i'll grow old, start acting my age

sometime i really miss xanga. it felt more homey i think. it had real blogrings, and real groups of friends. people i actually talked to, people i had things in common with. i actually added a girl on facebook the other day; i followed her blog for about two years. it's great to have a connection with someone over a blog and over music. i know it's all i talk about, but i just wish people would understand it. i wish you would get it. how giddy it makes me, how high it makes me feel. how euphoric the experience of listening to brand new is for me. i get goosebumps every single time.

[jesse lacey, leader singer of brand new]

we workshopped one of my poems in class today, one that i posted here last week about music and the concert experience. and of course it was ripped to shreds and i came out with a lot of criticism, that's what a workshop is for. and don't get me wrong, there are a lot of pretentious indie snobs just like me in the class. but the rest of them just don't get it. and therefore did not like my poem. and claimed it was mean towards people who don't like music. well you know what? fuck you. you're missing out, and i only feel sorry for you. i'm a pretentious indie snob and i'm damn proud. maybe i'm only fired up about this right now since deja entendu is feeding my ears delicious sounds as i type. but regardless, i still mean it.

in other news, fourteen more days here. and i have the room to myself this weekend AND next weekend. that'll be sweet. still hoping/stressing about that job situation though...

itunes overload

sometimes i think i have too much music. yeah, i said it. too much music.

i have my favorite artists but they've been favorites for years. i've branched out a lot since my introduction to the rock side of the music world, but i still feel like i have a lot to learn, so many more classic 90's emo bands to listen to, appreciate and love; and so many more of my old school favorites' new albums to learn and appreciate. i'm still stuck on motion city's i am the movie, and say anything's is a real boy, and the academy is' almost here, and armor for sleep's what to do when you're dead.

i should probably love fall out boy based on all the other bands i like. i own all their albums, but i've never listened to them much. it makes me feel like a cheater and a slacker.

i should love and adore jimmy eat world and it's probably a sin for a person like me NOT to, but i just haven't given them the time of day. i own all their albums. i've never made it through an entire one. (i'm proving myself wrong as i type this.)

i should probably like anberlin and own more than two of their songs. i should probably put more time into jack's mannequin than i do. same goes for sufjan. and ok go and silversun pickups and taking back sunday and saves the day and manchester orchestra and the new quietdrive and academy is albums.

it's ridiculous, but sometime i don't feel worthy enough to belong to this music world i'm a part of. i just don't feel well-rounded sometimes, and i feel bad.

so here's the summer resolution - branch out; but not into new bands; branch back in time, into what i already own and have never delved into. back to the classics that should be the foundation for my love for rock music. or emo. or pop. or whatever you want to call it. alternative heaven forbid.

a moment of clarity

i’m going to be blunt, so i’m sorry if any feelings get hurt.

since this past summer, i have changed so much, as a person. mentally, emotionally, morally, spiritually and in other manners as well. i’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past few months – almost a year now – this has been a long and very painful process, believe me. and i’ve come to some conclusions. i’m not the person i used to be in high school, although sometimes i’d really like to be. i had the perfect happy family with the perfect circle of friends, surrounded by teachers who knew me and most who adored me. i’m not the person i was this summer either. that person is the result of too much pain at one time – and i went wild looking for happiness in other places. the combination of my mom’s death and the painful break up of my close knit group of friends sent me searching in places i had never explored. well i finally explored them. and had a ton of fun, the most fun i had had in a good long while, and i was finally happy. however, it took some time, but i soon realized just how much pain i was causing other people, the people i had the “break up” with. they had been by my side for so long and through so much, that i just couldn’t ignore them forever. and i realized just how different i had become, just how warped all of my senses had become. i was slowly throwing my life away and was slowly creeping down the drain. i didn’t want to be on this path anymore. my emotions were kept numbed – which is never a good way to deal with them, some of my morals and standards had gone out the window and i was in a serious rut with my spirituality. after much said thought, i decided to put a stop to the person i was turning into, and try and resume being the “perfect” girl i was in high school. needless to say after being away from this “perfect” lifestyle and “perfect” group of people for almost five months, it was difficult for me to re-assimilate myself into “the group”. so i came to the conclusion that it just didn’t exist anymore. things change, and people change too. but i made it my goal to find something close, and something that would accept the inevitable changes in me that have occurred. i realize i’m not going to stay the same person forever, but i’m just trying to find the better path i was on in the first place, rather than the wrong one i took in the summer. so this has been my current endeavor, and let’s just say it’s a current work in progress.

i know that some of you have probably noticed you’re not in my life as much as you used to be. and that is the result of a lot of agonizing hours of my thoughts and decisions. and it’s all for good reason. it might be hard to understand, and some of you might never get it. but i’m doing what is best for me. and for my health – mental, emotional, moral, spiritual – all of the things previously mentioned. i know it sucks, but sometimes you just need to do what is necessary. i’m sorry. i really am. but i just can’t be the person you want me to be anymore. i need this change so badly in order to bring peace and happiness into my life. so please respect that. i beg you to please respect that.

this probably sounds more dramatic than how it actually played out, and i have no doubt that is true. but what i felt inside of me, and all the emotions i experienced and all the thought put into this, are not dramatized at all.

i know i’m very different than i used to be. some like it, some don’t. take me how you will. i know i’m judgmental; i prefer to call it outspoken on things that i feel opinionated about. and i know i can be difficult at times. i also realize just how many different roles that i play. and i’ve decided to just embrace all of them. and let them all bring to the table what they may; and from there i will choose what to feast on.

cherry coke

this is actually an old poem, about three years old in fact. but i've been playing with it and revising it ever since i wrote it. that's the thing with poetry, it's so fluid. it's so easy to manipulate one word and end up with an entirely different meaning. maybe someday i'll have a final product i'm satisfied with, but for now...

the room is completely silent.
except for the bubbles in my soda
when they break free
from the bottom of the can,
and fizz to the top.

my door's not closed all the way
but i don't care
who hears that fucking fizz.
'fizz! fizz! fizz!' it's so obnoxious
and won't let me rest.
it's the white noise
that i don't want.
just shut up!

my eyes are blurry
when i look up from the page
and i smear black away
from both eyeslashes and paper.

my handwriting's messy
but i don't care.
i hurl my pen across the room
and the white noise tips off my desk
and flows freely onto the carpet
hissing; it's last cry
before fibers swallow it up
and leave nothing but a sticky ghost
to forever remind me of it's presence.

i am now sinking into a dream
where i am anybody else
writing some masterpiece,
writing some symphony
where notes and rhymes
spin together in perfect harmony
without fucking fizz.

inner beast (gentle giant)

with so much noise in your ears,
how can it possibly be silent in your heart?

the keyboard stirs me;
with every press of a key
my stomach tumbles and turns.
i can feel the bass kicking within me
and the guitar chords
echo in my mind.
the melody becomes a part of me.
my heart is swelling with emotion
and i'm swaying; being pulled to it.
silence is overcome by sound's emotion.

but you who are close to me
and should have access to this
delicate part of my mind –
you don’t get it.
you need silence to be moved.
how come you can't feel it?
why aren't there tears in your eyes
and a smile on your face?
i don't feel the need to explain it
again and again and again.
the passionate look on my face should
"paint a picture instead".

a poem a day

...keeps a boring blog at bay?

until something exciting comes up [or until the next concert], i thought i'd post some outcome from poetry class. going into it, i thought i had a knack for words. with stories, maybe. poetry, not so much. nevertheless...


potential casual touch
inspires restless daydreams
sending goosebumps all over,

but seconds tick away
illusions start to fray
je suis desolee.

reality runs off the roof
drops to a stop on the ground
splash! like fallen tears.

with exasperation i exhale
and continue to slide in, out, of reality and fantasy.

stagnation

life is stagnant right now. time creeps on by and i'm still sitting here. i need something. my mind continues to end up in the same thought loops time after time after time. there is so much more i could say here, but it's not the right time or place. perhaps another day.

the countdown begins

four more weeks. that's seventeen more days of real classes plus two days worth of finals.

in between there, is a whole lot of nothing, which unfortunately will make things seem even longer. i was planning on going to chicago to see cavashawn and friends the first weekend in may. but i honestly can't afford it. that's three tanks of gas, a concert ticket, and a meal or two. and i just can't do that right now. and much as i want to, i can't.

which leads me to the current stressor in my life. a job. i NEED to find a job this summer. and i'm really worried. i'm sure something will come along, but it's been weighing on my mind a lot lately. i just need to get through these last few weeks and hopefully things will fall into place.

four. more. weeks.

kirksville: the graduate, ludo & red jumpsuit apparatus

this blog seems to have somehow turned into a list of concert reviews. i didn't really intend for that to happen. but i guess it's inevitable when i go to a show about once a week and update this about once a week. this is the last show for a few weeks though, as far as i know. hopefully i'll have some more in-depth musings and insights in the near future. we'll see.

so i'm nineteen. i can't believe it. i can't believe it's been a year. a whole year since i turned eighteen. it was so long ago, yet then again time has moved so quickly. i can finally say that i had a good birthday. this is the first time in quite a few years. last year i got a meningitis shot, gave blood and passed out at school. the year before that my mom was in the hospital in minneapolis and my dad was with her, so i was alone. the year before that i was sick and doing MAP testing. and the year before that i was competing at a gymnastics meet that turned out to be the worst meet of my life, resulting in me not qualifying to nationals. and to top that night off, my happy birthday balloon flew away and they were out of buffalo chicken wings at applebee's - the one thing i wanted on my birthday. needless to say i've had some really shitty birthdays. this one certainly made up for all those bad years though. i just wish i could have had one more person there with me, or at least call, but i know she was looking down on me blowing birthday kisses.

festivities started on friday. my four favorite girls and i went out to dinner at macaroni grill, my traditional birthday restaurant. we had some excellent bread and pasta, some good conversation and amazing free chocolate cake, graced with a candle and brought to me amidst being sung to in italian. we then went to the missouri gymnastics state championships where i got to see all my old teammates and catch up with some good friends. it was really great to see them in their real element again. i don't miss the gymnastics and pressure aspects of the sport, but i do miss that electricity you feel at competitions. those were the days...

the next day, me and angie drove an hour and a half to kirksville to visit kiera, who is the greatest friend EVER. she doesn't necessarily condone my insane concert life, but she knows me well enough to realize that a ludo ticket would make this the best birthday ever. so the three of us went out for a late lunch at a chinese buffet and eventually got in line for the show on truman's campus. it was a pretty sweet line-up - the graduate, ludo and red jumpsuit apparatus. it was weird being at a show without my usual crew. but i made the best of it and had a great time. the graduate really blew me away - i'd heard of them and listened to a few of their songs before, but their live performance definitely blew me away. check them out! ludo of course was amazing. if i remember correctly, they played go getter greg, broken bride, drunken lament, please, horror of our love, lake pontchartrain, a cover of epic [one of my favorites], love me dead, and goodwill hunting. we were pretty tired of standing among tall, sweaty people, so the three of us made our way out of the masses and sat back on the bleachers for red jumpsuit. i'm not such a huge fan of them anymore, as i've mellowed out some in my "old age", but it was still nice to hear some familiar songs. i remember face down, guardian angel, false pretense, cat and mouse, and a cover of a blink-182 song. they played a lot of new stuff, but i bought the album maybe a week ago and haven't gotten much of a chance to wade my way through it. but overall, it was a great birthday weekend, and as much drama and friend problems as it seems i have, i really am truly blessed to know such amazing people and be able to call them some of my best friends.

as for the here and now, it's monday. oh, monday. i'm counting down the hours until i go home for easter and it can't come soon enough.