Facebook is a bad idea.

I feel like I've gone through some sort of change tonight as a writer for no good reason, so I changed my Facebook 'About You' section. Here's what I wrote because I need more blog posts!

*We are what we do, we do what we feel and we feel what we love. That means that we are
L-O-V-E. ♥

I am a huge supporter of the arts, and I try to keep a good attitude about things. I love writing and photography, plus friends. And laughing. I'm willing to try almost anything and I will probably like it too. Likes: Tea (Chai!), Fashion (From overalls to evening wear), Music (errthing- from symphonies to skrillex), old things (clothing, furniture, cameras, books, movies). Dislikes: Obnoxious/ mean people, pollen (curse you allergies), ageism, wet willies. Okay, so most of those dislikes are filler, and if you are still reading this, get a life, I'm not interesting. *

I feel like changing my About You, at least temporarily, which is why I'm leaving my previous one up there in stars. Don't get too attached to the following one (if anyone at all is reading this, which I bet no one is) as I'll probably delete it once I realize it's too pretentious.
That one sounds a bit too young, younger than I feel right now, though I don't know how old I was when I wrote it. It's all still true, but the presentation fells a bit naive. I'm a Russian Doll, as I hope everyone I meet from this point on will be. I have many boxes within me that contain different thoughts, emotions, reactions, addictions, likes, dislikes and so on. I'm not perfectly describable, no one is (at least I hope there is no one that truly simple out there), so I've always found this box a bit tricky. I'm a photographer, a writer, a friend, an animal lover, a dreamer, a procrastinator. This sounds like a sick eulogy. I want to defy convention, it's always been my previously secret goal to be as interesting as possible, which is so self-centered. But hey, this is long and no one is going to read it so why am I writing it? If you do read this, I would enjoy some feedback on my psuedo-intellectual useless musing, so message me :]

Vanilla Sky

I wrote this during a long bout of a thought brought on at 1 in the morning after realizing that I hadn't posted anything on my *graded* blog for far too long. I apologize if it doesn't make sense, but this is actually this most coherent written form of my thoughts I have ever put on (virtual) paper, so be happy that I'm working on it.

I just watched Vanilla Sky, a movie whose depths seemed almost unfathomable to me as I watched it. I laughed with my friend as a deformed Tom Cruise ran through the streets, and as he shouted through a slightly limp lip. And, despite the laughter, which might indicate I found the movie overall humorous, I whispered to her as the movie finished, as the guitar music played and my dog snored on her lap, “I will see you in another life when we are both cats”. That quote, even of itself, struck me before I had ever seen the movie. It brings up so many thoughts within me, as pretentious as it might sound. We watched the behind the scenes footage, admiring a man three times our age and remarking on how gorgeous and wonderful Penelope Cruz is. And then I said it again as I walked her to her car and she drove away “I will see you in another life when we are both cats.” I returned to my house and continued to post long, overly constructed Facebook statues about the movie, which I felt oddly connected to. That’s not strange for me, I often find myself falling into a movie more than even a director would have hoped for, and for hours afterwards I’m swimming in it, and then I get out and dry off in the sun of reality. I sat in my dark living room until I realized I was writing nothing at all but fluff for people online to read. And now, I do the same, but I’m blogging so it must be different.

I then went upstairs, having turned off the internet for now, and waded through the enormous pile of dirty clothes that had grown on my floor. I had, earlier in the day, begun to clean my room, which posed a challenge as always. I sorted through greeting cards I had stacked up on my dresser, and hung up jewelry I had placed around the room but had not worn. But I had lost patience for the almost never-ending chore and had abandoned it. So when I went back up there, I realized that after this emotional breakthrough I had imagined having after this movie, I was still a teenage girl with a messy room. I was of course saddened by this obvious and heartbreaking epiphany, but I continued to try and clean anyway. But, like I most times do, I ended up trying on my multitude of hats and making faces in my mirror. During this bit of routine silliness I realized I wasn’t ready for love. This may seem like an out of the blue thought for a girl playing with too-small sun hats, but my thought process was this.

I was being incredibly not normal, like Penelope Cruz’s character in Vanilla Sky, why Tom Cruise’s character had fallen in love with her, like all men in movies who fall for the vibrant woman. But I hadn’t mastered the fine line of playful but not childish, sexy but not dirty, confident but not arrogant. But being only 17, there is so much time to master. I’ve spent years wondering why other girls have boyfriends, flirtations, dates, and I have my cat and my love for eccentricity. It’s really been my deepest weakness, and I’ve known that fact for as long as I’ve had the weakness. They always say that when you’re single, you shouldn’t focus on changing that, you should focus on perfecting yourself. But they’ve never said whether you should perfect yourself so that the relationship status will change, or if you should perfect yourself so that you can live with yourself without anyone else. Really, that’s a very large conundrum they’ve left open.

If I grow as a human, develop kindness and an interesting point of view on life and a confidence that highlights my physical features a man might find alluring, isn’t that perfect for hooking just that man? If I do all that for just myself and I’m left with my bait in the water, my hand constantly on the reel waiting for a bite, what then? I suppose someone would answer that you shouldn’t even be looking at the fishing pole, but rather out at the ocean beyond it, but I’d respond that I’d be thinking that that ocean is full of fish I’m not catching. So you’ve got this bait – this charming personality matched with an inner fire that is somehow also an inner peace as well as a focus on perfecting your outer beauty as much as my inner, and you’re not supposed to use it as bait? I can live perfectly well with myself knowing that I’m loud and annoying and a bit of a glutton with a touch of sloth as long as I don’t ever want someone to love me for it. But I want to love and be loved, so I work on my insides (as well as my outsides because I’m a realist’s and an optimist’s daughter). But they, the people who told me to be the better me when I’m not with someone, didn’t clarify why exactly. If I say it’s to be a better second half, then I’m needy and not independent. But if I say it’s just to be the best I can really be without ever truly needing someone to justify it, then I get this cold feeling inside that if I think that way, it will be true and I’ll just never have someone to appreciate all the hard renovations I’ve done on myself. I thought all of this in one gigantic rush while I stared into my own eyes with a woven hat squished onto my head. Sometimes I think I’ll think myself to death, and then I notice the irony of that and the thought grows stronger still.

Hey I'm Sick Again

Snuggled deep in my sofa was I, with my tissues and tea, drifting into a little bout of sleep from the long day of sneezing, when a terrible pain struck me. My sweet tooth was thrashing about, screaming to satisfy its risky demands.

Meaghan, darling, feed me and I shall leave you alone! the urge crooned.

"No, no, I'm too tired, and it's so cold outside of my blankets,' I sighed, snuggling into my pillow. But then the Sweet Tooth grew fierce.

Meaghan, you know nothing of pain! I can cause so much of it! And with that, my stomach growled angrily, tensing up my abdomen with a dull ache. I threw off my covers, ignoring the Sweet Tooth and venturing into the kitchen. My TV blared a cop drama while I ambled forward. I inspected the pantry, eyeing a variety of canned soups.

No, no! Sugar the Tooth shrieked. I realized then I wanted something sweet, not savory. But there was no ice cream in the freezer, no chocolate on the counter, not even fruit in the hanging baskets. The Tooth laughed manically.

Feed me, Meaghan. I was beginning to feel like Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors... This could not end well.

"I don't know how! There's no ice cream, and I can't drive in this snow--"

Think. The voice was growing more and more aggressive, as was the ache in my stomach. Suddenly, I recalled, a box of Mallowmars, stashed in my car. My mother had bought them and left them intentionally as far from us as possible. But I wasn't about to go outside for those cookies.

Those aren't just cookies, Meaghan. Those are Mallowmars. A sweet, soft cookie covered in marshmallow puff, then submerged in rich chocolate. Those are your favorite cookies. And they are only a short walk outside.

I had to admit, the Tooth was making a whole lot of sense. So I tightened my robe and forced my way into my pink polka-dot, one-size-too-small rain-boots and opened the front door. The storm door radiated a chill. Outside I could see a slow, silent drift of light flakes floated over my serene street. None of my neighbors' lights were on; they were all probably asleep even at this early hour. Yes, go, go! Picking up my keys from the bowl on the stereo cabinet by the door, I pushed open the storm door and continued on. The walk was covered in paw prints from my dog that had been filled in slightly by the more recent snow. I was surprised with how cold I wasn't. When I reached the car, I groaned. The car was covered in a mound of white fluff that glinted in the moonlight. I brushed out the snow with my bare hand from the passenger side handle. I then slid the key into the opening and thankfully, it unlocked. I pulled the door open quickly as not to let snow onto the seat. I crawled in and sat for a second. I've always loved being in cars covered in snow, it's so private and safe feeling.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET THE COOKIES! I hastily spun around and grabbed the cookies from the backseat, locked the door, wriggled out and slammed it shut behind me. I shuffled back up the walk and raced back into my house. I pried the boots off my feet and plopped down back into my fort of plush pillows and blankets, happy to return to my TV show.

Eat them. And so I did, I bit into a cookie. The crisp chocolate snapped and gave way to the soft marshmallow and the moist cookie that hinted brown sugar.

Thank you the Sweet Tooth purred.

"No, thank you."

I've got that late night ache. My joints groan quietly, grinding against each other, pressing themselves to the muscle walls in protest. My eyes squint at faint light, hoping for darkness that isn't coming. The air is too cold- chilled even beneath the blankets. My fingers keep on typing endless words. Page after page of nonsense bleeds out on the screen, going on with repetition and the clattering of the keys. I close my eyes, daydreaming about falling into a moment of not thinking, not angrily judging the hours of my day, of the month, of the life I'm living. Music plays, not that my ears are really listening to the guitar that urges me to sleep when I've got so much to do. The house is waiting for me to fall under so it too can sleep. A house only sleeps when everyone else does. The darkness of the rooms doesn't matter, if I lie awake, the house is watching over me, even after the nightlights are blown out. It watches my eyes water and me rub my back in anguish. It watches hold the cup to my lips and hope for water, and it sighs at my breath of defeat as only a trickle comes to greet my mouth. And it shakes it's head when I decide I'd rather face thirst than leave the nest and travel to the kitchen for water. My fingers are ice, but the corners of myself are warm enough, like the back of my knee, or the hollow of my neck pressed against my shoulder. Even my hair hurts, it's folded the wrong way across my pillow and I can't give up on holding out in the pain. What fresh hell lives in the no-mans-land between consciousness and dreamland. Come now, sleep, I beg of you, just for a little while, and then I'll forget we forgave eachother and we can continue this silly fight.

Sleep...

A sestina about New York. Never been- want to. It's a bit sloppy, no meter or anything. Also- try to ignore the form I typed in.

words:

grime

street

kiss

night

slap

rise

A A girl who lives within the boisterous New York night

B Lives on instant coffee and thrives in the dim street

C behind the twenty-four hour deli with a cigarette and a kiss

D on her lips. She strolls the alleys with the sharp smack

E of her flavorless gum and a narrowed eye to the rise

F of the sun above the shining city and the glittering grime.

F Her life is glimpses of grafitti as she races along the grime
A covered sidewalk, late for her first shift of the long night
E ahead. She's never phased when petty crime is on the rise
B because what goes up must come down, and the street
D hums a melody to her with soft sirens and the smack
C and slap of her shoes on the uneven pavement. A kiss

C is stolen while waiting for the crosswalk to turn, a kiss

Fin the snow by the glow of neon lights with grime

D on their gloved fingers, holding eachother in the smack
A of cold wind down 45th. She watches countless taxis in the night
B on the fire escape, inhaling the air smelling of the street
E below with it's late night Chinese. She will will always rise

E before the sun, yawning away the nagging tiredness into the rise

C of noise as most everyone else awakens. Leaving a kiss
B on her coffee mug, she rushes out to the always there street
F with it's steaming man holes and swarming groups, the grime
A of sleep still clinging to her eyes, as well as the last night's
D make up, faded from it's stark black. She awaits the smack

D of her bike's tires on the board walk by the beach. The smack
E wakes her up as she breathes in the coney island brine. Rise
A and fall, short and fast, her breath comes heavy as the night
C weighs down on her morning. She remembers the last kiss
F of her evening in the darkened hallway. A layer of greasy grime
B clings to her unwashed body as she paces again the familiar street

B Waiting for something she isn't sure exists. She's exhausted, street
D noise rattling in her brain melting into the patter of rain and the smack
F of thunder over the high up towers growing up from the filth and grime
E that slithers along the gutter into the sewer below. The hills rise

C above each other, with her watching in heavy eyed delirium. No kiss
A rests on her lips anymore, only a restless pout that mourns a night

A f That had no grime waiting for her, only sleep, she mourned a night

C d that offered no smack of laughter somewhere or long and tiring kiss

E b The clatter of the street never lets her sleep, for if you never fall you never rise.

First Flight

I did it. I did what every teenager longs to do. What teenagers revel in, what they wait years for, what they suffer almost endless trials and tests for. I got my license. Of course, I am about nine months over due for upgrading from permit to license- but I'm not focusing on that! I'm focusing on this moment. This freedom and sense of success that I have so painfully earned with near-death experiences and scary moments with sassy DMV workers. I can go anywhere (in the tri-county area... when my mom isn't using the car), do anything (that I couldn't do without my mother in the car), see anyone at anytime ( as long as those people don't live far enough that I need money for gas and it's before curfew)! Such power, freedom! I'm almost to adulthood. I suppose I'll be needing a job soon to pay for gas for when the car becomes mine... And the car does need a new timing belt... And the car does get pretty dirty pretty fast. What am I saying? WHO CARES? All that matters right now is that when I want ice cream at nine thirty at night and my mother doesn't feel like getting up, I CAN GET MY ICECREAM. I'll have to pay for it myself then... but again, who cares? We all pay prices for things we want in life, or at least adults do. And I'm halfway there. I guess.