this is a song about an old welsh witch

I wasn't going to make this into an entire blog post, but I just found the best Wicca website with several pages dedicated to Stevie Nicks, and this one all about her witch-iest songs and live performances: http://www.everythingunderthemoon.net/stevie-nicks-videos.htm

Words can't even describe how much I love Stevie and her clothes and her songwriting and her confidence and how she unapologetically wields power over her own life. I was really interested in Wicca a few summers ago and listening to her dreamiest, most magical songs makes me want to get back into it again. I had a dream once she was my mom and we worked in a shop together selling candles and gemstones.

snow day

I wrote a few poems today. One of them is too personal for me to post online and I'm always paranoid that the person it's about will stumble upon it and automatically know it's about them and hate me forever. Here's the other one I wrote.

snow day

In 2002:

Snow!!!

It was sent to us elementary school students

From the angels in heaven

Who sat on clouds making paper dolls

In the form of snowflakes, sprinkling them

With glitter, like the kind in the art classroom

Blowing them out of their hands

And onto the earth

Fast forward 12 years,

The snow is still pretty

But mockingly so;

I was supposed to go to New York tomorrow.

Leaving my hometown for the first time in a few years,

I’d pretend I lived there, in a dream box apartment

Where I’d write short stories and scripts and novels

Go to shows in clubs and meet friends for coffee

But the angels sent snow to the elementary school students

No school tomorrow!

The roads haven’t been plowed, they’d be covered in ice

We’d spend hours in traffic

My little sister can dress herself in big-girl clothes

And play make believe with her friends.

I’m 18 now and I can’t do that anymore

Poinsettias (a short story)

I am non-religious because I think all humans have been guilty of attributing their own qualities of human-ness onto ideas like creation and God itself since the beginning of time. Before there was even a word for doing this—anthropomorphism. I was raised in a family of Mormons but have always been a secret atheist, agnostic on a good day. It’s strange then, that during the holiday season, I’ve always had an obsession with poinsettias, and since I could stand up on my own, I’ve been compulsively poking my fingernails into the velvety red petals and watching the liquid white blood ooze out. When I was four, my grandma found me sitting on her kitchen floor crying because I had “killed the flower.” All around me were ripped up parts of the poinsettia with all of the puss squeezed out, and I was hysterical. “It’s okay, Jeremy! The flower doesn’t feel any pain. It’s hardly even real!”

In Utah, you need to have a license from the Mormons to purchase alcohol, and even though I was technically a Mormon, I could not buy beer. One Christmas many years after the poinsettia incident, one of the few friends I have in town, Ron Stoddard, picked me up in his station wagon and we journeyed out to Wyoming in the hopes that we’d find an open liquor store.

“It’s about time, ya bastard,” Ron said as I slid into his car. His car’s name is Betty, after the girl he supposedly lost his virginity to in it when he was fourteen. Every other word that comes out of Ron’s mouth would be enough to make my mother cry, but if I censored him, you would not have a genuine understanding of Ron as a person, a bespectacled, skinny thing of a man who talks like a 65-year-old cigar smoker who has seen things in his life that you would not even imagine. He looks puny and dorky, but that’s just to fool his enemies, older men he fights outside of bars just to kill time. He’s been doing this at least since we first met as freshmen in high school, when he was even punier than now, and we’ve enjoyed an eccentric, oddly-matched marriage ever since.

“I was going to bring my new girl Jenny along.” He flicked his cigarette out Betty’s open window. “But she’s gotta spend time with her goddamn family tonight. Said the same thing yesterday. My dick’s about to fall off Jeremy, it’s about to fall right off! How’d you like to let me borrow yours sometime? God knows you’re not using it.” He started laughing, and it turned into a cough.

“Hey, you think any liquor stores will even be open tonight? It is Christmas.”

“Ah, Christmas, ah fuck man it’s Christmas,” he said as if he’d just realized. “Shit, that’s why Jenny’s not free. Damn.”

“But I’m sure she’s spending the night alone in her room crying over ever precious minute she could be spending with you.”

“Shit, man. Forgot all about Christmas! And I might’ve said some stuff to her old man over the phone. Sonofabitch wouldn’t let her outta the house. Shit, man, I don’t even remember all I said…”

“I guess that’s the end of Jenny, then.”

On our way to Wyoming we passed by our old high school, the old alma mater, that resembled a detention center more than anything else. “Aw man, FUCK that place!” Ron shouted out the window. “FUCK you high school motherfuckers!” Even though the school was empty.

“To hell with all of Utah, man,” I volunteered. Cursing our home state, hometown, and high school was a regular activity with us, a healthy and life-affirming practice.

“FUCK Utah,” Ron agreed. “Fuck the Mormons, and fuck alcohol regulations. How am I supposed to not shoot myself in the goddamn head on Christmas if I’m sober?”

We screamed obscenities at every bush, tree, and mountain that passed us by. We told the women and children walking out of churches that God is dead, we are God, and we are sending the whole damn Earth into the depths of Hell. “Satan fucked me in the ass!” Ron cried. Then we got onto the highway and nearly crashed into the guardrail as we cursed and flipped off every car that sped past Betty.

Soon we were in Wyoming. We spent two hours in the state before we arrived in a small, all but deserted town that boasted its wealth and attracted a multitude of tourists like us with a gas station, abandoned drive-in theater, and finally a 24-hour liquor store.

“Heavens to Betsy, there it is,” Ron exclaimed, putting Betty in park and slamming her door shut.

The store was a fluorescently-lit box that featured an ancient old gremlin manning the cash register near the front door. “Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” Ron quipped as he speed-walked toward the back of the box to grab a 12-pack.

“What do you know about Jesus, son?” The old man croaked. I suddenly felt very sorry for him. Maybe it was because he reminded me of my grandfather—they were both very old and wore red flannel shirts. Maybe it was because I knew what it felt like to be stuck in a dead-end town with a dead-end life, this man’s clearly even more deserted and hopeless than my own.

“Sorry about my friend,” I said and rested my hand on the linoleum counter. “He’s just tired from driving all night.”

This man was not friendly like my grandfather. “I know all about you boys,” he muttered. “This country is a shithole, and it’s all because of liberal, hippie…Punks…Like you.” He spat out the word.

I studied his face carefully, and saw that one of his eyes was glass. I remembered the shoddy trailer we’d seen next to the store, with a “Beware of Dog” sign and a chain-link fence protecting the few square yards that made up the backyard. I wondered if it was this man’s house. There was a “Beware of Dog” sign on the fence, but I didn’t see a dog in the yard, and I wondered if there even was one. I wondered if his wife lived there with him, or if she was dead.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I finally said. Ron and I made eye contact then, as he walked quickly from the back of the store, 12-pack in hand. My wallet was at home, but I fingered a $20 I didn’t know had been in my pocket, and slapped it down on the counter. “And I’m sorry we’re underage hippie punks and can’t properly pay for this, merry Christmas.” Ron took off running and I followed, jumped into Betty, and we sped down the road, back home.

“You should call Jenny,” I said while we were still in the car. “Tell her you love her, since it’s Christmas and all. I bet she’d appreciate that.”

Ron turned and looked at me like I’d suggested we go back and have an orgy with the hermit at the Wyoming liquor store. “What, you’re some suave-ass romantic motherfucker now? Why don’t you call her, you smug sonofabitch. Tell her sonofabitch father I said hey.”

Ron was the smug sonofabitch, always had been and probably would die outside of a bar in Utah smiling smugly to himself, that sonofabitch. He’s one of my few friends in our town, and I love him. And I love Betty, the screechy cigarette-smelling bitch, and Jenny, who I’d never meet. I love the saggy, wrinkled creature that lived in a trailer and was probably robbed by underage punks like us all the time, and I love tight-fisted conservative republicans and free-loving, free-loading liberal democrats, and I love cranky old gremlins that operate liquor stores all over America. 

ground control to major tom

Happy belated birthday, David Bowie! I didn't do much yesterday to celebrate the 67th birthday of one of my Favorite Men on Earth, but this morning I think I subconsciously got dressed with him in mind.  I rarely ever wear these leggings because they fit weird and don't match anything I own, but today I said "the hell with it," pairing them with a black skirt and the fisherman grandpa sweater my sister just bought from Goodwill. Put me on the cover of Teen Vogue right now. (Better yet, put me on the cover of Sassy, which my sense of style and general feminine mystique will inspire to rise from the dead. If you know where I can get an old issue of Sassy for less than $80, by the way, let me know asap!!)
When they interview me I will humbly confess that my main style icons are in fact fisherman grandpas that frequently partake in space travel and the wearing of roll-on face glitter.

This picture doesn't do the leggings justice, ugh, but my mom described them as "jarring."

Next time the roll-on glitter will be applied more generously. I also really like wearing white eyeliner on my waterline right now because if I make myself look bored enough, it gives me a desired couldn't-care-less "ceiling eyes" effect.

style icon(s)

I'm really tired and it's -9 degrees in my house but I can't write about how much I love Courtney without making a post about her wonderfully feminine dress-up doll style known as
KINDERWHORE.
And so here is the best of the 90's kinderwhore look

(This look does not look complete without a Peter Pan collar)

I want my hair to do this I want it to be messy and effortless and wavy and cute and I want to stick my little sister's hair clips all over it.

~hi haters~ u go girl 

I just really love that guitar strap, also Hi Marianne Faithfull!!!

I am a witch and a slut, too. 

However, I can't give Courtney all of the credit for this "look" because my sources show that its origins come from none other than 

KAT BJELLAND

Who is also beautiful and lovely and perfect in every way. 

Showing us grown-ups how to work the little girls' barrettes for the first time ever. Truly an icon. It's the 90's, anything can happen.

Also, to prove the validity and influence of this unique fashion trend: Meadham Kirchhoff's more recent Kinderwhore Revival. 

I would give anything to have modeled in that show. This makes the messy blond hair and pale silk slips officially iconic. Goodnight!

preteen poetry feat. courtney love

I know that title alone is a legitimate excuse to not read this post I'm making and I want you to know that I completely understand. You are under no obligation to read this. I know that 95% of us were poets (of the misunderstood emo persuasion) back in middle school and I am no exception! Also, many hyper-masculine professional criticizers of Nirvana/pop culture in general cringe at the very thought of C******* L***. This is where you stop reading, friends. That censorship is a one-time thing. I happen to love the Teenage Whore/Babydoll/Rockstar/Pretty On the Inside Retard Girl, this is getting cheesy, but you get the idea. I don't know if I actually wrote this in middle school or early high school, but I'll pretend that I was as young as I can possibly get away with.

I really enjoyed writing poetry back then, even though I'd be too embarrassed to even try today. It shouldn't, but a teenage girl writing poems gives me the image of a 13-year-old sitting alone in her bedroom, gazing dramatically out a window while listening to My Chemical Romance and looking up adjectives to describe what an unreasonable bitch her mom is and the overall cruelties of life. 

I hate reading things that I wrote when I was younger. I was sensitive, shallow, and I fell madly in love with any boy that would talk to me (and some that didn't). Despite all of that, it does make me feel a little bit better knowing that even back in those days, Courtney was a role model of mine. (I know what you're thinking but I already made the disclaimer! I'm done defending myself now, and I mean it!) 

The role models available to us at the time, about five years ago, were the heavily media-trained Disney/Nickelodeon/MTV starlets that promoted "being true to yourself" and "believing in your dreams". Of course, I'm not opposed to those ideals at all, and I'm not here to voice my opinions on popular teen actresses. My peers looked up to the likes of Miley (Disney Channel era) and Demi and Selena and whoever else, I don't even remember and I don't know why only Disney stars are coming to mind, but those were my friends' role models and I'm sure they were mine, too. But I also had Courtney.

I knew that Courtney was different from the other female celebrities I was being exposed to, because she was edgy and dated cute rockstars and sang in a band. What I didn't realize at the time was that while my other role models were constantly preaching that us girls speak our minds and be ourselves, Courtney did it. I doubt that she was ever interviewed for Tiger Beat magazine, but she was always vocal about her opinions, and her actions definitely speak for themselves. She's never been one to hold back. However you feel about Courtney, it's undeniable that her attitude is refreshing in the artificial, simulated world of Hollywood. It sounds bad when I say that she basically has no secrets, but that's a welcome contrast to all of my other preteen idols. I did extensive research on all of them, but no matter how many magazine articles I read or fan websites I visited, they still remained complete strangers to me. 

Of course I don't only love Courtney for her shamelessness and authenticity, but her music is what initially grabbed me and what will keep me tied to her, defending her tirelessly, for the rest of my life. If I remember correctly (who knows), seeing Hole perform Softer, Softest on MTV's Unplugged is what inspired me to turn my admiration for her into a poem. It's my favorite song off of Hole's critically acclaimed album Live Through This, and it's a great example of her a.) musical talent/weirdly wonderful songwriting, and b.) flawless aesthetic. The fact that she's also my biggest inspiration in terms of style should, and will be, dedicated to another blog post. 

That being said, I love Courtney and if my future daughter ever comes home from school one day with choppy blonde bangs and purple lipstick, asking to borrow my copy of Sassy magazine with Kurt and Courtney on the cover, which I have acquired by this point, I will be totally okay with it. I will encourage it. Aspire to be Courtney Love, children! Her dream in life was to become famous and marry a rockstar, she's totally honest about this, and she achieved it.  

the 80's weren't all bad

Molly Ringwald by undergroundvelvet

I've been watching a lot of John Hughes films lately and not only does Molly Ringwald play the coolest characters ever but she also has the best style (contributing to her overall coolness). Layers upon layers of floral prints and beaded cardigans with dangly earrings and top hats and kick-ass boots (see: The Breakfast Club). And her character in Pretty in Pink got it all secondhand. I aspire to be her.

thunder only happens when it's raining

New Year's Resolutions are perpetually dumb and a waste of time and this article on Rookie backs me up. But since it's winter break and I don't move back into my dorm until the 27th, and I actually do have dreamz and goalz (the shocking truth about most lazy people), there are some changes I'd like to make. Not because it's 2014 and it's going to be "My Year, Finally!!" but because I'm only going to be 18 until May and I feel like I'm getting so old and there are some things I'd like to accomplish.
First, a minor adjustment that needs to be made: stop writing long, run-on sentences all the time. Improve my writing in general. Generally, write more. Maybe start thinking in shorter sentences and my brain will automatically do the adjusting and I won't have thousands of conjunctions before a damn period! (Or exclamation point!)
I also want to explore the Art of Screenwriting which is why I'm currently studying the Screenwriting for Dummies book I took out from the library. I suddenly enjoy writing screenplays, a lot! Most of the fiction I write, even the short stories, go unfinished. I think I probably have at least 10 first chapters of stories saved on Word right now. It might benefit me to make one of my goals "Actually Finish Things!" but I'm trying to be realistic here. With screenplays, I find that I'm much more motivated to see things through to the very end and actually do some editing and all of that fun stuff. I genuinely enjoy it, too. Even if the characters of what I'm working on right now resemble Sam and Lindsay Weir a little too much.
Goal 3: Be more creative.
Goal 4: Read more books.
Goal 5: Watch more movies by directors that I'm really interested in, like Sophia Coppola and John Waters. Study their finished screenplays (at least the ones that are available online).
And that's all, folks! Here's to following our dreamz this year, and for the rest of our lives. If anyone's reading this, I encourage you to explore all of your interests to the fullest extent possible, think about what you might wanna do in life, and take the time to get really good at it. Writing this makes me want to listen to Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Happy belated New Year!

The Johnny Depp Shirt

Since today is January 1st, I thought it would be totally appropriate and sensible to dedicate my First Blog Post to my New Years Resolutions. However, I'm not appropriate or sensible and the harsh reality of New Years is that most of today I've spent tired and hungover. So the Resolutions post will come tomorrow, maybe.
I really wanted to write something but something that I don't have to spend a lot of time on. So I'm just going to talk about my Johnny Depp Shirt really quick: It was one of the few Christmas presents from my mom that I didn't expect but I'm really thrilled with it and it's actually a very touching gift because me and my mom totally bond over our obsession with Johnny Depp. (I have a theory that she married my dad because coincidentally, his birth date and year are the same as JD's, and maybe she thinks that they're long lost twins or the same person in parallel universes or something.)
I also love this shirt because it matches well with a lot of the skirts I own and I've already worn it twice and I don't have a lot of shirts because they're not my favorite thing to buy. And because Johnny Depp is a babe! And because, in the spur of the moment, I bought a kilt from the 1970's because the vintage store was having a 20% off sale, and I don't think any other shirt would look quite as good with it. In conclusion, I love my mom, I love Johnny Depp, and he might actually be my father in the Twilight Zone.