On Lauren Fairweather, community, and math class.

She told me she didn't want to go to a stupid school for freaks
Thank god they're sending us away
Cause she'd never want to be
A freak like me

These are the words. This is the rhythm that whispers into my ears as I sit stuffed against my pillowcase with the hardwood jutting through it. The second the opening guitar fills my dorm room, an aura of calm settles around the furniture, from the window to the door. Suddenly it doesn't matter how much I wanted to burst into tears during MA 100 fifteen minutes ago. Those mortgage and installment loans are in the distant past.

There's something to be said about the way Lauren's music soothes me no matter what's going on. Her songs were inspiring before I really knew much about her (I had fangirlish pictures of her around my room in 2007), but now that I've spoken to her and we're planning a tour together, I am even more comforted every time I press the play button next to her name. She simply gets it. She knows where I've been, and through her words, I feel like she knows. When I suddenly burst into tears or want so desperately to give up or am so excited I can't hold back my squeals, she's been there.

Yeah, it's a little ridiculous the amount of times I've been compared to Lauren Fairweather or even assumed that I am her. But it's less annoying than it used to be, because I realize how similar we really are. I look up to her in a big-sister kind of way. She's the same age as my actual sister who moved out years and years ago and never spoke to me again. It's a huge reason why I look up to her so much, and something I don't think I ever told her.

The other day Lauren posted an article about the Mike Lombardo scenario and while I agreed with her when I read it, her meaning didn't really hit me until today. She spoke of how cohesive the Harry Potter/online nerd community is, and how every time she plays a show or is around wizard rock people, she feels immediately at home. And I couldn't relate more. As great as college is, and as awesome the friends are that I've made here, wizard rock people are so different. Yet so similar, comfortingly so. As awful as the whole Mike thing is, it's not the end of our community, and it reminds me, and reminds us, how nothing can ever really break it or tear it down. For me, it seems like regardless of the people who get up and leave, there are always two more who remain (or newly join).

Sometimes when I tell people how I've screwed up in the past and made people hate me, they go, "No one could hate you. How could they? You're so sweet." I shake my head or shrug, knowing that it's possible even though they may never see why. One glance at me in math class, and you might get it. I can be stubborn to the point of relentless arm crossing, unfounded glaring, and harsh words that I may or may not mean. Sometimes I say such horrible things (usually to the people who are closest to me) that I try to repair them within seconds. But it's done no matter how I try to fix it.

This was supposed to be the best day of my life
And now she hates me

Yeah, it might be just a lyric, but it's so much more to me. It's Lauren standing up and saying, "I get it." No matter how many times people tell you they understand what you're going through, or how hard it is, or how much it will 'get' better, I knew before I ever talked to this woman that she really gave a shit.

Sometimes when I let people listen to my wizard rock, they go, "You listen to this crap?" and my answer is yes, yes, I do. None of them are perfect. Lauren is not perfect. She's a human who sings her pain and has the ability to be disliked just like I do. (Not like anyone should. ;))

And that's what this community is about.

And math class is irrelevant.

I can't believe I haven't written about this before.

P.S. The song is called "Freak" and it's on the album "The Prince's Tale".

i will, i will, i will

i will.

i will wrap my arms around you, pencil and all, samsung and all. i will breathe in your daisies, lost petals and all, forgotten seeds and all. and i will make sure you wake up tomorrow, and not just wake up, but get a good night's sleep. i will make sure you keep calm and not worry about carrying on.

i will kiss your face in the morning, maybe push you off the bed, and swear i didn't mean to. but you won't remember it, and even if you did, we'd keep laughing. i will wear your clothes and cry at the sight of your fuzzy shoes on my hairy floor without ever being able to explain. i will giggle at the noises that escape you when you're happy or impressed.

i will shake my head with you in defiance at the turds of the world. i will run down your hallway, lungs full of greetings, on the path to accepting a night of honesty, dancing, or death. i will confuse you with my words, but only because i get a kick out of the look on your face. i will share my hunger and harmonies.

i will walk with you, stare and think what a good portrait you'd make. i will convince you to eat, poke you to smile, push you to believe, and admire when you fight back. i will cover our faces in inside jokes, burst our funny bubble, fill our ears with stories, and float into the sky like pooh bear.

i will sit across from you and share a meal - in more ways than one. i will say "what if?" and challenge your idea of cute. i will be scared if you ever show up at my house with one of those rabbits, but i will let you in anyway. i will raise an eyebrow and focus the eye underneath on the frying pan.

i will, because i have to.

if i'm honest

i still need you. i always will.
i can't remember what it's like to wake up with you, and that saddens me more than anything.
but competing for the sadness is how i forget just what your voice sounds like.
and i forget your smell.
i forget your touch, your clammy fingers.
but i know your taste, your arms.
i know your hand in mine, embarrassed sometimes, public love.
how paranoid i got when you didn't tell me.
how worried i got when you did.
how much i want to tell someone, anyone, how much i care for you.
how much i tried not to.
how much i can't see the screen through my feelings.
how much i'd like to collapse in your arms when it's rough.
how it hurts that i can't.
how i don't know how much you like me because you never told me.
how it hurts.
how it hurts.

unhappy

2012 has been horrible to me so far.
and i've been horrible to myself.
it's insane the amount of people who tell themselves and others that they can do better and then they never strive to achieve that.
they never try because they just wait for it to come to them.
but what if you already have the something better?
how can you know if you have the something better if you don't try to make the something better something better?
the past 4 days have just been a whirlwind of confusion and buried attitude.

So move, yeah move so move, yeah move
I've got nowhere to go, I've got nowhere to go
So move, don't move so slow, don't move so slow
I can't take it, I can whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

i guess i'm just thankful for tegan and sara, charcoal pencils, and good books. and these are concrete things that enter my soul and might just make me happy again. or at least content i can only hope, because i'm in the horrifying state of petrified panic where i can not go in public as i am.

i'm hungry and i can't eat.

tolerant snails

no matter how hard you try, or how much time passes, there are some people that you will not be able to stand. or tolerate, if you will.

this does not make you a bad person. it simply means that you don’t have enough in common to be able to be around them or hear news about them.

it doesn’t make them a bad person either. it just means they’re annoying. and that’s fine. you might be annoying to someone. you probably are. life goes on, though. we wake up, we try not to focus on the bad, and we indulge in things we are passionate about, no matter how ridiculous those passions might be.

for me, it’s tacos, wizard rock, good fanfiction, poetry, good books, and drawing pictures of sexy women or my friends. those are all simple things that can take my mind so far from one annoying person that i’m clear for the rest of the night. and that’s all i really ever need. just to be okay for the night. because tomorrow, regardless of chores and things i have to do, i force room for past time activities. i am a snail.

sometimes i’ve felt bad about my snail-like existence. not everyone gets the chance to do their favorite past time activities, so stress piles up on them and before they know it they’re tossing themselves off mount doom. but i know how important these past times are for me. some call it lazy, but i call it taking my mind off of the people and things i can’t stand.

and it’s working.

snail-like, but it is.

Family Photos

“nans, i went to both ladies
at target
you’re saving the photos to the
camera, not the card.”

“hm.”

mom adds her 2 cents.
“she can put the card
in her computer
and tell you more than they did.”

i dash away, beckon the internet -
oh look,
all 18 shining photos
i never wanted to see
hello, sister.

“it’s a close-up! doesn’t she look nice?”
no, she doesn’t.
she’s just a big-toothed stranger.
and there you are, dad,

smiling next to her like there’s no tomorrow.
but when you’re shoved into my vicinity,
the camera melts. you are plastic.

i wonder what someone would say
if they ever tied us down long enough
to see our family photo.

"the christmas thing" warning: sad

my mom noted the other day, "i don't think tianna's much into the christmas thing."

and i'm really not. for me, christmas is 50% about the snow, 35% about food, 5% about family time, and 10% about sleeping. i really hope that added up.

the whole thing just makes me so sad. buying presents, expecting a lot, giving more than you need to, feeling like your gifts and money are inadequate, people giving and getting shitty gifts, people ignoring their families on the holidays, it just comes back to haunt me every year. the rushing last-minute crowds, the screaming children, the pleading parents - it makes me want to break down and cry.

i like thanksgiving a lot more. i can't put my finger on it, but i think it's mostly because there's no pressure. in my house, thanksgiving has always equaled food, fatness, and football. and absolutely nothing else. christmas is different. it's things like christmas where gifts are a tradition - expected - that makes me miss people (or more accurately, the way they used to be) - my sister, my dad, my family as a whole, myself. this holiday makes me feel like i need to be perfect. it makes me feel like i should be richer. its consumerism makes me feel like i am stuck in an age of cheesy commercials and if-you-don't-have-a-normal-family-at-least-a-normal-holiday-dinner-then-you-dont-know-what-christmas-is. and that consumerist state is where i'm living. and every christmas, there's no way out.

so i'm sorry, mom, if i don't seem too into the christmas thing. i guess 2 hours in a car to wait for a crappy ten minute light show in the pouring rain is not my thing. i'm sorry you get so excited to the point of squealing and i look like a deadbeat in the backseat. i'm truly, truly sorry, because i know it's your thing. i know your parents told you you wouldn't get presents if you didn't believe in santa clause. i know they were different. and i know you're the only one in the family i have left, and i'm sorry we can't even connect on this level while i'm home from school.