Only Living Ghost to Grace the Hall

Today is my sister's 18th birthday.


I wrote her a long letter, last night. Sort of in-re to a letter she wrote me a few weeks ago. Her's wasn't that long, to be honest, but it was. Illuminating, I suppose, if you'll pardon the Lizzie Bennet reference. She said that I loved her when no one else did. Said that it would've been easier for me to have hated her at certain times.

I hadn't been aware there had been a time when she hadn't been loved.
And now that I know otherwise, I'm sad.

summer.

i. fill your sink with cold water. put on a tank top, or sports bra, or nothing at all. shave your arms. shave all of your arms; the tops and the undersides and the little hairs on your shoulders. marvel at how cool it feels to put shirts on. rub your arms in circles every now and then. smile.

ii. walk to your nearest bookstore. or target. or supermarket. find the book section and make a small stack of the ones you’d like to read. sit down in the aisle and start reading until you’re kicked out or grow tired of it. smile at everyone who stares at you. offer them one of your books.

iii. wake up and decide that today is a day for a pillow fort. do so spontaneously and with no real knowledge of proper pillow-fort assembly. steal all pillows and blankets regardless, and attempt to make one by the kitchen table. sneak in some books, music and snacks. watch netflix until you fall asleep.

Dear God IT'S ALIVE

*cue dramatic thunder and pipe-organ music*

Anywho, yes, I am alive despite not posting to this blog in a while. Sorry. Bad habits die hard. For the numerous people invested in my life- oh. Wait.

Sorry, that's supposed to be sarcasm. But people are, supposedly, reading this blog now? Why, I've no clue, but their presence is not unacknowledged or unappreciated. Shout out to the lovely ladies Kristen and Miranda for enduring my teenage ennui and far-too-purple prose! Everyone who reads this blog deserves a ton of ice cream for their troubles. Though Ms. Claire may get 2 cartons because I think she puts up with the majority of my teenage idiocy. (Thanks Claire c :)

Ben & Jerry's for everyone!! Or whatever your preferred ice cream brand is < 3

But update! Things are better here at Casa de Alice. My mother has come to the realization that I'm not socially stunted, my aunt is off on a weekend getaway and my sister is as adorable as ever. And, apparently, not going to college. Or at least not yet.

My mother and I had one of our Talks tonight. The Talks aren't like the "Birds and the Bees Talk" insomuch as they're really awesome, impromptu discussions that just sort of happen and end up leaving me feeling happy and optimistic. You can see some of the aftereffects of another such Talk here and here. But we talked about the divorce and how awesome today was (the whole family [save for my aunt] watched the 70's movie of The Great Gatsby, with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in it. We took a shot of sparkling grape juice every time we heard "Old sport") and a lot of other things.

Hermit's United

Apparently, my mother has been peer-pressured into anxiety regarding my social skills.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

She's worried about me "only seeing the four walls of my room" and has begun to demand that I attend my sister's club meetings. Really? This isn't the first time I've explained to her that I don't spend my days curled into a ball in the corner of my room, talking to myself. I do actually have conversations and socialize on a daily basis. Just because I don't go over to people's houses doesn't mean I've become a hermit.

April 2013

There is a school outside of my window.
Between the crack in the trees, I can make out their flag pole.
(It's been half mast for 5 days straight.)

I Feel Springy, Oh-so Springy

I was going to construct a poetic post last night, regarding the utterly menial task of walking a dog in the middle of a cold rainstorm at 11PM.

But then I forgot about it, got tired, and went to bed instead.

Ink Lips, Paper Smile

Apparently, applying to high schools require certain things.

Such as essays.

Introducing, Purl Girl!

Ever since I was a fledgling knitter, there's something I've always wanted to do.
Guerrilla knitting.

Don't know what that is? Well, otherwise known as yarn bombing, graffiti knitting or yarnstorming, it looks a little something like this;

I went to a school last night.

Which was, ah

odd.


It was raining outside and I tried not to make that into an analogy. There was art along all the hallways and cauliflowers painted to look like brains and someone had painted a phrase in Gallifreyan. It was an open house, and there was a girl in a lettermen jacket, a gangly boy with bleached "coontail" bangs, a girl with fake glasses and purple Converse and a blonde boy in a plaid flannel shirt.

It felt like the opening of some Disney movie, or an equally cliched high school sitcom.

The principal had the same name as a fish, and he talked to the entire open house down in the school's basement. It was dark down there, save for the glowing window of the vending machine in the back corner. It was odd, because I've been homeschooled for 7+ years, but I think I'm going to apply.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I don't know what it'll be like? Going to a school. I'm just too used to being by myself all day. I won't actually go until fall, it's too late for me to apply. But still.



I have no clue what I'm doing???

I'm Not Who I Used to Be

The best birthday I can remember was a long time ago. When I still lived in New York.

I was 6, maybe. Or 7. I don't know. But it'd snowed overnight, so when I woke up and looked out my window, our entire suburban street was blanketed in white.

It was early, or maybe just dark out, but my mother had snuck into my room in the night and tied mini chocolate bars to helium balloons, and scattered them across the floor of my room. They looked like a kelp forest of plastic pink ribbon and purple bubbles, bobbing gently against one another.

My family came in to wake me up. I can't remember whether or not my dad was there. I was wearing my favorite blue nightgown, the one with a plastic picture of TinkerBell on the front, and my hair was still long back then. Down to my back, all straggly and sleep-mussed. I must've been missing a few teeth too- all the old Polaroid pictures we have of that morning show me with gap-toothed, surprised grins.

We had cinnamon rolls.


We don't eat them anymore.
Cinnamon rolls, that is.

I never once dreamed

that I'd start writing poetry

Sure I did it when I was young

But as a teen, it seems so cliche to me.

I guess I'm just a cliche after all

I probably shouldn't be surprised

I apologize to anyone whose read these

I'm sure the shitty prose hurt their eyes

But you see, it's too ____ here

I don't even know how to define

how the wind pulses against the trees

or how the wires keep me in line

My head won't stop hurting

all these brown eyes accusing

Everyone is shouting

But this is too confusing.

God, I don't know what to do.

Is life always this way?

Maybe I should-no. Maybe? 

Or just save it for a later day?

My throat is loaded full of knives

And my shoulders stained with blood

They trace wings along my skin

Like I could fly away- 

(maybe I should)

paradoxical darling.

i’m hungry but there’s nothing worth eating
bored, but there’s nothing worth reading
tired, but it’s no use sleeping
lonely, but- no, not even.
hollow, mostly- but not.
i’m a paradoxical darling
and that title’s all I’ve got

since the rain is too bright here
for my thoughts to act right here
I thought this was better?
but nothing has changed.
I’m still hollow-paradoxical
winter-rain-gasoline
paper girl, strike a match
watch me burn up in a flash

(maybe then the boredom
will leave me?)

Optimist - An Update in Pictures

(Went to downtown Nashville today and decided I may as well make a normal blog entry for once.
And, y'know.
Let people know I'm not dead.)

We went to lunch at the Capitol Grille in the Hermitage Hotel. It was this really swanky place, and the bellhop who held the door for us was wearing a top hat. I ordered a banana chocolate creme puff for desert. It came with a football of hazelnut ice cream and a thin slab of gold-drizzled chocolate. 

(all of us loved the hand lotion in the hotel bathroom)

Afterwards we walked to the infamous Hatch Print Shop, a huge, long store filled with old band and promotional posters. It smelled like ink and chicken sandwiches, and floorboards were delightfully wonky and creaky.

 (The cat liked to hide behind the Ed Sheeran posters.)

After we bought a bunch of posters for random things and was given some free promotional bookmarks, we stumbled across an improbable relic of the Music City- a record store.

There was a whole wall of cassette tapes. I hadn't seen the things since I was 6 maybe- 'used to have one of those portable Sony players.

After the record store, we wandered some more. Found a neon sign advertising an RV resort in the middle of a city block.

Then we wandered over to the Bridgestone Arena. It was impossibly big, and there were lot of tourist-y little things in the giftshop. And a crap ton of adverts for the TV show Nashville.

Saw some city school kids- which was mildly disconcerting. You just don't expect to see kids in the middle of a city. Cities seem like the Adult World, like you must be 18 or older to enter. It was odd.

Found a streetlamp with gargoyle legs. Wish I could've gotten a better picture.

And finally, I got my haircut the other day. It's really, really short- it's only ever been this short when I was about 11 or so. It makes me look like a brunette Tinker Bell at times.

I kind of like it.

Idle Teen

I ate melted brie for dinner tonight and set a poptart on fire. I've been drinking milk out of tea cups and handfuls of cereals out of their boxes and there's an awful lot of warning signs that I'm falling into deterioration again.

Which, y'know

Would suck.

I got my hair cut super-short today and I look like a brunette Tinker Bell. My mother is making noises about ditching my homeschooling and attending a public high school next year, and I have the irrational fear people will mock me for having a "butch" haircut.

(I don't have a very good track record with public school kids)

For some reason an awful lot of strangers have been complimenting me tonight and it made me smile and grab fists of my (short) hair and cradle my grin into my hands because I've never known how to respond to compliments, and a whole tsunami of them renders me absolutely incompetent. Except for squealing and flailing my arms about- but that seems pretty incompetent to me anyways.

But it reminded me of all the times I've stared into the mirror, or into the synthetic-white-page of a text document, and berated myself. The times I've told myself "you're fucking worthless." or "you're an absolute idiot, what the hell do you expect to accomplish in life?" or "no wonder you don't have any friends- who'd want to be friends with a piece of shit like you?"

Self confidence, thou art not a common word to my ears.

Basically I used to get really upset with myself and sort of cuss myself out which is really depressing in retrospect and probably not the least bit mentally sound? But it worked, in it's own weird, derogatory way, and I sort of ended up programming myself to hate myself. My sister recently asked if I loved myself, and I said that for the most part, I'm apathetic towards myself. With occasional, seldom bursts of pride. So she asked if I'd ever really loved myself, and I told her the truth.
Which was no.

Which isn't good or healthy, I suppose, but I am a teenager and I'm of the general impression that self-loathing just comes with the territory. So it's kind of a shock to me on the few nights like these, when I look into the mirror and don't immediately recoil from what I see. It's a surprise when I smile and don't mind the reflection that grins back at me. Because sometimes, some few, glorious times like these, I get to like myself. I get to think, "you're pretty nice" or "you're an okay writer" or "wow nice bone structure there girl. A+ on your genetic makeup". Because really, I've got a decent set of cheekbones on me. And that's pretty cool.

Maybe someday I'll be courageous enough (or, perhaps, naïve enough) to love myself, really, truly and unconditionally.

But for now, I think occasional bouts of self-like is a good start.



(Wow this is very depressing in hindsight basically it's just me talking about my inability to love myself yikes)

The Fictional Church of The World Wide Web

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
Well, not really.

I don't actually want forgiveness from anyone's father, and I fully intend on being a sinner for the rest of my foreseeably odd life. But I want to make a confession, and like any American, I've been conditioned by the media that all confessions must be preceded by that timeless phrase.
So.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

In That Which My Life Closely Resembles An Oreo (Without Being Half So Delicious)

The tense voices of my mother and sister drift up to me from down the stairs, rising in a hushed crescendo as they have so many times over the course of our living here.

Here being our (technically unofficial/semi-illegal) state-wide move. Here being a 2 bedroom house-y thing with three whole bathrooms. Yeah, I still can't get over having 3 accesible toilets.

Leave My Door Open, Just a Crack (Please Take Me Away from Here)

It's 48 minutes to midnight on December 16th (contrary to the inevitable mis-date of this blog entry) and there's a basset hound on my bed and no less than four containers holding various knit-stuff surrounding me.

Which means, of course, that I'm moving within 48 hours. 

There's a Receipt on My Wall ("This is Just Ridiculous" is Scrawled Across the Back)

My life has always been categorized by destruction.

Er, well- not really. More like by disintegration.

Oh hell, maybe both.

Bubble Over

So.

I, ah. 

I won

???

30 Covers, 30 Days is an event the Office of Letters & Light (OLL) puts on every year, spanning the course of National Novel Writing month. 

Basically, 30 novels-in-progress are selected from the official NaNoWriMo forums. And every day for a month, a different graphic designer creates a cover for the book in under 24 hours.

Back in October, someone emailed me and said I was in the running for a cover. I didn't tell any of my friends, because I didn't want to get my hopes up. And as weeks went by without any further contact, I figured I hadn't made the cut. 

But apparently, I did. 

Lost in A Maze (Of a Thousand Rainy Days)

I am in a funk.

(my mother's words, not mine.)

Though it's true. I'm just sort of. . . meh. My eyelids are made of lead, and I'm taking long, long blinks. There are bloody scratches down my arms, my thighs, and I find myself fidgeting. Picking and trimming and biting and frowning and jiggling and wriggling toes and cracking knuckles. The bags beneath my eyes have reached truly epic proportions, but I'm too busy staying up until dawn to notice nor care.