Blog Every Day April: 4/29

"Whiskey's a slap on the back, Champagne's... heavy mist before my eyes."
The Philadelphia Story
Macaulay Connor

Today I have been at least somewhat distracted by the fact that I am suffering from allergies, a cold and/or imminent death. While it is probably the former, I am by no means happy about the situation, and spent a large part of the day wondering why my brain wasn't quite working up to par.

(Yes, my brain does have a par. A low one, granted, but a par.)

I am currently consuming hot tea. The tea is almost gone now and there is a dog sleeping on my foot.

I hope you're all spiffing. I would love for you to leave me stories/rants about your day in comments. Pretty please?

Blog Every Day April: 4/28

"Well sure, who doesn't need a boyfriend? But realistically, those exotic creatures are hard to come by."

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I feel I should admit something to you, friends: sometimes I watch reality shows in which brides choose their wedding dresses at fancy salons. Please know that I am thoroughly embarrassed by this, though it's morbid curiosity and the need to allow my brain a rest as much as anything.

It occurs to me that I am eighteen years old and have little true insight on matters of lifelong commitment*, but it breaks my heart that people spend so much money on weddings. The more I watch women (and their families) spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on the dress of their dreams the more I dearly wish to hit my head against a wall.

Granted, I have never dreamed of my wedding day, so I can't say I understand the mindset. I will go shopping only under threat of injury (Laurel is planning this) and would rather be trampled by a llama than spend months upon months of my life planning a party. I hate parties. I'm all for celebrating lasting love, but I cannot personally see myself doing it through the acquisition of massive debt**.

I realize that I'm playing the extremes here, for which I apologize, and I wish not to offend those who do want an extravagant wedding or even merely like them. The last time I went on about this a few of you took the time to explain why weddings don't necessarily suck to me, which I found to be quite enjoyable and useful information. Still, I am of the personal opinion that changing one's surname for the sake of coupledom is unnecessary to my happiness in life and plan not to do so if and when I tie the knot with the tall, dark and handsome young man I clearly have hidden in my closet.

Boys are so confusing. All of them. That is all.

I do, on the other hand, feel I am the ideal candidate be someone's fake girlfriend. Despite my crippling social ineptitude, I am an intelligent young woman not unskilled at banter. I accept payment in chocolate turtles, spicy dialogue and ink pens.

*I realize now that this curiously coincides with a certain REGAL event. I assure you that this was not my original intent.

**I feel this should serve as an interesting read for my future self as she plans her multi-million dollar wedding to a renowned metrosexual marine biologist called Siegfried the Slippery, if nothing else.

Blog Every Day April: 4/27

"Your head, unlike the earth that sculpts mountains

to the sun, deepens dark grooves within

the brain's hemisphere to hold skeins

of butterflies inside, to show you oceans

and peninsulas without your even opening

your eyes. . ."

First Lesson: The Anatomist Explains the Primacy of Imagination

Katrina Vandenberg

I am currently distracted by Laurel, who is talking in my ears and telling me important things via the beauty of the telephone. As such, my thoughts are not quite focused upon stellar blog writing. I also find myself entangled in a maginificant email exchange with both Laurel (future roommate and partner in crazy) herself and the glorious Manar (adorable and awesome friend of glitter), who prove that while life may suck sometimes, one doesn't have to let it suck alone, which in turn makes it suck less so. And, of course, that yelling is A LOT OF FUN.

If you understood any of that, I commend you.

This is one of my favorite things. Enjoy!

Blog Every Day April: 4/26

"True friends,
like ivy and the wall,
both stand together
and together fall."

Thomas Carlyle

I'm really good at keeping quiet. Silently fuming or no, my most often used survival tactic is silence. Bad things tend to happen when I say things. If I truly have to say something I will work the words until their controversy splits off in submission.

I start to hate people when they start trying to change me. For the most part, I think, this isn't truly their intent. It's easy for one to assert one's own opinion as the clear only option. It's easy for me to say, for instance, that books are the best ever and everyone should read them. Not everyone will agree, which is fine (though I can't say I fathom you, potential sirs and madams). As such, I feel I am to assume that when genuinely nice people assert to me that making friends and dealing with people is easy they are not doing this with malicious intent. I tell myself that said persons are merely trying to be helpful. It never quite works, but this is what I tell myself.

My blog title, Ivy and the Wall, takes after a quote I love. I've always wanted a friendship that doesn't break. I've moved more times than I can recall without resorting to finger-counting and careful recollection. Setting down roots has never been an option. Even in situations where everyone was supposedly like me I found myself perpetually outcast. People leave me, so I feel my only power is to shy away from them. Is this right? Maybe not. But it is what it is, and I reckon with it on a daily basis.

It isn't easy. It isn't easy. It isn't easy.

I may be slow-moving, but I am not at a standstill. I am not a project to be bent into shape for your amusement.

The change I make is my own.

Blog Every Day April: 4/25

"If you go, I go too. I don't leave unless with you."

Tell Me

Meghan Tonjes

You know what sucks? Hormones. LET ME DIE NOW PLEASE. I may be an intelligent young woman with a bright future, but goshdarnit if I clearly need to be romantically entangled to feel whole.

Actually no. But. You get my drift.

I have remedied this situation by putting bubble wrap on my head. What do you expect from me, friends? What is this so-called quality of which you speak? Why are you all so gorgeous and eloquent?

I have so many questions.

My boy problems of present are non-problems. He's cute? Too bad, Katherine. You are both a) terrified of people as a general idea and b) he has a girlfriend, anyway, so whatever. Of all the problems I have, this is obviously the most important one. What is my life?

As my glorious internet wife aptly (if jokingly) put it earlier this evening: "You're kind of socially inept, but you're really nice about it."

Standardized tests reign supreme this week at ye old tinytowntexas high school, meaning the lofty seniors are kindly requested to arrive at said institution of learning at the decadent hour of 12:30 each day for the rest of the week. Some might celebrate this. Instead I find myself in a slight panic because this is not routine and things could, potentially, implode.

I am nothing if not logical.

Blog Every Day April: 4/24

"I'm not sure of much of anything these days. Maybe that's why I talk so much."

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M. Pirsig

Considering junk food (often) makes me feel sick, one would think I would steer clear from it. This is not always the case.

Also known as Katherine should stop eating gummy bears at this moment.

Unrelated: maintaining one's weight is vastly underrated. I weighed myself recently and was pleased to leave the situation thinking "what's up, expletives?! I own this place."

I hate shopping. It makes me feel sick. So do ocean documentaries. (I feel like I'm giving a lot of potential torture ideas to any nefarious folk lurking here today. Force feed me junk food and run me around a department store in a shopping cart as the televisions play an ocean documentary in the electronics section? Eh?) Clothes shopping is a particular, evil pain I elude wherever possible. This is partly because I hate it. It is also because there is always something I buy that I will dislike later and never wear.

I dress professionally every day for my job. You can see where this situation could get interesting.

Goodnight.

Blog Every Day April: 4/23

"Darkness is a harsh term, don't you think? And yet it dominates the things I see."

Roll Away Your Stone

Mumford & Sons

I know this is bound to shock you, but I am not always good with words.

I wrote a lot yesterday. None of it was good, and none of it was (really) meant for this blog. The words I sloppily stitched together were mainly in the form of emails to Laurel, my future roommate and partner in crazy. And despite the fact that she was clearly having a worse day than I, when she she called me at 9:30 last night I proceeded to moan about my own problems for an exorbitant amount of time.

Which she took very graciously.

Upon stalking her photos on Facebook (creeper 4 lyf), also, I learned that we attended the same event on the Tour de Nerdfighting in 2008. Consider my mind blown. I found myself in the background of one of her pictures.

Friendship is kind of cool.

I can't discern exactly what got to me last night. Sometimes, I've come to realize, I need to separate myself from people for a while when I'm upset. The internet, though I love it so, is a constant experience. The phone in my pocket will continue to buzz even as I lurk off to hide under my covers. And I appreciate this, I do, but on occasion it becomes cloistering. I can't get away.

Which is how it felt last night as I vainly attempted to slog through a fit of angst. Nothing I want to say right now is socially acceptable, I thought. Nothing I want to say right now will be understood.

"I keep thinking of these things I would do if they were socially acceptable," I wrote Laurel. "I would change my last name. I would write a truth-drenched letter and send it and never see [him] again. I would say what I felt. I wouldn't be so closed with the fact that my heart is is cracked and in pieces.

"I wish people could know that this chaos is all I've ever known, that normalcy hurts. I wish people could know that I don't know what I believe. I don't feel like I can admit that to people. And I wouldn't know how to go about these things as it is.

"I'm not always sure I want to get out of the labyrinth."

I walked three laps around my deserted neighborhood in the space of an hour as afternoon turned to evening. The phone buzzed and, against reason but right on time, the concern paralyzed me. I don't always have the words. I don't always want the words, and it isn't often that I have the emotional energy or wherewithal to deal with situations in a poised-like manner. (But who does?)

Midnight rolls around and the words I set here fail to find conclusion. The sadness does not wrap around me completely, yet I am struck by how little I know with certainty.

My wishes are not answers.