Reasons I fail at life: getting into the holiday spirit

Me:  I should listen to holiday music because it’s December.  December is holiday season and this will put me in a wonderful holiday mood full of festivity and cheer.  

Me:  *Listens to All I Want for Christmas is You by My Chemical Romance*

Me:  See, holiday music isn’t that bad.  Yay, December!  

Me:  *Stops listening to holiday music and listens to Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge on repeat*

Conclusion:  Listening to holiday music by your favorite artist only puts one in the mood for that artist.  

Reasons why I fail at life: Eyegraines

Once, someone was telling me about how whenever they wear their glasses they get eye migraines (also known as visual migraines which would have stopped my line of thought cold), and I was trying to be serious because eye migraines seemed like a serious matter… when my brain decided that eye migraines could just be called eyegraines.  

My brain was so proud of this that it started rewriting the lyrics to the Twenty-One Pilots song Migraine so it was about eyegraines.  

I tried to make myself think of other things, like how, for some creepy reason, there was fish gelatin in the milk, or how I had a sinus infection, but my brain kept singing to itself about eyegraines.  

Why I got rid of my teal hair

A few weeks ago I decided to dye my hair teal.  I used emerald something from Splat, and I really liked it, for a while.  

First, let’s talk about the bleaching process.  My hair is naturally really dark brown and I had been dyeing it various shades of dark red and purple.  I needed to bleach it for a long time to get those colors out.  The bleach got really thick half way through bleaching my hair, and I almost didn’t have enough to finish.  Even though my hair's really thick, it’s also really short, so I thought one container of bleach (and dye) would be fine-I’ve always had more than enough dye with just one box before.  So consider this fair warning if you’re going to use this and you have long hair, you probably want to get more than one box.  Also, if your hair doesn’t take bleach well it might not take all the color out.  I had some yellowish parts, some platinum blond parts, and some parts that were still brown, EVEN THOUGH I left it on for an hour.  I would recommend using a different type of bleach.  The last time I bleached my hair I used a box for platinum blond-that worked well and there was plenty of it.

The teal dye phase of this adventure was another story.  Teal dye dyes skin really easily, and my scalp was teal for longer than my hair was.  There was enough of it, but I had to apply it carefully.  So carefully, that I had my hair dressed neighbor do it for me.  The first day great.  The color was neat and interesting and everything I wanted it to be.  By that evening, I was worrying.  Apparently, you sweat teal if your hair is teal.  Thank goodness my hat was black.  After a week, the tips of my bangs and some other parts of my hair had already faded back to yellow-blond so I tried to stain it blond-red, it didn’t work, and now it’s Clary Fray orange.  Not exactly what I was after, but it is stable and I’m not sweating orange.    

When I started wanting to dye my hair neon colors I was eleven or twelve and my hair and clothes looked like everyone else’s.  I thought I could be different by having blue or pink hair.  I wanted to look different, be different, and establish myself as not normal and traditional.  But my hair was long or close to shoulder length at the time and it looked normal, as did my clothing.  My hair would have been the only rebelliously different thing about me.  This seemed out of sync with everything else and didn’t make the sort of strong statement I was after.  So I didn’t dye my hair weird colors then.    

Now I have short hair that isn’t like everyone else’s and I wear clothing that looks different; so dyeing my hair teal, even though it was fun for the week it lasted, didn’t make me feel like I was making the big statement that I thought neon hair would make when I was eleven.  It was just another change to my physical appearance.  What makes me different and unique is who I am when I write my poems and play guitar and fangirl about Fall Out Boy and the Raven Boys.  

Why I'm not going to get my lip pierced right now

For the last couple months, I’ve been wearing a fake lip ring.  A few people have asked me why I don’t just go and get my lip pierced because then I’ll have it pierced for the rest of my life and, in their opinion, that would be easier.  

Here are my reasons.

I know it makes sense to you to get my lip pierced now so it’ll be pierced for the rest of my life.  BUT THEN IT WILL BE PIERCED FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.  I know that I can just let the hole grow shut, but what if it doesn’t grow shut and what if it leaves a mark after it grows shut?  I don’t want to have it for a year, decide I don’t want it, and then have a scar on my lip for the rest of my life.  

I have braces right now and I would worry that maybe the lip ring would mess up the braces and I would have to have them on longer, or the braces would bother my lip ring, and maybe I would have to take it out and get it pierced again after I get my braces off.  This is the second time I’ve had braces and if it doesn’t work this time I would have to get my jaw broken and wired shut for a LONG TIME and I don’t want to risk messing my braces up.  

Needles.  The thought of getting a shot makes me feel light-headed and sick.  If I could get it pierced like I got my ears pierced, I might be able to do it, but it would be way more painful, AND I can’t decide exactly where on my lip I like the ring to be.  I’ve decided on the right side because that side feels more comfortable for whatever reason, but I move it around a lot whenever I’m wearing it and I can’t decide if I like it more off to the side or closer to the middle of my lips.  I don’t want to get my lip pierced and then decide a month later that I actually wanted to have the piercing half a millimeter to the left.  

A nine dollar fake lip ring from Etsy is less expensive than getting a piercing and I have important things to buy like eyeliner and CDs and beds for my cat.  

And I’m not fooling anyone by wearing this.  Do you think I’m trying to fool people with my dyed hair?  Do you think people will be mad when they learn that my hair is not naturally Party Poison red or Burgundy?  Of course not.  Because that would be ridiculous.  Nobody thinks I was just born with green eyeliner around my eyes and grey eyelids.  Also, I’m not going to tell anyone that it’s real.  It’s fake.  If you ask, I’ll tell you it’s fake.  End of story.

So I’m going to wear a fake lip ring and do things on my own and on my own terms.    

A review of More Than This by Patrick Ness

(Very full of spoilers.  But if you’re actually going to read the book-which is a terrible mistake-run away while you still can-read a kind of spoilery review or at least skim it so you know what you’ve gotten yourself into.)  

First, let me say, The Matrix was better.  

And The Matrix doesn’t make you wonder if the world you’re living in is a real world or some computer world.  

The book starts with an uncomfortably gory chapter about EXACTLY how Seth dies.  I don’t mean a little bit gory, I mean I was uncomfortable reading this.  It didn’t just say something like “his arm broke” it was HIS ARM BROKE AND IT FELT LIKE THIS AND IT MADE THIS SOUND AND THEN THE BONE CAME THROUGH THE SKIN IN THIS WAY AND ALL OF THIS IS BEING DESCRIBED IN AN EMOTIONALLY SCARRING WAY!  What was Patrick Ness going for with this?  It doesn’t add ANYTHING to the plot, and it doesn’t make the story any more enjoyable (it actually makes it LESS enjoyable).  Was he trying to make Seth’s death seem even more terrible?  If so, why?  

I read all of this book at night, so maybe I was bothered by it more because it was night?  Or maybe I was just bothered by it because it’s…  I don’t know what word describes it.  Creepy maybe?  Unsettling?  

It took a VERY long time for Seth to actually find other humans-more than a hundred pages elapse before he met Regine and Tomasz.  Yes, he had those flashbacks about his life, but I don’t count those because they were dreams or memories or whatever and there weren’t actually real people.  His backstory was important, but maybe he could have run into someone when he went to find food in the town and he could have told them his backstory?  It could have been a personal narrative and he could have thought about the past and his backstory.  Perhaps he could have come to some important understanding about his life and himself.  I would have been fine with both of those, but instead it was over a hundred pages of flashbacks and Seth wandering around eating canned spaghetti.  

I might have been happier if there had been something he saw while walking around the town.  Maybe a shadow out of the corner of his eye, or maybe he thought he heard voices but there was nothing.  Something.  I was expecting this book to be horror, and even though there were other people and there was a monster I had started to think that the whole book would be about him wandering around and having flashbacks.  It was boring, but there was nothing to be afraid of so I relaxed.  I guess some readers might have been bothered by the idea of being all alone.  I suppose not being bothered by that says something more about me than about Seth.  

And then, without warning, there was The Driver.  

The Driver is the thing of nightmares.  It’s one of the most terrifying monsters I’ve read about.  

One of the worst points of this book is that Owen, Seth’s beloved little brother, is dead.  Let me say it again:  OWEN DIED.  The whole time I thought Owen was alive and just in the computer world and then I figured out that he was dead!  I don’t even have words to describe how angry and sad I was when I read this.  I don’t do well when little siblings die because I really love my little sister and I can’t think about little siblings dying.  

The ending was also terrible.  If it had specifically said that Seth got back to the computer world or specifically said that it didn’t work, I would’ve been much happier.  (Actually I wouldn’t have been.  After I figured out that Owen died the book was dead to me.)  

NO STARS.  Fine, one, but I don’t really mean it.  

I would recommend this book to people who want to stay up until four AM questioning their existence.  

IT'S NOT YOUR LIFE

Recently I’ve heard a few teenagers talk about how young people (thirteen and fourteen year olds mostly) can’t be in a relationship.  

IT’S NOT YOUR LIFE.  SHUT UP.  

I haven’t had a boyfriend and I don’t want one.  Right now I would rather have a really nice electric guitar or unlimited concert tickets and money for t-shirts because I like music more than people.  I also don’t think I completely know who I am because I’m still pretty young, and I, at least, want to know who I am before I have a boyfriend.  

But just because I don’t want a boyfriend doesn’t mean I’m going to freak out if someone younger than me has a boyfriend.  

I don’t care if you’re thirteen or fourteen and you have a boyfriend or girlfriend.  If that makes you happy then I’m happy that you’re happy.  That’s not what makes me happy, but whatever, it’s your life.  If everyone in the relationship is happy and everyone is nice to each other, people should just shut up.  If dating makes someone happy, people shouldn’t yell at them or say that they’re too young to actually feel that way.  It makes them happy, and we need more happiness in the world.  

Even though it may look like I’m the weird punk girl who probably hates love, I think love is nice, and if dating makes you happy, go for it.  It’s not my place to say what you can and can’t do.  If you try to rant to me about how love is stupid and how teenagers are too young to feel real emotions, I’ll probably throw a book at your face because that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.  Also, if you’re a teenager and you’ve been saying stuff like this, YOU ARE A FREAKING TEENAGER, DON’T YOU FREAKING DARE SAY THAT TEENAGERS’ EMOTIONS AREN’T REAL.  IF SOMEONE SAID THAT YOUR EMOTIONS WEREN’T REAL YOU WOULD BE UPSET.  

I would be less upset about this if I didn’t mostly hear teenagers saying this crap.  Why do they do this?  

I’m freaking sick of people trying to control other people’s lives just because other people are living their lives in a way some people disagree with.  

Everyone just needs to calm down and leave everyone else alone.  Especially if the person isn’t someone you know well and you’re just freaking out about how they’re living.  IT’S NOT YOUR LIFE!  

About Clothes

If you’ve met me, you know how I dress.  Skinny jeans and baggy t-shirts and hoodies and slouchy hats and fingerless gloves and sneakers.  Yes, I do have skirts, tunics, and other clothes, but I’m most comfortable in the things I listed so that’s what I wear most.  

I don’t like short-shorts or tight-fitting shirts or tank tops so I don’t wear them.  If you wear them that’s fine.  That’s your choice and I would be a terrible human if I yelled at you for wearing what you want.  

I don’t care if you’re ten and you want to wear tank tops and short-shorts, because that’s your choice!  Sure, it’s not the one I would make, but I’m NOT you so I can’t tell you how to dress.  

I hate when people freak out because OTHER PEOPLE wear things they don’t like.  Just because a child is wearing something you wouldn’t have worn at that age doesn’t mean you get to freak out and say terrible things about their clothes, their morals, and the state of childhood today.  

There are some things other girls my age wear that I would NEVER wear, but I don’t care that they wear this kind of thing because IT’S THEIR CHOICE.  

I don’t care if you’re eleven and you like to wear short dresses and high heels.  I wouldn’t have worn that at that age, but it’s your body so you should be able to put whatever you want on it.  

I feel the same way about piercings and tattoos and hair.  It doesn’t matter what people do with their own hair, their hair is not your hair so you don’t get a say in how they style it.  I don’t care if you’re eleven and you have short hair or dyed hair, because IT’S YOUR HAIR.  If you’re fourteen and have a bunch of piercings, that’s fine.  It’s your body and if you feel comfortable getting piercings, that’s great.  If you have a bunch of tattoos, that’s also cool.  

I don’t judge people for what they wear, or what they do with their hair, or what piercing or tattoos they have.  I judge them by how they treat others.  Why can’t other people do the same thing?