And this is what I did with my day....Don't feel sad, I don't feel sad: A Love Story.

The title of this blog is misleading.  This, like the narrator says at 500 Days of Summer, is not a love story, though it is even less a love story than that movie, and it does not star Zooey Deschanel, though it does star me, and I've already decided by stripper name would be CHLOE Deschanel.

This is my stripper publicity photo for my Chloe Deschanel persona.  She is not as cute as Zooey but she WILL dance awkwardly to the New Girl theme song while wearing a high waisted tutu and brightly-colored bra.  

Anyway, this is the story of what I did with my life on Valentines/Valentimes/Gal-entines, because I feel that it is my civic duty to let the world know what people do when they are...me....OK let me start over.  I just wanted to write about my day.  How's that?  HAPPY NOW, WORLD?!

Sorry.  Stress.

So, my day went something like this:

1. Midnight...the internet is down, a fact that I don't realize until it was "too cold" for me to leave to study at the library (around 9.)  Instead, I write some of my fantasy novel (I know, shut up) in my room and do absolutely nothing productive, unless you think I am going to be a famous writer, which maybe you do.

2. 1:30 ish.  I decide that since the internet is down, I will have to watch a DVD to "help me go to sleep."  For some reason, I always think that no, watching something on my laptop will really and truly soothe me to sleep, but it is a damn lie.  Anyway, I decided to watch Wedding Crashers, since I knew there was no way I would pay attention to it, and so on.

3. 3:00 ish...I finish Wedding Crashers....I re-start Wedding Crashers.

4. 3:15 ish.  I try to remember if I have any more ice cream, because the Chins (not a Chinese family, but an affectionate name for the soft underside of my jaw) are demanding tribute most fervently, as is their custom when I am awake past 11 PM (erryday.)  I only have English Toffee ice cream, which I bought not knowing there are almonds in English Toffee.  I am the slightest bit allergic to almonds, but figure since I didn't go into anaphylactic shock the last time I ate it, I will survive.

5. 3:30 or thereabouts.  I decide I cannot watch any more of Wedding Crashers on principal because I should have better taste and the men in it are misogynistic a-holes, even if one of them is Vince Vaughn, who I discovered around this time is not actually that cute to me.

6. 4:00.  I give up all hope of being alert today in class, turn on my phone flashlight, and start re-reading Perks of Being A Wallflower.  Feel emotional, then realize how many times Charlie cries in the book.  Charlie is ALWAYS crying.  I love the book and I get that he's unstable, but it's like...bro.  I don't know how people put up with your shit.

7. 8:15 AM.  Wake up glad that I am already basically in clothes (not PJs.)  Put on pants, go to my first class, which is not even MY class, it's a class I transcribe.

8.  9:00 AM.  Remember once I arrive at the classroom that this class is cancelled today.

9. 9:03 AM.  Say the f word in the hallway of the Family Life building.

10. 9:06 AM.  Decide if I am going to be awake, I might as well go do math homework in the computer lab.  DO SO and feel mega-accomplished for completing something like 4 problems, even though there are 5 assignments due tomorrow and yadayadaprocrastinationwhatever.

11. 10:00 AM.  Wonder if there are still Box Elder bugs in Ray B West, and feel my hair to make sure that there is not one crawling around in there and generally being the grossest.

12. 10:02 AM.  Breathe a sigh of relief.

13. 10:30 AM...go transcribe a social work class.  Learn about SAAVI, but do not learn how many AAs and IIs are in "SAAVI."  Type it several different ways for good measure.

14. 11:45 AM.  Forget that I have basically no nap time, go home in high spirits.

15: 11:59 AM.  Arrive home, realize I have to be back on campus at 1:00 to transcribe AGAIN, despair.  Eat candy from Valentines care package my mom sent me, put on red lipstick, change into actual outfit.

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16. 1:00 PM, head back to campus with a weary heart, but feel like I could walk around in just a cardigan instead of a coat, which gives me hope for the future.

17. 2:45 PM, consider skipping ENGL 3710 which is Jewish Folklore, but really should just be called Jewish Holidays because we do not actually study folklore.  However, as I have missed the class not once, not twice, but thrice, I lug my gigantic transcribing rollybag from Family Life to Ray West, probably frightening all the people in that weird little computer lab between the two buildings and probably making people wonder why I feel the need to bring a suitcase to class when it is definitely not a suitcase.

18. 3:00 PM.  Begin a documentary about a Jewish woman who re-finds her faith upon learning she has lung cancer, because OF COURSE that fits in with Jewish folklore.

19. 4:00 PM.  Wish myself a happy Valentines day by getting myself the most romantic present ever...a kids meal from Betos.  Wonder which supernaturally-based TV show I should watch on Netflix while I eat Betos in my bed, cause whatever.

20.  4:15 PM.  Choose the Liberty Bell episode of Always Sunny.

21. 6:30 PM.  After "doing math" for a couple hours (aka talking to friends on facebook chat) decide to go to Helicon West, cause why not.  I bring my poetry notebook in case I suddenly feel like Sylvia Plath and I simply MUST READ MY WORK.

22. 8:30 PM.  Hear a poem about a girl murdering someone, I think.  She kisses duct tape over his mouth and says something about blood.  So I'm pretty sure that's what went down.   I have been sitting next to this girl for an hour.  I am suddenly very terrified.

23. 8:45 PM.  Drive home from Helicon listening to Mumford and Sons and wondering which of Marcus Mumford's girlfriends I like better...Laura Marling or current flame Carrie Mulligan, and think to myself he definitely has a "type."

24. 9:00 PM-1:00 AM.  Send ugly snapchats of myself to Chelsea, argue with McKay about Demi Lavato, make a thousand playlists on spotify.

25. 1:07 AM.  Technically not Valentines any more.  Wonder if I should watch Wedding Crashers again.  Accept that I am 100% going to fail math and never graduate from college, probably.  Wonder if I'd rather work at McDonalds or if I can really make a living as a stripper.

Fin.

A post about my sisters, because they made me laugh today.

So a while back, I asked my sisters to answer a few questions so that I could base characters off of them in my upcoming mega-successful fantasy novel because of course I would do that.  Avert your judgmental gaze.

Anyway, one of the questions I asked was "name your top 5 favorite things, period."  They could name any five people, places, foods, whatever.  Here are their lists.

Sister 1:

1. Sleeping
2. Eating
3. Reading
4. Drawing
5. Teddy Roosevelt


Sister 2:

1. Napping
2. Eating
3. Cats
4. Drawing
5. Learning/books


First of all, I love that both of them put sleeping and eating as the top 2 things they love most.  That is appropriate because they are related to me, and those are the only 2 things I do with my life.  I just love where it deviates....cats and Teddy Roosevelt.

For reference, my sisters look like this:

Cats

Teddy (the one in the sparkly shirt)

So they are both very pretty.. they are just also very strange.  I like them.

Birthday Letters or Me Fangirling over Ted Hughes

So, for my Advanced Poetry writing class we are reading Ted Hughes' book Birthday Letters.  For those of you that aren't familiar with Ted Hughes, I'll give you a brief summary of what I know about him from this class...

Ted Hughes was married to one of my favorite authors, Sylvia Plath, the woman who many of you probably know as the "one who put her head in the oven."  He was also poet laureate of England.  After Sylvia died, he wrote her a poem every year on her birthday, compiling them into the book Birthday Letters a year before he died.

Let me just say right now....the poems are gorgeous.  And tragic.  They make me all emotional and stereotypically mushy and girly-feeling.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

Visit  (if you read nothing else, read the last two stanzas, particularly the bolded part at the end. I had to go get a lot of ice cream to soothe myself after I read them.)

Lucas, my friend, one

Among those three or four who stay unchanged

Like a separate self,

A stone in the bed of the river

Under every change, became your friend.

I heard of it, alerted. I was sitting

Youth away in an office near Slough,

Morning and evening between Slough and Holborn,

Hoarding wage to fund a leap to freedome

And the other side of the earth -- a free-fall

To strip my chrysalis off me in the slipstream.

Weekends I recidived

Into Alma Mater. Girl-friend

Shared a supervisor and weekly session

With your American rival and you.

She detested you. She fed snapshots

Of you and she did not know what

Inflammable celluloid into my silent

Insatiable future, my blind-man's-buff

Internal torch of search. With my friend,

After midnight, I stood in a garden

Lobbing soil-clods up at a dark window.

Drunk, he was certain it was yours.

Half as drunk, I did not know he was wrong.

Nor did I know I was being auditioned

For the male lead in your drama,

Miming through the first easy movements

As if with eyes closed, feeling for the role.

As if a puppet were being tried on its strings,

Or a dead frog's legs touched by electrodes.

I jigged through those gestures -- watched and judged

Only by starry darkness and a shadow.

Unknown to you and not knowing you.

Aiming to find you, and missing, and again missing.

Flinging earth at a glass that could not protect you

Because you were not there.

Ten years after your death

I meet on a page of your journal, as never before,

The shock of your joy

When your heard that. The then shock

Of your prayers. And under those prayers your panic

That prayers might not create the miracle,

Then, under the panic, the nightmare

That came rolling to crush you:

Your alternative -- the unthinkable

Old despair and the new agony

Melting into one familiar hell.

Suddenly I read all this --

Your actual words, as they floated

Out through your throat and tongue onto your page --

Just as when your daughter, years ago now,

Drifting in, gazing up into my face,

Mystified,

Where I worked alone

In the silent house, asked, suddenly:

'Daddy, where's Mummy?' The freezing soil

Of the garden, as I clawed it.

All round me that midnight's

Giant clock of frost. And somewhere

Inside it, wanting to feel nothing,

A pulse of fever. Somewhere

Inside that numbness of the earth

Our future trying to happen.

I look up -- as if to meet your voice

With all its urgent future

That has burst in on me. Then look back

At the book of the printed words.

You are ten years dead. It is only a story.

Your story. My story. 


This next one is the last poem in the book.  I cried, I'll admit it.  Take my imaginary man-card if you must.

Red

Red was your colour.
If not red, then white. But red
Was what you wrapped around you.
Blood-red. Was it blood?
Was it red-ochre, for warming the dead?
Haematite to make immortal
The precious heirloom bones, the family bones.

When you had your way finally
Our room was red. A judgement chamber.
Shut casket for gems. The carpet of blood
Patterned with darkenings, congealments.
The curtains -- ruby corduroy blood,
Sheer blood-falls from ceiling to floor.
The cushions the same. The same
Raw carmine along the window-seat.
A throbbing cell. Aztec altar -- temple.

Only the bookshelves escaped into whiteness.

And outside the window
Poppies thin and wrinkle-frail
As the skin on blood,
Salvias, that your father named you after,
Like blood lobbing from the gash,
And roses, the heart's last gouts,
Catastrophic, arterial, doomed.

Your velvet long full skirt, a swathe of blood,
A lavish burgandy.
Your lips a dipped, deep crimson.

You revelled in red.
I felt it raw -- like crisp gauze edges
Of a stiffening wound. I could touch
The open vein in it, the crusted gleam.

Everything you painted you painted white
Then splashed it with roses, defeated it,
Leaned over it, dripping roses,
Weeping roses, and more roses,
Then sometimes, among them, a little blue
bird.

Blue was better for you. Blue was wings.
Kingfisher blue silks from San Francisco
Folded your pregnancy
In crucible caresses.
Blue was your kindly spirit -- not a ghoul
But electrified, a guardian, thoughtful.

In the pit of red
You hid from the bone-clinic whiteness.

But the jewel you lost was blue.

Valentimes Manifesto

I think this quote from my woman Sylvia pretty much sums it up.

As I am sure you have all gleaned from the seasonal candy in the grocery store, Valentines Day, or ValenTIMES, as I prefer to call it, is almost upon us. Whether you love it, hate it, or don't really care either way, you all have to admit, there's nothing like a heart-shaped Reeses to soothe the soul.

ANYWHO.  I felt in the spirit of Valentimes, I should write a blog about lurrrve.  I believe I did the same-ish thing last year around this time:

http://chloesusublog.blogspot.com/2012/02/valentimes.html

but I think this post might be a little more serious, as I am older, wiser, more pensive, and have longer hair now (which totally makes a difference.)

I don't want to generalize or make assumptions about you all, dear readers.  These are just some observations I have made in my own life, as well as in the lives of a few of my close friends.  Maybe we are just a highly dysfunctional group romantically?  I'm not sure.  At least we're pretty, we have that going for us.

I think that the quote I put at the top of this post really sums up my feelings on life, love, and so on.  I either really, really love people, or I do not like them in the slightest.  There is very little middle ground.  I recognize that both of these viewpoints are unhealthy.

On the one hand (the more Valentimes-ish hand) loving people too much, while it sounds great and makes for beautiful prose, is sooooooooooo not a good idea.  It may sound wonderful to "lose yourself" in someone else, but in reality, losing yourself means having to find yourself again should that person ever leave you.  It's far, far better to love yourself and let that love naturally bleed over into love for another person.  If you let someone become your whole world you end up neglecting what's most important (selfish as it sounds)...your own personal happiness and well-being.  It's one thing to let making someone happy be something that makes you happy, it's another thing to let it be the only thing that makes you happy.  Do you understand the distinction I am trying to make?  I'm sure you do.  You seem pretty smart, whoever you are.

On the other hand, it's terrible, but it's something I'm quite guilty of...letting bad first impressions or negative experiences make us hate people is equally unhealthy.  Hatred and the kind of all-encompassing, obsessive infatuation I described earlier are really similar, I think.  Either way, one person becomes the focus of all your energy, and it's really detrimental to your mental health. Also, letting yourself be so consumed by negative emotions can hinder your ability to form long-lasting or healthy relationships later.

I'm sure this is a preaching-to-the-choir kind of post.  I just wanted to talk my feelings out via blog, because it's 2013 and no one has a diary any more.

As I am clearly NEVER GOING TO SLEEP

So guys, I don't want to self-diagnose...myself...with anything, but I think I have insomnia?  Because I literally CANNOT AND WILL NOT FALL ASLEEP BEFORE 3:00 EVERRRR.

For real.  I'll be reallllly tired, and I'll get into my cozy bed with my cozy space heater and think to myself "I need to clean my room...I will do that tomorrow" (and subsequently not do it tomorrow, but that is jumping forward in time.)  Anyway, then suddenly I will NEED TO WATCH SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH or get on Facebook, even though Facebook is a colossal waste of my time and probably half of the reason I never get anything done, and Harvey and Sabrina hardly ever kiss, so what is the point of doing either of those things, I ask you?  The answer being, of course, that there is no point.  Thank you for reminding me, imaginary readers.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this mini blog to let you and all my other millions of followers (I know this statement contradicts my previous statement that no one reads my blog, because clearly everyone ever in the history of the world reads my blog, duh) that I am back in the blogging game after a long hiatus.  Huzzah!  It's ok, you can all stop crying now.  I'm back for good.  Probably.

Also everyone celebrate cause Fall Out Boy is back together or something?  Clearly that is the greatest news, am I right guys?

So lots of good things happening today.