Space

I have begun space painting. Here's what I've got so far.

Life Tip #1 - Listen to Fast Music

Every once in a while, I have an idea about something that I think helps life run a little more smoothly. Most of the time, I forget these before I have a chance to write about them, but when I don't, I think I'll post them. This one hasn't been forgotten, probably because it's been brewing in my mind for a little while. Luckily.

I have a station on pandora devoted to trance music. The fast beat gives me energy. I listen to it in the morning - or all day if I can - and I move around more. I also have a tendency to juggle to trance music. Fun stuff.

I had a phase a couple years ago where I listened to slow, depressing music. Mostly Evanescence, because I was a depressed little emo thing. I didn't get much exercise then. Instead I laid around and stared at the ceiling. Come to think of it, that's about I gained all my extra fat.

Accents

I've developed this tendency where I sort of absorb accents.

It started a few months ago in class. A couple of goofs were goofing around, talking in really bad cheesy accents and just generally propagating stereotypes. They were doing southern drawls. I turned to my friend and said, "Those are the most awful twangs I have ever heard."

Only, I said it with a twang. A genuine twang.

I was born in Texas. I lived there until I was six, which was when we moved to California. I'm told that when we moved, I had a really thick twang (at six years old) which cracked the movers up. So I have a legitimate reason if I slip back into a twang every now and then. I guess those corny clowns just set if off, even though that's never happened before. I was stuck with that twang until the end of class - nearly an hour and a half. It cracked my friend up so much. I could hardly say anything normal. Thankfully, it went away after school.

One of my favorite characters (Vala) on my favorite TV show (Stargate: SG1) has an accent, and I've always wondered what it is. I thought at first it was some kind of English accent, but when I looked it up, I read that the actress is from Australia. So I did a little research, like any good nerd, and watched a few videos on learning accents. I listened to far too many videos by a girl from Sidney and picked up her accent.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I'm stuck with an Australian accent.

Not that I mind too terribly much. I kind of like Australian accents; they're cute and they sound sort of like English accents, which are supposed to be cute, classy, and charming. At least, people always say they love English accents. But people were giving me weird looks, especially my coworkers, who don't know what's going on, which isn't surprising, since sometimes I come in speaking Californian, sometimes Texan, and now sometimes Australian.

I wonder how long I will be stuck like this. Maybe forever. I'll head merrily off to college next year, and people will say "I love your accent! Where are you from?" and I'll say "California, but I was born in Texas," and they'll say, "Oh, I didn't know people in California spoke like that," and then I'll say, "They don't. And neither do people in Texas." And so they will be confused. Confused, but charmed, because my accent is charming.

SpacePainting

I just discovered something new!

Okay, so at the fair a few years past, there was a guy doing a kind of spray painting. He would spray all these colors over a piece of (fancy) cardboard and smear them around and cover them with circles and stuff to make paintings of space. I thought it was fascintating (my sister didn't, so my dad took her to go ride rides and whatnot...I don't think he cared for it either, much). I saw a different guy doing the same thing last year in San Francisco.

I had completely forgotten about until today. One of my friends was watching a video of the same thing on youtube during class, and I was like "Oh! I love this stuff!" So I've been watching it on youtube for about an hour now. I want a set of spray paints for my birthday next month. I mean, I kind of like painting, and I love pictures of space, so I want to try it. I can totally see myself doing this in the backyard of some cramped apartment a few years from now, and they'll be all over my walls.

Because it is awesome, here's a video:

I Don't Believe in Love

I don't believe in love.

I'm not sure exactly when I realized this. It was in the middle of the night, in the dark when I could not sleep, and the watery moonlight was reflected on my ceiling and I was running through the songs in my head. I don't know exactly why I realized it, or why I do not believe. But it seems to me that love - that thing everybody obsesses over while pretending not to - ought to be something unbreakable, unstoppable, unconditional, unchangeable. And I have never seen anything that could embody any of these characteristics.

It's true there are things that are like love. There's attachment. Affection. Companionship. Attraction. Etc. But not love. And I also realized that I really don't care. Because I don't want to love. People do stupid things in the name of love.

Maybe there is a such a thing as love, but I cannot see it, or I cannot feel it, or I cannot understand it, or it's just not what I think it should be. Maybe I have another name for it. Whatever.

A Story about a Girl who Lost her Soul

I am thinking of a story.

There used to be a girl who was raised in a religious family. Me. I was taught to purge myself of all individual identity so I could devote myself to god. I was told over and over again that god loved me, and that he would talk to me and give my life purpose if I gave myself to him. So I did. I prayed and worked hard, trying to discover god's purpose for my life. I pushed down my own identity. I crushed my own hopes. And I listened. I listened hard for this god's voice. But I never could hear him.

I got older. And the older I got, the harder I had to work to keep myself clean of independent thought. It was like trying not to grow out of baby clothes – impossible, and stifling. I was more and more constrained, until one day, I snapped. I said to myself, "I give up. I won't do this anymore." It was like cutting the leash on a falcon. Endless potential, possibilities, for good or bad. I set myself on a path of destruction. I thought it was intentional, but the more I thought about life, the more I realized that the only paths in life were paths of destruction.

There's a law. I don't know if it's an official law, but it says that all things deteriorate over time. Destruction is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it is the start of something new.

So. I started on my path. After a while, I realized that I didn't believe in love, I had never really believed in love, and that was okay. There were a lot of things I stopped believing. And one day, I looked back over my shoulder and realized I had lost my soul. Or perhaps I had never really had one. Who can say what a soul is, anyway?

Still. Shouldn't I be feeling more? I should feel something about this, right? A sort of sorrow perhaps, at losing this core piece of myself? Perhaps a horror at my own callousness? But all I feel is liberated.

Of Life and Rebelliousness - and Finding the True Self

I caught a reflection of my self in the window as I walked through the kitchen door, and I thought, "My hair...it's too tame."

And it is indeed. It lay smooth and clean on my head without so much as a stray cowlick to make it look rebellious. I need more rebelliousness. I'm 17. Two months until I am legally an adult. Less than half a year until I go to college. My life is just beginning. I've lived in one little mold for 17 years. I want to break the mold. I'm tired of the monotony. I want to do unpredicatable, nonsensical things. I'll spike out my hair. Tattoo my hands. Get a little tipsy. And one day I'll get in a car and drive away and I won't come back.

Under my parents' watchful gaze, I have grown up protected. I'm surrounded by a layer of lies like a thick gel that covers me. I fall and it will cushion me. I've protected myself from being too independent by dressing normal. From being too opinionated by keeping my mouth shut. I've stayed quietly one the sidelines of life, because I knew if I let myself out, my parents wouldn't like who I am.

See, I'm going on a search. I'm going out to look for little pieces of life that I'll recognize as little missing pieces of myself. Strange things, like underground sci-fi cults, and punky black chokers, and key lime pie gum. Rings that magically fall apart when you take them off. Quirky eye makeup. Trance music. Strawberry daiquiris. Maybe one day I'll come back, but no one will recognize me. Maybe I won't even recognize me.