An Announcement:

To the Enemy:

You know what? Jesus wins. My God is bigger and better than you. So just shut up and let me celebrate at least one holiday this year in peace. You suck. HAHA. HAHAHAHA.

all the tags i tried to put at the end of my last post that blogger wouldn’t let me because of character limits (how dare Google limit my creativity; the irony of the post too is killing me)

please forgive me the odd title, oh dear—i’ve been too long on tumblr, even without the hashtag symbols, i am now just gratuitously adding more rambling via the tags instead of using them as an actual sorting mechanism, i apologize for contributing to the breakdown of the organizational order of the internet, except not that much, because organization LAWL, right-brained infp wins, at least on her own blog

NaNoWriMo and my squishy swollen brain

So everyone on staff at OLL and all the guest authors who write pep talks for NaNoWriMo and all the exhausted crazy people who dump stuff in the NaNoWriMo tag on tumblr all say the same thing:  "you’re writing 50,000 words on one piece of original fiction from scratch in 30 days; it is going to be rubbish and you are going to write on in spite of it.”  I’ve heard that easily dozens, possibly hundreds of times, over the last year-plus since I did my first NaNoWriMo.  But for some reason I’ve always had it in my head that that doesn’t quite apply to me.  Like, “I am KIERSTEN.  I am an ENGLISH MAJOR.  I write things ALL THE TIME.   I want to write fiction FOR A LIVING someday.  I am, like, contractually obligated by existence to only write things that are at least halfway awesome.”

And then it just hit me today how egregiously pretentious, egoistic, hubristic, and downright laughable that is.  How crackbrained do I have to be to think I’m only going to write good things?  Furthermore, how helpful is it if I kill my creative inspiration because I’m afraid that it is esoterically “not good enough”?  (The answers are, respectively, “extremely” and “not at all”.)

I’M WRITING A (short) NOVEL IN A MONTH, FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE.  There are novelists I love and admire a great deal who won’t go near NaNoWriMo because they know very well how impossible it is to write a high-quality book in thirty days.  This is a month for pure stream-of-consciousness creative flow.  I can get down the plot and ideas, and then edit the living daylights out of it later.  There will be lots of places where I will have to intentionally write clunky and awkward rubbish just to fill in gaps.  (I have a hard time even doing that in essays, and those are usually pretty boring to read even when I enjoy writing them.)

And that is okay.

Halfway through the month, I am at 32,133 words.
That is not bad.
No bad at all.
And some of it is actually pretty neat, if I may say so.

I declare that this will be a success.  I AM GOING TO FINISH THIS STORY.  Even if I may not do it all that well.

titleless.

We're discussing sexual health and alternative sexuality in my holistic health class this week, and to be frank, I was terrified going in. I had an extremely sheltered, basically asexual childhood; a scary and confusing adolescence as a result; and at age 20 I finally feel like I'm stabilizing a bit, at least for my own self and future. But I can't speak for the rest of the world, or my opinions about it. I don't even know what is or is not, let alone what's right or wrong or good or bad. I didn't even know what to pray this morning. I just stressed about it and wanted to skip and just felt lost. Finally I was like, "God, just show me where you heart is in all of this. That's all I really want to get out of this." The result? After the end of my three-hour class, I wanted to go into the restroom and cry my eyes out. I just want people to get along. I want people to love other people. I want people to not be hypocritical. I want people to not be trapped in a fallen world that confuses the hell out of everybody. I want no one to have to feel alone, misunderstood, or unloved. I want people to realize that there is such a thing as right and wrong, that a moral dichotomy does exist. I'm not saying I have an understanding of what that dichotomy is and what it entails—not by a long shot. I just know it's there. I wish people who do believe in that dichotomy with me could see that you can't invoke one aspect of God's character while ignoring another: you cannot tell someone that God hates their sin while neglecting to tell them that He loves them, that he handmade them and called them "good," that he doesn't just want to burn them from the face of the earth. I wish I could somehow make up for the fact that people do very ungodly things in the name of godly principles. I wish that I had answers for people. I wish you weren't lost. I wish I wasn't lost, even after I've been found. I wish someone had told me the world was going to be such a hard place to live in and given me a few helpful hints. I wish I didn't disagree with some of the overbearing "hints" given to me by very vocal people who haven't known me nearly long enough to have any call to start making assumptions about what I think and believe and want. I wish I wasn't afraid to cry in public. I wish I didn't feel so freakishly lonely every time romantic relationships are a topic. I wish I wasn't a coward even when I do have something to say (but it's easier to hold it all in and not risk saying it "wrong", right? If any freaking thing in the world makes sense, it's how not to risk your reputation by having one). I wish God would give me a straightforward answer about how to love people without compromising righteousness. (I'd even settle for a case-by-case consultancy, which is probably what He has in place already and I just need to be better at listening). But I don't even know how to hold a conversation, about so many things. It isn't just sex...that's not even close to the whole problem. Is there anything that just...makes sense?

I'm really glad I'm not God, because I'd sure suck at it. Just holding His hand and seeing a reflection in His eyes for five minutes is difficult almost to the point of crippling.

All the same...not having a heart? I don't think I could bear existence itself, then.

(I have a lab exam in fifteen minutes. #WednesdaysContinueToEffingSuck.)

Regarding the upcoming elections: a short thing.

I’ve been hearing a lot of Obama-bashing from folks in person, and incomprehensible heaps of Romney-bashing from Tumblr.  It’s stressing me out, literally to the point of tears on more than one occasion.  I don’t know for sure yet how I’m going to vote.  I’m really, really torn.  I’m praying about it a lot.  It’s a very complicated decision for me, and I respect that it isn’t like that for everyone.

But I do wish that people would, in return, respect my desire to make an informed decision—a decision that I can be okay with because it was one I worked hard to make to the best of my ability, not because I was guilted into it. 

I’ve never done this before, and it scares me, frankly.  Even though I’m only one of two hundred million registered voters.  I know the fate of out nation doesn’t all hinge on my vote or something overly dramatic like that.  But it’s still important, because this is a part of me and it is a thing I’m doing, and I really don’t want to look back and regret it someday.  

So please, if you don’t have anything remotely encouraging to say to me over the next three days, don’t say it at all.

Thank you.

NaNoWriMo begins in one hour and thirteen minutes!

I’m super psyched, guys.
Even though I don’t have a whole plot outline (when do I ever?  Last year, I suppose).
It’s going to be fabulous and difficult and exhausting and frustrating and totally awesome.

So I have one hour and thirteen minutes to work on my stats homework!

Un bien jour.

It was a good day. It was a good day all the way through, which happens to me very rarely. Dad made me pancakes for breakfast, and I got some substantial writing done for the first time in days, and I got to visit the library in our new district for the first time and checked out a book I've been meaning to read for months. Dad and I read Wikipedia synopses of past Marvel comic lines that panned out rather badly and discussed the absurdity of anthropomorphic superhero raccoons in the context of our different childhoods, and speculated about the intense twists that might show up in the new Iron Man movie next April. I wasn't exposed to any more dragging reruns of The Property Brothers or any more bridal reality show drama. The overpowering floral air freshener was out of scent spray. Dad bought the Avengers on Blu-Ray, and we and Rach watched it, and it was just as fantastic as I remember it being in theaters—even without surround sound. There was so much subtle cleverness and depth and humor I didn't pick up on the the first (three) times, and even more when we watched the deleted scenes. We made cookies. Dad and I competed with our scary deep-voiced impressions (and I was in the running, too, despite being twenty and female.) I texted Gwen for a couple of hours and we geeked out about Avengers and the crazy lineup of Marvel movies coming out over the next couple years and about the most hilarious episode of Firefly (i.e., Jaynestown) which Gwen watched for the first time today. I posted silly things on Facebook that made people laugh (I hope). I spent the day opening up and laughing more than I have in awhile. I just felt really good about today—not stressed, not anxious, not tired—I experienced and expended a good balance of sad ("happy for deep people") feelings and excited feelings and intrigued feelings and really happy feelings, and a balance of extroverted and introverted energy. I read in Ezekiel and Matthew and I worked on a poem. I told people I love them. It was just a really good day. I don't have those often, and I am grateful for this one.

It's these kinds of days that actually make me feel kind of excited about—and capable of—living a whole life and being a person who really means something. It's like a tiny cosmic reminder that I am sentient and I am real and I am worthwhile to somebody, you know? It's a really nice—actually kind of incredible—feeling.

James 1:5-8,12, 25 (The Message)

"If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
…
"Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
…
"But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action."

^ everything I needed to hear right now