25 What?

I saw a "25 Things About Me" blog, which is consequentially supposed to be fulfilled by whoever lays eyes on it, and thought I could simply make a list about me without consequence to the readers.  The only problem is I don't know what to write.  There are tons of things I could say but what DO I say?  What 25 things about me are worth saying?  This may seem strange, but I don't know how long it will take me to make this list.  Are they supposed to be positive things, negative things?    Maybe the point is just to put anything, any fact, not because it is negative or positive, but because it's just you.  Interesting... Here goes.

1.  I have to have everything in my view closed before I turn out the lights for the night.  The closet has to be shut, my door has to be shut, and the dresser drawers cannot be cracked open.
2.  I wear retainers at night and ALWAYS have to put them on and take them off in a certain order otherwise it feels really weird.
3.  Purple makes me happy.  If I could only ever wear purple, I would.
4.  I wonder about becoming famous and whether the girls who hated me as a kid would start bragging they knew me and were close.
5.  Baby's laughter makes me smile every time.
6.  I'm a hoplessly retarded romantic.
7.  I bottle up a lot of emotions because I'm terrified of being seen as the person I'm afraid I am.
8.  If you think I'm stuck up, too pretty, too strange, or I don't know what, then please come up and talk to me anyways.
9.  Milk makes me sick.
10.  I love cooking and making things look delicious to give them away, not to eat.
11.  I had handstand contests with the boys in elementary school.  Always wanted to prove I was just as tough.
12.  I think that my defensive appearance is because of my polar opposite interior of insecurity.
13.  How to eat a Reeses cup: nibble the chocolate off around the edges, then you have the center of mainly peanutbutter.
14.  I'm obsessed with pumpkin spicy things this time of year.
15.  Halloween and Christmas are my favorites.
16.  Whats-Her-Face Dolls are still so cool to me.
17.  Apparently, I make funny faces when I am writing creatively.
18.  I love observing people.
19.  Rollercoasters are cool except they always eventually give me terrible headaches.
20.  My upper body strength is naturally... kind of high.
21.  I used to run... no, RACE.  Gosh, I had to be the fastest, strongest girl in my grade.
22.  Vintage is the coolest thing.
23.  I refuse to see the Twilight movies although I loved the books.
24.  I want children some day.
25.  I've been told I am intimidating... really I just like to appear like I know what I'm doing cause I'm terrified inside of messing up all the time.

Last Night

Me writing what I felt last night but was too tired to write... Yet it is currently past 1:00 AM... Go figure.
~~~
It is the kind of cold that is so familiar it burns your eyes without the wind.  It burns with tears that keep threatening for some reason.  I have on my sporty walking shoes still relatively white since I hardly go running as much as I should have.  My All-Stars were chewed by the dogs, and I decided not to replace them in attempt to find something a little more mature.  Really, I ended up settling for what I have as far as tennis shoes go, and bought two pair of purple heels.  But tonight isn't about the shoes on my feet.  In fact, my feet are physically and emotionally the farthest thing from my mind.  Tonight is about tonight.

Tonight is about the fact that I stepped outside my house with these clean white walking shoes on my feet, a puffy brown coat with my cell phone and a pen zipped in one of its pockets, and my piano scarf wrapping around my nose and mouth to help my throat from becoming more sore.  He says he doesn't want me to walk alone yet won't bother to go put on one of the million coats in our closet to join me.  I don't think he is stupid, and I don't expect he thinks I am either.  No coat is no reason. 

"Whatever."  I brush him off like I'm a little pre-teen who is peeved at her parents.  All I can say to myself is "whatever," so I grab my small retired purple sketchbook off of the back of my brother's car- I set it there while I wrapped the scarf around my face- and headed down the street without a second glance behind me.  The roar of the mustang never rode up beside me, and I didn't hear it head up the street I was headed for.  Of course not.  Why would I think he would head me up to the only place I would ever go?  He has no reason to, and I have no reason to think this way. 

I head out of the neighborhood with my shoulders pulled up to my ears to keep the scarf around my face.  My breath is hot and humid creating my own atmosphere to breathe.  We had tacos for dinner tonight, and I wonder if that is what my breath really smells like.  Coughs occasionally rack me as my lungs complain to be rid of whatever feels deeply embedded in them.  I hate that I'm alone tonight.  I knew before I even started down my street that I didn't want to go walking alone.  That wasn't really the purpose.  I feel alone, and I leave the house to get out, but not be alone.  Walks are so associated with sharing time with someone to me that I don't know what to do by myself.  This isn't what I used to make of it.  I'm not in the same state I was in last winter season.

Because of my own stubbornness and pride, I can't bring myself to simply go back in my house.  I set out on this trek, however short, because I didn't want him to think I need him to walk.  When I get to the park I almost always venture to, I can't take it anymore.  My sketchbook is sent to the incredibly dirty and mysteriously stained rubber ground of the play area.  This isn't a mood conducive to my writing, nor do I feel like it.  It's an old sketchbook anyways, and I have since started a new one; the truth is that the obsessive part of me can't stand to write things out of order.  "Now" must follow the most recent entry in my new sketchbook.  Still, my sympathy goes to my little book ditched on the disgusting ground, and I try not to  think too hard on what obscenities have decorated its surface at some point.  It wasn't on the rubber, but I have personally seen a child throw up in effect of spinning too much on the very tire swing I settle onto. 

My phone vibrates with answers back to me from Huckabee who I remembered-too late- is too tired and not wisely able to come to my lonely aid.  Insisting I am alright, and after the security guard parking for a few seconds to reassure himself of the park's security, I leave.  There might have been a full five minutes spent there which is a far, sad cry from the hours I have in the past laughing with Huckabee or wondering at the stars with him.  The walk back to my house is too short but too long, and I avoid any particular attention from two cops who pass me, waiting much longer than is really necissary for the crosswalk lights.  Taking the long dead-end, deserted road to the back entrance of my neighborhood feels like a hall of shame.

This is where the burning comes in.  Taking the sidewalk instead of the middle of the road, I see the leaves strewn over the light cement, passing over the cracks.  That smell.  What is that smell?  There is a strange minty scent that permeates my scarf-enveloped environment.  It could be my sister's chapstick I layered thickly on my lips before leaving home, but I never noticed this smell before.  There is this sort of sweet smell, like the decay of foliage.  I'm at the bottom of a huge pile of yellow leaves again, taking advantage of being hidden from the world to think my thoughts at the stems and dying plant pulp.  It's that time of year again, just like last, whether I like it or not.  With this weather comes what are almost flashbacks of memories.  Memories that I can actually go back and read, and they still throw me for a loop.  Memories preserved in my writing of nights like this where I went on walks alone, and walks where I was also accompanied.

Tonight shouldn't have been spent alone.  The evening felt too young to be saying goodbye to, and I have no one to go to.  My options are few and exhausted.  Tonight, I am reminded of the reason I could walk alone in this city so often in the past: sometimes, you wish taking chances would at least keep the attention of the concerned.  Sometimes you have no choice but to spend the time alone, and the frustration has no place to go but on the pavement as your feet leave their mark in propelling you forward.  This will pass, and I will keep walking inevitably alone.  In the end, you can't depend on anyone but yourself.
~~~
I have never listened to Take A Bow so much.  It was on repeat all while I wrote this... woah.

Winter Anger

Why am I angry?  I'm angry because... just because.  Am I angry because I don't matter to a person?  I think so.  I'm angry that I can't not care about what you think, what he thinks, what anyone thinks of me.  It makes me furious when I am not believed.  Sometimes my answer might not be the spot-on reason, but that doesn't mean it isn't something I have felt or do feel.  I'm not sitting here lying when I finally get the words to come out of my mouth- even though they take too long for me to speak them to be of any interest to you.  Maybe I'm angry because I'm not sorry for being me.  Maybe I'm angry because I'm not accepted.  Maybe I'm angry for not being accepted and therefore care too much about what people think because I'm trying to be what they will accept. 

But is it possible? 
Truly possible? 
To not care what someone thinks of you? 
Maybe I really don't care what that stranger on the same aisle at the grocery store thinks of me, but people I know...  Can I not care?  Truly?  Can you not care?  DO you not care... at all?

I like anger.  Anger will fade, and in the morning there will be room for happiness.  It's the hurt and sadness that leaves a stain on you that won't be scrubbed off.  They take up space and won't go away until...I don't even know by what power they are replaced.  But I am going to be okay, and I'm trying to pull from this emotional experience what I can.  This does feel different than things have in the past.

Aside from the anger for the night.  I bought music.  Yes, joyous music.  Lady GaGa's The Fame is finally in my posession.  I'm so addicted to her music.  That, and Sting's new Winter album.  Beautiful, quietly unsettling lullabyes alongside Christmas stories, I couldn't pass it up.  I do not live in a place of snowy winters, but I feel the same as Sting does when it comes to this cold, desolate season.  There are times when joy and the traditional, commercialized holiday sensation goes through me, but I can't deny that lonely cold wind that breathes its mystery into me during the long dark nights.  Winter is magical and dark, mysterious and tempting.  Even though it may bring on sadness, I can't help but love it for it alongside the warm moments I think the world has created in defense against the cold.  Christmas almost seems like a fire we build up to keep warm the face of human contentment. 

Funny how the weather invades, but also silently waits for you just outside of your house, or even the warm haven of your comforter in the mornings.  I love winter.  I love being cold simply because we are blistering hot in lieu of any other seasons.  This is a sad but happy time of year, and I will leave it at that.  See?  Anger gone, now off to bed.  I'm going to be exhausted for babysitting tomorrow at this bedtime rate.  Goodnight, Starshines.

Send In the Clowns

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.

Just when I'd stopped opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again with my usual flair,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.

Don't you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother, they're here.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer,
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Well, maybe next year.

Passing Moods

"one of these days the sky's gonna break
and everything will escape
and i'll know"

Friends laughing and filling the kitchen howling with laughter, as well as pain, from fingers burning beneath a coating of hot, melted caramel.  My grandma sent me a very empowering message on facebook in remarks to my latest posts and random feelings.  I know there is more than this.  I know there is more than feeling stuck.  What gets me is how drastically my mood will change.  If you followed the blurb updates I put on my facebook, you would think I was a different person each time.  My mind is unstable. 

When I began this post (about the first two sentences) I was trying to be happy and hopeful.  The people around me were happy and I fed off of it like a leech.  It filled me for a good moment of the evening, overflowing with laughter and jokes.  Still, I could step outside of that moment and wonder if that was me: the girl saying those crazy random things and laughing at my bad jokes in front of everyone, being loud.  Was the happiness partly show?  Actually, things went swimmingly after that.  I was rolling, on the move, ready to do some true damage to my to-do list... and then I went over there to "watch a movie."  I wish "watch a movie" actually meant watch a movie instead of watch the food network, although I do enjoy cooking.  I wish I weren't an open option for homework help just because he wishes he were lazy about the assignments he has piled around him.  I wonder what good I am to him, or if I am supposed to be, or if I am anything.

These are wonders and feelings I wasn't feeling earlier this evening.  By the time I sat in the car to drive back home, I just hung my head over the steering wheel letting the frustration vent through my uneven breaths.  Nothing happens every time, and I get so frustrated.  I get frustrated that my programming expects anything, or hopes.  That's not what will happen.  I sat in the car letting the tears build up with each hallow exhale, feeling like I was collapsing in on myself, because I didn't know what else to do.  All of this built up inside me and nowhere for it to go.  Not even something that is built up, but my addiction to some false security.  The rare brief moments that I had let myself be comforted and reassured by a kiss are being taken away.  I feel frantic inside, but after running up against the brick wall so many times, you just get angry. 

I wanted this to be a happy entry, but honestly, I am happy.  I am doing pretty well in comparison to a LOT of people in this world, so I'm going to try to continue counting my blessings and you can count this blog as one of my passing maniacal  moods that simply needed to be written out of my system.  I am ready to sleep on the couch again.  It's too late to make my bed, and I just haven't been home long enough to think of it.  Goodnight.