The End of Books?

Today is the last day that my local Borders will be open, and yesterday I decided to pay it a visit. Bookstores in general have always felt like an outer extension of my mind - the books, the music, the atmosphere. Bookstores are some of the few places where I can really hear myself think, and yet at the same time I can feel the presence of all those better thoughts, penned by wiser people. It inspires me.

But this was not the place I saw last night.

The place I saw last night was skeletal, dying, dead.

The bare bones of floor to ceiling bookshelves that used to always move with the flow of the room and my train of thought sat naked with nothing but the adornments of packing tape and sale stickers. The few books still for sale, less than 50 total, haphazardly stacked onto a few tables and clearanced beyond belief. I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the words in these books that, after an 80% discount, people were still so reluctant to read. If no one will read them now, when will they ever? I can't help but imagine myself in five years - experiencing all the excitement and hopefulness of publishing a book, only to find it filling the discount bins two months later.

If print books even exist in five years, that is.

It's all I can stand to see one of my favorite shops in this state, when workers come in and start ripping off baseboards, taking doors off the hinges, and adjusting sale signs. It's hard to see Border's like this - controlled by the all important dollar. Then again, it controls all of us. In the weeks after the closing sales started, the stores were filled with discount shoppers, sweeping in to take advantage of their misfortune. I was there. And you were there. And now, the building sits with a few unwanted books and a mother who wont let her son by a $3.00 book with his own money because, "books aren't worth money unless they're really special", while a new bar waits for it's turn to move in.

Say what you want about me, or borders, but books are something else. Books are people. The way they wish they were, the way the used to be, the way they fear, the way the love. And losing them is like losing a million lifetimes.

Vampires.

Over the past couple of years I've noticed that vampires have gotten a bad reputation (and yes, I mean beyond that of being soulless monsters roaming the earth for blood, chicks, and big castles with an exorbitant amount of cobwebs). Books like Twilight and the Vampire Diaries, their less than noteworthy film spin off version, and the plethora of other media forms that have jumped on the bandwagon, have become common place to scoff at - perhaps successful just as much from the haters as the true fans. Something that once induced laughter induces mockery, and just as the original Count's tale signified the issue of women's rights and the prejudices against foreigners, today they show the distinction between the heart-controlled feminine and the aloof masculine; the emotional and selfish single mindedness of youth and the cocky judgemental attitude of what ever stage can be said follows it.

But here's the rub: vampires are my favorite monster. Have been for as long as I can remember - far before these days when they pine for humanity and, dare I say it, sparkle. How did the creature that simultaneously fascinated and frightened me become a laughing stock? I think, in the end, it comes down to emotion. Beings like Dracula were created, in essence, to escape. To feel fear and then be comforted by the comparative easiness of our own life. To, for a moment, live in the extreme.

Modern day's monsters aren't the fearless scourge of society. Now they are jaded. Haunted by their intense love and their struggle for self-control. Maybe it's more realistic (or, at least as realistic as you can get once you cross over into "undead" and "soul mate" territory), but it's also less constructive. One machine of story telling with one way of thinking not only robs our imagination and it's need for extremes, but it robs ourselves.

There was a time when books and symbols stood for something. Hi, I'm a ghost and I represent unfulfilled desires and regrets. Or, hi, I'm a zombie, but you can just call me peer pressure and the struggle to be unique or alone in a world without limits. But now, the image that I and most others in my age bracket see is, hi, I'm a vampire. Let me show you that real men are moody, while I love you unrealistically and prove that my stalker-ish tendency of watching you sleep at night is perfectly normal.

They say that sex sells, but I guess now a days all it takes is the promise of love. But a single minded existence isn't much of a dynamic life. Then again, it's not much of a dynamic book, either.

Edit: This isn't meant to be a dig at anyone who like the popular vampire shows or books (I'm reading the True Blood series). This is really just my thoughts on how the usefulness of media and symbols has changed and what the possible implications of this are.

Please Help!!!

Hello everyone! My mom has entered a contest, and it would mean a lot to both of us if you would take a second to vote for her! If you do, leave a comment. As a special thank-you, I will follow you if I'm not already. If I am following you, then I will do a special shout-out to you on my blog.

Thanks in advance, and please spread the word!

Vote here!

If you like her poster, then check out the rest of my mom's art here.

The Small and Insignificant

My camera has been on the fritz lately, but here are a few pictures I've taken this summer. I'm beginning to notice that most of my favorite things to take pictures of are small, and easy to pass over. Make of that what you will, I guess. Enjoy!

The Whole Harry Potter Thing

You would have to be living under a rock to not know that the final film installment of the Harry Potter series came out this weekend, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I braved the crowds to see it at midnight. I'm certainly not the most ravenous fan out there, but a life long fan just the same, and the end of the series symbolises many of the same things for me as it does for the characters. The end of an era, of childhood.

The first book came out when I was in the third grade. I remember it vividly because my teacher told my mother that I was not a strong enough reader to read the books which, of course, just made me want to read them more. The character's ages were close to mine, and in a weird way reading about their growth towards adult hood helped me in mine. I never had to fight the forces of evil, but I did have to deal with temptation, choices, responsibility, love, sacrifice, and friendship. I'm still dealing with them. I always will be.

And it's not just me. Such a huge percentage of my entire generation has felt what I have felt. It unifies all of us people around the world who don't know each other, but share a story. It’s not just the end of a movie. It’s the end of a relationship that started when I was in third grade and continued through film to my Junior year of college. It’s saying goodbye too the people who not only live in the book, but in myself - the ones who helped me learn how to grow up, that it's okay to be ordinary, or extra ordinary, or misunderstood. Above all, these people and books taught me that each of us is fighting through life in our own terrifying way. But some of us are fighting for something more that life.

Harry Potter was the first book that I took seriously, the first time I read past words and reached something else. That was the same year that I began to think about writing. In some strange, convoluted way, Harry Potter was the start of my adult life - my career, and the only thing that has consistently made me happy, content.

I guess I'm just trying to say, Thank you J.K. Rowling. Thank you for happening upon a pot of gold, and thank you for sharing it with me. With us.

Me at the midnight showing. If you can't see the shirt, I combined the deathly hallows with a lightning bolt. Yeah. Clever.

One More Time For Emphasis

Things are starting to get down to the wire. It seems like most of the people who have tried to "guide" me through college have all been wrong: getting in as a transfer student is easy, figuring everything else out is the hard part. I'm going from knowing everything like the back of my hand, to knowing nothing, but I'm still trying to plan and prepare for the year like I do. I'm panicking that I'll miss sending in something, or that I'll find out I still have a ton of lower division work I have to do, or that - you know - I'll just fail at life.

Despite all of this fear and insecurity at my abilities in what people have over and over again told me is my field, (where are you now, community college teachers?) I am so excited to explore my major. UCI offers two emphasises in English, which basically means you take a couple extra classes to develop you skills in a specific area of English. The two offered are creative writing and literary journalism, and in my mind, the two are distinctly intriguing but also have their downfalls.

I feel like you can't be an English major and not consider creative writing as the end goal of your career, and I know that being in the program would push me - hard. But looking at the program's website makes me more fearful than excited. It looks intense, strict, competitive - exactly the kind of thing that I'm afraid would unleash my doubts in my ability and cause me to become a writing zombie - just going and going, praying that I get somewhere. Not to mention, coming up with a complete idea for a fiction story, even in my head, has eluded me. I can always get the beginning, but never the end.

Literary journalism is a little less clear cut, but from what I can gather it is essentially writing factual articles on a more personal and thoughtful level, existing on a different level than typical journalism. This sounds more like where my current writing style lies, but I also feel like I might find the field to restrictive to the kind of writing I want to do. Focused more on facts than on feeling, more on a story than the image -the emotion- that the story creates.

All the research that I've been attempting to do results in a frozen computer from the twenty Internet windows open, and more questions than answers. I guess I'll just have to hope that the match for both my talents and my desires finds me.

Or, you know, that my counselor is the bomb diggity.

The Fourth. And Beyond.

Fourth of July has never been a big day in my family. The ritual to the 4th (it seems like all holidays have a level of ritualism to them) seems to be just as much concerned with laziness as anything else. Sleep in, have a late breakfast, walk down to the city street fair with Lisa - which involves the purchase of Guatemalan friendship bracelets and silly junk that only seems like a good idea before you've bought it, the eating of something either a)fried or b)ice cream and making a mess of eating it, and lastly, complaining about the heat. The rest of the afternoon is usually spent enjoying the Twilight Zone Marathon (which, to my dismay, was canceled last year. Still not sure if it will be back) either with Lisa or my sister. The fireworks are enjoyed casually and without pretense with the family. The event is always viewed with a certain level of nonsense - over exaggerating the "oohs" and "ahhs", and commenting on the often unpredictable fireworks show itself. Something technical always seems to go wrong.

Despite all of this, there is always a feeling of reverence lingering in the back of my mind. Whether it's a result of the day's significance, routine drilled into my head over 19 years, or just an excuse to not feel guilty for being lazy, is hard to say. But I'm not ignorant. I know that as I grow older, and move forward or sideways or whatever direction I'm going, holiday rituals like this begin to run out. I'll have to make my own days and my own rituals, and that's not at all exciting, but it does make this weekend all the more important.

Then again, each day has just as much potential to be as important as the day before it - holiday or not. Ever sense I was little, I've subconsciously done this thing on holidays, where I say to myself, "Wow, this is (Holiday). I've waited a whole year for it and now it's here". When really, I should be saying, "Wow, today has never happened before. I've been waiting my whole life for it, and now it's here".

Today is the 2nd of July, in my 19th year. It's the only one I'll ever get, and it's here.

The first summer concert of 2011

Last night I went to a concert. The music was great, the band had tons of energy, and everyone was incredibly nice.

So, who was this uber incredible band I went to see? Oh, just a little group called...

Harry and the Potters!

I can just see your eyes rolling now. What, did the last couple of  "thoughtful" posts make you forget the fact that I am a complete and utter nerd? Well, guess what, I am.

As I'm sure you've already guessed, this band writes songs about harry potter. I first heard them when I was a freshman in high school (2005...I think?), when one of the captains on color guard started playing their songs during warm up from time to time. At that point I was already a harry potter freak, but I was also incredibly shy, so I didn't say much about it.

Time passed, the senior class graduated, and I kind of forgot about the band. Fast forward to last Sunday. I make a quick trip to the library to pick up a book for my mom, and outside the library was this little sign:

My reaction was somewhere along these lines: *points fingers, jaw drops* th-they-ha-wha?-I-whe-ohmygosh-wha-needtogoneedtogo. Yep. I'm real articulate huh? The crowd that showed up for the show was surprisingly small, but it was a blast none the less.

Perception: Friend or Foe

It seems strange to me how differently two people can percieve and remeber the same experience. Psychology constantly begs the question, what matters more - our genetics our our environment? Just like all of these factors must be considered in psychology, I'm sure there is a myriad of things that affects our memories.

But lately, I've been thinking that our vices have just as much to do with it as our social or genetic factors. I've come to decide that everyone is insecure (not too big of a surprise there..) but also that everyone is vain. Don't we spend more time thinking about ourselfs and what others think about us than anything else? Why else would we think about what we wear, what we say, do. Why else would we strive to do well, or hate ourselves? Because at the heart of it all is self importance.

So, sometimes I wonder if people (consciously or not) actually remember the past as worse than it was because they need to believe that the present is better, that they have beat what held them back in the past.. And, hey, maybe it is and maybe they have. But the fact that we all need to find growth, improvement - instead of a plateau or stagnation, is incredibly self preserving. And self preservation is tied to our genes.

On the other side, isn't it possible to remember things better? To forget about the bad and romanticize the past? What's the first step that most people take when they encounter a problem? Pretend that it doesn't exist. Maybe it's to protect their sense of self, maybe it's because they don't want to believe that they could be anything less than happy, or maybe saying "that was me once. Wasn't I great?" is our own way of dealing with the problems of the present.

Either way, our memories can't be trusted.

Or, you know, I could just be makin' something outta nothin'. Wouldn't be the first time.

Then vs. Now

Lately I have been having this weird battle with nostalgia. Working with high school students, that phase of life is pretty much always sitting in the front of my consciousness. But the thing is, I never really associate their high school with my high school. Sure, I talk with them about my experiences, and there are tons of similarities, but high school isn't really real for me any more. It's like when I think about elementary school. When I think of it, I don't even really think about me. It's just some weird shadow that is only part me.

I was lucky to have a great high school experience, but I don't at all think of those years as the "peak" of my life. It's hard not to think back about a time when I had tons of friends and a social life, was really good at things and didn't have to work or stress about money. Now it's just the opposite, and after drifting so far away from the good things I had back then, I feel this weird unspoken drive to "win". To turn out better than the people I constantly wanted to be in high school, or at least equal. But usually, I only match them in words, not actions.

Guard contributes a lot to my perception of myself. Sure I make my money from teaching, and I will always love it, but I have also lived without guard in my life. It was so hard at first, but like anything else, I got used to it. Now, strangely, when I talk to or meet people who are still fully - even partially - apart of that world, I feel this strange sense of age. Even when these people are older than me, the fact that I have lived with out this thing that can't not consume your life makes me feel so, so - experienced, wise, old? - in comparison to them. It makes no sense, but it's proof that someone got my birthday wrong. I can't be just 19.

These thoughts all came to a head the other night, when the school I work for had a special performance, where all the girls did their own routine. Traditionally, the coaches preform too, but I didn't. a couple people came up to me, asking why and urging me to change my mind, but I just didn't want to. In high school, I would have been all for it. a year ago I would have been all for it. But now? Lately I've come to this weird acceptance that I am insignificant, and that everyone has their shot at that idealized, self centered high school experience that I had. I didn't do a routine, not because it would have been extra work, not because I was afraid to be embarrassed, but because I didn't need to. My time had come and gone, and it was my happy duty to step out of the way and let them have theirs. I felt this convoluted sense of contentment and happiness at this recognition. My only hope is that I can find it in everything. In my money stress, in my lack of social life, in the reluctant and willing choices I make.