Stuck between a rock and an especially crazy place.

Graffiti tells me what to do, daily. Drop Acid. Take Back Your Life. Get Fucked. Find Bliss. My parents tell me to 'just get your degree over with', 'keep your head on a a swivel', 'don't go out after dark', and of course my favorite--'snap out of it'. Care to elaborate, you assholes?

Dropping acid and getting fucked, maybe a simple task, but tell me how to find bliss--how to snap out of it and into something better; into a mind space where I'm safe and people are trustworthy, lacking ulterior motives, and sleep comes easy. Where I can figure out how to forgive myself for the incredibly stupid, selfish, scarily impulsive things I've done. Where finances and debt don't plague me. Where my future doesn't look like a Fun House of distorted mirrors and mazes. Show me. Write me a fucking technical guide on how to get there, draw a map, point in the general direction, do something that resembles actual guidance, don't tell me what to fucking do as if you're the omniscient lord of happiness, like a lazy fortune cookie slip writer with a penchant for fragmented sentences.

I need [to] change.

If the phoenix never incinerated, it would just be this big, dumb bird that flew around being vaguely content with its life like a suburban dad who moonlights as an assistant manager of Arby's or something. It would be diluted to be just as commonplace as it stands as a tattoo choice among the lost mob of 20-somethings. And that's just fucking silly. 

I don't even know what to want.

I misplaced my keys, so my landlord came up to unlock my door last night when I got home from work. I'm pretty sure it's protocol to just unlatch the door and walk away. But he swung my door wide open and took a moment to peer in at my apartment. "Welcome to my home: empty, just like my life." I said, trying to make myself feel more at ease with a socially off-color thing to say, as usual.

I need a couch.

I always think 'I'll move, and things will change. I'll change.' And even though on a conscious level, I know how deluded that is, it still seems like a totally plausible thing to manifest, effortlessly so.

It's been a couple months since I found big enough ovaries to take myself off my medication. The side effects were getting out of hand: I was acting out my nightmares in my sleep. Which, as it turns out, is a little traumatizing. {Not to mention, combining alcohol and a high dosage of an SSRI is really dangerous and ill-advised, just trust me on that one.} Ever since the lovely withdrawal process has abated, I've been trying to pretend I'm still the same (emotionally) dulled down version of myself as I was when I was medicated, but that's made pretty clearly falsified when I find myself crying in the men's section of Target, fondling black XXL t-shirts.

Or when a wasted two person voucher for a [potentially] romantic trip down the coast by train appears sandwiched between a neglected stack of old mail. A love note encouraging me to not give up on my writing is dug out of a box by my cats. My half finished study abroad application to Rome. My unopened graduation invitations. The list is endless, as the universe seems to be having fun reminding me of my past year of self-sabotage and non-committal life-style. I really need to change. Before the complacency buries me alive in little pieces of What Could Have Been's. That's no way to live.

I want my old life back. But I know that's not going to happen. So I have to make a new one. But like I said, I don't even know what to want. I'm at an impasse. A really uncomfortable impasse.

So now what?

"You couldn't pay me to be 24 again."
"Well, they're not paying me at all."
(Girls, season one.)

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."--e.e cummings

About this time until the end of the first week of the quarter, I am academically enthused. But from there on out, I hate absolutely everything related. Also, about this time until Spring creeps up, I'm walking on water with grand plans popping out of every crevice in my skin. Not so much this year, though. I feel more polished after this most recent cycle of being tumbled around in space and time, so to speak. In that, pushing through the less fortunate times of recent past has humbled me, and as a result I feel like I have more perspective. I don't necessarily feel more aware, just older; fighting for fewer false impressions, because I've been around long enough to see through the bullshit 18 year old me was completely blind to. I realize I have to grow up and that I've ran out of my allotted years of "Trial & Error". I'm going to graduate this year, and I have no idea what I'm going to do afterward-- and it makes me want to scream until the windows of all the houses and cars in a five mile radius shatter to a bajillion pieces. I'm terrified and frustrated with myself for not having all the answers. But what would be the fun of life, otherwise, right? I think that's what I'm supposed to say.

I've been conceptualizing it like this: It's obscenely easy to 'step up to the plate'. The plate itself can be difficult to locate at times, but it remains accessible somewhere between 'I'm bored' and 'I'm getting older'. Stepping up to the plate is just another act of finding a place to stand still. I know this from experience. I'm a veteran at this game; skilled and well acquainted, I assure you. Although I refuse to carry out the baseball metaphor, I will get straight to the point and say change is fucking arduous and I've been going about it all wrong for years. And now I'm staring into middle space, wondering what the fuck to do next-- hoping that soon I can have a great distance between who I am now and who I'll be in the future, to the extent that I can't even fathom actually having had embodied the former. Because this shit is getting old.

So in proper fashion, I'm watching Reality Bites while I write this. This part is coming up soon:

This is right before Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke's character have pretty sex. Anyway, I digress.

Here, let's throw out some short term goals. By my 24th birthday (June 28th), I aim to

1. Make straight A's.

2. Lose 30 lbs.

3. Find and land the perfect internship.

4. Read every day.

5. Write every day.

I'll figure out an attack plan tomorrow. But for now, I'll just caress my abundance of newly purchased office supplies and wait for the residual natural high to wear off. This is my last night of vacation. I better milk it for all it's worth. Let the 90's romantic comedy marathon commence!

xoxo.

IX`XXII`MMXI

I can easily enough detect where my plans for greatness, (usually inspired by the New Year), have fallen apart by the large gaps in my journals. I used to have no problem whatsoever writing about my discontent with anything and everything, but I suppose that routine grew tired and old and I finally realized it delivered zero advantages to the cause. I'd rather write about progress instead of stagnancy. Writing about stagnancy only anchors you there. And There is boring.

I'm not going to wait until the New Year to get excited about new beginnings. I'll jump the gun and start now. Why not?

Things I'm Really Excited About/A list of things to revisit as a reminder:

1. I'm going to walk up and down all the 650 staircases in Seattle and write something about all of them, take pictures, and leave something behind. (link)
2. My advanced prose class, sign language class, not so much my Shakespeare class, but I'm willing to be (or not to be) open minded about it.
3. Cold weather & everything that comes with it: hoodies, peacoats, heavy blankets, using my morning coffee as a hand warmer, snugger snuggles, exhaling white clouds, soup!, knitting hats & mittens!
4. Moving to Ballard and having a lot more privacy than my current living situation. Getting acquainted with the neighborhood and reclaiming a portion of my anonymity.
5. Playing catch in the park with Braatzie.
6. Watching Gabe grow up into a respectable young man-cat.
7. Conquering NaNoWriMo!!!!!!! (link)
8. Becoming a stronger swimmer, runner and breaking into rock climbing!
9. Covering stupid pop songs on my ukulele.
10. Writing more!

Exclamations marks!!!!!!

And to conclude this post, here are some ducklings in a sink:

-whitney

Still don't know how to sing and play at the same time. Not even "Row Your Boat"!

III`XII`MMXI

I am mainly writing this for procrastination's sake--since I've worn out sleep as a method to the point it was becoming unnatural and probably fairly unhealthy. The red onesie was plotting to meld with my epidermis, I feared. This afternoon, with full intentions of tackling my final projects and entering Spring Break, I went for a walk to 'clear my head' which is truly a desperate measure since I haven't walked anywhere just for the fuck of it since my feet and King County Metro replaced my Honda back in 2006. I have the Head & Shoulders label almost memorized, replaced two light bulbs despite my fear of even the slightest of heights, and I even offered to do the dishes tonight (and was denied because the clever boyfriend has caught on to my weak and generally repetitive tactics and has since been diligently thwarting them one by one.). Anything, anything, to keep me from having to take the first heinously intimidating step of 'progress'.

On a less superficial plane: I'm burnt out. Not with just this quarter, but with school in it's entirety. All day, I've dreaded my inevitable life, post-grad, as a Starbucks barista, pushing buttons and forcing winning smiles. Fuck.

Hope finals week isn't kicking your ass as much it is mine.

Best,

WEH

II'XXVI'MMXI

The city's face is two dimensional as of late with breaks of sun that remind me ninety degree angles and places to hide if need be, still indeed do exist. I truly miss the sun but have been diligently urging myself to take it as it is with as much appreciation as I can muster while day dreaming of the short shorts and barely there "shirts" that I romped around in last summer. In the mean time, it seems to be snowing every where but here. Mount Rainier and the skyline hangs in the fog, like the Mists of Avalon, disappearing and then reappearing unapologetically. On the way to school with a friend a few years ago, our bus took a turn up Seneca and we caught a glimpse of the sunrise through the gap between the buildings flanking the avenue and we both noted how long it had been since we had the time to stop and admire it. I relive that moment in various ways every day; and it's a cyclical beast that doesn't seem to have any weak spots as of yet. --Since photos of Seattle seem to fall flat this time of year, I've been meaning to take advantage of the time between nightfall and dusk when only the drunkenly slumbering homeless and the occasional taxi shares the otherwise open streets of my neighborhood. Since that seems to be the only period of time my daily inanimate surroundings seem to be at all talkative.

But until then, I'll drown in final projects and academic stress. College!

I`IV`MMXI

"Writing is a social act. It's communal; shared. You're all validated here. You're all writers, congratulations. But to sit behind your computer typing away with the intention of keeping it all to yourself while claiming to be a solitary creative genius is irresponsible. You are responsible to your writing. You are responsible for how you are received. Think of your reader as someone who has never met you. Although you are writing for you before anyone else, you are still writing for someone else."*-- My verse instructor, Will, said this today, (rapidly alongside exaggerated hand gestures).

{which is funny, because I wrote this down in its entirety in my notebook so I could share it}

This is something I've only thought about marginally and momentarily. But after he preached about it for a good half hour, it stuck with me all day. Because it made sense: Why write it down otherwise? Why claim to be a writer? Why write creatively at all? There has to be some subconscious desire to share the things that are being made tangible. A private paper journal will eventually be read by another. Either you'll forget it on the bus (as I have many times), or your snaky room mate will dig it out from under your mattress after you leave to return the late Blockbuster movies, or will inevitably be thumbed through after your funeral by your cousin Jo-Jo. I tend to throw everything out there I create for people to consume and have only taken minimal caution or responsibility for what I was presenting. Which is to say, my purpose has always been fairly self-centered; a search for validation rather than a sheer act of sharing. The finished product has the potential to be something entirely more charged, refined and purposeful if the writer removes their self from their self and fully acknowledges the audience while hashing it out. If you know how to do this, please teach me how.

Which I suppose can be applied to every day life. Your social life, your work life, your love life. Be mindful. Be purposeful. Be considerate.

This in turn brings me to what my American Lit prof said "You can take corn and either make Fritos or polenta."

Resolution no. 2 for 2011: Make polenta from here on out.

*sliiiightly paraphrased.