Sleeping Through the Static

When did writing get so difficult? Why is it that people are wasting their brains on social media or music with terribly bland and/or derogatory lyrics? Why does no one among my own generation give a flying you know what about what is going on, not just in their own city, state, country...but all those other countries in the world?

When did the focus turn to the mundane? Are we scared? Is fear now fueling the reality television programs that distract us from the real, hard problems that directly and indirectly affect us everyday? And why the hell should that matter? When did we all get so damn self-involved?

I am guilty. I check my iPhone constantly. I recently deleted my Twitter account, which was rarely used but nonetheless, I still feel a little too proud of myself. I am still guilty of checking Facebook multiple times a day. I check my phone multiple times in the course of a few minutes to see if I have a text message.

What has happened to me? I think it is time to get back to what really truly matters to my own interests and my own passions. Thank goodness I am returning to school. I am so ready for Mills.


Just checked my phone again...

...it's a work in progress.


In any case, I want--no, NEED to set the example for my friends, my peers, and my generation.

Facebook has got to be moderated. It should be used as what it has been advertised as; a social networking site. If you are not networking, get off and do something useful. Why am I reading about what some teeny bopper (whom I have met once) is doing with their friends for the evening in our boring little conservative town? I could be finding a study abroad program in South Africa, or volunteering at a women's shelter. I could just be reading! Reading anything and everything. Nobody reads anymore. We are too busy reposting memes about not wanting to get out of bed when we've found "the comfiest spot!" Really? You have a bed. You have heat. You have Internet. Be grateful.

So here's to a revitalized ME. Instead of worrying when my boyfriend is going to text me back, or liking statuses about nothingness, or feeling jealous or resentful of those who are away from home and independently living...whether they are carelessly partying or behaving productively...here's a call to making efforts to be informed. Here's to being less involved with what I "want" or what I seem to feel "entitled to have" and more immersed in how I can "contribute" or how I can prepare myself for the life I would like to have.

I find myself saying "I can't wait to live my life." What am I talking about? THIS is it. Live it. Yes, being 21 is young and life is ahead of me and my goals for the next 10, 15, 20 years are still ahead of me. But I have big, BIG goals and there is no way I am going to accomplish them without accomplishing them now. Don't be the generation who you despise. Don't despise the generation which you should be inspiring. Don't lose your inspiration.

Perhaps Summer can cause us to lose focus for a moment, or even when (like me) we take a year off from our studies to do what we think is most financially or emotionally stable, and end up feeling constantly anxious and stagnant.
I feel stagnant.
But now, NOW is the time to reinspire myself. Yes, reinspire. When everything in my life feels dormant and listless, it is time to take the lazy bull by its horns and turn it around in the direction of that deviled red cape. Somehow, I've gotta make that hoof drag at the ground, feeding the passion that once fueled this fiery feminist. I'm going to find the right matador to get my life going in the right direction.

Though this summer has a few more scheduled vacations to waste away some brain power, reading and researching and brainstorming and informing is a never-ending exercise which is what my silly little smartphone should be used for.

And as a highly appropriate ending to this post is what my headphones are feeding into my ears right this very moment. Ah, life and its funny ways of making everything come together quite nicely.

Well mighty mighty appetite
We just eat 'em up and keep on driving
Freedom can be freezing take a picture from the pretty side
Mind your manners wave your banners
What a wonderful world that this angle can see

But who needs to see what we've done?
Who needs please when we've got guns?
Who needs keys when we've got clubs?
Who needs peace when we've gone above
But beyond where we should have gone?
Beyond where we should have gone
We went beyond where we should have gone
Beyond where we should have gone.

It's been a rather long day. I am finally taking the final steps at the top of the stairs before shuffling into my room. Since it is after eleven, and C is an eighty-year old woman trapped in a twenty-five year old's body, I open the door slowly, squint in the darkness and rummage around in my purse for my phone, which has a nifty flashlight app. I close the door slowly behind me, cringing at the inherent squeak, and feel my way to the other side of the room, dropping my Mary Poppin's purse and sliding off my Vans in one fluid motion. I open my computer to produce a source of light while I pull on silky blue basketball shorts and an old marching band t-shirt, a size and a half too big. I peel off my socks and slip my aching feet into the furry pet slippers I bought from Target in the Fall. I lie back onto my pillow for a moment, one leg hanging off the side of the bed, one tucked underneath the other. I feel around on my bed for where I have placed my phone, and look at its blaring screen yet another time. No text message. Maybe he is already sleeping. That or Mass Effect has once again dominated his attention for the moment. And I am not worried. I hit the top button to blacken the screen, and reach down to the ground, feeling for the long, thin cord that runs from the white universal Apple box of magic juice into my phone. Nothing. I turn on the phone again to use, yet again as a flashlight, and see nothing. Just an empty power strip, save for a few cords lying nearby, waiting to be used at the proper times...a fan cord for the sticky summer nights and an aging heating pad cord for frosty winters or tummy aches.

She has done it again. In her own mind, sometime during the day, she has suddenly realized that she needs a charger! Oh no! "Well I don't have a charger," she thinks to herself. "Where can I find another one...in the most convenient place..." She may think of venturing all the way down stairs. She may decide to text Mum and ask if she keeps a charger upstairs in her room. But what does she do? She realizes that, conveniently, her younger sister keeps a charger plugged in at all times, open to anyone for use. Why of course!

And that is what she does. It is the middle of the day when this momentary event occurs, and I am off at work, or socializing, or just plain "elsewhere." There is no problem in her mind. And thus she crawls around the bookshelf that divides us and reaches down, pulling out the cord and magic Apple juicer. She goes back around the bookshelf to her cavern and plugs in both the charger, as well as her iPad. Not her phone. Her iPad.

I digress.

So for some reason she needed a charger. Whatever. Not a big deal. I don't really care.
Could she have just plugged in her iPad where my charger was sitting? Sure.
Could she have charged it for a bit and once it had enough, unplugged it from where she had moved it and replace it back to my nook? Definitely.
Did she, instead, remain in her world where only chargers for herself exist, only her space and her needs exist, only her one-tasks-at-a-time exist? Of course she did.
I am aware of her Aspie tendencies. I am aware of her inability to see the harm in borrowing the small device. I am very aware of my own strange, anal tendencies. I face them every day when I wake up every morning and reach down, blindly feeling for my phone, and (once again) blindly checking to see if I am needed. Or I have forgotten something. Or I need to turn off the alarm.

But when the day comes around, and I am scolded for "misunderstanding" her, or being that tightly wound, anxious little creature that I try in vain to keep guarded, I find it difficult to understand how I am nearly 90% in the wrong, versus her 10. I am younger, I should respect her more. I am a hard-ass and should lighten up. My efforts to keep quiet while she is sleeping in the room are "shoved in her face" and only done for that purpose.

I find it hard to understand how my words of logic, if shrouded a bit in my underlying exhaustion and inherent bitterness, are aggressively dismissed by all. And why? Why am I to blame, and why should attempt to respect and understand a bit more?

Well, obviously. It's because of her Aspergers. 

And now I am made to feel like an utter idiot and perfectly terrible human being, because I am blaming the presumably functioning 25-year old Aspie for stealing my phone charger and not returning it to its proper place.

Except that it's more than the phone charger. It's the taking of things--chargers, clothes, make-up, razors--and not returning them. It's the fact that every time I just can't play nice that day, I receive eye rolls and private scoldings later from Mummy. Or I am laughed at, poked fun of, and compared to hard-ass characters like Bones from Star Trek. Really? Making me feel worse and worse and worse is going to make you feel better? Aren't we a little old to be playing that game?

And yet I still feel like I am the bad person, for just, not understanding why she acts like a child, or why I react so strongly to the blatant acts of disrespect.
Maybe I just am.

Headaches, Eye-Twitching, and Axiety Attacks

Welcome to your twenties, Heather. Woo!

Sometimes I stop for a second and split myself into two different Heathers;

Longterm/hardass Heather and Emotional/in-the-moment/self-absorbed Heather

It is those times where I think about how much crap I think I am going through and wonder if, in two/five/ten/twenty years I will think back to "that time I was twenty and I felt like everything was crumbling around me" and laugh at myself, wondering why I was such a fiery ball of emotion and self-pity.

But RIGHT NOW THAT'S HOW IT FEELS, OKAY.


Things I don't love doing that I've been doing awhile that I should theoretically stop so I don't continue whining

• Working in retail literally makes your life go by slower. So if you don't want that to happen, don't work at the freakin mall.
• I get bursts of inspiration to BEGIN writing, but then when I sit down to write i get so distracted and don't know what to write. Probably because I feel like I don't have enough life experience. Although I DO know what my new therapy story will be [Mum; check, Dad; check (at least for now)] Next up is living and growing up with an older sibling on the autism spectrum. It could help mend the relationship that has almost erupted into pure chaotic terror due to living in the same room for about six months. But I digress...
• For months, I've been telling myself to clean my room so that I have less issues living with a messy/unaware roommate, but I continue to say (to my self, mind you...nobody is forcing me to clean or telling me to get off my arse...except me) that I am too busy or tired etc. This should probably change. I could clean out my closet and have more room. Not that I have enough money to buy more clothes. Just like always. But who knows. 
• Because I work so much, I spend lots of money on gas. I should probably do some math right now and figure out how much gas I am really spending versus the amount of money I actually get paid...one moment please...
• Gas: SO I spend about $130-$150 a month in gas. At least. On average. And having asked for less time driving up, thus cut from five days to four days... (big whoop)... I get about $600 a month on average, give or take. So I end up with $450-$500 a month after gas. Not bad I guess. But if I stopped completely, I probably would spend less on gas. Unfortunately, if I were being realistic here, having quit my job I would probably spend more time in Davis. BUT I wouldn't keep coming back and forth. So perhaps that would also cut down on gas. 
• Follow up question for myself... so, having looked at what I've looked at, and determined what I really feel about working here at the store, the question is...when should I quit? End of May? Or middle of June? Middle of June is where i am leaning. But I might just go crazy before then. One more month? Dayum.

•  Lastly, would spending more time in Davis make me happier? Yes, yes, most likely, and yes I think so. Staying away from roommate arguments, being closer to Scott, sanity restored, away from job, break from responsibilites, etc. I WOULD be spending too much money by being in Davis. Though then I wouldn't be eating parents' food and asked to pay for it. (Valid.) This is a legitimate concern, that maybe I should consider finishing work through the end of May and taking all of June off. To decompress, wait for Davis' waitlist decision and spend time with Scotty. Just gotta make sure I don't distract from finals...and am I invited to graduation? Maybe me and the rest of his outcasted family that don't get tickets should go get breakfast...ha ha...ha. Actually not a bad idea. I should propose it and get brownie points.

Enough ranting. But I gotta say, planning itself as well as planning the restoration of my sanity made me feel loads better. It might just be worth it to quit after May instead of extending through June. Even though that last bit of money would be helpful, perhaps my time would be best spent with relaxation and zen.

Operation Restore Heather's Sanity. (Is restore the right word? Should it be build? Create something that wasn't there?) Something to think about.

I am a college-application-process masochist.

So after the crappy last couple of days in which I received a roller coaster of information from schools, I will definitely, at some point in my life, be writing about how one goes about transferring to both UC's and private schools if you are (like me) a very strange (and interesting! hopefully...) candidate. Not now, because I am too sad and angry and exhausted, but at some point. It will happen. So I can maybe help others.

This post will help me clarify what it is I am actually feeling instead of keeping it all rolling around and boiling up inside, waiting until the last minute when I explode from lack of direction, at which point I will have no idea what it is I really truly WANT to do...

Here is my current status.

UC's...
Santa Barbara - rejected. (didn't meet requirements?)
LA - rejected. (no surprise.)
Santa Cruz - rejected. (SO SURPRISED. Something seems odd and unfair. Should I appeal? Idk.)
Davis - Waitlisted. (Definitely intriguing, but also heartbreaking, for I will have to wait another month.)
Berkeley - Decision out April 27th. (Most likely not getting accepted. Big surprise.)

Private...
NYU, SLC, Tufts, and Wellesley...are all pending until at least mid-May. Do I even still want to venture to the East Coast again? Not particularly, nor do I think I will receive fantastic financial aid packages, but who knows.
Mills... ACCEPTED. Almost enough financial aid awarded to equal tuition of a UC, but should I miraculously get accepted from Davis' waitlist, it is still quite a bit higher due to Davis' prelim package.



So it comes down to Mills, UC Davis' waitlist, and East Coast schools.


Not the best situation to be in.


So now, being who I am, I must devise a plan. I have literally spent the past three days discussing my options with my mother. We plan and worry and plan and worry and plan way too much, but it is clearly a genetic thing...the need to plan our lives in order to decrease the stress.

I think this is the plan...

1. Try to wrap head around going to Mills, which I really only applied to on a whim.
It's an all girls school, it has small classes, one on one time with professors, great public policy program...and it is possible to take classes at Berkeley. I will sign up for the Admitted Students Day, research even more about it, and try to imagine myself and how it would really work for me. Send a deposit by (after asking for an extension!! Woo!) June 1st. 


2. My mother and I have enlisted the help of a very knowledgeable admissions lady who offers services to make your application/personal statements/waitlist essays/appeals look the best that they can be for UC's. Perhaps with her insight, my essay of a whopping 200 words will convince Davis to accept me from the waitlist. Who knows. Assuming I send it in by May 15th, I won't know from Davis until June 1st whether I was accepted or rejected.

3. It is possible that in the next three day I might be able to write a letter, gather my transcripts, and ask some poor former professor to write me another letter of recommendation in time for the April 27th deadline to appeal to UC Santa Cruz, but I don't really know if I have "new and compelling" information, nor do I really have the energy to try to do all of this work for a place I maybe would want to go to, or to some place that won't want me even after all of the work.

4. Lastly, I will of course wait to see which East Coast schools accepted or rejected me, which ones wanted me enough to offer money, and then I will have to decide if I can really bring myself to travel all the way across the country for another two years...again...away from everything.


It's a whole lot to think about and I don't know where to begin.

To be perfectly honest, (which is a lot easier to be on here than it is to my mother's face) I really really really really see myself happiest at UC Davis. And NOT, contrary to popular belief, because Scott is there. Who knows where he'll be. He'll have graduated. My point is, I know Davis, I've grown accustomed to Davis, I've actually learned to love Davis. My own downfall here is that I am not as close to going to Davis as I sometimes catch myself think I am...if that makes sense. I know I have the help from this lady, I've written a few essays already to get the juices flowing, I know I could actually really thrive and be happy at Davis...but there are so many factors still in the way of that becoming a reality. What if everyone offered acceptance decides to attend, and there are no spots? What if everyone else on the waitlist are much stronger candidates? Obviously Davis (and only Davis...) saw something in me that was worth looking at again...but who knows?

When I think of Davis, I think of comfort. I think of empowerment and opportunity.
When I think of Mills, I feel scared. The unknown, all girls, Oakland, small classes again...similarities to Hampshire... what if I find myself back in a similar small school, small minded nightmare?


I guess, though, that when it comes down to it, I really could make Mills work. I've done it before, I made friends 3,000 miles away from home, in a different state, a different climate... Maybe the small classes and strong Mills women will be the right place for me to finish this damn degree already.

Yes, I think the best thing to do is learn to love Mills now, make it work, and if, in a month or two, Davis changes their mind, I can reevaluate what I want to do then. But for now, full steam ahead for Mills College.

A Modern Man by George Carlin

"I'm a modern man, digital and smoke-free; a man for the millennium.

A diversified, multi-cultural, post-modern deconstructionist; politically, anatomically and ecologically incorrect.

I've been uplinked and downloaded, I've been inputted and outsourced. I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading.

I'm a high-tech low-life. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bi-coastal multi-tasker, and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.

I'm new-wave, but I'm old-school; and my inner child is outward-bound.

I'm a hot-wired, heat-seeking, warm-hearted cool customer; voice-activated and bio-degradable.

I interface with my database; my database is in cyberspace; so I'm interactive, I'm hyperactive, and from time to time I'm radioactive.

Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin' the wave, dodgin' the bullet, pushin' the envelope.

I'm on point, on task, on message, and off drugs.

I've got no need for coke and speed; I've got no urge to binge and purge.

I'm in the moment, on the edge, over the top, but under the radar.

A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary.

A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom-feeder.

I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps, I run victory laps.

I'm a totally ongoing, big-foot, slam-dunk rainmaker with a pro-active outreach.

A raging workaholic, a working rageaholic; out of rehab and in denial.

I've got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant, and a personal agenda.

You can't shut me up; you can't dumb me down. 'Cause I'm tireless, and I'm wireless. I'm an alpha-male on beta-blockers.

I'm a non-believer, I'm an over-achiever; Laid-back and fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home; low-rent, high-maintenance.

I'm super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built to last.

A hands-on, footloose, knee-jerk head case; prematurely post-traumatic, and I have a love child who sends me hate-mail.

But I'm feeling, I'm caring, I'm healing, I'm sharing. A supportive, bonding, nurturing primary-care giver.

My output is down, but my income is up. I take a short position on the long bond, and my revenue stream has its own cash flow.

I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds, I watch trash sports.

I'm gender-specific, capital-intensive, user-friendly and lactose-intolerant.

I like rough sex; I like tough love. I use the f-word in my e-mail. And the software on my hard drive is hard-core—no soft porn.

I bought a microwave at a mini-mall. I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast food in the slow lane. I'm toll-free, bite-size, ready-to-wear, and I come in all sizes.

A fully equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically proven, scientifically formulated medical miracle.

I've been pre-washed, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped and vacuum-packed.

And . . . I have unlimited broadband capacity.

I'm a rude dude, but I'm the real deal. Lean and mean. Cocked, locked and ready to rock; rough, tough and hard to bluff.

I take it slow, I go with the flow; I ride with the tide, I've got glide in my stride.

Drivin' and movin', sailin' and spinnin'; jivin' and groovin', wailin' and winnin'.

I don't snooze, so I don't lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty, and lunchtime is crunch time.

I'm hangin' in, there ain't no doubt;

and I'm hangin' tough.

Over and out."

George Carlin


...inspiration to write "A Modern Woman"...??

Bucket List: "Work in a bookstore." Check.

"You don't sit around and read and discuss literature all the time when you work in a bookshop. You do tell customers where the latest Mitch Albom book is a million times a day. You learn to identify bestsellers by cover color. People insist they have just seen a certain book in paperback at another shop and your explanation that the book has only been out in hardcover for a month and will likely be in paper within a year is listened to with disbelief and an insulting air indicating you are a moron AND a liar. You listen to people tell you they could get every title in your shop more cheaply at Sam's Club. You learn the inner significance of the deep philosophy in science fiction and fantasy titles. You get lectures about why a certain author is or is not fantasy or science fiction and how only feeble minded idiots would mis-shelve them as dismally as you and your colleagues have. You sometimes get to hand-sell a book you believe in to a person who might actually enjoy it. You watch terrific books languish on the shelves and eventually get sent back to the publisher while Nicholas Sparks titles must be reordered bimonthly. You become expert at finding the most popular TV talk and news show sites on the web instantly because customers want "this book they were talking about on the Today Show, it was written by a general? Someone in the military anyway." You become accustomed to being called a liar when you tell someone a certain book is out of print. "It can't be out of print, (you are informed.) It was only published 5 years ago!" You learn every single day that (1) Amazon has it cheaper and (2) Amazon doesn't charge sales tax. "

Substitute "Mitch Albom book" for "The Hunger Games" and you have my life, ladies and gentlemen.

April 2012 Book List

Current:
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma (Book 3 Mysterious Benedict Society Series)
Changeless (Book 2 Parasol Protectorate Series "Soulless")
Then Again (Diane Keaton's autobiography)

What's Next:
The Weird Sisters
The Help
Everything is Illuminated
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Cinder
Blameless, Heartless, and Timeless (Books 3, 4 and 5 in Parasol Protectorate Series)
Bossypants (Tina Fey's autobiography)
Hunger Games Trilogy (I guess...maybe)
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (plus Girl who kicked the hornet's nest and Girl who played with fire)
The Poisonwood Bible
Hugo



...to be updated upon further research...