I believe.

There is something in my bones that tells me when something is or isn't right, and I only get the feeling every so often but when I do it always follows through. I look at someone or something and I know that things are or aren't going to end in my favor, and to be honest it's usually hell getting there one way or the other, but I'm almost always right on the mark.
This semester, however little of it has happened so far, has been strange. I've barely gone in to work, my apartment complex has been up in arms because of a recent tragedy, and friends are grieving and one of them is gone. Last Saturday I went to a birthday party and this Saturday I went to a funeral. Labor day and Richard's birthday are over now and the world will really start back up tomorrow.
I'm not really sure what point I'm trying to make to be honest. I think a lot of times I start off stories like that and end with some kind of moral, but I really don't have one this time. I guess I just need to type because, don't get me wrong, I've dealt with a lot of change over the years, but this time everything happened so fast and it's a little harder to think on my feet, you know?
Through all of this though, there are a few lights at the end of the tunnel, if you will. I can assure you, I'm sprinting towards them. This week has been exhausting and entirely too void of activity.
Now, just for fun, here is a stupid picture I took God knows when with photo booth. Note the classy ass beer can.

If anything has become distinctly apparent to me in the past three weeks, it is this: when I'm old and drinking a glass of whisky with my cereal when I wake up at three in the afternoon, and when I do book signings and other fancy things, I will most definitely have written something about my time in this particular apartment.

Love you,
Loch.

p.s. for the record, I am not dumb. This is for someone specific. You know who you are, and if you don't then you should.

stars in our eyes

Right now I am being super poetic and sitting in the upper level of an independent coffee house just off-campus, listening to indie music over the intercom and attempting to appear studious while I'm actually typing a blog about virtually nothing and working on my novel/project/baby, which, I think, is ultimately much more artsy and cool than reading the astronomy textbook I've been lugging around all day, yeah? Plus I have some time to kill before I really have anywhere to be.

The past two days have ultimately been very good, despite the fact that my phone is literally on it's death bed. It is falling apart, yay. But yesterday two homeless guys stopped me to tell me how pretty I was, and the newsroom was unusually chill and my managing editor complimented me on my stories, and today I slept until noon, bought two new rings and the guy at jamba juice gave me my smoothie half off because I applied for a job, then told me I was prob getting his job because he was quitting at the end of the month, so I am willing to overlook the fact that my sony ericsson is a kind of a piece of shiznittttt.

I am slowly becoming absorbed in my career again. I lost focus last semester but I'm back on track, and I remember now why I was the way that I was in high school. I've been jogging a lot lately, as well.

things that made me happy today-

not going to bio, then finding out it let out early anyways

good caramel macchiatos

good vanilla lattes

a good acai smoothie (that was half-off)

funny people who sold me those drinks

reading my book... on my nook

a "brass ovaries" pole dancing class flyer

seeing people I hadn't seen in a while

the new sushi place by my dorm

not reading my astronomy textbook

my phone surviving yet another day

the nice guy who sold me my rings

the ring I bought for my middle finger with the word "longhorn" engraved across it

replacing the turquoise ring I lost with a new one for my pinkie

friendly people

seeing a certain someones face on my list of followers

writing.

<------- Also, I'm a little confused. Why doesn't my dorm look like that?

Times New Roman is my favorite font,

love,

loch.

ps. post # 100, biatch!

I think she knows

This morning I woke up happy and in a ridiculous amount of pain. My head has never throbbed so thoroughly.
Things are beginning to clear up and I feel like I'm beginning to really, completely settle into my college life, which is great because I'm happier as of late than I can remember being in a while but unfortunate because in 8 days I'll be shipping off to a month in P-town to a different world and a different life and in many cases, a different Loch. It's an easy place to live so I'm kind of looking forward to it, and plenty of new friends I've made in Austin are people who are from Plano as well that I didn't know in high school so it's not as though I'm leaving completely, but some of the people here who are most important to me are suddenly going to be out of reach and I don't really know how that's going to work. I wish I could pack them in my suitcase and bring them with me to stay in my room and be there for me when I come home from a long day behind pizza counter, but frankly that's not how my life works, as desperately as I would like it to, so I'm curious to see if dynamics will change and, if so, how. 
College loch and P-town loch are the same person living in two different worlds.
Writing has been relatively interesting. The past few days have consisted of a lot of editing and expansion. Not really a lot to say about that, but it's going. 

I wish that when I sing love songs, dolphins would jump across my range of vision. My life should be a movie. I obviously did not take that picture.
P.S. I think I finally set up a four-five year plan. I am beyond excited.


I want to spend my life writing words that you will read,
please let me?
love,
loch.

don't wake me

I lied about posting that night and I'm sorry. November is always a weird month. 

My greatest fear is that I will lose more motivation, a quality which I was born with very little of. I possess even less self control, and lately I've been content, and that's the problem. Today was the first time I've written in a while, and I attribute it to that I was anxious. The past month or so has been by far the best since I got to school but there hasn't been real progress concerning writing and my timeline is getting out of wack. I'm spending too much money and I'm falling to vices faster than I realized I knew how, and I want all of these things and a novel too but I'm terrified that I can't have both. I'm probably worrying too much, the scariest thing is the idea that I won't be done when I wanted to be. Time goes too quickly.
I desperately want to be rereading Candide right now to reinforce the irony in my life, but I have two essays to write and  I left it in Plano because I decided only to bring books I hadn't read yet. Next year I'm going to live in an apartment and there will be a bookshelf in my room, all of my babies are coming with me. No exceptions.


Right now I like coffee and red bull, smoothies with infused energy drinks, staying up all night, sleeping in two hours late, editing old chapters, the Postal Service, Russell Edson, talking about Oscar Wilde, articles on the front page, layering, leisurely walks to class, the academia in the air as finals approach, clutter, old notebooks, moleskine, morning showers, the prospect of working at cici's over winter break, best friends, and this one business major who makes me kind of happy. 
I will always love you, I will always be your friend,
Loch.


p.s. Those pictures are not mine,
but they are what I want.

get sleazy

I find myself scrounging for as much time as I can possibly get in this basement.


There has been no time to write and I'm getting anxious, but I am by far more happy as of late than I have been in an extended period of time (ps. that sentence was awkwardly worded, yes?). I feel like I am finally really sinking my canines into college life. I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Also, I feel like I have to apologize for that more times than you deserve.
I really need to get back on track with this project. I'm not going to lie to you, it's been too long since I last wrote, like really wrote. I mean, obviously there's writing for the paper, but that kind of writing is an entirely different breed. You're typing but you're not really creating anything, you're just regurgitating facts so that the public can stay informed. Which is an obsession of mine, please don't misunderstand, but I do have creative juices that need to flow and lately I've had to put a stopper on them in order to focus on anything at all, which I don't like. I really need to work on time management and start blocking out space for this thing if I want to get it done on the schedule I had planned out. I have an eight page paper due at eight in the morning on thursday and I don't know when I'm finally going to get to sit down and release some of the stuff that's just floating around in my brain. My mental filing cabinets are slowly loosing space and I'm worried I might lose some of the material before I get the chance to get it down tangibly. 


For the past two days I have been blasting Ke$ha constantly and imagining a stream of glitter floating off of me as I walk to class. Someone in the newsroom stated half jokingly that one day we would all be homeless and drunk, and I want that life desperately, if only for the glamour of submitting freelance articles while sipping jack on the side of the road in ripped stockings and metallic hotpants. Please send me to the beach.


I adore everything that you stand for,
Loch.


ps. it has been brought to my attention that there may be some confusion, so I would like to clarify- I AM NOT NAKED IN THOSE PICTURES.
that is all.

out of all the hours

Hi hello.

Today two of my editors told me they hoped I got more sleep. I'm not really sure why? It was a little confusing.

I have been so busy since I posted on Thursday. I've gotten the most ridiculous amount of things to write and I haven't been able to because I've been working or spending time being social. Which isn't bad now that I look at it but I really just want to hole myself up in my room for hours to write, except for that I don't have time. I'm going to be busy for the next two days. I'm scared I'll lose everything in my head :(

I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing here, in college and in general. Sometimes I feel like I'm living a life like normal as a formality. I am looking for material when it comes down to it. I'm in college to work at the paper and I'm in life to discover new lies to be honest about.

The poem below has been edited. The dialogue below it will probably not make sense to you, but it's all I have time to write right now and I feel like it's important.

The honest truth is that no matter who you are,

I will love you regardless.

Love,

Loch.

An overdue message


Hello there.
We are diverse, intelligent, and focused.
We put aside differences.
Recognize that we shake things up
let that echo through the halls.


"So basically what you're telling me is that I have no reason in the world to trust you, but I should because if I don't then I'll trust someone else who I have no reason in the world to trust and then I'll die."
"Is it really that difficult to accept?"
"Yes? I'm not going with you. I'm not going with anyone, I'm going home. This is too much, I can't do it."
"You have to. You really don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice. There has to be one, this isn't real. I'm going to pinch myself and wake up, and you'll go back to wherever you came from and I'll be back with Kreed and away from you. I cannot express how desperately I want to be far, far away from you."
"Khole-"
"This isn't something that can work Derek. Like, I shouldn't have to explain this to you. I'm not doing it."
"Khole, don't be difficult. You and I both know that this is all that matters."

you can only say yes

Oh, hello. I'm sorry I've been gone for so long :(

This weekend was unexpected and will probably show up in what I write in multiple ways. I feel older than I did when I posted last. I found a few writing spots and cried more than I normally do. This weekend was so, so unexpected, but it was good.

What if you had done something differently? When I walk by people, I wonder, would you impact me if I gave you a chance? Because when you first meet people, they never seem important. When you met your best friend, I bet you didn't think wow, you and I are going to be ridiculously close one day and I'm going to march into your house for no reason and eat all your food without you getting mad at me sort of. Relationships can't be predicted. Imagine how many relationships you've passed up, the different lives you've inadvertently avoided by disregarding someone who you deemed unimportant. Why do things happen the way they do? It's such a strange phenomenon, when a bond forms, because there's really such a small chance that it will simply because our default expectation is to be acquaintances. No one goes out looking for a best friend or an enemy or a mentor or a lover, so isn't it strange that they manage to happen? And what if you had done something differently, who would you be now? What if I had done something differently?

I used to have a pretty good idea of who reads this but now it's much more vague, and some people who I didn't expect have told me that they follow it. When people talk to me about this blog it is literally the most flattering thing in the world. I love you so much if you are scanning these words. 

I need so desperately for everything to just stop right now so I can go somewhere alone and write with a pen and a pad of paper instead of typing virtual words. I want solid thoughts that I can scratch out with a pen and see and breathe and smell. I want time.

You are everything inside of me that I wish I could be,

Loch.

Ps. Here is a blackout poem I did in poetry today. I thought it would be a more interesting visual. It's a scan but I wrote out the text underneath in case it's difficult to read. Underneath it is the best picture I could find of the painting I did my ekphrastic poem on, and the poem beneath that. The online picture really doesn't do the painting justice, if you go to UT you should go by the Blanton and see it. It's in the modern art section, and I could stare at it for hours. The Dallas Chaos poem has been edited a little bit, but not as much as it needs to be, and the blackout poem has not been edited at all. The picture of Dallas Chaos II is not mine, the painting itself is done by Peter Dean.

(if you click on the picture, a larger version will show up that is easier to read.)

Berl feels

detatched and fatalistic

his life disintegrates. 

Giving freaks a pass is the oldest tradition in Montana,

and he is a blue ribbon, bull goose freak.

Berl's considered medical opinion is that

it will provide a comprehensible shape to his life.

He's the only one who can tell us that,

but I believe him.

Dallas Chaos II by Peter Dean

Dallas Chaos

It is sunny on a saturday. 

I am splayed out across the backseat 

hot leather on my back,

watching Dallas through the windows.

Sky scrapers, horrific traffic,

a city formed from grit and sweat

that makes the South

out of hospitality and smoke ridden skies.

We are out of the car and onto this knoll,

green and bright, unblocked

from the city, but somehow more still.

Here old women cried for a man they hadn't met,

and Jackie took the news that

shook Pennsylvania Avenue like meteors.

Conspiracies circle these skies like vultures,

and John cannot find peace while his name rests on our lips.

But chaos came from down the road,

the police station where a soul's explosion 

broke masks of flesh and bone and blood

revealing a face as ugly as

dogs like pigs that snarl and spit

masked police with hard blue eyes

and media who care for naught but

cold hard facts and hard evening news.

Ruby eyes pierce a soul that breaks

and the solar system circling his head

protects this man in glittered pants and pinstriped suit

who avenged a life and forgot his own.

We stroll sixth floors and grassy knolls,

museums that miss the blue of his beard.

The Ruby red that flooded skies when Oswald died,

Where has it gone?

you make me feel

I am in a really fabulous mood.


First off, halloweekend was far more exciting than my usual weekends because of events I will chose not to disclose for several reasons, the most dominant of which being "keeping it classy." Secondly, I get to cover the election today! Granted I'm covering the State Board of Education elections and not the governor elections or anything, but still. They trust me with election coverage :)
Yesterday night I got my computer and an Edgar Allan Poe collection and went to the library to write, but I ended up being so brain dead that writing turned into sitting in an arm chair staring at the computer screen for an hour, and in that hour I did some serious thinking. It occurred to me that my Plano and Austin lives go through cycles of converging and diverging based on relationships to one or two people that I've maintained back home, and right now I'm in a divergent cycle. I spent a while thinking about the expanding length of diverging sections and declining length of converging sections, and how eventually my Plano life won't be mine anymore, it'll be something I think about every once in a while when I look through high school yearbooks or do some intense facebook creeping. That reality is something that college is going to require me to break away from. Thinking about that is the only thing all day yesterday that put me in an icky mood.  It's really weird too because most of the people here who I hang out with are people who I went to high school with but didn't know at all in high school (which is plausible, my graduating class was 1300), but I can't classify them as part of my Plano life. Like, mentally I'm blocked from placing them in anything but the Austin category, even though when I go home I'll still be able to hang out with them. Weird? My Plano friends are an entirely different group of people.
I probably shouldn't be blogging right now since I'm supposed to be doing news things, hahh. Tonight will be interesting because I'm probably not getting home until midnight and I have a sociology test tomorrow that I have yet to study for. Yay!
I love you more than loch ness, kind of,
Loch.

is this allowed?

In case you were wondering, I ended up getting two hours of sleep after my last post. I've gotten more sleep since then though, so now I'm more coherent. yay!


I've been on a bit of an Oscar Wilde kick for the past couple of days. I had been rereading some parts of Dorian Gray and I wanted to read up on him, and I discovered the history of the Aesthetic movement in England in the second half of the 1800s. First off, Oscar Wilde would have been fun to go out to dinner with. Plus the Picture of Dorian Gray is brilliant, so there's that. You know, I think what I think is so incredible about Wilde is that he embodied the aesthetic movement so well that it effectively ended when he was jailed after being put on trail for sleeping with another man. His jailing basically caused the end of an entire social movement because he wasn't there anymore to keep fueling it. The Aesthetic philosophy is really provocative and it actually makes a lot of sense. It basically consists of the ideas that life should not be about rationality of decisions but rather maximizing the experience of one's own existence, and that art should not convey a message but provide as much pleasure and beauty as possible, and I'm not gonna lie, it's all pretty captivating. 

I obviously did not take those pictures.

I think I might just publish under the name Loch, instead of using Alexandra. It's easier and I find myself liking it more and more. I wrote last night (yayayayayayyy) and hopefully I will again tonight- I work today but I'm covered an afternoon event so I probably won't be in the newsroom for forever.
Also, this morning I decided for sure that I wanted to work at the LA times and live in Cali. Then this afternoon I covered a speech and walked away thinking about how I really definitely wanted to work as a journalist in India and cover the social justice movements that are happening there right now. What is going onnnnnnn


"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad: people are either charming or tedious."


LAHVE
loch.


ps i have a really hysterical joke. you think I'm being sarcastic but the best part is I'm not, i literally laughed for like three minutes without stopping after i heard this. are you ready? okay,
what's brown and sticky?




... IT'S A STICK


AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH omg. that's all.

rectify this

Oh herro there!
I didn't drink anything caffeinated today so I've been a little spacey. This morning was entirely disorienting- I set my alarm for 10 pm, as opposed to 10 am, apparently, and I woke up forty minutes late for class. I have too much to do before I go home this weekend, eckkhhh, and I'm trying to do a lot of it right now but I can't concentrateeeeeeee


Today I wrote a little bit, same with last night. No legitimate progress to report on, but the ball is indeed rolling, however slowley. I don't know how this tumblr thing is gonna go though, hahh. We'll see.


Earlier in poetry we had to compare ourselves to an object, and this is what I wrote-
I am a book. Upon immediate inspection, I am nothing but a weakly presented title page and a tough binding. At this point, many turn and leave. Few will discover how easily how I open up.
I will never go and find you myself but I will always welcome you with open arms. I am not prejudiced- I love everyone the same. Words are my purpose for being. I exsist solely for the purpose of revealing every facet and secret- the only catch is that you have to ask.
I am sorry that it's short/not a poem :(


I want desperately to be on the beach right now, I cannot even explain to you. I was looking at old pictures from a school trip and I just want my ridiculous hair back so I can throw it up in a bun and walk along the side of the water. I don't understand why I don't live there right now. oh em gee.


transport me,
or love me.
I will accept either.
lahve,
loch.

back yard block party

Back by popular demand ;)


I'm writing this as I sit in the West mall waiting for A) a Native American festival to be over so I can interview participants and B) a guy from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to call me back with some one I can interview. There's always so much waitinggg. It's a really nice day out, though. Maybe a little warm, but whatever, I live in Austin, and there's kind of a breeze and I'm in the shade so it doesn't really matter anyway.
I haven't blogged in a while. Or I guess, this is kind of a normal break between blogs? Because I blog a lot more than most people, but for me it seems like it's been weeks. It's probably actually been what, like four days? 

I've written an assload. Like, so much. I went back and did some edits on the revision of 3 that I started earlier in the semester, lengthened it and made it more readable (hahh) and while I've basically got the plot lined up in my cranium, I feel more comfortable if I can go back and look at it so I don't forget? So I've been trying to organize it in a document. Everythings really lengthened and I've added on a lot and things are started to move like legit. Like, more legit than they have in a while. This isn't me starting a novel, this is me writing one. legit legit legit.
Of course, it's clearly not yet Barnes&Noble material. But still.


I deleted a blog I wrote the other day and I regret it. I didn't save it anywhere, or else I would repost it. I'm sorry. :( I wasn't sure if it was something I should leave up, at the time.
I would post more poetry but I haven't had any assignments. This week is for our portfolio consultations, so I'll let you know how that goes. I edited the one from a few posts ago and it's better now, thank goodness. 
This weekend was fun! In case anyone was curious how that went. I made friends. Yay! I bought earrings made out of Polish coins and a ring made out of a nickel from Singapore. Legit. Too much so to quit, I would think. 


<3 @ all of you and every facet of your personality,
always,
loch.


ps. to the people who understand the picture- can we go back soon? I'm okay with the forest/plumbing. Sort of. But I liked the sleeping bags... ;)
Also, I feel like I already posted that picture somewhere in this blog, and I know it's already on Kay Elle's blog, but frankly, I'm running out of pictures. Everyone knows I'm not a photographer, let's be honest here.


pss. I wish I knew how to change the backround on this thing.


psss. I should start posting ps's in the actual text of the blog. <3

same old rock and repeat

Yesterday's post was generally confusing and I've basically gotten over it, mostly because I had this weird moment last night while I was sitting on the floor of my dorm room texting a friend from back home and I realized that it literally didn't matter at all, or if it did then it's for the better. Essentially what's happening is what I wanted to happen in the first place, so I'm going to go against my nature and chill out for once in my life and let things happen as they will. I'm sorry if I was a monster bitch to you at any point yesterday, I was in a really weird mood.
I don't really have a lot to say, but there's that. I've been listening to Shakira on repeat for basically the past twelve hours and I think I might be a little obsessed. That is a picture of what I desperately wish the weather was like. Come on Austin, you're getting there. I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt today and it's still a little chilly outside!


Writing is interesting at the moment. Characters are interesting. More on that later. I know I always say more later, but I swear I'm being sincere.
I'm reading this really good book called Let Me In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It's about some vampires but it's Swedish so I can forgive that.


I gotta go,  I should be making phone calls for some stories right now. I love you, I love everyone, I love you most.
always and forever,
loch.

walk a little farther to another plan

My roommate looked at me funny when I took that picture. I adore her, by the way. I should've been reading about a journalism scandal. Obviously, I wasn't.

Right now I'm sitting in the laundry room, pissed because some jerk decided tonight was the night to take up three of the four machines even though I need two of them, sippin on mountain dew/coffee (separately, of course), and trying to talk myself into writing a review I need to have done by tomorrow morning. I spent this weekend with one of my best friends (see picture two) at her school, which is like twenty minutes away, and it shed some light in unexpected places. I'm in a generally good mood right now. I think my biggest problem is that I haven't really been making decisions.

I was at the computer store this week and like the jobless idiot I am, I spent a trillion billion more dollars than I should have on script writing software, basically a super fancy version of word, which makes novel writing feel a lot more legit. Also, I found my think spot. I think things might be going alright again on the writing front. I think I was just taking the wrong approach.

You know what I really want to do? I want to live on a beach. I thought for a really long time that my dream house would be in a really woodsy area in a big secluded house on a lake with a lot of mountains and that kind of thing, and maybe one day that'll be what I want, but lately when I'm daydreaming it always seems to come back to the ocean. I don't know if it's the idea of being in the warmth all the time or the way the ocean looks but there's something about it that I'm feeling this weirdly intense attraction to right now. Maybe I'll splurge and go to graduate school in California. There are journalism jobs there, yeah?

I had a really bad dream last night, and I don't really want to go back to sleep. Good thing I have an assload of stuff to do that'll basically keep me up all night.

I promise you I love you with all of me,

Loch Loch Loch.

P.S. Loch is not my real last name, it's the name of the street I grew up on. That being said, yesterday I was told that to find out what your stripper name would be, you use the name of your first pet and then the street you grew up on. Wanna know what mine is? Rusty Loch. lol/fml.

the reality is i wrote this all for you.

Those pictures are of me. See how versatile I am! The chap stick is called Yes to Carrots, which is ironic because I hate carrots. :( but i don't have to freeze to death in my dorm, because I have a blue fuzzy thing! :D The glasses have no reasoning. Don't judge.

On another and less lighthearted note,

My poetry class is frustrating.

Not in a bad way necessarily, just in a way that I don't really want to deal with. See, the thing is, with prose, it's all a lie, or at least it comes off that way. No one expects you to write a novel about your life, or maybe they do, but it's so easy to mask things as complete bullshit so you don't have to deal with the reactions of the people who know you, or maybe the people who don't know you. I think that's what I love about it, because everything I write is completely honest, but a total lie, so I don't have to worry about anything. It's my fun little secret that I laugh about in the back of my mind. But today in class my professor listed emotions off and we had to write down memories we associated with them, and it was like these raw emotions ghosted back into my stomach. Everyone else wrote about stuff from wayyy back in their childhood, and everything coming to mind was in the past two years, and most of it was in the past month. The thing about poetry is that you can lie, but it's so concise that it's a lot more difficult. It's a lot harder to weave a good lie in just a few lines, and it seems like lately, I've been lying a lot more than I remembered doing. I guess there are some instances that I didn't realize I cared about, and it's strange to suddenly realize that I do.

I sat down to write last night and nothing came. Wish me luck for tonight.

Sorry my mood is all over the place in this one, hahh. I promise I'm in a good one, I'm just a little weirded out.

LOVE LOVE LOVE I LOVE YOU :)

-Loch

p.s. you can tell me anything. I want you to tell me everything. I hope you know who you are.

please tell me that you're alright.

I'm starting this post before I go get free drinks for some friends at my job, but they're coming to get me soon so I probably won't finish it until after my shift. I wanted to let you guys know that I think the ball might be rolling again, maybe.
Last night I was lying in bed, trying desperately to STOP thinking about why I was so bothered and START thinking of little sheep to count, when suddenly something hit me, and I rolled over and wrote for a good ten minutes, and frankly, it was not at all what I was expecting. I mean, I knew an epiphany would come around one way or another, but I was pretty much channeling the lovechild of Edgar Allen Poe and Shel Silverstein. Fuhreaky. But maybe it'll go somewhere. Poetrys been happening a lot lately? And I hadn't realized until the other night when I was explaining it to someone, and I was like, oh. I haven't written a lot of prose in a while. But I'm taking a poetry class first semester, so maybe this is a good thing?
PS, I move on the 21st. I quit work in ten days. :( but soon I'll be in college! :D

I lied, I'm not finishing this post until right now. Which is the next day, by the way. This girl from work I've bonded with super quickly spent the night at my house last night and we basically laughed hysterically for hours on end. Today I cut allllll of my hair off. And by all I mean over ten inches. The before and after pictures are above. Guess which one is which!
This has been the craziest summer of my life. If I'm doing everything else, I guess I might as well do my hair.
So much love, I'll come back later, I swear. I'm preoccupied. LOVE LOVE LOVE always,
Loch.

P.S. exactly two weeks until I'm officially living the dorm life.

this could be beautiful.

Writing is really all over the place right now. I'm sorry I haven't been posting, but for a few reasons in particular, my ability to type anything worth reading has been comparable to a roller coaster as of late. If things are going the way I think they are after tonight, then that should clear up soon, I hope.

There's only one thing I really have to talk about right now, and normally I would wait until I'd collected a few other tidbits before I rant about it, but lately I'm feeling like this is becoming more and more prevalent in my life.
Friendship should be easy. Friendship should not be a chore, or something you have to wake up every morning and tend to. It should blossom on it's own, and it should not need help growing. Unfortunately, I feel like too many of us are placing too many rules on something that should be effortless. Too many people are riddling their friendships with unnecessary obligations.
If you want friends, chill. The best friendships are easy ones. That's all I'm sayin, yo.

I lied, I have one more thing. It's short though.
My entire personality is made up of an interesting assortment of flaws, but the one that probably gets me into the most trouble while getting me what I want the quickest is my general lack of self control. I have almost none. If I want to do something, there is a 99% chance I'll do it.
That seems to be coming up in conversation more frequently lately, and what I'll say is this: I get that sometimes it makes my life a lot harder. But there are situations in which I honestly can't understand people who would stop themselves from doing what they want. I understand that it gets me into trouble and it does make some situations sticky, but the amount of times it's ultimately gotten me what I want make up for that tenfold. I think everyone should just do what they want.

I hope you all have a goodnight. Hopefully I'll be back soon. Much love, yeah?
-Loch

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

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.

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 :) :)

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.