"Certain Songs...

they get so scratched into our souls."

I can usually match up each person in my life, or each major event, with a certain song. Or sometimes it's a whole band. Everytime I've been ridiculously infatuated, I can guarantee there is an album that I can't listen to without thinking of him. It makes it impossible to passively listen to old music without getting nostalgic. It makes music so much better though, when there are stories behind it. I always listened to the Decemberists on my way to work at Izzy's in high school, and now the smell of the restaurant comes with the music. Christmas of freshman year, all I listened to was Band of Horses, and now I can't listen to them without thinking of that, and I can't help but feel the space heater in my room at home.
And I'm compelled to listen to the songs that have these heavy memories attatched, even if they're bad memories, or something I want to forget.


Bands represent stages of my life. Here's the progression or the major music loves of my life, beginning in seventh or eighth grade, when I really started listening to music:

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, Death Cab for Cutie, The Shins, The Decemberists, Neutral Milk Hotel, Kings of Leon, The Hold Steady.

I guess you could also throw in Iron and Wine, and there are numerous others that have played small parts in my life, and I'm not even taking into account specific songs. Sufjan Stevens too. Oh well. I'm sure you're riveted.

Ugh, I've been having to edit these freshmen ENG 111 papers in the writing center, and for my Business Editing class, and I think it's taking its toll on my writing. I find myself subconsciously thinking and writing like them, which usually isn't a good thing.

-postsecret.com


I'm listening to Dashboard Confessional right now. "Rooftops and Invitations." So my mood should be pretty obvious. I haven't listened to this shit since high school.





This weekend drained me.

I need to learn how to compartmentalize. Like guys do. I always think I can, but that's never the case.

Oxytocin. Fuck that noise. My human sexuality class is teaching me so much about attatchment.

Sometimes I forget that this isn't a private journal, and this makes no sense to anyone else but me.

What I'm Learning

There is a time for everything, and sometimes things happen years after you expect them to. That's ok. Sometimes it takes waiting, accepting the word "eventually." Some things are inevitable. Once you let go of wanting someting, really and truly let go, that's the moment it happens.

I am awesome at waiting.

I have to do more things that scare me. Once I take that first step, other things seem less scary, and I take bigger steps and leaps eventually. I have to keep getting out of my comfort zone, it makes life much more interesting. It's the fear I have, the walls I put up that keep out the good stuff. I'm getting better at letting my guard down, despite how it hurts sometimes. It does. There's no getting around that. But it's worth it.

I am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. We all are.

I'm sorry I'm so vague. I can't give you any specifics. Well, last night I played at coffee house, and it was exhilirating, terrifying, being in the spotlight. But also really good and worth it.

Sorry for my lack of interesting vocabulary. I attribute it to a pretty bad hangover.

I want long hair again. I'm sick of this short mess I have going on.

I forgot to mention

I picked up some poems by D.H. Lawrence at Burke's Books the other day, and it was printed in the seventies. It cost $1.45 when it was printed, and I bought it for $2.50. I made a comment to the guy working there about how it costs more used than it cost new, meaning for it to be a light, offhanded joke, but I think he thought I wanted to haggle or something...he started talking about inflation and all, and I was like, yeah, I know...I just thought it was funny.

There's a quote from D.H. Lawrence that I liked a lot:

"I worship Christ, I worship Jehova, I worship Pan, I worship Aphrodite. But I do not worship hands nailed and running with blood upon a cross, nor licentiousness, nor lust. I want them all, all the gods. They are all God. But I must serve in real love. If I take my whole passionate, spiritual, and physical love to the woman who in turn gives love to me, that is how I serve God. And my hymn and my game of joy is my work."

Anyway, the point of me mentioning this book is that the previous owner wrote a little something on the inside of the cover, and ever since I saw it, I've been thinking about it, what it means, who the people are, what the story was:

"March 1, 1971
Lo and behold I was touching Maggie, and, oh God--Maggie was touching me...permanent ugliness flowing to colors; pattern, and movement:
You and I are always together."

I love used books. Especially ones with writing in them.

"So I thought I'd let you know...

...that these things take forever; I especially am slow."

Yesterday and today, everything has come out of the rain, outside the trees are new and green and somehow it feels like spring after a long winter. Everything, including me, is coming out of hibernation. And sun is so much better after there hasn't been any for a while. It catches me off guard as I'm walking to class and the light catches a certain way on the trees.

Such is life. No, really.

The weather has been mirroring my outlook on life. Things are looking up for me, and have been for the past couple of days. Thank you.
With the sun, I'm getting back to seeing the beauty in everyone, or at least seeing more beauty in those who I already saw beauty in before. This, I think, is the secret: seeing the beauty in everyone. Sometimes it just doesn't come easily.

I forgot I had written this...

Just imagine that for one day, one hour, one second, you could let the walls fall. See everything with clarity, as it aches to be seen, turn around from the cave wall and look outside. See that everything, actually, is beautiful, even pain is beautiful, in the same way that the sadness of love without release makes you cry and smile simultaneously. This particular type of pain has been written and written about because of its beauty, and also because when something is so rare that you don’t know what else it can be called, then you call it beautiful. These walls that you keep around yourself, in which you barricade yourself, and keep to this confined space where organization prevails. There are organized compartments filled with insecurity and doubt—something you inherited from your family, you suppose, or maybe from generations of humanity. You expected these walls to create beauty. You kept an orange butterfly in a glass jar in the compartment next to the vase with the lily inside. These walls organized beauty, or attempted to organize it, and since when has anything beautiful happened to you because of, or even amidst, organization? Great, heart-shattering things happened in complete and utter CHAOS, when your hair is messed up and you had dirt on your feet, and you just didn’t give a shit because of the beauty you had found. But you build up these walls with square compartments in which you store, and continually add your “beautiful” things. You have an azalea bush in one, a piece of music in another, a copy of your favorite book in a third, and you point and say, “Look here, this is beauty, and I found it just where I expected it to be.” But maybe if you had the courage to lift your arms, press your palms against the walls, if you could watch the butterfly jar break as it crashes to the ground, hear the dissonant chords that result from the fall, like a broken piano, then life could become truly beautiful. Life would become chaos, you would probably cut your foot on the shards of glass left behind, there would be terrifying, disorienting chaos. But then you could just, be. You could find IT, what Dean Moriarty was looking for. You could smile big smiles and show yourself and fear would disappear. Then other things could find their way into your life, those people who wouldn’t be afraid to wade among the remains of your broken walls. And two people together unafraid—how wonderful, how different things could be if fear ceased to be an issue. You could see the horizon, finally “how strange that beauty exists beyond these four walls,” you would think. You would stop looking at your shoes, at the stationary earth below you, and begin to look outward, at the great, spiraling, buzzing earth.

My First Communion

Angela Toomer
Wranovix
Spiritual Autobiography
18 September 2009

“Your First Communion,” my second grade teacher told me, “will be the most important day of your life.” It was quite a claim. Preparations were made weeks and weeks in advance: my mom, sister, and I went shopping for dresses, in the girl’s section of Dillard’s, settling eventually, mercifully, upon a white tulle dress. They all looked the same to me, anyway. My grandparents were coming in town from St. Louis. An order for a big, sugary sheet cake had been placed at the Kroger down the street.
The week before, I remember having a practice run of the actual receiving of Communion. My classmates and I lined up in our classroom, among the wooden desks and chalkboards, with the American flag above our heads, waving slightly from the air conditioner, nodding in approval. My teacher, Mrs. Snow, decided not to say the actual words, “The Body of Christ” as she gave us the saltine cracker that was supposed to represent the actual Body of Christ that would be in our hands just a few days later. It was a good call on her part, as I had trouble keeping a straight face at the thought of the ridiculousness of this practice, without her borderline-blasphemy, calling a saltine cracker the Body of Christ.
Mrs. Snow also explained Mass etiquette to us—as though we hadn’t been going to Mass twice a week since we could talk. But this Mass was different, she explained, everyone would be watching us, so we needed to be on our best behavior. This, apparently, meant that we shouldn’t cross our legs, except at the ankles. We should keep our hands folded the whole time, and not the casual, interlaced fingers kind of folded. It needed to be the formal, fingers-straight-out kind. “What about when we’re sitting?” one of my classmates asked. “Keep your hands folded in your lap,” Mrs. Snow replied.
The event was one that I dreaded and looked forward to in equal amounts. What if I dropped the host? Surely there was no way I could possibly stay out of hell if I did something like that. When Sunday morning finally arrived, I was nervous as my mom curled my hair in front of the mirror. It was a rainy morning, and when our minivan pulled up on front of the church, my dad let us out, and then went to go park. An air of anticipation was heavy in the church. It was busier than it was most Sundays, too, filled with parents holding cameras, wearing anxious smiles, praying that their kids don’t embarrass them. It was a similar feeling to standing in an auditorium before a class play. My shoes were brand new, and uncomfortable on my feet, and I wasn’t used to wearing tights. It didn’t matter much that I couldn’t really move, though; I couldn’t cross my legs, the only thing I was expected to do was sit there, except for when I would get up to receive Communion, and I shuddered a little at the thought. As I sat there, trying my best not to move, I wondered what I was supposed to be doing, exactly. On the most important day of my life, I guess I should try to pray, or maybe contemplate, but all I could think about was the stiffness of my dress, shoes, and tights, and how I wasn’t supposed to fidget. I couldn’t relax, as I sat there in the pews with my feet dangling a few inches above the ground, I couldn’t enjoy the most important day of my life. The church air felt heavy with incense and the collective expectation that rose up from the pews where we were sitting.
When the time came for us to walk up to the front of the church, I concentrated on not tripping over my feet, carefully remembering to keep my hands folded. You could taste the expectancy in the air, see it in the nervous gestures of my friends and I as we lifted up the kneeler, stood, turned to the side, and walked. I tried to remember everything I had been taught, in order not to mess up, to do everything right, so I could…I guess, have the greatest spiritual experience possible? More than likely, I was probably just posing for the video camera I could see out of the corner of my eye. When my turn came to take a final hesitant step up to the priest, I remember trying to stay alert and aware of what was happening, but then, it happened. Or, rather, nothing happened. My expectations did not match the actual experience. The host on my tongue contained no explosion of sudden holiness, there was no sudden epiphany. I didn’t feel any different as I walked back to my seat, trying to grasp the experience. I thought if this was, in fact, the greatest day of my life, I should be crying, or laughing, or showing some kind of emotion. Instead I was just a reproduction of everyone else in that brightly lit, sterile church: stoic, composed, and restrained.

I can see a lot of light in you.

I feel so, so much better now that I'm finished with the volleyball tournament. Whew. It's been a stressful couple of days.

Now I'm focusing on getting my life back in order. I've pretty much let all other things sort of fall apart. By this I mean my apartment is a little messy. I'm too conscentious to let anything really fall apart. I wish I wasn't.

Does anyone else always find themselves attracted to dark things? Dark is always much more interesting than light, for me. Lately, though, I've been able to see the beauty in lightness, things and people who aren't a complicated mess. It's refreshing.

I was out of my head, so it was out of my hands.

I've been taking piano classes, and I can't help myself from smiling when I play. I just love it, even though I'm just playing "Jingle Bells" or some such shit.

My teacher probably thinks I'm insane. I'm like a giggly little girl.

I've missed the look and feel of notes. SO much. I didn't realize I needed them in my life, I thought playing guitar crappily was enough. Nope. My teacher asked me to try to sightread the notes, like when you can just look at a piece of music and sing how it's supposed to sound, and I think I used to be able to do this in high school. I can't really do it anymore, and it was something that should have been easy.

I'm stressing, otherwise. Big time. I don't think that organizing fundraisers is my thing, if you can believe it. I'll do it, though.

A Secret

I've always wanted to mail something in to Postsecret, but what it really comes down to is I'm too lazy to make a postcard. I have the time. I have the secrets. I just don't care enough to do it.

If I did though, here's what I would mail. It's one of those embarassing secrets.


A part of me still believes that my high school crush is the only one for me.


And this explains so many of my problems.

Do you ever get tired of your phone?

Today I did, and so I just let it go for a couple of hours, and of course, the world fell apart.

My Spiritual Autobiography class came at just the right time in my life. Originally, I wasn't all that excited about it. I needed an English upper level, and Wranovix was teaching it, so that was enough for me. But I've been needing a class like this...not necessarily a religion class, I don't need to be convinced or explained, I feel like I've heard all the explanations. I need to, as ridiculous as it sounds, see others' spiritual journeys, and think long and hard about my own. Lately, I've been rejecting it all, this way of life that I feel I was forced into. Baptized, confirmed, conformed, this is what you're supposed to be. It bothers me that when I look around, those who represent Christianity, or Catholicism, are either apathetic or...overzealous? Judgmental? Either way, no one I see is living out what they claim are their beliefs. It's not just the people, either...it's the Church's closeminded doctrines. And also the authority it represents, the way you're supposed to unquestionably swallow all the doctrine they force down your throat.

I could go on about this.

Instead, I will tell you about the way that I want to be, the sort of spirituality I want to find. I was reading an excerpt from Thomas Merton's spiritual autobiography, and he writes about how he visited a Trappist monastery. The way he writes about it is so compelling.

"How did I live through that next hour? It is a mystery to me. The silence, the solemnity, the dignity of these Masses and of the church, and the overpowering atmosphere of prayers so fervent that they were almost tangible choked me with love and reverence that robbed me of the power to breathe. I could only get the air in gasps."

THIS is what it should be like. I want something that crashes into my life, something that takes my breath away. And, maybe it's a leap to say this, but anyone who truly believes in all this should have this experience. If you comprehend the gravity of what you're experiencing, then I don't see how it could be any other way, how you could just mumble prayers and do everything so halfheartedly.

"Do you know what Love is? You have never known the meaning of Love, never, you who have always drawn all things to the center of your own nothingness."

"This is how it works:

You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again"

I wish I could figure out how to put a video on this thing. It's not working.

I'm going to sing this song and play guitar for coffeehouse. EEEEEEEEE I'm scared. It's really such a fun song though.

Making Room

-postsecret.com

An anecdote

Kristi and I went on a date tonight. We went to Bosco's, where I ordered a beer. I felt so grown up, but I don't think the waiter believed either of us were twenty-one. Anyway, after we finished eating, we went to a cute lil bake shop called Muddy's. They sell delicious cupcakes, and Kristi and I full on becoming addicted to them. A couple of nights ago, I had a dream that I started working at Muddy's. In the dream, I asked them if they were hiring, and they said they were, but the only thing that needed to be done was dishes. And I also had to start immediately, and I had to wash dishes in a shower.
So tonight I told them that I had a dream I worked there, and one girl making cupcakes goes, "well, we have some dishes that need to be done!" and I was like, "that's exactly what happened in the dream!" So I ordered my cupcakes, and I got to ice a cupcake and take it home. My dream had come true. She even took a picture of me icing the cupcake.

As you can see, I have had a rockin' weekend thus far.

I would like more of these things in my life:

1. rooftop parties

2. clean clothes

3. unexpected incidents

4. yoga

5. fun reading

6. new music

7. fruit and vegetables

8. single boys

9. pens

10. Wendy's. All the days.

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning, and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do"

-Bob Dylan

I have to stop worrying about what I'm "supposed" to be doing, what other people want me to do. I mean, I guess it's necessary to think about other people, but it's not necessary as often as I think. I think everyone spends too much time worrying about whether they're accomplishing anything, and wondering what they're supposed to do to make their life "meaningful," but meaning will come when you're doing what YOU want to do. We lose things we really need when we worry about others too much.

I feel like I'm onstage all the time, like everyone's watching every move I make. I need to realize that this is not the case. Everyone else is wrapped up in their own lives.

I'm ready for this weekend. I'm going to have a massive night tonight, I can feel it.

"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."

-Ingrid Bergman

This whole blogging thing is pretty addicting.

I'm feeling good today. I think it's cause I worked out and haven't been eating crap all day. Imagine that. I need to start treating my body better. Making time for myself, going to yoga more regularly, it's really insane how much better I feel, mentally and physically and emotionally. It's easy to let yourself go and forget to do these things.

I'm craving simplicity today. I don't want anything to be complicated, I want all feelings to be told straight out, I don't want to have to play games, and guess. Games have lost all appeal: tell me plainly what you want me to know. This is a resolution for me. I will not go out of my way any longer, I'm honestly waiting for something to fall into my lap. Maybe this is unrealistic of me, but I feel like I've been let down recently. Maybe it's also unrealistic to think that I can stop myself from wondering, guessing, worrying, hoping. That hoping part gets me every time.

Lately I've been dreading going to sleep every night. I haven't been able to sleep soundly for a while. I wake up sometimes and my whole body is tense.

I forget people read these posts sometimes.

I'm going to stop being angsty for two seconds

Yesterday was my 21st birthday, and my friends came through. I felt really really special. I ordered a margarita at Cafe Ole, and of course the server didn't ask to see my ID, so I showed it to him anyway. Jayme had made me a cake, and everyone sang to me, and it was marvelous. I thought that would be it, but we went back to campus and all my friends surprised me. Best birthday ever.

I am so, so lucky.

I have a ridiculous amount of cake in my apartment.

I'm about to head home for the day or so. I feel like I really need a night at home right now.

I woke up this morning terrified of how fast my life is going by. I just lay there in my bed for a couple of minutes and wanted to curl into a ball, and have the ability to control the passage of time. I turn 21 tomorrow. I just worry that I'm not doing enough. Sometimes my life scares me. I don't want to be 21 yet. I don't know why I can't just enjoy my birthday, it always makes me sort of sad.
There's also something about the fall that makes my heart ache, I can't put my finger on it. It makes me want to be all the ages I've ever been at once: I want to be a college freshman again, with all the possibility ahead, around people who have the same sense of possibility, having my first drink. I want to be seven years old again, on the first day of school, with a lunchbox that smells like new plastic. I want to be in high school again, if you can believe it, waiting and waiting for the bell to ring so I can step on leaves on the way to my car. I want to be in seventh grade again, during recess when it was just starting to feel good outside, when the dust smell rising up from the field was a little less because, finally, it was less hot. I want to be in fourth grade, planning a haunted house and swimming in the pool for the last time, when the air was colder than the water.

Some Things

Some Things I'm Bad At:

1. Filling out forms.

2. Returning forms on time.

3. Keeping up with my bank account.

4. Untying knots.

5. Math.

6. Memorization

7. Remembering dates and times.

8. Multitasking

9. Planning.

10. Any kid of video/computer games.

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
-Sylvia Plath

At the risk of sounding too inspirational, I think this quote can apply to a lot of different things. Everything in life is doable if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to anything is self-doubt. I know I need to be reminded of this daily.
Also, I love Sylvia Plath. I want to be her, minus the depression and suicide.
And Ted Hughes cheating on her.
Everything else, I'll take. Especially her poetry. Or prose.

Anyway, I think that writing, like anything else, is all about striking a balance between confidence and criticism. You have to have both--confidence especially helps me start anything, and then criticism helps me keep it in check. It's easy to spot people who have an excess of one and too little of another. People who don't know how to edit have too much confidence, and people who edit and question themselves too much have too little confidence.

What the Water Feels Like to the Fishes

The Guardian, Saturday 8 July 2005
by Dave Eggers

Like the fur of a chinchilla. Like the cleanest tooth. Yes, the fishes say, this is what it feels like. People always ask the fishes, 'What does the water feel like to you?' and the fishes are always happy to oblige. Like feathers are to other feathers, they say. Like powder touching ash. We smile and nod. When the fishes tell us these things, we begin to understand. We begin to think we know what the water feels like to the fishes. But it's not always like fur and ash and the cleanest tooth. At night, they say, the water can be different. At night, when it's very cold, it can be like the tongue of a cat. At night, when it's very very cold, it's like cracked glass. Or honey. Or forgiveness, they say, ha ha. When the fishes answer these questions - which they are happy to do - they also ask why. They are curious things, fish are, and thus they ask, 'Why? Why do you want to know what the water feels like to the fishes?' And we are never quite sure. The fishes press further. 'Do you breathe air?' they ask. The answer is yes. Well then, they say, 'What does the air feel like to you?' And we do not know. We think of air and we think of wind, but that's another thing. Wind is air in action, air on the move, and the fishes know this. Well then, they ask again, 'What does the air feel like?' And we have to think about this. Air feels like air, we say, and the fishes laugh mirthlessly. 'Think!' they say. 'Think,' they say, now gentler. And we think and we guess that air feels like hair, thousands of hairs, swaying ever so slightly in breezes microscopic. The fishes laugh again. 'Do better, think harder,' they say, encouraging us. It feels like language, we say, and they are impressed. 'Keep going,' they say. It feels like blood, we say, and they say, 'No, no, now you're getting colder.' The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like being pushed and pulled and yanked, punched and slapped and misunderstood and loved, we say, and the fishes sigh and touch our forearm sympathetically.

(817):

Katie Perry lied, you can't just wake up and shake the glitter off your clothes.