The Twenty-First Time

"Devastation and Reform"

Relient K has been playing on my mindPod. I can't get it to stop because the pause/play button is stuck behind my forehead and the speakers are still on the inside playing out of my ears. This is probably why people cast funny sideways glances at me-- they can hear lyrics coming out of my head. I'm sure it's strange to be sitting next to me in class and hear

"I feel like I was born

For devastation and reform..."

I know I thought it was strange the first time I sat next to someone and heard it. I mean, it's not extremely audible by any means. It's one of those things you really have to listen to in order to hear it clearly. Everyone has one playing at some point, and most of the time if you listen really close and pay good attention, you'll be able to hear it whenever you like. It really tells a lot about them-- everyone has a song. 

Another thing I've noticed is that besides listening, if you look at someone for a really long time, you start to see these little strings shoot out and connect you to them. They thicken if you start talking or interacting to the person. Sort of interesting. 

Mr. Orr won't give me my paper back. I'm not sure why. It wasn't for class, it wasn't an assignment. He just walked over to my notebook and ripped it out after I read it. And now he won't give it back but I want it. Oh well. He probably couldn't hear me ask over his mindPod. It was too loud in the classroom for me to hear his song. 

This weekend is the Caswell Leadership Retreat. Ms Pearce wants me to go because I was invited and she thinks it would benefit me, but I don't think I'll be able to because of work. I'd have to find someone to cover for me tomorrow and Monday, and the chances of that are pretty slim. So I will probably stay home and work and do homework and church and maybe go to the movies with my brother on Saturday and spend the night with some friends on Sunday. I'm not sure yet. I am really tired. I wish I could spend at whole day hibernating without worry and stress, but even if that happened, I would have a ten times more stressful day once I woke up. Whatever. 

I need to turn off my mindPod. Oh, I remember how! See the button is behind my forehead... so all I need to do is slam my head against the wall until it shuts off....

When It's All You Can Do

"No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart." --The Great Gatsby 

"He smiled understandingly— much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced— or seemed to face— the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey." --The Great Gatsby

You give me your pieces

And I'll give you my time.

I'll put you together

And fit you to rhyme. 

The truth is, none of us are so much the liars we may see ourselves or others to be. None of us are so much the concealers, the hidden clues, the closed books, the drawn blinds that we may sometimes feel we are. You give a different part of yourself away to each person you come into contact with. Upon each collision between you and a singular other being, you analyze their intent, allow them to impress a different mark upon your conscious, determine their worth and significance, and with that information, decide how to best present yourself to them on their occasion and thereon out. Yet we wonder why people do not see us "as we are." We marvel at the fact that she does not think of us as he does, wonder at the difference of opinions that two people can have of us, and yet we stop ourselves short of realizing what we allow, perhaps subconsciously and perhaps consciously, to be seen and to whom makes us "different" to each person. 

We present ourselves brokenly. But it is not our faults; that is all we can give. Only a whole person can give themselves wholly away, and who fully knows himself or herself, or has complete control and understands what they think and do? And we realize that when we only give ourselves away in part, we only have to trust in part; therefore, if mishandled, we are only liable to lose part. 

What I know in part I may comprehend, but give me the entire pie and I am sure to become ill.

Now, what you receive in parts, don't hold for unchangeable truth, for people are malleable by circumstance and numerous encounters; therefore, their pieces are apt to change and the hand which you use to hold them so tightly must be loose enough to let them shift in your grasp. Do not be surprised, nay, even disappointed, when you find what you are holding wasn't what you'd originally bought in faith that it would remain the same. 

My thoughts are in utter chaos. They spread out like ink from the nub of a pen and run across each other in rivulets of theory and splattered text. They are in want of a period to end their sentences but I find it impossible to stop the flow, and so they drip and smudge and smear and leave you and I hoping for a clear and concise ending but it drops off so suddenly