Ways I waste time on the internet

Since not being on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, etc:

1. Lust over things I want to buy someday. (i.e. Nord Stage Piano)
2. Read entire Wikipedia articles, then click on Wikipedia articles linked to those articles and read those entire articles.
3. Bookmark cool YouTube or Vimeo videos that I find on blogs.
4. Read everything in my RSS Feed.
5. Look for decrepit pianos on Craigslist for my secret project.
6. Look for cool poems to mumble to myself.
7. Watch poetry slams.
8. Look at Ace Hotel's website and think about getting a job there.
9. Look at the secret poetry blog I have with my friends and wish the rest of them looked at it more.
10. Write blog posts.

The real point is that I don't spend that much time on the internet anymore. These things get boring fast.

Der Sandmann

Today:

I saw Swiss film The Sandman at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and I got to talk to the director and one of the actresses afterward. If you're looking to watch something whimsical, surreal, funny, and thoughtful, see it.

I read Billy Collins's Ballistics. It is sidesplitting. Maybe you thought poetry collections were boring, but if they are, this is the exception. My sister Madelyn and I almost died laughing when I read her this poem.

(Ballistics is also poignant and incredibly well-worded. And Collins is a great reader. If you're into that sort of thing.)

I also checked out The Art of Eating In from the library and helped Madelyn start a paper on Edwin Arlington Robinson,  a poet who never stopped proposing to Emma Shepherd, even after she married his brother, and even after his brother died, and even after she refused him every time. Heartless Emma. Incorrigible Edwin.

I also picked some shards off the snowglobe Maren knocked over yesterday and ate cucumber slices with vinegar, which is probably my favorite snack as long as I've known me, and a lot of other minutia you might not be interested in, which might be fun to write about, but might also be writing too much.

So... today is markedly worse than yesterday. Thankfully, we filmed a BOTW video yesterday with the pretty set from Saturday, so now music can be on hold for a little bit while I get wicked sick with the cough that's been coming on and my finger can internally bleed and purple some more. Because I don't have to sing or play the piano in the near future. Phew.

AUGH.

Yesterday afternoon I smashed my finger in the door. This picture doesn't really capture the color very well, but it's basically black underneath my fingernail. It hurts to type and last night I took painkillers for it because I couldn't sleep. It was ridiculous.

Complain complain complain.

Things:

On Wednesday, I am playing at a special edition of Acoustic Explosion with Nik Day and Dave Crosby at BYU's Varsity Theatre (more information here), and then on Saturday I am opening for Cody Rigby, Norther, and Book on Tape Worm, which I'm also a part of. :)

In other updates, I'm an FHE mom and super surprised that I like it. I get to research creepy 1890s music for Romeo and Juliet. There is a cute guy in my ward who I've talked to about five times. I am writing new songs and poems and getting better at the guitar. Also, I went on a picnic with friends the other day. It was wonderful.

Credit to Kaneischa for a lovely afternoon and this lovely picture. :)

Oh, hi.

Last night we had a sleepover at my house. This basically consisted of Hannah and I watching Never Been Kissed, talking until 3(...or 4?), and sleeping on the floor of our room.

These things make me really happy.

So.

My mom's been complaining that my blog isn't as... personal? as it used to be, because I keep posting pictures of things I like instead of writing about my life. I think this dearth of life-ness became more apparent when I left for school. Therefore, here are five things I have been doing since August 25th.

1. Going to classes. I am in Psych 111, English 252, Bio 100, Spanish 205, and New Testament. I'm also doing a music project with Megan Sanborn-Jones, the director of Romeo and Juliet, which is for credit. Maybe I should drop something, but I like them all...
2. Working. The other day I was cutting a giant piece of poster board and I accidentally cut myself with the Exacto knife I was using. Gnarly. The adventures we have in the TMA office.
3. Playing dress-up with Hannah. Um... yeah. We are six years old inside. Pictures soon. :)
4. Cleaning/organizing my apartment. Constantly.
5. Writing new songs, mostly on the guitar. Hopefully I will get better at it this year.

Poem from Spring.

Turned inside out, my eyes could see my brain,
My heart,
Bone after bone,
And every humming muscle,
And know the inward thinness of my sliding skin

Smooth as the quiet soul's dark eyes I saw then

A paper lotus--
Bare with white texture, and inward,
Printed and spattered with word and, inward,
With untouched thought, with non-words, with ink that should never be formed into words
And inward,
With the brilliant paint and glowing that is a soul.

Regenerating
Like a phoenix
It spread and unfolded
As a universe expanding, exploding
Accruing dimenson and breathlessly spinning, greater, greater
Opening, blooming, the insides pressing and reaching outward as color after color
Bloomed and opened and extended itself to the edge of the edges.
Still, holding out, small and silent and bright
The heart of it, golden and still
Searched itself, whispering,
Meaning sincere and true
And unrepeatable.

Cosas y otras cosas.

I'm home/in the desert.

It's hot and I'd rather be back in Provo.

But the nights are clear and starry, and my family is funny, and I wrote a new song today.

Should be a decent few months. :)

So Long, Sam.

Hi. This is Sam.

I met Sam in my freshman English class (Honors 150: Writing and Rhetoric) this year. We realized very soon that we had a creepy amount in common and became really good friends.

I think the time we first hung out was after a football game. We saw a weird movie at International Cinema, played penny golf, rolled down the library hill, and then got a guitar and a ukulele and played music on some stairs by the RB.

Good times.


Some of the vaguely strange things we have in common are:

• We own the same shirt, from American Apparel (in the respective Mens' and Womens' versions). On top of this, that shirt happens to be my absolute favorite color and therefore one of my favorite things to wear.
• We enjoy all the same books: Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, etc. We are both borderline obsessed with The Great Gatsby. Oh, and Harry Potter.
• And my personal favorite: We were sitting next to each other at the 2009 Anaheim Choir Festival, and had no idea that less than a year later, we would become very close friends. 

This is one of many times we went to Salt Lake City. Sam's grandparents live up there, so we'd go visit them and finish his grandma's puzzles for her. We'd also walk around Salt Lake looking around in different stores. On this night, we just explored, along with our friend Dan.

We reference Harry Potter constantly, which is kind of part of our generation. This picture is Sam/"Harry" looking into a Pensieve.

Other Harry Potter references:

• Once we got wheat grass shots at Jamba Juice and called it Polyjuice potion.
• People: Sam- Harry. Dan- Ron. Emily- Hermione. Asian Girl in our class- Cho Chang. President Gordon B. Hinckley- Dumbledore. Karl G. Maeser- Godric Gryffindor.
• Places: Velour- The Leaky Cauldron. Wilkinson Center Terrace -The Great Hall. JDawgs -The Three Broomsticks. Etc, etc.

Anyway, the point of all this is that Sam is leaving on his mission today, and I am going to miss him exceedingly. He's one of my closest friends and I'm so pleased that I met him this year. I'm going to see him  and talk one more time today and then he's off to the MTC and later, Portland!

In conclusion:

Sam, you can be sure I'll be writing, fool. Even though you're not going to read this.

The End. :)

That killed me. It really did.

(A collection of my favorite Catcher in the Rye quotes)


I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it. It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes. 


Then she left. The Navy guy and I told each other we were glad to've met each other. Which always kills me. I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though. 


About all I know is, I sorta miss everybody I told about. Even Stradlater and Ackley, for instance. I think I even miss that g----m Maurice. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. 


It's funny.  All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.


I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall.  But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college.  Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.'  Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer.  I just don't know.


Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.  You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know.  Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.  Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles.  You'll learn from them - if you want to.  Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you.  It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.  And it isn't education.  It's history.  It's poetry.

There are a few things I've forgotten to tell you...

Remember a while back when I was talking about how I wanted to get to 200 posts? That post about my basil happened to be 200. This is 202.

I bought a guitar for $30 at a yard sale last weekend. Or maybe the weekend before. I can't remember. Anyway, I've been practicing the guitar more lately and I started writing a song the other day. Hello, Open-Mic. Now I'll actually have two whole songs to play on the guitar.

P.S. I named it Ginsberg.

I've started a project involving way too many picture frames, gold and silver paint, and chalkboards. It'll be up in my living room once I'm finished, but for now, that explains any gold or silver on my hands when I see you (and getting on my clothes- argh). (And yes, I referenced this in my last poem.)

I've actually started/conceptualized a lot of crazy design projects. Most of them are only in my head, but you will see them once they are finished (via pictures if not in person).

It's vaguely late and my room is an awful mess.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED THIS YEAR:

(I found this in an old notebook I took to school with me.)
6/15/07
1. Playing the triangle is not for timid people.
2. You actually do need to study chemistry to get good grades.
3. Failing is not at all a joke.
4. Sometimes good people turn rotten; you have to leave them.
5. Sometimes bad people are really good; you just have to let them in.
6. Singing requires breathing.
7. Everyone eats mangoes differently.
8. It REALLY doesn't matter what other people think.
9. Having fun is easy. You just have to keep a smile pasted on all the time.
10. Boyfriends can be toxic.
11. Clinginess can get you somewhere.
12. People say things on the internet that they would never ever say in real life.
13. You don't have to love someone back.
14. True love is reciprocated.
15. Older brothers graduate. It's what they do.
16. The sunshine is good. Clouds are nice, but in the same way that it's nice to be depressed. Being happy is more splendiferousful.

(Some of the grammar sucks, and I'm a bit immature, but at least I had that much down when I was 16.)

Looking up.

Today is the first of May.

It's been raining for days now and I

(hoping you will find something on your tongue to tell me)

am hearing you here, in my heart.

On the first night I spent in this room,

I opened the window wide

And looked out for a bright moon

The moon, luminescent and pure

(And I, disoriented and spent from the drive)

Squinted through the black silhouettes of leaves at me

The rain falls still, filling the potholes and seeping beneath the cement.

There are three big windows in my office, and I love it when the day is grey enough to open the blinds on all of them.

Happy Friday. :)

Look what I found in the cemetery!

It appears to be my headstone.

Today Dad and I went to the Provo Cemetery and found a lot of our relatives there. I took some pictures. Unfortunately, I did NOT take pictures of my hair the other day. :/

Valentime's

I've got a love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day. It's a nice excuse to tell people you love/care about them or just that you think they're cool. I didn't really celebrate it conventionally today, though, since it's Sunday. Rather, today I taught my first lesson in Relief Society as an instructor, which was five minutes too short and a bit ill-prepared. Ah, well. I can do better.

After church, I slept for a while. Charné and I had every intention of walking to downtown Provo to explore housing, but we ended up sleeping forever. Later, I walked to Greta's and she and I walked to her grandparents' house while we shared our Valentine's adventures from the night before. Hers was definitely more interesting and seasonal than mine. :)

Later, I walked home and ran into a million people and their dates from my ward, all walking back from a Valentine's fireside. I talked with my cousin and friend on the way home, made it to ward prayer with Charné, and promptly knocked out on the couch when I got home. Until now.

Tomorrow, Charné and I are going to the temple. Other than that, I have no idea how I'm spending Monday.

Peace and blessings. :P

Friday

I don't really have a lot to say today. Tonight I Skyped the fam and did stuff.

-Emily

Bicycle Hunting.

And it came to pass that the new bicycle was to be a green (or maybe blue) vintage Schwinn, according to the preference of Emily. And the bicycle would be named Cummings. Or maybe Henry. Or maybe Teasdale or Torjussen or... something else.

And the bicycle would be there before Spring was.

Time it was, and what a time it was.

Tonight I played at Acoustic Explosion and had so much fun. Music + close friends= the best nights of my life. Thank heaven I can find those two wherever I go.

Here's to old and new friends. Here's to home and to getting away. Here's to new songs surpassing the old ones. And here's to knowing who you are and what you want.

And finally, here's to holding on and letting go at the same time... which I'll have to manage very carefully.

P.S. I really want to go to the World Ecological Forum this summer.

P. P. S. This means I'm officially more of a geek than ever, doesn't it?