leave the light on

another gap of time has elapsed without me bothering to post anything on this, not like it makes a difference in the grand scheme of things. during this time, i've had many an odd dream and regret not recording them at all, also a lot has happened as well. a new year started, i made some money, my last semester started, and i had surgery with little to no complications whatsoever- i can't complain. fare thee well, axillary lymph nodes- i hope to never deal with your pesky and unsightly issues again. things are going swimmingly, i'd say. january came and went faster than i thought it would. i spent the month with my friends, my family, working, going to shows, reading, taking pictures, running and pushing my muscles to the limit just to see how far i could go and how much i could carry. i also confronted a lot of my problems, the ones i never talk about. it was a freezing cold month and i turned blue often. all in all, i enjoyed my break very much.

i'm going to try and get back on the blog bandwagon and attempt to post more frequently for my own sanity and enjoyment. in the meantime, here are some more things i realized that make me happy.

meeting new people, my new ipod, expressing how i feel rather than acting like i'm fine, oddly flavored lollipops, loads of new music, more than one pair of the same jeans, combing my hair in a different direction, healed up arm pits.

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.

an acquaintance strikes a chord

when exactly is the right time to let something go? what determines said time and how do you judge the severity of said something? in the broad spectrum of people, i've noticed that it's not exactly kosher to hold on to things whether they be grudges, opinions, hurt feelings, broken hearts, or memories. this brings up another question: doesn't everything that happens to you shape who you are? so then it really makes no sense to let go of anything, does it? it's a horribly confusing cycle. it's taxing to sort through all of our experiences and fumbles through life and manage them in our heads, throwing the worse ones out and keeping the better ones at the fore fronts of our minds. i'm not completely sure i can throw those regretful and heart wrenching experiences away. i don't think i am the only one either. those situations helped shape me, good or bad. has it left me in pieces at points? absolutely, and some of those pieces never got put back. i've come to terms with that. i think a lot of people out there walk around with missing parts. it's pain staking to sort through those undesirable memories but i can't just let them sit and lay stagnant. they'll start to smell.

i connect different things to my memories permanently, so it's always been hard for me to ignore certain ones. something as simple as hearing a certain band or walking on a specific route- these things automatically bring memories back to me, sucker punching me in the gut. even certain smells can do it. some people can detach the strings that connect experiences but i certainly can not. it may be a subconscious way of my brain reminding me of the lessons learned and strife endured, making me think twice about my next move. people should be more aware of their memories. they teach you a lot of things and keep you from making the same mistake over and over again. while the human condition is to continue fucking up, i think remembering can aid in finding a solution. here's a happy list.

feeling resolved.

so assist in the escape

my dreams have been interesting but not particularly noteworthy until last night. completely out of the blue, i had a lengthy and detailed dream about the most random issues, people, and places. i'm not quite sure of where to start, as my dreams often don't have a clear beginning or end.

i was walking around in the city but it wasn't really the city. this is common in most dreams, to think of a place that doesn't look anything like the real location. anyways, i turned onto 5th avenue when a kenyan man swung at me with a giant judge's gavel. he hit another man in the head instead and with that, i ran the opposite direction. i kept running and turned into a doorway that was the entrance to a law firm or what not. when i ran in i saw tom hanks but didn't treat him like he was famous at all. i told him my predicament and asked if he would let me hide there until further notice. he was very gracious in letting me stay and locked the doors just in case the kenyan man with the gavel tried to get in. at that moment, voices from a megaphone traveled in through the windows of the law firm. apparently, the voices belonged to canadian officers that were after me for a crime i didn't commit. they had sharp shooters lined up and were banging on the door. i knelt under the window to avoid getting shot and the bangs on the door grew louder. at some point in time, tom hanks transformed into hulk hogan somehow and i didn't treat it like it was anything strange. he told me to run upstairs and wait on the roof for him. i did so on my hands and knees to avoid being seen through the windows and crept onto what i thought would be the roof of the building. when i got there, it was a garage with my family's cars in it though. i decided to hide under one of them and after a few minutes, my mom came into the garage with my sister asking where i was and that they needed to give me up to the police. my mom caught me under the car and nonchalantly said that i should really turn myself in. i cried and screamed that i was being falsely accused and then my dad came in and started yelling just as loud as i had been. he said i better go or else canada would start a war with america. i begged them to just hide me and play dumb with the police but they were having none of it. so i decided to make another run for it and ended up in a beat up jeep at hulk hogan's fish restaurant in the middle of the woods. i decided to not let him know i was there for fear of getting the same reaction i had received from my family. i opted to keep driving. i sped by on a desolate road with a view of the water to my right. all i saw was dead whales floating at the surface and random boaters looking at the carcasses with a blank stare.

the dream trails off somewhere on that road, with me glancing at that horrible body of water.