Ms. Knitty Learns to Write Again

A blog belonging to Ms. Knitty, who used to love to write and then stopped for some reason.

[msknitty-blog]

surly and split

I am feeling awfully surly tonight. I think I can largely attribute it to being all alone because no one loves me independent of other's company for the past week and a half. When not doing productiveresponsibleadult things, I have been submerging myself in pound after pound of Sherlock meta. All that deep love and poor communication and repressed what-not has seeped it's way into my brain. Tired of having my relationships and my reactions policed and redefined and reworded by my well-meaning friends. Grown-ass woman here. Can make my own decisions and evaluations and deductions regarding whether I am overreacting or my boyfriend is being "unreasonable". 

Ugh. No, it's fine. They mean well. They are being friends, that's what friends should do. If this ranty post ever comes back to haunt me, I would just like to clarify that I am in that place I go sometimes when I fall asleep lightly and wake up in the FOULESTmostDEFENSIVEmoodEVER for no apparent reason. 

This is kind of a silly post, because it doesn't really belong on my primary blog @colorcolour, but it's not exactly writing either. Besides the fact that right now I am, you know, writing. 

What I do not have on tumblr, is tumblrfriends. I do not feel a sense of community, just mindless re-blog & scroll. I want tumblrfriends. Which is why I feel rather split about this split writing/everythingelse blog. I just feel like perhaps I should condense them and redo. And not split myself. And become an identity, a fan, a person who people want to interact with. All bits included.

A place where I don't feel bad about posting Johnlock for days (yes, I believe). Maybe I just need to use my tag section more.

Okay, I'm done. We'll see.

[reshmarambles]

Girls are trained to say, ‘I wrote this, but it’s probably really stupid.’ Well, no, you wouldn’t write a novel if you thought it was really stupid. Men are much more comfortable going, ‘I wrote this book because I have a unique perspective that the world needs to hear.’ Girls are taught from the age of seven that if you get a compliment, you don’t go, ‘Thank you’, you go, ‘No, you’re insane.’

Lena Dunham, in an interview with The Guardian (x)

[msknitty-blog]

FW: Adventures with Shrimp

I am only now getting to posting this, but it  was written on the morning of December 24th, 2013, while I was home for the holidays.

15 Minute Free Write #3:  “Adventures with Shrimp” Start: 6:50am End: 7:06am Total: 15:52:38

My mind is racing for some reason. Shooting off in new directions, like ping pong balls released in all directions, bouncing off the walls of my brain. WAKE UP, the ping pong balls say. WAKE UP OR THE WORLD WILL MOVE ON WITHOUT YOU.

 I wake up hurriedly to find my body and muscles in chains, pains, creaking and aching. Sheer strength helps to pull me from the squishy bed holding me captive. My blood is thick with clocks, ticking, tocking, counting the hours that I had been down. Every claw feels shorter (I take inventory)… I have been pruned, lotioned, all while in a daze. I remember them feeding me bizarre pockets of fish beads. I remember the thick, sloshy warmth/coolness/warmth of the liquor concoction they nudged my way.  I remember laughter and the feeling of resting my head on hard hardwood. Like oak. And I remembered these tiny orange-pink shrimp creatures shrugging off their curved skin and standing straight on their itty bitty hind claws. Their eyes were black, round, beady little things, glistening with fear when they caught the light. These little guys spoke to me, though lathered in sauce. TURN BACK. THE WORLD IS NOT READY FOR YOU YET. I was too distracted by their shiny eyeballs to listen to their heeds. I did not turn back. I ate the shrimp whole.

Now I am held in a purple shadowy mist, the colors melting into one another, dream like in quality. I wear loose, warm, stretchy clothing, the kind used for tumbling or lounging. My toes are painted the color of nothing on this planet and my arms hand limp by my side. My chin rests against my chest, my hair whooshing and swooshing in all directions but straight. Up here, we are above everything. Above the city, the town, the bar, the shrimp. We can see it all as a series of string lights. Welcoming us home. I take a second to wonder which path I will follow and the second is gone. I am dropped, falling into the future with nothing to grasp or hold on to. Submerged in the NOW.

[msknitty-blog]

FW: These hands.

15- Minute Free-Write #2

Start: 2:49 PM End:  3:06 PM Total Time: 15 minutes.

The moment that I begin to write anything of substance Elwood feels the need to place his little knitty body upon my typing hands. Kitty can't scratch you now, go eat kibble, mama's writing.

I feel like the whole world is blowing apart outside. Bells and tinkles and whooshes and the crashing of everything becoming clear. It's hard to hide beneath the crunchy orange leaves of denial, the pristine puffy white snow of how-we-once-were. My self-perception is thawing and that is less than good. 

howl. howl. whoosh whoosh. whistle. klink. klank. BOOM.

While limited by furry feline presence, I look at my hands, fervently typing.  My hands are not dainty. Not graceful or small or petite or mannered. My palms are the size of grape fruits, heavily creased and lined. My fingers, long and raw and bitten and scars, stained with ink and blood and paint and dirt  and grime and sweat and wanting and reaching. These are hands that create, that toil, that clench tightly into fists and fall softly by my sides.These hands crave new territory, new touch. These hands are cold and cracked and achey with winter time. 

My hands don't want to keep typing, they just want to edit and indicate and justify and caveat. My hands are fucking cowards. 

I love to define myself and then watch it all shatter. I love to type words about myself and my feelings. I feel the need to reference the fact while writing that I know I am privileged and self-centered and ultimately arbitrary so that I am allowed to speak freely and truthfully as the flawed human being I certainly am.

I wish to be swept away in the wind where I don't have to concern myself with what everyone else thinks and the contracts I didn't mean to sign. I wish to exist. To exist newly in someone's mind. A dust speck. An idea. Meaning out of nothing.

A spark.  A current. A rush of blood. An urge. An action.  A release.

[sincere-and-sinful]

[msknitty-blog]

Thanksgiving was a blur of eggnog & brandy, furry creatures, LEGO Harry Potter, kisses, cream, Forrest Gump, sunbeams, exhaustion, and the Newsies OBC soundtrack. 

I've been avoiding real life, deadlines, emails-to-send. It's possible that the only way I am going to make out with that diploma is if I put myself into a work-coma until December 20th. But even then, real life is knocking and I don't know if I'm ready to answer that door. I am thankful that it exists. Press my ears to the frame.... listen....deliberate. I think I'll write a story. A proper story. And I think I'll write it on here. Something to occupy my brain beyond all of this school real life big girl grown up muck.

[msknitty-blog]

FW: ...not the rule.

15- Minute Free-Write #1 Start: 8:30 AM End: 8:54 AM Total Time: 24 minutes

When I was a little girl I read and I read and I read. I would sit on my bed for hours inhaling books and stories. I would forget to turn on lights most of the time, so my parents would often find me surrounded in late afternoon darkness and shadow with my eyeballs approximately 1 inch from the page. The book swallowing me whole. Later I learned that this more meant I needed reading glasses (which I only started committing to wearing for any other reason than look-i-so-cute-and-nerdy-and-hipster 15 years later)... but then it was escape.

In elementary school they would send home reading logs. Every kid was supposed to read 15 minutes a week-night, but I was the exception. I was already reading enough. I was already smart enough and artistic enough and socially adjusted enough. I was treated differently.

Now I am who I am. Twenty-two-and-a-half years old. A senior (with an extra helping) in a fine brick-building covered in something that is not Ivy but is a respectable climbing plant U-N-I-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y. I got here through indirect tunnels, but I will be graduating twenty three days from now. My little family will come and visit me and we'll eat big meals and too many photos will be taken (and yet not enough according to Grandma Bonnie). And it will be great.... but it has not been easy. And it will will not be easy. And there is no point in my future that will be easy again like it was on my bed swallowed in books.

My teachers taught me that I was the exception and I took that through my academic career and it HURT me. While my peers took careful notes and did careful research and read their 15 minutes a night, I would swoop in to the computer lab and complete and 3-page essay over lunch break. Coffee flying, adrenaline rush, writing. And they'd pin by essay on the board...and example of what GOOD WRITING IS. And I was the exception. And it felt like getting away with murder. 

A procrastinator is born.

You see, I actually love reading & writing. Still, buried under this jaded college senior's (privalegeprivalegeprivalege) sucks-to-be-me fatigue and piled of debt, the power of words excited me. But it has become apparent to me that I NEVER EARNED IT. I never slogged. I never edited. I never tried. 

Did I earn this degree? Did I really get everything out of this higher education? Am I even ready? Am I even functional?

I don't want to be the exception anymore. I want to be the rule. I want to be the planner. I want to be the goodhardhonest work. I want to pour everything I have in my heart out in what has turned out to be an over twenty-minute free-write (dammit, so much for rules). 

I don't want to create just to get by. Just to thrive and bathe in congratulation. I want to be an artist. And as far as I can see it the only way that is going to happen is if I teach that little girl in the darkness how to do things right.

Starting over. Chapter 1.

[msknitty-blog]

See? Not that gross. Totally rehearsal ready. P.S My mug says "Mi casa es su casa"  P.P.S All of my photos have gigantic sun bursts in them. Because in my room I cannot shut the blinds on that window because that is where the cats sleep and they bat at the blinds constantly with them down so hence SUNBURST. 

[msknitty-blog]

Blogging vs. Showering

Because I impulsively needed to create a new blog to share all of my feelings I have delayed showering for hours now. As my upcoming rehearsal draws nigh, I consider the many ways that I can fix my hair so that it will look cute and care-free instead of greasy and tired. 

Pigtails are usually a good bet. There is no masking the coffee stench anyway. That's permanent. And I'll have to borrow my roommates shampoo again... payback for the tequila I bought on Friday I suppose.

Have I showered since Friday?oh god...

And this has been your introductory blog-post. Glad we got that out of the way. Please don't run screaming, I'm not that filthy. It's for dramatic effect! Get it?

xo ms. knitty

P.S. If I were Elwood Blues, I could just lick myself thoroughly and  call it good. Dammit cat.