I Earned This Dirt

-bits from the work
"She always apologized for things she did, yet all of them were fully aware there wasn't the slightest measure of sincerity strolling her words. But for some reason, it made them like her even more."

I'm stuck. Not post-grad stagnation stuck, more like senior year quarterlife crisis peanut butter on the roof of your dog's mouth and they can't bark stuck. Yeah. And you can't call TripleA, but maybe you should be calling AA. Jokes.

I wonder when I'm actually going to feel like an adult. It would be SO much easier if I did a fast swirling motion thing and my outfit changed like on the Sims and BAM! Adult version (accompanied with green diamond, of course). But life, not that simple. Sometimes when I make an "adult" purchase i.e. a plane ticket or something from Crate and Barrel, I want to hold up the receipt to show my Sim maker and say, "Hey! Doesn't this prove..........something? Obviously I'm an adult, right?" (*I would not recommend doing this in public). Alas, there is no set moment "you know."

Throughout my twenty-two years of overworked, swollen heartbeats, the one thing I always go back to is the "when you know junctures." Those Hollywood encrusted instances spotlighted to cast a Bar Mitzvah sized spell on your "coming of age timeline." (Sans jew fro.) I always find myself in those imperfect doorway height markings unable to comprehend, and connect. Almost all of my firsts, I'm wordlessly floating on top of my off-white thought bubble, wondering what I should be really feeling, completely decapitated from the moment. Then, WAY after the fact, I over-analyze it til my thought bubble turns blue, pops, and I have no choice but to turn my upper story off.

And as usual, this post proves........nothing. 

Pocket Jokers

My parents raised me "young." I don't think they really had childhoods, and because of that, they have been refusing to unhinge their fixation on it. I'm actually surprised I didn't end up more weird than I already am. My siblings and I were raised in a bubble of books and imagination with tinted windows so that we couldn't see the sun. My parents were and are very strict. My parents still don't want me to grow up. I love my family; I couldn't have asked for a better childhood. But now I find that the very holy childhood soaked in a golden aura of nostalgia wrapped in a bow on a shelf in the living room of my upper story- is something I'm starting to resent. My parents hardly know me anymore. They have no idea what I'm actually doing- both good and very, very, VERY bad things. If I died tomorrow, and they found this blog and all of my writing in my room and heard stories about me and found out some of the things I've done, I have no idea what they would do. I can't help but wonder that if the chances of them reading this are very high, then why am I doing this?

Lunar Eyes

Airport Running.

From Locust Ave to Lindbergh Drive, we swam through blue, green, red, and more blue lights. Each its own- each blinking, ever patiently, howling like forgotten wolves into the moss-forest of the night. Blink. We're halfway through our run and see the state prison to the right. The sky-high electric fence reminds me of the tense, forced, metal-mouth smiles of my grade school days. "Thank god," I think. Blink. Above Radiohead's mellow sound we hear something. Without hesitating, our eardrums smile, greet it, and offer it a strong drink. Blink. My bracelet is caught on Henry's coat and I laugh and then my cheeks blush past pushed roses but I don't care I'm floating on in the indifferent dark watching the lights slow dance outside my window and I cough in an attempt at covering my revocation of our material, jewel-on-leather connection until just then- Blink- just then- Blink- I unleash my seat-belt chains- Blink- roll down the window-Blink- and fling my soul into the night, attempting to catch the airplane in its splendor of power with a poor fisherman's net. It teases me then laughs in a fleeting, almost-kiss. Blink. I look down at my hands. Blink. I light a cigarette. Blink. I realize that we're really hunting planes on these memory-erasing rides- not running with them- but from our lives. We're sad and twisted, blink-ing, unimportant lights, each of us in solely in love with tomorrow.

Higher? Lower? Always.

You know what I'm talking about. That thing. That thing that prickles your exposed skin in the infant hour of the morning when your body peels itself from the blanket oozing with the mantra that everything will be alright, alright? Or when your heart beats for the beat generation and skips, and you are overcome with a vast nostalgia- even though you are among good people who don't have lonely, crumbling insides and you think that it's maddening that you have done everything right, have done what every other maddening soul has done and yet you've never caught it and your hands hang their wilting heads and hold each other soullessly because there's nothing but air molding in the space between their webbed joints and a better story. 

http://www.blalocksirp.com/mixtapes/all/1673-blalock-my-favorite

Oh, if you knew what it meant to me

There are things I've always known.

I biked with my 12 year-old gem of a kin, Michael, yesterday. He's been begging me to go biking with him all summer, and I have been regrettably "tomorrowing" him every time. But I'm so glad I finally went. 

Our destination was Sonic, probably ten minutes from my house via car, but easily 30 plus minutes on cycle. First we went to the nostalgic track I cited a few posts ago. We biked there, and despite the condemning "No Bikes, Animals, or Amateurs" pseudo-sign, we contravened the rules. With a hazy-ing 110 degree feel, Michael and I could only comprehend walking. After one lap of swimming through the deep-end of air, and unable to do another, I trapeezed onto my bike parked next to the bleachers, and started circling the track. While there were no other track-ees to watch out for (or piss off, for the matter), it felt badass, and wonderful. Michael joined me and together we did a couple miles, Best Coast and Beach Boys flooding and fueling my system. I don't know how long he had been doing it, but I noticed, waking from my sun daze, that Michael was standing in the middle of the lawn on the inside of the track, beneath the single, stoic sprinkler, getting drenched. I don't know what it was about the picture I saw, but I've never seen him look so old.

After the track, Michael and I took off on the trek to Sonic. I assumed we would be riding the streets, but to my surprise, we made it almost the whole way a la trail. It was great. It was great to have Michael lead the way as "tour guide." It was great to see how happy that made him. It was great to dust off the settings of so many of my childhood memories treated with thoughtless inattention. It was great to see Michael experience something good and not worry about our financial situation that he should not have to give a shit about. I will tell you this: there are few feelings as great as wind steering your bike down a huge hill while you listen to that one favorite song. 

The highlight of the trek was actually at the very beginning: Plunging into the woods on my 1950s cycle,   I was overwhelmed by the pungent smell of it all, and commented on it. Instead of agreeing, or not saying anything (*not uncommon for most pre-pubescent adolescents), Michael said, "It's life, Katie." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGYIWrZm5no

Roman Candles

-bits from the work.

"Her apartment was huge. I was surprised at seeing anything at all because she's one of those people I can't picture living anywhere. Even after she took out her keys, I still really didn't believe she lived in the fancy complex. It would, after all, be totally like her to "borrow" an apartment from someone.

But as soon as I peered inside, I knew it was hers. The hard wood floor I sensed was there was not only invisible, but the piles of clothes on the floor were shaped into mountains and valleys, mocking any notion of a floor at all. The clothes were permanent, perennial fixtures in the room that looked like they had been there for years.

Awkwardly, I looked around the room for something, anything that reassured me that someone could actually live there. Hung stark on the bare walls, I spotted a calender. I waded knee deep in clothes to get a closer inspection; it was four years old."

Too Young to Burn

I'm high and I feel like tonight, well especially tonight, but overall happening over the course of a few weeks or maybe my whole lifetime, everyone is an illuminated, cartoonized statue. And statues don't move, so the people around me don't move, however, because I slowly orbit around their immobile, stoic bearings, it still seems like they can move. Andthis is where the cartoon part comes in ->>>Because cartoons are just a series of pictures manipulated by an artist to become a story, to become a character, to become something meaningful enough for it to seem real. 

That's how I was looking at people tonight. 

^That's what I wrote the other night around 4ishh o'clock in the morning. I wasn't going to publish it because it seemed to be just mary-jane jabber, but a good friend encouraged me to still do it. And so I publish the jabber, but with an attached note. 

I've always claimed that I know what people think of me, but I couldn't ever actually change myself just to change their minds. That still rings true. But lately, I've been realizing how much different of a person I am. And I know, I know, everyone thinks of themselves as "weird," and you know what? We all are weird. Really, ridiculously weird. But I'm talking different in the sense that I function differently than most people. I love people. I constantly need people, but I also like to be alone. I like to do my own thang. I don't like it when people own a piece of me, and so I fear commitment in any sense. Chances are, if you've met me, you would understand the meaning behind the term "KatieLand." (^TM) The people who choose to include me in their life (although sometimes it's not a choice) often drop-kick this saying whenever I'm supposed to be somewhere and I'm not. And that happens a lot. But people often mistag this tendency as "immature," "irresponsible," and (my favorite) "selfish." Believe me, 97% of the time, it's not because of those favorable traits. I'm simply not there because I'm not there. (God that sounds dumb). But it's what I believe to be true, childish, or not.

And how can we ask anyone to stray from what they know is true? 

They Built Their Homes, They Built Their Tombs

Dear Elitist Hipster--

You are painfully cool. Your rose-tinted self perception is glowing in the nonconformist dark. You grind your neon teeth with thoughts of mainstream.  You review and condemn and glorify music, movies, arts, people, people, people, especially people. You walk to class, shrugging your shoulders of your fellow collegiate streetwalkers: unworthy, illegit individuals who don't possess a goddamn artistic taste bud. You don't believe anyone can reach your level, even your fools of friends. You think you're funny, a good writer, and ironic. And you are, believe me, you are.  Thank you for bestowing upon us your oxymoronic-flavored judgement. It tastes good. 

.

But what have you done?  

.

You haven't done any good. 

.

And you're not going to change the world. 

.

So how about you stop spitting on the creation those individuals have composed, and start chewing on your own golden tongue? Stop accessorizing your judgement with Ray-Banned sighs. 

Only then will your mind truly romp with the mind of God. Only then will you suck on the pap of life, gulping down the incomparable milk of wonder. 

Just Like a Woman

Lent is upon us, my friends, and it's about time I became a good person again. I'm giving up the hardest thing in the world to give up (at least, for me). What? WEED. I went from a rare smoker to an inebriated smoker to a social smoker to an everyday smoker to an everyday plus benefits smoker. Basically, my thought process went a lil' like this: Go to class,  feel bored  ->go smoke. It's freezing outside/the wind is raping my face and I have to walk all the way to Humanities. Twice today.  -> go smoke. There's a crazy weird movie added to Netflix. -> go smoke. I'm bored and I don't want to do homework. -> go smoke. I just really fucked up. -> go smoke. Almost time for dinner -> go smoke. THE OLYMPICS ARE ON! -> go smoke. The Olympics are not on. -> go smoke. My car's dirty. -> go smoke- IN THE CARWASH! 

Basically, I'm not smoking to have fun anymore. And from what I remember, I don't have fun. The thing is, I barely remember anything when I smoke. It's like a self-adhered amnesia that I apply in an ever-thickening coat. My friend and I have talked about this before, how there are holes in our memories from our nights spent with Blueberry, White Widow, and Purple Haze. Even once, we discussed something, and after a brief, momentary distraction we already had that memory slipping through our fingers. We were losing it, and we were conscious of us losing it, but we couldn't do anything about it and then it was gone. I want to feel things again, really feel things. Not the numb, hyped-up "freedom" that takes control of my senses when I smoke. Except for on Sundays. I'll save that feeling for Sundays.   

"If someone smokes you out, you have to tell them the truth."

Mona Lisa's & Mad Hatters

I realize now that I didn't get to fully elaborate on the statement I made in the last post. It's weird when you can tell you are changing, and you know you could stop it if you wanted to, but you just don't care. This sounds a lot like a previous post, but it's different, I swear. 

Those faces and beings I've surrounded myself with and considered to be "my kind"....aren't  really fitting the way they used to. It's puzzling, the puzzle of life: a constant tetris game of trying to find the perfect fit with those spaces and corresponding faces. And it's fucking exhausting. It's a vicious cycle of  going with the flow of your instincts and regretting, regretting, regretting those decisions and the sacrifices you must make because of them. I generally get along with most people (varying with the day and the number of drinks/hits), but lately, I feel like conversations are forced and fucking nostalgic. Gross. I feel like I can only connect with two people here on an intellectual, delusional level. Yet this otiose, platform 93/4 drenched level, when reached, never lasts long enough. My eccentric thirst is never quenched. I'm always waiting for the beloved, most coveted, long, blue piece to appear in the game to make it all even and make it all make sense. 

you dream, you make movies, you dance

MAWNsturr Muse Ick

- "all the king's men"- WILD BEASTS

- "blessa"- TORO Y MOI

- "sea green, sea blue"- JAYMAY

- "eviction"- DARLINGS

- "gotta cheer up now"- COTTON JONES

- "day glo"- BRAZOS

- "billie holiday"- WARPAINT  

-Bits from my beloved senior year of high school journals

"We were playing Hide & Seek in an ill-fitting, un-enlightened party house. Walt was "it." Henry and I ran and hid in a dark closet with our shadows. Swimming in clothes and blankets, we hid there, barely breathing, but constantly moving. We stayed there for so long that Walt gave up and picked up a guitar and played it in the very room we lay hidden in. All the while Henry and I were slipping and spooning in the mindful blankets, laughing, touching each other and the moon. And I kept thinking that I never want to get over him."

"You asked if we should sleep on these cardboard sheets i said 'yes, okay, let's.'"

Half-Way Whole Goals

1. Guest-star on an episode of Law & Order: SVU and get it on with Elliot. 

2. Perform covers in a nostalgic coffee shop and tell everyone the name is Charlie Waltz.

3. Direct, write, and submit a film to Sundance.

4. Fall in love with someone who doesn't speak English and have them understand how you feel. 

5. Guest-star on any FoodNetwork show and fuck shit up.

6. Get a short story published in da New Yorker.

7. Have the balls to do what I want in my career. 

"All of me is waiting for you to touch the center of me with the center of you." 

Sense & Sensibility

How- how can you judge someone else's

happiness? 

-Bits from the work.

"Who were these people, anyways? Henry was loud, tending to yell over a crowd of inconnus he just generalized in his fiery haze as sure and steady fools he couldn’t give a shit about. At parties, girls grew on him like perennial moss. They didn’t ask questions, didn’t really even carry conversations. He was tall, and gave everyone the assumption that he was someone of importance. And who would yell across the house without a slight reason, unless they were someone of consequence?

It’s not like I had placed myself here. We were all standing around the counter, laughing, looking, leaning into each other’s warming egos. Mid-laugh I choke, and something in the dark of me comes crawling out and looks at the picture it sees in the stillborn hours of the morning. I am genuinely laughing, swallowing every part of them, but what do I actually think of them? Are they people I consider friends-- or am I not really friends with them but just like them as people? I’m talking to Kennedy- but- ah- what is wrong with-? the flow of our conversation is so unnatural and off- I just can’t- what!- I don’t even know what we're talking about. We both speak at the same time, turning different pages. And so I close my book and walk away."