a(n edited) 2011 bumper survey

Because it actually is tradition on this blog, a nonsense end-of-the-year bumper survey. This post has no pictures, so feel free to scroll past it.


1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Watch porn in a group. Purchase and successfully use a menstrual cup. Talk about my own birth with my mom. Buy flushable toilet seat covers in bulk on Amazon. Intern at a startup. Meet someone else who’s divorced their faith tradition. Watch and fall in love with Doctor Who, Misfits, Downton Abbey, Sherlock, Archer, and Suits. Have my own room (albeit by happy accident). Put a condom on a banana. With my mouth. Eat cottage cheese. Try Russian food. Try German food. Watch a Terrence Malick film. Watch a Quentin Tarantino film. Encounter a live termite. Make friendship bracelets. Have tendinitis (have less than fully-functioning hands). Read the Hunger Games series. Fishtail braid my hair. Watch a Robert Downey Jr. film. Learn to hem properly. Eat popping boba. Color a line drawing of a vulva. Watch so much television. Sew hundred-year-old pants. Buy “interview clothes.” Be officially sorted into Ravenclaw. Enjoy a comic book movie. Be published in any capacity (see Tinsel Tokyo’s Fall ’11 issue, pp. 56 – 57 for some writing I find kind of off-putting rereading it now). Like a Stanley Kubrick film. Drink almond ginger milk tea (HNNGHH). Drive a car without panicking. Cry over a wall (see Doctor Who, Series 2, Episode 13). Participate in Script Frenzy. Photograph the roof of my mouth. Ingest so much charcoal and grape seed oil. Watch a Sofia Coppola film. Watch the Oscars from start to finish. Watch an Emma Stone movie. See so many girls/women with armpit/body hair (UNF). Watch an entire episode of SNL (the things I do for you, Eisenberg). Be summoned for jury duty. Program in Ruby. Have someone offer to be a reference for my future job search. Use CGI, Ajax, JavaScript that wasn’t copied and pasted, MySQL, SQLite, Ruby, and WordPress. Feel like a movie was a religious experience. Find my Holy Grail mascara (blinc). Receive acupuncture. Watch a movie in a theater by myself. Pay for web hosting.


2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn’t make any, so I suppose I didn’t keep them. Or I did? Anyway, yes, I do want to make resolutions for next year, because I feel like my life actually has space for them now.


3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not close to me, but I got to see baby pictures, which is close enough!


6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Paid employment. Fuchsia corduroys. …I think that’s it.


7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 22nd because I had so much caffeine, everything felt like it was happening with at least twelve times the normal intensity (as I will soon relate to you in my #reverb11 response for December 17th).


8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Er… I’m probably supposed to say “finishing a college degree,” but I’m going to go ahead and say “successfully using a menstrual cup.”


9. What was your biggest failure?
GIVING MYSELF TENDINITIS MAKING FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS FOR MYSELF, BECAUSE WHO DOES THAT?


10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Right after Thanksgiving was the only time I was ill this year (for which I am really thankful). I have never vomited that violently before.


11. What was the best thing you bought?
It’s a tie between paid web hosting and my MiaCup. (Or my thrifted fake fur coat. Or my thrifted Betsey Johnson dress. Or my Cole Haan Air Evan Chelsea boots. Or my ticket to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy because it was the first movie I watched alone in a theater, and it was so much more enjoyable than watching with company sorry guise. I don’t know. I feel like I made a lot of good purchases this year.)


14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent and tuition.


15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
DreamHost + WordPress. Also, my period, between when my MiaCup order arrived and when I first tried using it.


16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
I’m going to have to go with “Alright With Me” by Kris Allen just because I listened to it a lot, and it marked a kind of turning point.


17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Happier, although that’s not saying much considering how my last year ended.


18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Checking in with people! I keep forgetting to! (Not like “Hey! What’s up?” but like “How are you doing? How was your day?” and listening and absorbing the response.)


19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
...Making friendship bracelets because it gave me tendinitis that I am still healing from, and I haven’t really worn them yet anyway.


24. What was your favorite TV program?
Definitely Doctor Who for the characters, but Archer and Sherlock are seriously quality television. Downton Abbey and Misfits were also really, really good.


26. What was the best book you read this year?
Small Gods. Other books I read for the first time and really liked were Good Omens, Never Let Me Go, and The Hunger Games. (YES. If you haven’t read The Hunger Games, GET ON IT before the movie comes out! It’s not amazing prose, but it’s nowhere near as poorly written as Twilight and is equally if not more addictive. The characters are pretty nice, and the world is GREAT.) I also reread a lot of books this year, and off the top of my head, the best ones were The Phantom Tollbooth and The Little Prince, but there were so (so so so) many.


27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Er… I listened to Florence + The Machine’s “Shake It Out” and Kimbra’s “Settle Down” for the first time this year.


28. What did you want and get?
A menstrual cup, Chelsea boots, a physical copy of The Grapes of Wrath, many distractions, useful classes, thoughtful classes, and warm fuzzy feelings.


29. What did you want and not get?
…To watch the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That’s probably it, because there wasn’t much I wanted this year.


30. What was your favorite film of this year?
My favorite movie that came out this year (that I watched) was definitely The Tree of Life. My favorite movie that I watched this year was either The Tree of Life or The Thin Red Line, but other movies I really enjoyed were A Single Man, How to Train Your Dragon, Secretary, The Secret of Kells, Fight Club, and Zombieland.


31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I woke up, received a FutureMe email from 2009, received my Pottermore email, bought an unnecessary pair of red satin heels, and ate too much Ici ice cream on my 21st birthday. But the events of that day were mostly eclipsed by Pottermore, so.


33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
From “practical-warm-14-hours-in-the-hospital” to “intentionally cute” to “wear pants for your own safety” to “giant sweaters, tiny skirts.”


34. What kept you sane?
Movies. Tumblr fandoms. Television. Writing. Reading books. Music.


35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
As always, I’ve got a many-way tie going, this year amongst Tom Hardy, Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Carey Mulligan, Natalie Portman, Daniel Radcliffe, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, David Tennant, Robert Downey Jr., Jane Aldridge, Jordan Reid, and Noelle Stevenson. (But to be accurate, my biggest, most time-suckingest crushes were Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg, Natalie Portman, and Jordan Reid.)


39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Life is a lot more fun when you surround yourself with only people you really like.


40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope”

coping mechanisms & W1L 028: Write one leaf about your favorite fruit.

This outfit looks as frazzled as I feel.

Plaid flannel: Field & Stream via Costco. T-shirt: Target + DIY. Floral slip: secondhand. Tights: generic. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden.

This is the space where I typed something out but have apparently grown up enough to not post it because I don't want to remember it.



As an aside, I feel obligated to inform you that my fingers and wrists are still in intermittent pain, so I'm just going to swan off on a blogging hiatus, but you'll probably catch me aggravating my tendinitis typing out rambling tag commentary on tumblr (where, incidentally, I actually do a lot less typing than when I'm blogging on blogger), so if you feel like popping into my Ask box, don't be a stranger (Hermione Granger).



I write stuff after the jump.

21 Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far: So You Want To Be A 20-Year-Old Getting a Humanities Degree Instead of a Computer Science Degree

Because I like lists, and everyone should want to take life advice from someone who still can't legally drink and is going to be unemployed post-grad.

1. For every 10 minutes of solid crying, drink one cup of water.


2. After spending any extended period of time in the hospital, disinfect the bottoms of your shoes.


3. Always rinse your mouth after vomiting. Brush your teeth if you can.


4. Sometimes when you have inexplicable crushes on people, it’s not because you want to do them; it’s because you want to be them.


5. If you’re studying or reading and you’re losing focus, break open a can of tuna or eat peanut butter straight from the jar. (Yay protein!) If you can spare the time, scrambled eggs with ketchup are great, too.


6. If you’re coding, stay up as late as you want. If you’re debugging, go to bed before midnight and don’t look at your code until you wake up.


7. The ChromeTaster extension for Google Chrome makes it possible to download any audio files posted on tumblr.


8. Front-load trumps top-load, always.


9. If you really need to stop yourself from crying (or at least from producing tears; this doesn’t help with that racking-sob-feeling), roll your eyes. Or cross them. Tilt your head back and count ceiling tiles.


10. There are people who like musicals and people who don’t.


11. When buying jeans, the most important thing aside from fit is pocket placement because they will make or break your ass.


12. When browsing for books of interest, read the first few pages and a couple smack in the middle. If both are good, consider buying it.


13. If you are making a pie crust from scratch and want a flaky crust, your butter should be pretty much frozen solid before you add it into your dough.


14. The more unnatural the lipstick color, the more likely you will want to apply it with a lip brush (for a matte lip) or finger-mix it with gloss in the palm of your hand (for a good dull shine).
    


15. Do not wear thigh-highs unless you are prepared to deal with cat-callers.


16. Avoid scheduling classes after noon. Also avoid large gaps of free time between classes.


17. Film is not less respectable than live theater; it’s just that it’s easier to watch crap movies than to watch crap theater. Watch better movies.


18. You have chronic bitchface.


19. If you need to make or take an important phone call, put on high heels and walk around a few times, then sit down to talk.


20. There is rarely any need to buy full-size perfume bottles. Do it if the scent is being discontinued, but otherwise, you’ll never use the whole thing.


21. It’s easier to wake up if you have a half-glass of water before bed, because as soon as you’re awake enough to realize you’re in bed, you’ll realize how much you need to go to the bathroom.

Look, it's David Tennant in drag!

Aaaaand I would still hit that, which is making my watch of Doctor Who, Series 4 a little awkward.

And a little foxy.

PSA from hell

Currently:

• apartment-hunting
• a day behind on Script Frenzy
• wearing my intentional bitchface (not to be confused with my chronic bitchface)
• function-over-form, I-cannot-bother-getting-dressed aesthetic
  
• desperately needing a change of scenery
• in the "create" portion of my create-consume cycle
  

Will return when I have found housing and a satisfactory schedule for fall semester. For now, you can sit here and appreciate James Franco.

It's kind of a funny story.

WALL OF WORDS!

GUYS! I'm supposed to be studying for my midterm right now, but I was watching a video of Jesse Eisenberg reading from It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini, and I thought something must be up because I was paying more attention to what Jesse was reading than to Jesse, so I started Googling and discovered that the book was made into a movie in 2010. Cue more Googling. Cue procrastination. Cue "You have watched 72 minutes of video today." Cue blog posting.

Now, I've got copies of Never Let Me Go and Fight Club winging their way to me from Barnes and Noble right now (my uncle didn't want his gift card, and I've got Ender's Game coming too, but I've actually read it before, unlike the other two), but I like the 72 minutes of It's Kind of a Funny Story that I've seen so far (especially the soundtrack), and I really like the excerpt that Jesse Eisenberg read.

So here's my current reading list, unordered:

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (reread)
• It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
• Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
• Eleemosynary by Lee Blessing
  
• Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes by Tony Kushner
• The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh

My current to-watch list, which I doubt I'll follow because filmed things require so much less deliberation to commit to consuming:

• more Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
• Moulin Rouge (rewatch)
• 127 Hours
• A Single Man
• All the President's Men
• Full Metal Jacket
• Se7en
• The Golden Compass

I thought I'd have more of an aversion to watching movies before reading their book counterparts, but I think I overestimated myself. They're so separate. It's one thing to read the screenplay before watching a movie, but I think books are entirely separate. Like the 2009 draft of The Social Network is wildly different from the 2010 version that they eventually edited for film. Mark and Eduardo's relationship makes so much more sense and is more accessible and less ambiguous, and Mark's character is easier to read, and his motivations are pretty much laid bare. But I like the ambiguity that ended up in the actual film version. It makes it less talk-y (which I suspect is a better thing on paper than film) and more compelling to watch.

The point of that The Social Network brainbarf was to say that it's hard to read the 2010 version of the screenplay without thinking of the movie. But it's not like The Accidental Billionaires (the book the screenplay was based on) will be affected in the same way, because it's an entirely different medium.

In other news, here's an outfit from January 28th (punctuality fail):

Red polo: Ben Sherman, from Christine. Cashmere sweater: (the qualifier is necessary) gift. Jeans: Levi's. Shoes: Harajuku Lovers. Photogeny/photogenicity/photogenicia: well-kept family secret.

In other other news, Bella from plastic barettes interviewed me and I talked too much.

Also, I've been alternating between two Microsoft Word documents for a couple days: ling120-midtermstudyguide.doc and grrrl.doc, the latter of which is for Bella's zine, Grrrl Fashion Journal. The first issue will be about "traditional femininity." If you're interested, you can read more about it and find out how/what to contribute on Bella's blog, plastic barettes. There's even more info and submission ideas/guidelines at the zine's tumblr, or you can follow the zine on twitter.

DO ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! The submission deadline is March 20th, so get cracking! THIS IS GOING TO BE SO. MUCH. FUN, YOU GUYS.

(Bella is being a slave driver and making me write about Andrew Garfield. OH, THE HUMANITY. THIS IS PURE TORTURE.)

And I think my "Please wait 30 minutes or click here to enjoy unlimited use..." is up, so... back to feeling guilty about having to Google whether Keir Gilchrist is legal yet.

THIS IS RELEVANT TO NOTHING EXCEPT MY RECENT LIFE PLANNING SESSIONS

From an email to someone I never thought I would be in contact with.

(insert GIF of someone wiping sweat off their brow) Phew, good thing I decided to poke around the ModCloth website because apparently these are the engineering positions they're looking to fill: http://www.modcloth.com/careers and they definitely would not be recruiting at Berkeley for people like me (bloggers, writers, clothing designers), since I think they usually head-hunt those people online. (At least, I think they head-hunted their current blogging team through the internet.) So now I don't have to feel guilty about not writing up a resume or cover letter...

I don't want to work with code. At all. To be honest, I don't think I'm in any position to be doling out advice or any kind of information you should value as useful, because I think I am borderline depressed, seeing as I've reverted to the version of me as a high school senior filling out college applications, which is to say, I think I just want to work in theater again. Or (more) preferably, to die young and not have to worry about work or burdening other people with the knowledge that it will be hard for me to find work. The thing is, I don't want to work for someone else, and I've never really wanted to, and it wasn't until I took a couple semesters of CS courses that I realized I really, really can't do something in a space where I don't feel comfortable enough to be creative. I know there's a lot of space for creativity and innovation in computer science, programming, building up enormous (or elegantly short) pieces of code, manipulating data, whatever, but it's not something I can put myself into. There's some quote that goes ~if you can't put yourself into it, take yourself out of it.

I don't know what I'm doing with myself, and at this point I could not care much less about my declared major (linguistics), and even though I'm a 4.0 student in my major, I wouldn't care much if I got B's in my upper divs this semester because I don't see what the point of this is. At all. I'm not going to work as a linguist. Jobs for half-hearted linguists don't even exist.

So part of me is like, this is selfish. You are being selfish because you owe your family everything, and if you aren't going to be able to support them, if you're going to be dragging them down, you may as well wander off and die because they've invested so much time and energy and love into you, and your so much as thinking of taking it for granted is offensive and unworthy of the kind of lifestyle they've enabled you to have.

And then the other part of me is like, yeah, but mostly they just want you to be happy, or at least not so caught up in your neuroses about what you think you're supposed to be doing that you lose the ability to look around and go, hey, what I have is pretty great. It would be a pity to die because I would lose this.

There's some life/career advice from Eve Ensler (of the Vagina Monologues, which I haven't seen) that goes something like "Give the world the thing you want the most, to fix the broken parts inside you," and for me, I who am broken in stupid ways in stupid places, it has to be art. Maybe for other people it is solving problems for other people, or making cool things that inspire people to go do shit, or making people feel good about themselves, or supporting their family, if you...have grown up too aware of a lack of money and feel that it is the driving force behind all your actions. For me, it is something about young people and the feeling of aloneness or isolation, outsiderness, like something is wrong with you, or like you are holding something too heavy for you to bear but no one can see it. I don't know what that translates to in terms of a career, but I suspect it has very little to do with ModCloth or working for a solid paycheck. I imagine a regular paycheck would be nice, but maybe it's overrated.

Maybe that's a middle-class-America mindset. I don't know. I'm more lower class than middle class. What I do know is that money matters, but only to a point, and for me, I hit that point early and low on the economic scale, because people matter to me so much more than creature comforts. I think I would rather suffer than be mediocre, because at least out of suffering can come great art. Shooting for mediocrity feels like you're just trying to avoid pain, but what's the point? Living is painful. I mean, you have to risk failing hard if you want to do something enormous. It's not like I feel the need to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, but I am pretty sure (and am kind of afraid) that if I'm not doing something that elicits responses from people along the lines of "What you're doing helped me through X," I won't be able to live with myself.

I don't know what the big picture is for what I am doing right now...Just equipping myself with whatever I happen to pass by that looks like it could be lethal if used properly.

For levity, this is a picture of Jesse Eisenberg that exists.

From the The Social Network cast's appearance on El Hormiguero. It was pretty ridiculous.

How to wait for an email: a not necessarily harmless technique

An incomplete guide for the restless.

FIDGETING FOR A FEW MINUTES:

• Robot Unicorn Attack.
• On that same thread but cuter, Orisinal games.
• Knock items off your petty to-do list (things like “flip calendar to new month” and “make clothes hangers all hang the same way” and “schedule dentist appointment” and “soak retainers in denture cleaner”).
• Chores. Scour that tub, wipe off that counter, do those dishes, start that laundry, organize that desk, shred those papers, vacuum those motherfucking cobwebs.
• Take a shower. (Shave your legs if you need to kill lots of time. If you need to kill a lot of time, you could try turning your shower water into wine while in there.)
• Groom. Tweeze those stray eyebrow hairs, exfoliate, moisturize your body, wax something you didn’t know you could wax.
• Do a Face-Replace on a group picture with your friends.
• Send me an email. Insult me. Bitingly. Tits or GTFO. Whatever. (Actually don’t send me pictures of your tits; I don’t really like them.)
• Hem those clothes you’ve been meaning to hem. Or if that’s too plebeian for you, take that shit to the tailor. Drop your shoes off and have them resoled. BLEACH THOSE MOTHERFUCKING PIT STAINS.
• Design a new signature for yourself.
• Do some jumping jacks. Or squats. Or lunges. Or whatever.
• Clean out your blog reader, twitter follows, tumblr follows, phonebook, friends list, etc.
• Masturbate.
• Write a Things I Love Thursday for yourself. Even if it isn’t Thursday. Because you can.
• Email your favorite blogger and tell them why you like them. (Or do the same for a friend.)
• Make a mixtape/playlist for someone.
• Walk around with a mirror under your nose so you can feel like you’re walking on the ceiling.
• Make a detailed agenda for the coming week or weekend. Consider color-coding it.
• Find someone to Wiki Race with.

FIDGETING FOR A FEW HOURS:

• Go for a walk and leave anything connected to the internet at home.
• Find someone you like a moderate amount. Make immediate plans and follow through with them, with the intent of getting to the point where you like them quite a bit. Consider involving food.
• Compose a massive, ambitious blog post.
• Cook or bake, especially for other people.
• Leave 10 sincere blog comments on 10 different blogs. (I’ve never actually been able to do this because I rarely have anything of substance to say in a comment, so this definitely kills a lot of time, just searching for something worth saying.)
• Re-customize your desktop wallpaper and icons.
• Stream a movie you’ve been meaning to watch online. Yeah, that smart, serious, slightly indie flick. Oops, I mean “film.” (Personal suggestions for Films That Not Enough People Have Watched And Which I Think People Would Benefit From Watching: Brick, The Squid and the Whale, Maria Full of Grace, Holy Rollers, The Cove, Memento, Layer Cake)
  
• Go in your closet and compose thematic outfits. (e. g. dress in only one color, dress in every color of the rainbow, dress in only primary colors, dress in only florals, dress in only stripes, wear nothing but cotton jersey, match your furniture, pretend to be a Disney princess, cultivate a uniform)
• Perfect some really complicated hair style.
• Read a book. Like, a book in print. (Personally, I will always suggest sci-fi/fantasy novels because they’re easiest to get sucked into, but whatever makes you forget where you are. That being said, Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, Ender’s Game, and pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett will probably work.)
• StumbleUpon.
• Learn how to make animated .GIFs, then make really embarrassing .GIFs of your friends. Or awesome .GIFs of your favorite movies. Or Glee .GIFs with the caption "fanning my vagina." (You can send those to me.)
• Go shopping. Buy an entire outfit for under $30. Buy something in every color of the rainbow (to wear or to eat, whichever you feel like). Buy something completely hideous, then figure out how to refashion or style it so it fits your aesthetic.
• Visit the Forever21 website and try to online window shop until you have $21K of merchandise in your shopping cart.
• Find a runway look you really like an attempt to replicate it. DIY as much as you can, and shop for the rest.
  

FIDGETING FOR A FEW DAYS OR WEEKS OR MONTHS:

• Start a blog. Be ambitious. Post at least twice a day, every day. Don’t reuse anyone else’s content, ever, not even flickr photos under Creative Commons.
• If you already have a blog, start a new blog series. Compose and schedule posts at least two weeks ahead of time. If you’re feeling particularly fidgety, write about something that will require a lot of outside research on your part.
• Start a new TV show you’ve been meaning to watch. (I recommend Freaks and Geeks or Glee or Mad Men because their first episodes are excellent and total hooks.)
• Change your blog layout.
• Learn a crafty skill, like sewing, pattern-drafting, knitting, embroidery, yarn spinning, pottery, metalworking, leather upholstery, etc. Or begin a very ambitious crafting project. (Like sequining a giant Chanel logo onto a top.)
• In the style of THXTHXTHX, write thank-you notes to everyone. If you’re feeling gutsy, send them out to their recipients.
• Learn how to cook low-sodium, low-fat meals (in case you have a family history of heart disease and an aging relative!). Then send me your recipes and/or techniques.
• Listen to 1000 new songs, a la Mighty Girl.
• Pick a director or actor you admire and watch everything he or she has ever done that you can get your hands on. Read an author’s complete oeuvre or listen to every song a musical artist’s ever performed. Take a look at where greatness springs from.
• Pick up a musical instrument or a language. Foreign ones are great, but I’d count programming languages too.
• Obtain a map of the world to affix to something. Stick pushpins in all the countries whose cuisine you’ve sampled, then eat around until you’ve filled your map. Alternatively, set out on an expedition to discover the best ____ in your locale. Fill in the blank with whatever you like (gelato, vegan dessert, sushi, hot chocolate, used book selection, female impersonator). Consider enlisting a partner in crime.

If you are so restless that you scrolled through this post looking for a picture, here's one of Andrew Garfield:

Andrew Garfield is always relevant.

[EDIT: SHIT GUYS I LOST THE CREDIT FOR THIS PHOTO HOLD ON I'M GONNA FIND IT I WILL]

[EDIT: Guys, I don't know where this picture is from. I know it's tumblr somewhere, but trying to find a source on tumblr is like trying to find a Horcrux. Which means Harry Potter could do it, but I'm not him.]

[EDIT: JUST KIDDING! Thank you Google image search-by-size. Source]

please don't come to me on my dying day

I really wanted to wait until I actually finished another writing prompt before posting, but I've gotten stuck on this one, and I guess I get too antsy when I don't post for too long. So here's something I wore last year, before winter break started.

Sweater: thrifted. Longsleeve: Old Navy, gift. Skirt: made by my grandmother. Tights: Forever21. Socks: Forever21. Black and white oxfords: Miz Mooz.

Lately, I've been feeling very "Body In A Box," very walking-around-without-seeing and floating-around-in-my-head.

I don't really know what else to say except that time is being unobliging, and I wish I weren't at school, and it is when I feel like this that I am fully certain that I value my family above all else. More than grades or money or pretty clothes or well-crafted words or personal success. I wish I knew how best to give back to my family. Maybe the best way to do that right now is to be someone who has her shit together and doesn't need to be worried about. I'm not sure how to go about being someone who doesn't need any worry allocated to her, but at least I've got the look down. (Not this look. I mean what I've been wearing the past couple of days.)

But I mean, this too shall pass.

So it begins.

Hello, world.

This is my 1500th post. It is also my first official post of 2011. See?

WOAH THIS IS SOME META SHIT YOU GUYS

I was planning on posting every single day of 2011, but that's obviously failed so far (for which I am sorry but for which I think I am not to be blamed), and I think it will continue to fail as I spiral into an abyss of embarrassingly sparse posting (or not; it depends what happens when I get back to school).

Here’s how I intend for the rest of 2011 to pan out, because after ending 2010 in a hospital waiting room, I am wary of asking for too much this year:

• I will work on at least one script. Ten minutes or three acts, whatever happens to happen.
• I will develop a hairstyle. It may be bad, but it may not be boring.
• I will leave 10 thoughtful blog comments on 10 different blogs in one day.
• I will not slouch for one day.
• I will try Swype for at least two weeks.
• I will hit 12,000 pageviews for some month, according to blogger’s built-in stats counter.
• I will not buy anything because I am bored. These things are immune:
• a tube mascara & a really good concealer (because sometimes, life asks that you look put-together, and I just threw out my shitty CoverGirl Lash Blast mascara and have never owned an appropriate concealer)
• long-lasting, high-quality, walkable shoes (because my feet are important, and I don’t have enough shoes I’m good with walking long distances in) & short shorts (because they help my wardrobe a lot, preferably in black or gray)
• rings (temptation about which I am not nervous because I’ve gotten so picky from putting off buying a ring for so long already)
• And anything else that makes sense, e. g. vintage costume jewelry on the last day of an estate sale and $1 tights at H&M
• I will undergo a 12-day internet detox (inspired by this post, from one of Gala Darling’s carousels) unless school dictates otherwise.
  
• I will spend one day not picking at my cuticles.
• I will actively seek out a place in Berkeley that I will claim as my safe harbor.
• I will break in my Kork-Ease flats or destroy my feet trying.

Nothing immediately life-changing, nothing particularly ambitious - just achievable goals I can check off as life passes by, because I'm not sure I can handle anything grand and graspy while I feel so poorly in control of what is happening around me.

That's it. I'm out til I get back to school. But in case you forgot, sometimes I get dressed.

Plaid outerwear: Field & Stream via Costco. Plaid shirt underneath: brother's pajamas. Jeans: not... quite... sure... either F21 or Levi's. Plaid shoes: Keds.

a(n edited) 2010 bumper survey

And finally, in keeping with tradition, 2010’s bumper survey. DISCLAIMER: This post is also relevant to nothing and also has no pictures.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?

Take computer science courses. Completely flunk a midterm. (Those are related.) Go to sleep with a head full of hairspray. Break 10,000 pageviews a month. Break 150 subscribers. Watch Freaks and Geeks. Watch so many movies in such a short amount of time. Look forward to starting a college semester. Own leather boots. Successfully experiment in the kitchen. Write what I know without being told to. Finish reading for a fall semester class before Thanksgiving. Make a chocolate cake-in-a-mug. Have an allergic reaction. Meet people at Cal whom I would still want to know a year later. Attend a midnight showing of Harry Potter. (I actually usually wait.) Play SET. Be deeply impressed by a movie script. Get on the Dean's List. Delete my Facebook account. Twice. Consume so many fruit cups.

2. Did you keep your New Year's Resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Probably not, and probably not. Not this year.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

A Plan B.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory and why?

December 20th.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Trying computer science.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Computer science in general?

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My Steven by Steve Madden lace-up boots.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Stephanie's, because she put up with me, Carrie's, because she is the best planner ever, and Steven's, because he brought me fruit cups and baked goods.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I wasn't appalled or depressed by it, but I found Barack Obama's It Gets Better contribution kind of pathetic.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

PROJECT TANG. So much so that it was embarrassing.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?

"The Coolest Girl" from A Very Potter Sequel.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Happier. Basically.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Interacting with the intelligent, slightly snobbish part of the blogosphere.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Waiting. (I don’t think waiting should ever be an independent activity. It’s not productive at all.)

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Freaks and Geeks, which really shouldn't count because it aired ten years ago, but I only watched it this year. Plus, the only show I regularly watch is Glee, so there wasn't much of a contest. What I've seen of Mad Men looks viciously promising, though.

26. What was the best book you read?

I read two new books this year. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was the better one. It was rather good. It was masturbatory. It was heartbreaking and genius. But I still really like Raptor Red. And Night Watch is ridiculously tightly written.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I don't know. City and Colour.

28. What did you want and get?

An answer to whether or not I should do computer science.

29. What did you want and not get?

…Imju Fiberwig?

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

...I honestly was going to say Inception, even though the acting was boring and the idea behind it wasn't that amazing to me, just because of the suit porn, elevator fight scene, dramatic music, and hilariously huge Arthur/Eames fandom it spawned, but The Social Network is still weighing heavily in my mind weeks later, which I think means it was more substantial for me.

Although if I get to include movies I watched this year (and not just movies that came out this year), I'd definitely like to see Léon, Brick, and Garden State duke it out for my affection.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Oh my God. Twenty, and I woke up after maybe three hours of sleep, cried, attempted to debug my program, went to class, attempted to debug my program, cried, debugged my program, went to class, went home, and cried. That is literally all I did.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

A pony. Or maybe the ability to walk in high-heeled boots without pain.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

It went from "pervy-cute" to "whatever smells okay" to "90s throwback" to "textiles junkie."

34. What kept you sane?

Writing and music.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

It's a tie again, guys. Keiko Lynn, Allie Brosh, Darren Criss (again), Tom Hardy, and Daniel Radcliffe.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Either Stephanie, my former lab partner, or Isabella. I wish I could put Daniel on here too, but I knew him before this year.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

Until you take yourself seriously, you're just fogging up the glass trying to catch a glimpse through the window.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

"blooming out from pain"

coffee break, or The Very Last Thing I Want To Say About My Failed Attempt At A Computer Science Degree

DISCLAIMER: This is relevant to nothing and has no pictures.

So I had this conversation about computer science in December:

“You’re taking notes?”
“Well yeah, I’m not going to remember everything you say.”
“Oh.”
“Okay, why did you decide to stop?”
“Because I suck at it.”
“How do you suck at it?”
“…What?”
“How do you think you suck at it.”
“…Can… uh… I don’t know. Can you ask that a different way? Like, what do you mean?”
“I mean… why do you think you suck at computer science?”
“…Well I don’t suck –”
“HA.”
“I don’t! I was doing fine.”
“You were going to get an A-minus – ”
“I was doing adequately.”

And I was. Even if I continued struggling through my classes, realistically I probably would have been an A-/B+ student. At the very worst I would have been a B/B+ student. Now, I think a lot of people would be okay with being a B/B+ student in one of the top computer science programs in the nation, but I’m not. If I’m getting a B+ in something, that usually means I’m missing something huge and not understanding things clearly. And that is always because I’m not putting in enough time or effort.

The thing is, I thought I had more willpower than that. I thought that, as the kind of kid who would’ve been able to wait through the marshmallow experiment with minimal fidgeting, I should have been able to delay gratification as long as I needed to, given enough of an incentive. And even if the incentive wasn’t that great, I should have been able to suspend disbelief for long enough to get those marshmallows into my pudgy little hands, because I was self-disciplined, dammit.

Part of it is that, as someone who was a precocious child, I'm really bad at putting effort into things I don't immediately find myself good at (e. g. piano, dance, sports, performing double lung transplants, et cetera). It just doesn’t seem like an efficient way to expend energy. If I’m going to bother to put in effort, why waste it on something I’ll be mediocre at, at best?

I know this is a really bad way to function because it makes me hesitant to try new things, but mostly, mostly what made me want to stop doing computer science was my unwillingness to give up my health and happiness for it. I wasn’t going to operate like I did in high school, on five hours a night most nights, four pounds lighter and thinner, perpetual undereye circles, irregular periods, with random bouts of vertigo and the total inability to stay awake in a moving vehicle for more than two minutes, relying on other people to cook my meals, do my laundry, and bear the brunt of my bad moods. I am not okay with being someone who takes and takes and takes and never gives back. I am not okay with crying to sleep and not being sure why, with movies and books being the only way I feel things, with feeling utter dread about getting out of bed to face a new day.

I mean, you can say all you like about the futility and naïveté of having hope. I don’t think hope is dumb or a waste of time. The Chilean miners had hope. And I know someone out there will be like, “But that’s different. That’s a life or death situation. That’s looking death in the face.” Well I think waking up every day is looking death in the face. Getting out of bed is the decision to face life, and death, whichever comes, with the belief that being alive is better than being dead, with the hope that life is worth it. Every day is life or death.

What I'm trying to say is that... logically, I should have been able to get a computer science degree, but I didn't and I’m not going to, and I'm okay with that, because being alive is more important than padding all the corners. Sure, it might be a good idea to wear a helmet, but it’s no big deal if I skin my knees. Why does it matter how comfortable I am at thirty-five if I have been acutely unhappy more than half the time while getting there? That is not how I understand life.

Life gives you things, and it takes things away. Life is painful and wonderful. Life is orgasms and funerals, liver and Nutella, best friends and breakups. And you have to be prepared to handle it in all of its incarnations. That means you need to be financially secure. To an extent. To have insurance and always have Christmas presents under the tree and never feel poor, to grow up unaware that you are lower class. And lower class is okay, but it’s not okay to be so emotionally battered that keeping yourself alive every day becomes something you can’t be bothered with.

This is the life in front of me, and if I can’t bring myself to meet it halfway, I’M DOING IT WRONG.

That is all.

wall update: november 2010

As I've mentioned before, this apartment gets kind of moldy, so I restarted my wall again. After I took down almost everything, here's what was left,

this Albert Camus quote being the sole survivor of the multiple changes I've made:

Because it is probably too blurry for you to read, "In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer."

This is over the headboard:

And this is my current wall:

"If you want something, make sure you can have it."

"There is no magical fountain." In reference to "The Fountain of Fair Fortune" from The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

"Complacency is never rewarded." Something Gala Darling once wrote.

Conan O'Brien.

I'm pretty sure the Conan one is misquoted (damn you Tumblr) but I still like it too much to exclude it from my wall. I think I want to take the area over my headboard and make it into a wall of fabric swatches held on either by thumbtacks or double-sided tape, but I'm not sure how quickly it'll develop mold.

These are the important things in my life.

A Samifesto

As an adult (?), I am trying to

• not be a pretentious fuck
• be less like a pastry, which is to say, to be less flaky
  
• respond to people in a timely manner
  
• stop doing things that I don't care about or that don't contribute to something I care about
  
• not burn bridges
• pay for a haircut

Just like Allie.

[via, of course, Hyperbole and a Half]

Notes to a 17-year-old Sam

Twenty-six things:

1. If you’re not prepared to transfer schools, stop harping on and on about how you might have chosen the wrong one.


2. You’re lactose-intolerant. And possibly gluten-intolerant.


3. He’s taken, he's gay, he’s also taken, he’s also gay, he’s of a questionable enough orientation that you shouldn’t bother, and he’s married.


4. He’s totally single and straight but not what you’re looking for. Put him in your spank bank and call it a night. If you understand me but don’t get the reference, watch 10 Things I Hate About You. See that cutie trying to woo Bianca? His name may be unfamiliar now, but you’re gonna wanna put that one in your spank bank too, because he’s going to grow up to be Joseph Knickersoaking Gordon-Levitt.


5. College is going to hurt. Arm yourself with a smile, books to shatter your insides, movies to make you cry, music that silences the world, a blank notebook, a ballpoint pen, an RSS reader, an unlimited text plan, Vitamin C Monster, knitting needles, sewing needles, lactase pills, enormous scarves, shoes from somewhere other than Payless, a picture of yourself with long hair, greasy lip balm, and more Tylenol than you think you will ever consume.


6. The sooner you download an IPA font, the happier you will be when doing linguistics homework. On that note, the sooner you take your first linguistics class, the happier you will be.


7. The sooner you take a theater class, the sooner you will get it out of your system.


8. That one also goes in the spank bank.


9. That one goes in your pocket next to your heart. So does that one, and that one, and that one.


10. Don’t buy anything from Crossroads or Buffalo Exchange. You’re going to regret it. Especially the shoes.


11. I know she’s being pushy, but buy the bra. It will fit better than all the other ones you own.


12. Don’t buy the dress. Even if she’s really encouraging. It’s not your style.


13. Eat as many dining hall sweet potato fries and waffles with strawberries as you can.


14. Befriend the misfits because you know you like them. Stop being afraid of being shot down, and stop caring what other people think about who you associate with.


15. Don’t buy the textbook! The whole thing’s online.


16. Watch Spring Awakening when the tour stops at the Curran so you don’t spend the next six months stalking the show.


17. You are not as bad at math as you think you are. Also, your first math GSI is going to have skinny legs and a French accent, and you’re going to draw a cat on a pirate ship on your final exam. You won’t like your second math GSI, but that class will (tangentially) involve fruit cups, baked goods, an Indian man with a smooth jump shot, and moments of stunning clarity. It is going to be awesome, so don’t freak out.


18. Those shorts are really too short.


19. Stop buying drugstore mascara and just get a tube of Imju Fiberwig.


20. If it really bothers you, tell him.


21. Delete your Facebook account. Now. Also, don’t bother joining Chictopia. Don’t change your blog URL. Register for a Paypal account. Sign up for Tumblr and Twitter.


22. You will actually cry over typos. More than once. Please understand that this comes with the package of being a linguistics student, and with the baggage of computer programming.


23. You need to wash your hair exactly twice a week, with normal-people shampoo and conditioner. So have fun experimenting, but your scalp is going to go crazy for a while when you do.


24. You’re not going to do anything with them, but you should take computer science courses and prereqs anyway, because all the cool kids live in Soda and Cory, and the sooner you figure this out, the better.


25. He’s not being wildly inappropriate; he’s just awkward.


26. You will not learn how to accept being lost for a couple of years, so until then, you don’t have to expend so much energy on trying to convince yourself that you’re okay with it when you aren’t.
    

layer cake

Here's the original Beartato cake:

Beartato is a Bear + Potato character from a comic called Nedroid:

And here's our version of the Beartato cake, for Eric's birthday, because he is an avid comic reader:

It was supposed to be a surprise party, except his project partner failed to lure him away from working on their project, so we resorted to roommate-locked-out tactics, which... made it pretty obvious what was going down. So to make up for it, we decided to jump him Inception-style, first with his roommates at the door, then with a couple of friends in the entryway... and the remaining dozen of us hiding in his bathroom. THREE LAYERS DEEP!

And this is what I wore the next day. Everything under the sweater is kind of atrocious, but I wanted to wear purple, and I needed at least two layers of knitwear to keep warm enough.

Clearly, my camera knew that there was an atrocity lurking underneath my sweater, so it focused on the couch instead.

Above, $$$ cardigan: delia's. Make Love Not Horcruxes t-shirt: Target + DIY. Outer sweater: hand-me-down. Floral shorts: mother's. Sheer gray tights: DKNY. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden.

17 Ways To Lighten the Fuck Up, Calm the Fuck Down, And Remember That Sometimes Life’s Fuckery Only Looks So Big Because It’s Full of Secrets

“If you can't laugh at yourself, life's gonna seem a whole lot longer than you like.”

- Sam, Garden State

This is something I wish I could have given myself this time last year.

1. Floss your teeth but move around your mouth in the opposite direction you usually do. If you don’t normally floss, try brushing your teeth with the wrong hand, a la Lifehacker. If you don’t normally brush your teeth, you should start. In any case (unless you are ambidextrous), enjoy laughing at yourself for being completely uncoordinated.


2. Stand in front of a mirror, look yourself in the eye, and deliver one (or all) of these choice pickup lines with CONVICTION: Did it hurt (when you fell from heaven)? Your eyes are like the stars; can I buy you a drink? Are you tired? ‘Cause you’ve been running through my mind all day. My love for you is like diarrhea. (I just can't hold it in.) I’d like to Slytherin to your Chamber of Secrets.





3. Either thank someone or tell someone you love that you love them, in complete earnest. Expect nothing back.


4. Giant blanket fort + a children’s book + tater tots. Alter recipe as desired. (My personal favorite? Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. Shinyshinyshiny!)
   



5. Think about Obama pooping. The Pope, pooping. Lady Gaga. Pooping. Beyonce, Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, Gala Darling, and babies. Pooping. Like, maybe after eating Indian food. Aughhh gross gross gross. (Unless you have a scat fetish. Then I’m not sure this will help you lighten up. At least it will distract you.)


6. Get some perspective. Look at the stars. Or the ocean. Or a forest of redwoods. Or a picture of the Earth. Or of the Milky Way. Revel in your insignificance. Know that your existence is a miracle of probability, and recognize how small you are in the bigger scheme of things. Nothing you do matters outside of our tiny portion of the Universe. (I actually find that anything astronomy-related will make me feel insignificant enough to realize how pointless most of my worries are.)
   


I haven't been able to deduce the original source for this Carl Sagan image-quote, and I'm sure you've seen this before, but it always bears repeating. This is all we have and are. Calm the fuck down.



7. Play with a dog or a baby.


8. Get rejected, or fail really hard. Right now. Go do it. Ask someone on the street to marry you. Fashion a three-dimensional self-portrait out of mashed potatoes and butter. Sit in on a large class you’re not taking and attempt to take an exam you are woefully unprepared for. Walk to the convenience store in full costume and makeup as a fruit or vegetable. Fail so goddamn hard that your next failure cannot possibly be this embarrassing or this bad.
   


9. Sing a song out loud. Now raise the key and sing it again. Repeat until you sound ridiculous enough to laugh at yourself. (Note: If you are Darren Criss, don’t bother with this one because you will never manage to sound more ridiculous than sexy.)






10. Attempt to tweeze all your leg hairs. (Or your arm hairs. Or upper lips hairs. Or armpit hairs. You have to have hair in at least one of those places, right?) This works because a) it hurts (and is therefore really distracting), and b) it’s productive. (Although if you really want distracting, try your fingers or toes. Or around your ankles. Oh my God the pain. Don’t do this if you have an addictive personality, though. Tweezing might be less publicized than cutting, but taken to an extreme, it can be a form of self-mutilation too. Don't laugh at this, and don't get addicted to this.)


11. Do crunches. Do crunches until it hurts, and then do some more until you can’t think about anything except how much your abs ache. Then stop. (Or squats. Or jumproping. Whatever gets you so physically exhausted that your brain turns off, do it.) Alternatively, engage in physical labor. My personal favorite is hand-washing all my laundry, but whatever works for you.
    


12. Be unapologetically, gloriously, butt-fucking naked. (Preferably where it’s legal and not distracting to anyone.)


13. Learn a really embarrassing or elaborate dance routine. (K-Pop routines* are best, but this should also do it.)






14. Consider your Plan Z. Now consider it again, seriously. Now write down the steps you can take to make Plan Z a reality, and acknowledge that your Plan Z doesn't sound that bad.
    


15. Go feed the hungry. No, really. Go call up your nearest soup kitchen and ask when the soonest you can volunteer is. Or do anything, really, that will put you in a situation that surrounds you with people less fortunate than you. Let your tender heart (tend to) start to bleed, and remember that you don’t have it that bad. This isn’t an exercise in sucking it up – being economically and socially privileged comes with its own world of pains – but I find that it’s a really good way to ground yourself. On that note, watch this Neil Pasricha TED talk.
    






16. Eat something really sour or really bitter (or otherwise scrunchy-face-inducing). Lemons, bittermelon, durian, and salted licorice (oh my God Ajay why did I have to be introduced to this) all work well for me.
    


17. Go to the cemetery. (Preferably one where you can honor your dead and not someone else’s, but anything that isn’t life-threatening that manages to remind you of your mortality should also remind you not to get so caught up in things that don’t or won’t matter.)

*WHAT THE HELL WHERE HAVE ALL THESE INCREDIBLY ATTRACTIVE, SLIGHTLY EFFEMINATE KOREAN MEN BEEN ALL MY LIFE

none of these will bring disaster

In the words of others,

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honorably,
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi, in translation

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop

In which I make a decision.

Cardigan: Forever21. T-shirt: Secrets of Mensa, Threadless. Hair ribbon: packaging. Shorts: Alloy + swapped buttons. Tights: generic. Black and white oxfords: Miz Mooz.

11/25

So I was talking to Victoria a while ago, for the first time in way too long, and she said that it doesn't matter if I can't figure out what I want, because I'm either going to continue doing what I'm doing, or something is going to snap, and then I'll know.

Funnily enough, the title of this post doesn't refer to the date of Thanksgiving this year. IT WAS MY MIDTERM GRADE OMG PATHETIC.

And funnily enough, that 11/25 didn't sent me running from computer science, because I went to lab the next morning wearing this, knowing full well that I was about to be handed back the lowest exam score I have ever received in my life, after which I went back to my apartment to read about asymptotic analysis and hash tables.

(For the record, the class average was ~50%, so it wasn't that awful, but I mean, don't try to convince me that an F feels good.)

I could say that this skirt is a metaphor for how many points I earned on the midterm, what with it being the shortest skirt I have ever worn without tights, but the truth is, it was just really hot that day and I like the ratty lacy hem.

Above, Cal t-shirt: Cal Student Store. Corduroy skirt: American Eagle, secondhand, gift. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden.

To be honest, I'm not sure where exactly the tipping point was, but, well - about a week after that 11/25, something snapped. It was like... one day I woke up and everyone else shut up and the only voice I heard was my own. It said "Stop eating cookies they will go straight to your hips! Also, stop pretending to be a computer science student or your life will continue to be graygraygray."

So for once, I took heed.

You know what I think.

I’ve been told that turning 20 can be a game-changer, because once you are no longer a teenager, the realization hits that you need to get your shit together. I will be the first to declare to you that despite having declared a major in linguistics, there isn’t much else I can declare to you with any sureness other than that I do not have my shit together. My shit is apart.

Reason tells me that this is why I am a fake adult. I should have my shit together because I am not white or upper middle-class or middle middle-class or male, so I better get my shit together before the world tears me apart.

But what I think is that it is adult enough for me at 19 to go back to the shitty, moldy apartment that I now call home, and that UC Berkeley and my mother pay the rent for, and sit down with some headphones and the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack and worriedly, worriedly Google “symptoms of depression” after hesitating to do so for the better part of a year, not having felt like I needed to since I was eight.

And I breathed a sigh of relief and probably frustration because I am melodramatic and I think I would have liked an excuse for why living has been so mentally and emotionally taxing lately, and because I think the answer to every question I have is that I am just in a big, big rut (a big rut-rut), and if every thought of "It would be easier if I died" is appended by "But my mom and brother," I think I'm okay.

Which sucks because that means this is, like, a personalized rut that only I can get myself out of.

And then I opened a new tab to watch YouTube videos.

Anyway, I’m 20 now. This is what I was wearing back in the day, when I was 19. This is the look of someone who doesn't have her shit together and knows it:

Jacket: hand-me-down, mother's. Headphones: WeSC. T-shirt: Hanes, men's. Floral shorts: DIY. Tights: generic. Socks: Forever21. Shoes: Keds.