I’ve had an extra lot of time to think as of late. That’s what happens I guess when you have 8 hours of driving. Going .5 mph. It causes me to have lots of epiphanies which are utterly meaningless.

Ejemplo: I like my job because I like the way trees smell. I don’t like lemons, or products with lemon essence involved (though I’m a lemonade fan) but I like the smell of lemon trees. I like the eucalyptus trees and the way the wind feels in the afternoon when it’s a warm but with the slightest hint of a chill. The dirt smells almost…clean. Which is contradictory, I’m aware. Maybe it’s that after a few years around horses you just sort of get used to dust. However, it also makes me feel really old because if I’m not in bed by 10 I will fall asleep at work because it’s so effing boring most of the time.

Also, farming is possibly the least environmentally friendly business ever. I drive all day long, waste shit tons of water, not to mention pesticides and crap like that. And there is trash everywhere.

And I want to watch Purple Rain.

That is all.

The holes in my mouth taste like rotten eggs and every time I open the aforementioned mouth the smell pours out of the aforementioned oral craters and wraps around my tongue just long enough to make me gag before being released into the outside world. I repulse myself.

I have four bloody holes in my mouth. They’re not really bleeding, anymore, per se, but they’re gaping holes nonetheless. Which is uncomfortable, and so I’ve continued sticking gauze in my mouth because then it doesn’t feel like i have gaping holes in my mouth. Gross, yeah. But, (and I swear I haven’t had any hardcore drugs in 10 hours) it sort of made me think, wow, I wish I had gauze to stick in the other holes in my life. Okay, emo, a little, I’ll admit. But it would be nice anyway. Except for the part that then I continued this thought process, and wondered whether or not I already was doing that in some way or another. All I know is Hillary told me I looked like a sad puppy when she came over, and i was like nooooo i’m not sad, but maybe i was wrong. But that’s beside the point. I actually started this post weeks ago but other things came up and I couldn’t quite figure out what I meant to say.

It’s weird, but ever since we began the autobiography presentations for our English final I’ve been thinking a lot about myself. Or rather, I’ve felt the need to tell stories about myself. It’s incredibly egotistical actually. Maybe it’s because I no longer have a person that I’m just overcome with the urge to tell everything to, since the candidates don’t care or already know what there is to know.

I’ve had multiple non fiction writing projects in mind in this vein. First, I thought I would write letters to everyone I knew, inspired by the blog full of love letters Cathy posted about. But then I realized that was essentially what all my yearbook entries were, and I wouldn’t really be able to say anything original. Then, later, I had this idea where I thought I would talk about all the places that I associate with particular memories. Unfortunately, the place that happened to inspire this thought is somewhere I’m not ready to talk to the world wide interwebs with about at the moment.

Instead we’re going to talk about my car. I just came to the realization today that I’m going to miss my car. A lot. I was so ready to get rid of it. The lights are always blinking at me telling me to get something fixed (how I regret the “no, none of my tail lights are out” comment I made to my dad at autozone the other day) and it always needs coolant and oil and air conditioning to me now means driving 80 mph and hoping the cool air will force itself into my car. Even so, even with all the maintenance i don’t do and its dirty, dingy permanently bird crapped exterior, I love my car. It drives like butter, and is a home away from home. I remember when we first got it and my mom wouldn’t let us eat in it…if that had continued i probably wouldn’t get such unpleasant surprises every time (admittedly not often) i go digging around in the backseat. There are points in my life when it literally contains all I need to survive, from changes of clothes to blankets and pillows and swimsuits and sunscreen to makeup and food and at least $20 in change that Alex spilled that one time playing with my cupholder, which subsequently ended up under my floormats and between my seats.

I don’t know if this project is going to work, because I don’t know that I can really explain these places. But what, praytell, am I going to do without my car next year? Where am I going to sing loudly and badly without annoying anyone but myself? If I’m having a good day, I’ve probably realized that it’s a good day while driving. If I’m going to, I usually hit contentment between Petit and Saticoy on Foothill. Most of my writing ideas come to me while passing the Government center just about to get on the freeway to go home. I’ve stopped taking the freeway home, though, cause I like enjoying the longer drive. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t had any writing ideas in a while. (Well, I’ve written a few poems but we know how poetry and I work; they’re totally worthy of The Pain Tree.) I’ve had a lot of important conversations within my car, or directly outside it. I’ve locked people in it, and locked people out of it, used it and abused it in every way possible, and I have few doubts that if I ever crash it, (despite its thus far indestructible outer shell) it will be 95% because Alex is trying to turn up the radio.

Damn, why is it everything I love drives me absolutely fricking crazy? But yeah, I guess this is my love letter to Sven. Because cars don’t buy yearbooks.

As of late, I’ve been feeling fucking Zen. I’m far less discontent than I’ve been in…I don’t even know how long I’ve hated myself, but it’s been a while and it wasn’t really until I stopped that I realized I had started. I’ve realized I have far more friends than I thought, but I’ve also become more okay with just being with myself. I’ve written a couple poems for the first time in a while, and my guitar callouses are coming back. But at the same time my rediscovered friendships are driving me crazy and I need desperately to get out and get to college ASAP. Such is life. I’m tired of the drama and juggling of different friendships and things that are only just now becoming a problem because suddenly we can’t all just be fucking happy together. We’re all too bored to function, and I’m not sure how summer is going to be bearable. I wish I had a horse. Or a job. But I guess I’ll go to sleep now. Because I’m doing that sleeping thing again, which is nice. I never understood how awesome sleeping was until I stopped being able to.

A lot of people told me over the summer that senior year was going to be the best year of my life. I didn’t believe them at the time. The prospect of 4 AP classes and college apps and a hero project and countless other things were too daunting. Looking back on this year, I feel like it has been almost entirely characterized by loss. I lost my grandmother, my horse, a love, a best friend,  a few regular friends, my chance to go to the state speech tournament (multiple times), my ability to be alone, my faith in humanity a few times over, a few ounces of self respect, a bit of ambition, most of my creativity, a little bit of innocence, a lot of productivity, my ability to do more than one homework assignment per night, most of my fear of speaking my bad spanish, a little weight, some of my anger (it’s possible i merely reallocated my budget of anger, actually, but i’ll include it anyway) a lot of junk, my psuedo safe driving habits, my appetite, my ability to sleep, and god knows what else.

Some of those things I never thought I would lose. Some I never thought I could lose. Some I didn’t even see slipping away. Some, I guess, I’m better off without.

And where does that leave me? Am I myself lost? I thought last year that I to some extent found myself, but apparently I snuck away when I wasn’t paying attention. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I am adrift in a sea of teenage confusion. If you find me, let me know.

As per Michael’s suggestion, I was reading William Faulkner’s speech from after his acceptance of the Nobel prize for literature, and I thought to myself a) wow, I really like this dude and b) I feel like I should quote him on my blog. But, then I was deciding which part to quote, and I just didn’t want to cut most of it. So, for you to appreciate, skim, ignore, or d) all of the above (yay AP mode).

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work – a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

There was a point in my life where I thought that behind everyone that was mean, or annoying, or weird, there was a perfectly good reason for them being like that. Someone, or something in their lives had made them that way, something out of their control. There was a point in my life where I truly believed that there was some redeeming factor in everyone that made it impossible for me to really hate them, that there was something in them that meant they deserved my friendship, or at least my pity. Where did that optimism go? I’m finding it hard to believe that kind of thing any more. Because there are certain things I find it hard to forgive. Certain things that make me wonder “what possible value can you have to the human race?”And that makes me sad. I feel like I’ve lost hope in humanity, in the essential goodness of the human race. And when that faith is gone, what do I have left?

Furthermore: what’s my excuse? When I’m a bad person, what’s my redeeming factor?

I can’t think of an even psuedo clever segway into this topic so I’m just going to put it out there: I feel like I’ve lost the ability to be alone. I used to be a decently self sufficient person. I didn’t mind not being with other people; I could go to the beach or go ride my horse or hang out by myself and be okay with that. But as of late, any time I’m by myself I just feel depressed about it. Why can’t I be alone without feeling alone anymore? What happened to “time to think”? What happened to “me time”? Why is it that nowadays when my friends are busy I feel increasingly abandoned? I’m tired of the fact that my happiness increasingly hinges on the whims of other people, and I think I’m becoming the kind of person I never wanted to be. I want it to stop but I don’t know how to stop it. There’s my unhappiness for the day. Or the month. Or something.

Have you ever stopped to think about the depressing nature of AIM? It’s weird. Away messages are weird. If you leave a conversation up for a while, you might come back to “So-and-so went away.” Not “popped off for a bit” or “got a tad busy and shouldn’t be chatting,” but went away. Finality. Makes it sound like they died. Or went off on a vacation from talking to you. I find it comically depressing, actually.

Almost unrelated, but not entirely: I think I’ve rediscovered issues I’d forgotten I had. Shit. (Stop judging me because I swear. It’s perfectly fine and I’m going to continue doing it while I’m a teenager and everyone expects me to be vulgar anyway.)

As of this moment, I’ve been accepted to 4/7 colleges I applied to. 3 I have yet to hear from.

So, Davis will give me money, Berkeley will give me 4 years in NorCal with lots of hobos at the best public school in the nation, Brandeis will give me an artsy fartsy small jewish liberal arts school degree in creative writing, and Northwestern will freeze off my toes and give me a large school experience with the top journalism program. I don’t know what I want anymore. Tell me what I want.