Manifesto Ultimatum: Day 8: Something That Has Made Me Cry

Do you have any idea how long it's been since I wrote a journal entry? My life is still happening, mind you, but words are not, and it's breaking my heart. 

I have writer's block still, so help me God.

And Connor leaves the day after tomorrow.

I'm just going to stop while I'm ahead.

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." -Virginia Wolfe

All my love,

Addy

Manifesto Ultimatum: Day 6: Unpopular Opinion

"It's all fun and gay until someone looses their rights."

If you don't want an abortion, don't get one.

But Ayn Rand, economically, got it just right.

But Ayn Rand, rhetorically, got it just right.

And if I were to do it all over again, I would do a lot of things differently.

Skinny boys are hot.

And everybody leaves you in the end.

"Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark."

That's my moon. Someday, I'll write a real blog post. Probably.
All my love,
Addy

Manifesto Ultimatum: Day 5: Something about bands and set lists.

Let's talk about Band of Horses. I was across the street, halfway across the universe with Emily and Avery and we'd lost everyone else somewhere else and we weren't listening until that beginning guitar riff from "The Funeral" came in -- you know that one? And that song is so good and we went running. We went running down the sidewalk, back across the street, back across the universe, and I think I pushed past a woman with a stroller (sorry, m'am), and Avery shouted something about getting back before the downbeat, but we aren't that fast of runners and we were kind of far away, anyway. 

The point is that that was summer for me, like boyfriends and best friends and dirt poor, so be it, dirt poor and happy to be it because we had each other and that made us rich, rich, rich, starry-eyed and new.

And now fall is here, less sweaty and more apologetic, if you will, perhaps only because it has more to apologize for than its summer-y-ier counterpart.

Fall is here now, and now I am okay it with it, though, to be honest, it's taken me a second to get this way -- I have jeggings, hot coffee, a whole heck of a lot of transcontinental phonecalls, women in overalls, lots of yoga, girls with curly handwriting, and calculus, even, oddly enough, to thank for that. Oh, and Shakespeare. I always have Shakespeare to thank. Thank you, William. You're the man.

And this fall, I'm doing okay, with okay meaning "I really like waking up in the morning."

What I'm really getting at is this: Today, I finally opened a checking account, which made me feel rich, rich, rich in a monetary sense, and I am rich, but not like that. I'm rich because I have a full head of hair and brains inside my skull and boys who run cross country to teach me about rap music and I still get transcontinental phonecalls and someone made a mix of "Islands" by Young the Giant and "Into" by The XX, and that's basically the best song to ever happen to me, and I have good teachers and good parents and good sisters and I wake up every day and I really like it. I really like waking up in the morning, because I am not lonely anymore, because there are people who love me. I've never needed to be lonely. There have always been people to love me.

There are people who love you.
There have always been people who love you.

"The minute you let her into your heart, she'll take all your money and leave you at home." NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA.
All my love,
Addy

Manifesto Ultimatum: Day 4: Haikus

 

 

 

I am so lucky

To call you my own mother.

Can't thank you enough.

Today, there is rain.

This morning, I loved your laugh.

Today, I miss you.

There's more where that came from.

All my love,

Addy

Manifesto Ultimatum: Day 4: Ashtanga With Addy, All I've Ever Really Loved is Semi-Colons

So look: There'd be this movie and they'd call it "All my Love, Addy" (runner up movie titles would be "Ashtanga With Addy: An At-Home Yoga Practice for Yogis Who Just Can't Get Enough: Yogi is the New Sexy" and "The Only Thing I've Ever Really Loved is Semi-Colons (and also my Family and Boys)").

The soundtrack (in no particular order) would be as follows:
1.) "Squealing Pigs" by Admiral Fallow
2.) "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers
3.) "Rivers and Roads" by The Head and The Heart
4.) "New Soul" by Yael Niem
5.) "Naive" by The Kooks
6.) "Oxford Comma" by Vampire Weekend
7.) "Killin' It" by Krewella
8.) "Bad Karma" by Ida Maria
9.) "Blood" by The Middle East
10.) "Casimir Pulaski Day" by Sufjan Stevens
11.) "My Body" by Young the Giant
12.) "Sister Rosetta" by The Noisettes
13.) "Good Day" by Nappy Roots
14.) "Take Me or Leave Me" from Rent
15.) "Fluorescent Adolescent" by Arctic Monkeys
16.) "A Beautiful Mess" by Jason Mraz (This song is about me. No joke. Go look up the lyrics. Especially if you know me. It's about me.)

Here's the thing: I wish I could cast this movie or name this movie or even tell you a real soundtrack for this movie (all I was really doing up there was naming my favorite songs), but I can't. I wish I could name my Love Interest (Ryan Gosling (See what I did there?)) or tell you how it'd go, but I can't. I'm only 17 years old. I have my whole entire life ahead of me. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow until it happens, and then if we made my movie today, it'd be outdated and inaccurate by the end of tomorrow. "I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then."

"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."

I can't tell you about my movie, but I can tell you what I hope it will be, what I'm going to make it be, and something I can tell you is this: I'm going to be an English teacher, that's what I've finally figured out, because Shakespeare? He wrote with the beat of your heart.

William Shakespeare wrote because of your heartbeat, and that is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.

The Olympics in 1942 were in Berlin.
All my love,
Addy

Manifesto Ultimatum Day 2: Zodiac Signs.

I'm a Leo, obviously. Obviously.

Don't call me a self-fulfilling prophesy, but some days I can't decide if there is fate and there is destiny because some days I want that and other days I don't.

Today, as a Leo, stubborn, vindictive, tired, I am crying over you because you asked me not to. It's a lame revenge. It's a beautiful revenge. I know about revenge.

Yesterday, as a Leo, bright, loud, beautiful, I didn't have the answers for you, but listen to the way I shape the words "I love you" and you will love me back, because we are the same.

And I have lion hair and I am not a self-fulfilling prophesy. I was born for this. I was born under stars.

"I try to remember my youth. It evaporates into just a handful of memories. One memory was that you believed the entire earth was made perfect by God, and that humans came and fouled it up, as God looked down, shaking his head, saying, "How could they choose terror and loss when I have offered them perfection?" And then you got older and didn't feel that way. And you thought maybe God never really wanted perfection if he designed the things he made with an instinct to screw up. Fighting and failing became beautiful, hard. Screwing up became part of the program. You can call it sin, you can call it human, but maybe there are codes built inside of darkness needing light and vice versa. It did not shake your belief in the existence of a God, but it shook your belief in the bland necessity for perfection."

Here's six shout outs to six other Leos that I'm a big fan of: Hazel Baird, Millie Baird, Connor White, Alex Barker, Margaux Canali, Blake Westover.

"I'm not that pristine."
All my love,
Addy

Originally, I was too indie for this. Turns out I'm just too pretentious. Either way, this is MANIFESTO ULTIMATUM: DAY ONE. My way.

"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)" 

I hate my nose. Everyone hates their own nose. It's a thing. I'd be willing to bet that even Taylar Davis hates her own nose, and she has the cutest nose of anyone I've ever met. Except maybe Lauren Stratton. Her nose rivals all noses, and I know for a fact that Lauren Stratton hates her own nose; she told me so herself, right after I told her she has the best nose of anyone I've ever met.

People like their eyes, though. It's also a thing. I think it's because eyes can't possibly be an ugly shape. Or maybe they can, but it's just so subtle that I can't tell. Someone ask Billy Prilgrim, Optimologist, Unstuck In Time. He'll know. My eyes are the color of grass and also the color of mice.

I like my eyelashes the best, though. They're the most beautiful thing about me. Mostly only the makeup ladies at Nordstrom notice them, though. They say things like, "Girl! Your eyelashes!" and I walk on air for a solid hour after that.

Scientifically, men are more attracted to the left side of a woman's face than her right. This is ridiculous. Take pictures of the right side of my face all you want. If a man only wants to look at the left side of my face, I'll gladly have some choice words regarding feminism, gender roles, and also probably science for him.

I have eyebrows, and they look great for the three weeks after being waxed. God bless estheticians. 

Other people god bless:
-baristas
-French exchange students
-English majors
-yoga ladies
-poetry teachers
-Albert Einstein
-Andrew Garfield
-siblings that look a lot alike
-skinny boys

I like the idea of learning forever about what I want to learn about.

Someday, I think I will get a degree in English with an emphasis in Teaching, emphasis in Creative Writing with a double minor in theater with an emphasis in playwriting, Art History, emphasis Hellenistic Greece, Gothic Cathedrals, 20th Century.

Someday, I think I will get a Masters in English, emphasis in Creative Writing, playwriting. Masters in Art Restoration.

Someday, I might get a Ph.d. in Art History, emphasis in Gothic Art, especially cathedrals.

Someday, I'll just be a poet and write on the fire escape, maybe boasting a Ph.d. in Gothic Art just because I love it. Just because why not. Maybe I'll win a Pulitzer. Maybe I'll have taught English in the Bronx, restored great art just because it's getting older and older and older and older, but in the end, I'll just be a poet, and I will write from the fire escape, because "Someone asked me/what home was/and all I could think of/were the/stars/on the tip of your tongue/the flowers sprouting from your mouth/the/roots/entwined in/the gaps/between your fingers/the ocean echoing/inside of your/ribcage"

This has been day one of the Manifesto Ultimatum (my way).

And to all a good night.
All my love,
Addy