Things are good.

Regardless of the little things that pop up in my way, like losing my wallet or getting sick, things are good. I'm falling into place piece by piece, and letting myself let go to see if others hold on. So far they are. Even though I'm behind on some things and physically feel less than perfect, I'm happy.

It's a happiness that is unassuming and maybe a little unfounded, but it is also real. I haven't felt happy like that in a while.

In the mean time, here's what I'm looking forward to:
Sleep!
Finishing Sense and Sensibility
My birthday
Hopefully spending some actual quality time with my family and best friends
Fall
Writing out some of the things in my head. I'm starting to feel inspired in a way I haven't recently, and I can't wait until I can take advantage of that. Writing makes me happier than anything.

A Recap.

I've always considered myself to be a reasonably rational, level headed, down to earth person. I feel intensely with my emotions, but always try to keep them regulated with my head. Lately though, it seems like some of my personal flaws have been coming out more. I've been more self conscious about the way I look and been putting more gravity in what people say to and about me. I've been saying all the wrong things, and my usually on point use of sarcasm has just been coming off as mean. Sometimes I just feel awkward leaving my room at all because I feel like people have no clue what I'm doing.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of this has to do with me starting over, wanting to make the absolute best of it, being terrible at making friends, and just all around feeling a little isolated from the people around me.
The worst part is, I'm sure that if I just didn't pay any attention to any of these things at all, I would feel like a part of the group by now. But it's still early, I guess.

My birthday is coming up soon. 20. It's funny, I'm so used to being the youngest person in my group of friends. This never really bothered me, though, because I always felt like we were still on the same level. Now, I'm living with a bunch of people who are more or less my age, and I'm even on the older side of things. But it doesn't feel the same. Not bad, just different.

Some people have been asking me if I feel old because my birthday is coming up. But honestly? For the past couple of years I've felt so much older than I actually am. 20 doesn't scare me. Intellectually, emotionally, I'm way past 20. But as far as experiences go, I guess I'm a little behind. Certain aspects of my life have felt stuck for a while - since high school, even. There are certain things that I just can't seem to make happen for myself. But I don't want others to make them happen for me, either. And the last thing I want is anyone to pity me.

It seems like in my life I have growing years and I have achieving years, and for some reason the two seem to be mutually exclusive. The last thing I want to do is sacrifice my success, but it feels like it has been so long since a growing year, since I've made lasting memories (with people who aren't my family) that are distinguishable - that stand out as new or exciting or worthwhile. I want that. I think I deserve it, and I think it's more than a little overdue.

I Promise this isn't about what you think it's about.

Sometimes it's hard sticking to the decisions - the promises - you make for yourself. It's enough to make me wonder why we even make commitments in the first place. Why do we decide to do anything for a longer period of time than the present? Why, after all the failed attempts at longevity, do we still make promises? What good can really come from it?

Are we motivated by some inflated sense of self righteousness? Is it the lingering notion of our eventual demise?

Why do we love?
Why do we hate?

Why is it that the promises we make always seem to cause the distinction between the two?

So often it seems like we let the logistics of human life get in the way of human life. I wish that I was one of those people who could turn off their brain for a little while and just enjoy life. But my thoughts and my promises always get in the way. And yet, for some reason, I keep making them.



*yes, I am well aware that this probably makes zero sense to anyone but me. 

Science

Believe it or not, I'm kind of liking the fact that I go to a college where my major is (in terms of the number of students who go here) rare. UCI has a great English program, but just about everyone here is majoring in some kind of science. And as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing.

Science is one of those fields that I find endlessly interesting, but have never really done too well in a formal class setting.. (Remember when I took astronomy my first year? Yeah. ) So, now that I'm at a place where just about everyone's scientific knowledge far exceeds my own, I just want to soak it up.

Seriously. I just want to listen to science people talk science talk.

If any of you still had any small, glimmering ray of hope that I'm not a complete and utter nerd, I probably just squashed it. Sorry about that.

I promise that my next post wont be about school or something that no one cares much about.

Only, you should probably take that promise with a grain of salt.

So I've been at school for a couple of days now

and I’ve been trying so, so hard to make new friends. I’m beginning to realize that the bad thing about having such a fantastic core group of friends for a long time is that you kind of forget how you got them as your friends in the first place. How do you break past the “Oh, you like food? What a coincidence because I like food too! Even if it wasn’t necessary for survival, I would still love it!” stage to the place where other people actually have some measure of interest in your life? How do you get to the place where they can ask you how your day was and actually mean it?
Then again, I’m still trying to get to the part where we talk about our mutual love of food, so I probably shouldn’t get ahead of myself.

Obviously I don’t expect to make friends in a week. I don’t really even expect to make friends in a month. I’ve been trying so hard here and I’ve met so many people - nice, kind, interesting people. I just want to feel reassured that some of these people might start to become more than just passengers on a bus or people in front of me at the Wendy’s line.

Why do I want to write?

So I can create things like this.

Maybe, one day.

I move out on Sunday,

and I don't know how to feel. In these last couple of days at home, I don't know what to do with myself. I should be getting ready, packing , but instead I find myself constantly distracted from the tasks at hand. I'm not accomplishing anything. I don't even know how to feel; sad? Excited? Instead I just end up with some blah emotion in between. When I realize I'm about 3 years behind a lot of my friends when it comes to this step, I just feel silly for thinking about it at all.

This move isn't exactly "forever", but it's definitely a step in that direction.

On 9/11

I'm trying not to think about today. On a day all will remember, some part of me just wants to forget.

Its always been apparent to me that everyone who was old enough when the attacks happened to remember them, today remembers exactly what they were doing when they heard the news. At 9, I was old enough to be cognizant of what was happening - to understand it on a certain level. Only, this understanding was on the same level as the Bogey Man or Bigfoot; it was a fear based on the anticipation of what could happen, rather than what did, and always blanketed with the promise that my parents would be there to protect me.

But now, after ten years, things are so very different. Instead of a witness to the world, I'm a participant. I'm involved. I'm responsible. Now, it could be me who is the victim of our kind's hatred. It could be me who sacrifices everything. It could be me who is left with the task of rebuilding.

And I would gladly and thoughtlessly do this.

But I don't think I'll ever stop fearing, questioning, trying to change this world that can hate itself so much.

So for now I don't think about, just in case someday it's all I do.

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.