And I'm waiting for this task to end.

"You're turning into quite the young lady", my grandmother's words echo in my mind and my laughter chases it through the tunnels of my subconcious. I suppose I am, at that.
Though I still don't quite think "lady" applies yet. I'm still too young for decorum.
I've got one life to live, y'know, and I'm still young enough to enjoy it.
My only regrets are the things I didn't do.

My sleeve still smells of coffee from my walk this morning. Afternoon. What-have-you.
The cup clunked down in front of her with a sense of finality, coming to rest after its 20-minute-long journey. She slept on, oblivious, while the others around her looked at me with creased brow. Asking questions with their eyes.

Theorum.

I sleep more, I'm more awake in the mornings but I have less energy.
I sleep less, I'm horribly out of it in the mornings but I have an endless well of energy.
I sense potential experiments in my future. If I can muster the energy to do them.

I found you on a Saturday and that was where I lost you

I listen with my ears and my body to the music, the drums thrumming my throat like an extension of themselves, and my eyes listen with an almost religious fervor to the lights flickering over my face. Over the faces of the people around me. Over the faces of the people that brought us here.
I look around, at the bodies packed mere inches from me to the people leaning on the railings, watching us with an almost bored expression, to the people on the platform and I realize that I love them. Every last one of them. From the boy watching the dance floor like we're sub-human to the Joker who spins and dips his girlfriend with all the elegance one wouldn't expect in a crowded room.
A hat lands on my head and I look back at his smile. My eyes flick over the rest of my companions, the one who can't stop moving to save his life, the one who looks at us dubiously but dances any way and the one who keeps everyone else in check. I feel laughter bubbling in my throat and I have to turn around before it over-takes me.
"Write love on her arm" the back in front of me declares.
'I will!' I promise silently. 'I swear I will.'

-System error.
Shut down imminent.

Core unit too content.

Reboot?
Y/N

No, nay, never!

There's this boy from London I'm utterly captivated by.
A boy back home I'm sanely in love with.
And a boy in DC that I would quite like to get to know better.
Really, lovely, you don't need to set me up with your friends. I'm quite taken enough.

"Don't you have a boyfriend?" He asks, wrinkling his eyebrows. A look of surprise, disbelief, crosses his face, and I take it as a compliment.
"You look different... Older! You looked 18 when I got here, now you look 20. You've gained weight. But in the good places! Your chest is bigger and you look more... fleshed out. It looks good on you."
I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

The silk of my "little black dress" slides down my legs as I shift and it makes me shiver a little. I like the feel of it along my sides, as unused to it as I am.
"That's your catching a man dress, you look amazing in that." She grins at me suggestively and I laugh. Partially from the wine, partially because I just don't know what to say.

You may be right, I may be crazy.

Sitting here, listening to the Scattergories buzzer and watching the people I've known for all of three months (or two weeks) bent over these cards, I realized that I'm happy.
I love this place. I love these people. I love the experiences I'm having and the things I'm learning.
I love the half hour walk to the Starbucks and bakery every day after work. I love curling up on the papazan to read. I love getting coerced into going exploring in DC. I love getting randomly invited to go somewhere. I love how beautiful this place is. I love the cider in the glass next to me, making my head a little fuzzy.
I'm so happy here.

...But it might just be a lunatic you're looking for.

You find that she is positively practicing the craft of the wise

I think, on occasion, that I know why I'm constantly so focused on all that is good and shiny in this world. I think I know why all the bad things fall by the way-side of my brain. I think I know why I feel so tired so often. I think I know why I don't let people get too close.
Put gently? Alaska has a high rate of sexual abuse.
I spent four years counciling rape victims. Four years of holding sobbing girls and one winter of stroking a boy's head while he clung to my leg and begged me not to leave him alone. Four years of finding out what it feels like when your heart breaks. On top of coming to terms with thirteen years and three instances of "well, at least I didn't get raped".
I tend to attribute my borderline manic personality to my need to get away from that. Four years of dealing with the after-effects of some of the most deplorable human actions (and one winter spent with the most broken person I've ever known) has left me hopelessly drained, with an appreciation for all the wonderful things life has to offer.
In my more cynical moments, I wonder if it's post traumatic stress disorder that wipes my memory of everything that isn't sunshine and puppies. I have to stop and focus if I want to remember ANY thing that didn't make me smile. My memory starts to get fuzzy after even a few hours. It's like my mind just... deletes things after a while. I hate it until I consider what would happen if my mind didn't.
I'll take sunflowers and rainstorms over freshman year and the apartment ANY day. At least I can say that I've learned from everything.

I don't know. I think of everything as fair game for conversation and I don't keep secrets about my life, but I'm hesitating before hitting "publish post".
I don't trust easily any more and this is a glimpse into my inner workings that I don't afford many people at all. Yet I'm seriously considering placing on the web for anyone to stumble across.
At the same time? I want to record this theory somewhere I can find it again so I can look over it, build on it or tear it down as false.
And I know from past experience that if I just save it to my hard drive the next time I see it I'll call myself a dumbass and delete it.

And I'm an accident waiting to happen

Some times I wonder why I do the things I do, think the way I think. I'm like a small child, perpetually fascinated by the world around her. The sun shining in the morning is a source of endless pleasure for me and a simple breeze can make me smile for hours. I bounce from one thing to another, constantly smiling and always curious.
It can be so frustrating, feeling like I can't focus on anything but the positive. The world isn't all puppies and sunshine. Yet, so often, that's all I can see in my twelve-year-old world.
Then I have days like today, where I buy flowers for a friend and some guy on the street smiles at me and comments "you never buy -me- flowers any more."
"I'm sorry," I replied softly around my smile, "work really picked up and I just didn't have time." He stares in shock at the flower I lay down next to him as I flounce out the door.
Some days... I really like being a little kid. Because little kids can get away with things like that.

My belief in karma is, I think, different from other peoples. I was discussing it with a friend and he said some things that, as per always, got me thinking.
I don't believe in karmatic I-owe-you's. If you wrong someone, you wrong them. There is no "if I fuck them over now but buy them flowers later, it'll cancel out". You can't balance doing that to someone.
It also doesn't work to pull "I'll do all this nice stuff to this person so I can back-stab them later".
To me, karma isn't that specific.
It swings both ways, so to say. Good karma is gained by doing good things*, and results in good things happening to you**. Bad karma is gained by doing bad things ***, and results in bad things happening to you.
It's that simple to me. Karma doesn't care who you're good or bad to or on what scale. If you donate a billion dollar house to an orphanage you're on the same page as if you'd bought flowers for a friend.

*- Good is such a subjective term, no? In this case, "good" means something that makes someone happy.
**- This is more difficult than it sounds for people like me, because I can find the good in everything. Even cutting my hand open. ;)
***- Bad is a subjective term, as well. In this case, it's something that makes someone upset or hurts them.

I think... that I'm very lucky to have the people in my life that I do. I learn something new from each of them regularly, even if it's something as simple as the fact that I can still love people deeply.
Or that there are people out there who love me, too.

Found out the hospital staff were asking after me.
I didn't realize I could leave such an impression while out of my mind on blood loss or while unable to talk. I guess I'm more awesome than I think.
Or something.

Everything's gonna be all right.

Sometimes it hits me that I've only seen these faces for two months. I find it startling, jarring. I have a few moments of feeling outside myself before it settles back down into normalcy.
Maaaaaaybe I don't adjust as smoothly as I'd like to think I do.

There's a djembe sitting next to me. I still can't believe it's here.
I woke up in the morning, walked right past it twice. A half hour into work, I paused and thought 'did I walk past a drum this morning?'. I passed it off as nothing, until I walked back upstairs.
I worry about my skills of observation.

Three showers later and I'm still finding streaks of paint on me.
I hope it comes off my shoes.

Still frustrated, nay outraged, at the implication that I'm too young to be able to take care of myself. The fact I'm living thousands of miles away from any family and am doing it well seems to have escaped certain members of the offices. More than that, implying that the people who do look after me put me in certain danger? I can't begin to articulate my displeasure.
"Fresh off the farm" my ass. Alaska's too cold for farms, I come from a fishing boat.

As the days go by and things progress as they will, I find my mind swirling in uncertainty. People reveal things I'd not expected and others reveal things I had. I find my opinions flowing like waves on a shore.
Out, "he's just another kid who's going to get what he wants from everything and leave".
In, "he gives a shit and he's worth putting in effort".
Out, "they're playing favorites".
In, "we're different, so of course they're going to react differently to us".
I prefer the crashing sound the ocean makes to the crashing sound my insides make.

I am not the girl I was when I came here, even just comparing the voice in this writing to the voice in previous texts tells me that. It's not been long at all, I don't understand how so much can change in so little time.
So much more is going to change, too, and I have to be able to accept that. Even if my self-appointed guardians weren't taking it upon themselves to "better" me.
"You're going to have to learn to speak up for yourself. Now, go to it!"
I think I can live with this.

It's the little words.

"The more you talk, the more I think this innocent thing of yours is just an act."

"Let's see a smile on that pretty face! Ah, that's it! Don't break too many hearts tonight!"

"Y'know, my theatre company does have technical internships open..."

"I know people, I might be able to get some money off your student loans if you want to go back to school..."

"Wow. Nice toenails. They actually go well with your green shoes, in some weird way... And the black..."

"Okay, father-daughter time's over. Go home. I know, I know. 'I'm already home!' Get out of here."

"That top really does look good on you."

And I was your silver lining.

"When she's around, I don't exist."
I'm starting to think that maybe he's right. Maybe I do, unconciously, put myself in situations where I'm going to end up hurt. I run over past relationships and I can really only think of one where someone couldn't look at it and go "this won't end well". They leave, I leave, they're fucking insane, I'm too oblivious to realize what's happening, they're already involved. There's always something, y'know?
But then, why should it matter? Why should I spend any time at all tossing this sort of thing around in my head? It's not like it matters. I'm not in a position to get into a relationship with any one right now, so my "bad habits" are an issue in stasis. And I'm fine on my own, I have good friends and a fulfilling job. I just wish I wasn't sleeping alone every night.
But then, some times that is better than the alternative.

There's two rather fantastic books glaring at me from my shelf because I met a boy who's got the same taste for oddities that I do. If he weren't family, I might be in love.
As it stands, he's deffinitely my favorite right now.

I have this thing where I love everyone, from the girl sleeping in the bed across from mine to the gentleman walking past on the street, until they give me a reason not to love them.
I'm starting to think this may be a lot more trouble than I'd originally assumed.

The responses to my pin up shots have surprised me, if only because I trust the people I sent them to enough to believe their reactions. If they're right, mayhap I should look into comandeering a photographer and some supplies and make a side-career of this.
It's too, too fun.

The beginings of a dictionary long needed.

"I love you" - Translates as: "What you just said was so amazing that I can't even begin to comprehend it and it makes me so HAPPY."
- Alternatively: "I love you." The difference is in the vocal inflections and energy behind it.

"You crack my shit up" - Translates as: "You say a lot of things that I think are really funny."

"I'd hit it" - Translates as: "I find them physically attractive."

"Adorkable" - Translates as: cross between adorable and dorky.

"In 20 years, if we're still single, let's get married" - Translates as: "I really like you, physically and mentally, and would not be adverse to being attached to you in some manner. Let's get hitched, srsly."
- Note: This phrase is used sparingly, only three people have heard it so far.

"Really" - Translates as: (used on it's own, ie. "You want me to do that? Really?") "Are you fucking serious".

More to come, as it regularly seems needed.

And by morning? We'll be free.

The big fridges in the kitchen finally broke down. The whole kitchen smells like bleach to get the smell of rotting food out.
I guess it's the lesser evil. At least now I get a little high off the fumes.

Have been talking to some old friends and they've been pointing out changes in my personality, places where I glide instead of shuffle. Like I used to.
Confidence is a funny little thing.

Mentally, I'm completely captivated right now. It makes me laugh, to be honest. I promised myself I wouldn't permit it.
That lasted long. Heh.

I have a routered board in my room, a nice copy of a tattoo and a plan. All I need is paint.
Soon.

I find myself contemplating relationships too much. I either need to cement my thoughts (likely here) or just let it go.
Or a little of both...

I find myself becoming self-sufficient emotionally again. Opening up to people is again a challenge and I'm getting protective of my space.
Some times, this bothers me.

Crushed against her face, I could feel her insecurity.

I've been introspecting more often lately, I think, which is my excuse for being more active on here.
I have a hard time leaving thoughts half-finished, and the one I had to abandon earlier has been haunting me (and growing, slowly) all day.
I keep two journals. One of them is wide-spread through my friend group and runs updates on my status and adventures. The other is this one, which four people know of, and is an unaltered look into my brain. The other journal? Rarely, if ever, gets the thought processes that appear here. Not only because most people don't follow the writing style I use, but also because I'm not comfortable giving the general populace this much... intimacy. I dislike people seeing past the smile to the doubt and the faults.
The thing I keep coming back to, though, is the way I write here. I write the way I talk, I've been told, and I keep that true in my other blog. But in this one I write the way I think. Half-formed questions, sentences leading to nowhere and all, this is what it sounds like in my brain.
I don't know, it's been running circles in my head all day, and between that and the latte I've got my first headache in a while.

Also running circles in my head is a list of things that've influenced who and where I am in life right now, but I think that's a thought for another night. It makes me tired inside.
But I will say that I'm more confident then I ever have been, and more comfortable with myself, and I love everything about that. There are few things in this world more freeing than those feelings, and they allow me to sing the entire walk home and I can appreciate that. Even if my throat doesn't.

Hot like a toaster

I was talking to this amazing boy recently about running in the rain topless and it got me thinking about what sort of "weird" things I love. Which also lead me to ask, what classifies them as weird? A lot of people like the things I like, even if I count them on my weird list. So, I decided that the requirement would be the emotional spark that accompanies the action for me. My list doesn't have to include the most socially odd things I enjoy, just the ones that give me one type of emotional high. Thusly,

-Running topless in the rain (alternatively, naked)
-Graffiti
-Riding the Metro
-Fire escapes
-Sitting on roofs
-Swimming with my clothes on
-Watching the sky turn lavender during lighting storms
-Getting lost in DC with friends
-Keeping up with a witty person when verbally sparring
-Doing pin ups
-Exploring abandoned buildings
-Laughing until I'm light headed

I'm not even going to pretend for a second that this list is complete.

I can say what you want me to.

It's a shot of adrenaline to my heart every time I catch myself looking at something, feeling like I'm home.

It's been a month, when is my transition from "moved here" to "this is home" complete? I felt these stirrings on my second day here, it's not so hard to believe I feel them even more completely now.
I recognize these windows now, know the feel of the walls under my fingers. There's new surprises around every corner for me still and I'm sure there will be for ages to come, but I know the way the carpet squishes and the door squeaks and I like the way this place grows on me. Like the way the ivy grows across the roads on cables here.

It's not heaven, but it's close.

I am waiting for the light to shine.

Growing up, I always pictured myself as having certain values or morales that I would never betray. Like,
-A relationship is sacred, I'd never dabble with a man already in one.
-I would never have sex with anyone unless more than a month had passed of us "courting".
-I would never break someone's heart.
-I would not be intimate with more than one person at any given time, physical or otherwise.
-If I am attracted to more than one person, I will pick one and focus on them.
-I'd never lead some one on.
-My mind will not wander if I'm in a relationship.
-I won't do -any-thing with someone unless we're in a stable relationship.

Those're just the ones I can recall betraying right now.
When did I turn into this? Was it always there, I just never knew because there was never cause to try it out? Why am I like this? Why does no one look at me like it's wrong when I tell them these things?

I think I need to re-evaluate myself.

I take it out on my good friends.

What does it take to ask a man in the most amazing relationship of his life to hold you when you can't sleep at night?
A frighteningly close connection, or simply a lack of ethics where the relationship is concerned?
Two horribly lonely people reaching out to someone near-by who understands isn't a bad thing, nor is two friends snuggling to relieve the need. I let him set the limits, in light of his being involved, and I put my line at "no sex".
That's not a lack of ethics, right? Merely a mutual need to know someone out there will hold you and understand when you speak?
Because he's the yang to my yin, and I can't imagine some one here better to hold me.

The heat here is melting me, I fear. I've cried in front of someone again, for the first time in a long time.
My hopes were dashed, painfully, and I merely ghosted back into work without a word. I pulled a breathing mask from the closet and turned into a hug from the only person who seems to realize I need them. He kept one arm around my shoulders while I wrapped mine around his waist, and he wrapped the other around my ribs when I choked out what happened. By the time I pulled back, I had my work cut out for me in wiping my eyes.
I think this wouldn't boggle me as much if he were consistant. We won't say more than two words to each other for days, then he'll just -know- when some thing's wrong and be there to hug me and give me some odd look. He'll be cold all week but the second I need some one...

I believe in karma, partially from necessity (if I didn't think the assholes of the world would get theirs I might have to strangle some one), and as a result I'm having a hard time figuring out what I did to earn slicing my hand open.
Was it some thing horrid I've already done? Is it pre-payment for some thing to come? Or a balancer for something amazing to come? Or maybe a set up for the resulting situation I found myself in?
And if it is in response to some thing I've done, I'd like to know what it is. I simply can't think of anything.

In my bedroom, after the war

I'm madly in love with the band Stars, but that is neither here nor there.

I find myself thinking a lot, but it's difficult to lay into text or words what's going through my mind.
Responsibility, what does it mean to me?
My head or my heart, who wins out the most?
The perfect situation that I've dreamed of for years can come along at exactly the wrong time, and I'll turn it down.
My heart's hanging on a wall in Alaska, the owner of both is somewhere in California, and that's the only reason for my current dis-content.
There's a boy on the West coast who's madly in love with me and all I can think is "that's nice, dear".
The sudden realization that no one here has any ideas about what I'm like. It's a completely fresh start, I could be anything I wanted, and I'm just acting like myself.
That thrill of terror and inner peace when I realize that I kind of like it here.
Knowing that the people around me like me after only a week.

I found myself in a field, watching fireflies with a cellphone in my hand. I attained oneness, inner peace.

There are always sirens driving past this theatre.

"There went the electric bill"

I love the intoxication of new-found passion, but I don't think my body can handle that and tech week.
Thank goodness tech week ends on Saturday.

I love individuals. I love the way they look different, act different, think different. I love the way they all are their own persons. As long as I have individuals to meet, to explore, I think I'll never tire of getting up in the morning.
My body, however, seems to disagree with me. It may be a subtle hint that month after month of setting up, teching and then striking shows is begining to take it toll, and that maybe, just maybe, I should actually put forth an effort to not death myself. I'm sure I'll listen eventually.

I'd write, think through words on this screen, philosophize and analyze, but I have places to be and people to see and still I lack pants. I should remedy this.

"It's less intimidating with someone else, yeah?"

18 entered not with a bang, but with whispers over steaming chai. With the outlines of my fingers on her hand. With the feel of a plastic edge in my palm.

The tattoo was amazing. Blunt pressure, sharp pricks, loud hums. Strangely reassuring.
Then he started on the part over bone.
Thank god I took up meditation. Instead of the blunt pressure boring into my skull, the feel of sheets under my hands. Instead of a thousand burning jabs leaving a thousand shivers down my spine, a thousand soft kisses down those same bones. Instead of the constant drone of the machine, quantum physics.
Instead of my fingers indented in her hand, a simple exercise in sending myself away.
I think she was more happy that it worked than I was.

I spent today with some of the most amazing people in my life. I just can't get past how amazing it all was.
I can't get past eighteen.

Tree pulp and cuttlefish

They say the fastest way to a person's heart is through the ribcage.
I'm incliened to agree, although I find myself thinking that one of the other ways to my heart is through letters.
I don't mean letters like the ones that're popping up on my screen as I write this, although I love them a great deal too. I mean pen and paper, lick the adhesive, three days in the mail letters. I know I'm not alone in this opinion, either.
I fear it may be a dying art, though. So many people just won't take the time to write things anymore and I'll admit that I was one of them once. Then my 'Bear got to me and I remembered the symphonies in the scratch of a pen on paper, the relaxation of putting down thoughts in my own hand, the joy of tearing open an envelope to see some one else's mind and that half second of all the contained smells (ink, paper, Carolina, tea) spilling into the room.
There's always time. I have an hour bus ride to work, my boss rarely has enough in-depth work for me and there's the hours I spend lying awake in bed trying to quiet my everything. They shush faster when I write (or sew, but that's another story).
It's so simple and so relaxing, and when you're writing to someone you're close to it's theraputic too. I wish more people would start.
I'm always game.

The art of analogies.

"Loving you would be like dragging a fish to the surface. The light would be the most beautiful thing I'd ever see, right before my lungs collapsed."

Needs refining.

She uses tangerines.

What is manipulation?
Is it as simple as knowing "If I do X, they will respond with Y, and C will happen"? Or is it more a concious effort on the part of one person to get a second person (or even a group of people) to do what the first person wants in order to reach an end that the first person wants?
Is the title "manipulation" only applicable to situations where people would be negatively impacted by the outcome, and for that matter what degree of negativity can justify the term? Is "manipulation" a broader term, one that can be used when psychology majors interact with people? And if so, is it cancelled out if the other people know the person they're talking to has taken psychology and can thus accurately predict outcomes of their actions?

It's the questions like these that kept me away from people for years, and still trips me up when I let my mind wander.

Through unconciously performing social experiments on the people around me, and conciously observing interactions, I can pretty accurately predict my X + Y = C formulae.
"If I get his attention over the headset just to say hello and ask how he is (X) he will feel special because I care about him (Y) and this exchange will result in him feeling that our friendship has become closer than it was when today started (C)."
I'll be damned if he didn't walk up to me on the next break instead of the people he'd been talking to all night.

Some times I have to remind myself that I've taken a certain action, or said a certain sequence of words, because I wanted to and not because I knew it would get me a favorable outcome. Secretly, I revel in my social faux-pas because they tell me that I was simply being me instead of trying to get to someone.
Of course, this is not to say that I don't use my powers of XYC. Job interviews are fair game as long as I don't take it too far, and some times I do it to new people just to see if I've still got it. But I draw the line at people I care about, people I respect, and it's not hard at all to get into that group. I've had people say five words and win a piece of my heart.
Which is not to say that five words can earn someone my complete trust. Most people take years to get me to open up completely, but I think that's a subject for another day.

After so many of my interactions, though, I find myself asking "was that really me, or was that manipulation? And is my asking that, and hoping it was just me, enough to negate any manipulation that may have occured?"


Is manipulation a term to be applied to only malicious intent, or am I really the manipulative wench I try so hard not to be?