Your Smile On Fire

April 2008 - Posts

• files of memories

  Typey typey typey. Just typing right now because I think I'm having a panic attack and I'm trying to not and this helps.

   

  I was talking to my friend today. She's this girl I became friends with in sixth grade (or possibly before then?) and pretty much one of the only BR friends I keep in touch with. It is interesting that when I talk to her I can feel like everything is right and kind of forget the not-so-good stuff. When I was in eighth grade I tried to figure out why I was friends with each of my friends - what it was that brought us together. And most of them now I think it was just that we had a good time together and went to the same school and it was easy for us to be friends.

   

  Once I moved most of those friendships dissappeared, which doesn't make them seem any less real to me. I mean they were my friends at one point, but moving out of state always changes things and now I have different friends, from different parts of the United States.

   

  I have a friend in Northern California, one in Florida, Connecticut (of course), and a few in Arizona, along with the friend(s?) I have here. And while I would love it if all my friends lived close enough that I could actually hang out with them, I'd much rather have the friends I have than a bunch of people here that are my friends just because I can actually hang out with them and not because we actually have good reasons to be friends.

   

  It's like I have a file cabinet in my head and I have a place for each person in my life that has ever mattered at all, even the tiniest bit, for the briefest second, from the earliest I can remember until now. And all my memories are stored in there, sitting until I pull them out and examine them.

   

  • I open one file, marked MEAN BOY JORDAN and I'm in third grade (or was it first?) and it's been raining so that the road I live on is mud and the ditch is full of dirty water. Me and MBJ get off the school bus and start walking home and he keeps pushing me into the ditch, in the mud. And I don't even remember why he did it I just remember being mad at him and maybe crying.
  • Then there's another file, marked LACEY, and it's a girl I was friends with in kindergarten then met again in eighth grade journalism. And she's telling me she was in Mrs. Reinhold's class and I'm saying so was I! And she's remembering me and saying how she called me in the hospital and how was I doing now and did I remember? And I'm saying that I did remember and I'm doing good.

   

  And there are more files, files upon files, and sometimes they open without warning and I am hit with a memory and the feeling of that memory. An UNFORTUNATE SERIES OF EVENTS t-shirt, pies in culinary arts, that annoying Fergie song (like they all aren't annoying), the awful school bus, an embarrassing moment involving a mistaken identity, a friend's mom saying I'm going to get diabetes when I grow up, a bracelet made of red hearts. And on and on and on. All these memories stored up and I just want to write them down or keep going over them so I never lose them because they all seem important, like they offer some piece of me to myself. Like somehow they matter.

   

  I don't know, I just think it's not so much the big things that really matter, but the little things you sometimes have to search for and if you have an open mind they pop out at you but if you don't they pass you by. So much can be remembered in just the smallest memory, and a tiny incident can tell you everything you need to know.

   

  Posted Apr 15 2008, 10:40 PM by jordynt with no comments

  Filed under: my life now, people, lists, Mich, Meggo, Jay, Miss Pacman, resonating, my past life, Greenie, life, perfect moments, musings, songs, confessions

• princesses!!

  I started a new novel. Um, yay me? I don't know. I think maybe the problem with the one I gave up was that I really loved the premise (and still do) but elements of it were too much like the novel I'm curently querying, and besides that it didn't have too much of an arc. This one I'm writing now basically defies the whole "write what you know" wisdom, but I'm hoping it'll work out. I think it will. (Cue the Little Engine That Could, "I think I can, I think I can.")

   

  In other news, a while back my sister came in my room and pulled out all the books that she'd read so she could look at the way tall stack and be proud of herself. So now I have a bunch of books that aren't in my bookcase and it is driving me crazy. I don't mind so much that the rest of my room isn't exactly ***-n-span, as long as the books are nice and tidy. I am obsessive about my books. I am very envious of that one part in Beauty and the Beast, where Belle walks into the library and there's books EVERYWHERE. It is amazing.

   In a related story, I finally saw Enchanted, and people were not joking when they said it was an awesome movie. I loved it, which is a lot to say considering my history with fairy tales is not exactly a lovey one. I mean, I like most of them perfectly fine. But not great or anything. The only fairy tale I really love love love and always have is Beauty and the Beast. I can't really take Cinderella, and Snow White is good but kind of eh. I don't know. I like the movies but I usually don't like the characters, if that makes any sense.

  I mean seriously, couldn't Cinderella have found a different way to get out from under the thumb of her evil stepmother besides marrying this guy she didn't even know and inheriting this big huge castle and everything? Trust me, she would not know how to be a princess or a queen or whatever it was she turned into.

  And Snow White? Eating food given to her by a scary-looking stranger? When she lives out in the middle of nowhere? How stupid can you be!? What she should have done was locked the doors and maybe called on her woodland friends to protect her from the creepy lady outside.

  Okay, and let's move onto Ariel. She basically made a pact with the devil of the sea, which makes her even dumber than Snow White. I won't even get into what happens to her in the non-Disney versions (I love the Disney versions, actually), but trust me, it does NOT work out so well for her.

  But actually I like Jasmine. Her and Belle are totally awesome.

  (Ya, I know I forgot that Sleeping Beauty chick but I'm really not sure... have I ever seen that whole movie? All her role seemed to be was sleeping anyways so nothing exciting there.)

   

  So this is why I don't read many fairy tales. I actually am reading Gail Carson Levine's Fairest though - I like her books. I'm weird in that I'll love some fairy-tale-ish books or stories and hate others. It's odd.

  Posted Apr 13 2008, 02:25 PM by jordynt with 1 comment(s)

  Filed under: movie mentions, books, musings, noveling, writing

• mwahaha

  Haha. My friend just said she's going to convert me into a fashion addict.

  Good luck with that. And I will rid you of your habit of reading the evil Gossip Girl.

  Posted Apr 10 2008, 11:10 PM by jordynt with no comments

  Filed under: Meggo

• bullets! more bullets!

  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.

  Posted Apr 09 2008, 06:21 PM by jordynt with 1 comment(s)

  Filed under: lists, random writing

• teacherly post

  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.

  Posted Apr 07 2008, 08:13 PM by jordynt with 4 comment(s)

  Filed under: lists, blah-blah-blah, books, dorky pride, school

• in another universe... things on my list

  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?

  Posted Apr 06 2008, 03:50 PM by jordynt with no comments

  Filed under: lists, Meggo, blah-blah-blah, life, writing

• Huffington Post!!!

  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 

   

  Posted Apr 04 2008, 01:31 PM by jordynt with no comments

  Filed under: writing

• Happy Things

  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?

   

  Posted Apr 03 2008, 03:52 PM by jordynt with 2 comment(s)

  Filed under: lists, life, perfect moments, dorky pride, my novel, noveling, writing

• My Life? Um, No.

  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?

  Posted Apr 01 2008, 09:05 PM by jordynt with 3 comment(s)

  Filed under: Mr. Aviator Shades, books, musings, my novel, noveling, confessions, writing