touch of fame.. jk jk

I'm going to disneyland on tuesday with my family! We're also going to LA and i'm definitely hoping to rub elbows with some celebrities... i know, i know, but it's the 13 year old girl in me!

I'm just really excited to be in the city that created such gorgeous specimens as Adam Levine and John Mayer spend time with my family...

I'm currently packing. Yeah... I've kind of made a mess of things.

long time no blog... visit me on tumblr! nomadmanifesto.tumblr.com & fameandotherdrugs.tumblr.com

here's a song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjVpkEGAgiw

be love<3

a confession

i have a confession to make. it's a little embarrassing. but before i get to that there is something you should know.

tomorrow is the midnight premier of harry potter.

i have never been more excited for anything in my life.

i've been reading harry potter since i was a child. i want you to try to understand what it means to me. i was eleven at the same time that harry, hermione, and ron were eleven. there is something so powerful about aging with characters. you see yourself in them.

every year i have had a book or movie release to look forward to. what harry potter means to me, what it means to so many people is almost unnameable. but the books were magical, and in being so, they allowed readers to recover some of the magic that has been lost in our own lives.

i'm getting sentimental. *smacks forehead* trust me, enough tears have been shed over the end. i even watched the london movie release and cried myself silly. but that's besides the point.

this is my confession.

for my summer class i am required to volunteer a minimum of 20 hours at a high school. i committed to volunteering four fridays in july which would have put me at a total of 32 hours. i am a bit of an overachiever. okay, fine i'm not, but i really do like working with kids.

a few days ago i realized that the midnight premier was thursday night. as in i would start the movie at 12, get done around 2:30, get back and be in my bed by 3:30.

and friday is the day after thursday, generally speaking. so i would have to be up at 6. and i would have to drive an hour and a half to get to my volunteer site. i couldn't imagine driving an hour and a half on only about 2 and a half hours of sleep. i'm too young to die!

so i decided that i would miss the premier. and considering how big of a harry potter fan i am, not to mention the fact that my ticket was PREPAID, that is saying a lot.

and i was heartbroken. so i decided that maybe i didn't have to volunteer on that specific friday. i would have my minimum number of hours done anyways, right? so i decided that i would tell my teacher that i had an emergency come up, and i wouldn't be able to make it on friday. she would be understanding, of course. i felt bad.

today in class i told her i had a family emergency come up. she looked at me expectantly. what came next was not planned or intended, i swear. i said: "my sister is having an emergency c-section."

my sisters are 15, 9, and 4 months, respectively.

i immediately wished the ground would open up and swallow me. where the HELL had that come from? i wasn't a good liar, i was sure she'd see right through me.

"congratulations!" she squealed. "is it her first child?"

was it? "yes," i hedged, creating this fake sister.

"is it a boy or a girl?"

"a girl," i blurted out.

FRAUD, FRAUD, FRAUD, the voice inside my head was screaming. i had invented a fake pregnant older sister. but on top of that i had invented a fake baby girl that is going to be born this friday.

i feel terrible.

but it was worth it. so, so, so worth it.

i'll blog about how incredible the movie was, and how i cried self-consciously in the dark theater, later.

the end

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter another."

Anatole France

i'm eating ice cream and chocolate cake and trying to write something. i haven't written anything in a while, and it's getting uncomfortable. it's kind of like constipation. too much? maybe?

i've started everything is illuminated by jonathan safran foer. it's good so far.

i'm done with school. i'm officially a senior in college.

in two days i'll be done with work. (i work in a second/third grade classroom). i'm afraid the kids will forget me. for the life of me i don't want them to.

i'm a little sad that everything's coming to an end. i was so excited for the end, so excited to be done, but i'm so sad. i don't know what to do with the end now that it's here.

that's why that anatole france quote means so much to me- because i feel that way. it's grief, that achy sadness that you can't shake off. i'm grieving because i will never again be the girl that i am this year, i am grieving for the girl i was the year before that, and the year before that.

this sadness won't last. i know in a few days it'll be gone and it'll be officially summer, and i will drink lemonade and get a suntan. but it will come again. it always does.

if you are going to love, love completely. anything worth doing is worth doing well

love the love that is so heavy it holds you down like a lifeline, like a paperweight.

love the love that is so fierce it causes a thousand brand new suns to rise and set inside you.

love the love that is so bright it's blinding.

love the love that's so much like home you can see your history in its eyes.

love the love that is love in love. the love that makes the angels in your gut spin in spirals. the love that brings you closer to god and heaven. the love that took you in its hand and shaped you.

love the love that is hard and unyielding as the earth.

love that is flawed. love the love that is forever.


---

this is inspired by Rachel McKibbens' poem last love which you can (and should!) read here

be love.

a glimpse!

So Katherine from Sleepless Cities has tagged me! So I have to tell you what's on the floor by my bed and on my nightstand.

Well lucky for me, I cleaned my room yesterday for the first time in forever, so right now there isn't too much on the floor by my bed because it has all been conveniently relocated to underneath my bed. There are three or four gift bags from my graduation. There is a lei... I actually have no idea where I managed to pick up a lei. There is a Learn to Speak French in 30 Days that I haven't even looked at.

On my nightstand there are upwards of 20 books. I'm currently reading Rachel Mckibbens' Pink Elephant. She is amazing. An empty cup. A notebook because I get all my greatest ideas at night. to be honest the notebook's empty because I'm too lazy to roll over and write in it What I like to call "the classics" because I assume they are classics for a reason, right? And if they're boring, and sometimes I don't understand it, there must be something wrong with me, right, and I must try and try again? The poetry book my teacher has assigned for the poetry class I'm taking this summer. Every night before I go to sleep I tell myself that I will read at least one chapter and do my homework. I still haven't gotten around to it. A boycott arizona button. i would hope that's self explanatory. If not read. A half eaten granola bar. Blank note cards. An amnesty international pen.

There you have it!
I'm going camping this weekend. If mother nature takes my life, know that I loved you all :]

Be love <3

there was an old lady who lived in a shoe

i bought a pair of shoes that are two sizes too big. there is enough room for my foot, and the whole of africa, and my beating heart. on sunny afternoons lions play house between my toes. we could play house in the space that's left over, but only if you wanted to. there is an entire world on the soles of my feet/secret biomes that are forming with my every footstep, with my every heartbeat. we can explore, if you want to. we can climb trees and pet giraffes and sleep under the stars, if you want to. there is just enough room in my shoe for just enough of the world and the two of us.

it can't always be pretzels and lemonade

i don't know how i feel about people.
they can be sunshine or rainstorms. they change their minds. they break hearts and hurt feelings, and they never act the way you want them to. they disappoint and disappear.

i don't mess around with people. they're unstable. they aren't there when you need them the most. ever. they don't ever know what's wrong when you most desperately need them to. i'm not jaded, but i know that people are fickle, like the weather, like the stock market.

but sometimes people make you laugh. they make your heart feel light, like cotton candy. sometimes they show up when you least expect them to. sometimes they say the right thing at exactly the right time. sometimes they make you realize that you are not alone.

people are never going to be everything i want them to be. they will not fit the molds i've created for them, or always tell me what i want to hear. but they can be pretty damn amazing if i'm willing to overlook that. if i'm willing to give them a chance.

i don't know how i feel about the human race, but i'm realizing that it is enough to simply feel.

for sarah

come out and play

i've spent too long hiding in my mother's closet, trying on her long winter jackets and walking in the heels she never wears.
i'm realizing summer is over. winter is here, and i must buckle down and get to work.
reality is calling, and i can't put it on hold any longer.

time flies

pinch punch first day of the month.

school starts in 22 days.

or 23, possibly 24. i don't really keep up with these things.

a bouquet of forget-me-nots

if you ask me what i am most afraid of i would tell you it's forgetting.

people are afraid to die, afraid to live, afraid to live, but i, i am afraid to forget.

are we not defined by our memories? by our experiences?

and the older i get the more of these that slip through the cracks in my fists, like sand.

i can't chase after them. i can't get them back.

i am nothing without my history.

i cannot build a future on shaky ground and patchwork memories.

i have already begun to forget, so tell, how will the world remember?

.

sometimes you just have nothing to say.

and sometimes you have a whole lot to say, but you can't find the right words.

Part 2

6. People can change

7. Don't talk crap over text messages because you will send the wrong thing to the wrong person

8. People who count calories are annoying

9. Don't wear white on your period

10. When you're mother tells you a girl is bad news, she's usually right

long road nowhere

tomorrow morning's my license test.
yes, yes it's the third time, but you know what they say:
third times a charm.
i'm an optimist, you see. i choose to ignore the fact that they also say
three strikes you're out.
wish me well, world.
good night<3

be my friend today

Hello World :)
It's been dark lately, but today the sun is out and I will take a deep breath and look for the beauty in every little thing. I have been sitting around all summer waiting for something extraordinary to happen, but I have realized that you have to actively look for the extra in the ordinary.
It's a beautiful world outside my window, and although there is dirt and dried blood behind its facade, I'm okay with pretending. The sun has come out to play, and please excuse me while I join it.

"Staring at the blank page before you
open up the dirty window
let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
reaching
for something in the distance
so close you can almost taste it
release your inhibitions..."

natasha beddingfield "Unwritten"

Yahoo questions make me feel better about myself

If you can't see this is what it says:

I'm really in a weird situation because I feel like I'm in love with someone I don't even know (a really really famous celebrity) or at least infatuated with them. At the beginning I used to always use to be on his fan site but I stopped recently. Still I find myself thinking about him all the time and I can't help myself. Whenever I hear a rumor he is dating someone my heart stops and I feel really heartbroken (as silly as it sounds). I hate this but I know that this is more than a crush. I feel like I am a realistic person and even though I tell myself it will never happen I feel like I secretly feel like we will eventually be together. HELP this is really getting out of hand!!!!! Thank You

Dear Girl Asking Silly Question,

It is very disturbing/refreshing to realize that there are people like you out there. Even though I am quite head over heels for Chuck Bass/Nate Archibald/Dan Humphrey there is a fundamental difference between me and you. You are insane, and I am pretty sure that you have no chance with whatever celeb you're crushing over. I on the other hand merely lack transportation. It's a little difficult to introduce yourself to somebody when you're on opposite sides of the country. I know for a FACT that if I were to run into any of the Gossip Girl boys they would be as in love with me as I am with them. Trust me. It's practically a done deal. I advise you to move on and get a life. You're actually kind of pathetic in a completely endearing way. So sorry to be so blunt.

Take care!

i'm supposed to be somewhere else.

What do you do when you know you're meant to be doing something else?

When you know you're meant to be someone else, but you can't because of circumstance. Because even though you are someone you aren't supposed to be, and even though it feels like someone got the order completely wrong, you can't do anything about. You take the dream of who you wanted to be and put it under your pillow, and bring who you are out to play, and deal with the shortage.

It is easy enough to theoretically say damn the consequences, but much harder to mean it. Almost impossible. Getting up and leaving who you are will only leave a hole in the hearts of the people who thought they knew you.

The path not taken is calling my name, and it is taking all of my will power to turn the other way and pretend I don't hear it.

They say some girls are born with glitter in their veins, and I know it's true because I feel it. What do you do when you're shining so bright, but the whole world is looking the other way?

Where am I?

Messiah Complex: not just the general wish, but an overt or covert desire to redeem the world or to improve the conditions of the world. The messianic wish is not merely a general wish for improved conditions and for changes for the better, but the wish of that private person to become personally the redeemer of the world.

thehope.org

So I want to save the world. Whatever. It's not like I've made any progress. So sometimes I just stop thinking. I give up and I think, The world is full of nearly six billion people. Why the hell am I the only one who can save the world? Let somebody else get off their lazy ass and do it. And then I feel bad. Then I feel worse so I put on my headphones and blast music until I can't hear the rest of the world and my thoughts pool into a jumbled mess that I can't follow. Or I get under my covers and watch Gossip Girl. Either way it's escape. Sometimes I wish my life were a story I was writing, and I could erase myself and plunk myself down a few chapters from now. Create some drama, some suspense, some life. I sit and daydream sometimes about all the different ways my life could go and it makes me wonder, how did I get here?

How do any of us get where we are, really? We're all walking around in a haze, and I am coming out of stupor. I am coming out of stupor, but all I want is to go back to sleep. When it comes to realization and oblivion one will always choose the latter.

But me, I have chosen neither. I am in an inscrutable shade of gray... I am on the path that takes you from nowhere to somewhere but I've stopped walking and now I don't know which path leads where anymore.

Virtue is its own punishment

Up above the surface i was just a perfect child
But underneath it all i was craving to be wild
Don't you judge by the cover it's so far from what you see
I'm losing all my patience waiting on ya to believe
I'm suffocating, i can't breathe
Let me out this cage, i'm not gonna hold back
Gonna break these chains, i'm taking control now
Gonna giva ya something to talk about
It's another side of me
I'm acting out
Ashley Tisdale

This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I wanted.
I'm drowning in this routine. What do you do when your bags are packed to go off on a great adventure, but the flight never arrives. It's lost midway between your discarded dreams and the world you'll never know. And that one flight, you just know it's the answer to everything. It will take you away from here and that's all that matters. If you don't get on that flight you don't know what you'll do because you may not know much, but you know you can never go back.

This summer was supposed to be about sunshine, best friends, being young and pretty and having fun. Instead summer handed me a bouquet of wilted flowers and slammed the door in my face without inviting me in.
Maybe next year.
But truth be told I am damn tired of waiting.

Happy 100th

Sometimes I feel like I'm too big for my house, too big for this damn city, too big for my own tiny head. I feel like a can of soda left in the freezer that then explodes from all the pressure inside itself. Sometimes I feel like it's all too much. I miss kindergarden, and nap time, and doing what I was told. Well, not really because I was never very good at doing what I was told. But as summer draws to a close and senior year looms ever closer, I'm scared because it's all coming too soon.

I'm pulling myself apart, part of me wants to get up and go running towards the future without ever looking back, and part of me wants to get in bed, squeeze my eyes shut and force time back by the sheer strength of my memories.

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game

To find a way to say that life has just begun

Stop this train, I wanna get off and go home again...

I can't take the speed its moving in

"Stop This Train" by John Mayer

And I guess we all learn that we can't stop the train, not ever. It's heading towards its destination and it stops for no one. All you can do is whisper sweet nothings in the ear of the conducter and try and coax it into a direction of your choosing. And one day it will stop, force you off into the great perhaps, and that's that. I hope when I get off the train, I hope when you get off the train, we'll be in a good enough place to build our futures.

Thank you for reading. Happy 100th post :)

My daddy he is grounded like the oak tree
My momma she is steady as the sun
Oh, you know I love my folks
But I keep starin' down the road
Just lookin' for my one chance to run
Hey, cause I will soar away like a blackbird
I will blow in the wind like a seed
I will plant my heart in the garden of my dreams

And I will grow up where I wander wild and free

Born to Fly by Sara Evans

your absence is a presence I feel, so writing letters eases the ache and makes it feel like you're here

two posts in one day :) just because

Dear Law and Order SVU,
I'm hooked to your show, I've watched every single episode at least twice. Well, that's an exaggeration but you know what I mean. You have scarred me for life. I'm terrified of being outside alone because I am afraid that everyone on the street wants to rape me. It's absolutely horrifying to walk down the street and think that everyone who makes eye contact with or accidentally bumps into me has just sexually assaulted me. But it's okay.
Better safe than sorry right?

Dear Gardisal,
I don't give a damn about cervical cancer right now. All I know is that I refuse to get another shot. I hate shots, okay. They are painful and unnecessary because who the eff even gets leprosy anymore? So no, no, no, no, no thanks. Take your little finger snapping, hand clapping, one less commercials and go.

Dear John Mayer,

Write a song about me please? I know you're afraid that people will think you're creepy since your thirty something and well, I'm only seventeen. But I will be eighteen in a few months and then, it'll be okay. We will be okay. I'm not some crazy fan, I swear. I think maybe I actually might love you. And for a girl like me, love don't come easy. And I realize that the media makes you seem kind of like a manwhore/douchebag, but to be completely honest? I don't care. No one's perfect, well with the exception of me, but come on. We have to be realistic here. Not everyone can be me. So I will look past all your imperfections if you will play me a story on your guitar and sing me to sleep.