Undocumented Events

You know, it's so incredibly like me to not remember what cameras are for. Several things happened the past couple of weeks that I completely neglected to get photographic proof of. The kabob's at Haag's were. . . um, delicious. The party was fun too. Then there were the last couple of days of school, which have no pictures either. Oh, and graduation.

I sort of just float around in other people's memories that way. I don't go out of my way to get pictures of people, and they don't generally go out of their way to get pictures of me, so it works out that way.

But that doesn't mean we don't still have fun. Saturday night was spent at Rachel's. It was a combination birthday party for her and Katy, with some celebration of my graduation tacked on to the end. Oddly enough, I do actually have pictures of that night, but I've been too lazy to upload them. In any case, it was a good night. Not to mention several of the people in attendance who did not previously know my romantic leanings said it was a damn shame for men everywhere (or so my sister tells me). That always amuses me.

Graduation night was pretty much awesome. Carissa and I (I know, weird right?) were intent on gallivanting around Arlington in search of grad night parties. Which we found in abundance. We crashed one party that turned out to be a dud (we were refused beverages until the old man inside told his son to provide for us ladies). But the night was not lost. We drifted off to another party where we actually knew more than one person. In fact, we knew pretty much everyone (including the first girl I ever admit having a crush on). It was kind of cool to pal around with people I almost never saw outside of school or school sponsored events. I should hope to party with them all again some time. But we ended up spending the night at Tim's place, which was fun up until he started being an ass. But I won't go into details on that one.

And so summer has begun. I say it was a pretty good start. I can't wait to see what fun these nights will bring.

Hmm.

I remember when I was still elementary school-aged we had some speaker come to the class. The face and the name of the speaker, and maybe even the reality of the event, have been lost to me (I may have read it in a book or I saw it on TV for all I know). I only remember what they brought with them.

Three large jars lined up on a table. The first jar was filled with sand. The next jar was filled with pebbles. The last jar was filled with stones. The stones were all of the big, important parts of life. The pebbles were smaller, less important, and more could take up the same space as the big stones. But they could never match the stones, even if there were more of them. And then, naturally, came the sand. Tiny little bits of rock and pebble, whittled down. The sand could fill all of the little crevices.

The speaker pulled out a fourth jar, empty. They asked, "What should we put in first?" If you filled the jar with just big rocks, the pebbles and sand would never be able to filter all the way down to the bottom of the jar. They would just sit on the surface. If you filled the jar with just pebbles, you wouldn't have any room for the big stuff, and the sand would never get all the way down either. And if you filled the jar with sand... Well, then you just had a jar full of sand. But if you put them down in layers- the big stones first, then some pebbles, then some sand, rinse and repeat- until you reached the top of the jar, you got something interesting. A balanced kinda thing. The stones sat in their places, with the pebbles filling in the big cracks, and the sand getting into all the spaces in between. It was altogether a lot more pleasing to see. A more complete picture, you could say.

The symbolism was not lost on me, especially since the unrecalled speaker explained what everything meant. Still, I can't help remembering it now. It was something that left a big impression on me, but I never really followed the implied advice. I'm not much of a planner. I don't know how to make room for the big and the little and the in between. That stuff just happens. But I can definitely think of some things I should have made room for.

There's a lot of people I'm going to miss, and many places too. Still, I've only just ended the first layer. And, looking back, I don't think it was too bad.

That's for the birds.

Some nights I go for walks
when my room's too hot,
and the sky is dancing orange and blue.
The pink cotton-candy clouds
swirling in the wind
as the sky behind turns
to a big blanket of purple.
I wonder what it would be like
to soar that high.
To be like a bird, free
from everything.
But I live here,
feet planted firmly on the ground.
That place up high
is way too grand for me.
My wings haven't even grown yet.
No.
I'll just stay down here
until I have someplace up to get.

Wait a tick.

Today is Tuesday, correct? Tuesday is one of my favorite days of the week. It's right after Monday, which you've used to build up energy for the week, but right before hump-day, where you've burnt out much of your supply and will have to do a recharge. I would say that Tuesday is my most productive day of the week for that reason. But more than that, Tuesday, for the past. . . what, seven years? For the past seven years, my Tuesdays have been reserved for a show that is, or was, very close to my heart.

I tuned into The CW, formerly the WB, at seven o'clock, my routine for Tuesday nights, to watch the only show on said channel that I still found worth watching, and realized something. It's over. After seven seasons, the final episode of Gilmore Girls ended last Tuesday.

All good things come to an end. I understand that, and you could see it was time in the writing itself. But I'm still sad to see it go. Not only because in the last couple of seasons I began to neglect the show with my sudden conjuration of a life, but because this was one of those shows I could sit down with my family, or rather my mom, and watch. Sometimes, I'd even make people watch it with me, and they usually enjoyed it as much as I did (that, or they were just amused by my fanaticism).

Plus, how will I ogle Alexis Bledel now? (And I say ogle in the most respectful sense of the word . There's a special place in my heart for her, my first celebrity girl crush that didn't turn out to be a big skank *coughLindseyLohancough*, that has lasted seven years.) Oh well. There's still Veronica Mars.

R.I.P. Gilmore Girls; your heartwarming mother daughter relationship, your relentless boy drama, and your witty pop culture references. You will be missed.

Writer Wars

I feel like writing something. My internal Obi-Wan Kenobi is saying, "Summer approaches and there is much work to do, young padawan." Which is sort of a lie and totally true.

I usually make up a lot of excuses for not working on The StrangeLand, but at this point, I have none. I'm exempt from all of my exams, so I have no studying to do. I don't have a job, unless you count watching Molouk, but that's not even a real job. Mostly I sit in my room and she sits in the living room, and we don't talk unless she comes in to tell me something that probably isn't very interesting or makes no sense or that I just have no patience for because I'm not a big fan of kids. All this until someone comes home and I promptly do the same thing I was doing the whole time I was "watching" her, which is, essentially, nothing.

So, with all this nothing void time, I should be devoting myself to writing out the scripts for TSL. That and, I don't know, applying for scholarships or something.

Is it really over?

By the time this is posted, it will be past 2 AM. I have just finished my senior scrapbook and done some minor repairs in the way of cleaning my room (although they weren't much help). And I keep thinking, is this really it? Tomorrow (or today, rather) is the last day of the penultimate week of my senior year of high school. After next Friday, there's no more. I won't come back to this school next August. Maybe I'll visit every once in a while. Maybe.

An entire part of my life, the encompassing of several chapters, is about to end. Soon I'll be moving on to the next stage, whatever that may be. And that is entirely horrifying. Will I figure out the place that I wanted to be in? I thought I had some grasp on it, but I don't know anymore. Maybe I'll try doing comics full time. Except I'm not that ambitious (or self-destructive. . . anymore). Or perhaps I'll write and submit to some publication or other.

Maybe I'll just get a job. Try to work through college if I go at all.

I guess I've got a whole summer, plus some, to decide.

Utopian Festival of Scrapbooks

Last week was all kinds of busy. And the week before that. Everything's just been busy. There was film fest, which was slightly disastrous but still a success, all things considered. There was only one film that we could actually get to play up on the big screen, and the rest had to be watched while crowded around a little computer screen in the corner of the room. I guess I'm not really one to judge how much of a success it was. Everyone in lit mag seemed to think it was horrible, but I didn't notice anyone really complaining or dodging out. I guess that's sort of luck. Most everyone that came were good sports about the whole thing. I can't complain. I was manning concessions and couldn't stop eating.

Then, of course, there was Temporary Utopia. I don't really have any good pictures for either of these events, but I can tell you that Temp U was a lot of fun. Again, I was stuffing my face at the concessions stand, but hey. I had to do my part!

We've been working on scrapbooks a lot lately too. They're due on Friday, so I have to finish it in the next two days. Which sucks because I'm not any good at scrap booking. Bleh.

Next Sunday is graduation. I've lost the ability to concentrate on anything, although I did manage to get two pages up in one week on TSL. W00t?

Hiatus?

I've been gone a while. I've found life to be very tiring the past several weeks, just barely endurable on all fronts. But I guess I have a couple things to update on (for now). First there was prom.

It’s funny. I spent the weeks leading up to prom in utter disdain for the idea of it. I wanted nothing to do with it. That stuff was for squares and popular people. People who cared. And I was certainly not one of those people. But here I was, preparing for the day, not so that I could enjoy it, but because everyone else told me that I was supposed to. Mom, my sister, my friends. It seemed like the world was against my decision to be at home on prom night. I didn’t want to spend money on a dress. I didn’t want to buy shoes. I didn’t want to get my eyebrows done. I wanted to sit at home, play video games, and maybe watch a little late night TV. Imagine my surprise, my chagrin, when upon the arrival of the nefarious day in question, I was not just pleased; I was giddy. I got into the building with a gaggle of friends or so-called. We mingled and we danced. We got lost in the cavernous room with horrible acoustics. Some of us did awkward dances without the involvement of the feet (mostly poor-timed sways to the music). A lot of people hated the music, but I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the same stupid rap songs over and over again. It was goofy and fun. Thriller, the Macarena? What’s not to enjoy. Yeah, it was corny; yeah, they didn’t play the latest rag from the music industry; yeah, I didn’t get the chance to see my crush (which has nothing to do with previous two; I am aware). Even still, I did eat my words. It was more fun than staying home and playing video games.

MGM I did not enjoy so much. Paranoia is a common trait of the sleep deprived, so it’s a wonder that so many people could be put in a place, expected to remain awake the entire night they’re there, and then subjected to a luck-of-the-draw grand prize picking without becoming suspicious. I think it’s a mark of the character of many seniors present at the event that they did not rush to attack the student that won a laptop and printer and didn’t show so much as a wink of excitement. I myself was particularly angry over the distribution of wealth. It seemed to me and many others that the prizes worth the most were given to those who needed them least. The iPods, the flat screen TVs, the laptop and printer. It was like names were not so much drawn at random as given away to those the drawers knew. One can see how that might induce anger in one who had paid cash money and expected a real chance at something one really wanted. But of course, after a full night’s sleep, these offenses don’t seem so bad (although they still seem perfectly possible). I enjoyed a night at the Blackjack table, betting money in amounts too cautious to be much worth the effort, except for the fun of doing it at all. By the end of the night, I was up by several thousand, an experience in a money machine, and a caricature (although that went home with another), and those are memories I’d prefer to stick up front.