easter weekend

I feel I've done a terrible job lately at making this space an accurate reflection of my life, which is sad because that's really my only goal here. That, and to share & connect with other people. It's not that I haven't been writing -- I write two or three pages almost every day in my journal -- and it's not that I haven't been taking pictures, either -- they're still on my camera. I just haven't really been blogging, or at least, not as much as I want to. And when you don't blog for a few weeks, there are things that inevitably slip between the cracks, and then suddenly there's too much to catch up on that you kind of have to let it all go because it's no longer relevant. I could list out things that have happened -- but when would I start? I have things from January I never talked about. I still have pictures from October I've never posted.

But I think it's easiest if I just start with this weekend.

Friday I went shopping & got these new pants pictured below, as well as a shirt and some other stuff. They're a lot more comfortable than jeans. I also went to Texas Relays to see some people from my team run because that's what I do with my free time now apparently? Anyway, that was cool.

Saturday I helped out at an Easter egg hunt at the farmer's market downtown and then went to Deborah's birthday tea party, where we watched this hilariously strange Japanese movie and ate way too many delicious homemade sweets. I drove there and back and driving doesn't really freak me out anymore, but I still need to practice a lot. I still would like my license right now, though. That evening I went running with Claudia, because running is a lot better with other people. I definitely don't hate running as much as I used to (you should read some of my old posts; real gems there) but it's still my least favorite part about track/cross-country, which I love. Go figure. Yeah, but anyway, 45 minutes goes by much quicker when you have someone to talk to, and run through sprinklers with (it's that time of year).

Today we went to church and then had a brunch and I mostly caught up on homework I'd put off earlier. Incidentally, work/homework is my least favorite part of school. I just want to go to have fun, right? And they're like, read all these chapters and answer all these questions and write all these essays. Nah, man. I just want to make friends. I just want to paint a little and eat cake balls and watch the seniors nearly kill each other playing assassins during passing period. That's what I'm here for. Just so we're clear on that.

Lately I've been watching Gossip Girl when I have the time and listening to a lot of Vampire Weekend, Two Door Cinema Club, and Noah and the Whale. It sounds like spring in my ears. And it feels like spring outside.

Happy Easter! (Yeah, we still have a pumpkin from Halloween...)

new york // brooklyn

It was my second time in New York, but my first time in Brooklyn. It's interesting because it's still just as multicultural and full of all different types of people as Manhattan is, but it's somehow less crowded and crazy. We had dinner at this little Italian restaurant recommended to us my nine-year-old second cousin and I enjoyed feeling fancy eating cheeses paired with figs even though I was really just wearing jeans and my track sweatshirt.

It was super cold and uncomfortable walking around but it was all very interesting and the view from the hotel was rather gorgeous. It seems so far away now...

messy lines

I'm very good at eavesdropping;
not so good at interjecting.
"Tell me your problems," I implore my friends
but when they ask me to reciprocate
I can only offer a sympathetic expression
and a broken,
"I can't."
No explanation for the things
even I don't know.
And there is so much I don't know,
about myself and about everyone else,
and so much no one else knows about me, either.
"You're like an iceberg," my friend told me on the bus today,
as we exchanged intermittently insults and thoughts on life,
"because you can only see a fraction of really what's there."
I guess she has a point but I'm
not an iceberg
not really.
I couldn't ever take out an unsinkable ship.
I'm nothing that strong
and my thoughts aren't that deep; there're just so many of them.
Not an ocean,
just little raindrops that fall and evaporate and
don't mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things.
Not a hurricane,
more of a November morning fog that's gone by the time you reach school
Something ghost-like --
oh, but I am not a ghost, either
I have scrapes on my elbows and blisters on my feet
(small reminders of my own mortality)
and I wear shoes that click-clack-clack on the pavement
so that everyone can hear when I walk down the hallway.
I hear my heart pounding before I open my mouth sometimes
and I suppose I live for that
both literally and figuratively.
I have no one person I can tell everything to
but I have a year's worth of secrets
pressed between pages of a notebook,
scattered over texts, scrawled in the margins of worksheets.
When people tell me I am quieter than usual
I would like to show them the inside of my mind,
and say, somehow, that
everything is a poem I cannot write
full of words I cannot quite excavate.

new york // the high line

New York was:
one short Sunday afternoon in Manhattan / that's all / and a bit of Brooklyn later / very cold / lots of red and yellow / pizza pizza pizza / stylish people / full of cars honking / (my dad fit right in) / a break before a week of college tours / more on that later, I suppose / fun for a visit , but I don't think I could ever live there

the start of spring break

Well, I'm leaving tomorrow for New York. I'm going to visit colleges around New England, mostly in Massachusetts, but we're flying into JFK. Incidentally, the only other time I've been to New York was also March, and it is a pretty miserable time to go (cold but without the fun of Christmas. I don't know if I'll have any time to sightsee on this trip, but I'll take my camera anyway and we'll see what happens.

We have to leave for the airport around 5:45 in the morning, but, predictably, I am attempting to write a blog post without any sort of end goal in sight. I feel like this is a recurring theme in my life, but I'm not sure.

God, time flies by so quickly. It's weird that it's Spring Break already. It's seemed so far off for such a while and now that it's here, it just feels weird. I've been a bit disoriented all week, to be honest. I keep forgetting what day it is. Spring fever, maybe? But it doesn't actually feel like spring yet. It's been gloomy and rainy for the past two days.

I took the SAT this morning, for real this time. In a word: mind-numbing. I hope I did well. But I'm not going to worry about it until I get my scores. Afterwards, I went to Sydney's house (it took us like 45 minutes to get there because of all them hipsters clogging up my streets downtown for SXSW #getoutofmyhouse). We made cinnamon rolls, for lack of better word, and while waiting for the dough to rise, went to Goodwill (dress: $3.95) and Neiman Marcus (dress: $5,000). And we hit Torchy's for some chips and queso. That's how it's done.

Now I'm trading in shorts and queso for leggings and snow(?).

I should get some sleep.
See you on the other side.

at peace

If you stand at the top of the hill on the street your best friend in fifth grade used to live on, you can see the lights in the houses across MoPac. The hills on the other side of the highway look so close but so far away and that's kind of how running through your neighborhood feels, too. It's strange because you know your way through it like the back of your hand, this place you've lived for over sixteen years, but it seems so foreign on this not-quite-winter, not-quite-spring night. At the start, your mind is heavy with the thought of tests and people and things that cause creases in your forehead. But as your watch ticks the seconds and the sun gives way to the stars and the artificial -- but no less beautiful -- lights inside the houses, you will start to feel at peace. And when you reach the top, you won't stop to admire the view, but you will go around the block one more time just to keep on looking.

It will move you. You will want to take a picture, but you've got to learn there are some things you can't photograph and some you can't even write about. Some you just have to keep inside, under your chest, maybe, pressed against your lungs, or between your ribs.

When you get home, the peace is shattered with the sound of voices and the bombardment of colors and lights. It's like coming up to the surface after swimming underwater, all the noise that suddenly jerks you out of your dreams of being a mermaid. You think of Prufrock: "'til human voices wake us, and we drown." This is reality; this is not a children's picture book.

Running is nothing like flying, but when you look at pictures you can see both feet off the ground and for a few seconds, you'll feel a tiny bit invincible.