Here Lies the Rant I Promised Not to Give

Right now I am itching to post an evil spiel about how frustrating it is to spend over 4 hours constructing an argument on a topic I find completely absorbing, and then share this fascination with my peers in a debate where I almost effortlessly present my side, only to find that, for some inexplicable reason or another, my standard of excellence is apparently comparable to my teacher's idea of a D.

What? I want to scream right now. I could just let 'er rip. Honestly, truly, sincerely, I DON'T GET IT.

I am sick of spending the majority of my life slaving over school work. I am sick of being compared with other people when the fact that I am not the same as them, the fact that I am different, is the very reason why such comparisons should not happen. I am sick of people telling me that grades don't matter because they think that I live and breathe for As. Do they realize that the very reason I feel such pressure to succeed is because they toss around their own grades as if earning that perfect score comes as easily as a blinking eyelid? I am sick of it.

A person is not measurable with any form of scale or number or letter or quantitative value.
A person is not measurable by how well they stack up against the paradigm of excellence.

There is no paradigm of excellence. Stop beating me to pieces about it, because it does not exist.
I've reached my breaking point.

Constellations

Today I found the Little Dipper freckled onto my arm.
The stars are closer than we think.

Reduction

I don't want to go to work tomorrow.
I don't want to go to work.
I don't want to go.
I don't want to.
I don't want.
I don't.

11:55 PM -- 10/24/09

Truth

As long as I keep my eyes closed, I stay happy.

This Will Only Hurt A Little

Soooooooo I am working off of 2.5 hours of sleep, which should technically be this huge outrageous hardship. How can I possibly be awake right now with such little sleep?! I've found that it's really not that hard. Slowly, steadily, school has robbed me of more and more of my time. I shouldn't say robbed, because I really do love school. At the same time, though, I feel completely and irrevocably possessed by this place. All I do is wake up, eat, go to school, pass in homework, take tests, receive more homework, eat lunch, endure more pointless busy work, and eventually get in my car and drive home at some point in the afternoon. I do find satisfaction with reliable constants, but this 30-hour-a-week monotony I simply cannot stand anymore. Part of me wants to scream--to my teachers, to my classmates, to no one in particular in a mostly-empty hallway--There is so much more to me than this.

I am a writer. I am an actress. I am a musician. I love nature. I feel compassion and live life with an open heart. I enjoy grocery shopping and burnt Cheez-its, and while maybe these last two are slightly more irrelevant, they're still true, and I still can't get past how frustrated I am with this beautifully-refurbished prison I'm forced to operate within.

Sometimes I wish school was all talk, all learning, all sponge-absorbing knowledge. Instead we have essays, critiques, term papers, debates, projects, presentations, tests, quizzes, quests, tizzles, midyears. Grades. What are grades even, really, when you think about them? Who came UP with these standards? Why can't an F be fantastic and an A be abysmal? Why is 100 the preferred number for everything? Screw nice, neat "percentages," why can't grades be based out of 174? I don't even know what the unit would be there but in any case why not? Why why why why WHY?

Generally I see no dangers in thinking, but this has gotten ridiculous. I am on brain OVERLOAD and relatively soon I'm just going to combust. I'll be sitting in AP Lit, or doodling in Physics, or doing I-don't-even-care-what in Topics, and my head will just explode. From knowledge, from unnecessary facts that contribute nothing to who I am as a person now and who I will be in the future, from constant fear of examinations and time limits and due dates and the dreaded red pen with x's and cross-outs.

Here's the worst part: last weekend I was at a drama rehearsal, and, as the female understudy, was juggling three different scripts and attempting to write down every single stage blocking direction for all 7 female roles. Halfway through the second act, I turned to Dan Gentile and I said, completely unaffected, completely seriously,

"Sometimes I just wish I could go into a coma, a temporary coma, and pass through these horrible weeks and when I wake up, everyone will have been so concerned about my having been in a coma that they will tell me, 'Oh Sam, don't worry about that huge critique you missed! You dont have to make up that test either,' and I will evade all of these exhausting responsibilities and just be in general much happier."

Reading that I'm sure you're probably commenting to yourself about what a horrible thing that is to say, and how insensitive of a person I am for saying it. But sometimes I really do think that having an ON/OFF switch under my control would be the most amazing thing in the world.

I know we come to school to expand our knowledge. But these are the most unbearable growing pains I've ever had to endure.

The Lost Boy

Your Peter Pan suit

stole the remaining fragments

of your innocence.

-------

I wrote this haiku almost two years ago. The occupant of that magic outfit has left my life interminably, and for the longest time, without his knowledge, I suffered under his clenched grip. I struggled for almost two years, ever since his initial departure. Thinking about that stuns me. I would laugh and point fun at my own childish refusal to let go but for the fact that I had no idea at the time what I was even holding on to. TWO YEARS. This summer I finally pulled free of his burning grasp, and left the world of adolescent daydreams behind, promising myself that from now on, I'd approach love with a level head. I promised to keep my wrists far out of the reach of any hands attached to mendacious bodies. This summer I celebrated the end of two years of intermittent misery. This summer I embraced once more the truth that I choose to live with an open heart. I have never been happier, with arms wide open, than I was less than two months ago.

Somehow he too seized my arm.

I do not want to be back in Neverland, but I cannot escape.

Pixie dust, too, is hard to come by.

Framingham Station

The minute things come into focus, they retract and blur and indistinguish themselves once more. We find ourselves in constant battles to analyze everything. We feel this incessant need to understand each moment of our lives, to pinpoint all parts of ourselves, and even that which does not belong to us, even this void, falls victim to constant scrutiny.

Why are we unable to let things go, allow whatever forces that be to govern our futures and trust that each day fell upon us because it was meant to?

Whether cherished or repudiated when we turn our lights out at night, this day existed.

--- ------

Every time I see those three syllables (five, when expanded fully), my stomach falls out my butt.

I realize that is the exact opposite of eloquence, but there's nothing eloquent about how I feel. Unrequited love sucks. Sucks sucks sucks. Like a vacuum cleaner.

Tonight I embrace all of literature's cliché metaphors for love.
I'm starting to think I've turned into a cliché myself.
Please, somebody save me from banality.

Picture My Face On a Milk Carton

I'm worried I've gotten lost.
I know I need time to find myself.
But minutes pass, I stand idle, and outside of myself I slip farther away.

-----------------------------------------------

"The point of their intersection, together with his soul, glided upwards along an endless path."

The Defense

10:12 PM

Life right now is good.

#2 Lead

I spent the entirety of lunch yesterday editing a college essay for a friend. With pencil in hand, I devoured the words much more steadily than I did my lunch, and what became most enthralling was how immersed I was. All the noise of the mammoth cafeteria shrank to this minuscule decibel until finally the laughter, screaming, voices didn't register any longer: cacophony entered one ear, and there it stayed, unable to pass out the other. When this thought occured to me once the bell rang, and all of the volume rushed back to torment my eardrums, I realized how few are the things that absorb me, entirely and without my immediate knowledge. Theatre, poetry...editing. Editing?

Sometimes I wonder if my love for editing, if my obsession with reading other people's writing and offering my opinions, seems strange and rude. For sure, some probably think so. But what if, just imagine, what if with each little tick mark, every crossed out word and suggestion for revision and circled phrase followed with-- I love this! [smiley face] --I did not detract or destruct, but inserted a part of myself into it?

I believe all writing blends together. The most beautiful collections of words owe themselves to unnumbered minds.

I'll Eat You Up, I Love You So

Last night I saw "Where The Wild Things Are." I've been wanting to see it for months, mostly because of the soundtrack (which reminds me so very much of Sigur Ros!). I'll admit I was hesitant, slightly afraid that the silver screen could not do this book justice. But it was absolutely beautiful, because for me it was like a family portrait. Life in my house is turbulent, moreso than the average family. Carol reminded me of my younger sister, with frequent mood swings and random burstings into fits. At one point, K.W. says of Carol, "He doesn't mean to do it. He just loves everyone so much." It could have been my mum speaking about my sister. I burst into tears.

A ten-sentence children's book has morphed into a sincerely profound metaphor for the one thing we all have in common: love, and its ability to at once hurt and inspire.

It's October 15th.

And it's snowing.
What?

Mother Nature has way too much fun with her job.
=)

I Wish I Were A Pinball Wizard

Yes. I am having "one of those days," one of those days. The problem here is that I really cannot articulate why or how today sucked, nor can I justify it. I love school. I need the social environment, and I find all of my classes engrossing, and (knock on wood--my one superstitious vice) I seem to be doing generally well. I have no idea what's wrong here. Maybe nothing is.

But then I come home from school and all of these worries, all of these fears arise, these tiny little stressballs that spiral through my veins--up my arms, down my legs, round and round the pit of my stomach--like cold metal pieces in a pinball game. I've lost control of my own internal arcade. I'm no longer the high scorer. I don't know whether to be embarrassed or to be accepting or to resolve to try my thumbs at it once more.

I can feel the ball ricochet up, down, and sideways: physics is incomprehensible to me regardless of how much I read the textbook and study the messy, unclear diagrams; I finished everything "college"--except for my supplemental essays--this summer and yet even with all of that preparation (which was mostly to avoid AP work, go figure) I now find myself behind? [I'm more afraid I've lost the motivation]; my impending English critique makes me want to resume my preteen habit of nail-biting, and the only thing currently keeping me from doing so is a combination of hair-pulling and fear of the Swine flu; and my sleeping habits, so meticulously sculpted and perfected to a regimen during the summer months, have finally caved in to the grueling demands of school, and as a result my body seems to be consistently heavy from exhaustion.

I have so much love pulsing within me and I'm completely incapable of sharing it with the people I truly want to.

Just for once I'd like to win a round of my own inner contest.

Scene

SETTING: The family room. It's the time of day where the natural light streaming through the windowpanes provides sufficient brightness, and as a result all the light switches, which when upturned trigger blinding explosions of harsh artificial shine, remain "OFF." GIRL sits on the couch, the one by the windows, her body sharing equally both sofa cushions, her back slumped deep into the pillows. She cradles a laptop upon her thighs, her feet turned inward as if ready to join forces and catch in their embedding anything that may potentially fall downhill. No sound, save the gentle murmur of the gas fireplace as it emits welcomed heat. She is alone but for her sole feline companion, though one may successfully argue that cats, in all their self-absorption, provide little in the way of camaraderie.

Currently GIRL, still seated, stares fixated at a spot on the opposite wall, in the middle of the large portrait where the light from outside casts a reflective glare on the glass casing. Only the window blinds are visible in this expedient mirror, and their monotonous, stacked lines attract her absentminded gaze. It becomes clear she is thinking, mulling rather tremendously over some idea, some situation, some encounter that has caught her in a grip, emphatically inescapable until thought has made its full course.

She shifts her feet, drawing them up from the floor and settling them, crossed, on top of the wooden table. Her back sinks lower into the cushions.

GIRL's lips part ever so slightly and begin to silently articulate one word, two words, three, four, ten, fifteen. Her mouth repeats this exercise once more. Then again. There passes another bout of tranquil reflection. Suddenly, her lips resume form and make one last effort to express this phrase, this wonderful, strange phrase implanted in her memory courtesy of a new, old friend; and here she finds her voice, slight and delicate.

GIRL: Time and geography are just obstacles. If it's meant to be, you'll get over them.

Silence. Her eyes resume their watch of the mimicked blinds. She blinks. Belief flashes in, belief flashes out.

Suspension

Bridges go both ways.

Thoughts

01.  I'm working off of three hours of sleep.
02.  No homework. Weird how I feel like I've got so much to do.
03.  My clarinet is broken...? Problem.
04.  Driving home today I saw a mother and her toddler-aged son race each other to the front door. This made me insanely happy and I smiled the rest of the way home.
05.  Swedish Fish. Sveedish Fish. Da.
06.  I have a 4.5 weighted GPA. How did this happen? Okay.
07.  My mind should be cleared by Thursday night. This is good.
08.  I love my guidance counselor.
09.  I love my friends. "Squeeshed, like a booog on a weeendshield."
10.  I dropped from AP Calc to Topics the first week of school in part to escape my math teacher. He still teaches my Topics class and thank God, because I love him.
11.  Fobby O. Stallyun.
12.  My headband with the flower on it is quickly becoming a distinct part of how people recognize me. I am okay with this.
13.  White Hot Party rave, 11/6/09. Psych!
14.  Today's song is "Secret Heart" by Feist.

"Secret heart, come out and share it. This loneliness, few can bear it. Could it have something to do with admitting that you just can't go through it alone?"

Down the road, everything will come up roses.

Chess

"And to hold her on his lap was nothing compared to the certainty that she would follow him and not disappear, like certain dreams that suddenly burst and disperse because the gleaming dome of the alarm clock has floated up through them."

The Defense

It Didn't Say Anything, It Just Said Nothing

It feels like a wire hanger latched onto my navel, twisted its metal hook deep into my abdomen and with one fell swoop ripped the entirety of my insides through a cavity in my skin, flinging them 70 miles per hour across the room to land on top of a pile of burning charcoals. As I sit, clinging onto my sagging frame, holding what little is left of me together, I watch as everything that kept me operative writhes in the heat, diminishing into foul curls of smoke.

You tore yourself from me.

Hollow, I will only last so long.

El Maíz

Everything about this makes me smile.

Criss Cross Applesauce

I have been surrounded by people I love this weekend. Friends from my past met friends from my current reality. The blending was seamless, something I didn't expect but happily acknowledge. At this very moment I am impatiently awaiting the beginning of a dinner (my mum cooked--like really cooked--tonight!) I will share with 10 others-- family, grandparents, and decades-long family friends. It's like Thanksgiving, but a month premature.

I feel immense pressure right now. I have about three days' worth of homework and perhaps 36 hours with which to complete it. The blame lies solely with me; I put this stress upon myself...but I'm choosing to (or at the very least, trying to) stay calm.

My friend drove up 2 hours to visit me yesterday. I got lost in a corn maze with an unexpected companion this afternoon. And at this very moment, I have a pot roast, potatoes, pumpkin bread, and apple pie waiting for me in the next room over.

My latest truth: sometimes it's worth throwing yourself into turmoil if you can enjoy a few seconds of peace along the way.

Let It Fly In the Breeze and Get Caught In the Trees

Today I chopped off three inches of my hair. Now my head feels lighter, and my brain feels clearer, and I feel liberated. So many girls are attached to their hair. Sometimes I am as guilty of this weird obsession as everyone else. But right now, I've shed three inches--three inches that have started at the root, have had time to grow and extend through several months of my life until they skimmed past my shoulders and found themselves stuck, dangling at their own ends. When I hopped out of the salon chair, a pile of hair lay clumped on the floor, individual three-inch pieces of my past forever disconnected from my physical being.

It was time for them to go.
New memories emerge every day, and every day recent months drop lower and lower down memory's strands.
My next haircut waits for me, far ahead.
For now, I am content with what I have lost, gained, and kept.

I Am Hungry

Currently I am perched upon one of the media center chairs and, having finished the homework I promised myself I'd complete during long block, am indulging in a bit of midday writing. Sitting next to me are two girls--friends, I assume--who clearly don't understand (or merely choose to overlook) the concept that "libraries are quiet."

From my seat, I have been unintentionally informed that Girl A's chest is not sitting in its carrier as it should be.

How privileged I am.

Motionless Occupant of a Naked Room

I am out of body.
I am out of mind.

Life continues.
I have no choice but to do the same.

My creative outlet stayed behind.

Obviously Perhaps

Cold sheet, cold hand, groan, roll out pad across, down stair stair stair thump dog cat cold, growl hello stomach, homework? Homework yes. Do no. Times? Times I thought they were different, I'm sorry I'm sorry thank you, won't make this mistake again. Drop drop drop dad--this rain is sucky--drop drop drop drop drop traffic, why? traffic drop drop drop kiss goodbye, climb the steps, backward/forward? Backward. $6.25 please--Don't hate me but I only have a twenty, thank you sir. Bolt jerk jerk chug screech hiss stop? No next. Stop, in, where are you, you said you'd be here, whoops well no worries, out, in, out, in in in in in MFA out walk walk walk. Where's the door? Circle once, there, oh hey!, hug, kiss, shift- un/comfortable? suck it up suck it up you knew this would happen, bite lip, suck it up, smells like a hamster cage in here, this is my room, oh cool why is she in it, suck it up, Aquarium? yes! just us please, suck it up, just us just us just just just us us us, u+s, clod walk clog clunk clunk heel toe heel toe breathe talk intelligent what's new? nothing, scrounge for something, city bus: stay balanced, look LOOK yes you can, off, forward, wrong way, backtrack, seaport district, there, line long line                                   punch me, watch my self defense! NO! why are you getting closer no don't no no yes line line "you looked cute" thanks, stop thinking too much, line, I'm a member--okay, free--in, picture, why? Penguins, penguins, I love this, fish fish go fishing for fish fish fish fish shark turtle I would live here Why is his hand on my back why stop thinking--think--no, okay, why? How has the day been--not too shabby(but really I could kiss you)I won't but I will but won't. Where? eat? sure, bus--balance people crowd, get close is this meaningful where's my ticket search tear apart search it's in my pocket embarrassing, train where-- E? B. E? B. E? D. Bummer. Hit me again, watch, yes I'd be great at fighting off predators close close what are you doing closer lips brush? no but lips lips separation what just happened "you could totally hold off a rapist"--I did not know that was a test, what? stop stop stop eat? nap? can we nap yes okay music music, covers you me space space heavy lids lights dim dim out-- cold, roll, cold, ignore it, "How did you spell her name right?"--what?, sorry, dreaming. Leave return cold me too covers yes, they hold us in us us no NO close eyes close, slight curves feet mine yours let this moment linger linger on and on strange I'm not hungry--linger 7:30 ends can't wake up stay? stay? only if you want to I do I do do you I can tell you do say it--"maybe you'd better not"-- something nothing would happen, something, get up, socks, wellies, WAKE UP, down, still smells like hamster shavings, doors open, cross street, sit sit oooboolachoogoo what? STAY AWAKE "I had fun" nod "I'm glad you came" nod "it's weird not seeing you all the time" if only you knew yes I'll come again nothing would have happened, nothing? except in our minds yes yes STOP. bus, time to go--will you be okay?-nod-are you sure? kiss kiss-now I'm not so sure but nod--kiss hug

hug
hug
break apart
can't tell if this is easier than last time
don't look back
on on on
8:35 time to go home phone dead no way to say: today was perfect, if you don't mind I'd like to come back tomorrow and every tomorrow after tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow. "Can you stay?" I can, I can't, I want to, I shouldn't, I miss you now now now still now now now now I miss--chug chug jerk jerk LAST STOP exit train crunch splash close door--back to life. Can you stay did I have to leave did I have to? at least this time I left you, "can you stay" can I can I can I can I, I want to I do I do I do I should have said yes, no, I should have. Thank you I had fun thank you I'm tired I'm tired I love you.

9:26 PM -- 10/3/09

Out of My Skin

"I go to seek a great perhaps."

--François Rabelais

Mellow Yellow

I had a heart-to-heart tonight with one of my favorite people.

Then I had a heart-to-heart with my parents.

I am now sitting on my couch,

eating lemon cake with homemade lemon frosting

and watching "The Nanny" on Nick@Nite.

I am apprehensive about tomorrow. I am unsure. I am nervous.

But life, at this exact moment in time, is good.