In Which.. Finals.

I’ve been told by my favorite person Kona that I’m not aloud to say the f-word but FINALS FINALS FINALS FINALS FINALS goodness I can’t stop stressing and studying and talking about them.

So while I stress, feel free to answer one or more question for me in the comments.

• Why is high school so stupid?
• What’s your favorite color?
• Seriously can I just go back to eighth grade I mean come on
• WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW IS IT A GOOD SONG OR IS IT JUST SILENCE
• What’s your favorite TV show? (Because I need new ones to waaaaatch to reward myself with)
• Seriously guys is there some sort of TARDIS that I can buy that I can just stay in and travel the world and study in and then show up on the days that I’m supposed to take my tests?
• Would it be terribly rude if I stopped writing here?

(I suppose that last one answers itself, but. Life.)

~Feebs

“A Wife’s Guide to Keeping Your Private Life Private” (A Story)

1. Place a drop of concealer – carefully picked out, it has to look natural, has to matchyour skin tone just right – onto the pad of your finger. Pat it onto your face – gently now, try not to flinch, he may be watching. Blend it, smooth it out, make it even, that’s a good girl. Add more as needed.
2. Never forget the age defying eye cream; you’re too young to have these bags under your eyes.
3. Add your powder now, ignore the stings, keep that concealer in place. Can’t have it fading away midday, that wouldn’t do at all. Pack all of your makeup in your bag, just in case.
4. Make your eyes look as interesting as possible – not too interesting, mind you. He wouldn’t like that at all. Just enough to distract the viewer. Use your colors now, draw out all of the highly pigmented eyeshadows you own. Keep it interesting, keep it distracting and when you’re out in public, do not stop talking. It’s much harder to spot when they’re distracted by your words. Speak with your hands, if at all possible, keep the attention away from your thinly covered bruising.
5. For the lipstick, chose something between ‘professional’ and ‘wild’. Not too wild, never too wild. He’d be upset with you, then. Just enough to draw the attention away.
6. Another dab of concealer, bit more powder.
7. Helpful Hint; Remember to plaster on that winning smile of yours. If you fake it long enough maybe you’ll believe it as much as they do.

Helping Or Hurting?

Helping others, in my humble opinion, is a definite waste of time unless the person you’re trying to help wants to be helped.

Perhaps I should add a disclaimer now: you’ll probably disagree with me and/or resent me a little bit for this post. But see, it’s my blog, and that kind of means I’ll write what I please.

Now. In my Personal Health class, we’ve been talking a lot about victims of domestic violence and such. (Bear in mind that this doesn’t exclusively apply to domestic abuse victims.) My health teacher, Ms. H, urges us to convince anyone that we know may be victims to recognize that they are victims and whatnot, and help them get away from the situation the best we can, and whatever.

And that’s all fine and dandy — but who are you to get into the business of another person, another relationship, another family? If you’re not asked for help, what makes you so special that you can decide for this person? Who are you to judge them?

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying never help people and always victim-blame and gooooooooooo abusers! Not at all, actually. And of course, there are exceptions to what I’m saying — there are exceptions to everything — but if a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman, or a man and a man, or whatever, chose to enter a relationship together, knowing what their significant other is like, then that’s their choice.

Yes. I am thoroughly against helping people who don’t want to be helped.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t state your opinion, if it’s asked, nor am I trying to impress upon you that if someone says they’re having issues you should ignore them. But if you’re around someone who knows they’re in a bad situation, and they have no real desire to find a way out of that situation, you are wasting your time and energy trying to save someone who’s perfectly content with being damned.

The old saying ‘put yourself in the other person’s shoes’, I think, is complete BS. You don’t have all the same experiences that the other person has, and what you think may be good for you in their situation could be all kinds of bad for them.

My main point? One should always keep their nose out of others’ business unless directly asked for help.

Let the disagreements roll on in.

(But seriously guys, you know I love all opinions and I want to hear them all, honestly. We can have a civil conversation and it’ll be great.)

~Feebs.

This Post Is For Liam, But About my iPod.

Liam, Head Phil, to be exact.

This post starts with me writing to Fall Out Boy’s Grand Theft Autumn, which is one of three Fall Out Boy songs on my iPod, the other two being “Dance, Dance” and “Sugar, We’re Going Down.”

As I have school in the morning, and I’d rather not think about it, let’s play What’s On Your iPod? with your host, me.

The rules? Pull out your iPod/mp3 player of choice/iTunes account/windows music player or whatever you use. Put it on all songs. Put it on shuffle. Write down the first thirteen songs to come on (because 13 is both a lucky and unlucky number). Feel free to comment on your songs, if you like. You’re welcome to participate in the comments. I am in no way forcing you.

1. Touch The Sky – Kanye West Yeezy is actually kind of one of my heroes. I’m glad he popped up first — a lot of people dislike him, but I think that if you can be so mean, and hate everyone else so much, but still be really full of yourself and think everyone loves you, you deserve a little bit of respect.

2. Forever Yours – Alex Day

3. Take This To Heart – Mayday Parade From my sixth grade collection of songs that make me sad. One of the few from that playlist that hasn’t been deleted over the years.

4. Papa’s Song – Tupac Shakur Tupac > everything.

5. Rhythm of Love – Plain White Ts

6. Guns Out – Young the Giant

7. Dancing Queen – Mama Mia! soundtrack  Thanks to Sarah for that one. It was on a mix once, I’m pretty sure.

8. Harmony – Never Shout Never

9. Don’t Shoot Me Santa – The Killers One of my very favorites. I laugh every time.

10. New York, New York – Frank Sinatra Because everybody should have at least one Frank Sinatra song on their iPod. And if you don’t have at least one Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, or Ella Fitzgerald song on your iPod, I’m judging you.

11. Superman – Eminem

12. Liars, All of Us – Chad Anderson Which, admittedly, isn’t a song, but I have quite a few Spoken Word mp3s on my iPod so I’m counting it.

13. Pink Matter – Frank Ocean ft. Andre 3000 Because, like with Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, or Ella Fitzgerald, if you don’t have any Frankie on your iPod, I’m judging you.

Okay. WISH ME LUCK AT SCHOOL TOMORROW. I love you and goodnight.

~Feebs.

And We Flood You With New Year’s Posts…

… and a list of resolutions.

I know that if you’re a WordPress subscriber, your Reader thing is full of ‘Happy New Years!’ and ‘These Are My Resolutions and I’m Counting On You to Make Sure I Keep Up with Them Because I Have No Self-Control’ lists.

This post is no different. Bear with me.

These Are My Resolutions and I’m Counting On You To Hold Me Accountable Because I Have No Self-Control.

• Take writing more seriously. I slacked this year. I slacked a lot. I had like, 40 posts on this blog this year. Seriously, it wasn’t pretty. And my OLL projects all sucked. So I do solemnly swear to post on the blog at least once a week, and write at least 200 words per day.
• Revise, Edit, and Make Use of the Createspace Code. I’ve been revising my Camp NaNo ’11 novel for the last two weeks, and though it’s SO ANNOYING and tedious, I am fully committed to revise it as many times as it needs, because I want this to be one that I can fully say that I’m done with at some point. (also I changed a lot of the plot so there’s a ton of rewriting ahead of me.)
• Stay focused. I’m a girl who does really well with goals. I know where I’m going with most things. But sometimes I forget that? So. I hereby resolve to put my schoolwork and self-betterment projects (writing, for the most part) above my social or laziness needs.
• reform. I have a confession. I’ve been writing Spoken Word poetry. It’s not great. But I have written some, and it’s okay. I’d like to perform some before the year is up, because I like to share my words.
• Continually have at least two work-in-progresses. If I don’t have an array of things to work on, I won’t work on anything. I know this about myself and yet I continue to try to focus on only one thing at a time. SO. I want at least two ongoing projects at any time.
• Be more involved. In school stuff and community (volunteering and whatnot), for the most part.

That’s all I can think of. So. Guess those are my resolutions.

I LOVE YOOOOU. HAPPY NEW YEAR. 2013 is going to be our year, I promise. And if it’s not, then 2014 is just around the corner.

~Feebs.

So We Write About Who We Are And Why That Matters.

Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah , Joyous Kwanzaa, and Happy New Year to you all.

(Fun Fact: Today is the third day of Kwanzaa. Those who celebrate today are celebrating Ujima, which is like.. community.)

Anyway, I wanted to do a little self-reflection, seeing as it’s the holiday season and whatnot.

See, there’s this poet. His name is Adam Falkner and he is amazing. But the point is he’s got this poem that’s really great, called My Father’s Family, and in this poem he has this line:

“So we write, about who we are, and why that matters.”

And he goes on to spit more really sick lines, and it’s beautiful, but that one line got me thinking. Who are we, and why do we matter? Obviously I can’t speak for you, but the question has prompted a bit of soul-searching on my part.

So I got to writing, about who I am, and why it matters.

 

I am multiracial , and proud of it. I’m affectionate to a lot of different people, but I only really love a few. I think too much. I drink too much tea and chew too much ginger. I think women are beautiful and men are too. I have dreams bigger than my head and my head is pretty big in a figurative sense (as well as in a literal sense, especially if you count my hair). I believe in a universal good, and in a universal evil, and I think that a little bit of both exists in each of us. I think it’s a waste of time to be offended or insulted, so I try my best to avoid it. I pull my own hair when I’m scared, or nervous, or upset. I get test anxiety even though I know I always do well, and I get social anxiety although I know people generally like me. I miss my best friend. I lie, a lot. I constantly write letters to the people I care about most, but few of them are ever read. I believe more in myself than I do any sort of Higher Power. I stumble over my words and my own two feet, at lot. I am my father’s daughter, with all of the aggression and intensity and beauty that comes along with that. I am someone who knows exactly how cruel kids can be. And I know exactly how cruel I can be. I am someone who will one day have lines of people, waiting to meet her. I matter because I know that one day I’ll do something fantastic; and people will see me in the streets and want to shake my hand.

Who are you?

~Feebs

The Absolute End of the World.

Well, it was going to happen sooner or later. What do I mean by that? I mean December 21st. The end of the world.

And while I think it’s all nonsense, it’s good-natured nonsense and I can play along just fine.

Things I Will Be Doing On The Day The World Ends

• Drinking the packet of (really expensive) Earl Grey tea that I’ve been saving
• Volunteering at the food bank
• Lurking around Tumblr
• Laughing at people on Facebook
• Carrying my towel around with me.

That’s it.

The end of the world approaches. Be sure to keep your towel handy.

Good luck,

Feebs.

In Which I Shamelessly Plug Things That I Like.

Here are some things that I like and you should like them too. Or not. But you could look at them if you like.

• Sarah Mernaugh Photography. Go like the page right now. You’ll be happy you did. ALSO MY FACE IS THERE. But mostly Olivia’s face. BUT MY FACE TOO.
• Surrender by Sonya Hartnett. Made my life worth living.
• The Hobbitby J. R. R. Tolkien. He’s my hero. Also read the book BEFORE THE MOVIE COMES OUT ON DECEMBER 14TH.
• Stranezza’s blog. Which most of you know already. I mean, c’mon guys. He’s quoted on my sidebar. The man is a genius.
• Whilst on the subject of blogs, look on my sidebar for more. Like Lectin‘s. Or Sarah Beth’s. Or Liam‘s. JUST LOOK ON THE SIDEBAR.
• Phil Kaye’s “Hip Hop Lullaby“.
• The video game Fallout 3. It’s my favorite in the history of ever.
• Script Frenzy. Even though it’s been cancelled. WHICH IS WHY IN APRIL I AM STAGING MY OWN SCRENZY. Maybe with some other people too. That’d be fun. Join me? <3
• The Godfather.
• Twitter > Facebook
• The movie The Mist because THAT ENDING. YOU GUYS. THAT ENDING.
• Melly. She’s lovely and my favorite and I love her.
• Some other stuff.

~Feebs.

 

A Non-List.

There are a number of reasons why I make lists.

Believe it or not, I’m fighting the urge to make this post a list about why I feel this strong connection with lists.

Mostly, I think it’s a thought-organizer that I’m happy with. I mean, my room is a mess, my closet is a mess, my purse and schoolbag are both very, very messy, and if my high school had lockers I’m sure that’d be a mess too.

But my writing desk is like, the most organized thing in my life. And I try to organize my thoughts as much as possible, which is easy to do with lists because, well, they’re just bulletpointed facts with no need for transitions and can come in any order and they’re pretty rad.

So, in case you couldn’t tell, I really really really like lists. I have notebooks filled with lists. About anything and everything. Maybe I’ll post some of those someday. That’d be cool.

IN OTHER NEWS. New theme. Well, old theme, but it’s back again. I think I like it. It’s darker now, so you can see the snow. ENJOY THE SNOW.

~Feebs

In Case You Don’t Know Me Well Enough.

Here is a list of things about me that you may or may not have noticed by now.

Things You May or May Not Have Noticed by Now.

• I don’t share well. Like, at all.
• I’m always tired. Like. ALWAYS.
• I chew on my straws. It drives people who drink off of me insane, but, I do.
• I don’t cry easily. Well, not like actual tears anyway. I have been known to tear up at TV shoes (THAT SHOULD SAY SHOWS, BUT I WANT TO LEAVE IT AS SHOES SO WHATEVER), though.
• Whenever I’m in a bad mood I just look at the David Tennant tag on Tumblr and my day is made completely better by his facial expressions. Allons-y!
• I am definitely not a forgiving person. I mean, I am if you apologize and mean it. I can let go of pretty much anything as long as the other person apologizes. But if you just give me weepy looks all the time, I don’t like you.
• My all-time favorite romance movie is A Walk To Remember. I don’t know why.
• I’ve decided that when I do have kids (a long, loooooong way down the road), I’d be happy with three boys. Boys are cool.
• My tummy hurts in the worst sort of way.
• Chuck Palahniuk is my favorite person ever.
• I watched the last of David Tennant as the Doctor last night. Broke my heart, I swear it did. Also can I just say that HIS LAST LINE. Irony and all that, yes, because guys. It hurt.
• Rap music is one of the biggest things that I care about. I mean, music in general, but especially hip hop. And there are so many stereotypes about it and judgements tagged to it that it breaks my heart.
• I get scared a lot, but I’ve gotten better at hiding it.
• I’m not actually an airhead, contrary to popular belief.
• I am so very interested in other people’s lives. I want to know their problems, how they’re going to solve them, what scares them and what they love. Maybe it’s because I’m nosy or maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but either way I think it’s beautiful. Life, that is.
• I’m sleepy.
• I’m going to bed now.
• I love you.

~Feebs.

I Find Myself Listening to Poetry.

I find myself listening to poetry and feeling my heart ache from the beauty of it all. I sit at my computer and I listen to my favorite, Carlos Andrés Gómez (yeah, I want you to remember all three, yeah I want you to say them like me, and yeah, I want you to remember both fucking accent marks), and my heart aches for him and the people he speaks about, or I’ll listen to Zora Howard and connect to her better than I have to almost anybody, and it hurts my heart and gives me this sense of melancholy and this desire to change the word.

I could do a big long post about it, but I won’t. Instead I’ll just say thank you Sarah Beth for linking me to some, and everybody who hasn’t listened to any spoken word ever needs to, and I’ll post a couple of my favorites at the end for you.

In other news, I won NaNoWriMo last night with a grand total of 50070 words even. It was a stretch and I may have inserted quite a few crappy and long dream scenes but I did it, even though I didn’t think I would. So congrats to me. ALSO CONGRATS TO EVERYONE ELSE WHO WON OR ATTEMPTED. You guys are all my heroes. You’re lovely.

I’ve got a year in writing to plan (I’ll post my game plan when it’s done), so I’d better be off. But here are some spoken word videos for you to watch in my absence.

(Oh. Warning: They may or may not use ‘foul language’. Just so you know.)

That’s Carlos. He’s my hero.

That’s Zora Howard. She’s also my hero.

Anyway, I love you. Kay. Bye.

~Feebs

Don’t Tell Me About Love.

Romance is this freaking huge part of kind of everything to a lot of people. I mean, I’m sure that I could put it more poetically than that, but I think I hit the nail on the head with that one.

Now, I could totally go in-depth with this, and talk about people and psychological issues surrounding love and whatnot, but I want to speak of romance in a purely literary sense.

If I pick up any YA, general fiction, or mystery book made in the last forty years, there’s a pretty big chance that it will at least feature a romantic sub-plot or two. A lot of times (especially in YA and general/mainstream fiction), a relationship is the center that the book revolves around. It happens.

It’s especially bad [and I use the term ‘bad’ really loosely] in TV. I mean, I watch a lot of shows. Some of them are made for teens, others for young adults and still others for general audiences or whatever other target audiences marketing people have discovered (I mean, they can come up with some pretty crazy stuff. Like, This year, we want this show’s target audience to be seventeen year old boys who have dropped out of high school but had amazing potential while in it. Also, pregnant twelve year olds. Like. What?). ANYWAY, a lot of these shows are like, “CAN’T HAVE A TV PLOT WITHOUT SOME ROMANTIC ANGST”.

And really, it’s great and all, don’t get me wrong. Like I said, romantic stuff is a big part of some people’s lives and whatever. It’s engaging, you start to feel for these characters, all that. It’s great for ratings and book sales.

But we, as authors or TV script writers or producers or anything of the sort, don’t portray real love often enough. We [and by ‘we’, I mean ‘they’, but I don’t want to present them as something bad. I don’t like Us vs. They statements, sooo.] stick to what we’ve read in other books, seen in other movies and TV shows, to what we know the audience is okay with.

And the audience accepts the love that’s portrayed. Maybe it’s all the built-up angsty love, or the I just met you but I love you so let’s get married or the friends who don’t want to be just friends and they all know it but they don’t do anything about it, or maybe even semi-emotionally abusive relationships (that the audience often defends – “He’s only trying to make her better” or more common, “She can’t be abusive! It’s not abuse if she’s a girl!”).

And a lot of us love watching these things. We laugh when they are happy and cry when they break up or whatever.

And then we expect our relationships with other people – not just lovers, mind you, but with parents or best friends or acquaintances or crushes – to mirror the relationships that we see on TV, and a lot of times, it just isn’t the case.

All too often, we don’t tell the truth about these things, because until we meet it, we don’t know what the truth is. We’ve just got all these jumbled up ideas in our heads from the Disney movies we watched as kids and never really stopped watching as we grew.

So don’t tell me about love. Don’t tell me that in order for love to occur, the person has to be sporty and perfect, or artsy and eternally flawed. Don’t tell me that love conquers all or that the first person you ever ‘love’ will be your soul mate. Don’t tell me that true love is endless or that love is what the world revolves around. Don’t tell me about love.

Because sometimes it’s just not true.

Anyway, I know this post is long, and I’m not entirely sure if it made any sense at all, as I’m running on only a few hours of sleep and also all my creative energies are being burned up because of NaNo (10k behind, I’ll catch up eventually).

I love you. I’ll write soon.

~Feebs.

I Am Falling Asleep at my Keyboard

Quite literally, actually. Yesterday was a roller coaster ride of emotions and stuff and whatever. Time for a list? I think yes.

Some Stuff That Happened Yesterday

• Obama 2012. That’s right, folks. We’ve got four more years with someone who cares about all Americans. So all my readers in America, rejoice or complain, I don’t really care, but had I been 18, I would have voted for our president. SO YAY. <3
• My laptop died. When I say ‘died’, I actually mean ‘my dad accidentally tripped over the wire (that part was my fault – I shouldn’t have left it just sitting there, I was practically asking for someone to trip) and my laptop fell onto the floor and the battery fell out and I was pretty much freaking out, but it’s okay; it’s just the charger kind of really broke. So I need to go get a new one.
• My word count is pitiful. At moment, I believe it’s somewhere around 4k. Which, I mean, isn’t too bad – I’m sure that if I had 24 hours, I could pull it up to at least 14 or 15k. ESPECIALLY if I had Melly with me. But. It’s just lookin’ pretty bad right now. That’s okay though – next weekend, I’m pulling two – that’s right, TWO – all-nighters: Friday and Saturday. (but Sunday is for watching Supernatural and also sleeping lots. So.)
• And, once again: Barack Obama won the election. I mean, come on guys, this is history right here. WE SHOULD BE EXCITED. Even if Mitt Romney had been elected, every election is important and everyone should be excited. I love elections. I’ve loved them since I was in the fifth grade. Anyway, I think the President will be good in the next four years and I support him fully. So congrats to him. <3

ANYWAY I love you. Yes, you. And you too. You’re all great. But you especially. Stay brilliant until I can come back, yeah?

~Fee<3