Perfect barista, perfect student, perfect woman, perfect girlfriend, perfect wife, perfect sister, perfect daughter, perfect mother, perfect friend, perfect life, perfect person in a perfect world.

Take away all of my freedom by imposing a necessary set of hoops through which to jump, give me set requirements, and like a test rat running a maze, give me a little joy, a bit of cheese, to make sure I continue slogging through several shocks, with the ultimate goal being freedom.

Take my human colored clay, mold me into a thin, blonde, centerfold.

Give me slight intelligence, a bit of charm, and a platter of  hors d’oeuvers. Hourglass figure, watch my time tick away until I am nothing but a dried, fragile bit of artwork, dusty and high on a shelf.

Throw me away, toss me out with the garbage. Spring cleaning, new beginnings, movie is over. Pause. Rewind. Play.

Take my daughter, mold her in to what you want.

I’m perfectly tired of everyone telling me how to run my life, things I should do.

No. No.

No.

I will fail, I will regret, I will cry. My heart will break. I will make stupid decisions.

I will do things because I want to.

I don’t want to go to college.

I don’t want to be tied into a career.

I don’t want to settle in one place right away.

So, there.

Anyways.

So far, I’ve gotten everything that the pathetic romantic in me always wanted.

I’ve painted this pretty little hipster picture.

Got a job at a coffee shop, got the beautiful love story, got the freedom.

Got the angst, got the pain, got every little bit of tragedy that my cinematic heart desired.

I realized that all I ever wanted to be was a book.

I wanted an alluring cover, dark and romantic, with a tragic one word title.

I wanted to  be at least 800 pages, because the thick books are always supposed to be the best, right? Full of detail, and knowledge, and feeling.

I wanted to have footnotes, to enlighten the interested, to give space for a bit more rambling.

I wanted to be a frame story.  So deep I needed an introduction to the actual story; I am the ancient mariner.

I wanted all of that.

Now I just want to be a children’s book, full of brightly colored pictures and a few one or two syllable words, a few solid characters, a moral, and a happy ending.

All I really want is a happy ending.

That is how it will be, except that in reality, both today and later, one will stand there with a palpable body and a real head,  a real forehead, that is , for smiting on with one’s hand.”  Franz Kafka, The Bachelor’s Ill Luck

I hate to be one of those people that quotes modern classics to prove a point, and I’m not a big fan of Kafka, to be perfectly honest. In fact, I just picked up his works today, and am only half way through a compilation of his material, but I’m not a fan so far.

However, this piece of literature spoke to me. Well, a former fear of mine.

Everyone is scared that they’ll be forever alone, worried that no one will ever be the other piece of the puzzle that is themselves. People wake up, spend hours preening themselves, picking the perfect shades of green or blue, hoping to attract a mate for life, for the moment, for whatever; looking for fulfillment, justification, love and appreciation.

I am no longer scared of being forever alone. I have learned two very cliche things about love and happiness.

1) You will never be able to find love if you do not love yourself.

2) Love will find you while you are sitting outside of a coffee shop.

Thank you, Landon Pigg.

I have learned through trial and trial again that if I am not confident in myself, sure that I am competent and healthy and whole, then no one else will be sure of these things either.

There are days when I wake up feeling like a dragon. My breath smells rank, my hair is wild and untamed, my eyes are thick with sleep and my heart is heavy because my jeans no longer fit. I am cranky and tired and in desperate need of a cigarette and caffeine .

And while I’m stuffing myself into ill worn jeans, scratching my head in frustration and angst, searching for a lighter, cursing like a sailor, and not giving a damn about my smelly mouth, there is a man laying in bed, staring lazily at me, eyes full of wonder and love, smiling because he thinks I’m silly, because he loves me for my flaws.

This is a man that stands solid when life sweeps my feet out from under me, is fearless when I’m angry, tender when I’m a broken down, fragile, shattered mess, and does not get irritated when I change the channel to CSI every single time he sets the remote down.

This magnificent creature found me skipping class at Starbucks, asked me where I was from, and promptly stole my heart. Six months later, we are engaged to be married.

I am going to spend the rest of my life with this man. And I love him for his flaws.

I love that he makes stupid decisions on occasion, gets frustrated with life, pushes everything until it breaks, and sometimes lets things get to him. I love that he picks at me, and I at him. I love his scruffy hair, scruffy shorts, scruffy face.  I love that he loves me.

Am I worried that I’ll ever be alone? No. Not a chance in a million years.

Because, honestly, if he loves me when I have smelly breath and am being bitchzilla, he will love me when I’m not.

And then I went to Starbucks and bought a ton of coffee

And then I sat around, waiting for True Blood and Teen Mom to come on and now that I’ve watched them I decided I want to be pregnant and be a vampire at the same time. D

But I think the best thing about today was when I decided that I should get on Tumblrrrr and post my meaningless thoughts on the interwebs because I think I’m intelligent and relevant and that what I think is interesting to other people.

I like pop tarts.

Oh my goshhhh guysss! So, my dog totally just barked like super loud. What the heck?! Since when did dogs bark? I mean, seriously? Seriously? I  guess this is just another case of every day occurring things just blowing my tiny, Facebook absorbed brain.

Becky stole my boyfriend, that betch. I don’t understand why Brad would leave me for that easy, two bit crack whore. Maybeeee it’s because she’s not orange and stupid and actually understands that pants are not a fashion accessory, they’re required, and that me texting him 24/7 isn’t cute, it’s stalkering.

Hah, stalkering. I love using big wordssss. <3

Well anyways guysss, I think I’m going to go finish more homework and fantasize about crawling up Robert Pattison’s ass while I Google exactly what ‘hot pants’ are and how I can get some so I can have them on and up, with Jesus on my necklace. Everyone loves Jesus right? I think he plays soccerrr for Brazill or something. <3

Well, anywayssssss. Goodnight. <3

When you change jobs, your views of people will change too.

Now that I work at the one and only local hang out, I’ve realized that my generation is a collective group of pop culture rejects with no taste in music, and a lack of appreciation for literature and sciences.

My generation is a collective hack job of over glamorized idols, glitter, thug life, and teen pregnancy.

We’re all taught that everyone is special and talented in their own ways.

We’re also lied to apparently.

Like, Ohmigod.

Anyways.

Where I’ve  been for the past six months:

High school. Graduating.

Car. Moving.

Starbucks. Working.

Walgreens. Working.

New York. Partying.

Walgreens. Quitting.

Starbucks. Working and loving it.

Airport. Boyfriend came back.

Moving. Boyfriend and I decided to house jump.

Starbucks. Working.

Floral design school. Working.

Coldstone Creamery. Boyfriend working.

Shell gas station. Boyfriend working.

Home. Drinking and eating Chinese food.

I mean, you get the idea.

Boyfriend.

He spoils the crap out of me. Seriously.

And he does my laundryyyyy <33

But really. This kid is amazing. Almost six months of amazing and fantastic and clean clothes and snuggling and cuddling and food and sleep in the same bed and laughing and the ‘first thing in the morning cigarette’ together.

And the  best part? I can fart in front of him. And he doesn’t care. He just tries to out fart me. He lets me cry all over his shirt and get mascara every where. He goes to dinner with me. He’s pretty and funny and silly.

And he smokes a pipe.

And he has the worst sense of style of anyone I’ve ever met, but I love him anyways.

So, here’s an update.

This is my life now. I’m content.

To true Christians, it’s a celebration of when Jesus rose from the grave.

To Muslims, Easter means nothing,  because they do not believe Jesus was the son of God.

Jews believe something along the same lines.

Personally, I hate Easter. And Christmas. But I really hate Easter.

To me, Easter means death.

I hate Easter because it has become such a twisted, warped, corporate holiday.

Easter means massive amounts of sugar, chocolate, marshmallow. Easter means bunnies. And chickens. And hiding eggs.

Easter means a cashier will stand behind a counter ten minutes past closing, waiting for you to decide which Cadbury egg you really want to put in a basket, after she’s worked non stop for seven hours.

Easter means crazy shoppers. Easter means rage over a 12 cent difference on a piece of chocolate.

Easter means throwing gummy worms at unsuspecting cashiers, who despite their best efforts, cannot always give you exactly what you want.

It means being told you’re stupid, useless, and worthless, all because someone didn’t get a 20 cent discount on a wicker basket.

Easter is still a sacred holiday, but for all the wrong reasons.

Most people don’t know the origins of Easter, or that the Easter bunny and the eggs are all Pagan in basis and have nothing to do with Jesus.

So, all of these Christians are buying baskets filled with chocolate and pretending a bunny left them, after he hid all of your eggs.

Which brings me to my second point.

Bunnies do not lay eggs. Bunnies do not hide eggs. The egg is actually symbolic of  spring, depending on which branch of neopaganism you ask.

How the hell did someone decide bunnies and chicken eggs belonged together?  And that we should hide them?

What a novel idea.

The logic behind that one escapes me.

To me Easter means “Jesus died, lets eat chocolate that a rogue bunny left in a basket by my bed last night. Oh shit, Jesus is coming back! Thank goodness that rouge bunny hid all of our eggs, because we would hate for Jesus to get them. Oh, by the way, did you go throw gummy worms at that adorable cashier? No? Well, lets do that. It seems like a good idea to demoralize and humiliate some unsuspecting, well meaning person. I mean, after all, what would Jesus do?”

What would Jesus do?

I’m fairly certain Jesus would shake his head at society. Jesus would tell you gently, but firmly, that Easter is not a time to load up on sugar. It is not a time to hide eggs. It is a time to worship what you believe, as a Christian, and to renew your faith.  Jesus would tell you to stop worshiping false idols, and to be rid of Pagan influences.

As someone who is not particularly religious, I see this sort of hypocrisy as the worst. I don’t subscribe to any particular ‘branch of Christianity’. I don’t go to church. I haven’t read the Bible in a very long time. Yet, I still have enough sense to know what is right from wrong, according to Christians.

So, when you stuff that chocolate covered marshmallow bunny into your mouth tomorrow morning, think about what Easter means to you, whether it be an excuse to stuff your face, or an actual celebration of the resurrection  of Christ.

I don’t care if you use it as an excuse to eat candy, because Easter may not mean anything to you if you don’t believe in Jesus, and that’s fine. However, Christians should know better than to worship false idols. If Easter means Jesus has risen, it does not mean hide the eggs.

I feel like a shit shoveler.

I’m the sort of person that likes to compartmentalize different aspects of my life. Work, school, jobs, relationships, all of that has it’s own little spot to hide and live in.

Except for now everything has decided to become like spaghetti and be so wound up and intertwined that I can’t begin to make out where one thing starts and another thing ends. It’s quite frustrating.

School is dependent on living situations which is dependent on jobs. Relationships are floating around in all of this somewhere.

If I don’t get another job, I won’t be able to afford to live. If I can’t live, I will die. If I don’t have stability, there is no way in hell I’m going to be able to put myself through college.

In six months, I can either move to another state with my parents, or stay here and go to the college I’ve been accepted into. If I don’t go, I’ll have to work two jobs for a long time to become stable and go to school.

It’s now come down to whether I want to struggle very hard and be miserable, but independent and in school, or if I want to go to Alabama and have things easy and not go to school.

I mean, it’s really not a hard choice. No school is not an option.

Which leaves me with six months to save up enough money to venture out on my own. It also leaves me with no family here to speak of, and probably a good bit of charity from people.

It’s frustrating. And terrifying.

And truly irritating.

But everything worth having is worth working for, it seems.

And relationships.

Fuck them to hell and back. I’m just about sick of putting all of my effort into them, only to have them end explosively and horribly. Maybe it’s just me. I mean, I am the common denominator in all of these equations.  But regardless of whether it’s me or them, its just about all I can take to have to deal with all of the other bullshit in my life plus relationship garbage.

I felt it was time for an update, is all. I don’t really blog much anymore simply because it’s the same old shit you’ve all read before, or I don’t have time.

But, I can tell you that in the next year, a lot will happen, a lot will be different. Tears will be shed, laughs had, experiences gained, wisdom will abound.

I can also tell you that if I don’t quit running into ex boyfriends at my local Starbucks and second home, I might just line them all up and pick them off with a rifle, one by one.

And, money will make your hair turn grey faster than time.

AND,   I have decided that everything in the future will run off of love and friendship, that way I don’t have to worry about this money shit, and I’ll be set for life.

Alas, hello reality. How are you today? Oh, well thats nice. I’m drowning alive over here. You planned it that way? Well, now it make sense.

And I was never looking for approval from anyone but you
And though this journey is over I’ll go back if you ask me to

I’m not dead just floating
Right between the ink of your tattoo
In the belly of the beast we turned into
I’m not scared just changing
Right beyond the cigarette and the devilish smile
You’re my crack of sunlight

You can do the math a thousand ways but you can’t erase the facts
That others come and others go but you always come back
I’m a winter flower underground always thirsty for summer rain
And just like the change of seasons
I know you’ll be back again

I’m not dead just floating
I’m not scared just changing

Relationships are a two way street. They are not the sort of thing where one person does all the work and the other person just floats along on the bliss of being taken care of.

You work as partners, supporting and approving of each other. I mean, that’s one of the main reasons you get involved in relationships to begin with.

So, please forgive me when I get upset because you can’t handle not being the end all be all caretaker man thing.

About a month ago, I tripped and fell in love. It was approximately an eight story fall, but I wasn’t worried about it because I knew there would be arms at the bottom to catch me.

At least, that’s what I was told.

Now I’m all splattered on the concrete.

I can’t quite fathom how someone who is going through so much shit in their life would try and get rid of something that was solid and good, how you can just wake up one day and not need love.

Sometimes when people lose control of situations, they freak out. Other times people calmly try to regain their composure, dust the dirt off, and keep moving on.

Some people just can’t handle not being in control of every aspect of their lives, so when shit hits the fan and everything else falls to pieces they exercise control over the only things they can.

For example: Living situations, jobs, futures, ect. are all up in the air, perched precariously. Everything you’ve worked for, all the stability you’ve struggled so hard for is gone. You have nothing but the broken bits scattered around you. The only solid thing you have left is your relationship. So, to remind yourself that you’re actually in control of some aspect of your life, you make a decision to cut it off.

Because sometimes when you can’t make a move with anything, you need to make ‘solid’ decisions to place the power to control your life back in your hands.

So, in that aspect, I can understand it.

What if. I hate that phrase. You can what if everything until you die. What if this happens?! What if that happens?! What if the sky turns to fire and your nose falls off?

Well, IF that happens, it happens and there is not a damn thing you can do to change it.

If you let what ifs tie you back, make you worry, make you sweat, then you will live a very boring, stressful, sweaty life. No one will want to be your friend.

You can never know the outcome of something until it’s all done and said.

Step outside of yourself and consider my point of view before you start making rash decisions, please.

Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. You’ll be fine.

A side note: I am my own person. I have dreams and goals and aspirations. I will not trade them for the world. Don’t you think for a second that any one person will take those things away from me, or that I would give them up for someone. I’m not stupid.

I will, however, alter the timing and location of said dreams/goals/aspirations if I see a need. Everything I want to accomplish in life is not tied to a location, time, day, person, ect. I can go to school anywhere, but I will study theatre and education. I can teach at any school, but I will continue to teach and I will continue to act. My job allows me to transfer anywhere in the world where there is an open position, but I’ll still process photos until I finish college.

If I can do all of these things, and still keep you in my life, then I see it as a win of a situation.

Yes, things will be difficult. Yes, there will be time where we’re apart. Yes, it might suck.

But nothing good comes easy, and things that come easy are never good.

Just some food for thought.

There are about a billion different interpretations of this song, and most of them make sense in one way or another. All I can say is props to Mr. Bird for incorporating mitosis into a song. It’s probably not easy. I couldn’t do it.

I just wanted to share this with everyone.

On a different note: I’ve been reading erotica for the last week, and I’ve come to a conclusion.

My conclusion is thus- Most of the erotica I’ve read involved an insane physical attraction, followed by copious amounts of insane sex, followed by love.

Lust+monkey sex=love?

What?

Aside from being print porn for literate people with imaginations, erotica is basically a womans wish fulfilled. Great sex where you orgasm every time, sexy men, and love. Pure, passionate love.

And I guess that makes sense. Except, in that order, things will never happen. I’m skeptical about sex then love. Or, more specifically, sex causing you to fall in love with someone.

I don’t know. It seems too…..something.

Josh told me a story today:

“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful velociraptor by the name of Canned Ice. She was the best of all the other velociraptors. She snuck around her prey like a fucking ninja out of one of those ninja movies, you know, the ones from Japan? Anyways, one day, she was in the forrest, and wouldn’t you know, there was a man. “I must have him” she thought. Although, it is debatable as to whether or not dinosaurs were capable of thinking in English, but that’s for another story. Anyway, so there she was, ninja-ing around this dude, when BAM got fucking hit by a car. But the magical genie of the sky saw this and felt sorry for her, so he lent her his own genie power so that she could live. And so, Canned Ice, the Geninjasaur was born.”

I’m stressed now. I’m done.

But everything you do is leading to the point
Where you just won’t know what to do.
And at that moment you may laugh
But there is someone there who will be laughing louder than you.
So it’s true, the trick is complete.
Become everything you said you never would be.
You’re a fool! You’re a fool!
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset.
Sunrise and the sunsets.
Sunrise, sunset, sunrises, sunsets.
Sunrise and the sunsets.
Sunrise, sunset.
Go home to your apartment
And put the cassette in the tape deck and let that fever play.
Sunrise, sunset

This pretty much sums up my feelings right now. Thank you, Bright Eyes. There are numerous times in my thoughts where songs are just so much easier to use to explain how I’m feeling. I identify with them so strongly, it’s almost as if I wrote them.

I’m at the point where there is so much to say, I’m rendered speechless; so much to think, I’m almost thoughtless. So much to feel, I’m almost careless.

But as I’m on top of Manic Mountain, I can see the Valley of Apathy far below. It’s a long fall, you know, and I’m careless, thoughtless, and speechless.

I will stumble, not care, and the scream will never come.

The more I post, the more stable I am. I know it seems crazy, because when I post a lot it’s always up and down, crazy stuff which seems like I’m really not okay.

But, if I’m feeling things, I’m functioning. If I’m not feeling anything, not posting, not writing, there is a problem.

I’m like a small child.

Silence is a sign of trouble, of a mind preoccupied, of danger.

And it happens just like it does every other time.

You’ll be minding your own, absorbed in your thoughts. Suddenly, you will realize that I have dropped off of the face of the earth.

Then you will all frantically contact me, eyes wild and heart racing.

I will shortly snub you out, and resume my silent brewing.

And you will be hurt for a bit, then resume your thoughts.

Don’t worry at all. It’s normal.

Normal. What a paradox.

Today, I feel like silence.

The universe is shaped exactly like the earth; if you go straight long enough you’ll end up where you were.

Causality: the relationship between a cause and an effect.

Downward causality: a situation where a cause-and-effect relationship in a system is flipped upside down.

The mind perceives itself as the cause of certain feelings.

In reality, emotions and desires are nothing more than neurons and synapses firing off, and when you dig to the bones, quantum mechanics.

I spent about twenty minutes thinking about this. I really did.

Plato believed that mind and body were two different things, that the soul was immortal and because it was not on the material/biological plain it would live on forever. Because everything that lives will die, right?

So, why is it we feel like we’re living when we’re feeling?

Our feelings are a product of a biological process.

It makes little sense to me to say that feelings, which are chemical processes, are signs of a soul, which is not a biological thing, and that because we feel and desire, that bit of us will live on forever. Or that we can control it.

This boils down to downward causality: You believe that you are the source of your desires and feelings, because of your self-consciousness, but you know that feelings and emotions are chemical reactions and electrical impulses.

The causality of this situation is something I cannot fully grasp.

Your body will die. It will decompose and waste away. Your emotions, your consciousness, will cease to exist when your lungs stop pumping oxygen to your heart, because without oxygen your synapses do not fire. You will be dead.

The science behind your soul will die.

And I’m supposed to believe that, by some miracle, my ‘soul’ will live on immortally.

This is a strange loop.

This is a strange loop because you can change the way you feel. You have the power to stop your hate, to make yourself happy, to change what you desire.

Yet, the only reason you have these powers is because what you use to change them is what caused them.

This is tragic but true.

Tragic because everyone wants to think that if you fuck up on earth, you will be punished in an afterlife, or if you’ve done a good job you will be rewarded in eternity.

But, the beautifully ironic part is that no matter what you think, what you do, what you believe, you will die.

And not a bit of this will matter because you’ll be dead.

So when today rolled around, I almost exploded with excitement.

Because I sort of had a Valentine. Well, at least the potential for one.

I got up, got all cute and stuff, and headed off to school.

“I don’t really believe in Valentine’s Day.  I think it’s stupid. You shouldn’t have to have all this build up for one day, blah blah blah, you should do that all the time, blah blah blah, I’m dumb and you’re not my Valentine, just so you don’t have any assumptions or anything, because if you did I just shot them ALL TO HELL.” ~ Ex-Potential Valentine

I said it was cool and didn’t matter. I said it was fine he was going to hang out with his stupid friends and do stupid male things. I said it was all okay. I said I didn’t have any assumptions.

I lied my ass off.

And I responded with one word answers. Like ‘K’.

‘K’ is the answer boys get when girls are irritated.

But he still wanted to hang out with me even after he spent time with his stupid friends and did stupid male things and stupid stuff, so I went over to his house.

And he epically redeemed himself. Before I got out of the car he was handing me a rose, a super cute hand made card, and OREO BROWNIES WITH HOT PINK ICING.

I’ve said all that to say this: I don’t give two shits if you think Valentines Day is a holiday that is all corporate and whatever. I just want you to think about your girlfriend/interest’s face when ALL of her friends are getting cute stuff from their significant others, and yours is not. I want you to think about how lame she feels because the guy she’s into doesn’t celebrate Valentines Day.

I know it’s tons of stress, blood, sweat and tears, but it’s worth it.

“If you hate Valentine’s Day so much, why go through the effort with the card and flower and whatnot?” I asked.

“Because it made you smile.”

Besides, in a month it will be Steak and BJ Day.

And your girlfriend will look back on today in exactly one month, and treat you accordingly.