LAUR & ORDER

Our Time Is Running Out

2007-07-16T15:15:00.000-04:00

"Is that your car out there?"
"The black one? Yeah, that's my baby."
"You should be out, you know, at the beach or somethin'. How come you're not out?"

Because I can't bear to see the ocean, that's why. I can't bear to leave the house most of the time. I'm happy. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy; I just live without the energy to live, if that makes any sense. A certain weight of 'health' looms over me quite a bit. Everyone wonders about my health. Seems like sometimes it's the only thing they care about... but it's not all that easy. It's quiet, like old cigarette smoke stains you thought were just stains but actually are reminders of scent that filter down from the ceiling years after you've quit, reminding you of the home you've lost in no longer having something dangling from your lips. It's something you used to hold and wave around to make a point, to hide behind when you were sitting alone waiting for a taxi that's two hours late and you didn't want to look so alone. A certain level of visual cool that has escaped your grasp with its release... a disposeable finger that slowly eroded with tiresome dispose and dictated the lines of your face to crease a little faster. It's about both want and need. A crutch, an invisible artificial limb without the obvious stares that come from fearsome wonder, that's what it feels like. It's below, under your feet, and making your toes ache with every step but not enough to change your shoes or even look down. Once you learn that it's not the shoes, it's your feet, there's a new awakening that occurs and separates the toes you once smashed together to look like something they weren't; to conform to a fit that wasn't your natural one. To warp with the pressure of time.

To give in... that is freedom.

Too much, too fast.

2007-06-23T14:54:00.001-04:00

^ Click that to make me a happy camper, and watch this to make yourself a happy camper:

I still have yet to actually sit down and finish painting it.

Codewords

2007-05-29T00:48:00.001-04:00

Really busy lately. Tidbits flying everywhere, thought and flakes of skin, everything and everything's cousin. Write soon. Remember English language as well.

She breaks, she breaks, she caves, she caves.

2007-04-23T13:06:00.000-04:00

No time to say anything new, really. Hopefully there will be soon so don't give up little pixel journal, I haven't forgotten you.

That's pretty much how I feel about everything right now.

We share our mother's health

2007-03-12T20:56:00.000-04:00

I would write a book if I wasn't convinced the secrets, lies, and general weirdness that is my life and the lives around me wouldn't make everyone hate me. They would, though. It's kind of evident. But none the less I live in a really fruitful and sort of insane world. Wait, I don't know if I'd call it fruitful. Fruity, maybe, but not always fruitful; sometimes it's rotten fruit, but fruit all the same. Like, today I found out one of my family members went in to the hospital for open heart surgery without telling anyone what was going on. No one, not even their significant other, in fact instead of telling them they lied and said they had to make an emergency trip to another state. It's weird to think about, but I guess it's (mildly) justifiable because they're sick as it is. Then again we're all different and everyone deals with things differently so maybe they were okay with the idea of dying without saying goodbye. It's the easiest way to go, after all. For you maybe.

There's lots of people that go through that sort of thing from the receiving end. We have this other family friend who went through 9/11... saw the bodies dropping from the sky and everything. If you ask them why they never went back to their job after it happened, all they'll say is "there were people in the air." That's enough of a reason for me.

And I think I'm crazy because there's just some days when I want to go to class with no pants on because I'm too lazy to put my leg in the hole. Go figure.

I want you to know when I look into your eyes, with every blow comes another lie

2007-02-16T21:55:00.000-05:00

This Grizzly Bear video is the trippiest thing I've ever seen in my life aside from like, the Sledgehammer video. Pretty awesome even though it kinda does involve psuedo aliens which psuedo make me want to pee myself with fear, bad.

I love the internet.

Twas also I who ate the pie and passed the cake to me

2007-02-12T16:18:00.000-05:00

There's this puddle in my front yard. It's a pretty big puddle and it comes whenever it rains or snows, any kind of precipitation happens, it shows up. It's got a history as weird as it sounds. It's called 'Lake Lenny' after my Dad, and it's sort of lake-like considering it takes up most of our yard when it comes to visit. Sort of like Frosty The Snowman... he shows up, hangs out for a while, melts, and comes back again some day. That's Lake Lenny.

When I was little I was small enough to sit in the center in my underwear. That's how I remember it most of the time; getting really excited when it rained and stripping down to barely anything to throw myself against the itchy, sandy ground over and over again until it stopped raining or I started shivering, whichever came first. Splashing was easy, fun, and it didn't matter how dirty you got, at least not to me because I was four and I didn't care about hardwood floors or tiles that were bigger than my feet. I even learned to pseudo ice skate on that puddle. (I suck at anything that requires an object being strapped to my feet for movement, mind you. I can't rollerskate, rollerblade, ice skate, ride a bike, or even wear those roll-y shoes 'cause I fall. I fall very hard, and very a lot.) They were kind of primitive ice skates though. I strapped them to my white hi-top Reeboks and fell all over the place. I gave up after about five minutes because that's my style. Try twice, give up three times. But that's only with certain things.

Now I just run over Lake Lenny with my car. I crack up the thin layer of ice when there's still frigid water beneath the surface, or just skid right over it when it's too hard to budge. It's still there, though. It's the complete opposite of random, it's large, and it's never changed. If there's one thing I know will be here long after I'm dead, it's that puddle. That puddle will be a lake some day when my house becomes too old and ricketty to stand up. When everyone I know and love is dead, when the world is taken over by aliens and we drive cars in tubes above the trees some little futuristic space kid will look down and see my puddle. He'll wonder what it is, and when his parents give him some omipotent dictionary definition he'll shake his head like he understands but he won't because he's never felt the water from my puddle on his skin when he was four, nor will his parents because they didn't name the puddle before I came. He won't understand a swirl of the finger mixing dirt and rock and sharp, unidentified brickle in my puddle. The puddle that was theirs before it was mine.

Magnolia Red Velvet Cupcakes = HEAVEN

2007-02-12T14:03:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty bored and right now I don't have much to say that won't get me angry, depressed, or in trouble so I'm just going to paste a video and link one of my most faaaavorite sites ever, http://www.cuteoverload.com. That place always manages to make me feel better. What can I say, I really love baby animals and pointless captions.

Speaking of pointless captions I've discovered a few that describe the last few weeks of my life perfectly:

Especially that last one. Amazing. Oh and picture cred to the respectful owners. If it's yours drop a comment and I'll credit.

I'm also evil, and also into cats

2007-02-03T22:18:00.000-05:00

So. Today was sort of uneventful in that 'ten thousand things happened but it didn't make a lick of difference' way. Everyone at work is sick, everything at work is different... probably because I haven't been there in like two weeks. That's the funny thing about work and life, too. No matter how long you're there or what kind of tenure you've aquired over time it can be ripped out from under you, kind of like a carpet you've grown a little too accustomed to sitting upon, and you're on your ass. I'm sure they invented tenure as some kind of way to have job security even though there's no honest security for anything in life. I feel like I'm being negative. I probably am, at least a little bit. Then again it's the truth so why bother trying to cover it up? I like honesty. I also like covering things up and false security. That's definitely in the top ten things everyone likes, though. What's better than having a secure feeling? Nothing, really.

Actually, strike that. Music's pretty cool that way. I haven't had a song hit me like a brick in quite some time though, and it's a shame. I think I have a lot of pent up aggression with the music business. I hate how 'things' like Fall Out Boy (Okay I admit it, 'Arms Race' is a little addictive but nothing more than that...) can have these ginourmous fanbases of screaming, hairgelled, and flying bat tattooed twelve year olds moshing during circle time and make a fucking killing.

And then I'm wondering... it's got to be about the image. Sure, you dig how it sounds because you care too little to really understand the music, or it could be even deeper than that -- it doesn't matter if you understand the music as long as you can consume it, or are willing to consume it. It's all about consumerist bullshit, I'm convinced. Consumerism is the new gospel of the modern age. And God said; "if you can sell it, then let it be sold." Ever since I started working in retail I've discovered my new hatred for consumerism. If you don't have a Louis Vuitton, or you're not wearing the newest YSL accessory, or God forbid you shop at Target... you might as well kill yourself. Sure it's harsh words but what tree-hugging hippy have you met that doesn't own a pair of Birkenstocks just because they're hippy garb? Finding something to identify with is a huge part of it. We all want someone, or a group of someone's, to identify with and some of us are so desperate for it that we forget ourselves. But why?

Pack mentality? I think it's getting worse. It's the only concept that makes sense because if the Crypts and the Bloods are fighting on Main, there's some kind of universal pack mentality going very, very wrong. I don't really get the point of that either. To me, gangs are just a way of finding some kind of family to cling to when your own isn't enough. People like security, and they love finding security in each other no matter what the cost. It's a shame. We're all so afraid of being alone. Think about it, how small do you feel when you read that? We are, though, more afraid of being alone than we are of being with the wrong crowd. Frankly it freaks me out that we're so willing to have companionship that we'd do anything, even murder, for just a bit of it. But hey, who am I to judge. I guess if it makes you happy or at least makes you think you're happy it's fine. Just don't hurt other people. That part I do wish I could get out there. It's really selfish to think that you can go out and have your gang wars in a neighborhood that doesn't even really belong to you. Regular citizens out number the hell out of you, so what are you trying to be so tough for? I wish they'd give up. I wish a lot of people would give up. But yet again, I've got no right to speak because I'm sure I do some things people hate.

... Like make fun of Fall Out Boy.

I love you more than I know how to say

2007-02-01T00:17:00.000-05:00

You know, sometimes I get to thinking. Now this can be one of those knock-your-head-on-the-ground-and-ask-God-why-in-the-name-of-everything-good-(or evil)-you-had-one-of-these-occurances types of situations... but we'll see how it goes since I keep losing track of my thoughts the second they hop out of my fingers. Or mouth. Fingermouthes. See, jelly brains.

I think I need to tell more people I love them. I've never been one to abuse those words and I rarely say them because they sort of intimidate me... unless of course we're not face to face, then I'll throw them around with you like wildfire, at least in some cases. I also have yet to figure out who this 'you' is that I'm speaking with. This could get interesting. You could be anyone. It could be, well... you, or youtube, or your mother, or even your dog if I loved it enough. (I have loved a couple of dogs in my time and I tend to like them slightly more than people even though I hate my own sometimes. Dogs, not people.) Again, wasted type on something I can't pin down.

I love you.

But do I? Am I just saying it because I think I should and that it might have some kind of impact on someone's life if I do say it? Perhaps. I'd like to test that theory though. I've always wanted to be one of those crazies who buys a grandma sweater, goes out into the park, and starts telling people they love them just to see what kind of reaction they'd get. Sure, some of them would be completely appauled, others (most likely of the teenage breed) would laugh because they're just about as uncomfortable with those words as I am. But again, are you laughing because you're uncomfortable or are you laughing because you wished someone meant it? The tables turn again. I laugh because I'm uncomfortable most of the time. I like laughing, and I like making people laugh... so why shouldn't I dig on making people feel loved? Oh yeah... I forgot that part again, love's scary.

... But is it really?

I don't even know if people are emotionally equipped to say those words in this day and age. Hopefully some of us out there, with a little more guts and bravado than the rest of us, can say it and mean it. It'd be nice to be one of those people one day. Sadly (or happily) enough, I think I could be if I'd stop being afraid of other people's fear. That's what it is you know. We're terrified of other people's terrors more than we're afraid of our own. Kinda like horror movies. Some people are like 'Dude, did you see that movie? I haven't slept without a light on for the last month and a half,' while another will completely blow the flick off and call it nothing more than a knife handle (a.k.a. pointless). So... are you more afraid of letting yourself say the 'I love you,' or that the 'I love you' will be heard by someone who's way more afraid of it than you are? I'm not sure that question has an answer.

But I love you. That much I know.

Cinnamon Apple Tea, if you're asking

2007-01-30T15:44:00.000-05:00

Alright. Since this thing is pretty new, I figured I'd break it in with a series of random Topic-A-Day posts, or maybe even bits of useless (and awesome) information about my life, kinda like Sarah Morrison only... obviously less awesome.

So, to start it all off... I've got a creepily vivid memory for things I don't need to remember. But important dates, kinda like Birthdays, Anniversaries, or anything that doesn't have to do with 90s music or what kind of tea I drank last week -- total darkness. I always wondered if it were a selective memory problem. My parents liked to tell me that it was, especially when it came to Math homework.

Because Math is evil.

It is. It revolves around numbers and theories that make no sense in my brain no matter how many times I rehearse them. I've gone through a lot of Math teachers and just one tutor. Nick was my Math tutor for a really long time, and the only person who could ever teach me a quadratic equation. That's big shit. Have you ever tried one of those? I don't think I have in a couple of years... but I bet if you put it down in front of me right now I'd know exactly what it was.

I guess that's kinda like High School. It's been a little over four years since I've been there and today Melissa's going back there for some kooky college class about educating geniuses, or something like that. I never was one so I wouldn't know. But I do know that the big thing to do was sneak off to Wendy's for a frosty at lunch time. It's still kind of funny to me... there was this whole backwoods underground railroad to get there, and this giant rig they had set up for those project adventure classes in gym. It was all spraypainted and disgusting, probably rusty too, but I didn't go to a rich High School so I can't complain. It could've been worse.

I'm glad I'm old enough to say no to things like Project Adventure and Math. They sucked. ... A lot. But I guess it also teaches you that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, no matter how much you hate it or kick your feet. And usually in these situations there's some kind of bit about always having someone to catch you. I'm not sure I can really believe that last part yet, about the catching. People slip up a lot.

People are also really, really good to each other deep down inside. Which is why I look for nothing more than disingenuous people with good intentions and warm hearts. No matter what kind of skeezebag asshole they seem to be, they've probably got friends somewhere that respect them for the skeezebag asshole they are.

So in the end... love each other and study more Math. At least you'll be able to count change when you hit up Starbucks.