went the coal and went the water

another dream has been had. this one started with me visiting a place upstate with a dingy lake and beat up, oddly shaped houses. i peered over the edge of a dock behind one of the homes and my shoe, my sister's white sandal, fell in. my parents were furious and told me they were sending me away to a school across the street we were on. they said i had no respect and i wasn't responsible and that they were fed up with me, so for the last year of my education i was going to be at this horrid school upstate. i cried and threw a fit, told my mom i hated her and yelled at my sister to stop my parents from doing this. she didn't do anything and said i should just go. they left me there, shoeless and confused. i had to room with three asian girls that acted like i didn't exist. i was freezing in my room and asked if i could shut the fan off and they just didn't look at me. also, one of the girls had a gum ball machine in her room. a voice came on the loud speaker instructing all students to go to the computer lab which looked like a giant sweat shop with computers at sewing tables. the mother of the kardashian's was the dean of the school and kept yelling at me. she told me i was using the program wrong and that i had to go to the gym instead. i got angry and left. as i was working out i saw her from the window kissing a younger man. she was apparently dating one of the jonas brothers and i leaked this information and got in a serious amount of trouble for it. i was ordered to go to lobby of the school and wait for my mom. when she arrived she was just as unpleasant to me as the day she left me there. we gave each other large doses of bad attitude until i woke up.

it was at this point i situated myself in my bed to get comfortable again and fall right back to sleep. i continued with part two of the dream which took place in the same setting, but the situation was completely different. it was a dream that was more of an observation, i wasn't really taking any part in it. the dingy lake that i had previously dropped my sister's shoe in had dried up. trees grew on the floor of the lake and wild animals, ones that looked like gazelles ran around. people had to climb from tree to tree to avoid getting killed by the animals because they had all apparently turned violent and thrived off of killing things. so i am seeing these people and other smaller animals clinging onto branches and a few of them falling into the pit of angry creatures. eventually, after days passed in my dream the lake abruptly filled back up, drowning everything there was that breathed. i remember seeing everything under water as if they weren't affected by not being able to take oxygen in and i sharply woke up again.

it's fake just like the movies

there is a specific feeling out there, one that there is no word for. it's in between disappointment and aggravation, across from sadness and frustration. i can best describe it as the feeling you got as a child when you expected a giant birthday party with an elaborately decorated pinata and professional face painters with the whole school in attendance and wound up with shitty cupcakes with an unsatisfying amount of icing on them and a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game with your cousins and mom. it's that feeling where you know you have to put on a happy face and that you really should be grateful for everything, but you aren't. knowing that you don't feel the way you should makes you feel even worse. i set myself up time after time. i think more of people, give them much more credit than what they deserve and then i am rudely awakened by their actions. i never learn. i say, "this time will work out. this time will be better", and then it's not.

also, i noticed i become incredibly angry when i can not find matching socks.

let the reigns go loose

it's the season and despite the fact that i usually go christmas crazy, it's been hard for me to get into it. i've tried watching a movie or two, baking cookies, decorating trees, setting up mechanical snowmen, gift shopping, and the rest of it. have i literally grown out of the excitement of the holidays? is it just stress from various things? i don't know what it is but i know i don't like it. hopefully, considering tomorrow will mark the official last day of the semester i will perk up and make the most out of the time left before christmas. i am quite proud of the gifts i'll be giving my family and friends this year. i always try to be personal about it, to get something they don't have, something that will speak to them on a level above just being an object- more like something showing the thought i put into picking it out. i love doing that for the important people in my life. it's strange because usually people think i hate christmas and the act of giving because i'm always so sarcastic and make fun of almost everything. it's the opposite though. i melt when i know i got someone the perfect gift. even when i was little i would wrap up music boxes and stuffed animals and give them to my parents, thinking that just because you wrap something it's magically new and shiny. then again, i thought santa was real when i was that age. i'd give anything to be that way one more time.

this time i will go through what things about the holidays specifically make me happy.

gingerbread houses, walking through the snow at night and seeing how the christmas lights reflect off the ground, baking my christmas cookies, giving my christmas cookies away, giving in general, decorating the tree, using the tree as a night light, nat king cole and frank sinatra christmas albums, snowmen, seeing wrapped presents under the tree, the element of surprise.

what it's like to eat what's rotten

obese people break my heart. no matter how they got to that point, whether it was all their fault or not- they just depress me. what a horrible existence to be trapped inside your own body, a prisoner of your own skin. true, there's a way to be freed of that but for a lot of people that's just not an option due to financial issues or some other limiting circumstance. the fuel that powers obese people to keep eating and eating and eating is almost always so deep seeded and nearly impossible to get rid of. the appetite that drives them everyday seems to be unable to be satiated. television shows that glorify and exploit these people disgust me. i can't watch them, not even five minutes. the continuous footage of someone who would otherwise be able to lift himself out of a chair simply can't because of his sheer size. the person behind that camera should be ashamed of themselves. to sit back and watch human beings eat themselves to death and struggle with shifting their own weight is just as bad as letting someone slit their wrists and drain their blood in the bathtub. they're both slow and in-plain-view ways to die. sure, we have a whole medical field dedicated to the obese population but bariatrics hasn't done much for the growing number of americans eating their way into oblivion.

this isn't a judgment on obese people at all. i truly hurt for them. i understand harboring a hatred and love for food, both personally and vicariously through certain family members. to carry that emotional and physical weight is exhausting and seemingly unbearable. i hate that this issue is being paraded around on television like some oddity, when in reality it's all too common.

to bring myself out of this gut wrenching topic, here's a few things that bring me joy.

stale marshmallows, oversized mugs, being able to hear how cold it is outside while i'm in a warm house, new bras to match my underwear, warmth in general, hugs, meaningful conversations, promises kept, long lasting friendships, wrapping gifts, old nickelodeon shows, space heaters, mohonk mountain, a clean room, "i love you"'s spelled and pronounced that very way, j brand jeans, being able to make someone's day, being listened to, getting the perfect gift for someone, being understood, pizza, finishing something.