wish me luck!

Leaving for Pennsic tomorrow.

Yay!

I have a lot of feelings, and hopefully there will be way more pictures than feelings by the time I get back.

It's the four hour car ride with my family that I'm most worried about. Especially since my brother loves techno/ electronic/ whatever, and my father... doesn't. He feels quite strongly against it, in fact. It's a big deal.

Anyways, that's all.

(dream story)

(This is a dream I had the other night. It was just so interesting, I wanted to put it up somewhere where I could definitely never lose it.)

We (Allison, Michael, and I) never met our father's father. He disappeared when I was too young to remember him, and before they were born. The story is that he was with a group of people, enjoying the outdoors, when he wandered away from the group and was never heard from again. This fact has always been hard on father. Can you imagine having to repeatedly crush a hope that your father is alive, convincing yourself that he's dead? It would be easier if he knew for sure what happened to him. Not to mention just missing him; not being able to ask him for parenting advice, for support when he needs it, for a parent's love. It was always hard for him, but it's been getting worse recently. The nagging weight of sadness has been getting to him, and he's been taking out his frustration on the people around him. He's been getting less patient, more prone to shouting and violence, less reasonable. It's gotten so bad that we (his children) are brainstorming what we could possibly do to help. Finally, we decide to go searching for our grandfather.
We start in the field where he was last seen, now called "Grandfather's Field" just for that reason. The searching goes on in secret- we don't know how our father would react if he knew what we were up to. He figures it out anyways- he smells it on us. "Does that smell familiar to you?" he asks our mother. "Doesn't it smell like... Grandfather's Field?" At which point, they (our parents) come after us. After catching up, they decide to join us. We form a line, and fan out to cover a wider area. I'm on the very end of the left wing, with Michael to my right. Michael stops in the midst of some trees, listening to the wind. "I'm going to ask our ancestors for help," he says to me. When the wind dies down, he whispers, "Where is my father's father?" Almost immediately, the wind starts back up. They've answered him! He starts to walk quickly, almost jogging, in some direction. Allison and I follow him without saying anything, and our parents loudly protest and ask us what's going on. We don't answer them, only continuing to follow Michael as quickly as we can.
We walk for an unknown amount of time- dream time works differently. Long enough for our parents to get tired and antsy. They're talking loudly behind me, complaining and asking annoying questions. "Shush!" I have to tell them, over and over; I'm afraid that I might miss something, or that Michael won't be able to hear the directions.
Finally he scrambles up a sort of hill-mountain-cliff. The ground is red sand and stone, and the plants are shriveled and spiny- we must be going up a desert mesa. It's a little difficult to get up, but I manage without having to hurt my hand grabbing for a spiny plant jutting out of the side of the hill-cliff. My parents are having more difficulty, and are falling behind. I make it up, and see Michael running, almost there. "There" being a large rock a little ways off to the side, shaped like a large easy chair. "Grandfather!" I shout, removing a branch from the chair-rock, "We've found you!" Beneath the branch are his bones, still in a sitting position after all this time. His skull is still wearing his reading glasses, and there are tatters of an old newspaper on his lap. We are sad to see his skeleton, but glad to know that now our father has a grave to visit and put flowers on and talk over, when he needs to. It's a bitter light feeling of victory. We are standing looking at our grandfather's bones, waiting for our father to catch up, and

I wake up.


That's the end of the dream.

(In real life, not dream-story life, this is partially true. My dad's parents died before I was five, but not like this.)

UUUUGH.

I forget what was making me upset earlier today, but it happened.
Maybe it was how my car needs work, or how I'm not sure if I'll have to pay more for college because I may not technically be an Ohio resident, or that I need to sew about seven more outfits for Pennsic...
But I actually have a feeling that it was something much less significant. Which is probably why I've forgotten it.
And now I feel perfectly fine.

In other news...

My life is kind of stagnant.
It feels that way, at least.
Hopefully, going to Pennsic will clear up my head a bit.
And if it doesn't, I'm going on a roadtrip.

sleeping

I love sleeping. It really is one of my favorite things to do, besides having adventures and eating. I was having a conversation with someone about this the other day, and I can't remember exactly what they said but the general gist is that they couldn't understand why I love sleeping so much. To them, sleeping was just a waste of time in which you could be accomplishing things, getting stuff done, all that jazz. The thing is, I couldn't really argue with that. Yeah, it's true- you can't really bake cookies or clean the house while you're sleeping. Unless you're a sleepwalker, but I'm pretty sure that they can't control that so anyways. The point is, I had to figure out- what is so awesome about sleeping? I mean, besides giving your mind & body a chance to recharge so that you don't go crazy and/or collapse.
Dreaming.
Dreams are what makes it all worth it, for me.
I've always been fascinated by them. The whole "reflection of the subconscious" thing, plus... It's just a great escape. I can understand how some people could disagree with me here. People who can't really remember their dreams, or have nightmares more often than not, or something along those lines.
When I was a kid, I had night terrors. It was a long time ago, but I can still remember how it felt- waking up with my face pressed between the boards that kept me from falling off the loft bed, clawing at the air with tears running down my face, screaming at the top of my lungs because I was so scared. No more night terrors, thank God.
Now, I just have dreams. Nightmares come every now and then, but they're few enough that I don't really worry about it. And my dreams are so much fun! That's really the best way I can think of saying it. Fun fun fun.
I've fallen in love with Death, and a Djinn. I've flown, a few times- those are my favorite ones. Apparently this is a little unusual, but often I dream that I'm somebody else- I've been male, I've been a wolf or a witch or just some other girl. Once I dreamt, in a rather symbolic manner, of the second coming of Christ (I woke up laughing because my chest couldn't contain how amazingly happy I was). I've been so many wonderful places, seen and done so much- I just love dreaming.
So, that is why I love sleep so much.
And THAT IS WHY IT BOTHERS ME WHEN MY FRIENDS OR MYSELF SUFFER FROM INSOMNIA.
It's just one of the worst things. Not only are you being drained, but you're missing out on so many possibilities!

So I guess the point of this post is...
If you're having trouble sleeping, try this-

• warm milk
• chamomile tea
• soothing bath (lavender & mint scents are soothing)
• don't nap during the day
• exercise during the day, but not before sleeping
• relax- don't think about things that stress you

and that's all I got.

GOODNIGHT!

PS- CONGRATS TO MEG & SAB! One day I will visit you and then we will celebrate!
Also, AAAHHHHH HARRY POTTER! Those are my feelings on the matter, as well as this face- ;_;

release

This song was stuck in my head for two days. I remembered the movie that I heard it in, I knew the name of the singer, but I could not find the song on my computer. It was so aggravating! I was on the verge of throwing a tantrum, all because I couldn't find this song. And then I used my powers to search it up on google, and everything went uphill from there.
Life is like that sometimes.


While I was in Arizona, it rained maybe... Three times? Four? In ten months. Not very often, to say the least. And I think only two of those times it was slightly stormy, though neither of them had any lightning & thunder.
I missed storms.
The other day when a big storm came, someone had left the patio umbrella open and the wind had carried it halfway out into the yard before I'd noticed. I had to run outside and untangle it, close it, then drag it back onto the deck. Needless to say, I was drenched. When I was done, I stood inside the doorway and yelled for my brother until he brought towels. There was a puddle underneath my feet. It was glorious. Wonderful! I love that feeling.

Both of those, the song and the storm, are like release. Letting out a little pressure, so that I don't blow up. Along with baking, exercising, writing, and drawing... I'd say if I excelled at anything, it would be not blowing up or caving in. I think that's a pretty good thing.

So it's times like these, when it's the end of a long shift and three out of four tables didn't leave tips and the ones that did leave a tip left crappy ones... I just have to remember that it's the little things that brighten my day. Seeing the kittens playing, hearing a new song I like, playing in the rain- stuff like that.


I'm feeling better already. ♥

fencing sketch

The actual sketch is super-small, like... A little larger than a quarter? But anyways.
Now it looks as if the heart is being stabbed, but that's not really the case.

AHA (but not really.)

So I had a conversation with my friend Amy quite some time ago about soulmates. I told her that I didn't believe in them, and she explained that she did. It made me feel a bit jaded, to be honest, but...
Recently I had a similar conversation with DJ, and it got me thinking again.

I believe in soulfriends. That's what I call them, at least. It's like I'll look at someone and just know that we could be friends, like they're kindred spirits or something. There's really no good way to explain how I can tell... It's like, if I was one of those people who could see auras, they'd be glowing. And then added onto that, there's this faint buzzing around them like we're both tuning forks on the same frequency. That's actually a good one- tuning forks! Same wavelength! Some people haven't experienced this, but it happens often enough to me. "Often enough" meaning that all of my close friends are soulfriends, and the rest of my friends are potential soulfriends.

The point of that was to say-
If I believe in soulfriends, what's the big jump to soulmates?
And that's when I started to think this:

Mostly what I dislike about the whole "soulmate" idea is that there's only ONE person out there made just for you. Which is horrible, really, because there's always room for doubt. Yeah, you love this person, but what if your true soulmate is still out there? You know? It just doesn't make sense to me. So that's where they connect. A soulmate is just a step above a soulfriend, in my book. Or they're a different category of soulfriend. Whatever.

Of course, this is still a theory, but you get it, right?
Ugh, I don't know.




ANYWAYS.


I need to get in shape.
Also, I need another job. And I need to get my license, apply for culinary school, pack for Pennsic, clean the house...
In short, I need to get off my butt and start being a responsible adult again.

ALSO ALSO
I love this picture.