I'm a tick, tick, ticking time bomb that's been thrown up, up, up into a sky of clouds. I like the white, fluffy ones. They're lovely. But those damn grey clouds...those are the ones that make me tick a little bit faster. Sometimes they get in my way, completely disregarding the fact that I might blow at any moment, and I let off sparks.


The worst part is I'm still flying up, up, up.

i want to start taking pictures again. and modeling.

I own entirely too much crap. When I moved back to California two years ago, all of my belongings...ALL of my belongings... fit very comfortably into a suitcase and a bag. Now, however, I'm afraid nothing fits anywhere.

I really need to decide what I'm going to do with this stuff.

To My Dear Soulmate,

Now, I know we aren't aware we are soulmates yet but that doesn't bother me. Still, I feel I must share with you just how long you've been on my mind...or in my hands, I should say.

About two years ago, I went and hand my palm read. After refusing to touch my hands because of a "dark force detrimental to others and not" me, the palm reader said she could clearly see I had a soulmate. She went on to tell me that, at that time in my life, I was not aware of this person, nor were they aware of me. She said that, once united, this person and I would share a deep connection.

Then, I went to another palm reader who told me that she saw one person in my life sticking out more than most. She told me this person would be an excellent friend to me and we would work well together because of our understanding for one another.

The third time I went and had my palm read was a little less reliable than the previous two times. A woman on the street in Venice claimed to read palms and, for five dollars, I let her take a look at my hands. She flat out asked me who you were and was taken aback by my lack of ability to give you a name.

And then the fourth time I went, she gave me details about you. She told me you and I know each other- that the only thing keeping us separate is purely emotional and mental. She told me the color of your eyes, the first letter of your name, your heritage, and that, to me, something sets you apart from everyone else. Forgive me for leaving the details out, but I am reluctant to put anything on here that anyone might identify with. I would hate to run the risk of anyone coming to any conclusions based on the lines in my hand. Instead, I just wanted to let you know that, whoever you are, you are in my hands and when we are aware we are soulmates, you owe me the equivalent of whatever I've paid to listen to four times now.

Love, Stephanie Kate.

i've been feeling rather inside out and backward lately.

I'm taking a Children's Literature class this semester and all we're reading is Peter Pan and it's various forms.

Do you know how much literary analysis there is for Peter Pan? I believe it to be quite endless. Fortunately, it's all very interesting. Take for instance this idea:

Have you ever wondered why Peter Pan has been primarily played by women? I was under the impression women offered the perfect emulation of a prepubescent boy (with the voice and what not), but then I read an article that proposed that women are perfect for playing Peter Pan because women will never grow up to be men.

...I haven't decided if what I'm learning in this class is going to benefit me in any way in the future, but I don't think I really care. It's very entertaining to take a story I hold dear to my heart and tear it to shreds through academia.

on peak hill.

drugs in my body.

I’m not too sure where I am these days. I don’t mean physically; unfortunately I know exactly where I am stuck on this rock. I mean mentally.

I don’t know if being on so many different medicines in such a short time is catching up with me.
I don’t know if the medicine I’m on now is finally taking over my brain.
I really just don’t know.

I’m also not sure I really want to know where I am these days.

It’s difficult to articulate but, as always, I’m attempting to put to words the sluggish feeling that permeates the grey matter hidden inside my skull. It’s not exactly a slow, sluggish feeling but the idea of a rapid moving slug is a horrible metaphor.

Sluggish clearly isn’t the correct word here.

I could use words along the same lines as “zombie-like” but that’s not adequate. I’m more than capable of getting through the day, all while speaking in complete sentences and avoiding car accidents.

I suppose this is the best way to describe where I am these days:

I have a lot to say but I don’t feel like wasting the breath on words that I feel tip-toeing off my tongue and gently falling to the ground like leaves in a light breeze. It’s as though what I think and how I feel and the words I use to describe those just aren’t propelled with enough force to make it from my brain to my lips to someone else’s ears.
I feel physically exhausted; my body aches and my feet are so hesitant to move. Directly opposite to this though, my mind is still on auto-pilot, constantly fluttering from one idea to the next like a neurotic moth surrounded by blinking Christmas lights. I can’t stop it. Thinking is intoxicating and, were my brain capable of shutting up for a moment, I wouldn’t know what to do with the obnoxious silence that would follow. I imagine I would get anxious and need to move.
I can’t stand to be alone but find it very difficult to connect with anyone around me. You know when you’re a child and you watch a mime give the impression they’re stuck in a box? I am that mime. The box, though invisible and probably not really there, prevents me from actually engaging with my surroundings. I am one bullet-proof window away from really being in the moment.

Perhaps this is all difficult to really fathom, and if it’s not then I clearly didn’t do a very good job at explaining. I understand there are people who are going to read this who might genuinely believe they know what I’m talking about (and perhaps a few might actually get it) but I’m skeptical to trust that familiarity. It isn’t that I’m under the impression that what I’m experiencing right now is unique and solely my experience- no, that would be such a foolish thought. What it comes down to, really, is that I don’t trust that my words have said enough or described enough to fully and accurately explain where I am these days.

waiting for the worms.

I don’t write nearly as much as I should, granted I don’t have time like I used to.

Aren’t I too young for my life to revolve around my jobs instead of my education and my youth? Perhaps that’s why I have no desire to grow old; I’m getting all of this done much too fast. School is just something that passes the free time I don’t know what to do with and my youth is just some Never Land I can hardly remember. (Was it real? Or am I imagining it? I most certainly must have made it up in my head.) I know this to be true for one reason and that reason is last week.

Last week I had a break in between terms at school. Pretty much everyone I interact with on campus disappeared for the week (and rightfully so! What good is a vacation if you don’t do something a little out of the ordinary?). I was left with myself and both of my jobs. I slept in my room, alone. I didn’t hear my own voice until I was taking an order at work or teaching a child what a short vowel was. I came home, feet aching and all, only to lie down in my bed and read or doze off until my alarm went off again. When I wasn’t working I was doing things I felt I should be doing, like cleaning and grocery shopping and planning for the next day of work. And you know what? I fell into such a quiet, lonely routine that I felt as though perhaps that was the kind of life I was doomed to live (and I am so very terrified at spending the rest of my life working at a coffee shop in the morning and tutoring by night. That is most certainly not what I want out of life.) And then I started to worry about what I’m doing with my life right now. I came to the conclusion that this school business is just too drawn out and boring for me. I really don’t give a shit about the grades I’m getting (or not getting. My parents would definitely disagree with the bullshit numbers that represent my intelligence.) I go to classes I’m genuinely interested in and when they grow boring…well, when they grow boring you can be sure my attendance reaches what grade-school teachers would call “unsatisfactory”.

I know that quitting school is not really an option. I do not want to be catapulted into the real world and I would definitely put an end to a life of work very quickly if that’s what I was left with. What I want instead is to live and go places and see things and write about it. I feel like I’m wasting my time working toward a degree that will hardly validate me as a writer. I already know the kind of life I’m setting myself up for by taking out loans to go to college for something that I know I can do (not to mention there is hardly any room for growth as a writer when I’m stuck in this monotonous cycle of work, school, work, stare at the wall, work, school, work, rinse, wash, repeat). I haven’t had any sort of experience worth writing about in so long that I simply feel like I’m standing still while the world spins around me, blurry and impossible to understand.

I really just want to say “fuck it”, close my eyes and dive head first into the blur.