For those who actually still bother checking the writing sites for updates, I've begun taking some things down. I haven't used the sites in so long that I don't foresee myself posting again anytime soon, and I really don't feel comfortable just leaving things up anymore.

A lot of it is actually terrible. I've currently gotten into an editing mood, so I'm doing a massive edit/rewrite on one that I've written in the tail of ninth grade.

Every ought to have a motto. This shall be Meliffany's:


"Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay."
-Walt Whitman

Granted, to be a motto the wording ought to be switched a bit, but nonetheless. . .

An Explanation (Of Sorts)

I had this perfect image in my head: my classy friend and me sharing a dorm; perfect companionship in keeping groceries stocked; even helping each other with laundry if one was swamped with homework. Because, if we're going to the same college, what could be better than having a close friend as a dorm-mate? There would be no awkwardness in getting to know each other. We would already be close.

You get these perceptions of people. Some of your closest friends seem so perfect. Granted, I know longer view Tiff in this way, but that took years. And still, even now, I have to stop for a moment sometimes and remind myself that she isn't without flaw. But even her flaws aren't that horrible. But when the perception is fueled on the way someone acts around you, the clothes she wears, the things she'll disclose. . .

You would never suspect anything different. It's such a seamless costume.

She's classy. She has fancy clothes, reads pretentious literature, is polite and friendly with the teachers that you've somehow become really good friends with. She even openly mocks others with you for their fatuous actions.

You would never know.

I lent her my books, helped cook on her counter, sat in her chairs, on her couch. How could I know how close I was to that which is vile?

And yet, she is still so close a friend. She considers me one of her closest friends. But how much does she conceal? Has she ever admitted anything for which she might be scorned or judged? For which I might reproach her? Has she to anyone without going too far and losing his/her support?

How much of what she says is true? How much is an open lie?

Do the fallacies end in her clothes? How far hidden is the person underneath?

My mind is broken.

Thought you ought to know.

Who passes judgment on me?
Who says what I am and am not?
Can you say for certain who I am? Can you see past this facade?
Who claims I cannot be subtle? That I cannot hold my tongue?
Who, that sees me for just a moment, says I can be seen in only one form?
Can you claim that this is all I am?
Can you see me every moment of every day?
You see me rash, but do you see me calm?
You see me debating, but do you see me learning, listening?
Do you carry a blind eye?
Do you judge me on a moment?
Can you challenge me in this? Can you deny part of what I am?

You, who speaks so confident of me,
Do you know me at all?

Awesome Things: the Revival

Yesterday marked my second journey with fellow nerdfighters. And this time, no, we did not get lost in the city.

Since our last meeting, another of my friends in real life (because nerdfighteria is a fictional species on a figurative island?) joined YourPants: the fantastic Sarah. Luckily, her mother was willing to drive the Asian (whose name shall now be disclosed because it has gotten annoying referring to her as Asian--Tiffany) and me. Without her as transport I'm fairly certain that we would have spent more time reaching our destinations than was necessary. We clearly don't know our way around the city.

So, with the help of a Sarah's mom we reached Strong Museum in decent time. We were, alas, a bit late as Tiffany chose to first go to the bank and delay our departure. Nevertheless, around noon we were reunited with Kate and Charlotte, and I got to meet a fantastic creature by the name of Alex.

I have recently found that my social awkwardness and wariness of strangers does not apply to nerdfighters. Surely, if we're all equally made of awesome, there is no danger among us.

The weekend is Star War themed at the Museum, and so we were surrounded by (rather lanky) costumed employees and R2-D2. As nerds, we couldn't help but be excited. (I really want to waste a decent amount of my life watching a great deal of Star Wars now. . .)

We somehow managed to lose Kate almost as soon as we began exploring and had to backtrack and spend a bit of time relocating her. Shortly afterward Tiff and I came across a friend who works there (causing the dwindling of her sanity and possibly leading her to a homicidal life) and spent some time talking to her. Unfortunately, as Kate and Charlotte had to leave early, that meant that we did not get to spend a wondrous amount of time with them. Alas, we continued our adventure.

We each attempted to bowl on the newly obtained Kinect. I failed miserably and Sarah showed off with a strike. Then spent time falling in the tilted house and looking either taller or shorter in the disproportionate one.

After playing with slinkies, growing aggravated with a touch-screen that didn't listen to us, and creating DFTBA out of leggos and alphabet blocks, we settled down for lunch. There we decided that we were all impatient people, unwilling to wait in line, which was why we all got Taco Bell. Sarah proved that only she could first mock someone and then get him to do something for her. (Or perhaps Alex is just far too nice a person.) It was also established that we were each our own entity.

We wasted a bit of time in the rather small and crowded gift shop before we could no longer resist the urge to play video games. Tiff was bitter because she had to wait for all the kids before playing Tron. I played a bit of Pacmen, and then we fought fictional world suck on the X-Men game.

Alas, time was dwindling. Alex had a bus to catch to get back on campus. Since we'd unwittingly led him to destroy his phone in the tilted house, we used Tiff's pretentious technology to find the bus stop and then set out to walk him there. We designated ourselves his protection party. (A good thing, too, for one man clearly stated that he wouldn't run over "pretty girls." Had we not been there, Alex surely would have perished.)

After parting from Alex, the three of us somehow successfully managed to retrace our steps without getting lost. I became the protection amongst us with my lovely whistle hanging around my neck. (Unfortunately, there is scarcely an opportunity to use it. People stare at you oddly if you just start blowing a whistle.)

We still had a little while before our ride arrived, so we spent our remaining coins defeating evils on X-Men.

This day of awesomeness shall, of course, go down in nerdfighter history.

And, in closing, the socially awkward introvert slept for twelve hours.

Wishing you well,
M. D. Koch

(Also, while being surrounded by children in Strong Museum makes it all the more alluring, it's apparently bad to say "pedophile" around children and their parents. . .)

Dearest Darwin

I've never attributed much truth to the ten-degrees-of-freedom theory. Perhaps because I'm an introvert, and the thought of being so easily connected to every other person alive on the planet is rather overwhelming. While for some it may seem a thrilling prospect, I'd much rather spend some time alone working through my own thoughts and actions than jump into the social peripherals of every human being.

Perhaps that's why it's so very odd when I meet someone to whom I'm already in some way connected.

Not that this is a bad thing. Ultimately, if the person I meet is decent and doesn't aggravate my many prejudices (I do have many. I should work on curing those. . .) then I have no qualms with talking to him/her. It is not, however, an occurrence that I wish to happen more often.

However, this, and the resulting conversations with someone that was quite recently a stranger bring to mind my many social failings. The moments when it feels safe to rant slipping into those of awkward silence, because I am not well-versed in the reactions of others. Biting ones tongue to keep from offending and over-analyzing the other persons sentences and actions.

How is it that humans have progressed at social creatures at all? But that is a foolish question: the population is largely composed of extroverts. How, then, did those like me survive? And for what purpose? For I can hardly see how these traits have been passed down.

Oh, Darwin, you've let me down.

Race

"I have seen the future and it doesn't work."
-Robert Fulford

Everyone's driving with nowhere to go.
Run, race, drive:
I bet I'll beat you to nowhere.

It was dark. So dark. My hands, my arms, even my typically luminescent white pants were invisible to me. The air was a frigid wall, the sort of thin air that captured your breath in a rising cloud of vapor. If you could see it. But it was as though my eyes were closed and my mind just barely conscious. That moment before sleep when it's a strain to imagine even a hint of red in your vision.

Where were the stars, the moon? What was this pungent darkness? Was my home, my entire planet disintegrating around me? Had it all disappeared like consciousness ripped away from the dying? Or had it simply changed, a salt crystal dissolving in water? Would the ground, the one familiarity left, begin to dissolve beneath my feet? When I wake from this darkness will it be to my familiar earth or to find myself sinking in purple water?

Who has stranded me here? What could have taken away the sun? What is next? The remaining sound? Will I, with a gust of wind, be cursed both blind and deaf? Or will my world, by tinnitus, slowly fall away?

My eyes! What could prompt you to abandon me so? What have you done to me? In pain, you left me. You deserted me with a scarred demeanor and searing jolts of discomfort. How do you expect me to survive? To provide for myself? How can I push on with only sound? Sound that, without corresponding image, is eerie and unfamiliar.

Man was not made to be blind. What am I now but a child, weak, lost in time?


(Scribblings in a useless class. And, oh, how I hate this keyboard and its sticking keys.)

Light as the Air

I miss the summer.

Four words I never thought I would string together. I hate heat, I really do. And the fact that I have to find a way to eternally hide my skin from the sun. But last summer was spectacular: I actually kept in contact with my friends and went to the park. Multiple times.

School this year is exceptionally easy, but I scarcely see the people I actually care about and there's never any time to just do something fun.

Even though school this year is most likely the easiest year I've ever had, it's drawn out and impossible because life outside of school is becoming more and more clustered with heavier things. I miss the peaceful air of summer when, even if standing outside for more than half an hour leaves grotesque marks on my skin that will last for a year, people are typically happy. Nothing serious happens.

React

I wonder, do we only react to things when under surveillance? If we were alone when hearing of something, would we care? Or would we need someone it effected deeply around to make us feel guilty?

We're certainly selective with the things we choose to care about. On the news, for example, after releasing information about the various horrific things that have happened to Japan within the last forty-eight hours and the high number known to be dead, they mention how fantastic that none of the Americans there are reported dead. Yes, people of America, rejoice, for many people have died, but at least none of them are from your country.

Perhaps that wasn't meant to be so disgusting to me. Perhaps it was meant to be a sort of reassurance for some with family there, but it sounds so caustic. As if all of those lives don't even equivocate one American life.

I wonder, how easily can we forget something and deem it as unimportant? Something that won't directly affect us, so why even pretend to care?

I wonder, because I knew something of magnitude. It was spoken to only me, and I knew that it was not something good, that a great deal of things could come of it. But I didn't react, I just moved forward in the conversation. But then, when something unpleasant came of it and I was explained the situation by someone else, I carried out the motions of coming to terms with it. I took part in the conversations just the same as everyone else.

So which reaction, or lack thereof, is true? And what do we do when nothing is expected of us?

Two posts today? Yes.

I was actually going to include this in the other one, but I got carried away. Adding this would make it way too long. (Not that this really breaks up the length, but it appeases my OCD. Somewhat.)

I was channeling The Stranger, Slaughterhouse Five, and Waiting for Godot. I should have known better than two read those three so closely together. Oh well.


They flash against the walls:
Uneasy stimuli, discontent
Until they pierce an eye.
I sit, stand, stare.
There is no difference in vantage,
There is no preferable height.

Yes, I see you--
Adamant, prodding, there.
Yes, I hear you.
So loud, so constant,
Mouth open in a wail.
I hear you.

This you claim,
Thus it must be so.
I, you say, have feelings.
Perhaps, indeed, this is so,
Depending on what you mean
By "feelings."

It's possible, sure,
That I could.
But, all the same,
Probably not.
It is the elephant in the room:
It doesn't matter.

I see you balk,
I understand.
Hairs stand stiff
At my hand.
Indeed, you say,
This cannot be true.

I must care for someone,
Surely would mourn a death.
Everyone cries at a funeral.
But I do not.
So it goes, I say,
It was bound to happen in the end.

Cheering Up

To off-set the terrifying situation that led me to cry on my father for a good half hour last Saturday, I spent the following week with the goal of a book a day. It succeeded.

First, alas, I fear I must screw with my timeline a bit and bring to light the entertaining events of today: since ninth grade a certain pair have been in a great deal of my classes, to my closest friends' and my displeasure. They're the macho sort of male teenagers, substituting muscle for brains. An unfortunate extra of these two, however, is that they truly believe themselves intelligent and (even more ironic) chivalrous. Given that my friends and I dominate the top twenty in our class, I don't worry much when I say they are neither.

The lesser of the two evils likes to consider my best friend and me his friends. (I think he's the sort of person who can't handle someone not liking him.) However, he has a nasty habit of eavesdropping on one of my friends when she mentions my best friend and me. Unfortunately, he often hears more than he bargained for and listens to less than pleasing accounts of himself.

Today he happened to listen to my friend again. It went something like this:

Him: What are you talking about? Redhead and Asian are cool, they're my friends.
Her: No
Him: Yeah. Redhead's like my best friend. We're tight, we share messages.
Her: No
Him: I'm going to have to have a talk with her.

First I found it hilarious that he called us best friends, when I have enough difficulty calling someone a friend. (I have trust issues. It sucks.) I have only one best friend--Asian. Second, I found it a bit unoriginal and pathetic when this "conversation" was not actually a conversation but an aesthetically disgusting message via the Internet.

"im not usually one to go by the gossip of others, but i feel as tho i run into alot of your friends that say you and [Asian] have alot of negative things to say about me... I just wanted to say that I find that kinda hurtful and would appreciate it if u wouldnt do that"

I'm an English major, how could this not make the very marrow of my bones scream in fright?

My response was far less grammatically stunted, if not particularly empathetic. I did take pains to avoid outright cruelty, though.

"Since this also includes [Asian] I shared this with her.

"Her response: "Tell him not to be so arrogant as to believe that he has such an impact on a person that has not had a real conversation with him since the end of the last school year, and whose presence has not been acknowledged mutually since then either . . . In no offense to him, I thought it was mutually agreed that our so called "friendship" has since degraded since a few years ago, and in honoring that friendship, no wrongdoings or sayings should be said in regard to the other. Or [tell him] that he should confirm rumors prior to confrontation. Because that's offensive to our morals."

"She also mentioned to make that sound less offensive, because she'd rather not create more upset, but I'm far too lazy for that.

"My response is that I have something bad to say about everyone, even [Asian]. But I rarely express them, and when I do I only do so with [Asian] because she understands that otherwise it will fester in my brain like a perpetual mold.
Yes, I occasionally mention you when I talk to her, but only when retelling the things she missed since she couldn't take Lit. Ass hole that I am, I very rarely say things that are actually offensive unless provoked. When I'm with [Asian] I actually like to just enjoy it, because I so rarely see her anymore."

Yeah, I'm heartless. (Perhaps more so for sharing this, but I found it humorous.)


Now for literature!

I began Sunday with The Hunger Games which I simply could not put down. Logically, it follows that I completed the trilogy on Monday and Tuesday with Catching Fire and Mockingjay.
For those who haven't yet picked up this series, I really recommend it. It's terrible, but not with lack of skill. It's the sort of terrible that's horribly sad but you can never stop reading. It's exceptional. (And I may have enjoyed getting ridiculously nerdy and figuratively drooling over them with my friend in Stats.)

Monday, my day was made my a comment from someone in my Lit. class when he realized that I was averaging a book a day. His expression was a cross of shock, amazement, and entertainment. It was great.

Wednesday I picked up Henry V and somehow managed to finish it early enough in the day to absorb two Yotsuba books I had yet to read. There were bits of greatness in it, but I fear I'll have to read it again because some scenes slipped away from me too easily.

Thursday was Will Grayson, Will Grayson. Epic.

Friday was Let it Snow (I was on a John Green kick). The actual content was incredibly different from I typically read though. One of my former English teacher's described it (from the cover) as a "harlequin" book. He questioned me. Another described it as too happy for me. The comments continued.
Perhaps the reading was a bit out of character? Once I explained Nerdfighteria to my former teacher, though, he became very accepting of it.

I took a break over the weekend before reading Waiting for Godot (possibly one of the best plays ever created) and By the Time You Read this I'll be Dead.

Yes, I'm probably a bit insane, but I loved that goal. Alas, now I need more books.

All the best,
M. D. Koch