Life in Metaphors.

For as long as I've know myself I've never been good at expressing myself, particulary my feelings and particulary in words. And yes, that sounds so silly, right? I want to be a writer and yet I can't express myself in words. But here's the thing. Words are one of those things that hold a lot of meaning, you have to be careful with them. And even then, you there are different forums in which words can be expressed. 

Take speaking, for instance. Speaking is terrifying. Trying to properly convey thoughts or emotions through the spoken word and doing a good job of it is truely a gift. I can't do it. Speaking is weak to me. The thing about speaking my thoughts and feelings is that I get flustered. I stutter and I'm usually under so much pressure that I just can't physically find the words that I want to speak and everything I say comes out into some utter garbage. And so I can't speak words. I can't tell people how I feel when speaking. And so that's why, most of the time, I choose to write. But even in writing there are tricky parts to it. It's hard to tell people straightly, "I am depressed, I do not like my life right now and I'm beggining to realize that I don't think I ever did." People have such a sense of justification, and are so suspicious of everything. One thing that I have a love hate relationship with in writing is the fact that you can't just tell people something, you have to show them or they won't believe you otherwise. And even then, even when you show them in the best possible way you can people will still say, "Whate are you talking about? You're perfectly alright, you're not feeling that." There is too much disbelief in the human race for people to be honest sometimes. The problem is that people whipser the lies and everyone clings unto that, but when they're shouting the truth they are told to shut up. 

For me the solution I have always found when expressing myself, particulary in writing, are metaphors. From the time I learned what a metaphor was I have been using them. And even before then, I realized, even before I knew their proper definition. Because I surrounded myself with books when I was a child, I engrossed myself in literature that was overflowing with metaphors. I remember, distinctly one of the first metaphors I made. I was five, I had hurt myself, a bruise on my leg from running into something. Instead of telling my Mom I hurt myself I told her I felt like a horse kicked me in my leg. I may have had metaphors before that. I probably did. I had read the horse kicking in relation to pain one in a book. A lot of my life came from books back then. A lot of my life still does. And so even today I use metaphors to describe my feelings. The thing about metaphors, it's like wearing a mask while telling the truth. And in some simple way, that makes it seem a little better. Because I paint my pain or happiness or wonderous nature behind these words, behind the connatations of like or as. They seem prettier somehow, not so raw and terrifying. And they seem more relatable, because I think that's what metaphors were meant for. You take something that not everyone is feeling and compare it something that everyone has felt or can at least imagine what it feels like. But even then, even in metaphors, they have their faults. Because not everyone understands metaphors, not everyone understands the sometimes fault of speaking the plain truth. I've actually had someone tell me once how bullshit my metaphors were and that I should just say my feelings. And then I did, and then I was told I wasn't. Shut up, Keshia, you don't know what you're talking about.

Do you wanna know a metaphor now? Do you want to know how I feel?

There's a difference to everything. It's like I'm stuck in these waves and they're just beating along. And I just let them hit me, over and over. But sometimes, I catch myself. I get surprised because I thought I was on shore and I'm not. I'm not nesscarily sure how to get back there or why I even want to get back there. I just know, really, that I'm tired of the waves.

Fin.

-Keshia

Dog Sees God

*note: I stopped posting blog posts in here bc they were basically taking over my blog, but there are still really awesome books that I want to talk about and so I decided that books I rated five stars via goodreads are worthy enough to make it to my blog

I make valiant efforts to rereads things that are my favorite works of literature at least once per year. As Dog Sees God lands in my rank for my favorite play, of course it is one of those things I endevour to reread. Let's get a little background history, I first read Dog Sees God my senior year of high school, nearly three years ago, after picking it up in the stores of random assorted plays on the shelves of the drama room. I instantly fell in love with it the moment I read it and pulled my two friends in it for a ride. We convinced our teacher to do a cold reading outlloud in class and got into some serious trouble because we severly underestimated how people would responsd to all the cursing and sexual innuendos in it. That little tussle only made me love it even more, it became like a bby to me. Something I wanted despretly to defend.

Dog Sees God : Confessions of Teenage Blockhead is a dark comedy that follows the life of a teenage 'blockhead' called CB. All the characters, the events, and themes suggest that these characters are the characters of Charlie Brown, but all grown up. In my opinion this concept is brilliantly done. You have these distinctive characters from childhood, things mostly associated with holidays like Halloween or Christmas. Regarless of how you found yourself in the world of Charlie Brown there is sucha stark contrast here in the play. The characters,the language, the scenes are so breath takingly real. And also painful. It's kind of a hard thing to grasp, that these happy go lucky hcaracters you watched dance around the screen are thrust into this world that is actually real, a world that is fucked up, that bad things happen in. And that's the beauty of it, it's in this juxtapostioned place that shows you how our world is compared to the made up ones we watched on tv screens at a young age.

The play opens w/ CB (Charlie Brown) writing a letter to his penpal, telling of the death of his dog, his dog who killed his little bird of a friend before having to be put down himself. He asks his penpal, do you think God goes to heavan? And it is this question that resides in his mind through the whole show. This question is the driving background of the whole story. Bert V. Royal introduces the rest of the cast throughout the play, doing a brilliant job of adapting them to their lives. These children have grown up and things have happened to them. Marcy and PepperMint Patty are accused of being lesbians and spike their milk cartons w/ alchohol.Pig Pen is a germaphone and in general, a douchebag. Linus lives off pot, he smoked his blanket to 'become one' with it. Sally undergoes a daily identity crisis. All of them become character types, people that we can see or can almost see in everyday life. They are more than just cartoon characters in this way, they become a representation of ourselves, or the good, bad, and absolutely hilarious things of life.

I won't say much more, because I really could go one forever, but at this point I'm trying my best to keep spoilery free. But I will say this, the stroy is stunning. Bert V. Royal is so clever, so in touch with making a story that holds so much meaning with just recogonizable characters milling along in life. I laughed my head off while reading this, I sobbed my eyes out while reading it. It was beautifula nd wicked and such a great story that when I first read it, three years ago, I had to sit there when I was finished and just be there. I had to just exist, I had to keep myself to graps by the qualms of reality. Okay, maybe I'm overreacting, here, maybe just a bit. But you have to understand. I love this play. And I think I'll continue to love it.

Fin.
-Keshia

Blue Collar Blues.

"I am not mentally prepared to go into work today."

"I am not mentally prepared to go into work today."

"I am not mentally prepared to go into work today."

"If you make me fucking go into work today; I will have a mental break down."

I'm sorry, but mental illness is no excuse for not going into work. Being hurt is not reason for not smiling. Feeling so stressed that you literally have thoughts about killing yourself is not an excuse to be as an ass to the customer who was an ass to you first.

I've worked for the past two years of my life at the same place. It's not a place I'll mention here because I'll at least have some form of delicacy on this thing called the internet. And it's reached the point where I've become absolutely miserable at my work place. And yes, I'm not the only one; you don't see sincerely happy people loving their life working in retail/food. Those aren't careers, they're jobs. And no matter what anyone says they can't be fully happy in them. Anyone feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong, for now I'll just believe this.

They thing is about my job, I did love it, at one point….at one point work was something I looked forward to. Things were shitty at home, things were hurting me there. And work was where my friends were at, where there were people who were there for me. And then it wasn't, not really, I moved, I transferred to a new work place. And things were okay, but not really. And now things aren't good. Things aren't good at all.

Let me bring you back to October 2011, I was working Subway. I had only been there for about two weeks and I knew people there didn't like me, I was annoying and obnoxious, you know, the type of person I am. I didn't think, though, they would dislike me enough to tell the manager to fire me. But they did. And I had rent due, and I couldn't go without a job. Over the course of a day I applied to nineteen different places. And the next day, one place took me for an interview. This is the place that eventually gave me a job. And you have to understand, at this point, I was desperate. I would've scrubbed the floors with a toothbrush I needed a job so badly. But of course, one develops standards after a bit. My standards didn't even have to be developed, rally. They were just there. I work in one of those places that isn't fast food but isn't really a restaurant either. It's the perfect kind of in between that isn't too stressful under any situation. And the people there were great, I think I was instantly enamored when my trainer sang Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to me on my first night of work.

"Come with me and you'll see a world of imagination…"

I worked there for nine months and it was sincerely the best nine months of working in my life. The people there were great, and I sincerely got along with pretty much all my coworkers and managers. I genuinely felt well liked and liked people in return. I loved that we could work hard and still be silly at the same time. There was this one coworker of mine who I would always sing cat songs with, to the customers, right after we closed. Sometimes we would laugh so hard that we would literally fall to the floor. And there was a magic time of day when we all had to stop and pause and just look at the sunset streaming in. The thing is about that place, I mean, there were bad times too. There was once when I was so stressed and angry I hid and the back and threw around dishes. There were times when someone was perhaps badmouthing someone else, or I accidentally hurt someone's feelings with my foot in mouth disease. But those aren't the times I really remember from it. I really remember all the times my coworkers would wait around for me and my ride. I remember the time I cam in sick and all my coworkers jumped on me, telling me they wouldn't allow me to work and I needed to go home and rest. I remember the going away party they threw me where they bought me gifts and everyone was hugging and crying. I'll remember that. I remember that it was wonderful and that I loved the place.

But then I had to go to college, I had to transfer stores. And it wasn't the same feeling at all. Everyone on this new crew was negative, no one liked their job, no ones wanted to be there half the time. When I spoke I felt like a nuisance. And they made jokes about me, how I was scary because I was such a fast worker. A lot of them (not all) really didn't care much about work ethic. This was just a job they had, not something they really tried at. And I don't know, it just kind of dragged everything about work down for me. And it was hard to make friends; they're only a few solid people who I actually consider friends from this place. Everyone else is just someone I work with. And it was bad, for a while, but then I got used to it. Because I suppose that's just how it was going to be. But then summer happened and everything just went, to use the phrase, from bad to worse.

And now, now it's at the point where it's hard to describe. Only that I hate work everyday I go into it. It's making me miserable.

I had a point to everything, I did…

Meh.
Fin.

-Keshia

Slumps for the Chump.

Halfway trhough August already? No, really, I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around this concept. Today is August 15th, this is what I'm writing on August 15th. Because it is, and it's scary. It's also scary that 2013 is nearly over. But that's cool. That's cool. This has probably been the fastest year of my life, to be honest, and I really don't think it's the whole current time thing. You know, the thing where the time you're living in is the fastest and so because of that it seems the fastest. And I know this, because 2012 felt significantly slower than 2011 or 2010. But then my concept of time is all strange.

I've been in a slump lately, a slump of bad proportions. This slump is basically came about from feeling useless as fuck about everything. It happens almost every summer, a summer lull that ha sbounced back and forth across every summer of my entire life. Reason for the summer lull have included lack of school. I think I've made it clear in this blog before just how much I love school and how much self meaning it gives to me, so I won't give into that. There's also the fact that I have worked this summer more than I ever have in any summer of my life. (Edit: I worked more the summer of Washington but that time was such a confusing clusterfuck of things) And lastly is that I always make these empty promises ot myself during summer, like I'm going to write so much, I'm going to read so much, I'm going to get so fit. Every damn summer I make them and every damn summer I don't keep them, in fact I probably recede on them. I usually am only active at work, so I get fatter. And even though you would think,that logically having more time, I would read and write more, but somehow I don't. And this summer, this is has probably been one of the of the worst summer lulls of my life (Washington was worse, along with the summer between eighth and ninth grade, it being the worst). And I don't know why. I have this particular way of hiding mysef away from the world in music and pretending I don't exist. I've been doing that so much this summer.

And school starts in eleven days. And I just can't wait for it. Because I'm tired of slumping.

Fin.
-Keshia

Same / Not

Hullo there...it's been slightly a bit.

So I've been doing this thing lately where I'm reading through my old journals. I've done it before, plenty of times, but mostly just skimming and reading certain sections. I have never just sat down and read through them all. And this is my intent this time, though it's probably going to take a bit...a while. I have filled up twenty-six notebooks, some tiny and some massive. And then there's all my regular reading and writing and all this stuff. Plus I want to take my time with it. I really want to examine the person I used to be and the person I am.

The thing about reading journals is that you learn so much about yourself. I was so terribly ignorant when I was younger and I really fear that I'm going to be reading my journals five years in the future and think about how ignorant I am now. Well...no, I know this will happen. It's not really a fear more of a, 'God, what am I doing wrong now that my older self with judge and laugh at.' And some people may think, no, you won't. The different between being twenty and being twenty five isn't that much. Whereas the difference in between being fifteen and being twenty is massive. But I don't like to think it that way, I like to think that I'm always changing and developing. That I am always a different kind of person. I am not even the same person that I was five minutes ago. But it's also funny, reading through them about how different and the same I am. I have these habits that never die, like making piles and piles of lists I hardly ever use. By always promising myself to get better, by always complaining. My journal is just a rant fest sometimes. And cheesy, I'm one crazy cheesy person. I was when I started my journal and I still am. But so much is different, I know so much more about the world. I can comprehend so much more. I read my journals in my head in the voice of a silly girl, because I look back at so many of the things I said, so many of the things I did and think about how silly it all was. And think about hwo beautiful it all is. It's life. And it's wonderous and scary and silly and great. And I just love that I have my journal, I have things like my blog. I love that I can record and know so much of it.

Fin.
-Keshia

The Little Woods

This book is about is about a girl, Cally Woods, who goes to a boarding school where her sister had gone missing ten years earlier. She meets people, she makes friends, stirs up some random love interests, and tries to figure out the mystery of her sister's dissapearence/death years before. Over all it wasn't that impressive.

First let's talk about Calista (Cally) the MC. She is boring, transparent, and really has no personality at all. She's what I like to call a blank slate character, one who is written in such a way that the reader can 'metaphorically' put themselves in their shoes. Half the time while reading I managed to be so annoyed with her that I couldn't concentrate. And then the rest of the characters, the massive group of the them, all fit into the cardboard cutout stereotypes. The only character at all, who had any sort of real personality at all was Chealsea. She was brilliant. But as for the rest of the characters, they were all dissapointing.

And for the writing itself. It wasn't very descriptive, it wasn't something that held some deeper meaning between the words. But it wasn't bad either, just your typical run of the mill YA that could have the opportunity to be so much more. And then there were the random expositions of vocabulary. Some 'big words' put in every now and then to perhaps sounds more well written, I suppose. But it breaks up the flow, it breaks the story. You know those aren't the thoughts of a seventeen year old girl.

The story wasn't rapidly interesting either, most of it was predictable. But it was at least interesting enough to keep my attention enough for me to read to the end. And I found that the final chapter was my favorite chapter, but not good enough to redeem the book. Overall it was okay, but probably not something I would suggest to anyone.

Fin.

-Keshia

(So I've been posting YT videos about the books I read. And in between goodreads and that I just don't have the effort anymore. So my brief efforts to put book reviews into my blog shall stop here. this will be the last one.)

The Shining

“Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters.”  I accept that Stephan King in one of the best and most influential writers of the 20th and 21st century. I do. I also accept that his style of writing is not the style that I enjoy. And yet he receives five stars, here's why. This is my third Stephan King book I am reading. The first being Misery and the second being his book about writing, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. And even through just these two works I could tell he was a talent beyond others. Misery was enticing and thrilling. And I consider On Writing as my second favorite book in the world about writing, which is, in fact, quite an accomplishment. And this story, The Shining, it is absolutely brilliant. His descriptions are so vivid, they grab hold of your by the neck and pull you into the story. There were so many times while reading this book that I had to catch myself. I would look up and gaze about, wondering why I wasn't with the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel. And then there was the characters, so finely detailed I felt like I had grew up with all of them. King has this brilliant gift of writing something so rich in word and plot and character, that I am baffled. But…there's always a but. I didn't thoroughly enjoy The Shining. Yes, the description was incredible. The delicate nature at which he approached the psychotic break down was absolutely amazing. And I read this story at break neck speed; it pulled me in so much. But it's also not my kind of story. I found most of it boring. Does that make any since? Something that bores you yet fascinates you at the same time? I loved this story, I loved this novel. And yet, I couldn't really get into it. Horror/thriller just really aren't my genre of book. Mystery is only a close second. And since those are the types that Mr. King specializes in I don't think I'll end of reading many of his works, but I will try. He kind of had this talent that's too hard to ignore. Overall, though, The Shining was brilliant and terrifying. I read most of it in the late hours of night and it had me peeking over my shoulder more than once. And even it's not necessarily the genre of book I normally go for, it is, in fact, a brilliant story. Fin. -Keshia