"Dream like you'll live forever, live like you'll die tomorrow."

-James Dean

Teens are stereotyped. Everybody has some sort of conception, or depending on who you talk to, misconception about teens. Don't tell me you've never heard an adult sigh, and say "Oh, teenagers."

We're known for our parties, sex, and contraband. I don't know anybody my age who's never lied to their parents about one thing or another. It's inevitable, really.

But, really, I think teens really do deserve all the flack that's thrown at us. Ask yourself this, do you have enough fingers and toes to count all the people you know, under the age of 18, who've either drank or done drugs?

Personally, I can't.

It's pretty crazy, really. We can't accept good clean fun. We've gotta dirty it up.

But is that little bit of thrilling fun really worth the unavoidable consequences?

Many times in our life have we been constantly reminded of what will happen to our lungs, our brain, our appearances if we flood our system with these gross chemicals.

Athletes can't, or rather shouldn't, do it because they've got their lungs and breathing to think about. Singers can't afford to dry out their vocal chords. Brainy kids need to keep up their thinking abilities, which diminish from use of narcotics.

Schools bring in doctors and scientists to tell us all about these dangers. Counselors who've worked with screwed up kids will come in and share their stories. Sometimes, those kids themselves will be convinced to talk to us and try to sway us from following in their own tragically mislead footsteps.

Only, maybe not in so many words.

Really. After all they show us, I sit in my seat and think, how can some people be so stupid as to ignore all this evidence and go on with their recklessness? Why when you know you could damning yourself to emotional, physical, and mental problems would you go ahead with this?

When you smoke marijuana you're inhaling over 400 chemicals, many of which are carcinogenic, which means cancer causing. It's also found that pot smokers are more likely to become suicidal and have anxiety issues than people who don't use the drug. Schizophrenics should be especially careful, as the drug can increase psychotic symptoms.

Weed can also cause increased heart rate and paranoia among its users.

We've all seen pictures of blackened, burned-looking lungs. We've been shown pictures of livers that have been mutilated by over consumption of alcohol. We know that all this may very well be the consequences of a reckless lifestyle, and yet, we ignore these specialists, statistics, and testimonials and we dive right into it all.

We should do what they tell us, guys. We should follow the rules and guidelines they've set down for us. Is that little bit of fun worth cancer and all that other gross stuff? Hm?

The answer is no. We've gotta be smart kids and we've gotta be good kids. Let's join together and make this goal a reality!

This lady through her extensive abuse of cocaine, fucked herself up.

“I love acting but I don't like all of the other stuff associated with it. The interest in celebrities, the press, the Internet..."

-Nicole Kidman

Why is everybody so intrigued and fascinated by the lives of celebrities?

The other day, I was at work and my coworker, a woman who's probably 30...ish? Anyways, she's a talker. I'm a talker, so I know what that's like, but this lady blows me out of the water completely. She will not shut up. I really feel sorry for all those poor customers who go through her lane. All they want is to get their items checked out, instead they get a 15 minute summary of how "Those cookies you're buying...Ohhh my God, I love 'em. Can't get enough. Ate so many I almost threw up last week" (awkward laugh) "Yeah you know they say that the chocolate in them..." And that continues on and on and on until finally God relieves you of your suffering and your receipt prints.

Hallelujah, you're free to go.

Well, this lady, not only does she love to talk, but she loves her some celebrity gossip. Be it in the form of a trashy tabloid, late night Hollywood show, or email updates, she gets 'em somehow. And if I stumble upon the misfortune of being in the lane next to hers, I always get an update, too. Each time, I explain to her, that I really don't care if Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattinson are actually engaged, or if it's just a rumor. I don't care how many women Tiger Woods cheated on his wife with or how much the divorce settlement's going to be, or how Angelina Jolie's relationship with Brad Pitt's on the rocks.

I'm not really all that savvy when it comes to Hollywood and its going ons. I found out about Tiger Woods from my driver's ed teacher, and any follow ups I heard were from my peers at school. I've never subscribed to people magazine, either.

I just don't see the big deal in celebrity gossip. I honestly do not care about these people. They do me a service, yes, they entertain me, but I don't really want to know anything further than that. I don't really care to know if my dentist's wife is suspected of cheating on him, I don't care to know if waitress who serves me is planning on leaving her husband, really I don't. The same goes for the singers I listen to and the actors and actresses I watch.

I do, however, feel very sorry for them. What they do seems respectable enough (in most cases), they act, I suppose, because they want to act. Just like some of us want to become doctors and writers and astronauts, they follow their dreams of being entertainers, in the form of singing or acting or sports or whatever. The point I'm trying to make is that, I find it so stupid when people try to justify their nosy curiosity by saying, "Oh, well, if they didn't want all this publicity they shouldn't have become famous."

Okay, yep. Sorry, Jennifer Garner, but the only way that you're going to finally attain some privacy is by switching careers. Tiger Woods, you're just going to have to suck at golf for you private life to become obscured from the world.

I'm not saying that what they do is necessarily good, I mean, it's quite obvious that Tiger Woods' screwed up big time, if all they say is true, but that doesn't mean that he should be forced to hang his dirty laundry in public.

It just seems grossly unfair. Problems become so much harder to deal with once more people know about them. I can easily understand why no celebrity relationships last. How could they? Every move, every glance, and every quote is anaylzed until something out of that can satisfy the angle that the certain tabloid is going for.

Well, at least they have PR's.

Writer's Block...

..sucks.

Lately I have been suffering. Suffering badly. Writer's block, they call it. I am a writer. My writing ability has been blocked off. Therefore, I am suffering from writer's block. And I wasn't lying about it sucking. Because it does. Suck. A whole lot.

It's not that I can't come up with ideas to write about-I can-it's just that I can't seem to word those ideas. Even when given a topic by my teachers, even when I have to write an essay about Theodore Roosevelt and his progressivist reforms for my APUSH class, I can't seem to spit the words that I want to use out, or at least make it sound somewhat okay.

So I try, patiently, to make the story flow better, to use better vocab, and to mix up my word choice. I find that I'm unable to. And then I become frustrated. Once I become frustrated my fingers fly across the keyboard and I begin typing nonsense words.

And once the nonsense words start, well, I might as well just stop whatever I'm doing, but I know it's only going to go downhill from there. I've gotta save what I have, "x" out of the word document, or whatever it is I'm writing on, and come back later when I can think more clearly.

I figured a post about writer's block wouldn't hurt. I thought that maybe talking about it would be some sort of solution.

We'll see.

"A good book on your shelf is a friend that turns its back on you and remains a friend."

There's one thing I can always count on. One thing I'm sure can take my mind off of anything, and take me anywhere, without even leaving the comfort of my bed. Things that don't make sense fit right into my head, and seem to settle where they belong. You're taken right along with all the characters throughout the whole thing.

They're your best friend. They speak to you without ever looking your way. They love you, but to them, you are nothing but a spectator.

The only thing I can ever count on is print on a page. Black on white; symbols, letters, words that make up a beginning, a middle, and an end: books.They comfort me. They console me. They relate to me. They're always there, and they're always within my grasp.
I love reading books, I love reading that make you think, books that are nothing but fluff, books that tackle unusual and uncomfortable topics. I'd rather sit down with a 600 page book, than watch a movie. I can read a book over and over again, but I can't do the same with a film.

I know this is going to sound extremely nerdy, but I absolutely love libraries. Not the ones that they have here at school, where it's more of an IMC than a place to check books out. I read A LOT, and I don't have the funds to keep up with what I read. I can't buy my books, and I love English teachers who have the best books to recommend. I'm pretty partial to English teachers in general because they teach what comes most easily to me, what I'm most interested in.

Maybe it's because I'm highly imaginative. I become deeply involved in whatever it is that I'm reading. I cry so easily when I read, I smile when something touching happens, I laugh out loud with the characters, and my mother always tells me that my eyes always go wide when something shocking happens. It's pretty ridiculous, I know, but I just can't help but become that involved in what I'm reading. I prefer reading when I'm alone. That way, I can completely let loose and do whatever I want without worrying people might think I'm a lil' bit out of whack.

As I said before, I read just about everything. Fiction, nonfiction, romance, science, fantasy, biographies, memoirs. My friend and I, when we were in grade school, would sit outside during recess and we would try reading the dictionary. We didn't get nearly as far as we'd hoped, but it was a good representation of how dorky we were when it came to literature.

And I didn't just do it alone. Oh no. Whenever I finished a really good book, I'd always call up my best friend and talk her ear off about whatever the book was about, repeatedly making her promise to read it. She was remarkably patient, and would listen to everything I said. Now that I'm older, and I realize that most people would punch me in the face if I ever did such a thing, I've stopped.

I've always been a nerd. When I learn something new in class I'll always go home and tell my parents all about it. There are some classes that I just find so interesting, and I love learning really trivial little facts that would otherwise be pretty useless.

Memoirs of a Hipster

So I was sitting in front of my vintage vanity, its lights illuminating my face. I had on my dark Skinny jeans, with a green over priced American Apparel tShirt hanging off my Petite body (my coffee only diet reduces me to nothing but waifness). My Zooey Deschanel-inspired bangs brush the tops of my eyes, under which you could barely see my winged 60's style eyeliner. Further obscuring My eyes were the pair of Prescriptionliess Ray Bans I had on. I felt that their Irony completed my look. What look Was I going for? A perfect blend of all things hipster.

You see life as a hipster is life if life were a fabulous, high end, yet grunge cocktail party in one's basement. It is Andy Warhol, and records of unknown Indie/Folksy bands, it is flower prints, skinny jeans, it is artsy wittiness, it is quirky irony, all in my vintaged garage, it is photography with my Great aunt's slr camera from the 70's. it is writing without correctly following rules of capitalization because capitalization is conformation. It is abstract Thinking. If Louis Vuitton and Bose got together and designed a pair of headphones, I would be those headphones. Those headphones would be hipster. Those headphones would be me. I am hipster.

Hipster is ciggarette stained kisses. Hipster is hugs that smell of that last coffee drink. Hipster is a blend of all things elusively charming.

life as a hipster is a constant Effortless struggle. It's a boxing match minus The punching and the Pain with the addition of cotton Sundresses and ankle boots and over sized sunglasses. It's Life as life would be if life were a feminine Painting that your Grandmother bought from a Pawn Shop and hung in her garage. It's reading books that somebody with a Bachelor of the Arts would read (meaning above your ability), while drinking Chai at the Starbucks down the street. It's my going on meaningless Tangents of how Unfair it was for Those words in the middle of my sentences not To be capitalized. they Deserve to be capitalized. I will tell you.

hipster is a Culture. We hipsters have our own music, our own fashion, our own beliefs. Beliefs that are well thought out and deep. hipster is a Belief. Hipster Is a religion. Hipster just is.

I ponder all this as I open my armoire, deciding what baggy American Apparel v-neck I should wear for the day. I have burgundy, azure, cobalt, indigo, espresso, burnt auburn, jade, lime, gold, and silver T's. I carefully pick out a nice ivory cardigan to match the ebony tee I've got ready for myself. I look in My vanity one More time, and I decide that my hair looks much too neat. With a little Fekkai hairspray, I muss it up some more, and deem myself fit for my date. I am meeting my boyfriend at the coffee shop down the street from my apartment. you've Probably never heard of it. It's extremely Urban-Bohemian, yet you can't fail but notice an underlying elegance to the west Side joint. I grab my over sized hobo/Messenger bag and make my way down the street, and laugh as I see that my boyfriend, seated in a red booth, reading a book that he got from our last date (one of my boyfriend and my's activities include vintage book shop hopping, something that sets us apart from most other couples), and I match. We both have on slim jeans, his, however, corduroy, a cardigan of some sort, a simple striped tee, and our thick rimmed Ray bans. Although he seems to have outdone me, in his Paisley print scarf.

Most of our dates consist of pseudo-intellectual hipster conversations. We talk of books, small scale, low budget indie films, new bands that you've never heard of, upcoming shows. We speak deeply of philosophy and we ridicule the notion of love, and accept that while, we, in our relationship, are deeply devoted to each other, we are not in love. My boyfriend and I are so alike in that we are such nonconformists.

This is one, unadorned, day of your average hipster. Simple, yet meaningful, and not at all tragically mediocre as yours so sorrowfully is.

“High School: the mouse race to prepare you for the rat race”

-Author Unknown


There are those who can't escape childhood. They bring is with them as they transition into the higher stages of their careers, like, ironically enough, a child clinging to his blanket.

I don't know if their immaturity they find in themselves seems to comfort them, or whether or not it's just one of those bad habits somebody just can't seem to give up.

High school is high school, and it will be high school. And you know what high school is? It is getting in trouble with your parents for staying out way past curfew and other aspects of a typical teenage-parent relationship, it is terribly hard classes that have got you sleep deprived, and it is relationships that can never just be simple.

When I think about high school, I sigh, out of exhaustion. It's just a big never ending cycle of he-said she-said, dramatic antics, and everybody seems to be a walking tabloid, full of information on who's just had sex, how Joe cheated on Sue, or how plain Jane's actually THE BIGGEST SLUT EVER. LIKE OMG. Few ever rise above it, and too many succumb to it.

I personally try my best to avoid all this, and I know, that I haven't. I am a girl, and I'd be completely bull shitting you right now if I said that I never sunk to those lows because I have. I've had my good share of silly, petty drama. I try to do my best to express myself, and let people know how I feel if I am ever upset, to avoid the troubles that are: BITCH. I HEARD WHATCHU BEEN SAYIN BOUT ME.

But really, I'm going to be an adult next year, and I'm trying to start facing all my problems like one. To keep all lines open for communication, but sometimes, communication and honesty is exactly what you need not do.

I've also realized that it's pretty silly to expect people to treat you the same. Most people (cough girls cough) won't be polite if they have a problem, but in fact, do just the opposite. They'll ignore your attempts at cordiality, at trying to be civil. They'll ignore a question as simple as: "Hey! Do you know if we had homework?" They'll look at you, with lips pursed, brows raised, not respond and walk away, leaving you with your mouth open and face burning.

Sometimes being the bigger man sucks.

Everybody reassures me that it's just high school, and that it happens to everybody. It's almost a rite of passage. High school's just a part of growing up, and it rips every last bit of naivety you have left, that middle school didn't get around to doing, right out of you.

"There is no endless devotion that is free from the force of erosion."

I've always been a person that's been at odds with change. I always try to overcome change, try to keep everything the same for as long as I can. It's a quality many of the adults that have worked with me and have known me for a long time easily notice.
Recently, I have undergone lots of change. Serious change. I've done things that I never would have believed that I could do just months ago. I've met people that I never even knew existed. People that I have both liked and disliked. I found out what I've been missing, and I can't believe that I've lived without it for as long as I have.
Sometimes, it almost seems that the more you fight change the harder its hits become, that the more you keep your eyes open for it, the more you notice it in places you never expect to find it.
No matter how much the idea of change is unsettling, sometimes it can be exactly what you need. It's hard, but it's benefits you in the long run.
There are certain things, however stressful they may be, you look to for comfort. They comfort you, not because they themselves are reliable, but they're constant. They're what you're familliar with. They're always there, but sometimes, and I'm finding myself dealing with this more and more recently, you just have to realize that letting it go is exactly the kind of relief one might need.