lately I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about things, but not doing anything much at all. Maybe it's the weather...or maybe the weather is just my catch all excuse, but honestly, grey weather makes me feel entirely different.
I've been going home a lot, and it's so nice to be there. As much as I love my friends and the fun stuff we do when we are all together, there are times when they are out smoking and I'm alone in my tiny room wondering what I'm doing here, and if I'm really meant to be here. I don't like thinking like that, but I do. And I think about my bank account draining, and how I wish I got more sleep and could find a place and way to run like I used to. It seems like I'm never completely satisfied with myself, but I still manage to find myself wishing to be more like the person I used to be.
I hope this doesn't make me sound like I'm sad, because honestly, I'm not. It's more that I'm just contemplating & wanting to do things & take pictures all of the time. I don't know.

i'm feeling really conspicuous somehow, lately. Like a spy in an unconvincing disquise. When I feel people look or stare at me, I just want to shrink into myself. I guess it's just self consciousness, I'm sure, but feeling displaced makes me feel like I need to be looking for something, like there's an appointment I have but forgot about. I took my anti-anxiety pills and melatonin, so this won't make sense tommorow, but maybe I need to get this out so I can sleep better. I just hope this feeling fades, soon.

Today is my birthday. I saw The Time Travelers Wife, which I knew would be very chick-flicky, but was still sweet nonetheless. I mostly just went for the movie experience. I love hearing people say things during the movie, seeing couples be cute to one another, nibbling popcorn. My friend & I simultaneously whipped out our candy & cheap sodas when previews started, seeing what movies look promising. Afterwards we went to Wal-mart, because at midnight, it's the only place open, so I picked out a bottle of champagne & chedder cheese and checked out in the 21st eisle. One the way home, my friend & I talked and talked, but managed to see a shooting star at the exact same time and point at it, because it was honestly the most perfect shooting star I've ever seen. I listened to a mixed cd my friend made that I won during a poker game (we play with stuff, not $...we love Benny & Joon), and I just have this feeling, maybe too optimistic or something, but I feel like these are good signs, & maybe it's the alcohol, but I am content & I want to remember this. =]

I think this time of the year is the worst. I don't know if I've ever had a good August, even though it's my birthday month. It's always been hard, just changes and heat. It makes me want to hibernate or run back to familiar things or stop time if not hurry it up or rewind. I know it takes time, that I just need to take and deal with the changes and make myself comfortable so I can adjust.
I don't know if I'll ever understand how resilience works, how people just move away, don't get homesick or worry about things that make me feel like my brain is a beehive, all buzzing thoughts and little room for peace.
Sorry that the only time I seem to post things is to whine. but I guess that's what livejournals are for, right?

Everybody's got somebody these days.

I want a lover with a houseboat. =)

Die Toten Hose. When I was in Germany last summer my friends and I were watching German music videos & there was die Toten Hose on tv. Yes, the dead pants. Best band name ever.

And pretty much anything in French sounds beautiful. =)

I love spring. It's always the last week of April when everything just explodes into color all of a sudden. You could be gone or huddled inside one day, & come out the next & see that everything has gotten so so green almost overnight.

I went to my grandpa's house the other day. He's in the hospital now, recovering from a hip replacement. I wish I could explain how awesome he is--he's like a saint. He's really homesick for his kitty, though, I thought I'd take some photos of him & give them as a gift. I took some pictures of things around the house that just reminded me of my grandparents. They're little things, but they make me think of being there when I was little.

Spooky is not ashamed to drink of out the loo.

BED HEAD KITTY!!!

I'm so lame. I'm really scared about taking my camera out of the house, so I've been taking cat portraits. But she's so cute... =3
 Most days I hate my curly hair, but some days I don't mind. =)

I'm so achey for summer. Plans have already been made in my head- I will tons of photographs, photographs of friends with green dappled bokeh light behind them. Pictures of picnics & fireworks & swimming in innertubes & catching fireflies. I'll go to the movies and not worry about how many calories are in all of that butter. Maybe it'll be like last year, going on a movie date, tickling the boy's palm beside me & getting my fingertips kissed.
And I'll write things,  things I hopefullly won't be embarrassed with. I'll run faster & further than I have been, &I'll get one of those kiddie pools & lay in the sunshine. I'll drink cheap wine & champagne with my friends until we're laughing at each other laughing at nothing. I'd like to get a little tent & fill it with blankets and just live in it for a while. I want to swim in big lakes and float right in the center of it. Sometimes, when I'm really nervous & anxious, I just recall how it feels to backfloat--your limbs surrounded by water, your body floating, your ears thrumming with water...it's the most peaceful thing I can think of. It reminds me of the last lines in "The Piano,"..."it's a strange lullaby, but it is mine."

This last week has left me so exhausted, I just want to curl up with the shades drawn and sleepsleepsleep for a while. Not until finals, though.

Wow, this is entirely random, but I just drank a lot of coffee on an empty stomache & I feel strange. My hands are shakey & I keep twisting them.

I was seeing you like a child would,
like a sister, like a daughter
as we drove down nameless roads
because you know I never slept well,
unless I was lulled by motion and wind
my head was in your lap
with hair tickling your knees
and traced the veins of your arm
to calm my nerves that never settled
but I know one thing for sure that calms--
if and when all things fail,
there will be clues left for you everywhere
messages in the closets
letters under the mattress 
secrets scrawled under wallpaper strips
and those that find it, and then you
will know all the things I never said
but felt when you invoked them


....yeah, I don't know about this.

On the way. I think this place is in Illinois.
Louisville buildings. tulips! @ The Art in the Garden exhibit. Lynn's Paradise cafe. AWESOME!

I was good for so long. Now I guess I'm just good at giving in.

This is exactly how it happened last year. I should keep track of these things, see if they coincide with lunar activity or something. Maybe I'll get some good sleep now, at least.

I stayed home yesterday as opposed to going to work, because I've been so busy with school and work & friends, that I feel like my head is going to explode. It's like no matter what I'm doing, my time could/should be better occupied doing something else. But yesterday was very rainy & my boss took off because she was worried about the weather forcast & I did, too, because I didn't have a car.

I DID take a lot of photos, though, because I finally got the camera I've been wanting really badly!! I'm so afraid to take it out of the house, though. It's like my baby. My pastic, battery power baby. Anyway:


 


  
My room needs to be cleaned.But you know what, it's gonna wait.

It’s like when you close your eyes really tight, so tightly you start seeing this kaleidoscope colors you can’t know where they came from, but they’re yours & they are like your memories—they are there & not there, fading, constantly changing & rearranging itself into different patterns so when you remember things, it’s all just scraps and fragments, like looking at someone through a glass, darkly.
There is a lot/little going on right now & every memory I have is relived fervently in my mind. I am back 17 again, getting home late, my mouth sore from kissing & my shirt on inside out. I am in Neushwanstein, during my last summer as a teenager, staring at this mural of wilderness & wood nymphs & knowing that this is where a king lived & I am breathless. I am in Italy, gazing up at the Rialto with my feet in the water & pigeons leaving feathers everywhere & a brand new necklace of blown glass on my neck “just like your eyes,” and everything I hear is a song of talking in a language I don’t understand.
I want to be there, & I want to be somewhere worthy of another memory like those.

Lately I've been soooo tired...but then night comes & I lie in bed & suddendly I have all of these great plans, like how I should fix up the treehouse & paint the interior, or how I should sell all of my unwanted books right away(!), right this second so I can go to Hastings & I can earn a little bit more money. Or I'll be at work in a complete daze, scanning books to send off (& sneaking in little messages inbetween the pages =) and I just have to start writing, because if I don't, these words will leave me & I'll wonder what I meant to write down but never did. And lately I feel like I have this idea for story, but it's just bits & pieces submerging every now & then. And then I think about myself two years ago, how I was then. Just the same person, but far more hopeful & yeah, worrying a bit, but I was on the verge of something more than just starving and going off to college. I can't explain it, but I'm hoping that where I am now is where I'm meant to be. I'm always worrying about that, and hoping that with everyday I'm doing the right things.

Blah. I'm not making much sense, but really, what I'm trying to say that half of the time I feel like I'm not enough, not enough, not enough. And then the other half of the time I'm trying to fix myself & make myself better. I just need sleep, badly, and springtime even more.

At least tommorow is the end of the end of the week =). That means scrambled egg night at the Braun/Cheek house! I had so much fun last week...we made eggs & sang songs & played hide & seek in the dark with flashlights & had a shadowpuppet show & eat icing out of jars while telling secrets & taking polaroids. It was just a nice way to unwind. & I'm getting really exited at the idea of next year, living in this house with all of these old friends (& Sydney & hopefully Alex & Cass visiting alot). For some reason I feel like it's almost too picturesqe & I'm hoping that it'll happen. I don't think I'll get homesick with them, or if I do, they know that I'm panicy like that sometimes, so it'll be alright.

I've rambled SO MUCH! Oh well. I'm gonna study for Phonetics & sleep. =)
Hope everyone is doing really really well!!!

I've been quite lazy these days, I suppose that winter is dragging on & I am, too. Things aren't bad, though... =) I don't really have much to say, I really just wanted to make a post to let those of my friends on here know that I'm sorry if I've been a bit of bum when it comes to commenting on entries. Usually I'm just checking them before running off to class, but I hope that everyone is doing great, I really do!

So...I got a typewriter the other day & I'm so elated about this. :)

Today I am in one of those wild moods, where I want to learn everything I can--just soak up science and history & have all of these easily forgotten facts forever in my memory. It makes me want to get on a plane & go to Egypt, climb pyramids & have a dark skinned man with milkcoffee voice explain heirogliphics to me and tell me about the Egyptians kings with kohl lined eyes and their organs preserved in jars.
I'm in my pajamas, putting off a run & watching "The Universe" on the History channel, & it makes me feel very small & expectant & a little scared, but mostly just intruiged. I got my microbiology book in the mail & it makes me feel the exact opposite, just this huge vessel full of tiny moving things inside me, and it makes me feel huge & alive.
Do you ever have those days? when just beign awake, eyes open makes you see EVERYTHING? I had a couple of cups of coffee & my hands are shaking so bad, but it's not unpleasent.
Everyday should be like this, really.

Honestly, as emotional as I am, I don't cry very much. I'll cry when I'm throwing up, because of the lacrimnal gland producing all of this saline. For some reason, it's a great release, odd as it is. But today, as somewhat non-exiting as it was, I cried (quietly, not bawling) more than once.

This is me, whining about nothing, making everything the acopolypse when everything is really all roses. But that's how anxiety is. It takes hold of you one day, and suddenly all of these routine tasks are scary, you wonder how you managed it all so easily before, and more amazing than that "how can everyone just live, so easily?!" Writing this makes me sound crazy, but I feel like on here, I do'nt have to feel as contained, and noticing that maybe I'm having more trouble than I'd like to admit, I made an appointment to see Linda (my counseler) again. I told her that I felt strange, that change is hard for me, and being back on campus makes me wonder if I'm missing anything. Like hearing Ellen talking about watching movies at night & staying up laughing & getting slap happy makes me think maybe I"m missing out. But I can't describe how scary it feels to think about moving in. So I asked her "Maybe it's just me, living in the dorms just isn't for me, but I wonder if I'm missing out although I've kept in touch with the friends I made my first semester." And she said "Well, you kind of unintentionally shot yourself in the foot when you moved out after the first semester. When my youngest daughter moved away to college, I told her she wasn't allowed to come home for 6 weeks. I knew from seeing the homesick kids here that it would be good for her, and she was mad at me at first, but she knew that it was for the best by the end of the year." 

She said a lot of things I didn't want to/was hoping not to hear. Maybe I just keep wanting to be babied, to have people tell me, "It's okay, it's alright, stay comfortable." Like my mom does. I can't help but love the fact that my mom loves having me home. If I never moved out, my parents would be fine-fine with that. I can't imagine them ever getting tired of me, wanting me to leave. Today, when mom asked me "What's this I hear about you wanting to move out?" She'd already gotten together a list of reason why I should reconsider. I barely even mentioned it to dad last night when Aubs was over & we were talking about living in the house next year with the B's & C's. I think maybe that could be my happy medium, a little step. My friends & I talked about all night, all of the great stuff we'd do if we were roomates- midnight movies, & 21st birthday parties & dogs running around in the backyard, a little library downstairs, awesome thrify furniture, making each other paint, motivating each other to do things. & I've known them for so long, it'd just be nice to have them there, they're almost like an extension of a family. And maybe I could get that in the dorms, & I loved the friendships that I made, but these friends have lasted, they feel more permanent. I can't explain this & my reasoning is tinted & obscured, but I guess it's best I ramble so I can get some sleep.

 I love that my mom & I are best friends, that after a long day I know she'll give me a hug if I need one & make me a vegan BLT & drink coffee with kitties on our laps. This house in the woods & the people I've grown up here with are all I really know.

I just don't understand how people function the way that they do. I even look back to when I was first moving in the dorms, just meeting my roommate (who is awesome), making friends easily while fighting off the weight of missing something you could have, pretending everything was alright & getting by those first few months without a hitch. But how did everyone else do it? Kelly next door, hours & hours away from home saying "I don't miss it. I'm glad to be gone." How do people function so independently? Get by without knowing a soul & uproot? I'm so jealous of these creatures, these everyday girls I'm around.

First, thanks to those that left comments on my last entry...I really reallly appreciate it. I think this season has taken it's toll on me, and its kind of an odd time right now--I'm living with my parents, whom I adore, in the middle of nowhere about an hour from the university I attend, & all of my friends that have been home for the holidays are going back to their schools. So I've just been lonely & with all of this free time I've just been thinking a lot. I suppose I just got overwhelmed, and here is the only real place I CAN be honest. One thing I'm going to try to do is be more honest with how I feel & let the people I love know what I'm going through. I think that will prevent me from having to feel so secluded. But anyway, THANK YOU again for your wonderful comments & advice. I just I could give you all a hug, I really do. =D

Today was pretty exiting, actually. After a run & shower I found that I had two missed messages on my cell, &  not  being much of a phone talker, I was glad to see that some friends were trying to get a hold of me. So after playing phone tag for quite a while, I finally got a hold of the friend who's calls I'd been missing & she asked me if I wanted to hang out with her tonight- they were going to meet some of her friends, who I met recently & adore, up in STL & go to a hookah bar. I'm thinking, it'll be late, it'll be different, but I am so ready to get out of the house. So I said sure.
"Really?! Awesome, see you in a bit." 

So I took an anti-anxiety pill, just in case (I'm really not as socially inept as I make it sound, I've just been feeling jittery). And took off, blasting Counting Crows & driving on the highway & looking at stars. It felt really good to just be going somewhere new.
It was so great seeing old friends again & making new ones, just talking & laughing and inhaling pomegranite smoke in a dimly lit bar with crazy music in the background. We talked & talked, and later stopped by my sister's apartment, a miracle considering I only knew the name of the street she lived on & the fact that there was a TMNT poster (her boyfriends) on their door. So I tossed some pebbles at her window, much to the humor of my friends, & eventually settled to leave a note in her mailbox.
Then we took off to my friend's dorm & it was SO NICE! I know that my school doesn't have dorms that are too awful, really some are very nice, but I never realized how much a hefty tuition manifests itself. Being back in the dorms made me feel kind of nostalgic. I know that there are things I really miss about the dorms, & maybe being in a really nice one made me miss it even more, but suddenly I thought " I could do this. Again." And the thought wasn't terrifying.

So we hung out for a while, and then fought off sleep while talking all the way back home & we remembered all kinds of great things from high school that we did, like having a "coloring commity" and stealing an orange traffic cone, and making a zine.
So even if it's just today, I. am. grateful. =)

Things are pretty quiet these days, but I can't say I'm not content. This week was my week back to work, & I still have 10 days till my classes start. Work is just the same--that's the best thing about libraries, I think. There will always be books to pull, bands to fill out, coffee to make & articles to scan. Sometimes it's a little dull, but I get to listen to Pandora radio & the work can almost be a zen-like experience. And as odd as it sounds, it's intriging-I get a book to pull that goes with a name and a school. I know nothing else about this person, but already I feel like I have an idea of who they are, and I love that. And I'm always coming across the same names, these people who don't know I exist, and who I could never place, but I get these little clues.

I also slipped a little happy note in a book--it was a book about eating disorders going to an institue of pyschology. I don't know why I picked that one to slip the note in...maybe just because I figured it was one of two people- someone wanting to help someone suffering from eating disorders or someone who suffers themselves. Either way, I just tucked inbetween the pages without thinking. I hope someone finds it & that it makes them happy =)

I'm really going to miss Miranda when she leaves...when she's back from school it's just like old times, hanging out & dancing while we're driving out & singing to lyrics from the radio stations on too loud. For the past couple of years we decided that instead of getting each other Christmas presents, we'd just eat out & see a movie or go shopping. This is a treat for us, because usually we just go to each others houses & lie around talking (& we're poor college kids). She leaves the day after tommorow & I'll have to keep myself busy, so I don't get sad thinking about it. I don't know how all of my friends do it--just pack up, move away & have these completely different lives from the ones they left behind. I'll have to do that one day, too, I know, but I just don't think I can do that now. One of my friends is moving in with his brother (another friend of mine) and they want me to move in with them. As fun as it sounds sometimes, it kind of terrifies me, too. One day, I'll get over this, I'll have my own little life outside of this home of mine, & I'll be okay.
But that day is not today & that's fine with me.