Pctyd - Tumblr Posts

Helter Skelter, in summer swelter

The birds flew off with a fallout shelter.

Eight miles high and falling fast...

On Beauty

Today was a lovely night. The Maritime Fest was tonight. I got home from a highly successful day of shopping and running with a good friend, and my parents were listening to music in the park on the waterfront, so I went down and joined. The band was loud and old and cheery, and we all danced as the sun lowered on the water. Seriously, picture-perfect small town night. It's also prom night, so all the seniors are out and I'm probably the only one there between the ages of six and forty. But fun times, and then I tell my parents I'm leaving and going home and such, and then people are calling the band for an encore and all I hear is A long, long time ago... I kind of froze, then came back, then danced my heart out. I screamed and smiled and danced and I didn't cry, although it was a bit too close of a call for comfort. But I left happy and alone, and I was okay with that. They ended with Thank you, Gig Harbor, but I ended with GO HOME. NOBODY LOVES YOU. (Seriously. Beautiful.)

On Luck and CTY

in which I don't write about the end of the year really or how much I miss the seniors and instead ramble about people in English and me and my awesome life

[tl;dr I'm really, really, lucky and haven't really had anything happen in my life, as opposed to a lot of the people at my school and such. But, my life is still pretty seriously defined by cty. This may or may not be a problem.]

No but seriously. I'm not being facetious. Our last assignment in English was to compile a college essay portfolio, comsisting of a few essays written to admission prompts, plus a tree metaphor about ourself and anything else we choose to decorate it with, really. One of the essays was just a broad personal statement, one was on a prompt of our choice, one was in response to "What do you carry?" a la The Things They Carried, and so on. The last thing we had to do is pick one essay from our portfolio to be graded on, polish it, then read it to the class. So here's the thing.

People have some seriously heavy things they're carrying.

Almost everyone's essays are really good. But some of them almost have no option other than being good, because of the stories people have behind them. I already knew the mother of one of my close friends had passed away when she was nine, and I had heard about a couple of other people, but what everyone revealed was astounding. We heard about two parents dying, we heard about the pain of divorce, we learned about a favorite horse being murdered, we heard about living with a father diagnosed as mentally insane, and we heard about rape. We're not even done. People broke down reading their essays, our teacher cried multiple times, and people cried listening to them.

It was amazing to hear because sometimes I just don't realize, at all, how much the people around me have to deal with, every single day. I am honestly blessed (knock on wood). Honestly the only pressure I deal with is that of high expectations and ambitious dreams, but even those are all mine. My parents are more supportive than I could ever imagine, and the expectations I deal with are entirely mine, not theirs or anyone elses. But listening to some of these people's essays I've been forced to think that honestly, what I am is lucky. I don't know that kind of pain. I don't know what it's like to be truly depressed, not just upset. I don't know what it's like to deal with the death of a family member closer than a grandparent. I don't know what it's like to think I'm fat (kind of independent of my weight). I don't know what it's like to hate myself. I don't know what it's like to really, really hate my parents. I don't know what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck. I don't know what it's like to starve. So I wrote my essay on my personal vernacular and how I talk kind of messily and people laughed and it was good an stuff. It's just that I thought, I just don't have that kind of emotional or painful connection to anything. I can't point to what changed me forever. I can't name a day that changed my life.

But then I realized, Oh yes. I can. 08.07.09, the Day the Music Died, actually might be the most defining single day of my life I can remember. Or, if not that day than one within those three weeks. I mean, people get carried away with pctyd and I know that and I know it's seriously time to move on (come on it's been two years), but the thing is, CTY actually was that important of a part of my life. I like to think I'm not as unrealistic as to look back on everything with rosy glasses and assume everything was perfect, because it wasn't. But even raging and crying and about life and Life with a best froommate (friend + roommate. heheh) was fantastic. I can't really talk about how CTY made my life better. Like how it made me confident. How I suddenly got to be proud for loving my country and its history. How discussions became my favorite thing in the world. How I learned how to swear. How I learned that being good at school and being proud of it isn't a bad thing. How I met the most brilliant people I know. How I got good at trench and great at ratscrew. How I met my first boyfriend. How I got to rap like a pro. How I felt mainstream for once in my life. How I lived in a dorm. How I've never associated as much emotion with any song or inanimate object as I do with canon. How all the clearest memory-pictures that I take in my head when I know I need to remember something are all from cty. How I ran faster than I ever had before at the End of the World As We Know it.

So, awesome. I love my life, don't get me wrong. I'll just have to figure out how to define my life by something other than two years of nerd camp. Also on my to-so list is figuring out how I can share my luck and happiness and luck because there are people who deserve it a hell of a lot more than I do.

On Jet Plane

GODDAMNIT FACEBOOK FRIENDS. LEAVING ON A PLANE IS NOT ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY QUOTING THOSE LYRICS.

[/end pctyd elitism]

On Poetic Circumstance, Part II

except this time the poem is much more bittersweet

because I just saw The Gaurd, which is great and I recommend, but they went into the credits with Jet Plane

it's the first time i've heard it in literally two years. (wow, what timing.)

And A Special Note On CTYers

because I love them so much.

And I love how it's ctyers who ask if I'm okay and I love how I can not see people for two years and nothings different and I love how I can be friends with people after kind of a long time of complicated relations. And I love how they're all clever but so different but still going to change the world.

On Tags

so i have done the whole pick an old tag for every letter of the alphabet thing and have come to the following conlusions

i apparently post on here when i am happy or when i am sad. and not a lot in the middle

my love for cracked has spread to tumblr

no one is ever going to find this blog based on tags (plus? i think yes)

have i really never tagged anything with anything starting with k? it's my goddamn initial! well anyways. now i have.

And There We Were All In One Place

and by that i mean actually i was sitting alone in my car parked at the boat launch and singing to American Pie and kind of falling apart

i don't know what's wrong with me and my mother keeps trying to have a serious what's wrong? talk. but anyways today was three more tests and suddenly being sick and five hours of rehearsal which is actually the shortest it's been all week but still miserable because people are not nice. so i was driving home, and Don McClean came on the radio just as I started crossing the bridge home to my island, and I pulled over at the boat launch.

i think it was just stress and memories and everything at once but i just kept having flashes of ctyers as we were at cty and that song and us yelling and just being together and being safe and loved and together and invincible. i miss learning for the sake of wanting to know things and not having to feel bad about it. i miss a lot, and right now everything is stressful. so i just kind of sat there crying and looking at the water and it's the first time i remember being by that bridge on my favorite spot and not being comforted, because instead i was just struck by how alone i felt. even though i know i have friends here who i love dearly and this is why i write nice things about them and i know this is miserably melodramatic of me but so be it.

kind of like how tomorrow i'm going to want to be somewhere else while we work on sets for 12 hours. but anyways. point being, it might be a while before i work my way through my posts about people. cause i gotta get my act together. this is absurd.

Because Otherwise I Might Start Forgetting Things

I am going to tell you all about my mid-winter break.

Things:

     So I got into CalPoly. The crazy school I told you about earlier. Visited, it was okay, they're giving me some money but not lots, I'll think about it and hopefully I'll get in other places. Not a big story.

     Big story: I saw Jackie Choi. And by saw I mean I got to hang out with her for a day in which she showed me the awesome parts of Monterey, she talked about her touristy home while I got to be a tourist, we had delicious nutella crepes, we talked about boys, we took pictures in this weird photobooth on the wharf, we visited an actual antique shop, an antique clothing shop, and a little old bookstore, we generally freaked out over actually being in the same place at the same time, and we got to communally yell at David Krucik. Just like old times. Oh and we slept together. No but actually, seeing her being wonderful in her show and sitting next to Krucik of all people was amazing. Talking to Krucik really was a throwback, because I really had not talked to him in two and a half years, and all we had to do was mock each other and talk about CTY and watch everyone congratulate jackielove on being awesome. So that plus our sleepover that consisted of the three of us, plus two of jackie's seriously fabulous friends (one of whom we had to sneak in), made talking until three in the morning and getting up two hours later to catch a plane totally worth it. Because I realized, as David woke up to give me a sleepy and sincere hug goodbye, that "See you later" is really all I can say to CTYers. Because I will. I will see them later. So I could go hug jackielove goodbye without any real problem because it wasn't really goodbye. I'll see her again. Just like how if i managed to see David Krucik again, the same David Krucik who was more frustrating and obnoxious than maybe anyone else at CTY, and actually have a good time, I'll find a way to make sure I get to see everyone I want to. It might be soon and it might be a years from now, but it will happen. So there.

And then I got to come home and not get free movie passes but still watch the Oscars and eat chicken pot pie, which is basically the best thing ever. After people who make me happy.

after three years of love I figured it was time for some new rainbows