A Long-Awaited Update

Upon reading a post that I made a long time ago (not the last one, but the one before that), I am going to make a few... updates.

Update #1: The Manuscript

So that's done. Pretty fascinating. I got a .pdf, but I'm not allowed to share. It'll probably go on sale at some point electronically. Once I know about that, I'll post about it.

Update #2: School

Turns out, I was just bitter because I hated freshman year in general. Being a sophomore is nowhere near as bad as being a freshman (school itself is a lot more frustrating, but socially it's easier), which is not to say that I magically like my school. Because I don't. Stop judging me.

Seriously though. I would much rather go to Sealth. I'm waiting for the waiting list to open again so that I can sign up one more time just to see if I can get in, so that I can officially say that I'm a Seahawk as opposed to a Wildcat. But if I don't, tough shit because I've decided that even if I do get into Sealth, I'm not even going to do IB, so what's the point, right?

About that. International Baccalaureate is super good for getting into international schools. You may be thinking, "But you want to go to Oxford! That's in England! What's wrong with you?!" Well, the simple fact is, it's too much work for something that gives you a lesser result than if you were to do, say, Running Start. If you do Running Start, you can get all your credits while simultaneously be working yourself up to an Associate's degree. The bottom line is that you can graduate high school with an AA. How freaking awesome is that? And IB doesn't give you that. At least I don't think it does.

Anyway, school is fine, and I don't care about it, just as long as I complete it and get out as fast as possible so that I can go to college and finish that so that I can get a lot of money -- I mean a great job. I'll probably move to England anyway just to get the hell out of the country. Can I go to jail for saying that? Probably not; it's a free country. It's not like I'm going to blow up the Capitol. Because I'm not, you know, going to blow up the Capitol. Stop judging me.

~*~

What's that? I have a Tumblr? Go look, if you care enough. Probably not. But whatevs. Do what you want.

"Heavy"?

So, through the grapevine of the webs of inter, I found this semi-article called Stars Who Look Better Heavier. Of course, it's on Yahoo, so you can't expect it to be intelligent.

What I expected was pictures of people like Adele or Oprah, but instead you get mostly Jennifer Garner, Nicki Minaj, and Lindsay Lohan.

Bitch, please.

Lindsay and Jennifer are TOTALLY not overweight, especially not Lindsay, what with her drug escapades. It surprised me that there were so many pictures of Jennifer Garner, because she's one of the actors who I list in my head as "skinny as hell". And as a side note, Nicki Minaj shouldn't even be counted as "curvy" or "heavy" because she is mostly made out of plastic (she denies it, but a butt that big just isn't natural), so it's cheating.

Khloe Kardashian is also on there, and that just made me angry because she's just irrelevant in more ways than just this.

I'm kind of afraid to see what they think is "Average". Probably something like this:

OHEMGEE she'z so fattttt

So this is obviously a problem for me.

I consider myself skinny, being a size 4, but if I didn't have the inherent curves that I do, I would probably be smaller than that. I can literally feel my hip bones through my skin when I touch it, and I'm actually afraid of losing any weight because the skin might tear off. That's probably not an issue, but it feels that way to me, and it hurts an extra ton when I bump into a table or countertop because there's barely any protective cushioning there. So I'm definitely not afraid of gaining weight because I feel like I could use some meat on my bones.

I could go on and on about how I hate society and its ways of making everyone feel inadequate by using the massive power of Photoshop for evil instead of good, but I've come up with a theory. I believe that everyone, including men and androgynes and everyone in between, is built with a sense that they are physically inadequate, whether it's sensitivity about hair loss or feeling as though they're out-of-shape or going gray or getting wrinkles or they're too pale or they're too dark or too fat or their nose is too big or too small or too curved or too straight. Everyone thinks that they're unattractive in some way, no matter what size or shape or color they or any of their features are. That's just the way humans think.

Obviously there is no proof of early humans thinking these thoughts, but I've noticed that as far back as records take us, most everyone believes in their own defectiveness.

And this whole thing just makes me frustrated, because most of them have the strong urge to fix it. Sure, I see the flaws in my appearance, and there are times when I want so badly to get a nose job, but I stop and think about who I inherited it from, and how it probably has been in my family for countless generations, and that makes me remember that everything that makes me look the way I do was part of someone else hundreds of years ago. Not to mention the hundreds of other ancestors that contributed to my genetic makeup. But to think that I am made up of little parts that copied from someone else makes me think that I am completely made up of hundreds of people, and that makes me feel special. It also makes me feel special that I have a different shape and a different weight and a different colored skin and a different face than everyone else. Then I just remember that there are people who would think that my nose and the fact that I am the biggest dork in the world is cute, and this supports my other theory; that everyone in the world is born with a 100% perfect match somewhere else in the world. They might be the same gender, but that's okay because they'll end up loving each other anyway because of their cute nose or their dorkiness.

So every time that I see some woman in a magazine ad, I just remember that she's not different, and I end up not admiring her for being on some piece of paper connected to other pieces of paper, especially when her perfect hair and skinny waist was probably sent through some computer somewhere with image-modifying software. And I look at her hair and compare it to everyone else's hair and I realize that the modified image looks more alien than everybody else, because humans can't naturally look like that.

So that's my Poetry Slam moment. I just had to get some of that off my chest after seeing that article, and not all of my thoughts can fit into a Facebook status.

It's been freakin' forever since I posted last, but it's okay because I'm not being lazy. Stuff is actually happening.

I know, right?

I could just bullet-point everything out but this is a blog. Who do you think I am? So here we go:

Ancestry & Manuscripts

My great grandmother (Omi) handed my dad a two-hundred-ninety-something-page manuscript of my great great aunts' manuscript a little while ago. So my dad, being my dad, decided to try to scan it and transcribe it via fancy computer software, but the paper is so old and thin that it couldn't read the typeface, which was weird (according to the computer) anyway. And so I have been ordered to type it up via manual labor. It's not a bad thing, because it's fascinating to hear them say things like, "the colored porter took our things", and, "jazz is the devil's music".

Oh, and for those of you who don't know, the great great aunts in question are Edith and Grace MacDowell, a.k.a. The MacDowell Sisters, a.k.a. The Sweethearts of the Air, a.k.a. a lot of other things.

This is them:

Grace = Left; Edith = Right

I have one of Grace's ukuleles (not pictured) from 1927. I'm afraid if I play it it'll smash to pieces, so I'm going to take it to Dusty Strings at some point and get it restrung by a professional who won't smash it to pieces.

I'm almost finished with the manuscript. 49 pages to go! Yay!

The other half of this story is that because of all this family history fascination, my dad decided to go on Ancestry.com and thus began to trace our family lines for 72 straight hours and it turns out that I'm not prominently Scottish like I thought; I'm prominently Welsh, English, and Dutch, with the minorities of Scottish and Irish mixed in. There was also this one person who was born in Zimbabwe in the 1600s, so I like to say that I'm Dutch-African as well. So although I am a European Mutt, at least I know what breeds make up the mutt.

So there's that.

I Learned to Knit

Yeah, what's that about, right? Well, Raechelle's friend's friend moved out of town and left her plentiful amounts of yarn and knitting needles behind. Before she took it to Goodwill, Raechelle took the yarn from her friend because she knew that I crocheted ("or something? You still use needles, right?") and that good yarn is expensive, so she took it home, and I said, what the hell, why not learn how to knit now that I have the supplies.

And so I finished my crocheting project, and I so far have knitted a too-short scarf because I ran out of yarn, and have started on another one. Because you can never have too many scarves.

Waiting List Crap

They pushed me back three goddamn spaces. So then I was #12. WTF. Probably all the people whose appeals got accepted. Lucky bastards.

Now I'm #11. Things are looking up, but not by a whole lot. So I have a backup plan.

If I don't get to be a leading psychologist at a world-class university, I want to do something artsy. In other words, if I don't get to go to Sealth, I want to go to the Center School. It's not top-class (for public school, anyway) but it's better than WSHS. It's a small, largely LGBT community, so there's not a whole lot of teasing or beating-up, and it's easy to fit in where everyone's different, and if anything, I definitely fit under that category. "Misc." That's me.

~*~

And lo, I have run out of things to say. So I will leave you all with this update and return to... I dunno... Life?

I don't even think anyone reads this anymore...

Marriage. Again.

So North Carolina's Amendment 1 passed. If you don't know what it is, it's supposed to say that "real marriage" is between a man and a woman, but it's so loosely worded that it takes legal status away from other types of domestic partnerships, including unmarried heterosexual couples. That means that they can't file for domestic violence, they don't have hospital visitation rights, they don't have a say in financial matters if their partner is unconscious, and they don't have a say in what happens if their partner dies.

I know it's an issue that's talked about a LOT, and I've already talked about this, but I wanted to put my side of things into it, because I have some thoughts that I haven't heard anyone else say. And as a disclaimer, "gay" includes everything under the LGBTQ spectrum, just because it uses less letters.

Let's begin.

First of all, the number one reason why I think that gay marriage should be legal everywhere is because people are people. That's it. Being sexually attracted to people of the same sex is not their fault, and it is a common misconception that it's a life choice. People are born gay. It's not a gene, it's not a disease, and it's not a choice. You can't catch homosexuality the same way you can't catch perfect eyesight. It's just something you're born with.

Another reason why I fully support gay marriage is because a person is still a person. Marriage is defined in the dictionary as "the legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of two people to live as a married couple, including the accompanying social festivities." Two people is very general. That means everyone, because everyone is a person. That's just how it is.

One reason why I can't understand why people want to make it illegal is that even if it goes against the bible, why is it your business whether or not they go to hell? Besides, if you did "save" them, you'd have a "disgusting pervert" in your heaven. Why would you want that?

Also, why do you want to prevent them from getting married? Marriage should be a right, not a privilege, especially because letting them get married isn't going to prevent straight couples from getting married. It just means that everyone can get married.

Remember when black people couldn't marry white people? It's kinda like that; in 20 years, people will think that it's just a normal thing that's a basic right. I don't understand why people are blowing this up so much. It's not doing any harm to anyone.

It doesn't matter if it's because they can't physically give birth to their own child. The world is overpopulated already (which is also my argument for abortion rights), especially the U.S., and there are plenty of children in orphanages that need a good home. Again, they can't catch sexuality, so they can be straight with gay parents. It happens all the time.

Also, the divorce rate of homosexual couples in the UK was less than one percent within 30 months of legalization. It'll probably rise as more gay marriages happen, but compare what has been done so far with the 50 percent divorce rate of heterosexual couples. And that's just first marriages. 67 percent of second marriages and 74 percent of third marriages end in divorce.

I personally think it's better to live a long, happy relationship with the one you love than to lie to yourself and marry someone you don't love just to prove your sexuality. It's not a crime to be gay. Unfortunately, it's trying to be made a crime to get married if you're gay, which is the issue at hand here.

Obama said last week that he supports gay marriage, which makes me love him even more. He's such a beautiful man, in all respects. I have a picture of him pinned up on my wall that I look at every morning to inspire me.

So that's about it.

Yo Shizzle My Nizzle Dawg.

I'm so uncool.  In my history class, the girl next to me was freaking out about the fact that there was a kind of pepper that was classified as "negro pepper", and I had to explain to her that the Spanish word for "black" is "negro" and it was around a lot longer than slavery in the U.S. when it was used as a derogatory term for African slaves.

She replied with, "Yeah, but I wasn't born back then."







 Bitch, it's not all about you.

I also impressed a bunch of people at a party with the word "floccinaucinihilipilification".  And by "impressed" I mean "bored to death".

So remember that badness that I was feeling in the last post? Well, it's gone now. No more melancholy. Wheee!

Raechelle's in West Virginia. On the car on the way to drop her off at the airport, there was a big-ass moth in the car and it fluttered its nasty little scaly wings all over the left side of my face before I went all ninja on its ass and curled up into the smallest shape I could manage while squealing like a mouse droid. We lost it in the dark until it flew onto my leg and I swatted it and it fell on the floor. We turned the light on and found it twitching on the floor, which freaked me out because it was right on the floor where my feet were. Raechelle picked it up (cue sound of terrified disbelief) and threw it out the window. For the rest of the car ride, I was hypersensitive and was swatting and scratching at my skin where nothing was. I think that qualifies as a phobia of insect-like creatures with scaly, leathery wings. Especially moths, and, coming in second, butterflies. Not just them, either. Bees have that same effect on me. I don't know why. And for some odd reason, I think bats are freaking ADORABLE.

Awwwwww.

I'm trying to get my parents back into music, too. We had a little jamming session last night before we took Raechelle to the airport. We're also getting together with a drummer and a bassist on the 19th to jam some more. Like pros. Yeah.

Last but not least, I got on the waiting list! As of right now you are reading the blog post of someone who is #9 on the waiting list to go to a real high school. I congratulate myself.

Anyways, I need to go before people show up at my house and my sandwich gets soggy.

See ya!

Bagels and Mental Breakdowns

So, I had a meltdown yesterday. I guess I had been holding too much stuff in for too long, and I got set off really easily. It's the most intense one I think I've ever had, too, which is saying something.

So here's what happened.

I had been having a really crappy day in the first place. I was relatively well-rested, but I was late leaving the house to walk to school. It was also really windy, which is probably my least favorite kind of weather, especially for walking to school in at 7:30 in the morning. I had left my homework at home, and therefore was not able to turn it in for full credit. People either pushed me around or completely ignored me, which actually happens pretty much daily, but for some reason it really got to me that day. It was even windier while I was walking home. When I got home, I saw that my chore was to take out the compost, which is my least favorite chore. I missed dinner and ate by myself, and then Raechelle told me to go do my chore.

That was okay. It wasn't difficult, but another part of taking out the compost is to rinse the bin out because the bag leaks sometimes. The only way I had seen that done was by using the hose, which was outside in the cold wind, so I skipped it and just put the bag in. It's not like anyone would notice. Raechelle asked me if I had rinsed it out, and I lied and said yes.

After that, I went downstairs, and about half an hour later, Raechelle came into my room and said, "You said you rinsed the bin out?"

I said yes.

"With the hose?"

I said yes.

"So why isn't the hose or the ground wet?"

I was silent. I couldn't get out of this. Water doesn't dry that fast.

"You lied to me."

I said yes.

"I don't like being lied to. It makes me not want to do things for you, like making a hair appointment for you."

This hurt really badly because it was the one thing I had been looking forward to for a while. I really didn't have a lot else to focus on to make me happy, although I really don't have a very good idea as to why it was so important to me. All I knew was that it was, and if it was cancelled, I would be devastated.

"We'll see if I get over it."

She left.

I started bawling. I cried for a couple minutes, getting angry at her words and the way she said them. "We'll see if I get over it" was the worst, because it put images of her leaving in my mind. Then I started getting angry at myself, mostly because I realized that this wasn't the first time I've lied. I've lied to several people, even people that I care about. This spiral of self-hate started to get worse until crying didn't help. Unlike usual, I didn't feel any bad feelings get out of my body. They just stayed there and festered and made me hate myself even more.

I decided that I should take all this anger and hate out on something inanimate so that I'm not hurting anyone physically, so I threw my water bottle. It hit something soft and wasn't very satisfying, so I threw a chair cushion. That hit the wall, but still wasn't satisfying, so I threw a cup that hit and dented the wall. Normally that would have satisfied me, but it didn't. All the hate was still there. I sat there and decided that the reason why I was so angry was because she didn't discipline me right. So I attempted to correct her.

So I stormed upstairs and into Raechelle's office, where she was sitting at her computer.

I was still hysterical, so I slurred out the words, "could you yell at me please?"

Raechelle was confused.

"Yell at me, please!" I got frustrated that she still wouldn't.

"Why?"

I tried to think of why, but I didn't really know at the time, so I just said, "I can't stand it when you throw that passive-aggressive crap at me!"

She said things about how she wasn't going to yell at me and that it didn't make sense that I wasn't happy with the way she disciplined me. She said that it didn't justify yelling. It wasn't that big of a deal, but she didn't like it when people lied to her.

I said, "Well I think I deserve it."

I started getting even more hysterical. I wrapped my arm around my stomach and put my hand in front of my mouth to try to contain the hyperventilation. It didn't work, and I stood there for a few minutes, sobbing and hyperventilating, until Raechelle got up and said, "I still love you. It was just a little lie," and embraced me.

For some reason, none of this was helping, either. It was like some kind of force field was shielding me from happiness that day. I tried to fight it by telling her everything else that was bad that I had done. I told her that I didn't just lie once; I'm a compulsive liar and I steal things like really nice pens and little trinkets without them knowing, but I hit my limit when I took a little plastic toy from a six-year-old's house. I told her that I get bad grades because I lie about my schoolwork and homework, and that it's not like I try to; it just comes out, even when I have it planned out in my head that I'm going to tell the truth.

She seemed bewildered and took me to the couch to talk about it.

I didn't stop hyperventilating for probably ten minutes.

The last time I've lied since yesterday was when, after the talk, I said I was better.

It still hasn't gone away.

Easter...?

Hey there! I bet you all thought that I had completely abandoned you. Just when you thought you didn't have to read this damn blog anymore, I'M BACK!

Sorry about that. And by "that" I mean "me".

So anyway, spring is probably my absolute favorite season ever, with fall in close second. Spring is my favorite because it's sunny but not hot, and not freezing cold either. It's also when all the flowers start blooming and there's color EVERYWHERE. It's so pretty.

At the same time, I freaking HATE spring, because it's the time of year when my ears and my sinuses clog up, for many different reasons. Mostly (because I never go outside) because of my cats and their hair and dander that starts shedding around this time of year. But also because I have a photic sneeze reflex (which also comes from never going outside), in addition to the obvious dust and pollen that's freaking everywhere (which is why I never go outside). Itchy eyes, runny nose, the usual. People always think I'm crying when my eyes are just watering because of allergies. And of course when I tell them that I have allergies, they think I'm lying to cover up the fact that I was crying, which I wasn't.

Anyway, remember how my transfer papers were sent in? Yeah, we haven't heard back about school placement. We're supposed to sometime this month, so fingers crossed. Not that I have any faith in the Seattle Public School District anymore. Oh well.

So, I've been doing some stuff. School is kind of a blur right now, and I'm really just waiting for it to be over, so I'm not going to go into a huge talk about that right now, also because it's Sunday and I don't want to think about hell on Easter. Even though I don't celebrate Easter (I call it "Not-Easter"). But you know what I went to last weekend?

Oh yeah.

Emerald City Comicon.

Whenever people ask me how it was, all I can do is squee like a little fangirl (which I am) because I can't talk about how awesome it was. There are just no words. I got a companion cube, though. Hell yeah.

But really what I want to talk about is The Collectibles, which is my dad's web series that I helped with. I went to the premiere on Sunday, and the place was packed. There were about 400 seats, and most of them were filled. There was laughter in all the right places. I was proud. It aired online last Monday. Here is the first episode:



The audio does suck, I admit, but there were equipment issues, and the audio gets SO much better by episode 4. Also by that time, all the actors have settled into their characters and it's much less awkward being awkward, and then they can be awkward in their own ways. If you know what I mean.

In other (gaming) news, I FINALLY paid off my entire home loan from Tom Nook in Animal Crossing. It took probably two years and I paid it off. Probably over a million Bells total, I swear. I freaking LOVE this game.

Anyway, I should probably go. I need to get a chocolate bunny. Not-Easter just won't be the same without it.

Yayyy!

My transfer papers were sent in!

Yay!

My Mommy

I'm starting to forget her.  I mean, I know what she looks like and everything, but I can't remember what her voice sounded like and I can't remember how she used to talk to me.  It's depressing, really.  In April, I will have spent half my life without her.  That's a really long time to not interact in any way at all with your own biological mother.

I really regret not being there when she died.  I went on an overnight with my best friend at the time.  I remember that I caught my finger in the car door handle as I was getting out and it was bleeding and my dad was sitting on the front porch steps, under the camelia tree that was in full bloom.  He told me she had died and he held me and I cried.  The last memory I have of her is having to duck out from underneath her outstretched arms, still in the process of wrapping themselves around me in a hug after I was finished hugging her.  I don't even remember the last words she said to me.  I like to think she said "goodnight," but that was me talking to her.  I'm pretty sure she was too weak to respond.

In some ways, I feel like a part of me left with her.  I had to go from 7 years old to 17 years old in under a year.  I didn't get a full childhood.  I've lost friends because they don't understand what it's like and they're so afraid that something they say will offend me that they just stop talking to me.  They don't understand that I don't take offense to questions about my mom or how I feel and that I'm not going to be emotionally scarred because they ask me something.  In fact, I like answering questions about my mom.  It helps me remember her, and the things that I don't know or don't remember, I can discover and see how she and I compare with each other.

I always say that I've moved on, but people never really do.  I still haven't come to terms with the fact that she's gone and I'll never see her again, and it's been almost 7 years.

She would have been 45 years old today.  I wish she could have been there to see me grow up.  I wish she could have been there to see me off to my first day of middle school and my first day of high school.  I wish she just could have been there.  Cancer is a dastardly being, and it needs to be extinguished, not that extinguishing it will undo the damage it's already done.  I'm afraid every day that I'll get cancer and die or that my dad or my brother will get cancer and die, but even worse that my stepmom will get cancer and die because that'll just be a repeat of what's already happened and if it happens again, I fear for the sanity of myself and my family.

We had ice cream, strawberries, and this really nasty, cheap, heart-shaped chocolate cake.  We then sat down and watched her memorial video.  I used up a fistful of tissues and saw my dad, a 6'4", grown man cry.  And as always, my brother was not present for any of this.


That's all I have to say at the moment.

Merry Holidays!

Well, kinda. Depending on who you are.  I didn't really want to say "Merry Christmas" because that could quite possibly be offensive and make people go, "THAT'S OFFENSIVE WHAT IF I WAS JEWISH?!?" Well, you know what? If you wanted to say "Happy Hanukkah", you could. I honestly don't care. In fact, I'm not Christian. But I do celebrate Christmas, and I'm not a Nazi, so I'm not going to persecute you if you're Jewish or Muslim or animistic or Bhuddist or Taoist or Hindu or Deist or Atheist or Agnostic or Gnostic or Rastafari or Pastafari or Samaritan or Ayyavazhi or Bhakti or Din-i-llahi or Yazdânist or Zoroastrianist or whatever the hell you are because I believe in freedom of religion. You can be whatever you want to be and that's fine.


Just don't push it on me.


Again, I believe that everyone has the right to worship freely as they wish, but I swear the next time someone tells me that I should be ashamed of not believing that Jesus loves me and God will forgive me if I pray, I will slap them in the face. Not really, because I would never actually physically hurt somebody, but I would certainly feel like it.


Also, gay rights.


(Most) Evangelist Christians annoy the hell out of me when it comes to gay rights. They think that it's a choice and that it's perfectly fine if you're in a same-sex relationship just as long as you don't have sex. That's like saying that it's okay to like strawberries and you can have them around the house, just as long as you don't eat them. It doesn't make any sense, right? That's what I'm saying.


On a completely different topic, my history teacher, Mr. North, suddenly retired without telling anyone. So we were left in kind of a lurch with a sub that was even worse than Mr. North was. We only had him for a week, and yet I didn't learn anything and he made us write a page-long paper on something that only took 5 sentences to explain. Needless to say, everyone in the class had their grades lowered because of this.

Glory day, oh glory day however today. Ms. Erickson, who is my most FAVORITE SUB EVER came in to teach. But she's not qualified to teach history, which is an issue. However, both the administration and the students loved her so much that they begged her to come back and teach, and she was able to tame the feral lion that was our class at the time. Seriously, it was the quietest it had ever been in that class today.

To help Ms. Erickson with her lesson plans and everything, along came the Academic Something (I can't remember the full title, but it helps students raise their grade and get their credits), Ms. Blanche, and the honors history teacher, who shall remain unnamed because I'm fairly certain I'm never going to mention him again. I learned far more in 55 minutes today than I had in three and a half months in that class because Ms. Blanche is so amazing at teaching.


But yeah. That's about what's been happening in my life. And now I must go if I am to get anything accomplished today.


Farewell, my friends!