%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |   My 2nd blog. My spot for sharing my life, music, and writing with my friends. |
|
Hello, Hello. Fancy seeing you here. I'll work on making this nice and pretty later. *  I also have a poetry blog, for those who dig poetry:
AND I have a mental health group with a monthly challenge:
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lay my hands on Heaven and the sun and the moon and the stars While the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car ♡ * I will never make this pretty. |
Artist: Radiohead Album: The Bends Song: The Bends [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics  30DBC: Do you think certain authors/writers have a particular voice? How would you describe your voice? I notice specific voices a lot in poets. They tend to have a certain tone or atmosphere that is easy to recognize after you've read a lot of their stuff. The way they use certain words, ideas or punctuation frequently differentiates them from other poets. I can see it on WDC too with some of the poets. It's like I could tell it was theirs, even if their name wasn't on it. Novelists definitely have it too. They have recurring themes or character attributes. Some always have a twist at the end of their novels and others draw on similar ideas for their storylines. If you're reading something of Stephen King's, you know it's his because of how descriptive everything is. As far as I know, I have my own writing voice, especially in poetry. I tend to be on the dark/sardonic/somber/emotional side. It hits some people the right way and others absolutely hate it. Personally, I think it works well for some poems and completely ruins others. I'll have an idea for something 'fun' that I want to write and it's a happy/upbeat thing in my mind. Then I write it and it comes out sounding horribly depressing or bleak, even though I don't feel that way about the subject. I think we all have our own writing voices. Sometimes they work for us, and sometimes they work against us. WTMR 2: What has been your most important milestone so far on Writing.com and what is the next milestone you are looking forward to achieving? I've hit a lot of milestones on WDC in my, what, 14 months (?) here. I've made a lot of friends and won the 30DBC, which is exciting because you guys know how into blogging I am. I think my biggest achievement was probably winning at the Quills. My last blog won best blog/best emotional, but I think the ones I was most excited about were the poetry ones. I won for best long free verse and got HM for medium-length free verse. Best new port was exciting too. I feel like, before WDC, poetry was something I scribbled in journals and safeguarded so much because I didn't want anyone to see it. After being here for a year or so, I think my poetry has improved exponentially, but more so than that, my willingness to share it has improved tenfold. I'm slowly moving past that point of overanalyzing every poem I write before posting it. Over the years, I've lost so much poetry because I've convinced myself it wasn't good enough and I've either deleted or ripped it up, depending on the formate, of course.  The next milestone I'm attempting to achieve here is writing (and sharing) a poem every day for 14 days. This was a challenge set to me from Cinn  and today is Day 12, so I think I've taken to it quite well! At first, it was difficult because I was continuously overthinking the poems and they were taking like 2 hours each to write. I would finish and then just delete it and restart because I wasn't satisfied with the outcome. I've never really pushed myself to write poetry before. I've had some serious gaps in my poetry writing, like months at a time, and I've never written a poem for 12 days straight before... like, not even close.After the fourteen days are up, I might push myself for 16 more, just so I can say that I wrote a poem every day for a month. It probably doesn't seem like that big of a deal for others who can easily write a couple poems a day, but I've never been that type. I've also seriously cut down on the amount of time put into them. I'm down to around 15-25 minutes per poem, which is like a sixth of the time I was taking before. I think what has helped me most is just forcing myself to write one every day. I've started seeing poetry in the most mundane things. I'll just be going through my day and a line hits me that I know I can build off of, so I'm sort of writing it in my head throughout the day. The process feels more natural than before.Anyway, if you're interested in checking out what I've been doing the last 12 days...
WTMR 6: Are you a hoarder? Is there some part of your life that needs decluttering but you are loathe to do so? Are there things you keep that others don't (or wouldn't) see as valuable? Absolutely not! I wouldn't say that I'm compulsively clean, but I am far from a hoarder. I think the clutter of a hoarder's house would drive me up the wall. Sometimes I look around my house and just have to scrub the whole thing down, even though it's not that messy, it just looks disorganized. It really does feel good when you put everything in its place. It somehow makes your mind feel more organized too. I'm not a very sentimental person as far as physical memorandums go. I think I was that way at one time, but then I moved around so much and lost all my stuff. After that, I never really got back into saving things. You don't need items to remind you of things when you have your memories to do it for you. There are a couple things I hold onto, but I think they're things that everyone would keep and they don't cause much of a clutter. I have a lot of journals. I think the oldest one I have is from when I was 12/13 and then I have one from 15/16 and one from 17/18. Those are just completely full of memories. That might be why I have such a good memory. Every once in a while, I'll go through them and I can see what I was doing, what music I was listening to, what books I was reading, who I was hanging around a lot during those specific times. Those aren't a big deal though. I just have them in boxes in the closet along with my poetry journals. I'm definitely not the collector or hoarder type most of the time. Where do we go from here? The words are coming out all weird Where are you now when I need you? |
Artist: Lou Reed Album: Transformer Song: Satellite of Love [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: Two-fer Tuesdays: Share an item or blog entry from any of the eligible competitors this month. Include a review link for bonus points. Whoa, is it already Tuesday? I feel like it was just St. Patrick's Day and we were talking about being mischievous. Ah well, I'm going to go review pandawpaws214's blog because I don't think I have before. Sometimes I go to review someone's blog and I see that I've already done it, so we'll see. Ah, okay, we're good on this one:
Review of "Stepping Stones - A Sometimes Daily Blog"  Well, that about wraps up the Two-fer Tuesdays for this month, doesn't it? Oh, wait, is the last day of the month on a Tuesday?  BCOF: Why do you think history unfolded differently on the different continents? The history of different countries unfolds differently because there are different people in charge of them. In the beginning of a country's civilization, there are a variety of hardships faced and that also affects the history and culture of a country. Really, now that I'm thinking about it, basically everything makes the history of various countries unfold in a unique way. Differences in leadership, climate, hardships, wars, etc... It's pretty much impossible for every country's history to be the same with so many variables. The way countries have been founded are different and those factors make the entire history different from the beginning. I wish I had more to say about this, but I really don't. A country like Australia is naturally going to have a way different history than somewhere like Mexico. BLOG CITY: Although present justice systems depend on punishment, do you think a restorative justice system--in which the criminals are healed of their ills, educated, and uplifted as to their outlooks on life--might work better for our societies? Absolutely! There are some criminals who need to be locked up forever, when their crimes are completely unreasonable and can never be forgiven. For a lot of crimes though, we just throw people in prison for way too long without ever actually attempting to fix the problem. The justice system can be a lot like locking a bad child in their room all day. I mean, it is one option, or you could attempt to resolve the problem that is causing the misbehavior in the first place. I think a lot of things should be decriminalized, like drugs, and people should be given an option of rehabilitation or jail if they get caught with hard drugs. Less hard drugs, like weed, shouldn't be illegal at all. Like, no one cares. Stop spending money on the war on drugs. It's obviously not working; when are they going to give it up? Alcohol is worse than weed in terms of criminal activity committed while using the drug. People on weed will typically watch movies and eat Cheetos. It's really not that big of a deal. When people drink, they go out to bars and start huge brawls in the middle of the street at 3 in the morning. Other than that, there are some things that can be resolved. Issues caused by temper problems can be fixed through anger management and therapy. Our judicial system loves to just toss people in jail the second they do something bad and pretend like they don't exist. You can't just push things under the rug like that. I mean, you can, but it won't solve any real problems. It will just cost taxpayers more money. Satellite's gone Up to the skies Thing like that drive me Out of my mind |
Artist: Brand New Album: Your Favorite Weapon Song: Logan to Government Center [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Pheww.. now that we're starting a new week, I can finally chill out a little bit. Seriously, last week was by far the roughest I've had this semester. I wrote three papers that were all 7-10 pages long each, which took for flipping ever. Unfortunately, the second one thing ends, another starts. This week I'll be focusing mostly on work, which I totally fell behind on last week. The time balance struggle is real as fuck. On a positive note, I probably have time to to do other things this week.  I might have time to go out and and.. not do homework OR work one day. I know, it's a crazy thought, but you know me, I'm a wild and crazy guy.  30DBC: What do you think will cause the end of the Earth? Let's think about this in the most practical way. I think something to do with global warming would be a likely cause of the end of Earth. Some sort of extreme weather circumstances that in turn cause deplorable living conditions, which then lead to the spread of new and horrific diseases. Now we've got a pandemic on our hands and life as we know it is wiped out. So much for not being depressing, right? I think it would either be something like that, a domino effect caused by global warming OR it would be a gigantic asteroid that just completely screwed us all while we were in the middle of sleeping or sitting in class or work. I'm neither here nor there on this sort of thing. The thought of the end of the world doesn't scare or entice me. I know some people are really afraid of the idea that the world might end suddenly. I think I used to be a little bit afraid of it myself, back when I was a kid. I was afraid of everything, so I'm sure that was somewhere on my phobia list. After seeing all the end of the world predictions come and go over the years, you realize that no one can actually predict that sort of thing. By the time I was like 11 or 12, I wasn't scared of the world ending anymore. I realized that there are real things that happen every day that are much scarier than the odds of being sucking into a black hole in my sleep. There are a lot of people who are fascinated with the prospect of the world ending. I mean, I'd say that's fairly common in our society where there's a new Hollywood movie every month about a major world crisis that leaves our hero separated from his family and suddenly able to kick serious zombie ass, despite being a finance manager before the apocalypse. I think people who are so obsessed with it only are because they're scared of it. Somewhere, deep inside, they're fucking terrified, because you don't obsess over something like that unless you're worried about it in some way really. BCOF: Is there something that you could add to your life on a daily basis that would make you happier? Yes, time and chocolate.  Seriously, if I could have like 3 or 4 more hours in a day, that would be awesome. Sometimes I feel like I'm half-assing everything because I don't have time to full-ass anything. Like, if I put as much effort into a story or poem as I really wanted to, I wouldn't have time to write a business paper and if I put as much time into the business paper as I really want to, I wouldn't have time to work.I propose that we all be allotted one clone of ourselves to handle all the menial stuff that is way too time consuming to do on our own. Either that, or we should all get two extra arms to handle the boring things that we don't really feel like doing.  BLOG CITY: John Barth said, in a Paris Review Interview, “I start every new project saying, “This one’s going to be simple, this one’s going to be simple.” It never turns out to be.” Do you find it to be true for you as well? Use it in regard to writing or any other thing that you wish. This definitely isn't true for me. I would venture to say that the exact opposite is true for me. I start a project completely overwhelmed by how complicated it could get. I'm just so sure that it's going to get all messed up. My writing process is extremely chaotic, whether it's a personal project or a school one. I start off with so much stuff that is completely disjointed and my thought processes connect in a very off-the-wall sort of way. You guys sort of get the unedited version of that because I don't edit my blog. I know people have mentioned before that it's funny to watch me connect dots while I'm writing. When I finish a school paper, I have to go back through and cut parts out or rephrase them into shorter sentences because I end up rambling too much or going off topic. That's the way I talk too, in real life. I might be talking about one thing, but if something else comes to mind, I just stop mid-sentence and start talking about the other thing. My friends laugh about it and tell me that it's hard to follow what I'm trying to say sometimes, which can be frustrating. To answer the question though, I never expect something to be simple. It's a positive way to start a project though. I should probably try starting that way instead of going into it expecting everything to get cluttered along the way. Still, as for now, this idea isn't true to me at all. Today's poem: "Invalid Entry" The phone bill's stacked up by my bedside with your picture, looking surprised. You're what makes New England so great. |
Artist: The Kooks Album: Konk Song: Always Where I Need To Be [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: Pick a random article from the headlines and talk about it. Share your opinions and feelings about it. Encourage a conversation. So, I've just spent the last four or five hours doing homework and I absolutely refuse to talk about some depressing news story right now. That's the problem with Sunday News Story- there's just a shit ton of depressing articles you have to go through before you find the one that doesn't make you want to jump off a bridge. I found one pretty quickly today though: 'Scientifically accurate' version of Pinky and the Brain .  Content warning, don't watch if easily offended.I thought this was funny, especially because it's so true to the nature of cartoons in general. I never even though about the fact that Pinky and the Brain were lab rats and therefore, their real lives would be exactly as portrayed in the video. I know that animal testing is necessary to save human suffering in some cases, though I don't believe in animal testing for anything that is not necessary, like cleaning products and makeup. I don't want to get into a big animal testing debate, but I did think the social commentary here was kind of funny. That's all I have for the Sunday news story. I guess it's not super not depressing, but it's better than people getting their heads cut off, yeah? I always think that I know how to be But I always thought that I would end up with you, eventually |
Artist: Foo Fighters Album: The Colour and the Shape Song: Everlong [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: Tell us about your alter-ego. I have an alter ego that can manage to write three papers, two poems, and take an excel exam all in one day. Oh, and write a thousand word story, right? I fucking wish! I'm totally flipping out over here with all the work I have this weekend. I'll be so happy in Tuesday when all of the due dates are done until next Sunday. Post-spring break has been really tough. All of my professors just doubled assignments for this week. I wish they would just not give us a spring break if they're going to give 15 hours of work per class the following week. A lot of the assignments weren't unlocked until Monday so I couldn't work on them last week. I would've if I could've. Oh god, I'm so uncreative today. Saturdays are a bad day for creativity for me because most of my assignments are due Sunday and Monday. My mind is thinking all academically and I'm trying to be productive. I propose a move in creative prompt from Saturday to Tuesday. Apparently my alter ego is too self-absorbed to think about what might work for other people. I need a superhero ability to be both creative and productive school and work wise. Oh well, can't win them all! Have a nice Saturday. BLOG CITY: Do you believe the adage that bad news sells better than good news? Do you find yourself getting more response to negative posts than positive ones? This is absolutely true and no one could convince me otherwise. There are many reasons for this and not all of them are insidious. I think people genuinely do care, so if I'm having a rough time, people are more likely to keep tabs on me and make sure everything is going okay. I'm the same way. If I know someone's dealing with some shit and they post a new entry, I'm more likely to check it out even if I don't have much time for it. I want to make sure they're okay, of course. I do think people are naturally entertained by bad news. When people can be emotionally separated for it, it's more interesting to hear about the negative things than how good your hydrangeas are doing. It's not that people want bad things to happen to others, necessarily.. It's just that when it does happen, it is entertaining. I think this is sort of evidenced by what is popular in the news. You don't ever hear about good news stories. It's almost like, if it's a positive thing, it isn't really news. I'm sure that people would like to see some positive things in the news, but after a while, they would probably be like, "I know there are bad things happening that they're not telling me about!"  Come down, and waste away with me |
Artist: Nirvana Album: In Utero Song: Very Ape [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: There is something in the air that is making everyone in the vicinity laugh uncontrollably. Write an anecdote, a story or a poem about it. Uh-oh! Sounds like a nitrous oxide leak. How awesome would that be? If everyone was stumbling around high in laughing gas? The best laughter is the contagious kind where you get dragged into it and you don't even know what was funny in the first place. I had a friend who laughed like Fran Drescher , very obnoxious, but he was the shy and introverted type. He would try not to ever laugh because he was embarrassed about how it sounded. My favorite thing to do was try to make him laugh because he would get so angry. If he was talking to a girl he liked and she said something funny, he would smile and say, "That's funny" or "Good one".We were sitting in a booth at a diner one night. I was with whatever girl I was with at the time, maybe Kira, and this girl was there that he'd had a mad crush on forever. It was funny too because it was obvious she was into him, but he was so oblivious and too shy to make a move. It was definitely Kira because we were trying to make him laugh in front of the girl and he was shooting me the eyes like he wanted to punch me in the face. We never did get him to laugh. I bet he was a more serious person in general because his laugh sucked so much. WTMR 7. What has been the hardest thing for you this week? The hardest thing this week has been managing my time. I've basically just completely sucked at it. I have two papers, two exams, and something else due Sunday that I can't remember now. I also haven't worked much at all this week because I've been busy doing homework. I had a bunch of stuff due Monday that I didn't know about until Wednesday, so I stayed up pretty much all night Wednesday and finished that. Of course, that pushed me back on the rest of my homework too. So, I need to work and do homework today, tomorrow and Sunday. Motherfucker.. There just isn't enough time in the day to do things. I don't even sleep either. I do most of my blog entries at 2 or 3 in the morning while I'm waiting to get tired. I do them in that in between stage where I'm too tired to actually do any real work, but not tired enough to fall asleep. If it weren't for that, I'd have a really hard time keeping up with blogging. Most weeks I'm decent about managing my time, but there are super busy weeks where every class seems to double up on work and that week is totally taken up by school/work. Oh well, the less free time I have, the less I get myself into trouble. It's all about the up sides. BLOG CITY: Do you think we are currently living in a good time for women in history? Will we look back at this time period in the future and say that there was equality? I feel like we are... but I'm a dude, so I don't know if I have authority on this topic? I don't really know because I'm surrounded by very 'strong' type women and they don't really take any shit from anyone. I can't imagine them being mistreated about their gender because they just aren't the 'victim' types. It's definitely less socially acceptable to be sexist in our current times, but there are still a lot of double standards. The worst one is that women aren't 'allowed' to do the same things as guys. Like, if a guy does something, it's cool but if a girl does it, she's classless. This is a problem with society as a whole though, it's not just the male perspective. If a girl sleeps around, usually other girls hate her more than guys do. That perpetuates the stereotype that girls who sleep around are sluts and guys who sleep around are cool because they're getting laid. There's always room for improvement. Wages are still messed up and so are job advancements. We've improved quite a bit though. I think in the future, people will look back and be able to pick up on the same inequalities we can now. Things are only going to get more balanced as time goes. To answer the initial question though, I do think right now is a good time for women in history- until a woman corrects me, of course. If you ever need anything please don't Hesitate to ask someone else first I'm too busy acting like I'm not naive I've seen it all, I was here first |
Artist: Phoenix Album: Bankrupt! Song: Chloroform [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: This week a high school in Western New York voted to no longer use the term "Redskins" as their mascot, because it is considered racially insensitive to Native Americans. There were strong arguments from both sides...some see the name as maintaining tradition and local pride, while others believe using an offensive name sends the wrong message to those who represent the school district. How responsible is a school in regards to establishing and maintaining a healthy relationship within its community? Arggh, so freaking tired I'm turning into a pirate. Okay, let's see what we're talking about today... I'm sort of torn by this. On one hand, it is an offensive word. On the other hand, the intentions weren't bad. It was just the traditional name of the team and no one meant it in a negative way. What did they change their name to? I feel like there are a lot of sports teams called the "Redskins" so it's kind of weird when one decides that it's too offensive to use any longer. Was there some sort of community disrupt over the team name? I'm just wondering what sparked the sudden change if it has been the team's name for a long time. Sometimes I think we're too politically correct in our society. I actually think it hurts us from moving forward in race relations and stuff like that. You see it all the time where people are being so careful with that sort of thing that it's actually offensive. Like, they're making a big deal about someone else's race or sexual orientation. It's a big scene about how they're not against them, when really everyone should just be treated the same no matter what. That probably has very little to do with this prompt, but that's where I went with it. I think that schools should try to not be offensive whenever possible, and my previous rant doesn't mean that I disagree with them changing the team's name. Schools are an example to students, so it's important that they don't have anything that is racially insensitive going on. I think the best thing to do in this situation is probably change the name, explain why it was an insensitive name, and then allow the student body vote on a new name between a few different options that aren't offensive to anyone.WTMR: Share an interesting fact, and why you think it's interesting. I'm not really into most fun facts. A lot of them seem to resolve around animals and I don't really care how many stomachs a cow has or how long a tortoise can live. Mating rituals don't impress me. So, I found an article from Business Insider about the most controversial facts in math instead. Here ya go! I love the Monty Hall problem about starting with three doors, then being given an option to switch when you're down to two. I love this one because people have such a hard time understanding why you should switch. This one has lovely pictures that explain all the different problems. Hey, remember when we were talking about learning style the other day? These are the kinds of facts I like. Not necessarily math ones, but just weird ones that don't make sense at first and then you see how it actually does. My math prof does a lot of math puzzles in class. It's a lot of fun except my entire class just sits there acting bored all the time. I dunno, I like it anyway! BLOG CITY: What things in life take too long? Everything takes too long! There aren't enough hours in the day. Writing papers, taking tests, working... all of it eats up my time. I even get to the point where I don't want to eat/write/bathe because I know it's going to take time. D: Don't worry, I still do, I just don't always want to. It takes too long for us to realize that being young is awesome and time goes way too fast once you get older. I still feel like I'm 18, but it has been five years since then. I swear I turned 18 like a couple months ago. I spent my entire childhood wishing I was older. I had older brothers and they got to do all this fun stuff that I wasn't allowed to do because I was too young. Then I hit my teens and I was like, "Get me out of here!" And then I did get out of there and then I realized how fast growing up really can be. I wish I hadn't taken so long to realize that being youthful irresponsibility ends quickly. I miss having an excuse for everything. I don't always tell the truth They don't mind it if you're told where I'm from Anyone I find intrusive You won't bother if you choose me |
Artist: The Vaccines Album: What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? Song: If You Wanna [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: You have to learn a new skill. Do you prefer to read about it, watch someone else do it, hear someone describe it, or try it yourself? I actually know the answer to this prompt because I had to take a learning style assessment for my college studies course. Apparently, hands-on is my best method of learning. I scored epically low in the auditory learning portion, so having someone describe how to do something would never work for me. I found that particularly funny because my brain basically just shuts off when someone tells me what to do. Totally sounds like me! From what I can tell, I work best with a combination of visual and hands-on learning. I like when I can see it done on the left side and I can physically do it on the right side. That's how I study for all of my math tests. I write an example problem on a piece of paper, and then I follow all the steps on practice problems. After doing it for a while, it usually clicks and I can consider that type of problem proper learned and I rarely forget it. So, to sum that up, I'd prefer to do it myself as I watch someone else do it step-by-step. I'm a copycat learner. WTMR 4. We all see ourselves differently to how others see us. Tell us how you think your view of yourself differs from the views other people hold of you. It's so hard to know what people think of you because you'll never know what you look like from their perspective. It's even more complicated for me because I start seeing myself the way that other people tell me I am. I'm a constantly changing self-fulfilled prophecy. Of course, it only works if I care about the person's opinion, but if someone tells me that I'm good at something, I usually see myself as being good at that thing. If someone tells me that I'm too sensitive and emotional, I see myself as being too sensitive and emotional. I know we're supposed to have our own views of ourselves and we're supposed to be confident in that, but I think we all go through phases where we aren't really sure who we are. The difference is, I'm perpetually in that state where I'm not sure who I want to be or what I want to do. So, I guess the major difference between my view of myself and other people's view of me is that I'm very unsure of who I am while others seem quite confident in what they think of me. BLOG CITY: What does "Heaven On Earth" mean to you? Heaven on Earth is sort of a throwaway line for me. Some people's idea of heaven on earth would be this epic paradise where nothing bad happens ever and there aren't any wars, hunger, violence, etc... Maybe a life where they got to spend time with their families and loved ones. Everyone would get along and be grateful of each other. I guess I don't believe in the idea of heaven on earth. Even if I'm having a super awesome day, someone else is having a terrible one. I don't consider heaven to be where I'm doing good and a bunch of other people are feeling shitty. That seems kind of selfish to me. I'm a strong believer in 'no news is good news'. Any day where life feels normal and reasonable is close enough to perfection for me. When things start getting absurd and overwhelming, those are the rough ones. Everything else is just 'in between' and the in between is great for me. I don't want to do things independently But I can't make you stay That's what all the friends I do not like as much as you say |
Artist: Cage the Elephant Album: Cage the Elephant Song: In One Ear [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: Two-fer Tuesdays: Share an item or blog entry from any of the eligible competitors this month. Include a review link for bonus points. Changin' things up today. It's St. Patrick's Day, so let's talk about your shenanigans. Tell us a story...best one gets the equivalent of a green beer merit badge (ooohhh! Temptations!). Flog your shillelagh! Hey yo. Happy St. Patrick's Day and all that goodness. Do you say that? Happy St. Patrick's Day? Merry St. Patrick's Day? I dunno, but thanks for saving me from Two-fer Tuesday! Ah, this is a fun prompt. To tell one of my worst 'shenanigan' stories or not, that is the question. I could totally go with something mild and generally wholesome, but, fuck that. I'm gonna tell you one of the worst shenanigans I've ever pulled, and if you're ever in need of money, maybe you can do it too. The first time I moved to the city I live in now, I was barely 17 and I was living with my best friend, Jordan. Money was, uh, tight, to say the least. He was 19 and living in a super shoddy house in a super shoddy area. Every day was spent trying to make money and when you've got a need to fulfill, you learn how to hustle. After months of being broke, choosing which one of our terrible vices our money was gonna go to every day, we got an idea. I was super young looking back then; I mean, I was pretty young after all. I still get carded all the time buying cigarettes and I'm 23. I'd say I probably looked about 15 at the time. So, what we did is, we'd go up to the north side and hit all the rich suburbs. We'd go door-to-door with various fake reasons we needed charitable donations. This sounds even worse typing it out. A good one was saying that we were part of the Venturing Crew in Boy Scouts, which is like for the older kids to do community activities and whatnot. I think it's for kids who are 13-18 or something like that. Anyway, we'd go door-to-door and say that we needed donations for a Boy Scouts camping trip, uniforms, etc... and then we'd take the money and spend it on food and other stuff.We got a lot of weird looks from people because we obviously did not look like we were in Boy Scouts. My hair was like green and I already had a couple tattoos at that point. Oh, and I had my snakebites by then too. I think if you hit the right areas though, people probably just think they're about to get robbed and they'll hand over ten bucks so you'll go away. I remember one time in particular, I had been in a fight the night before and I was allll banged up. I went up to this lady's nice brick house and rang the door bell and she came out holding a Pomeranian with a little sweater on it. I told her we were planning some wilderness survival trip for Boy Scouts. She was like, "Oh my! What happened to your face?" I looked at Jordan and he was immediately like, "Boy Scout Boxing." She was like, "Goodness, what? I've never heard of that!" I told her it was a new thing they were trying with the older kids to get us prepared for the 'real world'. Ah, good times. I know it's kinda fucked up, but you do what you gotta do. If it helps at all, I always give money to beggars now that I have a little of my own. Oh, and I always donate to the Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts when they're in the store selling cookies or whatever. But, seriously, why panhandle when you can go right up to their front door? On second thought, this will never work for any of you, probably.WTMR: 1. Tell us about a concert, show, play, event, etc that you went to. I've been to a bunch of good shows, but Cage the Elephant are one of the funnest bands to see live. (See above video) I've seen them several times and the lead singer ends up in the middle of the crowd every single time. They have a ton of energy, even when they're totally getting the shaft and just getting a 20 minute time slot to open up for someone else. The last time I saw them was in September and they're coming here again in June I think, so I'll definitely go again, especially because they're headlining this time. I love bands like Cage the Elephant and the Black Lips who just do their own thing and don't worry about trying to please some arbitrary 'general audience' all the time. I actually have like five or six shows I'm going to in May/June. I was kinda hoping some of them would be here between spring and summer classes, but I think they're all like at the end of one semester and then at the beginning of the next. As luck would have it! Anyway, I dunno if anyone here would like Cage the Elephant, but I think they're pretty cool.BCOF: Weather can affect my life: see if you can imagine or retell a day in your life when you were greatly affected by severe weather. I think it would be really interesting if the weather was a realized character in the story, not just the background. Severe weather sucks and I think we've all dealt with it in one way or another at some point. I feel pretty lucky in that area because I've never been in the middle of a super damaging tornado or hurricane. I feel like bad weather strikes at the worst possible time. It likes to sneak up on you while you aren't paying attention so it can catch you off guard. I think the worst instance of 'I should've checked the weather' happened when I was around 13/14 years old. I had been dating this girl, but I really wanted to break up with her. I didn't know how to though because I felt bad and my mother could tell something was bothering me, so she asked what was up. I explained the whole thing to her about how this girl had basically just decided we were dating and told everyone at school that we were and she was friends with all of my friends, so I couldn't be mean to her. It was all ten times worse because her older brother was my friend too. He was more friends with my friends than he was with me, but still, it was uncomfortable. My ma told me that I needed to be honest and just tell her how I felt because it was more hurtful to pretend like I was into her when I wasn't. I knew it had to be done, so I grabbed the kitchen phone and she was like, "Whoa, what are you doing? " That's when I learned that you don't break up with somebody over the phone or in email because you should go do it to their face. I thought of a good plan though. I would just have my ma drop me off at her house, do the deed, and then walk to my friend's house and spend the night. This is the type of thing you have to do when you live in the middle of nowhere. You have to plan how you're going to get into and out of town. My friend only lived like a mile away from them though, so it seemed agreeable with everyone.The girl overreacted even more than I thought she would, of course, and started making a huge scene in her bedroom about it. She was crying and saying that I embarrassed her and stuff. I was trying to make her be quiet because I was afraid her brother or dad might hear us and come kick my ass or something. So, I put a movie on and turned the volume up kind of loud until she stopped freaking out enough to talk about it. I don't know why girls at that age thing everything is the end of the world, but she definitely did because she said all of our friends were going to know that I didn't like her. I told her to just tell them that she broke up with me and I would go along with it and act upset. While this plan was being hatched, Mother Nature unleashed one of the worst storms I've ever seen, even to this day. It was really bad. You know the kind of storm, where it gets almost as dark as night, even though it's still light outside. It was a furious storm that could only be considered a big 'fuck you' to me, considering the fact that I really wanted to leave and walk to my friend's house. I reasoned with myself and said, 'okay, no big deal, it's just a storm, one hour tops.' Well, it wasn't one hour tops. It poured, lightninged, thundered for like two hours straight. All the way through this movie while this girl complained about boys and how much they suck. She told me about her ex-boyfriend who apparently stood her up at a dance even though he said he would go and she got all dressed up. I told her I would never do that, but of course, by that point, I was the enemy. She told me about how girls are more sensitive to people's feelings and that's why they treat boys better than boys treat them. Finally, after the movie had already ended and I'd gotten a serious earful, there was a break in the downpour. I've never been so happy to see it not rain before. As soon as it stopped, I jumped up and said I had to go. I wasn't very nice about it either. I made sure she knew that I'd only stayed so long because of the storm. Well, somewhere between her bedroom, the hallway, and the front door, the skies opened up again. I was so over it at that point and ready to just get soaked, but as I was putting my shoes on, her mother came flying through the front door completely drenched just from the driveway to the house. She was like, "Whoa, Charlie, where are you going? You can't go out in this weather. Can you help me with groceries?" So, of course, I did, and on the second I got inside, it started hailing big pellets against the window. The girl's mom had brought home ingredients to make tacos and said she'd drive me to my friend's house after dinner if it cleared up. I ended up sitting through this horrible dinner with both of her parents and her brother who had no idea that we'd just broken up. In order to keep her quiet through it, I told her that I would *think* about reconsidering because maybe I was just afraid of commitment like she said all guys were. She definitely lit up at that idea, so I don't think the dinner was uncomfortable for anyone except me. Thanks for making me a hostage, Mother Nature, you fickle bitch. Luckily, it did stop storming and her mother drove me over to my friend's house. Before I got out of the car, I thanked her and told her I probably wouldn't see her again because her daughter had dumped me, because that's the story I said I'd go with when we were talking. Her mother felt so bad for me and seemed genuinely upset about it because I was a 'nice kid'. She assured me I'd find someone else who would be better suited for me and I deserved to date someone who wanted to date me too. I thanked her again and got out of the car, and I never saw her again except at the gas station once. Now I know I'm not a saint, I've been a sinner all my life I ain't tryna' hide my flaws, I'd rather keep them in the light |
Artist: Defiance, Ohio Album: The Great Depression Song: Calling Old Friends [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: What does the phrase "March Madness" mean to you? Yo, sup guys? Hope you're having a good start to your week. So, I know March Madness as the NCAA college basketball tournaments that happen in March. It's super epic and chaotic because there's a shit ton of schools in it and if a team loses a game, they're automatically out. I've never been into sports that much, honestly. I was always the kid who locked himself in his room and read while my brothers and dad went crazy over sports in the living room. Sports are one of those things that get easier and easier not to give a fuck about the more you don't give a fuck about them. Like, I think they're almost something you'd have to be into at a younger age 'cause I never met someone my age who suddenly decided he liked sports. It would be totally weird to wake up one day and be like, "This is the day I start giving a fuck about baseball." But there has to be more to this March Madness thing, otherwise it wouldn't be a prompt, yeah? Let me go do some research and hit you back. Okay, well, I didn't find much. Apparently it legit only refers to just the college basketball tournament. I did find this article that talked about how much employers lose during March Madness. Apparently there's a huge reduction in productivity during the month and projected employer loss is up to $1.9 billion in wages. That's crazy, dude!March Madness for me can only mean the same thing as spring fever. I don't wanna see any more days below fifty degrees, although I'm going to this week, sadly.  Just let it be summer already! I wanna stop wearing clothes.  WTMR: Some of us find criticism hard to take. In what area of your writing are you sensitive to criticism? I'm sensitive to criticism, but not in the way you might think. I never get angry with negative reviews or anything like that. I actually go to the opposite end of the spectrum. I don't get defensive, I get agreeable. I don't have the confidence to be like, "fuck that, this is a good piece no matter what that person said." I start viewing it through the perspective they gave me in their feedback and I start losing sight of what I originally saw in it. The thing is, our writing is sometimes personal and it sucks when the feelings or ideas we put into it don't come across well. My sensitive area in writing is my poetry. I don't give a shit what anyone says about my stories or my blog or anything that came along with a prompt. My problem is the things I mull over in my mind at four o'clock in the morning when I can't sleep, and then I put my heart on the paper and I don't do it well enough to truly express what I felt. You've all been there too, I know. Like I said, I don't get upset with the reviews or reviewers. I'm super thankful for every ounce of feedback I get, good or bad. I take into consideration what the reviewer says because my job is to connect with the reader; if that doesn't happen, it's my fault, not theirs. The problem is, I'm the type who's super likely to be like, ah, this is shit. Delete. Delete. Delete. I can't tell you how much poetry I've deleted/ripped apart/thrown out just because I looked at it and my own criticism of it caused me to find it unworthy of existing. That's why I'm trying to write a poem every day for a couple weeks, on the heavy urging of Cinn . I already promised I wouldn't delete anything from it, so if you get a minute, come let me know what you think, pretty please?
I'm not used to writing like this. I usually overthink my poems and take forever to actually get something out. I'm surprised to find that I have been able to do even just a few poems in a row. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but I'm an extremely amateur writer and I'm proud of even just a few days worth of consecutive poetry. BCOF: Pick a piece of music either song or instrumental and write a poem, story, or article about it. Damn, son! This looks like it could be a Charlie prompt! I'm just gonna go ahead and talk about the song in today's entry, "Calling Old Friends" by Defiance, Ohio. The story of how I found this band is just kinda weird and coincidental, so it might be fun to share. The reason it's funny is because they were a very and still are a relatively unknown band. I'm pretty sure when this album came out, they were just about as underground as can be. I mean, I don't know how you measure that kind of thing, but from inception until 2015, they've only had 90K listeners from Last.fm. Just for reference, a somewhat similar band like Against Me! who are by no means a household name, have over half a million individual listeners on Last.fm. So, yeah, fairly unknown.Anyway, onto the story. So, when I was like 15 or 16, I started getting all these college pamphlets from around the country. It was undoubtedly the cause of internet companies selling my information to colleges, or possibly even my school. I have no idea. The point is, I'd throw all of these away because who wants to go to college, right? So, one day I got one for "Defiance College" and it caught my attention because I thought for sure there could be no such thing as a college called Defiance. I saw that it was in Defiance, Ohio, which I had never heard of in my life. I thought that it was like a fake college scam or something.The next time I was at the library, I remembered it and I looked up Defiance, Ohio, just to see if it was a real place. It is a real place, by the way, and they do have a college called Defiance College. It was weird though, because they have a super low enrollment, and then I saw that they were affiliated with some church and I started getting hella paranoid that my parents were giving my information out to religious colleges or something. I did more research about Defiance, Ohio to see if it was like a city or just a random small town or what. My parents were both from the Midwest, so I was pretty much convinced that they had something to do with it after I saw that the town somehow had less people than where I was raised. Through all this research about Defiance, Ohio, I ended up finding the band, Defiance, Ohio. (Way too many commas in that sentence) This song, "Calling Old Friends" was the first one I heard by them, because I was of course into music at that time too, I had to check them out. I pretty much fell in love with their simple, folk punk sound and I proceeded to have all of my friends listen to them too. Noah liked them quite a bit because they're crazy catchy, but I think everyone else thought they sucked. Anyway, that's my story of Defiance, Ohio- the band and the town.  Well, hope keeps some afloat, But for me it's no lifeboat. The tighter I hold on, the deeper down I'm sinking. I tried to put my finger on it, but I gave it my whole arm. I reached out with good intentions, but I only did more harm. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
I'm still so confused. How did they get to senior-level finance with so little know-how. I don't get it. 
It's great to see you back around. I'm sorry you've been having life issues. I hope you're doing much better now? You know I have a foul mouth. 
People definitely tend to jump straight to the worst conclusion when any problem arises, which is why you so frequently hear, "My computer is broken!" when there's really a simple fix. 
Just why. It's so gross. We need to get you some personal finance help! This is only tangentially related and not a statement on you, but one of the nonprofits I work with consists of me making budget plans for people who were recently homeless and have just gotten back on their feet. A lot of the people I work with have only been at their job for less than a month or been in an apartment for a week or two. My role is to gather all of their financial information and then consult with them on their bills, disposable income, purchases, and stuff like that. It's shocking to see the financial decisions people make after just being homeless. I'm like, dude, you were just homeless 2 weeks ago. 
I have seen so much of the disasters it has caused with some people. I have in the past been unconsciously roped into financial situations that were most unpleasant and having to make sensible plans to unravel them.