[ r a i n s t o r m ]

NEXT WEEK

monday :: spanish aural exam; get apt keys, start moving in like it's my job.
tuesday :: ACCT final - extreme goal of 96; logical goal of anything above a B
friday :: BLAW final; BARRIERS

sign the lease this friday


THIS WEEKEND
STUDY AND PRACTICE, YOU CRAZY KID.

Dear Democratic Party,

So long as you continue to be this stupid, I will have to continue to not vote for you. While you may think this is a good idea, and while you think that your lovely senator from New York is also a good idea, I can assure you that neither, in fact, is.

This makes me (and countless other zero-origin political moderates like me) VERY SAD.

PLZ ADDRESS ASAP.

Thanks,

FAITHYPANTZ. 8D

Things are going to kind of suck for me from here until may -- especially the rest of march.

Please don't expect patience, as I'm sort of at the end of my rope already.

Please also suggest that I spend time doing work instead of staying up on the internet. thx.

Dec 17-20 is looking prime for a vacation.

Where? Anyone?

Credit goes to Elle for showing me this one, but --

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/1371135.stm

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

C.S. Lewis is one of my personal heroes, and whether anyone agrees with the man or not, it's time to back the fuck off and leave someone's literature ALONE.





We're a nation of sellouts looking for the path of least resistance. It's disgusting.

Sometimes, I'd like to call a redo, and just wake up in the mornings and start shit over.

I wish I wasn't SO FUCKING TIRED ALL THE TIME.

Yeah. That would be really cool.

I will not lj-cut this entry. Nor will I mark it protected or private. Its contents are far from pleasant; you are welcome to ignore them.

I lost Pepa to cigarettes; he was an incredible, amazing, stubborn man -- a carpenter who built the house he lived in with his own two hands. He wasn't a big man by any stretch of the imagination; I'd probably be taller than him now. I still will buy a package of those crappy wafer cookies every now and then because he always had them at home. Emphysema. Helen's is the first funeral which I actively remember, his is the second. I wish I had gotten to talk to him after my childhood -- I still talk to him now, especially about Michael.

My Father's father killed himself similarly with cigarettes and alcohol, and it is from him that a great deal of this family bitterness extends; this man who once asked my Father if he liked the Beatles and then punched him in the face for saying "yes." This man who sold my father's car out from under him, this war veteran. I was his favorite, too, and we keep, in the guest room, an entire series of porcelain dolls which he bought for me. I've tried to throw them away -- my Father will not let me. He says I need something to remember him by. What should I be remembering? The feeble old man or the monster from all these stories which have finally been unearthed now that I'm old enough to hear them? They caught him sneaking cigarettes into the hospital, too. At one point he wanted them to leave so he could smoke.

Grandfather's sister died similarly. Another funeral.

The wife of my Father's best man continued smoking even after she got her diagnosis, all the way to the grave. She left two kids behind, neither of which had graduated from highschool at the time of her death. Another funeral.

Then there's Michael, a cousin of mine six years younger than my mother. He died in a car accident, and if we're all honest with ourselves, he was probably drinking, judging by the speed at which he veered off the road when it happened. His wife is irresponsible and has already spent the money his death was supposed to grant for their two children. One of them is quite bright, the other incredibly kind -- they're well behaved, they've always looked up to me. I don't have the heart to tell them that their lives will go nowhere now because she won't let them. And I don't know why, but a few years ago I broke down in the car late at night and just cried and cried about it -- and I swore to Pepa, a man who'd been dead for years, that I'd find a way to look after them. I haven't, yet. Their mother met someone on the internet and dated him, and together, the two fools spent more of their money -- until she found out this boyfriend, who was, according to both children, horrible, was cheating. Whatever. Another funeral. My aunt is one of my favorite people and at the time I had to loan her a Creed CD (they were looking for appropriate rock music to play at his funeral) which she listened to in the bathroom while crying. This is why I still listen to Creed every now and then, regardless of what I actually think of their music.

The lyrics are as follows:

When I'm all alone
And no one else is there
Waiting by the phone
To remind me
I'm still here
When shadows paint the scenes
Where spotlights used to fall
And I'm left wondering
Is it really worth it all?

There's a peace inside us all
Let it be your friend
It will help you carry on In the end
There's a peace inside us all

Life can hold you down
When you're not looking up
Can't you hear the sounds?
Hearts beating out loud
Although the names change
Inside we're all the same
Why can't we tear down these walls?
To show the scars we're covering

There's a peace inside us all
Let it be your friend
It will help you carry on In the end
There's a peace inside us all

[Guitar Break]

There's a peace
Oh there's a peace inside us all
Let it be... Oh, I said let it be, let it be your friend
There's a peace inside us all
Let it be your friend
It will help you carry on In the End
There's a peace inside us all
There's a peace, inside us all, Inside us all
Let it be, Let it be, Let it be,
Let it be, Let it be, Let it be,
Let it be, Let it be your friend.

Both of my father's close cousins are alcoholics -- one of whom has gotten DUI so many times it's ruined his marraige. He passed out on the floor of our living room once, and I called his oldest son in -- who just shook his head. Can you imagine? Having your eldest son ashamed of you? The other drinks before he drives without thought or consideration. He also drives around without wearing his glasses.

To return to the other side of the family, I must talk about another cousin, this time mine, who got pregnant in high school. Her husband became a thief and was arrested. Her second husband got her addicted to drugs and both of them were arrested on more than one occassion. As a result my Aunt has had to file for custody of her children, both of whom are afraid of the police and just as alcohol-phobic as I am as a result of her actions. The last I heard of this woman, she was, amazingly, clean, living with her boyfriend's parents. She sent her mother a card which said that she could never come home again -- because she knew she wouldn't ever go straight if she went back to their town.

One of the daughters is missing a thumb as a result of a car accident. I'll let you draw the appropriate conclusions given the material already put into this post.

The man three paragraphs up who passed out in our living room now has a son in jail for drug possession. He's my age, this second-cousin of mine. Nineteen.

A friend of my parents completely totaled his camaro and spent months in therapy playing memory games and learning just how to speak again; but it was okay because he really only drank at their softball games, and that, of course, was recreational. We used to visit him, when I was a child; and I thought it was ridiculous at the time that a grown man could seem stupider than I was.

One of my friends in highschool had an older brother murdered. In suburbia.

I have an uncle who ruined his life as a young man with marijuana and now works mowing yards for the school district. He's over forty and lives with his mom. Still. I have others in Vegas, who've similarly spent their lives smoking and drinking.

I've written all that in fifteen minutes without thinking, and every time I work on this closing paragraph I come up with another example, like that time when I had to fight a crack addict getting off the bus on the way to G/T -- after facing all sorts of harassment, in third grade.

If you talk to me about drugs and alcohol, and I freak out for several days, it's just this. There are too many ghosts in my life. And they've all died recreationally. If you tell me what you do is harmless, I'm going to call you a bullshitting liar. Because that's what you are.

With that said, secondly, my parents have decided to move. As I wasn't planning on returning home after this summer it really shouldn't bother me that much, but I can't help but walk around this house and think of better, happier times; back when my friends were my friends and nothing was so complicated. I watch the ghosts of pool parties and games and just hanging out run through our halls and across our backyard, and no matter how much I bitch about my parents, the truth is that I was safe here -- so long as I could, at any point, rely on the friends which surrounded me.

We're all growing up.

So this is what I'm dealing with, today -- these ghosts, both dead and still living. Nothing's ever the same. Don't worry too much, these freakouts of mine have happened before, and I'll be fine and calm and collected in a day or two.

Just. Like. Always.

But it's not so bad. You're only the best I've ever had.

Harry Potter took me all of four hours, I think. Possibly less.

In result, the best thing that's come out of this evening has most definitely been the following:

me: well, Harry Potter book is finished. D:<
elle: Spoil it and I will destroy you. By the way. 8D
me: Harry dies. I hear they're naming the next book after Ron.

[because it needed to be recorded somewhere]

I am not a patient person by nature. It is not a trait which runs in my family at all, nor is it one that I find I possess in really any shape, form or fashion, whether it be in lines or traffic or in dealing with the personality faults and flaws I find in others. (I like, sometimes, to think that I am, at the least, perceptive.)

So today I asked a friend to pray for patience, and it occurs to me that if I am right about all the things that really matter, someday I'll stand in front of someone important whom I love and thank them for their assistance in the few, few moments where I managed to keep my mouth shut.

As I tried to explain to my Father, I feel like I always stand between a choice, because I am, by nature, a fighter:

I can be honest and know that I, myself, have not lied; have had personal integrity, have told the truth. This will, in all eventuality, bring misery to others, and though I may have accomplished something via my truthfulness, I will be miserable in borrowing and sharing with their misery -- their frustration, perhaps, with my lack of tact in difficult situations. I will automatically empathize with problems that I have caused because I know that I, in similar circumstances, would lack the patience to simply let them pass.

I can pretend and make a lot of other people happy on the surface. I watch other people and realize that virtually everyone is better at pretending than me. I don't know if it's because I see through a surprisingly large number of people, or because I am a relatively solitary person -- if not in lifestyle, than at least in thought: I don't share what I think very often because I don't find many people willing to operate in a similar channel. But the truth is that I don't laugh at jokes that aren't funny, that I can't tolerate people who jump onto the trends and friendships of others, that I won't "suck up" to improve my position in life or my status. This is why, so often, people with less talent will pass the rest of us all by. It's because talent isn't really what matters. At any rate, I can try to do this, and on the surface, everyone else will be happy -- except for me, and my growing frustration with such shallow circumstances will result in an eventual snap.

Naturally, this brings us all back to square one.

So here I am, praying for patience, again and again. At the least, it certainly won't hurt.

A conclusion I've stuck with in recent weeks which needs recording somewhere is that there can, indeed, be loves which are worthless.

There are loves, just like some ideas, and just like some things, which mean nothing.

Tagged by elle. wtf. I hate memes.

Three nicknames - Faith. Faithypantz. ...
Three things I like about myself - Musical ability, Class ADD, Being generally intellectual.
Three things I don't like about myself - the school of music I attend, which isn't really even me, but whatever; my internet ADD; and my like "OMG DO NOT TOUCH ME" twitchyness.
Three things that scare me - HOSPITALS, WASPS, snakes.
Three everyday essentials - Music. Ponytail. Jeans.
Three things I'm wearing right now - Ponytail. Jeans. Sneakers.
Three fave bands growing up - Okay. First off, I like, don't really listen to bands. So. It makes me sad this isn't a composer question. Secondly. Growing up. Well shit. Everyone listens to shitty music growing up. So, we'll go with U2, and, well, I can't think of anything else, so Shostakovich. Bitches.
2 truths and a lie - I've never broken a bone. I played women's ice hockey. I learned how to snowski at age three.
Three things I can certainly live without - the school of music I attend, cigarettes, alcohol.
Three places I want to go on vacation - London, Italy, Skiing forever in Colorado. And ever. And ever.
Three things I want to do before I die - Successfully steal and return a watermelon from a grocery store (UNDETECTED. WITH NO HIGHTECH STUFF. I JUST WANT TO WALK IN AND OUT OF THE STORE WITH A WATERMELON.); Conduct the Finale to Firebird with a pretty decent orchestra; Get decent enough at composing to finish the Paradise Lost suite. (not any actual current Paradise Lost suite, but the one I told myself I'd write while I was in college. And then lost the score for.)
Tag three people - No.

( Character memes. I've learned quite a bit working on these. Yuu, Dive, Rook, Shun, Key, Xue. )


---

More later. Wanted to get these guys up.

- F A I T H

Sometimes we pull our heads up from the pavement long enough to meet someone before they pass us by.

Today I went to the post office and met a man, dressed comfortably in expensive shorts and sandals, in the patterned golfshirt of the upper-middle class. I, in jeans and football shirt, bore a heavy box. He bore a single manilla envelope.

He did not help me with my box, though the postal serviceman did, getting me squared away with a good attitude and friendly smile. He did, however, turn to the man soon after and inform him of some tragedy of the USPS; a lost letter, perhaps, sent too soon, sent too late, it's all the same, really.

Eventually the friendly serviceman left to go do work or at least look busy.

This man in his golfshirt with his envelope turned to me in my jeans with the box and proceeded to tell me that he couldn't understand why only one person was working the front desk at 2:00. Surely it wasn't lunchtime.

That's the problem, he said, nobody cares. He said, nobody cares. More people, said he, should have listened to Alan Greenspan's address to congress. He said, you know, Alan Greenspan told Congress that this country had one big problem. You know what that problem was, he asked?

He didn't let me answer, but it was education.

Education, he said, to me in my jeans with my box.

We pull our heads out of the pavement to meet people for a moment, for a second, and there's no way he could have known where I go or what I do or the flawless GPA that sits on my shoulders.

I was a kid with a box in a t-shirt and jeans and he was the older generation staring down at a world falling apart.

Education, he said. Alan Greenspan thinks we've got a problem with education.

I think he expected me not to know who Alan Greenspan was, I think he wanted me to ask so that he could share his plethora of world knowledge with the uneducated youth next in line.

Yeah, I told him, well, Alan Greenspan's a cool guy.

He's done a fabulous job, said he.

Yes. I agreed. Yes, he has.

Big shoes to fill, he said, and I said, yes sir.

The man at the front desk called for the next in line, and the gentleman departed with his envelope.

He did not have the proper paperwork, but he made sure his place in line was held at the front, and he did so sharply and in a tone of authority which I hoped made him feel more in control of his life.

For a few moments today I pulled my head out of the pavement and wondered what in the world could have made a man so miserable.

Then they called me to the front desk.

I shipped the box, and I went home.

There was a fly dying on my windowsill.
And instead of letting it go
Or setting it free
I killed it.

Performance tomorrow. D:

I learned all the pertinent information about my Grandfather's life after he died. You just don't tell a little kid about abuse and alcoholism; even if you could explain it you wouldn't want to.

Why does she only call him 'the old man?'

All the little truths of my family come alive and burn strong without him here; the little nonsense grudges, the vendettas, the anger we brew and bottle and boil - I've never understood that side of my father, but he just won't forget and certainly won't forgive and that's just not something you talk about with a seven year old.

Because he blew up her microwave.

I have these porcelain dolls at home that he gave me when I was little because I was the favorite, so fragile and breakable and delicate and beautiful and everything that I feel like I'm not. My father never understood why I got those gifts and I don't, either; but last year we had garage sale to get rid of all our old junk and I tossed them in.

He pulled them out. I don't know why.

So I asked him, and he simply said I needed something to remember my grandfather by, and I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would want to. So we've kept these dolls, these things that I almost feel ashamed to have because I am now old enough to understand the qualities of the man who gave them to me, and every time I look at them or I look at my father I think that nothing's ever going to be black and white.

They took her to the hospital, but it was just an accident.

My Grandmother was and still is beautiful; they say I look a lot like her. She wanted to be a musician and never got the chance, and here I am, living out those wishes and dreams in my own life. We are, in some ways, the same person; and in others, completely different. She has long since outlived him and outshone him, and when she dies, they'll bury her on top of his coffin which I think is brilliantly fitting.

Sometimes, the world is a funny, funny place.

Happy 90th Birthday, Grandmother. May you shine 1000 more.

*[journal was never intended for complaining purposes; but in this case I'm the captive audience; apologies-]


....

My roommate's a twin and the other one showed up today.

She's obnoxiously self-centered.

[I'm going crazy.]

home on F R I D A Y.

We are swept up onto glaciers of highway stone and often slipslide steadily away on the strong concrete walls of our own convienences.Sometimes life slips through like weeds in the cracks, and we kill it because nature got in the way of progress.

Every light I see makes a halo at night; a little ring of perfectly impossible and improbable light that only I can see because my vision isn't quite perfect.

what, children, have we learned?