The smell of oil and old money follows me around for days. I feel its stink in my hair, even though I’ve washed it twice in one day. I feel it on the tips of my fingers, though I’ve washed them over and under and in between, soaking them in lemon, too. I feel it on my face, and it’s making it itch, even though I’ve used two kinds of face wash already. It follows me around like the past does, and I can’t wash it away.

I’m not fond of smells. It goes without saying that fastfood places and restaurants have stenches that weave themselves into your hair and clothes, but I hate these smells with an uncomfortable indignation. I hate pizzerias, I hate Five Guys, I hate BBQs. I even hate perfume and cologne. The only smells I enjoy are those of cleanliness — laundry, soap, shampoo. I’m irritating, I know. I can’t help it.

I feel so uneasy.

There’s a time when one stops playing the piano and actually starts playing the music. Sometimes I temporarily enter this musical twilight zone, usually when I’m at my teacher’s house, on her Steinway. But most often than not I snap out of it a few measures later; either I make a mistake, or I’m not just there yet.

I notice this at rehearsal today. I can’t even quite call it rehearsal, but it’s basically another chance for me to practice playing in front of people — even if they’re all young children and their parents (not mine). Some of these children play drearily simple songs, but oh, that’s where I started out too. I can’t help but smile when I see little kids perform. There’s something awfully endearing about seeing their fingers go up and down, even if it’s a bit iffy to my ear.

But then again, my teacher has a strong core group of children with talent. They’re young children, or at least they look very young, with their tiny arms and thin legs, but some of them play amazingly well. It’s not a matter of the level of difficulty — it’s how they play each piece. I know all their names, and I have heard them all play more than a few times.

Read More

To read:
(trying to finish more classics)

Anna karenina (started)
Jane eyre
Wuthering heights
Little women (halfway) (simplified)
A little princess (started) (simplified)
Emma (attempted)
Pride & prejudice (started)
Oliver twist (simplified)
Tess of d’ubervilles (simplified)
Adventures of SH (started)
War and peace
Sister Carrie
Sons & lovers

To do:

Exercise…
Do math review worksheets
Review Spanish flashcards
Fill out Spanish sheet
Math test Monday - memorize 16pt
Edit audio for math video
English connection
Readdddddd
Have fun
~
practice piano! :)

What does a personnel officer really do, anyway?

What I wouldn’t give to be confident and positive and optimistic.

And the end of each day all I think about is how much my parents must dislike me. I don’t feel sad, just extremely helpless. I don’t feel bad for myself, just extremely disappointed. Truthfully I’m disgusted by myself, not because of how I look or how awkward I am, but because of how lowly I think of myself.

It disgusts me so much. How could I have taken a soul in a body and continuously scrutinize the body and distort the soul? Even after all I’ve told myself about things not mattering in the grand scheme of life, I don’t seem to get it.

I let myself think such terrible thoughts. I waste each precious day by thinking them. It’s a horrific feeling, knowing that these thoughts are destroying the quality of life and slowly skinning away parts of your soul, yet I allow myself to think them, almost to indulge in the safeness of closing in.

“If you hate yourself so damn much,” my mother explodes, “Then how the fuck do you expect anyone to love you?”

She’s right. I can’t help it though. I’m regressing back into the black hole inside my head with its traitorous thoughts. It’s a most welcome change compared to the pure stupidity and gut-wrench of freshmen year, because at least right now I’m safe.

God, please. Help me. I’m begging you. Seeing as how I’m skeptical and wary of your existence, I’m desperate right now. I’m turning to supernaturality because I can’t bothering fixing my horrid personality with science and literary catharsis anymore.

Please.

I’m finally seeing all my friends. At once. Without anybody else there to constantly show us that we’re drifting like buoys against the current that is high school. Without the unsettling thought that none of us really know each other anymore.

And as uncomfortable as I am, and as anxious as I am, knowing that things aren’t quite what they are anymore, if I squint, I can pretend that everything’s natural and happy. I can’t quite say that I hope it will be like the past, because truthfully I don’t ever think there was a time we didn’t stay on the tips of our toes or hide from each other.

In the precarious scheme of things I always comfort myself by believing that we’ll all separate once we leave this town, despite what we say. Run away, that’s what I like to do when things become too uncomfortable. Never see each other again. In our childhood we make commitments & promises in our naivete, in our simpleminded belief that best friends lasted as long as handwoven bracelets whose edges frayed many times over.

In the haste of redirecting a topic of conversation I ended up saying a few things that were …