The Downlow

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austin, texas, United States
aspiring writer, English and journalism student, hails from Texas. likes include writing, coffee, books, whisky and people.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

a motorcycle and a dinosaur

Last night was weird and generally unhappy. I had to miss one of my best friends birthdays because of work, so I was already annoyed, and then there was an ish with financial aide so that sucked, and I was up late yet again. But for some reason, I still feel unusually effervescent. That is a picture of my emotional state at le moment.
I went to my college orientation on Monday. Actually, it didn't start until Tuesday morning, but we drove down Monday night. I guess I haven't clarified yet, but I'll be stationed out of UT Austin in the fall. Any who, I spent Tuesday morning through Friday morning in Austin, and I could not possibly love it there more. There's something about Austin that makes me feel really at home, and you know how I'd wanted to go super far for college? I thought I'd be weirded out when I saw ten people that I knew from high school in the first four minutes of orientation, but I kind of dig it. It's nice to know I have backups to call if I'm really lonely. Seriously though, ten, and I swear I ended up seeing like a katrillion. I mostly hung out with new people though? So that was nice. I like making friends. And I got my scheduleeeeee, I love schedules :)
I emailed this music website about writing for them? They're like a super baby version of AP. Like really, really small and new, but with the same idea. So maybe that'll happen? It'd be cool, since the music scene in Austin is massive. Also, work has been putting me in an unusually good mood, for reasons I will not yet disclose :)
Writing has slowed. It will pick up soon. Don't fret. It's just that I've been out of town and I've been working since I got back in town. Speaking of which, I have to go get ready, because I'm supposed to be selling pizzas in thirty minutes. Hahh.
P3Ac3 0uT
-Loch

Saturday, June 19, 2010

you can never come on too strong.

I am more unsure, happier, and more confident than I have been in a while. That is a picture that is blurry and very old. The little chapel in it reminded me of something from a book.
I haven't been writing enough lately, and I haven't been reading enough either. Both of those things make me very unthrilled. I got on a real roll developing a plot for this project, and suddenly it just stopped. Part of me wonders if maybe I just need to let it develop as it comes? I'm really hoping that's the case. I would hate to see this particular project go to waste- something tells me it might be worth something, and it's certainly one of the best things I've ever written. I even have a poem for the prologue and a surprise ending planned out! hahh. I think I need to spend some time developing characters, though. My friend Lee, whose blog you can reach on my sidebar, gave me a flash drive with some files on it as part of my birthday present, and one of the files is this fantastic list of character quirks, a few of which caught my eye, so I'm thinking about combining and twisting some of them around to get the ball rolling again. Cross your fingers?
In other news, the other project I was working on, which is the one I started after this first one fizzled out for the first time, has also been going slowly. In fact, lets call this one odd couple and the first one 3, because those are their file names. I think what got me with odd couple was characters also, but for a different reason- I have really complex ideas for several characters I want to develop, but for some reason it's just not happening. I think that while I'm a bit blocked on 3, I'm going to sit down and really focus on odd couple and see what I can get done, because I really like it as well. I think that 3 might be some of my best writing so far? But odd couple might have a more interesting plot line. I'm not sure yet. I'm positive that they'll be two very different finished projects, if things turn out the way I'm thinking they will, although at the moment nothings definitive.
I think, more than anything, that I really need to just sit down and read for a little bit. I've been buying books out the wazoo but I haven't made time to read any of them. Lately works been taking up the majority of my schedule, and the time not spent at work has been spent either trying to figure out how to get to work, thinking about college, or wondering why I can't get myself to write anything decent.
Speaking of college, my orientation is this week! I'm beyond excited. That's all about that. Also, I've been in a really, really good mood for the past couple of days, despite the lack of ingenious prose produced, for reasons I will disclose if and only if things go my way :)
I appreciate you like woah. You are my favorite.
I'm going to go look at that list of character traits, try and type a little bit, then read Ray Bradbury until I fall asleep. I'll be back soon.
Goodnight,
Alexandra.

Friday, June 11, 2010

EIGHTEEN

I'M EIGHTEEN I'M EIGHTEEN I'M EIGHTEEN
:D :D :D :D :D :D ;)
that's enough of that :)
I have a story to tell!
Lately, I've happened upon quite a few reasons to love people. Really. There's one
anecdote that sticks out particularly loudly in my memory of the past two or three days, and you guessed it, you get to hear about it!
So. I worked everyday this week except for
Tuesday and Wednesday, because Tuesday I was busy with graduation and Wednesday I just wasn't on the schedule. Except I found that on Wednesday, I had literally nothing to do. I was bored out of my mind, and no one could do anything with me, so finally I decided that the way to be productive was to walk a few minutes down the street to the music store near my house to buy a new violin case, because I didn't want to take my old one to college because it was old and beat up and I don't like the way hard cases look, etc. I get there and the guy shows me the case, and also tells me where to get sheet music and helps me look at metronomes, and then sells me the case for like fifteen dollars less than he should've, which was really, really nice, right? So I'm in a really good mood. I walk out of the store smiling, and I happen upon this little nail place two stores down that I've never really seen before. Now, this shopping center isn't exactly high traffic, so it's not shocking that the little nail place would go unnoticed. All the shops are behind some other buildings, and frankly I'm surprised they're staying in business. So, I'm walking by this nail place and I look at my nails and realize just how much I've been neglecting them, and I look at the inside and it looks empty but it's open, and I decide that I just graduated high school and it's about to be my birthday and damnit, I'm going to treat myself.
I walk inside and there's this lady there whose getting a pedicure whose name I later learned was Donna, and she immediatly starts talking to me. At first I thought she worked there, until an older white lady walked out of the back with nail supplies and all that. I inquired about prices, and decided to just get a manicure because hell if I was spending $55 on a
mani pedi, and more people would see my finger nails anyway. So I'm getting my nails done, and I'm talking to these two ladies about high school graduation and what I'm doing for college and my birthday coming up, and Donna, this woman who I've known for five minutes, tells me she's going to pay for my manicure as a graduation gift. She pays for it and leaves, but not before giving me a big hug, and it was absolutely the sweetest thing, and so I decide to get the pedicure as well since now I can afford it. And Rosemary, after we talk another while longer, and she's told me about her life too, decides to pay $10 of my pedicure fee ! So I only ended up paying a fraction of what I would have. I got her card and gave her a big hug too, and I'm going back to see her before I go to college, and my nails look great and those ladies were so sweet!
So I only have one thing to say: GOOD KARMA, PEOPLE. Those two
ladies are my evidence that if you're kind, you really will reap what you sow :)

I sat down and started reading a project I haven't worked on in about a month, and everything clicked. I'd stopped working on it
because I couldn't develop a plot line, and I'd started working on something new, but everything makes sense now and I've been writing nonstop. Expect more updates soon!
In case you didn't hear, I'm eighteen :)
I LOVE ALL OF YOU,
Loch.

P.S. GOOD NEWS. I quit my retail job :) now I'm a "permanent sub." I'd been working two jobs for a few weeks, but now I work specifically at CiCi's Pizza. And I love it :) :)

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

on pessimism.

Hey everyone.
So I feel like I owe some sort of explanation for why I've been gone so long. I had a burst of inspiration a few weeks ago and I sat down to start writing a blog, actually, and for the first time in a long time I couldn't figure out quite how to phrase what I wanted to say. I think this is what it's going to end up being, because this is the best way I can think of to say it.
Today I graduated high school, which you would think would be happy, right? And I mean, it's great, I'm thrilled, but I can't help but feel this sudden and slow but incredibly heavy weight being lifted off of me, and another placed onto me in it's wake that's just a teensy bit heavier than it's predecessor. The finality of it set in during the graduation speeches, I think, when everyone kept talking about how high school was ending. Which is obvious, but four years went by so unbelievably quickly, and I find myself wondering how long college is going to last, and life after that, and before I know it I'm going to be old, and I've never, ever had any desire to grow old. It's weirdly reminiscent of the seventh grade when I realized I would die one day, that there would people in the future who I would never, ever meet, except for now I can't be like, well it doesn't matter, I'm really super young, I'm in middle school, because oh hey guess what I'm not in middle school. I'm not even in freaking high school anymore. I've been dying to get out for ages and I'm finally realizing that I didn't stop to see what was going on.
I'm fortunate. I've discovered this year that happiness is unbelievably simple. All you have to do is stop whining about everything that sucks and make the best of things. The world really is a good place, most people simply choose to overlook all the beautiful things they're surrounded with, enveloped by, every time they walk out their door in the morning. It confuses me more than anything else why such a heavy portion of the population chooses to be so miserable. Happiness, really, is a choice. If you decide to be happy, then you're happy. Being happy makes the people around you happy. It's a chain thing. Pretty soon every one's happy. I can't grasp why people are so set on preventing the world from being the happy place it was built to be.
It's strange for me to think about all of this because suddenly, I'm reaching the end of my childhood. I'm going to be able to vote soon, and be charged with crimes in actual court and sign my own permission forms. In four days, I'll be legal, and in four months, I'll be on my own, and in four years, I'll be back in a cap and gown and waving goodbye to an education and hello to the looming uncertainty that is my writing career. It's weird to look at what I believe because I'm becoming who I am. I'm not growing anymore, this is me. Hello, world, welcome to my abode, I hope you can handle it. It's too late to say I'll write a novel one day, I need to write one now. I need to stand up for what I need to believe in now. I need to be a real person now.
It sounds really stupid when I say it this way, but I feel like life goes by really quickly, and everyone should just chill and do what makes them happy while they can.
I'm really happy, and I'm excited that I graduated and I'm going to college, and I'm sure that in a week or two I won't be scared of anything. It's just so strange to actually grow up.

I've been writing a lot lately, but not anything in particular. Essays, short stories, poems, even sporadic diary entries. It's been all over the place. I feel like writing right now, but I'm tired, so I'm going to try to get myself to focus on one project for a few hours. If I fall asleep though, tomorrow I'm not doing anything except maybe getting food with someone, so I'll hopefully be writing most of the day. I've been working a lot lately, and it's been hard to find time.

I hope everyone else sleeps well,
Alexandra.

P.S. Photo credit @ Stephanie N.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

dear everyone,

i'm alive.
i'll post something more in depth in the morning.
love,
high school graduate
(alexandra loch)