Ready or not, here I Scham.

I am so close to being ready.

I say this every few weeks.

Perhaps tomorrow. "Perhaps" always sounds pretentious to me. Maybe tomorrow. "Maybe" is always a good word for everything. Always maybe.

Do not lean on door. Do not fall in love.

My anxiety's pretty unfun right now. I've posted something like three times in 48 hours and I still feel as though I need to rant or rave or...scream? I don't scream, though. I am a composed person who laughs loudly when jokes are funny and politely when they are not. I usually call back within the hour but if I don't, I try within the day. I hug almost everyone, my voice consistently gets high when I speak to people I'm only aquaintances with (unless I am trying very hard), and I volunteer to help on a regular basis.

I can't cook well. My insides feel cooked. That sentence makes me feel ill to read.

I have debated (or, rather, just come up with this a minute ago) creating some definite guidelines to my personality so I can better define it without forgetting or re-creating or whatever.

I keep forgetting how little I care about most things. It's almost as if I believe insignificant bullshit is important. Alas, I'm trying to be average because that has worked in the past and without the comforting solace of constantly having people laugh at my horribly offensive jokes back at home...I'm sort of lost. My sense of humor, my genuine all-out sense of humor, is completely out of focus for most people here. It's unfun. I don't remember what I'm talking about. Or, rather, I don't remember why.

"Here is what you look like," says my camera. With some serious makeup and then a naked face. I look old and sickly either way.

So wait, who am I again?

The streets are on your skin.

I am not the same person I was a few minutes ago, as usual. This has always been irritating but now it's just plain getting in the way. I keep forgetting where I am. It's far too constant, though it does tend to come in waves; that is, some weeks, it'll happen only once or not even at all a day, but then other weeks, it'll happen every few minutes at least a few hours a day.

How is this remotely normal? Not that "normal" isn't some little shroud we unwittingly forced into the same dictionary category as "average," making it synonymous with the mean of "everyone," but still...I have never heard of constant personality changes so frequent. I know of Multiple Personality Disorder, but I still know my name, have the same memories, etc.; I just don't have the same outlook what-so-ever and feel like I have an entirely different reaction to things. It's as though I grew up with the same experiences and interpreted them differently, formed a different personality based on those reactions, and now...I'm not Samantha. Not that there is one Samantha.

Fuck.

I always debate whether or not to use that word alone. I am aware that I'm a creative writing major, a bibliophile, and love words: I should use something more descriptive to how I feel that elaborates, exaggerates, whatever. I should be capable of that. But right now, I don't have another word that more accurately describes how I feel than "fuck." I'm confused and want to not be so.

If you're reading this, I hope that you're less confused than I.

This is how I see you looking at me. This is not a love song.

I have been writing so much lately, but I am almost too ________ to be accurate. Everything's shifting and I am watching it from the outside again (see the entry prior to this). I keep forgetting what I look like. I think I have Synesthesia which sounds grand and all, but it literally aches sometimes. I see too much at night to get rest. My eyes are bruised-looking all of the time from lack of sleep. I am bruised all of the time from lack of balance.

"Then I wept
with my face in your night shirt,
trying hard as hell to say
"until death separates us."
...
You know my build.
You know my size.
The degree to which my eyes
are astigmatic."

This is not a love song.

I had a great Valentine's Day. David and I went to Norm's, then San Clemente where we walked on the pier and beach (it looked like this the entire time), and then went out to dinner at Hooter's. AWESOME, delicious, and really fun. We saw Friday the 13th because we knew we'd hate it and could just kid around and have a good time. We were supposed to hang out with James and Jessie after but...nope. I won't elaborate; I'll go on negative tangents and I'd rather not do that upon the interwebs at the moment.

I've been hanging out with Regina a lot lately, as well as Kelsey and Heidi. Sweet deal, they're really nice people and this semester has been really fun so far. Last Wednesday, I hung out with Dillon and he mentioned Nathan's set possibly needing help with makeup. I ended up working as assistant makeup on his senior thesis last weekend. The film was called "The Time Traveler," it was shot in black and white, it was super fun, and I am really excited to see it all done. I was also in the Vagina Monologues (which went pretty wonderfully), so everything was crazy busy. I met a kid at a party who's shooting his AP the first two weekends of March, and I'm doing makeup for it! I'm super stoked. I love getting more experience and I love watching people do all the work that goes into making these projects.

I'm exhausted, though. I haven't gotten much sleep lately and I think it shows; my face looks so pale constantly. I am trying to distract myself with writing but considering how often I think about being worn out, I'm not doing a very good job.

I hung out with Chris Monday night as well as last night. He took my picture on film Monday evening and it was really nice. I took his photo on his digital camera just for fun and I want to see those ones; even though I blow at photography (seriously, hardcore bad), I still like to see pictures of people that I've clicked the little button for. Last night, he organized letters and I wrote a poem about myself in second person.

Lately:
Valentine's Day




Film set


Goofy.



Recent parties


MPH reunions in California, what?!





Hanging out with Olivia and doing our hair



My ears are now a 2g


Makeup for Theatrical Makeup


I can't believe I used to do my makeup like this every day.

Vanity



How obvious is it that I've been oddly obsessed with making my pictures near unrecognizably me?

Unstuck In Self.

I have this problem where I forget what I look like and who I am on a very regular basis. It's not like I forget completely who I am; I just literally feel completely outside of myself and forget that I have a face, body, and personality outside of my brain. I am on auto-pilot literally 90% of the time spent around other people. When I drink, I realize just how inside of my own head I am. I have been drinking this evening, and when I got back, I saw a picture of myself and the girl (that is me) did not look anything but familiar. Just familiar. I am so unfamiliar with who I am that I recall my own face as an acquaintance.

I only very recently started being aware that every few minutes, I forget where/who I am and have a revelation that I am who I am. It makes things confusing and I feel very self-aware suddenly. Suddenly, all the colors become colors. and music is more than music. Every single day, I realize over and over that the sky is blue. I don't forget that the grass is green, though. I am not trying to be poetic. I stare at the sky frequently for a reason.

No, I'm not high. I know people smoke for reasons besides just being existential and being more aware of things around them, but many people I know have expressed being high to me and I realize they're describing exactly how I feel all the time. Not the good floaty weird stuff so much as realizations and awareness of the world around yourself. I am perpetually aware that everything around me is there. Maybe this is why I can't get high: because I already always am. I am indigo. I don't feel like I should have a body. I don't understand why we need to have bodies. I have been drinking, but I am not drunk--it has simply made my fingers leave the litany of their restrictive wrists.

It is ten minutes after writing this. I masturbated to some lesbian porn and now I've forgotten writing at least half of this. I often fear I'm going crazy but then I just assume that if I bring this up with people, they'll think I am asking for attention. I don't care right now. This is why alcohol and mostly unread, semi-anonymous things are good. This is why "knowing people" is false. This is why I don't know "why?" but ask frequently all the same.

The other day I "looked" like this. I don't remember well. I do not look like this when I think of myself.

I wanna see movies of my dreams.

I am physically better but I feel emotionally self-crippling lately. I've had super high anxiety, but I guess that's nothing new. I've been listening to so much Why?, MGMT, Hymie's Basement, and Interpol. It's fueled it, maybe.

I got better Friday, and David & I were supposed to go to this big music "conference" party at Dillon's house (The Tiny House). He ended up getting what I had and I went with Regina and her roommate to the party. I hung out with Heidi after Regina left and I met quite a few people. Tons of extremely attractive boys, a couple of really sweet girls (there was an overwhelmingly large population of boys in comparison to girls), a couple of not-so-sweet obnoxious girls, and one or two very belligerent boys. I didn't drink much because I wasn't really down, I just wanted to listen to the DJs and the bands and dance or talk. I had a really good time and went home with Zak, Marie, and Heidi. Heidi and I got to talk a lot and (I'm tentative to say this) I think I've finally found a few friends that are female here that I really like and will see on a regular basis.

Speaking of which, I'm moving in with Shevaun and Sierra! I'm so excited and it's just down the hall, so it'll be super easy. They're fantastic and heavy sleepers (so they won't wake up when I come in/stay up super late) and are really fun, so I'm really stoked.

I've been really busy despite having a great schedule (I have two classes every day except Monday when I have a 3 hour at night, a 50 minute class, and a 75 minute class). The Vagina Monologues have been really fun and we perform the weekend after this one. I'm donating blood tomorrow, there's a Sammy party at the Saloon this weekend, then comes Valentine's Day, then on the 18th David and I are going to a show that's on Dillon's birthday up in LA at the Roxy, and then comes V'Day.

It's a crazy few weeks but it's better than boredom.

Shut In

Two days ago, at about 11pm on Wednesday night, I got horribly, violently ill. David and I were at Joey and Tyler's house with a few other people, watching Planet Earth, and I suddenly got nauseous. So he brought me back to his apartment (our bathroom doesn't work in my dormroom, unfortunately) and I fell asleep for a little while, woke up at about 12:30, and threw up. This proceeded to happen all night every hour or half-hour until my stomach was just ringing itself out and there was absolutely nothing left. I was clammy as hell and a few hours later, had a bad fever. Every time I drank water, I threw up. Every time I stood up, I fell down or almost fell down. It was definitely one of the sickest 24 hour periods I've ever felt, though I'm still feeling pretty weak now.

I haven't left David's apartment since about midnight that night when I got sick. I just haven't felt well enough to walk outside, really. And when I stay somewhere for a little while, I automatically start getting anxiety about leaving. After my tonsillectomy, I couldn't leave the house for about a week straight (then Manda and I got our ears re-pierced, and then I didn't leave the house again for yet another week), and I got super anxious about going places. The most "outside" thing I did was open my window. After Hard Fest, when I took the bad pills and got super sick from those, I stayed at David's for a few days because I was too upset and sickened to be alone, and then I got anxious about leaving, too. I've always had some anxiety but when I get in the habit of staying inside, I just don't want to go back out and I get hyperanxious.

I love my classes this semester so it sucks that I had to miss two yesterday and one today due to being so ill. But I'll definitely be willing to go to them so it's not like I'll avoid them like the plague (ahem, Music Theory), and these absences won't matter in the long run. I love school now that I'm actually choosing what I want to learn as opposed to high school where most of it was completely irrelevent, and even some the classes I enjoyed weren't exactly taught well. The most I learned was from Mr. O'Brien (Creative Writing and Irish Literature) and Dr. Wozniak (history in 10th grade). Fantastic teachers, seriously.

I s'pose I'm going to go get some gingerale from the fridge and fall back asleep.

Am I sick to think I look best under fluorescent lights?

I had a really, really good day today. Like, exceptionally good. I saw so many people, found out I have a class with Emmeline and Regina, and met a few very nice people. It was super sunny and about 85 degrees or so and I sat outside for a while, soaking in the sweet air and writing. I've been writing so much lately; I wish I were in a writing workshop or something for school so that way I could get more feedback on my stuff without feeling like I'm troubling people or forcing them to read my stuff, haha. I met a cute boy today. I'm such an oddball because whenever I speak to anyone I find attractive, I ramble and make either total intense borderline-creepy eye contact (Manda calls it "the eyez") or sporadic, awkward, look-away-constantly eye contact. Today, I mainly did the latter, unfortunately. Ah well, I just thought it was another nice point of my day; it's not like I'm implying some sort of situation where it means anything. The only thing remaining to happen today is if I got to pet some cats and cuddle puppies or something equally cute.

Yesterday was our first day of classes. I had Writing About Film (decent seeming), Intro to Poetry (super excited about this one), and Film Genre: the Western. The Western class is from 7-10 at night and I have it with both Alex and David as well as quite a few other people we know. It's a super fun class and the professor is extremely smart and very funny. It looks like it'll be an awesome semester...now excuse me while I find some wood to knock on.