Wonderless.

I. I need more life experience, I think.

II. I put a finger through the new hole I found in my jeans. There's still blood spatter on it (the finger, not the hole) from when I picked at my lips until I drew red. 

III. This morning the stitches loosened on my denim shirt and I don't remember where I put the button that came off. 

IV. God. His voice? I can't remember. I haven't heard it in two years, three months, three weeks, and a day. Not in person, and not in my head, because I've forgotten what he even sounds like, and I deleted his stupid carousel song a long time ago.

I'm doomed to know what date it was the last time I saw him only because it was a funeral. The truth is I've stopped counting the days. 

V. My favorite way to wallow is to lie very, very still in bed with the lights off and watch the colors change on the ceiling, mirroring the skies outside, their warm hues slowing turning cold. 

VI. Is there anything more passive than waiting? I'd certainly like to know. 

VII. Consciousness is hard.

VIII. Last week I remembered being thirteen and reading the personal, rambling entries William Beckett would post on his blog while on the road promoting Fast Times at Barrington High. I remembered when he posted the lyrics to “The Test” and “After the Last Midtown Show,” not knowing at the time how much they would shape the way I'd walk the earth. 

He was twenty-three and full of poetry. I was transfixed. 

I remembered it, seven years later, only realizing then how utterly young he was. At thirteen, twenty-three seems like forever. At twenty? Not so much. 

Let me start this post off with an indignant proclamation—nay—vow:

I 

will 

never, 

ever, 

ever 

teach.

God, that felt good. Okay.

Long ago I decided that teaching as a career is not for me. It's a noble profession, sure, and I have a lot of respect for it. But it's just not who I am—I don't like crowded rooms, I don't like public speaking, I don't like routine, I'm not even a scholarly type of person. I'm a bad student! Most of all, I just don't like it. Thinking of doing it makes me want to pull my hair out.

"Okay, okay," you're saying. "We get it. What's your point?"

My point is, my parents won't stop forcing it upon me. When I was looking for jobs this summer my mom kept suggesting being an online English tutor to ESL students. They keep bringing up some friend-of-a-friend's kid who's in Korea doing the same thing, but in a classroom. And tonight, during dinner, my mom turned to me and said, "Your aunt is asking when you're gonna be graduating." I waited for her to continue, hopeful and intrigued. "Because apparently there's a high demand for English teachers..."

I tuned her out. Closed my eyes. I've had enough of this.

It's a stepping stone, they say. If I wanted to work overseas, I needed to compromise. I had to start somewhere.

Yeah, I know that. Trust me, I do. But taking some dead-end job is not it. My dream isn't even specifically to work in a foreign city. I just want to write. (And open that independent press! It took me years to come to this epiphany, and I've never been more determined and excited about anything. It's my be-all and end-all.) If I want a career in publishing, then I'll start at the bottom of that chain and work my way up.

I've told them time and time again that if I can't make it work doing what I love, then I'll find my own way around it and take other jobs I can actually see myself in. Fuck it, I'll even work in a bookstore making minimum wage if I have to. But first I have to believe that I'll make a spectacular landing where I'm supposed to be, because I'm good at it and because I have a chance. Because I didn't go through five years of UP education to wind up behind a desk with a mediocre monotonous non-career.

Hey, I'm a millennial. Being idealistic despite the heavy dose of good, old-fashioned hand-me-down Gen X realism ingrained in my veins is my birthright.

I understand that they had to sacrifice a lot in order to be where they are now, and sometimes life took a different route and made their choices for them, and I appreciate that. It just doesn't mean that I have to go through the same process. It's just frustrating and dispiriting, is all.

Support me, I want to tell them. Know me. Believe in me.    

It's scary how easy it is to fall into a dull, bleak existence that you never even asked for. To take that dead-end job to begin a journey you hope would go somewhere, only to have it lead nowhere and never get to leave. You'd make a living. But you wouldn't be living.

I remember being in third grade and telling Mrs. Gonzales that I wanted to be "an author." She scowled at me. "'Author' is not a job, it's a title," she said snippily. "You want to be a writer."

Last week I went on Blogger and, on impulse, started constructing a new blog. I got really into it; I was engrossed for hours. I still don’t know why I did it, but I had so much fun, and it was so easy, I decided to run with it. I adore how photo-friendly it is (unlike text posts on here) and how clean it looks. Formatting’s a dream, too. 

I don’t think I can part with this, my tl;dr haven of four (!) years, though. So I decided to just keep posting regularly on here, as well, because why not? (Plus, I’ve kind of built a ~*readership*~ even though it’s not much and I hate goodbyes!) I’m still not quite sure how it’ll work--maybe some posts will be exclusive to each blog and others will be put up on both of them. The important thing is, I’m doing it for me. And for creativity. And for fun. And for narcissistic posterity. 

You can check out automatic eyes here.  

These are some of the places in which I (sort of) successfully avoided crying this week: The back of a cab, the middle seat of an Ikot jeep, a staircase in the National Institute of Geological Sciences, a restaurant when I heard a little girl say “Daddy,” a bus stop, the street outside my house, and a food court in a busy mall.

Everywhere I go, people are gathered, enveloping me without

touching,

the way water does to oil. I am discarded lighter fluid. I am barely here.

Because I am a cliche-- (because I am human)-- I fall into telltale patterns: Giving away belongings I once considered honorary body parts, blank stares, Keaton Henson, and scatterbrained bedside writing. Bookmarks live between pages on the shelf my father built me when all I knew was tragedy in fiction, and here they all quietly gather dust.

My mother asked me the other day if I was carrying a certain dysphoria; unbeknownst to her, I had been wearing it like a Girl Scouts badge, letting it spill onto touchscreen keys, into journals, onto   blog posts and halfhearted text messages, none of which she’ll ever see. She noticed, anyway, as mothers do, but I couldn’t tell her any of it, couldn’t let her protect me, as it’s out of her hands, moreso mine.

(This breaks my heart the most.)

everything is so small on television. it’s redundant to point out, but i noticed that today. during lunchtime news they reported that many, many people linked bodies to break a record for largest vertical formation. they jumped out of seven airplanes, came together, broke apart, and survived. they must feel absolutely monumental.

I’ve stopped checking emails. Or wishing people a happy birthday.

I hate taking a nap in the late afternoon because I always wake up in the dark.

You know it’s bad when music has become a nervous nuisance instead of a positive distraction.

I’m never eating cheeseburgers on an empty stomach and a broken heart again.

My iPad charger has gone to shit once more. I keep forgetting to buy a new cord. Now I do all my writing and reading on my phone, and it’s not that comfortable. Also, I miss my podcasts. 

I need to stop picking at my skin.

I can’t remember the last time I had a good day.

I was just thinking—what if I began compulsively popping Advils as a nervous tic?

No, really, I need to stop picking at my skin.

My transformation into a full-on Debbie Downer is complete. 

1.

The first time I saw you I hated you.

I mean, you looked like the word “effortless” personified.

I’d grown wary of that a long time ago.

2.

I used to imagine making out with you in the bridgeway that led from our building to the chapel and, beneath it, the library.

We’d sneak away between classes and spring apart in the presence of nuns and librarians.

“Good morning,” I’d say to them, and you'd wipe cherry lip balm off the corner of your mouth.

3.

I saw you kissing Angela in the Empty Room after class, the two of you frozen, dead center in a restless end-of-day crowd. I was a lost tourist who didn’t speak the language of the city I was in.

4.

I think I took the way you talked about literature for granted.

I’m surrounded by English major boys who can discuss the hell out of Shakespeare and Barthes and Lacan but none of them hold a candle to the typographical error-laden love letter to Dante you sent to me that summer.

5.

Once, just once, I wish you’d gone looking for me.

6.

(Stream-of-consciousness writing from last year, now polished and edited.)

You left your wallet with me before you took the stage and played lovelorn pseudo-rock that night six years ago. It stayed with me long after your band finished the show, an alien among my things as I was an alien among your friends. It stayed with me even as we said goodbye, cyclically leaning into and away from one another in a stilted dance of manners, the idea of touching still so foreign and new even after months of familiarity and beyond. We left it hanging. We did that to so many things.

Later, when I got home, wistful and discontent, I found it in my bag and realized we’d both forgotten you'd be needing it back. I shoved it back in and tried to ignore the pressing urge to sift through it, to uncover layers and layers of the private you, but overcoming impulses never was my strong suit.

So, I’m sorry. I looked.

Not that there was much to look at, really. Among the cash and cards were a series of handwritten notes exchanged in class with one of the prettiest girls in school and a folded-up sheet of index card with my handwriting. Lyrics to a song I wrote about another boy that you were putting to music. The creases were soft, fragile and fraying, like you'd unfolded and refolded it a thousand times.

A week later you would sit with me, the two of us alone, and you would play the song for me for the first time. When I was writing it, I'd imagined it to be more upbeat, something like “Migraine” by Moonstar88, but your take would be slower. Sweeter. Like something out of The Cure’s earlier years. In your voice it came alive with purpose and yearning and meaning.

Age 3 In preschool they make us change out of our uniforms and into street clothes every day before we go home. I accidentally pull my panties off with my school shorts, tug them back on with wide eyes. The image in my head is one of a dimly lit room, dust particles floating in natural light, and children too preoccupied with their own tasks to notice the impromptu peekaboo.

Age 6 I steal one of my dad’s razors from the bathroom and pretend to shave with it. I cut my lip and the blood runs down my chin onto the countertop, staining it red for years to come.

Age 8 After watching the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap I attempt to cut my own hair the way Hallie did to Annie. Cut off a lock out front. The result pleases me, and I snip at it a little more. My mother finds me minutes later with only black tufts sticking out of the left side of my face like an uneven patch of grass, the poor emancipated hair gathered and kept in a cardboard “tresure box.” [sic]

Age 11 I receive a gorgeous blue guitar (I name it Sapphire) as a present and attempt to master it to impress a boy who would play Hale songs during recess and teach me how to pluck the strings to reproduce a clumsy version of the “Tell Me Where It Hurts” intro as covered by M.Y.M.P. I quit not long after, lacking the necessary patience and blaming my left-handedness, choosing instead to continue writing embarrassing poems. Sapphire’s whereabouts become unknown. 

Age 14 I spend Valentine’s Day breathing in secondhand nicotine at a shady bar in Cubao, pretending to be the Penny Lane to a fifteen-year-old boy (not the one from before) who alternates between guitar and keyboards, singing “Secret Valentine” and “Jasey Rae,” all the while probably thinking of some other fourteen-year-old girl with better looks than I do and a stricter father. Later, when a bunch of girls ask us--him and me--how we know each other, who we are to one another, I find that I have no answer. I come home just after ten P.M., tired and dissatisfied. Age 16 It’s eleven A.M., the coffee shop basically deserted. Through the glass panel I look up and see that he has just arrived. I’m not expecting him, and it shakes me. He’s alone. It’s a rare sight. It’s part of why we’ve grown apart. This thing we had--whatever it was--it really was ours and ours alone, cliche notwithstanding. It takes every bit of caffeine I’ve just taken in and what little confidence I can muster for me to push the door that says “Pull” and walk over to where he’s sitting. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me, but he’s always been outwardly cool and composed, even if late night IM told me otherwise. We sit in silence; it feels empty, naturally. Then we speak, which feels even emptier. 

He has a new guitar. He hands it over to me, and I half-heartedly strum out a G chord (practically the only one I remember from my days with Sapphire) before giving it back. “I miss you” dangles from the tip of my tongue. I don’t say it.  

Age 17 I’m early for History class and have to wait in the hall. The only other person, earlier than I am, is the quiet Geology major I often sit next to in the back row. He’s sort of cute, but I haven’t admitted that to myself yet. We’ve never spoken, except for the time he asked me for half a sheet of yellow pad paper and offered me his scissors so I wouldn’t have to tear it in two. I nearly jump out of my skin when he starts talking to me just as the rain starts pouring.

“I just got a text. Classes are officially suspended,” he informs me. I look out into the rain with him and grin as the news spreads and cheers erupt all over Palma Hall. We talk for a few minutes, the nice type of silence lingering after each conversational pause. When I tell him my name, he asks me to repeat it, and then to spell it. I try to look at his eyes when we speak and not at the slightest hint of stubble on his jaw. Last year I was in a Catholic high school surrounded by boys in uniform with neat haircuts and squeaky-clean faces, and the young men in this public state college are all long hair, faded jeans, and five o’clock shadow. He looks so earnest and clean-cut and boy-next-door-y anyway that he reminds me of Paul Rodman, from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

When our professor arrives and tells us what we already know, he turns to me and smiles right at me, like we have this super secret awesome thing just between us two. Which we kind of do.

I spend a few seconds wondering whether I should say goodbye. I begin to walk away. I don't.

Weeks later he would (welcomely) interrupt my note-taking with facts about the Spanish Regime and the Elliptical Road. After that History class is over, along with the rest of the semester, I would see him again once or twice over the course of two years, then never at all.   

Age 19 I spend a rare four-month summer staying up until the sun has risen, binge-watching Boy Meets World (I'm torn between Shawn Hunter and pre-bastardized Eric Matthews) and Felicity (I adore it but quit halfway through the first season because the college element got too real), crying over the tumultuous and emotionally-draining history of The Strokes, and ignoring my unfinished zine and reading list. The heaping dose of self-loathing is implied.   

Friday, July 24th, 1:33 AM

i need to know that i still have a tomorrow i need to know that i still have a tomorrow i need to know that i still have a tomorrow i need to know that i still have a tomorrow

*

Thursday, July 23rd, 1:50 AM

Tonight I can probably write the saddest lines, but I won’t because it feels like, “What for?”

*

Thursday, July 23rd, 2:09 AM

“Don’t waver,”

you told me then, when I confessed I had started to believe that this God you and I grew up with probably didn’t exist after all.

I said I couldn’t trust in a higher power that took the shape of humans--

(unfinished)

*

Monday, July 20th, 2:02 AM

I never told you this,

But

I still don’t know your biggest sin I guess there are many things I never will

(unfinished)

*

Sunday, July 19th, 5:43 AM

death wish

I’ve never been to Japan.

                   We could              have built      something together—

(For a long time I stared at walls and thought about exposed brick, studied these cracks in the middle of what would have otherwise been untouched, pristine.

It looked to me a little like an open chest, gaping raw and red, a messy network of curves and parts set in motion to preserve the present tense, but the bricks were all inanimate passivity and chalky jagged edges;

unconcerned witnesses to the sound of names, the weight of days, fears and promises, the hanging inevitability, the never said.

Fault and circumstance: what was done, what happened. I'm not much closer to figuring it out. Why did you leave a bitter taste in my mouth when I never even got to kiss you?)

What 2000s pop culture taught me about self-perception and nonconformity. 

The first time I thought I ever fell in love, I was drinking a strawberry slushie on the way home from school. I watched the icy romance-red liquid slosh around in the white plastic cup, and that was when it dawned on me: I had it bad for Ricky Watkins (not his real name, obviously, but doesn’t that just sound like such a middle school crush name on a tween TV show?), the guitar-playing, hair product-overusing new boy in class. 

That’s as much as I’ll say about Ricky, because ultimately this isn’t about him, and now he pretty much means as much to me as a swing set on a playground, except sometimes I still want to go on swing sets. 

See, that thing with Ricky got me writing in a Winnie the Pooh diary. The entries, written from February 2006 to March of the same year, were detailed in the kind of cringe-inducing prose only a past self could ever muster. Somehow, not long after I finished writing in it, I lost it and couldn’t figure out where it went. 

Last year, after eight years of ignorant (mostly due to having grown up and changed and forgotten) bliss, I finally found it among old pirated DVDs and Childcraft books. 

I re-read it, of course, with prerequisite trepidation and expectant amusement. In my eleven-year-old handwriting I’d anticipated finding high-quality cringe comedy and secondhand embarrassment, which I did, but what I didn’t foresee was that I would feel sorry for the girl who documented her days and thought she wasn’t good enough and made something out of nothing. 

She was like me now in some ways: She had a small, close-knit group of friends, she loved hitting the library to borrow Fear Street and Mary-Kate and Ashley books, she got really excited and passionate about things she loved. Unlike present me, however, she was unsure of herself (I mean, I still am, but that’s more due to paralyzing cluelessness re: adulthood) and absolutely desperate to fit in, subscribing to imaginary and bogus ideals like belonging with “the in crowd.” 

Her efforts to reach out to said crowd (and Ricky) were painfully awkward and mildly disappointing at best, but the whole thing is not anything to fucking despair over, thank the Universe. Fortunately, the main thing that I felt after reading my old diary was relief and this sense of self-actualization. Because although I may have once been insecure and confused about who I was supposed to be, letting myself be defined by standards set by people whose opinions I shouldn’t have given two shits about, I got out of that rut and now refuse to be bothered by the superficial things I used to worry about. By the time high school rolled around, I was under the radar and I knew how to pick ‘em. I was completely socially bulletproof, just the way I liked it. 

Realizing this, I started trying to map out how I turned out this way. As with many things, I found that such movements were rooted not only in key experiences and people, but also in the books, movies, television shows, and music, etc, that I was exposed to.

Here’s what I learned:

There are so many aspects to who you are that even you don’t know yet. Even now, One Tree Hill’s Peyton Sawyer is everything I aspire to be--unflappable, strong, loyal, smart, independent, and unbelievably cool without even trying or caring what “cool” is (more on that later). She’s not afraid to cry or be afraid, either. Peyton just is. Minor drug and cheating problems aside, she’s completely comfortable with who she is, whether it’s a not-so-secret artist or a Tree Hill Ravens cheerleader or a music geek-turned-record label founder. Over the course of the show, she changes drastically and grows, and she discovers a lot of things about herself (particularly big are the identities of her birth parents; her mother is a music journalist and her father is a quintessential rock musician, because of course). Her friends Haley James and Brooke Davis undergo loads of character development, too, and they’re all kickass women by the end of the series (I could write essays on all of them, but I’m already rambling as it is!). Still, for some reason I identify with Peyton the most, because she’s got a certain loneliness and angst to her. 

Point is: A lot of people can be pretty good at hiding their depths, but the truth is, nobody is one-dimensional. No one is ever just one thing. I decided early on that I wanted to be a writer and that hasn’t changed, and I can be pretty set in my ways, but things within me are always shifting--interests, attitudes, preferences, skills, ideas, emotions. When I look back on the last few years, I sometimes have to struggle to understand why I liked some things I liked and did some things I did, and I know everyone does. I don’t know where I’ll be or even who I’ll be in due time. Knowing this sort of thing can really make you indifferent to labels and what other people think of you. 

Fascination is out there!  I developed a deep interest in magazines near the end of 2004, when I was in fourth grade. In the 2000s, the world was so small. So small! It was difficult to find “alternative” anything for those of us who didn’t have direct access to that subculture because we didn’t know where to look or even that looking was an option. I did not know how to use the internet for shit like that then--I was probably too busy doing my Neopets dailies. Long before Rookie ever existed and before I discovered the joy of culture publications like Status, Wonderland, and AnOther, I had to make do with mainstream teen magazines: Candy, Meg, and Seventeen in the Philippines, as well as my all-time now-defunct trifecta ElleGirl, CosmoGIRL!, and Teen People. (Among many others.) By the late ‘00s I added Teen Vogue and Nylon.  

Now I spend approximately 40% of my time on the internet opening tab after tab of pages on TV Tropes, Goodreads, Wikipedia, what have you, looking for new music, movies, shows, books, and more. Back then I had to clip out my favorite actual paper pages from magazines and take note of the cool stuff I found. In 2008, I tried to replace the Jonas Brothers as my favorite band (I KNOW. OKAY. SHUT UP.) and went on a massive hunt, scouring my mags for every music feature I could find, making a looooong list of bands I wanted to check out. ElleGirl’s December 2005/January 2006 music issue with Emma Watson on the cover (to tie in with the release of Goblet of Fire, what else?) was particularly promising, introducing me to Sleater-Kinney, The Strokes, Arcade Fire, etc.  It led me to this. It also led me to this. 

The best thing was getting to see that there were so many interesting products of human creativity out there, that what was being fed to me didn’t have to be enough, that I could explore and play around and have options and see the world from another perspective, and that was comforting. Since then I’ve always lived by the idea that there’s always more, and more, and more. 

People aren’t collectibles.   Let’s talk about Friendster. (Then let’s never again.) Everyone seemed to agree at that it was important to have as many friends as possible on your profile, because it meant you were ~*popular*~ or some shit. I don’t remember how many “friends” I had by the time I quit using it, but I do remember going along with this idea and actually getting some sort of satisfaction from adding strangers. Then again, I also seemed to get some sort of satisfaction from tYPinG liKe ThiS and listening to Avril Lavigne, so--Anyway. 

In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Lena, Bridget, Carmen, and Tibby weren’t tied together by this vintage pair of Levi’s that somehow magically fits all of them, they were tied together by history and experience and growth and love and words. Other characters came and went, but they always had each other. The first three Sarah Dessen books I read (Just Listen, This Lullaby, and The Truth About Forever) each featured a character deciding that some people are worth keeping and others are better left out, whether it’s because they were made to feel inadequate or because they were betrayed or because it just wasn’t working out anymore. 

It occurred to me that it's healthier and the effect on my life is more positive if I cut toxic, stagnant people out of it and only stayed in touch with the ones who have the same interests as me and who are funny, nice, supportive, kind, and altogether wonderful. If you are going to “collect” people, it’s best to make sure you’ve got the precious rares. (It became obvious right away that the ~*popular kids*~ were not precious or rare or wonderful.) I made a point of staying away from Facebook and only made an account out of necessity for school, and I’m glad to say I have a total of 127 friends. Not that I’m keeping count! 

Mold, schmold. (or: Don’t apologize.)  My local mall had a music store called Radio City, and even at ten years old I liked visiting it and browsing through the lone CD rack that spanned the entire length of the shop. On one of these visits I chanced upon an album with an auburn-haired, pouty-lipped teenage girl on the cover, a green heart sketched around her eye. Chaotic letters spelled out her name and the title: Skye Sweetnam, Noise from the Basement. She was pretty. She looked edgy. I had never heard of her, nor did I know a single song of hers. Nevertheless, I walked out of Radio City with Noise from the Basement wrapped in a dark plastic bag and gave it a listen on my CD player. 

I haven’t outgrown this album. I still listen and play air guitar to it from time to time. I’ve been figuring out lately that I owe Skye Sweetnam quite a lot when it comes to finding myself and feeling my way through my adolescence. She wrote songs about crushes (”Tangled Up in Me,” of course! As well as “It Sucks” and “Fallen Through”) and school (”Billy S.”), but her favorite topics seemed to be empowerment, exploring differences, and not caring about opinions from other people (best documented in “I Don’t Care,” but poignantly, sweetly, and sometimes tearjerkingly seen as well in “Sharada,” “Hypocrite,” “Unpredictable,” and “Smoke + Mirrors”).  

Some choice Skye-isms:

What’s wrong with me, you say? I say nothing, I was meant to be this way.

Do the unexpected, or you’ll never know. 

Don’t let them know they get to you. Put on a brave face, and you’ll get through, on your own way. 

Because of Skye’s music and lyrics, I chose to stop trying to squeeze myself into all these archetypes and molds in a contrived effort to make people like me and accept me. I have been made fun of for using “Norah Silverberg” as a Secret Santa name and doing an impression of Forrest Gump for English class, but so what. The only mold I needed to fit into was the one that embodied the goals and standards I set for myself, the one that would make me into the person I wanted to be, the best version of who I am, and can be, and will be. 

Coolness, conformity, and “cred.” Good Filipino YA exists. You’ll have to look hard for it, and no, not in the [begrudgingly] Wattpad section of bookstores, but it exists. Titles by Marla Miniano and Ines Bautista Yao and Mina V. Esguerra, a couple of others. My favorite example to mention, however, is the 2002-published gem that is Una & Miguel. One of my favorite things about this book is that it’s so charmingly and firmly rooted in the year it was written. These sixteen-year-olds watch movies on VCDs, have crushes on Josh Hartnett and Mandy Moore, listen to John Mayer (of Room for Squares fame) and Dido, shop at Beauty Bar, and wear toe rings. The premise: She’s the harmonica-playing film-obsessed village outcast with a gay best friend (David Levithan would be proud), and he’s the Vespa-driving pretty boy cousin of the resident jerk jock, so obviously they can’t make it work with each other--or can they? (They can, obviously.) 

Miguel is reluctant to fall for Una because he fears being ostracized, since she calls people who blindly follow trends “sheep” and is fine with her outsider “weird girl” status, thankyouverymuch. She lets herself enjoy dorky things too and is never holier-than-thou about how she chooses to live her life, and that’s what makes her the coolest of all. When I first read this novella, I was in the middle of my...thing with this guy who kind of ran with the “it” crowd at school and I saw the parallels between the words on the pages and my reality. It made me feel better about the whole situation, because Una never had to compromise and Miguel started being true to himself. (That was Leo Borlock’s main problem in Stargirl--published in 2000 and now a classic book about differences and identity--and that’s why it never worked out.) Of course, my own story anti-climactically went nowhere, but that’s not the point. 

I like going against the grain. I like having something that’s all my own. I like pretentious shit like movies in languages I can’t even speak and comedy albums on Spotify and that yellow Helvetica-adorned book by Miranda July, but I also love Teen Beach Movie and One Direction and I closet stan Ross Lynch and I read old-school Simon Pulse Romantic Comedies on my iPad, activities and leanings that might “lower my cred,” so to speak, because one probably ought to be too cool for all of that, and everybody wants to be cool. Except that’s a bunch of crock! True cred is not minding your cred and just going for what makes you happy. Life’s too short not to admit you actually kind of like that overplayed Top 40 song.  

No, really. Who gives a shit? Time to wander out of 2000s pop culture territory: In my first year of college I did a lot of stupid things and got into a lot of embarrassing situations, ranging from botched reports in front of class to falling into a space three feet deep in an elevated classroom. It’s never easy to brush it off and keep going. I still want to wear a paper bag over my head and die (mostly die) every time. But somehow a thought came to me that’s been very helpful in the quest to be a well-adjusted person: People will laugh and think you’re a dolt, and you haven’t seen the last of your mishap for a long, long time after it occurs. That’s a given. But those thoughts of you are fleeting, and at the end of the day, everyone’s too busy thinking about their own stomach-churning humiliation to contribute to yours. Not to mention, generally, they can be too kind (really) and forgetful of the ephemeral. You’ve got nothing to worry about or overthink. And tripping over your own feet at the AS-CAL steps in front of over fifty students doesn’t make you a lesser person. I promise, self. 

So, that’s it. Ran a little long, as usual. I couldn’t enumerate every piece of entertainment I inhaled and adored from 2000 to 2009, but I think that just about covers it. I don’t know if this made any sense to you, Reader (if you even managed to get through the whole thing), but it does to me, and it was interesting and enlightening to pinpoint particular viewpoints and ideas that contributed to the way I see and present myself now. And what a relief it is to find that this shy, misguided 11-year-old has evolved into a (still shy, sorry) twenty-year-old who sees through B.S. and values honesty, fun, real friends, and self-worth over mass admiration, “social acceptance” (whatever that is), and fruitlessly trying to keep up with trends. 

noon at the cafeteria in my ears johnny flynn drowns out scattered conversation when i'm done i hurry between crowded tables, careful not to cross any paths or lines

*

four p.m. at the food court cups and wrappers cleared away notes spread out in front of me not quite ready to head home i stall, stall for more time, ignore the tinny music and neon signs

* seven p.m. at a burger king i suck on the straw knowing that the apple soda ran out ten minutes ago i walk home in the rain and refuse to look over my shoulder

*

midnight, cross-legged in bed blue bunny mint chip melts away bathed in the dim glow of skins uk on my laptop screen i watch cassie ainsworth bite into an abandoned apple

*

three a.m. in the living room i wonder if anyone else has cooked fusilli this late i make more than i can finish and leave orange and green pasta swimming down the drain 

*

The first time I ever saw Zach Woods was in Whit Stillman’s glorious 2011 collegiate comedy Damsels in Distress. Greta Gerwig’s transcendent turn as future Nylon private icon Violet Wister rightfully stole the show and forever turned me into a devotee, but it was Woods who, as Rick DeWolfe, the sarcastic, plucky editor of university paper The Daily Complainer, became the subtly attractive three-scene wonder I would come to retroactively recognize and girlishly admire in several films and television shows, most recently (and most brilliantly!) as lovable kind-to-a-fault mother hen/business development head and unflappable butt monkey Donald “Jared/OJ” Dunn on Silicon Valley.  

Part of the reason I couldn’t help but be transfixed by Zach Woods (he’s one of those people whose names you can’t help but say in full--even his Silicon Valley castmates [when they’re not referring to him as “Zee-Wee,” that is] do) is because Rick and Violet, in their only scene together, have an undeniable chemistry and tension that unfortunately goes nowhere.

Case in point:

The amount of fan fiction scenarios in my head that feature them is insane--but if I ever get around to writing them, I think I’ll keep them to myself.

What I don’t like keeping to myself are these amazing little tidbits I’ve learned about Zach Woods recently from reading/watching interviews and listening to podcasts. So now, in a barely-disguised effort to get them out there and convince people of his greatness (and to compile them all together in a place where I could easily find them and remind myself), here they are, listed and written out with probably-unnecessary commentary from me:

At age thirteen-ish he invited some of his friends to his house for a sleepover and demanded that they read one-act plays with him. 

After reading Roald Dahl’s The Witches, he became paranoid and convinced that his mom was a witch. He can also quote the line that gave him this “inkling” word for word. (I mean, okay, the first email newsletter I subscribed to--I was ten at the time--was The Dahl-y Telegraph off Dahl’s website, and I’m still subscribed, and he’ll forever be one of my heroes, so...)

He seems to be unable to smile without looking sarcastic. I swear. 

He’s 6′4″ tall, but according to him, he’s only 6′2″ with his “confidence” aka slouch. 

Also around middle school (I would give anything to know Middle School Zach) he memorized all the worlds to “Staying Alive” and, for Halloween while trick-or-treating, dressed up as Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever (disco!), gathered his friends as his “backup dancers,” and performed for everyone who opened their doors to them. Brilliant. 

He became the Homecoming King, deliberately ironically, by a fluke, decided by the misfits. And, for a laugh, posed scowling for the official photos.

Uses the word “smartypants.” Articulate in general. Slight accent I can’t place (probably Philly or Jersey), especially with near-low front unrounded vowels (e.g. “back” or “cat”).

You can feel his love of improv and working on Silicon Valley radiate off him. Loved the “secret New York life” going to UCB gave him.

His greatest dream was to live creatively, “not making a lot of money,” in underground clubs.   

Self-deprecating. Has referred to self as “cadaverous.” 

Speaking of self-deprecation, he improvised the line “My uncle says I look like someone starved a virgin to death” on Silicon Valley, as well as “I’ve booby-trapped the house with several corporate resources,” “He made this bro angry,” and that line about someone lying about wanting to go birding with you when really they just want to steal your binoculars. Among others. 

He based the character of Jared off his mom, compared the character to those smiley-face balloons you punch and they pop back up (makes sense), and read Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret to prepare for it.    

Adored Martin Starr as Bill Haverchuck years and years before SV. 

Doesn’t watch Game of Thrones--during the Red Wedding, when his girlfriend called him crying, he thought it was because he hadn’t been an ideal companion throughout their time together. All four years (at the time) of it. 

Ellie Kemper has sent him a text with the words “big tall bitch” in it. 

While playing a video game in which his character is a girl, people were yelling for him to make her spin or jump in order to finish a goal. His response: “She’s not gonna do things just because a bunch of men tell her to!” 

Has never smoked, barely drinks. I don’t have anything against this really but it’s nice to know. 

Jewish. Because of course he is. Therefore, intense and sensitive. 

Hello.

I had to go away for a while, because [vague voice] it got to a point where I couldn’t even stand just being conscious. Zero interest in anything. I couldn’t even listen to music.

Sometimes the sads still hit, but I’m really relieved to be feeling things again. If anything, I’ve learned that we take this very human thing of wanting for granted. When I started to want again it was such a sensation, a rush. I don’t know how to explain it.  

I’m trying to teach myself to see this blog as a place for me again. Obviously the whole issue with the photos is still a downside, but I’ll find a way to work around it. I want to write about experiences, emotions, objects, activities, annoyances, pop culture, and make-believe. I want paragraphs and images and verses. I want to document and to gush and to create without necessitating that it be a Production. What a waste of a perfectly nice layout otherwise, right?

Lesson #1: The real-life stream-of-consciousness who-needs-photos-anyway writing.

Recently I’ve begun to categorize my years according to obsession. It’s become a way to map out how I’ve changed, somehow, too. 2010 was a year of film, of River Phoenix and Scream (and, god, Skeet Ulrich) and The Maine. 2011 was a year of music, of concerts and Murder House and university and adaptation. 2012 was a year of books, of Landon Liboiron and poetry. 2013 was the year of Singapore and elision. and...god, who knows. 2014 was a year of meltdowns and The Strokes. And 2015? It’s shaping up to be a film year. I don’t know what follows, and that’s scary, but who has ever known, anyway?  

The year is almost halfway done but that doesn’t mean I can’t skew it the way I want. I want it to be a year of music and writing and growth for elision. and reading and redeeming and so much else, as well. And I know even now I can’t do it all, so I’ll be taking it one day at a time. Coincidentally, when I was really down a few weeks ago, this was the one train of thought I really held on to. Figure out how to survive the now. When I’ve gotten through the day I’ll worry about the next. It was a vicious cycle for a while, but I got out of it, sort of.  

In the middle of this sadness I felt even more lonely when my cousin (one of my best friends, if I’m being honest, but shut your trap about that) left overseas for her own four-month summer. I was surrounded by supportive friends (and family, and parents) nevertheless, but there’s just something about the feeling of abandonment that really gets to you, even if it’s by one person who’s not even really leaving-leaving. Last week my sister flew out, as well, and as a result I’ve been frustrated and confused about everything.

I would like a sense of purpose (aka a job? a destination?) to drop into the lap of my summer before it vanishes, thank you.

Scratch that. No lap-dropping. I’ll go out and get it myself.    

It rained today--it’s been raining a lot lately, actually--and I thought something that made me feel funny, and it’s that summer really must be here. My summer, at least. Normal summer, the old summer, is over. The academic calendar shift is like never-ending large-scale jet lag, except you don’t feel off by hours, you feel off by months. It’s like they’re holding April Fool’s Day in February or, well, school in the summer. (Ha!) It’s been weird and strange and hot and uncomfortable, but, hey, we all pulled through it.

For the record, I’m loving the abundance of free hours mixed with the heavy downpour. Yes. More, please.

I think I’d like to end this here. I’m not sure anything makes sense but that’s what I’ve been up to and what’s on my mind. You’ll be hearing from me again soon, fingers crossed.

I am extremely proud of the elision. team and what they’ve done to make this issue happen. And, look, we’re on time again for once! (I think it’s because I enjoyed working on it so much that I ended up going on layout marathons and just checking off item after item on my ever-present outline sheets and progress journals. Also Trello, the site/app Cheska B. told me about that totally satisfies my micromanagement tendencies.) 

I don’t remember exactly how the Bad Habits theme came about, but what I do know is that as a title is clicks really well and it provided a lot of cool and diverse (so glad it wasn’t repetitive or derivative at all!) creative paths. Poetry galore, as you can imagine.   

Like always, here’s me talking about some of my favorites from this issue (WHICH IS HARD BECAUSE I HONESTLY LOVE ALL OF IT MADLY) and the process and other ideas and stories behind them. 

We have over a dozen new staff members and contributors, who are all so talented and brilliant that it makes me giddy they want to be part of our little quarterly collaborative project, and some of them were able to contribute to this one. Megan’s Julian Casablancas cover (I still feel like pinching myself to prove it’s real sometimes) set the overall tone aesthetics-wise for Bad Habits: pastels and minimalism. 

An actual review from an actual person: “This is the most hipster thing I’ve come across in a very long time...and looks like I enjoyed it.” 

Writing this and doing the layout felt like an out-of-body experience, really. I had so much fun with it because there was so much art to choose from (thanks to the lovely Megan, Evy, and of course Rian)! 

I think I’ve waffled about this enough, so I’ll leave it at that, but I just have to say it’s insane being featured on Cult Records and Julian’s Facebook pages and even being linked to on Cult’s Instagram bio, among other things that hit mega hard for my not-so-inner fangirl. (It also really upped our readership big-time, and the response has been overwhelming, so thanks so much for the support and sending it out!)  

I think I’ve said this regarding my Luigi D’Avola piece last year, but I really enjoy writing interviews as paragraphs and not just Q&As--I just don’t do it often because it’s a lot of work and I prefer to save it for face-to-face, real-time interaction sessions so it’s more descriptive and authentic. It makes me feel like a real journalist even though I’ve got miles and miles to go.

Transcribing our forty-five minute interview with Erwan Heussaff was pretty difficult because it was hard to hear sometimes but definitely worth it. I also liked, again, that we had a ton of photos (we shot ourselves!) to work with and overall it’s a pretty solid article, I’d like to think. 

I just love this band and their music so much. SO MUCH. 

I felt a little apprehensive sending yet another press request for The Maine since it’s our third time featuring them but of course we had to! American Candy turned out to be such a great album (it’s the right combination of the early-era themes of restlessness, great times, and coming of age and the late-era trademarks of introspection and just the right amount of loneliness) and I loved being able to discuss it with Kennedy and, finally, John! I’ve wanted to interview him for the longest time and he truly delivered. 

My favorite track off the record, for the record (hah), is “Diet Soda Society.” Such great art as always by Cheska B. and Denise, thanks! 

Laurence Philomene is so nice and candid and powerful and original. I love everything she does and stands for!  

It was really, really cool to get to exchange emails with Sierra Kay (Cheska B. made this happen!!!) and she’ll always be cool and beautiful and such a voice in my eyes (and ears). She was gracious enough to make a mix for us and even draw her bad habit; unfortunately we had to settle for posting said drawing--along with other art projects done by the team--on the blog because they proved difficult to lay out.  

Speaking of layouts, I really loved doing this one, from my reverse coloring book thing to the crystals to the banner to the pastels (ahhhh!) to the crystals to the purple sky. It’s so Versa and it’s so elision. #5.  

Robert Mishchenko is an absolute inspiration to me since he started his own fashion webzine at 15 and now basically runs a mini-empire and would probably be the male Tavi Gevinson had she stuck with her fashion roots. I’m super glad Steph was able to interview him (and super-swoony Michiel van Wyngaarden, too)! He’s so smart and passionate and the Cavan McCarthy type of adorable--it’s just his personality, I guess. 

Amazing prose by Kaj. Also liked doing drawings for it a lot (Camille’s are way better, of course!). 

Poignant and personal writing from Taina. I did my reverse coloring book routine on buildings in my Flash 8 window, and it was side by side with VLC--large monitor perks!!--while I watched the 1990 film Opportunity Knocks with Dana Carvey (which is charming and I liked it), so now every time I see these pages I can’t help but think of that movie. I loved superimposing the final drawing onto an image of an Antipolo sunset and incorporating the imaginary rain. 

Sam is such an amazing poet and her style is sublime--I can’t stop reading her words and loving how they came out! Pairing it with Megan’s art, the pastels (naturally) and titles “handwritten” via mouse made for my number one favorite overall from the Words section, for sure.   

Cheska pitched me her ideas for her drawings while she did this series and every single one was just exceptional and surreal and far-fetched, but in the best way, because Cheska’s brain is weird and truly wonderful. I love everything from this feature, and her style has gotten so distinct and pleasing!  

Nikki has been letting her creativity go haywire and the results, as you’ll see here, are a blessing. I hope our other photographers can contribute more again in the coming issues (and I hope we can finally do a real shoot some time--it’s just been so difficult to schedule!) but for this one, her work was more than enough. And so emotionally engaging. 

All in all, definitely our biggest, best issue yet, and I loved every minute of it--all the long nights and emails and mini heart attacks and sweat and mouse clicks and keyboard tapping and everything else. I honestly have no idea how we’ll ever top it. 

I’d like to highlight everything else, seriously, but I think it’d be much better to let you discover it in its entirety by yourself. Click here for the Julian cover and here for the Erwan cover; to download, go to the “Share” tab and click “Download.” Print copies are also available here (Julian) and here (Erwan).

As usual, this goes out to the now-expanded, even-more-awesome ELISION. TEAM--contributors, too! You guys never fail to astound, and I owe you everything, and I’m glad to collab with you and call you my friends. I’m also super grateful to our readers, whether they’ve been with us for years or months or days or even hours, and everyone who’s said kind, kilig-inducing things. For this zine to exist and for all these individual minds to validate its existence is always overwhelming.