So there's this trend that has started, and it reminds me too much of Mad Men to just shut up and watch it progress. Women today do not want to digress, give up, and fold. When I worked in the tragedy of the corporate world, there was no tension, and from where I stood I saw equality. Is equality in leadership positions a regional issue? Or is this current misrepresentation due solely to the culture of our youth?

Personally, I can see how the general public could be looking down on the young female culture. With all the scandal that presently exists for the so called role models of our children and all of the bad publicity Disney stars have been circulating within the past few years, it's not hard to spot the problem. The problem seems to be image - maintaining it, promoting it, keeping it. But if you look closely, it's not male Disney stars getting in trouble with the media and the public. It's females, trying to impress somebody, trying to mature while representing the image that we want our children to grow up to be.

I understand that it's hard to be a strong woman, I do really. But there are better ways. If you can't handle a certain kind of success and the pressures that come with it, then get out of that industry, and find one that is more true to yourself.

I feel like this sudden transformation to a more extreme of Disney stars can be closely related to the culture that then unfolds for women. What style of magazine do women rally together and communicate to each other the most in? Fashion magazines. Don't get me wrong, I love fashion and the culture it holds. Fashion is an art form, but the fashion that graces most women's magazines is not art but tools for success. If you want to be popular you should dress this way, treat your boyfriend like this, be inventive, but don't be original, sell out big, take this quiz to see what kind of stereotype you'll become! And that's just what they sell to teenagers. I won't even start on Cosmo. But we buy them anyways, and we read and we gossip, and we may disagree with half of the magazine, but where else will we get our voices heard?

Especially in this era of change, I thought women would take the initiative as a whole. Put on a new face, be more real, more honest, more true. But instead each morning my classmates put on their leggings and their oversized T-shirts and they call it a style. Screw pants, when you can make others this uncomfortable, who needs shorts! Fashion has very often left little to the imagination, but there are some fads that make even liberals feel a bit prudish. This is one of them.

I can't take you seriously without pants on, how can anyone else? However, I can differentiate between girls who think everyday is a reason to show off and party and girls who don't succumb to the cultural norm when culture is a question of opinion. So how come the guys I know are treating all girls alike? I'm not sure why it's not so clear, but those girls who have brains and use them don't want to be just your housewife.

My roommate has a leadership position in a very prestigious honorable organization on campus. She also loves to bake, when she has time. So as a way to represent herself honestly, she brings baked goods one day to her meeting to share. It's a nice deed, I don't see the big deal. The guy she works under, however, thinks this gives him the right to ask her to bake for each of the meetings. But when I say ask, I really mean imply. Her position of leadership isn't questioned, but whether or not she'll be treated equally seems to rely on how good she is at impressing others.

I do a lot on campus now for some ridiculous reason, so I avoid leadership positions. Why apply for something you can't fully commit yourself to? But I still try to help out and what not to be nice. I'm in love with candy, so of course I end up bringing some to a meeting. I'm not going to be so rude as to not share with someone who asks kindly. But then for the person in charge to ask me to bring food for the next meeting, implying food for everyone, for a meeting that starts at 6:30 pm which is widely thought to be dinner time, is asking a bit much. I'm not your fucking housewife. I'm not your mom. I sure as hell am not your baby.

Sometimes I think that I'm bigger than the sound!

I could listen to this song 50 times in a row. I think I'm on 12 right now. I've added it to this mix I keep talking about, the end of a relationship and looking back and moving on mix. Maybe I'll be adding to this mix for the next ten years. Maybe I'll rearrange it soon. I gave Westney a version of it. As my mother always says, "We'll see."

I just skipped out on my sorority's chapter to see a free screening of Adventureland. I would totally do it again..............if I knew how many times I'm allowed to miss chapter. It's a little ironic that when I finally have service hours to log, I don't care enough to go. Aren't I always pining for the opposite? Are you actually allowed to use the verb pining when you're not talking about people?

Have you ever watched a movie and felt like you could relate to both the male and female lead? I definitely can in Adventureland. Em reacted every way I wanted her to, every way I could have written her to, every way I would have thought to. She's just one of those characters that you fall for without meaning to. I've been working on my writing lately and it's developing into something much larger than I expected, but I love it. I would be overwhelmed with happiness if anyone ever felt my characters were as relatable and real and adorable and intriguing as Em. Maybe I'm giving the movie more hype than it deserves, but it's more of a feeling than an opinion.

Afterwards I walked into the parking deck at Tate and there was a huge line of cars waiting to get out. I parked around the last curve, closest to the exit, so I was afraid no one would let me out. This one guy finally did and I was so relieved that all I wanted to do was help someone else out. It's the whole See good, Do good, Be good idea. I currently have Only By The Night in my car's CD player and I've been thinking about how you would split up that CD for a mix. But why? I think this might possibly be one of those CDs where the arrangement is good as is.

I make a lot of mixes. For friends, for guys, for guy friends. And I love Kings of Leon, sometimes regretfully. But if someone wanted a mix of their new stuff, I'd just burn them a copy of the CD as is. Revelry is definitely a moving on/looking back song though. That will go on my latest mix. I think I might try Use Somebody and Sex on Fire on a weekend mix. That might work.

I feel like I am going on and on and I keep stringing together things that should be blogged about separately, but i still haven't let myself talk about what's really on my mind. Hmmm, maybe that's what needs its own post.

I can figure the point out of anything, just not as quick as I can mess up my own life.

This past week has been so exhausting for me as I've tried to fit meetings and necessities into my life. Wednesday I skipped out on podcasting to help my friend Katy with the project for her event planning class. It was called Leprechaun Bowl-A-Thon and raised a good amount of money for March of Dimes. On Saturday I got to work with Katy again at Volunteer UGA's Day of Service. Everyone got to Tate at around 8:30 and we ate a quick breakfast and separated into our different groups. My group went to volunteer at Sandy Creek and we worked until 1:30 cleaning and clearing the trails. The trail we were on is just over 4 miles, but we had to quit working after the half way mark so that we could get out of there by 1:30, but we still ran late. It was a really nice day and it almost felt like we were walking the trail, with rakes and other yard equipment, and it felt good getting so much work done.

But life is never perfect, and when the volunteering left me feeling self-empowered and accomplished, and just generally good about myself, well then my parents came and ruined that. We were too late to see the apartment they wanted me to sign a lease for and their frustration and anger made all of those good feelings vanish.

Today my mom called and had the nerve to mention how messy my apartment was. As if I am the only person responsible for cleaning this apartment. As if I have the time to play housekeeper. I sent her an email dissecting my week's schedule and she called shortly after to apologize. I was already crying though and she had already made me feel like shit. So what's the point?

I made a comment about how I stay up late just so I can have time for myself to think and sort myself out. She's always yelling at me about being up so late. She still doesn't realize that the only time I get a vacation from my life is when I'm up late writing or editing or talking to my friends.

Screw pretty words and flowing sentences. Today is a beautiful day and I have a migraine in the works. If I want to rant instead of rave, I will. I'll probably delete this anyways.

The irony here is I'm not ready, not in the least, but this song is so true of my life right now.
Old classmates please drop all your pens, don’t write a word cause I won't reply and I’m not bitter, no it's just I’ve passed that point in my life.
You know how you have those friends on facebook, who you're not actually friends with, and you were being kind by adding them, and you still see them around, but neither one of you are going to spark a conversation anytime soon? I've been deleting those people the past few weeks. It's kind of annoying having to search through your whole friends list for someone you can live without. What's even worse is debating the possibility of having a class with these people in the future, in which case it might seem in bad taste to delete them now.

I’m trying to find truth
in words, in rhymes, in notes
in all the things I wish I'd wrote.

In the back of my head I wonder if I have enough determination to write for a living. Are there enough thoughts in my head to write about? I need a back up plan. Why not do what I love?

My post disappeared and I spent forever on it. It pretty much went like this:

Someone once said that you should write every day to keep tabs of your life. Then when you look back at it you can find inspiration for your writing. I get too lost to write every day.

Since I haven't found a tracker for this site, I have no idea who comes and who actually reads my writing. This is just a huge outlet for me, some place I can deposit all of my extra little thoughts. It warms my heart when other people say they've read it, because it makes me feel like my voice has been heard by someone. I forget that I can actually help others though.
"Your blog always makes me so happy, even if it's not a happy blog. I don't know why. I just like reading your writing." - Lindsey

Limbo is consuming me despite everything I try to do to stop it. I haven't been present for most conversations lately, but I can't tell you where I've been. I've lost myself. I built myself a solid 5 day schedule, with something to do every day and night, and I still manage to slip out the back door and run fast and far until I don't know where I've gone to. I didn't even go to Latin today, and when I got home I slept from 5:20 to 10:18. I missed everything. I had my mother worried.

You know how sometimes when you start seeing someone new you start to lose your identity? You get so wrapped up in someone else that you forget who you are and who you want to be. This is nothing like that. This is lost in the folds of a map, lost in the meaning of a song, so far deep in thought that you need to put your brights on to see me. My anxiety is consuming me, pushing me farther into limbo. I might not get into my major. I don't have a back up plan. I never have a safety net. I'm not falling, I'm just running farther and farther into the night sky.
Shooting star and the ambulance, both fly by, one takes the highway, one takes the sky.
Am I the passenger or am I the pilot in this life?

Sometimes, which is really all the time, I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. I believe you make your own soundtrack by the choices you make and the places you go and the things that you do. I just wish I could speed up time and listen to the good tracks, and know that everything I've been through and all those sad tracks, were worth it. Lindsey and I think that our lives are being forced into limbo until the summer starts and then we will finally be out of limbo. I like the soundtrack of limbo, because it's not so sad and it doesn't hurt as much to hear, but I crave the excitement of getting out, of all the notes and chords I've yet to hear.

And here are the things I know: Time will never be what my watch says. Time passes too fast when you just want it to stop, and time passes too slow when all you wish for is a lifetime in a minute. It'll just never be what it really is, hands moving over a clock. And then the rain starts.
- Upstream by Melissa Lion

Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a pulse. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.
- Stefenie Meyer

There's this word I want to retire. A-w-k-w-fuckoff.

Let's just lay it on the train tracks and see if it goes away. I'll bring the rope if you call the train. I'll hold it down if you tie it up and then I'll point my finger accusingly at it and tell it to stay. Then maybe I'll be able to get away from it.



*We'll see how long I can live without it, seeing as I pretty much define it.

I was listening to this song right before I left to get my hair cut. The dead guy in Las Vegas always paints a portrait in my head, sometimes different views of the scene, sometimes just the same memory of a view. I went to get my hair cut and there was a dead guy in his car right behind the place. All of the hair dressers were gossiping and everyone wanted to see him. The rumor was suicide, and all I could think was My gosh. This is real life, not CSI Miami. He just killed himself, back off. The song was still stuck in my head when I heard all of this.

Slowly more gossip would trickle through. People would drive up and ask if this was the place that guy was shot. The police put up a brown paper so that we couldn't see out the back door. Rigor mortis had already set in his arm.

Have decency people. A man died and all you want are the details. You don't even care about him. What does that say about people today? What if I knew him? You showed no compassion, no concern. He has a family somewhere. People who love him will be on the five o'clock news crying their eyes out and what have you to say? I saw him first? Dear God.

I was rummaging through my room in search of any notebooks I had left at my house. I found one with my story ideas in it and thought it would be full of them, but I was wrong. There's some story material, some Latin, some playlist ideas, and this:

I blared my music and realized I'd made the perfect playlist for my mood. It wasn't "the pursuit" but the end. The beginning of something else. Something darker under the sun, something waiting to be hit with light. The heat hits me now that you're gone. It swells my hair and puts a blush on my skin. It pushes me back. You left and I turned my back. I hid my thoughts in my music. I let the music consume me until I couldn't tell which thought was mine first or theirs.

This still pisses me off. It took me so long to finally find the cause of my initial sadness. It was the fact that you fucked up everything we had had. You made a royal mistake and I had to end our friendship all together. You fucking ruined this song.

Friday work was playing the 90's radio station and this song came on. It reminds me of the 90's and of road trips and Fairfax. Now she feels safe in this bar on Fairfax. Even though it's not the same, I grew up in Fairfax, Virginia and I first heard this song while living in Fairfax. I feel like a little girl when I hear this song.

I saw Watchmen with my family after church today.......yeah. Bad idea. Afterwards I banged my head on the car door, third time in less than two weeks, and I still have the fading headache to prove it. I came home and began writing fractions of my work. A little Sierra, a little Lily. I guess I'm waiting for a name to fall out of the sky and land in front of the face, but so far nothing has come to mind to replace Lily. It's not the right name, it's not her, but I can't change it yet. As with all of my characters, she's still twisting out of my fingers and molding herself into a new person. I have to see where she takes this story.

I've decided The Killer's Hot Fuss and Manchester Orchestra's Like A Virgin Losing A Child are the newest soundtracks to these works. Hot Fuss reminds me of high school, of where Lily is struggling to be. Manchie reminds me of this feeling, this fleeting, fighting, wanting more feeling.

I want to taking my writing to some level, I want it to be good. I want it to tell the stories everyone else is holding back, fighting, and censoring. And I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd. I want, I want, I want. I digress.

Labels: musical inspiration, writing

So since I nicknamed my blog Libi, I had this revelation, that my blog has a mascot. Do you remember Sabrina the Teenage Witch? How could you forget it?! Well my blog's mascot is Libby, the mean head cheerleader. Think about it, she was always trying to get Harvey and just epic failed the whole way through. I don't ever really feel sorry for the villains, but Libby just broke my heart. She never had a love interest. I feel ya girl.

Director! Director! Rewrite the script!!! Libby and I need someone to blog about!

PS: This song is totally from the show's soundtrack. It's still in my car....eek, yes.
PPS: Kaitlyn would like one too.
PPS: OMG Smash by The Murmers screams the '90s and good memories!

Happy Birthday Leslie!

This week (very ambiguously: the end of last week and this whole week) is a week of celebration. Two of my close friends have their 20th birthdays this week, this is my 100th post, I got to see Nadia, my elbow isn't infected, and oh yeah MARY MOVED OUT!!! FINALLY!!!!

NEWS UPDATE (delivered with an emotional twist):

1 - I fell down stairs at work and cut my elbow...2 centimeters deep. I very casually drove home, bandaged it better, called Haley to pick me up, went to the ER, got stitches, and became a robot. I'm not supposed to bend my elbow or else the stitches are going to come out. Well please, those stitches are going to fall out because I need my other arm.

2 - Mary FINALLY left! Roomie L went Erin Brockovich on my apartment management's ass 2 weeks ago. She was supposed to be gone last week, then Monday then Friday. But she fucking haunted us until Saturday when she finally returned our shit and took hers (and stole our Gossip Girl poster) and did not say goodbye to me. Well good riddance bitch. Be gone from this city Catiline! Depart from the gates of the city and take those friends of yours with you!

3 - I'm very sorry. You know who you are.

THINGS I CANNOT DO WITHOUT MY RIGHT ARM:
1 - Drive well.
2 - Apply make-up. I'm learning how to do it left handed. It takes 2 to 3 times as long.
3 - Put my hair up.
4 - "Properly" blow dry or straighten my hair.
5 - Write normally.
6 - Everything.

Bitchfit Time:
I can't take my own pictures anymore. I have to have other people hold my dear camera and either I'll look through, find my shot and click it or I dictate my shots to people. At the end of last night's Bye Bye Mary Celebration I had to just let it be and let Lindsey take all my pictures. Now I have no idea what to expect.

Good New Quote:
"Jillian doesn't believe in candid photos of herself." - Lindsey explaining my abnormalties to the new people I was talking to.