Editor

I've never really been much good at creating things. I don't have an artistically gifted bone in my body, so works of art are automatically out of the question, I'm not espcially musically talented, I don't build things, I don't cook, I don't bake. I just don't really create. Even when it comes to writing, which has clearly been my thing since I was in second grade, I don't really create well. I have started SO many stories, and never gotten to the end of any of them. I don't think I've ever even reached so much as a middle.

I don't really know that I've ever had an original thought in my life, to be quite honest.

In all honesty, most of my long-term projects are dead in the water before they even begin - it's like they're doomed to failure simply because I was the one who thought them up. They've never really stood a chance. The only stories I write that have any prayer of living are ones I write for newspaper (and the good old Power of the Pen ones), and that's because I have a deadline, and I KNOW they have to be finished.

I hate to admit it, but I'm horrifically bad at finishing what I start.

But I was considering all that, and I realized something. I don't create because I edit. I fix, and tweak, and correct. I am an editor in several senses. The most obvious sense being that I am co-editor in chief of my high school newspaper. I tweak what people have done to make it better and work in conjunction with three other people to make our publication the best it can be. It's about teamwork and collaboration and tweaking what others do.

But when I think about it, I've been editing since before I got that specific title. Think about it. I even consider applying make up to be a form of editing. I take my average face and paint it with colors and powders and all sorts of stuff to edit it and make it prettier. I take what exists and make it better (I hope).

I edit pictures. I use Picnik a lot to do so. I'm not a particularly good photographer, but I'm pretty fair at editing pictures, and I really enjoy doing it. There are at least 220 of my edited photographs up on Facebook, currently. I love taking something that has a life of its own already and giving it a new life as some completely different entity. I love putting words on them. I love playing with the colors. I love making something look vintage-y. I love fixing imperfections.

For years, people have asked me to help edit things they've written, and I could never really understand why. But I think I get it now. I am an editor. I always have been, and suddenly it is so clear - that's what I always will be. Of course. It's always been there. I just never noticied it before.

Maybe I'm Made of Chocolate?

I was not made to deal with heat. I tend to melt. My hair reacts badly to humidity and frequently makes me look like a distant relative of the Cowardly Lion. I hate putting on make up in the summer because it melts off faster that I can put it on. I was just not built to deal with heat.

Neither was my house. I don't have air conditioning. I am melting for the seventeenth summer in a row and it's starting to really piss me off. It's 91 degrees outside, and probably roughly the same inside my house. I hate getting out of the air conditioned car, walking into the ridiculously hot garage, thinking 'Oh, sweet Jesus, I hope it's not this hot in the house,' walking into the house, and finding that IT IS IN FACT, THAT HOT. I hate the feeling of sticky, sweaty skin. I hate the way water bottles and cans of pop and glasses sweat profusely on the table, leaving an obnoxious ring of water that you have to wipe up.

I don't mind the heat at the beach. It's supposed to be hot there. There's a breeze. An ocean breeze. In Ohio, there is no ocean, and consequently, no ocean breeze. But at the beach, I can go from air conditioned condo, to air conditioned car, to air conditioned restaurant, to pool or beach. And it's okay.

Part of the problem too is that I really don't like shorts. I hate my legs. Well, my thighs at least. So I try to avoid wearing shorts. And my arms are nasty too, so I avoid tank tops. And I look weird with my hair up. I LIKE TO WEAR SWEATERS, PANTS, AND MY HAIR DOWN, OKAY?! That's why I like cooler weather. It's acceptable to wear this kind of attire, and I swear I have never craved snow more than I have in the past couple of weeks. And I want to bake. I don't know why. But I do, and it's just TOO DAMN HOT TO BE DOMESTIC.

Okay. Sorry about the ranting, but I'm hot and sweaty and angry, and heat seemed an acceptable thing to rant about without sounding too clinically insane. Schmurrrr.

"There's Always a Dry Side to a Swing"

So... I accidentally just did something kind of emo. I drove by my grandma's old apartment on my way home from Starbucks tonight.

I know. It doesn't sound particularly emo. But...

She died when I was 9. We were really close for those first 9 years of my life. I would spend a lot of my summer with her. And what's weird is that she wasn't living in the apartment that I drove by at the time of her death. I drive by that apartment almost every day because it's a block away from my house. That one doesn't phase me so much. I think it's because I've gotten used to it.

But I drove by that old apartment tonight for the first time in a long time and realized I couldn't really remember the layout of it. Once I realized that, my eyes filled with tears. How could I not remember something that was a huge fixture in my childhood? I remember the living room and the awful green carpet that used to be in there. I remember the kitchen. I remember the basement, and the time my dad and uncle accidentally flooded it. I remember the back patio and the beautiful gardens we used to work in, but probably mostly from pictures. I remember the hammock. I remember the garage. But I can't remember the bedrooms or anything. I remember a hallway and a mirror but I can't remember the bedrooms or anything. I don't remember how the living room was set up. I vaguely remember coloring in a coloring book while the OJ Simpson trials were going on, and I remember watching 'Fern Gully' and trying to do handstands, and I remember asking her to tape the Oscar's for me once.

That's about all I remember. And that's scary. I pride myself for having a really good memory, but how good can it be if I can't remember such an important part of my growing up?

And then, as it always does when I think about her for a long time, a question enters my mind. It's haunting, really, because there's no way I could ever find an answer to it. But if there's one thing I'd love to know, it's if she would be proud of me. A lot has changed in 8 years. She was the one that got me into acting. I'm sure she thought that's what I'd be doing right now, and what I wanted to be when I grew up. Would she be disappointed that never really worked out for me? Would she be proud of who I am? Of what I've done? Of who my friends are?

Sometimes, I don't know. I really don't know. And I want to. I want to know. Would we still be close? Would I make her proud? What kind of adventures would we have together if she was still around? What would she have been like before my first high school dance? What would she have thought of Power of the Pen?

Would I be different if she had lived longer?

And I know that's a lot more questions than just the one I referenced earlier. But the only one I'd really love an answer to is 'would she be proud of me?' The rest of them I think I can pretty much figure.

I just want to know.

I have to go to bed. I feel sick now. Sorry about all that.