The hunchback has no plan...

I didn't want that candy or the stupid ring.
I don't like any of those things. If you would have ever just listened to me, you would have known that.

But you are a selfish little cricket!!!
You never really listen to me, and somehow always find a way to bring the conversation back to yourself.
All things done at your convenience.
Everything else about you seems so magnificent, but as with all epic heros, you have a tragic flaw.
What causes me to be so dismal is that your fatal flaw happens to be one of the worst tragic flaws of all!
How can a hero be a hero if he or she is always thinking of him or herself?

I could stand no where near you when it comes to characteristics that would define one as a "hero", and I am in no way trying to praise myself...
But what a multitude of things I did for you!!!!! And I did them with little love, respect, gratitude or reciprocation of any sort!!!!!!
And I continue to do these things with the same casual, almost rude, response.

I didn't even need tangible reciprocation, that wasn't ever what I asked for. In fact, I don't believe I ever asked anything of you, save small favors that also had some benefit in them for YOURSELF.

All I wanted was a, "Hey, you are really great and good to me. I appreciate that so much. Thank you, 'ka!"
or a...
"Hey, let me buy dinner tonight since you are always doing so much."

::Sigh::

I hate when people who read my blog try to figure out who/what I am talking about, and I am not going to let that ever happen. I hate putting names on blogs, I hate divulging info like that about my life to people who shouldn't know those things... and thirdly....
perhaps that's all hypothetical, or perhaps it's to multiple people who i feel that way about.... or maybe it IS just about one person who i think that about.........
lots of maybes, but a sure-fire fact is that you will never know what I mean... and when I look back on this in 20 years, I will probably not know what I meant either.

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Enough of that. It was just an insignificant rant that most likely does not pertain to you at all, but it needed to be set free from the heavy bondage it placed in my rapidly-beating heart.

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I began writing this to/about a friend yesterday, and I would like to continue that here.

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Here it goes.....

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One night as I went to sleep, I dreamt of a gorgeous, but elusive, young lady.
In every hauntingly beautiful scene of my dream, she would appear.
In the daytime, the light from the sun would cast exotic shadows on to fields of Gerber daisies through the multiple-layered sheer frock she wore — it clung to her tiny body as she danced, oh, so delicately, around the earth.
In the hours of the late night, her fragile silhouette would be project onto the moon as she quietly waltzed around the enchanted forest of inverness, leaving behind her trails of ripe raspberries and satin sparkles.

At one point in this heavenly dream, 'twas nearing dawn, but most of the darkness of night was still upon us. A cool, fresh mist was in the air, and you could feel that the sun would soon peak one of its rays out over the horizon.
I was on my way back to the village from visiting my dear friend, Monsieur DeuFaulde, and decided to take the scenic route home through said enchanted forest...

This evening was different from other evenings with M. DeuFaulde, and how difficult it was proving to hold back the pain and tears! And how ironic it was that, in my time of sorrow, I would happen to come upon a tree that went along with my attitude so well — especially as it was a tree uncommon to the part of the world in which I was traveling. I was sort of nomad at the time.
I stopped momentarily near the weeping willow — a willow so weepy in fact, that its branches were sweeping the soft, dark ground.
I looked to the North-East at the young luminescent moon for comfort.....

joy of joys, it is time for bed!
more later! AHHH!!! bet you can't wait ;)

Any wine in the house?

I bought a pair of binoculars yesterday. 99 cents at the Goodwill, it seemed like an offer too good to pass up.
I thought they would help me in my quest to get away from this place known as my college life. I thought I could use them to look into the heavens, into the lives of other people and into the lives of the freest — like the birds and the rabbits.
But instead of bringing me into other people's worlds, it just brings parts of my world closer to me. Right now, I put them over my eyes, and I see a giant glass of wine right in front of my nose. This is a rare treat for me, and helps me unwind during stressful weeks. To the right a little is my cell phone — a cell phone that has kept quiet far too long this week. The few sounds it did make would cause a racing heart and shaky hands, and then utter disappointment would follow upon looking at the caller ID.

I've been thinking a lot this week. In fact, my mind has been everywhere but in real time. I've been lost dreaming of my upcoming excursions to other countries, wondering about love, feeling other people's heartbreak, pondering sacrifice and wondering why I've made a lot of the decisions I have made.

I think about love a lot, but not in the cliché way most teenage girls think about love. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever fall in love the way I once did. I remember at the time I was in love, all of my peers convinced me it was merely infatuation/puppy love. I don't believe that in the least bit. Sure, it might have been high school, but I loved him. I am not upset that I'm not in love with him anymore, and I am not sad it had to end, but I am sad that I may never feel like that again.
I worry I will just marry someone because we have a lot in common, have the same morals and beliefs and are great friends, but we don't have that connection people in love have. I worry I won't be happy and that I will never find the person perfect for me.
I would rather be alone for the rest of my life than to marry someone who is my best friend, but I don't have that romantic connection with. But what happens if I mess up things with someone who is my best friend, and then realize I made a mistake? What if in the end I regret not going for it with that person, and it's too late? This might not make any sense if you don't know me incredibly well, so I apologize.

That's kind of a stupid thing to be thinking about right now, considering I am only 19, but I tend to worry about everything in the entire world, and a lot of random events have been happening in my seemingly non-existent romantic life. Nothing impressive or good though — just a lot of awkwardness. And if you happen to be reading this and know I am talking about you, know that I am NOT just talking about YOU. There are other parties involved in this, but I never delve into all of my little problems with ANYONE. Get over it!

Another thing I have been think a lot about lately is sacrifice. Not necessarily in a religious sense, although Jesus did make the ultimate sacrifice, but more-so in humanistic terms. This past month, as a matter-of-fact, this past school year, I have felt walked all over. One needs to be humble about what they do for other people, but I am just trying to strengthen my point about sacrifice.
I had/have been giving so much of my time, energy and money into other people, and I was starting to get depressed because it felt like no one was ever giving those things back to me or reciprocating my love and sacrifices for them.
But I have been reading a lot these past couple weeks, and have decided to take back my bitterness and anguish.

One of the things I have been reading is a book by Mitch Albom (author of Tuesdays With Morrie), and it is called, The Five People You Meet In Heaven I recommend it to everyone! Anyway, in one part of the book, the main character is in "Heaven" and one of the five people he gets to meet in Heaven is talking to him about sacrifice and says, "Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else." And I like that, because it is so true, and I never really thought about it that way. I mean, of course I sacrifice to make someone else happy, and that is basically what the Captain is saying, but it's better the way he says it and makes a lot more sense. It can be difficult to remember why you decided to make certain sacrifices, but you realize you are just passing on whatever you sacrifice to someone else, and doing something to make their life so much better. There's a lot more to be said here, but if I say more than it keeps you from thinking more.

My leg itches and I am sad about Heath Ledger. I will never be able to watch 10 Things I Hate About You in the same way...but I am also sick of everyone discussing it. In my journalism class today, our Professor brought up so many interesting aspects of the media to discuss, and the one people could not stop talking about was Heath Ledger...as amazing as he was, that is not how I want to spend my entire class period. There is more to the media than just the way they covered Heath Ledger's death.

I guess this was another serious post from me...sometimes I get nervous if I don't write something funny no one will ever get to the end and will be bored out of their minds reading this. I guess this was a nice little test, because at least my last emo blog post was kind of a human interest thing...this is just me blabbing about my arthritis and lip cysts and crap!

Time to go watch Conan O'Brien though and see if he has managed to redeem himself at all since he lost his writers.

Love to all of my like four readers. :)

P.S. My song of the week is Sukie in the Graveyard by Belle & Sebastian!

Only a Year — Emo post! YEAH!

Ten feet away from me is a fireplace. On top of this fireplace is quite a large mantle. On top of this mantle is a photo of me, my mom & my brother together, pretending to be happy. Behind this photo are my dad's ashes.
The irony of it all is that in this photo, we were on a cruise with my dad when he was extremely ill. This was when my dad had hit the point of no return and everyone who didn't know him thought he was mentally ill with a bad leg. Really, he was an extremely intelligent man who was my fatherly Samson, but what the haircut did to Samson, the cancer and chemo did times 10 to my father. I don't know why we excluded my dad from this photo. Were we shunning him because he looked crazy and not handsome like he used to? I hope it was just because my mom wanted a picture with her children sans ex-husband.
But this photo is in a frame and meant to be hung on the wall — there's nothing to prop it up with on a table. I guess my grandma decided the surprisingly heavy box of my dad's ashes would be a great prop for said photo.
So, he may not be in that photo, but he is holding all of us up.
I feel like I could be a lot more cheesy and annoyingly philoshopical with all of that, but I'd prefer not to. Take from it what you will.
It seems strange that it's been a little over a year since I've seen my dad though.
I live in his house, but he's no longer here. His bedroom is right next to mine, and all of his stuff is exactly where he had it put before he died. Some days it's easy and comforting to be around all those memories of him, but every once in a while, it's the hardest thing in the entire world to sit alone in this big house wishing my dad was here, too.
When I sit on my usual spot on the sofa, it feels so unnatural to not have my dad in his easy chair right next to me.
When I order our favorite pizza — with every topping in the entire world — I still instinctively order a large, and then I have to eat it all week because he's not there to help me with it.
I keep his cologne in a drawer next to my bed. (I almost spelled drawer like droor).
When he first died, I thought I would spray it on my pillow every night or something disturbing like that, but I haven't sprayed it once. I'm not sure why. Probably because I don't like crying, and when I do want to cry, I am just like my dad and want to be driving in my car late at night speeding down the interstate to an unknown destination with some fabulously sad tunes blaring.
I'm not really like my mom or brother, and I never realized how similar I am to my dad until it was too late to ever talk about these things with him.
I wish so much that I could sit down with him and talk about music like we used to. He would show me all the classics (and some new bands he'd discovered) and I would keep him up to date on all the british rock and give him music from all the good concerts I went to.
He was a hypochondriac just like I am. If I told him I thought I had Toxic Shock Syndrome or Malaria, he, unlike my mother who would laugh at my pain, would look up the symptoms in his huge medical book and we would decide what the chances were. We both liked to think we had diseases, so I had some doctor's bills that my mom never knew about because he would take me to the doctor. Before my dad got cancer, I remember he kind of went through a really crazy hypochondriacal phase where he thought he had tumors and spent a long time at Mayo clinic. They didn't find anything wrong with him — but I think somewhere deep down inside, he knew everything was catching up to him and he was paranoid. When he went through that phase, that is when he had started smoking pot and drinking again. He had stopped for a long time before that, I think, althought he had always smoked his Marlboro's.

Some of my friends had an tacky sweater party a few weeks ago. I raided my dad's closet, so everyone could have a tacky sweater. I had a hankering to listen to some oldies, so I blared my semi-oldies playlist, and started going through my dad's closet. I came upon his suitcase, and went to move it to get to the sweaters underneath, but I realized it was full. I was curious, so I had to open it, although I wish I hadn't, because I started weeping as soon as I realized what was in it. All the things in that suitcase were the last few outfits he wore at the nursing home before he died, the moccasins he wore all the time and the blanket he slept with every night — still crumb covered with pieces of bread from his last meal before he choked on his mucous and died.
It wasn't even the cancer that killed him. The nurse on duty at Tabitha wasn't paying enough attention to him, and he had a cold and the mucous was draining into his throat and he didn't have the energy to sit up on his own or cough very much, so he choked to death. It was probably better that way though — he was miserable, and I couldn't stand seeing him in that condition.
So I sat there with my face in that blanket sobbing while the Eagle's song, "Lying Eyes" was BLARING....and then my cousin Melissa walks in.
Hahahaha
How hilarious and sad that was all at once.

Anyway, I hope he isn't up hanging with Jesus and hating me for how much I've been screwing up lately, and making a lot of the same mistakes he made.

And I hope you guys don't hate me for not writing funny things in here lately.
Classes start again soon, so be expecting a great blog comeback in a couple weeks....
Not that anyone is really on the edge of his seat waiting for me to go back to writing posts like my first ones?

YEAH.

Also, I would like to say I wish my living room was smokey and champagne-filled with animal collective records blaring like it was on new years eve/new years.

This Is What I Do

Now...back in my day, Xanga was the big thing. http://www.xanga.com/CreamofLentil — you should go there and look at that. Go back to the entries from like 2005 because they were funny. As I got older, I got less humorous. Middle school and High School though, I was a cool person.
Now I'm just like everyone else.
Wearing my stupid skinny jeans and Converse sneakers, pretending I'm cool. Listening to Belle & Sebastian on my iPod as I walk or bike to school. Driving around my hybrid car, acting like I give a hoot about saving the environment. Shopping at Whole Foods and buying non-homogonized milk. What does that even mean? Let's face it, one of my main reasons I shop at whole food is because there are beautiful organic-looking boys with beards who work there. There was a really nerdy one who was staring at me as I was walking out the other day. I should have just jumped on him because, honestly, nothing is hotter than a bearded organic nerd with black framed glasses.
Anyway, I do care about the environment, and I don't want to torture the poor little earth...and I do like my music and my skinny jeans, but I feel like I'm not the care-free lass I used to be. Everyone does all those things now — which is great, because 500 people who recycle is better than just Erika... a dirty old journalist... but I used to go crazy and run around school throwing glitter in the air and telling people my name was Chrysanthemum.
I live alone. I used to think I wanted a roomie, but I am not sure about all that now.
I enjoy coming home to silence after my long days. I enjoy taking a bath with the door open and eating pancakes in my skivvies.
I like having no one to answer to and blaring my David Bowie records. I like making my exotic cuisines and not having to share it with anyone. Some would call me selfish for all of this, but it's better looking at it this way then crying myself to sleep because I'm alone so much. Plus, I have Conan O'Brien and Stephen Colbert on HDTV right in my bedroom when I feel sad and lonely, and who can feel sad and lonely when they are basically in the room with you?
I really want to go to the pumpkin patch and the apple orchard before the fall season is over...but I haven't found any college kids who are into all that. They just want to party and watch crappy movies, which I enjoy occasionally...but, seriously, give me someone who's down for a good game of Parcheesi and a trip to the Pumpkin Patch for some Succotash or someone who wants to sit and home and drink apple cider and sit on my dock and discuss whether the moon looks better as a waning gibbous or as a waxing crescent. I would say my favorite moon though is the third quarter moon.
Today, I was at a coffee shop. There were British boys who came in and man oh man. I would pay a lot of money for a night with a British man, especially an indie one with a beard and black-rimmed glasses.
We could get freaky to some David Bowie and Animal Collective.

Most of what I have said in here is jest, for those of you who don't know me and cannot detect my hints of sarcasm or silliness.