Your Smile On Fire

Thinky thoughts:

• friends
• friend troubles
• email
• friends not replying to said email
• other people reading email
• 65 rules (65 rules for what though?)
• ronald mcdonald house
• sea world
• sick kids
• worried families
• heart transplant
• doctors' messy handwriting
• monkey, monkey underpants (Gilmore Girls reference)
• books
• books that my sister would like to read
• sleepy
• dizzy
• sleepy
• pretty music
• jack johnson
• last.fm
• switchfoot
• cellphone
• text messages
• prom
• laser tag
• people playing laser tag in prom dresses
• happy
• glum
• lonely
• frenemies
• ugh
• waiting
• sitting, waiting, wishing
• hoping you believed in superstitions
• maybe then you'd somethingsomethingsomething
• if you haven't noticed i have the lyrics to a jack johnson song stuck in my head
• bounce in california
• the hills
• fashion
• vogue
• magazines
• stories
• ugh
• what was i talking about again?

Wow this was fun, right!? Haha kidding.

Something happened to me between the time I started school, way back in 1995, and now. And I think it was more than getting taller or learning math. Someone must have stole the time because some days I would swear it was just yesterday that I was sitting next to Kelsey in Mrs. Reinhold's classroom, envying the neat and perfect way her art projects turned out - nothing like mine, my sloppy messes.

I think I've begun to grow up. Although the many stuffed animals staring at me from inside my closet beg to differ.

And what with going to college and taking my child development class and seeing how much our early years affect the rest of our lives, I can't help but think that a lot of the reason for who I am now and who I am going to become has to do with the teachers I had. Teachers I want to write to and say, depending on when I knew them, hey, remember me? I missed a truckload of days in your class and it's possible you didn't even notice when I was there because I was so quiet? Well I'm doing good. And I got an essay published. And I'm going to college. And I'm not really that little girl I was before but I still feel like that girl most of the time.

Teachers I'd like to thank?

• Mrs. Reinhold. She was my kindergarten teacher, with the sing-song voice. What I remember of her class is the Lollipop Dragon, Letter People, Zero the Hero, being absent the day Smokey the Bear came in, Jameson, Kelsey, Emily, Lacey calling me while I was in the hospital, Sterling saying he didn't know how to pray. Rainbow Fish, falling off the swings backwards and having Jameson run to tell the teacher then everyone being surprised when I was fine. Going to the hospital on Emily's Special Day, being in the hospital a lot.
• Miss Perry. Second grade. I remember Nishi telling me, day after day, that I had a boy's name. I remember Afrin and Travis and both of the Chris'. I remember tornado drills because that was the year I lived in Texas, not knowing how to do division when everyone else did, writing lots of stories and winning the award at the end of the year, Tops in Writing Stories. I wonder, when teachers give out those silly little awards that really mean nothing, if they actually think they matter or if they just like to make kids feel happy and special. I don't think I was good at writing stories in second grade because all my stories basically sucked, but I did write more of them than anyone else in the class.
• Mr. Petersen. Fourth grade. This was the teacher who hung wooden airplanes from the ceiling and maybe that was the first reason I thought I would like that class. I remember Alex, Zach, Horizons, lots of girls who were nice to me and a few who weren't. I remember sitting on the steps outside reading during recess and Jessica and Brandy calling me "Toothpick", asking me if I ever ate. I remember reading The Whipping Boy and thinking it wasn't as good as everyone made it sound. I remember Mr. Petersen making math and science fun, somehow, so for the rest of school I kind of actually learned to like parts of it more than I would have.
• Mr. Shutte. Horizons. I remember so much from this class, but mostly being goofy and crazy and incredibly truly geeky and loving every second of it. I remember doing those matrix things and watering the plants in the greenhouse and learning about Egypt, the solar system, wildlife. Learning so much more than I did in regular classes. Also I remember being in the hospital during sixth grade and Mr. Shutte giving me a bunch of the matrix worksheets to keep me busy, if I felt like doing them. Which I did. Because they were fun.
• Mr. Graves. Seventh grade math. He was the teacher who always asked what book I was reading.
• Mrs. Mosely. Jr. high journalism. We actually talked about stuff in this class, debating abortion and homosexuality and current events and other things you didn't talk about the rest of the time in school.
• Mrs. Peterson. Acadec, English. I remember show don't tell, failing my paper the first three times I wrote it, coming home and crying the first time I got one of her papers back. Then learning that I wasn't the first student she'd made cry. I remember loving her class, learning about poetry when I'd never liked it before because there was no one to explain it to me, studying Greek philosophers and old literature and learning about the Holocaust. I remember feeling sorry, at the end of the year, that I wouldn't get to take her AP English class in eleventh grade.
• Mr. Whatshisface. I don't remember his name but he was my Social Studies teacher Freshman year and he had us all watch Dr. Zhivago then write two essays on it. I wish I still had mine. I really hated the movie but I really liked writing about it and getting to explain why I hated it. I'm always the worst at Social Studies and this class was no different, but my teacher seemed to sense that I wasn't as dumb as my grades showed.

So. There. My list and there's probably more but these were the real big ones I remember.

I just wrote this huge post. But then I took it down because I decided I didn't want people reading it really, I just wanted to write it.

Just for fun, not because it matters, a list of things I might be interested in doing for a career if I wasn't so dead set on writing and teaching (to support the writing habit, lol.)

• Some sort of culinary something. Like be a chocolatier! Yes!
• Some sort of pediatric doctor but omg way too much school. If I was going to do that though, in some alternate universe where I love science and math, I would be a pediatic cardiologist, and not just because it's fun to say, even though it is.
• Help kids. I don't really know what this would be though, a social worker maybe? But social workers... I don't know... I don't know a lot about them but sometimes I think they either can't help as much as they want to or they don't help as much as they should and it bugs me.
• A therapist. But again with the school.
• Own a coffee shop. In my dreams, I own a coffee shop and it is very sweet and nice. And I drink tea and hot chocolate instead of coffee, of course.
• A film director.
• A photographer, if only I had the patience and talent for it.

I was talking to one of my friends a while back, trying to get her to decide what she wants to do after high school. I try to do this periodically, wondering why so many of my friends have no idea what they want to do after high school and don't seem to care and why it bugs me so much. She said something about me being lucky that I knew what I wanted to do and I told her I'd known for so long that it was almost as if it wasn't even really a choice, it just was. Which is true. And I never really think about this but suddenly just now I wondered... if I wasn't so in love with writing, and I was like my friends who don't know what they want to do. What would I choose?

Because the link on the front page only goes to the first day's pieces, here's a link to the third day, where me and Zulay are posted. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/red-the-book/the-interracial-generatio_b_95069.html 

Things I am happy for today:

• The new B52's cd. Eeeeee!!!! I heart the B52's. They are made of awesome.
• The book I'm reading, Deadline, which so far is amazing.
• Making up both my test in psychology and the toddler observation in Child Development.
• Writing just over 1,500 words last night. I was up way late, but omg sooo great.
• Watching Reba from the beginning.
• Thai iced tea. Which is odd because really I don't like Thai food but I love Thai iced tea.
• The yummyful brownies with the yummyful frosting that I made last night.
• Finally not being sick anymore, mostly.
• Did I mention Funplex, the B52's new cd?

Haven't wrote in here in a while I guess. I don't know how long, probably just a day, but it feels like a while.

In other news, I feel the need to write a short story. A flickr inpsired short story, only I can't decide which of my favorite pictures (I have a lot) to write it about. Um, yeah, never mind the fact that if I work on anything right now it should really be my novel-in-progress. I want to do a short story!!

So hopefully I will. Write a flickr-inspired short, that is.

In other news, I have hit on something that is, apparently, difficult for people to do. And that thing is to seperate the writer from the writing when they are very close to the writer. I realized this when my dad, in Georgia, sent me a text message wondering about the father-daughter relationship in my novel.

Ohmygoodness.

Okay I know fiction is supposed to have a grain of truth in it (like all good lies, lol) and that, yes, what I write is somehow intrinsically tied to myself. But really, friendlies, it is all just a string of things my overactive imagination came up with. I get "inspiration," if you wanna be cliche like that (and I do) from songs on the radio or something someone says or a picture on flickr. If I wanted to write about my own life and the people in it, I would. And I do, but that's what personal private journals are for. But no, I want to write about imaginary people with imaginary parents and friends and lives. And somehow I want to make those imaginary people real enough that they don't seem so imaginary anymore, so real that they might be someone you'd be friends with or have a crush on or avoid altogether. But it's just... fiction. False. Lies. Whatever you want to call it.

Here's something. Mostly my characters and the relationships between them are just in my stories because they work. I really don't don't don't want to write about the people I know because that's boring. I want to write about people I don't know, about people I don't have to deal with every day and people who aren't a part of my everyday surroundings. I want to write about the girl who runs away, the friends who reconnect after four years apart, the mystery life of a couple in a found photograph. I want to write about stuff that happens, stuff that could happen, but not stuff that happens to me. I live my life, okay? I don't need to write quasi-fiction about it.

And this is why I'm always wary of letting others - especially people who know me super-well, like my parents - read my stuff. Everyone seems to have the idea that it's my story about me, when really it's just the story I wrote. They look for hidden meanings in words that have nothing to do with them and think I have some "ulterior motive." And that's just really hard to combat. Has anyone else noticed this when they let ones close to them read their writing?

These are the movies I have gone to see in theaters since the move.

• Flightplan. After that sleepover at Brea's, my dad and Taylor and I went to see this movie. I hadn't got to sleep until 6am the night before, so I was half expecting to fall asleep during the movie. But I didn't. And, shocker, I had a better time going to the movie, sleep-deprived, with my dad and Tay, then I had at the sleepover. Fun.
• Walk the Line. With Dad and Taylor. Good movie. Awesome movie. Fun.
• Stranger Than Fiction. A whole group of us went to see this movie. Meggo was the one who invited me and although the big group of people we saw the movie with and hung out with afterwards was no fun, I actually had a really good time with Meggo and Ana beforehand. Not fun.
• Juno and I Am Legend. I went to see both these movies with Brad and Madi while they were out here. Both movies were good and of course it was fun because it was the four of us. Fun fun fun!

Have there been more?

I don't know. Maybe. I remember I wanted to see Ratatouille but that never happened, and also that me and Meggo were going to see Becoming Jane, but that never happened either. Really I used to see a lot more movies when I lived in Arizona. Only now there's no one around who is willing to go see Horton Hears A Who with me, because even my little sister claims it is for kids.

Pshaw.

There've been other movies. Ones I've gone to people houses and watched.

• Sleepover. At Meagan H's, with a bunch of girls. Afterwards Meggo said she'd had a good time but the movie was lame. I didn't tell her that me and Taylor had been the ones to choose the movie. Eh.
• The Prestige. Also at Meagan H's, with a bunch of people, most of whom I didn't know. It was fun though. We got a bunch of pizza and I was the only girl who ate that instead of salad. I wasn't sure whether to be happy about being all nonconformist, or upset because salad is really so much healthier than pizza. Mostly fun.
• The Fountain. Um, oh, never mind. I don't want to talk about this one except to say that we had watermelon and it was yummy and also very messy. Fun, except not in hindsight.
• That one movie with that one guy in it. I forget what it's called but it was really funny and Taylor had seen it before but I hadn't. I was with nice people that time, ones I actually knew and who were my friends. Fun.
• Miss Potter. I went over to Meggo's and watched this, just me and her and her mom and possibly her sister although I don't remember. It was really good and much better than I expected, but I don't remember much about the night except that I had dinner over there and I cut the onions because they make Meggo cry and they don't make me cry. Usually. Fun.

Wow I have no idea why I just did a whole post dedicated to movies I've seen with people, but there you have it.

What is it about movies with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in them that makes me feel as if everything is right in the world, even if I'm practically on my deathbed? I'm watching Sleepless in Seattle for the first time ever and it is absolutely wonderful, just like You've Got Mail is.

They both seem to be oddly comforting movies.

Okay, friendlies, I'm still alive.

I am amazed with myself, friendlies. Really I am. Like, shocked.

 And why? Because I've started visiting my friend's blog. Which that in itself is not amazing because I love reading blogs and far too few of my friends keep them. What's amazing is that THIS IS A FASHION BLOG. And although it kind of repels me, I keep going back for some reason.

I never cease to amaze myself.

In other news, I AM IN REGULAR CLOTHES AGAIN!! I was basically in pajamas for a week and basically not even among the living, but I think I'm getting better. I mean my fever is gone and I haven't puked in two days and my throat no longer is threatening to murder me everytime I swallow. So that's all good.

Except the fact that I had to reschedule my job interview today because I was sick. And now by the time I can get another one she might have hired someone already. Omg being sick is awwwfulll.

I still feel like I've been ran over by a train, but at least I'm happy now.

And I can't say why, but boy am I happy!!

In a related story, lalalalala is all I can think right now and it's nearly midnight so not only can I not tell my East Coast friends now (Mich, Becca), but I also can't tell anyone on the West Coast.

THINKABOUTSOMETHINGELSE THINKABOUTSOMETHINGELSE....

 Um, ok. I'd rather not think about English class. Or my sore throat. Or my killing headache. Or the fact that I probably won't be getting to sleep anytime soon. And I still don't have a job.

What I need right now is a meme or survey thing so I don't have to actually think about what to write.

Ok here's something. I feel like everyone around me is growing up so fast. Like this one girl I know, 19 and getting married next month. I don't see anything wrong with it but it's part of this recent epidemic I'm seeing of my peers moving out (or wanting to move out), going to college, having boyfs and girlfs. One of my friends just emailed me about her college sightsee trip. I talked to another one today whose planning on combining 11th and 12th grades so she can graduate on time.

Even me, I shouldn't even be in college yet and I am. I mean granted I'm living at home and going to a community college, but still.

And my old best friend from Arizona just got her license. Which just brings us to a whole other level of weirdness because omg Mom, CHELSEY GOT HER LICENSE. The height of weirdness. I literally can't believe it.

I talk to Sarah sometimes. 20, going to college, not quite sure what she's going to do but at least she's working and blahblahblah so much better than a lot of people I could think of. And she's telling how she'll be 21 soon and how her old friend is getting married and how everyone is asking her when she'll be getting married. And we're both like OMG KNOCK IT OFF PLEASE JUST LET US GO SEE HORTON HEARS A WHO AND THE GROWN UP LIFE WITH THE BOYF-WHO-BECOMES-THE-HUBBY AND THE HOUSE AND THE INSURANCE CAN WAIT. PLEASE?

Because that's how I feel sometimes, like everyone is so ready to move on to the next thing that they don't really get a chance to see what they have now. And I mean, I'm excited for my future. Like really excited. For the first time I'm more excited than I've ever been about things since the move. But still, I'm not really ready to be there yet, you know? I still want to have a while longer watching American Idol with my parents and having Taylor sit in front of my bookcase while I shove books at her and say, "This one's good and this one's good and ooh, this one's really good." I'm still a kid, really. I just happen to be a kid with a plan is all.

So I'm trying to stop being so scared. I've been working on this for a dozen years, give or take.

See, when I was little I was afraid of everything. EVERYTHING. Like I'm not even kidding, I'm pretty sure I outdid Chuckie from Rugrats. My parents were probably worried I would turn into a crazy cat lady who never leaves her home or something like that.

An example?

Ok my grandparents have this fantastical tire swing out by their house. It hangs on some metal type of wire and has been there forever. Or as long as forever is to me. When I was little (3, 4, 5? 6?) I used to sit INSIDE IT instead of on TOP of it because I was afraid of falling off and plunging to my death. So ok I was a little scaredy cat. But this one time I'm thinking of, Nice Boy Jordan was over. (For clarification: there were two Boy Jordans. The nice one helped me set up my little kid Beauty and the Beast tent in my grandma's living room then sat inside and watched Disney movies with me in it. The mean Boy Jordan broke my sister's tricycle and threw the cap to my Smackers lip stuff out the school bus window.) Now we were like really little kids. I can't guess an age because we could have been seven just as easily as we could have been three. But somewhere in there.

I'm pretty sure I was taller than him.

And we were by the tire swing with my aunt Lu, who was babysitting us. And we both wanted to swing on the tire swing at the same time, so one of us had to sit on the top. And it made sense for it to be me. I can't say why but maybe because I was older (I was older, right?) and taller. Or something like that.

AND I WOULD NOT DO IT. I probably cried, I seriously don't doubt it. The thought of sitting on the top made me quake with fear inside.

Which is kinda why my whole family is probably pleasantly surprised that I am not living in a plastic bubble.

But anyways, this is all to say that I've always been all terrified of everything. But from the time I've been about sixth grade I've decided maybe I shouldn't be so terrified all the time. I've consciously tried to change that overpowering part of myself. And I still fear a great many things. Like (just a sampling):

• rollercoasters and generally most amusement park rides
• bees/wasps
• tornados
• hurricanes
• earthquakes
• the elevator breaking and plunging down while I'm riding in it
• getting trapped in the elevator
• ladders
• DENTISTS DENTISTS DENTISTS
• black widows and other poisenous buggers
• drowning, kind of (I am not a good swimmer at all)
• having an aneurism (sp)
• getting dvt
• lightning when it is close
• taking the wrong medicine on accident
• rattlers
• scary movies

And these are just the stupid fears, not the serious ones like what if my parents die or what if I wake up blind one morning!?

Obviously I have problems.

But I'm working on it, friendlies, really I am!

Proof? Things I am NO LONGER terrified of:

• potentially living on my own one day even though no way this will happen because if I am not married I will definitely need a roomie because the Jordyn will probably not be all rich and the places she wants to live are not exactly cheap
• freeway driving (for the most part) (although it does still make me nervous)
• being away from my parents, except it still makes me sad and kind of unsure of myself
• someone coming and killing me in my sleep
• being stung by a jellyfish, for the most part
• being attacked by a bear or a mountain lion or a hyena, etc
• waking up during surgery, oddly, has never really been a fear of mine

So yeah. Welcome to the paranoid mind of the Jordyn.

OH MAN THIS TALK RADIO GUY IS MAKING ME WAY ANNOYED.

Hello friendlies! I want to tell you all a marvelous story but my head is kinda cloggy right now and I'm having some troubles thinking of one to tell.

Ha you know what I was thinking of yesterday? (No of course you don't. Why do I even ask?)

     I was thinking of when I was in the hospital and all drugged up because I was going into surgery but they hadn't brought me in yet so I was still in that little-bitty room that they have you get ready in. And they'd given (gave?) me this  n a s t y  pink medicine to make me all drowsy and I was basically out of it but Sesame Street (at least I think it was Sesame Street - seriously do not trust me 100% with this because I wasn't in the most aware state of mind) was on the television and Taylor kept turning it up and and asking me if I wanted it louder and could I hear it and was I watching it. I just kept thinking in my mind, oh you are being really sweet but LET ME SLEEP!!

     And then later after the surgery I wound up watching Ed, Edd, and Eddy. Which practically scarred me for life. NEVER WATCH THIS SHOW! IT WILL HAUNT YOU! AND I WAS ON MEDICATION!!

Oh I have way more hospital stories than any 18-yr old should have. And yet for some reason the majority of them strike me as funny. Is that weird?

Haha something else that happened. For some reason after I got out of surgery (um and for the record all the surgeries I had when I was 11/12 kind of blend together in my mind so no idea which one I'm talking about here) one of the doctors decided I should be on a diet. I was like, yeah I weigh, like, 85 pounds so of course I should be on a diet. But anyways. As soon as they put me on the diet all I wanted was nachos and a Milky Way bar. I'm not kidding. The Milky Way commercials were playing like a crazy amount on tv. ADVERTISING WORKS!

Um also you know how at McDonalds they have those little slots to put in some change or whatever for the Ronald McDonald House? DO IT DO IT DO IT!! Those places are awesome for families, you have no idea.

Hey friendlies? I am tired. And I am sick. And I am, as my grandma would say, sick and tired of being sick and tired. So don't expect any greatness in this post.

But I do have a scary/funny story to tell. Ok maybe not that funny. Or scary. But trust me it was way scary when it was happening.

     First I need to talk a little about my house. I am downstairs, in the bedroom connected to the kitchen. Everyone else is upstairs, above me. I like this arrangement just fine because it means that (a) I have my own bathroom, (b) I am close to the kitchen, and (c) I just do. I'm usually the last person to go to bed and before I do I always lock the doors. Because the door from the garage is right next to my room, and then there's the front door also and the back door that opens into the kitchen.

     I do not want to be murdered in my sleep, k guys?

So anyways, I was sick yesterday too but don't worry about me because I'm not like deathly ill or anything, it's just an annoying virus that refuses to leave. But whatever. Point is that yesterday while my parents and sister went out and had fun I stayed home and ate soup (which was disgusting) and drank iced tea (which is, I swear, the miracle drink of miracle drinks) and slept way much. I turned on the television to watch the Glenn Beck show and I fell asleep during it.

     So my point is that I slept like a googol hours yesterday which led to, like, no sleep at all last night. (Ooh wow I am so mixed up. Using the word googol and then like in a superflous manner. I am all kinds of crazy!) So I was up up up and I laid there in the dark forever before I finally decided to start reading my ARC of How to be Bad, which was so-so at first but just got better and better. (I shall be reviewing it on my book blog soon.) Anyway, on with the story. It eventually got to be past 2 in the morning when I finally finally finally started to drift off.

Then I woke up. Suddenly, frighteningly. I jumped up into the sitting position and listened.

     Because the screen door was being opened. Or closed. SOMEONE WAS IN OUR HOUSE! In the kitchen! Right by my bedroom! And I do not exactly have a black belt or anything. It was very late and I was very tired and probably not in the best frame of mind to be encountering a prowler. I looked for my phone. It was somewhere. Hadn't I been writing myself a note on it just a few hours earlier?

     Yes. There it was. On my green footstool thing that I sloppily keep my shoes in. I grabbed the phone and hit speed dial 2. And I heard my dad's phone ringing but couldn't tell where it was coming from. It sounded like it was coming from the kitchen, which freaked me out for some reason and made me hang up real quick.

And... ready for the oh-so-anticlimatic endings?

     It was my dad. Who was outside. And his phone was upstairs (fyi when it rang it freaked my mom out because it rang as soon as my dad went outside) and he was investigating some noise the sprinklers were making.

So yeah. That's my exciting story.