I make my own holidays

First off, Halloween was lovely. It was the third in a row I spent at Ariel's and I had a grand time.

Here we are:

and a group shot:


For the curious, I was the Red Death a la Edgar Allen Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death." A good time was had by all. In fact, the only not awesome part of Halloween was spending it with vegetarians. Not that I minded the meatless food (which was delicious) or their general respect for animal life (which I think is just grand). No, I minded being given all of the candy they couldn't eat due to gelatin being in it, and having to think about ground hooves being in them. That's just gross.
(but don't worry, they aren't *vegans* just vegetarians.)
But it was a really fun Halloween, and I enjoyed it.

And now it is over: and that means- IT'S CHRISTMASTIME!

You may think that's a little early, but my father said (upon returning home) that in the Philippines they celebrate Christmas for all of the 'ber months. Therefore, it is never too early!

I spent about an hour last night making up my Christmas playlist, which has over 500 songs in it. *fistpump*
I also finished a story, finally. I posted it here: Bleeding Ink
It feels awesome to finally finish something. The trouble with being a writer is always, though, getting anyone to actually *care*. Would that I were an artist in a medium that one received instant gratification from. Oh well.

The other day, a couple walked by our house and proclaimed that Katrina (the cat who has taken up residence) is in fact LEO, a male cat, and that it belonged to one of their neighbors. They did not give an address, but a street. I went up and down the street asking if anyone knew someone who the cat might belong to, and recieved two options. A man who takes in strays, and a woman with a whole clowder of fluffy white cats.
To be honest, I think Leo is better off with me, and have no intention of bringing the cat to either place. He does well here, and I even made him a little home out of the old doghouse.

All's well that ends well.

Oh, and Happy Guy Fawkes Day! Don't forget to remember the 5th of November.

Warning: No Emergency Exit

Today in the caf, I watched a girl announce her upcoming engagement to her friend.
It was complete with high pitched squealing and ring waving. Both girls were right about my age, maybe a year older.
It's strange to be of marriable age. In fact, before this interlude, my NT prof lectured on marriage as it is laid out in the Pauline letters. Marriage is such a big deal.. it seems like 19 and 20 is just far too young to commit to it. But then, I've never had any sort of relationship with a guy that wasn't sisterly, so maybe I just don't understand.

Still, it's hard not to feel a weight of loneliness when the topic is brought up. While I love BIOLA, I am mostly an island unto myself while I am here. I've acquaintances in every class, but that is just it. I don't even have any true friends, much less a marriage prospect- not that I desire it at the moment, but understand that it really drives the loneliness home.

I've for a long time felt like I was in fact set apart so much so that perhaps I am meant to be alone, at least for the moment, and that's a hard thing to deal with. I can see no reason for me to wander about without any significant human contact.
I sit alone at mealtimes, I sit alone in the corner of the library as I do in the Collegium, I walk around the pavilion alone, I rest by the fountain alone.
I wonder why I feel like I should be at BIOLA. I really felt it in my soul that this was the school for me when I set foot on the campus that first time, and I enjoy my classes and the atmosphere and even the giant Jesus mural, but sometimes I must wonder why I felt that way if I am merely just getting by here. I can't really afford it, my major is something that could be obtained elsewhere, and as I am a commuter, I am unable to participate in any significant way. I attend, but I don't really GO here.
I could merely attend any old school to get my same major and make no real connections, and do it for cheaper too. But every time I've brought it up, my parents agree that I am supposed to go here.

But why?

Why should I feel like I need to be at a place where nothing happens and I grow more and more closed off to the world every day?

Happy Haunts Materialize And Begin to Socialize!

Today I went to D*Land. (Why do I shorten it to D*land instead of Disneyland? Because of bri-chan and more importantly, because I can.)
I've been on a major Disney and Halloween kick so it was a great time. I went with my dear darling Ariel, with whom I watched Shutter and part of Hocus Pocus with beforehand (I don't recommend Shutter, even though it had Joshua Jackson. It was a retarded ghost movie with a premise you could see a mile away.... however I do recommend Hocus Pocus because... well, Binx). She and her parents and I mostly browsed the stores (which if you have a pass or can otherwise afford to do, I recommend. There is some truly amazing stuff in the details there). We wandered for upwards of four hours and I only lost my cardigan once, and some nice fellow had left it on a popcorn cart for me. Plus I got a parasol during all of this, and the obtainment of a parasol was more or less one of my life goals.
I met up with the sibs and extensions during the PHENOMENAL Halloween fireworks show (Seriously, I've seen the D*land fireworks for 8 years now, and this Halloween one is by far the best I've ever seen), and left with them after Fantasmic and a quick ride on the holiday-fied Haunted Mansion.




Kellen has me down a little. As if *certain* other people weren't enough of a handful already. I occasionally feel tired of the people I'm around, simply because they are constantly in any number of existential crises. It's difficult to deal with people who think. Blessed are the shallow.

Still, I suppose I have plenty of my own. I'm just too exhausted anymore to think about it. School is a bore, and my parents being gone is doubly so. Right now the promise of Halloween is the only thing keeping me going, as each school day is only made bearable by the knowledge that I get to rest the next day. It's a miserable way to live, but if we don't set small victories before us, we'll simply crumple.
I recommend setting D*land before you. It's a win-win, except for maybe me, because it always makes me want to work on writing, and this block is home for the winter, I'm afraid.

Fresh Air

At the moment, I have my window wide open, letting in an actual burst of fresh air. I tend to close off my room, so it gets stuffy and often smells of what I've come to think of as my scent (a considerable dose of mustiness due to the aquarium and lots of paper, a dab of indistinct floral scent due to the multitude of lotions/body sprays/perfumes I cycle through in the course of the week and something old, like dust probably, caused by the many dried flowers I've preserved and books I've collected).

But now it smells fresh and clean, of rain. Rain happens so rarely in Los Angeles. It won't last- nothing good ever does, of course. But we're only getting blessed rain for what's left of today and tomorrow, and then it will heat up again. God, I hate heat, especially unseasonable heat. The wicked language in my vocabulary does nothing to express how much I despise heat.

But for now, there is rain.

And candles, a winning combination. But I've always been fond of candles, and light them whenever the occasion strikes me. So tonight, while a chill wind pulls at the screen on my window and the trees make the streetlights outside wink like they know a secret, I have them in my room. I only lit the ones safe in jars, so they won't flicker too much.

I suppose, like with the candles and with the scent and with the airing out my room, in many ways, I am old fashioned. You can tell it just by looking around really. My sensibilities are caught up in some century I've only experienced in novels and history classes. My shelves are strewn with music boxes and antique boxes to hold jewelry, and miniature replicas of famous British landmarks, and dolls from around the world, of various shapes and sizes. I am old fashioned even more so, I don't think like the modern world, I don't write in a modern mode, and my imagination is caught up in some idealized romanticism that can't be cut through with a machete. I like the idea of deathless love, and so I fill my room with music boxes, and hope I am not living in vain.

Perhaps, then, it is time to air me out too.

Ten MillIon Fireflies

I can't sleep. I have been sick all week, but I was having trouble sleeping anyway. I don't know what's wrong with me. Except my stresses are following me to bed and all..

Anyway, BIOLA is good. can't complain. I missed two of my three days last week due to illness. I'm still under the weather but I'm feeling a little better. Midterms have/are taking place, but I'm never stressed about tests. They come as they come.

Anyway, I don't really know what to type. I've been staring blankly at a document on my computer, unable to complete what started as a short concept for a compact story. I've been in a real funk lately, and not just in the writing way. In every way.

I hope things improve, I hope to God I don't turn this into a full blown depression.

Art, etc.

I want to write.
And write, and write and write.
And when my pens all break and my pencils run down I want break open the skin at the tips of my fingers and scrawl in my blood.

I want to have that passion, at any rate, for writing. I've been feeling a little lazy in the writerly way lately- hence the lack of blogs. But I feel so refreshed when I do sit down and type until I've completed a thought. Today I dug up an old Clocktown story I had laid aside and worked on it for a good while. It was a wondrous feeling.

Lately, there has been a lot of drama in my life, stemming from lots of complicated relationships with lots of complicated people.
I find myself sometimes wishing, even praying, that I will be lifted up by the shoulders by some Celestial Being, or granted wings that I could fly myself straight away from everyone who ever knew me, and I could leave everything, be new, and fresh, and whole.
It won't happen. God is not that merciful. Or that easily duped by petty desires. But when I fall into the words of a world I have discovered, a world intimately known to me and me alone, I can lay myself aside and embody the elsewhere, neverwhere, anywhere.
Art, I think, serves two functions.
The one for the audience, to hold a mirror up to the world and allow deeper observation and entertainment. And the second, for the artist, to release the feelings that would drown them otherwise.
And that is a beautiful thing.

As far as life: business as usual at BIOLA; I love my fiction class but it has caused me to question the value of what I do write. And the aforementioned drama with people. Mainly male people.

Oh, for the day when all of this will pass away, and I shall simply sail, sail away.

I was a Tennis Player in those dreams

It's been a while since I wrote, to really write, here. Well, since going back to BIOLA, there isn't much to actually report.
Today, for example, from 10:20-11:50am, I was asleep in the basement of the library, had a series of dreams in which I continually thought I was waking up, and kept switching point of view, then shuffled off to class, whereupon the lecture on the gospel of Mark almost made me cry.

The good news is: tomorrow is Fringe, and I have no class, rendering it as the best day of the week.