An Ode to Why I'll Still Be Studying Tomorrow

Fuck this solitary addiction, solitaire
Confining me to academic heartache
With one ace shot.
Endless variations, tantalizingly new
Configurations still familiar
By virtue of the pack
Passed down through generations.
The rigid formation leaves
Little room for creativity, allowing
Emptiness to reign in the
Mind-numbing, card-thumbing
Edge of desolation.

My friends are doing their homework.

You gain a firm grasp on a cold, lonely reality. The quiet seeps in from all sides, as all the color sneaks out. Drunken promises, that joyous toxin happiness, fade away like blackout memories. Time stops, but life spins out around you. You fall out of orbit, stuck by the wayside. The everyday drags you in at first, but eventually you lose your thirst, your hunger, your desire. You scramble for control, for stability, in a painfully empty existence. People, you think, people. You want to be put back into the center of life; there aren't box seats on the fringes, after all. But the everyday holds on to its spot, because you are an exception, and the everyday hates a change in pace.

"It's my birthday!!!"

... said the blog.

That's right, ol' buddy, ol' pal, ol' readers of mine. It's this blog's first birthday. This means that I am entitled to type about how I and my blog-self have changed in the past year.

But that's not gonna happen.

Instead, I'm going to babble some more. Stick with me while you can; it usually gets funniest about two-thirds of the way through.

So, babbling onward. Now I'm on the spot, though, so it's actually harder to babble, you see. I mean, look, I'm babbling about babbling right now, and that's not funny in the least.

Things in my line of sight worth babbling about: Uncle Buck. God's gift to movies made in the late 90's. On DVD for $5 at Target, I am honored to own this movie. I just watched it, in fact. It is full of awkward, apparently-only-PG hilarity, and also giant pancakes. Oh, the giant pancakes! I want them so much. Do ya feel me, people who are physically near me on the date of my birth? I would love giant pancakes on my birthday.

Other things in my line of sight: all the artwork from MCM (that's Minnesota Children's Museum) that I never got around to wallpapering my room with. Fingerpainting, a bit of circle drawing, and a general boat-ton of truck-painting. Yeah, you read that right: truck painting. Painting with trucks, and other assorted vehicles. Lots of tire track patterns and stuff like that, but mostly awesome splattering when you find one of those self-propelling cars (you know, the ones where you pull 'em backwards, and then they're off), drag it backwards through the paint, hold the wheels still as you position it over your paper, then hope you remembered your apron as you let 'er rip.

This is how I spent my summer. I took children's painting activities, deconstructed them a bit, and usually ended up with fingerpainting, now that I think about it a bit more. All the colors were supposed to be red-themed for Clifford the Big Red Dog (you know who I'm talking about), but eventually there just wasn't enough red/pink/white to go around, so we added yellow and orange, and finally blue. So, I would mix the colors I didn't have, searching for just the right hues of brown and green to go with my current paint-flinging project. Then, I'd let a kid use my hue, and it would all go to hell, 'cause he'd mix too much yellow in there or something. His project was cooler than mine in the end, though, so I didn't really care.

Those kids were awesome painters, fo' real. And this is a museum, not a summer camp, so there were different kids there everyday. (I was there for a week at a time.) Every day, when I went to the Curiosity Center (where the paint lives, keep up!) to set up all the paint and paper and stuffs, I'd have to get rid of all the projects left on the drying racks that no one came back to get at the end of their visit. Only I wouldn't get rid of them all. Instead, I would look through them, find the particularly amazing ones, and keep 'em for myself. By the end of the summer, in combination with my own paint creations, I had about 5 plastic bags full of painting. But they're all awesomely unique, so I couldn't throw them out, like my mom would have preferred. So I brought them to college. Where they sit next to my bed, waiting for me to get into the creatively motivated hub of procrastination, waiting to get collaged in a manner that befits them.

Umm, I'm done babbling now. Sickness makes me sleepy. I talked about MCM and painting, and just talking about those is as good as a virtual birthday party. And this is a blog-birthday, so a virtual party is exactly what's called for. Feel free to go find yourself some virtual cake and ice cream, or whatever other virtual birthday treats you prefer. I recommend looking here.

Products of sleeping when the sun is up.

Sickness is so goofy. It's two o'clock in the morning. I should definitely be asleep right now. I am not physically capable of anymore sleep. Eight hours' sleep plus an eight hour "nap" with only four hours of consciousness inbetween equals insomnia during normal sleeping time.

My laptop is right under my bed. I could for totes be watching this week's White Collar. At the very least, I could be actually writing a post on this blog, instead of writing an email to my blog because Safari on my iPod is kind of a jackass.

Harrumph. I don't really want to be awake. I'd much rather be sleeping, 'cause I've got stuff I could be doing tomorrow. I just realized how messed up my sleep schedule is gonna be with just a few days of this. Good grief. Good gravy. Ooh, I wish my throat wasn't so stupid right now so I could drink some chocolate milk. That always makes everything better.

I think I may be legitimately addicted to chocolate milk. As in, I've acquired a physical dependence on it. Yesterday, when my throat hurt but not to the point that I was grimacing with every swallow, I kept drinking chocolate milk even though it bugged my throat and didn't taste very good. That's nonsense. Pure, utter, psychologically misaligned nonsense.

Speaking of nonsense, it is ridiculously hard to eat when you've got absolutely no appetite for anything. I can't decide whether I'm really not hungry, or whether my stomach is just ignoring its own emptiness. To be honest, I won't be eating much more than crackers, should food truly prove itself necessary. Crackers and water. Lovely. It's no wonder I've got no appetite when that's all I can stomach.

The invisible string of narration connecting each of these paragraphs is getting thinner and thinner as I continue to babble. I think I'm gonna call it a night, eat some crackers, take some Tylenol, and try
to catch a few zzzs.

Five bucks says that if you called me an hour from now, I'll still be playing solitaire on my iPod.

Sent from my toaster.

Sunday Musings: A poem with no title

I don’t want to spend my whole life getting ready,
Dressing the part,
Setting the trap,
Waiting for someone to take the bait.
My hunting style
Is not standing by the wayside,
Hoping to happen upon something worthwhile,
Taking what I can get,
And not looking back.
Because I would look back,
And I would hate what I see,
What eventually came along,
What I could have,
Would have,
Should have had all along.

Mechanical traps can win out in the end,
But hunters who stalk their prey,
Learn their ways,
Know how they operate,
And discover their weaknesses,
Have better success stories.

Taking Inspiration

I can see you.
Yeah, you.

But I can't hear you
from way over there.

You should come closer.

I know why you're here.
Oh, yeah, I know alright.
So, get started.
Hop to it.
Don't just stand over there,
all alone,
waiting for me to come
and bring you here
myself.

I can't do it
by myself.
I can't do this
by myself.

You should come closer.

This isn't the first time,
yours,
or mine.
We've both been here
before,
and it's turned out alright.
Right?
It'll all be okay.

You can come closer.

I've been so patient,
waiting for you
to return.
You're such a quiet,
indecisive,
self-conscious thing,
you,
rarely speaking above
a whisper.

You must come closer.

That's it.
Just a little further.
You're almost there.

Now,
was that so hard?

Actually, Alicia is on break

While off at the ever-lovely Knox, I have severely neglected this blog. Mostly, this can be attributed to the fact that I have been neglecting my creative writing as well. Also, I am lazy.

Anyhoo, my infinitely adorable suitemate (but not friend) Maddie and I have decided to join forces over the course of our six week-long winter break and joint-blog about it. I'll be baking the heck out of every cookbook I can get my hands on, and she'll be trying on a boat-ton of clothes and perusing the internets for her fashionable pleasure. I'll also attempt to get back into my creative writing, but I've picked up the habit of knitting recently, and, well, typing is pretty difficult when your fingers are clutching a bunch of yarn.

So, join me over at the aptly-named Six Weeks of Break. It'll definitely be worth your while.