There’s More To Me That I Have Yet To Find

spell catastrophe with a “k”

This subway car is dirty like some glances I’ve seen.
The dingy orange and light beige plastic seats have seen so many different souls over the years.
They’ve seen people fall in love and people fall out of it in crowded dirty trains underneath the city. They’ve seen it all.
For better but they see us at our worst, but maybe we’re all just cursed.

These streets have felt nervous legs. These streetlights have seen hungry eyes telling more than a mouth ever could.
These steps have seen bad days and great nights, conversations. People moving in, furniture carelessly handled, dents.
I just want to climb on my roof and scream sometimes, just to really let everything out. I just need someone to steady a ladder.
I need to be steadied. These floorboards are killing me, they keep me anchored but make me want to jump ship all at once.
Truth be told, my head is crowded.

Truth be told, these are just some words flowing out of my fingertips, due to a lack of sleep.

This feeling is no longer welcome, I need to push it away.
I’m pushing it away but I was never one for routine.

My eyes glaze over, I don’t know how to interact with strangers, I never picked up on these social cues, but I’m trying.
My headphones go over my cold ears and I try to blend in with the scenery (this has never been my strong suit).

My heavy eyes falter and I wipe the black makeup off like my own brand of warpaint.

My bed is ever so inviting, it just doesn’t feel like it anymore.

6 Awful Halloween Costumes and What They Say About You

Sexy Oscar the Grouch

You may have like Sesame Street as a child but obviously were not paying attention. As an observant child, I noticed this character was…well, kind of a jerk. I mean he lived in a trashcan and was grumpy all the time, makes sense right? I’m sure there’s nothing someone finds sexier than a foul smelling rude garbage can dweller.

Other Holiday Mascots on Halloween

I can’t even imagine what honestly goes through the minds of people who dress up as Santa for Halloween. Not only is it inappropriate, but no one likes people like you. You have my personal permission to just sit this holiday out. Everyone sees Santa on Halloween and thinks you’re either insane or just don’t own a calendar. You just don’t GET Halloween, okay?

(See Also: Easter Bunny, leprechauns, pilgrims, and other totally bizarre holiday mascots)

People Who Dress Up As Famous Brands

Congratulations, you not only PAID to look like an idiot but essentially paid a company you already clearly support to advertise for them. I like diet coke with lime as much as the next person, but I would not be caught dead going anywhere near any form of merchandise to advertise them. The shame I feel towards my occasional purchase is bad enough. Keep your Campbells soup can costumes too, no one is going to read into any kind of Warhol reference and you look like an idiot. Also based on your obvious love for said Campbells soup your kidneys might be shutting down.

Women as “cats”

You like cats? I like cats! What a coincidence that every other woman in your office had the same idea, right? False. “Being a cat” is the biggest cop-out costume known to man-kind. You get ears, paint a nose, whiskers, and if you’re feeling saucy a tail. Basically this laissez-faire attitude towards Halloween costumes is part of why I don’t enjoy the holiday as much as an adult. Actual cats would probably be more creative given the chance.

*No offense Pam, you know we love you.

(Note: this of course applies to the most basic of basic cat costumes, which white girls obviously love because it’s oh so easy for them to fashion with their pumpkin spice lattes and Uggs)

Witches 

(See Also: Women as “Cats”)

I’m sorry to break it to you, but wearing a hat is not a costume. If you actually care enough to make this work then by all means, go for it. We all know Jessica Lange made it work.

Sexy “Nem-OH” 

Okay, Finding Nemo was an adorable and overly quoted movie. If you didn’t like Finding Nemo, I’m sure you’re at the very least being monitored by the government (see also: terrorist). Fish are probably one of the top 10 least sexy creatures ever for both genders.

 

 

ode to serotonin

The feeling of my feet pounding against the filthy sidewalk is hard and familiar. Empty coffee cups, unwanted direct mail[1], and other assorted refuse cover the ground. So many people have walked these very same steps before. Sometimes I walk so fast I feel like my legs are going to crumble beneath me and I’ll melt into this puddle of apprehension.

“Pace yourself, pace yourself” I say

“You’re going to get there, don’t make yourself sick”

My heart beats with anxiety and with the best intentions through my chest and the sound permeates through my blouse . I feel like the woman pushing her child in a stroller [2] can hear it from across the street. I’ve never been one to hide my emotions, it’s never been in my nature. I don’t know what has really changed aside from the seasons, waistline, and coping mechanisms.

When I’m told to relax I just don’t know how to compute such an idea. With a thousand different ideas about a thousand different things running through your head, how does one relax when you’re just in millions of different pieces

This is what I want to say when asked, “so how are you feeling today?”

We are all just slaves to our serotonin receptors, right?

---

 

[1] The amount of junk mail I throw out disgusts me. No, I don’t want to buy $100,000 worth of life insurance for the price of a cup of coffee a day, I’m not in that kind of mindset yet. I can’t comprehend things like this just yet, I’m turning 24 in about a week and am in no way ready for a quarter-life crisis.

 [2] Women with those “jogging strollers” make me nervous for their children. Although not quite as nervous as when I see a pregnant women in heels, it’s up there. Who okayed this?

 

My Lack of (Social) Skill

This is about how I wonder why I still live here at times. This is about how I lack social skills. This is about me ranting about my generation, again.

In first grade I was given the insulting name “Barbie girl”, this stemmed from my apparently age inappropriate fondness for Barbies and Barbie merchandise (yeah, in first grade). To this day I cringe whenever I hear that Aqua song. This morphed into a plethora of other nicknames throughout the years until I stopped caring and started dyeing my hair odd colors. I was a very sensitive individual and an easy target. Making me burst into tears wasn’t a very hard thing to do. I kind of wonder how much I have changed over the years in retrospect, but more on that later. [see also: thicker skin]

I don’t find myself comfortable in crowded places. Things like New Year’s Eve in Times Square honestly give me nightmares. The normal day to day crowded spaces I encounter don’t bother me. I either keep myself glued to a book in the subway or on my phone scrolling through one of many unnecessary playlists I’ve created in the past year. It’s incredibly dangerous and anti-social but I feel I keep my ear buds in so much as some weird defense mechanism.

I get scared and ask myself things like:

“What if I run into someone I know”,

“What if I have to deal with the actual world and hear the beggars on the street as I stride down the sidewalk towards my workplace knowing very well I’m nowhere near mentally equipped enough to deal with human beings yet today”

“What if my earbuds become unplugged and I don’t realize it and it’s like that day the people on the subway car heard me listening to Jawbreaker at an uncomfortable volume?” (Since then I of course double check my connections before I leave)

When I should be asking myself things like:

“What IF I run into someone I know”

“What if strangers actually feel like interacting with me like other normal human beings sometimes do when they’re not constantly sleep deprived creatures like myself”

“What if I get mugged?”

I moved to Philadelphia in late 2011. I wanted to escape Berks County and most of my close friends had already completed the migration normal 20-somethings do from a more boring town to the closest metropolitan area. The difference is that now I feel like for the most part I’m not even included here.

I know I’m an interesting person. I know I over utilize puns and think my jokes are about 1000x funnier than they actually are. Lately I’ve started noticing my tendency to talk with my hands. I caught myself giving someone a “thumbs up” sign at work and just stopped. Thumbs up signs are what the cool guy in 90s cartoons are known for, not me. If I act polite like always I “say sorry too much”. I didn’t know there was some book where these social cues were written down, if found please clue me in on its location.

Sites like MeetUp.com exist to help other anxious people like myself in part but even then I’m sure there are cliques. THERE ARE ALWAYS CLIQUES.

Casually saying things like “oh that’s so awkward” and “oh, I’m so awkward” is not cute. Neither is using the word gay in a negative context, so stop doing it.

My social awkwardness isn’t some cliché 20-something problem you see people complain about between tweets about how excited they are for some overpriced makeup line and kale smoothies. I would much rather have a conversation about gentrification and it’s negative effects on Philadelphia over whatever “twerking” is, which I’m still not entirely sure of.

Part of me kind of wonders if our culture of narcissism from things like social media perpetuate this issue. Especially as products of the “Myspace Generation”. There was an even smaller subculture of Myspace kids and we (not legally) trademarked our display names. We took really pretentious portraits with even more terrible captions. Basically the years 2005-2009 were a big mess of eyeliner and angst. The point behind this all is that we amassed these friend lists containing thousands, literally thousands of friends. Despite the 17,000 “friends” you have, you might know less than 50 of them in real life. Myspace kids are still around and are the only reason Hot Topic still continues to stay open at one of many convenient locations for suburbanite children to buy hot pink faux-extensions. The point is we liked the attention. The point is we thought we were cool.  We just moved on from these services and evolved.

We are constantly connected to these digital portraits.  Much like a painter with a canvas, we craft our personas with pixels and clever phrases. There is no Instagram filter for our scars and no comedy writers for things that spew from our mouths. The main thing missing from our generation is authenticity.

“Oh, it would be great if I could just deal with it”

I’ve Got a Bone to Pick With Narcissism and a Few to Break

What is this really about?

This is about the changing of the seasons and my frustration.

I live in my own head, at least it’s warm in here.

The biggest problem with my generation is the fact we feel the need to constantly capture every single moment no matter how unexceptional it is. I am of course guilty of this, we all are. Everyone with an Instagram that feels the insatiable need to photograph their elegantly disheveled hair with just the hint of X-Pro II is the problem.  See Also: Decline of Myspace

I am the problem.

This is the pot calling the kettle black.

Our generation feels the need to let people we know where we are using geo-caching applications. These applications you use end up using you. Never in human history have we been so transparent. In turn, human interaction has never been so artificial. When was the last time you were out with friends and no one used their phones, even for a brief moment?  I am scared for the human race and the future of communication. We have all this technology at our fingertips and we create things like Google Glass and smartphone-esque applications on our watches, who needs that? Who really NEEDS that?

We need to interact more instead of wasting time rotting away watching crappy sitcoms on Netflix instant. See Also: How you lose brain cells

I guess this is a rant, I haven’t put anything up on this blog for a long time. The other blog has received a lot more love and I’d like to use this as an outlet to rant/talk about whatever I feel like.

about 730 days.

This is about the changing of the seasons. This about how you spent the last two years of your life and how you plan to move onto the next several decades. This is about living in the city and starting to despise the fact. This is about waiting for that one mythical second you envisioned as a child where you become and feel like an actual adult, the one that never arrived.  This is about walking alone and night and feeling that lump in your throat when you’re listening to that song and find yourself blinded by streetlights. This is about my being overdramatic.  This is also about my inability to differentiate between sheer coincidence and this grand scheme we call life. This is about how lucky you are sometimes. This is about accountability. This is about panic attacks and feeling like you’re a prisoner in your house. This is about horrible roommates and thieves. . This is about those friendships you let fall by the wayside. This is about those you wish you hadn’t. This is about how everyone is changing. This is about getting your life in order. This is about parallels. This is about how I’ve found myself here. This is about looking back on an entire year and wondering how much you’ve actually changed. This is about contractions and repetition. This is about taking a second to appreciate everything you have and not letting go of that feeling for one single second.

me and Brad have a blog together now and we’re adorkable.

http://howadorkable.wordpress.com/

Rest in Peace Mr. Jobs

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”- Steve Jobs 

If you know me then you know I’m not all about celebrity deaths. I’m not one to care about things like this. I didn’t know Mr. Jobs but I sure wish I did. The guy named his entire company after the Beatles, I’m sure he had to have been a pretty wonderful person. This man sparked a revolution that changed an entire industry. From my first iMac back when I was 8 years old to my first iPod and iPhone, I’ve appreciated what this guy created. Itunes revolutionized the music industry. How else could I have been a 15 year old walking around with thousands of songs in my pocket? I would have been miserable truth be told. I need music like people need caffeine in the morning, I listen to entirely too much music and I’m okay with that. The iPod and iTunes were some of the greatest inventions of my lifetime and as hard as they tried, no other company seemed to grasp the idea like Apple. In elementary school we had to write a letter to a CEO of a company of our choosing. This was right about the time I got my new green iMac and boy was I in love with it, so of course I sent out two letters, one addressed to Apple and one addressed to Nintendo. (Boy I’m glad I did because Mr. Jobs was too busy to respond sadly) Of course I can understand why now, he was too busy changing the world! The world has lost a visionary today. My thoughts are with his family, a time like this is hard for anyone. You will be very, very missed by many.

Create a soundtrack that captures the essence of your 2011 so far.

Holy Bananas! What a terrific idea WordPress!

I’ll start with the quintessential January song:

The New Year by Death Cab For Cutie

“So this is the new year. And I don’t feel any different”

Not only is this song on one of the best albums ever produced, it just makes you feel optimistic about the future. I woke up January 1st, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia visiting my best friend for a couple weeks. We spent the night at a club in a less than welcoming area of Atlanta. After 30+ futile attempts at nabbing a taxi, our only solution was to venture though the ghetto to public transportation. After we got off the train with some of Atlanta’s finest we were forced to take a minivan taxi from the Atlanta airport. It was a pretty eventful night and I am glad all of us made it home without a scratch on us or a new found gang affiliation. More from Gibbard & Company later on.

If Winter Ends by Bright Eyes

“So if there is a perfect spring that’s waiting somewhere, just take me there”

This is probably my most played song during the dreary winter months. Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes are just so good at crafting anthems for anytime of year but this song really just stands out in my mind when I think of winter. This song helped me cope when I was waiting for the tundra to thaw out.

Valentine by The Get Up Kids

“the constants aren’t so constant anymore”

I have to admit that I’m not one of those die-hard-super-duper-The-Get-Up-Kids-Fans but I really enjoy a couple of their albums. (Four Minute Mile and Something To Write Home About) There’s something about Matt Pryor’s voice that just screams, “hey, I was meant to do this”. I grew up hearing about the Get Up Kids and didn’t really give them a chance until I was around 17 or 18. Now that I’m older I appreciate their work a lot more. The last Valentine’s Day I remember actually spending with a significant other happened my senior year of high school. My boyfriend at the time was somewhat thoughtful and we went and made one at one of those Build-A-Bear stores. I probably liked pandas so much because I could relate to them seeing as how we had about the same amount of black around our eyes at any given time. I was a Myspace kid, of course. Putting trademark signs behind your name and having 15,000 “friends” can only get you so far in life.

Objects of My Affection by Peter Bjorn and John

“And the question is, was I more alive then than I am now? I happily have to disagree I laugh more often now, I cry more often now. I am more me”

I found myself listening to this song after I bought this album. I never gave Peter Bjorn and John a fair chance and fell head-first into a deep pool of regret after listening to Writer’s Block. The whole album is very positive and catchy from start to finish. PB&J (yep) crafted an album that made my morning routine a whole lot more tolerable. I am advising against listening to this if you do not enjoy catchy happy songs in your head for weeks at a time.

Finding Something to Do by Hellogoodbye

“I was getting tired of letting all my hours pass, hoping someday, somehow, someway, everything would last”

Hellogoodbye has always put out the most delightful records. I would imagine they would be possibly more delightful if I could listen to them with a significant other who would be willing to listen to music that incorporates ukuleles. Perhaps he even plays the ukulele, the sky is really the limit. Would It Kill You is a different animal. It’s cheery but as we have aged so have the members of Hellogoodbye. So much in fact maybe they have become senile since I never received a vinyl I paid for last year. Of course Hellogoodbye has nothing to do with this but I’m still waiting. Now that members of Hellogoodbye have gotten married their material is a little less..well..spastic. If you heard the mastered version of Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! then you probably know what I mean. I refuse to listen that album on the full length just because of how butchered it got with all that auto-tune. There’s a difference between auto-tune and auto-tune gone horribly, horribly wrong. If you listen to the demos you’re enjoying the actual song and not the added junk. I honestly forgot where I was going with that whole rant.

Everything I Own Fits in this Backpack by The Wonder Years
“We’ve moved on again so I packed my shit and left home. It’s alright to think I still belong to something.”

You have to understand that growing up I was all about pop-punk. I would hear kids I knew were into hardcore music talking about the Wonder Years. I would assume it was some posi-straightedge-hardcore-whatever-music. I was wrong. The Wonder Years lean more towards New Found Glory then say…Terror. Not saying I’m totally against that genre of music but my days of listening to  Bane, One Dead Three Wounded, and Comeback Kid are more than over. I mean I was a kid, I was straight edge and I didn’t know any better. We all have those skeletons wearing black band hoodies in our closets right? Anyway, back to this song. The first week of August I moved to South Philly with a longtime friend of mine and her roommate. I don’t feel comfortable on my street but with the help of some pepper spray and awkward small talk with my neighbors I’m getting there. The Wonder Years are actually a really great band and it’s something me and my younger brother even both enjoy so that’s pretty great.

Helena Beat by Foster the People

“I never knew if I could face myself to change. You were pacing, I was insecure. Slip and fall, I’m dodging calls, hug the prison I’ve been living in”

I was watching an episode of CSI on demand in March and heard a song that I liked. Of course I had an iPhone back then and decided to Shazam it. It was Foster the People. Ever since that fateful night I’ve pretty much listened to Foster the People on a regular basis. Why? Why do I Waste (oh I need to stop) so much time listening to this band? They’re great. Of course their EP and their More Songs EPs available on iTunes in the early spring were a lot less spastic and more my cup of tea. Torches mastered the majority of the tracks off the EP and More Songs but let some of the really good ones slip through the cracks. People who have only listened to Torches are kind of missing out on their earlier material. FtP has become my daily soundtrack walking back to city hall after work just because it’s happy, dancey, and I left my mini-SD card reader back in Reading. I’m also to cheap to resubscribe to mobile Spotify. All the tracks off this album are good. So there. There are much better songs than Pumped Up Kicks out there, I promise.

Pensacola by Manchester Orchestra

“I’m tired of talking to a wall when I could talk to someone else. It’s been seven days without a word and you’re with someone somewhere else”

Manchester Orchestra, where do I been? Where have I been? (no one got that) Manchester Orchestra is in my top 3 favorite bands of all time. Everything they’ve ever released has just been pure gold in my mind. Andy Hull & company can do no wrong. I finally got the chance to see them play earlier in the year with my best friend and it was honestly one of the best shows I’ve ever attended. This was my favorite track of their newest release Simple Math. It’s probably the peppiest one besides April Fool. During the show some less than classy individuals who were behind me decided that they could sing the song better than Mr. Hull and proceeded to do so. I was not happy. Manchester Orchestra is in one word, wonderful.

Palomino by Mates of State

I have to admit I haven’t listened to Mates of State since I was 19 or so. This is when I discovered good indie-esque music like Her Space Holiday and Say Hi To Your Mom off the same indie-playlist torrent I was obsessed with for months. I kept hearing good things about this album so I decided to give it a go. I’m glad I did, Mates of State just have the ability to put you in a great mood. I have no tagline because I don’t really need one. You can listen to it for yourself. I’m just going to warn you right now how truly infectious this song is, you’ve been warned.

All of This by The Naked and Famous

“I could have made this work but all I had was the hope that pieces would take shape. And we could watch them all fall into place”

More and more this is becoming a “top tracks of 2011” list, and that’s okay. The songs I listen to most do somehow form a soundtrack for my year. You know when you’re sure something could all work great. All you have to do is stop being so shy and say what you want to. It’s so easy…right? No, it’s not. Letting yourself become a passive party ensures one thing, you won’t get what you want. You’ll also regret being so passive down the line. Basically go for it! (in all aspects of life) All of This is probably my favorite track off TN&F’s album Passive Me, Aggressive You. All of This, (not to be confused with the depressing Blink-182 song of the same name) is just lyrically the best song on the album and the easiest to relate to. The Naked and Famous are just so dancey. This entire album is great and I don’t understand how more people I know don’t listen to them. So this is a recommendation, listen to them.

Dig Up the Dead by Mansions

“Nothing in my bones can say just where you’ve been. Nothing in my bones can let me start again. I’ll start again.”

Dig Up the Dead is the newest album from Mansions. Mansions is primarily Christopher Browder playing some pretty great music. I went to see Mansions a few months ago and ended up being (not so) fashionably late. I got there during the second half of this song (the last song) and was CRUSHED. I then spent the night being continuously being chatted up by strangers until I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody’s Business came on. Dig Up the Dead came out about a week before I saw them and it’s really something special. The singer of Mansions and a member of one of my favorite bands, Weatherbox collaborate on a project aptly titled “Manbox”. Yeah…Manbox. I would suggest giving Dig Up the Dead a good listen though.

Monday Morning by Death Cab for Cutie

Death Cab for Cutie is actually my favorite band of all time. From You Can Play These Songs With Chords to their newest release Codes and Keys, they’ve done no wrong. Transatlanticism is my favorite album of all time and I can’t see that changing anytime in the near future. I had higher expectations for Codes and Keys than what I was met with. With every playthrough of this album I gained more appreciation for tracks like “Doors Unlocked and Open” which has since became on of my favorites off the album. The first one to stand out to be besides the single was Monday Morning. A little before Codes and Keys was written Gibbard claimed he defeated alcoholism and married Zooey Deschanel. (Even as a straight female I’m kind of jealous of him, the woman is a goddess) Ben Gibbard and Zooey Deschanel are just the most powerful of the indiest-indie power couples. Deschanel has a project with M. Ward called She & Him which is also very very worth checking out. She sings, she acts, and is adorable. She has a great song written about her as well? Zooey Deschanel, I am jealous of you and I’m not jealous of anyone.

Choir Vandals by The American Analog Set

I cannot find anything particular about this song that relates to my year thus far.That being besides the whole “I just want to be someone you know” in regards to the Jewish looking boy with thick-rimmed glasses I see periodically at city hall on my way home from work. I heard a Ben Gibbard cover of it once and just fell in love with it only to realize it was in fact a cover..I liked the song so much that I actually downloaded their music and pretty much fell in love with them.

Don’t Say Oh Well by Grouplove

“So do you got that sweet devotion? oh will you follow your heart’s plan? Oh why not jump in to that ocean and run your fingers through your hair”

I honestly can’t remember how I first found out about Grouplove but I’m very glad I did. Every song off their self-titled puts me into a great mood. The subject matter of this album seems to be all about how they’re making it in their genre. They’re probably my newest musical discovery that I’m actually still really into a week later. I will definitely be buying tickets the next time these guys are in the area. Great energy makes great music.

I really wish I could do this justice. I really wish I could give you strangers/friends who care enough to read this/people who secretly hate me but read this anyway a better view but you probably wouldn’t care anyway.

How frustrated I’ve been lately

very, very frustrated.