space

I love listening to happy music. Even when I'm not happy, it's comforting to know that somebody, somewhere, at some point was or is. I really wish that I could make happy music. I'm not quite sure how to.

I know I haven't written in a while, here anyway, and I'm not sure why. It's definitely a mental thing. I mean, it's not as if I have nothing to say all of a sudden, it's just...well, I'm not quite sure what it is, precisely. Maybe lack of sleep? Maybe I'm getting homework now that school has started. Maybe I still have some history reading to do and questions to answer. I think that might be part of it.

I keep thinking about how many people live on the planet, and how I don't know them, but how they each have their own separate lives that they are living totally separately from mine, and that they haven't even thought of me, and I've never thought of them, individually. Then I think about how vast the world, the universe, and everything is, and then I can't sleep. Sometimes I wish that I was a robot that could turn off for a certain amount of time, and then at the time I need to wake up, I would automatically turn back on, so that I would always be on time for school. It's sad that everything goes back to school. School has totally consumed my personality.

the why

I'm afraid that I say too much without actually saying anything at all, and I'm afraid that if I start to write most of what I think here, it won't be real anymore because it has left my head. My new literature teacher said that we can't hoard ideas; we need to share them with each other in order to have discourse, and accomplish things. I think that life is different than literature though, even though literature can tell us about life-what if your idea escapes and you forget? What if it was never a good one in the first place? Everything becomes more real once said aloud. There are certain things that I want to say but never do, and there is something that I said once but will probably never repeat, and there are stories I've written that will never be seen by anyone, because I am a greedy idea hoarder always hungry for words, for the right words, but they are always just out of my grasp. Writing is different than talking though, because you can be as honest as you want and say that it's only pretend, but if you're honestly pretending while speaking, you're lying. I don't like lying, no matter what you call it, so I like reading and writing words better than hearing and speaking them sometimes. A lot of the time. I like to pretend that I'm pretending and still have it be the truth.

movies I've seen in church

-Superbad

-The Piano (but only the violent/sex scenes)

-Priscilla Queen of the Desert

-Eurotrip

What religion is this, you may ask? Unitarian Universalism.

gorgeous?

I am in the car on the way to Philadelphia right now. Typing in a car is strange, and I've never done it before, but it felt neccessary a minute ago. I was looking out of the window and thinking, and somehow I started thinking about spelling, and then I thought about how the word "gorgeous" is spelled, which led me to think about Gia, which makes me sad. But anyway, I came to the conclusion that gorgeous is a strange word. It's gorge+ous. Gorge? I now have this image in my head of people looking at something beautiful, and gorging themselves on its beauty. If it's gorgeous, it's something worth gorging on. Realizing that this whole concept is really silly and inaccurate, I looked up the etymology of gorgeous. It turns out that gorgeous is from the Middle French gorgias, which means elegant and fashionable, perhaps literally meaning "necklace", because all of that comes from Old French gorge, which means bosom or throat. All of which I learned from dictionary.com, by the way. We didn't exactly bring our dictionary on the trip. And I looked up gorge by itself, and it comes from the same place. So I'm totally wrong, but also sort of right, in a way. I think.

This is one example of the several useless kind of things I think about constantly, and I apologize for its dullness. Then again, I can write whatever I want. I'll write something actual soon, most likely.

write right rite

I'm home again. Home meaning my dad and friends and the city that I love even though it's smelly and kind of empty sometimes. Even though home means doing more work and worrying about my future and other things that I am told are important. I'm so glad to be back, despite that.

I've just read all of these old crazy things I wrote on google docs over the past year, and I stopped and wrote a new one. I've written several letters to people with no intention of sending them. Well, not exactly people. More or less one person. It's really stupid. If anybody other than me ever read any of the stuff I write, I would be mortified. It's like a weird, slightly obsessive-compulsive, crazy person diary written to people. Also, I write in my diary as if someone from the future is going to read it. Is that so unreasonable though? I will probably read it in the future. Hopefully nobody else will though-I write the most stupid things. I wonder what Sylvia Plath wrote in her diary when she was my age. I think about her a lot, but I feel like I can't read The Bell Jar yet. I just don't think I can do it. Maybe when I'm a little less crazy? I really want to though-it has the attraction of playing with fire, or climbing really tall trees. It's like Legs baby.

Anyway, in some ways, I kind of wish that my unsent letters on google docs were read by their hypothetical recipient(s). I wish that they could understand why I'm writing. I wish I could understand why I'm writing. Frankly, I have no idea. I had this whole thing where I wanted to write more this summer so that I could get better at it, but I don't think it's working out so well. I've only ended up writing around once a month on average, and I'll probably write less for myself once school starts. It's not like I have anything important to say, and it's not like anyone ever reads this anyway. Why would they?

strangers

Summer=reading, and summer reading, but I always end up reading too many other books that are not assigned, and it's always late August or early September by the time I start SUMMER READING, which is of course the most important thing to be doing.

The library in this small town in northern Virginia reminds me of the Secret Garden, because there used to be a secret stairway hidden by ivy-covered walls that led to a sundial that was always wrong. Now I realize that the stairway was never really a secret after all, and that it leads to the main road, and that everybody could see it the whole time. Most of the ivy is gone now anyway. The library never has all of the SUMMER READING books I need, and always seems to be small and empty now.

Nearly everything in this town, even the library, is a stranger to me now, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I still have one friend here. She is back from Russia now and dancing to a cd on the boombox. We make fun of teeny boppers and blast Alejandro through open car windows. I can stop worrying about college and The Extended Essay long enough for Lady Gaga.

the bug in the shower

I was taking a shower this morning when I noticed a bug, perhaps a small moth, crawling along the back of the tub. It flew around for a little while and then came to rest upon a porcelain edge close to me. I cupped my hands under the shower, watching the water fill the hollow I made. I poured this water on the bug, and it was swept away down the drain.

I thought about what I had done. The bug wasn't bothering me, it wasn't harming me in any way. Why did I feel the need to kill it? I drowned the bug automatically and without thought, without thinking about the consequences of my actions. Then I started to think about what consequences could possibly arise. I came to realize that there would not be any. Moths do not have families that would miss them if they disappeared. Nobody would care that the moth was dead.

But what if I am wrong? What if I am only telling myself this so that my automatic disregard for life can be pardoned? I keep thinking about how tiny and insignificant humans are in the grand scheme of things. Are we any greater than moths? What if giants came around squashing us when we got in their way? They may not know that we have languages or people that we love. Does that make it okay?

I am not mourning the moth. The fact that the moth is dead does not affect me. The fact that I killed it does.