Telephone Talk

"I don't answer the phone. I get the feeling whenever I do that there will be someone on the other end."

I'm not the type to talk on the telephone, I've never really enjoyed it.

I'm the type that if she thinks she has the chance will walk away from the phone and come back later to pick up the conversation.

There is just so much you can't convey, and I'm the type who likes to convey everything just the way I want it.

The written word is a great way to achieve that, so is music. I think that's why I like those things so much.

Even talking in person, body actions, facial expressions, they explain so much. There are points in converstaions where saying nothing is better than saying something, and when talking on the telephone you can't really have those without alot of awkwardness.

Alot of people assume that texting is less personal, easier to lie with, and in some ways I can see where that comes from.

If you knew what you were doing, you could get away with alot using just the right words, but I would like to believe that most people aren't like that.

I would like to think that most people don't sit around planning out every word for it's specific result, but that is kind of wishful thinking since I do that myself sometimes.

People express alot in words, even when they don't mean to.

When you know the person, it's especially easy to understand what they are feeling through a text. With some people, their texts sound like them.

I don't know, maybe it's all in my head.

Isn't that how everything goes? It could just be you and your unique snowflake of an existance, or it could be fact. I guess we will never really know.

I mean when you think about it, excluding music, because that stands on it's own...

when people want to hear and understand a story, they typically look for something more than audio.

I think out of all the various media forms we have, the radio is one of the least popular. Most people just stick with their television sets and books.

It's probably just convenience. I mean, we can't watch TV, or read while we drive, so we tune in to a talk show concerning peoples love lives, because lord knows there's no good music on the radio anymore.

We talk on the phone because it is more convenient than having to go find that person, or travel the long distance that might exist between you.

Maybe I'm just weird. I see a love of phone talking all over the place.

My sister, Anna, stays up every night til three in the morning talking to her boyfriend Jim. My friend Justin says he talks to his friend Jenny on the phone every night before he goes to sleep. My mom wants to call me every week to talk, and poor Josiah, following all the teen magazine advice he had read, called me every day for the months we were dating.

I'm just not the type, I'd rather read a letter, or a text, or better yet make that distance to talk to you in person. That could involve a road trip, and those are always fun.

But once again with necessity.

If I havn't talked to that person in a long while, and they call, I tolerate it for awhile at least, but after that while I start to get antsy and would love more than anything to get away.

I don't know, maybe I just havn't found the right person to talk to in this ever-so-popular form of communication.

Who knows, maybe someday someone will turn me onto it.
That would be the day.

Summer Dreams, Ripped at the Seams

I am having a huge summer craving.

I just am jonesing to just lay out in some grass under a blue sky and listen to my music for hours. Only happy music, with a swift beat, and acoustic instruments.

I would preferably be wearing a nice pair of cloth shorts.
A good solid color, like chocolate brown, or strong navy blue perhaps; these would definitely have a nice pair of pockets on them. I can't stand to be without pockets.

A well fitting graphic tee, with a favorite band on the front, or maybe a catchy phrase.

I have this feeling, this scene in my head. Just to be under an open sky, with my favorite tunes to be the soundtrack of this memory.

...and I think I would bring someone with me. Just to talk to when the time felt just right. Inbetween the meandering, undemanded thoughts that swim through your head at a moment like this.

That would be nice...

but instead I find myself looking out the window at the snow, and craving something green, something blue, something yellow,

some happy.

Spinning On Its Axis

"Chaos killed the dinosaurs darling."

Sometimes I just like to step back and realize how crazy the world is.

I don't think that should be thought upon as a bad thing though. I mean although the chaos going on around us can be overwhelming at times, it is what makes life interesting.

If we always knew what was going to happen, if we always were in complete understanding of everything at every moment, then life wouldn't be much of an experience would it?

I mean, without the various, random, sporadic moments that occur in everyone's lives, you woulnd't be friends with the same people, or listen to the same music, or have certain dear-to-your-heart experiences.

If you think about it, all of the best movie plots are of people who are caught up in the craziness of life, and have learned to embrace it.

Ferris Buellers Day Off? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? The Breakfast Club? Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist?

These are prime examples of people who ended up with something really great, all resulting from the fact that the place we live in is fucked up.

I don't know for sure, but maybe I appreciate this fact slightly more than the average person, because I grew up in a place where those moments become something you rely on.

That in combination with the fact that I can't stay in one place, or stay still for long periods of time results in this acceptance to just go with the madly spinning rotation of the earth.

When you have no planned place to go, and nowhere to plan to go, you just go anywhere. You grab some friends, pull them in the car, and drive.

Where are you going?

Good question.

The second you see something along the road you want to stop and check out further, you do. Whether it's a random abandoned dinosaur exhibit in the woods, a pretty spot along the mountains, or a skating rink in the middle of nowhere, you just go.

And when you are with the right people, or maybe even just all by yourself, you end up coming out with some of the best memories of your life.

Someone once asked me if I had noticed any major differences between people in Shippensburg and people in Denver, and I can't help but see one of the more obvious.

That the people, or at least the people I found myself friends with, are a rediculous amount more random than those I am with now.

I'm not talking about day to day conversations and activities, those are really the same.

But when it comes to the weekend, or long summer days, my friends back east know how to just do the weirdest shit.

Just the other day, I got an mms from a friend of mine of a jar of pickles strapped into the car with a seatbelt.

When I asked him what he was doing with a jar of pickles, he replied...

"We are running around town taking pictures with the pickle jar.."

Maybe not to you, but to me, this sounds rediculously fun.

Even when you don't do something in particular, if you can't find a place on the side of the road to stop, you just spend hours in the car driving around nowhere.

And when you do that, you find yourself talking about the weirdest things, and playing the weirdest games, and singing your favorite songs, and soon enough you definitely find out what your favorite beverage from the convenience store is.

I will always love a good Bubblegum Jone's Soda, or a Dragonfruit Vitaminwater, hah.

If you didn't go with what life seems to punch you in the face with, you wouldn't have those moments when you realize that someone really cares about you.

If we didn't experience grief, or these moments we find ourselves in, when we just can't stop feeling stressed, or down, or distracted we would never be able to see the feelings others have toward us.

I mean, we have all experinced it.

That time when you were so stressed about something that you just wanted to crawl into a hole and die, and someone you know steps in and realizes without provocation that something is wrong.

And they know just the right thing to say, and even if you didn't know it before, you now understand that whoever that person is, they care.

That's always a nice feeling. Even for someone who sometimes runs away from that attention like me.

If you didn't click on that random youtube link, you might have never found your favorite band.

If you didn't make those cookies, you wouldn't have found one of your best friends.

If you didn't take that offer to move across the country, even though you didn't plan on it at all...

You wouldn't have found your life.

Film Fantastic

One of the things I bond over the most with people are movies. Sometimes they are just one of the best passtimes to relate over.

It's one of the things my dad and I do all the time, watch movies.
We typically like the same stuff, so it's just another reason why we relate so well.

I like movies that tell a story, the type of story that makes you think. I'm not a big fan of movies that have no plot, or are all about the blood and gore. Nor am I a huge fan of those that focus on cheesy romance. I like origional stories.

I mean, I've said before that I like things that are unique, and I meant it.

Here are some of my favorite movie quotes.

"I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and things seemed to be getting so shitty. And he'd say, "that's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too." That's the way romance is... Usually, that's the way it goes, but every once in awhile, it goes the other way too."

-Alabama, True Romance

"People will look at the ashes of Westerburg and say, "Now there's a school that self-destructed, not because society didn't care, but because the school was society." Now that's deep."

-JD, Heathers


"Joel, I'm not a concept. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive, but I'm just a fucked up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours.

I remember that speech really well.

I had you pegged, didn't I?

You had the whole human race pegged."

-Joel and Clementine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

"I want you to take a chance, and trust me, and tell me what happened to you.

Okay. My family got shot down by D.E.A. officers because of a drug problem. I left with the greatest guy on earth. He was a hit man — the best in town. But he died this morning... and if you don't help me, I'll be dead by tonight."

Mathilda, The Professional

"Instead he just uses it as an excuse to put his testicles all over me!

Sorry, what?

Uh, how you say... octopus... testicles.

No, tentacles. N-T. There's a big Difference."

Monique and Lane, Better off Dead

"I just honestly don't know what I have in common with those people anymore... or with anyone, really. I mean, they'll all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they'll have made themselves a part of something, and they can talk about what they do. And what am I going to say? "I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How have you been?" I just think it'll be depressing."

-Martin, Grosse Point Blank

"No one wants to die Harold, unfortunately we do. Harold, Harold listen to me. Harold, you will die, some day, some time; heart failure at the bank, choke on a mint. Some long drawn-out disease you've contracted on vacation, you will die. You will absolutely die. Even if you avoid this death, another will find you. And I guarantee, that it won't be nearly as poetic or as meaningful as what she's written. I'm sorry but it's...it's the nature of all tragedies Harold. The hero dies, and the story goes on forever."

-Professor Jules Hilbert, Stranger than Fiction

"Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. And then, one not-so-very special day, I went to my typewriter, I sat down, and I wrote our story. A story about a time, a story about a place, a story about the people. But above all things, a story about love. A love that will live forever. The End."

-Christian, Moulin Rouge

"Yeah, you just take Soupy Sales to prom. I can think of so many cooler things to do that night. Like, you know what Bleek? I might pumice my feet, uh, I might go to Bren's dumb Unitarian Church, maybe get hit by a truck full of hot garbage juice, you know? 'Cause all those things would be exponentially cooler than going to prom with you!"

-Juno, Juno

"You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."

-Tyler Durden, Fight Club

"Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.

Are you a crazy person?

I'm quite sure they will say so."

Evey and V, V for Vendetta

"The whole book's gender-biased. A woman's responsible for original sin. A woman cuts Samson's coif of power. A woman asks for the head of John the Baptist. Read that book again sometime. Women are painted as bigger antagonists than the Egyptians and Romans combined."

-Serendipity, Dogma

"There's only one reason Christian girls come down to the Planned Parenthood!

She's planting a pipe bomb!?

Well, two reasons.

With Dean? I think there's a better chance of that pipe bomb."

-Roland and Cassandra, Saved

"My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you! I want to recruit you in the fight to preserve your democracy! My brothers and sisters you must come out! Come out to your parents, come out to your friends — if indeed they are your friends! Come out to your neighbors! Come out to your fellow workers! Once and for all, let's break down the myths and destroy the lies and distortions!"

-Harvey, Milk

"Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is... Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. They we're not perfect, but they were my friends and by the '70s, most of them were out living lives. Some I've seen, some never again, but there isn't a day my heart doesn't find them."

-Susanna, Girl Interrpted

"Your brain is meat, and rots and disappears. Do you really think that's all there was to you? Like you're in your house right now. You're in your house, that doesn't mean you are your house. House falls down, you get out and walk away."

-Albert, What Dreams May Come

"Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that!"

-Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing

Words, Not of My Own

Shakespeare is one of my favorite people in the world.

Even if he didn't exist, the works associated with him still do...and honestly, that is the important part. At least to me.

His plays are indeed some of the most amazing things to find yourself reading.

But it is The Sonnets that really are cause for interest. As if the poetic beauty of it wasn't enough, there are so many theories as to why they were even written that are just fascinating. There is no other way to put it really.

I never considered myself a romantic until I fell in love with the Sonnets.

I guess it's hard to explain without you seeing what my favorites are...so here you go, the ambiguous you to which I write ever so frequently. My favorite Sonnets.

Not in any particular order, mind you, just numerical order.

60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before;
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix and flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow;
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth despite his cruel hand.

71
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell.
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.

72
O, lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me that you should love,
After my death, dear love, forget me quite;
For you in me can nothing worthy prove-
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart.
O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to same nor me nor you;
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

81
Or shall I live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten.
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die.
The earth can yield me but a common grave
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your momentum shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead.
You still shall live-such virtue hath my pen-
Where breath most breathes, even in moths of men.

90 (one of my top favorites)
Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in or an after-loss.
And do not, when my heart hath scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of conquered woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come; so shall I taste
At first the very worst o fortune's might,
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.

92 (another top favorite)
But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
For term of life thou art assured mine,
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs
When in the least o them my life hath end.
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour doth depend.
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.
O, what a happy title do I find-
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
But what's so blessed fair that fears no blot?
Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.

109 (<3)
O never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify-
As easy might I from myself depart,
As from my soul, where in thy breast doth lie.
That is my home of love. If I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reigned
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call
Save thou my rose; in it thou art my all.

116 (I have this one memorized)
Let me not the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

121 (top favorites)
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling but by others' seeing.
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own.
I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown,
Unless this general evil they maintain:
All men are bad and in their badness reign.

141
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone;
Nor taste nor smell desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone;
But my five wits, nor my five sense can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man.
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal-wretch to be.
Only my plague thus far I count my gain:
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

145 (top favorite)
Those lips that love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
To me that languished for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
'I hate' she altered with an end
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away.
'I hate' from hate away she threw,
and saved my life, saying 'not you.'

Just some enlightenment for you. Amazing how so many situations that happen in my life can apply to these sets of sixteen lines.

Sometimes your own words can't really describe what you want to say.

Thank god for Shakespeare.

Your Perception Changed

"You're the echoes of my everything. You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night. You're the laziness of afternoon. You're the reason why I burst and why I bloom. How will I break the news to you?"
-Motion City Soundtrack, Hold Me Down

I supposed telepathy is what I would like to apply to this situation.

People are so confusing, they say one thing and mean another, and although I see this in myself constantly and know the reasoning behind my own indecision and ambiguous nature-

I still find myself at a loss understanding other people's.

Confusion is For Lack of a Better Description, Confusing

"Save for a few of those late night episodes, missed opportunities that I don't care. There's not alot that I feel obliged to share, or talk about."
-Motion City Soundtrack, Hold Me Down

It find it important to note,

that the second you think you have figured someone out
the second you think you understand them

they change on you.

Whether it is intentionally planned or not, it sure as hell is confusing.

I mean just the other day, two people that I thought I understood changed before my eyes in a span of three hours.

I know that this probably happens to other people when they look at me.

After going through a fight with one of my friends over the summer, I discussed this with my friend Jake.

"You have layers of personality, and people don't really understand that. When they get to a layer they didn't expect they panic."

So I shouldn't really be surprised that other people are the same.

Or maybe, it is the perspective of the viewer that changes. I mean, I may view someone as something one day, and my perspective might change and I discover something new. It may have always been there, in fact, it probably was always there, but if you have chosen to ignore it all this time, no wonder it's a surprise.

Everyone has to be honest for a moment and understand that we don't treat all of our friends equally.

Quite the contrary, actually.

I mean we all make the differentiation between our best friends and our cool-to-hang-out-with-friends, but even within our best friends circle (particularly for girls) we have designated roles for different friends.

I admit to doing exactly that.

I don't seperate into, "which friends are best-er friends," but I have certain friends that I only really talk about certain things with.

I have a friend I talk about boy stuff with,
A friend to talk about my family issues,
friends that I focus my "deeper discussions"

and then there are some that I talk about everything with.

and then there are those that I consider closer to me that I talk about nothing with. Funny, huh?

Well just recently I have had two people tell me that their opinion of me, their view of me has changed.

Dramatically.

and I accept this...

So is it okay for me to still be utterly confused by it?