I've always considered myself an anxious person. I'm the kind of person who never walks away from a confrontation angry because I don't want my last interaction with a loved one to be anything but loving just in case we never see each other again. I always carry ID with me and tell people where I'm going just in case my dead body needs to be found in a wreck and identified. When I was in France, this anxiety was the biggest reason for the homesickness I experienced. I called home every day, despite the cost, just to make sure everyone was still alive, as if being in another country left my family more susceptible to death. Clearly, death is something that's never too far from my mind, and honestly, I'm freakin' terrified of it-- for myself, and for my loved ones. I actually tend to shy away from getting close to people because the fear of their death is just too great. And as someone who tends to live for the future, the thought of not reaching this future is just too much to bear.

This has always been a problem for me, leaving me shy and hesitant and, well, anxious. But I recently discovered a t.v. show that's become my therapy.

A few days ago I started watching this short-lived show called Dead Like Me. If you haven't seen/heard of it, it's a show about a girl who dies and becomes an un-dead grim reaper. George, the protagonist, is part of a reaper division that works freak accidents. The job of the reapers is to find the people who have an appointment with death and extract their soul before the accident happens so that they don't feel the pain of their cause of death. After dying, the soul gets to run towards a display of bright lights depicting whatever makes them happiest, like a carnival for a little girl, or the cliffs of Dover for an old Irish immigrant. 

Many deaths are displayed throughout the course of the show, and the reapers, well-acquainted with the sight of death, treat this kind of thing as just another part of the day, because it really is. For the reapers, death is as common and mundane as brushing their teeth. Strangely, I find this nonchalant treatment of death comforting. 

I like to think that there's a division of the undead out there keeping deaths pain-free and escorting the dead to a happy display of lights. I like the idea of death as nothing extraordinary, but instead something pretty ordinary and mundane. After all, it happens all the time, and that's just it. As Tim O'Brien says: Boom. Down. 

While I understand that adjusting to the death of a loved one is nothing easy, the thought of death as easy and commonplace is strangely comforting. After all, if you have an appointment with death, there's no missing it, everyone makes an appointment sooner or later. 

p.s. I'm only on episode 6, so please, no spoilers  

Oh Hai, Xanga! I know it's been a while yet again, but I had a thought the other day that I felt needed to be expressed in a blog.

I was driving the other day (which is always when I'm most thoughtful) and the song, "Forever Young" came on the radio, which made me think, "hot damn, there are a lot of songs about being young again and forever." While this is most certainly not an earth-shattering, life-changing discovery, the thought that came next kind of was. Well, for me, anyway. What came next was, "I really suck at being young." It's true. I'm a pretty serious, by-the-books, goal-oriented kind of person. In fact, I think I've made a much better adult for the majority of my life than I have a kid. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've never been a reckless or carefree kind of person. And I've definitely always been the responsible one. During this stream of consciousness I also decided that I'd probably be much happier in the prime of my adult years that I've ever been trying to be a teenager. (It's fitting that this conversation with myself happened around the time of 20th birthday when I, in fact, stopped being a teenager).

This made me wonder if maybe some people are born to be adults. I mean, there are all these songs obsessing over the younger years and the carefree days of summer vacation, but that just doesn't speak to me. What speaks to me is success and responsibility. Of course, maybe it's just me. I've always felt like a bit of an anomaly due to my introversion, so it's entirely possible that this is a continuation of my anomalous nature.

Or maybe I'm just a hipster to the extreme.

(Hipster Kitty Says:)

Hi, everyone, my name is Trivolity, and I am single.

While I do enjoy long, moonlit walks on the beach, this is not a personal ad. In fact, it's a confession.

And a rant.

A couple weeks ago, my younger brother, who is 16 years old, informed my mom that he had his first girlfriend. When I heard this, the first thing I could think to say was, "dammit, he won!"

See, I'm 19 and I've never had a boyfriend. It's kind of sad that my younger brother started dating before I did. 

And here's the biggest problem: When I see my friends coupling off, and people with horrid social skills who I'd call downright annoying catching themselves fish after fish, I have to wonder what's wrong with me.

I've never even had legitimate guy friends. The groups I've fallen into have always been full of girls, and those one or two guys with questionable sexuality who you know will come out at any second. My constantly surrounding myself with nothing but female companionship would have Feminist theory calling me a lesbian. But I'm not. It's not my fault that my closest groups of friends are from theater, the piccolo section in the marching band, and the honors college, which are 95% female.

But aside from this unfortunate statistic, I don't understand why no one has ever even approached me (aside from that kid in 7th grade who was a complete pot head). I don't think I'm socially inept, I don't think I'm gorgeous, but I don't think I'm downright ugly, either, plus, I'm a pretty friendly person, albeit a bit on the shy side.

It always astounds me to think that high school aged children are already having sex, and I've never even had my first kiss. People talk about dating tall and dating short, but I'm still working on dating at all, regardless of height.

I think the funniest scenario is in my creative writing class when my teacher asked us all to describe something we found beautiful about our most recent boyfriend/girlfriend. I was just like, uhhhhhhhh.

And I feel like I'm missing out on a very important part of life, especially life as a young adult.

But I can't seem to remedie this issue. And I can't stop wondering what's so wrong with me that nobody wants me. Am I destined to be perpetually single?

How old were you when you had your first boyfriend/girlfriend

How do you like to go about finding "mates." 

Do you have any advice for me?

Do you have any irrational fears?

Here are mine:

• Bees and wasps
• Appendicitis
• Storms
• Sleepwalkers
• Waking people up from sleep
• Wind in any quantity
• Falling down stairs
• Someone breaking into my house while I'm in the shower or asleep
• A fire starting in my house while I'm asleep and no one being able to rescue me because my door is locked (I sometimes can't decide if I should lock my door at night to protect myself from burglars, or if I should keep it unlocked to save myself from a fire)
• Hitting a deer on the highway
• Veins and any mention of giving blood or having blood drawn
• The room at the foot of the stairs, when it's dark
• Push-pins

...

Do you have any irrational, random, or ridiculous fears?

You know how this game works. I wrote the beginning, now you continue the story in a comment. You can write a sentence or a paragraph, you can write seriously or comedically, it doesn't matter. Just pick up where the person above you left off:

I found myself lost in a forest clearing; a haunting prism from another, darker dimension. The sun had laid itself to rest, eager to make me blind, its efforts thwarted by the shining stars— my only glimmer of hope. This hope pushed me forward among the cylindrical trees with their reaching branches, wanting to hold me hostage in that black hole forever. Deeper and deeper I walked. With each cautious step, each shaking breath, I knew I left sanity in my wake. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted, and somewhere nearby a twig cracked. Was it my own foot or a predator’s? I could not afford to freeze from fear. Onward I trudged. A muscle pounded in my neck. My stomach churned bile and gurgled. How much time had passed? The earth moved and the blackness around me swirled with mental stars. I fell.

          I awoke to a flighty choir of birds. Leaves danced in the howling breeze. Sunlight divinely glistened down from above as I was granted again the sense of sight. Shadows fell like blankets on the forest floor around me, but did not touch my forest clearing until the sun hid behind a black cloud. Forest clearing. I was still lost; and it began to pour.

Story Sundays

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.  ~E.L. Doctorow

I have been writing furiously recently. I haven't been this obsessive about writing since 9th grade. I've been worried for a while about my decision to major in writing and my steady decline in a passion for it, but that passion has been renewed through blogging.

My whole goal when starting this blog in january was to re-learn how to habitually write. Little did I know I'd eventually do it obsessively. I find mself writing constantly. And when I'm not writing, I'm think about what I'll write next.

For the past couple of years I've felt the same way about writing as I do about exercise. I hate having to do it, but once it's done, god does it feel good. there's such a high, a release. Writing feels good, but I hated the thought of doing it.

I felt like such a phony when I answered, "yes" to the question, "do you like to write?" Now, I feel completely confident in such an answer.

Now, I lay here at 2am on the floor of my dark bedroom writing this in my notebook that has gotten so much use recently, because I can't not do this.

It feels so good. I feel so free. So complete.

I guess I wasn't losing my passion for writing after all. I'm still that girl in 5th grade who would write while she sang in chorus class because she couldn't put down her notebook.

I'm still the girl who is the only person to with the Virginia Fiss Albright writing award 2 years in a row in middle school.

As I reached higher grades, and my honors classes became AP classes and my teachers required more and more papers from me on topics I didn't give a sit about, writing became a chore. Why would I do it when I didn't have to? You don't wash the dishes if I don't absolutely have to, do you? (okay so I kind of like washing dishes, but that's not the point. Or is it?)

But now I have a summer compltely free of school work and finally, I'm over my 4-year writer's block.

Thank you, Xanga, for providing me an outlet, and helping me fall in love again.

It's Question Tuesday! The day where I ask you random questions inspired by scenarios in my own life.

So there I was: minding my own business, sitting on my favorite bench at the park across from my neighborhood, reading a light summer novel, when this random woman walked over and, despite the 800 picnic tables scattered throughout the park, sat down next to me. Because I was in the middle of the bench, this made us uncomfortably close to one another, which made the situation more uncomfortable that it already was. For me anyway.

What I geniusly concluded from this is that I'm really not the kind of person to sit on the same bench as someone else if there are other options available.

Are you?

and do you find it awkward when other people do this?

"Things That Bother Me" Friday (Fridays consist of tiny little pet peeves, and my rantings about them. I share so that, if any of you also have these pet peeves, we can fume together)

It's always bothered me when authors write that a female character "tucked a stray curl behind her ear." *

That pesky, pesky curl**

As someone with curly hair, I can ensure you that they do not tuck, especially not one at a time if at all. Okay, if my hair's in a pony tail, maybe, but these girls are often described as having their hair down.

Furthermore, why is that one curl being so stubborn when the rest of her hair is tucking? It's just that one curl that's causing problems. If the curl is long enough to tuck behind her ear, I don't understand why it wouldn't tuck with the rest of it.

There is absolutely no way she could tuck***

The thing about curly hair is that the entire head of hair works together to create those curls. They don't exist alone, not often anway. It's very unlikely that one curl would start a rebellion against the rest of the head. Even if it did, it would eventually gain followers until the entire head of hair was bonded together in a plan for mutiny against itself. Why?

Because curls don't tuck.

End Rant

*For a point of reference, this saying can be found in John Green's story from the otherwise well-written novel, Let it Snow

**For the record, it took quite a bit of work to isolate that curl and get the rest of it to tuck so no calling hypocrisy on me

***I have no clue who that person is.

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I heard a quote from John Mayer on the radio saying that he was considering deleting his Twitter account because he wanted to remove his need for external validation.

Hearing this made me realize that a major purpose of social networking sites, and the reason why they are so popular, is that they fill our need for external validation. Even make it grow, especially in the internet generation where fame is more achievable than ever.

Before Facebook or Twitter, we didn't have a need to post summaries of our days, our favorite song lyrics, or our deepest secrets on the internet in 140 characters or less and expect a comment or two or ten.

It's the same reason we blog here on Xanga. If your site is public, it's likely you crave comments. Even those of you who say you write for yourselves; You could "write for yourself" just as easily in a journal with a lock and key. The point of a public blog is the comments (and the discussions they create). And those comments give us external validation.

But this brings up another topic:

The way social networking sites allow us to create our own online identity.

With social networking sites we can choose what we show to the world, and what we keep private. We can tell as many lies as we want. We can shape the image others have of us into someone we're not, but someone we want to be.

Not only do we lie to our 500 facebook "friends," but we also lie to ourselves as we wait around, refreshing the internet page, waiting for a comment.

Do you think social networking sites have increased our need for external validation?

How much of what we do is to create an image, or an idea of us, in the mind of another?

I would like to do a question and answer blog.

Ask me a question

Any question. (I'm really not picky) and I will try to answer most of them, hopefully in a fun and amusing, and possibly interesting, fashion.

and now on to the regularly scheduled blog.

I tend to lie to myself, and pretty much everyone when I say I like to read. I've learned I'm a pretty good liar. I have most everyone fooled. But recently I'm beginning to see through my lies. It's time for me to offically admit that I'm not a huge fan of reading.

Anymore

When I was a kid, I'd always check out 10-15 books from the library every week, and I couldn't wait to get home to read them. I bought my entire family a meal at Old Country Buffet in middle school because I had read enough to win such a prize from the library's summer reading program.

In middle school, you could never find me without a book in my hand. I was even in the library club and best friends with the school librarian.

But somewhere around junior or senior year of high school, things started to change. I started reading less. And now, I can barely make myself read for fun at all.

Sometimes I think I like the idea of reading more than I like the actual act. Like when I go running in the morning. I'm always so pumped to run a lap, but then I start my whimpy half jog and can't help but ask myself what the hell I was thinking when I decided this would be fun.

I love libraries, and I love bookstores. When it's a nice day outside, my first instinct is to go to the library or Borders. And I love love love browsing for books, too. I always create a long list of books I want to read while I'm browsing that I never actually seem to get to.

This summer I figured, with all my free time, I'd read my ass off. I've only read 60 pages of one book since returning home over 2 weeks ago. I find myself unable to focus, or I find the task too daunting, and decide to move onto another book, because I'm too impatient to finish the one I'm reading. Or I choose staring into space as the superior choice of activity. I also find myself completely uninterested in the book, or I find myself completely annoyed with the writing or the execution of the plot.

I can't help but wonder where I went wrong. I mean, what kind of an English major can't read for fun?

Sometimes I like to blame school and summer reading. My high school made us read the most boring list of books over the summer. And in college, I find myself reading a different classic novel or biography every week. With all this reading for work, I find myself cherishing the brief breaks I can get from it. Same with writing. I wrote over 300 pages in daily journals last semester. Now the thought of writing sometimes makes me cringe though I used to obsessively write stories while singing in choir class in fifth grade. And I'm a writing major...  But my point is, I was so overwhelmed with this activity, that it became nothing but work, and cannot be changed back into fun.

I also wonder how much the computer plays into this. But then again, I like to blame the computer for most of my problems, just because it's my favorite scapegoat. Anyway, with all the 4 minute youtube videos I watch, and the short-and-to-the-point blogs I read, I wonder if my attention span has decreased.

Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just growing out of my bookworm stage. But I don't want to grow out of my bookworm stage. I want to be a bookworm. I want to read everything. I want to write constantly. I love being an English major. Well, the idea of it anyway. But I can't think of anything else I'd rather major in. 

Honestly, I could blame my usual scapegoats, but it's possible the problem is just me.

But then again, there has to be a catalyst for change to happen, right?

What do you think is the most logical explanation?

Do you find yourself desiring books less?

Are you much of a reader?

What are you currently reading?