New Blog!

Hello! It was wonderful sharing my word-vomit thoughts on this blog, but as you can tell, I've been gone for some time. I've moved over to Life in the Natural State for now. Feel free to check it out! Until then, thanks for reading!

Or something.

So, as many of you non-existent readers know, I enjoy stumbling. Well, I do stumble here and there in real life too and it's enjoyable when I recover, but I think you probably know what I mean since it's 20:12 after all. I think I've come across it before and didn't think too much of it, as I began to this time, until I came across numero sept of "40 Photo-Illustrated Questions to Refocus Your Mind". I thought to myself, why not? My mind certainly needs focusing. It's been all out of whack for over a year now, to the point I wonder if people who've met me have really met me at all. Then again, maybe they have, and I haven't?

The point is clearly I need refocusing, so I did, I mean, I tried, and I was breezing through them. Breezing through until my scroll came to a sudden stop at number 7.


In one sentence

(then they have this nice spread out space in the picture)

who are you?

I am... I... I'm...


Let me get this straight, I ask the question. You want me to put who I am in a single sentence? I... Well, I don't know.


I'm...alone? 


A bit emo, but a nice try. Still, a what not a who. 


Confused?


Again.


I don't know who I am, much less could I explain so in a sentence.


I'm...I'm a human? A college student? A dreamer? An INFJ? An idealist? I'm an honest, moody, running to stay on the path young person whole loves old land cameras that don't even work? Don't judge me, mind, I'm just spitballing here. 


So since I wasn't really getting anywhere with who I was, in a sentence, I tried to think about who I'm not. And that was even more endless, so I decided to narrow it down in my age group.  


Well. 

I don't have fucking sparrows for a tattoo or feathers in my hair and I didn't send a buy one get one free pair of shoes to a third world country. 

I didn't lose my virginity drunk at midnight or in love, I gave it to nine in the sunrise just because.

I don't have a hobby. 

I'm not particularly political, unless it's hit close to home or it's ridiculously against what I see as what should be some kind of general human ethic. 

I don't really focus on my health or my studies. I'm not particularly gifted in a specific area. 

I am a listener. Aha! But. Even still, sometimes people can't get a word in edgewise and what's a listener anyways. 

I've never really donated my time or made boatloads of money for it. I'm not even a pretty face.

Unlike most broke jobless students, I'm not so broke at this moment since I'm decent at saving money and also finding deals, but in retrospect, they're usually a bit impulsive, hoardy, and not that great anyways.

I'm not particularly well-read on any subject or author. I'm not particularly opinionated. 

I'm mostly honest, but only mostly. I'm sometimes funny, but usually just in amusing myself. 

I don't have a band of friends who have something in common or something they stand for. My friends are about like my sandwiches. I just pick the ones I like whether or not they really go together. Sometimes I just pick what's readily available from my options and make the most of it. 

I could be a leader because I have an eye for organization in anything that isn't my room, or perhaps just physical in general, and I used to even be bossy. Still quick-tempered, but usually only at my mom, and that's who I got it from anyways. Yet I'm not because I'm too meager.

I am quiet but I'm not close-mouthed. I will happily give you the answers to your prying questions. 

I often spend my time sparing into space these days. I am extremely forgetful, although this is extremely recent. Probably this is all because I am insatiable in that I seem to always decide I want things once I realize I can't have them. What a brat.

I'm not artistic.

I'm not ridiculously smart.

My eyesight sucks, by the way.

I can't even cook. Okay, maybe I haven't tried as much as I would like to. 

I'm not sporty. 

I'm not a computer whiz.

I'm not good at being a lady or a man. 

I can't ride anything, not even my own ego, not unless it's a joke. 

Jesus Christ.

I'm not that either.

Although. He was apparently an INFJ too. Then again, there's only 16 personalities in the world so fuck it.

So naming all the things I'm not really ends up being kind of irritating. I don't even know what I want to be anyways. So what, no, so who am I?

Geez, gents, I just don't know. I'm just this girl up late at night typing away a stream of some consciousness at the only venue that won't talk back about feedback I could give a shit less about.

I am Karen Cockrum, and not the one that died in a car accident at 15. I want a perfect happy life just like everybody else, even the douchebags who say, "no, I don't," but really, they do. Perfect's subjective anyways. I am an introspective person who simply wants her friends to feel better instead of worse after talking to her. I want to do something exciting on occasion and to hear about the excitement experienced by others so we can all have at least vicariously lived a bit of everything. I like camping when it's not too manual and sometimes even blogging like this, and I like people who both challenge and respect me. Who am I? I'm a realistic romantic who enjoys a good cynical laugh and the occasional odd circumstance to tell a tale about later. I don't care if things here conflict because I'm thinking all of them, therefore I am. Or something. 

Girl Anachronism?

I romanticize the past, the foreign, anything older than me that I don't know or understand. I could romanticize you too.

I'm not sure why. I've always wondered in the past why I loved it. Perhaps it's from having older parents who grew up around older cultures than my average friend's more youthful counterparts. Perhaps it's from specifically growing up around my mother who always bought used things, things that were older than what everyone else was used to to begin with. Maybe it was from being well-read and those stories, unless sci-fi, had to be set in the past. It's always interesting to look back at the different trends that humans grow attached to during their lifespans. Hell if I know, but if I could just get my hands on one of those old Vanagons or explore France this summer via some vintage motorcycle with a sidecar, I might would lose my shit. Good thing my shit will be strapped to my back in a brand new backpack -- in the make of WWII fashion. These old land cameras on top of my dresser and the suitcase-style record player in the living room just call my name to be looked at. Just a little reminder that we aren't stuck with only the newest gadgets of our time. That back in the day when quality mattered, things were built to last, they were sturdy. Yet now every aspect of our lives are constantly changing and we're constantly being upgraded to different eggshells to walk on.

At the end of the day I just like being reminded I don't need anything fancy to function. And that we should't just be future or even present minded. We should respect the people of the past because there are stories there -- original stories, there. There are all of these graves filled with people who lived in the times of the real WWII backpacks mine mocks whose stories we'll never know because they're lost in the ground and we didn't get them out in time.

I go to my grandmother's every Sunday, and although we're not close and I quit going to church with her and she likes to periodically remind me with her Northern-and-then-some ways how much she despises my hair, we have lunch and we catch up. I've tried to get her to tell me these old stories I love so much. You'd think at nearly 91 she'd have some, but she's awfully bitter. (Mostly due to having to provide for her 5 children while her marriage dwindled in the countryside, and in regards to my last post, this is another reason I refuse to settle. I want to be in a good enough shape of mind to tell my stories, because although she's great physically, something won't let those stories out.) However, she was going on casually about how she didn't think her friend down the road, whom she likes to play cards with, won't make it much longer. She talked about another family friend in bad shape. She can talk about death like she talks about the chicken we're eating and how she cooked it five minutes too long. She never mentions her own much, if any, though.

The difference in our skin is fascinating. We look quite a bit alike when compared at the right age, aside from the nose. But now she's got all these wrinkles, and my mom always made me iron shirts I'd be willing to wear, but even I couldn't wear her. But then here in headquarters I look down at this smooth, youthful (somewhat crappy, thanks to those ding-dongs) skin, add on 70 years and get her. Her favorite era is one of my least favorites--the pioneer days, although I like it at Old Washington.

It's funny how I can look at my own past and shudder and maybe that's why I want to go even further back, and that I'm dissociated in the present and unsure, although hopeful, about the future. I never paid much attention in history class but it could've been the teachers. Can't help but wonder, though, what it'd be like to see Paris in the rain in the twenties, you know. Although that idea's a little too copyrighted, so maybe some flappers dancing to jazz in New Orleans, that's nice enough.

Yet then I think about this computer and video cameras and medicines that have saved me from what would've been death and I thank whoever listens. Yes, I'll be perfectly content in a quaint Texan home. Or like they say, so long as the company's good, right?

My heart is pounding with coffee instead of some Valentine crush -- I didn't used to drink coffee. Actually, up until a few months ago, I couldn't take a sip of anything even 99% creamer if it had coffee in it without gagging. Kind of like when people try to convince me, "no, you'll love this beer." They're wrong every time with the coffee too, but I always fell for it. Or at least exaggerate my gagging just to prove my point is more like it. Anyways, the point is after a couple of years of college, you'll try anything to get you through it, and folks, we're just lucky it wasn't cocaine for me.

Not yet anyway.

I mean, I could go for some -- all this family, school, friend, thesis, did I mention family?, health, +other stress, hey, does anyone know where I can get some coke? (You know, it's funny, I was gonna go on this "diet" of fruit for a couple of weeks, since I eat so much junk, but here I am ravaging this cream-filled ding-dong in the spirit of love. I really must hate my body, truly.)

The real point is I've never had a Valentine that wasn't my parents, and while I'm not going to throw a consumer-hating party, I don't really mind. Life might be lonely for everyone at times, but settling and convenience are much worse junk food for your spirit. Ahh, look at all the lonely, unhappy people, shoulda stayed single.

It's fascinating, the dynamics of different relationships between different people. I was talking to one friend about others and another specifically, trying to figure out what exactly it was about that one's friendship that made it so much better than everyone else. We came to the conclusion it was my other friend's sheer genuineness that allowed us to have such a bullshit-free and open friendship. Genuine, a word assigned to me by various friends as well as personality tests, and now realizing this friend as well. In retrospect, it's obvious, looking back. She says what's on her mind, what she thinks, is kind, is aware of the world, cares about people, and has never, to my knowledge, felt the need to tell even little lies to me or manipulate me. We can sit in a radio-free car and never run out of things to talk about. And she just does things, man. Shave or bleach her natural black locks, she really doesn't give a damn, yet she gives so many at the same time. We're both kind of stuck in our own little worlds too, except we find common ground around one another. Yet everyone else, our other friends...there's always just something off about them.

And that, my friends, is why I've been on this dating hiatus and find myself balloon-less today. I just can't ever seem to meet any other genuine, honest, thoughtful, faithful people, ever. Try to throw a sense of humor on top of that and the game's totally over. Wouldn't life be somehow easier if we could all just tell one another what we're thinking? What we're really thinking, that is, without beating around any shrubbery. Perhaps our pride would get hurt a little often, but it would be made up for when things work out, because people oftentimes want more similar things from one another than they tend to realize. If only we could just open up.

I just hate seeing these people together who don't talk. Can they really be happy hiding their thoughts?

Maybe public boners aren't so bad.

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

Like most (MWF)days, I ate lunch with my well-dressed digital film major friends after our scriptwriting course. Let me begin by discussing sandwiches and things that are put on them in order to produce halitosis. 

I have a habit of putting things I like together, whether or not they really fit. This goes for most things in life -- I like my different friends even when they hate one another, I have a shelf of various movies that doesn't say much about me as a person, my decor rarely matches except that its usually odd, and I have a tendency to put weird combinations like olives, onions, honey mustard, and chipotle mayo on whatever sandwich I'm eating, because it's the only and all of the stuff I like. Offered, at least. 

It's more than I used to eat as a kid--dry bread + deli meat, please. And I'd always leave that last corner as if it were infected with some disease. But my point is that if I only ask for onions and not an entire salad on my sandwich, please do not give me the quantity of onions to make up for a lack of other things.

As my friends pointed out, you can always tell how many hours you'll need to stay at least a yard away from people for the rest of the day by the sandwich artisan's hand. That two seconds where they're reaching for the onions is all you need. If their humble fingers are pinching together, you're in the safe zone, but if they've got that crane claw blitzkriegin' down on the tupperware, you're screwed. 

The answer here is obviously to pick some off, but that's for people who care about their relationships.

But then special snowflakes were brought into the picture. Enter: the phrase "eclectic" into conversation.

We talked about how shitty our high schools were, as well as how boring the people were. My friend brought about his "eclectic" tastes and how he felt the day he realized the Pixies were actually one of the most well-known bands, but you wouldn't know any better if you graduated with the riffraff of Arkansas. He said if he'd lived in New York, he would've just been "that guy," not the least bit esoteric. 

Oh, hipsters. (Seriously, y'all, southern hipsters are the best.)

But it makes me wonder why are we so obsessed with becoming so individualized by obscure media. Why that empowers us. I mean, sure it's cool if you know about things that others don't, but generally our best conversations are where we can find common ground; a five year old and an eighteen year old may have difficulty discussing pythagorean theorems and what not. I mean, it really is great if you truly like the things you speak of, but I pretty well feel like people go out of their way to find these things just so they can stick their noses up. I've seen it happen. Hell, I've probably done it from time to time. And I am a better example than anyone of having a random assortment of property to the extent it seems like I'm trying, when really I just like good deals, weird shit, and hoarding.

I'm always a sponsor of believing what you want, though, until you start belittling people. Like those really egotistical, mouthy atheists who start picking apart the bible just to rub it in their Christian friends' news feeds. I hate it when people down on others for like "mainstream" music, movies, books, etc. It's a trend for a reason: because a majority of people like it, just like a majority of people vote for a political official they like. Maybe the winner isn't the most educated politician of the bunch, but it's who people liked.

To each their own.

But I like Gogol Bordello, and I don't care if they've had over 18 million plays on last.fm. That doesn't make them any less good, or make me enjoy them less. Much like I don't care if you have 1 or 100 friends, so long as I like you as a person. 

Ha, this reminds me: a guy once asked me how many was too many. I replied, "two things: first, no STDs." I realize, of course, you can get this from one person, one time -- but you were unsafe and thus stupid, so your person was one too many. "Second, if you can name them all, especially last names, then I guess it meant enough." 

He proceeded to give me a number with promised names and I secretly decided it was too many in my head, but perhaps it's because I never liked him in that way to begin with. 

That's another example of tastes: the opposite (for me) sex. None of the guys I've ever gone out with were really even remotely alike. I'm trying to decide what the common factor I'm looking for is exactly, before I break the aforementioned hiatus (more than the couple of times I may have cheated slightly). I think at this point I just want someone who I can hold a conversation with the entire 7 hour road trip, without music, to New Orleans, (because New Orleans is a magnificent place full of jazzy blues, creole food, voodoo, vagrants & buskers, and hand grenades), and if they happen to be able to challenge my wit and are highly dependable, you had me at whatever you had me at. 

I guess tastes are tastes, and the philosophy of obscure vs. mainstream really has no significance, but it is important to know what you like...for instance, I really dig the pistachio ice-cream used in the Original Rainbow Cone in Chicago. I'm just sayin'. 

Rated PG-13 for Language & Lemons.

I usually start these little babies with the first thought that comes to mind, spending a few lines until I finally find what I wanted to blog about to begin with.

I suppose today shall be no different.

I guess I'm not the greatest blogger--I never have one main point that I stick to, and even if I did, it wouldn't be something you cared about and I'd probably be too vague for you to follow, anyways. This is just a mess of all these incoherent thoughts of mine, so let's stop wasting time and continue as usual. Old dog, same trick, agreed?

Just to pause time a moment longer, this, once more, won't be a happy blog.

I am depressed.

Tech/Clinically.

I'm not crying as I write this, I'm not even sad, and I actually feel pretty damn stupid--the only thing saving me is the reminder that only 30 people have visited this page since November, and that's mostly because of some Google images search, I think.

I am exhausted and I've no motivation, and I gain no pleasure out of anything. My friend and I discussed tonight the differences between us in this matter, and yet I know that talking it out, taking medication, adding a cooking class to my schedule, none of these things will really improve the quality of my life. In fact, I'm handling this all just fine, I'm simply not going anywhere.

I realize that it is because of my situation. I eat lunch with my grandma every Sunday, and the last time she made the comment how I hadn't been able to enjoy college because there was always "something" going on. Right now I'm having some pretty serious family problems, and it's been this incredibly drawn out thing, and everyone's getting their feelings hurt and yadayadayada.

[Which is why, despite my unofficial hiatus from relationships the last two years, I appreciate "dating." You can't dump your family. You really can't even dump your friends. But when the going gets rough and you're 20 years old, there is no reason to try to force some situation that you don't need to work--so you can definitely dump some broad.]

When life gives you bad lemons, you can't really make lemonade out of them, no matter how much sugar you add. Sometimes you can't do anything about it. Sometimes you've just got say, "ow!" when the lemon strikes your fragile frame, grit your teeth and bear it. Maybe give that lemon the bird. Sometimes you've got to keep walking through this fucking hallway and be stoned by bad lemons.

The key, I guess, is hope--at least in Western society. We hope that eventually that fucking highway to lemon hell will end, or at least give us pleasantly ripe ones. There's no way out either, you've just gotta take it. You can sit down and hope it will stop raining lemons, or you can try to travel out in the storm, but you ain't got no hood, my friend, no umbrella's gonna help.

Have I talked enough about bad metaphors yet?

I've come to accept that right now, life or chance or whatever the hell you believe in feels like stoning me with bad lemons, and that's okay, they've gotta run out sometime, unless they're a high school math problem, in which case they've got ungodly amounts of fruit and vegetables that will shame the government's health plan.

My point is surely more Eastern, a little yin and yang, a little balance. Surely this will all come full circle, and for every bad action, there will be an equal an opposite good reaction--and if so, I've got a lot of good reactions heading my way soon. Like, maybe a lifetime's worth. (An apartment in Texas with a Volkswagen van and a siberian husky would be satisfactory.) It's funny because that's probably what I would've chosen on my own--getting the worst things over with first. If nothing else, for Christmas my roommate unknowingly bought me a tanuki couple statue, whose disproportionately large testicles I think somehow bring me good fortune.

So bring it on, lemonaider. I can take another semester of this, ole chap, I can do it if I need to. But seriously, can I have a break next year?

Like I said, this blog is entirely, altruistically for me. Hope you learn'd sometin'.

Close, but no cigar.

When reviewing the past with my mother today I had to ask myself: have I always been unlucky when picking friends, are people simply not thoughtful anymore, or am I really just exceedingly ungrateful? While she says it's not the last, I wouldn't put it past myself; I'm American, after all. But once again, the answer to my question is most likely a combination of them all.

I'd like to be a selfless person who could just do things for people all the time, but when you aren't getting it back, you'll get tired, because there's no one filling your own burned out tank back up, you know. If I scratch your back and you don't scratch mine, you get relief and I get circling thoughts about how fucking itchy my back is. So I hate that I can't be totally altruistic, I guess it wasn't how I was raised. Sooner or later I recognize any altruistic acts I've completed and start wondering where my Goodwill income tax slip is because it's almost January.

I think I've probably mentioned a time or two my habit of wishing time away, but I'm not so sure if I've ever spent much time here discussing my habit of what most would call daydreaming. I spend so much time thinking up scenarios in my head that will probably never happen (I won't lie, sometimes they do, for sometimes they are quite simple: pie, for instance), and not even just before bed but all day. I spend a grotesque amount of my time in an alternate universe within the realms of what my mind knows. I guess it took the place of reading, becoming much more personal and much less imaginative. I spend more time thinking up everyday occurrences that aren't happening than I spend attempting to make any of them happen. Or on anything else, for that matter. Like homework. I can't focus on anything but that which isn't happening or that I can't have.

That's my stupid curse upon myself, always wishing for things I can't have. The things I ever really want are the things I can't get to work out. I'd say that's maybe why I want them, but it doesn't really happen in that order, and sometimes I really do feel as if someone keeps dangling this little worm of opportunity in front of me, tugging to soon before I've caught on the hook.

Nah. I always want what could have been and I hang onto the past more than I realize and more than is healthy. Even when the hook would've killed me, even when I know it and even when I don't, I still want it because I couldn't have it. What a needy greedy beady-eyed child I am.

Now I want someone who will not only not drain me, but will energize me--through adventure, intelligence, passion, thought--I don't particularly care of the means, but this is so difficult to find these days. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

Now they're so layered--literally, maybe we aren't all as overweight as we seem when you peel off the current fashion--and our words are so layered and we have to distinguish through all the shit, you know? We have to search through all the different meanings. Words are curses because they can be so overly simple or overly detailed and still be wrong. I have to take what I believe you meant when you said what I heard through what you may have thought if you even projected yourself correctly and it's all a big tangled mess. I love knowing people, peeling their layers--to the point where I'm already through and to the core and bored within a matter of minutes or days. I should slow down but I get so eager and then I get so comfortable and instead of leaving I'm sitting there, bored and loyal as always.

I'm bipolar with my interest in people. I can't decide if I'm crazy about them or uninterested by them--of course, it could just be because I've always cared a lot more about them than they about myself and like I was saying, I'm not entirely selfless. I haven't let a guy get close in a while, didn't intend to, avoid it, will avoid it, and I don't know if it's because I'm crazy about them or uninterested by them. Probably just avoiding getting hurt by them, of course, as I'm not entirely selfless.

As usual I don't know where I'm going with this blog or life, and it is indeed a laughing matter. It's as if I've hit this road bump--on my head that is, and fell down into a rather dull rabbit hole than I can't click my heels out of. Just deep enough to get stuck, just deep enough for it to count, don't let him lie to you. Just a little bit lasts for a long while.

Another curse, did you know I'm always torn between two? A life of simplicity in a suitcase or assorted quirky knick-knacks? Oh, the list could go on but I won't bother you for a paragraph.

I need a third party person to tell me what I'm good at, where to go. I have a feeling I'm going to spend another semester stuck in this whole hole, another summer. Perhaps by next fall I'll head somewhere again.

In the meantime I'll just stay lost in thought.

S that won't ever happen.