!! foul language used here !!

WARNING: This post contains a LOT of serious and not-so-serious language. Beware! Not only is the language used herein completely stupid, some of it is also harmful for minors and/or people who have somehow miraculously never been exposed to swearing.

Also, prepare for a lot of headdesk moments. Just sayin'.

Alright, folks. Being an English major, this sort of post was bound to happen sometime. People do not know how to use the English language (or probably any language, based on how they use their OWN language) correctly! This is obvious not only to those who study language, but to anyone whose brain isn't rotting.

All of these examples are real examples. Things I've learned, seen and/or heard. If you don't understand what's wrong with them...I deny that I ever knew you.

• When I worked at Cinemark in Ogden, I worked with a girl that swore like nothing I had ever seen or heard before. The curses didn't make sense (they rarely do). One night, we were cleaning up the concessions area. She was counting pickles, and said, "Fucking pickles." I had enough. I looked at her and said, "Really? That'll be the day." She had to think about what she had said, and she didn't swear so much around me after that. Or at least, she no longer claimed she was going to do nasty things to inanimate objects.
• "There are four hurdles Dale Brown everyone will encounter in life." That right there is the first sentence on the biggest front page story of The Utah Statesman in the September 26, 2011, issue. I'm assuming that the words "Dale Brown" were not supposed to be where they were (or maybe "says" should be after "Dale Brown"?), but the thing is, that's just sad that a published article on the front page of a university newspaper was so badly messed up.
• "...and then their sending him checks in large amounts." Yet another front page article in the Statesman. It was in the September 23, 2011, issue, which is the publication right before the one the above mess-up is in. They didn't even correct the mistakes later on their website. Where are the editors?!
• My friends, a deadly epidemic has infected all of us. Like. Like. Like. Like. Like. Like. Like....it, like, never goes away. Like, really? Like, are you, like, serious? Like, why have you, like, done this? I, like, never asked for my ears to, like, bleed from the way you, like, constantly say like. Like, come on. Are you, like, really that stupid? I am not exaggerating the excessive use of "like." It's a bit more obvious that "like" is there when you're reading, but most people don't realize how often they say "like." They say "like" more often than rappers swear. And that's just pathetic.
• I understand that we all have different accents. But pronunciation exists in ALL accents. For example, "spiritual" is never, EVER, supposed to be pronounced as "spirichal." And no, there is no such thing as a preppy cheerleader accent. That's just...stupidity, right there. Anyway. I noticed this mockery of speech multiple times on Sunday in church. This person never pronounced "spiritUal" correctly.
• Mountain. About. Bountiful. That....what do you notice about all these words? That's correct, class. They all have the letter "T". But you wouldn't know that, because they're usually pronounced as, "Moun-ain. Abou-. Boun-iful. Tha-. The missing "T' is just an empty space. There's room for it to be there, of course. You'll notice that the throat stops and closes around the sound. I don't know where it goes when it disappears. It's just so tragic that so few people let their "T"s be heard.
• Let's have a test real quick. How many problems are there in the following quote, and what are the problems? "I read good. Me and my brother always have reading contests when we where, like, 4 or 5. Its funny, I always one. He's such a pore loser. I guess hes just inable to cope when he looses his pride. I like stamping out his eggo." You guys would be shocked how often these mistakes appear. It's just so pathetic.
• Your. You're. Their. There. They're. Its. It's. Lose. Loose. Sole. Soul. Through. Throw. Chose. Choose. To. Too. Two. These poor, poor words are so sick of being confused with their corresponding look-alike(s) and sound-alike(s). These words are individual words, everyone. They want to be recognized for what they really are and what they really mean. Why will no one take the time to learn what they are individually? It's just not fair.
• You all might be wondering what the big deal is. Well let me tell you something...this is a huge issue around the world and across time. A man was executed because a judge accidentally left off a REALLY important word in a letter to the jury. This is life and death, folks. Life. And. Death. If you don't believe me, look up the Lodi-News Sentinel from March of 1991.
• Sadly, even smart people who work with language for a living make mistakes. In dictionaries. That's right. A word was completely made up in Webster's Third New International Dictionary. "Dord" was considered a word for eight years.
• Chilean money had "Chile" spelled wrong. This was no joke. People actually used these coins, and they said "Chiie". How does that happen? How did NO ONE catch that?? It took 10 months for anyone to catch on!!
• And now, just to really shock everyone...one translation of the Bible accidentally left out a rather important word. One of the ten commandments left out the word "not", which made everyone believe they needed to be committing adultery. Though some people undoubtedly found this enjoyable, I think we can all agree that that was just...wrong.

This is bad, my friends. Do what you can to fight and win this war. Scholars estimate that it will take 10 years or less for the "Post-Literary Mind Age" to begin. People don't know how to read anymore, and no one seems able to speak correctly. Do you want your children only able to communicate in LOL's and JK's and ATM's and G2G's and BRB's? Something must be done. Teach people to read, write, and speak! This is important. And yes, I know everyone makes mistakes. Typos exist, and they're not always sins. But nowadays, speaking correctly sounds like a mistake. Using proper grammer sounds weird. And that's just awful.

Things I Wish I Said

We all have things like this, I know. Here are some of mine...

Situation 1

Receptionist: "Sorry about that phone call, how can I help you today?"

Me: "Oh it's alright, I could tell that you ordering flowers for your boyfriend on your two-week anniversary was important enough to make me stand here awkwardly for 15 minutes. Now, I am in the Emergency Room today because..."

Situation 2:

**smack smack chew chew slurp slurp**

Guest: "Thanks for that food! It was delicious!"

Me: "Oh it was no trouble at all. Next time though, I will be sure to get food that won't bite you back, because I'm quite certain that a civilized person like yourself couldn't possibly make such noises while eating...whereas the cow that the steak came from made noises like that all the time."

Situation 3:

*yelling*

Party Host: "Hey, the music isn't too loud, right?"

Me: "Of course not! It couldn't be too loud if you're screaming to make yourself heard. I'm just SO glad my voice will be gone tomorrow!"

Situation 4:

Injured Person: "Are you insane??"

Me: "If you're asking that because I just hit you over the head with a racket, then no. You were being an idiot and I was saving you from yourself. Otherwise...yeah, probably."

Situation 5:

Receptionist: "The wait is about three hours. Is that alright?"

Me: "Of course that's okay! I only came to the doctor's office today to relax for a while...I mean, I didn't really schedule an appointment that's supposed to start in five minute."

Situation 6:

**climbing into a hot car on a really hot day**

My Mom: "I have to make an important phone call."

Me: "For what?"

Mom: "A hair cut."

Me: "You do know that doesn't really qualify as important, right? Important would be calling 911 after one of us dies from heat exhaustion since you closed the car door to make a phone call for a beauty appointment."

Situation 7:

**Wendy and I in the truck, watching muscular shirtless man running**

Wendy: "Whoa."

Me: "Yeah. Too bad we don't have candy. He'd come in here."

Wendy: "He is so attractive. Everyone's honking at him, too. Oh man."

Me: "Actually, the light's green."

Wendy: "...Oh."

Untitled

I know no one reads these anyway, so I'm not really afraid to post what I'm thinking up here. I didn't create this blog to impress people; I'm not trying to get a lot of readers. The blog is for me, not anyone else. So I'll post what I feel like posting, because I already know that no one but me will read it.

I can't stand how much I'm deteriorating. I can't stand how useless and dead I've become. I've had to quit school because my brain doesn't work...I couldn't get anything out of classes, and attempting to do homework didn't go well either. I couldn't think well enough to do anything, and it just put me into a state of ridiculousness. One night I just gripped a knife for more than an hour and fought with my brain, pleading with the voices in my head to just let my skin be. So yeah, I quit school. I couldn't do it anymore. I wasn't just trying to be lazy; I just can't do it. And I hate that it's become this now.

Work is a joke; I love my job but even without school I can't do it. If I manage to stay for four hours it's a miracle. I'm supposed to get 20 hours a week but lately I've just been getting 15, and only barely. I know I won't be able to keep my job for long, with the way things are going, and since I had to quit school and have to pay back loans starting immediately, the whole about-to-be-jobless thing is not good. Not that it would be good anyway, but y'know.

I'm in a handbell choir up here and even that isn't easy for me. I love the music but I always leave handbell in the midst of a panic attack and I'm just exhausted after trying to hide how incredibly screwed up I am. I know the people that pay attention probably notice that something's wrong, but I also know that I've hidden basically all of it from them. They have no idea what's going on in my head; none of them. A few might know bits and pieces but they don't know...they don't know.

Is there any other aspect in my life? Well I have these books that I'm writing...or rather, that I want to be writing. I'll get bits down after a while but it's hard, it's hard for me to sit down and do it. These books that I want to write....they kept me going a while, just having the idea and everything, but now they just make me angry, because I can't even write them.

And people ask what I'm doing to get help, why have I given up, why am I not trying anymore...but they don't know, they don't have any idea how hard I've tried. They can't see that I really am *still* trying. Over ten years of trying to get better and now here I am, completely useless and spent. My depression has been worse, my psychosis has been worse...this isn't the worst I've been as far as that goes, and yet here I am totally incapable of doing anything, of doing anything productive or worthwhile. I can't. I just can't. When I was younger and very dangerously (to myself) psychotic and depressed, I still managed to get A's in school, I still functioned. And now I'm just nothing. And I hate that. I hate being nothing. I hate not being able to do anything useful. And I try, I do try. People can't see that I do, people can't tell that I'm trying, and so they blame me.

No doctor can take me that might be able to help me; and the doctors that try to help me don't know how to make me better.

The therapist I have...had...stopped trying to counsel me about my illness. The last few sessions we spent the hour discussing possible ways of me getting in to see someone else, because my therapist and no one else in his office knows what to do.

Medications are a joke and not worth trying, because none of them work.

Last-resort treatments ultimately didn't work, and just ended up being a waste of money.

And people say to just keep going, just keep trying...what more can I do? You tell me what avenue to try next and I'll try it. But I don't see any other options. I mean, if you had tried EVERYTHING I have tried, would still keep trying to find an answer? Would you? This illness I'm fighting is designed to make you give up, be sure to keep that in mind. And when every shred of evidence points to "there's nothing anyone can do to help you"....what am I supposed to do?

In the past I've said, "well I'm not giving up--what's there to do when you give up?" I still hold by that....what IS there to do once you've given up? Nothing. There's nothing. And that's no different from what's happening now. Have I given up? Not by choice. I suppose that doesn't make sense, it can't make sense for someone who has never gone through something like this. But I literally can NOT do anything. I can NOT function. Telling me that I'm not trying hard enough is just the same as telling a paralyzed person that he/she is not trying hard enough to walk. I can NOT do it. I didn't choose to have this happen; I didn't choose to drop out of school. It wasn't a matter of choice. I just couldn't do it anymore.

And by the way, no decent person would tell a paralyzed person that they weren't trying hard enough to walk and it's their fault they're in that wheelchair. So stop telling me that I've just given up and that I should keep trying to do things that are impossible for me right now.

I know I'm blaming everyone else right now. I do have that anger and I’m obviously not hiding anything; like I said, no one reads the shit I put up anyway so it’s pointless to edit myself for the sake of others.

But not all of my anger is toward other people. Most of it is just toward myself. I can’t help but think how enormously similar my situation is to someone else’s. Someone I abandoned. My ex-husband. I am not the only one who has made that connection. My mother has told me, “you’re doing what Asher did” “you’re acting just like Asher right now”. Thanks for that, mother. I really needed you to point that out to me, because that obviously is going to help me feel better about myself.

And yet, she’s right. There are a lot of similarities. Asher dropped out of school. Asher sat on his ass all day and did absolutely nothing. Asher didn’t sleep. He stayed up endlessly to distract himself. He didn’t take care of himself. He didn’t clean up anything…

And I’m doing all of that. And I hate it.

I hate it for many reasons. One, I of course don’t want to be like Asher. No one ever wants to be like their ex-spouses, ‘cause there’s a reason they left them. I left Asher because he did nothing and he didn’t try to get better. And here I am, doing nothing, and past options to even be trying anything to get better.

Another reason I hate it…I feel really hypocritical right now. I left him and blamed him for not doing anything. I left him for things he did and didn’t do and now I’m exactly the same way. How dare I do that? And to go along with this…why should I expect anyone to stick around with me? Not romantically of course; I’m not looking for anything romantic right now anyway. But I mean in general. No one would want to, and honestly, no one should have to. I’m completely useless. Is it my choice to be that way? No, of course not. But that doesn’t change that that’s the way it is.

How dare I leave Asher when I’m no better?

I’m not going to go back to him or anything, of course. That would be stupid, and I don’t love Asher anyway. But I still feel bad that I left him and have just become a lot of the things that I hated.

Part of me wants to believe that we’re different, though. Part of me wants to say, but I did try, I did. There’s just nothing left. Asher didn’t try anything to help him. He tried two different therapists and just stopped after that. He didn’t try. I’ve been trying for years. But really that doesn’t change anything for me. I gave up on him. I feel like it was the right thing to do, but I’m angry because now I really see that what it’s like to look at someone like me, and feel obligated to stay around when inside you hate all of it. There were so many days while I was with Asher that I just felt like I kept dying, over and over and over again, because of how he hurt me by his actions and by his inaction. And now I’m like him. I’m not transgender or anything like that, of course, but I’m just a useless piece of shit, sitting here completely unable of doing anything.

And I hate it.

I don’t want to be a bother to anyone but I can’t stand to be alone, either. It isn’t right that I should be that way. If I’m going to cause people pain, I shouldn’t try to be in their company. But I hate being alone. I hate being isolated and….and cold. I feel cold inside, totally by myself in a wasteland of ice where I can’t move and can’t get out and…and I just want to be okay again. I want to function again. I want….I want to NOT be me. I don’t want to change into someone else; I want to have never been this person I am right now. So sick and wasted. And rotten. My brain is rotted and diseased and no one knows how to help me, and those that can or might help won’t.

I can feel things slipping. The few things I’m trying so hard to hold onto are just leaving, slipping bit by bit. I don’t know if it’s them or if it’s me but I can’t hold on to anything any more and I’m scared. I’m just so scared. I’m terrified all the time, but I mainly just try to hide it behind a scowl or a frown so that no one sees how horrified I am, so they don’t try to take advantage of it. People do that, people take advantage of ignorance and weakness and fear and they never let you go. Even the people I thought no longer have control over me….they do, they do have control over me whether they think they do or not. I’m so sick and I’m so scared and I just want to be better.

I just want to be happy, happy for more than 3 weeks ever in my life. And I want the happiness to be real and deep, not shallow. I want to not always be afraid that I will never be happy again.

I want to heal.

I want to be better. I want to not be afraid to sleep. I want to be able to honestly think of sleep as a kind of rest instead of another form of blackness. Complete darkness is all there ever is, it surrounds me and chokes me. It’s all I breathe, and my lungs are tired of bearing the weight of the darkness. I’m suffocating and no one can help.

Can I please just be happy? And at peace? Without being worried that it’s just going to all go away? Please? Please?

Can no one make me better? Maybe not even healed. I’ll take not healed. I just want to be better. I want to breathe. And I want to live. I want to be able to do more than just survive. I want to do more than just crawl along. I want to be able to walk and run and not be afraid that I’ll never see light again.

I just want to be BETTER.

Please?

who would have EVER thought that was a good idea??

"I have an idea! Let's get a huge group of loud, rowdy young adults and put them in a small space. A good deal of them will probably be intoxicated by some illegal substance. Then, we'll turn on really loud music and force them to jump and scream. Several of these young adults will lose their voices, and they'll all end up injured in some form or another. Let's make it so that they crowd each other so that they can't move for most of the time. And to make it more confusing, we'll add flashing lights so that they can't really see what's going on around them. We'll block off certain areas so that they're confined to a pit of noise and claustrophobia." "That's bloody brilliant. What shall we call this new torture method?" "Oh no, no; my dear idiot, it's a form of entertainment." O_o

Really. I think that's how that went down. The idea of it is absurd. And yet...it works out, for the majority of people without anxiety disorders.

So I went to a paint dance tonight. It was an educational experience. In my defense, I'm really rather ignorance (not much of a defense, I know) so I didn't know I'd be going into a mosh...mosch....moch...mochs...masdjlk;afskl;f;....we'll just say mosh, that makes sense...I didn't know I'd be going into a mosh pit. By the time I realized what it was and how bad it would be it was quite impossible to get out. I didn't really try in any case, because I wanted to show myself I could do it. I wanted to actually work through my anxiety; I'm getting tired of running away from it (though obviously I still do that for the most part). Overall the idea wasn't a good one; it was horribly timed...I've been physically sick all day (I feel absolutely awful now, especially since I was soaked from the paint) and I've been having a lot of trouble with my anxiety lately. But oddly enough, I feel like I've accomplished something. I've finally nearly been trampled to death. It's about time I got some real-life experience under my belt.

Ahem.

We (Wendy, Tyler, Emily, and I) were all together at first, but of course we all got split up. I eventually found Emily again and we managed to stick together for a bit, but then I lost her again. I was okay for a minute or two but I started to panic. The bodies were all up against me and I could not move. I also couldn't help but think of how incredibly easy it would be for someone to kill us all in an instant...bombs, poisonous gas, poison in the paint that was falling mysteriously from the air...(I've been reading some violent books lately). I thought it couldn't get worse and I just wanted to be able to have some personal space again, when suddenly some of the pressure from everyone else's bodies went away. I was relieved until I lost my balance and (since everyone was NOT holding me up anymore) fell to the ground.

Overall, no bueno. I would've started panicking if I wasn't in the middle of a panic attack already. No one could see me, and everyone was jumping up and down. Not. Good. The good part was I wasn't flat on my back. I managed to get my arm up and started hitting (it started as a tapping but that didn't do anything) someone's back. He either didn't notice or didn't care...then someone saw or felt my hand and was like "there's someone down there!" and he got me up. Phew.

Pretty soon I found Wendy again and we stuck together for a good long while. I was holding on to her. She had to scream at me to please not rip her shirt (for the record, her shirt is fine...not counting the paint stains. Which were not my fault). Anyway. We both lost our shoes. It kinda became, "do we want our shoes, or do we want to live?" Our shoes are gone and we're still alive.

When they started moving people above the crowd I really wished I was shorter, as my neck was being forced into VERY uncomfortable angles.

Eventually I had to lose Wendy again. I couldn't keep track of her without holding onto her, and everyone was pushing so hard I'm pretty sure my arm would have broken if I hadn't let go. So I let go, and my arm isn't broken.

Obviously I got out, and I survived. My anxiety is actually not too awful right now. I was pretty sure I'd be toast after that, but as I said, I'm feeling like I achieved something. I have bruises and I'm in pain, but hey, not too much anxiety.

Wendy, on the other hand, probably has a broken foot. We're going to go get it checked out tomorrow. She couldn't even stand the pressure of the water from the shower being on her foot. I hope she's okay.

***Side note: I think it'd be awesome if someone put some lead in the paint that they shoot out over everyone. A lot of people get it in their mouths because they're screaming. I'd enjoy watching everyone high by the end of the party. Imagine the news reports that would bring up. Hahahah. Anyway, continuing on...***

We all looked pretty gross after the paint dance. But I don't mind. I'm just glad we survived. It was okay, but certainly not my kind of thing. I just can't help but wonder who thought that would ever be a good idea in the first place.

Truths in the Fairy Circle

A snippet from the scene in the Fairy Circle, after Sunfrost has just learned why flowers had tried to trap him earlier in the book...obviously there are things that won't make sense, with this being in the middle, but it brings up interesting points...

Sunfrost realized his mouth was wide open in astonishment. He shut it quickly and looked at Reck.

“I didn’t know that…” Sunfrost began.

“That’s the point of this place, Mr. Gnome,” Reck cut off Sunfrost again. “It’s in the form of a circle for a reason, though most people think it’s only for fairy tricks and spells. You can trust that a circle, to stay a circle, will never bend, will never have a tricky corner to pass. A circle has to stay perfectly round or it is not a circle. The truth always is the truth or it is a lie.”

Sunfrost refrained from pointing out that that was one of the most obvious things in the world, knowing that Reck would simply cut him off again.

“So now you know why the plants surrounded you,” Reck continued. “They need you, Mr. Gnome. And so does the rest of Kripen.”

Sunfrost nodded, and then frowned. “If this circle represents truth and it isn’t dangerous and such, why are there tea-cup fairies around here trying to hurt creatures?”

Reck laughed heartily. “The tea-cup fairies are not in the circle, Mr. Gnome. They can’t stand the truth.” Reck shook his head and grinned slyly.

Sunfrost waited for the fairy to say more, but, to the gnome’s great astonishment, he did not.

“What else does the fairy circle do?” Sunfrost asked, amazed that he had actually been able to ask two questions without being interrupted.

“Most creatures come in for fun,” Reck said. “Some come inside to see what you saw, of a sort. Many creatures do not understand why they go through things that they do; why they struggle, and so on. To us, the Circle Fairies, everything is simple to understand. We help the creatures see those things. Some of the creatures don’t like the reasons behind their hardships, and they let themselves be captured by the tea-cup fairies when they leave the Circle. Some even become tea-cup fairies to prevent creatures from going inside of the circle.”

“So I could understand all of my struggles?” Sunfrost rushed to ask.

“No; not necessarily,” Reck frowned. “Just certain purposes behind them. For example, you just saw why the foliage guarding the Dragon's resting place surrounded you and tried to catch you. You now understand why they did that, but you don’t understand the main part of the struggle.”

“How could I understand all…” Sunfrost was quickly cut off. Generally this would have bothered him, but the gnome had been a bit concerned about Reck’s sudden loss of rudeness.

“That isn’t the right question, Mr. Gnome,” Reck said hastily. “The question for most creatures is why should I understand? Most creatures have the capability to understand, they just would rather not face it.”

Reck furrowed his brow in thought, and then looked around him. Sunfrost looked away from the fairy, slightly surprised at the pain on the fairy’s face. The Garden sure was gorgeous that day. The creatures all seemed so happy, or at least as joyful as they could be given their different circumstances. The Bell Fairies rang their bells, and Sunfrost could only imagine Sinefill complaining to Aurin about the atrocious noise those blasted fairies made. Sunfrost smiled as baby gnomes piled out of their mint-leave houses; and he laughed when he saw two-year-old male dwarves cry in dismay as they saw that they were beginning to grow beards. He turned when he heard Reck laughing behind him.

“Ah, yes,” the fairy smiled. “It is quite funny, isn’t it? Almost as funny as a gnome running from a trembling daffodil!”

Sunfrost glared at Reck until the fairy stopped laughing. “I’m sorry, Sunfrost,” Reck shrugged. “If it had been anyone but you, and if you did not realize what your thoughts were at the time, would you have laughed to have seen you running away from flowers?”

Sunfrost frowned, not exactly desiring to admit to the fairy that he was right.

“Those dwarves don’t understand that all dwarves have beards!” Reck smiled. “They are simply horrified that they are only two years old and they are growing hair on their faces. None of the gnomes or fairies grow them at so young an age!”

The Tree

The tree branches stooped,

Tired of bearing the strain

Of weight and time and bark and leaf,

Of snow and wind and rain.

Many found it intriguing to behold

But none would dare come near;

For who would care for such a tree

That hunched in hopeless fear?

“A beauty indeed, I would say.”

“But look at the falling leaves!”

“It would take too much work

To protect it from each breeze.”

The tree heard these things

And tried to stand up straight,

But all could see the difference

‘Tween it and its fellows’ gait.

The tree could not pretend for long

And soon again was bent;

Many looked with hateful scowls

While all its leaves were rent.

But people didn’t know about

The strain upon the tree,

For it had been through many storms

That never should have to be.

Oh, to see it when it was strong –

‘Twas a grand and hopeful tree,

But now it must often weep

And that’s all that people see.

“I’d hate to pick up all those leaves,”

Is all anyone would say.

And the tree would weep all the more

While people walked away.