeted by said cake on the dining room table.  It was exactly what Elisa had said, a Band-Aid cake, but with the shape and the color, it ended up looking a lot more like a penis than a Band-Aid.  Then there was the contributing factor that that was something Anna had on her mind anyway.  The cake was surrounded by candles artfully arranged on top of stacks of books and circling the Band-Aid/penis cake.  On the table in front of it was a brightly colored Post-It note that read “Eat your heart out.  Don’t forget to swallow.”

“Elisa, what did you do…” Anna mumbled, shaking her head at her roommate’s idea of a cathartic binge eating of oddly shaped baked goods.

There was no point in inviting Elisa to help her eat the cake since she was probably out with her current boyfriend, so Anna was left with a paper plate, a napkin, a fork, and the cake.  Nothing but her feelings and sugar to keep her company.

She supposed she should be thanking Elisa for thinking of her, but there was some small part of her that wondered if it was an act of mercy because if Anna went into a diabetic coma, then not only would it put her out of her misery but Elisa also wouldn’t have to deal with the moping of a recently single roommate.  She supposed that there were worse ways to go than by sugar overload and since “she had nothing left to live for,” it was probably the least cliché way of going short of tying a silly straw around her throat and seeing if that worked.  Besides, tying a silly straw around anything would probably take more effort than was worth expending on a potentially failing pursuit.

Part of what angered her about the whole situation was how cliché her feelings were.  Two things couldn’t possibly be more cliché and those were being in love, and being heartbroken.  The fact that she could be upset about feeling a cliché just went to show her that she was more worried about how her emotions measured up in the “universal condition” than she was about dealing with whatever those feelings meant.  That probably had to do with the fact that she was a writer, and as a writer you write things (go figure).  But since heartbreak is a universal thing, everyone feels it at some point, is there really something new to say about it?  How was she supposed to explain how she felt without using tired phrases that didn’t mean anything anymore?  Then again, she ran into the same problem when she was happy and in love too.  So there really was no winning.

Anna grabbed the plate with the cake on it and re-located it to the coffee table, settling down into a pretzel position on the floor next to it.  She looked at the cake accusingly for about a minute before stabbing it with a fork.

“Well, might as well put something in my mouth.”

Poetry Friday -- Love

This morning, when I woke up and thought about writing a blog post, I realized: hey, it's Friday!  Poetry Friday!  Then I didn't know what poem to write about.  I thought I might cheat and write about how (just like every year around this time of October) I'm considering participating in National Novel Writing Month.  I have yet to actually commit to doing it, well, let's be honest, I'd like to, but it's more a matter of committing to an idea than anything else.  Anyway...

Novels aren't the point, because today's about poetry.

Today I read Pablo Neruda's "Love," which I'm also going to type here because it took me an eternity to find it when I wanted to read it originally.  It makes me really want to be best friends with Pablo Neruda, steal his brain, and kiss him on the mouth.  Maybe not in that order though.

Love -- Pablo Neruda

So many days, oh so many days
seeing you so tangible and so close
how do I pay, with what do I pay?

The bloodthirsty spring
has awakened in the woods.
The foxes start from their earths,
the serpents drink the dew,
and I go with you in the leaves
between the pines and the silence,
asking myself how and when
I will have to pay for my luck.

Of everything I have seen,
it's you I want to go on seeing:
of everything I've touched,
it's your flesh I want to go on touching.
I love your orange laughter.
I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.

What am I to do, love, loved one?
I don't know how others love
or how people loved in the past.
I live, watching you, loving you.
Being in love is my nature.

You please me more each afternoon.

Where is she?  I keep on asking
if your eyes disappear.
How long she's taking!  I think, and I'm hurt.
I feel poor, foolish and sad,
and you arrive and you are lightning
glancing off the peach trees.

That's why I love you and yet not why.
There are so many reasons, and yet so few,
for love has to be so,
involving and general,
particular and terrifying,
joyful and grieving,
flowering like the stars,
and measureless as a kiss.

So I'm a sap.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am a complete and total sap, and they're either okay with it or they ignore me when I go into "sap mode."  I adore this poem.  I found quotes from it when I was browsing around Tumblr trying to decide if I want to get a Tumblr.  Then there was a gigantic Google search of epicness during which I found a bunch of other Neruda poems, none of them the ones that I wanted until I finally stumbled upon this one.  So I printed it out and it now lives on my bulletin board.  Basically it's awesome.

Anyway...I really love the third stanza.  The third stanza is the one that caught my eye originally and made me want to read the entire poem.  I love it.  Like a lot.  It's just about as good as chocolate covered strawberries and cuddly kisses.  It's so simple, and yet it's so swooningly romantic that I want to shake Pablo Neruda's hand and congratulate him for writing something so beautiful.  I don't know what "orange laughter" is, but I imagine it being something bright and delightful and sunshiney, and that makes me happy.

I like the idea that this poem takes on something that is so easily cliched because it's written about so much, and makes it new and fresh.  Sure, there are probably a ton of poems about how the speaker doesn't think they deserve the one who loves them, but this poem ropes in the element of luck and the consternation that the speaker will have to pay for having been so lucky in love.  This ups the stakes and makes things not so much about the self-deprecation of the speaker but more so about the elevation of the loved.

I have never heard spring described as "bloodthirsty," and I'm not quite certain how I feel about it.  But I am inclined to think that it has to do with the spring being most associated with love and "mating season" that it heats the blood, as it were.  These images of nature in the second stanza make me believe that the speaker's love for the subject is as natural as breathing.

"Lightning glancing off the peach trees."  Can we talk about how beautiful that is?  Sure, it's destructive in that lightning striking just about anything fries the "anything," but peach trees make me think of scent and fruit and delicious things and lightning is dangerous, but combined with peaches, it makes it all worthwhile.  Goodness gracious.  And I'm not sure how stars "flower," but yes.  So much yes.

PROMPTS:
1.  What is orange laughter?  Can you write something that either explains what this is or explores the idea of many-colored laughters?
2.  I dare you to write an un-cliche love poem.
3.  Write a poem in which the speaker self-deprecates in order to talk about their love.  Then find a way to twist that self-deprecation into an elevation of the love.
4.  Create an image of dangerous beauty.  What does it feel like, and what kind of emotions does it inspire in the speaker?
5.  Write about the bloodthirsty spring.  What's up with that?

"I love your orange laughter."

- Pablo Neruda, 'Love'

Things I Learned in Paris

From May 18th until yesterday, I was in Paris, France with my mother and my grandmother.  It was a kind of graduation gift from Grandma, and let me tell you right now that it was a dream come true.  Ever since I started taking French classes in 7th grade, I've wanted to visit Paris.  It's one of those things you have to do if you're learning French.  And even now, I haven't stopped learning.

1. Taking luggage on the Metro or RER is one of the worst decisions you can make if only because there will be complain-y people.  Haha, sure you're speaking French, but I can still understand you...
2. Ask the server for wine suggestions.
3. Tip is always included.
4. More people than you might think know and are willing to speak English, but they'll apologize for it.  I'm sorry my French isn't better, your English is infinitely better than my French and I'm in your country!
   
   

   

   La Tour Eiffel!

   
   
5. The Eiffel Tower is brown.
6. Never ever wear your un-broken-in character shoes on the first day of a walking-heavy vacation.
7. Band-Aids are pretty much the best things ever.  :^)
8. Croque-Madame and quiche Lorraine.  Yes please!
9. Steak burgers are infinitely better than regular burgers.
10. Timhotel is lackluster.
    
    
    
    Source: budgetsavvydiva.com via Brandy on Pinterest
11. Chocolate croissants.  Miam, miam, miam...
12. L'Arc de Triomphe is in the center of a star of streets and yet un-findable when tired.
13. The only public toilets are the shifty ones on the street.
14. When you really need to go to the bathroom and think, "Hey!  I'll just use this free museum pass to use a museum bathroom," none of the six nearby museums will be on the list of museums it can be used for.
15. At some intersections you have to take your life into your own hands because there are no "walk" signals.
    
    

    

    I'm going to miss these little walky guys...

    
    
16. "Don't walk" signals don't have feet.
17. Shakespeare and Co. is beautiful.
18. Gelato is absolutely delicious and eaten with little bitty plastic shovels.
19. Orangina, chocolat chaud, and wine.
20. Oh, it seems you bought your wares on Oriental Trading..."May I have 1000 chintzy plastic Eiffel Towers for $0.05?  Thanks!"
    
    

    

    Why thank you sir, I definitely wanted you and your elbow in my picture...

    
    
21. The Venus de Milo initially looks like a hologram.
22. The Mona Lisa is bigger than I originally thought it would be.
23. Sometimes the view from Sacre-Coeur or the Musee d'Orsay can suffice.
24. Little old ladies enjoy standing outside famous Gothic cathedrals and gesturing at the facade.
    
    

    

    "You see there's a tall bit, a not-so-tall bit, and another tall bit..."

    
    
25. There's a tall bit, then a not-so-tall bit, and another tall bit on Notre Dame.
26. Hausmann regulated building in Paris: carve the front out of stone, each apartment must have a balcony, the top floor needs to have one balcony all the way around, and windows in the roof.
27. Everyone in Louis XVI's family was vaccinated.
28. Never ever, ever take something being handed to you (paper silhouettes or clay pottery especially).
    
    
    
    Source: tumblr.com via Lexi on Pinterest
29. Scarves.  Leather jackets.  Big glasses.  Boots.  Lacey dresses.  Shorts and tights.  Converse.
30. 23 times.
31. Wild poodles only come out at night, and your mother will continuously insist that it wasn't real.
32. "First thing...and another thing..."
33. The line's not as long as it seems, especially when you have a pass that lets you skip it.
34. You need stamps to send postcards.  Wait, really?
    
    

    

    Ca c'est jolie!!!  C'est une maison a Montmartre!

    
    
35. Montmartre's a beautiful climb.
36. Not all Indiana Cafes are created equal.
37. "We're just going to give you drinks and we're going to ask you to pay first.  No, you may not have menus, because we refuse to feed you." (Bad day.)
38. Sleeping on a pallet at my mother's feet isn't that bad.
39. I am Marilyn Monroe in Paris.
40. Confirmed: my pajama pants and blanket make a laser light show in the dark.
41. Tour buses are imaginary.  Unless you don't have a reservation.  In other words...your tour?  It doesn't exist.
    
    

    

    The view from the cafe Le Dome.

    
    
42. Sitting at a cafe in the rain = :^D
43. French keyboards are insanely difficult to type on.
44. AltGr for @
45. Jury duty?
46. Walking crepes are delicious, and it's fascinating to watch them made.
47. Craft fairs may be deceiving...
48. You may be exhausted, but your RER train will stop the stop before your's and not move, forcing you to take a Metro back into the city to get to where you need to go outside of the center.
49. Daytime television is vastly more interesting than evening news programs.
    
    
    
    Source: google.com via Bonnie on Pinterest
50. "We'll always have Paris."
    
    
    "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
    - Ernest Hemingway

A Reflection (from HS Senior Brianna)

Guess what, I'm still cleaning my room.  It's becoming increasingly clearer that it's going to be a summer project that's going to take approximately forever.  Well, hopefully just the summer, but forever is an option, I suppose.

Senior year of high school, I took a class called Justice Seminar.  It was one of the choices for a religion class senior year, and it was the only time we got to choose something different in the religion department.  It was either Justice Seminar or Theology Quest (in which everyone was placed by default if they didn't "get into" Justice).  Though Theology Quest sounds like it would be a really cool video game that has you searching for Jesus and gaining lives by collecting the host or Catholic artifacts...I thought that Justice would be more fun.  It was really heavy on reflection and discussion, and there was also a service aspect.  Today I found my "reader" with all the articles we read, and I'm finally coming to grips with the fact that I should probably recycle it because all it's doing is gathering dust.  Inside this reader I discovered that I had bookmarked my reflections on some of the articles.  So I'm going to share one of those here.

This is a reflection based on a chapter from Henri Nouwen's Out of Solitude called "Care" and also Henri Nouwen's "Report on the Possibility and Desirability of Love."

As Mr. Nouwen said, it seems as if our expression of indifference has been the only time we use the word "care," and even then, we are using it incorrectly.  A person who cares is a person who "instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand."  Maybe it's arrogant to say that this statement along with the remainder of the paragraph convinced me that I am a caring person, but it did.  Either that, or extremely inarticulate.  Whenever my closest friends are having trouble, or just having a really bad day, I'm the friend that they go to who will listen to them, and just be there.  Maybe it's because I can never think of what to say at those moments, but sitting there feeling helpless along with the best of my friends is one of the main ways that I can express my love for them, and how much I care.  By offering to split an entire container of ice cream between the two or three of us, I feel like I'm doing something, even if I'm not offering the sage advice that I sometimes get.  It's the friends who are willing to just sit on the phone and listen to me rant that I really appreciate because I can tell they care about me, even if they don't know what to tell me to "make me feel better."  It's not really something I can explain, because I have a feeling if I did, it wouldn't have nearly the same impact upon me as it does right now.  A friend allows you to be yourself.


The quote, "...that it was better to suffer than to lose self-respect by accepting a gift out of a non-caring hand," confuses me.  It sounds a heck of a lot like charity, but I'm not completely certain.  It sounds like the explanation of the poor refusing help because they're "too proud," and I never really understood that.  Seems I still don't.


I agree that our society is preoccupied with "taking" and "power," because we are afraid of each other.  We're nervous about someone stabbing us in the back because if they figure out our deep dark secret, they'll use it against us.  And that makes sense.  Every man for himself, right?  But it isolates us.  It distances us from each other.  We have to constantly look over our shoulder to make sure that we're not being followed, and we never feel safe.

"When a man cries, when the walls of his self composure break down and he is able to express his deepest despair, weakness, hate and jealousy, his meanness and inner division, he somewhere believes that we will not take and destroy him as if a voice told him, 'Don't be afraid to tell.'"

This quote really stuck out to me because it's kind of like revealing your complete self and just announcing, "Here I am, take me or leave me."  Nouwen seems to be saying that we have to let ourselves be vulnerable before we can love and be loved.  I mean, the most repeated advice you get before, after, and during Kairos is "don't be afraid to open up."  And I wrote a reflection about the importance of opening up before.  Really, opening yourself up to feeling other people's hurt, and allowing for the possibility of yourself getting hurt, that's what love is.  We have to open up that oyster shell of our's, as Nouwen puts it, and let our loved ones see the pearl within.  But we are afraid of what others will say about our pearl.  We are afraid that we'll intimidate people by our willingness to share, or the gleam of our pearl in comparison to someone else's.  But just as Marianne Williamson said:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

We really have to learn to love ourselves, and open up in order to allow the people around us to do the same.  If one person turns on their light, then the others can't help but follow, because how can you be afraid of the dark if all the lights are on?  If one person opens up, and loves, then the people around them will learn to love by example.  Maybe that's idealistic, or completely off the point, but it would be such a valuable change from taking love to giving love or sharing love.


So it seems that senior year of high school Brianna was pretty profound.  Interesting.

"Somehow we know that strength is often hidden in weakness and it is exactly there, where love becomes visible."

- Henri Nouwen, "Report on the Possibility and Desirability of Love"

Valentine's Day?

So tomorrow's Valentine's Day.  I'm not really a fan of the holiday, and so part of me thinks I have an obligation to unpack that dislike for it so I can can square things away.

Thanks, Google!

Okay, so what's the point of Valentine's Day?  It's a Hallmark holiday meant to sell candy and cards and encourage people to deck out their homes in pink and red (two colors that clash on normal days...) in order to express their affection for the people that are important in their lives.  Most commonly affection for a significant other.  All those left single during this day spend their time burning teddy bears or complaining about how disgusting Valentine's Day is.  Am I right?  Let's not forget that Valentine's Day is also the day in history when the St. Valentine's Day Massacre took place in Chicago.  Isn't that happy?

I've spent the majority of my life being single.  I never really had a problem with that.  I didn't need a boy to make me happy, and I didn't want to have to deal with the drama that inevitably would surround a high school relationship.  So Valentine's Day wasn't a big deal.  I maybe gave cards to my friends.  Maybe.  I don't remember.  I do remember wearing either red or pink on that day just because it was fun to dress up.  Point being, Valentine's Day didn't really have a meaning for me.  Sure, I'll admit it was fun playing the cynic and bashing the heart shaped cards and those gross conversation hearts (they really taste nasty, I don't understand why they exist...) and the couples who were all lovey-dovey in the hallways.  I honestly wanted to puke.  Partially because I hate people, mostly because I felt like they were playing into cliche.  Which is sad.

This year I find myself in a relationship with Valentine's Day right around the corner (that being a relative term, we all know it's tomorrow).  It's really hard to not bash the day, and every time I do I have friends surrounding me who remind me that I have a boyfriend, so I should be happy.  Melbourne even went so far as to remind me that I have a boyfriend while also telling me that I'm not allowed to do the cynical bashy thing or else I'm a hypocrite.  Which is a fair statement, but hurts.

I don't understand why Valentine's Day exists outside of the idea that Hallmark needs to make a profit.  "So you can express your love to your loved ones."  That's just silly.  Come on now, you can express your love to your friends and lovers and husbands and mothers without having a special day that says you're supposed to. In fact, you probably should be continually expressing love, affection, and admiration on a daily basis anyway because it's good for you like vegetables.  There's nothing stopping you from saying, "Hey, I really appreciate you and everything you do for me" or "Hey, those are kick ass boots," or even "Hey, I love you" on any day outside of February 14th.  What means more: a gift from someone who you know cares about you on a day that necessitates gift giving and chocolate eating or a hug, a kiss, a gift or a well wish when that person isn't required to give you one?

What I'm saying is Valentine's Day makes people feel like they're required to show affection on that specific day.  They can spend all other days of the year giving people the finger for cutting them off on the highway, jumping strangers in line, and scowling when that other person takes the last French fry.  Really world?  That's not how this is supposed to work.  Call me optimistic for the remaining 364 (or 365 because this year's a leap year) days of the year, but I feel that people should be able to show their loved ones that they care every day.  What's stopping them?  Is it because they don't have time or the inclination?  They already love each other, why can't they just say it?  Why do they need a special little card that Hallmark sells you at Walgreens once a year to say something punny and ridiculous and ultimately trite when something far simpler would suffice on any other day of the year?

Valentine's Day might be a day for grand gestures, but I still think that people can pull out all the stops on any other day.  I believe in the power of positive thinking, the importance of a kind word on a rough day, and the effects of a smile from a stranger.  No one should feel alone on Valentine's Day if during the rest of the year they surround themselves by people who care for them and who make sure that they know.  So it ultimately shouldn't matter whether you have a boyfriend, girlfriend, lover or spouse on Valentine's Day because maybe you don't have one during the rest of the year, but you're still happy.  So why be miserable for one day out of the year when you have so many people around you who want what's best for you and would do just about anything to help you out ALL THE TIME?

Parting words:
Couples, I know this day is technically yours, all the commercials say so, but please don't make out and grope each other in public, it's neither cute nor charming, it really just annoys and disgusts people.  Don't let Valentine's Day be your excuse.

Singletons (or all the single ladies...(I had to make that reference at some point)), don't let Valentine's Day get you down.  You've got a whole network of people who love and care about you during the entire year, so don't let the thought of being without a significant other taint your day.  It's really just another day.

World, try a little tenderness.  All I'm asking is for a little respect and some kindness to strangers and acquaintances alike.  Every day.  Not just on Valentine's Day, alright?  Start today.

"Love is not to be purchased, and affection has no price."

- St. Jerome

February 1st

Today is February 1st.
I had to check my calendar to confirm that it is indeed the beginning of the second month of 2012, but Amy Pond assures me that it's true.  (I have a Doctor Who calendar that I'm still really excited that I own...)  February.

This means that I've survived a whole month of 2012.  We all have.  I was a little concerned for a bit there, but we made it through.  That also means that I've completed the 5th month of my Poem-a-Day project.  Which is astounding when I didn't even think I'd do a second month once I started.  September was so difficult, I didn't think I'd have the energy to go on.  But I'm really glad I did.  Once I'm done with February though, I hit a milestone.  6 months of poem writing.  6 months worth of poems.  That's roughly...180 poems.  (I say roughly because on some days I wrote more than one poem, and February only has 29 days this year.)  Good grief, when I hit 200 poems...how weird will that be?

Because I've gotten this far, it becomes a question of how long I'm going to continue this project.  Do I have the energy and the stamina to continue for an entire year?  Well.  I'm going to try.  Although I realize that when I get home I'm going to have to do more than just laze around and do nothing because when I did that over winter break, my poetry was so awful.  I kid you not.  It was bad.  Because I did absolutely nothing over break aside from go to the grocery store with my mother and read and watch movies.  I didn't even make bulletin boards like I should have.  Anyway.  One year.  I'm shooting for one whole year of poetry.  We'll see how this goes.

This month (or at least for the next two weeks) people will be talking about Valentine's Day.  Which I hate.  I hate Valentine's Day.  Okay, maybe not "hate," but I do dramatically dislike it because it's all pink and frilly and cliche and full of candy.  Okay, the candy's the best part.  But that's not the point.  It's the principle of the thing.  I don't understand why people need one specific day to communicate their affection for their loved ones.  Why can't they do that daily?  Wouldn't that make it mean more?  Anyway, this leads me to believe that I should try my hand at typical romantic poetry.  I'm horrid at writing love poems, and I know because I tried.  I once wrote a love sonnet to a book.  When I had to write a love poem in my Writing Poetry class...I wrote one to a book.  (Noticing a theme here?)  So.  Because this is my 5th month of writing poetry, I'm going to set myself a challenge to write one love poem a week out of all the poems I'll be writing this month.  We'll see how this goes.

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red..."

- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

Little Things that Make Me Happy

So (SPOILERS!) I'm making a bulletin board for February on Random Acts of Kindness.  I'm doing a lot of looking into things that make people happy and little bits of kindness and all that jazz, and I found a list of lists of things that make people happy.  Little things.  So I thought I'd follow suit and write up my own list of little things that make me happy.  In no particular order...

• Folded over potato chips
• Burnt popcorn
• Hugs
• Warm socks
• Cuddly old man sweaters
• Cuddling in general
• The smell of books
• Writing with a new pen in a new notebook
• Shopping for school supplies, even if I'm not actually purchasing anything
• Wind farms
• Black and white photographs
• Ruffles (not the potato chips)
• Getting in the car and turning on the radio to a song I know
• Dancing in the aisles at the grocery store
• Wax seals
• Stamps
• Finding change on the ground
• Walking in the fire lane
• Sitting at a campfire when it's just cold enough that the side of me facing away from the fire gets cold
• A good hair day
• Sudoku
• Baby animals
• When someone recognizes one of my references
• Opening the door before someone knocks on it
• Clean laundry smell
• E-mails or messages from a friend I was just thinking about
• Sunrises
• Being able to read the French on random labels
• Snail mail
• Riding a bike down the gigantic hill on the bike trail through the forest preserve
• Typewriters (the romantic old kind)
• Those bells that you can ring on the front counter of certain stores
• Fortune cookies

Novel in a Month?

So this morning in my half-awake, half-asleep state, I started thinking about the possibility of my writing a "novel" or something of that magnitude over winter break.  Probably because Finals start today which means that I'm going to be spending a good amount of time pretending that it's not actually happening.

Denial is fun.

With this novel idea (ha ha...) what I'm trying to do is write it in the same way that NaNoWriMo works, but because it's going to be in December leaking into January (because that's when winter break is for Brianna...) I can't really call it NaNoWriMo.  But the idea is write a certain amount of words each day and end up with 50000 words at the end of the month, abracadabra, alakazam, you've got a novel!

My thoughts are that I need to practice my fiction.  I've been spending a lot of time on my poetry (as evidenced by Brianna's Poem-a-Day project), and I feel disgustingly uneven.  Plus if I'm going to take a fiction class next semester I should probably practice some over the break or I'll be just as rusty with my fiction as I was last spring, and then I'll run into the "let the Real Brianna write" dilemma all over again, and that would just be a nightmare.  And really depressing.  Point being, practice is needed.

My only concern is that I'm not going to come up with an idea that's remotely close to novel-worthy.  Not that I don't think that my idea would be worth writing a novel about, I'm talking bout the length.  What if my idea stops and resolves itself before I can get anywhere near a sufficient word count?  Bright side, I will have finished something and that would be new in and of itself.  (I don't finish things.  Writing things.)  Because let's face it, I'm not really worried about people not wanting to read it mostly because I probably won't try sharing it with people.  And that's mostly because it would be a rough draft and take me about an eternity to re-write and re-work the material.

I'm not even concerned about the time I would be investing, because I plan on continuing my Poem-a-Day project over the break (even though I won't have a Poem Keeper this month due to break) and I also plan on reading just about every piece of literature in sight, preferably the kind that has absolutely zero literary merit and if I try to analyze it that it falls apart in my hands.  That would be so nice.

I should make a book list.  Like now.

And then I remember Finals.  Oh right.  I have two tomorrow.  My book list can be made on Thursday.  Maybe.

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

On a slightly different note, in my Poem-a-Day project I've had people requesting that I write poems for them.  Which is flattering and nerve-wracking all at the same time.  Because once I've given someone a poem, I have to acknowledge that that version of it is done.  I can't revise it after I've given it as a gift.  Well, I can't revise that specifically printed and sent version.

Also, I'm never sure what to write.  Do they want a poem written about them?  Because that's a lot more difficult for me than one might assume...mostly because I find it difficult to write about people I know.  I always write them too perfect and then they're not really themselves but just a paper cut out version of themselves, and that's just silly.  And defeats the point of writing about them because it's not exactly a faithful representation.

So sure, I'll write a poem for you if you request it, but it may or may not send me into a bout of apprehensions based on the "roughness" of the draft or the fact that I'm writing about something that I know entirely too well.  What I'm saying is, if you're interested in getting a poem from me...topics are helpful!

"Writing is like prostitution.  First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money."

- Moliere

A Letter to Writer's Block

Dearest Writer's Block,

We meet again.  Oh yes, you know me.  At least you should, after that extended relationship we had for a good couple of years.  I woke up next to you every morning those years, and every morning I was disappointed.  You know this.  We did not part on amiable terms.  I'm sorry.

But I've found someone new.  It's Inspiration.  This relationship is everything I've ever looked for, and you know that because you got jealous every time I flirted with Brilliance at the corner store.  And I'm not trying to write this letter to torture you, I just feel that you need to know my situation.  I'd love to know what's going on in your life if you'd like to write back.

Anyway, Inspiration and I...we're like magic.  We stayed up until two in the morning, Inspiration talking while I wrote.  And I did write.  I never wrote while I was with you.  Now I feel the words itching my fingertips as I write.  You'd think that would be uncomfortable, but the words merge with my motions and flow onto the page with only the effort of creating a pen stroke.  I've written in the dark with Inspiration.  I've written in the morning, scribbling out words quick enough so they don't skitter away before I can pin them down with ink.

And it sounds great and all, but I have a problem.  That's the real reason why I'm writing to you.  I need your advice.  I know, me asking you for advice is akin to asking a brick wall to pick up and move to Nevada, but I didn't know who to turn to.  Inspiration walked out.  I woke up this morning and felt the space on the pillow next to me only to find what I feared I would find ever since this relationship with Inspiration began.  An empty pillow.  Inspiration must have snuck out some time during the night.  We weren't really talking at all around midnight last night, and maybe Inspiration wasn't really feeling it anymore.  We didn't even fight.

I want Inspiration back.  I'm not sure if you've seen Inspiration about, but it'd be really great if you could let me know if you have.  Because I need Inspiration back.  We had something great going on.  I wrote all the time, during classes, at home, on recycled paper and on loose leaf, with a fancy pen, and sometimes with one of those Sharpie pens.  It was amazing.  I even managed to blog a couple days in a row, and that was virtually unheard of until Inspiration showed up.

I'm a better person when Inspiration is around.  I'm more excited about life, I'm enthusiastic about my work, and it just feels so much better when Inspiration is around.  I may have been a little sleep-deprived, but it was worth it because Inspiration was there, and we could wake up with bags under our eyes together.  We could shuffle through the day without drinking caffeine because neither of us need it.  I was wittier.  I was more put together.  I knew what I was doing.  I never needed prompts for my Poem-a-Day September exercise, and then today I needed to use itunes shuffle to help me write a poem.  They weren't even my own original words, Writer's Block!  That's why I need Inspiration back.  I can't even find Brilliance any more, I think Brilliance might have left town with Passion.  I'm not sure though.

So if you've seen Inspiration, can you say that I'm sorry?  I'm sorry that I stayed up watching Mulan and drinking wine instead of writing poetry.  I'm sorry that I didn't walk Inspiration home after a couple tarot spreads.  That wasn't fair of me.  So I'm sorry.  Ask Inspiration to come back.  For me?  If you could do this one thing for me, I would be so grateful.  I'll take you out for lunch some time.  Please just ask Inspiration to come back to me.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.  I hope our time together hasn't meant so little to you that you won't do me this favor.  I would do the same for you if (God forbid) anything happened to you and Motivation.

Have a good day!

Cheers,
Brianna
The Lost Writer

"Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity."

- Bo Bennett

Movie Likes

Q:  What movies do you enjoy watching?

A:  I like to flatter myself by calling myself a movie buff, if only because I can quote a multitude of obscure movies, and some that I've never even seen before.  Although that might be a testament to my watching too many AFI specials/countdowns.  So the short answer is that I enjoy a lot of different types of movies.  Although it depends on who I'm watching them with.  If that makes any sense.

I'm a big fan of 80s movies, and I find myself watching them with my mother a lot of the time, maybe because those were the movies she went to see in high school or heard about while she was there.  Last year I went on a really long kick during which I watched all the Bill Murray/Dan Ackroyd movies I could think of: Stripes, Caddyshack, Animal House...and I feel like there was another one, but I can't remember.  The Blues Brothers might have been in there.  Anyway.  There was also my "F-inn 80s" marathon during which I watched: Footloose, Flashdance, and Fame.  Although I only really liked Footloose.  I LOVE John Hughes movies, but I've only ever seen the Molly Ringwald trio: The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and  Sixteen Candles.  And I think one of those wasn't John Hughes.  Oh well.

At school, I tend to watch a lot of romantic comedies, or just comedies.  Our "go-to" movie tends to be Love Actually because it is the quintessential romantic movie, it's filmed really well, and it's something that all of us can agree on.  Even if we saw it earlier in the week, Love Actually is a movie you can definitely handle seeing again.

I have another group of friends at school that enjoys action/superhero movies, and they're the reason I've seen Kickass and V for Vendetta.  Both of which I enjoyed.  I also watch a lot of action movies with my little brother, or we just watch and re-watch the action/heist/military/superhero movies on our home movie shelf.

Then there are the kid's movies.  The Disney movies, and other animated or non-animated awesomeness.  I LOVE these so much that I'll probably watch them with just about anyone.  That and it's another genre that nearly everyone can agree on.  Which brings me to why I'm writing this post.  It's really just a ploy to announce that I'm going to my friends house to watch How to Train Your Dragon!  A movie that's completely adorable, beautifully animated, and so beyond fantastic that I can't wait to share it with our one friend who's never seen it.  Yes, I'm 21 years old and I'm going over to a friend's house to watch an animated movie.  You have to admit that that's pretty awesome.

"You just gestured to all of me..."

- How to Train Your Dragon