Now that we're done...

I chase him around the room swinging the pillow in my hands (from the couch from his storage shed from his sister, that he carried into my new house by himself, before we broke up). My movements are erratic, his are calculated as he blocks me and hits me in the head with his pillow. I back him to the hardwood and he drops his pillow, charging me. I squeak as he lifts me up, wrap myself around him as he carries me down the stairs, and laugh when he drops me on the bed.
He holds me and strokes my hair until I fall asleep, then leaves quietly.
I lie in the dark, content for the moment. Knowing I'll question this, question me and him and us, in the morning.
We broke up.
I went to his house because he had an epiphany.
"I know which one of you I'd choose." I raise my eyebrows and prompt him. "The only reason I left you that night is because I thought she was going to kill herself. We were dating longer, but I'm only happy when I'm with you."
"I have stipulations if you want me back." He nods. "I get to fuck you in the ass. Once. At the time of my choosing."
I secretly pray he won't agree just as hard as I pray he will.
We. Broke. Up.
He bites my neck and I gasp, turning to glare at him.
"You can't tell me you don't like it."
"God, of course not. Why wouldn't I love having my ex that cheated on me biting my neck."
His gaze flickers for a second, I sigh. He strokes my arm, not looking me in the eyes. "I'm sorry."
"I know." I sigh again, stroking his hair. He looks up hopefully.
We broke up?

I watch you in your sleep even when [I'm] not there.

One door closes, another opens.

I've gone from Trader Joes, morning coffee trips with my roommate, random shopping with the housemates, bitching about the horrible work conditions, loving actors, hating bosses, sleeping at his house, and days in DC;
to Pel's and the Waffle House, getting kidnapped by my ladies, dodging people I hoped to never see again, getting phone calls and e-mails from everyone at the theatre who needs a hand, ignoring the passive-aggressive fights between my parents, and trying to find a way to my heart again.

This place kills me inside, a little, it always has. But I've got good people here who love me and that helps.
"That which does not kill you makes you stronger", right?

Fuck. I need a job.

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.