The Recollection of my 9/11 Hypothesis as a Politically Uninformed Elementary Schooler

My personal experience with 9/11 was a lot like most people’s my age. I don’t know anyone by name personally that was killed. My hairdresser said one of her clients had a daughter who was a flight attendant but that is my closest personal connection. I am rather blessed for this. Losing someone you love to a situation you don’t understand is surely a painful experience and I (being a first grader at the time) didn’t understand 9/11 in the slightest.

I remember sitting on carpet squares in my classroom listening to Ms.Hindricks, my spunky young teacher, explain in her southern drawl -to the best of her ability- that a plane had crashed on the world trade centers to a bunch of doe-eyed six-year-olds.  I had no idea what she was talking about.

Why was she so upset?

Doesn’t she know that plane crashes are pretty common?

“New York City” and the “Pentagon” in “Washington” sounded like such foreign and distant terms to me… and anyway my teacher hadn’t specified whether it was “Washington D.C.” or Washington State,” which really had me confused.

It was cutting into snack time so I decided not to ask.

I can't prevent changes or find your place for you.

It is hard for me to accept people's changes. Not that that's that uncommon of a thing, not many people actually like or believe in changes. It's not that I don't believe people change; I of all people should know the capacity people have to change. It is hard for me to experience someone's transformations firsthand and easily take them in. It's hard from me to acknowledge even the simplest of my own changes sometimes. For example; I need to eventually need to stop introducing myself as Riley, the 12 year old who likes dolphins and is afraid of the movie War of the Worlds.

Why I Don't Care if You Think I'm a Teen Mom High-School Dropout

(This entry would make more sense if I explained that it was written last Wednesday, a day that I had to myself thanks to not having a 5th period exam. I just procrastinated with transferring here, from the back of folded up study guides.) 

I am trying my hardest to embrace and utilize today, since I am spending it with myself and whatnot. 

This morning, after taking Ryann to school, I went to Super Target. I zipped into a front space, Turned off the car (despite the fact that I was into this particular segment on NPR Morning Edition), shrugged at the fact that the parking lot was virtually empty, and skipped into the store to buy my sister's talent show costumes. Pausing only momentarily to jump over one of the red concrete balls in the front of the store, because it's 9 in the morning and I'm virtually always that annoying peppy at 9 in the morning.

Beginning to clue in to the slight oddity of my situation, I felt that I really needed to justify myself and casually explain my motives to the only other person in the kids section; a hefty woman in a red employee polo and a floor length khaki skirt, mundanely refolding hot pink Disney Channel teeshirts.

For whom?

This past weekend my mom's friend Leslie was visiting town and stayed with us for a couple of nights. Leslie has an uncommon ability to express this certain sense of worldly insight that many inquisitive people never grasp. Also being very in touch with her inner self, Leslie heard her calling and moved from Greensboro, NC to Sedona, AZ. To me, this was a profoundly eye opening act. Her utter ability to pack up her life and follow it to wherever her free soul points, providing no other reason than "This is where I'm meant to be right now"
Leslie and I were sitting at my kitchen table on Thursday talking about a multitude of topics; among them were my relatively new found interest in writing and her recent trip to Peru.

My Childhood, Why I'm a strong person, and my dreams of being on Oprah.

Throughout my childhood I was always afraid of the dark. The pseudo satanic nightmares produced by my 3 year old subconscious left me permanently huddled in fetal position under masses of sheets and blankets, surrounded by a pillow fort and a barely soothing army of stuffed animals. Instead of sleeping, my paranoia would eventually wear me out. 

When my parents split up, staying with my dad was hell. I have never known a parent who got mad at their kid for ordering off the children's menu, but everything was about image. Unfortunately, as far as image goes, I uncannily favor my mother. That was a  fact that he didn't take lightly.

I Promise I'm not crazy.

I am the type of person that plays out scenarios in my head. Whether it be recollecting or anticipating a conversation, preparing my reaction to some said event, or, more often than normal, placing myself in a total daydream-esque fantasy rundown. I fully and readily blame my wondering and creative mind for the times when I walk down the hallway muttering to myself. (No doubt considering my rebuttal, were I to run into a debate-ready Obama or Letterman on my way to the girl’s stall.) If that were the extent of my physical reactions to mental situations, I wouldn’t complain. But my body has no boundaries of subtlety when I am in daydream mode. I flinch in preparation to fall of a cliff as I descend in the stairs in the morning. I bat my eyes and play footsie with the extension cord of my World history class; if only it were the boy sitting across from me at the café I am in, in my head. My daydreams keep my true state of lonesomeness at bay, as I snuggle up on the couch and offer a piece of popcorn to my extremely pillow-like boyfriend replacement.

I'm hardly phased by my actions of this nature anymore. I barely notice as I throw my hands up in italian-styled expression at blank computer screens and twirl my foot out of it's imaginary rope coil. I am who I am.

dwell on it, my free-expressing followers.

Chic bobs and stealing Sedaris from my mom's bookshelves: Memoirs on how I very recently stopped being a phasey.

Teenagers are phasey people. Going in and out of what’s hip and what’s cool, what’s not cool, what’s cooler than cool, and whether or not “cool” is even a cool term. I have a theory that high school cliques are just clumps of people bonding over the fact that they are stuck in the same dreadful phase.

I’ve been through a ton of these phases. I’ve been the nerd, then the wannabe, then the prep, then the emo kid, then the scene kid. Phase after phase after phase. Fueled by a lack of self esteem and a desire to be different, I have made changes to myself based on people and things I wanted to be like and have.

Upon realization (over the summer; to be exact) that I was set in motion on the never ending phase cycle, I made a promise to myself for sophomore year: Do NOT change yourself for people. All I have ever done is change myself so I could be liked by people who I personally hated. I am done officially done being a puppet that masks the true me. (Cheesy, I know.)

Passion

Passion is one of those words that I refer to as “romantic white noise.” We hear it delivered from the dramatic voices of daytime soap operas and printed on the front of classy hallmark cards/boxes of valentines’ chocolates. But the meaning has become road-kill on the frantic highway of rushed work and love. We have honestly lost the passion and drive that motivates us to do what we do not only better and more productively, but with heart. If you are someone who dances or has ever watched someone dance, there is an obvious separation between the people who do it and the people who do it with passion.
Recently I got the opportunity to attend the pairs’ free skate and pairs dance segments of the US Figure Skating Championships. The way the couples glided and twirled was beautiful, but the real beauty lied in the routine of one couple; a brother and a sister who (even though they fell down a couple of times) had the most beautiful and passionate routine I had ever seen. Of course they didn’t win, which sort of undermines my example. But do I remember the people who won? Am I writing about the second placer’s technicalities over the third placer’s? NO.

Passion makes the sport. But don’t play it like a game. (lolcheesylines)

Dwell on it, my passionate perusers. 

Afraid of Lonely

Monophobia is the fear of being alone.  When going through a breakup, one of my friends posted this video on my facebook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs

It’s a video all about being comfortable with being alone. It inspired my very simple goal to take myself to the movies alone… I’m a very social person and I have never really liked being by myself. I find comfort in conversation and the harmonious ping of my text message tone. It could be my inner attention-whoriness fueled by a lack of personal confidence, but no matter how you psychoanalyze it, I really have never liked being alone. I mean, think about it. Does anyone really? We are all socially designed and conditioned to search for something that keeps us from feeling lonely. We are afraid of lonely. The fear of being lonely has infiltrated our thoughts until we get to the pathetic point of stalking our news feeds at weird hours because that little bit of contact is better than no contact at all.

I dated a guy once who was REALLY insecure. But the way he compensated was by always surrounding himself with people. He was always with friends or hanging out at friendly… dating him made me question: Do I really want to be the type of person who has to rely on other people to entertain my loneliness, because I don’t know how to cope?

The answer is no. I don’t. I want to stop having to text my best friend for advice I really don’t need. I don’t want to become hooked on constant communication with the outside world. I don’t want to be so lost in this need for people that I lose sight in myself. I don’t want to rush into one heartbreaking relationship after the other when the only thing we have in common is that neither one of us wants to be alone.

 I don’t want to be afraid of lonely.

Dwell on it, my curious companions 

Blahbitty Blah Blog

The word “blog” is a derivative of the word “weblog” (which is a compound of web-log; not “we blog”.) The author of a blog is the blogger and the act of physically writing on the blog is called blogging. I must admit I really didn’t know if I was ready to embark through the mysteriously hip façade of the blogger’s world. My technological skill is somewhere in between “classic newb” and “piece of grass” and my writing grade shows that I’m still trying to grasp that opener-three body paragraphs-closer formatting concept we learned in 2^nd grade. I’m most definitely not ready to learn how to format an ever-underestimated blog post. Am I supposed to speak in deep metaphors and mystical haikus? Although poetry IS calming, having to pause with every syllable to clap out loud to the 5-7-5 template takes way more time than I’m willing to invest.

My mom is one of those positive-negative universal energy people. If I told her that I really wanted to write but I didn’t think I was committed enough to keep a blog she would tell me “My god, Riley. If you had an open mind and took things on with a challenge they wouldn’t be hard. Writing is only hard when you are a big lazy bum.” But the hypothetical encouragement from my wise guru of everything written has a very sarcastic and vague tone. Maybe because it was concocted in my head; which is currently full of sarcastic and vague tones.

My friend Justin encourages me to write with all of my feelings. He says that writing what I feel will take out some of my creative and emotionally frustration.

Banging my head repeatedly against the keyboard creates ineligible jibberish. And I’m most certain that is NOT proper blog format.

Dwell on it, my curious individuals. 

Also, participate in the poll below by answering the question “who/what inspires you to write?”

Death of my Desire

There is a god-awful song on my IPod called “death of my Desire” by White Town. For those of you who haven’t had the great pleasure of ever hearing or hearing about White Town, don’t worry. It has no effect on your experience in reading this post what-so-ever.

But if you are one of those weird auditory learners or just very interested in my weird techno-hip taste in music or whatever; here’s the YouTube link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97tEw8PpM54

Want a better song to read to? This one is better. I promise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV3DOf1CS74

Out of New Years inspiration and a constant growing impatience of my bodily self-consciousness, my mom has put us both on the notorious South Beach Diet.  The first two weeks have a harsh guideline of what can and cannot be eaten. NO breads, rice, cereal, fruit, candy, Nutella, pasta, potatoes, or pudding; which changed my “buddy the elf” diet to a more refined “starved rabbit” diet.  The South Beach Diet book talks about how cutting these foods strictly for two weeks will turn off your internal switch that craves these foods.

Classic example of a death of my desire. I see it as kind of a bitter sweet thing, really. Visually you could possibly compare it to blowing out one of those cheap wax birthday candles. After it is blown out, it is still relight-able but with its wax melted away the overall attraction to the candle isn’t the way you saw it before.

de·sire

–verb (used with object)

1.    To wish or long for; crave; want.

–noun

3. A longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction or enjoyment: a desire for 

Fame.

Death

–noun

4.  Extinction; destruction: It will mean the death of our hopes.

Dwell on it, my intelligent fellows. 

It’s a boring bandwagoner’s blog of great things

I once saw an episode of House that featured a girl who had severe medical problems and was addicted to blogging about it. Throughout the entire show she had her face glued to her laptop screen, finding comfort in the “post” button and therapy in the comment box. Turning to people she didn’t know from across the world for advice on her life. I didn’t ever see the end of the episode, But I promise that won’t change anything here because this is NOT one if those blogs.

Now, granted, my blogging experience is limited. I think I started a “jewelry blog” when I was younger. (If you ever have time go to it. Rileysjewelry.wordpress.com …It’s awful.) And my mom has a rather impressive blog (achicksview.com …it’s not awful) which inspired me to create this little shindig, and hence this wonderful title. She is a writer. It’s a great thing, really. My life is full of great things.

That is what this blog is about.

It’s a boring bandwagoner’s blog of great things.

Who knew the peer pressure of putting things about your life no one cares about onto the internet could be so fun?!

~Riley