Seven years ago, Image Comics released the first issue of “The Walking Dead”. Written by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Charlie Adlard, this long standing comic goes where it seems most zombie stories are afraid to go, long term survival. During an interview, Kirkman stated he wanted to write “the zombie movie that never ends,” and now that he has recently released issue #75, it seems he is doing just that and succeeding.
This Eisner Award winning comic series follows Rick Grimes, a sheriff from a small town who wakes from a coma to find the world he once knew completely different. Zombies have taken over and his family is nowhere to be found. He goes on a mission to find them but, as opposed to most zombie stories, the story doesn't stop when that story arc ends. He finds his wife, Lori, and son, Carl camping out on the outskirts of Atlanta with a small group of survivors. Since then they have traveled through Georgia, losing and gaining members, trying to find shelter, food and general safety.
“The Walking Dead” breaks away even further from the norm when eventually the zombies become more of a backdrop to the characters and how they adjust to their surroundings. Kirkman and Adlard successfully convey every sort of reaction anyone could have in this situation, ranging from suicidal tendencies to violent desensitization. It is both an amazing zombie apocalypse story as well as a fantastic examination of human response to horrible circumstances.
AMC will be premiering the first episode of the television adaptation, with Kirkman as an executive producer, on October 31st.
29.10.10
Haloween Costumes: Sexy or Scary?
Halloween is coming up. Which means little kids running down the street looking for candy, Spirit stores are cropping up everywhere and girls of every shape and size showing up to parties in essentially their underwear.
It is the one time of year where it is acceptable for these girls to show up in stripper attire to any party or even walking down the street. Leah Taylor, a student here, said, “
So what costumes can you expect from these girls? With almost no movies with outlandish costumes, it's kind of up in the air. According to Pamela Stompoly of The Costume Shop in North Park, “People are going to be creative this year. It's all very random.”
For the girls, we might see a few Neytiris from Avatar or Alices from Alice in Wonderland. For the most part, it seems it will be a slew of the generic costumes. You can expect to see scantily clad angels, devils, cops, girl scouts, maids, nurses, cats … any noun you can really apply works.
Some of the more strange new “sexy” costumes to pop up this year are Capatain America, Optimus Prime, and the Cookie Monster.
Stompoly says to expect plenty of burlesque inspired costumes.
For the men, Stompoly has gotten requests for an Aztec warrior and a few Johnny Depp style Mad Hatter costumes. “All guys like to be Spartan warriors or pharaohs,” says Stompoly.
The Costume Shop also specializes in make-up. The costume Stompoly is most prepared for is the zombie. “About two weeks before Halloween, people will come rushing in for zombie make-up.”
Another strangely common request she gets is “smurf make-up.”
For the most part though, this Halloween looks to be a great one for Leg Avenue (the leading company in sexy costumes). So keep your eyes peeled for the more creative of the “sexy” costumes. Who knows, maybe you'll see a “sexy” pumpkin.
It is the one time of year where it is acceptable for these girls to show up in stripper attire to any party or even walking down the street. Leah Taylor, a student here, said, “
So what costumes can you expect from these girls? With almost no movies with outlandish costumes, it's kind of up in the air. According to Pamela Stompoly of The Costume Shop in North Park, “People are going to be creative this year. It's all very random.”
For the girls, we might see a few Neytiris from Avatar or Alices from Alice in Wonderland. For the most part, it seems it will be a slew of the generic costumes. You can expect to see scantily clad angels, devils, cops, girl scouts, maids, nurses, cats … any noun you can really apply works.
Some of the more strange new “sexy” costumes to pop up this year are Capatain America, Optimus Prime, and the Cookie Monster.
Stompoly says to expect plenty of burlesque inspired costumes.
For the men, Stompoly has gotten requests for an Aztec warrior and a few Johnny Depp style Mad Hatter costumes. “All guys like to be Spartan warriors or pharaohs,” says Stompoly.
The Costume Shop also specializes in make-up. The costume Stompoly is most prepared for is the zombie. “About two weeks before Halloween, people will come rushing in for zombie make-up.”
Another strangely common request she gets is “smurf make-up.”
For the most part though, this Halloween looks to be a great one for Leg Avenue (the leading company in sexy costumes). So keep your eyes peeled for the more creative of the “sexy” costumes. Who knows, maybe you'll see a “sexy” pumpkin.
Never Never Land
The night before I had to leave, it was raining. Giant droplets pelted me on the fire escape, drenching every article of clothing I had on. It was freezing, I had to chew every breath. The cold metal bars of the fire escape dug into my spine as I smoked cigarette after cigarette, hoping to suspend time, to keep the night lasting forever. Inside, the fire was roaring as my two roommates played video games. The glow of the television giving me the slightest bit of ghostly light. I could see inside the window at what I was losing; the dart board, the fireplace, the silly knick knacks piled high. I would miss this place, my own personal Never Never Land. San Francisco. I had more adventures there than anywhere else in my life, and that apartment especially was one of my favorite places to be.
The day I moved in was similar to my last night. The rain drops felt like tiny daggers piercing our clothes. I had just turned eighteen and had just essentially run away from home. Like a kid in an after school special, giving my parents the figurative finger as I hopped into my crazy boyfriend's car and sped away. When we got to my new home, a duplex on the outskirts of the Sunset district, I could tell I was going to love living there. Our apartment was the second floor, and luckily my minimal amount of belongings were able to be brought up in one trip. The apartment was huge. My friend, Will, had already been living there for about a year, so the apartment was already full in a very 'early-twenties-boy' style. After no one but a twenty-one-year-old boy living there, it was a mess. The worst was the shower. Every bit of grout was black. The smell was as if, well, you know. But it was my new home and to me, it was beautiful.
As a few weeks went by, I started to understand my surroundings. I had started to walk through the city every day, looking for work. I would wake up early, well early to my standards at the time, so at about 10AM. The city seemed to sparkle at me as I walked through the streets. People walking down the street would smile at me. I was in heaven. The air smelled better, the sun shone brighter (even when it was foggy), the food tasted better.
After wandering the city, pounding the pavement and trying not to get lost, I would get home around 8PM and be exhausted. Will and Jason would usually be sitting on the couch, playing video games and planning on how they could fit a pool table in the apartment, and more importantly, how to get it into the apartment (fun fact, they never figured it out). At about 10 every night, our floor would start to vibrate and bounce with the overbearing sound of bass radiating from our downstairs neighbor's apartment. This was probably the only real down side to our new home. It was our landlords apartment, so we couldn't yell at him. The techno beats would echo in every part of the apartment, killing our eardrums. He would start it promptly at 10PM every night, then finally stop it at about 3AM. There was no escape.
With all of us staying up all hours of the night, we started to get a little loopy. The next few weeks, in our sleep deprived stupors, we started to come up with fantastical ideas on how to use the apartment. The fire escape became our smoking patio. Our fireplace also became a stove of sorts, so we could have hot chocolate and roasted marsh mallows most nights. The best thing we used was our dart board. When Jason's dad came to visit, he brought the house a bit of a strange gift, a set of throwing knives. We were super excited until: 1.We realized we both didn't know how to use such things and 2.There was no where for us to practice to learn such things. One excessively ridiculous night, however, we came up with a glorious plan. We took a large piece of cardboard and nailed it to the wall, then on top of that, put up our dart board. In our infinite wisdom, we believed this would be the best way to protect the wall. Then we began to practice, kind of. Our throws were terrible, ricocheting off of the dartboard, and coming back to almost hit us. We made gashes in the cardboard, going completely through, into the wall. That side of the room started to look legitimately like frightening horror movie style murders had occurred there. It was wonderful. We would practice three nights a week, throwing to the beat of the music below us, rarely hitting the dart board, most of the time even missing the cardboard.
When Jason's mom and dad came to visit, we had just been there for a week. His parents were wonderful people, sweet in so many ways, and still intimidating. Jason's dad was a military diplomat and he lived up to what kind of thoughts get conjured in your mind, mustache and all. His mom was just very sweet, until you let your guard down. Then she would use that opportunity and say anything to completely throw you off, joking or not. That visit is when me and Jason's dad really bonded. The second night they were there, we brought out the cards and beer. As we played poker, I felt something I had been missing for years, this sort of family camaraderie. As the night progressed, I started to get tipsy. I also started to win. Jason's mom, getting drunk faster than the rest of us, lounged in a chair giggling to herself. Jason and Will started to get bored with the poker game and sat next to her, making fun of her alcohol induced rosy cheeks. When the night ended, it was just me and Jason's dad playing. I won the last hand and I was absolutely excited, and kind of drunk. Jason's dad, sober as a judge, just smiled at me as I jumped up and down. I could tell he was laughing at me, but it was a nice sort of laughter. As everyone went to bed, it finally dawned on me that he had let me win. I blushed to myself and went to sleep, knowing he did it to make me feel good in that sort of “fatherly” way.
After the first month of living there, the charm started to wear off. The techno keeping us awake all night meant I was waking up later and later to go find work. After I would get home from searching for work each night, I would search Craigslist for hours hoping to find something. I was running out of options, and running out of money. I had gotten to the point where I wasn't able to afford to help with buying groceries anymore, and while Will didn't care, Jason started to get annoyed and told me I couldn't eat “his food,” that his mom had bought for him, which meant I had no food to eat. I started to live off coffee from a local Starbucks who felt bad that they couldn't give me a job and about two packs of cigarettes a day (Will barely spent his money so he would buy cartons of cigarettes for the house and tell me to smoke them so they wouldn't go stale, which was a total lie. I think he just felt bad that I was struggling so much.) About once a week I would steal a handful of cereal or a hot pocket in order to not fall over from lack of food.
Finally, one night after searching endlessly, I found an ad for a canvassing job with Environment California. It didn't look like a job I wanted at all, but with rent being due soon, I had to take what I could get. It was exactly as I had suspected. We would meet up at 5PM every day, walk around different neighborhoods asking for money to support our cause, then meet back up and tally up the money, then be done at 11PM. This relieved a little bit of the tension in the house, but not to the point of saving my relationship with Jason. I had started to sleep on the couch and fight with him endlessly. Most nights, I would get home and go out to the fire escape and smoke until he finally went to bed, then set up my “bed” on the couch. He would leave for school before I would wake up and I wouldn't see him until I got home from work, thus the cycle would continue.
My boss took pity on me. Her name was Lizzie, known affectionately by her friends as “Lizzie the Lezzie.” After work one night, she asked me to come out with her and her friends to a bar. I told her I wasn't 21, but she didn't care. She let me use her passport which, surprisingly enough, worked. The bar was a lesbian bar and full of dancing hipster girls. One of Lizzie's friends bought me a drink, which I sipped slowly, letting the burning sensation coat my throat as I took in my surroundings. After standing against the wall for a half an hour, Lizzie came up to me, already drunk, and started hassling me to dance. I tried to say no, but she insisted by yelling, “You and your boyfriend are on the rocks. Besides, you’re too cute to be straight!” She pushed me into an Australian girl and I started to stumble around in a slightly dance-y, “epileptic on meth” sort of way. When I got home, Jason was waiting for me. He had my things from his room and told me we should stop pretending we were dating anymore. The fantasy was almost over and the lost boys were finally starting to grow up.
I continued to struggle after that. The job was getting worse by the day and I wasn't getting nearly enough money from it to afford much more than rent. I was spending more time out on the fire escape every night, smoking and writing, trying to remember why I had come up in the first place. I still loved San Francisco with all its crazy and excitement and I still loved my apartment, but my money issues were starting to outweigh the fun. I tried calling family members, begging for advice or any connections to work they might have had up there, but it proved useless.
I was scrambling around when my grandmother called me to let me know she was loaning me three hundred dollars so I could pay my rent and eat a meal. She just told me, as kindly as she could, “Just don’t tell your mother.” I felt so guilty about it that I could barely enjoy the fact of having another guaranteed month in the wonderfully cold San Francisco. I spent the entire time trying to get to know every inch of San Francisco. I can honestly say this is when I truly fell in love with the city. I wound up seeing parts of the city most people wouldn't and met people I never would have had a conversation with if I had had a consistent job.
The homeless people of San Fransisco are the friendliest people I have ever met. There was one 14-year-old girl who had been living on her own since she was 11. She talked to me for an hour while we waited for the rain to let up in order to walk where we were going. It started with her asking for change, and when I told her I had nothing, she wanted to become my friend and let me know how to get food for free around the city. The next, and my last, week in San Francisco, I was able to eat two decently sized meals a day.
At the end of March in 2007, I finally broke down and called my parents. There was nothing left for me to do but admit defeat. My relationship with Jason had fallen apart, my friendship with Will was extremely strained, I was weak with malnutrition, and I had no way of paying for the next month's rent. My parents, who had originally felt that if I failed it was my own fault and I would have to get myself out of trouble all on my own, panicked when they heard my voice on the phone. According to them, I sounded weak and distressed. I had been crying, but I had no idea how bad it was. My mom calmed my down and promptly said she was going to get me. When I got off the phone, a small sense of relief, and a huge sense of regret filled me. I was going home to warmth and food and friends, but I was leaving. I had gotten so used to San Francisco, feeling at home with every person who walked down the street.
As I sat out on the patio that last night, feeling the rain and the cold; watching the lights flicker in the distance; hearing the cars blaring by; I could think of only one thing, "If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!" I wanted to stay in Never Never Land forever, but it was time for Peter Pan (that’s me) to grow up. It was time for Rufio to take over (that being Will) and for Hook (that’s Jason) to keep terrorizing the rest of the Lost Boys. The adventure was over for me and it was time to go home and … marry Wendy or something? (Or at least give all the thimbles back)
The day I moved in was similar to my last night. The rain drops felt like tiny daggers piercing our clothes. I had just turned eighteen and had just essentially run away from home. Like a kid in an after school special, giving my parents the figurative finger as I hopped into my crazy boyfriend's car and sped away. When we got to my new home, a duplex on the outskirts of the Sunset district, I could tell I was going to love living there. Our apartment was the second floor, and luckily my minimal amount of belongings were able to be brought up in one trip. The apartment was huge. My friend, Will, had already been living there for about a year, so the apartment was already full in a very 'early-twenties-boy' style. After no one but a twenty-one-year-old boy living there, it was a mess. The worst was the shower. Every bit of grout was black. The smell was as if, well, you know. But it was my new home and to me, it was beautiful.
As a few weeks went by, I started to understand my surroundings. I had started to walk through the city every day, looking for work. I would wake up early, well early to my standards at the time, so at about 10AM. The city seemed to sparkle at me as I walked through the streets. People walking down the street would smile at me. I was in heaven. The air smelled better, the sun shone brighter (even when it was foggy), the food tasted better.
After wandering the city, pounding the pavement and trying not to get lost, I would get home around 8PM and be exhausted. Will and Jason would usually be sitting on the couch, playing video games and planning on how they could fit a pool table in the apartment, and more importantly, how to get it into the apartment (fun fact, they never figured it out). At about 10 every night, our floor would start to vibrate and bounce with the overbearing sound of bass radiating from our downstairs neighbor's apartment. This was probably the only real down side to our new home. It was our landlords apartment, so we couldn't yell at him. The techno beats would echo in every part of the apartment, killing our eardrums. He would start it promptly at 10PM every night, then finally stop it at about 3AM. There was no escape.
With all of us staying up all hours of the night, we started to get a little loopy. The next few weeks, in our sleep deprived stupors, we started to come up with fantastical ideas on how to use the apartment. The fire escape became our smoking patio. Our fireplace also became a stove of sorts, so we could have hot chocolate and roasted marsh mallows most nights. The best thing we used was our dart board. When Jason's dad came to visit, he brought the house a bit of a strange gift, a set of throwing knives. We were super excited until: 1.We realized we both didn't know how to use such things and 2.There was no where for us to practice to learn such things. One excessively ridiculous night, however, we came up with a glorious plan. We took a large piece of cardboard and nailed it to the wall, then on top of that, put up our dart board. In our infinite wisdom, we believed this would be the best way to protect the wall. Then we began to practice, kind of. Our throws were terrible, ricocheting off of the dartboard, and coming back to almost hit us. We made gashes in the cardboard, going completely through, into the wall. That side of the room started to look legitimately like frightening horror movie style murders had occurred there. It was wonderful. We would practice three nights a week, throwing to the beat of the music below us, rarely hitting the dart board, most of the time even missing the cardboard.
When Jason's mom and dad came to visit, we had just been there for a week. His parents were wonderful people, sweet in so many ways, and still intimidating. Jason's dad was a military diplomat and he lived up to what kind of thoughts get conjured in your mind, mustache and all. His mom was just very sweet, until you let your guard down. Then she would use that opportunity and say anything to completely throw you off, joking or not. That visit is when me and Jason's dad really bonded. The second night they were there, we brought out the cards and beer. As we played poker, I felt something I had been missing for years, this sort of family camaraderie. As the night progressed, I started to get tipsy. I also started to win. Jason's mom, getting drunk faster than the rest of us, lounged in a chair giggling to herself. Jason and Will started to get bored with the poker game and sat next to her, making fun of her alcohol induced rosy cheeks. When the night ended, it was just me and Jason's dad playing. I won the last hand and I was absolutely excited, and kind of drunk. Jason's dad, sober as a judge, just smiled at me as I jumped up and down. I could tell he was laughing at me, but it was a nice sort of laughter. As everyone went to bed, it finally dawned on me that he had let me win. I blushed to myself and went to sleep, knowing he did it to make me feel good in that sort of “fatherly” way.
After the first month of living there, the charm started to wear off. The techno keeping us awake all night meant I was waking up later and later to go find work. After I would get home from searching for work each night, I would search Craigslist for hours hoping to find something. I was running out of options, and running out of money. I had gotten to the point where I wasn't able to afford to help with buying groceries anymore, and while Will didn't care, Jason started to get annoyed and told me I couldn't eat “his food,” that his mom had bought for him, which meant I had no food to eat. I started to live off coffee from a local Starbucks who felt bad that they couldn't give me a job and about two packs of cigarettes a day (Will barely spent his money so he would buy cartons of cigarettes for the house and tell me to smoke them so they wouldn't go stale, which was a total lie. I think he just felt bad that I was struggling so much.) About once a week I would steal a handful of cereal or a hot pocket in order to not fall over from lack of food.
Finally, one night after searching endlessly, I found an ad for a canvassing job with Environment California. It didn't look like a job I wanted at all, but with rent being due soon, I had to take what I could get. It was exactly as I had suspected. We would meet up at 5PM every day, walk around different neighborhoods asking for money to support our cause, then meet back up and tally up the money, then be done at 11PM. This relieved a little bit of the tension in the house, but not to the point of saving my relationship with Jason. I had started to sleep on the couch and fight with him endlessly. Most nights, I would get home and go out to the fire escape and smoke until he finally went to bed, then set up my “bed” on the couch. He would leave for school before I would wake up and I wouldn't see him until I got home from work, thus the cycle would continue.
My boss took pity on me. Her name was Lizzie, known affectionately by her friends as “Lizzie the Lezzie.” After work one night, she asked me to come out with her and her friends to a bar. I told her I wasn't 21, but she didn't care. She let me use her passport which, surprisingly enough, worked. The bar was a lesbian bar and full of dancing hipster girls. One of Lizzie's friends bought me a drink, which I sipped slowly, letting the burning sensation coat my throat as I took in my surroundings. After standing against the wall for a half an hour, Lizzie came up to me, already drunk, and started hassling me to dance. I tried to say no, but she insisted by yelling, “You and your boyfriend are on the rocks. Besides, you’re too cute to be straight!” She pushed me into an Australian girl and I started to stumble around in a slightly dance-y, “epileptic on meth” sort of way. When I got home, Jason was waiting for me. He had my things from his room and told me we should stop pretending we were dating anymore. The fantasy was almost over and the lost boys were finally starting to grow up.
I continued to struggle after that. The job was getting worse by the day and I wasn't getting nearly enough money from it to afford much more than rent. I was spending more time out on the fire escape every night, smoking and writing, trying to remember why I had come up in the first place. I still loved San Francisco with all its crazy and excitement and I still loved my apartment, but my money issues were starting to outweigh the fun. I tried calling family members, begging for advice or any connections to work they might have had up there, but it proved useless.
I was scrambling around when my grandmother called me to let me know she was loaning me three hundred dollars so I could pay my rent and eat a meal. She just told me, as kindly as she could, “Just don’t tell your mother.” I felt so guilty about it that I could barely enjoy the fact of having another guaranteed month in the wonderfully cold San Francisco. I spent the entire time trying to get to know every inch of San Francisco. I can honestly say this is when I truly fell in love with the city. I wound up seeing parts of the city most people wouldn't and met people I never would have had a conversation with if I had had a consistent job.
The homeless people of San Fransisco are the friendliest people I have ever met. There was one 14-year-old girl who had been living on her own since she was 11. She talked to me for an hour while we waited for the rain to let up in order to walk where we were going. It started with her asking for change, and when I told her I had nothing, she wanted to become my friend and let me know how to get food for free around the city. The next, and my last, week in San Francisco, I was able to eat two decently sized meals a day.
At the end of March in 2007, I finally broke down and called my parents. There was nothing left for me to do but admit defeat. My relationship with Jason had fallen apart, my friendship with Will was extremely strained, I was weak with malnutrition, and I had no way of paying for the next month's rent. My parents, who had originally felt that if I failed it was my own fault and I would have to get myself out of trouble all on my own, panicked when they heard my voice on the phone. According to them, I sounded weak and distressed. I had been crying, but I had no idea how bad it was. My mom calmed my down and promptly said she was going to get me. When I got off the phone, a small sense of relief, and a huge sense of regret filled me. I was going home to warmth and food and friends, but I was leaving. I had gotten so used to San Francisco, feeling at home with every person who walked down the street.
As I sat out on the patio that last night, feeling the rain and the cold; watching the lights flicker in the distance; hearing the cars blaring by; I could think of only one thing, "If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!" I wanted to stay in Never Never Land forever, but it was time for Peter Pan (that’s me) to grow up. It was time for Rufio to take over (that being Will) and for Hook (that’s Jason) to keep terrorizing the rest of the Lost Boys. The adventure was over for me and it was time to go home and … marry Wendy or something? (Or at least give all the thimbles back)
And So It Goes
Have you ever felt a panic attack before? It's one of those feelings you can't quite understand. You feel it coming and yet you can't stop it. Before you know it, you're freaking out and responding with every reaction you can imagine. Crying, shaking, hyperventilating. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all you can do at that point. Closing your eyes doesn't really help. It's like when you have the spins, the world speeds past you at ninety miles an hour, never stopping. Breathe in. Count to ten. Breathe out. Maybe light a cigarette. That's my routine, anyway. Then I grab a pen. The only way I can handle a panic attack is to lie back and stare at the smoke from my cigarette floating up into the stars and stop thinking. I clear my head, I have to write down everything that comes to my mind. It may be about someone I'm upset at, or a silly situation I've gotten myself into, or a list of everything I need to get done that day. It doesn't matter, as long as I write it down, it can leave my mind and I can really stop.
After the first cigarette, the panic starts to wane. My breathing becomes more natural. The shaking calms a bit. I can finally start to chant my mantra, a quote by Hunter S. Thompson, “Life had improved immeasurably since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.” I can finally close my eyes and just listen to the night. This is the time I can start to write about my surroundings. How the night looks, smells, feels. I can describe the smoke from my, now second, cigarette. New thoughts come into play. A song I heard earlier. An interesting idea. As I write it all down, I feel whole again. The world stops going in fast forward. As I write, I feel like myself. I can float freely through my own world and put the pieces into place, make everything make sense. It is my coping mechanism. Writing is the one thing I can use to calm me down, voice my opinion, and put me back on track.
In the seventh grade I found out I could never go to Hogwarts. It wasn't the first time I had the sad realization of my fictional escapes not existing, but it was definitely the hardest. I had just moved from Peñasquitos to Point Loma, and had been accepted to a private school. I guess I had weaved my extreme imagination into thinking the private school was just a cover up for the U.S. route to Hogwarts. I mean, what other reason would there be to uproot me from my comfort zone? I mean, other than my parents trying to put me in a better academic situation with less social issues from my last school. My imagination had been wrong. It was just like any other tiny private school. Well, needless to say, my first week at my new school kind of destroyed my fantasies, what with the lack of magic wand swishing and potions. I was absolutely devastated. I was hoping to live abroad with students who had always felt weird, like me. I needed that escape. So I decided to create my own escape. I became a recluse through the rest of my seventh grade year. I made no real effort to make friends. I avoided all work that was assigned. I had created my own little world of freedom through writing. In my stories I had friends. In my stories I was successful. In my stories I could be who I wanted to be.
I wound up flunking out of seventh grade. I had to leave that school, so I was sent to a magnet school for the arts. Unfortunately, my lacking in socializing with people the year prior meant I had no idea how to talk to people anymore. I was essentially silent unless I was needed to answer something in class. My teachers got worried about me, which in turn got my parents worried. They sent me to therapy, which would have been completely helpful if I ever spoke to anyone at that point. The therapy sessions were awkward and for the most part it seemed as if the therapist felt defeated. It was like pulling teeth to get me to talk. Finally, she came to a conclusion that I should write in a journal so she could review it and help me through whatever it was I needed help with. That was probably the best idea anyone could have ever had. I wrote down every feeling and problem in my life. Every moment that distressed me went into this journal. As she read it, she would comment on things she thought were making me the way I was. This lead to figuring out my issues with authority, making friends, connecting with my family. The “breakthrough” was when she told me to try to describe in extreme detail, the absolute worst feeling I experienced on a regular basis. I described shortness of breath, my mind felt like it was swimming, and an extreme need to run and cry my eyes out. Turns out, I was having daily panic attacks, causing me to be completely unable to have a conversation with anyone without freaking out. Writing everything down helped me figure out how to organize my thoughts and confidently walk through life.
I changed schools one more time in high school. The school I had been going to was extremely far away and my parents had started looking into the Coronado School of the Arts. It was supposed to be much more academically prestigious and the arts program much more rigorous. It was definitely a change. I had finally managed to calm my nerves long enough to make friends there. It was a nice change for me, but then I finally had to face the whole teenage ordeal of relationships and drama. I experienced the teenage life at breakneck speed. I somehow became social, got a boyfriend, broke up with said boyfriend, had a fling, got my heart broken, dealt with debaucherous shenanigans, and experimented with the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” mentality in under two years. It was exhausting and overwhelming. I had no control over my life anymore. I made every mistake in the book. I was doing exactly what I had planned to do. In order to be a writer, so I had been told, you have to experience life. And boy, did I ever.
The end of my junior year, I had to do a creative writing assignment. There were no specifications other than it had to be longer than five pages. I wrote a screenplay, hoping to express every real detail of a teenager's life. I wanted to show something different from American Pie or any other silly movie about high school. It was everything I had hoped it would be; a 70 paged script with all the gory details of a nerd's view of teen life. It expressed all the feelings I needed to let out, all my opinions on the idiocies of adolescence, and every frightening detail adults don't ever want to know about sixteen-year-olds. I got a 'C' on it. The notes written in the margins said things like, “too inappropriate,” and, “this is a paper for high school, keep that in mind.” I guess my teacher was right, but I still think that was the closest I ever got in my teenage years to actually getting my real opinion out in the open.
Writing is the only thing that has been with me through thick and thin. It's gotten me through every heartbreak, every disappointment. It is my coping mechanism, my crutch. It helps me see what I need to. Life is only bearable with a pen in my hand. Otherwise the world begins to rush past me. Life falls apart. Problems pile up around me, closing me in. Breathe in. Breathe out. Light a cigarette. Stop taking life seriously and just write. And as John Darnielle says, “I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.”
After the first cigarette, the panic starts to wane. My breathing becomes more natural. The shaking calms a bit. I can finally start to chant my mantra, a quote by Hunter S. Thompson, “Life had improved immeasurably since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.” I can finally close my eyes and just listen to the night. This is the time I can start to write about my surroundings. How the night looks, smells, feels. I can describe the smoke from my, now second, cigarette. New thoughts come into play. A song I heard earlier. An interesting idea. As I write it all down, I feel whole again. The world stops going in fast forward. As I write, I feel like myself. I can float freely through my own world and put the pieces into place, make everything make sense. It is my coping mechanism. Writing is the one thing I can use to calm me down, voice my opinion, and put me back on track.
In the seventh grade I found out I could never go to Hogwarts. It wasn't the first time I had the sad realization of my fictional escapes not existing, but it was definitely the hardest. I had just moved from Peñasquitos to Point Loma, and had been accepted to a private school. I guess I had weaved my extreme imagination into thinking the private school was just a cover up for the U.S. route to Hogwarts. I mean, what other reason would there be to uproot me from my comfort zone? I mean, other than my parents trying to put me in a better academic situation with less social issues from my last school. My imagination had been wrong. It was just like any other tiny private school. Well, needless to say, my first week at my new school kind of destroyed my fantasies, what with the lack of magic wand swishing and potions. I was absolutely devastated. I was hoping to live abroad with students who had always felt weird, like me. I needed that escape. So I decided to create my own escape. I became a recluse through the rest of my seventh grade year. I made no real effort to make friends. I avoided all work that was assigned. I had created my own little world of freedom through writing. In my stories I had friends. In my stories I was successful. In my stories I could be who I wanted to be.
I wound up flunking out of seventh grade. I had to leave that school, so I was sent to a magnet school for the arts. Unfortunately, my lacking in socializing with people the year prior meant I had no idea how to talk to people anymore. I was essentially silent unless I was needed to answer something in class. My teachers got worried about me, which in turn got my parents worried. They sent me to therapy, which would have been completely helpful if I ever spoke to anyone at that point. The therapy sessions were awkward and for the most part it seemed as if the therapist felt defeated. It was like pulling teeth to get me to talk. Finally, she came to a conclusion that I should write in a journal so she could review it and help me through whatever it was I needed help with. That was probably the best idea anyone could have ever had. I wrote down every feeling and problem in my life. Every moment that distressed me went into this journal. As she read it, she would comment on things she thought were making me the way I was. This lead to figuring out my issues with authority, making friends, connecting with my family. The “breakthrough” was when she told me to try to describe in extreme detail, the absolute worst feeling I experienced on a regular basis. I described shortness of breath, my mind felt like it was swimming, and an extreme need to run and cry my eyes out. Turns out, I was having daily panic attacks, causing me to be completely unable to have a conversation with anyone without freaking out. Writing everything down helped me figure out how to organize my thoughts and confidently walk through life.
I changed schools one more time in high school. The school I had been going to was extremely far away and my parents had started looking into the Coronado School of the Arts. It was supposed to be much more academically prestigious and the arts program much more rigorous. It was definitely a change. I had finally managed to calm my nerves long enough to make friends there. It was a nice change for me, but then I finally had to face the whole teenage ordeal of relationships and drama. I experienced the teenage life at breakneck speed. I somehow became social, got a boyfriend, broke up with said boyfriend, had a fling, got my heart broken, dealt with debaucherous shenanigans, and experimented with the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” mentality in under two years. It was exhausting and overwhelming. I had no control over my life anymore. I made every mistake in the book. I was doing exactly what I had planned to do. In order to be a writer, so I had been told, you have to experience life. And boy, did I ever.
The end of my junior year, I had to do a creative writing assignment. There were no specifications other than it had to be longer than five pages. I wrote a screenplay, hoping to express every real detail of a teenager's life. I wanted to show something different from American Pie or any other silly movie about high school. It was everything I had hoped it would be; a 70 paged script with all the gory details of a nerd's view of teen life. It expressed all the feelings I needed to let out, all my opinions on the idiocies of adolescence, and every frightening detail adults don't ever want to know about sixteen-year-olds. I got a 'C' on it. The notes written in the margins said things like, “too inappropriate,” and, “this is a paper for high school, keep that in mind.” I guess my teacher was right, but I still think that was the closest I ever got in my teenage years to actually getting my real opinion out in the open.
Writing is the only thing that has been with me through thick and thin. It's gotten me through every heartbreak, every disappointment. It is my coping mechanism, my crutch. It helps me see what I need to. Life is only bearable with a pen in my hand. Otherwise the world begins to rush past me. Life falls apart. Problems pile up around me, closing me in. Breathe in. Breathe out. Light a cigarette. Stop taking life seriously and just write. And as John Darnielle says, “I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.”
Stephen King is a Jackass
Stephen King is a well known name. He's written more novels, essays and short stories than many of us could ever dream of. He has also written some of the most famous stories we've seen adapted to screen; Shawshank Redemption, Carrie, The Shining, to name a few. However, his how to, On Writing is the perfect example on how not to write a book about writing.
King says, “The kind of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate-four to six hours a day, every day-will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things and have an aptitude for them.” Honestly, while I personally advocate reading and writing every day, promoting the idea that someone does not have an aptitude for them just because they don't do it four to six hours a day is just discouraging and ignorant. This sort of advice is only the tip of the iceberg. He continues to almost make the reader feel inadequate no matter how much they love writing. That is the biggest problem with King's advice, they're strict rules that primarily allows for burning out.
On Writing also comes across as extremely pompous. At one point he comments on Ray Bradbury's style of writing, calling it “green and wondrous and seen through a lens smeared with nostalgia.” This doesn't seem too terrible, until you put into perspective that almost the entire book is full of sarcastic insults. Everyone can have their opinion, but it starts to feel a little too obnoxious as you continue reading. He lists a few books he considers absolutely horrible, such as Valley of the Dolls, but if you consider the bulk of the books he has put out over the years, he really doesn't seem to measure up to a position to be judging. I don't want to read a how to on writing by Charlaine Harris (the writer of the True Blood books), but is he really any better?
He does, at a few points, give a little bit of useful advice, but in the end that also seems to fall short. It's all common sense; don't watch TV, read good and bad novels, don't overuse words. It's advice we've all heard before from novelists that are in way better positions to be giving it. William Faulkner for instance already told us, “Read, read, read. Read everything-trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.” Not only does Faulkner give us the same opinion, it comes across as empowering and optimistic.
This may all be a matter of opinion, but I want a writer to tell me sometimes it sucks. I think it's more appreciative when Kurt Vonnegut says, “When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth,” because it just makes you feel that moment of 'Ok, I can do this. If Kurt Vonnegut struggles, too, then I'm not hopeless.' I don't want a step by step guide on how to feel discouraged and hate my writing. I guess I also just never want to write like Stephen King.
In the end, King's On Writing comes across more as a paint by numbers sort of how to as opposed to something like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. His opinions are harsh, lessons too strict, and cuts off all creative flow. I think I'll stick with advice I know I can use: “That's why it's hard to write on mescaline, too, because your mind is going four times as fast as your hands can go, and you get disorganized and you can't keep your mind in phase with your fingers. That's why I have to get increasingly faster typewriters,” said by Hunter S. Thompson.
King says, “The kind of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate-four to six hours a day, every day-will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things and have an aptitude for them.” Honestly, while I personally advocate reading and writing every day, promoting the idea that someone does not have an aptitude for them just because they don't do it four to six hours a day is just discouraging and ignorant. This sort of advice is only the tip of the iceberg. He continues to almost make the reader feel inadequate no matter how much they love writing. That is the biggest problem with King's advice, they're strict rules that primarily allows for burning out.
On Writing also comes across as extremely pompous. At one point he comments on Ray Bradbury's style of writing, calling it “green and wondrous and seen through a lens smeared with nostalgia.” This doesn't seem too terrible, until you put into perspective that almost the entire book is full of sarcastic insults. Everyone can have their opinion, but it starts to feel a little too obnoxious as you continue reading. He lists a few books he considers absolutely horrible, such as Valley of the Dolls, but if you consider the bulk of the books he has put out over the years, he really doesn't seem to measure up to a position to be judging. I don't want to read a how to on writing by Charlaine Harris (the writer of the True Blood books), but is he really any better?
He does, at a few points, give a little bit of useful advice, but in the end that also seems to fall short. It's all common sense; don't watch TV, read good and bad novels, don't overuse words. It's advice we've all heard before from novelists that are in way better positions to be giving it. William Faulkner for instance already told us, “Read, read, read. Read everything-trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.” Not only does Faulkner give us the same opinion, it comes across as empowering and optimistic.
This may all be a matter of opinion, but I want a writer to tell me sometimes it sucks. I think it's more appreciative when Kurt Vonnegut says, “When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth,” because it just makes you feel that moment of 'Ok, I can do this. If Kurt Vonnegut struggles, too, then I'm not hopeless.' I don't want a step by step guide on how to feel discouraged and hate my writing. I guess I also just never want to write like Stephen King.
In the end, King's On Writing comes across more as a paint by numbers sort of how to as opposed to something like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. His opinions are harsh, lessons too strict, and cuts off all creative flow. I think I'll stick with advice I know I can use: “That's why it's hard to write on mescaline, too, because your mind is going four times as fast as your hands can go, and you get disorganized and you can't keep your mind in phase with your fingers. That's why I have to get increasingly faster typewriters,” said by Hunter S. Thompson.
beginning steps of an intro
Mike dumped me at the Jack in the Box on a Friday night.
Classy, huh?
Kid next to us kept hitting a kid's meal toy against the window.
Clink clink.
He said he was leaving me so he could ask Amanda out.
Clink clink.
The mom finally snatched the toy away and smacked his hand. It became hard to listen to Mike once that little kid started screaming.
I didn't leave my bed for a week after that. Clink clink.
The thing my parent's kept telling me was to “shape up or ship out.”
Thinking back, it was pretty good advice.
You either shape up, get out of bed and find a new guy. Or you ship out, give up, be a huge fucking pussy.
When they said the world was going to end, no one believed it. It became one gigantic joke, an internet meme. The scientists who had originally predicted it were ridiculed, fired, shamed forever.
The world just didn't want to hear that disaster would strike.
When the flooding started, the world mourned for the dead. Tried to save who they could. It seemed like it might just be another hurricane Katrina or tsunami in Asia. I don't think anyone thought about it once the rioting started.
Where did the government go? Wasn't there supposed to be some awesome back up plan set up for something like this? Underground bunkers or something? Anything.
I saw Mike once after that. In a pool of his own blood. Clink clink.
He's better off.
If you would have told me a year ago I would be hiding in a fox hole with six other guys, shooting at an enemy and running low on ammo, I would have said you were playing too many video games.
But my ammo is running low, with six other guys. I'm in a ditch, though.
The riots started when the world realized no one was really going to save us. When the factions, the disagreeing parties were begun. First, there were the people who still thought the government was going to save us.
Sorry, five other guys.
Classy, huh?
Kid next to us kept hitting a kid's meal toy against the window.
Clink clink.
He said he was leaving me so he could ask Amanda out.
Clink clink.
The mom finally snatched the toy away and smacked his hand. It became hard to listen to Mike once that little kid started screaming.
I didn't leave my bed for a week after that. Clink clink.
The thing my parent's kept telling me was to “shape up or ship out.”
Thinking back, it was pretty good advice.
You either shape up, get out of bed and find a new guy. Or you ship out, give up, be a huge fucking pussy.
When they said the world was going to end, no one believed it. It became one gigantic joke, an internet meme. The scientists who had originally predicted it were ridiculed, fired, shamed forever.
The world just didn't want to hear that disaster would strike.
When the flooding started, the world mourned for the dead. Tried to save who they could. It seemed like it might just be another hurricane Katrina or tsunami in Asia. I don't think anyone thought about it once the rioting started.
Where did the government go? Wasn't there supposed to be some awesome back up plan set up for something like this? Underground bunkers or something? Anything.
I saw Mike once after that. In a pool of his own blood. Clink clink.
He's better off.
If you would have told me a year ago I would be hiding in a fox hole with six other guys, shooting at an enemy and running low on ammo, I would have said you were playing too many video games.
But my ammo is running low, with six other guys. I'm in a ditch, though.
The riots started when the world realized no one was really going to save us. When the factions, the disagreeing parties were begun. First, there were the people who still thought the government was going to save us.
Sorry, five other guys.
Human Observation
Human observation, pretending to be distracted by a movie or music and getting to hear the most hilarious of conversations. The best is the men picking up on girls. I have to love it. It is amazing to feel like I am watching a national geographic video while making an assessment on how people really are. The only problem, I think they know after a while because it's usually hard for me to not laugh. People watch.
Girl in a party dress. Black swirls like frosting on a cake. High wedge shoes. The modern barbie.
The hippy yoga friends. You can tell who they are by the way their nutrient starved bodies shake as they walk by.
This crowding is unsettling, uncomfortable. I feel as people walk by the urge to run. The urge to panic, hide. My heart is racing. I can barely breathe. I can't pay attention to the things in front of me. This world is going to kill me.
Girl in a party dress. Black swirls like frosting on a cake. High wedge shoes. The modern barbie.
The hippy yoga friends. You can tell who they are by the way their nutrient starved bodies shake as they walk by.
This crowding is unsettling, uncomfortable. I feel as people walk by the urge to run. The urge to panic, hide. My heart is racing. I can barely breathe. I can't pay attention to the things in front of me. This world is going to kill me.
Big Steps
As the rain keeps falling
Crashing around me
Screaming at the top of my lungs
I know you can't hear me
I know you can't see me
I need you to, I want you to
Every drop on my face
You're close by
Yet not close enough
I feel what I dreaded most
Why I run
Why I needed to run in the first place
You're here
You said you'd be here
This isn't what I wanted
This isn't what I need to be
The rain trickles
Down my cheeks
It's a losing battle every step of the way
There is no calm
The storm constantly waging
Never waning
Never ceasing
You ask me
And this is why
I can't slow down
I can't hold back
Everything is fleeting
This is what I wanted
What I asked for
What a girl dreams for every day
But I'm drowning
It's too much
Too fast
Too little
Too late
I'm young, too young
Yet too old to not be jaded
Anxious
I'm lacking
No mission
No future
Losing your winning battle
This is where the spinning should stop
But the lights keep flashing
And my head is swimming
Everything blurs-
But the rain keeps falling
Do you still feel lucky?
I've lost track
My one constant
One comfort
The rain
My dreams
Aspirations
I should have thought it through
Do I really need to stress this fact?
The chanting
The yelling
The voice in the back of my head
You're all I want
All I need
Yet too much-
And not enough
I don't want to need
I just stand in the rain
With my clean slates and lost dreams.
Crashing around me
Screaming at the top of my lungs
I know you can't hear me
I know you can't see me
I need you to, I want you to
Every drop on my face
You're close by
Yet not close enough
I feel what I dreaded most
Why I run
Why I needed to run in the first place
You're here
You said you'd be here
This isn't what I wanted
This isn't what I need to be
The rain trickles
Down my cheeks
It's a losing battle every step of the way
There is no calm
The storm constantly waging
Never waning
Never ceasing
You ask me
And this is why
I can't slow down
I can't hold back
Everything is fleeting
This is what I wanted
What I asked for
What a girl dreams for every day
But I'm drowning
It's too much
Too fast
Too little
Too late
I'm young, too young
Yet too old to not be jaded
Anxious
I'm lacking
No mission
No future
Losing your winning battle
This is where the spinning should stop
But the lights keep flashing
And my head is swimming
Everything blurs-
But the rain keeps falling
Do you still feel lucky?
I've lost track
My one constant
One comfort
The rain
My dreams
Aspirations
I should have thought it through
Do I really need to stress this fact?
The chanting
The yelling
The voice in the back of my head
You're all I want
All I need
Yet too much-
And not enough
I don't want to need
I just stand in the rain
With my clean slates and lost dreams.
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