RIP, JD

This morning I woke up and for some reason, I thought about "The Catcher in the Rye." I read it earlier this year in English and I enjoyed it. I thought Holden Caulfield was absolutely fascinating, and I loved the general theme like 'hey, I'm a little crazy, but so are you - you're just in denial.'

Later on, I was sitting in choir. Something someone did (I don't remember what now...) made me really happy. Being really happy made me think of the section of the book "Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs onto Facebook" that is designated to Holden Caulfield. His 'status update' after becoming friends with Jane Gallagher is 'Holden Caulfield is feeling so damn happy all of the sudden.'

After I got home from school, I was listening to Ingrid Michaelson's 'The Hat,' which for some reason makes me think of Holden's red hunting hat in 'The Catcher in the Rye.'

I didn't really think much of these things. Until I logged onto Twitter, which was abuzz with 'JD Salinger is dead' tweets from some literary savvy friends and authors who I shamelessly follow. I checked AOL News to make sure it was true.

It is.

JD Salinger, author of 'The Catcher in the Rye,' the genius behind the rebellious and intriguing Holden Caulfield, passed away from natural causes at the age of 91 on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.

It was then that I remembered that 'The Catcher in the Rye' came to me three times today. At first I was a little panicked. I wondered (aloud, on Twitter) if my thinking about it inadvertantly killed JD Salinger. The I discovered he died Wednesday - yesterday, not today. Then I figured that my thinking about 'The Catcher in the Rye' was simply Salinger's way of saying goodbye. My assumption was solidified when one literary obsessed friend said she, too, had thought of 'The Catcher in the Rye' today.

Call me crazy (I'd be okay with that), but I think Salinger, no matter how reclusive he was, knew how many people he touched with his book. I think maybe his spirit came to us all as a final 'thank you' for being so receptive to his unconventional work.

I'm crazy. Really I am.

JD Salinger, we literary nerds will never forget you. Rest in peace.

WHY Do I Do This?

Why am I awake right now? I'm really tired. Like...REALLY tired. Like...eyes-feel-like-they're-melting-out-of-my-head-tired.

Example - I went to go do a new blog post and instead of hitting the 'new post' button, clicked 'sign out.' COOL. Let me just sign in again. Then I had to type out the three different forms of there/their/they're to figure out which one was right in context above.

I really don't know if I'm making sense anymore...I HOPE this blog is in English.

Anyway, yeah. It's been kind of an exhausting week. I basically lived in the PL for newspaper (late nights...) and I GENUINELY DETEST waking up at 6 AM. Even without Spanish first period (!!!), it's rather brutal.

This is really random and inconsequential, but I suddenly honestly cannot believe it was 2 hours ago that I was driving home with my friends. And I honestly cannot believe that it literally just took me like three minutes to do that math right. We went to see 'Beauty and the Beast' and then to Friendly's after. It was a pretty amusing evening. We dressed classy. I bought straight leg jeans (why I do not know, but I think I like them)?

My head hurts. I don't know why I'm still writing this because I really don't have anything important to say at all. I don't really have a point to make. I guess my point is I'm tired.

Goodnight.

Be Ok

So...I don't remember if I posted in my last post that I bought three Ingrid Michaelson CDs last night. I think my favorite of them so far is 'Be Ok,' and I'm especially fond of the song 'Be Ok,' which is on it.

I'm completely exhausted right now. I got home from newspaper about an hour and a half ago and I can honestly say I wasn't sure if I would make it out of there alive tonight. This might sound really weird, but have you ever had the feeling that your eyes are going to melt out of your face? That's how I feel right now.

Features (my section) hit rock bottom way too early. Caroline and I lost it way too early on in the evening, and by the end, I was told that I needed to 'go home and sleep for like, years' and to 'come back next week.' I assume falling out of my chair, screaming 'Where's the goddamn profile?!', laughing about Cakesters and insisting that 'I deleted the squigglies' probably contributed to that diagnosis.

Anyway. I dropped Spanish IV today. I'm happy about it. Less stress in my life. Thank God. My teacher said that she 'hopes second semester goes a little better for me,' and I thought that was sweet.

And you know what? I think maybe it will. I have hope for this new semester. I think maybe, just maybe... it'll be ok.

"I just want to know today, know today, know today, I just want to know something today. I just want to know today, know today, know today, know that maybe I will be ok."
Thanks Ingrid. :)

Why I Am Dysfunctional Today

Hey. I'm back from North Carolina. Yeah. It's over now.

SO. I went to my very first ever Urban Outfitters while I was there. It was a fascinating experience. It was basically all gays and foreigners in there and I thought I was stuck in the dressing room. If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know that I was just pulling the door when I should have, in fact, been pushing it.

I'm not really an idiot. I just happen to have my moments.

Anyway, the only purchase I made there was this journal. It's called 'Why I Am Dysfunctional Today.' It is wonderful. You're supposed to chronicle why you're crazy every day, and it kind of just condones being not completely sane all the time. Which I'm coming to find is a good thing. I realized that if I pretend to be sane all the time, I wind up just being...

scary.

(Another story for another day).

Anyway, the journal has all these facts and statistics about dysfunction and sanity and every page has a quote on it from someone kind of mad, like Salvador Dali or Woody Allen or Sylvia Plath. It's kind of inspiring, as terrifying as that sounds. It proves that we don't have to be normal all the time. It's not healthy. It's not healthy to be depressed or anything, either, but to have an outlet where you can talk about why you're going slightly insane one day is rather helpful.

But yeah. I kind of just wanted to talk about that. Maybe from time to time I'll write a Why I Am Dysfunctional Today entry in lieu of a blog post here. Maybe it'll be good for me.

WELL

So I'm clearly not going to do well with the whole 'college' thing. I'm currently in North Carolina visiting my grandparents, and I don't know that I've ever been this homesick. It's ridiculous. I feel clingly, and ill, and silly, and sad, and lonely, and scared. And it's pissing me off.

I'm not even GONE long. There is no reason for me to be feeling physically ill over how much I miss my dad, my dog, and my friends. Literally everything I do reminds me of somebody and I've lost track of how many times my eyes filled with tears today. I honestly don't know why I'm in such bad shape. This shouldn't even be hard. And yet...

Yeah. I don't really have a point. I just wanted to document that.

Books

Okay. So I have this problem. I don't really know what to classify it as, because it consists of several different parts, but it is a problem nonetheless.

I have officially read 4 books in 2 weeks. And a play, but that was in English so it doesn't really count. I really don't know how I did that.
1. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum...see previous post "The Wizard and I" as to how that affected me.
2. Paper Towns - John Green...this book took a spot in my top ten all time favorites. I read the first 2/3 of it within a day, and was really tempted to finish the last 1/3 the same night, but I was unfortunately falling asleep. I loved it all. It was amazing. I honestly don't even know what to say about it other than that. The last section is positively one of the most wonderful things I've ever read.
3. Please Stop Laughing at Me - Jodee Blanco...I had to read this for my English book chat. The second blog post isn't even due yet, but I've already finished the book. It was okay I guess. It was a quick read. I didn't hate reading it. I might have even liked reading it. Or maybe I was just anxious to get through it to read other things. It didn't change my life or anything, but it was alright.
4. An Abundance of Katherines - John Green...yeah, 'Paper Towns' kind of got me on a John Green kick. Katherines was nowhere near as good as 'Paper Towns,' but I still enjoyed it. It is without a doubt the nerdiest book I've ever read. But I'm a huge nerd, so I think it all works out in the end.

Here's the other part of the problem...I don't know what to read next. For Christmas, I got 'The Bell Jar,' which I'm looking forward to reading, but I'm too terrified to read it right now. I don't think junior year of high school is prime Sylvia Plath time, Jeanette Walls's 'Half-Broke Horses,' which is not a memoir, but it's about her grandma's life. (PS, if you haven't read 'The Glass Castle,' DO IT), and this interesting book of essays called 'This I Believe,' which is apparently in conjunction with National Public Radio (NPR). Since then, I've also purchased 'Freedom Writers Diary,' because book sales are incredibly dangerous for me ($7.50!!!) and I love that movie, pluse everyone says the book is really good and 'Pride and Prejudice,' because I've never read Jane Austen (shameful) and it was the one book on my Christmas list (Classic Christmas...I'm so funny) that I didn't get. Also I need to steal 'Looking for Alaska' from Wuh because I now feel compelled to conquer all of John Green's books.

I'm also an AP English student. Which means 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' are coming up soon.

So yeah. Do you see the problem?

Songs Revisited

Okay...I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to get all crazy-depressing on you last night. I apologize. It was bothersome. For all involved.

I just realized two things...
1. I really should be sleeping right now.
2. This weekend has been full of old songs that I decided to revisit. It's been kind of wonderful.

These are songs that I was once in love with and then let fall by the wayside. It's not that I stopped liking them, it's just that I stopped being obsessed with them.

For instance, my mom and I listened to 'Seasons of Love' from 'Rent' today while driving around. 'Seasons of Love' was once my ringtone. THAT'S how obsessed I was. But I realized today that it had been a really long time since I last listened to it. But I still love it.

Same with 'Defying Gravity' from 'Wicked.' I unabashedly (is that a word?) classify it as my all-time favorite song. But I hadn't listened to the original in a while until today, when I sat in the Giant Eagle parking lot with my mom blasting it and just being generally epic. (Wow, that was paradoxical...).

All weekend, old Idina Menzel songs have been competing for my attention and devotion. I've lost count of how many times I've listened to 'Where Do I Begin' and 'Perfume and Promises' this weekend. Her 'I Stand' album is coming up on it's second birthday, and I was remembering how freaking awesome her concert was.

I was more recently obsessed with Ingrid Michaelson's 'Far Away' which is quite possibly the most adorable song EVER. I let it fall away for about a month and today I can't stop listening to it. I literally almost translated the first bit of it and turned it in for a Spanish assignment that I had to do.
"I will live my life as a lobsterman's life on an island in the blue bay. He will take care of me, he will smell like the sea, and close to my heart he'll always stay. I will bear three girls all with strawberry curls, little Ella, and Nellie, and Faye. While I'm combing their hair, I will catch his warm stare on our island in the blue bay."
(PS - the assignment was to write a paragraph about my life in 10 years. Hello. Everytime I consider that IN MY NATIVE LANGUAGE - aka English - I start to panic. Why do I want to talk about it in Spanish?)
(Hint? I DON'T.)

Sara Bareilles's 'August Moon' is fantastic. I knew this several months ago and then forgot about it. Then I listened to it again. It is still wonderful. Also if you haven't checked out her cover of 'Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay,' YOU SHOULD. (Yeah I became re-fascinated by it this weekend too). (I think I have a problem).

Anna Nalick's 'Drink Me' has been coming back to haunt me all weekend as well. It was the inspiration for my Twitter nickname as well, so possibly that's been rehaunting (definitely not a word...yet) me for over a week.

Anyway, not that this blog post really had much of a point. It's just that I love rediscovering things. But I'm going to bed now.