"Hanging Out"

I had a pretty good today. Great, if I just focus on events and less on unwelcome emotions.
Although I've been rejected when asking for letters of recommendation (ouch), and I've realized it is embarrassing even thinking about asking others (I don't really talk in class), I got responses from two professors and two employers today agreeing to write me a letter. Having people who are willing to talk me up are great, therefore I feel pretty great...however...this is not the topic today.

Instead I can't stop thinking about that damn chair in that cafe I love so much.

I pigged out today. It was fun, and my taste buds loved every second of it. Locally grown food, healthily prepared. Awesome. I went and got a dessert (not so healthy), and rejoined my friend at our table...only for some reason I switched chairs. After a few bites, I realized why my stomach wasn't quite liking the food I had just swallowed, why my heart was getting heavier.

That damn chair, facing the window, those damn people walking beside me, that goddamn counter situated on my right.

That memory.

I had been in that exact spot when I made the biggest and easiest mistake that I will regret for the rest of my life.
Not so long ago, I sat chatting with three other friends when I received a text. "What are you up to?" was the gist. Of course I answered "Just hanging out," or something as bland and open-ended. I didn't invite her because there were four chairs and four of us, and sometimes planning takes energy (like scooting a chair is difficult)...and I was just "hanging out." A little smalltalk, and in the end--that was the end. That was our last conversation because that friend killed herself the next day.
Today I sat there, and looked at my dead friend's best friend. I couldn't share with her my internal freak out status. I just looked into her eyes, and imagined an alternate ending, one where we had another "hanging out" with us. She would brush her short brown hair out of her eyes and flash her easy smile, but, instead I just kept blinking and thinking, "I must be a good friend to you."

A little later, as if the my horrible aura of emotion was leaking, talk of unrelated suicide resurfaced. My butt could barely stay in that chair. I had to get up. I had to get out of that place. Its been a few hours and I still feel like I might throw up.

Its a shame, but my favorite restaurant now holds a negative connotation. Its a shame, because I wasn't willing to share my favorite restaurant with someone who probably would have loved it.

Victorias Secret means no donuts

I'm suddenly overwhelmed with envy and unwarranted hatred. The bitch is skinny! Just watching the commercials for the Victoria's Secret runway show helped me determine that it definitely would not be healthy for my self conscious state to watch the models flaunt their goddess like bodies today. I'm usually into self torture and pity, but this is just too much. They wear their wings as angels, but aren't cherubs angels too? Aren't cherubs supposed to be chubby? I could be a Victoria's Secret Cherub, an off brand for those who are pale, have hair that wont grow past their shoulders, and uh eat things out of vending machines and feel horrible for not working out every day. Yes, but unfortunately I fear the show wouldn't be as popular. Plus during the radio-ad voiceovers, there wouldn't be a woman with a sexy english accent. How about a thick Minnesotan accent? Uhh. I shudder at this entire scenario. I will work out (but I will not tan ever since my dream where my face skin was that of an alligator purse).  Maybe I'll even do a few crunches tonight...maybe.

One year, I watched as cameramen went backstage after the show and one of the models said she always celebrated the end of another show by eating a donut.
I wonder if its worth it? A donut a year for that body. I answer: yes, yes I think it is. I want to be them, I want to be an angel, and I want to walk down an aisle smiling thinking "look at mah sexay self." I just don't have the self control.


mmm...donuts.

Stupid. Slow. Ugly.

Its so easy to tell yourself you are not worthy.
You are not good enough.
Stupid. Slow. Ugly.
Whatever--lucky for me, I'm fond of a new attitude.
Lucky for all...knowledge is something to be gained always, and confidence makes it easier to think.
And regarding the ugly? The only kind I should be concerned about is of the soul. I need a little work but I have beautiful people that inspire me.
Appearances fade. And that is a fact.
I will get healthy. I will feel good, and I will turn inward once more.

Constant revisions.

Lost

My eyes are always heavy on the road. The trees fly past. Cars come and go so quickly I go blind. Day dies and night leaves me also. All I know is movement. Blurring progress, and the temptation to pull over and rest. I need to reach my destination, not forget where I am going.  I cannot tarry--I cannot fly so quick that I lose control.

I will get passed by many.

But I cannot lose focus and become lost.

Thank you.

Its time for me to snuggle up at home. Exhausted, I don't have much to say right now. This is just a warning:  I'm probably going to talk about food in my next post(s)...a lot.

I am thankful for my family.
I am thankful for my friends.
I am thankful for friendly strangers and smiles.
I am thankful for you. Yes you. I am thankful for any one who gives my writing a chance, (and for any feedback).

Gracias.

heavy (hands) (thoughts) (blanket thrown over my head)

Bad timing. Bad timing. Bad timing.
Say it three times in front of a mirror, turn off the lights, and you will get hit over the head with a book. Murdered by education. Sucked dry.

Ok--horrible analogy to candy man (or bloody mary), and technically education isnt killing me through force but rather a repetition of blows. Perhaps a million paper cuts? I can barely form words right now. My fingers are weighted, slowly coming down on each key. I can barely pick them uppppppppp.

Its been a long day of gazing into the scary and uphill future.
Today I was given binoculars to see how far I have to go (to reach the summit). I also realized my undergraduate career gave me shitty flip flops in means of sportswear.

Grad. school admissions are spitting on me from way up there.

I'll rest and continue in the morning.

Bewitched

If a day were a movie, mine would be uh uhh-- really long and boring and excrutiating to sit through.  Ooh! How about Bewitched. I hated that movie.

I tried to eat because I was bored, but then I just felt guilty, and the sandwich wasn't very good.
Me and a guy in my english class (I still don't know his name but its too late to ask), played a game scoffing at the number of times the hairy-faced man a row up would smooth the tips of his stache. We also had bets on how many times the girl in front of me would redo her bun. I've learned to hate the color of her hair. So bland. So boring. Always pulled back. She combs her long-nailed fingers through it, no doubt loosening strands to fall to the floor. A gust of wind and BAM I've got bland hair all up in my grill.

The day was saved with the weekly Dexter watching with friends, a superb bloody mary, and a proposition from a friend I could never refuse. I always like an excuse to dress up. <3 


(and maybe lose a few lbs)

Where is my ID?

My chin is tucked into my collarbone and my mouth is slightly ajar, making low, slow rasping noises. My hands are holding the sheet over my curled up body, attempting to keep the harrassing light out of my eyes-- my racoon caked in mascara eyes.
Where is my water? What time is it? Where is my phone? Am I dead?
No, but I wish I was to end this agony, this punishment for the night before.
Slowly standing for the first time, my knees wobble and my hands shake. My vision still seems to be sideways from laying so long.
Where are my shoes? Where is my jacket? Where is my ID?

How much does a Rusty's bloody mary cost?
Will my roommate drive?

You get knocked down...

Wow I really slept in today, and you know what? I woke up feeling good. The poisoned mornings are hopefully over, and I can move on with a happy attitude and a notion to dance. I work tonight and I'm ok with it. I have a pile of homework, but it isn't threatening me, its just waiting for its turn. Next week I'm going home to visit my wonderfully supportive family that is always there for me to tell me I'm being silly when I doubt myself.

You get knocked down...and you see things from a new perspective.

I'm ready for round two. I'm ready for a finale of an undergraduate career and an exciting introduction to the next chapter.

I can do this.

One needs more than two grandmas

I got that stingy feeling you get in the back of your throat when your emotion cord is struck. Yeah, I felt like crying.

I just hugged my garden buddy goodbye. I'm not sure when I will see her again, but I know she made this summer special, giving me cucumbers, letting me raid the tomato bushes, inviting me to an "Energy Fair" special dinner. Yeah, she means a lot to me. She's a wonderful lady, an adoptive grandma.
She gave me homemade grape-jelly.

I worked in her garden about once or twice a week up until today, November 18. Before I would sit in my car preparing to leave, flexing my dirty-dry hands, or attempting to dig the soil out from beneath the finger nails with the keys, she would hand me an envelope containing the unimportant cash (I almost feel guilty taking it), and my newspaper articles she would snip out of the gazette for me. She looked for them every week.

Now I feel like I'm losing another grandma. One needs more than two in their lifetime. I need friends who are slow to judge, eager to smile, and kind. Yes-- I need kindness, and I don't think I can get that from people who haven't figured out what that entails until they've lived.

She said to visit anytime I get the notion, and although I can daydream about stopping by with a perfectly baked pie, and sitting at the table together like the "apple pie without cheese" days with Grandma Peek, I doubt that will happen before I leave town having graduated. I suppose I will write her letters. They are one of my favorite things in the world after all. Maybe I'll sign before my name Smile just like my grandma did, her reminder tattooed on my wrist, my heart.

I don't think I've learned enough at all from her. I must keep this correspondence going--life lessons.

Smile : /

Aw man I haven't done anything ridiculous in awhile--except maybe cut my food intake in half. I haven't laughed until my gut threatened to implode. I've been in a funk. And now I have to go to work. Its time to press on the fake energetic smile and serve people their damn drinks and smile some more when they give me a snobbish stare. I promise you rude woman you, I'm not calling you ugly in my head or trying to steal your man.

Yeah, I need a pick-me-up.

Goodbye facebook. Hello faces.

I just took way too much time (but hopefully in the end saved time), and deleted about 400 "friends" from my facebook. I felt guilty, deleting people I graduated high school with, like the "unfriend" button is a permanent severing of ties, like this electronic page somehow kept us in touch for these years, like looking at the pictures of an old friend lets one know what they are up to. Rubbish. I've lost contact awhile ago. My little-ego is a shrinking even more with the page that makes me look like a loner- like normal people know more than 200 friends! HA! Now, with less online distractions, I will set forth and attempt to contact people face to face, to spend hours laughing and chatting versus clicking through pictures.

Goodbye facebook. Hello faces.

No reflection here

Does anybody besides myself ever have those ridiculous moments where the inner you hates the outer you because the outer you is making you as a whole look like a dumby, a biatch, or completely out of character. Um- theme of the day! Chatty kathy or more appropriately chatty katy had no filter.

This is what happens when I come back to "civilization" after immersing myself in the woods. I lose the inner-reflection, I forget to tell myself to slow down and think about things, and then feel like poo for apparently no reason until I make myself sit down to figure out that I am indeed mad...at myself. I need to take a walk.

rebellion

And I woke up early.
And I studied.
And I physically attended class.
And I studied.
And it was 5 p.m. and I shook from the cup of espresso that was my lunch and dinner.

I shouldn't have been surprised when I came home and was unproductive for more than two hours, watching the movie thirteen in all its horrible glory. Now that I've pulled my thong up my hips, applied dark lipstick, and made out with my wall, I am ready to continue my night of work. One can only rebel for so long.

Bullied

Today I regret having a facebook. I am made so unfortunately aware how bad a stationary-undefendable page can make you look. I have pictures that make me look bad. I know this. I am profane. I know this too, but today, someone bad mouthed me like crazy; full name and all. That, I am not ok with. That, I realize I have no control over.

It's all a bunch of nonsense that involves a black swan costume, a bar contest, facebook photo album "liking," and whole lot of withheld information. At a loss? Confused? Me too! Now imagine getting bad-mouthed and not even know why!

This is why I'm debating the pros/cons of facebook, or at least who exactly I am friends with. I don't think I've felt this way since middle school. I feel like I've been bullied. I feel like crying over confusing crap someone else is throwing out there...to the cyber world...where things are misinterpreted, and people are bravely harsh.

I sprung out of bed this morning. Really I did. My alarm wasn't set to go off for another hour, but I knew something exciting was happening. After a confused once around, I spotted the fluffy snow coming down outside. Instant happiness. I spent the majority of the morning sitting around in my fluffy boots, drinking coffee and reading the great Matthew Arnold poetry to my empty house, all of course while glancing every few minutes to the Christmas lights. I did drive to class (and discover that I need new tires), and although that's sort of cheating the snowy day, I thank.god.I.did.

Note the excitement in the photo above. Now picture soggy fur boots. Feel the puddle of trapped melted snow soaking through your sock. Now add hours of sitting both through class and a hair appointment (I couldn't even enjoy the hair shampoo) of distracted misery.
Luckily my friend agreed to bring me different shoes (through the temptation of a bought dinner). Him, being a guy, of course took this opportunity to make a little joke. He brought me rubber boots (with horses on them). They are my roommates, and although I love the idea of them, they do not belong on my feet. They saved my life, but I only survived walking around the campus library full of staring goons because I am so unbelievably self confident. That yellow coat and pink rubber boots is the end result of the first snow day. When walking back to my car, I made sure to wade through the biggest puddles.

Researching, fretting, exhaling

Oh man. First I'd like to give myself props for spending two plus hours researching grad schools! Now I would like to take that props and squish it in my shaking fist (directed toward the mirror) and scold myself for being dumb and refusing to take the GRE. Creative writing shouldn't require it! A lot of schools don't, but one does. One that intrigues me. It's right up my alley. I'm a creative writing fiend and a resource management minor; environmental writing is a passion (hence the human.nature. blog). This school is everything I love. Check it out. Make sure you look in disdain at the GRE requirement.

http://engl.iastate.edu/programs/creative_writing/mfa/

Sigh, my heart is filled with inward disappointment at this.

On a brighter note:  my friends are awesome. You know what else is awesome? Facials. Add the best thing ever, my favorite thing, my obsession (sisters who are reading take a guess)

no its not sweet potatoes...

no its not bloody marys... its...

a guinea pig!

Combine these three miraculous things and you have the finale of my day. Giggling and snuggling and somehow becoming even more beautiful than we already are. Memory made, stored, will revisit later.

Bleh- carings overrated

Why is it that whenever one is so unbelievably preoccupied, they get inspired to read a classic novel, write a classic novel, bake a complicated cake, eat a complicated cake, get a facial, vacuum out a car, take apart the t.v., dig a giant hole, etc., instead of doing what needs to be done? Later, when time is available, nothing is so much as tempting as the bed, ordering in, and simply watching t.v. Well, I'm in the former state. I have a lot to do. I do not want to do anything and I'm trying very hard to discourage any kind of caring about outcomes. It's complicated, but my heart only stutters every once in awhile in nervousness. I just keep thinking about next weekend when I can go back home and hunt some more.
I also keep thinking and daydreaming about the snow warning tomorrow. I know it won't be much, but I realize I want it (after the hunt)! Here come the decorations, the Christmas carols, the figure skating, the snowboarding!






The frostbite.

Refocused

It's 8:34 and I'm off to bed. This is what hunting does to you. I am behind in homework and I don't care (another side-effect). No harvested deer yet, but many stories and great observations--don't forget personal thoughts. I always refocus out here. Again, I know who I want to be and parts of myself I'm ready to let go.

Look on my other blog for today's squirrel encounter story.

this is what its all about.

I'm home with the family. I'm in the woods. I'm eating lots of good food. I must say I'm doing swell.



Another post in my human.nature. blog.

Suicide

I still have the dwindling effects of a hangover, and it's practically supper time. I missed class again today too. I got up too quick, the room spun, my stomach dropped, and I flopped back into bed. I also did poorly on a quiz because I wasn't prepared even though I knew it was coming and what it was going to be on. To sum it up, I failed.
Yesterday was the six-month "anniversary" of the day my friend Jenny committed suicide. As you can guess, that influenced the night's attitude and consumption level. This indicator of time passing is hitting me hard. She lived life incredibly, like it was worth living:  smiling, enthusiastic, energetic. So its just so unbelievable that she left...that she left the way she did. That a model life-liver, didn't want to continue.

Hmm a productive day of being unconscious

I have approximately ten minutes before I need to dash out the door and head to the incrediby rewarding job of bartending...at a bowling alley. "Wow, how is she always smiling, and uh, a little weird?" Five-Hour-Energy baby! I always stop at the gas station and chug before work. Walk faster, take mistakes with a laugh, and of course shake a ton when setting down an over-filled mug-o-beer. I seriously can't not take it. I'd be an uber bitch or a sleepy dope.
And, I already missed a class today. I got up turned my phone alarm off and went back to bed (allegedly). I woke up during the time of the class in a ball of blankets and confusion, becoming frustrated and resolving to sleep for another four hours. I've been so tired and useless and as you can imagine and relate:  it sucks.
What I accomplished today:

1. had a scary dream.
2. ate a bowl of cereal creepily, staring, staring, staring.
3. Drove to class in a fog, impaired by being a zombie.
4. Checked facebook- like five times.
5. Chatted about boys in class.
6. Got confused in class.
7. Ate a bag of sun chips.

Oh how exciting! Live like you're dying right?! (actually I hope I eat sunchips on my last day so check there).

I may eat my laptop

Theme of the day:  obesity, or more appropriately, the road to obesity. I love to eat, and hell it probably takes up most of my thoughts-- when I'm not daydreaming about my ridiculously fantastic future (which involves a smokin' bod). Yeah, they say that men think about sex like every other second or some horrifying statistic, but if you could pop into my mind in the middle of class, when everyone else is taking notes, and pretending not to have sexual fantasies, I am scribbling out a doodle of a hamburger, and planning out how I am going to get some grub in the ten minutes I have before my next class. Its sexy isn't it? I am irresistible, a stud in woman form, someone who can shove their face full...and never gain an inch...right? Yeah that's the problem. Ever since realizing that I will be graduating in December (and moving back home with the parentals, with much free time, and close access to a gym), I've given up the idea of wasting valuable drinking time running, or fretting over the calories of another piece of pizza-- dipped in ranch. Yeah I'm growing people and I cannot stop now! In fact I just ate a bag of popcorn. I'm getting butter all over my keyboard and I'm tempted to lick it off, maybe even gnaw on the laptop a little later when I'm sure to be ready to mow some more.

Cheers--here's to low-cal booze, late night snacks you would forget save for the crumbs in your bed, guys who like big butts, and skin that doesn't get stretch marks (fingers crossed). It's too late you guys. I'm unstoppable. I have two months of danger ahead.

November: Fresh Start

I just posted on my other blog's site, a little rant, complaint, truth about the hideousness of my face today, and instead of repeating this topic, I'm going to lighten things up and say:  hey! It's November 1st! Fresh start baby! So buck up my friends, and realize that the October you has so much to share with November! And although the Wisconsin men will be participating in "No-shave November," do not fret, do not cry toward the gods in agony. You weren't into any of them when they had smooth faces. Maybe the scruff is what you need?! Maybe Paul Bunyans your man? Or maybe, just maybe, we the ladies can get away with no shave November ourselves? Hmmm. Yes, November is full of potential.