I try not to be political, usually, but...

I find it incredibly ironic that the same election that puts a black man in the White House strips gay people of their rights.

California's Prop. 8 was ALWAYS more a concern to me than Obama (his sweep is personally unsurprising), and this is the very reason why: this state, arguably one of the most liberal in the nation, has passed legislation legally enforcing inequality.

So yes, I am hopeful for America, but in reality, it's tainted with the disappointment that we have not come as far as we say we have. And yes, Obama, I'm all for being optimistic, but my cynicism will remain until measures like Prop. 8 are completely and unequivocally put down.

The five best songs ever recorded, in no particular order, according to me, provided to you in this time of desperate procrastination on a certain essay on the Persian Wars:

1. "Layla" by Derek and the Dominoes (On guitar in this song? Duane Allman and Eric Clapton. In case you didn't hear that, ERIC CLAPTON and DUANE ALLMAN. Potentially the two best guitars ever.)
2. "Blue Sky" by the Allman Brothers Band. (You're my blue sky, you're my sunny day...)
3. "Hallelujiah" by Leonard Cohen, covered by Rufus Wainwright.
4. "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" by Bob Dylan. (Heart-breaking. Beautiful. Bob Dylan.)
5. "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Annie. She had long, red hair. But she was bored. Alas!



SO.



She decided to cut all of her hair off.



And was really happy.

THE END

High school is almost over. High school is almost over. Oh my God, high school is almost over.

It's really strange to consider the fact that I've been waiting for this moment, this feeling of happy swelling about the rest of my life, since my freshman year. Then, it was get out and get away, running from everything; now, I feel like I'm running forward. Constant progress. There's something to be said for that. Yet I'm not... I'm not really so much excited as I am panicked. Seriously panicked. Move in day for Berkeley is August 19, and that feels immeasurably close. It's so... so frustrating that after spending the past eighteen years of my life here, battling with all those problems facing children of the ages between zero and eighteen, I'm finally okay with myself. Sort of comfortable, but not comfortable-boring; only sort of comfortable. It's vague. It's ambiguous. There's unknown left, but I'm so aware of that which is here, I'm just excited to complete empty out everything I don't. I just have unfinished business. And I'm not sure what it is at all, which isn't helping anything, not really, but there it is. I'm not ready. And no one's ready, no one's ever ready, but I don't think I'm going to be okay. That's a lie, I know I'll be okay; but I'm just... I'm terrified. I don't want to leave my life here behind, not yet. I'm just starting to enjoy it.

So here I am, writing my last composition for French after taking my last Hist 101/Western Civ. II chapter test and listening to Sufjan Stevens so I can feel comfortable with just going like I am with just staying, but I can't. I know that it's the removal of that comfort that will make college so exciting, so wonderful, so... new, fresh, a rejuvenation, and then I'll really come into myself like I think I already have though I know I haven't.

I'm just going to have to start living my life as a carpe diem poem for the next two months, because I want to remember everything as fully and perfectly as I can. I don't want to have regrets. This will be okay. Summer is coming; summer is coming, summer is coming, there will be beaches and road trips and dry heat in my future. I'm going to do this. We're going to do this. I'm just... I'm done with hesitation and holding back. There's not enough time to be graceful. It's a plunge. I'm on a timer and I can't turn it back, so here it goes. Here it goes.

I think this space, all of this space that I've been getting, or giving, or forcing myself into, I think that it's making me really like myself just how I am. I like myself like this. I love the idea of war and battle and I'm a complete hypochondriac and sometimes I'm really very antisocial and I'll cut myself out when I feel I need to or just want to and I can be oversensitive and I make myself guilty constantly because I just can't help it and I'm awfully, terribly messy, just a mess sometimes, and I eat nothing but junk always and I like to deny it but I tend to be competitive on accident and I somehow still believe in the little minutia because that's what gets me through a week on fifteen hours of sleep but I'm okay with that.

It is spring, and am walking accordingly (you know; spring in my step). I am turning eighteen in about a week. I have about my tenth job interview with no success and I'm trying (we're trying) to sell my (our) house with no success. I'm trying to talk to my father again. I've been reading a lot about death for someone I care about a lot, and that's enough, I think. Nothing matters but that. Because I'm happy, in this really sort of strange, stay-up-all-night-thinking-about-nonexistence way.

I don't think I've ever, ever felt this calm. War and peace, right?

And it's really beautiful.

"Maybe this person's sense of the world, that it will change for the better with struggle, maybe a person who has this neo-Hegelian positivist sense of constant historical progress towards happiness of perfection or something, who feels very powerful because he feels connected to these forces, moving uphill all the time ... maybe that person, can't, um, incorporate sickness into his sense of how things are supposed to go. ... Maybe ... he isn't so good with death." -- Tony Kushner, Angels in America

I'm too unstable about everything to write about it, the funeral, her, anything, still. But today, Nicole took me out for ice cream and Mr. Waller asked how I was doing and let me use his JSTOR account, so maybe everything will be okay. Thinking about war is somehow strangely easier than considering the death of just one dear person. It's funny, isn't it? (I don't really think so.)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I feel very alive.

Hello, kids. It is the eve of Christmas eve and I am rather bored. Thus, I would like all of you to recommend me some music. Annnnything. You don't have to upload songs (unless you want to, of course); names of artists/albums/songs are perfect. Think of it as a Christmas gift to me! :) (You see, I'm sort of on a downloading spree. And by sort of, I mean absolutely and completely.)

Merci beaucoup!

This weekend has been excellent. I have so much to say about life, lately, but it's all jumbled in thoughts that are beneath my ability to verbalize. (And I don't think it is possible to psycho-narrate my own subconscious.) In any case, expect an update soon, and I apologize for being so very neglectful.

So, without further ado...

( Fill my metaphorical Christmas stocking! )