I've lately developed an interesting, and probably strange, habit. When I'm going about my day, in my various tasks and activities, I've noticed that my thoughts have become more of a formulated "inner monologue". I start to think as if I'm writing in past tense about what's going on in the moment. For example, yesterday I was going to take a shower and I couldn't find my normal body wash. After looking through the drawers and cabinets in my bathroom and deciding that my little sister must have stolen it for the road trip to Idaho she and my parents took this weekend, I broadened my search to include my parents' bathroom.

As I rummaged around, I became oddly self-aware of my own thoughts. I suppose that during a task such as wandering around your house in your bathrobe looking for body wash, most people will lend themselves toward thinking about something else, something totally unrelated. After all, how thought-consuming can looking for body wash be?

Instead, my thoughts went something like this: I opened drawer after drawer, checked under both sinks, looking behind bottles of rubbing alcohol and cologne for body wash, or at least an unopened package of hotel soap.

The cause for this, I think, is my ever-increasing interest in being a writer. Because of this, and also thanks to my creative writing class, I have become more observant, more aware of my surroundings, and even of my own thoughts. I'm always thinking about to turn something into an interesting narrative. I'm always asking myself the question, how would I write about this if I wanted to post it in my blog, or include it in a creative writing project?

Maybe I should make myself a woven bracelet, embroidered with the acronym W.W.I.G.D - What would Ira Glass do?

Or maybe that sounds a little too crazy-obsessive.

Coffee, music, and artsy thoughts

I feel a little sick to my stomach, as well as a little jittery. It's like I can't sit still; I'm tired, but I don't feel like I can rest. It's probably the coffee I had earlier. Maybe I need to eat something, or drink some water.

One of my new favorite stations on Pandora is my "Philip Glass" Radio, especially as background music for doing homework. Last semester at Biola, Paul Barnes, a musician/composer and monasticism advocate, came and did a lecture about minimalist music and monasticism. I have the notes from it somewhere, but at the moment I can't remember much of what he said. I do remember being incredibly impressed by his preview performances of some pieces he'd be playing at a concert later that night, which I couldn't go to because I had to read Dante's "Purgatory" for class, and I was visiting my sister Rebekah in L.A. He had some really cool stuff to say about minimalism; I'll try to dig up my notes and post some more about it later.

Anyway, it's Paul Barnes' lecture that introduced me to Philip Glass, because Barnes and Glass have been collaborating on some huge composition project for something like eleven years now. If you're a fan of excellent piano/orchestra music, and if you get tired of the typical classics like I do, check it out on Pandora. I get tired of the normal, and sometimes I need something a little more abstract to keep me refreshed and interested.

I haven't sat down to play the piano in a long time, which is sad because I have a piano all to myself here at my parents' house. When I'm not taking lessons, it's so hard to keep in practice. But Philip Glass' music makes me want to drop what I'm doing and go play piano. And to me, that's a mark of good music - that is, music that makes you want to hear/play/create music.

The same goes for any kind of art form, really. I think that art - be it music, literature, studio, theatre - should inspire the study and creation of more art. And it seems like it always does, because the thing about art is that there's never just one way to do or interpret something, so people are always coming up with something new and different.

It can be frustrating; I think we've all had times where we throw our hands up and say, "It's so subjective! What the hell is art, anyway?" That's a real aspect of it. But what I love about the subjectivity of art is that it means the conversation will never end, the creation will never cease. Artistic expression will never be exhausted. Humanity will never come to a point where we say, "That's it. We've seen and learned and said everything there is to say, and we have expressed it in every way that we can. We have completed our endeavors in art."

I'm thinking of starting a separate blog to self-publish some of my more academic/creative writing. I'm taking a creative writing course this semester, and we just finished up our poetry section and are about to start with creative non-fiction, which I am VERY excited about because that's the kind of writing I want to do, primarily.

The idea came to me while walking home (well, to Jordan's house) in the freezing cold today. It seems beneficial to have a separate forum for my more polished work.

Dear Miss Anthropologie

I will never be like you.

You, in your slouchy sweaters and clacking vintage heels and enormous, waist-sinching belts.

You, with your chunky jewelry and stylish knits. With your golden gladiator heels, and opaque black stockings.

Please don't mistake me - this is no insult. I admire your sense of fashion, and the obvious time and effort you put into your wardrobe. I wish I could be similarly well-dressed, and with such variety, every day! Unfortunately, I'm usually rushing to finish work I've procrastinated, or to find something clean to wear, or simply choosing to devote a few extra minutes to my sleep rather than to my appearance.

Sometimes, I wish I were like you, Miss Urban Outfitters from Later English Lit class. Or are you Miss Anthropologie? It doesn't make much of a difference, granted, but I thought I saw you there last week, so maybe it's more accurate.

But yes, sometimes I do wish it - undoubtedly my closet is bleak and outdated compared to yours, a fact I can admit without shame or hesitancy. I wear clothes I find, I borrow clothes from my more stylish sisters, but on the whole, I'm afraid I'm not entirely fashion-forward. And I possess a conviction, deep within me, that I may never be entirely so. I may have good pieces or a few nice outfits, but for now, at least, who has the time, or the money?

Well, you do, of course, Miss Anthropologie. You are Emily Blunt's Emily to my Anne Hathoway's Andrea (from the first half of the movie, at least). And for that, I admire you from afar; which the best I can presently do.

Even in Very Little

Why are the things that are best for you always the hardest things to do?

I think I can predict fairly accurately that I'm going to get a B in my gen. ed. astronomy class this semester. And I'm fine with that. B's are frustrating because they're the mediocre grade. You didn't do bad enough to get a C, but you didn't try hard enough to get an A.

Maybe it's a vice, or a blessing, or both, but I have a tiny voice in the back of my head that's always urging me to do more, to do better. Like for this astronomy class, I know I'd get more out of it if I did all of the reading all the time, or if I simply checked often enough so my online homework assignments weren't late, but I've had a lot of trouble disciplining myself this semester.

It's a delicate balance. I used to slave over my Torrey work for hours and hours, until it got to the point in my Freshman spring semester where my mentor asked me, "When was the last time you did something for fun?" and, after an introspective pause, I admitted (somewhat surprising myself), "I don't remember."

From experience I know, it's definitely possible to over work. And often times, it's easy to feel like there are more important things in life than homework, especially homework for a gen. ed. astronomy class. But if I think that way too much, I slip into laziness, because on some level I know that how I do in my gen. ed. astronomy class is just as important as how I do in any class for my major. Integrity and discipline are cultivated, or not cultivated, in many ways and situations. In Luke 16, Jesus says to his disciples,

"One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?" (v. 10-11)

It's strange to think that even in my boring gen. ed. astronomy class, I have an opportunity to be sanctified, and to glorify God in my work and interactions with others. Of course, I know that there really are things more important than gen. ed. astronomy class, and that one must be aware of where to draw the line. I suppose that's where wisdom comes in.

A Poem

In my introductory creative writing course, we've been spending these first few weeks focusing on poetry - reading and writing lots of poetry. This is one of the more recent ones of mine: a political poem. Before I go into too much explanation, I'll let you read it:

"Shadows"

A woman who wore a checkered shirt now has checkered skin,

branded by the heat.

Corpses unclaimed, unidentifiable; faces burned, clothes burned, skin burned black.

A mountain of hollow skulls, the remains of those killed, too numerous to bury properly.

Everything is burned. The ground, the rubble, the sky - all black with ash and smoke,

as if nothing will ever look the same again,

as if nothing will ever be bright and alive again.

Everything is melted, leveled, piled up in smoking heaps of debris and body parts.

That corpse was a person once.

Did they love someone? Did they have children?

They are burned for the crimes of those with more power, more threat, like an offering.

A sacrifice.

Closest to the blast, there are no remains at all.

But on a bridge, there are two discolored patches.

Shadows.

Shadows of people who were standing right there, and now . . .

only shadows. Their ghosts, eternally embedded in the concrete.

Maybe they were the lucky ones. Maybe they didn't feel it.

At least there is a record that they were there.

That they existed.

That there was a time when they were real, and alive.

No one knows their names, or what their voices sounded like.

But there is proof.

They were right there.

I originally wanted this to be a prose poem, but Jordan pointed out to me that prose poems aren't supposed to have line breaks, so I'm not really sure what it is. I tried to use the line breaks for dramatic affect.

Thoughts?

I may have just stumbled upon a gem embedded in the invisible inter-weavings of cyber space. Actually, this feels like more of a full-out treasure trove, fantasy pirate-unwitting adventure-surprises around any corner style.

In a Google search for "historical literary podcasts", one that I embarked upon in an attempt to find a good source for background info on what I'm reading for my literature classes, one of the first links that popped up took me here:

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php

It's called "The Writer's Almanac" with Garrison Keillor, the unmistakable host of "A Prarie Home Companion", and it's an online historical, literary archive and weekly newsletter AND podcast (which features Mr. Keillor reporting highlights from this day in history and reading selected poems and other works).

In case you didn't know, I have recently begun shaping a part of who I believe I am going to be; that is, a dedicated fan of podcasting and literary journalism (aka creative nonfiction) and an aspiring writer/journalist/radio personality (dreaming big, here) in that field. It's why I changed my major to English, with an emphasis in creative writing. It's why I kept a blog about "The Dining Room" (see Theatre Thoughts) which I turned into my very first podcast. It's why I have probably close to a hundred episodes from NPR, This American Life and The Moth stored on my iPod.

Needless to say, I am hooked.

There's something a little depressing about coming home after being away for over a year and discovering that half of the clothes in your old closet are now too small for you. And it's not like you were a tiny little slip of a thing in high school, and this is due to natural growth. No, it's just that buttons won't fasten without pulling the fabric, or that shirt now hugs you just close enough to have crossed the line from "fitted" into "too small" territory. Besides, I think girls finish most of their "natural growth" by the time they graduate high school, anyway.

If you're wondering why I'm musing about clothing, it's because I just spent the last half hour doing something I'd been procrastinating for weeks: cleaning my room. Mostly, my messiness has to do with clothes. I get lazy so I don't put my clothes away at the end of the day, and they pile up on chairs and in baskets and sometimes just on the floor, until it gets so out of hand that I can't ignore it any more. Plus, I'm running out of clothes to wear, and I tire of digging through corners of my closet to find something clean. Which is how I discovered this "too small" thing. A very cute jacket I bought at Forever 21 when I was a senior in high school, and that I tried on again a few days ago to try and look nice while I went job-hunting, is now barely too small to button comfortably in the front.

Which is as good a segue as any: I am officially on the job hunt. So far I've applied at Starbucks and a couple of local restaurants.

I'd like to get a serving job, so today I got up early (well, early for a Saturday) and, along with a dozen or so fellow servers/aspiring servers, got my alcohol servers license (did I use "servers" too much in that sentence?). It made me feel like I was part of some elite group, sitting there at my white, plastic fold-up table, listening to stories and tips from those more seasoned at alcohol service. Because of it's effects, alcohol has to be monitored very, very carefully, and as a server of alcohol, you're the one responsible for monitoring customers, keeping track of how many they've had in what amount of time, and cutting them off before they're so drunk that if they go out and get in an accident, you're liable for over-service. Not to mention checking I.D.s, watching out for SID agents (which basically just means doing your job right), and keeping a strong front against customers who may get angry if you don't give them the drinks they want.

It gives you a sense of great responsibility to not only provide good customer service, but to also protect your customers, their families, and anyone else who could potentially be hurt by someone who's been drinking too much. As the class went on, it got a little daunting.

I was shocked to learn that it's actually against the law to refuse service of alcohol to a pregnant woman. The reasoning is that you can't discriminate again "classes of people", and pregnant women would fall under a "class of people." You can greatly discourage them from drinking, or pass them off to someone else to be served, but legally, there's nothing you can do to stop a pregnant woman from buying alcohol.

Anyway, five hours later and I'm licensed to serve alcohol, which will hopefully make me more hirable at restaurants.

The Sarah/Julie/Julia Project?

I've started reading Julie Powell's Julie and Julia, the middle installment of the movie-based-on-a-book-based-on-a-blog process that ended with last year's theatrical release starring the brilliant Meryl Streep and the adorable Amy Adams. At first, I was a little put-off by her crass language; it's not too much to be totally inappropriate, but it's enough to make her seem a little prickly around the edges.

But now I'm hooked. It's addicting, and a little inspiring - after all, Julie Powell was somewhat of an aspiring writer who got started by documenting her thoughts and impressions on a blog. I guess I take for granted how easy it is to be self-published these days. If you're good, it's a good way to get your foot in the door in the new-media/publishing industry.

Which begs the question: am I good? A college professor said in a lecture once that if you're posting online, you're findable. And if you're good, people will come to you. As of now, I don't exactly have a fanbase, outside of immediate family and friends. Maybe I need some kind of short-term goal to give my writing a more concrete direction and framework, like Julie Powell. That seems to be key to that kind of success, that is, having a goal, a thesis statement of sorts, to guide you as you present to the world something it's never seen before: life through your eyes.

All good things to keep in mind, but I think I'd have to start a new blog if I began a project like that. Which, of course, is the easy part.

Ever get to that point in one of those unethically-late school nights when you've gotten past the tiredness and you almost feel like just staying up and doing more work rather than going to sleep?

Well, I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but nonetheless, here I am, at 5:12 a.m., sitting on my couch and thinking to myself, "This always happens." I've been lazy. I've put off my work, and here I am, suffering the consequences. I actually finished a while ago, and for the past few minutes I've just been meandering around cyberspace.

I've gotta get over this.