Dyed hair is really in at my school. I’ve seen purple, blue, pink, red — everything. I think it’s great, seeing all the different colored heads of hair bobbing around in the hallways.
I have asked several of my formerly purple-haired friends if they are re-dyeing their hair soon, and they told me no, it’s too trendy. I asked them why they dyed it in the first place, and they said it was to be different.

What? I think people are missing the point. Wearing your hair in a certain style or dressing a certain way is about empowerment and feeling great about yourself, isn’t it?

I highlight my hair blonde and I love it. I love when a lock of my bleached hair falls alongside part of my brown hair and the way the the different tones blend together. I like the stripes when I wear my hair pulled back and the nice neat yellow line that’s formed by my bleached hair when I clip it. I like it because it makes me feel pretty. That’s it.

What is the significance of refraining from wearing a particular style of clothing or hair just because it’s trendy? That tells me you are a shallow special snowflake and you need your physical appearance to act as a reassurance that you are indeed different. Well, in a world of 7 billion, there is going to be someone out there with your hair color.

I probably sound like a hypocrite, dressing the way I do and being such a loud person. Over the past few days, I saw a lot of Peter Pan collars at school, and I loved it. I’m not going to stop wearing them because they’re “in.” I had two separate people tell me that they chose to buy a particular pair of shoes because of the shoes I wear, and I’m very flattered and glad. If funky vintage dresses and ugly shoes and assorted pins become the trend, I will not stop wearing them. I wear things because I like them and they make me feel good, and that’s what’s important.

6 September 2012   •  12 notes   •  View comments

It’s disappointing to see so many nice people arguing over such a seemingly trivial topic. Last week, Isabel of Hipster Musings made this post on her blog, in which she said,

Besides lack of style inspiration, another reason for my absence is because I feel like the internet has gone on this obsessive tangent with this whole Rookie/girl-guts, pastel hair, sparkly feminist aesthetic. It’s all fine and good and I think Celia and Tavi are incredibly lovely girls and great role models, but I just don’t buy into the cult of perpetual teenagehood. I have plain brown hair that I don’t want to dye purple and my wardrobe isn’t particularly colourful and all of a sudden I have been displaced by a whole new crop of “weird girls.” A big part of fashion blogging is validation, and when you feel like your look isn’t really what is being validated in the moment, you stop feeling motivated to put yourself out there in hopes of attracting a waning number of comments and “likes.”

It sparked a huge debate, with Arabelle of Fashion Pirate making this post in response.

To be honest, I sort of agree with Isabel. I think that people have been relating dyed hair and cute pixel art to feminism, and vice versa. Isn’t feminism about equal rights and equal pay and all that good stuff? I don’t understand how an ideology became so intertwined with a particular aesthetic, especially one so seemingly disinterested in intersectionality. So take your hair dye and nebulae and hairy pits and legs and see if you can tell what’s very wrong with this picture. If you don’t see anything wrong there, I think you need to reevaluate what it means to be a feminist.

“The cult of perpetual teenagerhood” is an interesting description. Teenagerhood is definitely glorified everywhere. I like watching television and reading magazines and laughing at how different high school is than it is depicted. And what is this whole thing about “making memories with friends?” Every teenager in the history of ever is depicted as having a best friend. I can not possibly be the only person who doesn’t have one; the perpetuation of this idea that best friends truly exist only makes the rest of us feel lonelier.

I don’t know about you, but I hate being a teenager. There’s something about Rookie that upsets me because I feel like my teenagerhood isn’t as good or as memorable as it’s supposed to be. There are a lot of projects (writing projects, particularly) that I would like to pursue but I can’t because, guess what? I’m a teenager. I have teenager things to do like homework and studying and no time for the adult things I want to do, like writing a novel (a good one, not a NaNoWriMo, which I have done three times). Why can’t someone just come out and explain that being a teenager sucks; it’s the interim period between childhood and adulthood and you’re supposed to think and grow and learn but it’s awfully hard to do so when your hormones are raging and you have so much god damn angst.

I disagree with the blogging for validation aspect of Isabel’s post. It seems that at this point, being normal is weird in the blogosphere. I get so confused by memes like these because I can never tell if I fall into any of those categories. The only solution is to ignore all of the stigma against different types of people and just do what you want to do, dress the way you want to dress, and blog about whatever you want to blog about. I’m slightly disturbed that the whole time I’ve been following Isabel, she’s been doing it for the validation, for the little gold sticker to show that it’s all been worth it.

Nonetheless, criticism of this sparkly feminist aesthetic isn’t a direct affront to individuality, as Arabelle suggests, but rather a skeptical look at the legitimacy of fluffy feminism and the glorification of adolescence.

27 August 2012   •  20 notes   •  View comments

I possess an overwhelming knowledge –
Painful clamor of gratitude meanwhile ringing in my ears –
That no royal family of ancient origin can ever surpass the ancestry from which I came.
No coveted prince, voice accented in golden brown,
Can exceed the value I know I possess,
For the Episcopal blood of his existence is not so old,
Nor so taxed and tried,
As that which allows me not merely to exist, as my forefathers were forced to do,
But to live,

Free spirited and vivacious,
Though with an eggshell heart,
Cracked by observing the sorrowful song of today,
Smashed by remembering yesterday’s dissonance,
But never broken.

No – never broken,
For I exude confidence
And hold vanity in high esteem.
Idealist images circulate, perpetuate notions of perfection,
Honey-colored and warm in the summer,
Yet I refuse to be categorized,
Sorted into straightforward cabinets,
Metal, constricted, emitting a sharp bang when shut,
Emanating through a solemn room,
Permeating its plastic silence
With the disembodied remnants of something that was happy once.
I refuse to be directed, to be told which way to go,
Because “beauty is truth” and I am the truest thing I know,

Truer than misplaced values
Or words intended to sound a different way.
And it is this truth which allows me to convey
The softness of a summer night
Or the musky smell of a still life.
It is this truth that lies within jumbled up senses
And lets me immortalize phrases
With the loops and curves of a pen.
Through words, I elicit the feelings vital to live –
As my forefathers have not done, but I am going to do.

6 June 2012   •  5 notes   •  View comments

People always ask me where I get my clothes, then ask me to expound upon the prices, durability, sizing, and style of the clothes in the stores that I name. Kids at school ask me how I afford my clothes. When I tell them that I don’t shop at Bergdorf Goodman or Barneys or any place like that, but rather at thrift stores or lower end places, they ask me how I find such things. As a response to these kinds of questions, I’ve written some reviews from a normal person who, like, actually wears clothes and walks in them* and goes to school and stuff.

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27 April 2012   •  4 notes   •  View comments

This is an English essay I wrote comparing and contrasting Santiago from Old Man and the Sea and the man from The Road. If you wanted to read it and tell me what you thought, well, I would like that.

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22 April 2012   •  View comments

The other day, I was really eager to wear a pin I had just bought, but I couldn’t find it for the life of me. It’s okay; the woman from whom I had bought it was really nasty and I’m convinced it had been afflicted with malevolent spirits anyway.

It was a vintage political pin from the late 1800s with a photograph of a politician and his wife. On the back there was a patent number and some mention of New Jersey. The thought of this pin really bothers me, though. I own a picture of a man who died at least 100 years ago and nobody remember him, aside from maybe his great-grandchildren. It’s incredibly scary to me how a man, who was probably very well known and probably made a great impact in his community, can be nearly eradicated from the Earth, just like that. He surely spent his life earnestly working towards his political ideals, only to die and make a difference that would only fade out like a ripple in the ocean. I just wish that he could be something more than a name on a gravestone or a face on a pin. He’s nothing, just a life that a teenager 150 years later would deem to be completely in vain.

I’m scared more than anything that when I die, I won’t leave anything substantial behind. I don’t make music or anything timeless; I just write unorganized prose and go to school and work scrupulously toward straight As that won’t matter in a matter of years. It’s really scary as hell.

But maybe this politician did accomplish something. He got me to think, even if that thought was more of a momentary flood of emotions and doubts than anything.

10 March 2012   •  2 notes   •  View comments

          Last year, in middle school, we spent the final two months of school reading Anne Frank’s diary. I first read the book in fifth grade, and I knew from the start that reading it with my class was going to be a bad idea.

          Don’t get me wrong. I think that the Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most beautiful pieces of literature ever written. It’s just that a lot of eighth graders at my school weren’t mature enough to read it. It wasn’t their fault, either. They just needed to grow up a bit.

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15 October 2011   •  13 notes   •  View comments

This is an essay I wrote on Villette, by Charlotte Bronte for summer reading. Thoughts are appreciated!

            Charlotte Brontë’s 1853 novel Villette details the life of a young woman named Lucy Snowe while she tries to make her way in the world as a schoolteacher in the nineteenth century. Brontë briefly depicts a change of events in Lucy’s life, stating, “Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been a wreck at last” (Brontë 45). Lucy quickly finds herself a stranger in a strange land—an Englishwoman in France, knowing only the English language, while the rest of the country’s occupants speak French, in hopes of starting a new life. She appeals to the owner of a boarding school named Madame Beck, who allows Lucy room and board in exchange for the duties of a nurse and, later, those of a schoolteacher.

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1 October 2011   •  12 notes   •  View comments

So I went to the Student Council room after school because I heard there was a meeting, and Mr. L. told me right when I got there, “Sorry, it’s canceled.” I had already missed my bus and I had an hour to kill before I was to be picked up, so I walked over to the room where the Gay/Straight Alliance was supposed to meet.

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27 September 2011   •  2 notes   •  View comments

I wrote this a while ago about Queen Elizabeth I of England. Her father, King Henry VIII, wanted a male heir to the throne, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, only had Elizabeth and two miscarried sons. Anne Boleyn was tried and executed for treason, but it is widely believed that her downfall was due to her failure to have male children. This is for a 500 word contest, about a young Bess keeping dolls that she tells herself are her miscarried brothers. Criticism would be appreciated.

Henry was a tiny doll, porcelain cracked on the left side of his head. His right foot crumbled at Bess’s touch, and she braced herself for blood, for shrieks loud enough to wake Mother from her shameful grave. Disturbed by the silence and the dryness of her brother’s skin, she wiped away his shattered foot, and leaned down to examine his ankle. Hollow.

She rushed to her scrap basket and pricked herself on a needle she had neglected to put away but felt no pain. She rummaged through her fabrics, through remnants of past dresses and her mother’s old clothes. Blood seeped through a rag as she held it between thumb and forefinger; she grabbed the cloth it and stuffed it up Henry’s leg.

Bess scooped Henry up with Francis and tucked each everlasting brother into a crib they couldn’t outgrow, where they would dream dreams, Bess was sure, of the heirs they could never become. Perpetually pursed lips met the lip of a glass bottle, and milk dribbled down their ancient baby chins. Bess kissed each brother on each check and set off for tea.

Richard, Bess’s half-brother, two years her junior, was already seated at the grand marble table, devouring a pastry with his chubby fingers.

“How was your day so far?” Bess began.

“It was fine, I suppose. I played about in the courtyard. And you?”

“I knitted a pair of pajamas for Francis.”

“Why? I couldn’t think of a more boring chore.”

“Francis lacked something to sleep in.”

“Bess, it’s a doll. It can’t sleep! You are ten years old–too old to play with dolls.”

“You should look to yourself before you reprimand me. At eight, you still play with hobby horses. At least my dolls have full bodies; you play with a horse head on a stick!”

“You are ridiculous. I will be king soon, and then I will outlaw dolls!”

“No, Henry will be king, and when he dies, Francis, and when Francis dies, I shall rule as queen!” exclaimed an irritated Bess.

“Henry and Francis–rubbish! They are dolls; they are not real! And you—you are but a girl.”

And the weight of these five words struck Bess. Knowing King wanted an heir of the correct gender, knowing Mother’s uterus wouldn’t comply, aware of the dismal truth of the situation, of her mother’s execution, she fled the dining room, sobbing. King grinned at the head of the table.

Bess retreated to her chamber, pacing, pacing. “Maybe Richard is right,” she thought. “Maybe I’m too old for dolls. Maybe they mean nothing; they can’t feel anything; they’re not my brothers.” And she caressed both dolls in her arms, clutching them close to her tiny breasts. “If I am going to be queen,” she said aloud, “I will have to forget fantasy.” And with much remorse, she thrust the dolls upon the floor, watched them shatter, swept up their remains, disposed of their broken pieces, and returned the cloth to her scrap basket.

1 September 2011   •  View comments

I know I’m going out on a limb here, but seriously, I’ve written three novels and never considering publishing any of them … UNTIL NOW!

4 August 2011   •  2 notes   •  View comments

When the rain won't come
and clothes hang -- limp dishrags;
curtains sag;
walls stick like a half-eaten plum.
I don't rest.

Even when the rain comes
and there's a green smell in the rooms,
things are fine;
not ominous -- divine!
Flowers grow.
I don't rest.

And when the night falls down,
trips in the darkness and stumbles through town,
children nap
but I know adults snap
at each other, at offspring, at life.
I can't sleep.

In a world full of Stepford wives,
who's to know that there aren't lies
hidden behind those Plasticine faces?
Smiles smothered like Smart Balance
and peanut butter in traces.
They suffer underneath.

And the men!
They don't vent.
Lives in the office
Or lives on the farm,
They do no wrong,
They cause no harm,
They must be strong.

And the young ones
are they the fun ones
when their heads are in pillows
cringing at parents' bellows?
They whimper in distress.

And that is why, my dear, I can't sleep.

24 July 2011   •  2 notes   •  View comments

When I was in fourth grade about five kids, including myself, skipped English every Thursday and instead went to an advanced reading group. We got to play games, talk, basically do everything we didn’t get to do in normal class. Also we read. That was a big part of it, too.

Anyway we had a great big anthology which we read out of. The cover, I remember, had yellowish flowers all over it, and there was a sky, and I think there might have been a girl on it. It was sort of like a less artsy version of “Christina’s World.”

The best stories we read were “The Elephant’s Child” by Rudyard Kipling and another story about a boy who tries to steal a woman’s purse, but she takes him back to her apartment, makes him wash up, feeds him, and gives him money for a pair of blue suede shoes. For some reason this story always baffled me. Why is the woman so kind to the boy? She says in the story that she had done some bad things in her day — what exactly were they? In a quest to find and reread this story today and search for answers that I may have acquired with age (hey, I’m five years older than I was then!), I googled “suede shoes short story.” It’s called “Thank You, Ma’am” by Langston Hughes. I have no more answers now than I did when I was nine, it’s still a great story. Does anyone happen to know the name of the anthology I’m talking about? I’d really like to buy it. So here’s a question mark:

?

Edit: I found the book here and my description of the cover was kind of accurate. Sorry this is a really pointless post but whatever.

23 July 2011   •  1 note   •  View comments

Ugh I feel terrible for slacking so much on my writing lately, especially since I know that’s the reason some of you folks follow me. The thing is, I have all these thoughts and ideas bouncing around in my head, but I either never write them down, or if I do, it’s complete shit. Of course, when I show it to other people, they gush and say, “Oh, it’s fantastic!” but really, how can you tell they aren’t just being gushy and fake? I’ve written a bit lately but a lot of it is not the sort of thing I would want the Tumblr audience to see (diary entries, profanity, sexy stuff) (yes contrary to popular belief I am 14 and I have hormones that happen to be raging currently) (oh God I’m gonna look back at this post and cringe).

Also, I get so discouraged when I write something good! I wrote a poem that was actually good last August at camp whilst sitting in a tree, but I have been slightly depressed on the writing front ever since. I feel like I’ll never be able to write anything like that again, and it just makes me want to tear up all the little manuscripts and journals in my desk and scattered throughout my room. I guess I’ll just need to find more trees to sit in for inspiration.

P.S. Am I the only one who has been following the Casey Anthony murder trial in horror/awe/transfixed-ness? (Yes I know it’s not a word and I am being very ~*~ unwriterlike ~*~ right now.) But seriously, it’s distressing! Casey Anthony obviously did it and if they find her not guilty, then, then, I don’t even know what I’d do. But I had a scary thought last night that almost brought a tear to my eye: I imagined little Caylee Anthony, who would be six in August (right?) going to her first day of first grade wearing a little jumper and white new light-up sneakers bought for her fist day. She would have a backpack with some cartoon character on the back like Dora maybe or Spongebob or Scooby-Do, and she would be holding a similar lunchbox and inside would be a little Tupperware container with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and she would have a juice box and something healthy like carrots or an apple, and then in a little plastic baggie there would be something sweet like a brownie or a cookie and a little napkin with the words, “Good luck on your first day Caylee!” written on it. Except then I realized she would never get to have the backpack and the lunchbox and the napkin and it was just so sad. I know I’m sentimental. You can leave now if you’re feeling uncomfortable.

P.P.S. Did you see that judge? Not only did he have the stereotypical judge look, but he sat there half asleep the whole time! Of course he wasn’t actually half asleep, but he looked that way. It was not only very amusing but distracting, too!

</end rant>

4 July 2011   •  View comments