no breathing

Okay: necessary preface:

The following is a very bitter song that I started writing in March as a quasi-love song. Today I found the paragraph or so of rhymes I had and I rolled with it, updating the story to its current state. It was initially going to be a rap, because as a very white girl I've always kinda sorta wondered what I would be able to do with rap. It turned into more of a song and what you are going to listen to is a free beat that I downloaded off the internet (http://beatstorm.com/) that perfectly fit my song and five different takes that I think sounded kind of cool played on top of each other. I might work on it some more and clean it up a little, but...I don't know...there's something about this version that I liked. If you don't like it, cool. If you do, cooler.

Take it with a grain of salt, though...I guess that's what my preface was trying to say. And there's only a video because blogger won't let me upload mp3s on their own. The video is just a picture of me the whole way through. Do something else while you listen. :)



yo yo yo

you wanna be my beau?

you've gotta say no

or else you should just go.

'cause i just like to kiss you

an' sure i'll prolly miss you

but when you get down to it

we couldn't ever do it

you ain't got the brains

no you ain't got the smarts

i'm just bein' vain

but i'm better than you are.

see it's funny though

'cause it ain't true

you're prolly on my level

i'm just gonna revel
in my self-centered groove.
oh no. too slow? let's go.

now you're gone
it's a relief
because now i know what you think of me
you stay in touch with her and him
but somehow i fell off the rim

we stared at the stars
always hitting par
on a blanket in the grass
you pretended what i asked
was silly and distrustful
and you whispered little lies
i guess...nice try.

you're a liar and cheat
and a bit of a whore
i'm so glad i didn't trust you
'cause i don't need more
proof that the pretty ones
always let you down
this time around
i wasn't ground into the ground

so take your baby blondie
and your motherfucking friends
and show them the poetry they'll never comprehend
sail on the ocean, play in the sea
and never ever try to get back with me.

Reconciling Where I Am With Who I Was

Today is one of those days where I really don't like myself. I don't like that I'm 21 and living with my mother. I don't like that I'm working two half-assed jobs while attending a community college. I don't like that all of my high school friends are going to graduate college before me. I don't like that my little sister will either graduate before or at the same time as me. I don't like that I'm not getting the "college experience." And most of all I don't like that I don't like these things, because I'm really not that dissatisfied with my life. What I really don't like is that there is a timeline I feel obligated to follow. I don't like that I'm starting to feel old simply because I'm not doing everything in the right order. (Also, as a brief sidenote: I don't like that for the last year [if not more] I have never felt legitimately mentally challenged by a peer. Obviously there are people who know more things than I do, but learning something is very different [and far inferior to] being challenged by something.)

I was watching the television show Community the other day, which chronicles the existence of a Spanish study group at a community college. Wonderfully often the characters run up against certain experiences that are unique to community colleges. This week a group of high school students was featured as a collection of overly intelligent, snobbish jerks who follow our beloved study group around, taunting them for being at a community college, because, obviously, unless you are a high school student proving your super-intelligence by attending a college whilst being in high school, community colleges represent stupidity or failure of some kind.

10-1 says most high school students (people) believe this. I say this for several reasons:

1. Community colleges are notorious for being for:
a. Those who cannot afford a 4-year school. (Which shouldn't mean anything, but it implies a lack of money, and any deficiency, even if it is as basal a thing as money, can be grounds for viewing an individual as less-than. Stupid? Yes. True, irregardless? Yup.)
b. Those who slacked off in high school and are now making up for it by using a community college to up their gpa.
c. Those who ran into some kind of life issue that prohibits them from taking the usual route. Dropouts, the kids that got pregnant, the ones who decided to do life before they did school or maybe it was as simple as *insert tragic/mundanely common circumstance here*. The reality is that they couldn't do what everyone else did, so they're following plan b (c, d, e, f, g...etc.)

2. When I was in high school and doing PSEO (Post-secondary education option, ie college in high school) I was pretty well convinced that I was more intelligent than my fellow students. (Hey, anecdotal evidence counts for something. 99% of life experience can be summed up anecdotally, so I refuse to not take it into account.)

3. Largely because of point 2 (which stands despite my encouragement and support of friends who attended community colleges before me) I would never have planned to attend one outside of a PSEO program. My decision to go to this school was literally of the split second variety. I had no other plan, so I emailed the school late one night and asked if they'd let me sign up for classes, even though they had started the previous week. They did and badda-bing, badda-boom, here I am. (The very observant will notice that this doesn't really support my point, meaning that it is anecdotal evidence minus the evidence. Mwahaha. It's my blog, I'll do what I want.)

4. It's pretty obvious that the current high school students attending my community college believe in the inferiority of community college students. They would never seriously say as much, but a large group of them implied as much the other day, and honestly, as points 2 and 3 prove, I can't really blame them because I've felt the same way.

5. It's largely true. Most of my classes are made up of students with children, stay at home moms who are finally trying to do something for themselves, international students who had to start somewhere, slackers, the grossly unintelligent, people with family issues who need/want to stay close to home, and those who try really hard to keep their heads down because they think they are better than anyone else, a fact which makes them more ashamed than it does proud. Some people fall into several of these categories.

Now, for the record, I've loved my time at my community college. I've had several teachers here who are better (more caring, intelligent, well-spoken, better prepared, etc.) than teachers at my 4-year schools. I have met some really amazing (charismatic, witty, unique, fun) peers during my time here. I've been involved in an, although small, really solid theater program. I have participated in several other student organizations that are well put-together and composed of wonderfully passionate students and teachers. And despite all of this, social stigma or something similar dictates that a little ember of shame about my time at a community college remains niggling inside of me.

The problem is that my current dissatisfaction with myself has very little to do with myself and everything to do with other people. The way I am living my life does not conform to the standards that our world suggests is the "right way" of doing things and the thought of that actually thrills me a little bit, because it's trendy to be different these days. Conformity by virtue of uniqueness, yo.

It's just so easy to tell a person that they are either bound to be a failure or already are because they aren't doing life the "right" way. I know that I shouldn't take offense to this because of its unoriginality and because of our supposed need, as people, to find our importance in ourselves instead of in others, but... I'm human. It sucks when people make untrue assumptions about me because of where my life and my respective decisions have put me. It sucks that I'm too much of a pansy to put them in their place with anything more creative or true than "well...what have you done with YOUR life that you're excited about?"

Their life paths are no less legitimate than mine just because they are following the world's suggestion as to how to do life right, either. If they're happy, they're happy. Ad hominem aside, I just want for people to see me as I am.

Let me be confused without adding to my confusion. I guess that's what I'm asking. I am nowhere near where I expected to be in this 5th month of 2010. I was going to follow the 4-year plan, double majoring in philosophy and film at a four year school on the east coast. I was going to be your typical, liberal arts student with a passion for the world and a trendy detachment from herself that she would never recognize as such. I got accepted to every school I applied to. I picked one, I went there, I started down the road to my potential future life... Shit happened and I'm not close to that person or path anymore.

Let's make a deal:

Don't illegitimize my hurt and its repercussions just because it doesn't look like your life plan and I won't bash you for being a lemming.

The Destruction of the Plan I Had

(copied from my family's blog)

Hello friends and family. Let me tell you about my weekend:

First I got an email telling me that my chances of simply getting an interview for the wonderful, splendid Americorp program I wanted to be in are slim to none, emphasis on the none. Then my car was towed and it cost me $150 (that I don’t really have) to get it back. Those are the two really bad parts of the weekend, but they were accented marvelously by my rather depressing realization that my life in Minnesota right now is not conducive to the creation or continuation of a respectable, beautiful, upright Holly Peterson. This was coupled with a similar realization that leaving Minnesota for the summer is becoming less likely, so my Washingtonian escape plan is no longer as viable an option. (At this moment I don’t know if those realizations are true, or simply my overactive imagination trying really hard to make it seem even worse that I don’t get to do what I wanted to do with my summer.)

Really, I just wish that Americorp could have told me they weren’t interested in me ONE week earlier, because then I would have auditioned for Shakespeare and Co. (a Shakespearian summer theater production that is done OUTSIDE), and provided my audition went well, I could be spending the summer doing outdoorsy theater. That would have been fricking awesome. Suffice it to say that my summer has been destroyed because I stupidly had no back-up plan to the Americorp thing and it’s a little late to have super great options available to me anymore. I’m looking, I’m looking.

I’m thinking of working in a cannery in Alaska, but I wanted to spend my summer outside and honestly I probably don’t have enough money to get up to Alaska to begin with. Perhaps more hitch hiking is in order? Poll that won’t be answered because no one comments on this blog: how long do you think it would take to hitchhike to AK? I would probably have to take a ferry from WA to either AK or somewhere in Canada, because last time I tried hitching over the border it did not go over so well. I was barred from entering the country and I’d rather that that didn’t happen again. It’s kind of embarrassing to not be allowed into a country.

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions as to what I can do with my newly freed up summer, I would appreciate it. Ideally, I would be doing something outside and hands-on, but it’s late enough now that I would take whatever I could get. If you know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody…I’ll go anywhere and do (almost) anything. Hook a Holly up?

Flattered

Flattered
Dimly flattered
But sad,
Yes, also, too.
That so many turn around,
Believe,
I'm better than them or you.
It's lonely, though,
To be alone
When they see I'm not a one.
I watch faces fade.
The shiny dims and grays
And nothing's ever true.
I'm tired of feeling distant
Miles away and somehow truant.
I'm a child in adult skin
Who somehow never grew.
The space between,
Harsh and mean,
According to the they,
Is in a stupid, hurtful way
an
upside down
backwards
reversed
compliment.
I'd rather you insult me,
Yes,
Kick with steel toed shoes.
If that's what it takes
For me to be.
(With you.)
Like everyone else
In this sweet, earthy hell
I just want the lovely
Always beside me.
To be loved and love
Is all I would request
In the loneliest, aching
Chambers of my chest.
That request
She won't rest
And she won't be met.

buzzed 'n' bored. suddenly, after the fact, i remember that clubbing does not interest me in the slightest. why am i here?

secret

Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
I want to hear his side
Because hers was so sweet.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Mentioning her he was snide
Superior, condescending, elite.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
I'm certain he's lying to her
And she bought into him.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
I don't want to be sure
But the chances of my being wrong are slim.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Using, abusing, manipulating, both.
It's a two-way street so maybe it's okay.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Secrets secrets secrets secrets.
Worst though, is his braceleted oath.
They pretending in rosy pink and live in lying gray.

Truth-tellers

Tonight I had a short-lived conversation with a friend of mine about what my "type" is. I went for the cop-out answer of "asshole" for several reasons, one of which is that in order to get a real answer from me (regarding anything of moderate depth) the question usually needs to be posed twice, so I know that my fellow conversant is actually looking for an answer, not simple, superficial conversation. The necessity of this was learned the roundabout way for yours truly. He dropped it, like I expected him to, but I've been mulling over it a bit since then.

My "type" and now I am speaking in the broadest sense, the sense in which friendship and any other valued relationship would be included in this category, is a truth-teller. I need to be with people who tell the truth, feel the truth, live the truth. Let me explain.

I have recently found, in most of my relationships (broadest sense, again) that there is a point where my friend and I hit a metaphorical wall of considerable girth. This wall is one that is hard, if not impossible, to pass and is, to me at least, inhibitive of the relationship proceeding or even continuing. What I am referring to is friends' refusal to answer questions about their lives. Perhaps it is something from their past that isn't pleasant to think about or something from the present about which they only share with certain people.

Regardless, I don't want to spend time with people who won't share themselves wholly with me, because I know that I am not invited to share myself wholly with them, and if that is that case, why the hell am I wasting my time with them? True, there is something to be said for the pleasant company of other human peoples, but I can enjoy the casual, pleasant company of people who will also share more of themselves than what they tell everyone else.

I hate when I can tell a story has been told a hundred times and those are the only kinds I get, even when it's clear that the story is one that should be heartfelt. I hate when I am trying to care about a person and they skate around my questions or make it blatantly clear that the information they are holding away from me is not something I would ever be told. I hate when there are parts of people's lives that they refuse to share with anyone.

I am a truth-teller, in a way. If someone wants to know my painful stories I will share them, and I'm just as willing to share my good ones. It's weird, though, because where a lot of people label themselves good, kind and loving (and then either do or do not live up to their label) I prefer to call myself a terrible person, and then do good.

There is a parable about a father who has two sons. He asks one of them to do a chore for him and is snubbed. He moves on to the other and asks him to do the chore as well, and the son agrees joyfully. The first son changes his mind and does the chore anyway. The second son gets lazy and doesn't even try to do it. I'm the first son. That has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

My hair is tangled. I'm tired. I couldn't buy shampoo today because I forgot that I hid my debit card because I don't have enough money to buy anything anymore. Urgh. Life is good when it's not.

Edit:

What I was trying to get at is this: there are a few people in my life, one of whom I have literally only known for about a month, who mean the world to me. These people mean the world to me because they share of themselves. They are honest about what they feel both with themselves and with people who ask. That is my type. A person who can recognize their own reality for what it is, but not let it either destroy or define them...those are the people I love. Those are the people I want to surround myself with.