This is everything up to now ending.

If you're interested:

Sat, 24 Dec 2005 04:43:56 GMT

Last entry: 10 July, 2003 - 17 December, 2005

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 07:27:47 GMT

The best day of your life won't be the one that someone falls in love with you. It will be the day you figure out how to love yourself, and when that day comes you shouldn't expect to never be lonely again. In fact, it's very possible that it may be years (maybe a lifetime) before that peace with yourself can be shared with someone else.

In the meantime, at peace or not, we'll eventually make ourselves into those people we have always admired: the ones that take the loneliness kept internal and turn it into the beautiful things we want to see, watch and hear. To know that you're not alone in being alone is one of the few things that make it that much easier.

Changing your name and transferring to another school won't change it. Changing your hair color and finding a new person to hold your hand won't help. Packing your things and going to a place where no one knows you won't change a damn thing. A new city isn't a new beginning if you're still the same person you were before - carrying the same weights around. I've started over and done enough moving to know that.

But I guess we can take every fresh start for what it is. Every day you wake up, it could be something beautiful, or something horrible, something boring or something exactly like the day before. That's the risk you take every new morning you wake up, but to know - even the worst day could bring you one step closer to knowing who you are - should make it worth it.

Who knows how long it will take to actually feel really happy with ourselves, where we are and who we're with. And what we doing (or not doing). Who knows how long you may move around states, cities, countries, until you figure out where home is. Who knows how long you may stay still until it makes sense to move but it can all happen one day.

-----

There'll always be a few things, maybe several things that you're going to find really difficult to forgive.
There's going to come a day when you feel better.
You'll rise up free and easy on that day and float from branch to branch, lighter than the air.
Just when that day is coming, who can say? Who can say?

"You see any good bands lately ?"

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 05:26:59 GMT

One of the best days of my life, July 10th 2005 - Lawrence KS, Plan It X Fest.

Nugget for the day: It's shitty when someone finally gets it as bad for you for a change, and you're leaving in less than a week.

I also have a confession: at one point a few years ago I had ALL SIX "Emo Diaries" compilations to date, with the last being "The Silence In My Heart", which is when I just quit. Goddamn, it was completely horrible...I guess this is goodbye? The best title by way of subtlety and originality must be..."Sad Songs Remind Me".

Even as I typed that - a tear fell from the duct to meet my cheek...only to be so carelessly brushed aside by my hand...

The best-ever-death-metal-band-out-of-Denton will one day both outpace and outlive you!

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 22:46:10 GMT

I'm drinking a Pepsi Twist from 2001 my father left in the faculty refrigerator. Expiration date: AUG 18 02

It probably would've been better if the STNNNG were pretentious and boring, Ladyfinger's new songs sucked horribly and they played a plodding set and everyone I talked to was an asshole. I got to talk to and say goodbye to pretty much everyone I needed to and the STNNNG were just fucking awesome. Unless I go to the TINC show, it's weird to think that I walked out of Sokol for the last time in a long long while.

Leaving a couple people will be harder than I thought and maybe it's unrealistic to think that I'll meet new friends that will fill the space they left. But surely a city of 5.6 million is promising enough to make up for all that. I can't imagine Toronto being worse than Omaha, but at this point can't figure out why Bon Jovi plays Toronto something like 5 times a year.

(-) Bon Jovi
(+) The Weakerthans
(-) This weird tasting Pepsi
(+) Being close to done packing
(-) the Chinese government
(+) My last 12" Tuesday at Subway coming up!
(+/-) Seeing my friends for the last time
(+) Apple flavored gum
(+) Being free of most of my junk
(?) Omaha
(?/-) Full frontal nudity with Harvey Keitel
(+) Chinese food

It comes out mostly positive. This Pepsi is horrible.

"It's a new dream: it's constant, it's madly, it's everything to me..."

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 07:02:38 GMT

This is where I'll be working next year.

I have two classes to teach a week, extra tutoring hours to pick up, english dictation and translation and other secretarial work. In fact, I was awarded the prestigious title of "English Department Secretary". The thing is, whereas we have this whole native english speaking deal here...I'm basically secretary of myself and the other American lecturer.

To say I'm anxious is kind of an understatement. The prospect of all this responsibility coupled with the awesome idea of being regarded as an expert in the only thing I do constantly (talk, a lot. In english) is enough to almost make me want to get up and leave tomorrow...and partly want to stay here and hang around the midwest watching the seasons change. The apartment was checked out and received my mom's thorough approval, so it can't be bad. And the university's paying for it either way.

Other things I'm looking forward to: cheap gadgets, the burgeoning Beijing punk scene, good food, bootleg DVDs, not having to go through the motions of deodorant, and riding my little bicycle to my classes.

Yeah, when I moved out in August, I definitely wasn't thinking "oh shit - China!" but it's funny how things turned out. I'm doing what I thought I'd end up doing anyway - quit classes for awhile - right?

"It says home is where your heart is but what a shame 'cause everyone's heart doesn't beat the same"

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 05:51:17 GMT

I wonder if I should feel guilty that a year and two months after the fact, I finally listened to Green Day's "American Idiot". And it's pretty good. A few songs are enough that they sound a matured Dookie, and with the exception of a few cliched and lame tracks, it's a pretty good concept record. This is coming from someone that dorks out for Zen Arcade still, but it's just really good.

It's all like Catcher in the Rye over and over again anyway, but there's nothing wrong with that. It's funny to me, the whole journey to get away and grow is always one away from home but it's always home we come back to in the end. That was the saddest and best part of all these stories, Catcher, Franny and Zooey, Zen Arcade, this album...home is like a bad dream but the world outside is a fucking nightmare. That's pretty much true if you think about it. Home, whether it's your family or your shitty hometown or wherever, pushes you away but the world is wide open, full of promise and full of the scariest things you can't even begin to imagine as a kid.

This is almost enough to make me forget the DUI.

"To find yourself in the Negative Zone means that all everyday assumptions are inverted.."

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 20:41:30 GMT

"It seems to me that everyone exists partially on a Negative Zone level, some people more than others. In your life it's kind of like you dip in and out of it: the place where things don't quite work out the way they should. But for some people, there's something about the Negative Zone that tempts them, and they end up going in...going in all the way."

"I'm overflowing with ambition but I got to keep in mind the bottom line is the dollar signs."

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 06:41:19 GMT

I've concluded that choosing a course of action to determine 1) your future occupation 2) your niche and contribution in society and 3) essentially, the next 20-30 years of your life is completely ridiculous and unrealistic. So why are people so greedy for an answer when they ask you, "what do you want to do with your life?"

To complicate matters, I think I fall in that large group of people that either don't do anything well enough to think they should do it for a living, or don't think they do anything that well at all. It's pretty simple though: I know what I can't do, I know what I absolutely won't do, and I know what I don't want to do.

It's somewhere around the time I started looking back on what I've been doing the last few weeks and how I felt about the whole major/career planning thing that I realized something pretty simple. I'm damn immature when it comes to actually doing something with my life. I'm basically as confused and directionless as I was in high school except now I'm in debt and need to figure how I'm going to be paying my rent and buying my food in a few year.

After all the drama last week, I'm surprised this even fazes me.

Groundhog Day: 3

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 04:23:53 GMT

Every day's the same. Wake up to stereo alarm, 6:45am with morning chill and the dewy pre-dawn light. Drive out to Lake Manawa, picking up the building wind and turning it into currents. The water laps, trees rustle with autumn dryness. Pick up a hammer and a toolbelt and get to work. The only differences each day are the few faces that keep changing for a few hours, but it's still the same core team. You, and three guys with nailguns. Concrete slab turns to bare wood skeletons to sheeting and the beginnings of walls. The house starts to look like a home. Ten hours later, you pick your jacket up off the grass and go back.

You're coated in sawdust. The soreness in your arms and back gets to you less and less as you bend over your gritty bed popping fluid-filled blisters with a pin. The callouses from hammering and rejointing scratch the side of your face. You're filled with enough endorphins that you forget about loneliness and confusion, all replaced by the sheer battery-acid pain in your muscles after a day of building. Thumbs are mangled with hammers, walls go up, ladders fall, splinters pulled out with teeth and the machine that is Habitat for Humanity keeps going. Strangers in a caravan of charity arrive at the site randomly, like divinely deployed journeymen, they do this full time. You stand back and watch them work with extrahuman skill.

6:30pm, you shut your body off and turn your mouth on for work. Endorphins keep building up, keeping your vocal cords oiled. You stop caring about the money and just talk to them, finally returning the phones back to the hands of conversation rather than money-collection. Work goes by fast and you're still smiling, still aching, still hungry but still keeping that loneliness out of your mind. 10:15pm, you go back and keep your mind on tomorrow. The trusses keep going up, supporting a roof that's not there. Just the same, you're trying to build up the foundation for all parts of yourself that you can't even grasp or understand yet.

6:45am is always on the way. Five more days.

Butter?

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 04:23:21 GMT

Fuck.

I just sent out an email regarding a button order someone placed with the subject header - "Butter Order". What the hell? Butter? Way to rock the zine community with professionalism Anna.

"And the door slam is such a safe sound: I know where I am, I put my keys down."

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 02:22:14 GMT

I have a break from October 14th to October 23rd. During this time, my dorm will be closed and essentially vacated unless I apply to stay because of special circumstances. While having no family within 1500 miles constitutes this, I'm thinking of just getting the fuck out of town for awhile. The idea of staying to work excessive hours isn't very appealing, especially living completely alone in this huge dorm complex for about a week and half. So here comes the decision:

I'm trying to save money. A bus ticket to Chicago (round trip): $98. While I'm pretty much needing to buckle down with money, the idea is appealing. Suki, Belmont, time off. I can go pretty much anywhere else in the US for a ticket in the neighborhood of $150. Figuring expenses, this may be a pretty shitty idea. I'll be up in Chicago in November regardless, paid to boot. $80 to go to Lawrence, KS and crash with Katt. For just $20 more - Chicago though. Damn.

So stay by my lonesome in Omaha and work - or go on a solo adventure? Anyone else interested in joining my travels? I could probably work half the time and find somewhere to go. It's pretty much all in the air. Having all this freedom and complete lack of attachment has proven to be more of a letdown than a liberating experience when figuring in the rational weight of money and responsibility. It's funny that it's taken me that long to figure that shit out.

If you were Anna, what would you do with 10 days of complete freedom?

Just an FYI:

Sun, 02 Oct 2005 21:59:07 GMT

My milkshake has a tendency to bring the boys to the yard. The overall consensus is that it's better than yours, however if you would like to be taught the ways of my milkshake - I would charge a modest fee.

If you don't understand, you were not meant to.

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 21:50:03 GMT

The results come in a near-perfect parabolic curve. There are no significant outliers, and a random sampling of roughly 200 subjects has yielded the following results:

According to Hot Or Not, I am a consistent 6.2.

I've gone through the trouble (i.e. the 20 seconds to upload a new photo) and have tried this three times with new images now. Each time accumulating about 200-500 votes and it's surprisingly consistent as a 6.2-6.5.

If it weren't so trashy and breast/pec oriented, this site would probably have a decent amount of research value. I'm thinking a cleavage photo will significantly improve my scores.

"'Cause no one ever does, and no one ever thinks of me that way..."

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 19:39:25 GMT

I left Sokol before the Two Gallants for the fact that I wasn't much in the mood for the rather mediocre rocking going on, and it was getting overwhelming making rounds with so many people I know. I've been at Sokol three nights of this week, and rediscovered a few people I literally have not spoken to in a year or two. It's kind of too much after awhile. It's weird to know so many people as acquiaintances, but last night was just great being able to see Joe and also run into some amazingly nice new friends.

It was just a matter of serendipity running into Nick and his friend with Creighton's homecoming happening right upstairs. While I'm not too bummed about missing the show, I will just be honest in saying one of the main reasons I decided to go with them was getting some handle on what is going on. I guess Mr. Belle and Sebastian had just broken things off with his girlfriend. The ride back to the house with all of them in the car, including the now mutually separated couple - wasn't very awkward. In fact, I think his girlfriend's awesome and we're most likely going to hang out sometime. The night progressed oddly, and I guess from what I witnessed in actually walking into a darkened room - I'm pretty much done actively going for anyone at this point.

I crashed at Nick's. There was no lack of warm people there, and Luke closed the night offering a warm glass of milk, a shot of cheap Canadian whiskey and platonic cuddling if I were to have trouble sleeping. And then in the morning, I woke up to the claxon sound of his alarm and simultaneous showering, dry coughing and vomitting. It was a strange 12 hours to say the least.

This signals the dozenth (fake word) show in about two and half weeks and also the second or third weekend I haven't slept in my own bed. I'm getting worn out on the fact that I'm interacting with this excess of people and honestly, there's only one or two friends I really want to spend time with that I never can...and one person that I want the chance to interact more with. It's weird.

I'm beginning to think that I have really fucked up notions of monogamy for a viral, strapping college student.

"This body is the breakroom where the burnouts are smoking."

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 18:27:50 GMT

Goddamn, another all nighter. I spent the night at the desk from 3am-7am with my friend Nick and honestly, I'm totally fucking wiped out. Yesterday was quite a day, between class all day and then band practice at Chris' and then work until 10pm.

I have a great story about that: so I run up to Chris' car and pound on the glass laughing and calling him a 'pansy fatass' (this is an inside joke, not intended to be mean since he's gay) and all this shit....and tell him to unlock the fucking car so I can throw my amp in. "My friend" turns around and just stares at me with a puzzled look on his face. Yep, you guessed it. ANOTHER slightly overweight guy with facial who drives a teal Honda. FUCK ME. I have literally been cursing at him, and flipping him off to open the door as I would with Chris - and it's not him. I felt like the most enormous idiot. Yes, I am pretty fucking huge waste of space.

In other news, I now possess the ID of who you may know as Susan Chang and intend on trying my luck as a 28 year old Sarah OBradovich. We're all asian. It'll be okay.

I picked up four shifts a week at my shitty phonejob on campus, and essentially made the difficult decision to quit speech and debate for life. It was hard, but if I going to need the extra money from judging tournaments, I basically chose the $100+ a week over one of my favorite activities in high school. I'm judging and assisting for my event for my old high school team too for a little extra money. There's my three jobs and the realization that I'm pretty much going to need to buckle down, do the school thing and save as much money as I can.

In other other news, my heart has sunk into my bile ducts and thus shitted out with the news that my impetus for listening to Belle and Sebastian has recently acquired a girlfriend. Well, great.

Lessons to remember: Confirm whose car you're trying to throw your amp into before you look like a laughing, shitcrazy hijacker. Suck up and accept your shitty job/s keeping in mind that it's the outcome that counts.

"Will someone please call a surgeon who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart?"

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 00:17:13 GMT

The best part of my day is brushing my teeth only to find my mouth inhabited by a long Alejandra-hair from my toothbrush. Mmmmm.

I bet the best part of Alejandra's day was when I hit her in the mouth with my guitar in Dietze, and having James get ice for her because it sounded like a solid thunk into her jaw. Yeah...

It's pretty incomprehensible when you realize that you like and want to understand someone so much that you're willing to sit through a Belle And Sebastian album. And like a few songs. When you meet a person and it can somehow compell you to finish writing stories you left incomplete for months, through the singular act of knowing them - it's crazy shit.

I wonder if I should just settle for the guitar and the Sokol show tonight instead. They're pretty safe bets.

Omaha > Sioux City > Vermillion > Sioux City

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 21:53:49 GMT

The linguistic areas of my brain have fully shitted out. I took a nap on Friday, knowing a lonely, shitty and boring weekend was ahead as everyone went home with their families. Pleasant surprises ensue. Here's the recap of this weekend:

-I go eat salad and ice cream at the dining hall only to be abducted with ten minutes warning to Sioux City to see the Omaha bands at the Cattle Club.
-We roll in and breathe deep the rich aromas of Sioux City as we pull up to the house on 2nd and Rustin.
-This house is inhabited by members of Swing By Seven i.e. favoritest drummer Joe fucking Ross and Ms. Becka.
-They pull me onto the porch and cut all my hair off. I now have a short fucking pixie cut and can barely remember why.
-The house is veiled in ash, disorder and neglect. Large quantities of fire and ice are consumed by the partygoers.
-We give Knittel a Flock of Seagulls haircut. Large quantities of Pizza Hut cheese are consumed. I vomited gloriously behind the house with Joe watching.
-Joe Ross and I scale the roof like gods. I jump off after him with the brilliant idea of jumping onto a deck table. This proved to be a bad idea. Both the table and I suffered.
-I crash on the couch listening to Knittel's groaning noises and cancelling out the smell of the upholstery. I smell like shit in the morning.
-We eat at Pantera Bread. I can only afford a loaf for the day, but all is well.
-Becka and I roll into Vermillion for showers since the house on Rustin has the best bathroom ever.

Ladyfinger cancelled, the Stay Awake suffered catastropic amp problems to which cabs were cannibalized and rebuilt as two 2x12s only for the band to get 2 flat tires. Bummer. But Bombardment forged ahead, kicked Sioux City's smelly ass and the Lepers bored me out of my shit. Their drummer looks like a ninja.

I rode home with Bombardment Society. If they hadn't made it either, I would've been fucked. They are fucking awesome.

Jason has two bald spots. I came back with a half eaten 2 day old loaf of bread and no hair left. My knee is fucked up. This weekend ruled beyond words.

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:26:40 GMT

I was just informed five minutes ago that I'm going to fucking Sioux City with Becka and partying it up until tomorrow night when Bombardment Society, Ladyfinger and the Stay Awake rock out. And then I hitch a ride back.

As if today hasn't been weird enough. Shit man.

I'll be back latelate tomorrow night. Welcome to the world of the impulsive.

Party For The Fight To Write

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 05:41:59 GMT

Holy shit, Atmosphere was worth every cent I paid for, and then some. Actually, I made $5 off it taking one of Nick's friends. The night was strange in so many respects, between comprehending the rewards of last night's impromptu 1am dumpster diving outing to riding with an intoxicated and fucking high driver both ways to and from Sokol.

Atmosphere played for something in the area of TWO FUCKING HOURS. While I appreciated the whole thing, I generally don't like sets that drag out especially after the crowd was thanked for coming out three separate false endings through.

What I'd like to really think about now though isn't the fact that I'm surprised how much I enjoyed hearing hip hop in a live setting, but the fact that I smell like spilled beer and lots and lots of weed. I don't understand why the audience was so incredibly fixated on getting stoned AT the show, and the fact that I wound up white knuckled once I realized Luke drove both ways kind of drunk and high as hell. I'm not really proud of that fact that I didn't object to riding home or letting him drive in the first place. It wasn't really responsible on my part, so fuck no I'm not happy about it.

But it was a good show, I have to say. I just don't really know what I should be thinking about what Luke wound up doing.

The last few weeks have been unfuckingreal.

"Terrified of the morning you woke up to realize, you can either swim to shore or drown..."

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 18:52:56 GMT

I think I need to quit and get it over with, or shut the fuck up and buckle down. There should be nothing in between. No half-assed efforts at staying in school, no excuses to skipping class and staying in bed. It's one or the other. I'm trying to see it less as quitting as it is re-committing myself, but that'd be a lie. It feels like the same shit over again, and I don't want to spend another 3-4 years hating what I have to put my time into.

But then again - what's the other option?

"Totally neat, totally sweet - totally knocked me off my feet..."

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 21:16:03 GMT

Jogging proved to be more of an arduous task than I anticipated...

"I've stopped looking for the medicine..."

Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:48:31 GMT

I decided not to take any hours for this weekend at work, for the sake of my self-love. My job makes me feel like a horrible extortionist and destroys my desire to talk to people. Also, I passed up the Sigma Alpha party twice in a row, and I feel bad for telling Nick I'd let him know if I was coming both times. Either way, I just ate a massive dinner and feel pretty good with the decision to ease up on the parties for once.

---

1. Do you still know/talk to the person you lost your virginity to?
Regrettably, no.

2. What would you do with 1,000 plastic spoons?
Glue them upright onto my roommate's egg-chair.

3.What kind of music did you listen to in elementary school?
The Spice Girls, No Doubt, Pop Up Video on VH1

4.What is the best thing about your current job?
Matt Casey. That's about it.

5.Do you wish cell phone ettiquette was a required class upon purchasing one?
Not really.

6.Are you against marriage?
No way, it seems alright.

7. Why?
Because it seems like a good idea to spend most your life on your own and then spend the rest with someone else.

8. What's the most fucked up food combination you've come up with that's actually tasty?
Orange juice and Pepsi one.

9. Have you been on a date in the past week? (or just slept with anyone?)
No, but my fortune cookie says I should shower on Tuesday.

10. If yes how did it go, if no, why not?
No, because it's next week.

11. Where are you going on your next vacation?
Chicago.

12. Quote a song lyric, because I told you to!
"Another day - another dollar: another way to live with a life so intolerable"

13. Are most of the friends in your life new or old?
New, I just started college and moved so it's understandable.

Where is #14 Douglas??

15. Do you own any furniture from Ikea?
I don't any furniture really.

16. Are you ashamed of having it?
This is a really badly structured survey.

17. What do you wish someone would buy you?
3 more years' tuition

18. What do you think of hipsters?
I don't really think of them, they don't think of me.

19. What are you wearing right now?
Obnoxious black jeans, little boy's polo

20. When is the last time you had mom's home cookin'?
Probably a little over two months.

21. Do you like your parents?
Sort of, just my mom most the time

22. Do you still live with them?
Nope.

23. What state/country are you from?
I moved here from San Diego CA

24. Do you ever wish you were gay/straight?
I don't know why anyone would wish to be another sexual orientation except out of social convenience.

25. Tell us about the last conversation you had.
About ten seconds ago I told Alejandra that my chair was fucking uncomfortable.

26. Where do you see yourself in one month?
In this room.

27. What is your favorite smell?
Vanilla, clean guys, citrusy things.

28. Home Depot: pure evil or pure genius?
Pretty straightforward but wasteful and excessive. I kind of wish there were a hardware store around here.

29. Do you consider yourself bi-polar?
Nope

30. What is the time and the outside temperature at the moment?
7:40pm, a tad chilly but pretty close to wonderful.

"I see you suddenly alive, nearly smiling. Stop and hold my breath, watch the way you used to be.."

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 06:55:47 GMT

How is it possible that the two people that were/are the most important in your life, that never appear in your dreams, wind up both in the same dream in the same night? Fucked if I know.

I woke up feeling pretty good, knowing my first class was cancelled. It was a beautiful day out, but as I got dressed and left the building - something hit me that reminded me of what I'd dreamt of last night. I can't describe it any other way except that it made me very sad, but in way that I am not sure if I'm glad it was just a dream or not. It's kind of a wish fulfillment thing maybe, being able to see people you haven't seen in awhile then suddenly seeing them manifested in a dream.

Do you ever mistake people you see walking around for someone you used to know? Maybe this person passed away, moved or just lost touch. You look again at the person you see walking just to be sure it's not them.

It's funny, I wonder if certain archetypes of people are created in your mind with the first few friends and acquaintances you have in life. I meet people, and immediately they'll remind me of one or a combination of these childhood acquaintances. What's even more strange, is that I really had no friends as a kid since I was weird as shit, couldn't sit still and moved around a lot. But I remember people well.

I also started thinking of a friend of mine from a few years back that I found out recently is HIV-positive. We've lost touch completely, it bums me out more than shit that I don't speak to him anymore just because I'd like to know how he is. But isn't it pretty wrong to only suddenly give a shit about someone when you find out they're in bad shape? I don't know. Don't know what I'd do if I found out he was really sick or dying through some grapewine of other people.

Today was pretty much beautiful, perfect weather.

Sat, 10 Sep 2005 00:30:37 GMT

Fridays are the worst when it comes to finding things to fill your time.

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 22:39:43 GMT

Filling out a form on which you have to leave "permanent address" blank is pretty depressing.

So is writing your brother in as your legal guardian.

I just want an inhaler.