I've been watching Where the Wild Things Are and i think it affected me so much because it appealed to the child that i am-- not simply the story i loved and the big, fascinating-looking monsters, but the intensity of emotion and the inability to do anything with it. The sadness and fear that manifests itself in anger; the need to be close to someone but also not to let them know they're important to you; the utter panic of learning that something you clung to for stability would someday die. It made me think of when my grandma died; my mom's family was torn apart and couldn't seem to find the maturity to admit they needed one another. They just wanted their mommy.

I haven't seemed to be feeling much of anything lately. Happy, yes. Angry, fine. But things like sadness, guilt, and compassion i just can't muster, and that scares me. I can put up a front. My Little Sociopath.

I just want to take all the paint and makeup and frosting i can find and smear it on the walls, see what i can come up with, find out if the stains on the walls will show me a picture of what's wrong with me.

So am i a horrible person? From my lack of emotion and recent actions i think i can safely say yes, but the problem is that i can't seem to care. I'm hurting the people i care about and doing it remorselessly and all i can think about is an article i read in psychology in sophomore year about a little boy who stabbed frogs with a pair of scissors.

Sharp, skin, tension, twist, blood, wrench, guts, spilling, blood, gasp, blood, nothing. Nothing, nothing.

I have trouble conveying this and not sounding insensitive in it (because i am insensitive), but i just need to be alone. And at first i thought it was just from romantic relationships, but now i know that it's all relationships. For a while i just want to be alone and not be anyone's friend, daughter, sister, roommate, girlfriend, classmate. I just want to be alone. And i want to paint. And hopefully what i will see won't be nothing.

Mix tape

Just to get it out of my system, here is a list of the songs i would put on mix tape if i were to make one this very moment. (Note: it would actually be a CD but i still call them tapes because mix CD sounds DUMB).

1. Dog Wranglin' Blues ~If Bears Were Bees
2. Go To Sleep You Little Baby ~Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch
3. Rockers to Swallow ~Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4. Underground ~Kimya Dawson
5. Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl ~Broken Social Scene
6. O Bondage, Up Yours ~X-Ray Spex
7. Walk Like An Egyptian ~the Bangles
8. Bull in the Heather ~Sonic Youth
9. Portions for Foxes ~Rilo Kiley
10. Sunny Days (Sesame Street Theme) ~Joshua Radin
11. Such Great Heights ~Iron and Wine (yes, it's a Postal Service song, but they did a good cover)
12. In the Waiting Line ~Zero7

Little Bear and American Teens.

So i just watched an old Little Bear episode on YouTube, but before i get to that i have to tell you about what possessed me to be watching old Nick Jr cartoons at 2:40 in the morning in the first place.

A couple weeks ago i checked out a DVD from the library called "American Teen." It's a documentary following five different kids in five different social standings through their senior year at a midwestern high school. And you know me (or maybe you don't-- who are you? Lets be friends!)-- i'm obsessed with high school sociology. Not as in a sociology class you take in high school, but as in the sociology of high schoolers and their different cliques, groups, whatever.

So anyway. I'm getting off track. I watched this movie late at night because i am an insomniac to rival the best of 'em, and i really identified with one of the kids they were following (her name is Hannah Bailey). I googled her as creepy fans are wont to do, and i came upon her blog, one of the entries in which noted that she was watching LITTLE BEAR ON YOUTUBE.

Is this sounding familiar?

So i clicked the link she provided and proceeded to watch with nostalgia and delight as Little Bear got the hiccups. Unfortunately, the video only showed the first five minutes of the episode and i couldn't find the next part in the related links, so i am left in suspense as to what got the hiccups to stop (as i'm sure they did), whether Papa Bear or whatever they called him got mad because there was too much noise being made, and whatever happened to that berry pie that Mama bear was baking.

Lovely lovely Maurice Sendak. He never disappoints.

They still show the commercials for that Little Bear training toothpaste, don't they? But they don't air the show anymore, right? So what they should REALLY do is put Little Bear in a toothpaste commercial marketing to the roughly 16-21 crowd that actually WATCHED Little Bear and is seeking to fill the void in their young adult lives by buying products that feature characters they loved oh-so-long ago.

Genius, right? It is a wonder someone isn't paying me handsomely to sit here in my bed at coming-up-on 3 in the morning and churn out ideas for the capitalist machine.

Beloved jingles and slogans? I'm coming after you next.

College shopping

So today my mom and i went shopping for my dorm, which i have to say is a lot more fun than shopping for back-to-school ever was in high school. Here's what i ended up with for my grown-up space:

-Bright green patterned sponges

-Spiderman Band-aids

-Hot pink sheets (and a set of white flannel ones for winter)

-A laundry bag

-Boring white hangers because the only other color was an ugly blue

-Dishes with happy slug-aliens on them

-Bright green under-bed storage boxes

-A mini first aid kit

-A pair of glow-in-the-dark spaceship footie pajamas.



So far i am not too good at this maturity thing.

So today i found out that my roller derby name is TAKEN! Oh the pain. You better appreciate it, Sylvia Wrath of the Carolina Rollergirls, 'cause i loved that damn name.

...However, i moved on pretty quickly and am now considering a name which will remain secret until i register it.

In other news...

HALLOWEEN IS LIKE 9 FREAKING DAYS AWAY!

Life is wonderful when it's almost Halloween. Yesterday i dug out our meager decorations and made our house look vaguely like we're not opposed to fun. My mom wouldn't let me put up spiderwebs inside though, so those will be banished to the porch.

Also, last night i ignored the siren songs of my dearest darlingest bed and stayed up ripping tights and hunting for things that would make me look like a badass but not a) fall under the stupid "i'm-something-sexy-for-Halloween-how-original" category or b) leave me too cold since this is late October in the Pacific Northwest. The general idea is to be Hell on Wheels-- i've got my derby elements pretty much figured out by this point and this morning i went out and bought a pair of devil horns and one of those sheer tattoo-printed sleeves. It might be a tad too short, but we'll see how that goes. Whatever. It was discounted.

A problem that presents itself, though-- my skates are those high-top white kind and my question is this: can i decoupage them? Cut out a bunch of pictures of pink and black things and Mod Podge 'em right on there? Or will they peel off and generally be a huge pain? If anyone has any experience with these kinds of things, i'd appreciate your input.

And now i think it's time for a nap.

Ah, the joys of procrastination.

Sitting in English, where i should be working on an essay comparing short-story characters but am instead quite obviously blogging. I don't know what even possessed me to come back to this-- i usually only blog late at night when my house is asleep and i get all pensive and afraid of the ghosts in the window.



Anyway. Hamlet performances are coming up soon, and i'm really excited, but also nervous; not so much at the prospect of performing in front of people, but more at the knowledge that it will be over soon and that i'll never see all my new friends again. Of course i knew i was getting into this when i tried out for a play at another school, but it's so much better than the alternative-- doing nothing every day after school but working, going to see High School Musical because blah blah blah blah blah.



Are you still paying attention? Why?





I'm beginning to think i may be manic-depressive. On Friday i was telling my mom that since i can't afford to go to Seattle U then i won't be here to go to Bumbershoot, and i just started sobbing. I don't cry, but this was all-out, hopeless, desperate, three-hours-face-down-on-my-kitchen-table-in-a-pool-of-my-own-tears sobbing. Yeah. And then yesterday, i was in the greatest mood ever. Felt like a i could run a marathon, do a dance, maybe even clean something. Am i losing my mind? Maybe. One way to find out.