thisdoesnotmakesense

praise the Lord for nick drake on rainy mornings.

and for radiohead "fake plastic trees"

for hot tea out of a plastic cup because i did not bring a mug to work.

ella moss.

new mornings.

overcoming things,

or trying to.

weeekeeeeeeeeeeeend!

every day goes by like this (no one ever wants to change the way it is)

oh, hey part of the semester that i desperately want a change of pace and change of scenery. you are not cool, i don't like you, you make me not want to do anything productive and i'm so not allowed any more grace period if i plan on graduating.?!*&(&6

so i'm escorting you out of your week-long stay in my life with a morning of e-mail correspondence, a cup of tazo earl gray and abstaining from mingling with too many people in crossroads.
iwillstayinwiredscholariwillstayinwiredscholariwillstayinwiredscholar
and not thriiive off of peer acknowledgment and approvaaaaal.

so many new week's resolutions for next week.
and just like a good day starts with the night before,
a good week starts with the weekend.
gosh, the library and i are gonna be bffers this weekend whether he likes it or not.
whether i like it or not.

woah, totes forgot today is friday. it IS the weekend. so far, so good, sofarsogood.
self-improvement-attempting until 1. seminar until 2 where i will see people i love and give them hi-fives and listen to my classmates play good music. library until forever/until i fall asleep at the computer because i'm working off of 5 hours of sleep but i NEED to because i have to, in the words of cady heron from mean girls,
"suck the poison out of my life"

that sounds so intense, don't worry. i mean poison in the least intense way possible. i did not fail math tests to steal my pretend friend's boyfriend and then get my teacher searched for drug pushing.

home, laundry, gym, store meeting at 6 where my mantra will be "i.love.my.job." deep breaths.
and then i will more than likely go home and watch prince caspian via redbox. i will not eat cookout this weekend. i am saving up for the few days i get to go to raleigh during spring break. cookout-throwdown. starbucks-throwdown. target-throwdown.

ooo, this is good. keep talking about all the things that are coming in a week, sam.

master-mix-making with oodles of new good music (i'm kind of on a new music overload right now, it's comparable to drinking way too much coffee without having eaten in a while).
listening to master mixes on the open road 421, whom i have missed terribly.
warmer weather for a few days.
sam, don't forget to bring your tax stuff home.
walking the trails around falls lake.
being around my country house.
hugging my sisters and my little nuggets.
playing guitar and piano with jess (i will make this happen even if it means kidnapping jess against her own will and tying her hands to the guitar with guitar strings)
laughing with my fave girls on the planet in their apartment i will inevitably infiltrate.
taking pictures with my mom's camera that i hi-jacked yippeee!

totally suppressing the free spirit hippie wanting to dance and not to anything girl in me for one more week.

i will kick next week's butt.
i will kick today's butt.
i will hug friends. i know i'm not the only one suffering from cabin-fever-sluggishness-hate-this-part-of-the-semester blues.

banana & yogurt time!

(post title attributed to The Family Tree's song The Crowd)

(these pictures brought to you by the beautiful mac desktop computers on the 3rd floor of the library, a hummus plate from wired scholar, and my absolute attention deficit disorder.)

geeze, tell me how you REALLY feel!

happy friday everyone!

today, seminar was cancelled. halleluhhhh!

i want to vacuum so badly.

i have to have my essay one final draft complete by monday and, because i have about a million hours worth of work to do, i'm excited about spending some time in the library this weekend. you know, i enjoy the library during the weekend (friday and saturday) exponentially more than i do during the week. there are so few people in there i like to pretend it's my own personal library like belle in beauty in the beast, minus the roll-y ladder things, most unfortunately.

anyway, i had to have a meeting with my professor to discuss my essay and writing and life in general. we decided i have a hard time saying how i really feel about things. that's the joy of creative non-fiction: you don't have to be right or agreeable or tactful, you can just share whatever opinion you have because it's the truth of how you feel and how you see things. i did not grow up that way. i kind of learned the opposite... don't share how you really feel, because there is an ultimate standard of how you should be feeling. for each real feeling you may be having, there is an equal and opposite Bible verse to obliterate that feeling into the land of feeling guilty for even having that feeling in the first place.

how do i really feel about that?
i feel like that's how we made Christianity, which is sad and i don't blame people for not wanting to deal with that.
and i feel like God -not trying to put words in the man upstairs' mouth- but i feel like He really appreciates us sharing how we really feel, however mean and ugly and human. He made us after all, and wrapped himself up in this gross skin, it's no new news to him. we try so hard to impress Him without so much as just fearing Him.

i have not and will not ever lose my faith in God. He is my first love.
i've just lost a lot of my faith in people who are on the same ridiculous, muddy, bumpy road as i am and claim they're on a better one.
but my faith really shouldn't be in people anyway, i know that.

i really like chelsea lately, the soup, and other slightly raunchy television shows because they're honest and funny and one of them involves a little latino man named chuy.

i really, really, really despise when people discuss me and my life without me being there, without asking my opinion about things first, or without even talking to me much at all in general. even though *HOW I REALLY FEEL ALERT* i probably do that to other people, so i'm going to try and be a lot better about that knowing how much it irritates the snot out of me.

ie: "sam really seems to like _____ but maybe she needs to touch him more or send him some signals"
ugh.
okay, feeling like an animal at the zoo. what happened to not having to sit on the same couch together while i cross my legs over in his direction so he can get the idea from my body language that i like him and want to date him when i don't even know him very well hmmm? don't pressure me, i can't flirt under pressure!

ie: "i think sam drinks, and therefore she is no longer as good a Christian as me"
uuuuugh.
do i drink? on occasion. do i have alcohol that i've purchased myself in my apartment? no. do i feel the desire to drink on any given day? no. do i feel like because i do not go to north ridge missionary alliance or cornerstone summit that people are more prone to looking at the seems of my lifestyle and thinking i am forfeiting my wits, convictions, and sensibilities? yes.

bam there it is.

ie: "is she dating him? you know, sam dates"
i am not dating anyoneeeeee.
occasionally, i will go on dates. usually not second ones.
i crush a lot and that's good enough for me.
i still do not kiss, i don't hold hands, i don't cuddle. just cause i don't want to. there are no boys i want to do that with here. i don't know what that particular information has to say about me or what i'm trying to say by sharing that information except, don't worry, i'm not a floozy.

in the words of stephanie tanner,
how ruuuude.
just talk to me, people. not about me. thanks.
thanks, also, for all the phone calls/emails/forms of contact i've had from you, and excuse me for trying not to sound really bitter cause i ammmmm and it's not cute!

i think youngLife and Kannukuk boys are the most ridiculous boys on the planet and i want to punch them in the ear for overusing the term "tryinna'" in regards to social activities, and for a lot of other reasons but mostly that one.

ie: "yo girl, you tryinna hang out tonight?"
"you tryinna go to cookout in a few hours?"
"whatdup girl, you tryinna watch a movie and then i'll sit suspiciously close to you and try to cuddle while not tryinna get to know you as a person?!"

i say NO! NO to you young life and kannukuk boys!

so. many. ear. punches.

that is the end of how i really feel because i feel naked and ugly in all of my real, unrefined opinions! so i'm gonna go to the gym and then to the library! okay!

new week's resolutions and all the things going way too fast

aaahll alalalala

life. life life life. blife crife strife.


i've got a few new week's resolutions this week. and i feel like i can take a minute and note them all (or mostly) because:

my parents came up to boone this weekend and brought my lovely entertainment center from raleigh and it has these little bookshelves with lights in it and i lined up all my books with my records and mydvdsanditalllookssobeautifuland organiiiized!

and we ate steak. so that was wonderful for my valentines date, and it gave me a legitimate reason to respectfully decline other valentines date offers (you know how i feel about dates on valentines day just because it's valentines day and it makes everything awkwardish)

okay.
organized. bed kinda made. pj's on. schedule to my right (underneath the j.crew february catalog)

man. we've just been trucking alone with school, day after day, week after week.
day after day of things scheduled by the hour.
even on the weekends.
and it's hard to keep on keeping on sometimes. hello? a break could not come any sooner!
let's take a look at tomorrow for instance:

spanish at 9.
workout 10-11, then shower and getting ready in the locker room.
need to stop by the financial aid office.
need to practice for voice lesson before 1:30.
voice lesson at 1:30.
i need to eat at some point.
and breathe.
creative non-fiction at 3:30.
studio at 5.
dinner at 6.
practice at 7.
concert at 8 for music credit.


i just got a horrible pit-in-my-stomach kind of feeling. why do we do this to ourselves? americaaaa, i blame youuuu, i'm bitter bitter bitter and i'm going to europe to spite you! uuuuugh i need a hug. an afternoon. a letter saying sam you're so awesome and i want to eat ice cream with you.

i think i can i think i can i think i can. plus i really enjoy all the people i see during all of these activities (okay, all except for skinny mean girl in spanish, more about her later) and i love singing french and german, and singing in general, and dr. porterfield's little delights. and creative non-fiction. i really like most of the activities i'm actually doing. it's just the having to do them, short little hits of them, back to back and hour after hour. makes us weary and haggard and irritable. or me.

so my new weeks resolutions will be helpful to take the sting out of doing so much and will help me to focus on everything i can accomplish if i really really try (and drink a lot of coffee/tea)

-keep on keeping on with national body challenge
-take lots and lots of pictures with my borrowed camera (thanks mom)
-i wish my roommate would not watch tv really loudly in the living room because she has a tv in her room and i just want to turn the tv off right now, and i read somewhere that it's not good to have your laptop in your bedroom because it makes it harder to fall asleep... something about separating work and social space with relaxation space... or something
-that wasn't a resolution
-try to be a vegetarian this week and this week only in attempt to fulfill the first resolution in a new way. gotta spice things up a bit so i don't get bored.
-my roommate just went into her room and tv. is. off. but now her tv in her room is on really loud. maybe i'm just cranky because i'm tired and i just want to crawl into my closet and write songs for the next week or so.
- no cookout runs this week and i'm READY. don't even try to ask me to go. i won't go. i won't do it.
-go to the library 2 times with the sole intention being to do homework.
-finish one new song and record it not in my closet. or in my closet. whatever works.

okay,

not in your strength, sam.

jess is coming this weekend, so hugs will be had!! and music will be made!!

that was all KINDS of awkward!: a look into the life and times of sam, dates and all

.

praise the Lord for work
however frustrating and taxing it can be. i am beginning to see the shiny silver lining around being a weekend worker.
for instance:

during the week, all i have to worry about is being at my classes, making it to the gym, doing homework, getting tea and having ample social time at the coffee shop, and loving (not getting stressed out by, i repeat, not getting stressed out by) the ample music things i do (ear candy, mike, music school required concerts, writing my own songs) et cetera

also, kiki (boss lady) is not usually here on saturday or sunday. that means the pandora music station of my choice. that means a lot of things, actually. namely, an atmosphere that is not so tense and walking-on-eggshells-like.

aaand the work shifts are longer. that way, i'm getting the most out of being here only 2-3 days a week.

i may not see my family or my friends or my cat or my raleigh until i'm 30, but yaaay silver lining!


so, i'm sitting behind the counter with the sufjan stevens pandora channel on. it's a beautiful day in boone, but a sloooow day at gladiola girls. i've got a warm cup of yogi cold defense tea by my side, along with my planner. i am getting a lot of planning in today at work, and i don't mind it, i needed this. eventually, i will get up and meticulously clean and straighten, and re-clean and re-straighten, and then fold jeans. a lot.

i am waiting until 2:15 to call Our Daily Bread for lunch. ODB is my little luxury during the working weekend. it's just down king street, and uses organic and local produce in the dishes. usually on sundays i'll put a little note on the door, lock up, and walk down the street. it is in these short walks that i fall in love with boone. i fall in love with the snowflake lights on the street lights. i fall in love with the shops lining the street and the sidewalk and the jones house. i fall in love with the old man playing guitar outside of boone drug. it's nice. today i'm getting the cali croissant: sliced ham, spring greens, tomato, and avacado. mmmm!

i was talking with someone about food recently. something like 86% of all food in america has corn or corn syrup in it. we demand filling food, fast, and cheap. in short, our meal culture absolutely stinks. in europe, people have meals. real meals. they take time to sit, enjoy company, and eat slow. they spend time and money to prepare and eat food that is real and healthy and worth indulging in. they use real plates and silverware. it is meal and tradition and ceremony all wrapped up together. i want that.

aaaanyway, enough with that rant. i still love cookout with all of my heart.

i am trying in a narcissistic way not to get sick. my roommate is sick, kiki is sick, my close friend at school, katie, is sick. must. not. get. sick.

so, last night i went on a date. we went to see slumdog millionaire, and i was so wonderfully and pleasantly surprised by that movie! just beautiful.

it's been a while since i've gone out on a traditional "this is a date, aforementioned by the asker-outer of the date" date. at this age, there are lots of ambiguous "hanging out" dates that are horribly irritating. my theory is that it's a defense mechanism by the guys: if they don't clarify that it's a date, they have nothing to lose either way. so i appreciated the clarity.

and of course, typical of me, as we are exiting the theatre and laughing and being all datey (while keeping a healthy "this is just a date and only a date distance from each other) i run into this other boy who had been ambiguously hanging out with me. he's a make-out boy. i didn't find that out till he tried it on me.

*warning* in college, when boys want to "watch a movie" with you, they want to make out with you.

he's a nice boy, handsome, maybe a little too handsome. i had to tell him i am not a make-out girl, and that he was not allowed to call me "babe" or "hun" because only boyfriends are allowed to substitute my name for pet names. he seemed surprised and complimented me on putting him in his place. and then later he got upset because i had not "given him a chance" to really get to know him, and that he wanted to talk face-to-face. this is, after a few months of periodic and ambiguous hanging out. yes, he's funny and handsome and charming, but i don't think he's used to hearing "no". aaanyway, so, we have not yet met face-to-face and we run into each other when i am most clearly on a date with another boy. and we side hug. and i introduce boys.

ha. ha ha. ooooh all kinds of awkward.

okay. ODB time. yeah!

oh don't mind me i'll just be hiding under this rock

you ever have that feeling that you just need to retreat?

like, just fall out for a while, not answer phone calls, not pump your body full of preservatives and high fructose corn syrup, actually take showers on a regular basis

do laundry

paint your nails

clean out your car

do hair and face masks

go to the library

whiten your teeth and then swish with bubble gum flavored fluoride mouth wash because chemicals just ate your tooth enamel away

plan

vacuum

NOT get sick because campus is an incubus of disease and infected door handles

reexamine and reset and refuel

lock my door and say, no i can't go out tonight so-and-so because i'm busy hiding under this rock here praying and doing homework and being a clean freak.


i am perpetually cold.

hey february,

i am really glad you're here.

because you're here, i'm one step closer to warmer weather. february, you're the underdog month.

you're the month it's still really cold and people are pissed about that, and nothing really great happens except valentine's day and the fact that you have substantially less days.

how do i feel about your one holiday, february? it's awkward, but in a very endearing way. much like yourself. like, your holiday is really cute and i like the decorations and candy and stuff. but i don't really like having to fit into one the 3 major groups of the impending valentines day:

revolting because i'm single (i don't wanna do that because i still think it's cute and i can make heart-shaped cookies and cupcakes and use my really adorable valentine's sprinkles)
feeling like i need to make plans (i don't really want to be romantic because it's a day you're supposed to be romantic, weird)
or actually having plans (because if i do, it'll probably be awkward plans unless it's making heart-shaped cookies)

you're pretty swell, febs. you're like the beginning of the end of winter, so i can still try to enjoy the cold while it's here but also look forward to the fact that after you're gone spring is JUST around the corner. you're the second-to-last long haul. if i get through you - working hard in classes, and sacrificing my weekends and bits of sanity at gladiola girls, and continuing with my journey of being healthier (see national body challenge, and my post "real" on what i think it means to be healthy) - i'll be well on my way to a semester stabilized in healthy habits, good grades, and all around happier sam crowder! the outcome of hard-work february will be rewards and benefits!

we can do it together, february.

so thanks for being here so soon. hope you go by fast. in a nice way. i'll still try and enjoy and make the most and work hard during each one of your 28 days.

love always and forever especially on valentine's day,
sam xoxo

what i'm writing

one of my favorite classes so far this semester is my writing class, advanced creative nonfiction. it's intimidating and challenging, especially since i'm not an english major as most of the people in the class are. but i am so passionate about this subject. it's wonderful to feel a real pulse of learning and passion in class. this was our very first assignment, just a little exercise to start us off in the semester. the instructions were to write a 2-4 page description of an "episode or scene". in creative non-fiction, the writer is always the main character, and you always tell the truth. it is the situation through the eyes of the writer.

When do you go from trying to be who you want to be and actually being that person?

One evening last week, I walked into my bedroom on a B-line to the bathroom. As my toes shuffled across the white carpet anticipating the tile, I looked around and was overcome by an awkward sense of pride over my space. I turned around and stood there in the doorway of my bathroom, shoulder perched against one side of the threshold, my b-line trip temporarily halted.

I don’t know what exactly I was looking for, but I scanned the room with all the thoroughness of a stranger in a new place. Based on what I saw, I was proud of the person I imagined myself to be. The bed was made, three small white pillows behind one large white pillow with quilt detailing. One would think the inhabitant of this space is responsible, neat, a master of making beds, very pretty beds at that, every single morning. I smirked a half-smirk, adjusting my shoulder against the doorframe. I’m terrible at making my bed. I much prefer staying in my heaven of a bed until the very last moment in which I shift from being “just on time” to “barely on time”. I had recently read something in a Discovery Health article about how making your bed every morning provides a “reliable framework” each day and something about separating a sleep mindset to an alert mindset, so I had been wrestling with myself to get it done every morning. The inhabitant of this space is helplessly messy, a chronic attempter of self-improvement.

My gaze shifted to my beloved Christmas lights draping along 3 of the 4 walls (the one strand I stole from my parents garage didn't quite fit the whole way around), whimsical and cluttered and reminiscent, to me, of a type of romantic Fern Gully nymph-tree décor. I smiled to myself again, knowing of the inner turmoil this one strand of old Christmas lights had given me since Christmas had passed. In the doorway I appeased both sides of myself, the girl who loves those lights even post-holidays and all the Disney-esque feelings they give her, and the girl who, in the back of her mind, loathed the fact that they did not make their way around all four walls perfectly. I loved the fact that it seemed artistic and inspiring and hated the fact that my room did not look like the pages of Real Simple magazine.

Again my gaze scanned the room, to the dark antique furniture I borrowed from a family friend, to the Polaroid pictures of myself and my friends and our various faces stuck on the mirror of my dresser, bringing back over me where I was when those photos were taken and how I felt in those moments. My room, I decided, was full of contradictions of who I really am and who I want to be, and how extremely normal that is.

Toes brushing back over the clean carpet, I pulled back the sheets to my bed, and climbed in. I squirmed and pulled until I had the optimum position for relaxation and observation. I scanned the room from my new perch, noticing first my little weekly dry-erase calendar that I have up on my wall, just beside the door of my bathroom. I thought to myself that I do a pretty good job erasing it and writing in my weekly goings-on every Sunday. I am a collector of a plethora of organizational products to actually or theoretically keep my life in order. I don't know how many times I actually look at the calendar and remember what I have to do later that day or later that week, but I think the writing it down helps me. So I write it down there. I write it down in my pocket planner. I write it down in daily lists I make on loose leaf papers so I can feel the utmost productivity when I cross off things from the list. Bored with my own train of thoughts, I pulled out my hands from underneath the warm, homey covers and held them out before me, wall calendar blurry in the background. My nail polish was chipped and my hands looked older than I remembered, like they didn’t belong on the end of my arms.

At that moment, my room felt like a representation of everything I wish I was. I wished I was organized and I wished I lived in Europe and I wished I had lots of money to appease my expensive, Crate & Barrel, white-girl taste. I wished I didn't have that taste and that I really cared enough about world hunger and orphans and widows to devote my life to actually helping them. I wished I remembered that girl in the pictures, my former self, young and not jaded yet and hopeful about anything and irritated at people who used the word "jaded" in reference to growing up. I turned my body the opposite way to face towards the wall, feet tangling in the messy sheets. I pulled the comforter up underneath my chin, breathing in a deep sigh.