I'm taking an English creative writing class this quarter because, well, what the hell right? Why the fuck not. Well I've quickly come to the conclusion as I read more and more peer drafts that my future in writing... Is so much more likely than theirs...
Okay, okay, that's a little harsh. There are lots of factors that make or break a writer. Skill is only one. Especially since this is just a class. People are learning and if they are anything like me they aren't trying very hard. And some of the students are good. If maybe a little canned and prescribed. But, hey, so am I at times. It's hard finding your voice. That's why this is here, this blog.
But seriously. I'm going to confess something to you. I have a huge complex with English classes. My mom always said when I sent her mixed messages that I was making her schizophrenic. Well, I feel like that with English classes. Or at least I felt like that with high school English---but I guess being almost twenty I should move past high school, eh?
Well in high school I basically hated English about as much as I loved it, which was, as it turned out, a lot. I loved reading and writing but if I even so much as glanced at another student's better grade I felt like hurling. If I failed a history test that everyone else aced I shrugged it off with a better luck next time attitude. But with English I felt the competition boiling under my skin.
It only got worse as high school progressed and I masochistically (am I using that word right? ah, who the hell knows/cares) registered for higher English classes. I remember being in Junior year loving my class (Oh, Charla) but CRYING (being 16 was hard) when I thought I couldn't compete with the other honors students (who I realize are all facebook friends with me and could very well be reading this, and, undoubtedly judging me for my use of masochistically). Senior year was no better. I could actually feel myself starting to hate English and hate Mrs. Mayer (real name, that's how strongly I feel) and hate the other bitches in my AP English class (who, yes, are also facebook friends with me and probably are busy unfriending me at this point). Right around the time their college acceptance letters started flooding in from Harvard, Stanford, Cal, and other high brow upper educational establishments, I started getting my rejection letters...
But hey. Now I am at the University of Washington, I'm a Sociology major, I have a social life up the fucking wazoo, I am in a residence hall leadership position (yay for learning how to prepare a funding proposal this weekend), I am the officer of a school organization that gets more and more well known by the day, I write a fucking blog, and finally, I may be the best writer in my English class.
And I give no credit to Mrs. Mayer. (Though I give hella props to Charla).
Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh to my fellow classmates and maybe I should give credit to Mrs. Mayer.
To my classmates at the UW: I'm sorry if I sound harsh. Maybe I should sugar coat it for y'all. But here's the dealio honeys. No one sugar coated it for me. You either write or you don't. And you either write good or you don't. If you can get better, if you can take a class and improve, that's great. But know that good writing is all relative. Relative to my AP 'peers' I was nuthin'. And relative to published writers I'm the shadow of nuthin'. But someday maybe I'll be something. Something to someone. Maybe what I have to say on the page will touch someone.
To Mrs. Mayer: I don't want you to be reading this. At least not yet. Maybe someday. If, somehow, it does get back to you, know this: you are a foster-er of young hearts. You are a gardener of young souls, do not prune haphazardly. We are the angels of a new generation, and you are the patron saint of shitting on our prayers. You're criticism, it should push us forward not hold us back. Ready students for what's ahead, don't tell us not to step forth.
In conclusion, I have no conclusion, because I'm a mediocre blogger. The end.
Mrs. Mayer would probably give me a 4/9 for this, because that's what she always gave me.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
New Heights of Free Writes
This is a post dedicated to all the people out there procrastinating. It's midterm season and I really shouldn't be writing this. And you really shouldn't be reading this. But here we are anyway.
The sky is low in Seattle. Chicken Little would not like it here. Its oppressive clouds press down on your shoulders as you walk across campus. You feel like a mime, trapped in a box with an invisible ceiling. I don't know why I have this feeling about Seattle. I know the clouds above are far away. But even on clear days like today, this feeling of shallow atmosphere prevails.
In Minnesota the sky is topped like a cathedral. Domed and grand it seems very tall. It's clouds are cream puffs far off above a blue that goes on for ever. It's like you can see the end of the universe in the sky.
I can't tell how tall the sky is in San Francisco. Maybe it varies. Maybe being a local, I don't notice it anymore. It doesn't feel low or high. It seems normal.
Normal normal. Moral. I've lost meaning in words over-used by people who forget that they used to carry weight. They throw them like shot-puts only I never learned track or field. I can't understand what others forget to comprehend.
Laugh. Because what do you need to be quiet about? Do you know that laughing burns calories? You look sour, sweet girl. Sour like old milk. Sour like gym socks left unwashed. Dry sweat isn't crisp. It's soft salt.
Like ocean breezes. Take me away sea salt air. I'll wave away in the tides of self-consciousness. Like kelp or jelly fish. I won't sting you. I have no armed tentacles. My arms are not armed. I have no exoskeleton, I'm not an invertebrate. I am not spineless but I carry no spines along my backbone.
I am soft but my voice is not. Don't hit record, I do not want to hear this again. My hips make more meaning than my mouth when we are together but I still talk too much.
I wish I was small. Palm-sized. You could caress me like prayer beads. I hope God hears what I wish for, even if I never knew where to look for him. Old stones never seemed holy to me, even if they were built up into spires.
I built up the deities of too many men before you. I never learned sacrifice was sacrilegious so I gave myself to your alter long after his Holy Ghost had stopped haunting me.
I read a lot but never the Bible. I tried once but couldn't get through the first chapter. The creation of man left me puzzled and the creation of woman left me angry.
With one less rib was he weaker? Did he fall first after they fell from grace? I never knew what happened after everyone beget everyone else.
I drank the kool-aid before I knew about artificial flavors. So is it meaningful that I can't stomach artificial things? Does it mean that I can't stand anything false. I am not a false woman, although I used to be.
I sleep in my own bed. It is the only thing that is mine and I forget what that means when it's cold sheets do not comfort. I don't know what it means to be alone until I remember what an empty bed looks like. My bed has never been full. I have filled beds but mine is void. There is one warm spot, not two.
In sleep I can be with him. I wake up happy we spent a night together, especially since it felt like a day. We are not lost in space, we are grounded and at night I feel him. I see him but I feel him too. He is there and I am there and together. Distance is not a factor in my dreams.
Time. Distance. The every tick of the clock eases me into the future I am moving towards. With more time there is less distance. Steps. Walking. Finding a path and following it.
Myself. I move myself. I move for the fall. I move for the forbearance. I move for the forgetting. I move for myself.
I used to know what life is. I used to know what life is. Now I understand what life was but know I'll never know what life is. I forget to remember what life is until it has passed over me like the waves of the ocean.
Like sound waves. Like light waves. Like waves of goodbye.
Airports and train stations away. Away away. Away await away. Goodbye butterfly. Fly fly a ways away. I move more directly than butterflies. I move like arrows or bullets--direct but in no direction. Shots to the sky.
Shots in the dark. Black light making teeth and nails glow. Clean hands. From too much scrubbing. Loud loud loud. Shots in the dark. Corners and crevices of hope found in corners and crevices of wine and whiskey. I never knew how to take shots in the dark. I liked to see where I was going.
The sun the sun you forgot us here. You are here but you forgot the warmth. November niceties about cold crisp mornings and evenings. Not light sweater days. Warm jacket and hot coffee days. I eat to remember what a warm belly feels like.
By the by and furthermore. Continuously kept up appearances but not for appearances sake. Insanity can't be called insanity if you are aware of it, can it? I can't hear my breathing but I know I am alive. Brain functions continue regardless of want and eventually I remember. Midterms. School. Responsibility. Future.
The sky is low in Seattle. Chicken Little would not like it here. Its oppressive clouds press down on your shoulders as you walk across campus. You feel like a mime, trapped in a box with an invisible ceiling. I don't know why I have this feeling about Seattle. I know the clouds above are far away. But even on clear days like today, this feeling of shallow atmosphere prevails.
In Minnesota the sky is topped like a cathedral. Domed and grand it seems very tall. It's clouds are cream puffs far off above a blue that goes on for ever. It's like you can see the end of the universe in the sky.
I can't tell how tall the sky is in San Francisco. Maybe it varies. Maybe being a local, I don't notice it anymore. It doesn't feel low or high. It seems normal.
Normal normal. Moral. I've lost meaning in words over-used by people who forget that they used to carry weight. They throw them like shot-puts only I never learned track or field. I can't understand what others forget to comprehend.
Laugh. Because what do you need to be quiet about? Do you know that laughing burns calories? You look sour, sweet girl. Sour like old milk. Sour like gym socks left unwashed. Dry sweat isn't crisp. It's soft salt.
Like ocean breezes. Take me away sea salt air. I'll wave away in the tides of self-consciousness. Like kelp or jelly fish. I won't sting you. I have no armed tentacles. My arms are not armed. I have no exoskeleton, I'm not an invertebrate. I am not spineless but I carry no spines along my backbone.
I am soft but my voice is not. Don't hit record, I do not want to hear this again. My hips make more meaning than my mouth when we are together but I still talk too much.
I wish I was small. Palm-sized. You could caress me like prayer beads. I hope God hears what I wish for, even if I never knew where to look for him. Old stones never seemed holy to me, even if they were built up into spires.
I built up the deities of too many men before you. I never learned sacrifice was sacrilegious so I gave myself to your alter long after his Holy Ghost had stopped haunting me.
I read a lot but never the Bible. I tried once but couldn't get through the first chapter. The creation of man left me puzzled and the creation of woman left me angry.
With one less rib was he weaker? Did he fall first after they fell from grace? I never knew what happened after everyone beget everyone else.
I drank the kool-aid before I knew about artificial flavors. So is it meaningful that I can't stomach artificial things? Does it mean that I can't stand anything false. I am not a false woman, although I used to be.
I sleep in my own bed. It is the only thing that is mine and I forget what that means when it's cold sheets do not comfort. I don't know what it means to be alone until I remember what an empty bed looks like. My bed has never been full. I have filled beds but mine is void. There is one warm spot, not two.
In sleep I can be with him. I wake up happy we spent a night together, especially since it felt like a day. We are not lost in space, we are grounded and at night I feel him. I see him but I feel him too. He is there and I am there and together. Distance is not a factor in my dreams.
Time. Distance. The every tick of the clock eases me into the future I am moving towards. With more time there is less distance. Steps. Walking. Finding a path and following it.
Myself. I move myself. I move for the fall. I move for the forbearance. I move for the forgetting. I move for myself.
I used to know what life is. I used to know what life is. Now I understand what life was but know I'll never know what life is. I forget to remember what life is until it has passed over me like the waves of the ocean.
Like sound waves. Like light waves. Like waves of goodbye.
Airports and train stations away. Away away. Away await away. Goodbye butterfly. Fly fly a ways away. I move more directly than butterflies. I move like arrows or bullets--direct but in no direction. Shots to the sky.
Shots in the dark. Black light making teeth and nails glow. Clean hands. From too much scrubbing. Loud loud loud. Shots in the dark. Corners and crevices of hope found in corners and crevices of wine and whiskey. I never knew how to take shots in the dark. I liked to see where I was going.
The sun the sun you forgot us here. You are here but you forgot the warmth. November niceties about cold crisp mornings and evenings. Not light sweater days. Warm jacket and hot coffee days. I eat to remember what a warm belly feels like.
By the by and furthermore. Continuously kept up appearances but not for appearances sake. Insanity can't be called insanity if you are aware of it, can it? I can't hear my breathing but I know I am alive. Brain functions continue regardless of want and eventually I remember. Midterms. School. Responsibility. Future.
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