pompous snowmen and snowless snow days

“I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Well, hello hello! Instead of dwelling on the fact that I have not posted a blog in forever and ever and ever, I am just going to dwell on the things that I find fascinating and important that you, uh, probably don’t.

So, I have been up to MULTITUDES of FANTASTICAL and EXOTIC things in the past few months, weeks, days and hours. Well… maybe I’m exaggerating a little. Or a lot. Or a whole lot. But no matter, because I do have a few things worth mentioning. One being my SUPER DUPER not incredibly successful life in the world of Debate. Yes, this lovely specimen whose life you read about and care so dearly about has begun debating competitively with her school’s forensics team. I am involved in the Lincoln- Douglas debate category and am now an Official Member of the National Forensics League, or the NFL for the People in the Know. I’m not great but I’m not horrible and every tournament is a learning experience and I get a sick rush every time I know I have kicked someone’s ass.
Other than debate and debate and more debate, I have been reading quite a bit more. I recently finished Anna and the French Kiss by (nerdfighter!) Stephanie Perkins, where part of the title of this blog post comes from. I though the book was good, due to how the ending turned out and the writing was sweet and clever. The book started out slow and I thought that the character was a bit stupid, but once you get into the book more and start to become engrossed with the romance and the relationships surrounding each character, it is absolutely fantastic. I also just finished Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters, which, to be honest, I was disappointed with. I was told by multiple Palahniuk fans that it was his best work, and it was fantastic, but I think I might have liked Snuff more, but I plan on rereading it eventually, so we’ll see if that changes my thoughts on it. I’m going to begin Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro tomorrow, because I’ve heard fantastic things about both the novel and film.
Aside from debate and reading, I have been tumbling obsessively, arguing with people on tumblr, pissing off my close friends and just generally fucking up greatly. I think I’m going to begin blogging more, to let off steam or what have you. I think I’m going to start going out more, whether it’s alone or with others, because I need fresh air. I need to see things other than the four blue walls of my room. I need different noises and sounds and things to experience. I’m going stir crazy and I’m lonely all the time and I’m bored and I’m aggressive and mean and impulsive with people I care about. I need help more than anything, I need someone to talk to and I need to get out more. But right now what I need to do is brush my teeth and go to bed. Goodnight, lovelies. I’ll see you soon.

WHERETHEDUCKSGO

p.s. I had a snow day today and we didn’t get ANY snow at all. Twas wonderful.

bad first English assignment is bad

Basically, I was required to write an introductory journal for my teacher to read and get to know me. She asked us to include things we believed we need her to know and the things that will help us in English this year. So… here is the piece of crap. Enjoy.

*   *   *   *   *

I. My favorite one-letter word, because I shamelessly and self-indulgently love writing about myself. Other than my obnoxious vanity, I love love love to write. Over the past few years, I’ve become incredibly serious about writing, so much so I’ve begun to think it will be the career I choose to pursue. Recently, I’ve become more experimental in my writing. Such as trying poetry, essays, blogs, short stories and this absolutely insane project called NaNoWriMo, which stand for National Novel Writing Month (yes, you write a 50,000 word novel in one month. It’s the weirdest form of torture out there).

Naturally my love of writing stemmed from an early love of reading. I embraced reading in 4th grade, where I read young adult fantasy for way to long, among the few random books that I didn’t fully comprehend at the time. I evolved to reading more genres in the realm of books that is young adult fiction, and then so on. I’m always open to suggestions, and I’ve been getting into what some would call “proper” literature recently.
Along with my intense obsession with reading and writing, I love the internet. Something I get laughed at behind my back for, I’ve found refuge online in a community of like-minded people, i.e, people that also love reading and writing and other somewhat nerdy things. I’ve met friends that are closer to me then a great deal of my school friends. A “world” many people are hesitant to enter or embrace, I went in full-force and my parents have embraced it as well, so much so one of my friends I met online is flying to New York to stay with us for a few days late next summer.
These are all necessary things to know about me, because they are currently the things that make up a great deal of who I am and who I am becoming. I incorporate a great deal of what I’ve learned from writing and reading over the years into every English class I’m in. And more recently, I include a great deal of what I learn from the large community I’m involved in online in my ideas, opinions and thoughts.
For me to do well in English, I need to be met with a reasonable amount of patience and understanding. I also need my procrastination and occasional close-mindedness not to be tolerated, considering it tends to interfere with my ability to focus on the task at hand and the broader picture of things. My writing is incredibly weak and needs a large amount of work, not to mention I want to work on my editing skills because, let’s face it, a great deal of writing is re-writing. In a nutshell, that’s me, who I am right now and at least for the foreseeable future.

writing and my weakness

This blog will be rambly and will probably make no sense whatsoever.

“I get nervous when I fly, I’m used to walking with my feet.”
– “Go On”  Jack Johnson

All I’ve been wanting to do lately is write. Poetry or prose, I have no preference and my fingers seem to itch for the quiet comfort of both. But every time I take a pen out and press it to the fresh cream page of my little poetry book with it’s precious few pages that are stained with ink, I seem to freeze up. Nothing will come out, and if something does it’s terrible, awful and must be ripped out at once. Or my pen will have a bent tip, or be the wrong color ink or will smear all over the page and ruin the poem. Whenever I attempt prose, I fumble with the keys that are so sure beneath my fingers when tweeting or going on facebook. But it seems when my heart is on the line, my sanity is in slight jeopardy and my self-esteem is out there, low and vulnerable, I can’t quite grasp the “typing” thing and it seems as if every word is wrong. Phrases are wrongly put, sentences aren’t structured well, there is no story in it at all, the entire paragraph reads like one long boring cliche and so on.
My blogs are even troublesome. I can’t put my visit to Kenyon College in more than bite-sized words. I keep worrying that I will screw up that amazing trip and that amazing day if I write one crappy blog post about it. My blog about Oberlin was simple, and I think it was even semi-good, but I wasn’t so genuinely attached to that college, that trip, that day. I wasn’t concerned on screwing it up too severely.
Another thing I hate to admit is that I have this tendency. This awful, heart wrenching tendency to not be able to stay motivated or believe in myself. Other people keeping tabs on what I do keeps me motivated. Those six or seven of you that read this regularly are the ones that keep me going because it just shows that yeah, maybe someone somewhere out there cares what I have to say or whine about. The reason I love genuine compliments on my poetry is because I feel like if someone else likes it, then I have a reason to keep going. It’s one of my worst weaknesses, and therefore one the most powerful ones, but I need others to believe in me in order to believe in myself. I’ve never quit anything, even the times where I would have absolutely no attention to anything I poured my heart and soul into. When I posted things on fictionpress, I would get one review in a blue moon. My best friend at the time started and she got 2+ reviews a day. It took me weeks to get that much attention on stories. When I started blogging, I had maybe one – three hits a month. Things like twitter and tumblr don’t effect me as strongly, because I’m not putting things out there that I want feedback on, I’m not putting effort into those things, I’m not putting the most important parts of me in those things.

WHERETHEDUCKSGO

Oberlin

“I feel I’m stranded in the wrong time, where love is just a lyric in a children’s rhyme.”

-“Is It Any Wonder?” by Keane

What? What is this? Caitlyn, did you really blog TWO DAYS IN A ROW? Yes, curious high-pitched voice dwelling in my head, I am writing a blog and posting it after doing the same thing the night before.

Moving on, today was day two of the Ohio trip, and day one of college visits. We went to visit Oberlin College in, wait for it… Oberlin! We went through the town first, which was honestly a tad sparse, and sort of like the college town near where I live. But this is not the problem I though it to be. Apparently the college kids make things happen all the time, so there is rarely ever a dull moment. We went into admissions and I filled out a slip for something, they gave me a bit of information that I already had, but took so my parents could be informed/ content.

The part that made me weary about the whole “let’s apply to Oberlin” was the deal about being a creative writing major. To major in creative writing you need to take the 201 writing course. The catch? It’s by application only. When you’re a second semester freshman, you can apply for the course and if you get in and get a B+ or higher in the course, you can take the 300 level classes. But the creative writing major is a competitive field, and about 1/3 of applicants get in. Hearing this, my heart sank and I cried a little inside, but I tried my best to remain composed. I made a few jokes, asked some boring questions, argued like an idiot with the program coordinator (yeah, Caitlyn is SMART) but… then something weird happened.

The program coordinator said that most students have the problem about writing something other than the one or two genres they’re used to, which is what hurts most and causes many to fail out of or not get into the program. I, being the dumb ass I am, just said: “I will write ANYTHING. I mean, I’m not afraid to write badly; that’s all I know how to do.” Which she laughed at, said that she thought I was a smart, driven and funny kid, and that I should contact her if I have any questions, and then she handed me her card. This may not seem big, but it felt that way. I almost died.

Granted, I probably have no chance of getting into the writing program because I’m so SHIT at writing, but still. It was nice. Night!

WHERETHEDUCKSGO

the arctic hotel

“static silhouette somehow.”

– “Rome”- Phoenix

I am currently sitting in a room with textured white walls, boring paintings of roses in vases and outdated 90’s light fixtures. You guessed it; I’m in a hotel room. My mother has blasted the air conditioning to the “Alaska” setting, because Ohio weather does this weird thing where it stays hot at night. As this rather scatterbrained and unclear intro may have indicated, I am not home in my bedroom with the slight slant, surrounded by a wall of mountains in cold Upstate New York. I have traveled down to the flat (yes, the rumors are true. It’s flat, but then again, I live in a mountainous state) and warm, if a little stuffy, state of Ohio.

My parents and I hopped in the car and drove the seven hours to visit family and look at colleges for me. We just got back from having dinner at my father’s cousin’s house, and it was one of the most relaxing and laid back evenings I’ve ever had at a distant relative’s house. They spoiled us with yummy appetizers and sandwiches, and there were kids running around and everyone was just interesting and lively and down-to-earth. Once sufficiently full, we caught up about our respective crazy family members, i.e, my favorite uncle and favorite uncle’s crazy ex-wife. I was thrilled to see these people, and even more thrilled to hear that when they last saw me, at age 10 (blonde and blue-eyed), I was writing. I thought my writing phase began much later, and when I was told that I had been writing since then, even if it was just rhymes and stories about haunted houses… I don’t know. I feel like it renewed my faith in myself and my writing. I’m not going to keep exhausting myself with the “I’m a WRITER, I need to WRITE all the time” mantra.

Whoops, little rambly again, but you must be used to that by now. I lied on twitter, saying there was no blog today, I am working DILIGENTLY on a blog that will be well-written (in my opinion, and hopefully others’) and read through by several other people, considering the piece is rather… delicate. I am expressing an opinion I don’t think many will agree with, nor support, and I really hope that the negativity in the entry doesn’t cost me any friends. And if you would like to read it and give constructive criticism, or even your straight up opinion, say so in the comments or reply to me on twitter. I’m off to read The Hunger Games because it’s positively brilliant.

WHERETHEDUCKSGO

BONUS FEATURE

Here’s a short cheesy story.

“Something is wrong with me,” she said softly, her voice calculating and her eyes dull. Blonde hair swinging in her face as the fire crackled and cast a warm glow over her tanned skin.

“What?” I asked, trying for the life of me to figure out what could possibly be wrong with her.

“I’m hurting. It feels like my entire body hurts like it’s burning, as if fire is pulsing through my veins. I feel like I’m being electrocuted over and over, like sparks are flying everywhere. It’s as if I’m alive and the only reason I feel it is because I’m in pain.” Her shoulders were lit a hazy brown-orange, the yellow lace strap of her tank top tangled in the mess of her long locks, turned golden and shimmery in the light of the fire.

“It’s the drugs, Sara,” I said, taking a long drag from my cigarette. “You’ll feel normal once you sleep it off.”

“But I don’t want to sleep it off,” she said, standing up. Her legs were dirty from sitting on the grass and there were goosebumps scattered across her skin. “I want to feel this pain forever… because it makes me think that if I hurt this much, nothing can ever hurt me like it again.”

“Things will always hurt you, Sara. No matter how much pain you’ve felt, things will always end up hurting you.” She came over to me and sat down close, and we were almost touching.

“You see, it’s not painful, really. It’s just a nagging ache that feels good. Like… like I’m stretching in the morning after the perfect sleep. You know?” She said, her eyelids were dropping down, the high was obviously setting in. I laughed.

“You’re so baked.”

“Mhm. But… this is the best feeling ever! Michael, I… I want to feel this way forever.”

“You’re going to go broke buying that much weed, babe.”

“Michael!” she said, but she whined my name in that way of hers.

“What?! I’m just saying, this is nothing but a high. No good feeling is free my dear. A fact of life, a fact I want you to learn.”
She looked at me, I knew because I saw her hair fall off her shoulder and I could smell her perfume and shampoo hit me with the faint smell of smoke from the fire and cigarettes. I looked at her, her brown eyes were glossy and had spider-web like crimson lines, the faint freckles across her nose were a little more obvious and her small, young face looked at me with an expression I had never seen before. She was serious, in her own Sara-way, but she looked older, and I realized now she’d caught up to me. We were on the same page, and staring down the same road. The fire popped and smoke came at us. I put my cigarette out, any excuse to look away, and I felt her hand rest on my leg. 
Her hand crept up to my own, and she slowly and gently laced her fingers through mine. Her hand was lightly there, not pressing into me, not squeezing my hand. I squeezed her hand tighter, letting my warmth flow through her and then she leaned her head on my shoulder. She shifted over closer to me, pressing into me, our body heat flowing through each other and I felt the pain, the ache, the burning fire that she felt. It seemed as if hours, days, weeks had passed since I spoke, but it was only seconds. Sara sighed and looked at me, then she smiled slightly. Her dark pink lips parted slightly, as flames dancing around, their silhouettes shimmying across her cheeks.

“Michael,” she whispered, and my name had never sounded so good. “you’ve taught me a lot, but this feeling is freer than anything.”

“How so?”

“This ache… I love it. My heart seems like it beats a hundred times faster, my mind won’t stop turning… you know what that feeling is? I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“It’s love.” I said, without even thinking, and I knew I couldn’t take it back. I squeezed her hand tighter, hoping she wouldn’t let go. She smiled again, and turned to look at me.

“Why are you always right?”

“Because I am.” And then she kissed me.

I fail and other observations

“I’m just a curbside prophet with my hand in my pocket waiting for my rocket to come.”
– Jason Mraz “Curbside Prophet”

You, um, four people that read this, know that I fail at lots of things. For example, I failed EPICALLY at NaNoWriMo last year, I failed at finishing the 30 day letter challenge in 30 days and I failed at BEDA (April) last year, and now, where I fail at BEDA again. Part of it is laziness, part of it is that I have family here for a little while, then I have a wedding to go to… and enough excuses, but I just don’t have the drive, energy or time to write blogs every day. Not to mention that, as of late, I have been going back to being depressed and this blog would end up becoming my soapbox to whine about everything that is wrong with my life. This would a. reveal way too much about my life and b. just make my depression worse, something that I really do not need and something I do not want.
But moving on from my life as a colossal failure, I have a few things to update you on. I recently finished painting my room an absolutely gorgeous teal, which is the most ditzy sounding sentence this blog will contain, I promise. But the cleaning out, taping, priming, painting, painting again, painting again, ripping up of ugly orange carpet, and moving stuff back has beat the crap out of me. Staying awake is almost impossible, the only thing keeping me up is the fact that I am consuming a pornographic amount of sugar. I am also staying up because my cousins from California are in Bumfuck, Upstate New York visiting me for the first time in two years. This may surprise you, but there are attractive people in my family. My father, mother and I are not some of these people, but my cousins however are. My cousin Rachel is 14-years-old going on 17, tall, leggy, skinny, blonde and drop dead gorgeous with brown eyes and long lashes, along with a bubbly personality that actually fits the word “bubbly”. Alex, who is tall and skinny like his sister, has skater/emo hair, dresses like a beatnik/hippy without the beatnik but with lots of the hippy, and a simple, laid-back personality that I myself pretend I have. Admittedly, I was not thrilled about them coming here, thinking they were still the people they were two years ago, i.e, goody goodies.
I, clearly, am not the world’s most well-behaved child, and thankfully they are not the people they were two years ago. Rachel and I watch the same television shows and read the a lot of the same books, Alex and I watch the same types of movies and like a lot of the same music. I usually forget this, but every year we have a weird bond and we always get along. I guess that’s family at it’s best, something I don’t see nearly enough of.
Full of fail and dorkiness (along with being unnecessarily scatterbrained), this blog is done. You can go pee now. Or something.

WHERETHEDUCKSGO.

BEDA- day 1

So, I am currently sitting in my room, writing this quick (most likely going to be unedited) first blog entry for the entire month of August. I have a lovely 30 days of writing ahead of me. Great. This month will include me finishing up the letter challenge (finally), blogging from college campuses that may be my possible future school, and writing annoyingly short and uninteresting posts to fill space and not fail at BEDA like I did last year. For the past few days I have been in the process of redoing my room; painting, getting rid of ugly bookshelves, cleaning and such, and it is lovely, other than the rushing that I have to do because company is coming tomorrow and the fact that i am exhausted. Small spurts of sleep over the past few days and large amounts of work for someone who is used to little work and lots of sleep does not work out too well. I must go and get my room done ASAP. Better and longer blog post tomorrow. Promise.

Day 17- Someone from your childhood

Dear Jacob,

Due to the power of the beautiful Facebook, I do know little snippets of what you are up to. First, since I moved, you have become the biggest man-whore EVER. I thought you should know, and I feel the need to address this because me, you know, Ms. Goody Two Shoes, is incredibly uncomfortable with it. Just kidding. But seriously, EVERY new profile picture of yours is with another beautiful girl, which, of course, does not surprise me by any means, but it’s funny how quickly things change. We went from breaking into the church playground (and the church itself, might I add) to you being a slutface and me being a, uh, not-so goody goody. I do remember, when we were much younger, swimming in the pool with Jesse, prior to his attempt at kissing me (yeah, uh, about that… you know now… after about 7 years. lolz). Also, our constant little schemes or attempts at being little badasses, like the aforementioned church breaking-in. Or when we would sit up on the red steel staircase, hidden from my house and yours, right above the road below, where you, Jesse and I would talk, or eat ice cream during the summer, or, after Jesse ran away (tail between his legs, might I add), you and I shouting “DON’T MOAN, CALL JOAN!” at cars.
Or one day, walking home from the bus stop, when you threw a CD at a passing car, and it hit a van, where we immediately broke into a run, like bandits, even though nothing was going to happen. Christ, you were around for EVERYTHING. You were more present in my life than my own brother. Hell, you are my brother, or at least you used to be. It sucks that after growing up together our entire lives, we lose contact because of three measly hours between us. I’m not saying this bother me like hell, but it does. I do indeed miss you, and maybe when I come to Connecticut this summer, we’ll go to Lake Compounce and cause some trouble… because isn’t that what we do now? 😉

Caitlyn

A shamefully late and almost nonexistent day 15- the person you miss the most

Dear John,

As strange as it is that I’m writing this letter to you, I feel it is necessary. I don’t miss you per-say, but who you were last summer. I know we were never really friends, we didn’t run in the same “clique” on the kitchen staff last year. We still aren’t really friends, and I haven’t seen you in a week or so. No one else seems to notice your absence, but for some reason I do. Last summer, you were always laughing or joking or hitting on Deb, who I also miss. But this year you’ve changed and everyone is speculating different things. All ranging from drugs, to family problems to school problems, and so on. It’s obvious you’re depressed, and you isolate yourself so much it’s hard to tell what’s wrong, which is clearly what you want. I seem to be the only one (but maybe I’m just self-centered and recognize only myself in this situation) to be making an effort to talk to you. Obviously, my approach is to annoy you and attempt to bitch-slap you out of your depression, at least for the 8 hours a day we see each other, but still. But now I’m nervous… maybe it’s just my incredible paranoia or maybe it’s just psycho-girl theories, but I hope you haven’t done anything. Because, even though all we are is co-workers, not even friends, I would miss you terribly.

Take care,

Caitlyn

Day 14- someone you’ve drifted away from

Dear Jack,

Back in eighth grade, we used to be pretty close. Then in ninth grade even, when I was depressed and it was…. bad. You were the only one there for me. You were the only one that tried to help me. Kerri was just mad at me, but you were genuinely concerned. You texted me almost daily, just to make sure I was alright. You were always there for advice and were always one of my best friends. Then you dated Kerri, and you and I sort of started to hated each other because of how I freaked out because of how you hurt her. Then we sort of became friends again, but we weren’t as close. You started dating Jordan and you just… drifted. These past few months, what with you being arrested and the prescription pills and Rick bullshit, I felt like you could use a friend. I wanted to call you, or stop by, but I knew I couldn’t because we has just drifted so far apart that we can’t really be moved back together. I’m sorry this happened, but it did, and I guess that we have both accepted this.

Caitlyn

***names have been changed for privacy/ protection/ legal issues