Mired

I feel like one of the more problematic aspects of depression is that it works like quicksand. This makes it very difficult to get out.
I am getting more and more mired, but not in the traditional way. The last time I was depressed it was a more constant ailment. My current mental state has swung back and forth, with poor me helplessly strapped to the end of the pendulum, clinging for dear life and unable to move. Perhaps this lack of movement will allow me to survive long enough for someone to get me out of the quicksand.
I think this metaphor is getting messy.
Why do people cry when they are upset? I'm sure it's been asked before many times, but for some reason it only just occurred to me tonight. I asked Ilian, and he said that he doesn't think anybody knows. Curious.
An interesting fact: My eyes turn bright sea-green when I cry. I originally thought this was simply a trick of the light, a consequence of contrast with the red eyes that so often accompany tears, but I have found that the color persists when I cry even if my eyes aren't red. So. Something about how the excess water bends the light? I don't know. It looks kind of cool though.
Silver linings, right?
I should go to bed, but I'd like to exhaust my mind first. It has a habit of puttering about when I want it, just for a little while, for once, to just be silent. I can't turn myself off. I know that it has to do with my intelligence, and my mind's own unique way of working, and that, for all it's flaws, that this is part of what makes me interesting, but. Butbutbutbutbut. It is also part of what makes me insane. I'm not saying insane-good or insane-bad. I'm saying mild insanity, with what perks and detriments that entails. I hope it's a good sign, in some way. I've never heard of a sane genius, for example.
I like physical activity. It makes me feel awake, focused. I should try to be more physically active. Then I could be focused more, and then my brain would actually tired by bedtime.
Focus. Beautiful, glorious focus. My elusive holy grail, my cure-all. When I reach it, in those rare moments where it lingers a bit, I feel as if I actually am living, and the rest of the time I have been half-asleep, living in a daze. Bittersweet as fuck.
You've identified your problems Ms. Lerner, as well as the solutions for the majority of them. Why haven't you fixed them yet? Well??
I don't know. I'm sorry. Please stop looking at me. I mean, please, don't go away, I mean, leave me alone, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean.
I don't know. I'm trying though. I swear to God I'm trying.
"Do or do not," says Byron's voice in my ear, "there is no try."
Fuck off.

Hardly deserves a title

I haven't written here in a while. Hm. It's a good place to go when I grow bored with the internet, a very easy thing to do. It is late, my brother is aggravating, I am sleepy, my dinner was tasty and I am excited about my new art supplies, which I think I should use a little before bed.
Goodnight.

The Book of Flying

The Book of Flying by Keith Miller

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I finished it few days ago. Having allowed it to sit in my head for a bit, I think it is safe to say that this is my favorite book. Yes, my favorite.

The writing is the most superb combination of prose and poetic language I have ever seen. It is a pleasure to read and to speak out loud. The characters are beloved and entrancing, the world beautiful and fascinating, Pico's journey perfect and poignant. It is a story about stories, an ode to journeys, dreams, love, and flight in every form.

I loved it so much. Read it. You won't be sorry.


View all my reviews.

Odds, Bobs, and Tidbits.

I was supposed to be working on my Genetics essay. Instead, I was sifting through old files, things from high school I had forgotten about. I was expecting to shudder a lot. I didn't. A lot of it, I don't remember writing it. Most of the time, when I looked at my writing from high school in the past, it was much worse than I had thought at the time. Not so today. Did some of it need polishing? Duh. Were there mistakes there that I wouldn't have made now? Of course.
Nevertheless: it was actually quite good, a lot of it. Even with the hyper-unpolished stuff, the ideas were still solid. I had all sorts of tidbits floating around on old Sheila, scattered streams-of-conciousness and little pieces of prose.
It was cool.
Here is a tidbit I found. There file's name was Darkness.doc. No title is stated in the text. I can tell I wrote it, but don't remember doing so.

Wasn’t your usual absence-of-light sort of darkness, wasn’t nearly passive enough. Existed in its own right, like sun beams, but wasn’t as direct as light, coiled around everything, sought to fill as much space as possible, seeped into the marrow of things. Was alive. Could smell fear.

The girl stared at the wisps of shadow winding themselves around her ankles. Think of them as a blanket. A nice, soft, protective blanket. Keep moving. She closed her eyes, found her own darkness, took a deep breath, and slowly blew out her own smoky trail of dark. This one, warm and human, comforted, similar to the darkness of the womb or a deep sleep, but with a life of its own. Spirals moved around her, reminding the greater dark that she was not theirs.

The deeper dark moved in on the spirals, coating them, but not suffocating, like a large, dangerous dog deciding that you had it’s approval. Frightening but harmless, so long as she kept her head straight.

Not bad. I wonder where it came from.
Another tidbit, this one rather priceless and not in the least written by me. The file's name is Letter to Carla.doc. When you open it, your eyes get a nice shock, as the blank parts of the page, usually white, are now neon blue. The text is as follows.

Hey Carla it’s me Armand I just want to say I love you and am so happy that you're coming back!!!! You’re the best sister I ever hade!! Do you want to whach I am legend with Danielle and my Friend and I? IL never ferret you when your gone Carla. Has any one told you that you’re beautiful? Hi Yoshiro what’s up? Take care of her; don’t make her sad our some thing is going to Happen to you. Am watching you.

I like the fact that Happen is capitalized. Also, I love my little brother.
In other news, I actually did get work done today. Yay.
Also, I've realized why, even though I'm not going through a dry spell, I haven't had much to report to Kailyn. Sure I get lots of ideas, but unless I'm actively doing something with them, they drift off. I could try to formulate and plan my stories out, but that always makes for the stiff stuff. I mean, obviously that's important, you can't write a novel as you would a spontaneous scene. But. Butbutbut. All the good stuff I write... I just write it. I won't say I don't think when I do it, cause I do, but only as much as is necessary.
So, I'm just going to make things, and not worry about the fact that I don't have much to say at the story-telling pow-wows.
It's not like when I stopped working on my comic, because I am still storytelling.
The play felt good, and I can feel more stirring from where it came from.
Things are going to be picking up speed soon.

Snow

Transcribed from a journal entry:

12/7/08, 3:30ish am, bed, home
Outside, everything is dressed in a thin mask of snow. It reminded me of that one Christmas we spent in Great Neck, where it started snowing a few hours after we got there. I stepped out the front door and stood, arms out, face and palms up, watching with the purest breed of joy. It was a miracle. Soft, fragile, enveloping. As though the sky were raining dreams. After a while I got cold, and went back inside. It was already night when the snow had started falling, so the scene I woke up to still held awezen*. I must have woken up early, because the streets were deserted. Or maybe people simply didn't want to be out in the cold. I don't know. But I remember the thick carpet of quiet bundled around everything, the trees, the pavement, the broken telephone cord calmly bisecting the street, as if it had every right to be there. The lampposts, the rooftops, but most of all the willow tree. Each tendril had its own delicate coat. The snow had preserved every perfect intricacy of the willow in pristine white. Like something out of a fairtytale. I remember explaining it to Nick last year, on that perfect afternoon where we sat at the window and watched the blizzard swirl, whirl, tumble, and flow about. Right after it snows, when everything is still carpeted in quiet - it looks like someone's face when they are sleeping.


*awezen - that which inspires awe

During the Wine-and-Cheese Party

Presenting: A text message written and sent by Carla while drunk to one Adam Bass.

If I were a day, I would contain every sort of weather, my clouds would flow though a myriad of forms, each more fantastic than the last. My winds would plays songs on leaves and lakes and would whisper a thousand inspirations into the ears of poets. My sky would end in flames, followed by a chorus of rain. All would sigh away in a starry night. How is your evening going?

I am a geek, and god do I enjoy it. Being a geek, I mean.
I also like wine. And boys named Adam. And conversations about secrets that break into song in the deep hours of the night.
I should get ready for bed.

Carla Loves Autumn

Written on the Yoko Ono, 10/14/08:
There was piano in the background this morning. I think it may have been coming from the Canon, but I'm not sure. The really impressive thing about it was how far it spread. All around main campus, people were cocking their heads at the sound of plinking keys. There was an actual piano. I know it, because the music was louder in some places than others. Unimportant.
What is important is that it was beautiful. No, it'd be more accurate to say that it made other things more beautiful. There is a difference, you know.
Today is one of those beautiful (a word I know I know I over-use) days one sometimes finds in September or November, but really belong to October. Just cold enough to feel awake and autumnal without being frigid. A tilting breeze caresses the trees, carrying away their leaves. As each of them falls, I imagine they are notes from the mysterious piano, gently plinking down.
The breeze swirls back around again, taking with it a whole new flurry of notes. Its melody teases my hair and explores the contours of my face. An ink-wash sky glows on my back, just for a moment, as I breathe in and take the music with me.

There. I've been meaning to transcribe that for a couple days now. The Octoberness of everything is almost making me dizzy. This is my favorite time of year. I can see the lovely, old, slightly eerie lamps that dot their light along the paths from my front window. The wind is even more talkative than usual, buzzing with the ghosts of a thousand leaves as it sweeps its way across my room. An enchanting trumpet tenders its way through my side window, the shyer of the two. I hear crunching footsteps from who-knows-where, and a series of curled, crinkly, little memories tumble against my screens during their descent.
There is a reason Halloween happens in October.
It's a good thing study-days have arrived, because Autumn is tugging at the running, beating core of me, and I really don't think I can sit still for much longer.