Tuesday, January 10, 2012

And the world that we knew was raining blood



What's On: Yvaine from the "Stardust" movie soundtrack


Umwow. Been a long time. I don't have much time tonight - I spent too much wonderful time talking to Starrie, and I should have been in bed two hours ago, but wonderful things happened, and I'm just so happy to be talking to her again. Not even my sleeping pill can outfight the happy.

The last time I said anything productive, I was three hundred dollars behind on my phone, my car was still dysfunctional, and I didn't have a job. Or rather, I was interviewing at various places.

Quick recap: Target saw the background check and said no. The gas station saw the background check and said no. The car got fixed (eventually) and I am working as an assistant on a special needs bus from six to nine in the morning, and then from one to five in the afternoon. The job itself isn't difficult, but the timing is. It's going to be damn near impossible for me to find a second job, which I desperately need. I'm living paycheque to paycheque because my stepmother is siphoning everything I make out of me before I can pay my bills. I'm barely keeping up with my credit card and car payment and those only because they're out of my bank. They take the money from me if I'm behind, as soon as it comes in.

The cell phone and computer, however... I'm about 1500$ behind, and they're both sending me threatening letters saying WE WANT IT ALL, and WE WANT IT NOW. I'm petrified of those letters because I don't know what's going to happen, and where the FUCK am I going to get 1500$? I don't even think my tax returns will equal that much, and I don't want to spend every last cent of the returns on bills. I wanted to at least get a new tattoo. It looks like I won't be able to, though, because I just...don't have the money. As I said to Renko the other day, I feel like a hamster on a wheel. I'm running and running as fast as I can, but I'm not going anywhere. And even if I stop and get off the wheel, I'm still stuck in a plastic cage.

Have been very depressed recently. That's one of the reasons I'm so incredibly happy to be talking to Starrie. I haven't been forgotten by all and sundry! I still have friends! AND she sent me the love of my literary life (the rewrite) so I can read it again, and use it for motivation. Because I refuse to let myself read it until I get some revisions done on Incandescent. It's going to be so hard, but I want to read it, and so I will revise. 8D If she'd send me the other two books (rewrites or not) my life would be complete. COMPLETE.

Oh yeah, speaking of life... Boyfriend and I broke up. It was peaceable, and we're still friends. But it just sort of reinforced my idea that I'm kinda 'DOOMED to be ALONE' which sounds like the title of a skeezy novel. Hah, my life would be a skeezy novel. Quel surprise. XD

So that's it with life. No boyfriend, new job, NO MONEY, but at least I have fiction - both my writing and others' - to get me through.

Friday, September 2, 2011

reach for something that's already gone...



What's On: Daughtry - September

Gods.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I feel like I'm falling apart at the seams. For a while - back in March, when I first found myself confronted with the 'Quit Now or Die' feeling at Dollar General, and I thought, I've been a manager. I've got a car. I'll be fine.

I quit. I wasn't fine. It was two months before I found another job, and I only had that one for a month before they fired me because two guys in Enforcement stole some money, and I had a shoplifting charge on my background check.

Disregarding the fact that it was SEVEN. GOD. DAMNED. YEARS. AGO, and I've been perfect ever since - maybe not as perfect as I could be, not getting a job fast enough, being too depressed over everything, not going to school when I had the chance, or working harder to get my license sooner...

But no more trouble.

While I was at DG, for a while it was perfect. I was going to move in with my friend, and all I needed was a car. So I got the license, I got the car. Then it broke down, and I couldn't move. Then I got it back, but I quit and it broke down again. So I still couldn't move.

I got a cell phone, a credit card that made the license and the cell phone possible.

But I quit. Because it was quit or I was going to get myself arrested for screaming and throwing things at customers, or fired because I screamed and threw things at my manager, or just end up dead because I was going to kill myself because EVERYTHING. FUCKING. SUCKED.

So I was fired because I was involved with a bad person seven years ago. And then I had interviews and interviews and job offers, but the second they got a look at that background check, they see SHOPLIFTING and don't look at the fact that it was seven years ago, don't ask me if I was involved, just say "SORRY, YOU FUCKING SUCK."

The only thing that looked past the shoplifting was a telemarketing, and on the first day I almost cried because I could feel my soul going away with each person that picked up the phone, and I quit that too.

My car still isn't working, the guy I paid to fix it hasn't been back in a month, and if he weren't a longtime friend of my aunts I'd be calling the cops, dragging his ass into court, saying I GAVE THIS FUCKER MONEY TO FIX MY CAR AND HE HASN'T DONE SHIT, I NEED MY GODDAMN CAR!

Now my phone isn't working. Its not keeping a charge, its not charging at all right now, its just flashing white and the little light that usually flashes to let me know what's going on with it is just solid, unblinking.

I don't have any money. I mowed a friend's yard for twenty five dollars but I'm so stressed out by my lack of car, lack of phone LACK OF JOB wtf is WRONG with me that EVERYTHING I TOUCH BREAKS? that I've been smoking too much, and it won't last much longer.

My phone bill is three months behind - I owe them three hundred dollars, probably more now, and I can't pay that, or my car payment, or my personal property tax on the car, the car needs to be inspected next month, I'm falling APART.

I've been thinking here... If I stop eating, I'll get thinner. If I stop smoking, I'll be healthier. Both of those things will kill me, but right now, right this second, I want to start working out, for hours at a time, just do nothing but pushups and situps and squats and do anything at all to lose weight because if I can't get a job or go to school, I may as well be thin, right? At least then I might get into the military, which I don't want to do, but god! It's got to be better than nothing.

And I like being told what to do - occasionally, depends on who's doing the telling and what they're saying - so boot camp, with nothing but someone telling me how to do everything, I think that'd be okay, and maybe they'd pay me, and money, that's all I need, is something to pay my bills, someone to look past the fact that I did ONE WRONG THING,

SEVEN YEARS AGO

just look past it and maybe take a chance on me, and give me the money to work everything out and maybe not have to die to stop smoking or be thin, and just


Help me.





This song came on my playlist just as I started typing this out. This song is the reason I'm in tears, because I've always thought It'll all work out in the end... Just wait it'll work out but every time I think, it's starting to work, it all falls apart, and I'm left in pieces again.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth putting myself back together again. Someone tell me if it's worth it?

How the time passed away? All the trouble that we gave
And all those days we spent out by the lake
Has it all gone to waste? All the promises we made
One by one they vanish just the same

Of all the things I still remember
Summer's never looked the same
The years go by and time just seems to fly
But the memories remain

In the middle of September we'd still play out in the rain
Nothing to lose but everything to gain
Reflecting now on how things could've been
It was worth it in the end

Now it all seems so clear, there's nothing left to fear
So we made our way by finding what was real
Now the days are so long that summer's moving on
We reach for something that's already gone

Of all the things I still remember
Summer's never looked the same
The years go by and time just seems to fly by
But the memories remain

In the middle of September we'd still play out in the rain
Nothing to lose but everything to gain
Reflecting now on how things could've been
It was worth it in the end

We knew we had to leave this town
But we never knew when and we never knew how
We would end up here the way we are
Yeah we knew we had to leave this town
But we never knew when and we never knew how

Of all the things I still remember
Summer's never looked the same
The years go by and time just seems to fly by
But the memories remain

In the middle of September we'd still play out in the rain
Nothing to lose but everything to gain
Reflecting now on how things could've been
It was worth it in the end


Will it be worth it in the end? I wonder.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

i'm a fool with dreams and not a lot of things...


What's On: Framing Hanley - Back To Go Again

Well, the update every day didn't work too well. It might be easier if I had constant access to the internet, or anything at all to say beyond bemoaning my ill luck.

I haven't forgotten this, though, and I probably won't. Hopefully.

Anyway, just a quick announcement. Won NaNoWriMo for the first time ever - for the 'camp'. I guess it counts. I'd rather do it for the official Nano, though, and make it count.

Am slowly revising Eversong. I'm not sure if its worth it, but I hate to let all seventy five thousand words just rot without doing anything. Otherwise the effort was wasted (though not unproductive, as it did teach me a lot about writing, AND I got to read Starrie's wonderfully well-written trilogy - THAT I WANT TO READ AGAIN, but I don't want to beg, and can't just ask.)

Speaking of writing. Finished a third book (second and a half? since Eden's Gate is technically incomplete and all...) for Nano, and I'm wary of revisions, and the writing bug is biting me again.

I'm thinking of something involving a teenaged male prostitute. How many people do you think I'm going to piss off with that one?

Haha. I can't wait to start.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?


What's On: The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love

So. I didn't mean for yesterday's post to get so ARGHRAWRGRR. It was meant to be wistful, and it turned into a Raging Rant About Why I Want To Go Home.

Home of course being Japan.

Excepting of course that I can't speak Japanese. Yet.

I practice a little bit every few days. I'd like to say every day, but then I'd be lying. The important part is the practicing.

I looked up tonight while I was out smoking and saw a plane heading west. My heart clenched, and I felt tears that might have come out if I'd seen more than just the one. I think I may have mentioned (lol) that I love to be on planes, and I love flying, and I love airports, and just the sight of an airport or a plane flying is enough to make me wistful.

Now, when my every thought is bent on GET TO JAPAN, NOW, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, seeing the planes in the sky is an actual physical pain in my chest.

I was reminded, when I saw it, of the song Airplanes by B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams.

Can we pretend that the airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?

I could really use a wish right now.


I've always relied on music to get my feelings across. The chorus of that song pretty much exemplified my mood right now.

I'd love to talk more, but I need to be writing, and I'm already exhausted.

Monday, August 8, 2011

silent nights are long, broken hearts are dry


What's On: Annie Lennox - Into The West

I'm reading a book right now called "Kushiel's Dart" by Jacqueline Carey. Its kind of a historical fantasy, set in an alternate history version of Europe, and one of the recurring themes is how much the D'Angelines love their home.

A repeated phrase is
"All exiles carry a map within them that points the way home."


I've only been out of the country once, when I was too young to remember much of it. I have very faint memories of my great aunts house, where I'm convinced I saw a ghost, but what I remember most is the plane trip back. I couldn't say how old I was, and there's no one left alive who could tell me exactly. But I remember being on that giant plane, and looking out the window at night and seeing the lights of the cities beneath us.

To this day, flying - particularly at night - has been one of my greatest joys.

But I didn't come here to talk about that. I came here to talk about exiles.

So I've lived in America pretty much my whole life, barring those few years I spent somewhere in the UK.

But I've been interested in Japan since about sixth grade, when my friend introduced me to Sailor Moon, and I realised that the shows I'd been watching for years - Speed Racer, Thunder Cats, there were probably more - were different from the usual cartoons because they were anime, from Japan.

My love affair with anime of all types was instantly cemented, mostly because it came from Japan. As I got older, I tried for four years to take Japanese in high school, and I learned little bits and pieces on my own, and I gradually became interested in the history, the culture, the clothes and the language, and more than just the cartoons they exported.

One thing was clear, through everything.

I wanted to go.

I found a book once, about reincarnation. Its been long enough now that I'd need to reread it to remember exactly why it struck such a chord in me, but I remember it was about that time that I first read it that I started thinking about what I may have been in a past life (aside from a very bad person, apparently, because my life has been hard enough that I've often wondered what I'm making up for this time around).

I have a vision in my head of being a civil war soldier, fighting for the south, and taking a ball to the chest. Dying alone on the field, surrounded by the smell of smoke and blood and grass and the sounds of other men dying, howling, screaming, moaning in pain, calling out for their families. The sounds of gunfire echo in my ears. To this day, things like fireworks and thunder scare the shit out of me. I don't know why; I enjoy storms, and I love looking at fireworks, but hearing the fireworks screaming up into the sky and exploding, it brings back a feeling - so faint that it can't even be called a memory - of cannons.

And bombs.

I'd never had much interest in World War II until I read that book, and as I said, something about it hit me so hard that I cannot believe that this isn't true, though I have no proof.

But whether or not I fought in the war, or if I was just one of those people caught in the nuclear blast at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, I believe that in a past life, I was Japanese at the time.

I'd like to think I was a pilot, that I flew one of the planes that drove themselves into ships for the glory and honour of dying for their country, but that just might be because I love flying.

I think I may have said this here; I don't care about people. I love the people I love, and the rest can go to hell. I'm outraged by the so-called war on terror, because I feel I should be, not because I actually am. No one I know has been impacted by it, and so I don't care. I don't care when people die, except to the extent that I worry it might be someone I care about, but I pretend to because its the human thing to do. I used to worry that I was sociopathic, because I recognised this pretending in myself, but there's not enough cruelty in me. Sociopaths tend to turn up early by setting dogs on fire or kicking kittens - cruelty to animals is one of the biggest warning signs. And I love most animals - even the ones I don't like - more than I love most people. (We have three dogs. I hate dogs, and I hate the ones we have, but at the same time, I love them. I also think I've said before that I don't make much sense, and I freely contradict myself. It drives some people nuts.)

Anyway, tangent aside... I don't care. About people, about death, about just about anything except what I do care about.

So it took me by surprise, my senior year of high school, when I finally managed to land a Japanese class and we watched a video about Hiroshima, and the bombs America dropped on them. On citizens, whose only crime was good weather, and being Japanese.

I cried - openly, in the middle of class - when the museum showed a school uniform from a local elementary school.

An elementary school.

It wasn't even a complete uniform, but the scraps they'd salvaged were all they'd found.

Nothing - not the War on Terror, not the 9/11 attacks, NOTHING - has horrified or disgusted me as much as what America did to those two cities by dropping those bombs.

So I might not have been a pilot; I might have been one of those kids whose uniforms they didn't find.

I could have been a woman who was just hanging out the laundry to dry, or a man on his way to work.

But I know, deep down, that I was there.

And in this life?

I want to go back. My every thought for the past fifteen years has been bent on traveling the world, getting out of America and seeing what I can, learning everything there is to learn.

And then settling down somewhere in Japan. Because I once thought I could be happy anywhere, but then I realised I'm not happy away from sea level. And then I decided I had to live on an island. So, Japan, England, Hawaii, the Philippines, all viable choices.

But the more I considered it, the more I knew.

It had to be Japan.

I could be happy somewhere else for a time, but I know that my heart would always yearn to be somewhere else, and it came as a revelation one day.

Japan was the home of my heart.

I've been reading the blog posts of a friend who's spent time there and regrets leaving, and I'm friends with another girl who went for a year as a transfer student in college and ended up staying.

I know that once I set foot on that soil, I'll be home.

I look into the setting sun, and I know that if I keep walking, my feet will carry me west. I look, and I know that across the continent and past the ocean, into the west, I will find my home.

All exiles carry a map in their hearts that leads the way home. Mine points west.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

cause when i said i missed you i lied


What's On: Cinema Bizarre - I Don't Wanna Know (If You Got Laid)

Could have waited. Didn't want to. Was rereading my posts and felt like adding these two snippets of lyrics in today, but also didn't feel like waiting until tomorrow.


This is pretty much the theme song for how I feel about someone close to me.
Cinema Bizarre - Blasphemy
Love is nature
So you're praying for salvation
For the hearts to understand

That is you
My new religion is you
They say this love is blasphemy
It is blasphemy-It is blasphemy
But my new religion is you

Faith is crime
When all you love is one the line
Your spirit's bleeding
Incomplete and blamed for immorality


And this song doesn't help anyone, because all the people I want to see or go on trips with are IN California (or Japan), but it still deserved some recognition here from me.

Metro Station - California

And we could fly away
To outer space
Or we could find a way
To leave this place

We don't need a map
And you can throw your phone away
We don't wanna hear
The things we know they're gonna say

You don't trust yourself
But girl trust me
Don't look in the mirror
The past you don't wanna see

What do you say we leave for California?
If we drive all night, we can make it by the morning
And, no one else will know if we decide to go, oh
What do you say we leave for California?



And just because...

Cinema Bizarre - Sad Day (For Happiness)

I'll meet you on the other side
in the apple of my eye
Let us paint a scenery
in a color we can see

Switch the news off, go to sleep
fight the tears in misery
I've exchanged my childhood dreams
for a bunch of make-believes

Touch the button
you should sit and listen
Watching as a tear
rains into a broken heart

It's a sad day for happiness
in this crazy world
It's a crazy world
so all we can do is be
a little crazy to save today

drive to dream, to live, we could see the world tonight


What's On: Anberlin - Autobahn

I really love this song. Its really kind of bittersweet, and at the same time it embodies everything I love.

Drive to dream to live, we could see the world tonight...

And we're driving just as fast as we can
and we're racing to outrun the wind
It's just me and you and you and me
so wild eyed, so young, bright eyed and free
And we're trying to get out of here
and a small town romance draws ever near
And I swear we're in a movie
the highlight comes when you kiss me


I've always loved traveling, and taking long car trips - even though I've never been the driver during one of them, and it might disillusion me a bit if I have to drive for eight or nine hours straight, but I love driving.

I love the freedom, and the ability to go anywhere. I love not being limited by how tired I am or how much my legs hurt, or how hot or cold it is outside, and the speed... rolling the windows down and turning the music up and its a whole new world just for me.

And seeing that road roll out in front of me is a glorious feeling. I generally avoid country music in huge amounts, because my family are huge country freaks and that's ALL they listen to, so I get enough of it just being in the same house/car.

But there are a couple of country songs that also personify this love of mine, Jo Dee Messina's "Heads Carolina, Tails California"

Baby, what do you say we just get lost?
Leave this one horse townlike two rebels without a cause.
I got people in Boston.
Ain't your daddy still in Des Moines?
We can pack up tomorrow.
Tonight, let's flip a coin

Heads, Carolina Tails, California.
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer.
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean.
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together. I've got a quarter.
Heads, Carolina Tails, California.

We can load what we own in the back of a U-haul van.
Couple modern day Moses', searchin for the promised land.
We can go four hundred miles before we stop for gas.
We can drive for a day, and then we'll take a look at the map.

Heads, Carolina Tails, California.
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer.
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean.
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together. I've got a quarter.
Heads, Carolina Tails, California.

We're gonna get outta here if we gotta ride a Greyhound bus.
Boy, we're bound to outrun the bad luck that's tailin' us...


and Lonestar's "What About Now"

And that road rolls out like a welcome mat
I don't know where it goes but it beats where we're at
We always said someday, somehow
We were gonna get away, gonna blow this town

What about now, how 'bout tonight
Baby for once let's don't think twice
Let's take that spin that never ends
That we've been talking about
What about now, why should we wait
We can chase these dreams down the interstate
And be long gone 'fore the world moves on and makes another round
What about now

We've been puttin' this off baby long enough
Just give me the word, and we'll be kickin' up dust
We both know it's just a matter of time
'Til our hearts start racin' for that county line


I long to do that... Just pack up everything I feel like taking with me, stop at the nearest gas station and fill up, and then just...


Go.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

lost in the sun, can anybody find their way home?



What's On:
Cinema Bizarre - Touching and Kissing

So I set myself an arbitrary goal of ten thousand words today by midnight. I'm about two thousand in, so only eight thousand left, with about four thousand words to go. I'm suddenly not sure of the story, or where its going, but I'm going to just keep writing, and I guess I'll cut it out later. That seems like a waste; I'd rather get it right the first time than have to take so much of it away later, but I guess some things can't be helped.

Part of me is in awe at how much work goes into novel writing. First you've got to write the damn thing; then revise it.

Then revise it.

Then revise it.

Then revi....


Then FINALLY, send it off to an agent who may or may not take you on for it, and then they'll have you revise it again, and they go find an editor who may or may not take it on, and then you revise it...

again.

So much revision. I'm not even sure about how to revise in the first place, much less how I'm going to deal with SO FUCKING MUCH OF IT.

But that's the process, if I want to someday see my work in print.

I guess I'll get through it somehow.

Now, I've got two thousand words per hour to be writing, and dithering about on the internet won't help it get done. I'm off.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

its not a matter of love, its just a matter of time


What's On: Anberlin - Autobahn

So. Another day, another blog. I'm not doing too bad.

Anyway, I had an interview today at Target. I'm kind of amused; years ago, Target turned me down flat, but today I was hired right away. Actual employment is contingent upon my background check and drug test. I'm not worried about the drug test; the strongest thing they'll find is caffeine and nicotine, and I'm pretty sure its not actually illegal to smoke cigarettes right now. (Though who knows when that might be coming.)

Tangent aside, I ran with a bad crowd when I was younger. Long story short, I was charged with shoplifting (though I wasn't actually involved, just with the girl who was) and its been the bane of my existence ever since. If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself to kick her in her ass before letting her do something like that, especially in light of all the things it being on my record has fucked up over the years.

But barring that, I'll have a job. Finally. And since they apparently do their background checks pretty quickly, I won't feel like I've got a job for a month only to have it come kick me in the ass later. I've lost at least two jobs because of it, and been turned down for countless others despite the fact that they claim "A history will not impact your being hired."

Was listening to a playlist of songs from a friend of mine (because she loves me and sends me huge chunks of new music at a time XD) and Anberlin came on. I already had a bunch of Anberlin from a raid on the library, but she rounded out the collection, and I was organising my folders earlier and realised that I've got all five albums. There's another one called "Lost Songs" that has a bunch of covers, remixes, and demos, but I'm not interested in the whole thing, just a few specific songs from it.

Long story short, Anberlin is the Band of the Day, and in particular I love the song Autobahn:

And the stereo sings our song
We don't hesitate to sing along

Drive to dream to live, we could see the world tonight
Here to hope tomorrow we could see the world

And we're miles from the middle of nowhere
and neither of us seems to care
And that's why I love you so,
shut your mouth girl, no one has to know
And time seems to drip like Dali
and neither of us has a place to be
So for once and forever tell me all, tell me all of your dreams

And the stereo sings our song
We don't hesitate to sing along...

well, let's try again.


What's On: Massive Attack - Tear Drop



Well. I've tried, over the years, to make a blog, and keep up with it. Maybe this'll be the one.

So. About me. I am an author in progress, with several different ideas in the works. I usually run into a snag plotwise and drop them for a time, but I seem to have plateaued out at about twelve, total. Only one and a half of them are actually complete.

I grew up a navy brat, and never spent more than two years at any given school. This inspired in me a wanderlust that has been slowly choking me over the years, and I don't care where I go from here as long as I get out.

I hate talking about myself, as well. I'm weird, I suppose. I have eccentric tastes in everything - there's no reason or explanation behind why I may or may not like something. I just do. Or I don't.

I'm a lover. I fall in love with things, animals, characters, people. I'm in love with at least four people right now, though only about two of them know it.

I'm sure more about me will come out if I continue to post here. No promises, though.