Ok. I’ve got about 45 minutes left in my shift at work and it’s not particularly crowded so I’m just going to write for as long as I can. I’m going to try not to go back and edit anything, and try not to stop. Unless a patron comes to the desk, obviously I’ll need to stop writing to help them because otherwise I’ll lose my job and who wants that. Certainly not me.
Especially since I’m trying to save as much money as I can until graduation, which includes working all my shifts so I can actually make money to save. My current goal is to not spend any money until spring break, which is in two weeks. It’s proving difficult. As soon as I decided not to buy anything a bunch of games I want went on sale and one of my favorite bands is putting out a cover album next week which I really want to pre-order but I’m not going to. I must stay strong. I’m actually looking forward to seeing how much I have in my bank account when break rolls around. It won’t be much – I make minimum wage and only work 18 hours a week – but still, it’s better than what I normally do, which is spend roughly half my paycheck every week. Not fantastic. I’m definitely a shopaholic, especially with online shopping. There’s so much less guilt when you buy something online as opposed to handing cash or a debit card over to a real human being in exchange for goods and/or services.
I recently discovered thrift shopping as well, which has been good – not that I wasn’t aware of thrifting as a concept, I listen to Macklemore, I know what it’s about. But I never really went into any thrift stores until recently and wow, it’s great for someone like me who has a constant urge to impulse shop. I bought a new jacket (which I actually did need) and a DVD of seasons 4 and 5 of Viva La Bam (which I did not need, but for $2, I had to have it.) I was absolutely in love with Bam Margera as a preteen. Who wouldn’t be? He had dark curly hair and pretty eyes and tattoos, and he had the 2000s-cool career of “professional skateboarder”. His friends were weird and interesting and funny, and he did, as stated in the theme song to his show, “whatever the fuck” he wanted to do. That’s an attractive combination for a 12 year old white girl from suburban Massachusetts. Watching the episodes as an adult, I realize that he was mostly just an asshole destroying stuff for TV. And that he and his friends had incredibly thick Pennsylvania accents! Seriously, how did I understand what they were saying without subtitles?
I haven’t written anything in a while. When I started this blog I was going to post something every day. Of course. I always start off with tons of motivation and lofty goals, and they always fade. It makes me wish I did Adderall. I know plenty of people who take it to study or write papers or whatever and have great results. Frankly I’m just afraid I’d have some kind of crazy allergic reaction or end up completely addicted and tweaking out during lecture. Maybe I’ve just seen that one episode of Saved by the Bell where the smart girl, I can’t remember her name, takes a ton of caffeine pills and has, like, a mental breakdown. Also, I don’t really have money to buy prescription drugs from other students.
So I just lost motivation quickly and stop writing for a while but feel guilty about it constantly. Like, any time I’m not writing, I have this little voice in the back of my head going “write. You need to write. You’re a writer, why aren’t you writing? Why don’t you have ideas? They should flow from you like water! Stephen King writes like a thousand words a day! Why don’t you do that?”
But most of the time I don’t listen to that voice, which sucks, because then I just end up with anxiety, which then compels me to ignore the voice even harder and fight against it with thoughts like “don’t bother writing, your stuff is shit anyway, you’re not going to be a professional writer so why even try, just give it up” and it’s hard to ignore that voice. The anxiety voice is somehow louder than all the others in my head.
(When I say I have voices in my head…they’re all just me. I don’t have schizophrenia or DID or anything like that. Just as clarification.)
I’m really hungry and I have to pee, but I can’t deal with either of those urges right now. The hunger is trumping the needing to pee, which is interesting. Like I legitimately thought to myself, I don’t want to go to the bathroom once my shift ends, because then it’ll take time away from eating my bagel. That’s a strange thought to have. My brain is weird.
As if no one else’s brain is also weird! You’re not a special snowflake, Court.
This is going well, I’ve got almost 900 words written. None of it is useable, but at least I’m putting sentences on paper.
Okay, technically I’m typing sentences into the internet, but whatever. It’s a metaphor.
Is it a metaphor? I’m not comparing two things. It’s an expression, really.
That reminds me of my 7th grade English class. That’s where I learned the definitions of words like “metaphor”. 7th grade English was an excellent class. One of the biggest influences on how I read and write today. I should write a thing about that class. I’ll do that.
Ok. 14 minutes left in the shift. I’m starving. It’s gotten a bit more crowded since I started writing. I really want more tattoos. I’ve just got one right now, an owl on the inside of my left forearm. I’m a giant baby when it comes to pain, like I have panic attacks when I have to get a shot from my doctor’s office. I’ve put off getting my wisdom teeth extracted because I’m afraid of the pain of getting teeth removed (even though most of my baby teeth needed to be pulled – ah, the innocence of youth.) And I won’t lie, getting the tattoo did hurt. It was painful. But I didn’t pass out or cry or run away, or even bleed that much, although the last one might be the fault of my awesome artist. The thing that hurt the most about getting inked was the cost of the tattoo. Almost 400 bucks. Yikes. But so worth it. I want more ink so badly. Whenever I’m bored in class I look up pictures of tattoo designs that I want and stare lustfully at them. Right now I’m really into getting a black-and-grey sleeve on my right arm that’s Edgar Allen Poe inspired, because I love his stories, especially “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”. That’s due in part to my 7th grade English class, too! We read a lot of Poe and Capote, cool gothic stuff that made me want to write horror stories. I never did, though. I’m not great at writing suspense. It always feels contrived and derivative when I try. I should order a Poe anthology from the library and re-read his stuff. I haven’t in a long time. Did he write “Fall of the House of Usher”? I don’t think so, but maybe.
This is unreadable. Five minutes left in my shift. I’m debating publishing this or just keeping it saved in my drafts. I haven’t published anything to this blog in, like, two weeks, but on the other hand is this even readable? It’s probably really boring. I never read Cormac McCarthy or any of those beat-generation stream-of-consciousness books so I’m not sure that I’m doing this right. Wouldn’t that be the point though? Just random thoughts laid out illogically, fuck it if it’s boring or unreadable? Maybe. Three minutes left.
Three minutes of ecstasy. Now that song is stuck in my head. It’s not my favorite NSP song, but the video is really funny. Gah, I want to order the cover album that comes out next week. But I must stay strong! My money-saving plot must succeed! Also, I can never spell “ecstasy” right on the first try. I always want to put an “X” in there somewhere, but it’s not there.
One minute left. I think I’ll end it here. Yay.
d i s c o m b o b u l a t o r i u m 