On Fathers (formal craft exercise)

We had to write a piece in class about someone who is really important in our life, and then we had to go back and edit it. This is what came out of me. I like it best. :)

My dad is the sort of person who will never be called Daddy. He is not my biological father, but he is my real dad, as far as I am concerned. He is the sort of person who will forever conceal the shape of his chin and the whiteness of his neck behind a curly mass of red beard. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I saw my dad without a beard; I was too young, or the beard is too prominent a figure to allow me to remember a recent shave. However, I do remember when my dad stopped smiling in photographs and began to scowl instead, proclaiming the civil war will come again. My dad—my real dad—is the sort of person who digs holes, miles of trenches; who installs sprinkler systems ; who lays sod. He is the sort of person who smells like fresh cut grass, dirt, and sweat when he comes home from work in the late afternoon. In the evening, the smell of hot water and soap wafts from skin and drips from his beard and the monotony of hours of landscaping dissipates with the steam being sucked into the bathroom fan. Even after hours of labor, although his engines are in need of rest, his work does not end. Somehow, he manages to make time to take a stroll around the block with his little son and vacuum the artillery of white hair from his couch and cook dinner for his girlfriend. Finally, without fail, he calls his daughter, if only for a moment, to tell her he’s proud of her and that he misses her. I would not surrender him for anything this world could offer.

I'm Gettin' on a Plane and Headin' to California

Well, the REAL California, as in Norcal! First plane ride ever in a month from now. I'm scared and excited and nervous and holding my breath and anticipating it. If I get super nervous when I'm on the plane, I don't care who it is, I am going to explain to my neighbor: Hi, this is my first time flying in an airplane and I'm sorta freaking out right now, playing LOST scenarios in my head, do you mind holding my hand for the next five minutes or however long it takes.

Yes, that will be me. I feel weird going to Norcal, too, without actually going Home. Germain's wedding is good too, but, you know, the allure of going Home, within an hour and a half, and I won't even be able to go Home. And, like I said, I'm not going Home for spring break, either. Stuck in Socal for six more months. Oh, how fun. Pancho better show up at the wedding in a red sweater, or else I will be sad to not have seen him. I'll find a way to sneak him into the hotel, just you wait.

Anyway. I just emailed Aunt Joni the flight information and I decided that now would be a good time to announce:

I'm gay...

No, I'm just kidding (it seemed sort of fitting. Haha). To announce that I actually AM getting on an airplane of my own free will. UGH. I'm so nervous. I wonder how I'll feel when I'm actually at the airport on March 5th. Goodness, who knows what that will be like. I guess it's good practice, though, to get ready for Japan and Danmark and Iowa (grad school?) and New York ('cause I'm going to be that awesome) and anywhere else I need to go.

But just imagine if the plane got sucked into some vortex and I ended up in the 70's on some hippie Dharma island with a smoke monster and Ben Linus. I would totally join Sawyer and Juliette in trying to get everyone off the island. And what's up with John Locke? Alive or dead?

ONLY SEVEN MORE DAYS UNTIL THE FINAL SEASON STARTS!!! YESSSSS.

(to be continued...)

Change of Plans (part 1)

There is so much to do in L.A. in the next few months that I don't even know how I'm going to do it all.

Next month is the HEAT Music Festival, which is held on the UCR campus. All students were given one free ticket, so I stood in line for nearly three hours to get it because I thought that this was the only day that they would give away tickets. A week later, I have discovered that free tickets are still available without the long lines. The line-up isn't very good, but it's music and it's free, so I'm going anyway. The bands that are playing are: The Crystal Method, Atrak, Shiny Toy Guns, Sick Puppies, New Boyz, Steve Aoki, Far-East Movement, and Taking Back Sunday. Taking Back Sunday is obviously the big headliner, and I was never really a fan of Taking Back Sunday, but I did like a few of their songs that were played on the radio in the past, so hopefully it's still a fun time with friends.

Coachella is also coming up and Aaron is trying to hook me up with a ticket or two so that I can get in and hopefully bring a friend. There is no doubt about it: I am DEFINITELY missing school that Friday and going for all three days. (My 'F' key keeps sticking. This sucks.) The line-up is amazing... the headliners almost every night is someone that I have been dying to see. If Aaron can't get me in somehow, I think about it like this:

The festival costs $300 ($269, plus tax). I can go for three days and see about twenty bands that I WANT to see, plus get to know some new bands that I have never heard or seen before. If I went to go see the bands that I want to see at Coachella individually (at the Wiltern, the Fillmore, different venues in L.A. and San Francisco), it would end up costing me the same amount, if not more, to see only a few of those bands. It sounds like a deal when I think about it that way! So hopefully all works as we are planning it to work. If not, we're going to have to figure this out quick, as April is fast approaching.

Another thing: I am probably not coming home for Spring Break. Spring Break is only a week long, but I was planning on taking a bus or even an AIRPLANE from Ontario to home, or Kat was planning on going to San Francisco so I was going to bum a ride there from her and then get home somehow from there (a lot easier than getting home from L.A.).

But, as it turns out, Aaron is going to be playing SXSW with Aaron E, Ariana, and Jason, and they will also be playing another show the Wednesday of Spring Break in L.A. So, the new plan is for me to try and stay at someone's house in L.A. (Joel's, if someone is going to be home while others are at SXSW, J.P, if/when I ask nicely). I'm going to figure this out. Then, hopefully, I'll be able to go that show on Wednesday, and then have a few days to hang out with Aaron in the L.A. area before heading back to school for the last quarter of my first year.

Everything is going by so fast. I'm already almost halfway through Winter Quarter and I feel like I've only been here for a week. Time seems to be speeding up, but maybe it's just because I'm using more of time instead of just sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing.

Well, this is just the first installment. I've got to get some homework done, but I'm going to be writing more about this schoolweek sometime this weekend.

:)

On Fathers (personal)

Goldberry Long asks us to be vulnerable, so I am going to be vulnerable, and this is part of it.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my dad. Well, not my dad, but my biological father. The way I see it, Aaron Burtch has been and will continue to be the only real dad I'll ever have, and that's all I want. He's the best guy I know and I love him just as if he were my dad. Well, because he is.

Anyway, off topic. I've been thinking a lot about Clint and whatnot and it's really starting to bug me. I don't know anything about that side of the family-- I don't really have any strong desire to be part of that family, since I've never been in the past (with the exception of Jared and Emmeline, I don't really care to start now). But what does bother me is that I feel like a bad person when I think about it. I know Steve Lindsey (my grandfather) has the desire to be in contact with me, but after years and years of not speaking, I don't know what to say. Yeah, you're my grandfather, how have you been? This is what I have been doing for the past eighteen years of my life, thanks for noticing. I guess I must care somewhere since I harbor such strong negative emotions, but I think anyone could have a similar reaction. Ugh. I don't know.

What does bother me is that... I just want to know why. Why was I left like that? Why did everyone have to lie to me and let me figure it out on my own? Why did he do it? I don't understand. And I guess I don't really want to understand that much, I just want to know if, whatever affected him can affect me to. Am I prone to sadness and depression? I've had to fight it for a long time, but I'm usually pretty happy and upbeat these days. I don't think I can act well enough to fool everyone into thinking I'm a happy person. That's good. But I had to make the conscious decision to be happier. For the past year and a half, I have had to remind myself that life is beautiful and that there is always something to live for. Butterflies in spring. Sunshine on my skin. Holding hands with my best friend. Riding four hours on the bus to see my mommy. Pancho's warm tongue on my nose. Untying Aaron's boots after work. It's all worth it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything or anyone. Everything happens for a reason, even if it's not how you expected it to happen. What's done is done and there is no going back, there is only looking forward. It's cliche, but it's true.

Now, for vulnerability. For my Creative Writing class, I have been asked to write about something from my childhood that had a significant impact on my life, and I wrote about my father. If my dad hadn't died, who knows what life would be like now, and I guess I'm just expressing my anger and my frustration that I've built up for years and years and years, and I guess I'm going to share them on here. If I'm going to make myself vulnerable to strangers, why can't I make myself vulnerable to my Family. After all, you are the only One I've got.''

***Warning Warning Warning*** DUE TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE OF THIS POST, VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED*** (NO REALLY. I DROPPED SOME F-BOMBS. YES. I DROPPED THEM. REALLY.)***

"besides, I've already got one"

My father died when I was four--

NO.

Stop.

Let me rephease:

My father killed himself when I was four year old.
People used to try to tell me

You don't know how much he loved you

Heaven Leigh

(for emphasis)

They say
He would have done

anything for you.

But I say NO. I say STOP. I say

YOU don't understand.

My father was an asshole,
a fucking selfish coward,
and I'm glad he's dead.

I am glad he's dead and gone.

This was written for my creative writing class. This one doesn't drop any f-bombs, but I was trying to remember what the funeral was like. This is what I came up with. Don't know if what happened in this actually happened, but I was four. Give me a break:

I crawled between the pews across the brown, corkboard carpet—you know, the spotted kind they put in classrooms because it’s cheap. I had no worries of red splotched knees or palms as I made my way across the aisle, from my maternal side of the family to my paternal. I giggled as I made my way to my Uncle Jared. He looked at me, wiping a rolling tear away from his cheek and placing one index finger against his lips and pursing them, silently informing me to be quieter. I crawled back to my mother, seated in the second row from the front. I don’t remember if she was crying, but I remember going home later that night and being locked out of the room—I could hear her sobbing and shrieking from within-- and I knew I should not disturb her. She was only twenty-one. Back within the confines of the pink wallpapered, fluorescently lit church sanctuary, I was aware of the separation of my family—my father’s family sat in the middle row of pews, all dressed nicely in clothes I cannot remember and silently sobbing, my mother’s family to the right of the building, some crying, some silent. I thought all of the crying was a game—could I cry too? I sat down on the pew and did my best to squeeze the tears out of my eyes and whimpering, emulating the adults surrounding me. My attempts failed, so I gave up and continued to crawl from family member to family member, giggling once again. Beside the light squeezes or the forced smiles to acknowledge my presence, all gazing toward the coffin that rested in the front of the room. A picture of my father and I, surrounded by a wreath of flowers, perched on an easel beside the coffin. I don’t remember the service, only the division of my family (the only time I remember having been in the same room with both sides of my biological family), and going to sit on the stairs near the coffin to look at the picture of my father and I. I inquired of his absence. Where is dad? Why isn’t dad here? No one could really answer, nor could anyone look me in the eye, without choking up. Outside, after the service, I sat on a brick wall, kicking my legs back and forth. My grandfather had walked to the grocery store and bought me a single blue balloon. I held it by the string in my little hand for a moment, until my grandma told me I should let it go. Lose it to the atmosphere? Why? Why would I let this balloon go? “So you can share it with your daddy.” I still didn’t understand, but I looked toward the sky and unclenched my fist, releasing the balloon, watching as it twirled and swirled into the sky. My memory fails when thinking of what happened between the time of releasing the balloon and sitting in my booster seat, watching the landscape pass from the back window of the car. I don’t remember much of the funeral, but I do remember this: As we were driving, my cousin Germain sat beside me, talking to me and looking out the window. It had cleared up and only one cloud was left in the sky, stretching across the sky like a giant, pale hand, reaching for something unseen. Germain turned to me. “See that cloud?” Yes. “That’s your daddy, going to get the balloon you left him.” He began to wave to my daddy, so I began to wave as well. Bye, Daddy. Bye. Byebye, Daddy. Byebye.

So, yes. These are what I wrote. I hope no one gets too offended, but this is what is going on inside of me as of now. My professor is always talking about how we write about what we know (how do we write about something we don't know? it doesn't really work), and this is part of what I know. Yeah. I guess I'm done for now. Next blog will be more school related (but I guess this one is too, if you think about it).

TWO MORE MONTHS UNTIL I CAN COME HOME FOR A WEEK. YES!

Cheez-It Love

First week back at R-side was a-okay. I'm loving all of my professors, especially Goldberry Long and Reza Aslan. I have them back to back on Tuesday and Thursday and it is absolutely phenomenal. Creative Writing with Goldberry is definitely going to be a demanding class, but I am looking forward to it 100%. They are both such brilliant speakers. Professor Aslan can lecture for an entire hour and a half, and he's just so passionate and knowledgeable about everything that he says that it never gets boring. I love both of those classes so so much.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are Physics and Psychology (along with Islam discussions, which I always look forward to), and they are a lot less fun than expected. Psych 1 is actually pretty boring so far. I'm in a lecture hall with about 600 other students, and so far the professor is just really good at reading her powerpoint slides. She's a neuropsychologist or something... something to do with biology and the brain. It's Psych 1, which is physical psychology, I'm pretty sure... Psych 2 deals with the emotional factors. I'm thinking about working for a psych minor along with a Creative Writing major, so Psych 1 is one of my prerequisites. I hope it gets more interesting though. So far it's just history and that's not that exciting at all. Professor Yarmoff, my Physics professor, gives fun examples in class. We're talking about waves right now, which is pretty boring, but it's important because it is what the entire class is about... light waves and sound waves (Physics of Color and Sound). The classroom is pretty cool, though. From the outside, Physics 2000 looks like this tiny square little building that may hold 50 people tops, but when you enter, the room goes down down down under ground. There's a large staircase and rows and rows of built in tables and chairs. The professor lectures from the ground floor, where he keeps all of his equipment. And, get this: the desks are on a rotating platform. When the previous professor leaves, he leaves a mess. All professor Yarmoff has to do is push a button, and the floor begins to rotate, and HIS desk comes to the front of the room; clean white boards, wave equipment, everything. Behind the wall is an office, I'm pretty sure, and some electronic equipment. It's pretty awesome to see it happen.

Besides that, I've been going to a lot of parties and barbecues and stuff this week. Tuesday, I went to a party with my hall. Wednesday, I went to a barbecue at the AEPi house with Chanel and Danny and Ben (and Kat and Hali) and just hung out outside for a bonfire and kosher hotdogs. A helicopter flew over the house for, like, ten minutes, which is suuuper duper annoying, but then it went away. The AEPi brothers all seem really nice and I'm slowly starting to meet all of them and remember their faces and names around campus. Thursday, almost my entire hall decided to go to a Lambda party, but it was so packed that, after about five minutes of being inside, Chanel and I decided to walk over to the AEPi house for their kickback. I met even more brothers, and sort of just chilled for awhile. I swear, there are, like, six guys named Josh in the frat or rushing for the frat. It's insane, but I guess they are Jewish, so it's to be expected.

Friday afternoon, Jessica and Zach came down to hang out. We went to dinner (cheap pizza by the slice down the road) and went to see Daybreakers right afterward. Daybreakers had a good concept, but the movie was not good at all. The only thing that made it good at all was Willem Dafoe. He was hilarious in the movie. MOM: I would suggest NOT seeing it in theaters, but definitely see it when it comes out on DVD. We went back to the dorms around 9:30 and played catchphrase until about 2 a.m. with my friends/hallmates. Then we all set up camp on the floor in my room and went to sleeeep. Jackie is gone for the weekend, so we had the room all to ourselves. It was pretty awesome. We got up and went to breakfast at Denny's, and then they had to take off. I've just been doing a whole lot of nothing for the past hour, but it's almost time to turn in my Creative Writing homework and maybe head over to my friend Matthew's house for some ripe oranges and Korean pears. Gotta go running tonight, and do my Islam and Physics reading.

I got Yesterday another kind of medicine. Took him to the pet store and their fish lady couldn't tell me anything. He just had some crazy swimming fit, but he still floats on his side at the top of the water. I've got to change his water again today and put a new dose of this medicine in. It's supposed to work after three doses/ three days, and today is the third dose day, so we'll see how he's doing today. It says I can go up to seven treatments, and I really hope he lives that long and gets better. He hasn't eaten in over a week. I hope this changes. I'm pretty sure he's gone blind in one eye, because one of his eyes is always milky and filmy. I thought it was part of the sick, maybe some white fungus growing over his eye, but I'm pretty sure that he is blind in that eye. Anyway, we'll see what happens.

Time to finish my homework and productivity for the rest of the day. I've been wasting too much time on facebook for the past half hour. Time to get to work.

Back to Riverside

Yes. I am back at school. What a drag. I absolutely do NOT want to be back right now. I wish had had just a little more time. I wish that school was closer to Home. I wish I didn't live 400 miles away. But I chose my school and I like my school, so I should really stop complaining. Break was great. Seeing Budda, Moma, Pancho, and the whole rest of my friends and Family is absolutely the best time I have had in my life. I miss everything so much already. I can't believe I have to go another ten weeks before I'm home again.

I did get a 3.9 GPA for my first quarter in college, though, which is pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself. I've got more and harder classes this quarter, though, so let's see if I can pull it off again.

I'm reapplying for my Masonic scholarship in the next few days, and hopefully I'll be able to apply for a few more. I am also applying for my FAFSA this weekend (hopefully, I guess I need to talk to my Moma about this too). It really bugs me how the government makes me go off of my mom's taxes rather than off of Aaron's. I mean, legal guardianship should count, even though he's not my LEGAL parent. I mean, really. What does the government know. Screw you, government. You're screwing everything up. I mean, there have got to be plenty more kids like me who live with someone who has not LEGALLY adopted them but have been placed under a guardianship. Even if it's not legal! It's stupid. GRRRR.

Yes. First day of classes was good, although I'm super duper tired now. My first class is at 8 a.m. on Monday, so I've been up since about 7:30, and I still need to go running (it's 6:30 p.m.) now. I regret not running for my entire winter break, but there was so much to do so much to do!! I was everywhere! It's time to get back on track though. I guess these short little blurbs are going to have to do for now. I'll start posting more often again (I know a keep saying that, but I'm going to make it happen!), but I'm guessing they'll continue to be short little blurbs like these.

Oh. Yeah. Yesterday's sick. He's got ick and he's all bloated but he's also WAY too skinny. He's not eating and his fins are deteriorating. I got him some ick water treatment and it seemed to be helping because he started scratching himself all against the side of his tank and there were white flakes coming off of him. I also got him an anti-fungus water tablet, so hopefully he'll be able to rehabilitate and he won't die. I really, really hope so. If he does die, no more fish for me until he doesn't have to do all this back and forth travelling. Poor Yesterday.

I'm already looking forward to coming Home again in mid-March. WHOO! MARCH! I can't wait until March. Time to go running, I guess.