In dedication to Mandy...

So, before I begin, I have to say something really fast here.  I just sent a review to my writing teacher (the whole honors class went to a reading by two famous authors and we then had to write a review) and he wrote back and said, "Ms. _____, you were born for the page."  So I feel pretty great.  But on to the real subject.

I know a person who has been cutting.  Sometimes she reads this blog - at least I imagine she does, because she subscribes to it.  I just wanted to say something to her without writing a comment that goes on forever.
I have been there.  Not exactly where you've been, needless to say.  Riley was my Patrick.  Miguel was my Connor.  Cutting was my... well, cutting.  Yes, I used to cut myself.  I started much younger - I was 14, and didn't even realize that there was a name for what I was doing.  I certainly didn't realize how widespread it was.  I tried pocket knives, razors, and upon occasion (when I had nothing else) hair clips.  I only did my left arm, because I needed to use one arm at least to wash dishes, and you can't exactly wear long sleeves while doing dishes.  I took to wearing a jean jacket constantly, even to bed.  When I wore short sleeves, I was always worried that someone would notice.  I started feeling sorry for myself, and then I looked up some cutting websites.  A few offered help.  Most offered companionship.  They wrote about their own cutting experiences, talking about why they still did it.  I was completely shocked to see that even people in their 20's were doing it.  There were a lot of pictures.  At that point I wasn't a bad cutter.  I didn't go very deep - there was a lot of blood involved, but never anything really bad.  Once I saw the pictures, I realized how much worse their cutting habits were, and my own got worse, mostly because I felt like I should keep up.  I was depressed most of the time, wore a lot of black (not that black is a bad thing - hey, it's stylish - but it wasn't characteristic for me at all), and didn't do much of anything but read.  One day I started cutting and just didn't stop - I started crying and just kept cutting, blood dripping all over the sink and counter and floor.  I don't know why I even stopped.  I didn't want to, that was for sure.  I'd love to say that's when I realized I had a problem.  But no, that wasn't the turning point.  I wasn't exactly given to admitting problems - even to myself.  I went on in the same depressed, pathetic state for about two years, before I finally made a bargain with God (and incidentally, I don't believe you can really do that, but it rarely stops me from trying) that if he would keep Riley safe, I would stop cutting.  I never cut again.  Now I look back and can't believe the way I was then.  No motivation, no self-respect, and no realization of how far gone I was.  I think about all those times I read about the twenty-somethings who cut and were proud of it, and I feel better than them (maybe horrible, but true) because I'm not even as old as they are, and I've grown-up more.  I remember reading somewhere that cutters need help to quit - that they can't do it by themselves.  Not true.  I never told anyone.  God helped, I think.  That's it.  I sure didn't talk to a counselor (nasty moneysuckers, in my opinion), and I didn't tell my parents.
I'm saying all of this because I don't want you to get stuck in my story.  I don't want you - or anyone - to get sucked into this and have it turn out badly.  It really is horrible, and you don't realize how horrible until you escape it.  I feel like I should say something else, but I'm pretty much worded out, and if you're anything like I was, you'll ignore this.  Just PLEASE think about it.  It really isn't worth it.

:-)

I guess I made a real friend when I met Eric.  I asked him about dancing and mentioned that I could really use a distraction.  He said that he was working today but if I ever needed to talk he was there.

And it's windy!

Oh, today is going to be a good day.  I always feel excellent when I wear my grey sweater.  It's so soft!  It's like yum for your shoulders.  Okay, rarely have I sounded more ridiculous.  But I'm happy today.  And a little nervous.  I told my dad that I changed my major.  The first thing he said was, "Well, I'm glad you told me before I paid your school bill.  But after that he calmed down and started getting practical.  That's what I love about my dad.  He doesn't spend much time on what's already done.  He moves on to what can be done about it.  And I think he'll come around.
Not only that, but I'm gonna see if Eric wants to practice dance tonight.  I love dancing so much, and he's usually up for it.

Incidentally, I smell dinner...

It seems like every move I make digs me deeper into this well of idiocy I have created for myself.
Okay, three hours, one nap, and one conversation with Christian later, and I'm feeling much better.  Really, how terrible is this?  The only really bad part of this is the part where my parents find out.  Which of course, has to happen eventually.  Soon.
But for now, I'm pretty sure everything will be fine.

Major changes.

They're playing the best music in the DX today.  Oldies.  YES.
Okay... so it's hours later, but today was so great.
Okay, so it's days later, and today was not great.  Actually, it's only two days later.  I changed my major this morning.  I've been unsure about it the entire day.  Impulse only carries you so far - it doesn't stick around for the aftermath.  Incidentally, they played that "oldies" playlist the next morning too.  I was very happy about that.
Aha, I just caught myself getting distracted.  I've been absent-minded all day.  I almost ran into a car twice.  Totally didn't realize that I stopped in front of a green light until another car went racing past me.  I'm very self-conscious on the road.  Much more so than I am just walking down the street.
Hmm.  Just found out that Riley hasn't been doing his homework in math class.  He didn't even make it to the test.  He said his car wouldn't start or something.  I think he was just lazy and realized he had no idea what was on the test.  I stopped cheating for him.  This is a horrible thing to say, but I hope he gets kicked out of that class, if it's possible.  He's really pissing me off lately.  Still owes me money too.
Completely got off topic.  I was talking about the major changes I've made recently, if you'll pardon the pun.  Basically, I was an idiot.  Never mind, I guess I don't need to talk about it all that much.

That could have gone better.

So.  I'm switching my major to history and business.  My parents were just thrilled when I told them.  My dad said he doesn't want to pay for that.  So I'll have to figure it out somehow.  There's always a way.

It's okay, I'm just pondering stuff.

Sometimes I don't even want to think.  Some things are just - not too painful, but too humiliating, too puzzling, too wrong to think about.  I thought I had my whole life together.  I wonder if maybe I'm more lost than I ever was.  Oh well.  Back to homework, and all the academic thinking that blocks out intelligent thinking.

You know the feeling...

... the terrifying one you get when you've been found out.  I think I have been.  This is the deepest, most critical secret I've ever kept, and it shows right through.  To Christian, at least.  I should have guessed.  He knows everything.  I said before that I'd trust him with anything.  Apparently I was wrong, because he can't know this.

I'm not a melty person... but it's a PUPPY!!!!

Last night was amazing.
But before I get to last night, I'm going backwards.  I'm at the coffee shop, and they're playing "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele (one of my favorite songs).  Aha, wait, I took too long doing math and now the song is "Don't Let Me Go" by The Fray.  I like that song too.  Anyway, I'm happy because I'm drinking a caramel mocha and we just got a puppy!!!!!!!
Holy mother, they just started playing my favorite song: "Pumped-up Kicks" by Foster the People.  YES, I am mainstream enough to absolutely adore that song.  Deal with it.
The puppy is small, brown, five-month-old dachshund who, according to Mom, likes to be held.  Seriously, I'm melting just thinking about it.  Picture an almost-tough-as-nails female black belt reduced to a puddle of d'awwwing mush.  This is a damn cute puppy.
And this is a damn good day too.  Studying for my calc 3 test is going well.  I hung out with Ellie earlier.  Seriously, it's been a long time since I've seen her.
Last night we went swing dancing (Ace brought a girl, apparently just a friend but I think he likes her) and afterwards, we sort of went skating on the snow.  And since I was wearing boot/heels, I couldn't really skate in my shoes.  So I took them and went sockfoot, which, incidentally, did not impede my movement at all.  I crashed a few times.  Got my knees all bloody.  Freaked out Finn, Ariel, and a few other random people.  Had fun.
And we have a puppy!!!!!!!!

Re-reading...(2)

BTW, this is not going to be chronological.

http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-love-mornings.html
I still think about this day and smile.  It really was an absolutely wonderful day.  The morning was the best though.


http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2011/12/if-i-had-month-to-live.html
Some things I have to add - I would also learn how to ice skate backwards, and I'd go to see the Kremlin (because the Kremlin really is fabulous), and I'd arrange to have one last, long talk with Christian, and I'd try to be nice to everyone except people who were just jerks (I'd probably beat their butts).  I'd arrange my own funeral, and write out my will (my sister gets my journals and books, Isaac gets King Arthur, Gerry gets my chemistry books, since he's so nuts for that stuff, all my candles go to Olivia, and I suppose I'll figure out the rest later).  I don't typically like the idea of burning, but I think I'd like to be cremated, and I'd want my ashes scattered all over the world.  Hopefully I have a lot of ashes.

http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2012/01/crush-formula.html
Well, I wish there were an actual formula for this kind of thing, but still.  I am beginning to see that Ace and I wouldn't be good together.  I mean, obviously, I don't know that for sure - and he were to ask me out, I wouldn't say no - but I'm not really gonna stress it right now.  That was a great night though - so much dancing.  T'was wonderful. :-)

http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2012/01/oh-oh-you-talked-to-me-in-siren-song.html
Siren song... beautiful phrase.  Anyway, what I call siren song is probably not what you would call siren song.  To me, it's not a guy talking in a low, sexy voice about how beautiful I am.  It can be any non-remarkable voice, as long he's saying remarkable things.  Stories of the rest of the world.  Ideas that I've never heard.  And anything of mystery and danger.

http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2011/12/oh-and-i-also-got-free-coffee.html
My parents eventually did find out.  It actually wasn't that bad.  I haven't followed anyone that closely since.  And by the way, today I saw the girl who gave me the free coffee.  Lovely girl, very friendly.


http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2011/12/superwoman.html
Heh.  Must admit, this invincible feeling has been... dampened a little.  I am trying.  Really, truly.  But I'm getting so little sleep, and so much homework.  Every weekend, I vow to try harder the next week.  But I'm swamped and it's sucking out my motivation.  Well, since it's the weekend, I am now vowing to get everything right next week. :-)

http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2011/12/let-me-make-this-plain.html
So.  I want to talk about Christian.  I can't really talk about him to anyone else.  It's kind of like he's my secret.  He's not a bad secret.  He's a fabulous guy.  But everyone would wonder why I'm talking to a guy who's engaged.  Anyway, I wish I could describe how he makes me feel.  Goodness knows I've tried often enough.  I haven't gotten anywhere with it.  But he makes me feel great.  Absolutely fabulous.  And sometimes he makes me feel like an idiot because I'm not doing exactly what I want.  And I can't believe I trusted him so fast.  Almost immediately.  He wouldn't laugh at anything I did.  Well, he might, because he's a laughing sort of guy, but he would also take it seriously.  There's so much to say about him, but if I keep it up, I'm going to sound ridiculous, so I'll quit it.

http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2011/12/when-im-old-im-going-to-look-back-on.html
I haven't seen that guy since.  The guy who drew the chipmunk, I mean.  I doubt I'll forget him though.  He made my day.  And so did Finn, and so did my pastor.  And I changed the tire with Aaron3 (my favorite Aaron, btw) because we randomly found it flat on our way back from the DX.  We had so much fun doing that.  Also, I see him a lot now, because he took up swing dancing.  He's pretty great.  And the bouncy houses were fabulous.  I hope they do them again sometime.

http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2011/12/and-it-goes-down-down-down.html
I'm going to ignore the second part of this post, and focus on the first, because I never really talked about it.  But Ace asked me on a Monday if I was busy, and if I wanted to go flying.  Needless to say, I managed to get free of the one appointment I had (it was flying, for goodness' sakes!) and we headed towards the airfield.  It was a little cold, but not so bad, and I was too excited to want a coat anyway, so I went in my short-sleeve button-up.  (Incidentally, I don't like coats when I'm happy.  It's like they weigh me down or something.)  That quick moment of weightlessness that you feel when the plane leaves the ground is... something else.  Like in an elevator when it first starts moving, only more pronounced.  And then, you see everything, and it's like you're looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope - extraordinarily clear, but so much smaller than you expect.  And then we went towards the mountains.  But my favorite part was near the end, when he let me fly the plane for a little bit.  Needless to say, I was only steering it, and everything else that had to be done, he did, but it was still amazing.  The landing was bumpy.  I love bumpy landings.  They're so much more fun than smooth ones, because you can feel the difference between what you've left behind and what you're going back to, instead of landing softly and quietly and realizing only later that oh, we're already back.  I much prefer the air.  And then Ace mentioned the saying that a lot of pilots go by: "If you're in one piece, it was a good landing.  If the plane is in one piece, it was a great landing."  Everything seemed very ordinary on the way back.  The one thing he said that was interesting was in answer to the question I asked much earlier, when the propeller had just started: "Does it ever get old?"  And he told me on the way back that, yes, you got used to it, but no, it never really got old.

http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2011/11/somebody-was-nice-today.html
That was the day I became friends with Christian.


http://movefastmakeitlast.blogspot.com/2011/12/re-reading.html
And here is the link to the last time I did this.

I can't really say anything else.

And yet it needs so badly to be said:  Yuuuuuuuuucck.

My train of thought left me at the station.

"Surging" is a wonderful word.  Really, think of all the wonderful things that means.  When has the word "surge" held anything but an overwhelming power?  And I love overwhelming power.  I don't need to have it.  But something does.  It's wonderful and terrifying all at once.  Isn't it fantastic?
Lately, I'm struck by the upperclassmen at this college.  So many of them seem older than their twenty-odd years.  I don't know why that is, except that maybe they have so much homework that it brought on premature aging.

Somebody remind me why I got up so early.

Aaiiiieeeeee!!!!!  Does no one understand that you're not supposed to have a test this early in the quarter?  Although I guess it beats having back-to-back tests.  But still.  CHEMISTRY.  YUCK.  How can math be so easy for me and chemistry so boggling?

The crush formula

I wanted to talk about last night, because it really was great.  I just got sidetracked, what with all the drama.  (I'm so sick of drama.  I just want a non-ordinary, peaceful life.)
Well, I suppose you don't remember the vow I made to stop thinking about Ace.  Yeah.  How full of shit I am.  He asked me to dance four times last night.  Not that it means anything, I know.  But think about it for a second - there were a good twenty girls (maybe more, but for the purposes of calculations, we'll say twenty) last night, and a swing dance song lasts about three or four minutes.  Since we danced for a little under three hours, there were about 45-50 dances.  Which means that he (theoretically) asked me more than he asked any other girl.
How pathetic am I, using mathematics to calculate the probability of crushing?

I can't bloody stand the way people change... and don't.

It's times like these when I'm SO glad I have a blog that no one knows about.
Isaac is SO FUCKING STUPID SOMETIMES!!!!!!  He had friends over and they decided to smoke pot, and he just went along with it.  He's always criticized people for being potheads, and when I mentioned that to him he said if I was going to criticize him that he didn't want to talk.
WHAT AN ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On another note, I pretty much hate it when anyone changes from what they really were.  So many people just lose themselves somewhere.  I was worried I'd lost myself.  Unh-uh.  I haven't.  I just don't have a lot of friends.  It's a transitional period.  Most of my old friends think I've gone "goody-two-shoes" - that or they just don't have time because we go to different schools.  Most of my new friends aren't close enough that I'm willing to let them know much about me, even though I'm pretty sure they'd accept me.
Riley, turns out, hasn't broken up with Dana.  They're still going out.  He certainly hasn't changed.  I can't figure it out - what on earth did he have to gain by lying to me?  This is it.  I don't trust him anymore.  And for the record, I'm not doing his homework again.  I don't care how much he whines.
...
On second thought, you know what?  It's his loss.  If he's not willing to study, that's his issue.  In the meantime, doing math several levels beneath the math I'm doing now - for money - beats housecleaning.  Yes, I still feel dishonest.  But right now, as a college student, money trumps a lot of stuff.  Uggh.  Okay, maybe I'll need to think about this.

I am so unreal.

I never felt like such a hypocrite.  I've become so lost in everything that everyone thinks I am that I'm really not sure what "being myself" means.
I've cheated on homework.  Not mine.  Riley's.  Yeah, he goes to school with me now.  Well, yesterday, something "came up" and he asked me to do his math homework.  He paid me $10 up front, called me a life-saver, and hugged me.  Ten minutes after he left, I broke down.  My mom was bothering me about going dancing that night (I've gone dancing every Wednesday night since I found out about it) and about the campout this weekend (which I cancelled today because I have a chem test on Monday) and about my grades in general, which aren't even bad.  So I packed up my books (and his book on finite mathematics) and got ready to leave.  As I was putting on my coat, Eric came up (I'm actually not sure why - probably to ask why I wasn't over on the floor) and I told him before he could say a word that I had too much homework.  I didn't cry.  Then he said it was okay and he would see me later.
I walked around campus, actually crying at this point.  I hope no one heard.  There weren't many people out, and I was fairly quiet.  Anyway, it doesn't matter.  (Everything in my head is rebelling at this point, because I never talk about crying, which I rarely do and don't approve of as a rule.)
What matters is that today I did his homework again, because he said he didn't have a computer.  I don't know if he's just making excuses or if he legitimately can't do it (there are definitely computers at the school, but this is Riley - he has issues sometimes), but it's making money, and pretty quickly (especially since his math is really easy).
But I feel terrible. 

"Oh, oh, you talked to me in siren song and anyone would drown..."

You know how some people - even if you don't like them or if you don't think they're good for you - are so beautiful, with voices so melodic and attitudes so comforting that you almost fall in love with them on the spot?
Not saying another word.

It's only Wednesday...

... of the second week and I'm already walking around like the living dead.
I saw Christian last night at the DX.  Seriously, if I could talk to him for about five minutes each day, life would make so much more sense.  Or less, depending...
HI!  It's me again, only two hours later.  I'm finally awake.   I think it's all the coffee.  I wonder if I just made a mistake.  I don't really care to go into it, but we'll soon see.  I think.

I love mornings.

I'm becoming a morning person.  I was up at 5:30 this morning.  Granted, it was so cold that I could hardly scrape my windshield, but I love being in the coffee shop early to study.  They're playing "Hey Soul Sista" in here. I don't usually like that song, but it's so cheerful in here.  I just got a peppermint white mocha.  I've never had one of those.  I was feeling adventurous.  Today is going to be awesome.  Absolutely fabulous.  And now, back to math.
Did I mention how good I was feeling???

Wonderful day...

Greetings, fair readers!  Or, well... fair imaginary readers.  (I like to imagine an audience exists.)  I have started thinking about Ace again.  Curses upon my wandering thoughts.  He appears to hold no grudge against the time I asked him to go skating.  In fact, he asked me to dance several times.  Of course, he was just "making the rounds" as he called it, but there's no way he danced with every girl there, so he must not hate me.  Or feel awkward around me.  Which was what I was worried about.  I don't mind terribly if he doesn't like me like that.  Mostly, I just wanted to be friends.  I'd much rather be friends with a guy for a little while first, anyway.  Not that that's going to happen or anything.

Yes, we are the cool kids.

School.  Wow.  This quarter is going to rock.  I'm tired though, and I've got a lot of homework, even though it's only the first day.
But, just for the record, the people in my Western Thought class are da bomb.

DAMN, but I am good at lying to myself.

Ahem.

Happy New Year.  The world mustn't end in 2012 because the Hobbit comes out in December, and I won't have the chance to see it until January.  Thank you, that is all.