Just our hands clasped so tight.

...Okay. Fine. I miss him.

Just a little. Just the way he spoke to me tenderly, choice of words always poetic as possible, speaking of how he didn't understand me, how I was his confusion and his destroyer and his universe. Just his goofy smile, witless banter, hopeful intentions and anger at messing them up. Just his stupid laugh and the way he'd put his arm around me awkward, unmeasurable. Stupid. Sweet. Just his tender kisses, his arms pulling me in and his tongue on my mouth exactly how I liked it.

Then he had to move, that bitch, and go fuck it all up.

That's when I realized how much more MYSELF I was without him there. I wouldn't have to worry about lying about my feelings anymore. I could be free and flirt with any hot guy; I could talk to my friends honestly and have fun with them without the pressure of worrying if I should be spending time with him instead; most of all though, I could breathe. I could breathe the air around me - no sexual tension, no overexaggerated attempts to impress someone who didn't know me for me and probably wouldn't have fallen for me if he did. He didn't love me. He loved his idea of me, his take in his head on who I was to him.

And that needed to change.

Besides that, not having him there made disloyalty a lot easier. I'm not saying that me getting romantic with about 10 different guys on 20 different occasions is right, I'm just saying I had an excuse.

I needed someone who wasn't just my boyfriend. I needed a nice guy FRIEND who I could hit on when I wanted but still always go back to that friendship.

I'm a truly terrible person when it comes to relationships, and when I think about him I realize I owe him a lot. It was in his presence that I taught myself to flirt... for real, how I wanted to and how I could. His existence made me a hell of a lot more easygoing about guys and sexual shit. He made me feel beautiful for the first time in my life.

Most of all, though, I learned the hard way that you can't be someone you're not.

And now... NOW... I'm finally free.

I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.

Yeah... Heroes addiction lately... mmhmm... fun-ness...

God, I've been so bored. I try distracting myself with drawing, writing, playing guitar, manga or TV (explanation for the above statement -_-)... and nothing is fucking working. Honestly. Humanity should not be allowed to sink in such a state of consciousness low enough to contemplate the purpose of their own existence, but that's where I'm at.

So while we're on the topic: HOW THE HELL DID WE GET HERE?? I don't believe in god or religion or any of that inane shit, but it's way too incredible to comprehend that over millions of years of development (after popping out of a fucking speck in the sky), humanity has become a force to be reckoned with... against the whole fucking universe.

I don't like it. I don't like how powerful our species is becoming. I feel much calmer knowing that we're just more dust in a giant's eye, something that might make a slight whisper but would never resonate loud enough to be heard. I don't want us to cause a collision. I think we should just back off, lighten up, drift slowly farther and farther away.

Hee, I'm getting all poetic now. But seriously, I don't want to be part of something that's not my business. I like calm, quiet, undisturbed - that's the way it should be. And so I'll wait until we piece ourselves together again. We're nothing more than fragments.

But hey, not like it'll ever happen. Humanity's just a bitch. Qwerty <3

And I'm wishing for a dream or two.

I've noticed a recurring pattern in my sleeping habits over the course of the past two months or so. I stay up until about 7 or 8, and then I sleep until maybe 12 noon. 1, sometimes. THIS IS NOT HEALTHY. I tell myself over and over to put away the damn computer, put down the fucking sketchbook and just close my eyes, but as soon as the black duvet covers me I'm soaking hot and warped in a sequence of disruptive, incredibly focused chain thoughts. Then a few hours later I crash and I'm a zombie up until it gets dark... when it starts all over again.

Not to say this is always a bad thing. For example, I discovered Gravitation during one of my awakeathons. ZoSan became my OTP III overnight. Needless to say, I get a shitload of blogging done in the pitch black. It's just that there really is a lot more that we need to contemplate, need to deal with while the rest of the world is still awake. Already awake. To me, same difference really. And sunlight blinding you from every angle doesn't exactly make for the best snoozing opportunity.

It's a tough habit to break. I think far too much - this I know - and that's the most likely reason for my insomnia. I can't fall asleep when I'm thinking. Always focusing too hard. It's deeply unhelpful at times when I'm worn out.

These are incredibly difficult standards to go by. I can only hope that I manage to break this habit soon, or I'll be stuck on this carousel for a long, long time.

Qwerty <3

One hand in my pocket.

Rebel / re • bel
1. a person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in arms against the government or ruler of his or her country.
2. a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition.

Hmph. Okay, so people tell me I'm rebellious. So what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Sure, I'm a dead-on serious nonconformist, in with the out crowd, never one to give in to peer pressure and usually totally comfortable resisting what others tell me to do. But does that really make me today's definition of rebel? Just because of the holes in my right and not my left ear (and the one in my stomach... haha), the chunky combat boots, and the overexaggerated eye makeup, people take one glance at me and write me off as some wannabe, faux-punk, out-of-the-system rebel.

And I've gotta hand it to them: that probably IS what I look like.

But thinking about it seriously, I'm an A/B student. I'm smart. I, uh, get along with people, if that makes a difference; I've only talked back to a teacher a few times, and that was when the people around me were in desperate need of it. Sure, I throw stuff in math class, but so does everybody. I've never made a big show of hating America (even though anarchy is my top priority)... and most of all, I really, really, REALLY do not hate my parents.

Daddy's little girl? Sure am, and proud of it. Mom's daughter? Yup, totally. I like my parents. I like them as human beings; I like what they do, how they deal with situations, and how they trust me and treat me like someone their age. They've taught me all I know, and I am in complete debt to them. They are both really fantastic people who I'm very fond of. I'd say that if a stereotype female teenage rebel vows to ignore her familiás and their bidding, then I'm pretty much the opposite of a rebel...

Sure, we don't always get along, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

Done, bitches. Qwerty <3

So we'll rise up, won't stop.

Is it normal to be this irked about high school? Noncomformist that I am, I shouldn't give a shit about anyone's opinion on me. And I won't, really. I'm just transcendently, honestly wondering what every other freshman will see when I walk in the door. Maybe the simple things - a stereotypical Goth at first, soon revealing herself to be a disconcertingly serious artist, as well as an up-and-coming musician. Or who knows, I might come off as a conceited, unoriginal and uncaring bitch. And I'll admit to it all... on occasion. But that's not the person I want to be. And in truth, I don't want to be that person for them. I want to be that person for me. That's what I want from myself in life, is that such a crime?

Or... damn. They probably won't give me a second glance when I come through that door. Might raise their eyebrows a bit, from the upfront forwardness of it all, the jangling display of my mindless, reckless persona, but I doubt anyone will think long on it. 'Cept the guys who hit on me of course. (And the girls... !!) Really, though, we're all in the same boat, starting high, and I'm sure that every other freshman in the building will be going straight through the same neurotic paranoia, self-conscious in every way thinkable. Actually, more so than me, most likely.

Because I don't let what anyone says get to me. Not anymore. They can laugh at the black clothes and the big eyeliner. They can whisper to each other about how I'm a walking ad for Hot Topic. Sad. Because I'm pretty confident at this point that I'm not exactly a mean person in my kinder state of being. Really. And if anyone else is feeling self-conscious, shy, scared, or the like - yeah, bitches, you may not show it but damn do you know it - I'm gonna tell them the truth. I'm a little the same way.

Hell, you people are probably convinced I'm a narc if you've come this far. I pretty much only blog about myself, don't I? -laughs- You know what though? THAT'S WHY I'M HERE. You can't exactly counter that. Qwerty <3

And suddenly it's like we're women and men.

Now I'm nervous about a few things. Firstly (and this doesn't exactly qualify as "nervousness," per sé), I really just want to go on our Hot Topic shopping spree (that's me, Juli, and Indi) and get the shitloads of apparel and accessories that I want. Seriously, I just want my new clothes for high school, and I want them ASAP. Also, though, there's that homework factor. I keep putting it off for other things, and I know it's a bad habit but I can't help it. In the end I'm gonna be soooo rushed.

Okay, this sucks ass. Because despite the fact that I'm going to a new high school, that there's going to be thousands of people that I don't know walking by my side every day, that the workload will be significantly harder and the social load, a thousand times more... despite all that, the number one thing that keeps popping into my head is Miniscus.

Yes, I know, I think/worry/contemplate/etc. about it waaaay too much. But in all honesty, this is my future career we're speaking of. Damn, you just have no idea... I have big plans for these books. Really, really big. And because timelines limit, and I want to live an actual life, I've halved the series size from 120 books to 60 books. It makes a lot more sense, no? Seriously, though, I'm incredibly concerned. Four hours of homework a night, and in between that guitar lessons with Max, hanging out with my friends and the possibility of a new boyfriend, I'm totally sweating the fact that I might not complete my goal, which is to have finished volumes 1 and 2 (approx. 200 pages each) by the end of 2009. If that goal is met, I'll start looking for a publisher.

But I really do have to start Hell and All Realms Beyond by the beginning of November, two pages a day at least (in case I ever fall behind), if I want to get my dream into action. In my opinion, the sooner the world hears about it, the better. An action/adventure/ angst/drama/romance-type manga, with unusually good illustrations (I'm just that modest... LOL) and an attention-grabbing plotline (I hope) should get relatively popular by, say, '11, if everything goes how I want. And when I say relatively, I mean that at least in miniscule amounts I'm making some money off this thing.

This is my dream. And it has to happen. And yes: IT WILL HAPPEN.

So why am I still so nervous about it?

Followed by what I left inside.

So I ran into Dee today. At the store. One of the most awkward moments I've had in a while; Julia was there and so was Dee's best friend Steph and neither of them knew what to say to the other (though Julia made it clear how much she loved Donna multiple times afterward). It was strange, though, seeing her outside of school. I mean, as close as we were, we never really hung out or anything.

But it got me thinking on just how much I value her friendship. I now realize that she means the world to me, and that I'd probably never survive without her there to back me up. Even though she's going to SLA and I'm headed off to Central, I don't want this to end up a Johnathan situation.

I can't let go of all the amazing times I've spent with someone I now understand to be one of my closest friends. We were totally open with each other about pretty much everything and I love that girl to death, and she knows it. I'm not ready to become a victim to lost memories, faded emotions. She's got her life now, and I've got mine, but we were so close before, she was one of the most amazing people I've ever met and nothing can get in the way of our friendship - not distance, not mistakes, nothing.

She's still my friend forever, no matter what happens.

You love me but you don't know who I am.

Heh. I just completely love how much time I spend on this shit, just blogging away. Well, it comes from trying to evenly balance all your emotions in front of collective personage. You have to find some way to spout them out, and actual written journals give me hand cramps.

Plus, as weak as it may sound, it vehemently yet lightly, ever so lightly, replays the memories in my head of my façade life - while paranoid and stickily romantic, it was also dead-on perfect, in a melancholy way. Donna and I have grown apart. There's no denying it really. It's nobody's fault, but especially not our own. We love each other just as much as we always did, but obviously the secrets aren't being spilled as hardcore fast as they used to be. And with Johnathan... well, obviously.

These were the two main recipients of my non-life. They took the biggest part in it and, in the end, it crashed down on them the hardest. I can't exactly describe it in words; it was one of those 'you-had-to-be-there' situations. I loved him on the outside, but it was filmy, hollow within. There were no true emotions rooted there.

And Donna - well, she and I were incredibly close, but when we talked about Johnathan I would snap straight into non-life mode. I was fooled, too - that thin screen of fire-siren-false-alarm emotions completely blinded me from the obvious truth, and I believed I was spilling my genuine boy problems to her.

Never boy problems, though. Always "me" problems.

Being at school, being around Dee and J, I was a completely different person than at home, around my sister and close-close-close friends, or even anyone else I knew - as long as they had zero connections with the two of them. Really, why did this happen?

Ha... It's clear as day now. It was all rooted back to HIM.

My stupid sentimental word-raping ex-boyfriend.

So where is this going? Nowhere, I suppose. Just more, more, more encouragement to move on from my non-life, that which I had clung to for so long a time. I still want it with me always, a faintly silver bell tolling ever-so-softly, resonating throughout a little space in the back of my head. Yet I don't want it to keep pestering me.

Now more than ever, I need to run run run away.

Feels so good to be bad.

Absolute ZoSan rampage lately. I've been staying up for 24- to 34-hour intervals just to read sappy, delicious doujinshi and/or fanfiction. I absolutely cannot help it; as my FF.net account so vividly explains, I am irrevocably addicted to love/hate relationships. That type of balance always ends up working so well. And besides, that way it's easier to interpret fight scenes as metaphors for sex scenes. And god, don't even get me started about what happens when you throw yaoi into the mix... -sizzles and dies-

It honestly makes me wonder, though, why it is that I'm constantly shifting and switching my pairing preferences. Honestly, it's no one's fault but ~ladychimera's (and, I suppose, Emmy's) that I have a craving obsession for yaoi, but really. I've even reverted to Robin/Beast Boy at this point, a (completely aodrable!!) yaoi couple that defies my original OTP (...which was bullshit anyway). And I'm pretty sure that the new Zutara signifies taking love/hate relationships over the top.

Somewhat.

Okay, so, yeah, I'm a total fucking nerd to be having dizzy spasms and heart-stopping squee sessions over media, One Piece no less (don't tell Eiichiro!), but it doesn't matter. Entertainment defines me for who I am, and if this is what makes me happy, then that's good for me, isn't it?

Besides... a good author should always be in tune with characters. Even if they're not her own.

Qwerty <3

And no one knows except the both of us.

So about this new blog... any real inspiration for it, you might ask? What pushed you over the edge to abandon your nice, successful[ish] previous blog you had going on back there, "No Need to Say Goodbye?" Hmmm?

Well, it pretty much started with my breakup with Johnathan last night. I'd lately realized that the last blog I had made was pretty much devised for his viewing alone - evident to the sharply trained eye by its flimsy, dramatic, romance-induced attitude. Perhaps there was some Donna involved in my blogging portrayal, but it's also true that we could easily be drama queens together. Really, though, I made it apparent that my love life was the centric of my being.

HA!! Maybe Axel and Roxas' love life. Maybe Yuki and Shuichi's. Not mine. Probably never mine.

I really didn't ever fully connect with Johnathan. As I've stated previously, he barely knew who I was. My backstory was a fabrication woven accidentally, my so-called future an assurance of my feelings for him. He hardly heard a word about Here Without Fear or Miniscus. Never knew my disturbing, fetish obsession with yaoi - or any type of media, for that matter. Never quite fully grasped the concept that despite the fact that there have been several existing past pitiful attempts at relationships, I've never been on an official date before and couldn't care less where we were going. Johnathan was a sweet guy, but he knew nothing of the rabid fangirl, starving artist, up-and-coming passionate musician, ever-undevoted girlfriend that I really was. (See most recent post for expansion on this topic.)

And for some reason, I didn't want him to know.

Which brings me to this. When I broke up with him, I realized just how much for the better it actually was, rather than those same words in more of a vacant reassuring to lift his crushed spirit for one last time. I was free. I was freer than I've ever been, not have untruths and de-truths and, let's face it, lies, weighing me down like a sinking stone in my battered brain. I could do, say what I wanted without having to worry about his opinion anymore. I want everyone I meet, new and old and unwilling, WHATEVER, to know the truth about me, that which has been bottled up inside for far too long.

So basically, by creating "Outside Looking In," I'm letting go of my unfulfilling, far-too-abnormal past, and showing the world the crazy, stupid, unique yet wonderfully, fabulously normal human being I can be. And I'm letting go of Johnathan. All he cared about was what I told him, not who I really was. That's gotta change for me.

To cut it short, clean and simple... I want a guy who likes me for me.

Tired of being what you want me to be.

Well, I'm finished. I'm done with my flimsy façade of a so-called life that everyone around me knew for so long. Because the truth is, they didn't know the half of it. They never realized the person who truly lay beneath my superficial flesh, the happy and crazy and FREE human being who loves her family, loves her MacBook, loves her guitar, and is an artist at heart. All they saw was chain pants, plaid minis, black sweatshirts and drippy black eyeliner, broken hearts doodled on math papers, a so-called "emo girl" who didn't care about anything but the wrist cuts she was stocking up on and how many piercings the guy wearing black had.

Those people, my apparent friends, my peers, many more around me, didn't know me. I'm NO cutter. I'm no genuine emo. I'm my mom's crazy Goth-girl of a daughter who can't keep her hands off her sketchbook for five minutes but who'll always begrudgingly put aside her free time for some "family time". I'm my d-a-d's horror-flick-worshipping daughter who can still pull away from the screen to practice the acoustic Gibson that HE bought me and told me to play. I'm India's loving big sister who writes her sappy fam-love poems about the moon and the tide and tells her how babies are made, how to get a guy's attention, how much she reminds me of her mom when her hair is pulled back like that. I'm Julia's disgustingly carefree "twin" who's been by her side for nine whole years and STILL can't stand the sound of Axl Rose's damn voice, but named my computer after him to make up for it. I'm Emmy's doting bffl who comes over unwelcomed and feeds her - and my - shounen-ai/yaoi/general manga/animé addiction with laughs and huggleses. I'm Donna's therapist of a best friend who tells her when to stop crying and which boyfriend is the best, and what to do about her irritating life.

I'm Johnathan's über-disloyal ex-girlfriend who flirted with every two-legged creature in sight behind his back and then accused HIM of cheating on ME.

I'm the girl with blue hair, black clothes, skull ear-piercings, a laptop bag always on her shoulder and a story always in her head, the girl who lists her Miniscus characters in her sleep, whose Hot Topic wishlist covers more than what her parents make in a year (most likely), who's been in the National Spelling Bee out of mere chance, who spends her spare laptop time reading cheesy AkuRoku fanfics and watching things like Gravitation and Avatar on YouTube rather than that Katy Perry video everyone's so crazy about. I'm the musical fanatic who fucking hates Lupe Fiasco, Chris Brown, T-Pain and Akon but is a sucker for Skillet, Red, Breaking Benjamin, The Used, Goo Goo Dolls, etc. on the angst... and oddly enough, the occasional Jason Mraz, Maroon 5 and Alanis Morissette. Maybe even some Avril if you know me well enough. I'm the biggest gay rights supporter I know, the girl who physically damages the homophobic when they slip up and make some teensy anti-gay remark, the bisexual-and-proud-of-it girl who came out of the closet the day she went in, the cut-shirts-and-combat-boots chick who fangirls and squees over anything of the rainbow nature, and I don't mean colors. I'm the girl who secretly pines for Rent and Avenue Q, who pretty much reads porn rather than watching it (thank you, FanFiction.Net), who may be currently single and therefore sexually deprived (considering my age, graciás y muchá) but still has a mind further in the gutter than any high school BOY... I’m caring. I’m loving. I’m sensitive. I’m huggable. I’m lovable. I’m talkative. I’m sweet. I’m one-of-a-kind. I’m a rebel. I’m fun. I’m loud. I’m weird. I’m random. I’m careless. I’m stubborn. I’m hard-headed. I’m unforgettable. I'm optimistic. I'm everything that your girl isn't. I'm everything you're not.

Nice to meet you.