Tossed

Tags

comfort, cry, do it now, Et Cetra, loss, love, peanut butter, School, self, solitude, suicide, tears

Do it now. Do it now. You may not have tomorrow. If I have learned anything this year, it’s to do it now. Don’t wait for the right circumstances. Just do it, because you may not be alive tomorrow. And then you can say that you did everything you possibly could on your last day. Do it now.

Ugh how do I even start? How can I do anything, say anything? I can’t comprehend it.

I’ve been floating between my normal self and my heavy, weighted self that has to hold her head up. Once second I’m laughing with friends and I can feel the sun on my face and everything feels like it’s made of light and dust. And then I feel knocked out, like someone whacked me in the gut. It takes all my strength to hold my head. In school I am distracted. I can focus on the material and pretend like nothing has happened. This is one instance where school is a godsend. It distracts me and is so monotonous that everything feels the same at school. It’s a routine I can rely on.

I can keep myself together at school. But at home in the darkness, in front of a computer I can’t. Last night’s cry was in response to seeing my mom just crushed, just reduced to tears and grief and pain and loss. And tonight I cry because I know she’s never coming back. She’s gone.

I want to be held and comforted but I also want to isolated. I don’t want people’s voices. I want to just stand on a cliff and feel the wind on my face. I want solitude in a human space. I don’t know. The whole day at school I was just looking for silence. I want to talk about her death but no one wants to listen to that. And how do I bring that up? Why should I even talk about it? I can’t change it. I want to hug all my friends and tell them that they are the most wonderful people in the world. I want to tell them that I don’t say it enough and I just…can’t articulate anything.

I just, agh, why don’t we tell people how wonderful they are? How much we love them? Why don’t we looks straight into their eyes and tell them? Why can’t people see how much good they do? Why does it take death to make me realize this?

Because it was so comforting to know that she existed. That’s how I feel about the people I love. Just by being alive they make the world better. Just knowing that they were going about their day just like I was made everything a little more bearable.

Do it now. Please do it now.

The world has lost Peanut Butter. My wise Peanut Butter. She gave me butterfly socks, pushed me to start writing a blog, and taught me to read all the written passages in museums because she probably wrote them all. She told me to remember stories, to remember where I came from. She was so strong. So level and calm. She taught me to whistle. What I recall most dearly is her chuckle. Not her laugh, but her chuckle. It wasn’t even a chuckle it was so graceful. It was melodious and almost rollicking. Her chuckle was indescribable. In a way it was content and comforting. A little reminder to not take life too seriously. I will always remember her chuckling with a slight smile, her chin in her hand, with her head cocked endearingly.

Why? Why? Why?

And to take your own life. Suicide. To think that your existence isn’t worth anything just kills me because it wasn’t. Because you were so much. You were so much.

I would have done anything I could I have. I promise. Because you were so much. You are so much.

I hope you find Ernest Hemingway. Bye Peanut Butter, my wise, wise, Peanut Butter.

 

Unexpected Fun

Tags

awakrd, dancers, Et Cetra, exhasution, friends, groovy, inside jokes, rambles, rehearsal, School, teachers, unexpected fun

So I swear the teachers at school are just as exhausted as their students are, but when they flip out they just assign more and more work and believe their personal slaves are happy to do it.

That’s what everyday of this entire week was like. Thanks so much. I totally love school. This week made all the work feel like it was adding up to nothing, which is a situation I despise from the bottom of my heart. I haven’t had a week this long and frustrating in such a long time. I’m just pleased I made it through in one piece.

But there’s only two more weeks and two days left. And even though we have finals, we still get out in two weeks and that’s all I can really think about now.

But this evening I amazingly forgot entirely about school because I was at the theater (which is one of my happy places) teching for a show that I’m in tomorrow and it’s pretty low key and I had tons of free time and I basically had an adventure with some dance friends. I gave my friend a piggy back ride and we sang random songs in an amphitheater and then we took a bunch…like at least 100… awkward dance photos. Some of which turned out ok!

The great thing was that I was completely enjoying the company of probably some of my closest friends. I’ve known them for almost 7 years now and I’ve spent over a 1000 hours with them. We are such goofballs. And we could seriously put together a dictionary for every one of our inside jokes. And since they are dancers they understand what I mean when I say “oh my cod” and “photosynthesis” and “my itch is lost in my callous” and “gosh I look like a potato chip”. And “will you carry me, my toes have become volcanoes?” and “the traveler ate me, help”.

Dancers are funny people. They make for the most interesting yet wonderful friends.

Today was a very fun evening. I spent it at a place I love with people I cherish and there were lots of laughs and awkward attempts at nerdy and flashy dance moves. We might be good dancers but we are certainly expert bad dancers too. You should see us “let go”. I’m pretty sure the dance gods are like: what have we created?”.

I don’t know what they have, but we all are very good friends and will leave it at that.

Stay Excellent!

Cranberry Lorraine

I Be Trippin’

Tags

busy, chemistry, clumsy, end of the year, friends, School, Thursday, time, tired, tripping, weekend

So I’m still alive…I just got tired and busy at the same time (which is my excuse for many things) and didn’t think about blogging until 12 am these past few days and to be frank it just wasn’t going to happen.

Just on a random note, Thursday was a very clumsy day for me. I swear in only 20 minutes I had a succession of 5 falls. Which may seem like nothing but I don’t usually fall or trip every 4 minutes. I think it’s fair to say I am pretty quick with my feet. Right as I’m leaving to go off to class, I gave my friend a hug and oddly enough I was standing on the ledge between two steps and as imaginable, I totally fell backwards all while trying to cling on to my friend. It was slightly fun.

In chemistry I sit at lab bench and every single day my chair is missing. I always have to steal a chair form another table. But this past Thursday there was miraculously a chair! So of course I got all excited and as I sat down I realized that the chair was really low. The chair I sat in was an older chair, meaning it had two levers: one to change the height of the seat and the other to manipulate the angle of the chair back. Didn’t exactly realize that until I had pushed the second lever and my chin was forced on to the lab table. I sat their all smushed in a chair sandwich for a minute or so.

Then on my way to english last Thursday I tripped over this bubble on the ramp that leads into our classroom. Which I have done before but never on my way to english.

And I probably tripped somewhere else too, but I cannot remember for the life of me. Ha Ha.

This weekend has been good. I still have a massive amount of things to do but in about 4 weeks and 2 days it will all be done. Done, Done, Done. Time flies… this semester has been whoosh. What a fabulous adjective. Whoosh.

Stay Excellent!

Cranberry Lorraine

369 Words on Dance, Habits, and Worrying

Tags

blood, change, dance, decisions, feet, future, habits, naps, pointe shoes, rambles, rants, smiling, Thursday, worrying

I don’t really know what to talk about today. Except that I finally realized that I just need to stop worrying. Especially about the future because I don’t really have any control over the speed at which it comes and it will come soon enough. I dislike not knowing, not having a sense of where I will go, but I think that’s just life so I better start getting used to it.

I like habits. I sit in the same spot at the dinner table. I have my routine. I put my books in the same spot every day. I think that’s part of my anxiety about the future. The yearly habits I have are changing. Dance, my home away from home, is changing. The structure of our studio is changing. People are leaving. Everything is up in the air. Some dancers pretend that everything is normal. But I can’t. I’m trying to figure out the right path to take. Because now, the time when everything is shifting, is my best chance at altering the path I will take. If I deny the possibility of change then I will be left wondering for the rest of my life what would have happened.

My foot bled today in my pointe shoes. The last time that happened I was a beginner in pointe and I was so scared that I had ruined my feet and I remember trying so hard not to cry. Didn’t exactly work out shall we say. But tonight, I just smiled through it. It probably wasn’t the most natural or pleasant, but it was still a smile. In my head, I sounded like a sailor on one too many rounds of rum but no one has to hear that, right? I’m actually very proud of this. I literally have no skin on my blister and a gorgeous red blob on my pointe shoe but it’s okay because I was smiling!

Ah, I talk about dance too much. Ha Ha.

Tomorrow is a Thursday. Thursday are good days. We should take naps on Thursdays. Thursday would make an excellent nap day.

I guess I did have something to say today… Oh, I surprise myself.

Stay Excellent!

Cranberry Lorraine

 

 

Song of the Moment

Tags

decisions, exhaustion, old 97s, rambles, School, sleep, Song of the Moment, Thursday, timebomb

“Timebomb” –Old 97’s.

This is actually one of my dad’s favorite bands. I don’t listen to many of their songs just because…that’s the way it worked out. But I like this one an awful lot.

I really enjoy how the songs starts so quickly, almost instantaneously. It just zips right off and doesn’t stop until the end. I also enjoy how frank and raw the instrumentation is. It doesn’t feel overproduced. It sounds just how it is actually is: 2 men, one young and one old, jamming on their guitars while telling the world that their brains might blow up sooner or later. Perfectly normal. It’s got a rollicking melody too and that always helps. It’s very whistle-able. For people that are decent whistlers though…not myself. Ha Ha.

I am quite literally falling asleep here. All I can see are the type keys. I didn’t really do much academic work today. Nothing big is occurring tomorrow so that is my justification. Little prep for little things. Big prep for bigger things. I just want to do something different. I have to make a lot of decisions soon and I’ve been trying to think about all of them but I haven’t made much progress. Which is slightly depressing.

I’m too exhausted to go more into that world.

Good night people.

I’ve got a timebomb in my mind and it’s ticking me off to sleep.

Stay Excellent,

Cranberry Lorraine

What Happens When I Can’t Fall Asleep…

Tags

childhood, insomnia, nights, people, rambles, School, self, sleepless, thinking, tossing

Ugh. Mmrble. Insomnia. It used to plague me so much more when I was a young child. Back then I could usually find my dad by the computer and I could sit by him and he would show me cool things on the internet. Once we looked at all sorts of foreign monies. I’ve always been a curious child and I found all the different designs endlessly fascinating. Another time we watched videos of a boating festival native to Thailand. We took a little trip across the world. When I stopped crawling down the stairs to visit my dad I watched the shadows from cars race across my wall. I used to try and make up stories about each car, like I was watching a silent film. But the cars always moved too fast for me to create a decent storyline so nothing really came of that mental exercise.

That was back when my parents stayed up much later than they do now. They retreat to their room around 10 pm and I’m usually in bed closer to 11:30 pm. Go me. Excluding the past two nights, I haven’t returned to insomnia at all this school year. Not that surprising because, well, school is exhausting. On this break though the last two nights have just been restless. And two nights in a row. After one night of insomnia I usually sleep amazingly well the next night.

I should have written a post one of those sleepless nights…that would have been interesting. Last night I woke up feeling sweaty and disgusting. I remember vaguely having a vicious sort of dream. It wasn’t a “nightmare” per se but it wasn’t particularly pleasant either. Bleak. It was bleak. I woke up though and I tried to find the physical will to get up and take a shower but my legs were not letting me move. I shook off the covers and tried to let some air in but I immediately retread back to the furnace-y blankets. Then that began the infinite cycle of kicking off the covers and bringing them up to my nose again. I moved my pillow around. Even kicked it on to my dog who was sleeping on my floor. I woke up on my back and I ventured on to my side. Sleeping  on my side has always felt weird to me. I always get the sensation that someone’s behind me watching. Clearly I should have never read Twilight. I am now constricted to my stomach and back as my sleeping positions.

I was like that for a good hour. Shifting around, never comfortable. And it’s so easy to get frustrated  and toss and turn and kick and rip the sheets from the bed. Maybe that’s just me but whenever I can’t sleep I wind myself up into a big old mess. Sometimes I think that vortex I spin myself up in actually helps me sleep because I release mental and physical energy.

I proceeded to think about more things than I can write down. One thing led to the next. Maybe that’s how I fell back into sleep, losing myself in my thoughts. I thought about people. I thought about individuals. Each person was examined carefully. I thought about all the things I had said to those people. All the things I wanted to say. And all the things I doubt I would be able to voice appropriately. My words wouldn’t give it justice.

I thought about what I wanted to do. What I needed to do. How to get it done. That tired me out. I bet that’s what really brought me back into sleep. Thinking about what I can never know until it arrives. Thinking about the fuzzy, the unknown. But it’s exciting in a way too. To know that you’re on the edge of the future. That you can choose what cliff to climb over.

The night before that where I couldn’t sleep was more or less the same. I don’t remember it as well. I looked out my window for a bit though, to find some fresh air. It felt delightful. Crisp air afraid to travel into my furnace-y blankets so I have to meet it halfway.

I have a big dance day tomorrow. A competition in fact. I haven’t competed in a while. Wish me luck

Stay Excellent!

Cranberry Lorraine

Rambly Ramble on Sleep

Tags

brother, exhaustion, eyes, rambles, School, self, sleep, Thursday, weather

I read somewhere that if you give at least 5 hugs to people, preferably all different people, but 5 hugs nevertheless then your happiness will increase significantly. I’m proud to say that I usually “meet the mark” so to speak. But today I was below the magical number 5. Which is kind of sad. I like hugs an awful lot.

Today was what it was. The weather was funky. At one point there was a clear divide between the blue sky and the dark, stormy sky. Sometimes it was sunny and then all of sudden the clouds blocked the sun’s rays.

Just thinking about today makes me tired. And it wasn’t incredibly stressful. My eyes are itchy and water when I blink to “itch” my eye. Rather odd feeling if you care to take note. I think I could fall asleep in this chair. This very hard, unforgiving chair that is older than I am. I could fall asleep in a field, a grassy field that seems to never end. I could fall asleep with my head in my hand. Or in someone’s shoulder. Everyone else seems to find my shoulders suitable for sleeping on. In car rides or even before school sometimes, I am transformed into the human pillow.

I have never slept on an actual limb that belongs to someone else. I am either the human pillow, like I said. Or I am avoided like the plague because I apparently take up every inch of sleeping space available. That’s the result of having a wonderfully roomy bed for 6 years.

In fact, I haven’t slept next to someone in a really, really long time. Am I surprised by this? I don’t know. I shared a room with my brother for almost 9 years. We had separate beds, but we were very close back then (and we still are to some degree) and I recall our beds being close to each other.

That was…well I don’t know. That realization surprised me. It’s too late to be thinking about sleep. I should just sleep.

Stay Excellent,

Cranberry Lorraine

Today Felt Quiet

Tags

blustery, brisk, little details, peaceful, quiet, secret, self, slow motion, Thursday, wind

Today felt quiet. Today felt like everything was moving in slow motion. I kept noticing small things. Things that I don’t usually pay attention to. Like the way someone fiddles with their fingers or the shadows cast by a pair of glasses on someone else’s face. I felt very “in tune” to the most random details.

On any other day, I’d be in sensory overload mode after picking up so many things. But today was gentle and the odd little details entered unobtrusively into my conscious.

Today was also brisk though. Brisk in the sense of time passing. The objects and people I saw with my own eyes, that were tangible, seemed to exist in a clay-nation (have no idea if that’s a word) state. That which I couldn’t touch or see–time–felt as brisk as ever.

And if you string the slow motion moments together and leave time to run its usual course, you end up with Thursday, February 21, 2013.

A rather hushed day, slightly muted; yet worth keeping. A day so slow, so slow in the most wonderful way.

Perhaps today was peace. Everything was calm in my world and the rest of the world was still busily turning its wheels.

It was the wind. Blustering away and shaking the trees, but cooling my face at the same time.

Either way, today was peaceful. Some may disagree and find it boring. But today is a secret between you and me… today was anything but boring. No one needs to know because today was my day. And your today is different than my today.

And that’s the way it should be.

-CL

 

Pop Quiz Rant with Other Odd Things

Tags

30 Rock, chemistry, comfy bed, Et Cetra, Friday, pop quizzes, School, sleep, tests

I am really devoid of inspiration today… just a head’s up. I’ve felt my energy slowly decline the entire day. At least tomorrow is a late start and there’s no tests scheduled so this Friday is truly going to be a Friday. Whenever I have multiple tests scheduled on a Friday the wonderfulness of a Friday decreases quite noticeably. If there is in fact a pop quiz in chem tomorrow (knock on trees of ginormous height) then I will be very disappointed.

I like chemistry quite a bit, but the pop quizzes are really annoying. I will know the information when I need to know it. The teacher is supposed to trust the students, that’s partially why the class is more advanced. Plus the pop quizzes are usually very few points and so if you miss one (like I usually do) one basically screws up the point earning benefit of the quiz. If you can’t earn a few extra points with a pop quiz, then the purpose of the quiz is to inform the student that even though he or she did the homework that doesn’t mean he or she knows the material well enough to take a super short notice quiz on it. Which for some students can  be the “end-all-be-all”. No one wants to accept that their efforts weren’t useful.

So please stop giving pop quizzes… they don’t make anyone happy, students or teachers, when a bad grade pops up.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a Friday in the most Friday-est sense. I already got through all the stressful stuff this week, so the gods should have mercy.

I’m actually going to get the “required” amount of sleep tonight. Gosh, I’m falling asleep just thinking about it. But thinking about my wonderfully comfy bed reminds me of the disastrous the rest of my room is in. Ah… my brain rambles way too much.

Does anyone watch 30 Rock? The series officially ended today. Final episode for forever. Really sucks. That was the wittiest, most absurd t.v. show and I loved it to death, even though it took me a few years to finally grasp all the jokes. That show was my future in a nutshell…a bunch of people laughing at stuff that isn’t intended to be funny while barely getting anything accomplished.

I’m just in withdrawal. ‘Tis all.

 

Goodnight fellow bloggers.

Stay Excellent!

Cranberry Lorraine

Almost The Last Night On Earth?

Tags

cleaning, end of the world, Friday, just a normal day, Music, packages, Pandora, rambles, rants, transportation

I actually forgot that tomorrow was doomsday or Armageddon or December 21. Whatever you want to call it. My friend called to remind me about something and added that because the world is ending tomorrow she’s excused my debt of $1.50 to her. How kind.

I think if the world was actually ending there would be some great sign. Something would have already happened as a precursor to the great climactic event. But the only noticeable event in my small world today was realizing that there’s a new vacuum in the closet, which I had an opportunity to use while I slogged away at the downstairs.

Usually when I clean, I blast whatever is on Pandora as loud as I can, but Pandora was really off on music selection today. It probably took me an extra 30 minutes to clean because I skipping between radios and songs so much. I was on my “Death Cab for Cutie radio” and Pandora was not playing Death Cab for Cutie. Very frustrating. Usually the whole process is right on. I click the desired radio and a decent song plays from the respective artist and then Pandora divulges into the music genome. But not today. Oh yes, Pandora decided to be spontaneous. That small process was sort of a constant during the hectic days. I know it sounds silly, but knowing that a decent song will be played is very soothing. Now that my days are relaxing, I suppose Pandora can have some fun terrorizing my routine.

All I really wanted was some Death Cab for Cutie. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

That  rant reminds me of how much of a creature of habit I am. Habit eliminates decision and I am terribly indecisive.

Other than that, today was incredibly standard. I wanted to get some stuff done, but I didn’t. And I am completely at peace with that occurrence. Happy day for me.

I might have to drive to Napa tomorrow. Which isn’t so bad, but I am not in the mood for driving. I would rather take a hot air balloon. Even if I’m allowed to drive us there I’ll actually have to pay attention instead of zoning out. And I suppose I could talk to my brother or whatever parents goes with us but I have nothing to say. I feel completely devoid of any interesting verbatim. All my thoughts and what not end up directed toward to my personal projection of such-and-such friend or the wall.

There were two packages in the mail today. The same small item came in both and I find it very puzzling that the items couldn’t have been packaged in one box that was half the size. Was it a mistake? It just seems silly. And it seems silly because it’s darn obvious.

Tomorrow is Friday, December 21st. I hope the world doesn’t end. I’m not quite finished. I haven’t gone on my hot air balloon ride to Napa yet…

This has been very rambly. But I’m not apologizing because I think I’m always sort of like this.

Stay Excellent!

Yours Troubie, Cranberry Lorraine