Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth.

Films I MUST See.

I just don't quite have the energy, words, or uncensored topics to bring to this right now. Meh. Sorry.

The Day You Read This.

Best Buddies.

Meet Milton (duck) and T-Swift (goose). My sister's boyfriend's best friend's mom found T-swift on the side of the road as a baby, its whole family being run over, and so she brought T-Swift home. My sister's boyfriend, Derek, then bought a baby duck so that it would have a friend. They are adorable together. Who would have thunk? They were the entertainment of Derek's going away party today.

The Things I Did in the Past Few Weeks.

• BLNX @ Turf Club (as always spectacular show)
• Coffee with my cuz Casey (always gets me and loves me)
• Ari Herstand's "Last Kiss MPLS" show (lots of bands I started music with lots of crazy)
• My aunt's house warming party (insane mansion and a lot of good family time)
• Stoop drinks with Brittany and Jared (ALWAYS love my Brittany stoop times!)
• Laura's wedding!!!
  
  • PHOTOBOOTH!
  • Loring Pasta Bar ceremony and Chambers reception. PERFECTION.
  • Great music and dance party.
  • Perfect chill vibe.
  • Good times hanging out with people I don't get to see often.
  • LOVED.

• Pickle Park with Sarah! (We caught up on all things and communicated with our eyes a whole lot)

The Books I am Trying to FINISH.

There are many things to figure out.

I have much to focus on in myself.

But despite it all, things still work out in strange and better ways...

But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed…

Laura and Adam's Wedding!!!

Best wedding ever! I will post more details to come, I am sure. Love my ladies and my man friends! HEARTS.

Click to enlarge, BTW.

Prepare to Melt.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

Thanks Christina, for sending me this little gem.

Whew.

I have no shame in saying that therapy is a godsend for those of us who don't talk about our feelings to other people.

Promises from a surfacing person.

Nowadays I will ramble on to any acquaintance or quiet night I find. I tell them exactly what I feel when I feel it. I often find myself apologizing a lot too--even to those who have known my ways for years. I apologize for my lack of filter, for my external monologues, and my short-lived bouts of mania followed by an urgent need for sleep. I leave a lot of parties early. I slip out without saying goodbyes. I skip with joy to the parking ramp and relax in the solitude of the night. My dear friend tells me, "Now, don't keep yourself in a container." I'm not. I'm trying not to. And I think I am doing a pretty swell job at it considering. But I cannot hide it when my heart beams back, "I love the time spent in my head."

It startles me how little I hold myself closed. I am an open door to any initial conversation about the meandering of religion, the lack of direction, and the pain of growing up. I am startled by how quickly I can snap off, like an unfamiliar room going pitch night when you are standing right in the middle of it. Bring up an unfavorable topic, like Thoreau's body of literature or the pleasure of keeping time, and I will send you bumping into all of my clumsy, made-from-wood-that-feels-like-steel furniture without a hope for you to find EXIT.

It reassures me how patient family, most friends, and even more near strangers are with me. It is like the universe sent out an open-letter memo with instructions on the right things to say at the right time. I give heartfelt thanks to the universe and those who check their e-mails every day. And in return I am trying to give them all the best and worst parts of me in honesty. I am picking up where I remember myself to have been three years ago. A work in brutal truthfulness. A work in authenticity. I do not support shameless pride. I will not discredit the experience of a despairing teenager--telling them that they do not know what love is. I do not indulge in giving leave of conduct to friends who bat eyelashes at their other friend's interests (When I was nineteen I would have gladly patted them on the back in their conquests). Now I do my best to slip on the heartache of other people, try it on, and wear it for a while. No one deserves neglectful heartache, no matter how much it strengthens. We are all struggling; we are all trying to heal. No one needs the extra burden of other people's carelessness on top of all of that. I can barely babysit myself at the best of times; I have no energy to coddle those who are not wide-eyed breathers themselves.

It all moves in twelve hour shifts. Hope fills me for the morning and Sadness takes over when Hope goes home to sleep. Sometimes they trade because Sadness has too anxious a mind and needs to air it out into productive work. But often the two do this without informing me, and to punish their short, or no, notice switch, I make Sadness stay a few extra hours past Her stint.

But I am trying to love myself as others love me. I am trying to see myself as others see me. I make no excuses for my faulty actions--I make apologies. I eat less, but instead I eat my favorite foods when I want to eat them (Cheese and chocolate are always on the menu). I read a lot of women writers. I lie in bed with a sometimes busy mind, and keep telling it something I heard that has helped me, "Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it." And to my surprise my cycling thoughts shut off, and I am left with a lightness and a love that I have not felt in months. Funny how the smallest of things help a seemingly code-red mental emergency.

I want you to know that I will be alright. I have a whole person inside of me, it is just floating--bit by bit--up to the surface. What a shaky, unsteady creation it is in the making. But every day another part of it comes together, and I welcome each part. I want you know that I am going to be bigger and brighter than I have ever been before.

I've had to rid myself of other pieces of myself and will probably continue to over the course of this year, but they will be toxic pieces. Pieces you will not miss in me. I am reminding myself that I deserve to be loved. And those who love me are doing an incredible job of showing me this. I promise that I love you back, but I will show it better in the coming months.

They say that tragedy hits in threes. I believe this. Three is the divine number. I have never trusted evens. Three friends gone last year, and this year set me up for the triple tragedy of my own sort of passing--the professional, the family, and the personal. But I believe this is only a passing of a former self, and this strange transition of a year will pull me into everything I was meant to be.

She wasn’t bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time.

i'm drunk on tuesdays...

Do yourself a favor, and sign up on 4onthefloor's mailing list for two free songs.

http://www.4otf.com/

The two songs you get were my favorite songs from the entire night at the Varsity last night. My dear friend, Gabe Douglas, is a fantastic musician. Those two songs gave me chills. LOVE.

goals:

• find a job i at least mildly enjoy that pays the bills.
• move into a studio apartment (i am low maintenance).
• be nicer to people, especially friends. i can be a bully. i can be negative. i am going to try to stop that. i hate that about myself.
  
• be less critical, especially to family and friends.
• make an effort to hang out with friends more often and keep my plans.
• write more, but without pressure. i will write when i want to. when i am inspired. one day i may change the world with what i say, but i shouldn't have to force it.
  
• read more. instead of surfing "on demand" i will open the nearest book and settle down with it.
• visit my friends' kids more. those are the important hang outs. those are the important people. they are new and they need all of the love and support that the world can give them.
• try to spend less time on social networks. i want the real world. this may take some time, as pressing the refresh button on facebook and twitter is as addictive as diet coke.
• try to eat better, or in smaller portions. i inhale food like it is going out of style. i probably should stop eating my boredom.
• be nice to myself.

this is the beginning.

in the back room there's a lamp
that hangs over the pool table
and when the fan is on it swings
gently side to side
there's a changing constellation
of balls as we are playing

i see orion and say nothing

My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

Warped Tour

Bands I Saw:

The Exposed, Andrew W.K., Set Your Goals, Every Time I Die, Pennywise, The Rocket Summer, Fake Problems, Hey Monday, Reel Big Fish, We the Kings, Attack Attack, NeverShoutNever, Of Mice and Men.

Highlights:

The Exposed (plus interview), Hey Monday, one song I knew from NeverShoutNever. Hanging with Mike and Skelly. Seeing Kristen, Jared, Joe, Justin, Meg, Kat, Pat, Tam, am I forgetting anyone? Skipping lines for the Monster Energy truck via press pass. More info on vegetarian/vegan stuff. Observing what it was like to be young at Warped Tour and excited (as a few-years-ago veteran).

Reviews, Pictures (via Mike Minehart), and Articles will be posted here in the near future.