The Many Sides of An Ampersand

So one of the things I did this summer was get a tattoo.

I've wanted a tattoo since the very idea of tattoos was introduced to me. I think I was about...eleven or so. The idea of being able to doodle on myself and then have it stay FOREVER was something I always found intriguing.

And my goal to get one when I was eighteen had been put on the back burner when LIFE happened.

I knew that I would eventually get one, and then a bunch, but I just never knew when I would have the time and the money simultaneously line up so I could do it.

THEN.

Then my little sister, Kelly got an internship at Premium Blend Tattoo in Manahawkin. Then. They asked her to tattoo. Then. They asked her if she had any guinea pigs.

I was her second guinea pig.

The whole experience was something so surreal and so precious to me that I will never ever forget it. It sounds kind of cheesy, right? precious, getting a tattoo? You serious?

Hell yeah I am.

When I was younger, it was always my dream to be a tattoo artist. When I think back to it now, I'm not sure I would be able to do it. I mean, drawing something for someone else that they may or may not like, and then having to tattoo it on them, thus PERMANENTLY marking up their skin?

Not to mention, most people irritate me.

And watching my baby sister do it to my own arm, I've never been more positive that tattooing is just not for me.

I was an emotional wreck as well.
I'm not afraid of pain; never really have been. That's not what I was emotional about.
It's the fact that seeing my sister interacting with the other artists there, and without maybe even her realizing at the time, seeing her in her element, somewhere she should be and somewhere she has worked to be her whole life as an artist--making art and getting paid for it--made me feel like a proud momma.

I'm not saying that I raised Kelly, or that I am her surrogate mother or something, but there's just this wonderful proud big sister feeling that overcame me, and continues to every time I see a picture of a new piece she's completed.

So, with the emotional wreck and proudness out of the way, here's what I got:

And people have been asking me things like, "what is that?"
It's called an ampersand.
And then they ask, "Why would you get the AND sign as a tattoo?"

Well, the short answer would be that I'm a writer, and that the ampersand is one of my favorite punctuation marks, and because I'm a nerd like that, I got it.


 

The long answer takes more explaining. And here it is:
It's no secret that Amanda Palmer is one of the most inspirational artists to me. She has a song called "Ampersand".
There are a few lines that have always stood out to me:
1) I have wasted years of my life
     Agonizing about the fires
     I started when I thought that to be strong you must
     Be flame retardant

2)  Nobody deserves to die
     But you were awful adamant
     That if I didn't love you
     Then you have just one alternative

And, of course, the chorus:
3)  I'm not gonna live my life on one side of an ampersand.

These three lines have been haunting me since I first heard this song almost four years ago.

The first represents who I was Before.
Before what exactly? I'm not sure. Just Before.

When I was younger, a teenager, I had this idea that I didn't need anyone. That if someone were to come into my life and ask me on a date, I would proudly say, "No. I don't need that."
I had such a negative idea of love between two strangers that I thought it could never exist. I always thought it was a lie that adults made up so they could justify staying together or getting married or whatever else.
I thought men were evil.
I thought I would never be with someone, and I was happy about it.

I didn't have many friends, and even with them I was completely closed off. I only shared parts of me that I thought wouldn't be judged, parts that were safe.

Then I met Sara, and Amy, and others.
And they made it okay. They made me feel normal.

Then Al entered my life.
And without getting sappy and emotional and dumb, I'm just going to say that he proved me wrong.
He was there when I thought he wouldn't be. He stayed when I was sure I would make him run.

When I turned 21 and moved into my dad's house, all of this progress was erased in a mere two days.
Thus enters line number 2.

I had grown up most of my life not knowing who my father was, really. And I wanted it. I wanted a father daughter relationship. I wanted to know who he was and I wanted him to know me.
And I found him.
And he was scary.
Yet he craved my company, my love.
And I couldn't give it to him.
No matter how hard I pushed and pushed the walls of my chest apart, my heart would not let him in. And there was this unbelievable amount of guilt that came with these realizations. The realizations that I had no father, that he's not who he appeared to be, and that I didn't love him were crushing to me.
So when I moved out, I had to deal with the walls coming down and trying to bury me.

I can honestly say it was one of the hardest times of my life.

But I also learned from it. I learned that I can love people and let them in, but I had to be aware that sometimes I have to let go. I can't risk my mind, my heart, my soul just to feel love from someone who could not, and didn't ever really know how to give it.

So that brings us to line three: I'm not gonna live my life on one side of an ampersand.

It seems simple. Don't lean on people. Stand alone and be yourself and you only need you.
And that's part of it.
But the ampersand on my arm also represents the times where I do need to lean on someone. When I can trust people and love and not be afraid to.

So, the tattoo is a lot for me.
My sister, who went through a lot of the same things that I did with our father tattooed it on me.
Amanda Palmer, whose music has saved me on more than one occasion.
Al, Amy, and Sara, and my other friends who have been there to listen and relate. The people who showed me and continue to show me things that I never thought I was capable of feeling, doing, or seeing.

It's a reminder. It's a thank you. It's forever.
And every time I look at it, I think of all of these things at once and am over joyed and overwhelmed.
So.
For everyone involved with it, thank you.
: )

Father's Day Post

So. Okay.
I've been trying to think about what to write on this blog for a while.
You ever get these IDEAS?
Like, you wake up one morning and think, "Maybe I'll write a story about cats conquering the world," or, "I think I want to paint something that has a ribcage in it," or...something like that? But-here's the thing-you don't know how to GET THERE.

About a week ago, I saw a commercial. You've probably seen one similar. A guy's fixing his car, and is having his daughter hand him wrenches, and she hands him one with a bow on it--BOOM--Father's Day commercial.

And I thought, "I want to write something for Father's Day."

Which is stupid, I thought immediately after.

Without getting into horrible, gory, detail, because honestly, most of you know the story, I haven't talked to my Father in a long time. About a year or so.

It took a long time for me to realize this, but my chance at having a father ended a long time ago. My Stepdad was a better, more loving, and even more supportive father than my real one ever was to me.
I'm not saying that my dad was always this horrible person. It's a sad situation, and I've removed myself from it because it was sucking me in to the point of me being seriously afraid of causing myself harm.

But he was there.
If we needed money, he gave it to us without hesitation. When my Mom was sick with cancer, he brought us food. When my Step-Dad died, he went to the funeral that I could not find the strength to go to myself.

It's hard to explain unless you've lived it.
He's tried as best as he can. But he has always put something else ahead of his children and people he loves.
Alcohol.

And most of you who are reading this know it, so I won't bog down anyone with the depressing details.
You get the idea.

So, anyway, every year, when Father's Day rolls around, I always expect to not care. I see the cheesy commercials and laugh. I ignore the advertizements in magazines and junk.
But sure enough, that day is there, slamming me in the face, and I get kind of sad.

Not because I want to spend it with my Dad, but because the person I want to spend it with isn't here.

It's easy for me to write things about my dad. It always comes from an angry place. I've always been able to channel things like that. But whenever I sit down to write something about my step-dad, it just won't come out. I get ahead of myself and start missing him before I've even written a word down, and I give up before even trying.

But last semester, I had to write a non-fiction piece for class (The Creative Writing Class From HELL) and the experience from moving in with my dad, moving out, and dealing with what I learned about him and myself was still fresh in my mind.

But I didn't want it to be angry. At least, not all of it.

So I wrote this half-memory, half-comparison piece.

And GOD it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
I had to stop to cry. I had to take breaks so I didn't start getting anxious. I had to shut out bad memories that I didn't want to have, while at the same time, calling forth horrible ones that I needed in order to write the story.
And I finished it. And I loved it.

But besides a few people in that class, and my sister, Kelly,  no one has ever read it.

I'm proud of it, so I should want to share it.
I think it has something to do with the fact that very few things upset me.
Ask anyone.
Besides cruelty to animals and junk like that, very little makes me sad. And if it does, I keep that side of myself hidden. I don't know why, I just do it.
So if people read this, they'll know.
They'll know about some stuff that's happened. They'll know about some fucked up things.

I'm not trying to get pity. I'm not trying to make anyone uncomfortable. And I am definitely NOT trying to have anyone feel bad for me.

What I want to do with this is simple: reach out, tell some people that it's okay.
That you're not alone in feeling sad.
That it's okay to feel like someone that was once always there isn't there anymore, and that  it really sucks to be reminded by stupid things that most people don't pay attention to, like commercials about wrenches.

So here it is, I hope it helps. : )

                                                              Spare Parts
     I was sixteen when Bob died. My mother gave me a can opener. It was a week or so after his funeral, and she had come from his parents’ house, where they broke his belongings into pieces and were giving them away like it was Christmas morning.
      We were standing in the kitchen. I remember staring at the green wallpaper my mom and dad had picked out so long ago, peeling wherever it met the ceiling or the edge of a wall. I was making myself grilled cheese and tomato soup on the greasy stove that was clean yesterday.
     “Here,” Mom said, shoving the can opener in my face. It was one of those bulky ones, made out of shiny industrial steel with the handle dipped in a white, silicone-type material that made it easier to grip onto. It was clean and spotless as she set it down on the counter. I didn’t take it. I already had our old rusty one imbedded in the Campbell’s can. Mom’s hair was short then, dark and spiky with pieces of her scalp poking out here and there. “No thanks,” I told her, pretending to be too engrossed in bleeding the can into a pot on the stove.
     “It was Bob’s,” she said it like she was telling me there was milk in the fridge. “You want it?”
*******************************************************************
     I broke my knee when I was thirteen. I was getting ready for school when I slipped on a drop of water on the linoleum floor of our bathroom. They told me my knee was in two pieces. They split it open, screwed it back together, then split it open again six months later to remove the screw. I spent a school year and a half on home-bound.
     My two sisters and I shared a room. There wasn’t enough space for me to maneuver around in there, so I was on the couch a lot. I hated that thing. I swear it was made out of suede velvet and sand paper. It was tan with deep blue roses all over it, and there were peacock-like birds peeking out from behind them. Their white eyes freaked me out the most.
     My mother had a job then, as a lunch aid at the middle school. My sisters also had school. I was mostly alone until Bob came home. He worked for a construction company, driving trucks. He went on disability only when his bosses forced him to.
      I was in a lot of pain from the surgeries. The Percocet only seemed to knock me out and make me hungry. But I had Bob most days; he didn’t work anymore. I was never so excited to smell cigarette smoke in the morning as he coughed awake. He would go outside to smoke, but the smell trailed him everywhere. An invisible ghost in our house.
     Bob would make me grilled cheeses, the same way he did when I was nine. He would sit next to me on that scratchy couch, both of our bodies not working the way they should. His bulky body dipping it in on one side as he laughed in that raspy way that comforted me. Together we forgot how much pain we were in. The peacocks stared. Waiting for something.
*******************************************************************
     My mom married my real father when she was pretty young. When I ask people about my father, what he was like when he was before I knew him, they all say the same things. That he was a good guy. A good father. A fun guy. And they never left out how happy my parents were together. How they never saw one without the other.
     That guy, the one dusting ashes from the hard surface of the bar as his own cigarette glowed red in the dim light. The one throwing his fifth pack of the day into the garbage as he licked the foam of his beer from his thick black mustache. The one who asks you how is your wife, how are your kids.  That’s the same one that came home to his family and vomited three feet from where his three daughters sat in a playpen. The thick smell of bile and smoke filling the living room. That guy would piss his pants and curse at his wife saying, look what you made me do.

*******************************************************************    
     Crutches are a pain. The doctors never tell you how much your arms and fingers will ache when you break your leg. As if it isn't enough to worry about ripping the row of staples down the front of your kneecap, putting weight on that titanium screw they lowered in.
     It’s nothing compared to Chemo. If my step-dad asked me for a cold rag while he vomited for hours on the cold linoleum, if he wanted me to stand in front of the stove to make him soup, I would bring them to him. I barely ever noticed the throbbing in my swollen Franken-knee. Not until he was asleep in his room and I was back with the peacocks. I would cry as cartoon network glowed on the TV in the distance.
*******************************************************************
     Three weeks before Bob died, Mom thought it was best that he moved out. My knee was healed then, but I was sitting on the couch anyway, waiting for him to come home. They let me keep the screw that they took out of me. I threaded it through a silver chain and wore it around my neck. There were these little spikes on it that made it easier to grip onto bone, and it scratched my skin when I wasn’t careful, but the thing had been a part of me, holding me together so long, that I wasn’t ready to get rid of it. I twisted it over and over again on its chain as my mother told me what she had done.
      Bob came into our lives when I was seven. He almost erased everything my father had done. We were finally a family. He took us fishing, and tucked us in at night. My mom would make dinner that we all sat at the table to eat. They smiled at each other a lot.
     By the time he left, the cancer had spread to his brain. The big guy I had always known was a tall, hazy shadow of himself. Like if you reached out to touch him, you’d only come back with a fist full of black powder. He was fading. He would look at you like he didn’t know where he was or who you were. His dark brown eyes would squint at you mid-sentence, as if he was thinking really hard. I guess it freaked my mom out, but not me. I could still see him.
     Mom told me she didn’t want to wake up one morning to find him cold and not moving.
     I didn’t know he was leaving. He said goodbye to me without the usual hug, probably well aware that he was disintegrating. He didn’t want me to see.
*******************************************************************
     My mother divorced my father when she was a little older. She kept all of his things. Old baseball cards, records he danced to with us when we were little, the peacock couch. She kept them all in the house we grew up in. She hung their wedding photos in the living room above the tan sofa. The white of my father’s smile always betrayed what we had all become too used to.
     We only saw this side of him in photographs. My mother signed divorce papers on the coffee table she and him bought at a yard sale before we were born. She would take a break from her paperwork and hang more pictures of them together. Smiling at each other on the walls of our mold infested house. Walls that were separating from the ceiling and the carpet because it wasn’t built on level foundation.
*******************************************************************
     I set my glass down on the coffee table and noticed two boxes on the opposite end of the couch. The kind that people steal from behind grocery stores when they’re moving.  A picture of my father dressed in a tux smiling loomed over me in a golden frame. I opened one box, carefully slitting the clear tape at the top. My nose filled with stale cigarette smoke as soon as the seal was broken. Inside were ceramic lighthouses. Bob loved them. Everywhere he went he would pick one up and bring it home. I never got to ask him why he liked them so much.
     The other box was virtually empty except for a few keys that probably didn’t open anything anymore, mismatched silverware with bent handles, and a chipped plate with red flowers painted around the edge.
    The lighthouses would go to people who never really knew him. The box of broken parts and silverware would probably end up in a junk drawer somewhere in the house. My stepfather’s ashes sat in a box in the hall closet. No one could agree where to scatter him, but they thought it was best my mother have this piece of him.
     I went back into the kitchen, my soup boiling over the edge of the pot in a stream of red magma. It seeped over the stove, grazing the silicone of the can opener. I grabbed a paper towel and wiped it off, shoving the heavy metal object in my hoodie pocket before and I spooned the soup into a mug and placed it next to my sandwich on the coffee table. I sat down on the couch near the window and turned on the TV.
     And I bit into my grilled cheese. It tasted like ashes.

A Book Review: Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno

     Alright, so I finished this book about three weeks ago. Get off my back. I've been busy with editing and super-secret-exciting-writing-things...and seeing The Hunger Games. And getting on the non-stop-fucked-up-I-cannot-look-away-derailed-train that is Fifty Shades of Grey. But that's an entirely different blog post...or...five.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on this book:

     If you have ever been in high school, read this book.
     If you ever felt like you didn't belong, read this book.
     If you ever felt like you didn't fit into your own family, read this book.
     If you like The Misfits, Guns and Roses, The Smiths, classic rock, punk, or goth music, read this book.
     If you ever went to basement shows, read this book.
     If you ever tried to get with a girl/guy that just didn't get that you wanted to get with them, read this book.
     If you have ever heard of or were/are part of the East Bay, Hardcore, Straightedge, etc movements, read this book.
     If you live in a hick town, read this book.
     If you ever/do own(ed) a skateboard, read this book.
     If you have ever tried to dye your hair an unnatural color such as pink, blue, or green, read this book.

   ...And those are just a few reasons.
     I don't even know where to start with this book. I loved it. Loved, loved, loved it.
     The story follows this kid named Brian Oswald, who is this normal teenager, going through trying to find out who he is while his home life is falling apart. He tries to fit in with this girl, Gretchen, who's a punk, and falls in love with her and junk. But she's busy chasing this other, older, really gross guy.
     The story takes place in Chicago's South side, where racism is rampant, there are skinheads, and black kids at school get segregated based on the music they listen to (in so many words).
     Actually, everything in this book seems to come down to music. That's probably why I loved it so much. The writer must have either kept a journal in high school, or just has a really good memory. But when you're in high school, at least it was my experience, so much depends on what music you listen to, what clothes you wear, which "sub culture" you belong in. This story shows how everything can change if you listen to something that not everyone excepts...like The Misfits.
     And this book is HONEST. It is so heart-breakingly honest, that I wanted to find this character and hug him and go combat boot shopping with him, and just tell him that everything will get better once he's out of high school, I promise.
     There is no filter, which is something I loved. If this kid was thinking about sex, he was thinking about sex...in detail. If someone got a bloody nose, they got a bloody nose, in all it's gory-goodness. There were times where the character said or thought the word "fuck" so many times that I had to stop and say, "Yes. he's got it right."
    This book does one of my favorite things ever: saying a lot by saying very little.
    You see the world through Brian's glasses, and you begin to feel what he feels and understand why.
    This book seriously has everything that I love in it with the exception of Amanda Palmer. But this was written before Amanda Palmer, so I will forgive the author. : )

    


     With all of that said, I think there are a FEW drawbacks to the book:
     When my friend, Sara, let me borrow this book, she said something like, "Here, it's about punk stuff. I think you'll like it." And she was spot on. However, I think for all the reasons that I love, love, loved this book, others could hate it for.
     People who may not be familiar with punk, or the "reasons to read the book" that I listed above, may be completely turned off. If someone has no idea what hardcore or straightedge is, they'll be confused. The author, therefore, the character, does not stop to explain what each sub-genre of music/lifestyle is, but there's a point. Also, at first glance, the plot seems to drop off in the middle of the story. But when I went back a tiny bit and re-read it, my mind was blown as to why it seemed that way.
     I don't want to ruin the whole story. I hate it when I read a book review and the whole story is revealed. BUT I will say this: this is not your average story, and it is not your average person telling it. The whole thing is a commentary on how and why people think, act, dress, listen to the types of music that they do. And the fact that all of it, ultimately, does not matter.
     And that, my friends, is why, even if you have no clue why this kid's favorite band sings songs with lyrics like, "I've got something to say, I killed your baby today," you should read it until the end.
     Brian Oswald comes to the very same realization by the end of the book that I had by the end of my high school experience. That's it's all bullshit.
     That's all I'm going to say about it.
    
     So, all "the weird kids" would probably appreciate this book the most, just because they'll get it first.
     But all you non-weirdos should read it anyway.
  

Time: A really long list of books

            So Summer is coming up, and I CANNOT WAIT.
            I always feel so great at the end of the semester, whether it's the Fall or Spring one. But of course I'm going to be more excited about the Spring semester coming to an end because the break is WAY longer--which means more TIME.
            Time is something I never ever have when I'm at school, so I'm super stoked to just have extra time not devoted to homework. Instead, I'm doing the usual: editing the story, then querying the story, then writing other things. BUT. This Summer, i have a new thing I want to try out: reading!
            Yeah, I know. Soooooo exciting. And it's not like I don't read as of now. But like I said, the time thing...I don't have it. Usually, when I manage to have spare time, I'm only doing what I have listed above, which I love love love doing, don't get me wrong. It's just that...I would really love love love to take a break from being kind of stressed out (mainly about the querying part) and escape from things the way I used to: plain old sitting somewhere comfy and reading.
            Seriously, if you know me, you know I love to read, (what writer doesn't?) and I always seem to have a different book. My friends always comment on how many bookshelves I have, I must of read all of those books, and therefore, I must be a better, more enriched, human being because of it. People must think I'm a super-awesome-speed reader. Nah. Nope. None of it. I just have a hard time concentrating on one book at a time while school is in the mix for some reason.
            And those book shelves? Illusions, Micheal! (You're my insta-friend if you know what that is in reference to!)

            So to motivate myself in this new-kind-of-not-really-new idea,  I'm making a list of books to read...or just finish, because there are a lot of those lying around. But there are rules.If there are no rules, I feel like I'll just end up buying tons of books to add to the almost finished book shelf, which would be kind of counter productive.
           Rule 1: I can only read the book if I have it in my possession. This means (with few exceptions, meaning the book hasn't come out yet and is due out this summer) that I have to read and finish the books I have, unless they're awful, before buying the books on my wishlist.
          Rule 2: Read all borrowed books first. I have a really hard time giving back books in a timely manner to my friends, so I'm going to en-state this rule for those poor souls still waiting for their books to come home to them.
          Rule 3: In between reading books that are borrowed, I have to finish at least one book that I own that I've started but never finished. That way, i will feel like I am reading more, even though I'm pretty much not, because I literally have like, a few chapters left of most of the books I have yet to finish.
         Rule 4: As strict as I am with writing, I am not as strict with reading. so I am going to follow the same rule I have when it comes to writing for myself: Read a little every day.  Even if I'm busy, or don't feel like it. Do it. I will thank myself later. Trust me.
           So, here we go, a not-even-close-to-being-finished-list of books I want to read/buy/finish this summer.


Book number 1: Looking for Alaska by John Green

      Yes, I know, most people have already read this book and know of John Green's super amazing-ness. But dude, I read The Fault in Our Stars first. That book was so sad, and funny, and beautiful, that it hooked me into buying this book the day I finished it.
     ...And then it sat on my bookshelf, where it was neglected for months and months and months. I haven't decided which order I'm going to read the books I've bought, but this is definitely up there.
     You want a synopsis? eh, here's one from Amazon:
     Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter's adolescence has been one long nonevent - no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps," he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school's rich preppies. Chip's best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Alaska's story unfolds in all-night bull sessions, and the depth of her unhappiness becomes obvious. Green's dialogue is crisp, especially between Miles and Chip. His descriptions and Miles's inner monologues can be philosophically dense, but are well within the comprehension of sensitive teen readers. The chapters of the novel are headed by a number of days "before" and "after" what readers surmise is Alaska's suicide.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book number 2:  Half Black Soul by H.D. Gordon

      Now, don't go calling me biased because one of my friends wrote this. Fuck you, she's and amazing writer, and if you haven't read her first book, Blood Warrior, you should go to Amazon right now and read that.
      So I started this, and got a good chunk of it read before midterms smacked me in the face. I've read pieces of it here and there, but I haven't had time to dive right into it for a while. This is probably going to be the first book on my "finish" list. Just because it is amazing, and I love all of her characters. If you like vampires, and blood, and not the typical "oh you're a vampire, well, I automatically love you because of that fact" vampire fiction, read the first book and then read this. I mean it.
     Oh, here's a synopsis from Amazon:  In the past few weeks Alexa Montgomery has had her entire world flipped upside down. She's gone from living a semi-normal teenage life to a life full of vampires and werewovles who all expect her to deliver them from the control of an evil dictator because she is the last of her kind. She is a Sun Warrior. Alexa has left the safety of Two Rivers and gone in search of her mother. WIth her is Kayden, a vampire who is the other half of her, and who will do anything to protect her. But, by going on her quest, she has left behind her sister, the one person she was always told to protect. Secrets will come out, relationships will break and danger lies just ahead. WIll Alexa be able to face it all and come out alive? And, will she be able to protect her sister from danger when she is so far away?

Book number 3: Hairstyles of The Damned by Joe Meno

     My best friend, Sara, was down a week ago and gave me this book to borrow. She said something to the effect of "You'll like this one. It's got punk stuff in it." God, does she know me. Okay, I'm reading this one right now, and I'm about **this** close to finishing it, so I won't copy the synopsis and I'll just sum it up really quick:
     Brian Oswald is a kid whose parents are fighting, is trying to fit in at his catholic school, while trying to find love and be a teenager, and figuring out where he belongs and who he is. Seriously, this book captures to a T what it is like trying to be a punk, and not just that, but a teen in any respect, and just trying to figure it out. I'm not going to say anymore, because I'm pretty sure I'm going to post a book review on it. But you should read it. I'm loving it.


 


Book number 4: Fat Vampire by Adam Rex

     My boyfriend, Al, got me this book for, I think...my birthday last year? I don't know. I do know that I love this book! I honsestly do not know why I haven;t gotten around to finishing it. There are Neil Gaiman and vampire movie/book references. This is funny as hell too. Also, it takes the popular vampire conventions and bends--or just plain laughs at them. And then--THEN--in the middle of this fat kid being truned into a vampire, and the hilarity, there is heart. There is love; there is horror. This will probably be the next book I finish.








Book number 5:  Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

     I know I had to have read this book back in middle school at some time, but I cannot remember reading it, or anything about it, so therefore it is as if I haven't read it. And I really really want to read it. We all know the story by now, I hope, so I'm not going to post a synopsis. I also want to read "Choke," but I think I'll start with this one. Oh, and I don't own this book or anything, so hopefully I will be able to stick to my rules so I finish books that I have and not spend money on this until I actually have it. So. that's that.



Book number 6: Shatter me by Tahereh Mafi  

      With very few exceptions(The Hunger Games and things), I'm not too big into the new-wave dystopian novels. However, there are a few that I have my eye on, and this book is one of them. I read the first few pages in Target one day, and I really like how it's set up. It starts off quick, but without losing important character building, which I feel like is so crucial in the first few chapters a book sometimes, yet is often ignored in YA. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just what I personally like most of the time. AND there is this cool experimental stuff going on with it. A lot of the lines are crossed out to where you can still read them, and then something contradictory is written instead. And I remember I felt like I was reading poetry rather than a YA book, which was really nice and not something I always like, but it was done really nicely in this. Of course this is on the do-not-buy-until-you-are-absolutely-done-with-the-rest-of-them books...so alas. Until that day.


Book number 7: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larson

     This is one of those books that I'm sad to finish, so that's probably
why I have been stuck on that last ten chapters or so for about three months. It's not that it's slow, or that I don't like it. It's just that I've been reading the series since winter break, and I love love love all of the books. I'm sad to be done. This always happens to me when I read series books. I plow through the first few books, then I get stuck on the last one to the point of craziness where I vow never-again-will-I-read-a-series-ever-I-mean-it-this-time. BUt Lisbeth is just such an amazing character, as well as all of the characters in the Millenium series. I'm going to miss her.
     No synopsis for you. If you don't know what these books are about, that is completely your loss.

Book number 8: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

     Because I love the show, and I love the characters, and if I don't, Al will absolutely slaughter me, I'm putting this on the list. My boyfriend has always told me, from the moment I met him, that he doesn't like to read. Well, I saw it as my job from that moment on to make him LOVE reading for-the-love-of-god-even-if-it-kills-me. So I bought him this book for like, six dollars for Christmas and he read it in a few weeks. He's now on the newest one;I've created a monster.
     There are a few drawbacks that are holding me back from reading this. Okay, I already saw season one, which really means nothing, but Al tells me it's pretty much the same as the book--and then pointed out what wasn't (a monster, I'm telling you!). So I kind of know what's going to happen. Also, it's not the typical thing I like to read. It's very fantasy, which I barely read any of anymore, but used to love when I was younger. However, I really like the Dyer wolves, and John Snow, and the dragons and things like that, so I think I'll eventually get around to reading it. I may just have to break it up with other not finished books and things. Or maybe my estimation is completely wrong and I'll just completely spend my entire summer reading the rest of the series.

Book number 9: A Touch Morbid by Leah Clifford

    
     This is another sequel. I read her first book during the "hurricane" last summer when the power went out at Al's house for like, 12 hours straight. It's about angels, and dark angels, and new-super-natural-creatures that I love love loved. There is also romance, and gore, and darkness. Real, not, "my boyfriend is such a douche bag but I love him so I guess I'm stuck with him. I'm gonna be depressed now," darkness. I could never get into the books about angels and fallen angels, mainly because I always feel like with a lot of them you have to have a biblical background to get any of it, but with this it wasn't the case. So. I may be breaking the no-buying-books-rule for this one, just because I meant to get it when it came out but Stockton made me concentrate on things like earning a degree so I don't have to work at Petsmart the rest of my life.


Book number 10: 

     Okay. So I kind-of-sort-of-may-have-seen-the-movie-and-then-immediately-went-out-to-buy-the-book with this one.
      ...Then the book sat on my to be read shelf for over a year. Yep. Anyway, This book is kind of like the Hairstyles of The Damned book in that it's mostly about being different and trying to fit in while sticking out, finding yourself while growing up, and all the while trying to deal with school junk, family shit, and dumb boys. The character has a really strong and sarcastic voice, one that reminded me a teensy bit of a certain character of mine So. I think I'll like this, I just haven't gotten around to reading it yet. PLUS! Roller derby! How could I forget about roller derby! 







            ...Okay, there you have it. If you've read this far, good for you. This is only a fraction of a fraction of the books I have on my ever-growing list, so stay tuned for new lists and reviews of the books I read! : )

Fear

            So I thought I would start off my new blogger with something I wrote for school.
            Here's a little background before you read it:
            I wrote it for a class called "Writing About Nature." It's exactly what it sounds like. Anyway, for this assignment, we had to take something about nature and explain it to people using science-like-things. I chose bats, and I only used two sciency-things. But I really like how it turned out; it's even better than I thought it could have been.
            My professor thought it was good too, so he asked me to read it at Stockton's Creative Writing Showcase.
              The thing about me and reading out loud to people: I'm usually okay with it. HOWEVER, I have always, always had this inexplicable fear when reading my own things out loud to people. I don't know where it came from, but there it is.
            So, if you haven't seen the video of me reading it that my friend, Matt, recorded using his phone, I'll put it somewhere in here. But take my word for it, it shows that I was nervous. I was scared to read something that was new to me, that I hadn't been working on for years.
            I was scared to read out loud something that was true, because I usually write fiction. I was scared that the people, the actual writers around me, would be judging me.
            But after I was done, professors and college students-and writers came up to me and told me how much they liked it.
            That is what made the whole thing worth the sweating and the shaking and the freaking out.
            The fact that people I didn't even know fouund something that they liked in something that I wrote.
That feeling outweighs the fear.
            So, I'm going to post the actual paper now. That way, people can either just read it, or read it while they listen to me read it, because the sound quality isn't too good. 


So here is the video, if you want to watch:

And here's the actual story:

 Fear: 
The Look in Their Eyes

           

            The creature that stared back at me was terrified. If I turned around, I saw the same look mimicked on the faces around me. Each of the muscles near their eyes and lips were wrinkled in horrific grimaces as high pitched screams pierced through the warm summer air.
             This is the first image that comes to mind when I think about bats. Or middle school. It sounds really bizarre, but maybe a little back story will help.
             When I was about twelve, I was obsessed with horror movies. Was it the blood or gore that I was drawn to? Or was it the safety of knowing that it's okay to be scared, because it isn't real and when the movie is over, you can turn off the TV and resume normal life?
             No. For me, the main reason was this: the look in someone’s eyes. It is so amazing to me that someone can create something so fake, so unbelievable, yet when you're caught in the moment, you feel fear as if it were real. The fear that you feel is completely genuine, no matter how stupid you feel after the lights turn back on.
            I was the girl in school who carried around a coffin shaped back pack , the kid who would rather talk about the different ways to make corn syrup blood during lunch than last night's episode of Gilmore Girls. I was the only person my age that knew that a vampire bat’s cave mate cannot find blood, he will regurgitate blood into his mouth so he would not starve.
            Other kids were afraid of me. I found it impossible to make friends, and I visibly saw them shrink away from me as I walked down the halls.
             Someone in my family thought it was a brilliant idea to invite some of my peers to a pool party one day. We had never had a pool ourselves, but my aunt and uncle had just gotten one. Their house sat in the middle of the woods. Most of the yard was one big, open, space where they had cleared some trees. The remaining oaks hung over us like we were in the middle of the forest. The trees always made me realize how small I felt. Not because I was twelve years old, but small in the world. There was no way I would ever be as big and commanding as those oak trees that loomed overhead.
             The kids in school saw me as something different for the first time. Not only was I that weird kid that sat alone reading Edgar Allan Poe at lunch, I was the weird girl who sat alone reading Edgar Allan Poe at lunch who knew someone with a pool.
            So the bats come in about here.
           Most of that day is cloudy to me. I remember I was excited to maybe make a few new friends out of this deal, but I cannot remember any of  the kids that were invited. Not one. What I remember most came after we had already been in the pool. I swam for a while, went under, and when I surfaced, I remember people pointing and saying “Get out of the pool!”
            It’s then that everything becomes crystal clear. The muscles in the faces of my party guests were twisting into shock, the sound of was water splashing as they all seemed to leak out of the pool. They left me alone and terrified to find what they were all pointing at.
            I turned around and saw clinging to the metal bar, crying like a new born, a baby bat. Everything seemed to slow down in that moment. I noticed everything about the bat and nothing about the situation at hand. Merlin Tuttle, founder and president of Bat Conservation International says that, "Because of their shy nature and nocturnal habits, bats are exceptionally difficult to portray photographically as they really are in the wild". It's only now, when I'm recalling this memory, that I truly believe him. All the pictures I've ever seen of bats are almost scary. They're snarling, or looking like they're about to bite you.
            The thought "bat" registered in my mind somewhere, but it didn't make sense with what I was witnessing in that moment. I waited for the  fear would sink in, when it would fly up and attack. But it didn't. It clung to the bar, crying, and squeaking as everyone around me was freaking out. I remember the brown, velvety skin of its wings. I can recall how pink its mouth was when it opened it to cry. His eyes were always closed.
            Time sped up again, and my uncle was pulling me out of the pool. I remember going back to my aunt and uncle’s house a week later, wanting to know where the baby had gone. My aunt told me that they caught it in a net and set it free, but that was a lie.
           My uncle was afraid that “the thing” had rabies.
           He shot it with a rifle and threw it in a garbage bag.
           My uncle said it over dinner one night like it was nothing. He told us like he had done us a great service and I hated him for it. I cried. I was sad and cried over that strange creature that not many people get to see up close. And I still think about him sometimes, when I’m thinking about trying to make new friends, or middle school, or pools. I think about the baby bat’s eyes, wishing I had seen what was behind them.