Monday, March 15, 2010

I can't think of a title, so this is what you get.

Before I say anything else, many congrats to Kate on being married! The wedding was awesome!

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I apologize in advance for any typos. One of the many nice things that Kate did during her wedding weekend (thank you!) was arrange for several of us to get manicures and pedicures. I got some pretty, pretty fake nails, and it's practically impossible to type with the things.

I've been thinking about what I posted in my Change List, about the things I want to work on the most. A couple are in the personality department (not being shy, along with something I'm not quite ready for people to know yet) and the other is that little mention of never having written a novel. I think I'll explain the last one first.

I love writing. It has always been a passion of mine. Literally, always. I've been weaving stories together in my head for as long as I can remember, and thanks to my bizarre memory I can remember all the way back to my second birthday. Or was it third? Either way, there was a tasty Dalmatian cake involved and I've been inventing random tales pretty much as long as I've had conscious thought. Most of them are little wisps of things. Blurbs. Scenes. Individual characters that have nowhere to go. There is one story, however, that has been building up in my head since the late years of middle school and it's dying to get out.
It's an amazing story. Sometimes I go through all of the things involved and surprise myself with the sheer size of this world I've created. I know exactly how I'll arrange the novels (yes, more than one. It'll take that many to get the whole thing down) if I ever get around to writing them. I've invented races, and cultures, and landscapes that blow my own mind. It needs to get down on paper. The story needs to be told. But everytime I go to write it, my mind freezes. I have to find some way to work through that because this is truly epic, and all the imaginative people out there deserve to see it too. Really. Epic. Think Lord of the Rings + Avatar + H. P. Lovecraft with a nice heavy dash of me thrown in. If you would like a tiny sample (very tiny) go to my deviantART gallery. The things in the Adalus and Karr section take place in that world.

But enough with the thing I want to do. Here's something I've done. I told that shy little part of me to shut up and scram, and I went out and danced for several hours. In front of my parents. I think I shocked a lot of people, because they kept coming up to me afterwards to tell me that I'm a good dancer and that there were even more people talking about me. Letting that little bit of me have free reign without being held back and then having people give me the very opposite of strange looks felt good.
I think that's the way I'm going to go about things. A little bit at a time, slowly easing into it. That's the way I'm going to go with that other secret thing, too. I do want people to know about that, but not yet. I'll build up to it. I think if there's less of a shock when I do say it, or if people figure it out on their own, it'll be less stressful for everybody, especially me. But this is one of those secrets that really shouldn't have to be secret, it just happens to be controversial and I happen to be shy. And I'll leave you with that hint before I completely give it away before I'm ready to.



Alright, not quite. I deserve commendations for typing all of this with plastic thingies glued to the ends of my fingers! That was hard!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Playing Around

It's 11:30 and everybody's settled in. Abby, Becca, and Kim are off doing whatever it is they do late at night. Kishma and I are doing homework in our room. Leslie is taking a shower in the bathroom across the hall.


All of a sudden, the general friend of the dorm, Meghan opens up our door and says, "Are you guys going to need to leave the room anytime soon?"


Why, we ask?


She holds up some rope.

"I'm trapping Leslie in the bathroom."


I may be dead tired and have an early class in the morning, but something tells me this will be worth staying up for.


Tee hee.

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So we wait for about ten minutes, and sure enough, we begin to hear a thunk....thunk, thunk.


"Hey!"


"....Is there something wrong with the door?"


Thunk, thunk.


We let her out after about five minutes and everybody had a good laugh. Yay for random midnight pranks!

Monday, March 8, 2010

The Change List

Over the last couple of months that I've been in school, I've noticed that the way I live, dress, act, and even eat have been fairly boring at best. I've just kind of been going with the flow of things and not really acting like me at all. That's just not fun, and if there's one thing that I definitely stand by, it's that life should be fun, or at least enjoyable. So here are the changes I would like to make. This list is mostly for me, as a reminder because most likely I will sink back into the flow if there isn't a list, but you few readers may find it entertaining as well. Maybe you'll even help me stay on track. ;)

-Clothes:
It's not that I dress badly or anything, but the clothes that I wear have never really been my style. They've just been convenient and comfortable. For example, did you know that I'm not a fan of jeans? I'd much rather wear skirts on any occasion, but because it wasn't immediately attainable, I never got around to it. I am an enormous girly girl. I love skirts, and dresses, and frill. But I never wear them. I want to put more effort into the things I wear so that they're actually something that reflects me, rather than just being whatever was clean and handy.
But there's an elegant side to that, too. I'm a sucker for Victorian styles. In fact, one of my favorite clothing styles is Steampunk, which is pretty much dressing as if you lived in a Victorian-type setting with advanced steam technology, and you make your own kitschy jewelry and such. Corsets, pocket watches, top hats, and those awesome Victorian vests and coats are all common. It's elegance with a very subtle edge, sci-fi with an unexpected dash of class. I love this stuff. Why have I never gotten into it? I don't know.
And on that note, I'd love to get a plain little corset to wear on an everyday basis under clothes and such. Not for tight lacing because we all know I'm the last person who would ever need that, but for the feel of the thing, and the sleek shape it makes, and because I have horrible posture. Having them on feels like I'm wearing a hug. I love the shape they make. It's so smooth and streamlined, or hourglassy in a way that makes fluffy skirts look even fluffier. And wearing one makes me not slouch, which means less back pain for me. The downside? They're expensive as all get out. :(

-Craftiness:
I love art, and making things, and fiddling around with my hands. Everybody who knows me knows this. I want to make things more often. Things I can use, and wear, and sell. I want to make awesome jewelry and sell it online, to finally figure out how to sew and make something awesome, to redesign all of my spaces with things that I made. I want to sit back and look at the things that I made with my own time and effort, and feel that wave of accomplishment that comes with it. I want to be able to say, "This is mine. I made it, and somebody else loves it as much as I do."
Getting a little money from the online sales would also be a big plus.

-Natural Stuff:
I don't want to sound like one of those nuts who absolutely must have everything organic with no exceptions, but the idea of using synthetics, and chemicals, and such does bug me. It's why I don't like to take medicine or painkillers unless I absolutely have to. I just don't like the idea of having artificial crap in my system messing around with the way I work. This applies to food, lotion, hair care, and pretty much anything that can be absorbed into me somehow. It just gives me the heebie jeebies. Also, as it turns out, most of the things I use with this stuff in it can be made with things you can buy at a grocery store, and making them is actually pretty fun. Smells better too. :D
Go figure that food is good for the outside of your body as well as the inside. Did you know that rubbing olive oil into your hair gets rid of split ends? There are actually professional companies that will bottle oil with bunches of other crap to be put on your hair, but it smells horrible and doesn't work nearly as well as plain old EVOO. You can also pour a little into some sugar for a home made sugar scrub. And there are thousands of other things that work pretty similarly. They smell better, cost less, and have fewer things that are probably carcinogens. Where's the downside there?
Also, it may sound pretty hippie-ish, but I'm a big believer in aromatherapy and drinking tea instead of taking medicines for small things. Obviously for the big things I'll grumble and take the medicine, but for stuff like colds or sore throats, tea is a much tastier alternative. Licorice soothes sore throats, ginger is good for upset stomachs, chamomile and vanilla calm me down, peppermint wakes me up, and there are nifty vitamins and antioxidants in all of it.
Food is probably the biggest thing, though. Lately, I've been living off of frozen foods and junk food, and your average college noms. There's nothing good for me there. I want to make food that's actually going to do good things for me. That, and I'm getting pretty sick of canned soup.
So with all of these good things and preferences, why have I never gotten around to switching from expensive chemical thingies? Because I'm lazy? That really isn't much of an excuse.

-Personality:
I'm certainly not saying that I want to change my personality, but I've noticed that it isn't exactly showing up. I'm shy. I hate that. And because I'm shy, I don't do or say things that I want to. I don't sing, or laugh when things are randomly amusing, or jump into the snow just because it seems fun. Intellectually, I know that nothing bad will happen. Sure I'll get strange looks, but I've never been bothered by that before. And when I put it like that, there really is no reason for me to be shy anyway. I need to quit being afraid, because being afraid to be yourself is pretty pathetic.
Also, I need to quit being so lazy. Laziness is an excuse. It's why I procrastinate, and don't do schoolwork, and why I've never finished writing a novel. It drives me insane every time I don't do something just because "I was lazy." I miss out on so many things because "I'm lazy," and I'm really starting to feel the downside of missing them. It needs to stop.

So those are the things I want to work on changing. The way I dress, the things I make, the things I use, and the way I act. Will I be able to change them? Only time will tell.