Cough Drops. Yum.

They're comfortable. Like the sun waking you up through the window in your room. And like being hugged by someone you love when you don't feel like yourself. Also like remembering who you where at the age of five, when you didn't care about money or college or your parent's flaws. You know what? It sucks to grow up. Around the age of 15, I started to notice things that weren't so nice about the people who'd always been my role models. My mom seemed less perfect and my dad seemed more sad. They're still exceptionally wonderful, but I feel like noticing that they're just humans messed me up a little bit. That lack of immortality makes them vulnerable, so what does it make you? They've protected you from everything since your birth, so the moment they become less secure, it feels like a monster has breached your security. That monster, of course, is reality. And it's hard to face. Most of the time, I feel like I'm either in this battle-to-the-death with it or it's my best friend and it's leading me through the rest of high school. Speaking of which, the rest of high school is absolutely depressing! The days feel twice as long, even though I get out earlier this semester. I've never had such a hard time sitting through a school day, but it all feels absolutely depressing in an unexpected way. I cannot wait for the day when my friends, my enemies, my acquaintances, total strangers and I throw our mortarboards up into the air and walk away from what very well may be the most difficult four years of my life thus far. College seems so close and so real all of the sudden, and I can almost touch it. I'm excited. I'm ready for it. My bright and promising future is trying to pull me out of high school, and I can't let it because of the remaining 12 or so weeks! Maybe it has already pulled me out and this weird feeling I'm feeling is the place in between being a stupid teenager and being an adult. At any rate, I feel out of place.

Everything Feels Like a Waste of Time

But is there a better form of therapy available to mankind than doing something that you love or simply nothing at all for as long as you feel like it? I think not.

I know, I know.

I've been saying that Valentine's day is shenanigans (hahaha) since I can remember. It's so made up and fake! And, until last year's V-Day, I didn't have a boyfriend. My friends all guessed that the lack of one was the cause of my cynicism, conveniently forgetting that it was my choice. . . But whatever. The point is, I have one of those now and I still hate it. So ha. Anyways, with yesterday being that dreaded date, I decided I'd try a new approach: enjoying it. I have to admit that this wasn't very well thought-out. So I go to school and the hallways are crammed full of balloons and gigantic stuffed animals. I mean, these things were bigger than the kids I babysit. What do you do with a stuffed animal that size? It's not even cute. Waste of space. Good luck getting that thing into your car and to your house. Romantic? I think not. Cumbersome and annoying? Indubitably. So the school is filled with all of this crud because the guys treat it like some crazy competition. "Yeah, that's right. I somehow love my girlfriend of eight days more than you love yours of a month because I gave her this fuzzy bear with a disembodied, anatomically-incorrect heart that he's HOLDING OHMYGOSH IS THAT THING BLEEDING ON THE GYM FLOOR?!?!?!?!" and so on. Except that last part was probably a figment of my imagination. At any rate, I'm posting this to express my appreciation for my thoughtful significant other, the wonderful guy who gave me a beautiful crochet hook that I'd been drooling over in the store. :) How sweet. Less is more (romantic). Happy late V-Day.

It's Just Cute.

Did I Mention that I'm a Professional Procrastinator?

It's true. And last night, just like all the other nights, I stayed up entirely too late trying to write an English paper over Dante's Inferno. Unlike most nights, however, my sleep-depraved eyes decided to close themselves and NOT conveniently reopen at four to give me a good couple of hours on which to work on said homework. Nope. They opened at six. Maybe they're sick of all the not sleeping. . . Oh, well. So I wake up at a much later hour than would be considered a comfortable amount of time for me to complete this essay and I go into the living room. Mom is watching the news. The bottom of the screen says our school district is closed. And I have decided not to procrastinate today! I'm going to get all of my homework done early and then I'm going to crochet a Yoda! I might write another post and put up some pictures of my yarn adventures. Today, I'll be successful by doing my very best!


 And would you look at that? I'm still procrastinating. Told you I was a professional.

Close and Personal Strangers

But not the creepy kind. I'm talking about the people who read the blogs of people whom they have never met. I think it's cool, but I wonder if everyone else's blogs are as personal as mine will inevitably be. If so, that connection between strangers is rather intersting. I think I'm going to enjoy this.

That Elusive Creativity

I'll admit it. I have a compulsive need to make things. Weird things. I have patterns from the 1950's that, when followed correctly, are maps to creating dresses that are currently out of style. I learned to crochet so that I could make stuffed animals (which I'm not particularly fond of) and ended up creating nose warmers and jellyfish (which do not require stuffing). Not that this makes me different from every other "unique" person in the world because, really, who are we kidding? You're not special. I'm not special. The weirdness that you feel keeps you safe from reality because it creates a bubble of 'you' that no one can pop with their idiosyncrasies, but everyone around you feels the same protective weirdness. This isn't supposed to be a slight against you or anyone else, but it's a fact of life. I mean, I love you. I do! But I can't fool myself into believing for one moment that you and I didn't create some of our habits in order to be different from the people around us. This leads to the feeling that uniqueness is unnatural, which, in turn, is unnerving (but slightly awesome). Out of the habits that we all possess, either self-determined or ingrained from birth, sprout genuinely unique needs for creative thinking and, well, creating. I'm stuck on the idea that school tries to suck the creativity out of everyone's bodies and just doesn't succeed with some stubborn people who are destined to become the authors and musicians and artist of the world. For a while, I lost my creativity. It just went AWOL subtly and I didn't notice it until I began to feel weird, like I was missing an arm. [I'm happy to report that it returned after a very short period of time and is attempting to take over my body]. At any rate, everyone creates something; some people just create problems, but doesn't that require some sort of brain power? If you're not making anything, it's time to see what you can do because I'm feeling a serious lack of the stuff that keeps us mentally and emotionally alive. And honestly, I'm probably writing this to myself. I used to build houses for my Polly Pockets out of shoeboxes and tinfoil and cover the entire house in drawings of everything, all while wearing a 'twirly dress' and stockings. Maybe I need to be reminded that the dress with the full skirt in my closet is currently being neglected. Maybe I need to spin around in it a couple of times and make something cute with my crocheting skills that I can take to those kids I babysit. I think it's time for me to take up French again, just because I love it, and to lose the inhibitions that have caused me to develop anxiety disorder at seventeen. Creativity is a gift, and I've been so blessed in every aspect of my life so far that it's time for me to share the creativity that I can harness with others who have lost that special feeling that you get from acts of random kindness. In conclusion, I can't tell if this post is disjointed or just creative. ;)