Oh my dear, school is here.

It seems so strange to be back… in all honesty. It's like I never left at all. No time seems to have drifted by since junior year. It's as if senior year is just a weekend later. It's been like a day without the holi (get it? Holiday?). I suppose I am just used to the way things go. That alarm clock at 7, the rush for my hair brush, the quick drop of night clothes, the donning of a hastily grabbed outfit, taking a bite of toast, scribbling the last bits on homework assignments, slamming car doors, (now a rushed parking job too), the flash of my ID tad, and the quick dash to the chilly classroom. It's like second nature. It makes the transition from summer to school a little easier, but it disturbs me. Why am I so used to this now? The dance of a student... have I lost my fiery rebellious side? Have I given up, and given in? This year I am going to have a life. I swear it. It wont be like last year. I'm going to let myself be fiery. I'm not going to neglect my passions. And I’m not going stop looking for new ones. It is our passions that give each of us our mystery and our luster. I refuse to be dulled by high school!

My favorite pre-raphaelite painting... (echo and narcissus by John William Waterhouse):


Perhaps I will tell you that story some day...

My favorite ending to a shakespeare play:

Puck's Final Speech
from A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

(Me thinking of that thing called love)

I was talking to my father the other day about love, and he told me about what his mentor had to say about the nature of a crush…

Well, what was the true nature of a crush? Before then I had never given them much thought, except for when I had them. And even then it was just doodling names and hearts on the edges of school papers.

What I have heard is that a crush has to do with personal projection. Apparently everybody… Every person on this earth has a part of himself or herself that is utterly perfect. It is pure, it is unique, it is good—it is divine.

From afar we might see someone that we feel drawn to, but do not really know. We project our own inner perfection onto the other person, and we see it in them. In an instant they become divine—we get a crush.

The crush seems important, beyond the understanding of those watching. It is only when we step closer and get to know the crush that things might change. They open their mouth, and we see their cracks... all their faults are noticed. Suddenly they are no longer divine… they are human.

I think that it is when you can see the cracks and still see that true perfection that belongs to a person… that is love.

Slaughter House-Five for Breakfast

For breakfast I had my first stack of pancakes. Good for me. I have never been able to eat more than 2, so I decided to make five out of enough batter to make 2 big pancakes. Voila, I had a stack.

Over the breakfast table I was reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House-Five, and it helped me to realize something about myself. I am conflicted about conflict, oh my.

In the book the Tralfamadorians seem to be enlightened creatures. They seem to be at ease with everything because they have seen everything and know how things are supposed to be. They know the future and yet accept the fact that it just is, so they do not attempt to change it.

The Tralfamadorians said at one point to Billy, “Today we do [have a peaceful planet]. On other days we have wars as horrible as any you've ever seen or read about. There isn't anything we can do about them, so we simply don't look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments...Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones."

Part of me agrees with this. I think that in one way, world peace is a pointless wish. War is just a part of life, just like birth and death. It's kind of like the two mysteries of life that Joseph Campbell talks about, one is death, and the other is that life must feed on life to survive. I think conflict and war is another mystery. We must have pain as well as happiness. We must be cruel if we are to be kind. We must be selfish if we are also selfless. We must hurt and we must help. It is life's curse, and we have our memories that never let us forget what we have done and what we haven't.

But then part of me is optimistic. Like I told Trav at the concert, for now...I am half emo and half hippie. My hippie side wants to believe that we can do better. I want to believe that we can change.

Humans really are animals. We have the same instincts, just humanized. On her birthday, my friend Kiele made the statement that she would rather have a civil war than a war in the Middle East. Her reasoning was that the way things are now let people stay detached and unreceptive. If we had a civil war, she said, then people would actually care and try to do something about it.

I think she was right in the sense that it is wrong to not care just because it doesn’t affect you directly. But then again, "better you than me" is a very animal point of view. It's all about survival. If a chicken pecks another chicken, the rest are not going to jump in and sacrifice themselves to save the wronged. They are going to keep their beaks shut and go about their life as usual.

Smack me if I'm wrong, but I don't want a civil war. No thanks. Shortage of food, constant danger, families breaking apart as new enemies, disruption in life as we know it... I don't wish for that.

There is never just good and evil. Life is much more complicated than that. There is always more to the story. It goes even farther than that...there is no right and wrong. There is rarely one correct way to solve things. I think my father has influenced me in this thinking.

The only thing that will never change is change... and so the only right way to go about tings is to know that there is no right way.

In my APUSH class at school last year, I always had trouble picking sides for discussions. I was never for or against an issue. I was always playing devils advocate. If someone can easily pick a side, then they must be closing their eyes to do so. It's never easy. Maybe someone that fights strongly for a single controversial cause has weighed every possibility. Well... in truth we are not Tralfamadorians; we cannot see everything at once...there is always a blip in the data...something that will turn your head and make you quiver in your decision. There is always more to look at. To make up your mind is to close it. But then again, if you never make up your mind… nothing ever happens. So what’s more important, to have an open mind and stay stationary in complexity, or to make change and move ahead in a direction that may not be right?

I had the most amazing time last night!!!! I went to my first concert ever in my entire young life. It wasn't some obscure band that plays tin cans and trumpets that no one likes, it was Death Cab For Cutie! I love them so much. Before Death Cab there was Maids of State, who I have never heard of before...In fact I called them Iron Maiden, hehe. I knew there was a Maid in there somewhere. I'm silly. Thanx Gabdor for informing me of my mix up. Then came Spoon. I like them a lot, and thanx to the concert I actually know what they are like. Hello Limewire. I know, I know, Limewire sucks.

I actually didn't like Maids of State; you cannot have a band with 2 people. I mean you can, but when you perform it just sucks and that’s the way it is. That’s why Death Cab was amazingly awesome. They just performed like wild, jumping onto the amps, telling pointless and yet entertaining stories, and jumping around with tons of energy. I must say, that I have always loved Ben Gibbard's voice. It's just so airy and beautiful...almost in a way that’s not human. Maybe Ben Gibbard is like a god! Or an alien maybe. Wow, I think something big has just been uncovered here. Take a deep breath.

I love how Ben Gibbard moves with his guitar...he almost marches with it, but he doesn't actually get anywhere. It's very cute. From far away Death Cab looks cute, but up close...Well, lets just say that the age difference becomes apparent. But they all are really talented musicians.

I had so much fun with my dear friend Trav--It was his first concert too--We kept pointing out cute emo kids.

"I like that one," said trav, motioning to a tall longhaired guy in tight jeans and a tight black shirt with the lapels turned up.

"Oho, look at that one over there," I said pointing to a young red-haired guy to my left.

Trav grabbed my hand with a quick grin, so I would stop pointing so obviously. I guess the guy was rather close to us.

But it was so fun! I love to people watch. It was probably more interesting to people watch than to focus on the stage.

It got really dark, and I could just make out the shadowy faces in the mosh pit, all moving slightly so that it looked like a sea of heads. Then as soon as Death Cab came on everyone whipped out their cell phones and the blue-white screens glowed like eerie candles, illuminating the faces dimly. Cell phone lights are like the new lighters, though I'm pretty sure I saw a few of them too. the people holding them must be old-fashioned.

All 5 of my friends that went and I made it to the mosh pit towards the end...I had so much fun dancing in the dark, surrounded by people I will never know or see again.

Wheatgrass!
Completely natural and awfully gross

I just finished my Renaissance dress! It was my last sewing class today and I have to say that I am rather sad. I can't wait to keep sewing, but I'm all nervous because I wont have the "master seamstress" looking over my shoulder and offering indispensable advise and assistance.

Where could I buy such a dress anyway? Probably nowhere. It's the kind of dress you have to make yourself... that or spend half your life looking online for some lady who has a strange and expensive passion for dress making in New Jersey. If the crazy woman sells dresses she will no doubt charge an arm and a leg for them because of all the work involved...but then you wouldn't be able to wear it at all...I like my limbs.

I tried to make mac & cheese, but I think it's more burnt than cooked! That’s crazy because I was just boiling the noodles. How can something burn when it's in water?! *Grumble*

Oh, something weird about me: every time I go to Jamba juice I always give a fake name. Just for a few minutes, while Mr. hello my name is David works the blender, I get to be an Alice or a Lizzy or a Persephone. Usually I can’t get a name out fast enough. There is an overly long “um…” before the name that leads whoever I’m talking to believe nothing that comes out of my mouth.

I think my name change fun started back when I lived up north. My friend and I were at the beach and we met a boy about our age. We chatted about this and that, but then my friend and I came up with a scheme while he wasn’t listening. We would pretend to be sisters. We had it all worked out, why she had black hair and I had blond, why we lived in different houses and why our “mom” wasn’t with us today. We even had a devious plan to slip a note that said, “play along” to my father, just in case the boy happened to ask him anything. Our lie was so elaborate that it was completely unbelievable. It’s like in Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Less is more… more real anyway. It was that day that I found my inner trickster.

I went to a Jamba Juice today and I was Lizzy. I got into a heated discussion (yeah… it was more like casual pointless fun) with the cute Jamba folks.

"So, give me your honest opinion..." I said, addressing the blond mixer.

"Um...alright," he said, looking at me as if I was going to ask him some agonizing question about if my dress made me look fat, or if he believed in America.

"You see, I need someone who will tell me the truth. What does wheatgrass taste like?"

"Oh," said the mixer with a chuckle, as he poured a greenish, distressing liquid into a cup. "Well, it’s more or less like...grass." This was said without an encouraging tone. I suppose he didn't like it much.

"No, no," said the young bearded guy at the counter, who looked very much like Alexander Supertramp from Into The Wild. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. It's sweet.

"Alright," said the mixer. "It IS sweet, but it's also GRASS."

Mr. Counter clicked his tongue at Mr. Mixer in jovial disapproval, and then addressed me. "You know when both your sense of smell and your sense of taste mix?"

"Mmm-hmm."'

"Well, wheat grass is a lot like that. It's like the taste and smell of freshly cut grass. You should totally give it a try."

Memories flooded back to me as I remembered my childhood in Philadelphia. All those summers spent on "the farm", laying in the emerald fields under the blazing sun, listening to the cicadas droning in the giant walnut trees, and breezes that would waft past, carrying the scent of sweet, freshly cut grass and the musty smell of the earth below. How could wheatgrass taste bad if regular grass has such an enticing smell? Granted I have never eaten grass, but still, animals enjoy it right?

My friend and I got our drinks and as we walked out I shouted back to Mr. Mixer and Mr. Counter, only slightly sarcastically, "I'll be sure to try it next time then."

"You'd better," answered Mr. Counter, smugly. "Lizzy."

He had called me Lizzy, and I had totally forgotten about my identity until he actually addressed me by my "name." I wonder if my fake names will ever get me into trouble some day...

Yay! Finally I have a blog. I hear about them always, but I have never really had time to start one for myself. Plus I was confused about whether to get a live journal or a blog...actually I never really decided I just signed up, and it happened to be a blog. Maybe it was fate. You know, the powers that be, that are, that do cool stuff? And us humans set out on the paths that exist for us, possibly placed there for us by those powers? Or maybe it's free will all the way; complete control over our own lives. I should like to think that the way things are is somewhere in the middle. Like the Tibetan Buddhists always say, "everything in moderation." I like think that I started this blog because I was meant to at this moment, but that I did it truly because I WANTED to. I like some control thank you. But I like to think some things are just meant to happen... like rain, or tomorrow. A little of both is best.

I'm so excited about tomorrow and my sewing class. Since I love clothes so much, it is the most amazing thing to be able to actually MAKE something. It's like cooking. This thread and these strangely cut pieces of fabric can be mixed together with a pinch of skill, a dash of effort, and a handfull of time to make a beautiful garment. It took me four days to finish my dress, but it's beautiful! Grayish blue with a front panel of velvety, night sky blue, and the sleeves are the best! They are HUGE. It’s totally a LOTR dress. Straight off the movie set. I can't wait to wear it to the next Renaissance Faire.

Goodnight kisses